This and some of the other non-profits they donate to is why I won't give them a cent
Nonprofits such as?
Wikimedia Foundation spent $88M for salaries in 2021-22 as a no profit
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Re: Wikimedia Foundation spent $88M for salaries in 2021-22 as a no profit
#22Wikipedia gives away an amazing product for free and people still find something to bitch about.
Wikipedia isn't creating the content, so that's not true. They give away a product that is donated to them by the editors who are not paid.
Re: Wikimedia Foundation spent $88M for salaries in 2021-22 as a no profit
#23Other than having more than $350M of founds, the Wikimedia Foundation has started selling Wikipedia data to private companies (like Google) via Wikimedia Enterprise [1]. The open knowledge created by the community worldwide is now sold for profit of a few. [1]: https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/
From the FAQ: "All revenue from Wikimedia Enterprise goes towards the charitable mission of the Wikimedia Foundation."
Dig deeper and you will see the finances for the Wikimedia Foundation is run by a different, very partisan foundation called the Tides Foundation.
Re: Wikimedia Foundation spent $88M for salaries in 2021-22 as a no profit
#24This and some of the other non-profits they donate to is why I won't give them a cent
Nonprofits such as?
The Tides Foundation controls the finances. They're a donor advised fund, which operates as a non-profit PAC that launders donations made to Wikimedia through Tides and into some very questionable (depending on your ideology) causes.
When you donate to those nag screens you're funding something very different than servers to run Wikipedia, and they're not super open about that.
Re: Wikimedia Foundation spent $88M for salaries in 2021-22 as a no profit
#25Wikipedia gives away an amazing product for free and people still find something to bitch about.
Wikipedia isn't creating the content, so that's not true. They give away a product that is donated to them by the editors who are not paid.
They do indeed pay editors, by awarding grants to hold article writing/editing marathons which they call "edit-thons".
Look up the awardees of those grants; it is clear that they largely go to organizations supporting specific political narratives.
Re: Wikimedia Foundation spent $88M for salaries in 2021-22 as a no profit
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikipedia isn't creating the content, so that's not true. They give away a product that is donated to them by the editors who are not paid.
They do indeed pay editors, by awarding grants to hold article writing/editing marathons which they call "edit-thons". Look up the awardees of those grants; it is clear that they largely go to organizations supporting specific political narratives.
> organizations supporting specific political narratives.
That doesn't change the fact that the majority of content on Wikipedia was freely created by non-staff. So they're "giving away" something that was given to them for free, not something they created.
Re: Wikimedia Foundation spent $88M for salaries in 2021-22 as a no profit
#27The term "nonprofit" is rather weird. It means that the organization doesn't have shareholders, so no person owns the money that the organization doesn't spend. Salaries are a common thing that nonprofits spend their money on. That table shows some very comfortable salaries, but not at all out of keeping with an organization that size. There are many larger nonprofits with much larger salaries: a number of health car…
I don't know why it should even be that controversial. It was never the government's intent to determine which nonprofits are truly noble and just. It's also not their job to govern how well they spend their resources, or how big they are allowed to be. If they are lying or defrauding donors, there are existing legal remedies.
The government has an interest in preventing corporations from being used to avoid taxes. For example: I donate $50,000 to Jfengel Charities LLC, whose sole purpose is to purchase a car and then allow me to use it. I write off that $50k on my taxes, and still get the use of the car. Nobody is defrauded, except the IRS.
So they limit tax-deductible corporations to certain categories that have some kind of benefit. They don't police it very closely, but if you come to their attention, they'll force you to pay taxes and possibly penalties.
Re: Wikimedia Foundation spent $88M for salaries in 2021-22 as a no profit
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do indeed pay editors, by awarding grants to hold article writing/editing marathons which they call "edit-thons". Look up the awardees of those grants; it is clear that they largely go to organizations supporting specific political narratives.
> organizations supporting specific political narratives. Yes, you're referring to the Tides Foundation, the shady outfit that launders the Wikimedia donations into causes that the Wikimedia donors aren't aware of. That doesn't change the fact that the majority of content on Wikipedia was freely created by non-staff. So they're "giving away" something that was given to them for free, not something they created.
No, I am referring to monetary grants by Wikipedia themselves, which are only a Google search away, if you'd care to look.
Re: Wikimedia Foundation spent $88M for salaries in 2021-22 as a no profit
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> organizations supporting specific political narratives. Yes, you're referring to the Tides Foundation, the shady outfit that launders the Wikimedia donations into causes that the Wikimedia donors aren't aware of. That doesn't change the fact that the majority of content on Wikipedia was freely created by non-staff. So they're "giving away" something that was given to them for free, not something they created.
No, I am referring to monetary grants by Wikipedia themselves, which are only a Google search away, if you'd care to look.
Wikimedia is who you donate to, not Wikipedia. Wikipedia is owned by Wikimedia, and Wikimedia gives money to a lot of shady causes, laundered via the donor advised funds set up by Tides Foundation.
I say laundered because of how donor advised funds work. You donate to Wikimedia, because you hope it goes to running Wikipedia. But that Wikimedia endowment is controlled by Tides Foundation. So you can see the money go in, but not necessarily where it comes out.