@jik @gleick 500K is a fat paycheck, but it is not...

500K is a fat paycheck, but it is not obscene. Maybe we can complain at them and get it down to 250k but any less than that wouldn't be reasonable.

I'm not exactly an uncritical fan of The Wikipedia at all.

But come on.

Like 25 December at 1:30 | Wall-to-wall | Open on sauropods.win

8 comments

Michael T. Bacon, Ph.D.

@futurebird @jik @gleick

Right, people get salty about six figure salaries and the obscene reality is that that’s logarithmically closer to the poverty line than the income of most Fortune 500 CEOs.

25 December at 1:36 | Open on social.coop

myrmepropagandist

@MichaelTBacon @jik @gleick

I'm all for finding someone to do the job for maybe a third less. That's part of the oversight they live with and that's good.

Too many things have no such oversight.

Think of a 22 million dollar salary, and that dwarfed by stock options and who knows what else self dealing.

25 December at 1:40 | Open on sauropods.win

Jonathan Kamens

@MichaelTBacon @futurebird @gleick I personally don't think it's particularly useful to compare anyone's salaries to those of Fortune 500 CEOs, logarithmically or otherwise. I find it more instructive to compare them to the rest of the country, the people who aren't blessed with Fortune 500 CEO incomes.
A $500k salary puts someone in the 98th percentile, i.e., they're making more money than 98% of the population. They're not quite in "the 1%," but they're closer than 98% of Americans.

25 December at 1:42 | Open on federate.social

JackieM

@jik @MichaelTBacon @futurebird @gleick

But the CEO of Wikipedia is a CEO of one of the most important websites that exists. So a salary comparison here makes total sense. Honestly $500k seems pretty modest for such an important job.

I honestly think Wikipedia is one of man’s greatest achievements. And I think it’s really so important that it be able to protect itself and its integrity in the near future. Definitely think donations to Wikipedia are well worth it.

25 December at 2:31 | Open on fosstodon.org

Sashin

@Jackiemauro @jik @MichaelTBacon @futurebird @gleick I wonder if they would be happy to do that work for significantly less because of how significant Wikipedia is.

That's an incredible amount of money for one person and it makes me feel a little worse about donating to them.

25 December at 5:14 | Open on veganism.social

JackieM

@sashin @jik @MichaelTBacon @futurebird @gleick

I mean, it is a ton of money but also, do I feel like a talented CEO of Wikipedia contributes 500k worth of value? Probably, yes. Again I’m a huge fan of Wikipedia so I’m biased.

25 December at 5:29 | Open on fosstodon.org

JM MD PhD

@futurebird @jik @gleick not at all obscene for the work in keeping such an important resource available and providing a buffer against corruption and monetization.

25 December at 2:48 | Open on mas.to

Simon Brooke

@futurebird @jik @gleick $500k is seriously obscene -- it's 33 times my income -- but it may be what you need to pay to get someone competent to manage a large and complex IT operation these days.

25 December at 9:53 | Open on mastodon.scot