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Wikipedia is not short on cash

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Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#341

Post by DeWilde »

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…

When I donate to Wikipedia I expect that money goes to keeping Wikipedia alive not for the Wikimedia organization to redistribute the funds as they fit.

Why do I need a proxy for charity? If I want to give to some cause I will do so directly.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#342

Post by gibolt »

otherme123 wrote: post #316
Jwarder wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, I haven't seen any recent banners frame it in terms of demise of Wikipedia. The urgent banners I've seen are about the time to complete the fund drive. Along the lines of: If X% of users paid $Y then the goal would be reached in Z minutes. If you assume the fund drive exists to help keep the lights on then I think it is natural to treat it as an existential issue for Wikipedia, but that doesn't seem to match t…

The banner shown in the article has a subtle tone of demise: if you don't donate, Wikipedia itself stops being independent, could not thrive, could not give reliable or independent info. And then the money is primarily spent in things other than Wikipedia. They never state or at least insinuate where the money go.

This sounds like the exact CTA of countless YouTubers asking for Patreon support. No level of coffers or ever increasing support changes their ask. (which to me is ok)

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#343

Post by blululu »

jasonlotito wrote: post #317
Macha wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably none of the criteria measured in that rating consider their marketing. So yes their policies and filings exist, but those are not what they're presenting to potential donors, so do not prove the ads are not misleading

https://wikimediafoundation.org/ How is this misleading? They provide an incredibly large amount of information. And more information can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Disputes

There are laws against fine print for a reason. The front page pop up ad tells a different story than a stack of text heavy articles that require no small amount of technical expertise to figure out.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#344

Post by naasking »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #108

I found Wikimedia's financial statement for 2020[1], in case anyone interested in details. They have over 500 employees[2]. Not sure why they need so many, considering average salary is $100k/yr. [1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim... [2]: https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/#prod...

> They have over 500 employees[2]. Not sure why they need so many

I would be totally fine with them hiring hundreds of translators to expand Wikipedia in other languages. English Wikipedia has 4x as many entries as most other languages. They clearly have the cash that they're spending on weird grants and projects that seem more tangential to their original purpose.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#345

Post by Cthulhu_ »

preommr wrote: post #63
mgamache wrote: post #42

It’s not just they are flush with cash. It’s they are funding and fanning the culture war despite claiming to be a neutral party. Some of their funds are being routed to political entities that are not neutral. Edit: here’s a link to a thread about what I mean: https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579776106034757633?s=46&...

This is meaningless without stating the context of what you consider violation of neutrality. True neturality is basically an impossible target.

True neutrality is something like centrism; it's a weird unopinionated or compromising middle ground that only works in theory.

There's a comic out there, one side advocates for genocide, the other opposes it; the centrists are like "let's have a little genocide, as a compromise".

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#346

Post by Cthulhu_ »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #108

I found Wikimedia's financial statement for 2020[1], in case anyone interested in details. They have over 500 employees[2]. Not sure why they need so many, considering average salary is $100k/yr. [1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim... [2]: https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/#prod...

A link elsewhere mentioned that a lot of them are hired to handle the flows and distribution of money to e.g. charities / NGOs. I'm sure there's a lot of backhanded deals going on there.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#347

Post by gniv »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #108

I found Wikimedia's financial statement for 2020[1], in case anyone interested in details. They have over 500 employees[2]. Not sure why they need so many, considering average salary is $100k/yr. [1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim... [2]: https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/#prod...

Actually, 500 seems low. If this was a PA at [FAAMG] it would have 1000+ full-time employees (to say nothing about the salary).

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#348

Post by LightG »

kordlessagain wrote: post #189
LightG wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So. Marketing?

It is possible to raise interest in something without lying about it. Whether you will fully understand it or not is up to you.

I agree. It is possible. But this feels like a case of 'the exceptions prove the rule'.
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