You raise a potentially indirect interesting question.
All participants to Wikimedia projects are currently working for free; Everyone is a volunteer.
Indeed, Jimbo is *more* than a volunteer, since he not only giving so much heart and time for the project, but he has also been giving some of his revenues to sustain the project for more than 3 years now.
However, many contributors are indeed giving a lot of their time, among which the developers. Should we or should we not envision to pay them, or to reward them for their hard work ? What do you think ?
Hmm. Well, yes, Chirac and co are not the primary interest of our current contributors:-) The projects do not have a linear growth, they rather grow by topics of interest, lead by the passion of participants. Just visiting, you may miss it. But the current growth rate is very quick. On fr:, the whole political field is quite empty, while egyptology, historical greece, linguistics, astronomy, botanic, manga, cooking, just to cite a few, are now of professional level and already used as references.
Your perception is interesting though, because it shows the frame of reference has entirely changed in 2 years.
When I first joined wikipedia, the english version (which was basically the unique version at that time) contained 40000 articles. Exactly the amount of articles in the french wikipedia today. I remember quite well that it already had its little success, it was already cited in journals, it was already mentionned as being the beginning of a great reference. Today, the shift of perception due to the size of the english wikipedia, makes it appear that what was said amazing/great/wonderful for the 40000 articles english wikipedia is said empty/meaningless for a 40000 articles french wikipedia. Is not that curious ?
The international wikipedias should not be seen as colonies of the english wikipedia. Knowledge is not organised hierarchically in any way. Wikipedia is not a web, with a central place (the english language) around which gravitates other languages. All languages benefit from each other. Non english languages are not mere light translations of english articles, and do not *just* contain isolated articles which can be backed upby the serious/big english wikipedia. Each language has an existence on its own, its own organisation of information, and each article a value on its own. Most multilingual readers do not first read their language to move UP to the english version. They read their language, then move THROUGH all the languages they can understand.
I would also like to mention that english language being very present on the internet compared to other languages, the net is already an amazing source of information for english readers. Several encyclopedies are already available in english, some of which of very good quality. Actually, the problem most english readers might currently meet is just to be able to "sample" information, to be able to distinguish what is accurate, relevant and neutral from the most incredible amount of information the net provides. English readers do not suffer at all from lack of information, they suffer from too much information, and huge amounts of bias and propaganda hiding the good stuff. This is the challenge the english wikipedia is facing.
Compare this to french language or arab or chinese language. French, arab, chinese, are much less available on the net. Few encyclopedias exist. Even smaller, Wikipedia becomes a very relevant source of information, and it also becomes a mean for people to find information in their language, rather than in dominant english. Some of these readers suffer from serious lack of information. And any content provided by Wikipedia will help, even if uncomplete. Even if those people are not even able to read english.
Finally, there are a bunch of very minor languages, such as breton, basque or cherokee. I am quite convinced these will never host 100 000 articles. But they might be a unique resource about a language and a culture, slowly disappearing. They will collect and distribute knowlegde that might well just be gone in 50 years, or perhaps will they help that language and that culture to just stay alive. I seriously hope that editors in these languages will not "lose" time writing articles on Chirac, for that information is available everywhere. I rather hope they will focus in teaching us about what we do not know, and what we can't find easily, and I hope these minor languages will participate to cultural diversity conserva
I am personaly quite proud of what the "lame and tiny" french wikipedia has become since I joined.
It went from about 200 articles when I started working on it, to over 40.000 now, and many of them are already of high value, not only lists. It is beginning to get well known in France as well.
I consider such comments as being more misleading that the current topic.
You may find such a topic discussed here
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_sponsorsh ip
However, we must emphasized that Wikipedia is (somehow) a apolitical website (well... as long as we do not consider that providing free information is a political act...)
There is a requirement for certain standards to be met in the places. We should aim to be NPOV rather than give the impression that we are endorsing anything. Particular care should be taken that advertising is appropriately marked as such, and does not appear to be an endorsement in any sense.
I would add that many people are quite happy to donate just for the sake of a project they believe in.
There is no ideological *deny* of this possibility, but most editors feel very strongly against advertisement, so it is unlikely such a system will be set.
Slashdot Mirror
You raise a potentially indirect interesting question.
All participants to Wikimedia projects are currently working for free; Everyone is a volunteer.
Indeed, Jimbo is *more* than a volunteer, since he not only giving so much heart and time for the project, but he has also been giving some of his revenues to sustain the project for more than 3 years now.
However, many contributors are indeed giving a lot of their time, among which the developers. Should we or should we not envision to pay them, or to reward them for their hard work ? What do you think ?
Your perception is interesting though, because it shows the frame of reference has entirely changed in 2 years.
When I first joined wikipedia, the english version (which was basically the unique version at that time) contained 40000 articles. Exactly the amount of articles in the french wikipedia today. I remember quite well that it already had its little success, it was already cited in journals, it was already mentionned as being the beginning of a great reference. Today, the shift of perception due to the size of the english wikipedia, makes it appear that what was said amazing/great/wonderful for the 40000 articles english wikipedia is said empty/meaningless for a 40000 articles french wikipedia. Is not that curious ?
The international wikipedias should not be seen as colonies of the english wikipedia. Knowledge is not organised hierarchically in any way. Wikipedia is not a web, with a central place (the english language) around which gravitates other languages. All languages benefit from each other. Non english languages are not mere light translations of english articles, and do not *just* contain isolated articles which can be backed upby the serious/big english wikipedia. Each language has an existence on its own, its own organisation of information, and each article a value on its own. Most multilingual readers do not first read their language to move UP to the english version. They read their language, then move THROUGH all the languages they can understand.
I would also like to mention that english language being very present on the internet compared to other languages, the net is already an amazing source of information for english readers. Several encyclopedies are already available in english, some of which of very good quality. Actually, the problem most english readers might currently meet is just to be able to "sample" information, to be able to distinguish what is accurate, relevant and neutral from the most incredible amount of information the net provides. English readers do not suffer at all from lack of information, they suffer from too much information, and huge amounts of bias and propaganda hiding the good stuff. This is the challenge the english wikipedia is facing.
Compare this to french language or arab or chinese language. French, arab, chinese, are much less available on the net. Few encyclopedias exist. Even smaller, Wikipedia becomes a very relevant source of information, and it also becomes a mean for people to find information in their language, rather than in dominant english. Some of these readers suffer from serious lack of information. And any content provided by Wikipedia will help, even if uncomplete. Even if those people are not even able to read english.
Finally, there are a bunch of very minor languages, such as breton, basque or cherokee. I am quite convinced these will never host 100 000 articles. But they might be a unique resource about a language and a culture, slowly disappearing. They will collect and distribute knowlegde that might well just be gone in 50 years, or perhaps will they help that language and that culture to just stay alive. I seriously hope that editors in these languages will not "lose" time writing articles on Chirac, for that information is available everywhere. I rather hope they will focus in teaching us about what we do not know, and what we can't find easily, and I hope these minor languages will participate to cultural diversity conserva
I am personaly quite proud of what the "lame and tiny" french wikipedia has become since I joined.
It went from about 200 articles when I started working on it, to over 40.000 now, and many of them are already of high value, not only lists. It is beginning to get well known in France as well.
I consider such comments as being more misleading that the current topic.
Thanks for your feedback :-)
Yes, we are planning to make it possible for people to have a small amounts automatically debited once a month.
You may find such a topic discussed here http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_sponsorsh ip
However, we must emphasized that Wikipedia is (somehow) a apolitical website (well... as long as we do not consider that providing free information is a political act...)
There is a requirement for certain standards to be met in the places. We should aim to be NPOV rather than give the impression that we are endorsing anything. Particular care should be taken that advertising is appropriately marked as such, and does not appear to be an endorsement in any sense.
I would add that many people are quite happy to donate just for the sake of a project they believe in.
There is no ideological *deny* of this possibility, but most editors feel very strongly against advertisement, so it is unlikely such a system will be set.