[Foundation-l] Bounties and expenses

Fri Jun 25 08:20:34 UTC 2004

--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> 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

My partner and I have driven all over the western part of the U.S. so I'm well
aware of travel times (Sacramento to Yellowstone in 17 hours, Sacramento to the
Grand Canyon in 14 - no problem at all when you have more than one driver). For
example, a single meeting in Northern California/Southern Oregon would cover
the entire western seaboard of the U.S. and much of the interior west. A few
more meetings would cover the rest of the nation. Part of the meet-up process
will be to carpool, expanding the range that any auto can cover in a day. 

> 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 why the defeatist attitude? Just because the Olympics can only be in one
nation every four years does not mean that rotating where it is held is a bad
idea (same thing for EVERY international organization that rotates where its
meetings are held). The foundation will persist for a very long time, giving
ample opportunity (4 times a year every year) for all regions of the world to
be covered. As with the Olympics, we could have competitions about where to
have the next meeting; chapters would have to demonstrate that they can secure
the facilities necessary to conduct the meeting and perhaps even help with the
travel expenses of the trustees. I foresee these meetings as opportunities to
energize the membership and act as launching pads for fund drives and special
projects. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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