Wikipedia Needs $20K 815
TaranRampersad writes "Wikipedia's server is crashing off and on, and Jimmy Wales has posted a letter requesting some assistance from anyone out there with a dollar burning a hole in their pocket. Let's face it, you really don't need that candybar anyway ..."
Umm yeah, (Score:5, Funny)
The attention for the money here is surely good but well, a slashdoting to a server having issues
Re:Umm yeah, (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll see your star (Score:5, Insightful)
C'mon ya geeks... everyone knows and has probably read Wikipedia; stick a crowbar in your wallet and cough up a few bucks. Yes, I know it's the holidays and everyone's tapped out, but really... who doesn't have a paypal account with a couple of extra bucks sitting in it? (if you're genuinely broke, relax... I'm not talking to you)
I see people in my medical practice all the time who tell me how they can't afford their antibiotics (even the cheap generic) or other medicine, yet they smoke two packs a day, have a cell phone AND pager, and manage to find beer-drinking money every week. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it often comes down to priorities.
If you've got the cash, why not part with a few bones? I'm sure Wiki would appreciate it if the community would ante up.
Re:Umm yeah, (Score:4, Interesting)
A quote from the letter:
"The essential problem is that we do not currently have enough hardware to cope with routine failures of any kind. When any one of our machines goes down, we experience cascading problems due in part to the excess load on the entire system."
If their servers are crashing under user load, its not exactly hardware related. I would start by looking to see *why* its crashing, as I would say its more software configuration related. Plus, if you have alot of servers serving one website, a single crash of one of them shouldn't affect the main site in any way shape or form, more over, it should just drop the connected users, much like a netsplit on IRC.
Dunno. I'm not knocking them, but now they are getting slashdotted, I would start to look at the config, and fast...
NeoThermic
Re:Umm yeah, (Score:5, Informative)
The secondary web server (and backup database server) started kicking out SCSI timeouts about a day after we put the database back on it to pull the primary db server for testing.
Re:Umm yeah, (Score:4, Informative)
I have to warn you, memtest86 isn't 100% reliable.
A while back, I was having problems with RedHat9 randomly crashing on me (kernel oopses), so I ran memtest86 for 36 straight hours, it found nothing wrong with my RAM. I replaced the RAM anyway and the problems stopped.
So, just beware that memtest86 isn't perfect.
My idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell them about Wikopedia ( which they may already know) and mention how many users and hits you get a month and that you need new hardware.
Its likely they will make a deal with you if you agree to advertise for them or put a "Powered by Power5 AIX" or "Powered by the . in
IBM wants to bring Linux to the power4 and power5 servers and is releasing a new blade powered by them that runs on Linux. X86 stuff is garbage. Things like guinine risc and backplaned motherboards like those in Sun and IBM do wonders where pc's fail. Running your site is what the hardware is tailored to be doing.
Still even if you can get a free 2-4 smp x86 Xeon system, take it! A switch sounds like it may need to be upgraded. They cost big bucks though but many limited servers handle the
Yahoo has the powered by HP logo for Yahoo.com and its quite normal.
IBM would be my first pick and would gladly gloat about how much load their Linux based blades can carry. Your site is a perfect example. Reason being is that many IT managers view Linux on anything non intel as garbage. IBM also has big pockets and your server room is pocket change to them.
Re:My idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks for being so polite. (Score:4, Informative)
Where does the money go? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Then why is this posted to the front page? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet you pay taxes!
At least with Wikipedia you can have a direct impact. So if you can't contribute money, then contribute some knowledge. Write an article, show the world what you know.
Times are tight, but $1.00 from each Slashdotter would do it.
Mailing list archive (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the list archive. [gmane.org] Signup probably won't work right now since the main mail server is on one of the machines that's down, but you can send mail to the list (wikitech-l at wikipedia.org) and it'll go through the backup MX just fine.
Re:Then why is this posted to the front page? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want to donate, please don't feel any pressure to do so.
If you would like to help, please feel free to roll up your sleeves and get involved like any other volunteer and make some solid, experience-based recommendations.
Re:Then why is this posted to the front page? (Score:3, Insightful)
If a church takes a collection to build a new roof, do they have to itemize the beams and nails for the congregation.
As a a registered non-profit, I can assure you the IRS will keep better tabs on their donations then you can.
I am in no way affilliated with Wikipedia, but if you don't trust t
Re:Umm yeah, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm yeah, (Score:3)
Their database server is crashing _too_ fast and _too_ much. The memory appears to be the culprit. AFAIK it's under a support contract from Penguin Computing.
?????$20K is a lot of money for equipment????? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, these guys (I've never used the Wikipedia) could easily spend $20K on hardware and not have that great of a system...but they claim that it will fix their problems...if they provide a good FREE service (no-one seems to disagree with that,) then I trust their judgement. I think I'll go donate $10 just cause they're trying to do something good for the "Internet Community".
[BTW - I'm a partner in an Internet based business that actually makes a profit...$20K for hardware doesn't sound like much to ask. We've looked at single units - not complete systems mind you - that cost more than a quarter million USD.]
Kendell
Gah! (Score:5, Interesting)
But Wikipedia is a really good resource-- I've contributed to it myself.
SomethingAwful recently raised a lot of money in a short amount of time for some army people going to Iraq. Even Sharereactor.com, a great, um, edonkey search engine thingamjig, was able to raise more than $5,000 for a faster connection.
It's really interesting how much people donate online. If I had the money and the means, I'd donate to Wikipedia myself.
I think Wikipedia may be able to reach their goal. It appears to be popular enough to be able to raise the money....
Re:Gah! (Score:5, Interesting)
It'd seem a logical choice to have wiki hosted in some sort of distributed/peer-to-peer fashion, given the ethos that wiki espouses.
think TheGlobe, XOOM.com, etc (Score:3, Interesting)
Now you may say what would this have to do with your post, much. For the typical user who's using DSL it may not be a problem, but on information based material, I would be skeptical to have a slew of fil
Cash flow (Score:3, Informative)
True, but there's always a lot of people who are quick to reach into their pockets if asked. Whenever I browse a web site that turns out to be really useful or interesting, and I spot a tip-jar link, I'm good for a few bucks. (Or at least I was when I was employed.) I'm always going to Wikipedia -- you can't really avoid them, not if you use Google at all. But I never contributed, because their "donate" lin
Re:Gah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, you could always reinvent the wheel and do the same thing with virtually any toolset. No doubt th
Re:Gah! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not! I just sent them $100. It's a good resource, and a fascinating experiment in collaborative content generation.
Remember the excitement about the internet circa 1997? Well Amazon turned out to be a big mall, and eBay turned out to be a big flea market. But the Wikipedia is pushing the boundaries of what the web is. Those of you who miss the exitement of the early days should check it out. And send them a check so you can see how it turns out.
As a software designer, I am amazed by Wikis. If somebody asked me to build a system that would allow tens of thousands of people to collaborate on the same big document, I would have come up with something an order of magnitude more complicated than The Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] and two orders of magnitude more complicated than Ward Cunningham's original Wiki [c2.com]. But they work amazingly well. $100 is a small price to pay for what I learned studying and using Wikis.
Re:Oh god, spare us. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. That's because experts are neither arrogant nor self-important, and they're always fully-educated and correct. Just like you.
Re:Oh god, spare us. (Score:3, Funny)
So you have explained Slashdot, but what about Wikipedia?
Re:Oh god, spare us. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Assuming the conclusion. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia is not a genuine encyclopedia, and that it's dishonest to claim otherwise.
I disagree, an
Re:I somehow don't believe... (Score:3, Insightful)
You could be. Just contribute something on which you are knowledgeable to Wikipedia. [wikipedia.org]
(tig)
Letter Content (Score:5, Informative)
Why all the bashing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why all the bashing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why all the bashing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why all the bashing (Score:3, Insightful)
Once bitten.
Compare with Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org]. Last year, the site owner asked for $70K so that he wouldn't have to take a full time job or drown the site in third party adverts (it has always had paid user-adverts). He promised great things for the site and the code that runs it, and shared a grand vision of seeding a Collaborative Media Foundation with the money. He got the money [theregister.co.uk].
What happened was that he then spent a year kayaking, writing diaries about kayaking, breaking features (search has been broken for
Right to Fork (Score:3, Insightful)
Jimmy Wales (the founder) donates the bandwidth, the hosting space, and the time of one of his employees for hardware installation, but the new servers are additional cost that's coming from the third-party donations to the foundation.
If he were to just go kayaking with the money and leave us serverless, well you'd he
Hey Roger (Score:4, Interesting)
While you have every right to have whatever opinion about me you want, you've made this "tax dodge" accusation numerous times. You do realize that you're accusing me of a crime, don't you? And that you don't have any evidence of your accusation, nor does it even make sense. An organization that has not yet been incorporated can't function as a "tax dodge."
All of your facts are wrong, but that's just stupidity. I think that when you accuse me of criminal activity, though, you cross a line. I'd really like you to stop unless you can demonstrate even a hint of evidence.
Uh, me too! (Score:3, Funny)
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
But hey it's my own opinion mod me down if offtopic but no flame please.
Alternative waste (Score:3, Interesting)
I for one think donating to a church so they can build another wing to the church is a complete waste of money. Makes the Mozilla => Amiga look like an inspired deal in comparison, but you do not find me bringing that up. ;-)
Cannot agree enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is an enormous amount of negativity that I have seen thrtown around in this thread.
But to my mind, Wikipedia is one of the gemlike projects out there that has an enormous amount of unadulterated MERIT.
Many of the posts decrying the cry for funds fall into two camps:
1) What the hell, $20k for your website infrastructure? Plan better, you assholes!
or
2) Wikipedia is useless/not worth it.
Many of the posts SOUND like 1), but are driven by a strong desire to demonstrate 2) -- for instance, the large number of posts that are claiming that "Wikipedia has become too political".
I don't think that people realize what the real issue here is. The issue is nothing less than total freedom of information.
Articles on wiki are moderated by public opinion -- and while this has a moderate negative influence in HIGHLY CHARGED, HIGHLY CURRENT topics -- political ones, particularly -- the bottom line is that wikipedia provides an incredible way for the truth to be heard and recorded. Everyone can contribute to this record of defined "truth", and if a revelation is made, it can be judged on its merits by millions of people.
Essentially, in this age of enormous uncertainty, slanted polls, (corrupt?) (liberal? conservative?) "corporate media", in this age where the visible "barometers" of world opinion (polls/interviews/random tests/scientific research) -- the informational underpinnings of representative democracy! -- may be subject to large-scale manipulation, and freedom of information is being decided for years to come, Wikipedia provides, if not "absolute truth", a body of information that has been thoroughly bathed in the democratic process. It may not be as white and pure as if it were written by the existing information aristocracy/meritocracy, but it is most assuredly free to all, and as unbiased as that process can make it.
Support of Wikipedia is, in a sense, support of the principles of democracy/communism itself -- support of the idea that fairness is most reliably and safely accomplished by even "unqualified" consensus. It's everyone's information. This just makes the process transparent, and rips the lid off of "true" and "false", right and wrong, belief and disbelief, and transfers the power to the people.
Go Wikipedia! If there ever was a project with real, LONG-TERM value . . .
CCCP (Score:5, Informative)
I recommend talking to CCCP [communitycolo.net].
I've had a few e-mail exchanges with the guys that run it, they really do answer
all inquiries and are very friendly. It's not $20k but maybe they can help out somehow.
Re:CCCP (Score:3, Funny)
Re:CCCP (Score:3, Informative)
And who's bandwidth/location is superior? There might actually be a cost benifit for him (since the space he'll save at his own ISP he could then rent out)
CCCP doesn't just hand it out to anyone. There is a lot of back and forth e-mails between CCCP to qualify if a site is
They get my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia isn't just some other site begging for money, and they aren't asking for money for their content (though it's worth something, certainly, it's free to all - and Free too, I think) - their load is so huge, they really need thousands of dollars for their servers. I'd rather give them my 10 bucks than deal with the unpleasant alternatives, like ads plastered everywhere, or seeing wikipedia go away.
The Irony.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't help but wonder if that 20k figure goes up after slashizens romp on Wiki.
you know something... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with something like this becomes an issues of whether or not one believes the guy for one, secondly many will think "Oh well such and such amount of people use it, and I know they'll send something so I won't" which translates to little money being sent. (that's for starters)
Now 20,000.00 is a lot of money for a 'server'.
e4500 w/8 400mhz cpu's 1gb ram [ebay.com] under $1500.00 (15 hundred)
e3500 w/8 336mhz 4 gigs ram 72gb space... $2200.00 [ebay.com]
IBM AS/400 9406 820 with 2395 Processor, 1521 Interactive Card [ebay.com] isn't even $20k
Sun CobaltRAQ 4i (10 UNITS) RAQ 4i 256MB 40GB NEW HD 7200ROM [ebay.com] total? $5,500.00
What is it this guy is supposedly running for $20k certainly piques my curiousity, and I'm not trolling. Hell I'll send him $5.00 and I don't even use his product
Re:you know something... (Score:5, Insightful)
servers are cheap these days. really. I've found p3-666 machines in the trash a few years back, and other people are finding nice rack mount servers with drives,etc. I can't afford much more than my rent, and yet I can come up with more server power when I need it, just by using a bunch of old P300s or whatever.
Re:you know something... (Score:3, Interesting)
But you're not running a webserver with dynamic content and top ranks on Google for... probably thousands of semi-common queries.
Re:you know something... (Score:5, Insightful)
servers are cheap these days. really. I've found p3-666 machines in the trash a few years back, and other people are finding nice rack mount servers with drives,etc. I can't afford much more than my rent, and yet I can come up with more server power when I need it, just by using a bunch of old P300s or whatever.
One word: reliability.
Sure, any geek can make a computer out of toothpicks and bubble gum and run Linux on it and call it a "server", but these guys are trying to _reduce_ the amount of downtime they're seeing on some high-load systems. So it looks to me like they're trying to buy reliable hardware: new systems, lots of redundancy, and none of this "buying off eBay" or "systems assembled from parts pulled from the trask" junk which some people are suggesting. Real server hardware costs real money, presumably at least a few thousand per system.
*you* don't know something... (Score:4, Informative)
So yes, they really do need that kind of stuff, unless you enjoy Wikipedia averaging being down one day out of 3 (which has been happening each time a ram stick burns out or a hdd fails, which is why it went down this time).
Re:you know something... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:you know something... (Score:3, Insightful)
The letter (on the server and mirrored in a comment in this thread) explians where the $20k figure comes from and where things are going.
Re:you know something... (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, you probably have no idea how big wikipedia is. Others have posted about the traffic, so I won't go into that. Its not a single sever that's needed. We need a load balancer and several servers.
Third, a wiki is a lot harder to run than simple static pages (in terms of CPU and disk).
If you don't believe the $20000 amount, you're welcome to join the mailing lists and find out for yourself.
Traffic (Score:5, Insightful)
A slight correction to your post (Score:3, Informative)
Wikipedia is, according to alexa, within the top 1000 trafficked domains in the web.
And what about hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Asking for money is always the easiest way, and because of the number of people asking (Just look at all those PayPal Donate banners!) the chance of success is nearly null. What about taking a different path?
Requesting hardware vs. money (Score:5, Insightful)
When its just hosting needs, being able to massively farm out helps to. A lot of university groups look to help host a few different things. One group may not be able to satisfy all the needs but ten groups might.
Just my two cents...
As it probably won't survive the slashdotting (Score:5, Informative)
Wikimedia Foundation Inc.
3911 Harrisburg St. NE
St. Petersburg, FL 33703
Can't see any way to post the paypal links here.
Re:As it probably won't survive the slashdotting (Score:3, Informative)
Here's the official page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising [wikimediafoundation.org]
And for doubters, on the wikipedia.org domain [wikipedia.org] too.
So much for the open source community (Score:5, Insightful)
details (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:details (Score:5, Informative)
Web server 2 and the database server are presently offline, respectively for disk and RAM problems. A second fast web server is being installed tomorrow, at which point we'll hopefully get the other one back online too.
Networking and bandwidth isn't a problem at all, and we're actually in a reasonable place CPU-wise when everything's up (though more is always better). What we need is more robustness in the case of server failures; we need enough machines available that one machine going down doesn't kill us, and that we can still limp along with two down.
It's not like Wikipedia will vanish tomorrow if we don't have $20k, but failover and growth capacity will be good to have.
Re:details (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:details (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I don't have anything against the AMD stuff, mostly against VIA/SIS (who produce absolutly useless server level chipsets), but the two are often found together with AMD.
I *do* run some pretty big web sites (certainly in terms of processing), and stick to what would be regarded pretty boring configurations - making up for it with a bit of redundency
Doesn't that make it a collective? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, at the end of the day, if a community of people needs a service, and they themselves support that service, isn't that, by long-standing definition, a collective? Wouldn't it be more profitable for Wiki to call a spade a spade, call itself a collective, and get on with raising money from its community and providing them with the service?
Register as a charity? (Score:3, Insightful)
This mightn't just apply to donations--it might mean that a web-hosting company gets a tax-break by donating otherwise unused bandwidth/server space to Wiki.
Re:Register as a charity? (Score:5, Informative)
The Wikimedia Foundation Inc., a Florida not-for-profit corporation, is registered as a charitable organization with the State of Florida's Division of Consumer Services, a division of the State of Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and may lawfully solicit donations under Florida law.
Please do not send currency through the mail. Also, sending any foreign drafts, checks or other negotiable instruments may entail significant collection costs, an international postal money order or a check drawn on a US banking institution will make sure your complete donation goes to Wikimedia (otherwise foreign collection costs will be deducted by Wikimedia's bank from your contribution). Sending a foreign check to the United States may involve fees in excess of $50 for the processing of the check (or any other kind of draft) if it is drawn on a foreign bank outside the United States. International postal money orders payable in the United States are acceptable and available in post offices in many countries.
Deductibility of donations
Please note donations may not be tax deductible except for U.S. residents and nationals -- all questions in this regards should be directed to your tax professional. For those outside the United States please contact your local tax authorities to determine if there is any tax treaty or other law that may allow you to deduct your donations to Wikimedia from your income. Wikimedia is in the process of applying for official tax exempt status from the United States Internal Revenue Service as it is a new organization (corporate status granted: June 20, 2003) it may benefit from an automatic exemption from the IRS; if you make a donation you will receive the required paperwork.
Worth saving (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia rules, I gave CAD $10 (Score:3, Informative)
Why not allow wiki-mirrors? (Score:3, Interesting)
This would be a great problem for a wiki grid or something.
A few points from Wikipedia's tech mailinglist (Score:4, Informative)
* Wikipedia won't be hurt by traffic from Slashdot traffic. It's only the database server that is down, not the web servers. Also, Wikipedia is one of the largest sites on the net today, so they have bandwidth enough.
* Wikipedia is not asking for money for more bandwidth now. They have enough.
* Wikipedia is not a regular web site. The database backend is fairly complicated, since they allow anyone to update any page, and store all revisions (and do various magical stuff with them). A big server is warranted.
* Wikipedia already has servers enough to cope with today's traffic as long as nothing fails. The $20k they're asking for is for hot spares. This means they already have $20k worth of hardware.
* Wikipedia needs money, not hardware. They need to be able to rely on one hardware vendor with service support, etc. Of course, if a company is willing to buy them some new high end stuff with service, it would probably be accepted.
* Wikipedia will not be closing down if they don't get $20k in donations. They will simply not be as reliable in the future as they could be with $20k worth of extra hardware.
Suggestion for all new servers (Score:5, Insightful)
Always, always, always run some kind of burn-in suite on new hardware before putting it into production. Even if your manufacturer does stress testing, your server was likely handed over to a shipping company that mistreated it (guaranteed). (VA-)CTCS is a good burn-in suite. If a machine survives one week of CTCS, in our environment it means that it will be worry free for at least 18 months (so far)--not counting inevitabilities like a hard disk mechanical failures (sigh).
We installed seven new servers at a colo in order to migrate a growing web site off of a shared server. CTCS discovered bad RAM in what was to be our database server, a faulty storage controller(!) in our file server, and a bad disk in one of the web servers.
None of these issues were apparant from the get-go. Most of the servers revealed problems within the first 36 hours of CTCS burn-in, with one holding out for 47 hours. If we hadn't run CTCS these issues would no doubt be hounding us for months.
So, two rules of thumb:
If possible, have your server built by a local vendor. The ability to walk into an office and scream at someone is a powerful resource, and you can completely bypass abrasive shipping companies by delivering the server to a colo yourself.
In any event, get your vendor to run CTCS before shipping and run CTCS again once it's on the rack. 72 hours minimum on both ends.
Don't learn these lessons the hard way. The extra time you spend up front can literally save you months of headaches in late night colo phone calls and other consequences of unplanned downtime.
I just donated $5.00 (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea of putting high quality detailed information about everything up for free and open to contributions is a wonderful gift to humanity.
My opinion of Slashdot's user community, on the other hand, has gone down considerably after reading the sour bitch-fest that some people have been posting.
The world moves forward when bold and inspired and tenacious people sit down and create something new. We should be applauding and supporting them. If you have nothing useful to contribute to your fellow human beings, you can at least shut up while other people get on with it.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope they'll get that money (Score:3)
Once bitten (Score:3, Insightful)
Once bitten.
Compare with Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org]. Last year, the site owner asked for $70K so that he wouldn't have to take a full time job or drown the site in third party adverts (it has always had paid user-adverts). He promised great things for the site and the code that runs it, and shared a grand vision of seeding a Collaborative Media Foundation with the money. He got the money [theregister.co.uk].
What happened was that he then spent a year kayaking, writing diaries about kayaking, breaking features (search has been broken for months now), adding third party adverts, selling premium subscriptions, and some minor fiddling with the ratings system that has basically made it pointless to rate anything (i.e. contribute) any more. The Collaborative Media Foundation turned out to be a tax dodge, and recently he let slip that he's been doing consulting work full time, and actually cranking up his fees to turn away business.
And it turned out that the site costs nothing to run. The bandwidth is donated in return for advertising, the hardware is donated. The only costs are the admin's time, and the user advertising revenues (when he was still publishing them) actually covered the notional (but completely falacious) $30K salary that he was claiming.
The problem with paying someone a lump sum is that you then have no leverage over them. Sure, the Wikipedia guy might not just go kayaking with the money, but the K5 admin seemed like one of the good guys as well.
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:5, Insightful)
This money is going to a FREE project that anyone can contribute to. It's not going to a site with pop-ups and banner ads. It's a non-profit (as far as I know) resource for everyone.
It's only fair to pass the hat around. This isn't some company's or kid's project to fill their own pockets.
This isn't just "someone"'s website, it's "everyone's" resource. That's part of the whole wiki philosophy, isn't it?
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of your "solutions" are totally irrelevant here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. So offering pay services isn't going to work (I mean, what will you offer other than knowledge?) Besides, if you privatize it (that's what you are talking about), it likely will lose since it i
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:4, Insightful)
"They" most likely refers to the Wikimedia Foundation, the official organization that pays the bills to keep the lights on so that you can volunteer your time and effort to contribute to the project. That's right, you are (or were from the sounds of it) a VOLUNTEER, and except as used in the context of the military, that usually means you don't get paid. It works the same in the online world as it does IRL. When I volunteer to pick up litter or plant trees or whatever, I don't do it expecting money. I'm sure that if they were going to pay everybody who contributed to the Wikipedia, they would have to ask for a hell of a lot more than $20,000.
As far as not getting a "thank you", on the one hand that's not a totally unreasonable gripe. Having spent a lot of time organizing work projects of various sorts for non-profits, I know that failure to praise and when possible recognize and reward those who contribute is a good way to squander morale and lose your volunteers. However, the fact that you expect it as if you have some sort of inalienable right to it is pretty fucking petty. I suggest you reassess why you would contribute time/money to a project in the first place, stop acting like a spoiled brat, and grow up.
You know what: If they are asking for that kind of money (which I don't believe they are going to spend only for the purposes they claim), I am not going to contribute money, and I am no longer going to spend contributing to Wikipedia.
I can't speak for everybody, but I wouldn't have an issue if they spent some of the money on other purposes, so long as they account for it and it is related to the project. I'm sure equipment isn't the only expense they have. In fact, I would suggest they set aside some money to work with a grant writer so that they can apply for foundation money that could better support the ongoing needs of the project.
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3)
Hell, we hear enough of that shit from Will Smith and Justin Timberlake anyways...
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't make money with what you are doing, either:
1. Be poor.
2. Give it up and find a job.
If you don't want option 1, then give it up. It might be nice and beautiful, but it is unsustainable.
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Informative)
Wikipedia is one of the best resources out there. I did a school project on Stars and I found that Wikipedia simply blows other resources away. (I've never seen "Oh Boy, an F grade kills me" in any other encyclopedia).
Being a) a minor b) in australia c) without credit card unfortunately makes it hard for me to donate to them at the moment. I'll have to see what I can do (any Australians here willing to forward donations?)
Come on.. even a single buck can help anybody.
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:5, Insightful)
And Britannica isn't? Yes, everyone says "You can't trust the Web because everyone has an agenda to push", but that's true for *all media*. In fact, the more a source claims to be "balanced" the more likely it is biased. Rather than trying to find an unbiased source, learn to read between the lines and figure out what the biases are.
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:3, Insightful)
Where on earth did you get this troll? I see someone saying: "hey, we've had some problems because we're so big. I'm throwing a new machine in there and if you like it donate so we can add some more." If there are no donations than the site just goes on as it has, IE being down every once in a while.
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:3, Informative)
The wiki is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, so the content isn't going to die even if the main servers explode and are washed into the sea and the Wikimedia Foundation disbands.
(Disclaimer: the GFDL is somewhat unpopular these days, but we don't have any invariant sections and Wikipedia predates Creative Commons
Wikipedia versus Britannica (Score:4, Interesting)
You might consider Wikipedia's (meta) page titled Making fun of Britannica [wikipedia.org] before holding it up too much as an absolutely authoritative reference.
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:3, Informative)
You're missing the magic behind Wikis.
Most web pages are static, or if they're dynamic, the reader isn't the one with the power to change things. On a Wiki, anybody can come by and help edit.
That doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's amazingly powerful. When I first used the original Wiki [c2.com], I notice that one sentence in an otherwise good page was confusingly phrased. And so I fixed it. In a few seconds. Wikis allow you to aggrega
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:3, Interesting)
And worse yet, because the articles are written by individuals in accordance with their preferences, some subjects are short of some basic information that a more well rounded article would include.
Note that the same rough edges often exist in free software projects.
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:3, Insightful)
. . . and in commerical software projects, newsmedia reports, magazine articles, encyclopedias, books, and even peer-reviewed trade journals.
What was your point again?
Re:i will not donate (Score:3, Insightful)
How is voluntarily donating to a nonprofit project in any way similar to communism? It's not like they are GNU/Microsoft trying to take over the world. If people find the site useful, they will donate. If they don't care about it, they won't. Simple choice. No one is trying to deceive anyone into giving away money or power. Sounds a lot less like capitalism than revenue by advertisement.
Also, Ads are an inefficient way to pay for something...unless you think your time is worth less than $0.10(US)/hour. M
Reality Check (Score:4, Informative)
snowjournal.com vs wikipedia.org [alexa.com]
skimaps.com vs wikipedia.org [alexa.com]
Maybe this will put it a little more in perspective for you:
sun.com vs wikipedia.org [alexa.com]
Re:What about Everything2? (Score:3, Informative)
Wikipedia's license means that all versions of all its articles will remain free forever, no matter what happens.
Re:Opteron... (Score:3, Insightful)
The databases altogether come to about 35 gigabytes (including indexes and the complete revision history of several hundred thousand wiki pages), though with some judicious compression of p