Hoi,
In an article of the Washington Post some Wikipedians have expressed their
opion about the fundraising of the WMF. I found it because a self professed
Wikipedia expert was one of the people who was interviewed and he found it
so important that he blogged about it as well.
In my opinion, Mr Kohs did not cost us much as this. Here a person who is
posturing as a Wikipedian, someone who is in on the policy side of things
stabs our fundraising effort in the back.
When the WMF were flush with money, there are many things it would have
done to have a bigger impact. As it received more money from its donors in
the past, more has been done and the effects have been encouraging. One of
the best bits of news for me was that Wikipedia in Bangla is now the
biggest resource in that language. It is in meeting someone in an Indian
restaurant, get to talk and hear him say that Wikipedia for local stuff is
excellent in Kannada (no typo there).
When we were ready, we would not have only 732 articles on people from
Syria. It may be our enemy but we do not know the people. Many wars are
happening and it is ok because we do not know them. This is sociology 123
and it is only one area where Wikipedia fails to deliver. With it its NPOV
is absent.
We are not done, there is a shit load of work in front of us and money will
help make it possible to get it done. Slowly but surely English is no
longer 50% of what we do. It is a reason to rejoice, it is a reason to
redouble our efforts and we can use money for that.
Other WMF projects do not get funding, no pundits that declare that they
are Wiki**** experts and make a career out of it.
In my opinion what I have seen is shameful. This is an opinion, it is my
opinion.
The opinion that WMF can do with less is exactly that. I might agree if it
was factually right, it is not. Not by a long shot.
Thanks,
GerardM
