5 ms·

Basically the reason why I will not donate to any large organization. Imagine donating to an organization because you think it helps them pay for their servers

Basically the reason why I will not donate to any large organization. Imagine donating to an organization because you think it helps them pay for their servers or devs and then it enters an intangible web of different obscure organizations, all donating to one another in some obscure way. The cause it goes to is "external organizations that support knowledge equity by addressing the racial inequities preventing access and participation in free knowledge", which is about the most nebulous, meaningless "cause" imaginable. Where does the money go? Unkown. Who benefits? The charities.

Jickandra14 4y ago
INTPenis 4y ago
Just personal cynical opinion here but as soon as large amounts of money are in complex circulation like that, vultures appear. I don't trust for one second that some of that money isn't being siphoned off in various creative ways that most civilians couldn't imagine understanding.
- bpodgursky 4y ago
  You don't even have to be creative. These charities pay friends who work as administrators in those charities and accomplish nothing.
  - Ambolia 4y ago
    Like most things in the current year, most of it amounts to jobs programs for university graduates of dubious usefulness, and patronage systems for political machines.
rippercushions 4y ago
Stripped of jargon, that sentence is saying "many people can't access or contribute to Wikipedia because of racism", which is basically true if you account for second-order effects. For example, a major reason why Haiti is poor and has few Wikipedia users is centuries of European and American prejudice and straight-up racism against former slaves. Personally, I'd prefer Wikimedia focus on improving access for poor people around the world regardless of skin color, but unfortunately this view seems to have gone out of style.
- constantcrying 4y ago
  That is missing the point. The point is that Wikipedia baits people by begging for help to keep the site up. Then, the raised money is funneled through different layers of charities (each obviously taking a cut) to then end up in a vague, totally unclear cause. "many people can't access or contribute to Wikipedia because of racism" is not a thing you can pay money to fix. These are not server costs, where you can present the donor a bill for where his money went. Who received the money ultimately? What happened because of that money? What could have been avoided because of that money? Can you answer these questions? Would you donate to any organization which did not tell you these answers? Certainly I will not.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    First up, I actually agree that the specific fund donation here is highly sketchy, especially the way it bypassed the usual processes and in particular the conflict of interest involved with the counsel hopping jobs between the WMF and the recipient. So I'm not even going to try to justify it. However, the WMF also does have a history of concrete actions to improve access to Wikipedia: it funds chapters around the world, seeds obscure language versions that would otherwise not be sustainable, and does stuff like sponsoring flights for students and Wikimedians living in poor countries to various Wiki conferences. I'm totally on board with this and I think it's a fine use of a reasonable portion of the Foundations' money, as long as it doesn't imperil the main mission, which it clearly doesn't.
    - akolbe 4y ago
      It's the culture at the very top of the WMF that has allowed this "sketchy" fund to come about. It's even worse with the Wikimedia Endowment at the Tides Foundation. That's over $100 million in donations collected over a period of 6.5 years without a single Form 990 disclosure, without a single audited financial statement ever published: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... Transparency is being reduced more and more; stopping publication of the quarterly reviews is just another symptom.
Gareth321 4y ago
They throw in the term "racial inequities" specifically so they can call anyone who questions the funds "racist." It's a tried and true tactic used for fraud.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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tootie 4y ago
Every American nonprofit publishes all their financial data by law. They're called 990 forms. Typically a year or two lag from filing until public but you can always see executive comp, major outlays and income sources, trustees, etc. It's incredibly cynical to just assume they're up to no good. Large orgs do work at scale that smaller ones never can. Certainly some of them are bad, but they're behavior is almost never secret.
- akolbe 4y ago
  The Wikimedia Endowment contains over $100 million of donations. Find me one Form 990 for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tootie 4y ago
    Well the entire issue is that it's a tenant of the Tides Foundation which does file a 990 which is where all this info comes from about how the money is spent. It's not clear if tenant money is earmarked or otherwise set aside.
    - akolbe 4y ago
      Here is the Tides Foundation's Form 990: https://www.tides.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2020_Tides-Foundation_Form-990-Public-Disclosure-1.pdf https://www.tides.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2020_Tides-... It is searchable. I cannot find a single mention of "Wikimedia" or "Wikipedia" or "Wiki" in it. So what does it tell us about what happened with people's Wikipedia donations?
- yucky 4y ago
  That is not the case here because the Tides Foundation is a Donor Advised Fund, which is a dark money vehicle used to fund causes indirectly, hiding the source. Let's say (hypothetically) that Wikimedia wanted to use our donations to fund the eradication of Palestinians from Israel. If they fund it directly, people would know and might stop giving money to Wikimedia. However, Wikimedia can give your money to the Tides Foundation with instructions on how to disburse it. Tides doesn't have to disclose who's money is used for what. Ta-da! Dark money charities.

Jickandra14 4y ago

INTPenis 4y ago

Just personal cynical opinion here but as soon as large amounts of money are in complex circulation like that, vultures appear. I don't trust for one second that some of that money isn't being siphoned off in various creative ways that most civilians couldn't imagine understanding.

bpodgursky 4y ago
You don't even have to be creative. These charities pay friends who work as administrators in those charities and accomplish nothing.
- Ambolia 4y ago
  Like most things in the current year, most of it amounts to jobs programs for university graduates of dubious usefulness, and patronage systems for political machines.

rippercushions 4y ago

Stripped of jargon, that sentence is saying "many people can't access or contribute to Wikipedia because of racism", which is basically true if you account for second-order effects. For example, a major reason why Haiti is poor and has few Wikipedia users is centuries of European and American prejudice and straight-up racism against former slaves. Personally, I'd prefer Wikimedia focus on improving access for poor people around the world regardless of skin color, but unfortunately this view seems to have gone out of style.

constantcrying 4y ago
That is missing the point. The point is that Wikipedia baits people by begging for help to keep the site up. Then, the raised money is funneled through different layers of charities (each obviously taking a cut) to then end up in a vague, totally unclear cause. "many people can't access or contribute to Wikipedia because of racism" is not a thing you can pay money to fix. These are not server costs, where you can present the donor a bill for where his money went. Who received the money ultimately? What happened because of that money? What could have been avoided because of that money? Can you answer these questions? Would you donate to any organization which did not tell you these answers? Certainly I will not.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  First up, I actually agree that the specific fund donation here is highly sketchy, especially the way it bypassed the usual processes and in particular the conflict of interest involved with the counsel hopping jobs between the WMF and the recipient. So I'm not even going to try to justify it. However, the WMF also does have a history of concrete actions to improve access to Wikipedia: it funds chapters around the world, seeds obscure language versions that would otherwise not be sustainable, and does stuff like sponsoring flights for students and Wikimedians living in poor countries to various Wiki conferences. I'm totally on board with this and I think it's a fine use of a reasonable portion of the Foundations' money, as long as it doesn't imperil the main mission, which it clearly doesn't.
  - akolbe 4y ago
    It's the culture at the very top of the WMF that has allowed this "sketchy" fund to come about. It's even worse with the Wikimedia Endowment at the Tides Foundation. That's over $100 million in donations collected over a period of 6.5 years without a single Form 990 disclosure, without a single audited financial statement ever published: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... Transparency is being reduced more and more; stopping publication of the quarterly reviews is just another symptom.

Gareth321 4y ago

They throw in the term "racial inequities" specifically so they can call anyone who questions the funds "racist." It's a tried and true tactic used for fraud.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

tootie 4y ago

Every American nonprofit publishes all their financial data by law. They're called 990 forms. Typically a year or two lag from filing until public but you can always see executive comp, major outlays and income sources, trustees, etc. It's incredibly cynical to just assume they're up to no good. Large orgs do work at scale that smaller ones never can. Certainly some of them are bad, but they're behavior is almost never secret.

akolbe 4y ago
The Wikimedia Endowment contains over $100 million of donations. Find me one Form 990 for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tootie 4y ago
  Well the entire issue is that it's a tenant of the Tides Foundation which does file a 990 which is where all this info comes from about how the money is spent. It's not clear if tenant money is earmarked or otherwise set aside.
  - akolbe 4y ago
    Here is the Tides Foundation's Form 990: https://www.tides.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2020_Tides-Foundation_Form-990-Public-Disclosure-1.pdf https://www.tides.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2020_Tides-... It is searchable. I cannot find a single mention of "Wikimedia" or "Wikipedia" or "Wiki" in it. So what does it tell us about what happened with people's Wikipedia donations?
yucky 4y ago
That is not the case here because the Tides Foundation is a Donor Advised Fund, which is a dark money vehicle used to fund causes indirectly, hiding the source. Let's say (hypothetically) that Wikimedia wanted to use our donations to fund the eradication of Palestinians from Israel. If they fund it directly, people would know and might stop giving money to Wikimedia. However, Wikimedia can give your money to the Tides Foundation with instructions on how to disburse it. Tides doesn't have to disclose who's money is used for what. Ta-da! Dark money charities.