Of course you're very correct that there are many projects sitting around asking for scrutiny - the difference here is the (potential of) funding would be default yes instead of default no, with the discussion just around the priority. I expect that would attract a lot more attention very quickly indeed.
*Edward Saperia* email <[email protected]> • facebook <http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia> • twitter <http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia> • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG On 25 February 2015 at 15:38, Sydney Poore <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm pretty concerned that the systematic biases in the wikimedia movement > would be continued if there was no organized effort to do a comprehensive > review of all proposals to see where we are lacking diversity. I'm in favor > of having more focused funding calls like the Inspire Gender Gap campaign. > > A large part of the work of the community grant committees..IEG, PEG, > FDC...is evaluating the feasibility of the projects, the impact of work, > and giving feedback. This work needs the assistance of paid staff to make > sure all the information needed to make decision is available. Then > volunteers to look at the information and give a recommendation. I'm not > clear on how the work flow you suggest would get the important aspects of > the work accomplished. > > I'm not opposed to a group outside of WMF taking over this type of work. > But there was a huge vacuum in the movement around Learning and Evaluation > until recently. The WMF began doing this work for lack of anyone else > doing it well. At this point, I can't see an independent organization being > feasible. > > Instead of small Project and Event Grants, micro grants, or travel grants, > many organizations are asking for unrestricted funds to pay for staff, > offices, equipment, specialized staff for software development. They want > to have funds to make long term plans with GLAM partner organizations. The > evaluation of these large grant requests is extremely time consuming. Our > current method of asking a group of volunteers to be available to this type > of work a set period of time, and having it also open for other community > comment seems to the best approach to make sure every project get a fair > look. > > Today there are dozens of ideas for projects on meta waiting for people to > comment and offer assistance of some type. I'm in favor of doing more to > encourage members of the wikimedia movement to come to meta and join in > working on them. > > IdeaLab. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Ideas > > Sydney Poore > User:FloNight > > Wikipedian in Residence > at Cochrane Collaboration > > On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Edward Saperia <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > This reminds me of a slightly heretical idea I had a while ago while > > thinking about crowdfunding and WMF fundraising... > > > > Currently the WMF raises money via site banners, and spends these on > > programmes and disburses them via grants, which go to all kinds of > projects > > - education, outreach, development, Wikimedians in Residence, etc etc. > > Despite the relative openness of the WMF as an organisation, this is > still > > a very centralised, top down method of handling (the disbursement of) > these > > funds. If we're truly going down the "everything open, everything > community > > driven" route, the more consistent approach would be something like the > > following: > > > > The community submit funding proposals for projects they want to do, of > any > > kind. Each has a campaign page with a description of the project (much > like > > a kickstarter page, with project milestones, background, team etc), a > > monetary target they're trying to raise, and a banner design. These > > projects compete for advertising time on the site banner via a community > > curated queue; When they're at the top of this queue, they're displayed > on > > the banners, which lead to their project pages; if they hit their > > fundraising target, they're taken down; if they have a low conversion > rate > > (% of views that lead to donations), they're demoted down the queue and, > if > > persistently low, rejected entirely. > > > > The criteria for prioritisation of projects in the queue and the vetting > of > > project quality is done organically by the community, who would create > and > > evolve guidelines and policies. The actual handling of the queue could be > > done algorithmically via an openly editable algorithm, or even done > > manually like with e.g. WP:ITN - you'd just need a widget that tells you > > how much a given project has raised so far and what the conversion rate > is. > > If the community is concerned about people being shown too many banners, > we > > dial down the number of people being shown banners, or raise the bar in > > terms of acceptable conversion rates. > > > > If a project raises money and is ultimately considered a failure, then > > hopefully the community will learn from this and provide more support / > be > > more careful with that kind of project in the future. However, one hopes > > that this will also allow for bolder project ideas to get off the ground, > > and also allow for a much larger amount of small funding to go to many > > small projects, as there is no centralised grants body that has to > process > > them all. > > > > In order to pay for its own programmes, then, the WMF itself would have > to > > submit projects into this queue. Nobody would have to go to any > centralised > > body for money - all funds would be raised and disbursed via this one > > channel. Operationally I suppose the WMF would provide the infrastructure > > to actually receive and send out the money. > > > > You could even start getting clever with e.g. showing different campaigns > > to readers from different geographical regions, or particular campaigns > to > > readers looking at articles from particular wikipedia categories, and I > > imagine that kind of thing would start to evolve on its own. > > > > It really struck me that the discussions around the centralnotice > > fundraising banners fell into a classic pattern; one centralised team > doing > > their best, but being overwhelmed by feedback from a large community. > This > > model puts all this attention to good use. > > > > *Edward Saperia* > > Conference Director for Wikimania 2014 <http://www.wikimanialondon.org> > > email <[email protected]> • facebook < > http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia> > > • > > twitter <http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia> • 07796955572 > > 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG > > > > On 24 February 2015 at 18:54, Sage Ross <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > > > On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 10:43 AM, Austin Hair <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > > With more and more Wikimedians engaging in crowdfunding, I suppose we > > > > can talk about whether the mailing list for Wikimedia movement > > > > organization is the place to advertise in this way. For my part, I > > > > don't think a simple (i.e., without any additional context) "please > > > > check out this Indiegogo" is any different from "hey, check out my > > > > blog," so when the last one came through the queue I rejected it > > > > without much thought. It certainly wasn't done with any prejudice. > > > > > > > > > > For my part, I always like to see crowdfunding pitches from > > > Wikimedians. There haven't been *that* many of them (maybe 8 or 10?), > > > and so far they've all (that I've seen) come from prolific > > > contributors. > > > > > > These crowdfunding pitches generally take a lot more effort to put > > > together than a blog post does, and they are also easy and satisfying > > > to act on. If I can take 3 minutes and a few dollars to simultaneously > > > say thanks to a great contributor and help them make even better > > > contributions, I'm grateful for that opportunity. > > > > > > -Sage > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > > [email protected] > > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > [email protected] > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
