Ask HN: Why is the Wikipedia Foundation's begging tolerated?
Every time you go to Wikipedia there's a huge banner asking for money implying it could shut down at any moment due to lack of funding.
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.
201 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 271 ms ] threadBecause 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...
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.
The expectation that non-profits should be run on fumes is silly.
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.
+100. But Charity Navigator can help you find those. The IRS form 990 discloses how much they pay their highest-paid employees.
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.
EDIT (replying to your edit): They are neither cheating nor exploiting any loophole. At least in the U.S., there is no limit to the total compensation that a non-profit corporation may pay to its officers. The law refers to “reasonable” compensation, which of course is meaningless. In 2019 there were so many officers of “charitable” corporations earning more than a million dollars annually that the IRS instituted an excise tax on their earnings (21% I think).
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?
Really? What makes you think it's all or even mostly waste?
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...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33174533
Or you could just do a single google search about "wikimedia funding" and have gotten this article and about 100 others.
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.
What else are we going to do? 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.
You can use Wikipedia all you want. But suggesting that there is no choice is ridiculous.
https://wikiless.org/wiki/Main_Page
EDIT: Wikipedia had the WikiLess source code taken down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33101853 and this comment has been downvoted, which is not a complaint but an observation.
I was trying to find the source code but instead landed at the following GitHub project for a wikiless app. The README.md is quite interesting:
https://github.com/Nangjing/wikiless/blob/main/README.md
i've never donated, but they dont need to know that.
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/
It measures compliance and bureaucratic procedures, and that's about it.
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.
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.
Because they are doing so under the false pretenses of urgency and desperation, when they are very well off.
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?
Just a single one?
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.
Do you have some specific examples? Further, how much are they 'wasting' as a function of their reserves?
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
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.
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...
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?
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."
We can argue about that extra 30%, but it’s not what people are expecting to pay for.
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
I can try to summarize if you like, but it's probably explained elsewhere in this story's comments.
"Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22442454
This is a discussion forum, not a blog.
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.
> 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?
See you tomorrow
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.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost...