[Wikipedia-l] Re: [associates at amazon.com: Amazon.comAssociate sprogram - your application approved]
b schewek
schewek at linuxmail.org
Wed Jan 21 16:36:42 UTC 2004
----- Original Message -----
From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 07:55:00 -0800
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [associates at amazon.com: Amazon.comAssociatesprogram - your application approved]
> b schewek wrote:
> > There has not been one reason given so far why WP should link to
> > booksellers in the first place.
>
> Well, that's a conversation that we've had more than once, see.
Sorry, that was before my time.
If you could point me to those arguments.
(Those might render my further remarks obsolete.)
> It's clearly useful to many readers. It's not evil to buy books.
> It's not even evil to sell books.
>
> Let's say we have an article about Stephen King (we do). And an
> article about one of his books (we do). Why should we not link to a
> page that lets people know how they can do more research by actually
> obtaining the book? The user might want to buy it, or borrow it from
> a library, or read reviews of it, etc.
>
> I've seen arguments that I respect (though I'm ultimately unconvinced)
> as to why we should not link to Amazon in particular. But I've seen
> no argument to suggest that linking to booksellers _generally_ is a
> bad thing. Why should it be?
> I suppose some might argue that any form of voluntary exchange, money
> for books, is immoral. But, I'd like to see it.
I never suggested it would be bad in and by itself to engage in trade,
to link to booksellers or to promote reading or...
I just question if it is *within the WP-idea* to link to people or organizations selling the item itself.
Many things are useful to people.
But WP's purpose is to be useful in a specific way,
and one would have to argue that pointing to a
book (or whatever) seller enhances this usefulness.
>
> Just for the record, after nearly 24 hours with the link on the book
> sources page, sales and revenue to us are $0.00. It's a bit early to
> tell, but I think it's fairly clear that this (linking for money) is
> going to be a complete nonissue anyway.
Well, if there is no revenue
it means there was no use
which means we can remove the link. (Just kidding.)
-- Schewek
--
______________________________________________
Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org
This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox.
Powered by Outblaze
More information about the Wikipedia-l
mailing list