What? They aren't a fraternity, so I don't think drinking is mandatory.
If you look at any large organization it has these kinds of frivolous events. Among other things, they let the leadership get a sense of the social environment and how it reacts to some of their ideas with less filtering. I personally don't attend most of these events, but it is really a silly direction to assume everything that is not technically necessary is a waste of money.
If you have a new point to make, it's best to make it as a top level comment rather than trying to prop yourself up as opposing a point someone never made.
Though tbh "other orgs do it" is never a good argument, but it is especially bad here.
WMF's per-employee T&E cost is apparently $7k/year. Working in sales at a company you've heard of, I've flown single flights and attended single dinners that cost more than that.
They're an online wikipedia. Their costs keep ballooning, and not to pay for things that I care about when I donate money to support their core mission.
What kind of people do you want to attract? Do you think the best writers are attracted by the best parties?
Wikipedia has loads of contributors in Germany. That is because of a long history of German intellectualism, it is not because Wikimedia is throwing parties. If Wikimedia were as global as you suggest, where are the parties in Iran and Russia? Are these parties without alcohol? I hope so, because we wouldn't want to exclude the muslim world, right?
I say this as a Wikipedia contributor since 2005 with 16k edits.