bg3wiki talk:Ads Announcement 1

No thanks

We can't trust your word if you do this, so promises to keep it from becoming "an annoyance" are moot. You've here sworn that any promises you make may be freely broken "if the promise was made under ignorance" of the financial windfall.

I'd urge extreme caution before going through with this plan. A probing of altering Creative Commons licenses to prevent other sites from "ripping off bg3.wiki" is at odds. The point of the license is to allow other people to "rip off" the site. The Creative Commons license means this site's contributions can be entirely replicated on a different site, e.g. https://baldursgateiii.wiki/, without needing to consult anyone.

This site's utility is within its content, and that content is easily, and legally, replicated.

Ultimately, I do not want money for my contributions, and I will not relicense them to allow the site owner to make money from the same.

Kelpto (talk) 16:20, 20 July 2024 (CEST)

Hi Kelpto,

Your opinion is valuable to me, but the vast majority of people seem to see it differently. In most people's eyes, I seem to have demonstrated my commitment to making and keeping bg3.wiki a great resource, and I hope you'll eventually be convinced too. As a logged in user, you won't even see ads, so this change will basically not affect you at all. (I suppose it might if you view the wiki from other devices on which you're not logged in, and if you don't have an ad blocker on those devices.)

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to explain regarding preventing other sites from "ripping off" the wiki. Let me explain:

1. The CC BY-NC-SA license, being irrevocable, grants everyone the right to create a separate wiki and host the content there, but only under the NC condition, meaning that this secondary wiki could not serve ads. (LATE CORRECTION: Apparently, showing ads aside NC content may be fine. I'll still go through the re-licensing effort for avoidance of doubt, to honor the wishes of those who contributed under the assumption that the wiki would never serve ads and don't want their content to stay up, etc.)

2. Past contributors, who made their content available under the CC BY-NC-SA, have a choice regarding what additional license to grant bg3.wiki to allow monetizing the content.

3. The main offer I will make to past contributors is that they agree to re-license their content under CC BY-SA, meaning that not only bg3.wiki but also everyone else will be allowed to monetize the content.

4. As a secondary option, if someone says "I want only bg3.wiki to be allowed to monetize my content," then they could decide to only grant bg3.wiki a license (not a CC one) to monetize their past content. In this situation, their content would still be available to everyone else under the NC license. However, exclusively to bg3.wiki, it would also be available under an additional license that permits commercial use.

So, there's no desire from my end to prevent other websites from copying content from bg3.wiki (which, as you've correctly pointed out, they can do under the irrevocable NC license). I don't even intend trying to prevent others from making money with content taken from bg3.wiki; that choice will belong to the past contributors who so far haven't granted anyone a license to monetize their content. To be honest, I doubt anyone will actually use the secondary option I've described above; I'm pretty sure everyone will simply agree to re-license their content to CC BY-SA, so that not only bg3.wiki but also everyone else will be allowed to monetize it. I just want to make sure people know that they have options.

By the way, note that starting from July 20 (today), new content on bg3.wiki is released under CC BY-SA. So, I've already chosen a license for new content that explicitly allows other websites to make money with new content that appears on bg3.wiki. (Even though I don't do it myself yet! Will probably start soon though.) Just to further prove that I have no intention of claiming ownership over the content or trying to keep it just for myself in any way.

If you're absolutely sure that you don't want to accept payment in exchange for re-licensing your content to CC BY-SA, then I will sadly have to go through your contributions and delete any that are still live. From a quick look, it doesn't look like it's all that much, so overall it shouldn't hurt the wiki. I'll only start doing it once we start serving ads though (probably start of August) and I would greatly appreciate it if you change your mind.

Sorry about the long response, but I wanted to be as detailed as I could.

Taylan (talk) 21:46, 20 July 2024 (CEST)

"I can make a lot of money off of ads" is a terrible premise to break a promise

The costs of hosting this wiki have already been covered for 2024. Hosting this wiki does not need to be your job, and I am extremely skeptical that you could make enough money from ad revenue to make it so. Who have you been talking to about putting ads on the wiki? What level of compensation have they suggested to you? Who would be serving the ads? What would the ads consist of?

How do you plan on obtaining the consent of anonymous contributors? Or will you actually undertake the effort of systematically deleting and replacing all of their contributions? (Keeping in mind that whatever contributions replace those of the non-consenting contributors, will have to actually be unique and differentiated contributions under copyright. I am also extremely skeptical it will even be possible to replace those contributions with sufficiently differentiated works, as to make those contributors' claims of copyright null and void on the resulting work, and the resulting work not just a derivative of their earlier contributions.)

There is not nearly enough actionable, concrete information provided by you for anyone to make a serious decision or give serious consent to this proposal. As it stands this is legally, ethically, and morally a bad idea. I strongly oppose it.

Furthermore, please consider the fact that this wiki's utility and service to the game's community has been intrinsically linked to the wiki being provided for free and without advertisement. If this wiki, its maintenance, or its administration are becoming an undue burden on you financially, emotionally, or otherwise, then please seek out a replacement administrator and host to take over that burden. In that case, I would specifically recommend you reach out to Larian themselves to see if they would prefer to host and administrate this wiki.

Otherwise, no, "I never knew just how much money ads can apparently make" is a terrible reason to break your promise and compromise your morals and ethics.

— unsigned comment by 98.199.7.246 (talk) 01:42, 21 July 2024 (CEST)

Dear anonymous commenter,

As mentioned in the page, donations would be refunded. Projections show that I will be able to make enough money to pay a more than fair sum to all non-trivial past contributors, and still have enough for myself. If that plan doesn't pan out, I'll simply roll back on the plan; it's not a big deal. The company which contacted me regarding ads is a fairly reputable one, and I've verified that their projections are credible by checking with numerous other sources.

The consent of anonymous editors is difficult to attain, but anonymous editors don't often contribute so much that their edits would constitute a significant copyrighted work in its own regard. If an anonymous editor who contributed a lot has a problem with this change to the site, they can always contact me and we'll see what can be done. There's no point worrying about highly theoretical issues.

"There is not nearly enough actionable, concrete information provided by you for anyone to make a serious decision or give serious consent to this proposal."

If you are a past contributor who added non-trivial amounts of content to the wiki, then please tell me what more information you need. Regarding your opinion that this is a bad idea on multiple fronts, I hear you, but the vast majority of people seem to disagree.

"Furthermore, please consider the fact that this wiki's utility and service to the game's community has been intrinsically linked to the wiki being provided for free and without advertisement."

The wiki will obviously continue being provided for free. The small amount of ads will be simple to disable for those who don't want to see them, by creating an account or using an ad blocker.

"If this wiki, its maintenance, or its administration are becoming an undue burden on you financially, emotionally, or otherwise, [...]"

No, I greatly enjoy the technical work involved in systems administration, working with HTML/CSS/JS/PHP/Lua/Wikitext, templates, Cargo, and so on. I'm really happy that I'll be able to turn this passion into full-time work. But thank you for the concern.

"Otherwise, no, "I never knew just how much money ads can apparently make" is a terrible reason to break your promise and compromise your morals and ethics."

As I've mentioned, I'm only doing this because I'll be able to pay past contributors good amounts as well. Everyone who actually created the wiki, and helped it otherwise, will benefit.

Taylan (talk) 12:40, 21 July 2024 (CEST)

Consent Given

I trust you, so you have my consent. Viktoria Landers (talk) 18:53, 23 July 2024 (CEST)

Let the enshittification begin

Your site beats fextralife's site by a mile and more. It's an example that shows that monetization is harmful to a collaborative project than when the content is given freely and voluntarily.

Sure, no one likes to work for free, but paying past contributors feels like you are actually trying to bribe them to further your own agenda of monetization. You euphemistically admit to your own greed.

I advise you not to follow this dark path or, like the fextralife wiki, you will be replaced. 91.184.167.72 09:53, 24 July 2024 (CEST)

Me when I make money: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/7/7f/Emperor_Palpatine_TNsR.jpg Taylan (talk) 17:16, 24 July 2024 (CEST)

Disappointed and alarmed

Your latest update says you will not be removing content that is requested to be removed immediately, which I assume means you will be making money off content that contributors specifically didn’t want monetized. That’s extremely unsettling and sets a horrible precedent for wikis going forward. Why is making money off ads more important than the wishes of your contributors to not be part of your monetization plans? And how long are you planing on keeping this content up? A day? A week? A year??? Depending on how long you intend to keep this up, you may make more money with ads off of content explicitly asked to be removed than whatever you are paying the contributors. 181.215.169.201 16:07, 24 July 2024 (CEST)