2009/5/2 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
What would they spend it on? Talk is cheap, after all! Having conversations is easy, having focused conversations that actually reach useful conclusions is a little harder, but it isn't more expensive.
Data gathering, test setups whatever. If there isn't a budget there is little incentive for wikipedians to deal with a a system that even by wikipedia standards is painfully bureaucratic.
Consider I can spend time messing around with working groups and subgroups that are somehow meant to work on the problems of "Reach, Quality and Participation" with zero budget and annoying bureaucratic barriers.
Or I could join:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia Outreach Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team And probably Wikipedia:WikiProject Community
With out a budget what can the committees offer that doesn't appear through existing channels? Focus talk? Perhaps but there is no way to enforce that and keeping a group of wikipedians focused on anything for any length of time is pretty much impossible. Access to foundation personnel? Doesn't appear to be on offer and it's hard to guarantee useful access.