[Wikimedia-l] Setting up a Wikimedia Trust (was: Endowment)

[Anders Wennersten]

Nathan skrev 2013-03-15 15:24:
> no tangible
> benefit to separating a "Trust" from the actual ownership and
> management of the Wikimedia projects. I read the meta page, but don't
> see an outline of why this would be a good idea.
>
> ~Nathan

 From an operative point of view it is no big difference it is all money 
donated to WMF for the benefit of our infrastructure

But for me as an active editor it would make a huge difference and ease 
concerns that is growing

I have by now spend some 4000-5000 hours creating the same number of 
articles of historical adm units in Sweden. They are appreciated and 
read and include facts from up to 20 sources, some of these sources now 
hard to access, so the set of articles now are the best and most 
qualified source about of these units that exist and I am proud of their 
quality.

But now created, I am getting concerned that they will not be 
lost/destroyed over time. I certainly do not want my articles in 30 year 
time to be included in a package from WMF to sell Wikipedia to the then 
merged Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Apple company. And if there are no 
active editors, WMF staff/fundraising in 40 years time, I am still 
concerned my articles should be accessible by that time. (if no active 
editors, we can stop updating functionality and work with a small set of 
Wikipedia Guardian who handle the acute maintenance of content)

With a Trust I can feel assured none of my nightmare scenarios will 
occur, and that my articles is still accessible free of charge in 60 
years of time, independent on changes in the world around our projects.

And for me this make a difffernce and I would be more happy put in even 
more time creating content, and would aslo be interested in supporting 
this Trust, say in my will (which I would not do for the funding for 
day-to day business)

Anders