The WMF fundraiser which was set to end on December 22nd was extended until January 3rd. I can't find any other talk about it and it looks like the change was just made today by Angela on the FAQ.

Cbrown1023 (supposedly on Wikibreak) mentions the change here. Ugh, so tired of that banner.

Of course. It's going to be extended until they can either meet or redefine their goal, most likely.

Ahhhh HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAHHHHHHH ! ! ! !

So many accountable and useful non-profit organizations are asking for money this holiday season. Why on earth did the Foundation even think to try this kind of fundraiser at this time, especially with the economy as bad as it is and people being more discreet with their money? If I'm going to give money to a non-profit this time of year, it's going to a charity, not to Wikipedia.

Good grief. I don't even have a degree in business or economics and I know this!

Ah, good. That's enough time for one more good scandal.

My thoughts exactly, I can't concieve how they can obtain significantly more during the holydays. What were they thinking?

They were thinking that the incremental gains in donations outweighs the decremental losses in more scandalous revelations.

God that hit me hard, I'm still laughing.

But really, do they think they will be able to raise any money after Christmas and then New Years. I predict they'll just go ahead and make it a year-long raiser.

Like PBS.

I can already see me doing a search on WP and then a screen comes up and says "Do you enjoy reading WP? Please donate X amount of money to see your article! In the mighty words of our sole founder: "We are building a free encyclopedia for the world. That's what we are doing here." Please donate and help the world one edit at a time!"

Not bloody likely that they can. That when hangovers need to be recovered from and when the bills start coming due. Indeed, another extension seems inevitable.

Incidently, welcome the forum, qoforensics.

A new analysis of the 2007 fundraiser is available here.

There is a very nice graph.

The analysis boils down to comments like: "Some 40,000+ people have donated nearly $1.5m, a huge sum of money and the biggest and most successful fundraiser in the Internet ever [...] The scandal that Wikimedia hired a convicted felon as COO without any background checks unearthed during the fundraiser has added further to Wikimedia losing credibility in the public opinion [...] The unclear financial planning that totals $4.611m and was intended to change Wikimedia into a general charity operation seemed to be the major bummer though [...] The relocation to San Francisco has not been called off so far either BTW [...] Obviously there are many things about this fundraiser that have been very broken [...] The bar representing people rather than money was, in retrospect, not a good decision.

I'm sure Ron Paul and Mitt Romney would be interested to hear that their $3 million IN ONE DAY records have been smashed by the Mighty Mathematicians of Mimbo-Jimbo.

These Wikipediots can't even get their "good news" stories to mesh with the truth.

Greg

The one comment that killed me, though, was "The bar representing people rather than money was, in retrospect, not a good decision." As if a different graphic would have made the difference between 1.5 million and 4.6 million. No graphic would have been able to raise 4.6 million dollars for an organization which is doing no more than running a web site and handing out CDs, and switching out graphics wouldn't have made a 3 million dollar discrepancy (between what was given and what was asked for) disappear.





You can visit the Wikipedia CafePress store, though (which is also editable!). No Wikipedia thongs are available yet.

I disagree, Firsfron. If the Foundation had put pictures of [[hogtie bondage]] and maybe [[Letha Weapons]] in the donation banner, and had some comment like:

"Donate today, and get access to all of JzG's favorite images!"

...they may have picked up the extra 3 mil.

Greg

Today's Algebra Problem...

A 43-gallon tank has 22 gallons in it. If fresh water is being added at the rate of 1 gallon per hour, and water is draining out the bottom of the tank at the rate of 2 gallons per hour, how many hours before the tank runs dry?

Ugh! I hate algebra word problems! So many questions left unanswered. Are the 22 gallons also fresh water, or salt water? Is it a hot day, or cloudy? What material is the tank made from? Those algebra word problems never seem to take other important factors into consideration.

The 22 gallons are pickle brine. It's night time and the moon is waxing crescent. The tank is made of studded leather, and you owe $25 to the pizza delivery man.

Maybe that means the most successful fundraiser to fund an Internet site.

Well, the band isn't an "Internet site", but it's also instructive to note that Radiohead kicked Jimbo's arse by several million dollars.

Greg

Thanks for that one, I LOL'd.

I seem to recall this exact problem from my hellish College Algebra final, years ago... What edition are you using?

I'm using the edition developed by the Institute for Intelligent Algebra.