Their top 3 articles in English:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsala_of_Wala_in_the_Nsongo_Di...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vril_Society
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_and_anime_fandom_in_Pola...
As a general practice, it's liable to devalue volunteer contributions. Money poisons the good will of a free exchange in the mind of a volunteer. Strict remuneration policies are an important part of making volunteer labor feel fair, free, and balanced. I suspect there would be room for targeted bounties on specific articles, but it would nevertheless irrevocably alter the emotional economy of contribution.
A 3rd party paying editors introduces a host of other concerns, but is probably not as harmful to the emotional economy. But I'm sure Wikimedia's community team has thoroughly discussed this topic.
Wikipedia could fund Oka or other organizations. That places the responsibility in the hands of a third party. As long as Wikipedia remains hands-off, then there is no bias or unfairness on the part of Wikipedia.
> As a general practice, it's liable to devalue volunteer contributions.
> A 3rd party paying editors introduces a host of other concerns, but is probably not as harmful to the emotional economy.
Perhaps. But it seems like Oka will proceed anyway.
I suppose one analogue we can look to is Linux Kernel contributions. Many of the contributors are on the payroll of tech companies, though some contributors are simply volunteers.
There can be a tremendous amount of emotional stress and drama in open source contribution. So you're probably right about that bit. But the community does work and software still gets made.
I don't agree. Let say that Wikimedia Foundation founds OKA, and OKA pays freelancers to systematically edit/moderate content with a certain political view, or a strong bias towards a certain religion. I would keep Wikimedia Foundation accountable just as if they did it directly.
It's possible, though I do not know if this is sufficient to cover their legal risk in this scenario. Likely it would require analysis of details beyond what could be reasoned through in hypothetical.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedian_in_residence
Wikimedia also sponsors various outreach initiatives to get people into editing. If you're in a major city you can probably attend a physical event to learn how to edit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup
They don't directly pay specific editors because it'd conflict with the volunteer nature of editing and start a lot of drama.
Those are the 3 most viewed articles created by OKA editors in 2024
Say StdA and StdB are competing for wider adoption. A Corp. can pay for an editor to create a comprehensive article on their standard which, even if it's objective, can influence more people into adopting the better documented option.
Of course, this can happen even without paid editors being involved, and there's nothing stopping B Corp. from doing the same, but I just wanted to point out that avoiding bias might not be always easy.
So unfortunately, even if Oka claims to be doing for the good, I still see it somewhat as a political group, even if our values are aligned, and thus, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who will watch the watchmen?)
I think the answer is: everyone, at least theoretically. Edit histories on Wikipedia are completely open, and anyone can edit (almost?) any article.
I do not think MS Encarta's budget was more than $50 million, while it obviously had no more than 1% of articles. But the content they had was top notch. It was a very good multimedia encyclopedia.
Wikipedia's budget is about $170 million (based on quick search). I don't think their software has any major updates, all the contributors work as volunteers. But they have 700 employees! And needlessly spend money on conventions.
If someone needs to create content for wikipedia, they need to create something like Encarta that can be fun to use for kids, and available from school libraries. I have fond memories of teachers playing encarta videos when explaining topics like resonance and why sodium is so reactive.
Usually these discussions stall out because once it gets down to details, nobody agrees on what multimedia/interactivity is actually wanted. Everyone thinks it would be "cool", but when it comes to specifics, nobody really knows. There is a lack of shared vision on what good multimedia in articles look like (beyond what currently exists in terms of puctures and videos). I think it is very much a cultural and vision problem, not a technical problem.
> Wikipedia's budget is about $170 million (based on quick search). I don't think their software has any major updates
That would be pretty untrue. I guess it depends on what you mean by "major", but plenty of commits are happening. Its all open source, you can see the commit log at https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/status:merged+-is:wip (Whether or not the changes have a good vision or are meeting needs, is an entirely different question people can debate about). Regardless we have come a long way from https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePage
> And needlessly spend money on conventions.
Contributors are largely volunteers, having major contributors meet and share stories once or twice a year provides a lot of value. Its important not to go overboard, but i think its really important for the smooth operation of wikipedia to have conventions every now and then.
There is a definite need for more video content in some articles.
I agree though that more of this type of thing would be great.
But such a thing has major technical complications and somehow falls out of the "Wiki" idea where anybody can edit and improve ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Paid-contribution_di...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest
This is the same policy regardless of whether you're a non-profit or a lobbying organization.