互联网与文化en.wikipedia.org
维基百科得了癌症（2017）
Wikipedia Has Cancer (2017)
2017 — 2024，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇维基百科用户页文章以“癌症”为比喻，批评维基媒体基金会（WMF）的开支与募捐规模不断膨胀，认为筹款已超出维持维基百科本身所需，并担忧组织扩张及潜在商业影响会侵蚀其公共使命。文章引发的争论持续多年：有人担心WMF被科技巨头收购，有人指出开支也用于技术升级和开放运动倡导，也有人质疑用页面数对比托管成本是否合理。
为什么经久不衰：它触及维基百科作为互联网公共品由谁出资、如何治理的核心张力，且每逢募捐季和组织扩张争议都会被重新提起，今天仍值得读。
HN 评论精选
担心WMF被科技巨头收购会严重危害互联网信息自由。
我认为他提出了一个非常重要的点：WMF被当前这一代科技巨头收购的风险巨大。没有理由相信Google、Facebook或Amazon这类公司来管理维基百科会有一丝善意；维基百科被吞并对互联网信息自由的影响将极其巨大。这不是无聊的危言耸听。当然，维基百科上已有恶意行为者传播错误信息的风险，但距离我们完全失去对在线记录的掌控并不遥远。
ajxs查看英文原文
I think he raises a very important point regarding the enormous risk of WMF being purchased by the current generation of tech-giants. I don't think there is any reason to believe that new management of Wikipedia by a company such as Google, Facebook or Amazon would be the least bit benevolent. The implications that Wikipedia being co-opted would have on freedom of information on the internet would be immense. I don't think that this is idle scare-mongering. Of course, there is already a risk of misinformation being propagated on Wikipedia by bad actors, I don't think that there is a very big gap to jump before we lose control over the online record completely.
批评WMF募捐不必要，组织会因持续进账而自我膨胀。
这是WMF开支失控的另一个视角。我不捐钱给WMF，因为他们不需要我的钱；我希望他们只维持维基百科运行，并随时间做小的增量改动来扩展、更新和添加有用功能。如果维基百科真有失败风险，我当然会捐（重新托管和重建它也没那么难），而他们知道这一点，并利用那些没意识到他们多有钱的人，用烦人的乞讨。正如那句话：官僚机构不断扩张以满足不断扩张的官僚机构的需求。如果你一直给非营利组织钱，它就会一直增长，即使已远超最初章程所需。
opportune查看英文原文
Here's another view of the WMF's runaway spending: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#/media/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_financial_development_multilanguage.svg I don't donate to the WMF because they don't need my money, but I wish they just kept Wikipedia running and made small incremental changes over time for scaling/keeping up to date/adding helpful features. I would of course donate if Wikipedia were at risk of failing (not that it would be that hard to rehost and rebuild it), and they know that and exploit everyone who doesn't realize how rich they are with the annoying begging. As they say: "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy". If you keep giving a nonprofit money, it will keep growing, even if it has more than enough it needs for its earlier charter.
WMF开支也支撑开放生态与政策倡导，不应只看维基百科维护成本。
维基媒体也把大量时间和资源投入其他开放/公共项目，至少在德国包括开放教育、开放科学、Open GLAM、开放获取、开放政府等。他们还投资于倡导，为更开放的文化和开放获取游说，这在政治进程中是很重要的声音，因为大多数草根倡议无法长期维持这类工作。我不认为这些开支仅仅是为了维持维基百科，而是对保持开源/开放获取生态系统存活和成长的投入，这也有益于维基百科。虽然质疑维基媒体对公共项目的资金分配很重要，但有一个强大机构来促进数字参与和开放社会至关重要。
wortelefant查看英文原文
Wikimedia is contributing a lot of time and resources to other Open/Commons projects as well, at least in Germany: Open Education, Open Science, Open Glam, Open Access, Open Government etc. They also invest in advocacy (lobbying for more Open Culture, Open Access etc), which is an important voice in the political process, since most grassroots initiatives can not sustain this kind of work for a long time. I don't see the expenses as necessary for the upkeep of Wikipedia alone, but as an investment to keep the ecosystem of Open Source/Open Access alive and growing, which benefits Wikipedia as well. While I think it is important to question the distribution of Wikimedia support for projects in the Commons (they probably could do more funding, e.g. a prototype fund) , having a strong institution to foster digital participation and Open Society is vital.
用页面数对比托管成本过于简单，修订历史和讨论页等元数据会显著增加成本。
维基百科还为每个页面保留修订历史和讨论页；2005年前创建的页面仍可被修改，可能增加总体成本。突发新闻会造成大量反复编辑，我猜这会随网站 popularity 增加。所以11倍页面对应33倍托管成本并不算离谱，因为每页关联的元数据很多。这不是说没问题，但“页面数”可能不是最佳指标。我想知道过去12年每页平均修订数是多少。
film42查看英文原文
> The modern Wikipedia hosts 11–12 times as many pages as it did in 2005, but the WMF is spending 33 times as much on hosting... Wikipedia also keeps "revision history" and a "talk" section for each page. Those original pages created before 2005 can still be modified, potentially adding to the overall cost. Breaking news stories can cause massive amounts of churn which I imagine has increased with the site's popularity [1]. So really 11x pages = 33x higher hosting costs doesn't seem unrealistic considering how much metadata is associated with each page. That's not to say there isn't a problem, but "page count" might not be the best metric. I wonder what average number of revisions per page looks like over the last 12 years. [1] https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Talk:2017_Las_Vegas_Strip_shooting
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