Wikimedia Foundation Inc

NEVER, EVER SUPPORT WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM AND HERE IS WHY: https://archive.ph/seEt1 THIS IS EGOCENTRIC, WIKIHYPOCRYTICAL ORGANIZATION WHERE WIKIGNORANCE, WIKISTUPIDITY, WIKICONTRADICTIONS RULE... TOTAL DISAGRACE AND UTMOST STUPIDITY!!! THEY DONT KNOW WHAT ALTRUISM MEANS... DONT DONATE OR MONEY WILL BE SPENT ON WILD PARTIES N ORGIES TO SAY THE LEAST...

http://xahlee.info/w/do_not_donate_to_Wikipedia.html http://ritualabuse.us/riLtualabuse/articles/wikipedia-has-a-long-history-of-problems/ all so true
http://theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/how-wikipedia-is-hostile-to-women/411619/

NOTHING BUT EDIT WARS BY ITS TOP MORONS LIKE ETHANGAMING7640, ANTANDRUS, JAVAHURRICANE, PAVLOV, KALKI, UDSCOTT, BSADOWSKI1... SPITTING ON HOLY MEN:
https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Pope_Benedict_XVI&offset=&limit=500&action=history

I have had the luck to be born in a family which praise culture and studying, and in a society where I have always had the freedom to pursue them. I am not speaking about my Country of origin (Italy), but the whole Western Civilization, Plus I had the ultimate luck to live when the Information Technology flourished, and it supposed a big change in my life.
Contrarily to most people getting old (I am 41), I am not a nostalgic; I remember perfectly how difficult it was in the past to look for information, how much time you had to spend to get bits of what you wanted, before the Internet, Wikipedia, or the presence On-Line of huge Libraries in all languages, and all over the world. So every day I wake up, and I am thankful to be born nowadays.
I spent all my life studying, there is nothing I love more.
I remember one day, I was asked if I had trade the beautiful memories of Dante's Divine Comedy for one million dollars. I convincingly denied the possibility. My wealth is what I know, and that is what I bought in my life, not with money, but not becoming obsessed with it.
But if I had a choice to study is not because of talent or skills, it is because of circumstances, and there is no one day I am not thankful to all the people who made and still make this dream possible: the carpenters who built the doors, which permit me to isolate myself from the rest of the world, the producers of coffee, who help my concentration, the one who invented the font I am reading and it is so understandable, and so forth. Everyone who did something I am using and enjoying in my day by day!
But among all of them, I have to keep in a special place all that is related to technology of information.
During my life I had to move to two different countries, ultimately US, and it would be impossible for me to dedicate myself to what I love, without technology. I use it every day, as I use Wikipedia every day; so, even if I am not rich, I try to donate every year to the Wikimedia Foundation, in order to keep this wonderful global knowledge project going.
Universal access to information could increase human creativity and productivity of more knowledge, beauty and art. We can finally achieve a marvelous, colorful, rich and prosperous world, we have to insist and realize this ancient dream.

being part of the story of wiki foundation is the key to finding a great human resource

I learned that many people who work for nonprofit org become greedy. When they get bigger and successful, it is common to see numerous financial issues arise. It is very sad that Wikimedia is one of them. I hate to see them writing on this Review page giving themselves 5stars. I no longer plan to donate. There are many organization run by people do not take any money. I do not like them soliciting me by email. Because I donated before does not give them right to use my email asking for money.

This organization is broken. The volunteers that monitor posting activity are poorly trained and do now have the skills required to know the difference between legitimate postings and spam. The ONLY way that volunteer monitoring works is with rigorous training and screening of volunteers, with ongoing quality testing to prevent an obstructive enclave from forming.

This allows open transfer of information in a usable form without Commercialization of the process.

Maybe it's not necessary to talk up the folks behind Wikipedia, people already know their importance and influence.

You might not know how hard they work to get it done right, including always trying to make it more accurate and how to prevent attacks and other problems.

In a sense, they're asking "what is truth" in conditions which can get real unfriendly at times.

It is vitally important to note when talking about the Wikimedia Foundation the relative size of their projects and the relatively low cost of those projects compared to sites of similar size. With the numbers provided by Charity Navigator (which appear to be slightly lower than the published numbers on the latest Wikimedia report) the total cost of running the entire organization is only a small percentage of any other website with such traffic levels.

Alexa ranks Wikipedia as having more traffic than Twitter. Yet the administrative and hosting bills of Twitter probably dwarf the entire Wikimedia Foundation budget.

It is also important to note that most of their work is done by volunteers and the paid staff and outside contractors are there mostly to serve as administrators and facilitators to the volunteers. And those volunteers are more than willing to check the work of the foundation to ensure compliance.

One thing I would really like to see is that this organization be rated twice. Once for their work maintaining the operations of major Wikimedia projects and the other for their goals of expanding projects in overseas markets and working with organizations to expand those programs. I already know that they do a great job considering their size on keeping the websites up but I have no real chance to rate their more ambitious goals (although this is all publicly available.)

Wikipedia has changed the lives of students I have worked with in 8 countries around the world. They have all learned about the world in their own language through Wikipedia, and many of them have learned to write cited essays, or to take good photographs, in order to share something about their town with the world.

I don't know of any other project that so simply and directly allows people to share what is important in their lives in a way that will be read and remembered by others for generations. The Foundation's communications about their work and investments are as clear and approachable as any I have seen.

The Wikimedia Foundation is one of the leaders of the Free Culture movement and a great example of what you can accomplish if you inspire people to contribute to the common good. With a very small staff and modest budget, the Wikimedia Foundation has manged to run the 5th most popular website in the world, ad-free. No other tech company in the world has done as much to improve the educational resources available to people all over the world.

A great idea but with questionable leadership and financial dealings. I have limited resources so I will have to pass on this one and focus on organizations without the controversy. http://www.mywikibiz.com/Top_10_Reasons_Not_to_Donate_to_Wikipedia

While few argue the value of the nonprofit, their financials are concerning. Their annual reports contain the minimum numbers. Concerns after viewing the audit: Largest increases by proportion are in administrative costs. The porportion of costs going towards paying people is increasing dramatically. Good cause, but it looks to me that it's not very frugal.

The Wikimedia Foundation is an amazing organization that has really been a pioneer in the free information movement. Through their online encyclopedia in hundreds of languages, their network of chapters around the world, and their partnerships with like-minded organizations, they have been and continue to be the source for information online.

The Wikimedia Foundation is the steward of some of the most important work taking place online, and in the world. Wikipedia in dozens of languages, a massive repository of images and other multimedia available for free use, and much more. Because of the organization's unique model, the Foundation's budget of under $10 million is sufficient to host a top-5 web site, and many other sites as well, without advertising. This is one of the most important charitable efforts on the planet.

The Wikimedia Foundation is doing outstanding work providing infrastructure and programs for Wikipedia and its sister projects. Its mission to bring the sum of all human knowledge to everyone is more than commendable. In just a few years, the Foundation has transformed from a small group of dedicated volunteers to a professionally-run organization supported by thousands worldwide.

I have grave concerns about this organization. Year after year, its Form 990 indicates that it is spending in the area of only 33%-50% of its total incoming revenues back out onto program services. More reputable charities see to it that at least 80% of their incomes gets to program services. Then, in January 2009, we found out that the Foundation needed additional office space. They performed a supposedly competitive search, and guess whom they chose to be their landlord? The privately-held for-profit company owned by the longest-serving Board member! Have they no sense of good governance and non-profit ethics? It is shameful.