[Wikimedia-l] FDC recommendations on funds allocation, Round 1, 2012-13

Fri Nov 16 13:50:33 UTC 2012

lol, I didn't want it to sound this way. I only wanted to say that none of
the non-native speakers of English within the FDC wants to use this as an
excuse for the lack of long detailed recommendations for each of the
entities.

dariusz

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 2:47 PM, Osmar Valdebenito
<osmar at wikimediachile.cl>wrote:

> I spent the last twenty minutes writing that mail in English and now you
> say it is irrelevant? Boo...
> (by the way, in my last mail I was talking more general about the
> movement, not only about the FDC)
>
>
> 2012/11/16 Dariusz Jemielniak <darekj at alk.edu.pl>
>
>>
>> Also, the fact that we're not native speakers is irrelevant - all of us
>> have experience in writing longer pieces, most of us have experience with
>> NGO evaluation, finance, or management, and handling documents related to
>> it. What takes much more time that actual writing down is agreeing on the
>> message to the letter.
>>
>> One thing that I'm really proud of is that we have been able to work
>> relying on the consensus principle, and many varied perspectives and
>> different angles of analysis (including e.g. areas where we sought
>> alternatives to  the analyses provided by FDC staff and created our own
>> models and simulations) came down to a recommendation we all agreed that
>> we
>> are fine with.
>>
>> I don't think it is realistic now to expect that we will be able to
>> provide
>> detailed feedback for each of the entities, also because of the fact that
>> we treat reaching a consensus very seriously. We have been writing and
>> rewriting the recommendation you have seen for quite a while, to make sure
>> that it reflects our consensus fully, and it takes time.
>>
>> However, I hear your feedback and all of us at the FDC will think how to
>> make sure that the whole process, and the amount of work and discussions,
>> is more reflected in the final outcome of a recommendation. We definitely
>> do not want to be a professional blackbox, and we've been really making
>> efforts to make the application and project discussion transparent and
>> collaborative (and we do hope it will be even more so, also from the
>> chapters' side).
>>
>> best,
>>
>> Dariusz
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 2:06 PM, Osmar Valdebenito
>> <osmar at wikimediachile.cl>wrote:
>>
>> > I agree that better and much more detailed reports would be great. I
>> would
>> > love to read what projects the FDC agrees with, which should change and
>> so
>> > on. But guys, the FDC is a group of volunteers with not enough time and
>> > where few are native English speakers able to write long pages. I even
>> > consider that the report is long enough, probably not about each
>> chapter,
>> > but about the process as a whole.
>> >
>> > Yes, it would be great to have a lot of details and I haven't seen any
>> > problems by the FDC to provide them as long as you ask them but you
>> can't
>> > expect them to do all that extra work 'for free'.
>> >
>> > Osmar Valdebenito G.
>> >
>> >
>> > 2012/11/16 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>
>> >
>> > > I was also expecting a much more detailed report. I remember having a
>> > > discussion with Anasuya about the timetable and I pointed out that she
>> > > hadn't scheduled enough time for writing up the report. If she was
>> > > thinking of a report like this one, then I can see why we disagreed. I
>> > > thought a lot more time was needed because I was expecting a much more
>> > > detailed report (about one side of A4 per application, perhaps).
>> > >
>> > > Report writing is something we are, as a movement, very bad at. A well
>> > > written report can be read in isolation (with references to other
>> > > documents for more detail if it is desired, but essential details
>> > > should be in the report itself). It takes longer to write, certainly,
>> > > but it takes a lot less time to read and digest, so overall a lot of
>> > > time is saved by writing good reports.
>> > >
>> > > It's something that comes up annually with regards to Wikimania - we
>> > > never get a decent report from the organisers. I also see it on a
>> > > regular basis with Wikimedia UK - someone brings a subject to a board
>> > > meeting for discussion without having produced a proper report on it,
>> > > so the discussion is uninformed, unstructured and nobody knows what it
>> > > is actually meant to achieve.
>> > >
>> > > Perhaps we could organise some reporting writing training for people,
>> > > although I think the real problem is convincing people that it is
>> > > worth doing properly.
>> > >
>> > > _______________________________________________
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>> > >
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>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> __________________________
>> dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak
>> profesor zarządzania
>> kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego
>> i centrum badawczego CROW
>> Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego
>> http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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>>
>
>

-- 

__________________________
dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak
profesor zarządzania
kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego
i centrum badawczego CROW
Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego
http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl