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Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

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Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#171

Post by bawolff »

loeg wrote: post #163
bawolff wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost of running the website (including staff) is actually a very small piece of their budget. This is a lie. The only way to make this true is if you don't count programmers, and managers of those programmers as part of running the website.

It is not a lie. Wikipedia does not need 300-325 engineers to run the website.

Maybe not, but they need more than zero.

Regardless, even if you think its not a neccesary expenditure (obviously there is a big gap between bare minimum and healthy), its still an expenditure on hosting the site. The person i was responding to was claiming it wasnt related to the website.

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#172

Post by tptacek »

ryukoposting wrote: post #153
blululu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just piling in to this because it needs to be stated with emphasis. Wikipedia foundation is not Wikipedia. Their donation campaigns are highly deceptive. Pennies on the dollar will go to supporting and maintaining the actual encyclopedia. WMF is as much a liability to the encyclopedia as a beneficiary.

I've heard this before, but I've not seen anyone go into detail on it (until now) I want to help fund Wikipedia. Is there a better way I can do that?

I have different reasoning than the parent commenter. Why do you want to help fund Wikipedia? It is in no danger at all. Funding it even more lavishly probably won't help it achieve its goals more effectively; it's dependent (by design, and for good reason) on volunteer effort, which is the real bottleneck.

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#173

Post by skeeter2020 »

>> It was the one team at WMF whose product owner was, in effect, the volunteer community.

The author has no idea what a product entails if they think community suggestions - regardless of how sophisticated a community - is equivalent to a product owner. The most valuable thing a PO does is say "no" to what on the surface sound like good ideas.

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#174

Post by portmanteur »

hackyhacky wrote: post #146
nekzn wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> you can’t say some politician filled a country with immigrants from the third world. You can absolutely say that, if it's true. As it stands, I don't know of country " filled with immigrants", so it's possible your edits are getting revoked for being incendiary hyperbole. I'm also not aware of any politician described as racist in the first paragraph of their article. Can you indicate who you have in mind? More rea…

“Filled with immigrants” will always be a subjective term. Does it need to be 100% immigrants to count as “filled”? 50%? 25%?

Canadian residents, for example, as of 2021 [1], were 23% foreign-born, and further 2.5% non-permanent residents. In the five year period from 2016 to 2021, the number of foreign-born Canadians increased by 18% alone, which to me is significant growth. The number of non-permanent residents doubled from 2016 to 2021, and tripled again by July 2024 [2]. The share of third-generation+ Canadians, defined as those born in Canada to parents born in Canada, was 56% in 2021 [1]. When the 2026 census data is released next year, it’s estimated that number could be as low as 52%.

[1] https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/as-sa/fo... [2] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91-215-x/91-215-x2024001...

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#175

Post by LewisVerstappen »

OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #74

I spent ~2 years actively editing Wikipedia for multiple hours every day. I remember taking my laptop out at airports for 20 minutes between transfers, just to tweak an article or improve a source. While I originally started because I found some articles lackluster, I quickly realized how vigorous the editing process could be on controversial topics. For what simple HTML you see on the surface, you would be absolutel…

[flagged]

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#176

Post by jp_sc »

legitster wrote: post #36
hiddencost wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the countrary, nonprofits need unions more than for profits. They exploit their workers more. They have fewer resources and exploit their mission to get more work from their workers.

If I'm donating money to fight cancer, and the majority of the money goes to administrative staff, that's inherently a flawed charity. It's exactly what led to the downfall of the Susan G Komen foundation. There's also a death spiral problem. If donations drop and administrative costs stay the same, that charity's ratings only get worse. There's a reason most examples of successful non-profit unions all rely on stead…

Is there any charity (older than five years) where the majority of the money doesn’t go to administrative staff?

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#177

Post by asixicle »

OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #74

I spent ~2 years actively editing Wikipedia for multiple hours every day. I remember taking my laptop out at airports for 20 minutes between transfers, just to tweak an article or improve a source. While I originally started because I found some articles lackluster, I quickly realized how vigorous the editing process could be on controversial topics. For what simple HTML you see on the surface, you would be absolutel…

Just want to express gratitude for you and all who contributed to a Wikipedia "hand crafted with love and respect". Your contributions will last-- some of us set up Kiwix and a local copy of pre-AI Wikipedia that we'll keep forever, GFS style. No matter what happens your work will be preserved and used.

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#178

Post by epestr »

BoggleOhYeah wrote: post #167
epestr wrote: post #164

I'm quite surprised by how the HN audience has multiple stakeholders with deep expertise and lived experience associated with any post, without all the generalisation and hollow speculation present elsewhere. And these comments get posted quite quickly too.

Everyone here is a genius because their LLM agrees with everything they say.

There does seem to be some with AI psychosis[0] but it's fewer in number than other places and downvoted on posts with moderate amount of comments

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatbot_psychosis

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#179

Post by skeeter2020 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #20
nickff wrote: post #12

> "Wikipedia’s workers are fighting to unionize because the institution hosting the world’s encyclopedia has started acting like a regular employer at exactly the moment when the world most needs it to act like something better. > "The encyclopedia belongs to everyone. The labor that sustains it deserves the same protection." If Wikipedia has excess reserves, that money should be directed to a worthy cause, not just…

You make it sound like they're demanding multi-mmilion $ bonuses. FTA: The union’s demands are embarrassingly modest This is what Wiki Workers United is asking for. Transparency and accountability from leadership toward both staff and movement communities. Real staff input on annual planning before decisions are finalized. An end to inconsistent hiring, firing, and promotion practices. The ability to safely dissent.…

these demands are also embarassingly vague and based on situational judgement. They can claim that there's no transparency, accountability, consultation and that inconsistency continues regardless of what happens, if they don't like the outcome. I'd have a lot more sympathy if they asked for some concrete things, even if those were specifically defined funding or programs. "The ability to safely dissent." - WTF does that mean? where do you draw the line? We've all worked with that person who thinks they're "dissenting" when in reality they're just being an asshole.

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#180

Post by thin_carapace »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #82
cwel wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

my way of sitting this fence is that a very tiny fraction of transgender people do exist, but nowadays there are probably more people who simply think they are transgender, an effect spurred by the trajectory of western society (because westerners live disconnected from life therefore disconnected from themselves)
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