Proposal talk:Users Can Choose to Take Advertising

From Strategic Planning

Default should be no ads

I have no problem with optional ads in the form of opt-in ads. I think that there should normally be no ads, even for non-registered users.

It would be too radical for the default to be ads for non-registered users. It would change the "look and feel" of Wikipedia.

Users (both registered and non-registered) could opt-in for ads. Cookies would allow this.

Many users find donation requests to be as annoying as some types of ads can be. Similar to the annoyance at times of National Public Radio fundraising campaigns.

If someone wants to accept ads, then we might allow them to opt-out of donation requests. Some people just can't afford to donate, and so they might want to opt-out of constant banners requesting donations. --Timeshifter 10:43, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I have no objection to an opt-in, in principle. Ads should be considerably less annoying than templates expressing some opinion (on a perceived flaw) and be equal to banners requesting donations. However, an opt-in strategy just is not practical, as almost none of the readers will register or sign in. - Brya 11:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) Text ads are oftentimes less annoying than some of those opinion/flaw templates. It is not necessary to register or sign in to get ads. There could be a link at the bottom of articles labeled "support Wikipedia by accepting ads." A button next to it labeled "Click button to accept ads." The link would go to a page explaining Wikipedia's need for funds, and how only a few readers accepting ads can raise millions of dollars. Cookies remember the choices of the on-off button, and other ad settings. WikiHow has an opt-out button for ads. Wikipedia could have an opt-in button.

It takes very few pages with ads to raise millions of dollars. Info and past discussions concerning optional ads (opt-in ads) can be found at Wikipedia:Advertisements and Wikipedia talk:Advertisements. --Timeshifter 17:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from talk page

In response to "ads giving people an incentive to sign up (see Proposal page)

Comment - There must be nothing in place which gives people the feeling that they have to sign up to get rid of the ads - there shouldn't be any in the first place. You can edit without an account, and nothing should give Wikipedia the option to change that. I'd rather donate than see Wikipedia become another ad-fuelled mess. BarkingFish 02:02, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moral obligation

I agree that we need to do something to take advantage of our ability to fund ourselves. When we are capable providing for ourselves, but choose to instead live on the donations of other, we are little better than someone cheating the system. It is like a person who pretends to have a disability to gain charity, only on a much larger scale. If we saw this occuring in any other venue, wouldn't we balk at it? The money we take from charity could have gone to other worthy causes which are unable to fund themselves, like feeding hungry Africans, finding a cure for cancer, or giving homes to orphans.

There are so many possibilities to making advertisments work in a non-aggressive way for the reader that it is becoming apparent that the old anti-ad arguments are not longer holding up. In reality. we could probably achieve the funding we need for an entire year perhaps in a as little as a month; maybe even less, so running ads year round would not be nessecary. The foundation should consider seriously looking into this and researching the possibilities. At a minimum we need to study to estimate what kind of revenue to we could produce with different types of advertising. Charles Edward 12:43, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wordpress.com is a very popular blog host, and it only runs a few ads to help pay its bills. Since the ads are spread around the many blogs, and only used as needed, it is rare for readers to see ads. See this article:
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/go-ad-free
wordpress.com - Traffic Details from Alexa:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wordpress.com
The traffic rank of Wordpress.com is 19. That means only 18 sites get more daily traffic. Wikipedia traffic rank is 6. See:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org --Timeshifter 16:53, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Something else I have considered, is that if we ran advertising full fledged for a year or two, ( a good study like the one above would demonstrate the projected income) we could build a good sized trust fund. A well managed fund of about 250 million dollars should be able to generate enough income on its own to remove the need for any outside support, and any need for further adverstisment. In that way, advertising could be the means to create a trust fund; an imperfect means to achieve self sufficiency without needing to rely on advertisments or donations. Charles Edward 18:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have did a bit of research on this. Firefox generates over $100 million a year in revenue through an advertising mechanism. Given our scope and power, I feel quite sure we are able to generate a comparable revenue. If we ran adds for two years and built a $250 million trust fund, we could put it into a safe investment, and earning only a 4% return we could provide the project with a steady income of $10 million annually, which would meet all our current needs and still allow considerable room for growth. Ads could be the means to get us to a self-sufficent advertisement free ends. Charles Edward 17:58, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any need for such facility ?

I would, on principle, be against advertisements on Wikipedia, and support the German view: Keep Wikipedia advertisement-free. This is because of all the annoying advertising windows, which appear on numerous Internet sites, which are un-switchable offable. It is a relief to find a site, such as Wikipedia, where the pages are not crammed with advertisements.

However, I also share the fears of funds drying up.

I often thought that the scope of Wikimedia is growing faster than its potential resources, so my first thought was that its scope should be stopped to expand further or even reduced.

So:, I agree, that advertising would assure a constant money supply, which might reduce the need for fundraising at ever increasing frequency, and I see the advertisement idea working, provided

  • the advertisements don't clash with the text, and are not hypertextable to another site.
  • there is a precise space definined for advertisements, say a small horizontally full length, 1-2 ins. box at the top of the first page of an article, which would therefore not interfere with the reading of the text
  • the adverts do not include any visual effects, such as flashing lights.

Apart from these restrictions others might also be necessary to reduce the intrusiveness of Intenet ads that makes them sometimes so unpleasant.

With such conditions, that is, if the ads are non-intrusive, and stay within the article, just like the Wikipedia announcements, I see no need for an opt-in/opt-out facility, because you could toggle past them. Such a facility would also reduce the value of ads to advertisers.

LouisBB 08:35, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OPT-IN ONLY

opt-in for registered users: fine.

default on for non-registered users: no way jose. that would make wikipedia effectively full of ads, since the vast majority of uesrs are not registered. User talk:202.111.2.186