On 10 April 2012 10:02, Jan-Bart de Vreede <jdevreede(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: I don't want to rush it, I want to do it efficiently. I'll ask again, what questions is it that you want to answer with the process? With anything like this, there are basically three questions: 1) What needs to be done? 2) Who is going to do it? 3) How are they going to do it? We already know the answer to the first question - it's in the resolution calling for the creation of the committee - and it is usually best to leave the third question for the committee to work out for themselves. That just leaves deciding on the membership. We don't need this lengthy and expensive process to work that out, we just need to go on meta and talk about it until we reach a consensus (or, failing that, until all the relevant points have been made and the WMF board can make a final decision). 12 people spending 4 hours a week, plus meetings including some in-person meetings (which includes lots of expensive travel and accommodation, as well as a lot of time), is an enormous amount of time and money. I think we need to be very clear about what we actually want to achieve with all that time and money.

On 10 April 2012 12:17, John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote: Do you really think I would be responding without having read the relevant pages? That is exactly my point - trips to SF as far from free and are completely unnecessary.

Hi Thomas On 10 apr. 2012, at 13:24, Thomas Dalton wrote: in your view. Why do you insist that overhead on getting this right is unnecessary? Looking at the amount of money that this committee will distribute and the importance of getting it right I would argue that a significant investment is more than warranted. Jan-Bart

On 10 April 2012 14:09, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Hi Thomas, Here is my understanding of the goal of this committee, but I might be wrong. The board defined the broader lines of the committee, but did not tackled the operational details. Bridgespan is there to work on that, and the Advisory Groups is there to help them define the operational details. For what I understand, Bridgspan is easing the process of starting up the FDC, but the Advisory Group is here to last and oversee and review the FDC on a regular basis. So it's not just a committee to get the FDC started, but to be sure it runs smoothly over the first couple of years. As, the advisory group will provide guidance and feedback to the FDC, it seems important for the advisory group to be part of the early discussions. I understand it represents some money to fly ~10 people to SF (though I guess in the end those meetings would match other global meetings such as Wikimedia Conference or Wikimania) every six month, but on the other hand the FDC is gonna be in charge of disseminating ~30million USD, some overseeing/steering group is clearly a need. However, I agree on one point with you, flying 10 people to SF for a one day meeting is a waste of money/energy. I'd say, if possible, they should have, at least, a 2 days meeting to make the most of the energy/money. But this is details that the Advisory Group will sort out by himself I guess :) Best, Christophe

On 10 April 2012 13:25, Christophe Henner <christophe.henner(a)gmail.com> wrote: Can you elaborate on what you see as being the "operational details" that need to be defined?

On 10 April 2012 13:56, Jan-Bart de Vreede <jdevreede(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: But how many of those things are actually going to be difficult or controversial? Shouldn't we at least try and answer them using our standard approach of having an open discussion on a wiki? If it turns out we can't answer them that way, then we can try a more elaborate approach then.

Hi - I have created a list of issues to resolve in the FDC process on meta.[1] There are probably additional issues to resolve and it would be great if people would edit the list and start suggesting solutions. IMHO the list of issues is substantial and decisions on the approach to the design will have major implications for entities in the movement. Further, there are time constraints on the FDC process to start functioning quite quickly as entities will want to secure their funding for future fiscal years and I'd personally prefer not to rely on the ad hoc approach that we had last year (since we/I didn't have the capacity to figure out a more structured approach before we were in the middle of the review process). If we simply select an FDC (btw - how would this happen?) and ask them to figure out the issues for themselves, this would be a recipe for serious challenges that could doom the FDC from the start. A relatively brief, but structured process that is open, has an effective advisory group of trusted people, and is supported by consultants who can give us structure and help us with the heavy-lifting on process design seems like a solid way to get us to a good outcome and help the FDC get off to an effective start. On the narrow issue of travel to SF for occasional meetings...this is really a practical consideration. There needs to be a time when the Advisory Group can really dig in and help us push to decisions. It would be ineffective to try to do such a meeting by phone or IRC. Per Christophe's point, it might make sense to have this over two days rather than one. [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/FDC_process_is… Best, Barry On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 7:37 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Barry Newstead Chief Global Development Officer Wikimedia Foundation Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

On 10 April 2012 13:09, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: The resolution basically says "there will be a committee, it will be powerful, Sue has a draft and can figure out the details". It doesn't tell us... well, anything else. There are recommendations, but those are *proposals* and the community may decide it strongly objects to parts of them - now is a good time to figure it out. Many of the key details are sketchy. Some possible questions I can think of, in ten minutes over my lunchbreak: What limits will there be on what the FDC can recommend? What ability will it have to control funding to WMF itself for non-core spending? How independent will it be of either WMF or the chapters? How will it apply to the "non-chaptered" community? Will it be able to decline to fund Board-recommended projects? Do we need to develop alternative structures for funding work in circumstances impractical under US law? And that is before membership becomes an issue. We argued for weeks earlier in the year about chapter-nominated Board seats - who exactly will sit on the FDC? Will they be elected or appointed; what will the mix of community members versus professionals be? Will there be any non-chapter community members? What will be the legal constraints on its membership? Who are the elected members, if any, answerable to? admit - the FDC looks like it will be a remarkably powerful body; it will have a major impact on any major project not done directly by WMF. It may not have the same power as the board to set overall goals, but it will have a great deal of de-facto control over the implementation of those goals. A lot of our governance problems (or perceptions of governance problems) stem from the fact that the "movement" evolved organically from a very different thing six or seven years ago, and is perhaps not the organisation we would have designed had we a blank sheet today. Given all this, it definitely seems a good idea to have a detailed look at how it is going to work rather than just bash something together. I can imagine that if the resolution had said "...and directs the Executive Director to pick six people and have the first meeting in May", there would have been an immense outcry that we *weren't* taking the opportunity to think it through, that it was a power grab, etc etc etc... -- - Andrew Gray   andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk