Man, people really hate that Wikipedia fund drive. It really worries me how people have no trouble with ads blaring music and obscuring the text of pages they are reading, or with advertisers dictating what content can and cannot be published, but everyone gets super upset when the guy who started the website puts his picture at the top and says, "hey guys, providing a free encyclopedia costs money, mind chipping in $10?".
You know you can just click the "X" and it goes away, right?
(Just out of curiosity, do people get this upset when NPR and PBS do their fund drives? Or because you are getting a lunchbox for your $100 donation, it's not as annoying? The outrage just confuses me.)
It doesn't go away very long. I press the X and I still find myself having to press it again fairly often.
I'm probably not a good benchmark but personally I find Jimmy Wales really smug and annoying. This is due to my experience as an active WP editor back in the day. I hate the false sense of urgency that this campaign is pushing.
I'm not "outraged" by any means and haven't stopped using Wikimedia sites, but it is definitely asinine and repetitive. How long has this "urgent" fund drive been going on now? Are they just going to keep it until they hit their stated goal?
Wikipedia should find a way to become more useful, there's no need for all this crap. I wouldn't have any problem at all if WP just implemented an advanced history or page stats viewer and charged people $10/year to use it. Then they could stop with these humongous, recurring banners, the constant begging, and Jimmy Wales could quit pretending to be the saint that he definitely isn't.
That doesn't make any sense either. Do you think Linux should find a way to be more self-sufficient? Either it's a community endeavor (and requires community support) or it is not Wikipedia.
Linux is a rather different deal than Wikipedia. When you see Linus running fundraisers for 3-4 months until ten or twenty million dollars is donated, then I will probably think that Linus and Linux need to become more self-sufficient.
The content and the hosting can be separated, as they are with Linux and many other open-source projects; Linus controls Linux, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he also controls kernel.org or any of the other places where it may appear. The authors of projects on Google Code control their projects even though Google provides the hosting -- individuals can still create content without centralized authority. If Wikipedia performed more experiments in this space, they may not need $20 million every year to continue operation.
That's a pretty hefty investment for something that doesn't make any money. Even non-profit or public endeavors are expected to operate in a generally self-sustaining way so that they don't become a burden and so that reasonable control isn't taken away from the endeavor's controllers.
Wikipedia could be developed independently of the Wikimedia Foundation. I don't think Wales et al have done a really spectacular job running things as it stands anyway.
The content is produced by the community. This fundraiser is not to pay people to produce content, but to pay for hosting and other costs associated with running a live instance of the Wikipedia content.
They can provide the same thing if they can work it out. It's not wrong to need money per se; as noted above, I am not outraged about this and I don't get the sense that the idea of a Wikimedia fundraiser is immoral.
It is just annoying that the fundraiser has continued for so long and that the practices have been disruptive to the perusal of Wikimedia content for some time now. I am aware that Wikimedia wants my donation; I do not want to give it to them because I don't trust the Wikimedia Foundation to make very good use of it, and I don't like several of the policies they have promulgated and installed on Wikipedia.
I think it would be better for everyone if Wikimedia found a way to become self-sufficient because then: a) nobody would have to be bothered by huge donation banners for months on end; b) Wikimedia would have more consistent and improved cash flow, which ultimately translates into greater flexibility; c) Wikimedia would not be beholden to random subsets of people for its continued operation (they could focus on the subsets that specifically generate revenue and improve their revenue-generating functionality) and would not need to dedicate large amounts of effort to a sustained months-long fundraising effort. And so on.
So, I'm not casting moral judgment here. I just think it would be better for everyone if WM tried to do something less annoying and more focused to sustain its finances.
Just out of curiosity, do people get this upset when NPR and PBS do their fund drives?
Yeah, actually. Most NPR listeners I keep in touch with hate fund drive season and find it highly annoying.
Frankly, I hate ads that play sound and obscure the page I'm trying to read, too. The reason I'm particularly annoyed at Wikipedia is because I hold Wikipedia to a higher standard. If Wikipedia had ads that played music or obstructed the article (even pledge drive ads featuring Jimmy Wales' goatee) I would be even more annoyed.
I wouldn't donate to Wikipedia because I don't think they spend the marginal donation dollar very well. Here's a picture of the Wikimedia headquarters:
I'm not convinced that having a lot of foundation employees helps make the encyclopedia better. I'd like to see Wikipedia operate on a shoestring budget and stop collecting donations once they had enough invested to run their servers off of dividends and interest indefinitely.
The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit with only 27 full-time employees[1] (data for 2009) which runs, among others, the 7th most popular site on the web[2], and provides the world with an amazing source of knowledge. Of course the contents is provided by volunteers, but logistics of running a site and community of this size are far from trivial. I think that they spend the money wisely, so I donated myself and encourage you to do the same.
When it comes to the photo that you linked, what does it prove? That they work in an actual office, not a bike shed or a tent? Do you claim that it's a luxury for them to have an office?
I personally admire their spine and dedication to reject corporate money, and I'm surprised that even HN readers complain so loudly about the appeal. I guess Wikipedia already became a commodity that we got used to taking for granted. For better or worse.
very nice idea, I wonder how much money would be enough to make wikipedia run on its dividends only. Does anyone know how much wikipedia cost to operate ?
Well, fund drives are annoying, whether they be for Wikipedia, NPR, or anything else. They are less annoying than ads, however, so I deal with them and don't complain. I just wish the banner would go away now that I've donated; instead, I still see the banner and have gotten an email asking me for more money.
Exactly. That's the problem with old media - you can't, for example, subscribe to the "clean" version of NPR, a magazine, or a newspaper after paying for it.
With online media you can. If Wikipedia went to the "with ads for free, no ads if you subscribe or pay a one time 'founders fee'" I think it would be much more successful.
I assume the reason they don't want to take money from 'people(compaines)' is that once they do they will be accused of being influenced by them. If they took a $1m donation from McDonalds, how much fuss would there be over every edit to articles about food/nutrition etc.?
I think it's mostly because you can blame wikipedia for wanting your money, as opposed to the innocent "free" website that puts ads... at least they aren't getting your actual money LOL
You know you can just click the "X" and it goes away, right?
(Just out of curiosity, do people get this upset when NPR and PBS do their fund drives? Or because you are getting a lunchbox for your $100 donation, it's not as annoying? The outrage just confuses me.)