The Debate Over Advertising on Wikipedia

An anonymous reader writes "Some Wikipedians have objected to Virgin Unite's participation in the Wikimedia Foundation's fund drive, calling it adverising. But there's a strong case that Wikipedia should run advertising. The funds raised could support dozens of Firefox-scale free knowledge and free software projects, outspending all but the wealthiest foundations."

Comments

Sure, why not?

[Slippery Pete]

It just seems like every web presence has to have some source of income to pay for their hosting and bandwidth. If they aren't very intrusive (GoogleAds), then it shouldn't harm anything.

Does it have to be all or nothing?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

PBS manages to do pledge drives without completely losing their identity. Granted, they're also running commercials, but certainly less than regular broadcast TV. Could Wikipedia run ads maybe two weeks a quarter, or something similar? The question really is, what would they do with it if they had (theoretically) unlimited funds?

It's a Trap!

[TheNinjaroach]

What happens when big funding starts to demand what can and can't be placed into articles? "We're sorry, Wikipedia, but I'm going to need you to remove this, that and the other fact from the article because it might turn away our potential customers."

will make for some interesting "Talk:" pages

[Odiumjunkie]

This advert is CLEARLY not NPOV. Can we get a citation on the shampoo making hair "glossy and full of bounce"? 84.28.125.19

WTF I USE IT AND IT MAKES MY HAIR GLOSSY 61.101.19.42

Hey no original research you nub 69.120.51.20

Do we having anything on "glossy and full of bounce" as opposed to just glossy? 84.28.125.19

OK HAVE REWRITTEN ARTICLE TO CLEAN UP, NOW "SHINY AND NATURALLY SOFT", NOT "GLOSSY AND FULL OF BOUNCE" 61.101.19.42

nominated for deletion, 01/02/07, not noteworthy enough 83.102.48.18

Wikiproject No Ads

[jkloosterman]

The debate about ads on Wikipedia has gone on for quite such time. (The first major dispute involved a deal with answers.com) As a result of this, many Wikipedia contributers have formed a Wikiproject (a semi-organized group of Wikipedia editors) against them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiproject _no_ads To summarize this page, these editors think:

1. Wikipedia's philosophy is non-commercial
2. Ads put at risk Wikipedia's principle of Neutral Point of View (NPOV)
3. The information that constitutes Wikipedia is wealth for the community

There are fully three Wikipedians that state their support for advertising. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_ who_think_that_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_should_use _advertising

All Jimbo's horses and all Jimbo's men...

[dpbsmith]

The very fact that this idea is being discussed leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

In Wikipedia's early days there was a good deal of discussion about this very point, with some conspiracy-minded contributors fearing that Jimbo Wales would talk freedom, neutrality, and noncommercialism at the start and change the rules later in the game.

There are a number of precedents for this sort of bad-faith maneuver, one of the most notorious being CDDB, which happily accepted contributions of CD track names from thousands of volunteers who believed they were contributing to an open-source project; sneakily changed their software so that it add "stealth" copyright notices giving the rights to the information to the organization; then took it private and sold people's generous volunteer work and lined their own pockets with the money.

One of Wikipedia's cornerstones is the "neutral point of view" policy. This policy is a fragile and precious thing. Innumerable people are constantly leaning on it and chipping away at it in an effort to use Wikipedia for promotion. The only reason why NPOV works is that the core of Wikipedians truly accept that WIkipedia really is neutral, and are willing to enforce the policy.

If Wikipedia ever accepts paid advertising, I believe it will destabilize the fragile balance. Advertisements will most likely be targeted to appear on the same pages as relevant article. Many WIkipedia articles about commercial products contain substantial amounts of both praise and criticism. In its nature, this material is frequently in a somewhat dynamic state of flux, with competing editors wordsmithing things back and forth; at its best, a stable state is reached in which the editors on one side of an issue grudgingly acknowledge that the wording of the material on the other side is acceptable to them.

What happens when an advertiser notices that the related article contains material that has a different spin from its marketing communications? I think the delicate house of cards comes tumbling down, that's what. I don't see how anyone can ever build a "Chinese wall" between advertising and editorial when any advertiser can be an editor.

And once it becomes generally accepted that Wikipedia is no longer neutral, WIkipedia is dead. That will unleash a flood of self-promoting crap which old-time WIkipedians will be unable to hold back.

It will also piss off everyone who, like me, has made voluntary monetary contributions to Wikimedia almost every time they've launched one of their frequent pledge drives, in the belief, which will have been shown to be naïve, that Wikipedia was promised to be noncommercial.

Wikipedia can survive a reputation for occasional inaccuracy and for "fancruft." But if it is ever seen that Wikipedia articles are a practical avenue for promotion and advertising, or that they reflect the interests of advertisors, all Jimbo's horses and all Jimbo's men will never be able to put WIkipedia together again.

And all the old-time Wikipedians will say "We told you this was going to happen." And they'll be right.

Re:Advertising No Problem

[Stephan Schulz]

I see no problem with adverts on Wikipedia so long as its obvious they're advertisments and corporate sponsorship does not affect the content.

Even very small and unobtrusive adverts would earn them an awful lot of revenue which can really only be a good thing.

This is a very slippery slope. Once WikiMedia outgrows the generosity of the community, there is no easy way back. If the foundation has hundreds of paid officiers, in the long term their primary interest will not be to make the best possible encyclopedia, but to safe their own jobs. If Wikipedia funds a lot of other projects, there is even more reason for them to keep up the revenue by following the interest of the advertisers as opposed to just creating the best possible free encyclopedia.

From another point of view, I assume I spend maybe 100 hours per year working on Wikipedia. Even at my salary level (as opposed to my consulting rate), paying for this would be quite a chunk of money. Multiply it by 3 million of editors, and the "huge" advertising revenue suddenly is not that huge anymore. Even losing a small fraction of good editors over advertising would be a net loss.

Re:End justifies the means

[SpooForBrains]

Once a few big advertising contracts are hammered out, then the funds available to Wikipedia will grow, and so the needs of Wikipedia will grow to fill the available funds. They will lay on more servers, better bandwidth deals, maybe hire some people, and then suddenly Wikipedia is dependent on that cash to continue operating. Thus, the advertisers can start to assert influence, knowing full well what would happen if they pulled the cash. Suddenly you'll see exactly the kind of censorship parent alludes to.