Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 417 posts

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#271

Post by b59831 »

swalling wrote: post #246
mattlondon wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has always been like this - at least for the past 10-15 years or so it has been essentially impossible to edit wikipedia. Basically any change you make it insta-reverted by some bot or over-zealous power-crazed editor. I think some editors decide that they "own" certain pages or group of pages and install themselves as some sort of authority/gate keeper/moderator. If your edit does not please them, it's gone. Inst…

> Basically any change you make it insta-reverted by some bot or over-zealous power-crazed editor. You sound like someone who was pushing a particular point of view about politics, which is precisely the kind of edits that are set up for organ rejection given Wikipedia's strict stance on neutrality, sourcing, and the fact that politics are naturally contentious / prone to edit warring. There are between 1.5 and 2 mil…

Have you used Wikipedia?

It was one of the first culture war battlegrounds... And it's been owned for a while now.

Looking at these gross payments (and executive migration to think tanks), are you really pretending things aren't political?

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#272

Post by Akronymus »

ilyt wrote: post #255
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?

And I preferred previous theme anyway... And it can't be set without being logged in ;/

I use redirector with the following settings:

Redirect: https:\/\/(.)\.wikipedia\.org\/wiki\/([^?])(?!=\?useskin=vector)

to: https://$1.wikipedia.org/wiki/$2?useskin=vector

Applies to: Main window (address bar)

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#273

Post by renewiltord »

manmal wrote: post #249
renewiltord wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to bootstrap this approach is to mirror Wikipedia and add on expert articles. That would demonstrate the value of the expert articles. I suspect this value is low. If it were sufficiently high, this Expert Wikipedia would rapidly come to dominate. I think the Expert Wikipedia would be a bad use of resources because most people do not desire this and because experts will not deliver better articles in general.

That’s an impossible experiment because a mirror would never get the same network effects, search engine treatment, and cultural integration Wikipedia has accumulated.

I suspect getting experts to write any significant fraction of articles is a multi-million dollar experiment. I don't think it's worth it, and I doubt anyone running WMF would think so either.

We have completely expert written media in Encyclopedia Brittanica, so that's probably the best place for people who don't want to use WP because it's insufficiently expert-written. It doesn't make sense to go join that market.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#274

Post by andersrs »

kloch wrote: post #267

Wikipedia is an amazing resource that I use all the time, and currently the best (or least worst) model for curating such a massive knowledge base. For these reasons I have $100/mo recurring donation set up. $240M is less than two years of expenses but I do think they could do a much better job explaining their budget/expense growth. I tend to view math/science pages most of the time and it's rare to see any non-neut…

But you're not donating to Wikipedia or the contributors whom make it a great source. WikiMedia spend your money on all sorts of things which have don't promote sharing knowledge via the internet. The expenses have ballooned 5x in 10 years.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#275

Post by Akronymus »

Gartent wrote: post #241
pklausler wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When political parties have distinct relationships with objective truth, stating objective truths becomes political.

I don't think you're aware of the key political issues with Wikipedia. The media rarely lies - this is a key issue at play - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-media-very-rarely-... >But people - including the very worst perpetrators of misinformation - very rarely say false facts. Instead, they say true things without enough context. But nobody will ever agree what context is necessary and which context is re…

The absolute worst bias is where news sites have an active interest in only reporting one-sidedly. As only "reliable" sources can be used, only their reporting gets picked up and states as fact. Gamergate is one of the most blatant examples of that. So much so, that the very wiki page on it fuels a cycle of "there is no way that so much of it is made up"

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#276

Post by [deleted] »

lallysingh wrote: post #47

It looks like the CEO of Wikimedia gets paid roughly as much as a Staff/Senior Staff-level FAANG engineer. That looks about right. And they got 6 months severance. Also comparable. I don't get why people are upset. Somehow everyone working for a nonprofit should bring home less money to their families. In truth what that assumption would mean is that nonprofits get less skilled people.

[deleted]

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#278

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

Akronymus wrote: post #272
ilyt wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I preferred previous theme anyway... And it can't be set without being logged in ;/

I use redirector with the following settings: Redirect: https:\/\/(. )\.wikipedia\.org\/wiki\/([^?] )(?!=\?useskin=vector) to: https://$1.wikipedia.org/wiki/$2?useskin=vector Applies to: Main window (address bar)

Are you saying if we use the URL parameter "useskin" set to "vector" we can get the old layout back? I wonder if this applies on other sites using mediawiki.

[EDIT] Fuck me! It does work both on wikipedia and the Arch wiki. So long.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#279

Post by dlubarov »

qingcharles wrote: post #243
akolbe wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

No, I understand completely; it wasn't clear from my post. I've been an editor myself since 2004. What Wikimedia have done is create a platform and mission and steered that mission to produce a culture that has bred the unpaid editors and kept them on-mission and stopped too many of them going rogue. That platform steering is not to be underestimated. Too many sites with user-generated content descend into insanity w…

As a former admin, I don't think I ever interacted with anyone from WMF. As you probably know, deletions, locks, bans, bot approvals, etc. are normally handled by volunteers. Even requests for adminship are discussed by volunteers, then finalized by volunteer bureaucrats.

I would say the culture you mention was bred in very early days of Wikipedia. Editor activity peaked in 2007, when the annual budget was ~$2m. The prior year was <$800k.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#280

Post by june_twenty »

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.

Of course it does. They've used you. They're laughing in mansions with brand new cars and sending their kids to Ivy League schools etc etc
Post reply on HN