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War of Words Over Wikipedia Ads Continues

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the gotta-make-a-buck dept.

Willis W. writes "Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales reiterates his opposition to advertising in response to reports that Wikipedia needs a major cash infusion. Responding to Jason Calacanis' charges that he 'has a fringe, anti-corporate bent to him' that is 'holding Wikipedia back,' Wales says that running ads on Wikipedia is not his decision to make. Though he personally dislikes the idea of advertising on Wikipedia, any decision to utilize ads would have to come from the community. At the moment, he won't rule anything out. 'I can't say if I would ever support something like that,' he tells Ars, 'but I can say that I currently maintain the same position I always have: I am opposed to it.'" What do you think Wikimedia should do to shore up the financial situation of the Wikipedia?

10 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. Philanthropy by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems to me that there would be any number of private foundations and individuals that might be willing to help. Granted that takes a lot of work, but at least you won't have to commercialize Wikipedia.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    1. Re:Philanthropy by SnowZero · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would probably donate to Wikipedia, but I'd want them to do something about their now rampant cronyism and favoritism first. Any interesting topic on Wikipedia not only has annoying nonconstructive people who are (rightly) shunned, but a small number of editors can crap the place up, yet seem able to "do no wrong" because they have connections. It reminds me of the worst part of scientific circles, without the tolerance of open and public debate.

      Now, that is not to say that Wikipedia isn't doing something cool, so don't brand me as someone who is against it. Complaining about corruption in a police department, for example, doesn't mean you want the entire police force to disappear. On the whole, Wikipedia is a very useful resource and a good starting point for serious investigation of many topics. I want to see them succeed. However the rapid growth has given them some problems, and until they show that they are trying to address these problems I'm unlikely to donate. That way, I can save my money for a better successor if they end up dying.

  2. Google by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What about Google? Practically anything I google for results in a Wikipedia article as the first hit. I can't believe that pagerank alone results in Wikipedia articles ranked highly so consistently for practically every search topic imaginable. I think it would be an advantage for Google to buy out Wikipedia, as they seem to rely on Wikipedia already.

    Dan East

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Google by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd rather google just by generous enough to donate money to the Wiki project rather than buy them out. We all saw what happened when google bought youtube. Youtube sucks now. It's copyright infringement take down notice frenzy over there. Once there's money behind something... they start coming for you no matter what.

      Think of all the wiki's about games or tv shows or whatever that have pictures etc. I just see it as a problem. Once there's money, some fucking lawyer from some fucking corporation is going to want to pressure wiki to do things as they see it, or else.

      Google or someone else with money like BILL FUCKING GATES should donate money to wiki to keep them afloat. It's a nice public service created by the public with good intentions for all.

      It would be a shame to see it go the way of corporate buy out or internet advertising and so forth.

      Maybe Gates wont donate money cause Microsoft wants to do something similar.... Same for google... but inject ads all over the fucking place. See why Wiki needs to stay ad free? Remember the Do no evil Google statement? Youtube blows. They over censor, you can see violence but not tits, you can type "go suck my dick" in a comment, but you cant show it. You cant post anything as a public video that contains a clip from some tv shwo or anything without being taken down.

      I just see it as a nightmare situation and another win for old corporate America if Wiki goes this route. In some respects, i'd rather see them just end Wiki rather than sell out to the sleeze.

  3. More locked articles please? by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Disregarding financing and expenditures ... Wikipedia is just plain wrong. I spent the last 90 minutes tracking "recent changes" undoing a bunch of "LOL PENIS" edits. At that rate of destruction Wikipedia would be TOTALLY worthless after only a month or so if all the volunteers stopped performing "undo" operations.

    Also, I think anonymous edits is just a bad idea. I understand that some folk can't attribute their identities to their edits, but too bad. Without volunteers WASTING THEIR TIME on revision edits wikipedia wouldn't even be a good STARTING place let alone reference...

    And please, if you're one of those trolls adding "LOL PENIS" to wiki articles, please stop. It's childish and doesn't make you cool, it makes you an ass making work for others. /rant

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    1. Re:More locked articles please? by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Middle ground: Anon can contribute to the "talk" page, but only registered & logged in users can edit the article itself. That way anonymous can still contribute by suggesting info in the talk page. However, since the average person looking for information on stress tensors won't look at the talk page, there's no point trolling because none of the intended victims see it.

      A small delay before an account can be used, like on Fark, might also be useful to prevent throwaway accounts.

  4. I don't see a call to donate by magixman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    After reading this I went to donate $25 because I use this service a lot and it is an ubiquitous part of the information appliance aspect of the net for me. I had to click around and then reach for my glasses to find the little "your continued donations keep Wikipedia running" link in like 6 point type. Come one folks - ASK FOR WHAT YOU NEED!

    Before turning this over to advertisers make an appeal. Put it at the top of every article that comes up on search. You can't just say donations don't work when you don't really make an effort to us know you need them.

  5. Decentralize? by femto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One way would be to figure out a way to decentralise the database. Rather than living on 350 servers perhaps it could live in 35,000,000 screen savers, all communicating peer to peer?

    How? Beats me. Maybe start by experimenting with moving mediawiki's change tracking to modeled on Arch? Rendering a wikipedia article would then become an exercise in gathering all the necessary changesets from the P2P network. Instead of querying wikipedia's servers, you could just query your screen saver. Editing an article would consist of making a change then publishing the changeset on the P2P network.

    Any other ideas? These are just random musings. There are plenty of people who are seriously studying this stuff.

  6. paid memberships by drDugan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd rather see paid memberships before ads.

    Everyone still has the same free access, but paid members are cited as supporters, with the length and amount of their support - creating a public log of how much they have given to support the encyclopedia. This type of membership is directly in line with the non profit purpose of the organization, so the fees are tax deductible donations.

    Basically, it will tie in to the same reason why people give time and knowledge - to support the cause.

    Memebers get a little "star" or a bold username of something - and membership is like $25/year.

    Users who visit the site without a membership are greeted with a splash screen with the current financial information of wikipedia, burn rate, and a simple way to sign up and become a paid donating member.

  7. Re: Philanthropy -- Distributed Hosting by kerrigan778 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A lot of people don't want to donate but many would be more than happy to donate a few gigs of my hard drive and some small part of my bandwidth to wikipedia on occasion. I cite F@H (Folding at Home) for all those who know of it (thanks to all who do it) which I am already doing. If that concept could be applied to hosting Wikimedia then their hosting fees could drop dramatically. (possibly to zero). All those people who already use wikipedia could pay back some of the debt they owe to it by helping host it.