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Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#141

Post by [deleted] »

tombert wrote: post #17
andersrs wrote: post #14

Just take a look at this graph. The salaries have been bloating whilst hosting expenses are flat and plummeting as a proportion of all expenses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/Fi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/Fi... Net assets are sitting at ~$240M about 10x what they were a decade ago. Yet they roll out a sob-story banner on every page insinuating that they mi…

To be fair, salaries going up isn't necessarily a sign of them "bloating". I've worked for startups before at a reduced salary, with the expectation that as they become more stable they'll bump up the salary to a correct number. In theory, people could have joined Wikimedia at a low salary while they were still struggling, and as they've become way more stable the salaries have gone up as a bit of a correction. That…

[deleted]

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#142

Post by renewiltord »

jamilton wrote: post #133
renewiltord wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the people who want "actual experts" should go read encyclopedias built by actual experts. That user segment need not be targeted by Wikipedia. Wikipedia is what it is because of volunteer editors like me. It is not feasible to convert it to be majority "expert" so if it attempted to do so, the cost would be exorbitant and the users who prefer "expert-written work" will not be satisfied until it is complete s…

I see no reason why expert-written articles would have to be locked from further edits, or marked as expert-written. They could be subject to the same formal standards as the rest of Wikipedia, but with guarantee that those standards are applied. There are already paid Wikipedia editors, they tend to be working for PR firms. A non-profit doing the same thing for altruistic purposes sounds feasible and good to me, it…

Because if they are not marked or restricted then I believe they won't appeal to users who want expert articles. Like in the reaction to LLMs we know that people who want high certainty in their articles also want to know when they're in their high certainty environment and when they're not. Mixing the two will cause many of them to be upset. Permitting volunteers to edit will cause many of them to be upset, especially if there is one with an error.

It's better this way with a clear separation of wiki and expert.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#143

Post by dghlsakjg »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #127
AdamN wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's critical to compensate non-profit employees near the market rate otherwise you end up with sub-par performers, martyrs, having the vision co-opted by the wealthy who can afford to be underpaid, or the young who leave disillusioned. The Gates foundation pioneered this approach and imho it's the right way to operate in the sector.

>> It's critical to compensate non-profit employees near the market rate otherwise you end up with sub-par performers I hear this all the time for not-for-profits and government roles, it sounds good but just doesn't hold up. The leaders in these roles are not measured or held to the same metrics as private companies, they're not competing for the same jobs and they're not the same pool of candidates. The results pro…

I think it holds true for competitive public positions in places where they are trying to get rid of corruption. It raises the cost of bribing people in power, and makes it much more attractive to get into politics for the right reasons.

The best example is probably Singapore, which is surrounded by corrupt neighbors, and deeply involved in industries that thrive on corruption (shipping), but is notoriously a place where officials follow the rules.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#144

Post by carapace »

jl6 wrote: post #54

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with nonprofits paying high salaries to senior leaders. You will find very well compensated people at the top of many large charities. That's because they are big orgs with hundreds of employees, with all the same problems as similar-sized big orgs. They employ a lot of people, and the job of managing and leading a lot of people isn't easy. It's in the charity's interest that the j…

[flagged]

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#145

Post by bluescrn »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #102
thecopy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>politically neutral What does politically neutral mean?

Both sides think you're biased. That's how the BBC does it.

But being heavily biased in different directions on different issues doesn't sum up to neutrality.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#146

Post by Vuizur »

Towaway69 wrote: post #27

One thing I do respect is that this article is hosted on Wikipedia. Not many corporations nor non-profits would host an obviously self effacing article.

It is a community newspaper that is (apparently) independent of the WMF, and they don't have quarrels about hosting WMF-critical articles.

Anti-WMF sentiment is surprisingly common on some Wikimedia projects.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#147

Post by machina_ex_deus »

renewiltord wrote: post #104
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course if you're comparing to a strawman where they pay everyone that'd be a bad idea that I wouldn't approve either. Nothing Wikipedia currently does with its money justifies the sums they are getting. If they decided to use that money to generate content, I'd imagine that would work more like normal encyclopedias instead of volunteer based. Where they would seek out actual experts, and only in scientific fields…

I think the people who want "actual experts" should go read encyclopedias built by actual experts. That user segment need not be targeted by Wikipedia. Wikipedia is what it is because of volunteer editors like me. It is not feasible to convert it to be majority "expert" so if it attempted to do so, the cost would be exorbitant and the users who prefer "expert-written work" will not be satisfied until it is complete s…

[dead]

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#148

Post by bluescrn »

gadders wrote: post #128
ekianjo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC is not neutral. They are the mouthpiece of the UK government.

Hardly. They're pro-immigration, anti-Brexit, anti-any cuts anywhere for anything. They're the voice of the Guardian-reading middle classes.

To be fair, pro-immigration is governnment policy too. Just for different reasons. The Tories want cheap labour/low wages, and sky-high house prices.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#149

Post by gamblor956 »

If the Wikimedia Foundation were incorporated in California, the CA Attorney General would like investigate these payments, which appear to be out-of-band from similar organizations.

But Wikimedia Foundation is incorporated in Florida (https://bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/api/report/GetImageByNum/24... direct pdf download), which lets nonprofits do whatever they want.

A nonprofit organized in a state other than where it is headquartered (unless the incorporation state is Delaware) is a huge red flag with respect to the organization's commitment to proper governance.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#150

Post by gadders »

bluescrn wrote: post #148
gadders wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly. They're pro-immigration, anti-Brexit, anti-any cuts anywhere for anything. They're the voice of the Guardian-reading middle classes.

To be fair, pro-immigration is governnment policy too. Just for different reasons. The Tories want cheap labour/low wages, and sky-high house prices.

Fair point.
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