[Foundation-l] Re: Grants -- a proposal

Sun Jun 19 16:21:06 UTC 2005

Anthere wrote:
> 
> 
> Angela a écrit:
...
>> Isn't there a danger of this leading to huge resources for the English
>> Wikipedia and not enough for the rest of the projects and languages
>> simply because more people visit that and therefore decide to put all
>> their donations towards that project rather than the Foundation's
>> wider goals?
> 
> 
> I do not think so. By projects, it does not mean "money for english
> wikipedia" or "money for the japanese wiktionary", but rather "money for
> the ultimate wiktionary", "money for wikimania", "money for bambara
> development", "money for a wikijunior set" etc...

If the pet project of a Board member isn't supported by the donors, it
shouldn't be paid for with the donors' money. The "Foundation's wider
goals" were set by Jimbo when he wrote the bylaws, to date donors have
been told they must fund all of these goals or fund none of them. This
is certainly part of the reason why I have never donated to Wikimedia,
and by extension this initiative may lead to increased donations generally.

The Board may be anxious about losing control over part of their
funding, that's understandable. But this could be considered a form of
direct democracy, and as such, desirable outcomes depend on the
competency of the donor to make budget decisions. The Board could take
on a role of persuading the donors that certain projects need funding,
rather than simply dictating a budget as they do now.

-- Tim Starling