Facebook Donates $1 Million To Support Wikipedia (venturebeat.com) 91
Technology giants rely heavily on Wikipedia's extensive database to source information for their platforms. So it's only fair that they show interest in the long-term sustainability of the online encyclopedia. This week, Facebook made its support official. From a report: The Wikimedia Foundation announced late Thursday that Facebook has contributed $1 million to Wikimedia Endowment, a fund to financially support the online encyclopedia and other Wikimedia projects. "We are grateful to Facebook for this support, and hope this marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration to support Wikipedia's future," Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in a statement.
In an opinion piece published in June, Wikimedia Foundation executive director Katherine Maher urged companies to better support the service. "As companies draw on Wikipedia for knowledge -- and as a bulwark against bad information -- we believe they too have an opportunity to be generous," she wrote. "At Wikimedia, we already love and deeply appreciate the millions of people around the world who make generous charitable contributions because they believe in our values. But we also believe that we deserve lasting, commensurate support from the organisations that derive significant and sustained financial value from our work." Further reading: Wikimedia Endowment Gets New $1 Million Backing From Amazon.
In an opinion piece published in June, Wikimedia Foundation executive director Katherine Maher urged companies to better support the service. "As companies draw on Wikipedia for knowledge -- and as a bulwark against bad information -- we believe they too have an opportunity to be generous," she wrote. "At Wikimedia, we already love and deeply appreciate the millions of people around the world who make generous charitable contributions because they believe in our values. But we also believe that we deserve lasting, commensurate support from the organisations that derive significant and sustained financial value from our work." Further reading: Wikimedia Endowment Gets New $1 Million Backing From Amazon.
So. Now Wiki is beholden (Score:2, Insightful)
Just what the world needs. An information source owned by a company known for misrepresenting reality.
Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden (Score:5, Informative)
Citing Wikipedia is a no-no. However, Wikipedia does point to links, otherwise one will find the page reverted [1] with a [[Citation Needed]] as the reason. What you then do is visit the pages cited, and use those (if relevant), and use the citations from those pages. Wikipedia is a good place to find authoritative works on a topic.
[1]: Assuming you don't find the page reverted anyway.
Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden (Score:5, Informative)
Citing Wikipedia is a no-no.
Citing any encyclopedia is a no-no. Citations should be to original sources, not to secondary compilations.
So where do you find link to the original sources? At the bottom of the Wiki page, of course.
Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the old days before Wikipedia we had a collection of 20-26 books called an Encyclopedia. Even back in 7th grade I was taught we couldn't use these Encyclopedias for citation. But as a source to give us general information to help guide us to sources, that we can cite, because they will give us more detailed information.
For many of these Encyclopedias we only had a paragraph or two on most of the topics. While Wikipedia often has far more information it isn't classified as a source for research, but a way to get general knowledge on the topic, thus why a citation from Wikipedia will probably give a failing mark on your paper, because you didn't go to the source material, you just went to an abbreviated summary on the topic.
Also, why should we automatically shy away or discredit an article that has some agenda. We should be smart enough to catch that, and realized that the writer may have a point that is being expressed, and if you disagree with it, then you need to confront the points do your research to show they are invalid or wrong. Not just go in a huff "This information goes against my Uninformed beliefs, so it is wrong!"
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Also, why should we automatically shy away or discredit an article that has some agenda. We should be smart enough to catch that, and realized that the writer may have a point that is being expressed, and if you disagree with it, then you need to confront the points do your research to show they are invalid or wrong. Not just go in a huff "This information goes against my Uninformed beliefs, so it is wrong!"
It's not that people have a problem with an article having an agenda, that's a symptom of the problem. The problem people have is that wikipedia presents itself as generalized source for a topic and adheres to NPOV. This is the opposite that happens, especially in the last ~8 years it's gone more for sources which are approved, but not factually correct or accurate. **Insert XKCD comic about citeogenisis here**
The entire basis of fact checking on general knowledge material(even specialized areas) is left
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Re:So. Now Wiki is beholden (Score:4, Informative)
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You forgot their published and enforced policy [npr.org] that says that publish opinion on what the facts should be is more important than actual facts (which is why the prohibit primary sources).
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I thought Facebook just needed to write off some amount for tax credit. And what better then putting money into a NFP that will keep people glued to their devices, and a swipe, or browser tab away from their service to show adds.
It isn't like they are funding a school, which asks the students to put their devices away during class.
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There is certainly something ironic about using an open-source encyclopedia as a source of truth in a world of fake news.
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There is fake news on both sides. And has been for a very long time. Every campaign advert you see is really fake news, every story about a politician you see even on your local nightly news is bought and paid for and produced by professional propaganda artists.
Only an idiot would even bother to think otherwise. Either that, or a wing nut.
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A donation is not a sponsorship. They also need the monies and where unable to get it from users, something they would have referred.
So you and I (as a matter of speech) did not do enough. According to Wikipedia, 99% of the users gave nothing.
So now I know what being a 1%-er feels like.
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Zuckerberg is trying to save face. (Score:2)
So... (Score:5, Funny)
Zuckerberg got tired of seeing that pop-up?
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Well, it is a web site devoted to wishful thinking.
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Zuckerberg got tired of seeing that pop-up?
He shouldn't, the pop-up says clearly it's "final", each time.
Oh, wow (Score:2)
Re:Oh, wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do all good deeds need to be an altruistic sacrifice?
That is a very puritanical view on charity. Give until it hurts then give some more, suffering is the only pathway to God.
This is like dropping our spare change in the salvation army bin, we are not going to suffer or go bankrupt from it. But it is still helping a cause.
A Match made in Heaven.... (Score:1, Troll)
Excellent news (Score:2)
All the tech giants owe to Wikipedia, good for them. As long as Facebook doesn't get access to Wikipedia's private data.
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
Suport the Internet Archive (Score:2)
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Now employ some professional administrators. (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Now employ some professional administrators. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not unlikely... if you look at a typical day's log [wikipedia.org] of articles for deletion they're overwhelmingly bios and/or their creative works trying to make themselves "notable". But if you look at pages like deletionpedia you can find things like Main Belt asteroids [deletionpedia.org] with a subpage for each one that got mass wiped. For a wikipedia with room a page for every London tube station [wikipedia.org] and a list of all the Pokemon [wikipedia.org] characters, you may say these tiny little rocks aren't significant in any way. But they're factual, not self-promoting and somebody put a lot of effort into creating it. Then somebody said meh insignificant and *poof* it was gone. I have no problem in believing there's a lot of editors that legitimately got pissed and left.
I've had corrections auto-reverted by bots even though they were properly documented and cited. Some, if not many pages are effectively owned by a small number of edit Nazis who will revert anything you do making the "anyone can edit" into hollow words. There are ways to complain but 99% will just give up and walk away rather than become wiki-lawyers just to correct a damn web page. To be fair, they also have a big problem with vandalism so I understand why some are very possessive, but the practical effect for anyone not into that war is that you buy into the slogans, do something good and they piss on it.
Also you don't really get any positive feedback when you contribute, it's not obvious how many read anything you added and would like to give you a thumbs up. All you really get is the occasional frosty piss, it's for the most part very thankless work. Which may have its effect on who stay on and how they behave, this is their way to power trip and own their little snippet of Wikpedia... *insert Gollum meme here*. I did contribute a bit in the early days when there was a lot of obviously important stuff that wasn't on WP and it was more like "let's just expand and throw shit at the wall and see what sticks", once it became more like this [xkcd.com] I got out. I mean I understand the page on Hitler is controversial... but I don't want to be in wiki-court about main belt asteroids.
P.S. No, that's wasn't mine if you think that...
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Precisely this. And if you dare note that this is happening or try to report them - boom. "YOURE A SOCKPUPPET BLOCK REMOVE TALK PAGE FUCK OFF" from the admins.
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You, sir, are a wikistine*.
*A malamanteau [xkcd.com] of Wikipedia and philistine.
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Who gives a shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who gives a shit? (Score:4, Funny)
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Props where props are due (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, props where props are due.
Not everything that a bad entity does is bad. This is a good thing.
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Re:Props where props are sue (Score:1)
Or, translated... (Score:2)
...we hope $1 million will distract SOMEONE from all the shit we've done that's now starting to leak out.
I am sure there is a TAX deduction angle... (Score:2)
Is it really a donation if all of it comes out of what should have been taxes? In the end the people never win.
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Think of it this way: It's just like public funding for Wikipedia. Except that each user has a say in what it's value is to them. And the funds actually get to the intended organization instead of being diverted to defense contractors or needle exchanges.
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Interesting comment by Wales (Score:2)
"and hope this marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration to support Wikipedia's future" - In other words, keep the gravy train running. Remember back in the day when you could give a one time donation to a charity and that was it? These days they all want you to sign up for these never ending annual contributions.
Years ago I gave money to a charity, who shall remain nameless, and every single year they would call me looking for more. Then I started to get calls from other charities that I had never s
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>"They kept calling. I asked them to put me on their do not call list. Turns out that charities are exempt from the DNC legislation. Eventually I just cut off my home phone."
The main problem is that you actually gave them your phone number. That is a HUGE mistake. I, for one, very rarely give out my phone number to ANY businesses. Email- fine. There is almost zero reason the vast majority of businesses/ organizations need to interrupt my life in that high of a priority. If they insist on a number o
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The worst are the politicians. Because Congress NEVER has to obey the laws they themselves pass.
This is one reason why I am not a member of either party.
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Agreed. Lesson learned.
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Years ago I gave money to a charity ... and every single year they would call me looking for more.
Why TF did you need to give the charity either your phone number or your address?
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I didn't give them my address or my phone number. They called me up one day out of the blue and asked for a donation. I have no idea where they got my number from. Probably some mailing list that charities share.
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They ring numbers at random or working through numerically. Same as "Windows" scammers. By your responding on the phone they were able to mark you as worth hassling in the future too.
BTW, the people who work in this way for charity are usually professionals and are paid by the charity typically half of what they can raise. The British crook Jeffrey Acher made his first million that way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I guess ... (Score:2)
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Wikipedia is an Excellent Resource (Score:1)
I don't understand all the hate that's directed towards Wikipedia. I give a monetary contribution each year, have created and edited a few articles, and dumped some images to Wikimedia Commons. I use the site a lot, I'm thankful for it, and I don't understand all the hate. I guess that's because I just access the technical pages and stay away from the political ones.
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I don't understand all the hate that's directed towards Wikipedia. .... I guess that's because I just access the technical pages and stay away from the political ones.
Same with my experience. For example if I want to find something about a town on the other side of the world for some reason it is a good place to start and often enough for what I need. I have also edited, or written most of, a few articles in technical and history areas and my stuff is still there unchanged years later, and where it has changed it is usually corrections like typos, or added references.
No doubt if I got into edititing stuff about Trump, Brexit or Jimmy Wales' girlfriend, it would not rem
Ok so will the begathons continue? (Score:1)
Of course they will.
Because excessive funding is still not enough!!!
Hey Jimmy I already gave (Score:2)