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Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#71

Post by mhh__ »

reaperducer wrote: post #67
mhh__ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a loss of 100% of one's income is probably a risk so deep into the tails that planning for it is by definition a little stupid. Edit: For a company - apart from Welfare you should have a plan as an individual

Every large company I've worked for has planned for a "zero revenue" scenario. It's hardly stupid.

In Wikimedia's case, 0 income basically means they've probably been legally dissolved, what more can they do?

I was being a little facetious, but the point was more in response to the PC than as a standalone argument.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#72

Post by iso8859-1 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #58
iso8859-1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find any line-item in the Foundation Audit Reports named "parties" though. Is it under "other operating expenses"? How can I know how much of those $9M was spent on parties?

Do you want a line-item for how much they spend on office coffee-per-person too? Surely parties can't be the only thing you are concerned about. There does seem to be a line "Special event expense, net". I would guess parties go in there? It was reported as around $300K, or 0.2% of expenses, in the most recent fiscal year. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikim... " I cannot tell you how much th…

It really depends how much the coffee costs. Like with Putin's palace, people wouldn't complain about the toilet brushes if they weren't gold-coated. Is the coffee bought from Mahers cousin? Sure, I'd like to know that.

Parties do not have to be funded by the company. During my lifetime, I never went to a company-funded party. But I have been doing fine, funding my own parties. What do you need? A stereo and a disco ball. Anyway, how can you spend $9M on stereos and disco balls? It warrants scrutiny.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#73

Post by alisonkisk »

jonas21 wrote: post #34
jahlove wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also spent $2.8m on travel and conferences in 2019 [0], which is more than they spent on internet hosting... [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/31/Wikim... (page 13)

This seems like the typical HN meme of looking at something and assuming the technical piece is all there is to it. Wikipedia's biggest challenge over the years hasn't been building or hosting its website. It's been convincing the world that an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone on the Internet is a credible and neutral source of information. One of the ways you do that is by speaking at conferences, traveling…

> It's been convincing the world that an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone on the Internet is a credible and neutral source of information.

This is not wikimedia's job at all. The public can decide if they trust the content.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#74

Post by tristor »

hinkley wrote: post #51
tristor wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proper way for non-profits to do this is to start an endowment fund, which provides consistent residual income that can help fund operations. Usually by identifying specific large donors who would wish to be named in the fund.

I guess we’re “disrupting” foundations too.

I'm not sure I understand your meaning?

Endowments and foundations are different things with different objectives. Many foundations may have endowments of their own, and may use them to issue grants to non-profits. From a legal and financial perspective though, there's a difference between a non-profit having an endowment itself which provides restricted funds for specific operational activities vs how foundations typically create and structure endowments for external giving.

Both concepts have been around for decades, so I don't think either is particularly disruptive.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#75

Post by throwaway2245 »

hinkley wrote: post #48
Zababa wrote: post #24

> We have a deep and stable financial position that will help us grow and protect us from any storm, and the trust in our projects has never been higher. They earned 9 millions more than last year, from 120 millions to 129 millions, and spent 21 millions more, from 91 millions to 112 millions [1], with an increase of 10 millions in "awards and grants". The donations grew by 10 millions. If I read the financial statem…

When I hear “Foundation” and “stable financial position” I think endowment. They seem to be making the same mistake as the Mozilla foundation. You’re living on your nest egg instead of the interest. Spending 4 times as much as you should.

Why should Wikimedia need a significant nest egg?

What do you do with the money, when people have stopped valuing Wikimedia enough that they are no longer paying for it to exist?

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#76

Post by xyzzyz »

Zababa wrote: post #24

> We have a deep and stable financial position that will help us grow and protect us from any storm, and the trust in our projects has never been higher. They earned 9 millions more than last year, from 120 millions to 129 millions, and spent 21 millions more, from 91 millions to 112 millions [1], with an increase of 10 millions in "awards and grants". The donations grew by 10 millions. If I read the financial statem…

That’s okay, if they go bankrupt, someone more competent could take over, and easily run Wikipedia on less than a tenth of their current budget. Look at their financials: Wikimedia Foundation is part jobs program, part grift.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#77

Post by xyzzyz »

leetcrew wrote: post #54
Zababa wrote: post #24

> We have a deep and stable financial position that will help us grow and protect us from any storm, and the trust in our projects has never been higher. They earned 9 millions more than last year, from 120 millions to 129 millions, and spent 21 millions more, from 91 millions to 112 millions [1], with an increase of 10 millions in "awards and grants". The donations grew by 10 millions. If I read the financial statem…

why did expenses rise by $21mm though? is the organization fortunate that donations rise fast enough to cover an annual increase in necessary spending, or does the spending grow as much as necessary to consume the donations? WMF spent $52mm in FY 2014-2015. it spent $112mm in FY 2019-2020. is the core project really twice as expensive to run as it was five years ago?

No, core project costs less than $5M/year to run. They spend more on processing donations (credit card fees etc) than they do on web hosting.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#78

Post by hinkley »

not2b wrote: post #28
Zababa wrote: post #24

> We have a deep and stable financial position that will help us grow and protect us from any storm, and the trust in our projects has never been higher. They earned 9 millions more than last year, from 120 millions to 129 millions, and spent 21 millions more, from 91 millions to 112 millions [1], with an increase of 10 millions in "awards and grants". The donations grew by 10 millions. If I read the financial statem…

Most nonprofits can't last long "if donations stop". Why would they stop? I give every year and so do many others.

I think you do have to ask yourself if the need for the charity can outlast its time in the sun.

The Red Cross needs to stay frosty all the time. They get money every time there’s a disaster, but the money to deal with the current disaster needs to have already been spent before the checks clear. If we haven’t had a big disaster in a while, we all know there’s one coming, because they always come, and when that shoe finally drops it might be huge. But donations are down because nothing is blowing up.

We still need Wikipedia even if someone cures cancer. Because you don’t cure cancer, you cure a cancer, the moment you’ve cured two or three, an avalanche of money will arrive to fix the others. Money that might have gone to something else like the Red Cross, WWF, PP, Wikipedia, or really all of the above.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#79

Post by nickff »

natex wrote: post #45
cwyers wrote: post #25

> For now, I want to share with you why I’m moving on, and what comes next. I read this twice just to make sure I didn't miss something, and I don't actually see a reason why.

> I read this twice just to make sure I didn't miss something, and I don't actually see a reason why. I don't actually see a reason why. (Stated right in the sixth paragraph.) I’m going to take a break, and a research fellowship, as a place to think about what’s next. It’s hard to think about your future when you’re fully in your present, and for the past seven years, I’ve been fully present for this movement. But as…

That's not really a reason why, it's the (vague) plan going forward.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#80

Post by nickpp »

Wikipedia may have been an amazing idea in the beginning. Then it got taken over by a bunch of entrenched editors more interested in their own power than the accuracy of the pages' information.

Today I can see mistakes and inaccurate info in every niche I am familiar with. Because of that, I cannot trust it on subjects I know nothing about. I tried contributing and fixing but nothing got through.

Even worse, the level of writing makes it almost impossible to comprehend. Articles are badly organized, unclear and explanations are missing or hard to understand. Again, any attempt to fix the form was rejected. Editors are much more interested in citations and levels of notability.

I gave up. I would gladly pay for an encyclopedia written by actual experts, I see a tremendous value in something like that, but alas the market was killed by the free Wikipedia.

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