Comments on: Drinking one’s own Kool-Aid

By: ahoving

ahoving — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 15:09:45 +0000

on a related note, ads in SL:

http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2006/10/24/prokofy-rent-boy-shock/

By: ahoving

ahoving — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:40:08 +0000

Oh, I completely agree about Wiki-P …especially since all the folks who contributed all that
user-generated content did so under the assumption that there were no ads. But face it, fellas:
our culture (our world) is saturated with ads, and you can’t stop the tide.

By: alex

alex — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 04:26:50 +0000

And while I am not anti-ads–some ads are double-plus-good–I think the “they don’t have any effect” argument is internally flawed. Either they don’t have an effect–in which case why are you paying for them?–or they do–in which case you have to wonder how it will affect the understanding of the material that sits right beside them or within them.

I think it’s really important that you clearly distinguish ad from editorial content, but even when every effort is made to do so, they still bleed over. They bleed in both directions, by the way: that’s why newspapers pull airline ads from pages with stories on air crashes.

I think a lot of people are pretty sanguine about ads on their website. But I also think that most people who contribute to Wikipedia are not the Average Joe, and might very well see this as a “bad thing” ™. And, as I’ve suggested, I would tend to agree with them.

By: alex

alex — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 04:20:45 +0000

An anomoly is an anomaly / molybium alloy–very rare indeed.

By: ahoving

ahoving — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 02:31:45 +0000

Prof H.: I’ve been called worse than “an anomoly” (sp?) — I’ve even been called “a lawyer” [see NYT]. But seriously, even you admit you are about to add ads, and so we’ll just tune ‘em out if they’re not useful — but hey, what if they are!

Eddie: Every print pub I ever worked for determined the size of an issue by doubling the number of ad pages. On the days we had great stories, we hoped we had enough ads to support/run them. When I worked on the edit side, I looked down on the ad sales folks. That was a luxury, and dishonest. As I found out later when I tried it, what they did (making people part with big bucks), was HARD to do. As for ads-as-info: which runs first, the ad for the Danglers show or the writeup?

Cheers!

By: Epa

Epa — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:48:19 +0000

I also don’t see any needs to “monetize” wikipedia.
Wouldn’t this bring the preferencial treatment then?
I think if this happens, we are more likely going to see a new non-monetized wikipedia.
Do we really have to make money on everything? When are we going to be satisfied and do things for free?

By: Eddie

Eddie — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 03:02:48 +0000

Re: “Ads are useful information.”

With all due respect, I’m not sure I’ve ever disagreed so strongly with a statement in my life.

By: David Peterson

David Peterson — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 02:50:21 +0000

Friends:

To paraphrase an observation by Bertrand Russell, people who tend to dislike or to fear anarchist principles also believe that the primary value in the human world is the accumulation of objects–$$$$$ specifically.

If a substantively alternative social order ever does arrive, “it is only likely to prove beneficent if non-economic goods are valued and consciously pursued.”

David Peterson
Chicago

By: alex

alex — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 02:18:33 +0000

Mr. Hoving: I daresay you are an anomoly. Most people would be bothered as hell by sponsored contextual links. And Whether or not credibility exists (I would argue that is largely a matter of definition), “reputation,” or “branding” if you like, still does. A big part of Wikipedia’s success is exactly that you may go there without having to worry about spam/ads. You have to worry about other things that might affect the content, but they’ve managed–unlike much of the web–to be poisoned by the ads.

I’m not anti-advertising; I’m about to turn my google ads back on to offset my hosting expenses. But I have little doubt that in so-doing, I am making my content less valuable–trading attention for dollars.

By: ahoving

ahoving — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 23:45:57 +0000

Forget credibility, there is no credibility anymore, on the Web or anywhere else — but especially not on the Web. Probably never was. And that Chinese Wall between ad and edit? A fiction, just like reportorial objectivity. So where does that leave us, or what does that leave us with? Useful information. Sponsored links within content would be useful to me. If I’m reading any kind of review or a recipe using leeks, no reason there couldn’t be a Google ad fed directly into the story (maybe set off in a different color to cue). Ads are useful information. Back in college, my roommate and I shared a subscription to The New Yorker. One day, a thicker than usual issue arrived and I started tearing out the ad pages to make it lighter to carry. My roommate stopped me, saying “Hey, don’t do taht! The ads are part of it!” Go figure.

By: Lucas

Lucas — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 14:51:26 +0000

Sounds like we all agree that Wikipedia’s success depends largely on its credibility. But let’s not pretend Wikipedia is looked at as some bastion of truth. It’s not.

Anytime someone I know quotes a factoid from Wikipedia, they offer a disclaimer that it might not be true. It’s just what they heard on Wikipedia.

If Wikipedia sold ads, perhaps it could put that revenue to work and shore up its ever weakening strength. All those volunteers editing the site should be pretty annoyed to know their work is being treated as second-class information because Wikipedia can’t afford to invest in protecting their credibility.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 13:02:27 +0000

Back when I was rather deeply involved in environmental work, I used to regularly hear advocates of resource extraction (logging, mining, damming, etc.) say that the resources were just going to waste if they were protected, as if the economic value of those resources was significantly more valuable than the intrinsic value of those resources left standing, in the ground or flowing free. In truth, studies were done that showed that leaving trees standing can actually have a larger economic benefit to a community though recreation dollars than the dollars brought in through resource extraction would be.

I think there is definitely a parallel here: Wikipedia has an intrinsic value as a non-monetized site. We don’t have to make money off of everything just because we can. And perhaps there’s a correlary to the second part of the example above: perhaps there is a way in which keeping Wikipedia un-monetized would actually be more financially beneficial to the Wikipedia community. I don’t quite know how that would be, but I’m guessing there’s a parallel there somewhere.