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I love Wikipedia, but Wikimedia does not need your donations at all, as much as its misleading ads try to convince you it's on the brink of death. As far as th

I love Wikipedia, but Wikimedia does not need your donations at all, as much as its misleading ads try to convince you it's on the brink of death. As far as this particular article goes, it just comes off as kind of cringeworthy to me. This is a style of internet humor that went out of fashion about 10 years ago.

tapete2 11mo ago
Indeed. I like how the website claims "McSweeney’s accepts no writing aided in any manner by AI." Really hard to believe that a garbage “article” like this was produced by a human.
btilly 1y ago
Indeed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C... is a worthwhile read on this. Wikimedia is on an internal expense growth spiral that won't stop until they max out on the willingness of others to donate.
- zozbot234 1y ago
  Wikipedia is one of the highest-traffic Internet sites worldwide, and it's still being run on a comparatively shoestring budget. It's also an ongoing project, so the usual claim that technical hosting expenses are only a few percent of what's being spent on it overall is misguided. No one would care about hosting a dead encyclopedia Keeping volunteers editors around is also a harder problem today than it was a decade ago or so, as purely passive consumption use of the Internet has exploded and overtaken the former model of a largely volunteer-run network. Wikipedia is just about managing it today with its current resources; if it had more, it could do better and launch a greater amount of technically compelling projects that would ultimately further its mission. (Already today, Wikidata, one of the more recently-created projects, is getting more edits over time than the largest Wikipedia and acting as a much-needed "hub" of the Semantic Web and Linked Data, which sees much use by the largest tech companies.)
mapontosevenths 1y ago
> This is a style of internet humor that went out of fashion about 10 years ago. You know what else has happened in the last 10 years? People got stupid. Between 2017 and 2023, the percentage of U.S. adults at the lowest levels of illiteracy increased from 19% to 28%. Some studies show that the US's peak literacy was around 2015 and has been decreasing ever since.
- unethical_ban 1y ago
  How? How do 28% of people not know how to read?
  - mapontosevenths 1y ago
    Fifty four percent of Americans now read below the sixth grade level, and the trend is getting worse rather than better. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/
  - georgefrowny 1y ago
    It'll be below PIAAC level 1 or similar. Even below that level many people can read simple text and extract basic information. Perhaps it also includes people who can read other languages, but not very well in English.
- marcellus23 1y ago
  This article is not some intellectual thinkpiece that only the literati can comprehend. Trends change, humor evolves. If "shoop da whoop", rage comics, leetspeak, and motivational posters aren't funny anymore, it's not because people "got stupid".
  - mapontosevenths 1y ago
    I'm not talking about the Literati. Anything above the sixth grade level is no longer suitable for the majority of the population.
radley 1y ago
> This is a style of internet humor that went out of fashion about 10 years ago. That's because reality trumped satire.
qingcharles 1y ago
The donations are voluntary. I donate money and articles because I've gained so much from having Wikipedia available to me. If they have a big war chest, that's fine, I'll help make it bigger so they don't need to stress about money. If they spend it on some wacky projects, then that's OK too, experimentation is important as well.
- ssssssszzsssz 1y ago
  [flagged]

tapete2 11mo ago

Indeed. I like how the website claims "McSweeney’s accepts no writing aided in any manner by AI." Really hard to believe that a garbage “article” like this was produced by a human.

btilly 1y ago

Indeed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C... is a worthwhile read on this. Wikimedia is on an internal expense growth spiral that won't stop until they max out on the willingness of others to donate.

zozbot234 1y ago
Wikipedia is one of the highest-traffic Internet sites worldwide, and it's still being run on a comparatively shoestring budget. It's also an ongoing project, so the usual claim that technical hosting expenses are only a few percent of what's being spent on it overall is misguided. No one would care about hosting a dead encyclopedia Keeping volunteers editors around is also a harder problem today than it was a decade ago or so, as purely passive consumption use of the Internet has exploded and overtaken the former model of a largely volunteer-run network. Wikipedia is just about managing it today with its current resources; if it had more, it could do better and launch a greater amount of technically compelling projects that would ultimately further its mission. (Already today, Wikidata, one of the more recently-created projects, is getting more edits over time than the largest Wikipedia and acting as a much-needed "hub" of the Semantic Web and Linked Data, which sees much use by the largest tech companies.)

mapontosevenths 1y ago

> This is a style of internet humor that went out of fashion about 10 years ago. You know what else has happened in the last 10 years? People got stupid. Between 2017 and 2023, the percentage of U.S. adults at the lowest levels of illiteracy increased from 19% to 28%. Some studies show that the US's peak literacy was around 2015 and has been decreasing ever since.

unethical_ban 1y ago
How? How do 28% of people not know how to read?
- mapontosevenths 1y ago
  Fifty four percent of Americans now read below the sixth grade level, and the trend is getting worse rather than better. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/
- georgefrowny 1y ago
  It'll be below PIAAC level 1 or similar. Even below that level many people can read simple text and extract basic information. Perhaps it also includes people who can read other languages, but not very well in English.
marcellus23 1y ago
This article is not some intellectual thinkpiece that only the literati can comprehend. Trends change, humor evolves. If "shoop da whoop", rage comics, leetspeak, and motivational posters aren't funny anymore, it's not because people "got stupid".
- mapontosevenths 1y ago
  I'm not talking about the Literati. Anything above the sixth grade level is no longer suitable for the majority of the population.

radley 1y ago

> This is a style of internet humor that went out of fashion about 10 years ago. That's because reality trumped satire.

qingcharles 1y ago

The donations are voluntary. I donate money and articles because I've gained so much from having Wikipedia available to me. If they have a big war chest, that's fine, I'll help make it bigger so they don't need to stress about money. If they spend it on some wacky projects, then that's OK too, experimentation is important as well.

ssssssszzsssz 1y ago
[flagged]