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Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

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Re: Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

#61

Post by bmhin »

colechristensen wrote: post #38
toomuchtodo wrote: post #3

As of September 2021, the Wikimedia endowment stands at >$100 million. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/22/wikimedia-fo... (sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation )

It seems that this is approximately how much they spend each year and have ~500 staff. I like Wikipedia but does it really take that many people and that much money to run it? Having grown with startups from a very early stage to mid-stage, it seems pretty clear that 500 people never do 10x as much as 50 people, more like 2x if that. That much spend seems unsustainable long term.

There has been some concern about their inflating spending for a while. I'm honestly not well versed in if this is some potential disaster or problem like it can be made out to be, but it does seem like Wikimedia will generally find ways to spend money they get, whether it's a good use of the funds or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

Re: Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

#63

Post by Rebelgecko »

nameless912 wrote: post #35
avalys wrote: post #2

A nonprofit using tricks to get your attention as they ask for donations? Say it isn’t so! In other news, NPR pledge drives are so annoying .

But at least they're (mostly) honest? They take up some time, but they're clear about what's happening. The only "deceptive" practice they have is the two-for-one matching grants, which I'm dubious about whether they exist or not.

That sort of matching is real, but usually just a psychological trick to encourage people to donate more.

A foundation or rich person says "hey NPR we wanna give you $10 million" and NPR says "what if instead you match every donation we get dollar for dollar up to $10 million?". That way, they can encourage smaller donors while still getting the original $10 million.

Re: Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

#64

Post by tshaddox »

wly_cdgr wrote: post #7

Wikipedia is far and away the most valuable project the world has ever seen and this guy is complaining about donation emails?

Indeed, Wikipedia is so important that they absolutely should not be using scammy and spammy techniques to solicit donations.

Re: Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

#65

Post by mbauman »

nameless912 wrote: post #35
avalys wrote: post #2

A nonprofit using tricks to get your attention as they ask for donations? Say it isn’t so! In other news, NPR pledge drives are so annoying .

But at least they're (mostly) honest? They take up some time, but they're clear about what's happening. The only "deceptive" practice they have is the two-for-one matching grants, which I'm dubious about whether they exist or not.

The donation matches are typically not grants, but rather _other donors_ playing those games (surely in collaboration with NPR's development dept). They definitely exist.

Re: Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

#66

Post by BiteCode_dev »

colechristensen wrote: post #38
toomuchtodo wrote: post #3

As of September 2021, the Wikimedia endowment stands at >$100 million. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/22/wikimedia-fo... (sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation )

It seems that this is approximately how much they spend each year and have ~500 staff. I like Wikipedia but does it really take that many people and that much money to run it? Having grown with startups from a very early stage to mid-stage, it seems pretty clear that 500 people never do 10x as much as 50 people, more like 2x if that. That much spend seems unsustainable long term.

It's one of the most visited site on the planet, and people are constantly writting on it. It's on the same scale of facebook, youtube or twitter, activity wise.

And I wager those sites have more than 500 people working on them, for a lot more money. And they are for profit!

Re: Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

#67

Post by loeg »

andrewstuart wrote: post #56
toomuchtodo wrote: post #3

As of September 2021, the Wikimedia endowment stands at >$100 million. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/22/wikimedia-fo... (sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation )

That's not a lot of money in context.

It's quite a lot of money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

Re: Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

#68

Post by Aachen »

andrewstuart wrote: post #56
toomuchtodo wrote: post #3

As of September 2021, the Wikimedia endowment stands at >$100 million. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/22/wikimedia-fo... (sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation )

That's not a lot of money in context.

It's about as much money as Signal has. One of those two serves a lot more people though!

Re: Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

#69

Post by tshaddox »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #63
nameless912 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at least they're (mostly) honest? They take up some time, but they're clear about what's happening. The only "deceptive" practice they have is the two-for-one matching grants, which I'm dubious about whether they exist or not.

That sort of matching is real, but usually just a psychological trick to encourage people to donate more. A foundation or rich person says "hey NPR we wanna give you $10 million" and NPR says "what if instead you match every donation we get dollar for dollar up to $10 million?". That way, they can encourage smaller donors while still getting the original $10 million.

The important difference is what happens if they receive less than $10m from other donors.

Re: Jimmy Wales’ Final Email

#70

Post by ezoe »

It's common to all donation based non-profits groups and whether you like it or not, it works. Spamming donation request letters to the previous donors yields better outcome than not to do it.
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