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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?

#181

Post by throwoutway »

CJefferson wrote: post #108
brookst wrote: post #80

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…

It’s preposterous. It’s discussed here many times that they don’t need MORE. They keep begging well past the point they need, and they accumulate excessively. And despite this they seem to ignore it when I click “I’ve already donated” and keep pushing the begging. It makes me upset that I’ve donated

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

#182

Post by nokya »

No, it's not tolerated, at least from me.

I use incognito mode by default in my browsers and Wikipedia has become unusable with the constant begging. I stopped donating on a yearly basis when I realized their intrusive begging scheme had turned into a hobby.

If it works with other people, so be it.

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

#183

Post by flipbrad »

charcircuit wrote: post #127
flipbrad wrote: post #60

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…

2. All of those are either unnecessary or could be done much cheaper. Why does facilitating discussions even cost money when Wikipedia is already a platform that facilitates discussions? >many people working here will be dealing with actual cancer Just because cancer is a real thing doesn't mean it can not be used as a metaphor. Death is similarly used as a metaphor all of the time.

"cannot" and "should not" are not the same argument. (hell, even "doesn't need to be, and yet bullies will" is not the same argument)

As for facilitation: I think you're not thinking very deep about what it takes to ensure non-English speakers are treated decently.

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

#185

Post by charcircuit »

flipbrad wrote: post #183
charcircuit wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. All of those are either unnecessary or could be done much cheaper. Why does facilitating discussions even cost money when Wikipedia is already a platform that facilitates discussions? >many people working here will be dealing with actual cancer Just because cancer is a real thing doesn't mean it can not be used as a metaphor. Death is similarly used as a metaphor all of the time.

"cannot" and "should not" are not the same argument. (hell, even "doesn't need to be, and yet bullies will" is not the same argument) As for facilitation: I think you're not thinking very deep about what it takes to ensure non-English speakers are treated decently.

can here is referring to an existence of a rule against doing so

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

#186

Post by akolbe »

regnull wrote: post #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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...

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

#187

Post by minerva23 »

In the strictest sense, it's tolerated because it's an acceptable price to get the product.

If you're asking, "why doesn't someone do something about it" there are people actively encouraging the foundation to lay off. In fact, now you can click a "I already donated" button to silence them when you couldn't before.

Also, they don't show it to logged in users, so the people making the product aren't being hounded for additional donations

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

#188

Post by faeriechangling »

An organization which runs an extremely useful non-for-profit business that runs the occasional nagging ad and flies some oversalaried executives around to ego-boosting events is hugely inoffensive to me. I mean honestly, I don't think say Microsoft goes a week without doing a dozen worse things to its users.

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

#189

Post by constantcrying »

pwinnski wrote: post #175
constantcrying wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am asking for honesty and accountability. If you are going to use that money to give it to random undisclosed charities advertise that. Have the pop-up say "The Wikimedia foundations desperately needs your donations, so that we finally can give your money to undisclosed charities.", don't pretend like Wikipedia is about to die, the organization is extremely well off and you should be honest about that. >It's better…

It sounds like we are not seeing the same banners. You keep paraphrasing, definitely not quoting, what sound like dire pleas for survival, and yet any banner I see lacks any of that.

Can you show me a single banner from where you could walk away with the impression that the Wikimedia foundation has 240 Million in assets and wants donation for causes totally unrelated to keeping Wikipedia maintained and running?

Just a single one?

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

#190

Post by rasz »

kaba0 wrote: post #147
brookst wrote: post #80

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.

Yes, with ~$3mil in operating expenses (actual wiki) and all ...
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