Whoops, it's time to pathetically beg for money again!

[ericbarbour]

Usually they do the banner ad snivelling in November or December. Plus they are using more "embedded popups" buried in article text, rather than the more typical top-of-page banner. Who sez there "ain't no advertising on Wikipedia"?

The fuckers pull this shit, despite (STILL) having more than $100 million in the bank. For the last 2 years they've intentionally increased the estimated budget by about 20% and had a raft of vague "explanations" for the "desperate need". If you enjoy reading mush-mouthed bureaucratese, try to figure out their "long term strategic plan".

humbly-my-ass.jpg (88.38 KiB) Viewed 3949 times

Jimbo did it--Mr. Libertarianism Anti-Government built a rule-book-waving, money-wasting bureaucratic pseudo-government monstrosity. And the asshole will deny everything.

[Graaf Statler]

The money has lost it's value, Eric. It has changed in bullshit money.

I compared it before with the scene out of Schindler's List where a high officer arrived in a dead camp and sunk almost in the treasures with his feet when he stepped out of the car.
No one even took the trouble to collect it anymore. It had lost it's value. Strange enough there are many parallels.

Because Wikipedia is a present form the devil what swallows people with bullshit jobs and bullshit money. And how accept that money gets sucked up in the wiki swamp.
Wikipedia doesn't make people happy, Eric, it's soul sucking, it's a Hotel in California what you can never leave in a decent way and what smears you.
I thank and praise the lord I am booted out with a SanFanBan, every day again. And that I have never accepted even a chocolate bar.

[CrowsNest]

Legal costs.

Jones & Day, drinkers of very expensive coffee indeed.

If course, it not the "builders" who even cough up any money, they see their time and amateurish efforts as their donation, and if anything they begrudge the fact the WMF isn't showering them in money.

It's the mug punters, the people who can no longer get reliable and trustworthy information, free or otherwise, who have been made to believe they're the ones who have to pay for this garbage.

Wikipediocracy are fine with it of course. Their members are the ones doing the grifting, after all.

Twenty posts in their thread about the donation banner. The vast majority are entirely off topic, the rest are suggestions for how the WMF could better collect the shekels.

[Graaf Statler]

And don't forget we are talking about a top-heavy internet dinosaurs out of the last century. It seems to be a lot of money but seen the tremendous bullshit organisation they have to run it isn't. A endless expanding bullshit bureaucracy what ultimately yields nothing.

I said it many times before, it's a complete deja vu for me. I will never forget I was in a mini market in West Greece where I saw a box with tomatoes where was written on: Product of Holland, grown on glass wool. And at that moment I understood something was complete rotten in the state of Greece. Because if you drop in South Crete a tomato on the ground a few mounts later you can harvest 10 kilogram tasteful tomatoes and not the typical Dutch red water bombs.

This is the same story. Bullshit money. De grieken baden in weelde in that time. Bathing in luxury. The villa's arose out of the ground like mushrooms in the autumn. A car was replaced because the oil had to be changed. Little fast food shops changed in botox and nail studios and the prices kept on rising and rising, at the end even over the Swiss price level.
And for who had his eyes open like me and others on Varoufakis his blog it felt we where sitting in the control room of Tsjernobyl. And the inevitable crash came without any warning!

$100 million is nothing in this pyramid scheme. It's bullshit money, it will be evaporated in no time leaving all that free loaders complete penniless with the shame of a tremendous scandal what will smear them form head to toe.

Hear the words of the prophet and mark my wordsssssss.

[ericbarbour]

A week later and the ads dried up. "Mysteriously". All I see now is "Wiki Loves Monuments".

Seriously doubt it was because of this thread or the WO thread (what WO thread? Ha ha ha, there ain't none, all they got is Vigilant pissing on Joe Seddon).

More likely that one of WP's resident free-culture extreme pussies was OMGOFFENDED that the begging was early and extra-crass.

Remember that Wikipedia runs on two important ingredients: your donations, and NECKBEARD BUTTHURT.

[Carrite]

A week later and the ads dried up. "Mysteriously". All I see now is "Wiki Loves Monuments".

Seriously doubt it was because of this thread or the WO thread (what WO thread? Ha ha ha, there ain't none, all they got is Vigilant pissing on Joe Seddon).

More likely that one of WP's resident free-culture extreme pussies was OMGOFFENDED that the begging was early and extra-crass.

Remember that Wikipedia runs on two important ingredients: your donations, and NECKBEARD BUTTHURT.

They are very good at fundraising, even WMF's biggest enemies should give them that credit.

They were probably testing the effectiveness of various appeals for the end-of-year campaign. They run A vs. B tests and polish the message based on what they learn.

That's probably what's going on.

t

[ericbarbour]

They are very good at fundraising, even WMF's biggest enemies should give them that credit.
They were probably testing the effectiveness of various appeals for the end-of-year campaign. They run A vs. B tests and polish the message based on what they learn.

Granted, and I would expect you to object to the cash-sucking as much as anyone. The annual budget seems to mostly disappear into an assortment of things that are of variable questionability: "grants", "special projects", salaries for an ever-growing (and doubtfully useful) staff, "expenses" for WMF people to attend WMF events all over the bloody world, etc.

[Carrite]

They are very good at fundraising, even WMF's biggest enemies should give them that credit.
They were probably testing the effectiveness of various appeals for the end-of-year campaign. They run A vs. B tests and polish the message based on what they learn.

Granted, and I would expect you to object to the cash-sucking as much as anyone. The annual budget seems to mostly disappear into an assortment of things that are of variable questionability: "grants", "special projects", salaries for an ever-growing (and doubtfully useful) staff, "expenses" for WMF people to attend WMF events all over the bloody world, etc.

I like to think I object to the nearly criminal cash-sucking MORE than anyone.

RfB

[CrowsNest]

I like to think I object to the nearly criminal cash-sucking MORE than anyone.

You object to them not spending on what you want them to spend it on. Stuff like free newspaper subscriptions, for you.

Not a very moral argument.

We here, we're more about the fraud that is taking people's money and telling them it's for an encyclopedia knowledge service.

How many people would pay even the price of a cup of coffee, if they knew it was going to be used to save you a buck leveraging free access to a service that you don't deserve any more than anyone else, and is only being given to you because one day you just decided you're a Wikipedian.

That's the real con here, all the money, whether you like it or not, is being spent on things designed to fool people into thinking total randoms with no qualifications or experience in writing an encyclopedia, are writing an encyclopedia.

So from your perspective, where's the waste? Where's the criminality? It all for the mission, every last cent. It's the mission that is an immoral enterprise.

[Carrite]

You object to them not spending on what you want them to spend it on. Stuff like free newspaper subscriptions, for you.

What evidence do you have that WMF spends anything at all on subscriptions?

I have a strong hunch that they collect "free" subs from various publishers, who use the "donation" as a tax write-off...

Hmmmm? So how many donor dollars is WMF spending on those two subs (JSTOR, Newspapers.com) that I "do not deserve"???

RfB

P.S. There might be another journal sub out there as well, I forget. I only use the two mentioned.