[WikiEN-l] "Wikipedia’s Foundation Plans Expansion"

[James Alexander]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:36 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 7:21 AM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/wikipedia-foundation-plans-expansion/
> >> The foundation that runs the Wikipedia Web site plans to add 44
> employees in the next year — roughly doubling the size of its current
> professional staff — and to raise $20 million to support a much-enhanced
> vision for the volunteer-created encyclopedia that nearly anyone can edit.
>
> <snip>
>
> > Well, I suppose as long as the technical side doesn't suffer
> > starvation and they actually can raise that much...
>
> That does sound like quite a big expansion, actually. I think I may
> have seen a precursor to that sort of presentation when Sue Gardner
> attended a London meetup earlier in the year, which included those
> involved in Wikimedia UK. It will be interesting to see how things
> develop.
>
> Carcharoth
>
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It will be. If you haven't taken a gander at the annual plan you should (
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2010-2011_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers)
,
it's an interesting read.* *I believe Sue's keynote should be up relatively
soon as well (as well as the other talks from Wikimania) and is another good
watch because she explains some of it.

The actual # of tech staff is jumping a bunch  with the approximates being
16 tech, 17 other (which is I believe solely the newly merged community
department with Reader Relations/Volunteers/Public Outreach/Education etc)
and the BRAND new global development group), 7 administrative (like
the administrative assistant jobs on the job opportunities page now) and
2 fundraising (which is in the community department but looks to
be separated out, which is nice.  The "other" is (I believe) solely the new
Community department (Reader Relations/Volunteers/Public Outreach/Education
etc) and the BRAND new Global Development department which I think is the
one that will be doing a lot of the big work coming up in the "global south"
focus area that they are working on including staff in India (and I think
Brazil and a 3rd spot) earlish next year.

That lowers the percentage of technical staff a bit but I'm not sure I mind
given 1. the increase in actual tech staff and 2. The global development
staff which I think is really important. I'll fully admit that the large
increase worries me a bit but I'm comforted by the fact that both the Annual
Plan on paper (well "paper") and Sue/the Board have said multiple times that
they plan to be careful and that 44 new jobs may become 20 something  and
that they very well may underspend (especially given the newness of the
departments and their chiefs).

I think the added staff could be very good to be honest as long as they are
used appropriately which will be the question obviously. I think they know
what needs to be done which is good, I think staff that can interact, be
part of and support the community/volunteers can do enormous good but
getting the right balance isn't easy because you don't want them to
REPLACE volunteers.

On a related note: someone brought this Times article to the meetup in
Boston Monday http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/business/media/12link.html.
There is some truth to it I think and the staffing changes reflect that some
with a larger focus on development outside en.


James Alexander
james.alexander at rochester.edu
jamesofur at gmail.com