48
Wikimedia Foundation refuses voluntary union recognition, hires union-busting law firm
(en.wikipedia.org)
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2026
48 points (98.0% liked)
Technology
43016 readers
117 users here now
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
Yo wtf. This sounds alarming. Should I stop donating?
Yes. Negating a voluntary union shows who/what they are. I personally no longer believe they are good guys or that wikimedia is un-compromised truth. It has long been possible for the Epstein class to 'manage' certain articles towards what they want to show (I learned about it through the Epstein case). Here, the point is that if ONE article can be manipulated by the ruling class - no matter how - they ALL can, and that's not worth supporting.
Yeah because there are other reasons to not donate. The donations do not go to wikipedia but to lots of projects of the foundation that you might or might not support. They are also getting way too much money in donations, like an unsustainably large amount. Also they just keep lying in their calls for donations. This is a very controversial topic actually. Lots of community threads about it.
I really never understood how it takes that much to maintain a site created by volunteers
For people interested in some numbers have this user post that has been getting updated every year called "Wikipedia has Cancer": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer
Its cool that people are donating, but they are doing it without knowing that the wikimedia foundation is actually receiving like 100 times the amount in donations that it needs to run Wikipedia. All the while the banners say something like "Wikipedia is fucking dying we need more donations NOW". Yes lots of the other projects of the foundation are probably good and they have more legal and quality control costs now than 20 years ago, but there its not thaaat much and its just not what is being communicated to the users. And as this guy has pointed out, there is no such thing as infinite growth, so the question is what happens when that juicy donation income starts dropping? Or what if all the people working at the foundation want to unionize? And now we know...
Yes, the wmf has so many problems, especially its bloated administration. Also it's run by US government regime-change agents like Katherine Maher, who steer the site to pro-US viewpoints.