On 2 May 2018 at 17:53, Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote:
2018-05-02 1:51 GMT+03:00 Woubzena Jifar
<wjifar(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
3. On your third point of having the 1st - 15th
of the month be an open
application time, this is also an experiment. We hope that this focused,
clear timeline will allow us to respond more quickly and help community
members understand the state of their application more easily.
Woubzena, there used to be a time when the promise of the Rapid grants
was that they would be reviewed weekly. I understand this is no longer
possible, even if the wording is still present on meta. Does the new
rule imply a promise from the WMF that the grants will be granted or
refused withing the same calendar month?
Regards,
Strainu
On being experimental and responsive, it would be cool to bring back
some of the trust in grass roots volunteers, and consider funding a
system of very light-weight global microgrants using an open request
process on meta. Microgrants under $250, perhaps with a network of
long term identified local volunteers taking responsibility for
assessing that the money got spent on the right stuff, would be jolly
nice. Enough to pay for bits and bobs of travel expenses, software,
minor bits of hardware like accessibility or experimental kit.
The community has discussed this before, in fact the UK used to have a
productive micro-grant procedure, which I think has been abandoned for
staff managed grants. In terms of trust, I recall going to Amsterdam
to coordinate a GLAM related event with a cash wad of a dozen people's
expenses in my pocket. It felt very informal, but a great
demonstration of trust that volunteers could sort out their own checks
and balances. My main headache was ensuring that everyone got the
money as quickly as possible, so it was out of my wallet!
Any thoughts on lobbying for a tiny global budget to spend on a 100%
volunteer social and open simpleminded process, outside of any
Affiliates structure, with zero employee time needed to run it?
Fae
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faewik(a)gmail.com
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae