[Foundation-l] [Announcement] Wikimedia Foundation Receives$500KDonation

[Brian McNeil]

The idiotic gossip is spawned for a variety of reasons, but let us all first
take the opportunity to give the folks involved in securing the two recent
substantial donations a standing ovation. Neither are chump change, and the
breathing space and options they open up to the Foundation in fulfilling its
mission are considerable. Congratulations are due to all in the office who
have been involved in the efforts to secure this additional funding.

The gossip? When you're a global top-ten website you're always going to have
your detractors. Every misstep is going to be put under the microscope, and
many sources are more than happy to sensationalise the controversy-du-jour
in an effort to garner more readers or just fill column inches. Dare I
say... all in an effort to get eyeballs for their adverts?

These substantial donations are a great help in building the respectability
of the Foundation and its projects. However, they are also happening in
parallel with much more minor developments such as an OTRS ticket to the
press queue that I am currently handling. Obviously, I cannot go into too
much depth on this due to the privacy policy, but I felt it would be a good
complimentary example of where Wikipedia is gaining credibility and respect
where the most critical press imply we have none.

The ticket is from a teaching surgeon in the UK, he was being ultra-polite
and asking permission to quote and work from Wikipedia's articles on medical
topics. The reason? His students refer to it. His intention? To author a
paper on "Wikipedia and medicine". He was very quick to agree with my
initial response that Wikipedia is an ideal starting point for research
despite being user-generated and a tertiary source. I do not yet know where
he hopes to publish, but this looks like being another one of those
comparisons of Wikipedia with more established sources. The paper may not
appear for 2-3 months due to being done in his spare time, but for anyone
who subscribes to medical publications it may be worth keeping an eye out
for it. I have requested a preliminary copy for preparation of a Wikinews
article when he gets to the appropriate stage, but the key points you can
take at the moment is that (a) He's not told his students not to use
Wikipedia; (b) His initial - possibly cursory - inspection leads him to
conclude it is a valuable source as a starting point for research.



Brian McNeil
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of David Gerard
Sent: 28 March 2008 13:33
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Wikimedia Foundation
Receives$500KDonation

On 27/03/2008, Philippe Beaudette <philippebeaudette at gmail.com> wrote:

> ...and the money keeps rolling in!
>  This speaks highly of our staff at the Foundation, and I -for one - am
>  grateful to them.


Indeed. There's idiotic gossipy noise in the press, and then there's
getting on with actual work. This is why addressing the idiotic
gossipy noise is largely a waste of time.


- d.

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