My 2 cents?
The carrot would be a different approach of the committees in the
evaluation and a better "consideration" of the role of the women.
When I said to several women that there will be a session of grants
dedicated to the women, the answer has been really positive, I would say
that they felt like "receiving more consideration".
What would be the feeling of a woman if you are sitting in a bus and you
offer her your place?
Having a "softer" approach is a big added value and it may be the carrot.
Regards
On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 5:11 PM, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Sydney,
I understand your perspective, but I also understand the "where is the
carrot?" question. I would actively support the campaign if it had
been run as one of stating that for X weeks or months that the WMF
grants system would give priority to gendergap related proposals and
that we would have other themes during the year. This is effectively
what has been said is happening, it just has been expressed as a ban
against non-gendergap proposals.
Folks would understand if their proposal then got responses such as
"thank you, with the priority on gendergap we have scheduled your
excellent WLM/Belgium/LGBT Pride proposal for a review in 2 months
time".
As a founder of a user group and once a trustee of a chapter, I would
be concerned if this same method was applied to my most loved project
areas for a month or two, unless the volunteer group were notified
well in advance so that we could work with the grants team with our
network of contacts and communication channels to ensure a healthy mix
of proposals in time for the limited window available. A community
changing and high impact proposal might take up to a year to assemble
a team of volunteers and have a strong enough vision to put a detailed
proposal together. A month or even 3 months notice puts a huge amount
of stress on the handful of unpaid volunteers prepared to put in the
hard work that these proposals take, not because the system is overly
bureaucratic, but because we are so worried about doing the right
thing, doing it well and keepinhg our network of volunteers on-board
with plans and ready to use the grant to maximum effect when it
arrives. Sadly "burn-out" remains a major issue for our most active
volunteers and we should take care to set up our systems to be
flexible and low stress.
I hope the experiment is successful and there are some interesting
gendergap proposals that have significant measurable outcomes on our
projects, in terms of active users and content creation. At the same
time I hope that folks responsible for the grants process will adapt
and improve to find a more harmonious positive approach to
prioritization; i.e. lots of easy to understand carrots which are not
too tricky to reach for.
Fae
On 9 January 2015 at 15:34, Sydney Poore <sydney.poore(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It appears to me that you are entirely missing
the actual nature of the
problem and the reason for having a campaign targeted at the gender gap.
The *problem* is that there have been a suboptimal number of grant
requests
for funds to address the gender gap even though
it a listed priority of
the
WMF.
The purpose of the campaign is to invite requests for funding, have extra
support available if people need mentoring or assistance of other kinds.
To
do this campaign well, the WMF staff needs to
refocus the time of people
toward this endeavor.
A wonderful response from people reading about this campaign would be to
ask: what can I do to help bring in high quality grant requests?
Those of you who are familiar with making grant requests or using the
IdeaLab, offer to help people who are newer to the process.
Those of you who are developers and see a way to improve an idea with
technology, step in and make suggestion.
Over the past 3-4 years all around the world people have holding
conferences and discussing the gender gap. Now is the time to expand on
the
work that has been done in these conference. Help
spread the word. Assist
with translations to help some who is less comfortable writing in English
bring there ideas to meta.
The point of this targeted campaign is far more than reserving a specific
amount of dollars for the gender gap issue.
The biggest obstacle to success will be the lack of human resources to
refine and execute the projects.
Therefore is the reason that people and organizations are being asked to
set aside other projects in order to help address this vital area of
concern.
I hope everyone reading this email will do at least one small thing to
help.
Warm regards,
Sydney
On Jan 8, 2015 11:04 PM, "Bjoern Hoehrmann" <derhoermi(a)gmx.net> wrote:
--
faewik(a)gmail.com
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Wikipedia: Ilario <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ilario>
Skype: valdelli
Facebook: Ilario Valdelli <https://www.facebook.com/ivaldelli>
Twitter: Ilario Valdelli <https://twitter.com/ilariovaldelli>
Linkedin: Ilario Valdelli <http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=6724469>
Tel: +41764821371