6 ms·

They have an "$111 million operating budget", but that's because they've decided to spend money on lots of things other than "serve Wikipedia": https://wikimedi

• woodruffw 4y ago
  From your link: 25% overhead doesn’t really seem that bad? If those numbers are accurate, 75c of every dollar goes directly to hosting, development, and community support (things like grants and legal aid for editors). That’s probably on par if not better than most nonprofits.
  • bayindirh 4y ago
    25% overhead is what EU/EC project funds allow & provide. This is not a huge percentage. It’s pretty normal.
  • jefftk 4y ago
    The important thing isn't how much of a project is "overhead", it's what you get for your donation. A project distributing lollypops might have 5% overhead, but I would still prefer to donate to one that distributed vaccines with 30% overhead. In this case their program expenses are a mix of incredibly valuable things ("keep wikipedia online") and more borderline things ("redesigning the article editing UI"). When their fundraising talks about the former as if it's what the marginal dollar will be spent on, that's pretty misleading. (I don't think this marketing is unusually misleading for a non-profit, and likely better than average; the bar for honesty in fundraising is depressingly low.)
    • magicalist 4y ago
      > and more borderline things ("redesigning the article editing UI") You keep harping on this, but improving the article editing UI seems like an absolutely valuable thing for wikipedia to invest in. Retaining existing and attracting new contributors is essential to wikipedia's future, and the editing experience is an essential part of that.
  • xyzzyz 4y ago
    Have you noticed any actual development on Wikipedia? Only thing that changes from the user perspective is that the donation request get more and more annoying every year.
    • woodruffw 4y ago
      I noticed the new editor. I can't say I'm a huge fan of it, but I did notice it. I don't know how long ago they added the hover infoboxes, but I also noticed those. But that's a relatively small feature, at least from my perspective.
    • mistrial9 4y ago
      wikimedia labs built a world-class setup with many new services and tech, for one example
    • bawolff 4y ago
      You shouldn't notice much of it. Sysadmins are paid to make sure wikipedia doesn't have random downtime. Time spent on bugfixing should only be noticed if someone screws up. If you want to see what people are doing - the git repo is public. https://github.com/wikimedia https://github.com/wikimedia
    • autoexec 4y ago
      I have noticed some changes like in how they handle media, but most of their development must be backend work because for the most part you shouldn't notice a bunch of changes. The site should be kept as simple and unobtrusive as possible. The only feature I really want them to have that they don't is dark mode.
      • akolbe 4y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dark_mode_(gadget) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dark_mode_(gadget) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dark_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dark_mode
        • 4y ago
  • icelancer 4y ago
    This would not rate as a well-run or top efficiency charity by CharityWatch. It would probably rank average at best. The best charities are in the 8-10% range.
• dbingham 4y ago
  Yeah, I think it's valid to ask whether Wikipedia's expenses are too high, or whether they are spending on the right things. But that tweet and thread are sensationalist and not doing it in a way that will lead to a reasonable dialog around that question. The linked article is better - but still sensationalist. Compare that budget and the scale of Wikimedia foundation to the organizations that are running websites of a similar scale. Wikimedia is still tiny. And they are doing a ton of good.
  • akolbe 4y ago
    The question to me is what donors are told. The Wikimedia Foundation built a $100 million endowment in five years, half the time it had budgeted: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais... It's gone through a phase of planned, aggressive growth of its headcount. Its salary costs have increased tenfold over a decade: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie... As you can see on that page, individual executives' salaries have risen by 20, 30 percent in the space of two years. And all the while people are told the Wikimedia Foundation needs money "to keep Wikipedia online", or "to protect Wikipedia's independence". No. If you want to grow your headcount, tell people why. If you want ten times as much money from the public ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial... ... then say what you are going to do with it. Don't hide behind "keeping Wikipedia online".
    • dbingham 4y ago
      > No. If you want to grow your headcount, tell people why. If you want ten times as much money from the public ... > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial... > ... then say what you are going to do with it. Don't hide behind "keeping Wikipedia online". Fair. I'm with you there. I would like clearer documentation of Wikimedia's organizational breakdown and where they are spending that budget.
      • 4y ago
• mcguire 4y ago
  Google had a 2021 operating cash flow of $92B, and they've decided to spend money on lots of things that aren't "serving ads". And yet nobody complains.
  • tus666 4y ago
    No-one donates to Google, nor does it ask for donations.
    • foobarian 4y ago
      > No-one donates to Google Wellll that's an interesting topic in and of itself. But OK I get what you mean.
    • mcguire 4y ago
      Well, it doesn't ask.
  • hyperbovine 4y ago
    Nor does Google solicit donations with misleading claims that it’s on the cusp of going defunct.
  • c4ptnjack 4y ago
    Im pretty sure a ton of people complain how Google spends their money, quite frequently. As well, one of the major complaints from people has nothing to do with their ad budget. It has to do with the fact they both host the marketplace for advertising and are a competitor in the same space. And they expert that market dominance by manipulating prices, perception, and their own products success.
    • akolbe 4y ago
      Not to mention the fact that Google et al. do everything they can to avoid paying taxes in the countries they operate in, including developing countries. The global South loses billions of dollars that way that they could use to fund education and healthcare. The odd "philanthropic" project does not make up for that. https://www.southcentre.int/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/TCPB19_Developing-Country-Demands-for-an-Equitable-Digital-Tax-Solution_EN.pdf https://www.southcentre.int/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/TCPB1...
• spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Seems a bit silly to me. Working on the UI that enables expanding and maintaining wikipedia feels like a reasonable top priority of the organization responsible for maintaining wikipedia. If they just "served" it, it would collapse.
  • jefftk 4y ago
    I agree it's a reasonable thing for them to work on, but not to fundraise for under the banner of "keep Wikipedia online".
    • endisneigh 4y ago
      Why not?
      • jefftk 4y ago
        Because it doesn't contribute to Wikipedia remaining online.
        • endisneigh 4y ago
          If they get more donations it does, though.
        • DrBenCarson 4y ago
          If we agree that a poorly designed experience will become obsolete over time, then how does this expenditure not increase Wiki’s chances of staying online?
          • jefftk 4y ago
            The experience isn't and wasn't poorly designed, though. It could surely be improved, but we're incredibly far from "Wikipedia dies through neglect" territory.
        • themitigating 4y ago
• akolbe 4y ago
  That "Where Your Money Goes" overview was particularly derided by Wikipedians in the Village Pump poll. It's so fuzzy it could mean anything. In particular, "32% direct support to communities" was seen as complete pie in the sky. 32% of $163M revenue would be $52 million. But once you deduct the $68M salary bill and $6M in donation processing expenses from the $112M expenses total, you only have $38M left! So how can 32% of revenue be "direct support to communities"?? 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...
  • jefftk 4y ago
    Sounds like most of the direct support to communities is the work of salaried Wikimedia employees? Which seems plausible to me!
    • akolbe 4y ago
      Is that what most people would understand by the term "direct support"? "Direct support to communities", to me, is when you give something "directly" to a community member, such as a travel grant, or a grant for equipment, or pay for reference material. The Wikimedia Foundation does things like that too, to be fair, but it accounts for about 3% of its expenditure, not 32%. It's in the $9.8M "Awards and grants" item here: 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... However, $5.5M of that $9.8M is money the Foundation paid into its own Endowment (which, by the way, has never published audited accounts). So only a little over $4M are left for "direct support to the communities".
      • jefftk 4y ago
        They list as examples "grants, projects, trainings, tools to augment contributor capacity, and support for the legal defense of editors". I agree that it's a bit misleading to put 'grants' first if that's only a small part of what they do. I'm not sure what they intend to communicate with the word 'direct', either in "Direct support to communities" or "Direct support to websites".
• z0r 4y ago
  I appreciate this kind of thinking being shared by someone who I recall from previous HN postings spends a lot of time thinking about how to give to charity effectively. I've been turned off from donating to Wikipedia for the better part of the last decade.
  • samsquire 4y ago
    I think this kind of thinking is negative and an example of the free rider problem. Wikipedia provides a good service for the money it charges you. It doesn't charge you anything. The thing about free things is that they aren't really free, someone is paying for it and the people doing the work to keep Wikipedia online are the best skilled and placed and experienced to decide these kind of spending decisions, not people with no personal investment orwho do not donate and don't even edit or do any work but somehow have opinions how other people should do their job for free. If you use Wikipedia and getting value from it then you can't really complain, it's not positive.
    • Spooky23 4y ago
      Charitable giving is important to me personally, and I have a relatively limited budget to donate. I get a lot of utility from Wikipedia, but is my marginal dollar helping the mission or paying for dinner at a conference? Perhaps I’d be better off donating to an open source foundation for that part of the charity portfolio, which may actually have more impact on Wikipedia! I think this org doesn’t communicate what it does well.
      • bawolff 4y ago
        Is paying for dinner at a conference of wikipedia editors really that bad a thing? In person conferences move open source projects forward. They build relationships and synergy between people who usually only see each other online. A cheap dinner is probably a lot of bang for buck when it comes to outcomes.
      • samsquire 4y ago
        The problem is a social one, if everyone expects everybody else to do something about a problem, it never gets done. "I thought you were doing it" If you want to give, then give and I recommend giving to charity, the world needs lasting regular investment. There is no such thing as a free lunch, someone is ultimately paying. If everybody assumes everybody else will pay for it and nobody is willing to add funds, then that service shall pass away. Look at any social good and the investment it receives and the state of repair of those same services.
• zozbot234 4y ago
  Redesigning the article editing UI is pretty darn important when the only thing that ensures the site stays up to date is attracting new editors to work on it. Nobody wants a dead Wikipedia with hopelessly obsolete and misleading information, even though it would be incredibly cheap to host. And the Wikipedia partner projects are just as important as Wikipedia itself to the broader ecosystem of open content and open knowledge. Wikipedia needs its sister projects, and money spent on them is in no way "wasted".
  • tuatoru 4y ago
    If they want to recruit new editors, the most urgent thing to do is fix the existing editor clique's reputation for being neophobic, vituperative, and ad hominem. That's where money should be going.
    • esperent 4y ago
      Are you feeling vituperative because your edits got rejected for using obscure words?
      • tuatoru 4y ago
        I don't have a wikipedia account because of the reputation. I can write using simpler language. It just doesn't come naturally--so perhaps, "re-write using simpler language" would be more correct. My apologies.
  • Miraste 4y ago
    Yes, Wiktionary, Commons, and the other sister projects are very useful, to various degrees integrated with Wikipedia in value-adding ways, and generally serve the foundation's mission and the few remaining vestiges of an open internet. If you want an example of an open source nonprofit wasting all their money on inflated salaries and pointless vanity projects no one uses, compare Mozilla.
  • Rebelgecko 4y ago
    I think the barriers for new editors are cultural rather than technical.
• presentation 4y ago
  So social good projects need to suck because we’re all misers? Try applying this logic to a for profit company and you’d laugh.
  • jefftk 4y ago
    No; see my reply to dbingham above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32843394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32843394 When deciding where to donate we should consider where our money will do the most good. "Keep Wikipedia online" is a candidate for one of the most important things, if that's actually what your money will help do. But other Wikimedia projects, while useful, are generally nowhere near as high priority, and there are a lot of other places we could be donating!
    • bawolff 4y ago
      They are all hosted on the same group of servers using the same software. Its non-sensical to talk about money going to keep other wikimedia projects online instead of wikipedia. That's not how things work.
      • jefftk 4y ago
        Sorry, that's not the part that bothers me. Instead, it's that everyone agrees that keeping the content serving is their highest priority, and they have far more money than they need just for that, which means additional money they raise is not "keep Wikimedia online" but funding their other work. People may be excited to fund that other work too, but they should make the case for it instead of pretending there's a risk Wikipedia and their other sites will drop off the internet.