[Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form New Partnership

[Jimmy Wales]

Dori wrote:
> "Diversify our income source" sounds horrible to me. That's not what's
> important.

As a primary goal, not is it not what is important.  What is important
to me is that while we're doing a fine job of serving the needs of
people in wealthy western countries who have broadband Internet
connections, (a) it is getting harder and harder to do that on our
existing budget and (b) we are not doing all that we can be doing to
help in less developed countries.  (Actually, other than the ways in
which our ordinary work are starting to be somewhat helpful there, we
are doing nothing at all.)

>>BTW, do you have a few extra million dollars laying around to pay for servers
>>next year?
> 
> 
> Sure, but only if you put in some articles saying how great I am and
> ban anyone saying otherwise.

Why don't you drop the sarcasm and ask the question you're hinting at,
point-blank.  Or make the accusation point-blank.

Will the Wikimedia Foundation ever accept money to change the content of
the articles?  Not as long as I'm alive, ok?  Anyone who thinks
otherwise should check their premises and remember who I am and what I'm
doing and how I spend my life.

>>And what about the special projects we would like to fund but can't?
> 
> 
> What projects? If we can't fund them, we can't. Do partnerships mean
> that we'll be able to fund every project? If we put in advertising
> (flash, popups, selling user tracking), and changed the license to be
> restrictive I'm sure we could get in more money and fund more
> projects. Does that mean that's the direction we should head?

This is a valid question, although I think it would be more valid if it
were asked in good faith.

I think that we desperately need to be very very thoughtful and careful
about all partnerships.  We have had offers of complete and total
hosting from credible Internet companies, and I've turned it down
because I am passionate about us maintaining our independence.  We need
to carefully balance the needs of the users against the legitimate needs
of the people who are not *able* to use our service because they have no
computers (or clean drinking water), and be serious and adult about
considering the tradeoffs carefully.

I don't know of any other sensible approach.

> Do we even know how much money we'll be getting out of this?

We do not.  It is an experiment.

--Jimbo