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Special report

"Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?

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By Andreas Kolbe
Andreas Kolbe is a former co-editor-in-chief of the Signpost, and has been a Wikipedia contributor since 2006. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Signpost. Responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. – J
Financial development of the Wikimedia Foundation (in US$), 2003–2021
Black: Net assets (excluding the Wikimedia Endowment, which passed $100m in June 2021)
Green: Revenue (excluding third-party donations to Wikimedia Endowment)
Red: Expenses (including WMF payments to Wikimedia Endowment, typically $5 million per year)

This month, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has been fundraising in the Global South. It has also published finance updates in its quarterly reviews. This seems, therefore, a good time to review the Foundation's fundraising messages against the background of its increasing wealth.

A vast surplus

The Wikimedia Foundation has been doing very well in recent years. In 2020/2021 (the WMF's fiscal year runs from July to June), the Foundation reported an increase in net assets of over $50 million while the Wikimedia Endowment – which is held by the Tides Foundation and organizationally separate from the Wikimedia Foundation – increased in value from $62.9 million to over $100 million. Altogether, then, the work of WMF fundraisers last year brought in about $90 million more in revenue than the Foundation spent, bringing total Wikimedia assets to over $330 million.

How are things shaping up in the current financial year, due to end on June 30? The Finance & Administration department's third-quarter review, put online this month, states that in the first three quarters of the 2021/2022 financial year the Wikimedia Foundation already exceeded its annual target of $150 million, taking $153.6 million in revenue while spending less than it budgeted for.

As a result, Foundation assets rose by another $51.9 million. Together with this year's increase in the value of the Endowment and the Foundation's as yet unreported fourth-quarter revenue, this means that the WMF will now have a very comfortable cushion of about $400 million. Almost all of this is in cash and investments.

Historical perspective

It is worth remembering that the influx of such substantial amounts of money, raised mostly through email campaigns and fundraising banners placed on Wikipedia, has completely transformed the WMF as well as its assumptions about what kind of organization it is – or should be.

In 2013 – less than a decade ago – Erik Möller (the WMF's VP of Engineeering and Product Development at the time) thought the Wikimedia mission would be sustainable on "$10M+/year". Indeed, 2010 marked the first time annual WMF expenses exceeded $10 million – three years after Wikipedia first became a global top-ten website. Today, the WMF is an organization with around 600 staff and contractors, rising compensation for its top executives (eight of whom saw compensation for their roles increase to more than $300,000 by 2020) and annual salary costs estimated at around $200,000 for each full-time employee – more than twice as much as the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Internet Archive, for example, judging by a comparison of the most recent Form 990 for each.

Money is also changing the very nature of the movement: an increasing number of decisions are no longer made on-wiki, by a community of unpaid volunteers, but by functionaries and paid staff of the WMF and its affiliates. In days past, the contributors that built Wikipedia were only bound by a shared interest in free knowledge; but money has increasingly become part of the glue that ties the movement together. And the WMF holds the purse strings, controlling the unprecedented wealth that results from its fundraising success.

Fundraising messages

The WMF mainly uses a two-pronged approach in its fundraising: it sends emails to past donors, inviting them to continue their support, and it places fundraising banners on Wikipedia. According to the most recent Fundraising report, 35% of WMF revenue is brought in by emails, 29% by desktop banners, 25% by mobile banners and 11% by other sources. The timing of the email and banner campaigns varies by country. This month, emails and banner campaigns ran in India, Latin America and South Africa.

The WMF makes sample email texts and designs available for review (see Meta). Below are six key phrases from the first of the three India emails shared on Meta that caught my eye – and, I am sure, that of many recipients. Emphases (bold text) are mine.

"A subscription fee"

(1) We choose not to charge a subscription fee, but that doesn't mean we don't need support from our readers

(2) kindly consider giving again, or even increasing your gift, to keep Wikipedia free and independent.

The email's authors are first introducing the notion of a subscription fee – by commenting on its absence – and then go on to say that people should give again to keep Wikipedia free – which in the context of the previous passage can only mean they should give to avoid a subscription fee being charged in the future.

What the reader is not told is that the very WMF mission is "to make and keep useful information from its projects available on the internet free of charge, in perpetuity."

It is only because of this commitment that the volunteers who actually write Wikipedia – a task in which the Wikimedia Foundation plays no part – are prepared to do it for free.

There is also an obvious logical contradiction in begging people – especially people in developing countries – for money "to keep Wikipedia free".

"Keep Wikipedia online, ad-free and growing"

(3) About a year ago, you donated Rs. 313 to keep Wikipedia online for yourself and millions of people around the world. Each year, fewer than 2% of Wikipedia readers choose to support our work.

(4) please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia remains independent, ad-free, and growing for years to come

(5) can we count on you to renew your solidarity with a small donation? It will keep Wikipedia online, ad-free, and growing for years to come

References to keeping Wikipedia "online and ad-free" were commonly used on fundraising banners in the mid-2010s, and were discontinued after significant controversy (see the 2015 Signpost report). It is somewhat surprising, therefore, to see them used in emails sent to donors in India today. The WMF has confirmed that it has no intention of retiring these stock phrases – which would have been far more justified fifteen or twenty years ago, when the Foundation was finding its feet financially, but seem very out-of-step with current financial realities.

The above quotes also refer to Wikipedia's "independence" – a theme that has been used on the Wikipedia banners as well (in phrases like "This Sunday, we request you to sustain Wikipedia's independence" or "protect Wikipedia's independence").

But if this independence is to be measured by the WMF's money reserves – which are now over ten times greater than they were ten years ago, and about three times greater than they were as recently as five years ago – it is surely under far less threat than ever before.

"To support the volunteers"

(6) 31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day.

This is another interesting phrase. 31% of 2020–2021 donations revenue would have been about $50 million. The WMF says the 31% figure comes from the annual report (where it is called "Direct support to communities" and refers to 31% of spending, which is of course much less than 31% of revenue). But even so, it is somewhat unclear what specifically this amount refers to. It is an order of magnitude greater than the WMF's grants to the community in 2020–2021. And those who write our articles, take our photos, and maintain our armadas of bots and modules and templates are doing it for free.

What do you think? We'd love to hear from you below.

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Comments

  • Last year, there was considerable opposition to the chosen banners that the WMF was using for their campaign. This discussion didn't go anywhere, because the campaign ended and with it the discussion also stopped, but I have wondered if it would be beneficial to require the WMF to get approval from enwiki for a particular banner before running it on enwiki. BilledMammal (talk) 00:35, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nice to see that much of the funding will be used to support things like international and national Wikimania conferences (with several years without conferences the accumulated money for the next events should be overflowing). Have been advocating for WikiVegas2023 as the next North American conference (time to bring it back to Western North America, and, well, Vegas sounds just about right - the strip not downtown). Randy Kryn (talk) 11:25, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The WMF is guilty of, at the very least, giving false impressions. They obviously shouldn't do this. It demeans us all. Dutchy45 (talk) 12:20, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    But it gets them quite a bit of money, so I don't think they care too much if it demeans the volunteers who actually do the work. Intothatdarkness 15:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @BilledMammal, Dutchy45, Intothatdarkness, Betseg, and Bilorv: How about we do some work in October/November putting together a factual summary of Wikimedia finances, along with a critique of the wordings of the fundraising banners and emails (as available), publish it here in the Signpost in the November edition, and then do our best to publicise it – on social media, sending it to journalists, etc. Because I agree with Intothatdarkness that the chances of the WMF seeking community approval for their verbal jiu-jitsu – trying to press just the right buttons of guilt and gratification, fear and flattery in an unsuspecting public – are remote. Andreas JN466 15:56, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that the only thing that would possibly make the WMF ever reconsider anything about its finances at this point is the possibility of the outside public becoming more skeptical of it. I fear that with every additional unnecessary dollar the WMF is turning more and more into a standard establishment corporation. It might be worth seeing if Stephen Harrison (Slate) or Omer Benjakon (Haaretz) have any interest. -Indy beetle (talk) 18:31, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Something I only saw just now is this WMF tweet: "Wikipedia readers in India, Latin America, and South Africa are an integral part of the global Wikimedia ecosystem. These fundraising campaigns aim to ensure they can continue to access and contribute to Wikipedia for years to come." (my emphasis).
    So the WMF has three or four times as much money as it did five years ago, but needs more money to "ensure" people in India, Latin America and South Africa can "continue to access" Wikipedia. This is not funny any more. Andreas JN466 19:01, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd be totally against complaining or publicizing about how much money the foundation receives or asks for, and with the kind of staff they have working on fundraising they should be having meetings with funding sources which would bring in a few hundred million a year. (Bill Gates, when you read this please consider tossing in half a billion now and then). In fact it would be nice if they had four or five billion dollars in reserve as long as they adhere to their promise to spend 30% over $100million on community projects. Need to send a team of Wikipedians to the Vatican Archives to research the ancient manuscripts for six months?, fine, WMF, do it and pick up every Euro. Sending Wikipedians and Commons volunteers on trips to detail, write articles on, and photograph from multiple angles every statue and painting in South America, of course, fund it. As for yearly established Wikipedia conferences, like the North American Wikimedia Conference (WikiVegas2023) make them blow-out affairs, in-person gatherings of deserving and dedicated Wikipedians, and pick up every cent. Because, ladies and gentlemen of WMF and the endowment, Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, and several others started something, and hundreds of thousands of others then built and continue to build on a minute-by-minute basis, that the world has never seen before - a collaborative educational creation by literal volunteers of such massive proportion that even the Greek Muses couldn't have envisioned it. It occurred as organically as the steam engine ("It steam engines when it's steam engine time"), as unexpected as the leaps and bounds of space exploration from the Wright Flyer to Apollo 11 in 66 years. We should be proud of each WMF staff member for joining this amazing cause, and they should be mutually demonstrably proud of the worldwide community. They have promised the community projects 30% of funds collected over 100 million, and we and they should hold them to it. At this 21+ year mark let's assure that a new era for Wikipedia and its sister projects begins, with fuller cooperation, fuller sharing of continual resources, and maybe fuller respect of each other by everyone involved. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:07, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    And how do you expect to hold them to this promise of spending 30% on volunteers? Considering the WMF seems to be aiming for more control over projects, I don't hold out much hope. Conferences are notorious money pits, and in an era where we're supposed to be globally conscious, is it really responsible to fly lots of people to someplace like Vegas (which is blowing through water at a disastrous rate at a time when the Western US is experiencing record drought)? If they were actually going to sink money into anything aside from raising more money (and hiring more paid staff...they seem to be good at both, and neither seem to benefit the project much), I'd rather see a focus on quality in some way.
    In terms of the fundraising, I have a vague recollection of a major fuss a few years back about the big banners of doom they used to plaster everywhere. I'd be happy to help if and where I can. Intothatdarkness 20:29, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    A promise is a promise, my word is my bond, no crossed fingers. That's why I'd trust the WMF to keep their word, 31% of any monies over $100million goes to community projects. They pinky swore, good enough for me. And there is nothing wrong with holding Wikimania conferences and everything good about them. Haven't had a live North American conference since 2019 in Boston, so the WMF is coming up on four years of conference funding reserves. Vegas? Of course! It's both fun and the West is due after the last three were held in the East. It would actually save money, as someone has said, because WMF employees in California would have a much shorter distance to travel. Water in Vegas? Anyone who occupies the rooms that attendees would occupy will use the water so no water will be saved by not having a 2023 conference - someone else will just step in and use it, probably much more recklessly. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:13, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    So it's ok because someone else would use the water anyhow? And I think there are FAR more volunteers than WMF employees (at least so far), so it being convenient for WMF employees shouldn't really be high on a priorities list. So far what I've seen from the WMF are power grabs, some questionable decisions, and misleading fundraising campaigns. Intothatdarkness 22:24, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, so let's say 30% of the money (over a certain amount) goes to inaccessible Wikimania conferences and 70% goes to executive salaries—we're getting a good deal from this, are we? And this money is taken from people in the developing world for whom the education we provide (not executives) is priceless, but who can ill afford to donate. And this money for execs is not being given to Jimbo or even the nutter Larry Sanger, but leeches who joined in the last couple of years to siphon off money given generously under false pretenses. — Bilorv (talk) 21:42, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    30% for Wikimania conferences? You're envisioning one hell of a party. Does 70% of total funding go to salaries, insurance, and pensions? I didn't know that (although maybe editors could share in their insurance plan package if it's a good one). Randy Kryn (talk) 23:48, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Randy Kryn: You mention a WMF "promise to spend 30% over $100 million on community projects". I can't recall such a promise off-hand. Would you have a link to the place it was made? Cheers, Andreas JN466 23:13, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Going by the last section of the article above and then other things I've read but didn't memorize where. Maybe someone from the WMF (do they read The Signpost? Who knows.) can enlighten us on their intentions for present and future community involvement in monetary assets, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:48, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Randy Kryn: My understanding is that they claim 31% currently goes to supporting volunteers, though I don't know how they got that figure. BilledMammal (talk) 23:51, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. Maybe one or two WMF folks will drop by and explain. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:54, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Here are the audited financial statements for 2020/2021: [1]. They show the following data:
    Revenue: $162,886,686
    Expenses: $111,839,819, of which:
    • Salaries and wages: $67,857,676 (this is for US and non-US employees only; it doesn't include the pay of WMF staff who work as contractors)
    • Awards and grants: $9,810,844 (of which $5 million were a grant to the Wikimedia Endowment, see page 14)
    • Internet hosting: $2,384,439
    • In-kind service expenses: $473,709
    • Donation processing expenses: $6,386,483
    • Professional service expenses: $12,084,019
    • Other operating expenses: $10,383,125
    • Travel and conferences: $29,214
    • Depreciations and amortization: $2,430,310
    According to the Annual Report, 31% of spending is for "Direct support to communities", which is defined as follows: Wikimedia projects have global reach. This is enabled by the diverse contributions of volunteers from local communities around the world. We provide grants and other resources to support local contributors, community outreach events, and advocacy for growing free knowledge.
    31% of expenditure is $34,670,344.
    There clearly isn't any such item in the above list of expenses. Just the salaries, the $5 million gift to the Endowment and donation processing together account for $79,244,159.
    That leaves just $32,595,660 for everything else.
    So that means that some of the WMF salaries must be counted as "direct support to communities" – over $2 million, even if you classify all other expenses as "Direct support to communities".
    This is surely not what the average reader of the Annual Report would expect. So an explanation would indeed be very welcome. Andreas JN466 00:40, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    So – could we do a straw poll? Based on the above figures from the audited financial statements, does this "31% direct support to communities" seem like an accurate summary to you? --Andreas JN466 07:55, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    No. Unless you get really creative with salaries and some other line items. Intothatdarkness 12:40, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jayen466: That seems to be an excellent idea, parallel with efforts to get us the ability to vet banners before they are run on enwiki. BilledMammal (talk) 23:51, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jayen466: apologies for not responding to the substance of your comment here. Yes, I am absolutely in favour of this plan. We need co-ordinated outward-facing activity prior to the next big fundraising campaign, rather than (as I am most guilty of) internal complaints during and after it. Contact me nearer the time and I can be more concrete about what I can help with. — Bilorv (talk) 16:13, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In particular, I would like to see a strong pushback (before the banners go up and it is too late) against aggressive fundraising in areas of the world where poverty is widespread. Telling someone in the EU or US that they need to donate or Wikipedia will no longer be free is one thing. Sending that same message to someone in Somalia ($544/year average income) or Madagascar ($504/year average income) is quite another and is something that most people would find to be deeply offensive. Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 08:37, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • see also: WP:CANCER. --Betseg (talk) 13:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding "to support the volunteers": could Wikimedia Foundation start a bug bounty program? That would be a great way to encourage folks to find security bugs, and encourage community volunteers to work on much-needed feature requests by giving them bounties. [Edit]: I proposed this on the WMF village pump if folks wish to discuss there. Catleeball (talk) 17:43, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    No, this sort of perverse financial incentive is precisely the opposite of what volunteering on Wikipedia should be. People would start construing everything as a "bug" or only work in "bug"-dense areas of the code. In any case, I have never experienced a lack of identification of bugs or even proposed solutions among the community, just too many technical tasks only deployable by the WMF that they refuse to do. — Bilorv (talk) 09:27, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    There are of course diverse volunteers; I am partly a word editor, more an image curator, and also a wikiphotographer. Money directed to "support" me in these things is not large and I don't see why it need be. There are also volunteers who write our infrastructure such as mobile apps. To my mind, the resulting tools are inadequate, a patchwork of disparate parts that are difficult for us users to understand. Whether they would better be improved by "supporting" the volunteer coders, or by setting up a larger WMF paid development staff to do it in a more organized manner, I don't claim to know, but this certainly strikes me as something that ought to get some kind of resources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jim.henderson (talk • contribs) 15:55, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In my view, ad hoc bug bounties would make things more patchwork, as people move from their usual areas to trying to do something else less successfully for a temporary reward. I am in favour of WMF investment in coding areas, though I appreciate it is difficult to balance the centralisation needed for good codebases with the volunteer spirit and the value that volunteer coders bring to the project. — Bilorv (talk) 16:34, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't know how much the WMF uses to fund meta:The Wikipedia Library, but I like the idea of getting relevant reference books and periodicals into the hands of Wikipedians who need them. I'd like to see that significantly increased, I hope any WMF staff who look at this page take note of that, yes I realise that the budget for this is going to be peanuts compared to the resources that the WMF now has. ϢereSpielChequers 19:28, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Ocaasi probably knows the answer to that. Andreas JN466 22:36, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • All things considered, we could be doing worse. See for instance, the Mozilla Foundation, which sprung out of efforts to maintain a discontinued web browser. Their yearly donation income is several times WMF's, but it mainly comes from their core product's main competitor. The donations by the general public are meagre, perhaps as a result of Mozilla Firefox dropping from leading the market to single-digit market share. What has Mozilla been working on recently? There's Firefox OS, Firefox Send (cf. WeTransfer), Firefox Hello (cf. Google Hangouts), etc. In contrast to these, the Rust programming language has turned out to be a runaway success, but last year it gained independence in the form of the Rust Foundation after a series of layoffs at Mozilla. Could the Mozilla Foundation be said to be of service to its core product's users and donators? While there are beginning signs of Matthew 6:3 thinking in WP/WMF, thankfully, we have not spread ourselves this thin (yet). Daß Wölf 21:46, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've had some experiences outside the Wikipedia movement with not for profits that combine volunteers with paid staff. The only model I think would work for us is "you pay people to do things that the volunteers want to be done, but aren't volunteering to do". I can't see the WMF adopting that as its strategy, but it would solve a lot of problems if it did. ϢereSpielChequers 00:09, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Good luck finding a competent employee with the job advert "Clear the backlog of Category:Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007". There are a lot of systemic issues created by volunteers only doing what they enjoy, but this is the curse we have to live with. I think the WMF could do extraordinary good without trying to cover the tasks that volunteers are able to do. They could pursue more wholeheartedly the threats of legal action against for-profit paid editing companies that abuse our systems. They could replace all this fundraising nonsense that tricks the public into thinking Wikipedia's main limiting factor is money rather than labour; instead, we could have advertisements that we want more volunteers; here is how you can get started... These two issues—a flood of COI malicious agents and a lack of new volunteers—are something they should be spending much more time helping with. — Bilorv (talk) 16:10, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Obviously you'd recruit by subject rather than time. But given that millions, probably tens of millons of graduates live in parts of the world where $1,000 a month is good money, I don't see a problem with recruitment "Wanted Chemistry grads to write articles on chemistry for a general audience - applicants can live and work anywhere in the world". As for more volunteers, the biggest bottleneck is that the mobile interface is tuned for reading not editing; Fixing the interface would be hard, creating a tablet interface that made Wikipedia as easy to edit on a tablet as quora is, probably not so hard. ϢereSpielChequers 09:48, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I find the mobile interface completely useless and generally switch to Desktop view whenever I'm on a tablet or mobile. If the Desktop link weren't so hard to find on the page I'm sure more people would. Andreas JN466 14:11, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @WereSpielChequers, that would be a massive cultural change and probably prompt a huge exodus. Once there are 'approved paid editors' operating on any given topic, any other subjet matter expert on that topic will quite reasonably feel that they deserve to be paid as well. ‑ Iridescent 03:56, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Not necessarily. If the volunteers are in charge, and the staff are being paid at levels that most people in the West would look down their noses at, then no I don't see it would prompt an exodus. I'm sure that some volunteers would be quite happy to have their work translated into Hindi or know that their FAs in key subjects would be maintained after they'd retired from the project. ϢereSpielChequers 14:54, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That ("pay people to do things that the volunteers want to be done, but aren't volunteering to do") is, at least from a technical point of view, what the Community Wishlist is, no? — TNT (talk • she/her) 22:43, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Google, the users are the product. In Wikipedia, the editors are the product. The cycle will not stop - because Wikipedia knows that the editors will not abandon Wikipedia, no matter what the editors thought about how Wikipedia spent their money. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 04:29, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definitely feels like WMF has been over the years suffering from ever escalating mission creep, which is why their spending "needs" have risen so much higher than is truly necessary to keep Wikipedia online. Thus the spammy demands for yet more donations. Mathmo Talk 09:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I couldn't finish reading this. Sorry, but somehow the leed got buried. Best wishes anyway. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 02:52, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • It was suggested I comment here, but I haven't really anything to add other than my comments in this long talk thread. The TL;DR summary of my view is that I think Jayen466 is slightly missing the point in this case; the problem isn't so much the WMF's fundraising per se, but that they've developed such a culture of instinctive evasiveness that they're misleading and obfuscating even when there's no need to. (No donor, supporter or sponsor would reasonably take issue with "owing to where our employees are located your donations won't necessarily be spent in a particular region, but it will still be for the benefit of that region"; the WMF are only lying because it's become their default communications mode.) ‑ Iridescent 03:56, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • And the big blue beg-a-thon banner has returned. This time they're humbly ("for the 1st time recently") asking you to defend Wikipedia's independence. Sorry...I didn't realize Elon Musk had tried to buy it out. Had I been drinking coffee at the time that atrocity appeared, I think I would have ruined both a keyboard and a monitor. Intothatdarkness 22:01, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm increasingly of the belief that we need to require the WMF to get consensus for a banner before running it on enwiki. If I'm not alone in this belief, is anyone interested in cooperating to draft a suitable proposal? BilledMammal (talk) 22:11, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @BilledMammal: Sure. Would you want to publish it here in the Signpost, or were you thinking of a petition on Meta? Andreas JN466 11:02, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think meta is the correct location, given this proposal would solely be for enwiki. My initial thoughts were a (WP:CANVASS-compliant) notification here and the actual discussion at either WP:VPR or WP:VPW, but I'm not set on that; I think the first step is to work out exactly what we want to propose, and from there work out how and where we want to present it. BilledMammal (talk) 12:16, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @BilledMammal: Okay. Would you like to start drafting something in your user space?
    Here are some press articles for reference, just in case they're useful – 2015: Washington Post, Süddeutsche Zeitung (Google translation); 2021: Daily Dot. Andreas JN466 15:54, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Already started drafting something; thank you for those articles, they will be useful. I'll post here when an initial draft is ready. BilledMammal (talk) 06:56, 22 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @BilledMammal: See this proposed statement (#33) for the Election Compass, which cited your post above (click Expand to see the diff link). Andreas JN466 16:01, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That ("defend Wikipedia's independence") has been a standard phrase for at least a couple of years now. :( Andreas JN466 11:01, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It's very misleading; if the ads were honest I wouldn't have an issue, but as it is... BilledMammal (talk) 12:16, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I've somehow managed to miss the Tuesday beg-a-thon banners until yesterday. I can't say I feel diminished in any way because of that. There are a number of issues with the thing in my view, starting of course with the "defending Wikipedia" line. It's also hard to claim to be humble when you're splashing a huge banner across the page, and using the word humble twice is usually an indication you're anything but. Also, it appears you're not an "exceptional reader" unless you give them money. Honestly, they should just go over to the format the public radio station in GTA Vice City used: "If you're reading this without donating, you're stealing." Intothatdarkness 15:03, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Friday's San Francisco Examiner interview with Maryana Iskander contained the following exchange: Why does Wikipedia have banners on its website asking people to give money? They’re a small invitation for folks who find value in Wikipedia to chip in and ensure that this can remain as it is: An enterprise that doesn’t rely on selling you anything with ads. I’m not incentivizing you to stay longer than you need to stay.
    Now WMF fundraising has never been about things remaining the same – it's always been about growth. I've made that point to both Maryana and Jeff Elder, the SF Examiner journalist, with a copy to Wikimedia-l. Andreas JN466 19:36, 24 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I also don't think I'd call these later banners a "small invitation." It's more along the lines of 'help us or you're a bad person' or something similar. A small invitation would be "if you like what you see, kick in a bit to help us keep it going," not a plea to "defend Wikipedia's independence" highlighted with a little heart-shaped icon shaming you into contributing the 'average donation,' which of course is higher than their 'suggested' $2.75 (the screenshot I took had it at $16.36). Intothatdarkness 21:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    And the banners just keep on coming. Now you have the red-bordered Wednesday beg-a-thon saying it's the second time they've interrupted your reading recently and insisting you help "protect Wikipedia." And if you don't give, you're part of the 98% who don't. This time they only humble themselves once, but it's also a shorter appeal (only seven sentences instead of ten like the original appeal. There's also a stealthy "I already donated" option at the bottom of the red border, but if you click it you end up with another red-bordered banner which generously allows you to suppress donation banners for a whole week! Intothatdarkness 22:02, 27 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe Elon Musk will buy Wikipedia. His decision to purchase Twitter because they were suppressing certain political views seems to be going smoothly...
Elon Musk Takes on a Beleaguered Icon
What is a recession? Wikipedia can't decide
Yes, it is possible. Musk would have to create a non-profit to buy it and keep it non-profit[2], and the W?F would have to be willing to take Musk's money - and when has the W?F ever not been willing to compomise their integrity for personal gain? (Example: fibbing to poverty stricken parts of the world to get them to give more.) Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 19:53, 30 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, the actual claim that Wikipedia "Wikipedia has changed the definition of ‘recession’ and locked the page from further edits"[3] is unadulerated bullshit. Just look at Talk:Recession#ATTENTION NEW VISITORS TO THIS PAGE and the "The infamous sentence in various revisions" section of Talk:Recession#RfC: Phrasing of the infamous sentence. One can only hope that the various media outlets pushing this will read the actual evidence and issue a correction. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 21:30, 30 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Dining out a few early evenings ago my companion mentioned that I'm a Wikipedia editor. Got the frequent "OH, wow, I send a contribution every year." Gave the usual answer, "That's nice but what we Really want is your mind. Go ahead, click EDIT and fix something. If you do it wrong the cleanup crew will take care of it. Yes, me and several thousand others." No time to go into details, of course, nor the question of where the money goes; the main point is "Anyone can edit".Jim.henderson (talk) 16:55, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

English fundraising emails

The WMF has posted samples of the English fundraising emails to be used in the upcoming email campaign, scheduled to run from September 6 to November 20. The texts are almost identical to the ones critiqued here – asking people to donate to "keep Wikipedia online", "protect Wikipedia" (I've copied the email texts below, for reference). Everything is focused on Wikipedia, as though the Foundation were struggling to keep Wikipedia up and running, and there is nothing specific about the WMF's many other projects and activities, including the Strategic Direction.

Should the volunteer community try to provide donors and the public with more background information? If so, what's the best way to go about it? --Andreas JN466 11:31, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Email 1

From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org
Subject: You are one of those rare exceptions
Date: August 3, 2022 at 7:58 PM
To: nisrael@wikimedia.org

My name is Jimmy Wales, and I'm the founder of Wikipedia. In the past, you donated to keep Wikipedia online for yourself and millions of people around the world. Each year, fewer than 2% of Wikipedia readers choose to support our work. You have been one of those rare donors, and for this I want to thank you warmly. I'm grateful you agree that we can use the power of the internet for good. We will achieve this not as individuals, but as a collaborative movement of knowledge seekers. Together, we can rebuild trust in the internet, and by extension, in each other.

Will you renew your solidarity with a donation?

This is awkward to admit, but I have to be honest: 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way when we ask for an annual donation. We choose not to charge a subscription fee, but that doesn't mean we don't need support from our readers. We don't send a fundraising email every month. We respectfully ask for just one donation this year so that Wikipedia may continue to move forward and offer knowledge to the world.

If all our past donors gave a small amount today, our fundraiser would be over. Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia remains independent, ad-free, and thriving for years to come.

We're a non-profit. That means we aren't selling the articles that millions of people read on Wikipedia each day. We don't profit from the knowledge you seek. In fact, we firmly believe that knowledge should exist outside of the realm of supply and demand. That's hardly a given nowadays; so much of the world's digital knowledge is driven by profit.

Wikipedia is different in that it doesn't belong to the highest bidder, the advertisers, or corporations. It belongs to you, the readers, editors, and donors. You're our community, our family. You're the reason we exist. The fate of Wikipedia rests in your hands and we wouldn't have it any other way.

It's readers like you who safeguard our non-profit mission. You help us maintain our integrity, quality, and accessibility. Today, please consider giving again, or even increasing your gift, to keep Wikipedia free and independent.

Now is the time we ask: can we count on you to renew your solidarity with a small donation? It will keep Wikipedia online, ad-free, and growing for years to come.

https://donate.wikimedia.org

Thanks,
Jimmy Wales
Founder of Wikipedia


Renew your donation

Where will your donation go?

42% of your gift will be used to sustain and improve Wikipedia and our other online free knowledge projects.

31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day.

27% of your gift will give the Wikimedia Foundation the resources it needs to fulfill its mission and advance the cause of free knowledge in the world.

Email 2

From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org
Subject: It's non-negotiable
Date: August 3, 2022 at 8:01 PM
To: nisrael@wikimedia.org

WIKIPEDIA

You have been a Wikipedia donor in the past and have donated once.
You've unlocked: Bronze Badge / Silver Badge / Gold Badge / Platinum Badge

When you gave in the past, you were one of those rare donors who kept Wikipedia thriving for yourself and millions of other readers.

Ready to earn your next badge? Please match your last gift today.

I took the liberty of emailing you a second time on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation (the organization responsible for the protection of Wikipedia), because I wasn’t sure you got a chance to read the first email we sent to nisrael@wikimedia.org, the address we have on file for you since your last gift. I hope this badge will act as a reminder of how crucial your commitment to supporting free knowledge has been and still is to us.

At every turn, we have been pressured to compromise our values, but I'll be honest: This isn’t negotiable for us. People always ask us, why not just run ads to make revenue? Or capture and sell reader data? Or make everyone pay to read? While these things seem like the norm online nowadays, we'd like to remind you that there is another way--a way that doesn’t jeopardize the neutrality of our content and threaten your personal data. We just ... ask! Not often, but it works. After 21 years of saying no, I can still say we are proud to have left that money on the table.

We’re a non-profit. Only 2% of our readers give, but we manage to serve hundreds of millions of people per month. Imagine if everyone gave? We could transform the way knowledge is shared online.

I've been happily stunned by the response from our donors, but we haven't reached our fundraising goal and we don't have a lot of time left. We’re not salespeople. We’re librarians, archivists, and information junkies. We rely on our readers to become our donors, and it’s worked for over 20 years.

This year, please consider making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

We know people’s circumstances have changed a lot in
the last year. Some find themselves with less to spare, but
a lucky few happen to have a bit more. If you’re one of
the lucky ones, will you give a little extra to keep Wikipedia growing?

Renew your donation

Give 5

Give 20

Give 35

Give another amount

Any gift will unlock your next badge.

Thank you,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder

DONATE NOW

Email 3

From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org
Subject: Our final email
Date: August 3, 2022 at 8:01 PM
To: nisrael@wikimedia.org

I know you've heard from me twice already, so I'll get straight to the point. In the past, you were among the extremely rare readers who made a donation to invest in the future of free knowledge. If you've made it far enough to open this email, could you take a minute to help us out?

Many of our readers see our emails and think they'll get round to it later, but life happens and of course they forget. Our annual email fundraiser is coming to an end, so if you've been holding off until “later”, this is your moment.

I'm asking you respectfully: Please, renew your donation; it matters.

Around the time our fundraising campaign starts, I hear from friends, family, and long-lost classmates who see our fundraising messages while they're looking something up on Wikipedia. It's a reminder of how many folks, from all walks of life, rely on Wikipedia.

This incredible public support is crucial for our organization and our movement to thrive. It allows us to serve the world, and to do so with independence and integrity. We don't belong to anyone, because we belong to everyone.

You donated in the past and we sincerely thank you. If you still see value in Wikipedia, please sustain your support in 2022 and keep Wikipedia thriving.

This is our biggest fundraising moment of the year. It's when we launch the online campaign that brings in donors who will propel us throughout 2022 and beyond. I'm one of them. I'm a regular donor.

We are the non-profit that supports one of the world's most visited websites. We don't generate revenue by selling off our users' data to the highest bidder. We don't run ads that could jeopardize the integrity and neutrality of our content.

Though our size requires us to maintain the server space and programming power of a top site, we are sustained by the support of our donors who give an average of about $16. This year, will you take one minute to keep our work going?


5 / 20

25 / Other

Renew your donation

Give less this year

Thank you,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder

Discussion

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