Every so often I give a few bucks(far less than the worth of knowledge I got from it)
Absolutely not. They have way more money than they can sensibly spend, keep begging for more as if they could barely keep the lights on (they could probably easily keep the core mission going with about 10% of the money they’re getting), and then expand their spending to match the donations they collected.
They then created an endowment (i.e. a pile of wealth that generates enough interest to sustain them indefinitely), using both additional donations and some of the money given to Wikimedia (which reduces the apparent amount of money they spend and is not listed as money Wikipedia/Wikimedia has, as it is accounted for separately). The $100M endowment was planned to take 10 years to build, got completed in 2021, five years before schedule. Wikimedia also has a separate cash hoard of almost a quarter billion dollars.
It’s actually all in their article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Finances
Wow I didn’t know about this, thanks for the reading! I always feel morally in debt for using Wikipedia without giving back much and assume they were struggling a bit to operate, but wow they have received millions of dollars already!
edit: I’m still willing to donate though, and I just did, like I’m happy to pay for what I’ve learned from it, even if it doesn’t mean much to them.
They make it sound like they’re just about to close down, I’ve been sending them a few bucks every month for like a year and I feel a little bit slighted tbh
Very similar feelings here.
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This is the most interesting thing I realize(thanks to you) this week so far
Yes. People won’t understand the value of something until they lose it.
Yes, every month. Why? Because in my opinion it is one of the greatest collective projects of mankind (even with the flaws it has).
I’ve never seen it like that. And I’ve never paid anything for it because I don’t use it enough. I might change my mind now. Thanks!
Nope, I’ve donated to the internet archive because I have infinity more respect for them and they actually need more funding.
Wikipedia has more than they know what to do with, the money just falls out of their pockets
Came here to say the same thing. The Internet Archive needs the money a lot more and are constantly battling legal threats. I donate to them every now and then. Librarians and archivists rule.
They need it more since all these lawsuits they are facing
Giving 10 bucks a year, even though I use it very little. But sometimes it’s just easy and quick to look something up or read an interesting article, and I know that there are many people (students, etc.) who rely on it more than I do and have less money to spend
Yup. $20 every year.
I just like that it’s there and I’ve used it a lot, and I want it to be there for the next generation.
Plus, they’ve maintained staying ad free, sub free, and bullshit free. I can’t think of another site that’s kept that level of decency.
Basically the same here, £2 a month, and for the same reasons as you.
Yes, sporadically but usually once I year I give them a donation.
Wikipedia is an insanely valuable resource we as a society just take for granted, especially those that grew up with it. Instant access to nearly infinite information is an absurd luxury we have, and it’s a resource I want to see continue without being tied to corporate interests or abusive government regulation.
It’s never much mind you, but I try to contribute a little around Christmas time if I can.
I think once a year they show the donation banner, then I donate something like 10 dollars. I use Wikipedia almost daily, so I’m glad to contribute something.
I think Wikipedia is a valuable common good and should be maintained. Because I can afford it, I donate monthly, even if I only use it a few times each month.
Yes, and I even have it as an automatic scheduled payment so I don’t forget. Even with its flaws, it remains one of the shining gems of the Internet, and a resource I use frequently in both my professional life and my personal one. I remember how it was to suddenly want to learn more about a random topic before Wikipedia and I don’t want to go back.
I also donate to The Internet Archive.
I heard that the wiki foundation is pretty well off and the saleries they pay the executives are rising pretty fast. Havent donated myself but in principle I should, eventho the higher ups are earning this much.
No. I did donate once and then they illegally spammed my email for a year. I had to threaten them with a lawyer to stop. It was senseless.
This happened to me as well. I just didn’t go as far as the lawyer bit. I just sent all of their emails to spam for auto deletion.
I donate to them sometimes depending on how money is, but yeah holy hell do they spam you once you donate. Just a non-stop stream of increasingly passive-aggressive emails.
I used to do a regular donation ($5 a month or something) but then I found out Jimmy Wales (who was a figurehead of the site at that point) was a weird Ayn Rand libertarian and stopped.
That sounds like an incredibly shallow reason to stop contributing
Even if 99 percent of Ayn Rand followers are fuckheads, Jimmy Wales’s actions separate him of them.
Unless he’s personally being enriched (as opposed to making a living), that wouldn’t bother me. I have never felt the need to check. I donate because it’s useful to me.
I didn’t buy a Tesla because that fucker is enriched af and I hate him and I can get other cars that serve me just as well. There’s no (real) replacement or substitute for Wikipedia.
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I’m no objectivist but I find it funny you are just downvoted but no one has the effort to make a counter-argument 🤣
No because I already donate to the EFF and Internet Archive and I figure that’s enough. And apparently Wikipedia already has enough money according to the comments here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statistics
they could run an extra year on $0 of donations. Whether one considers that enough or not might be down to personal viewpoint.
Do you donate to Wikipedia? Why or why not?
I did and ever since have been rewarded with an endless barrage of “you gave once before so do it aga–a-a–aa-a-a-a-a-a-a-in” banners. Given the ecomonics of fundraising I wouldn’t be surprised if donors were badgered more than non-donors.
It has an abominable political slant, so absolutely not. If there was a way to split the science/math/etc. segment from the rest of it, that one would totally be worth donating to.
Could you elaborate? I’ve never heard of that. Although I don’t donate to Wikipedia now.
That can be a touchy subject because the slant of Wikipedia and the slant of Reddit are very similar, but with Reddit leaning more towards chasing frivolous headlines and Wikipedia leaning more towards, like, rehabilitating Nazis and the like. The short version is that Wikipedia is far to the right of consensus among even neoliberal historians on many subjects and you will see things treated as plain there that are relatively fringe views academically.
Organizationally it’s had leadership with abominable politics. Jimmy Wales is a self-proclaimed libertarian. Katherine Maher was CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, then joined The Atlantic Council, and currently serves on the US Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board. [edit: apostrophe’s]
