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Wikipedia Meets $16M Budget Goal
netbuzz writes "Thanks to some 630,000 individual contributions that averaged $22 apiece, Wikipedia has reached its fundraising goal of $16 million, founder Jimmy Wales announced over the weekend. Writes Wales, '... this year is a little more incredible than most because this year we celebrate Wikipedia's tenth anniversary. It's so important that we kick the year off just like this: by fully funding the Wikimedia Foundation's budget to support Wikipedia and all the sister projects as we head into the next decade of our work together.' The online encyclopedia now boasts of being the Internet's fifth largest site, which renews questioning by some as to whether it can afford over the long haul to stand by its policy of refusing advertising."
I think we are increasingly moving toward a model where people will subscribe to sources of information/entertainment if they don't want to see the ads, or they will get a free version that includes ads (and possibly presents other limitations in format or content).
Wouldn't surprise me to see Wikipedia go this way.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
You're not supposed to cite Wikipedia!
...I'd be fine with advertising on Wikipedia, so long as it's the silent, non-flyover non-flash on-topic kind. Actually, Google Adwords would go perfectly on there...it would remain unobtrusive, stay topical, and provide some income.
Living With a Nerd
Is begging for donations every year really a viable model for one of the most popular websites in the world?
That begging campaign got so annoying that I haven't been to wikipedia in the last two months. I don't think I'll go back either, so consider that my contribution -- an infinitesimal decrease in server load and bandwidth required to keep the site running.
Wouldn't surprise me to see Wikipedia go this way.
This is fine reasoning, even the opinion article linked to advocates this. But there is an important issue that needs to be addressed first and that is how ads are handled for each particular page. Google's highest bidder model is what I am most afraid of. These don't even have to be selling advertisements. For example if I went to the page on Anti-lock Braking Systems I would suspect automakers would pay large amounts of money to be the ad banner for that page with the simple statement of '<highest bidding automaker> provides the #1 ABS with a safety rating surpassing all others.'
... if not for no one else than at least to a high degree for me.
And, though insanely lucrative, a part of me fears that this would really disrupt or even destroy the concept of a peer reviewed encyclopedia. When I edit a page and look at it, I don't want to see some banner ad with lies or half-truths at the top of it and you know as well as I that that is exactly what advertising degrades to. The problem is that online advertising has become so savvy that these pages would specifically be targeted en mass by manufacturers and bid on through whoever provides the advertising for Wikipedia. And I will make the statement that giving them the ability to put advertising would be severely detrimental to the integrity for Wikipedia
My work here is dung.
renews questioning by some
Well, from the looks of it, it seems to have only re-invoked the same old perpetual whining. I know January 3rd is a slow news day, but seriously, again with the generic, unsubstantiated argument?
Why not use something like this site, if you support the site, you can disable the ads.?
Actually, if you have been a registered member for long enough, you get this option anyway.
As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising.
I hope that means I won't have to see Jimbo's creepy face any more.
TFA says:
More than 500,000 donations averaging $22 apiece were made to the Wikimedia Foundation, while local Wikipedia chapters generated another 130,000 gifts worldwide.
The summary is incorrect.
so, because they begged, you are not going to wikipedia. before, you had no issues using the communal resource everyone came together and created, for FREE. however, when they asked you to give a hand for the costs, you have suddenly got irritated.
maybe its good that you are contributing to the effort, by not going.
Read radical news here
i have used wikipedia to great extent. only witless morons who are not able to notice citation and references the articles are constructed from, talk blabberscrap about wikipedia.
Read radical news here
Mostly donated by journalists :-)
Wikipedia, too big to fail!!!
don't be a spelling loser
630,000 individual contributions that averaged $22
630,000*22=13,860,000
13,860,000 is less than 16,000,000
?!
^^^ Bad understanding of averages
^^^ bad understanding of well-established vernacular.
OP is correct if 'average' is taken to refer to arithmatic mean, which it (almost always) does. The major exception, unsurprisingly, seems to be when dealing with passive-aggressive aspies (aka wikipedians).
I always thought this was self-destructive behavior on Slashdot's part.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
You brave anonymous coward.
So why don't they do an Opt In ad system? I use wikipedia a lot, and I'm willing to see ads on it. Unlike other sites, Wikipedia can make the ad section blatantly obvious, so to distinguish between ads and content. You'd still have advertisers falling over themselves to advertise there.
Allowing the users to enable ads would be a nice way to supplement my $30 donation.
An important change for education.
(ducks)
Obligatory just-to-try-set-the-record-straight (as the summary perpetuates the common myth) Jimmy Wales isn't "the" founder of Wikipedia, he didn't come up with the idea for Wikipedia, didn't agree with the idea initially and had to be convinced, didn't come up with the name, didn't build the initial software, and didn't create the first Wikipedia community. Most of the credit for all of the above goes to co-founder Larry Sanger; in the beginning Wales acknowledged this but he has since been attempting to rewrite history by going around marketing himself as "the founder" of Wikipedia. He is at very best "co-founder".
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/001424.html
I just believe strongly in credit where credit is due, and in not taking credit for other people's work.
I'm going to assume your "biG" is a Google reference.
So you're saying that Google, a company that makes almost every penny of its income in the form of advertising revenue, should buy Wikipedia and offer it as a free service to everyone, denying themselves the only possible reason they'd ever want to buy it?
Don't get me wrong, having Google support Wikipedia is a great idea given their drive and desire to make information available to all (Google Maps/Earth, Google Books, etc), but there would have to be ads.
If Google did it, it would probably be AdWords, so it wouldn't be terribly intrusive and the ads would be useful, but there would be ads. And google-analytics, which wouldn't be even less desirable.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Correct understanding of averages, actually.
Disk space is cheap.
That banner ad wasn't just annoying - it was a rather large image, and it changed often enough that it wasn't always in cache. Given that, I suspect the ad itself was responsible for quite a bit of server load - possibly more than it brought in. I also doubt the ad was that effective. It could even have been counter-productive - "Jimmy is watching you" photoshops are now a minor meme, and not the kind an advertising agency wants to create.
So, we have an ad that was (for a non-profit) somewhat expensive, and was not (in my estimation) particularly effective. I would like to see some more in-depth analysis of that ad's cost-effectiveness, or lack thereof.
I would have donated, but apparently I'm not notable enough, and so my donation was speedily deleted.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Just for the sake of argument.. how does the debate even matter?
To see a comment like "The ads got so annoying..." Really? Your life is so complete, viewing a plea to support a resource makes using the resource itself not worthwhile? This is the decline of civilization, the Wal-Martification of society, and the stratification that will always ensure a knowledge gap.
Thought exercise...
An average of $22 to bypass refinance your home, cosmetics, celebrity gossip, and entertainment ads... $22 that does not support industries which contribute nothing to the world more than an ability to kill a few minutes of your life and allocate some of your income, but rather directly supports dissemination of knowledge in a way earlier periods of civilization would have KILLED for. (for realz) Kinda Fight Club, but very true how absolutely fruitless most of our endeavors are.. Sports? Movies? Cosmetics? Convenience foods? Follow the money, how do any of these pursuits lead to any degree of honestly enriching a life?
Not that there would ever be enough inertia anywhere in society to make intelligent decisions that lead to responsible politics, energy efficient transportation, tolerance, reasonable healthcare....
IDK, to hear "those Jimmy Wales ads are so annoying i stopped using Wikipedia"... on behalf of thousands of monks whose life work was copying documentation in hopes to spread or preserve knowledge, as well as millions of peasants who struggled to keep their kids healthy or give them a broader view of the world, i just wanna say y'all can poke fun, but get some goddamned perspective and stop being worthless douchebags
Wikipedia might be a good candidate for opt in advertising. Leave ads out by default, but give us the option of indirectly paying for usage. Who knows, opt in ads on Wikipedia might even be able to generate more revenue per view than most places.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I have the option to disable the ads but I don't mind the one or two ads when it helps support this site and judging by other's comments here I'm not alone in this.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I always thought this was self-destructive behavior on Slashdot's part.
I can't speak for others but just the fact that I was given the option to block ads at the site level is enough for me to allow them. I feel that little checkbox is a sign of respect from this site and since I'm too cheap to pay to be a subscriber, I show my respect by leaving the ads in place.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Well there are probably a lot of casual readers who aren't even registered who don't get this option.. It makes sense to reward those with decent karma with an opt-out, they do contribute an essential part of slashdot..
I've always left the ads on for Slashdot, mostly because Slashdot's ads aren't annoying.
Now, for sites like Slate, or CNN, I use Adblock quite regularly, mostly because they love the FMV-With-Blasting-Audio ads and the "hey look it's a giant fucking flash video covering the article up, now hunt for the close icon that we camouflaged somewhere vaguely near one of the four corners to get it to fucking go away" ads.
Maybe I'm too old or daft; Does anyone remember when you could get encyclopedias in *book* form?
What would happen if wikipedia sold liveDVD sets? I'm thinking a cdrom to boot (think "toram") with firefox and appropriate index; then a set of DVDs that you swap in to search for whatever. Hell, I'd pay to install the datasets on a 500GB hard drive.
Is this feasable?
WHA-aat?! The summary is incorrect, say it ain't so.
To the point being made, it appears the person summarizing the article tried to state the donation information, More than 500,000 donations averaging $22 apiece..., to 630,000 individual contributions that averaged $22. Both statements seem to indicate that there are other contributions. (Individual contribs do not include corporate contribs, do they? And "more than 500,000" could mean 630,000 or 630,000,000 or 500,001.) However, the "more than" statement is easier to read and understand that it was likely a lot more than 500,001.
What they should aim for is to establish a permanent fund to get revenue on the interest, in a manner of Nobel prize. And guys like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet could make a better name for themselves and better contribution to the humanity by permanently funding Wikipedia than by what philantropic projects they fund now.
Who knew that I could just ignore all the pleas and everything would turn out ok.
Now that I know that it works, I will apply it to all my problems throughout my life!
I can't understand the mentality of the story summary.
The news is: the annual fund raiser was a success. It raised more money than ever before, in a shorter time than the previous fund raisers.
How does raising oodles of money without ads make someone wonder if ads will soon be required?
The news story answers this question: No, there is clearly no need for ads.
Ads could even ruin Wikipedia's funding model. Would so many people donate if there were ads and if Wikipedia had a conflict of interest (don't offend the advertisers)?
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
TFA misses the point.
He's used to dealing with companies whose goal is to make money.
The goal of Wikipedia is not to make money.
The goal is to have reliable, objective information, and it's an ongoing effort to do that already.
Advertising will make it worse. If Pepsi-Cola is a major advertiser, will that affect the presence of unflattering material on Pepsi-Cola's page? The experience of advertiser influence on print and broadcasting media is that it will.
Financial analysts made similar recommendations for Craigslist. Craigslist could make more money if they took advertising. But the purpose of Craigslist wasn't to make money. Craig already had money. He wanted to do something cool.
It's like saying, "Your household is operating according to the wrong model. If your wife were to work as an escort, and if you were to sell your children for body parts, you could make a lot more money." But the purpose of your household isn't to maximize your income.
I agree with this, although honestly, if they can continue to make ends meet through donations, I think they should continue to do so until they project that they simply can't. And with good management, continued focus, and more than a little luck, that time may never come. I think they will be okay as long as they don't suddenly go berserk with some sort of flashy, expensive boondoggle project.
There is also my concern that once advertising shows up, a Somebody Else's Problem field might pop-up around Wikimedia, and contributors may start to assume that the ads are now paying the bills and that they don't need to contribute monetarily any more.
If they went with any ad-supported model, they would have to make it very clear that the ad is not part of the article, nor does the ad's information suggest that it is of the same quality as the article. I won't even call some of the crap that goes in Internet advertising a half-truth, a lot of it is just plain lies and deception. There is no place for such advertising to be supporting a project where people go to get facts, let alone present the possibility for such ads to be seen on the same page as that content.
Having said that, an opt-in system with respectable advertisements may make it easier for lazy, busy, or poor people to donate by doing some clicking. I use Wikipedia alone enough to not want to begrudge them a huge potential source of income if it will actually improve the site and the viewers are willing to tolerate it by their own choice.
When I read some articles off the beaten path about certain companies and products, they do read like they are copied verbatim from a company's literature about itself. Which is probably exactly what is happening, either because its an easy way to get verbiage for a new article, or because their staff is making the entry. This is one of the more well known drawbacks of the model. Bearing that in mind, advertising may not be able to do any more damage to the factual nature of the content as the authors themselves might be doing anyway. At least ads will have something marking off their fiction from the reputedly factual portion of the page.
The point is that some people just can't accept that a successfull site can be run without ads. So they use every single event to push their idea EVEN if the event disproves it. See climate change denialist. Hottest year, coldest winter but everything is just fine...
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wikipedia can make the ad section blatantly obvious, so to distinguish between ads and content.
I think you missed eldavojohn's point. The fear is that the ads will inevitably leak into the content -- that is, not only will you have the "blatantly obvious" ads on some separate section of the page, you'll also have content rewritten to push products. And this fear is quite justified. Any time you take money from someone, you have aligned your interests with theirs. We /.ers love to complain, with good reason, about the "Senator from Disney" and the blatant corporate spin in the mass media, and it's easy enough to see why this happens: campaign contributions and advertising money set the agenda. There's no particular reason to assume Wikipedia would be immune to this sort of corruption.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I remember reading a Slashdot comment last year suggesting that even placing something as small as a Google Ad on the frontpage would be enough to generate the year's worth of revenue. Because Wikipedia is so popular, might it not be sustainable to introduce ads with a free opt-out? Nobody who doesn't want to see ads is exposed to them, and those that don't opt out, whatever minority they are, could sustain the site.
Hulu now has game-show ads that take 3 and 8 clicks to get rid of even by the shortcut. Hey, why not just write a college term paper to "deserve" to bypass that single ad impression?
"Write a 15 page essay describing why you either agree or disagree with the ad's presented viewpoint. Show your work and citations."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Good point.
I could think of a few ways to combat that, non-contextual ads, or corporate sponsors, but both of those would come with their own pitfalls too. Although corporate sponsors has worked to a certain degree for NPR, they might not be the right thing for Wikipedia.
Anyway, they made their goal with donations, so maybe the argument is moot.
An important change for education.
It already is. Jason Scott has done some presentations on this.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Where is the breakdown of actual expenses? I understand the mostly-text-only site has a significant bandwidth demand, but other than that, what could they possibly do with $16mm/yr, other than line the pockets of those on "the board"? (It's amazing how many executives and administrators of charitable organizations make six or even seven figures). It smells an awful lot to me like these startups that get $10mm in VC for a website that clearly was (or should have been) written by one guy over a couple of weekends and could live handily on a couple servers for a few hundred in bandwidth/colo costs per month. But they need the other $9.999mm to cover the expenses of unnecessary office space, aeron chairs, etc.
As for advertising on the site? Isn't there anything on the fucking internet that we can just have without ads? Even every fucking dipshit mother with a blog and one regular reader spams their page with ads and tries to monetize it. Doesn't anyone have some self-respect? Or a sense of doing something because it's enjoyable to do something that contributes to the world?
If there are actual justifiable expenses as astronomical as they're claiming, then do what you have to do to meet the expenses (though, frankly, when you have advertisers, you are now beholden to pleasing THEM and not your visitors, which means it is in your best interest to censor or sponsor things according to the demands of your advertisers above all else).
Mostly, I don't really give a fuck. Wikipedia has largely lost most of its value to a cluster-fuck of navel-gazing.
OR they used a different definition of average.
Maybe you should read the Wikipedia article about averages.
--Obyron
I don't mind slashdots ads either. I don't disable them, but I don't see them either because I do not allow doubleclick to run cross site scripting. If more sites served good old fashioned jpeg banners, I would not mind seeing them. But more and more sites are turning to js and flash to launch ads.
If Wikipedia were a peer reviewed encyclopedia, that would be a valid fear. But it isn't. Never has been.
Wikipedia started as a community review encyclopedia that anyone could edit - regardless of their actual expertise. That kinda worked for a while, but now that model has been replaced by Wikipedia The Role Playing Game where to goal is to accumulate points and status and defend one's turf from those who would dare to edit your sterling prose.
Actually, if you have been a registered member for long enough, you get this option anyway.
Yep, and I click the chekbox to enable the ads again to still support the site, and I would think it would be alright with an ad at the bottom or top of every page on wikipedia too.. it's not like it wil be less awful than the one with wales, and I don't see how that would be a worse thing than the companies editing the pages "anonymously" anyway.
if a lot of the new donors confused Wikpedia for Wikileaks (or thought they are synonymous).
I won't have to see Mr Fuckface on every page anymore... (he became Mr Fuckface after dissing wikileaks)
...by over-the-top, intrusive, nagging fundraising by Wikipedia. Yes, of course I know how to click the "close" box. Yes, Wikipedia is important to me. Yes, I made a small donation. No, I'm not a marketing or "development" (fund-raising) expert. Yes, the Wikimedia Foundation can do what it thinks best.
I'm just saying I was really annoyed, and this is the first time I've found it annoying.
What next? Pictures looking down at adorable impoverished third world toddler girls staring up into the camera with big sad Walter Keane eyes? "Little Furfelette is starving for knowledge. Her only reference book is a 1982 World Almanac. You can give her new hope. Or you can click the 'close' box and break her little heart. Which will it be?"
The Wikimedia Foundation can do what it thinks best, but I don't have to like it. And I don't.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
get back under your bridge
WÌÌfÍ--ÍSÌÒÍ...Í...ÌHÌÍfÍÍÍ--ÍÍÍ
> Possibly because Wikipedia used obtrusive ads to raise money this time.
There's a difference. Wikipedia has to get money from somewhere. The question is, should it be dependent on its readers for funding, or dependent on companies that buy ad space?
Whoever it chooses, Wikipedia has to please its funders. I'm glad they continue to choose to please their readers.
What effects would there be on the content and policies if Wikipedia had to please the buyers of ad space? How much poo flinging and how many conspiracy theories would spring up about the content and policies? Frankly, dependency on buyers of ad space would ruin Wikipedia.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Oh come on... That's a harmless fun discussion that hurts no-one. If anything, I think it's a good thing, it makes people more close to each other and more likely to want to continue the contributions. Did you never joke around at work? Or are you one of those robots that go in, work for 8hours straight and leave without any socializing?
ics
A personal appeal from the outlaw Josey Wales.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I refuse to believe, that "advertising" pays for all of "this" *points around the room, at the skyline, at my car, street, schools and a history book*.
Why does Wikipedia need 16 MILLION United States Dollars? I have a server up and running, it doesn't cost 16 million dollars. Ok, so it's not the fastest server, so an expensive internet connection. Expensive hardware yadda yadda yadda. I know it's not "cheap" by personal standards, but 16 million dollars is a helluva lot of money. Why does a "free" site need 16 million dollars?
Any how, advertisers can go to hell. I don't care how, when, where or what advertisers say. I don't want, a single advertisement, anywhere, ever while I peruse Wikipedia. NEVER EVER! Of course, unless, in the special event, perhaps by accident, that a banner advertising Coca-Cola is caught in the background of a photo of some Athlete, or perhaps I'm on the wiki-page for "advertisement" and it's showing me a picture of an actual example of quick lies, half truths etc. Or perhaps the article points to histories, such as cocaine usage in consumer products in the past and present, showing advertisements of various periods of history of coca-based products.
But, a real, intentional advertisement? Never. Why does Wikipedia need 16 million dollars for what essentially means a nice internet connection and some stable hardware? Why if they succumb to "advertisement" revenue that they'll all of a sudden be free and clear of financial woes? They are a free site! Who the hell is paying that much money for Advertisement? Why are companies allowed to Advertise, why are they compelled to spend so much money on advertisement to begin with? Apparently, so much money is dumped into Advertisement, that it can "fund" the world. If only, a company took that money and dumped into their Research & Development department, or their Quality Assurance department. If only...
That's what I felt up until last week when WoW ads started crawling all over the page. I don't know if they are still running them, as I disabled advertising when I saw them.
I just run with Flash disabled in my primary browser. If I really want to look at something, I can fire up IE and get all of my security holes at once.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
He said he quit visiting Wikipedia due to its begging campaign, and that he quit contributing to Wikipedia because of Wikipedia's editors.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I think Wikipedia is large enough that they could dictate terms regarding what sorts of ads they'll run. The Flash-laden, abusive crap you find on some sites probably wouldn't be allowed since it would destroy the user experience. The inline ads would also be destructive to Wikipedia's content, so those are right out. I think simple text- or image-based ads at the top of each page would be acceptable, and they'd have to be for legitimate products and services. I realize there are gray areas as to what's "legitimate," but for most things it's fairly apparent and I suspect Wikipedia would err on the side of caution when vetting what ads to run.
I agree that they shouldn't run ads unless they have to, though.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Some people have commented on having opt-out adds... while that would be a good option I think it might be a better idea to have people opt-in. I see a problem with ads in Wikipedia because, as other have said, a large amount of internet users would probably read a Wikipedia article and believe everything on it. Some probably wouldn't be able to discern when an ad starts and stops. This leads to someone reading an ad thinking its part of the article and now they think that "Tirezone is the #1 best store everywhere" is an outright fact instead of some advertisers lie. Opt in solves this, because by enabling ads, the person will be aware that there are ads, and people who are likely to just believe anything because "the internet said so." are less likely to enable opt-in ads. I also think people would be willing to opt-in to ads more easily than they would be willing to donate money.
...or I'm too lazy to check the box.
Why does it take that much to produce a mostly text based web site?
Answer: It doesn't but certain people need paid, to live in San Francisco and act important.
No, the chose to believe that subset of their readers/editors who believe that accepting advertising is the path to DOOM DOOMITY DOOM!!11!1! It's not clear at all how large a subset of the total that constitutes.
There doesn't seem to be any effect on NPR or National Geographic (to name just two.) As with 'Wikipedia readers' you make the mistake of confusing 'big media' with 'all media'.
Who cares? There's already poo flinging and conspiracy theories about who edits the content and creates the policies.
An opinion stated as if it were a fact.
Oh so very true.
Have you guys ever tried to edit an article that's watched by an obsessive-compulsive volunteer? They will automatically revert any edits you make, no matter how much consensus has been reached, no matter how many references you add, and no matter how many good faith attempts you make to amicably resolve the situation. Some people truly do believe that they own articles that they've started (or, in some cases, contributed to or have an obsession with).
This is most often seen in Asperger-friendly articles, like science fiction TV shows, fantasy novels, role-playing games, and cult movies. Go ahead. Just try to edit that Buffy the Vampire Slayer related page. I dare you. You'll be sorry...
I don't know that it even has to be that nefarious. Just having marketing BS right next to the article could subconsciously shift authors who have otherwise noble and unbiased intent.
I wouldn't mind ads as long as they were irrelevant and pure black and white text with no formatting. If someone wants a very discreet "T-Mobile. Buy one Android phone, get another free." "Big Macs - 99c" ad while I'm reading about east african horned swallows by all means.
What bothers me though about Wikipedia is that they're subsidizing their more expensive and less popular enterprises on the back of Wikipedia's good will. I would happily look at ads or pay 1c a year for the actual costs of Wikipedia. I'm not so keen on spending $1 so that kids in Africa can have free text books.
The story that seems to have been missed is Wikipedia's 10th anniversary, fast approaching on Saturday 15 January 2011. See http://ten.wikipedia.org/ for details of celebrations near you; or, please organise one yourself.
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
Indeed, I just re-enabled ads a few weeks ago, & currently have the Nexus S ad in a tab. I'll continue looking at the gallery & specs in a minute.
As far as I can tell, I was given the option when I got my first (5, insightful) moderation. Similar circumstances eventually brought me the karma-bonus modifier. Far from self-destructive, I see it as a self-preserving behavior: No one will come to the site (and view the ads) if all the conversation is rubbish. This affirms those who make "positive contributions", and encourages them to continue coming to the site and elevating the level of discourse.
Ads on /. are relatively unobtrusive, and as with other favored sites, I will occasionally click on ads just to let the "sponsors" know there is a warm body out there, & that the site is worth continued support. This seems like a no-brainer: Money has to come from somewhere.
I've had dealings now with the moderators on wikipedia now and I can be certain that I won't ever be donating to the site, period.
See more information here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1913212&threshold=4&commentsort=3&mode=nested&cid=34574530
I am aware that my "assertion" was not backed by evidence. That is, in fact, why I posted - I was searching for additional data with which to draw a conclusion.
Any advertising agency worth a cent would have conducted exit polls and other research to determine the effectiveness of the ad. If Wikipedia contracted to someone to do the ad, they're almost certain to have some statistics on the subject. However, if they did it in-house (quite likely), they may not have done so.
because i didn't even know there were ads until i closed firefox to try out chrome... adblockers will mess up this business model.
i think you're not understanding the meaning of "donation" as opposed to "loan".
should you maybe give conservapedia a try to find a wiki for you that has not gone downhill?
those books aren't free. they cost $1.
i'd rather wikipedia throw textbooks at poverty than some organisation like World Vision throw bibles at it.
5th largest site in the world.
i use it maybe twice a day, usually reading 2-3 articles each visit.
multiply that by it's entire user base.
figure out how many servers you need to drive that.
its a good thing that when the apocalypse comes we wont need to be able to quote buffy to survive. ... unless whedon has anything to do with the apocalypse.
Yes, of course I know how to click the "close" box.
So do I, but the damn thing just keeps coming back, and that is really annoying. I've already said "no", what the hell do you want from me now?
What's worse is that it keeps coming for those who have just donated, too - again and again. Which is beyond annoying and into downright rude. I know of at least one person who is now sorry that they have donated for this drive solely because of that.
Editable ads!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
It seems that some wise compromise is necessary for the case. Perhaps a mixture of very conservative model of advertising with some micropayment system like Flattr. This will solve two problems - make donating easier and diversify income sources. The more so as the Flattr users are already willing to pay for Wikipedia - https://flattr.com/wishlist
Wikipedia can make the ad section blatantly obvious, so to distinguish between ads and content.
I think you missed eldavojohn's point. The fear is that the ads will inevitably leak into the content -- that is, not only will you have the "blatantly obvious" ads on some separate section of the page, you'll also have content rewritten to push products. And this fear is quite justified.
What if Wikipedia implimented a system when users could decide on some pages that they feel are 'complete' and will not change, and lock them so no more editing can be done. Then only have adverts (that are clearly separated from content) on these locked pages? This would obviously only work for certain topics; for example an event that has happened in the past that it is unlikely that any new information could be added to it.