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Wikipedia is not short on cash

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Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#241

Post by concordDance »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #149
mgamache wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They clearly support a left ideology by the editors, but I’m not even talking about that. I mean they send money to support far left anti-science groups. https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579779097278181378?s=46&...

You have a strange definition of far-left, didn't see a single Maoist insurrection in that Twitter link. Curse of American politics, I guess, when one considers the Democrats to be "left leaning", then your whole political perception is skewed. (The Democrats are significantly to the right of our centre-right party. People who call them lefties or socialists or commies amuse, confuse, and bemuse me.)

There isn't a single left-right axis. Instead it's many dimensional.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#242

Post by civilized »

concordDance wrote: post #233
civilized wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

> With all claims backed by citations of course, should anyone make unfounded accusations of bias. Note that citations don't make bias impossible or claims true, they just make it easier to decide whether to trust information. E.g. If I cite the BBC in my statement and you trust the BBC you're more likely to trust my statement. A lot of right wingers believe that most news sources (and particularly a lot of the ones…

We aren't talking about a situation where we disagree about which third parties are trustworthy, e.g. I am citing the BBC which you distrust. My claim is that Orlowski attacks Wikipedia because its content is sometimes disagreeable to him politically, and I have supported that claim with citations from Wikipedia which are direct links to Orlowski's own opinion columns.

Your point, while valid enough in general, is a red herring in this case.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#243

Post by denton-scratch »

> Intersectional Scientific Method

The first page of DDG results doesn't have much to say about this search-term. "Intersectionality" is a term that I think originates in some fields of sociology, referring to the idea that the problems of queer people, black people, and other excluded groups shouldn't be treated as distinct sets of problems.

I haven't the first notion what that has to do with "scientific method" (a principle that I don't happen to think has much to do with sociology).

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#244

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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…

The author of this has a decades long history of really disliking Wikipedia, so it seems unlikely that he's genuinely concerned about their funding levels. It's just another thing to attack them with.

Why he's so consistently angry with Wikipedia is still a bit of a mystery to me.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Orlowski#Criticism_of...

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#245

Post by aloisdg »

civilized wrote: post #211
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/…

You convinced me to donate

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#246

Post by throwaway2037 »

spookie wrote: post #207
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to donate, but no longer do, not for this, but because I'm tired about the Anglocentric, U.S.A.-centric style on Wikipedia with little efforts to fix it, as well as other neutrality issues. When they flung some banner about soliciting more female contributors in my face which reeked of Americana it was the last straw. I've seen some articles at least add “English-language criticism" by now instead of simply “c…

It's kind of sad of anglo-centric their pages are for some countries and historical events. I'm European, and even I can see some bias in there.

I could believe it. Next you see it, can you share a link here? It might be nice for discussion.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#247

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #126
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…

That twitter thread is garbage start to finish. It starts with 'wikipedia started out in a basement on a shoestring, so clearly all the millions spent two decades later is being pissed into the wind', which is absurd. ...then attacks SERCH claiming they've done nothing but release 'youtube videos with 50 views', attacks them for not having produced any within the last year (maybe their grant ended?) when if one googl…

> Guy Macon

I have no idea about the other stuff, but I knew the name from The Insult File: https://micans.org/stijn/haphazard/flame.txt

I think he's since removed it from his personal site, but there's plenty of copies, floating around.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#248

Post by 3pt14159 »

Disclaimer: Wikipedia writer for a while and I think they're in my will? (Really should double check that thing.)

For me, there are two completely separate arguments here:

1. Is Wikipedia currently run by people that I think have the right strategic direction and priorities?

2. Does Wikipedia greatly contribute to the world and could they contribute more?

On the first point I'm, um, politely, a little skeptical. Trying experiments is great, but mission bloat means that a lot of money is wasted on things that aren't at least presently making the world better.

On the second point I do not know how anyone could come to more of a resounding YES to. English Wikipedia is awesome, the Wikitionary project has helped me in multiple languages ranging from Russian, Greek, Chinese, and of course English. Would I personally prefer if they put more effort into getting Wikipedia English translated into other languages more thoroughly, especially the languages of poorer countries? Yes. Of course.

But the thing is, even if the ninety cents of a donation to Wikimedia is spent on what I personally consider to be less effective projects, the dime that is spent on things that I really agree with still buys WAY, WAY, WAY more impact than even a $20 donation anywhere else on education. So if you're going to donate $20 to your alma mater then I recommend either writing for Wikipedia or donating to it, because the impact is real.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#249

Post by mgamache »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #149
mgamache wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They clearly support a left ideology by the editors, but I’m not even talking about that. I mean they send money to support far left anti-science groups. https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579779097278181378?s=46&...

You have a strange definition of far-left, didn't see a single Maoist insurrection in that Twitter link. Curse of American politics, I guess, when one considers the Democrats to be "left leaning", then your whole political perception is skewed. (The Democrats are significantly to the right of our centre-right party. People who call them lefties or socialists or commies amuse, confuse, and bemuse me.)

In this case far-left mean groups that are opposed to objectivity and support adding bias to science. This is the 2+2=5 crowd. They can believe whatever they want, but this is not science and is born out of neo-Marxist ideology.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#250

Post by throwaway2037 »

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…

About your edit: "we never got our national fibre network". I'm confused. No trolling. What about NBN (National Broadband Network)? That has spawned 100s of new ISPs that rent bandwidth on your amazing new national backbone and resell to retail customers. From afar, it sounds like a great national investment. Do I misunderstand?
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