[Foundation-l] LA Times article / Advertising in Wikipedia

Tue Mar 11 19:30:28 UTC 2008

Nathan wrote:
> People get upset at any significant change. That isn't really a good reason
> to not make significant changes - the increased ability of the foundation to
> raise its profile in ways that cost money will, I imagine, offset potential
> lost contributors. I would sincerely hope that a considered decision made
> for the benefit of the Foundation would not cause many people to quit in
> frustration. After all - what good is it to make the worlds information free
> and accessible for everyone, if you can only do it for 10 or so years before
> the funding strategy bottoms out? It should be "permanently free and
> accessible" - and that takes money.
>   
Well, it isn't only a hypothetical---the last time anyone even *raised* 
the issue of adding advertisements, the Spanish Wikipedia forked, with 
many of the contributors leaving for a university-sponsored "we 
guarantee we'll never have ads" version, Encyclopedia Libre. It's now 
mostly back on track, but that fiasco seems to have set its progress 
back significantly---it took about two years from the fork for the 
Spanish Wikipedia to catch back up to Encyclopedia Libre in article count.

-Mark