Tomasz W. Kozłowski, 09/04/2013 13:18: For the sake of precision, that slide says that there is no space for input by the board either. "Revisions are made" only after Stu's comments, then the board votes no or yes (in 15 days only out of 5 months of work). Nemo

It seems that applying to the FDC for funding periods already begun has been outruled going forward: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Frequently_asked_questions#fundi…. If I read the FAQ correctly. I am not sure if the WMF is giving itself and exception? Best regards, Bence On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk>wrote;wrote:

On 9 April 2013 13:45, Andrew Gray wrote: They might follow this, though I am afraid that there is very little point in discussing a budget that has already been aproved. This timeline includes all events up to July 1, the day that the 2013/2014 fiscal year begins—so if community consultations are planned after that date, there is little point in having them at all. On April 9, Sue was supposed to "deliver Board feedback to the team"; can anyone comment on whether this happened, and if so, whether it would be possible for community members to see the budget v. 1 and Sue's feedback on it? Also, if this is not possible, can we at least know why? -- Tomasz W. Kozłowski a.k.a. [[user:odder]]

Hi Sam, thanks for the message, I appreciate hearing from a Board member at long last. I agree that it might be a good idea to collect feedback during the year (is there actually any page that could be used for this purpose on Meta?) — but I think that it also needs to be mentioned that it's much easier and much more useful for the community to comment on a budget plan, especially before it is approved and put into motion. Can you please let us know if the Board arrived at any decision about this? I had a look at the questions that were asked to you during the open meeting in Milan (<https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/wmconf2013-meeting-with-the-board>), but I was unable to find any related to the budget issue. -- Tomasz

Hello Tomasz, We did discuss it in our meeting. The draft plans that the board sees include some details that we would not publish, but we agreed that at a suitably high level we can be more transparent about sharing budget/plan overviews. I need to follow up with Sue this week about what this could look like this year. I also expected a financial question during our joint session; for those who did not attend, and have other questions for the Board, please feel free to post them on our Meta noticeboard: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard Tomasz writes: By the time we see a final-draft plan in April/May, there is already little leeway for significant change. What I would prefer to see is an additional piece of the mid-year assessment in Jan/Feb, which includes a rough draft of next year's budget and plan. That is a better time to comment, if you want those comments to be incorporated into the plan (and not simply noted for the following year). Here is the assessment from this past February, as linked from the minutes of the Feb 1-2 board meeting: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2012-13_Year-to-Date_and_Lookahead… http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2013-02-01 Sam. On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 3:57 PM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski &lt;tomasz(a)twkozlowski.net&gt; wrote: -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 2:26 AM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski &lt;tomasz(a)twkozlowski.net&gt; wrote: Gah! As someone who works for the foundation and has had to deal with budget issues in engineering (though this is my personal opinion) the budget process is already incredibly long, drawn out, and stressful. If I had to start the planning in November to get a draft out by Jan 1, then keep revising it until May... not only would that take up a large amount of staff time, it'd also cause a stressful process to be even more stressful. -- Leslie Carr Wikimedia Foundation AS 14907, 43821 http://as14907.peeringdb.com/

The necessity of public comment on a detailed budget is overblown. I don't think the Foundation should dedicate a lot of time or resources into getting input into the budget development process from members of the community. This is one area where expertise and the ability to dedicate a substantial amount of time does matter, crowdsourcing a budget doesn't work. The WMF is not a wiki.

Steven Walling, 23/04/2013 17:58: That the FDC process has these problems, is a well-known issue and is completely unrelated. Also, WMF is surely not the entity having more problems coordinating its planning process with the FDC's. On both the matters see http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/wmconf2013-fdc-feedback ; please don't mix things up. Nemo

On Tuesday, April 23, 2013, Tomasz W. Kozlowski wrote: I don't view GAC and other insular committees as a successful model for open community feedback. They typically are formed from a relatively tiny group of people who like being on such committees, are slow, and tend to become inactive over time. I already gave an example, FDC, of where community feedback failed to provide insights in to the budget and planning of a top priority team when invited to do so before it was accepted. Do you have other examples where constructive community feedback prior to finalization led to substantive changes in a WMF-related budget? (I of course am talking solely about community feedback on financial planning in this case, not about the dozens and dozens of ways the community functions more smoothly and efficiently than the WMF.)

On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak &lt;darekj(a)alk.edu.pl&gt;wrote;wrote: I guess it might be helpful to figure out what the point of feedback is, exactly. The board's input is pretty high-level. And without a pretty indepth knowledge of costs and planning information, feedback from anyone else (i.e. members of the community) would also of necessity be pretty high-level. For instance: I don't know, and don't care, how much office supplies cost for the WMF; I trust whoever writes the budget for office supplies to know what they're doing, and whoever their boss is to provide any necessary checks against buying too many pencils. I *do* care if we have to expand the physical office substantively because we hired a bunch more people, thereby adding x% to our overall physical facilities budget. However, in the grand scheme of things I don't even care very much about the facilities budget: what I *really* care about is what projects all those new people are working on, and whether those projects are the right direction for the WMF to expand in. I'm going to guess that last question is the one that most people on this list also really care about. Similarly, I think that's the kind of feedback that was initially hoped for with the FDC proposals: are these useful and valuable projects? So the question I'd ask is whether making comments on a draft of the WMF budget (which is a staff-driven and fairly technical document) is the right way to get community feedback into how the WMF is shaped.* I don't really think it is; I think ideally we'd actually be talking about community input into more of an ongoing strategic-planning type process that helps shape budget planning, not the other way around. -- phoebe * since I assume that's what the goal is of feedback, not to say review the budget for typos, though that could also be a valuable community service.

It's good to see so much interest in this thread. The purpose of transparency is not feedback. It is valuable in its own right. It reduces surprise and supports planning discussions elsewhere in the movement. And any information shared in a lookahead document would be at a high level; not budget minutiae. To be clear about my earlier comment, I started a section about it on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Proposal:_Sharing_futu… On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Steven Walling &lt;steven.walling(a)gmail.com&gt; writes: This assumes the only options are "total secrecy" and "lengthy public discussion". We have other options. I see at least four: 0) Secrecy -- noone sees drafts or ideas until they are finalized. 1) Publishing to inform -- private drafting; a few draft snapshots published for transparency; comments not encouraged (nor responded to, except to correct errata). 2) Public drafting -- iterating on an idea in public, with comments expected (but only occasionally responded to). 3) Collaborative drafting -- requesting feedback and comments (regularly responded to and acted upon, including changing tone & focus) The last is the only one that involves scheduling time for public discussion. Sue has, wonderfully, developed some personal thoughts and recommendations as public drafts. She makes it clear how much feedback is welcome ("This is just a scratch pad for me... You can probably just ignore it." # "it's not a collaborative process" # "I'll respond as much as I've got time to"). This is clear, well-received, and limited-overhead. I think our planning should fall somewhere between 1 and 2; currently it is around 0.5. We want to solicit thoughtful feedback through FDC review. And we can be faster about sharing the drafts we already publish. Phoebe writes: Yes, this is why the timing of discussions triggered by each plan is not so sensitive. But annual planning is a natural trigger for revisiting our longer-term strategies. SJ

On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I do agree with this. (Though transparency in this area might come more naturally if it was easier to work on a spreadsheet in a wiki!) But, this thread was started with the specific idea of increasing community input into the budgeting process, so the question I was trying to answer is: how can that be made most effective? -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *