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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is different than what is currently going on with venture backed services like reddit and youtube. I would argue that we should block ads there too, but there it is an arms race where we have to consider ways to protect ourselves from encroaching privacy violations. It's much ruder, and that is something we should actually be mad at.
I don't take them personally, of course, but they do encourage me to avoid forking over any money.
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.
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.
You'll be proper mad when you realize how much money that other company, whom you regularly pay for access to their services, has in the bank.
There's a difference between "donate if you appreciate this website" and "donate if you appreciate this website because we will have to shut down otherwise (not really though)"
They don't know you; they don't know me. I'm a nobody, just like you.
That's not their vision. Not only do they require entries to be notable, they'll remove information from articles that are, in their editorial judgment, too long. Neither action is compatible with the goal of sharing the sum of all knowledge.
Seems almost mundane, as if they’re running a very effective foundation that’s actively achieving their goals. See the recent Cambridge study that explored how their governance has been effective at promoting moderate discourse while suppressing misinformation and hateful content: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-s...
Parental manipulation works because it's completely reasonable given the relationship for it to be effective. It's a betrayal of trust.
If a company tries that tactic and it "works" too well, that's an opportunity to evaluate your psyche, not get mad at them.
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.
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.
Its mission is not just "hosting" - actually creating an encyclopedia is much more than paying for the server costs.
Wikimedia produced many very useful projects which often integrate into Wikipedia, but work well standalone as well, and work towards the stated mission - projects like Commons, WikiData, WikiSource. Some projects are more useful than others, but that's just normal.
Wikimedia? No, they're a money black hole and will eat whatever you give them.
Little of the new stuff is for wikipedia and what's there is of questionable value.
Edit: check out https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Krispy_Kreme XD
