Havac wrote: > How long until Wikia sales > starts dictating content? "We get more page hits when you use the word > 'sexy' in an article. You have to use 'sexy' at least twice an article > now." > "We can sell more ads if we have more pages, so you're going to have to > split all your long articles up into ten-kilobyte chunks so we can get > more > total page hits."
The second one would be explained as a feature for people who browse on PDAs/phones. I'm not sure about the word "sexy", but what about vocabulary/image guidelines to avoid being blocked by filtering software? (This easily falls under the "objectionable or potentially damaging" section of the terms of use, with its broad and general wording.) Or perhaps entire wikis will simply be removed because they don't generate enough revenue: http://www.wikia.com/index.php?title=Wikia:Our_stories&diff=128720&oldid=91527 http://www.wikia.com/index.php?title=Forum:Spanking_art_wiki&oldid=149339 Chad Lupkes wrote: > I have sometimes searched for an > ad > that I am interested in clicking, but I gave up a long time ago. I don't > click on any ad on any website. I don't think I am alone in this. Nobody > is advertising anything that I am in the market for. Because what I AM in > the market for is information that I can use to answer a question or that > I > find interesting in some way. Laurence Parry wrote: > The fact that the service would no longer be free of charge is not a > significant barrier. Personally, I make a reasonable wage at my day job. > Choosing to be hosted by Wikia was a cost/benefit decision, and the > money > required was only a part of that. > > There are other sources of funding, too. WikiFur has raised over a > thousand > dollars over the last two years without even trying: Victor wrote: > I myself am more than willing to put money towards wikia to pay for > hosting > costs for the wiki if it can make it ad free... I know others would be > too. The above are excerpts from long posts which analyze the situation far more sensibly than I could, so treat this sentence as an "AOL!" for all three. (Excepting that I myself don't yet make a reasonable wage, so maybe my opinion isn't relevant.) Keep in mind however that each large and active wiki would need to cover not only its own costs, but also those of 50-100 other wikis sufficiently dormant that no donors step forward. While I have seen patronage systems work very successfully in large volunteer projects, I also understand Wikia Inc.'s point of of view. The advertisers say, "You have statistics on views/clicks which prove that if you make these changes, you are guaranteed *at least* the following income, according to a signed contract." The editors say, "We'll cover the costs with user donations, thereby succeeding where PBS and every college/university in the Western world has failed." Really, which option would you choose, if your main goal was to keep the organization around for another 2 years? -- "Ryan W" _______________________________________________ Wikia-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l
