[Foundation-l] Fundraising idea

[Anthony]

On 11/10/06, lars <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>
> > This a good point, and one the board should think long and hard about.
> > I was somewhat disturbed by the fact that "money" received the
> > largest value under "opportunities" during the SWOT exercise.
>
> Please don't over-interpret the report from that SWOT exercise.
> Money was not given "the largest value", it was the term mentioned
> by most of the participants.

You know, I went through several iterations of that sentence before
settling on "the largest value".  But your explanation is simpler.  It
was the term mentioned by most of the participants (twice as many as
the next most popular term).  That's still saying a lot, and it still
disturbs me.

> That only means it is the least
> original idea, one that everybody can think of.
>
My feelings are that it shouldn't be an opportunity listed by anyone,
let alone 18 people (I don't feel like looking up the number, but I
think it was 18, if I'm wrong substitute the actual number).

> > That said, I think there is a lot that could be done by the
> > foundation, if only the foundation had more money.
>
> No, I don't agree.  This is the trap I'm warning against.  You are
> about to fall into it.  Rather than paying more programmers, we
> should think of ways that more programmers can be stimulated to
> contribute for free.
>
IMO that in itself would require spending money.  I stand by my belief
that money would make some things possible, and would make a lot of
other things get done faster.  There are millions of us, myself
included, who could contribute more to Wikimedia if only someone would
pay the doctor bills, the rent, and the food costs for myself and my
family.  Give me $10,000 and I'll write single sign-on and anything
else I can complete in the next 6 months.  Don't give me $10,000, and
sorry, I have a family to provide for that comes first.  (And don't
take this as a demand from me, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be the one
hired to do this sort of thing, I'm just using myself as an example.)
Of course I'm open to suggestions as to how to accomplish these things
without spending any money.

> Also the Knams proxy in Amsterdam is paid for by an external
> organization (Kennisnet), and that saves the WMF a lot of money.
> Why not ask for similar proxies inside the USA, rather than
> collecting more money to buy more servers.
>
When it comes to bandwidth and servers I agree that's a place we
should be working on one day spending $0.

> > But...then Wikimedia doesn't get to spend that money...
>
> There is a lot of money in the world that the WMF doesn't spend.
> I just had breakfast for money that I spent, without passing
> through the WMF.
>
> > Why should Wikimedia be concerned over whether or not someone is
> > silent?  I don't have a problem acknowledging *every* contribution.
> > If every donor wants acknowledgement, then we should give it to them.
>
> Of course.  What I'm against is that special treatment should be
> given to people who want to make things more complicated.
>
Acknowledging every contribution (except for contributions from people
who actively oppose being acknowledged) would resolve the issue of
special treatment.

Anthony