I love Wikipedia and think everything should toss a few bucks at it. But Jimmy Wales, please. I know Wikipedia needs money, but there’s an old advertising slogan: don’t put the client in the ad.
I am sick of seeing your goddamn face every time I use Wikipedia. It makes me want my money back. If you insist on having a face there, how about someone I at least find attractive, like Jessica Alba, or Laetitia Casta, or Christina Hendicks, or George Clooney?
And if you absolutely must make it YOUR face, take a step closer to the fucking razor.
I agree. That banner at the top is annoying. I prefer their donation banners that have quotes of Wikipedia users and a bar that shows how much money has been collected.
Fortunately, you can click the x on the top right on the banner, and it goes away, even the next time you open the browser.
Damn straight. Also, Yahoo needs to fire whomever came up with the idea that anybody wants to look at some huge honking picture of some random person when they’re logging into email. Sheesh.
According to this story, while the sight of Wales’ face might be annoying some people (like the OP and me), it has actually been more successful at soliciting donations than other appeals on the Wikipedia site.
Guy exudes so much douchebag I bet you’d hear water splashing off in the distance every time he opens his mouth. I admit, I am somewhat disinclined to donate since I’ve been forced to endure looking upon his countenance every time I open the site.
Funny, after I saw the banner I donated to Wikipedia for the first time.
Let’s be honest, it may have shortcomings, but Wikipedia is one of the greatest achievements of the Internet.
I say, way to go, Jimmy!
This has been annoying me for the past week or so. I use Wikipedia a dozen times a day or more, and I was getting really tired of his ugly mug (though not enough to start a thread on it), but never noticed the go-away x.
Maybe I’ll even make a donation now…
I guess the other thing I don’t like about it, apart from Wales’s smarmy face, is the deceitfully desperate nature of the banner: “Please Read - A Personal Appeal.” It sounds like someone’s dying.
Or more precisely it gives the viewer the impression Wikipedia is dying and that Wales is pretty much down to his last blue Oxford shirt and that unless you donate immediately Wikipedia’s doomed. But if you read the “Appeal,” you’ll note there’s not actually any reference to a desperate situation.
But in fact the company’s finances aren’t at all desperate. Wikimedia Foundation made money - quite a lot of money - in the last fiscal year. Of course it’s all donations, but if they get just as much as they did in FY 2009-2010 they’ll be up a lot of money once again. If they were to get way more… well, I guess the Foundation wants to do other stuff besides Wikipedia. But if I want to just support and use Wikipedia and Wiktionary, that’s not an option.
There’s one shot of Jimmy Wales where he looks particularly psychotic. I have therefore been amusing myself (mildly) by pretending that he is the subject of the article below - particularly effective when looking up serial killers and the like.
Hells yeah - he’s only a few years older than me but he looks like he’s been rode hard and put away wet. He looks like he could be a poster boy for the “climbing back from rock bottom, one rung at a time” foundation.
You don’t listen to public radio, do you? This is a million times better than that which it emulates, the now 3-times-a-year pledge drives that cut 20 minutes of every news hour out entirely and seamlessly integrate into the broadcast so you can never turn them off before they start begging like they’re down to their last dollar. And when do you turn it back on to duck the unwanted solicitation and cajoling? God only knows. So for 2 weeks I realistically can’t listen to the news to and from work, and that is a tragedy, far more so than making Jimbo Wales’ image go away by simply closing the ad box.
See the little X in the corner? Click it and it all goes away. And thank God it’s that easy.
Living in Canada I don’t get to listen to NPR as much as I’d like. I’m sure they’re irritating, but at least I don’t have to see some NPR idiot’s ugly mug every time I want to look something up.
Oh, and I’ve tried the X thing. I still see his face when I start Wikipedia up, the smarmy fuck.