Wikipedia donations

[Shanmukh]

Every year, many of us donate to Wikipedia. However, there have been many concerns about their Indophobic/Hinduphobic content and how any corrections keep getting deleted by their moderators. This year too, I have got a mail from Wiki asking me to donate. Should we all try to draft a mail and send it back to the organisers that we will not subsidise their Hinduphobic content? It would be good to have multiple examples of their Hinduphobia/Indophobia and use them in our response to them as to why we refuse to donate.

Let me know.

[Primus]

Agree. I have been a donor in the past but realized that their content is somewhat dubious and at times plainly Hinduphobic. The only time somebody pays attention to you is when you control their financial well being.

[Ravi Karumanchiri]

Much as I might support the sentiment; I've gotta counsel...

I don't think denying WikiPedia donations will obtain the result sought.
The way to approach this, is to become a topic moderator for the topics where this has happened; and wage that battle in prose, backed with fact.

Try to understand the platform and the ecosystem that exists around it. Recognize that when a country has a gripe with another country, funds are allocated to employing apparatchiks to go on bulletin boards, comment boards, newspaper comments sections, writing letters to the editor and complaints and other nastiness.

For example: When this recent tamasha sprung-up in the GCC, millions of dollars were spent on lobbying and PR (BS) firms to spoil the name of Qatar. Part of this, by reflex, involved going on WikiPedia and writing nasty things.

I'm quite sure others are behaving similarly, with Desh in their sights.

It's the "battle for hearts and minds", and within this battle space, WikiPedia is a particularly important hub.

How to address this? I'd avoid going down the "dollar for dollar" approach; and instead, make sport of this for the student bodies of Indian schools.

Every school with the means; should have a club where this is the focus of action.

JMT

[ArjunPandit]

^^
1. I am sure this would not be viewed very positively, for the EJs this would amount to buying your opinion or making wiki just short of a paid magazine. 2. This goes against their facade principles
3. Another way could be that we folks indicate some amount donated in past and potential future commitments.
4. Dont think we can match the combo of Jewish money and victimhood. But no harm in trying.

Noble initiative I am with you on this, will support to the best of my...

[Shanmukh]

Much as I might support the sentiment; I've gotta counsel...

I don't think denying WikiPedia donations will obtain the result sought.
The way to approach this, is to become a topic moderator for the topics where this has happened; and wage that battle in prose, backed with fact.

I have seen those with fact, backed by primary sources, get thrown out by the current crop of moderators. They are quite settled inside and will not be easily turfed out.

I don't think a large scale change of moderators or wiki behaviour will happen even if we withdraw out donations. But we can and probably should target some of the worst stating that as long as such people are moderators, they cannot expect any contributions from us. What I am suggesting - targeting some of the worst moderators/content and saying we will not donate while they are there - is not even incompatible with what you are suggesting - making it a task for schoolkids to change the Wiki content. If a thousand of us write back saying that we will not donate a cent while certain moderators/content is around, we might see some change in that SPECIFIC ARTICLE in question.

[ramana]

Shanmukh,
Good approach. I second it.