4 ms·

They're not hurting for funding. The Wikimedia Foundation had a $28 million budget for its current year and is projecting $46 million in revenues for 2012-2013:

by gojomo 14y ago

They're not hurting for funding. The Wikimedia Foundation had a $28 million budget for its current year and is projecting $46 million in revenues for 2012-2013: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Q... Also, hiring editors/writers might crowd out the volunteer motivations, costing the project far more in the loss of donated effort. I believe Wikipedia's challenges are more strategic -- deciding the right things to do and in what proportions -- than financial.

jessriedel 14y ago
What makes you think $40 million is a lot? That seems like a very tiny amount to me, especially considering that most (nearly all?) is spent on technical requirements rather than editing.
- gojomo 14y ago
  I believe $40 million per year is a lot because it could, just based on crude rules-of-thumb, support a strong technical staff of well over 100 people indefinitely. Indeed, according the 2012-2013 Plan document, current Wikimedia Foundation headcount was about 119 at the time of writing and expected to grow to 174 next year. I'm not sure what you mean by 'technical requirements', but if you specifically mean hosting costs (other than staffing) and capital expenditures on equipment, per the plan's page 69 that is forecast to be about $5.3MM of the total $42MM budget -- around 13%. Staff is the major cost -- I believe it is chiefly technical, administrative, legal, and community/chapter outreach roles. I also believe there's a not single person with explicit 'editing' duties on their payroll, as a matter of strategy and doctrine: Wikipedia is edited by unpaid volunteers, the Foundation supports those volunteers. Adding any 'official' and compensated editors would tamper with the formula/culture that's worked so far. In one respect, crossing that threshold by adding just a single paid editor would be 'cheap', but if that steps makes the volunteers feel less appreciated, or start thinking of things in terms of a salary (aka: 'motivation crowding'), the loss in productive contributions could be much larger. Why do you think $40MM-per-year is a "very tiny amount", and how big of an editorial staff do you think they'd need under some new model including professionalized editors?
  - jessriedel 14y ago
    There are 4 million articles on Wikipedia and 50k active editors. 100 people, even working full time, would hardly make a dent. This is true even ignoring the serious impact of tampering with the all-volunteer philosophy. I'd wager you'd need at least 10 times the number of people/money to seriously improve the content of wikipedia by hiring editors.
    - gojomo 14y ago
      The definition of 'active editor' that gives totals in the tens of thousands is anything more than 5 edits a month. That could just be minutes of time, so I doubt you can draw any sensible conclusions about sizing a paid full-time staff from '5+ edit' volunteer counts. FWIW, the Wikipedia article on Encyclopedia Britannica suggests that in 2007, Britannica had a credited staff of about 60, with another dozen editorial advisors. (While thousands of other advisors contributed over the decades, they're not required as continuing full-time staff.) So your suggestion that the Foundation would need a "at least 10 times the number of people/money" -- 1000+ full-time paid editors, a $400 million/year+ budget?!? -- for serious improvements seems wildly extravagant. Is it extrapolated from the known size/cost of any real-world professional/academic editorial efforts?
      - jessriedel 14y ago
        I'm saying that if you added the staff of Encyclopedia Britannica to Wikipedia you wouldn't make a dent in Wikipedia. Britannica is about 40 million words. Wikipedia is 2 billion words, or 50 times larger. 2% is a blip.
        gojomo 14y ago
        And Wikpedia got the 2 billion words with zero paid editors, and indeed a culture that is suspicious of financial motivations, which is a big reason why the Foundation/community doesn't seem to have any interest in paid editors. But if they thought they could use them, it doesn't follow that they'd need a staff of a thousand-plus. It depends on the (unstated, entirely-hypothetical) strategy for using them. Superficial word-count-output extrapolations wouldn't be part of such a strategy. They've got plenty of money (provided each year's donation campaign meets its goals). They've got plenty of words. There's just not a clear path where "if they just had enough funding from some modern Andrew Carnegie" they could throw paid editors at their mission and improve things. (That was the particular suggestion that started this tangent about whether they need more money or not.) Other tangential evidence: while the Foundation reaches its fundraising target each year, they often spend less than planned. See for example: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers#Why_is_2011-12.27s_projected_spending_lower_than_plan.3F https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Q...

by gojomo 14y ago

jessriedel 14y ago

What makes you think $40 million is a lot? That seems like a very tiny amount to me, especially considering that most (nearly all?) is spent on technical requirements rather than editing.

gojomo 14y ago
I believe $40 million per year is a lot because it could, just based on crude rules-of-thumb, support a strong technical staff of well over 100 people indefinitely. Indeed, according the 2012-2013 Plan document, current Wikimedia Foundation headcount was about 119 at the time of writing and expected to grow to 174 next year. I'm not sure what you mean by 'technical requirements', but if you specifically mean hosting costs (other than staffing) and capital expenditures on equipment, per the plan's page 69 that is forecast to be about $5.3MM of the total $42MM budget -- around 13%. Staff is the major cost -- I believe it is chiefly technical, administrative, legal, and community/chapter outreach roles. I also believe there's a not single person with explicit 'editing' duties on their payroll, as a matter of strategy and doctrine: Wikipedia is edited by unpaid volunteers, the Foundation supports those volunteers. Adding any 'official' and compensated editors would tamper with the formula/culture that's worked so far. In one respect, crossing that threshold by adding just a single paid editor would be 'cheap', but if that steps makes the volunteers feel less appreciated, or start thinking of things in terms of a salary (aka: 'motivation crowding'), the loss in productive contributions could be much larger. Why do you think $40MM-per-year is a "very tiny amount", and how big of an editorial staff do you think they'd need under some new model including professionalized editors?
- jessriedel 14y ago
  There are 4 million articles on Wikipedia and 50k active editors. 100 people, even working full time, would hardly make a dent. This is true even ignoring the serious impact of tampering with the all-volunteer philosophy. I'd wager you'd need at least 10 times the number of people/money to seriously improve the content of wikipedia by hiring editors.
  - gojomo 14y ago
    The definition of 'active editor' that gives totals in the tens of thousands is anything more than 5 edits a month. That could just be minutes of time, so I doubt you can draw any sensible conclusions about sizing a paid full-time staff from '5+ edit' volunteer counts. FWIW, the Wikipedia article on Encyclopedia Britannica suggests that in 2007, Britannica had a credited staff of about 60, with another dozen editorial advisors. (While thousands of other advisors contributed over the decades, they're not required as continuing full-time staff.) So your suggestion that the Foundation would need a "at least 10 times the number of people/money" -- 1000+ full-time paid editors, a $400 million/year+ budget?!? -- for serious improvements seems wildly extravagant. Is it extrapolated from the known size/cost of any real-world professional/academic editorial efforts?
    - jessriedel 14y ago
      I'm saying that if you added the staff of Encyclopedia Britannica to Wikipedia you wouldn't make a dent in Wikipedia. Britannica is about 40 million words. Wikipedia is 2 billion words, or 50 times larger. 2% is a blip.
      - gojomo 14y ago
        And Wikpedia got the 2 billion words with zero paid editors, and indeed a culture that is suspicious of financial motivations, which is a big reason why the Foundation/community doesn't seem to have any interest in paid editors. But if they thought they could use them, it doesn't follow that they'd need a staff of a thousand-plus. It depends on the (unstated, entirely-hypothetical) strategy for using them. Superficial word-count-output extrapolations wouldn't be part of such a strategy. They've got plenty of money (provided each year's donation campaign meets its goals). They've got plenty of words. There's just not a clear path where "if they just had enough funding from some modern Andrew Carnegie" they could throw paid editors at their mission and improve things. (That was the particular suggestion that started this tangent about whether they need more money or not.) Other tangential evidence: while the Foundation reaches its fundraising target each year, they often spend less than planned. See for example: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers#Why_is_2011-12.27s_projected_spending_lower_than_plan.3F https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Q...