On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 12:59 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 January 2015 at 15:59, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 Jan 2015, at 11:25 pm, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote: Now that the 2014 Fundraising campaign has finished and which,
according
to
a WMF blogpost from a week ago, "surpassed our goal of $20 million"
According to the data provided at https://frdata.wikimedia.org/ the Foundation seems to have taken $30.6 million over the period from
December
2 2014 to December 31 2014.
This is $10.6 million more than the $20 million fundraising goal
indicated
in the blog post. (At any rate, that's the sum I get; I'd welcome anyone double-checking my math.)
There is no scenario I can come up with where this is actually a good result. Sure, an extra $10.6 million might be nice in the bank, but it massively exceeds budget. The fundraiser met its goal, with plenty to spare, on December 17. And yet we put our readers and our users through another two weeks of fundraising. Given that we were already really pushing the goodwill of the broad Wikimedia community (that includes the users of our products)....well, as I say, this is not a good result. People were putting Wikipedia on Adblock because of those banners, and they were doing it long after the goal had been reached.
According to the yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv spreadsheet at https://frdata.wikimedia.org/ the daily takings for December 2 through December 16 were:
1,210,953.952,496,366.461,933,765.581,632,523.431,180,293.931,074,943.09 1,163,741.971,226,279.841,425,927.691,437,084.271,464,091.511,145,236.28 1,076,753.101,086,034.231,048,222.37
This makes $20.6 million, meaning the $20 million target mentioned in the blog post was met on December 16.
Moreover, from November 1 through December 1 inclusive, the Foundation took another 8.4 million, based on the numbers in that spreadsheet.
The total for the two-month period from November 1 through December 31 is just north of $39 million.
I'd say I was speechless, but actually I am working extremely hard to hold my tongue here, awaiting an explanation for this. And yes, I think the Wikimedia community deserves to know why this happened.
The automated thank-you note to donors apparently[1] said,
---o0o---
“Over the past year, gifts like yours powered our efforts to expand the encyclopedia in 287 languages and to make it more accessible all over the world. We strive most to impact those who would not have access to education otherwise. We bring knowledge to people like Akshaya Iyengar from Solapur, India. Growing up in this small textile-manufacturing town, she used Wikipedia as her primary learning source. For students in these areas, where books are scarce but mobile internet access exists, Wikipedia is instrumental. Akshaya went on to graduate from college in India and now works as a software engineer in the United States. She credits Wikipedia with powering half of her knowledge.
“This story is not unique. Our mission is lofty and presents great challenges. Most people who use Wikipedia are surprised to hear it is run by a nonprofit organization and funded by your donations. *Each year, just enough people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone. Thank you for making this mission possible.*”
---o0o---
Looking at the numbers, it hardly seems defensible to say that "just enough people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone".
Not when the Foundation
– had tens of millions in reserves in July 2014, – has just taken close to $40 million in two months, and – reported spending only $2.5 million on Internet hosting in the 2013/2014 fiscal year.[2]
And there is one other thing. This is a much more minor issue in comparison, but there is something irksome about the first sentence of that message, about readers' donations powering the Wikimedia Foundation's "efforts to expand the encyclopedia in 287 languages".
A slide at Wikimania 2014, titled "Reality Check",[3] reported that of the (then) 284 language versions of Wikipedia,
12 are "dead" (locked) 53 are "zombies" (open, no editors) 94 are "struggling" (open, < 5 editors) 125 are "in good or excellent health" (5 editors or more)
Note here the classification of all Wikipedias with 5 or more editors as "in good or excellent health". I believe the example of the Croatian Wikipedia, widely reported to have become the fiefdom of fascists a little over a year ago[4], demonstrates that a Wikipedia needs a lot more than 5 editors to be viewed as "healthy" by the public.
And if readers were left with the impression that their money funds crucial efforts by the Wikimedia Foundation to build content in these smaller Wikipedias, or to perform a quality assurance function there, then I believe that impression, too, would be almost completely mistaken.
[1] http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/p/revealing-rehoboth-miracle-of-wikipedia... [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG.... [3] https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman/status/498102860459302912/photo/1 – archived at https://archive.today/il131 [4] http://www.dailydot.com/politics/croatian-wikipedia-fascist-takeover-controv...