I’ve been supporting Wikipedia with a monthly $5 donation. By now, ~$150 in total! I want to support all kinds of great projects, but I don’t have an infinite amount of money to share between everything that exists 😔
I might switch to a monthly donation to The Internet Archive just because of how crucial its existence is.
I think The Internet Archive needs it more.
summary of issues with Wikipedia written by a Lemmy developer https://ibis.wiki/article/Announcing_Ibis,_the_federated_Wikipedia_Alternative@ibis.wiki
If only they hadn’t shot themselves so hard in the foot during covid with their book lending, and dug the hole so much deeper with their piss poor handling of the lawsuit.
While I do very much support what they do, I’d be reluctant to give them money, if only because it might go to paying their dumbass lawyer.
That lawsuit was a long time in coming. Covid just goosed the schedule forward about a year, and probably made it easier.
The lawsuit wasn’t coming because they were in a strong grey area with one physical copy per digital. By offering unlimited copies they directly invited a lawsuit.
And then their legal defense had absolutely no competency behind it. They didn’t come with any legal principles, they basically just said “we shouldn’t be punished because we’re nice”, and then they tried the same style of argument during appeal, basically throwing money away on legal expenses. All the while they were campaigning for donations - the people that supported them were paying the lawyers, not for the IA’s regular activities.
I actually agree that was handled very poorly. Knowingly crossing a line they had been repeatedly been warned for, was just begging for a lawsuit they were sure to lose. I have supported them in the past, but this has also held me back from supporting them since this happened.
I mean I can forgive crossing the line, it was covid, which were special circumstances. It’s frustrating though because they basically ruined a good thing, lending one digital per physical copy they owned was a nice grey area, but now there is a ruling stating that is explicitly illegal.
What I cannot forgive is their flimsy legal argument that had no legal principles behind it, and particularly the fact that they tried the same bullshit on appeal, instead of just cutting their losses. All the while they were campaigning for donations to pay for it.
Same here. I’m waiting to see that lawsuit reach its final conclusion, I don’t want to throw good money after bad.
Even afterward, I’m concerned that they might go do some stupid stunt like that again. I’ll want to see if there’s any fallout among their leadership over getting into this situation.