[Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

[Liam Wyatt]

In the interest of creating *informed* discussion, please note the
publication of Episode 82 of Wikipedia Weekly - an interview with Matt
Halprin.

In this, at timecode 9:15 he is specifically asked about the issue of
the donation+board membership.

http://wikipediaweekly.org/2009/08/28/episode-82-matt-halprin-interview/


Best,
-Liam [[witty lama]]

On 8/28/09, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 8/27/09 6:43 PM, Birgitte SB wrote:
>> I agree. Inward facing communication has long been a problem for
>> WMF.
>> At times there have been board members that took more leadership in this
>> area regarding various issues, but I can't remember a time when this
>> hasn't been an issue. I think it is mostly a problem of WMF not setting
>> up the expectations accurately. In my personal opinion when
>> communicating with the community; surprises are bad. Even good surprises
>> are bad.
>
> Indeed, good surprises are *worse* than bad surprises, because the
> resulting confusion can taint how the community perceives a project,
> plan, or person introduced this way.
>
> Rest assured that we're talking internally about how we can improve
> coordination between the board, staff, communications team, and other
> key parts of the community on these sorts of decisions and
> announcements, and I hope we'll all be much better prepared for the next
> good surprise!
>
> We are still in the middle of our big annual conference, so please bear
> with us if we're a little slow and distracted in responding to
> everything just yet.
>
>>  Fulfilling expectations on the other hand is good. It seems to
>> be better received by the community when WMF fulfills a modest
>> expectation than when it reveals a wonderful surprise.
>
> Under promise, over deliver. :)
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
> CTO & Senior Software Architect, Wikimedia Foundation
>
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