Thanks but I wish I didn't ask It's like the beginning of the apalling Independence Day - fondent-box multinational harmony. Or one of the seriously ill-judged Microsoft "I'm a PC" ads we get in the UK. Funny how the baby was looking at a book - if it was a laptop screen (and hense WIkipedia) kiddy porn would instantly come to mind.

Dad and baby is none other than Sage Ross, Wikimedia Foundation staff member.

"Author" must be a word they reserve for fundraisers.

There is now a Google Chrome extension that: "Adds a nice Wikipedia donation banner to every single web page."

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail...kiimioljbloddpl




Comments:
rubyruy17 hours ago
The most innovative addition to web technologies since HTML4

anonymous18 hours ago
brilliant

Winter18 hours ago
I got my Jimmy Wales web page ad extension. Woot!

MrBillyWhite1 day ago
This is brilliant. On websites where it looks a little out of place, though, it'd be nice to have a little button to close the "ad".

anonymous1 day ago
This is the best thing since sliced toast

AIand01 day ago
DàI!


Epic @white_eagle: As Web 3.0 as it gets!

anonymous1 day ago
cancer.

anonymous1 day ago
lol. rated 5 cuz i'm p sure this is a joke. love wiki but i'm sick of seeing jimmy wales' face everywhere.

I don't want to speak too soon, but this year's fundraiser (recall in past years, the "Jimmy Wales appeal" is reserved for the home stretch) could be the textbook case of "blowing one's load" too early.

So, the total take is running behind last year's. (Good.)

Apparently in Sweden you can get arrested for that.

All jizzed up and nowhere to go.

Yesterday (Day 26 of the campaign) was the lowest revenue yet, less than half of the previous day's intake.

With about 40% of the campaign calendar gone, and only about 41% of the target level met ($16 million in "small" contributions), and the big punch of Jimbo's appeal already shot, it looks very likely (unless the WMF and Beaudette have a secret weapon up their sleeve -- Silvia Saint?) that the fundraising campaign is going to come up very, very short. Perhaps $6 million short.

The question is: will that be interpreted to mean that Jimmy is their only hope (Jimbo-juice glass half full), or that Jimmy's appeal only goes so far and might actually repel others (Jimbo-juice glass half empty)?


Does he look awfully young, or am I just getting awfully old?

Apparently, the WMF tricked me into making a mistake. They post partial daily data, as the day progresses. So, when I looked at Day 26, it was much worse that how it ended up at the end of the day. It still doesn't look good for the WMF. I'm predicting that by January 5, they'll be at a cumulative total of $9.5 million, which will be well below their goal.

The downward trend is still quite strong though. If they don't hit the goal in time, do they just keep putting more banners up? What if they don't hit it by next November?

Today it's Sue Gardner gracing the top of my watchlist.

I kinda liked the previous babe, who had an appealingly open smile and was easy on the eyes. Now I'm afraid to log on.

Hasn't it been common for them to not reach their goal? I seem to remember there being a few messages about "oh my god we're not going to reach our goal what are we going to do" a number of years.

Not really sure about that, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a big uptick round around Christmas and then also the last few days before New Year's when people are like "wait, I still have tax deductions I can make this year." Is a graph of last year's donation history up?

Nuke, I already pointed that out.

In previous years, there have been panics -- but then Jimbo Claus came and saved the day. They would save their Jimbo shot for the end, right around Christmas. This year, they blew it early, and my how the blogosphere made fun of the self-important Jimbo.

Looks like "Wikipedia Executive Director" Sue Gardner and her thermometer earned an extra $40,000 to $42,000 over what would have been the expected $103,000 today.

It seems that those fools who donate to Wikipedia prefer to click on Jimmy's face rather than press on the hotties.

It seems that the fools who set up the testing statistics don't know what "Donations/Clicks" means, mathematically.

I'm a latecomer to this thread, but has it been noted that Uncyclopedia has good satires of the banners?

It seems that the WMF is starting to realize they're not going to make it to their goal. At least not in 2010. Jimbo's appeal is now marked "urgent". And, he's heaping on the bullshit heavier than ever:

Well, he's right about leaving waste to others.

Jon

Seen this before, on nonprofit community radio.
From now on, they'll be just like NPR or Pacifica radio stations--constantly
(and I mean constantly) begging for donations, while never meeting
their artificially inflated "requirements".

Unlike radio stations, websites like Wikipedia are totally ephemeral. A radio
station has a transmitter, a studio, and a listenership, the latter of which grows
as years go by. Campus stations also have the support of their institution, and
usually serve as training facilities for the school's broadcast majors.
What is Wikipedia, a rented office and a bunch of servers in a colocation shop?
Wikipedia could disappear tomorrow, and be totally forgotten by all but a few
fanatics within a few months.

And Google is their primary "supporting affiliate"? I would not trust Google to
deliver a pizza across town. Google is the world's largest, greediest, and most
self-serving advertising company. They are just very, very good at covering up
their slimy tricks. If they turn their back on Wikipedia, say bye-bye, kiddies.

Will Google someday become "glorious search engine of the past" anyway?
It's happened before. Remember how big webrings were, ten years ago?
Remember how popular Geocities, Tripod, and Angelfire were?
Now, all are rapidly fading memories. Even AOL, once the biggest ISP in
the world, is slowly fading out of public consciousness.