back to article Google's Brin and wife plop half-million into Wikipedia's hat

The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit publisher of Wikipedia and its affiliate sites, has received a $500,000 grant from the Brin Wojcicki Foundation, a philanthropic organization set up by Google cofounder Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki, cofounder of "personal genetic information" website 23andMe. "This grant is an …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They owe them at least that much...

    Like many I use Google for Wikipedia searches, almost never go directly.

    Google must have made much more than $500,000 from ads on results linked to Wikipedia.

  2. Sporkinum
    Flame

    I bet I gave them more

    Proportionately. $20!

  3. Gregory Kohs

    Errors in this coverage

    Myslewski seems to have made a few mistakes with this article. First, Jimmy Wales didn't "found" Wikipedia. He's not the "founder". Wales founded a mistake of an encyclopedia project called Nupedia. Dr. Larry Sanger pushed to Wales the idea of an openly-edited wiki to help save Nupedia. Sanger named this new project Wikipedia. Sanger issued the first public call for participation on Wikipedia. And Sanger worked for the first year of Wikipedia's existence, hammering out policies and guidelines that are still in place today.

    Second, a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation, though it may feel good, is mostly going toward waste. According to the Form 990 filed by the WMF to the IRS, only 46 cents of every donated dollar actually get targeted to the program services that fulfill the non-profit's mission. Other legitimate educational non-profits strive for ratios of 75%, 80%, 85%, or higher. This donation is not really to be applauded until the WMF can demonstrate that they're going to get serious about not wasting everyone's money any more.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Gregory Kohs

      Looks like every one of your 21 posts under this name are anti-wiki. Got a little chip on shoulder there I suspect, or perhaps just a publicity hound. Doubt you've ever done anything of equivalent value to mankind. Makes me doubt your impartiality, so the form 990 is to be found here <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:WMF_2009_2010_Form_990.pdf>, perhaps you could break it down for us so we understand where the 46 cents per dollar claim come from.

      Not that I don't trust you or anything, just that I don't actually ... you know... trust...

      Anyway, please let us know.

  4. AbortRetryFail
    Joke

    citation needed

    So I guess what AC @ 19th November 2011 23:32 GMT is saying is "citation needed" :o)

  5. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    Sergey forks over 500k....

    ....and Jimmy orders lunch.

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