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Should I donate to Wikipedia?
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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I don't anymore.
they do not need your money, and it's disingenuous of them to imply they do.
The manipulative aspect of their annual fundraisers is very unsettling.
here are some numbers from 2022:
https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-next-time-wikipedia-asks-for-a-donation-ignore-it/
they have at least 400 million in reserves now and the estimate is $10 million a year to maintain the site and pay all their employees.
their higher executives are each paid hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
they're not struggling to keep the lights on for the next half century.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f6/Wikimedia_Foundation_2024_Audited_Financial_Statements.pdf
https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2022-2023-annual-report/
They have approximately $80 million in cash, and it costs them about $100 million to pay their staff. They have $274 million in total assets, counting endowment investments.
It's extremely unclear where that site came up with $400 million.
I'm not sure why you'd link to a two year old opinion piece on it, when all of their financials are publicly available and provided without commentary.
They received cash in excess of expenses of about $6 million, and including non-cash assets their total assets increased by about $16 million in 2024.
Their CEO makes about $500 thousand a year, and the rest of their executive team ranges in salary from $300 to $100 thousand.
It's not a small salary, but it's not preposterous for one of the most visited sites in the Internet that also operates as a charity to have decently compensated executives.
They are not in financial trouble, but it's not accurate to say they can keep the lights on for the next 50 years.
Those salaries are not competitive. Not that they should be because executive pay is out of control, but they are also in no way extravagant and possibly too low or at least the bare minimum to retain any kind of decent talent to run the operation.
Looking at the profiles for the executives, you definitely get the feeling that they're either the sort that prioritizes "my work put good into the world and you don't need to squint to see it" over cash, so "yeah, that lets me live" is sufficient, or their seemingly going for a high score for number of "oh, nice!" organizations they can put on their CV, and the total compensation from them all is probably more than competitive.
"a two year old opinion piece on it,"
it's the first article that popped up with reliable numbers, but there are plenty of articles criticizing the amassed wealth of wmf while they're asking for money every year.
unsurprisingly, the WMF reports that WMF are spending their money responsibly and are barely managing to sustain themselves, while every journalist that looks into it confirms that WMF have plenty of money and have not needed to do these fundraising drives for years, and will not have to for decades.
$100 million is purely cash on hand, it doesn't take into account any otger WMF assets.
it's nice that you're excited about Wikipedia, and it can be a useful resource, but these are not contentious facts.
Wikipedia has plenty of money, they spend it irresponsibly, and every year they are taking and millions of dollars that they add to that stack.
important to note, Wikipedias value to the end users is contributed two and maintained by unpaid volunteers.
here's another good article;
https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-foundation-donate.html
I made sure it was also 2 years old because I think it's funny your ageist about facts.
I'll talk to you in 50 years and we can settle this.
Bro just twisted "outdated misinformation" into "ageism about facts", this is gold xD
it's a pretty good time, thanks
Except...the numbers weren't reliable. Where did they get $400 million in cash from? That's just not a thing.
It's $80 million cash, $274M counting all assets, like it says in the audit and my comment.
Are you saying that their financial audit is fraudulent? "Wikipedia is committing tax fraud" is a pretty hot take, not gonna lie.
Their financial report also doesn't claim they're barely scraping by, so I'm not sure where you're getting that.
That's a different argument which you seemingly haven't actually argued. "They make enough money, here's some incorrect financial claims to justify it" is very different from "I don't think they spend money wisely, and need to change what they spend on".
I never actually made a statement for or against donation, I only pointed out that your information was incorrect. "$400 million cash" is a very different situation than "$80 million cash".
I'm gonna disagree very strongly that these are "not contentious facts", because they're not correct in the slightest. Being off by $320 million dollars strongly undercuts the credibility of an argument.
Honestly, I'm confused about why you seem so angry at Wikipedia.
Yes, I am ageist about facts. What a weird thing to take issue with. The financial state of an organization two years ago doesn't have as much bearing on if they should get donations as the current financial statement does.
Does this financial statement from 2006 feel just as relevant and make you want to donate to them?
That article is at least accurate in how it describes their financial situation. It's also kind of amusing that the author concludes that donation is reasonable:
Wow, you really like make believe huh?
pretending I said things I didn't and then arguing against them isn't the gotcha you apparently think it is, Don Quixote.
but if it makes you feel better, float your own boat.
Maybe respond with points instead of general vague insults?
They quoted you and responded to multiple points. You've just hand waved and thrown out random insults.
they should ask a question if they want a specific answer.
you'll notice that they complained about not receiving an answer despite 1. they didn't ask any questions for the first dozen comments or so until I repeatedly taught them how questions work and 2. I responded to the relevant parts of every one of their comments that I hadn't answered fully before.
their comments do not entitle them to a response, especially if, as in this case repeatedly, their response is flawed, irrelevant or has already been answered.
I correct them, they say " fine. you're correct but I don't like it."
I don't care if they like the truth of the matter or not., and it doesn't matter If they like being corrected or not, so I'm not going to address that.
If you scroll up, you'll see that every part of every one of their comments stems from a single rounding error from one number among dozens from two otherwise solid articles for no other purpose than for the commenter to get a foot in the door of denying the actual crux of the argument, which is that Wikipedia does not need your money and them pretending they do to stay in business is manipulative and flat-out false.
that is a straight up fact, and after accepting that in I believe their second comment, they're trying to deny that they were wrong by pointing out a tangential rounding error.
they're looking for a gotcha through an insignificant detail.
I think they forgot what they were talking about in the first place to be honest, or that they already conceded the point of the main argument and can only remember their overwhelming personal commitment to that rounding error(or typo? who knows?)
but that's okay.
it's funny.
You seem so defensive, fuck
weird non-sequitur.
how?
What are you even talking about?
"Why" was a typo, fixed it.
Don Quixote is a famous literary figure who creates monsters out of his own failing perception and then attacks them.
he's an analogy of you fabricating points I haven't made so you have something to struggle against.
Har har har.
I'm honestly curious what point you think I'm responding to that you didn't make.
You did actually use grossly inaccurate financial data when the tax documents were publicly available.
"I'm honestly curious what point you think I'm responding to..."
are you? you don't sound very curious. you haven't asked a single question.
"You did actually use grossly inaccurate financial data"
your make-believe is showing.
From your source: "After a decade of professional fund-raising, it has now amassed $400 million of cash as of March”.
From you: "they have at least 400 million in reserves now".
Their financial audit, that I linked to, shows that they have nowhere near that much cash. They don't even have that much total assets if you count their endowment, real estate, and computer hardware.
The entire reason for my comment was that I read that number, thought "wow, that number seems preposterous", and looked up their financial report which shows that indeed, it's a totally bogus number detached from reality.
You seem deeply upset that someone might not just accept your opinion at face value, and it seems to be making you respond like an asshole instead of "not responding because you don't care", or actually giving some sort of response.
"You seem deeply upset"
nope I forget you're here until you comment again and I have to correct you all over again.
correcting people is fun for me, so this isn't particularly upsetting.
"your opinion"
not my opinion, dozens of accurate numbers from two articles, one of those many numbers in one of those articles you have picked out to focus on.
One of the articles overestimated a budget by 100 million, four instead of three, that's not going to bother me too much.
you seem deeply upset by one source's overestimate.
"that number seems preposterous...a totally bogus number detached from reality...."
yeah who the heck could write four instead of three?
how could anyone make that mistake? they must be nuts!
adding one number in hundreds of millions of dollars of asset valuation?
how could that even happen?
guess we'll never know...
"giving some sort of response..."
you keep whining about receiving a response (desperate), but you still haven't asked a question.
do you know how responses work? (that was a question. see the curly thing at the end? there's another!)
go ahead, check your comment. not a single question, you're just rehashing you're earlier mistakes I have to correct all over again.
which is fun.
I'm down.
You're confusing cash with assets. $80 million is nowhere near $400 million cash.
Except $300 million cash isn't in the article I said was a good article.
"Dozens" of good numbers don't really matter when the one you use to make your point isn't one of them.
They don't have $400 million dollars cash, so they can't run for 40 years just on cash on hand. Which is the entire thing I was talking about.
I sort of assumed that basic literacy meant you could understand that a question doesn't have to end in a question mark. For example: I'm curious what you think I'm making up.
Note how that doesn't end in a question mark, but is clearly a request for information.
And, for pedantic ness: "what the fuck are you talking about?"
What "mistakes" are you correcting? I'm referencing their financial audit. Where do you think those news articles you're not understanding get their numbers?
You can't just pick a number off a page, say "yeah, that one's big, it's how much cash they have", then round up and add $100 million dollars and wave it off as a typo. At best, it's a typo compounding a gross misunderstanding of the financials.
So again, what "mistakes" are you correcting? You keep saying you're correcting some mistakes, but ... You're not. You haven't actually done anything other than share some bad data and be offended someone would point that out.
"you're confusing cash with assets"
you are incorrect again. I wrote assets, because I was talking about total assets(which, this sounds like it's going to blow your mind, includes cash!)
maybe you aren't reading closely enough and are conflating my comments with the one sentence in the two articles you don't like for some weird reason?
your next comment kind of explains another one of your blind spots:
"And, for pedantic ness: "what the fuck are you talking about?""
questions are not pedantic.
you can't find out what somebody else meant unless you ask them a question.
what you are doing is assuming an answer and then extrapolating off of that, which is very easy for you to attack, but is often wrong because you're making things up.
The fact that you've finally except in my tutoring and have begun asking questions is a huge step forward.
I'll go look for someone who knows how to golf clap.
"I sort of assumed that basic literacy"
that sounds like it's your problem, you should stop assuming basic literacy and practice reading.
If you're just assuming literacy, in your head it sounds good, but out here it is rough for others to deal with you.
"So again, what "mistakes" are you correcting? "
that there's no way to confuse 300 with 400.
that you can't tell the difference between an opinion and a number from financial audit.
that because of one incorrect number you're dead set that both articles are wrong, even though their numbers are from the financial audit that you originally referenced.
you mistake a statement for a question.
there are more, but four of your mistakes should be enough of a start for you to recognize a few of your errors.
don't want to move too fast for you.
ps, good work on finally asking a question!
all I had to do was teach you what a question was for half a dozen comments comments consecutively and you learned!
that's progress.
You're a surprisingly dense person. You've managed to mistake a news article for a financial audit, misread a number of comments, misinterpret numbers, think that the phrase "article I agree with" means I don't agree with it, and somehow take "hey, your number's wrong" to mean "your numbers are wrong, your conclusion is wrong, and everything you say is wrong".
Except, you didn't. And neither did the article I said was inaccurate where you plainly pulled that number from.
Maybe go actually read the second article you shared, which doesn't get their cash or assets wrong or make grossly inaccurate assertions about their financial status.
Also, congrats on actually running with "bold of you to assume I can read".
"You're a surprisingly dense person."
Huhh?
"You've managed to mistake a news article for a financial audit,"
nope, that's a straw man you've been trying to prop up for a dozen comments because you can't refute my main point that WMF has plenty of money and shouldn't be lying to and manipulating donors for more.
"misread a number of comments"
still no evidence for that after a dozen comments? rad.
"misinterpret numbers"
you don't think three is next to four... that one's on you.
"think that the phrase "article I agree with" means I don't agree with"
also nope
so your strategy is to keep making things up?
consistent.
"the second article you shared, which doesn't get their cash or assets wrong "
see, every time you respond, you make up a whole bunch of stuff, and then right at the end you angrily insist "also, I agreed with you all along!"
fine, I'm glad you can't refute these things anymore.
You can keep ranting about irrelevant details and then agreeing with my original conclusion.
from the first comment.
I'm fine with that.
"Also, congrats on actually running with "bold of you to assume I can read"."
thank you!
given that I've roundly quashed all of your efforts here, I figured that insult was a facetious, last-ditch attempt of yours to distract from your illogical meandering and thought it would be fun to turn that little insult back on you.
it was fun!
your insults and tangents have that "water off a duck's back" quality I enjoy.
This is the part where you're dense as fuck. As I said from the get go, I wasn't trying to do that, you absolute insecure buffoon.
Go back and re-read the first comment, and try not being insecure and combative. I was literally, as you say, correcting a typo (Although then using that typo in math makes me feel like it was a misunderstanding of the numbers and not a typo).
"Wikipedia has a half billion cash and is evil for asking for more" is really different from "Wikipedia isn't in as bad a situation as you might think, and donation isn't as crucial as they might lead you to believe".
Your first comment is grossly misleading. I don't really give a shit about your conclusion, since I'm ambivalent about donating. See also: the paragraphs I quoted from your second article I liked.
Maybe, just maybe, it's like I've been saying and you refuse to accept: I'm not trying to "gotcha" you, I just actually cared about accurate numbers. If you actually care about accurate numbers for drawing conclusions, like a person who goes and reads financial audits might, then perhaps they aren't "irrelevant details". Or, as I like to call them: A $320 million dollar error.
You're the one who can't accept that someone saying "hey, their financials are by no means weak but they don't have decades of cash saved up" isn't a disagreement with your main point.
Then you went off on insane ad hominem tangents and refused to believe that maybe someone isn't attacking you.
You really haven't. If you'll recall: "what the fuck are you even talking about"? Insecure gibberish isn't the masterful debate strategy you think it is. You aren't coming across as cleverly as you seem to think you are.
"This is the part where you're dense as fuck"
buh-hurrr?
"I said from the get go, I wasn't trying to do that, you absolute insecure buffoon."
The crippling insecurity of... let's check your notes... my having been correct, not getting distracted by your tangents and make-believe and you now furiously insisting that there never was an argument about the main point and all you wanted to do was fruitlessly quibble about one irrelevant point on the number line for a dozen comments.
where shall I ever gain the confidence to stand up to your relentless onslaught?
"Go back and re-read the first comment"
nah,; I got it the first time.
not a brain buster.
"I was literally, as you say, correcting a typo."
or rounding error, butI know, that's why I literally said it.
"Your first comment is grossly misleading"
mmm, nah, that's the one you agreed with, you silly goose.
"Then you went off on insane ad hominem tangents"
here are your quotes:
"you're dense as fuck."
"you absolute insecure buffoon."
you get a confused between what I wrote and you wrote again?
Hey, did I teach you the word "tangent"? look at that, time not wasted!
""Wikipedia has a half billion cash and is evil for asking for more" is very different than...."
it's also a made-up quote from you, just now, that you made up.
or have you been responding to a different person this entire time and you think you're making a point to someone with completely different comments?
that would be the funniest thing, if the reason it's so easy to dispel all of your made-up quotes is because you think you're talking to a different person.
that would make a certain sense for you, you conflate a lot.
"I'm ambivalent about donating."
clearly, you have no horse in this game.
you are carefree and feckless.
"Maybe, just maybe, it's like I've been saying..."
We already agreed that it is not and as you freely admit, it is like I've been saying from the first comment.
are you talking about the typo/ rounding error that doesn't affect the outcome and nobody disputed?
Great work on sticking with that mote in a sandstorm.
"as I like to call them...."
you do it! you go ahead and call them whatever you like!
you can call them unicorns or wyverns, whatever strikes your fancy.
"they don't have decades of cash saved up" isn't a disagreement with your main point"
I agree, it doesn't affect my main point at all.
glad we're doing this.
makes a lot of sense for you to combatively agree with my point over and over again.
"Then you went off on insane..."
how crazy it must seem to you to stick to a single point and not deviate from it, not to get distracted by relentless quibbles, not even to make up quotes or delve into irrelevant rabbit holes that do not affect the outcome!
imagine how much simple being correct in the first place about the actual topic must be.
smoooth sailing.
"You aren't coming across as cleverly as you seem to think you are."
virtue of the medium by which I am constrained.
like you said, you agree with my main point straight off the bat, but then you insist on creating fictional arguments so I am limited to responding to you raving and ranting about the number four not being the number three, or feeble insults, or you pretending that cash are somehow not assets.
or pointing out your made-up quotes.
at this point, I'm just helping you polish your turds.
that's okay, I have time and you have...who knows, I'm sure you have something.
you're probably great at getting all the toothpaste out of the toothpaste tube, right?
you can be proud of that.
Yeah I no longer donate as well for this same reason. They are not hurting for cash
To keep the money coming is a pretty good reason.