Hi folks, I wanted to respond to a few things related to the Wikimedia Foundation's grant programs.
Pine, regarding your personal situation, I know many grantees have been critical of the Wikimedia Foundation at one point or another, or even have longstanding disagreements with certain organizational decisions (such as with SuperProtect). This is not to say we are fully objective (I do not believe anybody is), but in my experience we do not punish grant applicants or withhold funding for constructively expressing concerns about organizational decisions. To the extent that this criticism becomes abusive or threatening, it becomes a different case, but I don't think that is what we are discussing here. Expressing disagreement with an organizational decision is just not an important factor in whether a proposal should be funded or not. Some applicants have even expressed concern with our grant programs based on their experience with it, and I am glad they did! It led us to decide to run a consultation <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Reimagining_WMF_grants> to improve how our grants are organized and how they operate. I know our team, Community Resources, well enough to know we are open to criticism about how our grants work because we want them to be accessible, and we want to help Wikimedians run successful projects and events. Although the WMF, > for the duration, appears to act as though it's their money to distribute > and makes many of the relevant decisions, that appears not to be the > (eventual) intended process. > Yair, the degree of decision-making power that the Wikimedia Foundation varies depending on the type of grant. Rapid Grants <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn> are where staff has the most decision-making power, and staff ultimately approves proposals in this program. This design was intentional. A common issue we faced with small grants from the old Project & Event Grant program (circa 2015 and prior) was that the whole process took way too long between committee meetings, decisions, and processing, and reporting requirements. Money wouldn't get to the applicants in time, and this caused practical financial issues for applicants, and some projects just didn't happen at all. That kind of outcome was not acceptable for anyone, so we decided to simplify it based on community feedback. Many projects we receive in Rapid Grants are common (e.g. editathons, WikiLoves events), and do not require a lot of scrutiny on the proposal itself. Part of our consultation <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Reimagining_WMF_grants/Outcomes> with then-current and prospective grantees a few years back made it clear that this particular change was welcome. However, in all other grant programs (Project Grants <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project>, Conference & Event Grants <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Conference>, Annual Plan Grants <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG>), Wikimedians in volunteer committees provide the basis for funding decisions through deliberations. Program Officers like myself facilitate those discussions, provide guidance where it is useful or requested, and allow the committee to form its own conclusions. We also do not wholly reject committee decisions and substitute our own. I also want to remark out that before I started working at the Wikimedia Foundation in 2015, my impression of program officers was that they were The Deciders, the gatekeepers saying who gets funding and who doesn't. Now having worked across our different grant programs for a few years now, I can easily say I was very much mistaken. We spend a lot of time working with applicants to help them plan their project out, find support in other volunteers, and prepare strong applications, because we want applicants to succeed as project managers, event coordinators, researchers, leaders, and Wikimedians. While I acknowledge that you want Wikimedia Foundation staff to be absent from funding decisions, I believe this kind of influence from staff in the process is a beneficial and productive one. Take care, Jethro Chris "Jethro" Schilling I JethroBT (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF)> He/His/Their Program Officer, Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home> On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 7:38 AM Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής < [email protected]> wrote: > About my comment above: I was referring ONLY in WMF grants. In Greek > wikipedia things are very weird and sad when people are being accused of > paid editing just for getting a WMF grant through the process that we all > know and always making a good and honest use of the wikimedia logos. The > ones who lightheartedly accuse people so easily are the ones who need to > have their interests or use of logos be checked. > > Best regards to all > Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής > > Στις 7 Σεπ 2018 02:34, ο χρήστης "Pine W" <[email protected]> έγραψε: > > Definitely one needs to be careful when dealing with paid editing that it's > done in a transparent way and in a way that benefits the encyclopedia. I > think that the English Wikipedia community has generally accepted that > Wikimedians-in-Residence can do paid editing in a way that is beneficial to > the encyclopedia. I would like to see more of the good and less of the bad. > Money can certainly be a corrupting influence, but it can also support good > activities that otherwise wouldn't occur or would occur with less frequency > and quality. > > > Pine > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > > > On Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 10:29 PM Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > Unfortunately it s been said in Greek wikipedia that people that take > > grants are paid editors. And that came from people who already taken > grants > > for their projects in the past. Dark times in Greek wikipedia... > > > > Στις Τρί, 4 Σεπ 2018 - 00:03 ο χρήστης Pine W <[email protected]> > > έγραψε: > > > > > Hello colleagues, > > > > > > A topic which I feel that I should address again on this mailing list > is > > > revenue for Wikimedia work, specifically WMF and non-WMF sources of > > > revenue. > > > > > > I will start by talking about my personal situation, and then discuss > > some > > > related situations. > > > > > > I am currently requesting a grant from WMF. I cannot afford afford to > > work > > > on this project in a sustainable way without funding, and I feel that I > > am > > > making a request that is reasonably aligned with market rates for > someone > > > with my current level of skills and knowledge, but I feel conflicted > > about > > > requesting funding from WMF because of the potential for difficulties > > > between WMF and the community, especially because of the potential that > I > > > would be reluctant to express my views regarding WMF due to fear of > > losing > > > WMF funding. (I'm not linking to my grant request here because I don't > > want > > > this email to give the impression that I'm using this topic to ask for > > > community endorsements for my grant request.) > > > > > > Similarly, *The Signpost *is labor-intensive to produce, and I would > like > > > for funding to be available for the more prolific *Signpost > *contributors > > > so that they have a good reason to treat their labor for The Signpost > as > > > part time jobs. However, it would be difficult to maintain the > editorial > > > independence of *The Signpost *from WMF if the contributors (especially > > > contributors to the "News and Notes" and "In the Media" sections, and > the > > > contributors who are responsible for the overall editing and > > > publication of *The > > > Signpost*) received funding from WMF. > > > > > > There are many other areas in the Wikimedia community where there is > > enough > > > work that is not getting done by volunteers, and/or where volunteers > can > > > put in so many hours that they can get burnt out, that I think that > > non-WMF > > > funding would be good to make available for contributors who would like > > to > > > work in these areas. Two examples are investigations of undisclosed > paid > > > editing, and translation and development of medical content. > > > > > > With Kaarl's cooperation (thank you, Kaarl) I have requested that two > of > > > the WMF strategy working groups consider non-WMF funding for Wikimedia > > work > > > as a part of their discussions. > > > > > > I would like for significant non-WMF revenue to be available for > > Wikimedia > > > work. I think that this could be arranged with WMF's cooperation, > > although > > > there is a long journey between saying that "I think that this could be > > > arranged" and having a successful system in place. > > > > > > If you have thoughts that you would like to share on this topic, then I > > > hope that you will comment here on this mailing list, or in some other > > > appropriate location such as one or both of the relevant strategy talk > > > pages ([1 > > > < > > > > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Revenue_Streams > > > >] > > > or [2 > > > < > > > > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Resource_Allocation > > > > > > > ]). > > > > > > Let me make a specific invitation to WMF employees to share your > > thoughts. > > > I would like to hear your comments, both official and personal, if that > > is > > > okay and if you would like to comment. > > > > > > Thank you, > > > > > > Pine > > > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > > New messages to: [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 and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: [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 and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [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 and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [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 and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
