Alexander Kumor
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Aphorist Angelic patience requires devilish strength. Oh, how painful is hatred without reciprocity! Oh, how I want to return to nature. — with a cigar and a glass of cognac. The Achilles heel is often hidden in the head. An ugly person is not ugly because he has bad taste. Incessant alarm signals put you to sleep. Unscrupulous women gossip shamelessly, conscientious women gossip shyly. There’s a big difference. To be a slave to the money you have and the money you don’t. Most of the homebodies are among those who don’t have their own corner. Most of all those diseases that we fear most. It’s high time to replace the marriage formula about love and fidelity with a statement about willingness to wash dishes and take out the trash. Be more tolerant of other people's mistakes.
Maybe you yourself were born by mistake. In the fight for a just cause, sometimes the cause loses, and sometimes the right. In military budgets, the price of a person rises. The contents of a husband’s wallet often dissolve in the tears of a wife. In a dispute, we learn a lot from ourselves. In In a debate about what came first - the chicken or the egg, I would speak in favor of the rooster. Faith moves mountains. Even those who would be better off standing in their place. Vera expects the incredible. A woman in love is ready to do anything for a man. A man in love is ready to accept all this. Is heaven possible without women? And with women? All people are born equal and fight against this until their death. There are people who are immune to rude flattery. Only the dead can talk about death with knowledge of the matter. Speaking.
“life is short” - we arrogantly measure ourselves towards eternity. The mountain that gives birth to a mouse usually screams heart-rendingly. A sin committed for our sake cannot be grave. You will envy the sinful life of many saints. Even authorities are unable to hinder the progress of science. Even the stupidest the plan can be executed masterfully. For many women, experiencing love means discussing it with a friend. For a certain category of people, overthrowing the gods is a cult activity. For the executioner, “man” is not an abstraction. You recognize friends in trouble. You recognize yourself in the troubles of your friends. The devil cannot be an atheist. If a joke is a weapon of the weak, it becomes clear why men made up so many jokes about women. If they invent a medicine, they will invent a disease. If today you called a man a thief, do not be surprised that tomorrow he will rob you. There are people who, only after selling out, are convinced that they had some price. A woman can give happiness, but we often look for it at the wrong level. A woman wants to dress like others, and suffers if she really dressed like others. The life path of many of us is littered with hair torn from our heads. Life.
Do your thing and go! “Life imitates art.” Kitsch too. You pay for illusions with reality. You have to pay for departing from the average level. Either you pay, or they pay you. The lost sheep may not be shorn. And the hare can become a hero - if he believes in his historical mission of eating cabbage. Of the two states - married and celibate - men prefer the middle. You can learn a lot from gossip about gossipers. Sometimes a ship stops sinking as soon as the rats leave it. Sometimes it is necessary to sweep out old brooms. Sometimes devils would be useful to drive out exorcists. Intelligence is something that is sometimes found in others. Hypochondriacs are treated with diseases. Erogenous zones should include and a wallet. Everyone dreams of receiving the kind of love that he does not deserve. How many imaginary sufferings, how few imaginary joys! As history teaches, people who would never have invented gunpowder willingly used it. Calendars have no rivals in the art of predicting the future. The bug professes anthropocentrism. You can get used to everything, with the exception of a few thousand things. Extremes meet - often before the altar. The critic tries to understand the artist - alas, without reciprocity. He who is ready to make a sacrifice will always find a suitable altar. He who bows low can hit below the belt .It is easier to give up great goals than small habits. A false step has more than once led to the opening of new roads. Love does not ask the opinion of reason, but usually makes it pay. Mannequins always keep up with fashion. Memoirs often tell about the life that the memoirist would like to live. Missionaries must try to prevent the pagans from dying out. Many marriages could be saved by a translator. We get to know many women, perhaps not from the best side, but from the most interesting side. It is possible to reach perfection in making the same mistake. Is it possible believe a king who assures that he is naked as a falcon? A moralist is ready to tear off a man’s skin just so as not to see him naked. A man, completely disappointed in women, tries again. A man is flattered that he is the first, a woman is flattered that the man considers her the first .Muse is the only woman capable of impregnating a man. We make our debut until death, and death is also a debut. We live in special, unprecedented times.
For thousands of years. We mentally return to our first love in order to put an end to the last. Eternal questions are usually given temporary answers. There is a lot of chaos left in the world after those who wanted to put it in order. It seems to us that we understand those women who understand us. Don’t say that life is a farce, otherwise you’ll have to admit that you’re a gay guy. “I don’t know” sounds different in the mouth of a smart person and a fool. I don’t like interlocutors who continually interrupt my reasoning with their silence. It’s not too difficult to be an angel if you are a sexless being. Some people violate the laws of perspective. The closer they are, the smaller they seem. There is no prophet in his own country. Foreign competition is too great. You need to have authority not to use it. Today's youth are growing up so quickly that they deliberately prolong the stage of infantilism. A sheep, endowed by nature with good fleece, usually gets cold. The same sermon sounds differently from different pulpits. It’s quite easy to get out of the habit of not smoking. The rest of the untired is tiring. When listing what we need for happiness, we often forget to add ourselves. Subjects easily notice the nakedness of ex-kings. Just think.
Literacy was invented by the illiterates! Full spirituality is possible only after death..
Wikipedia is swimming in money - why ask for donations?
The project is much richer than it seems.
The nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which owns Wikipedia and other UGC sites, is about to reach its ten-year goal of raising $100 million for the Wikimedia Endowment's long-term fund. This will happen five years earlier than planned. The volume of net assets is about $200 million as of June last year. Now it’s about $300 million. Revenues are constantly growing. According to internal documents, the foundation collected $142 million in donations in the first nine months of the current fiscal year, already breaking last year's record.
This information may surprise donors and users around the world who have seen fundraising banners on Wikipedia. They are shown at different times in different countries. Last year they started playing in India for the first time. These banners are currently being shown to residents of pandemic-stricken Latin America. They give the impression that WMF is having a hard time keeping Wikipedia up and running... The messages are plaintive: “This Thursday, Wikipedia really needs you. This is already the tenth appeal that we have shown you. 98% of our readers don't donate, they turn away... We ask you, humbly, don't scroll away." According to a rough estimate by WMF Vice President of Development Eric Moeller, $10 million would have been enough to support Wikipedia in 2013. What does WMF do with the rest? The funds go towards the salaries of hundreds of employees and into a rainy day reserve. The foundation has ambitious plans to become “the infrastructure of the free knowledge ecosystem.” So he tells Wikipedia readers that their money is really needed. Although the organization is now richer than at any time in its history.
In 2021, WMF announced the creation of the Wikimedia Endowment in conjunction with the Tides Foundation. It was on Wikipedia's 15th anniversary. The goal is to raise $100 million over ten years as "an ongoing source of funding to ensure Wikipedia thrives for generations to come."
In just five years, the foundation has raised more than $90 million and will reach its “initial goal” of $100 million this year thanks to major donations from Amazon, Google, Facebook and other companies, coupled with traditional donations, as well as $25 million from WMF itself.
Notably, donations to the reserve fund are not included in WMF's reported net assets ($180 million as of June 2020) or annual income ($130 million). However, the money that WMF transfers to this fund is reflected
in the expense item (“Awards and grants”).
These two facts hide the fact that WMF has been de facto operating with a much larger surplus
than indicated in its financial reports. Reports show an increase in net assets of "only" $100 million over the period. In fact, WMF's total funds doubled.
The Wikimedia Endowment isn't the only money Wikimedia sends to the Tides Foundation. Last year, when WMF literally didn't know how to manage its massive amount of financial revenue and public events were canceled due to the pandemic, it transferred an additional $8.7 million to the new Tides Advocacy fund.
In addition, WMF opens a for-profit company called Wikimedia, LLC. It will sell API services to major tech companies, making it easier for them to process Wikimedia content, including content for voice assistants such as Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, as well as infoboxes in Google's search results. All these smart IoT devices are now using content from Wikipedia to create a “know-it-all” appearance.
The Wikimedia LLC project worries many Wikipedia volunteer editors. They view profit as a potentially corrupting influence. And there is a clear inequity in that WMF staff are paid while volunteers work for free. Wikipedia is made up of approximately three billion individual “edits.” The average edit currently generates about 4.3 cents in annual revenue for WMF, and much more profit for large tech companies. Wikipedians with hundreds of thousands of edits can feel like someone else is enjoying the fruits of their labor.
The presence of the vast wealth of WMF did not particularly affect the appearance of Wikipedia to the reader. A traveler from 2007, when Wikipedia entered the top 10 Internet sites, will not notice much of a difference. But WMF itself has changed beyond recognition. In 2007, the organization had 11 employees and expenses of $2 million.
Fast forward to 2021. CEO Catherine Maher left WMF in April, so the fund posted a position. The number of WMF employees is indicated there: more than 500 people. Top managers earn between $300,000 and $400,000 per year. More than 40 people are exclusively involved in fundraising. Modern banners count the number of impressions each person receives (“Hey Canadian reader, it looks like you use Wikipedia a lot; that’s great! We’re embarrassed, but we need your help this Tuesday. This is the tenth hit we’ve shown you…”) and implore, “ Please don't scroll away - the phrase showed surprisingly high effectiveness in A/B testing. Last December, readers who rejected the banner were shown a crying emoji.
WMF emphasizes again and again that Wikipedia does not sell anything. But the fundraising's own ads are described as banners saying "We will never run ads."
This is an important aspect of WMF PR. A few days before leaving WMF, Catherine Maher appeared on Trevor Noah's daily show (the wife of WMF PR consultant Craig Minassian of the Clinton Foundation is the show's producer).
In the interview, Noah asked about the problems of the non-profit organization: is it true that there is not enough money to keep Wikipedia up and running. And why do something that doesn’t bring money.
In her cheerful response, Maher made no mention of WMF's huge cash reserves. But she emphasized that the lack of advertising is the reason why Wikipedia is so trusted, see video from the 4:30 mark:
This video was posted on YouTube, complete with a donation button: Help Wikipedia Stay Free, Independent & Online. (the button is not available in all countries - approx.).
Last summer, WMF reported new financial records, and immediately after that it launched a fundraising campaign in India for the first time in history, inviting readers to donate 150 rupees (two dollars). Banners reading “Wikipedia Really Needs You,” “We Need You to Donate to Protect Wikipedia’s Independence,” and “Help Keep Wikipedia Online” have raised fears in India that Wikipedia is dying or could move to a paid subscription service.
Wikipedians have long expressed outrage at these fundraising banners. Wikipedia should be the "Free Encyclopedia" and not make readers feel guilty. Wikipedia never risked losing servers or its independence, and never needed to display advertising. Each year, WMF collected more than the year before and expanded its staff.
Black
: Net assets (excluding Wikimedia Endowment reserve, currently at $90+ million)
Green
: Income (excluding third party donations to the Wikimedia Endowment reserve)
Red
: Expenses (including payments to the Wikimedia Endowment)
This year was no exception. During the first three quarters, the WMF and Wikimedia Endowment's annual target for the current fiscal year was exceeded. It had to be increased from $108 million to $125 million. But this goal was also exceeded by $17 million by the end of March. However, a few weeks later, the WMF began fundraising in pandemic-stricken South America. Readers are asked to “humbly” donate money to “protect Wikipedia's independence” and “show volunteer editors that their work matters” (some of the volunteers are not happy about this).
WMF's financial independence is clearly completely secure. So what's going on? WMF's official answer: There is no such thing as too much money for a rainy day. In addition, WMF has ambitious plans to “become the global infrastructure for the free knowledge ecosystem” by 2030. The organization wants to create a “knowledge equity” in which people have the same access to information in their native language as first world citizens have in their own language. Therefore, a constant increase in the budget is required. The money tap from Wikipedia is intended for these purposes, which can be opened at any time.
In the midst of a pandemic, residents of Argentina and Uruguay fear for their lives and livelihoods, and WMF is tearfully asking for donations for the independence of Wikipedia.
Perhaps it is better for people not to see these calls.
