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November 02, 2005

System administration is a conversation

For the book I'm trying to write, I wanted to get some information about Wikipedia's servers.

In response to a query, Jimbo "Wikipedia" Wales replied:

I'm cc'ing Brion, our CTO. We don't really have a "the sys admin for wikipedia's servers in Florida" — there is a wiki style group of people who run the show.

The only person actually *in* Florida who touches the servers is an independent contractor who does some physical work (installing new machines, replacing broken hard drives, etc.) but he isn't really a sys admin.

So, depending on what you're asking, Brion is the person to talk to (or can find someone useful), or else you've got a more interesting story to tell about a website that doesn't have such a position, or organization of any kind. Just a bunch of random folks in an irc channel.

I jumped into the IRC and got my questions answered. Interlinearly it sure seemed that, yup, the IRC channel is the sys admin. (Here's some info about the servers. And, yes, I sort of do hope "Wikipedia Wales" catches on.) [Tags: wikipedia EverythingIsMiscellaneous]

Posted by D. Weinberger at November 2, 2005 09:06 AM

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