[Foundation-l] Relocation announcement

[Florence Devouard]

Anthony wrote:
> On 9/22/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Anthony wrote:
>>> Wikia is in the San Francisco area.  Any chance they'd be willing to
>>> donate some office space to Wikipedia?
>> Even if they had, we should not accept it (and I doubt they would
>> propose).
> 
> Why wouldn't they propose?  Wikia wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for
> the success of Wikipedia [sic].  A donation of some office space is
> the least they could do.

They could do it, and never fail to support us during Wikimania. Angela 
also very nicely proposed to support the fundraising effort with banners 
and announcement on Wikia sites. That is not the issue. They have the 
good will. There are friendly terms between us. But Wikia is Wikia. And 
WMF is WMF. Period.

The issue is that we both benefit from staying separate from an 
organization point of view, both from fiscal perspective and from a 
communication perspective

Fiscal: *this* belongs to this organization, *that* belongs to that 
organization. From an auditing perspective, having to identify who 
bought the staples is a nightmare (and more seriously, on whether some 
inappropriate arrangements are occuring between two organizations).

Communication: we spent the entire past year trying to make it clear 
that the two organizations were unrelated. It is not to our benefit to 
be confused with Wikia.
It is not easy to raise funds when Wikia just got 1000 millions of 
dollars from Amabon.com.
It is not easy to explain to the press that the search engine has 
nothing to do with us.
Jimbo went to great lengths to explain the difference between the two.
People dealing with the press spent HOURS on these topics to get 
articles to be corrected.
The message is now beginning to be understood. There is no way we should 
do anything that would bring confusion again.


>> We have gone through great efforts to fully separate from them
>> and we now have no more financial/legal/technical relationships. Only
>> love relationships, which is just fine.
>>
> Well, there still a lot of person-overlap, between the board, the
> advisory board, employees, arb com, etc.  And there's still the whole
> interwiki linking mess.  And now, they're gonna be in the same
> metropolitan area (which surely will help with the whole
> people-overlap part).

Whilst there are two overlaps on the board (with all due COI 
documentation, and lack of vote in cases of conflicts), I do not know of 
any overlap within the staff (can you cite a name ?). I see not why 
Angela being on the advboard implies that there is a relationship.
Last, whether there are people both working at Wikia and at the arbcom 
is completely irrelevant to the Foundation itself.

As I said earlier, the days of Michael on the board are counted. He does 
not have time for this role any more, so this will no more be an issue.
Jimbo... though at Wikia... is hardly in SF himself. Besides, I see no 
reason why he would go to the office on a regular basis. That's not his 
role any more. In short, there is no reason for an overlap.
And I would not be in favor of ANY overlap for the reasons above 
mentionned.

> At least this "relationship" would be to the benefit of the WMF.

I disagree with that statement.

ant
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