• @[email protected]
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    624 months ago

    Guess who’s getting their first donation ever from me.

    Wait, maybe that’s what he wanted to have happen. Maybe?

    • @[email protected]
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      374 months ago

      I’m at the point now where I believe every possible thing he wants will be to the detriment of humanity.

      He almost certainly does not want that

      I think I’ll do the same

      • @[email protected]
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        124 months ago

        Eh. He wants to be king of Mars. Making life as shit as possible on Earth would certainly help speed that process up.

        • Riskable
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          54 months ago

          We should speed that along and send him there soon.

        • @[email protected]
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          74 months ago

          King of Mars while living on earth. Do you really think he’d want to live there? He might visit once, but probably by VR.

          • @[email protected]
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            14 months ago

            His own little fiefdom where he gets to be worshipped by everyone or else? Yeah, I can see that.

  • @[email protected]
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    4 months ago

    The claim about the budget is true.

    Source.

    A Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson told Newsweek in an email that the chart’s equity section “refers to making it possible for more people to share reliable knowledge on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.”

    The email continues: “Wikipedia is built on the premise that it becomes better when more people of different backgrounds—including political persuasions—source, edit, curate and research content. Our equity goal advances that. The ‘Safety & Inclusion’ goal (now titled ‘Safety & Integrity’ in our 2024-2025 plan) is focused on ensuring that people are able to freely access and safely contribute to knowledge on Wikipedia in a changing legal and policy environment globally.”

    The spokesperson continued: “The goal centers on legal efforts that protect free expression, prevent censorship and advocate for laws and regulations that keep Wikipedia accessible for all to use.”

    I don’t think that’s where a lot of donors (especially but not exclusively conservative donors) want their money going, and I don’t think Wikipedia’s donation requests would lead these donors to realize that that’s where some of their money would be going.

    Where your donation goes

    Technology: Servers, bandwidth, maintenance, development. Wikipedia is one of the top 10 websites in the world, and it runs on a fraction of what other top websites spend.

    People and Projects: The other top websites have thousands of employees. Wikimedia Foundation has about 700 staff and contractors to support a wide variety of projects, making your donation a great investment in a highly-efficient not-for-profit organization.

    Source.

    I suppose that “People and Projects” is vague enough that it isn’t false, but I was certainly surprised when I saw the actual budget allocation.

    Edit: I accidentally posted this with an image from an episode of the Simpsons instead of the chart I meant to post. Please disregard that.

    • @[email protected]
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      474 months ago

      I don’t think that’s where a lot of donors (especially but not exclusively conservative donors) want their money going, and I don’t think Wikipedia’s donation requests would lead people to understand that that’s where some of their money would be going.

      Why are you trying to frame this as if wikipedia was lying on where their funding goes when your own source is their own transparency article?

      • @[email protected]
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        4 months ago

        They’re not lying but they’re being misleading. Everyone who donates sees the donation page, but it’s reasonable to assume that almost all of those donors don’t read the “Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024/Finance” page.

    • @[email protected]
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      124 months ago

      Your donation goes towards running Wikipedia. There’s a blurb for pitching that, with a few details, but if you want everything, you gave to go to another page and read it? That all sounds exactly like what I’d expect from a banner ad seeking donations for a website

      • @[email protected]
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        24 months ago

        I assume that employee salaries are included in the category that corresponds to the work that they do.

    • @[email protected]
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      4 months ago

      I don’t think that’s where a lot of donors (especially but not exclusively conservative donors) want their money going

      You don’t think people want to access Wikipedia safely and securely or guarantee an egalitarian sourcing of information?

      I was certainly surprised when I saw the actual budget allocation.

      “I didn’t know how a public-facing non-profit catalogue of information spent its money. Now I do. And I hate it.”

      shrug

      Why do people think their own personal ignorance is an indictment?

  • @[email protected]
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    1514 months ago

    A freely accessible collection of human knowledge? Of course authoritarians hate it. An informed populace is their enemy.

    • @[email protected]
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      124 months ago

      All under the guise of “free speech”. Which, as we all know, means speech that align with Elon’s currently held opinions.

  • Chainweasel
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    184 months ago

    Well, I’d been putting it off so I figured this was the push I needed to donate again

  • IninewCrow
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    364 months ago

    Reminds me to donate to Wikipedia … and download another updated copy of the entire Wikipedia database.

        • IninewCrow
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          4 months ago

          I’ve only ever used Kiwix … it’s the easiest and most easily installable on different devices.

          I’ve downloaded the entire database about six times now over the past few years. I keep a duplicated copy everywhere … laptop, tablet, storage drive, portable drive, smartphone … in multiple places at home / cottage / relatives place

          My latest download will only be to have an updated copy as my last one is about a year old.

          I don’t like doomsday prepping and I don’t really prepare for anything. I’ve been self sufficient all my life and if the world ends, I’ll be able to make do on my own, I always have. But when it comes to knowledge and information, keeping a copy of Wikipedia is no-brainer for me.

          • @[email protected]
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            24 months ago

            I’m not the prepper person either, but I like to be self-sufficient and not be overly reliant on modern technology. My primary use case has been during travels.

    • @[email protected]
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      34 months ago

      I’d like to see how much of an uptick in these they’ve gotten lately. I’m gonna do this myself

  • shoulderoforion
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    864 months ago

    Just made my donation to Wikipedia, never have before, this news is as good a prompt as I could have ever received Fuck Elon Musk

  • Allah
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    194 months ago

    this guy is really good at making enemies

    • @[email protected]
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      4 months ago

      He’s a vulture capitalist. Very good at finding ways to cannibalize a nice public thing for the benefit of a handful of private malicious actors.

      That’s always going to make enemies. But so what? You’re a vulture. You can always pick up and leave today, then find another wounded animal to prey on tomorrow.

  • @[email protected]
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    394 months ago

    I have my issues with Wikipedia, and he’s not wrong about the concentration of power amongst editors. However, fuck Elon Musk. He’s just mad that he can’t control Wikipedia himself.

    • @[email protected]
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      4 months ago

      he’s not wrong about the concentration of power amongst editors

      The classic problem of an open-edit document like Wikipedia is the manpower it takes to manage the project properly relative to the incentives to fuck with it by malicious actors. Elon’s answer to this problem is to monetize the sinking ship to the hilt and then use the excess revenues to buy the next new thing. The Jimmy Wales approach is to build out a network of trusted administrators and semi-trusted volunteers to play wack-a-mole on this one single project forever.

      Originally, the theory of Wikipedia was that you’d have far more good actors than bad. Therefore, the bulk of the encyclopedia would accumulate useful information that went largely unmolested and didn’t need to be babysat by live humans. This… hasn’t proven to be the case. So the costs of the website continue to expand as the content base does.

      Automation of spammers, scammers, and malicious actors has made the problem even more difficult. And I have no doubt that Elon’s own digital vandalism efforts have taken their toll as well. There’s simply too much economic incentive to fuck with the public’s understanding of the world for a project like Wikipedia to go ignored.

      I’m afraid its days are ultimately numbered, precisely because too many people trust it.

      • @[email protected]
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        24 months ago

        I’m proud to downvote this screed of baseless doomsaying but I’m dismayed at the fact that I’m the only one doing so.

        Just goes to show that you come to Lemmy because of the potential of a federated platform, not for the reality of its current community (which is absolute garbage.)

        • @[email protected]
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          14 months ago

          this screed of baseless doomsaying

          If you think enshittification can’t come for you, its only a matter of time before you’re proven wrong.

          • @[email protected]
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            24 months ago

            If you think that enshittification of all platforms everywhere is completely inevitable and we should just throw up our hands and give up at the slightest threat then you’re unfortunately in good company here.

      • @[email protected]
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        24 months ago

        Makes me wonder if you won’t see and Andrew Carnegie of this era step up and endow it against his fellow capitalist.