Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 7 November 2010 22:42, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Why have advertising anywhere when you can just google for things you want to buy? Consumers don't put advertising anywhere and it is consumers that can just google for things. Advertising is done by companies to attract consumers they wouldn't otherwise get. People who already want to buy from them don't need adverts in order to do that. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 8 November 2010 06:41, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: One reason more why not to depend on ad providers, like Google is: The popular wiki TV Tropes, a site dedicated to the discussion of *cough* That would be the reason I started this thread with ;-p - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 22:17, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 8 November 2010 06:41, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: One reason more why not to depend on ad providers, like Google is: The popular wiki TV Tropes, a site dedicated to the discussion of *cough* That would be the reason I started this thread with ;-p Ah, I see that now :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
Does Wikimedia currently have a financial problem? It does not appear too. So if the funding model is not broken what are we trying to fix / accomplish with advertising? Wikipedia currently gets hundreds of millions of dollars worth of content from its volunteer editors. Many of us would be a little turned off to say the least if ads starting appearing on the pages we were working on. It is not worth risking our contributors if at this point these finances are not needed. BTW it is enough work already keeping advertising off of Wikipedia pages the last thing we should do is legitimize it. I guess one trial would be to start a separate mirror that allows advertising on Wiki content. A few of these already exist. Moving to something more would require unanimous approval of our editing body IMO. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 11:22 PM, James Heilman jmh...@gmail.com wrote: Does Wikimedia currently have a financial problem? It does not appear too. So if the funding model is not broken what are we trying to fix / accomplish with advertising? Wikipedia currently gets hundreds of millions of dollars worth of content from its volunteer editors. Many of us would be a little turned off to say the least if ads starting appearing on the pages we were working on. It is not worth risking our contributors if at this point these finances are not needed. BTW it is enough work already keeping advertising off of Wikipedia pages the last thing we should do is legitimize it. I guess one trial would be to start a separate mirror that allows advertising on Wiki content. A few of these already exist. Moving to something more would require unanimous approval of our editing body IMO. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ An interesting idea would be a standalone static copy of wikipedia that really tried their utmost to make the product visually appealing, and used the generated money from the advertisements purely to fund ever more timely database dumps It would be interesting to see how frequent database dumping could be financed by advertisement on such a site; the synergy should be obvious -- the more money they generate from adverts, the more resources they can devote to making ever more frequent dumps, so the more timely is the content, which will again make therir product more attractive, and so on -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 08/11/2010 18:45, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: An interesting idea would be a standalone static copy of wikipedia that really tried their utmost to make the product visually appealing, and used the generated money from the advertisements purely to fund ever more timely database dumps It would be interesting to see how frequent database dumping could be financed by advertisement on such a site; the synergy should be obvious -- the more money they generate from adverts, the more resources they can devote to making ever more frequent dumps, so the more timely is the content, which will again make therir product more attractive, and so on This is clever. But let me expose the flaw with wikinews: wikinews would thus get a financing for a printable version with ads. Huge success! We then recruit an editorial team of 30 paid people to keep with the production, formatting, checking. But then the we discover that if the news are not to the liking of our advertisers, they punish us. On the contrary, they could reward us. Our editorial team start fearing for their job. They have a wife and two kids to feed. They got used to having a job. They are dependent on money, and now money will start deciding what should be the news. After all, what is the value of a fact? 0. The value of displeasing our sponsors? A big, significant lump of money. So, I think that if there is money to be made, it should be without intermediaries. If we need financing it must be coming directly from the community and controlled and used directly by it. Anything else is injecting corruption. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJM2HKnAAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LLUQH/jnhBYLG+y1c8bMx+2e5Iinl 4I6NEFt2cXKzESq/GPrcLjrJALJ8iHFiJdH5+sQ/51GFR8IaJDaaLeHOqb0lPMAs TBGg6OF7FO4k35/cIwYEEykjUgNk6ztSy6hpY+1D52zZvxcOozYaHkx4QsoTcnac ge3Yx64H2LMX81Qwq5B3+O0/826x6MK6ugol4yjwUOwa7FeVz2PpCBda2dAAZJWN WMmUJ4O1LaF9e+3SzprSMYy+NQAGn7IYJI5VF9RT+EvcsXh/3oqciBLHaitoJcUQ s3c6LxiwMFa+/bYx0K76dVpsW7M8LOL8g4Iu0Sf5Z8u56Rxf+tnwhibyPauujPg= =w7e/ -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
An interesting idea would be a standalone static copy of wikipedia that really tried their utmost to make the product visually appealing, and used the generated money from the advertisements purely to fund ever more timely database dumps It would be interesting to see how frequent database dumping could be financed by advertisement on such a site; the synergy should be obvious -- the more money they generate from adverts, the more resources they can devote to making ever more frequent dumps, so the more timely is the content, which will again make therir product more attractive, and so on -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] Whether this is great idea or not I don't know, but this is the kind of out of the box thinking that is potentially productive. We could produce periodic polished editions. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
C'mon - we've been promising no ads for as long as anyone can remember. People have given their money because of it... On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: An interesting idea would be a standalone static copy of wikipedia that really tried their utmost to make the product visually appealing, and used the generated money from the advertisements purely to fund ever more timely database dumps It would be interesting to see how frequent database dumping could be financed by advertisement on such a site; the synergy should be obvious -- the more money they generate from adverts, the more resources they can devote to making ever more frequent dumps, so the more timely is the content, which will again make therir product more attractive, and so on -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] Whether this is great idea or not I don't know, but this is the kind of out of the box thinking that is potentially productive. We could produce periodic polished editions. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 8:04 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: An interesting idea would be a standalone static copy of wikipedia that really tried their utmost to make the product visually appealing, and used the generated money from the advertisements purely to fund ever more timely database dumps It would be interesting to see how frequent database dumping could be financed by advertisement on such a site; the synergy should be obvious -- the more money they generate from adverts, the more resources they can devote to making ever more frequent dumps, so the more timely is the content, which will again make therir product more attractive, and so on -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] Whether this is great idea or not I don't know, but this is the kind of out of the box thinking that is potentially productive. We could produce periodic polished editions. Not likely to work as long as the regular site is in the search engines, due to the duplicate content penalty. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 7 November 2010 00:34, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 5 November 2010 17:02, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... and compromise content, as TV Tropes found out: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident That's not a problem with adverts. It's merely an incompatibility between Google's policies and the site. If we fell victim to the same policies, we could just choose another advertiser to work with (although, in reality, Google would bend over backwards to get their adverts on our sites and would relax their policies). I'm sure they'd be willing to work out a deal where people can opt-in to Wikipedia ads (which wouldn't be subject to the anti-porn rules). I doubt they'd allow non-opt-in ads on [[tit torture]], though. I'm not convinced opt-in ads would get any significant revenue. Very few people would opt-in and those that do would probably be people that are just doing it to get us money and aren't going to click on the ads, so we wouldn't actually get any money. No, no, no. We sell ads on a page marked advertisements at the top of each article. The ads are tailored to the article and the advertiser bids for the space and pays weekly, monthly, or annually and pays up front. No clicking through to it. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 7 November 2010 00:34, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 5 November 2010 17:02, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... and compromise content, as TV Tropes found out: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident That's not a problem with adverts. It's merely an incompatibility between Google's policies and the site. If we fell victim to the same policies, we could just choose another advertiser to work with (although, in reality, Google would bend over backwards to get their adverts on our sites and would relax their policies). I'm sure they'd be willing to work out a deal where people can opt-in to Wikipedia ads (which wouldn't be subject to the anti-porn rules). I doubt they'd allow non-opt-in ads on [[tit torture]], though. I'm not convinced opt-in ads would get any significant revenue. Very few people would opt-in and those that do would probably be people that are just doing it to get us money and aren't going to click on the ads, so we wouldn't actually get any money. No, no, no. We sell ads on a page marked advertisements at the top of each article. The ads are tailored to the article and the advertiser bids for the space and pays weekly, monthly, or annually and pays up front. No clicking through to it. Fred We use a tab at the top of the article to link to the ad page. No one has to click on it; but if you're looking for buying, or investigating products, you will. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 10:35 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 November 2010 00:34, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: I'm sure they'd be willing to work out a deal where people can opt-in to Wikipedia ads (which wouldn't be subject to the anti-porn rules). I doubt they'd allow non-opt-in ads on [[tit torture]], though. I'm not convinced opt-in ads would get any significant revenue. Very few people would opt-in and those that do would probably be people that are just doing it to get us money and aren't going to click on the ads, so we wouldn't actually get any money. Oh, sorry, I just realized how incredibly confusing I phrased that. What I meant by people can opt-in was that the advertisers could opt-in to allowing their ads to appear on Wikipedia, so that unsuspecting advertisers didn't wind up having their products displayed on an illustrated article about [[tit torture]]. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 7 November 2010 15:50, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: We use a tab at the top of the article to link to the ad page. No one has to click on it; but if you're looking for buying, or investigating products, you will. The click-through rate would be tiny and therefore so would the revenue. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:03 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 November 2010 15:50, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: We use a tab at the top of the article to link to the ad page. No one has to click on it; but if you're looking for buying, or investigating products, you will. The click-through rate would be tiny and therefore so would the revenue. I would think the click-through rate would be above-average. People who want ads are more likely to click on those ads (also less likely to be using ad-blocking software). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 7 November 2010 16:05, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:03 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 November 2010 15:50, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: We use a tab at the top of the article to link to the ad page. No one has to click on it; but if you're looking for buying, or investigating products, you will. The click-through rate would be tiny and therefore so would the revenue. I would think the click-through rate would be above-average. People who want ads are more likely to click on those ads (also less likely to be using ad-blocking software). They won't be people that want ads, though. They'll be people that want ad revenue for us. If they click, they'll be clicking to get us revenue and not actually buying, which advertisers stopped falling for years ago. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 November 2010 16:05, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:03 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 November 2010 15:50, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: We use a tab at the top of the article to link to the ad page. No one has to click on it; but if you're looking for buying, or investigating products, you will. The click-through rate would be tiny and therefore so would the revenue. I would think the click-through rate would be above-average. People who want ads are more likely to click on those ads (also less likely to be using ad-blocking software). They won't be people that want ads, though. They'll be people that want ad revenue for us. If they click, they'll be clicking to get us revenue and not actually buying, which advertisers stopped falling for years ago. 1) Why the huge assumption of bad faith? I don't think you're correct that people would sign up for ads who don't want ads. As you correctly point out, there would actually be no long-term benefit to anyone for doing so. 2) If the payment isn't per click, why would people click through to get us revenue? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 7 November 2010 16:21, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: 1) Why the huge assumption of bad faith? I don't think you're correct that people would sign up for ads who don't want ads. As you correctly point out, there would actually be no long-term benefit to anyone for doing so. 2) If the payment isn't per click, why would people click through to get us revenue? This has nothing to do with good or bad faith. If people are only opting in because they want ads, then there are going to be a very small number of people opting in. Why have ads on Wikipedia pages when you can just google for things you want to buy? If payment *were* by click, then people would abuse it, which is why payment wouldn't be by click and we wouldn't get much money. That was the point I was trying to make. Can you give an example of a site with opt-in advertising that actually gets significant revenue from it (for the number of page views they get)? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: They won't be people that want ads, though. They'll be people that want ad revenue for us. If they click, they'll be clicking to get us revenue and not actually buying, which advertisers stopped falling for years ago. 1) Why the huge assumption of bad faith? I don't think you're correct that people would sign up for ads who don't want ads. Let me amend that. I don't think that the percentage of people who want ads would be lower in an opt-in scenario. Obviously *some* people who don't want ads would sign up for ads. But presumably *most* people who do want ads would also sign up for ads. So the proportion of people who want ads would go up, in my estimation quite dramatically. Of course, this is somewhat dependent on how good the ads are, including both how relevant they are and how well the scammers are screened out. On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:31 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 November 2010 16:21, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: 1) Why the huge assumption of bad faith? I don't think you're correct that people would sign up for ads who don't want ads. As you correctly point out, there would actually be no long-term benefit to anyone for doing so. 2) If the payment isn't per click, why would people click through to get us revenue? This has nothing to do with good or bad faith. Claiming that people are going to scam the system by signing up for (and clicking on) ads for the sole purpose of transferring money from the advertisers to Wikipedia is a huge assumption of bad faith. If people are only opting in because they want ads, then there are going to be a very small number of people opting in. I don't know about that. It depends in large part on how good the ads are (see above). Why have ads on Wikipedia pages when you can just google for things you want to buy? It can save a step. Also, maybe Wikipedia's ads could be better screened than Google's ads. If payment *were* by click, then people would abuse it, which is why payment wouldn't be by click and we wouldn't get much money. That was the point I was trying to make. Right, but your we wouldn't get much money point was just speculation, and I was speculating differently. Can you give an example of a site with opt-in advertising that actually gets significant revenue from it (for the number of page views they get)? I can't think of any site that has opt-in advertising, so no. In any case, as I clarified a few emails above, I never meant to suggest that Wikipedia should have opt-in advertising (*). Clearly more money would be made if the advertising were not opt-in. And clearly any advertising would cause a huge rift in the community. (*) I was simply trying to say that I doubt Google would allow Google ads on unscreened Wikipedia articles unless the advertiser specifically asked for it ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 7 November 2010 16:40, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: They won't be people that want ads, though. They'll be people that want ad revenue for us. If they click, they'll be clicking to get us revenue and not actually buying, which advertisers stopped falling for years ago. 1) Why the huge assumption of bad faith? I don't think you're correct that people would sign up for ads who don't want ads. Let me amend that. I don't think that the percentage of people who want ads would be lower in an opt-in scenario. Obviously *some* people who don't want ads would sign up for ads. But presumably *most* people who do want ads would also sign up for ads. So the proportion of people who want ads would go up, in my estimation quite dramatically. Yes, you are obviously right about that. It would be a high proportion of a very small number, though. People don't click on ads because they go looking for them, they click on ads because they get distracted from what they are doing by the ad and it occurs to them that it might be worth clicking on it. That's why adverts are made to be attention grabbing. Why have ads on Wikipedia pages when you can just google for things you want to buy? It can save a step. Also, maybe Wikipedia's ads could be better screened than Google's ads. Going to Wikipedia seems to be adding a step, not removing one. We can't do any significant screening of ads. We can remove obvious scams and really annoying ads, but anything more than that wouldn't be neutral. If payment *were* by click, then people would abuse it, which is why payment wouldn't be by click and we wouldn't get much money. That was the point I was trying to make. Right, but your we wouldn't get much money point was just speculation, and I was speculating differently. Can you give an example of a site with opt-in advertising that actually gets significant revenue from it (for the number of page views they get)? I can't think of any site that has opt-in advertising, so no. And why do you think that is? Sure, I'm speculating, but the fact that neither of us knows of any site that is actually doing it suggests my speculation is accurate. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 November 2010 16:40, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: It can save a step. Also, maybe Wikipedia's ads could be better screened than Google's ads. Going to Wikipedia seems to be adding a step, not removing one. In some cases. Not all though. Another huge advantage would be that the ads would sometimes be much better targeted, as there would be clarification and disambiguation which doesn't occur in a typical Google search. We can't do any significant screening of ads. We can remove obvious scams and really annoying ads, but anything more than that wouldn't be neutral. How is it neutral to remove obvious scams? I can't think of any site that has opt-in advertising, so no. And why do you think that is? I don't know. I guess mostly because opt-in advertising is pretty much guaranteed to make less money than non-opt-in advertising. Although, who knows, maybe it's just because no one major has ever tried it. Sure, I'm speculating, but the fact that neither of us knows of any site that is actually doing it suggests my speculation is accurate. No, sorry, it doesn't. What it suggests is that opt-in advertising is pretty much guaranteed to make less money than non-opt-in advertising. That wasn't the disagreement. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
One reason more why not to depend on ad providers, like Google is: The popular wiki TV Tropes, a site dedicated to the discussion of various tropes, clichés and other common devices in fiction has suddenly decided to put various of its pages behind a 'possibly family-unsafe' content warning, apparently due to pressure by Google withdrawing its ads. What puzzles me most is the content that is put behind this warning. TV Tropes features no explicit sexual content, and no explicit violence. It does of course discuss these things, as is its remit, but without actual explicit depictions. In fact, something as relatively innocuous as children being raised by two females, whatever the reason are put behind the content warning, even if the page itself doesn't take a stand on the issue, merely satisfying itself by describing the occurence of this in fiction. [1] So, if WMF ever go with ads, it should be its own provider. [1] http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/11/07/2348259/TV-Tropes-Self-Censoring-Under-Google-Pressure?from=rss ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
I don't think I could stand it if we picked up advertising. I hate the way wikia looks, and therefore have an aversion to contributing in any way to its progress. Can you imagine! We actually link to Wikia sites and give them traffic (though I guess that is better than filling up wikibooks and wikipedia with useless junk)! Wikia is like the no good jerk up the street. Imagine us turning to ads after all these years! I am sure it could be a revenue source for some, but we are different, we are better. We create the best family of websites in the world, let's not mar them with ads. You know, wikia should sell itself to the Wikimedia Foundation so that Wikimedia would get the money. Then too, I guess the board members need some way to make money. What actually might be a better idea, would be for wikia to pay the board, since it is a for profit company. Or am I missing the point entirely? I read what that Greg Kohs said about it, and while I agree that it did sound like a conflict of interest, I don't know how much of this is proper or not. Anyway, those are my useless ramblings, so bye. On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 9:39 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 8:18 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvand...@googlemail.com wrote: Hello, Adverts do not make content wrong, but create mistrust. Have a look what Lawrence Lessig tells about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHma3ZQRVoA After the first few minutes it turns into a long drawn out infomercial supporting US campaign finance reform. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
Actually, Wikipedia articles link to a lot of pages that have adverts. So what. :-) Kind regards Ziko 2010/11/6 Arlen Beiler arlen...@gmail.com: I don't think I could stand it if we picked up advertising. I hate the way wikia looks, and therefore have an aversion to contributing in any way to its progress. Can you imagine! We actually link to Wikia sites and give them traffic (though I guess that is better than filling up wikibooks and wikipedia with useless junk)! Wikia is like the no good jerk up the street. Imagine us turning to ads after all these years! I am sure it could be a revenue source for some, but we are different, we are better. We create the best family of websites in the world, let's not mar them with ads. You know, wikia should sell itself to the Wikimedia Foundation so that Wikimedia would get the money. Then too, I guess the board members need some way to make money. What actually might be a better idea, would be for wikia to pay the board, since it is a for profit company. Or am I missing the point entirely? I read what that Greg Kohs said about it, and while I agree that it did sound like a conflict of interest, I don't know how much of this is proper or not. Anyway, those are my useless ramblings, so bye. On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 9:39 PM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 8:18 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvand...@googlemail.com wrote: Hello, Adverts do not make content wrong, but create mistrust. Have a look what Lawrence Lessig tells about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHma3ZQRVoA After the first few minutes it turns into a long drawn out infomercial supporting US campaign finance reform. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Ziko van Dijk Niederlande ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 5 November 2010 17:02, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... and compromise content, as TV Tropes found out: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident That's not a problem with adverts. It's merely an incompatibility between Google's policies and the site. If we fell victim to the same policies, we could just choose another advertiser to work with (although, in reality, Google would bend over backwards to get their adverts on our sites and would relax their policies). That is not the reason why we should have adverts. The reason why is that adverts can create a perception of partiality. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
Whilst I don't support or advocate for Wikimedia projects including advertising, I would like to ask a hypothetical question. Would people's opinions towards ads would be different if google's ads were to be incorporated ONLY on the Search page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search in the whitespace on the right. This is by far the most popular individual page http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikipedia/en/ and ads there would be able to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the term being searched for) and yet without having to sell out our article pages. On the other hand it would mean we could no longer say we have zero ads and it would create a lot of angry Wikimedians (possibly me included) making the slippery slope argument. Like I said, I'm not actually supporting this position, but would like to know if people thought that this would theoretically be a way to gain revenue without losing reputation/independence. -Liam wittylama.com/blog Peace, love metadata ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 6 November 2010 17:07, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: ads there would be able to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the term being searched for) That's a big problem. To use a somewhat clichéd example, we should not be showing adverts for either Coca-cola or Pepsi to people searching for coke. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 6 Nov 2010, at 17:43, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 6 November 2010 17:07, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: ads there would be able to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the term being searched for) That's a big problem. To use a somewhat clichéd example, we should not be showing adverts for either Coca-cola or Pepsi to people searching for coke. Precisely. Having adverts on the search page could have a serious impact on neutral point of view, even if indirectly. Another point of view/consideration: if an article doesn't yet exist on a specific organisation/person, then being able to find its website by the Wikipedia search engine might encourage the creation of an article on that organisation - so people could effectively pay for creating new Wikipedia articles on their organisations. Ideally, WP:NOTE wouldn't let that happen though, so that might even be a good thing. ;-) Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 5:18 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvand...@googlemail.comwrote: Hello, Adverts do not make content wrong, but create mistrust. They also create confusion. Not long ago I lent my computer to a 15 year-old family friend who did not have Internet access at home and who wanted to search online for a Summer job. Watching him, it was clear that he couldn't tell the difference between the ads and the real job listings. He followed many links to scam websites. Our 400 million users include a lot of people like him who are new to the web. Another note on ads: We do actually run ads once a year -- for ourself. If leaving money on the table was something the Wikimedia movement cared about, we could run donation requests all year long. My guess is we'd make at least close to what Google ads would pay. Thankfully, not too many people are worried how much money the table gets to keep. Zack Have a look what Lawrence Lessig tells about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHma3ZQRVoA Kind regards Ziko 2010/11/5 Cool Hand Luke user.coolhandl...@gmail.com: This was manifestly not a fatal idea. In fact, it appears they concluded that *operating on donations *would be fatal. Moral of the story: Wikipedia is different. Considering how much spam we receive, and how long some of it persists, I sometimes wonder if we haven't miscalculated the costs and benefits. For example, WMF could be getting something like $30 per-click on ads in articles like Mesothelioma. Ad money instead goes to enterprising spammers who sometimes succeed in placing their links in high-traffic or high value articles. Frank On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 12:02 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... and compromise content, as TV Tropes found out: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Ziko van Dijk Niederlande ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
Liam Wyatt wrote: Whilst I don't support or advocate for Wikimedia projects including advertising, I would like to ask a hypothetical question. Would people's opinions towards ads would be different if google's ads were to be incorporated ONLY on the Search page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search in the whitespace on the right. This is by far the most popular individual page http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikipedia/en/ and ads there would be able to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the term being searched for) and yet without having to sell out our article pages. On the other hand it would mean we could no longer say we have zero ads and it would create a lot of angry Wikimedians (possibly me included) making the slippery slope argument. Careful there. A lot of people (and scripts) go through Special:Search because it follows links much better. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=mw:MediaWiki works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mw:MediaWiki doesn't work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=wikia:un:UN:N works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikia:un:UN:N doesn't work As far as I'm aware, this is the only reliable way currently (and for the past few years) to resolve interwiki prefixes in an automated and accurate way. I can't say for sure, but I have a strong feeling that this is the reason that Special:Search gets so many hits. Special:Search also likely gets a hit when the go button (or just the return key now) is used. All of these people wouldn't be seeing the page either. So your primary audience would be people searching on Wikipedia for a topic that doesn't currently have an article or a redirect. Given that a another sizable percentage of views comes from search engine results, the pool of actual views you're talking about becomes even smaller. The evidence is bolstered by another redirect page (Special:Random) having so many hits according to the data you linked to. It's not even possible to view that page in any meaningful sense. Put some ads there and I doubt you'd hear many complaints, but you'd be getting millions of views each month. ;-) Calling Special:Search the most popular page (or basing fundraising theories on it) is dangerous and often misleading work. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 6 November 2010 20:54, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Liam Wyatt wrote: Whilst I don't support or advocate for Wikimedia projects including advertising, I would like to ask a hypothetical question. Would people's opinions towards ads would be different if google's ads were to be incorporated ONLY on the Search page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search in the whitespace on the right. This is by far the most popular individual page http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikipedia/en/ and ads there would be able to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the term being searched for) and yet without having to sell out our article pages. On the other hand it would mean we could no longer say we have zero ads and it would create a lot of angry Wikimedians (possibly me included) making the slippery slope argument. Careful there. A lot of people (and scripts) go through Special:Search because it follows links much better. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=mw:MediaWiki works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mw:MediaWiki doesn't work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=wikia:un:UN:N works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikia:un:UN:N doesn't work As far as I'm aware, this is the only reliable way currently (and for the past few years) to resolve interwiki prefixes in an automated and accurate way. I can't say for sure, but I have a strong feeling that this is the reason that Special:Search gets so many hits. Special:Search also likely gets a hit when the go button (or just the return key now) is used. All of these people wouldn't be seeing the page either. So your primary audience would be people searching on Wikipedia for a topic that doesn't currently have an article or a redirect. Given that a another sizable percentage of views comes from search engine results, the pool of actual views you're talking about becomes even smaller. The evidence is bolstered by another redirect page (Special:Random) having so many hits according to the data you linked to. It's not even possible to view that page in any meaningful sense. Put some ads there and I doubt you'd hear many complaints, but you'd be getting millions of views each month. ;-) Calling Special:Search the most popular page (or basing fundraising theories on it) is dangerous and often misleading work. MZMcBride Very good point. I was aware that with the new searchbox interface in the Vector skin the way people access the search page changed so that now only the people who actually misspell an article title get there (or when the article doesn't exist at all). But I wasn't aware of these other methods. Special:Random is a good case in point. Thanks. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 06/11/2010 17:43, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 6 November 2010 17:07, Liam Wyattliamwy...@gmail.com wrote: ads there would be able to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the term being searched for) That's a big problem. To use a somewhat clichéd example, we should not be showing adverts for either Coca-cola or Pepsi to people searching for coke. What about adverts from the Bolivian Tourist Board? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 5 November 2010 17:02, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... and compromise content, as TV Tropes found out: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident That's not a problem with adverts. It's merely an incompatibility between Google's policies and the site. If we fell victim to the same policies, we could just choose another advertiser to work with (although, in reality, Google would bend over backwards to get their adverts on our sites and would relax their policies). That is not the reason why we should have adverts. The reason why is that adverts can create a perception of partiality. I would never suggest we turn selection of advertising over to Google or anyone else. If we do we'll get the same irrelevant crap that is so annoying on Wikia. And very little revenue. I'm suggesting us selling ads, monitoring their content and placement, and laughing all the way to the bank. Not sniveling around begging Google for crumbs and letting some bureaucrat ruin our site and its attraction. For example, we could place our ads on a separate page, reachable only by clicking on a tab at the top advertisements. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
Whilst I don't support or advocate for Wikimedia projects including advertising, I would like to ask a hypothetical question. Would people's opinions towards ads would be different if google's ads were to be incorporated ONLY on the Search page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search in the whitespace on the right. This is by far the most popular individual page http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikipedia/en/ and ads there would be able to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the term being searched for) and yet without having to sell out our article pages. On the other hand it would mean we could no longer say we have zero ads and it would create a lot of angry Wikimedians (possibly me included) making the slippery slope argument. Like I said, I'm not actually supporting this position, but would like to know if people thought that this would theoretically be a way to gain revenue without losing reputation/independence. -Liam wittylama.com/blog Peace, love metadata Why would we give money to Google or allow them to select advertisements which would be placed on our site? They are nice guys, and all, but so are we. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 6 Nov 2010, at 20:54, MZMcBride wrote: Liam Wyatt wrote: Whilst I don't support or advocate for Wikimedia projects including advertising, I would like to ask a hypothetical question. Would people's opinions towards ads would be different if google's ads were to be incorporated ONLY on the Search page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search in the whitespace on the right. This is by far the most popular individual page http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikipedia/en/ and ads there would be able to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the term being searched for) and yet without having to sell out our article pages. On the other hand it would mean we could no longer say we have zero ads and it would create a lot of angry Wikimedians (possibly me included) making the slippery slope argument. Careful there. A lot of people (and scripts) go through Special:Search because it follows links much better. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=mw:MediaWiki works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mw:MediaWiki doesn't work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=wikia:un:UN:N works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikia:un:UN:N doesn't work As far as I'm aware, this is the only reliable way currently (and for the past few years) to resolve interwiki prefixes in an automated and accurate way. I can't say for sure, but I have a strong feeling that this is the reason that Special:Search gets so many hits. Erm... how many people actually know what an interwiki is? I doubt it's a significant number. Combine that with how many people would think about of that particular usage of Special:Search, and I suspect that you're talking very small numbers. Certainly, I've never thought of that in ~ 5 years of using Wikipedia. Special:Search also likely gets a hit when the go button (or just the return key now) is used. This strikes me as much more relevant and more likely to generate a significant number of hits. All of these people wouldn't be seeing the page either. So your primary audience would be people searching on Wikipedia for a topic that doesn't currently have an article or a redirect. Given that a another sizable percentage of views comes from search engine results, the pool of actual views you're talking about becomes even smaller. I don't understand why this is a problem - if Wikipedia doesn't have a page on what they're searching for, then wouldn't they be more likely to click a sponsored link to somewhere else that does? The evidence is bolstered by another redirect page (Special:Random) having so many hits according to the data you linked to. It's not even possible to view that page in any meaningful sense. Put some ads there and I doubt you'd hear many complaints, but you'd be getting millions of views each month. ;-) Special:Random is just plain fun, though, especially when you're getting started with reading Wikipedia. It has a huge amount of popular appeal. As a result, I'm not sure that it's quite comparable to the search function, which is obviously much more orientated at finding a specific page/description... Calling Special:Search the most popular page (or basing fundraising theories on it) is dangerous and often misleading work. I'm not convinced of this assertion yet. Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On 11/7/10, Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net wrote: On 6 Nov 2010, at 20:54, MZMcBride wrote: Liam Wyatt wrote: Whilst I don't support or advocate for Wikimedia projects including advertising, I would like to ask a hypothetical question. Would people's opinions towards ads would be different if google's ads were to be incorporated ONLY on the Search page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search in the whitespace on the right. This is by far the most popular individual page http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikipedia/en/ and ads there would be able to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the term being searched for) and yet without having to sell out our article pages. On the other hand it would mean we could no longer say we have zero ads and it would create a lot of angry Wikimedians (possibly me included) making the slippery slope argument. Careful there. A lot of people (and scripts) go through Special:Search because it follows links much better. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=mw:MediaWiki works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mw:MediaWiki doesn't work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=wikia:un:UN:N works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikia:un:UN:N doesn't work As far as I'm aware, this is the only reliable way currently (and for the past few years) to resolve interwiki prefixes in an automated and accurate way. I can't say for sure, but I have a strong feeling that this is the reason that Special:Search gets so many hits. Erm... how many people actually know what an interwiki is? I doubt it's a significant number. Combine that with how many people would think about of that particular usage of Special:Search, and I suspect that you're talking very small numbers. Certainly, I've never thought of that in ~ 5 years of using Wikipedia. If Special:Search is being used in automation (and it is; it is a page generator in pywikipediabot), a few people can really bugger up the stats and any assumptions based on them. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 5 November 2010 17:02, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... and compromise content, as TV Tropes found out: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident That's not a problem with adverts. It's merely an incompatibility between Google's policies and the site. If we fell victim to the same policies, we could just choose another advertiser to work with (although, in reality, Google would bend over backwards to get their adverts on our sites and would relax their policies). I'm sure they'd be willing to work out a deal where people can opt-in to Wikipedia ads (which wouldn't be subject to the anti-porn rules). I doubt they'd allow non-opt-in ads on [[tit torture]], though. Alternatively, Wikipedia could put ads only on stable revisions which contain SFG content. Which I suppose could be argued to put some pressure on Wikipedians to make articles SFG. But then, *any* manner of fundraising is going to be affected by these sorts of things. Surely there are people who wouldn't donate to Wikipedia if they knew about the [[tit torture]] article, but would (or do) donate if/because they don't. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 5 November 2010 17:02, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... and compromise content, as TV Tropes found out: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident That's not a problem with adverts. It's merely an incompatibility between Google's policies and the site. If we fell victim to the same policies, we could just choose another advertiser to work with (although, in reality, Google would bend over backwards to get their adverts on our sites and would relax their policies). I'm sure they'd be willing to work out a deal where people can opt-in to Wikipedia ads (which wouldn't be subject to the anti-porn rules). I doubt they'd allow non-opt-in ads on [[tit torture]], though. Alternatively, Wikipedia could put ads only on stable revisions which contain SFG content. Which I suppose could be argued to put some pressure on Wikipedians to make articles SFG. But then, *any* manner of fundraising is going to be affected by these sorts of things. Surely there are people who wouldn't donate to Wikipedia if they knew about the [[tit torture]] article, but would (or do) donate if/because they don't. Well, assuming people are going to engage in tit torture, surely they would need reliable equipment: screws, nails, sanitizers (for the screws, pins, needles), electrical shockers, etc. Lot of money to be made right there... Maybe we could get an ad from Flip for video cameras... Then there is videos, and ads for online performances, amateur and professional. I'll bet we could sell about 5k in ads every year on tit torture alone. Although, deleting it would probably make more sense. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
Michael Peel wrote: Erm... how many people actually know what an interwiki is? I doubt it's a significant number. Combine that with how many people would think about of that particular usage of Special:Search, and I suspect that you're talking very small numbers. Certainly, I've never thought of that in ~ 5 years of using Wikipedia. John already covered this, but quite a few tools have a need to parse links reliably in an article. One of the most reliable methods (though incredibly hackish) for handling links like this is to pass them through Special:Search. For example (using curl): $ curl -Is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=wikia:un:UN:N; | grep Location Location: http://www.wikia.com/wiki/c:un:UN:N $ curl -Is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=mw:MediaWiki; | grep Location Location: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki While I can agree that a lot of _people_ likely aren't typing these links like wikia:un:UN:N in to the search form, I can see a lot of scripts using this method to parse a page full of links, hackish as it is. Developers have a tendency to use what works, regardless of whether it's hackish. And there's a tendency to let old code rot, so even if an alternative to this system becomes available in the API, many tools will likely continue to use the Special:Search hack. All of these people wouldn't be seeing the page either. So your primary audience would be people searching on Wikipedia for a topic that doesn't currently have an article or a redirect. Given that a another sizable percentage of views comes from search engine results, the pool of actual views you're talking about becomes even smaller. I don't understand why this is a problem - if Wikipedia doesn't have a page on what they're searching for, then wouldn't they be more likely to click a sponsored link to somewhere else that does? I'm saying that this is a problem in the sense that the numbers that are being used to make projections are faulty. Advertisers care about people viewing their ads, so people try to take measurements of views (particularly views by humans). In this case, however, it's incredibly likely that the measurements being put forth are horribly skewed. This affects both the projections you can make and the overall conversation about ads and ad revenue that can take place. The evidence is bolstered by another redirect page (Special:Random) having so many hits according to the data you linked to. It's not even possible to view that page in any meaningful sense. Put some ads there and I doubt you'd hear many complaints, but you'd be getting millions of views each month. ;-) Special:Random is just plain fun, though, especially when you're getting started with reading Wikipedia. It has a huge amount of popular appeal. As a result, I'm not sure that it's quite comparable to the search function, which is obviously much more orientated at finding a specific page/description... Err, I think you might have missed the point here. The comparison is a page in the Special namespace that isn't viewed much, even though the stats say it's viewed millions of times a day. Take a look at the link Liam provided (http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikipedia/en/). It says that in 2009, Special:Random received (on average?) 2,385,287 hits per day. The point I was making is that this is completely misleading, as every hit to Special:Random redirects to an article. _Anything_ you place on Special:Random would never be seen (it's just outputting a 302), even if it's allegedly getting over 2.3 million views per day. (As an aside, the curl trick referenced above also works with Special:Random.) A unknown (but likely very sizable) number of hits to Special:Search are in the same category: they're not actually viewing Special:Search, they're just using it to resolve a link or resolve their search box input. That's where the be careful warning came from. Calling Special:Search the most popular page (or basing fundraising theories on it) is dangerous and often misleading work. I'm not convinced of this assertion yet. Well, you should be. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
This was manifestly not a fatal idea. In fact, it appears they concluded that *operating on donations *would be fatal. Moral of the story: Wikipedia is different. Considering how much spam we receive, and how long some of it persists, I sometimes wonder if we haven't miscalculated the costs and benefits. For example, WMF could be getting something like $30 per-click on ads in articles like Mesothelioma. Ad money instead goes to enterprising spammers who sometimes succeed in placing their links in high-traffic or high value articles. Frank On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 12:02 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... and compromise content, as TV Tropes found out: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
Hello, Adverts do not make content wrong, but create mistrust. Have a look what Lawrence Lessig tells about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHma3ZQRVoA Kind regards Ziko 2010/11/5 Cool Hand Luke user.coolhandl...@gmail.com: This was manifestly not a fatal idea. In fact, it appears they concluded that *operating on donations *would be fatal. Moral of the story: Wikipedia is different. Considering how much spam we receive, and how long some of it persists, I sometimes wonder if we haven't miscalculated the costs and benefits. For example, WMF could be getting something like $30 per-click on ads in articles like Mesothelioma. Ad money instead goes to enterprising spammers who sometimes succeed in placing their links in high-traffic or high value articles. Frank On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 12:02 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... and compromise content, as TV Tropes found out: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation?from=Main.TheGoogleIncident - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Ziko van Dijk Niederlande ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 8:18 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvand...@googlemail.com wrote: Hello, Adverts do not make content wrong, but create mistrust. Have a look what Lawrence Lessig tells about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHma3ZQRVoA After the first few minutes it turns into a long drawn out infomercial supporting US campaign finance reform. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
