[Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF

[Andrew Whitworth]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:
> It would appear that nobody is concerned about giving the landlord a
> leg up on ITS for-profit competitors by supplying them in particular
> with a ready feed of intellectual capital in the form of the friendly
> Stanton-funded developers?  Lucky for Wikia, Inc.!  I mean, assume
> good faith all you want, but if I were a biotech firm trying to
> develop a synthetic blood plasma, boy would I love to have the Red
> Cross' top research scientists parked in my meeting rooms every day.
> And PAYING me for the privilege, to boot?  That's just gravy.

Wikia didn't make the decision, the WMF did. The WMF decided to accept
Wikia's bid because of the benefits that the deal brought to the WMF.
The fact that Wikia also happens to benefit from the arrangement
(while, at the same time, receiving the lowest financial compensation
of any of the bidders), is just a nice coincidence for them.

You're ignoring the fact that this arrangement is the best deal for
the WMF, and is the most efficient and most responsible use of it's
funds. Of course, If the WMF instead used their money in a less
responsible manner by going with a higher bidding landlord, you'd find
fault with that too, wouldn't you Greg?

> It sounds to me that the (reasonable) criteria that ranked proximity
> to WMF and cognate activities as high as, or higher than, monthly
> rental rate rather "wired" this contract to Wikia, Inc. from the
> get-go.  Kudos for putting on the dutiful show of obtaining 12
> separate bids, but the outside world is seeing this for what it is --
> a show of equanimity to gloss over a pre-determined outcome.

Let's recap: Wikia submitted the LOWEST bid. The deal with Wikia is
saving the WMF money, and bringing the WMF additional benefits as
well. I don't mind people crying wolf when a real misdeed has been
committed, but no such misdeed has occured here. The WMF solicited
bids, there were two bids that tied for lowest price, and the WMF
selected the option that brought the most value with it. This is good
business and responsible use of tax-advantaged dollars.

> As for Master Bimmler's concerns about the "fear" imposed by mention
> of the media watching, it's only natural for someone who has recently
> and historically been censored for asking pertinent questions, to want
> some sort of "back up" to assure him he is not living in a digital
> version of a Kafkaesque nightmare. If your team would stop censoring
> "WP:BADTHOUGHTS", maybe there wouldn't be such a rush to the media?

So all this time it's been our fault that we get trolled? Shame on the victim!

--Andrew Whitworth