Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014 round1/Wikimedia Deutschland e.V./Staff proposal assessment

I've been reading the text three times and I coudn't find the "many concerns" you mentioned. I found only one: The amount of requested money is too high. Please free your mind.

• Do not compare Wikimedia Deutschland with other chapters.
• Do not compare Wikimedia Deutschland wage bills with wage bills in India, Tunesia, or Romania. Please compare it with average wage bills in Germany.
• Do not compare the requested amount of money with other numbers seen during the FDC process. Compare it with the planned outcome.

Now have another look at the numbers. Thank you, --Sebastian Wallroth (talk) 21:44, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Software development department

This comment seems to be extremely misguided: "Only one of nine new positions is for its new focus area of software development". Surely we're not evaluating the names of the persons filling those positions, but the positions themselves. In the proposal I read that there will be 12+1 positions in the new software development department, which builds on Wikidata and RENDER teams but is a new thing. Moreover, those two programs were funded at 90 % with non-movement resources, so the new department is even more clearly a new thing from the perspective of this request (for 13 * 0.9 = 11.7 positions). Practically speaking, we should discuss if – given WMDE's decision to create a Software development department – the FDC wants such general development work for Wikimedia projects to be funded by hypothetical external entities and die if not; or to ensure it will be able to happen. The rest is fluff. --Nemo 10:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Response to the FDC assessment by WMDE

We would like to thank the FDC staff for their work. We appreciate the time and effort you put into creating the assesesment. Please find below our response to the assessment by Pavel Richter, the Executive Director of WMDE.

• Proposed growth in movement resources is too rapid in the context of underspending

I would like to stress that 2013 is the first time that WMDE has a significant underspending. This underspending occured mainly due to two large budget items that haven’t been spent as planned: WCA (Wikimedia Chapters Association) and CPB (Community Project Budget). We were able to anticipate this situation already in summer 2013, which was the same time when it became clear that we will establish a Software Development department. Thus, already in summer we have decided to use the surplus for Software Development in 2014 (see also my response here)

In addition, I consider it alarming to shape a spending culture in the movement that requires the entitites to spend all the funding they have received at all costs with no regard to the rationale for the underspending. I see a danger that this might lead to a situation where the movement entities feel obliged to spend all their funds imperatively in the end of the year. WMDE has not and will not follow such approach.

• WMDE’s proposed 2014 budget would reach over US$ 7.5 million, which may be unsustainable. A proposal for a request of US$ 2.4 million should have stronger direct impact on Quality (for example, enabling more and better content on the projects) and Participation (for example, recruiting and retaining new editors).

Regarding the sustainability: I would like to stress that WMDE has a track record for dealing with growth. In addition, we are constantly trying to diversify our funding sources (see my explanation of the planned four pillars funding.

Regarding the impact: we work with the assumption that our projects contribute to quality and participation in a long run (see our change models). In addition we can also present immediate results, e.g. with Wikidata we have attracted approx. 5000 new Wikimedians in 2013.

We are convinced that a well grounded, long run perspective and long term plan (“change models”) is the right way to achieve good, sustainable results in the area of participation and quality. I see a danger in the movement that short term way of thinking might be partly a flash in the pan.

• WMDE is planning to hire nine new positions in addition to increasing two positions to full-time status, bringing total staff to 51.45 part- and full-time staff. Adding US$ 742,500 in staffing cost seems neither prudent nor sustainable, given its current revenue plan. Only one of nine new positions is for its new focus area of software development, and five are devoted to evaluation, communications, and administration. This raises questions about how this staff growth corresponds to WMDE’s new focus areas.

The Software Development department will have an increase of 1,325 FTE in 2014, totaling in 12,55 FTE: 24% of WMDE employees belong to the Software Development department.

As for the communication department we are catching up with the necessary growth that was supposed to take place in 2013 but didn’t happen due to structural problems. And a smooth and well organized administration is essential for a well functioning organisation and we consider a total of 3,425 FTE (the additional 1 FTE stands for internal IT administration) not to be oversized.

• Nine employees and more than US$ 1,000,000 are to be allocated to the Volunteer Support program, but this significant investment may not have commensurate impact on the Wikimedia projects, especially considering WMDE’s mixed record in past community support work (for example, Fact Check and the community budget have had uneven results and response).

Team Communities has a team of 6,425 FTE .

Wikimedia Deutschland supports one of the most advanced and most active Wikipedia communities; we have a long track record of succesful and effective initiatives which have served thousands of community members over the years. And we are constantly trying out new things that might work and naturally assume that some of them will work while some others will not. We will continue to share our insights (both the failures and the successes) with the global Wikimedia movement.

While we support the ongoing quests for building and expanding new communitys, we think that supporting and growing existing Wikipedia editor communitys is also a very valuable approach, where the German language community can act as a good example.

• WMDE is not always forthcoming with sharing its challenges and lessons learned in its reports and is still working to find an appropriate level of detail to include in its reports. We recognize that this is a challenge for an organization that is reporting on so many activities. See, progress report for Q1 and progress report for Q2.

I would like to ask you to elaborate on what you mean exactly by “not being forthcoming” e.g. by giving concrete examples in our reports so we can understand your concern better.

• WMDE has provided change models for its programs; on the other hand, the metrics presented with these change models do not include clear targets or a strong focus on outcomes, which is expected for an organization of its scope and budget.

Introducing the change models is a big progress in the area of evaluation in the movement. We consider the change models to be the first neccessary step that has to be done before setting up further metrics, not the other way around. However, we are certain that our metrics will evolve during the next months and will serve us well to measure our progress. And we are looking forward to refine movement-wide metrics based on elaborated change models.

Once again, thank you for your feedback and insights. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask.--Pavel Richter (WMDE) (talk) 19:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)