[Foundation-l] 2010-11 Annual Plan Now Posted to FoundationWebsite

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
One of the reasons, for many the only reason for giving a\t the annual
fundraising drive is exactly to provide money to maintain our
infrastructure. Take that away and you take away the reason to give. Once
people get it in their mind that we have reserves to pay for our
infrastructure, they will remember this and not support us for our other
goals.

In my honest opinion, building an endowment as suggested will be a mistake
that we will regret. When the giving sentiment turns against us it will be
next to impossible to change it again. If you seek assurances, there are
other methods that will not be damaging in this way.
Thanks,
       GerardM

On 5 July 2010 10:48, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 4, 2010 at 5:56 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > When we are frugal and build reserves, this will be appreciated. When we
> build
> > reserves that have no immediate goals, we will lose acceptance as an
> organisation
> > that actually needs the money.
>
> I agree we should have specific goals for resources, both short- and
> long-term.  The reason to allocate a fund for long-term infrastructure
> support, is to avoid confusing that with generic reserves (with "no
> immediate goals").
>
> It is true that, if there are no other major crises happening at the
> same time, people will step up anytime there is a real need to help
> Wikipedia.  But part of our duty is to prepare for a major crisis as
> well (one in which most of our supporters will have their own personal
> troubles).
>
>
> Thomas Dalton writes:
> > The "kill switch" idea, as I understand it, is about killing the
> > internet entirely, not one site. If the US government shuts down all
> > the parts of the internet that are under its jurisdiction, the
> > internet would pretty collapse worldwide
>
> The Internet is a bit more robust than this.   At any rate, Wikipedia
> should be so widely mirrored by local groups that it would still be
> available on local networks if the global Internet became unavailable.
>  "One country taking down the Internet" isn't so likely, but one
> country being cut off is.  Today there are entire countries that have
> a single provider connecting them to the rest of the world; with cheap
> internal connectivity within the country but expensive connectivity to
> the Internet as a whole.  A focused effort to increase our network of
> local mirrors could minimize this effect.
>
> Every national and regional library should have a local copy of Wikimedia.
>
> SJ
>
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