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Wikipedia is not short on cash

unherd.com

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Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#31

Post by rany_ »

rippercushions wrote: post #21

Eh. If you don't want to donate, don't, but I don't quite get the outrage here. The Wikimedia Foundation is still small as far as charities go and is visibly making Wikipedia better: the new UI is a breath of fresh air, and given the insane complexity of MediaWiki markup, the visual editor is a piece of unimaginable technical wizardry. Wiktionary is an unheralded gem and even Wikidata is starting to be genuinely usef…

I don't get the outrage either. It's almost like people want Wikipedia to be barely scrapping by which isn't good. Having some money in your reserves is fine.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#33

Post by mschuster91 »

akolbe wrote: post #16
mschuster91 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like dealing with IRS bureaucracy is the reason why the endowment is not a separate legal entity yet [1]. [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Endowment/Updates/...

Correct, the application is pending. However, the application was made years later than originally promised. Over the past six-and-a-half years, the endowment has accumulated over $100 million, with not a single audited financial statement ever published .

Is that necessary (or even legally possible) as long as Tides itself passes its financial audits and files appropriate documentation?

(Note, I don't have any stakes in that debate, besides occasionally uploading drone photography to Commons)

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#34

Post by forgotpwd16 »

rippercushions wrote: post #21

Eh. If you don't want to donate, don't, but I don't quite get the outrage here. The Wikimedia Foundation is still small as far as charities go and is visibly making Wikipedia better: the new UI is a breath of fresh air, and given the insane complexity of MediaWiki markup, the visual editor is a piece of unimaginable technical wizardry. Wiktionary is an unheralded gem and even Wikidata is starting to be genuinely usef…

Wikisource is also nice functioning as a public library. For reference Wikiquote may also be useful.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#35

Post by deepstack »

akolbe wrote: post #7
wnkrshm wrote: post #5

Any time they ask for donations, I donate to archive.org instead.

A very good choice, because the Internet Archive is financially far less secure than the Wikimedia Foundation and provides a vital service, by archiving Wikipedia sources before they go offline. This makes sure you can still see in five years' time what someone has cited in an article. They also pay their executives far less.

what about archive.vn ?

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#36

Post by noduerme »

A paltry few hundred million $ in the war chest is nothing to keep open a site mainly devoted to coordinating established facts in an information landscape otherwise controlled by state actors.

And I would, and I did, contribute to Wikipedia.

Until it became clear to me that they'd allowed antisemitic, anti-Israeli politics to warp their articles about things like the Holocaust, the 6-day war or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the point that no neophyte could get a neutral recitation of facts, but would be confronted with an enormously racist and biased perspective at every step.

Essentially, they became like the UN general assembly. A body pretending to represent free speech and human rights that's stuffed with illiberal violators of human rights. And I don't need to contribute to that, or even care if it exists.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#37

Post by cwillu »

threatofrain wrote: post #26
rippercushions wrote: post #21

Eh. If you don't want to donate, don't, but I don't quite get the outrage here. The Wikimedia Foundation is still small as far as charities go and is visibly making Wikipedia better: the new UI is a breath of fresh air, and given the insane complexity of MediaWiki markup, the visual editor is a piece of unimaginable technical wizardry. Wiktionary is an unheralded gem and even Wikidata is starting to be genuinely usef…

I'd also add that while arguments that Wikipedia is bloated beyond their mission is worthy of discussion, saying that Wikipedia should only be funding their current site is too narrow. I think Wikipedia should be able to pursue projects such as their wiki textbooks idea (which was ultimately a failure, but still worth trying).

It's fine to pursue projects outside the core mandate, but don't do it with money you were given under the pretense that the core mandate was at risk.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#38

Post by Mindwipe »

threatofrain wrote: post #26
rippercushions wrote: post #21

Eh. If you don't want to donate, don't, but I don't quite get the outrage here. The Wikimedia Foundation is still small as far as charities go and is visibly making Wikipedia better: the new UI is a breath of fresh air, and given the insane complexity of MediaWiki markup, the visual editor is a piece of unimaginable technical wizardry. Wiktionary is an unheralded gem and even Wikidata is starting to be genuinely usef…

I'd also add that while arguments that Wikipedia is bloated beyond their mission is worthy of discussion, saying that Wikipedia should only be funding their current site is too narrow. I think Wikipedia should be able to pursue projects such as their wiki textbooks idea (which was ultimately a failure, but still worth trying).

I think that's fair enough, but there's also a reasonable criticism that they are a) not being straight about that ambition in their fundraising efforts and b) some of their projects are significantly more political than textbooks.

And trust me, agreeing with Unherd about anything does not sit naturally to me.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#39

Post by Mindwipe »

akolbe wrote: post #7
wnkrshm wrote: post #5

Any time they ask for donations, I donate to archive.org instead.

A very good choice, because the Internet Archive is financially far less secure than the Wikimedia Foundation and provides a vital service, by archiving Wikipedia sources before they go offline. This makes sure you can still see in five years' time what someone has cited in an article. They also pay their executives far less.

> A very good choice, because the Internet Archive is financially far less secure than the Wikimedia Foundation

That's at least in part because the IA board are idiots however.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#40

Post by magicalhippo »

akolbe wrote: post #28
rippercushions wrote: post #21

Eh. If you don't want to donate, don't, but I don't quite get the outrage here. The Wikimedia Foundation is still small as far as charities go and is visibly making Wikipedia better: the new UI is a breath of fresh air, and given the insane complexity of MediaWiki markup, the visual editor is a piece of unimaginable technical wizardry. Wiktionary is an unheralded gem and even Wikidata is starting to be genuinely usef…

The issue is that they make it sound like they are struggling to have enough money to keep Wikipedia running when they are actually wealthier than ever before. The whole premise of Wikipedia (or aspiration, at least, and yes, not always fulfilled ...) is that people should have information so they can't be manipulated. It kind of sucks to see the very organisation hosting the site do the opposite, don't you think?

Indeed, it's highly manipulative. Wikimedia does way more than "just" Wikipedia, and the majority of the money goes to these other activities. Now, I'm not saying that's bad, some of those activities might be well worth it.

But the banners I've seen have invariably been about the imminent demise of Wikipedia. Not that they got lots of other side projects they want funded.

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