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Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

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Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#51

Post by kragen »

avg_dev wrote: post #20
akolbe wrote: post #2

Single-page: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1570072717931552770.html

Once again, I’m grateful for your message. (I did end up getting my refund. I hope you remember me.) On a completely unrelated note, I was looking at a somewhat complicated Wikipedia page yesterday and noticed a piece of text I would like to edit. It had some stuff (citations and references) I felt I didn’t understand how to edit without being sure I wouldn’t break anything. Is there a good forum or place where I cou…

My advice is:

1. preview changes until the result looks the way you think it should

2. have faith that if you broke something non-obvious, then the WikiGnomes will fix it (and then you can look at the page history and see the change and learn)

3. be bold! If you've never had an edit reverted you aren't contributing enough.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#52

Post by mcguire »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #37

The Wikimedia foundation has a ton of money, the constant badgering is a bit much. I got turned off by Jimmy Wales early on and swore I’d never give a dime to Wikipedia.

Sounds fine, if you don't use Wikipedia either.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#54

Post by akolbe »

dbingham wrote: post #23
jefftk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an "$111 million operating budget", but that's because they've decided to spend money on lots of things other than "serve Wikipedia": https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe... Note that "Direct support to websites" includes things like designing and implementing more intuitive article editing UI, which while potentially worth it isn't the kind of "obviously we must do this" that keepin…

Yeah, I think it's valid to ask whether Wikipedia's expenses are too high, or whether they are spending on the right things. But that tweet and thread are sensationalist and not doing it in a way that will lead to a reasonable dialog around that question. The linked article is better - but still sensationalist. Compare that budget and the scale of Wikimedia foundation to the organizations that are running websites of…

The question to me is what donors are told. The Wikimedia Foundation built a $100 million endowment in five years, half the time it had budgeted:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais...

It's gone through a phase of planned, aggressive growth of its headcount. Its salary costs have increased tenfold over a decade:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie...

As you can see on that page, individual executives' salaries have risen by 20, 30 percent in the space of two years. And all the while people are told the Wikimedia Foundation needs money "to keep Wikipedia online", or "to protect Wikipedia's independence".

No. If you want to grow your headcount, tell people why. If you want ten times as much money from the public ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial...

... then say what you are going to do with it. Don't hide behind "keeping Wikipedia online".

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#55

Post by jhbadger »

cheeze wrote: post #29
JohnFen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$350k salaries _are_ lavish, though. It seems strange to me that people would argue otherwise.

Uh, what? SDEs with a few YOE are getting this no problem at top companies. Why wouldn't the CEO of the fifth biggest website on the internet?

But that's apples and oranges. People who work at those companies are presumably being paid that because they are (or at least believed to be) making more in profit for the company than they are being paid. It's the same reason why professional football players and movie actors make so much. But consider ballet dancers or stage actors -- they may be just as athletic or as good actors as the football players or movie actors are, but they are in a far less profitable field. So they make less. The people in these jobs are just motivated by their passion rather than by salary.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#56

Post by zihotki »

dane-pgp wrote: post #24
JohnFen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$350k salaries _are_ lavish, though. It seems strange to me that people would argue otherwise.

It may be lavish, but if an executive paid $350k is 35% less likely to make a mistake that would cost the organisation $1m (which is about 1% of their budget), compared to a volunteer working for free, then maybe, from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap. Of course, judging performance like that is very difficult, and predicting it in advance is even harder, so it's possible that the highly pai…

I don't see any reason for an executive to be less likely to make a mistake. And considering that the core business is rock solid and didn't change much in last many years, I don't even see a potential for such mistake.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#57

Post by akolbe »

random314 wrote: post #15
JohnFen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$350k salaries _are_ lavish, though. It seems strange to me that people would argue otherwise.

Not in SF. Maybe there is a case to be made to move Wikipedia operations outside Bay area.

Maybe there is a case for moving much of it outside the US? Lots of staffers work remotely anyway.

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#58

Post by akolbe »

avg_dev wrote: post #20
akolbe wrote: post #2

Single-page: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1570072717931552770.html

Once again, I’m grateful for your message. (I did end up getting my refund. I hope you remember me.) On a completely unrelated note, I was looking at a somewhat complicated Wikipedia page yesterday and noticed a piece of text I would like to edit. It had some stuff (citations and references) I felt I didn’t understand how to edit without being sure I wouldn’t break anything. Is there a good forum or place where I cou…

I do, and glad to hear it. :)

To ask questions, a good place to start is the Teahouse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse

Good luck!

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#59

Post by zihotki »

mcguire wrote: post #45
JohnFen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$350k salaries _are_ lavish, though. It seems strange to me that people would argue otherwise.

Sundar Pichai gets ~$250M. Parag Agrawal gets something like $30M.

Apples and oranges, you should instead compare it with other non-profits. According to top links in search for 'non profit ceo salary' give me average salary numbers about $150k

Re: Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved

#60

Post by JohnFen »

dane-pgp wrote: post #24
JohnFen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$350k salaries _are_ lavish, though. It seems strange to me that people would argue otherwise.

It may be lavish, but if an executive paid $350k is 35% less likely to make a mistake that would cost the organisation $1m (which is about 1% of their budget), compared to a volunteer working for free, then maybe, from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap. Of course, judging performance like that is very difficult, and predicting it in advance is even harder, so it's possible that the highly pai…

> if an executive paid $350k is 35% less likely to make a mistake that would cost the organisation $1m (which is about 1% of their budget), compared to a volunteer working for free, then maybe, from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap.

True, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that's a realistic hypothetical at all.

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