Quickly, before leaving for the first Christmas dinner…
Collecting donations for 2021. Yikes, we’re very late!
No more Wikipedia.
We donated…
And I pay double subscription for the local leftist weekly newspaper, WOZ, CHF 530 in total.
As for political associations in Switzerland: we are members of Mieterverband (for tenants) and VCS Verkehrs-Club der Schweiz (for sustainable mobility, unlike the Touring-Club, which is pro-cars).
#Donations
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
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Why ’’no more Wikipedia’’? Rgds. from Germany!
– Lasse 2022-12-24 16:49 UTC
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I had the same question as above, re: why “no more wikipedia”, if you are comfortable sharing the reason.
– Shreyas 2022-12-24 18:47 UTC
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It’s a tricky thing. On the one hand, Wikipedia is great. It’s under constant assault because it is great, and not supporting Wikipedia is a shit move because it is so important for all of us. One of the attacks the enemies of Wikipedia make is to criticise them for the salaries of their executive directors, pointing out that the actual running of the infrastructure needs a lot less money, and that the actual work of the editors is not being paid.
What am I talking about? The Wikimedia Foundation salaries. I’m conflicted about what to conclude: If I’m against high compensations, should Wikipedia management get a pass? I love the website and the volunteers and think it’s one of the best things on the Internet. And yet, I still dislike those salaries. I hate it when bankers and other C-level management people are raking it in, but at least they aren’t asking for my donations. It’s the greatest website on the planet that is asking for my donations. I keep thinking back to that 1:12 initiative that failed here in Switzerland. People tried to limit the ratio between lowest and highest paid employee to 1:12.
limit the ratio between lowest and highest paid employee to 1:12
It all depends on whether you feel that earning 400 000$/yr seems like a fair compensation no matter what job you do. For comparison, I’ll note that the Swiss top executives in government, the seven federal councillors, earn about 455 000$/yr, according to departure.html this page on admin.ch.
departure.html this page on admin.ch
Does such a salary protect them from the temptation of corruption? There’s plenty of anecdotes that make me think it’s never going to be enough, for some people. And for the others, simply living in a world they think is fair seems to be enough. That does not require 400 000$/yr and more.
Daines, the Pritzker Professor of Law and Business in the School of Law, who holds a courtesy appointment at the Business School, studied the relationship of executive pay to executive skill. In a recent paper, he and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania and New York University concluded that particularly in big firms, a high salary doesn’t necessarily mean that a CEO is more competent than his or her peers. – When CEOs are paid for bad performance
When CEOs are paid for bad performance
When I recently asked my wife about donations at the end of the year, she more or less said she doesn’t like donating to organisations where some employees earn more than she does. It’s a weird way to put it, but perhaps this makes sense? It certainly puts the badly paid or unpaid volunteers front and centre, it favours smaller, local orgs like animal shelters, and so on. One would also hope it would spare you discovering that the top asshat representing the organisation likes to hunt lions or elephants or whatever asshats do these days. I remember the king of Spain and the World Wildlife Fund.
the king of Spain and the World Wildlife Fund
So, how fair is it to single out Wikimedia of all things for the much, much bigger and more rampant issue of disproportionate executives pay? I don’t know. I would like to hold my people to a higher standard.
Fortunately, I don’t really have to examine it and weigh it like a judge. I can just decide that I feel pretty good about giving the money to some organisations where I don’t have to ponder these issues. Even if, maybe, they have the same problem.
– alex 2022-12-24 20:52 UTC
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Yes, that’s my main gripe with donations in general. Just look hard enough and you’ll find that one thing which spoils it all. Not talking about blatantly obvious stuff here. For now I have medico intl. and Vier Pfoten that receive €50 p.m. each, and Wikimedia with €20 p.m. Now you’ve got me thinking again...
– Lasse 2022-12-24 21:33 UTC