yeah, i drop a $20-25 donation yearly.
Comment on Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
xylogx@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Every time someone visits Wikipedia they make exactly $0. In fact, it costs them money. Are people still contributing and/or donating? These seem like more important questions to me.
possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
DMCMNFIBFFF@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’d make a cash donation right now if I could.
vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
I got you fam. I’ve been making a decent monthly donation for years. Consider one of those on your behalf!
Octavio@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I think the theory is that the people who contribute and/or donate are a subset of the people who frequently visit. The smaller the superset, the smaller the subset is likely to be. I could be wrong; I’m not part of the subset that reads the articles.
patatahooligan@lemmy.world 1 week ago
There are indirect benefits to visitors, though. Yes, most people are a drain on resources because they visit strictly to read and never to contribute. The minority that do contribute, though, are presumably people who used Wikipedia and liked it, or people who enjoy knowing that other people are benefiting from their contributions. I’m not sure people will donate or edit on Wikipedia if they believe no one is using it.
xylogx@lemmy.world 6 days ago
That makes sense. It is interesting to read the original blog post from Wikimedia:
diff.wikimedia.org/…/new-user-trends-on-wikipedia…
and what they say you can do if you want to help:
“Active volunteers can further help meet this moment by working with Wikimedia Foundation teams to test out new experiences and tools on Wikipedia. As the internet changes rapidly, this is a moment to consider what parts of Wikipedia should change (and what parts should not), while staying true to the promise of human-centered, free knowledge for the world.
A specific area where volunteers can help is with our new readers teams. We welcome you to review the current experiments we are running and help us answer key questions about what will most help readers. Please join the readers teams on their talk page and sign up for their newsletter to share your thoughts and learn more about their work. We’ll also be reaching out to communities soon with both live and on-wiki ways to talk about these trends, and what they mean for the Wikimedia projects.”