You are highly impertinent, you beg for donations at all times but are not even able to repair such a tiny function ??
Topic on Talk:Reading/Web/PDF Functionality/Flow
The tiny function was a completely separate parser running on old servers that hadn't seen maintenance in 5 years.. It's gonna take a bit more time to replace it completely and your patience is highly appreciated.
well, still NOT running yet, huh ?? So, how much patience do you expect from your users? 1 year ? 2 ? or even more ?
It was the main reason for any donation, and now, afzter I finally paid some bucks, it doesn't work any more, already for well over a year !!!
That's almost kinda like fraud ... at least I, peronally and subjectively, perceive it that way.
In the meantime you can use http://mediawiki2latex.wmflabs.org/. You can use to create PDF file as well as other formats from articles or collections. The only problem is that the capacities on the server are very limited, so it will only work for single articles or collections of a very few articles. If you want more you will have to install the current version of ubuntu and use the mediawiki2latex package from the command line. Good luck.
Hey Marcus,
I'm sure they are trying their best, and you are coming off as being a bit rude about it. Not sure if you meant it that way, just saying your tone is a bit harsh.
Also, a donation means to give freely without expecting something back, it was not purchasing the option for generating books. They might also be using the money to keep the servers running, paying employees, generating and writing up information, contracting people to fix the book generating function, etc.
"Update: (23 April 2018) PediaPress will take over the development of the books-to-PDF functionality. See Reading/Web/PDF Functionality for more information."
"Updates: (24 February 2018) [....] - Update on the book creator. We're still in the process of performance testing the new renderer (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178278). Once this stage is complete, we will be able to provide more details on its capacity to render books."
If you would like to see what the donations are used for, for example, check out:
"Where your donation goes
Technology: Servers, bandwidth, maintenance, development. Wikipedia is one of the top 10 websites in the world, and it runs on a fraction of what other top websites spend.
People and Projects: The other top websites have thousands of employees. We have about 300 staff to support a wide variety of projects, making your donation a great investment in a highly-efficient not-for-profit organization."
2) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en
"Why should I donate and where does my money go?
Donations to the Wikimedia Foundation help sustain free knowledge through Wikipedia and our ecosystem of projects. Your contributions support technology to keep the sites fast, secure, and accessible; for Wikimedia programs and initiatives to expand access and support free knowledge globally; and for grants to volunteer contributors to improve and enrich the knowledge on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia sites. Your donations support this work, and so much more, to ensure Wikipedia remains accessible and valuable for many generations to come."
3) On the same page linked at 2, just a bit further down:
"Where can I find more financial information?
The Wikimedia Foundation's 2016 - 2017 annual report covers the fiscal year from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017. The Foundation's annual report shares some of the voices of the hundreds of thousands of people who make the Wikimedia movement possible.
The Wikimedia Foundation 2017-2018 Annual Plan describes our budget for the current fiscal year. It contains a summary of our strategic goals as an organization, financial details on spending and revenue, and detailed explanations and risk analysis."