How should Wikipedia get its $16m?

[Tom]

Jimmy Wales is making me feel slightly ill this monty by putting his face at the top of every Wiki page, begging for cash. So how should he get the money?
- charge each of us $1/year?
- find a friendly philanthropist?
- sign up for Adsense?

[David]

I must admit that I looked at the suggested donations and thought that $20 was probably reasonable considering how much I get out of it. However, I do think that he needs a more sustainable revenue model. I know some people would think that accepting advertising (AdSense or such) would be a disaster and a betrayal but many other good sites are supported by advertising (my own included) and users have accepted this as a reasonable price to pay for good quality copy. Since Wikipedia is the 4th most visited website, it could easily pay for itself even with a relatively discrete inventory. I would not complain.

[Tom]

I agree - providing any extra money goes to good causes and not to Jimmy Wales. I have no objection to him getting rich but it would be a betrayal of all the people who have worked on Wikepedia if he started cashing in on what they thought was altruism. But I would not mind if Bill and Melinda slipped Wikipedia the odd billion. Re the Britannica-style paywall solution, I think it would be a great pity to deprive all the people who can't pay from accessing the content.

[Tom]

I feel slightly sicker every time I see the expression on Jimmy's mug. He has the mock-innocent 'smile' a medieval priest selling indulgencies to gullable fools. It will be a relief when the present fund-raising comes to an end. They should follow the Google Books example and use context-sensitive advertising. It's honest. Love and money should be kept apart.

[Will]

I found 4Chan founder Christopher Poole's parody banner quite amusing. That said, I am all for the approach Wales uses to raise funds. It keeps Wikipedia clean of the associated taint that would inevitably follow commercial adverts on what is a world-leading, neutral, information-provision website. I am sure political and corporate whoring would ensue, with firms vying for placement on certain pages, or with certain topics, in the same way that many now tweak for SEO optimization and rank. There's also the case of editorial policy being breached down the line - certain sponsors threatening to pull funding that may have become critical should certain entries not be edited accordingly. No, I am coming firmly down on the side of Wales here.

Wales is honest; he's an idealist maybe, but we've room for a few more of those sorts of people. Whilst I am not completely of the Bill Hicks school of marketing, I'd definitely say that it would be nice to see Wikipedia free of the advertising taint for as long as it can possibly manage.

[Tom]

Good argument but (1) those photos still make me feel sick (2) what do you say to my point about Googlebooks - do you think they are tainted by the ads? (3) is Jimbo profiting from Wikipedia via Wikia?

[Will]

Those photos are far from ideal, granted. As regards Googlebooks, they're part of what's ultimately a commercial venture so I don't see any reason they shouldn't be using adverts to help pay for the service that they do provide. I've found Googlebooks quite flawed though, as a repository of information, by its incompleteness than due to any advertising that may have appeared on it. Is it honest? It's not dishonest persay, but then we'd have to bring in a raft of arguments such as those regarding the Interflora discussion which occured earlier here, and as to whether such things as those could taint the service in future. Say I want to read a Googlebook about Darwinism and am then bombarded with adverts for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the website for some fundamentalist Christian group. Then I might have a different stance about how honest - or possibly fair? - the whole apparatus is.

As regards Wikia, I'd say of my limited knowledge of it to date that yes he's profiting from it, and in that regards good luck to him. Its operations are kept as far away from those of Wikipedia's in that they risk compromising them.

I think it's a little bit like Ubuntu and Canonical in that regards. A commercial vehicle run by an associated party that can ultimately propel the NFP as well as make money for those associated in a fairly guilt-free kind of way. That is, it's more the subject matter knowledge and associated service provision of those in the profit-making vehicle than any hijacking of the NFP (or its principles) that make the money.

[Tom]

I don't feel too strongly about how Wiki is funded, so long as it is funded, but I am still trying to work out why I find the pics of Jimbo quite so sickening. I wonder if it is because, as they say, everyone wants to be famous these days. I read of a survey of school children and this is what many of them said they wanted to be ('a celebrity'). It reminds me of Bernard Levin's horror that a girl had the ambition of becoming a porn star. Could it be that Jimbo is using Wikipedia to stroke his own ego? I learned to distrust show-offs at school and perhaps the lesson has never left me. I do not think money necessarily 'taints' but I do think it would be a rip-off if, even in the smallest degree, Jimbo profited from the work of the hundreds of thousands of idealist volunteers who provide wiki content. You could say 'more fool them' but if anyone did think this then it would injure the golden goose. Maybe the best solution would be if Bill Gates gave them one of his spare billions. Jimbo could push off, I could take a few more anti-nausea tablets and all would be well.
Re Google Books, I do not doubt that the next stage, with the launch of Google eBooks, will be people paying for full access to recently published books. So I wonder what is going to happen to libraries. Will they have special subscriptions or will they just close down? Groups of trusted friends could have a shared Gmail account and use it so share books they have bought. This would be very difficult for Google to prevent.

[linglau]

I suppose the reason why it seems a bit sickening is because a close up of his face on every page, staring at us wide-eyed and hopeful, is making us feel guilty for not donating each time we use Wikipedia! It's likened to photos of hungry children in Africa pleading for money to live, although clearly completely not the same thing. If a plea is what they wanted, they could probably have done it a bit more subtly and not so in-your-face. Pass me those tablets please!

[Tom]

Yes yes. I have real difficulty with those terrible photos of tragic children. I feel guilty but I feel obliged not to contribute to any African charities. You can see Dambisa Moyo's pic and Jimmy's pic.
I will be happy to share my anti-nauseants with you.