<story><title>Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved</title><url>https://twitter.com/Wikiland/status/1570072717931552770</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>orlp</author><text>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&amp;#x27;t help but conclude that if you love Wikipedia and what it does... don&amp;#x27;t give them any more money for the time being.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xenadu02</author><text>It is clear the foundation has been corrupted by the professional non-profit class. These are the same kinds of people who staff up a &amp;quot;housing foundation&amp;quot; in San Francisco, burn money for 10-15 years, and never build a single unit of housing.&lt;p&gt;The organization becomes a parasite that exists only to perpetuate itself. Hiring and spending expand to fill all available space which becomes its own justification to increase fundraising further. If any actual work for the public good gets done that&amp;#x27;s just a side benefit.&lt;p&gt;If WMF had simply held spending constant (adjusting for inflation) for just a few years they could have had an endowment big enough to ensure Wikipedia is able to run independently forever. If they were being responsible they&amp;#x27;d also have spun it into a subsidiary non-profit that owned Wikipedia along with that endowment with a charter to focus exclusively on running Wikipedia and developing the software. Then their octopus of random spending programs could be operated as a sister subsidiary without any risk of destroying Wikipedia itself.&lt;p&gt;Honestly at this point if they proposed that plan I&amp;#x27;d be willing to donate to get it done. Instead they hold Wikipedia hostage to justify their expanding empire.</text></comment>
<story><title>Once again so many people are led to think Wikipedia is broke and must be saved</title><url>https://twitter.com/Wikiland/status/1570072717931552770</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>orlp</author><text>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&amp;#x27;t help but conclude that if you love Wikipedia and what it does... don&amp;#x27;t give them any more money for the time being.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>reflexco</author><text>The bigger threat to Wikipedia is people who want to corrupt its information content. People wanting to get their treasure chest is not an existential threat. The existing employees and collaborators are more likely to get corrupted by nefarious actors if they don&amp;#x27;t have independent revenue sources.</text></comment>