On 5/20/07, Casey Brown cbrown1023@comcast.net wrote:
You seriously do not understand the inner-workings of this organization. We do not have "millions of dollars" right now, we have enough to get by and probably some more, but we definitely do not have the large amount you are talking about.
I'm sorry if I implied that the WMF currently had "millions of dollars". The fact is I have no idea how much the WMF currently has, as it stopped regular disclosure of this information years ago and hasn't yet resumed doing so.
It doesn't cost millions of dollars to hire an accountant, though.
Please look up the prices of the servers alone and the maintenance that needs to be done on them. If you do not understand something, ask, don't incorrectly point a rude finger.
I've read the previous financial statements. In each case the revenue collected exceeded the expenses.
Anthony
Anthony wrote:
On 5/20/07, Casey Brown cbrown1023@comcast.net wrote:
You seriously do not understand the inner-workings of this organization. We do not have "millions of dollars" right now, we have enough to get by and probably some more, but we definitely do not have the large amount you are talking about.
I'm sorry if I implied that the WMF currently had "millions of dollars". The fact is I have no idea how much the WMF currently has, as it stopped regular disclosure of this information years ago and hasn't yet resumed doing so.
WMF is regularly disclosing information about the MILLIONS of dollars raised by donations.
Regularly is probably about every minute or so.
Please check http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/
There is history of donations since january 2006. Prior data may be found in audited financial statements for the past 3 years, available here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report
The donation website was set up end of 2006. It is a huge improvement over past reporting system.
Ant
On 5/20/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 5/20/07, Casey Brown cbrown1023@comcast.net wrote:
You seriously do not understand the inner-workings of this organization. We do not have "millions of dollars" right now, we have enough to get by and probably some more, but we definitely do not have the large amount you are talking about.
I'm sorry if I implied that the WMF currently had "millions of dollars". The fact is I have no idea how much the WMF currently has, as it stopped regular disclosure of this information years ago and hasn't yet resumed doing so.
WMF is regularly disclosing information about the MILLIONS of dollars raised by donations.
Amount raised by donations is only one part of a calculation of how much the foundation currently has.
Any idea how much the cost is to the WMF to add a datafeed client? As I've said, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. Give me a datafeed, at 2x cost, with no restrictions on reselling it. I'll set up a non-profit organization dedicated to distributing the data, and I'll take out a $25,000 personal loan at prosper.com which I'll turn around and reloan to the non-profit at the same interest rate. I'll then set up a server with a MySQL database containing the data and offer shell accounts on the server for $10/month.
Deal?
Anthony
On May 20, 2007, at 10:27 AM, Anthony wrote:
Any idea how much the cost is to the WMF to add a datafeed client? As I've said, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. Give me a datafeed, at 2x cost, with no restrictions on reselling it. I'll set up a non-profit organization dedicated to distributing the data, and I'll take out a $25,000 personal loan at prosper.com which I'll turn around and reloan to the non-profit at the same interest rate. I'll then set up a server with a MySQL database containing the data and offer shell accounts on the server for $10/month.
Deal?
Honest to god, and I am not a relgious man, I hope the Foundation takes you up on this bluff, Anthony.
--Jimbo
On 5/20/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
On May 20, 2007, at 10:27 AM, Anthony wrote:
Any idea how much the cost is to the WMF to add a datafeed client? As I've said, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. Give me a datafeed, at 2x cost, with no restrictions on reselling it. I'll set up a non-profit organization dedicated to distributing the data, and I'll take out a $25,000 personal loan at prosper.com which I'll turn around and reloan to the non-profit at the same interest rate. I'll then set up a server with a MySQL database containing the data and offer shell accounts on the server for $10/month.
Deal?
Honest to god, and I am not a relgious man, I hope the Foundation takes you up on this bluff,
Good, that's one board member down. Any other takers?
I'm sure as one of the 100 most influential people in world you could make it happen. Use that persuasive power. It should be a no-lose offer for everyone.
Anthony
Any idea how much the cost is to the WMF to add a datafeed client? As I've said, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. Give me a datafeed, at 2x cost, with no restrictions on reselling it. I'll set up a non-profit organization dedicated to distributing the data, and I'll take out a $25,000 personal loan at prosper.com which I'll turn around and reloan to the non-profit at the same interest rate. I'll then set up a server with a MySQL database containing the data and offer shell accounts on the server for $10/month.
Deal?
Honest to god, and I am not a relgious man, I hope the Foundation takes you up on this bluff,
Good, that's one board member down. Any other takers?
I'm sure as one of the 100 most influential people in world you could make it happen. Use that persuasive power. It should be a no-lose offer for everyone.
I can't see any reason for anyone to reject it. If you want to mirror Wikipedia, then you are free to do so, and if you want to mirror it near-live and are willing to pay for the bandwidth, why would anyone stop you? I'm not quite sure what you intend to prove. You could provide a valuable service, though.
On 5/21/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Any idea how much the cost is to the WMF to add a datafeed
client? As
I've said, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. Give me a datafeed, at 2x cost, with no restrictions on reselling it. I'll
set
up a non-profit organization dedicated to distributing the data, and I'll take out a $25,000 personal loan at prosper.com which I'll turn around and reloan to the non-profit at the same interest rate. I'll then set up a server with a MySQL database containing the data and offer shell accounts on the server for $10/month.
Deal?
Honest to god, and I am not a relgious man, I hope the Foundation takes you up on this bluff,
Good, that's one board member down. Any other takers?
I'm sure as one of the 100 most influential people in world you could
make
it happen. Use that persuasive power. It should be a no-lose offer for everyone.
I can't see any reason for anyone to reject it. If you want to mirror Wikipedia, then you are free to do so, and if you want to mirror it near-live and are willing to pay for the bandwidth, why would anyone stop you? I'm not quite sure what you intend to prove. You could provide a valuable service, though.
My intent isn't really to prove anything, though Jimbo's calling my offer a bluff does add a little bit of "I told you so" to the deal. My intent is to put access to the data in the hands of people who will do interesting and useful things with it. I hope my offer will be accepted. If not I think I might just set up such a service anyway, using the database dumps. But with the database dumps being updated so infrequently, this would be significantly riskier.
It's also a fortunate coincidence that I happen to live in Tampa. The most efficient solution would probably be for me to set up a colo at Powermedium and get the feed through their internal network. Might very well be the cheapest solution too. Powermedium doesn't put it's colo fees online though, and if you have to ask, it's usually pretty expensive. Maybe they wouldn't even be willing to do a 1U or 2U colocation for starters.
Anthony
We should all know that the Foundation raises MILLIONS. :) However, I think what Anthony doesn't understand is that money is used in many different ways. We have to pay for servers, maintenance, we have to pay the staff, we have to pay for the domain, we're currently giving away scholarships to Wikimania... there's a lot of stuff that that money goes to and there are a lot more places we would like send it if we had more money. :)
Casey Brown Cbrown1023
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Florence Devouard Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007 10:14 AM To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [announcement] new staff member inbusinessdevelopment
Anthony wrote:
On 5/20/07, Casey Brown cbrown1023@comcast.net wrote:
You seriously do not understand the inner-workings of this organization.
We
do not have "millions of dollars" right now, we have enough to get by and probably some more, but we definitely do not have the large amount you
are
talking about.
I'm sorry if I implied that the WMF currently had "millions of dollars". The fact is I have no idea how much the WMF currently has, as it stopped regular disclosure of this information years ago and hasn't yet resumed doing so.
WMF is regularly disclosing information about the MILLIONS of dollars raised by donations.
Regularly is probably about every minute or so.
Please check http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/
There is history of donations since january 2006. Prior data may be found in audited financial statements for the past 3 years, available here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report
The donation website was set up end of 2006. It is a huge improvement over past reporting system.
Ant
_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Anthere -
I had no idea that site existed... it's very cool. I'm impressed.
Philippe ----- Original Message ----- From: Florence Devouard To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007 9:14 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [announcement] new staff member inbusinessdevelopment
Anthony wrote:
On 5/20/07, Casey Brown cbrown1023@comcast.net wrote:
You seriously do not understand the inner-workings of this organization. We do not have "millions of dollars" right now, we have enough to get by and probably some more, but we definitely do not have the large amount you are talking about.
I'm sorry if I implied that the WMF currently had "millions of dollars". The fact is I have no idea how much the WMF currently has, as it stopped regular disclosure of this information years ago and hasn't yet resumed doing so.
WMF is regularly disclosing information about the MILLIONS of dollars raised by donations.
Regularly is probably about every minute or so.
Please check http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/
There is history of donations since january 2006. Prior data may be found in audited financial statements for the past 3 years, available here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report
The donation website was set up end of 2006. It is a huge improvement over past reporting system.
Ant
_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Philippe Beaudette wrote:
Anthere -
I had no idea that site existed... it's very cool. I'm impressed.
Philippe
You're welcome. If you lose the link, you may find it back from the fundraising page http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
In the past, donations were tracked more or less manually by Daniel Mayer. Over time, we naturally needed something more organised. This website has essentially been set up by David Strauss when Brad was executive director.
The site still needs some improvements imho (perhaps graphic reports). There are still some oddities (such as the links at the top, mentionning Wikipedia and Commons, but not the other projects, no idea why). There is a link "recent posts" leading nowhere. Not sure what it is for. A search system might be cool.
But overall, this is a great site. Very helpful.
Ant
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org