Legitimately, Wiki is one of the great institutions of the modern net. One of the few things that I look at, with all its flaws, and say "Damn, that's a fine contribution to human society"
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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Love the arc of Wikipedia btw.
Wikipedia in 2001: "Don't use that site for school, it's not a good primary source."
Wikipedia in 2025: "Please, we're begging you, just $3 can keep the last bastion of truth on the Internet from falling to misinformation."
Funny enough, by the time I reached college, my professors were all extremely positive about Wikipedia. Though they emphasized that, as an encyclopedia, it was not valid to use as a source, they all praised it for its breadth, accessibility, and providing citations to valid sources that often could be used in an academic context.
It's a good place to start and usually has a decent source list that can be used to find better sources for each topic.
Not an insignificant fraction probably would be tickled pink if some of their students worked to improve articles about their field. I'm reminder of a quote from Small Gods by Terry Pratchett in which a philosopher named Didactylos warns against defacing scholarly works with scribbles unless the scribbles improve the reader's ability to understand the work (bold added):
“I’ve got Abraxas’s On Religion,” he said.
“Old ‘Charcoal’ Abraxas,” said Didactylos, suddenly cheerful again. “Struck by lightning fifteen times so far, and still not giving up. You can borrow this one overnight if you want. No scribbling comments in the margins, mind you, unless they’re interesting.”
“This is it!” said Om. “Come on, let’s leave this idiot.”
Brutha unrolled the scroll. There weren’t even any pictures. Crabbed writing filled it, line after line.
“He spent years researching it,” said Didactylos. “Went out into the desert, talked to the small gods. Talked to some of our gods, too. Brave man. He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.”
Small Gods is such an incredibly good book.
I donated $15 and got an invitation to add Wikipedia to my will
That's an ad
which showed up right after i clicked submit on the donation
Yeah, scummy
Fuck it, I'm tired of donating every time they ask. Just switched to monthly.
I'll just leave this right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer
I used to donate but have since switched to other more needing causes.
IMHO, with all its problems, Wikipedia is still (one of) the best achievement of mankind
I agree, I love Wikipedia! If they're ever actually in need of money and not just trying to grow for growth's sake I'll pitch in.
Yes, it's just that money in particular is not very useful for them right now
If you feel that Wiki has savings and therefore doesn't need your money today, that's fine.
But other than that WTF is this nonsense? None of it follows. Says Wiki keeps increasing spending while not noting the obvious - that its savings are growing too. Worse, without noting that a big chunk of the expenses are going towards savings. From the report below, out of the 111M spent, 51M went to savings. His expenditure graph includes savings yet he thinks that's all spending. 😄
Anyone curious what Wiki spends on: https://wikimediafoundation.org/who-we-are/annualreport/2021-annual-report/financials/#section-2.
I donated once, and the payment processor failed so it didn't even go through.
I still get the thankyou emails.
I'm such a phoney.
I donated 3.10 to cover the cost of using a card personally.
you only got one? pfft
Donated to Wikipedia before and once we have an income again we’ll be donating again since we use it quite a lot
How I felt paying for WinRAR
Im just going to leave this here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MpeOFvxor_0&pp=ygUOZmVybiB3aWtpcGVkaWE%3D
I donated once but then I found out they have a CEO on a six figure salary.
So they can get stuffed. If they want more cash they can give that leech the boot.
You're asking people working for the non-profit to accept lower pay of tens of thousands of dollars? So basically because someone doesn't make a personal sacrifice of a significant fraction of their salary you're not willing to help at all?
I don't like or accept this logic.
Now I wonder, because both 999k and 100k are six figure sums, and one of them I find much more reasonable than the other.
But yeah, running a non-profit often takes money instead of earning you money, and if they have spare money to pay salary to the CEO, maybe they're all right
That’s not what being a non profit means… they are allowed to make a “profit,” and pay for their liabilities. They just must reinvest them back into the business.
I'm not sure that not having anyone on salary is part of that deal. Or if you were referring to the part where I said about salary being negative, that's from experience, a couple of directors of a non-profit I know had to donate their salary and add on top of it when times were rough (in that organisation it was pretty often). Large non-profits probably don't have that issue
lol wow talk about a statement that lets everyone else know not to take anything else you’re about to say seriously.
You say “6 figures” as if that’s anything BUT the average for a corporate executive… actually kind of fucking low.
The median total compensation for S&P 500 CEOs was $17.1 million in 2024, marking a 9.7% increase from the previous year.