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Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
111–120 of 202 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
#112Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then donate to a real charity which is open about where the money goes? As far as "general charities" go Wikimedia foundation is pretty awful and your money doesn't help Wikipedia (the website) in any case. I would never donate to such a shady organization, using such disingenuous tactics and awful transparency.
Hence why I said I have money to spare.
Then just burn it or give it to some homeless guy to buy vodka with.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
#114What banner is even being discussed here? I don't see any banner about wikipedia "shutting down at any moment due to lack of funding".
There is a banner, yes, but it doesn't say anything like that.
Are other people seeing other things, or is the discussion about a banner (yes, there is a banner) that doesn't ever say what's being claimed?
For reference, I see this. It reads reasonably to me, and never makes crazy claims about shutting down.
Wikipedia is not for sale. A personal appeal from Jimmy Wales
Please don't scroll past this 1 minute read. This Friday December 23rd, as 2022 draws to a close, I humbly ask you to reflect on the number of times you visited Wikipedia this year, the value you got from it, and whether you're able to give £2 back. If you can, please join the 2% of readers who give. If everyone reading this right now gave just £2, we'd hit our annual goal in a couple of hours. The price of a cup of coffee is all I ask.
Wikipedia is different. No advertising, no subscription fees, no paywalls. Those don't belong here. Instead, the Wikimedia Foundation relies on readers to support the technology that makes Wikipedia and our other projects possible. Being a nonprofit means there is no danger that someone will buy Wikipedia and turn it into their personal playground.
If Wikipedia has given you £2 worth of knowledge this year, please donate now, it really matters.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
#115The Foundation is my client, but these views are only my own: This is not to say there's no excess, or that resources couldn't be allocated internally more effectively - I'm not going to put up some kind of strawman - but: 1. I took a 20% pay cut so that I could do more work for the Foundation. Worth it. 2. Posts that say "Wikipedia only has [x] more articles but budget has gone up [y]" are beyond stupid. Any idea ho…
>2. Posts that say "Wikipedia only has [x] more articles but budget has gone up [y]" are beyond stupid. Any idea how many projects besides Wikipedia are run by WMF - for instance, ever heard of Wikimedia Commons? Any idea how litigious and heavily-regulated the world has got, and how much effort has to be poured into softening some of the emerging laws, mounting judicial challenges against the rest, etc? Any idea how much funding every usergroup and chapter (sometimes more than one per country, e.g. in Spain) is asking for? Any idea how much effort is put into developing features that encourage new people to start editing, not just consuming? Any idea how expensive it is to support and facilitate the big "Movement" discussions (aimed at decentralising the movement!) and the User Code of Conduct discussions?
Isn't it the job of the Wikimedia Foundation to let people know just these things in a way they can understand? Why is it the responsibility of users to dig into the financials of a non-profit begging them for money rather than the other way around?
edit: And if the answer is that if people were given detailed and accurate information they'd be less likely to donate then... that answers the question of why you shouldn't donate.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
#116The Foundation is my client, but these views are only my own: This is not to say there's no excess, or that resources couldn't be allocated internally more effectively - I'm not going to put up some kind of strawman - but: 1. I took a 20% pay cut so that I could do more work for the Foundation. Worth it. 2. Posts that say "Wikipedia only has [x] more articles but budget has gone up [y]" are beyond stupid. Any idea ho…
> Any idea how many projects besides Wikipedia are run by WMF
You seemed to have missed the point, while saying it. The point is the banner makes it seem like Wikipedia needs money, when it's actually all the other projects, which OP presumably does not value, which need the money.
> now projects are being cancelled, staff departures aren't being backfilled, and jobs are at stake.
That sounds like a desirable thing, get it back to reasonable spending levels.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
#117> In reality, the Wikipedia Foundation is doing just fine. 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.
That's a strong statement that requires some proof and links to the sources.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
#118The Foundation is my client, but these views are only my own: This is not to say there's no excess, or that resources couldn't be allocated internally more effectively - I'm not going to put up some kind of strawman - but: 1. I took a 20% pay cut so that I could do more work for the Foundation. Worth it. 2. Posts that say "Wikipedia only has [x] more articles but budget has gone up [y]" are beyond stupid. Any idea ho…
> Any idea how many projects besides Wikipedia are run by WMF
I use Wikipedia, not any of these other projects.
> Any idea how expensive it is to support and facilitate the big "Movement" discussions
I don't care about the "movement"
> and the User Code of Conduct discussions?
I don't care about this either, but how on Earth is that expensive?
You are asking me to donate to things I don't use, and don't care about, and are not necessary to the product that I use. If you allowed me to donate specifically to Wikipedia, I would (and I did until I realized I wasn't). Why don't you segregate funds between Wikipedia and the rest of WMF?
As for the spam level, I know that the reason that it has gone up is because you need more money to fund this stuff that I don't care about and could run Wikipedia on a small fraction of the donations you get. That's the issue. Not how "soft" the banner design is. You are using Wikipedia as a bait and switch fundraising operation for a lot of other stuff that, honestly, very few people know or care about or would donate to if it weren't for the Wikipedia focused fundraising.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
#119> In reality, the Wikipedia Foundation is doing just fine. 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. That's a strong statement that requires some proof and links to the sources.
Re: Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
#120All 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_…
It’s the dishonesty of Wikipedia that bothers me. The implication is that donations are urgently needed to keep the website running. In reality they have $300m in the bank and revenue is growing every year[0]. Even Wikipedia says only 43% of donations are used for site operations[1], and that includes all of their sites, not just Wikipedia. Fully 12% of the money they collect from you is. . . used to ask you for more…
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