5 ms·

> What's more interesting to me is using BitTorrent not for pirated movies but as a content distribution system enabling more free services like Wikipedia. Tha

> What's more interesting to me is using BitTorrent not for pirated movies but as a content distribution system enabling more free services like Wikipedia. That should be much higher in Wikimedia's TODO list, IMHO. There is a browser extension called WikipediaP2P for chrome, but if I'm not mistaken the author is not affiliated with the Wikimedia foundation and it's only for chrome. I donated money once to the foundation so now I receive emails from times to times, asking for more money. It nags me when I read the claim that they need money to pay for servers and yet they don't seem to make any effort to distribute Wikipedia in a P2P way.

JeremyBanks 9y ago
https://datproject.org/ https://datproject.org/ with https://beakerbrowser.com/ https://beakerbrowser.com/ or the upcoming Firefox extension is the most currently-promising project in this space.
- sengork 9y ago
  A bit similar to Opera Unite circa 2009: http://www.operasoftware.com/press/releases/general/opera-unite-reinvents-the-web http://www.operasoftware.com/press/releases/general/opera-un...
insertnickname 9y ago
Wikipedia has cancer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-02-27/Op-ed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
- katastic 9y ago
  It's amazing how much they can spend on doing everything other than delivering their sole product... Wikipedia. Honestly ask yourself: Can you think of any product or service the Wikimedia Foundation has done other than deliver wikis? And if so, do they account for even 0.01% of the impact as they main product? That'd be like Gillette spending 90% of it's money on cups. We all know they're making razors. If they spent on their money on something else, leaving a mere fraction for razors, we'd think they were run by stupid, or insane people.
falcor84 9y ago
But do note that hosting is actually only a very small percentage of where money goes. In 2017, Wikimedia received ~87M in donations while only ~2M were spent on hosting. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/da/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Report_-_FY16-17.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/da/Wikim...
- eximius 9y ago
  What the hell? Why do they need my money if they have 50 Million dollars in cash or cash equivalents? Am I reading that right? And who the hell are their employees that are getting paid 33 million dollars a year? How many employees are there? EDIT: Reading a related comment's linked OP-ed, it appears that the Wikimedia Foundation spends a lot of money on non-wikipedia things. That is disturbing to me. I would like to donate to Wikipedia, not Wikimedia. Wikimedia may or may not be worthwile (I'm simply not familiar), but it isn't where I want my money to go.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - twohlix_ 9y ago
    They have ~300 employees. So 33M is not a crazy price to pay. ~110k USD/employee/year. Considering the industry they're in (information and tech) this is totally reasonable. Otherwise no big deal that it may or may not fit your values to donate to Wikimedia.
    - eximius 9y ago
      Not crazy, no, but surprising that they have ~300 employees.
  - cerved 9y ago
    Somone I went to college work works there
  - katastic 9y ago
    If you look into it, Wikipedia actually looks very dangerously run. They have consistently added more and more "community organizers" and other PR people, and actually ran on only TWO full-time software developers for years. It's no wonder the interface never gets any better. They spend a TINY fraction of their funds on actually delivering their only asset... content. It only cost them 2 million of their 80 million budget to host Wikipedia for 2017. They spend the same amount... on travel. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/da/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Report_-_FY16-17.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/da/Wikim... And there are "culture" employees making more than the tech: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie...
craftyguy 9y ago
> That should be much higher in Wikimedia's TODO list, IMHO Wikipedia's TODO list has only one item: beg for more funding

JeremyBanks 9y ago

https://datproject.org/ https://datproject.org/ with https://beakerbrowser.com/ https://beakerbrowser.com/ or the upcoming Firefox extension is the most currently-promising project in this space.

sengork 9y ago
A bit similar to Opera Unite circa 2009: http://www.operasoftware.com/press/releases/general/opera-unite-reinvents-the-web http://www.operasoftware.com/press/releases/general/opera-un...

insertnickname 9y ago

Wikipedia has cancer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-02-27/Op-ed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...

katastic 9y ago
It's amazing how much they can spend on doing everything other than delivering their sole product... Wikipedia. Honestly ask yourself: Can you think of any product or service the Wikimedia Foundation has done other than deliver wikis? And if so, do they account for even 0.01% of the impact as they main product? That'd be like Gillette spending 90% of it's money on cups. We all know they're making razors. If they spent on their money on something else, leaving a mere fraction for razors, we'd think they were run by stupid, or insane people.

falcor84 9y ago

But do note that hosting is actually only a very small percentage of where money goes. In 2017, Wikimedia received ~87M in donations while only ~2M were spent on hosting. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/da/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Report_-_FY16-17.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/da/Wikim...

eximius 9y ago
What the hell? Why do they need my money if they have 50 Million dollars in cash or cash equivalents? Am I reading that right? And who the hell are their employees that are getting paid 33 million dollars a year? How many employees are there? EDIT: Reading a related comment's linked OP-ed, it appears that the Wikimedia Foundation spends a lot of money on non-wikipedia things. That is disturbing to me. I would like to donate to Wikipedia, not Wikimedia. Wikimedia may or may not be worthwile (I'm simply not familiar), but it isn't where I want my money to go.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- twohlix_ 9y ago
  They have ~300 employees. So 33M is not a crazy price to pay. ~110k USD/employee/year. Considering the industry they're in (information and tech) this is totally reasonable. Otherwise no big deal that it may or may not fit your values to donate to Wikimedia.
  - eximius 9y ago
    Not crazy, no, but surprising that they have ~300 employees.
- cerved 9y ago
  Somone I went to college work works there
- katastic 9y ago
  If you look into it, Wikipedia actually looks very dangerously run. They have consistently added more and more "community organizers" and other PR people, and actually ran on only TWO full-time software developers for years. It's no wonder the interface never gets any better. They spend a TINY fraction of their funds on actually delivering their only asset... content. It only cost them 2 million of their 80 million budget to host Wikipedia for 2017. They spend the same amount... on travel. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/da/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Report_-_FY16-17.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/da/Wikim... And there are "culture" employees making more than the tech: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie...

craftyguy 9y ago

> That should be much higher in Wikimedia's TODO list, IMHO Wikipedia's TODO list has only one item: beg for more funding