4 ms·

I'll repeat that quote from the WMF executive above: "And the fact is that, as a movement, we need as much money as we can get to advance our mission. Our visi

by akolbe 4y ago

I'll repeat that quote from the WMF executive above: "And the fact is that, as a movement, we need as much money as we can get to advance our mission. Our vision is so ambitious and expansive that it is also bound to be inevitably expensive. This is something that the Board understood: shortly after endorsing the Strategic Direction in 2017, they directed the Foundation to prepare to raise more funds than usual, to be able to move towards our collective vision for 2030. [2] My fellow members of the working group on Revenue Streams for movement strategy also understood the scope of the movement's ambitions: the first guiding question for our work was how to "maximize revenue for the movement"." The reason given for wanting to raise more funds and "maximize revenue" (Wikimedia had a $50 million surplus in 2020/2021, $88 million if you include endowment growth ...) was not a lack of staff or resources for maintaining Wikipedia, but the "Strategic Direction" and the desire "to be able to move towards our collective vision for 2030" (which involves Wikimedia becoming "the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge"). https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/... Frankly, a lot of the new employees appear to me to be producing a lot of high-faluting words – about the Universal Code of Conduct, the Human Rights Policy, the UN, knowledge equity, movement strategy, and whatnot. Around 50 people just work on Fundraising. I wish they prioritised the things volunteers are asking for more, but their sights often appear to be focused on far loftier aims. In that vein, they recently created a $4.5 million fund to support organisations completely unrelated to both Wikipedia and Wikimedia: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund And all these things may be fine things to do, but if they are fine things, then tell donors about them. As for what Lisa meant, I genuinely don't know what she meant. That's why I asked above. If you've spoken to her, then fine, I'll take that on board.

akolbe 4y ago
Actually, thinking about that Lisa quote, what you say can't be right, Ryan. Have a look at 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... The total sum of expenses other than salaries in 2020/2021 was about $43 million, which included – * $9.8 million of grants ($5 million of which is the WMF paying into its own endowment at the Tides Foundation) * $6.4 million donations processing Once you deduct these amounts, that only leaves about $27 million of non-salary costs. And we know some of that $27 million was spent on PR consultants etc. In other words, it's mathematically impossible for an estimate of $33.75 million to have excluded salaries of technical staff.
- ryan_lane 4y ago
  You're trying to calculate costs from an annual plan and match them directly to a quote from an executive, from an article that obviously has a bias against Wikimedia. The executive may not have properly quoted expenses. You may be reading the data incorrectly as well. In either case, it seems that you have a bone to pick with specific programs the foundation is funding, which happen to be diversity related, which lets me know that I shouldn't be engaging with you.
  - akolbe 4y ago
    The problem is not the type of causes funded, it's that the money was collected under the premise that it was urgently needed to "keep Wikipedia online", "ad-free" and "independent" - including from people in India and South Africa whom I'd rather see funding local causes, supporting people who are in real poverty, than have them sending money to a wealthy country like the US to support diversity causes there.
    - ryan_lane 4y ago
      The diversity spending is also geographical, you realize? Most of the money that goes into the fundraising is from wealthy countries, and quite a bit goes into areas like India and South Africa. I agree that their messaging is deceiving, but essentially everything you're discussing is misinformation, sourced from extremely biased sourced.
      - akolbe 4y ago
        Two months ago, I looked at the Wikimedia Foundation's Form 990 for the Signpost (Wikipedia's volunteer newspaper) to see how much money the WMF actually spends in the developing world. My report is here, on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/News_and_notes#Where_does_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_spend_its_money%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... This was after an interview with a Wikimedia Foundation trustee in an Indian national daily claimed that "Although a lot of the money is raised in the more developed Western markets, most of it is actually flowing into the global south, where the growth will come in languages and users." https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/raju-narisetti-interview-wikipedia-trust-transparency-7940621/ https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-techn... After I complained on the Wikimedia mailing list – https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/OVT3MRNP6VELKPSJAMWB3SOCESKLOPX7/#ZS5LWKIFJXTRRATNNMF6SBI3GNZIEWAO https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list... – the WMF said that their trustee had been misquoted, and the Indian Express added a correction to the article a week later (see note at the bottom). It now says, "Although a lot of the money is raised in the more developed Western markets, a lot of it is actually flowing into the global south, where the growth will come in languages and users." Now, "a lot" is an elastic term. What I found, and you are welcome to check my numbers, is that the Wikimedia Foundation, according to its most recent Form 990, spent a total of $3.8 million (2.4% of revenue) in the Global South. That is less than it invested in the Knowledge Equity Fund, which primarily supports US organisations (three of the six grantees to date are in the US, and they account for well over half the money given out to date). Of the $3.8 million the WMF spent in the Global South, "Grantmaking" accounted for $1,953,708, or 1.2% of the Wikimedia Foundation's $159 million revenue. The "Grantmaking" total in all of South Asia, according to the Form 990, was $78,537 ($75,198 + $3,339 on the page following the one linked below): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e4/Wikimedia_Foundation_2020_Form_990.pdf#page=31 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e4/Wikim... Those are the realities vs. the PR.

by akolbe 4y ago

akolbe 4y ago

Actually, thinking about that Lisa quote, what you say can't be right, Ryan. Have a look at 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... The total sum of expenses other than salaries in 2020/2021 was about $43 million, which included – * $9.8 million of grants ($5 million of which is the WMF paying into its own endowment at the Tides Foundation) * $6.4 million donations processing Once you deduct these amounts, that only leaves about $27 million of non-salary costs. And we know some of that $27 million was spent on PR consultants etc. In other words, it's mathematically impossible for an estimate of $33.75 million to have excluded salaries of technical staff.

ryan_lane 4y ago
You're trying to calculate costs from an annual plan and match them directly to a quote from an executive, from an article that obviously has a bias against Wikimedia. The executive may not have properly quoted expenses. You may be reading the data incorrectly as well. In either case, it seems that you have a bone to pick with specific programs the foundation is funding, which happen to be diversity related, which lets me know that I shouldn't be engaging with you.
- akolbe 4y ago
  The problem is not the type of causes funded, it's that the money was collected under the premise that it was urgently needed to "keep Wikipedia online", "ad-free" and "independent" - including from people in India and South Africa whom I'd rather see funding local causes, supporting people who are in real poverty, than have them sending money to a wealthy country like the US to support diversity causes there.
  - ryan_lane 4y ago
    The diversity spending is also geographical, you realize? Most of the money that goes into the fundraising is from wealthy countries, and quite a bit goes into areas like India and South Africa. I agree that their messaging is deceiving, but essentially everything you're discussing is misinformation, sourced from extremely biased sourced.
    - akolbe 4y ago
      Two months ago, I looked at the Wikimedia Foundation's Form 990 for the Signpost (Wikipedia's volunteer newspaper) to see how much money the WMF actually spends in the developing world. My report is here, on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/News_and_notes#Where_does_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_spend_its_money%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... This was after an interview with a Wikimedia Foundation trustee in an Indian national daily claimed that "Although a lot of the money is raised in the more developed Western markets, most of it is actually flowing into the global south, where the growth will come in languages and users." https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/raju-narisetti-interview-wikipedia-trust-transparency-7940621/ https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-techn... After I complained on the Wikimedia mailing list – https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/OVT3MRNP6VELKPSJAMWB3SOCESKLOPX7/#ZS5LWKIFJXTRRATNNMF6SBI3GNZIEWAO https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list... – the WMF said that their trustee had been misquoted, and the Indian Express added a correction to the article a week later (see note at the bottom). It now says, "Although a lot of the money is raised in the more developed Western markets, a lot of it is actually flowing into the global south, where the growth will come in languages and users." Now, "a lot" is an elastic term. What I found, and you are welcome to check my numbers, is that the Wikimedia Foundation, according to its most recent Form 990, spent a total of $3.8 million (2.4% of revenue) in the Global South. That is less than it invested in the Knowledge Equity Fund, which primarily supports US organisations (three of the six grantees to date are in the US, and they account for well over half the money given out to date). Of the $3.8 million the WMF spent in the Global South, "Grantmaking" accounted for $1,953,708, or 1.2% of the Wikimedia Foundation's $159 million revenue. The "Grantmaking" total in all of South Asia, according to the Form 990, was $78,537 ($75,198 + $3,339 on the page following the one linked below): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e4/Wikimedia_Foundation_2020_Form_990.pdf#page=31 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e4/Wikim... Those are the realities vs. the PR.