Re: [Wikimedia-l] The GAC wants you!
I am interested to sign up and learn more about the process On 19 July 2013 09:57, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote: *bump* (thank you for the folks who have stepped up so far!) A. On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hello, everyone. We could use some fresh b--- er, volunteers! -- in the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC). As you may know, the GAC are community volunteers who are explicitly invited[1] to review and evaluate grant proposals made in the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program[2], and offer advice to both grant applicants and the Foundation. Read all about it on the Candidates page[3]. New members will be inducted Aug 20th 2013, so be sure to step forward before then! :) Please help this message reach as many people as possible, by relaying it to appropriate lists and village pumps. Cheers, Asaf [1] _everyone_ is implicitly invited! [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_Advisory_Committee/Candidates -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The GAC wants you!
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 11:42 AM, Alex Peek alexpe...@gmail.com wrote: I am interested to sign up and learn more about the process Ok, go ahead, then. :) A. -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The GAC wants you!
*bump* (thank you for the folks who have stepped up so far!) A. On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hello, everyone. We could use some fresh b--- er, volunteers! -- in the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC). As you may know, the GAC are community volunteers who are explicitly invited[1] to review and evaluate grant proposals made in the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program[2], and offer advice to both grant applicants and the Foundation. Read all about it on the Candidates page[3]. New members will be inducted Aug 20th 2013, so be sure to step forward before then! :) Please help this message reach as many people as possible, by relaying it to appropriate lists and village pumps. Cheers, Asaf [1] _everyone_ is implicitly invited! [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_Advisory_Committee/Candidates -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The GAC wants you!
Hi, Rupert. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'm not quite sure I follow your thinking though. With that in mind, I'll offer some statements from my perspective: 1. I don't think we expect anyone to be perfect. _We_ certainly aren't perfect... 2. I don't think we incentivize complete spending of grant budgets. Underspending is not only acceptable, but often congratulated -- look at our responses on reports with underspending, and you'll find we often congratulate grantees on frugality and economizing. 3. Spending does not have to be precise; we allow a 20% variance in smaller grants, or a 10% variance in larger grants. That should be enough for a reasonably-planned grant. 4. The best-laid plans of mice and men[1] often go wrong, we recognize. That is why grantees can submit a request to change the budget _during_ the grant's execution. Take a look at a funded grant, e.g. [2], and you'll see a handy button called Request changes to budget. We generally approve these requests, because they're generally reasonable. 5. The best advice I can give grantees, present and future, is: talk to us! Share your doubts, fears, and uncertainties with us -- we're here to help, and, like you, we want to promote the Wikimedia Mission. We don't like paperwork any more than you do! :) In my observation, the most unhappy grantees were those who did not seek advice or help, or did not communicate about difficulties or unexpected events in real time. Finally, I appreciate your honesty in saying you don't feel you'd be willing to put in the amount of work the GAC requires. That's certainly better than signing up and not doing anything! :) Cheers, Asaf [1] Robert Burns, To a Mouse [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_AM/WikiConference_Yerevan_2013#Benefits On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 4:10 AM, rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.comwrote: hi, many thanks for that great invitation! i'd really consider this, if the GAC process would be less work and would target imperfect people. the grants incentive should imo be changed to get more for the bucks. what do i mean with this: 1. if the GAC decides to grant money to somebody, it should be clear that this money can be spent. 2. if somebody underspends, he has the right to spend it somewhere else, without asking for approval. why do i consider this so important? the current incentive is to spend the money exactly as planned. which causes waste in two areas (1) people try to spend everything and trick it to spend so it looks great. and (2) heavy workload on checking if these tricks all make sense. if you do not hit the target or fail somehow, there is heavy punishment. and this gives another disadvantage, it (3) makes to most important asset vanish, the core wikipedia people, and it is editor dis-engangement. if people have the right to do what they want with remaining funds, there is an incentive to save, and an incentive to get more out of the bucks. it might be to additional squish an activity in. it makes room for imperfection, cover losses from other disorganized people. this makes the numbers reported back more honest. additionally, it's a good faith approach, and it attracts typical content providing persons. i used imperfect people, core wikipedia people and typical content providing person in the last paragraphs, which probably needs a little explanation. wikipedia is built traditionally by imperfect volunteers, error-prone, partially educated, school or university drop outs, poor in project management, time management, financial management, constantly failing, redoing, miscalculating. the current process specifically targets these people with great accuracy and punishes them. it attracts a different type of person, and with it risks wikipedias lifeblood: the contents. the contents attracts donors, and it's the heart of the money flow. like you i would love to see that angela merkel, barack obama or bill gates edit wikipedia - but up to now they did not show any sign of having enough time for it :) rupert. On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 1:48 AM, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hello, everyone. We could use some fresh b--- er, volunteers! -- in the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC). As you may know, the GAC are community volunteers who are explicitly invited[1] to review and evaluate grant proposals made in the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program[2], and offer advice to both grant applicants and the Foundation. Read all about it on the Candidates page[3]. New members will be inducted Aug 20th 2013, so be sure to step forward before then! :) Please help this message reach as many people as possible, by relaying it to appropriate lists and village pumps. Cheers, Asaf [1] _everyone_ is implicitly invited! [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_Advisory_Committee/Candidates -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The GAC wants you!
hi, many thanks for that great invitation! i'd really consider this, if the GAC process would be less work and would target imperfect people. the grants incentive should imo be changed to get more for the bucks. what do i mean with this: 1. if the GAC decides to grant money to somebody, it should be clear that this money can be spent. 2. if somebody underspends, he has the right to spend it somewhere else, without asking for approval. why do i consider this so important? the current incentive is to spend the money exactly as planned. which causes waste in two areas (1) people try to spend everything and trick it to spend so it looks great. and (2) heavy workload on checking if these tricks all make sense. if you do not hit the target or fail somehow, there is heavy punishment. and this gives another disadvantage, it (3) makes to most important asset vanish, the core wikipedia people, and it is editor dis-engangement. if people have the right to do what they want with remaining funds, there is an incentive to save, and an incentive to get more out of the bucks. it might be to additional squish an activity in. it makes room for imperfection, cover losses from other disorganized people. this makes the numbers reported back more honest. additionally, it's a good faith approach, and it attracts typical content providing persons. i used imperfect people, core wikipedia people and typical content providing person in the last paragraphs, which probably needs a little explanation. wikipedia is built traditionally by imperfect volunteers, error-prone, partially educated, school or university drop outs, poor in project management, time management, financial management, constantly failing, redoing, miscalculating. the current process specifically targets these people with great accuracy and punishes them. it attracts a different type of person, and with it risks wikipedias lifeblood: the contents. the contents attracts donors, and it's the heart of the money flow. like you i would love to see that angela merkel, barack obama or bill gates edit wikipedia - but up to now they did not show any sign of having enough time for it :) rupert. On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 1:48 AM, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hello, everyone. We could use some fresh b--- er, volunteers! -- in the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC). As you may know, the GAC are community volunteers who are explicitly invited[1] to review and evaluate grant proposals made in the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program[2], and offer advice to both grant applicants and the Foundation. Read all about it on the Candidates page[3]. New members will be inducted Aug 20th 2013, so be sure to step forward before then! :) Please help this message reach as many people as possible, by relaying it to appropriate lists and village pumps. Cheers, Asaf [1] _everyone_ is implicitly invited! [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_Advisory_Committee/Candidates -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The GAC wants you!
2013/7/13 rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com: i used imperfect people, core wikipedia people and typical content providing person in the last paragraphs, which probably needs a little explanation. wikipedia is built traditionally by imperfect volunteers, error-prone, partially educated, school or university drop outs, poor in project management, time management, financial management, constantly failing, redoing, miscalculating. the current process specifically targets these people with great accuracy and punishes them. it attracts a different type of person, and with it [...] Imperfect people: if there is some irony in the use of the word imperfect in yout definition as compared to the perfect ones, your definition is very funny. Mainly in a cultural context where it is embarassing to show our natural imperfection. :) Tom -- Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom) OKF Brasil - Rede pelo Conhecimento Livre http://br.okfn.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] The GAC wants you!
Hello, everyone. We could use some fresh b--- er, volunteers! -- in the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC). As you may know, the GAC are community volunteers who are explicitly invited[1] to review and evaluate grant proposals made in the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program[2], and offer advice to both grant applicants and the Foundation. Read all about it on the Candidates page[3]. New members will be inducted Aug 20th 2013, so be sure to step forward before then! :) Please help this message reach as many people as possible, by relaying it to appropriate lists and village pumps. Cheers, Asaf [1] _everyone_ is implicitly invited! [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_Advisory_Committee/Candidates -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
