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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?

#541

Post by xtat »

jiofih wrote: post #260
paxys wrote: post #75

> But keeping Wikipedia online is a task that the WMF could comfortably manage on $10 million a year This part is disingenuous and bordering on malicious. The linked email ( https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-March... ) has so much more nuance, and in typical fashion a single number from it is taken completely out of context to push a certain narrative. It is also an estimate from almost a decade…

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…

I just took a look and laughed-- you think $200-300k for an exec is _high_ ???

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

#542

Post by CRConrad »

mratsim wrote: post #420
corty wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay 100kEUR to a European and get a top 10% developer, or you can pay 100kEUR in the US and get a mediocre one.

In Europe healthcare doesn't eat your salary like in the US.

So why should Wikipedia supporters donate to wildly overpriced American healthcare?

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

#544

Post by CRConrad »

kaba0 wrote: post #364
sorenjan wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That comparison was aimed at the average salary of ~120k for all employees. And maybe there's a middle ground between moving everyone to Thailand and having a non profit operating on donated money based in the most expensive area in the world?

If an existing talent-pool is located there, why exactly should they move? Is a small inefficiency a failing of a non-profit? No company is a perfectly efficient profit-making machine (even though for-profits like to drop morals for profit), why are we feeling tricked by a non-profit wasting some negligible percentage of donations, especially that 100% efficiency is frankly impossible?

"A small inefficiency"?!?

They're paying two to three times as much as they would have to pay anywhere else. That's not a "small" inefficiency, it's a pretty huge one.

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

#545

Post by CRConrad »

humanlion87 wrote: post #343
sorenjan wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average software developer salary in Germany is €50 000 per year, just to take one western country as an example. I doubt Wikipedia would be much worse with European developers. American IT salaries are not the norm, and they're a bit insane. When your budget consists of donations, I think it's disrespectful to spend it on frivolous things like San Francisco salaries. The average programmer salary in Sweden is $5…

If the employees/CEO live in San Francisco I don't think paying them European salaries will be fair right? They wouldn't be able to afford rent with ~50k range salary. I think your argument makes sense if Wikipedia had been founded/has their HQ in Germany and was paying San Francisco salaries with their donations.

What's to say an online encyclopaedia has to be run from San Francisco?

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

#546

Post by CRConrad »

soco wrote: post #285
saurik wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, get this: I agree! As someone who studies linguistics, I find Wiktionary really useful... and yet , it frankly isn't what any of the people who are donating to Wikipedia think their money is being used on, given the banner on their site. It is unethical to ask for money to run Wikipedia and then spend that money on other projects, no matter how useful they might be. If you want to do that, the banner should say…

I cannot tell what the banner shows in your region, but what I see right now in front of me says "Your donation allows billions of people to access important information on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia platforms every day.".

That should arguably be only "other Wikimedia platforms"; no mention of Wikipedia at all, since that is more than covered already. So mentioning WP even before the others seems way different from what the GP said.

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

#548

Post by GuB-42 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #398
mistrial9 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

naw - I took three paragraphs of an important but obscure 20th century news event, rewrote using 8th grade English principles for clarity and order of facts, specifically and purposefully not changing any statement in the content, and it was immediately reverted with no recourse. The original was demonstrably awful writing -- total gatekeeping.

Rewriting whole paragraphs for clarity is very much the kind of thing that should be discussed on the talk page. That's why the feature exists.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold

Wikipedia recommends doing things, not talking.

Articles are also graded, I don't know what article GP is talking about but I'd say anything below "good article" is fair game.

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

#549

Post by GuB-42 »

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

Rust was supposed to be the basis of servo, a truly awesome engine that should have been under the hood of Firefox long ago. That should have been the best thing to come out of Mozilla.

We got some of it: the Rust language and Quantum. I would say the only two good things that Mozilla did in the last 10 years.

Finally, in 2020, the Servo and Rust team got the recognition they deserved, they got laid off...

It is almost like the old joke with the rower, where on a boat race, a team of eight people rowing and one steering beats a team with one person rowing and 8 steering. The losing team change its structure, now with a complex hierarchy but still a single rower, who eventually gets fired.

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

#550

Post by MonkeyClub »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #467
MonkeyClub wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, but US IT salaries are very easy to understand! They're too high, though not high enough. We've become the new priesthood. People who complain that sacrificing one calf to us each year would do well to be reminded that we're not demanding one child per year.

https://www.amazon.com/Priests-Programmers-Technologies-Engi...

Spot on!
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