Heroes Wiki:Advertising
Proposal to include advertising
From the desk of Admin:
It's never been my intention to make money off this site, nor do I really think it would be appropriate since it's the community that makes this site what it is. It has been my hope, however, to be able to recover the costs of advertising this site. The advertisements have been instrumental in getting the word out and building up the user base, but have been costly. The great thing is that as the site becomes more popular it receives more word-of-mouth advertising so it may be possible to reduce the advertising expenses. What I'd like to do is start placing some Google ads in the sidebar and possibly at the bottom of the page. This will be similar to the advertising already seen on the Lostpedia and Memory Alpha wikis. Google ads are fairly prevalent and unobtrusive.
There's a difference, however. In the event that revenue from hosting advertisements exceeds expenses and we become net positive, I'd like to set up a system where the left-over money is split amongst the top contributor(s) of the wiki each month. It seems fair to reward those who are essential members of the community and who have already donated much of their time to help make this wiki as great as it is. It's possible some of the money may also be set aside to be used for supporting additional capacity for the wiki.
The initial response to discussion about including advertising is usually negative. Please keep in mind though that the goal first and foremost is to help make the wiki self-sustaining and improve its growth potential, not to put money into someone's pockets. This advertising will be here to benefit the wiki itself, not me personally.
I'd appreciate feedback from the community on this. The details on how any profits would be split can be worked out later if it appears that we're going to be net positive, but I'd like to at least find out whether others think this system is a good idea or not. If this system seems undesirable then it's always possible for 100% of the net proceeds to go to supporting wiki expansion.
Thank you.