A Personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, More damned lies from a desperate man? Options

[TungstenCarbide]

The banners will be smaller as we get a little closer to our goal. I recognize that they are large, but we have an ambitious goal to reach! --Deniz (WMF) 00:29, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

[Somey]

If any post ever deserved to be featured on the top of the home page, it's that one.

[powercorrupts]

<images>

Is that a very old version of Firefox, or just some strange skin?

It's the latest Firefox without a skin. I think they expect you to use one these days.

[Peter Damian]

The plan is here

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foun...FOR_WEBSITE.pdf

It's important to concentrate on the absolute numbers rather than percentages, as percentages disguise the high level of dollar increases. The main increases are on slide 30.

There is an increase of $3.8m to fund a new datacentre. $2.6m for 'other staffing and stakeholder database' - what on earth is this? $1.3m for 'additional office space and support staff'. $1.1m for 'community outreach' - mostly travel expense. A million dollars for travel expenses? $400k for 'chapter development'. Chapters are essentially organisations of cultists in different countries.

Why are people donating money for this? How is this going to bring the sum of human knowledge to everyone on the planet? Why don't they spend some money on correcting the distortions and errors in their encyclopedia?

There's another page of this but I gave up. Page 44 has the total breakdown - is there any way of copying tables onto this site? For 91 staff the total salary of about $9m comes to about $100k per staff. Does US salary cost include employer contributions to pension, health and tax? Typically you would have to subtract 10-20% to get the actual salary received. And the average tells us nothing about the distribution. What was the lowest paid? What was the highest?

Note this does not include $2m on 'exernal contractors'. Developers? Consultants?

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sat 13th November 2010, 12:25pm

[SB_Johnny]

But why do they need such an increase? Don't they have a tidy nest egg anyway?

Hell if I know. Server space costs, I think about 30% of the WMF's annual budget these days. Greg Kohs could probably tell you more.

I was wrong. Here is the WMF's budget plan for July 2010-June 2011.

Does "technology" only mean server space, or does it include Jimbo's smartphone?

[thekohser]

Just to clear up about the earlier concern about how much money the donation pages "suggested" you contribute... those were being varied, to test which brought in the best take-rate by average amount donated. (Imagine that, they actually implemented some optimization research.)

Rand Montoya should have been doing that last year. Then he left the WMF. If you read between the lines, you can tell that they weren't so pleased with Rand's performance.

[Obesity]

LOLOLOL WUTS WITH THE PICTURE OF RLEVSE??????????

I THOT HE TOOK ALL HIS DOX DOWN????????

UR BAD!

Can the banners be shrunk any?

I don't want to hide this year's banners, but they are so large they are pushing all the content further down the page so that it takes a conscious scrolling effort to get to the stuff I actually want to read. Perhaps it is the point for them to be so large, but could the banners be just a tad smaller? Lexicografía 00:22, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The banners will be smaller as we get a little closer to our goal. I recognize that they are large, but we have an ambitious goal to reach! --Deniz (WMF) 00:29, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, Deniz Gültekin! In honor of your effort, I propose that your CC licensed photograph be adorned with one thousand white penises from the collection at commons and be distributed randomly about the internet.

she is not very hot and, unfortunately for her, i do not wish to date her. i like that other lady with the red hair, i forget her name, but she is married to some creep from australia

[powercorrupts]

The plan is here

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foun...FOR_WEBSITE.pdf

It's important to concentrate on the absolute numbers rather than percentages, as percentages disguise the high level of dollar increases. The main increases are on slide 30.

There is an increase of $3.8m to fund a new datacentre. $2.6m for 'other staffing and stakeholder database' - what on earth is this? $1.3m for 'additional office space and support staff'. $1.1m for 'community outreach' - mostly travel expense. A million dollars for travel expenses? $400k for 'chapter development'. Chapters are essentially organisations of cultists in different countries.

Why are people donating money for this? How is this going to bring the sum of human knowledge to everyone on the planet? Why don't they spend some money on correcting the distortions and errors in their encyclopedia?

There's another page of this but I gave up. Page 44 has the total breakdown - is there any way of copying tables onto this site? For 91 staff the total salary of about $9m comes to about $100k per staff. Does US salary cost include employer contributions to pension, health and tax? Typically you would have to subtract 10-20% to get the actual salary received. And the average tells us nothing about the distribution. What was the lowest paid? What was the highest?

Note this does not include $2m on 'exernal contractors'. Developers? Consultants?

Who ever heard of a Total given as a division of 1,000, honestly. They must be embarrassed by their (predicted) riches.

[anthony]

Who ever heard of a Total given as a division of 1,000, honestly.

*raises hand*

[powercorrupts]

LOLOLOL WUTS WITH THE PICTURE OF RLEVSE??????????

I THOT HE TOOK ALL HIS DOX DOWN????????

UR BAD!

Picture re-used, with a special thanks to Rlevse.



Is that you in the middle?

[Gruntled]

she is not very hot and, unfortunately for her, i do not wish to date her

Oh! Someone hide this quick before the poor girl sees it and dies of a broken heart or something!

i like that other lady with the red hair

This gets worse. We have a Moulton sympathiser.

This post has been edited by Gruntled: Mon 15th November 2010, 12:33pm

[The Wordsmith]

I'll just leave these here...

[powercorrupts]

Is he asking for different money from different places?

I hope he isn't just changing the monetary symbols. I read somewhere he wants $150, $50, $20 etc (same as sterling). Those figures aint the same in UK money.

[SB_Johnny]

Is he asking for different money from different places?

I hope he isn't just changing the monetary symbols. I read somewhere he wants $150, $50, $20 etc (same as sterling). Those figures aint the same in UK money.

Maybe we should all donate 20 yen.

[Crestatus]

They're using http://geoiplookup.wikimedia.org/ to determine your location. Clicking on that link will return your supposed city, country, latitude, longitude, IP address and netmask.

They have me 4.4 miles away from where I actually am, in the next city over.

[powercorrupts]

Campaign stage three, I think, of the extra push;








This post has been edited by powercorrupts: Sat 20th November 2010, 1:23pm

[A User]

Jimmy Wales appeal is now an iTunes download:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/jimmy-wal...&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

[CharlotteWebb]

<images>

Is that a very old version of Firefox, or just some strange skin?

Yeah, I think it's called Vector.

[powercorrupts]

<images>

Is that a very old version of Firefox, or just some strange skin?

Yeah, I think it's called Vector.

I don't want people seeing my backdrop thank you very much.

[thekohser]

Cute video -- but even better commentary at the end... and in his Comments box.