It's a bit of a self-defeating attitude. Hackers love scrappy upstarts. Succeed too hard and you cease to be a scrappy upstart.
They have strayed far far far far far from that goal
Wikipedia's current ads are both misleading and more intrusive than ever.
550 employees is huge, especially for an organization that doesn't even pay those employees to create and edit the content on the site. It's so far away from "on the edge of pauper" that the point you're making—even if true for other, non-Wikimedia realms—is completely irrelevant here.
Bullshit.
To repeat: the ads today are more misleading and more intrusive than ever. In years past there were ads that were unlike the ones used today. (People complained about them, but I was not among them.) Those ads were successful. There's no evidence to argue that they wouldn't be successful today, too.
2) Who chooses which facts show up, or how do we know if certain critical facts are missing?
3) In what way are they strayed far away from it?
As I said, hacker ethos of biasing in favor of the scrappy underdog. It was fine to fundraise when they were small and their strategy was unproven, but as they grow and their strategy is demonstrated as effective, they lose our favor.
ETA: speaking of human psychology... It's an election cycle in the US. It's interesting that this story, the facts of which have been known since last year (according to a cursory search of news story dates) is suddenly again making the rounds right now. May be simple coincidence.
By "full-time" you mean paid?
Researchers can't contribute to Wikipedia at all, unless the "research" consists of a literature review.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
And if there were full-time paid editors, I'd stop editing immediately, and instead contribute my efforts to the fork that would inevitably result.
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/10/05/a-victory-for-free-kno...
The reason the story is coming up now is that the Wikimedia Foundation is currently "testing" the fundraising banners, in time for the big annual fundraising campaign in December. So at present, a certain percentage of Wikipedia readers in major English-speaking countries are shown the fundraising banners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#W...
By introducing political bias into the selection and presentation of information.
If I check pages on feminism or even radical feminism, I wouldn't see any information on how some prominent early feminist figures advocated mass genocide of men. Most of the pages are generally shown benign.
If I check a few pages on prominent manosphere subcultures, I don't have to scroll far before the word 'misogynist' pops up, despite the fact both cultures are fairly similar (both contain a small extremist population and a large population of idealists), and feminism having far, far more text written, both per page and across Wikipedia as a whole.
Personally, I'm fairly certain spreading a few more words on the bloodlust of early feminists would shine a fairly different light on the movement without changing the ideology of the majority. It's not just information hidden away from high traffic pages, it practically doesn't exist if you don't know exactly what to look for. Yet any kind of filth is practically at the front for anything related to the countercultures. That reeks of tone setting.
You just moved the goalposts. (In this case, moved them such that your "argument" is just restating the substance of the complaint.) Wikimedia is bringing in a lot more money doing this sort of thing. That's well understood—by all, i.e., those on both sides of the issue.
Your job is not to defend the position that the aggressive ads bring in more donations, but that if they weren't using them then "they wouldn't make _any_ money". Please leave dishonest sleights of hand at the door.
With the foundation's resources and clout, someone working on their behalf may be able to get better access to many source materials.
And if there were full-time paid editors, I'd stop editing immediately
So, I'm guessing you know a lot about Wikipedia.. but aren't there already full-time paid editors, just not from the foundation? I struggle to believe there are not well funded interests out there investing money into improving Wikipedia (whether such improvements are objective or subjective) in the same way that some tech companies fund, say, programming language core teams.
Even if you agree with the spirit of these grants, I'm sure this is not what people thought they were funding when they donated to Wikipedia:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Grant_...
Edit: consider spending on the above vs. hiring more people to translate some of the 6.5 million English articles to other languages that typically number only ~1.5 million or so.
What the WMF does do at times is fund community "organizers" trying to get unpaid volunteer editors to work on its content. See e.g.:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/09/22/join-the-organizer-lab...
Direct editing paid for by the Foundation was tried once, with bad results:
https://thewikipedian.net/2014/04/02/bats-in-the-belfer-a-be...
As an established Wikipedia editor, you can sign-up for free access to a variety of source materials that "civilians" would have to pay for. You don't have to be employed by Wikimedia.
> but aren't there already full-time paid editors, just not from the foundation?
There are two kinds of paid editor: people who are employed by WMF, and also edit (but they're not actually paid to edit, at least in theory); and lobbyists, reputation-managers, marketing consultants and so on, who are allowed to edit within limits. Personally I would like those pluggers removed with extreme prejudice, but WP is very relaxed about these things.
I guess what I was thinking more of was philanthropic organizations paying mathematicians, geologists, and various other types of academic to improve the quality of Wikipedia's entries on a full time basis. Maybe I am being hopefully naive about the allocation of capital though, and thinking merely the sort of things I'd like to fund if I were a billionaire.. ;-)
Wherein a lack of nuance allows a person to be obsessed with “phoniness”—any perceived moral breakdown in an idealized person or organization—
To want a neutral historical is one incredible demand. And then to really suggest that Wikipedia has strayed 5xfar from that!
Not having a ton of extra money is a good way to prevent that kind of bloat.
That said, it seems like a no-brainer that using a hands-off approach in a subculture known for being biased is an open invitation for articles to become biased. That doesn't mean Wikimedia is at fault, either.
I do not think your argument follows. Wikipedia as a whole is untrustworthy because at one point they donated 1 million bucks divided between 5 NGOs through their fundation?
It would be like arguing that Exxon has strayed far far far away from their mission because they donated 20 million to the Amazon conservation. Exxon is still extracting oil and maximising profit for its shareholders, and wikipedia is still a free open encyclopedia. I don't think miniscule donations (related to revenue) mark a departure from the mission worthy of betraying their core intention.
So you think they missed critical information, which related to my second point, who gets to decide. Currently is unpaid moderators, so wikimedia can hardly be blamed for it. no?
> I'm fairly certain spreading a few more words on the bloodlust of early feminists would shine a fairly different light on the movement without changing the ideology of the majority.
But that seems to be intentionally deciding what people should believe. If you think that the ideology of early feminists is irrelevant to the larger movement but might help to turn people to your side, you're not keeping wikipedia unbiased, youre just biasing it more no?
> Yet any kind of filth is practically at the front for anything related to the countercultures.
What countercultures?
A couple of years ago a Wikimedia Foundation fundraising report explained why that "Don't scroll away" phrase was added:
------------
“Don’t Scroll Away”
A simple, yet effective phrase that we were surprised to see resonate with readers worldwide was simply asking readers not to “scroll away” from or “scroll past” the fundraising message in the banner. We believe that addressing the context in which people donate helps improve the donation rate.
------------
Quoted from this report: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2019-20_Report
Secondly, Exxon is not a charitable organization so you're drawing a false equivalency. Wikimedia is asking for donations with ads that suggest donating is about keeping Wikipedia running. Most people donating then arguably think they're keeping Wikipedia running and/or expanding its usefulness, such as with translations. I think most people would be quite surprised to see some of that money going to activist DEI initiatives that many would consider to be far from the goal of increasing Wikipedia's utility.
I asked him how they strayed far far far away from being free, neutral and preserving facts.
> Those grants are specifically funding activism which many would argue is not neutral, so your question has been answered.
this does not follow again. I mean first of all, free and preserving facts would be fulfilled so the only part that could be compromised as you said is neutrality. But their grants affect future events not the ones recorded and wikimedia aren't even the people writting the text on wikipedia, they are unpaid moderators. So you would have to prove how the parent company donating to some company can affect volunteers in a way so blatant they would stray "far far far away" from those three missions.
> Exxon is not a charitable organization so you're drawing a false equivalency.
how so? The non voting shareholders of exxon and the donators in wikimedia have the same role, financing the operation.
> I think most people would be quite surprised to see some of that money going to activist DEI initiatives that many would consider to be far from the goal of increasing Wikipedia's utility.
Sure, but that is still not proof of them not being neutral though. You are implying things and letting people read between the lines but even if you try and prove ideological bias in the grants given, there is not logical throughline into the unpaid moderation of the content of the pages.
At most you could argue they betrayed the trust of donors by using those donations for paying for things beyond the server costs of wikipedia. Which is fair, but from that to calling their mission compromised seems a leap a tad far
Feel free to provide an actual argument against any one of the following:
- Wikipedia is not short on cash
- The current ads are misleading and intrusive
- The ads of years past were successful despite not being this misleading or intrusive
- The point you're trying to raise, when you're not being mercurial about it (the point about "support of the hacker community" for causes "on the edge of pauper") is, even if we assume it to be true, has no place in this discussion, in light of the circumstances (i.e. what's true about the subject we're discussing—and what isn't true, either)
Who will decide how we interface to encyclopedic facts in the absence of Wikipedia?
Just because there's no truly neutral version doesn't mean we shouldn't aim for neutrality. There are clearly anti-neutral approaches which we should always try to eliminate.
> Who chooses which facts show up, or how do we know if certain critical facts are missing?
Wikipedia already has a pretty good policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_vie...
I will sooner give $20 to someone begging who tells me that he intends on spending it on booze, than I would a well meaning non-profit who attempts to snow me with rhetoric honed on manipulating millions of other people before me.
Yes, which was a requirement the OP specified alongside the others. Abdicating neutrality was not acceptable.
> But their grants affect future events not the ones recorded and wikimedia aren't even the people writting the text on wikipedia, they are unpaid moderators.
Wikipedia only posts information with citations. The grant is funding organizations that will provide citations from a certain viewpoint ("shifting away from Eurocentricity, White-male-imperialist-patriarchal supremacy, superiority, power and privilege"), thus affecting the information that will show up on Wikipedia in the future. This follows trivially so I'm not sure exactly what doesn't follow.
> how so? The non voting shareholders of exxon and the donators in wikimedia have the same role, financing the operation.
The returns shareholders are expecting is money. The returns Wikipedia donors are expecting are improvements to Wikipedia in its role as neutral historian. Money and those expectations are not commensurate, so the comparison isn't really valid on its face.
Furthermore, if you accept that Wikimedia funded activism that's not strictly in line with being a neutral historian, then you must conclude that they abdicated that role contrary to donor expectations.
If you wanted a proper comparison to Exxon, then it would be comparable to Exxon making a series of choices that reduce shareholder value, which gives shareholders grounds to sue. There is no such recourse for Wikimedia donors as far as I understand so they still aren't directly comparable, but the "betrayal" of violated expectations as you termed it, is of a similar kind.
Lets follow that example. You assume those grants can provide citations, and the mission of the grant is to shift away from eurocentricity. So theoretically there are enough eurocentric citacions already in Wikipedia, and they would provide a different analysis on the same topics.
This would improve wikipedia neutrality rather than diminish it. If OP wanted a neutral wikipedia then those grants would help that mission (if we believe that the grants actually generate content that promotes views not currently cited, and that people who update the affected pages will find, or cite those materials in the future. Two big ifs)
The only way this could affect neutrality is if you think a biased eurocentric telling is neutral but thats a circular argument where the status quo is always neutral and any new information is straying away from neutrality.
These campaigns are great to diversify and prevent Wikipedia from being beholden to them.
well, the agenda trying to be pushed.
"Human societies typically exhibit gender identities and gender roles that distinguish between masculine and feminine characteristics and prescribe the range of acceptable behaviours and attitudes for their members based on their sex.".. Typically? Nope.
"The most common categorisation is a gender binary of men and women.[422] Many societies recognise a third gender,[423] or less commonly a fourth or fifth.[424][425] In some other societies, non-binary is used as an umbrella term for a range of gender identities that are not solely male or female.".. Many societies recognise a third gender? Nope.
Just some hyperbolic mischosen words right?
What? How is it not typical to have general men and women roles in different societies? Those roles aren't always the same but the existance of such roles is more than typical is almost ubiquitous.
> Many societies recognise a third gender? Nope.
Is the problem there the word "many"? There is a citation with the number of societies they found that have such a mention.
They do say the most common is just two and its primarily associated with the sex of the person, how is the acknowledgement of cultural genders beyond that binary "an agenda"?
> Just some hyperbolic mischosen words right?
So you think the problem is two quantitative words (many/typically) that make certain social constructs seem more common that what you believe is fair? Is that what it boils down to?
> Is the problem there the word "many"?
Yup, the right is "few". Few countries recognize it. From 195, 16. But again, to create a new reality to support an agenda, is wrong.
You probably should read it a bit better then. The existance of the term gernder identity and the existance of gender identities are not the same thing. The word "sex" came slightly later than the first time humans reproduced.
> "Non-binary" didn't exist until recently.
no gender identity existed until recently, but thats because identity is a late 18th century concept. Historically people didn't think of themselves as individuals so they did not separate into identities.
The existance of people who did not "belong" to their prescribed sex, has a long history though. From the non binary page on wikipedia you can see someoone called "not a man or a woman" in the us in the 1700s.
> Yup, the right is "few". Few countries recognize it. From 195, 16.
Thats not what the quote said, the quote said many societes recognise a third gender. It doesn't say current existing nations. if you followed the citation you would have found the book the quote came from where it lists examples:
>> The existence of a third sex or gender enables us to understand how Byzantine palace eunuchs and Indian hijras met the criteria of special social roles that necessitated practices such as self-castration, and how intimate and forbidden desires were expressed among the Dutch Sodomites in the early modern period, the Sapphists of eighteenth-century England, or the so-called hermaphrodite-homosexuals of nineteenth-century Europe and America.
The book I am assuming cites even more historical examples in different ancient and modern societies of non conforming binary roles in society. Enough examples that the author feels warranted to claim there are "many" in the wikipedia summary of the book.
You are claiming wikipedia is biased because they used the word "many" in a concept you feel there isn't enough examples to warrant it. Is that what it boils down to? Your feelings about quantitative adjectives? Thats a loose definition of "agenda pushing" dont you think?