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Let's Encrypt has had such a positive impact, I think I'll start donating to them instead of Wikipedia. They're a lot more subtle with their calls to donate, bu
by tux3 4y ago
Let's Encrypt has had such a positive impact, I think I'll start donating to them instead of Wikipedia. They're a lot more subtle with their calls to donate, but they seem to deliver a lot of good things to a lot of users, with a much smaller budget.
I'm just really grateful for the service, and glad to see the Prossimo work continuing as well.
(On a tangential note, I suspect the way Let's Encrypt makes me feel is the thing that people wish Mozilla still had whenever there is a Firefox thread that turns bitter. Like a breathe of fresh air on a cynical internet.)
- Gigachad 4y agoThey seem a whole lot less bloated than Wikipedia as well. Given that something around 3% of donations to Wikipedia actually go to the website, they'll be fine with less donations despite what their nag popups suggest.
- cube00 4y agoI stopped donating to Wikipedia after the size of their cash reserves were revealed. I get that's designed to protect themselves for the long term and it sounds like they've made it so they don't need my money for now, at least not at the expense of other projects that don't have such cash reserves like Let's Encrypt.
- 0goel0 4y ago> stopped donating to Wikipedia after the size of their cash reserves were revealed. After I read your comment, I thought they had 10x annual expenses or something but really they have 18 months of runway. That's not that long IMO. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/02/wikipedia-has-a-ton-of-money-so-why-is-it-begging-you-to-donate-yours/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12...
- Dylan16807 4y agoPersonally, I care about the ratio of cash reserves to what it costs to run wikipedia and directly related sites, and that's well over 10x.
- throwntoday 4y agoBased on what the parent said only 3% of that $77m is to run the site. The rest is spent on frivolous things I imagine if that's all it takes and they're still soliciting donations.
- thesimon 4y ago> 3% of that $77m is to run the site And that are outdated numbers from 2015. 2021 report: $153m dollars in donations spent on $67m in salaries, $10m in grants (surprisingly low, in 2020 it was $20m), $2m in hosting and like $10-20m in other professional expenses. Net assets at the end of 2021 now at $231 mio. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim...
- yencabulator 4y agoWell that's even worse! If they now have $231M and use $2M a year on hosting, that's under 0.9%.
- belorn 4y ago18 months runway is included all expenses including wages, awards (that Mozilla gives out, for example to political initiatives), travel, social events and so on. If we only looked at costs related to hosting the website they have almost 100 years. They got total assets of 191 millions, and the website hosting costs are 2.4 millions each year. 55 millions each year goes to wages (up from 46 millions previous year). https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2020-annual-report/financials/#section-2 https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2020-annu...
- tomnipotent 4y agoThat's the cost of hosting, not the cost of operations. A business the size of Wikipedia doesn't run itself, and being a nonprofit doesn't magically make operations disappear.
- belorn 4y agoThere is no upper bound on how much profit they can take out as wages, and there is no lower bound either. They don't need to match wages with oil companies. Charities have a common guideline that a maximum of 25% of donations is allowed to go to operations of the charity and minimum of 75% must go to the purpose of the charity. That mean if you donate to cancer research, 75% should go to cancer research and a maximum 25% to operational costs of the charity. I personally find 25% to still be too high.
- tomnipotent 4y agoYou've confused some words and missed the forest for the trees. It's recommended they spend 65% on program activities for certain third party charity ratings, for which Wikimedia Foundation passes.
- belorn 4y agoResulting to insults doesn't makes conversations more interesting nor do they convince anyone. When Wikipedia is asking for donations to keep the servers running then people expect more than 2% of the donations will go to that purpose. If they asked for donations to operate and pay wages to the foundation then they a perfectly free to do so and people wouldn't call them out as much when 49% is taken out as wages.
- stolen_biscuit 4y agoWhat a bizarre comment. These two aren't competing?
- peanutz454 4y agoCompeting for his donations?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- koolba 4y agoEvery non profit and street corner panhandler is competing for the same pot of donations.
- DiggyJohnson 4y agoWikipedia Foundation and Firefox are some of the most well known internet/tech services non-profits out there. This person is advertising their consideration of donating to LE instead of Wikipedia, and by doing so encouraging others to consider the same. That’s allllll that’s happening here.
- nicce 4y agoFirefox is made by for-profit Mozilla Corporation and non-profit parent Mozilla Foundation has quite little role in these days.
- dado3212 4y agoCan also attest to them having comfy t-shirts if you're interested in that option.
- throw0101c 4y ago> Let's Encrypt has had such a positive impact, I think I'll start donating to them instead of Wikipedia. If you want a web-related alternative also consider archive.org (and their Wayback Machine).
- gray_charger 4y agoThey are not an archive the web, instead electing to remove websites they find distasteful. Not a reliable source of information thus not worth the donation.
- charles_f 4y agoThis triggered the same thoughts! Especially given the tone, gratefulness, providing a vision... so different from Wikipedia's late FUD and threats strategy to get people (even past and recurring donors) to donate.