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Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't seem interested in this. Their revenue is more than enough be able to invest and sustain the site forever, but they just increase expenses on non-core outgoings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CANCER


Am I misssing something or is Wikipedia net positive 200M? If this is true, that's eye opening. Weird given how much they beg for money on every article.


The amount of money moving through Wikipedia is absolutely mind blowing, and next to none of that is even being used to sustain the site. Hope those still donating to it feel smart about what they're supporting...


Still a drop in the bucket compared to the money going in to AI companies off the back of wikipedia data.


Because that's how you build up a foundation that will be self-sustaining when the donations run out.

It's not a bad strategy. I've looked at Wikimedia's financial statements and have no problem giving a small monthly amount to them considering how much value I get from the site.

I certainly prefer my money going to them than to Zuckerberg or Altman or MSFT shareholders.


The real question, given how handy Wikipedia is as training data, is why it's your money going to them, and not Zuckerberg's or Altman's or Nadella's.


You aren't missing anything. This has been an increasingly popular criticism of Wikipedia. They are doing just fine financially.


The Mozilla playbook, I see.


Mozilla doesn't have any money... do they?


They have that much in assets. I'm not sure what that actually looks like in terms of cash vs. non-liquid assets vs. assets with strings attached.

If you look at revenue vs spend they are net positive by about 7mm last year.



You pay for Wikipedia because you want it to prosper. The political part of Wikipedia is vital to make it succeed. Even though everyone uses Wikipedia not everyone knows why it succeeded and why it is important.

The fluff is important to have a engaged super users. It is also important to get acceptance in certain circles.


Can you make the case as to why we should want a political, super user based version of Wikipedia to prosper?


what circles? I would like to have greater transparency into what this cabal of superusers doing, how are they recieving the cash flows, etc.

It just seems like every wiki results in defensive mod cabals




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