[jaylevitt]

I don't know Wikipedia's donor requirements; how do they avoid that same conflict of interest via donations? Is there some maximum donation per individual, reporting requirement, etc. that prevents corruption any more than using an automated ad network like AdSense would?

[baddox]

As far as I know, donators don't get any special treatment, and there aren't any conditional donations (e.g. I'll donate if you delete this article), so why would donations cause a conflict of interests?

[wpietri]

It is a very common problem in ad-supported content businesses. Reputable newspapers and magazines work hard to make sure advertising doesn't influence content but it's always a struggle.

For example, suppose that Coke buys $10m of ads a year. It's small money to Coke (with a $1.6bn ad budget) but that's 60% of Wikipedia's annual revenue. Then suppose that there's a press furor over the "Criticisms of Coca Cola article" and Coke threatens to withdraw their ads. It would be impossible for Wikipedia to be perfectly chill about maybe having to fire half their staff.

It might even be less direct than that. Might people make more content that garners high-paying ads, even if the quality is low? Could editors be tempted to make the content less accessible (or harder to tell apart from the ads) if that gets more click-throughs?

Accepting ads mean there is always a conflict of interest between getting paid and serving readers. Even if Wikipedians make the right decision 100% of the time, readers will still be more suspicious, and that's the last thing Wikipedia needs.

[naz]

Say if Facebook donates a million dollars a year, Wikipedia would be incentivized to treat Facebook favorably.

Obviously this doesn't happen, but that is one of their arguments against advertising.

[lambda]

Right, and one of the reasons this doesn't happen is that Facebook doesn't get any benefit out of donating all that money, other than the (potential) control they could get by threatening to stop funding Wikipedia.

Businesses have an incentive to buy ads, and users have less incentive to donate to an ad-supported site, which means that the funding would be skewed drastically in favor of advertisers. With donations, yes, you can have large donors using their clout, but you don't automatically skew the pool of money towards a few particular interests.

Ads also have problems in that they are juxtaposed with the content of the site. That can create an implicit sense of endorsement of the ad by Wikipedia, and vice versa. People manipulate content providers all the time, by mentioning to advertisers that their ads are juxtaposed with some objectionable content, and even threatening to boycott those advertisers if they don't remove their ads. By only accepting donations, you are supported by people who are much more likely to be dedicated to the free exchange of information that is your mission, and you aren't putting their name up next to content that they might object to.

[JonnieCache]

I suppose you're right, but the psychology of donations versus purchases is very powerful. Plus there's the issue of customer vs. product that someone else mentioned.

[neilk]

There isn't a maximum donation that I'm aware of. In some cases, individuals have given a lot of money, publicly and anonymously. I believe the WMF has turned down some large donations when there were too many strings attached.