[Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

Mon Apr 29 20:03:47 UTC 2013

Hello Everyone

I was an observer on the first round of the FDC, Patricio was the observer of the recent round of FDC requests so he will probably be able to tell you more on the specific details. But in general I have been (and still am) extremely impressed with the level of scrutiny	AND the flexibility of the FDC members. I was witness to several spirited discussions and saw a group of thoughtful people doing what they were good at: reviewing proposals for large grants.

But as I understand there were several "issues" with the proposal, please do not pick on one issue. We had a community review period which also resulted in some serious questions (some without answers).  And the FDC feedback gave several reasons. 

I would have seriously disappointed if $200K+ was granted. I do think that we need to provide a way to support an organisation after the FDC process… and we have in several cases in the past. 

David: I do not agree with you. you are blaming the WMF for the fact that the FDC is doing a good job in reviewing funding proposals. The "Centralisation" of payment processing has little to do with this. In fact, most chapters that do not payment process since the change (and there were not that many to begin with) are happy with the new process (and a lot of other chapters go through Grants process, which they would have done anyway regardless of the change to an FDC which exists alongside). I argue that the FDC is the best thing that has happened to our movement and combined with an improved process and chapter peer review we are going to get even better. I would love to hear how you would have handled this particular FDC request.

Jan-Bart

On Apr 29, 2013, at 5:38 PM, Deryck Chan <deryckchan at wikimedia.hk> wrote:

> We have replied multiple times that we want the remaining funds from the 2010-11 grants to be considered in conjunction with the FDC proposal. (ie. the FDC proposal is the reallocation request.) This is because it is logistically impractical for us to return any funds to WMF before the end of Wikimania.
> 
> Winifred informed us of the "out of compliance" well after the grant report was accepted and the FDC eligibility of WMHK was announced. There was no indication whatsoever that this late notice of "out of compliance" may lead to retrospective disqualification.
> 
> Deryck
> 
> (cc. Patricio and Jan-Bart as the official contacts for FDC complaints. Yes, I'm accusing WMF grants staff of foul play with the FDC rules.)
> 
> 
> On 29 April 2013 12:50, Thehelpfulone <thehelpfulonewiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Deryck please could you confirm what happened with regards to the unused funds - did WMHK request a reallocation?
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> ---
> Thehelpfulone
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
> 
> On 29 Apr 2013, at 12:43, Deryck Chan <deryckchan at wikimedia.hk> wrote:
> 
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: "Deryck Chan" <deryckchan at gmail.com>
> > Date: 29 Apr 2013 12:42
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark
> > to everyone
> > To: <cfranklin at halonetwork.net>
> > Cc: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> >
> > See the footnotes on the FDC decision page. Both WMHK and WMCZ were
> > declared eligible at the time of submission, but the WMF subsequently found
> > new faults during the review period which they chose to use as convenient
> > excuses to disqualify these 2 chapters.
> > On 29 Apr 2013 12:33, "Craig Franklin" <cfranklin at halonetwork.net> wrote:
> >
> >> I'd like to come back to this - if the entity was told they were eligible
> >> (which certainly looks to be the case from the public documents), when was
> >> it discovered they were not?  Obviously, putting together an FDC
> >> application is a tremendous amount of work for a chapter, and if the effort
> >> was futile from the start, then the time that Deryck and WMHK put into this
> >> could have been better spent on useful programme work instead.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Craig Franklin
> >>
> >>
> >> On 29 April 2013 17:25, Thehelpfulone <thehelpfulonewiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On 29 Apr 2013, at 07:52, Tilman Bayer <tbayer at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I'm not familiar with the case, but reading that page, it seems that
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:WM_HK/Education_Toolkits_For_Liberal_Studies/Report#Remaining_funds
> >>>> might also have played a role for the FDC's recommendation?
> >>>
> >>> Indeed, yet it looks like there has been no (public) follow up by the
> >> paid
> >>> WMF grants staff for over a month. In addition,
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikimedia_Hong_KongshowsWMHK to still be an eligible entity.
> >>>
> >>> Winifred/Asaf, please can you clarify whether WMHK is still an eligible
> >>> entity and what follow up was done after that message a month ago?
> >>>
> >>> ---
> >>> Thehelpfulone
> >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
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