I likewise appreciate the strong language on the situation with the WMF;
the general opacity and vagueness of public budget plans (especially
considering the requirements for affiliate organisations in this area) is
something that has been widely noted on this list and elsewhere, and to my
mind not answered in a satisfactory way. It is good to see a fearless FDC
that is prepared to "tell it as it is", and make sure that this problem is
receiving continued attention.
It is my hope that the Foundation will address the issues raised here in a
constructive and transparent manner, rather than ignoring them or trying to
spin them away.
Cheers,
Craig
On 24 November 2015 at 12:04, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you FDC.
Many of the small and midsized APG requests fared well in this round.
That
is nice to see.
I find it concerning that the larger the organization, the more problems
the FDC seemed to find with the org's budget and performance management
practices. One would expect the larger organizations to have mature and
robust practices in these areas. Regarding WMF in particular, my concerns
about its budget practices are well documented and I appreciate that the
FDC is also taking note of the persistence of the problems. I hope that
WMF
will get serious about its financial transpatency.
A couple of questions about Wikidata:
I'm confused about the funding for Wikidata. In one place the FDC says
that
"Nonetheless, the FDC is exasperated by the inability of WMDE to to
disaggregate the costs of Wikidata from other projects." and in another
place the FDC says that "We have recommended a reduced amount for WMDE in
this round with the expectation that WMDE will not cut Wikidata or their
other tech development work, but will instead find cost savings elsewhere
in its annual plan." If the FDC wants a disaggregated budget (which is
understandable) then why is the FDC expecting WMDE to dip into its other
funds and/or make cuts elsewhere in order to cover the work in this
proposal that the FDC is declining to fund in this proposal? This
expectation seems to be a bit of a contradiction.
I'm also wondering how WMDE is able to submit a dedicated request for
restricted funding for Wikidata if the Wikidata project is so integrated
into WMDE's other budgets that the FDC finds the integration to be
problematic. Can the FDC or our colleagues at WMDE explain this?
Wikidata is a high profile project with a good reputation, and I hope
that
the issues can be resolved soon.
Thanks,
Pine
On Nov 23, 2015 14:09, "matanya moses" <mata...@foss.co.il> wrote:
Hello Wikimedians,
tl;dr: The FDC’s recommendations for this round of the APG grant
requests
have now been published at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2015-2016_round1
The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) meets twice a year to help make
decisions about how to effectively allocate movement funds to achieve
the
Wikimedia movement's mission, vision, and strategy. [1] We met for four
days last week in San Francisco to review 11 proposals submitted for
this
round of funding. [2]
The committee has now posted our Round 1 2015-2016 recommendations on
the
annual plan grants (APG) to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.
[3]
The WMF Board representatives to the FDC (Denny Vrandecic, Jan-Bart de
Vreede and Dariusz Jemielniak) will lead the Board in its review of
these
recommendations. The WMF Board will review the recommendations and then
make their decision on them before 1 January 2016.
This round, the eleven proposals came from ten chapters and one
thematic
organisation, totaling requests of approximately $3.8 million USD. Ten
affiliates were returning to the APG program, and one was a new
applicant.
This round, one organisation requested a restricted grant to support
one
particular program. All other grant requests were for general funding.
Before we met for our face-to-face deliberations, the FDC carefully
reviewed all proposals and supporting documentation (e.g., budgets,
plans,
strategies) in detail, aided by staff assessments and analysis on
impact,
finances, and programs, as well as community comments on the proposals.
The
committee had long and intense conversations about the proposals
submitted
this round. By listening and carefully considering all available data,
the
committee achieved consensus on all proposal deliberations.
In addition to the above, the FDC has also included a recommendation
about
the WMF itself to improve its own level of planning transparency and
budget
detail. The WMF staff were not involved in the conception or writing of
this additional recommendation.
For your reference, there is a formal process to submit appeals about
these recommendations or complaints about the FDC process. The
processes
for both are outlined below.
Any applicant that wants to appeal the FDC’s recommendation about their
proposal this round should submit it by 23:59 UTC on 8 December 2015 in
accordance with the appeal process outlined in the FDC Framework. A
formal
appeal to challenge the FDC’s recommendation should be in the form of a
500-or-fewer word summary. The appeal should be submitted on-wiki, [4]
and
must be submitted by the Board Chair of a funding-seeking applicant.
Complaints about the process can be filed by anyone with the
Ombudsperson,
and can be made any time. The complaint should be submitted on wiki, as
well. [5] The ombudsperson will publicly document the complaint, and
investigate as needed.
Please take a look at the upcoming calendar [6] to learn about other
upcoming milestones in the APG program.
Again, we offer our sincere thanks to the 11 organisations who
submitted
annual plan grant proposals to the FDC this round.
On behalf of the FDC,
Matanya Moses (FDC chair), User:Matanya
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016_round1
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2015-2016_round1
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Appeals_to_the_Board_on_the_recommendations_of_the_FDC
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Complaints_about_the_FDC_process
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Calendar
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