The Wikimedia-pedia [1] is a treasure, thank you Philippe for linking!
I'd love to see this content migrated to a public wiki, where maybe it
can come to life again.
Nearly every time I'm involved in onboarding, I find a chance to mention
the Visual Editor rollout, Wikimedia's origins and the Foundation's
transformation away from being a membership organization, and other
formative episodes from our rich history. It's great to see this
historical enculturation process explicitly called out, I support any
efforts to write about our history.
However, it would be a mistake to hire an official WMF staff historian,
there's a clear conflict of interest. Even the most conscientious staff
historian would have strong motivations to accomplish organizational
goals ("spin"), and would be less likely to cover embarrassing bits such
as the wiki first emerging from under a porn company. But maybe we can
still get professional help, for example through an external grant
funding an editor-in-residence?
- [[mw:User:Adamw]]
(Views here are my own and do not represent my employer, WMDE.)
[1]
https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-pedia