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&gt; wrote:

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, 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&gt; wrote:

As far as I can tell, the way that this is supposed to work is for there to be no WMF influence on funds distribution. "We affirm that all funds given to the Wikimedia movement are given in support of our global projects... funds raised via the Wikimedia project sites should be considered to be movement money, not the entitlement of a particular organization or stakeholder. Decision-making about funds dissemination should be broad and inclusive, consistent with our mission, vision and values. ... To support a broader and more inclusive decision-making process for funds distribution, the Wikimedia Foundation will create a volunteer-driven body (working title: the Funds Dissemination Committee, or FDC) whose sole purpose will be to make recommendations to the Wikimedia Foundation for funding activities and initiatives in support of the mission goals of the Wikimedia movement. All funds raised via the Wikimedia project sites will be distributed via the recommendations of the FDC, with the exception of Wikimedia Foundation core operating costs and the operating reserve as described above." -- Board of Trustees, [[wmf:Resolution:Funds Dissemination Committee]] Where are we on this? Since the 2015-16 annual plan the WMF hasn't been filling out its FDC applications (to regular objections every annual plan review and FDC election), and the Grants process pages on Meta are prominently labeled "Wikimedia Foundation Grants". I'm having difficulty finding out how the various Grants systems are run, but the IEG final decisions are apparently made by WMF staff, and the FDC doesn't seem to be directly involved in those? I haven't found any retraction of the original board resolution, so I assume that the current situation is a temporary setup until whatever remaining obstacles are dealt with and the FDC is capable of fulfilling its mandate. (I don't know what these obstacles might be. I think it would be helpful if the WMF and/or Board would comment on this.) 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. (My apologies if some of this is inaccurate. The pages on Meta aren't well organized, and it's hard to get a coherent picture of how things work.) (Also, FWIW, I really think it would be a bad idea to directly fund content creation or Signpost support.) -- Yair Rand ‫בתאריך יום ב׳, 3 בספט׳ 2018 ב-22:07 מאת ‪Pine W‬‏ &lt;‪wiki.pine(a)gmail.com ‬‏>:‬

I think that this leaves all of us who request WMF grants in difficult positions, because either we get along with WMF or we risk WMF cutting off our funding, and there are few non-WMF alternatives for funding Wikimedia work. Even if someone finds a non-WMF alternative for funding Wikimedia work, that person or organization will often need WMF's approval to use the trademarks. I wonder if a solution to this is to make a 180 degree change to how spending approvals and trademark approvals are done, with the idea that WMF should come to the community to request approval for funding and to use the trademarks. In the meantime I personally feel like I need to choose between being honest and wanting funding. I'm not sure that the loss of my voice in discussions matters very much when there are tens of thousands of contributors, so maybe I overestimate the usefulness of my independence from WMF, but it seems to me that no one should be in this difficult position of feeling like they have a choice between (1) being honest or (2) wanting WMF grant funding and trademark approvals. To be clear, no one has threatened my funding with political conditions, but in the absence of some explicit and legally enforceable protections, I feel vulnerable. Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )