I don't mean to sound accusative or argumenative with this post, so I apologize in
advance if that's the way it "sounds" over email.
In 2005 the Beck Foundation contributed a substantial sum of money ($10,000) in the form
of a grant for the development and promotion of Wikijunior books. To the best of my
knowledge, that money has never been properly accounted for. At the very least, what
happened to that money and how it was used to help Wikijunior specifically has never been
made public. Somehow I feel like it wasnt intended for that money to be rolled over into
the "Wikipedia growth expenditures" portion of the budget, so I would hate to
hear that it silently was. We could perhaps raise the bigger issue that finances have
never been made as transparent or well-reported as they should be. That is a different
topic for a different thread. I would be hesitant to pursue any additional forms of grant
money for Wikijunior until there is some assurance that the money won't disappear into
the abyss.
Also, like Randy mentioned, one of the books (Wikijunior Big Cats) was published on Lulu
press, but Jimbo personally had that book removed from the website citing a vague series
of "concerns" and asked for more discussion on the matter first. We asked for
input from the board on several occasions, and received no helpful replies.
I'm not really going on any warpaths about this until the fundraiser is over (I know
it's taking up a lot of our collective attention right now), So long as the issue of
Wikijunior has been raised I do feel that these are a few points worth considering for
future discussion. I would like to get Wikijunior in to a good place early next year so
that we can push for it to be used during the following school year. The things that randy
suggested, such as the read-only domain would be key to making this happen.
--Andrew Whitworth
_________________________________________________________________
Climb to the top of the charts! Play Star Shuffle: the word scramble challenge with star
power.
http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_oct