4 ms·

A lot of people are annoyed that the foundation has significant reserves, enough that much of it's budgets is grants, yet puts out messages like they are in dir

by scoofy 2y ago

A lot of people are annoyed that the foundation has significant reserves, enough that much of it's budgets is grants, yet puts out messages like they are in dire need for cash. I think it's mostly fine, though annoying, but a lot of people disagree with it in principal. https://archive.is/yg5RW https://archive.is/yg5RW https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goes/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe...

bawolff 2y ago
The grants thing is a bit misleading - a lot of the grants are to affiliate organizations in other countries. So for example if Wikimedia germany writes some code for the wikipedia site, it is probably funded by a grant from wikipedia donations. I dont claim everything wikimedia foundation does is useful or that there isn't any wasted money. They are also definitely past the "keep the lights on stage", but you cant do anything useful if you only keep the lights on. Mostly i just think discussing if the budget of a multimillion dollar organization that runs one of the most popular websites in the world is reasonable requires a lot more nuance than most discussons on the internet have.
rdfc-xn-uuid 2y ago
They are also under fire for putting misleading adverts in low-income countries like Brazil and India, sounding like they are going to be sold if they don't get enough donation.
wileydragonfly 2y ago
Didn’t they make all that money off a weird porn site that had nude women posing with cats?
- bearincar 2y ago
  [dead]
- bawolff 2y ago
  If you mean bomis, jimmy wales may have made some money off it (although i think most of his money comes from wikia/fandom not bomis), and maybe some very initial seed money/in-kind hosting came from there in the very early years (idk), but wikipedia is a separate entity from all that, and generally did not get money from bomis. So no.
  - wileydragonfly 2y ago
    Little Gray Guy, as I recall.

by scoofy 2y ago

bawolff 2y ago

The grants thing is a bit misleading - a lot of the grants are to affiliate organizations in other countries. So for example if Wikimedia germany writes some code for the wikipedia site, it is probably funded by a grant from wikipedia donations. I dont claim everything wikimedia foundation does is useful or that there isn't any wasted money. They are also definitely past the "keep the lights on stage", but you cant do anything useful if you only keep the lights on. Mostly i just think discussing if the budget of a multimillion dollar organization that runs one of the most popular websites in the world is reasonable requires a lot more nuance than most discussons on the internet have.

rdfc-xn-uuid 2y ago

They are also under fire for putting misleading adverts in low-income countries like Brazil and India, sounding like they are going to be sold if they don't get enough donation.

wileydragonfly 2y ago

Didn’t they make all that money off a weird porn site that had nude women posing with cats?

bearincar 2y ago
[dead]
bawolff 2y ago
If you mean bomis, jimmy wales may have made some money off it (although i think most of his money comes from wikia/fandom not bomis), and maybe some very initial seed money/in-kind hosting came from there in the very early years (idk), but wikipedia is a separate entity from all that, and generally did not get money from bomis. So no.
- wileydragonfly 2y ago
  Little Gray Guy, as I recall.