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Wikimedia Proposes Advertising [Updated]
user9918277462 writes "The Board of the Wikimedia Foundation has announced a new partnership with the Answers Corporation, which provides the content for Google Definitions links. There is also a lengthy discussion, wiki-style for those who wish to participate." Update 10/25 18:42 by SM: An announcement has been posted on Wikipedia to help clarify the original submission (which thankfully was patently false and has since been cleaned up a bit, our apologies to Wikimedia). Answers.com will be creating their own co-branded version which will show ads and no ads will be shown on wikipedia.
Some issues really need to be clairified.
Wikis can be really horrible at these sorts of debates-- Sifting through the Wikipedia comments is like looking for a needle in a chickencoop full of hysterical chickens and misinformed roosters.
Plus, since most of the text can be changed at any moment, how do I know that what I'm reading is accurate at this time, and not the opinion of some troll?
1. Why does the Wikipedia board feel that they need advertisements? Are there budget problems or other financial issues?
2. What do the opponents to the advertisements propose as an alternative? *Alterative Solutions* almost always work better then a straightup Boycott.
3. What does this mean for the end user? Are there going to be advertisements within Wikipedia? I know what the submission says-- but the Wikipedia page itself says "Answers.com will launch a Wikipedia Edition of their popular 1-Click Answers software", which makes it sound like there Answers.com is simply offering their own "Edition" of Wikipedia with some adsl. I can redistribute most of the content in Wikipedia, can't I? Isn't that what some commericial online enclopedias do?
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
I think that Wikipedia is a great service. The people behind it should be compensated for time, effort, hardware and bandwidth. I have no problem with advertisements to fund this. I mean, it is better than paying for a subscription!
Click here or here.
Wikipedia is fast growing in reputation and use. Advertising remains the single source of income for many websites. As long as the advertising is done along the lines of Googles advertising I cant see a problem. This coming from someone who uses Wikipedia plenty.
There will inevitable be some unrealistic people who want to get something as good as Wikipedia for nothing. I bet they didnt contribute. I did.
Theres always Encarta *cough*
Wow. I just wasted 2 years of my life adding tons and tons of information to wikipedia for FREE.
They want to profit from all that information? I want a piece!!
I am so mad right now. Very very mad.
Leftists are actually heavily under-represented in charitable volunteering.
But that's not the point: people who can insert their bias into an article do so, and it remains until someone corrects it. If only left-wingers are interested in a particular topic (like sustainability or Peak Oil), they can and in fact do crowd out attempts to insert balance. I think it's inherent to the format.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
There's an old saying that goes: to a man with a hammer every problem tends to look like a nail. I'm not saying I have all the answers, but why is it always the process of 'creating an artificial desire to buy products we are unaware of' (i.e. advertising) that is supposed to solve any financial woes? So many projects have started on a free basis and there is an old addage in marketing that stipulates that it is very hard to hike prices after selling something for less before (or giving it away for free). I think the key here is that online businesses and organizations must find some way to get compensated properly and more reliably (and less annoyingly). How about one would buy a monthly 'pass' that would permit you access to 100 sites of a certain type and for a dollar or two a month you have access to a wealth of information you are interested in. This would be a bit like 'packaging' in the cable industry (just it would be better structured). For the hard core among us there might be a a-la-carte menu they could choose from and pay a certain amount per site. I know this sounds a bit strange at first, but it's just a matter of 'redistribution' of funds and cutting out the middle man.
Do you think that all that advertising you see (or try to ignore so fervently) does not result into proceeds somewhere down the line? Of course some of us buy into it and we spend dollars that get rerouted back to the sites we access for 'free'. It's a very annoying way to make money (who likes advertising after all - and how much energy to we exert to rid us of it?) and it doesn't seem to work very well, meaning you need to cluster bomb the online population to achieve an effect.
Just imagine for a second if there were hundreds of high quality sites that were advertising free and that you could access. OR, if you refuse, access them for 'free' and look at the advertising. I really believe that could be a wonderful compromise. Any intelligent thoughts on the subject would be greatly appreciated.
- Ads should be relevant to the article, but I don't think pornography/drugs/gambling should be permitted. They'll only affect the image of the project.
- They must be noticeable, but not intrusive. No pop-ups! Text-based would be best, something akin to Google's.
- They must not seriously affect performance of the site. Wikipedia isn't exactly the fastest kid on the block right now, so I hope the addition of advertising doesn't make it choke.
Actually, after reading the vague press release, it seems like the ads won't be on Wikipedia itself.Wikipedia is a great resource, and generally, I would tend to support the decisions of the organizers to fund it in the way that they see fit.
However, it is worth pointing out that they currently take in a substantial amount of donations, and that opening the door to advertising would probably blunt the enthusiasm of charitable givers.
I do hope whatever deal has been hashed out is worth a substantial fraction of currently generated revenues.
I see a lot of grousing in the linked discussion with people threatening to "leave and never come back". I'd wager almost everyone who is grousing uses Google, and this is exactly the same thing. Let's not forget that servers don't run on scotch mist and the bandwidth fairy certainly doesn't exist.
Someone needs to pay for this, and I don't see how relevant advertisements can detract from the site at all, in fact they will probably add to it a great deal.
If it was great big shiny flash banner adds with screeching canary gifs or something, I'd understand. The moaners need to put up, or shut up really.
C17H21NO4
I've always complained that Wikipedia was infected with a socialist bias
Imagine that. Wikipedia reflects the bias of the thousands of people who are willing to share information, help others and collaborate on large projects together -- without any expectation of monetary payment (even if some wikipedians expect plenty of ego boosting)-- of course it has a socialist bias.
Capitalists would suffocate the project in any attempt to maximize profits. Fascists wouldn't be into the idea of a Wiki at all.
For the record, I'm mostly just a Wikipedia user-- not a hardcore author or anything.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
FYI: Open code is released under the GPL, open documents like what is found on Wikipedia is released under the GNU Free Documentation License.
To summarize:
GPL != FDL
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Like your comments on slashdot? Hmm...
Obviously the artificial desire for whitespace didn't infect you.
"Just imagine for a second if there were hundreds of high quality sites that were advertising free and that you could access. OR, if you refuse, access them for 'free' and look at the advertising. I really believe that could be a wonderful compromise. Any intelligent thoughts on the subject would be greatly appreciated."
Because people love their illusions. They want to believe that they're actually getting something for nothing. Paying directly breaks that illusion. At least with advertising we can always tell ourselves "someone else is footing the bill". Unfortunately as I mentioned elsewere there's no OPM, in advertising, but those who actually buy something from the ads (remeber ads are for the purpose of getting people to BUY something) are the ones paying for the bandwith, and all the other costs. Everyone else is basically riding on their sacrifice. Just watching ads does nothing towards the bottom line.
Perhaps some of the proceeds could also go to promoting Wikipedia and to WikiMedia development. Personally, I don't think those who are opposed to Google-style advertising to help keep the site running are being very reasonable. A site the size of Wikipedia costs money to run, and that money needs to come from somewhere. Commercial sites have tried subscription-based models, non-profits have tried donations, but neither of those seems to have been as effective as simply putting a few mostly-relevant text ads on the side of each page. Even an image, such as the ads here on /., isn't that bad, especially if it means the difference between having Wikipedia or not having it at all.
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
Wait wait, hold on. Who's pockets are you assuming this money is going in? The board's? Hardly. Any revenue generated by the Wikipedia project goes right back into it the project. How can you be upset about that?
In all likelihood, ad revenue would not go to new content. Rather, it would likely go to:
a) paying the operating costs of WP - serving data isn't cheap.
b) adding additional services to Wikipedia that may be more bandwidth intensive - like large files of video or software.
c) hiring moderators to clear out wikispam and help edit the wiki into a publishable "stable" form.
Hiring people to add content directly goes against the ideas of wiki, and besides - why should they since free work seems to work well?
My first question when I started using Wikipedia was, "How is this funded?"
Answer: donations. Since I have never given any money, I'd have no problem accepting ads.
I hope that the people who are complaining the loudest have given the most. Otherwise, they're mad because they can't get something for nothing.
As altrustic Wikipedia is, the problem is the machines have physical monetary resources. Someone has to be paid to do the maintance. Someone has to be paid to do the bug fixing. Someone has to front the cash for the lifecycle of the hardware or whatever plan they have for deployment.
Unless people come forward to do this stuff for free they need to raise cash from somewhere to pay for all of this stuff. And unlike your "contributions" to Wikipedia, these things are hardly easy to do by a guy in his spare time.
As for "profit" I don't think Wikipedia has a profit motive but lets do the Devil's Advocate. What is wrong with a profit model based upon information mining in Wikipedia? The information is freely available for anyone to use as they chose. If I come up with a clever app that mines choice information out of it then do you still want your piece? The information should be free for anyone to find. For you, me, and Google. Hey wait...why aren't you harping on Google for your piece?
I'm perfectly happy for Wikipedia to find some sort of revenue stream to keep the thing going. Its either ads or donations/merchandise. Given my choice I would rather do donations and merchandise but I can't understand the financials on whether or not this is reasonable. Or maybe they can get lucky and find out they have a rich uncle who died and left them a fortune the size of the GNP of a small country?
Google and Yahoo are giving away bandwish and servers for free? eBay did give money to Wikipedia as an investment and not a donation. The board is run by a bunch people that don't have millions and work regular 9-5 jobs. The partnership with answers.com may be a minor change to the Wikipedia foundation but it's a sign of things to come. There's too much money and opportunity to ignore Wikipedia's advertising potential.
It can't be that there are people who care but realize socialist ideas don't work
Really? None of them? Things like sharing and collaboration don't work? Wikipedia is a failure? Are you perhaps confusing the word "socialism" with some right-wing scare tactic?
entire socialist agenda
There's a socialist agenda? Fuck, I must have missed a meeting or something!!! Please tell me what this socialist agenda encompases! Is this different then the Left-wing controlled media? I don't want to miss out!
Seriously, where do you find people like "EnronHaliburton2004"
People only need to look for the frothing mouth of some crazy right winger. I'm there to help him understand the difference between hype and reality. But again, sometimes I oversleep and miss the meetings. Sorry...
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Bandwidth is not free.
Why do people think that sites like this -- that become immensly useful and popular -- can sustanin themselves without a steady revenue stream? A web site is not like TV or radio where you broadcast a signal over the air and any number of people can pick it up without killing your station.
I don't care how much time or effort anyone spent contributing content to the site. The fact is that SOMEONE has to pay to host that content and serve it to visitors.
From the Wiki FAQ:
So Mr. Wales pays for part of the operational costs and the rest comes from donations and a few grants and sponsorships.
We're not talking a few hundred bucks a year and a single server running out of someone's in-home LAN closet. A total of $739,200 was budgeted for the 2005 calendar year alone, and that's not pocket change.
First quarter fund raising earned a miniscule $96,648.70 and if they did as well (surpassing their goal by 25%) every quarter, they'd still be $352,605.20 shy of the 2005 budget.
Given the very little bit I know from looking at this information, I don't see it being an easy task to survive during their continued growth without some kind of revenue generating system on the site -- whether it be ads or subscription.
According to the Wikimedia Foundation's budget, the vast majority of funds (around 60%) received goes towards purchasing new hardware for hosting.
Chris
aterr - an open source threaded discussion board.
Why not set up two servers with the same content- one supported wholly by donations (with no ads), the other supported by ads (a la adwords), give them different (but close) URLs and see how it works out? If the free server gets plenty of donations, they will be able to support more users/bandwidth, on the other hand, maybe the ad supported site will get more money and be able to support more users/bandwidth.
Overall, the most important piece is that the raw data be now *and forever* free to anyone that wants it. Can't the licensing be limited to preventing the forking of a proprietary (non-free) but publicly accessable database?
That's the agenda of one organization. It is not "the entire socialist agenda". In addition, not everyone who believes in some socialist principals believes in an organized socialist movement, such as that promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
me:My point was that the whole allegation that "the only people who care enough about anything to do it without hope of monetary reward are liberals" is false.
... in fact, the average low-income white person is much more likely to vote Republican than Democrat.
you:Yeah, but my point is that you're imagining things. Really, I can't tell if you're statements are merely the result of a misunderstanding, or if you are deliberately trying to spread misinformation and confusion for kicks.
I'm claiming that there are non-liberals who care about the world... and you claim I'm imagining things? Seriously, no offense, but you have to be quite deluded to believe that. I don't know what you had to go through to have such a skewed perception of the world. Do you honestly think everyone who opposes Social Security, federal involvement in education, "progressive" income taxaction, capital gains taxation, min. wage laws, etc etc etc is doing so because they hate poor people and want to enrish themselves at their expense? That's a mighty tough conspiracy to maintain, especially since lots of low-income people support Republicans
But my point is not to prove or disprove which political party is better. My point is that if you seriously think the intellectual justification for free-market capitalism is "gimme gimme gimme, **** the poor", you really don't understand your opponents' views, which means you really don't understand your own. That's not good.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Why does Answers.com want this deal? Not for revenue, but for the clout of saying they have a "partnership" with Wikipedia. They're trying to get bought out by a big player, and every relationship strengthens their easily-replicated product. That's why they have 50 trillion partnerships with Google and Opera and anyone else they can find. That's the entirety of their company approach.
Server load on wikipedia is going up - who pays for that? On the other hand, the nice thing about wikipedia is that it doesn't quiver and shake and explode in your face, insulting your intelligence and dignity, like all the other advertising driven sites. Only Google ads are still and calm, I'd have no problem with those, if they get a small, designated ad section - but not like those news sites that blast a picture in the middle of some news story, and squeeze the text to a 5 letter wide column to accomodate the image. Or have a 20 sentence "content" in a thin column in the middle, and the whole page covered with about 200 sentence worth of ads. Check out www.tomshardware.com for instance. This site used to be a joy to read back in 1996-2000. Now it's way too commercialized, and probably lost a lot of its appeal because of it, including a lot of its audience. I used to go almost daily to www.tomshardware.com back then to see what's new. I was also a computer hardware enthusiast and up to date on the new things, on a daily basis. When tomshardware got excited about a recent development, I got excited too. Now I go maybe bimonthly, and I couldn't tell you what the best mobo/cpu/memory/harddisk deal today is, off the top of my head, like I used to be able to do. It's just too much crap to sift through with your eyes for it to be a pleasurable hobby. These days, instead of www.tomshardware.com, I go to wikipedia daily. When wikipedia - or, due to expenses, only its advertising supported sister site functioning properly - gets quivery full of flash ads, I'll probably stop visiting wikipedia too. It will not be very deliberate, spiteful, conscious decision to stop visiting it just because I protest or something, but it will simply lose its appeal that it currently has, just like www.tomshardware.com did.
This is Tim Starling's comment on the Wikimedia foundation: "The Wikimedia Foundation is undemocratic. Its bylaws were determined by one man. Its statement of principles is arbitrary, and does not agree with my own. Elections just give the appearance of democracy, the board will remain stacked regardless of the outcome. This is fake democracy, it is democracy executed without commitment to democratic principles. I don't believe this is a problem which can be fixed in small steps."
And we're supposed to be surprised that they make unilateral moves like this? They didn't get any kind of consensus before doing this, in spite of that being the basic Wikipedia principle. Of course, Wikimedia principle's are to act unilaterally. I wonder if they'd really honor a trial run at all.
Yeah, sure, it's "not an advertisement" because they aren't contractually obligated to put an ad for the software on WP:TOOLS. However, they would have never added it without the deal, and, in fact, if the Wikipedians kept the link removed from the tools page the company would withdrawal its funding to Wikimedia. So in other words, Wikipedia is (or will be) hosting a link to a commercial product, w hich when removed, will remove a source of revenue for it. Sounds like an advertisement to me.
Also, it appears they don't need these profits to even run the servers. THat's right, they're mostly being funneled into random, unrelated charities. While some might consider this noble, the many Wikipedians who contributed their work don't consider it ethical to use their freely contributed work as a means to act as a cash cow for Wikimedia's personal pet charities without any consenus at all.