tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33573016.post5307328843416655724..comments2024-02-11T02:24:22.330-06:00Comments on Nonbovine Ruminations: The Foundation's budgetAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04107127399494404366noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33573016.post-78455444528131250612008-03-28T13:32:00.000-05:002008-03-28T13:32:00.000-05:00Odd that they lump the cost of salaries in with op...Odd that they lump the cost of salaries in with operational "technology" expenses like bandwidth and servers. Unbundle this, and we may well find that less than half the $4.6 million budget is earmarked for servers and bandwidth, with the rest eaten up by overhead: travel, office expenses, salaries, California relocation, self-promotion, consultants' fees, Wikimania[tm] convention expenses and $55,000 worth of board meetings.<BR/><BR/>One point on which I'm very unsure is the ramifications of using individual local chapters to get tax-exempt status in various other countries. Effectively, these would operate as « prête-nom » or sockpuppet entities to meet requirements that a tax-exempt charity have local structures and an accountable organisation in those countries. However, if spending is out of control at WMF, couldn't the nominal operators of any of the local chapters created to funnel donations from abroad be potentially open for big liability under their home country's tax law?<BR/><BR/>Even if WMF (and the Chapters Committee) do manage to micro-manage the local chapters from stateside ("no, thou shalt not include a maple leaf in the proposed WMF Canada guidelines... thou has offended the mighty Visual Identity Guideline... be damned...") the names of locals are still going to be on those respective national chapter boards, as that's a requirement to get registration as a non-profit in all these countries.<BR/><BR/>I would not want to be on the board of Wikimedia Porchesia or whatever sock-puppet local foundation operates to collect for WMF abroad if the questionable "let's travel the world, and bill it to Wikimedia" junkets continue. The local chapters have little or no say in anything, but those who lend their names to get the local tax-exempt non-profit status may find that they are liable or at least legally accountable for every penny collected through their chapters.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33573016.post-3268818456119936502007-12-20T08:21:00.000-06:002007-12-20T08:21:00.000-06:00Kelly you said "publishing Wikipedia"! How dare y...Kelly you said "publishing Wikipedia"! How dare you?! You're going to bring up all kinds of Section 230 questions, talking that way. You rabble-rouser.<BR/><BR/>As for Commenter #2 saying it will just "take time" for people to realize that Wikipedia isn't a scam related to Wikia... Erm, I think the more time we allow, the more people realize it is in fact a corporate sellout scam. Wikipedia serves up 150,000 links to Amazon.com and its subsidiary IMDB.com. Amazon invested $10 million in Wikia. You do the math.Gregory Kohshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17207068772106028805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33573016.post-80600050218833531472007-12-20T08:15:00.000-06:002007-12-20T08:15:00.000-06:00"And it still needs to develop a stable, coherent ...<I>"And it still needs to develop a stable, coherent system of community-based governance."</I><BR/><BR/>After 6 years, one would think that a functional model of community self-regulation would have emerged.<BR/><BR/>But Wikipedia appears to be run much the same way King John ran his corrupt regime just prior to the advent of the Magna Carta.<BR/><BR/>Whether the admins will reprise the historical model of the Barons vs King John remains to be seen.<BR/><BR/>Frankly, my hopes for any kind of enlightened advance in Jimbo's governance model is dwindling.Moultonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14800784950094043498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33573016.post-80832266753297479122007-12-19T19:14:00.000-06:002007-12-19T19:14:00.000-06:00Indeed, sometimes you have to spend money to get m...Indeed, sometimes you have to spend money to get money. But there is a name for when you spend more money than you have: Bankruptcy.<BR/><BR/>As far as I can tell, Wikipedia does not have savings. Nor does it have substantial assets that it can sell off without shutting down, unless you consider its soul to be something the world could accept it selling.<BR/><BR/>Kelly's post is making several important points. (1) Things aren't bad, the Foundation has brought in what it's always brought in. (2) What it brought in isn't just more than enough to keep things going in limp-mode, it is enough to keep things going as they have been .. pretty well. (3) But it hasn't brought in enough to do anything astonishingly expensive, like hire a bunch of high price tag people.<BR/><BR/>What she didn't say directly but what should be obvious, is that the foundation has not yet managed to improve its fund raising, at all, and much less to the extent needed for the sorts of grand visions that it is floating now.<BR/><BR/>These things take time, and I have complete confidence that they will get there eventually. The world wants and needs their product, after all.<BR/><BR/>I think that Mr. Wales needs to remember that no matter what his high flying business buddies at Wikia say, the entire world does not all run on Internet time. A few months ago I thought that wales had *already* sold Wikipedia out, because I was confused about his Wikia company. The news gets it wrong a lot of the time and these sort of issues take a while to settle down in the minds of the public, so it may be several years before Wikipedia reaches its full fund raising potential.<BR/><BR/>Since Wikipedia is powered by the love of the world, and not the blood money of investors and advertisers, it has the time to grow into its shoes.<BR/><BR/>And since Wikipedia is probably viewed by a hundred thousand people every day it shouldn't take much more polish to really bring in the donations once the public realizes it's not some corporate sellout scam.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the thoughtful post Kelly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33573016.post-67043252793721021492007-12-19T18:56:00.000-06:002007-12-19T18:56:00.000-06:00Sometimes you have to spend money to get money. Th...Sometimes you have to spend money to get money. The Foundation most needs a well-run, professional staff overseen by a more experienced board that's a mix of dedicated Wikipedia types (like the current board) but also heavy hitters: university presidents, corporate CEOs, perhaps someone like the former Librarian of Congress.<BR/><BR/>With internal financial controls, a responsible board and a competent professional staff, major foundations would be happy to give <I>large</I> amounts of money to to the Foundation.<BR/><BR/>A town of 25,000 people raises $>1 million in donations to build a church or a library. $1 million should be chicken feed for an undertaking as ambitious as Wikipedia. But so far, that hasn't been true for several internal reasons that I'll let others pick apart.<BR/><BR/>The move to San Francisco, while expensive, is a good idea, putting the Foundation in the middle of the world's biggest high tech talent pool -- and the most likely set of sugar daddies.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com