I Donated to Wikipedia

RayPublisher

Even though Wikipedia isn't perfect, and you still have to vet and research anything you read online, it has proved invaluable to me and many others out there over the last few years since we learned TTATT.

Articles on Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Corporations, as well as Cognitive Dissonance, et al. have made it a great place to help those that want to free their minds, which includes me lol!

Anyway, here is the email I received after making a donation to help keep it going:

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Dear Eric,

Thank you for donating to the Wikimedia Foundation. You are wonderful!

It's easy to ignore our fundraising banners, and I'm really glad you didn't. This is how Wikipedia pays its bills --- people like you giving us money, so we can keep the site freely available for everyone around the world.

People tell me they donate to Wikipedia because they find it useful, and they trust it because even though it's not perfect, they know it's written for them. Wikipedia isn’t meant to advance somebody's PR agenda or push a particular ideology, or to persuade you to believe something that's not true. We aim to tell the truth, and we can do that because of you. The fact that you fund the site keeps us independent and able to deliver what you need and want from Wikipedia. Exactly as it should be.

You should know: your donation isn’t just covering your own costs. The average donor is paying for his or her own use of Wikipedia, plus the costs of hundreds of other people. Your donation keeps Wikipedia available for an ambitious kid in Bangalore who’s teaching herself computer programming. A middle-aged homemaker in Vienna who’s just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. A novelist researching 1850s Britain. A 10-year-old in San Salvador who’s just discovered Carl Sagan.

On behalf of those people, and the half-billion other readers of Wikipedia and its sister sites and projects, I thank you for joining us in our effort to make the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone. Your donation makes the world a better place. Thank you.

Most people don't know Wikipedia's run by a non-profit. Please consider sharing this e-mail with a few of your friends to encourage them to donate too. And if you're interested, you should try adding some new information to Wikipedia. If you see a typo or other small mistake, please fix it, and if you find something missing, please add it. There are resources here

that can help you get started. Don't worry about making a mistake: that's normal when people first start editing and if it happens, other Wikipedians will be happy to fix it for you.

I appreciate your trust in us, and I promise you we'll use your money well.

Thanks,
Sue

Sue Gardner
Executive Director,
Wikimedia Foundation
https://donate.wikimedia.org

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Londo111

Now that you made my feel guilty, I should do the same. It's just at this time of year, there are so many things to donate to! I hate being in debt!!!

AudeSapere

I don't believe anyone has ever received a thank you like that from the WTS.

I also believe that everyone of us has also been on the receiving end of valuable information from Wikipedia at some point in our lives.

Thank you for helping to keep the site going and thank you for sharing.

-Aude.

RayPublisher

Yeah it's a pretty amazing site that a lot take for granted. The fact that it is non-profit and employs hundreds of full time people says a lot. Also the fact that they get literally billions of hits in a year amazes me.

Hortensia

yeah, I donated too. $5 isn't much,considering I look something up on Wikipedia nearly every day. The articles may not be entirely accurate, but you can go to the bibliography at the bottom and check the sources. I like that.

free @ last

What a coincidence... I donated last night too.

I use it constantly and had never donated before so I had to pay up for several years.

never a jw

I donated $25 few month ago. I feel it's time to do it again. The work they do is great. I know it is not accurate, but is 10000 percent more dependable than the WTS publications. It's more than sufficient for the casual reader to check on just about anything. The job those guys at Wikipedia do is better than they get credit for.

Hortensia

It's a good example, too, of some of the great things made possible by the internet.

mamochan13

I saw the banner today and seriously considered donating. Wikipedia really is an incredible resource.

ÁrbolesdeArabia

The incompetent accounts servant, in the Congregation had problems providing receipt letters to brothers and sisters donating over $250, I finally gave up asking them to get their act together, they did not care about running a efficient position, why should I care?

Eric's letter is far nicer than the form letters I got donating decent size checks, the COs were bad about thanking the friends for their gifts too, this pissed me off as well!

I Donated to Wikipedia

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