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You're right. They don't use 50% on vanity projects. They use way more than that. Their donation income last year was around $150 million and their hosting c

You're right. They don't use 50% on vanity projects. They use way more than that. Their donation income last year was around $150 million and their hosting costs were $2.4 million. Let's say their necessary engineering / admin cost was $20 million (a massive overestimate). That's >80% on BS.

hikingsimulator 4y ago
I think you misunderstand what Wikimedia is and does. It's not just Wikipedia and hosting. It is also a lot of research into their Wikidata free knowledge database (look it up) for instance. It requires a lot of people and core knowledge to develop and run. To some extent Wikimedia is a research company too.
- nyolfen 4y ago
  a semantic web holdover project that nobody has heard of or uses is tens of millions of dollars per year? it is sad to say, but it is obvious that the general good name of the wikipedia project is parasitized by nonprofit sector careerists.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Jackim 4y ago
Their 2021 personnel costs were nearly $70 million, plus another $12 million for consulting. Their awards and grants budget was about $10 million.
- KingOfCoders 4y ago
  Their engineering/devops/pm personal costs was $70M?
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    It is genuinely interesting to me[1]. Is there a better listing available somewhere else? Programs totals are: $69,371,450 I was expecting to administrative totals to be higher: $11,531,675 [1]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie...
0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
> Let's say their necessary engineering / admin cost was $20 million (a massive overestimate) On this site, you will find many who will breathlessly insist that the only way to run a website at scale is through top tier engineering solutions developed by teams of highly paid engineers. I am not sure why the calculus changes so much for a non profit. Elsewhere in this thread, someone noted that they have $8 million in processing fees just for their donations. I have no idea what is the right number they should be spending, but I know their costs are much higher than servers and bandwidth.

hikingsimulator 4y ago

I think you misunderstand what Wikimedia is and does. It's not just Wikipedia and hosting. It is also a lot of research into their Wikidata free knowledge database (look it up) for instance. It requires a lot of people and core knowledge to develop and run. To some extent Wikimedia is a research company too.

nyolfen 4y ago
a semantic web holdover project that nobody has heard of or uses is tens of millions of dollars per year? it is sad to say, but it is obvious that the general good name of the wikipedia project is parasitized by nonprofit sector careerists.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Jackim 4y ago

Their 2021 personnel costs were nearly $70 million, plus another $12 million for consulting. Their awards and grants budget was about $10 million.

KingOfCoders 4y ago
Their engineering/devops/pm personal costs was $70M?
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  It is genuinely interesting to me[1]. Is there a better listing available somewhere else? Programs totals are: $69,371,450 I was expecting to administrative totals to be higher: $11,531,675 [1]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie...

0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago

> Let's say their necessary engineering / admin cost was $20 million (a massive overestimate) On this site, you will find many who will breathlessly insist that the only way to run a website at scale is through top tier engineering solutions developed by teams of highly paid engineers. I am not sure why the calculus changes so much for a non profit. Elsewhere in this thread, someone noted that they have $8 million in processing fees just for their donations. I have no idea what is the right number they should be spending, but I know their costs are much higher than servers and bandwidth.