I think the idea’s pretty good. The opposition is mostly nonsensical. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-April/029528.html in particular is bullshit top to bottom. It’s not “nonneutral” to point to Michelin in a Google-ad way. It hurts my head trying to work out what that even means. Anyway, how much ingenuity would it take to *not* have Michelin’s ad on the [[tyres]] page. Florence seems to think that you would be obliged to please the advertisers. I don’t see why you would. Obviously there are governance issues here, but simply assuming that opening up (some restricted portion of) the site to ads means kowtowing to advertisers’ every whim is ridiculous.

Whether Wikipedia is anywhere like something I feel should be provided to thirdworld inhabitants is another matter, but hey, missionaries give them bibles, so I suppose that a regurgitation of orthodox liberal promarket pabulum wouldn’t hurt them much.

As long as they don’t put those stupid emoticon ads up, I’m fine with Wikipedia carrying ads.