I think thats a little disingenuous to say that we dont take care of our volunteers and that its a negative message to not give some financial reward to admins.
We came here by choice, whether we are here for a long time or a short time we chose to add to the sum of all knowledge for myriad of reasons. Some of us choose to accept additional functions to support what we are creating, whether thats to clean up the projects or reach out to new contributors. Over the last 13 years I've brought books to access sources, cameras to provide photographs, I've spent 1000's of hours travelling at my own expense to get photos, to talk to people, to encourage them to bring more knowledge onto wikipedia. Yes I've benefited along the way, I made wonderful friends, I been to places I wouldnt have got the opportunity to go to, I learnt a lot of amazing things and in my own way I'd like to think I've made a lasting difference. Actually I know that everyone else like me has combined to make a difference, I've been privileged to see wikipedia in use in class rooms helping students to learn, I've seen it used on social media to answer questions and in real life to do the same thing.
I've seen how people with disabilities can be a part of a community where those disabilities dont define that person, I've seen how oppressed minorities have been lifted up just by seeing their culture included and being able to add to that without fear or repercussions.
Every volunteer gets rewarded for what they do, when we shift to paying a person they stop being volunteers in that aspect of what they do. The best reward the WMF could give is not cash, its helping more people experience the in person connections and give them a greater sense of just how magnificent this community really is through access to events, scholarships, and other opportunities.
Never in all my time have I ever thought, or experienced anything that remotely looks like the Wikimedia Community doesnt value what the volunteers do, even when contributors push the envelope in negative ways.
On 28 May 2018 at 16:03, David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
My view is that the Foundation was suddenly (but not without warning) made legally responsible for its own content after Trump made hosting providers responsible for facilitating online prostitution advertising, at pretty much the same time the GDPR went in to effect.
I do not know enough about the bill to comment on this. I can say that even if the Foundation was made legally responsible for the content, in general the level of care and attention to detail seems to be quite high in most Wikipedias.
The Foundation has frequently tried a number of paid editing trials,
Can you please point to me where to find them? Has been tried before donating directly to volunteers with no strings attached?
and I think that's a good thing because donors are likely to stabilize at paying enough to pay all the past, present, and future wikipedias a very comfortable hourly rate, plus interest, still have a large and swiftly endowment to figure out how to invest responsibly, and will be able to outfit offline applications such as space hotels with a new LCARS skin I am trying to get Mike Okuda to commission.
Realistically the money is always tight, however even with a limited amount of money it is still possible to do nice things for volunteers or at least for some of them. The Star Trek aspect of this shouldn't be fancy ideas about the future, but realistic ones like enabling volunteers to follow their passion, freeing them from work whenever possible, supporting them in the mission, and joining efforts with other non-profit organizations to create a favorable social climate.
I think the Foundation employees...
Here I was referring mainly to volunteers, specially those who take a heavy burden on their shoulders individually. It can be argued whether WMF employees are receiving enough generosity from the Foundation or not, what is clear is that employees already receive *some* generosity. On the other hand volunteers receive no direct generosity, unless they find other activities that qualify to apply for a grant. That in my opinion conveys the message that if you are a volunteer you don't deserve to be taken care of by the community just by doing what you are doing, which in my opinion is a very negative message that we are giving to volunteers, donors, and to society in general.
Kind regards, Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe