[Wikimedia-l] WMF core and non core expenses

[charles andrès]

Dear Sue,
I partially disagree with the statement "we're not in a position where we need to make extraordinarily difficult choices about whether to preserve"

If you consider the WMF financial reserves it's true, but for what I understand, the FDC should decide about the distribution of the forthcoming fundraising and so we can only guess that the movement has no fundings problem. If this winter we cannot reach the total amount fixed, what will happen? The entities that apply to the FDC will have to share the money that remain after the WMF took a lot more than what is needed to operate the project (bottom base).

I personnaly agree that the "core" should be more than only the basics, but there should be something between this extremitiy and the actual WMF FDC proposal where the community can comment only 10% of the real WMF budget.


What I could suggest is too split the WMF proposal in two parts: 1)the expanded core (high priority) 2) the non core (lower priority=actual FDC proposal). In this case, if the fundraising is not successful has intend, the cost of the difficult choices will be assumed by all the part of the movement.

sincerely

Charles

___________________________________________________________
Charles ANDRES, Chairman
"Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge –
www.wikimedia.ch
Skype: charles.andres.wmch
IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch



Le 8 oct. 2012 à 14:08, Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org> a écrit :

> On 8 October 2012 12:18, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It seems clear to me, based on the end result and what foundation board and
>> senior staff have said, that they decided an account of money they wanted
>> to request from the FDC and then decided what to designate as non-core so
>> that it added up to that amount.
>> 
>> Rather disingenuous of them, but Sue has been very clear that she only sees
>> the foundation's application as a way of testing the process rather than as
>> actually being the right way to determine the budget.
>> On Oct 8, 2012 11:14 AM, "Itzik Edri" <itzik at infra.co.il> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Thomas & Itzik,
> 
> There's FAQ material on the wikis about how core versus non-core were
> determined -- I think it's part of the annual plan FAQ. (I'd link you
> to it, but I'm in a bit of a rush. Maybe somebody else can point to
> the right place?)
> 
> The Board and I had a number of discussions about core versus non-core
> -- to very swiftly recap, we decided that we did not want core to mean
> the rock-bottom base costs of operating the site. We realized that in
> making that decision we'd risk being confusing, and that people would
> likely end up sending inquiries like the one Itzik just sent, because
> they'd likely be operating on the assumption that core did indeed mean
> base costs. We considered whether to label it as something other than
> "core" in order to avoid being confusing, but in the end went ahead
> with core for lack of a better word.
> 
> Going from memory -- core is intended to represent the ordinary costs
> of running the global sites -- so for example, it would include all
> the costs of maintaining the trademark portfolio, providing legal
> defence where necessary, doing media stuff and internal global
> movement communications work, etc. For example we decided that
> internationalization & localization are part of "core," because our
> core work includes providing a service in multiple languages.
> 
> We did not want core to represent the base, rock-bottom,
> non-negotiable costs of operating the sites on a shoestring, because
> that's not the purpose of this exercise, because we're not in a
> position where we need to make extraordinarily difficult choices about
> whether to preserve, for example, internationalization & localization
> versus site performance. If we were in that position (needing to make
> very painful choices due to financial necessity) of course we would.
> But that's not where we are.
> 
> Thomas, it's not actually true that I see this as purely an exercise
> in testing the FDC process, although I do definitely think running
> part of the WMF budget through the FDC will help us be sensitive to
> fund-seeker needs as we iterate the process. I do also see value in
> the process itself -- getting community input on the WMF's non-core
> activities, etc., will be useful.
> 
> (Just FYI -- I won't be able to reply any more to this thread for much
> of the rest of the day, by the way -- I'm swamped and doing a bunch of
> things.)
> 
> Thanks,
> Sue
> 
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