[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Job: Volunteer Coordinator

[Robert Horning]

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Carolyn Doran <cdoran at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>   
>> What reason would we have to be near a consulate?
>> ~ C
>>     
>
> Any organization that claims to be international in scope, would ideally be based in close
> proximity to representatives from many national governments. Of course, that is not the only thing
> to consider.
>
> -- mav
>   
I hardly consider that to be a major issue for an organization that is 
founded upon and relies upon electronic communication for most of its 
activity.  In America (assuming that this means the WMF must stay in the 
USA) that really leaves just a very limited number of cities you could 
put it in:  New York City and Washington, DC.  In California, while 
there are many consulates there, they tend to be split up between Los 
Angeles and San Francisco in roughly equal proportions depending on the 
country involved.  And for smaller countries they will only have an 
embassy or consulate in DC or NYC.

For those particular situations where face to face meetings are 
absolutely required, you can easily fly from St. Pete to one of those 
two cities anyway at a modest cost, or even to the country who you are 
trying to deal with directly.  I would presume that any such meeting 
would be a very rare exception anyway and would not be at all necessary 
in terms of day to day operations of the foundation.  Certainly the cost 
of an airline flight would be trivial compared to the increased cost of 
daily living in either of these two cities for what would realistically 
be of marginal improved value for the foundation.

-- Robert Horning