# Wikipedia begging and my email address
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 1, 2015, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665 "2015-01-01T04:41:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/1 "2015-01-01T04:41:47Z")
I finally caved and gave Wikipedia a donation.
I even filled out the survey and asked them to leave me alone. How do they have money to pay someone to do the survey?
Most importantly, how did they send an acknowledging email, begging for more money, to the email address I try to keep private, free from spam for friends and family? I did not give them an email address in their damn survey.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/2 "2015-01-01T04:43:51Z")
How did you send them the money? I assume somewhere along the line you gave them your email address. If you used paypal, they got it from that.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/3 "2015-01-01T05:18:03Z")
I was pretty sure the pitch I responded to said that if I donated, they wouldn’t contact me for more money, but after 3 or 4 emails, I’ve unsubscribed from their mailings.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/4 "2015-01-01T05:25:59Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> How did you send them the money? I assume somewhere along the line you gave them your email address. If you used paypal, they got it from that.
I figured that it was Paypal after I posted.
Bastards.
Hell, I give homeless winos money for booze on street corners, and they don’t beg me for more. 🙂
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/5 "2015-01-01T05:28:45Z")
And dammit, I left the email field on their survey blank, but they look it up on paypal.
Bastards.
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### Author:  [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/6 "2015-01-01T06:16:59Z")
I for one wouldn’t think less of them if they ran a thin, unobtrusive banner ad on the top of their page. That should be some valuable real estate.
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/7 "2015-01-01T06:45:13Z")
That’s weird…I donated using PayPal and have never gotten an email from them. I also didn’t take a survey.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/8 "2015-01-01T14:31:26Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#):
>
> That’s weird…I donated using PayPal and have never gotten an email from them. I also didn’t take a survey.
Perhaps they don’t follow up unless a guy takes the survey.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/9 "2015-01-01T16:11:09Z")
At least we didn’t have to look at Jimmy Wales’ mewling mug this time.
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### Author:  [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/10 "2015-01-01T16:31:14Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#):
>
> I for one wouldn’t think less of them if they ran a thin, unobtrusive banner ad on the top of their page. That should be some valuable real estate.
While I agree the “if everyone donated one cent, we’d be done in 15 milliseconds” is getting tiring, I appreciate their efforts to avoid ads. Advertising, no matter how unobtrusive, compromises the source; the way advertising is taking over is something to be concerned about. Having no ads makes the source cleaner. Even if it’s Wikipedia, meaning it’s pretty grimy to begin with. 😃
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### Author:  [@HRIP7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HRIP7)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/11 "2015-01-02T16:39:40Z")
> [@Octarine](#):
>
> While I agree the “if everyone donated one cent, we’d be done in 15 milliseconds” is getting tiring, I appreciate their efforts to avoid ads. Advertising, no matter how unobtrusive, compromises the source; the way advertising is taking over is something to be concerned about. Having no ads makes the source cleaner. Even if it’s Wikipedia, meaning it’s pretty grimy to begin with. 😃
What’s also getting tired is the “keep Wikipedia online and ad-free” line.
Before this fundraiser even started, the Wikimedia Foundation had $28 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $23 million in investments, according to the [financial statements](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG.pdf#page=4) from September 2014.
They spent [only $2.5 million on Internet hosting](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG.pdf#page=5) that year, and it’s gotten to the point where a lot of Wikipedians are actually saying the wording of the fundraising banners is [deceptive and manipulative](http://www.quora.com/How-well-is-Wikipedias-aggressive-fundraising-campaign-working-December-2014/answer/Andreas-Kolbe).
Past donors being contacted by e-mail is normal, and was defended by Jimmy Wales [here](https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/539863187076956160).
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/12 "2015-01-02T17:41:33Z")
I donated to a “we promise we won’t ask you again” campaign. They then asked me again by email. Therefore, no more donations from me.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/13 "2015-01-02T17:44:12Z")
Thanks, HRIP7.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikipedia-begging-and-my-email-address/708665/14 "2015-01-02T19:10:48Z")
> [@Octarine](#):
>
> While I agree the “if everyone donated one cent, we’d be done in 15 milliseconds” is getting tiring, I appreciate their efforts to avoid ads. Advertising, no matter how unobtrusive, compromises the source; the way advertising is taking over is something to be concerned about. Having no ads makes the source cleaner. Even if it’s Wikipedia, meaning it’s pretty grimy to begin with. 😃
But they aren’t keeping Wikipedia ad free. What do you think a banner and now even fucking popup asking you to give money is? Just because they are non-commercial doesn’t mean it’s not an ad.
And, what’s worse, it’s spreading to people that do even worse. [Archive.org](http://Archive.org) pages had it all on their pages, without an X to close it. It took me a while to adblock Wikipedia, but I did it the first time on [archive.org](http://archive.org) related issues. And it’s not even a popup.\*
And then there’s Firefox, who beg on the page you see when you start up Firefox. Which would be fine if it weren’t the only way to resume your tabs from last time.
\*And don’t get me started on popups. When did we suddenly decide we were okay with them? Even Internet Explorer blocks the old-style popups as they were that bad. Now every other site does them, and there’s seems to be no effort by anyone to stop them.