Asklemmy

43780 readers

865 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

144

Does Wikipedia really need my donations? (infosec.pub)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

58 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Every now and then I'll get an email from someone higher up in Wikipedia asking for a donation. I don't really mind a tenner but I don't know if it pads the pockets of corporate management or actual contributors. Also, are they really short of money or is this tugging at emotional strings a play at something else? I wish Wikipedia survives but there's a lot of projects I need to donate to and I have a budget.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I fully agree with not limiting themselves financially whether it's 1,10,100 etc. Their aim is to bring knowledge in all languages to even the poorest parts of the world. If some Lemmy user's bank account is one of the poorest parts of the world right now, lol...I mean only "you" know how much money you can stand to give while still living comfortably and being entertained in life.

I have to take small disagreement with the money contribution not making a difference though. It's the flip side of the same coin that tells people it's find if they don't vote cause their one vote won't make a difference. The hole in the argument is that we don't vote alone, and we don't donate alone. The specific attitude "my vote won't make a difference" actually costs millions of votes every year, just like "my $20 won't make a difference" could cause millions of dollars of losses.

But anyway, separate argument from the situation here as our Lemmiford here sounds like they're in saving mode till things look up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I get that, I really do, and I honestly believe you have exactly the right idea.

But on the other hand, you have to realize that not all of the money purely goes to enabling knowledge sharing with Wikimedia. This is not an election, it's a company, non-profit or for-profit doesn't really matter. There are still people paying off business expenses from your donations.

I fully understand the necessity of this, but you might just feel better if your $5 literally bought someone a meal or if it paid for a fraction of a business flight to promote Wikimedia.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Totally agree, the right to choose how best to spend your own charitable donations isn't something I'd ever infringe on.