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<blockquote style="position: relative; padding-left: 55px;"><section><a href="https://hachyderm.io/users/molly0xfff/statuses/113761345686656075">Molly White (molly0xfff@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 08:26:21 JST</a><a href="https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff" title="molly0xfff@hachyderm.io"><img src="https://gnusocial.jp/avatar/34789-48-20230824095227.webp" width="48" height="48" alt="Molly White" style="position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0;">Molly White</a><div><a href="https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff/113761336254284175" rel="in-reply-to">in reply to</a></div></section><article><p>Recent tweets by Elon Musk, Libs of Tiktok, Mario Nawfal, and others have claimed that Wikipedia is spending “$50 million for DEI”, misrepresenting Wikipedia’s actual budget and financial statements to claim Wikipedia is now “Wokepedia”.</p><p><a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/Wikipedia" rel="tag">#Wikipedia</a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/ElonMusk" rel="tag">#ElonMusk</a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/USpolitics" rel="tag">#USpolitics</a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/USpol" rel="tag">#USpol</a></p></article><footer><a rel="bookmark" href="https://gnusocial.jp/conversation/4303146#notice-8412157">In conversation</a><time datetime="2025-01-03T08:26:21+09:00" title="Friday, 03-Jan-2025 08:26:21 JST">about 2 months ago</time> <span>from <span><a href="https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff/113761345686656075" rel="external" title="Sent from hachyderm.io via ActivityPub">hachyderm.io</a></span></span><a href="https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff/113761345686656075">permalink</a><h4>Attachments</h4><ol><li><label><a rel="external" href="https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/3831445">First was Chaya Raichik, also known as “Libs of TikTok,” who on December 23 screenshotted a pie chart of budget categories from the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2023–2024 annual plan.1 Apparently not bothering to read past the labels, Raichik dashed off a tweet condemning the Foundation for spending $50 million on “diversity, equity, and inclusion”,a the right’s latest bogeyman, and urging her own substantial follower base to “Stop donating to Wokepedia”.2b Musk agreed, amplifying her post with the comment: “Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority.”3[Image: Pie chart from Wikimedia’s annual plan, breaking down the budget by goal categories: Infrastructure, Equity, Safety &amp; Inclusion, Effectiveness.]
That the “safety &amp; inclusion” link is not purple in this screenshot taken from Raichik’s tweet suggests she didn’t even bother to visit the page to determine what that category encompasses.a.
“DEI” has been a recent addition to “CRT”, “wokeness”, and other dogwhistles used by conservatives and those further to the right to gesture at, and broadly oppose, racial and gender equality.5455b.
Rightwingers trying to come up with a slur against Wikipedia should really have considered something that doesn’t so closely overlap with Wookieepedia, a near-homograph that predates the “Wokepedia” coinage by twenty years, which makes me do a double take every time. For those who aren’t familiar,</a></label><br><a href="https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/761/340/325/896/415/original/33625695f57b4283.png" rel="external">https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/761/340/325/896/415/original/33625695f57b4283.png</a></li><li><label><a rel="external" href="https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/3831446">Two days later, Musk retweeted Mario Nawfal, who had ripped off Raichik’s same post to produce his own, with the bold and all-caps headline “Wikipedia blows $50M on wokeness”. Nawfal added, “That’s $50 million for DEI instead of, you know, improving the actual site. … Sure, inclusion is nice, but maybe they could use some of that money to ensure they’re a reliable source of information first? Just a thought.”4What Nawfal, Raichik, and Musk either failed to understand or deliberately misrepresented was that these budget categories they’ve dismissed as “DEI” directly support Wikipedia’s reliability. The funding goes to programs to expand coverage of underrepresented topics, recruit editors with expertise in neglected subject areas, develop tools to identify and counter coordinated disinformation campaigns, improve article and source reliability, and protect the project and its editors from attempts to censor or restrict access to Wikipedia content. Far from detracting from Wikipedia’s mission, these programs work to directly address the types of concerns Musk and others raise.5</a></label><br><a href="https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/761/344/788/592/894/original/3498cccb14941897.png" rel="external">https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/761/344/788/592/894/original/3498cccb14941897.png</a></li></ol></footer></blockquote>

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Molly White (molly0xfff@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 08:26:21 JST Molly White
in reply to
Recent tweets by Elon Musk, Libs of Tiktok, Mario Nawfal, and others have claimed that Wikipedia is spending “$50 million for DEI”, misrepresenting Wikipedia’s actual budget and financial statements to claim Wikipedia is now “Wokepedia”.
#Wikipedia #ElonMusk #USpolitics #USpol
In conversationabout 2 months ago from hachyderm.iopermalink
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1. First was Chaya Raichik, also known as “Libs of TikTok,” who on December 23 screenshotted a pie chart of budget categories from the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2023–2024 annual plan.1 Apparently not bothering to read past the labels, Raichik dashed off a tweet condemning the Foundation for spending $50 million on “diversity, equity, and inclusion”,a the right’s latest bogeyman, and urging her own substantial follower base to “Stop donating to Wokepedia”.2b Musk agreed, amplifying her post with the comment: “Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority.”3 [Image: Pie chart from Wikimedia’s annual plan, breaking down the budget by goal categories: Infrastructure, Equity, Safety & Inclusion, Effectiveness.] That the “safety & inclusion” link is not purple in this screenshot taken from Raichik’s tweet suggests she didn’t even bother to visit the page to determine what that category encompasses. a. “DEI” has been a recent addition to “CRT”, “wokeness”, and other dogwhistles used by conservatives and those further to the right to gesture at, and broadly oppose, racial and gender equality.5455 b. Rightwingers trying to come up with a slur against Wikipedia should really have considered something that doesn’t so closely overlap with Wookieepedia, a near-homograph that predates the “Wokepedia” coinage by twenty years, which makes me do a double take every time. For those who aren’t familiar,
  https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/761/340/325/896/415/original/33625695f57b4283.png
2. Two days later, Musk retweeted Mario Nawfal, who had ripped off Raichik’s same post to produce his own, with the bold and all-caps headline “Wikipedia blows $50M on wokeness”. Nawfal added, “That’s $50 million for DEI instead of, you know, improving the actual site. … Sure, inclusion is nice, but maybe they could use some of that money to ensure they’re a reliable source of information first? Just a thought.”4 What Nawfal, Raichik, and Musk either failed to understand or deliberately misrepresented was that these budget categories they’ve dismissed as “DEI” directly support Wikipedia’s reliability. The funding goes to programs to expand coverage of underrepresented topics, recruit editors with expertise in neglected subject areas, develop tools to identify and counter coordinated disinformation campaigns, improve article and source reliability, and protect the project and its editors from attempts to censor or restrict access to Wikipedia content. Far from detracting from Wikipedia’s mission, these programs work to directly address the types of concerns Musk and others raise.5
  https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/761/344/788/592/894/original/3498cccb14941897.png

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