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Thanks for the link! Yeah, $3M for hosting out of their massive budget is what I was talking about - Wikipedia could lose 90% of their cashflow and not be in any danger of going offline. I don't see how to estimate how much of that "salaries" part is related to Wikipedia rather to their other business. But even taking the most optimistic possible reading, I think it's still true that the marginal value of donations to Wikimedia foundations will not be in support of Wikipedia's existence or even in improvements to it, but in them doing more unrelated charity.
(If you want to donate specifically to charities that spread knowledge, then donating to Wikipedia makes more sense, though then in my opinion you should consider supporting the Internet Archive, which has ~8 times less revenue, and just this year was sued for copyright infringement this year and spent a while being DDOSed into nonfunctionality - that's a lot of actually good reasons to need more money!).
Great points and thank you for the shoutout for Internet Archive. I just made my first donation.
Is it your impression that paying the people who work for you is optional for a technology company?
The salaries mostly are in the $100k-350k range, maybe up to $500-700k in the C suite. They’re perfectly reasonable by the standards of a San Francisco tech company that operates at the scale that Wikipedia does. The full list of exact salaries and recipients is listed in their form 990 filings if you want to read them for yourself.
Edit: Phrasing
What a bad-faith argument. You seem willfully obtuse towards any data presented to you and unnecessarily hostile in all of your comments. I took a look at the most recent 990 form you reference, and it lists compensation for a mere 13 individuals, with a total compensation just over $4-million in sum. This is in no way counter-evidence that spending (ultimately due to the decisions of these executives) is at runaway levels. Salaries and wages have increased 22% compounding year-over-year for the last four years on average. This is a 120% increase in only four years (from $46,146,897 to $101,305,706).
These trends have been continuously called out for almost a decade now, but this exponential growth continues nonetheless. All while expenses for core responsibilities remain flat. Wikipedia should be setup to succeeded indefinitely at this point if it weren't for these decisions.
I'm just going to let that little exchange stand on its own.
Hm, you're right. I had looked at some kind of summary that listed people for every year, and somehow thought that it was breaking down salaries for everyone, but it's only the top people.
Let's look a different way. https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWikimedia_Foundation_2021_Form_990.pdf&page=9 says that there are 233 people who earn more than $100k (so basically, full-time people in a white-collar role). So if you make a ballpark estimate that for each one of those people, there's one other person doing janitorial work or similar that makes average $50k/yr, and average out the $88M they spent on salary in 2022 over all those 466 people, you get $327k per year for the white collar people. Presumably there's also some amount on part-time work, or grants, or something like that. But the point is, it's not that there is some absurd amount of money going missing. It's just that they employ a few hundred people and pay SF-tech-company salaries.
Didn't you just get super offended that I pointed out that paying the people who work for you is, in fact, a "core reponsibility", and so this argument doesn't make sense?
I'm happy with Wikipedia paying their people. If there was one person making $5M per year, then I'd be fine with that, even though there isn't. If there was one person making $50M per year, maybe I'd have some questions, but nothing like that is happening.
You said I sound hostile. Stuff like this is why. I've been dealing with maybe 5-10 different people who all have some kind of different reason of bending their way around to the conclusion "and so Wikipedia sucks." I don't think spending money that's coming in, on paying people to do Wikipedia work, spells doom for Wikipedia. I don't think that makes any sense. And, there's been such a variety of "and so that's why Wikipedia sucks" comments I've been reading that all don't make any sense if you examine them, that it's made me short-tempered to any given one.
I like Wikipedia. I think it's good.
I'm going to try to keep this super simple:
At this point, I sincerely think you are being obtuse; unless you believe everyone at Wikipedia, on average, is receiving 22% raises, every single year. This is not Wikipedia "paying the people who work for you," it's aggressive expansion, at an exponential level. In the words of Guy Macon from almost a decade ago, "Wikipedia has Cancer." I don't believe any company, non-profit or for-profit, can sustain this limitless expansion in the long run. And Wikipedia's management does this all while trying to guilt trip people for donations, usually under the guise of needing it to survive. In sum, I don't agree with the financial decisions of Wikipedia's management, and therefore, no longer donate to them.
On the other hand, I don't dislike Wikipedia or the services they provide. I'll echo your own words: I like Wikipedia, I think it's good, and I never said otherwise. I even referenced their website when writing all of my responses on this topic. I find it unfortunate that you interpret these sort of critiques as "and so Wikipedia sucks." Furthermore, I don't like how you justify your hostility based on critical responses. This is a discussion board, not an echo chamber. However, I'm very thankful that you didn't respond with "go fuck yourself" or "kiss my ass" like you did in your last response to me. Also, I hope your having a good start to the weekend. ✌
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1311370/wikimedia-foundation-annual-funding/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1311451/wikimedia-foundation-annual-expenses/
They raised more money, so they spent more money. That's how it's supposed to work when you're a nonprofit. At no point did they spend more than they made. They used it to employ some people and fund some research. So in your mind, in order to avoid "limitless expansion" and "I don't agree with the financial decisions of Wikipedia's management", they should have just kept it in the bank? Or told people not to donate? The last time people donated, we got Wikipedia for it. That sounds great. I'm in favor of giving them more money so they can keep doing more stuff like that, because it seems like it's working.
Your complaint makes absolutely no sense, and I just sent them another $20.