WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason - Wikimedia-l

9 Jan 2015

The real problem is that there have been "conferences for 3 or 4 years all
around the world" but (a) no new empirical work on the actual size of the
gender gap; and (b) whether that is changing over time; and (c) the
underlying reasons for that gap; and (d) whether any past conference,
program, or initiative has moved the needle even a whit.

Instead of hiring a couple statistics people and doing serious surveying
and analysis to figure out what truly needs to be done, WMF is delighted to
throw money at the problem. "Come one, come all, with your grant pitches!
We've got the money, hurrah!"

Cart before horse.

Tim Davenport
Carrite on WP
Corvallis, OR

===old message===
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:34:45 -0500
From: Sydney Poore &lt;sydney.poore(a)gmail.com&gt;
To: Wikimedia Mailing List &lt;wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good
        projects for 3 months for no reason
Message-ID:
        &lt;CAA6ZO2Q-_ZboFzZfCTF3ajXzY-5MzqmjbF3OC+GVuAy-rA8P4g(a)mail.gmail.com&gt;
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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