zlacker

>>akolbe+(OP)
Yeah I've looked into this before and it's basically true. They have way more money than they need. They justify it by saying "look at all the outreach projects we do!" but really nobody was asking for those. The people donating don't know they exist.

If they had spent wisely they could easily have a $0.5bn endowment by now and basically be self-sustaining without donations.

It also feels like a massive waste for one of the few open source organisations that is actually well funded. Where are the technical improvements to Wikipedia? The only thing I remember changing in the last 10 years is the link hover box which is very nice, but is that it?

>>IshKeb+Ip
They've built several GUI editors, and a more forum like discussion experience (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Flow/Bac_%C3%A0...) which the community on larger wikis has pretty forcefully rejected

>>Macha+gZ
Gee, Flow was awful. :) The little "Reply" button they've made now is cool, but as Kunal Mehta (User:Legoktm) pointed out the other day, they knew even then that was all that was required:

"Back in 2014, we had a very clear list of how to fix talk pages. Yet the mw:Talk pages project only started in 2019."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...

Which reminds me: 3 of the 6 community candidates shortlisted for the Wikimedia board this year supported election compass statement #5:

"WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever."

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_electio...