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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

#191

Post by iudqnolq »

user3939382 wrote: post #110

I’ve come to see Wikipedia as the enemy in many cases, where its editorial policies, intentionally or not, result in entrenching corrupt establishment political narratives propagated by the White House, State Dept, corporate media, etc. I remember looking at the vote history where they decided The Greyzone (one of whose journalists was called to testify at the UN on their investigative journalism) wasn’t a “credible…

A single article by a "reliable source" is enough to include something in a Wikipedia article, because Wikipedia can't do primary research. Grayzone sometimes publishes articles by employees of the Russian government. One of those articles wouldn't be sufficiently reliable on its own, so Grayzone isn't a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes.

A UN committee is equipped to go beyond simply reciting what secondary sources say. It can conduct it's own research, and carefully compare different secondary sources. So it makes sense for them to want to hear from people that sometimes say interesting things but aren't always reliable.

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

#192

Post by esyir »

samsquire wrote: post #129
z0r wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate this kind of thinking being shared by someone who I recall from previous HN postings spends a lot of time thinking about how to give to charity effectively. I've been turned off from donating to Wikipedia for the better part of the last decade.

I think this kind of thinking is negative and an example of the free rider problem. Wikipedia provides a good service for the money it charges you. It doesn't charge you anything. The thing about free things is that they aren't really free, someone is paying for it and the people doing the work to keep Wikipedia online are the best skilled and placed and experienced to decide these kind of spending decisions, not peo…

For a charitable/non-profit organization, providing them with funding way above their needs is counterproductive. As seen with Wikipedia, in the presence of excess money, costs proceed to grow uncoupled to the progression of their core mission.

As charity funding is effectively a closed system, excessive contribution to Wikipedia is to the detriment of other charities, with minimal net benefit.

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

#193

Post by c4ptnjack »

zozbot234 wrote: post #86
jefftk wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

Redesigning the article editing UI is pretty darn important when the only thing that ensures the site stays up to date is attracting new editors to work on it. Nobody wants a dead Wikipedia with hopelessly obsolete and misleading information, even though it would be incredibly cheap to host. And the Wikipedia partner projects are just as important as Wikipedia itself to the broader ecosystem of open content and open…

I agree that growth of the editor base is essential to the continuation of Wikipedia, but are the consumers(as the people I presume donate the most, tho I might be totally wrong) not just as important?

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

#194

Post by user3939382 »

iudqnolq wrote: post #191
user3939382 wrote: post #110

I’ve come to see Wikipedia as the enemy in many cases, where its editorial policies, intentionally or not, result in entrenching corrupt establishment political narratives propagated by the White House, State Dept, corporate media, etc. I remember looking at the vote history where they decided The Greyzone (one of whose journalists was called to testify at the UN on their investigative journalism) wasn’t a “credible…

A single article by a "reliable source" is enough to include something in a Wikipedia article, because Wikipedia can't do primary research. Grayzone sometimes publishes articles by employees of the Russian government. One of those articles wouldn't be sufficiently reliable on its own, so Grayzone isn't a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes. A UN committee is equipped to go beyond simply reciting what secondary s…

Greyzone isn’t a reliable source because some Wikipedia editors voted they weren’t. I’m pointing out that the motivations of those participating in that are highly questionable to put it charitably.

I don’t know what “employees of the Russian government” you’re talking about (maybe RT articles?) but I’ve watched WaPo and NYT perpetually without criticism or follow up publish White House and State Dept. talking points.

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

#195

Post by c4ptnjack »

mcguire wrote: post #40
jefftk wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

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.

Im pretty sure a ton of people complain how Google spends their money, quite frequently. As well, one of the major complaints from people has nothing to do with their ad budget. It has to do with the fact they both host the marketplace for advertising and are a competitor in the same space. And they expert that market dominance by manipulating prices, perception, and their own products success.

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

#196

Post by bawolff »

fluoridation wrote: post #190
bawolff wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are paying 350k for a ceo, who is a manager of a manager of an ops manager. Which is way way below industry average.

Then when you said >But surely the managers of people who maintain those servers are part of the cost of maintaining those servers. you were raising an irrelevant point, because the salaries of the direct managers of the operations team is not what's under discussion here. They wouldn't need such a deep organizational structure if they weren't paying a bunch of people that take no part in running the site.

What do you think an appropriate number of people is to run the sixth most popular website in the world?

Even if you cut everyone doing software development (which would in itself probably cause a collapse since that is critical to keeping wikipedia running), cut all the lawyers (also pretty important), cut the trust and safety people, etc - you are still left with quite a lot of sysadmins, more than can reasonably be handled by a single manager.

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

#197

Post by from »

dbingham wrote: post #9

This 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…

There has been an explosion in expenses without any substantial improvement to the site or really anything that the people who actually use Wikipedia would notice. Is there any reason why they needed $50 million more dollars in 2021 than they needed in 2016? For the most part it’s still the same old Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wikitravel etc. And please don’t tell me making the new editor cost that much (many people are not fans of it either).

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

#198

Post by kotenshu »

orlp wrote: post #4

With the financial situation being how it is I, paradoxically, would currently consider donating to Wikipedia to be actively harmful to the future of Wikipedia. The larger its dragon hoard of money grows (which is already way beyond any sort of costs to keep up Wikipedia for decades), the larger the incentive for unscrupulous individuals to corrupt the Wikipedia mission to tap into this money for personal benefit. I…

Is it really true that their hoard is enough to keep the site running for decades? it seems their annual surplus is less than their annual expenses..

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

#199

Post by tuatoru »

esperent wrote: post #149
tuatoru wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want to recruit new editors, the most urgent thing to do is fix the existing editor clique's reputation for being neophobic, vituperative, and ad hominem. That's where money should be going.

Are you feeling vituperative because your edits got rejected for using obscure words?

I don't have a wikipedia account because of the reputation.

I can write using simpler language. It just doesn't come naturally--so perhaps, "re-write using simpler language" would be more correct. My apologies.

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

#200

Post by omnimus »

ryan_lane wrote: post #109
karencarits wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about twice the salary of the Nordic prime ministers (not combined though) as another point of reference

The executives don't live in Norway, they live in the bay area; hence my (relevant) particular point of reference.

Which seems to be pretty problematic.
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