[Foundation-l] Wikipedia Executive Director?

[Zack Exley]

OK, everyone -- I learned my lesson! Thanks for teaching it.

I was looking at it from the perspective of the reader who has never heard
the word "Wikimedia". There are millions and millions of them. Luckily they
simply think we are misspelling Wikipedia, and are donating anyways. We will
continue to answer their emails alerting us to our error with patient
explanations.

-- 
Zack Exley
Chief Community Officer
Wikimedia Foundation




On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2010/12/9 Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com>:
> > On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 7:59 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> On 9 December 2010 18:54, Michael Snow <wikipedia at frontier.com> wrote:
> >>> While I understand the challenges in communicating effectively with a
> >>> variety of audiences, I think the point that's been raised is that for
> a
> >>> project that is all about trying to describe things as accurately as
> >>> possible, much of the community feels that in order to maintain a basic
> >>> level of accuracy, it's worth it to forgo whatever additional money we
> >>> might raise by giving it up. To phrase it differently, this is not a
> >>> messaging decision that should be left to the outcome of AB testing.
> >>> That's an argument to which I'm sympathetic.
> >>
> >> That certainly describes my position very well. Thank you.
> >
> > And mine. My thanks too.
> >
> > To even imply that Wikipedia has an executive director is not only a
> > falsehood, but also somehow undermines all the efforts the Wikimedia
> > community has put in over the years to differentiate Wikimedia from
> > Wikipedia, and more importantly, to make sure that it was clear that
> > Wikimedia organisations (chapters and Foundation alike) have no power
> > over editorial content.
> >
> >
> > Delphine
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> I agree completely with Michael Snow and Delphine. The impulse is
> understandable, but it's a mistake to encourage a misunderstanding
> that can undermine the confidence of the public in Wikipedia's
> independence and create confusion about the structure of the WMF and
> its projects.
>
> Nathan
>
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