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That’s okay, if they go bankrupt, someone more competent could take over, and easily run Wikipedia on less than a tenth of their current budget. Look at their f

by xyzzyz 6y ago

That’s okay, if they go bankrupt, someone more competent could take over, and easily run Wikipedia on less than a tenth of their current budget. Look at their financials: Wikimedia Foundation is part jobs program, part grift.

Jonnax 6y ago
Everytime Wikipedia comes up on hacker news there's always comments about how they're wasteful and incompetent. What is this self righteous anger for? They're incompetent but somehow Wikipedia exists. Is it jealousy?
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  It is anger at the collapse of every institution of our society, most of which have transformed away from their original purpose, and into sinecures for well-educated and well-connected professionals, who, under false pretenses, skim the surplus by lying about what they do, and shaming the productive masses into supporting them. I admit that I'm also full of wishful thinking. I said that once they go bankrupt, someone more competent will take over, but there's no guarantee of that -- instead, it is highly likely that some other skilled and well-connected grifter will assume control, will keep the "crying Jimbo Wales" ads to shame people into giving them money they spend on salaries and travel expenses of people doing things that do not need to be done, and often things that Wikipedia community doesn't even want done.
  - Hallucinaut 6y ago
    I have to admit I was unaware until this thread that the call for urgent donations was despite this endowment and their expenses other than directly operating wikipedia.org. Thanks for that eye-opener.
lancesells 6y ago
I don't know why you're calling it grift. According to the definition a non-profit is not conducted or maintained to make a profit. I'm guessing most of us agree that Wikipedia is an asset to society and I'm hoping the people that work there get paid well. Why would I not want more people working at Wikimedia compared to something more detrimental to society like Facebook?
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  Because the people paid the to do (or pretend to do) useless busy-work in Wikimedia Foundation could instead be doing something productive elsewhere. The point here is that the resources in the society at large are not infinite, and if they are wasted at Wikimedia, it’s a real waste even if Wikipedia is otherwise a valuable thing worth of support. Imagine you have a city, which has a non-profit foundation dedicated to maintaining and improving the city parks. The foundation has 20 people on payroll, $2M in annual spending on wages and materials, and is generally though to do exemplary job. In fact, people like it so much that they keep donating money to it, while the new directors of the park foundation use that money to advertise everywhere that they are starved for cash, and if every park goer donates just $10, they can meet their fundraising budget. After a few years, the revenue of the park foundation is $120M/year, they are still doing pretty good job maintaining and improving the park for $2M/year, and the rest is spent on C-level executive salaries, analyst reports, conferences, travel expenses, shovel R&D, and all kinds of stuff that the parks foundation doesn’t need to do, and which provides little benefit to the actual parks or park goers beyond the $2M they have always been spending, while enriching the employees and executives in the nominally non-profit organization. That’s roughly where the Wikimedia Foundation is today. I see this as profoundly bad state of affairs. I also find it pretty ironic that the goal of the nominally non-profit organization apparently seems to be to maximize the donations and the spend. > compared to something more detrimental to society like Facebook? Why would you compare it to Facebook? The choice is not better Wikimedia and Facebook. There are plenty of other projects that could use money better than either Wikimedia or Facebook.
etc-hosts 6y ago
Lots of people reading these comments believe that every cent not spent on frontend or backend engineers at Wikipedia is wasted in someway. I don't agree.
- kemayo 6y ago
  Reading it, I think some people feel that any money not spent on the pure hosting costs is wasted, which seems even more extreme to me.

by xyzzyz 6y ago

Jonnax 6y ago

Everytime Wikipedia comes up on hacker news there's always comments about how they're wasteful and incompetent. What is this self righteous anger for? They're incompetent but somehow Wikipedia exists. Is it jealousy?

xyzzyz 6y ago
It is anger at the collapse of every institution of our society, most of which have transformed away from their original purpose, and into sinecures for well-educated and well-connected professionals, who, under false pretenses, skim the surplus by lying about what they do, and shaming the productive masses into supporting them. I admit that I'm also full of wishful thinking. I said that once they go bankrupt, someone more competent will take over, but there's no guarantee of that -- instead, it is highly likely that some other skilled and well-connected grifter will assume control, will keep the "crying Jimbo Wales" ads to shame people into giving them money they spend on salaries and travel expenses of people doing things that do not need to be done, and often things that Wikipedia community doesn't even want done.
- Hallucinaut 6y ago
  I have to admit I was unaware until this thread that the call for urgent donations was despite this endowment and their expenses other than directly operating wikipedia.org. Thanks for that eye-opener.

lancesells 6y ago

I don't know why you're calling it grift. According to the definition a non-profit is not conducted or maintained to make a profit. I'm guessing most of us agree that Wikipedia is an asset to society and I'm hoping the people that work there get paid well. Why would I not want more people working at Wikimedia compared to something more detrimental to society like Facebook?

xyzzyz 6y ago
Because the people paid the to do (or pretend to do) useless busy-work in Wikimedia Foundation could instead be doing something productive elsewhere. The point here is that the resources in the society at large are not infinite, and if they are wasted at Wikimedia, it’s a real waste even if Wikipedia is otherwise a valuable thing worth of support. Imagine you have a city, which has a non-profit foundation dedicated to maintaining and improving the city parks. The foundation has 20 people on payroll, $2M in annual spending on wages and materials, and is generally though to do exemplary job. In fact, people like it so much that they keep donating money to it, while the new directors of the park foundation use that money to advertise everywhere that they are starved for cash, and if every park goer donates just $10, they can meet their fundraising budget. After a few years, the revenue of the park foundation is $120M/year, they are still doing pretty good job maintaining and improving the park for $2M/year, and the rest is spent on C-level executive salaries, analyst reports, conferences, travel expenses, shovel R&D, and all kinds of stuff that the parks foundation doesn’t need to do, and which provides little benefit to the actual parks or park goers beyond the $2M they have always been spending, while enriching the employees and executives in the nominally non-profit organization. That’s roughly where the Wikimedia Foundation is today. I see this as profoundly bad state of affairs. I also find it pretty ironic that the goal of the nominally non-profit organization apparently seems to be to maximize the donations and the spend. > compared to something more detrimental to society like Facebook? Why would you compare it to Facebook? The choice is not better Wikimedia and Facebook. There are plenty of other projects that could use money better than either Wikimedia or Facebook.

etc-hosts 6y ago

Lots of people reading these comments believe that every cent not spent on frontend or backend engineers at Wikipedia is wasted in someway. I don't agree.

kemayo 6y ago
Reading it, I think some people feel that any money not spent on the pure hosting costs is wasted, which seems even more extreme to me.