zlacker

>>akolbe+(OP)
Sure but pointing out $350k executive salaries as somehow lavish is strange. That seems low for an executive at one of the most important (or at least, most viewed) websites on the planet.

>>yupper+5b
I guess you have to compare it to the salary of the donors who feel compelled by these heart-wrenching fundraising messages to donate. Here is a senior with $18 to his name promising to donate as soon as his social security check arrives:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising/Archive_6#S...

The Wikimedia Foundation has also just been fundraising in India and South Africa, again asking people there to donate so Wikipedia stays online for them, ad-free, subscription-free and independent.

None of these executives have anything do with the Wikipedia content. All of that is written by unpaid volunteers in their spare time. When Wikipedia first became a top-10 website, the Wikimedia Foundation had less than a dozen staff, and annual expenses of $2 million. I am not saying lets go back to that; I'm only saying this to make the point that the success of Wikipedia was not dependent on highly paid executives. It happened when there weren't any. The main value of the site comes from the volunteers.

>>akolbe+ze
Being envious of something doesn't make it cheaper.

Most in-demand, skilled labour is much more pricey than what the average person makes.

>>bawolf+wr
I honestly question the value added by these execs. The other day, you and I discussed some of the expensive C-Suite disasters Wikimedia has bought. They actually set Wikimedia back by years. Dozens of valuable, experienced staff left.

And Wikipedia became a top-10 website in 2007, when there was no C-Suite. There seems to be little awareness these days that the main value of the site to the public was and is built and maintained by unpaid volunteers.

>>akolbe+FC
Whether or not a particular set of executives (who have all left at this point) are shit at their jobs is a totally different question to what is a reasonable salary for an executive.

As far as early days of wikipedia. I agree the community is what provides value. But at the same time i think there is a lot of rose coloured glasses for that era. I remember there being a lot of downtime and slowness on the site in that era.

>>bawolf+6R
Sure. And I complained about how ArbCom volunteers had to deal with child protection issues etc. A lot has become better. But there seems to be an automatic assumption that any executive has to be someone in SF, with the salary costs that go along with it. If they work remotely what does it matter? Wikimedia wants to become more global. Why then not a European, Asian, African, Australian, South American ...? None of them will have salary expectations like someone in SF.