Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-05-22/News and notes

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• Something is not right here... :( --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:18, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• This is not in the spirit of the premise I agreed on to contribute.Frdp (talk) 09:59, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• Good coverage. Thank you! Tony (talk) 11:48, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• I'm unsure of what "local salary levels" is supposed to mean for a company that is now fully distributed. Even if the CEO were required to work in San Francisco, where I live myself, I feel some kind of way about donating my labor while folks at the top get these kinds of salaries. Funcrunch (talk) 15:45, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I asked some related questions at [1]. I got in before the deadline so hopefully they will be answered. Sandizer (talk) 15:57, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Why should they be required to work in San Francisco? Why can't they be based in a LCOL area?? Mathmo ^Talk 12:54, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that the WMF CEO should be required to work in SF. I'm saying that even if they were required to work in SF, one of the most expensive cities in the U.S., I would consider these salaries to be too high. Funcrunch (talk) 15:32, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

• Clearly an unpopular opinion in these discussions, but I have a difficult time bringing myself to care about stuff like this. I feel like maybe I should care, but I just don't. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 15:49, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• It's wild that these people get hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, plus nice benefits, while my own work compensation is miserable, and I'm paying for camera equipment, books, and article access in order to contribute here. ɱ (talk) 17:22, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Ɱ In theory, there are WMF-run grants for some of that. In practice, they are IMHO way red-tapish, sadly. But that's a different problem. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:49, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  The "rapid" fund is for "projects" from $500-5000. Neither the occasional book wish nor article/document scan requests cost $500. Perhaps photography equipment could, but I am not sure it would be eligible anyhow? ɱ (talk) 02:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  This book grant project would be great if still active, and where I live... ɱ (talk) 02:58, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Ɱ Considering that most editors need only a tiny amount of funds for stuff you mention, this does seem like a major oversight. Perhaps consistent with the other issue raised here: someone who earns six digits a year likely forgets some folks may have needs that for them are "petty cash". In other words, the distance between decision-makers at WMF and grassroots (us here) is growing larger and larger. Since we are talking about grants, this is well illustrated by those "big" grants, which I occasionally review even, and which increasingly have nothing to do with us here. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:11, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  These executives are far too often out of touch with the actual activities of the projects, yet somehow are worthy of such extreme salaries. IMHO the salaries ought to be more like $250,000/year -- perhaps even enforced upon the current executive staff -- & if they whine about such a sum being "insufficient", they should have the fact we volunteers work for free drummed into their skulls, with no serious hope of receiving more than a tee shirt or two for our labor. (And yes, I am unhappy about this imbalance of compensation.) -- llywrch (talk) 06:49, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, thanks for researching and reporting on this. DanCherek (talk) 17:38, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• Now we know, only extremely rich people can expect less than 500.000 dollars for leaving a job. Shameful. Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 23:16, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• How much money has the WMF spent on trying to free Osama Khalid and Ziyad al-Sofiani, who were imprisoned for contributing to Wikipedia? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:45, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Thebiguglyalien Or for suppporting their families? Who probably need basic resources (food, shelter) more than WMF staffers need another luxury item that comes with 6-digits saleries. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:50, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  To be fair, according to m:Legal/Legal Fees Assistance Program, the Foundation still offers to "help secure funds for legal assistance in appropriate cases for Wikimedia users" in certain roles. (Then again, as someone noted on the talk page there back in 2019 already, it is unclear whether/how much this program has been used; it is certainly not widely publicized. Also, regarding these two Arabic Wikipedia editors, the reporting some months ago raised the distinct possibility that the WMF's Trust and Safety team may actually have been oblivious of their arrests until they were reported by other organizations a year or two after the fact.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:45, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

• I wanna see the WMF do another donation drive. I double dog dare them. Because if they can burn so much money in severance packages, then there's no damn way they need any more of us regular people's money. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 01:03, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Thing is they were presumably in a position where if they didn't burn that amount they couldn't get rid of the people in question. And in theory at least they are at least trying to avoid being in that situation in future.©Geni (talk) 06:54, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  If both the number of jobs were scaled back and also the amount of excessive numeration packages were scaled back, would there even need to be multiple hard hitting donation drives every year? Would you even need one per year?? I think not. Every second year perhaps. Mathmo ^Talk 12:57, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

• MMM yummy money... It would be pity to give some away... CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:27, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
• HR can be a legal minefield. It's common practice to pay people in lieu of notice for lots of reasons, probably more so in a society as litigious (and lacking in a healthcare system) as the US. It would cost the WMF more in the long run if they were sued because they left themselves exposed. The new policy looks like an attempt to standardise things and introduce transparency while limiting potential future liability, which should be applauded. As imperfect as the WMF is, people are entitled to be paid for their work. The distinction between WMF staff and Wikipedians that amny people miss is that employees are told what to work on, how to work on it, when to work on it and that is how they make their living. If a Wikipedian refuses to follow our policies, they risk having their participation in a website restricted; an employee refusing to abide by workplace policies is jeapordising their livelihood and career. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:36, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  As for healthcare, the WMF offers a good set of benefits and perks, at least for its US employees – fully paid medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums for employees and their eligible families, wellness reimbursement, retirement plan etc. (These benefits are included in the total compensation shown in the Form 990.)

  I agree that the new policy looks sensible; the question is whether exceptions will continue to be made at the top, and how often. (I guess there will always be a risk of exceptions being made to avoid litigation, which then might prove even more costly.) Andreas JN466 07:55, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

• I honestly didn't think that the outrageous salary is a good use of our money. Any WMF executives should realize that the "product", the meat of the company, is provided by the free labor of thousands of people. WMF expanding to social issues is fine, but how much they pay these executives baffled me. I would prefer WMF to be focusing on providing the encyclopedia and running this like a good IT company - low cost on administrative tasks but spend more on IT infrastructure and development. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 00:48, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
• "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy [than the WMF]". ~ HAL333 14:51, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
• that severance does sound like a lot. The only counterpoint i can think of is that Lila left under a rather public cloud (when the press is talking about what a terrible boss you are, it has got to affect future employability). Maybe Katherine was able to negotiate extra severance to hedge against the risk of walking into the ceo position of an org that was clearly going through issues. Bawolff (talk) 20:57, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
• This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but these salaries are fair. People want to make money, and while many are willing to take less to work for a non-profit, it can't be absurdly low. A director at Google makes upwards of a million dollars a year,[2] and others here propose capping salaries at $250k. Why would anyone be the CEO of the WMF if they could quadruple their salary by going to a mid level role at another tech company? The only answer is being independently wealthy or if they have ulterior motives. It's pretty rare to find someone who is willing to donate $750k a year in opportunity costs to the Wikimedia foundation, so we're mostly left with ulterior motives.

And re: to the claims that WMF isn't a tech company, if you don't like it, you can try using your vaunted volunteer effort to fix the Graphs extension. If it was up to the community we would've just left it enabled until someone 0-days en wiki. The WMF constantly puts in technical work for new features and maintaining old ones. They have to pay SF software salaries to do so. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:35, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Agree, the full value of the organization is often reflected in its salaries, which hopefully attracts top of the line people. What Wikipedians should obtain from all of this is a much greater yearly increase in funding of Wikipedia projects and conventions (Viva WikiVegas2025 comes to mind). The funding appeals usually mention Wikipedia, and seem to imply, unless I'm misremembering, that's where much of the funding will specifically land. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:50, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Worrying about severance pay seems a bit like missing the forest for the trees. We can't possibly know the full decision making process behind these particular cases. The main evil is the deceptive way the WMF gets it fortune in the first place, and least this way of spending it is better than on further screwing up the design of the site. small jars tc 03:24, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• This is one of the best articles the Signpost has ever written. See: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: Wikimedia Foundation Org. It is interesting to look at the greatly increasing salaries of CEOs of nonprofits over the years. Far faster than other salaries. Salary transparency is a wonderful leveling tool. ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer shows how some CEOs tried to sneak in a $300,000 pay increase one year, but had to drop back the following year. Why would I donate to a "nonprofit" like that? This is part of a pattern: Richest 1% bag nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:33, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

  The big question is - even if we are unhappy about something, what can we do about it? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:18, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Heads up that this got to the front page of Hacker News

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36029115 ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:44, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy" that quote from Oscar Wilde was a very appropriate quote that one of the Hacker News commentators made. Mathmo ^Talk 13:01, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Wow. A lot of the comments there fall into a tiny few categories: (1) Wiki[p|m]edia is a tech company, so it should be compared to Facebook, etc. (no, it's an educational/information project -- something the people at the Foundation seem to have forgotten); (2) complaints about not being able to edit (the few times I've investigated these claims, I've found them to be a mare's nest); (3) Wikipedia has a political bias (sorry, we aren't Fox News). So far, the Oscar Wilde quotation is the most insightful comment made. -- llywrch (talk) 14:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Statement 1 represents the biases of Hacker News, but it's also a legitimate way to think of the WMF in terms of its budget, function, etc. That's just a lens and that can elucidate some things if you view it thru that lens. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:07, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Given that WMF staff do not edit articles but run servers and write software, i don't think the tech comparison is out of line. FAANG might be over the top, but WMF hires tech people to do tech things. Bawolff (talk) 20:45, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

"Given that WMF staff do not edit articles but run servers and write software"

Nope, not relevant to any of the staff member salaries being mentioned in this Signpost edition. They are not doing that. Mathmo ^Talk 12:10, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

the ceo manages people who manage people the majority of which do that. Organizations are what they do. It might be an educational non-profit in name, but its a tech company with an educational focus in practise. Bawolff (talk) 19:30, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I am one of those who are not much concerned that a few bigshots are getting paid more than I ever got in my 41 years of working for one company, and only a little more annoyed that they got a much larger golden parachute after only a few years. Top execs are a relatively small part of the cost of running a moderately big org, and if they were incompetent they could screw up the job in ways costing more than my errors on the job ever did. Yes, I buy my own computer and a fancier smartphone than I otherwise would and, last month, a fancier new camera. Also shortrange travel every week and, until a family matter came up, I was ready to pay my own way to the other end of the world for Wikimania. It's my hobby. Some hobbies are expensive. This one doesn't have to be, but I'm doing it in a fairly expensive way. Still, I am pleased at the prospect that future parachutes may become slightly less golden. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:40, 6 June 2023 (UTC)