The limiting resource for Wikipedia is not money, but Wikipedians. I could
only with great difficulty imagine useful ways to spend the amount of money
that we do receive (mostly, increased support for the participation of
individual WPedians in the overall movement, and the provision of
intellectual resources). That we rely on individual people involves them
with us--I have known many people go from being readers to being donor and
then to contributors of content.
We need organizations to contribute also, and, similarly, what we need them
for is to contribute content, but in this case, we are talking about
contributing existing materials, not writing them. It is not asking them
for money will see them being more involved; rather, asking them for actual
intellectual resources which cost them nothing to donate --and which only
they can donate--will lead to continuing involvement, as they see the use
that people make of their contributions. Unlike money, there is no other
source for this material.
The most important contribution of WP is not the encyclopedia. The most
important contribution is the demonstration of the role of ordinary
individual involvement in activities that used to be done only by an elite,
or by formal organizations--that activity without formal coordination but
by cooperation can -- in at least some areas -- lead to results that not
only equal but surpass what academic and publishing and other cultural
bureaucracies can accomplish. The true benefit will come a people apply
this to other aspects of their life. To the extent that this is the true
benefit, everything that we need to do centrally detracts from our
mission. That we depend only on small individual contributions, and that
they come to us even with our minimal efforts, is our strength, not our
weakness.
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 2:17 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hoi,
You know, when the WMF is to be judged as an organisation, I would never
judge on a few incidents. I would judge it on its intrinsic value.
Personally and that is the highest level of commitment, personally I find
that we are doing a sterling job. Wikipedia is a top ten website in the
world. It runs it on an extremely low budget compared to other top ten
websites. This week a new WIkipedia is ready to become the next iteration
and as it is a rate occasion, it is a reason to celebrate. It is for the
talking heads to update their power points <grin> for me to make a power
point </grin>.
When people consider how well how well others do from our work. Do consider
that we are in the business of disseminating knowledge. When others make a
lot of money and we are still a top 10 website, we are doing extremely well
indeed. When others do well by us, and serve oodles of information, we are
a clear winner.
Our fundraising is great. It makes us lots of money and there are lots of
worthwhile things we can do with it. It is all part of the same relatively
low budget. We could do more. We choose to focus on Wikipedia. That is a
mistake but ok. We could do better as a result and not spend more money.
When we make more money, when we operate an endowment fund, it makes us an
investor. We should not invest in oil, guns ... we could invest in green
energy, it would offset the damage the Internet, our work, does through CO2
everywhere. It would show our responsibility now and for the future.
When we think that we have a PR disaster on our hand, do consider the
extend it is one of our own making.. Personally speaking I find the
continuous sniping a disgrace. So much time and effort is wasted because
shit happens. It does, get over it. Do better next time and the next time
is always more convoluted and impossible to achieve. Assume good faith,
expect that things go wrong, deal with it, clean up the mess and move on.
Do not continuously sing the refrain of what went wrong.
It truly makes us miserable.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 3 February 2016 at 18:38, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I have a couple of comments, mostly directed to
WMF, about fundraising
and
governance matters:
As a matter of good governance, I would not encourage WMF to be seeking
large external partners who do solid due-diligence about their grantees
until WMF demonstrates that it can complete an annual planning process
that
is aligned with the good practices already being
demonstrated by
affiliates
and aligned with the expectations of the FDC. I
feel that an external
partner who conducted a thorough evaluation of WMF's current annual plan
would find it to be mediocre at best and I question whether a large
institutional partner would be willing to invest six-figure or
seven-figure
sums in WMF given the state of WMF's current
annual plan. I am glad to
see
that WMF is in the process of addressing this
shortcoming, and I hope for
good outcomes this year.
Another issue that WMF needs to address is the state of its board. The
handling of the situation with respect to two board members (the removal
of
James for opaque reasons, Jimbo's
unprofessional comments about the
removal
of James, the appointment of Arnnon, and the
Board's apparent decision
not
to remove Arnnon even after learning of his role
in illegal activities)
demonstrates significant problems in the board, and if I had millions of
dollars to give in grants I surely would not entrust those funds to the
WMF
until there is a major overhaul of the board.
Also, if I was an
affiliate,
I would have a lot of questions about the wisdom
of fundraising on behalf
of WMF given the serious PR liability that WMF has become, and I tend to
think that at this time affiliates would be wise to put a considerable
distance between ourselves and WMF because of the PR and fundraising
collateral damage that we could receive from problems at WMF.
WMF needs to get its house in order.
Speaking in my personal capacity only,
Pine
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:23 AM, Sydney Poore <sydney.poore(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:02 AM, Dariusz
Jemielniak <darekj(a)alk.edu.pl
wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations
for
> > > applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter
> > > investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and
> their
> > > success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually
been
> > quite
> > > successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant
by
> I can also add that AFAIK the Foundation has never made the
> diversification of funds for chapters a hard rule. Rather, it
encouraged
> organizations to seek alternative funding,
when feasible. We have had
> historically cases of chapters that admitted they could relatively
easily
> get external support, but just have
preferred not to try to get it.
>
> All in all we should balance two things: (a) resources are finite. If
we
> > can easily get additional funding, especially in the Global North
> > countries, that's great! We'll have more to do core work in the areas
> > where it is not possible. (b) applying for external funding should
not
> > divert us from our main mission, and
should not make chapters jump
the
loops of insane bureaucracy, irrational strain of
effort, etc.
Speaking as a former member of the FDC and current member of Simple
Annual
> Plan grant committee, I agree with Dariusz but add that a good use of
> external resources can add more value than just the funded dollar
amount.
>
> Instead of speaking of "funding" we should substitute
"resources". By
> seeking out external resources, which is more than external grant
money,
> the wikimedia affiliates can build much
greater capacity in a
particular
> region or topic area (GLAM or STEM or
Healthcare.)
>
> >
> > I believe we have been relatively successful so far. However, I agree
> > that the Foundation perhaps is not using its full potential in
engaging
> > chapters in a dialogue how to
effectively address the local
supporters
(both individuals and on an institutional level). We
should use the
extensive network of committed organizations to our advantage.
It is key to the future of the wikimedia movement to identify
institutional
partners (big and small) who can advance the
wikimedia mission.
It is happening now with many affiliate organizations, and growing, but
it
> is not well documented or analysed yet. We need better analysis about
the
ways that
external partners are benefiting from their relationship with
the
> wikimedia movement and the wikimedia movement is benefiting from
> relationships with external partners.
>
> This needs to be a joint dialogue between WMF and the affiliated
> organizations including User Groups. I hope that people will join the
WMF
strategic
planning discussions and include their thoughts about
developing
external resources that can benefit the wikimedia
movement. Also, this
is a
topic for Wikimedia Conference in Berlin.
Warm regards,
Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedia in Residence
at Cochrane
WikiWomen's User Group
Wiki Project Med Foundation User Group
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