The essay you linked doesn't at all convey that Wikipedia is cancer, in fact it does somewhat the opposite. A shame the title is so inflammatory and doesn't at all reflect the content.
It's in fact a seriously amazing essay, thank you for sharing it here. The 2006 Jaron Lanier essay, in addition with the 13 responses (including from Cory Doctorow and Jimmy Wales) is a golden nugget of internet history, and a snapshot of what people believed would be the future of the internet (oh boy, with 15 years of insight, there is quite a lot to say)
Thanks, and I’m glad that you got some value from the essay and the responses to it. It expresses an attitude and set of opinions that I largely share and that have fallen into obscurity in the midst of a widespread apotheosis of the hive mind. I didn’t mean to misrepresent it; my comment is my own conclusion, guided by this essay, by other analyses, and by observing the, yes, cancerous affect that Wikipedia has on the web.
Honestly, for an organization as big and important as they are, 300 staff still seems ridiculously tiny. I'm impressed.
> For those readers who were around three years ago, did you notice at the time any unmet needs that would have caused you to conclude that the WMF needed to increase spending by $30 million dollars?
I dunno, when I revisit pages, I am often surprised by how much more content there is now! So just comparing pages now vs then doesn't probably capture where bandwidth demands have actually grown. I imagine most of the increased demand is on Wikimedia, which is its own resource.
Fiduciary discipline is quite rare in any organization unless the decision makers have 'skin in the game'.
In terms of Wikimedia, or non-profits in general, I'm not sure how ownership stakes aligning interests is translated when ownership stakes don't exist.
Wikimedia's funding is potentially the issue though. For those who don't know, it's endowment is run by the Tides Foundation, perhaps the most politically biased organization in the US. Maybe that doesn't come though in content moderation, but if not, it's quite coincidental.
well to be fair we all have cancer. We are obsessed with growth, and very seldomly do we stop, look and think: this is unsustainable, even if possible.
My quick math leaving out a lot of details and what-ifs:
Wikipedia spent $110M to run the site last year. That's $9.16M a month. If hosting is $2M per month that leaves $86M annually.
With no other expense that leaves an annual salary of $287,000 per employee. If you run a business you're most likely going to spend 1x an employees salary on all types of costs. So average salary is closer to $143,000 if they have only employees and hosting as a cost which is next to impossible.
Wikipedia can double their employees for all I care. Triple them even. Please just stick around and keep doing whatever it takes to keep the lights on and running.
For a site that is a part of the internet and seems to be very much a net positive to the world it's crazy to think a staff of 300 is a lot. 300 employees keep doing your work!
What would the average responsibilities be like for a staff of 300 people at Wikipedia? I was under the impression that the core of its usefulness (the content) is done on behalf of volunteer work.
On the other hand, as useful as Wikipedia is, if it were to disappear couldn’t we all just use and donate to Marginalia.nu for our obscure factoids, references and summaries?
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 44.0 ms ] threadhttps://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maois...
It's in fact a seriously amazing essay, thank you for sharing it here. The 2006 Jaron Lanier essay, in addition with the 13 responses (including from Cory Doctorow and Jimmy Wales) is a golden nugget of internet history, and a snapshot of what people believed would be the future of the internet (oh boy, with 15 years of insight, there is quite a lot to say)
> For those readers who were around three years ago, did you notice at the time any unmet needs that would have caused you to conclude that the WMF needed to increase spending by $30 million dollars?
I dunno, when I revisit pages, I am often surprised by how much more content there is now! So just comparing pages now vs then doesn't probably capture where bandwidth demands have actually grown. I imagine most of the increased demand is on Wikimedia, which is its own resource.
Important, sure, but is an encyclopedia supposed to be big? What are all those people doing?
In terms of Wikimedia, or non-profits in general, I'm not sure how ownership stakes aligning interests is translated when ownership stakes don't exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tides_Foundation#Wikimedia_Fou...
Wikipedia spent $110M to run the site last year. That's $9.16M a month. If hosting is $2M per month that leaves $86M annually.
With no other expense that leaves an annual salary of $287,000 per employee. If you run a business you're most likely going to spend 1x an employees salary on all types of costs. So average salary is closer to $143,000 if they have only employees and hosting as a cost which is next to impossible.
Wikipedia can double their employees for all I care. Triple them even. Please just stick around and keep doing whatever it takes to keep the lights on and running.
For a site that is a part of the internet and seems to be very much a net positive to the world it's crazy to think a staff of 300 is a lot. 300 employees keep doing your work!
On the other hand, as useful as Wikipedia is, if it were to disappear couldn’t we all just use and donate to Marginalia.nu for our obscure factoids, references and summaries?