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

[Anthere]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Dan Grey wrote:
> 
>>I'm really quite confused.
>>
>>Angela said we don't need this money to pay for servers, yet Mav is
>>apparently saying this.
>>
>>Which is correct?
> 
> 
> I don't want to speak for either of them, but Angela was asked whether
> this was due to a budget shortfall, and she said no.  That's correct.
> 
> Mav is talking about longterm strategy and planning, and he's also correct.
> 
> There is no emergency at the present time.  There are big opportunity
> costs if we start to fail next year if we don't plan ahead effectively.
> 
> --Jimbo

Both are correct imho.

I'll give you a tiny example based on hardware though;

This is the planned hardware purchase listed on meta : 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_budget/2005/Q4/hardware

This is the wish list though :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kate/Q4_hardware_order_proposal

Between the first and the second, you may have the difference between 
the site still working... and the site really working well.

This is only for hardware, but you may figure out for various items
* Full time assistant : relief for Jimbo and things working so much better
* No assistant : paperwork being late, board and officers screaming on 
each others or resigning from despair etc....

* Grant manager : a guy working full time to bring us fresh money from 
other very supportive organisation
* No grant manager : well... how much did we gather on grants this year ?

* Wikimania : a wonderful meeting, with great community mix up, media 
coverage and collaboration deals boiling
* No Wikimania : well...



We can shorten our budget to survival needs. And donations might be 
sufficient. Can we survive with only donations for Q4 ? Yes. Did we 
agree on the deal because we were strangled ? No.
But, we can turn the issue just as much as we want, in the long term, we 
need more money. Best to fix deals BEFORE we get strangled, because 
right now, we have choice on the deal we make. When we are strangled, we 
have less room to negociate, accept, refuse or change a deal if the 
community really does not like it.

Ant