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I have a fairly negative/pessimistic take on this model, but it’s my truth: Wikipedia, in my experience, is littered with some of the most aggressive, psycholog

I have a fairly negative/pessimistic take on this model, but it’s my truth: Wikipedia, in my experience, is littered with some of the most aggressive, psychologically manipulative, and persistent ads of any major site. They just happen to be ads imploring me to donate to Wikipedia.

SahAssar 3y ago
I agree that Wikipedias donation banners are very aggressive and the whole "Wikipedia has cancer" idea certainly seems plausible. At the same time does any other top-10 site have a non-profit motive?
- kokanee 3y ago
  An idea I would be interested in is some kind of public-private partnership for operating internet services like social media, search, and wikis, which are necessary for the public good but have no viable economic model. The government provides the public funding and private entities build and operate the services, because no one wants to log into a government-operated reddit clone to look for onlyfans leaks. Maybe this could be accomplished with grants instead of donations?
  - kaba0 3y ago
    I think a reddit-like community could easily operate on a donation-based basis. Every development is open-source, and the operation costs are displayed on the site with a progress bar for the month until filled. It would be trivial amounts so it may not even need to be displayed, will be paid so fast.
- muzani 3y ago
  Top 50? Top 100? I think scaling donations is difficult. Wikipedia makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year, but its closest competitor, Google, makes hundreds of billions of dollars. But to the average person, a hundred million dollars is a hell lot of money. So people get cynical. Also it's possible that donation models just don't work well. Dwarf Fortress is one data point. It was decent money at $15k per month, then people dropped 7 million dollars on the Steam release on the first month.
idiotsecant 3y ago
Now, imagine a wikipedia trying to juice it's numbers before it hits IPO in order to pay out it's VC overlords so they decide to have a 'premium truth' section above the regular article where facts are open to the highest bidder, the bidder with the most Free $peech. Wikipedia is a easy target but it's definitely a mile better than a lot of the trash out there.
- throwaway14356 3y ago
  That is precisely how it works today! There isn't one topic or person that doesn't have a share of dirty laundry and with the media going full clickbait nowadays one can source it well by wp standards. A serious discussion should judge if the laundry is worthy of inclusion but what you get is power users flexing their muscles. They are judge jury and executioner. Non of the edit guidelines apply but if they did get the slightest consideration, the same faceless usernames have authority over those too! That you have a nobel prize for the subject doesn't mean you get to make perfectly valid citations without permission. The really stupid part is that people love to pretend it isn't so in stead of seeing and indeed enjoying the facinating dynamics of human interaction with such huge transparency. It has all agendas represented for everyone to see!
  - idiotsecant 3y ago
    you're either being disingenuous or maybe you're legitimately ignorant, I can't tell. It's clearly not 'precisely how it works today'. Sometimes words mean things. This is one of those cases.
    - throwaway14356 3y ago
      Here is the premium truth, not a section but the entire article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks and here is what citizen editors wanted to write: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories And here is the guideline that says you cant do a POV fork: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_forking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_forking I have no opinion on the topic.

SahAssar 3y ago

I agree that Wikipedias donation banners are very aggressive and the whole "Wikipedia has cancer" idea certainly seems plausible. At the same time does any other top-10 site have a non-profit motive?

kokanee 3y ago
An idea I would be interested in is some kind of public-private partnership for operating internet services like social media, search, and wikis, which are necessary for the public good but have no viable economic model. The government provides the public funding and private entities build and operate the services, because no one wants to log into a government-operated reddit clone to look for onlyfans leaks. Maybe this could be accomplished with grants instead of donations?
- kaba0 3y ago
  I think a reddit-like community could easily operate on a donation-based basis. Every development is open-source, and the operation costs are displayed on the site with a progress bar for the month until filled. It would be trivial amounts so it may not even need to be displayed, will be paid so fast.
muzani 3y ago
Top 50? Top 100? I think scaling donations is difficult. Wikipedia makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year, but its closest competitor, Google, makes hundreds of billions of dollars. But to the average person, a hundred million dollars is a hell lot of money. So people get cynical. Also it's possible that donation models just don't work well. Dwarf Fortress is one data point. It was decent money at $15k per month, then people dropped 7 million dollars on the Steam release on the first month.

idiotsecant 3y ago

Now, imagine a wikipedia trying to juice it's numbers before it hits IPO in order to pay out it's VC overlords so they decide to have a 'premium truth' section above the regular article where facts are open to the highest bidder, the bidder with the most Free $peech. Wikipedia is a easy target but it's definitely a mile better than a lot of the trash out there.

throwaway14356 3y ago
That is precisely how it works today! There isn't one topic or person that doesn't have a share of dirty laundry and with the media going full clickbait nowadays one can source it well by wp standards. A serious discussion should judge if the laundry is worthy of inclusion but what you get is power users flexing their muscles. They are judge jury and executioner. Non of the edit guidelines apply but if they did get the slightest consideration, the same faceless usernames have authority over those too! That you have a nobel prize for the subject doesn't mean you get to make perfectly valid citations without permission. The really stupid part is that people love to pretend it isn't so in stead of seeing and indeed enjoying the facinating dynamics of human interaction with such huge transparency. It has all agendas represented for everyone to see!
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  you're either being disingenuous or maybe you're legitimately ignorant, I can't tell. It's clearly not 'precisely how it works today'. Sometimes words mean things. This is one of those cases.
  - throwaway14356 3y ago
    Here is the premium truth, not a section but the entire article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks and here is what citizen editors wanted to write: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories And here is the guideline that says you cant do a POV fork: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_forking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_forking I have no opinion on the topic.