Hi folks,
I wanted to respond to a few things related to the Wikimedia Foundation's
grant programs.
Pine, regarding your personal situation, I know many grantees have been
critical of the Wikimedia Foundation at one point or another, or even have
longstanding disagreements with certain organizational decisions (such as
with SuperProtect). This is not to say we are fully objective (I do not
believe anybody is), but in my experience we do not punish grant applicants
or withhold funding for constructively expressing concerns about
organizational decisions. To the extent that this criticism becomes abusive
or threatening, it becomes a different case, but I don't think that is what
we are discussing here. Expressing disagreement with an organizational
decision is just not an important factor in whether a proposal should be
funded or not. Some applicants have even expressed concern with our grant
programs based on their experience with it, and I am glad they did! It led
us to decide to run a consultation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Reimagining_WMF_grants> to
improve how our grants are organized and how they operate. I know our team,
Community Resources, well enough to know we are open to criticism about how
our grants work because we want them to be accessible, and we want to help
Wikimedians run successful projects and events.
Although the WMF,
for the duration, appears to act as though it's
their money to distribute
and makes many of the relevant decisions, that appears not to be the
(eventual) intended process.
Yair, the degree of decision-making power that the Wikimedia Foundation
varies depending on the type of grant. Rapid Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn> are where
staff has the most decision-making power, and staff ultimately approves
proposals in this program. This design was intentional. A common issue we
faced with small grants from the old Project & Event Grant program (circa
2015 and prior) was that the whole process took way too long between
committee meetings, decisions, and processing, and reporting requirements.
Money wouldn't get to the applicants in time, and this caused practical
financial issues for applicants, and some projects just didn't happen at
all. That kind of outcome was not acceptable for anyone, so we decided to
simplify it based on community feedback. Many projects we receive in Rapid
Grants are common (e.g. editathons, WikiLoves events), and do not require a
lot of scrutiny on the proposal itself. Part of our consultation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Reimagining_WMF_grants/Outcomes>
with
then-current and prospective grantees a few years back made it clear that
this particular change was welcome.
However, in all other grant programs (Project Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project>, Conference & Event Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Conference>, Annual Plan Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG>), Wikimedians in volunteer
committees provide the basis for funding decisions through deliberations.
Program Officers like myself facilitate those discussions, provide guidance
where it is useful or requested, and allow the committee to form its own
conclusions. We also do not wholly reject committee decisions and
substitute our own.
I also want to remark out that before I started working at the Wikimedia
Foundation in 2015, my impression of program officers was that they were
The Deciders, the gatekeepers saying who gets funding and who doesn't. Now
having worked across our different grant programs for a few years now, I
can easily say I was very much mistaken. We spend a lot of time working
with applicants to help them plan their project out, find support in other
volunteers, and prepare strong applications, because we want applicants to
succeed as project managers, event coordinators, researchers, leaders, and
Wikimedians. While I acknowledge that you want Wikimedia Foundation staff
to be absent from funding decisions, I believe this kind of influence from
staff in the process is a beneficial and productive one.
Take care,
Jethro
Chris "Jethro" Schilling
I JethroBT (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF)>
He/His/Their
Program Officer, Wikimedia Foundation
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>
On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 7:38 AM Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής <
anonymuswikipedian(a)gmail.com> wrote:
About my comment above: I was referring ONLY in WMF
grants. In Greek
wikipedia things are very weird and sad when people are being accused of
paid editing just for getting a WMF grant through the process that we all
know and always making a good and honest use of the wikimedia logos. The
ones who lightheartedly accuse people so easily are the ones who need to
have their interests or use of logos be checked.
Best regards to all
Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής
Στις 7 Σεπ 2018 02:34, ο χρήστης "Pine W" <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> έγραψε:
Definitely one needs to be careful when dealing with paid editing that it's
done in a transparent way and in a way that benefits the encyclopedia. I
think that the English Wikipedia community has generally accepted that
Wikimedians-in-Residence can do paid editing in a way that is beneficial to
the encyclopedia. I would like to see more of the good and less of the bad.
Money can certainly be a corrupting influence, but it can also support good
activities that otherwise wouldn't occur or would occur with less frequency
and quality.
Pine
(
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
On Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 10:29 PM Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής <
anonymuswikipedian(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Unfortunately it s been said in Greek wikipedia
that people that take
grants are paid editors. And that came from people who already taken
grants
for their projects in the past. Dark times in
Greek wikipedia...
Στις Τρί, 4 Σεπ 2018 - 00:03 ο χρήστης Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com>
έγραψε:
> Hello colleagues,
>
> A topic which I feel that I should address again on this mailing list
is
revenue
for Wikimedia work, specifically WMF and non-WMF sources of
revenue.
I will start by talking about my personal situation, and then discuss
some
related situations.
I am currently requesting a grant from WMF. I cannot afford afford to
work
on this project in a sustainable way without
funding, and I feel that I
am
> making a request that is reasonably aligned with market rates for
someone
with my
current level of skills and knowledge, but I feel conflicted
about
> requesting funding from WMF because of the potential for difficulties
> between WMF and the community, especially because of the potential that
I
would be
reluctant to express my views regarding WMF due to fear of
losing
WMF funding. (I'm not linking to my grant
request here because I don't
want
> this email to give the impression that I'm using this topic to ask for
> community endorsements for my grant request.)
>
> Similarly, *The Signpost *is labor-intensive to produce, and I would
like
> for funding to be available for the more
prolific *Signpost
*contributors
> so that they have a good reason to treat
their labor for The Signpost
as
> part time jobs. However, it would be
difficult to maintain the
editorial
> independence of *The Signpost *from WMF if
the contributors (especially
> contributors to the "News and Notes" and "In the Media"
sections, and
the
contributors who are responsible for the overall editing and
publication of *The
Signpost*) received funding from WMF.
There are many other areas in the Wikimedia community where there is
enough
> work that is not getting done by volunteers, and/or where volunteers
can
put in so
many hours that they can get burnt out, that I think that
non-WMF
funding would be good to make available for
contributors who would like
to
> work in these areas. Two examples are investigations of undisclosed
paid
> editing, and translation and development of
medical content.
>
> With Kaarl's cooperation (thank you, Kaarl) I have requested that two
of
the WMF
strategy working groups consider non-WMF funding for Wikimedia
work
as a part of their discussions.
I would like for significant non-WMF revenue to be available for
Wikimedia
work. I think that this could be arranged with
WMF's cooperation,
although
there is a long journey between saying that
"I think that this could be
arranged" and having a successful system in place.
If you have thoughts that you would like to share on this topic, then I
hope that you will comment here on this mailing list, or in some other
appropriate location such as one or both of the relevant strategy talk
pages ([1
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Wo…
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Wo…
]).
Let me make a specific invitation to WMF employees to share your
thoughts.
I would like to hear your comments, both official
and personal, if that
is
okay and if you would like to comment.
Thank you,
Pine
(
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>