[Foundation-l] message from Cyrano

[Noein]

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I was sent this. I don't know what to do of it.

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Please forward my message to the public.

Cyrano, back earlier

Message follows:

> However we could encourage donations by having a static page that is
> > part of the UI of each project that prominently lists everyone who has
> > donated to WMF. e.g.
> >
> > --
> > John Vandenberg
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Forgive me if I enter this conversation without reading the last
hundreds of mails, but I see we are talking about 'sponsorship, yes or
no ?' here.

A recurrent question my good sirs. Who is pushing it this time? Who is
expecting a lot of money from it? Because there is a lot of money to
make from the 6th site of the world. Did the foundation explained it to
you? Do we have a problem with the current fund raising model and campaign.
Do we have big sudden urgent monetary need?

I thought we didn't.

I thought that Wikipedia and Wikimedia were non-profit projects. So why
are we even discussing sponsorship? Have we any financial problem?
Do we want to allow rich organizations to start casting their monetary
vote into what we should do? Shouldn't we remain stoically independent
by receiving only voluntary donations and voluntary efforts from good
wills guided by universal principles?

Is there a consensus from the Foundation about this? I'd like a quick
and honest answer from each of the member. Is it acceptable to accept
money from organizations like Virgins which pursues lucre before "free
knowledge for anybody"?

I firmly vote no until I have a full understanding of the financial need
of risking the financial autonomy of wikimedian projects.

And I'm quite alarmed to be discussing this.


Cyrano, back from the moon.
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PD:
Will the next step be signing contracts where we allow Virgins to say
"buy the last cd of [insert star name here] and support Wikipedia!"
"Yes! Virgin supports Wikipedia! Virgin loves knowledge. Virgins thinks,
with a tear in the eyes, that any kid should have the right to
education, damn it!. Virgin is your friend, see? So each time you buy a
CD, Virgins "Unite" (we though at first Virgins IsYourFriend but we
we're told we were too obvious) gives one cent to the big encyclopedia
online that everybody shares! See? Look at our logo on their site! LOOK
AT IT MY SWEET CHILD, AND BUY MY PRODUCTS!

Oh boy, I can't wait too see it in its full splendor now that we catched
the tail of the devil.






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