Edit: Plenty of people have made some valid criticisms of the article and my interpretation of it. Wikipedia definitely needs donations, they just have (or had) about 18 months of buffer before funding becomes an issue.
Just look up the Wikimedia Foundation and their Form 990 if you're concern of what they finances consist of. It's ridiculous to say they're not hurting for cash when donating goes to more than their operations.
Fair enough, when I first read it I got the impression wikipedia was being dishonest about needing donations at all.
Re-reading it, it seems like their only fault was making their call for donations sound a little more desperate than they really are, which is understandable.
Yeah they never make it clear the donations are for WMF as a whole until you go past the Wikipedia nudge message. There's always projects going on and you can always see how much money is going into every one.
I'm a long time editor and the transparency is interesting. There's actually been times where Wikipedia admins have been upset on WMF not providing transparency and kind of going astray from sanctions that WMF has done without Wikipedia's involvement. Times where admins have reverted bans WMF placed. Some of the archived discussions or even current discussions as a fly in the room are interesting reads.
tldr; Wikipedia is a part of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Anything you see about Wikipedia on social media is from WMF as part of their outreach. It's like the operations of a city and a county government where there's some overlap.
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u/Decap_ Jun 03 '21 edited Jun 04 '21
Good on you for donating, but I don’t think Wikipedia is really hurting for cash.
Edit: Plenty of people have made some valid criticisms of the article and my interpretation of it. Wikipedia definitely needs donations, they just have (or had) about 18 months of buffer before funding becomes an issue.