[hug]

The problem, in all this, is not getting Wikipedia's expenses down to nothing. I use Wikipedia all the time, and I love it. It's an incredibly useful site and should be funded well enough to keep running indefinitely, and even have room for improvement.

On the other hand, if I choose to donate money to Wikmedia, 80% of it goes to other places, like their "content" sites, which consists of this bunch of mediocrity:

Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, and Wikidata.

I don't give a shit about any of these projects, the only one I really don't want to go away is Wikipedia, and the rest could die and I wouldn't even blink, except as those projects also support Wikipedia. Increase Wikipedia's expenses if you must! Double it! Triple it! Just don't pretend that the foundation is struggling to support the thing that most people donating actually care about.

[scrollaway]

Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons are both heavily used within Wikipedia, and Wiktionary is a very useful resource. It's kinda like saying "I don't want the money I donate to Mozilla to end up funding shitty projects like Gecko and Servo! I want it to end up in Firefox!"

There are offshoots in those, yes, but that doesn't make it a huge waste. Remember wikipedia was a very, very long shot for a very long time. To fund successes, you have to fund a lot of potential failures.

In other words, if you trust what the wikimedia foundation is doing, then you should donate to them and trust what they do with it (but feel free to challenge it and voice your opinion as a donor). And if you don't trust what they're doing, then you shouldn't be donating to them in the first place IMO, regardless of their ownership of Wikipedia.

[hug]

Re: Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, I feel like you glossed over "except as those projects also support Wikipedia", and as for Wiktionary, any of the ninety other online dictionary services will do me just as well.

With regards to the comparison to Gecko & Servo: If 80% of the development effort was going towards those projects being used only for integration with FirefoxOS, I would have the same complaint. Mozilla isn't doing that, though, and even when they were funding FirefoxOS, they didn't spit a half page banner in my face every time I opened Firefox saying "Firefox will be dead if you don't send us money!" when they were really talking about FirefoxOS.

In case it wasn't abundantly clear, I'm pointing fingers at Wikimedia's scummy donation-soliciting practices on Wikpedia.

> if you don't trust what they're doing, then you shouldn't be donating to them in the first place IMO, regardless of their ownership of Wikipedia.

I don't. So I don't. And, in fact, will be happy to argue in a bar that they shouldn't be donated to. If I could donate purely to support Wikipedia only, however, I would, and I would also argue that others should too. But I can't. So I don't.

[Mediterraneo10]

> as for Wiktionary, any of the ninety other online dictionary services will do me just as well.

Wiktionary already covers a large number of languages where other online dictionaries have noticeably poorer content, or there may be no other real online dictionary at all. Wiktionary’s entry template puts a lot of emphasis on etymologies, for instance, and these etymologies are often not easy to find on the web (as opposed to dusty print dictionaries one might not have ready access to).

[hug]

Granted, the etymology section on Wiktionary is useful (although I personally have a tendency to hit etymonline.com for etymology).

I really didn't intend for this to come across as a broadside against all of the Wikimedia properties. A projects by themselves, I would say they're all okay, I guess, but they're none of them projects I would siphon money from Wikipedia to fund.

[sago]

What a thoroughly unpleasant attitude.

> which consists of this bunch of mediocrity: Wiktionary

I use Wiktionary very regularly, and find it incredibly useful.

Presumably you don't use all of Wikipedia either, what makes you 'give a shit' about the other 99.9+% of content?

[hug]

You may find my attitude unpleasant: What I find unpleasant is a large organisation deliberately deceiving users into thinking that the resource they consider valuable is underfunded, when really they are spending those donations on side shows that these people don't even know exist, let alone want to use. WMF are like the Internet charity version of Susan G Komen.

With regards to the usefulness of Wikipedia versus Wiktionary, I like to think about their impact on the world.

Wikipedia: Eclipsed every online encyclopedia, massively, and most print encyclopedias in most degrees, and is a huge source of knowledge to a great many people who otherwise would not be able to have access to that knowledge.

Wiktionary: Is another dictionary.

It's hyperbole, sure, but it ain't by much.

That said, if you like Wiktionary enough that you want to donate to it? More power to you. I don't, particularly. And y'know, maybe this is an elitist attitude that stems from the fact that I speak English and English dictionaries abound. So grant me that I may be mistaken, and let me say "hey, also, throw in all of the hosting for Wiktionary into what I want to donate for as well, and I will be fine with it." If that's the case, then there's still a good 75% of any donation I make funding things I, yes, "don't give a shit" about. Lemme tell you, Wiktionary isn't exactly a large expense on the WMF books.

I regularly donate to a fair number of charities. If I have to donate $100 to WMF to get $20 of value of Wikipedia, I won't. If I could donate $20 to WMF to get $20 of value to Wikipedia, I would. Even if 5% of my donation went elsewhere, that would be fine. It doesn't, so it's not, and I will continue putting my charitable contributions somewhere I think they will be used to more effect.

[Tpt]

I don't think they where ever Wikimedia Foundation staff paid to work on Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikivoyage, Wikisource Wikispecies, Wikinews and Wikiversity. So, these projects cost to the Wikimedia Foundation the hosting (probably around ~100k/year at most) and some other small cost (trademark, some community support). Wikidata is developped by Wikimedia Deutchland that is an other organization than the Wikimedia Foundation and has its own fundraising. So, I believe that if you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation nearly all your donation is going to Wikipedia.

[a-nikolaev]

Yes, totally agreed. Wikimedia is over funded, yet they beg for donations all the time, and then go spending our money on tens of side projects that have no clear direction, purpose, or goal.

Edit: That branding research is another avenue for wasting our donation money.

[a-nikolaev]

http://mywikibiz.com/Top_10_Reasons_Not_to_Donate_to_Wikiped...

[gowld]

When you spend money on a Google product, half of the money goes to buy hovercars for the founder. Does that make it bad spend?

Komen does nothing of value except give people expensive happy feelings. It's not in the same league.

[hug]

My secret superpower is that I don’t pay for any Google services.

[DC-3]

Anecdote warning - I have been studying Old English this year and have found Wiktionary invaluable.

[hug]

I think it's great that Wiktionary is a good resource for you!

Hearing things like this only makes me with more that people could donate to individual projects and not the WMF at large.

[andrewshadura]

Similarly, I find it invaluable when studying Hungarian and German.

[ggchappell]

I must disagree with you about Wiktionary. It's great.

[spac]

where is the 80% figure coming from in the parent comment?