It is very instructive for me to learn how much some people value their own 15 seconds of time, and totally despise the time of others who spend hours every day to keep this project alive.
It is very instructive for me to see how some supporters of the subscription plan choose to paint the opposition as stingy and selfish, when most of the dissenting opinions have stated quite clearly that the primary issues are neither about the amount charged or the length of the waiting period. It is certainly illuminating as to the kind of tone-deafness that led to such an ill-advised decision.
Frankly, it seems that the supporters are the ones who value their own 15 seconds above all else and assume that everyone else is the same, as they keep bringing up the trivial fee and waiting time as though those are the main issues, while turning a blind eye to the arguments that have been presented from various quarters.
I'm not going to tell anybody how to post or what tone to adopt, but I would encourage people not to jump to negative conclusions about Edward's motivations. (This is as somebody who is not involved in the IMSLP "organization," only as a contributor to the site.) I understand that, without more information, it's hard to know what to think of him, but maybe you could consider this: if IMSLP were truly a money-making scheme for Edward, why wouldn't he have monetized it earlier? Why would he have, in fact, operated it (and paid for legal fees etc. etc.) with his own funds for several years? And why would he monetize the site in this fashion?
If anything, the fact that this decision was made with good intention makes it
more disturbing, not less. That someone can make such a poor decision fully convinced that they are doing the right thing is far more disconcerting than any malicious intent. Compared to a person who runs someone over with a car out of malice, I would be more afraid of the person who runs someone over because they don't know that it's wrong. We all know what the path to hell is paved with.
I am not so much questioning Edward Guo's intentions than I am questioning his judgment and vision. That one would make such a decision speaks of poor judgment. That one would make such a decision without consulting with others speaks of extremely poor judgment. When he writes
and over the past few years I've frankly exhausted my imagination in searching for new realistic sources of funding for IMSLP
That says nothing about the sources of funding and everything about his imagination. He could literally have approached
anybody for their opinion and I dare say that nine times out of ten they would have suggested regular funding drives, which to my knowledge has never happened.
Again, why is this decision so poorly considered, as is the rationale behind the decisions? The responses from him earlier in the thread raise far more questions about his judgment than answers. Why would one try to bring up sob stories of contributors in poverty to invoke sympathy, when they are answering to a demographic that consists of many
other volunteer contributors?
Why would I trust money to a single individual making all the decisions when I am not convinced that this individual is capable of making good decisions? None of this is rocket science. All of this should have been blatantly obvious before embarking on such a voyage. How can one believe that future decisions would not be equally ill-advised?
I would much rather that he
was trying to make this a money-making scheme. The alternative is far worse.
Therefore, Edward's attempt to get durable financial resources is a step in the right direction in my opinion. But there should also be a second step that deals with the current organizational structure of IMSLP.
This is not the second step, it should have been the
first step. What has been taken is not a step in the right direction, it's the one step which greatly compromises the ability of the site to remain sustainable and durable.
As has been mentioned here, CPDL operates as a charity organization with a management board. Like Wikipedia, CPDL also operates on a different scale from IMSLP, but now there are examples of projects both bigger and smaller than IMSLP that successfully operate on such a model. The claim that IMSLP cannot operate on such a model is utterly false.
There are, of course, many private websites out there that provide useful community service. IMSLP has chosen to be such a website, and as such it can no longer credibly claim to be a community effort.
Had IMSLP been a true community effort, such a decision would not have taken place at all. It's difficult to envision that a sufficiently diverse management board would simultaneously succumb to the same strand of insanity, and there would have been strong enough opposition to shoot it down at the drawing-board stage. That the decision was made in the first place points to how fundamentally flawed its operation model is, relying on a single individual to make major decisions, with potentially disastrous consequences. This is why committees exist - to save any individual member from oneself.
By taking second step first, IMSLP has greatly damaged the chance of the first step succeeding. At this point, even if IMSLP announces its intention to incorporate as a charity, any attempt to raise funds for it would be viewed with intense suspicion. Much work is needed to repair its reputation, and I'm not sure the leadership is up to the task. Trust is easy to lose and hard to regain.