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.
1 cent per search (Score:3, Interesting)
I think they should ask users to pay 1 cent per search.
Not demand that they pay it, but simply ask them to.
Track the # of searches for registered users and display it in the corner somewhere.
Re:Doesn't really matter what *WE* think, does it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would be happy to have EVERYTHING advertiser-free (including the street full of annoying billboards near my house,
If you live in california, you might just be in luck. There was a recent article in the LA Times (I think, I ran across it in google news) about just how poorly billboard codes are enforced and how a bunch of regular citizens have had to take up the slack to get illegal billboards taken down. So it may well be that some of those annoying billboards really are illegal and all it takes is bitching loud enough to get them removed.
Or, you could move to Hawaii where no billboards are allowed anywhere.
The outlaw Jimmy Whales (Score:5, Interesting)
I can understand the idea that by accepting advertising dollars, you somehow compromise your journalistic integrity.
NPR (I am pretty right wing, but NPR is the only non-braindead radio in my area) does a good job of what is called a firewall [findarticles.com] whereby editorial teams are separated from funding decisions and funding teams are not included in editorial decisions.
It's pretty reasonable that Wikimedia could do the same thing. I know, not having ads separates wikipedia from the rest of the icky for-profit websites out there...but as another /. poster pointed out: begging for money all the time isn't a business model.
Let's set some ground rules (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Keep them simple: no flashy "shoot the monkey and win $10,000" kind of ads.
2. Make them context sensitive but not insensitive: No porn ads on "Erectile disfuction" articles.
3. Try to use the ads for the common good: focus on open and innovative initiatives
4. Make some sort of mechanism for users to rate the ads (other than by (not)clicking on them)
Any more ideas on the subject?
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let's set some ground rules (Score:3, Interesting)
Very similar to how Public Broadcast System in the US used to work.
ie: "Sunkist Raisins proudly supports PBS programming and the development of young minds through proper nutrition"
Neutral and relevant to the theme of PBS and still gets advert message across.
$6mil a damn fortune (Score:1, Interesting)
in anyones book $6 million is a fortune especially for just one years running costs.
If it really costs that much to run a bunch of servers world wide (..how?) then its about time they looked into some kind of p2p hosting with each page being replicated on 100's of desktops.
$6 million a *year* - just think what you could do to provide clean drinking in Africa with that money
Nonprofits (Score:1, Interesting)
Restrict advertisements to nonprofit organizations?
Please don't pay contributors (Score:3, Interesting)
Ads are ok only if really required (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too many assumptions.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought there could be an opt-in for ads.
People who want to support wikipedia could choose to view it with a couple ads.
Then they could show ads to the people who opted in.
They could even stop showing ads when they have enough money to pay for bandwidth, servers and whatever.
As a result, nobody would be pissed off and since the money stops pouring in when there is too much of it, we reduce the pressure to pay contributors back as the money was only to pay for the operating costs.
NPR for the Web (Score:5, Interesting)
That long end of the "Free Lunch Buffet" is starting to catch up to us.
Anything sufficiently large eventually accumulates overhead costs from vendors who want to be paid.
We're all talking about ads here; Wikipedia recently went more the "Please Donate" NPR route. Other than creating another layer to manage, I'm almost smelling a fork. Maybe there's room for a Wiki variant paid for by ads, but also less strict on notability, etc. It would be known as a more rough&tumble cousin site, but if you liked Original Research blended into articles it could be interesting.
Re:Doesn't really matter what *WE* think, does it? (Score:1, Interesting)
even the Editor In Chief at a newspaper has no say on the ads content.
I'm rather worried about the influence the advertisers have on the editor, then the other way around. Wasn't there a big game company that withdrew its ads from a magazine because their game received a poor rating?
And even if the corporates don't put any pressure directly on the newspaper, knowing from who you just received a multi-million check might influence the editor subconsciously...
I don't want any money for writing articles (Score:2, Interesting)
that defeats the purpose of a free encyclopedia Wiki.
The only reason why I don't edit it often enough is because of the political BS they pull from other editors and admins. Their NPV is really a liberal point of view. I write true neutral point of view and it gets rewritten to the liberal point of view and I am told mine is not NPV because it does not favor the liberal viewpoint. Then my articles get deleted because they are not the liberal point of view.
Wikibooks is the same way, I wrote an article on psychology and philosophy, but I get told that self-hypnosis [webmd.com] can reduce anxiety [healthyrea...herapy.com] and other therapy in psychology is pseudoscience. That trying to think of an imaginary vacation scene is witchcraft and religion and not science at all. Despite me citing reliable sources, my article gets deleted.
That is another thing, reliable sources, if it is not a liberal web site, and more neutral like webmd it is not reliable enough to make the article accurate.
Re:Integrity? (Score:1, Interesting)
When a publisher gets paid by advertisers, those advertisers have tremendous influence over what gets published.
Only when you let them, and only when you have contracts directly with advertisers. Most web ads don't work that way, since you use a clearinghouse (google, etc) to place ads for you. Even sites with direct contracts can maintain integrity by splitting the ads and editorial departments; See any decent newspaper for this model. Just because some websites and magazines fail to do it right (gaming "press", I'm looking at you), it doesn't mean it can't be done right.
Also, if they took TFA's advice and only showed ads some fraction of the time, they would be even more isolated from the loss of any single major advertiser, since they could increase the fraction of times ads are shown. TFAs reasonable assumptions show that Wikipedia could show ads less than 10% of the time. That's a lot of rope to work with.
And then there's the one that they're using, and that is working: asking for donations.
...with a large ugly banner that impacts usability on small screens, and is present 100% of the time. I'd rather have ads.
If Wikipedia did one thing to make users happier to donate or tolerate ads, it would be to further open up their books. It seems that every news item that comes up about Wikipedia's current finances leaves serious unanswered questions. I don't donate to anything unless I can reasonably believe the money is not going to be improperly finance insiders, be used for kickbacks, or wasted with inefficient processes.
Re:Doesn't really matter what *WE* think, does it? (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue there in my experience is the same problem we have with US politics - too many people who care far too much about their own interpretation of the notability policy are in positions of influence. We're talking the kind of people who live on wikipedia the same way some of us live on /. or IRC or WoW or AIM.
It doesn't matter if we're right. What matters to them is we don't agree with them. So they'll stomp on us and shit on us and delete entries anyway, out of spite or some twisted logic that what was originally founded as a public resource is somehow divinely theirs.
The wikipedia editors that push this crap are the internet equivalent of The Religious Right in american politics, and are about as open to reason. The only way to change the situation is to effectively usurp or remove the ruling influence.
Re:Sure do it, if it keeps it free (Score:3, Interesting)
True, however wikipedia has a lot more oversight.
Sort of. Unlike governments, Wikipedia is not even theoretically run by rules. It's run by individuals acting collectively. Sure, they come up with a lot of rules, but one of those rules is "ignore all rules".
I think that's great, as it lets passionate people go get a lot done, and has kept bureaucracy from strangling the site dead, as it did with its predecessor, Nupedia, and as is apparently happening with Citizendium, a competitor launched by one of its founders.
But I think this only works because Wikipedia has exactly one purpose: to make an encyclopedia. Once it has two purposes (adding "support a bunch of full-time staff"), I think the conflicts of interest would, at best, tear it apart.
If wikipedia goes commercial, it will finally die (Score:5, Interesting)
But it may be too late anyway.
In my experience, the Wikipedia community has been deteriorating for some time now. I suspect the percentage of people inactive was lower than 98.3% a year or two ago, but people have been driven away.
Most pages of any significance have a group of people that have appointed themselves overseers, and resist new additions on general principle. Often, they have a collective ideology slant and have chased off everyone who disagrees in any significant way. In this state, the odd person coming along and trying to modify the article against the views of the established mass is shouted down, accused of going against consensus, and chased off. If you took all editors of an article over all time, there would be a completely different consensus than the momentary ones that occur when a single dissenter arrives.
Adding monetary incentives would make this worse. It would make the local tribes more militant and more powerful, finally ending the principle of a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
Wikipedia was an interesting and important social experiment, but I think it is past its peak and is due to decline. I personally believe that history will be more interested in the talk pages and edit logs than the content itself.
Re:Doesn't really matter what *WE* think, does it? (Score:3, Interesting)
No billboards here in Vermont either.
As well, all business signs must be less than 1-story tall. No gas station signs or golden arches on giant towers here.
To make up for the lack of billboards all businesses can get standardized road-sign-sized directional markers just before their turn off the main road. These have the same font as road signs, an arrow, and an optional miniature business logo. I personally find these directional markers very useful for finding and discovering businesses. Its wonderful to have timely and consistent directional information without being constantly bludgeoned with it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't really matter what *WE* think, does it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe that's an indicator that something's wrong [with Slashdot]?
Clarified that for you...
Re:Doesn't really matter what *WE* think, does it? (Score:3, Interesting)
> It doesn't matter if we're right. What matters to them is we
> don't agree with them. So they'll stomp on us and shit on us
> and delete entries anyway, out of spite or some twisted logic
> that what was originally founded as a public resource is
> somehow divinely theirs.
In my opinion, I think you're wrong.
The reason why I think you're wrong is because I see the role of these people is to prevent vandals from deleting the good information that other people have voluntarily put into the Wiki.
Certain topics are so contentious that they get vandalized on a weekly, even daily, basis. If those moderators were not around to guide the construction of the Wiki then it would be a poorer quality repository of information.
Consider them to be the editors, and you the journalist. You make your contributions, and the editors decide where they go, if at all.
Good luck to them in their designated role, and may their decisions be wise ones.
Re:$6mil a damn fortune (Score:2, Interesting)
They got 30 computers donated and then got them set up in Port Moresby. This provides a much cheaper way to provide a library than a normal library. Its also easier to get more modern text books etc.
So this is NOT hypothetical. Its really being done.