[Wikimedia-l] letter from the FDC to the WMF

[Dariusz Jemielniak]

hi Theo,


Actually, no. The board and WMF both have a legal existence and basis. FDC
> as a committee, albeit a board mandated one sits on the same or equal
> footing as Langcom or Comcom, slightly above OMGcom, as far as I'm
> concerned. It has little to no real world existence. Second, the WMF board
> members are volunteers as well, quite like you. Unlike the FDC however, the
> WMF board has several elected members and has gone through quite a few
> iterations and external scrutiny.
>

You seem to live a false assumption that the FDC does not have elected
members at all. It does, and their proportion is going to grow in the
incoming years. But I don't think it matters, anyway - what is more
important, is the role of the FDC. It is not a decisive body, but an
advisory one. In all major financial decisions it is good to have a chain
of decision process, just to avoid groupthink. Moreover, it is quite a lot
of work, the Board would unlikely be able to tackle on their own, with all
other responsibilities.



>   I strongly believe that none of the FDC members is driven by an
>> urge to please anyone (WMF, the Board, the chapters).
>
>
> I quite believe the opposite might be true.
>

Basing on?... So far in two rounds we have made some recommendations, which
we had every right to assume that would not have been the most popular ones
under the sun.


> So a direct path of conflict with the board. One can assume you'd expect
> the community to side against the board on some or any occasion and
> hilarity will ensue. '
>

If you're saying that the FDC may disagree with the Board and vice-versa,
that's 100% true. I'm not sure if I would call this a conflict. Drawing
different conclusions from the same data is not unprecedented in financial
evaluations. The only thing the FDC and the Board will definitely want to
avoid (each on their own shift) is to make mistakes. It is actually quite
good, in my opinion, that there are two stages in this process:
recommendation and an actual decision. If the Board disagrees with the FDC
and makes a better, different decision, I think it would be a success of
this model, rather than its failure.

All in all the Board is accountable to the movement and has actual,
fiduciary responsibility. Again, you perceive it as a flaw that an advisory
committee makes recommendations, although is not empowered to enforce them.
I respect this view, but such an organizational structure solution is quite
common and your critique applies to the whole concept of advisory
committees.

I have one. Resign. Half the of current FDC should resign and open up the
> other half to some participation from the larger community - be it through
> an open election, arbcomm seat, board seats, then you'd need to add Jimmy
> of course - Hey! we can then have the same structure as the board..... so,
> another quasi board that really has no legal authority or basis to comment,
> just disagree and create more conflict when some chapters don't get their
> way. This entire exercise with FDC has been futile, fixing little and
> consuming a lot of time and resources.
>

I'm assuming good faith, but your advice and the conclusion seem to be
contradictory (you say that we should resign, and as a result a new body
would be created, but it would be identical to the Board). The whole
purpose of the FDC is to have DIFFERENT people working as a committee and
advising to the Board. What I read from your comments is that you believe
that a two-stage decisionmaking process is dangerous, because it may bring
conflict. Perhaps we simply disagree here - in my view it is better to have
two different bodies look carefully at proposals worth millions of dollars,
rather than to rush them through the Board (which, as already noted, has
other duties, too and would not possibly be able to spend as much time on
this process, as we do).



> As of now, all FDC members exclude themselves in the cases when their home
>> chapters applications are considered, irrespective of their engagement in
>> the boards.
>>
>
> Those are some high standards right there.
>

:) I'm assuming your comment was sarcastic. Any suggestions for systemic
improvement are welcome.



> I'm quite surprised to constantly read FDC is somehow representative of
> the larger community and accountable to them. Almost all the current
> members were part of chapter leadership and have been quite active within
> that circle. I suppose this is the same fiction as chapters inherently
> being representatives of the larger community. The FDC is sort of a UN-like
> gathering that yet somehow overlooks the largest and most active community
> of all.
>

well, as I am one of those, who never participated in any chapter actively
(full disclosure: I've been signed up as a member of a Polish chapter, but
I have never gone beyond that in terms of activity; I've never received a
grant from the chapter, etc.) it is fair for me to comment that indeed
there is quite many chapter activists in the FDC. I'm not sure if it can be
avoided though, and if this is necessarily a bad thing, to some limit.
After all, the FDC has to be composed of people who understand the
movement, have knowledge and skills in the areas of strategy and financial
management, and have experience in grant writing and grant evaluating. When
you combine these with the fact that these people have to volunteer to
commit a lot of time to Wikimedia movement, quite naturally people who
already are chapter activists pop up as fitting the profile.

I'm not going to say that the chapters are 100% representatives of the
larger community. But for good or bad reasons, they are the only ones that
have the ability to represent Wikimedia communities organizationally. This
may change e.g. when interest groups across projects and countries develop
structures, organizations, etc., (and I really hope they will) but as of
now it is mainly the chapters. It would be unreasonable to ban people with
experience, knowledge, and will to contribute from the FDC simply because
they have participated in chapter governance in the past - this is exactly
the kind of experience that helps in understanding the applications.

However, I agree with you that it would be a good practice to have a mix of
people with and without chapter board experience.


>  Perhaps you might want to take a look at the dismal rate of actual
> community participation in FDC discussions. An year or so in to its
> formation, there isn't exactly a stellar record and high-opinions to go
> around. I hope I don't need to point to the recent news articles and
> comments about the FDC and possible issues of corruption, which might have
> even played a part in.......whatever this is.
>

I hope that this comment stems from your misunderstanding rather than a
will to insinuate some actual corruption, and not just its hypothetical
risk. The news articles you may be referring to are basically a coverage of
Sue's reflections from here, so referring to the primary source may have
more sense
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Annual_report_on_the_Funds_Dissemination_Committee_process_2012-2013#The_WMF_Executive_Director.E2.80.99s_Reflections_on_the_FDC_Process
The part about corruption states:

* I want to be clear: I am confident that all FDC members put the good of
the movement ahead of self-interest, including the interests of their
chapter. But I do also believe that people who are involved in chapter
organizations (and other Wikimedia organizations) have a particular
worldview that is in some ways different from that of Wikimedians who
choose not to become involved with incorporated Wikimedia organizations,
and I think a healthy funds dissemination process would benefit from
multiple perspectives. And, although I trust the current FDC members to put
the interests of the movement first, I believe the FDC process, dominated
by fund-seekers, does not as currently constructed offer sufficient
protection against log-rolling <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logrolling>,
self-dealing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-dealing>, and other
corrupt practices. I had hoped that this risk would be offset by the
presence on the FDC of independent non-affiliated members, but thus far the
evidence suggests their number will be small and may diminish over time,
and I do not believe it's reasonable to expect a minority of independent
members to act as the only failsafe mechanism against corruption*

This is related to the previous paragraph of our discussion and I can only
say that in essence I agree that multiple perspectives, combining
Wikimedians with and without a chapter board experience, is better. If I
were to suggest some composition, perhaps 3 people without the board
experience,  3 former board members, and 3 current board members would
sound reasonable... Eliminating current board members wouldn't work simply
because these are often the organizationally skilled people who are able to
commit their time to the movement. One idea could be to require resigning
from the boards upon being elected to the FDC, but I'm not so sure about
that - one of the movement's problems is a small poll of committed
activists anyway. Perhaps attracting 1-2 people from outside of Wikimedia
movement would help? But this could result in problems, too and is not an
easy or obvious solution.

Per dismay rate of actual community participation in FDC discussion -
you're 100% right that the participation is small (although I wouldn't say
that it is decreasing). Yet, when you realize that commenting often
requires reading the whole projects, it is often the time commitment people
are not willing to make. I believe there is an area for improvement there,
though.



>  I also don't understand why FDC alone should have this right to evaluate
> and offer recommendations. Why not the GAC? Arbcomm? or even individuals,
> like Risker or Nathan, heck, even my cat should have that right! There is
> an Auditcomm kicking around still I think. There is also some conflation in
> the comments over how much authority FDC is looking for- is it to merely
> offer feedback, suggest increases /decreases - which like feedback, WMF can
> reject at will or the authority to go head-to-head with the board, as the
> following comments allude to. The latter is quite preposterous, the former
> not so much. I suppose sharing the plan with everyone openly, and letting
> everyone comment might be the quickest solution there.
>

If you're asking whether the functions of the FDC could be conducted by
some other committee - perhaps they could indeed. The idea probably is that
these bodies already have a lot to do. Just the FDC  is hundreds of hours
of work, I would imagine that GAC and Auditcomm have full hands, too. As a
result, if these committees are to be volunteer-driven, it is impossible to
combine too many responsibilities.

The plans are open for the community to comment, I hope you realize.


>  -As Nathan pointed out, the FDC has very limited exposure to US laws and
> little participation from the US, and by extension the English-speaking
> majority. Majority of the members also have little exposure to the
> "flagship" project, presenting a gap of expertise and relevance where it
> would be needed the most.
>

I've cut out this from your summary, as this point is the only one that
does not summarize your previous ones, I think. I have no idea why would
you assume that being a lawyer trained in US law is crucial for the FDC
(other forms of "exposure to US laws" are perhaps even less important).

Per languages: I hope you realize that only 36% of all Wikimedia editors
edit primarily in English (per 2011 Editor Survey Report). Incidentally,
exactly 1/3 of the FDC members come from countries where English is an
official language. Many of the rest have spent extensive periods in the US
(although I disagree that the whole point is relevant). I fail to see how
"exposure" to en-wiki (probably understood as editing, right?) translates
into a gap of expertise in grant evaluation. If anything, I regret that we
don't have more members with community experience from more than 4-5
projects, as being exposed to different communities within the same
ecosystem,  especially if them come from different cultures, radically
widens their understanding.

best,

dariusz