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

211–220 of 500 posts

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#211

Post by civilized »

apexalpha wrote: post #95

Man, Wikipedia is like the best website I can think of. No joke. No silly 25MB framework, no hype, no popup banners (except the donation), no ads, no tracking, doesn't ask to sign up when I scroll down, no paywall... Just doing it's thing providing all the world with all knowledge for free, in a lot of languages. These managers can earn $4 million for all I care. Hell, I work for a mid-sized company that doesn't even…

Agreed. So let's take a look at why the columnist, Andrew Orlowski, has such a problem with Wikipedia. It's not hard to find out why - it's on Wikipedia [1]. With direct links to Orlowski's own work, of course, should anyone make unfounded accusations of bias.

> "It's the Khmer Rouge in diapers," observes one regular Register reader, which seems as good a description as any to us.

https://www.theregister.com/2004/09/07/khmer_rouge_in_daiper...

> "You think the BBC is biased? Check out Wokepedia"

https://archive.ph/20210527073503/https://www.telegraph.co.u...

In a rhetorical line consistent with the "Khmer Rouge in diapers" and "Wokepedia" snipes, the writing in this second piece is strikingly petty and polemical:

> If Karl Marx was alive today, perhaps he wouldn’t be touring Manchester slums with Engels, but peering in astonishment at the upstairs-downstairs world of Wikipedia. Instead of Das Kapital, he’d be writing Das Wiki.

It's revealing that Orlowski chooses to single out Wikipedia as a remarkable examplar of extreme wealth inequality, when many of the outlets he mentions in his very first sentence are headed by far wealthier individuals than Jimmy Wales:

> Who would you name as the most influential media company in the world? Some might offer Fox, Disney or the BBC. Or AT&T and Comcast, the largest media giants by revenue. In fact, the real answer may be hidden in plain view: Wikipedia.

Evidently, Orlowski is simply a right-wing journalist who dislikes the public having access to information with an ideological bent which is even sometimes different than he would like to see online, and therefore takes potshots at Wikipedia using standards he doesn't apply to other outlets.

Personally, when I want information on a topic that's received widespread attention, I almost always find Wikipedia an extraordinarily informative source, usually much more neutral in tone and much more fact-loaded than anything else found online. Even when the writing suggests a viewpoint I don't agree with. And yes, sometimes the viewpoint is to the political left of my personal viewpoint.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not a little "Khmer Rouge diaper baby" who is helplessly swayed to the evil communists by the slightest bias in Wikipedia's tone. I'm an adult who finds it to be one helpful source as I draw my own conclusions.

If such a viewpoint is unpalatable to Andrew Orlowski, perhaps he belongs on Conservapedia, the onetime self-styled "trustworthy" encyclopedia.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Orlowski

[note: minor edits for clarity + expanded analysis]

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#212

Post by fallingknife »

katamarimambo wrote: post #184
Applejinx wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wondered whether it was a clever ploy to GET me to donate to Wikipedia/media/whatever, what with all the comments ranting in right-wing style. Kind of like Nike or whoever, gesturing to causes they don't really do anything to support, in order to goad political rants against then and elicit a larger backlash and more money they'd have had if they kept quiet. HBomberguy has a good video on the subject. You can use…

After reading the article and others on that website I'm donating to Black Lives Matter and some LGBT org.

Definitely don't donate to BLM, though. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/04/us/black-lives-matter-executi...

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#213

Post by akolbe »

phpisthebest wrote: post #177
akolbe wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, in part. That Twitter thread starts of really well but jumps the shark right towards the end.

Only if you read it in the most uncharitable way, and ignore the very real aspects of the "Culture War" around things like CRT, Anti-Racism, DEI, ESG, etc that have very real political and partisan aspects to them. Often intersecting with the very concept of what role government should play in people's life, what authority government should have, and how government should regulate both behavior and economies

I am uncomfortable with the video stills at the end that do seem to be picking on black people. Maybe I am doing the Twitter user an injustice, but there were four other grant recipients they could have been picking on as well:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Grant_...

This said, I agree with the premise that the Wikimedia Foundation is partisan. Its General Counsel came from the Tides Foundation, which is as partisan as any of its equivalents on the right, and its Chief Advancement Officer, responsible for fundraising and strategic partnerships, had a long career in political philanthropy before joining Wikimedia:

https://sfgov.org/civilservice/sites/default/files/Documents...

https://www.sfweekly.com/news/greening-the-left/

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/COMMUNITY-Growing-ch...

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#214

Post by denton-scratch »

petercooper wrote: post #190
rany_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree, but with a warchest of $400m, their budget can seemingly be funded at 2.5% withdrawal per year, so there may be no need to ask anymore. (Though personally I'd rather they spent even more and had more full time editors and researchers improving the site.)

> more full time editors and researchers

By "full-time" you mean paid?

Researchers can't contribute to Wikipedia at all, unless the "research" consists of a literature review.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

And if there were full-time paid editors, I'd stop editing immediately, and instead contribute my efforts to the fork that would inevitably result.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#215

Post by shadowgovt »

concordDance wrote: post #206
shadowgovt wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were running ads like that, they wouldn't make any money. The psychology of fundraising is extremely well researched.

They can start running the ads again once they only have enough cash to keep wikipedia running for the next five years rather than 35 years then.

Why leave donor money on the table for the ExxonMobil Foundations of the world to pick up?

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#216

Post by oever »

nerdponx wrote: post #174
akolbe wrote: post #6

Note that the fundraising banners are currently only shown to a small percentage of readers – these are the October pre-tests : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#W... The actual fundraiser will come at the end of the year, when the banners will follow everyone visiting Wikipedia around for over a month (29th of November – 31st of December). https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising#Current_…

I assume the small % of readers are also heavy users who don't make edits, like me. And honestly I would be thrilled to donate many many times if it wasn't for their ridiculous messaging. It's like Mozilla, stop spending my donation money on stupid doomed-to-fail projects and then I'll donate more.

If you donate now, this will be seen as the ads being effective.

If you donate in March, when no ads are running, that will lead to the ads being seen as less effective.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#217

Post by klelatti »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #188
klelatti wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's relevant because he's not really disclosing his motivations. He clearly has other reasons for disliking wikipedia but he fails to disclose them in this article.

If he's presenting a factual summary of what's going on, his "motivations" are irrelevant. If he's not presenting a factual summary of what's going on, his "motivations" are likewise irrelevant. If you can refute his claims, by all means do so, but vague ad hominems don't impress me.

Not sure why accurately reporting his track record of attacking Wikimedia with a clear - and self admitted - right wing bias is a 'vague ad hominem'.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#218

Post by concordDance »

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…

> I donate to wikipedia.

Don't conflate wikipedia and wikimedia.

You may be glad wikipedia has a lot of money, but are you glad wikimedia does? Are you happy with the proportion of your wikimedia donation that goes to wikipedia?

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#220

Post by phpisthebest »

denton-scratch wrote: post #194
phpisthebest wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>really blows its dog whistle if you want to know where you lost me, this is where.... Anyone talking about "dog whistle" gets an instant ignore from me. At the end of the day, my problem with wikimedia is the same problem I have with United Way, and other such "charities". I do not support charities of charities. I want to give directly to a cause I support, The fact that wikimedia is soliciting donations for one…

> Anyone talking about "dog whistle" gets an instant ignore from me. I take it you think a "dog-whistle" is something the left criticizes the right for doing; and I suppose you are of the right. In fact a dog-whistle could be uttered by a politician of any colour; it's simply a message that is more likely to be heard by one particular political group than others. There are evidently what you might call "anti-dog-whis…

No, "dog-whistle" has become the same thing as "conspiracy theorist" but for the charge of racism. It is fraught with overuse to the point of dilution and misuse.

In the same way that anyone that dared suggest that COVID could have been a lab leak before "authority" validated the possibility was marked as being a "conspiracy theorist", anyone that dare challenge the current trends in the arena of ESG, DEI, CRT, and anti-racism must clearly be a racist, and "dog-whistle" to their racist friends because no one could possibly object to these things for any other reason.

In this usage of the term dog-whistle it is likely a Left political cause, however that this not my opposition to the use. dog-whistle is often used in an effort to side-step having to confront the actual issue, and instead lay a charge upon the individual instead of the idea being presented. It is almost like saying "when did you stop beating your wife", any response to the charge will be seen as an admission of guilt.

Post reply on HN