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Wikipedia is not short on cash

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Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#461

Post by akolbe »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #263
klelatti wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has said it's a refutation but it's entirely relevant and not an ad hominem at all - unless you think that his record is something to be ashamed of? As I said above: > 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 choo…

The point in contention appears to be whether or not Wikipedia funnels donations to left-wing causes. The truth of that claim has no causal relationship with his opinions. I mean, obviously someone who disagrees with funneling donations to left-wing causes would be more likely to complain about it, or even possibly make something up. But that in itself has no bearing on whether the claim is actually true . Does Wikip…

See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund

"The Wikimedia Foundation Knowledge Equity Fund is a new US$4.5 million fund created by the Wikimedia Foundation in 2020, to provide grants to external organizations that support knowledge equity by addressing the racial inequities preventing access and participation in free knowledge."

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#462

Post by geenew »

agumonkey wrote: post #256
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?

My reluctance to donating again to wikipedia lies almost entirely on the subtext of their communication. There's a dissonance between the class of the project, the alleged finances, the in-your-face popups (some years it was half the page).

For me, at least, the fundraising banner is drawn on the page after the main content. Which means that the main content loads, displays, and then is pushed downwards by the banner.

I don't know whether this is intentional, but if it is, then I would classify it as a dirty, attention-grabbing, dark-pattern-esque, trick. It would be more honest if they just used the blink tag.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#463

Post by bawolff »

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.

> Wikimedia does way more than "just" Wikipedia, and the majority of the money goes to these other activities.

[Citation needed]

And by citation needed, i mean i think this is a false statement. Unless you count things that help multiple wikimedia sites as not helping wikipedia because it is not just wikipedia. After all, all of these sites run the same software, a bug fix affects all of them pretty equally.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#464

Post by bawolff »

phpisthebest wrote: post #52
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…

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…

> 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

I dont like the knowledge equity grants either, but it was still a tiny portion of Wikimedia foundation's budget. Describing it as "a lot" is outright misleading.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#465

Post by bawolff »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #287
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 l…

> Personally I stopped donating to them when I discovered how difficult it was to correct errors in literally my own family's history;

As it should be. Wikipedia is not your personal blog. If you cannot prove what you say is true to an acceptable standard it should be reverted. That is how it wikipedia stays reliable.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#466

Post by SanjayMehta »

bawolff wrote: post #465
SanjayMehta wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 l…

> Personally I stopped donating to them when I discovered how difficult it was to correct errors in literally my own family's history; As it should be. Wikipedia is not your personal blog. If you cannot prove what you say is true to an acceptable standard it should be reverted. That is how it wikipedia stays reliable.

> wikipedia stays reliable.

Hi there. I have a bridge on Mars to sell you.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#467

Post by tiffanyh »

Why do people care?

It’s the only ad on a site that is entirely free to consume.

You can donate, or you don’t have too. Either way, they still allow you to use the entire service at no cost.

It’s their right to ask.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#468

Post by satiric »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #410
bensonn wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia being a starting point is one of my favorite things about it. I really like that all their sources are cited and linked to. It always amazes me that news organizations don't cite their sources or have links to the original source. On that same note, could that be why your family history gets rolled back? No doubt it would be frustrating to have a change you know is real get rolled back but it would make sen…

The first time the excuse was some gibberish about "primary sources." The second time was something more esoteric, which I can't remember. Then Wikipedia deleted my account during some transition and I lost interest in the whole thing.

That gibberish about primary sources is one of the fundamental ways in which Wikipedia stays at least partially accurate. Wikipedia is not a blog, it's just meant to be a gathering of information from other sources. So adding facts which are not anywhere else online is not the sign of a broken system, it's the sign of a system that cares about citations and about being a reliable source of information. It's unfortunate when people try to add factual things, but if anyone was able to edit Wikipedia to add whatever, it would have become a cesspool long ago.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#469

Post by SanjayMehta »

satiric wrote: post #468
SanjayMehta wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first time the excuse was some gibberish about "primary sources." The second time was something more esoteric, which I can't remember. Then Wikipedia deleted my account during some transition and I lost interest in the whole thing.

That gibberish about primary sources is one of the fundamental ways in which Wikipedia stays at least partially accurate. Wikipedia is not a blog, it's just meant to be a gathering of information from other sources. So adding facts which are not anywhere else online is not the sign of a broken system, it's the sign of a system that cares about citations and about being a reliable source of information. It's unfortuna…

> Wikipedia is not a blog

That's the second time today someone has said that to me. Is this the prescribed mantra to justify their obvious lack of objectivity?

Take Trump's entry for example: looks like a blog, walks like blog, talks like a blog.

I suggest you have a look at what the co-founder of Wikipedia has to say about it. Larry Sanger, not that Wales fellow.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#470

Post by hilbert42 »

Simple, run with JavaScript turned off and you won't ever see its message. (I never see them anymore.)

If one must insist on using JavaScript then make an exception for Wikipedia—deny all scripts on Wiki domains.

Problem solved.

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