Just as you say. No threat to WMF if they don’t care about retaining the editing community. If all else fails thy could just sell advertising Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Tim Landscheidt Sent: Saturday, 02 January 2016 8:16 AM To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement about changes to the Board "Peter Southwood" <peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote: > I agree. > The situation may well be metastable, in that the WMF may get away > with alienating the crowd for a long time, until it reaches a tipping > point, when the reaction becomes catastrophic and non-reversible. At > which point there will be a large number of people who will say they > told them so, but it may well be too late to reassemble the debris. > Something will survive , but maybe not Wikipedia as we know it. How > far we are from the tipping point is anybody's guess. At present the > vast majority of the crowd are probably totally unaware of the > problems, but I personally would not bet the survival of Wikipedia > against them staying and continuing to produce for free if there was a > major walkout by the volunteers who currently keep the show on the > road. Will the level of donations remain viable if the general public > witnesses a meltdown? Would you bet on it? > […] That is irrelevant for threatening WMF. If at some point in time WMF would no longer raise enough funds, its staff would just have to pick new jobs somewhere else (just like all other employees do in a similar situation). Working at WMF probably has some amenities, but noone bases their decisions on fears that as an effect their contract might be termi- nated in ten or twenty years. Even less so do trustees plan that they can replace their summer holiday with a trip to Wikimania till eternity. And it's also irrelevant for writing an online encyclopedia. You don't need the current level of funding as only a frac- tion actually goes to expenditures necessary for /that/, and if you have viewers, you will have (more than sufficient) donations. So while a reaction may be "catastrophic and non-re- versible", if the possible effect is a minor nuisance at worst, then it cannot be a motivating factor. Tim _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2016.0.7294 / Virus Database: 4489/11302 - Release Date: 01/01/16 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
