Wikipedia asking for donations

I was just browsing a wikipedia article and I noticed that suddenly every page now has a banner that leads to this page asking people to donate money to "keep the site alive"

For a start the minimum donation is $20 so they have no chance of getting that from me, but I just wondered how my fellow ATS poster feel about it.
Will you donate?
If Wikipedia does go under how do you think it will effect the internet in general, and this forum in particular.
Is losing this source of easy but sometimes unreliable information good or bad?

Do you think Wikipedia genuinely needs the money, or is it just a profit making scheme?

Personally I will miss it if it goes as it's usually a great starting point to give you a general overview of a subject before delving deeper.

reply to post by davespanners


Um. You're blowing it out of proportion.

They do that like every year. It's like Alex Jone's money bomb. Its not a scam, they are just asking for help.

And they will never "go under". If anything, they resort to putting ads on all the pages. Wikipedia will never die, and if it went to ad based it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Look at above top secret, for instance.. Do the ads burn your retinas? As long as they aren't annoying like the ones on the pirate bay LOL.

Wikipedia is one of the biggest websites in the world. Too much possible ad revenue to ever "die out".

Wikipedia = too big to fail

i would donate if i did not need donations myself.
there of course is a bit of profiteering in this. eventually if the site can't be maintained through private donations, then corporate will fill in that gap. Ad revenue is the only alternative option.

reply to post by FalselyFlagged


I saw that the page says they do it yearly, but personally I have never seen it before, I guess I wasn't paying enough attention.

I wonder what the ethics are though of a site that has all of it's content generated for free from it's users then asking them to donate money to them, surely the donation of their time to build the site in the first place is enough.

I wouldn't mind it having advertising

reply to post by davespanners


Don't donate to Wikipedia.

Google supplies most of their funding anyways - let them pick up the slack.

reply to post by RedBird


Well I guess that the smallest donation they will take being $20 is a pretty clear sign that they don't really NEED the money... A $10 isn't good enough for them eh?

Originally posted by davespanners
reply to post by FalselyFlagged

 

I wonder what the ethics are though of a site that has all of it's content generated for free from it's users then asking them to donate money to them, surely the donation of their time to build the site in the first place is enough.

I guess you have no scope of the amount of people that visit Wikipedia on a single day.

Just because the content is user created does not mean the bandwith is free?

Wikipedia is one of the few sites on the internet that has remained ad-free, because of donations and such I suppose. I wouldnt hate ads on the site, but still its nice not to have annoying adds in your face

reply to post by davespanners


I donated. But if you cant or dont want to, dont. I try to donate to "free" online sources that I use. And I use Wikipedia a LOT.

They campaign for donations once a year or so, and it allows them the freedom to not become dependent on advertisers who might try to influence their content. To me, Wikipedia is too important as a free source of information for the internet community to risk losing it, or having it sell out.

I dont want them to go the censorship route that other good internet tools (Google) have so willingly sailed down.

Originally posted by davespanners I was just browsing a wikipedia article and I noticed that suddenly every page now has a banner that leads to page asking people to donate money to "keep the site alive"

Are you serious?

'Dear' Wikipedia,

Just contact the Vatican--or any of the other financial centers of Judaeo-Christianity-Islamism, Inc.--and remind them that you are continuing to prevent even ONE WORD of the Truth about the Doctrine of "resurrection" from being published on the topic page.

After all, maybe they are 'unaware' of this 'service' that you are providing for them.

And, overnight, you could be 'transformed' from a slut--who provides her 'services' for free--to a whore; who charges BIG MONEY for her 'services'.

Similarly, for the Truth about why tens of thousands of Albigensians were slaughtered on the orders of the Roman church.

What you are doing, in fact, is continuing the Albigensians Crusade by the censorship of that Truth.

Similarly, for the Truth about the Thanksgiving Hymns of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Similarly, for the Truth about The Treatise On the Resurrection found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt.

And, certainly, they should be grateful for all of this censorship, should they not?

On the other hand, if they refuse an 'offer that they can't refuse', you could always THREATEN them that you will, as a last resort, publish the Truth about the Doctrine of "resurrection" on the topic page unless they are more 'responsive'.

That ought to work.

Mi cha el

reply to post by Michael Cecil


I take it you tried to edit in something controversial and had some topic Nazi's shoot you down. Lol.

Dont worry, you dont sound bitter or anything.