Talk:Movement Strategy/Recommendations/Iteration 1/Resource Allocation/H

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it.

Most likely, new comments will not be taken into account by the new three Working Group members in their work of developing the final Recommendations. You are free however to continue discussing in the spirit of "discussing about Wikipedia is a work in progress". :)

Two thoughts

1. I believe that charity begins at home. Although Wikimedia might be "one of the most financially stable/secure and flexible organisations in the free knowledge movement", that is a relative statement: there are a number of needs relating to Wikimedia projects that need to be funded, yet do not receive any money. (An example is my own personal interest, funding individual volunteer research needs. Right now, there seems to be no provision concerning helping established & productive editors in obtaining information to develop content.) While there are many worthy causes in the world, the overriding priority in funding needs to be our needs, not some outside organization.

2. That said, another proverb I believe is that the devil is in the details. Financially helping some groups would help ourselves in the short- & long-term. An example would be Internet Archive, which provides a permanent repository of many websites Wikipedia links to: its long-term existence clearly benefits us. On the other hand, this could also be used for corruption, where some Wikimedian creates a group ostensibly to promote free knowledge, but in practice they are simply using the money for personal benefit. (Which, sad to admit, not only is easily done, but appears to have been done.) -- Llywrch (talk) 21:43, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Good points. Also there seems to be an underestimation of organizational complexity. The WMF might be financially stable, but it often struggles to deal with the Wikimedia community and projects. Why the WMF is so eager to spend money and setup infrastructure to help other organizations when there is still so much to be done within Wikimedia? Isn't that spreading too thin? Building an organization that can serve the Wikimedia community is quite different from building a huge grant-making fund, and that would put the core projects at risk. --MarioGom (talk) 12:22, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Internet Archive is useful, but we already have that at Wikisource. So why fund an external project that does the same thing one of our projects already do? Wikisource has a number of problems of usability, it would be much more wise IMO to invest on solving them, instead of throwing money around to 3rd parties. Who defined that crazy "strategic direction" they are always quoting there, anyway?--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 12:44, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I forgot the archiving of regular websites, which is something Internet Archive does, and we do not do, nor plan to do. In any case, it is hard to understand the abandonment Wikisource has been devoted to, despite some tongue-service and until now empty promises by a number of WMF leaders at Wikimedia events, specially looking at the apparent availability of funding for external projects, stated in that recommendation.--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 12:48, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Who dictated this "strategic direction"?

"The strategic direction is clear that we must be able to provide ‘essential infrastructure’ to other free-knowledge activities beyond those specifically associated to Wikimedia. This means that we must create a method to allocate resources to non-Wikimedia activities/projects." - What is this "strategic direction"? Where does it came from? Who ditacted that? To me, it is not clear at all that resources should be allocated to whatever activities (free-knowledge or not) out of the context of the Movement Wikimedia. Answers to the questions on this reccomendation are vague onliners, sometimes with a question itself. "Perhaps that’s simply the risk we are happy to take, given the new strategic direction." I was in the belief that we were here working to define a new Strategic Direction, not following some script already written and decided. This really not seem to be anything fit for discussion, should either be further worked on, or scrapped for good.--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 12:00, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Found it... It's from that shady 2017 Strategic Process, apparently. "By 2030... We will build tools for allies and partners to organize and exchange free knowledge beyond Wikimedia." - No idea how such controversial stuff passed into the strategic direction, but IMO it makes no sense to waste money in external agents when our own stuff still looks like something out of the 1990s. If that still is part of the strategic direction, it is way past the hour of removing it from there--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 19:40, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments from the working group (Sept 9th)

On behalf of the Resource Allocation working group:

We want to work with external partners fulfil the Strategic Direction, in which we aim to become the infrastructure of free knowledge on the internet, and everyone who shares this vision is invited to join us. We understand there can be strategic partnerships that will help us accomplish our mission and vision, and not being (yet) a Wikimedian should not be a deal breaker for supporting certain projects, groups or initiatives. We want to be part of a thriving ecosystem, not an oasis in a desert. This means we don't close the door to other groups who share our vision but lack resources. Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (talk) 13:47, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

@Daria Cybulska (WMUK): This does not seem to make any sense. If they are not working in/producing for the Wikimedia projects, why would money be diverted to them? Since when has the Wikimedia movement became a charity that diverts money donated to fund it's own projects, in order to fund external projects?

BTW, what is the legitimacy of that so called "Strategic Direction"? Who decided that? Not the Wikimedia community, AFAIK. I'm not sure why you keep quoting that thing.--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 14:06, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

The WMF and affiliates decided the "strategic direction". It doesn't really have any legitimacy, but they like to bring it up anyway. --Yair rand (talk) 01:03, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

From Catalan Salon

Original text here.

We see a danger in this proposal: in the last years a lot of User Groups appeared. They didn’t had many members, but had access to funding. This can potentially led to a “beach bar” situation, where every wikimedian could crate his own user group just to have access to funding without many control. This proposal doesn’t solve the problem but can even make it bigger.