Here's a crazy question.
Non-profit organizations are famous for having terrible web sites. Generally they get a fixed budget and after they spend it, they have a party and announced that they succeeded. Nobody ever tells the users, or rather, the people who might have been the users if they found out about it.
For a long time I thought "non-profit" was a cause of failure, or rather, that profit was a cause of success. Nobody at a library benefits from making a digital library 5% easier to use, but if a company like AMZN improves its site by 5%, that translates into happy customers plus a pile of money that can go into bonuses, dividends, etc.
That continuous improvement is missing in most non-profits. At best they get a series of grants to do things and set goals for major upgrades. Sometimes these upgrades fail, sometimes they really help, often they end up spending a lot of money for 3 years to get something that's about the same as what they had before.
How does the Wikimedia foundation escape this trap?
Hey,
How does the Wikimedia foundation escape this trap?
Making Wikipedia 5% easier to use and therefore helping millions of people is something that ought to be enough motivation for most non-selfish people :)
Cheers
-- Jeroen De Dauw http://www.bn2vs.com Don't panic. Don't be evil. --
On 10 November 2011 13:34, Paul Houle paul@ontology2.com wrote:
How does the Wikimedia foundation escape this trap?
I would guess it's the same reason Wikipedia works: it attracts obsessive nerds who *must* have things *right*. They just can't leave stuff alone.
- d.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
On 10 November 2011 13:34, Paul Houle paul@ontology2.com wrote:
How does the Wikimedia foundation escape this trap?
I would guess it's the same reason Wikipedia works: it attracts obsessive nerds who *must* have things *right*. They just can't leave stuff alone.
"When anything in this world gets accomplished, it is done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission." --Tom Peters; In Search Of Excellence[1].
Cheers, -- jra [1]I think that was the book; I'm quite certain it was Tom.
2011/11/10 Paul Houle paul@ontology2.com:
How does the Wikimedia foundation escape this trap?
Some would argue that they don't. Just look on the number of emails on whether the "wiki-love" feature is useful or not.
Plus, it looks to me that WMF does just what you say non-profits do: they get a series of grants to do things and set goals for major upgrades. There are many small improvements "forgot" because the team is concentrating on big features.
However, there is an obvious difference between WMF and other non-profits: very few NGOs have their website as their main way of achieving their mission. The website is just another mean of communication, not the center of their activity.
Strainu
On 10 November 2011 14:47, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Plus, it looks to me that WMF does just what you say non-profits do: they get a series of grants to do things and set goals for major upgrades. There are many small improvements "forgot" because the team is concentrating on big features.
Mm, this is partially true but not fully true. It's probably correct that the Wikimedia Foundation focuses mainly on big features or major upgrades rather than small improvements. (Depending how you define those terms.) But, the problem that plagues lots of non-profits is that they seek restricted grants to fund specific projects that they otherwise would not do. That's a problem because it means external organizations are influencing, sometimes heavily, your priorities and plans. We didn't want to do that, so about two years ago we made the decision that we would no longer seek or accept restricted grants for specific types of work. Instead, we set our own agenda, and seek only unrestricted funding to offset our costs.
I hope that makes sense. It was a deliberate decision that we made. We didn't want external organizations influencing our roadmap, because we didn't think external organizations were in the best position to know what's most useful for Wikimedia. So, we decided to handle things differently from many non-profits. We build our own roadmap, and seek only grants that will support the work we've already decided to do.
Thanks, Sue
-- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation
415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
Hi!
Non-profit organizations are famous for having terrible websites.
Maybe other non-profit organizations don't conduct their business mainly via their website. Wikipedia wasn't that beautiful at some point in time either, a volunteer came and redesigned it.
The way Medecins Sans Frontieres can get highly qualified doctors to join, Wikipedia had lots of motivation for technology people - something they could do that was at very core of the activities.
Domas
Domas,
As far as I am aware Medecins Sans Frontieres pay full whack salaries: their doctors are not volunteers. Are you suggesting something?
Andrew
On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com wrote:
Hi!
Non-profit organizations are famous for having terrible web sites.
Maybe other non-profit organizations don't conduct their business mainly via their website. Wikipedia wasn't that beautiful at some point in time either, a volunteer came and redesigned it.
The way Medecins Sans Frontieres can get highly qualified doctors to join, Wikipedia had lots of motivation for technology people - something they could do that was at very core of the activities.
Domas _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hi!
As far as I am aware Medecins Sans Frontieres pay full whack salaries: their doctors are not volunteers. Are you suggesting something?
Heh, no, I guess my example was wrong. My point is that nonprofits have people motivated to do mission-critical things, and other stuff like 'running a website' is not that important, and someone's cousin will do that, as long as he has Frontpage installed.
Wikipedia was built as a website, so it got more people who know what a website is. :-)
Domas
* Andrew Cates andrew.cates@soschildren.org [Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:06:31 +0000]:
Domas,
As far as I am aware Medecins Sans Frontieres pay full whack salaries: their doctors are not volunteers. Are you suggesting something?
I believe that even for non-paid people it's cool to have their credits in Special:Version at major sites, like Wikimedia ones. It should be a worth record in resume / curriculum vitae, providing to developer the chance for better paid job. However, the growth and popularity of Wikipedia have raised the bar for developing to qualify their code to be deployed at major sites, so it's not easy to get your code there.. So, many people may get disappointed. But the international competition is very strong these days, in every field, not just programming. For example, third world countries are improving their education and there are many talented people. So, the life is not easy, of course. Dmitriy
On 10/11/11 14:34, Paul Houle wrote:
Generally they get a fixed budget and after they spend it, they have a party and announced that they succeeded.
Hello Paul,
I think we did it the reverse way: - success - party - spending - get a budget
The continuous improvement is at the root of the wikipedia project. It is meant to be an unachieved project that will keep growing over and over.
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org