Did you donate to Wikipedia? Why not?

Such as…???

If a business cannot figure out how to pay thier bills, they should go away.

bless you

If you Want to donate then I personly feels that there are sites in huge numbers other than wikipedia where you can donate

Selfish often? :lol:

Not saying wikipedia is a valid place to donate,
but you should donate to places that are helping
others so you can give something back to help others.

It’s good for the soul. If you don’t help others,
it’s bad for the soul contributing to your delinquency

I donate if I got good information to them :slight_smile:

Are we discussing Wikipedia, or donating to Wikipedia? These are quite distinct matters. Although I did donate to Wikipedia, some of the arguments against that here are solid, and well worth consideration.

What I see unreasonable and inconsiderable, is the negativity towards Wikipedia itself. The question regarding its content’s accuracy has been answered since the famous Nature magazine article back in 2005. It is not perfect, nor it should be. And when compared to the current mainstream media dependency on gossip, recency, innuendo and all such inaccuracies to stay on topic, I think Wikipedia is way more perfect. I’d like to draw your attention to a recent case when dealing with the health care debate, that was investigated by the Journalism Review magazine:

For about 7 years now I’ve been discussing and researching an alternative health area. This particular area is mentioned on Wikipedia and has been actively suppressed by various people, supported by Wikipedia, to the point that not only is the alternative view not recommended (fair enough, perhaps) but it is not even allowed to be fairly described.

To the point that certain facts are completely mis-stated - even lied about. I don’t imply here that Wikipedia is deliberately complicit in lying - however, the model lends itself to suppressing a minority view from being expressed, even when that minority view might be scientifically at least worthy of serious consideration, and Wikipedia does nothing to allow that minority expression.

So, Wikipedia does provide some real value, yes, but I will never support an organization that does not actively encourage the expression of minority views. Even if accompanied by a rider such as “Warning! The majority of people do not agree with this view!”.

but I will never support an organization that does not actively encourage the expression of minority views.

What did you think wikipedia was? It’s an encyclopedia. Not a forum, not a democracy, not some Politically Correct theses.

Everyone has their own Truth, but an encyclopedia is supposed to reflect what is verifiable and noteworthy. If Piltdown man is verifiable then it goes in the encyclopedia until further information shows it’s verifiably false. Which has nothing to do with whether it truly IS false.

Just because someone has an alternative belief doesn’t mean it should be sitting in the encyclopedia.

I donate my time to provide quality articles too.

if you want to donate,then their are many sites available rather then wikipedia

I haven’t donated anything in wikipedia but I sure do use their website in my research… :smiley:

LOL… Really? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia? :rofl:What encyclopedia has company profiles on obscure porn merchants (Viv Thomas), bios of obscure B movie actors (Robert Z’Dar), or explanations of offensive slang terms (Dirty Sanchez)? Or maybe I’m wrong-- Encyclopedia Brittanica has lengthy explanations of what a Cleveland Steamer or Donkey Punch are.

Oh, wait a second… I’m NOT wrong. You know why? Legitimate encyclopedias like Brittanica write entries on subject matter worth researching, not garbage like the stuff I mentioned. Wikipedia is NOT an encyclopedia by any stretch of the imagination; if it were, it would stick to important subjects worth researching, not plunder stuff from sites like The Urban Dictionary or “The Dirty Sanchez list” in the quest for new “entries” to spam the engines with, no matter how worthless or inappropriate the thing being plundered.

that’s sound pretty good

Welcome to the dilemmatic world of deletionism vs. inclusionism.

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=define:+encyclopedia&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Lewd sex terms are still knowledge. Being G rated is irrelevant.

For me, there is no “dilemma” about this. Wikipedia wants to establish itself as a “legitimate” alternative to respected general interest encyclopedias. It wants everyone to say, “Yes, it may be on the web, but it’s as credible, as, say Merriam Webster.” Well, if Wikipedia wants everyone to respect it as a “real” encyclopedia, it has to adopt the same high standards as other encyclopedias (Brittanica, Encarta, etc).

It can’t have it both ways. It can’t demand people to see it as more than just a “website”, but then behave exactly like one by adding garbage content of zero scholarly value that no self-respecting encyclopedia would ever include.

BTW, for those of you who want to donate your money to “better sites”, one site I highly recommend is Roman-Empire.net, a comprehensive, painstakingly researched website on Ancient Rome, which of course preceded Wikipedia but no one pays attention to and in fact probably gets put down as “untrustworthy”, even though Wikipedia itself got the bulk of its information from this site.

Thank you for showing me the definition of what an encyclopedia is. As a person who relied on them extensively for at least 15 years before the internet ever existed-- and probably for a decade before you were even born-- I had no idea. Consider me properly schooled.

Alternative? I would use the term “option” for that; Wikipedia has never claimed it wants to replace other existing encyclopedias. Regrading legitimacy, Nature magazine did a study in 2005 that showed that Wikipedia is as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica. So yes, experts has scientifically investigated the accuracy of Wikipedia before and didn’t conclude the dreadful image you’re trying to depict about it as an exclusive playground for amateur non-expert “users” who create nonsense, garbage and useless content.

This is where you start to make no sense at all. You’re actually typically a non-contributing deletionist. To criticize Wikipedia’s tendency to include every possible form of knowledge is one thing, which is perfectly legitimate and had been practiced by Wikipedia’s community itself. But to deny the existence of any serious, rigorous and well-established material is another different thing. The latter is totally irrational, as it contradicts the hundred of thousand of articles on scientific phenomena, public figures, wars, religions, books, universities, etc. that span across the whole website. Unless of course, you’re questioning the accuracy and validity of all Wikipedia, not only trivial content.

It occurs to me that you oppose the whole idea of open and collaborative editing. You want people to go back to rely on knowledge-bases created and produced by a hundred or so so-called experts which then gone printed in some 30 volumes, sold for $3000 and updated every 10 years. If that’s not the case, you’d do a better service to the world by demanding Britannica Encyclopedia to release all its content for free and public consumption. That way people won’t find the need to go and check zero scholarly value encyclopedias that add only garbage content.

That’s some wild statement to make. I doubt the website’s owners would confirm such claim.

because im a poor guy

Do you think that donating will help in preventing bad information to be published in Wikipedia ?