Hi Tilman,
1. Would WMF please document in the FAQ that Global Education, excluding the US/CAN program, is funded and managed through Grantmaking, and the US/CAN Education Program is run through the independent Wiki Education Foundation?
2. Would someone please produce a redline version of the AP that compares the final AP to the version that was sent to the FDC?
3. I suggest that in the future that the Board be given at least one month between their meeting for reviewing the AP and the proposed effective date of the AP. Otherwise, if the Board's meeting date is within a few days of the AP effective date, the Board may feel pressure to move quickly to approve the AP, and if the Board doesn't pass the AP then unless I am mistaken the Foundation has no spending or fundraising authority as of the start of the next fiscal year.
4. The FAQ says that P&E grants are "reviewed by the 28-member Grant Advisory Committee https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GAC or GAC)". However, as far as I can tell, GAC is functioning at a very low level. This grant [1] for about US$7000 received only one vote among all 28 GAC members, and it was an oppose vote, yet WMF approved the grant. This grant [2] for about US$9000 had no support or oppose votes from GAC members, yet WMF approved the grant. This grant [3] for about US$30,000 received one oppose, one abstention, and one "no comment" among all 28 grant members, yet WMF approved the grant. Something seems wrong here. I have heard that GAC is being revamped but in the meantime I am concerned about such large grants being approved with so little community review. My worst-case scenario is that WMF approves something with expensive and damaging consequences like IEP or AFT5 that might have been refused or might have been better designed if it had been subjected to meaningful community scrutiny. Because the Annual Plan seems to assume that GAC is working well, I feel that this is an issue that needs urgent attention.
Thanks,
Pine
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:PEG/Metro/Institutional_Growth_a... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:PEG/WM_ZA/WLM-ZA-2014 [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/WM_AM/Wiki_Camp
On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 8:32 PM, Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi all,
the Wikimedia Foundation's 2014-15 Annual Plan has just been published at
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2014-15_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan....
accompanied by a Q&A:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2014-2015_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Ans...
The plan was approved by the Board of Trustees on June 29, 2014.
-- Tilman Bayer Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB
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