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Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?

#33

Post by cf100clunk »

adrianmsmith wrote: post #10

I think it’s tolerated because.. we don’t have a choice other than to tolerate it. What else are we going to do? Are we going to close the browser window and not use Wikipedia?

There is always ''wikiless''

https://wikiless.org/wiki/Main_Page

EDIT: Wikipedia had the WikiLess source code taken down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33101853 and this comment has been downvoted, which is not a complaint but an observation.

I was trying to find the source code but instead landed at the following GitHub project for a wikiless app. The README.md is quite interesting:

https://github.com/Nangjing/wikiless/blob/main/README.md

Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?

#34

Post by arcticbull »

> In fact, they make so much money from donations, they spend (read: waste) massive amounts of it on various social ventures instead of using it on the service that caused people to donate in the first place.

Do you have some specific examples? Further, how much are they 'wasting' as a function of their reserves?

Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?

#36

Post by methodical »

4ggr0 wrote: post #16
rhasejr wrote: post #8

[flagged]

Can you elaborate on that, do you have any sources?

Can't speak for corruption, but the fact they are fundraising while having >$150m in the bank and begging for donations in their donation banner seems a bit disingenuous to me. https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-fou...

Or you could just do a single google search about "wikimedia funding" and have gotten this article and about 100 others.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?

#37

Post by jkrauska »

All the other top websites [1] either are selling my information (Meta) , exist to show me ads (Google), or I pay monthly for (Netflix).

Wikipedia runs one of the busiest websites in the world with a staff much smaller than any of those other sites. Like any company -- there's going to be priorities different than mine and waste.

But I'm ok being asked to chip in for what I get.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_visited_websites

Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?

#38

Post by cf100clunk »

lp0_on_fire wrote: post #24
adrianmsmith wrote: post #10

I think it’s tolerated because.. we don’t have a choice other than to tolerate it. What else are we going to do? Are we going to close the browser window and not use Wikipedia?

> Are we going to close the browser window and not use Wikipedia? This is precisely what I do. There are plenty of other ways to find useful information on the internet and of course there are dead tree books. Lately the wikimedia foundation just comes off as the whiny entitled rich kid who's upset that their parents only bought a brand new Acura instead of a Jaguar for their birthday. I'm not going to encourage the…

I have the LibRedirect browser add-on set to reroute all wikipedia lookups to wikiless.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?

#39

Post by tomg »

Goodbye Hacker News.

A bunch of extremely well-paid SWEs complain about donating two bucks to a completely free encyclopedia representing hundreds of thousands of volunteer human hours of effort; replacing (sorry, “disrupting”) extremely expensive Britannica books means to me the orange site has lost it’s way.

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