Wikipedia is swimming in money–why is it begging people to donate? • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by fridek » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #269

jiofih wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The expenses for operating Wikipedia.com would be around $10m. Their $112M expenses include the sky high executive compensation, money sent to the fund, millions spent on fundraising itself, and financing a host of programs not directly related to Wikipedia. I stopped donating because of this - definitely want to contribute to keeping Wikipedia online, I don’t necessarily want to give my money to a larger foundation…

Wikipedia is not a dot-com. And their executive compensation is hardly "sky-high"; it amounts to a FAANG middle manager 's salary, for a positive impact on the world that's easily as high as that of any FAANG.

FWIW Wikimedia salaries linked by bomdo in reply are all topped by entry level from https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook,Amazon,Google&track...

At entry level you typically manage a two-pizzas sized team in one fairly limited domain. "Have this desk and a bunch of people, figure out how to run a worldwide wiki" would be a typical senior manager/director assignment (a.k.a. middle management).

If we set aside an argument about IT salaries fairness, I think people at Wikimedia deserve some thanks for taking a salary cut to undeniably make a difference on the world.

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

#442

Post by plutonorm » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

mratsim wrote: post #418

jiofih wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is a non-profit foundation. $374k is a pretty damn good salary for a foundation.

If you want to attract the best talents you also need sufficient benefits. A sense of purpose alone won't let you lodge in cities with high cost of living. If anything, I dare say running a non-profit usually requires a lot more skills, especially people skills and passion than a tech job. I'm not sure how it is in the US but in Europe there is this sense of entitlement when you talk to people that because you work a…

What do they have to do? Their only job is to keep the servers running. Everything else is a task they invented for themselves to earn more money.

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

#443

Post by malka » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #436

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who worked in a sandwich shop to survive while going to college($7.5/hr, 30 hrs/week), I can't imagine the universe some people live in where an income of $375,000 doesn't seem sky high. It's like there is a section of people who live in a different world. I understand that it isn't much for an executive, but then that stuns me even more. Edit: median US salary is around $70k. This executive's pay is over…

It's not high for a software engineer in California.

And I do not see a good reason to give money to a fundation so it can pay such high wages, because California.

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

#444

Post by ascar » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

NoOneNew wrote: post #314

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who worked in a sandwich shop to survive while going to college($7.5/hr, 30 hrs/week), I can't imagine the universe some people live in where an income of $375,000 doesn't seem sky high. It's like there is a section of people who live in a different world. I understand that it isn't much for an executive, but then that stuns me even more. Edit: median US salary is around $70k. This executive's pay is over…

I survived by doing landscaping and construction labor. You really know you're earning your nickels and dimes in the Florida summers when you work those jobs. Imaging a universe where people make $500k+ is pretty easy. I mean, let's be serious for just a minute. This is a tech focused community. Programming, IT, computer science, you didnt really get into this line of work because of the glamour, the guaranteed spot…

There definitely are a lot of people moving into computer science for the money, but there are also many people doing it because they enjoy solving the problems. I would argue the people who deserve the high salaries, the "10x" engineers, are more often the latter than the former and the rest just gets dragged along.

Personally I recently quit my high paying industry job and moved to an engineering heavy PhD position (HPC), because I enjoy solving complex problems.

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

#445

Post by jmkb » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #326

zozbot234 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is not a dot-com. And their executive compensation is hardly "sky-high"; it amounts to a FAANG middle manager 's salary, for a positive impact on the world that's easily as high as that of any FAANG.

Who decides of the compensation?

The last person to edit the page, of course! ;)

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

#446

Post by furi » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

clusterfish wrote: post #365

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…

Lemme know when you've outcompeted a free product advertised on Google home page that Google considers a strategic priority, then I'll listen to everything you have to say about how it's Mozilla's mismanagement that caused the decline of Firefox. Once Chrome was a priority for Google, Firefox stood no chance no matter the funding.

You misunderstand me. I don't think Mozilla's mismanagement was responsible for Firefox's decline in market share, although it probably can't have helped. My concern is that now that that decline has happened, for one reason or another, Mozilla's mismanagement of their finances means the entire existence of Firefox is at risk, along with the seat at the web standards table that it represents.

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

#447

Post by reader_mode » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

iSnow wrote: post #426

reader_mode wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe that nets you about 50-60% after mandatory pension, health insurance and income tax. You listed net incomes. 6.7 gross will be >4k net And slap 20-25% VAT on top. That money is really not that much, a generalist MD would make that for eg.

I specifically linked to gross income, it's 5882 EUR/m in Switzerland according to Wikipedia, or 70.5K EUR annually. Germany is 48k EUR gross, around 30k net.

Sorry it scrolled up for me.

To be considered sky high in my book you need to be actually rich - able to afford luxuries such as own a luxury home, driving a premium car, be able to rent a yacht for a vacation - you need to be making >150k for your income to be noteworthy, otherwise you're just doing well off - higher middle class.

Sorry but there's nothing sky high about earning 80k EUR per year and living in London, Zurich, Oslo, Amsterdam, Munich, etc. you barely stand out, especially if you socialise with other college educated workers, you're probably the norm or below it for career people.

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

#448

Post by haliskerbas » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #269

jiofih wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The expenses for operating Wikipedia.com would be around $10m. Their $112M expenses include the sky high executive compensation, money sent to the fund, millions spent on fundraising itself, and financing a host of programs not directly related to Wikipedia. I stopped donating because of this - definitely want to contribute to keeping Wikipedia online, I don’t necessarily want to give my money to a larger foundation…

Wikipedia is not a dot-com. And their executive compensation is hardly "sky-high"; it amounts to a FAANG middle manager 's salary, for a positive impact on the world that's easily as high as that of any FAANG.

The list linked by a sibling seems to top out at mid 300s, many FAANG ~2 YoE SWE make around that much.

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

#449

Post by strken » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

NoOneNew wrote: post #314

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who worked in a sandwich shop to survive while going to college($7.5/hr, 30 hrs/week), I can't imagine the universe some people live in where an income of $375,000 doesn't seem sky high. It's like there is a section of people who live in a different world. I understand that it isn't much for an executive, but then that stuns me even more. Edit: median US salary is around $70k. This executive's pay is over…

I survived by doing landscaping and construction labor. You really know you're earning your nickels and dimes in the Florida summers when you work those jobs. Imaging a universe where people make $500k+ is pretty easy. I mean, let's be serious for just a minute. This is a tech focused community. Programming, IT, computer science, you didnt really get into this line of work because of the glamour, the guaranteed spot…

I used to write computer programs on the toilet when I was in primary school, using an old thinkpad my dad got for cheap when his work upgraded to newer models, and a $5 copy of vba5 from a garage sale. My pride and joy was a reader I built for my downloaded webcomics collection, which I coloured lime green in a rebellion against all known UX principles. At some point someone gave me $10 for making a bootable cdrom that opened a webpage, back when computers executed arbitrary code when you inserted external media, but until university that was the full extent of my income.

I got into this line of work because it's fun. It's still fun. If I didn't get paid I'd do it for free, although "it" would be lime green hobby projects rather than the productive and tasteful work people employ me to do.

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

#450

Post by x3ro » Mon, May 31, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

reader_mode wrote: post #370

bluescrn wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still sky-high to most of the world outside the US

Not true at all, most Western Europe 100k$ (80k EUR) is barely above average, you'd still be firmly middle class even on two such incomes, sky high would be at least twice that much.

This is absolute bogus. Here's [1] data from 2019. With about 3500 Euros net income (works out to about 75k before tax if you're single) You're in the top 10% _of all households_. With two times that (so two e.g. a household of two people earning 80k) you'd be in the top 1%.

[1]: https://www.iwkoeln.de/fileadmin/user_upload/HTML/2019/einko...

PS: Data is for Germany.