91–100 of 500 posts
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In some ways Charity Navigator is like the BBB, and people need to take those ratings with a grain of salt. What is not said here, but I think it was started this article there was a break-down on Twitter [2] recently where someone broke down the grants Wikimedia Foundation gives to other charities, A lot of Wikimedia has become advocacy for social issues not the spread of free information. Some of those Social issue…
Hey, what is "the BBB" here ?
Is this the same person who every now and then appears on HN utterly outraged by Wikipedia's fundraising? I donate to Wikipedia. And I am glad they have lots of money. I do not feel outraged about it, I feel happy about it. I do not feel outraged that they use whatever persuasive tactics that they use - this is necessary in the modern world. Wikipedia is a great service, it should be valued. They should not always be…
"Wokepedia". This guy certainly has an axe to grind. Looks like urging people not to donate is in fact a right wing attack on Wikpedia - "The Daily Telegraph" of course being a Murdoch newspaper. From the authors Wikpedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Orlowski "Writing for The Daily Telegraph in May 2021, Orlowski said that the Wikimedia Foundation was "flush with cash" and passing money to the Tides N…
HBomberguy has a good video on the subject. You can use people ranting about 'wokeness' to make money, and while it's amusing and gratifying to indulge that 'ha, I showed you, I don't agree with your ranting against this thing!' it's engaging in pseudo-political behavior that's in a sense wasted. Throwing more money at Wikipedia isn't really helping them be more woke, it's helping them be better at using that to ask for money.
I'm not actually going to give them money today but that's because I gotta tend to my own affairs: if I had a bunch extra I'd send some Wikipedia's way on the grounds that at least they're annoying the right people?
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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?
Marketing. They hired someone(s) with marketing experience.
Is this the same person who every now and then appears on HN utterly outraged by Wikipedia's fundraising? I donate to Wikipedia. And I am glad they have lots of money. I do not feel outraged about it, I feel happy about it. I do not feel outraged that they use whatever persuasive tactics that they use - this is necessary in the modern world. Wikipedia is a great service, it should be valued. They should not always be…
No silly 25MB framework, no hype, no popup banners (except the donation), no ads, no tracking, doesn't ask to sign up when I scroll down, no paywall...
Just doing it's thing providing all the world with all knowledge for free, in a lot of languages.
These managers can earn $4 million for all I care.
Hell, I work for a mid-sized company that doesn't even come close to being as useful as Wikipedia and our C-suite earns a million a year.
> Indeed, in the 2012/13 year the Foundation budgeted for $1.9m to provide all its free information on tap. To be fair to Wikipedia here, quoting a nearly ten year old figure and comparing it to current earnings in order to prove that their required expenses are low is not that honest.
Costs don't increase by a factor of 50 in ten years. Note I made the same argument in Wikipedia's community newspaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... Read the comments from Wikipedians underneath. No one claimed it was a dishonest argument to make.
I'm pretty happy to wager real money that Wikipedia has had to scale significantly in the last ten years.
But, hey, if you've got evidence to the contrary, I'll happily read it.
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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.
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-Palestini…
>>. A body pretending to represent free speech and human rights that's stuffed with illiberal violators of human rights. UN literally never pretended to do such a thing - it's just a forum for countries to meet and discuss issues, with no power to really do anything other than agree or disagree with each other on whatever is being discussed. Kicking out say Russia or China or North Korea from the UN makes no sense in…
TL;DR, the UN's discussions serve now only to grant the veneer of liberal discourse to illiberal states by implying that their collective authoritarian voices should be taken seriously by the democracies, when in fact they should be given no platform whatsoever. Let alone one upon which to expound on human rights!
2021 2011
Current Assets 208,678,345 20,784,992
Donations 153,096,642 23,020,127
Salaries 67,857,676 7,312,120
Internet Hosting 2,384,439 1,799,943
I'm one who is seeing these Wikipedia donation links currently (apparently not everyone is yet) so I'm glad this article raised the issue. The WMF probably has enough assets to run itself on a shoestring budget in perpetuity.
[1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim...
[2]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/ac/FINAL...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...