The article reads as if it was published in a tabloid, to put it mildly. Flashy headline, then looses the focus of the headline and glues together separate para

The article reads as if it was published in a tabloid, to put it mildly. Flashy headline, then looses the focus of the headline and glues together separate paragraphs some of which seem far from the topic because there's no point being made with them, like the paragraphs about WMF not listing all its donations anymore and the decision not to show ads. In fact, there are very little assertions made. Instead, the author seems to hope that by throwing some statements, references and numbers, the readers would be impressed enough and draw conclusions. Statements like the ones below are all stated without ANY conclusion or are a conclusion on it's own but with no arguments preceding it: A) "Earlier this year Wikipedia attracted criticism for its new-found enthusiasm for political campaigning - not a traditional activity for encyclopedias, where fairness and objectivity is part of the "brand"." , B) "All this has been met with dismay by the loyal enthusiasts who do all the hard work of keeping the project afloat by editing and contributing words - and who still aren't paid. For the first time, Wikipedians are beginning to examine the cash awards - and are making some interesting discoveries." + subsequently quoting the salary of the WMF's director (again, with no point made), C) "The Wikimedia Foundation hired a convicted felon as its chief operating officer to look after its books while on she was on parole. The executive's convictions included cheque fraud and unlawfully wounding her boyfriend with a gunshot to the chest.", D) "The substantial contributions from Google leave the foundation open to the charge that it's lobbying for the agenda of large corporations by proxy." A) forgets to mention the implications SOPA had on Wikipedia.org B) Does the author confuse how the product (wiki) works - volunteers contribute for free- and the fact people employed by a charitable organization still get paid? C) The author "forgets" to mention that person worked at WMF only for 6 months instead of making it sound that person still works there. And what's the entire point of this? WMF is corrupt and hence money disappears? I'll get back to this later. D) "open to the charge" ? Ridiculous, anything can be left open to any charge; the question whether there's a substantial reasoning and/or proof for such charge(which are >completely< lacking here) is a whole another matter. Now, let's look at the main (and only) statement of the article - WMF is awash with money and does not need donations to operate. "operate" is key. If the idea is to keep paying electricity, servers and maintenance, then yes, the author is right. This can be inferred from the stat he gives about WMF having only 3 employees in 2007 and operating with $3m. (Of course, ignoring growth in usage and costs) But why should that be the goal of the fundraiser? Should it not aim to make Wikipedia.org the product we need it to be? Hence all the money spent on improving editing tools (yes, even if that means paying a research grant, what's wrong with that?), improving the community and especially reversing the trend of less and less people contributing to the wiki? These essentially are maintenance costs of the main product, even if the bits themselves are new development. Look at the projected staff growth for next year in [1]. Almost all of the jobs are software/system engineer jobs. And the bit about the lobbyist is hilarious! I'm actually surprised they didn't have one until this year (or maybe I'm misreading). The facts in the article about how some of the raised money has been spent indeed raises questions about the WMF's efficiency (and as Argorak points out[2], even those aren't definitive). But that's about it. Claiming that the foundation is "awash" with money and no donations are needed is a very large leap. It currently has $27.7m in reserve. According to WMF's strategic plan [1], this can last the foundation for less than a year. In other words, every year the money raised are extending the life of the foundation by 1 year. I find this very close to what the fund raising message on Wikipedia.org conveys. edit: formatting [1]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-1... [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4947370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4947370