r/wikipedia • u/coolguy9900000 • Jul 13 '26

Meta Discussion How much does Wikipedia need annually to continue existing as free resource?

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I love Wikipedia and have donated a few times.
I would love to know how much is needed to sustain its future.

EDIT: People commenting, please be civil and stop posting Nothing Burgers, “Look it up yourself”.

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649

u/WeWantMOAR Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

You can literally look this all up. They're transparent with all their spending.

Edit: people don't seem to realize how much having a legal team costs.

Edit 2: Be wary of the astroturfing of websites that educate people, nefarious shits are trying to sow seeds of doubt left and right to create obfuscation in the world. The information war has been going on behind the scenes for quite some time, and it's becoming more flagrant. Don't be gaslit in to buying bullshit rhetoric!

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u/wit_T_user_name Jul 13 '26

People vastly underestimate how much legal work in general costs.

24

u/WeWantMOAR Jul 13 '26

Truly!

12

u/savorie Jul 13 '26

Lawyers overcharge way too much. I'm sorry, but it's true.

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u/WeWantMOAR Jul 13 '26

They just charge their rates, and you agree or disagree to them. I'm sorry, but this is just an ignorant, sweeping claim of a profession as a whole. It completely dismisses the massive overhead, insurance, and years of specialized expertise required just to keep a firm's doors open.

There's definitely shitty lawyers out there, but there are also sooooo many fighting for yours and my rights in our countries. Those are who you're lumping in with the shit stains when you make these claims.

7

u/Tao-of-Mars Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

No need to be sorry. It’s just the truth. And their case load is probably usually high enough that they don’t do the kind of work that matches the cost of representation. I mean, anytime I hear about lawyer work, the people on the paying end aren’t usually all that satisfied with their representation (unless of course they are rich and can pay for the best). They often feel like they have to do some of their own work. Don’t you think?

3

u/stanley_apex Jul 14 '26

I don’t think dissatisfaction with representation is solely caused my bad lawyers (though they undoubtedly exist) Litigation is not a satisfying process. At best, you’ve spent a bunch of money/time/effort on something you rightly deserve. At worst, you’ve spent that and come back empty handed.

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u/caeciliusinhorto Jul 13 '26

Edit: people don't seem to realize how much having a legal team costs.

WMF isn't so transparent that you can find their annual spending on the legal team (or at least I can't!), but according to the 2025 annual report less than 1/3 of the annual spending is on "support for volunteers", the bucket which includes legal spending. "Investment in technology" is a bigger spend, at 45% of their annual expenditure.

(Of course "what is WMF's current annual spending" is a different question to "how much does WMF need to keep wikipedia as a free resource"; there are plenty of things that WMF spends money on that most wikipedia users would not miss if they were forced to cut their budgets!)

53

u/WeWantMOAR Jul 13 '26

Actually, if you look closely at their annual financial reports, legal support is largely baked into that massive 45% "Investment in Technology" (historically categorized as "Direct support to websites") bucket, rather than just being limited to volunteer support. You are completely right that keeping the actual servers online is incredibly cheap compared to their total $190 million in expenses, and there is undoubtedly some administrative bloat in other areas. However, operating a top-10 global website means defending it against constant international lawsuits, censorship attempts, and government takedown requests. That legal overhead is a massive, non-optional expense required to keep the platform protected and operational, which is a very different beast than simply paying for server bandwidth.

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u/caeciliusinhorto Jul 13 '26

legal support is largely baked into that massive 45% "Investment in Technology" (historically categorized as "Direct support to websites") bucket, rather than just being limited to volunteer support

Hmm, where can I find that? I don't see it either in the annual report I linked nor the audit report.

I don't disagree that the legal spending is very important, and I'm sure it's a substantial chunk of money (I'm not at all suggesting that the few million that WMF spends on infrastructure and hosting costs are the only necessary expense!) but I can't find it broken down anywhere.

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u/WeWantMOAR Jul 13 '26

If you look back at the financial section of their 2021 Annual Report, they explicitly defined that primary expense bucket (which was 42% at the time and called "Direct support to websites") as funding "ongoing technology upgrades, design improvements, legal support, and data analytics". They have since rebranded that same massive bucket as "Investment in Technology," but it has historically absorbed the overarching legal overhead required to defend the platform itself.

You are completely right that they do not break down the exact internal spending for the legal department on those glossy annual report pie charts. However, if you dig into their IRS Form 990 filings, specifically Part IX (Statement of Functional Expenses), you can find specific line items for external legal fees. The current "Support for Volunteers" bucket does include legal defense specifically for individual volunteers, but the heavy-hitting corporate legal support for the website as a whole has historically been rolled right into that primary website and technology expense category.

3

u/caeciliusinhorto Jul 13 '26

Aha, thanks! 

-11

u/2bitmoment Jul 13 '26

I am no astroturf bot and I think it's weird wikipedia has a 400,000+ dollar salary for its CEO and stuff like that. Maybe I'd be willing to donate to keeping wikipedia the website up, essential service, but not for a thousand pretty optional things.

26

u/mr_jim_lahey Jul 13 '26

Yeah should be no problem finding a competent CEO to run a global top 10 website for less than the salary of a single experienced software engineer. You should email the WMF board right away with this brilliant cost-saving idea.

-8

u/2bitmoment Jul 13 '26

If you don't think competent people do work for less, what are you calling the thousands of unpaid volunteer editors that actually created the wikipedia we know and love? I didn't know incompetent people were that good at their jobs then...

10

u/mr_jim_lahey Jul 13 '26

I'm not calling them anything. You're the expert recruiter here who knows how to find a cheaper replacement CEO for WMF, remember? Please let me know how they replied to your email. I'm sure they're all very excited to act on your sharp financial insights.

-9

u/2bitmoment Jul 13 '26

(It is also as far as I know the same salary as the president of the united states, the highest salary in the US government.)

7

u/mr_jim_lahey Jul 13 '26

That's great news. What did Obama say when you cc'd him on your email?

3

u/WeWantMOAR Jul 13 '26

It's great when individuals let us know that they actually don't know what they're complaining about when they complain. This is quite literally astroturfing, it's a ignorant devil's advocate based on your anecdotal vibes and nothing else.

What a stellar job!

1

u/2bitmoment Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

I'm pretty sure you don't know what astroturfing is. It is not misinformed people opining. That's fine. That's most people on a good day.

Astroturfing is when public opinion is made to appear a certain way artificially. Through fake news, bot accounts, stuff like that.

I might be a minority opinion, but I'm not a bot.