[Foundation-l] Board letter about fundraising and chapters

[Michael Snow]

On 8/5/2011 2:22 PM, Nathan wrote:
> Beria, I don't think your views on transparency as stated mesh all
> that well with the character of this list. I'd suspect the same is
> true of the wider community of editors and donors; the assertion that
> details be discussed in private is both improper and at distinct odds
> with the history of the WMF. If chapters prefer that their actions not
> be subject to the oversight of the WMF and Wikimedia community, then
> they should do their own fundraising and develop their own trademarks.
When it comes to the relationship between the Wikimedia Foundation and 
one of its chapters, I think it's understandable that much of that 
discussion happens directly between the foundation and the given 
chapter. That's no different than the kind of interaction people expect 
under any circumstances. It's just like an editor might want to receive 
the courtesy of being contacted personally, on their user talk page or 
via email, about a problem, rather than somebody going off to blast them 
on a mailing list. So at some point, I think the concepts of "in 
private" or "in public" are not really what anybody is aiming for, 
especially since they get used in such black-and-white terms that leave 
no flexibility for circumstances.

That being said, when it comes to discussing the guiding principles for 
things like fundraising, or the relationships between the foundation and 
chapters collectively, I do think it would be better to have more of 
that discussion open to the entire community. In terms of identifying 
the right forum for discussion, though, I'm not sure how much better 
this list really is, given that anecdotally its atmosphere has driven so 
many chapter people to resist subscribing. Honestly, I must say that it 
is a colossal disappointment to find that with all the posts I've seen 
both here and on internal-l, nobody has yet made a single edit to the 
talk page on Meta where the letter was posted. Doesn't anybody here know 
how to use a wiki?

--Michael Snow