Postby lxh5032 » Wed Dec 30, 2015 8:14 pm
I'm sorry, I'm simply not convinced that IMSLP has exhausted its means of funding; in fact, I'm not even convinced that it has tried.
Have there been earnest fund-raising efforts? If there were, they have certainly not been noticeable. Yes, you do need to make people stop and think. This, right now, is well beyond stop-and-think territory, it's this-is-my-road-and-thou-shalt-not-pass-unless-thy-pay territory. Sure, it's your prerogative, but it's also going to stop being a road that people want to use.
You call Wikipedia's banner annoying? I think if you truly polled users, they will say that it's really not such a big issue, unlike the current implementation, and if such a banner had been put up on IMSLP, I doubt there would have been much backlash. How much might have been raised? No one knows, but the fact that it wasn't even tried has disturbing implications. Yes, Wikipedia operates on a different scale in terms of revenue. It also operates on a different scale in terms of expenses.
How many ways are there to get people to stop and think? Banners, maybe. A one-time, limited period redirect to a call for contributions page on a visitor's first view of a session? Even the current method being implemented, but for a limited fund-raising period, and only once per visit, would likely have injected a not insignificant amount of funds. Were any of these ever tried before going to such length? Were there any call for donations on IMSLP, or even on the discussion boards of professional musical organizations? I do not recall any. Under such circumstances, the claims that you have tried many different ways of funding, that you have exhausted your imagination, reflects badly on the credibility of IMSLP's administration, or worse, its competence.
It is disturbing that no discussion was ever put up. It is disturbing that sources of funding were apparently never explored or even considered. And what these point to is the most disturbing of all - how little thought has been put into the entire process. In this thread alone one finds two highly unsettling facts:
1. That you were unable to answer how you are funded. How can I trust my money to an organization that doesn't know where its money is coming from and where its money goes? How can you trust an organization that does not explore its options adequately before going to the nuclear option?
2. You were unable to find Wikipedia's financials before making such a decision. The individual who provided you with the information is an administrator of the site. It implies that no real research was done, no questions had been asked within the site's management, because apparently the answer could have been found simply by asking internally. How is one to belief that this is an informed decision?
Wikipedia is operated by a foundation with certain expectations of accountability. The current events reveal and highlights that IMSLP is a private company operating without any need for accountability, and as this thread indicates, it does not desire to operate under any semblance of accountability. With this, IMSLP has emphatically announced that it is a private entity offering goods and services without the need to be accountable. One of course has the right to monetize a private company as one sees fit, but in such a case IMSLP simply cannot claim itself to be a public institution and will no longer be treated as such. And it is murky moral ground for a private entity to be offering goods and services provided by volunteer contributors.
As it stands, there is no such thing as open access on IMSLP. Students, who undoubtedly form a significant portion of IMSLP's user base, have to click through dozens of 15 second waits if they are, for example, looking up some of Josquin's masses to write a paper on. A pianist looking for a certain sonata has to deal with several wait periods to compare editions. For all practical intents and purposes, browsing on IMSLP becomes all but impossible unless one knows exactly what score one is looking for.
Their only practical option, then, is to pay the subscription fee. Yes, the fee is not very large, but it's not the amount that is the problem. It's the fact that IMSLP has essentially destroyed its entire stock of credibility through an ill-advised, poorly-considered decision. I would rather stop using IMSLP than pay the fee, because I simply don't trust that it would be put to good use.
For those who ask whether I would rather pay for my music - yes, indeed I would. I do, in fact, still buy scores, and when I do I can see where the money is being spent on. I am buying something that I can easily hold in my hand and turn. I am buying the editing work of verified professionals who track and explain their decisions, not the passable but often questionable work of 19th century Breitkopf & Hartel.
I don't write this to try to persuade you to rescind your decision. Frankly, at this point, even if IMSLP pulls back the subscription plan, the damage is done. To me, the credibility of IMSLP management has been completely destroyed. If IMSLP had made public call for donation, rather than put up a subscription system without warning, I might have been willing to donate, and the move to a subscription plan would have been more understandable if such efforts have already been made and were unsuccessful. Now, even if IMSLP withdraws its subscription plan and makes a call for donation, I do not trust it enough to donate to a private company with no accountability.
Yes, someone has to do it. How hard have you asked? I don't know how much money it takes to operate IMSLP. At this point, I am more willing to risk a dozen grands to push IMSLP to operate according to its mission, rather than donate a single penny to improve my own browsing experience only to an organization that has strayed from it.
Lincoln Hui