Grants talk:PEG/Laura Hale, Courcelles, Hawkeye7, Chzz/Outreach Oceania

Thanks for this interesting request. Note, however, that it is very much not in the scope of the Participation Grants program. A more appropriate place for this would be the general Wikimedia Grants program. Please amend the required fields per the template for Wikimedia Grants and resubmit as a general grant, whereupon it will be reviewed by the GAC. Ijon 12:21, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Wasn't quite sure which one it fell under, because the costs are mostly for the participation of the facilitators and doing the outreach. But will fix in a minute. --LauraHale 20:13, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

But it seems like you won't be participating in some event, but will be, or make, the event. I.e. it's a project you're proposing, not a stipend request. Thanks for the changes; we will begin discussing this now. Questions to follow shortly. Ijon 15:56, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Whoops. Sorry not to respond to this earlier. I guess the travel to attend part is where I read it as "participation." We'll be getting free space from the colleges we're visiting to do the outreach, and they'll be letting us into the classroom. We're not going to be paying for any "meeting space," nor will we be doing much on the ground promotion. What we'll do will be online as we can't do it until we get there. (Though we're aware of the need to do that once we are there. It's been discussed.) That was my thinking anyway as to why I applied that way. :) --LauraHale 23:50, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds great

Your project sounds great, but I think such projects should be consult first. Have you ask someone from the Wikimedia Foundation, for instance?

And your presumption: how many people (students) will be affected with your lectures and training? Thanks! --Pavel Hrdlička 00:45, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't understand what you mean by consult? Can you explain more? We haven't really talked to anyone at the foundation about this, because it was originally something that I was personally interested in doing and was going to do anyway. Bringing more people (Courcelles, Chzz, others asked) on and getting additional assistance from people with specialised skill sets seemed important for maximising the potential benefit and allowing additional outreach given the time and monetary constraints. That meant we could better plan in terms of doing GLAM outreach, in classroom outreach, instructor education and attempts to contact local media and government people. I'd estimate on each island, based on commitments to date that we'd be presenting to two to three classes, with fifteen to thirty students in each class and we'd have two class periods each. Beyond that, we'd also be doing staff related training (hence the development of materials like File:Outreach Oceania Integrating Wikimedia into the Curriculum.pdf) and would be doing a workshop with five to fifteen instructors each. Given the relative population size of the places we're going, that's a huge potential part of the population. Kosrae for instance only has a population of 6,616, which means if we reached 60 people at the university level, we'd be meeting with 1% of the total population. If each of the participants interacted with six people, we'd get the attention of 5% of the population. I think, given the local situation, you could make a strong case for embracing Wikipedia as a tool to reach a much larger audience to share local knowledge with that will help them with efforts like language preservation, sharing of news that might be of international interest (think global warming), and sharing of pictures and general NPOV improvements to local topic articles that could help with things like tourism. Small countries. Huge potential impact. --LauraHale 03:43, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I have thought for instance Frank Schulenburg (Global Education Program Director) and his group with Best practices: Best practices in organizing a Wikipedia workshop, Best practices in giving a Wikipedia presentation etc. --Pavel Hrdlička 23:42, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds great, indeed

What can I say? I like this project, it's well structured, it targets a valuable population, it has clearly stated goals and steps are being thoroughly documented in the outreach Wiki. I like the standards this sets. Regarding Pavel's observation, which seems valid, from the outreach wiki I take they have been discussing this within WMAU, where there is great outreach experience. They also plan to write, or already have, to the language committee. Pavel's question about the number of students, and why not also of teachers, is also a good one, though I guess it's hard to figure those out in advance. My main advice, if any is needed, would be to follow up somewhat closely on how these meetings will be advertised to locals, to make sure that people actually come. Also, don't let your contacts advertise only within their own environment, make sure they do an extra effort to bring people, both teachers and students, from other departments as well. Finally, Laura, I think it is *absolutely crucial* that this project promotes the widest adoption of wiki mobile screencasts. ;) PS: and please don't conflict-edit me again!! Ooh I'm too lazy to change my edit now, I'll read what you replied to Pavel later... --Solstag 04:01, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

We've been talking to one college and our emphasis has been on two parts: Staff education in terms of curriculum integration AND student outreach. My priority has been less on student outreach and been focused more on faculty outreach. Having taught in the area before, we'll probably be able to do something at the local high schools, but it will basically require us to rock on up the day of and ask to talk to teachers and classes. (We're also working on trying to make sure we have offline copies of Wikipedia articles either in print or saved locally to a computer to deal with any potential technological hurdles.) --LauraHale 04:08, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Laura, that looks good. I'll check the rest of this discussion now, it got quite long. --Solstag 02:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Clarifying things

If necessary, I'd be willing to scale this back in terms of the number of participants. The primary goal here is to do first stage outreach, mostly composed of networking and working on motivation to participate. The purpose is to set up the contacts to do more extended and more formal outreach, such as implementing a GLAM program and implementing in classroom curriculum. This is just an important first step, where we've got commitments to do a staff training event, where the focus is less on how to use Wikipedia and related programs, and more on "This is how using Wikimedia Foundation projects can help you accomplish your goals. This is why you should be involved." Would this be easier to do with more people? Quite probably. Do we ultimately need to? Probably not. There are good arguments both ways. We can do that with two people. Hawkeye7 and I are going anyway. (I believe this is an important thing to do on a personal level. I think it can be an important difference.) We'll have some chapter support in terms of creating materials, doing prep work on the tech backend. We should be able to get some funding in terms of myself for parts of this from my chapter. --LauraHale 19:53, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

We're constrained by the availability of flights for our itinerary. The area is difficult to get to. We're having to go from Canberra to Cairns, then a flight to Guam. After that, there is an island hopper route that runs three times a week in each direction. The goal is two full business days in each location. This means we're basically going to be stuck witch six nights on each island, where we end up on a weekend, because we can't fly in on a Sunday, fly out Wednesday, fly out again on Saturday, fly out again on a Wednesday and be done in ten days. :/ It isn't so much the issue of six days in each place but the number of business days coupled with the presence of weekdays. --LauraHale 19:53, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

If necessary, I can rewrite / resubmit if people think doing it that route is better. --LauraHale 19:53, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Laura, I know the transportation limits you in your possibilities (I am a fan of Kiribati, so I know the transportation possibilities in this part of Oceania). But I think your capability to guess the number of your auditors indicates a practicality of your plan. In other words: the number is not so important, important is your ability to guess and vindicate it.

So you don’t need to explain your primary goal (I agree with you), your support (I have seen the minutes) etc. Try to answer my simple (?) question.

Maybe I was very brief In my first post here; so remember my headline: Sounds great :-) --Pavel Hrdlička 00:19, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I apologise for the wall of text. Not my intention. :( Just wanted to try to be more clear: The purpose of this trip is to initiate conversation with regional GLAMs and educators with the idea of doing more lasting partnerships in the future. We're not going in with the intention of teaching university and k-12 students how to edit Wikipedia, to demonstrate to university staff how to edit Wikipedia. We are not trying to set up an education program. Instead, we are networking and showing the existing university/college/high school staff members how they can incorporate Wikimedia projects into their curriculum development and instructional design.

We do have a commitment from local partners to provide training, but these are pilots only, aimed to put some of our ideas into a practical setting in order to see what works and what doesn't. Our volunteers will come away with a better capability to build curriculum resources for their unique education system. As has been demonstrated in India, it is vital to work with locals in designing the program before rolling it out. There are enormous differences in scale between US/India/UK and the islands in this region; what works for one country will not work in other countries.

Did I talk to some one inside the Foundation about this? Not directly. I did talk to some one inside the public policy initative and asked if they wanted to be involved, but they wanted a great deal more structure and that was unable to be provided given the local situation. I asked for feedback on WMF connected forums, including mailing lists. I also talked extensively about this to several people inside my chapter, with an idea as to how this would help us meet our local goals for potential curriculum development and future GLAM outreach. GLAM efforts in both Oceania and Australia have things in commo where lessons learned in one can be applicable to another: How to deal with issues of distance, cost of travel and getting participation in remote areas.

We have been talking with Americans and Australians Wikipedians with an interest in these islands. As far as we know, and we have asked, nobody at the Foundation has experience or interest in outreach to the Micronesian region and Oceania at large, which is understandable as the Foundation has not identified the region as a strategic priority.

Oceania and Australia have many similarities, include isolation, sparsness of population, lack of monuments, .. long list goes here... so lessons learnt in one location are useful for the other. Also the Australian community has very strong ties with the island nations in our region, which we are drawing upon and hoping to encourage more participation from. There is a commeraderie, closeness and leadership in our engagement with the islands. Our museums work closely and support the Oceanian institutions. Our academics are often drawn to study the unique issues faced by these nations. Australians are one of the largest expat communities in the Marshall Islands, live on Chuuk and Kosrae.

We're putting an emphasis on resource development in advance of our outreach in order to have resources we can discuss with them for possible implementation, with guidance from Wikimedia Australia and the Foundation, in the future. Two of the resources we're develop can be found in the guides below.

In the planning stages for this, we talked to people at the University of Canberra. These were teaching staff members who used or supported other staff who Wikimedia Foundation projects as part of their coursework. We also discussed the Indian project and read the analysis of what did not work there. I also talked to an educator on Palau, where we first wanted to visit but could not get a committment for space and time as the educator was very busy. Despite this, we'll be able to make initial contact which will help future outreach.

In relation to GLAM, as some one involved with the a GLAM project, I looked at what worked and did not work with that. I examined our process for approaching an organisation about establishing a relationship. I also read many of the GLAM case studies. I visited many of the websites for local museums, libraries and sport organisations and asked others involved with these organisation what sort of issues would be important when talking to people in Micronesia so we could best approach them.

In case of wall of text, simple answer: Did not consult WMF directly. Do not see Indian program as relevant as we are not yet at the stage where that would be implemented. GLAM is a large focus of this, of equal importance as education component. This is outreach. Hope that answers your question. --LauraHale 22:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Laura, I am not sure if I understand your goals and priorities.

On the grants page, you wrote the primary goal was „introducing Micronesian region students and educators to Wikimedia Foundation projects and assisting them in learning how to use them” and then “the other focus will be on contacting local cultural institutions”. So I have asked how many people etc. will be affected. But now you wrote „The purpose of this trip is to initiate conversation with regional GLAMs and educators“. So I don’t understand it.

If you have changed the priority of your grant, it would be better to change it in the application, too. If not, could you explain it here, please? --Pavel Hrdlička 19:20, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long to reply. Been out of town. The goals are two fold: Do educational outreach and do GLAM outreach. The education aspect is being highlighted because it is the easiest to set up in advance. We can get permission to go into the classroom and to do teacher training. We have invitations for that. Our largest audience will be for that and that is where we will reach the most people on the ground. The GLAM part is equally important, but that will be more informal and we cannot set up workshops in advance, nor get the same number of participants. The grant hasn't changed. I believe we linked to project goals in our application and that hasn't changed much since we've applied so not seeing a change. (I think I added sport related objectives, but mostly in terms of getting pictures.) --LauraHale 03:26, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Laura, thank you for this information --Pavel Hrdlička 11:04, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I also need to apologize for my delay, because I was very busy with preparing our Wikimedia Conference. --Pavel Hrdlička 19:20, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

No worries. I was delayed because of attending the Dutch GLAM Conference. --LauraHale 03:26, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S.2: Thank you for your answer about the consultation with WMF. I comprehend it so I have no other question about it. --Pavel Hrdlička 16:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Some questions

Thanks for the submission. Sounds promising, but do you know what is the number of people involved in the Wikimedia Movement from Micronesia? If yes, do you have a contact with them to realize some issues with more ease? Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski 20:51, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I think we're talking a tiny editor community of probably 2 to 5 people that we've identified on each island, mostly through IP addresses. They are occasional editors and we want to increase that. We've been in contact with three people from the region including on Guam and Palau who are helping us to develop contacts. The people we've talked to have highlighted that our approach should work well in the local context.

So, just to clarify, you do not know (as in have an actual identified person) of a single Wikipedian in Micronesia, right? Ijon 21:05, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I have been in contact in the past week or so with a local Micronesian who contributes to Commons, and who is helping more with networking. I have been in contact with two people from Guam about what we're doing, with an idea of if this is successful, we'll do it in Guam/CNMI/Palau in the future. Active Wikipedians, no because most of those identified are editing via IP. --LauraHale 21:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Just a side note, I'm sure Laura has seen this, but there is Portal:Oceania which is ran by a an active Wikipedian who speaks Maori. Sounds like a nice regional option for a participant. He's also an admin on Maori Wikipedia. I think it'd be worth taking a look at the Indigenous language Wikipedia's there, most people generally will speak English as a primary language, but most speakers of those languages will live in Oceania. SarahStierch 14:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Outreach of Oceania or Outreach of some countries of Oceania?

I really appreciate the project and the organization and the clear definition of the project, except this point. At the first sight I supposed to see a long project to cover all Oceania, after I have read the start date and the end date and I supposed that there was an error. Now it's clear to me that the project will cover some islands and some institutions. May it be more convenient to rename the project? I will understand the name if WM AU will plan other similar projects (it means an "Outreach of Oceania II" or "Outreach of Oceania III" and so on). --Ilario 12:02, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

In our conversations, we've been referring to it as Outreach Oceania, Micronesia to differentiate this is specific outreach to a specific region at this time. On Outreach Oceania, it has been pretty consistently branded that way. Labelling it this way, with a focus on geography, makes much more sense from our perspective because the goal is to develop sustainable relationships and partnerships. Using numbers would be more difficult. --LauraHale 03:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Travel cost

It seems this request includes funding for flying Wikipedians from the US and the UK. It seems wasteful, considering geography and travel costs, with the active Wikimedia Australia (relatively) nearby. Is there justification for this extra expense? Ijon 22:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes... I am also a little bit worry about the competence of the team members - especially in contacts with local GLAM's. I mean - I would expect to make sense to spend money for traveling from US or UK if the UK/US team members had really unique competences - such as the good knowledge about history and culture of the visited region or be able to speak local languages or had family roots in the region... Except it I think it is really good aplication, worth supporting. Polimerek 14:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not particularly fussed about who goes. If there are other more qualified people who would be willing to go along and understand our agenda in going, I would be willing to take them. Hawkeye7 and I are the only confirmed ones going. (We have our airfare paid already. We'll get our lodging paid for.) I wouldn't mind taking PanyD or another American or Brit or Indonesian or Argentine or Kenyan or who ever who has experience doing GLAM and educational outreach in remote areas. One or two more people from anywhere with expertise would be extremely helpful in terms of maximising our potential reach. (It is just a big ask: Take three to four weeks off from what you're doing and go along to do outreach in the middle of nowhere.) --LauraHale 03:31, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Then let us take US and UK travel out of this request (i.e. update the request page and budget accordingly), to increase the odds of it getting funded. Can you be a little more specific about the structure requiring four Wikipedians to go? Or can you and Hawkeye7 accomplish the goals just as well? Ijon 21:05, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Hawkeye7 is not going to do any in person outreach. There is zero funding being requested for him to do any outreach. There is no expectation for him to do any outreach, beyond taking pictures, coordinating online with MilHist participants and doing research at the Nuclear Institute. This means the outreach would be done by me and me alone. I have yet to request funding and I am not going to request WMF funding for myself. Hawkeye7 should absolutely be taken out of consideration. As I'm not asking for funding from WMF, we can take myself out of consideration. Can I accomplish the goals alone? No. That would involve me doing outreach at three different colleges where I would do both outreach to students and staff (already scheduled), trying to go into secondary schools on my own, and trying to do outreach to locals involved with GLAM projects. I'm in the process of setting up local meetings with the media, publishers and government about this.

So can I accomplish all this on my own? (Hawkeye7 is not doing any outreach. No money is being requested for him on the WMF level or the WM AU level.) Not easily. Can I take some one from the Philippines as some one suggested to me? Absolutely not. It would be much more helpful to have at least ONE other person, more helpful for TWO. If we don't have an answer with in the next week or two, it becomes a major problem. They need to be trained, to familiarise themselves with the development of materials, to understand the rationale for it. They may need to get visas. They need to arrange time off work. --LauraHale 21:49, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

This is surprising. The request explicitly states "LauraHale , Courcelles , Hawkeye7 and Chzz are leading the in-person outreach efforts.". You now say that Hawkeye7 is not to do any in-person outreach work, but would just happen to be with you at the same time, and at no cost to the WMF. Fine, but it would have been better to communicate this in the first place.Ijon 22:06, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

The participation grant lists the names of everyone involved. Have you looked at the budget? Where does it actually ask for funding for four people? You say now that I asked for funding related to him, but I'm looking at the budget and not seeing that requested for.

Yes, I have looked at the budget, and I do realize no funding is requested for Hawkeye7, nor did I say otherwise. What I did say was that Hawkeye7 was explicitly listed as doing the in-person outreach, in your request, and that is indeed so, but today we learn that he is not. Ijon 22:24, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

So assuming you agree it doesn't make sense to fly people in from the US and UK, we are left with the question of how many people are needed to accomplish what you want to do. Could you please clearly state why more than one person is needed? You say "Can I accomplish the goals alone? No.", but don't show why. You list thing you would have to do, but it's unclear why you couldn't do them on your own. Ijon 22:06, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

"So assuming you agree it doesn't make sense to fly people in from the US and UK" <-- No, this assumption would be wrong. I've said that we need people in order to be more effective. Let's start from what I will state: I need at least ONE PERSON to help me with outreach and the volunteers I have found who have the capability to take the time off and go are from the USA and UK. These are my preferred people and I think it is money well spent. Working from that non-assumption, stated fact, what do you propose? --LauraHale 22:20, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for clarifying that. I propose, then, that you help me understand why the proposed outreach work requires more than one person. Ijon 22:24, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

My intention was to conduct Military History research, and to assist with the effort. LauraHale did not intend for me to do in-person outreach because I have no classroom experience. Hawkeye7 07:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Asaf, I think she already answer why she can't do alone: Because she can't be in two places at the same time. For what i saw here, in the grant page and in the outreach page, they have a lot of things to do and not enough time if she do alone - which would means the goals would no be fulfill unless she spend 3x the time there (which is completely impossible - we can't ask someone to stay more tham 2 months away from home and job - she would get fired of something). I sincerely don't see why is a problem to send someone from US or UK - unless you can find someone trained, with time and ready to go in Asia, I would say to pay for the american and England people.

As a side notice, This is a VERY good grant, and would be a complete shame if don't get fund (even because almost all GAC pass by here to say how much they love it). Béria Lima ^msg 12:13, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

This. Can I do this alone? Possibly but not as effectively. Doing outreach to educators, outreach to students, outreach to GLAMs broadly defined as local cultural people and trying to get photographs to help with MilHist and sports is a big ask. The photograph part, Hawkeye7 can do but this isn't a photograph taking trip. The rest would be on me. Classrooms of 15 to 30 people really can use another WMF project familiar person in the room to help answer questions, do one one one if nothing else. Can I bring an Australian Wikimedian? Not really. I've begged and begged people for months. If we're talking cost? $3,600 for some one to come from Perth is more expensive than $1,800 from the USA. There is no cost saving for taking an Australian. We start getting into visa issues with Asian participants. And there doesn't seem to be any acknowledgement that asking some one to take THREE WEEKS off of work to attend this (because that is the only way the schedule would work with where we got commitments to visit), asking the volunteers to upfront their airfare and accommodation to be paid back later is a big ask and MANY volunteers just do not have the money to do that, while at the same time desiring familiarity with how Wikimedia projects work and a buy into the program is hard. There is a lot of privilege required there to be involved. If some one was saying "Asaf/ljon/Liam Gallagher/Beria/Siska/ are suitable candidates to attend. They have said they would be willing to go. They have reviewed all the Outreach Oceania planning. Would you take them instead with WMF funding?" I'd probably say yes. (I'd also say yes if they agreed to completely self fund.) No alternative candidates have been offered, so asking "Why not an Australian?" or "Why not some one more qualified?" when I've searched and yet to find anyone who has the time and money and skills? Serves no purpose other than to go round and round in circles where we both get increasingly annoyed.

Asking about the scheduling at this point is not going to do much. The schedule is locked. When planning, we identified the need for two full business days in each location. The schedule we did was the shortest we could get this. If we're going to have people participate in this with WMF sponsorship, then they'll need to follow this schedule. At this point, it is completely non-negitioatable unless WMF wants to absorb the costs of rebooking for both Australian participants. (This will include two non-refundable tickets from Canberra to Cairns.) And I am having serious doubts about costs being a primary concern, because if it was, more haste would have been done because of knowledge that airfare prices are rising.

I need an answer and in the next few days. I need to go my own chapter board and ask for funding for costs I have not asked for WMF from. I need to basically get a yes/no by the 18 December 2011 around 2pm UTC+11. I'm running extremely short on time to find alternatives and the airfare keeps going up.

The only comparable I have for this is what was done with the trip to the Middle East and the trip to South East Asia, areas that are advantaged because of multiple airlines flying to those areas, multiple flights a day, large population bases and different cultures. I didn't see the materials specifically created for those. I didn't see clearly defined objectives. I didn't see how many people attended their workshops, or what percentage of the population they impacted. I didn't see outreach to local chapters. I didn't see a budget. It was really, really hard to use those as models. :( --LauraHale 21:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

1. I understand your explanation about an Australian not being available, nor cheaper. Thank you for clarifying that.
2. I have already indicated I understand the answers about the schedule.
3. I'm not sure what trips to the middle east and south east Asia you're referring to, and why you think you have been asked to use them as models.
4. I still don't see how a second volunteer is necessary for the stated goals of outreach. Sure, it's nice to have an extra Wikipedian around to answer one-on-one questions, but is far from necessary, and doesn't seem to warrant the extra expense for travel and accommodation.
5. I also don't see where you saw an expectation for volunteers to pay their own travel up front -- I certainly never made any such requirement.

So: Given that we disagree about the need for additional volunteers to deliver the proposed outreach, the WMF would be willing to fund the remainder of the costs mentioned in this request, namely the transportation costs (as your own travel and accommodation are already covered, as you say). If you would like to update your request to remove the travel and accommodation costs of the two other volunteers, we can approve the rest as soon as you like. Ijon 22:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Just a note, User:Wittylama did this individually as the Cultural Partnerships Fellow, by himself, for over a year. Three weeks ago he went to 4 different countries (I think 4?) within a few days doing outreach in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Just throwing that out there. SarahStierch 14:29, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Somebody please throw this person out of here. 203.16.208.2 01:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Short response to beria

Too hard for one person to do. Australians are not cheaper. Region is historical connected to USA. Asia might be cheaper but visas come into play. Need decision ASAP to find chapter solution if WMF not funding. If I take one, I pick Courcelles. --LauraHale 21:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Does WMAU, in fact, endorse this request?

I find the statement under Endorsement in the request page a little misleading. The Wikimedia Australia minutes pointed to by that link are not an endorsement of this grant request. I quote from the minutes: "Presently this means no monetary support, rather a 'go you good thing' type of support along the lines of a letter endorsing the project"; I read that as a "yeah, sure, it'd be cool if that happens", but not a "yes, this is a good use of $10K our movement's funds". That latter statement may or may not be one that WMAU is willing to make, but it doesn't seem to have made it so far. Therefore, I'd suggest to either get an explicit endorsement from WMAU for this grant request, or remove the claim for endorsement from the request. Ijon 22:40, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Apologies for the long time it took to response. I've been in Amsterdam attending GLAM Camp. I can endorse it on behalf of my chapter. I've talked extensively about it with several members of our board. And the chapter isn't funding it yet as I have yet to put in a funding request. This was something organised with the knowledge of a few board members and I didn't initially ask them for funding. I still have yet to do that. My and Hawkeye7's airfare isn't on the grant proposal and the costs associated with us are part of the general costs to be there that primarily tie in with the rest of the participants. (We'll rent one car for whoever goes along, etc.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LauraHale (talk) 19:13, December 8, 2011‎

Putting on my chapter hat for a moment (I am the WMAU treasurer), I think that the text on the page is correct. It reads "Wikimedia Australia has offered public support the project.", and we have. The chapter is excited at the potential and eager to see it happen. We have not explicitly supported this particular grant request, but Laura is not claiming that we have done so, so I'm not sure how it's a problem. One could assume that if we think it's worth doing, then we think it's worth spending money on. Craig Franklin 08:13, 9 December 2011 (UTC).

Like I said, to me it's not obvious that supporting the project automatically entails supporting a specific grant request for the project (would you endorse any amount requested, automatically? If not, how is one to ascertain whether or not your implicit support extends to this specific level of funding?). I agree that the phrasing is accurate, but putting it under "endorsements" in the grant request was misleading. Anyway, I now take it WMAU does support this request, despite the lack of formal minutes to that effect. Ijon 21:05, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Incubator & Language committee

Hi, this looks like a great event. I hope I will see much activity at Incubator for Chuukese, Kosraean, and Marshallese (so these wikis get approved and can grow!). If you need help with anything, feel free to contact via IRC #wikimedia-incubator, or contact me or the language committee. Regards, SPQRobin (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I would like to point out that Wikimedia is not in the language preservation business, but rather in the create-and-share-free-knowledge business. It is my understanding that Micronesians consume knowledge in English, from the English Wikipedia, and that none of them is barred from free knowledge for the lack of a big Chuukese Wikipedia. It is therefore not aligned with our mission to devote resources to promoting a Chuukese Wikipedia. (We are, however, happy to host one, for those interested in cultivating one, for purposes of preservation, language practice, etc.) Ijon 21:10, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that in the region, these languages are actively spoken, are supported in the local curriculum, have publishers who publish materials in these languages. Language preservation nice but fundamentally, not about that. Am I going to try to set out and try to build a Chuukese language Wikipedia? No. If the locals I talk to are highly motivated to participate in this way, will this be done? Yes. Participation period is the goal, and trying to tap into local motivation by talking about the ability to use local languages may be highly relevant. --LauraHale 21:53, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Schedule

The schedule is still unclear. The request page currently only specifies activities for each day for the Kosrae leg of the trip. How many such creative writing classes are you to train? How many total students, approximately? Can this training not be condensed into one or two days instead of four full days? What are the schedules for the other legs of the trip? I assume that, as LauraHale and Hawkeye7 are going whether or not this grant is approved, you have been working on a schedule for those legs too.

More generally, it just seems a lot of money to spend on general outreach with (it seems to me) no particularly promising prospects (pardon the alliteration). Micronesians are probably under-represented in our editing community, sure, but spending $6000 (much less $12,000, per the original request) to deliver a few outreach talks is just very inefficient, in terms of impact, or return on investment.

If there are indeed, as you mention above, some active anonymous editors in Micronesia, perhaps an effort to reach them and establish contact online would be a lot more cost-effective. Once we have at least one local contact, we could integrate them into mailing lists, discussions, etc., and together plan outreach by locals. Ijon 21:05, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Schedule is unclear and other issues:

1. I don't know how many people we have going so hard to plan (I'm not going to poke and prod my local contacts to get into secondary schools, only to have that conflict with colleges);
2. The schools have confirmed they will let us in to talk to their staff and students but don't want to set dates until a week or two before hand. Pressing the locals because of WMF demands to set a schedule is irritating to them;
3. The local contacts have highlighted to me again and again that setting a schedule will be difficult. We'll be able to talk to do most of our outreach, outside of classrooms, in informal meetings. Outreach will be done on those days but not scheduled;
4. If you want to condense things, will WMF refund the airfare for myself and Hawkeye7 and book a schedule that works best for us? We're absolutely going whether WMF participation grant covers people or not.
5. We've done the outreach to locals. We've made contact.
6. No, online would not be as effective. I've discussed this with locals via e-mail. I know this from my own experience in the region. If you want to try local outreach, you can improve internet connectivity amongst other things.
7. This program would be highly important to developing a framework to doing outreach in more remote areas, would help with establishing other remote areas, involves the creation of materials that can be re-used for other programs.

If WMF participation grant is not going to happen, then fine. I'll do this as a personal thing as I already have the airfare and have spent at least 80 hours working on the project. I have chapter support for this outreach. I can easily enough say to the locals: WMF does not support this outreach, but I believe it is important. --LauraHale 22:03, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

No need to get passive aggressive. We are discussing your proposal, as we are required to, in the interest of good governance and due diligence, to ensure we would be making good use of donor funds if we are to fund this.

To your points:

1. See above -- if you explain how many people are needed, we will both have a better idea what we're talking about.
2. We do not "demand" to set a schedule; we were asking what the schedule is. We are being asked to fund accommodation and travel for a certain period, and to justify it, we need to know what will be accomplished in that period. If it is impossible to set a schedule in advance, that's an answer too. But if so, there is still the question of why you plan four days in each island rather than, say, two.
3. That sounds so noncommittal (on their part) as to make the whole thing seem a rather risky investment on our part. What if you show up and they decide they can't spare the time? Or the principal contacts are not available after all? Why is setting a schedule so difficult? You are making the effort to reach their school, which they realize is remote and costly to reach; surely they can accommodate your good intentions by committing to a schedule?
4. We might consider it, if it seems like a better use of donor funds (i.e. cheaper than funding the proposed itinerary). Though how come Hawkeye7 is now back in the picture? You just emphatically stressed Hawkeye7 is not part of the outreach plan. Also: note that we are talking about a Wikimedia Grant here, not a Participation Grant.
5. Contact with whom? School administrators? Any other type of contact?
6. No, we cannot improve Internet connectivity; that is just not within our mandate. If you think Internet connectivity is a significant problem in Micronesia, doesn't that significantly impact the likelihood of encouraging active participation from Micronesia as well?
7. certainly, materials can be re-used. Again, what we need to establish is whether this proposed plan is a good use of funds, in terms of return on investment. I remain skeptical of the potential impact of this visit. Ijon 22:20, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm really frustrated. It doesn't appear like you're reading what I've written, such as the idea that I've requested funding for myself and Hawkeye7. Where in the budget does it state that? And then you twist things around to think I don't think there is value in bringing an American and a Brit, despite everything that says otherwise.

1. I need one to two people beyond myself as I stated above. This has not changed. It is much more effective.
2. I've explained the schedule: What you see at the moment is the schedule you have. If you want a more detailed breakdown of it, you can probably get one a week before each location is visited. The things on the schedule that we have listed are the confirmed dates.
3. That may sound non-commital on their part, but that is absolutely the local culture. I cannot change the local culture to suit needs to sound more committed. I really, really wish I could. As a local expert actively in contact with locals, I'd really like that expert knowledge to be valued here when I say this.
4. I've been in contact with school administrators, with university professors, with a local attorney, been put in touch with a local publisher, had contact with a local GLAM person, been told an attorney general knows I am coming.
5. There is a difference between editing Wikipedia which does not require that much bandwidth, and trying to set up video meetings. If you think doing remote support is important and is an alternative to be explored instead of sending some one from the UK and the USA to support in person outreach, then we need a portable satellite internet connection, a screen projector, a laptop computer and a video system to record. In addition, we need insurance for this material and excess luggage fees.
6. I think the potential impact in terms of setting up workable mirror projects in the region is huge, the support materials being developed for it will be worth it, the fact that we'll reach a much higher percentage of the population is high, and the local media coverage will happen. If you don't see the value in this, then just please turn down the grant so I can get on with planning with out those people in mind and so I can remove WMF related objectives from my goals and so when i talk to people, I can say "WMF does not support this, but don't worry, my chapter supports this." --LauraHale 22:33, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I certainly am reading what you've written, and I do realize you are not requesting funding for yourself and for Hawkeye7. It is the funding you are requesting that I'm talking about. Please do assume good faith and do not accuse me of "twisting things around". I explicitly stated I was assuming you agree that a US and UK flight ticket was not a wise use of funds (as you had not responded to the contrary, before my "assumption" comment), implicitly inviting you to correct my assumption if need be (as you have) -- no twisting at all.

1. Indeed, you keep asserting you need more people to do the outreach, but you do not explain why. As far as I can tell from everything I have read so far, I do not see an obvious need for more than one Wikimedian able to deliver outreach talks (as you are, I gather). If this is not the case, as you insist, please do explain why it is not so.
2. Okay, I understand.
3. I see.
4. Oh, I was misunderstood. By "establish contact online" I most certainly did not mean video conferencing or anything of the sort. I meant plain old e-mails, or possibly IRC for real-time conversation.
5. Okay, that sounds like a good list of contacts. It would be great to add that to the request page.
6. This is where there's a gap between our assessments: you say the impact would be "huge", but I have a hard time seeing how talks at a (number of?) creative writing class(es) would yield a huge impact, or significant media coverage. Can you substantiate your expectation, or share your thinking in forming it?

So, to proceed: I suggest you clarify your thinking about the need for additional team members, and about the expected impact, and rewrite the grant request and budget accordingly. Ijon 22:54, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it would be a good idea to do what you're suggesting Ijon, Micronesia isn't as simple as one would think. I don't think doing it via locals doing a outreach would be productive even though it would be cost-effective, but allowing LauraHale, Courcelles, Hawkeye7 and Chzz would allow them to teach Wikimedia's project (Wikipedia, Commons, Wikiversity ect) but also allow them to show locals how an outreach project is done. Each person also has a different background/experiences which would add to the outreach project and making it worthwhile for Wikimedia and Micronesia (current and future contributors) but if you expect to have significant media coverage, then you're asking to much of LauraHale as it is something she can't give you as a guarantee (no one can). I support the outreach project and her grant request, failing to support the request would be the worst thing Wikimedia would do to part of the World which lacks any coverage.

In regards to the schedule, it isn't the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand ect, Micronesia is a different culture to ours, so a fixed schedule wouldn't be easy or possible. Bidgee (Talk) 00:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Bidgee. Thank you for your input. Are you from Micronesia? Regarding media coverage, I'm certainly not expecting it; it was LauraHale who listed "media coverage" as part of the expected impact of this proposal. More generally, if we don't have any local Wikipedians, whom would Laura et al. be showing "how an outreach project is done"? Either we think there are no local Wikipedians, in which case there's no one to teach outreach to, but we should aim to engage people with Wikipedia and editing to create a community, or there are some local Wikipedians, in which case we may want to share materials and ideas to help them do local outreach. What do you think? Ijon 00:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I definitely agree that while it would be ideal to have local Micronesians doing the outreach, I do not think that the community in the places listed in the proposal are organised or numerous enough to do it effectively at this point, which is the whole reason that we're talking about sending people out there. It is a good idea I think to empower the local people in these places to do outreach and develop the sort of programmes that we're talking about and take for granted in countries with active and organised communities, but my view is that it needs a "push" to get started first, which is where Laura, Hawkeye, and the others come in.

With regard to the value for money comments, I do agree that on a per-person basis it may appear a bit pricey. The strategic plan of the WMF however, talks about "Support volunteer initiatives that fuel the growth of communities and projects around the world, including meet-ups, public outreach activities and other volunteer innovations." and "Expand(ing) Wikimedia’s global footprint" which is precisely what this does. Micronesia is an extremely remote part of the world which means that putting resources there is going to be expensive no matter how it's approached, but I think the payoff - thriving Wikimedian communities in this previously neglected part of the world is worth every single penny.

Finally, having had business dealings with Polynesian and Melanesian immigrant communities here in Queensland (which are sizable and well established), I'd just like to emphasise what Bidgee and Laura said about scheduling. It was a frequent joke that they run on "Fiji Time" ([1]), which was whenever the person in question got around to it. From our cultural background this obviously can come across as disorganisation and a lack of commitment, but it's simply the way things are done and there's not much that can be done to change it. Craig Franklin 13:51, 13 December 2011 (UTC).

Okay, point taken about the scheduling. As for the price -- it's not the fact travel is expensive that's the problem, it's the amount of expected impact for this expense that is under question. Do we have reason to believe this outreach tour is likely to result in the seeding of a Wikimedian community on those islands? Without compelling arguments to the contrary, my expectation would be that a single talk in a creative writing class (even delivered to multiple such classes) would not a Wikipedian make. Such talks are usually good at educating our readers about Wikipedia and its values, a little about its workings, but are usually not enough to get people to actually take the plunge.

Secondly, I still await an explanation of the need for an additional person beyond Laura delivering the planned outreach activity. Ijon 18:10, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

WMAU supports Oceania Outreach

Laura began this project as a member of WMAU and then brought this project to WMAU committee's attention back in October. The committee support this project and believe that Laura, as Vice President of WMAU is in a beneficial position when contacting organistions in Oceania. The first formal discussion and support can be viewed on WMAU's public wiki website in the meeting minutes for 2011-10-16, item 7.1 Micronesia Project. Since then Laura has done a great deal of further work on the project and no doubt will be ready for the next stage of support from WMAU. Super great work Laura. Anne, Secretary, WMAU. Victorbyron 01:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Boiling down to one thing?

It seems that all discussions, both about the travel costs and schedule have boiled down to a single question, which Laura has already attempted to explain, perhaps not to everyone's satisfaction.

Quoting her:

That would involve me doing outreach at three different colleges where I would do both outreach to students and staff (already scheduled), trying to go into secondary schools on my own, and trying to do outreach to locals involved with GLAM projects. I'm in the process of setting up local meetings with the media, publishers and government about this.

In my opinion, detailing the above - listing what each of the one or two additional people would be doing and what would Laura be doing meanwhile, even if only in a hypothetical but likely scenario, given that reality may be unforeseeable - should be enough to approve this grant.

Having said that, and wishing to impart only encouragement, I am still left with a question, which is more of a general concern than an issue to be taken into account here: why isn't there anyone else available in Australia with skills and interest to join Laura?!?

Hugs,

--Solstag 03:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I have the skills (having done quite a bit of outreach here in Australia), and I also have the interest in doing this... the main reason that I'm not going is simply the rather mundane excuse that I can't get the time off of work :-/. Craig Franklin 03:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC).

Ditto on the excuse. Honestly sounds like a great idea and a great activity, but I can't afford to ask for three weeks off from a brand new job. Laura's been pestering me for a good while to get involved with this, and it's sad I can't, since I know she's been asking around Australian Wikipedians to now real avail.  f o x  09:13, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Likewise. I would be keen to go (and have discussed this option with Laura a few times), but unfortunately have other commitments during this period. It's a shame, because I know how much work Laura's put into this and it sounds like a worthwhile project. sonia 21:26, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for butting; LaruaHale had asked me about this, but I'm afraid I'm not old enough to participate in the activities mentioned by her. Sp33dyphil 23:04, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Has outreach towards Wikimedians been executed for this project in as many places as possible? i.e. WikiProject Australia, WikiProject Micronesia, Oceania etc. Internal, foundation-l, Australia, cultural partnerships mailing lists? I've seen it only promoted on IRC. Student outreach in Australia? (I don't know if there is a campus ambassador program down there..) SarahStierch 14:46, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Offline outreach experience, cultural sensitivity and buy-in documentation.

Hi there. While I know I'm not actively involved in the grant process, a few things concern me about this project. As someone who examines and explores opportunities related to Wikimedia outreach and Indigenous communities, and is active in outreach with cultural organizations, I'm curious about the experience levels of the participants in regards to:

• Cultural sensitivity and awareness about the cultures and communities you will be coming into contact with. Indigenous communities might not be as receptive towards technological openness and sharing, which is a Western concept. The proposal seems to lack in expressing these concerns, and I'm worried about repercussions. Bad experiences can set back relationships greatly, and the pressure of Western concepts of sharing can cause worry. Even with communities that have an online presence, this exists.

Therefore, what type of experiences do these individuals have working with communities such as this, and what type of research has been done regarding this? I'm sincerely concerned.

• The experience of the individuals involved in outreach. While I don't keep tabs on all outreach projects, I'm aware of many individuals within the Wikimedia community that have offline outreach skills and training. While online outreach is one thing, offline outreach, working with educational and cultural professionals is quite a different experience. I'd like to know more about the offline outreach of the individuals and how the selection process proceeded - why are these individuals being requested to participate in this project and what makes them valuable aside from quality online contributions? (I see experience from Chzz and Laura, so I'm more curious about Courcelles and Hawkeye).

I also think we need to see documentation of the buy-in from the organization and individuals you're meeting with. You state "Outreach Oceania has confirmations of invitations to go into classrooms and provide student and staff training at the College of the Marshall Islands, College of Micronesia, Kosrae, and College of Micronesia, Chuuk. They have all acknowledged our schedule." While acknowledging a schedule is one thing ("oh great you'll be in the area") that doesn't mean a solid scheduled meeting or promise has been made to make time to see you. I think it'd be good to have some documentation related to this from the organizations showing the need and desire for meeting.

For me, the cultural awareness and Indigenous concerns are of great interest for me.

Thanks! SarahStierch 23:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

And don't get me wrong, this is a cool project with great potential, I'm just anxious about these things. (Because I've been exploring similar opportunities with Indigenous communities in North America and their GLAMs). SarahStierch 23:45, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Sarah. The points you raise are important and valid, but I believe that Laura has spent an extended period of time actually living in the region, and I'm confident that she has the necessary cultural awareness and cultural literacy that this won't be an issue. Craig Franklin 23:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC).

I appreciate your confidence in Laura. While living in the region is one thing, direct awareness and experience and knowledge of cultural sensitivity can be a different thing. I've had strong experiences with Anglos who have lived in regions with large Indigenous populations, and I've had not-so good experiences. And more often than enough, non-Natives that live in Native environments might have little to no contact or relationships with Native people. So, just curious. $10k is a large investment in a project where only one person perhaps has experience in outreach and vast knowledge of the communities that they'll be attempting to "sell" open source projects too. SarahStierch 13:35, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Hey Sarah. I understand your concerns but I don't think they apply here. These are not Indigenous communities in the sense you try to portray them. They're much more structured cities with colleges, organized media, museums and schools. About your other point, Laura has given us reason to agree that providing the kind of documentation you want is not usual there. Many Australian Wikimedians have testified to her good understanding of the situation and the good standing of her plans in relationship to the local way of handling things. Hugs, --Solstag 16:05, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Solstag. I'm not as familiar with the cultures of this region of Oceania. I'm just basing my concerns more on my own experience in working with Indigenous communities and friends of mine who live in New Zealand and either interact with or are Maori (who live in big cities and work at museums, etc). I figure Laura wouldn't be VP of Wikimedia Australia if there wasn't a trust between her and the community. It's the other participants I suppose I'm more concerned about. That's all :) (As this has been a question asked of me after I gave a presentation about Indigenous outreach at Wikimania.) SarahStierch 14:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

You are conflicting yourself in the first 2 lines. I agree you don't know about the culture and people of Oceania, neither do I, but I'm willing to assume good faith and believe these fellow community members know enough, who actually do live in the region and not just have friends located there unlike us. Even if they don't, they are passionate community members who are taking time out to do outreach on the community's behalf. I've answered about the 2 you were "concerned about", they are all very qualified people. The purpose of these grants is to support activities Wikipedians who want to undertake, not hold a contest for who the best person would be. You might have read how several people in the section above, who mentioned they were asked by Laura to join and support this project but couldn't due to their busy lives. Theo10011 17:01, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Sarah, These are some very ridiculous arguments. Is anyone qualified to study any other culture except their own? do research project in places other than their native countries even after living there for years get approved? if you apply your own argument, I don't think you are qualified to take on any cross-cultural research project anywhere, not even in Europe, or even outside DC, even if you go work or live there for years. I'm also not sure what makes you a cultural expert vs. someone who actually lived in that region, a couple with advanced research degrees.

• A)This is not a research project for an indigenous tribe, but colleges, libraries and museums, you know GLAM, located in proximity of Australia where most of the wikipedians are from, some are even the local chapter representatives. I'm not sure how your point about Western sensitivities applies to these "indigenous communities" in colleges and museums. I'm also not sure how anyone can express that these colleges and libraries would react to cultural sensitivities and "technological openness and sharing", I assume they know what Wikipedia is and have an online presence. I'm pretty sure they have interacted with other "indigenous communities".
• B)Experience of people taking on their own project? Let me get this straight, you are asking about a selection process for people taking on their own projects? Did you have one for gendergap or your survey? I know most of these people involved. Laura is vice president of WMAU, a wikipedian in residence, others like Chzz, Courcelles are extremely active Contributors with years of experience and insight about the community. They all have a very good standing in the community, with a ton of experience interacting with new contributors. With all due respect, and I don't mean this personally, they are far more qualified than you or me to take on this or any similar project. I'm glad they are doing this.
• C)I'm not sure what a college or an institution can do but acknowledge someone's schedule. Should they send invites dipped in perfume accompanied by a rose to acknowledge or should they sent exactly what is required, an acknowledgement.

It's sad that I have to do this, and there is not enough trust that you would look up their standing yourself, but I have added some info about Courcelles and Hawkeye7, since you were curious about them. I have known of them for a long while. It is hard to have an idea about someone's offline presence unless they wish to make it public, and they are within their rights not to. So, I think you, me or all Wikipedians should be judged based on their online standing and what we choose to make public. Here's the 2 you weren't sure about.

• User:Courcelles -Admin, OS, CU, Abuse filter, with over 200,000 edits, among the 100 most active editors on en.wp. Active on IRC, well trusted and liked by the community.
• User:Hawkeye7 - Admin, over 20,000 edits. His page lists him as a military historian with a Phd, MA and an MBA.

They are all wonderful people and great Wikipedians.Theo10011 16:54, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Back from e-mail; current status

(the following is pasted from an e-mail sent by me to the grant requester (Laura Hale) in response to several e-mails. Those e-mails contained some personal and unrelated remarks, and are not reproduced here, but the points below are responses to questions or comments from Laura. I would like to keep this conversation public.)

1. The WMF's position has not changed: we are willing to fund the "Misc costs: Transportation, food, teaching supplies" item, and that only, in the original request. To be quite clear, we are not prepared to fund the entire request; you may receive the "Misc costs: Transportation, food, teaching supplies" funding by acknowledging that that would be acceptable to you and would be used as indicated. Everything else on this numbered list is just for clarification and to answer your questions.
2. The appropriate grants program under which this grant is considered is the Wikimedia Grants program, not the Wikimedia Participation Grants program.
3. We're sorry you received some contradictory advice from multiple sources. I am the single official point of contact for the Wikimedia Grants program. I am interested in improving the Grants program, and in preventing contradictory information from getting disseminated. It would help if you tell me what advice you got from whom (privately if you prefer), so I can reach out to them and try to correct or update their information to prevent future miscommunication.
4. If the WMF Grant guidelines are not clear, we are eager to improve them. If you could take a moment to review them and point out exactly what was not clear, we would be grateful, as it would allow us to make them clearer for future grant seekers.
5. We are in no position for, nor are we interested in, adjudicating the question of cultural sensitivity or skills raised in the grant talk page. We are ready to accept your word that you are competent to perform the outreach you describe, and we do not regard that issue as an obstacle for the approval of the funding we are prepared to offer, nor for full funding (which has a different obstacle -- that a case for the need for additional Wikipedians has not been made, despite repeated questions).
6. You state you don't know "What the WMF wants". Let me try and offer an unofficial answer:
   1. the WMF wants to:
      1. execute its strategic plan
      2. support volunteer initiatives aligned with the strategic plan
      3. support volunteer initiatives not aligned with the strategic plan, but aligned with the Wikimedia Mission.
   2. All this while making sure it is making good use of resources, spending effectively and with due process.
   3. Your grant proposal does not seem to us to fit within our strategic plan -- Oceania is not a target area for this year; not because it is not considered Global South (it is), but because unlike India, Brazil, and the Middle East, it does not seem to have a high untapped potential we can readily realize.
   4. Your proposal is, of course, aligned with the general Wikimedia Mission, and so it is something we would consider supporting, though at a lower priority.
   5. There still remains the question of effective spending, and that, indeed, has been the crux of the comments I have been making here: Oceania is remote, and doing work in Oceania is expensive; this is not your fault, it's a given; but that means that any work in Oceania requires a lot of money, and that, in turn, means that to justify such work, one would need to show that there is a high likelihood of getting a lot of return on the investment. A good return on the investment, in this case, would be the successful seeding of a sustained Wikimedian community; we are not convinced, based on our own experience and the discussion so far, that such a sustained result is likely. In fact, we think it quite unlikely; we expect even the highest quality outreach, at the scale and time frame proposed, could not achieve more than a passing interest in Wikimedia and its work, and a certain (possibly a significant) amount of "reader education" (i.e. changing perceptions and misconceptions about Wikipedia for consumers of Wikipedia, a good and desirable result in itself).
   6. Therefore, the whole proposal does not seem to us to be a good use of donor funds, at this point in time, and in the current situation (i.e. with no active local Wikipedians, for example). It may become a better idea in time, as infrastructure progresses, as local Wikipedians are discovered, etc., but at the moment, the proposal is something we would not feel is a good investment for our mission.
   7. Nevertheless, as part of the WMF's commitment to support and enable volunteer initiatives, even when not aligned with the current strategic plan, and recognizing the significant amount of volunteer work (and passion) already invested in this project, we are willing to make available some funds in support of this proposal. But the total sum requested, and the reasons given for it, simply do not justify the expense. Hence the partial funding offer. While it is far less than you originally requested, you have not been able to offer compelling reasons to include additional Wikipedians' travel for the accomplishment of the program, and we consider even the partial funding, a sum of $2,250, to be a bold leap of faith (that we are willing to make!) on our part, and we hope we can all look at this a year from now and feel this was money well spent for our movement's mission.
7. We recognize you had to spend a lot of time discussing this grant request. We appreciate your volunteer commitment (and that of the members of the Grant Advisory Committee, who reviewed this request and led the discussion in its early stages); we're afraid there's no way to avoid putting in time, sometimes a lot of time, while staying committed to our values of transparency, open conversation, community input, and due process, especially where money is involved. If it's any consolation, you would have been likely to spend /much/ more time seeking funding from other organizations -- our process is actually quite lightweight, even if it didn't feel that way to you, this time.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can clarify. I await your decision on the partial funding (or further arguments supporting full funding, but note my points above about the (lack of a) fit to strategy). Ijon 09:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Sarah Stierch is not, and has never been, a WMF fellow, nor otherwise employed by the WMF. Please let me know if there's a source suggesting otherwise. Ijon 09:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

About Sarah, Is this wrong then[2]? It conflicts the above statement. Regardless of her status, she is indeed conducting a WMF financed research project Research:Teahouse, I'm not sure how she would be qualified as. If Laura and others permit me, I would like to respond to the above post in detail. Theo10011 14:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I will be serving as a Wikimedia Community Fellow starting January 2. I am still currently a "normal Wikimedian." Laura has asked for people to participate in the discussion on IRC, so I have. SarahStierch 14:48, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

And on a side note, not every staff members know of my fellowship status, as it hasn't been publicly announced, yet. I won't be working in the same department that Asaf is in. SarahStierch 15:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually public implies the rest of us, the community, Asaf would be your co-worker. Anyway, Congratulations. Theo10011 17:07, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Reply to Asaf

• 1) You are conflating movement priorities, with general and global volunteer support. As someone who actually worked on the priorities and the strategic plan extensively, I assure you, this was not the intention. This is not what we agreed to.
• 2) The grant lists only travel and accommodation costs. You only offered to support the miscellaneous costs aside from the first 2.
• 3) It's a matter of perception how you look at this grant, you consider Oceania as a "non-target area" which would be generally expensive to do anything because of its remoteness, with concerns about ROI. Another way of looking at it is, outreach to a region we don't have a presence in, that is indeed remote and hence, represents a great opportunity to interact and promote the movement and open-source ideas, that would probably be ignored by most others. Trust me, there is no shortage of people willing to take on projects like these in India and the global south.
• 4) A lot is being said about the qualification and experience of the people undertaking this project, they are Wikipedians who are willing to do this project. Laura has said several times that she is willing to take on and work with anyone interested. What she can not do, and what others seem to be piling on here is, these are the only people interested. Several people already said on this page how they were asked by Laura but couldn't agree to help because of busy lives and prior commitments. There is a good reason they are the ones undertaking this, they are passionate people who are donating their time and we are dis-respecting them and assuming bad faith by questioning their qualifications.
• 5) I really don't like how you worded point 6, sub-point 7. - "we hope we can all look at this a year from now and feel this was money well spent for our movement's mission." along with your offer to cover less than a 1/4th of the grant request, it seems condescending even bordering on insulting. There have been a few dozen research projects and grants this year totaling over several million dollars, to non-community, non-wikipedians that I would put before the ~2000 USD as what we, the community, hope were spent well on our mission. No one knows or participated in 80% of those. I don't need to wait a year, I already think it was money not well-spent.
• 6) This grant is unlike majority of the previous ones, coming from really active Wikipedians who are willing to take on a project for outreach. They are incredibly active Wikipedians, 2 of them have over 100,000k edits, one is a chapter vice-president, two of them have Phd and advanced degrees. This is not like the majority of the other approved grant this year, and I can go through them individually.

You have questioned about a dozen different areas related to this grant since the top of this page, and raised questions about scheduling, travel cost, qualification. But I think the issue is unrelated to this grant in particular. I would also like to ask, should we assume that WMF is going to be unwilling of supporting really active Wikipedians who have an extensive edit history and excellent track-record, from activities not related to the beloved "Global-south"? Should active Wikipedians who want to take on projects in non-global south areas and outreach to remote places, abandon their plans and look for other funding sources? Is it all going to be about Global south and focus areas from now? If so, then I believe we should discuss this widely than this grant page. I was concerned that this was going to be a very problematic scenario that would emerge from centralization and one organization related fund-dissemination. I hope that is not the case. Regards, Theo10011 17:45, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

0. Thanks for the link about Sarah's upcoming work; I have been entirely unaware of this project or of her upcoming fellowship, because, as Sarah mentioned, it was not announced yet. Good to know. Irrelevant to this request, anyhow.

1. I believe my statement about "what the WMF wants" is correct, even if you saw it differently when working on the strategic plan.

2. Correct. And I explained why.

3. What is not a matter of perception is that, like I said, there is a high cost to doing any work in Oceania, making the ratio between investment and return particularly difficult. There is no doubt this would be new ground for Wikimedia, and that many others would ignore these islands; so would many other remote areas in our world. Given our limited resources, choosing which of those to spend resources in should be based on expected impact, i.e. on the ability to spend effectively and guarantee (or have good reason to expect) a high return on investment. This does not appear to be the case for these three islands, at this point in time.

4. Nothing was being said about the qualifications etc. by me. You'll note I made no appeal to anyone's experience in my discussion of the request, nor in my rejection of the expenses for additional Wikipedians' travel and accommodation, nor have I assumed bad faith anywhere. If you want to argue about it despite that, take it up with those who made such comments, but please understand experience/qualifications are not the reason we are not funding this request in full.

5. Please try to not be so quick to take offense. I explained (over and over) the reason for my decision; it is not arbitrary: we are not funding "a 1/4th" of the grant request just like that; we are agreeing the fund a part of the request that makes sense, and rejecting the other parts the need for which has not been established so far. This is based on the considerations stated in my previous response, and again in section #3 here. You have every right to think the Summer of Research was money ill spent; you may even be right (I don't think so, but I grant you may be right); but even if you're right, you realize two wrongs don't make a right, so even if money was ill spent before, it's hardly an argument to do more ill-advised spending.

6. This is, again, entirely irrelevant to the WMF's position. I reject the idea that a person's edit-count (or diplomas) qualifies them for special treatment in grant evaluation. I do not doubt, and indeed it is a matter of record, that these Wikipedians are very active. How does that make this project more likely to achieve its goals? The level of activity of participating Wikipedians was never the problem.

7. And in answer to your questions in the final paragraph:

• No, you should not assume the WMF is unwilling to support "really active Wikipedians who have an extensive edit history and excellent track-record from activities not related to the [...] Global South" (please try to avoid sarcasm; it never helps). Indeed, the WMF is and has been supporting Wikipedians, some very active and some not very active, in a variety of work outside the Global South. You are well aware of this fact, and the Grants list from this year is strong evidence contradicting you.
• No, Wikipedians wanting to take on projects in non-GS areas, or outreach to remote areas, need not abandon their plans. They do, however, need to make sure they are planning programs that have a good chance of attaining sustained impact, and of being sensible in terms of cost vs. benefit to our mission. The set of mission-aligned projects that could be undertaken is vastly larger than the set of projects we can actually fund; it follows that we need to pick and choose, and our criteria should be based on fitness to strategy and effective progress on our mission, not on people's edit counts. Ijon 18:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Reply to Asaf (again)

0. The point about Sarah's fellowship was indeed irrelevant, but you were the one who mentioned it first, declaring in P.S. "Sarah Stierch is not, and has never been, a WMF fellow, nor otherwise employed by the WMF.", I merely provided a conflicting statement.

1. And I'm saying that might very well be so, but you are using Movement priorities and the strategic plan that I worked on and agreed to, as a reason for what WMF wants now, 3 years later. I wasn't under any misunderstanding or delusions. At the time, we were asked as a movement and community to decide on a plan, 3 years later that very plan is being used to argue against us. I assure you I don't mean you personally, but generally, there seems to be some disconnect along the line.

3. Since you are using Return on Investment as a justification for the grant, allow me to redirect. I would argue since there is no previously existing presence there on top of, a remote area that is generally overlooked, the return on this particular investment would yield dividends for a much longer time, and actually have a higher ROI. The much larger issue is, there is no one willing to undertake activities in other focus areas, these community members and this project is all we have. Either we support or not, there is no Investment to consider an ROI for this year, assuming it is 2 weeks to the end of this one.

4. I agree, you did not question it.

5. You are agreeing to support a part of it, yes, it works out to 1/4 of the total grant, my point stands, you may infer differently. BTW summer of research is not the only project I referred to, but several others, different iteration of Wikihistories, and so on, the interesting thing is we have no idea how much was actually spent on them, we can argue about particulars of Laura's grants but we can only assume and make guesses when it comes to spending that was prob. several 100 times in total than this amount. My point was, you were using it in a way that seemed condescending considering the amount actually being spent by WMF in light of the offer, maybe I was being too sensitive.

6. Actually it does, all the researchers and recipients I mentioned earlier had only diplomas and degrees and no edit counts. Edit counts and community standing is barely considered, which I believe is a big gap in how we award merit and contribution within our community. Again, success is relative, and this is an outreach project. These people, are far more knowledgeable and capable of representing the community than me or even you, when it comes to outreach, I hope that should matter.

Regards, Theo10011 19:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Let's focus

Hi Theo. I feel you're making a big mess out of a much simpler thing.

Ijon pointed out only two things:

1. not clear why need more than one person; about this I tried to make a point in a previous section guiding Laura to present something that could solve this issue, she did not yet reply to that section.
2. hard to see lasting editor impact from this project; here there were several paths one can take, an easy one involves making an all out defense of reaching out to Oceania, which you did in your last message but was not done before; another was to outline some strategic ideas that would give some guarantees of impact in terms of what would be done and also in terms of following up;

So, instead of making long discussions that only divert attention from the problems Ijon pointed out in the request, let us help Laura fill the gaps and turn this into a satisfactory proposal.

It is really not that hard what is being asked, and is quite reasonable considering the amount requested: to provide a proposed timetable making it clear what the other Wikimedians are going to do while Laura is busy; and move forward on one of the two defenses of the impact of this proposal; as was just outlined above.

Hugs,

--Solstag 04:05, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Let's focus

1. Theo is completely correct, and you and Ijon are completely out of line.
2. I am not going to stand for this series of personal attacks. I accept that experience in the region, in outreach, academic credentials, books written, and a host of editing credentials are completely meaningless to you, and that the sole criteria for credibility as far as you are concerned is being a paid member of WMF.
3. The experts told you what was required. It was not your job to "fill in the gaps" and attempt to micromanage the proposal. Laura said that she needed a second person in the room to do outreach. You had neither the experience nor the expertise to challenge her assessment of her requirements.
4. You are the one who needs guidance. Your internal processes and procedures have nothing to do with us. If you did your job properly, they would be invisible to outsiders.
5. As it stands, your ignorant and incompetent insistence on providing an itinerary in advance merely leaves me out of pocket when the project had to be cancelled.
6. The proposal was affordable and workable, unlike your own efforts.
7. Will somebody please give Sara Self Promotion access to the Wikipedia so she can look up where Micronesia is?
8. I worked with the Bush Administration. I know that incompetence and nepotism are the norm in your country. But I am still pissed off at you, your attitude, your country and WMF.

Hawkeye7 20:17, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Only a small note: Hawkeye, sostag is Brazilian, not american. Not that nepotism don't run Brazil as well, but just for notice. Béria Lima ^msg 20:22, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Beria. And Ijon is from Israel. Though I ask myself whether such gratuitous personal attacks are even worth replying to :( --Solstag 20:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll tell you one thing, Hawkeye. I have met Laura personally and have from the very beginning admired this request and been cheering for her. I said so explicitly. I even included a joke in my first message, about a funny video we made together back in 2010. Then, after some conversation, Ijon put forward two uncomplicated questions, neither of which challenges or questions Laura's expertise. They only ask for a slightly more detailed description of the expected scenario in terms of two issues. This was meant so everyone has a chance to understand why this grant shall be funded, while similar grants from people we don't trust as much might not be. That's simple due process. Now, about me, as a GAC member, which means I'm here specifically to advise the requester on how to best work the proposal and best respond to the WMF, I tried repeatedly to point out specific solutions, going as far as outlining the options available. Meanwhile, there were lots of other comments regarding issues that were not raised by the WMF, which you, and others, seem to confuse with the those that were. Anyway, I'm sorry you seem to hold resentment for us. I get where you're coming from, but you're misdirecting your anger. Hugs, --Solstag 20:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I feel angry, hurt and upset. I am personally embarrassed and out of pocket. I hope I never have to deal with any of you ever again. All that was requested was funding for travel for one person. Ijon asked why it could not have been done by zero people instead of one, which I cannot regard as a reasonable question. I know now that only WMF people can ask for grants. Again, I hope I never have to deal with any of you ever again. Hawkeye7 01:57, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

After all, what is the status of this grant?

All the GAC passed by here already - and they all support the grant. Even people who are not part of the GAC are here talking, but the only person who needs to be "conviced" is Asaf (btw, I didn't knew that was the job of a grantee - Convice Asaf about his grant). So, that is probably the first grant where GAC and Asaf don't look themselves eye to eye. Which is great, because will help me solve a old question: Who after all decide this, and what the weight of GAC opinions in the decision. Béria Lima ^msg 20:22, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

• It is indeed the job of a would-be grantee (or applicant) to convince the grantmaking organization of their proposal's value for the grantmaking organization's goals. In this particular case, the organization's goals are shared, and I am the point of contact, so I am the person you need to convince, but I speak for the WMF on these issues, and represent its management (my boss, Barry Newstead, and his boss, Sue Gardner).
• The GAC's role, as its name make clear, is advisory. The decision is indeed entirely the WMF's. The GAC can help the WMF avoid very bad approvals as well as very bad denials, and can help applicants refine and clarify their proposals, all this using both their community-oriented perspective and their own various experience in comparable programs and activities as involved Wikimedians. That's what the GAC is for. I hope it's clearer now.
• Part of the GAC spoke up in support of this request -- I count six out of sixteen members, which is a good turnout for the GAC (but far from "all the GAC"). I note that both Kiril's and Polimerek's support were qualified, and that their concerns were not entirely addressed.
• More importantly, despite repeated questions, I have not, to this moment, received answers about the need for more than one person doing the outreach, and the basis for expecting a significant return on investment from this particular region given these particular costs. The fact these concerns were not raised by the GAC but by me is, I think, reflective of our respective positions: the GAC is entirely composed of volunteers, and it does not bear fiduciary responsibility for any spending done in the Wikimedia Grants program. It is easy to read this proposal, get excited by the idea of bringing Wikipedia and our mission to these remote and exotic places, and say "sure, that would be great!" I am a paid employee (while also still a community member with background as a volunteer) and it is my job to be responsible for money spent in the Wikimedia Grants program. I am answerable for any negligence in due diligence, for any waste or mismanagement, and for ultimately showing that money spent in this program was well spent in furtherance of the Wikimedia Mission. Part of that responsibility is to do my best to ensure a reasonable proportion between the amount of money spent in a grant to the amount of benefit reasonable to expect from it for our mission, and preferably for our specific strategy. Reading my contributions above will reveal that that has been the focus of my concerns all along -- not people's credentials (whether academic or editcount-based), not whether outreach in those islands is generally a Good Thing (of course it is), but whether this proposal is an effective use of our financial resources.
• Finally, the status of this request is 'pending'. We are waiting for a response from Laura to the idea of partial funding; if that would be unacceptable, this request will be denied. Ijon 23:50, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The status is closed. I acknowledge that you are taking responsibility for your grossly negligent conduct, wastefulness and mismanagement of this matter. Hawkeye7 04:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Request Cancelled

The main requester, User:LauraHale, has just pointed my attention to the fact that this proposal was scrapped. She declined to make a formal comment here to that effect, stating "that is your problem", so I am considering this request withdrawn. Ijon 02:40, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually the links you mention, states a very credible explanation. Theo10011 09:37, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

On 18 December 2011, after extensive discussion between the planners and the board of Wikimedia Australia, a decision was made to defer the Micronesia trip until later in the year because of other GLAM commitments that came up and required participant involvements with in a limited period of time that would have heavily conflicted with the outreach period.

Sure, it's a credible explanation. You'll agree that "a decision was made to defer the trip" offered in response to my question about this grant's status should be interpreted as a withdrawal of the request. It's a shame, however, that 1) she did not make it here, and left those watching this grant request, including GAC members who volunteer their time, waiting for her response, and 2) it is falsified by her comments below, which now admit she decided "there was no reason to pursue" the grant, rather than "GLAM commitments". Ijon 17:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

This request was not withdrawn: Please deny

I want to be clear: It became obvious to me at a certain point: The grant was not going to be supported. I'm not sure if this awareness came before or after a WMF fellow made comments in front of other chapter members at a conference that the applicants were looking for a free beach vacation, when a now WMF fellow who I had constantly championed came in and said culturally insensitive things that made it impossible to show the grant application to locals, or when one of the people over seeing the grant implied I was trying to black mail the Foundation into funding the grant. Whatever the case, it was clear the WMF was not going to support the grant. Thus, there was no reason to pursue a grant the Foundation was not going to support. It should remain open until such a time the WMF denies it because I will not formally deny it. If the WMF were to reconsider funding with an awareness of time issues have severely jeopardised doing it on the proposed time, allow for a postponement of the grant, allow for the removal of Chzz and the replacement or non-replacement of another candidate, that would be acceptable. For that reason, it remains open until such a time the WMF denies it. Funding for myself is not acceptable. It was not requested. This grant needs two people doing in person outreach. You cannot go into multiple classrooms in a short period of time, work with students, separately work with staff, reach out to local GLAM people, talk to the local government and do content development as an individual. I feel my credentials were questioned because my expertise in multiple areas related to this outreach was dismissed. But yes, this grant is open until such a time that it is denied by the WMF. (Also, I don't appreciate being accused of being sulky and being passive aggressive. Whether or not that was Asaf's intention, he used arguments against a woman that have been historically used to oppress them. I am making the good faith assumption that Asaf did not intend to do and what we have here is a giant communications problem.) --LauraHale 10:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

This request was indeed withdrawn. Your first few lines in this very section say so clearly -- you were disappointed the WMF is not prepared to fund the grant in its entirety, ignored a counter-offer the WMF made, and simply stopped responding to my questions and requests to continue the conversation. I had to reach out to you on IRC last night just to get a straight answer about this grant's status.

Clearly, when you do not get your way, you choose to resort to any tactic, however manipulative or cynical. You deliberately keep conflating other WMF staff's comments, made verbally elsewhere and not in this grant discussion, and a community member's (not a WMF fellow at the time) opinion (one of several respondents which you solicited on IRC), with the WMF's reasoned position as articulated by the WMF's authorized representative for grant discussions, i.e. me.

Readers of this discussion are welcome to read back and see that none of your grievances above (I make no comment about their validity, it is not my place to adjudicate them) are relevant to the conversation I have been trying to have with you about your proposal. I did not question your credentials, I did not say "culturally insensitive things", and I was continually given the bait-and-switch instead of straight answers to my questions.

As for your playing of the gender card, I am disappointed, but not surprised. If you would like that, I am happy to paste a transcript of our little IRC chat from 14 hours ago, and the discrepancy between your behavior and position in private and the facade you are putting on in public will be revealed. Or you could apologize for accusing me of misogyny. Ijon 17:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I have read it. The request was denied. WMF was unwilling to fund the requested grant. I informed WM-AU and the people in Micronesia accordingly. I cancelled the air tickets which had already been purchased. This incurred me a 35% cancellation fee.

I never indicated that I would accept any counter offers. I was not bargaining for tomatoes at the market. I certainly did consider the proposal that I personally fund ¾ of it to be any sense a reasonable response.

I am appalled by your insensitivity, your incompetence and your misogyny. I am also taken aback your attempt to claim that the request was withdrawn rather than denied while simultaneously admitting that it was indeed denied. Hawkeye7 18:40, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Nice one Asaf, now you are calling Laura manipulative and cynical, when she doesn't "get her way". I hope you read your last comments again in a couple of days, and consider if you might have been out-of-line. I'm not going to accuse you of anything but your earlier comments might not have been misogynistic but they are leaning towards it now. I can understand everyone's frustration but this is getting uncivil, and testing the boundaries of good conduct. I would like to point our that "WMF's reasoned positioned articulated by the WMF's authorized representative" doesn't really mean anything beyond the concerned staff member, which, just about anyone can and often does disagree with. Depending on who you ask, those "reasoned" positions are often wrong. I do like Hawkeye's analogy of haggling for tomatoes at the market, that is what it seems to have become, with all the inspection of authenticity, yelling and rudeness. I hope you realize you are not just insulting Laura at this point, but upsetting others, and generally not behaving in the way the people who know you, would have expected from you. Theo10011 18:41, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

There is a gender gap problem on WMF projects, and it appears to potentially be a top down problem. We have Erik Moeller and other high level WMF functionaries who caused big problems on the gender gap list by claiming that their dominance was silencing women was sexist and their voices deserved to be heard, even at the expense of women's participation in conversations about resolving the gender gap. We have Liam Gallagher who, according to what four people at WM-UK told me, had pictures of his girl friend in a sexually explicit positions, appear before everyone on the conference's over head projector at important movement conference with at least eleven influential Movement women in the room. Yes, it was only a few seconds because a woman got it off by moving the mouse to shut down the screen saver.) We have Asaf engaging in misogynistic wording, using arguments historically used to repress women. (This perception appears clear: Who are the three chapter people WMF appears to have biggest problem with in the Chapters movement? All women, with the possible exception of one other person. The WMF doesn't appear to run across this problem with men. The WMF does not appear to build up movement women who do things.)--LauraHale 19:43, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

What Asaf doesn't appear to under is this: The problem here is NOT LauraHale. The problem is WMF and its processes. If I can't figure out how to successfully apply for this, it is a problem for the WMF. If the WMF is so short on money that it can't fund projects like this, it is a problem. If the WMF cannot support member run initiatives, it is a problem. If the WMF cannot read what is written and ask specific questions that specifically deal with the grant as propose, it is a problem. If the WMF appears to retaliate against chapters because one of their members does something not approved of by the WMF, it is a problem with the WMF. If the WMF can do similar programs that members propose but cannot provide that information to insure success for similar measures by participants who have greater cultural understanding, it is a problem.--LauraHale 19:43, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh. And question for Asaf: When was the last time a granting body to the WMF accused WMF of being shrill? Of being passive-aggressive because the WMF didn't get a grant the WMF thought would be beneficial to their programming? Of sour grapes because the WMF didn't get what they want? I am just assuming that most granting bodies treat the WMF civilly when the WMF doesn't get grants. Maybe I'm wrong.--LauraHale 19:43, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Laura, Asaf, I don't think that anything is going to be served by continuing to sling insults at each other. I strongly suggest you both disengage and cease commenting on this page. Craig Franklin 14:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC).

Please do not modify status to say withdrawn

I see some one changed the status back to withdrawn. It was not withdrawn. It is open until such a time that it is denied or grant given recent developments. Please do not change to withdrawn again. --LauraHale 02:05, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Why was it failed?

Now that we've established this was rejected by the Wikimedia Foundation, the next step: Please detail the reasons why this was failed both as proposed, and with the modified proposal discussed on the talk page where the WMF was requested to cover ONLY Courcelles's airfare with the knowledge that the second presenter was required to help with in classroom, one on one support, during presentations before multiple classes, to assist with workshops for educational staff and to help with meeting with GLAM representatives as the rationale for the need for a second or third in person person-to-person outreach, with the knowledge this specifically targetted the global south, and the schedule being limited because of two flights A WEEK to the region. The rational should also acknowledge that Sarah Stiech, <redacted>, Liam Gallagher were all asked to participate but had neither time, interest nor required expertise. The rationale should also acknowledge these areas are in traditional areas of American influence. It should acknowledge there was many attempts to find the most qualified candidates around the world, and specific attempts to find candidates from Australia. Please explain why this was failed. --LauraHale 03:05, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Lessons learned?

Hi,

This page has grown a 100 kbytes long, which is a respectable amount of text in itself. I think it would be a good idea if someone had the time to go over it and see if there are some lessons learned for future grantees and the grant review process.

There seems to be a bit of confusion over roles and the relevance of some of the questions. For example, there seems to be a bit of complaining about competency of the would-be grantees, but Asaf claims, it was not him who raised those issues (I might be wrong, I only skimmed the conclusion of the page). It might be a good idea, to clearly identify the role of the questioners and the importance of the questions (e.g. the way Chapcom is trying to do, see for example here).

An other issue I see with the involvement of the GAC is that there seems to be a barrage of questions, sometimes overlapping, sometimes containing suggestions of the opposite nature. It might be a good idea, if the GAC could consolidate some of their comments and their ideas into a coherent set of questions, recommendations and worries. One way to achieve this, would be to have a draft document on Etherpad where everyone could contribute and have it summarised on the grants' talk page – that way, one could see, what are the chief worries and how much of the GAC shares those worries without having to find it in a huge pile. Perhaps, it would make it easier for Asaf to note which of the GAC's viewpoints he finds very important to get an answer to before he can even begin thinking about approving a grant.

(An other solution would be to expect the grantee to respond to every single point raised on the grant's talk page, but as we have seen, not all reviewers' questions are equally important, and having to answer contradictory or confusing comments can be frustrating and a waste of time. Even with the best of intentions a question might go unnoticed.)

A third issue seems to be timing. What is the reasonable timeframe for a grantee to expect all of the questions? Should he/she be on call 24/7, or is it enough if they wait a few days to see if the questions have ceased to come in to begin to formulate their answer. What is the timeframe of the review, how much time in advance should a grant be submitted to allow for enough time for review, revision and transferring of money?

I think regardless of the outcome and merits of this specific grant (and separately from the funds dissemination issues raised elsewhere) the process and communication surrounding the grant review are worth looking into and reviewing now that we have had a number of grants reviewed, accepted, modified and denied since the new system has been put in place. --Dami 16:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for these thoughts, Bence. They all merit consideration, and we have been discussing them internally (before this grant proposal was even submitted) and preparing a draft for a proposed new process and modified role for the GAC, with explicit criteria for grants, including time frames, right of appeal, and other changes, and will be presenting them shortly. Ijon 18:06, 23 December 2011 (UTC)