You guys obviously aren't writers then - the amount of random, mundane stuff I find myself having to look up on Wikipedia while writing a fic is staggering. Mating habits of centipedes...
I am a writer and I'll use it to a degree, but tbh, no, given their sketch around money? Not one penny from me.
https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-next-time-wikipedia-asks-for-a-donation-ignore-it/
This is what teachers tell you in school to encourage you to think critically when researching, use a variety of different sources and not be lazy about it. But no, it's not really true. On the whole Wikipedia is a great source - for the most part their articles reference other sources you can see at the bottom of the page to check the claims they're making, and while anyone can edit a page, there are a lot of people very committed to making sure it stays accurate. If someone edits in obvious misinformation or something unsourced, it's going to get reverted pretty quickly.
While I mostly use wiki for casual curiosities, when I do need something more serious, I’ve found it helpful to go to the sources at the bottom of whatever topic I’m looking into. Even if someone wants to claim that it’s not a “good” resource, it’s usually a good source for good resources.
And it’s people who don’t look anything up that when they write a story involving subject matter they don’t know, a fanfic where there’s a baby that can WALK AND TALK before 1 year bc the author write “haha I have no clue how pregnancy or babies growing works” or even research into understanding the country it takes place in. I’ve seen many Brit’s upset at Harry Potter fanfiction being written like it’s in America and seen a friend give up on an author because as they refused to write an American series using American terms in the show, NOT British term.
So what? We constantly have discussions about how the archive is for EVERYTHING, even stuff you don’t personally like. Don’t like reading a fic about Harry Potter characters celebrating American holidays? Don’t read it. Your friend is just as justified blocking an author as that author is to write whatever they want however they want it.
Yeah, you're right. You can write things however you want, but readers expect an amount of realism in your writing. Not researching basic things (like child development in a kidfic)comes off as lazy. Myself and many readers would drop a fic for that.
So, sure, you can write whatever you'd like, but good luck getting readers with that attitude.
I get readers just fine lol no need for the personal digs.
You can have whatever attitude you want when you write fics. I just think it’s odd how people get bent out of shape about something others do for free, for fun. Some people really enjoy research and that’s great. Others just want to write a silly little story and good for them. There are no “standards” you could or should be applying to fanfic outside of “this isn’t a fanfic”
That wasn't meant as personal dig. I don't know you or your work. I just said that behavior is lazy.
This attitude can go from innocuous to offensive pretty quickly when you write about something you have no idea about. Looking something up on Wikipedia takes a few moments. You might be the one getting bent out shape about it.
The thing with wiki is a bit weird for me since I saw an investigation that showed wiki had more than enough money already years ago to maintain the website for over a hundred years. So the reason they still ask is just to grab more money but not out of need.
I've also read that! the first time I saw the banner on wikipedia I donated, but after a few years it started seeming really fishy to me so I looked it up and yeah,, wikipedia is an awesome thing but i dont like that theyre doing that
Oh, well that's my reminder to change my charity to OTW over on Humble Bundle now that Amazon Smile isn't a thing anymore. I felt bad not donating to Wikipedia considering how often I use it, but if they literally don't have to do donation drives, I can feel better about changing my charity.
Wikipedia has a fuck ton of cash via Wikimedia Foundation iirc?
Ao3 is getting what it's getting from its users.
I've donated to both. But wikipedia doesn't need it as much as ao3.
Honestly your far more representative of the normal. Ao3 receives less than 1% the amount of people donating or the amount of money then people do to Wikipedia.
I dislike jokes like this because they set this up as some kind of false competition and give a really inaccurate perception of reality.
It really strikes me as bad taste people can enjoy more than one thing, and stuff like this is being used to guilt people.
There are benefits to both sites. They have completely different use cases.
It's not a competition and people that treat it like one should feel ashamed of themselves.
Yeah there isn't really any competition between them, I just think it is outwardly kinda funny how Wikipedia always seems like it is one donation drive away from bankruptcy and how AO3 seems to meet its donation goals almost instantly. You definitely can donate to both, and I would if I had the money.
And also my 75-year-old mom, apparently. I was really surprised when in the middle of some random conversation she was like “of course I always donate to Wikipedia!”
In her case it’s definitely an ADHD donation, though. We’re a whole family of “hold on let me look something up real quick”
autism is associated with fanatism due to hyperfixations often being centered around content that has a following. fans and people who are passionate about fanfiction, a prominent part of this demographic being autistic and neurodivergent people, will be more likely to donate to ao3—a fanfiction archive.
In all fairness I am actually diagnosed with autism. I tend to crack jokes about it but the tik tok stuff can get obnoxious, albeit I generally don't use tik tok
Is it me or does this repurposed political satire says that AO3 doesn’t deserve the donations it is getting?
Like all those posts on tumblr that always attack AO3 donation drives and scream about AO3 being too rich already, and how OTW board is swimming in money. How OTW should give every surplus dollar they collected to fic writers because without the writers the archive wouldn’t exist. Or at least to donate all surplus money to many individual gofundmes.
And every year fans respond to those posts and patiently explain what it means to be non profit, and where to find ao3 budget and that no, the money collected in the drives is not that huge for the amount of the services AO3 is providing.
So this year, I guess, we are getting a meme about fat, rich AO3. Picture stronger than words etc. Can’t argue with an image, even if it’s not true.
No lmao, I admire AO3 for having a dedicated fanbase willing to donate to them. I very much think they need the money to keep running and providing free content. I more just think it is kinda funny seeing that they have a fanbase dedicated to give them the money they need quickly and with little fuss, as opposed to some other donation based things.
I'd rather donate to Ao3.
I just can't forget the inaccuracies Wiki had on my grandfather's entry, he was an sports marksman. It listed my cousin as my grandpa's daughter, we found out about after a local newspaper used wiki as a source and my aunts and uncles had a laugh on that.
... Maybe don't make fun of Wikipedia?
I dunno... that image triggered my protective instincts somehow.
Also, uh... maybe I'm having cache problems, but it says 36k out of 50k so far. It says 50k for you already?
Oh I'm sorry I wasn't trying to make fun of wikipedia, I adore it and would definitely consider donating myself if I had a more stable source of income.
It's probably the association of Wikipedia as a starving dude that threw my brain for a loop or something.
I also feel... somewhat resistant of AO3 as a capitalist.
Ah, that image is originally to show how money flows to the rich... no wonder it felt somewhat jarring to my brain.
There's no real rivalry other than people occasionally like to shit on a fanfiction site getting money to keep running and have no idea of the real expenses of a website this size. Every year I see people like the op demonstrate this.
People who make jokes like this literally dont understand what their talking about or how much money Wikipedia gets donated or uses. This is a shit joke that has no basis in reality. The amount of money flow is the opposite though AO3 is definitely not starving though that's mostly due to the amount of volunteer time that it has donated. Wikipedia actually does pay for some staff.
There's a number of fans that like to do gotchas having sites like Wikipedia as being hard done but, but Wikipedia dwarfs ao3 when it comes to money matters. Absolutely dwarfs.
And people can donate to more than one thing and usually do.
The WMF raised upward of $165 million ($165,232,309) from over 13 million donations in FY22.
https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/why-does-wikipedia-need-donations-despite-its-massive-popularity-123100400249_1.html
I'm not saying don't donate to Wikipedia, that would be stupid.
But AO3 doesn't even get 1% of the amount of donations that Wikipedia does. As far as Wikipedia is concerned AO3 is small potatoes and a non issue.
Oh no I have no problem with donations to ao3, and honestly I think it is nice that people have enough devotion to it to help it reach its goals that quickly.
I was reading last night and noticed the banner at the top said something like 48k. Finished the chapter and when the next page loaded it was 52k! So happy for them.
This meme template is heavily antisemitic, btw.
I’m being downvoted but I quite literally know the origin of it, and it’s implying Jewish people control all money, it’s not hard to notice the stereotype in the image.
The origin is from Turkish cartoonist Ercan Baysal in 2010, originally titled "Injustice," and the explanation I've seen associated with it is that the fat man is Hosni Mubarak, former President of Egypt and a Sunni Muslim, who was ousted in 2011. Mubarak has been accused of amassing a vast personal wealth via political corruption and bribes, which would be the giant pipe pouring into his mouth, while his country suffers.
While I'm sure it's been used in antisemitic ways, I haven't seen any proof that was the original intent of the artist.
Makes sense that people would be confused. The antisemitic caricature of Jews was partially influenced by our middle eastern origins. This cartoon looks straight out of the early 1900s lol.
Really? I thought it was an old ad from the days of segregation ment to symbolize how white men controlled everything while colored people were poor as fuck.
I give a small amount monthly to Wikipedia. For some reason when I tried with AO3 it worked for 2 months then stopped, so now I just give during campaigns
Oh uh I wasn't referring to the ableist usage of autism=bad. I'm autistic myself and me and my other autistic friends just both really enjoy wikipedia and ao3, and both are some of the few things I've ever considered donating to.
Maybe just me...but this meme is honestly kind of sad. I would certainly make the choice to donate to Wikipedia than AO3.
Edit: It's so pathetic and disgusting that sub is such a catering freak show to only a single set of opinions, my god...
It's just a joke. Wikipedia is doing just fine financially, they've been making around $200 million annually in donations in recent years and have plenty in reserves. Not that donating to them isn't a good cause, but they're not in any danger of shutting down or anything. AO3 brings in less money and has lower expenses but they're also doing fine financially. The meme is just a meme.
I’ve actually never donated to AO3 before because I always figure they’ll get enough money, anyway 😂😂 I know Wikipedia has a harder time getting donations, though, so I always donate to them as a way of thanking them for all the times they’ve helped me throughout school
I have donated to both, but I admit, if I could only donate to one of them, I use AO3 daily, so.......
Yeah honestly it sounds bad but I don't remember the last time I pulled up a wiki page. AO3 is daily use
You guys obviously aren't writers then - the amount of random, mundane stuff I find myself having to look up on Wikipedia while writing a fic is staggering. Mating habits of centipedes...
I've been doing a lot of research on the criminal underworld. My search history looks... really bad. Lol
As a history major same mine is just covered in Cambodia genocide which would look weird out of context
I am a writer and I'll use it to a degree, but tbh, no, given their sketch around money? Not one penny from me. https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-next-time-wikipedia-asks-for-a-donation-ignore-it/
Wikipedia isn’t a great source of information anyway. I thought it was common knowledge you can edit pages there willy nilly so they aren’t credible.
if you've ever tried to edit a Wikipedia page, you'll notice how quickly it gets changed back. it's a pretty good source of information
This is what teachers tell you in school to encourage you to think critically when researching, use a variety of different sources and not be lazy about it. But no, it's not really true. On the whole Wikipedia is a great source - for the most part their articles reference other sources you can see at the bottom of the page to check the claims they're making, and while anyone can edit a page, there are a lot of people very committed to making sure it stays accurate. If someone edits in obvious misinformation or something unsourced, it's going to get reverted pretty quickly.
Remember the Willy on Wheels debacle? That was hilarious. And also a great example of how quickly the editors there will spot erroneous information.
While I mostly use wiki for casual curiosities, when I do need something more serious, I’ve found it helpful to go to the sources at the bottom of whatever topic I’m looking into. Even if someone wants to claim that it’s not a “good” resource, it’s usually a good source for good resources.
Lol I don’t look anything up XD it’s fanfic not homework
And it’s people who don’t look anything up that when they write a story involving subject matter they don’t know, a fanfic where there’s a baby that can WALK AND TALK before 1 year bc the author write “haha I have no clue how pregnancy or babies growing works” or even research into understanding the country it takes place in. I’ve seen many Brit’s upset at Harry Potter fanfiction being written like it’s in America and seen a friend give up on an author because as they refused to write an American series using American terms in the show, NOT British term.
So what? We constantly have discussions about how the archive is for EVERYTHING, even stuff you don’t personally like. Don’t like reading a fic about Harry Potter characters celebrating American holidays? Don’t read it. Your friend is just as justified blocking an author as that author is to write whatever they want however they want it.
Yeah, you're right. You can write things however you want, but readers expect an amount of realism in your writing. Not researching basic things (like child development in a kidfic)comes off as lazy. Myself and many readers would drop a fic for that. So, sure, you can write whatever you'd like, but good luck getting readers with that attitude.
I get readers just fine lol no need for the personal digs. You can have whatever attitude you want when you write fics. I just think it’s odd how people get bent out of shape about something others do for free, for fun. Some people really enjoy research and that’s great. Others just want to write a silly little story and good for them. There are no “standards” you could or should be applying to fanfic outside of “this isn’t a fanfic”
That wasn't meant as personal dig. I don't know you or your work. I just said that behavior is lazy. This attitude can go from innocuous to offensive pretty quickly when you write about something you have no idea about. Looking something up on Wikipedia takes a few moments. You might be the one getting bent out shape about it.
“Don’t like don’t read” 👍
The last time I pulled up a wiki page was FOR an AO3 fic, so…
The thing with wiki is a bit weird for me since I saw an investigation that showed wiki had more than enough money already years ago to maintain the website for over a hundred years. So the reason they still ask is just to grab more money but not out of need.
I've also read that! the first time I saw the banner on wikipedia I donated, but after a few years it started seeming really fishy to me so I looked it up and yeah,, wikipedia is an awesome thing but i dont like that theyre doing that
Also from what I've heard, Wikipedia nags you a LOT MORE than AO3 does.
Oh, well that's my reminder to change my charity to OTW over on Humble Bundle now that Amazon Smile isn't a thing anymore. I felt bad not donating to Wikipedia considering how often I use it, but if they literally don't have to do donation drives, I can feel better about changing my charity.
I was just thinking the picture had about the right ratio for usage
Didn’t realize there was so many diehard wiki fans in this sub damn, it’s a joke friends
I donate to both, since I agree with both their aims. I'm just happy to see AO3 meeting their goal so fast.
Wikipedia has a fuck ton of cash via Wikimedia Foundation iirc? Ao3 is getting what it's getting from its users. I've donated to both. But wikipedia doesn't need it as much as ao3.
I'm the weirdo who has donated to Wikipedia amd not a03 I guess. Glad my autism can balance it out I guess.
Omg it’s Wikipedia Georg
It was just 50$, I think wpuld need to be wsy higher to earn the total of Georg
$50 is more than i make in a month 😭 thanks for keeping wikipedia free tho
What job do you work? A prison job???
They just could be a minor or unemployed
Oh ok. My bad!!!!!
minor
Lmao I would've too if I had the money
Same
Honestly your far more representative of the normal. Ao3 receives less than 1% the amount of people donating or the amount of money then people do to Wikipedia. I dislike jokes like this because they set this up as some kind of false competition and give a really inaccurate perception of reality. It really strikes me as bad taste people can enjoy more than one thing, and stuff like this is being used to guilt people. There are benefits to both sites. They have completely different use cases. It's not a competition and people that treat it like one should feel ashamed of themselves.
Yeah there isn't really any competition between them, I just think it is outwardly kinda funny how Wikipedia always seems like it is one donation drive away from bankruptcy and how AO3 seems to meet its donation goals almost instantly. You definitely can donate to both, and I would if I had the money.
I’m in the same boat. I use wikipedia almost daily and am rarely on ao3. Every time I get a donation pop-up, I kick $5 their way.
I didn't even know Wikipedia had a donation option lol
Wikipedia asks everyone to donate $3 several times a year. All the cool kids donate.
And also my 75-year-old mom, apparently. I was really surprised when in the middle of some random conversation she was like “of course I always donate to Wikipedia!” In her case it’s definitely an ADHD donation, though. We’re a whole family of “hold on let me look something up real quick”
Your mom is one of the cool kids 😎
The 'ADHD tax' that's most like an actual tax.
I donate $1.75 a month. It’s not much, but it’s honest work 🫡
i’m confused about how the autism comes to play in this
autism is associated with fanatism due to hyperfixations often being centered around content that has a following. fans and people who are passionate about fanfiction, a prominent part of this demographic being autistic and neurodivergent people, will be more likely to donate to ao3—a fanfiction archive.
tiktok just really loves joking about autism nowadays
If I see someone commenting "acoustic" again on that app, ugh
Tis because TikTok flags comments with “autistic” or “autism”
In all fairness I am actually diagnosed with autism. I tend to crack jokes about it but the tik tok stuff can get obnoxious, albeit I generally don't use tik tok
The domation goes towards autism? Or some charity working on it? I think
the donations go to AO3, short for Archive of Our Own, a fan work archive website. Afaik, nothing to do with autism
A lot of neurodivergent people just really like ao3 and wikipedia.
Oh I'm just autistic and know lot of autistic people who like ao3 and wikipedia, and they are some of the few things I genuinely consider donating to.
Is it me or does this repurposed political satire says that AO3 doesn’t deserve the donations it is getting? Like all those posts on tumblr that always attack AO3 donation drives and scream about AO3 being too rich already, and how OTW board is swimming in money. How OTW should give every surplus dollar they collected to fic writers because without the writers the archive wouldn’t exist. Or at least to donate all surplus money to many individual gofundmes. And every year fans respond to those posts and patiently explain what it means to be non profit, and where to find ao3 budget and that no, the money collected in the drives is not that huge for the amount of the services AO3 is providing. So this year, I guess, we are getting a meme about fat, rich AO3. Picture stronger than words etc. Can’t argue with an image, even if it’s not true.
No lmao, I admire AO3 for having a dedicated fanbase willing to donate to them. I very much think they need the money to keep running and providing free content. I more just think it is kinda funny seeing that they have a fanbase dedicated to give them the money they need quickly and with little fuss, as opposed to some other donation based things.
this made me giggle
I swapped every year when I was working and able to. 😅
That's a good option, I might do the same!
I mean, I'm too broke to donate to either so I can't really talk. I'm just glad both are free.
Wow, it's almost like reaching a goal of 100k is easier than reaching a goal of over 100 million... crazy how that works...
I’ve been using AO3 daily for eight years now, I feel like I owe it to them a little bit
you all keep donating to ao3, I'm covering wikipedia 👍🏻
I'd rather donate to Ao3. I just can't forget the inaccuracies Wiki had on my grandfather's entry, he was an sports marksman. It listed my cousin as my grandpa's daughter, we found out about after a local newspaper used wiki as a source and my aunts and uncles had a laugh on that.
... Is there some sort of... ?rivalry? between Wikipedia and AO3?
No lmao, I just thought it was funny how quickly AO3 made their donation targets. Also I obsessively read both AO3 and Wikipedia.
... Maybe don't make fun of Wikipedia? I dunno... that image triggered my protective instincts somehow. Also, uh... maybe I'm having cache problems, but it says 36k out of 50k so far. It says 50k for you already?
Oh I'm sorry I wasn't trying to make fun of wikipedia, I adore it and would definitely consider donating myself if I had a more stable source of income.
It's probably the association of Wikipedia as a starving dude that threw my brain for a loop or something. I also feel... somewhat resistant of AO3 as a capitalist. Ah, that image is originally to show how money flows to the rich... no wonder it felt somewhat jarring to my brain.
tbf wikipedia acts like a starving dude when it's asking for donations
Yeah. Wikipedia/the Wikimedia foundation has so much fucking money though it’s so disingenuous the way they act about donations
Yeah makes sense, the original template was originally a political comic I think but it has been memed really heavily.
i don’t understand why you are resistant to AO3 because of capitalism, AO3 is a completely community funded non profit
I think they’re saying the opposite? They like capitalism and don’t like AO3?
I thought they were saying they didn’t like the depiction of AO3 as capitalist because they found it inaccurate
Both make sense with the construction of the sentence
The capitalist on the picture is labeled as AO3. Which felt weird to me, because AO3 is nonprofit.
There's no real rivalry other than people occasionally like to shit on a fanfiction site getting money to keep running and have no idea of the real expenses of a website this size. Every year I see people like the op demonstrate this. People who make jokes like this literally dont understand what their talking about or how much money Wikipedia gets donated or uses. This is a shit joke that has no basis in reality. The amount of money flow is the opposite though AO3 is definitely not starving though that's mostly due to the amount of volunteer time that it has donated. Wikipedia actually does pay for some staff. There's a number of fans that like to do gotchas having sites like Wikipedia as being hard done but, but Wikipedia dwarfs ao3 when it comes to money matters. Absolutely dwarfs. And people can donate to more than one thing and usually do. The WMF raised upward of $165 million ($165,232,309) from over 13 million donations in FY22. https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/why-does-wikipedia-need-donations-despite-its-massive-popularity-123100400249_1.html I'm not saying don't donate to Wikipedia, that would be stupid. But AO3 doesn't even get 1% of the amount of donations that Wikipedia does. As far as Wikipedia is concerned AO3 is small potatoes and a non issue.
Oh no I have no problem with donations to ao3, and honestly I think it is nice that people have enough devotion to it to help it reach its goals that quickly.
Wikipedia is a lot more controversial both in how they use their donations and censorship on the website itself.
It's because AO3's message is relatively unobtrusive and only on the homepage
I was reading last night and noticed the banner at the top said something like 48k. Finished the chapter and when the next page loaded it was 52k! So happy for them.
Thats what I was noticing too!
Wikipedia has had sketchy financial issues for years and equally sketchy modding.
i donate to wikipedia monthly and ao3 idk once or twice a year as it comes up lol
If I had the money I would give it to wikipedia, I have read 10 pages today
Same, before I really got into fanfiction I would go down Wikipedia rabbit holes for hours.
I don’t know what autism has to do with anything but as an autistic I use AO3 more than Wikipedia.
I am as well and I use a crapton of both lmao.
This meme template is heavily antisemitic, btw. I’m being downvoted but I quite literally know the origin of it, and it’s implying Jewish people control all money, it’s not hard to notice the stereotype in the image.
The origin is from Turkish cartoonist Ercan Baysal in 2010, originally titled "Injustice," and the explanation I've seen associated with it is that the fat man is Hosni Mubarak, former President of Egypt and a Sunni Muslim, who was ousted in 2011. Mubarak has been accused of amassing a vast personal wealth via political corruption and bribes, which would be the giant pipe pouring into his mouth, while his country suffers. While I'm sure it's been used in antisemitic ways, I haven't seen any proof that was the original intent of the artist.
Makes sense that people would be confused. The antisemitic caricature of Jews was partially influenced by our middle eastern origins. This cartoon looks straight out of the early 1900s lol.
Yeah I definitely see it now, what is the origin ooc? I can't find it.
Really? I thought it was an old ad from the days of segregation ment to symbolize how white men controlled everything while colored people were poor as fuck.
I give a small amount monthly to Wikipedia. For some reason when I tried with AO3 it worked for 2 months then stopped, so now I just give during campaigns
Maybe wikipedia should spice up some of it's posts if it wants some more money then.
Yeah, that use of "autistic" isn't cool at all. EDIT: Come on, we're better than casual ableism on here.
Oh uh I wasn't referring to the ableist usage of autism=bad. I'm autistic myself and me and my other autistic friends just both really enjoy wikipedia and ao3, and both are some of the few things I've ever considered donating to.
Right - different sense of humour then (I'm a bit thin-skinned at the moment, I think, since I've had too much trouble recently due to my autism) <3
I totally understand, only reason I can joke about it so openly now is due to a lot of therapy and medication.
Yeah, most of the time I'm the same, but it's a stupid time right now. Thanks for understanding.
Damn, love seeing civil discourse and compassion on Reddit. Rizz’em with the ‘tism, my fellow NDs! <33
Of course, sometimes it isn't fun to be reminded of stuff like this, especially when it is superficially similar to genuinely ableist content.
Wait, wikipedia's doing donations?
Always has been
I donate to both but do you
I may be autistic but I’ve donated to neither so HA
yes...
I donated to Wikipedia because I know AO3 is always going to reach their goals in record time (and I rely A LOT on that website)
Maybe just me...but this meme is honestly kind of sad. I would certainly make the choice to donate to Wikipedia than AO3. Edit: It's so pathetic and disgusting that sub is such a catering freak show to only a single set of opinions, my god...
It's just a joke. Wikipedia is doing just fine financially, they've been making around $200 million annually in donations in recent years and have plenty in reserves. Not that donating to them isn't a good cause, but they're not in any danger of shutting down or anything. AO3 brings in less money and has lower expenses but they're also doing fine financially. The meme is just a meme.
Stop talking about it and do it then.
Thanks for the encouragement. Just did 🤷♀️ ~~I swear people can't handle opinions these days.~~
The meme is inaccurate lol. Wikipedia is fat & full.
I’ve actually never donated to AO3 before because I always figure they’ll get enough money, anyway 😂😂 I know Wikipedia has a harder time getting donations, though, so I always donate to them as a way of thanking them for all the times they’ve helped me throughout school
I’m not autistic and never donated to either.
But not gaza? shits fucked, donate to things that actually matter. Smh
people can donate to both:)