Wikipedia Founder Releases Personal Appeal

brian0918 writes "In an apparent reply to the low turnout for their fourth quarter fundraiser, Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales has just released a personal appeal for donations to the Wikimedia Foundation. 'Wikipedia is soon to enter our 6th year online, and I want to take a moment to ask you for your help in continuing our mission. Wikipedia is facing new challenges and encountering new opportunities, and both are going to require major funds.'" The fund drive will run until Friday, January 6th.

Comments

Google

[u16084]

Im sure Google will be more than happy to help

WikiAds?

[prgrmr]

It's only a matter of time. Either Wales is going to have to turn to ads to generate some revenue, or look into getting a grant from a University or the Feds. However, either solution is going to infringe on his desire to present a neutral viewpoint, even if just in principle.

Wikipedia + Adwords = $

[xtal]

I'm sure the partnership with google is a viable mechanism to support Wikipedia into the future. The text only ads aren't overly intrusive and are automatically added based on keyword selections in the page. Seems to be a natural fit. ..in fact, I'd take a guess that rumors of google's involvement are why donations are down.

Fix Wikipedia first

[Oldsmobile]

Wikipedia is broken. I'll donate some money if you fix it.

-End the correction wars
-Respect different viewpoints
-Respect expertese
-End people fucking up good articles

Re:How can they survive non-commercially?

[Joe Decker]

My problem is that it is very hard for me to trust the charities to handle my money properly. I've always thought about how charities could detail their money coming in and their money going out, and I came up with a solution. I'm not sure if anyone already has used this solution, so I don't know if its new and unique or already something everyone (but me) knew.

I certainly understand, and in no way wish to dismiss your concern. I don't have any personal contact with Wikipedia save for a few donations of information and cash.

Speaking for myself, I tend to worry less that the money is not making into Wikipedia's accounts at all because, well, frankly it doesn't seem worth the effort to leave such an obvious paper trail for the IRS to prosecute. The concern that the money for Wikipedia is being subverted to the founder (or whomever) seems likely untrue in part simply because I can "sense" the purchase of a lot of servers in the fact that Wikipedia continues to exist at all, even with it's poor response time the bandwidth being served, with the software being used, well, there's clearly a pile of hardware out there.

Now, over and above that, is the money being spent "well", even if not in a corrupt manner? Were, say, Wikipedia's server receipts to be published, it might be kinda interesting to argue whether they could have saved a few bucks by using a different vendor and such.

I'm the Board Treasurer for a non-profit whose size is not all that different than Wikipedias, Impact Bay Area. Obviously my own donations to that organization are something I get the pleasure of feeling very comfortable with. But, despite considering it, I'm doubting that I'll be promoting your idea of publishing every receipt and donation to our board. I expect that that would be, roughly speaking, a half-time position, and that would be (and I'm handwaving here), a ten percent increase in expenditures, and I'm not convinced that's the best use of our resources. Moreover, I'm not sure I'm comfortable making the pay (I'd say salary, but we only have two salaried staff members) of each employee public information, when I've had "day jobs" I have rarely wanted my personal income to be a matter of public record. I'm not saying that these issues couldn't be worked out, I'm saying instead that the problems they might (or might not) solve seem, for our organization, to not be as big as the, problems they create, and it would still be fairly easy to game the system you described by the creation of false receipts for expenditures.

Again, I'm not trying to get you to donate to WF, the issues of trusting non-profits to spend money with integrity and without waste—they're at the heart of the questions I ask myself when I look at where to put my own money. I myself came to the conclusion that WF looked pretty good when I dug through what I saw... your mileage may vary, and that's totally cool.

Re:Donate, I did!

[Reality Master 101]

Wikimedia's yearly expenses are mere pocket change for any of the players I mentioned.

Lots of things are "pocket change" to these players. They donate to a lot of causes. What makes Wikipedia so special that they deserve a cut of the pie versus, say, donating to a battered women's shelter, cancer research, or children's home.

Don't get me wrong, I like Wikipedia. I think it's an interesting experiment. But I think of a hell of a lot of things come first when we're talking about general donation funds.

Or to put it another way, Wikipedia begging for money is going to put it against a lot of priorities, and Wikipedia is probably going to lose, especially in a big year for natural disasters. They need to find a more self-sustaining model, even perhaps finding some hidden angels who believe in their cause.