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

[Jimmy Wales]

Delirium wrote:
> I mostly objected to the suggestion that people outside of "Wikimedia
> finance" are not welcome to voice opinions on what sorts of steps
> Wikimedia should take to finance itself.  Certainly mav is
> better-informed on certain details of the finances, but broad policy
> decisions, such as whether we ought to provide paid links to "partners",
> ought to be open to discussion amongst Wikipedians at large.  This is
> how it was done in the past---the Amazon trial balloon was only floated
> with the explicit assurance that it was a trial balloon.  Feedback was
> solicited, and it was eventually abandoned after a significant number of
> Wikipedians objected to that method of raising money.  Perhaps a large
> majority of Wikipedians will support the answers.com-tool method of
> raising money (perhaps because answers.com is less evil than Amazon, or
> perhaps because it's less visibly advertised than the ISBNs are, or some
> other reason), but that should be up to Wikipedians to decide, not
> presented as a /fait accompli/.

There is a trial period, and we are discussing it now.  So, I don't
really get what you mean.

--Jimbo