Hello colleagues, A topic which I feel that I should address again on this mailing list is revenue for Wikimedia work, specifically WMF and non-WMF sources of revenue.
I will start by talking about my personal situation, and then discuss some related situations. I am currently requesting a grant from WMF. I cannot afford afford to work on this project in a sustainable way without funding, and I feel that I am making a request that is reasonably aligned with market rates for someone with my current level of skills and knowledge, but I feel conflicted about requesting funding from WMF because of the potential for difficulties between WMF and the community, especially because of the potential that I would be reluctant to express my views regarding WMF due to fear of losing WMF funding. (I'm not linking to my grant request here because I don't want this email to give the impression that I'm using this topic to ask for community endorsements for my grant request.) Similarly, *The Signpost *is labor-intensive to produce, and I would like for funding to be available for the more prolific *Signpost *contributors so that they have a good reason to treat their labor for The Signpost as part time jobs. However, it would be difficult to maintain the editorial independence of *The Signpost *from WMF if the contributors (especially contributors to the "News and Notes" and "In the Media" sections, and the contributors who are responsible for the overall editing and publication of *The Signpost*) received funding from WMF. There are many other areas in the Wikimedia community where there is enough work that is not getting done by volunteers, and/or where volunteers can put in so many hours that they can get burnt out, that I think that non-WMF funding would be good to make available for contributors who would like to work in these areas. Two examples are investigations of undisclosed paid editing, and translation and development of medical content. With Kaarl's cooperation (thank you, Kaarl) I have requested that two of the WMF strategy working groups consider non-WMF funding for Wikimedia work as a part of their discussions. I would like for significant non-WMF revenue to be available for Wikimedia work. I think that this could be arranged with WMF's cooperation, although there is a long journey between saying that "I think that this could be arranged" and having a successful system in place. If you have thoughts that you would like to share on this topic, then I hope that you will comment here on this mailing list, or in some other appropriate location such as one or both of the relevant strategy talk pages ([1 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Revenue_Streams>] or [2 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Resource_Allocation> ]). Let me make a specific invitation to WMF employees to share your thoughts. I would like to hear your comments, both official and personal, if that is okay and if you would like to comment. Thank you, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
