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_ The Wikimedia Foundation _ Personal appeal message unabridged

Posted by: Avaric

Every year it's the same story about the professional beggar Jimbo Wales lending his face for advertisement of Wikipedia with some lofty message written most likely by his advisers. And every year I become downright disgusted reading it. I would be interested in parodies of his messages coming from you and start off with my own cynical one that I couldn't help but write. This is just for fun. smile.gif


I'm a volunteer.(and a rich recognized fat cat, but our first-class PR agency that you're paying for said that wouldn't sound humble enough)

I don't get paid a cent for my work at Wikipedia (except travels, fame, awards and indirect financial means thanks to Wikia), and neither do our thousands of other volunteer authors and editors (they really don't except people exploiting Wikipedia to get their voices heard or for career benefits). When I founded Wikipedia (I won't mention Larry Sanger, he he), I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different.(Not that I had a choice. If I earned extra money with ads, the Wikipedians would feel exploited, leave and build up their own Wiki without. Besides the banners would make Wikipedia look of lesser quality.)

Commerce is fine (money, money, money). Advertising is not evil (Google donated millions too so I have to say this because of their don't-be-evil motto). But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.(I have to make short sentences because I don't think donors are very smart.)

Wikipedia is something special (as in special-needs). It is like a library (because you have to be silent when I say so) or a public park (because of the dog poo). It is like a temple for the mind (because you sacrifice good research). It is a place we can all go to think (to ponder if the citation needed tags can be safely ignored because no one will really check the facts of your presentation), to learn (about actors, pop culture and tiny places you'll never see), to share our knowledge with others (sharing is such a nice buzzword in this age). It is a unique human project (In May I perversely sought to get Wikipedia applied for World Heritage Site status. I still haven't given up.), the first of its kind in history (except Nupedia and a million other failed projects). It is a humanitarian project to bring a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet.(So donate less into real humanitarian projects and more into us.)

Every single person.(a dramatic noise please to highlight my delusion of grandeur)

If all of Wikipedia's 400 million users would donate 1 Euro each, we would have 20 times the amount of money we need.(but the default value marked is 50€, just to be clear. Donations of 5 $ are far more frequent and so are 10 and 20 but the default value of 50 is there to guilt-trip you into paying me more.) We're a small organization, and I've worked hard over the years to keep us lean and tight (I got Rachel Marsden lean and tight too, haha, but we want 20m bucks a year for this stupid website). We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.(wait, I should have said that in parentheses. That's making me sound like a natural disaster, or a drunkard throwing empty bottles into the bushes.)

To do this without resorting to advertising, we need you (actually we don't, otherwise I'd have an excuse to introduce advertisement and no one could complain). It is you who keep this dream alive (That its freedom from advertisement is not reality is obvious in the fact that you're reading a very soliciting ad.). It is you who have created Wikipedia (but I get the credit). It is you who believe that a place of calm reflection and learning is worth having (sorry, I was talking about my house in England.).

This year, please consider making a donation of 20, 35, 50 Euro or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia (I won't mention anything under 20€).

Thanks, Jimmy Jim Jim (Enough empty talk, now you can gimme the cash.)

Posted by: cookiehead

I'd put a picture of Ayn Rand, Jimmy Wales's idol, at top of the WP appeal ads, with a quote from this about her opinions of giving to charity. Is WP sponge worthy?

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=faq_index#obj_q7

Sure beats the picture of that guy from Bangalore at the top of every WP page that you had to train to take over your coding job before you got laid off and addicted to WP.

Either that or just imbed "James Taylor" MIDI's at the top of every page. Always gets the phones ringing during charity drives.