[WikiEN-l] Re: Google ads

Wed Jul 14 20:53:32 UTC 2004

Sheldon Rampton schrieb:

> I think we're talking about more than "a few cents from Google ads."

I was talking about revenues from the suggested opt-in ads, sorry if that wasn't 
clear.

> Of all the advertising I've seen on the web, the Google ads are the most 
> tasteful and least intrusive.

I can second that. If we want ads, then we should use Google for that.

> As for the value of the ability to tell journalists that Wikipedia is 
> completely free of advertising, what value is that exactly?

It's mostly about credibility. They don't have to ask me "is there really no one 
in the background making money with the site?" and "do the ads really not 
influence what people write on Wikipedia?". There are no ads - it's that easy at 
the moment.

And of course a new visitor would ask the same questions. Lesser people will 
write articles or donate money with every bit of credibility we loose. There 
will be "clean" forks the very next day after the implementation of ads.

It might be worth it in the future, the sums Jimbo is talking about are really 
tempting because you could do so much good with them. But I'm very sceptic. It's 
good that we don't have to decide on this in the near future.

> As far as credibility with journalists is concerned, the issues are:
> [...]

You're right, I guess, but this is less about hard facts but more about the 
spirit in the community (of authors and readers). The project *will* change 
significantly with the introduction of ads, and if you sum up all the effects 
and new possibilities I don't know if it's more for the good or the bad.

Kurt

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