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Op-ed

Does the Wikimedia fundraising survey address community concerns?

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By Andreas Kolbe
One of the fundraising banners displayed on Wikipedia.
The publication of the Wikimedia survey findings on fundraising questions, compiled by Lake Research Partners (see last week's special report in the Signpost), came three months after significant concerns were voiced on the Wikimedia mailing list and on meta:Talk:Fundraising_principles about the design and wording of the December 2014 fundraising banners and e-mails. The fundraising team promised to post feedback analysis on March 1. To the extent that this survey may be viewed as a response to community concerns, does it address them?

Let us revisit the debate that took place three months ago. I will focus here on concerns expressed about the banner and e-mail wordings, rather than complaints about the size and design of the banners.

Fundraising banner wording

Slide 16 of the survey findings document displays a sample fundraising banner. For reference, it reads as follows:

DEAR WIKIPEDIA READERS, We'll get right to it: This week we ask our readers to help us. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We survive on donations averaging about $15. Only a tiny portion of our readers give. If everyone reading this right now gave $3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. That's right, the price of a cup of coffee is all we need. We're a small non-profit with costs of a top website: servers, staff and programs. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park where we can all go to learn. If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free. Thank you.

This is one of several, all very similar wordings that were used. For a longer example, see the image above right.

Community concerns

A number of longstanding community members felt that the messages on the fundraising banners were misleading, given the Wikimedia Foundation's unprecedented wealth. Below are excerpts from posts made by community members on the public Wikimedia-l mailing list. Emphases are mine.

Wittylama wrote on November 27, 2014:

Wikimedia developer Ori Livneh wrote on November 30, 2014:

Ryan Lane, the creator of Wikimedia Labs, wrote on December 2, 2014:

Administrator Martijn Hoekstra wrote on December 3, 2014:

Former Arbitration Committee member John Vandenberg wrote on December 4, 2014, in response to Lila Tretikov:

MZMcBride wrote on December 18, 2014:

David Gerard, another former Arbitrator, replied to MZMcBride minutes later:

Does the survey address or invalidate these concerns?

Survey findings

Some of the main findings of the survey are:

  1. Ignorance and misconceptions about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia are common. For example, slide 3 states that "Although a majority of Wikipedia users correctly identify the organization that supports it as a non-profit, many are misinformed or uncertain."
  2. The most common reason for donating is, "I use Wikipedia often and want to support it", refined after additional questions to "I use Wikipedia and would like to see it remain a source of information" (slides 9–10).
  3. Most users find the fundraising messages "convincing" (slide 23).

In aggregate, these findings—that people are generally not well informed about even the most basic organisational aspects of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, that they would like Wikipedia to remain available to them, and that they find a banner message calling for donations so that Wikipedia can stay "online and ad-free for another year" convincing—are not particularly surprising. This is precisely what the criticism on the mailing list was based on.

Most importantly, I found no evidence in the Lake Research Partners document that what John Vandenberg and Ori Livneh asked for in the posts quoted above—i.e. that survey respondents be given detailed information about current financials, strategies and cost breakdowns, and then asked to re-assess the fundraising messages—was done as part of this survey.

Receiving such information is certainly capable of drastically changing some donors' minds, as illustrated by the following comments posted on Twitter:

That the survey findings remain silent on this topic is unfortunate.

Fundraiser performance

The Wikimedia Foundation's revenue has increased every year of its existence, and by about 1,000% over the past six years or so. (See Wikimedia Foundation#Finances.) In addition, the Foundation has tended to overachieve its revenue targets and underspend in recent years, leading to substantial increases in its reserve.

Wikimedia Foundation financial development 2003–2014. Green is revenue, red is expenditure, and black is assets, in millions of dollars.

The December 2014 fundraiser apparently was the most successful ever. According to WMF fundraising data, more than $30 million was raised from December 2 through December 31—over $10 million more than the fundraising target mentioned in the January 2015 Wikimedia Foundation blog post, "Thank you for keeping knowledge free and accessible". The combined total for November and December 2014 was close to $40 million, around two-thirds of the planned total for the 2014/2015 financial year.

The automated thank-you e-mail for donors reportedly read (my emphasis),

Is it true that each year, "just enough" people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge online and available for everyone? No. Looking at the figures, each year just enough people have donated for the Wikimedia Foundation to have been able to

According to the Wikimedia Foundation's most recent financial statement, less than 5 cents of each revenue dollar (a little over $2.5 million) went to Internet hosting.

The single biggest expense item was Wikimedia Foundation salaries and wages (nearly $20 million). Most of that goes to the software engineering department, whose work in recent years has often been controversial in the community; witness recent debates about VisualEditor, the Media Viewer, Superprotect and mobile user profiles.

Times have changed

From a historical perspective, it's interesting to contrast the current state of affairs with what Jimmy Wales told a TED audience in 2005 (time code 4:35, emphasis mine):

A fundraising message focused on keeping Wikipedia "online and ad-free" was entirely appropriate at a time when that was indeed the project's main cost. But those times are long past.

The influx of hundreds of millions of dollars—a reflection of the goodwill Wikipedia's volunteer-created content generates around the world—is bringing about a major structural change in the Wikimedia movement, creating hundreds of paid jobs at the Wikimedia Foundation and in Wikimedia chapters around the world, in particular to move software engineering tasks from volunteers to paid staff (with mixed results to date). It's where the lion's share of donors' money is going.

The survey leaves me with little confidence that readers and donors are aware of these facts, and it tells us nothing about how they would feel if they learnt them.

Future fundraising

If the uppermost value involved in Wikimedia fundraising is to generate as much money as possible, then the findings of this survey can be used to argue that there is no problem. According to the survey results, people don't mind the fundraising banners all that much; they find them compelling—and donate money as a result. The most recent campaign was outstandingly successful in financial terms. This is what fundraising campaigns are for, right?

Critics like those quoted above might counter that the Wikimedia movement's aspirations are about providing full and accurate information to the public, and that transparency and honesty should take precedence over self-interest.

In a little over eight months' time, there will be another December fundraiser. I look forward to seeing which of these arguments will prevail, and whether the 2015 banners will once more ask people to donate tens of millions of dollars in order to keep Wikipedia "online and ad-free".


Andreas Kolbe has been a Wikipedia contributor since 2006 and is a longstanding contributor to the Signpost's "In the media" section. The views expressed in this editorial are his alone and do not reflect any official opinions of this publication. Responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section.

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  • The latest fundraiser doesn’t seem that different… except that even after you donate, you keep getting slammed with ads telling you how often you’ve used Wikipedia. Saving my money next year! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.199.115.61 (talk) 10:46, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This just seems silly, given how low key the fund raising campaign is. Nobody threatens to close down Wikipedia if you don't contribute. (If so show me!) The WMF displays the banner about twice per year and you can dismiss it in seconds. If you don't want to contribute, don't. But please don't make up a problem where there isn't one. 72.94.160.105 (talk) 05:09, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Wikimedia Foundation could just do what Wikimedia Philippines does. http://www.wikimedia.org.ph/wmph/Main_Page has a "join us" link that leads to a docs.google.com page that asks you to pay a fee to become a "regular member". (becoming am "Associate Member" is free.) Who could possibly have a problem with that? (Guy ducks while everyone throws rotten vegetables at him) --Guy Macon (talk) 06:02, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It does not matter how low key the campaign is, it should also be honest. For me the problem is as Kolbe writes, the campaign is not honest. The same goes with a mail message I got from WMF, if I and other previous donators gave, then they did not have to collect money for the rest of the year. The foundation has reserves, and if they run out it could cut staff to almost nothing and still the contributors would be able to work on improving Wikipedia. I don't say that this is preferable and I do think that most of what the WMF does served our purpose, but then we should say that and not use some other language that does not fully reflect reality. Ulflarsen (talk) 06:46, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wait. 250. Two hundred and fifty. The Foundation has 250 employees???? Why don't I see much from what they do, except producing disasters like the Visual Editor and Flow? The Foundation seems to follow the basic principle of any bureaucracy: growth for growth's sake... And no bureaucracy ever shrinks again... --Randykitty (talk) 08:12, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • For comparison:
Microsoft: 128,076 employees
Facebook: 9,199 employees
Twitter: 3,600 employees
National Science Foundation: 1,700 employees
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: 1,223 employees
Encyclopædia Britannica: 400 employees
Wikimedia Foundation: 208 employees
Internet Archive: 200 employees
Reddit: 68 employees
Electronic Frontier Foundation: 49 employees
Craigslist: 40 employees
Free Software Foundation: 12 employees
--Guy Macon (talk) 15:32, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmmm. That's the same citation the infobox at Wikimedia Foundation uses for it's 208 number. Shall we update that infobox? And maybe put in a number for volunteers newer than 2005? :( --Guy Macon (talk) 16:37, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting list. Microsoft, of course, makes software that actually works. Craigslist is a good comparison, I think: they need a legal department, software developers to maintain the website so that anyone can edit their ads, marketing people, and people checking content. As WMF is not involved in the latter task, I guess they should be able to function with a few people less than Craigslist. Or compare with Reddit, same story. What are these 250-odd people doing? --Randykitty (talk) 14:16, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Microsoft, of course, makes software that actually works." [citation needed] "Taken to court over its insistence on making IE a mandatory integrated element of Windows, a seemingly self-destructive Microsoft tried to win favour with the judges by devoting vast resources to making IE slower, stupider and even more proprietary. Even Mac users were forced to use the bloody thing..." Dabbs, Alistair (21 Mar 2015). "Dear departed Internet Explorer, how I will miss you ... NOT". Devoting vast resources on buggy software that it tries to force people to use? A more apt comparison than you might think, but with over 600 times more employees than the Foundation, Microsoft has a lot to prove. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 11:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's bad to mislead people when you're asking them for money. I'm surprised to see the fundraising survey didn't even try to determine whether the banner was misleading readers, as so many well-respected Wikimedians had warned. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:59, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • So where are these "blatant falsehoods"? Nobody has identified one. It seems that the problem that the commenters are complaining about is that the WMF has cash reserves. Most people would not consider that a problem, in fact it would be irresponsible to wait until the last moment before the reserves run out to conduct a fund raising campaign. 72.94.160.105 (talk) 12:59, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • One point that was raised repeatedly in the linked mailing list discussions is that the banners and emails imply donations are needed to keep Wikipedia "online and ad-free for another year", as though there were an acute problem with paying the hosting fees—to the extent that ads would have to be considered to keep the site online if people didn't donate. Readers left with that impression would obviously be more willing to donate. However, neither of those things is true of course: the Foundation probably has enough money in the bank right now to pay Internet hosting costs at the current rate ($2.5 million per year) for 20 years, and nobody is remotely considering converting Wikipedia to an ad-based revenue model to prevent the site from going under. Instead, the money is fuelling an unprecedented organisational expansion with an exponential increase in paid staff, as noted in the Epoch Times a couple of days ago. The donations are facilitating a deep structural change in the Wikimedia movement. I don't think that is something donors are really aware of. Andreas JN466 14:07, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is the 6th time you've quoted Lila Tretikov's thank you note thanking donors for keeping Wikipedia "online and ad-free for another year". This note went out to people who had already donated. It was not a threat to close down Wikipedia or allow ads unless they donated. They had already donated. Those donors did help keep Wikipedia online - the donations pay for the cost of programmers and hosting, as well as for the needed accountants, lawyers, and for the expenses of board members (board members don't get salaries AFAIK). Perhaps what you don't like is that the WMF also gives grants to chapters and editors. If so, that is what you should be complaining about, not making up stories that Lila Tretikov is spreading "blatant falsehoods". The closest thing that I see to a blatant falsehood in this article is your repeated statements that Tretikov and the WMF are spreading blatant falsehoods. 72.94.160.105 (talk) 16:27, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • The wording "online and ad-free another year" is also present on the banner shown at the top of the page. [1]. A number of banners shown during the campaign had this wording. The expression "blatant falsehoods" came from David Gerard, a longstanding Wikimedia press spokesman in the UK. Andreas JN466 16:41, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • The WMF gives grants to editors? Really? Wbm1058 (talk) 14:40, 22 March 2015 (UTC) So, I am aware that the WMF gives "scholarship" grants to editors who request needs-based financial assistance to attend Wikimania and other events which require travel and lodging to attend. But does the WMF give grants for actual editing of the encyclopedia's content? Wbm1058 (talk) 16:24, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the person making that "blatant falsehoods" comment more literally meant "blatant lying by omission". Wbm1058 (talk) 16:02, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I went through the fundraising banner line-by-line here: http://newslines.org/blog/stop-giving-wikipedia-money/ Stop Giving Wikipedia Money. Also, as noted in this Quora post Jimmy Wales and others only came up with the we-need-the-money-to-keep-going-for-x-number-of-years excuse after people complained that the fundraising was excessive. -- Sparkzilla talk! 17:43, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The whole survey reeks of something especially commissioned to support the justification lyrics for this scare-mongering begging spree with huge banners. One of the main questions, the obvious discrepancy between the claim of running out of money soon for the core operation and the vast coffers of money stashed somewhere together with an exponentially expanding paid bureaucracy, that wants more money for itself instead of for the project, wasn't asked at all. WP could run for decades on the money already there, only without all those staffers, but again as an community project. When will the WMF finally come up with answers to that questions? --♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 14:28, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(off-topic) For a moment I thought Larry Sanger was back! ResMar 17:06, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(OT as well) Neither him nor the spacecraft or its inventor, just my nickname for ca. 35 years ;) ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 17:12, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another fine investigation by Andrea. However, there is one point he appears to have missed; maybe he assumed we knew it, or I've not read his article carefully enough to see it. The chief problem with current Wikimedia fundraising is that it violates the ideas of the movement, & is performed solely to maximize revenue from fundraising. The banners fill the screen of a cell phone; they use scare words; & there is the implication that the money will be used, at least in part, to improve & maintain content -- none of which is true. I suspect a lot of this is due to pressure on the fundraisers to maximize revenue, with no relevant constraints on how this is done. (The survey about WMF fundraising & reported in the Signpost last week was an obvious whitewash to justify more of the same stuff that annoyed people.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:27, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks. I am quite certain that there is a widespread misconception among the public that the Wikimedia Foundation has some sort of involvement in writing, checking and improving actual Wikipedia content, and that they (falsely) assume a substantial proportion of donated money is used to this end. I did think that everyone reading this here knows this not to be the case. I would be interested though in knowing how widespread that misconception is among the public, and to what extent it affects donor behaviour.
    • The Foundation has made it clear on numerous occasions that it considers content management the task of the volunteer community. Indeed, the public by and large does not understand that the fundraising banner is a Wikimedia fundraising banner, rather than a Wikipedia fundraising banner, and has little idea of the respective contributions the Foundation and the volunteer community make to the site they read. Andreas JN466 14:02, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • A few more comparisons:
http://regmedia.co.uk/2013/10/07/wikimedia_foundation_financial_development_2003-2012.png
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/PlotEditsZZ.png
http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2014/1/8/PlotEditorsEN.png
http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2014/1/8/PlotNewArticlesEN.png
http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2014/1/8/PlotNewArticlesEN.png
http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2014/1/8/PlotTotalArticlesEN.png
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/PlotPageviewsEN.png
--Guy Macon (talk) 17:37, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How does this fit into the wider narrative?

I took over the reins of managing News and notes a few weeks ago, and one of the first things that, coming back, shocked me, was the sheer mass of the amount of things that I, as the reporter responsible for covering internal news, had to keep on plate very week. Since the first time I wrote for the Signpost in 2011 the Wikimedia Foundation has doubled in size in staff, and the effect on what I have to cover in compiling weekly news has had the requisite increase as well. I have two things to say about this, one good, one bad.

First, the good. I don't think that the Wikimedia Foundation should necessarily return to the days of Sue Gardner-plus-40 (or, as it was in '07, Sue Gardner-plus-7), because both the Wikimedia movement and the wikimedias themselves have fundamentally changed in that time. For all the flack it gets the Foundation has deployed a number of effective measures: it has, as its core purpose, managed to keep editor numbers stable and has managed to significantly impact both systematic bias and the gender gap as organizational and structural problems within the volunteerist movement. I accept that there are certain problems that develop and important cultural implications that occur when a movement jumps from 1-and-something combined articles to 4-and-something million on the English Wikipedia alone; in fact, I wrote an essay touching on this topic back in 2011 that I encourage everyone to read.

But my acceptance of Foundation bureaucracy comes with an important caveat, and that is one of oversight. Why is that people flock to wikireview or whatever it's called? Because there isn't a powerful independent entity which oversights the Foundation as extensively as the Foundation can oversight the community. We try to do it here at the Signpost, but as I think readers in 2014 know we're a tiny band of a half-dozen to a dozen editors attempting to keep track of movements in an organization 200+ people strong, not to mention the paid employees of the charter organizations, user-groups, volunteers in the community, etc. etc. I read a blog post like this one and—frankly, I learn nothing; it's corporate communication at its finest (not to say that the blog is all bad: see this for instance). And the Foundation needs oversight—it needs it badly. Long-time observers will know that to a large extent the Wikimedia Foundation has outgrown the volunteers that it serves. This goes all the way back to when in 2011 the Foundation flatly refused to implement ACTRIAL; the rationale was illustrated for me most scaldingly by Foundation employee Okeyes (formerly Ironholds) here. They have at times continued to perform actions diametrically opposed to community consensus: see for instance this RfC. It's in these instances that the Foundation rears its ugly head and asserts itself on a higher plane than us volunteers.

So then, who has the final say in matters concerning the Foundation: the community or the Foundation itself? The answer is clearly the latter, and that, in a nutshell, is the problem with the Wikimedia Foundation as it stands today. We've reached the point where a thousand of editors signing an open letter to the Foundation is not only necessary, but fails to generate the desired response. I doubt this will either. ResMar 18:01, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Foundation has money and access to numerous media outlets willing to republish its press releases. The community doesn't. It's not organised. Until it is, it won't have a voice. Andreas JN466 22:37, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well. A problem with that assumption is that the "community" will (or even can) have one voice. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:57, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
On many issues, the community will never have one voice. But what if there actually is a community consensus on a particular issue – say, based on a large-scale RfC? Indeed, this is a potential way forward on this issue. Andreas JN466 13:43, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Formerly"? Did someone send around a memo and not CC me? Possibly a memo naming me as Prince? ;p
Yes; the Foundation is not obliged to always do everything the community wants and never do anything the community doesn't want. And sometimes this is bad, and sometimes this is good, and sometimes it's worth noting that a WMF-administered discussion area is the only place on our projects with a friendly spaces policy, that a sitting enwiki arbitrator recently justified not working on civility on the grounds that the Pope said it was hard, and reconsidering your priorities if you think ACTRIAL is the big deal there. Ironholds (talk) 05:31, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand what were saying in the end of this comment. ResMar 01:05, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikipediocracy may be an imperfect instrument — yes, there are some participants there who frankly see Wikipedia as unsalvageable and seek its replacement by something, anything else — but it does provide a countervailing independent voice to that of the WMF. It is there to point out errors and does have the ability to quickly go to the mainstream media with a unified voice the same way the WMF can go to the mainsteam media if the occasion requires it. That's worthwhile. Signpost at its best has a similar ability to identify and publicize foibles, with the main difference being that it is part of the WMF's platform and thus ultimately under its jurisdiction and open to the commentary (spin) of its employees. There is something to be said for a real opposition press if one is concerned with identifying and remedying errors. Of course WPO is not perfect, but Wikipedians should not be mortally afraid of participating there. Even the scariest regulars bark far more than they bite. If you act decently to other people on wiki they might tease you a little, but they'll basically leave you the hell alone... Carrite (talk) 15:55, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • And many thanks, Ironholds, for the pointers towards "civility" and "friendly spaces". That's extremely valuable. Your long-term dedication in this area should be a beacon to all of us. We can do better. We must do better. I salute you. Begoon talk 18:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hey, FYI, Wikipedia now has an article about autonomous space. Also, safe-space. Cheers, Wbm1058 (talk) 17:06, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • I know. It's awesome. I was just pleased that someone with such a flawless record of off-site interaction steered us that way. It's why I'm proud to be a wikipedian. Begoon talk 17:28, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I honestly can't tell if you're joking or not. ResMar 20:28, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Begoon was most definitely joking, Res Mar. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kiefer.Wolfowitz_and_Ironholds#Ironholds for background. Andreas JN466 00:34, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. That is—astounding. ResMar 00:43, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Computer equipment and office furniture

  • Some here have, quite reasonably, asked "where does the money I donate to the Wikipedia Foundation go?" Well, about two and a half million a year goes to buy computer equipment and office furniture.[2] That's roughly twelve thousand dollars per employee. The report says "The estimated useful life of furniture is five years, while the estimated useful lives of computer equipment and software are three years." so multiply that twelve thousand by three or more -- and we all know that at least some employees will be able to keep using a PC or a desk longer than that.
I would really like to see an itemized list of exactly what computer equipment and office furniture was purchased with the $2,690,659 spent in 2012 and the $2,475,158 spent in 2013. Verifying that those purchases were reasonable and fiscally prudent would go a long way towards giving me confidence that the rest of the money was also spent wisely. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:35, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I bought new office furniture when I moved to my current workplace. It still is almost pristine, 10 years later. I've never heard of "The estimated useful life of furniture is five years". That means they either buy third-rate stuff, or they throw out perfectly good furniture. And I spent perhaps 2000 bucks, so unless they buy PCs at 10k$... --Randykitty (talk) 16:25, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's probably the period that they depreciate it over for accounting purposes. IRS guidelines define the acceptable lifespans of assets for tax purposes. The faster you can depreciate an item, the sooner you can expense it, and thus reduce your reported income. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:30, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Aren't they tax-exempt, being a non-profit? --Randykitty (talk) 16:43, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • And there are lots of "non-profit" hospital conglomerates raking in cash, too. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:54, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I used the 3 and 5 year numbers so nobody could say I was inflating the numbers -- you can use whatever useful life seems best. My point is that [A] The numbers seem high even at 3 and 5 years, and [B] as a non-profit that accepts donations and is committed to openness, the WMF should have no problem with telling me exactly what was bought and the exact price paid. I don't want to know who got what, just what was bought. Please, let's all focus on that instead of on the multiplier I picked out of a hat. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 17:31, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two points. (1) There are non-profits that pay taxes. My wife works as a CPA at a non-profit health insurance company, & they pay taxes. (Her explanation is that since they have no shareholders, they fall under the definition of being a non-profit. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about how Wikimedia is structured for taxes to be able to have her explain if WMF might be liable for income taxes.) (2) Costs for office furniture can range widely for legitimate reasons. For one thing, high-end furniture tends to be built solidly, & furniture that is built solidly tends to last. Then there is the definition of "office furniture". A desk, chair, & filing cabinet can all be had at one price, & when I used to handle this kind of stuff as my day job, one could indeed get durable furniture for under $2000 a station. But cubicle systems are more pricey, & require trained workmen to set them up & maintain them, & buying new will run closer to $12,000 a work station. (And then there are amenities like a conference room, break room, & maybe a lobby in front, but I can't see those being much more than the price of a workstation each in total.) But considering that the Foundation is only buying furniture for the headquarters staff, who number in the dozens not anywhere near 200, & a cubicle system would be overkill for such a small group -- especially a new system -- none of my back-of-the-envelope calculations reach $2.5 million. I believe some transparency is called for here. -- llywrch (talk) 17:56, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those $10,000+ high-end Steelcase work modules are sweet, but are they buying a new one for every employee every year? No. Now it could be a case of misclassifying instead of a case of overspending; calling server racks meant to serve up Wikipedia to millions of users "office computers" would inflate the office computer numbers and deflate the cost-of-hosting numbers. That would show up in the detailed accounting as something like a Dell PowerEdge C8000 server being called an "Office PC". Sometimes accounting has to do things like that to work around stupid management budget decisions. I am not going to assume wrongdoing until I see some actual lists of items bought. Or fail to obtain the information because the WMF stonewalls me... --Guy Macon (talk) 18:22, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion is based on the figures at wmf:Financial Reports/Financial Statements Ending June 30 2013 and 2012. I assume that means they haven't reported for June 30 2014 yet. Delays in reporting non-profit financials are not unusual. You got the figures $2,690,659 and $2,475,158 from the Statements of Cash Flows, under "Cash flows from investing activities". I'm not sure about the rationale for classifying "Purchase of computer equipment and office furniture" as an investing activity rather than an operating activity, but think it's fair to assume that the bulk of that may well be for server racks, as there is no separate line item for that. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:58, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • That should be part of Internet hosting ($2,486,903 for 2012 and $2,549,992 for 2013), which seems about right for buying a complete hosting service but too high for renting empty rack space and bandwidth and providing your own servers. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:13, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Statements of Activities does show 2,549,992 spent on "Internet hosting" in 2013. I assume that server racks are part of that. It would also include costs of electricity, heating and cooling, and security for the bldgs housing the servers. In this table, the office furniture would be split between "Other operating expenses" (items purchased and expensed in the current year) and "Depreciation" (the portion of furniture expenditures being expensed in the current year). Wbm1058 (talk) 19:19, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The footnote item #4, titled Property, Plant, and Equipment, Net gives some better insight into the amount paid for office furniture vs. computer equipment. This shows the total cost paid for assets currently in use. At June 30, 2013 they had furniture which cost $439,562 and computer equipment which cost $9,504,243. So unsurprisingly they paid far more for computers than furniture. And, as of June 30, 2014 the total cost of furniture was $684,024. Thus they spent $244,462 on additional furniture that year. So when Sparkzilla says "A closer look at the reports line items shows that the WMF spent almost $684,000 on furniture. That’s almost $3200 per employee.", that $684K figure represents the total spent over a period of several years. Given that, if statements above are true, some work stations can cost upwards of $10K, that figure may not be totally unreasonable. Though it's more than you would expect an organization begging for money to keep the servers running would spend. Rather than "buy a programmer a coffee", maybe "buy them a really nice desk so they can enhance their productivity." – Wbm1058 (talk) 21:42, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of the amounts quoted most of the money was spent on servers and other equipment for the data center. The next biggest amount was for computer equipment and software for staff. Only about 9% of the amount in 2013 and about 7% of the amount in 2012 was spent on furniture and fixtures.GByrd (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • That does make the numbers seem more reasonable. Good server, routers, etc. are expensive, and get replaced a lot sooner than many people expect when someone calculates that new servers will save enough money on power and air conditioning to make the purchase a good idea.
This leaves two questions in my mind.
First, could the WMF do a better job of writing up these financial reports so that building a data center isn't lumped in with buying furniture? Looking at the comments in this thread clearly shows that the current reports are confusing.
Second, where can I go to see an itemized list of exactly what computer equipment and office furniture was purchased with the $2,690,659 spent in 2012 and the $2,475,158 spent in 2013? Verifying that those purchases were reasonable and fiscally prudent would go a long way towards giving me confidence that the rest of the money was also spent wisely. Needless to say, nobody needs to know who got what; an accounting with all personal information redacted is fine. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(...Sound of crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 23:14, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(...Sound of crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 20:26, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(...Sound of crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 16:11, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(...Sound of crickets ... with a bonus! User:Philippe now claims that my question was answered![3] --Guy Macon (talk) 11:00, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Financial reports

wmf:Financial reports is the homepage for the foundation's financials. There I do see reports for the 2013–2014 fiscal year, but apparently they haven't filed their IRS Form 990 for 2014 yet. There is however a link to the 990 for 2013 on that page. – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Foundation#Finances contains the following table:

Wikimedia financial data through June 2014 (financial years run from July 1 to June 30)
Fiscal year Revenue Year-over-year ratio
(revenue) 		Expenses Year-over-year ratio
(expenses) 		Net assets Year-over-year ratio
(net assets)
2003–2004[1]
Steady $80,129
Steady N/A
Steady $23,463
Steady N/A
Steady $56,666
Steady N/A
2004–2005[1]
Increase $379,088
Increase 373.1%
Negative increase $177,670
Negative increase 657.2%
Increase $268,084
Increase 373.1%
2005–2006[1]
Increase $1,508,039
Increase 297.8%
Negative increase $791,907
Negative increase 345.7%
Increase $1,004,216
Increase 274.6%
2006–2007[2]
Increase $2,734,909
Increase 81.4%
Negative increase $2,077,843
Negative increase 162.4%
Increase $1,658,282
Increase 65.1%
2007–2008[3]
Increase $5,032,981
Increase 84.0%
Negative increase $3,540,724
Negative increase 70.4%
Increase $5,178,168
Increase 212.3%
2008–2009[4]
Increase $8,658,006
Increase 72.0%
Negative increase $5,617,236
Negative increase 58.6%
Increase $8,231,767
Increase 59.0%
2009–2010[5]
Increase $17,979,312
Increase 107.7%
Negative increase $10,266,793
Negative increase 82.8%
Increase $14,542,731
Increase 76.7%
2010–2011[6]
Increase $24,785,092
Increase 37.8%
Negative increase $17,889,794
Negative increase 74.2%
Increase $24,192,144
Increase 66.3%
2011–2012[7]
Increase $38,479,665
Increase 55.2%
Negative increase $29,260,652
Negative increase 63.6%
Increase $34,929,058
Increase 44.4%
2012–2013[8]
Increase $48,635,408
Increase 26.4%
Negative increase $35,704,796
Negative increase 22.0%
Increase $45,189,124
Increase 29.4%
2013–2014[9]
Increase $52,804,246
Increase 8.6%
Negative increase $45,900,745
Negative increase 28.6%
Increase $53,475,021
Increase 18.3%
  1. ^ a b c "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Financial Statements June 30, 2006, 2005 and 2004" (PDF). Upload,wikimedia.org. Retrieved November 26, 2012.
  2. ^ "Microsoft Word – {F0900CC7-D37E-4CDF-95E3-B1F38D7DCD03}.doc" (PDF). Retrieved November 26, 2012.
  3. ^ "Microsoft Word - 31935 SFO Wikimedia fs.doc" (PDF). Retrieved November 26, 2012.
  4. ^ "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Financial Statements June 30, 2009 and 2008" (PDF). Upload.wikimedia.org. Retrieved November 26, 2012.
  5. ^ "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Financial Statements June 30, 2010 and 2009" (PDF). Upload.wikimedia.org. Retrieved November 26, 2012.
  6. ^ "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Financial Statements June, 2011 and 2010" (PDF). Upload.wikimedia.org. Retrieved November 26, 2012.
  7. ^ "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Financial Statements June, 2012 and 2011" (PDF). Upload.wikimedia.org. Retrieved December 26, 2012.
  8. ^ "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Financial Statements June, 2013 and 2012" (PDF). Upload.wikimedia.org. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  9. ^ "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Financial Statements June, 2014 and 2013" (PDF). Upload.wikimedia.org. Retrieved December 11, 2014.

If I recall correctly, planned revenue for the 2014–2015 financial year is $58.5 million. Given that the December fundraiser seems to have overachieved considerably, the actual total may turn out to be higher. Andreas JN466 00:05, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Visual Editor

It's great to have this debate and discuss the issue in the open, but I found the remarks that the engineering team had had "mixed results" pretty unfair. The Visual Editor is a triumph. It can't handle every edge case or language, but my god it's a revolution for day-to-day editing of the English Wikipedia. Give the team their dues. Stevage 13:39, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's nice to see you're a frequent VE user when you edit, but you've edited little more than 50 times so far this year. Here I count just 29 of the 5,000 most recent edits, or about one-half of one percent of recent edits, used Visual Editor. If Visual Editor were truly a triumph, then the ad banners would proudly say so, just as PBS solicits funds so they can bring us "more great programming like Downton Abbey and Frontline". Wbm1058 (talk) 15:11, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note that PBS doesn't mention the quality of Barney And Friends or Joanne Weir's Cooking Class when soliciting donations. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And they don't ask donors to buy a cup of coffee for the programming managers, either. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
See "Wikipedia faces revolt over VisualEditor" and "Revolting peasants force Wikipedia to cut'n'paste Visual Editor into the bin" about VisualEditor, and "Letter to Wikimedia Foundation: Superprotect and Media Viewer" about the Media Viewer, Stevage. (I could have mentioned WP:Flow as well.) Software engineering triumphs look different. That's not to say there hasn't been any good work done, but I think it's fair to say results have been "mixed". --Andreas JN466 00:30, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
> Here I count just 29 of the 5,000 most recent edits, or about one-half of one percent of recent edits, used Visual Editor.
As you're certainly aware, it's not enabled by default. A tool which is targeted at casual users, but not enabled for them, will have low usage until that changes.
>See "Wikipedia faces revolt over VisualEditor" and "Revolting peasants force Wikipedia to cut'n'paste Visual Editor into the bin" about VisualEditor, and "Letter to Wikimedia Foundation: Superprotect and Media Viewer" about the Media Viewer
Those articles are 18 months old. The editor is much better since then. Stevage 05:52, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You've surely heard of the term "going viral". Nobody has their default phone switched from a land-line to a cell phone without asking for it. Wikipedia's mobile usage continues to increase though no readers have been switched to mobile by default. I'm not sure who their "targeted users" are. At one time I recall being told that I was a target user. At some point it might be fair to offer both the "edit" and "edit source" tabs by default again. Then one might expect that "casual editors" might choose VE 50% of the time. But I'd like to see "viral usage" at around a 5% level first, in other words, ten times the current level of "viral usage". Wbm1058 (talk) 14:27, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"The editor is much better since then." -- Why am I reminded of a line from an old Monty Python sketch? -- llywrch (talk) 06:46, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The price of a cup of coffee?

What really got me, as an Israeli, is the claim about the price of a cup of coffee. In Israel, where the cost of living has been a major issue recently (probably related to the Arab Spring in the neighboring countries), there's a relatively new chain (called Coffix) wherer the price of a cup of coffee is just 5 shekels, not the 15 claimed by the fundraiser banner (or even the 12 shekels which would represent the 3$ ammount mentioned in the article). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:28, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You know that programmer sitting at his $3,000 workstation won't be satisfied with just a simple coffee from McDonald's dollar menu. They want something special from Starbucks. As an unpaid volunteer, I usually settle for some home-brewed Chock full o'Nuts (Better coffee a millionaire’s money can’t buy). BTW, Time did an interesting story on Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz (See here). I wonder if Schultz would have a radical plan to transform Wikipedia? Wbm1058 (talk) 14:51, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I do know an Israel who told me that he occasionally donaates to Wikipedia, but he won't do it again because he found the message insulting. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:27, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Epoch Times article

Petr Svab, The Epoch Times, March 28, 2015, Donate to Wikipedia and Pay for… What Exactly? Andreas JN466 03:40, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. "The foundation paid almost $2 million last year for travel and attending events. That’s more than $10,000 per employee. The foundation didn’t respond to an inquiry about what were the money typically spent on." That sounds a lot like the stonewalling I got when I asked for an itemized list of exactly what computer equipment and office furniture was purchased with the $2,690,659 spent in 2012 and the $2,475,158 spent in 2013. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]


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