Should Wikipedia Sell Advertising? 317
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."
Prepare yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
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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 [wikinews.org]?
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. St
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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
I've got a better idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've got a better idea (Score:5, Interesting)
While I had the same joke come to mind, I think the idea has serious merit.
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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:Prepare yourself (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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
Re:Prepare yourself (Score:5, Informative)
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Planned_Spending_Distribution_2007-2008 [wikimediafoundation.org]
Not sure what happened to the 2006 one.
obviously they should sell advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impartiality [wikipedia.org]
Google is good (Score:3)
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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 rap
Re:Google is good (Score:4, Informative)
And Google Ads hardly gives Google control over your servers.
Re:obviously they should sell advertising (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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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
Link to ads on separate page (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:obviously they should sell advertising (Score:5, Funny)
Look. Our little liberal is growing up and becoming a conservative....
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Re:obviously they should sell advertising (Score:4, Insightful)
Won't people stop with the stupid advertising nonsense already? Not everything is about money!
actually, every human endeavour IS about money (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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But when someone gives you money for advertising on a project like Wikipedia, they basically want something for that money. Now it would be nice to say that they only want their ad on the project. But it won't work like that. They'll most likely want editorial control also.
Then you have the problem with what happens with all that money. The WMF could make a lot of money out of ads. Bu
maximize all the money you can make (Score:2)
cronyism? nepotism? greed?
do you honestly think purposefully impoverishing yourself will protect you from this?
money is not a prerequisite for such failures of character
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And no, you can't keep out nepotism and cronyism by just restricting ads. However, the more the money floating about, the higher the risk of it occuring.
I notice that you still haven't covered my other point: undue and unwanted influence by advertisers on content.
You can model it that way, sure (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Paying the bills is about money (Score:2)
Everything has a cost, and in this case, there is money to be paid. Someone pays that. Would you rather it was a few large patrons who would have corresponding leverage? Google text ads are unobtrusive and could easily be limited to one page in ten or whatever percentage is needed to pay the bills, and then no one has any leverage over funding.
I'd like to know what your alternative is for paying the bills. Either patrons with their own agenda or a few text ads with no lever
Re:obviously they should sell advertising (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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It's the opposite (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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No it's not that cut and dry in the way that you state. There is another way. If they got their funding through the Wikipedia foundation, then the income from their investments should be able to keep it running.
As it is, I don't think they are going to do this. It sounds like much of the board may be trying to make Wikipedia into a for-profi
Why don't we do their advertising? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Let's say FUBAR Widgets decides to buy a sponsored article. On the Wikipedia article, there would then be a link that
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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.
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you view its strength as its weakness (Score:3, Insightful)
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 noth
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Agenda or no agenda, it's clear when you read poorly written and researched information on wikipedia, and it's clear when it's well written and researched.
The GP was just saying that advertisements will drive down the number of well written and researched submissio
what do you sell (Score:4, Funny)
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Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Let's do something special again... (Score:5, Funny)
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Who better to make the ads than the customers?
Not only if, but HOW (Score:3, Insightful)
My sympathy is limited (Score:5, Interesting)
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Secondly because SFPD would be very hesitant about helping anybody raid their offices, there would be protests, the black mask group, etc.
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Re:My sympathy is limited (Score:5, Informative)
If it comes down to it (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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They should, begging for money is no business mode (Score:5, Interesting)
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),
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.
Re:They should, begging for money is no business m (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Mozilla Foundation isn't a business either. (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Impartiality and AdSense (Score:2)
The obvious way to monetise Wikipedia is to use Google AdSense or a similar technology. In the case of AdSense, Google chooses that ads and not the editor, so in effect the ads are kept at arms length. And if, having read the encyclopedia article, a visitor chooses to click on an ad, then at least they should
Should Wikipedia Sell Advertising? (Score:2)
If it does start selling ads, there needs to be a replacement. And I don't mean Uncyclopedia.
perhaps a little advertising (Score:2)
No issue here (Score:2)
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This weeks TWIT talked about this as well (Score:2)
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And if Jimmy Wales is as immoral as Calacanis depicted him, I fear for the future of Wikipedia.
Seriously, Yes. (Score:2)
There are many ways Wikipedia can add advertising without adding banners or having any of the advertising interfere with the content.
And being able to successfully generate revenue would mean a better Wikipedia if the people who run it wish to invest in improving what they have.
The main problem though is the advertisers editing content. This is already
Well ..... (Score:3, Interesting)
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 ..... (Score:5, Funny)
> 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 ..... (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:5, Interesting)
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... (Score:4, Interesting)
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
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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A nice idea, except that if the sponsor gets something in return (eg a mention on the front page), then I don't think it counts as a donation anymore, it's a paid advertisement.
But even if you discount the tax-free side of th
Just use YPN or AdSense (Score:4, Insightful)
The solution is easy (Score:2)
But seriously, those of you say money corrupts, they already have quite a bit of money going through with contributions.
They could certainly make the ads opt in. Pages and/or Users.
Keep an eye on the money! (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikimediafoundation.org]. 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 [mozilla.org]. 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?
Better Ways Without Crapping It Up (Score:3, Interesting)
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" [wikipedia.org], 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.
Idiocracy... (Score:2)
Redesign ... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Well, of course they shouldn't, but more to the... (Score:2)
I'm starting to read articles on a severe upcoming advertising crunch during the recession. So it will be like they sold themselves out and then the switzer only paid $5 bucks.
yes; the mirrors do (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm okay with unobtrusive advertising. (Score:2)
Go ahead. (Score:2)
Infrastructure costs money and people are obviously more willing to part with their knowledge than their bucks.
hmmmm (Score:2)
I think they'd get more donors if... (Score:2)
2. They quit deleting articles because they aren't encyclopedic enough. The value that wikipedia provides is largely based on being able to provide a lot of information on things that don't have enough "encyclopedic value" for a traditional encyclopedia. This isn't just true for the obscure sci-fi stuff. Even deta
Paid Links in Key Articles (Score:2)
Sure, why not? (Score:2)
Well, that's the article answered. What now?
It'll happen. Just when... (Score:2)
I just hope that they aren't annoying ads. People around he
Should cancer patients take cynaide pills? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Make it distributed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oooh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how no one is harassing Coyboy Neil for not running Slashdot like Mother Theresa.
Re:Oooh. (Score:5, Interesting)
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one of the three men in the world
Editing typo. I'd written "three richest" and then realized that was needlessly specific, so I went to delete "three"... got the wrong word, and didn't notice. Some days I hate being dyslexic :-/
PS: Even more annoying that when you post a mistake, Slashdot won't let you edit OR post an immediate correction. Slashdot used to be the most useful forum / talkback system in the world, but the times have changed and other than CSS features, it hasn't....
Re:Oooh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Go for Google ads, I say! Just one block across the top, where their donation banner usually sits. I see no harm in it.