7 ms·

Yes, it's a hit piece, but that doesn't mean that the author doesn't raise some good questions. What's the purpose of Wikipedia, anyway? Is it an online, open,

Yes, it's a hit piece, but that doesn't mean that the author doesn't raise some good questions. What's the purpose of Wikipedia, anyway? Is it an online, open, encyclopedia? Or is it becoming some kind of quasi-political organization with tendrils everywhere? There's one thing we are learning about the net: everybody wants to own the entire net. Whether it's Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, or Wiki, once you get so large you start thinking of the internet and your service as being the same. Wikipedia has the money it needs to operate, yet still it grows. If anything, the bigger they get, the more demanding they are getting with asking for contributions. Why? I believe that's an excellent question, and investigating the answer is also fascinating. (As is watching the story continue to develop over the next 5-10 years)

chris_wot 14y ago
Demanding? Questions to answer? 1. They put up a temporary site notice asking for donations. They don't advertise on the project, and their sole source of funding is though donations. Very demanding. 2. What questions, specifically, does the article raise in your mind? Note - I say "questions", and not vague and ill formulated doubts.
- smackfu 14y ago
  The question it raises in my mind is how much of my donation is going to fund the servers and bandwidth and what they are always asking for money for, and how much is going to other things that I would not agree are worthy of my charity dollars.
  - kybernetikos 14y ago
    Last time I looked at their finances it was about 50% went to fund servers, bandwidth and engineering in general. Now I'm sure that they do need to spend more than that, but I found that proportion different to what I had expected and it discouraged me from donating.
- cadab 14y ago
  Just something about point 1, i donated last year and this, yet ive still received 2 emails this year (after this years donation) asking for another donation, plus you still get the massive banner on the wiki site.
  - smackfu 14y ago
    Yeah, it's not like I really care if the banner ad is for wikipedia itself or for an advertiser. It's still an intrusive banner ad. Plus since it's for themselves, they probably go a bit further on the intrusiveness scale.
- smacktoward 14y ago
  The site notices have steadily become larger and more intrusive over time, which imposes an increasing cognitive burden on the reader.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    This year's site notice was less intrusive than the one from last year, IMO.
    - moepstar 14y ago
      Really? I, for one, don't feel that way. It's just plain obnoxious IMHO - also, what for have cookies been invented? If i click the ad/begging/whatever away, you're not increasing your chances for me to donate when it pops up again whenever i come back to WP - you're achieving the exact opposite..
      - saraid216 14y ago
        Hooray, proof that they're not tracking viewers using cookies?
    - DannyBee 14y ago
      This year's site notice is a lot harder to turn into funny memes than last year's, IMO
- crististm 14y ago
  Questions it raised in my mind: "Lobbying? Who are they paying and for what reasons?"
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    You can see there entire staff list here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff Orlowski, again, doesn't name anyone. Lazy/deceptive journalism.
midko 14y ago
I agree. Indeed, it's a very good question whether Wikipedia shouldn't just operate. However, as I said in the other comment I made, this growth seems to be needed in order to maintain, "just operate", the achieved purpose of Wikipedia - online, open encyclopedia. The growth is needed because online, open encyclopedia is itself a moving target. The main problem, it seems (as pointed in the Annual Plan[1]), is the trend of fewer contributors with each year. If you read the comments at theregister article, all of them talk about the bad experience of editing a wiki and engaging with the contributor community. Now, I have no idea how true this is and how often this happens but the fact that there are fewer contributors each year remains. Wiki edits and the contributor community are the lifeblood of Wikipedia. If these and their quality are waning, then this will have a large impact on Wikipedia being an encyclopedia. Furthermore, to be a true encyclopedia, the quality of the articles needs to be as accurate as possible which certainly is a moving target. Investing into additional tools to better assess articles' quality certainly works towards this target. Next, there is open and online. Part of the money goes towards broadening the reach of Wikipedia. Like making it available in the Global South via mobile for free, with no data charges (Wikipedia Zero). Or consider lobbying - if the foundation itself does not defend itself from acts like SOPA and thus remain online, who else should step in to WMF's interest? I think it's fair and very empowering to have people with very limited Internet access to at least Wikipedia. With that said, the question changes. It is not about whether Wikipedia needs more money - it does - but it is about how much it needs, i.e is the foundation efficient enough while maintaining the target of an online open encyclopedia. revelation's comment[2] about hiring as a startup is quite a interesting comparison [1]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-1... [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4947473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4947473
- DanielBMarkham 14y ago
  Yes. I think that some commenters thought I meant that whatever they are becoming is necessarily bad, when the point is that it's different. Might deliver a bunch of cool new stuff. This is a story about mission creep, and growth, and what happens to internet locations that become extremely popular. Would it even be possible to stick to one simple mission? I kind of doubt it. If not, are they being "forced" into growth simply to stay alive (as you mention)? Do they morph into a more traditional charitable NGO? Do they end up as a political party, or a multinational coproration? Or something completely different? Why aren't they moving to more of a PBS model where they operate entirely off of investment returns? It's going to be a fascinating story. We make a mistake by assuming that they are in complete control over how this thing plays out. In my mind this has much more to do with the internet and technology in general than Wikipedia in particular.
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
I'm wondering about a class-action lawsuit to stop those ads claiming your donation is needed to keep it on the air. That's just a bald-faced lie. Is that permitted under fundraising laws?
Tichy 14y ago
Wikipedia seems to do a good job (even if not precisely specified), but I wonder why no competition has emerged at all (or has there)? Why is there no Wikipedia that allows everything?
- tommorris 14y ago
  There have been attempts. They've mostly failed. A "Wikipedia that allows everything". Try it. It'd turn to shit really quickly. People seem to have this idea that there was this golden age of Wikipedia where you could write everything, and then the EVIL DELETIONISTS took over. The fact is, huge amounts of what gets put up on Wikipedia is junk. Deleting it is a service to the reader in the same way anti-spam filters are to email users. Articles need to be maintained. To be useful for readers, they have to be reasonably accurate, and in Wikipedia-land, we base accuracy on external sources. And if there aren't any external sources, how the hell can we even try and be accurate? Fortunately, there is a solution: the rest of the web. Wikipedia has a constrained mission, namely the production of an encyclopedia. Outside Wikipedia, there is a big wide web where you can do whatever you like. Wikis that have explicit points of view, that are focussed on specific topics... all that kind of stuff.
  - acdha 14y ago
    > People seem to have this idea that there was this golden age of Wikipedia where you could write everything, and then the EVIL DELETIONISTS took over. The fact is, huge amounts of what gets put up on Wikipedia is junk. The most common complaint I've heard was rather different: nobody questioned that some pruning is necessary but complained that the standards were incredibly arbitrary and niche interests like anime characters or minor porn stars frequently made the cut while e.g. academics were deleted because they didn't have a mainstream book, New Yorker article, etc. and the deletionist cadre wasn't interested in widely-cited papers, broad recognition within a particular field, etc. Jason Scott also highlighted a similar problem in http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/3826 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/3826 noting that the question again has never been quality but a very small number of people deciding a topic wasn't of interest to anyone else despite demonstrated activity. Attempting to portray this as a question of spam control or lack of external sources is either uninformed or whitewashing.
haberman 14y ago
I definitely feel misled. The appeal gives you the distinct impression that without your donation they might not be able to keep the lights on. It talks about how many servers they have (and other costs, etc.) and implores you to "take one minute and keep it online another year." It definitely erodes my trust in them to know that they have plenty of money to operate.
- rhizome 14y ago
  As I've seen with every public broadcast channel in my local market, there appears to be a race to the bottom toward constant pledge-driving that may be endemic to the business model. That Wikipedia falls prey to it is not so much a structural flaw as a choice not to innovate on the funding front, and I believe a fact remains that people generally will not contribute to a perpetuation of the commons spontaneously.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
znowi 14y ago
> the bigger they get, the more demanding they are getting Is it not a common pattern for any company? They start small and innocent, with high moral values, impatient to take down the big nasty corporation. And soon enough, if successful, they fall pray to the fate of their past nemesis. I think it is inevitable to turn evil at a certain threshold of growth. This is when moral values shift towards maximization of profit. And as company grows further and gains more social importance, it is a matter of time when it faces politics. And if one's really lucky, it can grow to a point when it's too big to fail :)
- gadders 14y ago
  Not just companies. Charities and bureaucracies also suffer from massive scope creep.

chris_wot 14y ago

Demanding? Questions to answer? 1. They put up a temporary site notice asking for donations. They don't advertise on the project, and their sole source of funding is though donations. Very demanding. 2. What questions, specifically, does the article raise in your mind? Note - I say "questions", and not vague and ill formulated doubts.

smackfu 14y ago
The question it raises in my mind is how much of my donation is going to fund the servers and bandwidth and what they are always asking for money for, and how much is going to other things that I would not agree are worthy of my charity dollars.
- kybernetikos 14y ago
  Last time I looked at their finances it was about 50% went to fund servers, bandwidth and engineering in general. Now I'm sure that they do need to spend more than that, but I found that proportion different to what I had expected and it discouraged me from donating.
cadab 14y ago
Just something about point 1, i donated last year and this, yet ive still received 2 emails this year (after this years donation) asking for another donation, plus you still get the massive banner on the wiki site.
- smackfu 14y ago
  Yeah, it's not like I really care if the banner ad is for wikipedia itself or for an advertiser. It's still an intrusive banner ad. Plus since it's for themselves, they probably go a bit further on the intrusiveness scale.
smacktoward 14y ago
The site notices have steadily become larger and more intrusive over time, which imposes an increasing cognitive burden on the reader.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  This year's site notice was less intrusive than the one from last year, IMO.
  - moepstar 14y ago
    Really? I, for one, don't feel that way. It's just plain obnoxious IMHO - also, what for have cookies been invented? If i click the ad/begging/whatever away, you're not increasing your chances for me to donate when it pops up again whenever i come back to WP - you're achieving the exact opposite..
    - saraid216 14y ago
      Hooray, proof that they're not tracking viewers using cookies?
  - DannyBee 14y ago
    This year's site notice is a lot harder to turn into funny memes than last year's, IMO
crististm 14y ago
Questions it raised in my mind: "Lobbying? Who are they paying and for what reasons?"
- chris_wot 14y ago
  You can see there entire staff list here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff Orlowski, again, doesn't name anyone. Lazy/deceptive journalism.

midko 14y ago

I agree. Indeed, it's a very good question whether Wikipedia shouldn't just operate. However, as I said in the other comment I made, this growth seems to be needed in order to maintain, "just operate", the achieved purpose of Wikipedia - online, open encyclopedia. The growth is needed because online, open encyclopedia is itself a moving target. The main problem, it seems (as pointed in the Annual Plan[1]), is the trend of fewer contributors with each year. If you read the comments at theregister article, all of them talk about the bad experience of editing a wiki and engaging with the contributor community. Now, I have no idea how true this is and how often this happens but the fact that there are fewer contributors each year remains. Wiki edits and the contributor community are the lifeblood of Wikipedia. If these and their quality are waning, then this will have a large impact on Wikipedia being an encyclopedia. Furthermore, to be a true encyclopedia, the quality of the articles needs to be as accurate as possible which certainly is a moving target. Investing into additional tools to better assess articles' quality certainly works towards this target. Next, there is open and online. Part of the money goes towards broadening the reach of Wikipedia. Like making it available in the Global South via mobile for free, with no data charges (Wikipedia Zero). Or consider lobbying - if the foundation itself does not defend itself from acts like SOPA and thus remain online, who else should step in to WMF's interest? I think it's fair and very empowering to have people with very limited Internet access to at least Wikipedia. With that said, the question changes. It is not about whether Wikipedia needs more money - it does - but it is about how much it needs, i.e is the foundation efficient enough while maintaining the target of an online open encyclopedia. revelation's comment[2] about hiring as a startup is quite a interesting comparison [1]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-1... [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4947473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4947473

DanielBMarkham 14y ago
Yes. I think that some commenters thought I meant that whatever they are becoming is necessarily bad, when the point is that it's different. Might deliver a bunch of cool new stuff. This is a story about mission creep, and growth, and what happens to internet locations that become extremely popular. Would it even be possible to stick to one simple mission? I kind of doubt it. If not, are they being "forced" into growth simply to stay alive (as you mention)? Do they morph into a more traditional charitable NGO? Do they end up as a political party, or a multinational coproration? Or something completely different? Why aren't they moving to more of a PBS model where they operate entirely off of investment returns? It's going to be a fascinating story. We make a mistake by assuming that they are in complete control over how this thing plays out. In my mind this has much more to do with the internet and technology in general than Wikipedia in particular.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

I'm wondering about a class-action lawsuit to stop those ads claiming your donation is needed to keep it on the air. That's just a bald-faced lie. Is that permitted under fundraising laws?

Tichy 14y ago

Wikipedia seems to do a good job (even if not precisely specified), but I wonder why no competition has emerged at all (or has there)? Why is there no Wikipedia that allows everything?

tommorris 14y ago
There have been attempts. They've mostly failed. A "Wikipedia that allows everything". Try it. It'd turn to shit really quickly. People seem to have this idea that there was this golden age of Wikipedia where you could write everything, and then the EVIL DELETIONISTS took over. The fact is, huge amounts of what gets put up on Wikipedia is junk. Deleting it is a service to the reader in the same way anti-spam filters are to email users. Articles need to be maintained. To be useful for readers, they have to be reasonably accurate, and in Wikipedia-land, we base accuracy on external sources. And if there aren't any external sources, how the hell can we even try and be accurate? Fortunately, there is a solution: the rest of the web. Wikipedia has a constrained mission, namely the production of an encyclopedia. Outside Wikipedia, there is a big wide web where you can do whatever you like. Wikis that have explicit points of view, that are focussed on specific topics... all that kind of stuff.
- acdha 14y ago
  > People seem to have this idea that there was this golden age of Wikipedia where you could write everything, and then the EVIL DELETIONISTS took over. The fact is, huge amounts of what gets put up on Wikipedia is junk. The most common complaint I've heard was rather different: nobody questioned that some pruning is necessary but complained that the standards were incredibly arbitrary and niche interests like anime characters or minor porn stars frequently made the cut while e.g. academics were deleted because they didn't have a mainstream book, New Yorker article, etc. and the deletionist cadre wasn't interested in widely-cited papers, broad recognition within a particular field, etc. Jason Scott also highlighted a similar problem in http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/3826 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/3826 noting that the question again has never been quality but a very small number of people deciding a topic wasn't of interest to anyone else despite demonstrated activity. Attempting to portray this as a question of spam control or lack of external sources is either uninformed or whitewashing.

haberman 14y ago

I definitely feel misled. The appeal gives you the distinct impression that without your donation they might not be able to keep the lights on. It talks about how many servers they have (and other costs, etc.) and implores you to "take one minute and keep it online another year." It definitely erodes my trust in them to know that they have plenty of money to operate.

rhizome 14y ago
As I've seen with every public broadcast channel in my local market, there appears to be a race to the bottom toward constant pledge-driving that may be endemic to the business model. That Wikipedia falls prey to it is not so much a structural flaw as a choice not to innovate on the funding front, and I believe a fact remains that people generally will not contribute to a perpetuation of the commons spontaneously.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

znowi 14y ago

> the bigger they get, the more demanding they are getting Is it not a common pattern for any company? They start small and innocent, with high moral values, impatient to take down the big nasty corporation. And soon enough, if successful, they fall pray to the fate of their past nemesis. I think it is inevitable to turn evil at a certain threshold of growth. This is when moral values shift towards maximization of profit. And as company grows further and gains more social importance, it is a matter of time when it faces politics. And if one's really lucky, it can grow to a point when it's too big to fail :)

gadders 14y ago
Not just companies. Charities and bureaucracies also suffer from massive scope creep.