Ryan Delaney wrote:
On 4/10/06, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
How many mirrors is enough? 1000? 10,000? 100,000? Eventually I imagine the market will become saturated, when a new mirror can't recover its minimal startup costs, even with the most aggressive SEO techniques. What will the Internet look like then? Will the average user be able to find independent information in the search engines, which didn't come from Wikpedia?
I guess that within this theoretical framework, you have to decide whether you're more interested in what's good for the internet or what's good for WMF. Fortunately, that's a false dilemma, as we seem to be getting by just fine with donations. The only way we would be forced to make such a decision is if we chose to adopt this idea.
Ryan
Well... no. We are not doing just fine with donations. The site survives with donations. No more. However, the people working for Foundation related issues are all the time on the thin edge. We desperately need to hire some people to do as simple things as answering the phone or helping with the hundred of emails received everyday. We need more developers. We need support on the legal side, if only to write contracts. We need help for the accounting. Most of this work is not necessarily the most interesting one for volunteers, plus, it holds a responsability such as it is better there is a contractual agreement betweent the Foundation and the worker. We also need to pay for the audit. So... any other source of income is welcome... there is so much more we could do with decent human power :-(
Regarding Tim analysis, there is another issue not considered. Those (potentially) interested in the live feed are not only "simple" mirrors; They may also be websites which have an original content, but rely in part on our content for time-sensitive information. Those can not afford displaying an outdated content. They need daily updated information. Hence, the interest of the live feed as well.
ant