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Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#291

Post by droptablemain »

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…

The Atlantic Council is far from politically neutral. It's very much a neoliberal swamp creature closely tied the U.S. state department's international influence operations.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#292

Post by sp332 »

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.

Beeple’s NFT was bought by the founder of a coin he had a major investment in, and he had been granted 2% of all B.20 tokens for free. Very sketchy. https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beepl...

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#293

Post by gtirloni »

june_twenty wrote: post #280
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

> They're laughing in mansions with brand new cars and sending their kids to Ivy League schools etc etc

C'mon. This is not Reddit.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#294

Post by gtirloni »

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.

It's upsetting that you only got 4 weeks. I'm happy WMF is not so shitty. I think it's more productive for everybody if the bar is raised, not lowered.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#295

Post by mikeryan »

gadders wrote: post #181
mikeryan wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Executive compensation packages work differently and tend to be much more bonus driven. Frequently these types of severance packages are to make up some sort of assumed bonus and ensure no compensation based contract disputes later.

Even if you quit voluntarily?

To be clear I'm not as familiar with this for non-profits.

But generally yes, if much of your compensation is bonus based most executive contracts will have a mechanism for pro-rating or just paying out future bonuses.

This sounds a bit like it was something of a mutual parting of the ways so sometimes boards will payout other bonuses like Retention Bonuses (A bonus for staying at a position, frequently with another job offer at hand) even though the person is leaving. It could also just be a bonus triggered by the board choosing to part ways with her that was part of her executive contract. Proving a firing is "for cause" is frequently difficult so sometimes if there's a desire to replace a senior executive it's easier to just pay them off.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#296

Post by t8sr »

costco wrote: post #174
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…

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?

Their costs went up about 100%. The cumulative inflation over those 6 years was about 25%. The US averages 6% salary growth yearly, which over six years is about 42%, and would have been much higher in the tech industry. California averages a cost of living increase of about 8% annually, over six years that's 58%.

So if you adjust for the rising costs of doing anything in tech, their operating budget has increased by much less than would seem - only about 20%.

In those same six years, they've had to deal with a rise in misinformation campaigns, spam, infosec threats and recently ML models.

Call me crazy, but dealing with all of the extra complexity 2022 has over 2016 on a 20% budget increase is pretty great.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#297

Post by HDThoreaun »

june_twenty wrote: post #280
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

This doesn't seem productive

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#298

Post by noobermin »

t8sr wrote: post #289
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 25…

To be honest, this more highlights how far out of step tech salaries are with...well everyone else.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#299

Post by t8sr »

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…

The CEO who successfully managed hundreds of people at a fairly visible non-profit got about 300k in severance. Meanwhile:

"Google gave top executive $90m payoff but kept sexual misconduct claim quiet – report"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/25/google-an...

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#300

Post by hanspragt »

vosper wrote: post #282
musicale wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I got all my SO points from answering a single question on JavaFX, which I only used for about 6 months. It is not even the accepted answer (which was, and still is, incorrect).
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