Grand Donors, a gallery of people who have donated $1,000 or more Options

This can be a continuously updated thread, showcasing those individuals who felt it was a good idea to donate at least $1,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation's Drive to Pay for Mike Godwin's 2008 Salary (goal of $182,000).

Grand Donors:

#1 Tyko Strassen
Mathematician (specializing in computer science), full professor at a university of applied sciences, teacher of different didactic courses (in German) for university professors, registered as a Swiss Engineer STV.
(IMG:http://www.strassen.ch/tyko/tyko.jpg)
"I use wikipedia almost every day. Best project on earth - keep it up!"

#2 Anonymous
Who can be identified (sha1:338c3706b3f34653d195ee40a310f73d2fb52b5c), but only by himself.

#3 Joichi Ito
He's more commonly known as Joi Ito, an American-educated Japanese activist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. Ito is the chairman of the board of Creative Commons and the chairman of Six Apart Japan. He is on the board of Technorati, Digital Garage, WITNESS, Pia Corporation, Socialtext, and iCommons. But since he is not on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, he is not entitled to be on the board of Wikia, Inc.
(IMG:http://farm1.static.flickr.com/119/292572425_0533bf8f8d.jpg)
Haven't we seen you moblogging, Joi?

This post has been edited by thekohser:

I think that it would be more interesting to focus on foundation grants, both because they will be much larger and more significant, and also because the political agenda will be easier to ascertain.

Bleh seems like a german editor, remember the german wikipedia is one of the very few wikis that succeeded and became "respectable".

Yeah, the German Wikipedia seems to have their shit together a lot more.

As an aside, the video of Jimbo begging for money is hilarious. Talk about cliche.

This post has been edited by KamrynMatika:

I am a bit uneasy about this.

I am a bit uneasy about this.

How so?

The only "offence" is to give to wikimedia, and should this thread go the wrong way, it may end up as just an opportunity to belittle them. Sure you may believe them to be misguided for donating, and i know the information on them is easily availiable but it still makes me feel uneasy that they are getting singled out.

To date the only other grand donor is this guy:

Anonymous
sha1:338c3706b3f34653d195ee40a310f73d2fb52b5c Wed, 10/24/2007 - 20:18 USD 1,500.00 $1,500.00

Now, Mr Anonymous (or Miss or Ms or whatever title you may have), I notice that you like jumbling random letters and numbers. Now, we here think that there is something wrong with that. What are you playing at? Sha1? Does that mean you are Shakira? Or someone else?

I think that it is reasonable to see a potential conflict of interest in who contributes.

After all, why would you give money to something that gives you something for free? Only if it benefits you.

A professor is giving money because presumably he uses it in class. A bit dangerous, but I guess I can see why. Other people may have less honourable reasons.

They might have been swayed by the video?

I dunno - but that random sequence of numbers and letters is a sha1 hash: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1

After all, why would you give money to something that gives you something for free? Only if it benefits you.

For the same reason as why we should give money to great projects like Blender, Gimp and Linux distro's developpements etc.

Giving money to Wikipedia is a mistake though.

If you see someone performing on the street (singing, dancing, acting, comedy etc) then you might toss them some coins, some loose change, money that you don't need - perhaps 20 cents, perhaps even over a dollar, maybe even $5 sometimes. If you enjoy a service that is offered for free you might happily donate $5 up to even $20. I'd give that much to Wikipedia Review happily (although I've already donated over $200, but that wasn't actually intentional), or to CricInfo (who don't need the money as cricket teams give them heaps), or to AFL.com (again, they are rich already) or a number of other places that I enjoy going to. I might give it to a MUD if I enjoyed the mud, or a talker, or something like that. Just in thanks for all of the good times that I've had there. Wikipedia I am sure isn't any different. A lot of people would say that hey for a year of pleasure they can give them $5-$20. Either as an editor who is addicted to it, who wikifiddles and perhaps even is an administrator, or as a student who gets to use Wikipedia to cheat on assignments, and so forth.

But going beyond that amount, we start to get in to real money, money that amounts to an investment. Now, this varies person to person. $100 represents a new good quality computer game, or a new stereo system or a DVD player or half a week's rent. For $100 you'd want to be pretty sure that that money is going to some use. $500 represents a fortnight's rent, a new TV, a cheap computer, or a cheap 2nd hand car. For $500 it is becoming a decent sized investment. For $1,000 it represents a new good quality computer, a month's rent, a plasma TV, a good quality sofa set, a slightly better cheap 2nd hand car that might actually work, and so forth. For most people $1,000 isn't throwaway money.

Of course, there are people that have millions of dollars at their disposal who can probably just donate money all over the place so who cares. But they wouldn't stay rich for long if they didn't account for it somehow. If your company donated $1,000 to Wikipedia, they'd want to be able to justify it.

If your company made $1,000 (either in real terms or in terms of enjoyment etc) from Wikipedia, then they'd be happy to donate a significant amount. They wouldn't want to throw the same amount back though, so perhaps a $1,000 profit warrants a $200 donation. Ergo a $1,000 donation probably indicates a $5,000+ amount of profit.

So this teacher, has his career benefitted by $5,000 from Wikipedia? Did he get a pay rise to that extent? Or is he just a fool with too much money? Or does he feel that it benefits society that much?

I mean if I was using Linux to set up muds and talkers and such, and to build operating systems and networks, I might feel inclined to donate money to them, especially if they make money for me. But why would I do it for Wikipedia? Only if, in some way, it makes money for me, or benefits me significantly.

$1,000 is a good amount of money. Even rich people don't throw it away without some decent reason.

Of course, looking at the $500 donors, all bar the one mentioned above are anonymous anyway:

http://donate.wikimedia.org/en/fundcore_br...ons_filter_form

Anonymous
For tripling the number of Elephants in Africa! Tue, 10/23/2007 - 23:30 USD 500.00 $500.0

And at the other end of the scale:

Anonymous
Why not Thu, 10/25/2007 - 01:52 GBP 0.01 $0.02

That's my 2 cents.

The only "offence" is to give to wikimedia, and should this thread go the wrong way, it may end up as just an opportunity to belittle them. Sure you may believe them to be misguided for donating, and i know the information on them is easily availiable but it still makes me feel uneasy that they are getting singled out.

Viridae, I see where you're coming from.

But, just for a moment...

Imagine a world where potential donors to a non-profit organization that falsified its IRS Form 990 are dissuaded from giving money because they saw a guy in a pink blazer with a 1978 moustache. That's what we're doing.

I am most interested in why someone gave their name as a cryptographic hash?

I am most interested in why someone gave their name as a cryptographic hash?

Perhaps they want to remain anonymous in terms of anyone like us looking in, but then when they ask Wikipedia for a favour, they can refer to the hash code to verify it was them, and that Wikipedia owes them a favour?

I dunno, just speculating here.

I am most interested in why someone gave their name as a cryptographic hash?

I would say it's because they're some kind of socially-maladjusted uber-nerd with dot-com wealth from before March 2000. Nothing at all sinister like expectation of future favors.

Greg

I am most interested in why someone gave their name as a cryptographic hash?

Perhaps they want to remain anonymous in terms of anyone like us looking in, but then when they ask Wikipedia for a favour, they can refer to the hash code to verify it was them, and that Wikipedia owes them a favour?

I dunno, just speculating here.

I think you got it nailed Blissy. It is not unusual that a donor's identity would be known to the non-profit but not made public. This means that the "favor" requested upon confirming the donor's identity might be directed to someone not directly within WMF. If you recall the Merkey/JzG type of hot and cold relationship this might make sense. Note that the types of favors that might be granted to anon donor who can later verify his identity might be rather unseemly.

I could not disagree, I generally contribute to open source as a way as if I bought the product. Lets say someone makes a donation of 20$ to the Blender foundation, I would have paid 20$ if Blender costed that much, for a software which its equivalent cost hundreds if not over a thousand, it is a real deal. The same goes with R (statistics), Maxima (equivalent to Maple), Gimp etc. For a Linux distro, I will be willing to contribute 50$, for the sole reason that had I bought an equivalent operation system, it sure would be in the couple of hundreds.

Those are the cheap people who contribute like me, others will make donations in the hundreds or thousands, higher than had they bought the similar product who is not free. But those people are really rare, generally those giving away that much needs the developpement of the product and it is a way of sponsering it. I don't know anyone who will be giving in the thousands because of some ideologies they subscribe to. Even if they are rich.

If you see someone performing on the street (singing, dancing, acting, comedy etc) then you might toss them some coins, some loose change, money that you don't need - perhaps 20 cents, perhaps even over a dollar, maybe even $5 sometimes. If you enjoy a service that is offered for free you might happily donate $5 up to even $20. I'd give that much to Wikipedia Review happily (although I've already donated over $200, but that wasn't actually intentional), or to CricInfo (who don't need the money as cricket teams give them heaps), or to AFL.com (again, they are rich already) or a number of other places that I enjoy going to. I might give it to a MUD if I enjoyed the mud, or a talker, or something like that. Just in thanks for all of the good times that I've had there. Wikipedia I am sure isn't any different. A lot of people would say that hey for a year of pleasure they can give them $5-$20. Either as an editor who is addicted to it, who wikifiddles and perhaps even is an administrator, or as a student who gets to use Wikipedia to cheat on assignments, and so forth.

But going beyond that amount, we start to get in to real money, money that amounts to an investment. Now, this varies person to person. $100 represents a new good quality computer game, or a new stereo system or a DVD player or half a week's rent. For $100 you'd want to be pretty sure that that money is going to some use. $500 represents a fortnight's rent, a new TV, a cheap computer, or a cheap 2nd hand car. For $500 it is becoming a decent sized investment. For $1,000 it represents a new good quality computer, a month's rent, a plasma TV, a good quality sofa set, a slightly better cheap 2nd hand car that might actually work, and so forth. For most people $1,000 isn't throwaway money.

Of course, there are people that have millions of dollars at their disposal who can probably just donate money all over the place so who cares. But they wouldn't stay rich for long if they didn't account for it somehow. If your company donated $1,000 to Wikipedia, they'd want to be able to justify it.

If your company made $1,000 (either in real terms or in terms of enjoyment etc) from Wikipedia, then they'd be happy to donate a significant amount. They wouldn't want to throw the same amount back though, so perhaps a $1,000 profit warrants a $200 donation. Ergo a $1,000 donation probably indicates a $5,000+ amount of profit.

So this teacher, has his career benefitted by $5,000 from Wikipedia? Did he get a pay rise to that extent? Or is he just a fool with too much money? Or does he feel that it benefits society that much?

I mean if I was using Linux to set up muds and talkers and such, and to build operating systems and networks, I might feel inclined to donate money to them, especially if they make money for me. But why would I do it for Wikipedia? Only if, in some way, it makes money for me, or benefits me significantly.

$1,000 is a good amount of money. Even rich people don't throw it away without some decent reason.

Of course, looking at the $500 donors, all bar the one mentioned above are anonymous anyway:

http://donate.wikimedia.org/en/fundcore_br...ons_filter_form

Anonymous
For tripling the number of Elephants in Africa! Tue, 10/23/2007 - 23:30 USD 500.00 $500.0

And at the other end of the scale:

Anonymous
Why not Thu, 10/25/2007 - 01:52 GBP 0.01 $0.02

That's my 2 cents.

To co-opt Viridae's expression of unease, is this really a wise move by a Wikipedia critical site?

You have people who obviously do not share the (perceived - cos I certainly do not agree 100% with 100% of what is said here, and I doubt anyone here does) opinion of this site as regards Wikipedia. Some of them are prepared to "gift" money to Wikipedia, for reasons that they may or may not wish to share. Some of these peoples intentions will be noble, and perhaps some will be less so. There is no true way of knowing.

Some of these donors may be aware of WR, and some of the other WP critical sites. Some may even wish to review what these sites say about WP before committing an amount. So, what will they see when they get here? They will click the donation/WP related topics to find... this discussion...

...not only will they feel justified in wishing to donate to WP, they are never going to bother reading any of the other topics and never see the other possibly more legitimate criticisms of Wikipedia. This might prove counterproductive to those who feel that WP should be more accountable with and for the money they receive, or those who wish that WP will wither and die from lack of funding.


Of course, the truth and free expression are the only things worthy of consideration here - yadda, yadda, yadda - but, sometimes, you gotta know when a dignified silence is the best response.

I am a bit uneasy about this.

I share your unease. Sure, they are giving money to a website that drags
people's names and pseudonyms through the dirt on top of Google. But
they don't necessarily know that, or know how prevalent it is. One would
think the purpose of a GFDL encyclopaedia would be to help people, not
defame people. I thought that for quite awhile, and some people probably
are there for that reason, and probably some people are donating for that
reason. Effects aside, many of the donors probably mean well, at least.

And suppose they are donating for their own personal benefit? Well,
honestly, that sounds like the sort of thing I would do, if I thought it would
work. I mean, I did offer to write good articles and/or featured articles
(by their standards) in exchange for courtesy blankings and deletions.
However, they treated the offer with contempt, leading me to believe they
are not dragging my psuedonym through the dirt on top of Google for the
good of the encyclopaedia, as they claim, but for sadistic reasons.

So, if anyone is donating in the hopes of getting defamatory or other
harmful information removed from WP as a favour, the best of luck to them!

I am a bit uneasy about this.

I share your unease.

There's more hand-wringing going on here than in a Jimbo fund-drive public service announcement video!

Let me assure you of two things:

1. The number of independent donors to Wikipedia who visit here before donating, divided by the number of independent donors to Wikipedia approaches 0.0000000413%.

2. So, of those two people, one might exit our site more determined to make that $15 donation, and the other one might withhold that donation to go find out why it takes $182,000 to pay a lawyer to defend an open-source encyclopedia project.

Now, sleep tight because there are no monsters under your beds. Check Wikipedia Review's traffic on Alexa. We're basically talking amongst ourselves here.

Greg