[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

Thu Sep 16 19:14:49 UTC 2010

How would locking Wikipedia down fulfill the mission to collect all the educational information known.  Information changes constantly, new information becomes available constantly, and new material gets added to old articles constantly.  I myself just added some new detail to an article within the past week.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Damian <peter.damian at btinternet.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thu, Sep 16, 2010 12:07 pm
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

Putting this in context.  If I were to donate, say £1,500 of gross income to 
MF, it would be reasonable to ask what this money was for: how it was 
elping. The WMF goal is to "collect and developing educational content and 
o disseminate it effectively and globally".  Wikipedia is the main engine 
f this project, and is the reason I imagine most people want to donate 
oney.  Would I donate such a sum of money if I thought that it was not 
ctually helping develop educational content?  Hence my question: has 
ikipedia actually changed since 2005?  Has any educational content been 
dded (I am not including porn star bios as educational content, clearly).
I had three answers:
1.  The first that this was seriously off-topic.  I don't understand why 
ot.
2.  The second compared Wikipedia to going to the barbers, getting a nice 
rim, and then the hair getting all messy again.  That is clearly not a 
eason for donating money, quite the reverse.  How is the money actually 
oing to help, if it all is going to be a mess again in 6 months?  I 
ppreciate a lot of it goes to support the servers and IT and things, but 
ouldn't it be more efficient simply to stop people editing, clear up some 
f the mess, and lock Wikipedia down?  That would be much cheaper.  And I 
ould be willing to fund a clean-up effort.
3.  I wasn't quite sure of Phil Nash's objection, I think he was trying to 
ay that there is no evidence of Wikipedia failing to develop or grow.  To 
hat, I say that if I am going to donate money, I would like clear evidence 
hat Wikipedia is progressing in the direction I would hope.
I would like to point out I do support a number of charities.  I help the 
arburg institute with its library acquisition fund.  This makes hard-to-get 
ooks available to students.  I don't support WMF, and I won't until there 
s clear evidence the money would be used for a good purpose.  What do 
thers think?  Why do people donate to WMF?
Peter 

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