What are some good arguments against donating to the Wikimedia Foundation?
3 Answers
It's worth reading some comments from the Wikimedia mailing list about the current fundraising banner.
1. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was in financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because there isn't. The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn’t the first person that’s asked me about this. When they find out there’s not a real problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated. —User:Ryan lane - MediaWiki, creator of Wikimedia Labs
2. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
I agree that the urgency and alarm of the copy is not commensurate with my (admittedly limited) understanding of our financial situation. Could we run a survey that places the banner copy alongside a concise statement of the Foundation’s financials, and which asks the respondent to indicate whether they regard the copy as misleading. —Wikimedia developer Ori Livneh
3. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
I’m alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise to the fundraising team, because I can’t imagine this content hasn’t been
written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. —Wikipedia admin Martijn Hoekstra
4. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
Lila, the concern is not that the fundraiser is working, which your soundbite confirms, but that it is deceiving people, or at least manipulating them "too much" to be consistent with our values. —John Vandenberg, Wikipedia admin, past arbitrator, past president of Wikimedia Australia
5. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
I am however negatively-struck by the finishing statement, a return to the old motto of "keep us online without advertising for one more year". I
thought that we had collectively agreed that banners that directly threaten advertising next year were not going to happen any more. Remember when we used to get lots of mainstream media reports saying "Wikipedia will soon have ads!" as a result of those campaigns in the past? (This is different from simply saying "we don't have ads and we're proud of it", etc.) —Liam Wyatt (User:Wittylama), GLAMwiki coordinator
6. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
If your foundation were to disappear tomorrow, there would be a moment of chaos, followed by business as usual, with hosting supplied by another (possibly pre-existing), hopefully competent non-profit with a mission to educate. I'm very optimistic that Lila is turning things around, but all we have to go on at the moment is the past performance of your foundation. Your failure of a foundation that has added nothing to the reliability and value of the world's encyclopedia, while sucking up hundreds of millions of readers' dollars, does not deserve immortality, based on its performance up to now. —Anthony Cole, Board member Wiki Project Med Foundation
Food for thought?
This year’s automated thank-you message for donors reportedly (see Revealing Rehoboth, miracle of Wikipedia, solstice on its way - Cape Gazette) reads,
“Over the past year, gifts like yours powered our efforts to expand the encyclopedia in 287 languages and to make it more accessible all over the world. We strive most to impact those who would not have access to education otherwise. We bring knowledge to people like Akshaya Iyengar from Solapur, India. Growing up in this small textile-manufacturing town, she used Wikipedia as her primary learning source. For students in these areas, where books are scarce but mobile internet access exists, Wikipedia is instrumental. Akshaya went on to graduate from college in India and now works as a software engineer in the United States. She credits Wikipedia with powering half of her knowledge.
“This story is not unique. Our mission is lofty and presents great challenges. Most people who use Wikipedia are surprised to hear it is run by a nonprofit organization and funded by your donations. Each year, just enough people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone. Thank you for making this mission possible.”
Each year, just enough people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone? No. Each year just enough people donate for the Wikimedia Foundation to have been able to
* accumulate $28 million in cash or cash equivalents and $23 million in investments as of 30 June 2014 (Page on wikimedia.org) and
* increase their annual spending by more than 1,000% since 2008.
![]()
(See data table and sources at the bottom of this page: File:Wikimedia Foundation financial development 2003-2012.png)
Less than 6 cents of each dollar donated to the Wikimedia Foundation actually goes on Internet hosting (Page on wikimedia.org). The single biggest expense item is salaries and wages (nearly $20 million), and most (File:2014-15 Wikimedia Foundation Plan.pdf) of that (File:2014-15 Wikimedia Foundation Plan.pdf) goes to the department that brought Wikipedia products like the MoodBar - MediaWiki, the Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool, the VisualEditor (Wikipedia:VisualEditor/V
From a historical perspective, I think it's interesting to contrast the current state of affairs with what Jimmy Wales told a TED audience in 2005 (time code 4:35):
“So, we’re doing around 1.4 billion page views monthly. So, it’s really gotten to be a huge thing. And everything is managed by the volunteers and the total monthly cost for our bandwidth is about 5,000 dollars, and that’s essentially our main cost. We could actually do without the employee … We actually hired Brion [Vibber] because he was working part-time for two years and full-time at Wikipedia so we actually hired him so he could get a life and go to the movies sometimes.”
There are alternative ways of donating (Make your Wikipedia donations count). For example, you can offer a reward for a volunteer to write or improve an article you think is lacking, at the Wikipedia Reward Board (Wikipedia:Reward board). You can donate your own time, and contribute to Wikipedia yourself.
I have long thought it would be a good thing if donors could indicate what they want their money spent on, or if the Wikimedia Foundation did research to find out what donors think they are supporting. It's not clear to many readers, for example, that all of Wikipedia is written by unpaid volunteers, and that the Wikimedia Foundation takes no active part in writing the content, or having it checked and improved by experts. They do not even measure content quality, because they don't know how to do it ([Wikimedia-l] Our next strategy plan-Paid editing).
If you do donate to the Wikimedia Foundation, be sure to read their annual plan, and understand that most of the money will go into maintaining and expanding paid staff in their software engineering department (File:2014-15 Wikimedia Foundation Plan.pdf)—which, as Jimmy Wales has acknowledged (User talk:Jimbo Wales: Difference between revisions), has a very questionable record in terms of delivering value for money—and into grants for Wikimedia chapters, whose record has also come under scrutiny (Where does your Wikipedia donation go? Outgoing chief warns of potential corruption, Review urges major overhaul of governance at Wikimedia UK).
Further source material:
Wikipedia faces revolt over VisualEditor
Class war! Wikipedia's workers revolt again
Wikipedia Foundation exec: Yes, we've been wasting your money
Wikipedia won't stop BEGGING for cash - despite sitting on $60m
Wikipedia is booming—so why is it still asking you for money?
The Wikipedia Fundraising Banner: Sad but Untrue
The Battle for Wikipedia: How Your Donations May Be Destroying the Crowd-sourced Encyclopedia
Donating to Wikipedia to "keep it online and ad-free"
1. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was in financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because there isn't. The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn’t the first person that’s asked me about this. When they find out there’s not a real problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated. —User:Ryan lane - MediaWiki, creator of Wikimedia Labs
2. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
I agree that the urgency and alarm of the copy is not commensurate with my (admittedly limited) understanding of our financial situation. Could we run a survey that places the banner copy alongside a concise statement of the Foundation’s financials, and which asks the respondent to indicate whether they regard the copy as misleading. —Wikimedia developer Ori Livneh
3. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
I’m alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise to the fundraising team, because I can’t imagine this content hasn’t been
written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. —Wikipedia admin Martijn Hoekstra
4. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
Lila, the concern is not that the fundraiser is working, which your soundbite confirms, but that it is deceiving people, or at least manipulating them "too much" to be consistent with our values. —John Vandenberg, Wikipedia admin, past arbitrator, past president of Wikimedia Australia
5. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
I am however negatively-struck by the finishing statement, a return to the old motto of "keep us online without advertising for one more year". I
thought that we had collectively agreed that banners that directly threaten advertising next year were not going to happen any more. Remember when we used to get lots of mainstream media reports saying "Wikipedia will soon have ads!" as a result of those campaigns in the past? (This is different from simply saying "we don't have ads and we're proud of it", etc.) —Liam Wyatt (User:Wittylama), GLAMwiki coordinator
6. [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)
If your foundation were to disappear tomorrow, there would be a moment of chaos, followed by business as usual, with hosting supplied by another (possibly pre-existing), hopefully competent non-profit with a mission to educate. I'm very optimistic that Lila is turning things around, but all we have to go on at the moment is the past performance of your foundation. Your failure of a foundation that has added nothing to the reliability and value of the world's encyclopedia, while sucking up hundreds of millions of readers' dollars, does not deserve immortality, based on its performance up to now. —Anthony Cole, Board member Wiki Project Med Foundation
Food for thought?
This year’s automated thank-you message for donors reportedly (see Revealing Rehoboth, miracle of Wikipedia, solstice on its way - Cape Gazette) reads,
“Over the past year, gifts like yours powered our efforts to expand the encyclopedia in 287 languages and to make it more accessible all over the world. We strive most to impact those who would not have access to education otherwise. We bring knowledge to people like Akshaya Iyengar from Solapur, India. Growing up in this small textile-manufacturing town, she used Wikipedia as her primary learning source. For students in these areas, where books are scarce but mobile internet access exists, Wikipedia is instrumental. Akshaya went on to graduate from college in India and now works as a software engineer in the United States. She credits Wikipedia with powering half of her knowledge.
“This story is not unique. Our mission is lofty and presents great challenges. Most people who use Wikipedia are surprised to hear it is run by a nonprofit organization and funded by your donations. Each year, just enough people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone. Thank you for making this mission possible.”
Each year, just enough people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone? No. Each year just enough people donate for the Wikimedia Foundation to have been able to
* accumulate $28 million in cash or cash equivalents and $23 million in investments as of 30 June 2014 (Page on wikimedia.org) and
* increase their annual spending by more than 1,000% since 2008.
Less than 6 cents of each dollar donated to the Wikimedia Foundation actually goes on Internet hosting (Page on wikimedia.org). The single biggest expense item is salaries and wages (nearly $20 million), and most (File:2014-15 Wikimedia Foundation Plan.pdf) of that (File:2014-15 Wikimedia Foundation Plan.pdf) goes to the department that brought Wikipedia products like the MoodBar - MediaWiki, the Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool, the VisualEditor (Wikipedia:VisualEditor/V
From a historical perspective, I think it's interesting to contrast the current state of affairs with what Jimmy Wales told a TED audience in 2005 (time code 4:35):
“So, we’re doing around 1.4 billion page views monthly. So, it’s really gotten to be a huge thing. And everything is managed by the volunteers and the total monthly cost for our bandwidth is about 5,000 dollars, and that’s essentially our main cost. We could actually do without the employee … We actually hired Brion [Vibber] because he was working part-time for two years and full-time at Wikipedia so we actually hired him so he could get a life and go to the movies sometimes.”
There are alternative ways of donating (Make your Wikipedia donations count). For example, you can offer a reward for a volunteer to write or improve an article you think is lacking, at the Wikipedia Reward Board (Wikipedia:Reward board). You can donate your own time, and contribute to Wikipedia yourself.
I have long thought it would be a good thing if donors could indicate what they want their money spent on, or if the Wikimedia Foundation did research to find out what donors think they are supporting. It's not clear to many readers, for example, that all of Wikipedia is written by unpaid volunteers, and that the Wikimedia Foundation takes no active part in writing the content, or having it checked and improved by experts. They do not even measure content quality, because they don't know how to do it ([Wikimedia-l] Our next strategy plan-Paid editing).
If you do donate to the Wikimedia Foundation, be sure to read their annual plan, and understand that most of the money will go into maintaining and expanding paid staff in their software engineering department (File:2014-15 Wikimedia Foundation Plan.pdf)—which, as Jimmy Wales has acknowledged (User talk:Jimbo Wales: Difference between revisions), has a very questionable record in terms of delivering value for money—and into grants for Wikimedia chapters, whose record has also come under scrutiny (Where does your Wikipedia donation go? Outgoing chief warns of potential corruption, Review urges major overhaul of governance at Wikimedia UK).
Further source material:
Wikipedia faces revolt over VisualEditor
Class war! Wikipedia's workers revolt again
Wikipedia Foundation exec: Yes, we've been wasting your money
Wikipedia won't stop BEGGING for cash - despite sitting on $60m
Wikipedia is booming—so why is it still asking you for money?
The Wikipedia Fundraising Banner: Sad but Untrue
The Battle for Wikipedia: How Your Donations May Be Destroying the Crowd-sourced Encyclopedia
Donating to Wikipedia to "keep it online and ad-free"
