Wikipedia:Advertisements

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This is an essay. It is not a policy or guideline, it simply reflects some opinions of its authors. Please update the page as needed, or discuss it on the talk page.

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1 Arguments for adverts
2 Arguments against adverts
3 Arguments for optional adverts
4 Implementation
5 See also
6 External links

Sick of how much time Wikipedia spends crashed? Though it is a minority of the time, we still seem to be one of the least reliable sites on the web. Would it really be *so* bad to have a few discrete adverts, if it means we can buy a few more servers..? There's a patch of whitespace on the left side of larger pages that could fit a nice little moneymaker. If we force companies to use our colour scheme, it shouldn't distract too much. What with us frequenting the top ten most visited sites on the whole web, think of the revenue!

[edit] Arguments for adverts

adverts = money = reliability + speed ...basically.

If text based and small, ads would put no strain on the servers. They don't necessarily have to be distracting, and only as many ads as we need would exist (none-profit). A trial with short contracts would make it easy to just "revert" back to the previous ad-less version.

[edit] Arguments against adverts

Adverts within article text is banned (WP:ADVERT), which is understandable, as it compromises the encyclopedia. NPOV may be violated, even through randomisation.

[edit] Arguments for optional adverts

Here is how it might work: The default setting for all readers would be no ads. "Turn off advertising" and "Turn on advertising" buttons would allow anybody (even non-registered users) to decide for themselves whether they want to support Wikipedia with their eyeballs. Anybody could check off a "remember my choices" button. A cookie would remember to keep the ads on or off. There could be choices for top, bottom, and/or side placement of ads. Or concise or detailed ads. Or ads with or without flash animation. Readers who choose not to allow any cookies, not even a wikipedia cookie, would not be forced to view ads. Millions of wikipedia readers would choose to allow advertising. Soon, a lot more money would be raised by the readers who allow ads. Versus money raised by donations. Wikipedia is one of the most-visited sites on the web. It definitely needs money for maintenance, hardware, programmers, bandwidth, expansion, other wikimedia projects, etc.. As long as wikipedia is a non-profit, board-run organization, then there is no danger of advertisers having any say in how wikipedia is run. Wikipedia will determine what ads and advertisers are allowed on wikipedia. Some good lawyers and accountants should be paid to make sure that this is all maintained legally for the longterm. So that wikipedia values are never compromised by advertisers, partisan user groups, corruption, etc.. An organization can remain non-profit, and yet have optional ads.

[edit] Implementation

All adverts would be screened.
- If this sounds too much work for volunteers, we'll just hire staff, using the extra revenue.
Every advert should use the Monobook colours, font and style.
No images, animations, sounds, or anything too distracting should be allowed.
Adverts will be placed at the bottom of the left side, just above the "A Wikimedia Project" image
Adverts all have the same width, and are grouped by height, with greater heights costing more (up to a limit).
Adverts only shown on pages with enough whitespace to accommodate the largest category of advert.
An advert must not be used on a page where any of the words in the thing is it advertising are used.
- Besides the previous two rules, adverts are randomly generated from our pre-approved database.
The ability to turn off adverts is enabled for administrators