It seems especially bizarre for a non-profit organisation where the bulk of all the actual work is done freely by volunteers.
What is actually going on here?
When you have cancer and missing children charities giving 2% to their cause and spending the remainder on bullshit it is trivial to make your charity not look as bad.
If you really dig into it, a huge % of charity money is just funding the insiders travel and lifestyle in the name of "fund raising".
This payout is nothing on a relative basis compared to other non-profits and that is the real issue.
Sorry for the negativity, feeling bitter about it.
Firing people is not fun and is emotionally difficult. I would love to give 1.5x salary but there’s usually some controller restricting me to something I don’t like but can’t change.
Wikimedia doesn’t have a duty to maximize shareholder equity and they have tons of money, so they can. I wonder what else they spend similarly on.
I typically donate to wikimedia and behavior like this makes me rethink. How many more people need to donate to allow these people their money?
Also, there is bloat in non-profits, but it isn't like everything is done by volunteers. Volunteers don't run the servers, they don't handle donation processing, they don't respond to lawsuits from people upset about how they are portrayed on Wikipedia. Then all those employees need HR, IT, janitors, etc., and then there are executives who run the organization.