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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

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 goa…

I think the point is a criticism of organizational bearucracy becoming an end in itself. Any organization can probably end up here, not all are at that point and some may have control to prevent bureaucrats from gaining total control. I don't have good sources but I imagine something along use lines is the common criticism of politicians that they become pure political operatives, disconnected from their constituents actual needs. I imagine an alternative to this would be sortition where randomizing the office holder theoretically minimizes their ability to perpetuate the institution for the sake of its existence.

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

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You could look at the git commit history, and notice how most of the names are wm-de employees.

Its not like its 100% exclusive, but the majority of wikidata engineers are wm-de. Operational responsibilities are a bit more shared.

Also i hardly would call it a vanity project given how popular it is.

I also dont recall wikivoyage having that much to do with WM-DE.

If you want a source, i guess you could look at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Plan_2... but its a little light on details

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

#93

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.

This is bullshit.

WMF has its issues, but "unmaintained" is over the top.

There was actually a time i would have agreed with this, and there are still under-maintained parts, but since the recreation of the platform team, i don't think its a reasonable position anymore.

[Disclaimer: i am ex-wmf contractor]

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

#95

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 a much smaller scale than wikipedia.

Their approach to legal is to basically just get arrested, which is an interesting approach.

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

#96
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why haven't you done it already?

You laugh, but I actually did! [1] Wikimedia was deleting all the video game guide content from their wikibooks project for god knows what reason. I took it over and moved it to my existing wiki, https://strategywiki.org [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Copy_to_gaming_w...

Copying over a small amount of wikibooks isn't really forking in the hard sense.

The hard part of making a real fork of wikipedia is scale of the entire thing, and traffic level the original gets.

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

#97

OK, can anyone explain succinctly what "Wikimedia Enteprise" actually is, as a product? It is described as a product. What does it do? The press release isn't helping me much.

My personal theory is that its a mildly better bulk api, with that less being a needed thing, but more a way for big org to justify "donating" by paying for something.

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

#98

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 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.

But Wikimedia isn't a company, it's a nonprofit foundation.

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But, despite all of that, they were online for years with a budget that was a fraction of $100 million.

And they were hosting content that was blatantly illegal in many countries, while Wikipedia really isn't.

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