When will Wikipedia stop begging anually?

[amitabhishek]

Hey Bush! Instead of bailing out those brokers and bankers, How about lending a helping hand here?

[halovivek]

The wikipedia is doing good. since there is no ads served to gain from it. we can read the article freely. if the thought to do money in ads display. they will get 10 times money. what the now what, they are doing good. we should support them. Dont use like words begging and all. most of the searches and details you will find in wiki.

[cammin]

You can't go making such extreme claims without backing them up with references. Ironically, this is something Wikipedia intensely discourages.

There was an article (with references) on Wikipeida. But it was deleted for some reason.

[underthechair]

Maybe when Jimi Wales doesn't need a new yacht?

http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/

If you want to check what the Wikimedia Foundation is doing with donations, it publishes an Annual Report here and audited financial statements here.

If adverts were run on Wikipedia they would instantly generate many times more money than an annual fundraiser - enough money to buy a whole flotilla of yachts. They choose not to do this, which I think says a great deal about their attitude to yacht acquisition.

[handy]

If you want to check what the Wikimedia Foundation is doing with donations, it publishes an Annual Report here and audited financial statements here.

If adverts were run on Wikipedia they would instantly generate many times more money than an annual fundraiser - enough money to buy a whole flotilla of yachts. They choose not to do this, which I think says a great deal about their attitude to yacht acquisition.

The yacht remark was tongue in cheek, the intention was to draw attention to the site I linked to.

Did you read any of the documentation on the link I posted?


This site examines the phenomenon of Wikipedia. We are interested in them because they have a massive, unearned influence on what passes for reliable information. Search engines rank their pages near the top. While Wikipedia itself does not run ads, they are the most-scraped site on the web. Scrapers need content — any content will do — in order to carry ads from Google and other advertisers. This entire effect is turning Wikipedia into a generator of spam. It is primarily Google's fault, since Wikipedia might find it difficult to address the issue of scraping even if they wanted to. Google doesn't care; their ad money comes right off the top.

You can hotlink to me ! For example, it did not take long, using the Google and Yahoo engines, to find 52 different domains that scraped Wikipedia's page on rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Interestingly, Google listed more than four times the number of duplicate scrapes than Yahoo. This could be related to the fact that 83 percent of these scraped pages carry ads — almost always ads from Google. Some of these scrapes are template-generated across different domains, suggesting that they are created by programs. At that point zombie PCs might be dispatched to click on the ads.

Jimmy Wales, the man behind Wikipedia, probably approves of this practice. After he made a fortune in futures trading, he started up Bomis.com in the mid-1990s. Bomis was one of the first sites to scrape the ad-free Open Directory Project, and turn it into a huge mass of paid links and ads, mixed together with porn.

[underthechair]

The yacht remark was tongue in cheek, the intention was to draw attention to the site I linked to.

Did you read any of the documentation on the link I posted?


This site examines the phenomenon of Wikipedia. We are interested in them because they have a massive, unearned influence on what passes for reliable information. Search engines rank their pages near the top. While Wikipedia itself does not run ads, they are the most-scraped site on the web. Scrapers need content — any content will do — in order to carry ads from Google and other advertisers. This entire effect is turning Wikipedia into a generator of spam. It is primarily Google's fault, since Wikipedia might find it difficult to address the issue of scraping even if they wanted to. Google doesn't care; their ad money comes right off the top.

You can hotlink to me ! For example, it did not take long, using the Google and Yahoo engines, to find 52 different domains that scraped Wikipedia's page on rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Interestingly, Google listed more than four times the number of duplicate scrapes than Yahoo. This could be related to the fact that 83 percent of these scraped pages carry ads — almost always ads from Google. Some of these scrapes are template-generated across different domains, suggesting that they are created by programs. At that point zombie PCs might be dispatched to click on the ads.

Jimmy Wales, the man behind Wikipedia, probably approves of this practice. After he made a fortune in futures trading, he started up Bomis.com in the mid-1990s. Bomis was one of the first sites to scrape the ad-free Open Directory Project, and turn it into a huge mass of paid links and ads, mixed together with porn.

You appear to be complaining that the content of Wikipedia is released under a free licence. Beyond that, none of what you posted has anything to do with Wikipedia.

[conundrumx]

Canonical aims to make ubuntu self-sustainable. Why don't the guys at the Wikimedia Foundation work on that too instead of begging people every year?

point blank

When will Wikipedia stop asking for money?

When we reach a Star Trek like moneyless society, I imagine.

[chucky chuckaluck]

right after pbs stops having lawrence welk marathons during their fund raising drives. (that would be 'never' for those of you not in the broadcast area.)

[qazwsx]

You could adblock it.

But donate first

[handy]

You appear to be complaining that the content of Wikipedia is released under a free licence. Beyond that, none of what you posted has anything to do with Wikipedia.

Yeh, right, whatever you say.