161–170 of 202 posts
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After reading this, I went an donated $10. Wikipedia is one of the most incredible resources on the Internet, and it pains me that it is having such issues. Maybe their messaging should say so.
That's wonderful! Though personally, I think it's even better when people join the community of active users (whether Wikipedia or any of the other projects) and help out directly!
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_…
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What is your problem with [1]? I think almost every charity, or business, ever created spends some proportion of it's income on advertising / outreach, to increase future income. If they cut that 12%, and it decreased their income to half, or a third, of it's current value, would that make you happy? Also, please point me to "The implication is that donations are urgently needed to keep the website running.". I've no…
We can argue about that extra 30%, but it’s not what people are expecting to pay for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
How long can a company of that size run without continuous supplies? That $300m will quickly run out, and depending on people’s goodwill is finicky.
I read this satirical thread about what would happen if Wikipedia didn't make money from donations and had to get acquired by a company like Comcast and thought, hm, I'd rather that not happen. I donate every year. https://old.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2ov45h/wp_w...
>I'd rather that not happen. I donate every year. Wikipedia has far more money then they know what to do with, their entire foundation is very affluent and there is no risk of them facing any hardship. Your donations have exactly zero influence on Wikipedia staying up or even staying independent. Your money goes into a web of charities (undisclosed which exactly), at best some poor people might profit of a few percen…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Commons in particular should get a big overhaul. And ideally a phone app. I don’t know how would it look like, but… why is it 100 times easier to upload photo of a place from phone to Google Maps than it is to Commons? (ironically, most poor country photos are from Panoramio from before it went to Google Maps.)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.co...
The 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…
People losing their jobs sucks, but I highly doubt it could even remotely be a result of an ongoing donation drive . You might be able to plan around a specific drive and change plans as a result of it tanking, but that wouldn’t happen in the middle of the drive. If it did, that screams of mismanagement far more than anything else. Furthermore, the WMF fundraised $165 million in FY 2021-2022 already. That should more…
It's an unfortunate position to be in as a Wikimedia employee.
Despite all the negative about wikipedia, it’s still sort of part of “old internet” that I don’t want to die. Even wikia, which was spun at first as “slightly more commercial wikipedia”, later became Fandom, which is something so horrible that I don’t want to look at Look at WikiTravel which is more commercial WikiVoyage… they immediately went and stuffed it with ads and trackers. And I mean wikimedia is fine NOW, bu…
what sort of new internet are you living in?