Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] WMF Legal Blog Post: WMF trademark practices for QR codes and wikitowns
I'm sorry Liam Wyatt, but I see you're talking about the WMF in this mail list... did you ask their permission for that? ^ ^ Please cease and desist. You can still talk about birds, though. Birds are nice. (please don't throw stones at the joker) Le 08/03/2013 22:46, Liam Wyatt a écrit : Thanks for posting a definitive answer on this topic - it is good to get clear instructions about this longstanding question, even if I don't personally agree with the outcome. However, I would like to take issue with part of this blogpost: will continue to allow nominativehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use, non-stylized use of the “Wikipedia” word mark My instinctive reaction to reading this was to write something sarcastic, but I respect Geoff to much for that. So, I'll say it directly: Please do not say, either overtly or by implication, that the WMF gives its permission for the community to use the word Wikipedia. Nobody needs to ask permission to write the name of an organisation or website so please don't say that you've been so kind as to give us permission to do so. The WMF does not allow us to use the word Wikipedia (or refuse it) anymore than Coca Cola allows or refuses me the right to use the word coke - especially when making truthful statements like scanning this QRcode will take you to Wikipedia. -Liam On Saturday, 9 March 2013, Rubina Kwon wrote: This morning, the WMF legal team posted a blog concerning trademark licensing practices going forward in the context of QR code projects and Wikitowns. Please go here http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/08/wmf-trademark-practices-for-qr-codes-and-wikitowns/ in order to view the post. -- Rubina Kwon Attorney Wikimedia Foundation 149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 rk...@wikimedia.org 415.839.6885 ext. 6794 (Office) 415.882.0495 (Fax) NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. For legal reasons, I may only serve as a legal intern for the Wikimedia Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Are chapters part of the community and board seats for affiliates?
Le 19/02/2013 11:23, Christophe Henner a écrit : I would even add that chapters should, and perhaps are, be key part of our community. Online communities tend to die slowly over the time. The main reason is that virtual bonds are much easier to forget than physical ones. I mean it's easier stop sending email to someone than stopping to see someone. I think Wikipedia gathered such a community because of an ideal, not of social bonds. Though parts of the community may form social, professional or political bonds, and thus perdure through these mechanisms, the cause sharing the knowledge should be the main raison d'être of the community. Thus, I disagree that Chapters should be considered the key part of the community: the cause should be the key part. In fact, if the cause ceases to be the highest priority, then the community will tend to die and only the institutions will tend to remain because of their own inertia and interests. I don't consider that a good thing per se since this tends to lead to sclerosis and a hollow structure with no other point than perpetuating itself, instead of pushing for the next needed accomplishments to collect and disseminate knowledge. Yes, chapter as such do not edit the projects directly. But does this mean they're not part of the community? I don't think so. They're a different part of the community, but still are a part of the community. Being part of the community doesn't allow to act on the name of the entire community. The gap between the community and the Chapters is significant enough to distinguish both, in particular for political and communicational matters. So should the Chapters seats be considered asa Community seats ? I'd say that the term is wrong. We have the editing community seats, the meta community seats and the appointed seats. Perhaps we should differentiate the two sides of the community. Why not distinguish the community seats from the Chapters seats with the terms community seats and Chapters seats? Using the word community in both cases may induce to believe that's it's the same community with two branches. But nothing guarantees that unity. By the way, what would you say Chapters actually are? Is it correct to say that they're an administrative organization financed by the WMF through Fund Dissemination Commitees? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member
Le 18/02/2013 20:35, Nathan a écrit : Cyrano - I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Board. It is self-perpetuating in every respect; the elections are advisory only, and the actual appointment of Board members is executed by the existing Board. The organization has no members, and no one who is not on the Board has any power or authority to exercise over the Board or the WMF. This merely describes the legal reality of the WMF and the Board. Nathan, you misunderstood me. We agree on the legal reality that you describe. I'm discussing two points: 1) community's majority is not guaranteed in the Board of Trustees, and 2) relying on paid third parties for the process of appointing one of the five expert seats is not neutral. Handling and filtering the candidates, and thus the list to choose from is a form of influence. Allowing such influence when you don't have the majority is a risk for the community. Le 19/02/2013 04:42, James Alexander a écrit : On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 11:14 PM, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote: I simply don't agree. a) Chapters are part of the community :-/ To be honest I don't particularly like this meme that the chapter are part of the community either. The chapters may be part of the community (and so the statement not false) but we use the phrasing in such a way as to say that they are more then they are. There may be a part of the community but they are really a very small part of it overall. Yes, in the best of cases, they are a tiny subset of the user and editor community with a strong bias towards political organization, administrative responsibilities, decision taking, vote collecting, power assuming. Maybe they're needed, I'm not discussing that, but they can't impersonate the community as if they were the community. Their voice is their own. They won't give up their two seats to the community because they're one with the community. They won't, and it means that they're different from the community, no matter how you try to think about this fact. They have their own agenda, which may coincide or not with the interests of the community at large. There's no guaranty of an alliance. There may be conflicts. Saying that the community has 5 seats is thus misleading. It has 3 seats. Saying that the community has an absolute majority guaranteed is simply false. Trying to analyze the Board of Trustees and its process with the belief that the community's interests are guaranteed is a mistake. Objectively, the Board of Trustees cannot guarantee a majority to the community. Its design makes it vulnerable to other influences, and possible schemes, alliances, power struggles and political moves. Maybe it's not bad, I don't know. I just think that things should be clear to the community, since they're the one being tricked by the words. My claim is that in a context of no majority guaranteed for the community, injecting third parties (which are layers of opacity) and money in the process of appointing new board members is a risk for the community. There is no guaranty that a third party understands or shares the values of the community; there is no guaranty that giving it influence over the candidatures for five seats will serve the cause of the community. That's a risk. I'm not to say if it should be taken or not, but we should be aware of that risk. It sounds reasonable to engage the scrutiny of the community when such risks are about to be taken. I would also like to underline that paying someone doesn't necessarily make things better done. A professional mercenary has skills, but doesn't necessarily share internally the cause of the community, or understand it, or even care to know it. In fact, giving money - or any other form of power - to someone to execute a task creates money-driven goals, which can be in conflict with the ideal-driven goals of the community. That's why in think that the more you rely on third parties or paid professional, the more you need to reinforce your control over them. The community's control through the Board of Trustees is too weak to guarantee its interests, too weak to relinquish power as it's currently done and planned. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member
I don't think it's about childish beliefs about evil. Money has a real influence, conflicts of interests are a real thing, and opacity at any stage allow abuses. It has been shown countless times in countless situations, empirically and scientifically, that people in power WILL use it to keep it, as much as they can. When an entity is using its influence to determine who will supervise it, it's a matter of keeping the power of self-determination. You may agree or not with this strategy, but there is no way to lift doubts about the fairness of such appointment and obtain a clean cut legitimacy from such premises. Cheers. Le 18/02/2013 09:52, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit : Hi Sounded like good intervention, thanks for reminding me :) Truth is of course that board Governance Committee is driving this process together with Gayle. That means that multiple community (s)elected board members are involved in the initial screening and that the whole board will be included in the final selection. This would also be a good opportunity to make a small point: not all external consultancy is evil :) As a community we tend to be naturally suspicious of people that get paid a lot of money for tasks that theoretically could also be done my the community… There is a good reason why we sometimes rely on paid external advisors, some of which were given by Gayle. m|Oppenheim in particular has been a great partner in WMF hiring with great results, and I hope that they can be as effective in this search (which we hope you can help out with by suggesting good candidates to them) Regards Jan-Bart On Feb 18, 2013, at 1:23 PM, Everton Zanella Alvarenga t...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi all. I would like to recommend to see the Brazil case where the recruitment of the coordinator of the Catalyst Project was done in partnership with the community http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/11/brazil-recruiting-and-partnership-with-the-community-moves-forward/ After the community noticed the mistake being done in hiring and expensive and useless headhunter, this was critized http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.brazil/161 and, fortunately, promptly listened by Wikimedia Foundation people in charge of the process. The community even had the idea of a more open and transparent process, where the candidates would engage in a wiki task - four finalists for the whole process engaged in such task. Also in the interview with two wikimedians, the 10 candidates could have a taste of what they would expect. :) We all saw the dozens of mistakes of this headhunters, that luckly were solved on time by the community, improving a lot the final results. Not saying the model shouldn't be adapted and improved, it must. And after all, no one better than locals to tell about their own community. Best, Tom On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hey Thanks! I am sure that Alice is grateful for the input. I must confess though that I think that most of these questions require a deep knowledge of the movement and the community and as such disqualify a lot of potential candidates… (I would hazard a guess that none of the past appointed candidates (including myself) were not able to answer 80% of these questions until about 6 months on the job. So are you proposing these questions to select new candidates or are you simply trying to get attention for these issues (as you have been doing over the past months… which is fair enough to some degree?) (and to be fair: at this point, with all the experience I have within the movement I would want to see most of these decisions researched before committing to a point of view) Jan-Bart On Feb 18, 2013, at 9:19 AM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: Jan-Bart de Vreede wrote: ... if you have questions that you think we should ask: feel free to suggest them here :) I have these ten questions: 1. What do you think a reasonable goal for the growth of the Wikimedia Education Program over the next five years is? 2. Do you believe that the Foundation should establish an endowment? If so, how large do you think such an endowment should be; in particular, should the Foundation establish an endowment large enough to subsist at present staffing levels and growth rates from current investment grade bond interest rates without accepting additional donations? If so, over how many years do you think it would be most appropriate to establish such an endowment? 3. How often do you think the Foundation should propose advocacy actions to the community? Do you believe the Foundation should survey the opinion of the community and donors on this question? 4. Should the Foundation meet or exceed Silicon Valley competitive pay to attract and retain the best talent while competing with firms able to offer equity participation? Do you believe the Foundation should survey the opinion of the community and donors on this question? Why or why
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member
Jan-Bart, can you be more specific? Cheers Le 18/02/2013 10:55, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit : Hey I seriously can't follow this, could you explain? Jan-Bart On Feb 18, 2013, at 2:11 PM, cyrano cyrano.faw...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think it's about childish beliefs about evil. Money has a real influence, conflicts of interests are a real thing, and opacity at any stage allow abuses. It has been shown countless times in countless situations, empirically and scientifically, that people in power WILL use it to keep it, as much as they can. When an entity is using its influence to determine who will supervise it, it's a matter of keeping the power of self-determination. You may agree or not with this strategy, but there is no way to lift doubts about the fairness of such appointment and obtain a clean cut legitimacy from such premises. Cheers. Le 18/02/2013 09:52, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit : Hi Sounded like good intervention, thanks for reminding me :) Truth is of course that board Governance Committee is driving this process together with Gayle. That means that multiple community (s)elected board members are involved in the initial screening and that the whole board will be included in the final selection. This would also be a good opportunity to make a small point: not all external consultancy is evil :) As a community we tend to be naturally suspicious of people that get paid a lot of money for tasks that theoretically could also be done my the community… There is a good reason why we sometimes rely on paid external advisors, some of which were given by Gayle. m|Oppenheim in particular has been a great partner in WMF hiring with great results, and I hope that they can be as effective in this search (which we hope you can help out with by suggesting good candidates to them) Regards Jan-Bart ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member
To ensure a representation of the interests of the community, the determination of a new Board Trustee cannot be influenced by the people within the Board Trustee (and even less by the WMF itself). Otherwise, it would boil down to a disguised form of cooptation. Cooptation is a way to absorb new elements into a structure without threatening it, which is good for stability, but bad if changes or trust are needed. In particular, if the community differs from what the WMF or the Board of Trustees are doing, cooptation cannot repair the divergence. In fact, it tends to aggravate it. Now, if the Board of Trustees sets requirements, or pays the people who will recommend the candidates, it immediately breaks the guaranty that there is something else than people in power keeping their power structure intact. It doesn't mean it is happening, but it can't guaranty it's not, which defeats the point of having Trustees. That's why, even if you agree with the strategy behind the current proposal and its advantages, you should be aware that it decreases the legitimacy of the governance structure to the eyes of the community. Personally, I think the main function of the Board of Trustees should be to increase the trust of the community, thanks to a rigorous and transparent scrutiny of its internal processes. Le 18/02/2013 14:14, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit : yes: this bit: I don't think it's about childish beliefs about evil. Money has a real influence, conflicts of interests are a real thing, and opacity at any stage allow abuses. It has been shown countless times in countless situations, empirically and scientifically, that people in power WILL use it to keep it, as much as they can. When an entity is using its influence to determine who will supervise it, it's a matter of keeping the power of self-determination. You may agree or not with this strategy, but there is no way to lift doubts about the fairness of such appointment and obtain a clean cut legitimacy from such premises. I don't understand what you are trying to say or imply? Jan-Bart On Feb 18, 2013, at 3:30 PM, cyrano cyrano.faw...@gmail.com wrote: Jan-Bart, can you be more specific? Cheers Le 18/02/2013 10:55, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit : Hey I seriously can't follow this, could you explain? Jan-Bart On Feb 18, 2013, at 2:11 PM, cyrano cyrano.faw...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think it's about childish beliefs about evil. Money has a real influence, conflicts of interests are a real thing, and opacity at any stage allow abuses. It has been shown countless times in countless situations, empirically and scientifically, that people in power WILL use it to keep it, as much as they can. When an entity is using its influence to determine who will supervise it, it's a matter of keeping the power of self-determination. You may agree or not with this strategy, but there is no way to lift doubts about the fairness of such appointment and obtain a clean cut legitimacy from such premises. Cheers. Le 18/02/2013 09:52, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit : Hi Sounded like good intervention, thanks for reminding me :) Truth is of course that board Governance Committee is driving this process together with Gayle. That means that multiple community (s)elected board members are involved in the initial screening and that the whole board will be included in the final selection. This would also be a good opportunity to make a small point: not all external consultancy is evil :) As a community we tend to be naturally suspicious of people that get paid a lot of money for tasks that theoretically could also be done my the community… There is a good reason why we sometimes rely on paid external advisors, some of which were given by Gayle. m|Oppenheim in particular has been a great partner in WMF hiring with great results, and I hope that they can be as effective in this search (which we hope you can help out with by suggesting good candidates to them) Regards Jan-Bart ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member
Le 18/02/2013 17:09, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit : Hi On Feb 18, 2013, at 8:52 PM, cyrano cyrano.faw...@gmail.com wrote: To ensure a representation of the interests of the community, the determination of a new Board Trustee cannot be influenced by the people within the Board Trustee (and even less by the WMF itself). Otherwise, it would boil down to a disguised form of cooptation. Cooptation is a way to absorb new elements into a structure without threatening it, which is good for stability, but bad if changes or trust are needed. In particular, if the community differs from what the WMF or the Board of Trustees are doing, cooptation cannot repair the divergence. In fact, it tends to aggravate it. But it wasn't intended to repair any possible divergence, this is what the five community (s)elected seats are for… Do you mean three seats? Two seats are for Chapters. Chapters are not the community. Their interests may diverge from the community, in particular in the cases of power struggles or funds allocation. Three seats out of ten cannot guaranty that the governance of the WMF will respect the values and intention of the community. if there is a divergence you can (s)elect different people for those five seats. The appointed seats are intended to help add specific skills/expertise to the board to make sure that it can perform its governance tasks effectively…. Now, if the Board of Trustees sets requirements, or pays the people who will recommend the candidates, it immediately breaks the guaranty that there is something else than people in power keeping their power structure intact. It doesn't mean it is happening, but it can't guaranty it's not, which defeats the point of having Trustees. Simply don't agree with that reasoning. The point of trustees it to provide governance and direction to the WMF. Of course they must provide governance and direction, but with the greater priority of representing the values of the community, in order to deserve the alleged trust. If you cannot trust them to select the right people, how can you trust them to do anything? Exactly my point. That's why, even if you agree with the strategy behind the current proposal and its advantages, you should be aware that it decreases the legitimacy of the governance structure to the eyes of the community. I don't think it does, or should. If it does then I think its worth explaining (like I have hopefully done above) Yes, it's worth explaining. Personally, I think the main function of the Board of Trustees should be to increase the trust of the community, thanks to a rigorous and transparent scrutiny of its internal processes. I, and most of the non-profit world (not to mention the law ;) respectfully disagree and would argue that the main function of any board of trustees is more governance related. You should not leave the community out the equation. I agree that the internal function of the Board of Trustees is governance related. But from the community's perspective, WMF should not exist by itself and for itself, and that's why there are trustees: to *guaranty *that the main reason of its existence is something else that getting money, prestige or any other personal leverage. That's where the trust comes from. WMF exists to empower the community and its cause, and all the governance's decisions are subsumed by this principle. For a good summary of what our Board of Trustees' function is I would refer you to: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_board_manual#Roles_and_responsibilities Thank you for the link. I understand now why you think that five seats belong to the community, the article is twice misleading: by saying that Chapters ARE the community, and by saying that five out of ten is a majority. Cheers ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] compromise?
Le 29/12/2012 22:14, Leslie Carr a écrit : On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 5:09 PM, cyrano cyrano.faw...@gmail.com wrote: Le 29/12/2012 17:01, Leslie Carr a écrit : I knew that I wouldn't be getting bonuses, stock options, massages, breakfast, lunch, dinner, baristas, onsite personal trainers, onsite physical therapists, haircuts, dentists, business class everywhere (that might have been the hardest thing to give up!), nutritionists, aeron chairs, dry cleaning, laundry, and all that. And you know what -- if I did get those things, I have a feeling that it wouldn't look too good to our donors, and we'd be having the exact opposite discussion. Plus, I can make my own coffee. You're comparing your standard of living with extreme ways of life, and you reach the conclusion that yours is moderate. However, if you compare with the rest of mankind, you're still getting things that 99% of them don't get. Cheers and happy new year! ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] compromise?
Le 02/01/2013 18:42, Oliver Keyes a écrit : On 2 January 2013 19:25, cyrano cyrano.faw...@gmail.com wrote: You're comparing your standard of living with extreme ways of life, and you reach the conclusion that yours is moderate. However, if you compare with the rest of mankind, you're still getting things that 99% of them don't get. I think that's probably true, but the fact of the matter is that Leslie is not saying here is an extremity, I get less - she's saying here is an extremity that is Standard Operating Procedure at Facebook/Google/Twitter//insertyourorgofchoice, where almost any of us could get a job...I get less. In the context of a conversation comparing WMF benefits with those of similar orgs in the Bay Area that makes total sense as a statement. I would agree that it is better than 99 percent of humanity, but I'm not sure who *dis*agrees with that statement: you appear to be arguing against a position that hasn't been made. I'm proud of people like Leslie who work for less money than other opportunities but for a cause. They stand for their beliefs and their values, I strongly respect that. Yet the money of the donations, which is given for a universal cause, is paying an incredibly tiny subset of humanity with very expensive standards of life. I think that's something pertinent to consider given the topic. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] compromise?
Le 29/12/2012 17:01, Leslie Carr a écrit : On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 1:45 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: How about for the April fundraiser, instead of setting a dollar value goal, we agree to use multivariate analysis instead of A/B testing to optimize the messaging from volunteer submissions in advance, then run the whole thing for a fixed time frame, say three weeks, and then use the actual amount raised to decide whether salaries should be competitive with area tech firms, I've bit my tongue at this a bunch of times but I need to finally put my foot down. Which tech employees are saying that we need our salaries to be at Bay Area tech standards. Sure, I'd love a big raise (I'm greedy!). I took a pay cut to come work at the Foundation. However, I'm not starving, I'm not living in the ghetto with 20 people huddled into a single room, and most importantly, I knew what my salary was going to be when I joined the foundation. I knew that I wouldn't be getting bonuses, stock options, massages, breakfast, lunch, dinner, baristas, onsite personal trainers, onsite physical therapists, haircuts, dentists, business class everywhere (that might have been the hardest thing to give up!), nutritionists, aeron chairs, dry cleaning, laundry, and all that. And you know what -- if I did get those things, I have a feeling that it wouldn't look too good to our donors, and we'd be having the exact opposite discussion. Plus, I can make my own coffee. So is this document, which states otherwise, obsolete? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/2a/Wikimedia_Foundation_Compensation_Practices.pdf Some quotes: annually in July, staff are eligible for a merit increase. The Wikimedia Foundation offers a benefits package for all staff, which includes medical, dental, vision and life insurance. small services are provided such as coffee and soda. Food is occasionally also provided for working lunches or dinners, at the supervisors' discretion. In-office massage is provided monthly at a discounted rate. once a month a staff lunch is provided. Once a quarter, a staff outing is staged. Once a year, there is a holiday party. staff are encouraged to work with their supervisors to plan for their professional development, which might include attending a professional conference, taking a course, or working with a coach. All spending on professional development is approved in advance by the supervisor. the Wikimedia Foundation intends to launch a wellness program , in which staff will be reimbursed, within a set monthly limit, for expenses related to personal health and wellness. These might include for example the costs of counselling services, massage, yoga classes, or gym memberships. Possibilities may include for example tuition reimbursements and the creation of a sabbatical program. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
Le 27/12/2012 21:34, Thomas Dalton a écrit : On Dec 27, 2012 10:50 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: this is the most current iteration of a type of thread that I find contributes a great deal of stress to my work here. There are a number of assumptions that strike me as bad faith and many of them are targeted at people I work with (some of them I consider friends), so it is very difficult for me to read this I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone could think my proposal that the salaries of Foundation employees be increased so that none of them are less than 50% of the top executive salary is made in bad faith or targeted towards anyone. I suspect the assumption of bad faith is because he doesn't believe anyone could genuinely propose such a ridiculously bad idea. When limits on such ratios are discussed the usual figure I hear is a limit of 10%. 50% is completely unrealistic. Either you would have to massively overpay your junior staff (wasting donor's money) or you wouldn't be any to attract any experienced senior staff. Hello Thomas, are you saying that NOBODY can and will do a good job for five times less money? There are extremely talented people in the third world, and extremely passionated people in the first world, that may accept such a pay. I'm dubious about your statement. Cheers. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
Le 27/12/2012 22:12, Thomas Dalton a écrit : Well, I suppose any is a bit of an exaggeration. It would be extremely difficult though. Why would someone from the third world come to San Francisco and accept a salary 5 times lower than they could get at a similar organisation ? I don't understand how it matters, Why. His or her reasons are his or her owns. Though I never met to imply that he or her should work in one of the most expensive places of Earth. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser causing confusion
Le 28/11/2012 11:54, Thomas Dalton a écrit : On 28 November 2012 14:41, Charles Andrès charles.and...@wikimedia.ch wrote: In fact we haven't seen the link before but we had the same in Switzerland, it seems that in a way people complain about the traditional banners that are to intrusive, but in the other hand they are more suspicious and have doubt about banners that are not the same than previous year! This happens every year - there are always people concerned that we've been hacked, or that they have a virus, or that there is some kind of phishing attack going on. I expect the only way to avoid that would be to have the banners up continuously 365 days a year, so people are used to them just being part of the site - as long as people are used to there being no banner ads on Wikipedia, the sudden appearance of them will confuse some people. As Philippe says, I would expect there to be an OTRS template from previous years to explain what is going on. Non-informed people have an image of Wikipedia run by volunteers. So it's surprising for them to suddenly see people asking for millions for unknown costs and purposes. It really looks like a hack. They just don't know if it's a legitimate hack or not. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser causing confusion
Le 28/11/2012 12:24, Thomas Dalton a écrit : On Nov 28, 2012 3:06 PM, cyrano cyrano.faw...@gmail.com wrote: Non-informed people have an image of Wikipedia run by volunteers. Do they? In that case, we've been really successful. It used to be that the first thing we had to do before we could get someone to donate was explain to them that we're not a massive multinational company making billions of dollars of profits. Which is completely normal. An image of volunteers building a great project for a great cause was constantly set up in every single communication, during years. So that's what uninformed people would believe. But, from the moment someone asks for money, it contradicts the image of a project run by the sheer efforts of volunteers. This money will end in the pocket of persons, , they think, who are thus not doing it because it's a great cause but because they're paid. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser causing confusion
Le 28/11/2012 12:43, Thomas Dalton a écrit : It is perfectly normal for a charity to make heavy use of volunteers and still need money as well. I assume that by 'normal' you mean 'common', and by 'needing money' you mean 'asking for money'? Otherwise it would lead to an entirely different scope of debate. Anyway, I'm just pointing out that blurring the focus about money most of the time and suddenly having an intense campaign asking for dozens of millions creates a discrepancy. Le 28/11/2012 12:58, Victor Grigas a écrit : If users are confused, feel free to share this video with them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knv6D6Thi0sns=em I designed it to explain a lot of how Wikipedia works (donations and all) in a short amount if time, and assuage anxieties about getting involved as an editor. Very nice video!, with a heavy focus on the volunteers who are working for free, for a cause, that's it's a non-profit company, that Jimmy Wales don't take a salary or expenses. People will think this is not about money at all. In fact, about how much money will end up in whose pockets, we just know that it's for the Foundation team. This communication is aimed to build trust and collect money and is doing a great job to keep people unaware of what happens to the money. That's what I was talking about. When people become aware there *is* a strong want for money, their image of Wikipedia and siblings will prove inadequate to the reality, thus shattering their beliefs to some degree, and leading to confusion. But hey, that's the problem with any form of communication that applies a filter to reality. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Declaring my candidacy
Le 10/07/2012 11:23, Samuel Klein a écrit : I don't think we were... Theo, I'm not sure what board you are talking about here :-) I'm baffled by the opacity of the administrative situation which makes it difficult even for high level, experienced and even specialized brains to manage to talk just ABOUT it. :-) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
