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Wikipedia Needs $20K
TaranRampersad writes "Wikipedia's server is crashing off and on, and Jimmy Wales has posted a letter requesting some assistance from anyone out there with a dollar burning a hole in their pocket. Let's face it, you really don't need that candybar anyway ..."
The reason this post exists is related to the nature of the website in question, you gibbon! Have you been to wikipedia? You're the kind of Nimrod that gripes about paying taxes while he's driving down a government paved street eating a government subsidized hamburger. Crawl back into your bunker.
... or we delete this big lump of information that you thought you were entering somewhere permanent.
Thanks, I have a Britannica CD, and two bound Britannica sets (a 1978 and an ancient 1906 in miniature volumes)
The Wiki things are cool in a way, but too filled with unqualified opinion.
A Good Intro to NetBS
Is it really free if you need to give them money to make there webserver function correctly?
I found wikipedia had very limited use for me. Information on the very simple subjects was adequate, but most the writing was horribly amateurish and painfully biased. A decent quality encyclopedia is really not too much to pay for, like this.
It's party of life, some things succeed and some things fail. wikipedia is one of those ideas that should be left to die, unless it can turn out a way to sustain itself financially. Asking for handouts is only delaying the inevitable.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
If advertising or merchandising is out (for ethical or whatever reasons), then they should be turning to foundations that can help with non-profit fundraising.
/. a "foundation" if it wants to be? (Seems from this post that it does want to be). I kind of hate to say this, but if you don't like the story, don't read it. Or at least don't threadcrap it.
/. readers that they shouldn't contribute personally and just wait for some "foundation" to take care of it.
May I ask why asking some larger organization, a "foundation" is better than asking everyone any way you can? And, isn't
Wikipedia is a real educational site with real user benefits and shouldn't have trouble coming up with sponsors.
Should and is seem to be diverging here. If it's so easy to get a foundation to kick in the cash, why don't you go do it for them? Should be no problem for you to complete in just a few hours. Right?
That said, I'm an occasional visitor and I'm gonna go throw a few bucks their way... (but just this once)
Great. Maybe you should stop using it as a resouce too (maybe one last time). Or at least STFU and stop trying to tell
everything in moderation
Almost every news article on that site is a joke anyway (don't get me wrong, I really like that site) and you can't possibly take everything on that site seriously.
They aren't asking for a little help. They are asking for 20,000 USD with NO explanition of what they are going buy withit.
All they have to do is, on the same page the accept donations from, list what they want to buy with the money.
Till they do that they will not get any money from me.
That's a rather nice ad hominem-- because I'm 16, I'm instantly not capable of writing an encyclopedia-type article?
You don't even know what I've contributed. For your information, I've added some information about some video games (just for the hell of it), information on James Randi and the JREF, and a few other topics regarding psychics and how they scam people (such as "hot" and "cold reading").
Oh, and how many encyclopedias include information on those subjects...?
You're an idiot.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
It is not.
because I'm 16, I'm instantly not capable of writing an encyclopedia-type article?
Yes. Because encyclopedia articles, being primarily consumed by non-experts on the topic thereof, need to be credible. The consumers are not going to find a 16-year old, still in high school, a credible author.
And note that I've made no assumptions about whether the 16-year old is right or wrong. Which given the educational level and intellectual maturity of the typical 16-year old, is quite charitable.
Oh, and how many encyclopedias include information on those subjects...?
Have you considered the possibility that there's a good reason for not including them?
Are you adequate?
Also, you may have heard that there are such things as libraries. Where you can actually check out a book without buying it-- and even photocopy an encyclopedia article (or even several ones). Go figure.
Are you adequate?
OK, here's what you can do, Mister Dumbfuck.
NEVER EVER COME BACK TO SLASHDOT AGAIN. WE DONT LIKE YOUR POSTS AND WE DONT LIKE YOU. YOU SEEM TO ONLY BE ABLE TO CRITICIZE OTHERS AND SLASHDOT.
Guess what, readers of slashdot like slashdot and don't want your criticism. It's not good criticism, it's you saying "you're all dumber than me, get off my slashdot". ITS NOT YOUR SLASHDOT. YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S DUMB.
Now fuck off, you whore.
My other car is first.
give a man a fish,
he eats for a day,
teach a man to fish,
and he eats for a lifetime.
If their website needs 20 grand to survive then perhaps it should be allowed to fail? Obviously it's not paying for itself, and if the owner is unwilling to put up his own money and unwilling to make money through ads, registrations, etc then what happens when you need *another* 20 grand? Another
I'm not ashamed to say I think this is utter crap and I certainly hope this site crashes and burns.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Seems like they're having a lot of problems with the Opteron systems, and he seems convinced he should still get another one "for future upgrades".
My ass. He's going to get a lot better hardware quality with a standard machine and a P4 based system. They could get a HPQ DL380 for like $4k with dual P4 processors, high quality raid, redundant network/power/fans/etc...
Instead, he's buying some crappy home-build (practically) Opteron system "because it's cool", basically. Jeesh.
4 x86 boxes and a remote power switch.
Bought from penguin c. I could possibly imagine why it'd be $20k. From what descriptions of the problems I read were, the 4GB opteron is having memory problems and a failing scsi drive that's used for the os, ergo the want of remote reboot. Also some mention of a future configuration.
Name brand warranty backed registered 1GB DDR DIMMS can be had for ~$300 a piece. I prefer Corsair. $1200, say you round up to $1500, for a complete swap of the 4GB of memory in the opteron now.
An os drive doesn't need to be big and 9 & 18GB 15k scsi drives can be had for $100 so get two or three of those for $300 and raid to replace the failing os drive.
If you need a new controller, scsi controller prices have dropped drastically and a good basic U160 controller can be had for $40 now. A decked out battery backed caching raid multi channel u160/320 controllers can be had starting at $300.
Also could check the SCSI cabling which has also drastically dropped in price.
If the motherboard is the cause of the flakyness, $300-800 for another server board.
If by chance, it had something to do with the power supply, replacing even a redundant server power supply would only go for $300-400.
Finally, remote power management switches go for around $300.
The worst case scenario of having to replace everything I mentioned to fix the problems is ~$3.5k.
If the discrepency between 3.5k and 20k is to buy a new server setup, then my question would be what's the load on the current setup and projected load to calculate what would be needed(it could be $20k, but I doubt it).
If the discrpency is for penguin profit margin/argument for warranty or because you don't want to install stuff then I have no sympathy for you and good luck holding out for the $20k you want that really isn't justified.