At this rate, I think the communities could run some of these sites better than the WMF. It's better than letting them sit forever.
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 7:45 AM, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.comwrote:
I'm kind sad to see the my personal view of the Wikimedia movement increasingly distant from Sue's view...
I believe sister projects are deeply important and potential (we have a Universal Library (Wikisource), a Universal Media Archive (Commons), a Universal Dictionary (Wiktionary), etc.) They are worth some attention and WMF has never given it to them. I believe WMF should understand that his job focus it's not English Wikipedia. There are other Wikipedias and there are other projects. Oh, there are other languages too. I believe the Movement to be deeply international and diverse, and that keeping and enjoying this diversity is hugely hard but hugely important. Both fellowships, attention to developing countries and Wikimania cover that. I believe Wikimania is a awesome occasion to become a WikiMedian, and to fell being part of a Movement. It is wonderful to get new ideas, to talk to people, to understand and learn, and to take back this experience in Chapters and Wikiprojects. Ask anyone who participated in a Wikimania event. I feel that keeping the Fellowhip Program open would be a way to let the community express itself, propose original and innovative ideas and focused projects. I do believe that some of them had an impact (GLAM, anyone?), and will have for years. We just scratched the surface. I regret deeply the distance between WMF and Chapters: they were not allowed to participant in the fundraiser, put in the uncomfortable situation to ask the grants in a burocratic way staying under stricts agreements (ie, California laws AND national laws). It is a complex topic (accountability and so on), but could have be dealt with much better. I believe that money should be much better distributed that centralized, I believe that ''no one, neither the Chapters nor the Foundation, is really entitled to get the money.'' No one really deserve the donations we get as Wikimedia. We did not earn them. They are for Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is a commons, and is common-produced. If we could distribute the money to all the editors around the globe, as a reward, we should do it.. It's impossible, so it's OK, but, still, I hope you get the idea that we are not entitled, we just get them. And we should be aware of that.
Aubrey
PS: full disclosure: I had in mind to ask for a fellowship about Wikisource, and I'm a chapter member. So there is some personal disappontment, going exactly in the opposite direction of WMF. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l