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Wikipedia is not short on cash

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Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#281

Post by ouid »

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 question is not whether WMF is good, the questions is whether more money will make them better or worse. I think it's clear that the wealthier WMF gets the worse it will be.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#282

Post by fluoridation »

klelatti wrote: post #232
CoastalCoder wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the GP's point is that the motivations aren't relevant. Nothing in our discussion hinges on, e.g., the author's trustworthiness.

So when an oil company writes a report on the viability of solar power then that doesn't affect how we should view the report? His motivation absolutely affects how he reports on this issue. He's not a neutral observer and so he picks and chooses which facts he includes and puts his own spin around the issues.

> So when an oil company writes a report on the viability of solar power then that doesn't affect how we should view the report?

But why do you think it does affect how you view the report? Because the company is likely to lie, right? So you should perhaps examine the report more carefully. But that has nothing to do with the report's factuality. It may affect how likely it is to be true, but once you've determined it to be one or the other, who reported it is completely irrelevant.

Likewise, if Wikipedia is in fact dishonest when it asks for donations, and you first heard that completely true fact from a Nazi, are you going to conclude that actually it was false all along? In other words, is your reality determined by the opposite of what your political adversaries say?

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#283

Post by Jwarder »

magicalhippo wrote: post #40
akolbe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that they make it sound like they are struggling to have enough money to keep Wikipedia running when they are actually wealthier than ever before. The whole premise of Wikipedia (or aspiration, at least, and yes, not always fulfilled ...) is that people should have information so they can't be manipulated. It kind of sucks to see the very organisation hosting the site do the opposite, don't you think?

Indeed, it's highly manipulative. Wikimedia does way more than "just" Wikipedia, and the majority of the money goes to these other activities. Now, I'm not saying that's bad, some of those activities might be well worth it. But the banners I've seen have invariably been about the imminent demise of Wikipedia. Not that they got lots of other side projects they want funded.

Weird, I haven't seen any recent banners frame it in terms of demise of Wikipedia. The urgent banners I've seen are about the time to complete the fund drive. Along the lines of: If X% of users paid $Y then the goal would be reached in Z minutes.

If you assume the fund drive exists to help keep the lights on then I think it is natural to treat it as an existential issue for Wikipedia, but that doesn't seem to match the specific language used.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#284

Post by cxr »

shadowgovt wrote: post #205
cxr wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they were running ads like that, they wouldn't make any money. Bullshit. To repeat: the ads today are more misleading and more intrusive than ever. In years past there were ads that were unlike the ones used today. (People complained about them, but I was not among them.) Those ads were successful. There's no evidence to argue that they wouldn't be successful today, too.

There is plenty of evidence, in the form of the hockey-sticking donation revenue for the organization, that whatever they're doing now works better than what they were doing in the past. As I said, hacker ethos of biasing in favor of the scrappy underdog. It was fine to fundraise when they were small and their strategy was unproven, but as they grow and their strategy is demonstrated as effective, they lose our favor…

> There is plenty of evidence[...] that whatever they're doing now works better than what they were doing in the past.

You just moved the goalposts. (In this case, moved them such that your "argument" is just restating the substance of the complaint.) Wikimedia is bringing in a lot more money doing this sort of thing. That's well understood—by all, i.e., those on both sides of the issue.

Your job is not to defend the position that the aggressive ads bring in more donations, but that if they weren't using them then "they wouldn't make _any_ money". Please leave dishonest sleights of hand at the door.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#285

Post by p0pcult »

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.

An editor or author can, in a biased way, choose to disclose things that are all true, but incomplete, thereby giving a false impression of a larger picture. I think it is absolutely in the consumer's (of any given text) interest to understand the potential biases of the content producer, even if all of the content itself is "facts".

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#286

Post by seba_dos1 »

Ok - the next time Wikipedia asks for a donation, I'll give it twice as much. Noted.

This take is so incredibly bad. It's good that they're not struggling financially - and people stopping to donate is a great way to change that. They aren't struggling, until they are. I don't want to live in a world where the foundation behind Wikipedia struggles with financing, so continuing to donate is the only sane way forward.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#287

Post by SanjayMehta »

bensonn wrote: post #280

Wikipedia/Wikimedia is worth hundreds of dollars per year to me. I occasionally throw $20 at them. It is a steal. I never asked myself if they have too much money or if they are using it "correctly". The main donation page doesn't seem bad to me. Nowhere do they claim they are struggling or may go under. In fact, they say "thriving" and that a small donation will keep it thriving for years to come. To those upset wit…

> very high standards

Maybe in the pure STEM subsections but anything to do with humanities is highly subjective and biased.

Even in the hard sciences I find that Wikipedia is a just good starting point: scan the references for the real material. It helps if you have access to real libraries, both physical and digital.

Personally I stopped donating to them when I discovered how difficult it was to correct errors in literally my own family's history; there's always some "editor" sitting there to roll it back in seconds.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#288

Post by fluoridation »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #264
Turing_Machine wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His "track record" has nothing to do with whether his claims are true, either. Either his claims are factual, or they aren't. If they are not factual, they should be refuted, but appealing to his "motivations" or "track record" is not a refutation. It is an ad hominem attack, i.e., a logical fallacy.

You can claim completely true things, while also omitting other completely true things that radically change the situation. Examining whether or not someone is presenting facts in order to argue a political stance vs neutrally reporting is an important and basic media literacy skill.

Okay, so let's talk about those facts that are being omitted, not about the political affiliation of the people omitting those facts.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#289

Post by junofan »

klelatti wrote: post #232
CoastalCoder wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the GP's point is that the motivations aren't relevant. Nothing in our discussion hinges on, e.g., the author's trustworthiness.

So when an oil company writes a report on the viability of solar power then that doesn't affect how we should view the report? His motivation absolutely affects how he reports on this issue. He's not a neutral observer and so he picks and chooses which facts he includes and puts his own spin around the issues.

What specific facts in the reporting do you take issue with? Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#290

Post by tchaffee »

stewx wrote: post #209
tchaffee wrote: post #192

This is a hit piece by someone who hates Wikipedia. It should be ignored. If and when someone with far less bias writes an article on Wikimedia finances, I might be interested.

Your comment is the definition of an ad hominem argument: the author is a Bad Person so we should disregard anything he says. Why don't you respond to the actual claims?

> Your comment is the definition of an ad hominem argument: the author is a Bad Person so we should disregard anything he says.

"In some cases, a successful argument against the person can render an arguer's impartiality, sincerity, or trustworthiness open to question. This may be a weak form of argument, but it may be enough to alter the burden of proof on a controversial issue. And therefor it can be a reasonable criticism" -- Informal Logic, A Pragmatic Approach, Douglas Walton

> Why don't you respond to the actual claims?

Because I have zero obligation to take seriously any claims from heavily biased sources. Also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle. "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

People should feel free to research the author's past and decide for themselves if any article he writes on Wikipedia will be a fair assessment that includes both positives and negatives or more likely to be a heavily biased hit piece.

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