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

[Anders Wennersten]

A Trust that only could be used for elementary running of servers, would 
secure accesablity of content free of charge, independent of any strange 
action by WMF, The Board, the editor community or vandals.

The Trust should not own anything but a huge Fund, and how it will be 
legally incorporated or controlled I do not know, but it should be 
impossible for the money to be used for any other purpose, then the most 
basic operations of our infrastructure.

Anders




Nathan skrev 2013-03-15 16:48:
> Thanks Anders. Perhaps what I'm not understanding is what difference
> having a separate, distinct Trust would make to your nightmare
> scenario. Since the Wikimedia Trust that Nemo proposed wouldn't own or
> control any Wikimedia property (the websites, the servers, the
> trademarks), I'm still not really seeing why it would be better than
> just having the WMF raise an endowment fund of its own.
>
> If it's just about an unrelated organization keeping mirrors of WMF
> data, then anyone can do that and it certainly doesn't need to be a
> Wikimedia Trust - in fact, it's something better suited to
> crowdsourcing and existing philanthropic organizations.
>
> On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:26 AM, Anders Wennersten
> <mail at anderswennersten.se> wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
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