Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Maffeth Opiana/Wiki Loves Earth 2021 in the Philippines

Comments from DSaroyan (WMF)

Hi Maffeth.opiana, it's glad to hear from you and thanks for submitting this Rapid Grant request. I have reviewed it and have a few questions and requests:

• We now require all grantees to announce their projects and receive the community feedback in advance. Could you please announce this project and grant on the relevant community pages on the target wiki(s)? Community notification may be most appropriate on a village pump, talk page, or mailing list. Please paste a link into the proposal page to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions.
• What is your current engagement with the PhilWiki Community? Could you please update the PhilWiki Community page on Meta to reflect these changes?
• Will the PhilWiki Community and its leadership be involved in any activities for this project?
• Please lower the budget for Prizes and Trophies to 35,000 PHP, ~750 USD. This is the maximum amount we will fund for these budget items.
• How many tokens do you plan to offer to volunteers and jurors?

Looking forward to hearing from you. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 12:19, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello DSaroyan (WMF)! I have already updated my proposal and made some changes. Thanks! Maffeth.opiana (talk) 17:01, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• The project has already been announced to village pump, talk pages etc.
• Right now, I don't have any specific role in the user group. PhilWiki Community page on meta has been updated.
• No, this is an individual project with local and international volunteers.
• The budget has been updated.
• Instead of trophies, I plan to give customized WLE souvenirs and tokens. 10 for the winners and 10 for the volunteers and jurors.

Thanks! Maffeth.opiana (talk) 04:33, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Comment. Maffeth is currently an ordinary member of PhilWiki and previously served on its board. I seriously doubt that Maffeth will be the only person organizing this contest especially since it was PhilWiki members that helped organized WLE in past years. Also, PhilWiki and its members have this habit of applying for individual grants instead of an organizational grant and then claiming credit for organizing those individual grant projects in the organization's activities and reports. I would suggest that Maffeth spell out the exact relationship of this grant with PhilWiki and provide a list of people involved in organizing this contest similar to this list of team members from 2018. —seav (talk) 04:39, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

As much as I want to comment on your statement, PhilWiki and its members have this habit of applying for individual grants instead of an organizational grant then claiming credit for organizing those individual grant projects in the organization's activities and reports., this should be addressed in a proper forum. I think that this is a serious accusation.

Shown in the landing page on Commons are my team members, so far, so you are correct. It is not a one woman team and I welcome anyone to be part of the organizing team. I noticed however that seav has been providing comments in grant proposals by the former president of PhilWiki Community but not in other proposal. I will always be thankful and have gratitude to the PhilWiki Community and other international Wikipedians for their genuine support. That is the real essence of a welcoming and nurturing community. -Maffeth.opiana (talk) 06:38, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Seav - Your comments walk all over the Friendly Space Policies of the WMF. Please refactor, or delete them! Cheers! WikiWikiWayne (talk) 08:34, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Seav is looking at the glass half empty. As a member of PhilWiki Community who had projects as an individual, I don't have issue with the user group "claiming" my projects or should I say, acknowledging my efforts. So, I don't understand why it would be an issue. Recognizing the fact that an individual who is part of the Community and is implementing a project supported by its members from its proposal stage to the implementation, and which results have greatly impacted its Wikimedia projects and the user group's capacity, is imperative to be included or at least mentioned in the user group's activities and reports in good faith. So, I am personally confused with your comment here. It think is it weird for an individual who belongs in the Community and make an issue out of it. That is not my understanding of open culture, collaboration, inclusivity etc. Regards. -Filipinayzd (talk) 22:17, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

The issue is that official affiliates have to maintain their good standing, including submitting timely reports of finished approved grants from the WMF, in order to maintain their affiliate status. If members of an affiliate are applying for individual grants from the WMF but then also get organizational support in implementing the project from the affiliate, then the affiliate is skirting the reporting requirements in case the grant reports are submitted late (examples: [1][2][3]). It should also be noted that Wiki Loves Earth 2020 in the Philippines was an organizational grant submitted by PhilWiki so it is a bit surprising that a PhilWiki member would then decide to submit an individual grant request to organize Wiki Loves Earth 2021 instead of PhilWiki continuing to organize WLE this year. —seav (talk) 00:54, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

@Seav: In the interest of clarifying some context here:

• It is understandable why this arrangement would be unusual given the user group has run the event in past years. The user group is not currently able to request Rapid Grants for this event, hence it being requested by an individual who is no longer in a leadership position with the organization.
• reports being late is not necessarily an indication that an affiliate is "skirting around requirements". Late reports can happen for all sorts of benign reasons that are not always communicated over Meta, and it would be better to request info from us or the grantee on the basis of why past reports were late rather than assume that this is a definitive indication that an affiliate is being deliberately subversive.

@Maffeth.opiana: Because the user group cannot request funding for this grant at this time, it is important that this event is not merely one that continues to primarily involve the user group as it has in past years. Some involvement from user group members is fine, but it would be problematic, for instance, if participants and leadership basically consist of user group members, because the event would be essentially indistinguishable from an organizational event. I can see that the leadership for the event has broad representation around the movement, and your work here is appreciated. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 05:49, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF): Thank you for providing more context and information regarding the handling of individual versus organizational grants. I still have one nitpick about the whole thing but I think this is one that is under the purview of AffCom and not under the WMF Community Resources team. —seav (talk) 06:19, 23 April 2021 (UTC)