[Foundation-l] Bounties and expenses

Thu Jun 24 06:14:43 UTC 2004

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>>How are they going to come to the users?  Are they going to have 
>>thousands of meetings?  It would take about 5-10 meetings in the US 
>>alone to come within range of a decent majority of users, another 10-15 
>>in Europe, 5-10 in Asia, and so on.
>>    
>>
>
>Individual users would travel to the meetings. A day of driving or on a train
>can cover a large geographic area. Other international groups also rotate where
>they meet in order to cover as much of the world as possible. But creating
>these kind of ties is needed for the long-term survival of the foundation. 
>  
>
I'm not sure you realize how big the world is---a day of driving or on a 
train covers a miniscule fraction of the world.  Covering even 80% of 
Wikimedians within a day's train or car distance would require on the 
order of hundreds of meetings.  In the US alone, it would require 
meetings in:
* Some city in the northeast (Boston, NYC, etc.)
* Seattle
* Chicago
* One of San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego
* Phoenix
* One of Houston, Austin, or Dallas
* Atlanta
* Denver
* Somewhere in Florida

Of course we would also need meetings in Canada, 2-3 countries in 
northern europe, 2-3 countries in eastern and southern europe, Korea, 
the PRC (at least a few cities), the ROC, Singapore, South Africa, 
Israel, Turkey, Russia (probably multiple cities), Egypt, Brazil, 
Argentina, Australia ... and those are just a bare-bones start.

So I really don't see how regular meetings with a significant portion of 
the membership could possibly be a feasible option even in the long 
term, unless perhaps suddenly plane flight becomes dirt-cheap, or 
Wikimedia becomes willing to fund travel of ordinary users to the meetings.

-Mark