"I have never seen the WMF foundation asking the communities for anything besides money and trust. I believe the communities have much more to offer. "
You probably have limited memory. I remember explicitely calling loudly for help for many topics and various skills. Hell, I remember distinctly I called *you* Birgitte to help for setting up decent rules for new languages creation. Hardly a month ago. On this list. After I asked you help, you basically answered "errr, not now. Sorry ".
Yes you did. I was more thinking of asking across projects not just asking people who already are in contact with the mailing list. A site-wide note similar to fundraising, but a call for volunteers. With a page asking for people with specific skills sets or experience. To bring in people who have not already sought out the Foundation themselves
I also remember distinctly I called for help many times for Quarto. We got a certain amount of help, but not sufficient to handle things. So, Quarto was closed. It was closed because, *YOU* the community, failed to answer calls for help.
In the past month, I have taking care of answering all the questions on OTRS which were business related. Most of them, I can not answer alone. I need help. I need help to answer stuff about mobile phone. I need help to answer proposal related to trademarks use ...
We received a proposition from a big firm that I will not cite here. This was a little bit discussed amongst the community volunteers lawyers. For the past three weeks, I have been asking for a contract for that deal. I got none. None, none, none. It is not exactly as if I asked not for help. I did, but got nothing. (And this is why we need hiring.... believe me, if someone were writing these contracts on a volunteer basis, we would not need to hire people).
So, claiming that the Foundation never asked more to the community than money and trust is worse that *false*. That's an *insult*.
There is something hugely upsetting in the comments I read in this thread. It is seeing people complain things are not publicly discussed... but who do not even comments when the issues are raised publicly. It is seeing people complain things are not done... but they do not do things themselves. It is seeing people complain we do not welcome their help... but they say no when we ask them.
I am not gonna blame you because you refuse to help me on something. That's fine. You're a volunteer. But do not try to pretend we do not ask for help please. That's dishonnest.
Ant
I am very sorry my email upset you. I do not mean to imply in any way that I felt my help was unwelcome, or that my help was not asked for. I was really not talking about me or any one who's name you might recognize from this list. I meant a direct appeal to all the people out there who do not know what the Foundation is doing much less what it needs doing. I meant recruiting from the untapped reasource of people who use thes projects. Recruiting. Not asking people who have already show interest.
I am do not mean this to be taken so critically. Trully it is impressive what so few people have accomplished here. And also did not mean that I thought no one should be hired. Just that hiring professionals is not a panacea. It will take a very special sort of professional to work in this enviroment. I really want to see a middle ground. I am not against things being closed either. It is just a matter of degrees.
Birgitte SB
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