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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?

#451

Post by furi »

kubb wrote: post #177
furi wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust is definitely a significant and important project. That said, Firefox's peak market share was a little over 30% of desktop browsers (in 2009 so they weren't yet a sideshow), while Rust isn't even currently in the TIOBE Index top 20 (can't find any easy way to see a peak position sadly). More importantly though, we have other Rusts. Rust has half a dozen competitors and essentially nobody thinks that making a rob…

Could you name these six Rust competitors please?

I'm thinking of Crystal, Nim, Zig, Odin and (ignoring that the topic at hand is avoiding Google having unnecessary control over things) Go. I'm aware they may not share Rust's exact feature set; Crystal is the only one I've used, including Rust itself. That comment was intended to illustrate that this is a field where attempts are made regularly and manage to achieve some measure of success, relative to browser rendering engines where I am only aware of a single (proprietary, incomplete) attempt in recent years: Flow.

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

#452

Post by benhurmarcel »

reader_mode wrote: post #440
benhurmarcel wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A junior engineer (with a Masters) in most of western Europe makes 30-40k€/year before taxes. After 10 years, he'll make 50-70k€/year.

If you have a masters, >3 years of experience and aren't making 50-70k in Wester Europe, you either don't put emphasis on your career, or you need to switch jobs and work on your negotiation skills.

In Germany and Scandinavia maybe. In France, Spain, Italy, etc, this is normal.

For example here [1] you can see some reliable statistics for France, see page 2 (it's in French but the plots are easy to understand). The median salary (annual before taxes) when starting is 35k€, and roughly increases by 1800€/year. So it only reaches 40k€ after 3 years. It reaches 50k€ after 8 years only.

Also all engineers have Masters in continental Europe. You can't be an engineer without one. It's nothing special.

[1] https://www.iesf.fr/offres/doc_inline_src/752/IESF_Synthese_...

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

#453

Post by PragmaticPulp »

nlitened wrote: post #294
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…

On the same HN front page there has _just_ been a "senior developer drunk post", where a guy was complaining that full stack developers are being paid peanuts, and they deserve a compensation of at least 500k USD—and the comments were cheering "amen to that". I don't understand anything about US IT salaries anymore.

The $500K developer trope is getting out of control. The truth is that there are a small number of companies in a small number of locations paying those high salaries to a small number of highly talented developers. Once you enter that bubble it can feel like everyone around you is earning the same amount and therefore you can’t understand why everyone else in the US isn’t doing the exact same thing.

In reality, the number of developers making $500K is relatively small. Even in California, the median developer compensation is a fraction of that. FAANG companies can have admission rates that are more selective than Ivy League universities, and they don’t even hire in most cities in the US.

This causes a lot of compensation confusion and anxiety for young people who grow up reading HN comments and snarky Reddit posts when their first job offers don’t come anywhere near the $300K to $500K range that they read about online. It also causes a lot of grief for developers who think they’re overworked and underpaid because it seems like everyone on HN casually acts like $500K is the going rate for being able to spin up a React project.

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

#454

Post by potamic »

bomdo wrote: post #278
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.

For others interested in this, Wikimedia salaries are all public [0]. [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie...

Chief of Community Engagement

Chief Community Officer

Chief Talent and Culture Officer

Chargée d'affaires

Chief Global Development Officer

Chief Creative Officer

Chief Communications Officer

Chief Revenue Officer

VP of Strategic Partnerships

55 million USD in annual salary expenses seems a bit high, even more so for a non-profit. I have seen startup unicorns spend less on salaries. I think there really needs to be some scrutiny into how funding is being spent.

Looking at the list of execs there I really have to question what role they play and how their compensation is justified. It's not just their individual salary either. At their level they have entire organizational hierarchies working under them and the collective salaries can add up. What precisely are they contributing to the movement?

I can't imagine the kind of things Wikipedia needs to do that needs such roles. These guys should be focusing on product and tech primarily. They have a solid product which hasn't changed in years and a strong brand. They have a singularly unique and special thing in this world and need to protect it as sacred. They need to focus on maintaining and scaling this system for eternity instead of experimenting and branching offshoots into community engagement, strategic partnerships, ambassadoring and all that crap.

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

#455

Post by drdavid »

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.

I like how y'all are arguing over what a vague term actually means. "Sky high" isn't actually anything specific and it's rather relative. Reading through the thread, almost everyone has their own definition for 'sky high'.

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

#456

Post by malka »

plutonorm wrote: post #442
mratsim wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

beg to us every year.

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

#457

Post by heavyset_go »

MaKey wrote: post #381
reader_mode wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What? In Germany an income of 80k EUR will put you into the top 10% of all earners, so you will be upper class. Especially on two such incomes.

> In Germany an income of 80k EUR will put you into the top 10% of all earners, so you will be upper class.

Upper middle class maybe. People in the upper class don't need to work.

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

#458

Post by reader_mode »

x3ro wrote: post #450
reader_mode wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure 100k is a lot in rural Alabama as well. How about giving numbers for say Munich[1] ?

> Also from the diagram, 75% of the population are earning less than 10,400 EUR while 25% are earning more than 10,400 EUR.

If 25% of the city is making more money than you you are not rich by any definition.

I have friends living in Munich, friend is a SW engineer, makes 75k, his wife has her own business so I'm not sure how much she makes, they are very much middle class lifestyle and can't afford to live in the wealthy areas.

Sorry to burst your bubble but you're not rich if you make 80k/year, you're just (maybe upper) middle class, even in EU.

[1] http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=982&loct....

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

#459

Post by x3ro »

reader_mode wrote: post #458
x3ro wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure 100k is a lot in rural Alabama as well. How about giving numbers for say Munich[1] ? > Also from the diagram, 75% of the population are earning less than 10,400 EUR while 25% are earning more than 10,400 EUR. If 25% of the city is making more money than you you are not rich by any definition. I have friends living in Munich, friend is a SW engineer, makes 75k, his wife has her own business so I'm not sure ho…

I personally live in Hamburg, one of the most expensive cities in Germany, and I've yet to see a developer salary above 90k. Juniors enter around 40k, seniors get around 60-90k depending on experience. That's not to say that salaries beyond 100k don't exist, but they're extremely rare.

Edit: Also it's completely unclear to me how this point relates to your initial gross misrepresentation of compensation in western Europe.

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

#460

Post by reader_mode »

x3ro wrote: post #459
reader_mode wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure 100k is a lot in rural Alabama as well. How about giving numbers for say Munich[1] ? > Also from the diagram, 75% of the population are earning less than 10,400 EUR while 25% are earning more than 10,400 EUR. If 25% of the city is making more money than you you are not rich by any definition. I have friends living in Munich, friend is a SW engineer, makes 75k, his wife has her own business so I'm not sure ho…

I personally live in Hamburg, one of the most expensive cities in Germany, and I've yet to see a developer salary above 90k. Juniors enter around 40k, seniors get around 60-90k depending on experience. That's not to say that salaries beyond 100k don't exist, but they're extremely rare. Edit: Also it's completely unclear to me how this point relates to your initial gross misrepresentation of compensation in western Eu…

What's my gross misrepresentation ? I said making 80k is not noteworthy at all (we are discussing CEO/exec compensation here not casheer salaries), you just agreed with me.

OP suggested that 100k$/year not being noteworthy is a uniquely SV/US thing - it is not. Any place worth living in Europe will take that much to live comfortably (note. 100k USD = 80k EUR)

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