zlacker

>>akolbe+(OP)
With the financial situation being how it is I, paradoxically, would currently consider donating to Wikipedia to be actively harmful to the future of Wikipedia. The larger its dragon hoard of money grows (which is already way beyond any sort of costs to keep up Wikipedia for decades), the larger the incentive for unscrupulous individuals to corrupt the Wikipedia mission to tap into this money for personal benefit. I can't help but conclude that if you love Wikipedia and what it does... don't give them any more money for the time being.

>>orlp+ic
Is it really true that their hoard is enough to keep the site running for decades? it seems their annual surplus is less than their annual expenses..

>>kotens+1Q1
Please have a look at this table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial...

Then read this 2013 post from a past Wikimedia VP:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-March...

So there is a difference between keeping the Wikimedia Foundation organization going and keeping Wikipedia going. Keeping the Wikimedia Foundation going at its current size costs about 10 times as much as just keeping Wikipedia going, under the assumptions of that 2013 post.

You can't use "keep Wikipedia online" indefinitely as a justification for raising ever more money in order to expand. The Wikimedia Foundation should talk far more in its fundraising about what those hundreds of additional people are actually doing, including projects other than Wikipedia, instead of projecting this image of a small raft of people struggling to hold Wikipedia together with duct tape.