I’ve got to disagree with you here. Those goals are not superfluous. After reading your comment I spent some time rooting around Wikipedia and I learned that they have a pretty detailed report on the activities of the Wikimedia foundation including finances, a road map of activities and projected expenses. It seems the Wikimedia foundation actively does things to improve readership, retain and engage contributors and make site improvements. This stuff costs money.
You’re right about them having a hefty reserve though. According to the report Wikipedia has about 27 million in reserve, which is enough to run them for about 3/4 of a year if no other revenue comes in.
That’s great. But I rather agree with what Wikipedia has to say about this.
You don’t want wikipedia to run like a shoe-string operation. It needs the funds to maintain site quality and robustness. Most importantly, it needs that money to grow.
Overall, I trust that donating to Wikipedia is worthwhile. I know I sure as hell get more than 5$ worth of value out of it a year.
I think you misunderstand Objectivism, If an objectivist gains personal utility/satisfaction from helping others, then they will help others. Wales has helped lots of people, and I’d like a cite that he did it to earn money.
Jimbo Wales has debatably made money indirectly from wikipedia, as it has made MediaWiki effectively the standard wikisoftware, which may benefit Wikia, the biggest ad-supported hosting service that uses exactly the same software and is part owned by Wales.
I was going to post that, but since I’ve already cockbombed the IQ thread today, I’m trying to play nice.
from the Wikipedia article on jimmy wales. Nupedia, the predecessor to wikipedia was conceived as a profit making idea.
and to your other point
Going to go out on a limb here and assume the MediaWiki Software is open source. Therefore anyone could have used it to make Wikia. Just like anyone can use Linux run a business that makes money.
He’d need money to pay and vett the experts and there is nothing wrong with earning money for yourself.
MediaWiki is opensource, but since Wikia has by far the most market share of any MWbased hoster, it would gain the most from the growth in the demand caused by Wikipedia.
I understand it perfectly. Getting utility from helping others is the same thing as doing it go make money. Getting satisfaction from helping others can only happen if you think helping others is a moral good. Objectivism teaches that it is not a moral good. Those people who help people out out of satisfaction are actually doing so because they subconsciously buy into a different moral system–one that says that helping people is the right thing to do. That many Objectivists seems to be so completely in the dark about this motivation is not my concern.
The citation has already been provided. Wikipedia’s purpose was to be the loss leader to get you to use Nupedia. It didn’t work out, but, fortunately, they can prey on people’s belief that Wikipedia is on a shoestring budget by constantly running donation drives, and Jimbo can still get all his money.
It’s really all just the greedy fatcat thing. And what’s worse is that it’s disguised as a form of socialism, as the actual contributors contribute to actually help out mankind, rather than help with the money making goal of the owner. It’s really just a business where the owner is getting away with paying his employees absolutely nothing.
While I agree that Jim created nupedia/wikipedia to make money. It doesn’t mean that’s it’s still not the best damn most amazing encyclopedia ever. Jim makes money off Wikia a service that uses wikipedia open source software. Wikipedia itself still needs your support and/or editorial contribution and it has grown larger than just Jim.
