[Foundation-l] Re: NEH grant

Fri Jul 9 00:12:07 UTC 2004

Christopher Mahan wrote:
> I too wish to express my misgivings at getting the grant. There's
> always strings attached, and targets have to be met, and so on. Who's
> gonna run it? Who's gonna keep track of the money, the milestones,
> etc...
> 
> I would rather mav publish a monthly budget and post that to the
> front page, like this:
> 
> This month, we need $4000 to meet expenses. So far, users have
> contributed $2800. Thank you!
> 
> If budget is met, then you write: 
> 
> This month's budget has been met. Thank you!
> 
> 
> It needs to be updated daily.

I strongly disagree with this.
A budget is not something you balance week per week or even month per 
month. We must plan it. In advance. A budget is something you have to 
organise, to take into account structural needs, contingencies, and see 
how to best use the remaining.

This month, we will spent about 12000 dollars in hardware. I think the 
best way is to have this money available in advance, and plan spending 
it on time. Not to call for donations during two weeks, then wait 2 
weekds for shipping.

I also am not very motivated by the idea of asking money all the time. 
That is just showing we do not manage well our funds.
I think it much more positive that we make a call for donation just a 
couple of time a year, that donations are set in such a way that they 
can be monthly donation, and that the call for donation is made in 
parallele to a nice press release.

> I think we can raise more money that way than through grants

> Furtehrmore, once grant moeny starts rolling in, users will be able
> to say: they're funded by grant money, so I'll not contribute.

But asking money all the time will make them think we are heavy, and do 
not know how to manage money.

------

Okay, donations is one way to raise money, and we should use it.
It is best that donations calls are made during a special event, when we 
can see we are just great.

In about 2 to 3 months, Wikipedia will be 1 000 000 articles.
This is a very serious milestone.
We should at this occasion make a third global press release (this is a 
global milestone).

This press release should focus on hardware and software issues and 
needs. In short "We have reached an amazing size, but this amazing size 
requires a lot of technical resources to go on working. Please help us".
We should focus in particular on potential technical help, and send it 
to any hardware magazine (without forgetting more general networks of 
course).

2 months will be there very soon.
I suggest that we start working on that press release very soon.

Part of it could be quite general (and this part could be sent to 
general networks), but a good deal of it should insist on our current 
technical situation. In short, what we are using, how we are organised 
for maintenance, what is needed in terms of software developement, which 
skills would be most needed, what hardware could help etc...

It would be nice to add to the general part, information such as 
relevant figures or evolution graphs, so that people can gap in amazement

* number of hits per day
* number of pages visited per day
* number of contributors
* size of the database across the ages (well...)
* part of the different wikipedias compared to the whole project
* etc...

Have these all automatically generated as small graphs in as many 
languages as possible in one new statistical page. Then, any press 
release can use them (include them) in the press release. There are few 
things less meaningful than a nice graph.

When we reach the 1 000 000, we send the press release. And put up the 
donation banner, plus links for anyone willing to bring help in more 
"physical" manner.