8 ms·

Who would want to donate to wikipedia when they know that a lot, probably most, goes to pushing woke politics? 2021 the hosting costs were $2.4 million and the

Who would want to donate to wikipedia when they know that a lot, probably most, goes to pushing woke politics? 2021 the hosting costs were $2.4 million and they spend well over $100 million each year. If they were to use their funds to actually drive the site they have enough to fund it for years to come. Most of their funding goes to stuff that has nothing to do with Wikipedia. This is yet another example of an org that has been taken over by political extremists that don't care about the core product and ruins everything. I am a bit upset about it because I used to donate monthly until I learned about how they actually used the donations. I think this is a very important topic and urge that everyone that donates to Wikimedia stop immedietly.

rippercushions 4y ago
Where are you getting "about 90%" from? The controversy here is about a US$4.5 million fund, which is about 2.7% of Wikimedia's 2021 income.
- commitpizza 4y ago
  Well, not true. They have employed hundreds of people and pays them ridicolous salaries. Less than half is actually used on actually operating/developing the site. Yes that fund is the most controversial part but it's not the only thing about the topic that is controversial. 2021 website hosting cost $2.4 million - which is less than it did in 2012. Most of the money they recieve by donations goes to something else. As you may see, the site hosting costs are less than what the spend on that controversial fund.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    Nice ninja edit there, your post previously claimed "about 90% goes to pushing woke politics". As you can see below, enumerated in excruciating detail in the annual reports if you'd like to dig in, the biggest component of Wikimedia's expenditure is simply paying the engineers that keep the site running and roll out improvements like the new UI, visual editing, etc. The actual hosting bill (servers, bandwidth, etc) is only a tiny fraction of that cost. https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goes/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe...
    - commitpizza 4y ago
      Yeah I get that I exaggerated my first sentence and thus edited it but it's not that far from the truth. According to their own site, https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goes/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe... about 43% goes to the websites. This is less than half. I imagine that most of these salaries are ridicolously high where they could employ cheaper devs and get an actual good representation they chose a SF office with SF employees and give them huge salaries. And since I have learned about this fund and other controversial topics about their employee count etc I question this figure as well. I am not convinced that they have devs for about $50 million per year. It's fine if you operate a for-profit company but when it's a not for profit organisation the ridicolous spending seems a bit disrespectful to the people that help shape wikipedia to what it is today.
    - akolbe 4y ago
      See interesting comment underneath the linked article by a very longstanding Wikipedia volunteer: -------------------- Problems with poorly supervised grants See discussion last month. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-09-30/Recent_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signp... I've reviewed several grants and I remain deeply worried we are spending money on stuff that is a poorly disguised attempt to raid WMF coffers. A lot of grants are 1) being used for stuff that has ZERO connection with Wikimedia movement, 2) have little to no accountaiblity (people promise to do stuff, if they fail, I see no mechanism for money to be returned to WMF) and 3) seem to have very inflated costs (ex. one project I remember well asked for ~6k$ for open access publishing, whereas I know that the average costs of OA in this very field is usually under $2k, and a lot of similar research is published at no cost yet still using OA model). While I am sure some grants are being spent on worthy causes, the amount of problems I see here is very worrying. I am glad this issue is making more waves. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC) -------------------- The words "gravy train", "cash cow" come to mind.
  - akolbe 4y ago
    See e.g. an earlier report in the same community newspaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/Special_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... The budget and headcount simply keep growing and growing. At the same time, the Foundation has had eight-figure surpluses for nine of the last ten years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial... In the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year, the surplus was close to $90 million (over $50 million increase in Foundation assets, almost $40 million increase in Endowment). Yet when volunteers complain that software tools need updating and bug-fixing, the Foundation claims there is a lack of resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-09-30/In_focus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... One thing they do spend money on is consultants and "community organizers" trying to figure out how to get people in the developing world to write Wikipedia articles in their languages for free – in part so that Big Tech's voice assistants and Knowledge Graph panels can provide answers in Indian and African languages and extend their monopolies to new markets. Money actually flowing to people in the developing world however has been a really small amount – less than $4 million in 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/News_and_notes#Where_does_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_spend_its_money%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
qwery 4y ago
How do you arrive at the claim that "probably most" donations go to "pushing woke politics"? What does "pushing woke politics" mean? Why is the cost of web hosting so important? Do any comparable organisations spend a more appropriate proportion of their revenue on web hosting? Which political extremists have taken over? What is ruined?
- nnopepe 4y ago
  >What does "pushing woke politics" mean? Pushing for global use of the US's anachronistic racial science over more nuanced alternatives such as ethnicity/nationality
  - acdha 4y ago
    Could you provide some examples? Be specific about the parts which you think are scientifically relevant.
    - boppo1 4y ago
      Well, if I'm reading this all correctly, there's no audit-trail for those funds. So, no we can't provide examples.
      - Goronmon 4y ago
        That can't be true though. OP knows they are pushing woke policies, so that information is out there.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - acdha 4y ago
        The person I was replying to made a bunch of allegations which had to be based on something, right? If you’re going to attack them for something they did there has to be some kind of specific event you could point to.
dmurray 4y ago
> Who would want to donate to wikipedia when they know that about 90%+ goes to pushing woke politics? Lots of people! The advancing of fashionable progressive causes is a far more popular thing to do today than hosting free online encyclopaedias. Wikipedia would arguably get more donations if they stuck a Black Lives Matter logo on their banner ads.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > Lots of people! The advancing of fashionable progressive causes is a far more popular thing to do today than hosting free online encyclopaedias. Wikipedia would arguably get more donations if they stuck a Black Lives Matter logo on their banner ads. I don't think so. Just because the social activists are vocal does not mean that they are numerous. In fact, looking at raw numbers, they're obviously in the minority: wikipedia donators outnumber actual BLM donators, so there are obviously more people interested in donating to wikipedia than to BLM. If the wikimedia foundation were honest in their request for donations ("We plan to spend this on political activism"), they'd get fewer donators.
_Algernon_ 4y ago
>This is yet another example of an org that has been taken over by political extremists [Citation needed]
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  >[Citation needed] Here you go, from Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger: >Wikipedia Is Badly Biased https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
  - _Algernon_ 4y ago
    Appreciate the link and it was an interesting read, but being biased does not make them extremists.
    - commitpizza 4y ago
      So supporting radical left wing people with millions of dollars for output of political propaganda does not? Would you be as apologetic if Wikimedia would donate money to people who spread nazi propaganda as well? If nothing makes them extremists, then no one is extremist. Of course it's all subjective but this is kind of what I mean that people like this destroys. If we, the other people standing by, cannot even get along to call shit out when it appears then we are royalty effed.
      - _Algernon_ 4y ago
        The original claim for which I asked a citation was "This is yet another example of an org that has been taken over by political extremists" The link you provided makes the claim "Wikipedia pages are biased in their descriptions". Those claims are not the same, thus your reference does not support the claim. I don't really care either way, but it is dishonest to refer to sources which don't even support the claim. We can't agree because you appear unable to support the original claim, use dishonest and emotionally manipulative discussion techniques ("Of course it's all subjective but this is kind of what I mean that people like this destroys. If we, the other people standing by, cannot even get along to call shit out when it appears then we are royalty effed.") and Whataboutism ("Would you be as apologetic if Wikimedia would donate money to people who spread nazi propaganda as well?") to attempt to spread your worldview.
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
[flagged]
- acdha 4y ago
  Is a Thatcherite political columnist exactly an unbiased source? That self-promotional “law” is conspicuously unsupported by evidence and seems hard to reconcile with the hard right resurgence in various around the world.
- gjm11 4y ago
  "O'Sullivan's First Law" seems like nonsense to me. Here are some counterexamples: Centrist political parties. Every small company I have worked for. (Large companies tend to be performatively social-justice-y and economically right-wing.) My local public library. Every choir, orchestra, etc., with which anyone in my family has been involved. The Church of England. (I mention this just because of the presence of the Episcopal Church in the quote. The CoE contains very left-wing bits and very right-wing bits and plenty in between, but as a whole I don't think it can reasonably be described either as left-wing or as right-wing.) I think the only way you can make the "Law" true is to define either "left-wing" or "right-wing" or both broadly enough that everything is either "left-wing" or "right-wing". (I wondered who O'Sullivan was, and noted that a web search brought up a Conservapedia page. In case anyone has forgotten how ... distinctive ... the ideas there are, I remark that their examples of O'Sullivan's First Law include Fox News, CPAC, and Pat Robertson. Anyway, it turns out that O'Sullivan is a former editor of the National Review, another thing that's on Conservapedia's list of Things That Are Now Left-Wing, and he named the "law" after himself.)
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  I have not heard of this before - thanks for the evening reading.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  > O’Sullivan’s First Law Interesting - I'd never heard of that quote, but I've definitely observed the same about online forums. But it's more like - the more moderated online forums become, the more left-wing they become.
EMIRELADERO 4y ago
> Who would want to donate to wikipedia when they know that a lot goes to pushing woke politics? What exactly do you mean by "woke politics"?
- commitpizza 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579776106034757633 https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579776106034757633 That is the twitter thread that started the uproar, all the info you'll need is in there.
- ajdude 4y ago
  May be referring to this part of the thread[1] linked in the article > Wikimedia gave $250,000 to Borealis's Racial Equity in Journalism Fund. That money was then cascaded down to a dozens of ideologically aligned news outlets across the US. > Thus, the money you give to keep Wikipedia online is diverted to bankroll the inescapable American culture war. [1] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1579776106034757633.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1579776106034757633.html
  - input_sh 4y ago
    - jules 4y ago
      Here is the message wikipedia has on its donation page: > We'll get straight to the point: Today we ask you to defend Wikipedia's independence. > We're a non-profit that depends on donations to stay online and thriving, but 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way. If everyone who reads Wikipedia gave just a little, we could keep Wikipedia thriving for years to come. The price of a cup of coffee is all we ask. > When we made Wikipedia a non-profit, people told us we’d regret it. But if Wikipedia were to become commercial, it would be a great loss to the world. > Wikipedia is a place to learn, not a place for advertising. The heart and soul of Wikipedia is a community of people working to bring you unlimited access to reliable, neutral information. > We know that most people will ignore this message. But if Wikipedia is useful to you, please consider making a donation of €5, €20, €50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia. Whether or not one likes the causes they give the money to, if they spend $100 million and they only use $2.4 million for hosting, and they also give money for political activism, then this is a misleading message, making it sound like they are on the cusp of not being able to cover the costs that keep the site online unless they start having ads on wikipedia.
atdrummond 4y ago
After reading some of the comments in the arbitration process discussed on this page (see: “Administrator desysopped after RfA comment, arb case in progress”) I would find it hard for anyone to argue, with a straight face, that the most active members of the community do not lean towards a common political ideology. Whether that influences the quality of the articles, particularly new ones, I cannot say; I was banned as an admin and editor years ago and have zero desire to return. (Although I am wondering if I might enjoy working on some of the non-English wikis, having seen that their communities seem far less internally combatative.)
- rippercushions 4y ago
  FWIW, here's the comment that led to Athaenara getting desysopped, and it amounts to a direct personal attack on an admin candidate for the sole reason that they're trans: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=&diff=prev&oldid=1115345450 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=&diff=prev&oldid=... I'm pretty sure you'd get banned here on HN for saying that as well.
  - atdrummond 4y ago
    I can simultaneously think that’s an abhorrent comment while also pointing out that the vast majority of the arguments (on both sides) regarding her ban were based on her beliefs, not her actions, which is counter to how these processes are supposed to unfold.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
      I think her action here is to represent her beliefs by submitting an oppositional vote based purely on her ideology and not the actions of the candidate. It makes sense that the ideology is also debated?
    - GaylordTuring 4y ago
      Why is it an abhorrent comment?
  - 4y ago
Gigachad 4y ago
Yeah I used to donate semi regularly but not anymore. The EFF is just about the only org I still trust.
causi 4y ago
Who would want to donate to wikipedia when they know that a lot, probably most, goes to pushing woke politics? Hold up a second. The last time I saw an article whining about political bias on Wikipedia the complaint was that Wikipedia were a bunch of incel neckbeards and/or Nazis. Has something changed?
- Gareth321 4y ago
  Things have changed a LOT in the last 15 years. There are no neckbeards left on Wikipedia. It's all purple-haired, blue check marked ideologues now. Everyone else gets banned.
  - causi 4y ago
    Well that's depressing.
  - Jotra7 4y ago
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  Wikipedia is basically the Wikipedia volunteers. Anyone can volunteer, so unsurprisingly some of the volunteers are "odd". This article is about WMF, which is run by paid employees, not volunteers. They reflect the political posture of their employer, not the consensus of the Wikipedia volunteers.
jrochkind1 4y ago
> probably most As far as I can tell from the OP and it's cited links[1], in 2021 they had around $160 in total revenue. $5 million of that went to the Tides foundation, the thing I think you are describing as "pushing woke politics". Another $50 million of that revenue was simply left over as unspent surplus. Are you talking about other expenditures as "pushing woke politics"? On what basis are you claiming that a "lot, probably most" of donations to go "pushing woke politics"? (Around 1/3rd of donations (still not "probably most") remain simply unspent, which is kind of weird, but not about "pushing woke politics"). [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
matai_kolila 4y ago
Even if that were true (it doesn't seem like you're able to substantiate this)... Good. "Woke" politics (better known as "anything conservatives don't like") are the only sane politics taking place right now. Perfect? No. Actually trying to help the people who need it most? Yes.
SilasX 4y ago
Pretty much word for word what I say about Mozilla and their constant "need" for more money.
commandlinefan 4y ago
I'll certainly never donate again.

rippercushions 4y ago

Where are you getting "about 90%" from? The controversy here is about a US$4.5 million fund, which is about 2.7% of Wikimedia's 2021 income.

commitpizza 4y ago
Well, not true. They have employed hundreds of people and pays them ridicolous salaries. Less than half is actually used on actually operating/developing the site. Yes that fund is the most controversial part but it's not the only thing about the topic that is controversial. 2021 website hosting cost $2.4 million - which is less than it did in 2012. Most of the money they recieve by donations goes to something else. As you may see, the site hosting costs are less than what the spend on that controversial fund.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  Nice ninja edit there, your post previously claimed "about 90% goes to pushing woke politics". As you can see below, enumerated in excruciating detail in the annual reports if you'd like to dig in, the biggest component of Wikimedia's expenditure is simply paying the engineers that keep the site running and roll out improvements like the new UI, visual editing, etc. The actual hosting bill (servers, bandwidth, etc) is only a tiny fraction of that cost. https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goes/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe...
  - commitpizza 4y ago
    Yeah I get that I exaggerated my first sentence and thus edited it but it's not that far from the truth. According to their own site, https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goes/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe... about 43% goes to the websites. This is less than half. I imagine that most of these salaries are ridicolously high where they could employ cheaper devs and get an actual good representation they chose a SF office with SF employees and give them huge salaries. And since I have learned about this fund and other controversial topics about their employee count etc I question this figure as well. I am not convinced that they have devs for about $50 million per year. It's fine if you operate a for-profit company but when it's a not for profit organisation the ridicolous spending seems a bit disrespectful to the people that help shape wikipedia to what it is today.
  - akolbe 4y ago
    See interesting comment underneath the linked article by a very longstanding Wikipedia volunteer: -------------------- Problems with poorly supervised grants See discussion last month. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-09-30/Recent_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signp... I've reviewed several grants and I remain deeply worried we are spending money on stuff that is a poorly disguised attempt to raid WMF coffers. A lot of grants are 1) being used for stuff that has ZERO connection with Wikimedia movement, 2) have little to no accountaiblity (people promise to do stuff, if they fail, I see no mechanism for money to be returned to WMF) and 3) seem to have very inflated costs (ex. one project I remember well asked for ~6k$ for open access publishing, whereas I know that the average costs of OA in this very field is usually under $2k, and a lot of similar research is published at no cost yet still using OA model). While I am sure some grants are being spent on worthy causes, the amount of problems I see here is very worrying. I am glad this issue is making more waves. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC) -------------------- The words "gravy train", "cash cow" come to mind.
- akolbe 4y ago
  See e.g. an earlier report in the same community newspaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/Special_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... The budget and headcount simply keep growing and growing. At the same time, the Foundation has had eight-figure surpluses for nine of the last ten years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial... In the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year, the surplus was close to $90 million (over $50 million increase in Foundation assets, almost $40 million increase in Endowment). Yet when volunteers complain that software tools need updating and bug-fixing, the Foundation claims there is a lack of resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-09-30/In_focus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... One thing they do spend money on is consultants and "community organizers" trying to figure out how to get people in the developing world to write Wikipedia articles in their languages for free – in part so that Big Tech's voice assistants and Knowledge Graph panels can provide answers in Indian and African languages and extend their monopolies to new markets. Money actually flowing to people in the developing world however has been a really small amount – less than $4 million in 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/News_and_notes#Where_does_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_spend_its_money%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...

qwery 4y ago

How do you arrive at the claim that "probably most" donations go to "pushing woke politics"? What does "pushing woke politics" mean? Why is the cost of web hosting so important? Do any comparable organisations spend a more appropriate proportion of their revenue on web hosting? Which political extremists have taken over? What is ruined?

nnopepe 4y ago
>What does "pushing woke politics" mean? Pushing for global use of the US's anachronistic racial science over more nuanced alternatives such as ethnicity/nationality
- acdha 4y ago
  Could you provide some examples? Be specific about the parts which you think are scientifically relevant.
  - boppo1 4y ago
    Well, if I'm reading this all correctly, there's no audit-trail for those funds. So, no we can't provide examples.
    - Goronmon 4y ago
      That can't be true though. OP knows they are pushing woke policies, so that information is out there.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - acdha 4y ago
      The person I was replying to made a bunch of allegations which had to be based on something, right? If you’re going to attack them for something they did there has to be some kind of specific event you could point to.

dmurray 4y ago

> Who would want to donate to wikipedia when they know that about 90%+ goes to pushing woke politics? Lots of people! The advancing of fashionable progressive causes is a far more popular thing to do today than hosting free online encyclopaedias. Wikipedia would arguably get more donations if they stuck a Black Lives Matter logo on their banner ads.

lelanthran 4y ago
> Lots of people! The advancing of fashionable progressive causes is a far more popular thing to do today than hosting free online encyclopaedias. Wikipedia would arguably get more donations if they stuck a Black Lives Matter logo on their banner ads. I don't think so. Just because the social activists are vocal does not mean that they are numerous. In fact, looking at raw numbers, they're obviously in the minority: wikipedia donators outnumber actual BLM donators, so there are obviously more people interested in donating to wikipedia than to BLM. If the wikimedia foundation were honest in their request for donations ("We plan to spend this on political activism"), they'd get fewer donators.

_Algernon_ 4y ago

>This is yet another example of an org that has been taken over by political extremists [Citation needed]

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
>[Citation needed] Here you go, from Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger: >Wikipedia Is Badly Biased https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
- _Algernon_ 4y ago
  Appreciate the link and it was an interesting read, but being biased does not make them extremists.
  - commitpizza 4y ago
    So supporting radical left wing people with millions of dollars for output of political propaganda does not? Would you be as apologetic if Wikimedia would donate money to people who spread nazi propaganda as well? If nothing makes them extremists, then no one is extremist. Of course it's all subjective but this is kind of what I mean that people like this destroys. If we, the other people standing by, cannot even get along to call shit out when it appears then we are royalty effed.
    - _Algernon_ 4y ago
      The original claim for which I asked a citation was "This is yet another example of an org that has been taken over by political extremists" The link you provided makes the claim "Wikipedia pages are biased in their descriptions". Those claims are not the same, thus your reference does not support the claim. I don't really care either way, but it is dishonest to refer to sources which don't even support the claim. We can't agree because you appear unable to support the original claim, use dishonest and emotionally manipulative discussion techniques ("Of course it's all subjective but this is kind of what I mean that people like this destroys. If we, the other people standing by, cannot even get along to call shit out when it appears then we are royalty effed.") and Whataboutism ("Would you be as apologetic if Wikimedia would donate money to people who spread nazi propaganda as well?") to attempt to spread your worldview.

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

[flagged]

acdha 4y ago
Is a Thatcherite political columnist exactly an unbiased source? That self-promotional “law” is conspicuously unsupported by evidence and seems hard to reconcile with the hard right resurgence in various around the world.
gjm11 4y ago
"O'Sullivan's First Law" seems like nonsense to me. Here are some counterexamples: Centrist political parties. Every small company I have worked for. (Large companies tend to be performatively social-justice-y and economically right-wing.) My local public library. Every choir, orchestra, etc., with which anyone in my family has been involved. The Church of England. (I mention this just because of the presence of the Episcopal Church in the quote. The CoE contains very left-wing bits and very right-wing bits and plenty in between, but as a whole I don't think it can reasonably be described either as left-wing or as right-wing.) I think the only way you can make the "Law" true is to define either "left-wing" or "right-wing" or both broadly enough that everything is either "left-wing" or "right-wing". (I wondered who O'Sullivan was, and noted that a web search brought up a Conservapedia page. In case anyone has forgotten how ... distinctive ... the ideas there are, I remark that their examples of O'Sullivan's First Law include Fox News, CPAC, and Pat Robertson. Anyway, it turns out that O'Sullivan is a former editor of the National Review, another thing that's on Conservapedia's list of Things That Are Now Left-Wing, and he named the "law" after himself.)
pxmpxm 4y ago
I have not heard of this before - thanks for the evening reading.
commandlinefan 4y ago
> O’Sullivan’s First Law Interesting - I'd never heard of that quote, but I've definitely observed the same about online forums. But it's more like - the more moderated online forums become, the more left-wing they become.

EMIRELADERO 4y ago

> Who would want to donate to wikipedia when they know that a lot goes to pushing woke politics? What exactly do you mean by "woke politics"?

commitpizza 4y ago
https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579776106034757633 https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579776106034757633 That is the twitter thread that started the uproar, all the info you'll need is in there.
ajdude 4y ago
May be referring to this part of the thread[1] linked in the article > Wikimedia gave $250,000 to Borealis's Racial Equity in Journalism Fund. That money was then cascaded down to a dozens of ideologically aligned news outlets across the US. > Thus, the money you give to keep Wikipedia online is diverted to bankroll the inescapable American culture war. [1] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1579776106034757633.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1579776106034757633.html
- input_sh 4y ago
  - jules 4y ago
    Here is the message wikipedia has on its donation page: > We'll get straight to the point: Today we ask you to defend Wikipedia's independence. > We're a non-profit that depends on donations to stay online and thriving, but 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way. If everyone who reads Wikipedia gave just a little, we could keep Wikipedia thriving for years to come. The price of a cup of coffee is all we ask. > When we made Wikipedia a non-profit, people told us we’d regret it. But if Wikipedia were to become commercial, it would be a great loss to the world. > Wikipedia is a place to learn, not a place for advertising. The heart and soul of Wikipedia is a community of people working to bring you unlimited access to reliable, neutral information. > We know that most people will ignore this message. But if Wikipedia is useful to you, please consider making a donation of €5, €20, €50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia. Whether or not one likes the causes they give the money to, if they spend $100 million and they only use $2.4 million for hosting, and they also give money for political activism, then this is a misleading message, making it sound like they are on the cusp of not being able to cover the costs that keep the site online unless they start having ads on wikipedia.

atdrummond 4y ago

After reading some of the comments in the arbitration process discussed on this page (see: “Administrator desysopped after RfA comment, arb case in progress”) I would find it hard for anyone to argue, with a straight face, that the most active members of the community do not lean towards a common political ideology. Whether that influences the quality of the articles, particularly new ones, I cannot say; I was banned as an admin and editor years ago and have zero desire to return. (Although I am wondering if I might enjoy working on some of the non-English wikis, having seen that their communities seem far less internally combatative.)

rippercushions 4y ago
FWIW, here's the comment that led to Athaenara getting desysopped, and it amounts to a direct personal attack on an admin candidate for the sole reason that they're trans: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=&diff=prev&oldid=1115345450 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=&diff=prev&oldid=... I'm pretty sure you'd get banned here on HN for saying that as well.
- atdrummond 4y ago
  I can simultaneously think that’s an abhorrent comment while also pointing out that the vast majority of the arguments (on both sides) regarding her ban were based on her beliefs, not her actions, which is counter to how these processes are supposed to unfold.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    I think her action here is to represent her beliefs by submitting an oppositional vote based purely on her ideology and not the actions of the candidate. It makes sense that the ideology is also debated?
  - GaylordTuring 4y ago
    Why is it an abhorrent comment?
- 4y ago

Gigachad 4y ago

Yeah I used to donate semi regularly but not anymore. The EFF is just about the only org I still trust.

causi 4y ago

Who would want to donate to wikipedia when they know that a lot, probably most, goes to pushing woke politics? Hold up a second. The last time I saw an article whining about political bias on Wikipedia the complaint was that Wikipedia were a bunch of incel neckbeards and/or Nazis. Has something changed?

Gareth321 4y ago
Things have changed a LOT in the last 15 years. There are no neckbeards left on Wikipedia. It's all purple-haired, blue check marked ideologues now. Everyone else gets banned.
- causi 4y ago
  Well that's depressing.
- Jotra7 4y ago
denton-scratch 4y ago
Wikipedia is basically the Wikipedia volunteers. Anyone can volunteer, so unsurprisingly some of the volunteers are "odd". This article is about WMF, which is run by paid employees, not volunteers. They reflect the political posture of their employer, not the consensus of the Wikipedia volunteers.

jrochkind1 4y ago

> probably most As far as I can tell from the OP and it's cited links[1], in 2021 they had around $160 in total revenue. $5 million of that went to the Tides foundation, the thing I think you are describing as "pushing woke politics". Another $50 million of that revenue was simply left over as unspent surplus. Are you talking about other expenditures as "pushing woke politics"? On what basis are you claiming that a "lot, probably most" of donations to go "pushing woke politics"? (Around 1/3rd of donations (still not "probably most") remain simply unspent, which is kind of weird, but not about "pushing woke politics"). [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

matai_kolila 4y ago

Even if that were true (it doesn't seem like you're able to substantiate this)... Good. "Woke" politics (better known as "anything conservatives don't like") are the only sane politics taking place right now. Perfect? No. Actually trying to help the people who need it most? Yes.

SilasX 4y ago

Pretty much word for word what I say about Mozilla and their constant "need" for more money.

commandlinefan 4y ago

I'll certainly never donate again.