The whole premise of Wikipedia (or aspiration, at least, and yes, not always fulfilled ...) is that people should have information so they can't be manipulated.
It kind of sucks to see the very organisation hosting the site do the opposite, don't you think?
But the banners I've seen have invariably been about the imminent demise of Wikipedia. Not that they got lots of other side projects they want funded.
If you assume the fund drive exists to help keep the lights on then I think it is natural to treat it as an existential issue for Wikipedia, but that doesn't seem to match the specific language used.
2020/2021 revenue goal: $108M, increased to $125M, total at end of year: $154M
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWikim...
2021/2022 revenue target: $150M, already exceeded by end of quarter 3, weeks before the start of the fundraiser in India, South Africa and South America:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AF%26A...
I agree with others that Wikipedia very carefully makes it sound like they've got a sob story where if you don't donate they're going to shut down, so they probably get a lot of donations made with the belief that they're funding Wikipedia, but instead it gets shunted out to something else. Maybe something the donor is OK with, but maybe something not.
[Citation needed]
And by citation needed, i mean i think this is a false statement. Unless you count things that help multiple wikimedia sites as not helping wikipedia because it is not just wikipedia. After all, all of these sites run the same software, a bug fix affects all of them pretty equally.
Charities seem to do do that sort of thing to raise money, probably because it works and also because the current activities are already funded.
When donations are sought after a disaster the implication is that the money is going to directly help the victims, but the reality is that it will fund other efforts, possibly including helping the victims of a future disaster.
I don't know how much experience they have, maybe stats say that subtle UX don't generate enough donations, while massive hated popups still bring massively more money. I hope so..
I don't know whether this is intentional, but if it is, then I would classify it as a dirty, attention-grabbing, dark-pattern-esque, trick. It would be more honest if they just used the blink tag.
Frankly, calling it dystopic that businesses play by the laws as written is ridiculous. Change the laws instead of expecting businesses to self-regulate out of the goodness of their hearts. Why is that dystopic?
Wikipedians wouldn't work for free for a subscription service. The whole project would fork to a new host. The Wikimedia Foundation's own mission statement says, "The Foundation will make and keep useful information from its projects available on the internet free of charge, in perpetuity."
You can't contribute donations to Firefox; you can only contribute to the Mozilla Foundation, which spends most of the money it gets from donations on things that aren't Firefox.
The question as to whether this is manipulative isn't "is there are any clear statement of fact that is unambiguously a lie even in the most charitable possible interpretation?", it's "will this make ill-informed readers think their donations are necessary for Wikipedia's survival, and is this impression created deliberately?"
I think that's a very obvious "yes and yes".
The donations are used for side projects almost all donors are completely unaware of, whose existence and nature are not hinted at in the ads soliciting donations.
They way they DO stay online for a resilient amount of time is by generating money, i.e. through donations.
In fact, they used to say exactly how many months they have left. Now they don't say that, because they feel they can allow themselves that. Does that mean that it makes sense to stop fundraising? No. Because the minute the public doesn't feel that there's an urgency in donating to your cause, then it's someone else's problem, meaning it's nobody's problem and that's how you kill NPOs.
Money generates money. To fund something in perpetuity you need enough that the returns from investing it (taking into account tax, costs, inflation, etc) exceed the annual payment needed. This is not an infinite amount.
I haven't checked the figures but the article claims the foundation has $400 million cash and Wikipedia costs under $2 million per annum. There's no easy way of calculating the maximum annual sum that can be taken out in perpetuity from a well managed endowment but it's certainly a lot more than 0.5%.
https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Landi...
We ask you, humbly, to help.
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.
...
We know that most people will ignore this message. But if Wikipedia is useful to you, please consider making a donation of or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.
In fact, if they stop begging, what percentage of their users will contribute? Will it remain at 2%?
Just saying. If the WMF were working flat out on serving the volunteer community it would be a different matter. But it's taken on a life of its own, with Wikipedia as its cash cow.
Also, last year, the then-Wikimedia CEO Katherine Maher was on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. (The wife of the WMF’s PR consultant, the Clinton Foundation’s Craig Minassian, works on the show as a producer.)
In the interview, Noah put it to Maher that the downside of being a non-profit is that “you often struggle to have enough money to keep Wikipedia up and running. So, two parts. One, is that true and how does it affect you, and then, two, why would you make this thing if it’s not going to make you money?”
Maher’s cheerful answer made no reference to the WMF’s vast money reserves, but emphasised that Wikipedia’s lack of ads was responsible for the site being so trusted today.
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais...
If you are in the US, you can view the interview clip here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKdn1s9Sjfo&t=270s
If you're in the UK or Europe, use a VPN (Opera e.g. has got one built in).
That episode of the Daily Show was around April 2021. So, their funds were much smaller then.
From the article: “In 2021, the appeals raised a total of $162 million, a 50% year-on-year increase.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12...
At the time they had reported net assets in excess of $77 million. Even by mid-2020, that had increased to $180 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial...
The Wikimedia Foundation had an 8-figure surplus in 9 of the last 10 years. The only exception was 2013/2014, where the surplus was "only" $8.3M. That was their "worst year" in the last ten years. The Wikimedia Foundation has beaten its own annual revenue record every year of its existence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial...
What's it for? Tell donors what they are funding.
And somehow the priorities are wrong. The Wikimedia Foundation has annual 8-figure surpluses, but volunteers are writing open letters to complain that the Foundation fails to update and maintain critical aspects of the software:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Think_big_-_open_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/Coo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
What the WMF does produce, however, is reams and reams of words about "strategy", "leadership", "codes of conduct" etc.
And millions of dollars are given away to progressive organisations that have nothing to do with Wikipedia:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list...
Wikimedia has a 100/100 transparency rating.
How is this misleading? They provide an incredibly large amount of information.
And more information can be found here:
Yes, users can go elsewhere to find the information. The records are on file in the metaphorical filing cabinet downstairs. But if the messaging you're putting front and center contradicts said records, their existence doesn't counter criticism of the messaging
Calls to action are kept intentionally short because the research on human psychology is clear: every additional sentence beyond the first few decreases the odds of a conversion (that's adspeak for "closing the deal").
But effectiveness doesn't imply ethicality, so "but it's effective" is not a defense against criticism of ethics.
Be careful, if you argue that your opinions are not wrong, you'll be admitting your comment here is wrong.
Has Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation broken any?
Prove to me they are lying. Nothing on their donation page seems to be a lie.
Your comment on the other hand is very misleading.
from the knowledge equity fund page. what the heck
A good encyclopedia would present information from myriad perspectives, not just whatever happened to be "dominant." I want my article about Christoper Colombus to talk about how 19th century immigrants to America, especially Italians, found him inspirational, but also about how he was brutal, greedy, and ineffectual.
(The current Wikipedia article is actually not bad on that front).
Yeah, let's get away from imperialism and patriarchalism ...