Wikipedia and Wikimedia, Where's your money going Options

[Peter Damian]

How many people who donate to Wikimedia think that their money is going to Wikipedia. I never realised this until recently (not that I have donated any money anyway).

I am still struggling to understand what Wikimedia is for, other than hosting all those servers. In particular, now that Wikimedia UK is registered as a charity, I am wondering what the money is for.
Wikimedia UK has 'raised' £500,000, but I understand this is a cheque from the parent WMF. It took me a long time to find out how it is actually being spent, but the page linked to below explains some of it. I itemise them below (I didn't finish it, it being far too boring). The CEO salary is about right for London charity director, but I don't understand what he (Jon Davies) is doing, apart from raising money to pay his own salary. The Office Manager is also about right, but, again, what are they actually doing? The other stuff is impenetrable, apart from the second "Wikipedians in Residence" which is (because of the Bristol connection) is probably a nice cheque for Martin Poulter for being a good all-round nice guy.

The whole thing seems to be to raise money for 'mates' - the various ne'er do wells and useless people that hang around the WMF.

Further investigation, followed by a letter to the charities commission, would seem to be in order.

Chief Executive 60,000
Office Manager 25,000
Events Manager 30,000
Communications 20,000
Developer 30,000
Train the Trainers Programme 20,000
Outreach merchandise & publications 5,000
Extended Reach programme 10,000
Technical development to support cultural outreach 80,000
GLAM-Wiki Conference Autumn 2012 10,000
Outreach Events 10,000
Wikipedians in Residence 15,000
Digitization 20,000
World Wars I and II project 30,000
University outreach events 10,000
Wikipedians in Residence 10,000
[etc]

http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2012_Activity_Plan

[Peter Damian]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bastien Guerry" <bzg@altern.org>
To: "Erik Moeller" <erik@wikimedia.org>
Cc: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 12:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Celebrating the 2011 campaign


Hi Erik,

Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org writes:

>> Years ago, we used to worry that people wouldn't/didn't understand
>> that Wikimedia is a non-profit, that it's created by volunteers, that
>> it's international/multilingual. Many misconceptions still exist, but
>> for anyone paying attention, we've demolished them.

Congrats to all for this successful fundraising!

I am still observing a widespread confusion between wikipedia and
wikimedia. The confusion is not problematic /per se/, but I guess
it can be with respect to what each chapter does for the projects.
It is by far not easy to fix this problem, but I hope it's on the
to-do list for 2012!

Best,

I share this confusion.

[melloden]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bastien Guerry" <bzg@altern.org>
To: "Erik Moeller" <erik@wikimedia.org>
Cc: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 12:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Celebrating the 2011 campaign


Hi Erik,

Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org writes:

>> Years ago, we used to worry that people wouldn't/didn't understand
>> that Wikimedia is a non-profit, that it's created by volunteers, that
>> it's international/multilingual. Many misconceptions still exist, but
>> for anyone paying attention, we've demolished them.

Congrats to all for this successful fundraising!

I am still observing a widespread confusion between wikipedia and
wikimedia. The confusion is not problematic /per se/, but I guess
it can be with respect to what each chapter does for the projects.
It is by far not easy to fix this problem, but I hope it's on the
to-do list for 2012!

Best,

I share this confusion.

Wikimedia pays people to boss around the unpaid Wikipedians.