3 ms·

>The union Wiki Workers United, which has not yet been recognized, declined a request for an interview. So, how can they strike when they're all volunteering?

by 1970-01-01 5mo ago

>The union Wiki Workers United, which has not yet been recognized, declined a request for an interview. So, how can they strike when they're all volunteering? What exactly is their Trump-card secret strategy against full replacement? The article didn't even bother addressing the fundamental problem here.

guerrilla 5mo ago
> What exactly is their Trump-card secret strategy against full replacement? They are the value. Good luck finding volunteers to replace them.
- paleotrope 5mo ago
  I'm sure there are plenty of reddit moderators ready to take it up if needed.
  - tecleandor 5mo ago
    Well, it's not exactly the same. It's not a forum (not that a forum is easy, but it's completely different). If you just substitute most Wikipedia editors, with no handover process, I assure you it's going to be a mess.
    - kapluni 5mo ago
      It’s a mess already. Just look up their definition of NPOV and compare it to what passes for neutrality in articles.
  - embedding-shape 5mo ago
    There are no points to be earned on Wikipedia, so redditors surely aren't interested until it gets completely gamified.
    - paleotrope 5mo ago
      It's a different type of game on wikipedia.
  - Grimblewald 5mo ago
    Well, they've mostly left reddit as well, afaik. It's a few stragglers, people being paid to push agenda, and auto-moderation now. I was reading / moderating reddit for over 4 hours a day, every day, for close to a decade. Heavy handed pro israeli censorship and propaganda has seen me pick up and leave, as i know many others have done. I was already wavering, over reddit's support of astroturfing and shill bots which were obvious, detectable, and reddit refused to do anything about it. Even actively supported it. So with the whole denying /actively supporting genocide thing, it was time to hang it up and leave. If wikipedia is shutting off avenues for community input, maybe that is running it's course as well. Its been nice internet, I loved you, and I will never forgive google for what they put into motion.
- RALaBarge 5mo ago
  Billions of people on the planet, and not a single one of them would offer to do it?
  - M95D 5mo ago
    I'm sure some russians will immediately volunteer.
    - bigfishrunning 5mo ago
      I'm sure many already have
      - red-iron-pine 5mo ago
        they're not volunteers, it's their day job, via the Internet Research Agency, et al ditto for the Indian / Nigerian / S African folks they outsource to -- they're gettin paid, ain't no volunteers
  - hootz 5mo ago
    Why would people who haven't contributed up to this point to Wikipedia contribute now? To save Wikipedia? People don't contribute because most users of volunteer/distributed media are leechers, not seeders. People view no value in contribution and even mock volunteers.
    - 1970-01-01 5mo ago
      Yes, they literally put up banners that take half of your screen asking for random people to "contribute" all the time. They'll just swap out the money banner to an editors banner and change the color to blue or something. Edit: They literally have this, the color is even blue. I was truly guessing, but it is a thing: "There are no small contributions: every edit counts, every donation counts. Thank you." https://www.wikipedia.org/#:~:text=We%20ask%20you%2C%20sincerely%3A%20don%27t%20skip%20this.%20Be%20one%20of%20the%20rare%20readers%20who%20gives. https://www.wikipedia.org/#:~:text=We%20ask%20you%2C%20since...
embedding-shape 5mo ago
> how can they strike when they're all volunteering? Volunteering for what exactly? And if what they all are volunteering for went away one day, what exactly would happen to Wikipedia? Is it possible what they are doing, actually has a large impact for Wikipedia? Striking is less about "us employees are angry" and more about "us who are actually doing things, aren't reaping the same amount of rewards", where "doing things" can be anything from being a salaried employee to a volunteer firemen, they can still strike because of unfairness.
pdpi 5mo ago
> So, how can they strike when they're all volunteering? I fail to see the difficulty? Editors striking would mean them not doing the volunteer work they normally do. How much vandalism do you reckon will go undetected if they do go on strike? How much more time will it take to get articles updated to reflect current affairs?
- 1970-01-01 5mo ago
  I would like to see some numbers on it. What exactly is their overall leverage here? What about a lengthy strike? Does anybody really know until it happens?
  - margalabargala 5mo ago
    What kind of units would you like on the "numbers on overall leverage" that make sense for a nonprofit and volunteers?
    - 1970-01-01 5mo ago
      Exactly. There's nothing here. They will need to strike to find out. Might work. Might not.
  - britta 5mo ago
    The solidarity petition is public (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_...), and it includes a section with statistics summarizing the contributions of editors who have signed the petition, which suggests the impact of signatories deciding to withhold their volunteer labor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_... A couple highlights: "5 oversighters [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight] ... who collectively performed 587 of the 1,463 (~40%) suppression actions in April 2026" "5 checkusers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CheckUser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CheckUser] ... who collectively performed 876 of the 5,419 (~19%) checkuser actions in April 2026"
unleaded 5mo ago
Wiki Workers United is the union for the paid staff of the Wikimedia Foundation, not volunteer Wikipedia editors.
jccalhoun 5mo ago
Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I thought the Wiki Workers United were made up of employees not volunteer editors? Their website says, "We are Wiki Workers United, a global union for the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation. We are the people who do the work to provide a platform, services, and funds to support the Wikimedia movement." https://www.wikiworkersunited.org/ https://www.wikiworkersunited.org/
water-data-dude 5mo ago
Don't you think it might be harder to replace the people who work for free, as opposed to replacing paid employees? The unpaid labor is...unpaid.

guerrilla 5mo ago

> What exactly is their Trump-card secret strategy against full replacement? They are the value. Good luck finding volunteers to replace them.

paleotrope 5mo ago
I'm sure there are plenty of reddit moderators ready to take it up if needed.
- tecleandor 5mo ago
  Well, it's not exactly the same. It's not a forum (not that a forum is easy, but it's completely different). If you just substitute most Wikipedia editors, with no handover process, I assure you it's going to be a mess.
  - kapluni 5mo ago
    It’s a mess already. Just look up their definition of NPOV and compare it to what passes for neutrality in articles.
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  There are no points to be earned on Wikipedia, so redditors surely aren't interested until it gets completely gamified.
  - paleotrope 5mo ago
    It's a different type of game on wikipedia.
- Grimblewald 5mo ago
  Well, they've mostly left reddit as well, afaik. It's a few stragglers, people being paid to push agenda, and auto-moderation now. I was reading / moderating reddit for over 4 hours a day, every day, for close to a decade. Heavy handed pro israeli censorship and propaganda has seen me pick up and leave, as i know many others have done. I was already wavering, over reddit's support of astroturfing and shill bots which were obvious, detectable, and reddit refused to do anything about it. Even actively supported it. So with the whole denying /actively supporting genocide thing, it was time to hang it up and leave. If wikipedia is shutting off avenues for community input, maybe that is running it's course as well. Its been nice internet, I loved you, and I will never forgive google for what they put into motion.
RALaBarge 5mo ago
Billions of people on the planet, and not a single one of them would offer to do it?
- M95D 5mo ago
  I'm sure some russians will immediately volunteer.
  - bigfishrunning 5mo ago
    I'm sure many already have
    - red-iron-pine 5mo ago
      they're not volunteers, it's their day job, via the Internet Research Agency, et al ditto for the Indian / Nigerian / S African folks they outsource to -- they're gettin paid, ain't no volunteers
- hootz 5mo ago
  Why would people who haven't contributed up to this point to Wikipedia contribute now? To save Wikipedia? People don't contribute because most users of volunteer/distributed media are leechers, not seeders. People view no value in contribution and even mock volunteers.
  - 1970-01-01 5mo ago
    Yes, they literally put up banners that take half of your screen asking for random people to "contribute" all the time. They'll just swap out the money banner to an editors banner and change the color to blue or something. Edit: They literally have this, the color is even blue. I was truly guessing, but it is a thing: "There are no small contributions: every edit counts, every donation counts. Thank you." https://www.wikipedia.org/#:~:text=We%20ask%20you%2C%20sincerely%3A%20don%27t%20skip%20this.%20Be%20one%20of%20the%20rare%20readers%20who%20gives. https://www.wikipedia.org/#:~:text=We%20ask%20you%2C%20since...

embedding-shape 5mo ago

> how can they strike when they're all volunteering? Volunteering for what exactly? And if what they all are volunteering for went away one day, what exactly would happen to Wikipedia? Is it possible what they are doing, actually has a large impact for Wikipedia? Striking is less about "us employees are angry" and more about "us who are actually doing things, aren't reaping the same amount of rewards", where "doing things" can be anything from being a salaried employee to a volunteer firemen, they can still strike because of unfairness.

pdpi 5mo ago

> So, how can they strike when they're all volunteering? I fail to see the difficulty? Editors striking would mean them not doing the volunteer work they normally do. How much vandalism do you reckon will go undetected if they do go on strike? How much more time will it take to get articles updated to reflect current affairs?

1970-01-01 5mo ago
I would like to see some numbers on it. What exactly is their overall leverage here? What about a lengthy strike? Does anybody really know until it happens?
- margalabargala 5mo ago
  What kind of units would you like on the "numbers on overall leverage" that make sense for a nonprofit and volunteers?
  - 1970-01-01 5mo ago
    Exactly. There's nothing here. They will need to strike to find out. Might work. Might not.
- britta 5mo ago
  The solidarity petition is public (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_...), and it includes a section with statistics summarizing the contributions of editors who have signed the petition, which suggests the impact of signatories deciding to withhold their volunteer labor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_... A couple highlights: "5 oversighters [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight] ... who collectively performed 587 of the 1,463 (~40%) suppression actions in April 2026" "5 checkusers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CheckUser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CheckUser] ... who collectively performed 876 of the 5,419 (~19%) checkuser actions in April 2026"

unleaded 5mo ago

Wiki Workers United is the union for the paid staff of the Wikimedia Foundation, not volunteer Wikipedia editors.

jccalhoun 5mo ago

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I thought the Wiki Workers United were made up of employees not volunteer editors? Their website says, "We are Wiki Workers United, a global union for the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation. We are the people who do the work to provide a platform, services, and funds to support the Wikimedia movement." https://www.wikiworkersunited.org/ https://www.wikiworkersunited.org/

water-data-dude 5mo ago

Don't you think it might be harder to replace the people who work for free, as opposed to replacing paid employees? The unpaid labor is...unpaid.