Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-07-31/News and notes

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• I wonder if too, the article on the missing Gavin Hopley murder is actually a self fulfilling prophesy much as the article suggests the deletion was. After all, the fact that there is an article from a reputable source discussing the murder so long after could in fact show ongoing notability of the event. Miyagawa (talk) 17:30, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikimania advertising

The Wikimania page looks once more like something from Formula One. I'd rather Wikimania stayed faithful to what is usually claimed to be part of the essential spirit of Wikipedia: No advertising. No government funding. Some of these sponsorship deals (2012 page) are very much from a different world than Wikipedia. Example quote:

• Diamond level: $40,000
• Our three Diamond sponsors will receive the naming rights to the attendee party, opening night reception, or the Unconference. Diamond sponsors will also receive:
• Large banner and acknowledgement during sponsored event.
• 5 VIP tickets and full conference passes
• Full-page ad in the program
• Name & logo prominent on conference website and slideshow prior to the start of plenary sessions
• Promotional items in attendee bag
• Other considerations negotiable

Naming rights for attendee parties ("Come to the Ask.com party!") and the like are the sorts of sponsorship terms you'd expect for a PGA Golf Tournament, not from a volunteer-driven encyclopedia claiming to offer the public neutral articles on these selfsame sponsors. (For reference, $40,000 is less than 0.1% of the WMF's annual revenue.) Andreas JN466 17:56, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I share some of Jayen466's concerns on sponsorship. --NaBUru38 (talk) 12:48, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

If you're going to have an expensive annual conference like Wikimania, the money needs to come from somewhere. A fair chunk of the funding has apparently come from sponsors this year, but sponsors don't usually hand out bags of money "for free". For what it's worth, I don't think that the amount of advertising sponsorship is excessive at all. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 08:22, 4 August 2013 (UTC).

The way I read the article, the WMF funds most of the conference anyway, and advertisers at most "top up" the funding. The Foundation took something like $50 million this year in revenue. It's well within the Foundation's means to pay for Wikimania outright, rather than turning it into a billboard. Andreas JN466 12:37, 5 August 2013 (UTC)