These are volunteers who are taking the pictures, I doubt they all are professional photographers. Which is fine, photography isn't that hard, these days you can't really swing a dead cat without hitting a decent photographer.
My point was that amateur photography doesn't cost on €12 a pop today, if only due to sheer abundance of imagery.
> There are people that volunteer for rock festivals and did a prototype that was well received. So why not let them do stuff that they volunteer for? Because Polka should be covered as well?
This is not someone's private project we're talking about, but resources contributed by people. These are not their money, they don't get to decide. I clearly don't give a damn about Polka either, but I'm sure there are tons of places in Wikipedia where investment would make more sense.
> This is not someone's private project we're talking about, but resources contributed by people. These are not their money, they don't get to decide.
Thats where you have it wrong. Once you donated the money, it is theirs and they can use it at their discretion, as long as you haven't stated what the money is specifically for and the use isn't fraudulent. Yes, they can even spend it on beer to improve employee morale and they certainly do from time to time.
Well, the other thing is that Wikimedia Deutschland do not necessarily get all of their funding from the Wikipedia fundraiser. Chapters often raise money themselves and sometimes get money from third parties specifically for particular projects and partnerships.
In Britain, for instance, most of the Wikimedia partnerships I've been involved in have had no cost to the chapter beyond a low-cost train fare and a few sandwiches. A lot of the cost is shared with the organisations we are partnering with. There are hundreds of organisations that want to work with Wikimedia, and it's usually of the "spend a few quid on sandwiches" variety.
The idea that people are getting rich off Wikimedia chapter outreach type work is ludicrous. If I want to get rich, well, my consulting day rate is a hell of a lot more than the cost of a sandwich and a train fare.
It's not 1 photo, it's the best photo out however many they took + publishing rights. And Publishing rights for a single high quality photo can easily cost you thousands of dollars.
My point was that amateur photography doesn't cost on €12 a pop today, if only due to sheer abundance of imagery.
> There are people that volunteer for rock festivals and did a prototype that was well received. So why not let them do stuff that they volunteer for? Because Polka should be covered as well?
This is not someone's private project we're talking about, but resources contributed by people. These are not their money, they don't get to decide. I clearly don't give a damn about Polka either, but I'm sure there are tons of places in Wikipedia where investment would make more sense.