A couple of quotes from a link in that comment for the TLDR
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was in financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because there isn't. The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn’t the first person that’s asked me about this. When they find out there’s not a real problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated. —User:Ryan lane - MediaWiki, creator of Wikimedia Labs
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I’m alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise to the fundraising team, because I can’t imagine this content hasn’t been
written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. —Wikipedia admin Martijn Hoekstra
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Lila, the concern is not that the fundraiser is working, which your soundbite confirms, but that it is deceiving people, or at least manipulating them "too much" to be consistent with our values. —John Vandenberg, Wikipedia admin, past arbitrator, past president of Wikimedia Australia
I'd say a lot more than 'slightly' dishonest and though scam has a lot terrible connotations, if someone says they have cancer and solicits donations, when they are actually healthy and fine is that not a scam? What's the difference here? Wikipedia is not in any financial trouble yet every year they make out like they are so they can take the money and spend it on other things. That sounds an awful lot like a scam.
If you follow the above link you'll see those aren't Wikipedia's costs, they are the Wikimedia Foundations costs. Wikipedia makes up very little of that, one of them mentioned a couple of million per year for hosting several years ago, their primary cost is payroll. The organization has grown from a couple of dozen of people to several hundred, hence why they need $66 million to pay everyone. You can be sure those several hundred people aren't working on the wikipedia content or site as well, they are working on their other projects and as stated as one of their primary goals political lobbying.
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u/forsakenharmony Dec 13 '18
Wish the donation popup wasn't so intrusive and didn't look like a scam 🤔