Roger McNamee and Wikipedia: Here’s how it will unfold
This post was submitted to the forum by The Review’s resident Wikipedia Watcher Daniel Brandt. The post was in response to a piece in The Register by Cade Metz researching Roger McNamee, the major donor to the WikiMedia Foundation.
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Daniel Brandt: The New York Times yesterday quoted Florence:
Florence Nibart-Devouard, the chairwoman of the Wikimedia board, who has never met Mr. McNamee, did not sound enthusiastic.
“It’s not a huge concern right now, but I am not comfortable with the concept,” she said, of venture capitalists consistently making donations to the foundation. “I would much prefer a varied diverse base of donors, some could be large, some could be long-term friends, who help in finding new friends. I hope the foundation won’t rely on these relationships.”
She said that she had proposed a resolution, passed recently, to require that any donation larger than 2 percent of revenues be approved by the board. And she said she would “make some noise” if a venture capitalist were to try to become a board member.
In the same NYT piece, Jimbo very strongly stated that Wikipedia will always remain nonprofit, and he will continue to show the door to greedy venture capitalists.
I think there’s a conspiracy going on, and Florence’s reaction is reasonable, but too little and too late. She’s in over her head. Jimbo is pushing bullshit to distract from the conspiracy. It’s sort of hard to tell, because Jimbo is almost always unbelievable. Maybe that’s by design!
Here’s how it will unfold:
Wikimedia Foundation’s budget keeps increasing by hiring more staff. A year from now, another huge McNamee-arranged donation is dangled in front of them, and they have no choice but to accept it because they have to meet their payroll. Around then, Godwin steps in and announces that the Foundation cannot meet the public support test and has to reincorporate as a for-profit, or at least spin off a for-profit the way that Mozilla Foundation spun off Mozilla Corporation.
Jimbo makes more noise about how he had no idea, blah, blah, and it’s unfortunate that the Board didn’t see this coming and sound the alarm. But the law is the law, and we have to follow Godwin’s lead on this.
As soon as the payroll is shifted onto the Corporation budget instead of the Foundation budget, all disclosure disappears overnight. A privately-held corporation has to pay taxes, but they don’t have to disclose anything other than their Board of Directors and the name and address of a registered corporate agent.
Now the McNamee donations are ready to be treated, privately, as an “investment.” Ads start appearing on Wikipedia. Professional editors are hired. BLP victims are offered a no-questions opt-out if they don’t want a bio. (With professional editors, the Corporation is clearly a publisher, not a service provider. You can’t put up with lawsuits when you’re an attractive target due to the fact that there’s money in the bank.)
McNamee takes his cut. Jimbo flies first-class everywhere, and even upgrades his flashlight to a better model. Everyone is happy.
Actually, I hope it all happens this way. It’s much more reasonable than the mess we have today.
Yeah would probably be an improvement.
If I were an internet venture capitalist, I would probably just buy the Brittanica online version and make it affordable for the unwashed masses.
Much neater, much more accurate, and much less headache for everybody, all the way around.
Major Disarray
20 Mar 08 at 12:31 am
AP’s got an article on this.
Interesting, but too deep for me:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080321/ap_on_hi_te/wikipedia_finances;_ylt=AmxqvZ3JIpbGr0kWQA5_Ooys0NUE
Major Disarray
21 Mar 08 at 4:05 pm
Why doesn’t Roger look to HOME and help his mother pay past due medical bills?
Linda Knopp
23 Apr 08 at 3:07 pm
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31 Jan 12 at 4:38 pm