Comment by halyconWays
2 years ago
Wikipedia is particularly insulting because they make enough money to cover the actual costs of running Wikipedia (the site) in days if not hours, and could operate for years without any additional donations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32840097
Is it personally insulting to you that a completely free high quality services sometimes ask if you want to donate what ever small amount you'd like?
You'll be proper mad when you realize how much money that other company, whom you regularly pay for access to their services, has in the bank.
It's personally insulting that they lie and make it seem like they need the money to keep running, and that your donation will go towards helping Wikipedia itself, when they do not and it does not.
There's a difference between "donate if you appreciate this website" and "donate if you appreciate this website because we will have to shut down otherwise (not really though)"
Wikipedia is... nuanced. Keep in mind that the entity doing the fundraising is the Wikimedia Foundation. They pay the hosting costs, but return nothing to the actual Wikipedians (editors, admins.) Instead, what's left is used to pay the salaries for hundreds of administrative employees, fund third-party charities, and so on. You can love Wikipedia but have misgivings about the Foundation.
It’s openly a grift. The fundraising messages are disingenuous.
We are really the ones who provide that high quality. Wikipedia isn't edited by the Wikimedia foundation.
Is that including staff + trying to do new stuff or just the servers.
It includes staff, but not new stuff. The new stuff seems to be mostly things not directly related to Wikipedia, like funding third-party projects or causes. I'm trying to be politic here: many people don't like the projects they are funding with donation money, and others just don't like that they give money to any projects, and other people don't like that they keep the banner up after they've paid for salaries and keeping the lights on.
And others, like me, resent any hard-sell tactic and won't give money to anybody using them.
Why should Wikipedia do new stuff? Or rather, why is it okay for Wikipedia to lie to people to get funding for their new pet projects?
> Why should Wikipedia do new stuff?
Because it's not perfect yet?
The point of Wikipedia is not to have some servers ticking over. The project has a vision: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."
I agree it's not ok for them to lie, and am bothered enough by their dubious fundraising tactics that I stopped donating. But that's a totally separate concern than whether Wikipedia's mission is complete.
5 replies →
Stop conflating wikipedia and wikimedia.
Little of the new stuff is for wikipedia and what's there is of questionable value.
1 reply →
I see mentioned something like making a new editor UI. This is quite important for the longevity of Wikipedia.
Some of those new projects are directly applicable to potentially improving Wikipedia. Some.
https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2022-annu...
Seems almost mundane, as if they’re running a very effective foundation that’s actively achieving their goals. See the recent Cambridge study that explored how their governance has been effective at promoting moderate discourse while suppressing misinformation and hateful content: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-s...
Uh, the opening paragraph of that second leads reads to me like wikipedia effectively got ideologically captured and got rid of all editors who didn't agree.
Seems off. They have 250 million in net asset and hosting costs 2 million a year while they spend 88 million on salaries and still beg for money each year?