Competing with the PayWalls? Hell no!!

Competition is about business models and, the business models of the Wikimedia Foundation and publishers are utterly different. At the WMF we do better when people read more. The business model of publishers is that people pay before they read. When people like our service, they share their data, their money enabling us to do more.

Notions of "professional results" for our readers are outside of either business model. Terminology like "professional results" are interesting but to some extend they are a fringe benefit.

When a professional adds 278 ORCiD identifiers to Wikidata, he and all his colleagues benefit professionally because he did put in the effort. It follows that Roderic Page is a member of our community and his professional work benefits us all. These 278 scholars need to have their work known at Wikidata and when Roderic and others want to work on other scientists as well, they may.

There is no point is competing with paywalling publishers. Whether people do need to use a document that is behind paywall it is of no real concern to us. When we point to a free version of a paywalled document we do a better job because more people read. The business model of a publisher is of no further concern to us, our aim is for people to read.
Thanks,
     GerardM