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Comment by mhh__ | Hacker News Reader

People seem to want these foundations to not only spend the absolute bare minimum but also don't like them paying their staff properly or even at all. So many times I've read people grumbling about expenses, only when you work out it out per employee it's completely reasonable for a small business let alone one of the largest brands in the world.

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It's about aligned incentives. I worked for a not-for-profit which needed 10 people, but had funds and grew to 100. From there on, it did less with more. The CEO had his headcount and first-class airfares. Beneficiaries turned into cash cows. Etc.

I trust the founders. I don't trust new leadership. That's not specific to Wikimedia.

That's also not specific to non-profits.

I must admit I like the idea of the WMF having a grand vision for the future and raising money for it (and I'm a bit puzzled by the people who want restrict it to where it was 10 years ago). It's their foundation to run, they have big plans, and it you don't like it you can ignore it.

If people feel that they were somehow tricked into their donation, they have instructions on how to request a refund.

It's an interesting thought experiment to consider if Wikipedia didn't exist what would change in the way we learn about and discuss things, especially in these days of fake news etc. Britannica is 75$ per year.

> It's their foundation to run, they have big plans, and it you don't like it you can ignore it.

(Some of) the execs are manipulating people to donate, many of the donors wouldn't have donated, had they known that there was enough money already for Wikipedia.

> If people feel that they were somehow tricked into their donation

Problem is, they are unaware about having been tricked.

They generally don't know about this discussion at HN.

How is it tricked?

The annual donation drive messages dishonestly imply a level of urgency that has never existed. At no point in Wikipedia's history has the project been threatened due to a lack of funds.

> I must admit I like the idea of the WMF having a grand vision for the future and raising money for it

They're not raising money on their vision for the future though. Their fundraising ads imply that if you don't donate then Wikipedia.org will go offline

This is a strawman. People want Wikimedia to do what they think Wikimedia does, which is maintain Wikipedia. That means they think it should take $xmillion per year where x is a number much, much less than 100. If they included in their donation banner that most of your donation goes to shit that you don't care about at all they wouldn't be able to fund whatever their pet projects are.

100% agree with this. It's such a BS narrative. It's like the world wants not for profits to not be able to support staff or to pay them the bare minimum so that at some point the staff go leave for the private sector and rob the organization of its talent/knowledge base. FWIW I don't work for a NFP but both the public sector and NFP world are not well funded enough.

Instead of complaining when a top shelf global organization get paid a reasonable wage in California for the scope of their work maybe focus on how we can redistribute incomes more appropriately.

Also - I am obviously against wasted resources or overly bloated organization or corruption but nothing in this report seems to point anything of that nature. /end mini-rant

People just want them to act responsible. Wikipedia is not a FAANG nor a Profit-Company, so they should not act like one.

> People seem to want these foundations to not only spend the absolute bare minimum but also don't like them paying their staff properly or even at all.

Not at all would have my vote. I would donate for that.

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