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This is what our donations are paying for? I'll be thinking twice before donating again.

by tjpnz 3y ago

JCharante 3y ago
They spend more money on travel than they do on hosting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/File:Wikimedia_Foundation's_expenses_evolution_by_rubrics_in_US_Dollars.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/Fi...
MagicMoonlight 3y ago
The main organisation that owns Wikipedia funnels all the donations into the owners. Wikipedia doesn’t really cost anything because it’s just static text so they pocket almost all of the money.
- IceWreck 3y ago
  > Wikipedia doesn’t really cost anything because it’s just static text Thats like saying facebook or twitter are just static text. Wikipedia is not static text. It runs Mediawiki which runs on PHP and requires a database, plus all forms of caching. They also serve media (images/video) have users, discussions, comments, etc. And at wikipedia's scale they're not trivial problems to solve and dont cost peanuts for hosting.
  - lapinot 3y ago
    Comparing wikipedia to facebook or twitter is ludicrous. They don't do any kind of data analysis (apart from some full-text indexing, which you can do easily on a laptop, it's a basic demo from FTS tools to index wikipedia). Sure they host media and handle lots of traffic but that's about it. It costs money for servers and some network engineers.
    - pas 3y ago
      it's in the top10 sites worldwide, it's ridiculously naive to assume it's just servers and a few BGP dudes.
  - akolbe 3y ago
    The actual Internet hosting costs have consistently been less than $3 million a year: 2022/2021: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2021-2022_Audit_Report.pdf#page=6 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikim... 2020/2019: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2019-2020_Audit_Report.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikim... And they were the same a decade ago: 2012/2011: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/0/09/FINAL_11_12From_KPMG.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/0/09/FINAL... Admittedly, this doesn't include salaries.
    - IceWreck 3y ago
      What about development costs ?
      - akolbe 3y ago
        You mean for software features and the like? Some good work has been done there in the background – it's not stuff that readers would notice, but contributors do. It wouldn't be fair to say that all the money has been mis-spent – there are lots of people working at the Foundation who are doing good work and who are not getting rich – especially bearing in mind the cost of living in parts of the US (though this begs the question whether the work could not be done more cost-effectively elsewhere).
        bawolff 3y ago
        Note - many wmf staff do not live in the usa. Some who do do not live in expensive parts of the usa.
      - George83728 3y ago
        The last time Wikimedia Foundation released a new project website was WikiData in 2012, more than 10 years ago. Okay well maybe that's not fair. They did recently update the CSS for Wikipedia itself ... I don't know how many millions of dollars they spent on that...
commandlinefan 3y ago
[flagged]
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
You're upset that a nonprofit org employs people?

This is what our donations are paying for? I'll be thinking twice before donating again.

by tjpnz 3y ago

This is what our donations are paying for? I'll be thinking twice before donating again.

They spend more money on travel than they do on hosting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/File:Wikimedia_Foundation's_expenses_evolution_by_rubrics_in_US_Dollars.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/Fi...

MagicMoonlight 3y ago

The main organisation that owns Wikipedia funnels all the donations into the owners. Wikipedia doesn’t really cost anything because it’s just static text so they pocket almost all of the money.

IceWreck 3y ago
> Wikipedia doesn’t really cost anything because it’s just static text Thats like saying facebook or twitter are just static text. Wikipedia is not static text. It runs Mediawiki which runs on PHP and requires a database, plus all forms of caching. They also serve media (images/video) have users, discussions, comments, etc. And at wikipedia's scale they're not trivial problems to solve and dont cost peanuts for hosting.
- lapinot 3y ago
  Comparing wikipedia to facebook or twitter is ludicrous. They don't do any kind of data analysis (apart from some full-text indexing, which you can do easily on a laptop, it's a basic demo from FTS tools to index wikipedia). Sure they host media and handle lots of traffic but that's about it. It costs money for servers and some network engineers.
  - pas 3y ago
    it's in the top10 sites worldwide, it's ridiculously naive to assume it's just servers and a few BGP dudes.
- akolbe 3y ago
  The actual Internet hosting costs have consistently been less than $3 million a year: 2022/2021: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2021-2022_Audit_Report.pdf#page=6 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikim... 2020/2019: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2019-2020_Audit_Report.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikim... And they were the same a decade ago: 2012/2011: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/0/09/FINAL_11_12From_KPMG.pdf#page=5 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/0/09/FINAL... Admittedly, this doesn't include salaries.
  - IceWreck 3y ago
    What about development costs ?
    - akolbe 3y ago
      You mean for software features and the like? Some good work has been done there in the background – it's not stuff that readers would notice, but contributors do. It wouldn't be fair to say that all the money has been mis-spent – there are lots of people working at the Foundation who are doing good work and who are not getting rich – especially bearing in mind the cost of living in parts of the US (though this begs the question whether the work could not be done more cost-effectively elsewhere).
      - bawolff 3y ago
        Note - many wmf staff do not live in the usa. Some who do do not live in expensive parts of the usa.
    - George83728 3y ago
      The last time Wikimedia Foundation released a new project website was WikiData in 2012, more than 10 years ago. Okay well maybe that's not fair. They did recently update the CSS for Wikipedia itself ... I don't know how many millions of dollars they spent on that...

commandlinefan 3y ago

[flagged]

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

You're upset that a nonprofit org employs people?