Editing Project:Village pump (proposals) (section)

===Discussion===
These emails are almost identical to the ones that were used in the recent Indian fundraising campaign (see June Signpost report, [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/Special_report|"Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?]]). As can be seen, the second email once gain invites people to unlock "badges" (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platium) by making sure they never miss a year of donating.

[[File:WMF Support and Revenue, Expenses and Net Assets at Year End.jpg|thumb|400px|Financial development of the Wikimedia Foundation (in US$), 2003–2021<br>Black: Net assets (excluding the Wikimedia Endowment, which passed $100m in June 2021)<br>Green: Revenue (excluding third-party donations to Wikimedia Endowment)<br>Red: Expenses (including WMF payments to Wikimedia Endowment)]]
People are told very little in these emails about what it is that drives the Wikimedia Foundation's money needs, what additional work is being carried out that has caused the [[Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development|vast increases in budget]] and [[:m:Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries#Total_salaries_per_financial_statements|salary costs]] over the past decade, and what the benefit of this added spending is to volunteers and the public. Nor is there any mention of the [[:m:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017|Strategic Direction]]. 

Instead, everything is focused on communicating a need for money to keep Wikipedia online/ad-free/free/independent, as though the Foundation were really struggling to keep Wikipedia online without ads – as though it were not [[Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development|richer than ever]], with about $400 million (including the [[:m:Wikimedia Endowment|Endowment]]) in assets and reserves. 

I think we, as a movement, should do better than these emails, and aspire to more transparency. Moreover, right now, the [[Internet Archive]] is arguably much more deserving of donations; unlike the WMF, they have a stable budget, low salary costs, no history of vast budget surpluses, and are currently [[Internet_Archive#Publishers'_lawsuit|fighting a lawsuit against publishers]] – all while supplying an absolutely critical and free service to Wikipedia. --[[User:Jayen466|Andreas]] <small>[[User_Talk:Jayen466|<span style="color: #FFBF00;">JN</span>]][[Special:Contributions/Jayen466|466]]</small> 15:31, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
*'''Objection to the Wikimedia Foundation speaking for the community without consultation''' The Wikimedia Foundation and the community of editors are not the same. The foundation is paid staff recently hired now that donations come in at a rate of US$200 million / year. The community are the volunteers and activists who produce content for the platform. When donors give money, it is because they love Wikipedia as a community of volunteers even while they have little awareness about the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation at all. More discussion is useful, but as a starting point, the Wikimedia Foundation should 1) be transparent about how it calculates its budgets and 2) only talk about budgets for the Wikimedia community the consent and approval of the Wikimedia community. For this point especially - 
:*'''<span style="color: #0000FF;">31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers</span>''' who share their knowledge with you for free every day.
:Since 31% of the donations are to support the volunteers, then 31% of the money should be in the control, governance, and oversight of the volunteers. The volunteers do not have good access to the accounting for money, nor is there any public process for including volunteers in the spending decisions for this US$90,000,000 a year. The Wikimedia Foundation makes many budget decisions without the support and consent of the volunteers. There are many possible talking points for how the Wikimedia Foundation has different priorities as compared to the contributor community, but to name one, the volunteer community has much more compassion for underrepresented demographics such as people in lower and middle income countries. If the Wikimedia community made governance decisions about that 31%, then programs to increase diversity would include showing monetary equity in the allocation of global funding. I have anxiety because the values and ethics of the centralized and control-seeking Wikimedia Foundation are diverging from those of the decentralized and power-sharing Wikimedia community. The power belongs to the user community, not to paid staff who operate without community support. [[User:Bluerasberry|<span style="background:#cedff2;color:#11e">''' Bluerasberry '''</span>]][[User talk:Bluerasberry|<span style="background:#cedff2;color:#11e">(talk)</span>]] 16:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::Agreed. The 31% line is misleading and definitely needs context. When I hear that my "gift will be used to support the volunteers" they don't sound much like volunteers any more. [[User:Retswerb|Retswerb]] ([[User talk:Retswerb|talk]]) 23:17, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
*Completely agree with your concern, [[User:Jayen466|Jayen466]]. I don't think these emails as they stand are in keeping with our values. (I also complained over at Meta a few months ago, but I unfortunately failed to follow up due to other commitments.) I share your unhappiness with the obsequious, obfuscating tone and I'd like communications to be more transparent about where donors' money will go. I'm not sure the WMF will listen to these concerns, though. However, what I do find strongly objectionable are manipulative or clearly misleading phrases, of which there are several:
:'''Specific objections (manipulative and/or misleading)''': "Subject: It's non-negotiable"; "Ready to earn your next badge? Please match your last gift today" vs. "Any gift will unlock your next badge"; "we have no choice but to turn to you... to ensure Wikipedia remains ... ad-free ... for years to come" & "[your donation] will keep Wikipedia ... ad-free" (not true); "this is our biggest fundraising moment of the year" (there'll be another fundraising campaign in a different region); "donors who will propel us throughout 2022" (we already comfortably meet our running costs); "X% of your gift will be used" (not it won't, if my understanding is correct, these are expenditure breakdowns and don't account for money put into the endowment etc., it should say "X% of our spending"); "we haven't reached our fundraising goal" (what if we have reached it, will this still be sent?); [[User:Jr8825|<span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS'; color:#6F0000;">Jr8825</span>]] • [[User Talk:Jr8825|<span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS'; color:#4682B4;">Talk</span>]] 19:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
*{{tq|Bronze Badge / Silver Badge / Gold Badge / Platinum Badge}} This language sounds like what some multi-level marketer might use to get you to buy their product. The WMF are not salespeople, and should not be using "badges" or any other promotional language to get people to make a donation. I suspect [[User:Jimbo Wales]] would not approve of this either. [[Special:Contributions/2601:647:5800:1A1F:AC39:F771:78B1:4C47|2601:647:5800:1A1F:AC39:F771:78B1:4C47]] ([[User talk:2601:647:5800:1A1F:AC39:F771:78B1:4C47|talk]]) 21:29, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
*:+1 [[User:Jr8825|<span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS'; color:#6F0000;">Jr8825</span>]] • [[User Talk:Jr8825|<span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS'; color:#4682B4;">Talk</span>]] 21:51, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
*:I share your feelings about the badges. But let's bear in mind that these are very high-profile emails, sent to hundreds of thousands of people in Jimmy Wales's name. It strikes me as very unlikely that he should be unfamiliar – or indeed unhappy – with their contents. [[User:Jayen466|Andreas]] <small>[[User_Talk:Jayen466|<span style="color: #FFBF00;">JN</span>]][[Special:Contributions/Jayen466|466]]</small> 19:21, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
*As an actual volunteer and content contributor, I would say WMF's money would be much better spent on propping up the IA and similar projects than probably anything else that counts under "supporting the volunteers". Money is being wasted on keeping up with the Joneses. <span style="font-family:Garamond,Palatino,serif;font-size:115%;background:-webkit-linear-gradient(red,red,red,blue,blue,blue,blue);-webkit-background-clip:text;-webkit-text-fill-color:transparent">[[User:Daß Wölf|Daß]] [[User talk:Daß Wölf|Wölf]]</span> 22:12, 13 August 2022 (UTC)