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Foundation wiki feedback/Archive/2010

< Foundation wiki feedback‎ | Archive

Donations

To whom it may concern,

Why do you need to ask for donations? You are sitting on a gold mine. I look for information on Wikipedia all the time in regards to many things. For example I like your F-150 page for my ford truck. I buy a crud load of parts for that truck (about $3000 since I bought it). If there was an advertisement on that page for a company who makes ford specific shop manuals for instance or Ford "how to fix it DVD's" then I would click on that advertisement. I would actually appreciate you helping me to find what I need for my truck. Each page on your site would be great for specific types of advertisements. The page about tomatoes could have an advertisement for a company selling the best breed of tomato seeds in the south for example. You have one of the highest volumes of web traffic on the internet period, and this traffic needs goods and services. You can help them to find those goods and services and make a load of money at the same time. If you are very idealistic, which I assume you are (because of the fact that you have provided something so great for so long for free), then take the extra money you have from the advertisements and put it towards furthering your cause (providing free information to the public). I would like to see free access to scientific journal articles (but I'm a real nerd, the public may not want that). A great portion of the CEO's in this country have engineering degrees. I am not a CEO, but I am an engineer. I have forseen many of the advances in internet technology coming long before they arrived. I have forseen many of the technology advances long before they arrived. Take it from me. You can springboard your cause ("free information") into the stratosphere if you will get past the fallacy that commercialism should be totally separated from your efforts.

Good Luck and thanks for the geat site, I love it,

Aaron

To Aaron (im a user on the english wikipedia and not a foundation member) the foundation is a charity what prototes free information, not for profit. It is an orgnisation (which is why its on the domain .org) and Jimmy Wales said that wikipedia moved from wikipedia.com to .org so there would never be any advertisments on the pages. The foundation does not get any support from the goverment and has to reply on donations to keep wikipedia, commons and all the other projects going. If there was no donations, wikipedia would not exist. I hope this makes sence. Sophie on the English Wikipedia

Wikipedia donation

Please try to include Indian rupee as an acceptable currency. There should be a lot of potential for donation from people like me. why we make our values so down, offering for donation is a biggest crime, and accepting donation is a crime on peak level. because the main thing is that we are alive thatswhy we need money,but if money exists we are not sure about our life make our world free from donation.

Mexico

I have noticed there is no Mexican Chapter of the foundation, altough there is an Argentinean one. In the other hand, i feel that the Telmex Foundation would gladly support your efforts by doubling the Mexican donations, as Wikipedia is one of the reasons of contracting their ISP services. MX -- AGS -- --Dagofloreswi 19:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Wiki ads

In my opinion, not at all a bad idea to include ads. No eye jarring, jazzy, bells, blinks, colors, in specified fonts, size, in short ergonomic ads, article related, exactly in the space where now Jimmy's appeal is displayed.. is not a bad idea.

Objectivists pleading for cash to avoid advertising?

Surely this cannot be. I spoke frequently with a man named Jim Wales in an objectivist newsgroup many years ago. Although we are all older and far more tolerant than we used to be, surely this appeal could not have come from the same man. However, I'm assured by others that it did.

There are many ways to generate revenue without plummeting down the slippery slope of "all advertising is bad" and invoking horrific visions of banner ads with dancing mortgage people. The Jim Wales with whom I exchanged group postings nearly every day would not only be open to new, pioneering ideas for generating revenue from the web, he would have been their most fervent champion. Instead of an appeal for cash, the Jim Wales I knew would be appealing for the Best and Brightest to submit their ideas. And he'd have been willing to pay for them.

Perhaps by posting this short memo, I can act as the Ghost of Christmas Past -- and Mr. Wales will once again see see that innovation, not pleading, is the way Wikipedia will survive and grow.

-- An old friend named Marti

I value WP, but most people don't value free stuff. Why not give free access for 6 or 12 months and then charge $10/yr or whatever makes sense? That would be practical. I suppose you're an idealist.

Appeal from Jimmy Wales

Hello. I have read Jimmy's personal appeal for donations to keep this site going and I am staggered to learn that about 340 million people visit this site every month!! I know I refer to Wikipedia at least once a week, so just imagine if we ALL donated just one dollar a month i.e. $12 a year, this site would be secure. My $12 is on its way and thank-you Jimmy for your vision and forethought to create this site. Michele.

Fundraising Efforts

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet has free access to the sum of all human knowledge."

Unfortunately if everyone is requested to donate money then the access to this information is not 'free'.

If this service is needed then it will have a market for ad revenue or begging revenue that will support it. If donations do not meet current server farm needs of $10M USD per year, then the market does not support this effort. It is that simple.

GOD BLESS!!! Джимбо Уэйлса

Sruart Drossner

Trouble donating

I wanted to donate $25 but kept getting a message saying "you must enter a valid amount" when I tried to pay with a credit card. Now I am having trouble figurng out how to send this message.

Hello, are you by any chance trying to type "$25" in the box? If so, that's the issue -- you only need to type in "25" (the currency is taken care of by the dropdown box on the right). Let me know if you're still having trouble after that. Cbrown1023 talk 16:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I was unable to donate $10. It said I should enter a 'valid' amount. Sorry that's about all I can give.

BH bhouser@satx.rr.com

Sorry Mr(s). Houser! There's not an issue with the amount you tried to donate, it was just how you put it in. If you add a dollar sign ($), it will break the form. The "USD - $" in the dropdown to the right takes care of the currency, so you just need to enter "10". I'm really sorry for the confusion, I've adjusted the error message to hopefully make this clearer – you're not the only one who has had issues with this. Cbrown1023 talk 02:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I've been attempting to donate 10 dollars via Visa credit card multiple times, and each time I get a page stating that my credit card has been declined. I've carefully checked out all the FAQ's and entered all information, including the CVV, perfectly each time. When I contacted my credit card company, they said that the message they had received stated that Wikimedia had been unable to verify the CVV, but I know for certain that my CVV is correct as I have been using it to make other online purchases, and it is clearly written in the correct space on my card. I've tried three times now and would really like to resolve this unusual issue. Thanks!

i want to donate but...

i could find nowhere to ask you a question, which is frustrating. My question is this. Is there any way i can donate and receive a tax credit in canada? I believe strongly in what Wikipedia is doing, but I also don't think it wise to ask people for money without providing a way for them to communicate with you. bob@bossin.com.

I'm sorry you had issues finding where to comment. We suggest that you contact us by e-mail and there is actually a footer at the bottom of all of the donation pages that says: "Questions or comments? Contact the Wikimedia Foundation: donate@wikimedia.org", but this page works fine too.
Unfortunately, we don't have a Wikimedia Canada yet (your donation would probably be tax-deductible if we had one and you donated to it), but you can signup to help them get started! From what I see on wmf:Deductibility of donations#Canada, your donation is deductible "from the donor's US taxable income, but I'm not sure if that would help you. Cbrown1023 talk 04:15, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

wonderful astrology website

great job on your astrology website very informative thanks— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 187.132.70.92 (talk) 06:16, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment! Have you ever considered becoming an editor yourself? Cbrown1023 talk 13:55, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Typo in Swedish translation

This is to report a grammatical error on http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Appeal/sv - the caption over Jimmy's picture header says "Tänk dig alla människor fritt kan kan ta del av allt mänskligt vetande", which is incorrect. Should be changed to "Tänk dig att alla människor fritt kan kan ta del av allt mänskligt vetande". /skagedal... 20:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've just changed it to "Föreställ dig en värld där varje enskild person har fri tillgång till mänsklighetens samlade kunskap." instead, which is the same as the quote bolded in the body of the letter. Cbrown1023 talk 23:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Tax deductibility for Canadians

Hi You should try and make it tax deductible for Canadians to donate. This is important to many people, especially ones with money!

Thanks for your message. From what I see on wmf:Deductibility of donations#Canada, your donation is deductible "from the donor's US taxable income", but I'm not sure if that would help you.
Another way to make your donations tax-deductible in Canada would be to create a local organization that would support Wikimedia's activities: Wikimedia Canada. You can signup to help them get started! Cbrown1023 talk 22:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Donation Form

Today after reading the personal appeal I decided to make a donation, I have to say that I was a little put off because the defaults on the website are for US dollars and for a USA address this seems at odds with the message in the appeal. Please keep wikipedia truly global and do not default to any particular country.

Hello and sorry you were upset by our donation form defaults. We try to "localize" the default donation amounts depending upon each language page (i.e. Hungarian gets the Hungarian currency, Polish gets the Polish currency, Norwegian the Norwegian one, etc.) and that does work for quite a few of the languages. However, it doesn't work for English, because just looking down the drop-down of available currencies will show you that we support many currencies from English-speaking countries (USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, CAD, NZD). To solve this, we just leave the default as USD, since that's where the Wikimedia Foundation is officially based (an internationally-focused charity based in the US). Do you have any other suggestions for solving this?
As for the credit card form, I agree with you. The whole fact that we support our own credit card processing is new this year, so we're still working out the glitches. The form will need to be reworked and redesigned for next year, because it's not in a very good state at the moment.
Thanks for your feedback and I look forward to hearing back from you, Cbrown1023 talk 14:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

User Interface : Suggestion

I was on the page meant for Donations for wikipedia (navigate: click on wiki's founder's logo> Donation Page). DO you think opening this page in a separate window would be a better idea? Personally as a user, I think it should be because when I was on the donation page, I started looking at other topics such as FAQs, Employee profiles etc. (on other pages). When I finished reading information on other pages, I closed the window and absolutely forgot about donations.


Wishing Wiki Team a Great 2010 , Thanking Wiki for being a great source of information - internet would have been incomplete without Wiki, and Wishing all the Luck with a great user experience in future.

Jas

That's a good suggestion, thanks! I just added it to the "list of things to remember for next year" that we've been compiling. Cbrown1023 talk 00:27, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Why am I redirected to Hebrew?

When I browse Wikipedia in English, I get a title "Please read: A personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales" in English. But when I press the link, I receive the letter in Hebrew! There is no option to read it in English! Why do I have to read it in Hebrew, if I'm using Wikipedia in English? Please change to English.

Thanks, Uri Even-Chen E-mail: uri<at>speedy.net Blog: http://www.speedy.net/uri/blog/

Hello Uri and thanks for the message.
I'm sorry you are upset about the GeoIP extension that we're using for this fundraiser. We usually don't do things like that and people get linked to the donation page in the language they're interface is set to, but we had to change it up a bit this fundraiser. We're joining forces with our local chapters (independent organizations in other countries that support the work we do) this fundraiser to raise money that can be spent locally, so that you more easily see the benefits in your country. In doing this, we have to link to a local "chapter landing page" that will allow you to either donate to Wikimedia Israel (ויקימדיה-ישראל) or the Wikimedia Foundation on the same page. (Israel's is Global Support/il.) However, if someone's just a Hebrew-speaking living in the US, we don't want to link them to that page because they would never see money spent in Irsael. That's the reason we're using GeoIP, not because we're trying to assume the language you speak best is Hebrew.
To switch to the donation page in English, go to bottom of the page and click "English". I hope this helps and sorry for the issues you ran into. Cbrown1023 talk 01:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I noticed the personal appeal from Jimmy Wales has expired. But next time, I recommend you show the appeal in the language of the page the appeal shows on. If I press the link on an English page, I should see the appeal in English. If I press the link on a Hebrew page, I should see the appeal in Hebrew etc.

Thanks, Uri Even-Chen.

Donations in Local Currencies

Could you please let us know how we could donate in local currency. I am from India and would like to donate in local currency. I am sure that there a lot of people like me who would be more than happy to support the really "DEMOCRATIC" working, monetarily through donations in local surrency of their country.

Appeal/gl

Appeal/gl

In Galician (gl), the update is:

Actualización: O 31 de decembro de 2009, chegamos á nosa meta de campaña de 7,5 millóns de dólares. Grazas a todos os que doaron! A súas doazóns continuadas dan apoio ás operacións da Fundación a longo prazo, permiten o seu crecemento, cobren continxencias e permiten financiar novos proxectos e actividades.

Tiberio Feliz (tfeliz) 83.43.67.62 14:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Done, thanks for the translation! Cbrown1023 talk 22:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Translation into spanish...

... of the "thanks!" from Jim has many mistakes. I am a sysop of the Wikipedia in spanish and I want to correct the translation but... I don't know how to ask for a user on the wiki of the Foundation. Thanks! --RoyFokker 09:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Em! Done! Thanks again, --RoyFokker 09:47, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your translation updates! That's the right page to update the translation. However, in the future, would you mind updating the translation status to tell us that the translation needs to be republished? Click the +/- in the corner of the page and find |es, then change whatever's next to that to "ready". Thanks again! Cbrown1023 talk 20:44, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Again. Some minor changes have been done, please update it again. Thank you, ×α£đes 23:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Done. --Az1568 (talk) 21:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Provide option to Pay to charity in Indian Currency (Rupees)

Please provide a option to Pay to charity in Indian Currency (Rupees)

Thanks

Srinivas P

Wikimedia Annual Report 2009

Great work. I love the illustrations and the stories. The anatomy of the Mumbai Bombing article is a great way to show our best work.

As a financial statement I understand that it has to include certain information in certain forms but financial information covers a very small part of the work of the Wikimedia projects. Most of the donations received are in the form of edits or media uploads or lines of code. Most of our donations to others are in the form of webpage access, media reuse or software downloads.

If we consider these non-financial donations then the amount of our income devoted to our beneficiaries would be a lot higher than 60%. I think some graphics to show this would be a useful complement to the financial information since, according to traditional accounting, 60% looks very low for a charity.

This is, of course, comparing apples with oranges. The first instinct of any accountant is to try and express these donations in their dollar equivalents. Don't make that the only way. For example you can have a graph of hours spent showing the staff paid hours and the volunteer hours and readers hours as percentages of the total hours. The non-financial info is not subject to the same disclosure restrictions as the money so release the stats early via the wikistats blog and invite folks to come up with creative ways to graph it.

And please - provide the info on a webpage as well as on a pdf.Filceolaire 07:52, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Why no anonymous donations

I tried to donate some money using credit card. After filling in my credit card details I was asked for my full name and address and e-mail. I don't care for giving all that information. I don't want any paper mail to be sent across the world to me. I can't tax deduct money given to charity. There's no reason for me to give out my full name and address. Can you please make it simpler to just donate money? Now I will keep my money until I can donate without giving name and address. Thank you.

Suggested Redirect: Style guide → Wikimedia visual identity guidelines

It took me quite a bit of time to find the style guidelines. I think this would be an easier link for people unfamiliar with Foundation Wiki (like me...) to find the visual style guide. Feel free to add any derivatives to the redirect if you think it's necessary. :) Glacier Wolf 04:15, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Created the redirect, thanks. Cbrown1023 talk 16:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

big tag on wmf:Head of Communications

Strangely, a </big> is shown on wmf:Head of Communications right before "By phone". I'm not sure what's causing it, when using the code in this wiki, the error doesn't show up (it also seems to be correct syntax). Also, the code has been there since April 2007, so I think in the past it worked. There must have been some weired change in the code of wikimediafoundation that caused this mess (or am I'm the only one to see this error?). Please clean it up temporarily by removing the closing big tag. Thanks, --Church of emacs talk · contrib 00:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. "Tidy" was disabled on Foundationwiki for the fundraiser, so minor coding errors like the tt usage there are no longer hidden. Cbrown1023 talk 00:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Purging of pages returns an error

I filed bugzilla:22640 for this, because I don't think there's much users can do to fix this (other than sysops changing the system message). It'd be interesting to know if the same error occurs for logged-in users (anonymous users have to make a POST request to purge the cache, maybe that's what is causing the error). --Church of emacs talk · contrib 00:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

As I suspected, this error is connected to POST requests. I think this matter is done here --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm not getting it as a logged in. I don't reproduce as not logged in either. Actually, could you give me exact steps used to reproduce this? NonvocalScream 06:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Staff page image

On [1], Neil Kandalgaonkar doesn't have an image, but there is one on commons, File:Neilk.png Could somebody please add it?Manishearth 15:33, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Pending clarification, I'll address to the staff, we will see. NonvocalScream 17:55, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
This is not necessary. Pictures of all the new staff members were taken yesterday and they will be added shortly. guillom 17:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Approached Guillom about this, his reply is above. I won't add the image, per the above, they have probably better resolution images and such. Thank you for the feedback. Best, NonvocalScream 17:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
You're welcome. Manishearth 01:21, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

typo in wmf:Resolutions#January_2009

“2009-01: Chapters commitee membership” – it's committee, not commitee. The link is correct, though --Church of emacs talk · contrib 17:27, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Done [2], thanks for the note. Cbrown1023 talk 20:56, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Recent statement concerning image deletion

In a Q/A-statement regarding increased reviews of sexually-oriented materials issued by the foundation, I found the following sentence which is a bit difficult to interpret: "...contributors are reviewing a larger amount of material on the projects than usual, and examining those images against pre-existing policies." What exactly is meant by pre-existing policies? As far as I understand, previous editions of Commons:Sexual_content were overwritten by Jimbo a few days ago. Are the contributors and volunteers using the post-rewriting policy versions as "pre-existing policies" or are the pre-rewrite versions considered to be "pre-existing policies"?--Bhuck 15:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Distinctiveness

Dear Wikimedia Foundation, I´m sure you thought twice about the statement of images review, so would you please more precisely explicate, what you mean by

  1. educational value
  2. questionable content

Yours sincerely, Hæggis 15:55, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I know this are fundamental questions and you (found this page by trying to log in at http://wikimediafoundation.org, there was a hint to ask my questions there) can´t give a definit & for all projects valid answer, but please give feedback in this questions. If this is not clear in approach, it follows to politcs of "I know it when I see it", which could, if it´s going to be the dominant prinicple, ‘depopulate‘ entire areas. -- Hæggis 19:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Regular Donations to Wikimedia Foundation

Why isn't there the ability to have regular donations to the Wikimedia Foundation? I think a lot of people would like to donate in small increments every month, quarter, or year from their credit cards and/or bank accounts. This would help the foundation meet it's budget requirements with a more stable donation flow. If it ends up being enough money, there wouldn't even need to be requests plastered on all the Wiki pages. --198.240.130.75 15:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

  • Hello. We are actively working on making this happen. Sadly, we're about 6 months away from properly building the recurring giving architecture into our fundraising pipeline. We aim to have it built in time for the 2010 Annual Fundraiser (November 2010). Rand Montoya 14:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Export page as PDF

Hi,

I would suggest you to give user option to download information in form of PDF.


It will be very great.

Regards Ashish Kandari

That seems like a good idea. I filed bugzilla:24364 for it. --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Done. Awesome! --Church of emacs talk · contrib 15:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Typo

"Experince" on http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Shuhari

Fixed, thanks! Cbrown1023 talk 20:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

"small paid staff"

Maybe it would be appropriate to remove "small" now. Randomblue 09:15, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

It is small compared to the thousands of volunteers. Although I agree that "small paid staff" is not optimal --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:44, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Bylaws multi-licensed?

The bylaws are stated as being part of the website they are on, but only say they are under the GFDL, while the site license text below them says that they are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Is it one? Both? I'm setting up my own foundation for WikiFur using an adaption of these bylaws, and it'd be good to know what license we should be distributing them under. :-) GreenReaper 22:49, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

They're dual-licensed CC-BY-SA/GFDL, the fact that the bylaws themselves only refer to the GFDL notwithstanding.--Eloquence 22:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Improved wikipedia favicon

Hey,

I think it would be really nice having a new wikipedia favicon, maybe a jigsaw piece with a 'W' on it. I think wikipedia really deserves this. CharlesWP 05:24, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

This really doesn't belong here. I believe that a jigsaw piece with a 'W' on it is too complicated for a small 16px favicon --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:44, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

e-gold donation

Hello, is this possible to donate using e-gold? I have an old account there with not much on it, and it's really hard to find businesses accepting it so basically it's all going to waste in huge upkeep fees... I'd like to empty it for the good cause.

wmf:File:Oppenheim interview Sue Gardner part 2 April 2010.ogg

This video doesn't seem to be encoded properly - the audio and video are out of sync. Is the original file available to try extracting part 2 again?  — mike@meta:~$  02:27, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You probably want to e-mail someone about this. I don't think any WMF staff watch this page. --MZMcBride 02:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I did. This is so kibble or Alex might notice and fix it :P  — mike@meta:~$  02:52, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I have the original .m4v/.flv files (which I'm pretty sure are fine) ...looking into this now. --Az1568 (talk) 04:58, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Got a new one ready to upload. Just need to find the best way to get it up there, as Special:Upload doesn't appear to like large video files. --Az1568 (talk) 07:46, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Should be working now, let me know if it's not. --Az1568 (talk) 23:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Staff

Shouldn't River be included here? As far as I know, he's a paid toolserver admin. --TheJH 10:12, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

River is actually an employee of Wikimedia Deutschland who also owns and controls the Toolserver (not the Foundation itself) James (T C) 00:18, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Not done WMDE employees don't belong on WMF wiki --Church of emacs talk · contrib 17:57, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Encouraging more donations for users

The Contact Us page say, among other things:1

  1. Though Wikipedia is a free service without advertisement, it is a private, non-profit enterprise and is privately funded.

I believe that the Foundation should NOT pass up this opportunity to invite reader of this sentence, to congribute, perhaps by adding something like the following:

"...is privately funded, "with []% coming from individual readers and contributors like you! While we do have a very few large philanthropic donors, last year there were [] separate gifts and donations deposited, which were received for [] different donors. Won't you join you friends and neighbors with a one time donation, or if you visit our pages frequently and regularly, perhaps you would consider a reoccurring donation plan?"

Also,

The -- is it alphabetical? -- "contact us' page should also have a "C" and/or "D" listing hyperlink(s) for Contributions and/or Donations, that would take someone to the appropriate page(s).


Donor demographics

I would be interested in reading about the donor demographics of the wikimedia foundation. For example, value of donations by country, private vs. NGO vs. Government sources (if any), statisics about ages, gender, socioeconomic status, and so on would be highly interesting for prospective donors. It could also help the foundation target groups with high usage but lower than average contribution levels. Plus, of course, transparency.

On the other hand, this may already be out there and I just haven't been able to find it. In that case, maybe a more prominent link on the donations page is in order.

Hi. We are currently working on getting a better understanding our of donors. We don't ask for much personal data when we ask for donations, but are working on the 2010 Donor Survey that we hope will begin to answer these questions. When the results are available, they will be made available to our community. Rand Montoya 10:22, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

wmf:Job openings

Typo on wmf:Job openings: "# Assistant to the Office of the CCO & CGPO – open uuntil Jul 19, 2010" (bold markup by me). --Church of emacs talk · contrib 14:25, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Done --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

wmf:User:Rebecca Handler

Exchange image for more recent image File:RHandler April 2010 wikimedia 03 10 1047.jpg --Church of emacs talk · contrib 17:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey Churchie, you now have an account, so you can make these changes yourself.
A randomly generated password for Church of emacs has been sent to church.of.emacs....
Cbrown1023 talk 17:49, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Casey (I actually requested an account a few minutes after you created one :D). --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Done --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

wmf:Head of Head of Partnerships and Foundation Relations Job Description

Should this not be named wmf:Head of Partnerships and Foundation Relations Job Description? Adambro 18:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Done fixed, thanks Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:49, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

wmf:Our projects

The Wikipedia logo should be changed to File:Wikipedia-logo-v2-en.svg, because it is currently displaying the old one. Diego Grez return fire 22:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Done, thanks for the pointer.--Eloquence 02:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Mistakes on Wikimedia official marks/Word mark creation

There are a few mistakes on foundation:Wikimedia official marks/Word mark creation:

  • therefor -> therefore (in the sense of "for that reason")
  • OpenSource, opensource, open source -> choose a consistent spelling
  • workdmark -> wordmark
  • explaination -> explanation
  • completly -> completely
  • photoshop -> Photoshop
  • desciptor -> descriptor
  • slovak -> Slovak

--Amir E. Aharoni 12:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Done by Amire80 --Church of emacs talk · contrib 16:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
I would correct "open source" to "free" myself, but when i requested an account i promised to make only non-controversial spelling corrections :) --Amir E. Aharoni 17:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Okay :) --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:07, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

wmf:Wikimedia:Welcome

Is the second statement still up-to-date? It seems the admin list has grown since 2008, it does seem to include more than six staff members. I'm not really sure how the current sysop policy (if there is any) is, so I'm leaving fixing that page to someone who knows more about foundation wiki :) --Church of emacs talk · contrib 16:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I tweaked it a little bit to try to update it. Does it look better now? Cbrown1023 talk 18:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Much better! Thanks, --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:07, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

wmf:Talk:Volunteer opportunities

The mentioned URL is obsolete, personally I've found this one instead. JackPotte 20:48, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's a talk page post from 2007. I don't think WMF will use Sematic Mediawiki for that… they probably have their own internal database with relevant contact information. --Church of emacs talk · contrib 21:04, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

security leaks

Moved to Wikimedia Forum#security leaks (non foundationwiki related feedback)

praise on how interesting, and helpful Wikipedia is to me. THANKYOU...

Your web-site provided me with the most detailed, comprehensive, and totally invaluable information on my medical problem, far beyond any of the other sites I've visited! I just wanted to express my utmost appreciation to you all at Wikimedia (for Wikipedia).Richard I just felt that I must let you know, (for all its worth) that I find the organisation of (Wikipedia) absolutely marvellous. I find it to be very helpful, and I often draw upon its mind-boggleing storehouse of knowledge.. that's all I wanted to say. Thankyou, and well done. Yours faithfully. Chris.

Press/Contact/Regional/Language and fi.wikipedia.org

Hi! Page Press/Contact/Regional/Language needs to be updated: Joonas Lyytinen is not one of the press contacts of Finnish-language Wikipedia anymore (per his own request). –Ejs-80 08:06, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Could use some help...

I am an admin on Ballotpedia. Just wanted to let you know that your wiki sites are a good source of technical information and I have found the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation to be a valuable resource for building a quality wiki. I am Director of Training for Ballotpedia.org and Judgepedia.org. We are Mediawiki projects that collect information about state and local ballot measures, state legislatures, officials and judges. We report on breaking news and archive historical information from a nonpartisan and neutral point of view. My position is to train members of our staff and volunteers to successfully add information to our wikis, and to collaborate with other staff members about relevant components of our articles, and design and consistency of our layout. Our wikis contain over 75,000 content pages collectively and have recorded more that 30 million page views since 2008.

I have been looking at this page, [3] and wondered if you would have the source code available for your form on this page. I would like to use it, modified, on one of ours. Thanks Clarinda2 16:27, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello,
The source of that extension isn't yet on mw:MediaWiki but its in the SVN (here).
I hope my answer helps.
Huib talk Abigor 16:47, 10 August 2010

Category on Donation page

For https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/w/index.php?title=Thank_You/en&diff=45396&oldid=43601, one of the categories is "2009".

Change it to "2010"? Amaling 00:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know: currently it's not used for this year's fundraising; when it is we will add/replace the category. --Nemo 01:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
The category should stay as "2009" because it's the donation page for the 2009 Fundraiser. When we put up next year's landing page, it will get the "2010" category. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 19:34, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Spelling error

It seems the permalink was the only area with the typo. I have fixed it. Thank you for pointing it out. Best, NonvocalScream 15:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I only hope it doesn't happen too often :) Resident Mario 15:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Update vision statement?

Vision states that the proposals at Vision/Unstable will be reviewed by the Board at least annually. There is no indication that this has been done since March 2007. Which needs an update - the wiki, or the Board? GreenReaper 03:53, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Please qualify 'tax-deductible'

Please provide a qualifier and link to http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Deductibility_of_donations on your donation page.— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.166.207.144 (talk) 00:24, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added some links: is it ok, now? Anyway, I'm sure that more info are sent to donors together with a receipt and a thank you, after they donate. --Nemo 06:55, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Errors and miscellaneous comments

Hi, I've been pointed here from another page to post feedback about foundationwiki. Here it goes.

I might add to this list as I find more. This was after browsing around for a bit. Killiondude 02:53, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I've replied inline to some suggestions. :-) --Nemo 18:17, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
To keep the thread somewhat reasonably readable, I'll reply to your comments here. Regarding the Press room page, I hadn't noticed it was the same content that was already listed. In that case, why have an entirely separate section that links to a page with the same content that's on the first page? Maybe just a way to get rid of a small amount of whitespace? Killiondude 18:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Note: I gave up on trying to do bottom, bottom posting and just replied under each point as well. Killiondude 23:55, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Cover more Currencies

Hi, Could you kindly add some more currencies. Like, the second most populated country in the world's currency, the Indian National Rupee. Here lots of people know english, internet, and are using your website. Thank you! Bye

We depend on PayPal for online processing of donations in various currencies, and they do not process Rupees. So unfortunately, at this time we have no way to process a donation in Rupees. However, if you have a debit or credit card, you can donate in US dollars or any of the other currencies we accept, and your bank will convert it to rupees for you. Philippe (WMF) 20:57, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

foundation:Special:UserLogin

Please leave more interlanguage links into the Special:UserLogin page. It is highly Englicized. Thank you. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 21:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Anglicized means it's English-focused, which it really can't be if it's a list of ways to localize the interface. ;-) I added a few other languages (the same languages that we have translations of wmf:Home in). It doesn't really make that much of a difference though, because anyone who'd be logging in in the first place would be an active user of MediaWiki wikis and know how to fill out the form in any language. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 22:56, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


Need WikiSpace

I would like to suggest you to create a content project named "WikiSpace" like that of wikipedia, wikisource, etc...It would be an educative plus informative part from WIKI. Expecting your prompt action. Expecting your feedback on this. Also expecting an creative space like HUBBLE site with even more aspirational paths and I suppose this could be successful like any other successful project. waiting to see WikiSpace.

-- Hariharan Natarajan

Donations from Brazil and other countries

Hi. I've always wanted to donate money, but I can see that here in Brazil the methods off payment/donation offered by Wikipedia/Wikimedia aren't really good for us. We use our own financial system peculiarities, which sometimes is different from the rest of the world (some parts are equal, others are not). This leads me to think that probably the methods off payment offered aren't specific to each country, but rather a generalized way for all the world. I think this is a huge point to be considered by the foundation, since it claims it needs donations but it doesn't (or maybe it does, and I am a exception, opinion-wise) gives the world what it needs to do so. I also heard some currencies are not contemplated. This means a lot of possible donors worldwide are not being able to help!
Yeah, criticizing isn't great unless you suggest something as well. Well, I think the solution isn't that hard - just ask users from each country what they feel is a valid way of making a donation and write that down. Later, check for institutions that do the job of receiving money in that country and exporting to other countries. I'm sure for USA users to send money by mail is easy, but from Brazil that's kinda impossible, not to mention that it would be in Real not in dollars.

Hope I have contributed somehow, even if it was by making you think and see something you hadn't yet.
Regards,
Zark Khullah (Khullah 01:28, 29 October 2010 (UTC))

trouble with donating money

Hi,

I entered my credit card info and address on the donation page, then clicked submit and the reCaptcha appeared. so I entered the words and clicked submit again, but had not noticed that my credit card info had disappeared when the reCaptcha appeared!!! yikes, so I had to edit my credit card info again. clicked submit, recaptcha appears, my cc info disappears! ARRGGHH. So had to enter my cc info a third time. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are not as dedicated to donate to wikipedia and give up after their info disappears the first time.

I suggest you fix this problem. Why isn't the recaptcha there from the beginning? I use Firefox on a Powerbook G4 with OSX 10.5.8

Good luck,

Susanne

Hello Susanne! I'm sorry to hear that you've been having troubles donating. Unfortunately, though, the fundraising staff doesn't monitor this page. Could you try contacting them privately by e-mailing donate(_AT_)wikimedia.org? Cbrown1023 talk 23:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Some of us do, during the fundraiser. Drosenthal 23:36, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Donation in INR

Wikipedia Team: I want to donate in INR(Indian Rupee). Could not find it. Please help.

Thank you for your email and your interest in supporting the Wikimedia Foundation. At this time, the Foundation can only accept donations by credit card, PayPal, checks (preferably in US dollars), bank transfers, or Moneybookers, as listed on our ways to give page:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give/en —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 115.240.124.231 (talk • contribs) .
We depend on PayPal for online processing of donations in various currencies, and they do not process Rupees. So unfortunately, at this time we have no way to process a donation in Rupees. However, if you have a debit or credit card, you can donate in US dollars or any of the other currencies we accept, and your bank will convert it to rupees for you.
We are sorry if this causes you inconvenience or limits your ability to donate. With potential donors worldwide, we realize that some may be unable to use these donation methods, and we are looking to expand our options in the future.
Our volunteers in India have recently begun a regional chapter, and may be able to accept a donation in Rupees - here is a page where you can find information and contacts:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India. Hope that helps! Philippe (WMF) 20:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
PayPal's website says the following about payments to and from India in their "Help Center answer" to "How do I send a payment in another currency?": "Note: Unfortunately, we’ve had to stop allowing personal payments to be sent to and from India. If you’re sending money for a personal payment to India, we ask that you find another way to pay until we’re able to restore personal payments to this area."[5]   — Jeff G. ツ 06:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Please revise page to allow people to return to wikipedia

Hello. I was looking up something in Wikipedia, and I got the appeal to donate to wikimedia, which I did. I am now stuck on the wikimedia site with no way to get back to my original query to wikipedia. that is very annoying. Please add a link to that page so when your loyal donors contribute, they can go back to the information they were researching.

I appreciate all you do on this site. it's just one tiny annoyance. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 174.48.229.166 (talk • contribs) .

I'll pass this along to the tech team for review. Drosenthal 23:34, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

bad link

On page

http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=WMFJA1/HU&utm_source=2010_JA1_Banner3&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fridayOpening

the link is bad, correct to

http://wikimedia.hu/wiki/Konferencia —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.182.99.239 (talk • contribs) .

Fixed, thanks for the feedback! Jon Harald Søby 21:35, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Making it easier to spread the word

You need to offer a way to post to Facebook (and other sites) on this page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Support/en

This is so I can add my comments to my Facebook page. There was a way to share to Facebook, but that was before I wrote my comments and I wanted my comments included.

Thank you.

4leslee@gmail.com

No reply necessary.

You can share your contribution from the Thank you page located here http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You/en after making the donations. There have been hundreds of posts already through the SM toolbar on the Thank you page on twitter. You can also track us with #keepitfree hash-tag on twitter. Thanks for the comment.Theo10011 23:33, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Что ноете!

классно = когда смотришь на карту города и окрестностей сверху.!
видно все канализации и общее дерево несущего образа проявления  события .
Что здесь = вскакиваешь в поле марихуанных программистов . свой язык пользователя  свои схемы

ни объекта ни его мицелия аксонного = дерева не видно Линейная матрица = когда глобус земли = переводят в карту атласа = никакого дерева Букета БОР- Гейзенберг = ВОЛНА(солитон) - частица . По сути = земля (ГЕЯ) круглая = а события поиска = плоские . И Изображать солитон = полем Эвклида = дорогое занятие. набрал = слово = мне нужно дерево = корни -этимология с уходящими в иррациональную плотность или поверхность солитона . А только потом = академический линейный преобразователь культура 18 века. Что на томографе видно = вики знания = там видно суть а вот статья Бехтерева Н.П, "Живойц мозг человека и как его исследуют". К слову: известно, что если человека полностью лишить каких-то внешних сенсорных раздражителей, то у него могут появиться галлюцинации. Это вещь проверенная, особенно через полёты в космос и подводное плавание. Без внешних раздражителей, человеку трудно. Так что небольшой шумовой фон всё же необходим. Вот такая хитрая система - мозг. Она может работать вся целиком, но это избыточно, целиком мозг работает в очень плохих условиях, когда он на пределе. В нормальных условиях мозг работает с помощью жёстких звеньев и небольшого количества гибких звеньев. Три рисунка = схема = дерево. дерево = проявленное = и дерево академическое ( это то в котором я пишу сейчас) но по сути ,я как в той статье = не вижу( не слышу) где -Я! куча приложений программ = правописание слова =сделайте удобное дерево что бы видеть- слышать и лазить по нему было удобно . гугл выбрасывает эту фигню в режиме эффекта присутствия . 

2 , перевод модели на язык поля групп запрета = PPM-1  и  PPM-2.Но это уже другая история .

Хотя бы этимологическое дерево = на греческом и латыни . Украина = краина = на греческом ( где искать ) воля = латынь = (ладонь или полёт ) дословно лети последний полёт со скалы (для раба= отпустили на волю= потом лети куда хочешь) Вот что надо от дерева = КОРНИ - СТВОЛ - КУЛЬТУРНАЯ КРОНА = И скорость доступа с эффектом присутствия = вот супер позиция для притока ресурса . А просто слайдовый Википед =это уже архаика.

Sinhala Translation

One of our guys have translated the Jimmy's message to Sinhala here. Can someone help us to put it in right place? --Lee 05:52, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I will pass it along. Thanks! Do you have contact information for the translator?⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 00:54, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
It was done by si:User:Naveen. He has enabled his email on Sinhala Wikipedia. Other than that I don’t have any contact information on him. -- Lee 12:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll forward his information on to whoever is covering Sinhala. ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 17:14, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
One more thing, is it ok if I mark the translation of the appeal as done? --Lee 12:51, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
If it actually is done, then sure! ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 17:14, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

regarding Jimmy Wales' personal appeal.

Though I'm in Russia, I'd like to see this appeal in English (can't read Russian). I can't find any links to see the english text.

Same for me in the Netherlands, it would be handy to have language-specific pages also have a clear link to english, or possibly multiple languages. 24.132.106.138 18:17, 13 November 2010 (UTC)Pete

You can force the English version by going to http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/WMFJA1/en?uselang=en. The donation pages for Russia and the Netherlands are controlled by local chapters, but I'll make sure they get this feedback. Thank you! Philippe (WMF) 08:09, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

superfluous </span> in WMF:Thank You/ja

There is a superfluous </span> in WMF:Thank You/ja. Could you fix (remove) this? --Akaniji 01:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for letting us know. Azariv 01:15, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The picture of Jimmy Wales is creepy

His eyes creep me out.

Hopefully there will be a few other personal appeals from others soon. His picture creeps me out as well. --MZMcBride 09:01, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Update: I see other banners now. The creepy one is the banner with the big Jimmy face on the right side. The other banners are not disconcerting.

New banners should be coming up in the next couple days that hopefully will be more to your liking. ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 01:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Can't we replace the pictures of Jimmy with pics of Megan Fox? Her "personal appeal" is much more appealing.

Wikipedia is an effort by many people all over the world. Why do we need to put a single face on a banner that asks for help? Why do we need to have any face at all? The idea of someone's picture on every single wikipedia page radiates of some sort of self-centered egoism.

Donation currencies

Donation should be allowed in much more currencies like the INR and others. So, that they can feel proud to donate in their own currencies and amount less that 20$ should also be allowed so that children who use wikipedia for their school work can also donate from their pocket money!

vasishtasetty India.☻

It's really unfortunate that we cannot use Indian Rupees on our donations form; I can only apologise for the inconvenience. The reason for this is that the Wikimedia Foundation uses PayPal software (Payflow Pro) to complete transactions; PayPal unfortunately does not process Indian Rupees.
However, if donors use a credit or debit card, they should be able to donate in US dollars. Their bank will then convert the currency into Rupees. If not, you might wish to look at alternative methods of donation instead.
If you have any further queries, do not hesitate to contact us at donate(_AT_)wikimedia.org.
Many thanks for your query. PeterSymonds 18:46, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
There is also an "other" box so you can put in amounts less than $20. If that box did not show up for you (and you can recreate it) please let us know; however at this time all banners should be going to a landing page with an "other" option for currency amount. ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 01:22, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Donations - why not by credit card? I don't use Paypal

I just saw Jimmy Wales' appeal and I would lie to donate but I refuse to use PayPal. Why can't I donate by ordinary credit card?

You can. :-) An ordinary credit card can be used to donate without logging into / signing up for PayPal. Just select "Donate by Credit Card" in the donate box and that should process smoothly.
The Wikimedia Foundation uses PayPal software (Payflow Pro) to complete your transaction, so the same rules and options that apply to PayPal apply to our internal method. That is just for your information.
If you have any further issues, feel free to contact us at donate(_AT_)wikimedia.org.
Many thanks! PeterSymonds 18:41, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


Actually, there are a couple of instances where the default currency for a particular country is not accepted by credit card. As a result, the Credit Card option is hidden or unavailable. There is a solution, the option to pay by credit card is still there, you will just need to change your currency to something different (try a major currency like USD, EUR, GBP, etc.). In summary, if you want to try and pay by credit card, but the option does not appear, try selecting a different (major) currency, such as USD or EUR, and that should reenable it. Hope that helps. ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 00:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Donation Summary Not Provided

At almost every web site where I make a purchase, an order confirmation summary is provided. This enables me to print the order summary for my records. A donation confirmation web page would be very helpful here.— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.47.205.79 (talk) 08:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

PayPal and online banking give their receipts; this should be a problem "only" for credit cards, is this your case? Anyway, every donor receives a thank you and receipt by e-mail soon. --Nemo 12:03, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

type error

Could please somebody change „außerordrentliche“ to „außerordentliche“ in the German appeal from Jimmy Wales (in the PS section)? Thanks, --✓ 15:02, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I will send this to our translators. Thanks for the help! ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 17:00, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

"you can use the information in Wikipedia any way you want."

Hello,

could you please take these words out of the appeal? As well in the other languages, because this is simply wrong. You can't use it in any way you want but in order with the granted licenses. Regards Catfisheye 15:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It isn't wrong. You can use the information in any way that you want. The licenses refer to the text or image, not the raw information. ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 16:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
[6] Catfisheye 22:41, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Information is an idea. Ideas cannot be copyrighted-- therefore the license status is irrelevant. Again, you can use the information in whatever way you choose; just not the text (the expression of that information). It is a major difference. ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 06:57, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
As you can read over there in the mentioned translations nobody uses information but content and yes you have your interpretation of information deriving from a special context, this context is not given in that appeal. But I see. Don't wanna disturb making money by misleading statements. Catfisheye 13:19, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, if the translations are wrong and are saying content instead of information, that's a problem with the translation, but not the actual original words of the appeal. We just need better translations. ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 17:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales, A personal appeal... - Displayed Language Problem

Hi, I would love to read your message, but, unfortunately being abroad it is not displaying the page in English, and there is no key at the side to change the language. So a good suggestion is too enable a way to do this.

What country are you viewing from? ⇒DanRosenthal Wikipedia Contribution Team 06:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
You can do it with http://enwp.org/Main_page?country=US.  :) Philippe (WMF) 13:56, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

personal appeal

i am a little put off by jimmy wales' picture everywhere. a personal appeal turns into a little bit of a self promotion.

I know you want to keep this "light" by posting the humourous blogs and posts etc. about your new fundrasiing initiative, and you have already made the decision so further discussion is pointless I suspect. HOWEVER I don't agree with what you're doing. This tepid appeal to some "community sensibility" because that is how you perceive yourselves is a CROCK - pure and simple. Your righteous stand against "corporate dollars" is SELF-INDULGENT in the extreme and frankly incredibly annoying too.

Who cares if there is some advertising on the site and someone else is paying for it??!! That doesn't mean your whole ethos and credibility is destroyed - quite the contrary. In fact it can be incredibly useful for your customers too - by putting people in touch with other organisations and services they might want or need. Contextual information is very powerful - see how AMAZON, Google, iTunes etc use that information to improve the search experience. It is very useful if it is done well.

SO rather than trying to suck donation dollars out of us MAY I SUGGEST the money raisied from advetising could be put towards BUILDIGN SCHOOLS AND LITERACY PROGRAM for the disadvatanged. Don't you feel better about yourselves already?! You woudl be using corporate dollars to make a real and physical difference in the world rather than scrapping a few dollars together from subscribers. Get off your high horses and GET REAL.

I actually don't personally care that much about advertising. But plenty of contributors do. Unless you're willing to replace the hundreds or perhaps even thousands of contributors who will leave if we start accepting advertising, your proposal is dead in the water. People are of course entitled to feel how they want about advertising and to choose where they want to volunteer their efforts and anyone who tells them they aren't is on a high horse of their own. Nil Einne 10:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)


Dude, when companies start paying you to advertise, they start paying attention to what kind of content you have because they are seen in context with it. If they have a different idea about "neutral" subjects/articles, then they can easily (and often DO) put pressure on the website to change the content more to their liking. It's almost like owning a share, because that is where Wikipedia's money would theoretically start coming from. If they had ads, then they absolutely would NOT get donations, ever, because they would have turned Wikipedia into a business. And what's worse, they would then be beholden to anyone who advertises with them because that would be the only source of income. In short, stop bitching about shit you don't understand. You sound like a whiny brat who just wants something to complain about. What's worse, you sound stupid.

Small Benefactors Dont Matter ???

After donating as requested, I went to the Benefactors - Donations Web-page to find out how many million small donations had contributed how many $-millions; and to my shock, I found out we don't even rate a mention, even in aggregate ??? That's WRONG !!! Sure hope that gets fixed fast; before the next appeal for individual donations !!! Just list "Individuals: how many? and how much?" Good-grief!!!

--jim-fox (HalFonts on Wikipedia) jffox77777@aol.com

Hi, small gifts are listed under wmf:Special:ContributionHistory which is linked from wmf:Fundraising reports; that special page is currently not working, but as far as I know it's being fixed; it contains donor name, amount and comment for each donation; even if you don't want to appear on that page, you can submit a comment/story which will be read and which the WMF is definitely interested in: they've been also used as messages to request donation, and they used to be in the donation landing pages, bu thy've been removed because surprising that box was actually reducing donations. When the page is ready, I'll ask if we can add a link from wmf:Benefactors. --Nemo 17:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Typo in German appeal

There is a typo here: The title should read "Eine Bitte vom Wikipedia-Gründer" (see de:Leerzeichen in Komposita). --Anypodetos 12:23, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. Please note though, that users from countries with chapters are redirected to the chapter donation page, e.g. users from Germany are directed to spenden.wikimedia.de. --Church of emacs talk · contrib 14:48, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I landed there and I'm in Austria, which has a chapter as far as I know. Anypodetos 12:09, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikimania location/year error

I have just found an error on foundation:FAQ/en#What are your plans? Where is this going? which, under the "Staging outreach and community events world-wide." section states that Wikimania will be in Haifa in Summer 2010; it will be in Haifa in Summer 2011. It's not a big error but I think it still deserves to be corrected. Regards, Rock drum (talk·contribs) 19:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed by Jeff Jones. --Azariv 10:02, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy has no personal appeal

I feel attacked by his face. Is the point to get us to donate so we don't have to see his mug anymore?— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 98.207.48.6 (talk)

Yes, I agree. I donated a few weeks ago, but I STILL have to look at these annoying ads. Could they at least be hidden after a person has donated?

I would like to congratulate you on the good work. But I have to tell you that it is quite annoying to see the personal appeal every time you look for some information. I understand that you might be short of funds and you need to mobilise the users to contribute but please think of a less intrusive way. Regards... _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Re: Jimmy has no personal appeal:

I didn't feel intruded by it. After I donated I knew that I had donated so it was okay. I knew I did my part and was satisfied. I would just have liked to seen the updated total change when I added to it. But I guess you don't have a real-time calculator. Also would like to see a share with facebook link on the appeal so that I can spread the word to my friends and family that if they like wikipedia they should donate if they can. Dave Stanley, Carthage, Texas, USA

No way to donation from Iran

Dear Jimmy Wales

During last years WIKIPEDIA was/is a reliable source of information for me in Iran, great thanks. Unfortunately all suggested ways of donations are not accessible for normal Iran inhabitants. I regret and appreciate if other ways added to list applicable to this kind of countries.

Majid

Hi Majid, sorry if we can't currently collect money from people in Iran. But people's time is also valuable, we have a number of Iranian articles where we need to add references from reliable independent sources such as newspapers. Would you be able to help us that way instead? WereSpielChequers 11:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Language auto translation

Suggestion: PLEASE do not translate languages automatically, or at least put easily-viewable button(s) to choose language. Just because I'm in Sweden at the moment doesn't mean I speak Swedish! I'm a language Neanderthal so don't appreciate auto translations without easy links to change it. Actually, I'm trying to donate but the personal appeal link (top of Wiki page) in Swedish is unreadable for me, so can't contribute! THANK YOU Wiki for your brilliant service. I quietly thank you daily! Keep up your wonderful work Wiki Team, Leo

You can donate in English at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/en.   — Jeff G. ツ 07:16, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Donation in Indian rupees

You can not ignore India atleast now a days. Even Mr Obama has come to India seeking huge oreders for generating employment oppurtunities for Americans. Please make arragements to accept donation in Indian rupees. DV Reddy

Please make specific options for donation from India in INR. Ypschita

Paypal (the pay service we use) does not accept Rupees. You might be interested in complaining to them! If you donate using a credit card and USD or EUR, your credit card company will probably convert that to Rupees. I'd suggest looking into that avenue. Killiondude 18:46, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
I understand that we have plans to setup an office in India, hopefully when that happens it will be easier to resolve this sort of thing. WereSpielChequers 02:41, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
This is no answer. Why do you use a service that doesn't accept rupees? WHY doesn't it accept rupees? State the facts, please. Or...is there only ONE such money-accepting entity? (In which case, hopefully that's mentioned in the Monopoloy section of eBay...er...Wikipedia. Are you all an encyclopedia? How can you not accept currency from every nation???--Levalley 03:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, PayPal is almost a monopoly. And Visa, MasterCards are an oligopoly. Are you really surprised by that? --Nemo 18:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

POSSIBLE GRAMMATICAL ERROR ON EMPLOYEE CREDIT CARD USAGE PAGE

On the page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Credit_Card_Usage_Policy

... is found the following:

2.To ensure that the card is NOT used for items prohibited to on the application form;

The "prohibited to" in the above - is the "to" correct? It seems to me that it is not correct. Sorry to trouble you if it is correct "legalese". 95.61.53.128 22:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; this has been fixed by somebody. PeterSymonds 13:47, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Already donated

I have donated already, it seems weeks and weeks ago. Is there some way for me to now remove the tiresome appeal banner? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.202.78.113 (talk)

Yes, but it involves creating an account and logging in, first, then editing a special page. Nothing quite so simple as a "stop showing me these banners" button. Kylu 12:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Or you can press the "x" in the top right corner of the banner. That should take it away for the rest of the session. If you have an account, that will set a cookie to remove the banner for a week. Philippe (WMF) 18:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Please copyedit the dashes in the banner appeals

I see -- instead of —, - rather than –, and in the Jimmy appeal, I think I even saw a mix of endashes and hyphens being used where endashes are expected.  fetchcomms☛ 23:25, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Please provide links to specific appeals. --MZMcBride 02:10, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
wmf:Template:2010/JimmyLetterA/en, wmf:Template:2010/JimmyLetterC/en, wmf:Template:2010/LilarojaLetterB/en, wmf:Template:2010/KartikaLetterF/en, wmf:Template:2010/KartikaLetterG/en, wmf:Template:2010/SMLetter/en, wmf:Template:2010/SageLetterA/en, wmf:Template:2010/SageLetterB/en, and wmf:Template:2010/JoanGomaLetterA/en. Thanks,  fetchcomms☛ 02:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I made them all endashes per w:Dash#En dash versus em dash, which brings a bit of consistency at least. I think I got them all but if you see any more, let us know. Thanks, PeterSymonds 08:58, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, I will check the new appeals when they come up, but I don't think you missed any.  fetchcomms☛ 22:19, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

A personal appeal ... Lilaroja - Dead link

Using: Windows 7 Firefox: 3.6.12 Located: Sweden

When clicking on the link: "Please read: A personal appeal from Wikipedia author Lilaroja" The link is from time to time located on this site among others.

This is where I land: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:LandingCheck?landing_page=WMFLA002&language=en&country=SE&utm_source=20101208_EA002A_EN&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=20101208EA15

For me the page is empty, however changing country get variable to EN will give you the English site.

Thank you very much for the detailed report. This was a mistake in the set up. The landing pages for Sweden are controlled by the local Swedish chapter and they had not set one up for the editor appeal (and so those banners never should have been shown). I've fixed that setup and for now it will go back to the Jimmy banners. Thank you again for pointing this out! Jalexander 17:44, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Lilaroja: Whose idea was this? Give him a medal.

I mean no disrespect at all to Jimbo--we all know we owe him greatly for the Wikimedia Foundation--but his stubbly-bearded mugshot did nothing to draw me in. Put a picture of a beautiful woman on the appeal for donations, though, and you've got a winner. My donation's on its way. Lexicon 17:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

We've discussed the matter and decided that for the next fundraising event, a good compromise would be to host a picture of Jimbo in a bikini. Thank you for your suggestion! Kylu 15:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Lol! (and I practically never "lol"). Lexicon 23:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Can.... not... un-see..... Must... not.... visualize.... Philippe (WMF) 16:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Turn off the banners

First of all, if Wikimedia is not associated with WikiLeaks, then it ought to be. It is not appropriate for an organization built upon the idea of free dissemination of information to hesitate in the face of corrupt governments wishing to hide corrupt practices. Information is information and not connected to political agenda unless people wish it to be. I do not wish it, and I have no interest in using Wikipedia for anything other than the digital equivalent of reading books, and I am very thankful to the organization for the endless time it has saved me and for the endless access to material of great use to me as an artist and musician.

Which brings me to my point: I have recently donated to Wikipedia, and therefore resent the constant barrage of personal appeals for further donations. I could understand this if I had never donated, but this is an organization I value and which I am quite prepared to support financially. It is simply distracting and annoying to see these ads at the head of every tutorial I might be working on, although I do realize I can switch them off.

Can you do something about this?

Best wishes, Wardropper 18:46, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Replying to the first note, not the second (I'll leave that for someone else): WikiLeaks was formed by and run by a non-US citizen, hosted outside the United States, and hosts information that the US government has gone to some length to suppress. (see also, en:Wikileaks.) If the Wikimedia Foundation, a US nonprofit with its core servers in non-missile-proof buildings, decided to host the site... well, how long do you honestly think that's going to last?
Secondly, I can't really see that Wikileaks is a site of the same vein as the rest of our projects. We attempt to be politically neutral and rooted in reliable, public sources, while WL attempts to be a source itself, and is often (to my eyes) more overtly political than Wikimedia projects.
Lastly, the banner on this page is there because people keep leaving messages threatening to punch Jimbo in the face for founding Wikileaks (which you're aware he didn't do) and otherwise griping about that site. It's not stating that Wikileaks is a good or bad site, it's just being factual: They're not us. We're not them. We're not responsible for their content, nor vice-versa. Kylu 15:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
In response to the second note, we cannot turn off the banners for just some users; but, as you mentioned, you can turn them off. If you click the [x] in the right corner of the banner it will disappear for 7 days for logged in users. You can also permanently disable banners under your user preferences. - Deniz (WMF) 16:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
But I'm sure it *would* be possible to set a hidesnmessage cookie after the user donated, right? Perhaps even introduce a new cookie that lasts a bit longer than just 7 days and works on all WMF projects and not only one? --Church of emacs talk · contrib 21:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
It might be possible to set a cookie like that, yes, but you'd actually have to set several since Wikimedia doesn't use only one domain, I'd think. For instance, the reason we have several small images load when someone logs in using SUL. Could be wrong, though...I haven't looked at how the banner loads. Kylu 15:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I asked about this to our tech staff. The response I got was "cross-domain cookies? That's some serious black magic." Philippe (WMF) 03:20, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
In defense of such practices, there are perfectly logical and rational reasons why you have to sacrifice black goats to the squids to get it to work correctly. (And, my thought was, are the ads served from the domain you logged into, or from a central source?) Kylu 03:30, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Geolocation comments (moved from top)

I also want the personal appeal from Jimmy Wales in the language i have chosen to read pages in Wikipedia

So geolocation is a very very very bad practice. Stop with this stupidity. Millions of people use another language then the language of the country they live in.

Using geolocation for language is BAD practice

Webadmins! There IS a reason why all browsers have language setting and are announcing it when requesting a page. Why do you use geolocation to show localized version of page? Please fix it.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 178.236.165.213 (talk • contribs) .


I have to agree :(
IIRC it was rejected a few years ago, precisely because geolocation is so horrible. Now, it seems, the advocates of that practice got it accepted. While I totally agree that geolocation is a bad practice, I have to acknowledge that there are good reasons to use it in this specific case. Chapters are organized country-wise, not language-wise and this (mostly) guarantees that people from country X go to the donation page of Chapter X. --Church of emacs talk · contrib 21:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I've suggested using geolocation for chapter donations combined with the language of the project they're visiting as the language for the landing pages. For example, if you're reading en.x then you'll be taken to English landing pages, fr.x, you'll be taken to french, and so on, and you can still use the geolocation to allocate to the local chapter. I suppose using geolocation for the projects that don't have languages choice (meta, Commons, and mediawikiwiki come to mind) is a good second alternative as long as the landing pages are translated. Killiondude 21:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
That's actually how the landing pages were setup from the get-go. The only reason this doesn't happen for all chapters, is because the onus is on them to get them translated (and allow them to be translated). Cbrown1023 talk 23:07, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
That's actually not how it's set up. Perhaps you didn't completely understand what I wrote. :-) Killiondude 23:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Er, no? This is the link I click on when I view a banner on commons.wikimedia: [7]. Do you see how it links to wmf:WMFSG001A/en/US? The "/en" is the my interface language (English) and the "/US" is for the country I'm in. If I were in Israel (where Wikimedia Israel has fundraising power) and viewing Commons in Arabic, I'd see this, which would give me this link: [8], which sends me to wmf:WMFJA1/IL/ar. The "/IL" is for Israel and the "/ar" is for Arabic. This is different from the general Israeli donation, which is wmf:WMFJA1/IL in Hebrew. Cbrown1023 talk 23:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
If you're in Israel and reading the English Wikipedia you should be sent to an English landing page. The same goes for any other language specific project, which you didn't mention in your scenario above. The configuration I proposed above is not how it is set up currently. Killiondude 00:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
No, if you're in Israel and reading the English Wikipedia with your interface language in English, you should be sent to an English-language page. Since you asked for a scenario for enwiki.... if you're in Israel and have your interface language in English on enwiki, then you'll see this, which would give you this link, which sends you to wmf:WMFJA1/IL/en -- a Wikimedia Israel landing page in English. Cbrown1023 talk 00:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
This is where we disagree. People who aren't logged in and can't change their interface language (note: the vast majority of readers) should not be served based on their geolocation alone. Given the large hint that they are reading in English, they should be served English landing pages. Killiondude 00:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
If they're not logged in, that means they haven't changed the interface language in the preferences, so they're seeing the language page in the language of the wiki... so anonymous users to enwiki have an interface language of English. I'm not sure where you were told that they're ever just served based on "their geolocation alone". Cbrown1023 talk 00:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying that. Then that narrows down the poor configuration choice to this: allowing chapters to have the choice of whether or not they translate their pages. One might even go so far as to say the choice to allow for chapters to have their own landing pages was bad. In a perfect world, people would be able to select a checkbox on the wmfwiki donation form if they'd like to donate to their local chapter (with perhaps a link to their local chapter's donation page, based on geolocation). That way the landing pages from banner clicks are strictly on wmfwiki. Killiondude 00:31, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

In Germany, even if you surf on English Wikipedia with an English user interface & English browser and you click the English Jimmy Banner, you're redirected to a German page which has no language option. We're making it very hard for some people to donate. --Church of emacs talk · contrib 12:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, this is because Wikimedia Deutschland does not want to localize its pages into English. Cbrown1023 talk 18:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Even if they wanted to, it seems a bit much to expect every chapter to cover every language. Perhaps a way can be found, in time for next year's fundraiser, for the foundation to provide generic chapter adaptations of the translated Wikimedia landing pages to cover language gaps while still respecting territory-based revenue sharing with the chapters. It should at least be an option for chapters that do not object to the editorial content so strongly that they want to opt out of the revenue opportunity. ~ Ningauble 21:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
We don't expect any chapter to translate its pages into every language. :-) To the contrary, no one expects them to translate their pages at all (well, to English would definitely be helpful). The issue is that certain chapters refuse to allow interested volunteers to translate their pages. Cbrown1023 talk 02:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Alright, I see that raising funds to support and promote the Wikimedia projects is not the only agenda in play here. I feel foolish for imagining a world where ethno-geographic chapters are not Balkanized. Thanks for the reality check. ~ Ningauble 13:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I really don't understand why they would turn down people volunteering to translate their pages... the only reason I can think of is that they just don't think it's worth it to make their things translateable. *shrugs It's definitely something that we'll have to remember when making the chapter agreements for next year. Cbrown1023 talk 02:20, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not donating to any organization that has such feeble "contact" information

As a long time giver-of-money to Wikipedia (every year, it's the top charity we support), I'm very unhappy with several aspects. The first is the irony of a wiki-organization having only this feeble page where I'm writing as ready contact.

Secondly, no one here seems to know what an encyclopedia is any more. People can know things without having citations; they can do experiments or observe. The citation-bias in Wikipedia is now ludricous (and I'm a professional scholar). One could watch a cloning experiment of a dinosaur being resurrected in front of their own face and not be able to mention it on Wikipedia.

And, btw, being associated with WikiLeaks is neither here or there - and if you think THAT is the reason we're not donating (I used to ask students to donate too...I am silent on the issue now, I'm waiting to see what happens to their edits, most of which are pretty well researched and thought out.

I'm not giving up, not by a long shot. I LOVE Wikipedia, but I'm waiting a bit to donate. For one thing, who needs the tax credit in a year when one's income has plummeted by 25%? At least I have a job. Seems there are an awful lot of employees at Wikipedia as well.--Levalley 01:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this page sucks. I think everyone realizes that. But I think it's inaccurate to say it's the only means of contacting the Wikimedia Foundation. Have you looked at wmf:Contact us?
I think it also helps if you understand the technical aspects of the situation. The wiki at wikimediafoundation.org hosts a lot of content, some of which is raw HTML. In order to host such content, it has to limit its user base, otherwise anyone would be able to inject all sorts of nastiness into important pages. If there were a way to easily let anyone comment on the talk page (or even edit the site with something like FlaggedRevs), I think everyone would love it. But it's a matter of separating the parsing between the two types of pages in a currently indiscernible way. If you know what I mean. Some JavaScript tab hackery is probably in order, but nobody has been willing to implement that yet.
As for the dinosaur, yeah, I think we'd want more than just your say-so. You'd sound pretty crazy if you said you'd watched the resurrection of a dinosaur. Requiring verifiable sources and references for claims made in Wikipedia's articles is pretty reasonable. You can use your user page to spout whatever you'd like (within community standards, I guess).
I think some people aren't donating due to the WikiLeaks controversies, but that's really neither here nor there. I'm glad to hear you haven't abandoned Wikipedia yet and I hope you'll reconsider some of your views. --MZMcBride 02:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Taking your word and for it with regards to your good intentions and that of your students, but I have to tell you that you wouldn't believe how much unbearable junk people try to post on wikipedia every day; one of the reasons why you don't see that junk is precisely because of those sources/citations-requirements, and because around the clock at any given moments there are at least 50+ people (none of them employees) cleaning up behind the scenes. I can guarantee you that, alas and unfortunately, not everyone in the world is as thoughtful and educated as your students; and if we let that already often porous strictness slip, you'd have to read all sorts of weird theories by the end of next week — such as fork-bending works by mind-power but only if you have a pink power-beetle implanted in your brain, Muslims are actually morphed androids from Jupiter, and there are purple, neon-striped giraffes inhabiting the backside of the moon. You just can't see them. Seb az86556 03:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of personal information

I would like to call to your attention that there has been misuse of personal information collected on the fundraising page at wikimediafoundation.org, as described in detail at Talk:Fundraising 2010. I encourage the board and officers of Wikimedia Foundation to investigate this breach, and to institute and uphold appropriate policies and procedures. Thank you. ~ Ningauble 17:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The immeasurable value of Wikipedia

First of all, I wouldn't give a plug nickel to this group. Wikipedia may be responsible for single-handedly moving us closer to the dark ages than any other website. This organization allows the ill-informed and marginally literate to masquerade as authoritative sources of information. In academic circles, this website is the equivalent of a bad polish joke: it affords the opportunity to perpetuate the stereotype of pseudo-intellectuals, while at the same time being representative of bad taste and poorer judgment. This website has all the scholarly value of public restroom graffiti.

Thank you for your opinion; others naturally disagree. Seb az86556 10:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


Betageek612>>>You paint a broad brush stroke of contempt over the hard work of a lot of people. Including, I presume, other scholars who also contribute to Wikipedia.

In my area of expertise, engineering and technology, I find that most of the information on Wikipedia is pretty accurate. Now religion, politics, and personalities are areas I can't vouch for as I don't go there. Hey, Wikipedia's there for you to correct if you see an inaccuracy! So, get to work!

Other end of the spectrum

Conversely I think wikipedia is better than any of the encyclopedia that I grew up with in the 70s & 80s (Collier's, Britannica, a junior set whose name is forgotten). But I read them. All of them. And would never be able to completely read this one. My complaints don't even make me pause in that evaluation, but are worth noting: using an onscreen keyboard, I think that enough forethought did not go into the disabled having to navigate past the donation box. As someone doing a lot of post-election update editing, having it reappear every time I go forwards or backwards isn't just unnecessary, it could influence whether I ever donate anything but edits. Finally, the assumption by many editors that "hyperlinks are cool", and that information doesn't deserve notes in consolidated lists is just uncool. Millions of people have limited hours of availability and rationed computer time, pay for each page printed and take it home to do reports, where all those details are lost and the hypertext is useless. I love wikipedia anyway, despite its faults, which I think are correctable. 75.203.158.55 09:46, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay. --MZMcBride 09:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

This campaign sucks!

Sorry to use such words, but it does suck for several aspects, if the owner of an organisation is naggingly posting his picture everywhere to almost insensitively demand a donation! It annoys me a lot. First of all, there is all those people, who are working on wikipedia. So why is there not changing group-photos of them????? Showing him, is like he is taking the money to his own pocket. Oh, yeah, first it was for free, and suddenly it is (his) business. That kills the whole notion and geniality of wikipedia. Also, that guy is "UGLY". I just do not wish to see his face again, it really turns down the whole wikipedia experience. It is not HIM resembling it, it is the WRITERS. I find it very egoistic and narcistic what he is doing and how he is doing it. If this is a community, it shall optically also resemble one, and not a single "ruler". And then, secondly, to have this prominent banner pop-up almost every time I enter wikipedia, is very annoying. It could indeed be by the side and extend on click or so. That would be a much more elegant solution. But to smash it right into my face, EVERY TIME, it does not make me want to even donate an article anymore. It is toooooooooooo demanding! A donation is voluntarily, but he sort of wants to press membership or user fees!!! It feels like that. And thirdly, to announce, that Wikipedia is not associated with WikiLeaks. Well, that one (in red, with a warning sign) talks fr itself as well. I am getting another feeling here, and I do not like it. Jimmy Wales may have had the idea, but man, stay in the background, its not about you!!!! I just needed to spit this out, even though it is the 24th of December! 88.240.17.39 10:50, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


Should I donate?

Hi,

I feel that I should donate something to Wikipedia, as I use it often.

On the other hand, who's to say it won't go the way of public t.v?

In the 60's 70's and 80's public t.v. was pretty good and practically free of advert.. oops, contributor recognition announcements. Now It's more like a commercial channel than it is different from one.

I don't give to public t.v. now because it has frankly(IHMO) gone to hell since the 80's.

So... If there was some real guarantee that Wikipedia down the line won't end up with pop-ups and ads-before-use all over it in the next 20 years I might make a contribution.

Any thoughts on this?

Just like public television, we are trying our best to avoid such a scenario, but just like public television, we cannot foresee the future. Seb az86556 02:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Reply to Seb... Fair enough. My question was a bit rhetorical in the sense that when a "free service" is provided on the web, once it becomes popular someone will come along and take it over or buy it out and find some way to 'monetize' it. I see this happening so much that I wonder if Wikipedia is next. BTW, I don't really think Public T.V. really tried that hard to stay free of all that private industry funding. Alas they have a bottom line too. If not shareholders, then the vested interest of the people at the top of the Public T.V. food chain and all the content providers that feed from their contributors and our tax dollars.

From the en Help Desk

I've just dealt with a query from a UK user who does not wish to donate via Paypal. It does seem odd that the landing page shown to UK users does not have a "Credit Card" option. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:26, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

That page is maintained by Wiki UK Ltd d/b/a Wikimedia UK. They can be reached via the methods outlined on their contact page.   — Jeff G. ツ 14:13, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Deductibility of donations for the Netherlands

I do not see a section on "Deductibility of donations" for the Netherlands.

I've found it on the list of the Dutch taxes, though.

Type "wikimedia" in the first field "Instelling" on: 

 http://www.belastingdienst.nl/giften/anbi_zoeken/

and click "Zoek" (Search).

Returns: 

WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC.	SAN FRANCISCO, USA	01-01-2010

The entire PDF is here: http://www.belastingdienst.nl/particulier/giften/download/

The dutch organisation is not in the list, though.

Hans

About the donation

I donated $5 a couple of minutes back and I got an error saying that this transaction cannot be accepted, but the transaction has already occurred on my bank statement, is there any way I can confirm that the money went to wikipedia and no place else ? Gautam

Thank you for your contribution. If you email giving(_AT_)wikimedia.org with your name and email address they can track it to be sure it got there. Philippe (WMF) 21:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

scc1@san.rr.com

The contribution site is breaking up (fonts). Are you under cyber attack?

No. Can you be more specific as to what you're seeing? Philippe (WMF) 21:47, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
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