[Foundation-l] Fundraising banner ad

[Florence Devouard]

Delirium wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>> On 10/23/07, Matthew Britton <matthew.britton at btinternet.com> wrote:
>>   
>>> Also, what is silly about threatening a fork? Is that not
>>> one of the key arguments (in theory at least) for free
>>> content, and thus the whole point of the Wikimedia
>>> projects' existence? Or does the Foundation no longer care
>>> about that either?
>>>     
>> I understand your frustration, but it is misplaced. This is not about
>> "the Foundation vs. the community", it is about a community trying to
>> find the best ways to sustain itself.
>>   
> 
> I've been here for nearly 5 years and *I'm* not even sold on that, so I 
> could see why not everyone else is either. The servers at 
> *.wikipedia.org are not going to shut down if the fundraiser comes short 
> of funds, so "sustain itself" is not quite the right word. Furthermore, 
> if we were anywhere near having to shut down due to lack of funds to pay 
> bandwidth bills, there are plenty of folks standing by ready to make 
> major in-kind donations; Jimmy himself mentioned on this mailing list 
> that he's had conversations with Google where they've told him they're 
> ready to offer anytime we feel like asking.
> 
> So it sounds like the money is needed for something else besides simply 
> sustaining the site, yet this has never really been "sold" to the 
> community in a way that most of us are on board with.
> 
> -Mark

I am amazed by this comment Mark.
You are complaining about a sitenotice you 1) do not like and 2) 
consider you were not asked opinion about, and you consider that in case 
we would lack funds, we'll be in no problems because corporations such 
as Google as offered to help.

Now, let's get real a moment. If we get into big financial troubles and 
we contact Google to help us, what do you think will happen ? Do you 
really think big corporations will nicely help us and give big bucks 
without anything in return ? Na, the day we need to call for help for 
any big corporation or any venture capitalist, we'll sell our soul. 
We'll get big advertisement plastered on the website, we'll support 
certain causes and not others, and I doubt very much that you will have 
even a say on the text written at the top of the website in the site notice.

Note that I am fine with you not liking the current site notice, I am 
not so fine with you pretending that the community was not involved 
(Sabine tried pretty desperately to involve you guys, with very little 
feedback), and I am definitly NOT fine with you shrugging the issue away 
and saying that if we need something, we can wait for Google to help.
As much as we can, we should strive for independance and stick to what 
we believe in.

Ant