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They aren't far off. At the moment, they have €250M in assets, and a further €100M endowment. Their assets have increased by double-digit millions every year f
by crote 4y ago
They aren't far off.
At the moment, they have €250M in assets, and a further €100M endowment. Their assets have increased by double-digit millions every year for a decade.
In my opinion, the yearly fundraising campaign is highly disingenuous. Basically, they are begging for money, claiming it is to "keep Wikipedia running". In reality, Wikipedia-the-website is an unlimited cash cow used to fund tangentially related pet projects at the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2008, the expenses were €5.6M. 2021 expenses are up to €112M - and I can guarantee page views did not increase 20-fold!
At the moment, hosting costs are about €3M / year. Let's round that up to €10M for sysadmin and development salaries, and they currently have enough money to keep Wikipedia running for 35 years.
I'd be more than happy to donate to keep Wikipedia itself alive, but at the moment donating money to them is basically the same as throwing money in a bottomless pit.
- ninth_ant 4y agoAnd look at how the emails stress Wikipedia: in the “how your money is spent“ section, specifically using bold in the phrase suggesting Wikipedia, and dropping the bold to reference the other products. It’s extremely misleading at best, given the numbers you cite.
- abbe98 4y agoWikimedia does much more than just host Wikipedia. Even if they didn't host Wikipedia I would personally gladly donate to their legal and lobbying efforts. Only in Sweden where I live they have greatly contributed to freedom of panorama and ensuring public domain material remains in the public domain when digitized. They work towards things like these all across the world.
- colinmhayes 4y agoThat's fine, but I'm not interested in giving them money for anything other than making sure the website is running and has the support staff it needs. Their fundraising material makes it look like the money will be used for that when the reality is it will be used for other, practically unrelated things.
- bawolff 4y agoI mean freedom of panorama is pretty directly related, as wikipedia needs to have users be legally allowed to upload images.
- zugi 4y agoThanks for pointing that out, but I see that as more evidence of deception. If I'm asked to donate to keep wikipedia free, I don't expect my donations to go to political lobbying on issues that I may or may not care about, and may or may not even agree with.
- abbe98 4y agoActually both of the cases in question started as legal cases in which Wikimedia funded the defense of users who were being sued for contributing.
- bawolff 4y ago> At the moment, hosting costs are about €3M / year. Let's round that up to €10M for sysadmin and development salaries That rounding up makes no sense and is unrealistic.