Flagged for outrage flamebait that wouldn't be acceptable as a comment.
Wikipedia is not short on cash
131–140 of 500 posts
Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their communications about donations are just awful. As long as I get these sappy, puppy-dog-eyes appeals I will never donate to them again.
Yeah man, and how dare the Red Cross manipulate people with pictures of starving children in their famine relief ads? A graph showing the intersection between available calories trending down and required calories staying constant would land so much better on HN.
It's ironic that you use Red Cross as an example. An organization that has been proven again and again to be among the worst charity orgs you can donate to, repeatedly spends money on anything else but charity, and often does things that are both antithetical to their stated mission and unethical to boot.
Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>. A body pretending to represent free speech and human rights that's stuffed with illiberal violators of human rights. UN literally never pretended to do such a thing - it's just a forum for countries to meet and discuss issues, with no power to really do anything other than agree or disagree with each other on whatever is being discussed. Kicking out say Russia or China or North Korea from the UN makes no sense in…
Discussion is only useful when the parties are acting in good faith. It's better to limit discussion to good-faith actors than to allow their transparency to provide camouflage and give the appearance of normality to bad-faith actors who only seek to use the openness of the discussion to execute policies that directly undermine discussion writ large . This has always been the weakness of democracies, and it's always…
>>when in fact they should be given no platform whatsoever.
See, this is where we disagree.
Let's say that Russia was kicked out of the UN for their recent actions - what's the point of UN then? Just everyone else discussing Russia but without Russia being present? That's a joke then, not a discussion forum.
>> by implying that their collective authoritarian voices should be taken seriously by the democracies
I don't see how you can even come to that conclusion. Look at what's happening recently - yes Russia is being given a voice, Lavrow comes out and says whatever drivel Kremlin told him to say, then literally every other country stood up and said how much they disagree with that statement. The last thing that would come to my mind upon seeing this is that they are "being taken seriously by democracies" - they are a country, so they have a place at the table. Doesn't mean that anyone else automatically agrees or respects what they say.
>> there's no reason whatsoever to allow them to continue to have the pretextual cover of international approval from a body that
I literally don't see where you think that having a seat in the UN gives anyone an "approval" for anything. It's literally just a seat at a discussion table, nothing else nothing more.
>> has accepted a declaration of human rights.
Which is great and all, but again, it's not UN's mission statement to enforce that - it's a forum where countries can agree or disagree on things, it has no executive power. If you would like it to have some, then that's a different discussion altogether.
And when a member state does break the declaration of human rights(or any of the other things that UN has agreed on) - it is discussed, it is brought up, and countries to voice their disapproval or agree on collective action. "UN" as an organisation does not, because that's not why it exists.
Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
its a fucked up situation but do you have any alternatives? wikipedia keeping amasing all that money while mozilla sinks deeper and deeper into being dependent on google ad money, reducing costs which means laying off developers?
Of course there is an alternative... not donating to either of those corrupt businesses.
should probably donate to google instead then
Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash
#135Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash
#136The criticism that too much goes to fundraisers is meaningless without an explanation of how much would be optimal. If spending an additional $1m on fundraising meant an additional $1.1m in donations, then that's $100k more for Wikipedia that wouldn't have been there before.
If huge profit-making companies like Disney, Coca-Cola and McDonald's spend so much on marketing and sales, then it must be profitable. Similarly, there's no reason that fundraising spend wouldn't be financially advantageous to a non-profit.
If you support Wikipedia enough to donate, then it makes sense to want them to raise as much as they can. In which case you should enthusiastically support them running like a business-savvy organization.
Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash
#137Wikipedia is far too important as a dataset and knowledge base for companies such as Google. They will never let it fail, and are already funding it. Your donations can make a bigger difference elsewhere.
Google has a copy of Wikipedia. Is it critical for them to have future updates?
Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash
#138Earlier 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…
>In the videos they discuss issues in science like objectivity (they're against it) and bias (they're in favour). Its a shame so much money is being funneled to these groups since that's exactly the opposite goal of most donators to Wikipedia.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you didn't verify, even slightly, anything that tweet-thread author said.
Either that, or like the author, you agree with their claim that grant money going to journalists who are people of color is 'furthering the inescapable American culture war.'
Jeez, how dare those black people engage in journalism that isn't about white culture. They're declaring war on American (white) culture!" /s
Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don't? Why not? Have the unique users peaked? Are people accessing it less? I'm pretty happy to wager real money that Wikipedia has had to scale significantly in the last ten years. But, hey, if you've got evidence to the contrary, I'll happily read it.
No doubt they have had to scale significantly. … But have they had to scale to a degree commensurate with the amount of money they are spending? Absolutely not. The "Wikipedia has cancer" article makes that point handily.
How do you know? If you've run the numbers from their financial statements, I'm keen to see your analysis.
Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems odd to me that an organization would try to fund raise around the same time that lots of people have increased fuel bills from heating, and expensive festivals like Thanks Giving and Christmas to pay for. No doubt there's some reasoning behind it but I'd definitely have thought that fund raising at almost any other time would be more successful.
Christmas, and by extension the holiday season, has a longstanding tradition of charitable giving (probably originating around Christianity?). People are just in a giving mood around the end of the year. It's not unusual for 30% of all donations to occur in the last month of the year. So it's by far the best months for fundraising.
It's also near the deadline for annual income tax management.