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 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
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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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