Le 05/12/2014 19:22, Michael Maggs a écrit :
Hi Nick
Over the last few years the Foundation has decisively moved away from
allowing local chapters to take part in the on-screen fundraiser,
preferring to centralise the work in spite of the loss of the
available local tax reliefs (such as Gift Aid in the UK). Many
chapters, including the UK, would have liked to have been part of the
fundraiser, but the previous ED, Sue Gardner, determined that that
would not be permitted. WMUK regretted that decision, and we
responded to it here:
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Open_letter_to_Sue_Gardner.
I wonder if Sue Gardner has worked more on anything than centralizing
the Wikimedia movement by various means and curtailing chapter growth
and capacity.
I also wonder if she was mandated to do that by the board or if she just
implemented her own views.
From this message of Ting Chen, it seems that it was her own will :-(
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-June/072405.html
"As some of you may remember that the years 2010 to 2012 [when he was
chair of the Wikimedia Foundation] were especially difficult years in
relationship between the Foundation and the chapters. The Foundation
experimented a few approaches and changed again and again its direction.
And the discussion about how to distribute the funds raised on our
projects had repeatedly kindled, sometimes very violent confrontations.
On one of the board meetings earlier of 2011 Sue said to the board that
she never considered this confrontation as a question of who wins. She
wanted a good and sound solution for the problems that are out there.
After the Haifa Wikimania the discussion became even hotter and
sometimes it really felt insulting. I always considered myself as a
person who is very ballanced and who can keep his tempel, but at that
point I must say that I was very unnerved by the dispute. We had our
board meeting in San Francisco and after that Sue asked me to stay for a
few days to give a speech on the All Hands Meeting of the staff. So one
evening we went out for a dinner together and naturally, the discussion
came back to the fund raising and fund dissemination topic. And I asked
Sue with a sigh:"Do you still think that it is not about who wins?" And
she said:"Yes, of cause not." "
Ting Chen seems to have believed her :-(
--
Mathias Damour
F-74000 Annecy