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Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

wikimediafoundation.org

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Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s unnecessary and brings outside influences that could corrupt it’s stated goals

You can be corrupt without having a lot of money. There are countless examples of such. I applaud the their moves. The more money they have, the more likely they are to exist in perpetuity. Needlessly limiting their revenue isn’t going to solve anything.

> The more money they have, the more likely they are to exist in perpetuity.

I think the opposite is true. Consider examples like broke lottery winners, the resource curse [1], and the long history of startups getting lots of money and then cratering, from Webvan to WeWork.

With Wikipedia in particular, I'm concerned that the more money there is, the more attractive it is to people who want to be near large streams of money for various reasons, including living large and diverting money to their own friends, pet projects, and grand visions. I'm also concerned that even if they are able to avoid those people entirely, large budgets pose other risks, including inflexibility in downturns, which I think increase the odds of a setback turning into a full collapse.

Corruption, like cancer, is statistically inevitable for organizations. The only question is whether they have the right mechanisms to detect and exercise the tumors when they're small. But the scrappier Wikipedia stays, the less we have to worry about that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#42

At this point, Wikimedia the organization is parasitic on Wikipedia the open-source information project. The latter generates all the goodwill and the former fucks around doing vanity projects with the ensuing resources. What's that pithy "law" about eventually any organization existing simply to perpetuate itself and serve the insiders who work there, rather than further its mission? Ironically what came to mind is…

Please don't post content-free reaction posts on on Hacker News. If you don't like something, at least make some effort at explaining why.

Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#43

At this point, Wikimedia the organization is parasitic on Wikipedia the open-source information project. The latter generates all the goodwill and the former fucks around doing vanity projects with the ensuing resources. What's that pithy "law" about eventually any organization existing simply to perpetuate itself and serve the insiders who work there, rather than further its mission? Ironically what came to mind is…

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective…

Nice. I hadn't seen this, or his related quotes. Quite usable for business.

Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#44

At this point, Wikimedia the organization is parasitic on Wikipedia the open-source information project. The latter generates all the goodwill and the former fucks around doing vanity projects with the ensuing resources. What's that pithy "law" about eventually any organization existing simply to perpetuate itself and serve the insiders who work there, rather than further its mission? Ironically what came to mind is…

Same with Mozilla/Firefox imo.

Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#45

At this point, Wikimedia the organization is parasitic on Wikipedia the open-source information project. The latter generates all the goodwill and the former fucks around doing vanity projects with the ensuing resources. What's that pithy "law" about eventually any organization existing simply to perpetuate itself and serve the insiders who work there, rather than further its mission? Ironically what came to mind is…

I think they are doing 100M+ per year to run the servers, manage PR / legal / HR issues.

Actually, they're spending less than 3MM per year for hosting. "Other operating expenses" are ~10MM, and everything else on the list has essentially nothing to do with Wikipedia.

However, at the current rate it won't take long until they actually do spend 100MM+ on their own salaries.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim...

Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#46
post #34
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to fork it. It's a wiki with open licensed content and a bloated stack that could easily be hosted on pared down infra and staffing. Fork it and remove the largesse.

Mate, if there's one thing Wikipedia isn't is bloated. It serves one of the biggest websites on the internet with a fraction of the infrastructure of similar sites.

Wikimedia is certainly bloated. They're spending upwards of $100 million a year.

Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#47
post #29

I really don't like this. The foundation already has many multiples more money than it needs to cover its core goal: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais... This can, at best, be useless, at worst, corrupt its mission to serve corporations. There used to be an expression "don't fix what ain't broke." I feel like this old maxim is now completely ignored.

Time to fork it. It's a wiki with open licensed content and a bloated stack that could easily be hosted on pared down infra and staffing. Fork it and remove the largesse.

why haven't you done it already?

Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are doing 100M+ per year to run the servers, manage PR / legal / HR issues.

Actually, they're spending less than 3MM per year for hosting. "Other operating expenses" are ~10MM, and everything else on the list has essentially nothing to do with Wikipedia. However, at the current rate it won't take long until they actually do spend 100MM+ on their own salaries. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim...

>everything else on the list has essentially nothing to do with Wikipedia

I would say that engineer/product/analytics salaries are part of the cost of running and updating a webpage. Then you have HR which is needed to support those employees and Legal which is especially needed given the high risk nature of Wikipedia.

Good luck keeping Wikipedia up in a useful manner without those people.

edit: Then you need Finance to help handle the costs responsibly. Then you need Fundraising to help raise the money needed to pay for all that. Then you generally want some Marketing/Branding/Communications to help with the whole talking to external humans part.

Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#49

At this point, Wikimedia the organization is parasitic on Wikipedia the open-source information project. The latter generates all the goodwill and the former fucks around doing vanity projects with the ensuing resources. What's that pithy "law" about eventually any organization existing simply to perpetuate itself and serve the insiders who work there, rather than further its mission? Ironically what came to mind is…

Two recent threads on wikimedia-l may be useful for those non-versed in the WMF's present malignancy:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list...

https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list...

MediaWiki is basically unmaintained at this point.

Re: Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

#50

I really don't like this. The foundation already has many multiples more money than it needs to cover its core goal: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais... This can, at best, be useless, at worst, corrupt its mission to serve corporations. There used to be an expression "don't fix what ain't broke." I feel like this old maxim is now completely ignored.

With alternative sources of revenue, maybe there could be less nagging during the yearly donation drive?
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