Oh, come ooon Wikipedia!

[cguy]

I load a wikipedia page and I see this big banner:
"Please read: a personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales"

Doesn't that sound like one of those spam emails you get in your inbox from an African VIP who wants help with some shady business?

I mean: IT'S REALLY CHEAP!
I'm not clicking there!

Do you have the same reaction towards it?

[Ctrl-Alt-F1]

Haven't seen it. I was just on Wikipedia.

Nor would I think it was cheap. Wikipedia is a great FREE resource.

[cguy]

Wikipedia is a great FREE resource.
Agreed. (I'm not trying to dispute that)

And I'd certainly donate something if I had a job. :)

[andymorton]

I haven't got a problem with it. I've seen appeals for donations on some Linux distro websites.

[cguy]

It's not the request for donations that I dislike, but the words used.

[KiwiNZ]

I don't see an issue with it. Sites like that do not cost peanuts to run. It has probably cost him heaps to provide the service free of charge to you the user over nine years.

[themarker0]

Would you rather have ads and pop ups?

[CharlesA]

Would you rather have ads and pop ups?

No kidding.

Sidenote: I don't see any banner. O_o

[ticopelp]

Doesn't that sound like one of those spam emails you get in your inbox from an African VIP who wants help with some shady business?

Um... not really...

[juancarlospaco]

Would you rather have ads and pop ups?

Yes, if its Optional and Help to fund the project.
IE wikipedia with optional adsense

[KiwiNZ]

No kidding.

Sidenote: I don't see any banner. O_o

I see a link off the left side of the main page for Donate and it takes you here

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2010_Landing_9/en?language=en&utm_source=donate&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=spontaneous_donation&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMa in_Page

[CharlesA]

Yep, I see the donate link, but I don't see any "banner" on the main wikipedia site.

[mkendall]

I've seen it, but it doesn't pop up often.

[oldos2er]

I load a wikipedia page and I see this big banner:
"Please read: a personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales"

Doesn't that sound like one of those spam emails you get in your inbox from an African VIP who wants help with some shady business?


No.

[fatality_uk]

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization I created in 2003 to operate, grow, nurture, and protect Wikipedia. For twenty million US dollars a year and with a staff of about 50 people, it runs the fifth most-read website in the entire world. I'm asking for your help so we can continue our work.

I donate because I wouldn't like to see this resource lost to a corporation. A great deal of that $20m will go on infrastructure, bandwidth costs, hosting and maintenance.

[undecim]

I load a wikipedia page and I see this big banner:
"Please read: a personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales"

Doesn't that sound like one of those spam emails you get in your inbox from an African VIP who wants help with some shady business?


From: Jimmy Wales

I will introduce myself I am Mr.Jimmy Wales president of the incorporation of wikipeda.[1] I have since discovered that most the account on wikipeda are dormant account with a lot of edit in the account on further investigation I found out that one particular account belong to the former president of the interwebs,who ruled interwebs from 1895-1932[2] and this particular account has a deposit of 9001 edit with no next of kin or facebook friend.[citation needed]

My proposal is that since I am the account officer and the edit or the account is dormant and there is no facebook friend obviously the account owner the former president of the interwebs has died long time ago, that you should provide an account for the edit to be transferred.

The edit that is floating in the account right now is 9001[citation needed] and this is what I want to transfer to your account for our mutual benefit.

Please if this is okay by you I will advice that you contact me through my direct email address.

Please this transaction should be kept confidential. For your assistance as the account owner we shall share the edit on equal basis.[4]

Your reply will be appreciated,

Thank you.

Jimmy Wales

- - - - - - -

GAH! No [super] tag? You're killing me, vBulletin

[CraigPaleo]

I've seen that but not often. It's an add-free site and I'd rather it not vanish because they couldn't meet costs. Sometimes you have to be humble.

[Grenage]

Considering all the junk I've bought over the years, a few quid given to such a useful resource is relatively sensible.

It's one thing to preach about open projects, it's another to actually support them (money being one way).

[Paqman]

It's not the request for donations that I dislike, but the words used.

Do you dislike it a great deal, or only a little bit? How would you have worded it?

[NMFTM]

Considering all the junk I've bought over the years, a few quid given to such a useful resource is relatively sensible.
Exactly. I spend a ton of money on eating food out and buying overpriced drinks at gas stations, which adds up to quite a bit over time. And I doubt that I'm alone in that regard. We have no problems spending a $2.50 a day on an expensive coffee or energy drink. But when it comes to donating to a useful service like Wikipedia we think of that as spending a lot of money because unlike our daily coffee, it's a greater amount of money spent at one time rather than cumulative smaller amounts spent over a longer period of time.

[gnomeuser]

I have pledged to spend at least 3% of my monthly income on charity. Wikipedia brings knowledge to the world, it is by far worthy of being in my budget, more so that say.. a McBacon.

[hhh]

I've been on Wikipedia a bunch in the last two days and haven't seen any requests for donations.


I will introduce myself I am Mr.Jimmy Wales president of the incorporation of wikipeda.[1] I have since discovered...
This is not the plea for donations I've seen from Wikipedia in the past and it looks like it's from a phishing site.

This is what a Wikipedia request should look like...
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en?utm_source=2008_jimmy_letter&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fundraiser2008#appeal

[pwnst*r]

I load a wikipedia page and I see this big banner:
"Please read: a personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales"

Doesn't that sound like one of those spam emails you get in your inbox from an African VIP who wants help with some shady business?

I mean: IT'S REALLY CHEAP!
I'm not clicking there!

Do you have the same reaction towards it?

Then I suggest not pointing your browser towards www.wikipedia.org

[schtufbox]

I donated £10 not a lot but better than nothing...I use Wikipedia a lot so I don't mind helping out a little.

[perspectoff]

It's not surprising that Wikipedia got hacked. It's a big server farm and they allow a lot of crazy folks to be administrators there.

In case you hadn't noticed the war about the Ubuntu OS article (Wikipedia runs Ubuntu, btw), a crazy editor there decided to aggressively filter all references to Ubuntu Forums, saying it was spam. What a nutjob.

Overall, Wikipedia is a fabulous service, though, and there is nothing like it. Imperfect, yes, (but so are encyclopedias and history books, in reality).

Still the request for donations was clearly the work of a hacker.

[forrestcupp]

Yes, if its Optional and Help to fund the project.
IE wikipedia with optional adsense

Who in the world would choose to have banner ads if it were optional?

[juancarlospaco]

Who in the world would choose to have banner ads if it were optional?

The freedom of choice, if it helps fund the project, i will, (ie: no fund, no more project).
ie: Look at flatter buttons on sites/projects

Why?
The same response of everything on Open source World:
" Because i can "

[ctyc]

Uhm how is that cheap? And how come you are the only person complaining?