http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/wikipedia-foundation-plans-expansio...
The foundation that runs the Wikipedia Web site plans to add 44 employees in the next year — roughly doubling the size of its current professional staff — and to raise $20 million to support a much-enhanced vision for the volunteer-created encyclopedia that nearly anyone can edit.
The announcement of the expansion was made by the Wikimedia Foundation’s executive director, Sue Gardner, at the start of the sixth annual Wikimania conference, held this year in Poland. The conference brings together editors, administrators and the professional staff to discuss trends and ideas for Wikipedia and other collaborative Internet projects.
By hiring more employees and raising more money, the foundation hopes to nearly double the number of unique visitors to the site by 2015, to 680 million a month, Ms. Gardner told an audience of a few hundred who had assembled in the Polish Baltic Philharmonic hall, on an island across from Gdansk’s historic old city. The foundation plans to focus on expanding generally in Africa, Central and Latin America, and Asia, and specifically setting up offices in Brazil and India, she said.
Well, I suppose as long as the technical side doesn't suffer starvation and they actually can raise that much...
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 7:21 AM, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/wikipedia-foundation-plans-expansio...
The foundation that runs the Wikipedia Web site plans to add 44 employees in the next year — roughly doubling the size of its current professional staff — and to raise $20 million to support a much-enhanced vision for the volunteer-created encyclopedia that nearly anyone can edit.
<snip>
Well, I suppose as long as the technical side doesn't suffer starvation and they actually can raise that much...
That does sound like quite a big expansion, actually. I think I may have seen a precursor to that sort of presentation when Sue Gardner attended a London meetup earlier in the year, which included those involved in Wikimedia UK. It will be interesting to see how things develop.
Carcharoth
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:36 AM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.comwrote:
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 7:21 AM, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/wikipedia-foundation-plans-expansio...
The foundation that runs the Wikipedia Web site plans to add 44
employees in the next year — roughly doubling the size of its current professional staff — and to raise $20 million to support a much-enhanced vision for the volunteer-created encyclopedia that nearly anyone can edit.
<snip>
Well, I suppose as long as the technical side doesn't suffer starvation and they actually can raise that much...
That does sound like quite a big expansion, actually. I think I may have seen a precursor to that sort of presentation when Sue Gardner attended a London meetup earlier in the year, which included those involved in Wikimedia UK. It will be interesting to see how things develop.
Carcharoth
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It will be. If you haven't taken a gander at the annual plan you should ( http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2010-2011_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answ...) , it's an interesting read.* *I believe Sue's keynote should be up relatively soon as well (as well as the other talks from Wikimania) and is another good watch because she explains some of it.
The actual # of tech staff is jumping a bunch with the approximates being 16 tech, 17 other (which is I believe solely the newly merged community department with Reader Relations/Volunteers/Public Outreach/Education etc) and the BRAND new global development group), 7 administrative (like the administrative assistant jobs on the job opportunities page now) and 2 fundraising (which is in the community department but looks to be separated out, which is nice. The "other" is (I believe) solely the new Community department (Reader Relations/Volunteers/Public Outreach/Education etc) and the BRAND new Global Development department which I think is the one that will be doing a lot of the big work coming up in the "global south" focus area that they are working on including staff in India (and I think Brazil and a 3rd spot) earlish next year.
That lowers the percentage of technical staff a bit but I'm not sure I mind given 1. the increase in actual tech staff and 2. The global development staff which I think is really important. I'll fully admit that the large increase worries me a bit but I'm comforted by the fact that both the Annual Plan on paper (well "paper") and Sue/the Board have said multiple times that they plan to be careful and that 44 new jobs may become 20 something and that they very well may underspend (especially given the newness of the departments and their chiefs).
I think the added staff could be very good to be honest as long as they are used appropriately which will be the question obviously. I think they know what needs to be done which is good, I think staff that can interact, be part of and support the community/volunteers can do enormous good but getting the right balance isn't easy because you don't want them to REPLACE volunteers.
On a related note: someone brought this Times article to the meetup in Boston Monday http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/business/media/12link.html. There is some truth to it I think and the staffing changes reflect that some with a larger focus on development outside en.
James Alexander james.alexander@rochester.edu jamesofur@gmail.com
James Alexander wrote:
On a related note: someone brought this Times article to the meetup in Boston Monday http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/business/media/12link.html. There is some truth to it I think and the staffing changes reflect that some with a larger focus on development outside en.
Having discussed certain things with Liam Wyatt face-to-face after the British Museum workshop, I'm prepared to say that I disagree somewhat with him as a pundit (as distinct from an activist). It is so not true that enWP is "full" in any sense. We still don't get careful analysis of our "brand" in the media, though they make fewer complete blunders about WP in the past.
The "mojo" talk there reminds us, if necessary that WP is still a grassroots organisation. Expansion in the San Francisco office of the WMF is quite distinct from expansion at the Wikipedia grassroots, and it is the latter that makes the difference. If that ever is forgotten (and I really thought it had got mislaid in the discussion over Vector) then some of the Cassandra-like punditry will turn out to have more justification than is now visible.
Charles
On 13 July 2010 09:05, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.comwrote:
James Alexander wrote:
On a related note: someone brought this Times article to the meetup in Boston Monday
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/business/media/12link.html.
There is some truth to it I think and the staffing changes reflect that
some
with a larger focus on development outside en.
Having discussed certain things with Liam Wyatt face-to-face after the British Museum workshop, I'm prepared to say that I disagree somewhat with him as a pundit (as distinct from an activist). It is so not true that enWP is "full" in any sense. We still don't get careful analysis of our "brand" in the media, though they make fewer complete blunders about WP in the past.
<snip> Charles
Just a quick reply - I also do not think WP (and especially en-wp) is
"full" in any sense. The quote from the article is: “By definition, as it gets bigger, people don’t have as many places to start. It is a good problem to have, but it is a problem.” And that's just one quote pulled from a much wider conversation and therefore has a necessary lack of contextualisation. As Noam's article put it, the community in general and the WMF are starting to push (in a variety of ways) into engaging different kinds of people - people in developing countries and also subject-area experts especially. I think everyone agrees that it's no longer as easy to "just jump right in" to en-wp as it used to be which is because we have much better content than we used to - this is the "good problem". But I also think that we all agree that there's definitely a long way to go before en-wp could be considered "full". IMO we're only just scratching the surface of what we can eventually achieve :-)
-Liam
On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 4:55 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
But I also think that we all agree that there's definitely a long way to go before en-wp could be considered "full". IMO we're only just scratching the surface of what we can eventually achieve :-)
-Liam
My usual link on this topic is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Wikipedia_interwiki_and_specialize...
It's worth noting that the "we've got a long way to go" result still holds even in mid-2009; given the general impression that WP isn't growing as fast, this seems like a result that will hold for a very long time indeed.
Gwern Branwen wrote:
On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 4:55 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
But I also think that we all agree that there's definitely a long way to go before en-wp could be considered "full". IMO we're only just scratching the surface of what we can eventually achieve :-)
-Liam
My usual link on this topic is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Wikipedia_interwiki_and_specialize...
<snip>
"One of the interesting questions about Wikipedia is 'how much more information there is for Wikipedia to assimilate'?" My impression is that people who are encyclopedists at heart, and are at all interested in the question, know that the only possible answer is "a hell of a lot". As for the interwiki mapping, which is an interesting topic for sure, wans't there something relevant about this in the recent Snow/Wales open letter? That is, and there was something about this before on this list, there is a data structure that bots use to automate interwiki linking, and it seems the WMF is bringing it out into the open in some way? This is one of the more cheering pieces of news I've heard from the Foundation recently. More details would be welcome.
Charles
Liam Wyatt wrote:
On 13 July 2010 09:05, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com mailto:charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
James Alexander wrote: > On a related note: someone brought this Times article to the meetup in > Boston Monday http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/business/media/12link.html. > There is some truth to it I think and the staffing changes reflect that some > with a larger focus on development outside en. > > Having discussed certain things with Liam Wyatt face-to-face after the British Museum workshop, I'm prepared to say that I disagree somewhat with him as a pundit (as distinct from an activist). It is so not true that enWP is "full" in any sense. We still don't get careful analysis of our "brand" in the media, though they make fewer complete blunders about WP in the past. <snip> CharlesJust a quick reply - I also do not think WP (and especially en-wp) is "full" in any sense. The quote from the article is: “By definition, as it gets bigger, people don’t have as many places to start. It is a good problem to have, but it is a problem.” And that's just one quote pulled from a much wider conversation and therefore has a necessary lack of contextualisation. As Noam's article put it, the community in general and the WMF are starting to push (in a variety of ways) into engaging different kinds of people - people in developing countries and also subject-area experts especially. I think everyone agrees that it's no longer as easy to "just jump right in" to en-wp as it used to be which is because we have much better content than we used to - this is the "good problem". But I also think that we all agree that there's definitely a long way to go before en-wp could be considered "full". IMO we're only just scratching the surface of what we can eventually achieve :-)
Of course I'm well aware of the perils of believing anything in the press. But even so, I don't see the point in that way. Remember that it is _easier_ to add to an existing article than to start a new one. Remember that it is easier to more-or-less clone something others have done (a template, say) than to figure it out for yourself. Remember that the existence of a WikiProject in an area gives a starting point for contact, that is easier by far to use than searching around for other editors who share your interests. It may be harder to add to articles that are already reasonably complete, but there are a couple of million that are nothing like complete.
We didn't really settle our differences when we talked at the Museum Tavern. (Fortunately it wasn't a question of going outside the pub to do so - we already were outside the pub!) There were two strands I remember that seemed to be tangled. "Jump right in" is actually the attitude of the young and technically-minded: that is not going to change, and so the key issue is that the learning curve, for the learn-by-doing editors, should not be spoiled by harshness. But there is the "adult learner" issue, and this is a major part of the "different kinds of people" front. If the potential reader-turning-editor is saying "I wouldn't know where to start", i.e. the complementary attitude, then (yes) we get to the usability issues that got us the Vector skin. But there should be brief but good versions of what you need to know to get started, which is why I asked recently on this list about how we were doing with cheatsheets.
I feel a kind of frustration every time one of these discussions goes flatly one-sided and omits what seem to me to be some basic distinctions.
Charles