Comment by markmccraw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by markmccraw | Hacker News Reader

Given that it costs less than $20 million to run Wikipedia (cite: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/ac/FINAL_...), that seems completely attainable without needing to change the nature of Wikipedia by introducing advertising.

A lone rich donor could cover the budget for an entire year, and many people who could afford that wouldn't even be mentioned in Wikipedia, so there would be little opportunity for any conflict of interest. Even if someone high profile donated a large sum that would only be one profile to monitor for any potential bias.

Here's why I think ads would be a terrible idea:

_________

ADVERTISING

Pros:

More Money

Cons:

Integrity possibly compromised

Contributors might leave

Readers might trust Wikipedia less

-----------------

DONORS

Pros:

Maintains editorial independence

Maintains trust of readers and contributors

Cons:

Harder to raise money

__________

Ads are a lazy solution. I can't think of a single benefit to Wikipedia or its users other than "it would be so easy to meet the budget."

> A lone rich donor could cover the budget for an entire year, and many people who could afford that wouldn't even be mentioned in Wikipedia, so there would be little opportunity for any conflict of interest.

Isn't the risk of influence higher if a "lone rich donor" funds Wikipedia rather than hundreds of advertisers?

Back when I was a young lad, there used to be these things that had sort of the same issues. They were a stack of 'paper' (pressed wood pulp) sheets that content was 'printed' on (a black substance called 'ink' was sprayed on them). People used to write for them during the day, they were produced ('printed') at night and teenagers would deliver them in the morning so that people back then could still read news reasonably fast after it had happened.

Anyway, they had the same issues about ads and editorial independence, yet somehow they seemed to be able to continue to be trusted despite having ads. And get this, even though they had ads, you still had to pay for them, too! Those were some strange days...

Today's news is almost entirely ad-funded, with a lot of the story work done ahead of time by PR agencies. It's not a shining example of editorial independence.

Has anyone actually read what they spend their money on? Just about 10% on 'travel expenses' and 'awards and grants' together.... Also (overlapping the previous - but only by $63,000) almost 10% goes to fund-raising activities.... Seems to me (from a distance) that there is plenty of bloat here and these are not things that the average wikipedia user cares about....

And thats not mentioning the over 7 million (40%) on salaries and wages..... I'm not sure you can describe this as a 'small non-profit'....

Sorry if that all sounds cynical - but this is a not-for-profit institution here... I think that they have a duty to provide an efficient (value for money) service, which I am concerned is not being done....

Those numbers really aren't bad at all. Obviously wages are going to a main expense of a nonprofit that's a giant website.

The moment ads are permitted on Wikipedia, advertiser conflict begins. We see this all the time on news sites: unintentionally offensive correlated-ads on content that should be free-standing. I believe the Wikipedia Foundation would agree with this and advertising will not become an option.

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