[Foundation-l] Is the WMF spending its (our or our donors) money irrationally?

Re the "numerous complains from other volunteers who thought that WMF is spending its money irrationally." that vvv has heard. Any charity has pretty much by definition an obligation to use the money it is entrusted with rationally and appropriately. In the case of the WMF there has been a lot of flak on this list because of a rather trendy sounding job title and a vague job ad. Personally I think that vague job descriptions are a mildly questionable but routine tactic that many not for profits use to maximise what they can get their staff to do. As for the big financial decisions, I tend to the view that locating our sole data centre in a state known for its Earthquakes was a brave decision, and creating a secondary datacentre an expensive but logical one. I take some comfort from the fact that the debate about use of funds has mostly been about relatively small parts of the budget, and that the big important decisions are mostly uncontentious. Though I welcome such globalisation measures as the Indian and possible middle East offices, I do wonder at the planned total headcount, and I hope that of all the things that came out of the Strategy project, one featured proposal http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Keep_the_servers_running is given due pre-eminence in all WMF planning. But overall my impression is that the WMF spends money rationally, I do see quite a few tests, innovations and new ventures, which I consider a healthy sign. The acid test will be whether the foundation is able to work out which of those are worth continuing, which merit expansion and building on, which need tweaking and which need to be closed down and learned from. WereSpielChequers