So, it seems (if I interpret Jimbo's mail on wikitech and the discussion
here correctly) that most of us would like *some kind* of category
scheme in wikipedia. I do, too! But, we seem to differ on the details
(shocked silence!).
So far, I saw three concepts:
1. Simple categories like "Person", "Event", etc.; about a dozen total.
2. Categories and subcategories, like
"Science/Biology/Biochemistry/Proteomics", which can be "scaled down" to
#1 as well ("Humankind/Person" or something)
3. Complex object structures with machine-readable meta-knowledge
encoded into the articles, which would allow for quite complex
queries/summaries, like "biologists born after 1860".
Pros:
1. Easy to edit (the wiki way!)
2. Still easy to edit, but making wikipedia browseable by category,
fine-tune Recent Changes, etc.
3. Strong improvement in search functions, meta-knowledge available for
data-mining.
Cons:
1. Not much of a help...
2. We'd need to agree on a category scheme, and maintenance might get a
*little* complicated.
3. Quite complex to edit (e.g., "<category type='person'
occupation='biologist' birth_month='5' birth_day='24' birth_year='1874'
birth_place='London' death_month=.....>")
For a wikipedia I'd have to write myself, I'd choose #3, but with
respect to the wiki way, #2 seems more likely to achieve consensus (if
there is such a thing;-)
Magnus
On top of the problems we've been having with Geoffrin, the new
database server, the secondary web server (and backup database server,
and mail server) Pliny has developed some sort of disk problem.
Hopefully the disk can be swapped out or something in the next couple
days... In the meantime, things are offline.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
As of 16:20 UTC 31 Dec 2003
PayPal breakdown
U.S. Dollar: $18,574.90 USD
Canadian Dollar: $665.61 CAD
Euro: �5,184.23 EUR
Pound Sterling: �1,146.15 GBP
Yen: �41,283 JPY
PayPal total: US$27,817.00
Checking: US$3,955.98
Petty cash: US$200
Grand total: US$31,972.98
I'll be updating
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising once or
twice a day with new info.
Somebody else will have to update
http://wikimedia.org/letter.html since I do not have
access to that server.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Jimmy Wales wrote in part:
>For me, the key to the wikipedia volunteer experience is just that --
>it's all volunteer. Everything that we have accomplished together we
>have accomplished voluntarily, no one has been forced in any way to
>help us. Government funding is pernicious to volunteer efforts
>primarily because it means that some people -- the taxpayers footing
>the bill -- are being forced to do so.
And corporate funding is also pernicious in its own way,
since the labour force that makes money for the corporation
typically has no say in how that money is spent in philanthropy.
There is less forcing here -- people are forced to get a job,
but they have some choice in which job to get -- than with the state,
but at the same time, the state gives its victims (citizens) more say
in how the coerced money is used -- at least in the US and France.
Yes, these are political opinions. Since our political opinions are diverse,
it might help to declare that:
1) You (Jimmy) prefer corporate donations to government;
2) Some other Wikimedians prefer government donations to corporate;
3) Wikimedia intends to go with voluntary personal donations entirely,
and to rely on the efforts of volunteers more than their money.
I think that you already have these plans,
but it people may confuse your personal opinions (#1)
with your plans for the Foundation in general (#3).
-- Toby
Nikos-Optim wrote:
> I didn't mean to stop using paypal, just to use all
> possible solutions for money transfers, like e-gold
> etc.
Yes, I agree. Over time, we will be setting up as many alternatives
as possible.
I've setup an account at moneybookers.com, though I'm not done
actually testing it.
I'll look into egold next week.
I'm also contacting merchant account providers so we can just accept
credit cards directly, ourselves.
And I'm also researching setting up a European bank account so that
people in the EU countries can costlessly transfer money that way.
--Jimbo
I'm going to my brother's wedding in Mobile, Alabama today and I will
be back Saturday evening. A few people have limited access to the
Paypal account to check the balance, and I hope they will update the
http://www.wikimedia.org/letter.html page daily or more often for me.
--Jimbo
Are ads going to be requried to pay for wikipedia, or will we be
able to exist without them? I think it would be *extremely*
detrimental to the NPOV state of many articles, if we included
ads anywhere on the site. Consumer Reports magazine does not
include ads, as they do not want to be in any way tainted by
sponsers. I think we should follow suit and prevent future
problems. Also, I am sure that it would cause many valuable
contributers to leave wikipedia for other encyclopedias, which
might mean the death of wikipedia if enough people branch off.
I understand that ads would solve our present money problems,
but I think in the long run, it would cause many problems. We
have enough NPOV problems as it is, and I can only see this
causing more. I would rather see wikipedia down every other day
without ads, then to see ads everyday on wikipedia.
Jimmy Wales writes:
> I should add that I'm just answering questions about factual matters
> to the best of my ability, not advocating anything at all.
>
> Chuck Smith wrote:
>> 1) Would this be the same amount of money if we only
>> showed ads to those who weren't logged in?
>
> Yes, I think so. Others are more qualified than I am to say for sure,
> but my sense of it is that the vast majority of pageviews are to
> people who are not logged in. People log in when they want to edit,
> and lots more people view than edit.
>
> Also, I think that an easy one-click "turn off all ads permanently"
> link that sets a longterm no-ads cookie would not appreciably affect
> the revenue, either, since lots of people wouldn't care.
>
>> 2) Did you only include the English Wikipedia in your
>> calculations? I wouldn't want to impose this on other
>> languages.
>
> Yes, that's just for en. The number is based on my own experience. I
> could compile a keyword frequency list and send it off for an
> analysis, I think, and then the estimate would be better.
>
>> 3) Would Brion Vibber still leave the Wikipedia
>> because of the ads to users who aren't logged in when
>> he would have a full-time position at Wikipedia?
>
> He might. And so might a lot of other important contributors. A fork
> is even possible. A successful fork is even possible. All of those
> outcomes would be extremely bad, in my opinion.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
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> Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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> Some problems; What are we going to do with all that
> money? If we can't spend it, would that jeopardize
> our
> nonprofit status? I think it would be a step
> backwards
> for Wikimedia to become a for-profit organization.
I think we should hire full-time editors especially
for the non-English Wikipedias. The English Wikipedia
had a full-time Larry Sanger to help jump-start the
Wikipedia, but the other languages (to my knowledge)
never had such luxuries. As I said before, I would
propose Brion Vibber (technical support, non-English
wikis) and Arno Lagrange (Esperanto Wikipedia editor)
as full-time employees. Arno is now trying to start a
Wikipedia organization in France to be able to legally
work full-time for the Esperanto Wikipedia.
Also, I've never heard of having too much money as
being a problem. I mean, we're a foundation! Lots of
foundations have millions of dollars... We could use
the money to hold Wikipedia seminars and conferences.
We could also use the money to finance other worthy
educational projects like other foundations do.
"Sponsored by Wikimedia"
Chuck
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> Therefore, we're doomed until tomorrow morning.
> Jason has a family
> obligation tomorrow at 10AM, so he _could_ go down
> tomorrow afternoon,
> but only if we can't get someone at the colo to do
> the reboot.
If it's any consolation, I imagine you helped a lot of
families stay together for Christmas.
"What? I thought you said you were gonna work on
Wikipedia today?"
"Nah, I changed my mind [the server is down]."
"Awww... too bad. Now you can spend time with your
family!"
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Chuck
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