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

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

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 389 posts

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

#251

Post by throwaway894345 »

oytis wrote: post #28
throwaway894345 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a strong opinion on this particular conflict, but I have thought about this in the abstract a bit (and landed on no satisfying conclusion). Basically, I've always been a strong proponent of workers demanding their fair share from a traditional company where the entire game is squeezing employees / society to maximize shareholder returns at all costs. However, I'm much less convinced that the same applies…

An organization genuinely dedicated to a mission for common good has even more reasons to share power with its employees in my view

I don’t think there is any dispute about this, the question is to what degree? No one is advocating enslaving the employees and similarly no one (I think) is advocating for spending 100% of an organization’s resources on the salaries of existing employees. So how do we find the right spot in between? With a traditional for profit company, I can comfortably say that employees should do whatever they can to demand as much as they can because the alternative is yielding the wealth to the shareholder class. I don’t have a similar principle for how not-for-profit employees ought to behave because the moral calculus seems more complex.

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

#252

Post by Epa095 »

legitster wrote: post #27

17 months of operating expenses are actually not a lot for a foundation. Especially one whose goal is to preserve something for a long horizon. Unions exist to combat the monopsony power of corporations. Corporations and unions can exist in constant tension with each other because ultimately both are bound by the market of their product. I don't think the logic holds up when you're talking about foundations or charit…

> If the unions goal is to raid donations and get an increasing share, that could potentially go bad.

Why would you assume that is the unions goal? That the employees of Wikipedia will suddenly have as their purpose to raid donations from the foundation, instead of promoting the values they probably started there for?

Unions gives the employees a voice representing them, and it gives the organisation someone to talk to and negotiate with. This can be highly advantageous to the organisation as well, since when you have someone to negotiate with, and make deals with, it opens up more possibilities. In places with strong functioning unions (e.g. Scandinavia) they can often function as a moderating force, keeping salaries low when times are bad, and an pragmatic partner when things like working times needs to change.

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

#253

Post by Pay08 »

troad wrote: post #142
appreciatorBus wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fine goal, but at some point, someone should evaluate if that goal is being achieved, if the purported methods actually work. It's difficult to look at any remotely contentious Wiki page today and conclude that they have succeeded.

The perfect ought not be the enemy of the good - the question isn't whether Wikipedia has solved all prejudice, the question is whether it is doing better on that question than its peers. And I'd say it is, relatively speaking. I'm always happy for it to do better, though. Spending money to get people into editing Wikipedia that would never otherwise have done so seems like a very worthy goal to me.

It doesn't have any peers.

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

#254

Post by petterroea »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #242
petterroea wrote: post #189

Why do orgs like Wikipedia and Mozilla keep hiring corporate CEOs thinking it will bring them anything else than toxic work culture

I'm a huge fan of co-operatives for this kind of org. It would be interesting to create WikiMedia as a co-op and transfer ownership to editors, staff, donors, on some basis. There would be a huge argument about that basis, for sure. But if anyone has the experience to manage an enormous argument, and then handle the mechanics of conducting votes across multi-million-people ownership groups, it's WikiMedia.

Recently, every time there's a discussion about single CEOs and/or private equity ruining good things, co-operatives seem to come up. Maybe they aren't such a bad idea. Certainly, for starting a company or org, it seems like a decent option.

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

#255

Post by iririririr »

petterroea wrote: post #189

Why do orgs like Wikipedia and Mozilla keep hiring corporate CEOs thinking it will bring them anything else than toxic work culture

they promise more fundraising.

gnome foundation voted for a new president in 2010s who then hired several directors "specialized in fund raising" for obscene salaries, and then 4yrs iirc left, and the foundation declared bankruptcy or something

most devs in the board kept blogging what was happening, in kinda of an oblivious way. so it's a good insight on how those things are sold and how they happen.

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

#256

Post by iririririr »

pas wrote: post #191
jp_sc wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

yes, check program expense ratios https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/best-cha... but see also https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/blog/arent-the-best-charitie... and https://www.givewell.org/

this is all insane. it assumes you want charity forever! the initial assumption is already wrong.

also, back on topic:

Executive Salaries Position Salary (Annual)

Ex-CEO (Katherine Maher) $789,495

COO (Janeen Uzzell) $503,844

CFO (Jaime Villagomez) $386,433

General Counsel (Amanda Keton) $396,514

Current Highest Salaries Position Salary (Annual)

Software Engineering Manager $164,080

Technical Program Manager $159,200

Senior Software Engineer $109,513

Product Designer $95,972

Additional Salary Insights

    The median total compensation for employees at the Wikimedia Foundation is approximately $109,513.

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

#257

Post by hulitu »

nvme0n1p1 wrote: post #219
Pay08 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Considering Wikipedia has remained high quality for so long, you're going to have to expand on this. As is, it exudes the same naivety as "the building hasn't gotten robbed, so why are we spending money on security?"

> remained high quality

That was ten years ago. Now, political stuff (countries articles for example) is biased. It really looks like CIA fact book.

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

#258

Post by vintermann »

Wikipedianon wrote: post #165
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…

From a brief skim, the list includes pretty much all active Arbitration Enforcement (AE) admins. For those not in the loop, AE is the main mechanism to enforce civility and neutrality in contentious areas (obvious stuff like Israel-Palestine, American Politics, but also India-Pakistan, casteism, etc etc). It removes editors that are obviously only on the site to astroturf a specific belief relating to a globally cont…

Astroturf is not the right word, because appearing to be grassroots isn't how you sell your perspective on Wikipedia. Most of the people stopped from editing contentious topics on Wikipedia are in all likelihood more sincere about their beliefs than average. The more organized and professional they are about shilling, the better they do.

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

#259

Post by vintermann »

HerbManic wrote: post #240
Pay08 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is probably one of those things, once they are gone you will see just how effective they were.

I'm sure they're effective at maintaining the appearance of objectivity, so I agree that things will look terribly biased if they take a collective leave. That it will actually be worse on contentious topics, I'm not so sure if. My assumption for Wikipedia on any contentious topic, is that professionals have been gaming the system for so long that you're going to see very competent propaganda.

Basically I think it's good if people stop trusting Wikipedia on contentious topics.

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

#260

Post by hulitu »

hsuduebc2 wrote: post #194
bberenberg wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time with the idea that Wikipedia is unbiased when the main source in most cases is news reporting. Wikipedia is a societal form of Gell-Mann Amnesia.

This is not entirely fair. The overwhelming majority of Wikipedia is not meaningless politics, but stated facts backed by decent sources. The phenomenon you are referring to usually happens in areas where there is ideological or political friction. Sure, some articles can be biased, because staying perfectly factual in the middle of an active political debate or social change is difficult for most people. But in that…

> stated facts backed by decent sources.

Like WW2-era articles backed by books wtitten in 2003 from an obscure author. And only this author.

Post reply on HN