[Foundation-l] Fundraising and site notice

[Gerard Meijssen]

Oldak Quill schreef:
> On 07/01/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Oldak Quill schreef:
>>     
>>> On 07/01/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Hello everyone.
>>>>
>>>> Just for a head up (or down)
>>>>
>>>> First, I wanted to announce to all that there will be no more matching
>>>> donors in that fundraiser.
>>>> This is due to a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, the
>>>> reaction of some members in the community.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Regardless of whether I agreed with the Virgin notice or not, this is
>>> an excellent move on behalf of the Foundation. It demonstrates the
>>> Foundatin's responsiveness to Wikimedians and that there is no
>>> bureaucratic disconnect (which is always a worry when a project like
>>> ours begins to organise into formalised institutions and structures).
>>>
>>> Thanks Florence and the rest of the team. You're doing an excellent job.
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> Hoi,
>> I am afraid you did not read the whole of Florence her e-mail, or you
>> only read what you want to read.. "Fourth, we'll go on with limited
>> funds. Limited means we'll go delaying certain issues. That's life !"
>>
>> This means that things that are deemed necessary will not happen or will
>> not happen in the near future for lack of funds. There have been no
>> serious proposals on how the WMF can make the money that it requires.
>> And where you see responsiveness, I fail to see how our aim is indeed
>> best served when you consider our growth and our lack of current funding.
>>
>> In my opinion this is at best a Pyrrhic victory.
>>     
>
> IMO, the lack of funds is *not* a good thing. But that doesn't remove
> from the perceived responsiveness of the Foundation. It seems to me
> that the community was damaged/divided by the discussion last week:
> there were alot of very emotive mails exchanged on this list. For this
> reason, I think it was crucial that the Foundation demonstrate
> responsiveness even at the cost of some funding. In doing so, the
> community can, to an extent, heal.
>
> I think that just announcing that that no matching donors would be
> named in the SiteNotice would have been enough (I didn't object to the
> anonymous matching donor). Still, too much is better than nothing.
Hoi,
Well in my opinion the fact that people actually sabotaged the fund 
raising is indeed damaging to our community. These people fail to 
understand that the need for continually /more /funding is a function of 
our growth. Where you see a community damaged/divided, I see a community 
that was already divided. What I see is an organisation, our 
organisation, that will increasingly find it problematic to balance its 
books. An organisation that is not able to do the things it needs to do. 
An organisations that as a consequence will be increasingly unable to 
accommodate the growth that it could have.

I disagree that our community will heal because of this temporary 
reprieve. If anything it polarises the positions between those who want 
to see the Foundation accept the money it can get and therefore do an 
even better job and those that hold personal positions that have nothing 
to do with the stated aims of our organisation. What has happened is 
deferring the problem to the future, the sad thing is that the need for 
money will only be bigger at that time and this will make the struggle 
even more damaging.

The fact that you do not consider the lack of funds a good thing makes 
no material difference. It does not help as money would.

Thanks,
    GerardM