[Foundation-l] Re: Continued concern with performance

[Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales]

Rich Holton wrote:
> My greatest concern is that there are continuing performance issues
> with little apparent progress over an extended period. Without
> hesitation I presume that we have good people volunteering their time
> and working hard to resolve these issues. 

I think you're overlooking our staggering growth rate, though.  There
has been enormous progress on a great many fronts, but we continue to
grow grow grow at an astonishing rate.

It isn't as if we have steady traffic and the devs are working this
hard and achieving nothing.  It's that we have remarkable progress on
all fronts and enough growth to make it not seem very impressive if
you don't recognize what's going on.

> Sometimes it is necessary for an organization to consider the
> possibility that internal resources are not sufficient to address an
> immediate need. Wikipedia has come a long way relying almost entirely
> on volunteer workers. I do not believe this can continue indefinitely.

I would tend to agree with you on this, but we should not expect paid
work to be a cure-all.  In some well-defined areas, yes.  But in
general, it is not so clear.

--Jimbo