Wikipedia, the online dictionary and general web reference, is thinking of going with advertisements. Actually, I”m not entirely sure what comprises “Wikipedia” or who makes the decisions, so it might just be the founder Jimmy Wales who’s hot to monotize on the “open” dictionary.

This seems to be a horrible idea in so many ways. First, all those contributors to Wikipedia did so without the thought that their contributions and work would be bracketed with advertising. They probably weren’t concerned with some nebulous “greater good” that the controllers of wikipedia can do, just creating a decend resource on the web.

To then take the content created in this way and start whacking ads on it would somehow cheapen their contributions. Someone, somewhere would derive a healthy paycheck generated entirely from the selfless contributions of individuals. And once that road is trodden, I don’t see those people suddenly deciding to forego all that income coming in because it’s not working out or causing people to not contribute.

Besides, there’s better ways to make money off an extremely well used and popular service than ads. Why not provide custom and backend service for customers or create a feeder company that monotizes indirectly on what Wickipedia creates? It is free content, after all.