Milos Rancic wrote: > The whole thread is about long-term sustainability. At least, I > started it with this intention, mentioning that WMF started to work on > that (Strategy plan).
"Long term" planning for the Foundation is not planning with contributors who will write on Wikipedia for several decades. I have almost 15 years of experience in a completely different field of volunteering and in the very long term oriented culture of German Vereine (~ non-profit associations, but ingrained in to German society for 150 years). Even there you don't recruit people with the intention to "keep them" for decades. In the beginning Wikipedia offered professionals and aspiring students a place where they could share their existing knowledge with others and ultimately with the world. Now some here seem to think about building an education system where kids can make their first steps in serious non-fictional writing and get supported in their learning. It is delusional to plan with Wikipedia volunteers to enter as high-school students and keep them as writers to their grave. Pretty much every Wikipedian is a passing guest. He or she will share some of their knowledge or just fix a few typos and leave afterwards. Maybe to come back sometimes - or not. And that's perfectly fine, because that is what we need, fresh outside knowledge. The Foundations job is to facilitate this kind of contribution. The few long term authors will grow out of these on their own - just like the core of volunteers in the German Vereine I mentioned above evolved out of irregular contributors. Ciao Henning _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
