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Comment by chaosmachine | Hacker News Reader

They could definitely make a killing with just a single AdSense block at the bottom of every article. Maybe even just the top 1000 articles.

Instead, we get places like Answers.com mass-duplicating Wikipedia content and slapping big image ads on it.

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One of the things people are worried about with that it would allow something close to paid additions/rebuttals to Wikipedia articles, at least if ad buyers were good enough at the AdSense targeting. The goal is to have a neutral article that covers all viewpoints fairly, but then you'd have this little box where whoever pays the most money would get the opportunity to insert a link to their take on the subject.

Surely if you just have general 'run of site' advertising which isn't targeted to specific articles, there's little chance of conflict.

Exactly. Or to put a finer point on it: there becomes a much greater pressure to insert ads as content.

Why pay for an ad sense spot if you can just insert your own ad into the relevant wiki article?

So all the merchants that can't buy an ad aren't trying to subtly insert ads as content currently? Advertisers only have one choice now--try to get a mention, try to get a link, perhaps as a source--do whatever it takes to get into the content of the article.

If Wikipedia sold ads, they would have the alternative to buy an ad instead; I don't see how the problem of advertisement-as-content would be worsened when given a choice to buy an ad. If anything, I think it's the other way around.

The express purpose is to remain neutral and to avoid conflicts of interest. They're not in it to make money.

Wikipedia isn't in the Answers.com business, and doesn't particularly want to be.

The express purpose is to remain neutral and to avoid conflicts of interest.

How well do you think Wikipedia is doing at that? (I ask as a new Wikipedian, registered and actively editing only for about a half year, who has seen many very controversial articles that are anything but neutral in point of view, ads or no ads.)

I've been editing for a couple years now. The vast majority of articles beyond stub class are great. The ones that get brought up on AN/I or ArbCom or MedCab are generally on subjects that people hold very strong opinions on. For example, the first article I became very involved with was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Ar.... When I came to that article, it was in the middle of an edit war between Republican and Unionist factions. Each wanted the article to reflect their POV, so there was much arguing over whether the IRA "caused"/"was responsible for" X deaths, or they "murdered" X people. Similarly, many editors wanted to be sure that the page clearly showed they were a terrorist organization. WP:TERRORIST specifically prohibits the labelling of an organization as such, so instead those editors fought to have the article state that other organizations had labelled the IRA terrorists, etc.

That's generally how it goes on the sensitive articles. The three main areas of political debate on Wikipedia are Israel/Palestine, Eastern Europe, and Northern Ireland. There have been perennial edit wars, and many ArbCom cases. There have been mailing lists and drives by external organizations to infiltrate the ranks of Wikipedia so as to have their viewpoint expressed. There are admins who have acted improperly and had their status stripped, and there are others who have done the same with impunity. Basically, it's a shitstorm.

It also affects less than 0.001% of articles on Wikipedia. As far as articles with promotional points of view, recognize that many companies will actively edit the article on them, and it takes diligent community members to counteract their whitewashing. That's why WP:COIN and other noticeboards exist. Similarly, some people will edit an article with the goal of making the subject of that article look bad. The remedy is the same as for whitewashing: a neutral community member needs to fix the article.

The problem is that there are millions of Wikipedia articles, most of which the average editor will never come across. The community is big, but not that big. We will never make Wikipedia perfect, although I have some ideas for making it more so.

In the end, the best you can do is fix problems as you come across them. If you notice any patterns that you think could be identified algorithmically, consider writing a bot or, if you are unable to do so, approach one of the prolific bot writers like MZMcBride with your idea. Otherwise, just keep plugging away, and realize that the dramawhoring that characterizes the Wikipedia community is largely absent from the articles themselves.

well, that and vast swathes of historical sections and articles are whig history echo chambers.

You might feel that way, and certainly there are others who take issue with the general tone of Wikipedia. My advice is simple: try to fix it if you think it's a problem. Wikipedia is generally democratic, but not entirely. it's not majority rules. Come up with convincing arguments and get yourself taken seriously.

you just summed up the problem. democracy sucks.

I'm going to be the asshole here and say some of us have things to do. convincing what are probably history majors with too much time on their hands due to being history majors that corrections are needed would be a huge time sink for no reward.

I was with you except for the part about slamming history majors. I'm not one, nor am I friends with any, but it's not clear to me that academics are hurting Wikipedia. If anything, I think Wikipedia could do better by following a more academic approach, and putting more emphasis on things like accountability.

We will never make Wikipedia perfect, although I have some ideas for making it more so.

I'd love to hear ideas about making Wikipedia better. I'd especially like ideas about how to encourage new editors with good sources (that is, access to libraries or better specialized databases) on technical but controversial subjects to participate more. I left this thread for a few hours, following links to the annual reports and also doing some of my own Wikipedia editing, and I'm also very curious about how to reduce the decline in the number of active administrators.

As far as encouraging new experts to edit, I like the current Wikipedia Ambassador program. What I'd really like, however, is Final Revision. On an article-by-article basis, propose articles for final rev in the same way they are proposed for FA class. This would involve a thorough review, hopefully be experts in the field, to weed out inaccuracies. Then, the article would be fully protected indefinitely. Proposed changes could be submitted, but the idea would be to consider it a final product. By moving through many of the articles that would be suitable for this process, we could focus the community's energy on improving articles that needed it. I think we've written most of what needs to be written. With the exception of dynamic subjects, we should be archiving those articles which are done.

As far as encouraging new editors, we need to stop the manic approach to vandal fighting. Vandalism is a problem, sure, but there are far more people who are driven away by hasty reverts and unfriendly warnings.

As far as admins are concerned, it really needs to be no big deal. Perhaps an admin review noticeboard, to look at questionable admin actions, and a clear demoppping process. Other than that, promote editors pseudo-randomly. I think by throwing mops at editors without requiring RfA, we could eliminate a lot of the politicking that goes on. If you need more admins, promote more. We know that the statistically optimum way of promoting people within an organization is to do so randomly, and I think Wikipedia would be a great testbed to try that theory out.

We know that the statistically optimum way of promoting people within an organization is to do so randomly,

We do? What is the citation for that conclusion?

and I think Wikipedia would be a great testbed to try that theory out.

You don't think Wikipedia is already trying out promoting people randomly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essjay_controversy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/20...

>We do? What is the citation for that conclusion?

Bah. It's around here somewhere. They did a study, and found that promoting people randomly within a corporation led to better outcomes than any other strategy. I'm sure someone could find the citation.

As far as promoting people randomly, no, they're not doing that. I'm not sure what Essjay has to do with your point; he was a guy who claimed to have real life expertise as a way of gaining prominence on Wikipedia. I'm not suggesting Wikipedia currently promotes based on claimed qualifications; I'm suggesting they promote x editors with ~3k+ edits and ~1 year (numbers are very maleable) to adminship at random, doing away with the RfA process.

Once they allow ad revenue to flow in, they will become dependent on it.

I disagree. I think the initial landrush of ads would allow them to set up a trust to fund them in perpetuity.

One year of ads. An eternity of freedom.

It would also make them unresponsive to their community (assuming the really off-the-wall idea of 'perpetuity').

I wrote a blog post on similar lines sometime back in 2008.

"Wikipedia should display ads and donate surplus to charity"

http://bonchibuji.blogspot.com/2008/12/wikipedia-should-disp...

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