Should Wikipedia Just Accept Ads Already?

Hugh Pickens writes "Large images of Jimmy Wales have for weeks dominated each and every page on Wikipedia, making Wales arguably the single most visible individual on the planet. Now Molly McHugh writes that Wikipedia is once again pleading for user donations with banners across the top of its site with memos from purported authors and this week, Wales stepped up the shrillness of his rallying cry by adding the word 'Urgent' to his appeal. Wales attempted the same request for donations last year, and failed to meet the company's goal until Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar donated $2 million and Google stepped in with another $2 million gift to the foundation. This time around the foundation is approximately $7 million short of its 2010 fundraising goal, and Wikipedia analysts are saying the site would be better off with a marketing scheme as Alex Konanykhin of WikiExperts explains that the donations-only, no-commerce model restricts Wikipedia to relying exclusively on free volunteers, losing opportunities to involve qualified professionals who charge for their time in addition to the thirty staff members already on the Wikimedia payroll. 'Advertising is not cool. You're not as cool if you have advertising. But you know what else is not cool? Begging,' writes Jeff Otte. 'We do not care if there is advertising on Wikipedia, so long as it is not ridiculously invasive. So please, replace your sensitive mug with a Steak 'n' Shake ad or something, and start making advertisers pay for people to have stuff for free and not feel bad about it. It's the Internet's way.'"

Comments

They've already got cash

[arshadk]

I thought about donating some money. I use wikipedia pretty regularly and I'd like to support it. The only problem is I don't think they need any money. Their financial statements are available and it looks like they've got enough cash on hand to run for the year without any more donations. I don't see the need to add to their cushion.

Re:They've already got cash

[Eil]

Care to link? Were you talking aout this?

I find it somewhat surprising that less than half of their money is spent on servers and infrastructure. (On the other hand, it could be a lot less if they were willing to set up a secure mirror system rather than try to serve everything themselves.) Also interesting is that 21% of their total budget ($4.2 million) is planned to be spent on Community Programs. I thought delivering the world's most comprehensive encyclopedia to the masses for free was already something of a community program?

I just get the impression from Wikipedia that they're trying to run this non-profit a little too much like a business. Sure, the company itself doesn't turn a profit in the traditional sense, but I'd be very interested to know how much the staff makes and how that had scaled over time in relation to their annual budget.

Re:User donation model

[God'sDuck]

Sell books.

No seriously -- have an Amazon referral account for Wikipedia. Let users link articles to books on Amazon with more information. Link every footnote to a book to a "buy now" button. It's value-added, not random advertising, and Wikipedia would get a cut. In return for all the traffic, have Amazon serve the site for free. Then the only money needed is for the salaries of the full-time staff, which the book sales would cover.
 
Since there aren't ads everywhere, you can even continue asking for donations with a straight face.

Re:Yo, Jimmy, I've got an idea:

[TrisexualPuppy]

Exactly. Most people just hate the incessant nagging that goes on with these "Personal Appeal" behemoth banners that have nothing to do with an appeal. Be straightforward and forthcoming, and just ask for the money.

As commonplace as Wikipedia has become, I think that the Web could use less of it. I am tired of seeing the Wikipedia article as the first result on every search. This isn't good for the diversity of information sources in general if everyone is reading from one source and few have a motivating factor to create independent pages or sites on the topics anymore.

Re:Yo, Jimmy, I've got an idea:

[buchner.johannes]

Wikipedia is not collecting money for Wikipedia. Wikipedia has enough money.
Wikimedia is collecting money to build up Wikipedia's sister projects and get funding for 3rd world education projects (e.g. free books). But since Wikipedia is the most prominent project, they go from this angle.

Maybe Wikipedia having ads would be the 'internet way'. But the 'internet way' is also shitty websites. And all the projects with 'paid writers' or 'experts' have failed compared to Wikipedia. So better be independent, and (roughly) continue the way its done now.

Of course, I agree with your criticism. I would even be ok with a regular (e.g. every 3 years) database reset that deletes the discussion pages and user (privileges).