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Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#211

Post by tasuki »

Joeboy wrote: post #195
costco wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2016 Wikimedia Foundation Budget: $69,136,758 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Budget: $145,970,915 I love Wikipedia but I don't see how this cost explosion can evenly be remotely justified. What value have they added in that time? A new editor and CSS on articles?

> 2016 Wikimedia Foundation Budget: $69,136,758 $200k less than Beeple's "Everyday" NFT sold for.

This is not an unreasonable comparison at all. It puts things in perspective. I dislike what Wikimedia is becoming, yet Wikipedia is still functioning and useful!

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#212

Post by jillesvangurp »

jtefera wrote: post #66

Ignoring for now the severance package, the salary seems pretty low for a CEO of such a large foundation. $400-500K is about the salary range of a senior-staff engineer at FAANG and their responsibility is way lower. One of the issues with non-profits is that people expects the employees/management to be there for the cause and to be happy with lower salaries. This seems to incentives IMO one of the following: - only…

It might be normal in the little bubble that is the Bay area. This just goes to show what a poor choice that is as a location to operate from.

500K would be about our staffing and office cost here in Berlin. We're a mere eight people.

And Wikimedia actually has an office here. One of their largest offices outside of SFO according to this: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_offices. I've been there. Nice place.

Look, this is just the tip of the ice berg: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikim...

This spells it out. This is foundation is spending tens of million on salaries and sitting on a quarter billion in assets. That's some spectacularly inefficient spending no matter how you look at it. I would call it shameless. And then they do the yearly thing of holding out their hand for donations because boohoo all the money is gone. Again!

But at least they are transparent about enriching themselves.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#213

Post by capitainenemo »

tasuki wrote: post #211
Joeboy wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2016 Wikimedia Foundation Budget: $69,136,758 $200k less than Beeple's "Everyday" NFT sold for.

This is not an unreasonable comparison at all. It puts things in perspective. I dislike what Wikimedia is becoming, yet Wikipedia is still functioning and useful!

It's fairly unreasonable since NFT values are really not tied to anything, and in tokens that may or may not be valued at what they are supposedly valued due to manipulation of the small markets (similar to penny stock pump and dump).

So those values can be more about money laundering or poor signaling than any indication of real worth.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#214

Post by xpe »

rsynnott wrote: post #156
thecopy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>politically neutral What does politically neutral mean?

For a think tank, presumably completely disconnected from the world, meditating on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. (Though possibly that sort of awkward theology, too, is political; it's not something anyone ever did, rather a bit of anti-Catholicism from the reformation). More seriously, when someone says "politically neutral", they typically mean "agrees with me". It's otherwise meaningless for basi…

> More seriously, when someone says "politically neutral", they typically mean "agrees with me".

This is an empirical statement. What experience underlies it?

My experience (working across many sectors, including tech, government, and not for profits), is quite different.

I think it is better to say this… There are various possible meanings for ‘politically neutral’: A person or organization that

(a) is not tied to political organizations (for some definition of political);

(b) doesn’t take a position on political matters;

(c) does work that is both unaffected by politics and does not attempt to influence politics (IMO, impossible practically, but could be interpreted as a matter of degree)

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#215

Post by stonogo »

lesuorac wrote: post #198
kevviiinn wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but your ideal scenario is not our current reality

The reality is that the US Federal government currently has elected members belonging to neither the Democratic nor Republican party [1] [2] (Sinema doesn't count since she changed her party after being elected). This has been true for the majority of the US's short existence. There is no reason to make long-term decisions based on the current short-term circumstances of a two party dominance. [1]: https://en.wikiped…

All of them caucus with one of the two major parties. As with so much in politics, it's a distinction without a difference.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#217

Post by xpe »

fastily wrote: post #209

I’ve been an editor on Wikipedia for nearly 15 years. I reckon I’ve easily contributed tens of thousands of dollars worth of value during this time. To be clear, I don’t expect/want any compensation (I firmly believe in the free knowledge for all mission), but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t sting to see others profit handsomely off of my hard work.

I can understand that. It grates against some notions of fairness.

In any case, others being paid doesn’t diminish your contributions. You know that you’ve helped and benefited others. (Wikipedia redefined my view of networks!)

Quantifying your impact may be challenging, and this is frankly one of the best things about volunteering. Doing something for the process, not e.g. for some downstream effects that are not under your control.

Sometimes it’s nice just to do and not think about consequentialist ethics.

Let us know something non-financial we can do to help you or your causes out?

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#218

Post by akolbe »

qingcharles wrote: post #171
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…

I honestly don't care if Wikimedia has several billion stashed away like all the Ivy Leagues do. They are doing God's work, mostly thankless work, and they have managed to do it well in an Internet mostly comprised of dross. How they have managed to keep the quality up and keep it as neutral as they have is beyond me. I've run user-generated content sites and keeping on top of the moderation will make you Google self…

Did you really not know that the editors and "moderators" (a term not used on Wikipedia) are unpaid? The Wikimedia Foundation intervenes very rarely in content. Essentially, it only takes action on content if there is a court order to that effect. ALL OTHER CONTENT CURATION IS DONE BY UNPAID VOLUNTEERS.

The Foundation "does not write or curate any of the content found on the projects", as they are happy to tell you themselves here:

https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/10/05/a-victory-for-free-kno...

Even most of the emails sent to the Wikimedia Foundation are answered by unpaid volunteers, the Volunteer Response Team:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Volunteer_Response_T...

Sorry to sound harsh, but you are laboring under a misconception and spreading it.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#219

Post by xpe »

tombert wrote: post #5

Man, I've been fired by for-profit companies and felt lucky to get four weeks severance. It's upsetting that people working for a non-profit are getting 1.5x their salary, but I guess this is kind of what we get for believing that a non-profit is going to act better than an evil corporation.

Here we go with this good versus evil thing. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t put any corporation on any kind of pedestal whatsoever. But when I hear a good versus evil, it doesn’t indicate to me that the speaker is thinking clearly; it seems like they’re thinking imprecisely.

I could be wrong; you could have a religious view that suggests that Satan works his malfeasance through corporate influence.

We’re seeing human nature at play in the context of organizational dynamics. That’s hardly evil.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#220

Post by smsm42 »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #192
costco wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2016 Wikimedia Foundation Budget: $69,136,758 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Budget: $145,970,915 I love Wikipedia but I don't see how this cost explosion can evenly be remotely justified. What value have they added in that time? A new editor and CSS on articles?

In that time it’s become increasingly challenging to contribute anything to The People’s Encyclopedia. I wanted to update a local wiki page with newer data from its original sources, but apparently I have become blacklisted because I use/used Apple’s private relay and safari’s privacy measures by default in all my browsing. Disabling them didn’t fix it. I would love to sign up as a fallback measure to be able to cont…

Note that WMF has very little relation to article editing. And login problems are likely because you are using some kind of VPN, which is also something the trolls like to use, so it frequently ends up in ban lists. It's a hard problem, because trolls are much more determined to (ab)use any privacy feature that is out there than legitimate newcomers, and unfortunately most Wiki admin teams lean towards solutions that ensure less trolls even if it means also more barriers to entry. These people are almost always volunteers, and handling trolls is not an activity they particularly enjoy, so that's the source of the bias.
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