Hello rubin16 and all,
I wanted to follow up on Lisa's email. As she said, the decision to limit
fundraising in Russia was not a political decision or a response to
sanctions or US laws on Russia.
We are a diverse, global movement that spans the world, and we exist mostly
online. However, our work takes place in the physical world, and each
country has its own unique operating environment. At the WMF, we are
constantly assessing what this means for the work of the movement.
In that context, we feel that laws in Russia offer a number of possible
interpretations. So, out of an abundance of caution, we are not taking
donations from Russia right now. If we feel the situation changes, we'll
let people know.
As Lisa also said, this does and will not have any impact at all on how the
WMF continues to support the Russian language Wikipedia, and its sister
projects. We pool our funding and make our budget decisions independently
from the geographical source, if any, of the funding.
We hear your point on transparency and advance notice, and it is a fair
one. That said, sometimes we will need to quickly pause fundraising
operations in different places while we gain clarity around how best to
operate. We are making numerous decisions every day to respond to a wide
variety of issues and considerations. I would like to commit to advance
notice, but I don't think that will always be possible given the need for
flexibility and speed at times. Nevertheless, I am reflecting on how to
better address an issue like this in the future.
I appreciate the additional questions, but, as these are matters currently
under consideration, I'm not in a position to share further right now.
Thank you,
Geoff
