The beauty of the process, is in my mind, that is set up so that each
member can have their personal preferences on criteria to be used. This
ensues that as many perspectives as possible is up on the table during
the deliberation, and certainly not only what is in the staff assessment.
And culture context is central for most of us and it is fascinating the
broad understanding of cultural context, country specifics and specific
chapters operations there exist among the group of us
Anders
Ilario Valdelli skrev 2013-04-29 10:07:
Personally I think that these two points are relevant like weaknesses
of the FDC.
I would read three main important weaknesses:
a) if there is a conflictual position inside the members of the FDC
and a big difference of opinions probably there are no specific
criteria to evaluate the projects. It seems to me that someone has a
feeling and gives their *personal* opinion. To solve the
incompatibilities the best solution is to agree in a matrix of
criteria and to evaluate the submissions mainly with these criteria,
the personal opinion should be reduced a lot
b) with the point a) is associated the point b. The knowledge of these
criteria helps the chapters to submit a plan leaving any bad point and
it means less wasting of time for both (chapter and FDC)
c) It seems to me that the evaluation of the FDC doesn't consider the
context. Hong Kong is a town and is a small chapter, probably the
support/empower/encourage of volunteers may not work for Hong Kong
because they don't have a potential number of volunteers but they have
opportunities because Hong Kong is the seat of relevant companies
I think that the study of the context of each country may help a lot
to solve conflicts.
It's for the same reason that I have fear of people speaking about
"peer review" and people speaking about a single model of chapter.
Speaking with no-European chapters their main request is to make
clearer that they have different needs and cannot be evaluated like
the European chapters.
Imagine what happens if an European chapter will do a "peer review"
evaluating it with European parameters!
Regards
On 29.04.2013 09:25, Anders Wennersten wrote:
MZMcBride skrev 2013-04-29 07:13:
I took a look at the current FDC members list[1] and the
decision-making information[2] but I'm still a bit unclear how
decisions like this[3] are made. Is there a vote on each individual
request (and subsequent recommendation)? If so, is that vote public?
Or is it a single recommendation encompassing all requests for that
round and members vote on that? And if so, is that vote public?
As stated, all seven FDC members before the meeting asses all
proposals and write down the sum recommended for each. During the
deliberation these seven figures are presented and they can differ
very much, even that for the same proposal some member recommends
full funding, others no funding and others partial funding. Seeing
these figures, a very intense discussion start where we argue and
reason, each fully paticipaing and often very passionate. If the
difference still is wide, we then each prepare a new set of figures,
which then normally show a level of convergence in recommended
funding figures. In some cases there is still incompatible positions
among the FDC members and in other there is mostly then a concern
where within a span we should find the recommended figures, which
also is discussed and argued. In most cases we then all agree on a
recommended figure, and in other we fully agree with some expressing
some level of reluctance on the agreed amount. So no votes, and the
reason why we manage to come to an agreement is, i believe, that we
are used on the way we reach consensus on Wikipedia. I myself, have
in no other of the hundreds of groups I have been involved in, seen
the same constructiveness of the participants to come to an agreement
with consensus.
From the round 2 recommendation[3] we find the following snippet of
text. """ We are concerned about the general increase in staff
hiring that has been taking place over the last year, in particular
where staff are performing functions that volunteers have been
leading. We encourage entities to focus on balancing the work done
by staff and volunteers in line with the Wikimedia movement's ethos
of volunteers leading work, and to focus on having staff coordinate
volunteer activities. We are also concerned about the growth rates
of both staff and budgets. We would ask entities to consider whether
their growth rates are sustainable in the long term, and whether
they are leading to the most impact possible. """ Is the FDC
commenting on the Wikimedia chapters here or on the Wikimedia
Foundation (or both)?
The key word is "coordinating". we want to highlight that employed
staff should not be seen to replace volunteers but
support/empower/encourage their efforts. And this is relevant for WMF
as well when hey are involved in activities where there are
volunteers involved.
Anders
Secretary of FDC
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