[Foundation-l] Auction (Was: alternatives) - Wikimedia-l

7 Jan 2007

Just another thought that came up with me today:

What about an auction. I dont know whether there is interesting stuff enough
to collect, and I dont expect thousends of dollars out of it, but wouldn't
it be fun for the community to have something like an auction? People can
give stuff that could be "cool to have" for the auction, to the foundation,
and the person that bids the highest amount of money, can get the thing. For
instance, I would be thinking of a postcard witht he signatures of all
boardmembers, a used cigarette of oscar (no, not really, please come up with
something more fun! :P ) or maybe even approach famous people to donate
something that belongs to them for this cause. The stuff can varie to
everything, but should be intensively prepared probably.

Would this be fun for the community? Would it be creating some money to the
foundation, would it be worth while? Are there maybe more ideas in this
trend, that together get a meaningfull amount of money together?

I understand of course it wont be possible anymore for this very
fundraising, but I think it would be an idea for the next one. I'm not sure
whether the foundation should "lower" itself to this level, or maybe it
explicitely *should*. Please shoot! :)

Lodewijk

2007/1/6, Peter van Londen &lt;londenp(a)gmail.com&gt;om>:
...

 Waerth I would appreciate if you could stay with the subject, which is
 alternative funding of Wikimedia projects by a add-driven fanpedia. The
 fanpedia was brought up some days ago (and not reoccurring every two
 weeks).
 There are definitely more people than you mention; might not be the most,
 as
 I have written, because most people on nl-wp don't care about how the
 projects are being funded. I wished that you had commented on the subject,
 in stead of flaming.

 I would like some comments about the feasibility of doing such a project.
 We
 give up "add-freeness" for one project so that the other projects can be
 funded add-free. Is that compatible with the Mission/Vision? Are there
 other
 points: like for instance legal liabilities as of the probable nature of
 the
 content on a Fanpedia?

 Robert Scott Horning: I don't know Wikia, so I don't have any idea of a
 fanpedia under the wings of the Wikimedia Foundation would conflict with
 Wikia's interests or vice versa. Anyhow by transporting content to Wikia
 does not help much with funding of the Wikimedia Foundation, if I
 understand
 that correctly.

 SJKlein: any comments why you don't think it is a good idea?

 A lot of people involved in Wikipedia don't like adds or even sponsoring
 if
 a sitenotice mentions the name of logo of the sponsor. We could keep
 advertising away of the "more-serious" project if we had an add-driven
 sisterproject. (It doesn't have to be a fanpedia, it can be a different
 project, but fancruft is popular!). It would be a compromise.

 Kind regards
 Londenp

 2007/1/6, Walter van Kalken &lt;walter(a)vankalken.net&gt;et>:

 >
 >The thing is that a lot of people work on the fancruft, imho
 >non-encyclopedian, part of Wikipedia and that is OK. Prison Break is  one
  of
 the most visited articles on dutch Wikipedia. Most
nl-Wikipedians are  uneasy with this kind of articles, which evoluate to a
encyclopedia  inside
  the wikipedia in itself, and would be happy to
move them to a different
 project.
   Most ?????? That is a very bold statement.
I would say a minority.
 Currently in the Dutch wikipedia it is only 4 or 5 people who bring this
 up every 2 weeks or so. Including you. That is definately not most
 wikipedians!!!

 Waerth

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