[Flow Funding] Important discussion on Meta

[poupou]

Dear All,
 
the debate about flow funding in the German wikipedia has started and already attracted a number of people with a variety of issues. I have referred some of the questions to the FF portal talk page. One German user has applied to become a flow funder himself, which I think is a good result of the debate :) 
 
The core issue of the opponents of flow funding is that they regard this a a mechanism that makes nepotism very likely. This is a concern I had myself, which is the reason why I had decided to make everything very public from the start. We will see whether this was useful in order to avoid even more funamental criticisms in the long run.
 
Others which argue in favor of flow funding stress the advantages of less bueraucracy, simplicity of application and that due to the limited sum of 2.000 US-Dollars in the hand of one person, there is only a low risk. It was also mentioned, that due to the transparency of the procedure any nepotism would be easily revealed and no flow funder would want to risk his/her reputation.
 
Another thought that came up, was that flow funding might be more effective in such countries/communities that have no local chapter. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland the local chapters are well funded and have their own grant schemes, so there is a feeling that flow funding is less needed in this ares. On the other hand, some of the grant schemes are preceived as over-bueraucratic and do not work very well, so flow funding is seen as an interesting alternative and people hope that the experiences made by flow funding will helpt to improve the local grant schemes.
 
Nevertheless I am delighted to have received the first application on my Flow funding proposals page, which I find truely great! A German female user who is a photographer would like to rent a hot air balloon for 1,5 hours so that a group of 5 wikipedians can take arial view pictures of hamburg. She thinks it will cost 950 Dollars. I have also approached some people on their talk pages who have somewhere in wikipedia mentioned ideas or projects that I regard as potentially fundable. In addition two people have contacted me via email with their ideas.
 
So that's the current situation in Germany, what is your experience so far?
 
Best regards,
poupou
 
 
 

________________________________
 Von: Thomas Souza-Buckup <thomassouzabuckup at gmail.com>
An: Flow Funding Pilot Project <flowfunding at lists.wikimedia.org> 
Gesendet: 16:18 Donnerstag, 7.März 2013
Betreff: [Flow Funding] Important discussion on Meta
  

Dear Flow Funding members,

Asaf Bartov, from the WMF, started a very interesting discussion about the Flow Funding Pilot Project here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FF_portal 
I hope all of you will have the chance to share your opinion based on your experience and the challenges and opportunities you are facing in this flow funding pilot project.

Best,
Thomas 
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