6 ms·

Is this the same person who every now and then appears on HN utterly outraged by Wikipedia's fundraising? I donate to Wikipedia. And I am glad they have lots

Is this the same person who every now and then appears on HN utterly outraged by Wikipedia's fundraising? I donate to Wikipedia. And I am glad they have lots of money. I do not feel outraged about it, I feel happy about it. I do not feel outraged that they use whatever persuasive tactics that they use - this is necessary in the modern world. Wikipedia is a great service, it should be valued. They should not always be living close to the edge of going out of business. How they spend their funds raised is their business. This anti Wikipedia person is really annoying and I wish they would stop their crusade. EDIT: it seems the outraged guy is a right wing Murdoch journalist. Enough said, it all adds up. I still remember how Murdoch ran a successful campaign here in Australia to sink the planned national fibre to the home broadband network - 10 years down the track we never got our national fibre network. These guys hate tech, especially free information services like Wikipedia and national broadcasters like the ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Murdoch wants to own it all and hates free.

andrewstuart 4y ago
"Wokepedia". This guy certainly has an axe to grind. Looks like urging people not to donate is in fact a right wing attack on Wikpedia - "The Daily Telegraph" of course being a Murdoch newspaper. From the authors Wikpedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Orlowski https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Orlowski "Writing for The Daily Telegraph in May 2021, Orlowski said that the Wikimedia Foundation was "flush with cash" and passing money to the Tides Network, which he described as "a left-leaning dark money group"; he referred to Wikipedia as "Wokepedia" in an allusion to the term "woke".[24] In another article for The Daily Telegraph, in December 2021, Orlowski said the Wikimedia Foundation's urgent fundraising banners on Wikipedia were "preposterous" given that it held assets of $240 million and had a $100 million endowment, and the Wikimedia Foundation Deputy Director had said in 2013 that the Foundation could be sustainable on "$10M+ a year".[25] In August 2022, Orlowski claimed that Wikipedia had "become a tool of the Left in the battle to control the truth", referencing the recent controversy over Wikipedia's definition of a recession.[26]"
- Applejinx 4y ago
  I'd wondered whether it was a clever ploy to GET me to donate to Wikipedia/media/whatever, what with all the comments ranting in right-wing style. Kind of like Nike or whoever, gesturing to causes they don't really do anything to support, in order to goad political rants against then and elicit a larger backlash and more money they'd have had if they kept quiet. HBomberguy has a good video on the subject. You can use people ranting about 'wokeness' to make money, and while it's amusing and gratifying to indulge that 'ha, I showed you, I don't agree with your ranting against this thing!' it's engaging in pseudo-political behavior that's in a sense wasted. Throwing more money at Wikipedia isn't really helping them be more woke, it's helping them be better at using that to ask for money. I'm not actually going to give them money today but that's because I gotta tend to my own affairs: if I had a bunch extra I'd send some Wikipedia's way on the grounds that at least they're annoying the right people?
  - katamarimambo 4y ago
    After reading the article and others on that website I'm donating to Black Lives Matter and some LGBT org.
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      Definitely don't donate to BLM, though. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/04/us/black-lives-matter-executive-lawsuit/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/04/us/black-lives-matter-executi...
      - katamarimambo 4y ago
        I definitively donated to some BLM org which may or may not be this one, and i'll keep doing it
        fallingknife 4y ago
        Wait so you would keep donating even if you know they are thieves?
Macha 4y ago
You can view the history of of submissions and comments on the wikipedia has cancer article to see how many of the posters have a long history of submissions that clearly indicates they're different people, and not just one single person with a grudge. Not everyone shares your opinion on high pressure misleading sales as a persuasion method being acceptable.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
unsafecast 4y ago
I agree with everything. To be fair though, the banners are pretty manipulative. They also make you think that Wikipedia is broke and they need urgent funding, which they don't. They almost lie to you so you donate. Explain that you need donations to do more cool stuff with wikipedia and everything's fine. Just be honest.
katzeilla 4y ago
> this is necessary in the modern world. Could you elaborate on that? I really don't want to believe this is true, WMF is clearly being manipulative and a world where being manipulative is necessary sounds...extremely dystopian.
ttcbj 4y ago
Exactly. If you value something, pay for it. It’s a way of sending resources to an organization so that it can continue to do more of what you value. I remember When my parents bought World Book so we could have it on our shelf at home. It had absurdity less information and was vastly more expensive. I use Wikipedia a few times a week, my kids use it, I am happy to pay for it, and to give them some room to fund new related efforts.
klelatti 4y ago
Your edit is incorrect - not a Murdoch journalist as the Telegraph isn't owned by Murdoch.
cxr 4y ago
> I donate to Wikipedia. Have you? Wikipedia doesn't accept money. Wikimedia does, though. > I do not feel outraged that they use whatever persuasive tactics that they use - this is necessary in the modern world. Necessary how? For what? I donate to Wikipedia—as a Wikipedian. I've contributed a bunch of time editing content and doing lots of gnomish things to create value so that Wikipedia is a "great service". Millions of others have, too. But neither I nor any of the other people have anything to do with your donations. Don't misunderstand: this is not a call-to-action for revenue sharing in the vein of the articles constantly appearing about the sustainability of FOSS; I'm not saying "give us a cut". What I am saying is that the Wikimedia fundraising tactics are thoroughly unnecessary to the actual production costs of Wikipedia that Wikimedia is responsible for. Am I outraged? No. Do I recognize what WMF is doing as borderline slimy? Yes. f8376c7f9d4e7f2c03d4dc6e7ced48bdc5f9b4019d94e7dc77c048226dbce9aa
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  > I donate to Wikipedia Have you? Wikipedia doesn't accept money. Wikimedia does, though.
  - cxr 4y ago
    Yeah, I have. Your (bad) attempt to be clever notwithstanding, my comment makes it clear that I'm not referring to donating money. That's not true of the person I responded to. Try again.
    - shepherdjerred 4y ago
      Ah, you're right. I thought it was ironic that you made the same mistake the previous comment did, but that isn't the case. It wasn't clear to me the first time I read your comment.
stewx 4y ago
The issue isn't "Wikipedia" having lots of money and using it to run their site. It's Wikimedia having the money and using it for stuff that has no direct connection to Wikipedia. From a Twitter thread on a scientific research project funded through Wikimedia: > In deciding who to fund, the key criteria was use of the Intersectional Scientific method. Everything else - a scientific background, data - was optional. What could possibly go wrong? > One of the projects was into spatial learning in the California Two-Spot Octopus, for which the researcher got 12 hatchling octopuses. > Unfortunately, the lab experiment went horribly wrong, killing the poor creatures before the research could be concluded. https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579888630868611073 https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579888630868611073
twirlock 4y ago
concordDance 4y ago
> I donate to wikipedia. Don't conflate wikipedia and wikimedia. You may be glad wikipedia has a lot of money, but are you glad wikimedia does? Are you happy with the proportion of your wikimedia donation that goes to wikipedia?
throwaway2037 4y ago
About your edit: "we never got our national fibre network". I'm confused. No trolling. What about NBN (National Broadband Network)? That has spawned 100s of new ISPs that rent bandwidth on your amazing new national backbone and resell to retail customers. From afar, it sounds like a great national investment. Do I misunderstand?
- spacehunt 4y ago
  NBN has been mutilated to be a so-called "multi technology mix" network that includes laying new copper wires (in 2010s!) instead of fibre.
criley2 4y ago
For the record, you aren't donating to Wikpedia, you're donating to the foundation. And the cost of running Wikipedia is generously less than 10% of donations per year. Why do they need 550 employees? I think it's fair to question what the foundation has decided to do with your donation, because basically all of your donation goes to the "not-Wikipedia" parts. But yeah the fact that this was written by some radical right-winger makes sense. The weird red-scare stuff at the end was so out of place, I should have realized it was by a right-wing propagandist, they have to shove that tripe into everything.
blululu 4y ago
Wikipedia and Wikimedia Foundation are not the same thing. The author’s sentiment is pretty common among the large number of volunteer editors who make the bulk of what makes Wikipedia valuable. You can find people of all sorts of political affiliations who edit Wikipedia and feel like the WMF fundraising schemes are insulting to their contributions to the project and put the whole project at risk. If Wikipedia were a business then fine, they could do as they like but it is also a community and the public facing behavior of WMF has serious consequences to that community.

andrewstuart 4y ago

"Wokepedia". This guy certainly has an axe to grind. Looks like urging people not to donate is in fact a right wing attack on Wikpedia - "The Daily Telegraph" of course being a Murdoch newspaper. From the authors Wikpedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Orlowski https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Orlowski "Writing for The Daily Telegraph in May 2021, Orlowski said that the Wikimedia Foundation was "flush with cash" and passing money to the Tides Network, which he described as "a left-leaning dark money group"; he referred to Wikipedia as "Wokepedia" in an allusion to the term "woke".[24] In another article for The Daily Telegraph, in December 2021, Orlowski said the Wikimedia Foundation's urgent fundraising banners on Wikipedia were "preposterous" given that it held assets of $240 million and had a $100 million endowment, and the Wikimedia Foundation Deputy Director had said in 2013 that the Foundation could be sustainable on "$10M+ a year".[25] In August 2022, Orlowski claimed that Wikipedia had "become a tool of the Left in the battle to control the truth", referencing the recent controversy over Wikipedia's definition of a recession.[26]"

Applejinx 4y ago
I'd wondered whether it was a clever ploy to GET me to donate to Wikipedia/media/whatever, what with all the comments ranting in right-wing style. Kind of like Nike or whoever, gesturing to causes they don't really do anything to support, in order to goad political rants against then and elicit a larger backlash and more money they'd have had if they kept quiet. HBomberguy has a good video on the subject. You can use people ranting about 'wokeness' to make money, and while it's amusing and gratifying to indulge that 'ha, I showed you, I don't agree with your ranting against this thing!' it's engaging in pseudo-political behavior that's in a sense wasted. Throwing more money at Wikipedia isn't really helping them be more woke, it's helping them be better at using that to ask for money. I'm not actually going to give them money today but that's because I gotta tend to my own affairs: if I had a bunch extra I'd send some Wikipedia's way on the grounds that at least they're annoying the right people?
- katamarimambo 4y ago
  After reading the article and others on that website I'm donating to Black Lives Matter and some LGBT org.
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    Definitely don't donate to BLM, though. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/04/us/black-lives-matter-executive-lawsuit/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/04/us/black-lives-matter-executi...
    - katamarimambo 4y ago
      I definitively donated to some BLM org which may or may not be this one, and i'll keep doing it
      - fallingknife 4y ago
        Wait so you would keep donating even if you know they are thieves?

Macha 4y ago

You can view the history of of submissions and comments on the wikipedia has cancer article to see how many of the posters have a long history of submissions that clearly indicates they're different people, and not just one single person with a grudge. Not everyone shares your opinion on high pressure misleading sales as a persuasion method being acceptable.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

unsafecast 4y ago

I agree with everything. To be fair though, the banners are pretty manipulative. They also make you think that Wikipedia is broke and they need urgent funding, which they don't. They almost lie to you so you donate. Explain that you need donations to do more cool stuff with wikipedia and everything's fine. Just be honest.

katzeilla 4y ago

> this is necessary in the modern world. Could you elaborate on that? I really don't want to believe this is true, WMF is clearly being manipulative and a world where being manipulative is necessary sounds...extremely dystopian.

ttcbj 4y ago

Exactly. If you value something, pay for it. It’s a way of sending resources to an organization so that it can continue to do more of what you value. I remember When my parents bought World Book so we could have it on our shelf at home. It had absurdity less information and was vastly more expensive. I use Wikipedia a few times a week, my kids use it, I am happy to pay for it, and to give them some room to fund new related efforts.

klelatti 4y ago

Your edit is incorrect - not a Murdoch journalist as the Telegraph isn't owned by Murdoch.

cxr 4y ago

> I donate to Wikipedia. Have you? Wikipedia doesn't accept money. Wikimedia does, though. > I do not feel outraged that they use whatever persuasive tactics that they use - this is necessary in the modern world. Necessary how? For what? I donate to Wikipedia—as a Wikipedian. I've contributed a bunch of time editing content and doing lots of gnomish things to create value so that Wikipedia is a "great service". Millions of others have, too. But neither I nor any of the other people have anything to do with your donations. Don't misunderstand: this is not a call-to-action for revenue sharing in the vein of the articles constantly appearing about the sustainability of FOSS; I'm not saying "give us a cut". What I am saying is that the Wikimedia fundraising tactics are thoroughly unnecessary to the actual production costs of Wikipedia that Wikimedia is responsible for. Am I outraged? No. Do I recognize what WMF is doing as borderline slimy? Yes. f8376c7f9d4e7f2c03d4dc6e7ced48bdc5f9b4019d94e7dc77c048226dbce9aa

shepherdjerred 4y ago
> I donate to Wikipedia Have you? Wikipedia doesn't accept money. Wikimedia does, though.
- cxr 4y ago
  Yeah, I have. Your (bad) attempt to be clever notwithstanding, my comment makes it clear that I'm not referring to donating money. That's not true of the person I responded to. Try again.
  - shepherdjerred 4y ago
    Ah, you're right. I thought it was ironic that you made the same mistake the previous comment did, but that isn't the case. It wasn't clear to me the first time I read your comment.

stewx 4y ago

The issue isn't "Wikipedia" having lots of money and using it to run their site. It's Wikimedia having the money and using it for stuff that has no direct connection to Wikipedia. From a Twitter thread on a scientific research project funded through Wikimedia: > In deciding who to fund, the key criteria was use of the Intersectional Scientific method. Everything else - a scientific background, data - was optional. What could possibly go wrong? > One of the projects was into spatial learning in the California Two-Spot Octopus, for which the researcher got 12 hatchling octopuses. > Unfortunately, the lab experiment went horribly wrong, killing the poor creatures before the research could be concluded. https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579888630868611073 https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579888630868611073

twirlock 4y ago

concordDance 4y ago

> I donate to wikipedia. Don't conflate wikipedia and wikimedia. You may be glad wikipedia has a lot of money, but are you glad wikimedia does? Are you happy with the proportion of your wikimedia donation that goes to wikipedia?

throwaway2037 4y ago

About your edit: "we never got our national fibre network". I'm confused. No trolling. What about NBN (National Broadband Network)? That has spawned 100s of new ISPs that rent bandwidth on your amazing new national backbone and resell to retail customers. From afar, it sounds like a great national investment. Do I misunderstand?

spacehunt 4y ago
NBN has been mutilated to be a so-called "multi technology mix" network that includes laying new copper wires (in 2010s!) instead of fibre.

criley2 4y ago

For the record, you aren't donating to Wikpedia, you're donating to the foundation. And the cost of running Wikipedia is generously less than 10% of donations per year. Why do they need 550 employees? I think it's fair to question what the foundation has decided to do with your donation, because basically all of your donation goes to the "not-Wikipedia" parts. But yeah the fact that this was written by some radical right-winger makes sense. The weird red-scare stuff at the end was so out of place, I should have realized it was by a right-wing propagandist, they have to shove that tripe into everything.

blululu 4y ago

Wikipedia and Wikimedia Foundation are not the same thing. The author’s sentiment is pretty common among the large number of volunteer editors who make the bulk of what makes Wikipedia valuable. You can find people of all sorts of political affiliations who edit Wikipedia and feel like the WMF fundraising schemes are insulting to their contributions to the project and put the whole project at risk. If Wikipedia were a business then fine, they could do as they like but it is also a community and the public facing behavior of WMF has serious consequences to that community.