[WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

Sun Jan 1 21:17:25 UTC 2006

 "Daniel Mayer" wrote

> And to continue writing that encyclopedia we need to keep our financial 
> house in order. Numbers
> are farily important in that regard. Let't not forget that. :)

Actually we need to do cost-benefit analysis before making _any_ major 
change.  Not just count the money.

It's the road-building argument all over again (familiar in the UK, 
doubtless less so in the USA).  Traffic congestion: if you automatically 
fight it by building roads, you just get more cars.  Since all the server 
bandwith gets used up over a timescale of a few months, there is no 
'solution'.  Until, as I say, some indication of saturation is there.  Then 
one could indeed speak of a 'house in order'.  The site is not mature, as of 
2006 Jan 1.

I would argue that editors are _less_ deterred by the slowness than casual 
users.  Don't get me wrong: when it's fast I can do large numbers of quick 
minor edits, when it's slow 'just' research stuff and get it posted somehow. 
So, slowness (I say) differentially discourages people who are coming to WP 
via a search engine, and who have no patience with a wait.  They go and look 
at a mirror, maybe.  Not such a bad solution.  History shows they aren't 
lost forever.

Therefore ... be very careful about offending the editing community (a few 
thousand, Jimbo says).  Geese and golden eggs.

Charles 