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Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

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

#81

Post by bobthepanda »

onphonenow wrote: post #75
marcinzm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I'm curious if sites like the pirate bay are "high risk". If so, did it take $100M / year to keep them up with legal and HR teams etc? These claims are often made, but I'm not sure they check out. Plenty of much much more controversial stuff stays online / is available. But supposedly wikipedia will be destroyed without these experts.

The Pirate Bay spent years hopping from legal jurisdiction to legal jurisdiction because of all the suits and enforcement against them. Wikipedia doesn't, and also probably doesn't have any interest in pursuing any sort of expensive jurisdiction-hopping strategy that would also throw all of its employees and work into jeopardy.

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

#82

Post by xvilka »

curiousgal wrote: post #44
exolymph wrote: post #30

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.

Absolutely. Mozilla should have increased investment in the development, particularly rewriting the engine in Rust to improve the maintainability, rather than increasing CEO salary.

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

#83

Post by kemayo »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #59
david_allison wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/ - an API to access Wikimedia content: * Snapshots of a Wikimedia project - updated daily * On-demand access to articles * Hook into a stream of changes to articles

Huh. Some of that I think some people hoped would be available (for free) via things like WikiData. I guess nobody should wait for that. My somewhat concern is that the wikipedia project has kind of put a flag in the ground to say that providing free access to wikipedia is no longer part of their mission if it's automated/bulk access.

For what it's worth, WikiData is something different -- it's a knowledge graph, and so is mostly a way to get a list of facts about a specific item. Which is useful, and gets used as an input into a lot of things on Wikipedia, but is unrelated to this sort of firehose-API.

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

#84

Post by marcinzm »

onphonenow wrote: post #75
marcinzm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I'm curious if sites like the pirate bay are "high risk". If so, did it take $100M / year to keep them up with legal and HR teams etc? These claims are often made, but I'm not sure they check out. Plenty of much much more controversial stuff stays online / is available. But supposedly wikipedia will be destroyed without these experts.

Pirate Bay is banned in many countries, was raided by the police multiple times, had its founders literally put into jail, had its domains seized, is blocked by Facebook, can't get donations outside of crypto, etc.

It's a pretty good example of why you need legal teams for any sort of sustainable effort.

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

#85

Post by ineedasername »

exolymph wrote: post #30

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…

This doesn't seem like a vanity project. The wikimedia projects I've come across usually seem useful, though not as impactful as wikipedia. What are some of the projects you consider mere vanity projects?

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

#86

Post by themitigating »

coderintherye wrote: post #61
themitigating wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this apply to any organization? If you care about the goals of an organization you are going to be promoted because of your value to that task nor would you seem it. Those that don't are going to care more about the organizations structure and focus on improving their standing.

Not necessarily no, not all organizations are hierarchal. "Reinventing Organizations" has some good examples of such.

I messed up a bunch of words and it drastically alterted what I was trying to say. Here's the correction

Doesn't this apply to any organization?

If you care about the goals (engineer, metal worker, etc) of an organization you AREN'T going to be promoted because of your value and need for that task. For example the lead designer for BMW M cars has great value in non-managerial role.

Those that don't care about the goals can then focus on caring about the structure, the politics, fitting in, etc. They are going to be promoted because they are modifying their behavior for that purpose.

This doesn't apply in all situations but basically business people care about business and when they are successful end up in charge.

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

#87

Post by Spooky23 »

Miraste wrote: post #65
coderintherye wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily no, not all organizations are hierarchal. "Reinventing Organizations" has some good examples of such.

There are no non-hierarchal organizations, only ones that are written down and ones that aren’t. Even Reinventing Organizations talks about “fluid, natural hierarchies” - i.e. cliques.

That’s true, but there’s more nuance to it.

I worked once for an organization where relative power was part of the culture. Supervisors literally sat at high desks facing the minions. In another, there was a power structure and folks directly accountable for certain things; but it was very collegial. Everyone treated each other as peers and the senior folks were more like mentors or folks with other responsibilities than bosses.

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

#88

Post by altilunium »

roneythomas6 wrote: post #26
cgb223 wrote: post #5

So now, if a Google related Wikipedia article has something added to it that Google doesn’t like, they can suggest to Wikimedia they might not renew their contract unless things are “made right” Google is just one example of this. Any company now has a pathway to do so. I think this is terrible incentives, and destroys the goal of having an Encyclopedia free from interference where only truth can come through

Google has been huge contributor to wikipedia for over a decade now.

Financially [1] and technically [2].

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/22/google-org-donates-2-milli...

[2] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/04/14/google-org-fellowship-...

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

#89

Post by bergenty »

stavros wrote: post #78
bergenty wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem with wiki trying to expand into other areas, that’s how a company grows. I don’t see any degradation in their primary product and the value they provide is immense. I’m more than happy to see what else they can do in other spaces.

I wish sometimes we'd remember that not everything needs to grow at all costs.

But maybe this does? How do you know what can? I guess the market decides and I’m liking what I’ve seen so far.

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

#90

Post by zinekeller »

wmfanon9973 wrote: post #72
zozbot234 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest WMF "vanity project" is Wikidata, started in 2012. It is currently getting more edits than the most popular version of Wikipedia, and has been playing a pivotal role in the "open-source information" ecosystem. If that kind of thing is "parasitic" then maybe we should welcome such parasitism.

Wikidata is maintained by Wikimedia Deutschland ( https://www.wikimedia.de/ ), not the Wikimedia Foundation.

Can you cite any evidence (even in German)? The only thing I'm sure that was done by WMDE is about Wikivoyage (which is definitely more complicated than it seems, mainly because the English version was a fork of WikiTravel).
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