Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-06-27/Forum

This column, the Forum, is intended for the frank discussion and sharing of opinions between Wikipedians, so please read the discussion below in that light.

Andreas Kolbe is a former co-editor-in-chief of The Signpost. He recently published an article in The Daily Dot, titled "Wikipedia is swimming in money—why is it begging people to donate?". Smallbones is the current editor-in-chief of The Signpost. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of other Signpost contributors or those of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Smallbones: Andreas, you recently wrote a piece in the Daily Dot, criticizing the Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising. Your piece was reported on and followed up by several other news sources, among them The Next Web, The Telegraph and Clarín, Argentina's biggest newspaper. The overall criticism seems to be that:

• The WMF's budget has grown exponentially – much too fast,
• The WMF is pressuring donors with appeals that suggest that Wikipedia is in dire need of money and may be forced to close down,
• It is wasting donors' money on projects that the community neither wants or needs, and
• The WMF and the community of editors are at loggerheads on this and many other issues

Does this represent your view of the problem?

Andreas Kolbe: Hi Smallbones, thanks for inviting me! I don't think the WMF's budget increases are necessarily a bad thing. For example, I asked many questions on Meta in the run-up to this piece. I received answers because there were WMF staff members there watching the pages. As anyone who's been around a while knows, that's not how it would have been a few years ago. There are many things the roughly 500 Foundation staff and contractors are doing that are worthwhile, and if the money is there to pay them, then good.

What I do feel strongly about is that the revenue should be gathered honestly. That brings me to your second point. The WMF banners shown annually around the world always evoke a sense that Wikipedia is facing an imminent threat – that its independence or even continued presence online is imperiled by a lack of funds. Which at this point is frankly ludicrous. Just look at the graph!

As for wasting money on projects the community neither wants or needs, I'd have to ask you what you mean by community – the volunteer community, or the public in general?

Smallbones: Defining community might mean all the potential readers, or potential donors – that is the entire population of the world, or it might mean a few thousand people who make more than 100 edits per month on the English Wikipedia. Let’s talk about the overall group of English-language editors on Wikipedia since the major complaints I’ve seen are in the English-language press.

People in the U.S. may have a different experience with fundraising campaigns than people in other places. Being asked to donate to charities is an everyday occurrence here. For example, today my National Public Radio station announced that an unnamed donor will give the station $100,000 if 3,500 people call the station and make a pledge of any size. But you need to do it in the next three days or else the $100,000 will disappear!

Later this summer, I expect to see volunteer firefighters, wearing some of their firefighting gear, standing in the middle of the road near the traffic light in front of their station. They slow down traffic and extend their tall firefighting boots to collect money from drivers. Yes, I’d consider this pushy if I thought about it, but like many Americans, I’ve gotten used to it.

The Canadian and British experiences with charity fundraising are fairly close to the American experience, though their public broadcasting and firefighting are likely paid for directly by the government. I’ve been told that charity solicitors on London streets are called “chuggers”, short for “charity muggers”. Canadians and Brits likely have seen television adverts with disturbing pictures of animals or children in pain, soliciting money for the animal welfare or children's welfare societies.

I don’t object to the goals of these organizations, but I really don’t like these adverts. Other countries would fund these needs through the government. Still other countries might fund them through religious organizations, large donations from philanthropists, or, perhaps in poorer countries, not at all. Perhaps a narrowly tailored campaign should be designed by the WMF for each country.

The first example of a WMF fundraising pitch in your Daily Dot article reads: "This Thursday Wikipedia really needs you. This is the 10th appeal we’ve shown you. 98% of our readers don’t give; they look the other way … We ask you, humbly, don’t scroll away."

While I’m surprised that the "this is the 10th appeal" sentence would help raise funds, I don’t see anything objectionable in it. The WMF does need donors every year, not just every 2-3 years when they’d be starting to run out of money. The "98%" sentence just gives readers the assurance that they wouldn’t be alone in not donating. The last sentence just asks readers to think one more time about donating.

Where is the objectionable part? Where are the disappearing funds? The firefighter’s boot in the driver’s face? The chuggers? The pictures of children and animals in pain? I guess I just don’t get it. Could you give another example of an objectionable on-Wiki pitch and explain why you think so?

Andreas: Other phrases used this fiscal year have included "Help us keep Wikipedia online and growing," "We need you to make a donation to protect Wikipedia's independence," "We humbly ask you to defend Wikipedia's independence," "This Thursday we need you to make a donation so that we can continue to protect Wikipedia's independence." Here are some examples:

The way they sound almost tearful sometimes, which is so at odds with the financial realities, causes me and countless others much the same distaste you describe feeling above.

Smallbones: Let’s focus on your last example – they’re all very similar to each other and to the example I discussed above. Three additional points.

• The WMF is asking for about US $2.00
• They mentioned “independence” and “if Wikipedia became commercial.” They are not saying that Wikipedia will become dependent on commercial interests this year or next but just suggesting the possibility at some future date.
• They mention “Wednesday” and “help keep Wikipedia online and growing”. I don’t know why it’s important to mention “Wednesday”, but clearly nobody is suggesting that Wikipedia will go offline on Thursday.

Andreas: Surely it's designed to enhance the sense of urgency, that Wikipedia "really needs" money, today. But let me come back to your four bullet points above.

You asked whether I thought the WMF "is wasting donors' money on projects that the community neither wants or needs". My concern is rather that the global community of readers and donors doesn't have a good grasp of what the WMF is doing, which appears to be at least in part by design. Maybe they'd love what the WMF is doing, but if they don't know about it, how can they have an opinion?

Smallbones: You’re dead-wrong on this one. The WMF is radically transparent compared to other nonprofits. Just go to the bottom of the main page. There’s a dozen Wikimedia projects listed and linked. Dozens of different language versions. Wikipedia:About, Contact Wikipedia. You can also go to the Wikimedia Foundation website or read the articles on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Foundation. The biggest problem is likely that there is too much information, or that it’s not organized as well as it could be.

But you are likely thinking of the WMF’s future plans. Any big changes will likely be discussed with a dozen communities and listed on Meta for general discussion. The general reader who clicks on a fundraising banner probably doesn’t want to read all of that, but they can. They also likely have a very firm grasp of what Wikipedia is – it’s an online encyclopedia.

Can you think of any nonprofit – or any organization that is more transparent?

Andreas: The fundraising banners always just ask for money for Wikipedia, which is not even the WMF's main expenditure item – it reportedly accounts for about 30% of spending.

The financial statements show that over the past decade,

• WMF net assets have increased more than 10-fold, even as
• expenses have increased more than 10-fold,
• the WMF has increased staff numbers almost 10-fold, while
• cost of "salaries and wages" has increased more than 15-fold – which tells us that
• WMF salaries have risen at rates well above inflation – doubled actually, in the case of the ED/CEO.
• In addition to the more than 10-fold increase in net assets, the WMF now also has $100 million with Tides and is in the process of launching a for-profit arm.

Yet throughout this period of growth, the fundraising banners have made people believe that the WMF "often struggles to have enough money to keep Wikipedia up and running," as Trevor Noah put it in his recent interview of Katherine Maher. Viewers were left with that notion – the phrase remained uncorrected.

Smallbones: You are confusing exponential growth with other issues. There’s no question that the WMF’s fundraising has been successful. That doesn’t mean that they are lying to potential donors. That doesn’t mean that they are wasting money.

As far as Maher’s interview with Trevor Noah, I can’t answer for either of them but will note that you’re now focusing on what wasn’t said in a TV interview, rather than what was said in a fundraising appeal. Noah asked a long question (almost a full minute of an 8 minute interview) about the importance of WMF being a nonprofit (starting at 3:50), Maher’s answer covered the main question in detail, but not the part that you focused on.

Andreas: Andrew Lih said five years ago in the Washington Post, "People will come up to me during fundraising season and ask if Wikipedia's in trouble. I have to reassure them that not only is Wikipedia not in trouble, but that it's making more money than ever before and is at no risk of going away."

The WMF is $200 million richer today. When people learn just how wealthy the WMF is, you see complaints like this one at Hacker News:

• "It doesn't matter if they have big plans, the way they ask for money doesn't say that – it says they can't survive without my 10 bucks, which is disgusting. I'd rather be shown ads than this."

Smallbones: Surely you could find a better source than Hacker News. When the pseudonymous poster says the WMF told him that they couldn’t survive “without my 10 bucks”, you didn’t take that literally did you?

What Andrew Lih said over 5 years ago is likely more interesting. I’ll ping him to see what he thinks now.

Andreas: I could have quoted many more statements like that from social media. Here is a Twitter thread by Hector Martin, the Asahi Linux founder, that got nearly 1,000 retweets. He refers to the banners as "downright deceptive". The Next Web spoke of Wikipedia's "impassioned pitch for cash" that "gives the impression that the site is struggling to stay afloat". People out there agreed with me.

Moreover, many readers assume the WMF plays an active role in directing, moderating or fact-checking Wikipedia content. This is partly because the WMF has a media presence and takes credit for the project, whereas the volunteer community has no public voice, no organisation speaking for it, no PR agent. The WMF should fill this role, but the volunteers don't feel represented by it.

Smallbones: The WMF does a pretty good job mentioning Wikipedia volunteers at almost every chance. Perhaps they could do more. I also think that many reporters don’t know how to deal with the multi-headed hydra that is Wikipedia, and just credit the WMF for convenience. So how should the WMF represent the diverse views of the community? – that’s a hard one to answer.

Andreas: Half the board should be elected by volunteers who do not represent organisations financially dependent on the WMF – who have no financial conflict of interest. This brings me to your last bullet point about the WMF and the community. I was struck by the magnitude of the opposition when the WMF tried to rebrand itself as the Wikipedia Foundation last year – voices against the renaming were running at well over 90 per cent on Meta (540 opposed vs. 46 in favour). Volunteers spoke of attempted "identity theft". An open letter telling the WMF to stop bears the signatures of 73 Wikimedia affiliates and 998 volunteers.

I believe what drives this unease is in part the way the WMF has been absorbed by the US political and financial establishment.

A Counterpunch article I read the other day mentions that traditionally an estimated 80% of top foreign policy positions in the US government are held by members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). It's a US think tank with around 5,000 members. They include ex-WMF CEO Katherine Maher and the WMF's most influential consultants, mentioned in its annual Form 990 disclosures as having received six-figure sums for their services. These consultants all have close ties to the Clintons:

• Whitney Williams, whose williamsworks firm was in charge of the process that set the WMF strategic direction for 2030, is a CFR member. She was formerly Hillary Clinton's Trip Director.
• Minassian Media, the WMF's PR consultancy for the past few years, was founded by Craig Minassian, ex-press secretary to Bill Clinton and today chief communications officer of the Clinton Foundation. Jove Oliver, a Minassian partner dealing with the WMF account, is a member of the CFR.
• Trilogy Interactive's Josh Ross was Hillary Clinton's senior digital advisor …

Moreover, the various foundations that have traditionally given the WMF large sums of money – such as the Ford Foundation, Stanton Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Knight Foundation – are all headed by CFR members as well (or a member's spouse, in the case of the Stanton Foundation).

Wikipedians don't belong to this small elite. Wikipedia itself is an anti-elitist project. In most countries (with exceptions like Kazakhstan) volunteers celebrate their project's independence from government, even to the point of contrariness (recall the Pierre-sur-Haute incident). Think tanks aren't welcomed as sources – "Avoid all think tanks like the plague … The influence of think-tanks is pernicious …" was one veteran admin's verdict at WP:RSN.

Smallbones: The politics of Wikipedians and of the folks who run the WMF is always a good topic for speculation and even for conspiracy theories. About all I can say is that, after a period of strong libertarian influence, the general community seems to have become more liberal than the “average American”. Since this is an international project that shouldn’t be unexpected. But I hadn’t heard the one about the Clintons taking over the WMF before.

The Council on Foreign Relations is a highly respected organization. Nobody should be playing a game of "guilt by association" using their name.

Andreas: I think media organisations – including Wikimedia – should be at arm's length from government. As for the Clintons, these approaches were made quite openly as long as a decade ago. Hillary Clinton sent Richard Boly to Wikimania 2012. Boly was then in charge of "an ambitious State Department initiative that uses social media and online platforms to change the way employees communicate and reach outside their boundaries to advance U.S. foreign policy interests. He told Wikipedians we are "kindred spirits" and read out a letter of greeting from Clinton.

There is a growing culture gap. You now hear complaints even from ex-staffers that WMF leadership culture has become indistinguishable from general US corporate culture.

Now, your firemen example. So you come to a traffic light. Firefighters are preventing you from moving off, impressing on you that they are struggling to have enough money to keep the fire engines up and running, need your money today to continue to save lives. Alarmed, you give them $20 of your hard-earned cash. But then you find out that the fire service's purely administrative headcount has increased 10-fold, most of the money is spent on other things than fire engines, its net assets have grown by $100 million over the past five years, and it's also acquired a $100-million endowment in record time, partly funded by your donations. Moreover, its CEO now earns twice as much as ten years ago, and ten times as much as you.

I think anyone who's not a complete doormat would at this point feel slightly had.

And then you learn that the firemen even go to some of the city's poorest quarters, begging for money, making people fear they may have to do without a fire service if they don't give money today – even though the service has already surpassed its own revenue year goals by nearly $50 million.

Smallbones: Can I say that your firefighter example is a bit alarmist? You are asking me to assume all your conclusions into a hypothetical example. Or are you just trying to hose me?

Andreas: In April/May, the WMF was already around $50 million ahead of its revenue year goals. Yet it started fundraising in South American countries badly hit by the pandemic, using banners that implied its independence was under threat. I didn't think that was right.

Smallbones: There’s a very good argument for fundraising around the world. If fundraising is limited to just North America and Western Europe, the WMF will be perceived as just being an organization for the developed world. When hard financial choices have to be made, the developed world would be very influential. The WMF wants to be a world wide organization.

Andreas: Yes, indeed it does! All I have to say in conclusion is that I'd ask Wikipedians to read the Daily Dot article, and share it online if they agree.

If the banners continue to imply there's a financial emergency, or that money should be given to the WMF to "show the volunteers that their work matters", I'd suggest volunteers organise a social media campaign with the tagline "Not in our name" in time for the next fundraiser.

And volunteers should press – in the media, not just on Wikipedia – for non-Wikimedia-affiliated volunteers to be given 50% of the seats on the WMF board. That would be a partnership of equals, and it's the only way things will change.

Smallbones: To conclude, Andreas, you haven’t shown any examples of abusive fundraising adverts, certainly nothing comparable to what I see every day from other nonprofits. I’ll only ask our readers to check out the specific banners that the critics so vociferously complain about.

Sure, the WMF might better tailor their adverts to individual countries, or remove the word “Wednesday” from the banners. But that’s not what you are complaining about, is it? You’ve vacillated on whether WMF spending is a problem. I'm sure you understand that international fundraising makes sense for an international organization.

I still can't understand why you want to delay fundraising until the WMF is close to being broke. Most people will try to ensure that they have enough money before they need it.

That leaves the fact that the relationship between the WMF and editors in some project communities is often contentious. You’re promoting your own views on Wiki-politics above. Fine, but don’t confuse your politics with the proper way to raise funds. Your politics may be more controversial than you think.

The difficulties between the WMF and the editor communities can only be solved by all parties recognizing that they need each other. These difficulties won’t be solved by cutting fundraising.