[Wikimedia-l] First Wikimedia-related contributor Kickstarter?

[Steven Walling]

On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> A post is live on Gizmodo today about a Commons contributor (Evan-Amos) who
> takes high quality photos of video game systems and hardware.[1] Towards
> the end it mentions that Evan started a Kickstarter to fund his efforts to
> buy and photograph more systems as part of an online museum.[2]
>
> Anyone know if this is the first Wikimedia-related Kickstarter campaign, or
> has it happened before? What do people think about someone raising ~$13k to
> contribute photos to Commons? How does that fit in the debate about paid
> editing? To me it has a very different feel than, say, Wiki-PR. But...
>
> [1]
>
> http://gizmodo.com/how-i-became-gamings-most-popular-and-anonymous-photog-1456749754
> [2]
>
> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1699256938/the-vanamo-online-game-museum
>

This guy is a free culture badass. :-)

I wish more Commons contributors could promote and support their work like
this. This project makes me think about other high quality photo
collections, such as the many featured pictures of vintage computers or
rocks and minerals. The list goes on and on.

Like others have hinted at, both chapters and the WMF can potentially give
out grants to support photography projects like this. I wonder if Evan knew
that or considered it? I'd love to hear feedback from him about why he felt
Kickstarter was fruitful, and how it compares to our large grants
infrastructure in the Wikimedia movement.