5 ms·

The title is misleading. It's 250k, not 2.5m and the goal is a knowledge engine, not a search engine.

by nitrix 11y ago

lucagold 11y ago
http://i.imgur.com/w89dQ4i.png http://i.imgur.com/w89dQ4i.png sounds like a search engine to me...
- orionblastar 11y ago
  It is a search engine called the knowledge engine. That is what I read of it.
chris_wot 11y ago
Not only is it a search engine, but it is a grant application that has had WMF staff leaving in droves, and has greatly upset many, many others - who will quite likely also leave. It's very, very sad. And it's also a shameful moment for the WMF. edit: and don't just think it's me saying it. The WMF has had a mass exodus of staff in the last week or so. If you speak to any WMF non-executive staff members directly, you'll quickly find out that morale is at an all time low, and confidence in the WMF Board is sitting at something like 12%.
- xojoc 11y ago
  Care to explain? Do you have some links/sources?
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Sure. I'll start off with the following email from Liam Wyatt: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-February/081835.html https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-Febru... The grant application you are looking at was only revealed due to a MASSIVE amount of controversy and pressure within the Wikimedia Foundation. The community representative (James Heilman) on the board was let go the other day, in part because of concerns around this grant. You might want to look at the Wikipedia Signpost article he wrote about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-03/In_focus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... Many people have questioned this. Lila, their Executive Director, seems to have conjured this up out of thin air, without consultation of any WMF staff members, or anyone in any of the various communities. Even highly influential, well respected people like Tim Starling appear to have been broadsided by this. Here is what Lila Tretikov wrote about the search engine: It was my mistake to not initiate this ideation on-wiki. Quite honestly, I really wish I could start this discussion over in a more collaborative way, knowing what I know today. Of course, that’s retrospecting with a firmer understanding of what the ideas are, and what is worthy of actually discussing. In the staff June Metrics meeting in 2015, the ideation was beginning to form in my mind from what I was learning through various conversations with staff. I had begun visualizing open knowledge existing in the shape of a universe. I saw the Wikimedia movement as the most motivated and sincere group of beings, united in their mission to build a rocket to explore Universal Free Knowledge. The words “search” and “discovery” and “knowledge” swam around in my mind with some rocket to navigate it. However, “rocket” didn’t seem to work, but in my mind, the rocket was really just an engine, or a portal, a TARDIS, that transports people on their journey through Universal Free Knowledge. From the perspective I had in June, however, I was unprepared for the impact uttering the words “Knowledge Engine” would have. Can we all just take a moment and mercifully admit: it’s a catchy name. Perhaps not a great one or entirely appropriate in our context (hence we don’t use it any more). I was motivated. I didn’t yet know exactly what we needed to build, or how we would end up building it. I could’ve really used your insight and guidance to help shape the ideas, and model the improvements, and test and verify the impacts. However, I was too afraid of engaging the community early on. Why do you think that was? I have a few thoughts, and would like to share them with you separately, as a wider topic. Either way, this was a mistake I have learned enormously from. (this can be found here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)#Knowledge_Engine_grant https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)...) That's a very, very real problem. An executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation should never have felt too afraid of engaging with the wider community on an issue as fundamental as this one. It's even more concerning that a half-thought through idea didn't get discussed and yet a grant application was made. All those who say that the application is only for $250,000 are entirely missing the point - the entire project would be $2.5 million, this is just the first, initial stage. It's even worse when Jimmy Wales states that: "To make this very clear, no one in top positions has proposed or is proposing that WMF should get into the general "searching" or "try to be Google". [1] Yet that is precisely what is being done here. The WMF appear to have known about this, because they seem to have done a large number of hirings to be dedicated to search - which I hear through contacts was questioned at the time as it seemed an odd way to allocate WMF resources. There have been, in the last week, I believe 5 or 6 influential staff leave the WMF. IN fact, they appear to be haemorrhaging staff currently, with no real sign of any abatement. None of this is at all satisfying to me. I was very, very involved in Wikipedia years ago. I started their Admin Noticeboard, and I did lots of article work, and helped kick off some key things, one of which was the [citation needed] tag which I have to admit I have some mixed feelings about. But for such an important project, it saddens me greatly to say that as an outsider now, it looks like things are being badly mismanaged. I hope for everyone's sake (and not just the folks at the WMF) that this can be resolved. It's not like governance issues can't be addressed - when Sue Gardener was in charge of the WMF, things not only ran like clock-work, but she ensured maximum transparency and we all trusted her implicitly because she earned that trust. I can't say the same for the current Executive team. 1. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/12/wikipedia_grant_build_search_engine_knight_foundation/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/12/wikipedia_grant_buil...
    - yuvipanda 11y ago
      Indeed, and morale at the WMF office is pretty damn low. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154689170123475&set=a.221338093474.165406.710543474&type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154689170123475&se... for an example.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      It may be of little importance vs your excellent references and what they show but... does anyone else notice how she worded that message is just... so... weird? The wording comes off like a combination of academia, PR, and email scams to me. Just straight BS that no normal, caring person in a mission-oriented organization should ever say. I mean, there's certainly styles I'm unfamiliar with. I'm always open to new experiences. Could be the case here. Hers just instantly set off red flags in my intuition. I hope she didn't always write like that as it might mean whoever brought her in either fell for a con or were part of it.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - coldpie 11y ago
        Yeah, it's super weird. I'm usually pretty understanding of corporate communication, especially when it's going to be public, but those paragraphs are just bizarrely phrased. "Ideation," "retrospecting", "beings," "universe," frequent references to a "rocket." It reads like one of those crazy-people websites from the 90s with a dozen different fonts.
        chris_wot 11y ago
        Her native language is Russian and country she was born in was Russia. I always assumed that was the reason the language used is like this. I've been critical of her "rocket" imagery, but I like to think I'm understanding about the odd use of English in the rest of her comments. Especially as I'm a monolinguist, heavens only knows how I would sound if I tried to learn and speak Russian amongst Russians...
- Alex3917 11y ago
  What's wrong with this project? It seems wildly ambitious, but maybe the blockchain makes to possible to succeed where Wikia failed previously.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Ironically, it's not the project itself that is the problem. It is the way it was done. It is causing masssive, massive problems internally within the WMF and frankly it's spilling over into the wider Wikipedia community. Can't speak for the other projects though, I don't know enough about them to say what the general feeling is around there. It's not nice to be the only one here on HN pointing out that there are some absolutely massive problems going on at the WMF at the moment, but I'm an outsider who was once an insider and I still know enough influential people through Facebook and other mechanisms to see enough to know that there is a crisis happening right now within the WMF. edit: I should note that, as an outsider who doesn't ever really want to be hugely involved in Wikipedia-related matters again (for various personal reasons not necessarily related to Wikipedia or the WMF), I don't really have any fear in stating what I see - nobody can really come back at me so I have no fear of any reprisals.
- incongruity 11y ago
  Can you say more/explain? What about the application is so upsetting? What is shameful about this? The Knight Foundation is about as upstanding as you can get, so it can't be that (full disclosure, I've received funding from them, so I'm definitely not unbiased on that point). So, what exactly is it that's so shameful here?
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    To be clear: my issue (and in fact, most peoples' issues) are not with the Knight Foundation. In fact, they appear to have been above board in every way in this whole debacle. It is the WMF board who are the problem here. See my comment here for just a few comments on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11101262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11101262 Frankly, there's a lot more - to understand the issue better you might want to read Liam Wyatt's blog posts: http://wittylama.com/2016/01/08/strategy-and-controversy/ http://wittylama.com/2016/01/08/strategy-and-controversy/ and here: http://wittylama.com/2016/01/30/strategy-controversy-part-2/ http://wittylama.com/2016/01/30/strategy-controversy-part-2/
    - incongruity 11y ago
      Thanks – I appreciate the references
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        That's OK, ironically it was Wikipedia that taught me to always back up my statements with references :-)
        incongruity 11y ago
        As an aside, I think the internet is simultaneously great at spreading absolute bs and disinformation and pushing people to have citations handy... paradoxically, both seem to be getting more frequent. (It all depends on where you browse, clearly).
detaro 11y ago
250k grant, matched by WMF to 2.5M.

The title is misleading. It's 250k, not 2.5m and the goal is a knowledge engine, not a search engine.

by nitrix 11y ago

The title is misleading. It's 250k, not 2.5m and the goal is a knowledge engine, not a search engine.

lucagold 11y ago

http://i.imgur.com/w89dQ4i.png http://i.imgur.com/w89dQ4i.png sounds like a search engine to me...

orionblastar 11y ago
It is a search engine called the knowledge engine. That is what I read of it.

chris_wot 11y ago

Not only is it a search engine, but it is a grant application that has had WMF staff leaving in droves, and has greatly upset many, many others - who will quite likely also leave. It's very, very sad. And it's also a shameful moment for the WMF. edit: and don't just think it's me saying it. The WMF has had a mass exodus of staff in the last week or so. If you speak to any WMF non-executive staff members directly, you'll quickly find out that morale is at an all time low, and confidence in the WMF Board is sitting at something like 12%.

xojoc 11y ago
Care to explain? Do you have some links/sources?
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Sure. I'll start off with the following email from Liam Wyatt: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-February/081835.html https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-Febru... The grant application you are looking at was only revealed due to a MASSIVE amount of controversy and pressure within the Wikimedia Foundation. The community representative (James Heilman) on the board was let go the other day, in part because of concerns around this grant. You might want to look at the Wikipedia Signpost article he wrote about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-03/In_focus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... Many people have questioned this. Lila, their Executive Director, seems to have conjured this up out of thin air, without consultation of any WMF staff members, or anyone in any of the various communities. Even highly influential, well respected people like Tim Starling appear to have been broadsided by this. Here is what Lila Tretikov wrote about the search engine: It was my mistake to not initiate this ideation on-wiki. Quite honestly, I really wish I could start this discussion over in a more collaborative way, knowing what I know today. Of course, that’s retrospecting with a firmer understanding of what the ideas are, and what is worthy of actually discussing. In the staff June Metrics meeting in 2015, the ideation was beginning to form in my mind from what I was learning through various conversations with staff. I had begun visualizing open knowledge existing in the shape of a universe. I saw the Wikimedia movement as the most motivated and sincere group of beings, united in their mission to build a rocket to explore Universal Free Knowledge. The words “search” and “discovery” and “knowledge” swam around in my mind with some rocket to navigate it. However, “rocket” didn’t seem to work, but in my mind, the rocket was really just an engine, or a portal, a TARDIS, that transports people on their journey through Universal Free Knowledge. From the perspective I had in June, however, I was unprepared for the impact uttering the words “Knowledge Engine” would have. Can we all just take a moment and mercifully admit: it’s a catchy name. Perhaps not a great one or entirely appropriate in our context (hence we don’t use it any more). I was motivated. I didn’t yet know exactly what we needed to build, or how we would end up building it. I could’ve really used your insight and guidance to help shape the ideas, and model the improvements, and test and verify the impacts. However, I was too afraid of engaging the community early on. Why do you think that was? I have a few thoughts, and would like to share them with you separately, as a wider topic. Either way, this was a mistake I have learned enormously from. (this can be found here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)#Knowledge_Engine_grant https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)...) That's a very, very real problem. An executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation should never have felt too afraid of engaging with the wider community on an issue as fundamental as this one. It's even more concerning that a half-thought through idea didn't get discussed and yet a grant application was made. All those who say that the application is only for $250,000 are entirely missing the point - the entire project would be $2.5 million, this is just the first, initial stage. It's even worse when Jimmy Wales states that: "To make this very clear, no one in top positions has proposed or is proposing that WMF should get into the general "searching" or "try to be Google". [1] Yet that is precisely what is being done here. The WMF appear to have known about this, because they seem to have done a large number of hirings to be dedicated to search - which I hear through contacts was questioned at the time as it seemed an odd way to allocate WMF resources. There have been, in the last week, I believe 5 or 6 influential staff leave the WMF. IN fact, they appear to be haemorrhaging staff currently, with no real sign of any abatement. None of this is at all satisfying to me. I was very, very involved in Wikipedia years ago. I started their Admin Noticeboard, and I did lots of article work, and helped kick off some key things, one of which was the [citation needed] tag which I have to admit I have some mixed feelings about. But for such an important project, it saddens me greatly to say that as an outsider now, it looks like things are being badly mismanaged. I hope for everyone's sake (and not just the folks at the WMF) that this can be resolved. It's not like governance issues can't be addressed - when Sue Gardener was in charge of the WMF, things not only ran like clock-work, but she ensured maximum transparency and we all trusted her implicitly because she earned that trust. I can't say the same for the current Executive team. 1. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/12/wikipedia_grant_build_search_engine_knight_foundation/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/12/wikipedia_grant_buil...
  - yuvipanda 11y ago
    Indeed, and morale at the WMF office is pretty damn low. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154689170123475&set=a.221338093474.165406.710543474&type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154689170123475&se... for an example.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    It may be of little importance vs your excellent references and what they show but... does anyone else notice how she worded that message is just... so... weird? The wording comes off like a combination of academia, PR, and email scams to me. Just straight BS that no normal, caring person in a mission-oriented organization should ever say. I mean, there's certainly styles I'm unfamiliar with. I'm always open to new experiences. Could be the case here. Hers just instantly set off red flags in my intuition. I hope she didn't always write like that as it might mean whoever brought her in either fell for a con or were part of it.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - coldpie 11y ago
      Yeah, it's super weird. I'm usually pretty understanding of corporate communication, especially when it's going to be public, but those paragraphs are just bizarrely phrased. "Ideation," "retrospecting", "beings," "universe," frequent references to a "rocket." It reads like one of those crazy-people websites from the 90s with a dozen different fonts.
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        Her native language is Russian and country she was born in was Russia. I always assumed that was the reason the language used is like this. I've been critical of her "rocket" imagery, but I like to think I'm understanding about the odd use of English in the rest of her comments. Especially as I'm a monolinguist, heavens only knows how I would sound if I tried to learn and speak Russian amongst Russians...
Alex3917 11y ago
What's wrong with this project? It seems wildly ambitious, but maybe the blockchain makes to possible to succeed where Wikia failed previously.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Ironically, it's not the project itself that is the problem. It is the way it was done. It is causing masssive, massive problems internally within the WMF and frankly it's spilling over into the wider Wikipedia community. Can't speak for the other projects though, I don't know enough about them to say what the general feeling is around there. It's not nice to be the only one here on HN pointing out that there are some absolutely massive problems going on at the WMF at the moment, but I'm an outsider who was once an insider and I still know enough influential people through Facebook and other mechanisms to see enough to know that there is a crisis happening right now within the WMF. edit: I should note that, as an outsider who doesn't ever really want to be hugely involved in Wikipedia-related matters again (for various personal reasons not necessarily related to Wikipedia or the WMF), I don't really have any fear in stating what I see - nobody can really come back at me so I have no fear of any reprisals.
incongruity 11y ago
Can you say more/explain? What about the application is so upsetting? What is shameful about this? The Knight Foundation is about as upstanding as you can get, so it can't be that (full disclosure, I've received funding from them, so I'm definitely not unbiased on that point). So, what exactly is it that's so shameful here?
- chris_wot 11y ago
  To be clear: my issue (and in fact, most peoples' issues) are not with the Knight Foundation. In fact, they appear to have been above board in every way in this whole debacle. It is the WMF board who are the problem here. See my comment here for just a few comments on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11101262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11101262 Frankly, there's a lot more - to understand the issue better you might want to read Liam Wyatt's blog posts: http://wittylama.com/2016/01/08/strategy-and-controversy/ http://wittylama.com/2016/01/08/strategy-and-controversy/ and here: http://wittylama.com/2016/01/30/strategy-controversy-part-2/ http://wittylama.com/2016/01/30/strategy-controversy-part-2/
  - incongruity 11y ago
    Thanks – I appreciate the references
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      That's OK, ironically it was Wikipedia that taught me to always back up my statements with references :-)
      - incongruity 11y ago
        As an aside, I think the internet is simultaneously great at spreading absolute bs and disinformation and pushing people to have citations handy... paradoxically, both seem to be getting more frequent. (It all depends on where you browse, clearly).

detaro 11y ago

250k grant, matched by WMF to 2.5M.