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Donations
To whom it may concern,
- Why do you need to ask for donations? You are sitting on a gold mine. I look for information on Wikipedia all the time in regards to many things. For example I like your F-150 page for my ford truck. I buy a crud load of parts for that truck (about $3000 since I bought it). If there was an advertisement on that page for a company who makes ford specific shop manuals for instance or Ford "how to fix it DVD's" then I would click on that advertisement. I would actually appreciate you helping me to find what I need for my truck. Each page on your site would be great for specific types of advertisements. The page about tomatoes could have an advertisement for a company selling the best breed of tomato seeds in the south for example. You have one of the highest volumes of web traffic on the internet period, and this traffic needs goods and services. You can help them to find those goods and services and make a load of money at the same time. If you are very idealistic, which I assume you are (because of the fact that you have provided something so great for so long for free), then take the extra money you have from the advertisements and put it towards furthering your cause (providing free information to the public). I would like to see free access to scientific journal articles (but I'm a real nerd, the public may not want that). A great portion of the CEO's in this country have engineering degrees. I am not a CEO, but I am an engineer. I have forseen many of the advances in internet technology coming long before they arrived. I have forseen many of the technology advances long before they arrived. Take it from me. You can springboard your cause ("free information") into the stratosphere if you will get past the fallacy that commercialism should be totally separated from your efforts.
Good Luck and thanks for the geat site, I love it,
Aaron
Wikipedia donation
Please try to include Indian rupee as an acceptable currency. There should be a lot of potential for donation from people like me.
Wiki ads
In my opinion, not at all a bad idea to include ads. No eye jarring, jazzy, bells, blinks, colors, in specified fonts, size, in short ergonomic ads, article related, exactly in the space where now Jimmy's appeal is displayed.. is not a bad idea.
Objectivists pleading for cash to avoid advertising?
Surely this cannot be. I spoke frequently with a man named Jim Wales in an objectivist newsgroup many years ago. Although we are all older and far more tolerant than we used to be, surely this appeal could not have come from the same man. However, I'm assured by others that it did.
There are many ways to generate revenue without plummeting down the slippery slope of "all advertising is bad" and invoking horrific visions of banner ads with dancing mortgage people. The Jim Wales with whom I exchanged group postings nearly every day would not only be open to new, pioneering ideas for generating revenue from the web, he would have been their most fervent champion. Instead of an appeal for cash, the Jim Wales I knew would be appealing for the Best and Brightest to submit their ideas. And he'd have been willing to pay for them.
Perhaps by posting this short memo, I can act as the Ghost of Christmas Past -- and Mr. Wales will once again see see that innovation, not pleading, is the way Wikipedia will survive and grow.
-- An old friend named Marti
I value WP, but most people don't value free stuff. Why not give free access for 6 or 12 months and then charge $10/yr or whatever makes sense? That would be practical. I suppose you're an idealist.
Appeal from Jimmy Wales
Hello. I have read Jimmy's personal appeal for donations to keep this site going and I am staggered to learn that about 340 million people visit this site every month!! I know I refer to Wikipedia at least once a week, so just imagine if we ALL donated just one dollar a month i.e. $12 a year, this site would be secure. My $12 is on its way and thank-you Jimmy for your vision and forethought to create this site. Michele.
Fundraising Efforts
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet has free access to the sum of all human knowledge."
Unfortunately if everyone is requested to donate money then the access to this information is not 'free'.
If this service is needed then it will have a market for ad revenue or begging revenue that will support it. If donations do not meet current server farm needs of $10M USD per year, then the market does not support this effort. It is that simple.
GOD BLESS!!! Джимбо Уэйлса
Sruart Drossner
Trouble donating
I wanted to donate $25 but kept getting a message saying "you must enter a valid amount" when I tried to pay with a credit card. Now I am having trouble figurng out how to send this message.
- Hello, are you by any chance trying to type "$25" in the box? If so, that's the issue -- you only need to type in "25" (the currency is taken care of by the dropdown box on the right). Let me know if you're still having trouble after that. Cbrown1023 talk 16:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I was unable to donate $10. It said I should enter a 'valid' amount. Sorry that's about all I can give.
BH bhouser@satx.rr.com
- Sorry Mr(s). Houser! There's not an issue with the amount you tried to donate, it was just how you put it in. If you add a dollar sign ($), it will break the form. The "USD - $" in the dropdown to the right takes care of the currency, so you just need to enter "10". I'm really sorry for the confusion, I've adjusted the error message to hopefully make this clearer – you're not the only one who has had issues with this. Cbrown1023 talk 02:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I've been attempting to donate 10 dollars via Visa credit card multiple times, and each time I get a page stating that my credit card has been declined. I've carefully checked out all the FAQ's and entered all information, including the CVV, perfectly each time. When I contacted my credit card company, they said that the message they had received stated that Wikimedia had been unable to verify the CVV, but I know for certain that my CVV is correct as I have been using it to make other online purchases, and it is clearly written in the correct space on my card. I've tried three times now and would really like to resolve this unusual issue. Thanks!
i want to donate but...
i could find nowhere to ask you a question, which is frustrating. My question is this. Is there any way i can donate and receive a tax credit in canada? I believe strongly in what Wikipedia is doing, but I also don't think it wise to ask people for money without providing a way for them to communicate with you. bob@bossin.com.
- I'm sorry you had issues finding where to comment. We suggest that you contact us by e-mail and there is actually a footer at the bottom of all of the donation pages that says: "Questions or comments? Contact the Wikimedia Foundation: donate@wikimedia.org", but this page works fine too.
- Unfortunately, we don't have a Wikimedia Canada yet (your donation would probably be tax-deductible if we had one and you donated to it), but you can signup to help them get started! From what I see on wmf:Deductibility of donations#Canada, your donation is deductible "from the donor's US taxable income, but I'm not sure if that would help you. Cbrown1023 talk 04:15, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
wonderful astrology website
great job on your astrology website very informative thanks— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 187.132.70.92 (talk) 06:16, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for the compliment! Have you ever considered becoming an editor yourself? Cbrown1023 talk 13:55, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
from Ivan 'Doc' Holiday - Bouncer
I donated to Wiki because I truly believe that this is a worth site. Excellent information. Thanks Jimmy... Doc
Typo in Swedish translation
This is to report a grammatical error on http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Appeal/sv - the caption over Jimmy's picture header says "Tänk dig alla människor fritt kan kan ta del av allt mänskligt vetande", which is incorrect. Should be changed to "Tänk dig att alla människor fritt kan kan ta del av allt mänskligt vetande". /skagedal... 20:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks, I've just changed it to "Föreställ dig en värld där varje enskild person har fri tillgång till mänsklighetens samlade kunskap." instead, which is the same as the quote bolded in the body of the letter. Cbrown1023 talk 23:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Tax deductibility for Canadians
Hi You should try and make it tax deductible for Canadians to donate. This is important to many people, especially ones with money!
- Thanks for your message. From what I see on wmf:Deductibility of donations#Canada, your donation is deductible "from the donor's US taxable income", but I'm not sure if that would help you.
- Another way to make your donations tax-deductible in Canada would be to create a local organization that would support Wikimedia's activities: Wikimedia Canada. You can signup to help them get started! Cbrown1023 talk 22:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Donation Form
Today after reading the personal appeal I decided to make a donation, I have to say that I was a little put off because the defaults on the website are for US dollars and for a USA address this seems at odds with the message in the appeal. Please keep wikipedia truly global and do not default to any particular country.
- Hello and sorry you were upset by our donation form defaults. We try to "localize" the default donation amounts depending upon each language page (i.e. Hungarian gets the Hungarian currency, Polish gets the Polish currency, Norwegian the Norwegian one, etc.) and that does work for quite a few of the languages. However, it doesn't work for English, because just looking down the drop-down of available currencies will show you that we support many currencies from English-speaking countries (USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, CAD, NZD). To solve this, we just leave the default as USD, since that's where the Wikimedia Foundation is officially based (an internationally-focused charity based in the US). Do you have any other suggestions for solving this?
- As for the credit card form, I agree with you. The whole fact that we support our own credit card processing is new this year, so we're still working out the glitches. The form will need to be reworked and redesigned for next year, because it's not in a very good state at the moment.
- Thanks for your feedback and I look forward to hearing back from you, Cbrown1023 talk 14:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
User Interface : Suggestion
I was on the page meant for Donations for wikipedia (navigate: click on wiki's founder's logo> Donation Page). DO you think opening this page in a separate window would be a better idea? Personally as a user, I think it should be because when I was on the donation page, I started looking at other topics such as FAQs, Employee profiles etc. (on other pages). When I finished reading information on other pages, I closed the window and absolutely forgot about donations.
Wishing Wiki Team a Great 2010 , Thanking Wiki for being a great source of information - internet would have been incomplete without Wiki, and Wishing all the Luck with a great user experience in future.
Jas