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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

This seems to be about the endowment - That's not the same as normal donations, and they can't just "use it", they can basically only use the interest of that money, from what i understand.

Disclaimer: Used to work for wikimedia, once upon a time, don't anymore.

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The article mentions both the endowment ($100M) and also WMF's funds on hand ($300M?). So the main point is still valid.

Wikipedia's fundraising strongly implies that they need your $3 to keep the site online.

WMF has $400M which would be enough to keep the site online for up to 40 years with no further donations.

Thus, their fundraising is misleading and deceptive. I bet 9 in 10 donators won't donate if they knew WMF has $400 million in the bank -- isn't it morally wrong if you paint a deceptive picture of your finances?

I think you have those numbers reversed. According to the article (I presume its accurate), the endowment total is $300M [including funds from multiple years], and the fundraising total so far this fiscal year is $142M (I assume that's gross, fundraising has costs).

The majority of Wikimedia's money goes to software development, not keeping the lights on. I think there are definitely reasonable criticisms that could be made about WMF's priorities and efficiencies (Not to mention how its situation is conveyed in the fundraising campaign), but I struggle to see a world where WMF spends the absolute bare minimum to keep the lights on, with no further funding to new software development, and Wikipedia is still a success.

Disclaimer: used to work there, don't anymore.

> The majority of Wikimedia's money goes to software development, not keeping the lights on

The majority of the money goes to grants (because they don't even know what to do with it internally), followed by fundraising and brand building ("advancement" and "communications") which has the largest staff numbers. Then lawyers, and technology staff and contractors are a distant fourth...

> a world where WMF spends the absolute bare minimum to keep the lights on, with no further funding to new software development, and Wikipedia is still a success

I 'member back in 2005-2008 that was the state of the world. WMF paid Brion Vibber and the bandwidth bills and Brion kept the lights on. It was the most successful time for Wikipedia with massive growth and recognition.

This is almost exactly backwards. Half of the staff work on tech. https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/

2005-2008 was extraordinary from this standpoint, no question. A reminder of what a small group can accomplish with a vision that brings together a community ready to rewrite the world, from the ground up if need be.

The WMF has refused to state how the endowment is stuctured, so we have no proof that they cannot dip into the principle whenever they feel the need/want.

Users have tried asking for clarification. Multiple times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

I dont think your link really supports what you're saying. One user speculating on a user space page (what amounts to essentially a personal blog) is not the same as actually asking for clarification, and it definitely isn't a large group of users asking for such, as your use of plural would imply.

Which isn't to say nobody has ever asked, im sure someone has at some point, just that's not supported by your link.

I use the plural because I know there is more than one editor (Guy) who cares about this, if only because there is also myself. I know there is more than that, however, because of the discussion pages (a sampling of which is linked below) regarding this.

The page itself is a starting point. If you want the meat of the community discussion, here's direct links:

* The original "Signpost" op-ed, a curated meta newspaper of which the user-page is merely a constantly-updated copy of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...

* Requests to the WMF for clarifcation:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_n...

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#How...?

etc, etc, etc. You get the point.

This is a huge rabbit hole and I didn't want to be accused of "Gish galloping" by linking all this at the top.

> they can basically only use the interest of that money

That's even more of a problem if you do not support such scheme to extort money from the working classes.

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