[Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF

[Brian]

This time next year I have no doubt Wikipedia will be much more usable.
Delphine, this sentence is the first time I have ever typed the word
'cabal'.

I do hope people continue to express concern about the Wikipedia/Wikia
relationship. The existence of Wikia doesn't make a whole lot of sense,
except the $$$ kind.


On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 4:13 PM, Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
>
> NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get
> lost.
> Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org
>
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