[akolbe]

Wow, just wow.

> If you think anyone is getting rich working at the WMF, I can disavow you of that notion. It's just not true.

Managers earning $300K+ are not getting rich. Good. I guess it's all relative.

> As for the language in the ads, it's there because it works. The WMF has tried, many times, language which is less emotional and more objective. It doesn't work. People don't respond.

"We simply couldn't have increased our revenue from $5M in 2008 to $155M in 2021 without being emotional and, um, 'unobjective'. We just couldn't have done it."

> What you're asking for is to have people donate because of their objective sense of value but that's not how most humans work. The WMF does what works.

"If you want people to give you 31 times as much money as before, you have to tell a good story. What else can you do? By the way, did we mention that we think we should be the central part of the world's information ecosystem?"

[aezell]

> Wow, just wow.

This is not conducive to honest conversation. I've been nothing but polite in our discussion. Your sarcasm here and in further responses isn't constructive.

> Managers earning $300K+ are not getting rich. Good. I guess it's all relative.

It is relative. If you live in San Francisco where the WMF is headquartered, this salary won't make you rich. I wish I could make that much money but given the role and the location, it doesn't seem exorbitant.

It might be instructive to look at how many people are giving money and not just the actual amount of money. I'm honestly saying that. I don't know the numbers because I haven't looked in years. Maybe there's more money because more people use it, more people find value in it, and more people donate. It would be an interesting way to slice the data. What's the average donation size? How has the geographic distribution of donations changed?

It seems like across all these threads, what many people, possibly including you, are responding negatively to is the language in the ads and not strictly the fact that the WMF collects money from people who willingly give it. I've already said that I don't care for the language either. I believe that they could be successful without it. Perhaps, not equally as successful but successful nonetheless. I shared that feedback when I worked there. I want them to appeal to the better angels of our nature.

Still, it's marketing and if my money supports the mission (the whole mission and not just Wikipedia), which by all accounting it does, then I'll continue to donate. The marketing, while undesirable, doesn't change their dedication to the mission.

[akolbe]

I think I have said many times that the language on the fundraising banners strikes me as lacking in truthfulness and designed, through A/B testing, to create the impression that Wikipedia – not the Wikimedia Foundation but specifically Wikipedia, which many people care about very much – is under some sort of threat.

This becomes more and more absurd as the Foundation takes more money every year and expands its budget, and not just by a little – revenue doubles every four years or so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statisti...

You need to decide for yourself, Alex, whether you are willing to excuse the manipulation or not. You said earlier,

> As for the language in the ads, it's there because it works. The WMF has tried, many times, language which is less emotional and more objective. It doesn't work. People don't respond.

You say now,

> I've already said that I don't care for the language either. I believe that they could be successful without it. Perhaps, not equally as successful but successful nonetheless. I shared that feedback when I worked there. I want them to appeal to the better angels of our nature.

This sounds more reasonable. Language which we both seem to agree is manipulative (a truly alarming habit for a key player in the global information ecosystem to have!) has enabled the WMF to double revenue every four or five years. I see no reason to assume that it couldn't have achieved modest growth with honest fundraising banners. Isn't this just greed?

Moreover, what falls by the wayside in this fundraising approach is what the WMF is actually planning to use its increased funds for. As far as donors and the public are concerned, it all seems to be about keeping Wikipedia up and running. But in fact, the WMF aims to invest in the Global South, in minor languages, in Wikifunctions for machine-translatable articles, in Wikidata, and so on. All of these initiatives might as well not exist for people seeing the fundraising banners with their message about "defending Wikipedia's independence".

This means that there is a lack of public scrutiny and indeed public debate and input into these plans. It is far better when people have a realistic idea of what it is they are supporting.

And indeed, there is a lost opportunity here, because people might actually be enthused by these plans. That would be a far better motivation for donating than artificially created fear.