I worked for them ten years ago. I was excited to do something important for once. And it was better than competing with Amazon for book sales. I was really helping.
I eventually left because I didn’t think we were being a great steward of donor money. And I didnt have the best relationship with my boss. Nice guy, but we didn’t clock.
Back then they spent like half their money on donations and programs trying to get more editors. That included supporting projects in smaller languages and diversity on current projects. Mostly good stuff as far as I could tell.
Where they invested their money for tech was where I disagreed. But even so, I’ve donated since then. They are supporting important work. Everyone makes mistakes.
Ultimately, I dunno.
Yes definitely. Anything that spreads knowledge should be hugely supported.
Be very suspicious of anyone advocating for less support of knowledge sharing.
Not really. They haven’t been giving me a good reason. I’ve seen too many broken articles, formats that aren’t consistent and an abundance of editing issues. Those are not good reasons for me to be donating to them over.
Yeah, fuck them, right? Fucking assholes building a database with everything we learned and did as a species, making it accessible for everyone for free with their inconsistent editing. Let Wikipedia go broke with it’s abundance of editing issues! Who will miss this piece of shit site everyone can add to, edit and correct even without an account. Not us, right!
So edgy.
I have in the past, but at this point I need my money more than they do, and even if I get a job where it becomes financially possible to donate, there are other organizations that need it more than Wikipedia
I used to donate, but I haven’t for at least 10 years.
Their financing is public. They would have enough cash to keep the lights on for decades.
They’ve been investing to be reliant on donations in the future. I see a conflict of interest there and I’d rather have them be relying on donations… especially since they have received enough cash to do so.
TL;DR, I’m happy to donate for running Wikipedia, not happy to donate for them to become a fund.
Read this and then decide for yourself: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer
This is why I just block their fucking “we’re in trouble and need your help” banners. Their income is public knowledge. They don’t actually need help.
maybe redirect that to archive.org
I feel like they need it more… they’ve just been hacked and they might need more resources to upgrade their security.
But both are good causes. But make sure you have enough emergency funds saved for yourself first.
Edit: Another argument for archive.org over wikipedia is that wikipedia is mostly a text based site. archive.org , in contrast, can store photos, videos, software, and various media thay requires more storage. The entire English wikipedia is only about 100GB (excluding videos), but archive.org is probably in the Terabytes or more.
Their software collection alone has reached the petabyte mark: https://archive.org/details/software?tab=about
I don’t anymore.
they do not need your money, and it’s disingenuous of them to imply they do.
The manipulative aspect of their annual fundraisers is very unsettling.
here are some numbers from 2022:
https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-next-time-wikipedia-asks-for-a-donation-ignore-it/
they have at least 400 million in reserves now and the estimate is $10 million a year to maintain the site and pay all their employees.
their higher executives are each paid hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
they’re not struggling to keep the lights on for the next half century.
https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2022-2023-annual-report/
They have approximately $80 million in cash, and it costs them about $100 million to pay their staff. They have $274 million in total assets, counting endowment investments.
It’s extremely unclear where that site came up with $400 million.
I’m not sure why you’d link to a two year old opinion piece on it, when all of their financials are publicly available and provided without commentary.
They received cash in excess of expenses of about $6 million, and including non-cash assets their total assets increased by about $16 million in 2024.
Their CEO makes about $500 thousand a year, and the rest of their executive team ranges in salary from $300 to $100 thousand.
It’s not a small salary, but it’s not preposterous for one of the most visited sites in the Internet that also operates as a charity to have decently compensated executives.They are not in financial trouble, but it’s not accurate to say they can keep the lights on for the next 50 years.
Those salaries are not competitive. Not that they should be because executive pay is out of control, but they are also in no way extravagant and possibly too low or at least the bare minimum to retain any kind of decent talent to run the operation.
Looking at the profiles for the executives, you definitely get the feeling that they’re either the sort that prioritizes “my work put good into the world and you don’t need to squint to see it” over cash, so “yeah, that lets me live” is sufficient, or their seemingly going for a high score for number of “oh, nice!” organizations they can put on their CV, and the total compensation from them all is probably more than competitive.
“a two year old opinion piece on it,”
it’s the first article that popped up with reliable numbers, but there are plenty of articles criticizing the amassed wealth of wmf while they’re asking for money every year.
unsurprisingly, the WMF reports that WMF are spending their money responsibly and are barely managing to sustain themselves, while every journalist that looks into it confirms that WMF have plenty of money and have not needed to do these fundraising drives for years, and will not have to for decades.
$100 million is purely cash on hand, it doesn’t take into account any otger WMF assets.
it’s nice that you’re excited about Wikipedia, and it can be a useful resource, but these are not contentious facts.
Wikipedia has plenty of money, they spend it irresponsibly, and every year they are taking and millions of dollars that they add to that stack.
important to note, Wikipedias value to the end users is contributed two and maintained by unpaid volunteers.
here’s another good article;
https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-foundation-donate.html
I made sure it was also 2 years old because I think it’s funny your ageist about facts.
I’ll talk to you in 50 years and we can settle this.
first article that popped up with reliable numbera
Except…the numbers weren’t reliable. Where did they get $400 million in cash from? That’s just not a thing.
$100 million is purely cash on hand, it doesn’t take into account any otger WMF assets.
It’s $80 million cash, $274M counting all assets, like it says in the audit and my comment.
unsurprisingly, the WMF reports that WMF are spending their money responsibly and are barely managing to sustain themselves
Are you saying that their financial audit is fraudulent? “Wikipedia is committing tax fraud” is a pretty hot take, not gonna lie.
Their financial report also doesn’t claim they’re barely scraping by, so I’m not sure where you’re getting that.Wikipedia has plenty of money, they spend it irresponsibly
That’s a different argument which you seemingly haven’t actually argued. “They make enough money, here’s some incorrect financial claims to justify it” is very different from “I don’t think they spend money wisely, and need to change what they spend on”.
it’s nice that you’re excited about Wikipedia, and it can be a useful resource, but these are not contentious facts.
I never actually made a statement for or against donation, I only pointed out that your information was incorrect. “$400 million cash” is a very different situation than “$80 million cash”.
I’m gonna disagree very strongly that these are “not contentious facts”, because they’re not correct in the slightest. Being off by $320 million dollars strongly undercuts the credibility of an argument.Honestly, I’m confused about why you seem so angry at Wikipedia.
Yes, I am ageist about facts. What a weird thing to take issue with. The financial state of an organization two years ago doesn’t have as much bearing on if they should get donations as the current financial statement does.
Does this financial statement from 2006 feel just as relevant and make you want to donate to them?That article is at least accurate in how it describes their financial situation. It’s also kind of amusing that the author concludes that donation is reasonable:
So, bottom line: Should someone with financial means donate when they see Wikipedia’s banner ads running in December? It depends. In my view, people who volunteer a lot of time improving Wikipedia’s content have already made their “gift” and should feel no obligation. For everyone else, the calculus is personal. One volunteer suggested donating to smaller but allied organizations like OpenStreetMap, which provides map data that is used for Wikipedia pages. Other contributors said that even if Wikipedia is only indirectly supported by the WMF, the WMF is still the best-positioned organization to advance free knowledge overall by virtue of its scale and connections.
Clearly, Wikipedians are right to engage in vigorous discussion about how donations are solicited from visitors and to oversee how those funds are actually spent. For me, there’s also the small matter of the external environment. In recent years, Wikipedia has been attacked by authoritarian regimes and powerful billionaires—people who do not necessarily benefit from the free flow of neutral information. If $3 helps hold them off, then that’s coffee money well spent.
Wow, you really like make believe huh?
pretending I said things I didn’t and then arguing against them isn’t the gotcha you apparently think it is, Don Quixote.
but if it makes you feel better, float your own boat.
What are you even talking about?
“Why” was a typo, fixed it.
Don Quixote is a famous literary figure who creates monsters out of his own failing perception and then attacks them.
he’s an analogy of you fabricating points I haven’t made so you have something to struggle against.
Har har har.
I’m honestly curious what point you think I’m responding to that you didn’t make.
You did actually use grossly inaccurate financial data when the tax documents were publicly available.deleted by creator
Yeah I no longer donate as well for this same reason. They are not hurting for cash
deleted by creator
To keep the money coming is a pretty good reason.
I do.
I think that it’s one of the services that dramatically enhances not just my online experience, but also the world’s. And I’d rather have it donation supported than ad-supported or similar.
There aren’t many services that I’ll donate to, but this is one.
Right now, I’m leaning towards “no” on account of them allegedly being awash with money.
In the vein of alternative places to donate, consider your Fediverse instance(s). If you’re a Linux user, a few pennies towards your distro of choice wouldn’t go amiss either. (I’d also say archive.org, but someone else suggested that already.)
You may already be donating to these places, but this comment is also for the handful of other people who might see it, and like one of those arcade coin waterfalls, might trickle down into the conscience of someone who has cash to donate.
I do not. Not as long as Jimmy Wales is involved with it. I strongly disagree with his objectivist philosophy.
There are certainty worse places to send your money, though.
I am not sure whether the wikimedia foundation actually needs money from individuals. From what I could find by searching “Does Wikipedia need donations”, they seem to have plenty of money. I’ve also seen from people that after donating, they like to haunt your email inbox for more money.
I myself prefer donating elsewhere instead. In my opinion a good alternative is archive.org. It’s hard to track how much they get sued, and now they even were hacked recently.
I donate a bit each year, and I wouldn’t say they are bothersome. I get an email once a year where they ask if I’d like to donate again, not counting the receipt from the actual donation. It seems disingenuous to complain about the receipt.
Yeah I’ll give em $20 some years and never got hit with emails. EDIT: just checked i have 2 solicitation in my inbox this year
You’re better off shooting your instance the money, but Wikipedia has remained a genuinely good quality company. If you want to give them money in recognition of this fact, no one sane will call you a dumb dildo with hairy feet.
You have my permission
Yes
