[Wikipedia-l] Plea for help

[Larry Sanger]

This is an unusual plea for help.  It's possible I'm going out of my
mind--I mean, I guess I don't think so, but sometimes it seems like it.
:-)

Occasionally in the past, controversy has erupted that has occupied
unfortunately large amounts of my time.  Sometimes the controversy is
definitely worth the time, but just as often it seems it isn't, not at
all.  Most recently, in the wake of my announcement that I am no longer a
paid employee, that I will still be working though as a volunteer, and
that we might (if we can) start selling ads and soliciting donations to
help pay for me once again, apparently some people reacted not by saying,
very kindly, "Oh, poor Larry, whatever will we do without him?" but
instead, "Huh?  There was a paid employee?  And they might sell ads?!
Someone was making money?!  This must be a greedy capitalist exploitative
project.  This shouldn't be!  We've got to do something about it!"

Well, I and sometimes Jimbo then spend a lot of time putting out fires.
In the present case, we inform the newcomers that, yes, I did do a few
useful things for the projects oh maybe occasionally; yes, the idea of
fees for viewing content is absolutely ludicrous and has never been
considered; yes, we *really, really are* committed to making and keeping
the content always completely free forever; and yes, we have been
considering making a nonprofit foundation for Wikipedia and Nupedia for a
long time now; it's mainly a matter of getting enough time to actually
start us formally down the road.  (We can start with a "OK now, we're
really going to do it, it's official, we're asking for pro bono legal help
to set it up" kind of announcement, but we don't want to do that until we
have the time to follow through properly.  "We" in this case mainly means
Jimbo.)

I think some people just sit back and enjoy the show, and figure that I
can hold my own well enough.

Well, er, not exactly.  I can, usually, if I spend the time.  But I don't
have the time anymore.  I literally *don't have the time* for this kind of
nonsense.  I've spent, I don't know, three hours so far today working on
various Wikipedia stuff, and it's not even 1 PM yet.  I should instead
have been, er, looking for a job, or a lot of other things my wife wants
me to do.  :-)

So, please, critics, have mercy--be gentle--and, non-critics, if you
support my cause and think you can supply the correct response to an
e-mail that, you can predict, I will want to have answered, please do
that.  Don't hold back waiting for me to do it.  I'll be very grateful.

Larry