Elon Musk takes aim at Wikipedia
Elon Musk takes aim at Wikipedia
Musk has denounced Wikipedia as "Wokepedia" on X and urged people not to donate to the platform.
Well, I'd been putting it off so I figured this was the push I needed to donate again
Wikipedia is a good cause, but I feel like archive.org is in dire need of fundings.
Then English wikipedia is only about 100GB (excluding videos), archive.org is in the TERABYTES with some report of it being in PETABYTES. They need funding to keep up the maintenance of their storage and backups, and for the bandwith for people to access it. They've been attacked by hackers a few months ago so they'll need better security and that might cost money. They are under constant lawsuits over alleged copyright issues, lawsuits cost a lot of money. They're gonna need more funding than wikipedia to survive. I think Wikipedia already has enough funding to survive for quite a while.
Edit: What I means is, for every $5 wikipedia needs, archive.org might need like $50
So if you want to help both, the ratio of donations should be at least 10 to 1 (ratio between archive.org and Wikipedia)
Just sent them $50 as well. Thanks for reminding me, Musk!
Do you want me to donate to Wikipedia? Because NOW I’m going to donate to Wikipedia
I will join you
This news caused me to set up a recurring monthly donation, where I haven't actually donated to Wikipedia historically.
Same. $5 a month is a small price to pay to ensure that Wikipedia remains free of this turd's influence.
Actually thank you. Yep monthly I’ve have now set up
Thanks Elon.
A freely accessible collection of human knowledge? Of course authoritarians hate it. An informed populace is their enemy.
All under the guise of "free speech". Which, as we all know, means speech that align with Elon's currently held opinions.
Reminds me to donate to Wikipedia ..... and download another updated copy of the entire Wikipedia database.
Got any links on how to do that?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
Kiwix seems to be the most popular app to browse offline web pages like this.
I'd like to see how much of an uptick in these they've gotten lately. I'm gonna do this myself
Just made my donation to Wikipedia, never have before, this news is as good a prompt as I could have ever received
I donated last night. The Christmas spirit moved me
You inspired me. Let's keep it rolling.
Just donated
Could someone please take aim at Elon Musk?
Will no one rid me of this turbulent apartheidist?
Nice deep cut reference there. Well done
One can dream.
Guess who's getting their first donation ever from me.
Wait, maybe that's what he wanted to have happen. Maybe?
Please do not assign reverse altruism to horrible actions being done by horrible people.
Same.
Fuck musk
I have my issues with Wikipedia, and he’s not wrong about the concentration of power amongst editors. However, fuck Elon Musk. He’s just mad that he can’t control Wikipedia himself.
he’s not wrong about the concentration of power amongst editors
The classic problem of an open-edit document like Wikipedia is the manpower it takes to manage the project properly relative to the incentives to fuck with it by malicious actors. Elon's answer to this problem is to monetize the sinking ship to the hilt and then use the excess revenues to buy the next new thing. The Jimmy Wales approach is to build out a network of trusted administrators and semi-trusted volunteers to play wack-a-mole on this one single project forever.
Originally, the theory of Wikipedia was that you'd have far more good actors than bad. Therefore, the bulk of the encyclopedia would accumulate useful information that went largely unmolested and didn't need to be babysat by live humans. This... hasn't proven to be the case. So the costs of the website continue to expand as the content base does.
Automation of spammers, scammers, and malicious actors has made the problem even more difficult. And I have no doubt that Elon's own digital vandalism efforts have taken their toll as well. There's simply too much economic incentive to fuck with the public's understanding of the world for a project like Wikipedia to go ignored.
I'm afraid its days are ultimately numbered, precisely because too many people trust it.
Makes me wonder if you won't see and Andrew Carnegie of this era step up and endow it against his fellow capitalist.
Thank you Elon for reminding me to donate.
Never donated to Wikipedia in my life, but now I do, and its monthly. It's not much, but it's honestly work.
this guy is really good at making enemies
He's a vulture capitalist. Very good at finding ways to cannibalize a nice public thing for the benefit of a handful of private malicious actors.
That's always going to make enemies. But so what? You're a vulture. You can always pick up and leave today, then find another wounded animal to prey on tomorrow.
He’s such a snowflake
Leon Skum urges people not to donate? That's a good reason to donate.
Fuck you I'm gonna donate even harder
Musk is such a dumbass.
Leave it to wingnut trolls like Musk to politicize everything.
The claim about the budget is true.
A Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson told Newsweek in an email that the chart's equity section "refers to making it possible for more people to share reliable knowledge on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects."
The email continues: "Wikipedia is built on the premise that it becomes better when more people of different backgrounds—including political persuasions—source, edit, curate and research content. Our equity goal advances that. The 'Safety & Inclusion' goal (now titled 'Safety & Integrity' in our 2024-2025 plan) is focused on ensuring that people are able to freely access and safely contribute to knowledge on Wikipedia in a changing legal and policy environment globally."
The spokesperson continued: "The goal centers on legal efforts that protect free expression, prevent censorship and advocate for laws and regulations that keep Wikipedia accessible for all to use."
I don't think that's where a lot of donors (especially but not exclusively conservative donors) want their money going, and I don't think Wikipedia's donation requests would lead these donors to realize that that's where some of their money would be going.
Where your donation goes
Technology: Servers, bandwidth, maintenance, development. Wikipedia is one of the top 10 websites in the world, and it runs on a fraction of what other top websites spend.
People and Projects: The other top websites have thousands of employees. Wikimedia Foundation has about 700 staff and contractors to support a wide variety of projects, making your donation a great investment in a highly-efficient not-for-profit organization.
I suppose that "People and Projects" is vague enough that it isn't false, but I was certainly surprised when I saw the actual budget allocation.
Edit: I accidentally posted this with an image from an episode of the Simpsons instead of the chart I meant to post. Please disregard that.
I don’t think that’s where a lot of donors (especially but not exclusively conservative donors) want their money going, and I don’t think Wikipedia’s donation requests would lead people to understand that that’s where some of their money would be going.
Why are you trying to frame this as if wikipedia was lying on where their funding goes when your own source is their own transparency article?
They're not lying but they're being misleading. Everyone who donates sees the donation page, but it's reasonable to assume that almost all of those donors don't read the "Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024/Finance" page.
I don’t think that’s where a lot of donors (especially but not exclusively conservative donors) want their money going
You don't think people want to access Wikipedia safely and securely or guarantee an egalitarian sourcing of information?
I was certainly surprised when I saw the actual budget allocation.
"I didn't know how a public-facing non-profit catalogue of information spent its money. Now I do. And I hate it."
shrug
Why do people think their own personal ignorance is an indictment?
How do you think employees get paid?
I assume that employee salaries are included in the category that corresponds to the work that they do.
Your donation goes towards running Wikipedia. There's a blurb for pitching that, with a few details, but if you want everything, you gave to go to another page and read it? That all sounds exactly like what I'd expect from a banner ad seeking donations for a website