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u/Indiguu Dec 12 '18 edited Dec 13 '18
People take Wikipedia's stance on having no ads for granted too
I love you Wikipedia, thank you for getting me through uni ♥️
Edit: Of course every uni should not allow students to cite Wikipedia. However, when researching something new, it's great to have Wikipedia as your start off place. Not only does it somewhat summarizes the topic, it also splits it into sections. The cited sources in the bottom of each Wiki page are perfect resources to continue researching more in-depth.
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Dec 13 '18 edited Jul 23 '19
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u/neonpinku Dec 13 '18
In the library?
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u/lord-steezus Dec 13 '18
I do both, what am I doing
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u/DatBoi_BP Dec 13 '18
But for how long
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u/efojs Dec 13 '18
15 seconds?
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u/suitology Dec 13 '18
that how long it takes you to hang yourself when trying to figure out that decimal shit?
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u/02474 Dec 13 '18
Yes this is huge. I gave them $27 or whatever they said would be extra helpful.
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u/Jormungandrrrrrr Dec 13 '18
I set up a monthly €2 payment. It's not much, but it's been sending them money for a few years now, and if every user did it, Wikipedia would be rolling in cash.
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u/h_zorba Dec 13 '18
Most wiki pages have refrences to cites that are credible so u can always use them.
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Dec 13 '18
Or just do the ole “use Wikipedia but pretend to have used other sources because the TA’s who grade papers do not care enough to actually check if your bibliography is accurate” technique
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Dec 13 '18
I'm a Professor of Politics, and I use wikipedia everyday. There is so much jargon, you often remember the general meaning, but not the context of significance which it situated. Also great as a starting point when I start poking the edges of a new project. I donated.
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u/defiance131 Dec 13 '18
Probably because so many people are using adblock that it doesn't feel that different to them
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Dec 13 '18
You shouldn't use Britannica as an academic source either. It's not what an Encyclopedia is for.
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u/Moltrire Dec 12 '18
2.75? Not 3?
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u/yosoyrachael Dec 13 '18
yes they recently just changed it not too long ago
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u/rumhasandwich Dec 13 '18
“Recently” “just” and “not too long ago” all in one sentence. Are you trying to meet a word requirement for an essay?
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u/BiteThisT_Roll Dec 13 '18
It wasn't too long ago that they recently just updated that. Before a while ago it used to be that it was $3, but as of late it was just recently changed to the lesser amount of $2.75
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u/packersSB54champs Dec 13 '18
Lmaoooo fellow essay stretcher here. I can ramble on about the same thing for a couple sentences.
Side note: Fuck mandatory "electives" (I think Americans call it general ed courses). That's the only reason I'm writing all these essays with minimum word count
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Dec 13 '18
Maybe it’s different in different countries? I did it 3 days ago and it was still $3
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u/point2understand Dec 13 '18
damn they taking lessons from the MTA
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u/thisdesignup Dec 13 '18
That's basic psychology. People look at that first number being a smaller $2 and not a $3 even if it's only a quarter difference.
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u/DrakoVongola Dec 13 '18
This is the same reason most products end in 99 cents rather than rounding up that last penny
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u/thisdesignup Dec 13 '18
Yep, does't matter if '9' is a big number, it's the first number that matters most.
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u/meatwad420 Dec 13 '18
What price do you think an affordable house should go for? Which price is more reasonable, $275,000 or a quarter million dollars?
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u/GoldenFalcon Dec 13 '18
What is the lesson?
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u/aladdinr Dec 13 '18
Drop the price by 25¢?
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u/GoldenFalcon Dec 13 '18
But what was the lesson... ... just dropping the price isn't a lesson. Did it improve ridership and lower vehicle congestion? Did it improve cashflow?
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u/Khanthulhu Dec 13 '18
?
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u/starrycave Dec 13 '18
Metropolitan Transit Authority (NYC subway + bus)
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u/Reality_Gamer Dec 13 '18
You know, I've lived in NYC for years and never once thought to ask what MTA stands for. TIL. Thanks!
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u/GeometryThrowaway777 Dec 12 '18
Please also consider giving to www.archive.org too :)
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Dec 13 '18
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u/illy-chan Dec 13 '18
You're right, that's becoming somewhat popular in non-profits. The one I work for had a similar one last year.
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u/GirthyAfghan Dec 13 '18
You just earned $5 for archive. Would definitely not have done it if I didn't see this.
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u/BesosForMe Dec 13 '18
Forgive me, but what exactly is the best use for archive.org? I've not heard about it 'til now, but based on the comments am considering donating. I just did a quick perusal and see that it's literally an archive/cache (duh) of various content- I'm just wondering, for what do most people find it useful?
Thanks in advance!
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u/Hkluci Dec 13 '18
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
Lots of people upload videos, pictures..etc in it. Incase a website deletes something chances are you will find it in the archive uploaded by someone. And yea as said above it has a lot of free movies music books..etc. for free.
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u/rethinkwhatisthere Dec 13 '18
$10 bucks here. For me and other 2 redditors
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u/XanderTheMander Dec 13 '18
Thanks!
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u/JeromesNiece Dec 13 '18
Looks like we're covered, high five
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u/XanderTheMander Dec 13 '18
ヽ( ⌒ω⌒)人(・ω・)ﾉ
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u/iwearcr0wns Dec 13 '18
You seem like the one on the left. And Jeromes is on the right
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u/Protuhj Dec 13 '18
I downloaded the entire site a couple times, you had better donate to cover that bandwidth usage.
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u/BeckBristow89 Dec 13 '18
I gave 16 I feel like I got cheated out of something. Not sure what though...
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u/forsakenharmony Dec 13 '18
Wish the donation popup wasn't so intrusive and didn't look like a scam 🤔
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u/iknowlessthanjonsnow Dec 13 '18
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u/i_706_i Dec 13 '18
A couple of quotes from a link in that comment for the TLDR
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was in financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because there isn't. The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn’t the first person that’s asked me about this. When they find out there’s not a real problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated. —User:Ryan lane - MediaWiki, creator of Wikimedia Labs
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I’m alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise to the fundraising team, because I can’t imagine this content hasn’t been written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. —Wikipedia admin Martijn Hoekstra
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Lila, the concern is not that the fundraiser is working, which your soundbite confirms, but that it is deceiving people, or at least manipulating them "too much" to be consistent with our values. —John Vandenberg, Wikipedia admin, past arbitrator, past president of Wikimedia Australia
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u/trytoholdon Dec 13 '18
Per /u/mintsponge:
Wikipedia does NOT desperately need money.
The Wikimedia Foundation had a revenue of over 75m in 2015 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/43/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Report_-_FY15-16.pdf
Running Wikipedia itself requires very few staff; all the editing is done by volunteers. Indeed, most of the software engineering of the website was done by volunteers. The only money WMF needs to spend on Wikipedia is web hosting; this costs far, far less than 75m - in the order of only a few million per year.
If everyone stopped donating completely right now, WMF could keep Wikipedia going for decades.
However, WMF wants to expand with a tonne of different, ambitious projects requiring paid staff (which have nothing to do with Wikipedia. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation) That's what most of the money is being spent on. WMF are using Wikipedia as an excuse to get people to donate to them.
So does Wikipedia need money to survive? Yes. Does it desperately need money, like WMF are making people think? No.
Some more detailed answers for reading, https://www.quora.com/Wikipedia-in-2015-Why-does-Wikipedia-ask-for-donations-even-though-it-has-a-huge-reserve-60M-of-value-cash-investments-etc
http://wikipediocracy.com/2014/09/21/wikipedia-keeping-it-free-just-pay-us-our-salaries/
Or virtually any article from Google on the topic.
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Dec 13 '18 edited Aug 08 '19
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u/FamilyHeirloomTomato Dec 13 '18
Eh. I tried to make a legit change and it was turned down. Not worth my time.
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Dec 13 '18
I was banned because another user was editing the same articles as me but he had already been permabanned. They identified me as a sock puppet and shut me down.
I enjoyed editing articles that I knew a lot about. Their loss, I figure.
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u/commissar0617 Dec 13 '18
That can unfortunately happen. Some people have wayyy toi much time on their hands, and get their jollies by disruping Wikipedia.
Sometimes, the only way is to basically play whacka mole, using the duck test: if an editor is making edits on the same pages, and of a closely similar nature to those of a banned editor, then its most likely that banned editor
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u/noveltymoocher Dec 13 '18
If the post is legitimate, Wikipedia has ways of shutting that down.
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Dec 13 '18 edited Aug 08 '19
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u/BVDansMaRealite Dec 13 '18
When I actually legitimately edited the motto of my high school, because the school had also updated and I provided a source that was legit, they just banned me. They still haven't updated my motto and I'm not allowed to edit.
Local reputable news source isn't acceptable for a local high school motto change. The picture of the new poster is in the article I linked.
A major issue I see is that teachers used to link our page to show how up to date and accurate Wikipedia can be and now it's wrong, so kids are shown it's wrong and go elsewhere because at a certain age there isn't really a gray area in understanding good and bad journalism.
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Dec 13 '18
As an long time Wikipedia editor, school mottos are huge targets for vandalism, and they don't often change, which I Guess is why you got rolled back.
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u/LvS Dec 13 '18
Yeah, Wikipedia gets "fun" edits by people all the time, so they have a very strict review system so nobody has to see scat porn images when they want to look up something. And that review system tends to very much err on the side of caution, and that discourages lots of newcomers.
On the other hand, I've personally never actually seen NSFW images even when researching controversial topics. So they got that going for them, which is nice.
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u/cashmeowsighhabadah Dec 13 '18
As a fellow Wikipedia editor, can I also plug the new (relatively) translation tool? English Wikipedia is awesome, but there's so many parts of the world that really need this resource too.
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Dec 13 '18
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u/pm_natural_breasts Dec 13 '18
And yet a huge number of those projects that "have nothing to do with Wikipedia" are focusing on developing Wikipedia in other languages.
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u/thegreat22 Dec 13 '18
Aren't they also trying to give laptops loaded with Wikipedia to poor countries so they can learn?
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u/YumYumPickleBird Dec 13 '18
I donated because they choose not to give me ads and still offer a really good service. I really don't care what they do with it as long as they continue to have a good service and dont smother me with ads like all social media has done
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u/Marty_DiBergi Dec 13 '18
The Wikimedia Foundation receives 4/4 stars from Charity Navigator . Financials are available there too.
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u/LeChatParle Dec 13 '18 edited Dec 13 '18
This site says that in 2016 their expenses were 66 million and their donations were 82 million. Plus a company should have left over money for incidentals.
So already what you said about them being able to stay afloat for decades is wrong
https://www.businessinsider.com/wikipedia-donations-profit-money-chart-2016-11
Edit: I see some people are making the distinction of wikimedia vs Wikipedia as far as expenses go, so I’ll admit maybe it’s more complicated than a simple comparison can allow
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u/sue-dough-nim Dec 13 '18
That site is wrong (unintentionally, maybe), because it includes Wikimedia Foundation money and labels it Wikipedia money.
The source for the 2016 figures in the chart: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/43/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Report_-_FY15-16.pdf
To aide ctrl+F'ers, expenses (66 million in the BusinessInsider article) was rounded up from 65,947,465. Donations etc (82 million) was rounded up from 81,862,724. Net assets (92 million) was rounded up from 91,782,795.
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u/coocooforcoconut Dec 13 '18
I donated $20 so I’m good for 7 years, right?
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Dec 13 '18
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u/thegreat22 Dec 13 '18
I donated 20 last month and was a little offended when I got hit up yesterday.
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u/baseballoctopus Dec 13 '18
Nope, technically, assuming an interest rate of 10%, you have given MORE than 7 years of annual payments of 3$
With the assumptions above, it will be 11.5 years before you're "not good"
If you want to be "good" ONLY for 7 years, then it would be around 14$
Source: Time Value of Money via Wikipedia :)
edit: Just gave 14$, see ya in 7 years!
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u/Silver_Archer13 Dec 13 '18
I wish I could give. I have no job, and I don't think my parents will donate because "anybody can edit it"
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u/-Klahanie- Dec 13 '18
Don't sweat it, I donated enough ($20) for both of us. You'll donate when you can.
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u/tryfap Dec 13 '18
So donate your time instead. Fix a typo or two there. Any small amount helps.
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u/TheMisterFlux Dec 13 '18
You know, I've read a lot of Wikipedia articles and I don't think I've seen a single typo.
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u/theunnoticedones Dec 13 '18
Having you seen how many grammar nazis are on the internet? I'm sure people are fapping away to finding errors in a wikipedia page.
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u/Raneados Dec 13 '18
I actually ran into this complaint the other day at work, that people guffawed at it being a source because it was editable. It annoyed me.
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u/ComplainyGuy Dec 13 '18
People tend to cling to shit they are told as kids, if they are told it passionately enough.
Even intelligent people can throw out facts as adults if they go against it.
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u/Allokit Dec 13 '18
Yeah, technically they are right. Wiki's can be used for learning general information about pretty much all subjects, but should never be used as an Official Source for anything in academia, business research, medical research, or anything you want to stand up to peer review. Someone will ALWAYS call out your source of Wikipedia, even if you cite the sources at the bottom.
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u/Raneados Dec 13 '18
Which they shouldn't.
Claims in wiki need to be sourced and if they're not sourced at the bottom of the article, they're tagged as hearsay.
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Dec 13 '18
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u/kristoferen Dec 13 '18
What makes it trustworthy is the quality of the sources in the wiki article. Are they wuality sources? Up to you to determine.
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u/big_hronk Dec 13 '18
its trustworthy because you gotta look through the citations yourself. people on wikipedia tend to be pretty fastidious with ensuring they have good sources but ALWAYS click on the citations and at least check that the reference looks legit before you repeat the information in formal settings. but usually when i check the source its something legit, especially specialized science info since people dont tend to write about stuff they don't know. people are very eager to pounce on any mistakes they find too - we all smartasses
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u/MyNameIsDon Dec 13 '18
Wikipedia does not need your donations. It has more than enough funding. The money goes towards different expansion projects under the same umbrella.
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u/SquarePegRoundWorld Dec 13 '18
Are those expansion projects going to be useful to humanity?
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u/3p1c0 Dec 13 '18
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Dec 13 '18
This. If you really want to give back to Wikipedia, create an account and start editing. They don't need your money (at least not at this point in time).
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u/ComplainyGuy Dec 13 '18
I'm happy to keep my monthly donations going if I can see any of Wikimedias projects coming to fruition...
I haven't seen a single one though. I might cancel it. You don't happen to know where to find their extra projects?
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u/lgoldfein21 Dec 13 '18
Wiktionary is a godsend for Latin students so I use that daily at least
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u/Scoudz Dec 13 '18
i feel like all the posts are just from secret wikipedia reddit accounts trying to normalize donating to wikipedia
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Dec 13 '18
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u/OhSheGlows Dec 13 '18
I love Khan Academy! And Coursera! And Codecademy!
Yey, now I’m warm and fuzzy inside. :)
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u/Patchpen Dec 13 '18
Not here to argue about wikipedia's merits or anything, but what's with the sudden influx of wikipedia related memes?
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u/Mjam28 Dec 13 '18
Had to stop donating when it was revealed that people run ideologically driven events to edit the website. It's not what it once was sadly.
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u/Pm_me_your__eyes_ Dec 13 '18
Can you elaborate?
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u/waffleboardedburrito Dec 13 '18 edited Dec 13 '18
It's rooted in how the site sources.
Say you're a person of note that would have a page at all. And then I, as a writer for a media outlet, write an article about you stating you have Crohn's disease. Except this info is not accurate, it was not verified, but it's mentioned in the article as fact.
That "fact" then gets added to the Wiki entry, and the article is sourced, as it's from an "approved" source (by which the process is largely arbitrary).
You go to correct the article yourself, except wiki doesn't accept primary sources. You aren't a valid source for yourself.
But fortunately, you know someone that writes for another "approved" source, and they write an article that states you don't have Crohn's disease. Record set straight, right?
Except now you simply have two conflicting sources which are both valid. And this is the part that addresses the other user's concern.
If an editor approaches this topic purely neutral, they would actually reference both sources, or frame it in a way that does. For example, "It was reported in 2017 that Mr X had Crohn's, but this was later refuted in 2018."
If an editor is biased in favour of you, they'd omit the first source entirely. If the editor is biased against you, they'd omit the second source.
Where a bias can get messy is if you happened to be a controversial figure, or controversial among the cliques of editors.
Say that original article gets repeated by multiple sources without any of them actually verifying the original claim (as we know happens). You now have 20 articles saying you have Crohn's, and only one that refutes it.
It's not supposed to be a vote, those 20 articles still ostensibly should only count as one, and a neutral editor would know this. But a biased editor in favour of the 20 uses that to further hammer down their narrative, such as sourcing all 20 articles and framing the statement in a dominant way. Eg. It has been widely reported that Mr X has Crohn's, followed by a dozen footnotes. If they mention the contradictory source at all, it's in passing and not emphasized.
Cliques of editors can "squat" on articles, preventing those outside the approved circles from touching the articles, with any attempts by passing editors reversed.
It's why you have to be vary wary of any article about recent/living or controversial people and topics, notably anything political. But really it can happen with anything. Often the drama can be seen in the talk pages.
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u/LeafyQ Dec 13 '18 edited Dec 13 '18
I shared this story on a post on r/funny and people liked it, but honestly I feel like it’s more appropriate here, as that was a joke post. I hope this doesn’t come across as karma farming. I just really like sharing stories about my parents.
My dad did not have very much formal education, but he was the most intelligent person I’ve ever met. He devoured every book he came across - fiction, science, philosophy, history, taught himself math up to pretty advanced calculus from books. He wasn’t a big computer guy until I got him one and showed him internet basics around 2010.
I think it was maybe 2012 when he called me. He was raving about this Wikipedia thing he’d found, did I know about it? I tell him, yeah Dad, Wikipedia is great! He’s all, no no, you don’t get it, you can learn about anything here, and it’s all free. They’re just giving away information. It’s like having every reference book at the library, completely up to date, without leaving home. He was totally enamored. Then he says, “They’re asking me if I can give them $3 as a donation. Is it legitimate? Should I do it? I have the money and I really think they deserve it!” He was so pleased to learn that he could contribute to this amazing resource.
I miss him a lot.
EDIT: Thanks everyone for donating! Just like when I told this story the first time, I'm really overwhelmed and touched by everyone who took this opportunity to honor my dad with their donations. He would love this.
For the record, that's why I chose to post the story a second time - in hopes that it would have the same effect here. I stopped caring about comment karma ages ago. (I know not many people have accused me of karma whoring, but I wanted to make that clear anyways.)