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Wikipedia is swimming in money–why is it begging people to donate?

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Re: Wikipedia is swimming in money–why is it begging people to donate?

#61

Post by mnouquet »

teruakohatu wrote: post #4

I think why it needs to start selling data services should also be asked. At the very least everyone should have equal access to Wikipedia. Using "Big Tech" as an excuse to charge is not relevant in my humble opinion. https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-finally-asking-big-tec... Edit: I would like to add that I think the Wikipedia Enterprise is not about big tech as Wikimedia suggest, but selling real-time streams…

> At the very least everyone should have equal access to Wikipedia

Google & co are very clearly monetizing (either directly or indirectly) their integration, WMF might as well get something out of it.

Though, this discussion might be going the "BSD vs GPL" direction...

Re: Wikipedia is swimming in money–why is it begging people to donate?

#62

Post by bostonsre »

ramraj07 wrote: post #31
zozbot234 wrote: post #21

Let's be clear about this, the donation money isn't just used to keep the encyclopedia online. They have hundreds of language versions of Wikipedia itself, and many related "sister" projects, with perhaps the most clearly impacting being Wikimedia Commons (a huge repository of free-content media with a focus on educational use - including much media in the public domain) and Wikidata (a project that has now emerged a…

Let’s be clear, the article does mention the size of the org and some salaries, but it’s clear it’s main premise is the outrageous amount of money they have already amassed and still hiding it in their messaging to make more. It doesn’t matter if they have big plans, the way they ask for money doesn’t say that it says they can’t survive without my 10 bucks which is disgusting. I’d rather be shown ads than this.

Short term it does kind of look like they have now money than they need and it may seem a little disingenuous, but I'm not sure that they amassing a large pool of money to ensure for their survival for the long term is all bad. They provide an invaluable tool to the world that allows anyone from anywhere to easily learn about anything. I would say that they are doing a great service to the world by ensuring their existence in perpetuity and that only focusing on securing funding for the short term would be incredibly short sighted and negligent.

Re: Wikipedia is swimming in money–why is it begging people to donate?

#64

Post by mavhc »

bongoman37 wrote: post #26
jonahbenton wrote: post #14

Ridiculous question and even more ridiculous factoids. The assumption that operating as a non-profit implies an entity should stop asking its audience for help advancing the mission, or that it should pay its necessary staff less than competitive wages...please. Give wikipedia more so they can take on the MUCH more well-endowed and entirely opaque private capital taking over nearly every other information outlet in t…

I've donated to Wikipedia and contributed content as well but now I've decided not to anymore for the time being. Any kind of controversial article is decided more by the amount of time which side has to push their agenda rather than any kind of objective Neutral Point of View. There is a lot of astroturfing as well.

But the arguments and the edit history are public.

Better than any other site where the pov is decided by who has the most money

Re: Wikipedia is swimming in money–why is it begging people to donate?

#66

Post by bawolff »

dannyw wrote: post #57
bawolff wrote: post #15

This seems to be about the endowment - That's not the same as normal donations, and they can't just "use it", they can basically only use the interest of that money, from what i understand. Disclaimer: Used to work for wikimedia, once upon a time, don't anymore.

The article mentions both the endowment ($100M) and also WMF's funds on hand ($300M?). So the main point is still valid. Wikipedia's fundraising strongly implies that they need your $3 to keep the site online. WMF has $400M which would be enough to keep the site online for up to 40 years with no further donations. Thus, their fundraising is misleading and deceptive. I bet 9 in 10 donators won't donate if they knew WM…

I think you have those numbers reversed. According to the article (I presume its accurate), the endowment total is $300M [including funds from multiple years], and the fundraising total so far this fiscal year is $142M (I assume that's gross, fundraising has costs).

The majority of Wikimedia's money goes to software development, not keeping the lights on. I think there are definitely reasonable criticisms that could be made about WMF's priorities and efficiencies (Not to mention how its situation is conveyed in the fundraising campaign), but I struggle to see a world where WMF spends the absolute bare minimum to keep the lights on, with no further funding to new software development, and Wikipedia is still a success.

Disclaimer: used to work there, don't anymore.

Re: Wikipedia is swimming in money–why is it begging people to donate?

#67

Post by Negitivefrags »

zozbot234 wrote: post #21

Let's be clear about this, the donation money isn't just used to keep the encyclopedia online. They have hundreds of language versions of Wikipedia itself, and many related "sister" projects, with perhaps the most clearly impacting being Wikimedia Commons (a huge repository of free-content media with a focus on educational use - including much media in the public domain) and Wikidata (a project that has now emerged a…

> Let's be clear about this, the donation money isn't just used to keep the encyclopedia online.

This is the very source of the complaint though. People want to donate to fund the thing they actually use, not a bunch of other arbitrary projects they don’t care about.

I mean take a look at the donation page under “Where your donation goes”.

It does technically mention a “wide variety of projects” but the whole thing is written to make you feel like you are donating to the encyclopedia that is barely scraping by. And it certainly doesn’t mention anything about an endowment.

Re: Wikipedia is swimming in money–why is it begging people to donate?

#68

Post by influx »

zozbot234 wrote: post #60
furi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we've already seen this pan out once. Mozilla received a large payment from Google for many years for making Google Search the primary search engine in Firefox. They used that money to pay large salaries, launch a dozen side projects (none of which ever achieved anything like the success of Firefox) and aim for lofty goals much like Wikimedia is doing here. Now the money's drying up (because Firefox's mar…

> none of which ever achieved anything like the success of Firefox Hi, let me introduce you to this weird newfangled language called Rust... /s

How much are they bringing into Mozilla with that?
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