The Tech Stock Wipeout

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Kokayne Smoke Rising
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The Tech Stock Wipeout

Post by Kokayne Smoke Rising » Mon May 09, 2022 4:13 pm

Please share your thoughts on the ongoing tech stock wipeout and its consequences for Wikipedia. Wikipedia doesn't have nearly as much money as people think it does*, and the donations it relies on mostly come from tech sources. Those sources are now being hammered.

*and before you reach for favorite articles, no, a few million dollars isn't that much money.

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ericbarbour
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Re: The Tech Stock Wipeout

Post by ericbarbour » Tue May 10, 2022 2:01 am

I serously doubt it will impact the WMF's money stream substantially. Wikimedia didn't exist during the 2000-2001 dotcom meltdown and it wasn't obviously impacted by the 2008 recession (still too small at the time). The annual income and spending just kept rising steadily since 2008.

https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/a ... #section-1

Look at what they're paying the top management
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimed ... n_salaries

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DexterPointy
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Re: The Tech Stock Wipeout

Post by DexterPointy » Wed May 18, 2022 4:04 am

"The ongoing tech stock wipeout" ?
: Are you referring to news like this one (the TL;DR: Tech stocks take a ~10% plunge.)
If so, then: Considering what the purely technical costs of maintaining and running the WP servers & network must be like, compared to WMF's yearly revenue of ~163 million USD (ref. this thread), then WMF will still be able to have a cup of coffee left for themselves. ... and maybe a blowjob to go with it.

BTW: WMF's fiscal reporting can be found at https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/f ... l-reports/

ericbarbour wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 2:01 am
...
Look at what they're paying the top management
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimed ... n_salaries
Well, let's remind ourselves about how the ladder works.
  1. The Peter Principle
    You get hired, and by virtue of being competent, you get promoted.
    Apply this recursively, and you'll rise to hold a position, where you'll be incompetent.
     
  2. The Dilbert Principle
    By vice of being incompetent, you can do a lot of damage - and the closer you are to where actual work is done, the more damage you can inflict. You are therefore promoted, so to minimise such impact (i.e. minimise the potential for you doing serious damage).
    Apply this recursively, and you'll rise to hold an absolute top position.
     
  3. Salary Hiking
    Being at the very top is where you suddenly, and somewhat paradoxically, get to be really dangerous. You can't strive for promotion, since you're at the very peak of it all, so this is where you might get bored. Getting bored at that level is dangerous, because you suddenly might take an interest in how things work, and then attempt making real & major changes. To prevent such possible havoc, caused by changes envisioned by someone utterly incompetent, then you take a salary hike.
    Personally having a shitload of money, enables you to travel around the world, using flowery language about "your" organisation, while at the same time being so little in touch with it, that you're not doing any harm to it. You'll become the great guy, whom nobody "at home" has any serious communication with, and the organisation has been de facto liberated from your harmful presence.
So, there's the Dexter Ladder for you.
Now please go create the "Dexter Ladder" WP-article, because it's missing. And do remember
- Avoid using the WP:AfD-process.
- Stubs need not being properly sourced, sourcing can come later.
- Citogenesis is your friend.

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Re: The Tech Stock Wipeout

Post by wexter » Wed May 18, 2022 1:30 pm

An oxymoron for the morons that run the WMF There is quite a bit of profit to be made in running a non-profit. More important is the power and prestige of running a "laudable" foundation (that is really evil as fuck)

It is not too shabby to have a WMF credit card to rack up strip steaks and strippers. - they took JW's card away!

A large endowment can make a nonprofit immutable. Thus we have lots of folks siphoning off power and money from Wikipedia which remains cash rich and change-reform resistant.

Totally change-reform resistant because the folks holding the purse in the foundation are structurally distanced from the lunatics at the asylum that is Wikipedia. The foundation disavows any/all responsibility for the work-product.

The "purse" of Wikipedia is worth more than the product at this point. The product is really irrelevant to the folks that have "prestigious" and "honorable" positions at WMF.

How honorable is it to be a pornographer (Bemis)? How prestigious is it to have your platform host child porn? The harsh realities of Wikipedia/WMF are all outlined on this site.

WMF has plenty of PR money to fend off Wikipedia's reality! WMF has been structured to evade responsibility.
Wikipedia - "Barely competent and paranoid. There’s a hell of a combination."

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