On Nov 11, 2015 14:50, "Chris Keating" <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>>
>> uuh - i am not sure if one should open that can of worms. what is the
>> purpose of wikimania? is it to raise money? for sure not. there are
>> more intelligent ways to do that. is wikimania a business, i.e. the
>> organizer want to get as much money out of the conference as possible?
>> for sure not. there are other conference topics which are more
>> promising.
>
>
> If there is interest by participants to chip in on scholarships for
others to
attend, I'm not sure providing an outlet for that interest means
opening any cans, full of worms or other critters. It's an efficient
matching of donor interest to funding needed.
Quite! I can certainly see there being people (probably some Wikimedians)
who would
be interested in making a donation to help others (certainly
Wikimedians) to get to Wikimania. Much more interested than they are in
giving to WMF's general funds to pay for cups of coffee for developers. Of
course, this might result in very few donations and not be worth the
effort, but you don't know until you've tried it.
By contrast I'd guess that very few banner-campaign donors are interested
in
Wikimania at all.
Lol, Sebastian, I do not dare imagine these critters :-) I was just
imagining the number of persons using the registration page multiplied by
the amount I would be prepared to donate, considering when the money flows
in. Compared to the effort administering this.
Otoh my colleagues ask me every year how the money is spent and if they
should pay. I would answer hosting+Internet , software development and make
the volunteers meet, as knowing each other tends to create a much nicer
atmosphere which leads to more contributions. Chris, every single person I
met thought collecting for these items is a good idea. But I met a
significant number of persons who did think collecting outside the banner
is bad. The reasons were quite diverse, as were the various ways of money
taken in those persons had in mind.
My first and second question would be: how much money you expect? Why not
just ask to increase the budget for wikimania by this number writing one
mail?
Best,
Rupert