Top 10 Reasons Not to Donate to Wikipedia
1. 2. Wikipedia is really a roleplaying game, with no accountability. 3. 4. 5. Grade-school children can read Wikipedia's pornographic articles about such things as anilingus.
1. Your donation, via Google Adsense, will fund Wikia, which is not a charity. Your non-profit donation will ultimately line the for-profit pockets of Jimmy Wales, Amazon, Google, the Bessemer Partners, and other corporate beneficiaries. How? Wikipedia is used as a commercial traffic engine, with 4,000+ external links to Wales' Google AdSense-supported Wikia sites, plus 25,000+ links to Amazon product stores. Clearly, others are making millions from the success of Wikipedia. Do you want to further endorse their profiteering?
2. Wikipedia is really a roleplaying game, with no accountability. While Wikipedia is disguised as an encyclopedia, it is actually nothing more than a fluid forum where ultimate editorial control belongs to a corps of administrators, most of whom act without real-world accountability because they don't reveal their real names, locations, and potential conflicts of interest -- even though they will not hesitate, through "complex investigations", to "out" the real names, locations, and perceived conflicts of interest of other, non-administrative editors. Why give your real-world dollars to a virtual-world multi-player forum? Have you made your donation to Second Life, too?
3. Why not donate to Citizendium instead, as they have real life details. Citizendium is a new encyclopedia project founded by a co-founder of Wikipedia. There, the editors do disclose who they are in real life. You probably donated to Wikipedia last year, so why not spread the wealth to new projects like Citizendium this year?
4. Wikipedia alleges that Brazil, Israel and Saudi Arabia practice apartheid. Do you live in Brazil, Israel, or Saudi Arabia? Wikipedia has gone to painstaking detail to host articles about how your countries allegedly practice apartheid. If that's how you want your country described for the rest of the world, get out your checkbook.
5. Grade-school children can read Wikipedia's pornographic articles about such things as anilingus. Do you want your grade-school children looking at graphically-described, photo-rich pages about nipple piercings, anilingus, labia piercings, child modeling (erotic), frenum rings, strappado bondage, erotic spanking, incest pornography, smotherboxes, and Courtney Cummz and her directorial debut 'Face Invaders'? Send them to Wikipedia, while you make a donation to support the hosting of this and other material that would be shocking to most adults, housed on servers that make no attempt to filter what even pre-pubescent children can access.
6. Wikipedia has too much power. Google rank; Ability to set the 'truth'; Page ownerships; Cabals
7. Wikipedia is in a legally precarious position. Section 230; Libel; Oversight; Katefan; Seigenthaler
8. Wikipedia's leadership may be corrupt and inept. Jimbo Wales (hiring liars, then telling the press it's not a problem); Anthere (babysitting stipend); Essjay (a liar handed highest rank); Angela (edits Wikia article against policy); Arbcom; Our favorite admins. They stopped publishing their financial statements. They stripped all users of their membership. In fact, according to the lawyer who wrote the original bylaws (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alex756), they stripped all users of their membership in part because of a fear that members would demand financial statements. Multiple top officials/former officials have privately expressed concern over financial wrongdoing by certain board members. At least one former staff member has publicly accused the current board chair of embezzlement. The executive director and head legal council resigned due to problems he had with the organization. Wikipedia lacks a Board of Trustee with a wide base of civic and social stakeholders. WMF is by design narrow and weak, reflecting only the interests of a dysfunctional social networking community.
9. Wikipedia is unpredictable, inaccurate and unmanageable. Vandalism; Snowspinner; Zoe; that wrestler chap; Plenty more admin/cabal/clique stories; Serious errors in articles; Fortune 1000 companies missing.
10. Wikipedia is dead. Citizendium; Answers; Ability of anyone to fork
