Brion Vibber, CTO of the Wikimedia Foundation, announced on the MediaWiki mailing list and blog that the Foundation opened three positions for a new usability initiative, part of which includes WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing tools, previously mentioned on this blog.
I’m very happy to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation is now opening
hiring for the Wikipedia Usability Initiative!Realized by a grant from the Stanton Foundation, the goal of this
initiative is to measurably increase the usability of Wikipedia for new
contributors by improving the underlying software on the basis of user
behavioral studies, thereby reducing barriers to public participation.We have three positions open, all local in San Francisco. See the linked
pages for details and how to submit your CV:http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Interaction_Designer_(project)
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Sr._Software_Developer_(project)
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Software_Developer_(project)
The new team will be lead by project manager Naoko Komura, who was very
helpful in organizing localization and translations for our recent
fundraiser, and will coordinate closely with me and the rest of
Wikimedia’s core developers. Also joining the project will be Wikimedia
staff developer Trevor Parscal.As always, all of Wikimedia’s software development is open-source, and
we expect to be able to roll improvements into the live Wikipedia
environment and general MediaWiki releases over the course of the project.– brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
CTO, Wikimedia Foundation
San Francisco
I expect this is a very highly coveted position, so it’ll be interesting to see the talent that pours in.
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You’ll be interested to learn that Komura recently announced that Wikia, Inc. is the winning bid for renting out office space to this project, paid for with presumably tax-deductible donations.
I asked on the WMF blog:
More detail, please, on the note that “Wikia matched the best offer”. Were the other ten higher bidders also given the opportunity to match the best offer? Why was Wikia chosen on a “second and final offer” basis, rather than the good-faith firm that submitted the lowest offer?
I have to agree with Steven Walling. Considering that the last official arrangement between Wikia and Wikipedia was appointing Wikia employee Ryan “Essjay” Jordan to the Arbitration Committee, I would have thought the WMF would be hyper-sensitive to working in concert yet again with their neighbor down the street.
How is this not self-dealing, considering that one principal of Wikia, Inc. serves on the WMF Board, and another heads up the WMF Advisory Board?
I should also note, that 6 hours after submitting my comment to the Komura post, it still has not been published. Typically, the WMF censors any questions or comments that overtly criticize their ethics.