Wikipedia Almost Reaches $6 Million Target 412
An anonymous reader noted a story discussing the aftermath of the Wikipedia fundraiser and says "The writer suggests that Wikipedia can earn $50-100 million a month by a simple text ad. He also suggests that contributors should be financially rewarded and that the lack of financial reward is the reason why 98.3% of registered Wikipedia users are inactive.
What do you think? Should Wikimedia Foundation put ads on Wikipedia? Should contributors be financially rewarded? What compensation structure would be best?" Personally I think the independence of Wikipedia is great, and any advertising would not only compromise that integrity, but give contributors a sense of entitlement that the site is better off without.
Public Traded... (Score:3, Informative)
I would say no but not for that Lame reason the author mentioned. Wikipedia is a not for profit organization (NPO), the real difference between a NPO and a For Profit Organization (FPO) oddly enough isn't profit NPO reason for being a NPO because they just account it as Excess Revenue, then treat it internally like profit. But the Excess Revenue for a NPO should go to focus on its mission. So you have excess revenue well put the money in the bank and use it for a dry spell, or to help expand Wikipedia. But giving the Profit back to the "Share Holders" makes it a for profit organization. Once they do that they will loose all their NPO advantages, as well the subconscious ones. You are not going to donate $5 - $50 dollars of a for profit organization, who makes enough to pay the people and keep operating efficiency. You are not donating to Wikipedia if you expect a monetary return form you investment. Within time you will get some investors who are so heavily invested in Wikipedia that Wikipedia will need to take strong considerations of their interests.
But for things like adds effecting the content. I doubt it... Most internet adds go threw companies ie Double Click / Google.... And bitting the hand that feeds them doesn't normally get them in to much trouble especially with public generated content. If Wikipedia was a Blog or had some ways of tightly controlling its content I would say advertisements could effect the service. However the danger is not by adds but paying the investors, who can change the direction of Wikipedia Corp. To do what will maximize profit.
Re:Doesn't really matter what *WE* think, does it? (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that a lot of good articles are getting deleted at the moment due to "not being notable enough" prevented me from giving them a penny
I don't suppose you're doing something about this, like for instance dropping by WP:AFD and commenting on discussions of articles you don't think should be deleted? Or commenting on the discussion pages of WP:N and the other notability guidelines that you think they should be more relaxed?
If a critical mass of users started doing this (and I see more than enough pissed off people _outside_ of the site to achieve this) then we could change the situation. As it is, I only see myself and one or two others. Plus the people who only seem to care about one or two articles. We need people committed to the cause of keeping all these articles.
"begging for money" (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's not a business model. It's a way of keeping up a non-profit website.
You see, most people think ads are the easy way out of a financial situation that could well be improved.
They're not. These are the reasons why ads suck:
1. Ads suck for the reader. If a user visits Wikipedia, he wants information, not ads. Ads distract the user from what he wants (granted, big banners asking for donations kind of do the same, even though they suck less)
2. The "customer" of Wikipedia has always been the reader. With ads, it's the advertisement partners. Readers would be just a means to an end.
3. Ads are one-way. Once you introduce ads, you depend on them. No one will donate money (Wikipedia can just put on more ads when they are in need of money, right?) anymore, and your structure will expand to a more expensive one. You can't just say "oops, ads were a bad idea, let's switch back to donations".
4. Isn't it great that in a world, where everyone just tries to maximize his own profit, there are projects that solely finance themselves though generous donations from people from all over the world? I really think this is great.
5. Editors will demand money. After all, with ads there is enough money to pay them a bit. And if you do that, people will just try to find ways to maximize their payment with minimal efforts (Spelling-error-fixing bots, test edits, etc.). The money gets more important than the content.
6. Editors will be really pissed. In 2002, there were rumors that Wikipedia would possibly run ads, and the result was that this false rumor made most of the Spanish Wikipedians leave and participate in an fork of Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. Imagine what would happen, if Wikipedia really ran ads. In think most editors would leave, perhaps even starting a new non-profit, ad-free fork of Wikipedia.
There are more reasons, but I think this is enough to make clear that even though not excluded ultimately, ads should be avoided if possible. And the way I am seeing it, we manage to finance ourself quite ok atm. Disclaimer: Of course, such a statement is dangerous. It doesn't mean that Wikipedia has enough money, it doesn't. It has enough money to finance the servers as they are. But that doesn't mean that additional money wouldn't be useful. With more money, we* can buy faster servers and hire developers that improve the software. So please, DO donate. (*I am a Wikipedian as well and yes, I contribute both via edits and donations)
Re:$6mil a damn fortune (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to see how they spend their money, go here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Questions/en#How_is_the_revenue_spent.3F [wikimediafoundation.org]
There's even an PDF of their 07-08 financial there with projections for the 08-09 FY.
Yes, $6mill could provide alot of clean drinking water.. but did you ever think that maybe information provided to those same people might enable them to provide themselves with drinking water? Wikipedia won't make you an expert in a topic, but it can definitely get you thinking about it.. it's a decent tool for getting a feel for the problems/solutions/etc on a topic of which you are unfamiliar... now we just need to provide useful/accessibility to impoverished persons so they can enable themselves.
Re:Doesn't really matter what *WE* think, does it? (Score:5, Informative)
I've browsed a number of talk pages and any disputes over policy come down to a single person's complaint and a bunch of WP regulars pounding on him/her for being wrong.
Exactly. I put up what I thought was the good fight, but it came down to me versus a regular, so I lost by default. My interest in repeating the process is nil, especially since I'm powerless to have any real say in the end result.
Re:Doesn't really matter what *WE* think, does it? (Score:2, Informative)
just like slashdot