This is a proposal that would need to be included in next year's funding plan. It also
would involve an obligation for the other teams within the Foundation.
**Part 1: Funding redistribution and Big Ticket team**
This year, we (that is, the WMF using movement funds) spent a huge amount of money ($4.5
million) just directly donating to external knowledge equity funds.
This was done without Community review, or indeed, approval of the concept. A look through
our email archives will show it was hardly a popular use of our money.
I propose that we stand-up a 2nd community wishlist team. Going off the average salaries,
and the standard non-salary overhead for equivalent organisations, it should support a
16-18 person team.
This team's purpose is to handle the "Big Ticket" items, beyond the
capacities of the current team. It will probably be 1-2 main items a year, with the
ability to handle small(er) items from the main wishlist if they finish slightly early.
The current team could then alternate annually between Wikipedia/Wikidata/Commons items
and small-project items.
**Part 2: blocked item obligations**
By far and away the two most common reasons for wishlist items being declined are
"too large a project" (hopefully handled by part 1) and "in another
team's scope". This aims to handle the 2nd issue with a "co-operate or
takeup" mandate.
Where another team is "in the way" of a wishlist item, it should be obligated to
fulfill that item itself within 24 months, or co-operate and utilise the Wishlist
team's resources to fulfill it while avoiding disruption from separate workflows.