He generally shows most of the signs of the misinformation accounts:

  • Wants to repeatedly tell basically the same narrative and nothing else
  • Narrative is fundamentally false
  • Not interested in any kind of conversation or in learning that what he’s posting is backwards from the values he claims to profess

I also suspect that it’s not a coincidence that this is happening just as the Elon Musks of the world are ramping up attacks on Wikipedia, specially because it is a force for truth in the world that’s less corruptible than a lot of the others, and tends to fight back legally if someone tries to interfere with the free speech or safety of its editors.

Anyway, YSK. I reported him as misinformation, but who knows if that will lead to any result.

Edit: Number of people real salty that I’m talking about this: Lots

  • @[email protected]
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    The misinfo crowd has been twiddling their collective thumbs since the election and trump winning. Can’t make up bs about egg and gas prices anymore. They’re half-ass trying to incite intergenerational conflict between X, Z, millenials, etc. Guess they found a new target. Exact same MO. Repeat the claim ad nauseam, refuse to acknowledge any contrary argument, their argument is objectively false.

  • @[email protected]
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    187 months ago

    I do the research and script writing for a documentary company. In 2023, I noticed that the pages of serial killers I’d been researching, started mentioning political affiliation in the top paragraph… but they all said Democrat (or socialst, communist sympathizer, anti-fascist, etc). Then, one of the murderers I was researching, who was literally a Republican politician who killed his wife , said Democrat and I had a team investigate. It got corrected, but we have no idea if it was one person or a group that changed the pages. Someone out there wants murderers to be associated with democrats.

  • Queen HawlSera
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    47 months ago
    1. I don’t trust Wikipedia, but I do think they’re a good STARTING POINT for research, the problem comes when it’s used as the end-all be-all

    2. Can you be specific about this misinformation so I don’t just point fingers at anyone who doesn’t worship the ground Wikipedia walks on. Like what are they saying and why isn’t it true?

  • @[email protected]
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    177 months ago

    It’s funny that most of the .world posts are like

    1. That didn’t happen, you’re lying for internet points
    2. Actually let’s talk about how tAnKiEs don’t actually read theory lmao
  • @[email protected]
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    7 months ago

    Wikipedia is just another website run by some privileged dickheads and their mods.

    I’m not bothering to argue whether it’s better or worse than other websites.

    But only a fool would trust it or believe that it’s inherently “good”.

  • socsa
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    687 months ago

    On lemmy, this is far more likely to be some weird tankie shit about western propaganda. Though it is definitely noteworthy that the far right and far left seem to push a lot of the same misinformation on here.

    Also, in general lemmy trolls are super easy to spot because they don’t do anything else. All they do is whine about democrats or post Russian propaganda and never engage on any other topics.

    • Phoenixz
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      157 months ago

      Yeah horseshoe theory is an actual thing and it shows hard here on Lemmy. Same lies, same taxticts, different extremists.

        • @[email protected]
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          107 months ago

          Dammit. That’s too funny and I want someone to share this with but nobody i know is the right mix of wierd to get it

        • Phoenixz
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          47 months ago

          Yeah that’s just horseshoe theory with extra steps and gymnastics to be able to say that far left is okay, really, they never do anything wrong, trust me!

          Unless they do as tankies ARE the far left

            • Phoenixz
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              17 months ago

              You disagree with me? Then you dont know as much about this subject as I do because if you did, you’d agree with me

              Thank you for making my point for me

          • @[email protected]OP
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            77 months ago

            It’s not any kind of judgment about right or wrong. It’s just an observation that some nutty behaviors like kicking someone out of your web forum the instant they dissent in any way, or openly defending your chosen government even when it’s killing people like they’re spraying for weeds in the garden, are unique to far-right individuals and tankies, and unknown and abhorred pretty much everywhere else.

            • Phoenixz
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              17 months ago

              That is my point, tankies and far right are the same thing

              • Diva (she/her)
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                ‘people who disagree with me are all the same, banning people for dissent on a hair trigger’

                looks at moderation history CW: bigotry

                spoiler

                Charming.

                in b4 ‘it was only tactical bigotry’: still bigotry

                Hard to fault any of the bans/removals I see here, looks like centrist extremists are capable of being toxic AF too

                • Carighan Maconar
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                  7 months ago

                  Okaaay. One more for the blocklist, thanks for digging that up. What a guy…

      • socsa
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        127 months ago

        In this case it’s not so much horseshoe theory as it is that most tankies on lemmy are just trolls, or teenagers parroting trolls.

        • Phoenixz
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          37 months ago

          Yeah, far right says the same and I’m not buying it from them either

    • @[email protected]
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      7 months ago

      Thinking of the most recent so-called “far left” thing I saw about Wikipedia, it was a video by BadEmpanada talking about the different portrayals of the Uyghur situation in China. A pretty balanced take btw, looking pretty impartially at all evidence and questioning the mindset of people with different perspectives on it. The discussion of WIkipedia there was that it does naturally take on some bias due to a reliance on Western media as authoritative or reliable sources. I think that is a fact. There’s a process to determine something as fact which I think is too quick, the second there’s something of a perceived consensus of experts or authoritative sources, something is stated as fact. In hard sciences, that’s typically fine, but in politics or recent history, IMHO you need a much more meticulous approach, because you’re in dangerous territory the second you start treating any propaganda narrative as fact.

    • socsa
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      347 months ago

      I am pretty convinced that .ml is legitimately used as a Russian troll training ground before they get promoted to Facebook and reddit.

      • @[email protected]
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        97 months ago

        Meanwhile, at .ml:

        Since Pi is infinite and non-repeating, would that mean any finite sequence of non-repeating numbers should appear somewhere in Pi?

        • @[email protected]
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          7 months ago

          Meanwhile actually at .ml: let’s deify a murderer because he killed somebody we don’t like and he’s fucking gorgeous. Nevermind that he’s a rich antiwoke Musk-lover, murder is cool.

          • @[email protected]
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            27 months ago

            In the comments they go into why it’s not even true that an infinite non-repeating sequence must contain all other finite sequences (10100100010000[…] example not containing any other digits). So it would follow that they wouldn’t contain all infinite sequences either. I think.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          77 months ago

          That’s actually a really good way to illustrate what is wrong with lemmy.ml.

          On math stack exchange:

          Let me summarize the things that have been said which are true and add one more thing.

          1. 𝜋 is not known to have this property, but it is expected to be true.
          2. This property does not follow from the fact that the decimal expansion of 𝜋 is infinite and does not repeat.

          On lemmy.ml:

          0.101001000100001000001 . . .

          I’m infinite and non-repeating. Can you find a 2 in me?

          You can’t prove that there isn’t one somewhere

          Why couldn’t you?

          Because you’d need to search through an infinite number of digits (unless you have access to the original formula)

          And:

          Not just any all finite number sequence appear in pi

          And:

          Yes.

          And if you’re thinking of a compression algorithm, nope, pigeonhole principle.

          All heavily upvoted.

          • @[email protected]
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            IDK if you’re allowed to link to lemmy.ml here or what, but the post ID is 24032724. The response to “You can’t prove that there isn’t one somewhere” - “You can, it’s literally the way the number is defined.” - is +8/-1. Plus the original guy pointing out the 10100[…] sequence is +21/-1. What are you saying is the issue? If it’s “they’ll just upvote anything that sounds right”, I think you’re gonna find that’s true on reddit, and true here, as well.

            • @[email protected]OP
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              97 months ago

              I’m saying the issue is that on math stack exchange, the people who actually understand the issues involved are generally the ones talking and being listened to. On lemmy.ml, the guy saying you can’t prove that a sequence of 0s and 1s doesn’t contain a 2 has +5 upvotes. You can look over the comments, and even more so than for politics, it’s just really apparent that there are quite a lot of people who have no idea what they’re talking about exchanging confident proclamations to each other about what it is that’s going on.

              I’m not trying to hate on anyone for not knowing something. I’m hating on them for thinking they know something, and need to teach it to everyone else, when they are mistaken and haven’t made even the basic effort beyond “I just thought for 2 seconds and decided this is how it works” to figure out what’s going on.

              • @[email protected]
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                7 months ago

                I was thinking earlier about how fucked we are in the U.S., that the MAGA contingent, and to a degree the Dem contingent as well, have accepted mentalities that are incorrect and actively reject correction. That people (the population in general) are being trained to reject the fundamentals of logic, and associate all opposing viewpoints with an evil “other”.

              • @[email protected]
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                77 months ago

                On lemmy.ml pretty much all reddit-like boards.

                You can’t really compare a stack exchange board about a specific topic with general purpose boards.

                • @[email protected]OP
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                  57 months ago

                  There are plenty of Reddit-like boards which feature people who generally know what they’re talking about. Reddit used to be one, years ago, remember jokes about how the comments were a better way to learn the truth of the story than reading the article?

                  There are places on Lemmy that are like that, too. Weirdly enough, this comments section is a good example. The people voting are extremely capable to identify the bullshit and downvote it, it’s actually very accurate. Just have a look around. It’s not always like that. Lemmy.world, Lemmy.ml, and some of the tech-focused communities are notable places where the idiots outnumber the rest of the people, but it’s not at all a universal feature of Reddit-like general purpose forums. It just takes a little while to build the culture that way, and a lot of Lemmy is actively hostile to building it because the wrong people are so aggressive about pushing the wrongness, and it kind of chases people away unless they’re cool with that.

        • @[email protected]
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          67 months ago

          Even the most extreme extremist of echo chambers will have benign random conversations. Singling out a random blurb of conversation, without even any source link, is just cherry picking.

          • @[email protected]OP
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            87 months ago

            It’s even worse when you link to the actual comments.

            https://lemmy.ml/post/24032724

            They are having an extended conversation about a question which has an actual real mathematical answer. The correlation between what mathematics knows about it, and the things the lemmy.ml people are trying to say about it with a tone of voice that implies they have some knowledge and you need to listen to them, is almost nonexistent.

            There are, to be fair, a bunch of highly-upvoted explanations of the real answer, which is that we don’t know. But there are also plenty of top-level comments getting lots of upvotes, which say things like:

            Yes, this is implied. It’s also why many people use digits of pi as passwords and make the password hint “easy as pi”.

            Yeah. This is a plot point used in a few stories, eg Carl Sagan’s “Contact”

            Yes

            Yes.

            And if you’re thinking of a compression algorithm, nope, pigeonhole principle.

            Not just any all finite number sequence appear in pi

            It’s actually extremely popular, it looks like, to just come up with some kind of random nonsense and then for one of the lemmy.ml people to be telling other lemmy.ml people that your random nonsense is the answer they’re looking for. When it comes out of the realm of politics and into the realm of mathematics, it suddenly looks really jarring and weird that they’re all so committed to sitting around handing out wrong answers to each other all day.

          • @[email protected]
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            Are we saying it’s an echo chamber, or a literal propaganda training ground commissioned by the Russian government?

            I’m not sitting here saying that one random thread I spotted when I jumped over there totally disproves either of those. It’s more of an amusing counterexample. I would LOVE if people would stop doing this thing where they expect you to defend an argument you didn’t make, I feel like I’ve pointed out it on this site 3 times in as many days.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      1257 months ago

      Yeah, there’s kind of a Poe’s Law situation.

      A lot of the sincere tankies, though, at least want to talk about what they’re into, and have elaborate reasons why it’s all true. The low-effort “I can’t even be bothered to try to mount a defense, I just wanted to say Wikipedia is doxing its users and kowtowing to fascist governments, and now that I’ve said it my task is done” behavior is a little more indicative of a disingenuous propaganda account in my experience.

      • @[email protected]
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        elaborate reasons why it’s all true

        Usually it’s “just read these 10 hundred-year-old books” that they absolutely have not read.

        And if you ask them to make a point from those books, they can’t. Apparently they’re only comprehensible as a whole.

      • @[email protected]
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        57 months ago

        That’s now poe’s law, it would be Occam’s razor.

        The most likely scenario here is not many puppet accounts spreading sarcasm or parody but rather that there are many actors that all true believers in what they are all saying. They sound the same because they are feeding off the same talking point.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          27 months ago

          You’re right, I was misremembering Poe’s law. We need a law for “there is no point of view so idiotic that someone won’t be out there passionately proclaiming it, not because they are a propaganda troll, but because they really believe it.”

    • @[email protected]
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      7 months ago

      Last time I heard about wikipedia’s donation campaign (maybe 2 4 years ago or so), it was notorious for advertising in such a way as to imply your funds would be used to keep wikipedia alive, whereas the reality was that only a small part of Wikimedia Foundation’s income was needed for Wikipedia, and the rest was spent on rather questionable things like funding very weird research with little oversight. Did this change? If it didn’t, I wouldn’t particularly advise anyone to donate to them.

        • @[email protected]
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          17 months ago

          That’s not allowed on Wikipedia, you have to use verifiable information from reliable secondary sources instead.

      • @[email protected]
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        17 months ago

        and the rest was spent on rather questionable things like funding very weird research with little oversight

        Was this “weird research” basically research into things like “Why are white, wealthy males the ones most likely to be WP editors?”

      • @[email protected]OP
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        97 months ago

        Well, that’s definitely a super trustworthy thing, not at all relevant to the question of whether there is misinformation floating around that is targeted at Wikipedia.

        I looked up their financial reports somewhere else in these comments when talking to someone else, and long story short, it’s not true. Also, just to annoy anyone who’s trying to spread this type of misinformation, I just set up a recurring $10/month donation to Wikipedia. I thought about including a note specifically requesting that it be used only for rather questionable things and funding very weird research, but there wasn’t a space for it.

        • @[email protected]
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          37 months ago

          I wondered when writing my comment whether people would combine this with the vague statement in the opening post and conclude “aha, I will now take this as misinformation without checking”, but then I looked at your other comments and saw you were actually talking about some India-related conspiracy I heard nothing about. Yet apparently you nevertheless think my comment is intentional misinfo?? That isn’t very coherent, is it now?

          • @[email protected]OP
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            37 months ago

            I was talking about your comment. The idea that because they pay people salaries, including a few hundred K per year for the people at the top, they’re drowning in money and there’s no point in donating as long as they can pay their hosting bills and nothing else, is wrong. Furthermore I suspect that at least some of the bunch of people who suddenly started coming out of the woodwork to say a few variations on that exact same thing are part of some kind of deliberate misinformation, just because it’s kind of a weird conclusion for a whole bunch of people to all start talking about all at once. Doubly so because it isn’t true.

            There’s a whole separate thing where one of the other commenters sent me an article saying Israel is attacking Syria with nuclear weaponry and I only don’t know about it because I consume hopelessly pro-Western propaganda sources like Wikipedia, and he sent me India.com as his backing for it. That’s nothing to do with you, though.

            • @[email protected]
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              7 months ago

              The idea that because they pay people salaries, including a few hundred K per year for the people at the top, they’re drowning in money and there’s no point in donating as long as they can pay their hosting bills and nothing else, is wrong.

              I in fact don’t think that - to get the sort of people you want to be running your company, a good salary is necessary. I suspect a lot of the people that wikimedia employs are unnecessary because this is way too much money to be spending on salaries overall, but I have no way of checking it since they don’t provide a breakdown of the salaries involved. I do think, however, that a company that’s not drowning in money wouldn’t be giving a bunch of generic research grants.

              Furthermore I suspect that at least some of the bunch of people who suddenly started coming out of the woodwork to say a few variations on that exact same thing are part of some kind of deliberate misinformation, just because it’s kind of a weird conclusion for a whole bunch of people to all start talking about all at once.

              That’s valid, though I note that in the worlds where I am a normal person and not an anti-wikipedia shill, the reason why I’m saying these things now and not at other times is because I saw this post, and you wrote this post because you saw other people talk about some India-related Wikipedia conspiracy theory, and one reason why you’d see these people crawl out of woodwork now is because wikipedia ramps up their donation campaign this time of year, prompting discussion about wikipedia.

              The main issue I take with your opening post is its vagueness. You don’t mention any details in it, so it effectively acts as a cue for people to discuss anything at all controversial about wikipedia. And the way you frame the discussion is that such narratives “are fundamentally false” because Wikipedia “is a force for truth in the world that’s less corruptible than a lot of the others” - that’s assuming the conclusion. It’s no surprise that this results in your seeing a lot of claims about Wikipedia that you think are misinformation!

              P.S. Rethinking my previous comment a bit, it’s probably good overall that reading my comment made you donate to charity out of spite - even a mediocre charity like Wikimedia most likely has a net positive effect on the world. So I guess I should be happy about it. Consider also donating to one of these for better bang on your buck.

              • @[email protected]OP
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                27 months ago

                but I have no way of checking it since they don’t provide a breakdown of the salaries involved

                Yes they do. It’s named by the individual, their position, and the exact salary they earned in each year. Look up the form 990s.

                The main issue I take with your opening post is its vagueness. You don’t mention any details in it, so it effectively acts as a cue for people to discuss anything at all controversial about wikipedia.

                Completely true. I decided that being vague wasn’t great but it was better than brigading against the person I had in mind when that wasn’t the point. I figured people who had seen the stuff would know what I was talking about and figure it out, which mostly turned out to be accurate.

                The narrative that led me to make the post was that Wikipedia is doxxing its editors to any fascist government that asks. I talk more about it here:

                https://ponder.cat/post/1100747/1312503

                And the way you frame the discussion is that such narratives “are fundamentally false” because Wikipedia “is a force for truth in the world that’s less corruptible than a lot of the others”

                Not quite. Personally, I think WP is a force for truth in the world, but that wasn’t why I am justifying this, it’s just me talking.

                Also, I had legit forgotten that the government that WP has been fighting in court not to dox its users to, is India. I connected it to a later person who sent me a source from India.com, after spending so much time talking to people who think Israel is nuking Syria or Wikimedia is skimming $300 million of “excess” money off every single year (see the link above where someone references that misinformation and then I address it). Part of the reason I am short-tempered about false claims that make Wikipedia sound bad is that I’ve been talking with people who are making 4 or 5 different big ones just in these comments alone, and they all turn out to be bullshit, but the sum total of all of them getting repeated, I think, can be significant.

                Just to be clear, I’m not necessarily saying you are one of those misinformation people. But the claim that Wikimedia has so much money that donations are unnecessary, putting “salaries” they’re spending donations on in quotes, things like that, is definitely one of those misinformation claims.

              • @[email protected]
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                27 months ago

                I do think, however, that a company that’s not drowning in money wouldn’t be giving a bunch of generic research grants.

                To clarify, you don’t think not-for-profits should fund grants for things that (by vote of the board) aligns with their mission?

                I’m trying to figure out your beef with them.

      • @[email protected]
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        147 months ago

        This perspective is very common in online communities about any sort of charity or non-profit.

        “Don’t donate money to whatever charity, they just waste the money on whatever thing”

        Truthfully, it’s just an excuse to assuage the guilt arising from refusing to support these organisations.

        • DigitalDilemma
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          117 months ago

          Truthfully, it’s just an excuse to assuage the guilt arising from refusing to support these organisations.

          Sometimes.

          Sometimes it’s a pretty accurate statement.

          I used to run a medium-large charity. I have a fair bit of experience in fundraising and management. Most donators would be shocked at how little their donation actually achieves in isolation. Also at the waste that often goes on, and certainly the salaries at the upper tiers.

          And I could also say that guilt is exactly why people donate. It’s to feel good about themselves, they’re buying karma. Central heating for the soul. I won’t say that’s a bad thing, but it is a thing. It’s also exactly how charities fundraise, because it works. That’s why your post and tv adverts are full of pictures of sad children crying. Every successful charity today is that way because it knows how to manipulate potential supporters. Is that always wrong? Of course not, charities couldn’t do good things without money. But sometimes the ethics in fundraising are extremely flexible.

      • @[email protected]
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        17 months ago

        Pathos is a simple marketing mode that is one of three used by every company and I don’t really see a problem with it. It’s intentionally contrary to the one for-profit companies use to gain revenue—fear.

      • DigitalDilemma
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        157 months ago

        I actually took a look at Wikipedia’s accounts last week as I remembered that campaign when I saw the latest campaign and did some due diligence before donating. I didn’t donate, but I’m still glad Wikipedia exists.

        What I remembered: That hosting costs were tiny and Wikimedia foundation had enough already saved up to operate for over a hundred years without raising any more.

        What I saw: That if that was true, it isn’t any longer. It’s managed growth.

        I don’t think they are at any risk of financial collapse, but they are cutting their cloth to suit their income. That’s normal in business, including charities. If you stop raising money, you stagnate. You find things to spend that money on that are within the charity’s existing aims.

        Some highlights from 2024: $106million in wages. 26m in awards and grants. 6m in “travel and conferences”. Those last two look like optional spends to me, but may be rewards to the volunteer editors. The first seems high, but this is only a light skim

        Net assets at EOY = $271 million. Hosting costs per year are $3million. It’s doing okay.

        If you’re curious; https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/

        • @[email protected]
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          Yep. Just like for-profit companies, having a diverse range of revenue streams is necessary for securing the financial health of the organization. While Wikipedia receives significant donations from companies like Google and Microsoft, it is essential to also solicit contributions from individuals to ensure that their income is not overly reliant on a single source. Just like in for-profits, Wikimedia likely determines the percentages of income from various sources needed to maintain this diversity. This concept seems particularly important for Wikipedia given its mission to provide unbiased information.

          On another note, I’ve seen your same “100 years” notion mentioned a few times on this thread. I can’t imagine that everyone who’s saying it independently had the idea to analyze their financial statements and calculate projections over 100 years. Is this an article you’re quoting? Just curious.

        • @[email protected]
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          57 months ago

          Thanks for the link! Yeah, $3M for hosting out of their massive budget is what I was talking about - Wikipedia could lose 90% of their cashflow and not be in any danger of going offline. I don’t see how to estimate how much of that “salaries” part is related to Wikipedia rather to their other business. But even taking the most optimistic possible reading, I think it’s still true that the marginal value of donations to Wikimedia foundations will not be in support of Wikipedia’s existence or even in improvements to it, but in them doing more unrelated charity.

          (If you want to donate specifically to charities that spread knowledge, then donating to Wikipedia makes more sense, though then in my opinion you should consider supporting the Internet Archive, which has ~8 times less revenue, and just this year was sued for copyright infringement this year and spent a while being DDOSed into nonfunctionality - that’s a lot of actually good reasons to need more money!).

          • @[email protected]OP
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            Wikipedia could lose 90% of their cashflow and not be in any danger of going offline.

            Is it your impression that paying the people who work for you is optional for a technology company?

            The salaries mostly are in the $100k-350k range, maybe up to $500-700k in the C suite. They’re perfectly reasonable by the standards of a San Francisco tech company that operates at the scale that Wikipedia does. The full list of exact salaries and recipients is listed in their form 990 filings if you want to read them for yourself.

            Edit: Phrasing

            • @[email protected]
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              Is it your impression that paying the people who work for you is optional for a technology company?

              What a bad-faith argument. You seem willfully obtuse towards any data presented to you and unnecessarily hostile in all of your comments. I took a look at the most recent 990 form you reference, and it lists compensation for a mere 13 individuals, with a total compensation just over $4-million in sum. This is in no way counter-evidence that spending (ultimately due to the decisions of these executives) is at runaway levels. Salaries and wages have increased 22% compounding year-over-year for the last four years on average. This is a 120% increase in only four years (from $46,146,897 to $101,305,706).

              These trends have been continuously called out for almost a decade now, but this exponential growth continues nonetheless. All while expenses for core responsibilities remain flat. Wikipedia should be setup to succeeded indefinitely at this point if it weren’t for these decisions.

              • @[email protected]OP
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                Thanks for the link! Yeah, $3M for hosting out of their massive budget is what I was talking about - Wikipedia could lose 90% of their cashflow and not be in any danger of going offline.

                Is it your impression that paying the people who work for you is optional for a technology company?

                What a bad-faith argument.

                I’m just going to let that little exchange stand on its own.

                I took a look at the most recent 990 form you reference, and it lists compensation for a mere 13 individuals, with a total compensation just over $4-million in sum.

                Hm, you’re right. I had looked at some kind of summary that listed people for every year, and somehow thought that it was breaking down salaries for everyone, but it’s only the top people.

                Let’s look a different way. https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWikimedia_Foundation_2021_Form_990.pdf&page=9 says that there are 233 people who earn more than $100k (so basically, full-time people in a white-collar role). So if you make a ballpark estimate that for each one of those people, there’s one other person doing janitorial work or similar that makes average $50k/yr, and average out the $88M they spent on salary in 2022 over all those 466 people, you get $327k per year for the white collar people. Presumably there’s also some amount on part-time work, or grants, or something like that. But the point is, it’s not that there is some absurd amount of money going missing. It’s just that they employ a few hundred people and pay SF-tech-company salaries.

                This is in no way counter-evidence that spending (ultimately due to the decisions of these executives) is at runaway levels. Salaries and wages have increased 22% compounding year-over-year for the last four years on average. This is a 120% increase in only four years (from $46,146,897 to $101,305,706).

                These trends have been continuously called out for almost a decade now, but this exponential growth continues nonetheless. All while expenses for core responsibilities remain flat.

                Didn’t you just get super offended that I pointed out that paying the people who work for you is, in fact, a “core reponsibility”, and so this argument doesn’t make sense?

                I’m happy with Wikipedia paying their people. If there was one person making $5M per year, then I’d be fine with that, even though there isn’t. If there was one person making $50M per year, maybe I’d have some questions, but nothing like that is happening.

                Wikipedia should be setup to succeeded indefinitely at this point if it weren’t for these decisions.

                You said I sound hostile. Stuff like this is why. I’ve been dealing with maybe 5-10 different people who all have some kind of different reason of bending their way around to the conclusion “and so Wikipedia sucks.” I don’t think spending money that’s coming in, on paying people to do Wikipedia work, spells doom for Wikipedia. I don’t think that makes any sense. And, there’s been such a variety of “and so that’s why Wikipedia sucks” comments I’ve been reading that all don’t make any sense if you examine them, that it’s made me short-tempered to any given one.

                I like Wikipedia. I think it’s good.

                • @[email protected]
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                  7 months ago

                  I’m going to try to keep this super simple:

                  Salaries and wages have increased 22% compounding year-over-year for the last four years on average. This is a 120% increase in only four years (from $46,146,897 to $101,305,706).

                  Didn’t you just get super offended that I pointed out that paying the people who work for you is, in fact, a “core reponsibility”, and so this argument doesn’t make sense?

                  At this point, I sincerely think you are being obtuse; unless you believe everyone at Wikipedia, on average, is receiving 22% raises, every single year. This is not Wikipedia “paying the people who work for you,” it’s aggressive expansion, at an exponential level. In the words of Guy Macon from almost a decade ago, “Wikipedia has Cancer.” I don’t believe any company, non-profit or for-profit, can sustain this limitless expansion in the long run. And Wikipedia’s management does this all while trying to guilt trip people for donations, usually under the guise of needing it to survive. In sum, I don’t agree with the financial decisions of Wikipedia’s management, and therefore, no longer donate to them.

                  On the other hand, I don’t dislike Wikipedia or the services they provide. I’ll echo your own words: I like Wikipedia, I think it’s good, and I never said otherwise. I even referenced their website when writing all of my responses on this topic. I find it unfortunate that you interpret these sort of critiques as “and so Wikipedia sucks.” Furthermore, I don’t like how you justify your hostility based on critical responses. This is a discussion board, not an echo chamber. However, I’m very thankful that you didn’t respond with “go fuck yourself” or “kiss my ass” like you did in your last response to me. Also, I hope your having a good start to the weekend. ✌

          • @[email protected]
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            27 months ago

            Great points and thank you for the shoutout for Internet Archive. I just made my first donation.

        • @[email protected]
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          7 months ago

          Love that everyone on this thread is a financial analyst and a 501c consultant.

          For-profit companies have the margins they do because they’ve successfully detached humanity from their spending obligations. Wikipedia does not need to do quarterly global lay-offs or labor off-shoring when their technology doesn’t meet release deadlines. They are a nonprofit. They exist to bring factual, accessible information to the world. If you support for this cause, donate. If you don’t, don’t donate or don’t use. If you care for the cause but want the CEO to take a paycut, well, find them one who will stick around for more than a few years on less than the average mega CEO salary. Because most of them have not.

          • DigitalDilemma
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            47 months ago

            Love that everyone on this thread is a financial analyst and a 501c consultant.

            So people shouldn’t have an opinion unless they’re professionally qualified? I’m not sure that’s how the internet works.

            And also, people absolutely should check how their money will be spent when they consider donating. It’s their money, remember.

            If you support for this cause, donate. If you don’t, don’t donate or don’t use.

            I get that, and it’s often true I think. But when the thing that they do that you use and like is such a tiny part of their spending, is it still true?

            I care about Wikipedia’s website. I would donate to that. I don’t care about the other 90% of the things they would spent my donation on. Should I still donate?

            • @[email protected]
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              7 months ago

              If you’re asking that question because you’re genuinely conflicted about donating and you’re not just here spreading divisive nonsense on behalf of Elon Musk, you could do a deeper delve into the entire foundation or look up the Wikipedia page on Income Statements.

              You seem to be hung up on the operating expenses. That’s just a finance term for certain operational costs like the electricity bill and insurance. It does not mean the total of what it costs to run the organization and that everything else is in excess. Similarly, salary expenses includes everyone from the HR department to the custodians, not just the rich CEOs.

              • DigitalDilemma
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                17 months ago

                As I explained, I was going to donate. I did my due diligence about where my money would go and made my decision. I provided the link to Wikipedia’s own declared for the benefit of others and shared some of my reasonings elsewhere in this post.

                But in your world, anyone who questions anything is a shill for Musk? Or just those who hold a differing opinion to yours?

                salary expenses includes everyone from the HR department to the custodians, not just the rich CEOs.

                No shit, Sherlock. But where did I mention CEOs? Where did I mention Musk, come to that?

                Anyway, I’m done arguing with you. Goodbye.

    • Dadd Volante
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      57 months ago

      I’m donating 10 a month. Least I can do. It’s one of the last “good” places on the internet

    • @[email protected]
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      117 months ago

      There was a big “information” campaign against donating to wikipedia say 6 months - 2 years ago, anyone know what happened/why?

      • antonamo
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        47 months ago

        It is about the wikimedia content creators not getting a proper share while the wikimedia foundation acts basicly like Peta, Green Peace and other “Charity”-Buisnesses by using drastic and guildinducing ads even in third world countries. The server activty is funded for aprox the next 100 years and the content is created for free. Most of the money is therefore actually going to around 700 employees in the adminstration, that work on new projects, lobbying or ideas like wikimedia enterprise. But this in turn is not what the ads imply.

    • @[email protected]
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      47 months ago

      really wish there was a way to pay with “Google play” because I found a way to get Google play money by lying to google lol

      • @[email protected]
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        7 months ago

        Well, Google takes 15 to 30% off the in-app purchases made through Google Play, so you would probably be giving back Google their own money anyways, plus it would fool many people who might think they’re giving 10€ when actually they’re only giving 8,50€ or 7€ to Wikipedia and the rest to Google.

        • m-p{3}
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          37 months ago

          Better than letting that survey money expire and staying 100% with Google.

        • @[email protected]
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          17 months ago

          ding ding ding!
          I use a Firefox extension that occasionally googles random jibberish so about once a day I’ll get an opinion thing asking about the search results. Today I got one that was asking about ‘china next gen aircraft’. I got like 80 cents from it which is 80 cents less I’ll have to pay for my mullvad subscription!

  • @[email protected]
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    117 months ago

    if this was written by anyone else, I’d take it with a grain of salt.

    I just don’t believe you.

  • @[email protected]
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    427 months ago

    “PSA I reported an account because they have bad arguments in my opinion” seems like a terrible precedent of a post for this sub. Why are people upvoting this junk.

      • @[email protected]
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        207 months ago

        You should just report, block, and move on. If someone is a regular offender, their instance admin can just ban them. If they operate their own instance, they can be defederated.

        It’s good to identify bad actors, but there’s no shortage of people with dumb opinions (even on Lemmy), and pointing them out like this only gives them more attention—exactly the kind of thing they want.

          • @[email protected]
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            37 months ago

            Notice how I said “report” as the first action. If you want to keep seeing their bullshit, that’s your business, but the Fediverse works by not giving those people an audience.

            If you want to be their own personal poltergeist, haunting their every comment, that’s your choice, but I would never recommend anyone waste their sanity and emotions on a bad actor here on Lemmy any more than they have to.

            • @[email protected]
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              57 months ago

              If literally everyone did what you recommend, that would be a feasible approach. But for various reasons that’s obviously not gonna happen. What does happen when people try that is the troll continues to shit up the community for everyone else and a few people reporting them once sometimes does next to nothing. Hence you get someone like linkerbaan or universalmonk shitting in the pool for months without consequence. If you don’t block them, you can continue to report them and/or call them out, which leads to shit actually happening.

              • @[email protected]
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                17 months ago

                Like I said, “reporting” is the thing people should be doing first. But OP is so bothered by whatever person’s bullshit that they felt the need to make a PSA about it, and that to me says they need to just block and move on with their life. I would give the same recommendation to other people who are getting fixated on individual bad actors.

                Trolls don’t deserve to live in your head rent-free.

                • @[email protected]
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                  27 months ago

                  The first step to solving any problem that takes cooperation to solve is raising awareness. A single report from a person here and there is not that.

                  I think you’re more hung up up on analyzing the psychology of those trying to raise that awareness. You may not be reading them accurately, but even if you are I don’t see that mattering very much. It’s not your call what is mentally healthy for everyone else.

          • @[email protected]
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            7 months ago

            Then why are you trying to be cute and not call out the username (or usernames if they are using alts)? This doesn’t identify jack, just says that someone exists doing something nonspecifically bad towards wikipedia.

            As important as Wikipedia is, there are a ton of legitimate problems with the site and community moderators. Some of the drama that comes out of there is downright otherworldly. Without examples it’s hard to take what you’re saying seriously.

            Edit: Either there’s enough direct screenshotted evidence that this needs to be a specific call for admins to ban this person, or this just comes across as absurd escalation of some stupid internet debate.

            Second edit: it’s wikipediasuckscoop

            Do we really need a warning for someone so obviously biased? Next you’ll be warning us that madthumbs might have some reservations about the usefulness of linux.

            • @[email protected]OP
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              67 months ago

              I think it’s useful to talk about. I’m not sure why so many people are coming out lecturing me that this should be a forbidden topic for discussion.

              • @[email protected]
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                7 months ago

                I’ve literally seen no one say that it’s forbidden. Maybe one of the comment chains from someone I already have blocked does, but there’s only four two of those.

                I see plenty of people saying this is a stupid post. A post that is uselessly vague. A post that is almost entirely purposeless.

                I understand wanting to avoid brigading, but as it stands this post amounts to “You all should know that I reported someone (I won’t say who, tee hee) for posting something that I think is misinformation about Wikipedia (I won’t say what, tee hee). It’s really bad, but you’ll just have to take my word for it. This person I won’t name is just the worst. You need to know they’re the worst. But you don’t need to know who they are or what they said, that’s not important! Also I have vague consipiratorial feelings about anyone who would speak ill of Wikipedia after Musk said bad things about it, because no one could possibly have grievances or concerns with Wikipedia that are still valid despite Musk’s derangement.”


                If you wanted to spread awareness, you should have named the problem user. If you wanted to force the admins into action you should have named the problem user.

                If you are willing to give the admins time to handle things properly, especially during the fucking holidays where they likely have other things to do, instead of needlessly raising an alarm on something pitifully small… then you should have waited a few days for them to do something before running off to play vigilante with this post.

                If you want to make people waste time trying to evaluate if you’re a nutter, thin skinned, or otherwise blowing smoke… you make a post like this one.

                Either you had enough evidence to make this warning/call out post legitimately, and then you make it with names, screenshots, and fucking receipts… or you give admins time to respond and sit until they show they won’t do something.

                This weak, vague post just says that you’re too impatient to let the admins work, you don’t trust them to do what you think is the right thing, but you’re also chickenshit that they might ban you for talking about it. Rather than post this from a throwaway made on another instance you make this useless thing.


                TL;DR- People are telling you that this attempt to “warn” people is worthless without actionable info.

                • @[email protected]OP
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                  67 months ago

                  6 different people have reported my post, so presumably they think it should be forbidden, at least.

                  Hundreds of people have upvoted this post, so presumably they think it’s a worthwhile post. You are welcome to your opinion that it isn’t, of course.

              • @[email protected]
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                57 months ago

                a forbidden topic for discussion.

                I’m not getting that from the responses. What I’ve seen is

                • being vague is not effective
                • bad opinions aren’t the same as objective misinformation
                • the username checks out
                • it’s pointless to platform these people

                These all seem to reiterate the idea that “this is not a good post” and not “this subject is taboo”.

                But, if you’re messing this up, does that jeopardize your own efforts?

        • @[email protected]
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          67 months ago

          Blocking shields you from seeing their comments. But others will still see them. You’ll be unable to call them out the second time they lie if you do it like that. Which is fair enough if that’s what you wanna do, but it’s not a solution to the current issue that op is describing.

          • @[email protected]
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            37 months ago

            And that’s why reporting is such an important step that we should all be doing. That’s why I mentioned it first. Blocking is for your benefit, but it’s not strictly necessary, and the spirit of my comment is to let the admins handle it without giving them engagement or more exposure.

            So you can be a vigilante if you want, but with the number of people out there who have dumb opinions, it seems like a waste of time to try to play admin without actual admin powers.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          127 months ago

          I specifically didn’t pick that one because it’s discouraged to post about a situation you are directly involved with there.

          I couldn’t really find a good place to post about it, to be honest. This community seemed arguably okay for this kind of random stuff, and I do think it’s worth talking about this kind of thing, if we’re going to have a social network which isn’t overflowing with propaganda garbage. Also, a bunch of the people upvoting this post seem to agree with me.

          • hendrik
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            47 months ago

            Sure. I didn’t know you already put some thought into this. And I’m not in charge here. We can leave this up to the mods of YSK. If they decide to keep this post around, it’s probably alright.

  • sunzu2
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    87 months ago

    That’s a one issue account just report him and leave comments calling out the behavior.

    The issue will fix it self.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      167 months ago

      I don’t think it will, though. I’ve reported the misinformation, and it’s still up as of right now.

      I honestly am not even sure that mods should be in the habit of deciding that things are “probably” misinformation and removing them. In practice, they are not in that habit, so it’s not a solution. And even if they were, I certainly don’t think that the whole topic should be banned for discussion among the rest of us.

      • @[email protected]
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        7 months ago

        My guy it’s fucking Christmas day. The post itself is 2 hours old right now. Your response to that post is a whole whopping 4 hours old right now. Allow the admins to have at least a small grace period where they aren’t sitting right at the controls. Lemmy is nowhere near as big as Reddit, with large admin and mod teams able to take shifts.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          77 months ago

          I don’t think moderator action is the right way to handle this. I reported it so they can be aware, but I think community discussion is the right way to handle this.

            • capital
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              77 months ago

              These are random, anonymous accounts. Not trusting you is the default mode. The fuck are you talking about?

      • southsamurai
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        117 months ago

        Dude. It’s Christmas, and even if it wasn’t, mods aren’t a 24/7 presence.

        If something gets seen and handled in a day or two, it’s fine for anything that isn’t illegal or dangerous to the instance.

        Not that the mods/admins have to agree with your interpretation of whatever it is being misinformation to the kind of standard that needs intervention, but there’s other reasons it could still be up that are entirely unrelated

        • @[email protected]OP
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          157 months ago

          If something gets seen and handled in a day or two, it’s fine for anything that isn’t illegal or dangerous to the instance.

          Not that the mods/admins have to agree with your interpretation of whatever it is being misinformation

          Completely agree on all fronts. Personally, the idea “just report it, don’t say anything, mods will deal with it with their powers, it’s not for you to make these decisions or talk to one another about these things” seems kind of paternalistic on both fronts. There’s no guarantee that they’ll get it right 100% of the time, and even if they did, it would be good for us to talk about what’s going on when there is an issue that does (or doesn’t, if I am off base about this) impact the nature of the discussion on the network.

            • @[email protected]OP
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              67 months ago

              Thanks! I mean, it has hundreds of upvotes, clearly there are some people who are interested in talking about the topic and hearing what I have to say. I think the number of people who want to dogpile various lengths of essays at me about how entirely unreasonable all of this is, on my part, is maybe not correlated with the community’s overall reaction to it. Which in itself is pretty interesting.

  • beefbot
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    517 months ago

    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF WIKIPEDIA NOW. RIGHT NOW. DO NOT WAIT.

    WIKIPEDIA WILL BE RUINED IN (just guessing) THREE MONTHS (I hope I’m wrong)