4 ms·

Establish an endowment to ensure they are not fighting for survival in the future.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
IshKebab 8y ago
They could do that themselves and in fact they are - $5m/year goes into their endowment. Take a look at their budget: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Final/Financials https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_... Quite a lot of waste in there, e.g. $850k on "brand strategy" - kind of looks like they have more money than they know what to do with.
- insertnickname 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-02-27/Op-ed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
  - komali2 8y ago
    I never saw these "Signposts" before, interesting. Was there ever an opposing view released to this, uh, blogpost? Signpost? edit: apparently there is a kind of discussion section at the bottom
xyzzyz 8y ago
In 2017 WMF had $120M in assets. It's probably closer to $150M today, since they are making over $20M a year in "profit" (revenues minus expenes). The cost of actually running Wikimedia projects (servers + network + salaries of dev ops and salaries of code maintainers) should easily fit below $10M, because it did in 2012. There has been growth since then in terms of usage, but this is very scalable growth that's cheap to handle: it's not servers and network expenses that's been skyrocketing, these are pretty much constant since 2012. It's the salaries, grants and awards. Look at their financial reports[1], and especially compare the growth in expenses over time. Suffice to say, if WMF struggles in the future, it's only due to mismanagement of its cancerous growth. [1] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/
- gsnedders 8y ago
  > It's the salaries, grants and awards. Salaries for who? Grants to who and for what? Awards to who and for what? Like, can someone provide a summary, for those of us who don't really have the time to dive into the reports?
  - pc86 8y ago
    The reports are the summary.
  - tibbon 8y ago
    They have around 300 FTEs. It might sound high, but they are the 5th most visited website in the world. Of others in the top 10, I think Reddit is the only other company with under 1,000 employees (at around 250). In comparison, Taobao which is also in the top 10 has over 30,000 employees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Final/Staff_and_Contractors https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_...
    - xyzzyz 8y ago
      It was already top 8 in 2012, and had less than half of the headcount it has today, spending a third of what it spends today in salaries.
      - tibbon 8y ago
        Eh - I find this public over-scrutiny of a company just because it's a nonprofit to be a little offputing. Sure, you want to know your donations aren't being wasted, but I keep in mind that most non-profits where my friends work have people under-staffed and without enough budgets overall compared to their parallels in commercial businesses. Do you know for a fact there that what they were doing in 2012 was sustainable for their employees, and building a solid future path for growth? If everyone's overworked and not efficient, keeping it overly lean isn't good in the long term.
blattimwind 8y ago
WMF has been throwing out money for virtually everything except the actual *pedias.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

They could do that themselves and in fact they are - $5m/year goes into their endowment. Take a look at their budget: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Final/Financials https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_... Quite a lot of waste in there, e.g. $850k on "brand strategy" - kind of looks like they have more money than they know what to do with.

insertnickname 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-02-27/Op-ed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
- komali2 8y ago
  I never saw these "Signposts" before, interesting. Was there ever an opposing view released to this, uh, blogpost? Signpost? edit: apparently there is a kind of discussion section at the bottom

xyzzyz 8y ago

In 2017 WMF had $120M in assets. It's probably closer to $150M today, since they are making over $20M a year in "profit" (revenues minus expenes). The cost of actually running Wikimedia projects (servers + network + salaries of dev ops and salaries of code maintainers) should easily fit below $10M, because it did in 2012. There has been growth since then in terms of usage, but this is very scalable growth that's cheap to handle: it's not servers and network expenses that's been skyrocketing, these are pretty much constant since 2012. It's the salaries, grants and awards. Look at their financial reports[1], and especially compare the growth in expenses over time. Suffice to say, if WMF struggles in the future, it's only due to mismanagement of its cancerous growth. [1] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/

gsnedders 8y ago
> It's the salaries, grants and awards. Salaries for who? Grants to who and for what? Awards to who and for what? Like, can someone provide a summary, for those of us who don't really have the time to dive into the reports?
- pc86 8y ago
  The reports are the summary.
- tibbon 8y ago
  They have around 300 FTEs. It might sound high, but they are the 5th most visited website in the world. Of others in the top 10, I think Reddit is the only other company with under 1,000 employees (at around 250). In comparison, Taobao which is also in the top 10 has over 30,000 employees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Final/Staff_and_Contractors https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_...
  - xyzzyz 8y ago
    It was already top 8 in 2012, and had less than half of the headcount it has today, spending a third of what it spends today in salaries.
    - tibbon 8y ago
      Eh - I find this public over-scrutiny of a company just because it's a nonprofit to be a little offputing. Sure, you want to know your donations aren't being wasted, but I keep in mind that most non-profits where my friends work have people under-staffed and without enough budgets overall compared to their parallels in commercial businesses. Do you know for a fact there that what they were doing in 2012 was sustainable for their employees, and building a solid future path for growth? If everyone's overworked and not efficient, keeping it overly lean isn't good in the long term.

blattimwind 8y ago

WMF has been throwing out money for virtually everything except the actual *pedias.