On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote: > The problem I have with statements like these is that they feel > disingenuous. The mission statement is as vague or as specific as the person > arguing deems it to be. There are thousands of potential projects that > Wikimedia could engage in that would fit perfectly within the current > mission statement[1] and thousands more that would loosely fit in. > > It's mostly a matter of how many steps removed you choose to allow a > particular venture to be. If I sell Wikimedia T-shirts, I'm building the > Wikimedia brand, which leads to more donations during the fundraiser, which > leads to more servers, which further enables the dissemination of > educational content. Does that mean that selling T-shirts is within > Wikimedia's mission? > > What is and isn't "mission-relevant" seems to be (perhaps intentionally) > completely ambiguous. Ultimately, who decides whether a partnership with a > company like PediaPress is mission-relevant? The Board of Trustees? The > Executive Director? The Head of Business Development? And beyond who makes > the decision, is there any guarantee that it will be a valid one? Given the > vagueness of the mission statement, how much of a stretch is acceptable?
Shockingly, making decisions like this does not necessarily involve reasoning, but judgement. Yes, the answers are not simple and logical — because you have to weigh the costs against the benefits. -- Andrew Garrett http://werdn.us/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
