Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/GLAM-Edu projects in the Land of Valencia 2023

Wikimedia Valencia NO es una organización

Escribo porque soy editor y estoy en València. De cuando en cuando, la última vez este mismo año 2022, tengo que explicar que no pertezco a Wikimedia Valencia porque NO HAY NINGUNA ORGANIZACIÖN NI GRUPO DE USUARIOS que se llame así o de ese ámbito geográfico.

Hay un conjunto de personas que editamos en Valencia y alrededores. Y somos muy activos, es cierto. Trabajamos de forma independiente. A veces nos coordinamos entre nosotros, a veces con Amical, a veces con Wikimedia España, a veces con algún museo, con la Diputación Provincial, con ayuntamientos. Cada vez hacemos lo que estimamos oportuno.

El año pasado llegó a ponerme como solicitante, circunstancia que me creaba problemas que tuve que atajar, y no fui la única persona a la que le pasó esto.

Ni somos Wikimedia Valencia ni queremos serlo ni falta ninguna que nos hace. Se lo hemos dicho al Sr. Fort infinidad de veces: de buen rollo en un bar, formalmente en una asamblea de WMES y en otras circunstancias intermedias. Parece que esta persona no se piensa dar por enterada. B25es (talk) 08:45, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Hola Luis. Efectivamente, y como te he dicho también hoy, no existe dicha entidad, y no se ha pedido el grant en nombre de ninguna entidad. No entiendo porqué aparece el nombre. Y estoy muy enterado, no existe ningún afiliado con dicho nombre.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 09:17, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Hola, a la pàgina de projecte es diu clarament que l'organització que demana el grant és Wikimedia Valencia. Això dona lloc a malentesos.Kippelboy (talk) 03:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

No soy Wikimedia Valencia y no encuentro sentido a la existencia a tal "ente"

Yo también soy otra editora de Valencia. Colaboro con el Museo Valenciano de Etnología donde desde hace bastantes años, casi cinco, hago las veces de wikipedista residente, sin papeles, sin dinero por medio, pero sacando faena y organizando actividades que se pueden medir por su impacto en Wikipedia, Viquipedia, en Commons, en data, y en otras ocasiones en otras de los proyectos hermanos. Nunca he formado una entidad diferente de ser miembro de las dos asociaciones oficiales que tiene sentido en mi zona geográfica, Wikimedia España y Amical Wikimedia. El año pasado se me involucró, sin permiso, y habiéndome opuesto a la creación de cualquier entidad o grupo de trabajo nuevo con el editor Coentor, también conocido como TarontjaSatsuma, y pese a ello acabé formando parte de un Grant, en el que no tenía nada que ver y por el que se me ha juzgado en ambas asociaciones a las que pertenecía y en las que tuve que defenderme y pedir disculpas por algo en lo que yo no había tenido ni culpa ni responsabilidad. Este editor vuelve este año a la carga. Me gustaría saber qué impacto real ha tenido su proyecto durante el primer año de vigencia, porque yo, aquí en Valencia no he visto ninguna relevancia en su actividad. Los actos que se han organizado han sido realizados por los editores de siempre, los que vamos o bien por libre o bien en combinación con WMes o con Amical, y en ambos caso con L'ETNO. NO he visto nada organizado por esta "Wikimedia Valencia". Sé que este editor ha realizado talleres en la Universidad de Valencia y para el CEFIRE, en ambos casos se me ha informado que además ha cobrado por ello, con lo que además de la financiación que obtuvo con el Grant de más de 40000€, hay que añadir lo que cobra a las otras administraciones públicas por su trabajo, que ya no sé si forma o no parte de su wikiproyecto. Si la información que comparto no es cierta, pido disculpas de antemano, pero es lo que me ha llegado por fuentes fidedignas. No encuentro por ello ningún sentido a la concesión de un nuevo Grant para un wikiproyecto en el que además en ocasiones introduce trabajo realizado por los editores de a pie, como si fuera obra suya.19Tarrestnom65 (talk) 09:03, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Hola Montse. En la justificación del grant se explica todo, y también como a causa del financiamiento externo, este año se pide menos dinero. Recibiste información del proyecto, entre otros de los cursos realizados, por el mensaje que con una periodicidad más o menos semanal recibiste en el correo hasta la llegada del verano, del cual me dijiste que no tenías interés, y lo respeto. Las actividades que se realizan incluyen una serie de proyectos en colaboración con entidades educativas y GLAM, con el objetivo de hacer crecer la comunidad en la zona. Está explicado en los documentos del proyecto del año anterior y del actual. En el proyecto de este año y el mid-term report, se explica que los proyectos que ya realizan voluntarios no se cuentan en este proyecto, que me centro únicamente en áreas que no están actualmente cubiertas. Ni tu ni Luis formáis parte del proyecto, no tengo ninguna intención de que nadie lo crea. El año pasado pasó lo que pasó, pero vuestro nombre NO aparece aquí. Y no has visto nada organizado por "Wikimedia Valencia", porque se quiso usar ése nombre como paraguas, no es ningún grupo ni se ha pedido reconocimeinto al AffCom ni nada. Creo que está todo explicado, pero también hemos hablado del tema por Whatsapp, y espero que esté claro que NO formáis parte de esto, que es una postura 100% legítima.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 09:36, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

19Tarrestnom65, I've removed some language from your comment above that was not in compliance with our Friendly Space Expectations. I encourage you to review the expectations at that link. You are welcome to ask questions or raise concerns about a grant proposal, but we ask that you refrain from making any personal attacks. When you have feedback, please help us make grant talkpages a friendly and welcoming space by framing your comments/questions in a supportive and constructive way, for the sake of all who visit this page. --Marti (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Abusing grant request that disrupts the Catalan-speaking volunteering community

TaronjaSatsuma started as the volunteer of reference from Amical Wikimedia in the Land of Valencia around 2016, more than 6 years ago. By that time, he already set up and contributed to many collaboration lines that are still ongoing, but I insist, as a volunteer. All this can be checked on the basis of Amical's annual reports. The work that has been done so far was always under the umbrella of Amical Wikimedia as a thematic organization, and more recently also with the partnership of Wikimedia España. The results were always the outcome of a cohesive group of wikipedians that always relied on TaronjaSatsuma for some of the organizational tasks, while they participated in the in-person meetings. However, this trend has declined throughout this time to TaronjaSatsuma monopolizing the off-wiki activities to a point in which all public relations regarding Wikipedia needed to pass through him. This derived in the past in very uncomfortable situations, like when Amical discovered that TaronjaSatsuma already used a non-ethical "wikipediavalencia@gmail.com" email to centralize his activities, or when myself (as a former treasurer of Amical) was alerted that this user had been conducting a paid collaboration that was not declared in the terms in which the organization worked.

As TaronjaSatsuma has been the leading person of Wikipedia's related activities in this area, there has been an obvious positive content output, but never reported a significant net income of new Wikimedians (neither that could contribute regularly to the editing size or that could co-lead the organization of wiki activites on site). On the contrary, he has increasingly shifted his participation and territorial coverage representing the current Wikimedia organizations towards a full system of continuous Grants (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7; not exhaustively covered and involving Wikimedia2030 when that stage allowed more paid positions). This becomes not only a current disruption of both Wikimedia's organizational structure, in which volunteering, generational renovation and sharing of tasks are weakened by individuals that abuse of former advantages to gain a paid position, but also an example of intentionally building a volunteering status to get a modus vivendi reward aside of any strong auditing, agreement, rule, and project made by those communities. And now, being paid, unfortunately the metrics or successes do not improve the work that he was able to do before as a volunteer by fleeting partnerships and sustaining a splendid editing nucleus and real Wikimedia's institutional presence.

Few of the wikipedians that used to team up with him seem to have already expressed opposed views to this circumstance and denounced their names to be included not in the best way as supporting the so-called Wikimedia Valencia, as well as their volunteering work being abused as a successful metric for TaronjaSatstuma’s personal Grants. This misuse of other Wikipedian's work and names to back up an economical proposal without their full approval, and at risk of them leaving because of the sense of swelling other's benefits, I see it as a type of harassment. I can also confirm that the CEFIRE workshops are paid by that educational institution and that they were before managed by Amical but he assumed them mostly unilaterally. As I mentioned before, this Wikimedia Valencia concept already came up years ago silently and now it is used as a personal brand to request grants, while its de facto usage varies under the single convenience of TaronjaSatsuma. It does not follow the rule of law established by the WMF and creates confusion to the GLAM partners as they deduct it is a local organization oficially backed and assume a third player on the negotiations. The arguments for the use of this brand and concept, according to TaronjaSatsuma in several internal emails to Amical, is that the organization does not understand the uniqueness and idiosyncrasy of the Land of Valencia. The truth is that there was an exhaustive follow-up of his work due to the good faith, but also reservations due to the economical conflict of interest that grew over time. This way, TaronjaSatsuma has been able to build up a solid story-line that still demands half of the annual budget of Amical and represents basically nearly a full time salary (35K is a LOT of money, plus a single advisor out of the scope of the project), but now being released from any close auditing or amendment from the community he belonged to, and while his reported outcomes and objectives are shared with those of Amical (being the partnerships and agreements with the institutions he works signed with Amical and Spain's chapters many years ago).

I think that it is critical to fully revise and understand the trajectory of valuable, former work of TaronjaSatsuma as a volunteer (with some paid episodes and misunderstandings that created distress to others in the past), and the presence of two Chapters that base their organization into a non-staffed structure, to understand why this Grant should not be awarded in the current terms. It clearly disrupts the healthy off-wiki environment in this territory (as seen by the two other replies above). Xavier Dengra (MESSAGES) 20:44, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Regarding comments from two of the most active volunteers in the area (B25s & 19Tarrestnom65) it seems that there is somehow a dispute on the scope of this project. Although TaronjaSatuma is a valuous member of our community, it may seem this is actually a grant for continuous self-employment proposal by a single member of the community, who has been shifting from a volunteer position to a economical strategy as Xavier Dengra mention in its statement. In my opinion, I'll ask further documentation, argumentation and community support before taking some financial decision on this proposal.Kippelboy (talk) 03:51, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Xavier Dengra, I've removed some language from your comment above that was not in compliance with our Friendly Space Expectations. I encourage you to review the expectations at that link. You are welcome to ask questions or raise concerns about a grant proposal, but we ask that you refrain from making any personal attacks (including offering disparaging interpretations of others private motives). When you have feedback, please help us make grant talkpages a friendly and welcoming space by framing your comments/questions in a supportive and constructive way, for the sake of all who visit this page.

I also want to clarify that the Wikimedia Foundation allows people with volunteer backgrounds to seek funding for their time when they have the expertise and skills that are needed to do more complex and coordinated work in the movement. I ask that you consider removing or rewording comments in your feedback that might suggest that wrongdoing is implied when a volunteer seeks funding for their time. This is not against the rules of the Wikimedia Foundation's funding programs, and funding is frequently allocated to people who were or are volunteers when there is strategic cause for it. In this case, in particular, the applicant's services as a translator have been sought out on multiple occasions to support important Wikimedia convenings, and this is part of what is reflected in the grant history. My team has benefitted significantly from his work and he has received positive feedback for his performance.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Comentari

Em sumo a la preocupació de diversos voluntaris valencians expressada en aquesta pàgina de discussió davant Wikimedia València. Els voluntaris que impulsen activitats vinculades amb els projectes wikimedia en aquest territori ja compten amb el suport de diverses entitats, com Amical Wikimedia, amb qui tenen una relació fluida, fructífera i que ve de lluny. Com a president d'Amical Wikimedia em preocupa el perjudici que pot causar aquesta subvenció en el voluntariat existent, que és actiu i constant en el temps. Demano que s'estudiï amb profunditat aquesta petició de subvenció, i que per exemple s'analitzin els projectes empresos l'any passat abans de prendre qualsevol resolució. Em poso a disposició de la persona corresponent per resoldre els dubtes o qüestions que hi pugui haver. Salutacions. Medol (talk) 18:37, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Feedback from the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Regional Funding Committee on your proposal

Hello

Thank you for taking the time to submit your General Support Fund proposal in the Northern and Western Europe region. We are have reviewed your application and have the following comments and questions

• We appreciate the effort you have done the last couple of years. Nevertheless, in reviewing your application, we have several serious concerns.
• In terms of community feedback the NWE Comittee takes the comments on the talk page very seriously. In order to proceed with further stages of the application, we need evidence of support of and involvement in the project by the broader Valencian community, as well as an agreement with Amical and/or Wikimedia ES on collaboration. In addition, we want to be clear that we do not believe a one-person contractor is the best approach to sustaining a regular, year-over-year program, rather than a short-term targeted project. If this project has long term needs, we believe it must be done in collaboration with the local Valencia community, and at least one of the established affiliates (Amical and/or Wikimedia ES).
• If there is no community support for continued funding of this proposal, the committee would not be comfortable funding it. Should it be true that funding were to be discontinued, the committee would still like to make sure that the partners with which you are currently working do not experience an abrupt interruption of support. We would seek to work with you to consider next steps for the institutional partners, including meeting with other affiliates in the region, to decide what the best next steps are for these partnerships if funding were to be discontinued.
• As we review the best course in terms of funding, we would like more clarity about what was achieved in the last year of funding, including a list of current partnerships, and the current stage of each partnership, including an overview of the expectations of partners at this point. Please include metrics achieved for each partnership. In some cases, we may reach out to partners directly for feedback about the projects.
• In terms of the proposal, in its current form it lacks specificity (lots of “see last year” comments) and does not currently contain the levels of detail and analysis that we expect from applicants. In order to enable the committee to make a decision, more detail needs to be provided. This would include, but is not limited to:
  • Detail and evaluation of partnerships
  • Assessment of the work of active editors and organisers the programme is engaged with
  • Re -assessment of the targets you lay out in light of the previous year’s work - we recommend that you consult this guide to help you improve your Learning & Evaluation plan.

The committee would like to reiterate that these points all represent serious concerns, and will guide the committee’s decision about whether or not to continue funding. As you know, funding is not guaranteed, and we will be in dialogue with you about next steps, whether or not funding is awarded. As you respond to the questions above, we ask that you include evidence of community engagement.

On behalf of the NWE Regional Committee, Anders Wennersten (talk) 18:50, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Round 1 2023 decision

The Northern and Western Europe Regional Funds Committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement, and we appreciate your participation in the review process.

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee appreciates the work User:TaronjaSatsuma has done to build the Wikimedia movement in the Valencia region, by supporting institutional partners and by welcoming newcomers. Historically, the Wikimedia Foundation only funds individuals working independently as Wikimedians in Residence on a short-term basis, and even then, only when the work proposed is a strong strategic priority. In this case, we don’t believe that continuing with an individual, independent approach in the Valencia region makes sense at this time. Should you wish to apply for funding in the future, we would encourage you to do so in coordination with existing affiliate groups whose work includes the Valencia region.

Next steps:

• You are welcome to request a consultation with the Regional Program Officer for the Northern and Western Europe Region to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal in the future.

Posted on behalf of the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Funding Committee, –Marti (WMF) (talk) 06:55, 5 January 2023 (UTC)