[Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning

[Samuel Klein]

Hello Tomasz,

We did discuss it in our meeting.

The draft plans that the board sees include some details that we would
not publish, but we agreed that at a suitably high level we can be
more transparent about sharing budget/plan overviews.  I need to
follow up with Sue this week about what this could look like this
year.

I also expected a financial question during our joint session; for
those who did not attend, and have other questions for the Board,
please feel free to post them on our Meta noticeboard:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard

Tomasz writes:
> I think that it also needs to be mentioned that it's much easier and much more
> useful for the community to comment on a budget plan, especially before it is
> approved and put into motion.

By the time we see a final-draft plan in April/May, there is already
little leeway for significant change.

What I would prefer to see is an additional piece of the mid-year
assessment in Jan/Feb, which includes a rough draft of next year's
budget and plan.  That is a better time to comment, if you want those
comments to be incorporated into the plan (and not simply noted for
the following year).

Here is the assessment from this past February, as linked from the
minutes of the Feb 1-2 board meeting:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2012-13_Year-to-Date_and_Lookahead_to_Planning_for_2013-14.pdf
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2013-02-01

Sam.

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 3:57 PM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski
<tomasz at twkozlowski.net> wrote:
> Hi Sam,
> thanks for the message, I appreciate hearing from a Board member at long
> last.
>
> I agree that it might be a good idea to collect feedback during the year (is
> there actually any page that could be used for this purpose on Meta?) — but
> I think that it also needs to be mentioned that it's much easier and much
> more useful for the community to comment on a budget plan, especially before
> it is approved and put into motion.
>
> Can you please let us know if the Board arrived at any decision about this?
> I had a look at the questions that were asked to you during the open meeting
> in Milan
> (<https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/wmconf2013-meeting-with-the-board>), but I
> was unable to find any related to the budget issue.
>
>         -- Tomasz
>
>
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-- 
Samuel Klein          @metasj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529 4266