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Elon Musk takes aim at Wikipedia
(www.newsweek.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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Enough Musk Spam
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I donated to Wikipedia once before, but never again. Their endowment has grown to a level where they should be completely self-sustained. However, spending is out of control.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer
Edit: I'm glad Wikipedia exists, but to say they are hurting for more cash is completely false. Even according to their own financial disclosures, web hosting expenses have stabilized under $4-million a year (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation). As contributions continue to grow, it is spent on higher salaries for executives. The CEO made $789k in 2021, all while content is created by volunteers.
Edit, edit: a relevant chart straight from the Wikimedia Foundation Wiki page is below. Internet hosting is one of the smallest expense buckets and has been relatively flat year-over-year. Alternatively, salaries and wages are on an unsustainable upward trajectory. This chart is even a few years old and salaries have almost doubled in the last three years to over $101-million in 2023, all while hosting expenses have remained flat.
Did you not read the part where this is the seventh most visited site on the internet... in the world? Literally any other website would be paying their CEO millions upon millions. This guy is basically taking a gigantic pay cut working for Wikimedia.
And do you have any idea how much it costs to have the bandwidth and server space to host the enormity of Wikipedia? It is quite literally one of the physically largest web sites on the internet. And it is continually and constantly being added to. The only other voluntary free information site that really beats it is the wayback machine. Which is another favorite target of conservative douchebags.
It's almost as if rich media moguls don't like people having free access to information they don't control.
And quite frankly I'm of the opinion that you are likely either working for one of them or one of Elon's army of sycophants (I had to retype that several times because it kept auto correcting to "sicko fans", and honestly I don't think that's all that inaccurate either) who are out to help him control the narrative.
Yes $2,335,918 in 2019 per their disclosures. They spend more on travel expenses.
Wikipedia is a non-profit. The goal shouldn't be to rake in tons of cash.
Legal fees and legal staff take up much of their expenses as well. When you have a platform that aims to make truth public, you are getting threatened with lawsuits 24 hours a day.
~~Legal fees were $493,315 for the fiscal year ending in 2023. Web hosting expenses were $3,120,819. They spent more on travel and conferences than both these combined ($4,180,219). Also, they pay their CEO more than all legal expenses.~~
I would really like to see Wikipedia become fully self-sufficient, so it can't be threatened by a hostile takeover. They could do that through investment income without ever touching their principal, especially if they started reasonably managing expenses years ago.
Edit for accuracy: so, earlier I totally misread the only paragraph with "legal" mentioned in last financial disclosure (here). There's no other mention of legal directly, so it must be lumped in with one of the other expense buckets. Maybe part of "professional service expenses" at $15,464,635?
That’s legal fees meaning court filing and other fees (seems low). You also have professional legal services, which includes specialized lawyers, in-house attorneys, and the General Council, which consists of board-level executives with legal credentials.
Why should non-profits not want to "rake in tons of cash" if it helps advance the mission of the non-profit?
Because in this case, all the increases in contributions go straight to the executives. I think I've been very on-point with this. On most days, I would expect Lemmizens to be overwhelmingly anti-CEO. I guess this isn't one of those days.
789k was pay + severance for Katherine Maher who left in 2021. Now that does seem excessive, I don't know how that number came about or why severance was 600k but the year before Katherine's comp was 406k. The compensation for the current CEO is 534k for 2023 per https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/200049703
Of course that seems like a lot of money, and it is, but to put it in perspective, I am just another software engineer and I make more than that. In HCOL areas, at "big tech" it's common for entry level SDEs with a BS to make 160-180k.
So as I stated in a different comment, your criticism seems misplaced. What you have a problem with is really the financial situation our society is dealing with, and that's perfectly reasonable. I would 100% agree that current wealth/pay distribution needs to be addressed.
I'm not going to disagree with your comments in regards to the compensation for the singular CEO. However, I think this is a more widespread issue within the foundation. (I did say "executives" in my last comment.) The chart below is straight from the Wikimedia Foundation wiki page and one expense category is increasing a lot quicker than the others. This chart is a little outdated now, but salary expenses have continued to increase. According to the last disclosure, salaries and benefits are now over $101-million. That's almost double where the chart left off, all while other expense categories have barely moved. Internet hosting in 2023 was only $3.12-million.
Wikimedia has a lot of cash on hand. Even with the exorbitant spending over the years, the foundation and endowment combined have accumulated over $400-million. Through interest alone, I don't see why the core functions of Wikipedia should ever be in financial jeopardy. This is especially the case if you consider that, even without persistent requests for donations, donations won't just stop completely.
I’m pretty sure we want content created, vetted, and edited by volunteers. It prevents bias, in theory.
Sure, I'm not against that and I never said otherwise. It also helps keep costs down. I definitely don't want to see an Elon-enshitified version of Wikipedia with ads and paid content creators. I mostly like Wikipedia just as it is. The one exception would be that I don't like how they try guilt tripping everyone for donations.
With $400-million between Wikipedia and their endowment, they should easily be able to cover the $3-million in web hosting expenses, without ever touching the principal of their investments. Wikipedia should be already setup to run in perpetuity, if not merely decades.
Is that you musk?
My post has nothing to do with wokeness or whatever Musk is ranting about. The guy who wrote the essay I linked, originally posted it in 2016/2017? and has been keeping it updated. This abuse of spending is not a new topic. But sure, keep donating so the executives can take home more pay.
The "essay" (for me) read more like a rant about the author's opinions regarding hypothetical situations and how, in many people's views, a successful non-profit spends money. Sure, maybe WMF could spend less but the table looked reasonable. I've donated before and I'm sure I will again because I use Wikipedia all the time. I am going to spend more time learning about the organization and its spending, but as of reading the linked material, I'm unmoved.
Also, I get that 789k is a lot of money. Really more than anyone needs but it's hardly an absurd amount given the norms for CEO pay. Yes, CEO pay is ridiculous but so is the entire economy, speaking as a US citizen. I would have guessed higher and many non-profit CEOs make much more than 789k. Plenty of people, with less responsibility and impact, make more than that so that pay is not really a WMF specific point.