Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
31–40 of 252 posts
Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have an "$111 million operating budget", but that's because they've decided to spend money on lots of things other than "serve Wikipedia": https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe... Note that "Direct support to websites" includes things like designing and implementing more intuitive article editing UI, which while potentially worth it isn't the kind of "obviously we must do this" that keepin…
From your link: 25% overhead doesn’t really seem that bad? If those numbers are accurate, 75c of every dollar goes directly to hosting, development, and community support (things like grants and legal aid for editors). That’s probably on par if not better than most nonprofits.
The important thing isn't how much of a project is "overhead", it's what you get for your donation. A project distributing lollypops might have 5% overhead, but I would still prefer to donate to one that distributed vaccines with 30% overhead.
In this case their program expenses are a mix of incredibly valuable things ("keep wikipedia online") and more borderline things ("redesigning the article editing UI"). When their fundraising talks about the former as if it's what the marginal dollar will be spent on, that's pretty misleading.
(I don't think this marketing is unusually misleading for a non-profit, and likely better than average; the bar for honesty in fundraising is depressingly low.)
Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have an "$111 million operating budget", but that's because they've decided to spend money on lots of things other than "serve Wikipedia": https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe... Note that "Direct support to websites" includes things like designing and implementing more intuitive article editing UI, which while potentially worth it isn't the kind of "obviously we must do this" that keepin…
From your link: 25% overhead doesn’t really seem that bad? If those numbers are accurate, 75c of every dollar goes directly to hosting, development, and community support (things like grants and legal aid for editors). That’s probably on par if not better than most nonprofits.
Have you noticed any actual development on Wikipedia? Only thing that changes from the user perspective is that the donation request get more and more annoying every year.
Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
#34I don't understand the point of this tweet. Is this a bad thing? If this is a bad thing, why?
The point is lots of people (including myself until about a year ago) were under the impression that Wikipedia was on the verge of bankruptcy, and would likely either stop existing or be purchased by Microsoft or Google if it wasn't for our donations, so I gave every time they asked. Learning that they are swimming in money makes us seem like we've been fooled.
Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
From your link: 25% overhead doesn’t really seem that bad? If those numbers are accurate, 75c of every dollar goes directly to hosting, development, and community support (things like grants and legal aid for editors). That’s probably on par if not better than most nonprofits.
Have you noticed any actual development on Wikipedia? Only thing that changes from the user perspective is that the donation request get more and more annoying every year.
I noticed the new editor. I can't say I'm a huge fan of it, but I did notice it.
I don't know how long ago they added the hover infoboxes, but I also noticed those. But that's a relatively small feature, at least from my perspective.
Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
From your link: 25% overhead doesn’t really seem that bad? If those numbers are accurate, 75c of every dollar goes directly to hosting, development, and community support (things like grants and legal aid for editors). That’s probably on par if not better than most nonprofits.
Have you noticed any actual development on Wikipedia? Only thing that changes from the user perspective is that the donation request get more and more annoying every year.
wikimedia labs built a world-class setup with many new services and tech, for one example
Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
#37The Wikimedia foundation has a ton of money, the constant badgering is a bit much. I got turned off by Jimmy Wales early on and swore I’d never give a dime to Wikipedia.
Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
From your link: 25% overhead doesn’t really seem that bad? If those numbers are accurate, 75c of every dollar goes directly to hosting, development, and community support (things like grants and legal aid for editors). That’s probably on par if not better than most nonprofits.
The important thing isn't how much of a project is "overhead", it's what you get for your donation. A project distributing lollypops might have 5% overhead, but I would still prefer to donate to one that distributed vaccines with 30% overhead. In this case their program expenses are a mix of incredibly valuable things ("keep wikipedia online") and more borderline things ("redesigning the article editing UI"). When th…
> and more borderline things ("redesigning the article editing UI")
You keep harping on this, but improving the article editing UI seems like an absolutely valuable thing for wikipedia to invest in. Retaining existing and attracting new contributors is essential to wikipedia's future, and the editing experience is an essential part of that.
Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
$350k salaries _are_ lavish, though. It seems strange to me that people would argue otherwise.
It may be lavish, but if an executive paid $350k is 35% less likely to make a mistake that would cost the organisation $1m (which is about 1% of their budget), compared to a volunteer working for free, then maybe, from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap. Of course, judging performance like that is very difficult, and predicting it in advance is even harder, so it's possible that the highly pai…
> from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap
But from any normal person's perspective, it's expensive.
The difference is who is in control and what are their priorities and influences. Since "the organization" is making the decisions - and, completely incidentally, "the CEO" is the head of "the organization" - it just so happens that "the organization" finds that "the CEO" should be paid lavishly.
Rich people gonna prioritize rich people.
Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved
#40This is an extremely misleading take. Wikipedia had a really good year in 20-21, their most recent financial report. They took in $162 million, against an $111 million operating budget, and came out of the year with $240 million in assets.[1] So they had about half a year's surplus, and wound up with ~2 years worth of savings. And yes, that's a simplification, a good chunk of those assets are necessary to continue op…
They have an "$111 million operating budget", but that's because they've decided to spend money on lots of things other than "serve Wikipedia": https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe... Note that "Direct support to websites" includes things like designing and implementing more intuitive article editing UI, which while potentially worth it isn't the kind of "obviously we must do this" that keepin…
Google had a 2021 operating cash flow of $92B, and they've decided to spend money on lots of things that aren't "serving ads". And yet nobody complains.