Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations

[Cristian Consonni]

Hi all,

my 2cents here (sorry for the late answer, I am having very busy days ...)

2013/10/3 Itzik Edri :
[...]
> Now, when during her ten years existence the
> foundation started to focus on *HER* evaluation? When they had one staffer
> or 40? And let not forget - the foundation in her daily program don't deal
> daily with volunteers working as part of their core programs of operate
> from their office, something that it's different from the chapters.

On this point, till some weeks ago I would wholeheartedly agree with
you Itzik, and you can rest assured that I completely second the idea
that evaluation should be fair among entities: we have a huge varety
of conditions and context to take into account; but (there's a "but")
in Wikimania I made this very same reasoning with Delphine and she
replied me back something along the lines of "yes, but there is no
turning back" [she did not really say this, this is what I got :-)].
And that's a good point, actually!
I think that we all agree that at least some of the ideas implemented
in the various grant processes (FDC, GAC, ...) are good.
Ideas like: measuring the impact of what you do; defining long term
goals; evaluate if this activity is better than that other activity...
quoting from your e-mail:

> I admire evaluation, I admire audit and failure reports. I think we should
> know what we are doing and learn from the past. But I'm also realistic,
> knowing that good evaluation require knowledge.

So the point is: since we agree that these are good ideas we try to
implement them at our best. I think this is what we usually do, btw. I
know that then there is the very important and pratical question of
"how" and "how much" we should evaluate our activity (see below about
this).

> So, because I cannot surly measure the volunteer's success – from now we
> will decide about if project is going to exist or now only if I 100% can
> measure him on the level of how many women editors was at the room and how
> many of them had laptops (not far away from a question that we been asked
> by the WMF of how many people with SLR cameras came to our photo tours)?
> Should we start chasing just after numbers?

This is a big point. No, you should not start chasing numbers. In
short I think that focusing only on raw numbers alone is naïve (please
refer to the discussion on the evaluation of scientific research for
an analogous discussion). Reminding of Asaf from the "Global South
Strategy" presentation at Wikimania, we have for sure a lot to learn
about how to do better the things we do and we woud also like having
some research on the matter. This also includes evaluation, I think.

Furthermore, we should be aware of how most of the chapters work: they
are associations. In my feeling we like them to be participated, to be
democratic and we like them when their goals are set through careful
discussions, with contributions from everybody interested in the
community (aka the "stakeholders"), so we have to keep in mind that
these assemblies are setting the direction. Volunteer  engagement in
the process is paramount also because is a little bit hard to do
anything if you can not engage the people who are *your* volunteers.
The point is that, instead of chasing numbers, your chapter should
start a discussion to set his mid and long term goals and then focus
on them and on keeping to engage its members. Of course the WMF
strategic goal are a good path and example, and more generally
everybody in the movement is in charge to ensure that what we do is
compatible with the Wikimedia vision.

2013/10/4 Chris Keating :
[...]
>This will inevitably highlight differences of opinion and approach,
> but where those differences happen it's even more important to articulate
> those  views respectfully. There's been much less of a sense of "us and
> them" recently and let's keep it that way.

+1, I hope that working togheter throughly in occasion of the FDC
process (and also the GAC, etc.) will help  us getting better and
better on this matter.

Ciao,

C

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations

[Chris Keating]

For what it's worth, I've posted my own comments on Meta.

I'd echo Manuel's comment that it's important to have these discussions in
a professional and respectful way. As a movement we are still dealing with
the issue of how to make the most of the funds and the opportunities we
have. This will inevitably highlight differences of opinion and approach,
but where those differences happen it's even more important to articulate
those  views respectfully. There's been much less of a sense of "us and
them" recently and let's keep it that way.

Chris
Wikimedia UK


On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Manuel Schneider <
manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch> wrote:

> Hi Itzik,
>
> thanks for your analysis and your thoughtful mail. I'd like to echo it!
>
> I also had some discussions with my peers in several countries about
> this report. Comments were made on the time of publication and the
> aggressiveness towards chapters, the volunteers who worked their "as***
> off" to get their FDC proposal properly done and the FDC itself which is
> described to be part of some mafia-like conspirancy.
> "slap in the face of the volunteers", "pure hatred against chapters"
> were named.
> I don't want to go into any more details, I'd like to have this
> conversation to be constructive and polite.
>
> I wonder what others say about this? It was surprisingly quiet here.
>
> A remark I want to make, to add to Itzik's thoughts:
> There were several times when the definition of "community" - concerning
> the "Wikimedia Movement" - was discussed. If WMF and WMF staff are part
> of the movement or the community.
> WMF people - and I am sure this included Sue especially - always fought
> for an inclusive approach of the term community, including WMF people
> which are hard working for the support and advancement of our community.
> In the report it is criticised, that people from chapter take away the
> seats from the community on the FDC, making sure that the chapters
> receive more funding. Lobbying at its best!
> Apart from the fact that these people have neen elected by the
> community, did anyone ever question that comment?
> In a country with a working chapter it is an obvious fact that the
> majority of *active* volunteers will in one way or another work with the
> chapter. Because this is exactly why they exist in the first place:
> Because volunteers themselves made them to happen, in order to support
> themselves with a legal framework, some local infrastructure to help
> them to achieve more than they could as individuals. Still almost all of
> the chapters have active volunteers as their board members. Being part
> of a chapter doesn't mean that one isn't part of the community anymore
> and that is true also for most of the people holding positions in a
> chapter. They should be even more thanked, doing two jobs - their
> volunteer project work and holding a position in a chapter - at once.
>
> I'd also like to see comments from FDC members on that issue as well.
>
> /Manuel
> --
> Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations

[Manuel Schneider]

Tack Anders för din snabbt svar!

Am 04.10.2013 14:40, schrieb Anders Wennersten:
> *Key is to balance the increasing bureaucratization of chapters with
> spontaneity of the voluntary movement. As long as the chapters keep the
> spirit alive, they are the core of our institutionalized activities. We
> need to support them (but also have ways of supporting other
> initiatives, as well as keeping the bureaucracy, often sold under the
> label of "professionalization", low).

I fully agree with that.
Seeing a FDC proposal of Amical should proof that we do have ways to
support other initiatives, not speaking about GAC, IEG etc.

/Manuel
-- 
Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations

[Anders Wennersten]

Manuel Schneider skrev 2013-10-04 14:18:

 I'd also like to see comments from FDC members on that issue as well.
We FDC members have also had an internal discussion on these issues, and 
our comments were not far off what you express, we are also engaged 
community members with good relations to chapters.


Our conclusions were:
*Everyone has the right of their own opinion, this also goes for Sue and 
her experience and management competence should be recognized
*WMF is one entity of several in the movement, and should not be seen as 
"mother" entity to all other (Chapters) and risk of institutionalization 
goes for all entities
*Key is to balance the increasing bureaucratization of chapters with 
spontaneity of the voluntary movement. As long as the chapters keep the 
spirit alive, they are the core of our institutionalized activities. We 
need to support them (but also have ways of supporting other 
initiatives, as well as keeping the bureaucracy, often sold under the 
label of "professionalization", low).


Anders

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations

[Manuel Schneider]

Hi Itzik,

thanks for your analysis and your thoughtful mail. I'd like to echo it!

I also had some discussions with my peers in several countries about
this report. Comments were made on the time of publication and the
aggressiveness towards chapters, the volunteers who worked their "as***
off" to get their FDC proposal properly done and the FDC itself which is
described to be part of some mafia-like conspirancy.
"slap in the face of the volunteers", "pure hatred against chapters"
were named.
I don't want to go into any more details, I'd like to have this
conversation to be constructive and polite.

I wonder what others say about this? It was surprisingly quiet here.

A remark I want to make, to add to Itzik's thoughts:
There were several times when the definition of "community" - concerning
the "Wikimedia Movement" - was discussed. If WMF and WMF staff are part
of the movement or the community.
WMF people - and I am sure this included Sue especially - always fought
for an inclusive approach of the term community, including WMF people
which are hard working for the support and advancement of our community.
In the report it is criticised, that people from chapter take away the
seats from the community on the FDC, making sure that the chapters
receive more funding. Lobbying at its best!
Apart from the fact that these people have neen elected by the
community, did anyone ever question that comment?
In a country with a working chapter it is an obvious fact that the
majority of *active* volunteers will in one way or another work with the
chapter. Because this is exactly why they exist in the first place:
Because volunteers themselves made them to happen, in order to support
themselves with a legal framework, some local infrastructure to help
them to achieve more than they could as individuals. Still almost all of
the chapters have active volunteers as their board members. Being part
of a chapter doesn't mean that one isn't part of the community anymore
and that is true also for most of the people holding positions in a
chapter. They should be even more thanked, doing two jobs - their
volunteer project work and holding a position in a chapter - at once.

I'd also like to see comments from FDC members on that issue as well.

/Manuel
-- 
Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations

[Itzik Edri]

I feel so stupid. Sorry, I came back after an exhausting day at work and
spent few hours reading the report and response to him that I didn't even
noticed that I posted my response or the wrong meta page :)

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Annual_report_on_the_Funds_Dissemination_Committee_process_2012-2013#I_would_like_to_response_to_some_of_the_points_you_raised

Itzik


On Thu, Oct 3, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Itzik Edri  wrote:

> Hi Sue,
>
> Thanks for this great and detailed report. Although that I thinks it was
> worth to publish it a month before this current FDC round, I understand
> that you didn't want your comments to influence the chapter's proposals.
>
> Let's talk about growth - when you grove from zero employee to even one,
> especially if he is a ED (and a good one) – the influence of this step on a
> small chapter budget could be a very big one. You are talking about the
> grove of the chapters, but the WMF isn't really different on this issue.
> Right, it's not really fair to compare the foundation to chapters in the
> matter of the core daily work the foundation deal with and her
> responsibility for the entire movement, but it worth to look on that. I
> didn't did a real research on that (sorry that I don't have the time or the
> manpower to ask them for that), but from a quick looks on the WMF reports
> over the years - 2004 - 56,666$, 2005- 283,487$, 2006 - $1,066,785 (376%),
> 2007 - 1,696,569, 2008 - 5.6M (335%), 2009 - 8.6M (152%), 2010 - 15.4%
> (178%), 2011 - 26M (170%), 2012 - 37$ (141%). So if according to the FDC
> 120% growth is the rational growth for organization, the WMF never wasn't
> even close to fit this growth. Now, when during her ten years existence the
> foundation started to focus on *HER* evaluation? When they had one staffer
> or 40? And let not forget - the foundation in her daily program don't deal
> daily with volunteers working as part of their core programs of operate
> from their office, something that it's different from the chapters.
>
> I admire evaluation, I admire audit and failure reports. I think we should
> know what we are doing and learn from the past. But I'm also realistic,
> knowing that good evaluation require knowledge. Most of our volunteers are
> great editors, some of them even great developers, some of them even know
> how to run a great projects and creating amazing partnerships. Only few of
> them like to make reports, only few of them know how to evaluate correctly
> their work. And it's totally ok. You have big expectations from the
> chapters, and this is totally ok also. But you have also a huge doubt on
> their true impact. And this is not new for none of us. Even before the FDC,
> and even before the staff grove that you mentions on your report, you liked
> to show what the "community" thinks about the chapters from a surveys that
> we agreed that are not fair (Wikimania 2012?). So yes, we need evaluations,
> and we need more reports. I totally agreed. The questions is how and when.
> It's different to ask from an organizations with 40 staffer the same
> evaluation level and knowledge that you require from a chapter that just
> got his first staffer. Especially with chapters that their staff are doing
> less programs work and this been done mostly be the volunteers.
> Expectations and results are harder, although they are needed. When a
> volunteer arranging a Wikipedia Academy conference with 150 people attends
> without staff that involve with all the organizations, his success is
> probably much worth for us than a same conference been arranged by a full
> time staffer. And its work for the two-side. I can expect and demand higher
> targets from my employee, but not from a volunteer who does the same thing.
> So, because I cannot surly measure the volunteer's success – from now we
> will decide about if project is going to exist or now only if I 100% can
> measure him on the level of how many women editors was at the room and how
> many of them had laptops (not far away from a question that we been asked
> by the WMF of how many people with SLR cameras came to our photo tours)?
> Should we start chasing just after numbers?
>
> Over the past month I personally and all my board dedicated one
> face-to-face meeting every week, alongside with at least 2 hours daily work
> on team to build together with our new ED our annual plan, budget and
> strategic goals. This is huge amount of time for volunteers. This huge
> amount of time for board that didn't has the time deal with nothing else
> and asking his partners and volunteers to wait due the lack of their time
> for others things. I will be honest – we not sure all of our targets are
> really realistic. We didn't measure till now most of our work because of
> lack of time, manpower, and knowledge. And probably some of the numeral
> targets we set to ourselves this year we will not achieve at all and some
> of them we will achieve more that we planned. But it's not because

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations

[Itzik Edri]

Hi Sue,

Thanks for this great and detailed report. Although that I thinks it was
worth to publish it a month before this current FDC round, I understand
that you didn't want your comments to influence the chapter's proposals.

Let's talk about growth - when you grove from zero employee to even one,
especially if he is a ED (and a good one) – the influence of this step on a
small chapter budget could be a very big one. You are talking about the
grove of the chapters, but the WMF isn't really different on this issue.
Right, it's not really fair to compare the foundation to chapters in the
matter of the core daily work the foundation deal with and her
responsibility for the entire movement, but it worth to look on that. I
didn't did a real research on that (sorry that I don't have the time or the
manpower to ask them for that), but from a quick looks on the WMF reports
over the years - 2004 - 56,666$, 2005- 283,487$, 2006 - $1,066,785 (376%),
2007 - 1,696,569, 2008 - 5.6M (335%), 2009 - 8.6M (152%), 2010 - 15.4%
(178%), 2011 - 26M (170%), 2012 - 37$ (141%). So if according to the FDC
120% growth is the rational growth for organization, the WMF never wasn't
even close to fit this growth. Now, when during her ten years existence the
foundation started to focus on *HER* evaluation? When they had one staffer
or 40? And let not forget - the foundation in her daily program don't deal
daily with volunteers working as part of their core programs of operate
from their office, something that it's different from the chapters.

I admire evaluation, I admire audit and failure reports. I think we should
know what we are doing and learn from the past. But I'm also realistic,
knowing that good evaluation require knowledge. Most of our volunteers are
great editors, some of them even great developers, some of them even know
how to run a great projects and creating amazing partnerships. Only few of
them like to make reports, only few of them know how to evaluate correctly
their work. And it's totally ok. You have big expectations from the
chapters, and this is totally ok also. But you have also a huge doubt on
their true impact. And this is not new for none of us. Even before the FDC,
and even before the staff grove that you mentions on your report, you liked
to show what the "community" thinks about the chapters from a surveys that
we agreed that are not fair (Wikimania 2012?). So yes, we need evaluations,
and we need more reports. I totally agreed. The questions is how and when.
It's different to ask from an organizations with 40 staffer the same
evaluation level and knowledge that you require from a chapter that just
got his first staffer. Especially with chapters that their staff are doing
less programs work and this been done mostly be the volunteers.
Expectations and results are harder, although they are needed. When a
volunteer arranging a Wikipedia Academy conference with 150 people attends
without staff that involve with all the organizations, his success is
probably much worth for us than a same conference been arranged by a full
time staffer. And its work for the two-side. I can expect and demand higher
targets from my employee, but not from a volunteer who does the same thing.
So, because I cannot surly measure the volunteer's success – from now we
will decide about if project is going to exist or now only if I 100% can
measure him on the level of how many women editors was at the room and how
many of them had laptops (not far away from a question that we been asked
by the WMF of how many people with SLR cameras came to our photo tours)?
Should we start chasing just after numbers?

Over the past month I personally and all my board dedicated one
face-to-face meeting every week, alongside with at least 2 hours daily work
on team to build together with our new ED our annual plan, budget and
strategic goals. This is huge amount of time for volunteers. This huge
amount of time for board that didn't has the time deal with nothing else
and asking his partners and volunteers to wait due the lack of their time
for others things. I will be honest – we not sure all of our targets are
really realistic. We didn't measure till now most of our work because of
lack of time, manpower, and knowledge. And probably some of the numeral
targets we set to ourselves this year we will not achieve at all and some
of them we will achieve more that we planned. But it's not because we did a
good or awful job. It is also because lack of knowledge and experience the
volunteers have to reach such level of evaluation – but more than that -
the difficulty in the measurement we faced. I can do in one month 200
editing workshops and brings 10,000 editors to Wikipedia. But I can also
reveal one month after that only five remained active editors - because the
community's internal procedures make it hard for them to be accepted,
because the editing interface problematic, because of limited knowledge in
areas they can contribute against the areas already

[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

As you know, in July 2012 the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees asked
me to set up the Funds Dissemination Committee, a volunteer-driven advisory
committee created to make recommendations to the Board allocating funds for
chapters and other Wikimedia movement entities. I did that, and the FDC has
now been fully operational for a little more than a year.

As part of the FDC framework, I committed that after the FDC’s first year
of operation I would create a report for the Board that documented the
state of the FDC at that moment in time, and told the Board about any
revisions we had made to the process as a result of stakeholder input
during its first year.

The purpose of this note is to tell you that report is now posted. It’s
here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Annual_report_on_the_Funds_Dissemination_Committee_process_2012-2013

If you’ve got comments on the report I’d suggest that rather than replying
to this list, you leave them on the talk page. And, my thanks to everyone
who contributed to the FDC's first year of operations, and also to the
report :-)

Thanks,
Sue
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