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The thread you provide is overly alarmist. Wikipedia giving a few millions to social justice groups isn't "funneling" much first compared to political financing

The thread you provide is overly alarmist. Wikipedia giving a few millions to social justice groups isn't "funneling" much first compared to political financing as a whole, and is not "culture war." I would urge people looking at this thread to think about the idea of "culture war," who is selling and profiteering from making it a front page issue (it's not).

RobertRoberts 4y ago
It's a conflict of interest, no matter your politics, when an organization is supposed to be a neutral purveyor of knowledge. (unless I somehow misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia, which is possible)
- hikingsimulator 4y ago
  Knowledge acquisition is not neutral per se. Wikipedia's goal is to be a peer-to-peer encyclopedia. It's not, and never will be perfect. The best thing you and I can do, instead or beyond donating, is to read Wikipedia and point out places with issues, if not become editors outright.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  Just want to point out that "neutral" doesn't always mean apolitical, even though it may be convenient to think so. Hypothetically, if in a two party system there is a "burn and ban the books" party, and a "let's really not burn the books" party, the moral obligation of a neutral purveyor of knowledge is to do everything in its power to stop the "burn the books" club. How Wikipedia is interpreting that can be questioned, but not the fact that it should try to further the cause for its existence.
  - joemazerino 4y ago
    So far, I've seen both sides of the aisle look to ban books -- but only one of the sides is banning books targeting children sexuality.
    - p0pcult 4y ago
      Can you please provide an example of one of these books that is "targeting children sexuality"? A title will suffice.
      - Natsu 4y ago
        Not OP, but most of the controversy has been about age restrictions on the books "Gender Queer: A Memoir" which contains images of graphic scenes of gay sex and oral sex as well as a girl encouraged to “taste” herself by her own siblings or “Lawn Boy” which describes a man talking approvingly to his friend about having oral sex with a grown man when he was only in fourth grade. I'm not aware of any 'bans' per se, but the books have been removed from some school libraries or made subject to age restrictions. There was another list going around that was said to be satire that people retweeted seemingly unironically: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/florida-book-bans-schools-libraries/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/florida-book-bans-schools-...
        p0pcult 4y ago
        Based on your descriptions, it's hard for me to conclude that these books are "targeting children sexuality" as the OP put it. Teens are--shock of shocks!--sometimes sexually active, even by choice. My brother was sexually active in the 4th grade. Is it that weird for literature to represent those kinds of experiences? I can see where one would make it generally unavailable to the very young, or maybe only with parental permission, but does this seem like a project to "turn kids gay" (as alleged by some one star amazon reviews)? No, lol.
        Natsu 4y ago
        > My brother was sexually active in the 4th grade. I think a lot of people would find 9-10 years old a bit young for sex. One is also generally not a 'teenager' until 13 and indeed many of the age restrictions are for materials like these books with respect to pre-teens.
        4y ago
  - seanw444 4y ago
    Neutral would be "let's burn some books." I'm not arguing that burning books is good, but it is certainly a stance biased to one side.
    - yifanl 4y ago
      Neutral doesn't mean be contrarian to everybody.
  - disintegore 4y ago
    I love the idea that neutral means "status quo" and not the absence of bias, which is far from being the status quo in most cases.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  Wikipedia is NPoV but that doesn't mean their funding org has to be.
fallingknife 4y ago
If I donate to Wikipedia, I expect that my donation will go to Wikipedia, not to unknown external groups. That's a bait and switch. According to the twitter thread, $22.9 million was given in such grants. That's almost 10x what Wikipedia is paying for hosting. That's not "funneling." That's taking the whole pie.
- hikingsimulator 4y ago
  It's a donation, not an investment. There is no obligation on Wikimedia's part to do specific actions on your behalf. You can expect money to be used in some ways, sure, but it's not like WM uses 50% of your donation on vanity projects. Personally, I wish WM would invest more in the quality of non-English articles. French "toponymie" sections tend to be brigaded for whatever reasons for instance. French linguists wage wars apparently.
  - trothamel 4y ago
    Sure, but there's also no obligation to donate to Wikimedia in the first place, and it's quite reasonable to decide that if the organization is flush enough with money that it can donate it to outside organizations, it doesn't need more. (And it certainly shouldn't imply it needs more to keep the lights on.)
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    You're right. They don't use 50% on vanity projects. They use way more than that. Their donation income last year was around $150 million and their hosting costs were $2.4 million. Let's say their necessary engineering / admin cost was $20 million (a massive overestimate). That's >80% on BS.
    - hikingsimulator 4y ago
      I think you misunderstand what Wikimedia is and does. It's not just Wikipedia and hosting. It is also a lot of research into their Wikidata free knowledge database (look it up) for instance. It requires a lot of people and core knowledge to develop and run. To some extent Wikimedia is a research company too.
subradios 4y ago
Wikipedia is not a PAC, they are not NARAL or LPUS or YAF or Center for American Progress. It isnt alarmist to notice that Nice, Professional, Educated people have been guiding institutions that are ostensibly neutral (Wikipedia, or at risk of being spicy, the ACLU) taking great pains to support a worldview that is popular with only 8% of the US population, let alone the population of the world (https://hiddentribes.us/ https://hiddentribes.us/). They are doing so at the expense of their stated mission, in Wikipedia's case - this means taking money that could be used for hosting endowments, translations, original research and using it to forward the worldview and cultural dominance of a very small group.

RobertRoberts 4y ago

It's a conflict of interest, no matter your politics, when an organization is supposed to be a neutral purveyor of knowledge. (unless I somehow misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia, which is possible)

hikingsimulator 4y ago
Knowledge acquisition is not neutral per se. Wikipedia's goal is to be a peer-to-peer encyclopedia. It's not, and never will be perfect. The best thing you and I can do, instead or beyond donating, is to read Wikipedia and point out places with issues, if not become editors outright.
polygamous_bat 4y ago
Just want to point out that "neutral" doesn't always mean apolitical, even though it may be convenient to think so. Hypothetically, if in a two party system there is a "burn and ban the books" party, and a "let's really not burn the books" party, the moral obligation of a neutral purveyor of knowledge is to do everything in its power to stop the "burn the books" club. How Wikipedia is interpreting that can be questioned, but not the fact that it should try to further the cause for its existence.
- joemazerino 4y ago
  So far, I've seen both sides of the aisle look to ban books -- but only one of the sides is banning books targeting children sexuality.
  - p0pcult 4y ago
    Can you please provide an example of one of these books that is "targeting children sexuality"? A title will suffice.
    - Natsu 4y ago
      Not OP, but most of the controversy has been about age restrictions on the books "Gender Queer: A Memoir" which contains images of graphic scenes of gay sex and oral sex as well as a girl encouraged to “taste” herself by her own siblings or “Lawn Boy” which describes a man talking approvingly to his friend about having oral sex with a grown man when he was only in fourth grade. I'm not aware of any 'bans' per se, but the books have been removed from some school libraries or made subject to age restrictions. There was another list going around that was said to be satire that people retweeted seemingly unironically: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/florida-book-bans-schools-libraries/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/florida-book-bans-schools-...
      - p0pcult 4y ago
        Based on your descriptions, it's hard for me to conclude that these books are "targeting children sexuality" as the OP put it. Teens are--shock of shocks!--sometimes sexually active, even by choice. My brother was sexually active in the 4th grade. Is it that weird for literature to represent those kinds of experiences? I can see where one would make it generally unavailable to the very young, or maybe only with parental permission, but does this seem like a project to "turn kids gay" (as alleged by some one star amazon reviews)? No, lol.
        Natsu 4y ago
        > My brother was sexually active in the 4th grade. I think a lot of people would find 9-10 years old a bit young for sex. One is also generally not a 'teenager' until 13 and indeed many of the age restrictions are for materials like these books with respect to pre-teens.
        4y ago
- seanw444 4y ago
  Neutral would be "let's burn some books." I'm not arguing that burning books is good, but it is certainly a stance biased to one side.
  - yifanl 4y ago
    Neutral doesn't mean be contrarian to everybody.
- disintegore 4y ago
  I love the idea that neutral means "status quo" and not the absence of bias, which is far from being the status quo in most cases.
kmeisthax 4y ago
Wikipedia is NPoV but that doesn't mean their funding org has to be.

fallingknife 4y ago

If I donate to Wikipedia, I expect that my donation will go to Wikipedia, not to unknown external groups. That's a bait and switch. According to the twitter thread, $22.9 million was given in such grants. That's almost 10x what Wikipedia is paying for hosting. That's not "funneling." That's taking the whole pie.

hikingsimulator 4y ago
It's a donation, not an investment. There is no obligation on Wikimedia's part to do specific actions on your behalf. You can expect money to be used in some ways, sure, but it's not like WM uses 50% of your donation on vanity projects. Personally, I wish WM would invest more in the quality of non-English articles. French "toponymie" sections tend to be brigaded for whatever reasons for instance. French linguists wage wars apparently.
- trothamel 4y ago
  Sure, but there's also no obligation to donate to Wikimedia in the first place, and it's quite reasonable to decide that if the organization is flush enough with money that it can donate it to outside organizations, it doesn't need more. (And it certainly shouldn't imply it needs more to keep the lights on.)
- fallingknife 4y ago
  You're right. They don't use 50% on vanity projects. They use way more than that. Their donation income last year was around $150 million and their hosting costs were $2.4 million. Let's say their necessary engineering / admin cost was $20 million (a massive overestimate). That's >80% on BS.
  - hikingsimulator 4y ago
    I think you misunderstand what Wikimedia is and does. It's not just Wikipedia and hosting. It is also a lot of research into their Wikidata free knowledge database (look it up) for instance. It requires a lot of people and core knowledge to develop and run. To some extent Wikimedia is a research company too.

subradios 4y ago

Wikipedia is not a PAC, they are not NARAL or LPUS or YAF or Center for American Progress. It isnt alarmist to notice that Nice, Professional, Educated people have been guiding institutions that are ostensibly neutral (Wikipedia, or at risk of being spicy, the ACLU) taking great pains to support a worldview that is popular with only 8% of the US population, let alone the population of the world (https://hiddentribes.us/ https://hiddentribes.us/). They are doing so at the expense of their stated mission, in Wikipedia's case - this means taking money that could be used for hosting endowments, translations, original research and using it to forward the worldview and cultural dominance of a very small group.