The Knight Foundation's September 2015 announcement of the $250,000
grant[1] speaks of "supporting stage one development of the Knowledge
Engine by Wikipedia". Could we have an explanation of what the other
"stages" of this search engine project will be about?
Could we see the grant application?
I am also struck by the fact that the grant is really a very paltry one,
compared to the resources the Foundation is investing in this. The
MediaWiki page on Discovery[2] lists sixteen people working on this.
$250,000 would hardly begin to cover their salaries.
In fact, Risker said as long ago as May last year,[3]
---o0o---
Search and Discovery, a new team, seems to be extraordinarily well-staffed
with a disproportionate number of engineers at the same time as other areas
seem to be wanting for them. I don't see "fix search" in the Call to Action
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action>
document;
even if it fell into the heading "Improve technology and execution", this
seems like an abnormally large concentration of the top WMF Engineering
minds to be focusing on a topic that didn't even rate its own mention in
the CtA. More explanation of why Search and Discovery has suddenly become
such a major focus is required to assess whether this is appropriate
resourcing.
---o0o---
Why isn't there more transparency about this search engine project?
Was this matter ever the subject of disagreements between James and the
board members who voted to expel him?
[1]
http://www.knightfoundation.org/grants/201551260/
https://archive.is/gZ50b
[2]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Discovery
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2015-…