I know this post is pretty off-topic, however I couldn’t control myself from posting on this blog and thought that it’ll be certainly a nice topic of discussion on Blog Design Studio. Couple of days back, I went to a small trip to Shirdi Temple, Ajanta & Ellora Caves and I was stunned to see the wonderful work of art at both the caves. While, I was busy exploring the beauty of the caves, my not so techie friend started the conversation around WikiPedia and started praising that how WikiPedia is helping the world by giving a platform to share the knowledge with the world for free! Although, being a non-techie he was wondering that how do they run the service when they don’t have any business model around it.
I thought that it was my responsibility to inform him that WikiPedia takes donations from the users every year and even put the donation bar on the top, to attract donations and while I was telling him about this, something struck my mind – Why the hell, they are even asking for donations, when they can give donations?
WikiPedia is without a doubt, one of the top 10 visited websites in the world and if they start putting ads on it (non-obtrusive or the ones that don’t ruin the reader’s experience) then I’m sure they’ll make enough revenue to support themselves. Well, honestly they’ll make enough revenue that they’ll be able to donate it to various organizations that are supporting various causes in under-developed countries.
This is one question that has been troubling me from couple of days and I’m wondering if anyone had that idea come in their mind or not. I understand that WikiPedia’s idea is to provide all the information for free and they are not in favor of making money out of the service; well, I’m not even saying them to keep that money, just donate the generated revenue after they are able to support them and they won’t even have to ask for donations.
What are your thoughts on the same? Should WikiPedia ask for donations or should they donate money by making revenue?
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It is not an easy question to answer – there is a lot of ideology about free information within the main contributors – so putting up ads will send them away. My suggestion is let them use the donation model as long as it works.
Hey binny, thanks for stopping by – Well, I understand that most of the people are inclined towards the same idea. I\\'m just wondering that what\\'s the harm in trying it for once or may be do a market survey or polls to find out that what exactly the world thinks about the same. If the results are in favor of ads then I\\'m sure there should be no reason to not to have them. What say? Although all of this is possible if Jimmy or someone from management is reading this conversation or had given a thought about it at any time.
While a lot of contributors have no objection to ads (I don't, for instance), a remarkable percentage do. To the point where, if ads went up on Wikipedia, a lot of the people who write it would just get up and *leave*. So for the moment the ad option is off the table.
Hey David, Thanks for dropping by. I understand the part that lot of contributors have objection with ads, however that\\'s where the management\\'s role comes in. I believe that if the message is made clear to all the contributors with proper marketing and PR channels then contributors will understand that its not about making money from WIkipedia however, the money will be used just to help various not-for-profit organizations with funds and thus it will only help the whole world and I don\\'t think any one will mind that and even if some contributors mind that, I think they should be left behind for greater good. It may sound rude at first, however I\\'m sure that world will understand or accept it once they\\'ll see the good happening around.
What do you think?
When it was suggested in 2003, almost the entire Spanish Wikipedia community just got up and *left*, to form Enciclopedia Libre. It took years to recover from the schism. So WMF is understandably shy about the idea!
There's other considerations like conflict of interest with advertising on an editable site, how it looks to readers (a site that popular that doesn't have ads is very reassuring to the readers) and so on.
So for the moment I think the idea is off the table, unless it becomes critical to survival. So far it hasn't been. Cross fingers.
I think its a win win situation if they have ads, this way they can better the service and help the needy. Good thought there Mayank.
I'm glad that atleast there is someone who agrees to my thoughts
Thanks for your support buddy.
I do not mind the ads. However, wikipedia was excellent at keeping its reputation as a clean and somewhat reliable encyclopedia. I would understand why they wish to maintain that status. Putting ads on an encyclopedia somewhat decrease they credibility of the site.
Secondly, wikipedia is a) an online encyclopedia, and b) non-profit. I understand that everyone wants to do some good, but with the business module wikipedia is having, giving money away is senselss (because it can improve its site with the money instead) and unnessary (why take the risk of losing users just to make some give-away money?). Also, doing charity was not part of wikipedia function, giving money only loses the focus of the business (do one thing at a time and do it well, that's good enough).
Lastly, when it involves money, things get messy, who determines where the money goes to whom/where/what and why? users? (they pratically build the site!), staff? (then which one of the staff? are we gonna have a little charity department?), will the advetisers have a say in that? (hope not)
Just some thoughts. Cheers.
Thanks a lot for dropping by and hope to see ya around.
I agree that when money is involved this tend to get messy. However, the management can keep it this way that the money that is generated will be used to pay hosting bills, office expenses and similar stuff or basically keeping the money that they decide to raise through donations and all extra that gets generated can be donated to the needy NGOs.
I doubt that advertisers will mind anything as Google adsense is contextual, so they'll get relevant traffic.. that they'll not mind.
Hmm, you are going back in those days when I was not that much active and didn't know about this particular incident. Apart from that, don't you think that its been now 6 yrs and that Wikipedia has grown as much larger community and that I think there will be no harm in trying to ask the community through polls and through various blogs to see that how they'll react, just a proposal. What say?
May be you guys can raise this
The whole idea is that if wikipedia staff will get paid for putting up ads than those who’re not on staff but are writing articles will ask for a cut and the chain will go on and on. Donation is something differen.
Well, its for those writers to understand that their work is helping the world and is considered as donation from their side.