6 ms·
You have to appreciate the complete transparency, gently nudging towards giving without ever begging for it. Refreshing compared to the alternative that Wikipe
by charles_f 3y ago
You have to appreciate the complete transparency, gently nudging towards giving without ever begging for it.
Refreshing compared to the alternative that Wikipedia is showing, with the tantrum-like emails we receive from their CEO like "LAST REMINDER" or "We've had enough" ; which they ironically send to people who gave.
- GabeIsko 3y agoThose are just non-profit fundraiser consulting tactics. Don't take them personally, just ignore them. The reason they exist is that Wikipedia has too much money, so they spend some on consultants who say they can raise more. It's weird, but that's how the world works. I would much prefer the Wikipedia endowment model of non-profit orgs. They have a standard operating procedure with a predictable budget, and endowment that let's them run indefinitely, and we just have to suffer through pledge drives. I just block them with ublock filters. I gave them 6 dollars back in 2012, and according to their marketing that is enough for life.
- JohnFen 3y ago> Those are just non-profit fundraiser consulting tactics. Don't take them personally, just ignore them. I don't take them personally, of course, but they do encourage me to avoid forking over any money.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoany excuse to not donate!
- GabeIsko 3y agoWait till you find out the truth about matching donations.
- selcuka 3y agoNot really. They send those emails only to people who donated before.
- bshacklett 3y agoI donated regularly until I learned the darker side of their behavior. If they’d be more transparent, I might start donating again. Is it so awful to ask for organizations to act better to receive voluntary support?
- darthrupert 3y agoIt's a good idea to be careful where to donate your money to. Most of us have limited resources, and while we should donate to worthy causes certainly, we have the responsibility of at least trying to put those resources to good use that reflect our own values.
- cyrillite 3y ago[dead]
- wpietri 3y ago> Don't take them personally No. They are meant to manipulate me personally, as well as other persons I care about. I will take them personally. More broadly, I don't have to excuse bad behavior just because somebody's making money off it or because it makes some too-narrow metric go up. Yes, it's a complex and imperfect world. But to me that's a reason to work harder to make things better, not a reason for people to say, "fuck it" and make the world worse.
- charles_f 3y ago> They are meant to manipulate me personally, as well as other persons I care about. I will take them personally. This, absolutely! they play on people's psyche and mental cabling by trying to guilt you in the same way your parent would ; it's manipulative, and I have an absolute hatred for these tactics.
- dheera 3y agoI'm good at detecting manipulation now, and the more someone tries to manipulate me the less I will give in. I just put my money toward people who don't do that crap, and I want the manipulators to see that I'm giving money to their non-manipulating competitors.
- late2part 3y ago[flagged]
- unethical_ban 3y agoI agree with everything before the semicolon. But as an NPR listener, I find it hard to be offended by it.
- Dylan16807 3y agoI bet NPR spends far more of their incoming money on their main product.
- deanCommie 3y ago
- tivert 3y ago> Those are just non-profit fundraiser consulting tactics. Don't take them personally, just ignore them. The reason they exist is that Wikipedia has too much money, so they spend some on consultants who say they can raise more. It's weird, but that's how the world works. It's still shitty, even if it's a shitty "standard practice" and not a shitty thing being done to me particularly. Honestly, it seems like Wikipedia's goodwill is seen as an exploitable resource, that people in Wikimedia are using to do other, unnecessary things (probably building little personal fiefdoms). Sort of like Mozilla, actually. IIRC, they literally won't let you give them money to fund Firefox development, and any donations you give them go to fiefdoms almost certainty entirely unrelated to why you gave them money.
- GabeIsko 3y agoYeah I agree. But that's consulting for you. There is a lot to not like about the evils of consulting, but wikipedia being free and doing pledge drives are on the more mild side of what's wrong.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoSo...is Wikipedia at the level where they can invest to ensure they're sustained indefinitely?
- concordDance 3y agoWikipedia? Yes easily. Wikimedia? No, they're a money black hole and will eat whatever you give them.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoYou ever checked out Uncyclopedia? Nothing on that site is not like, hysterically funny and random. I'm glad Wikipedia has been such as inspiration to us all XD Edit: check out https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Krispy_Kreme https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Krispy_Kreme XD
- Obscurity4340 3y agoWhat about Signal? The article they put out is like 30 minutes in my audio reader lol
- 3seashells 3y agoIt's basically a attempt at sql injection to the brain. Can't wait for AI glasses to filter that crap once and for all from reality.
- halyconWays 3y agoWikipedia is particularly insulting because they make enough money to cover the actual costs of running Wikipedia (the site) in days if not hours, and could operate for years without any additional donations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32840097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32840097
- mhh__ 3y agoIs that including staff + trying to do new stuff or just the servers.
- _Algernon_ 3y agoWhy should Wikipedia do new stuff? Or rather, why is it okay for Wikipedia to lie to people to get funding for their new pet projects?
- qingcharles 3y agoSome of those new projects are directly applicable to potentially improving Wikipedia. Some.
- wpietri 3y ago> Why should Wikipedia do new stuff? Because it's not perfect yet? The point of Wikipedia is not to have some servers ticking over. The project has a vision: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." I agree it's not ok for them to lie, and am bothered enough by their dubious fundraising tactics that I stopped donating. But that's a totally separate concern than whether Wikipedia's mission is complete.
- starttoaster 3y agoWhat is the mission for Wikipedia beyond doing what they already do, which is just hosting the largest internet encyclopedia? Purely curious because I thought Wikipedia was pretty much at its end game for what it wants to accomplish that is the job of the organization rather than the job of all of its volunteers.
- embit 3y agoApologies in advance as I may be saying contrary to the sentiments here against Wikipedia fund raising. I also get the same emails and the banners. I diligently donate what I can. I don’t know where my funds will go. But what I do know is that I use that website practically twenty times a day and get something of value.
- water-data-dude 3y agoI donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center a few years ago. A physical address was a required field on the donation form. I have never stopped regretting it, because GODDAMN! They started hammering me with physical mail asking for more money immediately and have not stopped.
- MrDrMcCoy 3y agoJust curious why you used an address that's associated with you. Choosing the address of a place like a park, which is a real address that has no mailbox or direct association with you, ought to be the default if you don't want to be spammed to hell and back.
- tempestn 3y agoYou might want to receive a tax receipt.
- MrDrMcCoy 3y agoI've usually been able to get that in email form.
- water-data-dude 3y agoI was young and naive! Also, I wanted to make the donation immediately, while I was thinking about it. I didn’t want to put it on a back shelf of my mind and forget about it for a few years, and I assumed “The Good Guys” wouldn’t use my information in a negative way.
- maerF0x0 3y agoI had this happen years ago, ironically I'm pretty sure they spent more hounding me for the next dollar than i gave them (like $25).
- darthrupert 3y agoIn case you're still giving money to them, perhaps consider not donating to an organization that marks people as bigots for speaking against religious extremism. edit They do do a lot of good work in marking actual hate groups though, so I suppose it's a net positive still even if they miss a few strikes.
- giancarlostoro 3y agoThere was a comic I've never been able to find about wikipedia asking for money, it basically had them being that one crazy dude yelling at you to donate, and getting worse as time passed and you tried to ignore them. Then it showed a raw screenshot of wikipedias nag screen. Unsure who drew it or where it went, but I regret not archiving it, because it conveys what it feels like every time. I just don't want to donate if I have 0 control of where my money goes. If it's straight to paying the bill for the infrastructure, then sure.
- hyldmo 3y agoIs it this one? https://bigmemes99.funnyjunk.com/pictures/4chan_1bff07_2890886.jpg https://bigmemes99.funnyjunk.com/pictures/4chan_1bff07_28908...
- giancarlostoro 3y agoNo but that's kinda good lol
- jwestbury 3y ago> which they ironically send to people who gave I'm a lifetime member of my university's alumni association. This means I routinely get physical mail with headlines like, "YOUR OFFER INSIDE," and then the "offer" is to give them more money. Sigh.