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Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#391

Post by bestbuyer__ »

stubybubs wrote: post #208
mtttpt wrote: post #49

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Maher "Maher states that she focuses on global digital inclusion as a way to improve and protect the rights of people to information through technology." Yet the actual mission of Wikipedia is something quite different to this. They push a particular point of view, wrapped up in the false cloak of "neutrality", and assert this as truth. Wikipedia is part of a broader propaganda…

I'm curious, do you do much reading of Wikipedia in languages other than English? I don't, so I don't have an answer here, but I wonder how much neutrality there is in Russian or Vietnamese or Urdu wiki articles. English Wikipedia is going to have at the very least an English-speaking world tilt to it. Are the others similar?

The English-speaking world is not a monolith. They have the tilt of a fraction of the English-speaking world.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#393

Post by cornholio »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #97
chessgecko wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After what happened with openai I wouldn’t say no scenario

Can you elaborate? I've been involved in a non-profit startup before. There are potentially ways around restrictions (like licensing), but they're difficult and fraught with other issues. You can't "cash-out" at a non-profit.

Usually, by abusing the financials to give yourself outsized rewards, like this case right here.

Regardles of the legal structure, it's always about power: who has it and who they are responsible too. For a largely unaccountable entity like Wikimedia, with the power to print money by simply placing a banner on the site, it was only a matter of time until it was to be captured by a self serving clique.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#394

Post by thomastjeffery »

heyoni wrote: post #372
thomastjeffery wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not assuming a lot to think someone who made several hundred thousand dollars has enough to live comfortably for a few months . I could move into a very nice apartment in any city in the world for less than $5,000/mo. I have no doubt that with that kind of cash, I could move in today . Surely after making $300,000 you would have enough left over to do the same! If not, then you are obviously not qualified to be…

Yea everybody knows that if you’re not capable of living frugally and/or have mastered the art of personal finance you couldn’t possibly have any specialized skills or technical abilities.

Master? It doesn't take a genius to save a few percent of your income, especially when you are making 10x the average salary!

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#395

Post by carapace »

jl6 wrote: post #270
carapace wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your hypothesis is that these skilled potential-CEOs have not found a way to leave India or China? The existence and popularity of visa schemes undermines your point - companies are very willing to source labor from overseas. Why have they done this for engineers but not CEOs?

[flagged]

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#396

Post by jl6 »

carapace wrote: post #395
jl6 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hypothesis is that these skilled potential-CEOs have not found a way to leave India or China? The existence and popularity of visa schemes undermines your point - companies are very willing to source labor from overseas. Why have they done this for engineers but not CEOs?

[flagged]

You don’t understand who hires CEOs.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#397

Post by f6v »

pklausler wrote: post #184
f6v wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope they're politically neutral. Wikipedia is definitely not.

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

I’m surprised there’re people who think objective truth exists in international politics. At a very least, it’s very uncommon.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#398

Post by akolbe »

t8sr wrote: post #299
tombert wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

You are mistaken. The CEO's severance was $623K.

Paid from money donated to Wikipedia – unlike the Google executive. I think it is normal and legitimate for donors to Wikipedia – whether they've donated labour or money – to have a qualitatively different kind of interest in the former case than the latter.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#399

Post by ars »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #351
ars wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in the 80s, these days they don't have the balance right.

This makes me think they do in fact have the balance right

Nah, for example Arabs love their coverage of the conflict. It's way more slanted than Reuters for example, and almost as slanted as Al Jazeera.

It's normal for news organizations to be accused of bias in the conflict, as you say, if both parties think that, that's normal.

But BBC has the lovely distinction of also being accused of anti-Semitism, which is a badge of honor that most news organizations have not received.

Re: Severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

#400

Post by ertian »

bomewish wrote: post #366
t8sr wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

the reason people find these massive pay packets unbecoming is because it's a nonprofit. Companies can do what they like -- but these folks are going hat in hand to civilians and asking for handouts, which they then use to people these people 700k. Are you happy to subsidize that? I suspect many normal people donors would not be.

This seems to me like a strange and counterproductive attitude. People are fine with Facebook or Google manipulating them and extracting vast amounts of money from them and handing it out to their employees, but get upset when an extremely useful product simply asks for voluntary payment from time to time to pay out a fraction as much in order to retain talent?

The world would be better off if people were happy to donate to useful products like Wikipedia, and encouraged high pay there (because with a large enough denominator, it's an insignificant amount of money to users), and more upset about the exploitative practices of mainstream companies. Then we might see more open and straightforward services like Wikipedia, and fewer creepy and insidious businesses like Facebook or Google (thinking specifically of YouTube and it's attempts to drive 'engagement' here...)

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