Archive for the ‘Wikipedia’ Category
Wikipedia won't stop BEGGING for cash – despite sitting on $60m
Internet Security Threat Report 2014
+Comment The latest accounts for the charity behind Wikipedia show it has assets of $60m, including $27m in ready cash: up more than $12m from 2013.
That's far more than the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) needs to run a website. And the timing is embarrassing: Wikipedia is currently begging for more cash to (in its own words) "keep Wikipedia online and ad-free" and "keep us online without advertising for one more year".
These aggressive banner ads suggest disaster may be imminent if people don't donate - and imply Wikipedia may be forced to run commercial advertising to survive. (Ironically, an ad-supported Wikipedia was Wales' original model over a decade ago).
The WMF's cash pile now includes $23m in investments (up $5.7m) and a further $4m in equipment assets. With total liabilities of only $7m, the charity appears to be in supreme health. Internet hosting for the 7th largest website in the world cost a mere $2.52m in 2014. And the "content" keeps the costs low too: the people who do the work at Wikipedia writing and editing the material don't get paid a penny, of course.
The Foundation's main outlay of $19m goes on salaries for the staff. This itself is controversial: the engineering department employs over 100 and soaks up most of this budget, but the quality of the WMF developers' produce has been widely criticised. Staff are not hired on the basis of ability, critics argue. (We summarised the class conflict between the bourgeoise and the unpaid workers here)
Outbound WMF chief Sue Gardner candidly admitted that the charity had frittered away its money from the donations drives.
In a tacit acknowledgement of these concerns, WMF recently recruited a former software executive, Lila Treitkov, as its executive director.
But the begging doesn't stop. Regular Wikipedians have complained the manipulative and misleading and the appeals are so intrusive some even prefer advertising:
Even WMF's own staff are finding it a bit much.
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Wikipedia won't stop BEGGING for cash - despite sitting on $60m
The Semantics Of Color, Visualized
Do people view color differently based on language? This beautiful visualization by Muyueh Lee tries to get a handle on the semantics of color by using the Chinese and English versions of Wikipedia as a source.
To create his visualization, Lee used data from the entry for 'Color' on both the Chinese and English-language Wikipedia pages to compile a list of distinct color. He found that English has a much richer vocabulary of color than China does, which allows English-speakers to name different shades of color with greater specificity than the Chinese. However, China has one word for family of colors that English doesn't havea "mysterious color" called which is used as a modifier to describe all sorts of shades ranging from red to blue, but which no one exactly knows how to define.
That's interesting in its own right, but as it turns out, depending on whether you speak English or Chinese, there are some families of colors you are probably better at identifying than others. In China, for example, there are more names for different shades of red, green, and blue than any other color. In English, though, we're better at naming different shades of pink than different shades of red.
Of course, the use of Wikipedia as a data set means that one should only go so far trying to draw conclusions from Lee's visualization. Even so, it makes a convincing argument that the way people perceive and talk about color is substantially influenced by language. Explore the entire color visualization here and decide for yourself.
Continue reading here:
The Semantics Of Color, Visualized
Mindless Behavior Individual Wikipedia Pages – Video
Mindless Behavior Individual Wikipedia Pages
I discovered these pages on yesterday (11/25/14) Check em out on here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindless_Behavior Ray Ray doesn #39;t have a page as of yet 🙁
By: MB Yearbook
Originally posted here:
Mindless Behavior Individual Wikipedia Pages - Video
Ben Folds & WASO: Rock this Bitch – Perth Wikipedia Song – Video
Ben Folds WASO: Rock this Bitch - Perth Wikipedia Song
Ben Folds improvising a song about Perth, live in Perth Australia on 11/28/2014.
By: Morningglory329
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Ben Folds & WASO: Rock this Bitch - Perth Wikipedia Song - Video