Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-04-30/Interview

← Back to Interview

Discuss this story

One thing I thought was truly interesting is that when asked about achievements of the community and the WMF, Maher responded exclusively with accomplishments of the editing and contributing communities and did not point to anything produced by the WMF itself. To some extent that is the fundamental question about the WMF; it is absolutely critical to facilitating the work of the community by maintaining the software, but otherwise what does it do?. Nathan ^T 00:06, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Resource curse due to passive income must be a challenging fundamental for any organisation. Widefox; talk 11:12, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Beyond maintaining the software, another WMF function that I think is important for supporting community is grants. I've received grants to help with edit-a-thon costs and conference travel, for instance, and they've been immensely helpful. The majority of Wikimedia contributors, however, don't come into contact with grants, and I think it's often hard to say how much WMF support (such as grants) factors into community achievements. Airplaneman ✈ 19:51, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

These were very good questions to be asking the foundation in my view, covering both their work and the largest community concerns about them. Thanks, GreyGreenWhy (talk) 10:28, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Seconded. Good questions, and good answers. Legoktm (talk) 07:26, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

• Indeed - not a meaningless set of puff questions, nor a set that might cause unneeded disputes. Nosebagbear (talk)
• I would be interested to know both what the WMF employees, and the seemingly vast myriads of consultants (also relevant for "where is the money going?") think of the functionally unique organisational structure of having both a large traditional organisational group of employees that can agree or disagree with changes, but also a massive group of individuals involved in the body that not merely could, but do, throw out advanced ideas and proposed solutions. The only functional equivalents might be some major political parties. Nosebagbear (talk) 21:27, 6 May 2019 (UTC)