Wikipedia Funding

Marsupial said:
$114m in salaries and benefits! That's about 1,140 staff at $100,000 a year!!! :eek: Where can I sign up?
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Apply for open roles here. They have about 650 staff, the salary costs may well include related tax and other expenses. If you have the skills there are a lot of better paying jobs in the SF area where livings costs are eye watering. $122k is considered the baseline to afford a comfortable living standard there.
 
From a 2022 article in Unherd magazine
...in the 2012/13 year the Foundation budgeted for $1.9m to provide all its free information on tap.

“WMF [Wikimedia Foundation] has operated in the past without staffing and with very minimal staffing, so clearly it’s _possible_ to host a high traffic website on an absolute shoestring,” acknowledged the Foundation’s then VP of engineering, Erik Möller, in 2013. He put the running costs at $10 million a year. Being generous, as some costs fall every year, let’s double that. Wikipedia can operate quite comfortably with the cash it has already, without running another banner ad, for twenty years. So where does the money go?
Not on the people doing the actual work on the site, of course. Wikipedia’s Administrators and maintainers, who tweak the entries and correct the perpetual vandalism, don’t get paid a penny — they’re all volunteers. What has happened is that the formerly ramshackle Foundation, which not so long ago consisted of fewer than a dozen staff run out of a back room, has professionalised itself. It has followed the now well-trodden NGO path to respectability and riches. The Foundation lists 550 employees. Top tier managers earn between $300,000 and $400,000 a year, and dozens are employed exclusively on fund-raising.
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has professionalised itself. It has followed the now well-trodden NGO path to respectability and riches. The Foundation lists 550 employees. Top tier managers earn between $300,000 and $400,000 a year, and dozens are employed exclusively on fund-raising.
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And, as Leo has pointed out, could earn a lot more in for profit companies.
 
Marsupial said:
$114m in salaries and benefits! That's about 1,140 staff at $100,000 a year!!! :eek: Where can I sign up?
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That's around €85,000 a year or about a third higher than the median IT salary in Ireland. You'd pay far less income tax if you lived there but would it be worth it?
 
mathepac said:
I haven't contributed cash yet, the bolded bit above explains why. Any eejit with access to the inter tube can put/change anything up there and who's to know?
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I don't contribute and this is why.
I did my business degree in the 2000s via the Open University and one of the courses included a piece on quality of information on Wikipedia. Basically the way it works is on the basis of consensus - so its very easy for "facts" to be added to articles without citation or with citations that are unreliable. Just because a large number of people believe in a belief doesn't make it correct.
 
lff12 said:
Basically the way it works is on the basis of consensus - so its very easy for "facts" to be added to articles without citation or with citations that are unreliable. Just because a large number of people believe in a belief doesn't make it correct.
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I'm reading Randy Pausch's Book, The last lecture at the moment and in it he mentions how he was approached by 'World Book' and asked if he would write an article about his area of specialty (Virtual reality) for it which he did. There was no editorial oversight. They just took his article and put it in the next edition.
I think it's likely there's more oversight in wikipedia than ever there was in any previous encyclopaedias
 
Cervelo said:
Oh good God man,
No No No
Religion is something that can be discussed and argued over and brings many people comfort,
Flat earthers are just stupid
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If there is a cohort of people for whom flat earth theory can be discussed and argued over and for whom it brings comfort does that make it any less stupid?

Hundreds of years ago both were equally valid propositions and were argued over at length by people of intellect and education. One has fallen out of favour faster than the other. That's all.
 
Purple said:
If there is a cohort of people for whom flat earth theory can be discussed and argued over and for whom it brings comfort does that make it any less stupid?
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Nope, at least not in my eyes
Purple said:
Hundreds of years ago both were equally valid propositions and were argued over at length by people of intellect and education. One has fallen out of favour faster than the other. That's all.
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Prior to 1492 I probably might have given it some thought and even maybe agreed that the earth was indeed flat
But it's 2026 and we have and have had for hundreds of years the "empirical evidence" that the earth is round
Any other thinking on this is just....

I don't look at the Pope and his beliefs and think of him as stupid but a flat earther....
 
Leo said:
But do you know his true beliefs or the version shared to maintain the system??
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Immaterial to the point been discussed

Personally I don't believe in JC, his father or any other earthly deity
but I do believe in the "universe" and it's power, does that make me stupid??
While a "flat earther" despite the "empirical evidence" that the earth is round still believes the nonsense
And that in my mind makes them stupid
 
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Cervelo said:
Personally I don't believe in Jasus, his father or any other earthly deity
but I do believe in the "universe" and it's power, does that make me stupid??
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I don't believe in Jasus (can't use the correct spelling on AAM) or any God or deity. I also believe in the power of the Universe as the Universe is vast and powerful in ways that we will never be able to comprehend. I find it cool that there are more galaxies than the total number of people who have ever been born and that in this corner of the universe bits of dead stars have, though evolution, found a way of assembling themselves into self aware beings. We are, quite possibly, the only part of the universe which is capable of contemplating it's existence and each human life is more unique, rare and special than an entire galaxy. That's enough for me.
Cervelo said:
While a "flat earther" despite the "empirical evidence" that the earth is round still believes the nonsense
And that in my mind makes them stupid
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Despite the total lack of evidence for the existence of a God or Gods people still believe in them, believe enough to kill and die for those Gods or God. In my mind that's also pretty dumb.
 
Cervelo said:
Immaterial to the point been discussed
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Tangential perhaps - for instance, is a flat-earther who only claims to be so in order to gain power and privilege they would not otherwise achieve really stupid?
 
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