5 ms·

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.

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.
  - theandrewbailey 4y ago
    It's an extremely inefficient way of going about it. If they wanted to improve the health of Wikipedia, they could directly hire people to do that, and results would happen sooner.
tompagenet2 4y ago
This is an organisation that seems to endlessly increase its costs when what I think many of us want is the ensured stability of Wikipedia. This does not cost $150m a year.
- socialismisok 4y ago
  How much does it cost? And how much does it need to save to be able to operate in perpetuity? And how much should it be giving away to ensure that there's an environment of well educated people who can continue to tend to its needs in future generations? I'm assuming you don't have the answers, I certainly don't. I'm also assuming they have a pretty good sense of what those answers are.
  - Macha 4y ago
    Was Wikipedia much less good last year when they spent $116m? 5 years ago when they spent $70m? 10 years ago when they spent $30m? What are they doing 6x more of compared to ten years ago? 80% more of since last year?
    - FireBeyond 4y ago
      > What are they doing 6x more of compared to ten years ago? 80% more of since last year? For one, employing people to coordinate fundraising. Ten years ago there was 3-4 people involved, and now there's nearly 50 employees who work on raising funds... very Ouroboros-like.
  - tompagenet2 4y ago
    There's a huge jump there. I don't agree that the average person donating to Wikipedia through these ads thinks they're donating to "ensuring there's an environment of well educated people", above and beyond providing a neutral, comprehensive and universally-editable encyclopaedia. You're absolutely right I don't know how much it costs to operate in perpetuity. If your point is about building up a trust that's a great idea. I can't see anything in the plan about this: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2022-2023 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_...
KingOfCoders 4y ago
Would you be fine if the WMF would give a "small fractional amount" to causes you oppose? If you agree that WMF should be able to give money to other people, you need to agree they give money to people you oppose, otherwise your morale boils down to "But He's Our Son of a B**"
- socialismisok 4y ago
  I'm sure they do give to causes I oppose. They are still a net good. I'm not sure any charity I donate to doesn't give to causes I oppose in some degree.
yakubin 4y ago
It’s not “causes some people disagree with”. It’s diverting money, which was donated to support an encyclopaedia, to anti-scientific nonsense. It’s diverting money to the antithesis of the cause it was donated to. It’s like Greenpeace funding an oil drilling company.[1] I used to donate every month. After discovering it I stopped. [1]: Yeah, yeah, I wouldn’t be totally surprised.
- depressedpanda 4y ago
  Can you give a list of the anti-scientific nonsense they are diverting money to? I currently donate a monthly sum, but I might reconsider that depending on what they're using the money for.
  - yakubin 4y ago
    <https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579779381895254017#m https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579779381895254017#m> <https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579779644555137024#m https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579779644555137024#m>
sebzim4500 4y ago
The concern isn't that they are 'imperfectly spending the funds'. It's that they are at best lying by omission in their fundraising efforts. No reasonable person who donated in response to a 'help keep wikipedia online' prompt would expect the money to be spent funding 'STEM as a tool for social justice'.
- socialismisok 4y ago
  If you rephrase that as, "10% of the donations we receive go to small grants in service of equity and education" I think most reasonable people would say, "oh, ok, I think most big charities do this". WMF passes 10% of it's donations on to small projects and grants. A small number of those are focused on, e.g., racial equity.
idiotsecant 4y ago
It isn't an issue of a 'fractional amount'. According to their 2021 financial statements that vast majority of the money they raise goes to salaries and wages to run 'programs'- work activities separate from the maintainance and management of the website Wikipedia. Note that these salaries are entirely separate from general and administrative salaries and fundraising salaries that might be more directly related to the health of Wikipedia. These salaries (which is where almost all the money wiki raises goes) are used to fund these kind of projects: https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/ I'm sure these projects are goodwork, but when people see a banner add on wikipedia, a plea from wikipedia to keep wikipedia alive, and then click the button to support wikipedia they aren't purposefully supporting writing software to detect harassment in online communities, increasing the diversity of the volunteer pool, suing the NSA to stop internet surveillance, etc etc... Wikimedia has access to a pile of money and they're growing their mission to match the pile of money. Unfortunately the size of that mission will always outpace the size of the pile of money, and it's a never ending feedback loop. giant 'mega-corp' charities are rarely as useful as smaller, mission-focused ones. I don't want the EFF to fight child poverty - that's what UNICEF is for. If the EFF started to do that tomorrow I would have to question how well focused and effective their leadership was. I have been a regular donator to Wikipedia but after the last round of HN articles prompted me to read their financial statements I regret to say that I won't be again until they sharpen their focus. I suspect the average donator to Wikimedia and the HN audience are a pretty big overlap - I think wikimedia has a huge problem here, even if we assume that it's just one of perception. If they opened their books and were a little more transparent with how program funding at wikimedia works to demonstrate that this money is in fact pushing wikipedia forward I would consider restarting donations and I'm sure other people would as well.
loeg 4y ago
> WMF gives a small fractional amount to some causes some people disagree with. Nearly every charity I donate to imperfectly spends their funds. WMF's disagreeable outflows are like, 70-95% of their spending.

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.
- theandrewbailey 4y ago
  It's an extremely inefficient way of going about it. If they wanted to improve the health of Wikipedia, they could directly hire people to do that, and results would happen sooner.

tompagenet2 4y ago

This is an organisation that seems to endlessly increase its costs when what I think many of us want is the ensured stability of Wikipedia. This does not cost $150m a year.

socialismisok 4y ago
How much does it cost? And how much does it need to save to be able to operate in perpetuity? And how much should it be giving away to ensure that there's an environment of well educated people who can continue to tend to its needs in future generations? I'm assuming you don't have the answers, I certainly don't. I'm also assuming they have a pretty good sense of what those answers are.
- Macha 4y ago
  Was Wikipedia much less good last year when they spent $116m? 5 years ago when they spent $70m? 10 years ago when they spent $30m? What are they doing 6x more of compared to ten years ago? 80% more of since last year?
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    > What are they doing 6x more of compared to ten years ago? 80% more of since last year? For one, employing people to coordinate fundraising. Ten years ago there was 3-4 people involved, and now there's nearly 50 employees who work on raising funds... very Ouroboros-like.
- tompagenet2 4y ago
  There's a huge jump there. I don't agree that the average person donating to Wikipedia through these ads thinks they're donating to "ensuring there's an environment of well educated people", above and beyond providing a neutral, comprehensive and universally-editable encyclopaedia. You're absolutely right I don't know how much it costs to operate in perpetuity. If your point is about building up a trust that's a great idea. I can't see anything in the plan about this: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2022-2023 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_...

KingOfCoders 4y ago

Would you be fine if the WMF would give a "small fractional amount" to causes you oppose? If you agree that WMF should be able to give money to other people, you need to agree they give money to people you oppose, otherwise your morale boils down to "But He's Our Son of a B**"

socialismisok 4y ago
I'm sure they do give to causes I oppose. They are still a net good. I'm not sure any charity I donate to doesn't give to causes I oppose in some degree.

yakubin 4y ago

It’s not “causes some people disagree with”. It’s diverting money, which was donated to support an encyclopaedia, to anti-scientific nonsense. It’s diverting money to the antithesis of the cause it was donated to. It’s like Greenpeace funding an oil drilling company.[1] I used to donate every month. After discovering it I stopped. [1]: Yeah, yeah, I wouldn’t be totally surprised.

depressedpanda 4y ago
Can you give a list of the anti-scientific nonsense they are diverting money to? I currently donate a monthly sum, but I might reconsider that depending on what they're using the money for.
- yakubin 4y ago
  <https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579779381895254017#m https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579779381895254017#m> <https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579779644555137024#m https://nitter.net/echetus/status/1579779644555137024#m>

sebzim4500 4y ago

The concern isn't that they are 'imperfectly spending the funds'. It's that they are at best lying by omission in their fundraising efforts. No reasonable person who donated in response to a 'help keep wikipedia online' prompt would expect the money to be spent funding 'STEM as a tool for social justice'.

socialismisok 4y ago
If you rephrase that as, "10% of the donations we receive go to small grants in service of equity and education" I think most reasonable people would say, "oh, ok, I think most big charities do this". WMF passes 10% of it's donations on to small projects and grants. A small number of those are focused on, e.g., racial equity.

idiotsecant 4y ago

It isn't an issue of a 'fractional amount'. According to their 2021 financial statements that vast majority of the money they raise goes to salaries and wages to run 'programs'- work activities separate from the maintainance and management of the website Wikipedia. Note that these salaries are entirely separate from general and administrative salaries and fundraising salaries that might be more directly related to the health of Wikipedia. These salaries (which is where almost all the money wiki raises goes) are used to fund these kind of projects: https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/ I'm sure these projects are goodwork, but when people see a banner add on wikipedia, a plea from wikipedia to keep wikipedia alive, and then click the button to support wikipedia they aren't purposefully supporting writing software to detect harassment in online communities, increasing the diversity of the volunteer pool, suing the NSA to stop internet surveillance, etc etc... Wikimedia has access to a pile of money and they're growing their mission to match the pile of money. Unfortunately the size of that mission will always outpace the size of the pile of money, and it's a never ending feedback loop. giant 'mega-corp' charities are rarely as useful as smaller, mission-focused ones. I don't want the EFF to fight child poverty - that's what UNICEF is for. If the EFF started to do that tomorrow I would have to question how well focused and effective their leadership was. I have been a regular donator to Wikipedia but after the last round of HN articles prompted me to read their financial statements I regret to say that I won't be again until they sharpen their focus. I suspect the average donator to Wikimedia and the HN audience are a pretty big overlap - I think wikimedia has a huge problem here, even if we assume that it's just one of perception. If they opened their books and were a little more transparent with how program funding at wikimedia works to demonstrate that this money is in fact pushing wikipedia forward I would consider restarting donations and I'm sure other people would as well.

loeg 4y ago

> WMF gives a small fractional amount to some causes some people disagree with. Nearly every charity I donate to imperfectly spends their funds. WMF's disagreeable outflows are like, 70-95% of their spending.