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Comment by koprulusector | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the point of this tweet. Is this a bad thing? If this is a bad thing, why?

The point is lots of people (including myself until about a year ago) were under the impression that Wikipedia was on the verge of bankruptcy, and would likely either stop existing or be purchased by Microsoft or Google if it wasn't for our donations, so I gave every time they asked. Learning that they are swimming in money makes us seem like we've been fooled.

Do you just donate to places without looking into their finances and how they spend their money? It's not like wikipedia hides it. It's right on their website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Finances

I tend to only donate to places that seem to spend the money well and efficiently, for example.

Not OP, but probably a lot of people had faith that if the foundation behind Wikipedia says they need money to keep the servers online, they just believed them without trying to find details behind a "Beware of the Leopard" sign. It'd be similar to if a trusted family member said they needed some help.

But guess what, maybe their faith that this organization is misplaced.

> Do you just donate to places without looking into their finances and how they spend their money?

I'd say most people do, yes. Especially when it's something like $10.

> Do you just donate to places without looking into their finances and how they spend their money?

I'd say most people do, yes.

I think most people would agree that it's a bad thing to mislead people, yes.

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