Hi James,
On 3/22/08, James Neill lists@wilderdom.com wrote:
well, i was assuming those fundraising drives go towards employing some people who work on big picture infrastructure cross-project /strategy/ publicity stuff for WMF?? (and suggesting that perhaps federated WMF search could be within their circle of interest)
While fund raising does go to some MW initiatives, I know that lots of it goes to cover things like hosting. The truth is, since this is outside of the direct focus of the WMF at the present time, it's unlikely to get any attention in the next 6 months.
That said, I'll say that it _is_ a good time to suggest things, as we're in the week between Google Summer of Code mentor organizations being chosen and the time students can submit proposals opening. (Simmer week, if you will).
I'd be happy to help write up your suggestion, and get it into the suggestion pool. It might also be an idea to mention this on Wikiversity's colloquium, as well as places that coders looking for a summer job might frequent.
And for those who don't know, Google's Summer of Code initiative lets Students work on Open Source projects for money. Wikimedia is a mentoring organization, and so there is no reason this can't be done through it.
Thanks, Gerald.