[WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

Sat Dec 31 21:27:07 UTC 2005

I recall having made this comment on a talk page somewhere but anyway :)

Personally I find wikipedia 'strange' in not having ads. I'm not sure I
can think of any other site on the web with a similar popularity without
ads. Even microsoft.com has ads for Microsoft products. All newspaper
sites do, slashdot does etc etc. So the precedent is certainly there.

I agree with the idea of the subscription fee if you can't stand even
discreet Google Adsense type ads.  But instead of $30 a year, why not
$5?  At the moment we charge nothing, so isn't charging *anything*
better?  And any relatively active user is probably going to generate $5
worth of Adsense ads anyway, isn't he?  I don't know what percentage of
users donate currently, but it's probably very low.  Even assuming that
all these people drastically reduce their contributions in reaction to
the introduction of ads, you'd probably be a long way ahead.

I know that there are many ideologies at play in the Wikipedia world,
like "free" information, unrestrained contribution (even by anonymous
users), GFDL licensing etc - but I don't see a logical connection from
there to the provision of an ad-free service. In any case, I as a user
would be more than happy to put up with a few ads (or a low yearly fee)
to be rid of server strain, and the feeling of using a service running
on a shoestring.

Steve

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org 
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Josh Gordon
> Sent: Saturday, 31th December 2005 8:34 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?
> 
> 
> Perhaps the best solution would be like the one Salon, 
> Weather Underground, and many other sites use: pay a 
> subscription fee (say, $29.95 a year) or see (and probably 
> ignore) the ads. That way we'd have our choice of how to 
> personally support Wikipedia.
> 
> jpgordon
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: 
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wik> ien-l
> 