
How Wikipedia and Flattr can together change the World - jayeshsalvi
http://jyro.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-wikipedia-and-flattr-can-together.html
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ErrantX
_The way it works is, your visitor has a Flattr account that he/she fills with
some money each month._

Unfortunately that is where it falls apart.

The fund-raising model that "works" for Wikipedia is very different from the
Flattr model. And I am not convinced that the Flattr model can scale up to the
Wikipedia level.

(not to mention the fact that donations would be a lot more random, difficult
to track and will come in fits & spurts; which is basically useless when you
reach the levels of money the WMF is after)

 _If wikipedia adopts Flattr as their micropayment solution, overnight tons of
people will open a Flattr account._

I do not think this would happen as easily as suggested.

~~~
joeyh
In my experience the rate of flattr donations is not very bursty month over
month. Even before they allowed to subscribe to continue re-flattring a Thing
each month.

And of course I have lower volumes than wikipedia would, so I'd expect it
would average out even more for them. :)

One thing is for sure: If Wikipedia managed to handle their funding through
Flattr, Flattr itself would be making a killing with their 10% cut.

~~~
gwern
> One thing is for sure: If Wikipedia managed to handle their funding through
> Flattr, Flattr itself would be making a killing with their 10% cut.

A serious issue and a major downside from the perspective of Wikipedia, since
people still worry about community effects:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Libre_Universal_en...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Libre_Universal_en_Espa%C3%B1ol#Reasons_for_the_split)

Of course, there have been large-scale collaborations that have worked out
before, so it's not impossible:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Wikipedia#Off-
line_publi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Wikipedia#Off-
line_publication)

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zby
Why micropayments will not change the world:
[http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/02/why-small-payments-
wont...](http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/02/why-small-payments-wont-save-
publishers/)

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executive
Why don't they have one ad, a homepage big box?

YouTube's big box costs $200-250k/day.

Even at $50k/day they could easily rake in 15 million+ and still be a little
undersold.

~~~
zipdog
Jimmy Wales has been asked this a few times (probably a lot more than that),
and their independence is more vauable than the money they would get from such
sponsorship.

~~~
neworbit
Instead they have a HUGE beg banner. Gah. It's like PBS donation mongering.

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zipdog
The big problem with this idea (other than the fact that the wikipedia
fundraising model isn't broken at all), is that it's asking Wikipedia to use
it's hard-earned clout and prestige to "improve the world" in an area that is
not part of it's focus (micropayments).

Not to mention that if a banner once a year asking for money looks awkward, a
micropayments button next to every single article is going to look a lot
worse.

~~~
joeyh
It would provide a way to compare that 10k people liked article A, while only
3 liked article B. In many ways that is a more interesting part of Flattr than
the money itself.

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pasbesoin
Has anyone else noticed the double entendre in the name, "Flattr"? Flatter the
recipient, and create a "flatter" distribution bypassing content middlemen.

I don't know whether this potential interpretation is/was intended. I skimmed
their web site / blog, but I didn't see an allusion to the latter
interpretation.

