Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Finance team/Archives/2009

Missing budget item

Dear Foundation Management: Why do you have no budget items for directly downloading Wikipedia's information into my brain? Please correct this omission. Thank you. Hair Pilot 07:22, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Seconded! I don't want a neural interface, but a synthetic speech option for desktop and mobile when people don't have access to a Kindle would be great. 99.34.78.140 03:50, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's very visible touchy-feely donation requests have motivated me to really question why they need $10 million. WHile I expect some fund raising, an annual operating budget of $10 mil appears a bit steep for what we assumed was just data organization, server space and bandwidth costs.

After all, users are under the impression that all the content and work to input the content comes FROM users for FREE. Maybe you should run an article on WHY you need a staff of 35+ people and WHY (since they believe in WIkipedia's spirit and motto to be mostly a charitable endeavor to bring knowledge to the whole world why they accept such high salaries (average of $85,000/year http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/a3/2009-10_Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan_FINAL_July2.pdf)...if they wanted such high salaries they could go work for a for-profit company.

It appears to me that since Wikipedia knows it can get plenty of funding (as probability would dictate based upon that vast numbers of users that use it - 300 million/month) Budget planners at Wikipedia appear to be expanding the budget unjustifiably and irresponsibly (living high on the hog as it were) in response to the huge source of money that is out there for the asking. Prudent, socially responsible and most of all, moral, fiscal management dictates operating in exactly the opposite way.

The management/spending patterns of Wikipedia "company" do not match the humanitarian and altruistic front that Wikipedia gave me the impression it stood for. It appears your corporation is just asking for money without exposing enough of its internal workings for donators to make an honest evaluation if Wikipedia really NEEDS money.

I recommend putting the gross earnings (including bonuses, travel expense accounts, and project expenses, etc.) of the average employee on your fundraising "commercials" to let people know what they are primarily donating for - salaries, NOT information content. People think they are giving money for the content..but the content would be submitted even if your budget was $2 mil or $5 mil because it is given for free by users. Users also correct the accuracy of the content.

I am sorry to have formed such a suspicion but the exorbitant salaries and spending that is occurring under the "shell" of a free and charitable encyclopedia raises my suspicions. Disclose employee salaries and perks on your donation commericals to inform donators what they are paying for! You should all take a lesson from the way Craigslist is run..lean and mean.

= Totally Agree - I have a nasty mental picture of Jimmi Wales driving off from his swanky new office in San Fransisco to the airport to catch his first-class seat to the "conference" in the Seychelles in his company Mercedes SLK500 (pimped), talking on his Vertu hand-set & laughing to himself about the quantity of "contributions" being pledged to his "non-profit" organisation......

Yeah, Yeah - He reckons that a "buffer" of 6.0 mUSD is required for a NPO of this size is to operate for a year... Then says that some NPO's keep a reserve for 3 years operating. Sounds like he waiting to get the 18 mUSD in an account in the Cayman Islands, then do a runner.... Lovely old job... Keep those donations coming......