4 ms·
None of these things are egregious violations of any ethical standard. Wikipedia is not a source of excessive spam, and their beg banners on the website, while
by caymanjim 5y ago
None of these things are egregious violations of any ethical standard. Wikipedia is not a source of excessive spam, and their beg banners on the website, while mildly annoying (especially if you already donated), aren't so frequent that they bother me. The site has no ads and provides tremendous value to the world. Nitpicking some minor marketing annoyances (which are probably handled by hired guns) comes off as petty.
One could make an argument that Wikipedia already has enough money that they could beg less and possibly survive indefinitely by just managing their current endowment well. One could make an argument that Google and others benefit so much from Wikipedia's high-quality search results that Google should help support them (although I wouldn't want Wikipedia to rely on corporate money). There are plenty of reasons why Wikipedia might not need to beg as often or at all.
None of that makes these minor issues a problem.