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Comment by qingcharles | Hacker News Reader

I honestly don't care if Wikimedia has several billion stashed away like all the Ivy Leagues do. They are doing God's work, mostly thankless work, and they have managed to do it well in an Internet mostly comprised of dross. How they have managed to keep the quality up and keep it as neutral as they have is beyond me. I've run user-generated content sites and keeping on top of the moderation will make you Google self-harm FAQs on an hourly basis.

I'm throwing my money at the screen right now.

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Did you really not know that the editors and "moderators" (a term not used on Wikipedia) are unpaid? The Wikimedia Foundation intervenes very rarely in content. Essentially, it only takes action on content if there is a court order to that effect. ALL OTHER CONTENT CURATION IS DONE BY UNPAID VOLUNTEERS.

The Foundation "does not write or curate any of the content found on the projects", as they are happy to tell you themselves here:

https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/10/05/a-victory-for-free-kno...

Even most of the emails sent to the Wikimedia Foundation are answered by unpaid volunteers, the Volunteer Response Team:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Volunteer_Response_T...

Sorry to sound harsh, but you are laboring under a misconception and spreading it.

No, I understand completely; it wasn't clear from my post. I've been an editor myself since 2004.

What Wikimedia have done is create a platform and mission and steered that mission to produce a culture that has bred the unpaid editors and kept them on-mission and stopped too many of them going rogue. That platform steering is not to be underestimated. Too many sites with user-generated content descend into insanity within a short amount of time.

Okay, I understand, and thanks for explaining. (I first registered an account in 2006.)

To what extent do you think it is the Foundation that keeps this culture and mindset going these days? And does more money and higher pay help them to do so?

As a former admin, I don't think I ever interacted with anyone from WMF. As you probably know, deletions, locks, bans, bot approvals, etc. are normally handled by volunteers. Even requests for adminship are discussed by volunteers, then finalized by volunteer bureaucrats.

I would say the culture you mention was bred in very early days of Wikipedia. Editor activity peaked in 2007, when the annual budget was ~$2m. The prior year was <$800k.

They aren’t though. The amount of money they are spending on the core product you are thinking of is actually declining. All this extra raised cash is going to other purposes.

They are and they aren't. I mean, they are still spending money on the core product and it is still a great product and I still love it, but I understand what you're getting at - they're getting proportionally more cash but not spending it on Wikipedia, but all sorts of other side projects that most people are never going to use.

I'm still happy to let them do it simply because of the love I have for all their work on Wikipedia. They can spend my money on crazy if they want, as long as it makes the right people happy.

The fact that the (essentially) negative article about severance payments exists on Wikipedia itself is at least a good sign that they're not trying to hide what other nonprofits would gladly want to sweep under the rug.

That would be okay if not for one (1) the deceptive advertising they plaster Wikipedia with saying they’re about to shut down when in fact hosting costs are a rounding error, and (2) many of the things they are funding has absolutely jack all to do with Wikipedia.

It’s Kars4Kids levels of charitable fraud.

But the editors and moderators aren't paid.

I know. It wasn't clear from my post.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36036396

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