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

Prepare yourself

[suso]

Get ready for an onslaught of comments from people who want to have their cake and eat it too. (ie. those that don't want the advertising, but also don't want to make a donation to Wikipedia)

Re:Prepare yourself

[BaphometLaVey]

Okay! That's it. A show of hands please, who wants cake they can't eat?

Re:Prepare yourself

[TheLink]

The cake (or pie chart) is here:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Planned_Spending_Distribution_2007-2008

Not sure what happened to the 2006 one.

Re:Prepare yourself

[KiloByte]

ie. those that don't want the advertising, but also don't want to make a donation to Wikipedia Ok, I'll bite. What would you say about those who specifically don't donate to Wikipedia because of their policy?

So here's the deal: stop the book-burning deletionist jihad, and those who follow Howard Tayler's campaign will suddenly resume donations. And no, you can't squeeze any advertising money from the likes of me thanks to Adblock.

Unlike commercial encyclopaedias, most of us do pay in some kind: we donate our time, our work, our expertise. Without community editors, Wikipedia would be nothing. Stop throwing away the contributions and a lot more people will be inclined to toss in also some cash.

Re:Prepare yourself

[AvitarX]

1) What you are demonstrating is that even non-add donations can influence (or try).
2) You may repay by editing, but unless you define "us" in "most of us" as people who edit wikipedia than most do not. I will go as far as saying that I live with 2 people who have found errors in wikipedia and not fixed them (one that I remember was the date of a French author's birth, that burned 1/4 of the people in the class (the rest used the text book), and still didn't get fixed.

I would personally think the best way for wikipedia to remain neutral is for it to take advertising from something such as adsense, clearly marking it as advertising. If I go to look up info on a a game, and I get a clearly marked add to buy it, no one loses. Wikipedia would only need to protect itself from the influence of one company, and it should be easier than policing the thousands of donations they get now that may or may not be influencing them.

Re:Prepare yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

The phrase is better thought of as "keep your cake and eat it too" -- if you eat your cake, it's gone, so if you want to eat *and* keep it you're asking too much. :)

Re:Prepare yourself

[nip1024]

[Citation needed]

Re:Prepare yourself

[SETIGuy]

Get ready for an onslaught of comments from people who want to have their cake and eat it too. (ie. those that don't want the advertising, but also don't want to make a donation to Wikipedia)
There's a larger problem with advertising than "people don't like it." I am closely related to a nonprofit organization, one that could also make a butt-load of cash if we were to strategically place advertisments on our web site.

There's a reason we don't and it's not that our visitors would object. IANAA and IANATL, but I do speak to them on occasion. Advertising revenues are what is known as "unrelated business taxable income". Notice the word taxable. It complicates life for a non-profit. Taxable income over a small threshold means that the organizations tax returns must be made public. If contributions and government support fall below 33% of total income, the organization no longer qualifies as "publicly supported." In essence, too much advertising income can jeopardize your status as a non-profit.

Re:Prepare yourself

[afxgrin]

Yeah I wouldn't normally support advertising, but I think the value of wikipedia is too high to have it just die off from lack of income.

I support AdWords type advertising, no absurd banners, and only across the top of the article, just above the tabs that say "Article, Discuss, Edit this Page, History".

Heck - if they can generate enough income, contributors to articles who receive a "rating" of some sort from, let's say ... 100+ random visitors should get paid for their contribution. It would encourage quality articles, maybe splitting of articles into smaller, more readable topics, etc.

Now to just figure out how far back do you go to reward past contributors. If you edit anonymously you obviously lose the chance at getting paid.

obviously they should sell advertising

[circletimessquare]

it ruins the impartiality, it ruins the experience, it compromises the purpose, blah, blah, blah, zzz...

you have to pay the bills. idealism doesn't pay the bills. a "compromised" wikipedia is better than no wikipedia

there really isn't anything you can say that is more illuminating on the subject. either you can run the site financially or you can't. it really is that cut and dry

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[Xacid]

Also if they were able to receive funding, say from the/a government then there could be a lot of speculation again about impartiality (is that even a word) and a whole different set of issues. I would like to see them reach the status though where they *could* receive funding as a library though...

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[KenRH]

...again about impartiality (is that even a word)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impartiality

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[mochan_s]

Bullshit.

They can adopt distributed updates and such and ask universities to help with the bandwidth costs. Instead I guess they want to keep all the chips in hand so that they could one day turn into a billion dollar company.

Wikipedia is run by submitters and editors. If people feel that updating and maintaining wikipedia gives their habits away to advertisers, then it will also kill wikipedia. There will be startups that will focus on just music or movies or just on mathematics and provide a better experience per the negatives of advertising. Most people end up in Wikipedia through google searches and it won't take long for the wikipedia articles to go stale while the contributors move somewhere else.

Plus, those bandwidth heavy images, videos and sounds isn't updated frequently and can be asked to be cached in distributed storage across the internet in universities. Since article updates propagation might be hard in distributed file systems, at least the media should be straightforward.

There is a lot of stuff that can be done.

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[Himring]

you have to pay the bills. idealism doesn't pay the bills.

Look. Our little liberal is growing up and becoming a conservative....

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[ta bu shi da yu]

Rubbish. A Wikipedia that doesn't even try for NPOV, impartiality or any of the core things that make up the project now is not worthwhile at all.

Won't people stop with the stupid advertising nonsense already? Not everything is about money!

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[hey!]

I think Google has shown that it is possible to maintain trust while selling advertising, although I think the Sponsored Link results at the top are skating close to the edge. In fact, Google use is so ubiquitous most people are trained now to mentally segregate content from advertising, providing that the design is clean and consistent about the segregation.

The key is to do a good job on integrating the ads into the site design, so they don't feel intrusive nor are they confused with content.

If you provide the best possible service, people will use it. If you are clear about what is advertising and what is content, people won't distrust you. If you aren't so greedy about selling eyeballs that you abuse the user's time by making him cut through a thicket of advertisements to get to his stuff (like Yahoo), you end up selling a smaller amount of prime real estate than a acres and acres of dump.

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[Saint Fnordius]

Well, considering that the Wiki is the one place many go to get first-hand info, I could see a special sort of advertising, where the company overtly contributes to articles about themselves, pay a fee to have an alternative to the normal Wiki page. The advert would come in one of those little Wiki disclaimer tags, for quick linking to the "corporate bullshit disguised as an article" version.

Let's say FUBAR Widgets decides to buy a sponsored article. On the Wikipedia article, there would then be a link that says "This company has its own self-maintained article, which you can see here." On the purchased page, then, the article would be headed with a disclaimer, perhaps "This is a sponsored page owned by the company. The contents of the page are edited by the company itself, and cannot be edited by others."

Of course, companies who abuse this for of advertising should have their pages removed without refund. The actual terms of service, though, are left for the lawyers to haggle. It all boils down to in exchange for having their corporate pages free from editor tyranny, they in return have to play nice elsewhere.

The advantage for the company is that they get to maintain their own entries in the Wiki (not really, but close enough), and the advantage for the Wiki is that it makes it easier to "sandbox" corporate shenanigans on the main entries.

I suppose even another variation is conceivable, where specific pages could be sponsored that are not directly linked to the company. At the bottom of the page, the sponsors could then be listed. "This article about roses is officially sponsored by the following companies: Foo Flowers, Bar Blossoms, Snafu Seeds"

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[batman14]

Just make a print version of wikipedia, or other internal products based on the knowledge written by contributors. They can also get money from educational foundations that invest thousands of dollars in knowledge technology. And universities can also pay a part of the bill.

Ads are not the only model of economy to provide a free service on internet. That's google that wants to make us think that.

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[EaglemanBSA]

They can adopt distributed updates and such and ask universities to help with the bandwidth costs. Instead I guess they want to keep all the chips in hand so that they could one day turn into a billion dollar company. Actually, I think Wikipedia would have a hard time getting universities to pitch in - most professors I know don't quite understand it, and absolutely abhor its use. I know of professors who will fail an assignment citing it as a source.
 
It's important to maintain that Wikipedia is not a primary source, but more of a source guide. Encyclopedias always have been. A lot of people forget that.

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[garett_spencley]

Or they could just get an AdSense account and put a tiny little "Paid advertisement" section at the very bottom of pages etc. and completely forget about it. No politics. No making deals with other advertisers. No pandering to the demands of advertisers etc. Plus, the ads would end up being extremely targeted and on-topic, plain-text only and non obtrusive.

It wouldn't make as much as selling banner spots to the highest bidder etc. that's for sure. But it would probably generate enough to pay the bills which is what really matters.

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[Phurge]

I wouldn't trust Jimmy Wales with my credit card. This just in from http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/more-woes-for-jimmy-wales/2008/03/11/1205125874243.html "The toughest two weeks of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales's career just became a whole lot worse, with a former chief scientist at one of the world's biggest technology companies claiming Wales traded Wiki edits for donations. Jeff Merkey, a former computer scientist at Novell, claims Wales told him in 2006 that in exchange for a substantial donation from Merkey, he would edit his uncomplimentary Wikipedia entry to make it more favourable. Merkey made a $US5000 ($5455) donation in 2006 and the edit history for his Wikipedia entry showed that, around the same time, Wales personally made changes to the entry after wiping it out completely and ordering editors to start over."

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[LS]

That's the question though, is there a possibility of "no wikipedia" if they don't take on advertising? I don't believe this to be the case. They've got a lot of donations (including mine) before there was any concern. If a concern that they won't make enough funds to meet costs is publicized, I'm sure wallets would open up quickly. I agree that if there was no other way, then advertising would be an option, but if other means are possible, why not avoid them? Your initial list (impartiality, experience, purpose) are actually good reasons to avoid it if possible.

LS

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[mmyrfield]

Maybe your problem is your profs then. The vast majority of mine hold wikipedia in quite high regards. Obviously they won't accept it as an academic source, but they usually say it's usually a damn good source of well-structured information for the user that knows how to use it.

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[Carnildo]

You might want to read up on Jeff Merkey's history before you accept anything he says at face value. Back in 2004 or so, a judge wrote in the case Wolf Mountain vs. Novell that Merkey's view of reality bore only a very limited resemblance to that of anyone else.

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[sjstrutt]

Actually, I think Wikipedia would have a hard time getting universities to pitch in - most professors I know don't quite understand it, and absolutely abhor its use. I know of professors who will fail an assignment citing it as a source.

Wikipedia should not be used in academia, but the usual reactionary attacks ("OMG! Anyone can edit it! Its unreliable!") aren't the reason why. Students shouldn't be citing Wikipedia because it's billed as an online encyclopedia. University students shouldn't be citing any encyclopedia at all including Encarta, Britannica, Wikipedia, etc. Encyclopedias paint a broad picture of a subject and can be used as a starting point in research, but they shouldn't contain any original research and thus shouldn't be used in academia, especially at the university level.

what do you sell

[scrambledhelix]

to a user looking up a definition for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthymeme?

Why?

[abscissa]

Why does Wikipedia need to sell it? They are already a bastion of free "neutral" articles written by POV cronies by corprorate shells. From Republican politicians to large corporations like Wal-Mart, Wikipedia should start invoicing for hosting their "neutral" public relations flyers.

Let's do something special again...

[MrMage]

WikipediAds, the advertisements anyone can edit! Who better to make the ads than the customers?

Not only if, but HOW

[Foolicious]

I am sure there'll be a nice raging debate about IF they should do it, which is good. But if they do decide to do it, an important argument is then HOW to do it. Online advertising needs to be intrusive enough to be noticed, but not so intrusive that it becomes, well, intrusive. Their implementation will mean a lot.

My sympathy is limited

[jrjarrett]

Since, according TFA, they just moved offices from FL to San Francisco, and are renting 3000 square feet there. That cannot be cheap. If you're a strapped non-profit, why on earth would you go to one of the most expensive places in the country to run your internet-based business?

Re:My sympathy is limited

[phantomcircuit]

Firstly because San Francisco is awesome.

Secondly because SFPD would be very hesitant about helping anybody raid their offices, there would be protests, the black mask group, etc.

Re:My sympathy is limited

[Eharley]

How do you know it's more expensive for them in SF than in FL? What were their stated reasons for moving?

Re:My sympathy is limited

[Jeff DeMaagd]

3k s.f. isn't that huge, maybe the real problem is the cost of living for those who work there. Isn't San Fransisco pretty big on the Internet? I can see may be some advantages.

Re:My sympathy is limited

[huhwhatduck]

They explicitly moved to San Francisco to make their work more cost effective. San Francisco has cheaper and much more available international air travel, which is a big issue for the Wikimedia Foundation. And, of course, there are the resources of the general community. It's much easier to be connected to the Valley when you're in it.

Re:My sympathy is limited

[downix]

Actually, as I currently live in FL and am looking to the west coast for relocating, guess what, it actually *is* cheaper to live in the San Francisco area than in Florida. While the initial rent is a bit higher (about 3-5%) the taxes to operate are far lower, and the infastructure cost to the individual business is dramatically less.

If it comes down to it

[Kelbear]

I'll just say this, I'd rather have an ad-supported wikipedia than no wikipedia at all.

If the video feature costs more than donations can support, I'm ok with no videos on wikpedia. Perhaps another seperate wikisite can have video with advertisements, while wikipedia itself could maintain its adfree status.

Re:If it comes down to it

[Tuoqui]

Why have video on Wikipedia in the first place? I dont go on there to watch videos thats what Youtube is for!

Google is good

[LinuxGeek]

And would be about a perfect match for Wikipedia, unobtrusive and topical. I say go forward and earn enough to keep the doors open and grow.

Re:Google is good

[dk.r*nger]

I think we're discussing putting Google ads on Wikipedia pages, not selling the whole thing to Google.

And Google Ads hardly gives Google control over your servers.

Re:Google is good

[NickCatal]

It is worth hundreds of millions because it has none of its own content. Anyone with enough hardware could copy WP's content, code, and system settings (all publicly available info) in a week or two (depending on your level of skill in linux/mysql/php/mediawiki)

As for hardware expenses. Wikipedia buys all of their own equipment rather than leasing it from any provider (which would save them quite a bit of money in the short term, especially since they keep buying hardware to replace old hardware.) Their rapid and aggressive growth would have made leasing servers much more effective.

If Mozilla is any indication, Wikipedia could be making quite a bit of cash just working out an agreement selling targeted advertising from these providers simply on the search pages. No ads on the content at all, simply the search pages. Hell, you could offer to have it turned off for registered users!

They should, begging for money is no business mode

[egghat]

OK, a broken business model that based on begging for money every 6 months or so.

Go for advertising. Buy out books to the public domain, give back some money to wikepedia authors (e.g. give money to proven authors for writing additional articles), ... Gazillions good ideas come to mind. Buy out books to the public domain.

But no money means no money for good ideas. And Wikipedia will stay vulnerable to attacks from someone with money (think Google Knol).

Yes yes, money changes people. Articles may get flawed to get more money. If you think, Wikipedia must stay independent, make it independent. Create a Wikipedia-Ad-foundation, that tries to get as much money as possible, but give them absolutly no control over Wikipedia-The-Content-Organisation. Both orgs should be absolutly independent.

And so you'd have a lot of money *and* complete seperation of concerns.

And there are *so* many unbelievably good ways to spend money.

Well .....

[ajs318]

Yeah, if they want.

I'm already highly aggressive with blocking all advertising and user-tracking anyway, so it won't affect me personally. One of these days, I even plan to start reselling ADSL with a transparent proxy configured my own special way, so other people can also enjoy the same advertisement-free Internet experience (and I can make a few quid as a secondary consideration).

Re:Well .....

[Threni]

> I even plan to start reselling ADSL with a transparent proxy configured my own special way, so other people can also enjoy the same
> advertisement-free Internet experience (and I can make a few quid as a secondary consideration).

I take it you won't be advertising your service?

Re:Well .....

[Constantine XVI]

One of these days, I even plan to start reselling ADSL with a transparent proxy configured my own special way, so other people can also enjoy the same advertisement-free Internet experience (and I can make a few quid as a secondary consideration). Sure, as long as you don't call it the Internet. What makes the Internet so special is that the providers (the good ones, anyway) censor/filter NOTHING, and the filtering is left up to the end-user. IMHO, the second you begin denying your customers specific content/services (be it ads or BitTorrent), I no longer consider you a proper ISP, and neither should the law.

And besides, if you can filter all those ads, we don't think you would have a problem filtering out child porn either, right?

Links to commercial content.

[SharpFang]

Not banners.

Something that adds to the value of the site would be good - paid-for "related" links to commercial sites.

Data recovery - link to services. Bridge construction - links to firms building these. Encryption - encryption software. Every single pharmaceutical - online pharmacy. Every single book or movie - amazon.com or other such. So if you're willing to pay for what you've just learned about, you know where to go to buy it or have it done, or learn more about it.

Is it just me...

[PinkyDead]

Or do the gods behind /. use a different browser to me.

I'm not really going off-topic: my point is that ads really aren't a problem in these high-bandwidth times - at least they're somewhat targeted and they don't intrude.

The problem is, though, that they do. Sometimes the ads on /. are the banner ones, and they're fine, but sometimes they are those nasty square ones that block off half the story summary and require multiple reloads to get rid of.

I have no problem with ads - but they should be tested to see if they work on the 'most-popular' (depending on point of view) browser. Otherwise, don't be bitchin' at me cos I flashblock your ass.

What about sponsers?

[MMC Monster]

What wikipedia should do is try to hit up the private sector for some rich sponsors looking to make donations to a tax-free charity.

Maybe a single link on the front page to link to the top 1000 donations of all time and top 1000 donations in the last 12 months will be a nice compromise.

Re:Oooh.

[Bombula]

All this criticism of Jimmy Wales seems a bit silly. The guy could easily have created Wikipedia as a for-profit enterprise. It would be no different as a website or a resource, and he could be profiting immensely from it. As for me, text-based ads a la Google don't bother me much. I'm much more irked by the flashy banner ad crap like what's at the top of this slashdot page than a few text links down the right hand margin.

Funny how no one is harassing Coyboy Neil for not running Slashdot like Mother Theresa.

Just use YPN or AdSense

[dbmasters]

It would be nothing to maintain and with contextually sensitive ads they would vbe related to the pages they appear on (in theory) it would be useful and profitable.

Keep an eye on the money!

[guanxi]

Given the independence of the editors (the volunteers) from the publishers (Wikimedia Foundation Inc.), I'm not too concerned about the content. Of course that independence only lasts until Wikimedia insists on seats on the Arbitration Committee or other editorial authority.

But they need a mechanism -- beyond 'trust us' -- to keep an eye on the money. That much money is just too tempting, not only for plain embezzlement but also for things like loans and investments for personal or friends' businesses, unreasonable expenses, etc.

Who controls the money? To whom are they responsible? Ultimately, the responsible party is the Wikimedia Foundation Board. While I don't believe fame and talent are highly correlated, and have no doubts about the board members, it would inspire more confidence if someone was putting a broader reputation on the line for Wikipedia. I want some on the board who have something serious to lose if things go wrong, like Mitch Kapor, Joi Ito, and others on the Mozilla Foundation board. In fact, I wonder why don't have people like already. Certainly it's prominent enough to attract them.

Finally, what mechanisms do similar organizations use to manage windfalls of cash?

It's the opposite

[NewAndFresh]

a "compromised" wikipedia is better than no wikipedia

One of the important things that make wikpedia is that there is no advertising.
Like many people have already pointed out, there are many other options.
You add advertising and it's no longer wikipedia.
So I'll fix that for you:
a "slower" wikipedia is better than no wikipedia.

Re:It's the opposite

[h4rm0ny]

Now that deserves an Insightful mod. I dislike that questions such as this are just accepted without reservation: That you get to choose between Wikipedia and Compromised Wikipedia. Who framed those options and what did they do to reach the conclusion that this choice is inevitable.

-A Proud Wikipedia Donator

-H.

Better Ways Without Crapping It Up

[Doc Ruby]

No, advertising would inevitably bias the content. Not just bias the editors, but also introduce a bias into those articles in which ads relate to the content. And no, they can't filter out ads that relate to the content, because that would introduce a biased editorial hand into deciding "what's related". And besides, brands have all kinds of biases that aren't necessarily evident (what does "coca-cola" mean to people whose grandparents were slaves on coca-cola plantations?), or maybe just unknown to the person setting the "relation exclusion" filter.

No, the whole point of Wikipedia is that the content of every article is totally controlled by the crowd that's editing it. Implying the editorial voice of Wikipedia endorses those products in the ads will introduce distrust of the Wikipedia editorial voice when people don't like the advertised products (or just the ad itself, or just advertising). Or introduce unwarranted trust in those people who feel more comfortable when they're embedded in a sea of familiar logos, even if they content of the article should look suspicious.

Wikipedia should just raise money in other ways that don't muddy the line between editor and publisher, just like newspapers are believed to do properly (but don't, because they embed ads).

The foundation can sell paper volumes, or magazine subscriptions about the state of Wikipedia - which could contain ads.

It could charge schools whose campuses register above some high threshold of use. Those schools are reselling the content as education, either for school tax fees or private tuitions. They can afford to pay a fee for the resale of the content, and they're too much sitting ducks to try evasive actions (like IP spoofing) that can be caught.

It could sell T-shirts and other schwag.

It could charge its most active contributors small subscription fees. Charging those people who do the most work on the content might be counterintuitive: aren't they already giving more than others, in work if not in money? But those people are clearly getting a lot more use out of Wikipedia than the average person, and are probably addicted. They're the least likely to stop being part of the community if they have to pay, while scaring the others away will kill Wikipedia. And they're the ones most likely to care about the argument "but if you don't pay a little, Wikipedia will die", because they've got so much invested in it already. If the fee is like $10 a year for people who post over 100 edits in "recent edits", that's $50,000. If it's $5 for those posting over 10 or 20 recent edits anytime in a year, that's probably several hundred thousand dollars. Those people aren't going to give up their habit. If they offer them a mandatory $5 for their name on a "page of fame", or sell them a $5 T-Shirt for $20 with their name and count on it, they could make $millions.

Wikipedia is a community. One with varying degrees, whose members get all kinds of benefit from it. There are plenty of ways to monetize the benefits, especially for those getting the most, and those with little alternative to quit it.

actually, every human endeavour IS about money

[circletimessquare]

money is really just an abstract expression of human interest and value. pick the most idealistic human endeavour you can think of. it has value to other human beings. therefore, it is monetized. sure, it needn't be expressed in actual dollars, but a conversion to that occurs at some point for anyone who interacts with that human endeavour. the church? marriage and love? science? they all involve cash transations at some point

why do you think you achieve some sort of higher moral ground or purpose by shunning money? all you do is hobble your own ability to properly understand how the world you live in actually functions. i'm not asking you to worship money. and money certainly leads people to do evil things. but again, money is just an abstract expression of human desires. the real evil is aspects of human nature itself, not a piece of green paper with alexander hamilton's face on it

all i'm asking you to do is grant money the proper respect it deserves for quantifying abstract human interest in such a way that it makes the world we live in a better place. yes, money is a great invention, like the wheel or the semiconductor. it makes your world a better place. bartering chickens for school books gets kind of old after awhile. thus the glorious invention of money. and no, i'm not gordon gecko. i'm just a realist. realism trumps cotton candy idealism any day. and the most sober realistic consideration of money in this world is that it makes your life better

cotton candy headed idealists can be so stupid

Why don't we do their advertising?

[Esteanil]

Scenario: "I'm young, I'm idealistic. I haven't got a credit card, I haven't got paypal, but I do have a website with at least some few visitors. And I really like Wikipedia."

Think this is uncommon? I certainly don't.
So. How do we "monetize" this resource? Let them run ads generating income for Wikipedia.
Someone(tm) in Wikipedia, or some trustworthy foundation, should set up an account somewhere, and then volunteers will make a few widgets to easily add ads to your site, a Wordpress plugin, banner rotation so you can donate a certain percentage of page impressions... I'm sure more things will come up.

Re:Oooh.

[ajs]

All this criticism of Jimmy Wales seems a bit silly. It's beyond silly. IMHO, Jimbo should be one of the three men in the world, at this point. If wealth is our measure of reward for your value to the community, then surely the man who made it possible to preserve our shared knowledge should be rewarded duly. I feel the same way about anyone who improved the state of our world. If his worst crime is to try (not succeed, mind you, but try) to get reimbursed for an obscenely expensive meal, then he's doing better than most politicians who have done far, far, FAR less for improving our lot.

Redesign ...

[debrain]

The idea of Wikipedia - a freely available online encyclopedia that anyone can edit - I believe is better if it is impartial and independent. It becomes encumbered, compromised, by advertising incentives. There is added value in advertisement free - vis-à-vis Consumer Reports.

The question is: Why is Wikipedia so expensive to maintain? If it is bandwidth and servers, is the HTTP client/server model the answer? Is there an efficient model to share Wikipedia entries peer to peer? Or perhaps share costs between Universities or other institutions that act in the public interest?

Additionally, if Wikipedia does go to a peer to peer model, can it integrate projects like FreeNet to ensure that the information remains free and accessible.

If you think the complaints about edits, arbitrariness, capriciousness and bias with Wikipedia are bad now, wait until it commercializes. In my (limited) experience, this will change the paradigm of its management. Wikipedia will cease to be a gift to humanity. It will be owned.

you view its strength as its weakness

[circletimessquare]

i trust random anonymous people than "quality" submissions by someone with an agenda to sell

random people off the street have no agenda. or rather, in a nonhierarchical structure, the overlapping agendas of random people cancel each other out to arrive at true neutrality on a subject matter. after all, you are posting anonymously and you obviously have a flawed bias ;-)

"experts" making encyclopedias in the traditional manner have a bill of goods they need to sell us. plenty of "facts" in this world are nothing more than statements of indoctrination into a given agenda. "experts" in a field of study are often champions of indoctrination, not education

true propaganda in this world never tells a single lie. it merely omitts certain unmentioned facts here and there in such a way to color people's perceptions. that's why they are called half-truths. meanwhile, a wide open encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to is the only way to illuminate those corners of propaganda that someone with an agenda doesn't want you to see

even a subconscious agenda a contributor is not aware of: their own biases they are blind to, such that they have no intent to lie to you, this is a threat to real truth

and so what you see as wikipedia's greatest weakness is in fact its greatest strength

you need to come to understand this

I've got a better idea

[davidwr]

Allow advertising that anyone can edit.

Re:I've got a better idea

[Flwyd]

With moderation. That way a company can proclaim its product, past consumers can point out its flaws, and administrators can arbitrate disputes of false advertising and libel.

While I had the same joke come to mind, I think the idea has serious merit.

Re:I've got a better idea

[Tom]

While I had the same joke come to mind, I think the idea has serious merit. Try that thinking part again when you're sober. There are already marketing companies out there who will sell you a grass-roots campaign. There are already companies out there selling you the service of cleaning up any PR mess you made. I'm sure it would be less than three days before one of them offers a "we'll provide both, the consumers and the moderators to put your product into good light on Adipedia" service.

Re:They should, begging for money is no business m

[moosesocks]

Wikipedia's not a "business" by any stretch of the imagination.

NPR and PBS have also shown that this "begging for money" business model can indeed work successfully. If anything, Wikipedia should turn to them for inspiration and fundraising advice.

yes; the mirrors do

[Russ Nelson]

Yes, Wikipedia should sell advertising, to cover its costs. After all, the many people who take a copy of wikipedia and republish it with advertisements are making money -- why shouldn't wikipedia itself?

Mozilla Foundation isn't a business either.

[egghat]

I'm happy they struck this deal with Google. I'm happy that they drown in money and I'm happy they give me the best browser, support open source and have saved the world from the Microsoft monopoly spreading to the web.

Yes, you could claim that Firefox isn't about money, but about freedom, open source and standards support. But I'm sure that money has helped them to achieve this goal and as far as I am concerned money hasn't stopped or corrupted them.

bye egghat

You can model it that way, sure

[NickFortune]

You can model any human activity in terms of money, certainly. But that doesn't make that model the predictor for all classes of activity. I mean you can model every human activity in terms of garbage if you want to: every human activity produces some waste materials, if only from from the excrement of those so engaged and the waste heat of the work performed. You can say every human endeavour is about anything with a little ingenuity.

But the fact that we can analyse Wikimedia purely in terms of money is not an argument for them using ads to finance their operation, any more than being able to conduct the analysis based on refuse constitutes an argument for them buying a fleet of garbage trucks.

Don't confuse the map with the territory, dude.

Re:Go Distributed

[billcopc]

I would love to see Wikipedia become the poster-child for peer-to-peer webhosting, but that would require installing a ton of crap software on Norton-loving imbeciles' machines. It opens the whole system up for massive abuses and corruption, intentional or not.

Go for Google ads, I say! Just one block across the top, where their donation banner usually sits. I see no harm in it.

Should cancer patients take cynaide pills?

[damburger]

Wikipedia has definitely peaked. The community has become closed off into cliques and the content has become entrenched to the extent new contributers are actively chased off if they suggest any challenge to the status quo. Selling advertising would crush what is left of the community spirit of the project.

Its a shame, because fundamentally Wikipedia is an OK idea. What is needed is a viable, popular fork. I suppose this is as good as anything for speeding that up.

Re:Oooh.

[Metaphorically]

The guy could easily have created Wikipedia as a for-profit enterprise. Hindsight's 20/20. If he had created it as a for-profit enterprise then would there have been nearly the same participation levels? It wouldn't be in the position it is today if it were created for-profit and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Make it distributed

[Arthur B.]

I think the best solution would be to make wikipedia entirely distributed, where anyone can host any kind of edit to any page. Displaying a page becomes a matter of polling neighbor nodes in the network for information. Edits can be signed by various parties for validity, etc. The main cost then becomes a cost of development, there is no hosting cost.

Link to ads on separate page

[Reziac]

Or instead of ads on the wiki pages, have a link at the bottom of each page, "Link to advertising of products related to this topic" and put the ads on a separate page entirely.

And then advertisers could pay for better placement etc. on the AD PAGE, if they felt the urge. Thus the Wiki content would remain unsullied, yet Wikipedia could bring in some cash.