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Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#281

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

b59831 wrote: post #271
swalling wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I’m going to be honest I’ve gone to some of the more controversial articles they don’t seem far off from reality a lot of the time. They usually have citations of both pro and anti arguments on both sides of any debate. Is there something I’m missing?

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#282

Post by vosper »

musicale wrote: post #269
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…

Similar issues with stackoverflow. Entrenched systems and editors/moderators create barriers that discourage contributions. Tried a few times and realized it wasn't worth the effort.

A weird thing about SO is that you can accumulate privileges for doing nothing. I once answered a question about Python which has accumulated thousands of votes/points over the years, and now I have been granted all these editing rights that I don't even know what to do with (nor do I use them).

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#283

Post by sp332 »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #281
b59831 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I’m going to be honest I’ve gone to some of the more controversial articles they don’t seem far off from reality a lot of the time. They usually have citations of both pro and anti arguments on both sides of any debate. Is there something I’m missing?

Yes, the Talk and History pages on those articles.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#284

Post by t8sr »

From what I could find, Wikimedia employs about 250 people in total. The compensation paid to the CEO of Wikimedia is about what a senior SWE makes at Facebook.

I don't see what's outrageous here - they are amazingly efficient. Someone managing 250 people at a for-profit company across the street would make 3-4 times as much, and, I mean Twitter had 7,500 employees.

Yes, the CEO got 18 months severance which is on the high side, but her compensation to begin with was very low for the Bay Area.

I think the scandal here is just people in the rest of the world being outraged at median salaries in California. But remember, the cost of living is also stratospheric.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#285

Post by jackvalentine »

jzb wrote: post #172
jackvalentine wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the complete opposite read of the situation to you. I have no beef with people getting treated well by any kind of organisation.

"I have no beef with people getting treated well" Nor I. But there's being treated well and then there's being showered with cash, which is how I'd read getting a severance package in excess of 1.5 your base comp for a full year when walking away to take another job. Generally speaking, if I leave my current job for another job I don't expect any severance at all. If I was laid off I'd feel pretty good about getting…

So this is just envy?

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#286

Post by ivalm »

barrkel wrote: post #115
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…

A senior staff engineer at FAANG makes decisions on the implementation of features which have effects on 8+ digits of revenue. It's mostly downside risk: if you don't do it right, then the lack of availability costs a lot .

And you don’t think Wikipedia has that level of impact?

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#287

Post by [deleted] »

madeofpalk wrote: post #168
concordDance wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are upset because it was working fine 10 years ago when execs were paid a fraction of the amount. They're upset because wikipedia asks for donations every year even though they've collected enough money to run wikipedia off interest from treasury bonds.

What was FAANG developer salaries like 10 years ago? Was that 'working fine'?

[deleted]

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#288

Post by [deleted] »

b59831 wrote: post #271
swalling wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

[deleted]

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#289

Post by t8sr »

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 mean, Wikimedia has about 250-300 employees and what they pay their CEO is about what Facebook and Google pay a senior SWE. They seem to run pretty lean to me.

Firing everyone and moving to a cheap country doesn't seem feasible, and they already are apparently moving a lot of their hiring to Germany.

I don't really see what's outrageous here?

> Obviously it's become a gravy train .

Oh come on - their CEO manages 250 people and gets paid what a SWE with 3 years of experience gets paid down the street. Their engineers are paid like a third of what they could be making at Amazon. Nobody is doing this for the money.

EDIT: As a comparison for people unaware of the cost of living in SF, a bus driver makes about 80k a year. A senior SWE at Wikimedia makes about 120k, according to levels.fyi.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#290

Post by jackvalentine »

WeylandYutani wrote: post #88
jackvalentine wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the complete opposite read of the situation to you. I have no beef with people getting treated well by any kind of organisation.

An admirable position if we lived in a society in which fastfood workers or cleaners got severance pay.

They do where I live?
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