One thing I'll say about the SWF is that it shows that you really cannot/should not run these foundations/nonprofits with the people higher up not actively using the fediverse.
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One thing I'll say about the SWF is that it shows that you really cannot/should not run these foundations/nonprofits with the people higher up not actively using the fediverse.
There is quite a lot of conversation in the community that 2 of the 3 boardmembers completely miss by not being embedded in the network. At least Evan is actively engaging with the feedback.
This is not a problem with only the SWF, the other nonprofits with fancy people on the boards have this exact same problem
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@laurenshof wat? I do think boards can benefit from people who aren't super-active in a given community, so I hesitate to have tests like "why would you be on the Wikimedia board if you don't edit Wikipedia", etc. etc.
But at this stage... why would you bother to invest time/energy as a board member if you're not even active on the network?
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Because there's money to be made here! TechCrunch reported that their initial budget's $1M, and their backers have deep pockets.
@[email protected] @[email protected] -
Of course, another possible reason is a combination of a belief in the transformational possibilities of the fediverse (which I share), recognition that the lack of funding has been a huge barrier (which I also share), seeing an opportunity to change things by partnering with big tech companies (which I don't share, but many others do), and thinking that somebody who describes himself as the "father of the Fediverse" is worth listening to (which many others do).
Mallory for example was until recently CTO and Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a DC-based industry-funded privacy and civil liberties non-profit. I'm often on the same side as CDT on issues like FISA and KOSA, and they've done some very valuable work on the intersections of accessibility and privacy. On the other hand they also support a lot of industry-friendly privacy legislation -- and didn't help us here in Washington state in our attempts to block the industry-written Bad Washington Privacy Act and pass stronger legislation that industry opposed. Are they a net positive? On the one hand, supporters unsurprisingly focus on their positive contributions, which they wouldn't have been able to do without industry funding. On the other hand they're clearly useful to big tech -- that's why they get so much funding. But then again, if they didn't exist, it's not like big tech would be giving that money to organizations that are any better on the privacy front, they'd just prop up some other industry-friendly organization that might be worse.
So, if you're coming from the perspective that CDT is a net positiive, and a new organization in a space where the "father of the fediverse" who made the "first post ever on the social web" is involved and excited about what he sees as an alignment of interests between big tech and the "Big Fedi" view ... it probably seems like a great opportunity to have a positive impact.
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