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.

Comments

Some issues really need to be clairified.

[EnronHaliburton2004]

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?

Re:Some issues really need to be clairified.

[User 956]

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?

Which is why what wikipedia needs to do is have both "stable" and "unstable" branches of wikipedia, like the linux kernel does.

Make searches default to the stable page, with the option to add in the more recent changes by clicking a button. This has a number of advantages:

• Removes the immediate payback for defacing a page.
• Makes it possible to cite a stable version of a wikipedia page in an academic work without it being completely screwed up at a later date. (They should be archived quarterly/yearly/whatever).
• Still allows up-to-the-minute information to be accessed by those looking for it.
• (personal belief here) It would increase the credibility of the information. It's easier to research and verify a small set of changes to a stable page, than to check out a whole page. It's better that this research is done BEFORE some hapless individual uses incorrect information.

Re:Some issues really need to be clairified.

[Talrias]

You're right. The press release (as written by both Answers.com and the Wikimedia Board of Trustees) was not exactly what they were trying to say. There's already been a long discussion about exactly what the deal involves one of the mailing lists. I'll try and summarise the facts:

• Downloading of the tool is optional, and advertising only appears to people who are using the tool.
  
• The tool will be listed on an existing Wikipedia page, [[Wikipedia:Tools]].
  
• The link can be removed by any Wikipedian if they so choose (but of course this works both ways).
  
• Answers.com did not pay the Wikimedia Foundation to get the tool placed on Wikipedia.
  
• The Foundation will receive a unspecified percentage of all profits Answers.com gain from advertising using the tool.
  

Unfortunately the situation was not helped by a rather badly worded press release which led the community to a false sense of what the deal actually was. The above is what will occur, according to Jimbo Wales and the other members of the Board.

Chris

Re:Some issues really need to be clairified.

[The Bubble]

I agree with a lot of what you have to say, and especially with the reasons behind it; but you have to consider, not only the implications of these proposals to those who would harm the Wiki, but also the implications to those who would contribute.

Removing the instant payoff for defacement also removes the instant payoff of contribution, which, to me, is part of the cool factor of the Wiki: if I contribute, those contributions go into effect now, and can be seen by anyone else immediately.

As you point out, this information would still be accessible in the "unstable" section, but unstable versions of a page are often overlooked, and this could become a serious issue when people go to contribute: a user is reading a page, and want's to make an addition or correction; now they have to check the "unstable" version and see if the change has already been made.

The simplicity of Wiki editing is a lot of its draw, and a lot of its power. This same simplicity and freedom is also its biggest flaw; but removing this simple freedom is not the answer, and more than dictatorship is the answer to quell those who would break the law of society.

Not a problem

[totallygeek]

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!

Re:Not a problem

[Kadin2048]

I agree with you in spirit; the problem I have is that Wikipedia recently had a fundraising drive where they accepted donations. Although they certainly didn't say "we're never going to have ads," I think -- given that they were ad free and asking for donations -- a lot of people may have given them money while under the impression that they were contributing to an ad-free site (or to keep it that way).

For the Wikimedia Foundation to have taken people's money so freely and then to start putting up ads isn't going to win them many friends with the community they've spawned, and perhaps most especially among the people who just donated.

At the very least it's going to make a lot of people more reluctant to give money to similar causes in the future, because they'll feel like I do now: I didn't donate anything other than my time (although I was considering it), but if it's true that they're going to an ad-supported business model then I'm just glad I didn't cut that check, since clearly they don't need my money.

It's not that I don't think Wikipedia is a good service -- I do, or even that the Wikimedia Foundation isn't within their rights to put up ads -- they are. What I'm not comfortable with is that they asked for donations from individuals without exhausting the other options first. In my mind, asking your users for cash ought to be an option of last (not first) resort, and that they did ask for donations should have meant that they had either taken the idea of advertising completely off the table as unacceptable, or already pursued it as far as it could go.

It's the difference between somebody asking me for money when they're truly destitute and desperate, or asking me for money and then waiting to see how much I cough up before they decide whether to get a job.

Hopefully there's more to the story that I just haven't found out yet, but right now I think that their timing really stinks, and that a lot of other people will probably agree.

Re:Not a problem

[Talrias]

While this proposal is not going to lead to the introduction of ads on Wikipedia, it is a good point and one I raised on the mailing list. Hopefully it is an avoidable problem.

Here's a (probably apocryphal) story of a program on the BBC, I believe it was a car review program, who gave a bad review to a certain American car model. The CEO of the company found out about it, was furious and ordered the advertising team to pull all adverts to punish the TV station. The advertising team replied "sorry sir, but the BBC don't run adverts".

While direct comparison between Wikipedia and the BBC would obviously be flawed due to Wikipedia's open philosophy, a hypothetical situation could occur where a corporation which provides a significant contribution towards Wikipedia's hosting (in the way of loaning servers or donations) could theoretically demand that the Wikimedia Board change the content in an article to remove a link or sentence from an article which criticises them as a company, and threaten to pull funding if the Board did not. While this would be horribly hard to enforce (and would be a major PR disaster for the corporation if it were leaked to the press) it is a concievable situation and I don't think it is a stretch of the imagination to think of some organisations which would demand this.

I wouldn't describe Jimbo Wales' response to this as particularly eloquent, but I think it gives some comfort to people who hope it will never come to this.

Chris

Fundraising

[A beautiful mind]

Didn't Wikipedia have a fundraising last time i checked? Why the need for advertising then?

The first priority should be keep the site clean, because that's one of the strengths of wikipedia, if i would have wanted advertising i would have went to any commercial info site.

The 1-Click Software is quite useful

[digid]

I don't mind this at all. This 1-click software is quite useful and others should be informed about it. Anytime I see a word that's unfamiliar I just alt+click and I get the wiki. Any application. Very nice.

Wikipedia Entry for AdBlock Extension

[The_Rippa]

Can I be the first to update the wikipedia entry on the AdBlock extension with a filterset to hide the wikipedia ads?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Dont act so surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

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*

Weird

[augustz]

Here's a deal of unknown value (for answers.com it obviously has value, market cap went up $8m on annoucement).

Folks like google offer to host, but don't seem to be taken up on the offer:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Google_hosting

Does the board just want more $$ to play with (in other words, hosting doesn't give them the money they want to have the pleasure of spending)?

Re:Irony alert

[LeonGeeste]

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.

Why is it always advertising?

[teutonic_leech]

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.

Advertising is Okay

[Dante Shamest]

They just have to do it right. Things to think of:

1. 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.
2. They must be noticeable, but not intrusive. No pop-ups! Text-based would be best, something akin to Google's.
3. 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.

Who Cares? Can I just have my info?

[queenb**ch]

I'm writing this as an end-user of Wikipedia, not a contributor. If the ads are Google-esque, who really cares? I don't mind browsing past an ad or two if I can actually find what I'm looking for. My issue with the Wikipedia is that many times I come upon "a stub" that needs to be expanded. Now, the Wikipedia politely asks me if I'd like to add to the stub. The problem with that is if I knew the answer, I certainly would NOT be browsing the f&*^%$# Wikipedia looking for the answer. Given the inflow of dollars to fund more entries, this might make the Wikipedia more useful to everyone. I'm all in favor of that.

2 cents,

Queen B

Coca-Cola (n.)

[Heffenfeffer]

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola is a subpar soft drink, especially compared to PEPSI-COLA (tm). It was designed as a delivery system of cocaine, unlike PEPSI-COLA (tm). Further, the Coca-Cola company uses incredibly moronic advertising to sell its product with no health benefits whatsover - unlike PEPSI-COLA (tm) commercials (click to watch an award-winning PEPSI-COLA (tm) commercial now!)

Coca-Cola can be found in many resturaunts with health code violations, unlike PEPSI-COLA, which can be found in top-rated resturants KFC (tm), PIZZA HUT (tm), and TACO BELL (tm).

See also:

PEPSI
WILD CHERRY PEPSI
PEPSI EDGE
DIET PEPSI

So Google can do it, but these can't?

[Xarius]

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.

Re:Irony alert

[EnronHaliburton2004]

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.

Re:Who Cares? Can I just have my info?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the bigger question is, can we edit the ads?

FAQ for your convenience!

[FooAtWFU]

Frequently Assumed Quandaries resolved:

1. The deal is not finalized. Nothing is "struck" or required.
2. Nobody is forced to use the software.
3. There are no ads/adware/spyware in the software. Er, surely there must be adverts in the software, or where does the money come from?? Dan100 (Talk) 18:59, 24 October 2005 (UTC) The software lets you go to a web page, such as http://answer.com/foo - The web page has all the advertisements. -Fennec () 19:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
4. The link to the software will only be at WP:TOOLS, nowhere else.
   • A link to WP:TOOLS will be placed in the sidebar, not a link to the software.
5. The tools page already links to non-free software.
6. Answers.com could have posted their link on the tools page without offering the Foundation a cent.
7. Bob Rosenschien and Jimbo Wales have been in firm and absolute agreement from the beginning that the form of link chosen by the community is up to the community.
8. The community is free to remove the link from WP:TOOLS, but know that this will stop Wikimedia from receiving additional funds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Tools/ 1-Click_Answers#F.A.Q.

Here's the deal

[elfguygmail.com]

Before everyone starts inventing stuff about wikipedia having banner ads, here's what the deal is: - A link will be added in the left side bar on Wikipedia to the WP:TOOLS page. - That page lists software that can be used to improve the user experience of the Wikimedia projects, such as toolbars and other web helpers. - On that page the 1-Click toolbar will be listed on top. - People using this toolbar and seeing the ads will bring revenue to both 1-Click Answers and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Why is it always advertising?-Illusions.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Who Cares? Can I just have my info?

[Pxtl]

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?

Don't like it? Pay up.

[Nerdposeur]

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.

Wikipedias Do Not Grow On Trees

[EXTomar]

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?

Re:Irony alert

[Pxtl]

"I've always complained that Wikipedia was infected with a socialist bias"

Nonsense. I've seen numerous posts that have a capitalist bias instead of the usual socialist one. They usually read something like this:

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For some reason the evil socialists delete posts like that. Darn idealogues.

Article wrong

[smeenz]

As is so often the case, the slashdot headline is wrong.

From the page:

Welcome to visitors from Slashdot. Please be aware that the Slashdot story is completely wrong. There is no proposal to have advertising on Wikipedia. There are numerous errors of fact on this page. (See below if you're interested.) --Jimbo Wales 19:12, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I originally posted this as AC so as not to be seen to be hording karma, but then I realised it wouldn't be seen if I posted it that way, so here goes again.

(Wouldn't it be nice if you could EDIT your posts on slashdot)

shame slashdot is not a wiki

[bigmammoth]

its a shame slashdot is not a wiki we could have strained out the inacruacies of the article post by now...

Four words....

[kiddailey]

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:

"Previously, the site was hosted on the servers of Bomis, Inc, a company mostly owned by Jimmy Wales, who is currently the funder of part of the site's operational costs."

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.

Uncyclopedia also partners with Answers...

[Ingolfke]

Seems like Answers Corporation is making a grab for the Wikishare. Saw this posted on the the Uncyclopedia, the one true source for knowledge, earlier today.

The Uncyclopedia has announced a fund-raising (WORK FROM HOME! MAKE SIX FIGURES) partnership with Answers Corporation (http://www.gurunet.com/) and will replace all of the Uncyclopedia content with a growing (Buy PENIS enlargement products NOW!!!) number of unobtrusive advertisements. The Uncylopedia will recieve three easy installments of $19.95.

It's a sad day for the Wikispace.

Re:Wiki?

[hobbit]

this ain't Hawaii, it's America

Sometimes I think that Slashdot posts couldn't possibly get any dumber. But then people like you come along.

In other news....

[sillybilly]

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.

BLATANT KARMA WHORING

[njyoder]

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.

Mod parent down!

[Da_Biz]

I don't mind people repeating a comment. Not citing where you got your text from, however, is questionable:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=165699&cid=138 23457

The text of the comment link above:
Re:Perhaps they need a team of paid editors
(Score:5, Interesting)
by theLOUDroom (556455) Alter Relationship on Tuesday October 18, @07:09PM (#13823457)
Jimbo started by trying paid editors

What wikipedia needs to do is have both "stable" and "unstable" branches of wikipedia, like the linux kernel does.

Make searches default to the stable page, with the option to add in the more recent changes by clicking a button.

This has a number of advantages:

        * Removes the immediate payback for defacing a page.
        * Makes it possible to cite a stable version of a wikipedia page in an academic work without it being completely screwed up at a later date. (They should be archived quarterly/yearly/whatever).
        * Still allows up-to-the-minute information to be accessed by those looking for it.
        * (personal belief here) It would increase the credibility of the information. It's easier to research and verify a small set of changes to a stable page, than to check out a whole page. It's better that this research is done BEFORE some hapless individual uses incorrect information.

--
Life is too short to proofread.