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Does Wikipedia really need my donations? (infosec.pub)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Every now and then I'll get an email from someone higher up in Wikipedia asking for a donation. I don't really mind a tenner but I don't know if it pads the pockets of corporate management or actual contributors. Also, are they really short of money or is this tugging at emotional strings a play at something else? I wish Wikipedia survives but there's a lot of projects I need to donate to and I have a budget.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

No, it doesn't.

The Wikimedia projects are made by volunteers, almost none of the money goes to actually making the content. Some of it does go into keeping the servers running or into software development.

And some of it goes into expanding an ever-increasing bureaucracy, which is tasked among other things with enforcing intransparent "global bans" or lighter sanctions against contributors the WMF doesn't like (opinions of the editing community don't matter at all on these). If they had less money, perhaps they would lay off some of their trust and safety team and not catch some people who are making useful contributions by evading global bans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer

There are so many more worthy free knowledge organizations to donate to: OpenStreetMap, FOSS projects (e.g. Software in the Public Interest), even Miraheze.