[Foundation-l] Is the WMF spending its (our or our donors) money irrationally?

[WereSpielChequers]

Re the "numerous complains from other volunteers who thought that WMF
is spending its money irrationally." that vvv has heard.

Any charity has pretty much by definition an obligation to use the
money it is entrusted with rationally and appropriately.

In the case of the WMF there has been a lot of flak on this list
because of a rather trendy sounding job title and a vague job ad.

Personally I think that vague job descriptions are a mildly
questionable but routine tactic that many not for profits use to
maximise what they can get their staff to do.

As for the big financial decisions, I tend to the view that locating
our sole data centre in a state known for its Earthquakes was a brave
decision, and creating a secondary datacentre an expensive but logical
one. I take some comfort from the fact that the debate about use of
funds has mostly been about relatively small parts of the budget, and
that the big important decisions are mostly uncontentious. Though I
welcome such globalisation measures as the Indian and possible middle
East offices, I do wonder at the planned total headcount, and I hope
that of all the things that came out of the Strategy project, one
featured proposal
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Keep_the_servers_running
is given due pre-eminence in all WMF planning.

But overall my impression is that the WMF spends money rationally, I
do see quite a few tests, innovations and new ventures, which I
consider a healthy sign. The acid test will be whether the foundation
is able to work out which of those are worth continuing, which merit
expansion and building on, which need tweaking and which need to be
closed down and learned from.

WereSpielChequers


> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 15:17:33 +0300
> From: Victor Vasiliev <vasilvv at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia "Storyteller" job opening
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>        <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <AANLkTimYYXa85bO5yXrjzBAfWaUCsUbU77TVEYRuvhyt at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 11:26 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> You appear to be generalising from your personal preferences to the
>> world here. This is a common fallacy and a really bad idea in general.
>
> I have heard numerous complains from other volunteers who thought that
> WMF is spending its money irrationally. So I believe those "personal
> preferences" are widespread enough.
>
> --vvv
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 13:41:06 +0100