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Wikipedia is not short on cash

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Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#421

Post by shadowgovt »

walls wrote: post #363
rany_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd rather Wikipedia not turn into another Mozilla. Not having a ton of extra money is a good way to prevent that kind of bloat.

In the absence of Mozilla, Google and Microsoft decide how you interface to the web.

Who will decide how we interface to encyclopedic facts in the absence of Wikipedia?

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#422

Post by [deleted] »

shadowgovt wrote: post #421
walls wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather Wikipedia not turn into another Mozilla. Not having a ton of extra money is a good way to prevent that kind of bloat.

In the absence of Mozilla, Google and Microsoft decide how you interface to the web. Who will decide how we interface to encyclopedic facts in the absence of Wikipedia?

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#423

Post by i_like_apis »

concordDance wrote: post #237
i_like_apis wrote: post #196

I give money to Wikipedia occasionally and will gladly continue, thanks. Wikimedia makes the world a much better world place. They should have the funds to do whatever they want. You’re mad at them for some reason because they have 400 mil? That’s not even half a billion. I want a world where the Wikimedia foundation is a multi-billion dollar entity.

Note that wikipedia is 99.9% the volunteers selflessly putting in their time, not the 0.1% who are getting your money.

You're implying there is something unfair going on with respect to not compensating editors. I absolutely disagree. The model is that anyone can edit, and they do so out of the love of knowledge and common wealth.

One of the strongest aspects of Wikipedia is that authors are not on anyone's payroll. (Though editing can be a competitive endeavor with monied interests occasionally involved).

All the editors of Wikipedia couldn't possibly be compensated, and no one expects that anyway.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#424

Post by Macha »

omnicognate wrote: post #374
_glsb wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's basic English. "Independence" doesn't mean "just enough for server maintenance" and "thriving" doesn't mean "barely surviving".

They have enough money to fund wikipedia in perpetuity several times over. Wikipedia's independence and thrivingness aren't at any risk whatsoever, even if donations were to completely stop immediately. The donations are used for side projects almost all donors are completely unaware of, whose existence and nature are not hinted at in the ads soliciting donations.

Well the risk is they'd invest too much into saving the side projects in the event of a downturn that they would put wikipedia at risk, which is why even people like me who don't have ideological squabbles with the content of the side projects are concerned by the bundling.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#425

Post by origin_path »

akolbe wrote: post #213
phpisthebest wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you read it in the most uncharitable way, and ignore the very real aspects of the "Culture War" around things like CRT, Anti-Racism, DEI, ESG, etc that have very real political and partisan aspects to them. Often intersecting with the very concept of what role government should play in people's life, what authority government should have, and how government should regulate both behavior and economies

I am uncomfortable with the video stills at the end that do seem to be picking on black people. Maybe I am doing the Twitter user an injustice, but there were four other grant recipients they could have been picking on as well: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Grant_... This said, I agree with the premise that the Wikimedia Foundation is partisan. Its General Counsel came from the Tides Foundatio…

The videos are what they are claimed to be. The last one features the black lady talking about how get experiments killed octopuses (weird!). You sound like you didn't watch them and are just reacting to the fact that black women are being criticized?

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#426

Post by katamarimambo »

fallingknife wrote: post #212
katamarimambo wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading the article and others on that website I'm donating to Black Lives Matter and some LGBT org.

Definitely don't donate to BLM, though. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/04/us/black-lives-matter-executi...

I definitively donated to some BLM org which may or may not be this one, and i'll keep doing it

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#429

Post by tchaffee »

ohCh6zos wrote: post #415
tchaffee wrote: post #192

This is a hit piece by someone who hates Wikipedia. It should be ignored. If and when someone with far less bias writes an article on Wikimedia finances, I might be interested.

Is it true or false that Wikipedia re-donates money while claiming to be in danger of shutting down? If the claim is true the source doesn't matter.

Is it true or false that the author is heavily biased against Wikipedia? If the claim is true, then no one has an obligation to respond to one-sided accusations made in bad faith with zero intention to report on any details that would paint Wikipedia in a favorable light.

I would be just as uninterested in an article from Wikimedia themselves on how great they are.

I already said what I would be interested in: factual reporting that makes a reasonable and unbiased effort to uncover all the facts and give the full context. Everyone has the right to ignore "reporting" and "sources" that do not fulfill even the bare minimums of journalist integrity.

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

Re: Wikipedia is not short on cash

#430

Post by akolbe »

bjourne wrote: post #156

> Top tier managers earn between $300,000 and $400,000 a year, and dozens are employed exclusively on fund-raising. Can someone corroborate this claim? Cause any way you look at it, these salaries are unethical for a non-profit organisation.

Easy to corroborate. Here, in the Form 990 tax return:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e4/Wikim...

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