[Wikimedia-l] Strange, surprising, bold and unnecessary - reply to the WMF board statement

[Thomas Dalton]

On 6 February 2013 23:31, James Heilman <jmh649 at gmail.com> wrote:
> "The WCA is lead by the council, who are all volunteers. They will be
> supported by staff, but the council are in charge."
>
> I would love to have my Wikipedia work supported by staff too.

It is... who do you think keeps the servers you use running?

> Who is
> paying for said staff? How much are they projected to cost? In fact I
> would simply like some of the travel costs and accommodations for
> those involved in my Wikipedia projects covered. I am happy to cover
> my own costs.

There are plenty of grants programmes operated by the WMF and chapters
that will fund travel and accommodation for Wikimedians. Go ahead and
apply...

As for who will pay for the WCA staff, that is very much up in the air
at the moment... it was thought they might be funded through the FDC,
but that seems unlikely now. So I guess the funds will come from the
chapters in some way or another.

> We have a second draft budget here
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Draft_budget_2012-2013
> at more than $300,000

That is also not an approved budget and, from what I can tell, is just
the idea of one person and is not intended to be representative of the
views of the council. It's been sitting there for 6 months without
having been approved, so I think you can interpret that as implicitly
rejected.