Comments on: Why Wikipedia asks for donation, when they can give donations?

By: mayank

mayank — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:13:18 +0000

Well, its for those writers to understand that their work is helping the world and is considered as donation from their side.

By: Ivan Tolmachev

Ivan Tolmachev — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:22:11 +0000

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.

By: Mayank

Mayank — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:34:09 +0000

I'm glad that atleast there is someone who agrees to my thoughts Thanks for your support buddy.

By: Mayank

Mayank — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:32:55 +0000

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.

By: Mayank

Mayank — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:14:37 +0000

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

By: Quyen Nguyen

Quyen Nguyen — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 15:55:19 +0000

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.

By: fas

fas — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:59:35 +0000

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.

By: David Gerard

David Gerard — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:44:27 +0000

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.

By: mayank3825

mayank3825 — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:44:43 +0000

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.

By: mayank3825

mayank3825 — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:23:48 +0000

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?