[Foundation-l] Re: Bounties and expenses

[Peter Bartlett]

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Viajero

>On 06/22/04  at 02:32 AM, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> said:

>> And, I don't think calling such meetings "perks" is an overstatement.  
>> I've observed quite a few non-profit meetings, as well as meetings and 
>> conferences in academia, and they rarely have much real work being 
>> done.  They're social and networking events, and the most "real work" 
>> that gets done is at best finding out about something that you make a 
>> note of to look up and read later.  The actual real work gets done via 
>> email or telephone (or both) either before or after the conferences.  H.
>>  Cheney's recent email indicated he's had similar experiences on the 
>> non-profit boards he's sat on, so this seems to not simply be my 
>> personal experience.

>I think these comments reflect a grave misunderstanding of the importance
>of meetings.

>In the past, I've been involved in a number of EU-funded projects among at
>times quite disparate participants, and it was always a given that such
>projects -- after being approved for funding -- got off to a start with a
>meeting with everyone involved. Sometimes this was the only time the
>participants met; they then went back to their respective countries and
>spent the duration of the project working in their offices and
>communicating by email and telephone. But that initial face-to-face was
>critical; it isn't something that can be measured in cold person/hour
>metrics but rather reflects some as yet not entirely well-understood
>psychological truth: long-distance, distributed projects work better when
>the participants have first met. 

>If Jimbo, Anthere, and Angela will be working closely together in the
>coming months and years, as appears to be the case, than it is entirely
>appropriate, no, *imperative* that they meet each other. I would therefore
>be in favor of Angela being reimbursed for her travel expenses to attend
>the Paris meeting.

There may very well be in truth in this. However whatever the arguments in
favour of the trustees meeting, wouldn't these same arguments be equally
applicable to the developers meeting, say? The developers at least have a
long and proven track record. So far the board has not had the chance to
prove its worth above the old, board-less, way at all - thus we are being
asked to take on trust that such a use of funds would be a best use. Perhaps
it's a shame that a certain amount of that required trust has already been
used by the refusal to publish the election results, despite explicit
(albeit informal) assurances to the contrary before and during the
elections.

Further Jimbo and Angela and Jimbo and Ant have already met. Thus it is only
Ant and Angela who don't have a face to put words too. As these two trustees
are much closer geographically, there is more scope for taking time and
waiting for the most cost-effective opportunity for them to meet.

Pete/Pcb21