WineConf 2007 Fundraiser proposal

[Tom Wickline]

Hello All,

This is my latest revision of the donations page, any thoughts on the
content or goal?  :)

http://wiki.winehq.org/TomWickline?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=d...

Tom

[Jeremy White]

I've had a read through, and I think that's a fairly well put together
page; we could put that up and link to it from the front page of WineHQ.

I do have a lot of nits I would pick with it, but I figure I'll wait on doing
that until after we've decided when/whether to do this.  (Things like
changing the check address to go to the SFLC, not me, and tuning some of the
language).

I have to admit I'm fairly neutral about this; I can't see any harm in it,
and if it means there's even one more person at Wineconf, that seems like a Good Thing (TM).

Being a bit cynical, what we're doing to some extent is selling our high Google
page rank; basically, $1,000 gets you 12 months of good search engine placement.
That may be way too little money.

Do others have an opinion?

Cheers,

Jeremy

Tom Wickline wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> This is my latest revision of the donations page, any thoughts on the
> content or goal?  :)
>
> http://wiki.winehq.org/TomWickline?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=d...
>
> Tom
>
> wineconf mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.winehq.org/mailman/listinfo/wineconf

[Tom Wickline]

On 2/20/07, Jeremy White  wrote:
> I've had a read through, and I think that's a fairly well put together
> page; we could put that up and link to it from the front page of WineHQ.

Add a section under the WineHQ menu (Donations) and a news release ?
> I do have a lot of nits I would pick with it, but I figure I'll wait on doing
> that until after we've decided when/whether to do this.  (Things like
> changing the check address to go to the SFLC, not me, and tuning some of the
> language).

I agree the language needs some/allot of tuning, but why on earth
should we send the money to the SFLC?
Are you suggesting we should set up a escrow account with the SFLC and
let them hold the money for us?
> I have to admit I'm fairly neutral about this; I can't see any harm in it,
> and if it means there's even one more person at Wineconf, that seems like a Good Thing (TM).

I see it as a good thing as well (TM).. it's not like were going to be
saying give us X amount and we will in return give you this or that in
return. We will  just be asking users and corporations if they would
like to give some pocket change to help the project along.  Most every
other project out there has had fund raisers and even out right ask
for funds, I don't see any harm in us having our own fund raiser.
> Being a bit cynical, what we're doing to some extent is selling our high Google
> page rank; basically, $1,000 gets you 12 months of good search engine placement.
> That may be way too little money.

I got the $1,000 figure from your first reply :D

Okay how about $10,000 and we write up a paragraph or two about the
benefits of being a WPF 'gold' sponsor?
> Do others have an opinion?

I have another question, should we think about changing the WPF (Wine
Party Fund) to the WCF (Wine Conference Fund)?

Cheers,

Tom
> Cheers,
>
> Jeremy

[Jeremy White]

> I agree the language needs some/allot of tuning, but why on earth
> should we send the money to the SFLC?

Sorry, my mistake; the Software Freedom Conservancy, as per this email:
  http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2006-March/046121.html

Cheers,

Jeremy

[Dan Kegel]

On 2/20/07, Jeremy White  wrote:
> Being a bit cynical, what we're doing to some extent is selling our high Google
> page rank; basically, $1,000 gets you 12 months of good search engine placement.
> That may be way too little money.

Indeed.  I wonder how much just joining Google's ads network would
rake in for Wine.
( https://www.google.com/adsense/ )

[Tom Wickline]

On 2/21/07, Dan Kegel  wrote:
> On 2/20/07, Jeremy White  wrote:
> > Being a bit cynical, what we're doing to some extent is selling our high Google
> > page rank; basically, $1,000 gets you 12 months of good search engine placement.
> > That may be way too little money.
>
> Indeed.  I wonder how much just joining Google's ads network would
> rake in for Wine.
> ( https://www.google.com/adsense/ )

I have also made this suggestion!

Tom
> wineconf mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.winehq.org/mailman/listinfo/wineconf

[Jeremy White]

> > Indeed.  I wonder how much just joining Google's ads network would
> > rake in for Wine.
> > ( https://www.google.com/adsense/ )
>
> I have also made this suggestion!

I suppose that's arguably a better way of monetizing
our page rank.

I have to confess that I don't have a clearly articulated
argument against it, just an unease in my gut.

For example, if we do raise money, who gets to decide how it's
allocated?  I've been pretty uncomfortable essentially
being the person deciding for the ~ $2K/year we've
been raising.  How do we decide if we raise $10,000?
Every time I tried to find a way to spend money on Wine,
basically folks have said 'never mind'.

(As a side note, the purse strings are now in the hand
of the Conservancy; they basically require proof of a clear
consensus of the Wine project before disbursing funds).

Second, I really like the idea of a campaign specifically
for travel expenses.  Every time I've tried to spend Wine
money on things other than Wineconf, it just hasn't
worked out, or been necessary.  But if we have a campaign just around
travel sponsorship, then it's clear to folks donating what it's for.

But I wonder if it makes sense to move this discussion to a
broader venue?  (Or, perhaps, send an email to wine-devel
letting folks know that this discussion is going on here).

I think this is one of those areas where people may have
strong opinions that they've been too polite to air, and
it may be useful to air them.

Cheers,

Jeremy

[Shachar Shemesh]

Jeremy White wrote:
> Being a bit cynical, what we're doing to some extent is selling our high Google
> page rank; basically, $1,000 gets you 12 months of good search engine placement.
> That may be way too little money.

OMG!!!!
We have a good google page rank?

Shachar

[Tom Wickline]

On 2/22/07, Shachar Shemesh  wrote:
> >
>
> OMG!!!!
> We have a good google page rank?

google for wine and were number 3, 4, 7 and 9 (four) of the top 10 results.

Tom
> Shachar
>
> wineconf mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.winehq.org/mailman/listinfo/wineconf

[Dan Kegel]

On 2/22/07, Shachar Shemesh  wrote:
> Jeremy White wrote:
> > Being a bit cynical, what we're doing to some extent is selling our high Google
> > page rank; basically, $1,000 gets you 12 months of good search engine placement.
> > That may be way too little money.
>
> OMG!!!!
> We have a good google page rank?

Oh, yeah.

BTW I think we can avoid some of the wrong sense of the word wine
by giving google a bunch of stopwords.

And in answer to Jeremy's question about what the money would
be used for: might I suggest we use it to hire an assistant to
push through our enhanced code hygine process?