[Wikimedia-l] The GAC wants you!

[rupert THURNER]

hi,

many thanks for that great invitation! i'd really consider this, if
the GAC process would be less work and would target imperfect people.
the grants incentive should imo be changed to get more for the bucks.
what do i mean with this:

1. if the GAC decides to grant money to somebody, it should be clear
that this money can be spent.
2. if somebody underspends, he has the right to spend it somewhere
else, without asking for approval.

why do i consider this so important? the current incentive is to
"spend the money exactly as planned". which causes waste in two areas
(1) people try to spend everything and trick it to spend so it looks
great. and (2) heavy workload on checking if these tricks all make
sense. if you do not hit the target or fail somehow, there is heavy
punishment. and this gives another disadvantage, it (3) makes to most
important asset vanish, the "core wikipedia people", and it is editor
dis-engangement.

if people have the right to do what they want with remaining funds,
there is an incentive to save, and an incentive to get more out of the
bucks. it might be to additional squish an activity in. it makes room
for imperfection, cover losses from other disorganized people. this
makes the numbers reported back more honest. additionally, it's a good
faith approach, and it attracts typical content providing persons.

i used "imperfect people", "core wikipedia people" and "typical
content providing person" in the last paragraphs, which probably needs
a little explanation. wikipedia is built traditionally by imperfect
volunteers, error-prone, partially educated, school or university drop
outs, poor in project management, time management, financial
management, constantly failing, redoing, miscalculating. the current
process specifically targets these people with great accuracy and
punishes them. it attracts a different type of person, and with it
risks wikipedias lifeblood: the contents. the contents attracts
donors, and it's the heart of the money flow. like you i would love to
see that angela merkel, barack obama or bill gates edit wikipedia -
but up to now they did not show any sign of having enough time for it
:)

rupert.


On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 1:48 AM, Asaf Bartov <abartov at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello, everyone.
>
> We could use some fresh b--- er, volunteers! -- in the Grant Advisory
> Committee (GAC).  As you may know, the GAC are community volunteers who are
> explicitly invited[1] to review and evaluate grant proposals made in the
> Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program[2], and offer advice to both grant
> applicants and the Foundation.
>
> Read all about it on the Candidates page[3].  New members will be inducted
> Aug 20th 2013, so be sure to step forward before then! :)
>
> Please help this message reach as many people as possible, by relaying it
> to appropriate lists and village pumps.
>
> Cheers,
>
>    Asaf
>
> [1] _everyone_ is implicitly invited!
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index
> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_Advisory_Committee/Candidates
> --
>     Asaf Bartov
>     Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
> sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
> https://donate.wikimedia.org
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