23 ms·

Wikipedians are rebelling against “unethical” Wikipedia fundraising banners

451 points by akolbe 4y ago

PopAlongKid 4y ago
I have been donating annually around $50 or less for the last ten years. I was quite surprised to get an email from jimmy@wikipedia.org last month suggesting I increase my donation to $250. I'm planning to not donate at all this year, (instead to Internet Archive) based largely on discussions I have read here at HN. But I thought the request to suddenly increase my typical donation five-fold was pretty outrageous.
- xdfgh1112 4y ago
  It really is. I guess their analytics predicted they'd gain more in income from certain people than they lose in offending people.
- cainxinth 4y ago
  I still toss wiki a few bucks now and then (even though I hear they are flush with cash and have been for a while) just because I use and enjoy it so frequently (and because I think it's a valuable source of information for everyone, generally), but I too have started giving more to the Internet Archive. Its founder Brewster Kahle is a wonderful person. Some choice excerpts from from his wiki: "Struck by the immensity of the task being undertaken and achieved: to store and index everything that was on the Web, Kahle states: 'I was standing there, looking at this machine that was the size of five or six Coke machines, and there was an 'aha' moment that said, 'You can do everything.'" "Knowledge lives in lots of different forms over time," Kahle said in 2011. "First it was in people's memories, then it was in manuscripts, then printed books, then microfilm, CD-ROMs, now on the digital internet. Each one of these generations is very important." "It's not that expensive. For the cost of 60 miles of highway, we can have a 10 million-book digital library available to a generation that is growing up reading on-screen. Our job is to put the best works of humankind within reach of that generation."
  - cxr 4y ago
    > I still toss wiki a few bucks now and then A small favor to ask: can you avoid using the word "wiki" as casual shorthand to refer to Wikipedia? It falls in the same territory (or nearby, at least) as someone who doesn't know better saying "Java" to refer to JS (JavaScript). NB: I have tried to word this as politely and non-derisively as I can think to. If you have any improvements, please let me know. PS: Thank you for 1. your support of Wikipedia, 2. your support of the Internet Archive, and 3. the signal that you send by pulling back from #1 right now, when it makes a lot of sense to do so.
    - jazzyjackson 4y ago
      this is like asking me not to call the encyclopedia britannica "the encyclopedia" since there are many other encyclopedias in existence sure wikipedia is one wiki, but there's nothing ambiguous about "look it up on the wiki" edit: lol ok fine I'm wrong, let me amend to, "wiki is an easily disambiguated term depending on the context of the subject, and if the subject is not your internal work project or self hosted fan site, you probably want to look it up on wikipedia.org"
      - dmonitor 4y ago
        >there's nothing ambiguous about "look it up on the wiki" When someone says "look it up on the wiki" I assume they refer to a wiki specific to the topic at hand.
        groestl 4y ago
        Which will prompt me to ask: what wiki?
      - chungy 4y ago
        > this is like asking me not to call the encyclopedia britannica "the encyclopedia" since there are many other encyclopedias in existence If you have a physical set and it's the only encyclopedia in the house, it might be fair. I've never heard anyone generically refer to Encyclopedia Britannica as simply "the encyclopedia" outside of this circumstance. > sure wikipedia is one wiki, but there's nothing ambiguous about "look it up on the wiki" Hard disagree. With thousands of specialized wikis and in-house corporate wikis, it can never really be assumed to mean Wikipedia specifically, unless you're already on Wikipedia.
- sussmannbaka 4y ago
  please do donate to the Internet Archive! right now up until the end of the year, all donations are matched 2-to-1 and the money actually goes towards the service while Wikipedia is overfunded and you’re basically only bankrolling the foundation.
  - sct202 4y ago
    Since we're on the topic of less than transparent fundraising, matched donations are also usually misleading. For the most part the matching donors are already planning to donate up to a certain amount regardless of other donations, and if the match from other people comes up short they'll donate the amount they planned to anyways.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
      Yes, but it is the kind of white lie that I think is morally ok? If people get a thrill out of “free money” and charity X gets more funding, not the worst thing in the world.
      - mixmastamyk 4y ago
        That’s how it starts. Pretty soon you’re clandestinely funding woke causes and undermining decades of trust: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33611094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33611094
        knodi123 4y ago
        > woke causes I wonder what, in your estimation, makes a specific cause a "woke" one?
        mixmastamyk 4y ago
        Interesting, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered comments feigning ignorance of the meaning of “woke”. In any case the surrounding threads have copious examples.
- Watchwatcher 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lzooz 4y ago
    Telling someone not to waste money doesn't seem bad financial advice no matter how you slice it.
    - Watchwatcher 4y ago
      Assuming the choices theyre making, based on HN comments, are good choices.
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        If you think not donating to wikipedia is such a bad decision, then why don't you try explaining why you think that?
        Watchwatcher 4y ago
  - leereeves 4y ago
    Are you saying we shouldn't donate to Internet Archive? Why?
    - Watchwatcher 4y ago
      - fasterik 4y ago
        If "cesspool" means "something you disagree with" then that's not good advice either. Reasons can be evaluated independently of the source of information. Good advice can come from anywhere.
- nix23 4y ago
  >instead to Internet Archive Having always donated to EFF, OpenBSD and FreeBSD but i completely forgot IA, will do that this year too.
  - _abox 4y ago
    Thanks!! I donate to FreeBSD too, and it even runs my daily desktop. Thanks to people like you who keep it funded.
    - nix23 4y ago
      >my daily desktop Samesame ;)
- xhkkffbf 4y ago
  I really like much of the IA's past work, but this latest battle with the publishers is just ill advised. If people worked long and hard on something, they deserve the right to prevent it from being given away for free.
  - dcow 4y ago
    No they don’t. Period. We’ll be a healthier society once we get past the idea that you can, well, own ideas.
    - healsdata 4y ago
      What alternative model for funding the creation of said "ideas" would you propose? If everything is free as soon as it exists, how do we ensure equitable access to creation?
  - rjh29 4y ago
    That runs counter to the entire concept of a library. Which is what the Internet Archive is.
    - PhasmaFelis 4y ago
      Authors get paid for library books. (They often cost quite a bit more than the same book sold to an individual.) An author/publisher can choose not to sell to a particular library if they really want to.
      - adamc 4y ago
        They do, but publishers have been tightening the screws on libraries too.
      - jacobolus 4y ago
        Libraries pay the ordinary retail price (or less from a bulk discount). They sometimes buy books with (more expensive) sturdier binding, expecting it to be used more heavily. Authors cannot stop libraries from buying their books and putting them on the shelf. Or are you talking about ebooks?
- MrPatan 4y ago
  Is that the internet archive that archives everything except for his niece's dumb tweets?
  - drdeca 4y ago
    I thought that allegation was shown to be made up?
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Unfortunately, I think charitable organizations with resources have this down to a science, and probably know that approach will get them more increased donations than it will lose them donations. I think it's a science of manipulation, and would hope that eventually it will bite them... but these sciences of manipulation are very effective. And pioneered by the industries that many of us work in, with all the A/B testing and funnel management etc. So if we want to point the finger... There are organizations that I like and appreicate, but stopped donating to after they started spamming with me with 5-10 emails a week asking for increased donations, when I was already donating to them! I stopped. Even though I like the organization and think they do good work. but I bet they have correct reason to believe this spam will net them increased donations over all.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Non-profit charities are required to file tax paperwork, and there are many scrapers for the information. See https://www.charitynavigator.org/ https://www.charitynavigator.org/ or https://www.charitywatch.org/ https://www.charitywatch.org/ Charity Navigator can be overly generous with their composite scores, but you can drill down to the specifics. E.g. that WMF takes 25% of donations off the top for admin/advertising expenses: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/200049703 https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/200049703 As opposed to, say, the Atlanta Community Food Bank, which operates with <5% overhead: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/581376648 https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/581376648 If you're going to donate, make sure they're actually going to the cause.
- deleted 4y ago
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colejohnson66 4y ago
Link to the actual discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(propos...
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  Thanks! I'm not a fan of the links to Twitter not because of the recent insanity but because a Twitter discussion is frequently fragmented, paywalled, vacuous, etc. It's usually a rung up from Reddit but that's not saying much. As for Wikipedia, I regret giving them money in the past because i get endless breathless emails from Jimmy Wales now. I see their situation as tragic because with distributed teams and hiring people who are deeply motivated I'd think they could get dramatically better $ productivity than anybody else if they were willing to transcend their volunteer model and feed some money to Wikipedians to improve the product. I'm reminded of the social entrepreneur Paul Glover who was the founder of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours and frequently wrote "poison pills" into the bylaws of organizations he founded to prevent the "skim 90% of the money" situations that frequently cause successful NGOs to become separate from their constituents. For instance any organization he founded had a rule that the organization would never own a building.
  - btrettel 4y ago
    Do you have a link or reference for details on Paul Glover's "poison pills"? I couldn't find much with a quick Google search so I don't think I have the right keywords.
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      Unfortunately, "personal communication". He told me about them.
      - Aachen 4y ago
        Any pointers on how this worked then? Usually whoever owns the business simply decides what happens to it, is this some sort of "I reserve the right to take back the business for 10% of its value" clause when selling it? Wikipedia hasn't been sold so not even that would work here.
nivenkos 4y ago
https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579776106034757633 https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579776106034757633 - that's all you need to read. They're funneling tens of millions of dollars of donations into the US culture war.
- hikingsimulator 4y ago
  The thread you provide is overly alarmist. Wikipedia giving a few millions to social justice groups isn't "funneling" much first compared to political financing as a whole, and is not "culture war." I would urge people looking at this thread to think about the idea of "culture war," who is selling and profiteering from making it a front page issue (it's not).
  - RobertRoberts 4y ago
    It's a conflict of interest, no matter your politics, when an organization is supposed to be a neutral purveyor of knowledge. (unless I somehow misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia, which is possible)
    - hikingsimulator 4y ago
      Knowledge acquisition is not neutral per se. Wikipedia's goal is to be a peer-to-peer encyclopedia. It's not, and never will be perfect. The best thing you and I can do, instead or beyond donating, is to read Wikipedia and point out places with issues, if not become editors outright.
    - polygamous_bat 4y ago
      Just want to point out that "neutral" doesn't always mean apolitical, even though it may be convenient to think so. Hypothetically, if in a two party system there is a "burn and ban the books" party, and a "let's really not burn the books" party, the moral obligation of a neutral purveyor of knowledge is to do everything in its power to stop the "burn the books" club. How Wikipedia is interpreting that can be questioned, but not the fact that it should try to further the cause for its existence.
dont__panic 4y ago
Seeing news like this makes me sad initially because it feels like every "decent" tech company out there (Mozilla, Wikipedia come to mind) keeps getting sucked into culture wars that distract from their core missions. Take a step back, and you realize that it's actually a very very positive thing to see this kind of news. We're seeing it because Wikipedians are not OK with this behavior, and they're trying to signal that to the folks running the show. I hope they listen more than Mozilla's management.
- joemazerino 4y ago
  Agreed. I cut my Wikipedia donations out when I learned how they were spending my money.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  It's not just furthering the culture war; they've even funded an organization (SeRCH) that's all about peddling unscientific, unencyclopedic woo-woo (about their "intersectional scientific method" and "hyperspace") to vulnerable minority folks who are trying to get involved with real, actual science. An outrageous betrayal of Wikipedia's core mission.
  - melagonster 4y ago
    can you offer more information? I am interesting about this, but quickly search did not display anything related.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      theserchfoundation.org They reportedly have a YouTube channel with long boring videos about their silly stuff.
  - bergenty 4y ago
  - zasdffaa 4y ago
    Can you provide links to any of this? I'm also unable to find any org called SeRCH, perhaps I mis-spelt it. edit: I repeat my request more strongly. I've looked more and even "intersectional scientific method" gets almost nothing except a couple of posts on twitter claiming the same and a website https://battlepenguin.com/politics/wikipedia-is-a-source-of-political-propaganda/ https://battlepenguin.com/politics/wikipedia-is-a-source-of-... which doesn't back anything up - are you affiliated with either of these? I am wondering if you are deliberately spreading FUD
School-Cotton 4y ago
It’s sad that such a wonderful resource as Wikipedia is owned by borderline scammers.
- deleted 4y ago
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loxdalen 4y ago
I love this part in the discussion information section: > If there is a consensus that the banners are not appropriate to run but the WMF tries to run them without implementing the required changes then our proposed method to enforce the consensus is for Common.css to be modified to prevent them from appearing.
- wl 4y ago
  Last time something like that happened (MediaViewer), the WMF added superprotect and locked local admins out of editing it.
  - rjh29 4y ago
    Surely the WMF has to be careful not to alienate their community though - the wiki can be forked at any time and if enough high priority editors went, they could potentially lose control... edit: ... or not. It seems like there have been attempts at munity before (Spanish Wikipedia) and they haven't succeeded.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      The vast, vast, VAST amount of Wiki users just go to the domain name, they give absolutely no cares or thoughts to the fights behind the scene.
deleted 4y ago
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socialismisok 4y ago
Again with this? WMF gives a small fractional amount to some causes some people disagree with. Nearly every charity I donate to imperfectly spends their funds. The question I have is: reading the title of this post, how many wikipedians are taking this "rebellious" stance? How many wikipedians don't care or don't notice?
- Macha 4y ago
  s/small fraction/many many more times than it spends on wikipedia, while claiming wikipedia is the thing being funded/. I even agree with many of these causes (possibly all, but I've not researched them all), but Wikimedia is advertising a specifically scoped project and then actually running a meta-charity
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    Do those things help Wikipedia? Like, if more people receive a stem education worldwide (especially in areas not well served today), doesn't that improve the health of Wikipedia in 15-20 years as we see the beneficiaries of those programs reach adulthood?
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
      It is an interesting if. Is there an indication that any of the ancillary grants by Wiki actually fund "stem education worldwide (especially in areas not well served today)"?
    - pilgrimfff 4y ago
      Gee, I wonder how Wikimedia could make this practice ethical? Maybe actually tell people it's going to those causes instead of Wikipedia? Naaaaaaaaah
    - 613style 4y ago
      The simple point is that the fundraising banner is intentionally misleading. People believe they are donating to the cause of keeping Wikipedia online and significantly less than half of their money is going to that.
pugets 4y ago
I was hoping someone could help me understand. The objective of the Wikimedia Endowment[0] is to invest until the profits fully fund Wikipedia, expenses, as is the case with most endowments. According to Wikipedia’s financial statements[1], their spending balloons by tens of millions of dollars each year. 2015-2016: $66M 2019-2020: $112M 2021-2022: $146M Assuming a modest return of 5%, isn’t it the case they would need billions in their endowment to fully fund Wikipedia? 0: https://wikimediaendowment.org/ https://wikimediaendowment.org/ 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statistics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statis...
- woofcat 4y ago
  Wikimedia != Wikipedia The hosting bill is $2,704,842 per year, and the work is done by volunteers.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    Editing Wikipedia is done by volunteers. The sysadmin/operations staff is paid, and so are the Mediawiki developers building out stuff specifically for WP.
    - neilk 4y ago
      There are paid administrators and developers, but also unpaid ones too. Yes, there are volunteer sysadmins, some with the exact same authorizations as WMF employees. With modern infrastructure as code, they can even contribute to how the site is deployed. Some projects have good crossover between paid and volunteer Wikipedians. But the WMF tends to do the heavier lifts, even if sometimes they are ideas the community isn’t interested in.
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    As the sibling comment points out, assuming Wikipedia's endowment sees 5% returns, it needs to be $54 million just to cover Wikipedia's hosting expenses. That doesn't cover any other Wikipedia/Wikimedia expenses like their full time staff or other OpEx. If the endowment gets less than 5% returns it needs to be that much larger to cover expenses.
SeanLuke 4y ago
What is surprising about all this is that it wouldn't take much effort at all to get fed up and fork Wikipedia. Surely Wales and company understand this danger.
- galdosdi 4y ago
  Look up "Network Effects" ... ironically, probably on Wikipedia
  - tpxl 4y ago
    What happens when the network of editors moves over to the new Wikipedia? The old one becomes stale and dies.
    - IshKebab 4y ago
      That won't happen because of network effects. Nobody wants to edit a site that nobody else reads.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - MathMonkeyMan 4y ago
      Networks don't move, individuals do. But individuals tend not to leave a large network for a small one.
      - charcircuit 4y ago
        Networks can connect. Old and new wikipedia can be connected together to share edits.
    - mistrial9 4y ago
      > the network of editors moves over to the new Wikipedia oh please yes
    - 4y ago
SanjayMehta 4y ago
There's a firefox extension called "Defund Wikipedia" which works very well to block these messages. I personally use Britannica.
greatgib 4y ago
So dad that no one looks like to be willing to fork Wikipedia/wmf. I would be happy to make a donation to it and have the original wmf rot.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  There are countless Wikipedia forks. To a first approximation, they all suck. The Spanish Wikipedia had a considerable mutiny around 2011, when all admins quit en masse and moved to their own fork, but looks like they gave up the ghost around 2016: http://enciclopedia.us.es/index.php/Plantilla:Art%C3%ADculo_destacado http://enciclopedia.us.es/index.php/Plantilla:Art%C3%ADculo_... The only successful wiki fork I'm aware of is Wikivoyage (a Wikimedia project) from Wikitravel, which was bought by a company that proceeded to cram it full of monkey punch ads and alienate its entire userbase.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  It would need software to support governance by the volunteers who actually maintain it, rather than what exists now. These "benevolent dictatorships" all devolve into regular dictatorships after the benevolent dictator leaves (or finds a new partner who promises to make them rich), and the ivy MBAs show up with top tier salary expectations and a vision for what to do with the brand that has little or no relationship with what the brand became successful doing. It's of course a collective action problem. The reason that wikipedia can be plundered for cash (such a precious thing, so much management risk) is the same reason Elsevier and others can collect billions on the backs of unpaid researchers and reviewers.
throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
many posters here have no problem with Wikimedia/Mozilla/etc redirecting the money to political activists. I'd just like to remind you what happened when Brendan Eich had donated $1000 of his own damn money to a cause you found disagreeable.
- aftbit 4y ago
  Sorry, I'm out of the loop on this one. What happened?
  - dotnet00 4y ago
    He was appointed as Mozilla's CEO in March 2014, it turned out he had donated a whopping $3000 to movements against gay marriage in 2008 and despite promising to support LGBT causes at Mozilla, he was effectively forced to step down in April 2014. These days he runs Brave, which isn't flawless but is doing relatively well. Which is in somewhat stark contrast to some comments here which seem to be suggesting that Wikipedia's donations are fine because they're only ~$500k.
  - blendergeek 4y ago
    Brendan Eich donated $1000 in 2008 to support "Prop 8" in California. Prop 8 was a constitutional amendment that required the state to only recognize marriage between one man and one woman. In 2014, this donation came to light after he was appointed CEO of the Mozilla Corporation. Much outrage ensued and Eich was more or less forced to resign.
    - mistrial9 4y ago
      ... and California Prop. 8 passed by a majority of voters in 2008. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
thraway3837 4y ago
There is nothing about “intersectional scientific method” anywhere on the internet or on the org’s website. https://www.vanguardstem.com/serch https://www.vanguardstem.com/serch. Non profits (WMF) grant money to programs that directly or indirectly affect the content of all products offered by the WMF. It’s not just Wikipedia. There are grants that goto volunteers to increase editorship/authorship of non English Wikipedia or in countries and culture where Wikipedia does not have as many articles. Calling this culture wars and simply saying “the money doesn’t goto hosting” is low complexity thinking that fails to account for all the things the foundation does.
- p0pcult 4y ago
  https://conversations.vanguardstem.com/hotsciencesummer-faq-412f2a0d7c8f https://conversations.vanguardstem.com/hotsciencesummer-faq-... >What is the intersectional scientific methodology? The Intersectional Scientific Methodology (ISM) is the concept that your identities and experiences influence your science. We coined this term in our peer-reviewed article. You will need to address how your project incorporates embodied observation, embedded context, and/or collective impact in the additional information section of your proposal to be eligible for a boost. This isn't nearly the bogeyman people would have you believe it is. One's "identities and experiences" can easily influence which questions they are and aren't addressing (intentionally or not). None of this "intersectional scientific method" seems, however, to degrade the scientific method itself.
  - woooooo 4y ago
    Five years ago it was just some crazy college kids, pay them no mind, now they have institutional control of HR departments and college administrations. Scientists in academia have to write proper ideological statements about how "woke" they are in order to research fluid dynamics. Until this kind of thing gets successful pushback, we should assume they'll continue to reorient institutions around the culture war and there will be no outbreak of common sense.
    - p0pcult 4y ago
admax88qqq 4y ago
Wikipedia is and continues to be the best resource on the web. I really don't care to armchair run their parents organization. I'll continue to donate and hope that they know what they're doing. I think HN gets too tunnel visioned on the technical side of the project. Look at how many comments reduce Wikipedia to it's "hosting" costs. There's more to running an organization than the servers. All large organizations experience waste and spend some money poorly. It's basically an operating expense at scale. The net value creation tends to still be positive. I believe there's more to running a successful global comprehensive and free encyclopedia than hosting. To keep the content and community vibrant, to expand into new languages and communities. These things probably require more than just "hosting". I don't know what's required but I'll continue to donate to WMF and hope for the best.
- blululu 4y ago
  Since WMF really cranked their fundraising popups into high gear ~6 weeks ago people have been posting articles here protesting about the foundation and on every thread there is someone who takes this standpoint. It's your money, but this attitude also strikes me as being very stubborn when confronted with the possibility that your charity is being wasted. The critique is not merely administrative bloat or waste. The critique is about the magnitude of these problems. There is always waste but WMF has more than comparable non-profits like Internet Archive and when you have board members kicking large sums of money around to their other non-profits then there are questions of a serious ethical breach. The critique is about the deceptive nature of the WMF ad campaign. The critique is about how the WMF does very little of the actual work in running Wikipedia but takes the lions share of the cash from the community of volunteers. The critique is pretty detailed and well articulated and it is not simply a technical objection that anything beyond servers is a waste. This representation is of the critique is pretty unfair given how much thought and effort people have put into spelling out their case against WMF. Again it's your money but I would strongly suggest doing your homework before defending the WMF.
  - admax88qqq 4y ago
    > Since WMF really cranked their fundraising popups into high gear ~6 weeks ago WMF cranks their popups every year around this time. I haven't found them to be any more obtrusive this year than every other year. > The critique is about how the WMF does very little of the actual work in running Wikipedia That's fair, I just disagree with the critique's I've heard. Most commentators are taking what I consider to be a very narrow view of what it means to "run Wikipedia."
henearkr 4y ago
That reminded me of donating to WP this year. Done. I don't care what their fundraisings are, I just know that they deserve a donation now and then. (Also, they employ more than 500 people, and this is consistent with their donations volume, so I don't think they are burning money for nothing.)
yucky 4y ago
- solardev 4y ago
  That's just how money works, isn't it? When you buy something from Amazon, Jeff uses a lot of it to destroy governments and cities. When you fill up at the gas station, Shell uses it to lobby against climate policy. When you donate something to even the best most amazingest nonprofit, their employees get paid, and then spend the money on the dark causes they care about that you may not.
  - dotnet00 4y ago
    The difference is that in all of those cases the money has been earned as the cost of work done. The non-profit's employee is spending the money they earned for work done. This is different from the non-profit itself making the donation because that wouldn't be part of the operating cost of the non-profit itself.
    - solardev 4y ago
      Companies make donations and lobby and such too. I don't see the difference.
      - yucky 4y ago
        If I pay a company for a widget, I expect only that widget in return. If I make a donation to Wikipedia to ensure it can pay for its infrastructure, that is what I expect them to do with the money. I don't expect them to funnel my donation through dark money vehicles to fund causes I have no idea they're even funding and that I may or may not want to support financially. Do you see the difference?
        solardev 4y ago
        Nope. When you buy a widget from the company, the company will use the revenue to do whatever it wants. Same with nonprofits. It's not like they guarantee that your donation only goes to X, unless that was specified. Otherwise it just goes into their general fund.
noasaservice 4y ago
I hopped onto Mastodon, and threw money at our local instance (infosec.exchange) Right now, they're seeing loads of x10 and above. And since Mastodon is inherently noncommercial, I'm glad to support the instance im on. And it's so much more peaceful there. Fake viralness doesn't exist. Re-toots (re-tweets) don't exist as a intentional design ideal. And its chronological. No re-loading to see more forced psychological viral garbage for more forced interaction. So far, it's calmer and much more pleasant than I had thought possible.
dncornholio 4y ago
The begging banner always have left a bad taste in my mouth. A small link on the bottom of the site 'donate' should have sufficed.
- GuB-42 4y ago
  It wouldn't earn them as much money. The begging banner is deliberate, it is a data-driven marketing campaign, not unlike more traditional internet ads. A good thing about Wikipedia is that they are transparent about it, if you care to look. [1] Now, the question "do they need that much money?" remains. [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    > A good thing about Wikipedia is that they are transparent about it, if you care to look. [1] If only a link to this page was included in the banner...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
tppiotrowski 4y ago
I'm willing to give a little leeway with donations. I'd rather have Wikimedia run a surplus or embezzle the money than see Wikipedia having to count every penny. I pay $17 for Netflix and I also donate $17 for Wikipedia every month. My Wikipedia "subscription" is hands down the one I'd keep if money was tight.
- remram 4y ago
  I don't think anyone is opposed to your informed decision, the problem is that the fundraising banners don't give the information you and I are acting on. They are lies.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
charles_f 4y ago
I don't mind giving to Wikipedia despite the recent controversies, what I can't bear is regularly giving them money, and receiving messages titled "We've had enough", clearly designed at guilting me into giving more. This is abusing psychology, which is probably effective, but unethical. I have no doubt they feel in the right to do so given their mission. Wrongdoing for the right reasons is still wrongdoing.
theylovezmw 4y ago
I've been a stubborn Wikipedia defender and donator for the past couple years, but this new fundraising banner style is the first time Wikipedia has begun to lose sympathy for me. I hope to see much less of this in the future
BrainVirus 4y ago
Wikipedia is one of the worst things that was ever launched on the web. Many people say that it's reliable, except in cases of controversy. That's a spin. A more honest way of describing it is that it's a system designed to accumulate trust by providing people with trivial information and then spectacularly fail them when the information is critically important for some society-wide issue. The failures aren't unfortunate mishaps, they are inevitable by design.
- fluoridation 4y ago
  I'd say it's foolish to turn to an encyclopedia, which by definition is merely meant to impart knowledge not much deeper than introductory, for information of critical importance.
micromacrofoot 4y ago
You can read Wikimedia's financial statements here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/#a1-2022-2023 https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/#a1-... I'm completely fine with how they use their money and will continue donating as long as Wikipedia remains a valuable resource for me. I do not care much that Wikimedia is not directly Wikipedia and that they spend more money than Wikipedia would alone. This feels similar to the Mozilla vs Firefox "why is Mozilla spending money on other things" argument. I will continue donating to Mozilla, Wikimedia, and the Internet Archive because I think they're all doing important work beyond their core products. I don't have to pick one or the other, I can give to all of them.
dangerface 4y ago
Seems reasonable for wikipedia to want more money year on year every one wants to see the platform grow. Obviously they need to cover more than just hosting costs trying to do anything for the public good results in you getting sued by every company thats trying to commercialise that good. That being said the lack of transparency is alarming why not be public about it all? Sure some will use it against you but the people that actually care and fund them won't really care what its being spent on as long as the quality of service remains good.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  > every one wants to see the platform grow No I certainly don't. Why would you like their "platform" to grow. They should stick with the core mission of running Wikipedia.
kemayo 4y ago
"Wikipedians are rebelling" is a bit overstated. We're talking about a discussion thread which 35 people have commented in, not universally in opposition, versus the ~120k users[1] who've made an edit on English Wikipedia in the last 30 days. (Fun trick: use this URL to turn on the summary headers that're why I know how many people are in the discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)?dtenable=1#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(propos... ) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics
- akolbe 4y ago
  The discussion has run for less than 24 hours; and of those (now) 37 editors, only three (3) have left a comment saying they are okay with the banners as they are. Good URL trick. It helps to be a staffer. ;) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DLynch_(WMF) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DLynch_(WMF)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 4y ago
    It looks like your account is using HN primarily if not exclusively to post about this one cause. That's not allowed here—it runs against the intended purpose of the site, which is intellectual curiosity. Single-purpose accounts are by definition repetitive and repetition is bad for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), as is any form of predictability. For this reason, we ban single-purpose accounts. Needless to say this doesn't have to do with the merits of your cause; it just has to do with the mandate of this site. I'm not going to ban you right now but if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and diversify your posts to HN and adjust so that you're using it in the intended spirit, we'd be grateful.
Illniyar 4y ago
I stopped giving money to wikipedia a few years back. It seemed that as their endownment continued to grow their pleading became more desperate. This rubs me the wrong way. I want my money to go to wikipedia, with the amount of money they now have my donation will go to side projects. That's not what I want to donate to, and also not what they are advertising in their banner.
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  > It seemed that as their endownment continued to grow their pleading became more desperate. Right, the feeling I get now across a lot of their efforts is that they're becoming increasingly addicted and intoxicated by looking at their account balances.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
Funny thing is that Wikipedia used to run on fully sponsored servers at least in the European region, provided by educational organizations. But they left because they wanted to be independent and they had plenty of sponsorship money anyway. And they still do. They get much more from business and government than they'll ever get from us. Like the other poster above I also donate to archive.org instead which really does need it.
steve_john 4y ago
forgotmypw17 4y ago
I don't go to wikipedia.org anymore, and use my browser to redirect all links to Wikiless. Regardless of the reason, if a page I'm going to doesn't display the content I reasonably expected it to have, I consider that page broken, and try to find a replacement as soon as possible. The cognitive load of cookie banners, newsletter prompts, paywalls, tutorials, and so on, is just not acceptable to me, and I choose to leave all of it on the other Web, the AOLWeb and FacebookWeb, the one which I rarely access, mostly by accident. The GoodWeb, the one with the content and fast, lightly formatted pages, is where I stay. I vote with my browser, only allowing JS selectively, choosing to close the tab whenever the AOLWeb rears its head, using various proxies on the rare occasion AOLWeb has anything I actually want, clipping anything useful into my cliplog for others to access more easily. It's refreshing, let me tell you.

451 points by akolbe 4y ago

I have been donating annually around $50 or less for the last ten years. I was quite surprised to get an email from jimmy@wikipedia.org last month suggesting I increase my donation to $250. I'm planning to not donate at all this year, (instead to Internet Archive) based largely on discussions I have read here at HN. But I thought the request to suddenly increase my typical donation five-fold was pretty outrageous.

xdfgh1112 4y ago
It really is. I guess their analytics predicted they'd gain more in income from certain people than they lose in offending people.
cainxinth 4y ago
I still toss wiki a few bucks now and then (even though I hear they are flush with cash and have been for a while) just because I use and enjoy it so frequently (and because I think it's a valuable source of information for everyone, generally), but I too have started giving more to the Internet Archive. Its founder Brewster Kahle is a wonderful person. Some choice excerpts from from his wiki: "Struck by the immensity of the task being undertaken and achieved: to store and index everything that was on the Web, Kahle states: 'I was standing there, looking at this machine that was the size of five or six Coke machines, and there was an 'aha' moment that said, 'You can do everything.'" "Knowledge lives in lots of different forms over time," Kahle said in 2011. "First it was in people's memories, then it was in manuscripts, then printed books, then microfilm, CD-ROMs, now on the digital internet. Each one of these generations is very important." "It's not that expensive. For the cost of 60 miles of highway, we can have a 10 million-book digital library available to a generation that is growing up reading on-screen. Our job is to put the best works of humankind within reach of that generation."
- cxr 4y ago
  > I still toss wiki a few bucks now and then A small favor to ask: can you avoid using the word "wiki" as casual shorthand to refer to Wikipedia? It falls in the same territory (or nearby, at least) as someone who doesn't know better saying "Java" to refer to JS (JavaScript). NB: I have tried to word this as politely and non-derisively as I can think to. If you have any improvements, please let me know. PS: Thank you for 1. your support of Wikipedia, 2. your support of the Internet Archive, and 3. the signal that you send by pulling back from #1 right now, when it makes a lot of sense to do so.
  - jazzyjackson 4y ago
    this is like asking me not to call the encyclopedia britannica "the encyclopedia" since there are many other encyclopedias in existence sure wikipedia is one wiki, but there's nothing ambiguous about "look it up on the wiki" edit: lol ok fine I'm wrong, let me amend to, "wiki is an easily disambiguated term depending on the context of the subject, and if the subject is not your internal work project or self hosted fan site, you probably want to look it up on wikipedia.org"
    - dmonitor 4y ago
      >there's nothing ambiguous about "look it up on the wiki" When someone says "look it up on the wiki" I assume they refer to a wiki specific to the topic at hand.
      - groestl 4y ago
        Which will prompt me to ask: what wiki?
    - chungy 4y ago
      > this is like asking me not to call the encyclopedia britannica "the encyclopedia" since there are many other encyclopedias in existence If you have a physical set and it's the only encyclopedia in the house, it might be fair. I've never heard anyone generically refer to Encyclopedia Britannica as simply "the encyclopedia" outside of this circumstance. > sure wikipedia is one wiki, but there's nothing ambiguous about "look it up on the wiki" Hard disagree. With thousands of specialized wikis and in-house corporate wikis, it can never really be assumed to mean Wikipedia specifically, unless you're already on Wikipedia.
sussmannbaka 4y ago
please do donate to the Internet Archive! right now up until the end of the year, all donations are matched 2-to-1 and the money actually goes towards the service while Wikipedia is overfunded and you’re basically only bankrolling the foundation.
- sct202 4y ago
  Since we're on the topic of less than transparent fundraising, matched donations are also usually misleading. For the most part the matching donors are already planning to donate up to a certain amount regardless of other donations, and if the match from other people comes up short they'll donate the amount they planned to anyways.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
    Yes, but it is the kind of white lie that I think is morally ok? If people get a thrill out of “free money” and charity X gets more funding, not the worst thing in the world.
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago
      That’s how it starts. Pretty soon you’re clandestinely funding woke causes and undermining decades of trust: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33611094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33611094
      - knodi123 4y ago
        > woke causes I wonder what, in your estimation, makes a specific cause a "woke" one?
        mixmastamyk 4y ago
        Interesting, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered comments feigning ignorance of the meaning of “woke”. In any case the surrounding threads have copious examples.
Watchwatcher 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lzooz 4y ago
  Telling someone not to waste money doesn't seem bad financial advice no matter how you slice it.
  - Watchwatcher 4y ago
    Assuming the choices theyre making, based on HN comments, are good choices.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      If you think not donating to wikipedia is such a bad decision, then why don't you try explaining why you think that?
      - Watchwatcher 4y ago
- leereeves 4y ago
  Are you saying we shouldn't donate to Internet Archive? Why?
  - Watchwatcher 4y ago
    - fasterik 4y ago
      If "cesspool" means "something you disagree with" then that's not good advice either. Reasons can be evaluated independently of the source of information. Good advice can come from anywhere.
nix23 4y ago
>instead to Internet Archive Having always donated to EFF, OpenBSD and FreeBSD but i completely forgot IA, will do that this year too.
- _abox 4y ago
  Thanks!! I donate to FreeBSD too, and it even runs my daily desktop. Thanks to people like you who keep it funded.
  - nix23 4y ago
    >my daily desktop Samesame ;)
xhkkffbf 4y ago
I really like much of the IA's past work, but this latest battle with the publishers is just ill advised. If people worked long and hard on something, they deserve the right to prevent it from being given away for free.
- dcow 4y ago
  No they don’t. Period. We’ll be a healthier society once we get past the idea that you can, well, own ideas.
  - healsdata 4y ago
    What alternative model for funding the creation of said "ideas" would you propose? If everything is free as soon as it exists, how do we ensure equitable access to creation?
- rjh29 4y ago
  That runs counter to the entire concept of a library. Which is what the Internet Archive is.
  - PhasmaFelis 4y ago
    Authors get paid for library books. (They often cost quite a bit more than the same book sold to an individual.) An author/publisher can choose not to sell to a particular library if they really want to.
    - adamc 4y ago
      They do, but publishers have been tightening the screws on libraries too.
    - jacobolus 4y ago
      Libraries pay the ordinary retail price (or less from a bulk discount). They sometimes buy books with (more expensive) sturdier binding, expecting it to be used more heavily. Authors cannot stop libraries from buying their books and putting them on the shelf. Or are you talking about ebooks?
MrPatan 4y ago
Is that the internet archive that archives everything except for his niece's dumb tweets?
- drdeca 4y ago
  I thought that allegation was shown to be made up?
jrochkind1 4y ago
Unfortunately, I think charitable organizations with resources have this down to a science, and probably know that approach will get them more increased donations than it will lose them donations. I think it's a science of manipulation, and would hope that eventually it will bite them... but these sciences of manipulation are very effective. And pioneered by the industries that many of us work in, with all the A/B testing and funnel management etc. So if we want to point the finger... There are organizations that I like and appreicate, but stopped donating to after they started spamming with me with 5-10 emails a week asking for increased donations, when I was already donating to them! I stopped. Even though I like the organization and think they do good work. but I bet they have correct reason to believe this spam will net them increased donations over all.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Non-profit charities are required to file tax paperwork, and there are many scrapers for the information. See https://www.charitynavigator.org/ https://www.charitynavigator.org/ or https://www.charitywatch.org/ https://www.charitywatch.org/ Charity Navigator can be overly generous with their composite scores, but you can drill down to the specifics. E.g. that WMF takes 25% of donations off the top for admin/advertising expenses: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/200049703 https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/200049703 As opposed to, say, the Atlanta Community Food Bank, which operates with <5% overhead: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/581376648 https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/581376648 If you're going to donate, make sure they're actually going to the cause.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

colejohnson66 4y ago

Link to the actual discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(propos...

PaulHoule 4y ago
Thanks! I'm not a fan of the links to Twitter not because of the recent insanity but because a Twitter discussion is frequently fragmented, paywalled, vacuous, etc. It's usually a rung up from Reddit but that's not saying much. As for Wikipedia, I regret giving them money in the past because i get endless breathless emails from Jimmy Wales now. I see their situation as tragic because with distributed teams and hiring people who are deeply motivated I'd think they could get dramatically better $ productivity than anybody else if they were willing to transcend their volunteer model and feed some money to Wikipedians to improve the product. I'm reminded of the social entrepreneur Paul Glover who was the founder of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours and frequently wrote "poison pills" into the bylaws of organizations he founded to prevent the "skim 90% of the money" situations that frequently cause successful NGOs to become separate from their constituents. For instance any organization he founded had a rule that the organization would never own a building.
- btrettel 4y ago
  Do you have a link or reference for details on Paul Glover's "poison pills"? I couldn't find much with a quick Google search so I don't think I have the right keywords.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    Unfortunately, "personal communication". He told me about them.
    - Aachen 4y ago
      Any pointers on how this worked then? Usually whoever owns the business simply decides what happens to it, is this some sort of "I reserve the right to take back the business for 10% of its value" clause when selling it? Wikipedia hasn't been sold so not even that would work here.

nivenkos 4y ago

https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579776106034757633 https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579776106034757633 - that's all you need to read. They're funneling tens of millions of dollars of donations into the US culture war.

hikingsimulator 4y ago
The thread you provide is overly alarmist. Wikipedia giving a few millions to social justice groups isn't "funneling" much first compared to political financing as a whole, and is not "culture war." I would urge people looking at this thread to think about the idea of "culture war," who is selling and profiteering from making it a front page issue (it's not).
- RobertRoberts 4y ago
  It's a conflict of interest, no matter your politics, when an organization is supposed to be a neutral purveyor of knowledge. (unless I somehow misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia, which is possible)
  - hikingsimulator 4y ago
    Knowledge acquisition is not neutral per se. Wikipedia's goal is to be a peer-to-peer encyclopedia. It's not, and never will be perfect. The best thing you and I can do, instead or beyond donating, is to read Wikipedia and point out places with issues, if not become editors outright.
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    Just want to point out that "neutral" doesn't always mean apolitical, even though it may be convenient to think so. Hypothetically, if in a two party system there is a "burn and ban the books" party, and a "let's really not burn the books" party, the moral obligation of a neutral purveyor of knowledge is to do everything in its power to stop the "burn the books" club. How Wikipedia is interpreting that can be questioned, but not the fact that it should try to further the cause for its existence.

dont__panic 4y ago

Seeing news like this makes me sad initially because it feels like every "decent" tech company out there (Mozilla, Wikipedia come to mind) keeps getting sucked into culture wars that distract from their core missions. Take a step back, and you realize that it's actually a very very positive thing to see this kind of news. We're seeing it because Wikipedians are not OK with this behavior, and they're trying to signal that to the folks running the show. I hope they listen more than Mozilla's management.

joemazerino 4y ago
Agreed. I cut my Wikipedia donations out when I learned how they were spending my money.
zozbot234 4y ago
It's not just furthering the culture war; they've even funded an organization (SeRCH) that's all about peddling unscientific, unencyclopedic woo-woo (about their "intersectional scientific method" and "hyperspace") to vulnerable minority folks who are trying to get involved with real, actual science. An outrageous betrayal of Wikipedia's core mission.
- melagonster 4y ago
  can you offer more information? I am interesting about this, but quickly search did not display anything related.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    theserchfoundation.org They reportedly have a YouTube channel with long boring videos about their silly stuff.
- bergenty 4y ago
- zasdffaa 4y ago
  Can you provide links to any of this? I'm also unable to find any org called SeRCH, perhaps I mis-spelt it. edit: I repeat my request more strongly. I've looked more and even "intersectional scientific method" gets almost nothing except a couple of posts on twitter claiming the same and a website https://battlepenguin.com/politics/wikipedia-is-a-source-of-political-propaganda/ https://battlepenguin.com/politics/wikipedia-is-a-source-of-... which doesn't back anything up - are you affiliated with either of these? I am wondering if you are deliberately spreading FUD

School-Cotton 4y ago

It’s sad that such a wonderful resource as Wikipedia is owned by borderline scammers.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

loxdalen 4y ago

I love this part in the discussion information section: > If there is a consensus that the banners are not appropriate to run but the WMF tries to run them without implementing the required changes then our proposed method to enforce the consensus is for Common.css to be modified to prevent them from appearing.

wl 4y ago
Last time something like that happened (MediaViewer), the WMF added superprotect and locked local admins out of editing it.
- rjh29 4y ago
  Surely the WMF has to be careful not to alienate their community though - the wiki can be forked at any time and if enough high priority editors went, they could potentially lose control... edit: ... or not. It seems like there have been attempts at munity before (Spanish Wikipedia) and they haven't succeeded.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The vast, vast, VAST amount of Wiki users just go to the domain name, they give absolutely no cares or thoughts to the fights behind the scene.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

socialismisok 4y ago

Again with this? WMF gives a small fractional amount to some causes some people disagree with. Nearly every charity I donate to imperfectly spends their funds. The question I have is: reading the title of this post, how many wikipedians are taking this "rebellious" stance? How many wikipedians don't care or don't notice?

Macha 4y ago
s/small fraction/many many more times than it spends on wikipedia, while claiming wikipedia is the thing being funded/. I even agree with many of these causes (possibly all, but I've not researched them all), but Wikimedia is advertising a specifically scoped project and then actually running a meta-charity
- socialismisok 4y ago
  Do those things help Wikipedia? Like, if more people receive a stem education worldwide (especially in areas not well served today), doesn't that improve the health of Wikipedia in 15-20 years as we see the beneficiaries of those programs reach adulthood?
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    It is an interesting if. Is there an indication that any of the ancillary grants by Wiki actually fund "stem education worldwide (especially in areas not well served today)"?
  - pilgrimfff 4y ago
    Gee, I wonder how Wikimedia could make this practice ethical? Maybe actually tell people it's going to those causes instead of Wikipedia? Naaaaaaaaah
  - 613style 4y ago
    The simple point is that the fundraising banner is intentionally misleading. People believe they are donating to the cause of keeping Wikipedia online and significantly less than half of their money is going to that.

pugets 4y ago

I was hoping someone could help me understand. The objective of the Wikimedia Endowment[0] is to invest until the profits fully fund Wikipedia, expenses, as is the case with most endowments. According to Wikipedia’s financial statements[1], their spending balloons by tens of millions of dollars each year. 2015-2016: $66M 2019-2020: $112M 2021-2022: $146M Assuming a modest return of 5%, isn’t it the case they would need billions in their endowment to fully fund Wikipedia? 0: https://wikimediaendowment.org/ https://wikimediaendowment.org/ 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statistics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statis...

woofcat 4y ago
Wikimedia != Wikipedia The hosting bill is $2,704,842 per year, and the work is done by volunteers.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  Editing Wikipedia is done by volunteers. The sysadmin/operations staff is paid, and so are the Mediawiki developers building out stuff specifically for WP.
  - neilk 4y ago
    There are paid administrators and developers, but also unpaid ones too. Yes, there are volunteer sysadmins, some with the exact same authorizations as WMF employees. With modern infrastructure as code, they can even contribute to how the site is deployed. Some projects have good crossover between paid and volunteer Wikipedians. But the WMF tends to do the heavier lifts, even if sometimes they are ideas the community isn’t interested in.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  As the sibling comment points out, assuming Wikipedia's endowment sees 5% returns, it needs to be $54 million just to cover Wikipedia's hosting expenses. That doesn't cover any other Wikipedia/Wikimedia expenses like their full time staff or other OpEx. If the endowment gets less than 5% returns it needs to be that much larger to cover expenses.

SeanLuke 4y ago

What is surprising about all this is that it wouldn't take much effort at all to get fed up and fork Wikipedia. Surely Wales and company understand this danger.

galdosdi 4y ago
Look up "Network Effects" ... ironically, probably on Wikipedia
- tpxl 4y ago
  What happens when the network of editors moves over to the new Wikipedia? The old one becomes stale and dies.
  - IshKebab 4y ago
    That won't happen because of network effects. Nobody wants to edit a site that nobody else reads.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - MathMonkeyMan 4y ago
    Networks don't move, individuals do. But individuals tend not to leave a large network for a small one.
    - charcircuit 4y ago
      Networks can connect. Old and new wikipedia can be connected together to share edits.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    > the network of editors moves over to the new Wikipedia oh please yes
  - 4y ago

SanjayMehta 4y ago

There's a firefox extension called "Defund Wikipedia" which works very well to block these messages. I personally use Britannica.

greatgib 4y ago

So dad that no one looks like to be willing to fork Wikipedia/wmf. I would be happy to make a donation to it and have the original wmf rot.

rippercushions 4y ago
There are countless Wikipedia forks. To a first approximation, they all suck. The Spanish Wikipedia had a considerable mutiny around 2011, when all admins quit en masse and moved to their own fork, but looks like they gave up the ghost around 2016: http://enciclopedia.us.es/index.php/Plantilla:Art%C3%ADculo_destacado http://enciclopedia.us.es/index.php/Plantilla:Art%C3%ADculo_... The only successful wiki fork I'm aware of is Wikivoyage (a Wikimedia project) from Wikitravel, which was bought by a company that proceeded to cram it full of monkey punch ads and alienate its entire userbase.
pessimizer 4y ago
It would need software to support governance by the volunteers who actually maintain it, rather than what exists now. These "benevolent dictatorships" all devolve into regular dictatorships after the benevolent dictator leaves (or finds a new partner who promises to make them rich), and the ivy MBAs show up with top tier salary expectations and a vision for what to do with the brand that has little or no relationship with what the brand became successful doing. It's of course a collective action problem. The reason that wikipedia can be plundered for cash (such a precious thing, so much management risk) is the same reason Elsevier and others can collect billions on the backs of unpaid researchers and reviewers.

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago

many posters here have no problem with Wikimedia/Mozilla/etc redirecting the money to political activists. I'd just like to remind you what happened when Brendan Eich had donated $1000 of his own damn money to a cause you found disagreeable.

aftbit 4y ago
Sorry, I'm out of the loop on this one. What happened?
- dotnet00 4y ago
  He was appointed as Mozilla's CEO in March 2014, it turned out he had donated a whopping $3000 to movements against gay marriage in 2008 and despite promising to support LGBT causes at Mozilla, he was effectively forced to step down in April 2014. These days he runs Brave, which isn't flawless but is doing relatively well. Which is in somewhat stark contrast to some comments here which seem to be suggesting that Wikipedia's donations are fine because they're only ~$500k.
- blendergeek 4y ago
  Brendan Eich donated $1000 in 2008 to support "Prop 8" in California. Prop 8 was a constitutional amendment that required the state to only recognize marriage between one man and one woman. In 2014, this donation came to light after he was appointed CEO of the Mozilla Corporation. Much outrage ensued and Eich was more or less forced to resign.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    ... and California Prop. 8 passed by a majority of voters in 2008. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

thraway3837 4y ago

There is nothing about “intersectional scientific method” anywhere on the internet or on the org’s website. https://www.vanguardstem.com/serch https://www.vanguardstem.com/serch. Non profits (WMF) grant money to programs that directly or indirectly affect the content of all products offered by the WMF. It’s not just Wikipedia. There are grants that goto volunteers to increase editorship/authorship of non English Wikipedia or in countries and culture where Wikipedia does not have as many articles. Calling this culture wars and simply saying “the money doesn’t goto hosting” is low complexity thinking that fails to account for all the things the foundation does.

p0pcult 4y ago
https://conversations.vanguardstem.com/hotsciencesummer-faq-412f2a0d7c8f https://conversations.vanguardstem.com/hotsciencesummer-faq-... >What is the intersectional scientific methodology? The Intersectional Scientific Methodology (ISM) is the concept that your identities and experiences influence your science. We coined this term in our peer-reviewed article. You will need to address how your project incorporates embodied observation, embedded context, and/or collective impact in the additional information section of your proposal to be eligible for a boost. This isn't nearly the bogeyman people would have you believe it is. One's "identities and experiences" can easily influence which questions they are and aren't addressing (intentionally or not). None of this "intersectional scientific method" seems, however, to degrade the scientific method itself.
- woooooo 4y ago
  Five years ago it was just some crazy college kids, pay them no mind, now they have institutional control of HR departments and college administrations. Scientists in academia have to write proper ideological statements about how "woke" they are in order to research fluid dynamics. Until this kind of thing gets successful pushback, we should assume they'll continue to reorient institutions around the culture war and there will be no outbreak of common sense.
  - p0pcult 4y ago

admax88qqq 4y ago

Wikipedia is and continues to be the best resource on the web. I really don't care to armchair run their parents organization. I'll continue to donate and hope that they know what they're doing. I think HN gets too tunnel visioned on the technical side of the project. Look at how many comments reduce Wikipedia to it's "hosting" costs. There's more to running an organization than the servers. All large organizations experience waste and spend some money poorly. It's basically an operating expense at scale. The net value creation tends to still be positive. I believe there's more to running a successful global comprehensive and free encyclopedia than hosting. To keep the content and community vibrant, to expand into new languages and communities. These things probably require more than just "hosting". I don't know what's required but I'll continue to donate to WMF and hope for the best.

blululu 4y ago
Since WMF really cranked their fundraising popups into high gear ~6 weeks ago people have been posting articles here protesting about the foundation and on every thread there is someone who takes this standpoint. It's your money, but this attitude also strikes me as being very stubborn when confronted with the possibility that your charity is being wasted. The critique is not merely administrative bloat or waste. The critique is about the magnitude of these problems. There is always waste but WMF has more than comparable non-profits like Internet Archive and when you have board members kicking large sums of money around to their other non-profits then there are questions of a serious ethical breach. The critique is about the deceptive nature of the WMF ad campaign. The critique is about how the WMF does very little of the actual work in running Wikipedia but takes the lions share of the cash from the community of volunteers. The critique is pretty detailed and well articulated and it is not simply a technical objection that anything beyond servers is a waste. This representation is of the critique is pretty unfair given how much thought and effort people have put into spelling out their case against WMF. Again it's your money but I would strongly suggest doing your homework before defending the WMF.
- admax88qqq 4y ago
  > Since WMF really cranked their fundraising popups into high gear ~6 weeks ago WMF cranks their popups every year around this time. I haven't found them to be any more obtrusive this year than every other year. > The critique is about how the WMF does very little of the actual work in running Wikipedia That's fair, I just disagree with the critique's I've heard. Most commentators are taking what I consider to be a very narrow view of what it means to "run Wikipedia."

henearkr 4y ago

That reminded me of donating to WP this year. Done. I don't care what their fundraisings are, I just know that they deserve a donation now and then. (Also, they employ more than 500 people, and this is consistent with their donations volume, so I don't think they are burning money for nothing.)

yucky 4y ago

solardev 4y ago
That's just how money works, isn't it? When you buy something from Amazon, Jeff uses a lot of it to destroy governments and cities. When you fill up at the gas station, Shell uses it to lobby against climate policy. When you donate something to even the best most amazingest nonprofit, their employees get paid, and then spend the money on the dark causes they care about that you may not.
- dotnet00 4y ago
  The difference is that in all of those cases the money has been earned as the cost of work done. The non-profit's employee is spending the money they earned for work done. This is different from the non-profit itself making the donation because that wouldn't be part of the operating cost of the non-profit itself.
  - solardev 4y ago
    Companies make donations and lobby and such too. I don't see the difference.
    - yucky 4y ago
      If I pay a company for a widget, I expect only that widget in return. If I make a donation to Wikipedia to ensure it can pay for its infrastructure, that is what I expect them to do with the money. I don't expect them to funnel my donation through dark money vehicles to fund causes I have no idea they're even funding and that I may or may not want to support financially. Do you see the difference?
      - solardev 4y ago
        Nope. When you buy a widget from the company, the company will use the revenue to do whatever it wants. Same with nonprofits. It's not like they guarantee that your donation only goes to X, unless that was specified. Otherwise it just goes into their general fund.

noasaservice 4y ago

I hopped onto Mastodon, and threw money at our local instance (infosec.exchange) Right now, they're seeing loads of x10 and above. And since Mastodon is inherently noncommercial, I'm glad to support the instance im on. And it's so much more peaceful there. Fake viralness doesn't exist. Re-toots (re-tweets) don't exist as a intentional design ideal. And its chronological. No re-loading to see more forced psychological viral garbage for more forced interaction. So far, it's calmer and much more pleasant than I had thought possible.

dncornholio 4y ago

The begging banner always have left a bad taste in my mouth. A small link on the bottom of the site 'donate' should have sufficed.

GuB-42 4y ago
It wouldn't earn them as much money. The begging banner is deliberate, it is a data-driven marketing campaign, not unlike more traditional internet ads. A good thing about Wikipedia is that they are transparent about it, if you care to look. [1] Now, the question "do they need that much money?" remains. [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  > A good thing about Wikipedia is that they are transparent about it, if you care to look. [1] If only a link to this page was included in the banner...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

tppiotrowski 4y ago

I'm willing to give a little leeway with donations. I'd rather have Wikimedia run a surplus or embezzle the money than see Wikipedia having to count every penny. I pay $17 for Netflix and I also donate $17 for Wikipedia every month. My Wikipedia "subscription" is hands down the one I'd keep if money was tight.

remram 4y ago
I don't think anyone is opposed to your informed decision, the problem is that the fundraising banners don't give the information you and I are acting on. They are lies.
- deleted 4y ago
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charles_f 4y ago

I don't mind giving to Wikipedia despite the recent controversies, what I can't bear is regularly giving them money, and receiving messages titled "We've had enough", clearly designed at guilting me into giving more. This is abusing psychology, which is probably effective, but unethical. I have no doubt they feel in the right to do so given their mission. Wrongdoing for the right reasons is still wrongdoing.

theylovezmw 4y ago

I've been a stubborn Wikipedia defender and donator for the past couple years, but this new fundraising banner style is the first time Wikipedia has begun to lose sympathy for me. I hope to see much less of this in the future

BrainVirus 4y ago

Wikipedia is one of the worst things that was ever launched on the web. Many people say that it's reliable, except in cases of controversy. That's a spin. A more honest way of describing it is that it's a system designed to accumulate trust by providing people with trivial information and then spectacularly fail them when the information is critically important for some society-wide issue. The failures aren't unfortunate mishaps, they are inevitable by design.

fluoridation 4y ago
I'd say it's foolish to turn to an encyclopedia, which by definition is merely meant to impart knowledge not much deeper than introductory, for information of critical importance.

micromacrofoot 4y ago

You can read Wikimedia's financial statements here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/#a1-2022-2023 https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/#a1-... I'm completely fine with how they use their money and will continue donating as long as Wikipedia remains a valuable resource for me. I do not care much that Wikimedia is not directly Wikipedia and that they spend more money than Wikipedia would alone. This feels similar to the Mozilla vs Firefox "why is Mozilla spending money on other things" argument. I will continue donating to Mozilla, Wikimedia, and the Internet Archive because I think they're all doing important work beyond their core products. I don't have to pick one or the other, I can give to all of them.

dangerface 4y ago

Seems reasonable for wikipedia to want more money year on year every one wants to see the platform grow. Obviously they need to cover more than just hosting costs trying to do anything for the public good results in you getting sued by every company thats trying to commercialise that good. That being said the lack of transparency is alarming why not be public about it all? Sure some will use it against you but the people that actually care and fund them won't really care what its being spent on as long as the quality of service remains good.

rightbyte 4y ago
> every one wants to see the platform grow No I certainly don't. Why would you like their "platform" to grow. They should stick with the core mission of running Wikipedia.

kemayo 4y ago

"Wikipedians are rebelling" is a bit overstated. We're talking about a discussion thread which 35 people have commented in, not universally in opposition, versus the ~120k users[1] who've made an edit on English Wikipedia in the last 30 days. (Fun trick: use this URL to turn on the summary headers that're why I know how many people are in the discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)?dtenable=1#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(propos... ) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics

akolbe 4y ago
The discussion has run for less than 24 hours; and of those (now) 37 editors, only three (3) have left a comment saying they are okay with the banners as they are. Good URL trick. It helps to be a staffer. ;) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DLynch_(WMF) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DLynch_(WMF)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 4y ago
  It looks like your account is using HN primarily if not exclusively to post about this one cause. That's not allowed here—it runs against the intended purpose of the site, which is intellectual curiosity. Single-purpose accounts are by definition repetitive and repetition is bad for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), as is any form of predictability. For this reason, we ban single-purpose accounts. Needless to say this doesn't have to do with the merits of your cause; it just has to do with the mandate of this site. I'm not going to ban you right now but if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and diversify your posts to HN and adjust so that you're using it in the intended spirit, we'd be grateful.

Illniyar 4y ago

I stopped giving money to wikipedia a few years back. It seemed that as their endownment continued to grow their pleading became more desperate. This rubs me the wrong way. I want my money to go to wikipedia, with the amount of money they now have my donation will go to side projects. That's not what I want to donate to, and also not what they are advertising in their banner.

FireBeyond 4y ago
> It seemed that as their endownment continued to grow their pleading became more desperate. Right, the feeling I get now across a lot of their efforts is that they're becoming increasingly addicted and intoxicated by looking at their account balances.

GekkePrutser 4y ago

Funny thing is that Wikipedia used to run on fully sponsored servers at least in the European region, provided by educational organizations. But they left because they wanted to be independent and they had plenty of sponsorship money anyway. And they still do. They get much more from business and government than they'll ever get from us. Like the other poster above I also donate to archive.org instead which really does need it.

steve_john 4y ago

forgotmypw17 4y ago

I don't go to wikipedia.org anymore, and use my browser to redirect all links to Wikiless. Regardless of the reason, if a page I'm going to doesn't display the content I reasonably expected it to have, I consider that page broken, and try to find a replacement as soon as possible. The cognitive load of cookie banners, newsletter prompts, paywalls, tutorials, and so on, is just not acceptable to me, and I choose to leave all of it on the other Web, the AOLWeb and FacebookWeb, the one which I rarely access, mostly by accident. The GoodWeb, the one with the content and fast, lightly formatted pages, is where I stay. I vote with my browser, only allowing JS selectively, choosing to close the tab whenever the AOLWeb rears its head, using various proxies on the rare occasion AOLWeb has anything I actually want, clipping anything useful into my cliplog for others to access more easily. It's refreshing, let me tell you.