On 20.02.2015 22:44, Denny Vrandečić wrote:
Regarding Paul's comment:
I first heard about Wikidata at SemTech in San Francisco and I was told very directly that they were not interested in working with anybody who was experienced with putting data from generic database in front of users because they had worked so hard to get academic positions and get a grant from the Allen Institute and it is more cost-effective and more compatible with academic advancement to hire a bunch of young people who don't know anything but will follow orders.
I am, frankly, baffled by this story.
So am I. I think we all agree that there was never a time where anybody in the Wikidata project could have held such a view. Also, anybody who is following discussions on the various project channels knows that Wikimedia developers (in Wikidata and elsewhere in WMF) are not the "following orders" type but strong individual personalities who are each bringing in a big share of passion. This is the way we work and want to work.
@Paul: You should not feel rejected (for whatever reason) by Wikidata. Nobody wants to contest your expertise here. I understand that you would have made some technical choices differently, but you should not be frustrated because of that. We, too, have had many heated tech discussions about Wikidata, and each of us has had to give up some positions in the process.
Cheers,
Markus