akolbe

41 ms·

421.
by akolbe 4y ago
All the more remarkable is that all of this is done by unpaid volunteers.
422.
by akolbe 4y ago
For philosophy (not one of Wikipedia's stronger fields), there is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
423.
by akolbe 4y ago
Well, he likens it to McDonalds. He has a point. (I say that as a long-time Wikipedian, who has had quite a lot of Egg McMuffins for breakfast, against my better knowledge.)
424.
by akolbe 4y ago
Proper write-up by the Depths-of-Wiki lady here: https://www.inputmag.com/culture/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-wi... Copied by Gizmodo and Metro: https://gizmodo.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-died-wikipedia-deadit
425.
by akolbe 4y ago
Agree that bias is always a potential issue. But hoaxes that last a decade are harmful. If something is not fixed in a lot of people's lifetime, it is little consolation to them if someone may fix it later ... Moreover, even when hoaxe
426.
by akolbe 4y ago
A valid concern is that everybody copies the same information. This invariably leads to cases where errors in Wikipedia are repeated in so many places that people everywhere think they are fact. One recent example was that everyone from Goo
427.
by akolbe 4y ago
Wikipedia is very well funded, but not, as this video might make you believe, by large donations from the likes of Google and Amazon. While these donate the occasional million, most of the Wikimedia Foundation's $160 million revenue co
428.
by akolbe 4y ago
There was a partner piece about Brits living abroad that was interesting as well: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/sep/10/british...
429.
What scientists have learnt from Covid lockdowns(nature.com)
8 points by akolbe 4y ago|0 comments
430.
by akolbe 4y ago
It is worth noting that three of the six community-and-affiliate candidates currently standing for the Wikimedia Foundation board support the following statement: "WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WM
431.
by akolbe 4y ago
You're very welcome, and thank you for saying so. I do love the place. It is profoundly human and the result of a tremendous amount of goodwill that has flowed into it and built what it is. But it's not perfect; and that is part o
432.
by akolbe 4y ago
Nobody likes their critics, that's human.
433.
by akolbe 4y ago
Two months ago, I looked at the Wikimedia Foundation's Form 990 for the Signpost (Wikipedia's volunteer newspaper) to see how much money the WMF actually spends in the developing world. My report is here, on Wikipedia: https:&#x2
434.
by akolbe 4y ago
The problem is not the type of causes funded, it's that the money was collected under the premise that it was urgently needed to "keep Wikipedia online", "ad-free" and "independent" - including from people
435.
by akolbe 4y ago
Thanks for the tip. Reading. https://damon.sicore.com/wikipedia-search/ I see he links to one of my old Signpost pieces ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
436.
by akolbe 4y ago
Not everybody panhandles in India, Latin America and South Africa to help pay those salaries. Wikimedia does.
437.
by akolbe 4y ago
Actually, thinking about that Lisa quote, what you say can't be right, Ryan. Have a look at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim... The total sum of expenses other than sala
438.
by akolbe 4y ago
I'll repeat that quote from the WMF executive above: "And the fact is that, as a movement, we need as much money as we can get to advance our mission. Our vision is so ambitious and expansive that it is also bound to be inevitably
439.
by akolbe 4y ago
The question is whether throwing money at the problem is the way to solve it. I remember Damon Sicore's stint at the WMF. He'd been VPE for six years at Mozilla and then came to the WMF. He ended up working all of eleven months fo
440.
by akolbe 4y ago
The salary bill has more than doubled in five years, from $31,713,961 to $67,857,676. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie... This wasn't "necessary to maintain the sites"; US inf
441.
by akolbe 4y ago
Maybe, and I hope so. There are eleven seats on the board (just five of those seats are "community-and-affiliate-selected"), and as you say, two seats are currently up for grabs. But even if the community manages to put someone li
442.
by akolbe 4y ago
That is true if by project you mean the wikis online (Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikivoyage, Wikiversity, Wikinews, Wikispecies and so forth, most of which the public is largely unaware of). I am less sure how much money presently g
443.
by akolbe 4y ago
Been there, done that. :) So here is the most recent Form 990 available on propublica for the Internet Archive, another SF-based US non-profit. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943... Page
444.
by akolbe 4y ago
Three of the six board candidates agreed Wikimedia fundraising is "deceptive". A fourth offered milder criticism. See the responses to statement #5 here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_el
445.
by akolbe 4y ago
What do you make of the statement here? https://braveneweurope.com/michael-olenick-wikipedias-deep-t... "The vast majority of Wikimedia’s value to ordinary people – the website we know and use – costs the firm about 30
446.
by akolbe 4y ago
Germans have largely forgotten the rules governing the use of the long s. So when they use 𝔅𝔩𝔞𝔠𝔨𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰 (𝔉𝔯𝔞𝔨𝔱𝔲𝔯), for example in advertising contexts, they often make miſtakeſ.
447.
by akolbe 4y ago
ſuck it and ſee?
448.
by akolbe 4y ago
And Greek too has two versions of the lower-case sigma: σ (whose usage corresponds to that of the long s) and ς for use only in the word-final position (corresponding to the terminal s as distinguished from the long s).
449.
by akolbe 4y ago
See the Donations FAQ: https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/FAQ This says: ---------------- What is your refund policy? If for any reason you wish to have your donation refunded, please contact us via email at donate@wiki
450.
by akolbe 4y ago
As for the UK, note also that the highest temperature during the 1976 heatwave in the UK was 35.9 °C. We've just had over 40 °C here – nearly 5 °C more, half a century later. 40 °C and 36 °C feel quite different.

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