The problem isn't that Wikimedia is paying employees too much, so much as it is that they have too many of them. Their COO compensation is not out of line for the scale of Wikimedia - But Wikimedia is way too big of an org without relation to serving their core goal.
Explorative projects like their New Editor Experience[1] were interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful moonshots. That one wrapped up (without anything to show for it, as far as I can tell). They didn't take the hint and downsize, they doubled down.
This is an incredibly common problem for organizations - "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy" as was put by Oscar Wilde.
Explorative projects like their New Editor Experience[1] were interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful moonshots. That one wrapped up (without anything to show for it, as far as I can tell). They didn't take the hint and downsize, they doubled down.
This is an incredibly common problem for organizations - "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy" as was put by Oscar Wilde.
[1]https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_Editor_Experiences