2014-04-27 19:49 GMT+02:00 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:
Well, no, I'm not misunderstanding. If a staff assessment is needed, then it needs to be done by staff.
You are suggesting that the staff assessment of the WMF proposal has to be done by WMF staff, i.e. by the very same people who drafted the documents in the first place?
The FDC doesn't have the authority to delegate that, either.
We are aware that evaluating the WMF is in many respects different from evaluating other entities, so we are trying our best to adapt the existing process to the new situation. Why? Because having the WMF going through the same process as all the other entities seems fair and reasonable and add steps for community review that are not available now. As for authority to delegate, yes, we did not make any formal request to change the process but I am pretty sure that the board is aware of what we are doing.
particularly when there are obvious conflicts of interest involved. The lack of recognition of that conflict of interest
on
the part of the FDC is a very serious matter, and raises doubts about the impartiality of the FDC as a whole.
In my personal opinion, WMDE has no more a COI here than the WMF/FDC staff has when they do the staff assessments of the other FDC applications. Remember that WMDE/WMF aren't in direct competition for money from the same pot here.
There's no money involved in this proposal, in case you haven't noticed. Your job isn't programmatic review,
Actually, besides the lack of an amount, it is: «[FDC job is to make] an assessment of the extent to which requested funding will enable those entities to have an impact on realizing the mission goals of the Wikimedia movement.» (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Frequently_asked_questions#missio...)
and you should have rejected the request. If you can't do it right, don't do it at all, and tell the WMF to go to the community as a whole, or recommend to the Board that a completely independent party do the programmatic review. The amount of feedback that is coming in for WMF proposals under the FDC is significantly reduced from what happened when they went to the community.
I don't understand, WMF plan is *now* available for the community to review; the request of having it published and going through the FDC has *added* a moment where the community can comment on the budget that was not previously available, this is IMHO an amelioration with respect to the past.
And really, it's unreasonable to expect another organization to take on a very time-consuming and technical process for which they have no experience and expect them to do so without payment - but the FDC doesn't have authority to spend money in that way.
There is no payment to WM-DE for the assessment they are doing, if this is your question, nor it has been an option, ever.
If supplicant groups are one seat short of a majority, it seriously affects the ability of the committee to consider big-picture issues from a non-affiliated perspective;
[citation needed], we also have a community election, by the way. And in any case you are counting people wrong: Arjuna, Ali, Anders, Dariusz, Delphine, Mike, Yuri and myself (that is 8 people out of 9) have some affiliation or background with chapters.
With the Board's resolution restricting the total value of FDC grants in the coming two years, and the proposals being made by affiliates routinely seeking increases in funding that very significantly outstrips the limitations set by the Board, the FDC will very soon be in a position where they are not just assessing proposals on their own merits. In the near future, the FDC is going to have to say "no" to full funding of good proposals because the total cost of good projects is higher than the pool of funds the FDC has to dispense; the FDC will have to weigh proposals against each other, so that any member who has a conflict of interest for *one* proposal will have a conflict of interest for *all* proposals they are considering within a round (and possibly within a fiscal year).
I think that the most worrying issue is the possibility to have to say "no" to good proposal. Full stop. If this is the case then the answer should be asking to the BoT "please increase the pool of funds". My personal opinion is that the FDC should be able to make their recommendations even if the total allocation recommended exceed the 6M cap, then would be the BoT to decide if they should increase the pool of funds or do something else.
Cristian