Talk:Grant Advisory Committee

/Archive 1

Self-assessment

The GAC has been operating since June 2011, and this is a good time to take a moment to reflect on its work and offer some self-assessment (non-GAC members are welcome to add their own assessments as well!) on the GAC and its work (and my own!), with the goal of improving our functioning. It is also clear that some of the GAC members have participated very little, or not at all (some of those have flagged their temporarily limited availability in advance, and I appreciate that). I would like us to also discuss an internally agreed-upon standard of participation we should all commit to (barring forces majeures etc.).

Please share your thoughts on the following questions (intersperse your responses under each question, so we get a collation of question-and-answers groups). Thanks! Ijon 21:06, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

How well is the GAC doing its job? What could be done to improve?

• We're doing a good job, I think. Of course, we are learning about, but in future we will do a very nice job (almost I have all my hopes on it XD). For improve this job we need a little more coordination, I mean: some grants have a good GAC members' participation, but not anothers -I'm the first sinner :-(, of course---Marctaltor 22:54, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
• I hope that the summer months activity, due to the holidays and student exams/vacations, is not representative of our normal level of participation. I know this is self-assessment but it’s up to WMF and grant applicants to decide whether we are doing a good job. Judging by the result - the eventual decision about funding broadly correlates with our recommendations - we are not completely useless. The improvement would be to increase participation.Victoria 14:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• Well, is too soon to say something. We are still "learning" how to do this. The coordination thing is a good idea (see Marctaltor answer) but I think we could ask some members to opine when there are a grant who is related with then (by language or culture). Béria Lima ^msg 13:29, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
• In fact, the whole process of reviewing has fasten, so I must say that a really god job is done. But there is always a way how to improve it, and a further coordination could be nice to do it.--Kiril Simeonovski 08:42, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
• I think GAC members are doing good job as every request drew attention of a GAC member.But we can keep a further assesment for GAC by deciding many common factors, every GAC member should give his assesment for these factors-Mayur ^{(talk•Email)} 02:37, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

What is a reasonable internal standard of participation we could commit to?

• It's hard to answer this, I think...really I don't know. Some grants probably needs more participation than anothers, but i don't know how we calculate the neccesary number of GAC members' in each one...I will be happy to read proposal on it.--Marctaltor 22:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
• If we want to do a more thorough job it’s better to have opinions of at least three committee members per grant. May be there is a point in suggesting three members from the alphabetical list for each grant?Victoria 14:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• Well, I tend to agree with Marctaltor. Each grant is different, some need extensive discussion, some don't need that much. I think that "force" a certain number of members to answer a grant is not the best policy, and assign grants to someone is trick, because we can end up with a GAC member who does not know anything about the subject, when we had other with lots of knowledge who "can't talk" because is not his/her grant. Béria Lima ^msg 13:19, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
• I agree with the comments above. Some grants are simply open-and-shut affairs, and I don't think that all sixteen of us need to comment on those. This can make it look like we're neglecting those grants, when in actual fact we might just not have any criticism or comments to make. We could come up with a standardised template that we stick on the talk page to indicate that we've read the application and have no objections, but that might bring in the spectre of "voting" on grants. Craig Franklin 07:07, 17 September 2011 (UTC).
• Most of the grants can be reviewed easily, so I don't think that we need any internal standard. The most difficult part probably is to star participating in discussion lately after it has been started. This usually costs too much time and I'd rather prefer every GAC member to follow all the applications carefully and to participate as soon as the discussion begins.--Kiril Simeonovski 08:47, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
• I think every GAC member should commit his time for atleast 2-3 grant requests in a month. GAC may be extended to bring some new potential members-Mayur ^{(talk•Email)} 02:44, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

In light of the upcoming heavier reliance on the Grants program and the increase of its budget, do we need to expand the GAC? If so, by how much, and how should we structure it?

• No, I think not. I think there're enough people now. Perhaps in the future we need more people, but not yet I think. And more people, more problems...Napoleon says: "When I wish that a work should not be done, I name a Committee to study it"...Few people -but good workers- can do much.--Marctaltor 23:03, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
• I am worried a bit about somewhat ad hoc nature of our committee: we are all volunteers and have not been in any way approved by the community. When the Chapters and individuals will have to depend on our opinion, sooner or later this self-appointment could be questioned.

Additionally, the problem with volunteers is that we are relatively unreliable and certainly didn’t so far have too many members expressing their opinions in one discussion. I think adding an elected representative from each of the 10 major language projects may improve the Committee. Being elected = "awarded" responsibility will increase chances of steady participation and add weight to the opinions.Victoria 14:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Marctaltor opinion. So far, we are good. In the future, we can discuss changes if they are needed. Béria Lima ^msg 13:24, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
• I concur with the comments above. Most of the work done is made by the number of people included now, and the main goals in the terms of the time and decision-making seem to be appropriately reached. We lack a coordination, as many noted above, so any further expansion could be made if needed in the future.--Kiril Simeonovski 08:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
• I think if it required we can expand GAC, if the involvement of current GAC member is less we should expand this Committee-Mayur ^{(talk•Email)} 11:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

What can be improved in communication with the WMF?

• Oh...are there a communication with WMF?...XD XD...seriously: I think all communcation it's good. More communication, best job.--Marctaltor 23:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
• I like a lot how Ijon have organized our work but it would be nice to be informed about major grant policy changes ASAP. And to receive an answer to question N1 :)Victoria 14:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oh...are there a communication with WMF?² ;) ;) Well, so far we only know when a grant start (that communication could be faster) and when they are funded / rejected. I agree with Victoria that we should have more communication about grant policy changes (better when they are in the discussion phase) and when something change in a grant. Béria Lima ^msg 13:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
• With regards to GAC, I think it's pretty good. Asaf's semi-regular roundups are informative and helpful to me. I can't see any massive flaws in the current communication model that need fixing. Craig Franklin 07:08, 17 September 2011 (UTC).
• This is surely a very good question. I'm pleased to say that the people working in the Foundation really lean on the reviews made by the GAC members to make the ultimate decisions. However, we can improve the communication to find out who are the people responsible for the decision-making, and as noted above, Ijon has done a really good job in organization of the work within the GAC and the relations with the Foundation.--Kiril Simeonovski 08:59, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
• I think communication with WMF is already good-Mayur ^{(talk•Email)} 11:56, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Procedure for adding members

As members become unavailable or resign, there will come a need to recruit new volunteers for this committee. What procedure should we use?

publish a call for volunteers on Meta and Internal-L?

• That makes some sense, but only tell us about who are we inviting to apply. (see more in the answer below). Béria Lima ^msg 10:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
• Agree with Béria.--Marctaltor 21:30, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
• +1 --Ilario (talk) 08:01, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

discuss within the GAC and nominate candidates?

• As the other version, that only talks about who are applying for the GAC (for the record, both seems valid to me). My biggest problem is: How we select who will be in fact in the GAC? WMF does all alone according with some rules not explained to us? We run a vote with the actual members of the GAC? We run a vote with the community? How the election will be done is - to me - more important tham how we will select the candidates. Béria Lima ^msg 10:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  I agree. As far as I know there was no selection for the first round, everybody who applied was confirmed as a member. If we repeat the procedure, we'll get the same result.--Victoria 11:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

• Propose an election of one memeber in 10 major Wikipedias.--Victoria 11:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
• Agree with Béria, again.--Marctaltor 21:30, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
• We should decide how much involvement is required from GAC.I think as per current need we can add 5-6 members more to GAC.-Mayur ^{(talk•Email)} 02:20, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

(your idea here)

Nominations and Elections

I am happy to include a community elections process for expanding the GAC (or making up for attrition). I do feel we need more energy in the GAC, so I am considering publishing a call for volunteers in the public channels soon. Perhaps the incumbent GAC would like to offer thoughts on how to structure the elections and the CfV? Ijon 20:32, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

My question continue, Asaf: How we will actually elect the people to be in GAC? Béria Lima ^msg 11:11, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Er, wasn't that what I was asking you? I have stated some form of elections are fine, and asked what kind of elections you have in mind. Do you have a preference? Ijon 19:51, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I think we need feedback from all the incumbent members of GAC and their wish to continue doing the work, and then to start thinking about election. Else, I don't think it's an appropriate way to establish any election without any thoughts on the work within the GAC. More information about how many new members should be recruited is also a crucial question. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski 20:46, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I have so far assumed all incumbents are interested in remaining on the GAC, as no one has responded to my suggestion (made more than once) that perhaps some members are no longer feeling committed enough to the GAC's work. Perhaps I should assume the opposite and ask members interested in remaining on the GAC to speak up?

And yes, we have a chicken-and-egg problem here -- I'll know (approximately) how many new members we need if I know how many active members we still have... I'm really trying not to be too pushy here, while still increasing the total reviewing capacity of the GAC. Suggestions welcome! Ijon 20:51, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

No response to the above comment of mine. I cannot but conclude it was not read... :( Ijon 23:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Asaf for the (very!) late response -- I am more than eager to stay in GAC. Abbasjnr (talk) 08:57, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Election Procedure #1

In the absence of other proposals, I will put forward a proposal for electing new GAC members, if only to get a discussion going:

Overview

The Grant Advisory Committee (GAC) is a volunteer advisory body providing review and evaluation for grant requests and reports in the Wikimedia Grants program, to both WMF grantees and the WMF itself. It brings a community perspective and plenty of program of experience to grantmaking, helps refine grant requests and point out concerns, informs the grantmaker decision process, and help review and learn from reports of completed grants.

When new GAC members are needed (whether due to attrition or to expiry of term (see above)), a community election process will be announced and run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Ijon 00:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Eligibility

Serving on the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC) is on a voluntary basis. We expect this to be a 2-4 hour per week commitment throughout the year. Ideally, a GAC member should:

• have considerable experience doing Wikimedian work (not necessarily within a chapter)
• have experience designing and implementing programs that are mostly volunteer-driven
• have some experience handling money and working with and within budgets, preferably in a non-profit context
• take an active interest in supporting the wider movement -- e.g. regularly reading at least some of the international mailing lists (Foundation-l, Internal, etc.), chapter reports, Wikimedia blog posts, etc.
• not be a member of another Wikimedia committee (e.g. Chapters Committee)

Note: GAC Members may request grants on behalf of organizations they are involved with or for themselves. Ijon 00:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Call for Volunteers

A Call for Volunteers would be published by the Wikimedia Foundation, pointing at information about the GAC, the criteria, the term (if any), and a timeline. The CfV would be published in relevant mailing lists, in a Wikimedia Blog post, and in notices in the various Wikimedia projects, to get good coverage of Wikimedians.

Interested volunteers would be asked to sign up in the election (sub-)page, and would be encouraged to include links or brief descriptions of their relevant background.

At least two weeks would be allowed from the publishing of the CfV until elections begin. Ijon 00:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Election

Community members eligible to vote in Wikimedia Board elections are eligible to vote for GAC elections.

Elections last at least two weeks. At the end of the pre-announced election period, the top N candidates are elected to fill the N vacancies in the GAC. GAC appointments are effective immediately. Ijon 00:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Election Procedure #2

I wonder what could happen if we simply let all in who fill the criteria for membership. Would it be bad? In a way I feel that would be much, much better than elections. And then the term, which could be of just one year in this a case, would be more like a confirmation of interest and responsibility. Also, as this is a purely consultive body, even if there are elections I think they should somehow be oriented towards the aggregate expertise and interests of the members, rather than simply the amount of other wikimedians who approve of them, though that cannot be ignored. Well, these are just suggestions, overall I like Ijon's proposal :) --Solstag 09:27, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you, but elections do have one advantage: they are a means of letting vox populi determine candidates suitability (hopefully, as you say, taking into consideration expertise etc., and not just personal fondness), instead of someone assessing candidates' suitability based on that someone's (possibly biased, subjective, myopic, etc.) perceptions alone. Even if we accept everyone who meets the criteria, there still remains the question of who determines whether or not person X meets the criteria, some of which leave some room for debate/contention. Ijon 01:00, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hm, right, I completely agree. So my view is that there shouldn't be elections, but more of a referendum. The community is asked to evaluate whether the candidates fulfill the requirements. All candidates who are judged qualified are accepted into the GAC. --Solstag 00:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Important question is who will be eligible to vote on the election. I really don't like the idea the whole community to vote for people that clearly have to meet any criteria and where the decision should be made by drawing a specific cutoff.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kiril, I would like to point out that this proposed process isn't about an election, but a referendum on whether each candidate meets some criteria (see the very comment you reply to). There is no justification for us to restrict the participation of any number of candidates before we actually experience drawbacks from that. Let us give everyone a chance and proceed by trimming the edges later. Please see the thorough explanation about this issue that I give elsewhere in this subsection and in my critiques of the other procedures. Hugs, --Solstag (talk) 13:57, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

• I am afraid that the combination - public method of evaluating grants on discussion pages + public election by general Wikimedia community may lead to the sitation that GAC members may have a tendency to be less critical than they should. In the model #1 - any negative opinion over the grant proposal will lead to less votes during upcoming election, so we may loose good GAC members who tends to be more critical, and stay with those who always support all grant proposals :-) Polimerek (talk) 12:34, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

  Hi Polimerek! I don't think that would really be the case, for two reasons. First, in case it's not an election but a referendum where people must voice why the person does not fill the criteria, it really gets harder to push away critical people. I also think there are many people in the community interested in keeping a high standard around here. Second, if the GAC works well, it should not have any resentment from failed grantees, as our job is not to decide which grants are approved, but to help them improve the grant so that it fits the criteria. Last, I don't think assuming tragedy works best here; having a public process has some obvious very positive aspects, so why not try it out and, worst case, we learn something valuable. Hugs, --Solstag (talk) 06:02, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

While I have no experience with the GAC personally, I'm curious about the proposal. :) You mention letting in all who fill the criteria - would that be an unlimited number of applicants, creating a committee limited only by interest and qualifications? Are there advantages or disadvantages to capping the number of people involved? (I do kind of like the idea of open membership; it's very much the Wikimedia way.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Maggi! Yes, you've understood the proposal pretty well. The size of the committee would be limited dynamically by the conditions for lapsing membership, which is currently being discussed elsewhere on this page, and the public referendum about whether each person fulfills the criteria for participation - which would simply be an improved version of the criteria applied in the first GAC selection. If the committee grows to a size that for some reason becomes a problem, we can simply adjust those criteria or the conditions for lapsing membership. In any case, given the current interest rate, it is very unlikely that we grow a lot, we might actually have the opposite problem and another reason not to limit entrance! --Solstag (talk) 05:59, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• I strongly agree with Polimerek above. There is no reason to weak the GAC by forcing everyone to take a "public stoning". Of course the ones who don't comment and only sign they are ok with the request will be the ones approved, always. Béria Lima ^msg 01:31, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

  As I responded to polimerek back in March, and as I had carefully explained elsewhere in these sections, there is no substantive evidence or reason to herald that a "public stoning" process will take place, or that, if it took place, it wouldn't be an important sign that we're doing something wrong. We should not avoid criticism by blinding ourselves to the legitimate stakeholders of our actions, we should instead prevent it by being even more responsible of our actions and making sure others understand them. Avoiding and preventing are two very different attitudes, and the distinction between them is fundamental in producing sustainable governance. --Solstag (talk) 13:57, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Election Procedure #3

I do believe a community election is one of the worst ways to look at this. We are not running a popularity contest here, but a committee and we should not make it a popularity contest. I preffer the ChapCom model of election. Béria Lima ^msg 02:29, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Let's spell that out: this means the incumbents (the current GAC) publish a call for volunteers, and then selects new members from among the applicants by consensus or internal vote. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 20:08, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is the idea. Prevent the problem of having a community dependent GAC (as polimerek stated above). Béria Lima ^msg 01:14, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm also OK with an internal vote. Abbasjnr (talk) 07:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any good reason to have an election mechanism that does not guarantee to as many Wikimedia contributors as proves sustainable a chance to directly influence the composition of this committee. In fact, if possible in the future we should make an effort so that also the donors have a say on the composition of this committee as well.

The idea that an open vote would become a popularity contest, and even the very idea that a popularity contest is undesirable, ignores the benefits of openness, ignores that the GAC is advisory, and mostly ignores that the Foundation and the overall community - and not only those who have requested grants - are participants, stakeholders and overseers of the process. And that it is also our responsibility, as is for any person in a position of privilege, to make them feel that way.

On the other hand, there is very concrete harm from indulging a closed, endogenous selection, at the very least because we'd lose a great opportunity to motivate community engagement and provoke needed criticism. Therefore, given the current cards on the table, I oppose proposals for indirect, not to mention endogenous, elections.

Mind you all that the GAC is currently, and for the foreseeable future, a consultive committee whose primary mission is to help get requests into good shape, and not to tell the Foundation when to deny them. We are responsible for advising and improving requests, which at its worse, when a grant request fails to meet some criteria, should mean to constructively point to a solution or an alternative. If the only advice we can give is that a request should be denied, we are doing a bad job. So, worrying about proposers of denied grants trying to payback is not only unfounded, it is contrary to our mission and a sign of unwillingness to respond to criticism.

If a GAC member recurrently acts in a way that makes grant proponents feel like he is responsible for denying their requests, then that member indeed needs to improve his behavior, or recognize that he's unfit for the kind of work the GAC requires. Moreover, if a grant proponent favors a GAC member because he blindly approves any request without suggesting improvements, then even that is an important signal we don't want to silence, as it would point us to both a GAC member who is not doing his job and a community member who needs to better understand the GAC's mission.

Hugs,

--Solstag (talk) 10:38, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Solstag - an open selection process is the only way forward.--Victoria (talk) 11:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Signalling reading

Many of the GAC members, no doubt, do take the time to review a grant request, but find that either they can't offer an opinion one way or the other, or that their precise position has already been articulated by another member (or by me). That is perfectly fine, but it has the unfortunate side effect of making it appear as though that GAC member did not review the request at all.

I would like, therefore, to find a way to signal that you _have_ in fact read the grant request, and have no [further] comments. Any method you are comfortable with is fine by me: on-wiki, a shared online document, private e-mails to me.

Perhaps the easiest would be to just tack on a "==GAC==" (or "==Review==") section to the end of incoming requests, under which you can all just sign once you've read and commented (or not commented) on the request. That would make it a lot easier for me to distinguish between there being one comment because only one GAC member read the request and there being one comment because one GAC member spoke for many. It would also allow me to act sooner in cases where the GAC chooses not to take a position (which, again, is fine), and the consideration is left entirely to the WMF.

Please comment. Thanks! Ijon 20:32, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I usually try to leave some feedback every time I read something. For me that is the best practice: always leave some feedback, even if it is superficial, let people know you've been over it. Are there really people reading proposals and leaving no feedback at all? I mean, it takes some effort to read a proposal, so not even dropping a short comment seems like a waste of your own time. --Solstag 03:31, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and I would encourage simple trivial comments on the grant pages themselves, as you say -- and not just for my benefit, but for the grant requester as well, so that it's clear several people have reviewed the request.

Am I to understand, then, that you have not read the grant requests where you have made no comment? :-p Ijon 03:41, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Shaaame on me!! Indeed, I haven't been able to devote much time to the GAC lately. I knew I'd be giving myself away... ;-)

About the benefits, like I said, leaving even the shortest of comments works also for the benefit of the grant reviewer himself, to make the best of his own reading effort which is, otherwise, mostly wasted.

One thing that might get in the way is the lack of an obvious place, so we could agree on creating a "General" section whenever we don't find a place for a review too short to be a topic on its own.

Cheers, --Solstag 04:29, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I usually comment on most of the grant applications, but I must admit that many times my questions were already asked, or a review started with me was proceeded by another GAC member in a decent manner. My thoughts therefore are on the way that we don't need any further clarification on this, since we're already doing the work fluidly.--Kiril Simeonovski 20:55, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd only add that, by the important concerns raised by Ijon, in the case our questions are already asked, we should drop a line anyway: to let Ijon know we read the proposal, and for the extra benefit of reinforcing that question. : ) --Solstag 08:10, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I do feel that I have a fiduciary duty to read all the grant requests. I can't say that I _have_ actually read all of them, but yes, more often than not, I don't have any feedback to give. So yes, coming up with that option you proposed will be good. Or GAC members could sign with four tildes at the bottom of a grant application page to signify the people who have gone through it. Abbasjnr (talk) 09:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Update: with the support expressed above, I have updated the GAC page with the expectation of signing your name on open grant requests if you have no comments. I am adding a space for it on the talk pages of open grant requests. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:48, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Reviewing Reports

Ideally, I would have liked the GAC to also review Grant Reports, to provide community input on this complementary part of the grantmaking process, and to help us evaluate and draw lessons from past grants. This is not too onerous, as reports come in at no more than the rate of approved grant requests, and is also less time-sensitive, as reports can be evaluated at leisure.

Would current GAC members agree to review some grant reports as those come in? If so, how do you propose we organize it? Ijon 02:02, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I would enjoy checking reports, but that would subtract from the already little time I can devote to review proposals. But I'm sure other people have more energy available and I would welcome this as a secondary objective for the GAC's mission :) --Solstag 03:34, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that we are already struggling to get some people to review the grant proposals, so I'm quite skeptical about the repercussions of increasing the workload. 89.211.37.202 04:12, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing grant reports will help GAC to judge upcoming grant requests. It will increase our experience and skills. So I am in favor of this however we shall have to increase GAC members from 16 to 25 to accommodate this requirement--Mayur ^{(talk•Email)} 05:06, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing reports should be a crucial part of our work done as GAC.--Kiril Simeonovski 15:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Terms for GAC membership

In light of the need to expand the GAC, and the talk of elections, I think it makes sense to make GAC membership be term-based. I would like to hear thoughts from the incumbent GAC as well as anyone else reading this.

An opening bid: two-year terms, changing half the GAC every year (to provide overlap and continuity). The first (i.e. current) GAC can decide on how to pick the seats up for re-election this year internally. The current GAC's term should be counted retroactively, i.e. not two years from now, but from the establishment of the GAC (June 2011). Ijon 23:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

+1 to two-year terms. Abbasjnr (talk) 09:11, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, the survey said that the majority preffers a no-term based GAC. So I don't know why this proposal. Béria Lima ^msg 02:25, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Not quite: 7 of 15 respondents were in favor of permanent terms. 8 were either for one/two-year terms or not sure. Additionally, I have pointed out that permanent committee memberships, especially when the incumbents were not elected by a community process, are incompatible with good governance for a community-wide committee. So permanent terms are not an option. They were on the survey because I thought (correctly, it turned out) that several members would support that, and needed to know whether it's a minority or a majority (turned out to be about half) to appropriate address my explanation that that would be unacceptable. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 02:37, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

• I would have added my comment to the vote. I voted for "permanent" position and I will explain my vote. The GAC members are volunteers and it's difficult to find "active" volunteers. Imagine that we find a group of active GAC members that are very productive. Why we should put a termination for their activity? In my opinion the volunteering activity and the limited activity are incompatible. The sysops are volunteers, the other members operating around Wikimedia projects are volunteers and there is no expiration of their activity if they are active. I agree to monitor the activity, put if we find an active GAC member, we should support him and not give an expiration date. --Ilario (talk) 10:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I think terms are tightly related to (and should reflect) another criteria: number of members (fixed? min/max set?), procedure to set a new member (delegation, election, appointing, other? only annual terms or anytime?), ability and procedure to recall member (who to decide? when to decide?). For the beginning the proposal of two year term with overlap seems to be good solution, on the other hand I think until it's proven paralelly with other criteria I mentioned above, it should not be pronounced as unchangeable rule.
Regardless which term will be chosen, I support its retroactivity.
— Danny B. 18:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• This is easely solved by allowing serving members to reapply as many times as they want. I know about a member of reguralily elected enwiki Arbotration Comittee, who has been working there for several years in a row.Victoria (talk) 08:07, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Meeting at ChapConf

Do you think that it might be good for the GAC guys to have a meeting at the Chapters Conference so that all these issues can be finalised? This process has been stalled for quite a while now (and yes, I am one of the people guilty of stalling.) Abbasjnr (talk) 09:07, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't. I think the GAC should be capable of discussing this right here on this talk page. It doesn't seem to me that the obstacle to more engagement here is some sort of tension or misunderstanding that can only be resolved in person. We need members who put time into the GAC regularly, and online. In person meetings are not scalable for the GAC's operation. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 09:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt reply. What do you mean by "in person meetings aren't scalable"? BTW, I am not saying implying that WMF should pay for all of GAC's members travel to Berlin -- what I mean is that the members that will be in Berlin could have a meetup. Abbasjnr (talk) 15:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see. I did indeed misunderstand. I'll begin a conversation with the GAC members here in Paris this weekend, and go on with the other GAC members in Berlin next month, and I do hope that by the end of March we can have the GAC meta-questions resolved, and be more confident about the GAC's processes, membership, etc. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 15:51, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Asaf that GAC needs to be a body which will be able to handle tasks “online”, without personal meetings. This must be its primary method of cooperation.
But on the other hand such cooperation goes every better when the people knows each other in person. And an informal meeting during ChapConf could be a good idea. --Packa (talk) 11:09, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree as Packa. Have a great time at WMCon guys, and hopefully see you at Wikimania later this year :) --Solstag (talk) 19:04, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Criteria for Grant Evaluation

A majority of the GAC is in favor of developing a set of formal criteria that would be used in evaluating grant proposals. These criteria would not be sufficient criteria, but more like necessary criteria (though in fact we may want to be flexible and not always require all of them to be met), i.e. they would be explicitly referred to in evaluating a grant proposal, and would form a minimal basis for the GAC's evaluation of the proposal. GAC members would still be free to assess and comment on any other aspects of the proposal, and to praise or express concern about any of them.

Let us begin gathering a set of criteria we are comfortable with, for evaluating typical non-annual grant proposals, i.e. project-based or event-based grants, for the most part. We might use the annual grants criteria, which have seen some community review already, as a starting point, but they obviously do not all apply to this class of grants, and some criteria important for these grants may be missing from the evaluation of annual grants.

I am seeding the list below with a few suggestions, just to get things started. GAC members, please contribute; non-GAC members, please contribute too! :) Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 01:00, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible Criteria

Please add criteria, or edit/upvote/downvote existing ones.

• Mission-alignment: is the proposal aligned with the Mission? All work funded by grants must be at least somewhat aligned with our mission. If it is aligned with our mission, perhaps try to roughly quantify it?
• Feasibility: is the proposal feasible? That is, is the plan realistic and do the steps and budget proposed seem likely to attain the desired outcome? Are the human resources to carry it off available?
• Frugality: is the budget frugal in spending? We are committed to making careful use of our donor funds, and must not fund immoderate or wasteful programs.
• Impact: Will the grant-funded work, if successful, have significant impact? Is the impact (at least somewhat) measurable? Can the expected impact be described, in terms of our mission, our strategic goals, plus local concerns (e.g. rallying local volunteers)?
• No COI: is there no conflict of interest in the proposal? If a COI exists, is it suitable stated and addressed?
• ...

Comments

Strategy

Do we want a specific criteria regarding alignment to strategy? --Solstag (talk) 15:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Process

Do we want a process related criteria, such as requiring that the grant page reflect all the changes committed to in the discussion? --Solstag (talk) 15:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Criterion?

I don’t think these points are criteria (criterion should be more exact). They are principles for authors of applications, they should not forget to. And they are also principles for GAC members, what they should point their look to while they evaluate the request. --Packa (talk) 21:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey Packa. Can you give examples of what you'd think would be valid criteria? I agree they don't look like exact criteria, and worried about it at first. But then I felt we can't get much more specific than that at such a high level. Specially without constraining volunteer creativity. And there might not be enough benefit in trying to previously identify categories so narrow that exact criteria are applicable. But I'd love to be proven wrong by examples of useful exact criteria. Ni! --Solstag (talk) 01:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Solstag, my post was too brief, I see :) In the survey I wrote I am not sure if we need explicit criteria. So I don’t think we need give precision to these “Possible Criteria”. I only want to indicate they are IMHO principles rather than criteria (and we need to realize it when we will manipulate with them).
So I agree with you we can't get much more specific ones – it could be disserviceable. --Packa (talk) 09:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Lapsing of Membership due to Inactivity

There is clear support for lapsing of membership due to inactivity. What's less clear is what the term of inactivity should be before membership lapses. I would like to propose a relative lax term of four months of inactivity, after which I will be sending the inactive member a personal e-mail asking about their situation and whether they would like to resign from the GAC or commit to resume activity. If the member does not resign but does not resume activity within another month, their membership would lapse. Please express support or suggest changes. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 01:10, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support Abbasjnr (talk) 15:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
• Accurately. Support --Packa (talk) 17:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
• Very reasonable. I'd say support, though I don't really care much about this particular issue ;) --Solstag (talk) 17:41, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Update: In light of the above support and no voiced opposition, I have updated the GAC page to reflect the new policy. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:32, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Serious? 3 supports make a consensus here? I would like to propose the same term for inactivity of admins (6 months) and the exactly same process (6 months without edit in any grant page or anywhere = removal; If edit anywhere but not in a grant page = warning in talk page and if not signed in 7 days telling why they want to continue remove. If that happens for the second time is immediate removal) Béria Lima ^msg 02:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Serious! 3 support votes and zero oppose votes make a consensus here, for lack of more participation. If you had this different opinion, why did you not share it sooner?

As for your proposal -- it seems to me less effective and yet more aggressive than mine, and more appropriate for when there's a large group (of admins) rather than a small one (of GAC members); in a small group, we need active members more desperately than in a large group, that can generally tolerate much more idleness for much longer periods. Also, the benefit of it being "the same process" is in the eye of the beholder. The English Wikipedia process, for example, is different. Nevertheless, if a number of GAC members prefer your proposal for inactivity, we can adopt that instead. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 02:47, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Asaf, politeness is required in meta, or staff or not you may end up blocked for personal attacks. You don't like me, fine! We don't need to like each other, but you do need to respect my opinion as a member of the committee you are in charge of.

Answering you: YOUR job is to be here all time to answer things, that isn't MY job, I don't get paid to be here all day, so I only come when someone ask me to (as in, you asked today, and here I am). So if you don't do your job, I can't do my volunteer work.

As for the rest, we should listen the GAC. That is what I'm asking when I complained about the "consensus of 3" ... in a group of 16. That is 18%... good start, but not even a simple majority, so can't count as a decision. Béria Lima ^msg 02:52, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Beria, please don't describe my feelings for me. It is you who are derailing this conversation into ad hominem, not me. Please point out to me, as I don't see it myself, what exactly was a personal attack in what I wrote above, and I will gladly apologize.

I certainly do respect your opinion as a member of the GAC, and would have respected your opinion if you were not a member, too. It is because I respect it that I took the time to respond to your opinion and to critique it specifically (rather than just assert I disagree with it), and left open the possibility that your opinion would prevail, with more support from other GAC members. Where is it that I don't respect your opinion?

No one expects you to "be here all the time". You are, however, expected to have put this page on your watchlist (which I'm sure you have), and to review it regularly, or at least (as you say yourself) when I invite you to do so. The three votes of support above are all clearly the result of the personal reminder e-mail sent to the GAC Feb 22nd, which you were CCed on too. So you were just as invited as the three who did vote, and I did do my job. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 03:19, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Only a small comment, Beria. Fourteen days for a new idea couldn’t be a sufficient time, I agree. But it was not a new idea – it was a part of the GAC Survey. --Packa (talk) 00:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Definitely this is a very important question and the whole process of lapsing membership is a thankless thing that we must overcome with least pain. An alternative way might be to vote for somebody to be removed from the list which sounds vague to me at the moment, and I therefore support the whole process above under the conditions given.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

As you say, it is necessarily unpleasant, so we should strive for something effective with the least amount of embarrassment or strife. Asking people to vote on removing a colleague, even if a virtually absent and inactive colleague, is too much unpleasantness, I think. So I'm glad you support the proposal. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 20:07, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

GAC & FDC: An offer of development

First forgive me for my bad english. I try to explain a technical matter in english...so difficult...

Well, the present offer departs from the conversations supported in Paris, during the Finance Meeting. In the same ones it was possible to observe that, though the basic idea is more or less clear, the development of both committees, functions, members and their election, procedures of decision and area of action are not by no means definite.

In my opinion, it is a question of essential aspects, which they should be developed before the approval of the idea. The coexistence of both Committees is not exclusive, and can provide with flexibility to the system. In fact, I consider the existence to be extremely beneficial of both for reasons that will be seen in the present document.

The GAC

The GAC would limit his intervention to the grants requested between 1US$ and 10.000US$, for concrete projects. The request can depart well from individual persons, a group of users, a partner organization or an established chapter.

To facilitate the grants between 1US$ and 5000 US$ there will be provided to the petitioners forms that they will have fullfill in all paragraphs, and attached of the documentation that necessary in every case. Verified the accuracy of the contributed information, and of the necessary documentation, the GAC might approve the request without much more step. The grants between 5000 and 10000US$ will have to be sent like till now.

In case the money is requested by individuals or by groups not recognized by the WMF, it will be necessary to contribute, at least, supporting documentation of each one of the persons who ask the grant, a number of bank account opened addressed to any of the petitioners, a sworn statement of which the money will use exclusively for the development of the concrete project , a sworn statement of solidarity between them in case of non-payment, as well as of that they surrender to the audits or check that WMF wants to carry out. Likewise, they will promise to present to WMF the accounting derived from the use of the sent funds. In each of the cases the GAC and WMF will save themselves the right to request more documentation if will necessary.

Composition, election. How Works.

The GAC will be composed for not more than 15 members, volunteers chosen among the community. It will be coordinated by the Head of Grants of the WMF, who can moderate, help, and orientate the GAC with voice, but without vote. The GAC will discuss the requests, in the form in which one has come doing till now.

The precisions and comments of the GAC can be born in mind by WMF, but this comments will not be binding. The comments of the GAC will have to be completed in the space of a natural month following the request of the grant. 4 members of the GAC will have to take part in the above mentioned discussion at least, being able to be one of them defending of the grant. If at the moment of assigning a grant exists discrepancy between advised by the majority of the GAC and advised by WMF, it will be possible submit the approval to a review for the FDC.

The members of the GAC will be chosen among the community, but to be chosen the following conditions will be necessary:

• 1.- They will have to be recognized members of the community, for what they will have to accredit at least 4 years of experience in any of WMF's projects. The requests that do not fulfill this requirement, will be rejected.

• 2.- They will not be able to be members of the GAC two persons of the same nationality, not of the same chapter or partner organization.

• 3.- The members of the GAC will have to be major of age, according to their respective legislations.

• 4.- Other that WMF indicates.

The members of the GAC have a term of not more than three years, concluded which, for WMF will call to elections for new members of the Committee. The members of the GAC will be able to appear to the reelection.

The current members of the GAC will begin to count their term of permanency of three years from the moment in which they were approved like such.

Passed three years, WMF will call to elections. The above mentioned elections will follow the same steps that are used today for the election of checkusers (i.e.)

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.--Marctaltor (talk) 10:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments

Let me get that straight: Everything more than 10 thousand dollars will be responsibility of the still-to-be-developed-and-formed FDC, but all under this would be decided by GAC without WMF have a say in it? Is that? If is, why 10k? Why not 15 or 20? I believe we should place it at 15k. Béria Lima ^msg 02:34, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

You must have in mind my poor english ;-)...I try to explain my idea: all grants up to 10000 US$ must be decided by FDC; below this amount, be decided by WMF after heard the recommendations of GAC (like now). Why 10K?...well, why not? XD...seriously: I think 10K is good amount, but it's only an idea. If you have reasons to put in 15K, please explain it and we can change de amount. Thanks for your comments.--Marctaltor (talk) 12:44, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the amount should not be the only criterion to decide whether the FDC or the GAC will have to take control over the request. Sometimes we have expensive short-term projects and relatively long-term projects with not too much financial requirements. We should also have in mind the annual plans that are different than the usual grant requests. Definitely it's worth to participate in the discussion about the FDC and its relation to GAC, but we also need to respect the resolution made within the WMF.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

In general, the idea to introduce such criteria is fine and these proposals are a very good starting point. I think some of them were already mentioned in the survey and few weeks ago Asaf announced the general opinion based on the comments there. If the community chooses the members of the GAC like it does with the stewards and the Board members, it's definitely not good to introduce a very high set of criteria. Members should be easily recognized among the Community and that's an important thing, but they also have to show somehow that they're able to deal with finances. User's history as criterion is barely relevant here. I totally agree on the distribution of the members in different countries and not to permit more then one member from a chapter or any other organization to participate in the work of the GAC. The term should be 2 years in my opinion, just to align with most of the other terms that we already use. Age of the members is something that attests the maturity of the committee and it must have a low limit.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:20, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry folks, but what in the world is an FDC? Some kind of deodorant? ;) I feel like I missed something, where are the usual internal links giving context to stuff? hehehe By-ye, --Solstag (talk) 05:37, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Dear Solstag, sorry for feeling left out. Details about the FDC can be found here and here Abbasjnr (talk) 07:21, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Abbas =) I see this FDC is going to have a lot do deal with our work, good that a full group has been assembled to plan it ahead. --Solstag (talk) 06:15, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Volume/workload

Unless I'm missing it, there is no real indication here of the level of workload, or volume of applications. Roughly how much time does this take per month? How many applications is the committee currently receiving? Johnbod (talk) 13:29, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Good point! I've added a rough estimate. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)