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by fourseventy 1246 days ago
Wikipedia gives away an amazing product for free and people still find something to bitch about.
2 comments

Wikipedia isn't creating the content, so that's not true. They give away a product that is donated to them by the editors who are not paid.
They do indeed pay editors, by awarding grants to hold article writing/editing marathons which they call "edit-thons".

Look up the awardees of those grants; it is clear that they largely go to organizations supporting specific political narratives.

  > organizations supporting specific political narratives.
Yes, you're referring to the Tides Foundation, the shady outfit that launders the Wikimedia donations into causes that the Wikimedia donors aren't aware of.

That doesn't change the fact that the majority of content on Wikipedia was freely created by non-staff. So they're "giving away" something that was given to them for free, not something they created.

No, I am referring to monetary grants by Wikipedia themselves, which are only a Google search away, if you'd care to look.
Wikimedia is who you donate to, not Wikipedia. Wikipedia is owned by Wikimedia, and Wikimedia gives money to a lot of shady causes, laundered via the donor advised funds set up by Tides Foundation.

I say laundered because of how donor advised funds work. You donate to Wikimedia, because you hope it goes to running Wikipedia. But that Wikimedia endowment is controlled by Tides Foundation. So you can see the money go in, but not necessarily where it comes out.

I had donated to Wikipedia almost every year before I saw this kind of thing and Wikipedia basically became an entity advancing US foreign policy.