[Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement

[Gerard Meijssen]

The Cunctator schreef:
> On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hoi,
>> It is nice to be insulted with a word that I do not know .. Thank you.
>>     
>
>
> Not trying to insult you, though I guess fatuous is a bit strong. I did mean
> it in the "delusive", not "inanely foolish" sense. Wiktionary is missing
> that definition.
>
>   
As we do not agree on the effect of adverts, we can agree that you are 
as delusive from my point of view.
> When you read what I wrote, you will find that they are TYPICALLY
>   
>> ignored. You would also read in the part that you did not bother to copy
>> that often a better deal can be had by not being lazy and by thinking
>> about what there is to buy.
>>     
>
>
> It's a mistake to believe that ads are typically ignored. Again, ads work
> because they influence people. Ads typically do not motivate people to
> direct action (at least percentagewise) but they do inevitably influence
> people.
>   
Ads do not work on their own, you have to do a lot more than just 
advertise when you want to get and keep a market share. But hey, that is 
marketing and sales.
>
> Now that we have exchanged pleasantries, the point I make is not that it
>   
>> has no effect it has little effect. Another point that I l make is that
>> the Wikimedia Foundation can be much more effective when it had a bigger
>> budget. Given the growth rate of all our projects, our need for money
>> will increase even when we only want to continue to provide the level of
>> service that we do.
>>     
>
>
> One would hope that the need for money will not grow disproportionately to
> the growth in audience. In fact, there should be economies of scale.
>   
The economies of scale happen within one language. We have 250 languages 
and on many of them we have not invested a dime. We expect that the 
content is good and that they will develop in the same way as the bigger 
projects did. The issue is that there is no understanding of what is 
actually happening and we do not know if projects have not been high 
jacked by POV pushers. For the Belarus language this is certainly the 
case from a linguistic point of view.

There are other far more serious issues and we do not have the resources 
to deal with.
>
> Given that many people in Europe do not know Wikipedia, given that we
>   
>> have not really made an impact in Africa, Asia and South America I do
>> argue that we have not scratched the service of what we aim to do. The
>> fact that only the English Wikipedia has more than a million articles
>> proves to me that Wikipedia is still very much a rich man's game.
>>
>>     
>
> That's an interesting conclusion but hardly the only one that can be drawn.
>   
Well, I am probably more involved with other languages than you are.
>
> We do
>   
>> not have the organisational infrastructure to do well in many languages.
>>     
>
>
> I guess it depends on what you mean by "well".
>
> One thing to recognize is that Wikipedia is part of the Web -- if the reach
> of the Web in particular regions of the world is limited in certain ways,
> that will limit the effectiveness and growth of those language's Wikipedias.
>   
That ignores the fact that we DO have projects in 250 languages and that 
for all of them the Wikimedia Foundation has a responsibility. We do not 
know what the quality is of many of these projects and what risks we 
run. This is an issue, that will bite us sooner rather than later and it 
will cost us.
>
> The point is that we need much more money than we have.
>
>
> That's your argument. It's not prima facie true. We'd certainly *like* much
> more money, but need?
>
>
> The aim of the
>   
>> foundation is to bring information to everyone. We do not do as good a
>> job as we could. This is the argument that is not addressed when people
>> are rabidly against advertisements. Even when like in the Virgin Unite
>> case that organisation does not sell a thing. The problem I have with
>> this blanket anti add attitude is that it has little to do with our aims
>>     
>
>
> In your opinion. If, for example, you accept that ads influence people, then
> it's not too far to conclude that they unavoidably violate NPOV.
>   
I do not accept that ads influence people in the way you do. As long as 
we do not have advertisers influence our editorial process, there is 
little chance that is will violate our NPOV. By the way, the biggest 
problem in the way people consider things to be advertisements is that 
it prevents the WMF from partnering with organisations and be openly 
grateful. Partnering is not necessarily receiving money, partnering is 
collaborating and given the roles of the organisations in such a 
collaboration money may flow.

Thanks,
    GerardM