[Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser

[Fred Bauder]

> On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 21:54, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>>> The point is that we seem to be
>>> raising more money than we need, which is arguably unfair to donors,
>>> then not spending it in ways that increase quality or help the
>>> volunteers, which is arguably unfair to us. That's causing bad
>>> feeling. Whether it's fair or not is beside the point. The bad feeling
>>> is fairly widespread, and is only going to get worse.
>>
>>> Sarah
>>
>> I wonder if this is a fact, fairly widespread bad feeling?
>>
>> That established, the next question would be why.
>>
>> My own feeling is that the amount of money is so small, as is the
>> staff,
>> and special projects, in relationship to potential needs that I never
>> thought of having a bad feeling, at least not about that.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>>
> I don't know how to judge how widespread it is. I'm judging only by
> the fact that these issues keep being raised on various lists and not
> addressed, and by contact I have with Wikipedians who've not commented
> here.
>
> Politicians in England used to say that, for every constituent who
> writes a letter, another 100 have the same concerns but haven't taken
> the time to write.
>
> Why is there a feeling alienation? Because the Foundation is raising
> millions of dollars from people who read our articles, but isn't
> spending the money on helping to increase the quality of the articles,
> or make life easier for the volunteers. It's all about moving to San
> Francisco (how did that help?), opening new offices overseas,
> employing new fundraisers, etc. Let me apologize here if that sounds
> too cynical or unfair. I'm just giving a worm's eye view, which I
> accept may be uninformed, but it's what things look like from down
> here in the mud. :)
>
> Some light shed in our direction would help enormously.
>
> Sarah
>


I guess I would like editors to have access to archives and databases
such as those ProQuest sells. Not sure how that would fit into our
budget.

Yeah, moving to San Francisco does seem a bit dumb. High rent, high cost
of living, killer fault with the "big one" coming soon. What were they
thinking? People do like living there though. I know how damn hard it is
to hire anyone in rural Colorado, especially when a job must also be
found for their partner.

Fred