Facebook Donates $1 Million To Support Wikipedia (venturebeat.com)

Technology giants rely heavily on Wikipedia's extensive database to source information for their platforms. So it's only fair that they show interest in the long-term sustainability of the online encyclopedia. This week, Facebook made its support official. From a report: The Wikimedia Foundation announced late Thursday that Facebook has contributed $1 million to Wikimedia Endowment, a fund to financially support the online encyclopedia and other Wikimedia projects. "We are grateful to Facebook for this support, and hope this marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration to support Wikipedia's future," Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in a statement.

In an opinion piece published in June, Wikimedia Foundation executive director Katherine Maher urged companies to better support the service. "As companies draw on Wikipedia for knowledge -- and as a bulwark against bad information -- we believe they too have an opportunity to be generous," she wrote. "At Wikimedia, we already love and deeply appreciate the millions of people around the world who make generous charitable contributions because they believe in our values. But we also believe that we deserve lasting, commensurate support from the organisations that derive significant and sustained financial value from our work." Further reading: Wikimedia Endowment Gets New $1 Million Backing From Amazon.

Comments

So. Now Wiki is beholden

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what the world needs. An information source owned by a company known for misrepresenting reality.

Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden

[ctilsie242]

Citing Wikipedia is a no-no. However, Wikipedia does point to links, otherwise one will find the page reverted [1] with a [[Citation Needed]] as the reason. What you then do is visit the pages cited, and use those (if relevant), and use the citations from those pages. Wikipedia is a good place to find authoritative works on a topic.

[1]: Assuming you don't find the page reverted anyway.

Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden

[Marxist Hacker 42]

There is certainly something ironic about using an open-source encyclopedia as a source of truth in a world of fake news.

Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden

[jellomizer]

Back in the old days before Wikipedia we had a collection of 20-26 books called an Encyclopedia. Even back in 7th grade I was taught we couldn't use these Encyclopedias for citation. But as a source to give us general information to help guide us to sources, that we can cite, because they will give us more detailed information.

For many of these Encyclopedias we only had a paragraph or two on most of the topics. While Wikipedia often has far more information it isn't classified as a source for research, but a way to get general knowledge on the topic, thus why a citation from Wikipedia will probably give a failing mark on your paper, because you didn't go to the source material, you just went to an abbreviated summary on the topic.

Also, why should we automatically shy away or discredit an article that has some agenda. We should be smart enough to catch that, and realized that the writer may have a point that is being expressed, and if you disagree with it, then you need to confront the points do your research to show they are invalid or wrong. Not just go in a huff "This information goes against my Uninformed beliefs, so it is wrong!"

Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden

[ShanghaiBill]

Citing Wikipedia is a no-no.

Citing any encyclopedia is a no-no. Citations should be to original sources, not to secondary compilations.

So where do you find link to the original sources? At the bottom of the Wiki page, of course.

Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden

[Mashiki]

Also, why should we automatically shy away or discredit an article that has some agenda. We should be smart enough to catch that, and realized that the writer may have a point that is being expressed, and if you disagree with it, then you need to confront the points do your research to show they are invalid or wrong. Not just go in a huff "This information goes against my Uninformed beliefs, so it is wrong!"

It's not that people have a problem with an article having an agenda, that's a symptom of the problem. The problem people have is that wikipedia presents itself as generalized source for a topic and adheres to NPOV. This is the opposite that happens, especially in the last ~8 years it's gone more for sources which are approved, but not factually correct or accurate. **Insert XKCD comic about citeogenisis here**

The entire basis of fact checking on general knowledge material(even specialized areas) is left at the feet of whatever is being cited, by whoever is publishing it as long as wikipedia approves. That's the face of fact that wikipedia promotes. That's not even getting into the cases where editors, power editors, or admins go out of their way to taint topics with false information. Or even overt double standards on topics when it carries the editors PoV. This really isn't all that different then the quibbling you see with "fact check" sites.

Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden

[Moryath]

Look up an editor named "Essjay" and realize most of the articles he fucked with are still tilted. And basically everyone he banned and lied about is still banned because despite everything they let his abuses stand.

So...

[93 Escort Wagon]

Zuckerberg got tired of seeing that pop-up?

Now employ some professional administrators.

[xack]

Instead of the current ones who revert everything as "not notable" if it's not made by the clique. I'm a former contributor who has donated in the past, but have seen my money wasted, now I vandalize Wikipedia to spite them.

Re:Now employ some professional administrators.

[rockout]

Sounds like somebody saw his article about himself erased.

Re:Now employ some professional administrators.

[Kjella]

Not unlikely... if you look at a typical day's log of articles for deletion they're overwhelmingly bios and/or their creative works trying to make themselves "notable". But if you look at pages like deletionpedia you can find things like Main Belt asteroids with a subpage for each one that got mass wiped. For a wikipedia with room a page for every London tube station and a list of all the Pokemon characters, you may say these tiny little rocks aren't significant in any way. But they're factual, not self-promoting and somebody put a lot of effort into creating it. Then somebody said meh insignificant and *poof* it was gone. I have no problem in believing there's a lot of editors that legitimately got pissed and left.

I've had corrections auto-reverted by bots even though they were properly documented and cited. Some, if not many pages are effectively owned by a small number of edit Nazis who will revert anything you do making the "anyone can edit" into hollow words. There are ways to complain but 99% will just give up and walk away rather than become wiki-lawyers just to correct a damn web page. To be fair, they also have a big problem with vandalism so I understand why some are very possessive, but the practical effect for anyone not into that war is that you buy into the slogans, do something good and they piss on it.

Also you don't really get any positive feedback when you contribute, it's not obvious how many read anything you added and would like to give you a thumbs up. All you really get is the occasional frosty piss, it's for the most part very thankless work. Which may have its effect on who stay on and how they behave, this is their way to power trip and own their little snippet of Wikpedia... *insert Gollum meme here*. I did contribute a bit in the early days when there was a lot of obviously important stuff that wasn't on WP and it was more like "let's just expand and throw shit at the wall and see what sticks", once it became more like this I got out. I mean I understand the page on Hitler is controversial... but I don't want to be in wiki-court about main belt asteroids.

P.S. No, that's wasn't mine if you think that...

Who gives a shit?

[reiterate]

I also donated an infinitesimally small portion of my revenue to Wikipedia, where's my article?

Re:Who gives a shit?

[rockout]

It's Wikipedia, you can create your own article, you lazy bastard!

Re:Who gives a shit?

[Solandri]

Just to back this up, Facebook had a net income of $19.5 billion for the last 4 quarters. A $1 million donation is 0.005% of their net income. It's equivalent to someone making $100,000 a year donating $5. Hardly newsworthy.

Props where props are due

[cascadingstylesheet]

Hey, props where props are due.

Not everything that a bad entity does is bad. This is a good thing.

Re:Excellent news

[Seven Spirals]

Hell yes. Wikipedia forever. That's the shining city on the hill project that truly shows the best elements of the Internet. Openness, collaboration, non-greediness, and a respect for truth and knowledge.

Re:Oh, wow

[jellomizer]

Why do all good deeds need to be an altruistic sacrifice?
That is a very puritanical view on charity. Give until it hurts then give some more, suffering is the only pathway to God.
This is like dropping our spare change in the salvation army bin, we are not going to suffer or go bankrupt from it. But it is still helping a cause.

Re:I guess ...

[Moryath]

Real truth: that popup will NEVER go away. Jimmy and the board need their gravy train, and the incestuous squad of admins (more interested in attacking people and showing off power than in building an encyclopedia) have run off most of the regulars who would have donated in years past. Every year more and more people try to contribute only to have some aspergers toolboy admin scream "sockpuppet ban it off with its head" and thus learn why you should never donate to that squad of abusive pricks, ever.

Re:Wikipedia is an Excellent Resource

[Moryath]

Look over how the vast majority of those who interact with wikipedia get treated by their fraud-squad of "administrators" and you'll learn. Look up their past scandals. Start with "Essjay" and don't forget to research the time Jimbo was caught editing his own girlfriend's bio and banning people who weren't making it a glowing pile of suck-up.

Re:Wikipedia is an Excellent Resource

[nukenerd]

I don't understand all the hate that's directed towards Wikipedia. .... I guess that's because I just access the technical pages and stay away from the political ones.

Same with my experience. For example if I want to find something about a town on the other side of the world for some reason it is a good place to start and often enough for what I need. I have also edited, or written most of, a few articles in technical and history areas and my stuff is still there unchanged years later, and where it has changed it is usually corrections like typos, or added references.

No doubt if I got into edititing stuff about Trump, Brexit or Jimmy Wales' girlfriend, it would not remain unchanged for two minutes, but I don't try. Is that what people are complaining about?