Should Wikipedia Sell Advertising?

The Narrative Fallacy writes "The LA Times has an interesting story on the state of Wikipedia's finances and how with 300 million page views a day, the organization could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars if it sold advertising space. Without advertising the foundation has a tough time raising its annual budget of $4.6 million. The 45,000 or so individuals who contribute annually give an average of $33 each, so campaigns, which are conducted online, raise only about one-third of what's needed. As Wikimedia adds features to its pages, such as videos, costs will rise. 'Without financial stability and strong planning, the foundation runs the risk of needing to take drastic steps at some point in the next couple years,' said Nathan Awrich, a Wikipedia editor who supports advertising."

Comments

Oooh.

[Moryath]

Jimbo can embezzle even more if they do that!

Re:Oooh.

[Bombula]

Generalized downmodding is a flawed concept, in my opinion; it should only be available to report cases of abuse (cursing, ad hominem, racism/hate-speech, etc). When given the choice between offering constructive or destructive criticism, the vast majority of slashdotters choose the quicker, easier, more seductive path. It's pretty sad, but that's the baseline human response: give someone a inkling of power and they abuse it or use it to bully others (like shite cops do) rather than using it to constructive ends. The more anti-social the individual, the worse the problem is - you do the math yourself on the slashdot crowd... As smart as people here think they are, they forget one of the simplest, easiest, most useful rules of human conduct: Thumper's Rule. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Slashdot's system is comfortable and familiar, but it's getting dated. I think it's time for an overhaul, and many others have had good suggestions for updates/refinements. I think the elimination of generalized downmodding along with the elimination (or at least expanding) of the 5-point cap on upmodding would be good improvements. Some of these things are already implemented on sites like digg.com to good effect.