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 ..."
Why all the bashing (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Umm yeah, (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
But hey it's my own opinion mod me down if offtopic but no flame please.
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, and with wikipedia, a wide array of subjects can be covered, more so (and more up to date!) than your normal encyclopedia. It all depends on the users using it.
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.
Re:Send Us $20,000... (Score:2, Insightful)
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...
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.
So much for the open source community (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't see what you're point even is. It costs money to run wikipedia, if you want a free resource to continue running then donate if you have extra money.
Re:Why all the bashing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I'm an occasional visitor and I'm gonna go throw a few bucks their way... (but just this once)
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:2, Insightful)
"If not enough people care"? Let's see if wikipedia meets its $20k goal, then we'll see how many care.
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.
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:Send Us $20,000... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't that make it a collective? (Score:2, Insightful)
well, you understood wrong
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:you know something... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm yeah, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:details (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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 . . .
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:I need $20k too... (Score:1, Insightful)
To me, this looks like rank incompetence, where they're begging for money after everything crashes and then they realize they need more hardware.
I'm sure this project has noble and honorable goals, but just because that is so doesn't mean it deserves anything.
The people who question this begging probably have real jobs, real bills, and understand the value of every dollar they make and spend.
The wiki philisophy needs some serious work if it couldn't figure out how to pay the bills than just passing the hat around. In the long term, that doesn't get very far.
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. Mine isn't. Many ad based sites will use any form of deceptive practice to force users to look at as many ads as possible. Forcing people to read propagands... Sounds like communism to me.
Traffic (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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:So much for the open source community (Score:2, Insightful)
When I donate to Freenet I know what they will be doing with the money.
If I donate to Wikipedia I have no idea, other than some vague wording about buying a 20,000 USD server, what they will do with the money.
People generaly like to know what the money they are donating is going to be used for. They won't tell you this, so people are a little more cautious.
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:I need $20k too... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a flaw in your reasoning in that due to the GPL and its 'wiki' nature, the website is just as much yours as anyone else's. I'm not saying you must donate or that you should choose to make it your website. Just that you have the opportunity to make it 'your' website, so 'it's not mine' is a weak reason to not donate.
Personally, I think asking for money is the wrong way to address the problem. The real problem isn't lack of money, it's lack or reliability. Instead of a temporary monetary bandaid, exploit the strength of the Internet and 'open source' to solve the problem. Migrate the wiki databases to a truly distributed system in which it is mirrored and updated around the world in real time. I'm not saying it will be easy. Just that it is a better long term solution than buying another server.
What about Everything2? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gah! (Score:1, Insightful)
So, I gave that idea up and now I just accept random donations. That comes out to about $100 per month. That's about half of the expenses just to stay afloat. I pay the other $100 out of my own bank account and that means that if there is ever a hardware problem, emergency or something happens to the cost of my hosting, I will have to pay for all of that out of my own pocket too.
Just goes to show you that there are millions of people in the world that want something for nothign and will absolutely not contribute.
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 of equipment.
At present my "prefered" configuration is intel 875 servers with 2.6GHz P4 CPUs, because they are cheap, common, and very very reliable. they just never give me failures.
The latest and 'whizziest' is all very well for a hot games machine, but for servers it is just not a good idea.
IMHO, if you are serious about needing $20KUS in equipment, you had better retionalise that by telling people WHAT hardware, because it seems like a very big ticket compared to what you should need to replace your current setup. People will be much more likely to contribute once they understand what is desired..
Anyhow, sorry for the lecture, and good luck with the hardware!
Re:Gah! (Score:2, Insightful)
?????$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
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.
Re:?????$20K is a lot of money for equipment????? (Score:2, Insightful)
In this instance, $20k sounds reasonable. If they have three machines and wanted to upgrade/replace them all, it could quite possibly consume most of that $20k. Not to mention, they may have to hire professionals to assist with some aspects of it, depending on the expert abilities of the people behind the scenes.
Re:Gah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, you could always reinvent the wheel and do the same thing with virtually any toolset. No doubt there are others out there that offer similar functionality.
I've often wondered why more "community" websites don't try something like this in order to leech bandwidth from their users. I may not have the bandwidth to handle ALL of slashdot's load but I probably could handle a good chunk of my state. Get together a few dozens of people who are willing to contribute their excess bandwidth to something like this and all your bandwidth and hardware costs are gone.
I'm not going to donate money to most of these community sites I frequent but the success of p2p apps, SETI@Home, etc, show that many people are willing to donate bandwidth and processing.
I'm a high school student (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Assuming the conclusion. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia is not a genuine encyclopedia, and that it's dishonest to claim otherwise.
I disagree, and make the bold claim not to be dishonest. Though I might be wrong. Anyway, many consider Britannica Encyclopaedia to be a relevant, updated and informative resource, and it has got long traditions. From the free section of britannica.com on the word "encyclopaedia":
also spelled encyclopedia (from Greek enkyklios paideia, general education) reference work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or that treats a particular branch of knowledge in a comprehensive manner.
Dictionary.com has the following definition:
A comprehensive reference work containing articles on a wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a particular field, usually arranged alphabetically.
And just to make sure, I looked it up in a printed edition of the American Heritage College Dictionary:
A reference work containing articles on a wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a field, usu. arranged alpabetically.
I think most people would agree that Wikipedia is a reference work and that it contains information information on all (or at least many) branches of knowledge, thus making covering a wide range of subjects. In a comprehensive manner, I might add. The way I see it, Wikipedia fits nicely into these definitions. Hence, Wikipedia is to me a "genuine encyclopedia." Enough nit-picking (-: Sorry about that.
The way I see it, the parent didn't attack anyone, but he might have stepped on some toes. Obviously LordK3nn3th took it personally when Estanislao Martinez implied, and in this posts' parent confirmes, that a high school boy isn't qualified to write an encyclopedia article.
You're not qualified to write an encyclopedia article-- and neither am I.
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)
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.
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.
Re: academic papers vs. wikipedia peer reviewing (Score:2, Insightful)
Agreed. Though now I see that there's a complication sneaking in: we're in risk of mixing up peer review of journal and encyclopedia articles. But let's go on.
With Wikipedia, the number of peer reviewers is unlimited.
In principle, yes. In practice? And how exactly does it follow that a large number of reviewers makes for better articles?
In specialist or highly technical fields, the number of participants is still limited, so peer review cannot compete with specialist journals in the academic world. On the other hand, most encyclopedias don't really contain such specialist information in the first place.
Yes. Journals aren't really all that good a comparison. I propose we consider the peer review process that would apply to encyclopedia articles: the editor sends off articles for comments to experts in the topics in question, making it clear that this article is intended for a general audience, and they should judge it accordingly.
The efforts individual contributors make to Wikipedia is, of course, also highly variable as in the case of peer-reviewed journal papers.
Yes. But you leave out the facts that (a) pretty much everybody in the process is anonymous (yes, journals use anonymous reviewers, but there's an editor who isn't anonymous), (b) a contributor could be anybody. I.e. you have no information on the reviewers/contributors. To put it in terms of security, there's a trust issue. Also, there are issues having to do with the fact that the persons who contribute to Wikipedia articles are a very self-selected group.
Unlike peer-reviewed journals, however, there is no deadline for the final manuscript after which no error can corrected.
This is not strictly true. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [stanford.edu] doesn't have such deadlines. You're confusing review by competent experts with electronic publishing.
Hell, I remember when I was a child, we had the World Book encyclopedia, which was edited on a yearly basis. They also put out Yearbooks where they included the updated articles from that year's edition-- they came with stickers for you to put on the start of the old article, saying that you had a newer version. Even in the world of paper, your argument doesn't follow.
Finally, whereas many journals will have a two-stage review process (a preliminary review, notice of acceptance/rejection, subsequent requests for elaboration/changes) over a matter of a few months -- limiting the interaction between the peers to a few discrete instances -- peer review on Wikipedia allows constant revision of the article and, using the talk pages, unlimited discussion as well.
I don't see how this improves the quality of the content, and I certainly don't think it addresses the trust issue.
Sure, there also are trust issues involved with journals and traditional encyclopedias. And abuses, even. But they're not as extensive as with Wikipedia.
To be honest, I have no fondness for a lot of Wikipedia articles. I think anime is ridiculously overweighted in the 'Japanese culture' articlese and it depresses me to think of the amount of time spent on articles such as the homestar runner article...
A function of self-selection in the editorial process.
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.
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: academic papers vs. wikipedia peer reviewing (Score:2, Insightful)
In principle, yes. In practice? And how exactly does it follow that a large number of reviewers makes for better articles? Fair enough. How doesn't it? If an encyclopaedia is supposed to represent knowledge of mankind, shouldn't as much of mankind contribute and peer review as possible? In turn you may argue that such democratic attributes can work against the Wikipedia, but I'll toss back at you that people who don't like bubblegum don't chew bubblegum - people who aren't interested in a topic won't contribute or even peer review it. But people who are will. And people who are *interested* are usually better than 9-5 folks who got their diplomas so that they would never be at a loss for toilet paper. Not all credentialed people are like this, but guess what? The ones interested would... contribute. :o
Yes. Journals aren't really all that good a comparison. I propose we consider the peer review process that would apply to encyclopedia articles: the editor sends off articles for comments to experts in the topics in question, making it clear that this article is intended for a general audience, and they should judge it accordingly.
Actually, journals are a good comparison. Traditional print media has *less time* to peer review because of the physical process.
Yes. But you leave out the facts that (a) pretty much everybody in the process is anonymous (yes, journals use anonymous reviewers, but there's an editor who isn't anonymous), (b) a contributor could be anybody. I.e. you have no information on the reviewers/contributors. To put it in terms of security, there's a trust issue. Also, there are issues having to do with the fact that the persons who contribute to Wikipedia articles are a very self-selected group
Anonymity scares some - perhaps yourself - but if the information is subject to the people interested, the content is more important than who said what, who wrote what, and who did what. By your same logic, you shouldn't use a computer unless you know the credentials of everyone who designed and built it - from the microprocessor to the keyboard. If that is what you wish, then so be it. That's why DoD contractors cost the government so much, and still turn out products that fail because they give the government EXACTLY what they asked for instead of what they needed.
This is not strictly true. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy doesn't have such deadlines. You're confusing review by competent experts with electronic publishing.
Hell, I remember when I was a child, we had the World Book encyclopedia, which was edited on a yearly basis. They also put out Yearbooks where they included the updated articles from that year's edition-- they came with stickers for you to put on the start of the old article, saying that you had a newer version. Even in the world of paper, your argument doesn't follow.
Well... Philosophy certainly doesn't change very fast.
And as far as the stickers - you fail to realize that the process itself of preparing the new stickers - from writing to editing, from editing to print, from print to getting it to your doorstep - took about... oh... a year. Really. But back then, things happened slower because computers were less used. Times have changed, the world has changed... everything is happening faster... and so the representation of the data must be faster. Enter Wikipedia.
I don't see how this improves the quality of the content, and I certainly don't think it addresses the trust issue. Sure, there also are trust issues involved with journals and traditional encyclopedias. And abuses, even. But they're not as extensive as with Wikipedia.
I think we've established that your opinion on this is conjecture, and perhaps dated. You don't have to like it, you don't have to contribute, and you don't have to use it...
But your kids might.
Re:Oh god, spare us. (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, 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: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: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 is nowhere near as good as MS Encarta. They are different things.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Re:I need $20k too... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
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 them, don't donate.
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 page text that could be brought down.
It's also cool, of course. ;)
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 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.
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.
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 hear about it. ;) Wikipedia is under the GNU Free Documentation License, and were there a real reason for it the community could fork the project, taking the content with them and outdoing the original site.
See MeatBall:RightToFork [usemod.com].
Re:Umm yeah, (Score:1, Insightful)
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:?????$20K is a lot of money for equipment????? (Score:3, Insightful)
No respectable website is not powered by a database backend. Wikopedia is not a simple hello world static html page. Its a whole database.
What has that got to do with it? (Score:2, Insightful)
You understood wrong then, and you can't have paid much attention since it's always made clear that open source doesn't have to be free as in beer. The reason that it often is is that one of the consequences of software being open source is that you're allowed to freely distribute it, so it doesn't make sense to charge for it if your clients can then legally give it to all their friends for free.
None of this has any bearing on Wikipedia however, since that's a web site and the concept of "open source" doesn't even apply. A web site isn't a program which has source code and which you can copy or distribute. Even if this "fundamental problem with open source" of yours really existed, it would have nothing to do with Wikipedia.
Wouldn't it be more profitable for Wiki to (...) call itself a collective...
What on earth does it matter what they call themselves? In what way would it solve their problem if they said: "hey guys, we're a collective now, now could you please give us some money?"
They are providing a very valuable service to us all for free and personally I think we (that is to say, we who use it) owe them some help in hard times at the least...
Re:Hey Roger (Score:1, Insightful)
That's all they were promised, and Rusty kept up his end of the contract. What he does with his money after that is none of their business.
The only problems I can see are the continuing lack of search and a patch of really poor uptime a few months back - those should be fixed. The rest of it is just bitterness and sniping.
(Having said that, Rusty is a lazy SOB with no motivation to follow through on his own projects at all - two years and the CMF still doesn't exist. But that's fundamentally nothing to do with us - the CMF wasn't part of the contract I made with him.)