[Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser

[Thomas Dalton]

On 8 March 2011 13:24, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia-inc.com> wrote:
> On 3/5/11 7:48 AM, MZMcBride wrote:
>> While most donations come from people outside the Wikimedia (editing)
>> community, the people within the community often feel that the very small
>> staff of the past was more productive, more agile, less bloated, and overall
>> more efficient than the larger staff of today.
>
> I think this is not true as a matter of content, and certainly not true
> as a matter of how people view the Foundation.  Perhaps you don't
> remember how completely unresponsive and broken the Foundation was in
> the old days.
>
> The largest staff today is: more productive, more agile, and overall
> more efficient than the larger staff of today.
>
> I remember the bad old days, I was there.  Woefully understaffed, we
> were unable to respond to just about any and all requests from chapters,
> potential partners, etc.

The WMF is certainly able to do (and does) a great deal more useful
stuff now. It probably is less efficient, though. When Brion was the
only staff member, he probably spent 99% of his time on programme
work. Now there are quite a few staff members that don't do any
programme work and just support the rest of the office. That isn't
bloat, though, it's an inevitable part of growth. If the WMF tried to
do everything it is currently doing without those support staff, it
would be far *less* efficient.