Hi
Sue Gardner started working on this document on Meta a couple of weeks ago - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus The document outlines some rather big changes in the priority for WMF and future responsibilities it will agree to keep. I am surprised by how little attention this is getting from the larger community. There are comments but mostly from the same individuals on Meta, little to none from some of the most active voices and the larger English Wikipedia community.
This is the new direction being considered by the WMF, to basically abandon or cut back on majority of activities from the last few year. Here are some points- 1) No more Fellowships. 2) No more direct work in the developing markets (aka Global South- India, Brazil, MENA) 3) No more support for International events, and cutting back on Wikimania
Instead of these, things like Editor engagement, Mobile and FDC/grant making are being made priorities for WMF in the future. A large majority of editors have had no interaction with grants and are unlikely to have so with FDC as well, same with some of the mobile initiatives like Wikipedia Zero which are limited to certain developing markets. A lot of these changes will have a lasting impact, its not just relevant to those interested in governance issues. Some of the implications are - Fellowships would be removed all together, little to no spending on Hackathons, possibly GLAM camps and other international events all together, less spending on Wikimania and scholarships, the work in India and Brazil will be moved away from WMF completely for a "partner" organization to take over with a grant from WMF. If you do find some time, please consider taking a look and commenting on these developments before they are approved. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus
Regards Theo
The document has some interesting quotes -
"The Wikimedia Foundation is not a think tank or a research institute. We're not an advocacy organization or a lobbyist, and our core mission isn't to keep the internet free and open. We are not a general educational non-profit. (We are a website, or set of sites, and everything we do needs to be understood through that lens.) We don't just reactively "support the community"—responding to requests from editors and doing what they ask us to do. Our purpose isn't to provide MediaWiki support for third parties (but it's in our interest to ensure that a healthy third party ecosystem develops around MediaWiki). We're not, ourselves, content creators. Our purpose is not to ensure the chapters grow and develop, nor is it to support the chapters in their growth and development: rather, chapters are our partners in supporting editors and other content creators.
The Wikimedia Foundation is not the only fish in the sea of free knowledge; not everything that needs to be done must be done by the Wikimedia Foundation, and it's not our job to do work that other individuals or entities are better positioned or mandated to do, however important that work may be. When we try to do work that more properly belongs to other individuals or groups, we imperil our ability to get our own core work done, and we arguably make it less possible for other entities to do what they're supposed to be doing."
Other than the fellowships, which I'll come back to in a moment, I think Sue's new course for the WMF makes a lot of sense. The WMF has been the subject of a lot of valid criticism in the last few years around its goals, spending and achievements. Despite soaring budgets and an FTE trend to delight any bureaucrat, measurable positive impacts have been few and far between. Glamorous international efforts and experiments in organizational management might please their respective stakeholders and beneficiaries, but they have had questionable benefit for what is supposed to be the WMF's core mission. Perhaps in an attempt to be all things in this "movement", the WMF has lagged at being what it truly ought to be - an effective, innovative manager for an ecosystem of web-based knowledge references.
There's no margin in ignoring the fact that steadily dropping editor involvement is a serious challenge for the future of Wikimedia. We don't really understand what's causing this drop, and we're suffering from a lack of ideas on how to solve it. There's a place for small-bore efforts like training small groups of people on how to use our projects, but they are too low impact for a big scale problem. Yet I haven't seen big efforts at innovating solutions. Beyond Vector and the abuse filter, what attempts have been made to solve the big problems? Or even to understand them? Why can Reddit and other massive userbase sites keep their community and continue to grow, while Wikimedia can't? Is it that we're too hard to use? Too much has already been done? Are the communities not open enough? Too bound by rules and standards and a conservative ethic of interaction? This is where I think fellowships are useful and should continue; they are an opportunity to incubate innovative solutions and improvements to the problems we face, and to generate insight into what those problems are. I don't have the answers, and I don't think Wikimedia does either. Narrowing the organizational focus to more tightly concentrate on these issues sounds like a great idea; keeping on as it has been sounds like arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 7:47 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Other than the fellowships, which I'll come back to in a moment, I think Sue's new course for the WMF makes a lot of sense. The WMF has been the subject of a lot of valid criticism in the last few years around its goals, spending and achievements. Despite soaring budgets and an FTE trend to delight any bureaucrat, measurable positive impacts have been few and far between. Glamorous international efforts and experiments in organizational management might please their respective stakeholders and beneficiaries, but they have had questionable benefit for what is supposed to be the WMF's core mission. Perhaps in an attempt to be all things in this "movement", the WMF has lagged at being what it truly ought to be - an effective, innovative manager for an ecosystem of web-based knowledge references.
There's no margin in ignoring the fact that steadily dropping editor involvement is a serious challenge for the future of Wikimedia. We don't really understand what's causing this drop, and we're suffering from a lack of ideas on how to solve it. There's a place for small-bore efforts like training small groups of people on how to use our projects, but they are too low impact for a big scale problem. Yet I haven't seen big efforts at innovating solutions. Beyond Vector and the abuse filter, what attempts have been made to solve the big problems? Or even to understand them? Why can Reddit and other massive userbase sites keep their community and continue to grow, while Wikimedia can't? Is it that we're too hard to use? Too much has already been done? Are the communities not open enough? Too bound by rules and standards and a conservative ethic of interaction? This is where I think fellowships are useful and should continue; they are an opportunity to incubate innovative solutions and improvements to the problems we face, and to generate insight into what those problems are. I don't have the answers, and I don't think Wikimedia does either. Narrowing the organizational focus to more tightly concentrate on these issues sounds like a great idea; keeping on as it has been sounds like arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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I disagree with your interpretation, but it still deserves to be said. The talk page has mostly resounding opposition. You are basing a lot of your interpretation that WMF has been the subject of a lot of criticism in the past, and this move might help ameliorate some of the tension. I actually don't recall the fellowship program, presence in the developing world or Wikimania itself, as being subject of criticisms being directed at WMF. The education program is still there, as is the "community advocacy" department, and mostly the same structure that brought you fine ideas like the filter and took away chapter fundraising, so are the initiatives that brought us tools like the AFT and Wikilove/Moodbar. It's highly debatable if any of the area WMF was criticized on, is removed in this move. It is arguably also abandoning duties and expenses it was able to maintain once at a budget of $6-8 million, at the current level of $40 Million. If you look at this in context, first the chapter fundraising ability was taken away so there is just one source of funding, then decisions are being taken to shut down programs which would be absolute in this scenario.
I have no idea how properties like reddit still maintain and keep growing. Perhaps, it's because they are not emaciated bodies anemic for constant fresh blood, as WMF seems to have been convinced Wikipedia is. Perhaps, it's also because one is a social website that creates memes and posts funny pictures that their members find and the other is an Encyclopedia, with rules, citations, and all the serious stuff that might require more of a commitment. Not everyone likes to edit an encyclopedia, fewer still do it well, maybe comparing our community with Facebook and reddit is the problem.*
As far as "Movement" goes, that's what we actually raise money in the name of, we don't ask to support "an effective, innovative manager of an ecosystem of web-based knowledge references". Movement, I suppose was hard to characterize, in different context it could mean different things, it could be organizing an event on one end of the world one day, doing something like WLM the next or opposing something like SOPA the day after, all the while running the largest, online encyclopedia. Something was needed to bind those common threads, I suppose Movement was the word they chose, I don't like it any more than you do, but it fits. There just doesn't seem to be a lot tying all this together, more and more threads are being cut and manipulated.
Last point about fundraising, It was perhaps worth striving to achieve a distant abstract goal that will not be met in the near future like "End world hunger" or "No bombs, No wars", as far as those go, perhaps "Gathering the sum of all human knowledge" is in that same distant vein, not likely to be achieved any time soon or perhaps ever. It might become a bit harder if the larger goal was to be specified, instead of "Support our community", "Support our editors" Jimmy would be asking this year to "help support our FDC grants program and mobile development for the year", for those who know, it should affect the perception at least. The most sanguine of disposition from community members about fundraising should consider, that WMF is actually suggesting to do less while raising more money.
Regards Theo
(*partially borrowed from something MzMcbride said in a similar context.)
2012/10/18 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
Why can Reddit and other massive userbase sites keep their community and continue to grow, while Wikimedia can't? Is it that we're too hard to use? Too much has already been done? Are the communities not open enough? Too bound by rules and standards and a conservative ethic of interaction?
That's easy to answer. Apart from the commercial social network sites for the populace being non-educational: Much has already been done, and what we are doing is good enough to most people. Also, they do not perceive Wikipedia as a community to become a part of, but basically as an online encyclopaedia they can use for looking up something they are interested in --- after all, that's what it's supposed to be, isn't it. And then, the situation is quite different for the language communities. German Wikipedia grows constantly by some 400 new articles per day. No change over time. No loss of productivity. So what?
Regards, Jürgen.
Theo10011 wrote:
Sue Gardner started working on this document on Meta a couple of weeks ago
Well, there's your problem. You're reading the talk page! You want the subject-space page, of course: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus.
I've read (or skimmed) your posts to the talk page and to this list and I'm a bit lost why you seem to be hostile to the document. Were you a big fan of the fellowships or India programs? Do you think Wikimania can't sustain itself? I think you have been pretty vocally critical of programs like these in the past and I would think you would be pleased with the narrowed focus. I am. And I think the Board will be. Is it a perfect plan? No. Is there more work to do? Of course.
But I'm sincerely confused about which parts you're upset with and why. If your intent is to rabble-rouse, you're doing it wrong. :-)
MZMcBride
MZMcBride wrote:
Theo10011 wrote:
Sue Gardner started working on this document on Meta a couple of weeks ago
Well, there's your problem. You're reading the talk page! You want the subject-space page, of course: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus.
Sorry, one more thing that I think deserves a follow-up e-mail: huge props to Sue for drafting this on-wiki. I know that there were a number of alternate private venues available (such as the office wiki) and it isn't always easy to draft a document, particularly a document like this, in public. In keeping with our values, I hope we continue to encourage everyone to use the public venues whenever possible. Thank you, Sue!
MZMcBride
Narrowing the focus... target locked on Wikipedia... hunf sad... very sad.
Thanks board... On 18 October 2012 19:07, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
MZMcBride wrote:
Theo10011 wrote:
Sue Gardner started working on this document on Meta a couple of weeks
ago
Well, there's your problem. You're reading the talk page! You want the subject-space page, of course: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus.
Sorry, one more thing that I think deserves a follow-up e-mail: huge props to Sue for drafting this on-wiki. I know that there were a number of alternate private venues available (such as the office wiki) and it isn't always easy to draft a document, particularly a document like this, in public. In keeping with our values, I hope we continue to encourage everyone to use the public venues whenever possible. Thank you, Sue!
MZMcBride
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On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 3:28 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Well, there's your problem. You're reading the talk page! You want the subject-space page, of course: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus.
Ah darn. And there I was so lost, you saved us.
I've read (or skimmed) your posts to the talk page and to this list and I'm a bit lost why you seem to be hostile to the document. Were you a big fan of the fellowships or India programs? Do you think Wikimania can't sustain itself? I think you have been pretty vocally critical of programs like these in the past and I would think you would be pleased with the narrowed focus. I am. And I think the Board will be. Is it a perfect plan? No. Is there more work to do? Of course.
Well, you seem to be singling me out as if I'm the only one. As of writing this, there is Liam, Bence, Pine, Ocaasi, DGG and several others criticizing these developments, some even started before me. I wasn't a fan of the what preceded these changes, and no, I'm not happy about some of the things replacing them including what's being done with the India program. I also don't think Wikimania can sustain itself without constant WMF support, and fellowships have become an integral part of the annual program. These changes will affect a lot of things - GLAM, Wikimania scholarships, events around the world - there is also a lot more that money could have gone to. My post here was just to bring the discussion in view, just like Pine did a week or so ago, and hopefully get more participation, maybe the rhetoric got a bit heavy somewhere along the line.
Perhaps, you can assume that I have a different set of concerns than yours. Understandably, most of these changes don't interest you (beyond the concern you displayed for the term 'Global South'), but it shouldn't be hard to understand that they might concern others. If you see the talk page again, I'm certainly not alone in some of these thoughts. If this seems uninteresting, fine, I'm sure there is a Jimmy conspiracy not far from here, that usually interests the majority. You see, I'm also not as detached as you are, after spending the better part of the decade following this, you can look at it with a mixture of amusement and apathy, I can't. I expect to burn out soon and not care, but until then I'm certainly going to rage against the dying of that light. (tl;dr version - Whatever, brah!)
But I'm sincerely confused about which parts you're upset with and why. If your intent is to rabble-rouse, you're doing it wrong. :-)
Heh, you'd know. ;) I think I can be a bit more effective, if my only intention was to rabble-rouse - it wasn't.
Regards Theo
This proposal reminds me of "management buyout", which Wikipedia defines as "form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large part or all of the company from either the parent company or from the private owners".
There always been ambiguity to the roles of WMF - does it have right to interfere with Community decisions, especially highly controversial ones? In what form it should communicate with highly dispersed, varied community. I cannot say that I completely agreed with "5 year plan", but at least it have given a clear directions and even (some, not all) achievable goals: attraction of new editors, including women, helping the Global South to access free knowledge. Of course, not all initiatives were working, but at least the was movement in the right direction.
I understand that it wasn't easy for the WMF employees, but we all hope that working for a non-profit organisation is not just a day, 9 to 5 job (which are disappearing fast anyway). And now the management found how to end all this - curtail awkward, highly demanding activities on the ground in less civilised world and concentrate on relatively easy, structured work, which can be done in sunny San Francisco - engineering and "grant making".
I cannot say anything against engineering, this is a cornerstone, although I cannot see how management, Legal etc. engagement with "people on the ground" have interfered with programmers work and how "refocusing" will help to create Visual Editor. My worry is about "grant making", forgive me, I am not a native speaker, so I can just guess that this means "grant distributing".
When the chapters started appearing, I thought they will be local WMF, which will build bridges between WMF and local communities. This is not what happened. I don't want to go into details as to why, but Fir WMF had already withdrawn support for the Chapter fundraising through the banner, and now if I understand correctly the Chapters re supposed to fend for themselves completely - they want to do it anyway, but this is a different story.
So WMF will collect the money and then will distribute it by the means unknown. As a former member of the Grant Committee I can say that the current process is not very efficient and there is no alternative proposed. And if WMF focus on distributing grants instead of helping directly, it will become incredibly difficult for people with no experience in a highly specific task of grant-writing (=community members) to get their initiatives off the ground, and the money will go to third parties. During the "restructuring time" WMF will stop supporting really working things such as Wikimania, leaving it to fend for itself, just like chapters.
I wonder at what point European Chapters, lead by highly efficient German , will realise that they don't need WMF, buy servers and fork.
I can only hope that the Board will not agree with this proposal and WMF will find some other way to reduce work-related stress.
Victoria
I find this rather frightening, as it implies that the programs undertaken by the Wikimedia Foundation recently were not successful and wasted funds. This is open to debate, but if these programs were successful in 'editor engagement' why would we get rid of them?
(It seems like they weren't.)
Meanwhile, the proposal shown seems to favor product development. But the funds being spent on extremely basic improvements that other top websites did years ago is alarming too. It seems like the WMF needs to streamline development for rapid deployment.
Finish the visual editor, design a new interface for reading and such, and get people editing and uploading with an awareness campaign. Google is perfecting Wikipedia's purpose (see https://www.google.com/?q=paul%20ryanon the right).
The WMF should spend less time thinking about what to do and more time doing it. That means they can't do everything under the moon. But everyone knows that big things need to happen.
On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 5:01 AM, Виктория mstislavl1@gmail.com wrote:
This proposal reminds me of "management buyout", which Wikipedia defines as "form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large part or all of the company from either the parent company or from the private owners".
There always been ambiguity to the roles of WMF - does it have right to interfere with Community decisions, especially highly controversial ones? In what form it should communicate with highly dispersed, varied community. I cannot say that I completely agreed with "5 year plan", but at least it have given a clear directions and even (some, not all) achievable goals: attraction of new editors, including women, helping the Global South to access free knowledge. Of course, not all initiatives were working, but at least the was movement in the right direction.
I understand that it wasn't easy for the WMF employees, but we all hope that working for a non-profit organisation is not just a day, 9 to 5 job (which are disappearing fast anyway). And now the management found how to end all this - curtail awkward, highly demanding activities on the ground in less civilised world and concentrate on relatively easy, structured work, which can be done in sunny San Francisco - engineering and "grant making".
I cannot say anything against engineering, this is a cornerstone, although I cannot see how management, Legal etc. engagement with "people on the ground" have interfered with programmers work and how "refocusing" will help to create Visual Editor. My worry is about "grant making", forgive me, I am not a native speaker, so I can just guess that this means "grant distributing".
When the chapters started appearing, I thought they will be local WMF, which will build bridges between WMF and local communities. This is not what happened. I don't want to go into details as to why, but Fir WMF had already withdrawn support for the Chapter fundraising through the banner, and now if I understand correctly the Chapters re supposed to fend for themselves completely - they want to do it anyway, but this is a different story.
So WMF will collect the money and then will distribute it by the means unknown. As a former member of the Grant Committee I can say that the current process is not very efficient and there is no alternative proposed. And if WMF focus on distributing grants instead of helping directly, it will become incredibly difficult for people with no experience in a highly specific task of grant-writing (=community members) to get their initiatives off the ground, and the money will go to third parties. During the "restructuring time" WMF will stop supporting really working things such as Wikimania, leaving it to fend for itself, just like chapters.
I wonder at what point European Chapters, lead by highly efficient German , will realise that they don't need WMF, buy servers and fork.
I can only hope that the Board will not agree with this proposal and WMF will find some other way to reduce work-related stress.
Victoria _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On Oct 20, 2012 6:36 PM, "Mono" monomium@gmail.com wrote:
The WMF should spend less time thinking about what to do and more time doing it. That means they can't do everything under the moon. But everyone knows that big things need to happen.
Well said. That is precisely why these changes are being proposed: taking some things off the table will help us get shit done. It's not the only part of being able to more rapidly ship new products, by far, but being clear about our scope as an organzation will go a long way.
On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 5:01 AM, Виктория mstislavl1@gmail.com wrote:
This proposal reminds me of "management buyout", which Wikipedia
defines as
"form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large part or all of the company from either the parent company or from the private owners".
There always been ambiguity to the roles of WMF - does it have right to interfere with Community decisions, especially highly controversial
ones?
In what form it should communicate with highly dispersed, varied
community.
I cannot say that I completely agreed with "5 year plan", but at least
it
have given a clear directions and even (some, not all) achievable goals: attraction of new editors, including women, helping the Global South to access free knowledge. Of course, not all initiatives were working,
but at
least the was movement in the right direction.
I understand that it wasn't easy for the WMF employees, but we all hope that working for a non-profit organisation is not just a day, 9 to 5 job (which are disappearing fast anyway). And now the management found how
to
end all this - curtail awkward, highly demanding activities on the
ground
in less civilised world and concentrate on relatively easy, structured work, which can be done in sunny San Francisco - engineering and "grant making".
I cannot say anything against engineering, this is a cornerstone,
although
I cannot see how management, Legal etc. engagement with "people on the ground" have interfered with programmers work and how "refocusing" will help to create Visual Editor. My worry is about "grant making", forgive me, I am not a native speaker, so I can just guess that this means
"grant
distributing".
When the chapters started appearing, I thought they will be local WMF, which will build bridges between WMF and local communities. This is not what happened. I don't want to go into details as to why, but Fir WMF
had
already withdrawn support for the Chapter fundraising through the
banner,
and now if I understand correctly the Chapters re supposed to fend for themselves completely - they want to do it anyway, but this is a
different
story.
So WMF will collect the money and then will distribute it by the means unknown. As a former member of the Grant Committee I can say that the current process is not very efficient and there is no alternative
proposed.
And if WMF focus on distributing grants instead of helping directly,
it
will become incredibly difficult for people with no experience in a
highly
specific task of grant-writing (=community members) to get their initiatives off the ground, and the money will go to third parties.
During
the "restructuring time" WMF will stop supporting really working things such as Wikimania, leaving it to fend for itself, just like chapters.
I wonder at what point European Chapters, lead by highly efficient
German ,
will realise that they don't need WMF, buy servers and fork.
I can only hope that the Board will not agree with this proposal and WMF will find some other way to reduce work-related stress.
Victoria _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Why when we talk about "editor engagement" we think exclusively about new editors? How about retaining people, who already made Wikipedia (= the product) and keep maintaining it? Wikimania and Community Fellows, and other initiatives do exactly this, providing incentives for people to look beyond the text and extend the Community off-line - the Movement.
Any scientist would tell you that maintaining - and returning to - the exponential growth is unrealistic, as unrealistic to expect that new Visual Editor will suddenly attract a wave of the new editors. The bubble burst, the fashion to edit Wikipedia has gone where most of the personal pages, blogs etc. gone, contributing to Wikipedia is a niche hobby, so it is important to help people who are already engaged - including and doubly important in the Global South.
If the management prefers to concentrate on "the product development" (very corporate speak, a bit strange if we talking about free Encyclopaedia), it will eventually lose the community. The product (content) is underdeveloped - working parts, not just shiny bits and only Community can develop it.
It's as if Wikitravel story did not teach anything beyond "we win again".
Victoria
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 1:44 AM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.comwrote:
On Oct 20, 2012 6:36 PM, "Mono" monomium@gmail.com wrote:
The WMF should spend less time thinking about what to do and more time doing it. That means they can't do everything under the moon. But
everyone
knows that big things need to happen.
Well said. That is precisely why these changes are being proposed: taking some things off the table will help us get shit done. It's not the only part of being able to more rapidly ship new products, by far, but being clear about our scope as an organzation will go a long way.
On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 5:01 AM, Виктория mstislavl1@gmail.com wrote:
This proposal reminds me of "management buyout", which Wikipedia
defines as
"form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a
large
part or all of the company from either the parent company or from the private owners".
There always been ambiguity to the roles of WMF - does it have right to interfere with Community decisions, especially highly controversial
ones?
In what form it should communicate with highly dispersed, varied
community.
I cannot say that I completely agreed with "5 year plan", but at least
it
have given a clear directions and even (some, not all) achievable
goals:
attraction of new editors, including women, helping the Global South to access free knowledge. Of course, not all initiatives were working,
but at
least the was movement in the right direction.
I understand that it wasn't easy for the WMF employees, but we all hope that working for a non-profit organisation is not just a day, 9 to 5
job
(which are disappearing fast anyway). And now the management found how
to
end all this - curtail awkward, highly demanding activities on the
ground
in less civilised world and concentrate on relatively easy, structured work, which can be done in sunny San Francisco - engineering and "grant making".
I cannot say anything against engineering, this is a cornerstone,
although
I cannot see how management, Legal etc. engagement with "people on the ground" have interfered with programmers work and how "refocusing" will help to create Visual Editor. My worry is about "grant making", forgive me, I am not a native speaker, so I can just guess that this means
"grant
distributing".
When the chapters started appearing, I thought they will be local WMF, which will build bridges between WMF and local communities. This is not what happened. I don't want to go into details as to why, but Fir WMF
had
already withdrawn support for the Chapter fundraising through the
banner,
and now if I understand correctly the Chapters re supposed to fend for themselves completely - they want to do it anyway, but this is a
different
story.
So WMF will collect the money and then will distribute it by the means unknown. As a former member of the Grant Committee I can say that the current process is not very efficient and there is no alternative
proposed.
And if WMF focus on distributing grants instead of helping directly,
it
will become incredibly difficult for people with no experience in a
highly
specific task of grant-writing (=community members) to get their initiatives off the ground, and the money will go to third parties.
During
the "restructuring time" WMF will stop supporting really working things such as Wikimania, leaving it to fend for itself, just like chapters.
I wonder at what point European Chapters, lead by highly efficient
German ,
will realise that they don't need WMF, buy servers and fork.
I can only hope that the Board will not agree with this proposal and
WMF
will find some other way to reduce work-related stress.
Victoria _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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I'm kind sad to see the my personal view of the Wikimedia movement increasingly distant from Sue's view...
I believe sister projects are deeply important and potential (we have a Universal Library (Wikisource), a Universal Media Archive (Commons), a Universal Dictionary (Wiktionary), etc.) They are worth some attention and WMF has never given it to them. I believe WMF should understand that his job focus it's not English Wikipedia. There are other Wikipedias and there are other projects. Oh, there are other languages too. I believe the Movement to be deeply international and diverse, and that keeping and enjoying this diversity is hugely hard but hugely important. Both fellowships, attention to developing countries and Wikimania cover that. I believe Wikimania is a awesome occasion to become a WikiMedian, and to fell being part of a Movement. It is wonderful to get new ideas, to talk to people, to understand and learn, and to take back this experience in Chapters and Wikiprojects. Ask anyone who participated in a Wikimania event. I feel that keeping the Fellowhip Program open would be a way to let the community express itself, propose original and innovative ideas and focused projects. I do believe that some of them had an impact (GLAM, anyone?), and will have for years. We just scratched the surface. I regret deeply the distance between WMF and Chapters: they were not allowed to participant in the fundraiser, put in the uncomfortable situation to ask the grants in a burocratic way staying under stricts agreements (ie, California laws AND national laws). It is a complex topic (accountability and so on), but could have be dealt with much better. I believe that money should be much better distributed that centralized, I believe that ''no one, neither the Chapters nor the Foundation, is really entitled to get the money.'' No one really deserve the donations we get as Wikimedia. We did not earn them. They are for Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is a commons, and is common-produced. If we could distribute the money to all the editors around the globe, as a reward, we should do it.. It's impossible, so it's OK, but, still, I hope you get the idea that we are not entitled, we just get them. And we should be aware of that.
Aubrey
PS: full disclosure: I had in mind to ask for a fellowship about Wikisource, and I'm a chapter member. So there is some personal disappontment, going exactly in the opposite direction of WMF.
At this rate, I think the communities could run some of these sites better than the WMF. It's better than letting them sit forever.
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 7:45 AM, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.comwrote:
I'm kind sad to see the my personal view of the Wikimedia movement increasingly distant from Sue's view...
I believe sister projects are deeply important and potential (we have a Universal Library (Wikisource), a Universal Media Archive (Commons), a Universal Dictionary (Wiktionary), etc.) They are worth some attention and WMF has never given it to them. I believe WMF should understand that his job focus it's not English Wikipedia. There are other Wikipedias and there are other projects. Oh, there are other languages too. I believe the Movement to be deeply international and diverse, and that keeping and enjoying this diversity is hugely hard but hugely important. Both fellowships, attention to developing countries and Wikimania cover that. I believe Wikimania is a awesome occasion to become a WikiMedian, and to fell being part of a Movement. It is wonderful to get new ideas, to talk to people, to understand and learn, and to take back this experience in Chapters and Wikiprojects. Ask anyone who participated in a Wikimania event. I feel that keeping the Fellowhip Program open would be a way to let the community express itself, propose original and innovative ideas and focused projects. I do believe that some of them had an impact (GLAM, anyone?), and will have for years. We just scratched the surface. I regret deeply the distance between WMF and Chapters: they were not allowed to participant in the fundraiser, put in the uncomfortable situation to ask the grants in a burocratic way staying under stricts agreements (ie, California laws AND national laws). It is a complex topic (accountability and so on), but could have be dealt with much better. I believe that money should be much better distributed that centralized, I believe that ''no one, neither the Chapters nor the Foundation, is really entitled to get the money.'' No one really deserve the donations we get as Wikimedia. We did not earn them. They are for Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is a commons, and is common-produced. If we could distribute the money to all the editors around the globe, as a reward, we should do it.. It's impossible, so it's OK, but, still, I hope you get the idea that we are not entitled, we just get them. And we should be aware of that.
Aubrey
PS: full disclosure: I had in mind to ask for a fellowship about Wikisource, and I'm a chapter member. So there is some personal disappontment, going exactly in the opposite direction of WMF. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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