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Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
Every time you go to Wikipedia there's a huge banner asking for money implying it could shut down at any moment due to lack of funding.
In reality, the Wikipedia Foundation is doing just fine. In fact, they make so much money from donations, they spend (read: waste) massive amounts of it on various social ventures instead of using it on the service that caused people to donate in the first place.
- mattl 4y agoI have no issue with a charity asking for money. I give them a regular donation.
- cedws 4y agoNeither do I. I take issue with them asking for money with the pretext that Wikipedia is going to disappear because they don't have enough money.
- 95014_refugee 4y agoWhy? That's literally the pretext for any charity.
- constantcrying 4y ago>Why? Because it is a complete and utter lie. The Wikimedia foundation is extremely wealthy and under no financial stress. They Have hundreds of millions in assets[0]. A charity should be honest and open about what they are doing with the money they are taking. Wikimedia foundation isn't and is fundraising as if they were about to go under. [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2021-2022_Audit_Report.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikim...
- ravenstine 4y agoEven if they were totally open about it, they would almost certainly use that same tactic. I once worked in public media, at a 501 (c) 3, and they too would pull the "everything stops if not enough people donate" scheme. And I believed it, that is until I learned that they were flush with cash and made the majority of their revenue from super wealthy people looking for a tax break. Something tells me this isn't uncommon, because it's a legal and effective grift. It's not the donations that are the problem, but the pure bullshit narrative to fleece people a few times every year.
- constantcrying 4y ago>It's not the donations that are the problem, but the pure bullshit narrative to fleece people a few times every year. Exactly. Their message is alarmist, as if they couldn't stay afloat. Most people believe it, I certainly did. And it seems reasonable, it is a gigantic and totally add free site, how could they not be facing financial troubles? But they aren't and if they want to fund vanity projects, they should advertise that they are doing exactly that.
- MattGaiser 4y agoWe would consider companies foolish if they left sales on the table, even if they didn't immediately need it. Why would non-profits be expected to not fundraise as aggressively as possible? The expectation that non-profits should be run on fumes is silly.
- GTP 4y ago> Why would non-profits be expected to not fundraise as aggressively as possible? I think the reason is that we expect, or assume, non-profits to have a better ethical stance than for-profit organization. That's the point of a non-profit organization after all: doing something because they feel it's the right thing to do, regardless whether it is profitable or not.
- leephillips 4y agoI do not share this expectation or assumption. The difference between a for-profit and a non-profit corporation is defined in the tax code. It’s a legal distinction, not an ethical one. Some non-profits exist mainly to enrich their officers, and some profitable corporations are mainly concerned with benefiting society.
- AlbertCory 4y ago> Some non-profits exist mainly to enrich their officers +100. But Charity Navigator can help you find those. The IRS form 990 discloses how much they pay their highest-paid employees.
- GTP 4y ago>Some non-profits exist mainly to enrich their officers This could very well be, but it goes against what first comes to the mind of most people when talking about a non-profit: the name itself implies that those companies are "not for profit" after all. EDIT: I also think that the reason why most countries have a special tax law regarding non-profit organization, is to help people that want to do "the right thing" even if it is not profitable, not to provide their officers with an easier way to enrich themselves. So if a non-profit is being used by their officers to enrich themselves, I think it is correct to see them as people that are cheating the system. If they are doing it in a way that is technically legal, I would say they are probably exploiting some loophole.
- themodelplumber 4y ago> they spend (read: waste) Really? What makes you think it's all or even mostly waste?
- Mountain_Skies 4y agoA quick web search will provide you with many examples of what some perceive as waste. This is widespread common knowledge along the lines of the ice cream machine at McDonald's frequently being broke so there's little reason for the poster to be obligated to provide examples of easily found common knowledge, even if you don't personally agree with the perception.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- thatswrong0 4y agoWikipedia is spending almost twice as much in 2021 as in 2017, while page views only inched up a little bit [0]. Whatever they’re spending it on, it’s not going to keeping the site running or improving the quality of it by, say, actually paying quality editors. They’re certainly not strapped for cash like they pretend to be in their donation banners. From a 2017 post: > The modern Wikipedia hosts 11–12 times as many pages as it did in 2005,[20] but the WMF is spending 33 times as much on hosting,[21] has about 300 times as many employees, and is spending 1,250 times as much overall. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has... [0] https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|2017-01-22~2022-01-04|~total|monthly https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-pag...
- theGeatZhopa 4y agoJust leave 'em. Did a muBlock rule for the pop-up.
- bell-cot 4y agoVery few human donors are benevolent but sharp-eyed accountants, looking for the places where their money is actually most needed. Instead, it's all about places where their donation will (1) make them feel better about themselves, (2) boost their social cred and status, and (3) benefit themselves & folks who they identify with.
- rhasejr 4y ago[flagged]
- 4ggr0 4y agoCan you elaborate on that, do you have any sources?
- teg4n_ 4y agoYou should check Wikipedia :P
- warning26 4y agoI think we can safely assume that parent commenter was upset that their favorite Important Political Opinion was not presented as an absolute fact on Wikipedia.
- jo6gwb 4y agoSee discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33174533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33174533
- navane 4y agoAll that's said there is "they have money and still ask for money". That's what I do at my job, too.
- methodical 4y agoCan't speak for corruption, but the fact they are fundraising while having >$150m in the bank and begging for donations in their donation banner seems a bit disingenuous to me. https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-foundation-donate.html https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-fou... Or you could just do a single google search about "wikimedia funding" and have gotten this article and about 100 others.
- knome 4y ago
- browningstreet 4y agoWhat would “not being tolerated” look like? Closing the request and ignoring it and not contributing money? If so, then that’s what I’m doing. And probably most everyone else.
- adrianmsmith 4y agoI think it’s tolerated because.. we don’t have a choice other than to tolerate it. What else are we going to do? Are we going to close the browser window and not use Wikipedia?
- marssaxman 4y agoYou can add the following rules to your uBlock Origin config: en.wikipedia.org##.cn-fundraising en.wikipedia.org##.frb-country-US.frb-rml-enabled.frb
- flaviut 4y agoIn addition, it looks like the "Fanboy’s Annoyance" filter list also blocks the wikipedia fundraising, as well as a bunch of other crap across the internet.
- lp0_on_fire 4y ago> Are we going to close the browser window and not use Wikipedia? This is precisely what I do. There are plenty of other ways to find useful information on the internet and of course there are dead tree books. Lately the wikimedia foundation just comes off as the whiny entitled rich kid who's upset that their parents only bought a brand new Acura instead of a Jaguar for their birthday. I'm not going to encourage the behavior by giving it attention.
- cf100clunk 4y agoI have the LibRedirect browser add-on set to reroute all wikipedia lookups to wikiless.
- leephillips 4y agoMe too. I don’t read Wikipedia articles and see links to Wikipedia as a sign of cluelessness. I downvote those who cite Wikipedia articles as if they were authoritative. When I was a teacher I would fail any paper that cited Wikipedia. You can use Wikipedia all you want. But suggesting that there is no choice is ridiculous.
- dark-star 4y agoI guess it isn't, it's just that many people know how to use (and configure) an adblocker in their browser....
- jrd259 4y agoI cancelled my monthly donation. I was quite happy to pay for Wikipedia, but hearing that they are doing fine, and lacking any insight into what the wikimedia foundation does, I stopped. Plenty of other places to give tzedakah.
- xekc 4y agoNo need to tolerate, it’s a non-profit, it’s not owned by anyone. Just join and do things better than they do, provoke change and transparency from within if you can’t tolerate it no longer.
- avalys 4y agoI don’t tolerate it - I don’t give them any money.
- 28304283409234 4y agoDon't like it? Don't visit it.
- nadow 4y agoi just click on the "i already donated, stop showing me this message" option. i've never donated, but they dont need to know that.
- AlbertCory 4y agoThanks, I just did that. It said "hide appeals for a week" but that's better than nothing. As for being a "sharp-eyed accountant": you don't have to be one of those to ask where the money is going. If it's going to reward the best volunteers or get better servers, fine. Charity Navigator gives them a 99% rating: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/200049703 https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/200049703 You can look at their 990 form on the IRS website: ==================== The Form 990 is a document that nonprofit organizations file with the IRS annually. We leverage finance and accountability data from it to form Encompass ratings. Click here to search for this organization's Forms 990 on the IRS website [1] (if any are available). Simply enter the organization's name (Wikimedia Foundation) or EIN (200049703) in the 'Search Term' field. [1] https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/
- fallingknife 4y agoCharity Navigator also gives borderline scam United Way a 91% https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/131635294 https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/131635294 It measures compliance and bureaucratic procedures, and that's about it.
- AlbertCory 4y agoYou have to read beyond the rating & look at the numbers. I could ask here "why do you call it a borderline scam?" I think it is, too, but I'd love to see you show it to us.
- adamdusty 4y agoI tolerate it because I don't care. They could keep the banner there year round and I would still use it and not care.
- endisneigh 4y agoI'm curious, if an employee is doing "just fine", do they not deserve a raise if they did a good job? Either Wikipedia is doing well, and they will continue asking for money to continue doing well. Or, Wikipedia is not doing well, and they will continue asking for money to do better. For you, if you don't like Wikipedia and/or the banners, just stop going to it if it doesn't provide any value.
- JoeyBananas 4y agoIf they can raise the money, why shouldn't they? Being over-funded is a good problem to have from the perspective of any non-profit.
- constantcrying 4y ago>why shouldn't they? Because they are doing so under the false pretenses of urgency and desperation, when they are very well off.
- JoeyBananas 4y agoIf they have more money than they need, it is natural to expand the scope of the mission. You could argue that they are doing a poor job at this, but I don't see any case that they shouldn't be continuing to collect more donations. It's better to have the money and waste it than not have the money and not waste it.
- constantcrying 4y agoI am asking for honesty and accountability. If you are going to use that money to give it to random undisclosed charities advertise that. Have the pop-up say "The Wikimedia foundations desperately needs your donations, so that we finally can give your money to undisclosed charities.", don't pretend like Wikipedia is about to die, the organization is extremely well off and you should be honest about that. >It's better to have the money and waste it than not have the money and not waste it. That is such an awful thing to say. They are still taking the money of people who believe they are keeping Wikipedia alive, but then use that exact money to give to undisclosed charities. How can you not see that as a problem?
- pwinnski 4y agoIt sounds like we are not seeing the same banners. You keep paraphrasing, definitely not quoting, what sound like dire pleas for survival, and yet any banner I see lacks any of that.
- woodruffw 4y agoI don’t know what tolerate means in this context: I’m pretty sure I clicked “close” once and it hasn’t shown up again. Separately: the Wikipedia Foundation having too much money sounds like the kind of problem I’d prefer to have, rather than it not having enough. Even if it means they “waste” money (in your estimation), it provides financial independence in a way that’s critical for the service they provide.
- implements 4y agoThe Wikipedia iOS app doesn’t seem to seek donations.
- arcticbull 4y ago> In fact, they make so much money from donations, they spend (read: waste) massive amounts of it on various social ventures instead of using it on the service that caused people to donate in the first place. Do you have some specific examples? Further, how much are they 'wasting' as a function of their reserves?
- _dain_ 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...
- jzellis 4y agoAre there no prisons, no workhouses? What a perfect time of year to complain about people begging.
- jkrauska 4y agoAll the other top websites [1] either are selling my information (Meta) , exist to show me ads (Google), or I pay monthly for (Netflix). Wikipedia runs one of the busiest websites in the world with a staff much smaller than any of those other sites. Like any company -- there's going to be priorities different than mine and waste. But I'm ok being asked to chip in for what I get. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_visited_websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_visited_websites
- Nomentatus 4y agoI was okay 'till I donated and got thoroughly spammed by them after that. Not okay with donating there now.
- shp0ngle 4y agoThat happens if you donate to ANY cause, ever. If you give money to, I don’t know, a charity for hungry kids in <insert poor country>, they will send you MORE begging mails, not less.
- andrew_ 4y agoI donate yearly to the Purple Heart Foundation and they're quite respectful in communications.
- Arrath 4y agoSerious. I found donating blood to have been a bit of a mistake, the bastards just won't stop calling asking for more.
- punyearthling 4y agoTo be fair, you donated to Dr. Acula.
- Arrath 4y ago
- tomg 4y agoGoodbye Hacker News. A bunch of extremely well-paid SWEs complain about donating two bucks to a completely free encyclopedia representing hundreds of thousands of volunteer human hours of effort; replacing (sorry, “disrupting”) extremely expensive Britannica books means to me the orange site has lost it’s way.
- CoastalCoder 4y agoI think you might not understand the reason for the fundraising pushback. I can try to summarize if you like, but it's probably explained elsewhere in this story's comments.
- tyingq 4y agoAn item hitting the front page doesn't mean anything like "most people here agree with the premise". Just that they find the content potentially interesting to see, discuss, debate, etc.
- jorvi 4y agoThat would hold merit if I wouldn’t regularly see people’s insightful comments sent deep into greyed-out oblivion because they went against the grain of the echo chamber. Be it here, on Reddit, or any site with a content voting system, the vote buttons always end up being ‘this is what I could have said’ and ‘get bent’ buttons. Funnily enough, imageboards seem to have it figured out: post something interesting, your thread or comment gets engaged. Post drivel - everyone ignores you. Meritocracy.
- mardifoufs 4y agoThe pushback is very present amongst Wikipedians editors too, you know, the people actually writing the encyclopedia. But I guess software engineers on hacker news know better and can just handwave the issue because it makes them feel better to think that their donation is useful.
- geocrasher 4y agoHow long have you been reading HN? What makes you think everyone here is an "extremely well-paid SWE"? Have you not read the threads such as "Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22442454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22442454 This is a discussion forum, not a blog.
- vegetable 4y agoApart from ublock filters you can use the Wikiless frontend. An addon like libredirect will redirect to an instance automatically.
- svisser 4y agoIt's not exactly tolerated by Wikipedia community, see this discusssion: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-11-28/News_and_notes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost...
- ergonaught 4y ago1) You have surely heard, or perhaps have even said, "If you don't like it, don't use it." 2) What is the justification for NOT "tolerating" it beyond the "stop using it" or "stop donating to it" avenue? Is there a crime that should be reported? 3) Publish a story highlighting the problems. Several of these circulate periodically. The people who care about this already know it, and everyone else just ignores the banners. 4) Ads have ***destroyed*** the general web browsing user experience for anyone who isn't actively using adblockers. Why is that tolerated? Repeat exercise. Humans. It's humans.
- samtho 4y agoI’ve worked a lot with nonprofits. Having a pool of static funds available is not indicative of sustainability. If you are asking for funds only when you are running out, it is far too late for you.
- voldacar 4y agoTheir spending grows commensurately with their fundraising. The cost of maintaining wikipedia is more or less constant. It's a cancerous growth pattern.
- xeromal 4y agoThe number of articles, languages, and employees are probably not static either.
- MagicMoonlight 4y agoThe number of languages is static. The number of articles is effectively static because 99% are finished and the rate of new articles will be pretty much constant. The number of employees is obviously going to rise if you choose to spaff more money.
- constantcrying 4y agoIf they cared about long term sustainability they wouldn't use that money to fund a web of charities. If they were expecting hardships in the distant future you would obviously expect them to cut down on unnecessary spending to focus on keeping the website up and running. Is that happening?
- samtho 4y agoPart of being a nonprofit is that instead of being obligated to drive profits to investors, you must carry out the focus of your mission statement. Money is fuel. It should not ever become such a constraining resource and saying they can get by with less is trivializing the way they conduct operations and the impact the are obligated to peruse. I don’t see this argument being made as it relates to for-profit companies. Is a nonprofit unworthy of fundraising because they have “enough” already? Who defines that? Are they not worthy because they bring value to society rather than individual shareholders? Nonprofits still operate as businesses and they also want to see growth. I’m not sure how any reasonable person would see a problem with that.
- satvikpendem 4y agoI read this satirical thread about what would happen if Wikipedia didn't make money from donations and had to get acquired by a company like Comcast and thought, hm, I'd rather that not happen. I donate every year. https://old.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2ov45h/wp_wikipedia_is_shut_down_and_all_copies_deleted/cmqs11s/ https://old.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2ov45h/wp_w...
- constantcrying 4y ago>I'd rather that not happen. I donate every year. Wikipedia has far more money then they know what to do with, their entire foundation is very affluent and there is no risk of them facing any hardship. Your donations have exactly zero influence on Wikipedia staying up or even staying independent. Your money goes into a web of charities (undisclosed which exactly), at best some poor people might profit of a few percentage points of your money, why not just donate to some real charity instead.
- satvikpendem 4y agoThat's okay, I have money to spare.
- constantcrying 4y agoThen donate to a real charity which is open about where the money goes? As far as "general charities" go Wikimedia foundation is pretty awful and your money doesn't help Wikipedia (the website) in any case. I would never donate to such a shady organization, using such disingenuous tactics and awful transparency.
- satvikpendem 4y agoHence why I said I have money to spare.
- constantcrying 4y ago
- vander_elst 4y agoYou can login, opt out of the banner and it won't be shown to you anymore. But to answer the question: because it's one of the few annoyances (and probably the only one) on that website. Other than the one month long banner I personally have no complains, Wikipedia is one of the best websites on the internet imo.
- SpicyLemonZest 4y agoFundraising is unfortunately something where the commons has been deeply polluted. My Congressmembers regularly send me emails which are outright lies, purporting to be a "membership renewal" or a "special survey" or an "urgent petition" until you click in and see they want money. So when I see something like the Wikipedia banners, which are restricted to their own site and don't explicitly say anything untrue, it's hard to get worked up over it. It's worth acknowledging that they've been willing to moderate their tone in response to things that seem overly misleading (https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-foundation-donate.html https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-fou...). If you could sit down with Jimmy Wales and the WMF bosses in private, I suspect they'd tell you that they don't want to trick anyone, but that you have to do some kind of attention-grabbing stunt to effectively fundraise these days. And really, is that wrong?
- Jiro 4y ago>which are restricted to their own site and don't explicitly say anything untrue What's so great about implicitly saying untrue things? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(propos...
- flipbrad 4y agoThe Foundation is my client, but these views are only my own: This is not to say there's no excess, or that resources couldn't be allocated internally more effectively - I'm not going to put up some kind of strawman - but: 1. I took a 20% pay cut so that I could do more work for the Foundation. Worth it. 2. Posts that say "Wikipedia only has [x] more articles but budget has gone up [y]" are beyond stupid. Any idea how many projects besides Wikipedia are run by WMF - for instance, ever heard of Wikimedia Commons? Any idea how litigious and heavily-regulated the world has got, and how much effort has to be poured into softening some of the emerging laws, mounting judicial challenges against the rest, etc? Any idea how much funding every usergroup and chapter (sometimes more than one per country, e.g. in Spain) is asking for? Any idea how much effort is put into developing features that encourage new people to start editing, not just consuming? Any idea how expensive it is to support and facilitate the big "Movement" discussions (aimed at decentralising the movement!) and the User Code of Conduct discussions? How hard it is to have a viable Trust & Safety team for so many projects, 300+ languages, and people from all over the world to support? 3. After a big outcry about the banners a month ago (that was a long time coming, no denial), the drafting and design of the banners is much softer this year than the last. And guess what, they're much less effective, and now projects are being cancelled, staff departures aren't being backfilled, and jobs are at stake. That may be worth it, but let's at least be honest about the downsides. Accountability and criticism are fine - but when absolutely no intellectual effort is put into keeping that criticism balanced and on-target, then all you've ended up doing is making people who work here, rather than raking in the big bucks working for Big Tech, feel shitty. And guess what: you lose extra marks for bringing up cancer (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has...) when many people working here will be dealing with actual cancer, either personally or among their friends or family, at the moment.
- throwaway5752 4y agoI am so glad you posted this. Let me take the opportunity to say thank you. The Wikimedia Foundation does some of the most important work in the world, I am profoundly grateful for your work.
- geocrasher 4y ago
- daniel-cussen 4y ago[dead]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rsynnott 4y agoTolerated by whom? The general public? People occasionally create Wikipedia competitors; it generally doesn’t go well. If you find it intolerable, you can presumably use one of those (though note that the content is generally, well, made-up).
- rconti 4y ago"Every time you go to Wikipedia" meaning "in December, until you click it to go away"? I tolerate it because I like the resource, and I donate a small amount of money most years. When organizations ask for money I don't immediately get defensive and start researching talking points as to why they don't really need it. Maybe I should, but I don't. So yeah, chalk one up to a naive rube with a lack of awareness. And no desire to setup custom blocking filters that inevitably are more work to maintain than they're actually worth.
- josteink 4y agoThe Mozilla foundation situation is equally hopeless these days: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre https://lunduke.substack.com/p/firefox-money-investigating-t... All the old heroes have started rotting from the inside and turned to fungus.
- shp0ngle 4y agoDespite all the negative about wikipedia, it’s still sort of part of “old internet” that I don’t want to die. Even wikia, which was spun at first as “slightly more commercial wikipedia”, later became Fandom, which is something so horrible that I don’t want to look at Look at WikiTravel which is more commercial WikiVoyage… they immediately went and stuffed it with ads and trackers. And I mean wikimedia is fine NOW, but economy is going down, I will be happy if it has a certain rundown. I am not entirely happy about all decisions that they do, but they’re still not pushing me any tracker. I am fine with closing some pop up.
- frozencell 4y ago> wikipedia, it’s still sort of part of “old internet” what sort of new internet are you living in?
- pwinnski 4y agoThe ad-filled internet being pushed by Google and crew, overtaking everything, it sounds like.
- paulnpace 4y agoI edited an article citing a published source. My edit was reversed by a troll with some axe to grind on the article. I attempted to discuss in the talk page and the troll basically said "you are wrong and the source is wrong", but cited no source supporting the claim, no policy stating there was something wrong with the specific source, and I cited policies supporting my use of the source. Another editor showed up and agreed with me, and undid the troll's reversal, which the troll then restored the article to its state prior to my edit. I undid the troll's restoration. Shortly thereafter I received a notice that I had been reported for some category of malicious editing. The troll reported me and the other editor for being sock-puppet accounts, and within 20 minutes my account and the other editor's accounts were deleted, my IP address banned from editing, and the edits to the article were deleted from record. I received a notice that I can appeal the decision by sending an email to whatever the final governing board for all of Wikipedia is, which is a publicly published email address. I assumed this a "talk to the hand" step that results in nothing but wasting my time, since there is no way for me to disprove the sock-puppet claim (other than to state the fact that it is a lie) and all the evidence of the changes were vaporized. (I did attempt to post a rebuttal to the claims, but when I clicked the post button, my account had already been deleted so the post was never posted.) I had been editor of Wikipedia since shortly after they migrated to the new format (e.g., MediaWiki). Wikipedia is not anything like what it originally started as.
- pfdietz 4y agoFeel free to not use Wikipedia if they offend you.
- 95014_refugee 4y agoFor the same reason that archive.org's begging is tolerated, obviously. They provide a unique, irreplaceable service that can only be sustained by charitable contribution. (Never mind that OP is asking disingenuously, just adding my vote.)
- hbrn 4y agoJust to clarify, there's no Wikipedia Foundation, there's Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia is owned by Wikimedia Foundation. You can't donate to Wikipedia, the banners on Wikipedia lead to Wikimedia donations. It is quite unethical: 1. They have enough donations to keep Wikipedia running for decades, yet each year banner gets more and more manipulative, pretending WP is on the brink of collapse. 2. IIRC less than 5% of money are actually used towards Wikipedia needs. 3. Not to mention that WP authors essentially work for free. Why is it tolerated? Because most people don't even know you're not donating to Wikipedia. And the product is just too good to care.
- pxoe 4y agosure, they could "keep it running", except it would get no new features and refinement, and would operate in a static (stagnant, as the world keeps moving on) barebones version. would it also be able to scale with increase in visitor traffic? would it be able to deal with increase in media uploads, or would it have to limit or freeze them? what about inflation and increase in hosting prices, and prices of everything else? if your vision for wikipedia is a text-based website with feature set from 2007 - and just that, maybe it could run for even longer.
- hbrn 4y ago> would it also be able to scale with increase in visitor traffic? would it be able to deal with increase in media uploads Yes. It's not a social network / advertising machine. Hosting is a tiny fraction of Wikimedia spending: a mere $2.4M in 2021. I was surprised to learn they spend more on awards and grants than on hosting.
- wallfacer120 4y ago[dead]
- bannedbybros 4y ago[dead]
- CJefferson 4y agoWhat banner is even being discussed here? I don't see any banner about wikipedia "shutting down at any moment due to lack of funding". There is a banner, yes, but it doesn't say anything like that. Are other people seeing other things, or is the discussion about a banner (yes, there is a banner) that doesn't ever say what's being claimed? For reference, I see this. It reads reasonably to me, and never makes crazy claims about shutting down. Wikipedia is not for sale. A personal appeal from Jimmy Wales Please don't scroll past this 1 minute read. This Friday December 23rd, as 2022 draws to a close, I humbly ask you to reflect on the number of times you visited Wikipedia this year, the value you got from it, and whether you're able to give £2 back. If you can, please join the 2% of readers who give. If everyone reading this right now gave just £2, we'd hit our annual goal in a couple of hours. The price of a cup of coffee is all I ask. Wikipedia is different. No advertising, no subscription fees, no paywalls. Those don't belong here. Instead, the Wikimedia Foundation relies on readers to support the technology that makes Wikipedia and our other projects possible. Being a nonprofit means there is no danger that someone will buy Wikipedia and turn it into their personal playground. If Wikipedia has given you £2 worth of knowledge this year, please donate now, it really matters.
- regnull 4y ago> In reality, the Wikipedia Foundation is doing just fine. In fact, they make so much money from donations, they spend (read: waste) massive amounts of it on various social ventures instead of using it on the service that caused people to donate in the first place. That's a strong statement that requires some proof and links to the sources.
- fallingknife 4y agoFair enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...
- akolbe 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-10-31/News_and_notes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
- yuppie_scum 4y agoIf this is the worst thing happening to you today, you’re having a great day.
- khiqxj 4y ago[dead]
- diggernet 4y ago"Wikipedia is not for sale." No, but Jimmy Wales clearly is. Why isn't there a "shut up and go away and never bother me again" button? Because it's gotten to the point that I have just started avoiding Wikipedia.
- LBJsPNS 4y agoYou do know you're welcome to simply not use Wikipedia. You can even use it and not donate anything. Their "begging" is "tolerated" because it's their site and they are entitled to post anything they like on it.
- nokya 4y agoNo, it's not tolerated, at least from me. I use incognito mode by default in my browsers and Wikipedia has become unusable with the constant begging. I stopped donating on a yearly basis when I realized their intrusive begging scheme had turned into a hobby. If it works with other people, so be it.
- verdenti 4y ago[dead]
- minerva23 4y agoIn the strictest sense, it's tolerated because it's an acceptable price to get the product. If you're asking, "why doesn't someone do something about it" there are people actively encouraging the foundation to lay off. In fact, now you can click a "I already donated" button to silence them when you couldn't before. Also, they don't show it to logged in users, so the people making the product aren't being hounded for additional donations
- faeriechangling 4y agoAn organization which runs an extremely useful non-for-profit business that runs the occasional nagging ad and flies some oversalaried executives around to ego-boosting events is hugely inoffensive to me. I mean honestly, I don't think say Microsoft goes a week without doing a dozen worse things to its users.
- pwdisswordfish9 4y agoWhat is the Wikipedia Foundation? Is it some kind of scam impersonating the Wikimedia Foundation?
- MagicMoonlight 4y agoWikipedia is actually privately owned. They raised enough money to fund thenselves indefinitely a long time ago but then they got bought out. All these donations are now funneled into the shareholders of the parent company. Think about it, all the work is done by volunteers. Server costs are negligible because it’s all cached plaintext that can fit on a single server if you need it to. There’s basically no costs. And yet… hundreds of millions get withdrawn. It ain’t going to Wikipedia. Wikipedia was financially secure through investments a decade ago. It’s fraud.
- anenefan 4y agoAs a simple resource, it's imperative it remains free of corporates with their own agendas, and to a lesser extent, advertising. The best way to fail is not have sufficient funds for emergencies. Wikipedia is certainly more worthwhile for someone who is likely to use it regularly, than say an online newspaper that actually refuses to share the article content with an infrequent visitor that might be directed to that particular site a handful of times during the year. Often wikipedia asks for much less. I'd probably donate, if not for the hundred plus hours I worked expanding their knowledge base in the early 00s ... it was all deleted as far as I can tell - most of that data wasn't ever going to be covered in a "must be in an existing ISBN book / ISSN publication" policy that was brought in sometime later on.
- greggarious 4y ago>In reality, the Wikipedia Foundation is doing just fine. In fact, they make so much money from donations, they spend (read: waste) massive amounts of it on various social ventures instead of using it on the service that caused people to donate in the first place. Meanwhile they refuse to roll out an onion service, which would enable folks to read it without fearing chilling effects and reduce the load on the network’s limited number of exit nodes, which due to a combination of sociological and technical reasons are much more onerous to run than relays. Wikipedia overwhelmingly focuses on the wishes of editors, a small and separate group from the users (readers) in a manner unbecoming an alleged charity. https://defcon.org/images/defcon-17/dc-17-presentations/defcon-17-roger_dingledine-tor.pdf https://defcon.org/images/defcon-17/dc-17-presentations/defc... https://blog.torproject.org/tips-running-exit-node/ https://blog.torproject.org/tips-running-exit-node/