On 25 April 2014 15:17, Michael Peel <em...@mikepeel.net> wrote: > Hi Risker, > > Thanks for your thoughts. > > > Instead I suggest that the FDC seek authorization from the Board for an > > independent third party review if it feels that there is not the > necessary > > ability for the FDC to produce its own assessment. > > I'm personally curious to know whether you have any suggestions of third > parties that might be able to carry out this sort of review, considering > the requisite knowledge of the Wikimedia movement? It might be an option > worth thinking about in future years. > > Thanks, > Mike > >
Quite bluntly, the WMF shouldn't be asking the FDC to review a plan that does not include a request for funds: it is outside of the FDC mandate, which is to recommend the disbursement of a specific funding envelope using specific criteria. I would have hoped that the FDC would have the courage to say "no, sorry, this is outside our scope", but I understand that it's hard to step away from such a juicy-looking opportunity. However, having accepted the validity of the "proposal", the FDC does not have the authority to delegate its role. If it is unable to carry out the task effectively within its own group and structure, it should either be refusing the task, or it should be reporting to the Board of Trustees that it is unable to carry out the requested tasks with respect to the WMF. It should not be contracting with one of its own supplicants to review the proposal of another, particularly when there are obvious conflicts of interest involved. The lack of recognition of that conflict of interest on the part of the FDC is a very serious matter, and raises doubts about the impartiality of the FDC as a whole. It's all well and good for your members to step out of the room while discussing certain applications, but with 4 of 9 FDC members being directly affiliated with supplicant groups, your standards for avoidance of conflict of interest need to be significantly stronger. There was good reason for concern that the FDC is becoming a self-dealing group without this delegation of responsibility. Risker/Anne _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
