[Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser

Sun Mar 6 10:14:56 UTC 2011

Am 05.03.2011 13:48, schrieb MZMcBride:
> church.of.emacs.ml wrote:
>> However the main point of mail was to discuss how we're going to raise
>> funds without being annoying to readers, and I welcome any input from
>> WMF staff, chapters and volunteers :-)
> There's a fairly easy solution: raise less money. It costs about $2
> million/year to keep the Wikimedia wikis running. That gets raised fairly
> quickly (it took about five days for the 2010 fundraiser) without many
> annoying banners. :-)
>
But who says that the sole purpose of the WMF is to keep Wikimedia wikis 
running? Wikipedia is much more than just a website where people get 
information fast and for free. Wikipedia is a cultural phenomenon and 
spearhead of a large movement for free knowledge. And WMF (and the 
chapters, for that matter) should improve the enviremonet of this 
movement, educate the public, run campaigns to advocate free knowledge 
and help the movement in any way possible. I think our mission is way 
bigger than just keep the wikis running.

Pavel Richter
Executive Director
Wikimedia Germany