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

[Chris Jenkinson]

GerardM wrote:
> People who know me, now that I do almost everthing to have the things I
> believe in come true. They also know that i will not squander away the
> values of what we stand for. When some person aggresively removes these
> links, I will be sorry for the narrow mindedness that it demonstrates. It
> must also be an admin to do this, I will wonder to what extend this
> behaviour will be mitigated by him finding the funds that are lost to the
> rest of us. This is the least I would expect of someone who is this position
> of responibility.

I don't think it is narrow-mindedness that would cause someone to remove 
these links, and I think accusing someone of acting in this way is 
rather impolite and shows a lack of good faith. I can't think of one 
admin who doesn't have the best interests of Wikipedia at heart and is 
only doing what they think best.

The thing is, a large number of people have not been convinced that this 
is necessary for the Foundation's continued operations, but the 
partnership is going against some of the ideals on which Wikipedia was 
founded. At the moment, the impression I (and many others) am getting is 
that this deal is allowing corporations to influence how the Foundation 
operates. Some people do not mind; others do. It's up to the Board to 
demonstrate that this is a good move, not up to the community to say why 
it's a bad move. Saying "let's give it a trial and see what the results 
are" isn't good enough.

Chris