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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

#111

Post by raxxorraxor »

msla wrote: post #80
coderintherye wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm THE TYRANNY of STRUCTURELESSNESS by Jo Freeman: > Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distr…

I think the premise is wrong. Having a structure has many advantages and these advantages work favourably for companies in many cases. Clear hierarchy can immediately end a discussion and bring people to act.

Striving for objective news stories is highly valuable as well as social science regarding as many perspectives on different values as possible. That generates value. Otherwise you just iterate on stagnation. The comparison the author makes is a bit random here and I believe the motivation to define it as such is that she is not content with people making different decisions. Well, nobody truly is but there are different ways to deal with that.

What I agree with is that you should look at power dynamics. Competence is as often seen as a threat by you colleagues as it is seen as a positive. Why is that? Because people feel threatened by it and start to downplay its worth. All those that are threatened do indeed quickly form a structure because of their common goals. That said, there are managers that deserve the authority as they have a talent to keep people focused on relevant issues. They are often well liked and people gladly delegate decision making. But only in the scope of their mission which should be defined just as rigidly as groups are proposed to be here. Although I argue that the latter rigidity is not as relevant.

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

#112

Post by modo_mario »

hourago wrote: post #101
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…

> the organization is parasitic on Wikipedia They get are trying to get financing for their organization offering a service. That is the most win-win situation that you can get. I am all for adding an Internet-tax to finance projects like Wikipedia, but it is politically easier if it can finance itself.

Don't they have a really big endowment? I feel like they're expanding to use it rather than expanding to bring in more money. Similar thing seemed to happen with Mozilla.

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

#113

Post by nix23 »

jlarocco wrote: post #99
marcinzm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>And they were hosting content that was blatantly illegal in many countries,

PirateBay never hosted content, and that's the problem. It's like sue yellow-pages, because they listed a drug-dealer.

And what do you mean with illegal?

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

#114

Post by hansword »

ryan_lane wrote: post #109
hansword wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, contribute a bit more is good. But contribute to what? Server costs are (compared to WMF budget) small, the actual contributors never have and never will see a cent.

Stop spreading misinformation. The budget data is open. You're discussing server costs, but need to also consider hosting and data center costs, as well as employee salaries. Running Wikimedia is a pretty decent percentage of their budget. Part of the reason for other parts of the budget is attempting to increase editor numbers in a world where direct readership is declining (because of products like Google's knowled…

Yes it is open, and for some reason you forgot to link it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim...

As you can see, from 112M total expenses, internet hosting is 2.4M (or 2%), and 'other operating expenses' is 10M (or 9%). This is 11% of expenses.

This compares to 56M for salaries and 23M for awards and grants.

Where is the misinformation?

(Conflict of interest statement: I am an editor on Wikipedia for 15+ years and a member of my national Wikimedia chapter.)

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

#115

Post by AndyMcConachie »

marcinzm wrote: post #48
formerly_proven wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're applying corporate thinking to this. Wikimedia Foundation doesn't need marketing or branding people, it really doesn't. Communications people I can understand because there will be journalists and others that need to be communicated to. But they don't need a marketing strategy nor do they need marketing collateral.

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

#116

Post by raxxorraxor »

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…

I don't think it is parasitic per se but I do believe one of the problems is that it draws in people that have problems with others freely sharing knowledge if it is to their dislike. Same problem with some moderators and I think the best Wikipedia ever had left the project already.

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

#117

Post by matheusmoreira »

endisneigh wrote: post #3
dmarchand90 wrote: post #2

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.

Why would an organization limit the amount of money they have?

Why would a non-profit organization with like 10x more money than they need to achieve their mission beg me for even more money? With multiple screens worth of banners and paragraphs that actually push the article I'm trying to read out of the way in order to nag me for donations? Even ads aren't this bad.

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

#118

Post by O__________O »

See a lot of criticism for how Wikipedia is run, but never any well reasoned solutions that offer an actionable path forward; as in click to donate to do ABC so that XYZ will happen.

As is, to me, what this is missing is an explicit explanation of why this requires being paid for and metered API with public pricing that does not require “enterprise” effort to use. I could easily see numerous people and organizations wanting real-time notifications to pages of interest to them, but few wanting this for the whole of Wikipedia.

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

#119

Post by M2Ys4U »

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.

>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.

I think this is more about paying for an SLA and support agreement which is less tenable as an open free-for-all

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

#120

Post by bawolff »

nonameiguess wrote: post #62
formerly_proven wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

A friend of mine who worked there claimed the bulk of the funding is spent on paying attorneys to defend Wikipedia editors against hostile governments and companies that sue and imprison them for writing unflattering material. Take it with a grain of salt, I guess, given the level of cynicism Hacker News seems to have about Wikimedia Foundation, and you could easily dismiss insiders defending their own organization a…

While there are circumstances where WMF does spend money on that, i am pretty sure its not the majority of their expenditures.

I had trouble finding info on how much they spend on that, but https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Legal_Fees_Assistance_... suggests the budget is carefully considered.

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