[Foundation-l] Brief thought on the long-term value of grants for Wikimedia projects

[Chitu Okoli]

Hi WF,

I have the feeling that the current growing pains that Wikipedia is
experiencing are short-term, as it tries to gain more universal recognition.
I followed the discussion on the NEH grant, and I believe that if WF gets
things together, in a couple of years you'll be able to garner something
major like that.

I don't know how many people know about Perseus (www.perseus.tufts.edu), but
it's an awesome online searchable collection of classical primary and
secondary texts. It was established by a National Science Foundation grant,
and I believe continues to be supported by the NSF, NEH, and other agencies.
If Wikipedia could garner enough recognition by grant-awarders as a major
resource of international humanitarian benefit, I believe a couple
well-crafted grants could fund it and grow it to perpetuity. I hope that
academic research such as I am doing (I've also got in touch with Andrew Lih
and Tomoaki Watanabe on this list, who also do academic research on
Wikipedia) could help put it on the radar screen of the money givers.

I'd like to hear some thoughts on this.

Regards,
Chitu