Forum:Wiki-based buisness?

The idea behind this would be an experiement to see if it is possible to sell stuff and distribute profits via a mainly wiki-based system. It doesn't really matter what kind of stuff would be sold, but it would probably be done through POD-type distributors such as Cafepress, Palmgear, etc. Nathanww 17:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

An interesting idea...but are you allowed to sell stuff through wikia? Vagstar 21:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

If it was approved, I don't see why not(the policy only says you can't sell stuff without authorization) Nathanww 01:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think that you could make this idea work until you worked out what sort of colaborative content could be sold. I'm guessing that you could combine artwork and text to make things like greeting cards or postcards, but don't think that POD books would be so easy to create. Considering that the content would all be available under the GNU Free Documentation Licence, how do you intend to get paid? (You might need to use some other forum of content management system that doesn't have a licence attached to it.) How would you ensure that the profits were fairly distributed to the contributors?
 * (I'm guessing that something like PayPal would be the safest system to use, but who is going to oversee the payments? What is to stop someone running off with the money or vandalising pages containing information about payments and royalties to try to get paid more than their share?)
 * I think that this experiment would be more likely to work if you just worried about gettting the money in and had it all donated to something that Wikia users would be willing to help raise cash for. How about asking for a Wikia to support the "Keep Wikipedia Free" fund and then having any royalties paid directly to the fund. That would allow you to attract enough people to test two thirds of your idea (getting people to work together and getting cash in from outside sources). If sucessful you could then use the experience to set up a Wikia that would also distribute cash to the contributors. David Shepheard 16:23, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Fun thing is, that this is already being done by various other companies. Wikia is selling ads with the content, Books, LLC is already selling the content printed. And there are others doing yust the same. But that is legal since Wikia has all content licensed under CC-BY-SA.


 * If wikia based collective intelligence can design cheap and best alterante products to that of any corporate products, if wikia can form cooperative production houses, if wikia can distribute them only with word of mouth publisity through a large supply chain owned by wikia, if wikia can utilize the ethical profit for the upliftment of humanity, then the word inflation will vanish from our lives! There start the diminishing of Corporate greed!