Posts by Gregory Kohs 51 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jan 2008
How could you have been "surprised" by this? For at least 10 years a quick search on "reasons not to donate to Wikipedia" or something similar would have returned at least a half-dozen sites that carefully explain the fraud at Wikimedia Foundation. Sadly, you're like most donors -- too trusting of a highly manipulable reference site, and too lazy to check where you're sending your money?
Remember CiviliNation? That was Jimbo's attempt with his girlfriend Andrea Weckerle to "fix" the "broken" world of mean and nasty Internet comments.
Let's be clear... the president of CiviliNation, Andrea Weckerle, was definitely Jimmy's girlfriend:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120311175059/http://julia.nonsociety.com/post/50211862
Further, a couple of days ago on Reddit, Jimbo asserted that he was the "primary funder" of CiviliNation. It can be deduced that at least part of the CiviliNation scheme was to bankroll a girlfriend in a tax-deductible way. How charitable. But where are the facts?
Let's see... 2010 Form 990: $25,420 in contributions; 2011: $12,240; 2012: $15,500; 2013: $24,568; 2014: $4,700. All summarized here:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/800510475
That's a total of $82,428.
If Jimbo was the "primary funder", let's say that's at least 50% of collected donations, or $41,215. During that period, Weckerle took $63,228 in salary, on total contributions of $82,428. Thus, Jimbo is saying that he basically bankrolled most of Andrea Weckerle's personal income from CiviliNation, which accomplished what? CiviliNation.org is barely a functioning website any more -- their blog hasn't been updated in over 13 months. And this proves what? That Jimbo was so charitably inept that he forked over -- at a minimum -- $41,215 to a failed attempt to "fix" online civility that ultimately accomplished not much more than keeping his girlfriend Andrea in food, clothes, and shelter for a few years. With tax-deductible dollars, no less! And now he's asking the community of gullible WikiLovers to fund his for-profit plan to "fix" journalism?
It's just sad. And pathetic.
There's a subtle irony in calling Jimmy Wales "founder" of Wikipedia, when Dr. Larry Sanger pitched the idea to Jimbo, Sanger named it 'Wikipedia', Sanger issued the first public call for participation on the new project, and Sanger's early edits to the encyclopedia outnumbered Jimmy's by a factor of seven. Years after the founding of Wikipedia by (mostly) Larry Sanger, Jimbo went on a personal tirade, modifying Wikipedia entries to minimize or eliminate Sanger's contribution to the project. Yeah, Jimbo is a great candidate to make the case against fake news.
You *still* think Wikipedians are "trying to improve their reliability"? Maybe search for and read the results of a systematic experiment that revealed that not only do Wikipedians not spot obvious errors, when the errors get fixed they may even strive to return them to the erroneous version! Do a web search for "Experiment concludes most misinformation inserted into Wikipedia may persist", then read that. Learn. Don't repeat PR pablum that's been paid for with $60 million of annual donations.
"...but back in the early days of Wikipedia there were studies done showing that it was at least as accurate, if not more so, than the Encyclopedia Britannica..."
There were no such studies. This is a perfect example of how the crowd can't be trusted, because like any game of whisper-down-the-lane, the facts get distorted into something completely wrong.
You're thinking of a Nature news project (not a "study") that found that Wikipedia had about 4 errors per science topic, versus Britannica having about 3 errors per topic. That's "less accurate" than Britannica, for those keeping score.
Also, there's this -- some measure of proof that the problem is just getting worse: http://wikipediocracy.com/2015/04/13/experiment-concludes-most-misinformation-inserted-into-wikipedia-may-persist/
>> I wonder sometimes if they "contribute" enough so the pages aren't touched... <<
Wonder no longer -- enjoy the five-part series on WMF donors getting to edit their own Wikipedia articles to just how they want them: http://wikipediocracy.com/2014/03/10/the-thin-bright-line/
Gobhicks, if you don't revoke that donation, you are just PAYING for the privilege of appearing idiotic. This story and about a dozen others like it have clearly demonstrated that the Wikimedia Foundation is just wasting donor money at a rate that is at least a magnitude higher than the actual costs of maintaining the site and providing sufficient throughput to visitors. So, it's up to you. Do you want to be a useless sheep, or do you want to be a thinking individual able to form your own opinions?
It doesn't surprise me that you find Wikipedia useful, given how easily you presented your own false dichotomy there. You know, the one where you presume that the only alternatives are:
(A) The Wikimedia Foundation must have a little extra cash, or
(B) Wikipedia must be turned over to a company that will run it with a subscription-based business model.
Erik, did it not cross your mind that maybe there are other alternatives? Namely, that the Wikimedia Foundation could publicly admit that Wikipedia site maintenance and bandwidth costs about $3 million per year, and then return to its right-sized staffing levels of 2010 or 2011, trim annual budget to $15 million per year, and have no cause whatsoever to turn over the project to a corporate overlord?
I think you might benefit from reading this:
http://wikipediocracy.com/2015/04/13/experiment-concludes-most-misinformation-inserted-into-wikipedia-may-persist/
If Wikipedia's article about Inflammation told you that pain from inflammation is caused in part by rhyolite (which is a volcanic rock), it sounds like you would have went about your merry way, believing that. That piece of misinformation stood in place for about 7 weeks (and may have gone longer, had I not ended the experiment) and the page viewed over 100,000 times.
If you're "curious", fine. If you're interested in facts, then maybe find a more reputable source.
What you're doing here is what so many people mistakenly do -- confuse "Wikipedia" for the "Wikimedia Foundation". Wikipedia is successful, amazing, etc. It was back in 2012, and it was back in 2006. Wikipedia succeeds in spite of the Wikimedia Foundation.
The problem with the *organization* -- the Wikimedia Foundation -- is that it has conned people into thinking that it is necessary for the continuation of Wikipedia.
Here's another way of looking at the financial excess at Wikipedia... In 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation's entire operating expenses were $3.5 million. That's for salaries, Internet hosting, servers, operational costs, travel, depreciation, etc. -- everything. In 2008, all Wikimedia sites served up about 8 billion page views, so that is $437 per million page views. In 2015, all Wikimedia sites served up about 19 billion page views, so if the WMF weren't growing itself at a bloated rate, we should expect a total budget of about $8.3 million. Instead, we see a 2015 budget of $58.7 million, or $3,089 per million page views. Internet hosting has actually gotten much cheaper per million page views, since 2008 -- so it only further goes to show that the Wikimedia Foundation has been spending a ton of money on things other than "keeping the encyclopedias ad-free and up & running", even though these items are core to the fundraising message each year, because that's what gullible donors seem to respond best to, through A/B testing.
Wikipedia thrives on gullibility.
Dewix doesn't see any corruption here, but then again, he has no idea about the difference between its and it's -- something we're taught when we're about 10 year old.
Maybe he should read about the Stanton Foundation's funding of a Belfer Center paid writer, with payroll passed through the Wikimedia Foundation. (Hint for the clueless: the director of the Stanton Foundation is married to the director of the Belfer Center, so by laundering the $50,000 transaction through the Wikimedia Foundation, the hope was that nobody would discover that the Mrs. was granting money to the Mr.)
"I get the feeling that if the trustee was fired for no reason the other two representatives would be making noises by now..."
Um, two-thirds of the community-recommended trustees voted against pushing Heilman off the board. If too loud of "noises" are made, where do you think the other community reps will be headed?
We'll mark this down in Jimmy Wales' little book of failures. Bomis.com -- went out of business. Three Apes search engine -- went out of business. Openserving.com -- went out of business. Wikimedia Foundation -- yay, a success! Wikia.com -- still running on venture capital, never went public, haven't heard any of the investors ever mark it as a financially successful venture. Wikia Search -- closed down without warning. CiviliNation.org -- on life support, its director takes 80% of its funding as a personal salary. Impossible.com -- launched to great fanfare in May 2013, got as high as 230,000th in site popularity, but since The Register discovered that it had been funded with taxpayer money, has fallen to 460,000th most popular site. Jimmy Wales Foundation -- seeded with $500,000 in Arab capital, hired one manager, who posts tweets on Twitter, no other visible accomplishments. And, The People's Operator, which was on an upward trajectory when Jimmy Wales was hired by his Labour Party crony, who then suddenly died, and now the company loses 7x more than it draws in revenue. Hard to imagine how this case against the NSA ever failed, what with the Great Jimbo on track.
Nobody sees the hypocrisy of Lessig trying to turn America "back" into a representative democracy that will force agendas related to climate remediation and gun control, by hiring a pro-gun, anti-government Libertarian as his campaign manager? Newsflash: the $1 million will be used for the personal aggrandizement of Lessig and Wales, not so much for a political "cause". There is no shortage of stooges on the Internet willing to give money to something that they're being misled about.
Jimbo wouldn't turn the money over to the Wikimedia Foundation -- he knows all too well how inefficiently that organizational sham is actually run. He knows the money would be wasted on replacing programmers who weren't needed in the first place, all to create some silly "comment flow" system that only 1% of readers would ever see. Jimbo may be a fool, but he's no financial idiot.
You are exactly the type of donor that the Wikimedia Foundation has brainwashed with their annual spin, that your money is used to keep the site working well. They do that with 10% of the money they receive. The other 90% they use to stuff savings accounts and buy treasury bonds, pay software developers to write non-functioning code, pay rent in one of America's most expensive cities, and travel the world to expensive locations like Haifa, Hong Kong, London, and Rio.
Which employee of Gutenberg's actually brought the idea of movable type to Gutenberg and was credited as the "co-founder" of movable type, only to have Gutenberg (years later) claim that only Gutenberg was the "sole founder" of movable type... you know, the way Larry Sanger championed the idea of Wikipedia and brought it to life, only to have Jimmy Wales later rob Sanger of the credit where due?
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=601347858&oldid=601345994
Jimmy Wales says of this Register article:
This discussion is not relevant to Wikipedia. I recommend you take it elsewhere. The article in The Register is typical of them - lots of sneering innuendo that doesn't really stand up to a moment's scrutiny. I've reminded Lily that Andrew Orlowski once trumpted a claim that Wikipedia was "Khmer Rouge in diapers". This is not a serious debate. -- Jimbo Wales; 13:10, 26 March 2014
Well, consider that the PR firm was Freud Communications. That's the employer of Kate Garvey, who is Jimmy Wales' (third) spouse. Jimmy Wales was fully on this Impossible.com bandwagon as soon as he heard state money could be garnered. He's described Lily Cole as "like a daughter to me". So, it all comes full-circle, as a family affair.
"When I started Wikipedia, I didn’t have a concern for a business model..." Oh, Jimbo -- you didn't start Wikipedia, Dr. Larry Sanger did. He's the one who asked you to install the wiki freeware; he's the one who named it "Wikipedia"; and he's the one who issued the first public call for participation on the project. As for not having a concern for a business model, is that why Jimbo publicly announced in March 2002 the following about Wikipedia?
"Just as the National Geographic Society is supported in large part by advertisments in the National Geographic Magazine, I expect this to be a potentially necessary thing at some point in the future, if we wish to have an impact beyond our own little corner of the Internet. (And, I think we all do.)"
You can tell when Jimmy Wales is fibbing, when his lips are moving.
Orlowski has finally nailed down an accurate title for Jimmy Wales. He's not an entrepreneur. He's not a technologist. He's not even really a "former currency trader". He is a SOCIALITE. He is fond of social activity and attention, and not much else. It is the perfect label.
For those of us who follow Jimmy Wales' various public speaking tours (it's kind of a game, to spot how many different lies he can tell in one speech), it's very clear that this recent RSA conference talk is the very same thematic discussion that he was delivering as far back as 2010. He's like a broken record at this point. Why host him live? Just throw up an old TED or Wikimania talk of his on the video screen, and save some money.
It's refreshing to see the media giving this scandal the ample coverage that it deserves. Year after year, unsuspecting donors chip in $10, $25, $50, and more to support the Wikimedia Foundation, on the premise that without money, Wikipedia might have to shut down. We'll in actuality, the WMF is spending on program services only 46 cents of every dollar it receives. The rest is wasted on overhead, "staff" members who look for things to do on top of the thousands of volunteers who are really keeping Wikipedia alive.
Anyway, one thing I always am amused by -- because it is so predictable -- is this culture of denial and cover-up when the insider corruption at Wikipedia goes public. In fact, I wrote a news piece that carefully exposes the "denial" and the "cover-up" phases, with convenient links to every under-handed action of the True Believers. If you'd like to read: http://www.examiner.com/article/cover-up-begins-wikipedia-s-gibraltar-scandal
Great work, media -- keep up the pressure on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation. There's plenty more just waiting for even a modestly-talented investigative reporter.
Myslewski seems to have made a few mistakes with this article. First, Jimmy Wales didn't "found" Wikipedia. He's not the "founder". Wales founded a mistake of an encyclopedia project called Nupedia. Dr. Larry Sanger pushed to Wales the idea of an openly-edited wiki to help save Nupedia. Sanger named this new project Wikipedia. Sanger issued the first public call for participation on Wikipedia. And Sanger worked for the first year of Wikipedia's existence, hammering out policies and guidelines that are still in place today.
Second, a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation, though it may feel good, is mostly going toward waste. According to the Form 990 filed by the WMF to the IRS, only 46 cents of every donated dollar actually get targeted to the program services that fulfill the non-profit's mission. Other legitimate educational non-profits strive for ratios of 75%, 80%, 85%, or higher. This donation is not really to be applauded until the WMF can demonstrate that they're going to get serious about not wasting everyone's money any more.
Sorry that I have reservations about the process of "outsourcing" to Wikipedia the traditional educator oversight of student's quality of research and writing. But, you miss the point of my "outburst". You mention "her initial findings". Where are these findings? They were not posted on the Congress 2011's website, she has not responded to an e-mail request for the findings, and the Congress 2011's administrative assistant said that she would try to help expedite delivery of the findings, but that hasn't seemed to pan out, either. To me, this sounds like a press release that overstates the actual "evaluation" that took place. Hmm... freshly-minted PhD discovers new way that will reduce her time interacting with students' research papers, resulting in fewer professional hours spent grading assignments, more time issuing press releases and attending conferences. There's no chance that this study's just a wee bit biased, "copsewood"?
Two days ago, I asked Dr. Gray to share the methodology and results of her study. I would like to see whether or not she employed any sort of blind test/control methodology, or whether she biased the project by anticipating an outcome then looking for confirmation through her observations and her observations alone. There was no evidence on the conference website that she presented anything to the conference. She has not replied to me. An administrative assistant at the conference also said that she would look into getting me the study report, and I'm still waiting. Invariably, these breathless Wikipedia-related studies seem to be conducted by "true believers", with little attention to whether their mode and methodology will align with reality.
I liked how you spelled "religeon" and "obcessed" and "baning". Thanks for proving my point. Law-abiding taxpayers, for the most part, aren't commenting or thumb-voting here, because they have jobs to go to and families to raise, and they wouldn't want to BOTHER debating people who are afraid of "religeon".
The problem is that there is no level of child protection on either end.
On the upload end, photos of children in compromised situations and poses are uploaded frequently, and even if they are "deleted", they are still available to volunteer administrators -- some of whom are... wait for it... children!
On the user/viewer end, Wikipedia's trustees often tout the usefulness of Wikipedia in schools. I have heard Jimmy Wales say that he's happy to hear if 10- or 12-year-olds are "just doing research" that might include a stop at Wikipedia. Well, I for one don't want the 10- to 12-year-old kids in my school district that my property taxes pay for "researching" this at their school library:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Model_in_bondage.jpg
Thumb me down all you want, you Free Culture types with no kids and no jobs and no substantial tax contributions to your governments.
Here's what most of the comments seem to be missing. If you look at the top 25 most-viewed images on Wikimedia Commons, they are not "made-up drawings", and many of them are themed as such:
5 Category:Shaved genitalia (female) 231062 views
6 Category:Vulva 204043
11 Penis 129794
12 Category:Female genitalia 115613
13 Category:Ejaculation 107525
14 Category:Sex positions 107061
16 Category:Vagina 98422
17 Category:Erotic 95543
18 Category:Oral sex 92525
19 Category:Masturbation 92416
21 Category:Penis 90955
22 Category:Female masturbation 85930
23 Category:Sex 84217
25 Category:Male masturbation 77042
The evidence clearly indicates that what Commons is, is a porn gallery server. Why is it that my government allows Google, Omidyar Network, Hewlett Foundation, Stanton Foundation, and Sloan Foundation to ENJOY A TAX BREAK when they donate money to this particular porn gallery? The fact that the Wikimedia Foundation is allowed to operate as a 501-c-3 "charity" makes me puke a little in my mouth.
Back in 2006, the co-founder of a popular website publicly announced that my approach to the site (one he had helped shape) was “deeply unethical and inappropriate”, and he deleted an article that I had authored. Even though it wasn’t written for payment, and the subject company wasn’t even aware of the article, the co-founder mistakenly assumed it was paid content and thusly labeled it “corporate spam”. Then he indefinitely blocked my user account on the popular website, so that it could not edit any more. Some hours later, the co-founder returned to the popular website to further blast my article, calling it a “travesty of NPOV [neutral point of view]” and “corporate fluff”.
It took him about two years to finally work up the courage to publicly apologize to me for how poorly he handled the situation, but he continued on being a prick to many others besides me.
The website? Wikipedia. The prickly co-founder? Jimmy Wales.
Like worker bees, the Wikipediot volunteers take copyrighted material, chew it up in their little bee mouths, carry it back to the Hive, then spit it out in freely-licensed form onto Wikipedia. And then they expect us to applaud them and pay more money into their little Foundation that already is guilty of spending only 31.6% of incoming revenue on actual program services.
Soon, they will agonize about how all the quality copyrighted content seems to be disappearing (newspapers going out of business, talented musicians being drowned by Hannah Montana CDs, etc.).
I hope somebody goes to 39 Stillman Street in San Francisco and gives Sue Gardner the berating diatribe she deserves.
While the Wikipedia drones have swarmed in to "protect their own" and have deleted David Boothroyd's encyclopedia article, they seem to forget that it was released to the public under the terms of the GFDL open license. Therefore, the article is bound to show up somewhere else on the Internet.
Indeed, it already has:
http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:David_Boothroyd
Strange. I said from Day One that Wikia Search would not work, because its leader isn't reliable and transparent.
In fact, my letter to the editor of Fast Company appeared in the second issue after the "Google Killer" claptrap cover story.
I got called a "troll", for being right. Once again.
Maybe people will start listening to me now?
http://www.mywikibiz.com/Criticism_of_Jimmy_Wales
http://www.mywikibiz.com/Top_10_Reasons_Not_to_Donate_to_Wikipedia
A very enthusiastic "hooray" for a piece like this, showcasing the efforts of James Harkin.
A tiny "boo" for the several typographic mistakes found throughout the piece.
And a modest plug of my own for the new non-profit-backed blog, Akahele.org, that will be taking on issues similar to those raised by Harkin, on a week-to-week basis. We hope you'll continue these conversations with us at Akahele (a Hawaiian word meaning the opposite of 'wiki').
http://www.akahele.org
Come on, Cade -- how could you mention that the Conflict of Interest policy was drafted in October 2006, without even mentioning that it was the SAME MONTH that Jimbo banned MyWikiBiz from editing Wikipedia.
I was the CAUSE of the Conflict of Interest policy!
Your readers want to know things like that.
Go ahead, search Google on the phrase "Representative governing body factor" and IRS Publication 557 won't be far behind. Then, you can learn that for an organization to claim "public support", it should be mindful of the following:
PUBLIC SUPPORT includes:
Direct or indirect contributions from the general public, including contributions from an individual, trust or corporation, but only to the extent that the total contributions from such individual, trust or corporation, during the 4-year period immediately before the current tax year (or substituted computation period) are not more than 2% of the organization's TOTAL SUPPORT for the same period.
I'm not sure how $1.3 million is going to be 2% of the Wikimedia Foundation's four-year total support, unless 2008 sees a $59 million grass-roots fund-drive MIRACLE. Not likely!
Not to worry, though. I'm sure Jimbo and his accountant Michael E. Davis (yeah, the guy who was found by an Illinois court to owe over $800,000 to a jilted investment partner) have figured out a way to make this all appear to be "gentle, loving" support from a disinterested philanthropist. Move along, now. Get back to writing Jimbo's encyclopedia, everyone. Don't you worry about the financial authenticity of the Foundation.
I have an e-mail from Jimmy Wales that says, "You did flatly lie." I've asked him three or four times to demonstrate what he's even talking about, and although he's had enough time to respond to me three times that he's "looking into it" and that he'll "hope to respond soon" (not to mention enough time to exert himself for 24 hours in a Washington DC Doubletree), I've still not received any explanation of this statement of his. I must therefore conclude that his statement is a lie. Ironic, isn't it?
Another good article, Mr. Metz.. but you're preaching to the choir now.
I'm the founder of the MyWikiBiz mentioned tangentially in the article. We've relaunched the whole MyWikiBiz biz -- now it's a wiki directory devoted to everything Wikipedia would call "non-notable". And the subjects of the real-world article topics get the final say in what their article says about themselves.
Visit MyWikiBiz.com, if you're interested.
Why didn't Cade Metz interview me for this article? :-(
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