Grants talk:APG/FDC portal/Comments/Extensive feedback from WMDE to the FDC process

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feedback[edit]

Many thanks for the detailed and constructive feedback. I would like to comment in several areas:

  • in "the risks we face" you mention that none of the projects received full funding. You do not observe that the vast majority of projects receive more money from year to year. The risk we face is just as much rapid expansion EVEN IF we manage to gather more and more money to satisfy the requests in full (and the appetites are growing, clearly). We need to be responsible in growth.
  • You mention that "mistakes are being repeated", yet you do not specify mistakes. You seem to expect the FDC to give detailed explanations on what should have been done better. This is unprecedented in granting institutions, but even if it did make sense it would have to result in comparisons which, beyond any doubt, would be quite difficult to tackle. Additionally, the FDC makes every possible effort to propagate good practices about measures and metrics (including volunteering for sessions about these topics during several Wikimedia events and workshops). It is also worth observing that you complain about the cost side of the whole process, and yet in the same time you expect a much more detailed feedback (these things are likely difficult to combine, as the FDC writes its feedback during its meetings, working 12-14 hours per day already).
  • "End of year spending frenzy" point you're making seems to confuse the FDC process a little. The FDC does not expect the organizations to give money back. However, it is rather obvious that unspent funding should be rolled over to the next budget and not be counted towards the learning curve in tackling larger budgets, no?

Things I generally agree with:

  • one-year funding is short and it would be good to be able to have longer projects when needed.
  • there is too much bureaucracy in the process - in terms of reporting in particular. However, metrics and proposals are relatively reasonable (although require a lot of work). You are also simply mistaken when you assume that the FDC ahs the same expectations towards large and small entities: the fact that application formats are same does not equal in the same expectations. We believe (although I speak for myself only here, so this is how I think the FDC thinks) that large entities have to be expected to meet higher professional standards. This naturally applies to WMDE, too.
  • Goals of the movement should be better formulated by the Board, that's true.
  • It would be good if the FDC could have more communication with the chapters and moving the chapter conference dates to May would be splendid (if possible), or the FDC schedule could be moved (although we know that for various reasons May is probably more fixed for us than it may be for a conference).

The way we should rework the model in my view should be done collaboratively. For various practical reasons I don't think the upcoming Wikimedia Chapters conference is a good time and place for that. First, most of the FDC members will not be able to join. Second, the FDC Round 2 has not been finished and the whole process should be evaluated after the first two years. This is why I would like to suggest that we do this during Wikimania - and taking 1-2 days before or after the conference to specifically focus on the FDC sounds doable (even if we, as the FDC, are not going to get WMF funding to come to Wikimania, many of us will be there anyway and extending for a day or two is easier than going specifically for the Chapter's conference). Pundit (talk) 16:56, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Pundit, thank you very much for your quick and thoughtfull response. Just some quick answers from me:
My point wasn’t so much the fact that every request was cut, but that it is (at least not for me) not comprehensible why they were cut. If you have 11 very different proposals, and none gets full funding, I wonder what the perfect proposal would have looked like. And no, the fact that every chapter is growing from year to year should not influence the decision at all - as long as it is a productive growth and the results are growing as well.
Regarding the FDC feedback: I agree that it is not really feasible to give detailed feedback to each proposal (even so I do not agree with your characterisation of the FDC as a "granting institution" - I think of the FDC as something very unique, as our movement is something unique); but it would be very helpful to get a better understanding which factors played which role in the decision making process. For example, instead of saying "the proposal uses poor metrics", you could explain: "For program A and program B, we think you use very good metrics; but for all other programs, the metrics were ill-defined, very broad and they would measure the wrong things. Based on this, we do not think that these programms can be evaluated in a proper way at this time and we don’t think you should execute programms you are not able to evaluate in a right way. If you resubmit these programs with valid metrics, the FDC will be likely to fund them".
I will answer to your other points (regarding the way forward and the "end of year spending frenzy") in the next couple of days.--Pavel Richter (WMDE) (talk) 17:46, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I did not characterize the FDC as a granting institution (if at all, it would apply to WMF, but I think that our movement situation is unique). But this is the only analogy in donation application feedback we can have. The level of detail for feedback is of course something that has to be established in such a way that it comforts all entities, and in the same time does not dramatically increase the costs of the process. I agree with you that there is a scope for improvement here definitely and the FDC should make every effort possible to accommodate that. The fact that we already do follow up with personal calls and talks in many cases does not substitute for public feedback. Pundit (talk) 22:43, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re: End-of-year spending frenzy[edit]

Regarding WMDE's comments in this section, I would like to point out that loosing the money that is not spent from a budget (be it from a project or annual) is common practice in many European governments, including in Germany. While this might indeed lead to a spending frenzy, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the spending is in the budget's guidelines, which can be ensured by proper control and audit.

This is also a good deterrent for a previous danger you identify - that of inflating budgets. Chapters should make serious efforts to create realistic budgets that will be spent entirely.--Strainu (talk) 17:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

lets not forget - we are NGO. Are role is not to spend money, but to uses him wisely. Meant that chapter can plan to spend X money on a program, but found himself spending only x\2, because he manged to get the venue free, and to get other support (sponsoring or in-kind donation). Can we guarantee that next year he will manage to get the same support for the same project? not always. So next year he will probably need to ask to same amount of money, even that last year he spent only half. Are this is a bad thing to save money? Of course it's a specific example, and we can allow each chapter to finish the year with only half of the expense he planned, but we also not need to look how we "punish" chapters who didn't spent all their budget - this will really push them to spending money. --Itzike (talk) 17:11, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you worked in an very good government but having to spend the money at an specific time is entirely a bad thing.--Saehrimnir (talk) 13:01, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you mean Wikimedia?[edit]

Hi, one minor issue, in "we are, for example, wider spread than the WMF and exist not only as a promoter of Wikipedia, but also as a society for the promotion of free knowledge. However, many entities focus solely on Wikipedia," Did you really mean to say "we are, for example, wider spread than the WMF and exist not only as a promoter of Wikipedia, but also as a society for the promotion of free knowledge. However, many entities focus solely on Wikimedia,". Aside from things supporting Wikisource, Wikinews etc I believe that many chapters took part in Wiki loves monuments supporting Wikimedia Commons. (personal view rather than in my role as a WMUK employee) WereSpielChequers (talk) 18:30, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I understood this sentence as "wider range of activities than just Wikimedia projects". I don’t know to what extend WMDE speaks (and does), but I guess the non-Wikimedia free knowledge is about open data, free softwares, freely-licensed works, free licenses, etc.; e.g. IIRC WMID is working closely with Creative Commons ID; some chapters have projects with NGOs like the Open Knowledge Foundation, etc. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 23:04, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You are right, I do mean "Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Sites" and used Wikipedia as short for this.--Pavel Richter (WMDE) (talk) 17:20, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

FDC as a group[edit]

Would it be helpful if I wrote down what I, as one of its members, see as being "the FDC" and what the key inputs are, in order of importance, in our deliberations? I get a feeling reading that it is very hard to grasp this and that communications of this central part has been inadequate.Anders Wennersten (talk) 09:23, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this might indeed be helpful, thanks for your offer, Anders. --Nicole Ebber (WMDE) (talk) 11:27, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK I will then put in down here below. And please note it is not an official description from all FDC, but my personal writing.Anders Wennersten (talk) 05:55, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The group[edit]

We are nine with a broad and varied background which enable us, as a group, to grasp and have insights in more or less all aspects of the entities och their proposal we work on - the entities, the key persons, the community, the programs, the culture. We are set up by the Board as a subcomittee to prepare recommendations from a set of inputs (se more below). We have one mode of operations during the deliberations when we have an excellent and efficient way of performing. Outside the deliberations we handle Ok the preparations and minor task following upon our release of the recommendation. In other issues our mode of operations is complicated and slow, as we require full consensus in anything we say, and we really have very different set of opinions in most subjects (outside a general beleif funding must be related to (potential) impact). Our difference of opinions is a strength during our deliberations, making sure we dicsuss the proposals from many perspectives, but makes it very hard to get to any common standpoint in other areas.

The deliberations decision process[edit]

The deliberation is done from inputs (see below) by discussing and using two tools, iterative individual recommendations of allocation per proposal and the use of "the grade of agreement process". The later seems trivial on paper (just stating number 1-8) but is very powerful and seen as magic even by us using it.

The decision process actually means we members do not have to be in agreement in details (one could vey well think a cost for office is too much while other disagree, some that the effect of an outreach program is questionable and other think it look OK), but we manage to get an agreement of the recommended allocation by the process reflecting all our opinions.

So an iternative process between applicants and FDC during the deliberation is not possible with our mode of operation. Neither is it possble for FDC to have detailed feedback on every part of the proposal. The areas where we have a common view we document in the recommendation

Key inputs to the deliberation[edit]

in order of inportance (note this in my personal preceived priority)

Directives from the Board[edit]

The FDC framework as such, the total budget etc. For last round we had a budget of 6 MUSD for round 1+2. Also Sues key points expressed in the document from August was an input as the Board expressed a general symphathy with the key point.

In this feedback paper very many of he concerns is actually related to these prerequisets for the FDC, not how we impemtented these for the proposals

The guardrail document and feedback from Garfield[edit]

This gives an overwiew and map for us to have as a reference frame before we start wih the deliberation. And of cource we need to have a firm understanding of the basic numbers from the entities and their proposal. The guardrail was made public, but I can think most missed it, and it is boring, just tables of numbers

The proposals and feedback from the entities[edit]

We study these in detail before our meeting and much of the discssion is around what is written in the proposals, before the deliberations the FDC members and the community in general can ask questions on the talk page. FDC members may also ask questions directly to applicants (e.g. via e-mail). @Anders, I have added a couple of lines about feedback from entities, feel free to move the point or reword it. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 09:53, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Track records[edit]

An entty running a good working operation, showing in numbers the impact of the programs run by the FDC funds will be handled more favorably then one having problems in its operation.

The staff assesment[edit]

For us in FDC this is the least imprtant document, mostly to ensure we, the members, have not overlooked anything during our lookthrough of the proposals

FDC Evaluation is in 4 months[edit]

Thanks for the feedback, I might not agree with all of it, but it is very useful to have nonetheless :) As you know the FDC was created after consulting with the FDC Advisory Group (A group of thoughtful individuals who helped think about the framework and the conditions). It was agreed that this group would evaluate the process after a two year period and see what needed to be changed. This evaluation is currently planned at the end of May. Pavel (the ED of WMDE) is a member of this group so I have no concerns that the experiences described here will get lost somewhere. At the same time the staff supporting the FDC is regularly sending out evaluation forms to the participants in order to be able to have a thoughtful discussion on this in May. Jan-Bart (talk) 12:25, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

thanks to WMDE[edit]

I'm not directly involved in the FDC process, but I wanted to extend sincere thanks to WMDE for putting this together. It is quite an interesting read, and I am quite glad to see that WMDE paid significant attention in putting this document together to the FDC's interactions with movement entities other than just WMDE. At some point, I'm going to try to to shape some of my thoughts about the FDC based off of the feedback extended here and elsewhere in to actionable recommendations in hopes that an outsider perspective may lead to at least one or two process improvements worthy of adoption. It's great to see sincere, good faith engagement between major movement entities about serious matters such as the FDC. Kevin (talk) 02:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

+1. Thank you WMDE for your note and great ideas. I totally agree with most of them. --Itzike (talk) 16:55, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
+1. It will be one of my movement history anthology texts Ziko (talk)
+1. Thank you - we at WMAT are very grateful for this initiative. We feel that there is an urgent need to discuss some basic questions about the FDC process and to do this, we need more than the results of two 10 minute online surveys on this topic. This feedback provides a great basis. --CDG (talk) 11:35, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

Thanks WMDE for sharing this feedback. It would have been useful if you could have gone into more detail here (for me, the 'extensive' in the title of the page is a bit of a misnomer), particularly into what difficulties WMDE has directly had with the process. But for me, everything up to 'The next level' except for some bits in 'Pieces of the puzzle' seems very sensible, and echoes concerns that have been raised by FDC members during the deliberations.

On 'Lack of distinction' - I really do think that it only makes sense for the FDC to consider entire annual plans rather than trying to pick bits and pieces to assess. That's necessary because the funds are unrestricted - they can be used for any activity, rather than being restricted to specific bits and pieces of the plan. I actually think it makes more sense to think of all of the money being spent by Wikimedia organisations as movement funds, irrespective of the source of the funding, and for all of it to be up for community review, than to try to think of separate pockets of funding here.

I think that the FDC process as a whole is working reasonably well, so I'm not sure what the aim of proposing a complete rework of it here is. Yes, various bits and pieces of the FDC process do need reworking, but I think they can be worked on in pieces rather than having to fundamentally rewrite the whole process. I'm not sure that we'll ever be 'able to develop a joint and truly global strategy that has been accepted by all members' - we can definitely iterate on things to move closer to consensus, but I doubt that there is an ideal solution that will perfectly suit everyone.

Note that this is my personal opinion only. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:50, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Importance of metrics[edit]

By reading the exchange above between Pundit and Pavel, I would like to speak about the metrics, which the FDC, WMF, and whole movement seems to currently adore, and view most of the programs executed by the chapters/WMF/others through the lens of the metrics.

I worked previously in the field of the observability in physics, and the metrics are the same notion in social sciences than the observables in physics: a partial vision of the reality, possibly deformed in the case of bad metrics. And create and use good metrics/observables is not easy: first you have to find the more appropriate metrics, second you have to retrieve these (from a technical/organisational point of view), and third you have to acknowledge that this is only a partial (possibly deformed) vision of the reality. In all cases a program can be successful from some points of view, even if only observed through bad or badly-used metrics which indicate it failed (e.g. in a workshop you count the number of edits (20) and participants (5) but the quality of an article jump from stub to candidate good article).

So I find that, given the relatively new wide interest for the metrics, I find the FDC and others should encourage the entites to create learning patterns about good metrics and correct use of the various metrics, and encourage the entities to automate and find good practices to create metrics (e.g. standard way to count attendees - in a previous presentation of 1h30 in front of a general public of roughly 10 persons during the lunch time, one third of people arrived during the first 20 minutes and one third quitted during the last 30 minutes). I find that currently the entities should not be too much judged through the metrics it can show, but through the qualitative opinions from a program, at least before a wider understanding and use of the metrics is disseminated in the movement (e.g. "We find the program was successful because the public was interested and we received a lot of thanks from the participants" but not "The program got 70% of satisfaction according to the survey (35% of participation in the survey)": the former shows the passion of the attendees and the trainers, but the latter is very cold and less informative).

~ Seb35 [^_^] 14:59, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comment, I totally agree. Myself being a qualitative researcher, I believe that quantitative metrics are just a good start for planning and evaluation, but qualitative review is essential. However, I believe that preparing SMART goals helps in formulating ideas. The problem with formulating measures often indicates the problem with externalizing what the expected outcomes are and with realizing why something should be done. This is why I think quantitative goals are important - while evaluation per se definitely should have qualitative components (which in my personal view are more important than the mere numbers). Pundit (talk) 16:16, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I Agree, Seb35. The FDC keep repeated about metrics and goals, while no one yet figure out how we really need to evaluate our work. Even the WMF's evaluation team is only at his first steps, and to demand small chapters the level of knowledge and evaluation time the WMF (or other big chapters) can afford - is not realistic. Also, we know that there are many variables in the formula of a "new editor", for example (as this is the common metric to uses - "how many new editors this program created"?) Chapter can do a great a job with teaching people how to edit and bring them to the "entrance" of Wikipedia with the proper knowledge, but then they may still face others issues that not really related to the chapters itself. Many new editors found themselves leaving after few days of editing due an aggression or unwillingness to deal with older Wikipedians that are not always nice to the new ones. Even after teaching Wiki editing, people tend after some time to get tired from the editing interface, or many technical issues. So the evaluation can be very tricky. --Itzike (talk) 17:06, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An Additional Note on Appealing[edit]

Thank you WMDE for sharing this feedback on the FDC process. We in WMIL found it to be frustrating for many reasons. I would just like to add my thoughts on one matter - appealing to the FDC - based on my experiences from this round, and in the hope that someone will bring this up on April. We have submitted a letter, then an appeal, to try and reason with some of the FDC comments which we thought were unfair and based on wrong assumptions. I cannot speak for others (such as Itzike) who were involved in the process, but at least I got the sense that appeals were handled by the same people processing requests, and thus were answered with the same replies to the original submission. This was very frustrating for me, as we spent a lot of time reviewing FDC comments and found their reasoning to be lacking (for example: there was too much talk about percentages of growth, instead of discussion about actual growth mechanisms). I would like to suggest that more people, different people, are involved with appeals to FDC decisions. NLIGuy (talk) 21:24, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi NLIGuy. Different people are involved with appeals - they are handled by the WMF board representatives, who (although present as observers during the FDC deliberations) do not participate in putting together the FDC recommendations. Also, complaints about the FDC process are handled by the Ombudsperson, who again does not participate in the FDC deliberations. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 04:35, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Thanks. However, I still find it strange that the reasons for turning down our appeal sounded almost identical to the original reasoning by the FDC for turning down many of our growth initiatives. But OK, I would assume you are right. NLIGuy (talk) 09:47, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

I've not yet read any text on this talk page. Here are my independent thoughts about Items 2.1 and 2.2:

  • 2.1.1 Across-the-board cuts

    The section opens by stating that no proposal was awarded the entire amount it asked for, with "cuts" of 6–70%. "This could result in budgets being inflated unnecessarily in future to ensure that sufficient funds remain after the sweeping cuts ... [which] would not be in the interests of our movement."

    It seems like a circular argument. Leaving aside the framing of FDC allocations in relation to bids as "cuts", how do we know that bids were not inflated unnecessarily for the round in question? It is commonplace for grantmaking bodies to make partial allocations based on their judgement. Is the suggestion that there should be an all-or-nothing regime?

    Most importantly, the drumming theme of "cuts" disregards the fact that FDC outlays were considerably more than for a year ago (factoring out the unusual inclusion of the WMF bid in October 2012).

  • 2.1.2 Mistakes are being repeated

    The heading doesn't appear to be related to the text it purports to theme; certainly no "repeated" mistakes are specified. A major complaint is: "... but how does one define healthy growth and unhealthy growth?" We could just as well ask: "how does one define an effective full-time staff member, or value for money for a physical office space?" While I tripped on a few statements in both staff and FDC reports that seemed unhelpful without more detail (some even seemed a bit tough out of context), it takes a huge amount of skill, time, and effort to prepare such reports for 11 applications—I was impressed. Most grantmaking bodies provide very little feedback, and in this respect the FDC is one of the most open in the world. The provision of staff evaluations before the decision-making meant that any quibbles about appropriate growth rate were open to on- and off-wiki debate among applicants, the FDC, and indeed the community. Such discussion was openly encouraged, so we can only assume that matters were worked through then.

    I can't imagine that applicants often agree with every decision in a competitive and judgemental process; unless we want the FDC to be a milch-cow that hands over cash on demand to those in a position to be "eligible", the current system appears to resemble the shape of what is needed, even if there's room for fine (and not-so-fine) tuning.

    "We recommend that the FDC takes more care in formulating the reasons for its decisions and that its explanations clearly show which factors resulted in what cuts so that applicants can make improvements in future."—I don't disagree, but again, applicants are likely to be hard to please: it comes with the territory. The FDC and its support staff are open to on- and off-wiki written communication, and phone contact. This is a learning system for both sides.

  • 2.1.3 End-of-year spending frenzy

    Again, a punchy heading fails to segue into the text it introduces (there's no exploration of the notion of slush-fund spending on sumptuous parties and first-class air tickets towards the end of a cycle when underspending suddenly comes to light). Why doesn't the significant underspending of Wikimedia Germany and several other affiliated organisations during the inaugural cycle doesn't suggest that their bids were inflated a year ago? (I'm not suggesting it was deliberate.) The more important issue to get under control is the reliability of grant recipients' planning and follow-through (it's not easy, for sure). Many grantmaking bodies require unspent funds to be returned—it's certainly the case for PEG funding.

    I might add that Wikimedia Germany's own auditors were scathing about the lack of detail and foresight in the chapter's most recent annual plan, and that many members of the chapter and the de.WP community have expressed dismay at the conduct and outcomes of some of WMDE's flagship projects over the past year. In addition, the post hoc submission of WMDE's budget for scrutiny by GAC members produced rather negative, at times blunt responses concerning the lack of supporting detail and the lavish expense of some items. A small sample, I concede, and only $30,000 or so.

  • 2.2.1 Reliability

    It's unclear why this title was chosen. The issue seems to be the ability to plan and conduct projects over a longer term than 12 months. I have some sympathy with calls to accommodate the longer-term financial planning of affiliates, and it's worth discussing; however, the rationale for the 80–120% window was always at least partly to provide stability of planning. At least 80% of an affiliate's budget is reasonably certain to be allocated for the following year. I don't imagine that more than 80% of a budget would normally be devoted to forward planning over more than a year.

  • 2.2.2 Goals of the movement

    I have a lot of sympathy for this complaint. One aspect of institutional grantmaking that applicants detest—and I count myself among them—is the charade of composing rhetorical statements that bureaucratically confirm adherence to mission statements. In almost every case they are a complete waste of time as bottom–up text. We see the same thing on the GAC, where I've suggested that cut-and-paste boilerplate text paying vague lip-service to necessarily broad-brush-stroke movement goals bears no relation to the committee's (or the staff's) judgement; nor does it seem to guide applicants' framing of activities. A clever grantwriter can frame just about anything as a persuasive fit to mission.

    I've put forward the notion that much fraught typing late at night could be avoided by assuming a default position that applications are consistent with the WMF mission/goals, and that through scrutiny of the proposed activities and budget, those who judge should press the alarm button if there is not a good fit (top–down, in the expectation that it this would occur far less than 100% of the time). This would be a contribution to streamlining the process and reducing the role of oily salespersonship in the process (for applicants who can afford to hire it).

I'll return to read more and comment. Tony (talk) 10:46, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • 2.3.1 Inappropriate expectations

    It says: "The requirements for small chapters and young, specialized organizations (with regard to proposal submission, metrics, growth limits, reporting) are identical to those for very large chapters."—The second paragraph contains two broad suggestions worthy of consideration; but no argument is included to support this theory: "The WMF’s other funding programs (Project and Event Grants) are also not an option for smaller chapters that want to build up longer-term structures."

  • 2.3.2 Lack of distinction

    "... it is questionable whether the approach of always having to submit an entire project plan to the FDC is viable and sensible ..."—Affiliates are granted the privilege of using the WMF's trademark, which carries both risks and advantages for the continued good reputation of that trademark worldwide. Substantial allocations of donors' money should be on the basis of full and frank disclosure of the whole financial picture for a chapter. I'm surprised that with all of WMDE's human resources (>50 staff), a detailed short-, medium- and long-term plan is considered burdensome; please note the criticisms of WMDE's own auditors. For less well-resourced chapters the need for financial transparency and good planning is just as great, I'd have thought.

  • 2.3.3 Insufficient planning

    Phone and online contact with staff (probably also with the FDC itself, but I'm unsure about that) is encouraged before and after the application deadline, including after the staff assessments. The logistics of live hook-ups during meetings would be a nightmare, and not just in terms of timezones. Perhaps the freedom to phone an affiliate representative during the several days of meetings in San Francisco could be embraced, but I wouldn't be surprised if the WMF didn't go along with this: there's ample scope beforehand for discourse and there'e the need for the FDC members to have some distance from the parties while conferring in the cold light of day. In some respects, temporary distance is part of fairness in a judgmental process, even if Karlsruhe doesn't always set a good example in this respect.

  • 2.3.4 Unnecessary expenditure of time and money

    Yep, this should be a prime talking point. Almost every grantmaking procedure in the world becomes swollen with requirements for more and more text, especially on the application-writing side. Few bodies ever audit this and conduct a tightening of what they put applicants through, and perhaps the WMF can show how it can be done. My strong belief is that minimising the strain on applicants and maximising the ease of judgment are not necessarily at odds. However, both goals can be achieved only with skill and care (and can't always be achieved in every part of the process.

  • 2.3.6 Thoughts on the acquisition of funds

    I think this section should be withdrawn and thought through properly. Just one of several issues that immediately come to mind is that of global equity.

  • 2.4.1 Reworking the overall process

    The suggestion is that a "basic principle that every chapter, every specialized organization and every project is, to start with, eligible for support – being denied resources should be an exceptional case." This sounds like a caffeinated version of the DDR; and it appears to be in stark conflict with the previous declaration that we need to "achieve incredible things (while, of course, being careful with funds)". While it would be great to "simplify the process" as appropriate, I don't see a connection with the previous assertions.

Sorry, but this DDR metaphor is unnecessary and inappropriate. --CDG (talk) 11:43, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • 2.4.2 Making use of international meetings

    I encourage closer contact between affiliates and the FDC by skype audio, instant messaging, and email. One concern about throwing more emphasis on discourse at international meetings is the inherent disadvantage to the parts of the movement that are not in the developed world.

  • 2.4.3 Establishing a joint strategy

    A competitive and judgmental process that aims to maximise adherence to goals such as transparency, good governance, and developing and implementing activities that improve the WMF's online projects risks causing occasional "bitterness and disappointment". Our sprawling movement hangs off a valuable trademark, and the emergence from time to time of those who receive less than they wanted is built into the very concept of grantmaking. Tony (talk) 14:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support From Wikimedia India![edit]

Wikimedia India is appalled by the drastic deduction in requested funding and is among a chapters that is unhappy with the decision. We had also sent a open appeal to FDC and WMF board members was not considered fully even though a large section of the community felt that the request was legitimate. Considering all this, Wikimedia India publicly supports the appeal which is made by WMDE which highlights the risks other Chapters [and also WMDE itself] would face with the suggested amount. Our movement raised $50m last year so there is no dearth of funding. Activities should be supported in every possible way around the globe and there should be a sincere effort to cut WMF bureaucracy. -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 15:07, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Karthik, thank you for your comment. I generally agree with the need to cut bureaucracy - but I would go a step farther and I would say that we need to cut it not only at WMF, but also within chapters. I hope you agree :) Pundit (talk) 10:51, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]