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Someone donated $286,800 to Wikipedia

fundraising.wikimedia.org — Within the past few minutes the confirmed donations total went from $402,000 to $689,000. One contribution was by An anonymous friend on 2006-12-27 at 22:17:00 for the amount of $286,800.

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  • illshowYOUdugg, on 10/12/2007, -13/+153where would i be without wiki *talking of course about all the papers i have to write for school*
    • SACSTATE, on 10/12/2007, -22/+231I donated 1 yen. the exchange rate is really miserable. thats like .82 cents... but at least i donated :-D
    • gamasutra, on 10/12/2007, -11/+135Now that this has been dugg, watch those donations skyrocket!
    • VanceXT, on 10/12/2007, -7/+430I can't think of a more deserving site.
    • twtmc, on 10/12/2007, -19/+382The RIAA will sue them for this money x 50 for copyright infringement and allowing users to share information.
    • Raftysworld, on 10/12/2007, -40/+146I have such a raging clue right now
    • alen3K, on 10/12/2007, -76/+10@gamasutra : why would they ? it's not like any of us here heard about wikipedia just now.
    • JacNet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+45This is exactly what the data is now that it is off the frontpage of donations:

      Anonymous Donor
      An anonymous friend 2006-12-27 22:17:00 286800.00
    • sockpuppets, on 10/12/2007, -4/+60My money would be on Wikia's CEO Gil Penchina, doing a year end tax deduction. He's worth hundreds of millions from his eBay days. What better than to donate to the nonprofit arm of your own company?
    • NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -2/+168"I donated 1 yen. the exchange rate is really miserable. thats like .82 cents... but at least i donated :-D"

      The transaction cost was probably more than that. If anything, you now owe them money :)
    • DrunkenPirate34, on 10/12/2007, -40/+1@Raftysworld

      +Digg for Venture Bros reference.
    • Lyph4, on 10/12/2007, -50/+30Schools actually hate the wiki, because anyone can put anything in there. Most schools that know of the wiki discourage its use for reports and the like.
    • jhshukla, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15or it could be that the donor does not want to reveal the country either. but since the figure is an exact dollar amount, i believe it must be from within the US.
    • calvmari, on 10/12/2007, -1/+43@Lyph

      Wikipedia is still a great resource regardless of the possibility of being inaccurate. It has links to sources, where a researcher could pull factual data. Also, the data is summarized well. There's a lot of information in Wiki that's "dumbed down", and random tricks entered by users to solve random formulas I've never seen in a text book.
    • gbotmbot, on 10/12/2007, -12/+105I challenge every digg user to match my contribution of 25 bucks.
    • WZot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Hehe...lecturers at my university refers to Wikipedia in books and lecture papers (for extended research on a topic).:)
    • tarmithius, on 10/12/2007, -6/+16@SACSTATE

      could you have meant 100 yen and not 1 Yen?
    • blogger123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28Its great to see that someone would care so much for wikipedia, $286,000 is a lot of money, no matter what way you look at it.
      I'm sure that wikipedia will put the money to good use, it really is one of the best things on the Internet.
    • Lyph4, on 10/12/2007, -13/+37Don't know why I'm being dugg down for making a truthful statement. Most schools will refuse to accept the wikipedia as a primary source, because the person citing the source could have added the info they're using in the report! I love the Wikipedia, don't get me wrong, but it's more of a jumping off point, where you can get general info for your topic, but reference other sources to back up the info from the wikipedia.
    • NeuPhate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28Virgin Unite, the charitable arm of Virgin Group is matching all donations today, perhaps the big donation was from Branson himself.
    • timwizard, on 10/12/2007, -23/+12@SACSTATE

      1 yen is much less than 84 cents. Its less than even 1 cent. The exchange rate isn't bad at all right now.
    • ross., on 10/12/2007, -0/+15man i bet they are bummed they didnt wait the 2 hours until virgin was matching every donation dollar for dollar...ouch
    • neoknight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Bhumir Patel
      Keep up the good work, can't imagine doing homework with you guys. Don't let Google buy you out.

      A comment from a donor, so true please don't let that happen.
    • ross., on 10/12/2007, -0/+72"Virgin Unite, the charitable arm of Virgin Group is matching all donations today, perhaps the big donation was from Branson himself."

      $286800 is almost exactly 150000 pounds.....hmmmm
    • scratched, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28@Lyph4:

      If your school hates wikipedia, tell your teacher to try adding some mindless vandalism to some major article. Tell them to change the article on "earth" or something major like that. Then tell them to watch how fast people fix the vandalism.

      Usually it gets fixed very quickly. Sometimes the speed of a page refresh. Just prove to them that vandalism isn't that big a deal. They do have standards to conform to just like real encyclopedias (you can only add something if you cite your sources, etc.) If sources are not cited and standards aren't conformed to, an article will be flagged appropriately as such for everyone to see.
    • bdrydyk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+122@lymph

      Anyone who thinks that Wikipedia is in any way a primary source is a moron. No encyclopedia is a primary source.

      You can read more about primary sources on Wikipedia.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source

      Enjoy!
    • cdahlkvist, on 10/12/2007, -22/+6My guess is that someone just went and "changed" the donation amount. They probably figured their opinion of how much the donations should total was better than how much they actually are.
    • elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17tim, perhaps you missed the decimal point?
    • otatop, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39"1 yen is much less than 84 cents. Its less than even 1 cent. The exchange rate isn't bad at all right now."

      Note the "." before the 82 cents in his sentence.

      Now slap yourself on the forehead.

      Dammit, I really should refresh before posting things. Kudos, elnerdo.
    • tktino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9487/picture2bb8.jpg

      screen shot!
    • teradome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@Lyph4, you should absolutely get your school to watch this TEDTalks episode featuring Jimmy Wales discussing exactly how Wikipedia works -- sounds like they've bought into the media bias.

      http://www.digg.com/podcasts/TEDTalks_video/1344
    • etruscan, on 10/12/2007, -34/+3@VanceXT "I can't think of a more deserving site."

      You must be kidding. Wikipedia is the bloated hog of the internet, laced with half-truths, falsehoods, and unverifiable data - and it's all run by elitist moderators. The sheer fact that you can't search for anything these days without Wikipedia popping up on Google's front page is a sign that they have gotten too big, and their policies for linking out and sharing that wealth are garbage. Instead, they demand you recreate all your original content on their site. As a result, a page that has much better information on a topic may get lost because Wikipedia has pushed it out of the way on all the major search engines.

      I'm not saying it's not useful in some instances, but their hardly the most deserving site for your charity.
    • NoSuchAgency, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"As a result, a page that has much better information on a topic may get lost because Wikipedia has pushed it out of the way on all the major search engines."

      Um... at most a few Wikipedia pages will show up ahead of it. People do tend to visit Wikipedia first, if only because obvious ***** will probably be caught, unlike on J. Random Hacker's webpage where he can say whatever he wants (though those pages are valuable too if you are willing to be skeptical).

      And if you want "elitist mods", don't ever visit "Everything.org". The "reference site"w here mods can post about their cat ad nauseum, but a n00b's article on something important and real will be modded down and deleted.
    • kingp, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Wouldn't it be funny if it was Jimbo Wales that made the donation because no one else was contributing? Isn't that a violation of Wikipedia policy? :P
    • etruscan, on 10/12/2007, -16/+2The cult of Wiki has spoken.
    • monkeyness, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33"I donated 1 yen...thats like .82 cents..."
      "1 yen is much less than 84 cents. Its less than even 1 cent."

      .02 cents != .02 dollars
    • gtapro91, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21lol not the .02 cents .02 dollars thing again
    • darthsuo, on 10/12/2007, -11/+9@Etruscan

      "You must be kidding. Wikipedia is the bloated hog of the internet, laced with half-truths, falsehoods, and unverifiable data - and it's all run by elitist moderators."

      Okay, I won't debate the elitist moderator crap because it's a POV thing, but "laced with half-truths, falsehoods, and unverifiable data"? Really? Sorry to cite the study again, but Nature found that the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica's, about three. That's roughly the same accuracy level, and remember that Wikipedia is always improving. Also, since Wikipedia's articles were generally longer, (2.6 times on average), the word-to-error ratio is lower. And how does being a bloated hog having anything to do with anything?

      "The sheer fact that you can't search for anything these days without Wikipedia popping up on Google's front page is a sign that they have gotten too big, and their policies for linking out and sharing that wealth are garbage.

      So . . . because Pagerank thinks Wikipedia is good, Wikipedia is an evil organization bent on taking over Google's front page?

      "Instead, they demand you recreate all your original content on their site."

      Actually, original research is discouraged, and articles lacking sources are tagged for revision/deletion.

      "As a result, a page that has much better information on a topic may get lost because Wikipedia has pushed it out of the way on all the major search engines."

      This one might be true, but remember that Wikipedia can be edited. Also, there's a way to go to the NEXT PAGE in Google's search results.

      "I'm not saying it's not useful in some instances, but their hardly the most deserving site for your charity."

      Seriously, name one. Just one. Wikipedia's aim is to share the total sum of human knowledge with everyone. Hell, they don't even have ads. And what's the Red Cross's overhead again? Like 70%?
    • Zinite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26Posted on the Wiki Donation page now:

      At the top of the page now:
      Q: Why did the meter jump up over $200,000?
      A: We added the anonymous matching donation.
    • venicerocco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ gbotmbot: Matched
    • SpikeX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Near the bottom:

      http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/en/fundcore/list/2005-12-27/2006-12-27/0?page=1
    • picardo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I donated $10.
    • izzybomb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I donated $10, sorry I couldnt match the $25 gbotmbot, but each donation we make right now, Virgin Unite matches, so its almost like were donating twice as much.

      Come on guys! We need wikipedia!
    • petern43, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7Since this has been dugg, less than $1000 has been donated. I don't think digging this is helping too much. You people need to support what we all need. If someone is willing to donate $286,800, then you should be willing to chip in a little. So let's donate! I just started off with $100.
    • Holocaust, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@illshowYOUdugg

      Aaaah yes, school papers...
      I still like how so many teachers are still jumping on the bandwagon that wikipedia should not be relied on...
      I am like WTF? I have yet to come across anything in-legit on the site, and if I might have I was to late because that section or article was marked with one of those notices that mention something about that some one should revision that article, site citations...

      What I also like about Wikipedia is that it's a door to us to uncensored information, at least to a certain extent...Hell they are being(not sure if still) by a whole country, China. And also since it's easily constantly updated we can access more and more information faster than a $150 textbook to be published.

      Hell! We can even look at what George W Bush is doing as the president: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush


      So basically the whole aspect of WIkipedia is genius! And with all the contributions all of us are giving they are able to support the information database we have come to love and make it better and more legit.

      I
    • PureGamer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I get yelled at for using wikipedia on papers, since it's apparently not a good source according to my teachers. I do it anyways though.
    • Deepbluetank, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ Jbarnett.

      Yes, Fame and publicity while being anonymous.
    • perral1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Deepbluetank

      *Woosh*

      What was that flying over your head?

      Yep, you missed the joke.

      -Perral1
    • fudged71, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It Was Me.. I admit it... can we pleeease move on?
    • Firemeboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"There's a lot of information in Wiki that's "dumbed down","

      For what it's worth, I'm doing a study on the readability of Wikipedia. I'm using several scales, but on average Wikipedia reads about the same level as the Harvard Journal of Law. We're talking graduate level material here, folks.

      A million monkeys produce Shakespeare. A million volunteers produce some pretty good stuff.
    • lcohiomatty86, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1for those of you who say "my teacher doesnt like me using wikipedia!".. they are right.. dont use wikipedia as a source.. but use wikipedia as a source to information... it could be a great way to get links to better sources that you can easily use.. its a gateway to information, someone posted the link to Bushes wiki page, and at the bottom i saw about 120 references in it.. use those references and not the wiki page as a source... u'll be way better off that way, as the information on wiki isnt static and could be gone in the near future.
  • evamark1978, on 10/12/2007, -33/+11Actually, this is incorrect. Matched donations were just added to the total -- it wasn't any one donation, but the sum of all donation matches made to this date.
    • LtDyson52, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Anonymous Donor An anonymous friend 2006-12-27 22:17:00 286800.00
      Don't know if this page is right, but apparently if you go to that date and time, you'll see it :|
      copy+paste
      http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/en/fundcore/list?page=20
    • BicBall, on 10/12/2007, -14/+1im pretty sure those donation matches are for only today
      "All donations received today will be matched by Virgin Unite"
      i doubt that 286,800 was donated today alone.
    • BlueInGreen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18@LtDyson52

      But notice there is no value under the "amount" header for the large donation, although all other donations have this. All you get is the "equivalent USD," making this an unusual donation. I'd believe that it's the donation matching, rather than a single donation itself. Still though, this doesn't diminish the fact that someone out there IS donating this enormous chunk of money, matched or not.
    • LtDyson52, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5True, but why would it be anonymous if they're matching donations? Wouldn't they want to publicize themselves? :| iono, I'm confused, all I know is that Wikipedia's growing due to the people's generosity. Everybody wins :]
    • BlueInGreen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Virgin Unite is actually the first non-anonymous matching donor that I've seen this go-round, although there are probably some I have missed. As for the motives of the anonymous ones, I can imagine that a very wealthy and charitable person might not want to draw attention to the fact that they are willing to give their money away, or even that they have the money.
    • Pepper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10http://www.peppery9.net/images/wp.png

      Whoah.
  • revid_ffum, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13wow, i think it was at like $350,000 this morning. I wonder if these are pledges or actually paid yet?
    • theplaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah I think they (at least if through PayPal) are only added to the list once the transaction is done.
  • Sumguy21, on 10/12/2007, -1/+51Someone's awesome!
    • RunnyBabbit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Someone else isn't. Who's the asshat on page 620 that donated 1 cent like five hundred times? Is he trying to get the handling fees to stack up higher than his donation?
  • merrychristmass, on 10/12/2007, -59/+1It was ME! So what?
    • Raftysworld, on 10/12/2007, -52/+3It was me you *****
    • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -11/+20It wasn't either of you, it was Kevin Rose...we all know he's got millions....
    • twtmc, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18He has millions in couches for his appartment.
  • fenixx, on 10/12/2007, -12/+108it was Steve Jobs.
    last minute attempt to get rid of that dirty money from his secret stock options.
  • torklup, on 10/12/2007, -48/+8Does anyone know what this money is being raised for?
    • Llanowar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+42Sustaining such a huge site isn't exactly cheap.
    • Camsta, on 10/12/2007, -28/+6Some virgins.
    • SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+38For running Wikipedia. It's a non-profit organisation and has no advertising, it has to pay for its server costs somehow...
    • Titan486, on 10/12/2007, -17/+3Hopefully a new server, Wikipedia has been slow as ***** as of late
    • sandfish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+26From the English Wikipedia Homepage:

      "The money will be used for the continued operation and improvement of Wikimedia projects. This includes hardware, bandwidth, staff, events like Wikimania, and other expenses. A successful fundraiser will mean both being able to continue and expand what we are currently doing, and to have a secure financial base for the future."
    • BlueInGreen, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6The continued betterment of humanity. Shall we all donate now?
    • ekso, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising_FAQ
    • JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7So by us all rushing to look at this donation list (and many of us constantly refreshing the page to see updates) we are actually taking away some of what has been donated because of bandwidth.
    • bariswheel, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1I'm sorry but this is a ***** question and doesn't merit an answer.
    • Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wikipedia is an icon of all that is right on the Internet. It's for the people, by the people, and 100% free. They could have Google Ads on every single page and likely make millions, but they choose not to. Wikipedia is what is; nothing less. And that's why I have so much respect for it.
      However, because of the sheer number of people using the site each year, and the manpower required to keep it running smoothly, the operational costs are much higher than you'd think. Sadly, nothing in this world is truely free.
      This is why Wikimedia asks "Care to help out a friend? You don't have to if you don't want to, but we'd all really appreciate it" A dollar for Wiki is a dollar for all of us.
  • Llanowar, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34I had some spare Monopoly money, so I thought, What the heck.
  • benoror, on 10/12/2007, -9/+0Some places celebrate innocents' day today .... mhhh
  • genrik, on 10/12/2007, -10/+1Too bad the link doesn't really show us anything...
  • mattatron, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/en/fundcore/list?page=20
    • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I'm not sure that was a real donation, it has a blank where the amount donated is, it only has a amount in the USD section (other US donations have amounts in both categories) My guess is they aren't expecting any money from that (I assume you were pointing out the big donation)
    • SimonDonkers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'd say that if I where to donate this kind of money I wouldn't use the Paypal link or anything but call up Wikimedia about this, arrange the payment and such and as this doesn't go through the regular channel it's displayed differently. I wouldn't like to give Paypal a percentage off this money. Looking at the donation page the list you see is only from Paypal and moneybookers. Direct bank transfers don't seem to show any info on credit but I would expect somebody at Wikimedia to add a donation like this to the list anyhow.
  • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -23/+6This may be a really dumb question and i may get dugg down to hell for asking, but I'm gonna ask anyway...

    Why does Wikipedia need donations?
    • SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15To run itself. It's a non-profit organisation and has no advertising, it has to pay for server costs somehow...
    • benoror, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10bandwidth ?
    • se7en11, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3sure, i'll take some...
  • dododod, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12Here's the direct link to the page:
    http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/en/fundcore/list/2005-12-27/2006-12-27/0?page=1

    "An anonymous friend"
    ...when i saw the word friend, I immediately though to google
  • BrainCoder, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Stop trying to find who is, he wanted to remain anonym.
    • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23Saying "it was me" or "I thought of Google" hardly constitutes trying to find out who it is... My guess is that this time tomorrow we won't even remember this...
  • pdxuser, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0I wonder if it was donated by a husband and wife pair by the initials B.H. and F.H. (corresponding to the unusual 286,800 dollar value)? Any guesses?
    • AreYouSure, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0Your answer:

      Unable to connect to database server
      warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Too many connections in /usr/local/apache22/htdocs/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 52
  • kingborel, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5Question: Can the Digg effect crash Wikipedia? Probably not.
    • benoror, on 10/12/2007, -24/+1Question WTF??
    • alen3K, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2Just because you're not funny or clever doesn't mean you just have to ask ***** questions all the time.
    • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Still want to crash something after the whole GodHatesFags.com thing? Try to crash a bad site, not one great for everything...
    • Beaver6813, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I think that its just Virgin Unite matching the donations for a given time period.
    • Llanowar, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4OMFG... and while we're at it.. let's go crach google as well!

      /sarcasm
    • bertboerland, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16The fund-raising site of Wikipedia is running on Drupal (http://www.drupal.org) which is a very clean and good CMS. Drupal sites are known to have an extreme high pageranking due to SEO but most of all to be able to deliver under load due to throttle-ing and quality code. Many Drupal sites have been on slash or digg and survived.

      Thanks wikipedia for choosing Drupal!
    • Lyph4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16I remember the good old days when a Wikipedia link on /. would result in one of the admins posting, asking us to stop linking to their site.. And one day, the site didn't go down. *sniffle* That was a big day for Wikipedia.
    • NoNameHere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would not be surprised if Wikipedia has a server for every digg user and then some. Hyperbole, to be sure, but it stands that it could easily handle a digging AND a slashdotting... which is exactly WHY they need large amounts of donations.
    • AreYouSure, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0You're answer(when trying to go to http://fundraising.wikimedia.org ):

      Unable to connect to database server
      warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Too many connections in /usr/local/apache22/htdocs/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 52
    • davidstrauss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The database issues were caused by the "Who's Online" block which ran some rather inefficient queries on every page load. We also added some indexes which the CiviCRM schema really needed for the amount of traffic Fundraising C.O.R.E. is receiving. The traffic peaked today at just over 1200 concurrent users.
  • timothiuz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2good for wiki
    congratz!!! =)
  • jamble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3why is that the only donation that doesn't show up in the actual donated column, only the US$ equivalent column?
    • olliholliday, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2maybe it was donated in dollars?
    • luckykrrish, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3the space provided was very low ..
      so that big value might effect the way the page is arranged..

      just a guess...
  • Gatesophile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3More people should do good stuff like that. If they have the money, of course.
  • kaytrio, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4I wouldn't have posted this if I weren't the first, but...
    It was me.
    • Beaver6813, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6Fine... take all the credit for my donation! o.O
    • NoNameHere, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1Pfeh, you're BOTH nuts. It was YOUR MOM.
    • bariswheel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3No, I'm Spartacus!
  • themadness, on 10/12/2007, -13/+3***** almost 300 grand, thats aweseom!
    • richardiscool, on 10/12/2007, -14/+28AMERICAN IN "ROUNDING NUMBER TO NEAREST HUNDRED-THOUSAND" SHOCKER
    • szembek, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2richardiscool: you are a tool. Your post is written in all caps and makes no god dammed sense.
  • UODavo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I really hope it is an actual donation and not just someone screwing around. Wiki is a great site.

    As for not showing up, maybe it is because it won't fit in the table that all the amounts were in? They probably weren't expecting an amount that large to be donated.
    • Dakana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2One would think it'd be the other way around - unless I'm just being an ignorant American, there isn't a currency with a substantially higher amount per unit when compared with the dollar, but there are vice versa (i.e. Yen). Thus, one would think the first column would be more accommodating to higher amounts, such as if a Japanese donor donated 10,000 Yen (~$84).
  • TellusCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If I had the cash floating around I sure as heck would donate it for mainly two reasons:

    #1 - Contributing to something commonly good, free openly objective (With in the limitations set) source of information.

    #2 - Tax deductible. Considering that someone donated $282k (True or false) there by skipping the need to pay tax on it, also with a fair probability has a 'few' extra k's lying around still =)
  • storiesteller, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1WIKIPEDIA CRASHED!!


    "Unable to connect to database server

    This either means that the username and password information in your settings.php file is incorrect or we can't contact the MySQL database server. This could mean your hosting provider's database server is down.

    The MySQL error was: Too many connections.

    Currently, the username is public_drupal and the database server is localhost.

    * Are you sure you have the correct username and password?
    * Are you sure that you have typed the correct hostname?
    * Are you sure that the database server is running?"
    • luckykrrish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2no its not like that

      MySQL server will have a limit of no.of connections it can handle..

      Probably through digg or something like that.. more people might be accessing the page at the same time

      even I got the same.. after refreshing it, it worked well :)
    • NoNameHere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Digg isn't capable of that. If Wikipedia were to go down unexpectedly, it would almost certainly an internal problem.
  • m3mn0n, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10See: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_thanks_Virgin_Unite

    Donation matching.
  • samste, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2i really wanted to remain anonym…
  • Porkape, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Dawesome, totally dawesome!!!
  • KnightMareInc, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2yeah according to wikipedia /sarcasm
  • anomalya, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2what anoys me about wiki is if u post something simple they say its too simple to qualify as a post and remove it, leaving the word or term wahatever empty, but half of the time wen u want a quick explanation for somtihng wiki is no good coz all the posts are so long and complicated.

    all terms in wiki should start with a simple definition. then proceed to elaborate.
  • sgtgoomba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Seriously, Wikipedia is by far the best website on the internet. It's worth every penny.
  • xpax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1tq for the donation.
  • abhinavg90, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1thats amazing!
    and i love wikipedia
  • RedXlll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's on page 23 at the moment... O.O Didn't notice how many people actually donate to the site.
  • davidrools, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4wikipedia is great and all but i hope the rich anonymous donor also gives generously to organizations that feed starving kids (the ones dying every 20 seconds or so...the ones we try to ignore or pass blame about)
  • storiesteller, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1sgtgoomba*** where are you leaving our GOD?

    goooogle!!!

    google->wiki->info
    • pureliquidhw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4storiesteller***Where are you leaving your COMMENTS?

      reply!!!

      click reply->type your nonsense->click submit comment
  • axelmattias, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3So before going over to the next Digg article: Head over to Wikipeda and donate $10. Yep, do it now and spend the 3 mins it takes. Be good.
  • americanistsam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wiki pedia deserves this and more from us. u share in building Wiki Pedia u share in a humanity project
  • HebrewHammer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+425 bucks for a worthy cause, everyone here can donate that.
  • Wolfr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Performing the currency conversion at current rates didn't give a round number in EUR and GBP (British pound)... so either the donator is fond of unusual numbers, or it was originally another currency.

    Besides that it might also just be no donation at all since the listing on wiki's donation site is inconsistent with the other listings (it doesn't say USD).
  • me0wzilla, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2the other day wikipedia foundation said that an anonymous donor would match all donations made on a certain day.. maybe this was the amount that was matched?
    • me0wzilla, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1ps. i did donate on that day so that my donation would go twice as far!! worthy cause!
  • CharlesSaint007, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I made my contribution...
    http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/en/fundcore/list/2006-12-28/2006-12-28/1/USD/
  • Jarasmen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It was Bill Gates or Michael Jackson. Or both of 'em.
  • Marlon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I believe that it is either a smart hack or a true donation and not an accounting adjustment as some have posted. I don't see any true motivation for Wikipedia to show an accounting adjustment as a disguise as a anonymous donation.

    Unless this is some feeble attempt to persuade us users to donate more? Is Wikipedia really capable of something like this?

    The last thing is that everyone pretty much doubts that the Dec 26 donations add up to 286k, and why would Virgin Unite be referenced as Anonymous? Possibly some sort of erroneous entry, I assume.
  • CaslaElda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I put down 10NZD, which isn't much, but i will put more in when i m rich :). Wiki has helped me heaps, whenever, i m confused or don't understand anything, it can always answer my questions, with more details than i ever expected.
  • Pifko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I LOVE wikipedia, it's the perfect example of how the internet should function. I hope more people make such generous donations and keep the site going for a long time
  • Marlon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2PS: would it show on this page?

    http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors#Patrons_.28.2415.2C000_and_above.29
  • Piku, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1The MySQL error was: Too many connections. Wikimedia hit by Digg effect
  • isemism, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8This just in: Wikipedia bandwidth fees for 12/28/2006 were more than $286,800.00 due to a phenomenon known as the "Digg Effect." Back to you Sally.
    • beatboxmonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ isemism

      But how much would they of made since then from us digger who gave some dosh
  • Saeros, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I love wikipedia !!
  • Taume, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Now Jimbo Wales will have more money to invest into the new search engine called: Wikiasari

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