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Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

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Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#91

Why are people so consistently negative about Wikipedia? Just looking at the top comments here, and other places around the internet - I think it's far too common. Let's be more positive. Wikipedia is amazing - congrats to them for successfully achieving their fund-raising goals.

> Why are people so consistently negative about Wikipedia? I am not negative about Wikipedia, but about its management. The add campaign was distasteful and I suspect just an ego trip for Jimmy Wales. The real Wikipedia is the thousands of faceless people who write the articles.

The add campaign was distasteful and I suspect just an ego trip for Jimmy Wales

They published the results of the split tests: Jimmy Wales ROFLstomped all their other creatives. It blows my mind, too, but there you go: the people who matter (i.e. people who donate to the foundation) want to Jimmy's rugged and photoshopped good looks, and all he has to do is glance in their general direction and their wallets open.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#92
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are people so consistently negative about Wikipedia? I am not negative about Wikipedia, but about its management. The add campaign was distasteful and I suspect just an ego trip for Jimmy Wales. The real Wikipedia is the thousands of faceless people who write the articles.

The add campaign was distasteful and I suspect just an ego trip for Jimmy Wales They published the results of the split tests: Jimmy Wales ROFLstomped all their other creatives. It blows my mind, too, but there you go: the people who matter (i.e. people who donate to the foundation) want to Jimmy's rugged and photoshopped good looks, and all he has to do is glance in their general direction and their wallets open.

Good call. This post sums it up quite nicely:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/the-science-behin...

EDIT: Raw Data here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Banner_testi...

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#93

Why are people so consistently negative about Wikipedia? Just looking at the top comments here, and other places around the internet - I think it's far too common. Let's be more positive. Wikipedia is amazing - congrats to them for successfully achieving their fund-raising goals.

I don't trust Wales to run the organization effectively. I think that things are just going to get worse for Wikimedia as they get more money. My opinion on Wales is not high generally and Wikipedia has implemented some policies that I find rather undesirable in the recent years. Wikipedia has also done little to really actively improve the encyclopedia; they make all the wrong organizational changes, which in genera…

Not trying to provoke you or anything, but as I am somebody who has not given this topic much thought I would be curious to hear of your concrete examples and arguments about bad policies?

I am somebody who can't see himself as contributing to wikipedia, but some changes might make me reconsider. What would you like to see changed?

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#94
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust Wales to run the organization effectively. I think that things are just going to get worse for Wikimedia as they get more money. My opinion on Wales is not high generally and Wikipedia has implemented some policies that I find rather undesirable in the recent years. Wikipedia has also done little to really actively improve the encyclopedia; they make all the wrong organizational changes, which in genera…

Not trying to provoke you or anything, but as I am somebody who has not given this topic much thought I would be curious to hear of your concrete examples and arguments about bad policies? I am somebody who can't see himself as contributing to wikipedia, but some changes might make me reconsider. What would you like to see changed?

I don't remember them all anymore -- I keep only loose tabs on Wikipedia these days. I was a very active editor and a founding member of a WikiProject in the 2004-2005 timeframe. I thought the blanket removal of most fair use images and the policy banning them was inappropriate and one of the least pragmatic things from an editorial quality perspective that could have been done.

That's the only big policy change since I quit that I can remember right now, though I know there have been several other that I felt were misguided or inappropriate. When I browse talk pages these days, I see very many new policy links, and that's part of the problem. Wikipedia has a pretty steep learning curve just to format an edit in a way that won't be reverted under a cavalcade of acronyms from the WP pagespace.

Edits on controversial topics are nearly impossible, primarily because articles will often be locked in the first place, or if they're not, each member on each side exhausts his/her three reverts, someone complains to an admin, and the page is locked so that it can all pick back up in a few days. It becomes especially difficult on pages that are hand-sanitized by a politician's staffers or other editors paid to keep WP articles favorable, because they literally have all day and they make their money by being combative, intimidating opposing editors, and otherwise staving off legitimate unfavorable edits.

And that's part of what makes this all so frustrating. Wikipedia has no real conflict resolution mechanisms. Open-source software is supposedly an inspiration for WP, but OSS has very clear, authoritarian project leaders that don't tolerate silliness. WP is an absolute free-for-all; there are policies, but in general they just mean you have to avoid specific phraseology and can still do whatever you want. As such, editing WP is very inconsistent but almost universally frustrating and it's often clear even to readers which group has established turf over a given article or set of articles.

On top of all of this, Jimmy Wales has an extreme aura of arrogance and ethical pliability. See the incidents around "co-founder" and "founder" of Wikipedia for just one example; there have been some other good ones over the years. Wales misappropriated Wikipedia, really the brain child of Larry Sanger, for his own and hasn't known what to do with it since. Sanger, meanwhile, started another wiki-based site that evolved on the Wikipedia model with approved revisions and a few other small tweaks (Citizendium, I don't know if it's still alive or not).

It also seems to me that Wales has been trying to carefully straddle the community line regarding policies, etc., (except a few cases where lawyers specifically said "this part is not optional, sorry") because he doesn't really know what's good for WP. It's all some kind of anomaly to him and he's just trying to keep a light touch so he doesn't scare it away. As such, WP yet languishes in its morass of "whoever-is-the-most-obsessed" methodology for resolving editorial conflict and lacks any serious drive or leadership.

WP is already like a big corporation because it already has a CEO that got there through business school instead of innovation. That's always the sign that you shouldn't expect many interesting advances from a given group anymore -- they are interested in maintaining their model and milking it for money until someone comes around and obsoletes them. Hiring a chief executive trained in milking money out of existing infrastructure instead of a chief executive trained in contributing something new is a huge red flag from every non-financial perspective (though the finances usually languish along with the invention and research).

Basically, it boils down to frustration over the lack of conceptual or procedural improvement in Wikipedia and the general belief that Wales is blatantly unqualified in almost all relevant respects and sort of wandered into his position accidentally. I don't necessarily blame him for that (though I do blame him for the morally dubious stuff, like Bomis, Sanger, and that girl), it just doesn't bode well for the organization.

And, as I'm sure we all know, it's generally a pretty bad thing when confused people get a whole bunch of money, as Wales just procured for himself. Wikimedia already emanates these astonishingly corporate vibes, I think we should only expect those to increase.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#95

Why are people so consistently negative about Wikipedia? Just looking at the top comments here, and other places around the internet - I think it's far too common. Let's be more positive. Wikipedia is amazing - congrats to them for successfully achieving their fund-raising goals.

I don't trust Wales to run the organization effectively. I think that things are just going to get worse for Wikimedia as they get more money. My opinion on Wales is not high generally and Wikipedia has implemented some policies that I find rather undesirable in the recent years. Wikipedia has also done little to really actively improve the encyclopedia; they make all the wrong organizational changes, which in genera…

Thanks for your informative take on the WMF's current woes.

P.S. Jimmy Wales doesn't run the Wikimedia Foundation.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#96
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! So they spent nearly $9M in salaries vs $2M for bandwidth, $1M in travel expenses, $2M in office rent/furniture/meetings https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikime... 2010 Wikipedia Spending, in USD, in thousands 8,972 Salaries and wages 1,837 Internet hosting 3,270 Capital expenditures 483 Donation processing fees, charitable registrations 2,274 External contractors 864 Travel for staff, Bo…

This data is concerning to me, here's why: First, most of the value of wikipedia comes from random users. Second, we've seen a pattern of Wales and wikipedia administration not understanding where the value of wikipedia comes from. Third, we've seen a pattern of policies and practices that are actively hostile to the users and usages that are wikipedia's bedrock (deletionism, edit wars, unnecessarily tight permission…

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#97
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a good idea, but they seem to do the same thing every year.

Why change what works?

That's a pathology called "non event feedback", just because you've avoided catastrophe with risky behavior in the past doesn't mean that the risk doesn't exist, it just means you've gotten lucky.

Why change wikimedia's method of fund raising and budgeting? Because wikipedia is a valuable resource and it would be far greater if we could ensure it remains available for reading and continued revision not just for the next year or the next decade but indefinitely. They've already raised enough money to have ensured that had they invested the money correctly. Instead, the money has been squandered on salaries for positions within the foundation which provide questionable value.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#98
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust Wales to run the organization effectively. I think that things are just going to get worse for Wikimedia as they get more money. My opinion on Wales is not high generally and Wikipedia has implemented some policies that I find rather undesirable in the recent years. Wikipedia has also done little to really actively improve the encyclopedia; they make all the wrong organizational changes, which in genera…

Thanks for your informative take on the WMF's current woes. P.S. Jimmy Wales doesn't run the Wikimedia Foundation.

Yes, I see that he is no longer the chairperson, though he still sits on the Board and I would expect holds other powerful positions relative to Wikipedia. It'd also be silly to think that he didn't exert a large influence on the Board as presently composed and Wikipedia's community as a whole -- his face was just plastered all over the site for four months, as you may recall.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#99
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are people so consistently negative about Wikipedia? I am not negative about Wikipedia, but about its management. The add campaign was distasteful and I suspect just an ego trip for Jimmy Wales. The real Wikipedia is the thousands of faceless people who write the articles.

The add campaign was distasteful and I suspect just an ego trip for Jimmy Wales They published the results of the split tests: Jimmy Wales ROFLstomped all their other creatives. It blows my mind, too, but there you go: the people who matter (i.e. people who donate to the foundation) want to Jimmy's rugged and photoshopped good looks, and all he has to do is glance in their general direction and their wallets open.

Maybe, but there are other factors. Firstly, the question is the size.

Were all the advertisements the same size? (i.e. were they all images or were some text - like google adwords?).

Then there is the question of how non-donors feel. The ad campaign made me negative about WP (and I bet quite a few other people).

The third problem is the damage to the image of WP. An idiot on the top of every page begging for money really knocks the image for me.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#100

Why are people so consistently negative about Wikipedia? Just looking at the top comments here, and other places around the internet - I think it's far too common. Let's be more positive. Wikipedia is amazing - congrats to them for successfully achieving their fund-raising goals.

> Why are people so consistently negative about Wikipedia? I am not negative about Wikipedia, but about its management. The add campaign was distasteful and I suspect just an ego trip for Jimmy Wales. The real Wikipedia is the thousands of faceless people who write the articles.

'Thousands of faceless people' generally don't make great donation drives, advertising campaigns, etc. Sounds like the ad campaign was effective to me and nothing to do with Wales' ego.
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