Wikipaedia Donations - I just donated $10

[Thoriso]

Hey everyone, Did you see Jimmy Wales plea for donations to Wikipaedia?

I donated $10.

I will donate atleast $10 - $100 every now and then. I hope you guys chime in too. Google is our enemy and out of all the promises to "Do no evil" and avoid the corporate structure, the Panda was a real turn around.

Wikipaedia has atleast stuck to its founding principles; for that I think they deserve a mention and a dollar or two.

I could be wrong, and I don't mind being corrected.

What do you guys say?

 

[randomo]

Yes, absolutely. I make a donation each year.

 

[dcristo]

Due to the recent panda update it seems wiki dominates the organic search results even more, so no I am not feeling generous.

 

[rngrdanny22]

So why is Google so bad? Without Google, Wikipedia gets far fewer visits...

On top of that, you claim to avoid a corporate structure, but what exactly are they using your money for? Most information is uploaded by users, so they shouldn't need very many employees... just server costs. All your doing is lining this guy's pockets!

 

[George Verdugo]

so why is google so bad? Without google, wikipedia gets far fewer visits...

On top of that, you claim to avoid a corporate structure, but what exactly are they using your money for? Most information is uploaded by users, so they shouldn't need very many employees... Just server costs. All your doing is lining this guy's pockets!

i totally agree!!

 

[dcristo]

Actually it was a good wake up call not to be so reliant on google for traffic.

 

[Theo]

Wikipedia is an artificial authority. One would expect they have a special agreement with Google - hence, financing - with their results being pushed to #1 for organic terms. eHow has true content and the panda releases totally buried them. I would rather donate to a food bank than Wikipedia.

 

[peter]

Wikipedia is an artificial authority. One would expect they have a special agreement with Google - hence, financing - with their results being pushed to #1 for organic terms. eHow has true content and the panda releases totally buried them. I would rather donate to a food bank than Wikipedia.

I think you are incorrect regarding Wikipedia, as well as eHow, as well as Google

 

[dcristo]

I think google has good intentions with the panda update but they have got it horribly wrong and to suggest its a minor update is insulting. Sites like eHow are content farms and don't deserve top rankings, but due to the algorithmic changes, innocent sites have also taken a hit. Webmasters should understand that linking to Wikipedia is lazy and a disservice to someone else who really deserves the link! If it weren't for wiki's authority they wouldn't be owning the top search results, and when you really think about linking to a resource, consider if wiki REALLY is the best source on that subject instead of mindlessly linking to wiki because its convenient.

 

[rngrdanny22]

Wikipedia is nothing more than "eHow research".

 

[Theo]

I think you are incorrect regarding Wikipedia, as well as eHow, as well as Google

You can have your own opinion but in Europe Google is recognized for its evil intentions. At least the EU has the balls to issue citations and fines.

---------- Post added at 11:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:07 AM ----------

Wikipedia is nothing more than "eHow research".

It's actually worse. Wikipedia is a 'club' and those that profess authority over certain matters almost never relinquish it to others. If you want an encyclopaedia with accuracy as the main focus, there's Britannica.

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Google has no firm alliances. It's a ruthless and cold engine. The day could come soon whereby G drops W from its results. In that case Bing is your friend.

 

[Theo]

Amen!

 

[Gerry]

It's actually worse. Wikipedia is a 'club' and those that profess authority over certain matters almost never relinquish it to others. If you want an encyclopaedia with accuracy as the main focus, there's Britannica.

Ditto. People need to read all the disclaimers for the articles found in Wikipedia. Most of those disclaimers mention unsubstantiated text, rules, history, etc.

As a place for everyone to contribute, there is no moderation as to what is submitted. It is a place for mass collaboration. Yes, it is almost like a forum (ie, here) where members contribute to what might be construed as guidelines for nOObs.

Wikipedia describes a wiki environment as:

Legal environment

Joint authorship of articles, in which different users participate in correcting, editing, and compiling the finished product

Wiki(pedia) is a good source of information but should not be considered as an authoritative referenced source. It's like quoting something you found on You Tube as being "official news".

---------- Post added at 01:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 PM ----------

Google has no firm alliances. It's a ruthless and cold engine. The day could come soon whereby G drops W from its results. In that case Bing is your friend.

G actually had toyed with this proposition. A year or two ago they declared that they were going to de-emphasis and de-rank "historical" information...for instance, the information from Wikipedia. These were mostly static pages that were not updated, not current, and not relevant to most search habits.

Apparently some within or part of wikipedia are doing more editing or rewriting to make changes to the static pages to make them look like "newly sourced" works. I say "apparently" as wikipedia still shows high in the rankings on searches.

 

[katherine]

I'm not donating. I, too, would rather donate to a food bank or Amnesty International.

I don't have a short memory and I always keep in mind that they have had shortcomings and failures.
http://www.dnjournal.com/newsletters/2009/july.htm

 

[randomo]

I donate to helping-the-needy causes too, but since I and my kids use Wikipedia many times a year, I drop them a bit of money to help keep their servers running or whatever. Not a big deal either way.

 

[stewie]

ask for $10 and everyone gives you their 2cents worth... lmao


here's my 2cents worth... Wiki needs $10 like Frank needs another domain. ound:

 

[rngrdanny22]

I just saw a banner on wikipedia where one of their "programmers" was begging for money too. But doesn't wikipedia use the open source "WikiMedia" for their site? What the hell exactly does he "program"?



That's like me saying I'm a vBulleting programmer because I know how to install it and run a forum...

 

[Tia Wood]

But doesn't wikipedia use the open source "WikiMedia" for their site? What the hell exactly does he "program"?

Wikipedia is owned by WikiMedia Foundation which runs on the open source MediaWiki which anyone can download,use,extend,etc for their own projects: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki

Maybe he extends MediaWiki for Wikipedia?

 

[DN BROKER]

No thanks, I'll pass on donating to a website that is not based on 100% factual events, history, etc. Their is a lot on the site that is written by people who make up history based on their foreign policies. I spoke to a University Professor not long ago and he raised this issue how the current generation uses this sites propaganda information to spread knowledge based on what they consider factual. I will never put a penny into such an organization that is nothing but a cash grab.