All the other top websites [1] either are selling my information (Meta) , exist to show me ads (Google), or I pay monthly for (Netflix).

Wikipedia runs one of the busiest websites in the world with a staff much smaller than any of those other sites. Like any company -- there's going to be priorities different than mine and waste.

But I'm ok being asked to chip in for what I get.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_visited_websites

I was okay 'till I donated and got thoroughly spammed by them after that. Not okay with donating there now.

That happens if you donate to ANY cause, ever.

If you give money to, I don’t know, a charity for hungry kids in <insert poor country>, they will send you MORE begging mails, not less.

Serious. I found donating blood to have been a bit of a mistake, the bastards just won't stop calling asking for more.

To be fair, you donated to Dr. Acula.

I must say he is quite polite.

Same. I got so tired of the Red Cross phone calls that I changed the phone number in my profile to their customer service line.

I donate yearly to the Purple Heart Foundation and they're quite respectful in communications.

And this makes it OK? The status quo’s brokenness is not an excuse for acting like an ass.

Same here. Donated once and had to setup filters for the subsequent flood of email. I'd be more inclined to ignore that annoyance if they could get a handle on activist editing, which exists across the entire political spectrum for pages that touch on social or political adjacent topics. But I suppose that's what you get with volunteers. Just can't bring myself to support it.

I'm in the same boat, every agency I've donated to has turned into a google-powered ad-shilling-machine within a week. It makes it impossible to trust well-intending organizations.

That's why you should be using an email alias for that

I'm ok with paying too, and I did many times. Then I found out I wasn't actually paying for what I was getting (wikipedia) but actually only a small fraction of my donations were going there and the majority was a bait and switch.

It’s the dishonesty of Wikipedia that bothers me. The implication is that donations are urgently needed to keep the website running. In reality they have $300m in the bank and revenue is growing every year[0]. Even Wikipedia says only 43% of donations are used for site operations[1], and that includes all of their sites, not just Wikipedia. Fully 12% of the money they collect from you is. . . used to ask you for more money[1]

The whole thing just feels skeezy. They may have a noble mission, and they may need a $300m endowment when previously $100m was the target[2], but they should make that case. Acting like the site is in trouble and desperately needs every penny all the time is just dishonest. It’s like a televangelist is running the place. Now matter how much you give they desperately and urgently need more more more.

0. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais...

1. https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe...

2. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/22/wikimedia-fo...

What is your problem with [1]?

I think almost every charity, or business, ever created spends some proportion of it's income on advertising / outreach, to increase future income. If they cut that 12%, and it decreased their income to half, or a third, of it's current value, would that make you happy?

Also, please point me to "The implication is that donations are urgently needed to keep the website running.". I've not seen anything like that in any banner I've seen this year. I'd be interested to know if you get different banners to me? Or, are you just assuming the banner says that?

What's the problem with [1]? Well, it says they're swimming in money, and don't need your $2 donation to keep giving your free information.

Most of the arguments, including yours, are 100% qualitative. "They're a good site, so give them money." Or "other charities also spend money on advertising."

We should instead be quantitative : "Yes, you are a worthy cause, but you have plenty now. Other charities are more deserving."

My probables is that 43% is incredibly low. It would score a D on Charitywatch: https://www.charitywatch.org/our-charity-rating-process

We can argue about that extra 30%, but it’s not what people are expecting to pay for.

It’s preposterous. It’s discussed here many times that they don’t need MORE. They keep begging well past the point they need, and they accumulate excessively. And despite this they seem to ignore it when I click “I’ve already donated” and keep pushing the begging. It makes me upset that I’ve donated

How long can a company of that size run without continuous supplies? That $300m will quickly run out, and depending on people’s goodwill is finicky.

They previously said a $100m endowment would be sufficient to operate off of the interest. What changed?

Yes, with ~$3mil in operating expenses (actual wiki) and all ...

the entire pretending they need money thing is a psyop to try to make it seem like they are independent and unbiased when in reality they just parrot whatever the MIC shits out in propaganda rags which they refer to as “reliable sources”

I think you're conflating a few things.

On your point 1, it is incredible normal for non-profit organizations to spend quite a bit of money on fundraising. They do this because spending less brings in less, and bringing in less means they cease to exist. As weird as it is to spend a million throwing a party to bring in five million, it works, and it brings in money from different people than letters in the mail or banners on a website do. 12% is half of what Charity Watch still deems "highly efficient" and earns them an A-[0].

On your points 0 and 2, I'm puzzled about what you suggest as an alternative. Should they fire all but a skeleton staff and only operate the website as-is on as little as possible with no expansion into other languages or areas of interest? Maybe that's your implied suggestion, but they clearly disagree.

If the once-a-week banners bother you that much, it suggests that you are using the site very, very frequently. You can either support their mission or not, as you wish, and all of the banners are easily dismissed or ignored. I don't think they're nearly as dishonest as you do, but then, I've worked for non-profits in the past and can read a Charity Watch page.

0. https://www.charitywatch.org/our-charity-rating-process

I’m a big fan of charitywatch! And that link is partly what I base my criticism on: the 43% of Wikimedia spending goes to operations would get them a D.

And I’m afraid you’ve bought into the “Wikimedia is on the verge of extinction” nonsense. There is no need for a skeleton staff and bare bones operations. They have a $300m endowment! They said, as recently as two years ago, that they only need a $100m endowment to meet their mission indefinitely.

What changed that merits a 3x increase? Do they really need to raise $120m per year, as they do now, to avoid the skeleton staff of doom that you propose?

I’ve posted supporting links elsewhere in this thread. I like Wikimedia. They do good work. Their management has run amok and is trapped in a spiral of raising ever-more money to justify more expensive management.

re: "if the once a week banners bother you that much, it suggests you are using the site very, very frequently":

no.

the banners never bothered me when I used the website daily, multiple times a day. They bother me immensely now that I use wikipedia once / twice a month. Now, every time I open it there is the banner asking me to donate (every time more invasive).

Where can I but the information Meta is selling?

Goodbye Hacker News.

A bunch of extremely well-paid SWEs complain about donating two bucks to a completely free encyclopedia representing hundreds of thousands of volunteer human hours of effort; replacing (sorry, “disrupting”) extremely expensive Britannica books means to me the orange site has lost it’s way.

I think you might not understand the reason for the fundraising pushback.

I can try to summarize if you like, but it's probably explained elsewhere in this story's comments.

The pushback is very present amongst Wikipedians editors too, you know, the people actually writing the encyclopedia. But I guess software engineers on hacker news know better and can just handwave the issue because it makes them feel better to think that their donation is useful.

An item hitting the front page doesn't mean anything like "most people here agree with the premise". Just that they find the content potentially interesting to see, discuss, debate, etc.

That would hold merit if I wouldn’t regularly see people’s insightful comments sent deep into greyed-out oblivion because they went against the grain of the echo chamber.

Be it here, on Reddit, or any site with a content voting system, the vote buttons always end up being ‘this is what I could have said’ and ‘get bent’ buttons.

Funnily enough, imageboards seem to have it figured out: post something interesting, your thread or comment gets engaged. Post drivel - everyone ignores you. Meritocracy.

How long have you been reading HN? What makes you think everyone here is an "extremely well-paid SWE"? Have you not read the threads such as

"Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22442454

This is a discussion forum, not a blog.

Supporting charitable giving is what qualifies as an "awful organization" nowadays?

Donate to a real charity instead of the intransparent mess which is the Wikimedia foundation. It is an awful charity from any point of view, your money does not go to Wikipedia (the website), in fact it just enters a web of different undisclosed charities.

Yes. People who want to fund wikipedia should be able to fund wikipedia itself.

Goodbye :wave:

what percentage of the money actually goes to the volunteers?

Not everyone here is a silicon valley millionaire. Sure there are some, but there are many who are not. Some are even from developing nations where a few USD represents a significant amount of money.

I think the core of the argument is that they don't need the money, but act like they do to keep the site running but actually run a huge surplus.

Do these volunteers get a share of the donations?

> the orange site has lost it’s way

You can change the color in account preferences to any hex color you want.

Jokes aside, I don’t know whether the criticism is valid, but aren’t we all here to find out? Or disagree?

Wikipedia is a rare living embodiment of everything the web can be at its best. I consider my recurring payment to them a form of public duty.

I'm an underpaid inspector with heavy ADHD. At this point I feel like my chances of breaking into the tech industry are a pipedream. I still enjoy hacker news, especially since I can access it at work.

>Goodbye Hacker News.

See you tomorrow

> bunch of extremely well-paid SWEs complain about donating two bucks to a completely free encyclopedia

You are NOT donating to free encyclopedia. You are donating to their parent company, which spends fraction of your donations on the encyclopedia, the rest goes to other questionable causes. That what bothers everybody.

Bye bye! You are delusional if you believe everyone is a well-paid SWE

I read this satirical thread about what would happen if Wikipedia didn't make money from donations and had to get acquired by a company like Comcast and thought, hm, I'd rather that not happen. I donate every year.

https://old.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2ov45h/wp_w...

>I'd rather that not happen. I donate every year.

Wikipedia has far more money then they know what to do with, their entire foundation is very affluent and there is no risk of them facing any hardship. Your donations have exactly zero influence on Wikipedia staying up or even staying independent. Your money goes into a web of charities (undisclosed which exactly), at best some poor people might profit of a few percentage points of your money, why not just donate to some real charity instead.

That's okay, I have money to spare.

Then donate to a real charity which is open about where the money goes?

As far as "general charities" go Wikimedia foundation is pretty awful and your money doesn't help Wikipedia (the website) in any case. I would never donate to such a shady organization, using such disingenuous tactics and awful transparency.

Hence why I said I have money to spare.

Then just burn it or give it to some homeless guy to buy vodka with.

Your hatred for Wikipedia is driving you to make extreme statements.

In case you're not aware, this might be time to step away from the subject. Or not, live your life.

Damn. You're all over this thread. SHow us on the doll where Wikipedia hurt you.

1) You have surely heard, or perhaps have even said, "If you don't like it, don't use it."

2) What is the justification for NOT "tolerating" it beyond the "stop using it" or "stop donating to it" avenue? Is there a crime that should be reported?

3) Publish a story highlighting the problems. Several of these circulate periodically. The people who care about this already know it, and everyone else just ignores the banners.

4) Ads have ***destroyed*** the general web browsing user experience for anyone who isn't actively using adblockers. Why is that tolerated? Repeat exercise.

Humans. It's humans.

I tolerate it because I don't care. They could keep the banner there year round and I would still use it and not care.

I think it’s tolerated because.. we don’t have a choice other than to tolerate it.

What else are we going to do? Are we going to close the browser window and not use Wikipedia?

You can add the following rules to your uBlock Origin config:

  en.wikipedia.org##.cn-fundraising
  en.wikipedia.org##.frb-country-US.frb-rml-enabled.frb

In addition, it looks like the "Fanboy’s Annoyance" filter list also blocks the wikipedia fundraising, as well as a bunch of other crap across the internet.

There is always ''wikiless''

https://wikiless.org/wiki/Main_Page

> Are we going to close the browser window and not use Wikipedia?

This is precisely what I do. There are plenty of other ways to find useful information on the internet and of course there are dead tree books.

Lately the wikimedia foundation just comes off as the whiny entitled rich kid who's upset that their parents only bought a brand new Acura instead of a Jaguar for their birthday. I'm not going to encourage the behavior by giving it attention.

Me too. I don’t read Wikipedia articles and see links to Wikipedia as a sign of cluelessness. I downvote those who cite Wikipedia articles as if they were authoritative. When I was a teacher I would fail any paper that cited Wikipedia.

You can use Wikipedia all you want. But suggesting that there is no choice is ridiculous.

I have the LibRedirect browser add-on set to reroute all wikipedia lookups to wikiless.

Are there no prisons, no workhouses? What a perfect time of year to complain about people begging.

A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every (4th quarter).

I feel compelled to note that I'm quoting Ebenzer Scrooge as the parent above - as always, sarcasm doesn't transition well to text.

I’ve worked a lot with nonprofits. Having a pool of static funds available is not indicative of sustainability. If you are asking for funds only when you are running out, it is far too late for you.

Their spending grows commensurately with their fundraising. The cost of maintaining wikipedia is more or less constant. It's a cancerous growth pattern.

The number of articles, languages, and employees are probably not static either.

The number of languages is static. The number of articles is effectively static because 99% are finished and the rate of new articles will be pretty much constant.

The number of employees is obviously going to rise if you choose to spaff more money.

If they cared about long term sustainability they wouldn't use that money to fund a web of charities. If they were expecting hardships in the distant future you would obviously expect them to cut down on unnecessary spending to focus on keeping the website up and running. Is that happening?

Part of being a nonprofit is that instead of being obligated to drive profits to investors, you must carry out the focus of your mission statement.

Money is fuel. It should not ever become such a constraining resource and saying they can get by with less is trivializing the way they conduct operations and the impact the are obligated to peruse.

I don’t see this argument being made as it relates to for-profit companies. Is a nonprofit unworthy of fundraising because they have “enough” already? Who defines that? Are they not worthy because they bring value to society rather than individual shareholders? Nonprofits still operate as businesses and they also want to see growth. I’m not sure how any reasonable person would see a problem with that.

Why do you pretend that I am arguing they are not allowed to ask for money?

My problem is that they lie about the state of their organization and use that money for things totally unrelated to what their mission should be.

I really do not care that they have 250 Million in assets, but I do care that they are still using alarmist "Wikipedia is about to die" messaging to raise funds and then use that money to fund unrelated and undisclosed charities. I am asking for honesty and accountability.

I'm curious, if an employee is doing "just fine", do they not deserve a raise if they did a good job?

Either Wikipedia is doing well, and they will continue asking for money to continue doing well.

Or, Wikipedia is not doing well, and they will continue asking for money to do better.

For you, if you don't like Wikipedia and/or the banners, just stop going to it if it doesn't provide any value.

You can login, opt out of the banner and it won't be shown to you anymore.

But to answer the question: because it's one of the few annoyances (and probably the only one) on that website. Other than the one month long banner I personally have no complains, Wikipedia is one of the best websites on the internet imo.

It's not exactly tolerated by Wikipedia community, see this discusssion:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost...

What would “not being tolerated” look like? Losing the request and ignoring it and not contributing money? If so, then that’s what I’m doing. And probably most everyone else.

I don’t know what tolerate means in this context: I’m pretty sure I clicked “close” once and it hasn’t shown up again.

Separately: the Wikipedia Foundation having too much money sounds like the kind of problem I’d prefer to have, rather than it not having enough. Even if it means they “waste” money (in your estimation), it provides financial independence in a way that’s critical for the service they provide.

Very few human donors are benevolent but sharp-eyed accountants, looking for the places where their money is actually most needed. Instead, it's all about places where their donation will (1) make them feel better about themselves, (2) boost their social cred and status, and (3) benefit themselves & folks who they identify with.

Apart from ublock filters you can use the Wikiless frontend. An addon like libredirect will redirect to an instance automatically.

i just click on the "i already donated, stop showing me this message" option.

i've never donated, but they dont need to know that.

Thanks, I just did that. It said "hide appeals for a week" but that's better than nothing.

As for being a "sharp-eyed accountant": you don't have to be one of those to ask where the money is going. If it's going to reward the best volunteers or get better servers, fine.

Charity Navigator gives them a 99% rating: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/200049703

You can look at their 990 form on the IRS website:

==================== The Form 990 is a document that nonprofit organizations file with the IRS annually. We leverage finance and accountability data from it to form Encompass ratings. Click here to search for this organization's Forms 990 on the IRS website [1] (if any are available). Simply enter the organization's name (Wikimedia Foundation) or EIN (200049703) in the 'Search Term' field.

[1] https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/

Charity Navigator also gives borderline scam United Way a 91% https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/131635294

It measures compliance and bureaucratic procedures, and that's about it.

You have to read beyond the rating & look at the numbers.

I could ask here "why do you call it a borderline scam?"

I think it is, too, but I'd love to see you show it to us.

> they spend (read: waste)

Really? What makes you think it's all or even mostly waste?

A quick web search will provide you with many examples of what some perceive as waste. This is widespread common knowledge along the lines of the ice cream machine at McDonald's frequently being broke so there's little reason for the poster to be obligated to provide examples of easily found common knowledge, even if you don't personally agree with the perception.

you wrote a paragraph to reply "everyone just knows it, even if you disagree"?

Me: why do you think the world is flat?

You: A quick web search will provide you with many examples of what some perceive as evidence of a flat earth. This is widespread common knowledge along the lines of the ice cream machine at McDonald's frequently being broke so there's little reason for the poster to be obligated to provide examples of easily found common knowledge, even if you don't personally agree with the perception.

If you compare their growth in spending to their growth in page views, it’s pretty clear that they’ve figured out to spend a lot more than they need to. And they’re certainly not strapped for cash like they pretend to be in their donation banners. Like WTF is Wikipedia doing spending almost twice as much in 2021 as in 2017, when page views stayed roughly the same [0]

From a 2017 post:

> The modern Wikipedia hosts 11–12 times as many pages as it did in 2005,[20] but the WMF is spending 33 times as much on hosting,[21] has about 300 times as many employees, and is spending 1,250 times as much overall.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has...

[0] https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-pag...

I cancelled my monthly donation. I was quite happy to pay for Wikipedia, but hearing that they are doing fine, and lacking any insight into what the wikimedia foundation does, I stopped. Plenty of other places to give tzedakah.

No need to tolerate, it’s a non-profit, it’s not owned by anyone. Just join and do things better than they do, provoke change and transparency from within if you can’t tolerate it no longer.

Wikipedia has turned into cancer behind the scenes. They're biased, drowning in money, and corrupt.

They are useless for any politically controversial topic. They definitely have a bias.

Can you elaborate on that, do you have any sources?

I think we can safely assume that parent commenter was upset that their favorite Important Political Opinion was not presented as an absolute fact on Wikipedia.

Can't speak for corruption, but the fact they are fundraising while having >$150m in the bank and begging for donations in their donation banner seems a bit disingenuous to me. https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-fou...

Or you could just do a single google search about "wikimedia funding" and have gotten this article and about 100 others.

If I've read correctly while poking around on this, that means they have about a years worth of operating money in the bank. You might argue that they should restrict their spending ( most of it appears to be salaries for their hundreds of employees ) or even their scope ( they operate a number of wiki resources, not just wikipedia ), but I can't see anything wrong with fundraising when they have 12 months of leeway rather than waiting until they only have 6 or 3 months operating expenses in the bank.

Their spending has 10x'd since 2010, yet their traffic and scope remains relatively the same. This reeks of mismanagement and overspending. That being said, I more-so dislike their wording they use to gather the donations more than anything else, as I said, it feels disingenuous. I'm not entirely sure what the original parent comment was on about when he stated they were; "biased, corrupt, etc.", but my gripe with the Wikimedia foundation is the profiteering of community-generated content, with dubious expenditures that don't seem to actually advance the wiki itself, via dishonest means (and don't say that nobody is profiteering just because they're a non-profit, I'm sure the money is ending up at least partially in someones pockets). In the same vein, I wouldn't donate to wikimedia for the same reason I wouldn't give money to a broke alcoholic, if the reason you need money is because you're spending too much on the wrong things, that's not really a cause worthy of anybody's money. (All of this being IMO, obviously)

See discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33174533

All that's said there is "they have money and still ask for money". That's what I do at my job, too.

You should check Wikipedia :P

I thought this was well known:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

Wikipedia hasn't been any credible danger due to lack of funds for at least a decade. They're drowning in money.

If they can raise the money, why shouldn't they? Being over-funded is a good problem to have from the perspective of any non-profit.

>why shouldn't they?

Because they are doing so under the false pretenses of urgency and desperation, when they are very well off.

If they have more money than they need, it is natural to expand the scope of the mission. You could argue that they are doing a poor job at this, but I don't see any case that they shouldn't be continuing to collect more donations. It's better to have the money and waste it than not have the money and not waste it.

I am asking for honesty and accountability.

If you are going to use that money to give it to random undisclosed charities advertise that. Have the pop-up say "The Wikimedia foundations desperately needs your donations, so that we finally can give your money to undisclosed charities.", don't pretend like Wikipedia is about to die, the organization is extremely well off and you should be honest about that.

>It's better to have the money and waste it than not have the money and not waste it.

That is such an awful thing to say. They are still taking the money of people who believe they are keeping Wikipedia alive, but then use that exact money to give to undisclosed charities. How can you not see that as a problem?

It sounds like we are not seeing the same banners. You keep paraphrasing, definitely not quoting, what sound like dire pleas for survival, and yet any banner I see lacks any of that.

Can you show me a single banner from where you could walk away with the impression that the Wikimedia foundation has 240 Million in assets and wants donation for causes totally unrelated to keeping Wikipedia maintained and running?

Just a single one?

The Wikipedia iOS app doesn’t seem to seek donations.

I guess it isn't, it's just that many people know how to use (and configure) an adblocker in their browser....

I don’t tolerate it - I don’t give them any money.

> In fact, they make so much money from donations, they spend (read: waste) massive amounts of it on various social ventures instead of using it on the service that caused people to donate in the first place.

Do you have some specific examples? Further, how much are they 'wasting' as a function of their reserves?

Don't like it? Don't visit it.

We would consider companies foolish if they left sales on the table, even if they didn't immediately need it. Why would non-profits be expected to not fundraise as aggressively as possible?

The expectation that non-profits should be run on fumes is silly.

> Why would non-profits be expected to not fundraise as aggressively as possible?

I think the reason is that we expect, or assume, non-profits to have a better ethical stance than for-profit organization. That's the point of a non-profit organization after all: doing something because they feel it's the right thing to do, regardless whether it is profitable or not.

I do not share this expectation or assumption. The difference between a for-profit and a non-profit corporation is defined in the tax code. It’s a legal distinction, not an ethical one. Some non-profits exist mainly to enrich their officers, and some profitable corporations are mainly concerned with benefiting society.

>Some non-profits exist mainly to enrich their officers

This could very well be, but it goes against what first comes to the mind of most people when talking about a non-profit: the name itself implies that those companies are "not for profit" after all.

EDIT: I also think that the reason why most countries have a special tax law regarding non-profit organization, is to help people that want to do "the right thing" even if it is not profitable, not to provide their officers with an easier way to enrich themselves. So if a non-profit is being used by their officers to enrich themselves, I think it is correct to see them as people that are cheating the system. If they are doing it in a way that is technically legal, I would say they are probably exploiting some loophole.

I’m sorry, I thought that by “we” you were referring to a group of people including yourself (first person plural), not, in fact, “most people”, whom you seem to believe are naive and uninformed, a belief that is probably correct. Unless you were?

You highlight what the law say, and it is for sure interesting for me, as I'm not American and so ot familiar with US laws. But what I'm saying is that all laws are written for a reason. E.g. there are laws that say you can't kill another person because the vast majority of people agree that this is a thing that shouldn't be done. So what I'm saying here is that in this discussion we should also consider which was the reason behind the law, not just the technicalities of how the law is written.

> Some non-profits exist mainly to enrich their officers

+100. But Charity Navigator can help you find those. The IRS form 990 discloses how much they pay their highest-paid employees.

Wikipedia’s primary product is a website that doesn’t suck.

Why would you expect someone joining a charity to take a huge shit on the charity’s primary mission? And expect donors to like it?

Just leave 'em. Did a muBlock rule for the pop-up.

I have no issue with a charity asking for money. I give them a regular donation.

Neither do I. I take issue with them asking for money with the pretext that Wikipedia is going to disappear because they don't have enough money.

Why? That's literally the pretext for any charity.

>Why?

Because it is a complete and utter lie. The Wikimedia foundation is extremely wealthy and under no financial stress. They Have hundreds of millions in assets[0].

A charity should be honest and open about what they are doing with the money they are taking. Wikimedia foundation isn't and is fundraising as if they were about to go under.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikim...

Even if they were totally open about it, they would almost certainly use that same tactic. I once worked in public media, at a 501 (c) 3, and they too would pull the "everything stops if not enough people donate" scheme. And I believed it, that is until I learned that they were flush with cash and made the majority of their revenue from super wealthy people looking for a tax break. Something tells me this isn't uncommon, because it's a legal and effective grift.

It's not the donations that are the problem, but the pure bullshit narrative to fleece people a few times every year.

>It's not the donations that are the problem, but the pure bullshit narrative to fleece people a few times every year.

Exactly. Their message is alarmist, as if they couldn't stay afloat. Most people believe it, I certainly did. And it seems reasonable, it is a gigantic and totally add free site, how could they not be facing financial troubles? But they aren't and if they want to fund vanity projects, they should advertise that they are doing exactly that.

Fundraising is unfortunately something where the commons has been deeply polluted. My Congressmembers regularly send me emails which are outright lies, purporting to be a "membership renewal" or a "special survey" or an "urgent petition" until you click in and see they want money. So when I see something like the Wikipedia banners, which are restricted to their own site and don't explicitly say anything untrue, it's hard to get worked up over it.

It's worth acknowledging that they've been willing to moderate their tone in response to things that seem overly misleading (https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-fou...). If you could sit down with Jimmy Wales and the WMF bosses in private, I suspect they'd tell you that they don't want to trick anyone, but that you have to do some kind of attention-grabbing stunt to effectively fundraise these days. And really, is that wrong?

>which are restricted to their own site and don't explicitly say anything untrue

What's so great about implicitly saying untrue things?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(propos...

The Foundation is my client, but these views are only my own:

This is not to say there's no excess, or that resources couldn't be allocated internally more effectively - I'm not going to put up some kind of strawman - but:

1. I took a 20% pay cut so that I could do more work for the Foundation. Worth it.

2. Posts that say "Wikipedia only has [x] more articles but budget has gone up [y]" are beyond stupid. Any idea how many projects besides Wikipedia are run by WMF - for instance, ever heard of Wikimedia Commons? Any idea how litigious and heavily-regulated the world has got, and how much effort has to be poured into softening some of the emerging laws, mounting judicial challenges against the rest, etc? Any idea how much funding every usergroup and chapter (sometimes more than one per country, e.g. in Spain) is asking for? Any idea how much effort is put into developing features that encourage new people to start editing, not just consuming? Any idea how expensive it is to support and facilitate the big "Movement" discussions (aimed at decentralising the movement!) and the User Code of Conduct discussions? How hard it is to have a viable Trust & Safety team for so many projects, 300+ languages, and people from all over the world to support?

3. After a big outcry about the banners a month ago (that was a long time coming, no denial), the drafting and design of the banners is much softer this year than the last. And guess what, they're much less effective, and now projects are being cancelled, staff departures aren't being backfilled, and jobs are at stake. That may be worth it, but let's at least be honest about the downsides.

Accountability and criticism are fine - but when absolutely no intellectual effort is put into keeping that criticism balanced and on-target, then all you've ended up doing is making people who work here, rather than raking in the big bucks working for Big Tech, feel shitty. And guess what: you lose extra marks for bringing up cancer (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has...) when many people working here will be dealing with actual cancer, either personally or among their friends or family, at the moment.

People losing their jobs sucks, but I highly doubt it could even remotely be a result of an ongoing donation drive. You might be able to plan around a specific drive and change plans as a result of it tanking, but that wouldn’t happen in the middle of the drive. If it did, that screams of mismanagement far more than anything else.

Furthermore, the WMF fundraised $165 million in FY 2021-2022 already. That should more than cover staff salaries already, which were $68 million in 2020/2021.

The root of the issue is that the WMF does a lot, gets a lot of money for doing it, and puts back an abysmally small amount back into the thing they are most well known for: Wikipedia. So why would Wikipedia editors want to continue advertising it if they get little to no benefit from doing so?

Agreed. I see a lot of true believers in management, particularly in the overgrowth of 2021. The logic is that their managers can't be wrong, because they hired them. If the managers are wrong, then the true believer's employment is wrong too. I think the anxiety of losing a job can cause true believers to "get in on the lie" and aid management in dodging the blame.

It's an unfortunate position to be in as a Wikimedia employee.

If the money only comes from donations, and the donations start drying up, every area of the budget gets impacted, including salaries. The WMF could not have foreseen the current campaign making much less than expected.

"Abysmally small" is a bizarre and uninformed characterization. Please read anything written on the topic; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising/2022_ban... is a fine starting point.

The majority is spent on wages, as evidenced by the consolidated statement of activities of the WMF. I severely doubt that $88 million worth of people is required to run Wikipedia, nor that Wikipedia gets much benefit from things like “Awards and grants” (to the Tides foundation), “Travel and conferences”, or “special event expenses”.

In fact, only 2.7 million dollars is spent on the actual hosting, you know, that thing that is absolutely drop dead required to run a site. That is 1.8% and is split amongst the various sites other than English Wikipedia. That sounds a hell of a lot like “abysmally small” to me.

And, as I said, it wouldn’t be a part of a currently running donation campaign. Maybe it would affect budgets years from now, but the foundation is not running at the equivalent of paycheck to paycheck. The current donation drive would in no way shape or form impact the current projects that are being run, and if they are, then that’s indicative of massive mismanagement more than anything.

So please, show me exactly where I’m wrong, with explicit sources, instead of claiming I’m uninformed and pointing me to the most generic of pages on this.

Ops people cost money, and MediaWiki is a flaming garbage heap to operate (with utmost respect to those who tirelessly work on it). Developers who work on editor tools also cost money, as do lawyers for major jurisdictions in which Wikipedia operates (hint: there are many). Grants and appointments provide essential depth to Wikipedia; what's a history article without historians helping out?

Re paycheck to paycheck: look, I'm not a finance guy, but I have it on good authority (sorry, no links) that the current campaign's performance is having _some_ effect; you're welcome to tell them it shouldn't, I guess?

Sure, there's some stupid money (and the recent upheaval is helping with that), but there's a lot of non-stupid money, and it's not like they're epically mismanaging the money.

Apologies for the lack of sources, but everything relevant is public, I think, and you've found the budget already.

MediaWiki is open source. Developers getting paid is great, but things would still eventually go in even without them getting paid.

Ops might be essential, but it’s not $88 million dollars. Nowhere near.

It’s your responsibility to back up your claims with links. Telling someone it’s all public and to trust you and your good authority is, frankly, not enough.

Although I’ve seen some banners that were on the aggressive side, the site to me is infinitely better than ones that deploy modern adtech, it’s almost like those practices can be intuitively felt when navigating leading to a worse experience.

>2. Posts that say "Wikipedia only has [x] more articles but budget has gone up [y]" are beyond stupid. Any idea how many projects besides Wikipedia are run by WMF - for instance, ever heard of Wikimedia Commons? Any idea how litigious and heavily-regulated the world has got, and how much effort has to be poured into softening some of the emerging laws, mounting judicial challenges against the rest, etc? Any idea how much funding every usergroup and chapter (sometimes more than one per country, e.g. in Spain) is asking for? Any idea how much effort is put into developing features that encourage new people to start editing, not just consuming? Any idea how expensive it is to support and facilitate the big "Movement" discussions (aimed at decentralising the movement!) and the User Code of Conduct discussions?

Isn't it the job of the Wikimedia Foundation to let people know just these things in a way they can understand? Why is it the responsibility of users to dig into the financials of a non-profit begging them for money rather than the other way around?

edit: And if the answer is that if people were given detailed and accurate information they'd be less likely to donate then... that answers the question of why you shouldn't donate.

What's wrong with these?

https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/where-your-money-goe...

https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation

At some point you have to ask yourself "what would victim blaming look like, and how different is that from this"

>What's wrong with these?

These don't seem to allow me to actually answer the questions OP brought up but merely give high level summaries of X% is spent on these N things or the strategic areas without money allotment. If the point of OPs questions is that knowing that information would make me more likely to donate then I don't know that information.

>At some point you have to ask yourself "what would victim blaming look like, and how different is that from this"

Interesting how questioning giving a money to a specific non-profit is now called victim blaming. I guess corporations really are people now.

The OP didn't genuinely ask any questions, they simply mischaracterised the banners that are on Wikipedia at the moment. I'm not the only person in this thread that seems to be having a hard time finding one's implying Wikipedia could shut down at any moment.

"Yes the criticism is wrong, but that's your fault for not informing the critics" is absolutely victim blaming.

They have $300m in assets and revenue increased from $100m to $120m in the past year[0].

Maybe the problem is that only 43% of donations are used for operations[1]?

0. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais...

1. https://www.wikimedia.ca/donate/

> Any idea how many projects besides Wikipedia are run by WMF

You seemed to have missed the point, while saying it. The point is the banner makes it seem like Wikipedia needs money, when it's actually all the other projects, which OP presumably does not value, which need the money.

> now projects are being cancelled, staff departures aren't being backfilled, and jobs are at stake.

That sounds like a desirable thing, get it back to reasonable spending levels.

Commons in particular should get a big overhaul. And ideally a phone app. I don’t know how would it look like, but… why is it 100 times easier to upload photo of a place from phone to Google Maps than it is to Commons?

(ironically, most poor country photos are from Panoramio from before it went to Google Maps.)

not for ios :(

All that but I have yet to get what the foundation spends 155 MILLION dollars on - each year. Even with your arguments that number seems to be wildly inflated.

Also, the Wikimedia Foundation explicitly asks for funding for Wikipedia. As far as I know, no one asked the Wikimedia Foundation to perform anything past that. This seems to be comparable to Mozilla‘s situation, who try to grow past Firefox with ideas nobody asks for but they lose sight of what their main product.

50% of money goes towards staffing. WF just overhired and pays ludicrous exec salaries, so now they must pay the price.

The foundation has around 700 employees (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation), back on the envelope calculation and we have 200k per employee. I think it seems reasonable.

700 employees and wiki interface havent changed for the better in 10 years? Sounds like Twitters "indispensable" 7500.

Last time I checked, just a couple of years ago, Wikimedia's CEO makes ~$350k / year which seems extremely reasonable compared to most CEOs in the USA. It was ~2.5x my salary when I worked at the foundation. Typical CEO salary multipliers (as compared to typical staff salary) are far far greater in the USA.

From my experience, and I worked there for 7 years, Wikimedia pays below average for the industry, though the benefit package is absolutely top-notch.

After reading this, I went an donated $10. Wikipedia is one of the most incredible resources on the Internet, and it pains me that it is having such issues. Maybe their messaging should say so.

That's wonderful!

Though personally, I think it's even better when people join the community of active users (whether Wikipedia or any of the other projects) and help out directly!

If I had the time/energy/resources, I sure would. Thanks for the nudge :)

> Any idea how many projects besides Wikipedia are run by WMF

I use Wikipedia, not any of these other projects.

> Any idea how expensive it is to support and facilitate the big "Movement" discussions

I don't care about the "movement"

> and the User Code of Conduct discussions?

I don't care about this either, but how on Earth is that expensive?

You are asking me to donate to things I don't use, and don't care about, and are not necessary to the product that I use. If you allowed me to donate specifically to Wikipedia, I would (and I did until I realized I wasn't). Why don't you segregate funds between Wikipedia and the rest of WMF?

As for the spam level, I know that the reason that it has gone up is because you need more money to fund this stuff that I don't care about and could run Wikipedia on a small fraction of the donations you get. That's the issue. Not how "soft" the banner design is. You are using Wikipedia as a bait and switch fundraising operation for a lot of other stuff that, honestly, very few people know or care about or would donate to if it weren't for the Wikipedia focused fundraising.

> Why don't you segregate funds between Wikipedia and the rest of WMF?

Managing restricted donations is a pain from an accounting perspective and incurs a lot of overhead. I don't deal with nonprofits at WMF's size, but most that I've been a part of won't manage restrictions unless the donation is very large. The amount of additional fundraising that comes in for even pre-defined restrictions isn't worth the overhead of it.

2. All of those are either unnecessary or could be done much cheaper. Why does facilitating discussions even cost money when Wikipedia is already a platform that facilitates discussions?

>many people working here will be dealing with actual cancer

Just because cancer is a real thing doesn't mean it can not be used as a metaphor. Death is similarly used as a metaphor all of the time.

Seriously, the whole argument is so flimsy. Very few people know or care about all of the extraneous arbitrary make-work causes and movements that Wikipedia donations are actually being used to fund rather than the core site.

And that’s the whole crux of the argument that OP conveniently ignored: that the banners make it seem like Wikipedia needs the money, when it doesn’t. WMF, on the other hand, does need it so it can continue to grow its spending exponentially on bullshit no one cares about and have nothing to do with Wikipedia itself (which is what people actually care about and probably think their donations are being used to support).

"cannot" and "should not" are not the same argument. (hell, even "doesn't need to be, and yet bullies will" is not the same argument)

As for facilitation: I think you're not thinking very deep about what it takes to ensure non-English speakers are treated decently.

can here is referring to an existence of a rule against doing so

I am so glad you posted this. Let me take the opportunity to say thank you. The Wikimedia Foundation does some of the most important work in the world, I am profoundly grateful for your work.

HN is not the place to spread such lies.

> the drafting and design of the banners is much softer this year than the last

Doubtful. But even if true, they are still ridiculous. I load a page and start reading. Suddenly the text I am reading is replaced by that huge begging message that takes up basically my entire screen. So I scroll down (sorry, Jimmy "Please don't scroll past this" Wales) and find my place again. As I scroll down, hey presto, the beg screen is replaced with a beg footer.

As for all those other projects... Give people a choice between donating "for Wikipedia operating expenses only" or "for all Foundation projects". Let people decide which they personally value more. I bet Wikipedia gets so much money you can set up a trust and never beg again, while those other projects stay budget-limited. But you don't do that, instead using misleading language like "reflect on the number of times you visited Wikipedia this year, the value you got from it, and whether you're able to give $2 back" to fund non-Wikipedia projects. Just stop it.

Your experience seems very, very different from mine. Why scroll past banners rather than closing them?

Every time I see a banner, I dismiss it for a week, and I don't see one again for a week.

Tolerated by whom? The general public? People occasionally create Wikipedia competitors; it generally doesn’t go well. If you find it intolerable, you can presumably use one of those (though note that the content is generally, well, made-up).

"Every time you go to Wikipedia" meaning "in December, until you click it to go away"?

I tolerate it because I like the resource, and I donate a small amount of money most years.

When organizations ask for money I don't immediately get defensive and start researching talking points as to why they don't really need it. Maybe I should, but I don't. So yeah, chalk one up to a naive rube with a lack of awareness. And no desire to setup custom blocking filters that inevitably are more work to maintain than they're actually worth.

The Mozilla foundation situation is equally hopeless these days:

https://lunduke.substack.com/p/firefox-money-investigating-t...

All the old heroes have started rotting from the inside and turned to fungus.

Despite all the negative about wikipedia, it’s still sort of part of “old internet” that I don’t want to die.

Even wikia, which was spun at first as “slightly more commercial wikipedia”, later became Fandom, which is something so horrible that I don’t want to look at

Look at WikiTravel which is more commercial WikiVoyage… they immediately went and stuffed it with ads and trackers.

And I mean wikimedia is fine NOW, but economy is going down, I will be happy if it has a certain rundown.

I am not entirely happy about all decisions that they do, but they’re still not pushing me any tracker. I am fine with closing some pop up.

> wikipedia, it’s still sort of part of “old internet”

what sort of new internet are you living in?

The ad-filled internet being pushed by Google and crew, overtaking everything, it sounds like.

I edited an article citing a published source.

My edit was reversed by a troll with some axe to grind on the article.

I attempted to discuss in the talk page and the troll basically said "you are wrong and the source is wrong", but cited no source supporting the claim, no policy stating there was something wrong with the specific source, and I cited policies supporting my use of the source.

Another editor showed up and agreed with me, and undid the troll's reversal, which the troll then restored the article to its state prior to my edit.

I undid the troll's restoration. Shortly thereafter I received a notice that I had been reported for some category of malicious editing. The troll reported me and the other editor for being sock-puppet accounts, and within 20 minutes my account and the other editor's accounts were deleted, my IP address banned from editing, and the edits to the article were deleted from record.

I received a notice that I can appeal the decision by sending an email to whatever the final governing board for all of Wikipedia is, which is a publicly published email address. I assumed this a "talk to the hand" step that results in nothing but wasting my time, since there is no way for me to disprove the sock-puppet claim (other than to state the fact that it is a lie) and all the evidence of the changes were vaporized.

(I did attempt to post a rebuttal to the claims, but when I clicked the post button, my account had already been deleted so the post was never posted.)

I had been editor of Wikipedia since shortly after they migrated to the new format (e.g., MediaWiki).

Wikipedia is not anything like what it originally started as.

Feel free to not use Wikipedia if they offend you.

For the same reason that archive.org's begging is tolerated, obviously. They provide a unique, irreplaceable service that can only be sustained by charitable contribution.

(Never mind that OP is asking disingenuously, just adding my vote.)

Just to clarify, there's no Wikipedia Foundation, there's Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia is owned by Wikimedia Foundation.

You can't donate to Wikipedia, the banners on Wikipedia lead to Wikimedia donations.

It is quite unethical:

1. They have enough donations to keep Wikipedia running for decades, yet each year banner gets more and more manipulative, pretending WP is on the brink of collapse.

2. IIRC less than 5% of money are actually used towards Wikipedia needs.

3. Not to mention that WP authors essentially work for free.

Why is it tolerated? Because most people don't even know you're not donating to Wikipedia. And the product is just too good to care.

sure, they could "keep it running", except it would get no new features and refinement, and would operate in a static (stagnant, as the world keeps moving on) barebones version. would it also be able to scale with increase in visitor traffic? would it be able to deal with increase in media uploads, or would it have to limit or freeze them? what about inflation and increase in hosting prices, and prices of everything else? if your vision for wikipedia is a text-based website with feature set from 2007 - and just that, maybe it could run for even longer.

> would it also be able to scale with increase in visitor traffic? would it be able to deal with increase in media uploads

Yes.

It's not a social network / advertising machine. Hosting is a tiny fraction of Wikimedia spending: a mere $2.4M in 2021. They spent more on awards and grants.

What banner is even being discussed here? I don't see any banner about wikipedia "shutting down at any moment due to lack of funding".

There is a banner, yes, but it doesn't say anything like that.

Are other people seeing other things, or is the discussion about a banner (yes, there is a banner) that doesn't ever say what's being claimed?

For reference, I see this. It reads reasonably to me, and never makes crazy claims about shutting down.

Wikipedia is not for sale. A personal appeal from Jimmy Wales

Please don't scroll past this 1 minute read. This Friday December 23rd, as 2022 draws to a close, I humbly ask you to reflect on the number of times you visited Wikipedia this year, the value you got from it, and whether you're able to give £2 back. If you can, please join the 2% of readers who give. If everyone reading this right now gave just £2, we'd hit our annual goal in a couple of hours. The price of a cup of coffee is all I ask.

Wikipedia is different. No advertising, no subscription fees, no paywalls. Those don't belong here. Instead, the Wikimedia Foundation relies on readers to support the technology that makes Wikipedia and our other projects possible. Being a nonprofit means there is no danger that someone will buy Wikipedia and turn it into their personal playground.

If Wikipedia has given you £2 worth of knowledge this year, please donate now, it really matters.

> In reality, the Wikipedia Foundation is doing just fine. In fact, they make so much money from donations, they spend (read: waste) massive amounts of it on various social ventures instead of using it on the service that caused people to donate in the first place.

That's a strong statement that requires some proof and links to the sources.

Fair enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

If this is the worst thing happening to you today, you’re having a great day.

"Wikipedia is not for sale."

No, but Jimmy Wales clearly is.

Why isn't there a "shut up and go away and never bother me again" button?

Because it's gotten to the point that I have just started avoiding Wikipedia.

You do know you're welcome to simply not use Wikipedia. You can even use it and not donate anything. Their "begging" is "tolerated" because it's their site and they are entitled to post anything they like on it.

No, it's not tolerated, at least from me.

I use incognito mode by default in my browsers and Wikipedia has become unusable with the constant begging. I stopped donating on a yearly basis when I realized their intrusive begging scheme had turned into a hobby.

If it works with other people, so be it.

In the strictest sense, it's tolerated because it's an acceptable price to get the product.

If you're asking, "why doesn't someone do something about it" there are people actively encouraging the foundation to lay off. In fact, now you can click a "I already donated" button to silence them when you couldn't before.

Also, they don't show it to logged in users, so the people making the product aren't being hounded for additional donations

An organization which runs an extremely useful non-for-profit business that runs the occasional nagging ad and flies some oversalaried executives around to ego-boosting events is hugely inoffensive to me. I mean honestly, I don't think say Microsoft goes a week without doing a dozen worse things to its users.

What is the Wikipedia Foundation? Is it some kind of scam impersonating the Wikimedia Foundation?

Wikipedia is actually privately owned. They raised enough money to fund thenselves indefinitely a long time ago but then they got bought out. All these donations are now funneled into the shareholders of the parent company.

Think about it, all the work is done by volunteers. Server costs are negligible because it’s all cached plaintext that can fit on a single server if you need it to. There’s basically no costs.

And yet… hundreds of millions get withdrawn. It ain’t going to Wikipedia. Wikipedia was financially secure through investments a decade ago. It’s fraud.

As a simple resource, it's imperative it remains free of corporates with their own agendas, and to a lesser extent, advertising. The best way to fail is not have sufficient funds for emergencies.

Wikipedia is certainly more worthwhile for someone who is likely to use it regularly, than say an online newspaper that actually refuses to share the article content with an infrequent visitor that might be directed to that particular site a handful of times during the year. Often wikipedia asks for much less.

I'd probably donate, if not for the hundred plus hours I worked expanding their knowledge base in the early 00s ... it was all deleted as far as I can tell - most of that data wasn't ever going to be covered in a "must be in an existing ISBN book / ISSN publication" policy that was brought in sometime later on.

>In reality, the Wikipedia Foundation is doing just fine. In fact, they make so much money from donations, they spend (read: waste) massive amounts of it on various social ventures instead of using it on the service that caused people to donate in the first place.

Meanwhile they refuse to roll out an onion service, which would enable folks to read it without fearing chilling effects and reduce the load on the network’s limited number of exit nodes, which due to a combination of sociological and technical reasons are much more onerous to run than relays.

Wikipedia overwhelmingly focuses on the wishes of editors, a small and separate group from the users (readers) in a manner unbecoming an alleged charity.

https://defcon.org/images/defcon-17/dc-17-presentations/defc...

https://blog.torproject.org/tips-running-exit-node/