subject:"\[Wikimedia\-l\] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason"

Siko makes an important point here. If there are too many time sensitive
non-theme requests then that would be justification for allocating more
resources to the grantmaking team next year.

Let's wait and see how the data plays out.

Sydney

Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 2:55 PM, Siko Bouterse 
wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 10:59 PM, Lodewijk 
> wrote:
>
> > Actually, the experiment is whether such a campaign would drive more
> > successful grants, as I understand it. It works from the assumption that
> > such grants would have a positive impact. I'm happy to go with that
> > assumption though.
> >
> > I still strongly disagree with this initiative, but especially the way it
> > is executed. I'm glad to hear that all time-sensitive requests can still
> > apply during this period - that would probably be quite a few requests.
> >
> > I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program
> (that
> > is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an
> experiment)
> > and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker
> > run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would
> reduce
> > the damaging side effect significantly.
> >
>
> The campaign itself will only run for a month - in my experience with past
> open calls for IEG, you really do need more than 2 weeks to get the word
> out and get new ideas not only started but also developed w/ enough
> community input that we rely on to assess which grants should move forward.
> But in addition to the actual campaign itself, we need to bake in enough
> time to prepare for it beforehand and get funded projects started
> afterwards. There is significant staff effort behind the scenes for any
> grantmaking we do, and in my experience even quick pilots take time to prep
> and wrapup.
>
> I'm hearing your concerns loud and clear, still, and agree it will be
> interesting to see how many truly time-sensitive requests will come up
> during this period. If the campaign is deemed a success worth repeating and
> we also find we're over-stretching those involved (staff and volunteers)
> because many non-theme focused projects need to be concurrently considered
> (this is a big concern for me, and something we'll be keeping a close eye
> on), that could be data-driven rationale for resourcing grantmaking
> differently in next year's annual plan.
>
> Siko
>
>
>
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Peter Southwood <
> > peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Did you not see the bit about "experimental"?
> > > Cheers,
> > > Peter
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hoehrmann
> > > Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM
> > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good
> > > projects for 3 months for no reason
> > >
> > > * Siko Bouterse wrote:
> > > >Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and
> > > >increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t
> > > >emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this
> > > >year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to
> > > >directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project
> leaders
> > > have been women.
> > > >Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our
> > > >content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue.
> > >
> > > What evidence is there that spending more on "gender gap" will have any
> > > measurable impact on "gender gap"? I also note that you say "projects"
> > > have not "emerged". That sounds like people do not actually have ideas
> > how
> > > to "impact" "gender gap" with money. Could you identify a couple of
> > > projects that would have considerable "impact" on "gender gap" but that
> > > have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of "focus" on "gen-
> > der
> > > gap"?
> > > --
> > > Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de ·
> http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
> > > D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 ·
> http://www.bjoernsworld.de
> > > Available

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-09 Thread Bjoern Hoehrmann

* Siko Bouterse wrote:
>We've heard from a number of chapters/groups so far that are excited about
>the campaign and are wondering how to help. We've heard from only a few
>people so far about specific time-sensitive requests of concern, and we're
>really quite open to continue working with anyone who needs support in this
>regard. I'm not going to engage in broader theoretical discussion on this
>list about whether or not the gender gap warrants focused attention, and I
>tend to think experiments and new data can be the best way to help drive
>more useful future discussions and decisions, but I and my grantmaking
>colleagues are absolutely on hand to help solve specific, actionable
>problems! Please keep bringing them to us.

Where are you going to engage in a public discussion with the broader
community regarding the decision to make the first IEG funding round
this year "entirely devoted to" "the gender gap" in your role as "Head
of Individual Engagement Grants", if, as you say, not "on this list"?
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
 Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-09 Thread Siko Bouterse

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 7:40 PM, Gregory Varnum 
wrote:

> When I first heard about the idea - I was timid and concerned. However,
> after reading the responses - I am not sure that everyone is looking at
> this the right way. My concerns have been addressed, largely by the
> commitment to accept time-sensitive requests and the description of the
> idea.
>
> It has become increasingly common for grant organizations to encourage
> applicants to focus their programs on target areas - sometimes that
> requirement applies to the enter year. However, that generally does not
> mean you cannot submit your usual programs and ideas - it just challenges
> you to expand them in a particular focus area. Given the focus on gender
> gap work in the tech sector, starting with that during a trial run seems
> logical.
>
> It seems to me that this would be a good excuse for events like WLM, Wiki
> Loves Pride, Wikimedia Conference, and others possibly planning during
> those months to consider how to increase the focus on the gender gap.
> Promoting themes that encourage articles about women (we already know there
> are huge gaps in a lot of professions), Pride could give prizes to great
> articles about lesbian pioneers, or WLM could promote photos of female
> inspired or involved architectural projects. With the possible exception of
> things like specific tech development projects, I think most outreach
> projects could be challenged to find a way to include addressing the gender
> gap into their plans for work that would be funded during those months.
>
> I'm not sure that this threatens gender gap projects after that period, or
> threatens projects that are not traditionally seen as gender gap focused.
> If it does, then we will know it didn't work. But I would encourage folks
> to think of this as a challenge on how they can help include addressing
> gender gap in their programming rather than viewing it as an obstacle to
> funding.
>
> Plus, it sounds like the underlying message remains what it always is - if
> you have an idea and are concerned about the timelines - contact the
> grantmaking staff or volunteers to talk it through.
>
> -greg aka varnent
>
>

A big +1 to everything you've said above, varnent. Thanks for the lovely
example for how events like Wiki Loves Pride could get involved.

And just to underscore again what you, Sydney and all have said in this
thread:

For those who feel strongly that they can't or don't want to pick up this
focused challenge, and who do still have a time-sensitive funding request,
please do reach out to Alex Wang or myself directly so we can work with
you.

We've heard from a number of chapters/groups so far that are excited about
the campaign and are wondering how to help. We've heard from only a few
people so far about specific time-sensitive requests of concern, and we're
really quite open to continue working with anyone who needs support in this
regard. I'm not going to engage in broader theoretical discussion on this
list about whether or not the gender gap warrants focused attention, and I
tend to think experiments and new data can be the best way to help drive
more useful future discussions and decisions, but I and my grantmaking
colleagues are absolutely on hand to help solve specific, actionable
problems! Please keep bringing them to us.



> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 6:33 PM, Sydney Poore 
> wrote:
>
> > Values. It is a matter of values.
> >
> > If you believe, as I do, that lack of diversity of Wikimedia projects is
> > seriously compromising the content of the projects then designing a
> > campaign that addresses one or more aspects of this concern is a
> reasonable
> > top priority even if it displaces other interests/values.
> >
> > It has become pretty obvious that funding the interests/values of
> existing
> > community members through regular channels is not creating content free
> of
> > systemic bias in general nor closing the human gender gap. (I say this as
> > someone who has read all types of WMF funding proposals and evaluations
> of
> > for several years now.)
> >
> > Temporarily doing a 3 month targeted Gender Gap experimental campaign is
> a
> > modest approach to take in addressing one of the biggest weaknesses of
> > Wikimedia Foundation projects. The reaction of some members of the
> > community was predictable, because it is evident in the majority of
> > previous and current funding requests that increasing the diversity of
> the
> > larger Wikimedia movement is secondary priority of most existing people
> and
> > organizations. (Of course there are other wikimedians who also share my
> > passion. I greatly appreciate your work!)
> >
> > My inspiration for continuing to do volunteer work for the wikimedia
> > movement has largely come from the people inside the parent WMF and the
> WMF
> > Board. Despite the constant criticism from "the community", I find the
> > folks employed at the WMF to be hard core believers in the Wikimedia
> > movement and sh

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Hi Fae,

That is not the impression that I'm getting from the comments. At least
some people have the expectation that the funding stream will be available
whenever they decide to make a request.

Is it realistic to continue to have an ongoing open call for non - time
sensitive grants when the wikimedia movement has identified needs that are
not being addressed?

Remember, every day the wikimedia movement is creating more and more
content with systemic bias because the movement is not addressing the issue
of lack of diversity.

Everyone, including the WMF grants team, agrees that this round of the
targeted campaign could have benefited from more lead up time and more
human resources. But in the real world we have to work with the hand that
we were dealt. The staff is juggling their regular work load from existing
grants with creating this campaign.

It would be awesome if we gave the grant team the benefit of doubt that
they considered the options and used their best judgement about the best
way to implement targeted campaigns with the resources that they have
available to them.

Frankly, the calls to sabotage the campaign are quite disturbing. I hope
that the issue will soon settle down and people will give this project to
address a serious flaw in the movement the respect that it deserves.

Sydney
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Identifying priority areas and directing resources (funds and human) toward
them is a non-controversial way to achieve goals.

This is exactly what is happening with this targeted campaign.

The grants team has made it clear that during this round it intends to work
with people and organizations that have urgent time sensitive needs.

It is a legitimate to question whether it makes sense to keep having an
ongoing open call for grant proposals instead of a period for targeted
requests when the top priorities of the wikimedia movement are not being
addressed with the current process.

That this particular targeted campaign is not *perfectly executed* does not
take this legitimate topic off the table.

Sydney

Sydney

Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration

On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 12:09 PM, Bjoern Hoehrmann  wrote:

> * Sydney Poore wrote:
> >It appears to me that you are entirely missing the actual nature of the
> >problem and the reason for having a campaign targeted at the gender gap.
> >
> >The *problem* is that there have been a suboptimal number of grant
> requests
> >for funds to address the gender gap even though it a listed priority of
> the
> >WMF.
>
> Denying attention and funds to unrelated projects is not an appropriate
> way to encourage people interested in "gender gap" to request funds.
> --
> Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
> D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
>  Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-09 Thread Keilana

It's not denying attention or funds. It's focusing attention and funds on a
badly needed area for 3 months out of the year, and the rest of the
projects get the full 9 months. Inviting people to focus their proposals on
the gender gap (which, btw, doesn't need scare quotes, as I assure you it's
real), has the potential to make a far bigger impact than the past 4-5
years of talking about it have. This sounds suspiciously like white people
whining about why there's no "white history month" when the shortest month
of the year is allocated to black history month. Just some food for thought.

On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 11:09 AM, Bjoern Hoehrmann  wrote:

> * Sydney Poore wrote:
> >It appears to me that you are entirely missing the actual nature of the
> >problem and the reason for having a campaign targeted at the gender gap.
> >
> >The *problem* is that there have been a suboptimal number of grant
> requests
> >for funds to address the gender gap even though it a listed priority of
> the
> >WMF.
>
> Denying attention and funds to unrelated projects is not an appropriate
> way to encourage people interested in "gender gap" to request funds.
> --
> Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
> D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
>  Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-09 Thread Nathan

Please try not to split threads.
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[Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-09 Thread Tim Davenport

The real problem is that there have been "conferences for 3 or 4 years all
around the world" but (a) no new empirical work on the actual size of the
gender gap; and (b) whether that is changing over time; and (c) the
underlying reasons for that gap; and (d) whether any past conference,
program, or initiative has moved the needle even a whit.

Instead of hiring a couple statistics people and doing serious surveying
and analysis to figure out what truly needs to be done, WMF is delighted to
throw money at the problem. "Come one, come all, with your grant pitches!
We've got the money, hurrah!"

Cart before horse.

Tim Davenport
Carrite on WP
Corvallis, OR



===old message===
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:34:45 -0500
From: Sydney Poore 
To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good
    projects for 3 months for no reason
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

It appears to me that you are entirely missing the actual nature of the
problem and the reason for having a campaign targeted at the gender gap.

The *problem* is that there have been a suboptimal number of grant requests
for funds to address the gender gap even though it a listed priority of the
WMF.

The purpose of the campaign is to invite requests for funding, have extra
support available if people need mentoring or assistance of other kinds. To
do this campaign well, the WMF staff needs to refocus the time of people
toward this endeavor.

A wonderful response from people reading about this campaign would be to
ask: what can I do to help bring in high quality grant requests?

Those of you who are familiar with making grant requests or using the
IdeaLab, offer to help people who are newer to the process.

Those of you who are developers and see a way to improve an idea with
technology, step in and make suggestion.

Over the past 3-4 years all around the world people have holding
conferences and discussing the gender gap. Now is the time to expand on the
work that has been done in these conference. Help spread the word. Assist
with translations to help some who is less comfortable writing in English
bring there ideas to meta.

The point of this targeted campaign is far more than reserving a specific
amount of dollars for the gender gap issue.

The biggest obstacle to success will be the lack of human resources to
refine and execute the projects.

Therefore is the reason that people and organizations are being asked to
set aside other projects in order to help address this vital area of
concern.

I hope everyone reading this email will do at least one small thing to help.

Warm regards,

Sydney
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-09 Thread Bjoern Hoehrmann

* Sydney Poore wrote:
>It appears to me that you are entirely missing the actual nature of the
>problem and the reason for having a campaign targeted at the gender gap.
>
>The *problem* is that there have been a suboptimal number of grant requests
>for funds to address the gender gap even though it a listed priority of the
>WMF.

Denying attention and funds to unrelated projects is not an appropriate
way to encourage people interested in "gender gap" to request funds.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
 Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-09 Thread Ilario Valdelli

My 2 cents?

The carrot would be a different approach of the committees in the
evaluation and a better "consideration" of the role of the women.

When I said to several women that there will be a session of grants
dedicated to the women, the answer has been really positive, I would say
that they felt like "receiving more consideration".

What would be the feeling of a woman if you are sitting in a bus and you
offer her your place?

Having a "softer" approach is a big added value and it may be the carrot.

Regards


On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 5:11 PM, Fæ  wrote:

> Hi Sydney,
>
> I understand your perspective, but I also understand the "where is the
> carrot?" question. I would actively support the campaign if it had
> been run as one of stating that for X weeks or months that the WMF
> grants system would give priority to gendergap related proposals and
> that we would have other themes during the year. This is effectively
> what has been said is happening, it just has been expressed as a ban
> against non-gendergap proposals.
>
> Folks would understand if their proposal then got responses such as
> "thank you, with the priority on gendergap we have scheduled your
> excellent WLM/Belgium/LGBT Pride proposal for a review in 2 months
> time".
>
> As a founder of a user group and once a trustee of a chapter, I would
> be concerned if this same method was applied to my most loved project
> areas for a month or two, unless the volunteer group were notified
> well in advance so that we could work with the grants team with our
> network of contacts and communication channels to ensure a healthy mix
> of proposals in time for the limited window available. A community
> changing and high impact proposal might take up to a year to assemble
> a team of volunteers and have a strong enough vision to put a detailed
> proposal together. A month or even 3 months notice puts a huge amount
> of stress on the handful of unpaid volunteers prepared to put in the
> hard work that these proposals take, not because the system is overly
> bureaucratic, but because we are so worried about doing the right
> thing, doing it well and keepinhg our network of volunteers on-board
> with plans and ready to use the grant to maximum effect when it
> arrives. Sadly "burn-out" remains a major issue for our most active
> volunteers and we should take care to set up our systems to be
> flexible and low stress.
>
> I hope the experiment is successful and there are some interesting
> gendergap proposals that have significant measurable outcomes on our
> projects, in terms of active users and content creation. At the same
> time I hope that folks responsible for the grants process will adapt
> and improve to find a more harmonious positive approach to
> prioritization; i.e. lots of easy to understand carrots which are not
> too tricky to reach for.
>
> Fae
>
> On 9 January 2015 at 15:34, Sydney Poore  wrote:
> > It appears to me that you are entirely missing the actual nature of the
> > problem and the reason for having a campaign targeted at the gender gap.
> >
> > The *problem* is that there have been a suboptimal number of grant
> requests
> > for funds to address the gender gap even though it a listed priority of
> the
> > WMF.
> >
> > The purpose of the campaign is to invite requests for funding, have extra
> > support available if people need mentoring or assistance of other kinds.
> To
> > do this campaign well, the WMF staff needs to refocus the time of people
> > toward this endeavor.
> >
> > A wonderful response from people reading about this campaign would be to
> > ask: what can I do to help bring in high quality grant requests?
> >
> > Those of you who are familiar with making grant requests or using the
> > IdeaLab, offer to help people who are newer to the process.
> >
> > Those of you who are developers and see a way to improve an idea with
> > technology, step in and make suggestion.
> >
> > Over the past 3-4 years all around the world people have holding
> > conferences and discussing the gender gap. Now is the time to expand on
> the
> > work that has been done in these conference. Help spread the word. Assist
> > with translations to help some who is less comfortable writing in English
> > bring there ideas to meta.
> >
> > The point of this targeted campaign is far more than reserving a specific
> > amount of dollars for the gender gap issue.
> >
> > The biggest obstacle to success will be the lack of human resources to
> > refine and execute the projects.
> >
> > Therefore is the reason that people and organizations are being asked to
> > set aside other projects in order to help address this vital area of
> > concern.
> >
> > I hope everyone reading this email will do at least one small thing to
> help.
> >
> > Warm regards,
> >
> > Sydney
> > On Jan 8, 2015 11:04 PM, "Bjoern Hoehrmann"  wrote:
>
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-09 Thread Fæ

Hi Sydney,

I understand your perspective, but I also understand the "where is the
carrot?" question. I would actively support the campaign if it had
been run as one of stating that for X weeks or months that the WMF
grants system would give priority to gendergap related proposals and
that we would have other themes during the year. This is effectively
what has been said is happening, it just has been expressed as a ban
against non-gendergap proposals.

Folks would understand if their proposal then got responses such as
"thank you, with the priority on gendergap we have scheduled your
excellent WLM/Belgium/LGBT Pride proposal for a review in 2 months
time".

As a founder of a user group and once a trustee of a chapter, I would
be concerned if this same method was applied to my most loved project
areas for a month or two, unless the volunteer group were notified
well in advance so that we could work with the grants team with our
network of contacts and communication channels to ensure a healthy mix
of proposals in time for the limited window available. A community
changing and high impact proposal might take up to a year to assemble
a team of volunteers and have a strong enough vision to put a detailed
proposal together. A month or even 3 months notice puts a huge amount
of stress on the handful of unpaid volunteers prepared to put in the
hard work that these proposals take, not because the system is overly
bureaucratic, but because we are so worried about doing the right
thing, doing it well and keepinhg our network of volunteers on-board
with plans and ready to use the grant to maximum effect when it
arrives. Sadly "burn-out" remains a major issue for our most active
volunteers and we should take care to set up our systems to be
flexible and low stress.

I hope the experiment is successful and there are some interesting
gendergap proposals that have significant measurable outcomes on our
projects, in terms of active users and content creation. At the same
time I hope that folks responsible for the grants process will adapt
and improve to find a more harmonious positive approach to
prioritization; i.e. lots of easy to understand carrots which are not
too tricky to reach for.

Fae

On 9 January 2015 at 15:34, Sydney Poore  wrote:
> It appears to me that you are entirely missing the actual nature of the
> problem and the reason for having a campaign targeted at the gender gap.
>
> The *problem* is that there have been a suboptimal number of grant requests
> for funds to address the gender gap even though it a listed priority of the
> WMF.
>
> The purpose of the campaign is to invite requests for funding, have extra
> support available if people need mentoring or assistance of other kinds. To
> do this campaign well, the WMF staff needs to refocus the time of people
> toward this endeavor.
>
> A wonderful response from people reading about this campaign would be to
> ask: what can I do to help bring in high quality grant requests?
>
> Those of you who are familiar with making grant requests or using the
> IdeaLab, offer to help people who are newer to the process.
>
> Those of you who are developers and see a way to improve an idea with
> technology, step in and make suggestion.
>
> Over the past 3-4 years all around the world people have holding
> conferences and discussing the gender gap. Now is the time to expand on the
> work that has been done in these conference. Help spread the word. Assist
> with translations to help some who is less comfortable writing in English
> bring there ideas to meta.
>
> The point of this targeted campaign is far more than reserving a specific
> amount of dollars for the gender gap issue.
>
> The biggest obstacle to success will be the lack of human resources to
> refine and execute the projects.
>
> Therefore is the reason that people and organizations are being asked to
> set aside other projects in order to help address this vital area of
> concern.
>
> I hope everyone reading this email will do at least one small thing to help.
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Sydney
> On Jan 8, 2015 11:04 PM, "Bjoern Hoehrmann"  wrote:

-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

It appears to me that you are entirely missing the actual nature of the
problem and the reason for having a campaign targeted at the gender gap.

The *problem* is that there have been a suboptimal number of grant requests
for funds to address the gender gap even though it a listed priority of the
WMF.

The purpose of the campaign is to invite requests for funding, have extra
support available if people need mentoring or assistance of other kinds. To
do this campaign well, the WMF staff needs to refocus the time of people
toward this endeavor.

A wonderful response from people reading about this campaign would be to
ask: what can I do to help bring in high quality grant requests?

Those of you who are familiar with making grant requests or using the
IdeaLab, offer to help people who are newer to the process.

Those of you who are developers and see a way to improve an idea with
technology, step in and make suggestion.

Over the past 3-4 years all around the world people have holding
conferences and discussing the gender gap. Now is the time to expand on the
work that has been done in these conference. Help spread the word. Assist
with translations to help some who is less comfortable writing in English
bring there ideas to meta.

The point of this targeted campaign is far more than reserving a specific
amount of dollars for the gender gap issue.

The biggest obstacle to success will be the lack of human resources to
refine and execute the projects.

Therefore is the reason that people and organizations are being asked to
set aside other projects in order to help address this vital area of
concern.

I hope everyone reading this email will do at least one small thing to help.

Warm regards,

Sydney
On Jan 8, 2015 11:04 PM, "Bjoern Hoehrmann"  wrote:

> * Sydney Poore wrote:
> >It has become pretty obvious that funding the interests/values of existing
> >community members through regular channels is not creating content free of
> >systemic bias in general nor closing the human gender gap. (I say this as
> >someone who has read all types of WMF funding proposals and evaluations of
> >for several years now.)
> >
> >Temporarily doing a 3 month targeted Gender Gap experimental campaign is a
> >modest approach to take in addressing one of the biggest weaknesses of
> >Wikimedia Foundation projects. The reaction of some members of the
> >community was predictable, because it is evident in the majority of
> >previous and current funding requests that increasing the diversity of the
> >larger Wikimedia movement is secondary priority of most existing people
> and
> >organizations.
>
> Proposed projects with a good chance to measurably "shrink" the "gender
> gap" are not being denied adequate funding as far as I can tell. Without
> actual resource shortages concerning the "gender gap" topic with respect
> to "grants", be that money or staff time for proposal reviews, what we
> have here is a solution looking for a problem. We would have a different
> kind of discussion if we were talking about "there is a huge backlog of
> great gender gap projects in need of funding", but you don't say that it
> is evident in the *rejection* of requests, you say that's evident in the
> requests themself. Earlier Siko Bouterse wrote the same, "these kinds of
> projects haven’t emerged organically at any meaningful scale".
> --
> Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
> D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
>  Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-08 Thread Bjoern Hoehrmann

* Sydney Poore wrote:
>It has become pretty obvious that funding the interests/values of existing
>community members through regular channels is not creating content free of
>systemic bias in general nor closing the human gender gap. (I say this as
>someone who has read all types of WMF funding proposals and evaluations of
>for several years now.)
>
>Temporarily doing a 3 month targeted Gender Gap experimental campaign is a
>modest approach to take in addressing one of the biggest weaknesses of
>Wikimedia Foundation projects. The reaction of some members of the
>community was predictable, because it is evident in the majority of
>previous and current funding requests that increasing the diversity of the
>larger Wikimedia movement is secondary priority of most existing people and
>organizations.

Proposed projects with a good chance to measurably "shrink" the "gender
gap" are not being denied adequate funding as far as I can tell. Without
actual resource shortages concerning the "gender gap" topic with respect
to "grants", be that money or staff time for proposal reviews, what we
have here is a solution looking for a problem. We would have a different
kind of discussion if we were talking about "there is a huge backlog of
great gender gap projects in need of funding", but you don't say that it
is evident in the *rejection* of requests, you say that's evident in the
requests themself. Earlier Siko Bouterse wrote the same, "these kinds of
projects haven’t emerged organically at any meaningful scale".
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
 Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-08 Thread Gregory Varnum

When I first heard about the idea - I was timid and concerned. However,
after reading the responses - I am not sure that everyone is looking at
this the right way. My concerns have been addressed, largely by the
commitment to accept time-sensitive requests and the description of the
idea.

It has become increasingly common for grant organizations to encourage
applicants to focus their programs on target areas - sometimes that
requirement applies to the enter year. However, that generally does not
mean you cannot submit your usual programs and ideas - it just challenges
you to expand them in a particular focus area. Given the focus on gender
gap work in the tech sector, starting with that during a trial run seems
logical.

It seems to me that this would be a good excuse for events like WLM, Wiki
Loves Pride, Wikimedia Conference, and others possibly planning during
those months to consider how to increase the focus on the gender gap.
Promoting themes that encourage articles about women (we already know there
are huge gaps in a lot of professions), Pride could give prizes to great
articles about lesbian pioneers, or WLM could promote photos of female
inspired or involved architectural projects. With the possible exception of
things like specific tech development projects, I think most outreach
projects could be challenged to find a way to include addressing the gender
gap into their plans for work that would be funded during those months.

I'm not sure that this threatens gender gap projects after that period, or
threatens projects that are not traditionally seen as gender gap focused.
If it does, then we will know it didn't work. But I would encourage folks
to think of this as a challenge on how they can help include addressing
gender gap in their programming rather than viewing it as an obstacle to
funding.

Plus, it sounds like the underlying message remains what it always is - if
you have an idea and are concerned about the timelines - contact the
grantmaking staff or volunteers to talk it through.

-greg aka varnent

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 6:33 PM, Sydney Poore  wrote:

> Values. It is a matter of values.
>
> If you believe, as I do, that lack of diversity of Wikimedia projects is
> seriously compromising the content of the projects then designing a
> campaign that addresses one or more aspects of this concern is a reasonable
> top priority even if it displaces other interests/values.
>
> It has become pretty obvious that funding the interests/values of existing
> community members through regular channels is not creating content free of
> systemic bias in general nor closing the human gender gap. (I say this as
> someone who has read all types of WMF funding proposals and evaluations of
> for several years now.)
>
> Temporarily doing a 3 month targeted Gender Gap experimental campaign is a
> modest approach to take in addressing one of the biggest weaknesses of
> Wikimedia Foundation projects. The reaction of some members of the
> community was predictable, because it is evident in the majority of
> previous and current funding requests that increasing the diversity of the
> larger Wikimedia movement is secondary priority of most existing people and
> organizations. (Of course there are other wikimedians who also share my
> passion. I greatly appreciate your work!)
>
> My inspiration for continuing to do volunteer work for the wikimedia
> movement has largely come from the people inside the parent WMF and the WMF
> Board. Despite the constant criticism from "the community", I find the
> folks employed at the WMF to be hard core believers in the Wikimedia
> movement and share my value of increasing the diversity of the community
> and content, and working to eliminate systemic bias in content.
>
> So it is not surprising to me that there is disconnect between "the
> community" and the WMF staff and Board around supporting current volunteers
> and recruiting a more diverse community.
>
> I appreciate the WMF grant team for doing this type of experimentation, and
> encourage other WMF affiliated organizations (chapters, thematic
> organization, and user groups) to not be timid in addressing all types of
> diversity and systemic bias by narrowing their focus in order to get the
> best results.
>
> I sincerely apologize if some people reading my comment feel under
> appreciated and become dispirited. But creating a diverse wikimedia
> movement  in order to eliminate entrenched systemic bias is a stronger
> value for me. I hope that hearing from someone like myself who is inspired
> by the experiment will change the minds of some people.
>
> But even if that doesn't happen it is important to me to speak out in
> support of the Inspire Gender Gap campaign and the staff & volunteers who
> share my vision of collecting and disseminating free content to everyone in
> the world.
>
> Warm regards to all people everywhere in the wikimedia movement!
>
> Sydney
>
> Sydney Poore
> User:FloNight
> Wikipedian in Residen

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-08 Thread Sydney Poore

Values. It is a matter of values.

If you believe, as I do, that lack of diversity of Wikimedia projects is
seriously compromising the content of the projects then designing a
campaign that addresses one or more aspects of this concern is a reasonable
top priority even if it displaces other interests/values.

It has become pretty obvious that funding the interests/values of existing
community members through regular channels is not creating content free of
systemic bias in general nor closing the human gender gap. (I say this as
someone who has read all types of WMF funding proposals and evaluations of
for several years now.)

Temporarily doing a 3 month targeted Gender Gap experimental campaign is a
modest approach to take in addressing one of the biggest weaknesses of
Wikimedia Foundation projects. The reaction of some members of the
community was predictable, because it is evident in the majority of
previous and current funding requests that increasing the diversity of the
larger Wikimedia movement is secondary priority of most existing people and
organizations. (Of course there are other wikimedians who also share my
passion. I greatly appreciate your work!)

My inspiration for continuing to do volunteer work for the wikimedia
movement has largely come from the people inside the parent WMF and the WMF
Board. Despite the constant criticism from "the community", I find the
folks employed at the WMF to be hard core believers in the Wikimedia
movement and share my value of increasing the diversity of the community
and content, and working to eliminate systemic bias in content.

So it is not surprising to me that there is disconnect between "the
community" and the WMF staff and Board around supporting current volunteers
and recruiting a more diverse community.

I appreciate the WMF grant team for doing this type of experimentation, and
encourage other WMF affiliated organizations (chapters, thematic
organization, and user groups) to not be timid in addressing all types of
diversity and systemic bias by narrowing their focus in order to get the
best results.

I sincerely apologize if some people reading my comment feel under
appreciated and become dispirited. But creating a diverse wikimedia
movement  in order to eliminate entrenched systemic bias is a stronger
value for me. I hope that hearing from someone like myself who is inspired
by the experiment will change the minds of some people.

But even if that doesn't happen it is important to me to speak out in
support of the Inspire Gender Gap campaign and the staff & volunteers who
share my vision of collecting and disseminating free content to everyone in
the world.

Warm regards to all people everywhere in the wikimedia movement!

Sydney

Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 5:26 AM, Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
> team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and Event
> Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full months!
>
> They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
> priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused for
> 3 months (February-April).
>
> Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having more
> attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such, we
> can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does not
> mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
> become the victim of other projects.
>
> This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently working
> on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing
> projects.
>
> And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before that
> period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it isn't)
>
> To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to communicate
> well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up with
> a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a couple
> of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period indicates
> that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
>
> For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments in
> 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
> better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
> largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
> currently working on forming a team and want

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-08 Thread Bjoern Hoehrmann

* Liam Wyatt wrote:
>I understand from the explanations that the reason for not accepting
>any non-gender-gap focused grants for several months is because of the
>expected workload on the staff in reviewing applications and
>supporting the projects that do get funded.
>
>However, what I don't understand is what added incentive there is for
>people to submit grant applications on the chosen topic (in this
>instance it is gender-gap, but it could be other topics in the
>future)? Since it is already possible to submit a gender-gap focused
>grant, how does the refusal to accept other kinds of project
>submissions increase the number/quality/variety of gender-gap grants?

One reason would be that anyone interested in applying for a gender-
gap focused grant will have to do it now, since odds of success will
be very low for such applications after the three months.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
 Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-07 Thread rupert THURNER

Maybe the carrot is the site notice to advertise it, and the fear is that
too many projects are being proposed? Which is good. But I am with lodewijk
that this is not the way to go. It only exposes the main weakness of the
current grant making process. It is global, central and has a lot of
administrative overhead attached to it,  mainly driven by Anglo American
policies difficult to understand in the rest of the world why they would be
necessary at all.  it leads to a bottleneck not necessary.

The sitenotice is nice. But it could be used better if grantmaking is
distributed like all the other content and community work, imo.

Rupert
On Jan 7, 2015 5:56 PM, "Liam Wyatt"  wrote:

> On 7 January 2015 at 00:06, Siko Bouterse  wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 12:17 PM, MF-Warburg 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Sorry if this was already answered and I overlooked it, but will there
> be
> > > something like a special form of "advertising" this campaign in order
> to
> > > attract many requests that propose to do something about the Gender
> Gap?
> > >
> >
> > Great question. Current thinking is to do the usual announcing on mailing
> > lists, blog/social media, village pumps, etc, as well as experimenting
> with
> > running Central Notice banners. Would like to attract folks from various
> > wikis who have interest in this theme and ability to lead a project in
> > their community, beyond the usual (relatively small) slice who regularly
> > participate in lists like these or in the usual grantmaking discussions
> on
> > meta-wiki. And although outside media could help bring total newbies to
> > contribute ideas, discussion, and other forms of participation, it is
> > pretty darn important to have at least 1 experienced Wikimedian on a
> funded
> > team in order to lead and execute a useful community project, so
> > in-movement (particularly on-wiki) promotion is a priority. Any
> > thoughts/suggestions would be welcome!
> >
>
> TL:DR I see the stick, but where is the carrot? [1]
>
> I understand from the explanations that the reason for not accepting
> any non-gender-gap focused grants for several months is because of the
> expected workload on the staff in reviewing applications and
> supporting the projects that do get funded.
>
> However, what I don't understand is what added incentive there is for
> people to submit grant applications on the chosen topic (in this
> instance it is gender-gap, but it could be other topics in the
> future)? Since it is already possible to submit a gender-gap focused
> grant, how does the refusal to accept other kinds of project
> submissions increase the number/quality/variety of gender-gap grants?
> I can see the unfortunate possibility for:
> -  some grants to be re-written with a false veneer of gender-gap
> focus ("pink-washing") simply to access the money
> - valid (but non gender-gap focused) grant applications having to wait
> until after the 3-month project, and potentially having to cancel
> altogether depending on the volunteer's availability.
>
> I think this is what Lodewijk was referring to when he called it a
> "negative campaign" - there is a DISincentive for other kinds of grant
> applications, but no apparent specific incentive for the desired type
> of application.
>
> I see the stick, but where is the carrot?
> Am I missing something?
>
> -Liam
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot_and_stick
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-07 Thread Liam Wyatt

On 7 January 2015 at 00:06, Siko Bouterse  wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 12:17 PM, MF-Warburg 
> wrote:
>
> > Sorry if this was already answered and I overlooked it, but will there be
> > something like a special form of "advertising" this campaign in order to
> > attract many requests that propose to do something about the Gender Gap?
> >
>
> Great question. Current thinking is to do the usual announcing on mailing
> lists, blog/social media, village pumps, etc, as well as experimenting with
> running Central Notice banners. Would like to attract folks from various
> wikis who have interest in this theme and ability to lead a project in
> their community, beyond the usual (relatively small) slice who regularly
> participate in lists like these or in the usual grantmaking discussions on
> meta-wiki. And although outside media could help bring total newbies to
> contribute ideas, discussion, and other forms of participation, it is
> pretty darn important to have at least 1 experienced Wikimedian on a funded
> team in order to lead and execute a useful community project, so
> in-movement (particularly on-wiki) promotion is a priority. Any
> thoughts/suggestions would be welcome!
>

TL:DR I see the stick, but where is the carrot? [1]

I understand from the explanations that the reason for not accepting
any non-gender-gap focused grants for several months is because of the
expected workload on the staff in reviewing applications and
supporting the projects that do get funded.

However, what I don't understand is what added incentive there is for
people to submit grant applications on the chosen topic (in this
instance it is gender-gap, but it could be other topics in the
future)? Since it is already possible to submit a gender-gap focused
grant, how does the refusal to accept other kinds of project
submissions increase the number/quality/variety of gender-gap grants?
I can see the unfortunate possibility for:
-  some grants to be re-written with a false veneer of gender-gap
focus ("pink-washing") simply to access the money
- valid (but non gender-gap focused) grant applications having to wait
until after the 3-month project, and potentially having to cancel
altogether depending on the volunteer's availability.

I think this is what Lodewijk was referring to when he called it a
"negative campaign" - there is a DISincentive for other kinds of grant
applications, but no apparent specific incentive for the desired type
of application.

I see the stick, but where is the carrot?
Am I missing something?

-Liam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot_and_stick

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Siko Bouterse

al case).
> > >>
> > >> Makes sense to me.
> > >>
> > >> Chris
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:59 AM, Lodewijk  >
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>  Actually, the experiment is whether such a campaign would drive more
> > >>> successful grants, as I understand it. It works from the assumption
> > that
> > >>> such grants would have a positive impact. I'm happy to go with that
> > >>> assumption though.
> > >>>
> > >>> I still strongly disagree with this initiative, but especially the
> way
> > it
> > >>> is executed. I'm glad to hear that all time-sensitive requests can
> > still
> > >>> apply during this period - that would probably be quite a few
> requests.
> > >>>
> > >>> I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program
> > >>> (that
> > >>> is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an
> > >>> experiment)
> > >>> and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker
> > >>> run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would
> > >>> reduce
> > >>> the damaging side effect significantly.
> > >>>
> > >>> Lodewijk
> > >>>
> > >>> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Peter Southwood <
> > >>> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>  Did you not see the bit about "experimental"?
> > >>>> Cheers,
> > >>>> Peter
> > >>>>
> > >>>> -Original Message-
> > >>>> From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > >>>> wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern
> > Hoehrmann
> > >>>> Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM
> > >>>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > >>>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good
> > >>>> projects for 3 months for no reason
> > >>>>
> > >>>> * Siko Bouterse wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and
> > >>>>> increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t
> > >>>>> emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of
> > this
> > >>>>> year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to
> > >>>>> directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project
> > leaders
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> have been women.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our
> > >>>>> content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> What evidence is there that spending more on "gender gap" will have
> > any
> > >>>> measurable impact on "gender gap"? I also note that you say
> "projects"
> > >>>> have not "emerged". That sounds like people do not actually have
> ideas
> > >>>>
> > >>> how
> > >>>
> > >>>> to "impact" "gender gap" with money. Could you identify a couple of
> > >>>> projects that would have considerable "impact" on "gender gap" but
> > that
> > >>>> have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of "focus" on
> > "gen-
> > >>>>
> > >>> der
> > >>>
> > >>>> gap"?
> > >>>> --
> > >>>> Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de ·
> > >>>> http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
> > >>>> D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 ·
> > >>>> http://www.bjoernsworld.de
> > >>>> Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  ·
> > http://www.websitedev.de/
> > >>>>
> > >>>> ___
> > >>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > >>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > >>>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread MF-Warburg

Sorry if this was already answered and I overlooked it, but will there be
something like a special form of "advertising" this campaign in order to
attract many requests that propose to do something about the Gender Gap?

2015-01-06 21:11 GMT+01:00 Siko Bouterse :

> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 2:37 AM, Anders Wennersten <
> m...@anderswennersten.se>
> wrote:
>
> > Thanks Siko, also from me.
> >
> > I do hope that  you use this time to really learn of the dynamics of
> > grants/impact, by following up of earlier experience and also in defining
> > expectations targets etc in a specific area
> >
> > For me an eyeopener was a program run in Sweden by WMSE to get more
> female
> > contributors.  It was funded from outside WMF and primary involved
> > workshops for Wikipedia writing, in a form we are all familiar with. The
> > workshops was run in different middlesized towns and got a very limited
> > attendance, 3-15 persons, whereof only a tiny fraction stayed on as
> > Wikipedians after the workshop.   I got annoyed at first noticing it cost
> > something like 100-200 dollar per participant, and 20 times as much to
> get
> > the one among them who stayed on  but only making some 50-100 edits. I
> saw
> > it as a truly waste of money (not WMF though).
> >
> > But then I learned that those activities attracted more media attention
> > than any other program having been run by WMSE, there must now be between
> > 30-50 coverages in local and nationwide papers and radio stations.  And
> the
> > funding body saw this as a thundering success, and has given even more
> > funding for a second year. And then something happened as a result from
> > this media coverage, more female editors has now a year later turned up!
> >
> > Anders
> >
> >
> Thanks for sharing this example, Anders. We're definitely going to learn a
> lot from this experiment, as I am from this discussion, and will be sharing
> back findings too :)
>
> Your point about media interest as well as longer term impact is super
> important. While we do need to be able to demonstrate some short-term
> impact, I also think that for many of the grants we make the impact can
> really only seen much more clearly in the longer term. So following up well
> after the pilot is over will also be important.
>
> I don't usually think that media coverage alone = thundering success (like
> you, I'd probably have been disappointed at first with the early outcomes
> you mentioned). But I do see that one possible outcome for campaigns like
> this is increased media coverage which in turn could result in longer term
> impact by bringing in more people to the projects. Will be on the lookout
> for this - glad you mentioned it!
>
> Siko
>
>
> >
> >
> > Chris Keating skrev den 2015-01-06 10:53:
> >
> >  Thanks for the details Siko!
> >>
> >> Going back to the original message in this thread - I would indeed be
> >> concerned if the WMF was shutting down grantmaking for good projects
> for 3
> >> months for no good reason.
> >>
> >> However that's not really what's happening. It's more that non-urgent
> >> grantmaking is being postponed; and there is a good rationale for it
> (one
> >> more about wanting to experiment with grantmaking styles, than about the
> >> gender gap being a special case).
> >>
> >> Makes sense to me.
> >>
> >> Chris
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:59 AM, Lodewijk 
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>  Actually, the experiment is whether such a campaign would drive more
> >>> successful grants, as I understand it. It works from the assumption
> that
> >>> such grants would have a positive impact. I'm happy to go with that
> >>> assumption though.
> >>>
> >>> I still strongly disagree with this initiative, but especially the way
> it
> >>> is executed. I'm glad to hear that all time-sensitive requests can
> still
> >>> apply during this period - that would probably be quite a few requests.
> >>>
> >>> I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program
> >>> (that
> >>> is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an
> >>> experiment)
> >>> and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker
> >>> run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would
> >>> reduce
> >>> the damaging side effect signifi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Siko Bouterse

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 2:37 AM, Anders Wennersten 
wrote:

> Thanks Siko, also from me.
>
> I do hope that  you use this time to really learn of the dynamics of
> grants/impact, by following up of earlier experience and also in defining
> expectations targets etc in a specific area
>
> For me an eyeopener was a program run in Sweden by WMSE to get more female
> contributors.  It was funded from outside WMF and primary involved
> workshops for Wikipedia writing, in a form we are all familiar with. The
> workshops was run in different middlesized towns and got a very limited
> attendance, 3-15 persons, whereof only a tiny fraction stayed on as
> Wikipedians after the workshop.   I got annoyed at first noticing it cost
> something like 100-200 dollar per participant, and 20 times as much to get
> the one among them who stayed on  but only making some 50-100 edits. I saw
> it as a truly waste of money (not WMF though).
>
> But then I learned that those activities attracted more media attention
> than any other program having been run by WMSE, there must now be between
> 30-50 coverages in local and nationwide papers and radio stations.  And the
> funding body saw this as a thundering success, and has given even more
> funding for a second year. And then something happened as a result from
> this media coverage, more female editors has now a year later turned up!
>
> Anders
>
>
Thanks for sharing this example, Anders. We're definitely going to learn a
lot from this experiment, as I am from this discussion, and will be sharing
back findings too :)

Your point about media interest as well as longer term impact is super
important. While we do need to be able to demonstrate some short-term
impact, I also think that for many of the grants we make the impact can
really only seen much more clearly in the longer term. So following up well
after the pilot is over will also be important.

I don't usually think that media coverage alone = thundering success (like
you, I'd probably have been disappointed at first with the early outcomes
you mentioned). But I do see that one possible outcome for campaigns like
this is increased media coverage which in turn could result in longer term
impact by bringing in more people to the projects. Will be on the lookout
for this - glad you mentioned it!

Siko


>
>
> Chris Keating skrev den 2015-01-06 10:53:
>
>  Thanks for the details Siko!
>>
>> Going back to the original message in this thread - I would indeed be
>> concerned if the WMF was shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3
>> months for no good reason.
>>
>> However that's not really what's happening. It's more that non-urgent
>> grantmaking is being postponed; and there is a good rationale for it (one
>> more about wanting to experiment with grantmaking styles, than about the
>> gender gap being a special case).
>>
>> Makes sense to me.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:59 AM, Lodewijk 
>> wrote:
>>
>>  Actually, the experiment is whether such a campaign would drive more
>>> successful grants, as I understand it. It works from the assumption that
>>> such grants would have a positive impact. I'm happy to go with that
>>> assumption though.
>>>
>>> I still strongly disagree with this initiative, but especially the way it
>>> is executed. I'm glad to hear that all time-sensitive requests can still
>>> apply during this period - that would probably be quite a few requests.
>>>
>>> I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program
>>> (that
>>> is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an
>>> experiment)
>>> and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker
>>> run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would
>>> reduce
>>> the damaging side effect significantly.
>>>
>>> Lodewijk
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Peter Southwood <
>>> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>  Did you not see the bit about "experimental"?
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Peter
>>>>
>>>> -Original Message-
>>>> From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
>>>> wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hoehrmann
>>>> Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM
>>>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
>>>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good
>>>> projects for 3 months for no reason
>>>>
>>>> * Siko Bouterse

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Siko Bouterse

On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 10:59 PM, Lodewijk 
wrote:

> Actually, the experiment is whether such a campaign would drive more
> successful grants, as I understand it. It works from the assumption that
> such grants would have a positive impact. I'm happy to go with that
> assumption though.
>
> I still strongly disagree with this initiative, but especially the way it
> is executed. I'm glad to hear that all time-sensitive requests can still
> apply during this period - that would probably be quite a few requests.
>
> I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program (that
> is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an experiment)
> and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker
> run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would reduce
> the damaging side effect significantly.
>

The campaign itself will only run for a month - in my experience with past
open calls for IEG, you really do need more than 2 weeks to get the word
out and get new ideas not only started but also developed w/ enough
community input that we rely on to assess which grants should move forward.
But in addition to the actual campaign itself, we need to bake in enough
time to prepare for it beforehand and get funded projects started
afterwards. There is significant staff effort behind the scenes for any
grantmaking we do, and in my experience even quick pilots take time to prep
and wrapup.

I'm hearing your concerns loud and clear, still, and agree it will be
interesting to see how many truly time-sensitive requests will come up
during this period. If the campaign is deemed a success worth repeating and
we also find we're over-stretching those involved (staff and volunteers)
because many non-theme focused projects need to be concurrently considered
(this is a big concern for me, and something we'll be keeping a close eye
on), that could be data-driven rationale for resourcing grantmaking
differently in next year's annual plan.

Siko



> Lodewijk
>
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > Did you not see the bit about "experimental"?
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hoehrmann
> > Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good
> > projects for 3 months for no reason
> >
> > * Siko Bouterse wrote:
> > >Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and
> > >increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t
> > >emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this
> > >year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to
> > >directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project leaders
> > have been women.
> > >Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our
> > >content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue.
> >
> > What evidence is there that spending more on "gender gap" will have any
> > measurable impact on "gender gap"? I also note that you say "projects"
> > have not "emerged". That sounds like people do not actually have ideas
> how
> > to "impact" "gender gap" with money. Could you identify a couple of
> > projects that would have considerable "impact" on "gender gap" but that
> > have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of "focus" on "gen-
> der
> > gap"?
> > --
> > Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
> > D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
> > Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/
> >
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Federico Leva (Nemo)


Anders Wennersten, 06/01/2015 12:26:

I believe that in the area of gender-gap the dynamic could be more
complex (as in my example).

And if WMF only want to see a direct link between effort and impact,
they could miss out other dynamics.


I think this is always a good point to remind ourselves, thanks for your 
example (and self-criticism).


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Ilario Valdelli

It's also my point considering that to get external funds probably a 
team (like WLM) can bu pushed to find a stronger impact outside 
Wikimedia movement in order to get more external funds.


The Gender gap has a stronger potentiality because is more flexible to 
be adapted to external funds, but my expectation is that the teams 
submitting the request of grants can also learn the ability to setup a 
good project and good reports and to reach a maturity consisting in the 
capacity to "design" interesting projects for external funds (also for 
the global South).


Basically to build a "best practice" in these terms: "someting that 
enable organizations to deliver benefits, return on investment, and 
value on investment through a sustained approach" (ITIL definition).


In my opinion the experience of WM SWE can become a best practice but 
for "mature" teams.


regards

On 06.01.2015 12:26, Anders Wennersten wrote:

Ilario,

My point is rather that while WLM has a clear-cut dynamic,  "put in 
resources->get photos in Commons", I believe that in the area of 
gender-gap the dynamic could be more complex (as in my example).


And if WMF only want to see a direct link between effort and impact, 
they could miss out other dynamics. And in my example I think the 
funding body never even asked it the number of female editors in 
Wikipedia increased, for them   the media coverage was a more concrete 
and satisfying result (I wonder if this would be true for WMF 
grantmaking?)


Anders



--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Anders Wennersten


Ilario,

My point is rather that while WLM has a clear-cut dynamic,  "put in 
resources->get photos in Commons", I believe that in the area of 
gender-gap the dynamic could be more complex (as in my example).


And if WMF only want to see a direct link between effort and impact, 
they could miss out other dynamics. And in my example I think the 
funding body never even asked it the number of female editors in 
Wikipedia increased, for them   the media coverage was a more concrete 
and satisfying result (I wonder if this would be true for WMF grantmaking?)


Anders

Ilario Valdelli skrev den 2015-01-06 12:00:

Hi Anders,
my 2 cents. A project has a budget, this budget can be financed 
externally but there are some countries which have more opportunities 
than others.


In addition (it's my personal point of view) the external funding 
introduces a bigger complexity to the projects in terms of management 
of sponsors and external funders (matching the strategies of WMF and 
to apply for WMF funds is not the same to find a compromise with the 
strategies and the accountability of the external funders). In my 
opinion the external funds generate the request to have some 
additional skills in the team of the project and probably longer time 
to setup the project.


In the other hand it would be easier to find external funds if a 
program/project has already generated some good results. In your 
example you say that the second year the project received more funds, 
but you have been lucky to find someone trusting on you the first year.


For this reason I can apply your example more to WLM than to gender 
gap because WLM has already a well established history and very good 
results to attract external funds, instead of some other new projects 
requiring to be "incubated" more.


Regards


On 06.01.2015 11:37, Anders Wennersten wrote:

Thanks Siko, also from me.

I do hope that  you use this time to really learn of the dynamics of 
grants/impact, by following up of earlier experience and also in 
defining expectations targets etc in a specific area


For me an eyeopener was a program run in Sweden by WMSE to get more 
female contributors.  It was funded from outside WMF and primary 
involved workshops for Wikipedia writing, in a form we are all 
familiar with. The workshops was run in different middlesized towns 
and got a very limited attendance, 3-15 persons, whereof only a tiny 
fraction stayed on as Wikipedians after the workshop.   I got annoyed 
at first noticing it cost something like 100-200 dollar per 
participant, and 20 times as much to get the one among them who 
stayed on  but only making some 50-100 edits. I saw it as a truly 
waste of money (not WMF though).


But then I learned that those activities attracted more media 
attention than any other program having been run by WMSE, there must 
now be between 30-50 coverages in local and nationwide papers and 
radio stations.  And the funding body saw this as a thundering 
success, and has given even more funding for a second year. And then 
something happened as a result from this media coverage, more female 
editors has now a year later turned up!


Anders









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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Ilario Valdelli


Hi Anders,
my 2 cents. A project has a budget, this budget can be financed 
externally but there are some countries which have more opportunities 
than others.


In addition (it's my personal point of view) the external funding 
introduces a bigger complexity to the projects in terms of management of 
sponsors and external funders (matching the strategies of WMF and to 
apply for WMF funds is not the same to find a compromise with the 
strategies and the accountability of the external funders). In my 
opinion the external funds generate the request to have some additional 
skills in the team of the project and probably longer time to setup the 
project.


In the other hand it would be easier to find external funds if a 
program/project has already generated some good results. In your example 
you say that the second year the project received more funds, but you 
have been lucky to find someone trusting on you the first year.


For this reason I can apply your example more to WLM than to gender gap 
because WLM has already a well established history and very good results 
to attract external funds, instead of some other new projects requiring 
to be "incubated" more.


Regards


On 06.01.2015 11:37, Anders Wennersten wrote:

Thanks Siko, also from me.

I do hope that  you use this time to really learn of the dynamics of 
grants/impact, by following up of earlier experience and also in 
defining expectations targets etc in a specific area


For me an eyeopener was a program run in Sweden by WMSE to get more 
female contributors.  It was funded from outside WMF and primary 
involved workshops for Wikipedia writing, in a form we are all 
familiar with. The workshops was run in different middlesized towns 
and got a very limited attendance, 3-15 persons, whereof only a tiny 
fraction stayed on as Wikipedians after the workshop.   I got annoyed 
at first noticing it cost something like 100-200 dollar per 
participant, and 20 times as much to get the one among them who stayed 
on  but only making some 50-100 edits. I saw it as a truly waste of 
money (not WMF though).


But then I learned that those activities attracted more media 
attention than any other program having been run by WMSE, there must 
now be between 30-50 coverages in local and nationwide papers and 
radio stations.  And the funding body saw this as a thundering 
success, and has given even more funding for a second year. And then 
something happened as a result from this media coverage, more female 
editors has now a year later turned up!


Anders






--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Ilario Valdelli

At the opposite I consider that the limited time cannot produce 
long-time effect, it's not rare that some good grants proceed to submit 
a second phase to have a larger impact.


The best would be to check afterwards the impact of the solution of 
"promotion" of a specific area and a specific topic.


A program needs longer support, this is also the lesson learned by WLM 
(the discussion is started because the WLM team considers that few 
months cannot support a bigger program).


The grantmaking team is doing what the WLM team did some years ago: 
supporting a specific topic. WLM has been successful, probably would 
have created a lesser impact if someone suggested to reduce the 
organization of the event to 2-4 weeks.


Anyway the best is to check the feedback from the community in terms of 
projects submitted to the grantmaking team.


There is no reason at the moment to say that there will be damaging effects.

If there are a bad results, the best wold be to analyze the reasons and 
to proceed to learn a lesson and to check what can be set to have a 
better process.


At the moment the experiemnt is focused to give "more opportunities" to 
a specific area, I don't see nothing strange on that.


Regards

On 06.01.2015 07:59, Lodewijk wrote:

I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program (that
is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an experiment)
and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker
run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would reduce
the damaging side effect significantly.

Lodewijk




--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Anders Wennersten


Thanks Siko, also from me.

I do hope that  you use this time to really learn of the dynamics of 
grants/impact, by following up of earlier experience and also in 
defining expectations targets etc in a specific area


For me an eyeopener was a program run in Sweden by WMSE to get more 
female contributors.  It was funded from outside WMF and primary 
involved workshops for Wikipedia writing, in a form we are all familiar 
with. The workshops was run in different middlesized towns and got a 
very limited attendance, 3-15 persons, whereof only a tiny fraction 
stayed on as Wikipedians after the workshop.   I got annoyed at first 
noticing it cost something like 100-200 dollar per participant, and 20 
times as much to get the one among them who stayed on  but only making 
some 50-100 edits. I saw it as a truly waste of money (not WMF though).


But then I learned that those activities attracted more media attention 
than any other program having been run by WMSE, there must now be 
between 30-50 coverages in local and nationwide papers and radio 
stations.  And the funding body saw this as a thundering success, and 
has given even more funding for a second year. And then something 
happened as a result from this media coverage, more female editors has 
now a year later turned up!


Anders




Chris Keating skrev den 2015-01-06 10:53:

Thanks for the details Siko!

Going back to the original message in this thread - I would indeed be
concerned if the WMF was shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3
months for no good reason.

However that's not really what's happening. It's more that non-urgent
grantmaking is being postponed; and there is a good rationale for it (one
more about wanting to experiment with grantmaking styles, than about the
gender gap being a special case).

Makes sense to me.

Chris


On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:59 AM, Lodewijk 
wrote:


Actually, the experiment is whether such a campaign would drive more
successful grants, as I understand it. It works from the assumption that
such grants would have a positive impact. I'm happy to go with that
assumption though.

I still strongly disagree with this initiative, but especially the way it
is executed. I'm glad to hear that all time-sensitive requests can still
apply during this period - that would probably be quite a few requests.

I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program (that
is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an experiment)
and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker
run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would reduce
the damaging side effect significantly.

Lodewijk

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:


Did you not see the bit about "experimental"?
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hoehrmann
Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good
projects for 3 months for no reason

* Siko Bouterse wrote:

Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and
increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t
emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this
year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to
directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project leaders

have been women.

Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our
content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue.

What evidence is there that spending more on "gender gap" will have any
measurable impact on "gender gap"? I also note that you say "projects"
have not "emerged". That sounds like people do not actually have ideas

how

to "impact" "gender gap" with money. Could you identify a couple of
projects that would have considerable "impact" on "gender gap" but that
have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of "focus" on "gen-

der

gap"?
--
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-06 Thread Chris Keating

Thanks for the details Siko!

Going back to the original message in this thread - I would indeed be
concerned if the WMF was shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3
months for no good reason.

However that's not really what's happening. It's more that non-urgent
grantmaking is being postponed; and there is a good rationale for it (one
more about wanting to experiment with grantmaking styles, than about the
gender gap being a special case).

Makes sense to me.

Chris


On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:59 AM, Lodewijk 
wrote:

> Actually, the experiment is whether such a campaign would drive more
> successful grants, as I understand it. It works from the assumption that
> such grants would have a positive impact. I'm happy to go with that
> assumption though.
>
> I still strongly disagree with this initiative, but especially the way it
> is executed. I'm glad to hear that all time-sensitive requests can still
> apply during this period - that would probably be quite a few requests.
>
> I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program (that
> is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an experiment)
> and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker
> run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would reduce
> the damaging side effect significantly.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > Did you not see the bit about "experimental"?
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hoehrmann
> > Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good
> > projects for 3 months for no reason
> >
> > * Siko Bouterse wrote:
> > >Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and
> > >increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t
> > >emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this
> > >year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to
> > >directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project leaders
> > have been women.
> > >Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our
> > >content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue.
> >
> > What evidence is there that spending more on "gender gap" will have any
> > measurable impact on "gender gap"? I also note that you say "projects"
> > have not "emerged". That sounds like people do not actually have ideas
> how
> > to "impact" "gender gap" with money. Could you identify a couple of
> > projects that would have considerable "impact" on "gender gap" but that
> > have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of "focus" on "gen-
> der
> > gap"?
> > --
> > Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
> > D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
> > Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/
> >
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-05 Thread Lodewijk

Actually, the experiment is whether such a campaign would drive more
successful grants, as I understand it. It works from the assumption that
such grants would have a positive impact. I'm happy to go with that
assumption though.

I still strongly disagree with this initiative, but especially the way it
is executed. I'm glad to hear that all time-sensitive requests can still
apply during this period - that would probably be quite a few requests.

I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program (that
is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an experiment)
and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker
run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would reduce
the damaging side effect significantly.

Lodewijk

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Did you not see the bit about "experimental"?
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hoehrmann
> Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good
> projects for 3 months for no reason
>
> * Siko Bouterse wrote:
> >Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and
> >increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t
> >emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this
> >year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to
> >directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project leaders
> have been women.
> >Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our
> >content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue.
>
> What evidence is there that spending more on "gender gap" will have any
> measurable impact on "gender gap"? I also note that you say "projects"
> have not "emerged". That sounds like people do not actually have ideas how
> to "impact" "gender gap" with money. Could you identify a couple of
> projects that would have considerable "impact" on "gender gap" but that
> have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of "focus" on "gen- der
> gap"?
> --
> Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
> D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
> Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-05 Thread Peter Southwood

Did you not see the bit about "experimental"?
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
[mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hoehrmann
Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects 
for 3 months for no reason

* Siko Bouterse wrote:
>Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and 
>increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t 
>emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this 
>year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to 
>directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project leaders have 
>been women.
>Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our 
>content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue.

What evidence is there that spending more on "gender gap" will have any 
measurable impact on "gender gap"? I also note that you say "projects"
have not "emerged". That sounds like people do not actually have ideas how to 
"impact" "gender gap" with money. Could you identify a couple of projects that 
would have considerable "impact" on "gender gap" but that have been refused 
funding in the past due to a lack of "focus" on "gen- der gap"?
--
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de  
Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-05 Thread Bjoern Hoehrmann

* Siko Bouterse wrote:
>Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and increasing
>gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t emerged
>organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this year, IEG
>and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to directly impact
>this gap and less than ? of our grantee project leaders have been women.
>Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our content
>and contributors, this trend is likely to continue.

What evidence is there that spending more on "gender gap" will have any
measurable impact on "gender gap"? I also note that you say "projects"
have not "emerged". That sounds like people do not actually have ideas
how to "impact" "gender gap" with money. Could you identify a couple of
projects that would have considerable "impact" on "gender gap" but that
have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of "focus" on "gen-
der gap"?
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
 Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015)  · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-05 Thread Siko Bouterse

 Hi all,

This is not exactly how we were hoping to announce the Inspire Campaign on
this list, but now that I'm back online, let's try this again...

First, to clarify some key points:

*Yes, we are taking a 3 month break from funding regular
all-kinds-of-proposals in both IEG and PEG programs during February, March
and April.

*Time-sensitive funding needs that are not focused on the gender gap will
NOT be ignored during this period. The plan is not to ignore critical
community support requests that cannot wait. If there is a valid reason
that you cannot seek funding for your project/program/plan before February
or after April, please contact myself in IEG or Alex Wang in PEG and we'll
continue to work with our committees to assist you. Our experience has been
that many of the requests we receive CAN happen at any time of year,
however, and so we're simply asking you to propose those during the other 9
months of 2015. You are still welcome to continue drafting them during this
period, even though we won't have capacity to review all of them during
this time.

*The reason for taking a break from other non-urgent requests during this
time is so that we can run an experiment in proactive grantmaking, to see
if we can provide meaningful community support and significantly increase
impact on Wikimedia projects in a single strategic area.[1]

*We don't have enough staff to support all of our usual grantmaking work in
both of these programs AND try something new like this at the same time, so
we're going to focus our limited energy on 1 new experiment for a brief
while.

*The first Inspire Campaign will focus on the gender gap, future campaigns
could indeed focus on any other topic. Ideas for future campaign topics are
welcome! Our intention is not to shut down community ideas outside of
themes. Rather, we'd like to learn whether using a theme could actually
help drive participation in grantmaking and other areas of Wikimedia
projects, as it has for events like WLM.

*Like other experiments, we'll measure the results, and then decide if it
is worth repeating, or doing something different in the future. If WLM
wasn't such a great success, you wouldn't repeat it each year. If this
campaign isn't a success, we'll do something different instead.


To help us all get on the same page, I'm including below the email that was
sent to the IEG and PEG committees just before we went away for Christmas.
That has some more background information that may be helpful to folks just
learning about this experiment. And I'm happy to help clarify additional
questions as they come up here.

We're starting a FAQ where I've added answers to a few questions that came
up in this thread so far.[2] Please feel free to add more questions to that
page and we'll try to answer them in coming days/weeks.

Finally, about communications: Like many folks in this movement, our
grantmaking team at WMF surely has some room for improvement in terms of
timing and communications. Sometimes as plans develop with lots of
stakeholders (even just within one organization, let alone a whole
movement!) it takes time to get the news out to everyone in an orderly
fashion, and we're later than we'd like to be on this one.

More details for those interested in the meta-history of how this developed:
The idea of running thematic campaigns to experiment with proactively
asking for new ideas, reaching more individual grantees, and increasing
focused innovation around solving strategic issues was included in our
2014/15 annual plan. [3] (I don't expect you to have read this long and dry
document, just noting it was public). Part of the plan was an ask for
additional staff to help take on new initiatives like this in grantmaking,
so that we could continue existing programs as well as try something new
along thematic lines. In August I started the planning page on
meta-wiki.[1] Again, although we didn't formally announce anything on this
list because the details about staffing and execution were still so
unclear, it was public, and we started getting some initial positive
feedback on it at Wikimania etc. Over the past 3 months, it became
increasingly clear from conversations within WMF that grantmaking should
indeed experiment with proactive thematic focus, but that no additional
resources should be expected to assist with this. So, in December, we
gathered a team of existing staff to sort out what kind of first experiment
we could conceivably execute on in time for a campaign aligned with
WikiWomen's March. We started communications first with some key
stakeholders - both committees and a list of PEG grantees that Alex knew
might be working on new proposals in early 2015 who needed as much notice
as possible. And believe me, we definitely wish we had more time too. We'd
planned to announce more broadly to this list and others as well as
updating the PEG and IEG pages once all involved staff were back from
vacation in January and could do this right. Many of us don't

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-05 Thread Siko Bouterse

First day back from vacation, I'm drafting response as we speak, just
haven't sanity-checked enough to hit send yet :) Will soon!

On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 5:35 PM, Risker  wrote:

> BumpingI do not see any response on this mailing list from the
> Grantmaking team, and I can't actually find very much about this entire
> plan on the Grants portal at Meta (which may say more about the grants
> portal than about the dissemination of the plant).
>
> However, since this is something that has the potential to affect a lot of
> Wikimedians (individuals, chapters, and other affiliated groups)...as well
> as women (apparently)... it would be really nice to see what is going on.
> Some people have mentioned that they received an email.  Perhaps it could
> be forwarded to this mailing list?
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On 3 January 2015 at 13:35, Lila Tretikov  wrote:
>
> > For everyone here: I've asked our Grantmaking team to comment and clarify
> > the details of this plan.
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Lodewijk 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Answering to Teemu and Chris:
> > >
> > > I do think that the for Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Art it is
> > safe
> > > to claim that if we organize it the way we would always do, it would
> > still
> > > tip the gender balance in our community a little more to the female
> side.
> > > However, I disagree that this should be a main consideration, because I
> > > think that would be true for so many outreach projects. Focusing on
> that
> > > would be a pity and a distraction imho. Also, for most participants we
> > > don't know the gender, and we don't want to know the gender (because
> > asking
> > > for it alone can scare people away) - except for a sample of them, who
> > > happen to answer the survey afterwards. All data on that is quite
> shaky.
> > >
> > > If necessary, I could easily make a case why WLM is a wonderful
> gendergap
> > > project - the point is that I don't want volunteers to waste their time
> > on
> > > making such cases, but rather let them be innovative, come up with new
> > > ideas instead of rebranding existing ideas on something like the
> > gendergap.
> > > My problems are more fundamental than 'I can't get money for my
> specific
> > > project'.
> > >
> > > So Chris: yes, these people do a lot for reducing the gender gap in our
> > > projects. Also, Wikimedia organizers tend to hop between projects -
> their
> > > next might be more focused on a topic that is popular with women, if
> > their
> > > current idea isn't yet. Drawing them into a topic in a positive way
> (what
> > > we do is cool! Join us!) tends to be more successful than telling them
> > they
> > > are not allowed to do other stuff (we won't fund you at all unless you
> do
> > > this specific theme).
> > >
> > > Prioritisation sounds great, but that only works that way if you have
> one
> > > clearly defined pool of resources, that you can actually control. What
> do
> > > you think is the major bottle neck in organizing activities in the
> > > Wikimedia movement? In my experience, that is not money, or even WMF
> > staff
> > > capacity (even though it is a limiting factor sometimes), but the
> primary
> > > bottle neck is volunteer organizers (or editors). And volunteer time is
> > not
> > > a resource you can easily 'control'. If you want to influence it, the
> > most
> > > effective way is by persuading the volunteers why another angle is more
> > > interesting, more fun, more effective.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Lodewijk
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Chris Keating <
> > chriskeatingw...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Like Bence, I would be interested to see how this kind of experiment
> in
> > > WMF
> > > > grantmaking works out. And also like him I would be a little
> surprised
> > if
> > > > something like this is implemented with no notice period.
> > > >
> > > > A couple of responses to Lodewijk's post;
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > with people
> > > > > confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community
> > > support
> > > > > (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for
> > > gendergap-related
> > > > > projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or
> > > jealousy.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Out of interest, were any of these people doing anything at all to
> > > support
> > > > the reduction of the gender gap in the first place? ;)
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > I
> > > > > called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is
> not
> > > > about
> > > > > actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but
> > rather
> > > > > about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope
> > that
> > > > > people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a
> gendergap
> > > > > related event.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Equally, if you have limited resources, prioritising one thing means
> > > > reducing attention to something else. So saying "we shouldn't work on
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-05 Thread Risker

BumpingI do not see any response on this mailing list from the
Grantmaking team, and I can't actually find very much about this entire
plan on the Grants portal at Meta (which may say more about the grants
portal than about the dissemination of the plant).

However, since this is something that has the potential to affect a lot of
Wikimedians (individuals, chapters, and other affiliated groups)...as well
as women (apparently)... it would be really nice to see what is going on.
Some people have mentioned that they received an email.  Perhaps it could
be forwarded to this mailing list?

Risker/Anne

On 3 January 2015 at 13:35, Lila Tretikov  wrote:

> For everyone here: I've asked our Grantmaking team to comment and clarify
> the details of this plan.
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Lodewijk 
> wrote:
>
> > Answering to Teemu and Chris:
> >
> > I do think that the for Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Art it is
> safe
> > to claim that if we organize it the way we would always do, it would
> still
> > tip the gender balance in our community a little more to the female side.
> > However, I disagree that this should be a main consideration, because I
> > think that would be true for so many outreach projects. Focusing on that
> > would be a pity and a distraction imho. Also, for most participants we
> > don't know the gender, and we don't want to know the gender (because
> asking
> > for it alone can scare people away) - except for a sample of them, who
> > happen to answer the survey afterwards. All data on that is quite shaky.
> >
> > If necessary, I could easily make a case why WLM is a wonderful gendergap
> > project - the point is that I don't want volunteers to waste their time
> on
> > making such cases, but rather let them be innovative, come up with new
> > ideas instead of rebranding existing ideas on something like the
> gendergap.
> > My problems are more fundamental than 'I can't get money for my specific
> > project'.
> >
> > So Chris: yes, these people do a lot for reducing the gender gap in our
> > projects. Also, Wikimedia organizers tend to hop between projects - their
> > next might be more focused on a topic that is popular with women, if
> their
> > current idea isn't yet. Drawing them into a topic in a positive way (what
> > we do is cool! Join us!) tends to be more successful than telling them
> they
> > are not allowed to do other stuff (we won't fund you at all unless you do
> > this specific theme).
> >
> > Prioritisation sounds great, but that only works that way if you have one
> > clearly defined pool of resources, that you can actually control. What do
> > you think is the major bottle neck in organizing activities in the
> > Wikimedia movement? In my experience, that is not money, or even WMF
> staff
> > capacity (even though it is a limiting factor sometimes), but the primary
> > bottle neck is volunteer organizers (or editors). And volunteer time is
> not
> > a resource you can easily 'control'. If you want to influence it, the
> most
> > effective way is by persuading the volunteers why another angle is more
> > interesting, more fun, more effective.
> >
> > Best,
> > Lodewijk
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Chris Keating <
> chriskeatingw...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Like Bence, I would be interested to see how this kind of experiment in
> > WMF
> > > grantmaking works out. And also like him I would be a little surprised
> if
> > > something like this is implemented with no notice period.
> > >
> > > A couple of responses to Lodewijk's post;
> > >
> > >
> > > > with people
> > > > confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community
> > support
> > > > (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for
> > gendergap-related
> > > > projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or
> > jealousy.
> > >
> > >
> > > Out of interest, were any of these people doing anything at all to
> > support
> > > the reduction of the gender gap in the first place? ;)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > I
> > > > called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not
> > > about
> > > > actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but
> rather
> > > > about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope
> that
> > > > people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
> > > > related event.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Equally, if you have limited resources, prioritising one thing means
> > > reducing attention to something else. So saying "we shouldn't work on
> the
> > > gender gap if anything else gets less atention as a result" is
> logically
> > > equivalent to saying "We shouldn't work on the gender gap".
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Chris
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Josh Lim

Allow me to throw in some perspective here, since I think I stand somewhere 
between midway and the opposite end of the spectrum vis-à-vis this discussion.

> Wiadomość napisana przez Romaine Wiki  w dniu 4 sty 
> 2015, o godz. 05:21:
> 
> Hi Ilario,
> 
> As said before, that certain grant requests are submitted late, it doesn't
> mean it is a good idea.
> 
> I was also not speaking about WLM organizers alone, but about all
> organizers in general.
> Shutting down the grantmaking for them is highly demotivating. Also when it
> does not effect them directly.

Wikimedia Philippines is still planning its 2015 annual plan, so for us, we 
don’t have a lot to lose from grantmaking opportunities lost due to the 
Grantmaking team’s focus on the gender gap.  And while I disagree with the 
method by which it was done—that we were only informed three weeks in 
advance—I’m inclined to believe that this makes affiliates more innovative with 
their programs.  If it means securing funding through doing programs that 
address the gender gap, then so be it if means expanding our skill set and 
helping woman participation in the process.

In addition, we’re exaggerating the impact of the gender gap focus here: note 
that Alex’s announcement said that they will focus on other grants either 
before February 1 or after April 30.  Them not accepting requests during that 
window need not mean that you can’t have a grant request already sitting pretty 
on Meta waiting for consideration; I think they were wrong in wording it, but 
I’m disinclined to believe that they will simply shoot requests down just 
because it fell during that window.

> It is effectively shutting down all projects that should start or are to be
> started in these three months. The Grants page says
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start : "Supporting mission-allied
> people and organizations around the world."
> This is not supporting, but demotivating, demolishing, discouraging, and
> frustrating the organizing volunteers.
> 
> Shutting down the grantmaking gives a strong negative signal to every
> organiser. "Your project is not important enough for the movement", that is
> what this campaign says.

I disagree.  There’s nothing in the grant process that prevents you from 
keeping the proposal as a draft until the window lapses, and projects need not 
be derailed just because funding can’t be secured between February 1 and April 
30.  While I agree that it’s a big inconvenience for affiliates to see their 
calendars pushed back because they can’t get funding, I am also disinclined to 
believe that the signal this sends is as strong as you think it is.

I’ve organized projects for WMPH, and ultimately since we’re dependent on the 
Foundation for our funding, we’ve had to find ways to meet halfway with respect 
to when projects ought to be implemented.  For me, so long as the project is 
implemented, that’s fine with me regardless of when the project was 
implemented.  The important thing here is that we’re forwarding the movement 
nonetheless.

Thanks,

Josh

JAMES JOSHUA G. LIM
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science
Class of 2013, Ateneo de Manila University
Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines

jamesjoshua...@yahoo.com  | +63 (915) 321-7582
Facebook/Twitter: akiestar | Wikimedia: Sky Harbor
http://about.me/josh.lim 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Mathias Damour


Le 03/01/2015 14:58, Jane Darnell a écrit :

As a member of the IEG committee I am happy to say that there is no need to
panic. WLM is highly successful project and no one is talking about
shutting it down, or any other project for that matter. The current
campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many, targeted at the
community in order to generate themed proposals. The current growth of
highly diverse and inspirational proposals takes increasingly more energy
to manage, judge, and maintain. By introducing a three-month long theme, it
is hoped that the following will occur:
1) Grant committee members in their voluntary role as proposal reviewers
and community sponsors will experience less burn-out in managing proposals
as their will be more cross pollination per cohort of proposers and their
proposals.
2) A targeted campaign to attract proposals will enable easier translation
across projects if the target audience can be identified in advance
3) A targeted campaign will attract more volunteer committee members to
manage proposals, hopefully attracting local experts in various Wikimedia
projects.

The Gendergap will be the first theme. I think it's a great idea! How can
WLM attract more female participation? Any ideas?


No, I have ideas for other good projects, not this one.

I think that the capacity by the WMF - and actual action - to switch on 
and off the grants without debate and even notice depending on such 
thought and so-called campaign is prejudicial, like the capacity to 
switch on and off the donations from one country like - say Russia - is 
prejudicial too.


Le 03/01/2015 22:21, Romaine Wiki a écrit :

The Grants page says
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start : "Supporting mission-allied
people and organizations around the world."
This is not supporting, but demotivating, demolishing, discouraging, and
frustrating the organizing volunteers.


More simply, I would say that "supporting" does not mean "governing" or 
"piloting".


All things considered, Sue Gardner was eventually wrong. Give the 
fundraising and the grantmaking back to the chapters.


--
Mathias Damour
User:Astirmays

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Hi Ilario,

As said before, that certain grant requests are submitted late, it doesn't
mean it is a good idea.

I was also not speaking about WLM organizers alone, but about all
organizers in general.
Shutting down the grantmaking for them is highly demotivating. Also when it
does not effect them directly.

It is effectively shutting down all projects that should start or are to be
started in these three months. The Grants page says
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start : "Supporting mission-allied
people and organizations around the world."
This is not supporting, but demotivating, demolishing, discouraging, and
frustrating the organizing volunteers.

Shutting down the grantmaking gives a strong negative signal to every
organiser. "Your project is not important enough for the movement", that is
what this campaign says.

This is campaign is not benefiting the community, it is damaging it and it
is damaging the trust of the community in WMF.

It is enlarging the Community Gap.

Romaine

2015-01-03 20:53 GMT+01:00 Ilario Valdelli :

> Hi Romaine,
> probably it's my feeling but a lot of countries apply for a grant for WLM
> very late (in general during summer).
>
> So it cannot be demotivating for WLM.
>
> I do not understand the impact of the project to assign the first three
> months of 2015 to a specific topic with the normal period of application
> for the national teams.
>
> The same international team of 2013 submitted the request in June.
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Wiki_Loves_
> Monuments_international_team/2013_coordination
>
> Regards
>
> On 03.01.2015 20:01, Romaine Wiki wrote:
>
>> Hi Jane,
>>
>> Read!
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/
>> 2014-December/007600.html
>>
>>   From February 1-April 30, PEG will only accept
>>> proposals as part of the gender gap campaign, with the exception for
>>> urgent
>>> requests.
>>>
>> This means regular projects will not be accepted. That is effectively
>> shutting the grantmaking down.
>> Of course we will not let WLM to be shut down. But this grantmaking
>> shutting down is very demotivating and discouraging, for many organisers.
>>
>> This is also counter productive in solving the gender gap problem.
>>
>> Romaine
>>
>>
> --
> Ilario Valdelli
> Wikimedia CH
> Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
> Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
> Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
> Tel: +41764821371
> http://www.wikimedia.ch
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Yes, considering that WLM mailing list has less subscribers than this 
one, I suppose that it's better to repeat here this question.


The discussion is now out of that thread because it has opened a new one 
here.


This may be helpful for people who do not understand the "root cause" of 
this discussion.


Regards

On 03.01.2015 21:19, Lodewijk wrote:

I hate to fall in repetition of the discussion we had already on the wiki
loves monuments mailing list about this but:
- the problems we identified are far more general than Wiki Loves
Monuments. Even if WLM is fully unaffected, our points stand because that
would be because of timing and not because it works so well.
- One of the learning lessons in 2013 for the international team (I was
part of that team), was that the grant request was finalized way too late.
The request dragged on too long for many reasons, and was already started
behind schedule. If it were up to me, the 2015 team would already make the
request this month anyway.
- Most teams indeed seem to either have it in an Annual Plan Grant, or are
very late in requesting. Also this is something we learn from each time
that it is, in fact, too late. I would definitely not encourage teams to
delay requesting if they already know what they have to request (this is
different if they are still chasing sponsors etc). Most of the other work
for organizing is already due in June-Aug, so it would be smart to be
finished with the finances by then. It allows to focus on what matters most
during that time.

Just to summarize from the other threat.

Best,
Lodewijk




--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Lodewijk

I hate to fall in repetition of the discussion we had already on the wiki
loves monuments mailing list about this but:
- the problems we identified are far more general than Wiki Loves
Monuments. Even if WLM is fully unaffected, our points stand because that
would be because of timing and not because it works so well.
- One of the learning lessons in 2013 for the international team (I was
part of that team), was that the grant request was finalized way too late.
The request dragged on too long for many reasons, and was already started
behind schedule. If it were up to me, the 2015 team would already make the
request this month anyway.
- Most teams indeed seem to either have it in an Annual Plan Grant, or are
very late in requesting. Also this is something we learn from each time
that it is, in fact, too late. I would definitely not encourage teams to
delay requesting if they already know what they have to request (this is
different if they are still chasing sponsors etc). Most of the other work
for organizing is already due in June-Aug, so it would be smart to be
finished with the finances by then. It allows to focus on what matters most
during that time.

Just to summarize from the other threat.

Best,
Lodewijk

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 8:53 PM, Ilario Valdelli  wrote:

> Hi Romaine,
> probably it's my feeling but a lot of countries apply for a grant for WLM
> very late (in general during summer).
>
> So it cannot be demotivating for WLM.
>
> I do not understand the impact of the project to assign the first three
> months of 2015 to a specific topic with the normal period of application
> for the national teams.
>
> The same international team of 2013 submitted the request in June.
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Wiki_Loves_
> Monuments_international_team/2013_coordination
>
> Regards
>
> On 03.01.2015 20:01, Romaine Wiki wrote:
>
>> Hi Jane,
>>
>> Read!
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/
>> 2014-December/007600.html
>>
>>   From February 1-April 30, PEG will only accept
>>> proposals as part of the gender gap campaign, with the exception for
>>> urgent
>>> requests.
>>>
>> This means regular projects will not be accepted. That is effectively
>> shutting the grantmaking down.
>> Of course we will not let WLM to be shut down. But this grantmaking
>> shutting down is very demotivating and discouraging, for many organisers.
>>
>> This is also counter productive in solving the gender gap problem.
>>
>> Romaine
>>
>>
> --
> Ilario Valdelli
> Wikimedia CH
> Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
> Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
> Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
> Tel: +41764821371
> http://www.wikimedia.ch
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Hi Romaine,
probably it's my feeling but a lot of countries apply for a grant for
WLM very late (in general during summer).

So it cannot be demotivating for WLM.

I do not understand the impact of the project to assign the first three
months of 2015 to a specific topic with the normal period of application
for the national teams.

The same international team of 2013 submitted the request in June.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_international_team/2013_coordination

Regards

On 03.01.2015 20:01, Romaine Wiki wrote:

Hi Jane,

Read!
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007600.html

From February 1-April 30, PEG will only accept
proposals as part of the gender gap campaign, with the exception for urgent
requests.

This means regular projects will not be accepted. That is effectively
shutting the grantmaking down.
Of course we will not let WLM to be shut down. But this grantmaking
shutting down is very demotivating and discouraging, for many organisers.

This is also counter productive in solving the gender gap problem.

Romaine

--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Thanks Lila!

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 7:35 PM, Lila Tretikov  wrote:

> For everyone here: I've asked our Grantmaking team to comment and clarify
> the details of this plan.
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Lodewijk 
> wrote:
>
> > Answering to Teemu and Chris:
> >
> > I do think that the for Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Art it is
> safe
> > to claim that if we organize it the way we would always do, it would
> still
> > tip the gender balance in our community a little more to the female side.
> > However, I disagree that this should be a main consideration, because I
> > think that would be true for so many outreach projects. Focusing on that
> > would be a pity and a distraction imho. Also, for most participants we
> > don't know the gender, and we don't want to know the gender (because
> asking
> > for it alone can scare people away) - except for a sample of them, who
> > happen to answer the survey afterwards. All data on that is quite shaky.
> >
> > If necessary, I could easily make a case why WLM is a wonderful gendergap
> > project - the point is that I don't want volunteers to waste their time
> on
> > making such cases, but rather let them be innovative, come up with new
> > ideas instead of rebranding existing ideas on something like the
> gendergap.
> > My problems are more fundamental than 'I can't get money for my specific
> > project'.
> >
> > So Chris: yes, these people do a lot for reducing the gender gap in our
> > projects. Also, Wikimedia organizers tend to hop between projects - their
> > next might be more focused on a topic that is popular with women, if
> their
> > current idea isn't yet. Drawing them into a topic in a positive way (what
> > we do is cool! Join us!) tends to be more successful than telling them
> they
> > are not allowed to do other stuff (we won't fund you at all unless you do
> > this specific theme).
> >
> > Prioritisation sounds great, but that only works that way if you have one
> > clearly defined pool of resources, that you can actually control. What do
> > you think is the major bottle neck in organizing activities in the
> > Wikimedia movement? In my experience, that is not money, or even WMF
> staff
> > capacity (even though it is a limiting factor sometimes), but the primary
> > bottle neck is volunteer organizers (or editors). And volunteer time is
> not
> > a resource you can easily 'control'. If you want to influence it, the
> most
> > effective way is by persuading the volunteers why another angle is more
> > interesting, more fun, more effective.
> >
> > Best,
> > Lodewijk
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Chris Keating <
> chriskeatingw...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Like Bence, I would be interested to see how this kind of experiment in
> > WMF
> > > grantmaking works out. And also like him I would be a little surprised
> if
> > > something like this is implemented with no notice period.
> > >
> > > A couple of responses to Lodewijk's post;
> > >
> > >
> > > > with people
> > > > confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community
> > support
> > > > (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for
> > gendergap-related
> > > > projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or
> > jealousy.
> > >
> > >
> > > Out of interest, were any of these people doing anything at all to
> > support
> > > the reduction of the gender gap in the first place? ;)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > I
> > > > called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not
> > > about
> > > > actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but
> rather
> > > > about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope
> that
> > > > people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
> > > > related event.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Equally, if you have limited resources, prioritising one thing means
> > > reducing attention to something else. So saying "we shouldn't work on
> the
> > > gender gap if anything else gets less atention as a result" is
> logically
> > > equivalent to saying "We shouldn't work on the gender gap".
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Chris
> > > ___
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> > > 
> > >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

I did!

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 8:01 PM, Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> Hi Jane,
>
> Read!
>
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007600.html
>
> > From February 1-April 30, PEG will only accept
> > proposals as part of the gender gap campaign, with the exception for
> urgent
> > requests.
>
> This means regular projects will not be accepted. That is effectively
> shutting the grantmaking down.
> Of course we will not let WLM to be shut down. But this grantmaking
> shutting down is very demotivating and discouraging, for many organisers.
>
> This is also counter productive in solving the gender gap problem.
>
> Romaine
>
>
>
>
>
> 2015-01-03 18:10 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :
>
> > Teemu,
> > Of course! Not only that, but I think that an internal survey already
> shows
> > that WLM attracts a higher percentage of female contributors than any
> other
> > project that measured it. Don't assume by the subject heading of this
> > thread that any WLM project is being shut down. In fact, nothing is being
> > shut down.
> > Jane
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:03 PM, Leinonen Teemu 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hei,
> > >
> > > 5 cents: would it make a difference if the Wiki Loves Monuments / Art
> > > project plans (and others) will explicitly promise that, for instance,
> > the
> > > gender (f/m) balance of the participants (n 500) will be 40/60 and +50%
> > of
> > > them will be new editors?
> > >
> > > This would be meet the strategic objectives.
> > >
> > > -Teemu
> > >
> > > On Sat Jan 03 2015 05:27:47 GMT-0500 (COT), Romaine Wiki wrote:
> > > > Hi all,
> > > >
> > > > Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant
> making
> > > > team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and
> > Event
> > > > Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full
> > > months!
> > > >
> > > > They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific
> strategic
> > > > priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are
> refused
> > > for
> > > > 3 months (February-April).
> > > >
> > > > Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having
> > more
> > > > attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as
> such,
> > we
> > > > can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does
> > not
> > > > mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects
> should
> > > > become the victim of other projects.
> > > >
> > > > This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently
> > > working
> > > > on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> > > > projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> > > > important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> > > > negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing
> > > projects.
> > > >
> > > > And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before
> > > that
> > > > period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it
> > isn't)
> > > >
> > > > To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> > > > organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to
> > > communicate
> > > > well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up
> > > with
> > > > a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a
> > > couple
> > > > of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> > > > quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period
> > indicates
> > > > that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
> > > >
> > > > For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves
> Monuments
> > > in
> > > > 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
> > > > better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
> > > > largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
> > > > currently working on forming a team and want to have a good stable
> plan
> > > to
> > > > be submitted within some weeks, but now we need to rush. And yes we
> > need
> > > to
> > > > start in January/February or it will be too late to organize it
> > properly.
> > > >
> > > > Also all the national teams of Wiki Loves Monuments, the
> international
> > > team
> > > > recommend all the national teams to start in January/February, to
> have
> > a
> > > > proper organisation together with various local partners and
> sponsors,
> > > but
> > > > now all these teams are delayed for three months.
> > > >
> > > > And a personal project of mine in Belgium, I am planning to organize
> > Wiki
> > > > Loves Art in Belgium, together with various partners and sponsors. We
> > > > intent to start in February, but now have to rush to get such done.
> > > >
> > > > By the way: did you know there is a Belgium Gap? Belgian subjects are
> > > > relatively less and worse described on the various Wikipedias.
> > > >
> > >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Hi Jane,

Read!
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007600.html

> From February 1-April 30, PEG will only accept
> proposals as part of the gender gap campaign, with the exception for urgent
> requests.

This means regular projects will not be accepted. That is effectively
shutting the grantmaking down.
Of course we will not let WLM to be shut down. But this grantmaking
shutting down is very demotivating and discouraging, for many organisers.

This is also counter productive in solving the gender gap problem.

Romaine





2015-01-03 18:10 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :

> Teemu,
> Of course! Not only that, but I think that an internal survey already shows
> that WLM attracts a higher percentage of female contributors than any other
> project that measured it. Don't assume by the subject heading of this
> thread that any WLM project is being shut down. In fact, nothing is being
> shut down.
> Jane
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:03 PM, Leinonen Teemu 
> wrote:
>
> > Hei,
> >
> > 5 cents: would it make a difference if the Wiki Loves Monuments / Art
> > project plans (and others) will explicitly promise that, for instance,
> the
> > gender (f/m) balance of the participants (n 500) will be 40/60 and +50%
> of
> > them will be new editors?
> >
> > This would be meet the strategic objectives.
> >
> > -Teemu
> >
> > On Sat Jan 03 2015 05:27:47 GMT-0500 (COT), Romaine Wiki wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
> > > team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and
> Event
> > > Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full
> > months!
> > >
> > > They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
> > > priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused
> > for
> > > 3 months (February-April).
> > >
> > > Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having
> more
> > > attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such,
> we
> > > can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does
> not
> > > mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
> > > become the victim of other projects.
> > >
> > > This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently
> > working
> > > on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> > > projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> > > important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> > > negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing
> > projects.
> > >
> > > And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before
> > that
> > > period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it
> isn't)
> > >
> > > To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> > > organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to
> > communicate
> > > well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up
> > with
> > > a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a
> > couple
> > > of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> > > quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period
> indicates
> > > that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
> > >
> > > For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments
> > in
> > > 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
> > > better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
> > > largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
> > > currently working on forming a team and want to have a good stable plan
> > to
> > > be submitted within some weeks, but now we need to rush. And yes we
> need
> > to
> > > start in January/February or it will be too late to organize it
> properly.
> > >
> > > Also all the national teams of Wiki Loves Monuments, the international
> > team
> > > recommend all the national teams to start in January/February, to have
> a
> > > proper organisation together with various local partners and sponsors,
> > but
> > > now all these teams are delayed for three months.
> > >
> > > And a personal project of mine in Belgium, I am planning to organize
> Wiki
> > > Loves Art in Belgium, together with various partners and sponsors. We
> > > intent to start in February, but now have to rush to get such done.
> > >
> > > By the way: did you know there is a Belgium Gap? Belgian subjects are
> > > relatively less and worse described on the various Wikipedias.
> > >
> > >
> > > This shutting down results in:
> > > * Discouraging many volunteers who are planning to submit good project
> > > proposals.
> > > * Having volunteers rushed with project plans, which lowers the quality
> > of
> > > the plans.
> > > * Having volunteers being late and delayed with projects, for no good
> > > reason.
> > >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Lila Tretikov

For everyone here: I've asked our Grantmaking team to comment and clarify
the details of this plan.

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Lodewijk 
wrote:

> Answering to Teemu and Chris:
>
> I do think that the for Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Art it is safe
> to claim that if we organize it the way we would always do, it would still
> tip the gender balance in our community a little more to the female side.
> However, I disagree that this should be a main consideration, because I
> think that would be true for so many outreach projects. Focusing on that
> would be a pity and a distraction imho. Also, for most participants we
> don't know the gender, and we don't want to know the gender (because asking
> for it alone can scare people away) - except for a sample of them, who
> happen to answer the survey afterwards. All data on that is quite shaky.
>
> If necessary, I could easily make a case why WLM is a wonderful gendergap
> project - the point is that I don't want volunteers to waste their time on
> making such cases, but rather let them be innovative, come up with new
> ideas instead of rebranding existing ideas on something like the gendergap.
> My problems are more fundamental than 'I can't get money for my specific
> project'.
>
> So Chris: yes, these people do a lot for reducing the gender gap in our
> projects. Also, Wikimedia organizers tend to hop between projects - their
> next might be more focused on a topic that is popular with women, if their
> current idea isn't yet. Drawing them into a topic in a positive way (what
> we do is cool! Join us!) tends to be more successful than telling them they
> are not allowed to do other stuff (we won't fund you at all unless you do
> this specific theme).
>
> Prioritisation sounds great, but that only works that way if you have one
> clearly defined pool of resources, that you can actually control. What do
> you think is the major bottle neck in organizing activities in the
> Wikimedia movement? In my experience, that is not money, or even WMF staff
> capacity (even though it is a limiting factor sometimes), but the primary
> bottle neck is volunteer organizers (or editors). And volunteer time is not
> a resource you can easily 'control'. If you want to influence it, the most
> effective way is by persuading the volunteers why another angle is more
> interesting, more fun, more effective.
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Chris Keating 
> wrote:
>
> > Like Bence, I would be interested to see how this kind of experiment in
> WMF
> > grantmaking works out. And also like him I would be a little surprised if
> > something like this is implemented with no notice period.
> >
> > A couple of responses to Lodewijk's post;
> >
> >
> > > with people
> > > confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community
> support
> > > (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for
> gendergap-related
> > > projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or
> jealousy.
> >
> >
> > Out of interest, were any of these people doing anything at all to
> support
> > the reduction of the gender gap in the first place? ;)
> >
> >
> >
> > > I
> > > called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not
> > about
> > > actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather
> > > about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that
> > > people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
> > > related event.
> > >
> >
> > Equally, if you have limited resources, prioritising one thing means
> > reducing attention to something else. So saying "we shouldn't work on the
> > gender gap if anything else gets less atention as a result" is logically
> > equivalent to saying "We shouldn't work on the gender gap".
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Chris
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Lodewijk

Answering to Teemu and Chris:

I do think that the for Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Art it is safe
to claim that if we organize it the way we would always do, it would still
tip the gender balance in our community a little more to the female side.
However, I disagree that this should be a main consideration, because I
think that would be true for so many outreach projects. Focusing on that
would be a pity and a distraction imho. Also, for most participants we
don't know the gender, and we don't want to know the gender (because asking
for it alone can scare people away) - except for a sample of them, who
happen to answer the survey afterwards. All data on that is quite shaky.

If necessary, I could easily make a case why WLM is a wonderful gendergap
project - the point is that I don't want volunteers to waste their time on
making such cases, but rather let them be innovative, come up with new
ideas instead of rebranding existing ideas on something like the gendergap.
My problems are more fundamental than 'I can't get money for my specific
project'.

So Chris: yes, these people do a lot for reducing the gender gap in our
projects. Also, Wikimedia organizers tend to hop between projects - their
next might be more focused on a topic that is popular with women, if their
current idea isn't yet. Drawing them into a topic in a positive way (what
we do is cool! Join us!) tends to be more successful than telling them they
are not allowed to do other stuff (we won't fund you at all unless you do
this specific theme).

Prioritisation sounds great, but that only works that way if you have one
clearly defined pool of resources, that you can actually control. What do
you think is the major bottle neck in organizing activities in the
Wikimedia movement? In my experience, that is not money, or even WMF staff
capacity (even though it is a limiting factor sometimes), but the primary
bottle neck is volunteer organizers (or editors). And volunteer time is not
a resource you can easily 'control'. If you want to influence it, the most
effective way is by persuading the volunteers why another angle is more
interesting, more fun, more effective.

Best,
Lodewijk

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Chris Keating 
wrote:

> Like Bence, I would be interested to see how this kind of experiment in WMF
> grantmaking works out. And also like him I would be a little surprised if
> something like this is implemented with no notice period.
>
> A couple of responses to Lodewijk's post;
>
>
> > with people
> > confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community support
> > (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for gendergap-related
> > projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or jealousy.
>
>
> Out of interest, were any of these people doing anything at all to support
> the reduction of the gender gap in the first place? ;)
>
>
>
> > I
> > called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not
> about
> > actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather
> > about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that
> > people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
> > related event.
> >
>
> Equally, if you have limited resources, prioritising one thing means
> reducing attention to something else. So saying "we shouldn't work on the
> gender gap if anything else gets less atention as a result" is logically
> equivalent to saying "We shouldn't work on the gender gap".
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Chris Keating

Like Bence, I would be interested to see how this kind of experiment in WMF
grantmaking works out. And also like him I would be a little surprised if
something like this is implemented with no notice period.

A couple of responses to Lodewijk's post;


> with people
> confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community support
> (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for gendergap-related
> projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or jealousy.


Out of interest, were any of these people doing anything at all to support
the reduction of the gender gap in the first place? ;)



> I
> called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not about
> actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather
> about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that
> people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
> related event.
>

Equally, if you have limited resources, prioritising one thing means
reducing attention to something else. So saying "we shouldn't work on the
gender gap if anything else gets less atention as a result" is logically
equivalent to saying "We shouldn't work on the gender gap".

Regards,

Chris
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Teemu,
Of course! Not only that, but I think that an internal survey already shows
that WLM attracts a higher percentage of female contributors than any other
project that measured it. Don't assume by the subject heading of this
thread that any WLM project is being shut down. In fact, nothing is being
shut down.
Jane

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:03 PM, Leinonen Teemu 
wrote:

> Hei,
>
> 5 cents: would it make a difference if the Wiki Loves Monuments / Art
> project plans (and others) will explicitly promise that, for instance, the
> gender (f/m) balance of the participants (n 500) will be 40/60 and +50% of
> them will be new editors?
>
> This would be meet the strategic objectives.
>
> -Teemu
>
> On Sat Jan 03 2015 05:27:47 GMT-0500 (COT), Romaine Wiki wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
> > team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and Event
> > Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full
> months!
> >
> > They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
> > priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused
> for
> > 3 months (February-April).
> >
> > Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having more
> > attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such, we
> > can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does not
> > mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
> > become the victim of other projects.
> >
> > This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently
> working
> > on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> > projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> > important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> > negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing
> projects.
> >
> > And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before
> that
> > period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it isn't)
> >
> > To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> > organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to
> communicate
> > well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up
> with
> > a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a
> couple
> > of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> > quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period indicates
> > that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
> >
> > For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments
> in
> > 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
> > better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
> > largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
> > currently working on forming a team and want to have a good stable plan
> to
> > be submitted within some weeks, but now we need to rush. And yes we need
> to
> > start in January/February or it will be too late to organize it properly.
> >
> > Also all the national teams of Wiki Loves Monuments, the international
> team
> > recommend all the national teams to start in January/February, to have a
> > proper organisation together with various local partners and sponsors,
> but
> > now all these teams are delayed for three months.
> >
> > And a personal project of mine in Belgium, I am planning to organize Wiki
> > Loves Art in Belgium, together with various partners and sponsors. We
> > intent to start in February, but now have to rush to get such done.
> >
> > By the way: did you know there is a Belgium Gap? Belgian subjects are
> > relatively less and worse described on the various Wikipedias.
> >
> >
> > This shutting down results in:
> > * Discouraging many volunteers who are planning to submit good project
> > proposals.
> > * Having volunteers rushed with project plans, which lowers the quality
> of
> > the plans.
> > * Having volunteers being late and delayed with projects, for no good
> > reason.
> >
> > Grantmaking is intented to support the communities, not frustrating them.
> > WMF: stop this negative campaign!
> >
> >
> > And for all project teams who want to organize a gender gap project:
> great
> > you organize this, it is very very welcome! But I like to make a
> > suggestion: submit the proposal on the first day after the shutting down
> > period to give a strong signal to WMF that shutting down is a bad idea.
> >
> >
> > It is time for a new strategic priority: closing the Community Gap. That
> is
> > the gap between WMF and the local communities worldwide. It is not new,
> it
> > exists for many years already. (It resulted also in the drama of the
> > situation around the Mediaviewer in 2014, the drama with the Visual
> Editor
> > in 2013, etc. in what WMF didn't sense well the community.) (Maybe the
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Nope. Whether or not lots and lots of female-related content is generated
and by whom, the participation factor is crucial. Without the women, there
is no female perspective, period. And as far as gender measurement goes,
even if you count all the ones who declined to specify their gender, the
Dutch Wikipedia still comes up as less than 10% female.

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 5:54 PM, Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> It is perfectly defined, it only matters which point of view you take.
>
> The Wikimedia movement consists out of people, projects and content. There
> is less content about so-called female topics. There seem to be less
> projects that specifically cover those so-called female topics. And there
> are less female contributors. All three of these views are related with
> each other.
>
> And as I sometimes write about those so-called female topics, I notice it
> is more difficult to write neutral about those topics and therefore harder
> to write about.
>
> Further, I must say that I personally do not feel any need to disclose my
> gender, even while a lot of you have met me. Maybe it is different on some
> wikis, but generally I have the impression that many users do not want to
> disclose it either. So the percentage is less well defined, but I do think
> the m/f spread is far from balanced.
> But something what seems not to be defined is what those so-called female
> topics exactly are. And second, how large these subjects combined are in
> the outside world, because wanting them to be 50-50 is not fair if the
> subjects are 20-80 spread. Or maybe there are gender neutral topics also.
>
> So yes, there are certainly things that are not defined, but what the
> gendergap is, seems to be defined.
>
> Romaine
>
>
> 2015-01-03 16:48 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :
>
> > I find it interesting to discover via this conversation that it has not
> > been defined yet!
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 4:12 PM, Bence Damokos 
> wrote:
> >
> > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:33 PM, Jane Darnell 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Nope. Gendergap is about the gap in female participation, not in
> > > > female-related topics.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I would say it is both, but in either case this would be important to
> > > define if that is the criteria on which to solicit proposals. (The
> vision
> > > of Wikimedia is to share the sum of all human knowledge, so from that
> > > standpoint the end is to close the gap in coverage, diversity in the
> > > editorship is a  very important means to it.)
> > >
> > > In any case, experimentation with the grants programme is probably for
> > the
> > > benefit of the community, but so is reliability and predictability. If
> > the
> > > original assumptions are clear, announcing a major policy change for
> the
> > > grants programme only with 3 weeks of planned lead time seems to go
> > againts
> > > those latter expectations unfortunately.
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > > Bence
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> > ___
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> > 
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Leinonen Teemu

Hei,

5 cents: would it make a difference if the Wiki Loves Monuments / Art project 
plans (and others) will explicitly promise that, for instance, the gender (f/m) 
balance of the participants (n 500) will be 40/60 and +50% of them will be new 
editors?

This would be meet the strategic objectives.

-Teemu

On Sat Jan 03 2015 05:27:47 GMT-0500 (COT), Romaine Wiki wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
> team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and Event
> Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full months!
> 
> They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
> priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused for
> 3 months (February-April).
> 
> Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having more
> attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such, we
> can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does not
> mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
> become the victim of other projects.
> 
> This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently working
> on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing projects.
> 
> And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before that
> period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it isn't)
> 
> To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to communicate
> well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up with
> a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a couple
> of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period indicates
> that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
> 
> For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments in
> 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
> better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
> largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
> currently working on forming a team and want to have a good stable plan to
> be submitted within some weeks, but now we need to rush. And yes we need to
> start in January/February or it will be too late to organize it properly.
> 
> Also all the national teams of Wiki Loves Monuments, the international team
> recommend all the national teams to start in January/February, to have a
> proper organisation together with various local partners and sponsors, but
> now all these teams are delayed for three months.
> 
> And a personal project of mine in Belgium, I am planning to organize Wiki
> Loves Art in Belgium, together with various partners and sponsors. We
> intent to start in February, but now have to rush to get such done.
> 
> By the way: did you know there is a Belgium Gap? Belgian subjects are
> relatively less and worse described on the various Wikipedias.
> 
> 
> This shutting down results in:
> * Discouraging many volunteers who are planning to submit good project
> proposals.
> * Having volunteers rushed with project plans, which lowers the quality of
> the plans.
> * Having volunteers being late and delayed with projects, for no good
> reason.
> 
> Grantmaking is intented to support the communities, not frustrating them.
> WMF: stop this negative campaign!
> 
> 
> And for all project teams who want to organize a gender gap project: great
> you organize this, it is very very welcome! But I like to make a
> suggestion: submit the proposal on the first day after the shutting down
> period to give a strong signal to WMF that shutting down is a bad idea.
> 
> 
> It is time for a new strategic priority: closing the Community Gap. That is
> the gap between WMF and the local communities worldwide. It is not new, it
> exists for many years already. (It resulted also in the drama of the
> situation around the Mediaviewer in 2014, the drama with the Visual Editor
> in 2013, etc. in what WMF didn't sense well the community.) (Maybe the gap
> is less between WMF and the English speaking part of the world, but the
> world is larger. We have many people around the world who are speak a
> different language. WMF is not sensing the worldwide community well
> enough.)
> Finally we should do more about this Community Gap.
> 
> For those celebrating: I wish you a happy new year with great projects that
> make every single human being freely share in the sum of all human
> knowledge!!
> 
> Romaine
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
> https://m

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

It is perfectly defined, it only matters which point of view you take.

The Wikimedia movement consists out of people, projects and content. There
is less content about so-called female topics. There seem to be less
projects that specifically cover those so-called female topics. And there
are less female contributors. All three of these views are related with
each other.

And as I sometimes write about those so-called female topics, I notice it
is more difficult to write neutral about those topics and therefore harder
to write about.

Further, I must say that I personally do not feel any need to disclose my
gender, even while a lot of you have met me. Maybe it is different on some
wikis, but generally I have the impression that many users do not want to
disclose it either. So the percentage is less well defined, but I do think
the m/f spread is far from balanced.
But something what seems not to be defined is what those so-called female
topics exactly are. And second, how large these subjects combined are in
the outside world, because wanting them to be 50-50 is not fair if the
subjects are 20-80 spread. Or maybe there are gender neutral topics also.

So yes, there are certainly things that are not defined, but what the
gendergap is, seems to be defined.

Romaine

2015-01-03 16:48 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :

> I find it interesting to discover via this conversation that it has not
> been defined yet!
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 4:12 PM, Bence Damokos  wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:33 PM, Jane Darnell  wrote:
> >
> > > Nope. Gendergap is about the gap in female participation, not in
> > > female-related topics.
> > >
> >
> > I would say it is both, but in either case this would be important to
> > define if that is the criteria on which to solicit proposals. (The vision
> > of Wikimedia is to share the sum of all human knowledge, so from that
> > standpoint the end is to close the gap in coverage, diversity in the
> > editorship is a  very important means to it.)
> >
> > In any case, experimentation with the grants programme is probably for
> the
> > benefit of the community, but so is reliability and predictability. If
> the
> > original assumptions are clear, announcing a major policy change for the
> > grants programme only with 3 weeks of planned lead time seems to go
> againts
> > those latter expectations unfortunately.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Bence
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
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> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

..and I dream of repetitive metrics that can be compared year to year

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 5:02 PM, Fæ  wrote:

> Ethically, I would rather defer a proposal, such as one for Wiki Loves
> Pride or a more general diversity event, until the restriction is lifted.
>
> There is too much pointless political flim flam already in our Wikimedia
> community without masking events as GenderGap for the sake of faking
> metrics.
>
> Fae
> On 3 Jan 2015 15:50, "Jane Darnell"  wrote:
>
> > ..and I am hoping to see lots of "gendergap paint"
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Lodewijk 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I hoped that after the discussions on the wiki loves monuments mailing
> > > list, someone of the grant team would have proactively informed the
> wider
> > > community in an earlier stage. I hope that the fact they did not do
> this,
> > > means they are reconsidering the way this campaign is shaped.
> > >
> > > As indicated before, this 'shutdown' (or focus) of Individual
> Engagement
> > > Grants as well as Project and Event Grants was confirmed
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007600.html
> > > >by
> > > Alex Wang. She referred in that email to this onwiki description
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire_Grants_%E2%80%93_Gender_gap_campaign
> > > >.
> > > I should also emphasize that Alex indicated that they don't expect this
> > to
> > > impact WLM-related grants (because they expect teams to request funding
> > > much
> > > later in the process
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007603.html
> > > >
> > > - not before june/july, an assumption I disagree with), and she also
> > > suggested the closing was not as hard as it sounds, as she's willing to
> > > discuss problems (she emphasized this in her email).
> > >
> > > I don't want to reiterate all discussions about whether gendergap is
> the
> > > problem or a symptom (we have many gaps in our community, of which the
> > > gender gap is the most visible and easiest to measure), but I do feel
> > > uncomfortable with this campaign. I have asked around a bit in the past
> > > week and only received negative feedback on the campaign - with people
> > > confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community
> support
> > > (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for
> gendergap-related
> > > projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or
> > jealousy. I
> > > called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not
> > about
> > > actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather
> > > about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that
> > > people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
> > > related event.
> > >
> > > What I also fear, is that people will just give their request a tiny
> bit
> > of
> > > 'gendergap'-paint, make up some way how they help reduce it (which is
> > > basically true for almost any outreach event aiming at a group with
> less
> > > than 90% men - i.e. almost any group aside from Wikipedia or catholic
> > > priests). I'm confident that most of our outreach projects, including
> > Wiki
> > > Loves Monuments, could claim to reach relatively more women than the
> > editor
> > > population contains. But I am very unhappy if we start distributing
> > grants
> > > on such shaky grounds - those projects often are much stronger in
> general
> > > editor retention, which happens to be relatively more women. The focus
> of
> > > the projects would be unnaturally shifted in the grant request compared
> > to
> > > the actual activities.
> > >
> > > Again, I hope that the decision makers involved here will reconsider
> the
> > > way this has been shaped, and frame it more in a positive way, focusing
> > on
> > > supporting efforts in a thematic direction, rather than discouraging
> > other
> > > thematic directions. And as I have said elsewhere: I would be similarly
> > > against this, with any other theme - I wouldn't be able to stand the
> idea
> > > to focus entirely on photo-events only for three months...
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Lodewijk
> > >
> > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:59 PM, Jens Best 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi all,
> > > >
> > > > I think some clarification is needed by people who are in charge for
> > the
> > > > grantmaking process. There is a difference between "shutting down the
> > > > grantmaking process (PEG) and (IEG) for three full months" and
> adding a
> > > > voluntary gendergap "theme" to a project to get better funding
> chances.
> > > >
> > > > So I really would like to see some clarifications about these leaked
> > > plans
> > > > before having a propably heated debate about it.
> > > >
> > > > Needless to say that adding ideologically driven must-haves to a
> > general
> > > > grantmaking process which only purpose is to serve the voluntary work
> > o

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Fæ

Ethically, I would rather defer a proposal, such as one for Wiki Loves
Pride or a more general diversity event, until the restriction is lifted.

There is too much pointless political flim flam already in our Wikimedia
community without masking events as GenderGap for the sake of faking
metrics.

Fae
On 3 Jan 2015 15:50, "Jane Darnell"  wrote:

> ..and I am hoping to see lots of "gendergap paint"
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Lodewijk 
> wrote:
>
> > I hoped that after the discussions on the wiki loves monuments mailing
> > list, someone of the grant team would have proactively informed the wider
> > community in an earlier stage. I hope that the fact they did not do this,
> > means they are reconsidering the way this campaign is shaped.
> >
> > As indicated before, this 'shutdown' (or focus) of Individual Engagement
> > Grants as well as Project and Event Grants was confirmed
> > <
> >
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007600.html
> > >by
> > Alex Wang. She referred in that email to this onwiki description
> > <
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire_Grants_%E2%80%93_Gender_gap_campaign
> > >.
> > I should also emphasize that Alex indicated that they don't expect this
> to
> > impact WLM-related grants (because they expect teams to request funding
> > much
> > later in the process
> > <
> >
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007603.html
> > >
> > - not before june/july, an assumption I disagree with), and she also
> > suggested the closing was not as hard as it sounds, as she's willing to
> > discuss problems (she emphasized this in her email).
> >
> > I don't want to reiterate all discussions about whether gendergap is the
> > problem or a symptom (we have many gaps in our community, of which the
> > gender gap is the most visible and easiest to measure), but I do feel
> > uncomfortable with this campaign. I have asked around a bit in the past
> > week and only received negative feedback on the campaign - with people
> > confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community support
> > (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for gendergap-related
> > projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or
> jealousy. I
> > called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not
> about
> > actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather
> > about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that
> > people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
> > related event.
> >
> > What I also fear, is that people will just give their request a tiny bit
> of
> > 'gendergap'-paint, make up some way how they help reduce it (which is
> > basically true for almost any outreach event aiming at a group with less
> > than 90% men - i.e. almost any group aside from Wikipedia or catholic
> > priests). I'm confident that most of our outreach projects, including
> Wiki
> > Loves Monuments, could claim to reach relatively more women than the
> editor
> > population contains. But I am very unhappy if we start distributing
> grants
> > on such shaky grounds - those projects often are much stronger in general
> > editor retention, which happens to be relatively more women. The focus of
> > the projects would be unnaturally shifted in the grant request compared
> to
> > the actual activities.
> >
> > Again, I hope that the decision makers involved here will reconsider the
> > way this has been shaped, and frame it more in a positive way, focusing
> on
> > supporting efforts in a thematic direction, rather than discouraging
> other
> > thematic directions. And as I have said elsewhere: I would be similarly
> > against this, with any other theme - I wouldn't be able to stand the idea
> > to focus entirely on photo-events only for three months...
> >
> > Best,
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:59 PM, Jens Best 
> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I think some clarification is needed by people who are in charge for
> the
> > > grantmaking process. There is a difference between "shutting down the
> > > grantmaking process (PEG) and (IEG) for three full months" and adding a
> > > voluntary gendergap "theme" to a project to get better funding chances.
> > >
> > > So I really would like to see some clarifications about these leaked
> > plans
> > > before having a propably heated debate about it.
> > >
> > > Needless to say that adding ideologically driven must-haves to a
> general
> > > grantmaking process which only purpose is to serve the voluntary work
> on
> > a
> > > supposed-to-be-free encyclopedia would leave a disturbing impression on
> > > many people.
> > >
> > > best regards
> > >
> > > Jens Best
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > 2015-01-03 15:46 GMT+01:00 Romaine Wiki :
> > >
> > > > There are multiple ways in how to define the Gendergap, in this case
> it
> > > is
> > > > about female participation.
> > > >
> >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

..and I am hoping to see lots of "gendergap paint"

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Lodewijk 
wrote:

> I hoped that after the discussions on the wiki loves monuments mailing
> list, someone of the grant team would have proactively informed the wider
> community in an earlier stage. I hope that the fact they did not do this,
> means they are reconsidering the way this campaign is shaped.
>
> As indicated before, this 'shutdown' (or focus) of Individual Engagement
> Grants as well as Project and Event Grants was confirmed
> <
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007600.html
> >by
> Alex Wang. She referred in that email to this onwiki description
> <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire_Grants_%E2%80%93_Gender_gap_campaign
> >.
> I should also emphasize that Alex indicated that they don't expect this to
> impact WLM-related grants (because they expect teams to request funding
> much
> later in the process
> <
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007603.html
> >
> - not before june/july, an assumption I disagree with), and she also
> suggested the closing was not as hard as it sounds, as she's willing to
> discuss problems (she emphasized this in her email).
>
> I don't want to reiterate all discussions about whether gendergap is the
> problem or a symptom (we have many gaps in our community, of which the
> gender gap is the most visible and easiest to measure), but I do feel
> uncomfortable with this campaign. I have asked around a bit in the past
> week and only received negative feedback on the campaign - with people
> confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community support
> (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for gendergap-related
> projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or jealousy. I
> called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not about
> actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather
> about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that
> people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
> related event.
>
> What I also fear, is that people will just give their request a tiny bit of
> 'gendergap'-paint, make up some way how they help reduce it (which is
> basically true for almost any outreach event aiming at a group with less
> than 90% men - i.e. almost any group aside from Wikipedia or catholic
> priests). I'm confident that most of our outreach projects, including Wiki
> Loves Monuments, could claim to reach relatively more women than the editor
> population contains. But I am very unhappy if we start distributing grants
> on such shaky grounds - those projects often are much stronger in general
> editor retention, which happens to be relatively more women. The focus of
> the projects would be unnaturally shifted in the grant request compared to
> the actual activities.
>
> Again, I hope that the decision makers involved here will reconsider the
> way this has been shaped, and frame it more in a positive way, focusing on
> supporting efforts in a thematic direction, rather than discouraging other
> thematic directions. And as I have said elsewhere: I would be similarly
> against this, with any other theme - I wouldn't be able to stand the idea
> to focus entirely on photo-events only for three months...
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:59 PM, Jens Best  wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I think some clarification is needed by people who are in charge for the
> > grantmaking process. There is a difference between "shutting down the
> > grantmaking process (PEG) and (IEG) for three full months" and adding a
> > voluntary gendergap "theme" to a project to get better funding chances.
> >
> > So I really would like to see some clarifications about these leaked
> plans
> > before having a propably heated debate about it.
> >
> > Needless to say that adding ideologically driven must-haves to a general
> > grantmaking process which only purpose is to serve the voluntary work on
> a
> > supposed-to-be-free encyclopedia would leave a disturbing impression on
> > many people.
> >
> > best regards
> >
> > Jens Best
> >
> >
> >
> > 2015-01-03 15:46 GMT+01:00 Romaine Wiki :
> >
> > > There are multiple ways in how to define the Gendergap, in this case it
> > is
> > > about female participation.
> > >
> > > I do think it is a problem that the number of female participants is
> > > dramatically lower than those of male contributors, but still this does
> > not
> > > give any good reason to exclude good projects who are not particular
> > aiming
> > > for female contributors.
> > >
> > > WMF wants to solve the Gendergap by excluding good other projects. That
> > is
> > > a very bad situation.
> > >
> > > Trying to solve the Gendergap by enlarging the Community Gap.
> > >
> > > Bad idea.
> > >
> > > Romaine
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > 2015-01-03 15:33 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

I find it interesting to discover via this conversation that it has not
been defined yet!

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 4:12 PM, Bence Damokos  wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:33 PM, Jane Darnell  wrote:
>
> > Nope. Gendergap is about the gap in female participation, not in
> > female-related topics.
> >
>
> I would say it is both, but in either case this would be important to
> define if that is the criteria on which to solicit proposals. (The vision
> of Wikimedia is to share the sum of all human knowledge, so from that
> standpoint the end is to close the gap in coverage, diversity in the
> editorship is a  very important means to it.)
>
> In any case, experimentation with the grants programme is probably for the
> benefit of the community, but so is reliability and predictability. If the
> original assumptions are clear, announcing a major policy change for the
> grants programme only with 3 weeks of planned lead time seems to go againts
> those latter expectations unfortunately.
>
> Best regards,
> Bence
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Lodewijk

I hoped that after the discussions on the wiki loves monuments mailing
list, someone of the grant team would have proactively informed the wider
community in an earlier stage. I hope that the fact they did not do this,
means they are reconsidering the way this campaign is shaped.

As indicated before, this 'shutdown' (or focus) of Individual Engagement
Grants as well as Project and Event Grants was confirmed
by
Alex Wang. She referred in that email to this onwiki description
.
I should also emphasize that Alex indicated that they don't expect this to
impact WLM-related grants (because they expect teams to request funding much
later in the process

- not before june/july, an assumption I disagree with), and she also
suggested the closing was not as hard as it sounds, as she's willing to
discuss problems (she emphasized this in her email).

I don't want to reiterate all discussions about whether gendergap is the
problem or a symptom (we have many gaps in our community, of which the
gender gap is the most visible and easiest to measure), but I do feel
uncomfortable with this campaign. I have asked around a bit in the past
week and only received negative feedback on the campaign - with people
confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community support
(or at least support by the 'organizing community') for gendergap-related
projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or jealousy. I
called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not about
actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather
about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that
people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
related event.

What I also fear, is that people will just give their request a tiny bit of
'gendergap'-paint, make up some way how they help reduce it (which is
basically true for almost any outreach event aiming at a group with less
than 90% men - i.e. almost any group aside from Wikipedia or catholic
priests). I'm confident that most of our outreach projects, including Wiki
Loves Monuments, could claim to reach relatively more women than the editor
population contains. But I am very unhappy if we start distributing grants
on such shaky grounds - those projects often are much stronger in general
editor retention, which happens to be relatively more women. The focus of
the projects would be unnaturally shifted in the grant request compared to
the actual activities.

Again, I hope that the decision makers involved here will reconsider the
way this has been shaped, and frame it more in a positive way, focusing on
supporting efforts in a thematic direction, rather than discouraging other
thematic directions. And as I have said elsewhere: I would be similarly
against this, with any other theme - I wouldn't be able to stand the idea
to focus entirely on photo-events only for three months...

Best,
Lodewijk

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:59 PM, Jens Best  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I think some clarification is needed by people who are in charge for the
> grantmaking process. There is a difference between "shutting down the
> grantmaking process (PEG) and (IEG) for three full months" and adding a
> voluntary gendergap "theme" to a project to get better funding chances.
>
> So I really would like to see some clarifications about these leaked plans
> before having a propably heated debate about it.
>
> Needless to say that adding ideologically driven must-haves to a general
> grantmaking process which only purpose is to serve the voluntary work on a
> supposed-to-be-free encyclopedia would leave a disturbing impression on
> many people.
>
> best regards
>
> Jens Best
>
>
>
> 2015-01-03 15:46 GMT+01:00 Romaine Wiki :
>
> > There are multiple ways in how to define the Gendergap, in this case it
> is
> > about female participation.
> >
> > I do think it is a problem that the number of female participants is
> > dramatically lower than those of male contributors, but still this does
> not
> > give any good reason to exclude good projects who are not particular
> aiming
> > for female contributors.
> >
> > WMF wants to solve the Gendergap by excluding good other projects. That
> is
> > a very bad situation.
> >
> > Trying to solve the Gendergap by enlarging the Community Gap.
> >
> > Bad idea.
> >
> > Romaine
> >
> >
> >
> > 2015-01-03 15:33 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :
> >
> > > Nope. Gendergap is about the gap in female participation, not in
> > > female-related topics. The Dutch Wikipedia has a severe gap with only
> 6%
> > > female participation. I would say this is a pretty urgent problem for
> the
> > > Dutch and Flemish community, so I was very glad to see this as a main
> > theme

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Bence Damokos

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:33 PM, Jane Darnell  wrote:

> Nope. Gendergap is about the gap in female participation, not in
> female-related topics.
>

I would say it is both, but in either case this would be important to
define if that is the criteria on which to solicit proposals. (The vision
of Wikimedia is to share the sum of all human knowledge, so from that
standpoint the end is to close the gap in coverage, diversity in the
editorship is a  very important means to it.)

In any case, experimentation with the grants programme is probably for the
benefit of the community, but so is reliability and predictability. If the
original assumptions are clear, announcing a major policy change for the
grants programme only with 3 weeks of planned lead time seems to go againts
those latter expectations unfortunately.

Best regards,
Bence
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Jens Best

Hi all,

I think some clarification is needed by people who are in charge for the
grantmaking process. There is a difference between "shutting down the
grantmaking process (PEG) and (IEG) for three full months" and adding a
voluntary gendergap "theme" to a project to get better funding chances.

So I really would like to see some clarifications about these leaked plans
before having a propably heated debate about it.

Needless to say that adding ideologically driven must-haves to a general
grantmaking process which only purpose is to serve the voluntary work on a
supposed-to-be-free encyclopedia would leave a disturbing impression on
many people.

best regards

Jens Best



2015-01-03 15:46 GMT+01:00 Romaine Wiki :

> There are multiple ways in how to define the Gendergap, in this case it is
> about female participation.
>
> I do think it is a problem that the number of female participants is
> dramatically lower than those of male contributors, but still this does not
> give any good reason to exclude good projects who are not particular aiming
> for female contributors.
>
> WMF wants to solve the Gendergap by excluding good other projects. That is
> a very bad situation.
>
> Trying to solve the Gendergap by enlarging the Community Gap.
>
> Bad idea.
>
> Romaine
>
>
>
> 2015-01-03 15:33 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :
>
> > Nope. Gendergap is about the gap in female participation, not in
> > female-related topics. The Dutch Wikipedia has a severe gap with only 6%
> > female participation. I would say this is a pretty urgent problem for the
> > Dutch and Flemish community, so I was very glad to see this as a main
> theme
> > for the coming three months.
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:17 PM, Romaine Wiki 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello Jane,
> > >
> > > Sorry, but I think you miss the problem here.
> > >
> > > As I said before, I am fine with more projects that improve the
> coverage
> > of
> > > so-called female topics, but not if this is damaging the projects which
> > do
> > > not aim for such.
> > >
> > > I hope this campaign in this form is cancelled and witdrawn and that
> > never
> > > ever such situation appears again. This way of working is damaging the
> > > trust in WMF, discouraging many volunteers, worsening projects, etc.
> > >
> > > Having a Gendergap campaign in this form is NOT in line with the vision
> > the
> > > Wikimedia movement has.
> > >
> > > > The current campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many,
> targeted
> > > at the community in order to generate themed proposals.
> > >
> > > If it was really targeted at the Wikimedia community, it would not have
> > > excluded other projects.
> > >
> > > I propose everyone to refuse to take part in this as this is a move in
> > the
> > > wrong direction.
> > >
> > > And how WLM to attract more female particpation? By having a special
> > > category for pink buildings.
> > > Under this condition, a question as such can't be taken seriously.
> > >
> > > Romaine
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > 2015-01-03 14:58 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :
> > >
> > > > As a member of the IEG committee I am happy to say that there is no
> > need
> > > to
> > > > panic. WLM is highly successful project and no one is talking about
> > > > shutting it down, or any other project for that matter. The current
> > > > campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many, targeted at the
> > > > community in order to generate themed proposals. The current growth
> of
> > > > highly diverse and inspirational proposals takes increasingly more
> > energy
> > > > to manage, judge, and maintain. By introducing a three-month long
> > theme,
> > > it
> > > > is hoped that the following will occur:
> > > > 1) Grant committee members in their voluntary role as proposal
> > reviewers
> > > > and community sponsors will experience less burn-out in managing
> > > proposals
> > > > as their will be more cross pollination per cohort of proposers and
> > their
> > > > proposals.
> > > > 2) A targeted campaign to attract proposals will enable easier
> > > translation
> > > > across projects if the target audience can be identified in advance
> > > > 3) A targeted campaign will attract more volunteer committee members
> to
> > > > manage proposals, hopefully attracting local experts in various
> > Wikimedia
> > > > projects.
> > > >
> > > > The Gendergap will be the first theme. I think it's a great idea! How
> > can
> > > > WLM attract more female participation? Any ideas?
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Romaine Wiki <
> romaine.w...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hi all,
> > > > >
> > > > > Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant
> > making
> > > > > team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and
> > > Event
> > > > > Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full
> > > > months!
> > > > >
> > > > > They have decided that they want to focus on

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

I would not comment but it's important to define if this gap has been 
minimal in the past.


If the femal participation has always been under the 10% (in 10 years) 
within a community, probably there are some infrastructural problems to 
be analyzed.


The expected impact can be perceived as a temporary "bother" by the 
current community and refused when the support will finish.


regards



On 03.01.2015 15:33, Jane Darnell wrote:

Nope. Gendergap is about the gap in female participation, not in
female-related topics. The Dutch Wikipedia has a severe gap with only 6%
female participation. I would say this is a pretty urgent problem for the
Dutch and Flemish community, so I was very glad to see this as a main theme
for the coming three months.




--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch


___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

There are multiple ways in how to define the Gendergap, in this case it is
about female participation.

I do think it is a problem that the number of female participants is
dramatically lower than those of male contributors, but still this does not
give any good reason to exclude good projects who are not particular aiming
for female contributors.

WMF wants to solve the Gendergap by excluding good other projects. That is
a very bad situation.

Trying to solve the Gendergap by enlarging the Community Gap.

Bad idea.

Romaine



2015-01-03 15:33 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :

> Nope. Gendergap is about the gap in female participation, not in
> female-related topics. The Dutch Wikipedia has a severe gap with only 6%
> female participation. I would say this is a pretty urgent problem for the
> Dutch and Flemish community, so I was very glad to see this as a main theme
> for the coming three months.
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:17 PM, Romaine Wiki 
> wrote:
>
> > Hello Jane,
> >
> > Sorry, but I think you miss the problem here.
> >
> > As I said before, I am fine with more projects that improve the coverage
> of
> > so-called female topics, but not if this is damaging the projects which
> do
> > not aim for such.
> >
> > I hope this campaign in this form is cancelled and witdrawn and that
> never
> > ever such situation appears again. This way of working is damaging the
> > trust in WMF, discouraging many volunteers, worsening projects, etc.
> >
> > Having a Gendergap campaign in this form is NOT in line with the vision
> the
> > Wikimedia movement has.
> >
> > > The current campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many, targeted
> > at the community in order to generate themed proposals.
> >
> > If it was really targeted at the Wikimedia community, it would not have
> > excluded other projects.
> >
> > I propose everyone to refuse to take part in this as this is a move in
> the
> > wrong direction.
> >
> > And how WLM to attract more female particpation? By having a special
> > category for pink buildings.
> > Under this condition, a question as such can't be taken seriously.
> >
> > Romaine
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 2015-01-03 14:58 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :
> >
> > > As a member of the IEG committee I am happy to say that there is no
> need
> > to
> > > panic. WLM is highly successful project and no one is talking about
> > > shutting it down, or any other project for that matter. The current
> > > campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many, targeted at the
> > > community in order to generate themed proposals. The current growth of
> > > highly diverse and inspirational proposals takes increasingly more
> energy
> > > to manage, judge, and maintain. By introducing a three-month long
> theme,
> > it
> > > is hoped that the following will occur:
> > > 1) Grant committee members in their voluntary role as proposal
> reviewers
> > > and community sponsors will experience less burn-out in managing
> > proposals
> > > as their will be more cross pollination per cohort of proposers and
> their
> > > proposals.
> > > 2) A targeted campaign to attract proposals will enable easier
> > translation
> > > across projects if the target audience can be identified in advance
> > > 3) A targeted campaign will attract more volunteer committee members to
> > > manage proposals, hopefully attracting local experts in various
> Wikimedia
> > > projects.
> > >
> > > The Gendergap will be the first theme. I think it's a great idea! How
> can
> > > WLM attract more female participation? Any ideas?
> > >
> > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Romaine Wiki 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi all,
> > > >
> > > > Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant
> making
> > > > team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and
> > Event
> > > > Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full
> > > months!
> > > >
> > > > They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific
> strategic
> > > > priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are
> refused
> > > for
> > > > 3 months (February-April).
> > > >
> > > > Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having
> > more
> > > > attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as
> such,
> > we
> > > > can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does
> > not
> > > > mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects
> should
> > > > become the victim of other projects.
> > > >
> > > > This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently
> > > working
> > > > on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> > > > projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> > > > important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> > > > negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing
> > > > projects.
> > > >
> > > > And even worse: this

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason


Hi all,

I think that it's important to say that someone of the grant's team 
probably will be out until 11th January (I have received an out of 
office), so I suggest to postpone this discussion if we would not 
proceed to a "

conviction in absentia".


Personally I had some concerns and I did a proposal suggesting to 
dedicate a whole year to the a thematic priority but reducing 50% of the 
grants for each round to this topic.


Why? It's simple, because there are some investments to do to revitalize 
or to improve some areas, but there is no sense to forget that the 
remaining areas still need to be supported and helped.


The worst would be to lose editors in the traditional areas (without a 
good support) and in the same time to do not gain new volunteers through 
the gender gap in order to fill the loss.


Though it is normal in any charitable foundation to assign a percentage 
of the annual grants to a specific priority, there is not a scandal.


The best is to define what is the good way to have less stress in the 
community. I think that a good suggestion done friendly and without 
stress may help the movement.


About the remaining part I would say that some budgets for WLM are also 
in the FDC applications and the FDC *already* stated the priorities for 
2015 and *already* did some evaluations in order to define the impact.


I suggest to consider also these statements for the next WLM.

regards

On 03.01.2015 11:26, Romaine Wiki wrote:

Hi all,

Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and Event
Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full months!

They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused for
3 months (February-April).

Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having more
attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such, we
can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does not
mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
become the victim of other projects.

This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently working
on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing projects.

And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before that
period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it isn't)

To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to communicate
well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up with
a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a couple
of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period indicates
that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).

For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments in
2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
currently working on forming a team and want to have a good stable plan to
be submitted within some weeks, but now we need to rush. And yes we need to
start in January/February or it will be too late to organize it properly.

Also all the national teams of Wiki Loves Monuments, the international team
recommend all the national teams to start in January/February, to have a
proper organisation together with various local partners and sponsors, but
now all these teams are delayed for three months.

And a personal project of mine in Belgium, I am planning to organize Wiki
Loves Art in Belgium, together with various partners and sponsors. We
intent to start in February, but now have to rush to get such done.

By the way: did you know there is a Belgium Gap? Belgian subjects are
relatively less and worse described on the various Wikipedias.


This shutting down results in:
* Discouraging many volunteers who are planning to submit good project
proposals.
* Having volunteers rushed with project plans, which lowers the quality of
the plans.
* Having volunteers being late and delayed with projects, for no good
reason.

Grantmaking is intented to support the communities, not frustrating them.
WMF: stop this negative campaign!


And for all project teams who want to organize a gender gap project: great
you organize this, it is very very welcome! But I like to make a
suggestion: submit the proposal on the first day after the shutting down
period to give a strong signal to WMF that shutting down is

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Nope. Gendergap is about the gap in female participation, not in
female-related topics. The Dutch Wikipedia has a severe gap with only 6%
female participation. I would say this is a pretty urgent problem for the
Dutch and Flemish community, so I was very glad to see this as a main theme
for the coming three months.

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:17 PM, Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> Hello Jane,
>
> Sorry, but I think you miss the problem here.
>
> As I said before, I am fine with more projects that improve the coverage of
> so-called female topics, but not if this is damaging the projects which do
> not aim for such.
>
> I hope this campaign in this form is cancelled and witdrawn and that never
> ever such situation appears again. This way of working is damaging the
> trust in WMF, discouraging many volunteers, worsening projects, etc.
>
> Having a Gendergap campaign in this form is NOT in line with the vision the
> Wikimedia movement has.
>
> > The current campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many, targeted
> at the community in order to generate themed proposals.
>
> If it was really targeted at the Wikimedia community, it would not have
> excluded other projects.
>
> I propose everyone to refuse to take part in this as this is a move in the
> wrong direction.
>
> And how WLM to attract more female particpation? By having a special
> category for pink buildings.
> Under this condition, a question as such can't be taken seriously.
>
> Romaine
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 2015-01-03 14:58 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :
>
> > As a member of the IEG committee I am happy to say that there is no need
> to
> > panic. WLM is highly successful project and no one is talking about
> > shutting it down, or any other project for that matter. The current
> > campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many, targeted at the
> > community in order to generate themed proposals. The current growth of
> > highly diverse and inspirational proposals takes increasingly more energy
> > to manage, judge, and maintain. By introducing a three-month long theme,
> it
> > is hoped that the following will occur:
> > 1) Grant committee members in their voluntary role as proposal reviewers
> > and community sponsors will experience less burn-out in managing
> proposals
> > as their will be more cross pollination per cohort of proposers and their
> > proposals.
> > 2) A targeted campaign to attract proposals will enable easier
> translation
> > across projects if the target audience can be identified in advance
> > 3) A targeted campaign will attract more volunteer committee members to
> > manage proposals, hopefully attracting local experts in various Wikimedia
> > projects.
> >
> > The Gendergap will be the first theme. I think it's a great idea! How can
> > WLM attract more female participation? Any ideas?
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Romaine Wiki 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
> > > team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and
> Event
> > > Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full
> > months!
> > >
> > > They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
> > > priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused
> > for
> > > 3 months (February-April).
> > >
> > > Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having
> more
> > > attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such,
> we
> > > can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does
> not
> > > mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
> > > become the victim of other projects.
> > >
> > > This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently
> > working
> > > on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> > > projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> > > important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> > > negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing
> > > projects.
> > >
> > > And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before
> > that
> > > period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it
> isn't)
> > >
> > > To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> > > organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to
> > communicate
> > > well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up
> > with
> > > a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a
> > couple
> > > of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> > > quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period
> indicates
> > > that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
> > >
> > > For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments
> > in
> > > 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a bett

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason


This is not a good point but it always the same point of discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar

Nothing new.

Both models have their own strengths and their own weaknesses.

regards

On 03.01.2015 14:57, Mathias Damour wrote:



User:Pi zero made a pretty good point here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)&oldid=10876939#Infrastructure 

"The WMF is internally structured to centrally create major software 
initiatives to be designed, implemented, and imposed all from the top 
down. This is the way commercial enterprises approach proprietary 
software, so it's natural that people who come from that world (both 
administrators and software developers) would tend to do things that 
way. The approach is well suited to the purpose of creating software 
that maximizes customers' dependency on the commercial enterprise. In 
other words, it minimizes customers' ablity to improve, generalize, 
duplicate, or even maintain the software on their own. However, this 
approach is deeply inappropriate if you're trying to nurture volunteer 
wikis. (...)"





--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch


___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Hello Jane,

Sorry, but I think you miss the problem here.

As I said before, I am fine with more projects that improve the coverage of
so-called female topics, but not if this is damaging the projects which do
not aim for such.

I hope this campaign in this form is cancelled and witdrawn and that never
ever such situation appears again. This way of working is damaging the
trust in WMF, discouraging many volunteers, worsening projects, etc.

Having a Gendergap campaign in this form is NOT in line with the vision the
Wikimedia movement has.

> The current campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many, targeted
at the community in order to generate themed proposals.

If it was really targeted at the Wikimedia community, it would not have
excluded other projects.

I propose everyone to refuse to take part in this as this is a move in the
wrong direction.

And how WLM to attract more female particpation? By having a special
category for pink buildings.
Under this condition, a question as such can't be taken seriously.

Romaine














2015-01-03 14:58 GMT+01:00 Jane Darnell :

> As a member of the IEG committee I am happy to say that there is no need to
> panic. WLM is highly successful project and no one is talking about
> shutting it down, or any other project for that matter. The current
> campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many, targeted at the
> community in order to generate themed proposals. The current growth of
> highly diverse and inspirational proposals takes increasingly more energy
> to manage, judge, and maintain. By introducing a three-month long theme, it
> is hoped that the following will occur:
> 1) Grant committee members in their voluntary role as proposal reviewers
> and community sponsors will experience less burn-out in managing proposals
> as their will be more cross pollination per cohort of proposers and their
> proposals.
> 2) A targeted campaign to attract proposals will enable easier translation
> across projects if the target audience can be identified in advance
> 3) A targeted campaign will attract more volunteer committee members to
> manage proposals, hopefully attracting local experts in various Wikimedia
> projects.
>
> The Gendergap will be the first theme. I think it's a great idea! How can
> WLM attract more female participation? Any ideas?
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Romaine Wiki 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
> > team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and Event
> > Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full
> months!
> >
> > They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
> > priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused
> for
> > 3 months (February-April).
> >
> > Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having more
> > attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such, we
> > can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does not
> > mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
> > become the victim of other projects.
> >
> > This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently
> working
> > on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> > projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> > important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> > negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing
> > projects.
> >
> > And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before
> that
> > period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it isn't)
> >
> > To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> > organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to
> communicate
> > well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up
> with
> > a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a
> couple
> > of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> > quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period indicates
> > that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
> >
> > For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments
> in
> > 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
> > better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
> > largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
> > currently working on forming a team and want to have a good stable plan
> to
> > be submitted within some weeks, but now we need to rush. And yes we need
> to
> > start in January/February or it will be too late to organize it properly.
> >
> > Also all the national teams of Wiki Loves Monuments, the international
> team
> > recommend all the national teams to start in January/February, to have a
> > proper organisatio

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

As a member of the IEG committee I am happy to say that there is no need to
panic. WLM is highly successful project and no one is talking about
shutting it down, or any other project for that matter. The current
campaign is scheduled to be one of hopefully many, targeted at the
community in order to generate themed proposals. The current growth of
highly diverse and inspirational proposals takes increasingly more energy
to manage, judge, and maintain. By introducing a three-month long theme, it
is hoped that the following will occur:
1) Grant committee members in their voluntary role as proposal reviewers
and community sponsors will experience less burn-out in managing proposals
as their will be more cross pollination per cohort of proposers and their
proposals.
2) A targeted campaign to attract proposals will enable easier translation
across projects if the target audience can be identified in advance
3) A targeted campaign will attract more volunteer committee members to
manage proposals, hopefully attracting local experts in various Wikimedia
projects.

The Gendergap will be the first theme. I think it's a great idea! How can
WLM attract more female participation? Any ideas?

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Romaine Wiki 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
> team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and Event
> Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full months!
>
> They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
> priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused for
> 3 months (February-April).
>
> Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having more
> attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such, we
> can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does not
> mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
> become the victim of other projects.
>
> This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently working
> on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing
> projects.
>
> And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before that
> period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it isn't)
>
> To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to communicate
> well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up with
> a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a couple
> of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period indicates
> that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
>
> For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments in
> 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
> better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
> largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
> currently working on forming a team and want to have a good stable plan to
> be submitted within some weeks, but now we need to rush. And yes we need to
> start in January/February or it will be too late to organize it properly.
>
> Also all the national teams of Wiki Loves Monuments, the international team
> recommend all the national teams to start in January/February, to have a
> proper organisation together with various local partners and sponsors, but
> now all these teams are delayed for three months.
>
> And a personal project of mine in Belgium, I am planning to organize Wiki
> Loves Art in Belgium, together with various partners and sponsors. We
> intent to start in February, but now have to rush to get such done.
>
> By the way: did you know there is a Belgium Gap? Belgian subjects are
> relatively less and worse described on the various Wikipedias.
>
>
> This shutting down results in:
> * Discouraging many volunteers who are planning to submit good project
> proposals.
> * Having volunteers rushed with project plans, which lowers the quality of
> the plans.
> * Having volunteers being late and delayed with projects, for no good
> reason.
>
> Grantmaking is intented to support the communities, not frustrating them.
> WMF: stop this negative campaign!
>
>
> And for all project teams who want to organize a gender gap project: great
> you organize this, it is very very welcome! But I like to make a
> suggestion: submit the proposal on the first day after the shutting down
> period to give a strong signal to WMF that shutting down is a bad idea.
>
>
> It is time for a new strategic priority: closing the Community Gap. That is
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Mathias Damour

Le 03/01/2015 12:55, Romaine Wiki a écrit :

Hi Fae,

I haven't seen a page about this on wiki yet. It appears that various
volunteers who are working on organizing are informed about this behind the
scenes directly.

It also was mentioned in a discussion about the organisation of Wiki Loves
Monuments which raised many concerns. It was first mentioned in this mail:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007597.html
+
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007599.html

Later confirmed by Alex Wang:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007600.html
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007603.html

As I said this is not a positive campaign they intent, this is a negative
campaign as other projects are a victim here.

Yes, prioritizing is not a problem. But this does not feel good at all.
This is not good for project organizers nor for the gender gap projects,
nor for other projects.

Romaine

Thanks Romaine, that sounds terrible.
I can imagine if Wikipedia was managed that way in its first period or
anytime : "We will proactively address our gap in History for the next 3
months, so please no more biology article until may (or maybe later
we'll tell you) "

The fact is we can't rely or very poorly on the WMF anymore. Or just in
the same way some people may apply for some governmental
organisations/agencies subsidies and have to be skilled enough, not in
their core project but to fit in the expectations, know the tricks for
that and have the ability to deal with such hitches without being
discouraged.

User:Pi zero made a pretty good point here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)&oldid=10876939#Infrastructure
"The WMF is internally structured to centrally create major software
initiatives to be designed, implemented, and imposed all from the top
down. This is the way commercial enterprises approach proprietary
software, so it's natural that people who come from that world (both
administrators and software developers) would tend to do things that
way. The approach is well suited to the purpose of creating software
that maximizes customers' dependency on the commercial enterprise. In
other words, it minimizes customers' ablity to improve, generalize,
duplicate, or even maintain the software on their own. However, this
approach is deeply inappropriate if you're trying to nurture volunteer
wikis. (...)"

--
Mathias Damour
User:Astirmays

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

Hi Fae,

I haven't seen a page about this on wiki yet. It appears that various
volunteers who are working on organizing are informed about this behind the
scenes directly.

It also was mentioned in a discussion about the organisation of Wiki Loves
Monuments which raised many concerns. It was first mentioned in this mail:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007597.html
+
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007599.html

Later confirmed by Alex Wang:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007600.html
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2014-December/007603.html

As I said this is not a positive campaign they intent, this is a negative
campaign as other projects are a victim here.

Yes, prioritizing is not a problem. But this does not feel good at all.
This is not good for project organizers nor for the gender gap projects,
nor for other projects.

Romaine


2015-01-03 11:56 GMT+01:00 Fæ :

> Hi Romaine, is there a link to an on-wiki page that states this.
>
> Based on your email, it is unfortunate that rather than stating that
> PEG/IEGs would be prioritized to gendergap proposals for a time, the
> choice appears to be to reject everything else.
>
> I am not against positive discrimination where carefully managed. A
> careful approach would avoid encouraging the perception that we have
> to choose between gendergap and the rest of the community.
>
> By the way, as a member of Wikimedia LGBT, my presumption is that LGBT
> related proposals would be rejected in this period as they would not
> be specifically about women.
>
> Fae
>
> On 3 January 2015 at 10:26, Romaine Wiki  wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
> > team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and Event
> > Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full
> months!
> >
> > They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
> > priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused
> for
> > 3 months (February-April).
> >
> > Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having more
> > attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such, we
> > can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does not
> > mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
> > become the victim of other projects.
> >
> > This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently
> working
> > on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> > projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> > important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> > negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing
> projects.
> >
> > And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before
> that
> > period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it isn't)
> >
> > To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> > organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to
> communicate
> > well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up
> with
> > a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a
> couple
> > of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> > quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period indicates
> > that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
> >
> > For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments
> in
> > 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
> > better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
> > largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
> > currently working on forming a team and want to have a good stable plan
> to
> > be submitted within some weeks, but now we need to rush. And yes we need
> to
> > start in January/February or it will be too late to organize it properly.
> >
> > Also all the national teams of Wiki Loves Monuments, the international
> team
> > recommend all the national teams to start in January/February, to have a
> > proper organisation together with various local partners and sponsors,
> but
> > now all these teams are delayed for three months.
> >
> > And a personal project of mine in Belgium, I am planning to organize Wiki
> > Loves Art in Belgium, together with various partners and sponsors. We
> > intent to start in February, but now have to rush to get such done.
> >
> > By the way: did you know there is a Belgium Gap? Belgian subjects are
> > relatively less and worse described on the various Wikipedias.
> >
> >
> > This shutting down results in:
> > * Discouraging many volunteers who are planning to submit good project
> > proposals.
> > * Having volunteers rushed with project plans, whic

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Austin Hair

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Romaine Wiki  wrote:
> It is time for a new strategic priority: closing the Community Gap. That is
> the gap between WMF and the local communities worldwide. It is not new, it
> exists for many years already. (It resulted also in the drama of the
> situation around the Mediaviewer in 2014, the drama with the Visual Editor
> in 2013, etc. in what WMF didn't sense well the community.) (Maybe the gap
> is less between WMF and the English speaking part of the world, but the
> world is larger. We have many people around the world who are speak a
> different language. WMF is not sensing the worldwide community well
> enough.)
> Finally we should do more about this Community Gap.

I think the gap is just as big in the English-speaking world, and that
if asked (that kind of says something, I think) a lot of people would
finger it as a priority—if nothing else, the content of traffic on
this list would appear to back that up.

Austin

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

2015-01-03 Thread Fæ

Hi Romaine, is there a link to an on-wiki page that states this.

Based on your email, it is unfortunate that rather than stating that
PEG/IEGs would be prioritized to gendergap proposals for a time, the
choice appears to be to reject everything else.

I am not against positive discrimination where carefully managed. A
careful approach would avoid encouraging the perception that we have
to choose between gendergap and the rest of the community.

By the way, as a member of Wikimedia LGBT, my presumption is that LGBT
related proposals would be rejected in this period as they would not
be specifically about women.

Fae

On 3 January 2015 at 10:26, Romaine Wiki  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Some disturbing news entered my mailbox the past days. The grant making
> team is going to shut down the grantmaking process for Project and Event
> Grants (PEG) and Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) for three full months!
>
> They have decided that they want to focus only on a specific strategic
> priority: the gender gap, and that all other good projects are refused for
> 3 months (February-April).
>
> Having more attention to a strategic priority is fine to me. Having more
> attention to the problem of the gender gap, sounds good to me as such, we
> can use much more projects and content in those areas. But that does not
> mean that many many volunteers who are organizing other projects should
> become the victim of other projects.
>
> This is a negative signal to all those volunteers who are currently working
> on project plans to be submitted in February, March and April. Good
> projects to be ignored, just because the WMF think those are less
> important. They say this is a positive campaign, but this sounds as a
> negative campaign to me. This discourages many volunteers in doing projects.
>
> And even worse: this is only to be generally announced 2 weeks before that
> period of shutting down starts! (this sounds like a joke, sadly it isn't)
>
> To organize a good project volunteers (yes, we are still unpaid! and
> organize these projects in our spare time!) we need the time to communicate
> well with all our partners and sponsors, and need the time to come up with
> a good project plan with a stable basis. Rushing a project in just a couple
> of weeks time is very unpleasant and does not help in getting a good
> quality project. And announcing it two weeks before the period indicates
> that organizers aren't taken seriously (enough).
>
> For example, we are currently planning to organize Wiki Loves Monuments in
> 2015 again, the world wide contest to have a better documentation and
> better display of all the cultural monuments worldwide, recognised as
> largest photo contest in the world by Guinness World Records. We are
> currently working on forming a team and want to have a good stable plan to
> be submitted within some weeks, but now we need to rush. And yes we need to
> start in January/February or it will be too late to organize it properly.
>
> Also all the national teams of Wiki Loves Monuments, the international team
> recommend all the national teams to start in January/February, to have a
> proper organisation together with various local partners and sponsors, but
> now all these teams are delayed for three months.
>
> And a personal project of mine in Belgium, I am planning to organize Wiki
> Loves Art in Belgium, together with various partners and sponsors. We
> intent to start in February, but now have to rush to get such done.
>
> By the way: did you know there is a Belgium Gap? Belgian subjects are
> relatively less and worse described on the various Wikipedias.
>
>
> This shutting down results in:
> * Discouraging many volunteers who are planning to submit good project
> proposals.
> * Having volunteers rushed with project plans, which lowers the quality of
> the plans.
> * Having volunteers being late and delayed with projects, for no good
> reason.
>
> Grantmaking is intented to support the communities, not frustrating them.
> WMF: stop this negative campaign!
>
>
> And for all project teams who want to organize a gender gap project: great
> you organize this, it is very very welcome! But I like to make a
> suggestion: submit the proposal on the first day after the shutting down
> period to give a strong signal to WMF that shutting down is a bad idea.
>
>
> It is time for a new strategic priority: closing the Community Gap. That is
> the gap between WMF and the local communities worldwide. It is not new, it
> exists for many years already. (It resulted also in the drama of the
> situation around the Mediaviewer in 2014, the drama with the Visual Editor
> in 2013, etc. in what WMF didn't sense well the community.) (Maybe the gap
> is less between WMF and the English speaking part of the world, but the
> world is larger. We have many people around the world who are speak a
> different language. WMF is not sensing the worldwide community well
> enough.)
> Finally we should do more about this Community Gap.

[Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason