[Foundation-l] Advertisement and service at the same time

Sun Mar 23 02:11:22 UTC 2008

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 3:58 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  There's been a recurring debate in the library world about how to
>  handle this exact question in library catalogs. When you pull up a
>  book in your local library catalog (or on worldcat etc) it seems
>  helpful for the reader to also provide a link to a commercial site to
>  buy the book if they wish, or to get more information. (This is a
>  "service" the way Florence refers to it). The ideal and obvious thing
>  is to direct them to the publisher's site, but this is not always
>  possible, especially for older materials. So there's a big question
>  about a) *whether* to send patrons to commercial sites, and b) *where*
>  to send them -- since the library, as a non-profit NPOV institution,
>  generally does not want to *endorse* any particular reseller. As a
>  library, we have no stake in Amazon versus Powells (a large
>  independent bookseller in the U.S.) versus Blackwells versus your
>  corner bookshop etc., and we don't especially want to endorse one over
>  the other.
>
>  It seems to me that Wikimedia is in exactly the same position. Let's
>  not forget, from the point of view of Amazon a direct and easy link to
>  Amazon from Wikipedia would be an *amazing* windfall, a simultaneous
>  endorsement and direct channel of people to purchase materials (and
>  because of Amazon's nasty habit of retaining your browsing habits if
>  you're a customer, they might well even know *which* wikipedia
>  articles with amazon ads you'd been browsing, and be able to use that
>  information). Other booksellers, however, would be disenfranchised
>  simply because they don't have the reach or the money to pay for ads
>  the way Amazon does. And what if we don't think Amazon is a good
>  company, or don't want to support them, or simply want to avoid
>  entangling ourselves with any commercial service?
>
>  -- phoebe
>

Compare Citizendium's approach:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Donate#Other_ways_that_you_can_help

Through "affiliate programs", Citizendium gets 6% of the price for
purchases that come via CZ traffic to Amazon or Barnes&Noble.  They
have a much simpler ISBN interface than Wikipedia:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Special%3ABooksources&isbn=0596515162

One way to get some benefit from this type of thing without much
compromise: instead of ISBN links going to convoluted catchall pages
like on en-wiki, the link goes to a page with a choice.  Do you want
to find this book in a library or other free source, or do you want to
buy or browse for it on a commercial site.  Then the "buy it" link
goes to a page with the full list of vendors (like on the current
page) of new and used books, but near the top it informs users that
they can help support WMF by using one of the vendors that has an
affiliate program.

I think the potential for backlash with something like this is very
small.  There is a distinction between advertising and referral, and
it would be a situation where we have complete control of the context
of the links.  And I see no problem with favoring one vendor over
another if it is done in a transparent way that makes the financial
aspect of it clear to the user.  This is much less intrusive than the
types of non-advertisement advertisements done by nonprofit radio and
television.  (And of course, many users will be very happy to
patronize one company over another if they can help Wikipedia by doing
so.)

-Sage (User:Ragesoss)