Hello everyone again. Thank you those of you who replied to me either on this thread or privately. I've already replied to them off-list where appropriate.
I apologise that my intentionally harsh words in the original mail and subsequent public replies may have been construed as bad-faith personal attacks against certain members of WMF staff and the FDC. In particular, I recognise that my anecdotal use of the words "foul play" may have hurt people's feelings; I apologise and retract this remark. I have already filed a formal complaint in my personal capacity to the FDC ombudsmen. I'm determined to step away from Wikimedia administration matters, so I won't comment any more on this matter. Thanks for reading and I'm glad to see some positive suggestions coming out of this thread. I urge the WMF and FDC to implement the proposed supportive measures for local volunteers. Deryck On 28 April 2013 23:52, Deryck Chan <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear trusty Wikimedians, > > The FDC decisions are out on Sunday. Despite my desperate attempts to > assist WMHK's board to keep up with deadlines and comply with seemingly > endless requests from WMF grantmaking and FDC support staff, we received an > overwhelmingly negative assessment which resulted in a complete rejection > of our FDC proposal. > > At this point, I believe it's an appropriate time for me to announce my > resignation and retirement from all my official Wikimedia roles - as > Administrative Assistant and WCA Council Member of WMHK. I will carry out > my remaining duties as a member of Wikimania 2013 local team. > > My experience with the FDC process, and the outcome of it, has convinced > me that my continued involvement will simply be a waste of my own time, and > of little benefit to WMHK and the Wikimedia movement as a whole. > > My experience with the FDC process has confirmed my ultimate scepticism > about the WMF's direction of development. WMF has become so conservative > with its strategies and so led into "mainstream" charity bureaucracy that > it is no longer tending to the needs of the wider Wikimedia movement. > > My experience with the FDC process has shown me that WMF is expecting > fully professional deliverables which require full-time professional staff > to deliver, from organisations run by volunteers who are running Wikimedia > chapters not because they're charity experts, but because they love > Wikimedia. > > My experience with the FDC process has demonstrated to me that WMF is > totally willing to perpetuate the hen-and-egg problem of the lack of staff > manpower and watch promising initiatives dwindle into oblivion. > > WMHK isn't even a new chapter. We've been incorporated and recognised by > WMF since 2007. Our hen-and-egg problem isn't new either. We've been vocal > about the fact that our volunteer force is exhausted, and can't do any > better without funding for paid staff and an office since 2010. Our request > for office funding was rejected. The year after, our request to become a > payment-processing chapter was rejected. The year after, we've got > Wikimania (perhaps because WMF fortunately doesn't have too much to do with > the bidding process), which gave us hope that we might finally be helped to > professionalise. But it came to nothing - this very week our FDC request > was rejected. > > And the reason? Every time the response from WMF was, effectively, we > aren't good enough therefore we won't get help to do any better. We don't > have professional staff to help us comply with the endless and > ever-changing professional reporting criteria, therefore we can't be > trusted to hire the staff to do precisely that. > > My dear friends and trusty Wikimedians, do you now understand the irony > and the frustration? > > Wikimedia didn't start off as a traditional charity. It is precisely > because of how revolutionary our mission and culture are, that we as a > movement have reached where we are today. A few movement entities, > particularly the WMF, managed to expand and take on the skin of a much more > traditional charity. But most of us are still youthful Wikimedia > enthusiasts who are well-versed with Wikimedia culture, but not with > charity governance. Imposing a professional standard upon a movement entity > as a prerequisite of giving it help to professionalise, is like judging > toddlers by their full marathon times. > > Is this what we want Wikimedia to become? To turn from a revolutionary > idea to a charity so conservative that it would rather perpetuate a > chicken-and-egg problem than support long-awaited growth? I threw in days > and days of effort in the last few years, often at the peril of my degree > studies, with the wishful thinking that one day the help will come to let > WMHK and all the other small but well-established chapters professionalise. > > I was wrong. > > With the FDC process hammering the final nail into my scepticism about > where WMF and the movement is heading, I figured that with a degree in > environmental engineering from Cambridge my life will be much better spent > helping other worthy causes than wasting days on Wikimedia administration > work only to have them go unappreciated time and time again. > > But I feel that it is necessary for me to leave a parting message to my > fellow Wikimedians, a stern warning about where I see our movement heading. > I feel that we're losing our character and losing our appreciation for > volunteers, in particular the limitations of volunteer effort. > > I leave you all with a final thought from Dan Pallotta: charitable efforts > will never grow if we continue to be so adverse about "overheads" and > staffing. > http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong.html > > With Wiki-Love, > Deryck > > PS. I wish there was an appropriate private mailing list for me to send > this to. Unfortunately, most of the important WMF stakeholders aren't > subscribed to internal-l, and most veteran chapters folks know what I want > to say already. I just hope that trolls wouldn't blow this out of > proportion. Or perhaps I do want this to be blown out of proportion so that > my voice will actually be heard. Thanks for reading. > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
