"Wikipedia Forever" - fundraising campaign, or non-stop laff riot? Options

[thekohser]

I suppose its easy to use Wikipedia to win a bet. You insert some silly nonsense and ensure that its apparently well referenced so it will stay for a while. Alternatively you find some silly nonsense that's been in for a month or two so is unlikely to vanish. You then bet its true and bingo. Has anyone here ever done that?

I doubt any person has ever parted with money, based on the "proof" one might find in Wikipedia. I'm sure that corroborating sources would be demanded by any such bettor. Anyone who would part with money based only on a Wikipedia "gotcha" is a fool.

Like the size of Denmark, and such.

[Gazimoff]

I know someone who once bet that Sandwich in Kent was twinned with Baguette in France, Bagel in Germany and Panini in Italy. Needless to say, said person lost the bet.

[White Knight]

How in the hell did they manage to get $7.5 million dollars? Is Wikipedia getting donations from George Soros? It boggles the mind to think that enough ordinary people are willing to donate enough money to Wikipedia that it would add up to 7.5 million. There must be a (seriously misguided) rich philanthropist out there who donated a few million, right? Is there somewhere that lists large donors to Wikipedia?

[thekohser]

How in the hell did they manage to get $7.5 million dollars? Is Wikipedia getting donations from George Soros? It boggles the mind to think that enough ordinary people are willing to donate enough money to Wikipedia that it would add up to 7.5 million. There must be a (seriously misguided) rich philanthropist out there who donated a few million, right? Is there somewhere that lists large donors to Wikipedia?

I doubt there were any "large" donations in that list. Any large donor (over $10,000) would likely want to wait and make the donation during an off-fund-drive lull, so that their money gets more attention by the Foundation and, perhaps, the media.

The average donation is about $30.

The Wikimedia properties managed 340 million visitors last month.

$7.5 million would be raised in one month if only one out of every 1,450 visitors felt motivated by the obnoxious and deceitful headline banner pleas to make an average contribution.

Compare this with your next visit to a retail store during the Christmas season. Count the next 50 people who walk past a Salvation Army volunteer ringing the bell next to the red kettle. How many make a donation? Granted, the donors aren't chipping in $30, but do you think the Salvation Army would consider it a success if only 1 out of every 1,450 passers-by dropped a few coins in the kettle?

P.S. The Salvation Army in 2005 raised more than 206 times more private revenue than the Wikimedia Foundation, and its charitable services as percent of total expenses netted to 83%. The WMF mustered a program services efficiency of only 32%.

[CharlotteWebb]

Compare this with your next visit to a retail store during the Christmas season. Count the next 50 people who walk past a Salvation Army volunteer ringing the bell next to the red kettle. How many make a donation? Granted, the donors aren't chipping in $30, but do you think the Salvation Army would consider it a success if only 1 out of every 1,450 passers-by dropped a few coins in the kettle?

No, because it be a few coins (as opposed to thirty dollars). Plus they're not paying for the bandwidth etc., they just pick a spot next to the Wal-mart pay-phones (usually right in front of the "no soliciting" sign ).

Maybe they can get $1.00 per 48.333333 shoppers on a good day but I literally would have to see that to believe it.

In any case I thought they claimed some kind of "religious" exemption from filing form 990.

[thekohser]

In any case I thought they claimed some kind of "religious" exemption from filing form 990.

The Salvation Army does claim this exemption, yes. But, somehow Forbes had their financials to rate them.

This still leaves us with the cold, stark fact that Wikipedia churns through 1,449 visitors who show no desire to donate to them, for every one who does. I would venture a guess that this year's fundraiser was no more "successful" from a hit-rate standpoint than any previous fundraiser.

[CharlotteWebb]

This still leaves us with the cold, stark fact that Wikipedia churns through 1,449 visitors who show no desire to donate to them, for every one who does. I would venture a guess that this year's fundraiser was no more "successful" from a hit-rate standpoint than any previous fundraiser.

Oh you're probably right about that, but I doubt it would surprise anyone.

[Rhindle]

If this seems too vague a reason to get really, really pissed off, then consider this: the WMF's own financial statements reveal a 3,061.61% increase in expenses in the four year period from June 30, 2005 to June 30, 2009! Now Jimbo insists that the WMF needs TEN MILLION DOLLARS to get through the next fiscal year, which means a 5,528.41% increase in expenses since 2005! Do you actually believe that reflects the reality?? Have the number of pages on WP actually increased 5,528.41% since 2005?? Does it seem even remotely plausible that server and administrative expenses have increased 5,528.41% since 2005??

Actually - yes. Very plausible indeed. Businesses in the $5 - 100m income bracket are my focus at work. An organization like WMF is a classic case. They became successful on the back of an ad-hoc team of pretty much "whoever helped out in the early days". Now they are bigger, more visible, and the focus changes a bit as the future plans gain depth.

Typical things that face such businesses: They need to fill out admin and peripheral roles (few early-stage businesses need an HR department). In WMF's case the servers used to go up and down like yoyos; they need to be reliable, more delivery, better backups, more developers. Its now rare they go down even though there's a lot more workload. They have expanded back-office functions - this year there's usability projects, donation and funding teams that didn't exist before. There's a sudden increase of organizational scope, instead of just one or two targets or areas with costs involves they're running multiple all in parallel and all growing, often also involving a wide geographic area. They need to build up a financial buffer, enough cash in the bank to see them safe if next year's bad or they have something unexpected happen; they may have formal paid advisors and professional analysts they didn't before, travel may go up as more outward-facing people attend more meetings, the newly employed professionals may need a market rate not a hobbyist rate for their paycheck, they may have to ditch or move people who were great for an early-day startup but who know they aren't skilled at the level now needed, recruitment itself isn't cheap, power costs or hosting methods (including duplicate hosting facilities) may change, number of page views (== data traffic) may radically increase, and so on.

I don't know the WMF back office any better than anyone else with access to the published data, so this isn't really a comment on WMF specifically. So I'm open to being told I'm wrong here. But these are typical and common things that many thriving businesses and non-profits in this situation and bracket undergo, and they can easily add millions to a budget. It's the difference between being a shoestring/garage structured organization, and an established organization with a proper fully operational back-office. Considering Wikimedia in 2005 and 2009/2010, very very plausible. More would not be untenable.

This was in another thread but I wanted to see a response to it. I know sometimes posts get lost in long threads or perhaps FT2 is usually ignored around here. Whatever that may be is there any truth to this?

[thekohser]

This was in another thread but I wanted to see a response to it. I know sometimes posts get lost in long threads or perhaps FT2 is usually ignored around here. Whatever that may be is there any truth to this?

I don't want to "hound" my friend FT2, but he's "barking" up the wrong tree here at WR.

Didn't I recently post a link to either Charity Navigator or GuideStar (EDIT: here it is), that showed out of all the non-profits tracked over the past 3 years, the Wikimedia Foundation was the #1 most disproportionately accelerating revenues? NUMBER ONE out of what surely must be at least tens of thousands of organizations tracked. The very tippy top of the lot.

But, FT2 drunk on the JimboJuice will want you to believe this is normal. Typical. Feasible. Not a deviation from the norm at all.

Sorry, but "that dog won't hunt" here at WR, where we treat facts with respect, not swat on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

This post has been edited by thekohser: Tue 5th January 2010, 11:56pm

[Rhindle]

So I guess I should put a mental "citation needed" to FT2's post. Ok. Also, in the comments, some "Elsie Milan" seems to be spouting the same line.