Yaroslav,
You're correct in that most volunteers don't care directly. The problem is
that a lot of the BoT's recent difficulties have crossed the line from
"angry encyclopedia people venting on a mailing list" to "serious and
negative attention from the mainstream press". If there is too much of the
latter, it may create a perception amongst the general public than even if
Wikipedia is a useful resource, that it is incompetent with handling
money. As a result, donations dry up, and difficult and unpleasant choices
have to be made around budget.
So yes, this sort of thing can influence rank and file editors most
seriously, albeit indirectly.
Cheers,
Craig
On 19 February 2016 at 07:52, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru> wrote:
To be honest, most volunteers do not care. We understand of course that if
things would go really wrong, for example, servers stop running, or money
runs out and ads are introduced, or English Wikipedia admins continue
resigning/being desysopped without proper replacement, so that we have ten
active admins, then we are in serious trouble. But as far as things are
running quasi-normal, we just continue. I was making 50 to 100 edits per
day five years ago, I am making 50 to 100 edits per day now, I will
probably still be making 50 to 100 edits per day in five years, unless I
die or leave because of a serious demotivation - and this demotivation is
unlikely to be related to WMF. I think staff are way more vulnerable to all
kinds of events.