On 10/25/07, William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> wrote:
Even if you can resist that influence, getting a lot
of your money from
one source inevitably forces people to at least think a little harder
about any action that might disrupt the flow. Accepting Jason's
$100m/year number for the sake of argument, that means a rogue or clumsy
admin who breaks the ads would cost us $11k per hour. If we end up
violating Google's Terms of Service somehow, they could suspend us,
costing us $273,927 per day. And deciding to shut off ads permanently
would presumably mean firing a lot of people.
Well, there is so much money that could be generated as we've seen
with Mozilla (i.e. $50-150M a year) you would have so much money in
the bank that you would be subservient to NO ONE. If Google gives
Mozilla a hard time they can walk away and never raise money again...
they could simply live off the interest.
So, while I agree with you in concept, the reality is that this level
of funding would be akin to an endowment that would make Wikipedia
sustainable and independent FOR ALL TIME!
Wouldn't that be an amazing thing?
But suppose we could keep that from becoming a sort of
subservience.
Suppose we believe in our hearts that we'll quit the money (and fire the
people) at the first hint of us compromising an article. Those kinds of
numbers still create a pretty big conflict of interest. And a conflict
of interest isn't a problem just because of what you do, but because
people now have to be more suspicious of you.
In terms of the COI I can't see that happening as the advertising in
Google is assigned by... well... machines. Those people buying the ads
don't even know what sites the ads are going on! So, the COI would
only exist in the eyes of the users and I think it would be a stretch
to think that some randomized/rotating Google ads--the same ones they
see all over the web--would make folks think there is a conflict.
Now, if they did see it as a conflict you could make all advertising
displayed on Wikipedia 100% optin. If someone turns the ads on
themselves they made the decision and the COI can't really exist can
it?
Also, you could rotate the advertising between Yahoo, Google, and MSN
and that would place another layer of distance.
All this being said, I respect people who want to protect the project
so much. It's that relentless obsession with the issues that makes
Wikipedia great. However, I might point out that the Wikipedia has a
bigger conflict of interest right now if it is funded by a small
number of donors--especially ones that are anonymous except to the
insiders--
That's a COI of epic, star chamber proportions I think.... what if it
comes out that Jimbo got Bono to put in $1M and Bono works for a VC
firm that is funding wikia... :-)
I mean, you could really go X-Files level conspiracy level on this stuff.
best j
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Jason McCabe Calacanis
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