14 ms·

I think he raises a very important point regarding the enormous risk of WMF being purchased by the current generation of tech-giants. I don't think there is any

by ajxs 7y ago

I think he raises a very important point regarding the enormous risk of WMF being purchased by the current generation of tech-giants. I don't think there is any reason to believe that new management of Wikipedia by a company such as Google, Facebook or Amazon would be the least bit benevolent. The implications that Wikipedia being co-opted would have on freedom of information on the internet would be immense. I don't think that this is idle scare-mongering. Of course, there is already a risk of misinformation being propagated on Wikipedia by bad actors, I don't think that there is a very big gap to jump before we lose control over the online record completely.

jcrben 7y ago
Over half of the board is elected by the community of editors, so it doesn't seem very likely https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/board/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/board/. I vote in these elections and count Dr. James Heilman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Heilman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Heilman) as a friend.
- geowwy 7y ago
  In the case of insolvency I don't think the board will have much choice.
  - elect_engineer 7y ago
    Full disclosure: I am the author of the Wikipedia essay "Wikipedia has cancer". See https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C... Re: "In the case of insolvency I don't think the board will have much choice"; this is a key point to understanding my essay. Imagine someone winning a huge lawsuit and the WMF not being able to pay. Or imagine a really bad scandal (something like The New York Times publishing conclusive proof that the WMF is a front for ISIS) and donations drop through the floor, followed by the WMF continuing to increase spending until they run out of funds. None of these doomsday scenarios are likely, but they are not impossible either.
- elect_engineer 7y ago
  Full disclosure: I am the author of the Wikipedia essay "Wikipedia has cancer". See https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C... It is not true that "Over half of the board is elected by the community of editors". The WMF board is composed of ten members: Four who are appointed by the board itself; Three who are selected by the community encompassed by all the different Wikimedia projects Two who are selected by the local chapters and thematic organizations One emeritus for the foundation's founder, Jimmy Wales. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Board_of_trustees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Board_of_...
  - droid404 7y ago
    There are giant voids in the hierarchy between new and established users and between long term editors and the people above. These are mostly sustained by overworking people which in turn is caused by the crappy software. That there are rules, eh I mean guidelines, is somewhat of a joke without means to enforce them. Disagreements across the void are more often than not resolved by ignoring the lower ranking editor. The concept of consensus[sic] is truly a joke with no clear path forwards. Money doesn't solve anything apparently.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> I don't think that this is idle scare-mongering Is there evidence the WMF has considered a sale of its assets?
- Ygg2 7y ago
  Not yet. But the article raises possibility of a rather grim future.
  - simonh 7y ago
    I read it all the way through. It raises it, but doesn’t justify it. As has been pointed out most of their spending is grants to other organisations, which they could cancel at any time. The article gives the impression all of that spending is on bureaucracy, but that’s just flat out not true.
hlieberman 7y ago
As a 501(c)(3), it would be illegal for the Wikimedia Foundation to be purchased by any of the tech-giants -- or any other for-profit company, for that matter. In addition, all the content is under freely available licenses. The most realistic but still bleak scenario I can think of is Wikipedia becoming infested with ads. Anything more extreme, we'd see a fork become popular.
- rileymat2 7y ago
  In a financial crunch, they would not sell the organization, but the assets to pay debt? Wouldn’t that be legal?
  - qtplatypus 7y ago
    What assets does it have?
    - emerongi 7y ago
      16B monthly pageviews
      - jaredklewis 7y ago
        I think the word asset is being used in a particular sense here. Page views are not liquid or transferable.
        lwf 7y ago
        Technically, they could sell the domain & the new owner could maintain the site as-is, but I really don't think that'd happen. The WMF is mission-driven. A large swath of their funds are spent as grants to other organisations, and they could par that back without affecting their ability to operate. [disc: Wikipedian since 2004, many friends who are WMF employees]
        7y ago
Spooky23 7y ago
It’s a risk, but the data and software is available and can live on. Nonprofit governance isn’t trivial, and usually when the growth stops the founders or management get booted by the board, and a new normal sets in.
MichaelMoser123 7y ago
Let's say I bought wikipedia and can manipulate definitions, now what? If I use this power then wikipedia looses credibility and all the darn money turns into dust.
- pimmen 7y ago
  You don’t use it, you let other actors use it while you simply rent it out to them. Maybe some Turkish organizations who are pro-Erdogan use Turkish Wikipedia to manipulate Turkish speakers. All the while, people on the other Wikipedia instances don’t notice and lend credibility to the platform. When we in the West heard about Dragonfly we didn’t stop trusting our own Google results.
  - MichaelMoser123 7y ago
    another layer of indirection - people will notice this process and wikipedia looses all credibility; same result.
    - pimmen 7y ago
      Not necessarily. They could argue that they're a platform, just like Facebook or Twitter, and claim they want to be neutral. Facebook and Twitter have taken flak, but all in all, people still trust the core features of these platforms. Even if Wikipedia sold the right to edit Turkish Wikipedia to a pro-Erdogan organization I would still probably trust the article about set theory on English Wikipedia.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    That sounds like a very poor business model - they can and do that for free already. Publicists have been caught making spin edits numerous times already.
    - pimmen 7y ago
      > That sounds like a very poor business model - they can and do that for free already. I might have been unclear, or I'm misunderstanding you, but charging people for something that used to be free is a great business model, since Wikipedia is so big and is so trusted that it's not realistic to go somewhere else or start a new wiki and hope it gets just as big and trusted.

by ajxs 7y ago

jcrben 7y ago

Over half of the board is elected by the community of editors, so it doesn't seem very likely https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/board/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/board/. I vote in these elections and count Dr. James Heilman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Heilman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Heilman) as a friend.

geowwy 7y ago
In the case of insolvency I don't think the board will have much choice.
- elect_engineer 7y ago
  Full disclosure: I am the author of the Wikipedia essay "Wikipedia has cancer". See https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C... Re: "In the case of insolvency I don't think the board will have much choice"; this is a key point to understanding my essay. Imagine someone winning a huge lawsuit and the WMF not being able to pay. Or imagine a really bad scandal (something like The New York Times publishing conclusive proof that the WMF is a front for ISIS) and donations drop through the floor, followed by the WMF continuing to increase spending until they run out of funds. None of these doomsday scenarios are likely, but they are not impossible either.
elect_engineer 7y ago
Full disclosure: I am the author of the Wikipedia essay "Wikipedia has cancer". See https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C... It is not true that "Over half of the board is elected by the community of editors". The WMF board is composed of ten members: Four who are appointed by the board itself; Three who are selected by the community encompassed by all the different Wikimedia projects Two who are selected by the local chapters and thematic organizations One emeritus for the foundation's founder, Jimmy Wales. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Board_of_trustees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Board_of_...
- droid404 7y ago
  There are giant voids in the hierarchy between new and established users and between long term editors and the people above. These are mostly sustained by overworking people which in turn is caused by the crappy software. That there are rules, eh I mean guidelines, is somewhat of a joke without means to enforce them. Disagreements across the void are more often than not resolved by ignoring the lower ranking editor. The concept of consensus[sic] is truly a joke with no clear path forwards. Money doesn't solve anything apparently.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> I don't think that this is idle scare-mongering Is there evidence the WMF has considered a sale of its assets?

Ygg2 7y ago
Not yet. But the article raises possibility of a rather grim future.
- simonh 7y ago
  I read it all the way through. It raises it, but doesn’t justify it. As has been pointed out most of their spending is grants to other organisations, which they could cancel at any time. The article gives the impression all of that spending is on bureaucracy, but that’s just flat out not true.

hlieberman 7y ago

As a 501(c)(3), it would be illegal for the Wikimedia Foundation to be purchased by any of the tech-giants -- or any other for-profit company, for that matter. In addition, all the content is under freely available licenses. The most realistic but still bleak scenario I can think of is Wikipedia becoming infested with ads. Anything more extreme, we'd see a fork become popular.

rileymat2 7y ago
In a financial crunch, they would not sell the organization, but the assets to pay debt? Wouldn’t that be legal?
- qtplatypus 7y ago
  What assets does it have?
  - emerongi 7y ago
    16B monthly pageviews
    - jaredklewis 7y ago
      I think the word asset is being used in a particular sense here. Page views are not liquid or transferable.
      - lwf 7y ago
        Technically, they could sell the domain & the new owner could maintain the site as-is, but I really don't think that'd happen. The WMF is mission-driven. A large swath of their funds are spent as grants to other organisations, and they could par that back without affecting their ability to operate. [disc: Wikipedian since 2004, many friends who are WMF employees]
        7y ago

Spooky23 7y ago

It’s a risk, but the data and software is available and can live on. Nonprofit governance isn’t trivial, and usually when the growth stops the founders or management get booted by the board, and a new normal sets in.

MichaelMoser123 7y ago

Let's say I bought wikipedia and can manipulate definitions, now what? If I use this power then wikipedia looses credibility and all the darn money turns into dust.

pimmen 7y ago
You don’t use it, you let other actors use it while you simply rent it out to them. Maybe some Turkish organizations who are pro-Erdogan use Turkish Wikipedia to manipulate Turkish speakers. All the while, people on the other Wikipedia instances don’t notice and lend credibility to the platform. When we in the West heard about Dragonfly we didn’t stop trusting our own Google results.
- MichaelMoser123 7y ago
  another layer of indirection - people will notice this process and wikipedia looses all credibility; same result.
  - pimmen 7y ago
    Not necessarily. They could argue that they're a platform, just like Facebook or Twitter, and claim they want to be neutral. Facebook and Twitter have taken flak, but all in all, people still trust the core features of these platforms. Even if Wikipedia sold the right to edit Turkish Wikipedia to a pro-Erdogan organization I would still probably trust the article about set theory on English Wikipedia.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  That sounds like a very poor business model - they can and do that for free already. Publicists have been caught making spin edits numerous times already.
  - pimmen 7y ago
    > That sounds like a very poor business model - they can and do that for free already. I might have been unclear, or I'm misunderstanding you, but charging people for something that used to be free is a great business model, since Wikipedia is so big and is so trusted that it's not realistic to go somewhere else or start a new wiki and hope it gets just as big and trusted.