DISQUS

Tim Lee · 1 year ago

The difference is that the primary (indeed, only) purpose of most philanthropic foundations is to hand out money. So if you attract people whose primary interest is in handing out money (note that I did not say anything about self-interest), that's find because that's what the foundation is for.

But the primary purpose of Wikipedia, and by extension the Wikimedia board and staff, is to preserve the integrity of Wikipedia's editing process. To do this well, it's crucial that Wikipedia's senior leadership be closely connected to the Wikipedia editing process. They need to be people who understand how Wikipedia editing works and have strong ties to a lot of prolific Wikipedians.

Right now, that happens automatically because the only real motivation for seeking a seat on Wikimedia's board or staff is out of love for the encyclopedia. But in a world where the Wikimedia Foundation was a non-profit organization with a budget in the tens of millions of dollars, there's a much bigger danger of a rift forming between Wikipedia, the encyclopedia, and Wikimedia, the cash cow.

The "accountable to Wikipedians" part is key. In most non-profits, the primary mechanism for accountability comes from the fact that the members provide most of the revenue. This wouldn't be true in an ad-supported Wikipedia. While in the long run, Wikipedia's revenues would be generated by its members, those members wouldn't have any practical ability to withhold ad revenue if they were unhappy with the way the organization was being run. Which means that if they were unhappy with the way the foundation was being run, their only recourse would be through politics. And rancorous battles over money are the last thing an encyclopedia built on editor goodwill needs.