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

381–390 of 500 posts

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#381

Post by phpisthebest »

bombcar wrote: post #326
greyhair wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After fighting with Ford over a recall issue for over a year, I opened a claim with the BBB. Two months later they closed it with a note that Ford explained that my car had been determined to be outside the claim (even though it experienced the recall related failure). Four months later, Ford issued be a check for the full cost of the repair, with an apology note. Even though at that point, I had given up. I have to…

Yeah it can work sometimes, especially if you get into the “marketing” budget of someone big - they often have some leeway.

That is one of things people do not understand why "Twitter" Customer service is different than regular customer service

Twitter "Customer Service" is marketing budget

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#382

Post by BlargMcLarg »

wasmitnetzen wrote: post #305
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>3) In what way are they strayed far away from it? By introducing political bias into the selection and presentation of information. If I check pages on feminism or even radical feminism, I wouldn't see any information on how some prominent early feminist figures advocated mass genocide of men. Most of the pages are generally shown benign. If I check a few pages on prominent manosphere subcultures, I don't have to sc…

I'm sure we all agree that Wikipedia has a ton of biases in all sorts of directions, but I'm not following that Wikimedia has anything to do with. They rarely make any editorial choices, usually only following legal decisions.

Maybe it doesn't, but a commenter further up mentioned wanting both Wikipedia and Wikimedia. So in turn, I'm not following why Wikimedia alone is the focus here.

That said, it seems like a no-brainer that using a hands-off approach in a subculture known for being biased is an open invitation for articles to become biased. That doesn't mean Wikimedia is at fault, either.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#383

Post by akolbe »

zzzeek wrote: post #226

"The NGO world of which the Wikimedia Foundation is now part uncannily follows Marx’s prediction that the middle class would devise an infinite number of ways of enriching themselves, while ensuring the proletariat, the volunteers at the Wiki-face, don’t share the riches. Understandably, the relationship between the unruly Wikipedia workers and their bourgeoisie betters at the Foundation is strained." is this a joke?…

I know a lot of Wikipedians who are quite poor, actually, by Western standards at least. Like living in a bedsit.

From a Washington Post article a while back:

Justin Anthony Knapp doesn’t necessarily mind that: With nearly 1.5 million contributions, the 33-year-old Wikipedian is more active on the site than literally anyone else — including members of the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation’s paid staff.

Every day, Knapp drives his 15-year-old car from Indianapolis’ poorest neighborhood, where he lives, over to a restaurant on the city’s West Side; he delivers pizzas to pay his bills, in between piecemeal work at a grocery store and a crisis hotline.

Every night, Knapp logs onto Wikipedia ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/07...

And the Wikimedia Foundation is undertaking great efforts to get people in developing countries to edit for free, in part so that Google, Amazon and Apple have Wikipedia articles for Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant to read out and make money in those countries ... same with Google's and Bing's knowledge panels, which are largely based on Wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#384

Post by flotwig »

amelius wrote: post #8

Also, the donation ui-flow is full of dark patterns like "don't you want to make that a recurring donation?" and the reason why they didn't get my money. However, I do feel that an internet where we pay for the things we use is to be preferred over an internet full of advertisements.

I felt the same way, which is why I started a recurring donation to WikiMedia. After about a year, they e-mailed me trying to convince me to write WikiMedia into my will. Check out this transparent attempt at manipulation:

> Many supporters like you who understand the usefulness of planning ahead have chosen to include a gift to Wikipedia in their will. They want to do more to protect free knowledge and are invested in building a legacy with Wikipedia to ensure their values live on for many years to come.

"If you understood the importance of planning ahead, you'd already have WikiMedia in your will, bozo"

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#385

Post by ztgasdf »

gibolt wrote: post #342
otherme123 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banner shown in the article has a subtle tone of demise: if you don't donate, Wikipedia itself stops being independent, could not thrive, could not give reliable or independent info. And then the money is primarily spent in things other than Wikipedia. They never state or at least insinuate where the money go.

This sounds like the exact CTA of countless YouTubers asking for Patreon support. No level of coffers or ever increasing support changes their ask. (which to me is ok)

The difference is that most YouTubers are leagues smaller than Wikipedia. The message is the same but the context is wildly different.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#386

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #170
whoooooo123 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a JS-free Wikipedia? Looks fantastic; thanks for sharing. While we're on the subject, I'm a fan of Nitter[0] as a JS-free Twitter UI. Can anyone recommend any other JS-free frontends to popular apps? [0] nitter.net, and it's mirrored on many other URLS: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances

The absolute irony of installing a JS-based browser extension to redirect to a JS free site.

Not really. I don’t have a problem with JS. Specifically, I don’t try and avoid the language. I try and avoid the shitty things people do with it.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#387

Post by akolbe »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #265
akolbe wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the other replies. Also, last year, the then-Wikimedia CEO Katherine Maher was on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. (The wife of the WMF’s PR consultant, the Clinton Foundation’s Craig Minassian, works on the show as a producer.) In the interview, Noah put it to Maher that the downside of being a non-profit is that “you often struggle to have enough money to keep Wikipedia up and running. So, two parts. O…

A significant amount of their donations came in during 2021 and 2022. That episode of the Daily Show was around April 2021. So, their funds were much smaller then. From the article: “ In 2021, the appeals raised a total of $162 million, a 50% year-on-year increase. ”

Back in 2015, the Washington Post published an article titled "Wikipedia has a ton of money. So why is it begging you to donate yours?":

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12...

At the time they had reported net assets in excess of $77 million. Even by mid-2020, that had increased to $180 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial...

The Wikimedia Foundation had an 8-figure surplus in 9 of the last 10 years. The only exception was 2013/2014, where the surplus was "only" $8.3M. That was their "worst year" in the last ten years. The Wikimedia Foundation has beaten its own annual revenue record every year of its existence.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#388

Post by Rebelgecko »

I thought the Twitter thread that was on HN about how Wikimedia sends money to other charities was interesting. The tl;dr is that they regift a lot of their donations to charities and advocacy organizations with limited effectiveness. The post got flagged off the front page, maybe because of the tone of the person who wrote it, but I thought the objective facts they shared are still worth knowing.

If Wikipedia has enough money to fund youtubers who deny the scientific method, I'm a lot less inspired to donate.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#389

Post by LudwigNagasena »

akolbe wrote: post #213
phpisthebest wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Foundatio…

> I am uncomfortable with the video stills at the end that do seem to be picking on black people.

Ugh, what?

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#390

Post by Arkhaine_kupo »

naasking wrote: post #310
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Is there a neutral historian version of world events? 2) Who chooses which facts show up, or how do we know if certain critical facts are missing? 3) In what way are they strayed far away from it?

> 3) In what way are they strayed far away from it? Even if you agree with the spirit of these grants, I'm sure this is not what people thought they were funding when they donated to Wikipedia: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Grant_... Edit: consider spending on the above vs. hiring more people to translate some of the 6.5 million English articles to other languages that typically number only ~1…

> I'm sure this is not what people thought they were funding when they donated to Wikipedia

I do not think your argument follows. Wikipedia as a whole is untrustworthy because at one point they donated 1 million bucks divided between 5 NGOs through their fundation?

It would be like arguing that Exxon has strayed far far far away from their mission because they donated 20 million to the Amazon conservation. Exxon is still extracting oil and maximising profit for its shareholders, and wikipedia is still a free open encyclopedia. I don't think miniscule donations (related to revenue) mark a departure from the mission worthy of betraying their core intention.

Post reply on HN