Citizendium is now asking for donations on the top of their main page. Like Wikipedia's, it's a banner at the top of the page. For an organization trying to distance itself from Wikipedia, the folks at CZ seem to follow WP's example an awful lot. To their credit, though, they're asking for much less money ($10K) to support the site. I predict that even without the traffic WP receives, CZ will reach their monetary goal faster than WP's outrageous $4.6m.

The "collaborative kegger" they're advertising for tomorrow makes me imagine editors getting drunk as they write CZ articles.

Recent evidence (i.e. VintageKits and Aldebaer) indicates that WP admins are more lenient towards drunk editors.

Perhaps CZ's going in that direction also?

Citizendium will never achieve anything like the penetration and mindset of WP while it adheres to WP's ruinous and reckless business model.

So like WP, donations will go straight into the ever increasing black hole called "Hosting and Bandwidth costs"

I think it's Planned Ugliness. That brown button is dark enough to contrast against the white page and reddish enough to attract the human eye.

I finally got around to watching the Jimbo video. Yikes. What's with the "feed the children" stuff?

He's cluing into the development aspect of the spin. It is tragic, but this is pretty normal in that field. Just that it doesnt need another sinkhole. I needs more good work. Let Jimbo go to Darfur, and try to pass off the use of his encyclopedia as useful.

What good does Wikipedia do for the poor of poor countries? What they need is new wells, or consistently running electricity (huge problems) or basic medication and relief from malaria, AIDS, ringworm, etc. Give them scholarships to higher education in Europe or the US, and incentive to return so there is no braindrain (like help create jobs in the home economy). If Jimbo was a real philanthropist, his African contacts would be raising such funds, and calling them "Wikipedia scholarships", and asking the recipients to donate some time to Wikipedia as a goodwill gratefulness gesture. Not just trained Africans (or wherever else) to type in the encyclopedia. That is so weak.

Wikipedia asks everyone (rich or poor) for free work! It doesnt teach contributors to type (a useful skill that they could develop in Africa). It doesn't teach them to research. Wikipedia is for people with free time. The poor of African dont have free time! They work! Sometimes to carry water for their daily needs! (!)

If poor people want to use Wikipedia, when they have no other resource (like, they get confused by Google, which means that they's be MORE confused by Wikipedia), GREAT. Just dont ask them to work for free and call it feeding them.

Sheesh.

Reminds me when he claimed he was in India, unable to access internet, and he was in a modern, rife-with-broadband conference centre in Tamil Nadu. Yeah. More like he was distracted, high on himself, and didnt think the press would notice he hired a fraud.

The things people are saying the donor banner aren't very smart most of the time.

I'm pretty sure I saw "F--- the Long Tail" by an anon. Isn't there a moderator watching this stuff?

I also went to Uncyclopedia and thought "Gee, most of the comments on the donor banner here are worse than those on the various Wikipedias."

Then, I realized, I had been had!

My favorite comment ever was "I hope you choke and die on paypal fees."

Was that on WP or UN? What's sad is I can't tell the difference half the time!

From WP: "Woooo! Cheaper than college!" — Anon.

All of this reminds me of being in the former Soviet States just after the wall went down and running into an American woman who was trying to get everybody to turn Vegan. The problem was that all you could get at the market were unidentified sausages and cabbage. You couldn't even get potatoes.

As we were having our delicious lunch at the State subsidized hotel where you could get anything as long as you were a foreigner (and even if you were a guest, you weren't allowed to invite natives...believe me, I tried! I ended up leaving about six months of cash for the chamber maid at the hotel because I couldn't spend the money that they gave me.), I pointed out to her that perhaps people needed to eat sausage because they couldn't just live on cabbage. She simply refused to even consider what I was talking about.

That's kind of the same issue with Wikipedia: they're so convinced that they're right that even if you put the truth in their face, they won't even consider that maybe, just maybe, they're simply wrong.

And sometimes, when you're dealing with life and death situations, wrong is more than simply wrong. It's morally wrong.

Jimbo's pitch is just that: it's morally wrong. Africans don't need the USA approved version of the "sum of human knowledge". They need the power to create their own society with proper health care, food and water. Anything else and you start to get into "colonialism"...and don't get me started on that...

Good one!