-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 08/11/2010 18:45, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: > An interesting idea would be a standalone static copy of > wikipedia that really tried their utmost to make the product > visually appealing, and used the generated money from the > advertisements purely to fund ever more timely database dumps > > It would be interesting to see how frequent database dumping could be > financed by advertisement on such a > site; the synergy should be obvious -- the more money they generate > from adverts, the more resources they can devote to making ever more > frequent dumps, so the more timely is the content, which will again > make therir product more attractive, and so on
This is clever. But let me expose the flaw with wikinews: wikinews would thus get a financing for a printable version with ads. Huge success! We then recruit an editorial team of 30 paid people to keep with the production, formatting, checking. But then the we discover that if the news are not to the liking of our advertisers, they punish us. On the contrary, they could reward us. Our editorial team start fearing for their job. They have a wife and two kids to feed. They got used to having a job. They are dependent on money, and now money will start deciding what should be the news. After all, what is the value of a fact? 0. The value of displeasing our sponsors? A big, significant lump of money. So, I think that if there is money to be made, it should be without intermediaries. If we need financing it must be coming directly from the community and controlled and used directly by it. Anything else is injecting corruption. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJM2HKnAAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LLUQH/jnhBYLG+y1c8bMx+2e5Iinl 4I6NEFt2cXKzESq/GPrcLjrJALJ8iHFiJdH5+sQ/51GFR8IaJDaaLeHOqb0lPMAs TBGg6OF7FO4k35/cIwYEEykjUgNk6ztSy6hpY+1D52zZvxcOozYaHkx4QsoTcnac ge3Yx64H2LMX81Qwq5B3+O0/826x6MK6ugol4yjwUOwa7FeVz2PpCBda2dAAZJWN WMmUJ4O1LaF9e+3SzprSMYy+NQAGn7IYJI5VF9RT+EvcsXh/3oqciBLHaitoJcUQ s3c6LxiwMFa+/bYx0K76dVpsW7M8LOL8g4Iu0Sf5Z8u56Rxf+tnwhibyPauujPg= =w7e/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l