No, two months ago it was announced that there would be a fundraiser (something that was expected anyway) I imagine most people assumed, as I did, that the effect on project pages would be the same as it has been in previous fundraisers - a small green progress bar and a snippet of "please donate" text, and that alternative ways of raising funds would be the main subject of discussion. If it had been announced two months ago that the UI would look like it does now, rest assured there would have been complaints. Also, what is silly about threatening a fork? Is that not one of the key arguments (in theory at least) for free content, and thus the whole point of the Wikimedia projects' existence? Or does the Foundation no longer care about that either? -Gurch --- GerardM <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 10/23/07, Matthew Britton <matthew.britton(a)btinternet.com> wrote: I understand your frustration, but it is misplaced. This is not about "the Foundation vs. the community", it is about a community trying to find the best ways to sustain itself. Who are the people who are making this fundraiser happen? They include Cary Bass, our Volunteer Coordinator, whose longtime experience on the projects and on OTRS was the primary reason he was hired. And Sabine Cretella, who is contracted to help with the fundraising coordination; a longtime respected Wikimedian who has throughout her participation volunteered immense amounts of her time in many different areas, especially the coordination of translations. And of course our Communications Manager Sandy Ordonez ("Wiki Blue"), who, while not "from the community", has quickly fallen in love with our mission and has been passionately learning as much as she can about our strange culture in the last few months. Under the coordination of Sue Gardner, Sabine, Sandy and Cary have invested significant time trying to rally volunteers to work on many areas of the fundraiser, from translations to buttons and banners. They have posted on many village pumps and mailing lists. The fundraising banner itself was reviewed and discussed on the communications committee mailing list (which isn't some secret club, but just a group of trusted volunteers who have shown long term engagement regarding to communications issues). Surely I agree with you that running a marquee wasn't a particularly good idea. :-) I think in a few weeks/months we'll all laugh about it. But understand also why it was done: to drive eyeballs & thereby increase the likelihood of donations. Not so money can flow in someone's personal pockets, but so the site can actually stay up, and so we can do exactly the things Jimmy talks about in his videos. Getting attention is always going to be a balancing act between success & irritation. A constant crawler is over the top -- so it was quickly removed. Maybe there's still some compromise to be found between totally static messages and the marquee of death. This fundraiser will run for a couple of months, and there's still plenty of time to improve upon all aspects of it. Rather than spend time arguing on the list about it, why not actually help the project with constructive work on a prettier banner, or feedback on the video, or a hundred other things? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007 has a lot of useful links to get started, and an en.wp page for the fundraising banner specifically has been created here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_redesign We're in this together, Matthew. Please help where you can. Thanks. :-) -- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

Erik Moeller wrote: I've been here for nearly 5 years and *I'm* not even sold on that, so I could see why not everyone else is either. The servers at *.wikipedia.org are not going to shut down if the fundraiser comes short of funds, so "sustain itself" is not quite the right word. Furthermore, if we were anywhere near having to shut down due to lack of funds to pay bandwidth bills, there are plenty of folks standing by ready to make major in-kind donations; Jimmy himself mentioned on this mailing list that he's had conversations with Google where they've told him they're ready to offer anytime we feel like asking. So it sounds like the money is needed for something else besides simply sustaining the site, yet this has never really been "sold" to the community in a way that most of us are on board with. -Mark

On 10/23/07, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote: Probably not. But would you like to turn off article reads because we can't handle the growth? Yes, we are actually still growing in traffic, now peaking at nearly 40K hits per second -- and new servers have to be paid for and budgeted. You can see the FY07-08 budget overview here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Planned_Spending_Distribution_2007-2008 As you can see, technology is clearly the biggest part. That also includes finally hiring more developers, contracting work as needed, etc., so we can actually respond in a timely fashion to requests from the community, and integrate cool new features that everyone keeps asking for. As for programs, yes, those are also planned. We want to reach out and network with other organizations that (want to) use our content in intelligent ways. We want to pursue grants that help our projects & our mission. We want to distribute our work as widely as possible. We want to increase sustainability through brand licensing and other business partnerships. None of these ideas seem controversial. Indeed, we've been talking about them constantly -- and Board members, including yours truly, were elected based on the idea of helping to turn them into reality. What is it that you think needs more explanation? -- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

On 10/23/07, Waerth <waerth(a)asianet.co.th> wrote: That's a completely fair comment. A grant, unlike a donation, typically commits you to a certain project that needs to be managed and overseen -- and that requires a level of organizational development which we simply have not reached yet. Working towards that is exactly one of the goals of this fundraiser. -- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

Waerth wrote: Yup. Let us be realistic a moment here Waerth. Very few volunteers are willing to write grants themselves. It is tough work. It takes time. It is better to be a professional in that area if you want your grant to be accepted. It is just not something you do on sunday morning between 8 am and 9 am. So, the WMF intends to hire a couple of professionals to precisely take care of such things. Help writing grants. Help organizing fundraising. Help do a little bit of business to collect funds. Hiring means "need money". Hence the current fundraising. Currently, the WMF is not applying for ANY grant (no, there is no half and half) because we do not have the human resources to do so. If you are interested in a job, please apply: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings If you are interested in applying grants for free (entirely writing it, not merely giving an idea of what would really be cool to do), please contact us with a completed proposition. Thanks Ant

On 10/23/07, Waerth <waerth(a)asianet.co.th> wrote: Ack, for sure.

Ray Saintonge wrote: hear hear 3 years ago, my daughter bumped into older brother (his front into her front teeths). Result: one baby teeth died and became grey. Pain. Several visits to the dental specialist. Radio. Fixing so that it does not infect. Expensive. But some reassuring comments from the doctor: "it is only baby teeth, it is expensive, but no big deal". Two days ago, the very same daughter bumped into younger brother (the back of his head into her front teeths). Two teeths bled. Still hurting today. I planned the dental specialist tomorrow... Of course, this time, it is on adult teeths. Do not let yourself be in error. The little person will suck your money and your energy for the rest of your life :-) We still love them :-) Congrats

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, Erik Moeller wrote: It is the budget for non-technical things that is a bigger change. Is there a similar chart for last year's budget? The Board, as representatives of and popular spokespeople for the community, can do many things to turn ideas into reality; I hope that realizing new ideas through the community's existing bounty of freely shared expertise will remain the expectation and not the exception. Saying {{sofixit}} rather than fighting with community about who is authoritized to allocate pixels is a fine example! Regards, SJ

Delirium wrote: I am amazed by this comment Mark. You are complaining about a sitenotice you 1) do not like and 2) consider you were not asked opinion about, and you consider that in case we would lack funds, we'll be in no problems because corporations such as Google as offered to help. Now, let's get real a moment. If we get into big financial troubles and we contact Google to help us, what do you think will happen ? Do you really think big corporations will nicely help us and give big bucks without anything in return ? Na, the day we need to call for help for any big corporation or any venture capitalist, we'll sell our soul. We'll get big advertisement plastered on the website, we'll support certain causes and not others, and I doubt very much that you will have even a say on the text written at the top of the website in the site notice. Note that I am fine with you not liking the current site notice, I am not so fine with you pretending that the community was not involved (Sabine tried pretty desperately to involve you guys, with very little feedback), and I am definitly NOT fine with you shrugging the issue away and saying that if we need something, we can wait for Google to help. As much as we can, we should strive for independance and stick to what we believe in. Ant

Anthony wrote: Since you seem so concerned with this, and you appear to have been following the CBC website at some distance from the Canadian border for at least 12 years, it would be helpful if you provided some links to document your innuendo. Ec

On 10/23/07, Michael Bimmler <mbimmler(a)gmail.com> wrote: Why the hostility? I would think CBC's increasing use of banner advertisements, which started in the 90s and really took off in the last few years, is certainly relevant to this thread and this list, especially since the foundation is currently has a number of former CBC employees on its payroll. But fine, whatever, I'll shut up about it.

On 10/23/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Since both of your claims about me are false, I'll let you find out the details for yourself.

Brion Vibber wrote: It has to do with the importance of diversification. I've seen it happen where people have been convinced by a fast talker to mortgage their home to invest in a risky venture, or in the organized thievery of the futures market. They are surprised and completely unawares when their investment fails, but they still owe the mortgage when they were otherwise ready for retirement. It's just as bad to depend on one single source of finance. A small business that depends almost exclusively on one source of revenue is vulnerable that way. Any sudden withdrawal of such a funding source for whatever reason could have serious effects on core operations. There is no indication whatsoever that Google is about to collapse into bankruptcy. If they were, would they warn us? Ec

On 10/23/07, Brion Vibber <brion(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: That's a combination of Mozilla Foundation *and* Mozilla Corporation, which makes it incredibly misleading. If Google pulled out, they'd find someone else to pay big bucks to be the default search in Firefox. And it's not like they'd lose revenue while looking for someone new - surely they renegotiate these contracts months before they expire. You seem to be implying that this revenue from Google is a donation. It's not. It's Google paying Mozilla Corporation (not Mozilla Foundation) to get tons of traffic by being the default search provider.

On 10/23/07, Brion Vibber <brion(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: The fact that Mozilla Corporation was spun out for financial reasons is precisely why combining the two together and looking at their financials is misleading. I certainly didn't mean to imply that. I think lessons can be learned from looking at other organizations. I just don't think your description of Mozilla as being in a precarious situation is accurate. In fact, I'd say that Mozilla is in a more stable financial situation than the WMF. They don't have to worry about fundraisers coming up short or people complaining about animated banner ads. They just have to rely on Google and Yahoo and and Answers Corporation not all simultaneously going bankrupt along with everyone else related to information search.

GerardM wrote: And the attitude I'm quoting is an example of the ideal we ought to all strive towards? -Mark

Hoi, FYI I have done several translations for this fund raiser. So what did you do ? Thanks, GerardM On 10/23/07, Michael Noda <michael.noda(a)gmail.com> wrote: