2014-04-27 19:49 GMT+02:00 Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com>om>:
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#missi…)
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