Mike Linksvayer is pushing for Wikipedia to take ads.

Chris F. Masse October 24th, 2007

Mike Linksvayer (the Creative Commons VP, who blogs his own opinions independently of his employer):

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}}]]

I have done what Mike says on my Chris Masse page at Wikipedia. Mike is a smart thinker for this kind of issues —open-source software and open-source knowledge.