[Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF

[Delphine Ménard]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 20:53, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
> I'm glad someone is concerned about this issue. Wikia has always smacked of
> "they wouldn't let us show ads on Wikipedia, so here is the for-profit
> branch of Wikipedia with ads." There are potential conflicts of interest at
> nearly every level of the Wikia/Wikipedia relationship.

I never thought I would say what comes next.
As much as I have been a fierce defender of a clear cut between Wikia
and Wikimedia, I must admit that I find this solution to be one of the
best things that has happened to the usability project.

About space: been there, and yes, Wikia's headquarters are a street
away, so really easy to plan meetings and make sure things happen in
coordinated fashion between the Wikimedia office and the Usability
project.

About working near Wikia: Wikia, as was said elsewhere, is one of the
biggest Mediawiki users out there and therefore has, in my opinion,
probably the best incentive to make sure that Mediawiki develops in a
way that makes sense for the users. They already have a pretty big
developper team, and having them at hand will definitely broaden the
usability project vision on what a wiki can/should do to be more user
friendly.

Who more than a commercial user of Mediawiki has an interest in its
evolution _for the best_ of users?

I see absolutely no conflict of interest. Where? Seriously? Wikia is
renting walls, tables and chairs to the Wikimedia Foundation, that's
all. And on top of that, they bring to the coffee machine talks tons
of ideas and experience in the daily use of the software.

And frankly, without this thread, everyone would have forgotten the
move two days from now and seen nothing in it. Gee, it's time to grow
up and stop seeing the cabal everywhere.

Cheers,

Delphine
-- 
~notafish

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