[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment

[George Herbert]

On Mar 14, 2013, at 10:57 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at frontier.com> wrote:

> Aside from that, it's only recently that Wikimedia sites have approached having the kind of redundancy and failover capabilities we've talked about needing for a long time. That's at least one example of something that can add pretty significant costs without having a material impact on traffic (except in emergencies, of course).

This.

The data in the various Wikis and ability for people to get to it and maintain it are a public trust.

Before there was much Foundation or money, as internet public services are wont to do, a shoestring needed to suffice.  It would not be responsible to go back to those days.  It would actually be a betrayal of the trust and intent of those donations over the years.

That is not to say that there is no way that technology or ops tools cannot eventually possibly shrink those costs.  But we should be prepared to keep spending that much.


George William Herbert
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