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

Tue Mar 11 22:27:16 UTC 2008

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Given what the aim of the Foundation and its projects is, it is likely a
>lot easier to get a clue what is helpful to the people we do it all for.

This is perhaps the crux of the biscuit, and why I forwarded the links Erik
posted on wmfcc-l. The mere mention of advertising prompted a spike in
donations where in amongst the average-sized donations there were several
people prepared to put $100+ in the pot to get their couple dozen or so
words objecting to advertising up. The donate link is not that obvious, but
people found and made use of it when the business section of a newspaper
implied the Foundation might have to go that route. Without crunching the
figures, I would say the LA Times article netted the Foundation an
additional $3,000 - $4,000 in donations over 2 days when no fundraiser was
running. My conclusion from that would be that the lack of advertising is a
point in any project's favour and our audience takes it as a good reason to
extend trust to us.

As may be inferred from my postings I am opposed to use of advertising if it
can at all be avoided. Vehemently so were it to be featured in actual
articles. I can stomach it on the search pages, but like most people I will
not be clicking the links - I want the Wikipedia article, and I want the
Wikipedia article sans advertising. I genuinely believe the lack of
advertising is such a major point in the favour of Wikipedia and sister
sites that its introduction would go far beyond alienating a vocal portion
of the contributor base; it would extend into a loss of faith among those
who purely refer to Wikipedia and call into question the neutrality of the
projects.

Brian McNeil