[WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

Mon Jan 2 01:03:51 UTC 2006

On 1/1/06, BJörn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a very strong connection between adlessness and credibility.
> Adfree stuff appears to me as much more reputable and trustworthy than
> other media riddled with ads. I believe that that is one of the
> reasons for Wikipedia's success. If Wikipedia had ads, there would be
> absolutely no reason for me, as a reader, to use Wikipedia instead of
> any other random site.

I think this is false on a number of levels.

1. Adlessness and credibility have no real correlation. CNN has ads,
BBC does not. This is not what determines their credibility,
neutrality, or reliability. Most sites run by cranks and nuts do not
have ads; most sites providing reliable content do have ads.
Advertising generally indicates a need for commercial overhead,
something most mainstream outlets require at some point. Exceptions on
both points can be found, of course. At the very least there is no
correlation between credibility and adlessness; at most one could make
an argument that most internet sites deemed "credible" include
advertising.

Now the more complicated correlation would be between things in the
same "genre" as Wikipedia. Unfortunately for our case that is rather
hard to do -- there are not many free encyclopedias out there with the
sort of success of WP, and most non-free encyclopedia-like-resources
are either provided as a pay service (and require no advertising),
advertising, or both (i.e. http://m-w.com has both a free and premium
area, the former has advertising).

2. What other "random site" would you use that did the same thing as
Wikipedia? The pickings are pretty slim in my opinion. I think the
emotion you mean to express is one more along the lines of "Without
advertising, I feel I am contributing to a real common good," or,
inversely, "A site with advertising does not contribute to the common
good."

Now I don't think this sentiment is completely misplaced. Advertising
has the whiff of big capitalism about it, usually on a model of
individual profit. Why help someone profit if your work is volunteer?
The instinct is sensible but in this case I think misplaced. The money
would not be used to line Jimbo's pockets, it would be to buy servers
and further the great collective experiment. The encyclopedia would
still be "free" in the basic sense -- freely licensed -- and I don't
think it would be much affected in the alternative sense -- users
would be "charged" with some of their attention but that's about it.

Now I address this in particular not because I think it is some sort
of error which needs to be snuffed out (and certainly not to be
hostile to you Björn!) but more because I think it is the sentiment at
the heart of this argument and it needs to be taken seriously, because
it is what a large number of users who use Wikipedia are going to
think if they see ads on the site (let's not deceive ourselves about
who our primary editor demographics are -- computer literate,
left-leaning, U.S. and European 20-40 somethings, likely middle class
and with a bit too much higher education). I think their unconscious
is going to say, "Hoo boy, somebody is trying to make a buck off of my
labor here." And that's the sort of sentiment which COULD have major
effects, because I do think the "working on humanity's greatest
achievement" ethos is a major motivator to people on this sort of
project.

Any advertising/sponsorship solution would have to take that very
seriously and proceed very carefully, at the risk of alienating the
user base, which is the real reason that Wikipedia succeeds and will
succeed. Servers are important, but they wouldn't be necessary if we
didn't have the support of thousands of people who could surely find
other ways to spend their time if it came to it.

FF