Sounds like a nice thought :) But maybe first go through this round, and see how that works out? It sounds like a big challenge, and I'm really curious how they are going to limit overhead. It still sounds like a big project to me. So lets reduce the amount of community requests that may make it more complicated to a minimum :P
If it works well, maybe you could look for some community member(s) that want to help in scaling it up a bit?
Best, Lodewijk
2017-03-17 18:19 GMT+01:00 Yuri Astrakhan yuriastrakhan@gmail.com:
I wonder if it would make sense to solicit 3rd party laptop donations for this program? E.g. some businesses may be happy to donate their old laptops to Wikipedia volunteers... I am not sure how big of an overhead it would be, but if WMF is already doing it, 20 vs 200 might not be a significant difference (?) .
On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 1:14 PM Michael Maggs Michael@maggs.name wrote:
Thank you Asaf. Did you know that there is already a Commons page for Community donations?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Equipment_exchange
It would be worth linking your new Meta page to the existing one.
Michael
Asaf Bartov mailto:abartov@wikimedia.org 17 March 2017 at 6:06 am Dear Wikimedians,
The Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce a small new program
called
the Hardware Donation Program. In a word, it is a program designed to donate depreciated (but fully working) hardware from the WMF office to community members who would put it to good use.
The program, including instructions on how to apply, is described on
Meta,
here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_donation_program
Please read the information carefully. I especially encourage you to
pay
attention to the program's design considerations, which determine most
of
the decisions we'll be making.
We currently have approximately 20 laptops ready to be donated. Applications are welcome.
The upcoming Wikimedia Conference in Berlin (in about two weeks) would
be
an excellent opportunity to deliver some of those laptops in person to approved applications, so if you think you might be interested, I'd encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
Please also help spread the word about this program, by forwarding this e-mail to other Wikimedia lists you're on, and posting the link to the program page on village pumps and *community* (not public) social media channels or other communication forms you use.
Special thanks to User:Anntinomy from Wikimedia Ukraine, who had the
idea
of asking about possible donation of older machines from WMF, and
inspired
this program.
Mini-FAQ:
Q: Why are you doing this? A: WMF's Office IT determines a lifetime for work machines, and
regularly
replaces older machines. This creates a stock of older, working
machines,
that are available for donation. We can donate them locally to San Francisco charities, but figure that if we can find low-cost ways to deliver them to our own community members, that's so much better.
Q: Am I eligible? A: Read the fine program documentation.
Q: If I'm eligible, am I guaranteed a donated laptop? A: no.
Q: Once these 20 laptops are donated, will there be others? A: yes, eventually.
Q: How can you ensure people would use the machines for Wikimedia purposes? A: We can't. We'll be making a good-effort assessment of the likelihood
of
Wikimedia use, and make a decision to donate (or not) the equipment.
Once
donated, the equipment no longer belongs to WMF. We encourage, but
can't
enforce, reporting on impact achieved using the equipment.
Q: I need a few laptops for my event in two weeks! Can I get them
through
this program? A: No. Read the fine program documentation.
Q: I'm really happy about this! A: So are we! :)
Q: I'm really angry about this! A: So it goes.
Q: I have more questions! A: Hit 'Reply'. :)
Cheers,
Asaf _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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