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How long have you been so passionate about Wikipedia and their funding. Also, how much cash is "rolling in cash" by your estimation? Sounds like you think they

How long have you been so passionate about Wikipedia and their funding. Also, how much cash is "rolling in cash" by your estimation? Sounds like you think they have too much? Should we limit how much cash one can roll in - is that something you think you might be in to?

margalabargala 3y ago
> Also, how much cash is "rolling in cash" by your estimation? Sounds like you think they have too much? When an organization's primary form of fundraising is pointing at their one useful product and saying "give us money so that we can keep doing this! If we don't have enough money this might go away!" that's fine and moral so long as it's what's required for primarily funding the useful thing in question. When the above method accounts for 90% of funds raised, but the useful thing people thought they were supporting only accounts for 10% of expenditures, then that means 1) the organization has more money than they need for "useful thing", and 2) it means that people will feel misled and get upset when they find out about this, because they thought they were donating money to "useful thing" but their money actually went to "side project". Wikipedia's fundraising messaging is blatantly manipulative and misleading compared to the reality of financial risk to the continued existence of the content on wikipedia.org.
- defendBanana 3y ago
  Wikipedia is fairly transparent about how they spend the money. Anyone donating can easily check and donate to their liking. Stop making up random 10% etc. I never understand this obsession that people have with non profit funding. A weird way of counting efficiency by counting how every dollar spend and not really the value produced. Clearly Wikipedia is one of the most useful things in the world. They would be more "efficient" wrt money most people give to them even if they were to set fire to a large portion of it.
  - margalabargala 3y ago
    I'm sorry, is your argument really "if measured in terms of dollar per utility, they would be one of the most useful organizations regardless of how much money they set fire to, and therefore no one should complain if they just set money on fire"? Their having made something useful does not entitle them to be able to set money on fire without objection, nor does it excuse ads implying the useful thing might go away when the reality is that they are asking for money because they would prefer to have more firewood to burn, without affecting the useful thing whatsoever.
fsckboy 3y ago
>How long have you been so passionate about Wikipedia and.. I expressed clear and open distain but was specific. You are using, I think a sneakier version, a snideness... but if "how long have I" is a serious question, I was editing wikipedia when it barely had any articles. I watched it go from feeble to great to a steady degradation over the last decade; is how long. It suffers other degradations which are not poitical. Categories of narrow interest get taken over by advocates, such that people of casual interest don't get to see the whole truth or even see what they're looking for; or specialist articles no longer have general salience (for example with regard to specific isotopes or something). Articles about celebrities get scrubbed free of stain. People with weird little fetishes take it upon themselves to insert something like the word "metonymy" everywhere they possibly can. And more, but I've been around, son, I've been around, as a contributor. and it's a standard technique to give people like me a worklist to go do, but I won't do it. If you think I'm wrong about their funding, and some numbers are in order, you research, publish, and I'll evaluate.

margalabargala 3y ago

> Also, how much cash is "rolling in cash" by your estimation? Sounds like you think they have too much? When an organization's primary form of fundraising is pointing at their one useful product and saying "give us money so that we can keep doing this! If we don't have enough money this might go away!" that's fine and moral so long as it's what's required for primarily funding the useful thing in question. When the above method accounts for 90% of funds raised, but the useful thing people thought they were supporting only accounts for 10% of expenditures, then that means 1) the organization has more money than they need for "useful thing", and 2) it means that people will feel misled and get upset when they find out about this, because they thought they were donating money to "useful thing" but their money actually went to "side project". Wikipedia's fundraising messaging is blatantly manipulative and misleading compared to the reality of financial risk to the continued existence of the content on wikipedia.org.

defendBanana 3y ago
Wikipedia is fairly transparent about how they spend the money. Anyone donating can easily check and donate to their liking. Stop making up random 10% etc. I never understand this obsession that people have with non profit funding. A weird way of counting efficiency by counting how every dollar spend and not really the value produced. Clearly Wikipedia is one of the most useful things in the world. They would be more "efficient" wrt money most people give to them even if they were to set fire to a large portion of it.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  I'm sorry, is your argument really "if measured in terms of dollar per utility, they would be one of the most useful organizations regardless of how much money they set fire to, and therefore no one should complain if they just set money on fire"? Their having made something useful does not entitle them to be able to set money on fire without objection, nor does it excuse ads implying the useful thing might go away when the reality is that they are asking for money because they would prefer to have more firewood to burn, without affecting the useful thing whatsoever.

fsckboy 3y ago

>How long have you been so passionate about Wikipedia and.. I expressed clear and open distain but was specific. You are using, I think a sneakier version, a snideness... but if "how long have I" is a serious question, I was editing wikipedia when it barely had any articles. I watched it go from feeble to great to a steady degradation over the last decade; is how long. It suffers other degradations which are not poitical. Categories of narrow interest get taken over by advocates, such that people of casual interest don't get to see the whole truth or even see what they're looking for; or specialist articles no longer have general salience (for example with regard to specific isotopes or something). Articles about celebrities get scrubbed free of stain. People with weird little fetishes take it upon themselves to insert something like the word "metonymy" everywhere they possibly can. And more, but I've been around, son, I've been around, as a contributor. and it's a standard technique to give people like me a worklist to go do, but I won't do it. If you think I'm wrong about their funding, and some numbers are in order, you research, publish, and I'll evaluate.