Grants talk:PEG/Grant Advisory Committee/Candidates/Archives/Archive 1

Comment to Danny B. candidature

Hi everybody, as suggested on the page with candidates, I'd like to share here my comment about Danny B. candidature. I agree that Danny B. has a wide knowledge about Wikimpedia/Wikimedia projects and he is also experienced in negotiation with partners, however from my (personal) point of view taken by cooperation with him in last years, I do not strongly support him as suitable candidate for this position.

As a member of WMCZ and long-time editor on cs.wiki (active sysop, former bureaucrat for couple years), I was witness of several non-transparency behavior of Danny B., (some examples from last months) using "personal" familiarity with steward(s)/WM members in an attempt to enforce his POV, over-forcing of local communities and also the story with Juandev speaks itself... Also, it is true that he "helped" established grant procedure in WMCZ, however the cost was disruption of WMCZ activities for several months due to speculation and ambiguity. His way of working based on not sharing information with (almost) anyone, essential for the running of voluntary association as Wikimedia is, is counterproductive and very demotivating for everybody which has to cooperate with him. I find personally Danny B. as a man striving for power, which stands in the background enjoying the possibility to dictate the rules of the game for others. I could go on the list of my bad experiences with him, however I guess it will be use against me in my future activities in WM projects or I will be criticized by him sharing private information. Therefore, I stop just here... If there will be other possible option chose other candidate(s), I will be really thankful vote for somebody else.

And please, assume my good will in reading this comment :) People which know me more in detail knows that the reason of this comment is not effort to denigrate Danny B. person because of some "my (hypothetical) personal problem" but try to make Grant Advisory Committee effective and good place for cooperation and for your future work. Danny B. may be useful for WM projects, however but in any management or decision-making function operating with some "power". Best regards --Chmee2 (talk) 11:47, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Some parts of what Danny relays about himself are, to put it mildly, debatable. One interesting point is that 2011 report from WMCZ's Presentation & Outreach grant, which Danny conceived and co-headed for a good part of 2011, does not include a significant expense for that year's exhibitions that was unveiled by Danny to the P&O grant committee only after they submitted the report. The committee then had to discuss this expense ex-post with WMF's Asaf Bartov. It's questionable whether such approach to informing others about ongoing projects is compatible with meticulous adherence to processes and being a responsible and reliable partner not only to donors, but also to fellow Wikimedians. --che 12:41, 18 June 2012 (UTC)