He generally shows most of the signs of the misinformation accounts:
- Wants to repeatedly tell basically the same narrative and nothing else
- Narrative is fundamentally false
- Not interested in any kind of conversation or in learning that what he’s posting is backwards from the values he claims to profess
I also suspect that it’s not a coincidence that this is happening just as the Elon Musks of the world are ramping up attacks on Wikipedia, specially because it is a force for truth in the world that’s less corruptible than a lot of the others, and tends to fight back legally if someone tries to interfere with the free speech or safety of its editors.
Anyway, YSK. I reported him as misinformation, but who knows if that will lead to any result.
Edit: Number of people real salty that I’m talking about this: Lots
I actually took a look at Wikipedia’s accounts last week as I remembered that campaign when I saw the latest campaign and did some due diligence before donating. I didn’t donate, but I’m still glad Wikipedia exists.
What I remembered: That hosting costs were tiny and Wikimedia foundation had enough already saved up to operate for over a hundred years without raising any more.
What I saw: That if that was true, it isn’t any longer. It’s managed growth.
I don’t think they are at any risk of financial collapse, but they are cutting their cloth to suit their income. That’s normal in business, including charities. If you stop raising money, you stagnate. You find things to spend that money on that are within the charity’s existing aims.
Some highlights from 2024: $106million in wages. 26m in awards and grants. 6m in “travel and conferences”. Those last two look like optional spends to me, but may be rewards to the volunteer editors. The first seems high, but this is only a light skim
Net assets at EOY = $271 million. Hosting costs per year are $3million. It’s doing okay.
If you’re curious; https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/
Yep. Just like for-profit companies, having a diverse range of revenue streams is necessary for securing the financial health of the organization. While Wikipedia receives significant donations from companies like Google and Microsoft, it is essential to also solicit contributions from individuals to ensure that their income is not overly reliant on a single source. Just like in for-profits, Wikimedia likely determines the percentages of income from various sources needed to maintain this diversity. This concept seems particularly important for Wikipedia given its mission to provide unbiased information.
On another note, I’ve seen your same “100 years” notion mentioned a few times on this post. I can’t imagine that everyone who’s saying it independently had the idea to analyze their financial statements and calculate projections over 100 years. Is this an article you’re quoting? Just curious.
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!).
Wikipedia could lose 90% of their cashflow and not be in any danger of going offline.
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
Is it your impression that paying the people who work for you is optional for a technology company?
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.
Love that everyone on this thread is a financial analyst and a 501c consultant.
For-profit companies have the margins they do because they’ve successfully detached humanity from their spending obligations. Wikipedia does not need to do quarterly global lay-offs or labor off-shoring when their technology doesn’t meet release deadlines. They are a nonprofit. They exist to bring factual, accessible information to the world. If you support for this cause, donate. If you don’t, don’t donate or don’t use. If you care for the cause but want the CEO to take a paycut, well, find them one who will stick around for more than a few years on less than the average mega CEO salary. Because most of them have not.
Love that everyone on this thread is a financial analyst and a 501c consultant.
So people shouldn’t have an opinion unless they’re professionally qualified? I’m not sure that’s how the internet works.
And also, people absolutely should check how their money will be spent when they consider donating. It’s their money, remember.
If you support for this cause, donate. If you don’t, don’t donate or don’t use.
I get that, and it’s often true I think. But when the thing that they do that you use and like is such a tiny part of their spending, is it still true?
I care about Wikipedia’s website. I would donate to that. I don’t care about the other 90% of the things they would spent my donation on. Should I still donate?
If you’re asking that question because you’re genuinely conflicted about donating and you’re not just here spreading divisive nonsense on behalf of Elon Musk, you could do a deeper delve into the entire foundation or look up the Wikipedia page on Income Statements.
You seem to be hung up on the operating expenses. That’s just a finance term for certain operational costs like the electricity bill and insurance. It does not mean the total of what it costs to run the organization and that everything else is in excess. Similarly, salary expenses includes everyone from the HR department to the custodians, not just the rich CEOs.
