Regarding: "at the moment there is not even a clone that provides just the same data.": creating an alternative host for a fork of Wikipedia is possible, although labor-intensive and a bit capital-intensive, and it's far from ideal. I feel that at this time the information available about the governance of WMF, while deeply concerning, is short of the threshold at which I would feel comfortable pursuing this option.
A reminder that we'll have 2 new trustees starting in January, and there will be an election in 2016 for the affiliate-appointed trustees' seats. As Yoda wisely said, "Always in motion is the future."
I'm contemplating a response to Patricio's email. I'm currently in the difficult position of figuring out who to trust. It may take another day or so for me to sift through my thoughts.
Pine
On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 11:20 AM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
"Peter Southwood" peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:
You are quite correct, we cannot force the board to respond. However if they don't we are free to vote with our feet - or not. The fundamental rule of crowdsourcing is 'do not alienate your crowd'. They tread a delicate line, whatever they do is going to annoy somebody. […]
By mid-December, they had crowdsourced USD 18.000.000 in this campaign, so they seem to be on the right track. If volunteer editors would leave in a significant number, the effect would be the same that we have seen for MediaWiki development: "We need to raise /more/ money to employ some- one to edit and update articles. You want to keep Wikipedia alive, don't you?"
All threats against the board or WMF in general are power- less unless there is a viable alternative to Wikipedia for volunteers that is /better/; at the moment there is not even a clone that provides just the same data.
Tim
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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