[Foundation-l] LA Times article / Advertising in Wikipedia

[Robert Rohde]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 1:09 PM, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I agree entirely with Gregory that as long as donations cover the cost
> of running the sites, donations will be sufficient. I don't see how to
> justify advertising on Wikimedia projects if that advertising were
> being used to raise funds over those needed to run the site. In this
> case, advertising would only support more extraneous things
> (Wikimania, e.g.), and this isn't worth risking our actual and
> perceived independence for.
>
> Hopefully, new innovations will reduce the cost of running the site so
> that this will never be a worry. Possible avenues are distributed
> hosting, encouraging Chapters to set up servers in their respective
> countries to spread costs...
>

Even within the realm of simply running the site, there is a big difference
between running Wikimedia with a couple paid developers and a bunch of
volunteers, and really having a professional development staff.  How many
software features have been promised (e.g. stable versions, universal login,
etc.) that have been delayed for a very long time for lack of resources,
especially developer time?  Do you want just enough money to run the site,
or do you want enough money to grow and build Mediawiki's feature set, etc.?

Compared to any comparable website, our funding and staffing is meager.  I
am generally uncomfortable with the Foundation having only enough funds to
just barely get by.  Personally, I've long believed that the WMF needs to
increase their staffing levels just to keep progress going at a reasonable
level, and that requires money.

-Robert A. Rohde