Out of the Blue: Wikipedia Runs Banner Ads?!
I had to do a double-take when I opened the Wikipedia main page today. Indeed, the website has begun running shameless fundraising banner ads. Do I think people should contribute to Wikipedia? Yes. Do I believe they should run banner ads like any run-of-the-mill for-profit website? No.
Running ads should be done like anything on Wikipedia: with the editable consent of Wikipedia users. Instead, the hard work of dedicated editors is suddenly directly profitable to the site. Every new search visitors resulting from the millions of pages of search engine optimized content on the site is now confronted with a prominent donation banner.
Masking the fact that it is an ad with the word ‘donation’ and humorous subtitles does not change the fact that Wikipedia is actively soliciting money from a broad user base. Wikipedia gets more pageviews per month than there are people on Earth. Can you imagine how that will translate into advertising … er, I mean donation … revenue?
I am certain some of this money will be put to good use, but it undermines the credibility of the site to an incalculable degree. Will active Wikipedia editors really stand for their hard work toward public knowledge being subverted beneath a self-serving banner ad? Certainly some will, and perhaps that is what Wikipedia is counting on: the fact that their popularity will carry them through this, even if their actions are ultimately objectionable.
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Where are you getting the idea that this is “profiting” the Wikimedia Foundation? If you think about it, you might realize that this is how Wikipedia, and indeed all of the Wikimedia sites, keep running. It is incredible that a top 10 website runs on such a (relatively) meagre budget (indeed, we can always use more servers to handle the massive load), and you can even see a breakdown of the budget, which shows that ~60% of the budget is devoted purely to the technical means of running the site.
“Will active Wikipedia editors really stand for their hard work toward public knowledge being subverted beneath a self-serving banner ad?” Yes, I support this, not because it is an advertisement, but because it is how the site will keep running, how IT will keep SUPPORTING OUR hard work. It’s not as though we’re running external ads, and users can minimize the banner or (through CSS) hide it entirely.
Nihiltres - October 24, 2007 at 2:17 pm
This prominent placement is the only way for the Wikimedia Foundation (a charity that does not and can not try to make a profit, as you describe) to remind people “hey, this is a darn valuable resource, and we haven’t scattered ads about, how about you thank us for that?”
Melanie St. Clair - October 24, 2007 at 2:46 pm