Why is Jimmy Wales lying?
Another fundraiser, another appeal from Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. As it’s mostly the same plea from my last post, I’m going to cut to the chase. The Wikimedia foundation has continued to prove profitable. They have gone from net assists of 1.6 Million in the beginning of 2008, to 5.1 at the end of 2008. Then from 5.1 million they finished 2009 at 8.2 Million in net assists. Halfway through this financial year they are already at 6.2 Million in assets from the success of fund raising.
Yet with expenses currently at about 3 (half of which is wages, which doubled in a single year as I previously noted) million, Jimmy Wales is claiming
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.
They don’t need twenty million, and are already making plenty. Not only that, but Wikia has been profitable for the last two years. I realize Wikia and Wikimedia Foundation are two different beasts, but since it’s in general the same people in charge of both, and you really care about knowledge that much maybe Wikia could donate to Wikimedia. If your going to donate money to anyone, donate it to Wikileaks, which is ten times more important then Wikipedia will ever be. Not only that, but even if Wikipedia were to disappear, there is still a million wikipedia clones out there that won’t disappear. On the internet, stuff doesn’t just disappear anymore.
So I ask that you don’t donate any money to Wikipedia, and if you do want to donate money send it to Wikileaks. Wikileaks actually needs the support of little people and is willing to do the kind of journalism that no one else will.
PS:So I noticed that I got a comment on this post pretty quickly. It ends up that the person was one of the volunteers “I believe” working for wikimedia. He followed my twitter link from an open source notepad and commented. Well whenever you come to my page via a link, I get the URL of where that link was. So I was able to use the URL and download everything they had been working on. I don’t know if it’s that interesting to anyone, but enjoy reading about the work and tests and wiki even saving twitters that mention Wikipedia.
There is no “Wikia branch”. Wikia is a separate, For-Profit company. Wikimedia is a non-profit charity. The two are not the same at all. They’re not even branches.
They’re two companies, started by one person.
Okay, they are two different entities. But still it’s a lot of the same people and idea behind Wikipedia. It’s just a for profit setup.
No, It isn’t run by the same people at all. It was started by the same person and it runs the same software (like most actual wikis they use the Mediawiki software that Wikimedia develops and releases for free). There is no “profit sharing” or what not. Wikipedia gets almost all it’s money from little donations, the average last year was like 30 bucks or something like that?
Look, I’m not arguing this point. Wikia has two main players from Wikimedia, Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesly. Two members of the Board of Wikimedia also work for Wikia. Even the mainstream media considers Wikia the commercial counterpart to Wikimedia.
Jimmy Wales doesn’t care about knowledge, he cares about money. Why claim that it costs 20 million to run Wikimedia when it’s possible for anyone to look up wikimedia’s funding and expenses? Why are they even running a donation drive when there’s more then enough money in the Wikimedia coffers? How come the year that Wikimedia started turning profits in the millions salary suddenly doubled?
The argument here isn’t if Wikia and Wikimedia are related at all, because they are. The argument is that Wikimedia and Jimmy Wales are taking advantage of naive people who don’t realize that Wikipedia/Wikimedia is not struggling at all. If Wikimedia was somehow truly struggling to survive you would think that maybe taking some of the profit from Wikia (which wouldn’t exist without wikipedia, which wouldn’t exist without Larry Sanger) and donating it to wikimedia would be one of the first answers.
Or Jimmy could donate some of his speaking engagement money. I mean is there any reason someone would want Jimmy Wales to speak to them other then the fact that he is co-founder of Wikipedia and is considered the face of Wikipedia?
I am not 100% certain what the controversy is here. This Wales guy is pleading for people to donate money so that he can maintain a cite where people can get information free of charge. The information available through wikipedia is supplied mostly by the users themselves – not by Wales.
You seem to be saying that Wales’ contention that Wikipedia is a non-profit enterprise is a lie – a FRAUD – because he gains some personal remuneration from it. He can charge $75,000 to speak solely because he runs Wikipedia and therefore this makes it a “for Profit” enterprise.
I will take it as a given that Wales makes money from Wikipedia and that BUT FOR wikipedia he would not be able to make money for speaking engagements.
My response to this is – “So What?”
Fraud is much more than a misrepresentation of fact. It requires that people hear it and rely upon it reasonably. Can you really be sure that people are relying on what Wales says when donating? They know and reply upon three things. First, that they can get information from Wikipedia. Its content is open and available. They can see its quality – or lack thereof. Second, they know that people do not have to pay for it. Third, they know that Wales is not being paid money by anyone other than those who donate to wikipedia.
They are therefore well positioned to make a determination that wikipedia is or is not worth supporting and to decide how much they value it and therefore how much to donate.
Where is the fraud?
And I am not even sure that Wales is really misrepresenting the facts. Non-profit enterprises pay people salaries who thereby profit from its existence. This does not convert the entity itself into a “for profit” enterprise. Furthermore, people who use it free of charge arguably profit from its existence. Does this make it a for-profit enterprise?
Moving on – if a well known public figure can charge a lot of money for speaking engagements merely because they are well known due to some non-profit activity, do you really believe that they instantly become frauds because they accept the money?
Once again – what is being misrepresented and what are the payors to the speaker relying upon?
Does Wales, or Bill Clinton, or Al Gore or any other person who gained notoriety due to a public non-profit position have to remain perpetually holier than thou and free of the taint of money – lest they be accused of fraud or bad faith?
I don’t happen to like any of those named above very much and would not pay to hear them – but I don’t think they are obliged to reject all offers to speak for money.
The fraud is that Wikimedia doesn’t really need the money, and better organizations (such as Wikileaks) are much more in need of financial support and supply a needed service. Wikimedia currently has over 8 million in the bank, with operating expenses only reaching 1.5 million because salaries (which have continued to take high jumps) making up 750K of all expenses.
Wales does not receive a salary from Wikimedia at least as far as I know. It is a fact he is quick to point out, despite the fact that he wouldn’t get speaking engagements without being the face of Wikipedia.
Wikia is a separate entity from Wikimedia. Wikia is a for profit company. I’m not saying Wikimedia has become a for profit. I’m just complaining that it has more then enough money banked and could continue to make a good amount of money without the donation drives and pleas from Jimmy Wales.
So it would appear you are not quite sure of your facts.
As for wikileaks – yes – their activities have served the interests of the United States. That is, if you believe that inciting violations of national security serves our national interests. Wikileaks might as well be an adjunct of Hamas or the Iranian secret service.
Yes, a good place to donate your money while millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet.
Everything I have read about what wikileaks exposes strikes me as just another leftist narcissistic fart of righteousnous. These so called disclosures are ancient history (when is the last time you have read reports of serious military activity in Iraq). The latest “wikibullshit” serves nobodies interests – other than those who wish to fight the same political dogfight with a President who has not been in office for 2 years.
Yes, let’s waste more time on that.
It’s not just the disclosures about the Iraq and Afghanistan war. It’s that they are pretty much the last bastion of investigative journalism out there. When was the last time you heard about a newspaper or television reporter investigating something and breaking a big story? We’ve talked, you should know that at this point the corporations tend to write the news and everyone runs with it. Wikileaks is quite simply the new muckrackers.
On the whole Wikimedia thing, either read my previous post (which I linked to in this blog) about Wiki or just google wikimedia finances. If you look into their financial history and believe they are a company that is in desperate straits for funding, then my mistake. But when I look at their funding I see a not-for-profit which is very well off and some lets just saying interesting expenses.
Does anyone ever donate to a non-profit organization that claims it has enough money?
Mark D you’re an idiot. You’re basically saying since he has another for-profit business, he should use his earnings to fund his non-profit organization? I can’t comprehend how you think that makes sense.
Wales has developed and provided one the largest information databases/libraries on the net, for free. If he wants to ask for donations once or twice a year, then who are you to say he can’t? You obviously have no idea what it takes to cover the costs of servers, bandwidth, maintenance, and payroll. So where do you think this magic money comes from? Do you think Google would have donated $2 million to Wikimedia if they didn’t need it?
If Wales only cared about money, he could have easily turned Wikimedia into a for-profit organization. He could simply put a few advertising spots on Wikipedia and bring in millions a year guaranteed. Instead he asks for donations from people who are wiling to donate, he’s not putting a knife to your throat and forcing you to donate.
Don’t try and knock someone else’s hustle to promote your own agenda.
I do agree with theabove statement, he could just put advertisements up and make his money, but he states “If everyone who uses the site donated £10 they would be ok”, thatsa bit obvious when he also states the site recieves around 500 million users per month, so hes hopeing 5 million in dontions per month? I use wiki alot sure, I dont rememeber going onto wikipedia this year without the donation advertisement, and the quick payment options of 10/20/50/100/200, 200?! The higher you set the bar, the more people will think only donating 10 should be ok, donations should not be suggested at double figures, they charge less to help animals on the verge of extinsion.
And staying ‘non profit’ also makes people say, oh thats nice of him, well in the case ill donate, He is the advertisement.
I dont think there is anything wrong with what he is doing, its the “suggested” donation amounts that scare me, bear in mind, alot of people wont donate below the minimum suggestion, its part of human nature in some.
Its a great site but after clicking on his advertisement its a little bit much.
A reply to Josh (#11 Comment),
Actually, bro, Non-For-Profit’s make a piss ton more money than a For-Profit.
Take a class, read a book, look at history. 3/4 of the time more people are willing to give money to a free service (donation) then they are for an actual paid service… To feel good.
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Another member Sid Veerzada at Quora blasted Jimmy Wales at several threads. Look up Sid Veerzada profile at Quora and the thread he answered. Here is one link http://www.quora.com/Jimmy-Wales-1/What-does-Jimmy-Wales-think-when-a-university-professor-states-not-to-cite-Wikipedia-as-a-source/answer/Sid-Veerzada?__snids__=51233215
It looks as though at some point you were rejected by Wikipedia…
I really don’t understand all this menace towards them.
And to tell you the truth: who are you to tell us where to donate and where not to donate?
Writing about a “multitude of issues” finally makes man ignorant and really shallow.
It’s better for you and for all of us if you write about “a few issues” but in more depth.