Wikipedia isn’t just written by volunteers, it’s mostly funded by them, too. In keeping with the project’s openness, people donating to Wikipedia get a chance to say publicly why they are giving their hard-earned money to the crowd-sourced encyclopedia.
THREAT LEVEL discovered the public donation page and real-time IRC channel (#wikimedia-donations on freenode) out while chasing down a lead that credit card thieves were using the donation form to make one-cent donations to check that cards had not yet been shut down.
I didn’t find much of that yesterday, though it seems to have been a pretty significant problem in the past according to logs forwarded to THREAT LEVEL by a tipster. (Brian Krebs of the Washington Post ‘s Security Fix blog may have a piece on this coming up, since he got the tip too, and I saw a bkrebs loitering in the IRC channel.)
Despite not quite finding a hacker story here, I am happy to report that this IRC channel is the best Wikipedia-treasure I’ve stumbled across since Joel Johnson taught me to set my homepage as random Wikipedia article.
Here’s a very edited version of donation announcements from Monday afternoon through Tuesday morning PST.
(4:34:49 PM) Donor: Here john ng To the future of the University of Wikipedia ($4.45) AUD 5.00 (4:35:09 PM) Donor: Anonymous ($5.00) USD 5.00 (4:55:49 PM) Donor: Henry Goury-Laffont Thanks for providing us with the largest database of knowledge ever created by humans. ($10.23) CAD 10.00 (4:59:49 PM) Donor: Kevin Kim Free money ($0.10) USD 0.10 (5:00:09 PM) Donor: Anonymous Help Wikipedia provide free knowledge to everyone, cause everyone deserves it. ($14.65) EUR 10.00 (5:09:49 PM) Donor: Sam bouguerra Spread knowledge not troops! ($10.00) USD 10.00 (5:19:49 PM) Donor: Anonymous Thanks for all the knowleggement, to learn more :D ($7.33) EUR 5.00 (5:25:29 PM) Donor: Perry Gagne Wikipedia is the greatest website ever ($50.00) USD 50.00 (5:55:09 PM) Donor: Michael Rashkow ain't much, but neither am I ($25.00) USD 25.00 (5:55:29 PM) Donor: Spencer Severns Amazing that one dream can become a magnificent reality. ($50.00) USD 50.00 (6:04:49 PM) Donor: Anonymous Thank you for making most of my day ($50.00) USD 50.00 (6:05:09 PM) Donor: P Rajaram Greatest treasure trove of information on the world wide web !! ($50.00) USD 50.00 (6:30:29 PM) Donor: Anonymous The eventual outcome of the internet in it's purest form. A great creation of humanity. It is a small baby, we must help it to grow. ($15.00) USD 15.00 (6:54:49 PM) Donor: Carolee Pasechnik This is in honor of my daughter, Olivia. Merry Christmas sweetie! ($5.00) USD 5.00 (7:34:49 PM) Donor: Robert Campion You get me through school! ($15.00) USD 15.00 (7:35:09 PM) Donor: Milton Reeder I love this resource! We need more wikipedias.... ($20.00) USD 20.00 (7:49:49 PM) Donor: Anonymous alway greatful for usnig wikipedia.org ($20.00) USD 20.00 (8:04:50 PM) Donor: Anonymous Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. Thanks Wikipedia! ($20.00) USD 20.00 ((9:00:10 PM) Donor: Anonymous thanks, wikipeople! ($25.00) USD 25.00 (9:29:50 PM) Donor: Anonymous Because knowledge should be free ($8.90) AUD 10.00 (10:34:50 PM) Donor: Yamil Sacin Yamil Sacin was here! ($10.00) USD 10.00 (10:48:23 PM) Donor: Total donations: 21,635 (21.6%) -- Total USD: $601,677 -- Avg/person $27.81 -- Past 5 hours: $5,863 -- Total Anonymous: 13,510 ($339,418) -- Projected total: $2,781,000 (10:55:10 PM) Donor: Jason Smith Marc Caswell and Peter Masiak have entered into a homosexual relationship ($5.00) USD 5.00 (12:25:30 AM) Donor: Anonymous Though this contribution is small, this is sincerely from my mother Ng Ah Moy. She wishes everyone in the world gains better knowledge. ($10.00) USD 10.00 (2:09:50 AM) Donor: Anonymous Thank you for your efforts. In my view a fine concept, despite the (minor) difficulties, and a good underlying company philosphy. ($41.02) GBP 20.00 (2:39:50 AM) Donor: Rodney T Siziba its better 2 give when you recieve free knowledge - rodney ($0.02) GBP 0.01 (4:00:10 AM) Donor: Prasad Mahabal Prasad Mahabal- Its 8th wonder in the world. Great example of what can happen if best brains decide to give rather than take;. I use it almost every day with perfect information ($10.00) USD 10.00 (5:00:30 AM) Donor: Anonymous spanks you! ($17.81) AUD 20.00 (6:30:10 AM) Donor: Ciarn Mc Mahon Future historians will regard Wikipedia of some significance; I will be one of them - thank you for your work. ($14.79) EUR 10.00 (7:40:30 AM) Donor: Richard Macdonald I sometimes find myself searching Wikipedia instead of Google. I can't think of a better compliment! ($30.54) CAD 30.00 (7:44:50 PM) Donor: Anonymous Let google own you. ($20.00) USD 20.00 (8:10:10 AM) Donor: Anonymous I like the way you do the things you do. ($20.00) USD 20.00 (8:50:51 AM) Donor: Anonymous my membership fee for another big library besides of the one in the town. ;-) ($40.00) USD 40.00 (9:09:50 AM) Donor: Anonymous Never gets it wrung ($50.00) USD 50.00 (9:10:10 AM) Donor: Steven Dong The Dog may eat the kids' homework, but she can't eat Wikipedia. ($50.00) USD 50.00 (9:24:51 AM) Donor: Anonymous Knowledge is priceless ($5.00) USD 5.00 (10:09:51 AM) Donor: Anonymous Make wiki stroger! ($1.00) USD 1.00 (10:54:50 AM) Donor: Brian Hewson Bite Me, $5 is all your getting from me, this year. ($5.00) USD 5.00 (11:05:11 AM) Donor: Anonymous i wiki therefor i know ($15.00) USD 15.00 (12:00:11 PM) Donor: RIchard Lewis In honor of the 1.9 ladies per day Wilt Chamberlain knocked out ($2.00) USD 2.00
CC Photo: Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s founder courtesy of Imamon
