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Should Wikipedia Take The Money?
from the penny-wise-pound-foolish dept
My friend Jerry Brito thinks that Wikipedia should stop begging its users for money and should start selling ads instead. I'm not sure I agree. Part of the genius of Wikipedia's design is that its editing process self-selects for people who are passionate about designing a great encyclopedia. It has to, because if you don't find editing Wikipedia enjoyable, there isn't much else to draw you in. As a result, the senior Wikipedia editors tend to be strongly focused on making Wikipedia the best encyclopedia it can be, and while politics certainly happens, it's a relatively minor aspect of the site's operations. People either learn to get along with one another or leave the site in frustration. One beneficial consequence of Wikipedia's current structure is that it doesn't matter very much who captures the most senior leadership positions on the site, because all you win is the opportunity to review hundreds of editing disputes among other contributors.
If Wikipedia began selling ads, it would generate millions of dollars almost overnight. Suddenly, it would matter a lot who held the top leadership positions in the organization. Being a member of the Wikipedia board would no longer be a thankless exercise in public service, but would be a relatively glamorous opportunity to direct hundreds of thousands of dollars to one's pet causes. Over time, the senior leadership positions would be sought out by people who are more excited about doling out largesse than editing an encyclopedia. And indeed, in the long run, it's not hard to imagine the senior management of Wikipedia coming to view Wikipedia as a cash cow rather than a public trust. Having hired a large staff and set up various programs, Wikipedia executives would be increasingly reluctant to make decisions that would improve the encyclopedia but might reduce ad revenue. And that, in turn, could gradually antagonize rank-and-file Wikipedians, who might resent having their labors generating millions of dollars to be spent by a self-perpetuating elite that may or may not represent their own interests and values.
Wikipedia's value as a public resource vastly outweighs the advertising revenue the site might generate. It would be penny-wise and pound-foolish to jeopardize the site's decentralized, voluntarist spirit by injecting large sums of money into the equation. The "tin-cup approach" may be irritating, but it has the cardinal virtue of keeping the site's leadership firmly anchored to the interests of its most avid users. Jerry cites Craigslist and Mozilla as examples of nonprofits that have avoided the path of corruption, but I think there are important distinctions to be drawn. Craigslist does not depend on the goodwill of hundreds of thousands of volunteers, and it's run by an unusually public-spirited founder. As for Mozilla, I think it's too early to tell whether Mozilla's millions will have pernicious effects on the organization's long-term health. So far I've been skeptical of charges that the Mozilla-Google relationship is corrupting, but the relationship is only a few years old. There's still plenty of time for things to go wrong.
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More Pragmatically
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African Elephants
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Public Funding?
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Craigslist Correction, And Other Thoughts
It's an easy mistake to make — they still use .org ("It symbolizes the relatively uncommercial nature of craigslist, as well as our service mission and non-corporate culture") and there is the separate Craigslist Foundation founded by Mr. Newmark.
With respect to the premise of the post, there's many shades of gray between "no ads" and "more ads than the Sunday paper", such as:
Admittedly, there will be a strong temptation to wrench open the spigot more, to hire more staff and do more things. That's a question of discipline of the Wikimedia Foundation board members (note: not necessarily the same folk as the Wikipedia editors).
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Extra cash...
The software behind Wikipedia (MediaWiki) has the same opportunity to become a revolutionary environment for collaboration, far beyond it currently is.
Of course, we cannot put ads in wikipedia, and bring in lots of money, without changing its administrative structures and rules, but this does not implies that wikipedia should not decide for ad support, or that this decision, automatically, would bring corruption.
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Re: Craigslist Correction, And Other Thoughts
And yes, there are a variety of ways they could limit ad revenue. But I think the temptation to turn the spigot all the way on would be overwhelming. If a little bit of money is good, isn't a lot better? The only way to avoid going down that path is to not start on it.
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Should WMF Take The Money?
There is no such thing as "the Wikipedia board", perhaps you are thinking of the Wikimedia Foundation - and it certainly has no difficulty in sucking up money, whether sucker donations as now, or advertizing revenue in the future.
"Wikipedia's value as a public resource vastly outweighs the advertising revenue the site might generate."
As much value as a freebie RPG.
Lothar
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Re: African Elephants
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If they make good money, then excellent. They can hire full time researchers, fact checkers, and developers to improve the product. If they loose non-profit status, then so be it.
Otherwise, Wikipedia will go the way of other idealist concepts such as communism, communes, etc. A failed experiment that collapsed under the weight of reality.
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Craigslist doens't depend on volunteers?
I think this should be re-thought, since 99% of the activity on craigslist is non-transactional. (e.g. think of every posting as if it were a Wiki edit).
That's a little rough but I hope you see my point.
I think Mike Murphy's suggestions are great. Also:
TIPJOY
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Wikipedia is an information cabal
Google controls the 90% of search results, and more and more Wikpedia is one of the top 5 results for virtually - everything.
Meanwhile, only 6% of Wikipedia users contribute, and a tiny cabal decides what contributions stick.
We have already seen major sites like Digg.com become completely gamed, and the cracks are starting to show in Wikipedia editorial integrity also.
Personally I would love to see Wikipedia and Google just fail and dissapear to 20-30 competitors.
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for instance walmart could buy a section near the bottom that is clearly marked as being from walmart, for adding their 'word' to the article without conflicts of interest.
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Re: African Elephants
Elephants gestation period is longer than a year and there is fair wait in between children. At most, given a -% mortality rate during that time, the population could have doubled (give birth right at the beginning of the two years and then again at the end).
:P
cue the "The More You Know" star
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Huh
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wikipedia one of the best provider information
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wikipedia one of the best provider information
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Re: Huh
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Re: Re: African Elephants
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maybe restructure?
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WIKIPEDIA
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A well-formed non-profit chooses where its money g
Hell, if they'd really be netting millions per day, they could afford to beef up WikiNews to a level at which it competes with Lexis-Nexus in the same way that WikiPedia competes with Encyclopedia Britannica. Of course, that might hurt smaller secondary news sources like techdirt...
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wikipedia
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