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bg3wiki:Ads Announcement 2: Difference between revisions

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It should be noted, by the way, that people may not be paid monthly, but for example on a 3-monthly or 6-monthly basis. That is to reduce the amount of administrative overhead involved in processing the payments of so many people.
It should be noted, by the way, that people may not be paid monthly, but for example on a 3-monthly or 6-monthly basis. That is to reduce the amount of administrative overhead involved in processing the payments of so many people.


Note also that the share of most people will be rather small. Even if I paid 1% to every person '''on average''', then 100 people would mean 100% of the money, and I'd have nothing left for me. A more realistic distribution, taking my salary and business expenses into account, may be something like 60% of the money being redistributed. At about 115 people, that means the average share would be about 0.52%, so if the wiki only made $15k per month, that would only be $78 per person per month on average. (So if I paid them for a 12-month period, $936 per person '''on average'''.) This is just an example with made-up numbers. The real numbers are likely to be significantly higher, and I may increase the share of funds to be redistributed above 60% if the total is high enough.
Note also that the share of most people will be rather small. Even if I paid 1% to every person '''on average''', then 100 people would mean 100% of the money, and I'd have nothing left for me. A more realistic distribution, taking my salary and business expenses into account, may be something like 60% of the money being redistributed. At about 115 people, that means the average share would be about 0.52%, so if the wiki only made $15k per month, that would only be $78 per person per month on average. (So if I paid them for a 12-month period, $936 per person '''on average'''.) This is just an example with made-up numbers. The real numbers are likely to be significantly higher, and I may increase the redistributed funds above 60% if the total is high enough.


Please remember that there are '''no plans''' to pay people for new contributions going forth, since it creates an incentive to put quantity over quality. We might end up doing it anyway if the earnings are good enough, but it would be in the form of spontaneous gifts, not promised in advance. People should be contributing to the wiki out of a genuine desire to improve it, not due to financial incentives.
Please remember that there are '''no plans''' to pay people for new contributions going forth, since it creates an incentive to put quantity over quality. We might end up doing it anyway if the earnings are good enough, but it would be in the form of spontaneous gifts, not promised in advance. People should be contributing to the wiki out of a genuine desire to improve it, not due to financial incentives.


Redistributing the majority of revenue to the community means that, if the revenue isn't very high after all, I may be left with a relatively small sum. This seems to be a highly unlikely scenario, but in worst case, I may end up only living from this endeavor for a few months before I put the ads down again, pay people their share, and look for something else to do professionally. If the earnings are ''really'' bad such that I can't pay many people, I'll put the ads down again ASAP.
Redistributing the majority of revenue to the community means that, in the unlikely scenario that the revenue isn't very high after all, I may be left with a relatively small sum. In worst case, unlikely as it is, I may end up only living from this endeavor for a few months before I put the ads down again.


=== My role as "employee" of bg3.wiki ===
=== My role as "employee" of bg3.wiki ===


Some people have asked whether it's fair for me to take a whole ''salary'' out of the earnings while others get less. Indeed, I will be working full-time not only to make this whole thing work, but also to improve some technical aspects of the wiki.
Some people have asked whether it's fair for me to take a whole ''salary'' out of the earnings, while others get less. Indeed, I will be working full-time, not only to make this whole thing work, but also to improve some technical aspects of the wiki.


There are a few bugs we're suffering from which, while not critical, make the experience on the wiki sub-optimal, and solving them requires delving into the guts of MediaWiki extensions or other such technical work. Examples include: Broken mouse-over page previews due to a bug in the TextExtracts extension, and the mobile version of cached pages not refreshing for 24h even when a page is edited, due to an outdated Nginx module whose newer versions haven't been packaged yet for Debian GNU/Linux.
There are a few bugs we're suffering from which, while not critical, make the experience on the wiki sub-optimal, and solving them requires delving into the guts of MediaWiki extensions or other such technical work. Examples include: Broken mouse-over page previews due to a bug in the TextExtracts extension, and the mobile version of cached pages not refreshing for 24h even when a page is edited, due to an outdated Nginx module whose newer versions haven't been packaged yet for Debian GNU/Linux.


Then there are continued updates to MediaWiki that I have to install, dozens of extensions we use that each have their own updates, and the underlying operating system. I've also been meaning to write in-depth technical documentation of the entire wiki setup, so other wiki admins can benefit from it. In particular, the Nginx-based caching method we use for MediaWiki is not, to my knowledge, documented anywhere on the web (I pieced it together myself) and I'd like to document it thoroughly to give back to the MediaWiki community.
Then there are continued updates to MediaWiki that I have to install, dozens of extensions we use that each have their own updates, and the underlying operating system. Our backup situation also isn't the best right now. (There are backups, but restoring from them would take some work because they aren't structured optimally.) I've also been meaning to write in-depth technical documentation of the entire wiki setup, so other wiki admins can benefit from it. In particular, the Nginx-based caching method we use for MediaWiki is not, to my knowledge, documented anywhere on the web (I pieced it together myself) and I'd like to document it thoroughly to give back to the MediaWiki community.


Other than that, there is going to be the administrative overhead of paying so many people all around the globe, some of whom may be living in places that PayPal and other common payment processors can't reach. This will also involve accounting work, as I will need to make tax declarations and whatnot. There may be some business expenses I haven't even thought about yet, because I've never been fully self-employed before.
Other than that, there is going to be the administrative overhead of paying so many people all around the globe, some of whom may be living in places that PayPal and other common payment processors can't reach. This will also involve accounting work, as I will need to make tax declarations and whatnot. There may be some business expenses I haven't even thought about yet, because I've never been fully self-employed before.

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