Wikipedia (actually the Wikimedia Foundation) started another fundraiser yesterday. I’ll just reference what I’ve said in the past:

• Outsourcing charity … to Wikipedia
• Defeatist dreaming
• I support advertising on Wikipedia
• Wikipedia advertising redux
• Wiki search advertising

I am convinced by comments on the above posts and conversations since that it will take a huge shift in Wikipedia community opinion for advertising to have a chance. The time for direct argument in relevant venues is distant. If you agree with me that advertising on Wikipedia will allow the foundation to greatly speed the fulfillment of its commitment, you can make your support known without rancor:

1) When you donate, leave a comment that says “I support advertising on Wikipedia.”

2) On your Wikipedia user page (mine), add the following code, with obvious meaning (|{{PAGENAME}} may not be obvious–it’s a hack to make your name sort correctly in the relevant category listings):

[[Category:Wikipedians for optional advertisements|{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Wikipedians who think that the Wikimedia Foundation should use advertising|{{PAGENAME}}]]

Fortuitously Mozilla posted their 2006 financial statements today:

Mozilla’s revenues (including both Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation) for 2006 were $66,840,850, up approximately 26% from 2005 revenue of $52,906,602. As in 2005 the vast majority of this revenue is associated with the search functionality in Mozilla Firefox, and the majority of that is from Google. The Firefox userbase and search revenue have both increased from 2005. Search revenue increased at a lesser rate than Firefox usage growth as the rate of payment declines with volume.

Congratulations to Mozilla. The Open Web‘s prospects would look far worse if Mozilla did not have the wisdom to exploit this revenue source. Now, what about the prospects for Free Knowledge?

Addendum 20071123: The Wikimedia Fundraiser Blog is running Why Wikipedia Does Not Run Ads, a post linked to in the fundraising ad now running on Wikipedia.