Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wikipedia is not short on cash

unherd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 500 posts

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#81

Post by [deleted] »

Macha wrote: post #77
andrewstuart wrote: post #61

Is this the same person who every now and then appears on HN utterly outraged by Wikipedia's fundraising? I donate to Wikipedia. And I am glad they have lots of money. I do not feel outraged about it, I feel happy about it. I do not feel outraged that they use whatever persuasive tactics that they use - this is necessary in the modern world. Wikipedia is a great service, it should be valued. They should not always be…

You can view the history of of submissions and comments on the wikipedia has cancer article to see how many of the posters have a long history of submissions that clearly indicates they're different people, and not just one single person with a grudge. Not everyone shares your opinion on high pressure misleading sales as a persuasion method being acceptable.

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#82

Post by micromacrofoot »

akolbe wrote: post #62
pastage wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikimedia is vital to Wikipedia, they have little money and pay their exec too little for what they do. IMHO.

Then they should tell donors and prospective donors what they do. As ever, all the content is written by unpaid volunteers (or people paid by others), but still the Wikimedia Foundation's spending doubles every few years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial... What's it for? Tell donors what they are funding. And somehow the priorities are wrong. The Wikimedia Foundation has annual 8-figure s…

it’s not at all unusual for an organization to donate to support the society it operates in

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#83

Post by jeremyjh »

navaati wrote: post #79
phpisthebest wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some ways Charity Navigator is like the BBB, and people need to take those ratings with a grain of salt. What is not said here, but I think it was started this article there was a break-down on Twitter [2] recently where someone broke down the grants Wikimedia Foundation gives to other charities, A lot of Wikimedia has become advocacy for social issues not the spread of free information. Some of those Social issue…

Hey, what is "the BBB" here ?

Better Business Bureau

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#84

Post by noduerme »

pastage wrote: post #58
noduerme wrote: post #36

A paltry few hundred million $ in the war chest is nothing to keep open a site mainly devoted to coordinating established facts in an information landscape otherwise controlled by state actors. And I would, and I did, contribute to Wikipedia. Until it became clear to me that they'd allowed antisemitic, anti-Israeli politics to warp their articles about things like the Holocaust, the 6-day war or the Israeli-Palestini…

This makes no sense especially if you know how Wikipedia works. But antisemtic propaganda accounts spread the same thing about Wikipedia, so no one will ever be satisfied.

No, minorities will never be satisfied. Not when the platform's structure is geared toward allowing swarms acting on behalf of authoritarians to revise history.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#85

Post by loloquwowndueo »

navaati wrote: post #79
phpisthebest wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some ways Charity Navigator is like the BBB, and people need to take those ratings with a grain of salt. What is not said here, but I think it was started this article there was a break-down on Twitter [2] recently where someone broke down the grants Wikimedia Foundation gives to other charities, A lot of Wikimedia has become advocacy for social issues not the spread of free information. Some of those Social issue…

Hey, what is "the BBB" here ?

Better business bureau

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#86

Post by phpisthebest »

navaati wrote: post #79
phpisthebest wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some ways Charity Navigator is like the BBB, and people need to take those ratings with a grain of salt. What is not said here, but I think it was started this article there was a break-down on Twitter [2] recently where someone broke down the grants Wikimedia Foundation gives to other charities, A lot of Wikimedia has become advocacy for social issues not the spread of free information. Some of those Social issue…

Hey, what is "the BBB" here ?

BBB == Better Business Bureau a private organization in the US that "rates" business based on certain factors and customer complaints. It is often confused with having some kind of governmental authority, approval, or validity when in reality they just a non-profit trade organization.

Very similar to charity navigator but rating for-profit businesses

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#88

Post by Macha »

shadowgovt wrote: post #76
akolbe wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they should tell donors and prospective donors what they do. As ever, all the content is written by unpaid volunteers (or people paid by others), but still the Wikimedia Foundation's spending doubles every few years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial... What's it for? Tell donors what they are funding. And somehow the priorities are wrong. The Wikimedia Foundation has annual 8-figure s…

> Tell donors what they're funding Wikimedia has a 100/100 transparency rating. https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/200049703

Notably none of the criteria measured in that rating consider their marketing. So yes their policies and filings exist, but those are not what they're presenting to potential donors, so do not prove the ads are not misleading

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#89

Post by shadowgovt »

rany_ wrote: post #31
rippercushions wrote: post #21

Eh. If you don't want to donate, don't, but I don't quite get the outrage here. The Wikimedia Foundation is still small as far as charities go and is visibly making Wikipedia better: the new UI is a breath of fresh air, and given the insane complexity of MediaWiki markup, the visual editor is a piece of unimaginable technical wizardry. Wiktionary is an unheralded gem and even Wikidata is starting to be genuinely usef…

I don't get the outrage either. It's almost like people want Wikipedia to be barely scrapping by which isn't good. Having some money in your reserves is fine.

An organization that has the goodwill of the hacker community has to perpetually walk the line on the edge of pauper to maintain its virtue, lest it be seen as selling out and no longer worthy of the goodwill of the hacker community.

It's a bit of a self-defeating attitude. Hackers love scrappy upstarts. Succeed too hard and you cease to be a scrappy upstart.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#90

Post by dfgtyu65r »

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #47

The advantage of a community supported encyclopedia should be a reasonable degree of impartiality, openness and academic freedom. Wikipedia has departed a good distance from this ideal and should support itself as other media does... through advertising or subscriptions. The case is best found in the OP link comments, but here's one I found that well summarizes: "You do have to filter out some stuff unfortunately – b…

I have to say I can't think of a worse outcome than Wikipedia becoming advertising- or subscription-funded.

At best, it will be less useable and more liable to influence once its source of funding is at the behest of advertisers. And with a subscription model, presumably it would then be pay-to-play which is antithetical to the idea of Wikipedia in the first place.

I also don't agree that Wikipedia has to a significant degree departed from "impartiality, openness and academic freedom", or at least I'd need some sources/examples.

Post reply on HN