Wikipedia is much deeper and nuanced than imagined(pallasblog.substack.com) |
Wikipedia is much deeper and nuanced than imagined(pallasblog.substack.com) |
Funny how people will (1) ignore the software development side of things, and (2) cheer on the massive new regulation of "Big Tech" but ignore what that imposes on an org like the Wikimedia Foundation, both during the legislative stage (re. advocacy) and the once the regulation is imposing its bureaucracy. The UK Online Safety Bill is a prime example. Also, Wikipedia is a very important project, but just one of many projects operated by the Foundation. Finally, these articles somehow attack "high expenses" at the very same time as "running a surplus being added to an endowment capable of generating income that will help support then projects indefinitely even if some people stop visiting the sites (and thus seeing the December donation banners) because ChatGPT could be their interface to all the great knowledge".
The org is not without reproach, and certainly not the most important part of the overall Wikimedia Movement, but there's a bit of smoke and mirrors going on with articles like these.
As for the tone of banners: I believe there's a consultation about them going on right now; they're being co created with the userbase. Go be part of the solution! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising/2023_b...
They have long ago eclipsed the cost of running it and now donate/fund causes that are in line with their views.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikim...
I think the use of the word "eclipsed" is a a bit odd. Eclipsed in this case, and the literal sense, just means it's covered. In this case, revenue exceeds costs by what, 8%?
Instead the leaders are spending 67 million in salaries in order to justify their own fat paychecks.
Now I know that people are doing the same kind of shenanigans in the private sector, but at least in the private sector they aren't getting money by begging and misleading the commoners about how they are about to run out of money and they need your support to keep existing <insert sad jimbo wales face>
This is a very popular belief about established web services. From time to time someone tries it; it rarely works out well.
Rather glad Wikipedia isn’t doing the “you have to log in to use it, also we’ll rate limit you if you don’t pay for Wikipedia verified, and it will also randomly go down a lot” thing that Twitter is trying in an attempt to make this work.
Compared to many other stuff I read, it's mostly "boring tech".
tl;dr: Wikipedia's expenses grow exponentially year-over-year and it's not clear where the extra money is going, since the basic experience of Wikipedia hasn't changed all that much in the past decade.
Year Support and revenue Expenses Net assets at year end
2003–2004 $80,129 $23,463 $56,666
2004–2005 $379,088 $177,670 $268,084
2005–2006 $1,508,039 $791,907 $1,004,216
2006–2007 $2,734,909 $2,077,843 $1,658,282
2007–2008 $5,032,981 $3,540,724 $5,178,168
2008–2009 $8,658,006 $5,617,236 $8,231,767
2009–2010 $17,979,312 $10,266,793 $14,542,731
2010–2011 $24,785,092 $17,889,794 $24,192,144
2011–2012 $38,479,665 $29,260,652 $34,929,058
2012–2013 $48,635,408 $35,704,796 $45,189,124
2013–2014 $52,465,287 $45,900,745 $53,475,021
2014–2015 $75,797,223 $52,596,782 $77,820,298
2015–2016 $81,862,724 $65,947,465 $91,782,795
2016–2017 $91,242,418 $69,136,758 $113,330,197
2017–2018 $104,505,783 $81,442,265 $134,949,570
2018–2019 $120,067,266 $91,414,010 $165,641,425
2019–2020 $129,234,327 $112,489,397 $180,315,725
2020–2021 $162,886,686 $111,839,819 $231,177,536
2021–2022 $154,686,521 $145,970,915 $239,351,532From reading this article it seems you’re not content with the editorial process?
Or is it just the quickest descent to the most cynical conclusion?
This is like saying you wouldn't pay your doctor or barber because the electricity is only 1% of the total revenue.
The revenue and expense statement, the subject heading an entirely misleading heading given the bulk of the article is not about revenue/expenses strapped on at the end appears to have no, or at best threadbare connection to the main article other than 'politics' - well, what I had for breakfast is 'politics' too, perhaps that influences my reading of this article.
The moderator discussion and revenue/expense discussion offers nothing of substance in information of discussion over multitudes of other articles that have discussed the same thing with far more insight.
HN political flamebait, really. {Edit, thanks for the downvote.. author? That was 3 minutes. I really don't care, the account's literally called 'throwaway'. Censorship, eh?]
WP seems to me to be the most cacheable site in existence, I wonder what 100M worth of staff are doing there.
I do not mind that they provide those grants, it is just something to keep in mind.
We should want the assets to grow significantly. Ideally Wikimedia would have an endowment that is sufficient to grow at a rate to allow the site to be run in perpetuity without any further contributions.