5 ms·

The Wikimedia Endowment – a lack of transparency

4 points by akolbe 4y ago

akolbe 4y ago
See also the News and Notes section in the Signpost, Wikipedia's community newspaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/News_and_notes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... This dicusses the Wikimedia Foundation's Form 990 disclosures and its current fundraising campaign in India (2nd and 3rd sections on the linked page). It shows that in 2020, there were 8 managers at the Wikimedia Foundation that earned more than $300K each in salaries and benefits. Three of the 5 most highly paid contractors were PR companies. Despite revenue in the 2020/2021 financial year exceeding expenses by over $50 million, the Wikimedia Foundation is currently fundraising in India and Latin America, telling people in emails money is needed to keep Wikipedia online and ad-free. (Annual hosting costs are $2.4 million.) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2019-2020_Audit_Report.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikim...
- WalterGR 4y ago
  > It shows that in 2020, there were 8 managers at the Wikimedia Foundation that earned more than $300K each in salaries and benefits. Three of the 5 most highly paid contractors were PR companies. Is that unusual?
  - akolbe 4y ago
    Well, the salaries have gone up quite a lot. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie... And Wikipedia fundraising messages, like those used currently in India and Latin America, regularly imply that the Wikimedia Foundation urgently requires funds to maintain its independence, keep Wikipedia online, etc. In fact, the Wikimedia Foundation's revenue has soared. Each year has been a new fundraising record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/File:WMF_Support_and_Revenue,_Expenses_and_Net_Assets_at_Year_End.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/Fi... So there is a mismatch between fundraising messages widely taken to indicate that the Wikimedia Foundation is struggling to have enough money to keep Wikipedia going, and the fact that its top managers' salaries are rising steeply and it is accumulating hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, as well as in this endowment (which is not included in the Wikimedia Foundation's reported assets). https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais...
    - WalterGR 4y ago
      Revenue has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of employees. The question is: Are those salaries unusual for the positions? Maybe market rate is $500,000 and Wikimedia is getting a fantastic deal. Context matters. > So there is a mismatch between fundraising messages widely taken to indicate that the Wikimedia Foundation is struggling to have enough money ... and it is accumulating hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, as well as in this endowment Without knowing much about their messaging and transparency, that does indeed sound sketchy. How much of that money is allocated to Wikipedia vs. other projects?
      - akolbe 4y ago
        As this page, based on Form 990 disclosures, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie... shows, the Wikimedia CEO's salary e.g. roughly doubled from 2010 to 2020, a period when US inflation was at 2% p.a. As for how much money Wikipedia needs, in 2013 Erik Möller, then a Wikimedia VP, worked out that the WMF could fulfil its mission on "$10M+/year": https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-March/124621.html https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-March... Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation took $163 million. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim... This 2021 article by an INSEAD fellow https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/wikipedias-deep-ties-to-big-tech https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/wikipedias-d... says: "The vast majority of Wikimedia’s value to ordinary people – the website we know and use – costs the firm about 30 percent of their $112.5 million operating budget ($33.75 million) to maintain according to Lisa Seitz Gruwell, Chief Advancement Officer at Wikimedia."
  - akolbe 4y ago
    I guess I should note here as well that the Wikimedia Foundation does not write or curate any of the content of Wikipedia. All of this is done by unpaid volunteers. When Wikipedia first became a top-ten website in 2007, the Wikimedia Foundation had just 11 employees. It has expanded to something like 600 employees now, paid from funds that have always been collected on the premise that Wikipedia required money to remain online (not that the Foundation required money to expand its organization and staff headcount). Speaking as a 15-year Wikipedia volunteer, I don't think the general public is quite aware of this.
    - WalterGR 4y ago
      How has the quantity of work required to run the Foundation changed since 2007? Has it taken on additional goals? How has the architecture of the site changed since then? What's the volume of edits? Or do they have 589 employees who do nothing?
      - akolbe 4y ago
        The volume of Wikipedia edits has been fairly constant since 2007: https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-wikipedia-projects/contributing/edits/normal|bar|all|~total|monthly https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-wikipedia-projects/contrib... And, just to repeat the point, Wikipedia edits are not made by Wikimedia Foundation staff, but by unpaid volunteers. Nor do Wikimedia staff check or review the edits: that too is done by unpaid volunteers. What the Wikimedia Foundation staff does do is programming work (this used to be handled by volunteers as well in the early days), PR work, fundraising (about 50 people work on fundraising alone), legal work, outreach ... https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/ They are also trying to position the Wikimedia projects as "the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge", globally. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/... Of course, the bigger a bureaucracy, the more people you need to run the bureaucracy. The time when Jimmy Wales used to tell people how "lean" Wikipedia is – the only expense being hosting – are long gone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQR0gx0QBZ4#t=275 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQR0gx0QBZ4#t=275 The WMF's most recent annual salary bill was $68 million, up $12 million on the year prior. And as long as the money is coming in, that bill is going to grow.

4 points by akolbe 4y ago

See also the News and Notes section in the Signpost, Wikipedia's community newspaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/News_and_notes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... This dicusses the Wikimedia Foundation's Form 990 disclosures and its current fundraising campaign in India (2nd and 3rd sections on the linked page). It shows that in 2020, there were 8 managers at the Wikimedia Foundation that earned more than $300K each in salaries and benefits. Three of the 5 most highly paid contractors were PR companies. Despite revenue in the 2020/2021 financial year exceeding expenses by over $50 million, the Wikimedia Foundation is currently fundraising in India and Latin America, telling people in emails money is needed to keep Wikipedia online and ad-free. (Annual hosting costs are $2.4 million.) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2019-2020_Audit_Report.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikim...

WalterGR 4y ago
> It shows that in 2020, there were 8 managers at the Wikimedia Foundation that earned more than $300K each in salaries and benefits. Three of the 5 most highly paid contractors were PR companies. Is that unusual?
- akolbe 4y ago
  Well, the salaries have gone up quite a lot. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie... And Wikipedia fundraising messages, like those used currently in India and Latin America, regularly imply that the Wikimedia Foundation urgently requires funds to maintain its independence, keep Wikipedia online, etc. In fact, the Wikimedia Foundation's revenue has soared. Each year has been a new fundraising record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/File:WMF_Support_and_Revenue,_Expenses_and_Net_Assets_at_Year_End.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/Fi... So there is a mismatch between fundraising messages widely taken to indicate that the Wikimedia Foundation is struggling to have enough money to keep Wikipedia going, and the fact that its top managers' salaries are rising steeply and it is accumulating hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, as well as in this endowment (which is not included in the Wikimedia Foundation's reported assets). https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais...
  - WalterGR 4y ago
    Revenue has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of employees. The question is: Are those salaries unusual for the positions? Maybe market rate is $500,000 and Wikimedia is getting a fantastic deal. Context matters. > So there is a mismatch between fundraising messages widely taken to indicate that the Wikimedia Foundation is struggling to have enough money ... and it is accumulating hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, as well as in this endowment Without knowing much about their messaging and transparency, that does indeed sound sketchy. How much of that money is allocated to Wikipedia vs. other projects?
    - akolbe 4y ago
      As this page, based on Form 990 disclosures, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie... shows, the Wikimedia CEO's salary e.g. roughly doubled from 2010 to 2020, a period when US inflation was at 2% p.a. As for how much money Wikipedia needs, in 2013 Erik Möller, then a Wikimedia VP, worked out that the WMF could fulfil its mission on "$10M+/year": https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-March/124621.html https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-March... Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation took $163 million. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim... This 2021 article by an INSEAD fellow https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/wikipedias-deep-ties-to-big-tech https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/wikipedias-d... says: "The vast majority of Wikimedia’s value to ordinary people – the website we know and use – costs the firm about 30 percent of their $112.5 million operating budget ($33.75 million) to maintain according to Lisa Seitz Gruwell, Chief Advancement Officer at Wikimedia."
- akolbe 4y ago
  I guess I should note here as well that the Wikimedia Foundation does not write or curate any of the content of Wikipedia. All of this is done by unpaid volunteers. When Wikipedia first became a top-ten website in 2007, the Wikimedia Foundation had just 11 employees. It has expanded to something like 600 employees now, paid from funds that have always been collected on the premise that Wikipedia required money to remain online (not that the Foundation required money to expand its organization and staff headcount). Speaking as a 15-year Wikipedia volunteer, I don't think the general public is quite aware of this.
  - WalterGR 4y ago
    How has the quantity of work required to run the Foundation changed since 2007? Has it taken on additional goals? How has the architecture of the site changed since then? What's the volume of edits? Or do they have 589 employees who do nothing?
    - akolbe 4y ago
      The volume of Wikipedia edits has been fairly constant since 2007: https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-wikipedia-projects/contributing/edits/normal|bar|all|~total|monthly https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-wikipedia-projects/contrib... And, just to repeat the point, Wikipedia edits are not made by Wikimedia Foundation staff, but by unpaid volunteers. Nor do Wikimedia staff check or review the edits: that too is done by unpaid volunteers. What the Wikimedia Foundation staff does do is programming work (this used to be handled by volunteers as well in the early days), PR work, fundraising (about 50 people work on fundraising alone), legal work, outreach ... https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/ They are also trying to position the Wikimedia projects as "the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge", globally. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/... Of course, the bigger a bureaucracy, the more people you need to run the bureaucracy. The time when Jimmy Wales used to tell people how "lean" Wikipedia is – the only expense being hosting – are long gone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQR0gx0QBZ4#t=275 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQR0gx0QBZ4#t=275 The WMF's most recent annual salary bill was $68 million, up $12 million on the year prior. And as long as the money is coming in, that bill is going to grow.