Wikipedia talk:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements/Orange Wikimedia partnership

Note. This is the talk page for Wikipedia:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements/Orange Wikimedia partnership. For discussion about advertising in general, alternative funding, opt-in ads, opt-out ads, search-related income, etc. see Wikipedia:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements and Wikipedia talk:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements.

Google searches for Orange Wikimedia

Searching for "Orange Wikimedia":

• Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=Orange+Wikimedia
• Google News: http://news.google.com/news?q=Orange+Wikimedia

Searching for "Orange Wikipedia":

• Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=Orange+Wikipedia
• Google News: http://news.google.com/news?q=Orange+Wikipedia

--Timeshifter (talk) 00:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Village pump discussion

See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Orange Wikimedia partnership and please join the discussion there. That discussion can be copied here after it has concluded and been archived there. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Note: The following discussion was started at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and copied here for possible further discussion.

See:

• foundation:Press releases/Orange and Wikimedia announce partnership April 2009
• foundation:Press releases/Orange and Wikimedia announce partnership April 2009QA - Questions and Answers.

Learn more about the Orange Wikimedia partnership on video at

• www.orange-innovation.tv/wikimedia.

How does all this fit in with concerns about advertising? Various viewpoints and past discussions have been compiled and archived here:

• Wikipedia:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements
• Wikipedia talk:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements

I would like to hear various viewpoints on what people think about how this partnership fits in with all our policies, guidelines, and goals.

See also: Wikipedia:Advertisements/Orange Wikimedia partnership --Timeshifter (talk) 00:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

It fits perfectly because no ads will be placed here, all this means is that our content will be accessible by orange portals/channels (which of course they can slap as many ads on as they like). Orange could actually do this now without ponying up any money at all. --Cameron Scott (talk) 00:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I am trying to figure this all out, and my initial impression is that I like it. I am not sure about it all though. Here is some more info:

Searches:

• Google: Orange+Wikimedia and Orange+Wikipedia
• Google News: Orange+Wikimedia and Orange+Wikipedia --Timeshifter (talk) 00:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm with Cameron. I think this is exactly the kind of commercial use of Wikipedia content we want to actively encourage. The only thing they get by feeding us money is cooperation from us for live feeds of new content, as opposed to reading it from old stale database dumps. Fears of attracting vandals are ill-founded - we'll continue to get far more traffic from Google, and to assume the mobile phone users are more immature in general is simple prejudice. Dcoetzee 01:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

You're wrong, the WMF is reducing our donation and voulunteers base , Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#France_Telecom.E2.80.99s_Orange_has_partnered_with_Wikimedia. This is going to cost us a lot of donations. Mion (talk) 01:30, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Donations will continue to make up the vast majority of WMF's revenue, this is simply an additional revenue stream. In fact, as part of our relationship with Orange, we hope we'll find opportunities to make people more aware of the fact that Wikimedia is a charity supported by donations (and that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia supported by volunteers). We've had much smaller business partnerships before, such as the live feed we've provided to answers.com, but now that we actually have some capacity to think strategically about these kinds of business relationships, we can develop them at a scale and in a way that makes sense.--Eloquence* 23:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I would be very interested to see some more specific information about the consideration in this partnership, partly out of curiosity and partly as a way to judge the philosophical position of the Foundation on the issue of being paid for content use. There is, and has long been, tension between the ideal of the maximum free use of our content and the utility of additional revenue for the Foundation. Some would say that we should, as part of our overall goal, give unfettered content access to organizations (including for-profit corporations) while accepting only reimbursement for costs incurred in facilitating that access. Others would argue that if we are to allow profit-making organizations to use Wikimedia marks and content, some of that profit should redound to the Foundation. I'm curious to know where the Foundation has officially come down on this issue.

If the idea is that the Foundation ought to receive revenue from content reuse but not content use (i.e. revenue from repackaging by other services, but not from our own direct service), I'd be curious to know what control the Foundation has in this case over how the revenue is generated. If we were hosting our own ads, as an example, we would have complete control over the nature of our advertisements. With ads placed by Orange, in this instance, what is to say that someone viewing the Fox News article through an Orange service won't see an embedded ad for Bill O'Reilly? (Lastly, should be noted that User:Eloquence is the Foundation's deputy executive director). Nathan ^{T (formerly Avruch)} 23:42, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

See: http://www.answers.com/Fox_News - we currently have no control over how commercial enterprises use Wikipedia, and I do not have a problem with that. The whole point of Wikipedia in my opinion is to put out free WP:NPOV info, audio, and imagery as widely as possible.

At Answers.com though it does not seem that they are using Wikipedia logos and icons. I don't understand the co-branding concept with Orange Telecom. Will they use Wikipedia's logos and icons? I guess this is OK with a non-political portal company. But if they do anything remotely questionable it could come back to Wikipedia? I think we should go ahead anyway, though. No FUD! :)

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:49, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I presume they would be allowed to use the Wikipedia logo, otherwise, they'd mostly be wasting their money, paying for free content. Mr.Z-man 17:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Content in all Wikimedia projects is free and always will be, for any use, including commercial uses. It's perfectly fine for for-profit entities to take Wikimedia content and use it with attribution. It's the non-attributive use of the Wikimedia trademarks that requires our permission (e.g. displaying the Wikipedia puzzle globe, labeling the project itself "Wikipedia", referencing the Wikipedia trademarks in marketing materials) - and any further technical consultation and support, unlimited API usage for real-time updates, and similar services.

In past commercial trademark licensing agreements we didn't have a lot of control over how our trademark would be used; a lot of time has been spent in the last year rationalizing these kinds of agreements and making sure that other people's actions don't reflect poorly on us. There are many specific trademark QA provisions in our relationship with Orange. In addition, we'll work with them to emphasize the charity status of Wikimedia, the fact that the projects require volunteer support, etc. That doesn't mean everything will necessarily work out perfectly, of course, but we'll do our best to support the process.

Ultimately the real value proposition from the point of view of the Wikimedia community is that, in addition to the fact that agreements like this help sustain WMF, a multinational multi-billion dollar company is throwing its weight behind making our content more widely known and used. Yes, those users could come straight to us, and indeed, the likeliest audience for the Orange properties are the people who aren't currently Wikimedia users, or the contexts where Wikimedia's penetration is still limited (e.g. mobile use). This is not an exclusive agreement, it won't affect the experience on Wikimedia itself, and it doesn't preclude us from improving the user experience for users going to Wikipedia.org itself from a mobile phone (e.g. improving our own mobile portal).--Eloquence* 22:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Maybe it is something like how some web pages on one site are piped into "frames" on another domain. With the logos, icons, and everything of both sites and domains.

Otherwise, Orange Telecom could just pay for a daily data dump to their own servers or something. But that would require some investments in servers and staff, I would think. And especially an investment in time setting it all up. Piping it directly from Wikipedia servers probably requires much less in the way of skilled staff and setup time. Wikipedia already has the highly skilled server staff, and everything is already set up.

Answers.com already had a lot of servers and staff, I believe. Do they get some kind of regular data dump from Wikipedia? Is that how they are doing it?

Is Orange Telecom basically wrapping Wikipedia-served pages into Orange Telecom pages on their own channels and devices? I guess since they are nonpolitical (I assume) this doesn't bother too many people. It doesn't bother me.

I don't see why we don't add some relatively safe, nonpolitical, noncontroversial, opt-out ads directly on Wikipedia pages served piping hot. :) ... and not just piped through places like Answers.com and Orange Telecom.

See: Wikipedia:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements#Arguments for optional adverts. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)