Original Research

My friend Phil sent me this statement by the founder of PlentyOfFish.com; it came from his welcoming message when he signed up with that website. (This has also been reprinted over at Dating with Children. (BTW, Phil's a responsible, warm and available guy, ladies, so I'll be happy to introduce you to him.) Parts (which I have italicized) are worth considering in the continuous debate over whether Wikipedia ought to accept advertising.

Geoff

My name is Markus and I created plentyoffish.com because I was tired of seeing faceless corporations prey on people looking for love. Now a few years later Plentyoffish is the only major free site around and now happens to be the largest dating site in the english speaking world. Unlike paid dating sites, which have 500 to 800 employees whose jobs are to figure out how to get more of your money, this site is run by me myself and I. There are no employees.

This site is my pet project and runs far differently than a paid site.

1. If you are a jerk, are mean to other users, upload nude images, do not fill out your profile correctly etc you will be deleted and banned.

2. Over a million people use this site per day and I don't type very fast so please don’t get mad if it takes a while to respond to your inquiries :)

3. Cut and paste messages are blocked, be original.

4. Paid sites go out of business if you find what you are looking for quickly. This is because they have to be able to pay for all that mass advertising on TV. For a free site like this to get big we have to give you exactly what you are looking for so we get big word of mouth going.

Technocrati tags: advertising, online communities, revenue sources, Web 2.0, wikipedia

Labels: free culture, wikipedia