8 ms·

What is the appeal of getting them to cut costs down to nothing? It seems weird to me that people resent a budget of $70 million/year for the most useful websit

What is the appeal of getting them to cut costs down to nothing? It seems weird to me that people resent a budget of $70 million/year for the most useful website in existence. What would you rather the money be spent on?

Macha 8y ago
The two issues I have are: By having a high expense situation and constantly begging for donations, it puts wikipedia, the main venture, at risk if other wikimedia ventures don't pan out. If it was a struggle to keep wikipedia's lights on, I'd consider donating myself, but if it's for wikimedia to expand other projects with questionable benefits, I'm not inclined, and portraying the latter as the former rubs people seriously the wrong way.
- vanderZwan 8y ago
  > If it was a struggle to keep wikipedia's lights on, I'd consider donating myself Isn't that kind of problematic too though? The idea that donations may only go to organizations that would struggle otherwise? (I know I'm inferring something you didn't explicitly say, but I do think that is a fairly common sentiment as well)
  - Retra 8y ago
    Then it wouldn't be a charity donation. Giving money to successful projects is better done as an investment (or maybe purchase.)
    - vanderZwan 8y ago
      I see no logical reason why being successful as a project implies that investing with a profit motive is the best option for guaranteeing continued success.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - Retra 8y ago
        It isn't best option to guarantee success. It just means you're lower on the list of need-based funding allocations.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    The situation becomes a bit clearer after drawing a distinction between a broad mission ("feed the starving") and a specific mission ("maintain wikipedia"). I'm ok with donations to a specific mission or a group with a very clear this-is-what-we-need-to-fund style goal and budget, and obviously if they are achieving their mission then they don't need more donations. I'm not normally comfortable with the broad-mission style organisations. A large pool of money to be spent on an amorphous goal, by a group of essentially unknown people of unknown ability and beliefs? That is a scandal waiting to happen, and probably going to be mired in admin fees and corruption over the medium-long term if it isn't already. Any charity that isn't struggling to keep the lights on is fundamentally suspect.
    - vanderZwan 8y ago
      Well, alright. But can replace the word "organisations" and "charity" with "corporations" and "company" and explain why this logic of scandals and corruption waiting to happen no longer holds? Because I sure can't.
      - roenxi 8y ago
        I also wouldn't advise donating money to corporations and companies. Corporations _are_ routinely plagued by financial scandals and corruption, but that is a problem for the owners, not the public. The harmed party is the shareholders, and to a substantial degree it is up to them to protect themselves. A big difference that you might be looking for is that nobody is keen to give money to a company. People have (surprisingly effective) methods to find the cheapest producer. If the government is behaving appropriately this effect generally squeezes profit margins until they are uniform and thin. In theory. Practice is often close enough to theory to keep the system humming along.
- currymj 8y ago
  That makes sense, thanks. I have actually run into a use for one of the side projects (Wikidata) so I may be more optimistic about the foundation’s chances of doing something else useful with a big budget.
hug 8y ago
The problem, in all this, is not getting Wikipedia's expenses down to nothing. I use Wikipedia all the time, and I love it. It's an incredibly useful site and should be funded well enough to keep running indefinitely, and even have room for improvement. On the other hand, if I choose to donate money to Wikmedia, 80% of it goes to other places, like their "content" sites, which consists of this bunch of mediocrity: Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, and Wikidata. I don't give a shit about any of these projects, the only one I really don't want to go away is Wikipedia, and the rest could die and I wouldn't even blink, except as those projects also support Wikipedia. Increase Wikipedia's expenses if you must! Double it! Triple it! Just don't pretend that the foundation is struggling to support the thing that most people donating actually care about.
- scrollaway 8y ago
  Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons are both heavily used within Wikipedia, and Wiktionary is a very useful resource. It's kinda like saying "I don't want the money I donate to Mozilla to end up funding shitty projects like Gecko and Servo! I want it to end up in Firefox!" There are offshoots in those, yes, but that doesn't make it a huge waste. Remember wikipedia was a very, very long shot for a very long time. To fund successes, you have to fund a lot of potential failures. In other words, if you trust what the wikimedia foundation is doing, then you should donate to them and trust what they do with it (but feel free to challenge it and voice your opinion as a donor). And if you don't trust what they're doing, then you shouldn't be donating to them in the first place IMO, regardless of their ownership of Wikipedia.
  - hug 8y ago
    Re: Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, I feel like you glossed over "except as those projects also support Wikipedia", and as for Wiktionary, any of the ninety other online dictionary services will do me just as well. With regards to the comparison to Gecko & Servo: If 80% of the development effort was going towards those projects being used only for integration with FirefoxOS, I would have the same complaint. Mozilla isn't doing that, though, and even when they were funding FirefoxOS, they didn't spit a half page banner in my face every time I opened Firefox saying "Firefox will be dead if you don't send us money!" when they were really talking about FirefoxOS. In case it wasn't abundantly clear, I'm pointing fingers at Wikimedia's scummy donation-soliciting practices on Wikpedia. > if you don't trust what they're doing, then you shouldn't be donating to them in the first place IMO, regardless of their ownership of Wikipedia. I don't. So I don't. And, in fact, will be happy to argue in a bar that they shouldn't be donated to. If I could donate purely to support Wikipedia only, however, I would, and I would also argue that others should too. But I can't. So I don't.

Macha 8y ago

The two issues I have are: By having a high expense situation and constantly begging for donations, it puts wikipedia, the main venture, at risk if other wikimedia ventures don't pan out. If it was a struggle to keep wikipedia's lights on, I'd consider donating myself, but if it's for wikimedia to expand other projects with questionable benefits, I'm not inclined, and portraying the latter as the former rubs people seriously the wrong way.

vanderZwan 8y ago
> If it was a struggle to keep wikipedia's lights on, I'd consider donating myself Isn't that kind of problematic too though? The idea that donations may only go to organizations that would struggle otherwise? (I know I'm inferring something you didn't explicitly say, but I do think that is a fairly common sentiment as well)
- Retra 8y ago
  Then it wouldn't be a charity donation. Giving money to successful projects is better done as an investment (or maybe purchase.)
  - vanderZwan 8y ago
    I see no logical reason why being successful as a project implies that investing with a profit motive is the best option for guaranteeing continued success.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retra 8y ago
      It isn't best option to guarantee success. It just means you're lower on the list of need-based funding allocations.
- roenxi 8y ago
  The situation becomes a bit clearer after drawing a distinction between a broad mission ("feed the starving") and a specific mission ("maintain wikipedia"). I'm ok with donations to a specific mission or a group with a very clear this-is-what-we-need-to-fund style goal and budget, and obviously if they are achieving their mission then they don't need more donations. I'm not normally comfortable with the broad-mission style organisations. A large pool of money to be spent on an amorphous goal, by a group of essentially unknown people of unknown ability and beliefs? That is a scandal waiting to happen, and probably going to be mired in admin fees and corruption over the medium-long term if it isn't already. Any charity that isn't struggling to keep the lights on is fundamentally suspect.
  - vanderZwan 8y ago
    Well, alright. But can replace the word "organisations" and "charity" with "corporations" and "company" and explain why this logic of scandals and corruption waiting to happen no longer holds? Because I sure can't.
    - roenxi 8y ago
      I also wouldn't advise donating money to corporations and companies. Corporations _are_ routinely plagued by financial scandals and corruption, but that is a problem for the owners, not the public. The harmed party is the shareholders, and to a substantial degree it is up to them to protect themselves. A big difference that you might be looking for is that nobody is keen to give money to a company. People have (surprisingly effective) methods to find the cheapest producer. If the government is behaving appropriately this effect generally squeezes profit margins until they are uniform and thin. In theory. Practice is often close enough to theory to keep the system humming along.
currymj 8y ago
That makes sense, thanks. I have actually run into a use for one of the side projects (Wikidata) so I may be more optimistic about the foundation’s chances of doing something else useful with a big budget.

hug 8y ago

The problem, in all this, is not getting Wikipedia's expenses down to nothing. I use Wikipedia all the time, and I love it. It's an incredibly useful site and should be funded well enough to keep running indefinitely, and even have room for improvement. On the other hand, if I choose to donate money to Wikmedia, 80% of it goes to other places, like their "content" sites, which consists of this bunch of mediocrity: Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, and Wikidata. I don't give a shit about any of these projects, the only one I really don't want to go away is Wikipedia, and the rest could die and I wouldn't even blink, except as those projects also support Wikipedia. Increase Wikipedia's expenses if you must! Double it! Triple it! Just don't pretend that the foundation is struggling to support the thing that most people donating actually care about.

scrollaway 8y ago
Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons are both heavily used within Wikipedia, and Wiktionary is a very useful resource. It's kinda like saying "I don't want the money I donate to Mozilla to end up funding shitty projects like Gecko and Servo! I want it to end up in Firefox!" There are offshoots in those, yes, but that doesn't make it a huge waste. Remember wikipedia was a very, very long shot for a very long time. To fund successes, you have to fund a lot of potential failures. In other words, if you trust what the wikimedia foundation is doing, then you should donate to them and trust what they do with it (but feel free to challenge it and voice your opinion as a donor). And if you don't trust what they're doing, then you shouldn't be donating to them in the first place IMO, regardless of their ownership of Wikipedia.
- hug 8y ago
  Re: Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, I feel like you glossed over "except as those projects also support Wikipedia", and as for Wiktionary, any of the ninety other online dictionary services will do me just as well. With regards to the comparison to Gecko & Servo: If 80% of the development effort was going towards those projects being used only for integration with FirefoxOS, I would have the same complaint. Mozilla isn't doing that, though, and even when they were funding FirefoxOS, they didn't spit a half page banner in my face every time I opened Firefox saying "Firefox will be dead if you don't send us money!" when they were really talking about FirefoxOS. In case it wasn't abundantly clear, I'm pointing fingers at Wikimedia's scummy donation-soliciting practices on Wikpedia. > if you don't trust what they're doing, then you shouldn't be donating to them in the first place IMO, regardless of their ownership of Wikipedia. I don't. So I don't. And, in fact, will be happy to argue in a bar that they shouldn't be donated to. If I could donate purely to support Wikipedia only, however, I would, and I would also argue that others should too. But I can't. So I don't.