[Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

[Anders Wennersten]

The beauty of the process, is in my mind, that is set up so that each 
member can have their personal preferences on criteria to be used. This 
ensues that as many perspectives as possible is up on the table during 
the deliberation, and certainly not only what is in the staff assessment.

And culture context is central for most of us and it is fascinating the 
broad understanding of cultural context, country specifics and specific 
chapters operations there exist among the group of us

Anders







Ilario Valdelli skrev 2013-04-29 10:07:
> Personally I think that these two points are relevant like weaknesses 
> of the FDC.
>
> I would read three main important weaknesses:
>
> a) if there is a conflictual position inside the members of the FDC 
> and a big difference of opinions probably there are no specific 
> criteria to evaluate the projects. It seems to me that someone has a 
> feeling and gives their *personal* opinion. To solve the 
> incompatibilities the best solution is to agree in a matrix of 
> criteria and to evaluate the submissions mainly with these criteria, 
> the personal opinion should be reduced a lot
> b) with the point a) is associated the point b. The knowledge of these 
> criteria helps the chapters to submit a plan leaving any bad point and 
> it means less wasting of time for both (chapter and FDC)
> c) It seems to me that the evaluation of the FDC doesn't consider the 
> context. Hong Kong is a town and is a small chapter, probably the 
> support/empower/encourage of volunteers may not work for Hong Kong 
> because they don't have a potential number of volunteers but they have 
> opportunities because Hong Kong is the seat of relevant companies
>
> I think that the study of the context of each country may help a lot 
> to solve conflicts.
>
> It's for the same reason that I have fear of people speaking about 
> "peer review" and people speaking about a single model of chapter.
>
> Speaking with no-European chapters their main request is to make 
> clearer that they have different needs and cannot be evaluated like 
> the European chapters.
>
> Imagine what happens if an European chapter will do a "peer review" 
> evaluating it with European parameters!
>
> Regards
>
> On 29.04.2013 09:25, Anders Wennersten wrote:
>>
>> MZMcBride skrev 2013-04-29 07:13:
>>> I took a look at the current FDC members list[1] and the 
>>> decision-making information[2] but I'm still a bit unclear how 
>>> decisions like this[3] are made. Is there a vote on each individual 
>>> request (and subsequent recommendation)? If so, is that vote public? 
>>> Or is it a single recommendation encompassing all requests for that 
>>> round and members vote on that? And if so, is that vote public? 
>> As stated, all seven FDC members before the meeting asses all 
>> proposals and write down the sum recommended for each. During the 
>> deliberation these seven figures are presented  and they can differ 
>> very much, even that for the same proposal some member recommends 
>> full funding, others no funding and others partial funding. Seeing 
>> these figures, a very intense discussion start where we argue and 
>> reason, each fully paticipaing and often very passionate. If the 
>> difference still is wide, we then each prepare a new set of figures, 
>> which then normally show a level of convergence in recommended 
>> funding figures.  In some cases there is still incompatible positions 
>> among the FDC members and in other there is mostly then a concern 
>> where within a span we should find the recommended figures, which 
>> also is discussed and argued. In most cases we then all agree on a 
>> recommended figure, and in other we fully agree with some expressing 
>> some level of reluctance on the agreed amount. So no votes, and the 
>> reason why we manage to come to an agreement is, i believe, that we 
>> are used on the way we reach consensus on Wikipedia.  I myself, have 
>> in no other of the hundreds of groups I have been involved in, seen 
>> the same constructiveness of the participants to come to an agreement 
>> with consensus.
>>
>>
>>> From the round 2 recommendation[3] we find the following snippet of 
>>> text. """ We are concerned about the general increase in staff 
>>> hiring that has been taking place over the last year, in particular 
>>> where staff are performing functions that volunteers have been 
>>> leading. We encourage entities to focus on balancing the work done 
>>> by staff and volunteers in line with the Wikimedia movement's ethos 
>>> of volunteers leading work, and to focus on having staff coordinate 
>>> volunteer activities. We are also concerned about the growth rates 
>>> of both staff and budgets. We would ask entities to consider whether 
>>> their growth rates are sustainable in the long term, and whether 
>>> they are leading to the most impact possible. """ Is the FDC 
>>> commenting on the Wikimedia chapters here or on the Wikimedia 
>>> Foundation (or both)?
>>
>> The key word is "coordinating". we want to highlight that employed 
>> staff should not be seen to  replace volunteers but 
>> support/empower/encourage their efforts. And this is relevant for WMF 
>> as well when hey are involved in activities where there are 
>> volunteers involved.
>>
>> Anders
>> Secretary of FDC
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
>