[Wikimedia-l] [Internal-l] 2013-2014 Round 1 FDC eligibility status & IRC office hours

[Samuel Klein]

Briefly:

On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org> wrote:
> Thanks Anders for sharing this update. Out of curiosity, was this already
> shared elsewhere?

The details, including the idea that WMF would not get FDC review for
our 2013-14 plan, were news to me.
Currently being discussed on the Board; I hope things will be clearer
(to me at least!) soon.

> To comprehend the situation fully, what does this mean for the WMF budget
> for 2013/2014? I mean, to put things a little in perspective:
> * The annual plan was not shared until some days into the year

This has been the case in past years.   We can improve, but it wasn't new.

> * The financial details were also not shared (nor was any input asked I
> believe to the community?)

This has also been the case in past years - posting of the plan
followed by discussion on Meta.  This will definitely improve.   The
idea proposed by the FDC, as I understand it, is that starting in
2014, the WMF will publish a draft of its budget and plan in time for
FDC round 2, on Meta -- with all that entails, including the community
review period.

> * There will be no afterwards-rubberstamp-kind-of-approval by the FDC for
> non-core activities

I am unclear on this point.  I believe that FDC review of the WMF plan
is always valuable.  Even if the WMF were doing nothing outside of the
core, I would appreciate feedback from the FDC on how we were defining
'core'.

Your comment about 'afterwards...kind-of' and 'rubberstamp' are
unfounded here: the $4.5M that the WMF requested last year was
line-itemed as a separate part of the budget, and it was clear in the
annual plan that this would depend on the FDC outcome.  And the WMF's
proposal was approved, but not unanimously.

Warmly,
Sam.