source: one guess :-) Jimmy Wales
When I was a kid I wanted more than anything a set of Encyclopedia Britanica. I settled for visits to the public library when I could get there. Later, in 1969, with four children of my own, I again felt that longing to have those 24 volumes at our fingertips, always there, so we could spontaneously search for knowledge. I even went so far as to invite an encyclopedia salesman to our house so we could discuss the possibility of purchasing such a wonderful set of books. His name was Mr. Livolsi and he reeked of a sweet sickening cologne. He was an ambitious salesman and I wanted those books so badly (the revised 14th edition) that I signed that dotted line.
It never did pan out; it was too costly. I had buyer's remorse and tried for days to reach Mr. Livolsi in order to cancel my agreement within the allotted time. It was the late sixties; no voice-mail, no home computers. I thought he was purposely avoiding me, he may have been, but finally he answered his phone and I cancelled. I remember the experience as being very sad, disappointing, and oddly traumatic.
It never did pan out; it was too costly. I had buyer's remorse and tried for days to reach Mr. Livolsi in order to cancel my agreement within the allotted time. It was the late sixties; no voice-mail, no home computers. I thought he was purposely avoiding me, he may have been, but finally he answered his phone and I cancelled. I remember the experience as being very sad, disappointing, and oddly traumatic.
He left his scent
all over my telephone.
I resent that.
I try to call him.
His line is always busy.
$899.00 is too much.
I shouldn't rush
into such things.
I'm gong to cancel.
This thing has
given me a headache.
Knowledge!
Why is it so expensive?
I said if.
He didn't know what if meant.
What does if mean?
Look it up Mr. Livolsi.
Answer your phone.
I'll tell you what if means.
Everytime I pick up the phone
I gag - that's what if means.
Sure, it would be nice
to know exactly
what a codfish is
and what a codfish isn't
but holy cow Mr. Livolsi
$800.99?
Dear Leo,
Thanks to more than a million generous donations, our annual fundraiser was over in record time. We said thank you on Wikipedia at the end of 2012. In case you missed that, we're saying it again here.
Your donation makes it possible for the Wikimedia Foundation to provide thousands of volunteer editors with the tools and infrastructure they need to keep Wikipedia going -- software developers, a data center fit to serve the world's fifth most popular site, support programs around the world and more.
Have you ever wondered who wrote the millions of articles on Wikipedia? This year we made a video to introduce you to just a few of them. If you have a few minutes, please watch: (above)
We also convinced a pair of independent filmmakers to donate this clip from their upcoming documentary film showing a remote village in Peru where children learn to edit Wikipedia and add an article about their own community: (above)
The 2012 fundraiser was our shortest and most successful ever. Thanks to our readers, we've been able to spend less time asking for donations each year even as rising readership and new challenges -- such as the rise of mobile -- increase our expenses.
In 2013 we're going to experiment with a significant change in the way we fundraise. We're going to try showing our readers fundraising messages one or a few times outside of our annual fundraiser. This will allow us to receive donations from a broader population of readers (rather than only those who happen to visit during the end-of-year fundraising days) while showing far fewer messages to users overall. We're not sure how this will work. Please let us know if you feel you are seeing our fundraising messages repeatedly before December. Our goal is to show our readers as few fundraising messages as possible, but for everyone to see them at least once.
If you have any feedback -- positive or negative -- about our fundraiser please reply to this email or send a message to: donate@wikimedia.org
Once again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for supporting what we believe is the most important and beautiful site on the web, and a community of volunteers who we love and respect.
Sincerely,
The Wikimedia Fundraising Team
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