Summary:

I would like to offer 300 EURO (de:100, it:100, en:100 Euro) for the first featured article (exzellenter Artikel/bella prosa) with ref. to South Tyrol.

1) Are there good reasons not to do it? 2) Could the fondation act as trustee? _______________________________________________________

Hi Jimbo, dear fondations en/de/it,

On my to-do list is an item: "Write at least one excellent article about South Tyrol". As you maybe know, my wife is not very happy that I spend too much time with Wikipedia... ... so I think I have good reason to give someone some money if in exchange I can delete an item from my to-do list and make my wife happy by that.

There where some really shocked replies when Achim proposed on de to give a prize for good Wikipedia articles. Currently the state on de is something like "prizes are ok, but not money": http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Auftragsarbeiten

But I think I have good reasons to give money for a excellent article about my home land. It's my home. And it's for my wife.

Some critics said, the article will be influenced by the money-giver.

To prevent this, I thought about the fondation to act as trustee: - I give 300 Euro to the fondation (de?) - The Wikipedians decide who are the winners of the contest - If there is a winner, the fondation gives the money to him - If there is no winner, the money is just a donation to the fondation ;-)

Are there reasons not to do this? I look forward to read your opinions, Fantasy :-)

PS: Maybe this can be seen similar to the classical musicians who worked under the patronage system (Mäzenatentum/mecenante), instead of "this starts the selling out of the Wikipedia idea..."

PPS: Ah, I nearly forgot: why 3x100 Euro? Wikipedia is a multilingual project. South Tyrol has officially 3 languages. de/it/ladin. There is no ladin Wikipedia, therefore only de/it. But adding en would increase visibility and cross-checking. More details about the contest will follow, if I can go on with it...