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Submission + - Study reveals that Wikipedia is "awash in money" 3

Submitted by Harold Dumbacher
Harold Dumbacher writes: Few things seen on Wikipedia aggravate its users more than the annual fundraising banners. Yet millions of people continue to contribute, seeming to think that Wikipedia will "go offline" if they aren't given more donations. Yet as this new Wikipediocracy blog post reveals, the Wikimedia Foundation is rolling in dough — $53 million in net assets as of this year (that's actual hard sitting-around currency, currently put into various investment vehicles). Meanwhile it only costs about $2.5 million to actually keep Wikimedia project servers online and handling user traffic. The rest of the WMF's annual donations go for "staff salaries, travel and miscellaneous". And evidently, many people are growing disgruntled with this ongoing state of affairs, even Wikimedia staff who benefit from it.

Submission + - How many hoaxes are on Wikipedia? No one knows.... 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Washington Post's Caitlin Dewey has written a lengthy feature covering one of Wikipedia's most intractable problems: carefully inserted hoax information that is almost impossible to detect. Dewey's investigation starts with the recent discovery of the nonexistent Australian god "Jar’Edo Wens" (which lasted almost ten years), and discusses a Wikipediocracy post about a recent experiment by critic Greg Kohs, in which 30 articles received cleverly-chosen minor falsehoods. More than half survived for more than two months. Included is also a chart showing that editing participation in Wikipedia has "atrophied" since 2007. It is quite rare to see a feature in a major media outlet as critical as this, of Wikipedia and its little-known internal problems. Especially on the heels of a very favorable CBS 60 Minutes report. As Kohs says, “I think this has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it’s not fair to say Wikipedia is ‘self-correcting,’”

Comment Re:More than just Wikipedia (Score 1) 5

This is the fruit of a long-standing investigation into IIPM's manipulation of Wikipedia, the blind eye turned to it by other administrators, and the story of admin Wifione. One blog post on Wikipediocracy helped expose it: Indian Fakers Teach Wiki-PR There was also an extended forum thread on the subject: Indian fakers faking again

Submission + - Wikipedia admin's manipulation "messed up perhaps 15,000 students' lives" 5

Submitted by Andreas Kolbe
Andreas Kolbe writes: Recently, "ArbCom", Wikipedia's highest court, banned an administrator account that for years had been manipulating the Wikipedia article of a bogus Indian business school – deleting criticism, adding puffery, and enabling the article to become a significant part of the school's PR strategy. Believing the school's promises and advertisements, families went to great expense to send sons and daughters on courses there – only for their children to find that the degrees they had gained were worthless. "In my opinion, by letting this go on for so long, Wikipedia has messed up perhaps 15,000 students’ lives," an Indian journalist quoted in the story says. India is one of the countries where tens of millions of Internet users have free access to Wikipedia Zero, but cannot afford the data charges to access the rest of the Internet, making Wikipedia a potential gatekeeper.

Submission + - Wikipedia sits on $60 million while begging for money to keep the site ad-free 2

Submitted by Andreas Kolbe
Andreas Kolbe writes: The latest financial statements for the Wikimedia Foundation, the charity behind Wikipedia, show it has assets of $60 million, including $27 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $23 million in investments. Yet its aggressive banner ads suggest disaster may be imminent if people don't donate and imply that Wikipedia may be forced to run commercial advertising to survive. Jimmy Wales counters complaints by saying the Foundation are merely prudent in ensuring they always have a reserve equal to one year's spending, but the fact is that Wikimedia spending has increased by 1,000 percent in the course of a few years. And by a process of circular logic, as spending increases, so the reserve has to increase, meaning that donors are asked to donate millions more each year. Unlike the suggestion made by the fundraising banners, most of these budget increases have nothing to do with keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free, and nothing to do with generating and curating Wikipedia content, a task that is handled entirely by the unpaid volunteer base. The skyrocketing budget increases are instead the result of a massive expansion of paid software engineering staff at the Foundation – whose work in recent years has been heavily criticised by the unpaid volunteer base. The aggressive fundraising banners too are controversial within the Wikimedia community itself.

Comment Fort Sumter.org (Score 1) 3

by Stanistani (#47717723) Attached to: The latest Wikipedia code-word for "dysfunction" is "Superprotection"
The WikiMedia Foundation, even though they know that prominent members of the editing community are outraged, still have not realized the extent of the ill feeling they have caused. The compact between the content creators and the fundraisers has been broken. This will be bad for both unless the new Executive Director, Lila Tretikov, can step in and heal the rift. Instead, she is siding with the WMF's development team.

Submission + - German Wikipedia Has Problems With Paid Editing -- And Threats Of Violence 2

Submitted by metasonix
metasonix writes: As German journalist Marvin Oppong learned recently, there are a number of people who work to make articles about certain corporations and trade groups on German Wikipedia "look better". And when Oppong published his discoveries, one reaction was an openly violent threat, aimed at him, posted on de-WP's "Kurier" noticeboard. Just as with English Wikipedia, it is apparently a "terrible crime" to criticize German Wikipedia, even when Jimbo Wales's "bright line" rule on paid editing is being violated. Unlike English WP, the Germans will threaten to "curbstone" people for saying it.

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