date:20130430

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Andrea Zanni

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 1:12 AM, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.comwrote:

 What happens to the idea according to which the funds belong to the
 Wikimedia mouvement rather than to Wikimedia Foundation ?


I think this exact point is often overlooked.
I actually have a fairly trivial way to look at the whole thing.

I think that people want to(, and) donate to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia doesn't properly exist. So they donate to the people hosting the
content of Wikipedia,
and which cleverly entitled itself as the only entity capable to use the
sitenotice for fundraising.
As the sistenotice is probably the most visible place in the web (beside
Google search page and Facebook blue bar), it was enough to get 90% (or
maybe more) of donations from Wikipedia users.
The WMF said that they deserved that right and took it. Every other WM
entity was then to ask permission to them.

The problem, to me, is that we are not and they are not Wikipedia.
So either everyone (asking community) has the right to use the sitenotice
or neither of us.

Aubrey
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

2013-04-30 Thread Marco Chiesa

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 4:29 AM, James Forrester
jforres...@wikimedia.orgwrote:


 Unfortunately, some accounts are currently not unique across all our
 wikis, but instead clash with other users who have the same account
 name. To make sure that all of these users can use Wikimedia's wikis
 in future, we will be renaming a number of accounts to have ~” and
 the name of their wiki added to the end of their accounts' name. This
 change will take place on or around 27 May. For example, a user called
 “Example” on the Swedish Wiktionary who will be renamed would become
 “Example~svwiktionary”.


Why did you choose to insert the character  ~? Many keyboards do not have
such a key.
Cruccone
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Dariusz Jemielniak

hi Erlend,

I want to shortly comment on your letter, which raises legitimate concerns,
in my view, and I would like to address them.


On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:28 PM, Erlend Bjørtvedt erl...@wikimedia.nowrote:

 However, the gap between the legitimate demands of a donation-backed
 funding process, and the resources available in a chapter with 0 employees,
 is too big. Thus the hen-and-egg-problem that some have already pinpointed:
 Getting the first employee demands the resources that only come with the
 first employee. One result is the frustration of valuable volunteers,
 another is the under-utilization of critical resources.


 In the FDC we recognize the obvious fact that small chapters have
different resources and abilities than the large ones.

In my own view (not discussed with other FDC members), there are 3
categories of applicants:
*

a) the small chapters in incubation phase (typically below 100,000 USD),

b) medium sized mature chapters,

c) large organizations (above 1.000,000 USD).


We should expect from the large organizations to meet the highest standards
of budgeting, planning, and strategy. We should also be definitely more
lenient and supporting for the small chapters, as well as recognize their
limited resources. However, the FDC process is focused mainly on
organizations, which want to professionalize and focus on structural
growth. I think that bureaucratization should not be an aim in itself and
that all applications, irrespective of the size of the organization, should
have a clear mission-driven component, and basically aim at making some
impact in line with our movement philosophy. And this is something that not
all chapters agree on - it would seem that sometimes the administrative
growth may be perceived as valuable on its own.

*


 The gap between WMF headquarters and national hubs has rapidly increased,
 until now. WMF has a great number of employees in San Fransisco, and a very
 low number of resources in other global hubs, let alone elsewhere in the
 USA or in national language markets overseas. For any global
 organisation, this imbalance is not optimal.  The FCA initiative is a
 reflex of this imbalance, but is presently to weak to cure it. Resources
 pile up in the center, with a headquarter location probably given by its
 address of registry. Are there really more wikipedians in California, than
 in the rest of the world combined?


Among  seven FDC members there is no-one from California, and only one is
American.

best,

Dariusz (pundit)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The case for supporting open source machine translation

2013-04-30 Thread Chris Tophe

2013/4/29 Mathieu Stumpf psychosl...@culture-libre.org

 Le 2013-04-26 20:27, Milos Rancic a écrit :

 OmegaWiki is a masterpiece from the perspective of one [computational]
 linguist. Erik made the structure so well, that it's the best starting
 point to create a contemporary multilingual dictionary. I didn't see
 anything better in concept. (And, yes, when I was thinking about
 creating such software by my own, I was always at the dead end of
 but, OmegaWiki is already that.)


 Where can I find documentation about this structure, please ?



Here (planned structure):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OmegaWiki_data_design

and also there (current structure):
http://www.omegawiki.org/Help:OmegaWiki_database_layout

And a gentle reminder that comments are requested ;-)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Adopt_OmegaWiki
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Ting Chen


Hello dear all,

I would also like to ask everyone who has made their thoughts on the 
election to take part on the election committee themselves the next time.


Unfortunately when I made the call for volunteer earlier this year not 
very many people responded.


Greetings
Ting

Am 4/30/2013 12:57 AM, schrieb Risker:

On 29 April 2013 18:48, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote:


On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Itzik Edri it...@infra.co.il wrote:


I agree. We should limit it to only community members, or to give equal
right to everyone.

Asaf, you right, but we are talking also about the FDC elections. a
processes where we are not granting chapters and others organizations the
right to vote but granting to the WMF. Giving only WMF staff, and not
chapters staff the right to vote in community process, it's like saying

the

first are part of the community, but the second are not. I don't even

want

to refer to the sensitive issue of the staff voting for their bosses..


That's a very good point, and I think the chapter board members and staff
definitely _should_ be given a voice _at least_ in the FDC elections.  I
leave it to the Elections Committee to propose solutions.




The Elections Committee posted its plan weeks before the election started,
with hardly any commentary at all; it is only now, after candidates may
start entering the race, that people are complaining that we've failed to
give the right people a vote (or alternately, that we've given too many
people a vote).  There is almost no variation between the voter eligibility
this year and in the previous election; the only relevant changes are dates
for eligibility and the developer commit process (which was changed because
the Engineering Department changed the way that commits were done).

I suggest that those who would like to see changes at the next election
post on the election post mortem page[1] now, so that these ideas aren't
lost to time.

Risker (Election Committee Member)



[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Post_mortem
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comments on compliance and the FDC Round 2 decisions

2013-04-30 Thread Dariusz Jemielniak

Craig - this is a very good idea!

best,

dariusz (pundit)


On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Craig Franklin
cfrank...@halonetwork.netwrote:

 Thankyou Asaf, points 1.1 and 1.2 pretty much answered all my questions on
 this.

 If I might offer a humble suggestion though, might I suggest for the
 purposes of determining grant eligibility, rather than saying that it is
 Confirmed or Not Confirmed, a third status of Conditional Eligibility
 is introduced.  This status would be used in situations like WMHK's, where
 they are eligible at the beginning of the FDC process but have deliverables
 due before the end of the FDC process that could potentially render them
 ineligible.  This would make it very clear to the entity that while they
 can proceed with their request, they also have to complete some other tasks
 to receive an allocation.

 Cheers,
 Craig Franklin


 On 30 April 2013 13:04, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  Hello, everyone.
 
  0. Meta
 
  0.1. I do not respect the choice by Deryck -- an experienced Wikimedian
 --
  to voice his (understandable) frustration in a letter full of wikidrama,
  and to follow it with a direct accusation of our team of foul play[0].
  I
  think this should not go uncommented on.  All of us deserve civility and
  courteous discussions.
 
  0.2 I am starting this separate thread to address some of the legitimate
  questions asked on that other thread.
 
  0.2 Please note I speak in my capacity as head of the Wikimedia Grants
  Program, since grants compliance has been a large issue in Deryck's
  narrative, but I do not speak for the (all-volunteer) FDC nor for the FDC
  staff, who can speak for themselves (though some are on vacation, so it
 may
  take a while).
 
  0.3. This is a long e-mail, but I would like to believe I am both concise
  and direct.  I just have a number of different issues to respond to.  I
  have also tried to be systematic, so you can skip sections you don't care
  about.
 
  1. Clarifications about Eligibility
 
  1.1. WMHK _was eligible_ to apply for funding in FDC round 2, was
 informed
  of this publicly, and proceeded to apply.  FDC eligibility is determined
 at
  a specific point in time, and the eligibility table is not changed after
  that point in time.
 
  The effort was not futile from the start, because at the time
 eligibility
  was determined, it was not clear that WMHK is in fact non-compliant, and
  the Finance team determined eligibility according to strictly
  formal/technical rules -- the grant reports _were_ submitted, just before
  the deadline, so WMHK was considered eligible.
 
  1.2. After applying, WMHK has _fallen out of compliance_ with grant
  requirements, when it emerged (and it was not known in advance) that WMHK
  has in fact unilaterally re-purposed left-over funds from an old grant (a
  fact only revealed at our insistence to account for all funds[1], one day
  before the proposals were due) without consulting or even informing WMF.
   Some of the questions we have asked about those funds[2] have not been
  answered to this day.  We require compliance in all existing grants
 before
  additional funding is sent out (though funding _can_ be _approved_ while
  some compliance issues are pending).
 
  I would like to stress that this is not a minor point of slight tardiness
  or some missing receipt -- this is actual mismanagement of funds (though
  not necessarily mis-use of funds, and NO ONE IS SUGGESTING BAD FAITH here
  -- we do not think WMHK has done anything illicit or ethically
 improper!),
  and _does indeed_ reflect on WMHK's ability to handle large grants.
 
  1.3. It is WMF grantmaking staff's duty, within the FDC Framework, to
  provide a factual assessment of applying entities track record with
  previous grants.  This we have done, and anyone may see our
 assessments[3]
  and compare them to the facts on Meta, in the grant and grant report
 pages
  and their respective talk pages.
 
  WMHK was repeatedly encouraged to address this non-compliance, with
  specific reference[2] to the FDC staff assessment deadline.  We would
 have
  _liked_ to be able to report WMHK has addressed this issue and is in
  compliance!
 
  1.4. It is my understanding, from reading the FDC recommendation (and
  without any inside information -- I was not part of the deliberations),
  that the FDC has reviewed the WMHK application with all due care, and
 that
  the proposal was _not_ rejected out of hand on ground of ineligibility,
 but
  rather on ground of
 
  [concerns] about WMHK's internal governance, financial management
  capacity, and capacity of its volunteers to manage a plan of this size.
  WMHK's proposal and past activities do not sufficiently demonstrate a
  record of, or potential for, high impact. It recommends that WMHK
 addresses
  these issues before undertaking a plan of this extent.[4].
 
  I think it is understood (and proper) that an entity's track record --
  including not only compliance but

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Jan-Bart de Vreede

Hey Deryck,

On Apr 29, 2013, at 10:25 PM, Deryck Chan deryckc...@wikimedia.hk wrote:

 
 But you say we … We refers to WMHK I assume, but did you do this after a
 discussion with the Grants Programme, or did you decide this on your own?
 
 I work for the non-profit sector, and there is not way that any
 organisation I know could get away with something like that I am afraid. If
 you are given money for a reason, you cannot simply decide to take it as an
 advance on a possible next grant without agreement of the party that
 supplied you with the grant. I am sorry, but this is not Irony, this is
 governance…
 
 
 From my reply to THO (also on this thread): We have replied multiple times
 that we want the remaining funds from the 2010-11 grants to be considered
 in conjunction with the FDC proposal. (ie. the FDC proposal is the
 reallocation request.) This is because it is logistically impractical for
 us to return any funds to WMF before the end of Wikimania.
 

Yes I read your reply, but you keep stating we want, that is not that same as 
together with the grant giver we agreed… I cannot overstate the importance of 
the difference between the two…

(and again: this is not the only issue with the WMHK request that the FDC 
pointed out). 

 
 Additionally I see that the community consultation phase asked for the
 annual report and you stated that it would be available on the WMHK website
 after the meeting of the 16th of March…  I wanted to go through it, but
 could not find it on the home page (I would assume its under
 documentation?) Can you point me to it?
 
 
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Hong_Kong_2011-12_Annual_Report_and_Financial_Report.pdf
 (or scroll halfway down the proposal page)
 

Thanks!

Jan-Bart
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comments on compliance and the FDC Round 2 decisions

2013-04-30 Thread K. Peachey

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 1:04 PM, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 ...
 I would like to stress that this is not a minor point of slight tardiness
 or some missing receipt -- this is actual mismanagement of funds (though
 not necessarily mis-use of funds, and NO ONE IS SUGGESTING BAD FAITH here
 -- we do not think WMHK has done anything illicit or ethically improper!),
 and _does indeed_ reflect on WMHK's ability to handle large grants.

Was this ever formally audited, and if so, is there a link to this
report? Just your implication using the word mismanagement sounds
like Bad faith to me...

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

2013-04-30 Thread David Richfield

James answered this in his original email:

 It will now only be possible for accounts to be renamed globally; the 
 RenameUser tool will no longer work on a local basis - since all accounts 
 must be globally unique - therefore it will be withdrawn from bureaucrats' 
 tool sets. It will still be possible for users to ask on Meta for their 
 account to be renamed further, if they do not like their new user name, once 
 this takes place.

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Magnus Manske
magnusman...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Will the affected users be given a one-time offer to have their accounts
 renamed, or are they stuck forever with the ~ ones?


 On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 5:01 AM, James Forrester
 jforres...@wikimedia.orgwrote:

 On 29 April 2013 20:59, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote:
  Thanks James, personally I'm comforted by your prompt reply.

 Happy to help. :-)

  My intuition is that this would be unlikely to affect any accounts
  with more than 5,000 edits, possibly fewer. I have no doubt that you
  intend to take special care to help users with significant
  contributions, such as those with a well established contribution
  history at this level.

 Yes, I'll be personally reviewing the renaming list to make sure we
 can catch any particularly-major issues early.

 Yours,
 --
 James D. Forrester
 Product Manager, VisualEditor
 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

 jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester

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-- 
David Richfield
[[:en:User:Slashme]]
+27718539985

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

2013-04-30 Thread Federico Leva (Nemo)


David Richfield, 30/04/2013 10:50:

James answered this in his original email:


No, that doesn't answer (see also talk page).

Nemo




It will now only be possible for accounts to be renamed globally; the 
RenameUser tool will no longer work on a local basis - since all accounts must 
be globally unique - therefore it will be withdrawn from bureaucrats' tool 
sets. It will still be possible for users to ask on Meta for their account to 
be renamed further, if they do not like their new user name, once this takes 
place.


On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Magnus Manske
magnusman...@googlemail.com wrote:

Will the affected users be given a one-time offer to have their accounts
renamed, or are they stuck forever with the ~ ones?


On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 5:01 AM, James Forrester
jforres...@wikimedia.orgwrote:


On 29 April 2013 20:59, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks James, personally I'm comforted by your prompt reply.


Happy to help. :-)


My intuition is that this would be unlikely to affect any accounts
with more than 5,000 edits, possibly fewer. I have no doubt that you
intend to take special care to help users with significant
contributions, such as those with a well established contribution
history at this level.


Yes, I'll be personally reviewing the renaming list to make sure we
can catch any particularly-major issues early.

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
Product Manager, VisualEditor
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

2013-04-30 Thread Benjamin Chen


On 30 Apr, 2013, at 4:02 PM, Magnus Manske magnusman...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Will the affected users be given a one-time offer to have their accounts
 renamed, or are they stuck forever with the ~ ones?


Rename is still possible, similar to what we have now, but just on a global 
level. So no, they are not stuck forever with it, of course. 

One thing to note is the technical limitation on # of edits. If account has too 
many edits, he may not be able to get it renamed further. How will that be 
managed? I guess James will address this issue, as he said he'll look through 
the rename list (make a one-time offer etc? ) .


Regards,

Benjamin Chen / [[User:Bencmq]]
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

2013-04-30 Thread K. Peachey

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 7:11 PM, Benjamin Chen bencmqw...@gmail.com wrote:
 ...
 One thing to note is the technical limitation on # of edits. If account has 
 too many edits, he may not be able to get it renamed further.
 ...

It just needs to be done server side, The same way it already is.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Jan-Bart de Vreede

Hey Florence

On Apr 30, 2013, at 1:12 AM, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote:

 Le 4/30/13 12:04 AM, Nathan a écrit :
 
 
 It's not logical to assume that because the WMF has funds it should in
 some way equitably distribute those funds around the world.
 
 What happens to the idea according to which the funds belong to the Wikimedia 
 mouvement rather than to Wikimedia Foundation ?

Please note that you are disagreeing with Nathan, not with others (like me and 
as far as I know the entire board) who have supported the idea of the FDC 
because it is a great way to ensure that the funds are distributed amongst the 
movement in the interest of the movement. The funds are those of the movement, 
and although we might disagree on how the funds are divided we agree on that. I 
am happy to see that the FDC as a body (and the community review process as a 
important addition) ensures much more transparent processes.

 
 Supporting
 chapter operations, and funding offices and staff in dozens of
 countries, is not the chief object of the money raised from donors. We
 need to get away from the belief that chapters are unquestionably the
 best use of movement resources. There is a place for outreach,
 publicity, and targeted educational programs. But the WMF is best
 situated to supplement the efforts begun by volunteers, in the same
 way the WMF itself was created and has grown.
 
 I would object to the idea that WMF is best situated to supplement efforts 
 started by volunteers and that statement parts from the decision made some 
 months ago to deflate WMF role.
 But we may agree to disagree on this.

I would agree with you here. I think that the WMF is in a good position to help 
certain initiatives and that in several cases there are better alternatives. 
This is why I am so excited about chapters helping chapters and all 
affiliations being able to join the wikimedia conference in Milan this year. It 
is that kind of exchange of experience which is perfect for all involved, and 
lets remember that what works for some might not work for others.

 
 Additionnaly... I must add that when WMF was precisely at the current stage 
 of most chapters (with no staff and no office), it was run in a rather 
 creative fashion that would make everyone cough today in comparison to the 
 requirements and obligations made mandatory to chapters. Uh. You may have a 
 slightly more ideal view of the past :)

True, but just because things used to be bad is no reason that they should be 
bad now if we can prevent it (I was there with you, and we are both happy 
that we outgrew that phase with a minimal of damage and a LOT of luck in 
finding the right ED)  the scale of the organisation now makes it impossible to 
tolerate that kind of creativity when not absolutely necessary.
 
 It would be a poor use
 of movement funds indeed if the WMF decided to pour money into infant
 chapters with minimal development and fuzzy strategic goals. That's a
 recipe for, at an absolute minimum, good-faith mismanagement and waste
 of scarce donor resources. Avoiding this path was a very wise decision
 by the trustees, and I only hope they remain resolute despite
 criticism and Sue's impending departure.
 
 I mostly hope that they stay consistant with their own past decisions (=we 
 were sold the fact that the money collected belong to the mouvement, not to 
 the entity collecting it. If so, decisions of allocations should not become 
 WMF ones).

Agreed, which is why I think the FDC's advice is so important and I hope to 
never have to question it (although the board does have to have a final say in 
these matters as a matter of governance)

 
 In any cases... I know not if WM HK should have been funded or not. What I 
 know is that the mouvement need happy and rested and humanly treated 
 volunteers to stay healthy.

True, but volunteers also have to ensure not to force themselves into positions 
of make or break and thereby put themselves at risk.

 
 We keep talking about editors decrease. Maybe in the future, we'll talk about 
 irl volunteers (as in chapter members) decrease as well.

I think we should, and I think that some of that discussion took place in 
Milan. As we know there are different kind of volunteers who organise 
affiliates (because the problem is not limited to chapters) and it takes 
different ways to keep motivated. These are important topics to discuss and 
keep track of. But lets not fall into the trap of blaming the big bureaucratic 
body of the WMF for all the problems we have. Volunteers burn out because of 
lots of reasons and we should all take care to fix those problems that are 
within our reach to control, and try to reduce the risk of burnout for all 
those involved (and again: meeting each other physically and exchanging 
experiences is a really good way of recharging)...

 In the past years, we have seen several times organizers of Wikimania plain 
 disappear after the event. Burn-out. I do not think it is a

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comments on compliance and the FDC Round 2 decisions

2013-04-30 Thread Federico Leva (Nemo)


Just a couple personal points:

Asaf Bartov, 30/04/2013 05:04:

[...]
1.5. In summary, I must protest against the narrative of Deryck's letter,
wherein WMHK's proposal was rejected by malevolent WMF staff with a secret
anti-WMHK agenda [...]


I didn't read anything like that in Deryck's letter.


[...]
4. Grants for growth

4.1. Nemo asserts: It's very clear (to me) that the WMF grants system is
not designed to make Wikimedia entities grow, but only to reinforce those
which are already strong enough, keeping them at the same level they're
at.  -- this is incorrect:


As you mention me directly: that's just my opinion, I know it's not the 
official interpretation (see also Anthere's message).




4.2. The Grants system (i.e. including the Foundation's different
grantmaking programs[5]) is designed to promote impactful work towards the
Wikimedia Mission.  That is the ultimate goal.  Helping _impactful_
Wikimedia groups (chapters, thematic organizations, user groups) grow
_does_ serve the mission, and therefore _is_ supported by the Grants system:


This is the same I said, just in a different way: you say you require 
the groups to _first_ be impactful enough; I say «first you develop 
your own strengths and then you go to the negotiations [with WMF] if you 
need to and have something to gain».
	There's nothing special with this, the WMF has the money and decides 
how to spend it. Grants are just a different way for the WMF to buy 
services they already want but can't execute directly, see the indian 
education program example. The WMF opens a call for bids on some 
services, entities present offers with prices detailing all the costs, 
the FDC ensures the cost of each pencil was calculated correctly, then 
the staff decides what to buy. If there are no good offers, the WMF may 
eventually just hire someone directly to act locally.
	The problem is that the WMF constantly (by design) abusing words and 
rhetoric makes us waste a lot of time because of the misunderstandings 
it produces. I agree that more information is probably not needed, but a 
glossary from official WMF speak to concrete clear language may help.




4.3. Despite Tomasz's comments, the Wikimedia Grants Program has seen some
chapters seek and obtain progressively larger grants, and has specifically
seen the coordinated professionalization of at least two chapters (WMAR
and WMRS) via its grants.  [...]


This doesn't seem to contradict what Tomasz said.

Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Itzik Edri

Ting, Risker,

1. To share thoughts and feedback about the elections, you don't must to be
volunteer in the committee.

2. I indeed thought about it only when I saw the centralnotice and read the
voting requirement, I may needed to raise it before. But it's still doesn't
mean we need to ignore from this issue

Itzik

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote:

Hello dear all,

I would also like to ask everyone who has made their thoughts on the
election to take part on the election committee themselves the next time.

Unfortunately when I made the call for volunteer earlier this year not
very many people responded.

Greetings
Ting

Am 4/30/2013 12:57 AM, schrieb Risker:

On 29 April 2013 18:48, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Itzik Edri it...@infra.co.il wrote:

I agree. We should limit it to only community members, or to give equal
right to everyone.

Asaf, you right, but we are talking also about the FDC elections. a
processes where we are not granting chapters and others organizations
the
right to vote but granting to the WMF. Giving only WMF staff, and not
chapters staff the right to vote in community process, it's like saying

the

first are part of the community, but the second are not. I don't even

want

to refer to the sensitive issue of the staff voting for their bosses..

That's a very good point, and I think the chapter board members and
staff
definitely _should_ be given a voice _at least_ in the FDC elections. I
leave it to the Elections Committee to propose solutions.

The Elections Committee posted its plan weeks before the election
started,
with hardly any commentary at all; it is only now, after candidates may
start entering the race, that people are complaining that we've failed to
give the right people a vote (or alternately, that we've given too many
people a vote). There is almost no variation between the voter
eligibility
this year and in the previous election; the only relevant changes are
dates
for eligibility and the developer commit process (which was changed
because
the Engineering Department changed the way that commits were done).

I suggest that those who would like to see changes at the next election
post on the election post mortem page[1] now, so that these ideas aren't
lost to time.

Risker (Election Committee Member)

[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/**wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_**
elections_2013/Post_mortemhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Post_mortem
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comments on compliance and the FDC Round 2 decisions

2013-04-30 Thread Dariusz Jemielniak

hi Federico,


On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 11:24 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
nemow...@gmail.comwrote:

 1.5. In summary, I must protest against the narrative of Deryck's letter,
 wherein WMHK's proposal was rejected by malevolent WMF staff with a secret
 anti-WMHK agenda [...]

 I didn't read anything like that in Deryck's letter.



well, I think that this part does not leave much for good faith
interpretations:

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Deryck Chan deryckc...@wikimedia.hk
 wrote:

 (cc. Patricio and Jan-Bart as the official contacts for FDC complaints.
 Yes, I'm accusing WMF grants staff of foul play with the FDC rules.)


best,

dariusz (pundit)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Ting Chen

Hello Itzik

yes, you are right.

But, and this is a very big but. You organized Wikimania yourself, you
know how much unseen and unthankable and unbelievable complicated and
unnecessary work behind all the shiny things. The election committee is
also a volunteer driven committee. It is a tremendous effort. They have
weekly meeting since February, and they did a lot of things. It is
unfair to stand out now and say you are doing a bad job.

Greetings
Ting

Am 4/30/2013 11:24 AM, schrieb Itzik Edri:

Ting, Risker,

1. To share thoughts and feedback about the elections, you don't must to be
volunteer in the committee.

2. I indeed thought about it only when I saw the centralnotice and read the
voting requirement, I may needed to raise it before. But it's still doesn't
mean we need to ignore from this issue

Itzik

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote:

Hello dear all,

I would also like to ask everyone who has made their thoughts on the
election to take part on the election committee themselves the next time.

Unfortunately when I made the call for volunteer earlier this year not
very many people responded.

Greetings
Ting

Am 4/30/2013 12:57 AM, schrieb Risker:

On 29 April 2013 18:48, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Itzik Edri it...@infra.co.il wrote:

I agree. We should limit it to only community members, or to give equal

right to everyone.

the

first are part of the community, but the second are not. I don't even

want

to refer to the sensitive issue of the staff voting for their bosses..

That's a very good point, and I think the chapter board members and

staff
definitely _should_ be given a voice _at least_ in the FDC elections. I
leave it to the Elections Committee to propose solutions.

The Elections Committee posted its plan weeks before the election

started,
with hardly any commentary at all; it is only now, after candidates may
start entering the race, that people are complaining that we've failed to
give the right people a vote (or alternately, that we've given too many
people a vote). There is almost no variation between the voter
eligibility
this year and in the previous election; the only relevant changes are
dates
for eligibility and the developer commit process (which was changed
because
the Engineering Department changed the way that commits were done).

I suggest that those who would like to see changes at the next election
post on the election post mortem page[1] now, so that these ideas aren't
lost to time.

Risker (Election Committee Member)

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Craig Franklin

Ting,

I don't think that Itzik has said anywhere that the election committee is
doing a bad job. I think he is simply saying that you shouldn't have to
commit to having a meeting every week since February just to have an
opinion on the topic that is taken seriously.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

On 30 April 2013 19:40, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote:

Hello Itzik

yes, you are right.

But, and this is a very big but. You organized Wikimania yourself, you
know how much unseen and unthankable and unbelievable complicated and
unnecessary work behind all the shiny things. The election committee is
also a volunteer driven committee. It is a tremendous effort. They have
weekly meeting since February, and they did a lot of things. It is unfair
to stand out now and say you are doing a bad job.

Greetings
Ting

Am 4/30/2013 11:24 AM, schrieb Itzik Edri:

Ting, Risker,

1. To share thoughts and feedback about the elections, you don't must to
be
volunteer in the committee.

2. I indeed thought about it only when I saw the centralnotice and read
the
voting requirement, I may needed to raise it before. But it's still
doesn't
mean we need to ignore from this issue

Itzik

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote:

Hello dear all,

I would also like to ask everyone who has made their thoughts on the
election to take part on the election committee themselves the next time.

Unfortunately when I made the call for volunteer earlier this year not
very many people responded.

Greetings
Ting

Am 4/30/2013 12:57 AM, schrieb Risker:

On 29 April 2013 18:48, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Itzik Edri it...@infra.co.il
wrote:

I agree. We should limit it to only community members, or to give
equal

right to everyone.

the

first are part of the community, but the second are not. I don't even

want

to refer to the sensitive issue of the staff voting for their
bosses..

That's a very good point, and I think the chapter board members and

staff
definitely _should_ be given a voice _at least_ in the FDC elections.
I
leave it to the Elections Committee to propose solutions.

The Elections Committee posted its plan weeks before the election

started,
with hardly any commentary at all; it is only now, after candidates may
start entering the race, that people are complaining that we've failed
to
give the right people a vote (or alternately, that we've given too
many
people a vote). There is almost no variation between the voter
eligibility
this year and in the previous election; the only relevant changes are
dates
for eligibility and the developer commit process (which was changed
because
the Engineering Department changed the way that commits were done).

I suggest that those who would like to see changes at the next election
post on the election post mortem page[1] now, so that these ideas aren't
lost to time.

Risker (Election Committee Member)

[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_**http://meta.wikimedia.org/**wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_**
elections_2013/Post_mortemhtt**p://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/**
Wikimedia_Foundation_**elections_2013/Post_mortemhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Post_mortem

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Ting Chen

And to come back to the topic.

At least in the theory, if someone is blocked in a project, than he has
a serious problem with that community. And the reason that his block is
not lifted should be a serious one. And if someone has a serious problem
with more than one community, than it is questionable if he should be
eligible to take part in the decision of such an office. So from the
theory I think the rule is ok.

If in the praxis someone is blocked by a project arbitrarily and he is
not able to appeal by that community, than that community and that
project has a real problem. And we should look into detail what is going
wrong in that project and in that community. But this is not an issue of
the election committee.

Greetings
Ting

Am 4/30/2013 11:24 AM, schrieb Itzik Edri:

Ting, Risker,

1. To share thoughts and feedback about the elections, you don't must to be
volunteer in the committee.

2. I indeed thought about it only when I saw the centralnotice and read the
voting requirement, I may needed to raise it before. But it's still doesn't
mean we need to ignore from this issue

Itzik

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote:

Hello dear all,

I would also like to ask everyone who has made their thoughts on the
election to take part on the election committee themselves the next time.

Unfortunately when I made the call for volunteer earlier this year not
very many people responded.

Greetings
Ting

Am 4/30/2013 12:57 AM, schrieb Risker:

On 29 April 2013 18:48, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Itzik Edri it...@infra.co.il wrote:

I agree. We should limit it to only community members, or to give equal

right to everyone.

the

first are part of the community, but the second are not. I don't even

want

to refer to the sensitive issue of the staff voting for their bosses..

That's a very good point, and I think the chapter board members and

staff
definitely _should_ be given a voice _at least_ in the FDC elections. I
leave it to the Elections Committee to propose solutions.

The Elections Committee posted its plan weeks before the election

I suggest that those who would like to see changes at the next election
post on the election post mortem page[1] now, so that these ideas aren't
lost to time.

Risker (Election Committee Member)

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

2013-04-30 Thread Dan Rosenthal

Global renames will be done by Stewards then, yes?

-Dan

Dan Rosenthal


On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 12:17 PM, K. Peachey p858sn...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 7:11 PM, Benjamin Chen bencmqw...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  ...
  One thing to note is the technical limitation on # of edits. If account
 has too many edits, he may not be able to get it renamed further.
  ...

 It just needs to be done server side, The same way it already is.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

2013-04-30 Thread Andrew Gray

On 30 April 2013 03:29, James Forrester jforres...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Unfortunately, some accounts are currently not unique across all our
 wikis, but instead clash with other users who have the same account
 name. To make sure that all of these users can use Wikimedia's wikis
 in future, we will be renaming a number of accounts to have ~” and
 the name of their wiki added to the end of their accounts' name. This
 change will take place on or around 27 May. For example, a user called
 “Example” on the Swedish Wiktionary who will be renamed would become
 “Example~svwiktionary”.

I was wondering if this would ever finally happen!

One ide-effect of centralised renaming: a lot less work for individual
projects and a lot less confusion over where and how names can be
used/usurped, in which order, etc...

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Charles Andres

In Milan we discuss about Chapters peer review as a tools that the WMF could 
use in parallel if FDC assessment.

But in light of the discussion about who should or not apply to the FDC, it 
seems that chapters peer review should be consider by chapter willing to apply 
to the FDC as a preliminary step.

I think that a friendly discussion between peers about the reasons to apply to 
the FDC would help everybody to save time and facilitate the choice of the 
appropriate grant process  :-)

Charles

Le 30 avr. 2013 à 11:22, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org a écrit :

 Hey Florence
 
 On Apr 30, 2013, at 1:12 AM, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote:
 
 Le 4/30/13 12:04 AM, Nathan a écrit :
 
 
 It's not logical to assume that because the WMF has funds it should in
 some way equitably distribute those funds around the world.
 
 What happens to the idea according to which the funds belong to the 
 Wikimedia mouvement rather than to Wikimedia Foundation ?
 
 Please note that you are disagreeing with Nathan, not with others (like me 
 and as far as I know the entire board) who have supported the idea of the FDC 
 because it is a great way to ensure that the funds are distributed amongst 
 the movement in the interest of the movement. The funds are those of the 
 movement, and although we might disagree on how the funds are divided we 
 agree on that. I am happy to see that the FDC as a body (and the community 
 review process as a important addition) ensures much more transparent 
 processes.
 
 
 Supporting
 chapter operations, and funding offices and staff in dozens of
 countries, is not the chief object of the money raised from donors. We
 need to get away from the belief that chapters are unquestionably the
 best use of movement resources. There is a place for outreach,
 publicity, and targeted educational programs. But the WMF is best
 situated to supplement the efforts begun by volunteers, in the same
 way the WMF itself was created and has grown.
 
 I would object to the idea that WMF is best situated to supplement efforts 
 started by volunteers and that statement parts from the decision made some 
 months ago to deflate WMF role.
 But we may agree to disagree on this.
 
 I would agree with you here. I think that the WMF is in a good position to 
 help certain initiatives and that in several cases there are better 
 alternatives. This is why I am so excited about chapters helping chapters and 
 all affiliations being able to join the wikimedia conference in Milan this 
 year. It is that kind of exchange of experience which is perfect for all 
 involved, and lets remember that what works for some might not work for 
 others.
 
 
 Additionnaly... I must add that when WMF was precisely at the current stage 
 of most chapters (with no staff and no office), it was run in a rather 
 creative fashion that would make everyone cough today in comparison to the 
 requirements and obligations made mandatory to chapters. Uh. You may have a 
 slightly more ideal view of the past :)
 
 True, but just because things used to be bad is no reason that they should 
 be bad now if we can prevent it (I was there with you, and we are both 
 happy that we outgrew that phase with a minimal of damage and a LOT of luck 
 in finding the right ED)  the scale of the organisation now makes it 
 impossible to tolerate that kind of creativity when not absolutely 
 necessary.
 
 It would be a poor use
 of movement funds indeed if the WMF decided to pour money into infant
 chapters with minimal development and fuzzy strategic goals. That's a
 recipe for, at an absolute minimum, good-faith mismanagement and waste
 of scarce donor resources. Avoiding this path was a very wise decision
 by the trustees, and I only hope they remain resolute despite
 criticism and Sue's impending departure.
 
 I mostly hope that they stay consistant with their own past decisions (=we 
 were sold the fact that the money collected belong to the mouvement, not to 
 the entity collecting it. If so, decisions of allocations should not become 
 WMF ones).
 
 Agreed, which is why I think the FDC's advice is so important and I hope to 
 never have to question it (although the board does have to have a final say 
 in these matters as a matter of governance)
 
 
 In any cases... I know not if WM HK should have been funded or not. What I 
 know is that the mouvement need happy and rested and humanly treated 
 volunteers to stay healthy.
 
 True, but volunteers also have to ensure not to force themselves into 
 positions of make or break and thereby put themselves at risk.
 
 
 We keep talking about editors decrease. Maybe in the future, we'll talk 
 about irl volunteers (as in chapter members) decrease as well.
 
 I think we should, and I think that some of that discussion took place in 
 Milan. As we know there are different kind of volunteers who organise 
 affiliates (because the problem is not limited to chapters) and it takes 
 different ways to

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Deryck Chan

On 30 April 2013 09:48, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote:



 Yes I read your reply, but you keep stating we want, that is not that
 same as together with the grant giver we agreed… I cannot overstate the
 importance of the difference between the two…

 People don't instantly agree on everything. There is always something the
WMF grants team can disagree with anyone, if they so choose to. I'm
referring to the sequence of events here (grant report accepted, then
eligibility announced, then suddenly disqualification happened because the
settlement of remaining funds hasn't been agreed to), not the nature. We
all agree that the leftover grant funds eventually need to be settled by an
agreement between WMF and WMHK.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Patricio Lorente

2013/4/30 Charles Andres charles.andres.w...@gmail.com:
 In Milan we discuss about Chapters peer review as a tools that the WMF could 
 use in parallel if FDC assessment.

 But in light of the discussion about who should or not apply to the FDC, it 
 seems that chapters peer review should be consider by chapter willing to 
 apply to the FDC as a preliminary step.

 I think that a friendly discussion between peers about the reasons to apply 
 to the FDC would help everybody to save time and facilitate the choice of the 
 appropriate grant process  :-)

Hi Charles! That would be really helpful.

I'd also like to remind that the process for next year's proposals
includes a Letter of Intent as first step, which will allow the both
the FDC and the applicants to work on the proposals four months in
advance to the presentation deadline and hopefully helping to improve
the applications and/or help to decide which should be the choice of
grant process. I hope some concerns expressed in this thread will be
addressed with this change in the process. See
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-April/125199.html
for more details.

Patricio

--
Patricio Lorente
Identi.ca // Twitter: @patriciolorente

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Deryck Chan

On 30 April 2013 10:22, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hey Florence

 On Apr 30, 2013, at 1:12 AM, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote:

  Le 4/30/13 12:04 AM, Nathan a écrit :
 
 
  It's not logical to assume that because the WMF has funds it should in
  some way equitably distribute those funds around the world.
 
  What happens to the idea according to which the funds belong to the
 Wikimedia mouvement rather than to Wikimedia Foundation ?

 Please note that you are disagreeing with Nathan, not with others (like me
 and as far as I know the entire board) who have supported the idea of the
 FDC because it is a great way to ensure that the funds are distributed
 amongst the movement in the interest of the movement. The funds are those
 of the movement, and although we might disagree on how the funds are
 divided we agree on that. I am happy to see that the FDC as a body (and the
 community review process as a important addition) ensures much more
 transparent processes.

 
  Supporting
  chapter operations, and funding offices and staff in dozens of
  countries, is not the chief object of the money raised from donors. We
  need to get away from the belief that chapters are unquestionably the
  best use of movement resources. There is a place for outreach,
  publicity, and targeted educational programs. But the WMF is best
  situated to supplement the efforts begun by volunteers, in the same
  way the WMF itself was created and has grown.
 
  I would object to the idea that WMF is best situated to supplement
 efforts started by volunteers and that statement parts from the decision
 made some months ago to deflate WMF role.
  But we may agree to disagree on this.

 I would agree with you here. I think that the WMF is in a good position to
 help certain initiatives and that in several cases there are better
 alternatives. This is why I am so excited about chapters helping chapters
 and all affiliations being able to join the wikimedia conference in Milan
 this year. It is that kind of exchange of experience which is perfect for
 all involved, and lets remember that what works for some might not work for
 others.

 
  Additionnaly... I must add that when WMF was precisely at the current
 stage of most chapters (with no staff and no office), it was run in a
 rather creative fashion that would make everyone cough today in comparison
 to the requirements and obligations made mandatory to chapters. Uh. You may
 have a slightly more ideal view of the past :)

 True, but just because things used to be bad is no reason that they
 should be bad now if we can prevent it (I was there with you, and we are
 both happy that we outgrew that phase with a minimal of damage and a LOT of
 luck in finding the right ED)  the scale of the organisation now makes it
 impossible to tolerate that kind of creativity when not absolutely
 necessary.
 
  It would be a poor use
  of movement funds indeed if the WMF decided to pour money into infant
  chapters with minimal development and fuzzy strategic goals. That's a
  recipe for, at an absolute minimum, good-faith mismanagement and waste
  of scarce donor resources. Avoiding this path was a very wise decision
  by the trustees, and I only hope they remain resolute despite
  criticism and Sue's impending departure.
 
  I mostly hope that they stay consistant with their own past decisions
 (=we were sold the fact that the money collected belong to the mouvement,
 not to the entity collecting it. If so, decisions of allocations should not
 become WMF ones).

 Agreed, which is why I think the FDC's advice is so important and I hope
 to never have to question it (although the board does have to have a final
 say in these matters as a matter of governance)

 
  In any cases... I know not if WM HK should have been funded or not. What
 I know is that the mouvement need happy and rested and humanly treated
 volunteers to stay healthy.

 True, but volunteers also have to ensure not to force themselves into
 positions of make or break and thereby put themselves at risk.

 
  We keep talking about editors decrease. Maybe in the future, we'll talk
 about irl volunteers (as in chapter members) decrease as well.

 I think we should, and I think that some of that discussion took place in
 Milan. As we know there are different kind of volunteers who organise
 affiliates (because the problem is not limited to chapters) and it takes
 different ways to keep motivated. These are important topics to discuss and
 keep track of. But lets not fall into the trap of blaming the big
 bureaucratic body of the WMF for all the problems we have. Volunteers burn
 out because of lots of reasons and we should all take care to fix those
 problems that are within our reach to control, and try to reduce the risk
 of burnout for all those involved (and again: meeting each other physically
 and exchanging experiences is a really good way of recharging)...

  In the past years, we have seen

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Fundraising 2013] Wikimedia France stepping back from payment processing

2013-04-30 Thread Dan Rosenthal

Christophe,

About this reconnaissance d'utilite publique or supercharity concept;
is there a link to an analysis (preferable) or even just the text of the
law/provision/regulation? Even one in French only would be OK, I'm just
curious to know more about how it works in practice.

-Dan

Dan Rosenthal


On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 1:00 PM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 29 April 2013 21:28, Christophe Henner
 christophe.hen...@wikimedia.fr wrote:
 ...
  In face of that situation, Wikimedia France board has asked WMF to
  stop being a payment processor in 2013

 Hi Christophe, thank you for giving this difficult decision some
 suitable context, and for doing so openly and promptly.

 Could someone advise me, is there an official table on meta showing
 the current list of Chapters with payment processing agreements in
 place for the 2013 fund raiser?

 Independently of any hat I happen to be wearing, I am planning on
 putting aside some volunteer time to examine the
 admin:fundraising:program ratio for our organizations over the next
 few months, so it makes sense to ensure this is achieved for the
 current payment processors, rather than just those organizations that
 are easy to find the figures for or come forward spontaneously. I
 would support other sensible top level performance indicators should
 they be identified and become available soon, FDC members may have
 a view on what might work well as the top 5 indicators. Hopefully at
 least the admin ratio can be publicly shared before October this year to
 help foster a pragmatic discussion on simple dashboards and governance.

 I'm hoping that the WMF can set a lead by publishing a calculation of
 admin ratio for themselves. ;-)

 PS staff salaries are not all automatically 'admin', I hope we can
 agree that some
 program activities are entirely justifiably supported by paid staff
 and contractors.

 Thanks,
 Fae
 --
 fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm
 Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comments on compliance and the FDC Round 2 decisions

2013-04-30 Thread Tomasz Ganicz

2013/4/30 Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl:

 Many members of the community (as it was confirmed in the discussions on
 Milan conference) are e.g. uncertain about part-time employment
 possibilities through GAC, as well as about professionalization efforts
 being funded through GAC scheme (both possible to some extent). I believe
 that it is imperative that a clear guideline is prepared.


Actually it is here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index/Eligibility_requirements

Grants through this program do not fund full-time permanent staff
salaries and other recurring operating expenses, such as the rent of
an office. In some cases, WMF Grants Program grants may fund part-time
positions or full-time temporary positions with a limited focus and
scope of work related specifically to the activities of the funded
project. Requests for part-time staff will be accompanied by an
assessment of the applicant's ability to effectively manage staff, and
may require necessary infrastructure to support staff (such as
policies around travel reimbursements, and hiring). Full-time staff
and recurring operating expenses will only be funded via the Funds
Dissemination Committee (FDC) process. Note that entities receiving
funds through the FDC process may not receive funds through the WMF
Grants Program during the same fiscal year.


although it is a bit misleading, as in several cases (WM AR, WM SR, WM
IN, WM DC) it was accepted to pay for renting an office.

I wonder if it will be accepted to apply to GAC for temporary position
for the person responsible for preparation of FDC application :-)


-- 
Tomek Polimerek Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29title=tomasz-ganicz

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comments on compliance and the FDC Round 2 decisions

2013-04-30 Thread Craig Franklin

I wonder if it will be accepted to apply to GAC for temporary position
 for the person responsible for preparation of FDC application :-)


That's probably not as silly an idea as it sounds - having a local person
on the ground with relevant expertise who can assist the chapter not just
in preparing their application, but also help them set realistic goals on
what could be achieved would no doubt increase the quality of FDC
applications and also focus chapters on delivering useful programme work,
without causing any bitterness about the Foundation at the same time.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin


On 30 April 2013 20:42, Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com wrote:

 2013/4/30 Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl:

  Many members of the community (as it was confirmed in the discussions on
  Milan conference) are e.g. uncertain about part-time employment
  possibilities through GAC, as well as about professionalization efforts
  being funded through GAC scheme (both possible to some extent). I believe
  that it is imperative that a clear guideline is prepared.
 

 Actually it is here:

 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index/Eligibility_requirements

 Grants through this program do not fund full-time permanent staff
 salaries and other recurring operating expenses, such as the rent of
 an office. In some cases, WMF Grants Program grants may fund part-time
 positions or full-time temporary positions with a limited focus and
 scope of work related specifically to the activities of the funded
 project. Requests for part-time staff will be accompanied by an
 assessment of the applicant's ability to effectively manage staff, and
 may require necessary infrastructure to support staff (such as
 policies around travel reimbursements, and hiring). Full-time staff
 and recurring operating expenses will only be funded via the Funds
 Dissemination Committee (FDC) process. Note that entities receiving
 funds through the FDC process may not receive funds through the WMF
 Grants Program during the same fiscal year.


 although it is a bit misleading, as in several cases (WM AR, WM SR, WM
 IN, WM DC) it was accepted to pay for renting an office.

 I wonder if it will be accepted to apply to GAC for temporary position
 for the person responsible for preparation of FDC application :-)


 --
 Tomek Polimerek Ganicz
 http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
 http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
 http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29title=tomasz-ganicz

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Yaroslav M. Blanter


On 30.04.2013 01:12, Florence Devouard wrote:

Le 4/30/13 12:04 AM, Nathan a écrit :



In the past years, we have seen several times organizers of Wikimania
plain disappear after the event. Burn-out. I do not think it is a good
outcome. For no-one.
And I do not think it is a good idea to slap a chapter organizing
Wikimania this year with words such as infant, minimal development,
fuzzy strategic goals whose funding would be at an absolute minimum,
mis-management and waste of donor resources.

Organizing Wikimania is an effort which deserve a little bit more
respect than this. Either we trust the chapter to host Wikimania or we
do not. I do.

And I think that even though you are free to think funding this
chapter would be a bad move, it would be a good move from a human
perspective to present apologies for using such a strong statement.

Florence




My personal experience after being an active program committee member 
on the 2010 Wikimania Organizing Committee was that my activity there 
(and I believe in the end of the day we did a good job - for example, we 
managed to accept all submissions with a very few exceptions) was only 
appreciated by my fellow organizers. I have not heard any good words 
from anybody else, a lot of bad words were coming from all kind of 
corners, and nobody in 2011, 2012, 2013, or, for that matter, in 2014 
ever contacted me asking whether I would have any interest to do this 
job again. In 2011, someone duly revoked my Wikimania wiki administrator 
flag saying smth like not needed anymore, and nobody cared to thank me 
or even to inform me of that. I obviously decided afterwards that there 
are other, less painful ways I can be do my community service, and lost 
all interest in Wikimania organization.


Cheers
Yaroslav

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Richard Symonds

I think, perhaps, that the reform of the Wikimania bidding process could
use a new thread!

Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992

Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).

*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*

On 30 April 2013 11:49, Yaroslav M. Blanter pute...@mccme.ru wrote:

On 30.04.2013 01:12, Florence Devouard wrote:

Le 4/30/13 12:04 AM, Nathan a écrit :

In the past years, we have seen several times organizers of Wikimania
plain disappear after the event. Burn-out. I do not think it is a good
outcome. For no-one.
And I do not think it is a good idea to slap a chapter organizing
Wikimania this year with words such as infant, minimal development,
fuzzy strategic goals whose funding would be at an absolute minimum,
mis-management and waste of donor resources.

Organizing Wikimania is an effort which deserve a little bit more
respect than this. Either we trust the chapter to host Wikimania or we
do not. I do.

And I think that even though you are free to think funding this
chapter would be a bad move, it would be a good move from a human
perspective to present apologies for using such a strong statement.

Florence

My personal experience after being an active program committee member on
the 2010 Wikimania Organizing Committee was that my activity there (and I
believe in the end of the day we did a good job - for example, we managed
to accept all submissions with a very few exceptions) was only appreciated
by my fellow organizers. I have not heard any good words from anybody else,
a lot of bad words were coming from all kind of corners, and nobody in
2011, 2012, 2013, or, for that matter, in 2014 ever contacted me asking
whether I would have any interest to do this job again. In 2011, someone
duly revoked my Wikimania wiki administrator flag saying smth like not
needed anymore, and nobody cared to thank me or even to inform me of that.
I obviously decided afterwards that there are other, less painful ways I
can be do my community service, and lost all interest in Wikimania
organization.

Cheers
Yaroslav

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Michael Peel


On 28 Apr 2013, at 21:25, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote:

 I'm ambivalent about whether it's appropriate to have staff members
 (those who don't independently qualify as community members) voting
 or not, but I think in principle Itzik has a very good point - either
 *both* WMF and Chapter staff should be able to vote, or *neither*
 should. I can't see any reason that it's right for a staffer in San
 Francisco to participate in the election, but it isn't right for one
 in Berlin!
 
 (It may be too late to change anything for this time around, of
 course, but it would be great if we could ensure consistency in future
 elections)

I'd like to +1 on this, as that only seems fair to me - either we have an 
inclusive solution for all Wikimedia organisation staff, or we don't involve 
staff in the elections at all (unless they are also active community members). 
Moving this discussion on-wiki would definitely be good, to reduce the chances 
of this discussion being forgotten about next time around...

BTW, It might also be worth thinking about spreading the community elected 
seats over multiple years - at the moment, all three are appointed at once, 
which means that there's not necessarily any sort of continuity in the 
community's perspective on the board. Having two elected one year, and one the 
next year, might be a better solution to maintain continuity here.

Thanks,
Mike
(personal viewpoint)


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Yaroslav M. Blanter


On 30.04.2013 12:14, James Alexander wrote:

Very side note: I'm not sure if you're talking in the past sense or 
not

here but I did want to stick up for Wikiversity a bit here in the more
presente tense. I don't think I've checked in the past couple weeks 
but
I've trolled the recent changes there every month or so for a while 
and
have been really excited to see it doing some cool looking work for a 
while

now. It seems that many of the issues in the past have been mostly
resolved. I am sure, like us all, they still have some skeletons they 
would
like to get rid of but it seems that the internal process there did 
end

kicking into gear some. /offtopic

James
___


The founder and guru of the Russian Wikiversity was banned from Russian 
Wikipedia several years ago for trolling and disruptive behavior, and 
also made himself infamous for introducing obligatory user reputation 
template on the talk pages and blocking users with zero contribution 
(some of them indefinitely).


Cheers
Yaroslav

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comments on compliance and the FDC Round 2 decisions

2013-04-30 Thread Federico Leva (Nemo)


Dariusz Jemielniak, 30/04/2013 11:34:

1.5. In summary, I must protest against the narrative of Deryck's letter,

wherein WMHK's proposal was rejected by malevolent WMF staff with a secret
anti-WMHK agenda [...]


I didn't read anything like that in Deryck's letter.




well, I think that this part does not leave much for good faith
interpretations:

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Deryck Chan
  wrote:


(cc. Patricio and Jan-Bart as the official contacts for FDC complaints.
Yes, I'm accusing WMF grants staff of foul play with the FDC rules.)


That wasn't in the original letter. :) Also, foul play doesn't seem to 
require a secret anti-WMHK agenda. It was just a convenient way to 
close a controversial discussion, as you confirm.


Moreover, it's well known that the FDC decisions are based also on 
context i.e. private information not part of the proposals or 
discussions thereof.
It's normal for people outside WMF not to understand them fully, and 
after all if the rules were so easy to apply you wouldn't need a double 
track decision with FDC+staff with final rubberstamping by the WMF 
board. It's quite obvious that there will always be room for 
interpretation, or in other words what made Jan-Bart «impressed with the 
level of [...] flexibility of the FDC members».


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania

2013-04-30 Thread Katie Chan


On 30/04/2013 11:49, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
My personal experience after being an active program committee member 
on the 2010 Wikimania Organizing Committee was that my activity there 
(and I believe in the end of the day we did a good job - for example, 
we managed to accept all submissions with a very few exceptions) was 
only appreciated by my fellow organizers. I have not heard any good 
words from anybody else, a lot of bad words were coming from all kind 
of corners, and nobody in 2011, 2012, 2013, or, for that matter, in 
2014 ever contacted me asking whether I would have any interest to do 
this job again. In 2011, someone duly revoked my Wikimania wiki 
administrator flag saying smth like not needed anymore, and nobody 
cared to thank me or even to inform me of that. I obviously decided 
afterwards that there are other, less painful ways I can be do my 
community service, and lost all interest in Wikimania organization.


I would just like to point out that there's no Program Committee for 
2014 as the jury decision on host haven't even been made yet, and for 
2013 there were an open invitation for people to volunteer to serve on 
the Programmes Commitee and Scholarship Committee - 
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2012-October/004375.html. 
Yes, as a movement in general we need to get better at showing 
apperication for others hard work, but let's not generalise.


Regards,

KTC

--
Katie Chan
Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author 
and do not necessarily represent the view of any organisation the author is 
associated with or employed by.


Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
 - Heinrich Heine


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania

2013-04-30 Thread Yaroslav M. Blanter


On 30.04.2013 13:23, Katie Chan wrote:

On 30/04/2013 11:49, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
My personal experience after being an active program committee member 
on the 2010 Wikimania Organizing Committee was that my activity there 
(and I believe in the end of the day we did a good job - for example, 
we managed to accept all submissions with a very few exceptions) was 
only appreciated by my fellow organizers. I have not heard any good 
words from anybody else, a lot of bad words were coming from all kind 
of corners, and nobody in 2011, 2012, 2013, or, for that matter, in 
2014 ever contacted me asking whether I would have any interest to do 
this job again. In 2011, someone duly revoked my Wikimania wiki 
administrator flag saying smth like not needed anymore, and nobody 
cared to thank me or even to inform me of that. I obviously decided 
afterwards that there are other, less painful ways I can be do my 
community service, and lost all interest in Wikimania organization.


I would just like to point out that there's no Program Committee for
2014 as the jury decision on host haven't even been made yet, and for
2013 there were an open invitation for people to volunteer to serve on
the Programmes Commitee and Scholarship Committee -
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2012-October/004375.html.
Yes, as a movement in general we need to get better at showing
apperication for others hard work, but let's not generalise.

Regards,

KTC


As I said, this is my personal experience, and not a generalization. I 
unsubscribed from wikimania-l I believe in 2010, and now I will not do 
it again even if personally approached. I am fine with doing community 
service, but I am not really fine with being insulted for doing 
community service because people do not care to figure out who is doing 
what and insult the first person who approaches them.


Cheers
Yaroslav

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comments on compliance and the FDC Round 2 decisions

2013-04-30 Thread Osmar Valdebenito

I think it is important to remember what is the main premise behind the
FDC: give resources to established chapter in some sort of long term
capacity. We are dealing with proposals of over 100k to more than 4m. I've
heard several times about how hard is to apply for the FDC, how terrible it
is... I know it is not an easy task applying nor reporting (we are doing
this right now) but it is not the hell that has been pictured. It is a much
easier, simple and transparent process than most of the ways any other
organization (for profit or not) does to get the level of money we are
requesting, or at least that has been my experience. Not because the
chapters have nice goals about disseminating free knowledge on local level,
we should be treated especially and not being requested to be as serious
and professional as possible. I think even the FDC is already taken in
consideration the level of professionality of each institution and probably
evaluates differently WMAR than WMDE,  but both should be able to at least
comply with the basics (like clearity in the proposals and goals of the
organization, a set of programs, etc.)

But, seriously, if we are not able to write a estructured long report or
reply answers about usage of funds, is it possible that we are able to hire
effectively and efficiently an Executive Director or run an office? The
problem of growth is not much about were to get funds but how this growth
is sustainable and makes sense. Although there is no clear path towards
professionalization (it would be great to have at least some sort of
recommendations and it is something that should be improved), most of the
successful cases happened through a smooth transition with some sort of
temporary hiring via GAC and then consolidation via FDC. And that makes
sense, because moving from a volunteer-driven association to a professional
NGO is not easy: it is not easy to find the right employee (probably all
the cases hired someone and to fire him/her a few months after), to
establish the balance between what should the Board do and what the staff,
to solve all the belated paperwork that nobody was able to do before, etc,
etc. After going through all of that, then you can think of a more
structured way to request funds like the FDC.

I think this is an interesting topic that would have been great to work
with in the past Wikimedia Conference, too bad the idea came too late.
Maybe a panel for Wikimania?

Osmar Valdebenito G.


2013/4/30 Craig Franklin cfrank...@halonetwork.net

 I wonder if it will be accepted to apply to GAC for temporary position
  for the person responsible for preparation of FDC application :-)


 That's probably not as silly an idea as it sounds - having a local person
 on the ground with relevant expertise who can assist the chapter not just
 in preparing their application, but also help them set realistic goals on
 what could be achieved would no doubt increase the quality of FDC
 applications and also focus chapters on delivering useful programme work,
 without causing any bitterness about the Foundation at the same time.

 Cheers,
 Craig Franklin


 On 30 April 2013 20:42, Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com wrote:

  2013/4/30 Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl:
 
   Many members of the community (as it was confirmed in the discussions
 on
   Milan conference) are e.g. uncertain about part-time employment
   possibilities through GAC, as well as about professionalization efforts
   being funded through GAC scheme (both possible to some extent). I
 believe
   that it is imperative that a clear guideline is prepared.
  
 
  Actually it is here:
 
  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index/Eligibility_requirements
 
  Grants through this program do not fund full-time permanent staff
  salaries and other recurring operating expenses, such as the rent of
  an office. In some cases, WMF Grants Program grants may fund part-time
  positions or full-time temporary positions with a limited focus and
  scope of work related specifically to the activities of the funded
  project. Requests for part-time staff will be accompanied by an
  assessment of the applicant's ability to effectively manage staff, and
  may require necessary infrastructure to support staff (such as
  policies around travel reimbursements, and hiring). Full-time staff
  and recurring operating expenses will only be funded via the Funds
  Dissemination Committee (FDC) process. Note that entities receiving
  funds through the FDC process may not receive funds through the WMF
  Grants Program during the same fiscal year.
 
 
  although it is a bit misleading, as in several cases (WM AR, WM SR, WM
  IN, WM DC) it was accepted to pay for renting an office.
 
  I wonder if it will be accepted to apply to GAC for temporary position
  for the person responsible for preparation of FDC application :-)
 
 
  --
  Tomek Polimerek Ganicz
  http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
  http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Fundraising 2013] Wikimedia France stepping back from payment processing

2013-04-30 Thread Charles Andres

AFAIK , WMDE and WMCH are the last  ones. I do not remember an announce about 
WMUK for the next fundraising.

but I don't understand what's the link with the FDC. In general I would 
encourage to avoid to speak about paiement processing out of its specific 
context, that's mean fundraising process only.


Cheers


Charles

Le 30 avr. 2013 à 12:00, Fae fae...@gmail.com a écrit :

 On 29 April 2013 21:28, Christophe Henner
 christophe.hen...@wikimedia.fr wrote:
 ...
 In face of that situation, Wikimedia France board has asked WMF to
 stop being a payment processor in 2013
 
 Hi Christophe, thank you for giving this difficult decision some
 suitable context, and for doing so openly and promptly.
 
 Could someone advise me, is there an official table on meta showing
 the current list of Chapters with payment processing agreements in
 place for the 2013 fund raiser?
 
 Independently of any hat I happen to be wearing, I am planning on
 putting aside some volunteer time to examine the
 admin:fundraising:program ratio for our organizations over the next
 few months, so it makes sense to ensure this is achieved for the
 current payment processors, rather than just those organizations that
 are easy to find the figures for or come forward spontaneously. I
 would support other sensible top level performance indicators should
 they be identified and become available soon, FDC members may have
 a view on what might work well as the top 5 indicators. Hopefully at
 least the admin ratio can be publicly shared before October this year to
 help foster a pragmatic discussion on simple dashboards and governance.
 
 I'm hoping that the WMF can set a lead by publishing a calculation of
 admin ratio for themselves. ;-)
 
 PS staff salaries are not all automatically 'admin', I hope we can
 agree that some
 program activities are entirely justifiably supported by paid staff
 and contractors.
 
 Thanks,
 Fae
 --
 fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm
 Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Comments on compliance and the FDC Round 2 decisions

2013-04-30 Thread Dariusz Jemielniak

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 1:10 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.comwrote:

 Moreover, it's well known that the FDC decisions are based also on
 context i.e. private information not part of the proposals or discussions
 thereof.
 It's normal for people outside WMF not to understand them fully, and after
 all if the rules were so easy to apply you wouldn't need a double track
 decision with FDC+staff with final rubberstamping by the WMF board. It's
 quite obvious that there will always be room for interpretation, or in
 other words what made Jan-Bart «impressed with the level of [...]
 flexibility of the FDC members».


I'm not sure what you mean by that and how/why it is well known (it is
not well known to me, we make efforts to make sure that applicants are
treated fairly, equally, and not depending on snippets of some private
information, although naturally depending on the correspondence, dialogue
etc. with the chapter, which to some extent is also not entirely public for
obvious reasons).


Tomasz: as I wrote, it is imperative that a CLEAR and UNDERSTANDABLE
guideline is prepared :)

best,

dj
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Jeromy-Yu Maximilian Chan

I think Jan-Bart did point out an interesting point
As I heard in Milan
Long time staffing, must go trough FDC
And we exactly know our weakness on transparency and management
(I already tried hard to push my rest of team when I was on the chapter
board
But what do you expect if they have day time or/ studies?)

And going trough these year of struggle for survival
We are already very clear to improve the situation we need permanent staff
to stabilize the structure, to free up volunteer to work out something more
meaningful.

As we aware of problem, we are run out of way to improve, it is bottleneck
we need to tackle. So the FDC decision  suggests chapter like us should
never professionalize? Or never hire staff? Or never apply grant? As
without staffing we dun think we can really have a change, as everyone had
to spent at least 60 hours a week for work and studies.

But the immediate effect of this (I-would-call-in-a-community-aspect)
irresponsible decision is not just kill off the chance of development, the
worse is liquidating the faith of volunteers.

Also we understand the local environment can be how harsh to charity run by
young people like us
WMF is rather easy way to get funding, so I can understand why they have
such strong feeling
It is frankly a huge slam on the local communities faith on that WMF can be
helpful all the time.

we have plans and right connections, just need people to deal with the
stuff in working hours
and of course improve the area they accuse us
That's it

(also one note about the accusation of mismanagement previous fund

we did have apply grant via projects, we finished the report, and we told
them we have money left, nobody had tell us what to do clearly
AND WMF STAFF CONTACTS JUST CHANGE ALL THE TIME


Actually I do find this new grant system really disgusting
I know there are always some good  helpful staff and people around
Frankly I dun think the FdC related person are  will

And now they force me to think of other harder local alternative (which
again a hell lot volunteer time)
Sorry frankly I dun have confidence on appeal or ombudsman after go through
all these frankly

On the other hands we need more (fxxxing) paperworks for appeal or
ombudsman, which the team is super tired with, I just ponder why the things
go so inhumane.

Sent from my iPhone

On 29 Apr, 2013, at 2:37, Jeromy-Yu Chan (Jerry~Yuyu) 
jerry.tschan...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi all

I am ACTUALLY PANIC when reading this.

Normally I would say please don't go,
but realizing myself I am not on the Local Chapter board already
and even myself start to feel don't know what to do next

And I am sorry to say, the decision had totally stir up the emotion of the
whole Wikimania Local Team
I frankly don't know whether if it will lead to a melt down of our
volunteer power
after frustrations of all these years as Deryck said, as I was on the Board
and knew most of the stories.

-- 
Jeromy-Yu Chan, Jerry
http://plasticnews.wf/
http://about.me/jeromyu
UID: Jeromyu
(on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk  most sites)

Tel (Mobile): +852 9279 1601
Οὔτε τι τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ἄξιον ὂν μεγάλης σπουδῆς
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Osmar Valdebenito

Probably a smoother transition would be much more appropiate. A part-time
or temporary employee that can take care of the belated reports and
paperwork that you, as volunteers, can't do and probably establish some
basis for a future growth.
WM-AR, WM-RS and WM-IL have professionalized in the latest years (correct
me if there is any other chapter too), which are medium-sized chapters,
probably similar to HK.You should take a look at their/our experience and
that can be helpful to imagine what you can do.

*Osmar Valdebenito G.*
Director Ejecutivo
A. C. Wikimedia Argentina


2013/4/30 Jeromy-Yu Maximilian Chan jerry.tschan...@gmail.com

 I think Jan-Bart did point out an interesting point
 As I heard in Milan
 Long time staffing, must go trough FDC
 And we exactly know our weakness on transparency and management
 (I already tried hard to push my rest of team when I was on the chapter
 board
 But what do you expect if they have day time or/ studies?)

 And going trough these year of struggle for survival
 We are already very clear to improve the situation we need permanent staff
 to stabilize the structure, to free up volunteer to work out something more
 meaningful.

 As we aware of problem, we are run out of way to improve, it is bottleneck
 we need to tackle. So the FDC decision  suggests chapter like us should
 never professionalize? Or never hire staff? Or never apply grant? As
 without staffing we dun think we can really have a change, as everyone had
 to spent at least 60 hours a week for work and studies.

 But the immediate effect of this (I-would-call-in-a-community-aspect)
 irresponsible decision is not just kill off the chance of development, the
 worse is liquidating the faith of volunteers.

 Also we understand the local environment can be how harsh to charity run by
 young people like us
 WMF is rather easy way to get funding, so I can understand why they have
 such strong feeling
 It is frankly a huge slam on the local communities faith on that WMF can be
 helpful all the time.

 we have plans and right connections, just need people to deal with the
 stuff in working hours
 and of course improve the area they accuse us
 That's it

 (also one note about the accusation of mismanagement previous fund

 we did have apply grant via projects, we finished the report, and we told
 them we have money left, nobody had tell us what to do clearly
 AND WMF STAFF CONTACTS JUST CHANGE ALL THE TIME


 Actually I do find this new grant system really disgusting
 I know there are always some good  helpful staff and people around
 Frankly I dun think the FdC related person are  will

 And now they force me to think of other harder local alternative (which
 again a hell lot volunteer time)
 Sorry frankly I dun have confidence on appeal or ombudsman after go through
 all these frankly

 On the other hands we need more (fxxxing) paperworks for appeal or
 ombudsman, which the team is super tired with, I just ponder why the things
 go so inhumane.

 Sent from my iPhone

 On 29 Apr, 2013, at 2:37, Jeromy-Yu Chan (Jerry~Yuyu) 
 jerry.tschan...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi all

 I am ACTUALLY PANIC when reading this.

 Normally I would say please don't go,
 but realizing myself I am not on the Local Chapter board already
 and even myself start to feel don't know what to do next

 And I am sorry to say, the decision had totally stir up the emotion of the
 whole Wikimania Local Team
 I frankly don't know whether if it will lead to a melt down of our
 volunteer power
 after frustrations of all these years as Deryck said, as I was on the Board
 and knew most of the stories.

 --
 Jeromy-Yu Chan, Jerry
 http://plasticnews.wf/
 http://about.me/jeromyu
 UID: Jeromyu
 (on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk  most sites)

 Tel (Mobile): +852 9279 1601
 Οὔτε τι τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ἄξιον  ὂν μεγάλης σπουδῆς
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Dariusz Jemielniak

hi Jeromy-Yu,

thank you for sharing this personal note.

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:06 PM, Jeromy-Yu Maximilian Chan
jerry.tschan...@gmail.com wrote:

As we aware of problem, we are run out of way to improve, it is bottleneck
we need to tackle. So the FDC decision suggests chapter like us should
never professionalize? Or never hire staff? Or never apply grant? As
without staffing we dun think we can really have a change, as everyone had
to spent at least 60 hours a week for work and studies.

I hope it is clear that the FDC decision DOES NOT suggest that you should
never professionalize at all, or hire staff, etc. This decision is related
only to your submitted project (its content, the evaluated impact, as well
as volume - you applied for over 200,000 USD to start with; as well as the
estimated capacity to deal with the project's scale, responsibilities,
etc.).

I also encourage you to go through the comments from the deliberation:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2012-2013_round2#Comments_from_the_deliberation

But the immediate effect of this (I-would-call-in-a-community-aspect)
irresponsible decision is not just kill off the chance of development, the
worse is liquidating the faith of volunteers.

I'm really very sorry to hear that and I assure you that it has never been
our intention to undermine the spirit of volunteers. On the contrary, the
volunteer work is something you shine in, and Wikimania organization is
something everybody on the FDC has been really impressed with. However, I
also hope you realize that the project evaluation has to be done basing on
its own merits, and it did not include Wikimania at all (funded
separately).

best,

dariusz (pundit)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Thehelpfulone

On 29 April 2013 21:01, Ziko van Dijk vand...@wmnederland.nl wrote:


 With 2 seats selected by the chapters and in future maybe the thorgs, and 3
 by the editing community, and 1 by the staff, more than half of the board
 members would be not directly coopted.
 Many other varieties are possible, of course. The staff could together vote
 one elector who would take part in the selection by the chapters, the same
 for the Wikimedia User Groups. But then, this voting group should select
 ultimately not 2 but 3 seats.
 People who don't edit but belong to the movement can have their influence
 via the chapters and in future the thorgs.


On 30 April 2013 11:54, Michael Peel michael.p...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:


 I'd like to +1 on this, as that only seems fair to me - either we have an
 inclusive solution for all Wikimedia organisation staff, or we don't
 involve staff in the elections at all (unless they are also active
 community members). Moving this discussion on-wiki would definitely be
 good, to reduce the chances of this discussion being forgotten about next
 time around...



 BTW, It might also be worth thinking about spreading the community elected
 seats over multiple years - at the moment, all three are appointed at once,
 which means that there's not necessarily any sort of continuity in the
 community's perspective on the board. Having two elected one year, and one
 the next year, might be a better solution to maintain continuity here.


An alternative proposal, as suggested by Risker and James above is that
even if you don't necessarily edit substantially, you can still be part of
the movement, so lowering edit requirements to allow *all *staff and board
members of the WMF, Chapters and other thematic organisations (and everyone
else that's part of the movement) to elect all 5 of the community seats
(3 community + 2 chapters) would bring everyone in the movement closer
together.

This would arguably be the most fair option, can someone summarise the
justification for chapters to be able to exclusively select 2 of out 5
community seats through a much less-transparent process?

-- 
Thehelpfulone
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Michael Peel


On 30 Apr 2013, at 14:30, Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonew...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 29 April 2013 21:01, Ziko van Dijk vand...@wmnederland.nl wrote:
  
 With 2 seats selected by the chapters and in future maybe the thorgs, and 3
 by the editing community, and 1 by the staff, more than half of the board
 members would be not directly coopted.
 Many other varieties are possible, of course. The staff could together vote
 one elector who would take part in the selection by the chapters, the same
 for the Wikimedia User Groups. But then, this voting group should select
 ultimately not 2 but 3 seats.
 People who don't edit but belong to the movement can have their influence
 via the chapters and in future the thorgs.
  
 On 30 April 2013 11:54, Michael Peel michael.p...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
  
 I'd like to +1 on this, as that only seems fair to me - either we have an 
 inclusive solution for all Wikimedia organisation staff, or we don't involve 
 staff in the elections at all (unless they are also active community 
 members). Moving this discussion on-wiki would definitely be good, to reduce 
 the chances of this discussion being forgotten about next time around...
  
 BTW, It might also be worth thinking about spreading the community elected 
 seats over multiple years - at the moment, all three are appointed at once, 
 which means that there's not necessarily any sort of continuity in the 
 community's perspective on the board. Having two elected one year, and one 
 the next year, might be a better solution to maintain continuity here.
  
 An alternative proposal, as suggested by Risker and James above is that even 
 if you don't necessarily edit substantially, you can still be part of the 
 movement, so lowering edit requirements to allow all staff and board members 
 of the WMF, Chapters and other thematic organisations (and everyone else 
 that's part of the movement) to elect all 5 of the community seats (3 
 community + 2 chapters) would bring everyone in the movement closer together.
  
 This would arguably be the most fair option, can someone summarise the 
 justification for chapters to be able to exclusively select 2 of out 5 
 community seats through a much less-transparent process?

I'm not sure how low the edit requirements would have to be in order to allow 
all staff + board members to vote - has anyone looked at the statistics of edit 
counts of staff + board members to quantify this? It would also need to be 
balanced against the increased risk of election fraud (it's easier to create 
more new accounts with a smaller number of edits without being spotted).

My understanding of the chapter-selected seats is that those were intended to 
bring in people from the chapters' sphere of contacts who were unlikely to want 
to stand through very public elections, hence the reduced transparency involved 
in their appointments. So I'd personally view them as a sort of cross-over 
between expert and community seats, rather than simply as community seats (e.g. 
they wouldn't necessarily be filled by a Wikimedian).

Thanks,
Mike
(personal viewpoint)

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[Wikimedia-l] censorship in the german mailing list

2013-04-30 Thread Thomas Sieben


Dear Readers,
the german mailing mist is suffering from
censorship by one of the list of 
administrators:

Kurt Jansson, Daniel Baur, Arne Klempert.

I could not send several Mails to the list.
This is very irritating because of the 
present
discussion about corruption in the 
german chapter.


Reiner S., long time writer in the 
german wikipedia,
was blocked today for one month by user 
Tsor,
because of Reiners strong questions in 
this context.
Tsor is famous for his sport-arguments 
against democracy

in wikipedia.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion:Community-Projektbudget#Nachfragen_zur_Chronologie_des_Landtagsprojekts_von_Olaf_Kosinsky

Blocking of Reiner S.:
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVandalismusmeldungdiff=118056286oldid=118056234#Benutzer:Reiner_Stoppok_.28erl..29_2

Kind Regards,
Thomas7
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipedia.watch/
http://thomas7.bloggles.info/


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Glossary vs. Glossaries

2013-04-30 Thread Guillaume Paumier

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 2:27 PM, Guillaume Paumier
gpaum...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 * Google custom search: Waldir recently used Google Custom Search to
 created a search tool to find technical information across many pages
 and sites where information is currently fragmented:
 http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-March/067450.html
 . We could set up a similar tool (or a floss alternative) that would
 include all glossaries. By advertising the tool prominently on
 existing glossary pages (so that users know it exists), this could
 allow us to curate more specific glossaries, while keeping them all
 searchable with one tool.

Just a quick note to let people know that this is now up and running:
https://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=015296225943515200682:ds3sfewbbrw

(Note to Ghostery users: you'll have to enable Google AJAX Search
API to see search results.)

I'm slightly annoyed that this is a third-party tool and I'd much
prefer a floss alternative running on Tool Labs or something, but
until that happens, we have a working tool we can use to search a term
across scattered Wikimedia-related glossaries.

I'd like to find people to help maintain the URL list (right now
there's a version at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=5406259 ) so if you'd
like to help, contact me offlist and I'll give you access.

The next step is to better organize the glossaries, and actually add
definitions; I'll start another thread later about this.

--
Guillaume Paumier
Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation
https://donate.wikimedia.org

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] censorship in the german mailing list

2013-04-30 Thread Federico Leva (Nemo)

Complaining about blocks on mailing lists is rarely useful for anything 
but taking something out of your chest, I suggest you complain on Meta 
if you really need... oh wait, you're indef-blocked for harassment, too bad.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

2013-04-30 Thread James Forrester

On 30 April 2013 01:01, Marco Chiesa chiesa.ma...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 4:29 AM, James Forrester
 jforres...@wikimedia.orgwrote:

 Unfortunately, some accounts are currently not unique across all our
 wikis, but instead clash with other users who have the same account
 name. To make sure that all of these users can use Wikimedia's wikis
 in future, we will be renaming a number of accounts to have ~” and
 the name of their wiki added to the end of their accounts' name. This
 change will take place on or around 27 May. For example, a user called
 “Example” on the Swedish Wiktionary who will be renamed would become
 “Example~svwiktionary”.

 Why did you choose to insert the character  ~? Many keyboards do not have
 such a key.

We picked a character which had very few clashes with the existing set
of account names, but was allowed in account names and distinctive.
Active accounts will be welcome to rename in the 'normal' process if
they do not want to remain at the name to which the script will move
them.

J.
--
James D. Forrester
Product Manager, VisualEditor
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board FDC elections?

2013-04-30 Thread Michael Snow


On 4/30/2013 3:54 AM, Michael Peel wrote:

On 28 Apr 2013, at 21:25, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote:

I'm ambivalent about whether it's appropriate to have staff members
(those who don't independently qualify as community members) voting
or not, but I think in principle Itzik has a very good point - either
*both* WMF and Chapter staff should be able to vote, or *neither*
should. I can't see any reason that it's right for a staffer in San
Francisco to participate in the election, but it isn't right for one
in Berlin!

(It may be too late to change anything for this time around, of
course, but it would be great if we could ensure consistency in future
elections)

I'd like to +1 on this, as that only seems fair to me - either we have an 
inclusive solution for all Wikimedia organisation staff, or we don't involve 
staff in the elections at all (unless they are also active community members).
I also agree that it would be best to treat all staff the same in this 
regard, whether they technically work for a chapter or the global 
foundation. I think that's particularly true because the technical 
employment arrangements don't necessarily line up with true function, 
and could lead to rather odd results in specific cases. As we've seen or 
could easily imagine, staff might be designated as temporary 
contractors, be delegated to work at another organization, or have their 
salary paid by one entity while working for another. All of these things 
could happen for perfectly good reasons in operational terms, but have 
no bearing on whether that person should be able to participate in these 
elections.

BTW, It might also be worth thinking about spreading the community elected 
seats over multiple years - at the moment, all three are appointed at once, 
which means that there's not necessarily any sort of continuity in the 
community's perspective on the board. Having two elected one year, and one the 
next year, might be a better solution to maintain continuity here.
This is a valid consideration, but I'd like to offer a counterargument, 
which is (at least in my mind) an important reason the rotation of board 
seats was set up the way it is now. As we've seen, the process of 
organizing and conducting these elections is a significant burden, 
especially on the volunteers doing the work but also for the candidates 
who choose to participate. I would suggest that it also imposes costs on 
the community at large in terms of the attention and energy directed to 
the election. I consider those costs well worth paying overall, but 
believe that it's also better not to run them up too often. I'm not sure 
that the benefits of this change warrant effectively doubling the load 
the process creates.


--Michael Snow

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

2013-04-30 Thread James Forrester

On 30 April 2013 02:56, Dan Rosenthal swatjes...@gmail.com wrote:
 Global renames will be done by Stewards then, yes?

Yes.

J.
--
James D. Forrester
Product Manager, VisualEditor
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Fundraising 2013] Wikimedia France stepping back from payment processing

2013-04-30 Thread Christophe Henner

Hey Dan,

Sure : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconnaissance_d'utilit%C3%A9_publique
and http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/associations/F1131.xhtml

In France all associations are, a priori, charities. The french fiscal
services can withdraw that status for many reasons. One of them is if
they believe the money raised using tax deductibility is not
supporting french citizen/culture enough. Once you have that
recognition, this charity status is much much harder to remove.

We've been planning to ask for that status in 2013 for few month,
Sébastien Baijard, our fundraiser, had that as one of his goal when
hired. We didn't before because the process is a really complex one.
We actually rewrote our bylaws in 2010 and 2011 to best fit RUP needs
(it includes information about board member being forbiden to get
paid, the rules for employees to run for board once they leave their
paid job in the association, and other informations like that).

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask
--
Christophe


On 30 April 2013 12:37, Dan Rosenthal swatjes...@gmail.com wrote:
 Christophe,

 About this reconnaissance d'utilite publique or supercharity concept;
 is there a link to an analysis (preferable) or even just the text of the
 law/provision/regulation? Even one in French only would be OK, I'm just
 curious to know more about how it works in practice.

 -Dan

 Dan Rosenthal


 On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 1:00 PM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 29 April 2013 21:28, Christophe Henner
 christophe.hen...@wikimedia.fr wrote:
 ...
  In face of that situation, Wikimedia France board has asked WMF to
  stop being a payment processor in 2013

 Hi Christophe, thank you for giving this difficult decision some
 suitable context, and for doing so openly and promptly.

 Could someone advise me, is there an official table on meta showing
 the current list of Chapters with payment processing agreements in
 place for the 2013 fund raiser?

 Independently of any hat I happen to be wearing, I am planning on
 putting aside some volunteer time to examine the
 admin:fundraising:program ratio for our organizations over the next
 few months, so it makes sense to ensure this is achieved for the
 current payment processors, rather than just those organizations that
 are easy to find the figures for or come forward spontaneously. I
 would support other sensible top level performance indicators should
 they be identified and become available soon, FDC members may have
 a view on what might work well as the top 5 indicators. Hopefully at
 least the admin ratio can be publicly shared before October this year to
 help foster a pragmatic discussion on simple dashboards and governance.

 I'm hoping that the WMF can set a lead by publishing a calculation of
 admin ratio for themselves. ;-)

 PS staff salaries are not all automatically 'admin', I hope we can
 agree that some
 program activities are entirely justifiably supported by paid staff
 and contractors.

 Thanks,
 Fae
 --
 fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm
 Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] movement partners

2013-04-30 Thread phoebe ayers

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:10 PM, Bishakha Datta bishakhada...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 1:33 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Hi all,
 
  Here is a question that came up during today's US GLAM consortium
 meeting:
  what's the current status of the 'movement partners' affiliation?
 
 
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_affiliation_models/Movement_Partners
 
  Is recognition of movement partners something that AffComm will be taking
  on in future, or will it rest with WMF/Chapters for now? Not sure what
 the
  latest discussions have been.
 
 
 This is still under discussion between AffCom and WMF, Phoebe. The current
 discussion is focused on sharpening the definition, translating the concept
 into a clear easy-to-follow affiliation pipeline or pathway, and on the
 division of roles between AffCom and WMF.

 We're hopeful that this will move to the next stage shortly.

 Best
 Bishakha


Thanks Bishakha! Has that discussion been on-wiki anywhere?

The context, as Sarah notes, is that there are a variety of big GLAM
organizations who have done Wikimedia work who may well fit the idea of
being a 'movement partner', and the question arose this past weekend of
whether and where they might fit.

-- phoebe

-- 
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at
gmail.com *
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] movement partners

2013-04-30 Thread Gregory Varnum

Phoebe,

As Bishakha indicated, this is still actively being discussed amongst AffCom 
and WMF folks. Most of what's being discussed is based on on-wiki comments - 
but the actual conversations are happening via email (AffCom mailing list) and 
face-to-face conversations. My understanding is this follows a similar process 
used when the User Groups and Thematic Org processes were setup.

However, I will say that entities like GLAM partners has come up as examples of 
possible candidates in conversations I've had with folks.

Again, it is premature to commit to anything, but my personal hope is that the 
final outcome will be a good solution for the groups you're talking about.  As 
someone who frequently works with outside groups on Wikimedia matters, I am 
empathetic to both the sense of urgency and interest from potential partners.

Also, AffCom members are available via wiki or email for comments about this - 
and I am generally lingering in IRC often.

-greg aka varnent

Disclaimer: These are my own views and not officially representative of any 
role I have within AffCom, Wikimania, or elsewhere.


On 30 Apr 2013, at 1:16 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:10 PM, Bishakha Datta 
 bishakhada...@gmail.comwrote:
 
 On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 1:33 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
 Hi all,
 
 Here is a question that came up during today's US GLAM consortium
 meeting:
 what's the current status of the 'movement partners' affiliation?
 
 
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_affiliation_models/Movement_Partners
 
 Is recognition of movement partners something that AffComm will be taking
 on in future, or will it rest with WMF/Chapters for now? Not sure what
 the
 latest discussions have been.
 
 
 This is still under discussion between AffCom and WMF, Phoebe. The current
 discussion is focused on sharpening the definition, translating the concept
 into a clear easy-to-follow affiliation pipeline or pathway, and on the
 division of roles between AffCom and WMF.
 
 We're hopeful that this will move to the next stage shortly.
 
 Best
 Bishakha
 
 
 Thanks Bishakha! Has that discussion been on-wiki anywhere?
 
 The context, as Sarah notes, is that there are a variety of big GLAM
 organizations who have done Wikimedia work who may well fit the idea of
 being a 'movement partner', and the question arose this past weekend of
 whether and where they might fit.
 
 -- phoebe
 
 -- 
 * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at
 gmail.com *
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] censorship in the german mailing list

2013-04-30 Thread Thomas Sieben


Dear Readers, dear Nemo,
in my last emails, which where objects 
to censorship,
I did  not complain about my 
indef-blockage by
right wing student-groups in germany 
(f.e. Frank Schulenburg),

which was taken as harassment.
But I did, do and will complain in 
public about the blockage

of people, complaining about corruption in
the german wikipedia. Writing for 
wikipedia since

2003, I do not accept, abusing buttons by
incompetent or right-biased people.

My indef-blockage is an ad-hominem argument
by you. My indef-blockage is unvalid, since
the election (the fifth) gave not enough 
votings
for my blockage. The blockers 
(User:Leon)  was
abusing his buttons. 2 and 2 is not 5 
http://www.youtube.com/embed/3eTjftyAtIc.

Thomas7


Am 30.04.2013 18:40, schrieb 
wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org:



Message: 4
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:44:05 +0200
From: Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] censorship in the german mailing list
Message-ID: 517fd8b5.8050...@gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Complaining about blocks on mailing lists is rarely useful for anything
but taking something out of your chest, I suggest you complain on Meta
if you really need... oh wait, you're indef-blocked for harassment, too bad.

Nemo




--

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:23:38 +0200
From: Thomas Sieben camol...@web.de
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] censorship in the german mailing list
Message-ID: 517fd3ea.3010...@web.de
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Dear Readers,
the german mailing mist is suffering from
censorship by one of the list of
administrators:
Kurt Jansson, Daniel Baur, Arne Klempert.

I could not send several Mails to the list.
This is very irritating because of the
present
discussion about corruption in the
german chapter.

Reiner S., long time writer in the
german wikipedia,
was blocked today for one month by user
Tsor,
because of Reiners strong questions in
this context.
Tsor is famous for his sport-arguments
against democracy
in wikipedia.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion:Community-Projektbudget#Nachfragen_zur_Chronologie_des_Landtagsprojekts_von_Olaf_Kosinsky

Blocking of Reiner S.:
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVandalismusmeldungdiff=118056286oldid=118056234#Benutzer:Reiner_Stoppok_.28erl..29_2

Kind Regards,
Thomas7
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipedia.watch/
http://thomas7.bloggles.info/





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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Florence Devouard

Le 4/30/13 12:52 PM, Richard Symonds a écrit :

I think, perhaps, that the reform of the Wikimania bidding process could
use a new thread!

Yaroslav is not telling us about his experience on the bidding process,
but about his experience about (not) feeling loved and appreciated for
his effort and involvement.

And boy... is that sad :(

Flo

Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992

*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*

On 30 April 2013 11:49, Yaroslav M. Blanter pute...@mccme.ru wrote:

On 30.04.2013 01:12, Florence Devouard wrote:

Le 4/30/13 12:04 AM, Nathan a écrit :

In the past years, we have seen several times organizers of Wikimania

plain disappear after the event. Burn-out. I do not think it is a good
outcome. For no-one.
And I do not think it is a good idea to slap a chapter organizing
Wikimania this year with words such as infant, minimal development,
fuzzy strategic goals whose funding would be at an absolute minimum,
mis-management and waste of donor resources.

Organizing Wikimania is an effort which deserve a little bit more
respect than this. Either we trust the chapter to host Wikimania or we
do not. I do.

And I think that even though you are free to think funding this
chapter would be a bad move, it would be a good move from a human
perspective to present apologies for using such a strong statement.

Florence

Cheers
Yaroslav

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread Philippe Beaudette

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:23 PM, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.comwrote:

 Yaroslav is not telling us about his experience on the bidding process,
 but about his experience about (not) feeling loved and appreciated for his
 effort and involvement.

 And boy... is that sad :(

 Flo


Agreed, and I'll say it:  to Yaroslav and everyone else who slaves away to
make Wikimania work... thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

pb

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Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

415-839-6885, x 6643

phili...@wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone

2013-04-30 Thread MZMcBride

Florence Devouard wrote:
I was thinking of the numerous (quite successful) associations in
France, which are simply made of entrepreneurs wishing to do things
together (from networking, to training, to visits, conferences etc.).
Most of those associations have only one staff member, a long-term hired
secretary who takes care of secretarial work. The rest of the
association activity is 100% taken care of by the volunteer
entrepreneurs (usually through an extended board of volunteer members).

Yes, this kind of association is also somewhat common in the United States
as well. I agree that it might serve as a very good model for a healthy
number of Wikimedia chapters.

In many cases, the secretary is paid with sponsorship and membership
fees.

The Wikimedia Foundation seems to be in a good place to ensure that this
need is met for chapters in need of a full-time staff person. A little
seed money. What needs to happen in order to ensure requests like this are
met if membership fees and sponsorships aren't sufficient?

MZMcBride



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[Wikimedia-l] The one-employee secretariat model

2013-04-30 Thread Asaf Bartov

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 4:21 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

Florence Devouard wrote:
I was thinking of the numerous (quite successful) associations in
France, which are simply made of entrepreneurs wishing to do things
together (from networking, to training, to visits, conferences etc.).
Most of those associations have only one staff member, a long-term hired
secretary who takes care of secretarial work. The rest of the
association activity is 100% taken care of by the volunteer
entrepreneurs (usually through an extended board of volunteer members).

Yes, this kind of association is also somewhat common in the United States
as well. I agree that it might serve as a very good model for a healthy
number of Wikimedia chapters.

Yes, this model clearly works in some countries and for some non-profits.
It has also been working for some Wikimedia groups, e.g. WMPL.

However, it is not obvious that this model is what all (or even most)
groups are looking for (judging by grant applications and informal
conversations I have had with many groups). I would be willing to consider
funding such a position on a part-time basis (say 3 days a week) if a group
presented a compelling case for the need for such a person.

In many cases, the secretary is paid with sponsorship and membership
fees.

The Wikimedia Foundation seems to be in a good place to ensure that this
need is met for chapters in need of a full-time staff person. A little
seed money. What needs to happen in order to ensure requests like this are
met if membership fees and sponsorships aren't sufficient?

The Foundation is indeed in a good place to fill this need, where it
exists. I think very few groups have been able to demonstrate the need for
_sustained_ support of this kind (i.e. not the two afternoons needed to
finish some particular report, but actual ongoing labor of the order that
would require such a position). Again, I am happy to discuss this with any
group, on any channel, including privately if they prefer (I prefer public
conversations).

For example, in the context of the recent FDC proposals, WMCZ's staffing
plan[1], assuming that student could be a *part-time* employee, could
certainly have gone through the Wikimedia Grants Program (NB: not the GAC
-- the GAC is the advisory body to the Wikimedia Grants Program), as in
WMCZ's case, I am aware of a relatively large amount of administrative work
around reimbursements, related to their two current grants.

A case will still need to be made for such positions, each and every time
-- we can't, and shouldn't, assume that this model is a panacea, so
requests like this will be met wherever they make sense, in terms of both
need and capacity (unfortunately, retaining paid help has a non-trivial
up-front cost in time and planning, and the capacity to put in that time,
responsibly, needs to be there for us to approve such a position).

Asaf

[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikimedia_Czech_Republic/Proposal_form

--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org

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