[Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009-

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
You are doing it again. You insist that for them being Wikimedians they must
share the same values the same culture as you do... It must be true because
you insist on it. Somehow I do not buy it.
thanks,
    GerardM

2009/9/11 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>

> 2009/9/11 Philippe Beaudette <pbeaudette at wikimedia.org>:
> >
> > On Sep 11, 2009, at 9:13 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> >
> >> We're not talking about culture, we are talking about lunch. They are
> >> human beings, the same as we are, they have the same needs when it
> >> comes to food.
> >
> >
> > This, in fact, is one of the great fallacies of international
> > organizations.  Failure to notice and work within the context of
> > cultural norms condemns an organization very quickly.  In Italy, I was
> > far more likely to take business partners to long elaborate meals than
> > I would be in California.  Please, can we at least acknowledge that
> > it's not as simplistic as you present it here?
>
> It is that simple. If we were talking about having lunch with people
> outside the Wikimedia movement, it would be different because we have
> to comply with what they expect. We can expect people within the
> Wikimedia movement to change their expectations to fit what is best
> for the movement. It is not best for the movement to be spending money
> of their lunch when they are perfectly capable of getting their own
> lunch (as evidenced by the fact that they would be eating if they
> didn't go to the meeting). Either buying Wikimedian's lunch is a good
> use of money, or it isn't, culture doesn't factor into it.
>
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