On 7 January 2015 at 00:06, Siko Bouterse sbouterse@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 12:17 PM, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
Sorry if this was already answered and I overlooked it, but will there be something like a special form of "advertising" this campaign in order to attract many requests that propose to do something about the Gender Gap?
Great question. Current thinking is to do the usual announcing on mailing lists, blog/social media, village pumps, etc, as well as experimenting with running Central Notice banners. Would like to attract folks from various wikis who have interest in this theme and ability to lead a project in their community, beyond the usual (relatively small) slice who regularly participate in lists like these or in the usual grantmaking discussions on meta-wiki. And although outside media could help bring total newbies to contribute ideas, discussion, and other forms of participation, it is pretty darn important to have at least 1 experienced Wikimedian on a funded team in order to lead and execute a useful community project, so in-movement (particularly on-wiki) promotion is a priority. Any thoughts/suggestions would be welcome!
TL:DR I see the stick, but where is the carrot? [1]
I understand from the explanations that the reason for not accepting any non-gender-gap focused grants for several months is because of the expected workload on the staff in reviewing applications and supporting the projects that do get funded.
However, what I don't understand is what added incentive there is for people to submit grant applications on the chosen topic (in this instance it is gender-gap, but it could be other topics in the future)? Since it is already possible to submit a gender-gap focused grant, how does the refusal to accept other kinds of project submissions increase the number/quality/variety of gender-gap grants? I can see the unfortunate possibility for: - some grants to be re-written with a false veneer of gender-gap focus ("pink-washing") simply to access the money - valid (but non gender-gap focused) grant applications having to wait until after the 3-month project, and potentially having to cancel altogether depending on the volunteer's availability.
I think this is what Lodewijk was referring to when he called it a "negative campaign" - there is a DISincentive for other kinds of grant applications, but no apparent specific incentive for the desired type of application.
I see the stick, but where is the carrot? Am I missing something?