the so-called "progressive" fandom declaring that donating to Wikipedia is absurd while donating to ao3 is pratically sacrosanct and necessary— all while Wikipedia's donations actively fund orgs that are run by and advance the issues faced by BIPOC and other marginalized groups within STEM fields, but meanwhile ao3 openly admits that they sit on multiple millions of reserve funding that only continues to grow with zero plans on actually using any of the money for anything useful

Go post your fic on wikipedia then??? Seriously, try to do it. I'll wait.

The two sites are completely different platforms: different purposes, different audiences, different financial tiers. When they come up in the same breath, it's part of a conversation that inevitably started with someone who's pissed off at AO3's very existence trying to shame people into donating to something meaningful instead of something fun. It has nothing to do with either site's community outreach record or lack thereof, and suggesting that it does is wildly disingenuous.

On the matter of the OTW "sitting on" reserve funding, they've stated repeatedly that they've been saving this money in anticipation of funding drying up, and as that's continued to not happen they've also stated a willingness to spend that money on various improvements they need both as an organization and to the services they provide. You can check their latest vision statement, posted in July of this year, for a recent example, and there were various related questions for every candidate in this year's board elections.

If none of that satisfies you, sorry. Donate extra to Wikipedia on my behalf, and we'll each keep our favored non-profit website up and running.