[WikiEN-l] Re: Selling books to increase funding

Mon May 10 00:40:44 UTC 2004

Bod NotBod wrote:
> Basically I wanted to present an idea for increasing Wikipedia's funding 
> by encouraging people to place more book references at the end of articles.
> 
> I understand that there was a controversy about Amazon in the past, but 
> according to...
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Book_sources
> 
> ...Wikipedia earns a commission on people who purchase through...
> 
> http://www.priceowl.com/?site=wikipedia

Many of us only accepted the existence of Amazon's kickbacks because it 
wouldn't change our editorial policy. I would certainly be more inclined 
to terminate the Amazon agreement than to encourage readers to buy books.

If you think we need more books for informational purposes, write that 
on the proposed policy and to-do pages. There's no need to mention the 
funding issue.

-- Tim Starling