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Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

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Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#111

Post by yupper32 »

akolbe wrote: post #100
JohnFen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. True, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that's a realistic hypothetical at all.

Some of the most expensive WMF execs have been complete disasters, exiting after a year or two and leaving the entire organisation in disarray.

Maybe they should spend more than $350k and find someone more competent.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#112

Post by bawolff »

fluoridation wrote: post #74
bawolff wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being envious of something doesn't make it cheaper. Most in-demand, skilled labour is much more pricey than what the average person makes.

You're answering a point no one made. It has nothing to do with "being envious". Imagine you were asked to donate to "keep the animal shelter open", and went you went there you found that they were using gold water dishes for the little critters. You would be within your right to complain. You thought you were donating to keep it operating, but now you find that they're using funds on frivolous expenses. Is there som…

> You're answering a point no one made. It has nothing to do with "being envious".

Then what is the relavence of saying "I guess you have to compare it to the salary of the donors who feel compelled ..."? The donors dont do work similar. The only reason i could possibly imagine bringing this up would be something to do with envy between the average person's salary vs the salary of a high skill position. If not that, what was this sentence trying to say?

> Is there something a $350k executive does that a minimum wage one

350k executives exist. Minimum wage one's don't.

Imagine you were donating to an animal shelter, but you discover that they spend more on dogfood than you do on feeding your family. You imagine the reason is that they are feeding the dogs caviar, but the real reason is it costs more to feed 150 dogs than it does to feed 4 people.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#113

Post by jefftk »

endisneigh wrote: post #99
jefftk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's a reasonable thing for them to work on, but not to fundraise for under the banner of "keep Wikipedia online".

Why not?

Because it doesn't contribute to Wikipedia remaining online.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#114

Post by tomrod »

yupper32 wrote: post #104
JohnFen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters because "normal" people are the ones paying those extravagant salaries in the end.

Those normal people should know that $350k is a steal.

Indeed.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#115

Post by bawolff »

akolbe wrote: post #76
bawolff wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being envious of something doesn't make it cheaper. Most in-demand, skilled labour is much more pricey than what the average person makes.

I honestly question the value added by these execs. The other day, you and I discussed some of the expensive C-Suite disasters Wikimedia has bought. They actually set Wikimedia back by years. Dozens of valuable, experienced staff left. And Wikipedia became a top-10 website in 2007, when there was no C-Suite. There seems to be little awareness these days that the main value of the site to the public was and is built a…

Whether or not a particular set of executives (who have all left at this point) are shit at their jobs is a totally different question to what is a reasonable salary for an executive.

As far as early days of wikipedia. I agree the community is what provides value. But at the same time i think there is a lot of rose coloured glasses for that era. I remember there being a lot of downtime and slowness on the site in that era.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#116

Post by jefftk »

dbingham wrote: post #105
jefftk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's a reasonable thing for them to work on, but not to fundraise for under the banner of "keep Wikipedia online".

I don't know. Here's where I start to break with some of the ways people are thinking about this. When you pay a fee to a website - do you question how they spend that money to this level of detail? Do you ask, I dunno, lets go with Slack, to break down their fee by how much of it is necessary to keep Slack online "as is"? I don't think I've ever seen someone do that. There's a level of entitlement that comes with do…

When I pay money for a service I compare the benefit I'm getting to the cost of the service and decide whether it's worth it. This works pretty well!

When I donate to a charity I compare the altruistic benefit my marginal contribution will produce to the amount I'm donating. This doesn't work very well, because it's really hard to estimate the benefit to society. But it still worth doing, because there are a lot of really valuable things that aren't going to be funded unless we put up our money.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#118

Post by leokennis »

I might be too simple of a person, but I donate €10 per year to Wikipedia which is nothing. In return, I get immediate access to a veritable wealth of accurate and up to date knowledge on more or less everything.

It’s such an amazingly great deal that I honestly think, who the F cares that they could have spent that money in a slightly more optimized way? Who cares that Jimmy Wales drives a BMW instead of a Volkswagen?

Who is the loser here? Do we really need to get this level of angry online because an already amazing situation isn’t perfect?

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#119

Post by akolbe »

leokennis wrote: post #118

I might be too simple of a person, but I donate €10 per year to Wikipedia which is nothing. In return, I get immediate access to a veritable wealth of accurate and up to date knowledge on more or less everything. It’s such an amazingly great deal that I honestly think, who the F cares that they could have spent that money in a slightly more optimized way? Who cares that Jimmy Wales drives a BMW instead of a Volkswage…

Arguably, Wikipedia is the loser, because you are rewarding a management mindset that thinks manipulating the public for financial gain is okay.

Wikipedia is the most widely read reference source on the planet. Wouldn't you rather it was stewarded by an organisation that was honest with the public?

There are other losers. This man, guilt-tripped into donating to Wikipedia when all he has is $18 to his name is a loser:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising/Archive_6#S...

Actually, that sounds wrong. He is a wonderful man, but one that really should not have been put in this invidious position.

What about her?

https://twitter.com/tizzie/status/1570095249044967424

There are other losers still. People in India and South Africa are scared into donating to Wikipedia by emails that raise the spectre of a subscription fee, or of Wikipedia blinking out of existence for lack of funds.

There are other charitable causes they could have donated to in their own country, rather than sending money to the US, money that might have saved lives in their own country, rather than added another treat to a US employee's benefits package.

Those are some of the "losers".

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#120

Post by antasvara »

dbingham wrote: post #105
jefftk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's a reasonable thing for them to work on, but not to fundraise for under the banner of "keep Wikipedia online".

I don't know. Here's where I start to break with some of the ways people are thinking about this. When you pay a fee to a website - do you question how they spend that money to this level of detail? Do you ask, I dunno, lets go with Slack, to break down their fee by how much of it is necessary to keep Slack online "as is"? I don't think I've ever seen someone do that. There's a level of entitlement that comes with do…

I certainly think it's reasonable to donate money without a breakdown of where it's going to go. I also think that the things that Wikipedia is doing are perfectly reasonable.

Where I have an issue (and I suspect many others do) is when Wikipedia phrases donation requests as "keeping the lights on" or something to that effect. I suspect there would be a lot less hate if the requests were phrased like "help Wikipedia grow" or something like that.

It's more of a framing issue than an issue with where money is being spent. If Slack was claiming that they needed my fee to "keep the lights on," I think most people would have issues with that language/framing.

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