> What is the point of a site saying they don’t want to show ads, then covering up 50% of the screen with a request for money? No serious for-profit site would consider giving up 50% of the page to an ad. It’s insane.
First of all, it's for like 1 or 2 weeks a year or whatever their fundraising period is. The donation request is not up there all the time. It is similar to how NPR raises money.
Second of all, Wikipedia is not a "serious for-profit site". I have no idea why you are making this comparison. Lets take a look at a "serious for-profit site" like nytimes.com or cnn.com. Oh look, there are ads everywhere, taking up a huge portion of the page. And they are there every single time you visit the site.
Stop trying to push your inferior competing site (newslines.org) with trash like this.
I wish they would delete fewer things too but that's not really what I'm thinking about so much as organizations demanding favorable coverage because of their advertising dollars.
There are no facts to argue with. Aside from the numbers from Wikipedia, of course – but the only thing you do with those is pass opinion on them. It's just a mean-spirited, slanderous hack-job.
I didn't realise that you were the founder of Newslines. I'll tell you what – someone at Wikipedia must have pissed you off something fierce, for you to have such as weirdly twisted and poisonous view of it, quite aside from the laughable idea that Newslines is "Wikipedia's only direct competitor".
> In fact staff cost have more than doubled over the last year, while page views are stable.
From the SCFs on Page 3 of your link, staff costs in FY2013 were $15.98M and staff costs in FY2014 were $19.98M. This is only an increase of 25%. I'll take your word on the traffic stats but your assertion that staff cost has more than doubled is easily disproven.
>>> They can’t very well make money on a site that was created through the free labor of its contributors
Two incorrect things right here:
a) there are lots of sites that run ads on community content, some even charge membership fees on top of that
b) only content is created by unpaid contributors. Hardware, bandwidth, admin team, software team, etc. all cost money. The fact that the content is free doesn't mean running Wikipedia is free - it's far from it. That's like saying making a talk show is free if it doesn't pay for the interviews.
>>> Money is not an issue of survival for Wikipedia
It's incorrect again - the fact that Wikipedia has money doesn't mean it doesn't need it. Just as the fact that you have enough air to breathe right now doesn't mean you won't die very quickly if the air flow stops. Wikipedia would die too if the money flow stops. Fortunately, it does not, and it's the great thing, and it in no way means money flow is not vital - just as the abundance of air doesn't mean it's not vital for you.
>>> is in “survival” mode.
Here you engage in distortion, making it sound like Wikipedia claims it's "in survival mode". The claim is the donations are necessary for continued survival, not that there's already a financial crisis now. In fact, since the kind contributors continue to contribute, there is no crisis. This is a good thing.
Moreover, the only reason this is the case is that people in the past mostly were not listening to people like you. So you build your case on the fact that almost nobody would join your cause.
>>> Wikipedia’s core software is essentially unchanged since 2001
This is wildly untrue, to the point that betrays complete unfamiliarity with the platform and it's development. Which is much more puzzling given that most of the information about it is not that hard to find if desired.
>>> Yet all of the money spent on programmer salaries has produced no measurable change to the site’s quality.
This again is false. The very article you're reading belies this claim, but there are many more improvements (including whole mobile platform, which of course did not exist in 2001).
>>> These grants have been described as “corrupt” by the WMF’s ex-director Sue Gardner. who said,
This is an obvious lie, Sure Gardner said that the process doesn't provide enough protection against corrupt practices, not that the grants are corrupt. The difference as between "this lock is not strong enough" and "you are a thief". It is bewildering that you distort the quote in the same phrase as you provide it and expect the reader to miss it.
>>> Your donations are going to golden chairs.
This is false. Ask somebody who has been in Wikimedia office if there are any golden chairs there.
>>> I guess parks and libraries would be a lot less popular if you had panhandlers at the doors.
You would prefer wikipedia to tax you and have corrupt politicians distribute the budgets instead of direct voluntary donations? That's s strange mindset that prefers to be forced to do something instead of having a choice to do it at their own free will - or not do it and write an article full of distortions and inaccuracies if so inclined.
I could spend more time to point more incorrect statements and fallacies in the text but I think this is enough.
