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A Mismatch Between Wikimedia's Pledge Drive and Its Cash On Hand?
Andreas Kolbe writes The latest financial statements for the Wikimedia Foundation, the charity behind Wikipedia, show it has assets of $60 million, including $27 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $23 million in investments. Yet its aggressive banner ads suggest disaster may be imminent if people don't donate and imply that Wikipedia may be forced to run commercial advertising to survive. Jimmy Wales counters complaints by saying the Foundation are merely prudent in ensuring they always have a reserve equal to one year's spending, but the fact is that Wikimedia spending has increased by 1,000 percent in the course of a few years. And by a process of circular logic, as spending increases, so the reserve has to increase, meaning that donors are asked to donate millions more each year. Unlike the suggestion made by the fundraising banners, most of these budget increases have nothing to do with keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free, and nothing to do with generating and curating Wikipedia content, a task that is handled entirely by the unpaid volunteer base. The skyrocketing budget increases are instead the result of a massive expansion of paid software engineering staff at the Foundation – whose work in recent years has been heavily criticised by the unpaid volunteer base. The aggressive fundraising banners too are controversial within the Wikimedia community itself.
I always thought that transparency should be right there in the banner. "Hey guys, we have 60M worth of assets but we need more because $REASON".
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
That's the usual method of solving these problems. Wonder why no one is trying to do that if the fundraising is so controversial?
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Big software projects need developers. Full time, accountable ones with a paycheck and an office. Mozilla feeds theirs with ad revenue, Linux has some corporate supporters who pay the bills.
MediaWiki, that drives Wikipedia, is really complex. And they need new features to support the site better, especially admin tools and backend tech.
But, at the same time, screaming in desperation when you're doing okay and just need support for your functionality means that when you are in trouble, no one can tell.
There is nothing "circular" about higher expenses leading to a need for higher reserves. It would only be circular if in turn the higher reserves led to higher expenses, which is not a point that you have made at all.
They still show those scary WIkipedia-is-doomed-without-your-help banners? LOL. I use Wikiwand now, so I don't see those anymore. What I disliked most about those banners is that once you donate, they don't go away. They keep hounding you for money! As part of my reward for donating, I shouldn't have to have your pledge drive shoved down my throat anymore.
Wikipedia is still a very usable web site. By comparison slashdot went commercial some time ago and has become less usable with each passing year. Similarly while the content on wikipedia has continued to improve, the content here has continued to get worse.
Someone could learn something here, I'm pretty sure.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Circular logic is assuming the truth of the conclusion as a premise. For example, "I know that everything I know is true because, among the things that I know, one of the things I know is that everything I know is true" is circular. "We like to keep a reserve equal to one year's spending. Spending increases, therefore the reserve has to increase" is not circular.
> Wikimedia spending has increased by 1,000 percent in the course of a few years.
That could be a problem.
> Jimmy Wales counters complaints by saying the Foundation are merely prudent in ensuring they always have a reserve equal to one year's spending
Yes, a one year reserve on the low end of normal. You don't want Wikipedia to disappear when something bad happens, and SHIT HAPPENS. It's a top 10 web site, meaning it's in the big leagues with Google, Microsoft etc., except it's nonprofit. They may have to deal with stuff like Google is dealing with in Europe - disputes with multiple governments on the other side. You don't want Wikipedia to go bankrupt when some government or some company somewhere doe something stupid that costs the foundation $5 million to deal with and repair the damage.
> nothing to do with generating and curating Wikipedia content, a task that is handled entirely by the unpaid volunteer base.'
False. A large chunk of the budget is developing software for "generating and curating Wikipedia content". It's disingenuous to claim that developing tools for generating and curating content "have nothing to do" with generating and curating content.
Indeed, I've received multiple emails from ol' Jimmy again this year, one to a WP-specific email, and one to paypal. I don't care what your organization is, spam is spam, and unsolicited begging for funds qualifies just as well as any. I never agreed to allow them to contact me at my paypal address, they just scraped it from the time I did donate.
So Jimmy and WP can kiss my butt this year. Bah humbug to them.
An example of what they've done would be the recent Monuments project. They built a back end, complete with a Google maps API interface, to tell you exactly where they needed photos of which historic monuments, in relation to a given ZIP code. Based on that, I learned there was 200 year old farm house about a half a mile from my office, and I spent a productive lunch break driving over there and photographing it. Their website handled the upload, licensing, and then distributed the new photo to the Commons as well as the Monuments project. There were no errors during this entire process which means the entire thing was rigorously tested and properly coded. It was a painless user experience, if a bit dry because of the spartan aesthetics of Wikimedia, but my "generated content" was incorporated seamlessly into their project in about five minutes. That's good website engineering.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I also object to getting bombarded with annoying and often intrusive ad banners begging for money for extended periods of time when a site with the traffic of Wikipedia could probably get as much money with real ad banners in an order of magnitude less time.
I'd wager they'd get more money with one day a year of real ads than they do with their current weeks of begging.
...but the fact is that Wikimedia spending has increased by 1,000 percent in the course of a few years... most of these budget increases have nothing to do with keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free, and nothing to do with generating and curating Wikipedia content...The skyrocketing budget increases are instead the result of a massive expansion of paid software engineering staff...
So from this information alone, I'm not sure I see the problem. You have a very large website that I'm sure gets unimaginable amounts of traffic, operating for free and supported by voluntary donations, and their budget is increasing because they've hired engineers to keep the thing running. That all sounds reasonable enough.
I think if you want to raise a red flag here, you have to show that the software engineering staff is unwarranted, or that they're working on things that the donors don't want to see done. So how many engineers do they have, and what are they working on? It seems to me that they're doing a competent job, since you have a relatively large, complex, and popular website that doesn't seem to have a lot of serious technical trouble, as far as I can tell. I'm sure they've had to scale up their capabilities over recent years, which requires some development in making the site scale and handle large, sudden increases in traffic. It looks to me like they're doing more than just maintain the Wikipedia-- they have the Wiktionary, Wikiquote, something called "Wikidata", and a bunch of other projects that all seem like they're probably legitimate, even if I don't know what they are. In that context, I can imagine them needing to keep a fair number of engineers on staff.
So what's the complaint here? Do you think someone is embezzling money, or that they're just stockpiling money for no reason? Do you think that they're spending money in the wrong places, and if so, where you do think they're spending money, and where do you think they should be spending money? I think you need to give me something before I can figure out how to be outraged at all of this.
The Foundation "is", not are. It is one entity. You're not referring to all the people within the Foundation, you're referring to the Foundation itself. You even use the word "it", not them, to refer to the Wikimedia Foundation.
You use is when referring to a singular entity.
You use are when referring to more than one entity or a group, such as they.
From my observations, this is one of those points where UK and US English disagree.
Organizations are referred to as plural in UK English and singular in US English.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
A large chunk of the budget is developing software for "generating and curating Wikipedia content". It's disingenuous to claim that developing tools for generating and curating content "have nothing to do" with generating and curating content.
Except the software was already 90% developed back in 2003, when the Wikimedia Foundation came into existence. The additional software tinkering (if you had read the linked articles) has been for needless, non-working trinkets like Visual Editor (which the vast majority of editors hate) and Media Viewer (which 900 editors signed a petition pleading to the WMF to not force down their throats). Have you ever seen 900 vested Wikipedians ever agree on anything else?
Wake up, inform yourself, and discover that the Wikimedia Foundation is just a big scam to cover up the fact that less than 6% of the budget is needed to keep the Wikipedia sites running.
That was the abridged version of the word.
This is normal for wikipedia. When you have a contested issue, you'll have pundits duke it out and one who gives best blowjobs to admins wins.
Here's a good example of even more hilarious controversy:
http://techraptor.net/content/...
Says the person that almost certainly uses it constantly for all sorts of things, like everyone else on the planet. But, unlike most other sources of human knowledge developed in ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY, the Wikipedia gives you, anyone, the ability to fix things. But why do that when you can just moan about it?
It is true that some advertisers may pull their campaign if they don't like the content, but a popular site will always generate enough interest from someone to cover operating expenses. No pandering or user tracking needed.
In fact, why not focus on educational content, like books on the subject related to the page? There are few other opportunities to promote specialized science/history books, and it would be in line with the mission of educating the world.
"Ability fix things". The tiny midwestern town that I was born in has a Wiki page that states it was devastated by fire in the 1960s. This never happened but it was devastated by a major flood in 1937, which it barely mentions. I corrected it and it was reversed stating that I needed sources..How do you source something that didn't happen? There was never a major fire.
I tried again a few years later (2012ish) and it was again reversed. I quit trying.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Over here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/...
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
It's difficult to argue with someone who believes that adding a diamond-encrusted, solid gold frame (in the shape of a trapezoid) to the Mona Lisa would be "generating and curating" artwork.
"the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"
Apparently it doesn't work that way. You have to be a "wikipedian" and somehow know how to do things. But the problem is that by being a "wikipedian", something happens to your brain and you start shitting over people who are not "wikipedians" for trying to edit your precious encyclopedia. I can't help but notice the condescending, shitty attitude dripping throughout your post, and the personal attack on the mental capacity of the grandparent poster.
Yup, I believe you're a "wikipedian". Sadly confirms the stereotypes.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Yeah, but I have written 2 FAs, so I'm allowed to, Maury. (And I have more edits than you.) :P
AdBlockers can remove spammy posts such as yours, which is something hosts files can not do.
Seeing the world in such black and white terms doesn't speak too highly of your mental stability. I know, I know, now you'll go find all my posts and pretend to be different people comparing me to a monkey or something else. I really don't care - it's rather obvious it's you, as your stream-of-consciousness-barely-sane writing "style" quickly points out.
Hosts files have their use, and so do things like AdBlocker and other browser plugins/extensions. Sane people see that, why can't you? Oh, right... I get it now.