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

[Sarah]

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com> wrote:

> BTW that entire "rag tag group of amateurs doing something amazing",
> doesn't hold very true indefinitely  We were doing something amazing when
> we started, but we're really not amateurs anymore. The editing community is
> still isolated from some of the recent spending and support but it has only
> been increasing and increasing for the last decade. Look at the recent
> budgets, look at the spending, the chapter spending, the programs, the
> infrastructure- while its not as close to a typical top 10 nternet
> property, it's not exactly a rag tag bunch of amateurs either.
>
> The more people are paid, the more editors we lose (or the fewer we
attract), in part because they wonder why they're writing for free for an
organization that pays people to do other things.

So I agree with Doc James that it would be great if the focus on payment
could be reversed a little. Or else spread some money around the editing
community in ways that won't cause COI problems.

But as things stand, we ought to assume that the growth of the paid
bureaucracy and the shrinking of the volunteer editor community might be
connected.

Sarah