You said that the Wikimedia Foundation's core mission is to basically do good things. Their core goal is not to keep Wikipedia running (as most people believe).
Wikimedia runs very prominent banner ads all the time on Wikipedia, saying that they need money to keep Wikipedia running, and that they're a small team that depends on community funding to keep Wikipedia running, and they can't do it without you, and please please please donate by this date. I think it is very reasonable for your average Wikipedia user to believe the following, thanks to how Wikimedia advertises:
* Wikimedia is the non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia. They're basically the same thing, since Wikimedia's goal is running Wikipedia.
* Wikipedia is run by a small team
* Wikipedia is heavily reliant on donations from normal people
* Wikipedia needs money all the time. I know this because they're constantly running big highlighted banner ads urgently asking for money before $DATE
If what you said is true, and Wikimedia's core mission is not in fact, to preserve Wikipedia, then they're engaging in deceptive advertising. They're giving the impression that they need money right now to keep Wikipedia's funding source secure, but in reality, their goal is much broader than just Wikipedia. I think it's reasonable to assume that Wikipedia's funding could be much more secure if the Wikimedia Foundation solely focused on running Wikipedia. In other words, if they stopped spending on $NOT_WIKIPEDIA_REL_COST they would be fine.
What does this have to do with capitalism or $ENTITY using pictures of starving African children?
> In any decent world, governments would use tax money to both fund projects like Wikimedia and help get poor countries off on a self-sustaining economy, but that ship has sailed I am afraid.
I want to make sure I'm not misinterpreting your words. Are you saying that it's okay for Wikimedia to engage in knowingly deceptive advertising because otherwise poor countries won't be able to get their economy running?
Are we agreeing that they're knowingly being deceptive, and that they wouldn't need to be deceptive if they just focused on Wikipedia? And we're disagreeing on whether that deception is moral or immoral?
> What does this have to do with capitalism or $ENTITY using pictures of starving African children?
To show that, thanks to capitalism, deception has become the norm in advertising (of all kind, frankly), and either you go along and play the game, or you go six feet under. It's immoral, sure, but I'd much more prefer to see the system itself fixed than to only nab random offenders.
> I want to make sure I'm not misinterpreting your words. Are you saying that it's okay for Wikimedia to engage in knowingly deceptive advertising because otherwise poor countries won't be able to get their economy running?
No. The part with the poor countries refers to that I don't want to see any kind of fundraiser stuff that should be a government's job, and on top of that I disdain many of the charity campaigns relating to Africa because the "aid" we gave utterly crushed the local agricultural and textile industry, sending off many countries into a disastrous dependency loop - if you want to read more on that, look up "mitumba".
You said that the Wikimedia Foundation's core mission is to basically do good things. Their core goal is not to keep Wikipedia running (as most people believe).
Wikimedia runs very prominent banner ads all the time on Wikipedia, saying that they need money to keep Wikipedia running, and that they're a small team that depends on community funding to keep Wikipedia running, and they can't do it without you, and please please please donate by this date. I think it is very reasonable for your average Wikipedia user to believe the following, thanks to how Wikimedia advertises:
* Wikimedia is the non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia. They're basically the same thing, since Wikimedia's goal is running Wikipedia.
* Wikipedia is run by a small team
* Wikipedia is heavily reliant on donations from normal people
* Wikipedia needs money all the time. I know this because they're constantly running big highlighted banner ads urgently asking for money before $DATE
If what you said is true, and Wikimedia's core mission is not in fact, to preserve Wikipedia, then they're engaging in deceptive advertising. They're giving the impression that they need money right now to keep Wikipedia's funding source secure, but in reality, their goal is much broader than just Wikipedia. I think it's reasonable to assume that Wikipedia's funding could be much more secure if the Wikimedia Foundation solely focused on running Wikipedia. In other words, if they stopped spending on $NOT_WIKIPEDIA_REL_COST they would be fine.
What does this have to do with capitalism or $ENTITY using pictures of starving African children?
> In any decent world, governments would use tax money to both fund projects like Wikimedia and help get poor countries off on a self-sustaining economy, but that ship has sailed I am afraid.
I want to make sure I'm not misinterpreting your words. Are you saying that it's okay for Wikimedia to engage in knowingly deceptive advertising because otherwise poor countries won't be able to get their economy running?
Are we agreeing that they're knowingly being deceptive, and that they wouldn't need to be deceptive if they just focused on Wikipedia? And we're disagreeing on whether that deception is moral or immoral?