Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Foundation-l] Volunteers Wanted: Funds Dissemination Process Advisory Group
On 10 April 2012 17:51, Barry Newstead bnewst...@wikimedia.org wrote: If we simply select an FDC (btw - how would this happen?) and ask them to figure out the issues for themselves, this would be a recipe for serious challenges that could doom the FDC from the start. A relatively brief, but structured process that is open, has an effective advisory group of trusted people, and is supported by consultants who can give us structure and help us with the heavy-lifting on process design seems like a solid way to get us to a good outcome and help the FDC get off to an effective start. We would select an FDC by having a discussion on meta about how we think we should select an FDC and then, once we have a consensus, we implement it. That's how we make decisions around, whenever possible. I think we should at least try and reach a consensus rather than just assuming that we need to delegate decision making power to yet another committee. Can you expand on what you mean by serious challenges? Do you mean people will challenge the decisions of the FDC if it isn't spelt out exactly what decisions they should be making and how? In my experience, the opposite is true. If you try and codify exactly what a decision making body is allowed to do then that allows people to challenge it and you end up with situations like the US is facing at the moment with the legislature having passed a law but it's now going through the courts because people are challenging that law. If you take the British approach of parliamentary sovereignty, that doesn't happen. We elect people to make decisions for us and then we let them make those decisions. If they make bad ones, we elect different people next time. (Of course, we complain constantly about the decisions they are making, but that's just good fun!) With the FDC we would have another safety net in the form of the WMF board's veto. Everyone agrees that the FDC is going to be a very powerful body, but you are trying to restrict its power as much as possible. It will be far more effective if you just give it the power to make the decisions that it thinks are best. That is, after all, its job. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Foundation-l] Volunteers Wanted: Funds Dissemination Process Advisory Group
I understand it represents some money to fly ~10 people to SF (though I guess in the end those meetings would match other global meetings such as Wikimedia Conference or Wikimania) every six month, but on the other hand the FDC is gonna be in charge of disseminating ~30million USD, some overseeing/steering group is clearly a need. I agree with Christophe... I've consistently been asking the Foundation to make sure the FDC is set up in a transparent way, with involvement from Chapters and other stakeholders. So it makes perfect sense to me to set up an advisory committee to help make sure it sets out down the right path over the next 18 months, even if that entails some financial cost and some use of volunteer time. It's vital to get this right. Chris (Wikimedia UK board, speaking personally...) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Foundation-l] Volunteers Wanted: Funds Dissemination Process Advisory Group
On 10 April 2012 13:09, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I've asked a very simple question, could you answer it? What questions do you want this process to answer? What it is about the FDC that we don't yet know and need to devote a lot of time and money to working out? The resolution basically says there will be a committee, it will be powerful, Sue has a draft and can figure out the details. It doesn't tell us... well, anything else. There are recommendations, but those are *proposals* and the community may decide it strongly objects to parts of them - now is a good time to figure it out. Many of the key details are sketchy. Some possible questions I can think of, in ten minutes over my lunchbreak: What limits will there be on what the FDC can recommend? What ability will it have to control funding to WMF itself for non-core spending? How independent will it be of either WMF or the chapters? How will it apply to the non-chaptered community? Will it be able to decline to fund Board-recommended projects? Do we need to develop alternative structures for funding work in circumstances impractical under US law? And that is before membership becomes an issue. We argued for weeks earlier in the year about chapter-nominated Board seats - who exactly will sit on the FDC? Will they be elected or appointed; what will the mix of community members versus professionals be? Will there be any non-chapter community members? What will be the legal constraints on its membership? Who are the elected members, if any, answerable to? From my position - and I haven't been following this overly closely, I admit - the FDC looks like it will be a remarkably powerful body; it will have a major impact on any major project not done directly by WMF. It may not have the same power as the board to set overall goals, but it will have a great deal of de-facto control over the implementation of those goals. A lot of our governance problems (or perceptions of governance problems) stem from the fact that the movement evolved organically from a very different thing six or seven years ago, and is perhaps not the organisation we would have designed had we a blank sheet today. Given all this, it definitely seems a good idea to have a detailed look at how it is going to work rather than just bash something together. I can imagine that if the resolution had said ...and directs the Executive Director to pick six people and have the first meeting in May, there would have been an immense outcry that we *weren't* taking the opportunity to think it through, that it was a power grab, etc etc etc... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Foundation-l] Volunteers Wanted: Funds Dissemination Process Advisory Group
On 10 April 2012 13:56, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote: Sure just about everything as in 1) Who should be on this committee 2) On what kind of requests should they form an opinion (not microgrants for example) 3) What are criteria 4) What is the process/timeline + 401 other things that we can come up with as questions. But how many of those things are actually going to be difficult or controversial? Shouldn't we at least try and answer them using our standard approach of having an open discussion on a wiki? If it turns out we can't answer them that way, then we can try a more elaborate approach then. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Foundation-l] Volunteers Wanted: Funds Dissemination Process Advisory Group
Hi - I have created a list of issues to resolve in the FDC process on meta.[1] There are probably additional issues to resolve and it would be great if people would edit the list and start suggesting solutions. IMHO the list of issues is substantial and decisions on the approach to the design will have major implications for entities in the movement. Further, there are time constraints on the FDC process to start functioning quite quickly as entities will want to secure their funding for future fiscal years and I'd personally prefer not to rely on the ad hoc approach that we had last year (since we/I didn't have the capacity to figure out a more structured approach before we were in the middle of the review process). If we simply select an FDC (btw - how would this happen?) and ask them to figure out the issues for themselves, this would be a recipe for serious challenges that could doom the FDC from the start. A relatively brief, but structured process that is open, has an effective advisory group of trusted people, and is supported by consultants who can give us structure and help us with the heavy-lifting on process design seems like a solid way to get us to a good outcome and help the FDC get off to an effective start. On the narrow issue of travel to SF for occasional meetings...this is really a practical consideration. There needs to be a time when the Advisory Group can really dig in and help us push to decisions. It would be ineffective to try to do such a meeting by phone or IRC. Per Christophe's point, it might make sense to have this over two days rather than one. [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/FDC_process_issues_list Best, Barry On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 7:37 AM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 8:59 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: But how many of those things are actually going to be difficult or controversial? Shouldn't we at least try and answer them using our standard approach of having an open discussion on a wiki? If it turns out we can't answer them that way, then we can try a more elaborate approach then. Naturally the process should be public and inclusive. I expect most of this group's work would involve open discussion on wikis. Wiki discussions can be enhanced by calls and in-person meetings, suitably transcribed and shared - especially when getting input from people who are not active wiki users. A structure and timeline for work, and a group of committed good-faith participants to provide a steady core for ongoing discussion, is a good idea for any time-sensitive project. We don't want to appoint FDC members themselves without more discussion and perhaps a distributed selection process, but the background work should begin as soon as possible. As to 'which things would be controversial': as you demonstrated here, even simple discussions can be dominated by a determined critic. SJ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Barry Newstead Chief Global Development Officer Wikimedia Foundation Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
