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Whoa - Wikipedia has been around more than half my life already? Good on them! It's one of the best things humanity has ever created. Hopefully they'll find

Whoa - Wikipedia has been around more than half my life already? Good on them! It's one of the best things humanity has ever created. Hopefully they'll find a funding strategy that doesn't make them constantly feel like panhandlers. They provide uncountably huge value, yet I suspect with their current marketing, even very heavy readers rarely donate. EDIT: Sounds like they are working on it: https://15.wikipedia.org/endowment.html https://15.wikipedia.org/endowment.html

edelans 11y ago
I find their campaigns rather effective. I have the impression they do a big surge once a year with banners everywhere on the site. I find it very effective at reminding you how wikipedia bring you value everytime you use it. At least it made me donate at each occasions and I don't consider myself as a heavy user (hardly one consultation / week), and I think it is the only project I have donated multiple times.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  First campaign were subtler though, making me pay, and then it was big banner fest which me a bit angry. Maybe it's not the case if you're logged in and they track your donation so they can ask in finer ways.
  - davidgerard 11y ago
    FWIW, the more obnoxious campaigns also met with considerable dissent from the community as well.
- glaberficken 11y ago
  It's the only site I have ever donated to. I believe that is the same for other hundreds of thousands of people. When I see the banners, I just have to reflect on the huge knowledge value I get from the site, and I donate. simple as that
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  Is it really only once a year? I feel like I saw it several times last year.
  - MatmaRex 11y ago
    It should be. There are sometimes banners for other things, though, like to announce the Wikimania conference: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Calendar https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Calendar >. There are apparently also smaller fundraisers aimed at different languages/countries at different times of the year, so maybe you remember one of them.
  - davidgerard 11y ago
    Test banners are run through the year - small audiences, particular countries or whatever. (Wikimedia Fundraising A/B-test the heck out of everything they do.) But the big fundraiser is the annual one, around Nov/Dec, in which they go all-out to raise this year's target as quickly as possible.
- vijayr 11y ago
  I think these campaigns work. Kiva started doing it last December, we've been asking them to try for a while now. I believe that was effective too.
rplnt 11y ago
I think they will be more than fine once we figure out micropayments.
- onion2k 11y ago
  I don't think so. The problem micropayments face is that they're too close to free to represent value - if something is $0.05 then your brain sees that it isn't free but its value is so close to zero that it feels like it ought to be free. There'a a cognitive dissonance between "This is something I need so I should pay for it" and "This is so cheap it can't be worth anything, so I shouldn't pay for it." You need to persuade people that something they're buying for a tiny amount has enough value that they should pay actually for it. That is exceptionally hard. It might actually be impossible.
  - rplnt 11y ago
    It will be free. There is just no convenient way for me to donate $0.05 (or $1) to wikipedia right now.
  - vlehto 11y ago
    The psychology is the really hard part. I think it should mimic tried and true real life coins. The spychological cost is managed by having limited number of different coins available. And the value of coin is small, but meaninful enough to be considered. In contrast to something infinitesimally close to zero. Let's say I make payment of 5$ to your account with my email address in the message field. You send me 20 hashes to that address, each worth 20snt. Now I see artists webpage with "tip me" field. I paste a hash, you make the money happen. Simple enough?
- jsight 11y ago
  I have run into people saying this for the last 15 years. I'm not convinced that micropayments will ever be solved.
tonylemesmer 11y ago
Jimmy Wales was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 this morning (15th Jan 2016) and said they do absolutely everything they can to minimise the length of the banner campaigns. They set a budget and keep the campaign open until they hit the target. According to him they have gotten less agressive over the years. edit date correction :)
- looki 11y ago
  I'm almost positive you meant 2016 :-)
marincounty 11y ago
I used to think it was the best thing humanity created. Lately, I see individuals, and companies carefully crafting pages to further their agenda. It could be PR, name recognition, or inaccurate information reguarding their cause. It could be as subtle as changing the definition of a neologism to singular, rather than plural. I ran across this recently. Someone wanted to promote their technospeck.whatever domain, but the plural was taken, so they deleted all the wiki information on the original neologism, and in turn just put, "for plural see the singular page.". Bringing in overnight credibility to their domain name. What bothers me is the changes, or complete rewrite of certain pages are obviously done for monetary reasons, and the Editors don't seem to notice the motives behind the obvious manipulation. I don't want to be one of those people who claims a service was better in the past, but once people realized they could use Wikipedia to as indirect/free advertising; that's when I lost interest. I would miss Wikipedia if it collapsed. Do I have a feeling someone else might be able to do a better job? Yes! In this case, I feel the federal government could do a better job with Wikipedia? I would rather see four billion going to unemployed paid/trained Editors--instead of self-driving technology. Editors trained mainly in sniffing out manipulation of history/facts for personal/corporate gain.
- antsar 11y ago
  Trusting the federal gov't to be the arbiter of truth? Sounds like a rather bad idea.
- cooper12 11y ago
  If you see something problematic, why don't you click the edit button and address it? Or if you don't have the necessary know-how, why don't you click the talk tab and bring up the issue there? Wikipedia belongs to all of us, if you have the mindset that it's someone else's problem to fix, then you're missing Wikipedia's point. There's nothing wrong with being just a consumer, but this is just like someone complaining that their favorite open source project is a buggy piece of crap. The solution? Open an issue in the bug tracker (the talk page) or send a pull request. (The edit button, where it's even easier because your changes don't need to be reviewed first) Yes, nefarious and subtle advertising on Wikipedia are serious issues, but as Linus's Law says: with enough eyes all bugs are shallow.

edelans 11y ago

I find their campaigns rather effective. I have the impression they do a big surge once a year with banners everywhere on the site. I find it very effective at reminding you how wikipedia bring you value everytime you use it. At least it made me donate at each occasions and I don't consider myself as a heavy user (hardly one consultation / week), and I think it is the only project I have donated multiple times.

agumonkey 11y ago
First campaign were subtler though, making me pay, and then it was big banner fest which me a bit angry. Maybe it's not the case if you're logged in and they track your donation so they can ask in finer ways.
- davidgerard 11y ago
  FWIW, the more obnoxious campaigns also met with considerable dissent from the community as well.
glaberficken 11y ago
It's the only site I have ever donated to. I believe that is the same for other hundreds of thousands of people. When I see the banners, I just have to reflect on the huge knowledge value I get from the site, and I donate. simple as that
wodenokoto 11y ago
Is it really only once a year? I feel like I saw it several times last year.
- MatmaRex 11y ago
  It should be. There are sometimes banners for other things, though, like to announce the Wikimania conference: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Calendar https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Calendar >. There are apparently also smaller fundraisers aimed at different languages/countries at different times of the year, so maybe you remember one of them.
- davidgerard 11y ago
  Test banners are run through the year - small audiences, particular countries or whatever. (Wikimedia Fundraising A/B-test the heck out of everything they do.) But the big fundraiser is the annual one, around Nov/Dec, in which they go all-out to raise this year's target as quickly as possible.
vijayr 11y ago
I think these campaigns work. Kiva started doing it last December, we've been asking them to try for a while now. I believe that was effective too.

rplnt 11y ago

I think they will be more than fine once we figure out micropayments.

onion2k 11y ago
I don't think so. The problem micropayments face is that they're too close to free to represent value - if something is $0.05 then your brain sees that it isn't free but its value is so close to zero that it feels like it ought to be free. There'a a cognitive dissonance between "This is something I need so I should pay for it" and "This is so cheap it can't be worth anything, so I shouldn't pay for it." You need to persuade people that something they're buying for a tiny amount has enough value that they should pay actually for it. That is exceptionally hard. It might actually be impossible.
- rplnt 11y ago
  It will be free. There is just no convenient way for me to donate $0.05 (or $1) to wikipedia right now.
- vlehto 11y ago
  The psychology is the really hard part. I think it should mimic tried and true real life coins. The spychological cost is managed by having limited number of different coins available. And the value of coin is small, but meaninful enough to be considered. In contrast to something infinitesimally close to zero. Let's say I make payment of 5$ to your account with my email address in the message field. You send me 20 hashes to that address, each worth 20snt. Now I see artists webpage with "tip me" field. I paste a hash, you make the money happen. Simple enough?
jsight 11y ago
I have run into people saying this for the last 15 years. I'm not convinced that micropayments will ever be solved.

tonylemesmer 11y ago

Jimmy Wales was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 this morning (15th Jan 2016) and said they do absolutely everything they can to minimise the length of the banner campaigns. They set a budget and keep the campaign open until they hit the target. According to him they have gotten less agressive over the years. edit date correction :)

looki 11y ago
I'm almost positive you meant 2016 :-)

marincounty 11y ago

I used to think it was the best thing humanity created. Lately, I see individuals, and companies carefully crafting pages to further their agenda. It could be PR, name recognition, or inaccurate information reguarding their cause. It could be as subtle as changing the definition of a neologism to singular, rather than plural. I ran across this recently. Someone wanted to promote their technospeck.whatever domain, but the plural was taken, so they deleted all the wiki information on the original neologism, and in turn just put, "for plural see the singular page.". Bringing in overnight credibility to their domain name. What bothers me is the changes, or complete rewrite of certain pages are obviously done for monetary reasons, and the Editors don't seem to notice the motives behind the obvious manipulation. I don't want to be one of those people who claims a service was better in the past, but once people realized they could use Wikipedia to as indirect/free advertising; that's when I lost interest. I would miss Wikipedia if it collapsed. Do I have a feeling someone else might be able to do a better job? Yes! In this case, I feel the federal government could do a better job with Wikipedia? I would rather see four billion going to unemployed paid/trained Editors--instead of self-driving technology. Editors trained mainly in sniffing out manipulation of history/facts for personal/corporate gain.

antsar 11y ago
Trusting the federal gov't to be the arbiter of truth? Sounds like a rather bad idea.
cooper12 11y ago
If you see something problematic, why don't you click the edit button and address it? Or if you don't have the necessary know-how, why don't you click the talk tab and bring up the issue there? Wikipedia belongs to all of us, if you have the mindset that it's someone else's problem to fix, then you're missing Wikipedia's point. There's nothing wrong with being just a consumer, but this is just like someone complaining that their favorite open source project is a buggy piece of crap. The solution? Open an issue in the bug tracker (the talk page) or send a pull request. (The edit button, where it's even easier because your changes don't need to be reviewed first) Yes, nefarious and subtle advertising on Wikipedia are serious issues, but as Linus's Law says: with enough eyes all bugs are shallow.