WMF's latest scam "report" - Participatory grantmaking

[thekohser]

Just when you think the folks at the Wikimedia Foundation are starting to understand why ethical people are so repulsed by them, they pull another howler that you can only applaud for the size of their brass balls.

Research findings reveal the Wikimedia Foundation to be the largest known Participatory Grantmaking Fund
BY KATY LOVE - FEBRUARY 19TH, 2015


Before you read it, maybe it will serve everyone best to read my (as yet unpublished) comment on the story:

Let me understand what you've done here. You hired a firm (The Lafayette Practice) to conduct a study that in turn determines that its client is the largest "Participatory Grantmaking" fund. Then you link to a Wikipedia definition of "Participatory grantmaking (T-H-L)" that was authored almost entirely by Wikimedia Foundation employees. Are we supposed to applaud you for this?

[thekohser]

Oh my God.

And the Wikipedia article is almost entirely sourced to one reference: Who Decides?: How Participatory Grantmaking Benefits Donors, Communities, and Movement by... guess who? The Lafayette Practice!

[Vigilant]

Oh my God.

And the Wikipedia article is almost entirely sourced to one reference: Who Decides?: How Participatory Grantmaking Benefits Donors, Communities, and Movement by... guess who? The Lafayette Practice!

Time for AfD

I couldn't make this stuff up if I was trying to make the WMF look like grifters.
Nobody would believe it.

[thekohser]

Says Katy:

We agree with the Lafayette Practice’s assessment that our grantmaking is “innovative and groundbreaking” and we believe passionately in the participatory nature of our work.

Imagine that -- you paid them, and then they said nice things about you in writing. What a lovely assessment.

[thekohser]

Twittersphere, please amp this up.

[Vigilant]

Says Katy:

We agree with the Lafayette Practice’s assessment that our grantmaking is “innovative and groundbreaking” and we believe passionately in the participatory nature of our work.

Imagine that -- you paid them, and then they said nice things about you in writing. What a lovely assessment.

And then you wrote a very nice wikipedia article about the nice things they said about you, reported it to the press and will use the press coverage as citation about how great you are.

[DanMurphy]

Oh my God.

And the Wikipedia article is almost entirely sourced to one reference: Who Decides?: How Participatory Grantmaking Benefits Donors, Communities, and Movement by... guess who? The Lafayette Practice!

Let me be the first:

[DanMurphy]

The Wikimedia Foundation wrote in an "encyclopedia entry" around the time they hired this group to write nice things about them that:

Participatory grantmaking is a funding practice in which members of the population the funds are to serve are included in the evaluation or decision-making process.

This is something that every major aid group in the world says they do now, from USAID to UN FAO. (though YMMV on sincerity). The puffery by the WMF contractors that their $7mln a year in grants makes them "the biggest in the world" at this is laughable.

I put a COI template on the article, my first Wikipedia edit for many moons.

For those following along at home the WMF staffers who wrote the article:
1. Jessie Wild, who goes by Jwild (T-C-L). At the time of her edits to the article she was leading:

The Learning & Evaluation group within the Global Development team: a programmatic team committed to encouraging the growth of Wikimedia communities and the projects around the world with a priority focus on the Global South. My team has the audacious mandate of (a) monitoring the effectiveness of the Global Development programs, (b) identifying high-[potential] impact program pilots based on work in movement at large, and (c) fostering an environment of learning and sharing within the team and community.

2. Asaf Bartof, aka Ijon (T-C-L), the primary author of the article. Mr. Bartof is head of WMF Grants and Global South Partnerships:

I am working on increasing reach (readers) and participation (editors) in the developing world, through community support as well as partnerships with grantees, other NGOs, and governments. I am also in charge of the Wikimedia Project and Event Grants (PEG) program, and am the staff liaison to the Affiliations Committee (AffCom).

3. The second largest contributor to the entry is a Wikimedia Foundation staffer going by the mysterious alias Opinenow (T-C-L). No clear connection to his actual identity I can find. On his userpage he writes:

I work for to the Wikimedia Foundation, but this is my personal account. Edits, statements, or other contributions made from this account are my own, and may not reflect the views of the Foundation.

The other two WMF flacks who spiffed this article have very similar "personal capacity" boilerplate/weasel on their userpages too.

[DanMurphy]

And... am I an idiot or have they not released the report itself? Never mind, they're hosting it as slides on Commons. Somehow appropriate, that.

[DanMurphy]

Oh my God.

And the Wikipedia article is almost entirely sourced to one reference: Who Decides?: How Participatory Grantmaking Benefits Donors, Communities, and Movement by... guess who? The Lafayette Practice!

Gets better. The "study" (page 2) cites the first mention of "Participatory Grantmaking" to the Wikipedia article.



Ms. Love, the Wikimedia Foundation employee who wrote the blog post about the "study" at the top of this thread, also made an edit in August related to all this. The only one of the 13 edits she has made in 2 years to an article talk page.

[Randy from Boise]

I smell a blog post...

t

[EricBarbour]

Got it. Also saved a copy of the WMF blog post, in case it "mysteriously disappears".

[thekohser]

No surprise here -- the WMF has rejected my comment on the blog post, instead accepting this helpful one:

1 Comment on Research findings reveal the Wikimedia Foundation to be the largest known Participatory Grantmaking Fund

nemobis 8 hours
Thanks for this post. It’s always nice when we’re assisted by external research.

[Kelly Martin]

Not to mention the Lafayette Practice seems to have missed the Colorado Trust, which engages in participatory grantmaking since 2013 and has an endowment of $454 million (as of December 2013). Surely that's larger than the WMF. And I found that in five minutes with Google.

Of course, when you tell the "outside researcher" to define their study to achieve a specific result, it should come as little surprise when that result is the outcome of the study, now, shouldn't it?

[thekohser]

Not to mention the Lafayette Practice seems to have missed the Colorado Trust, which engages in participatory grantmaking since 2013 and has an endowment of $454 million (as of December 2013). Surely that's larger than the WMF. And I found that in five minutes with Google.

I appreciate your research, but despite that huge endowment, according to their Form 990 from 2013, the Colorado Trust "only" distributed about $6,628,740 in grants. The WMF claims "over $7 million" for the upcoming fiscal year.

[DanMurphy]

Having read the report, though not carefully, I find no discussion of effectiveness of spending relative to what is claimed to be their core mission: Education and better encyclopedias. It's all about "surfacing" and awesome Wikipedians and "movement building" and being "impactful" (ugh). Evidence that people are better educated, the quality of their materials are improving as a result of all this spending? We don't need no stinking evidence!

This bit is also interesting:

We hope that this report allows the reader to not only learn about the unique grantmaking and decision-making practices of the Wikimedia Foundation, but also to contextualize the values that drive this work, and to situate the Wikimedia Foundation within long-established efforts to democratize grantmaking in the service of movements for social justice and human rights.

This is about WMF empire building, leveraging the cash-cow created by their enormous online good will into... raising more money. My suspicion is that this paper is meant to be used as a tool in expanding and diversifying fundraising in the direction of big grants from wealthy foundations. I wonder how much they paid for this report?

[Kelly Martin]

Just who does WMF issue grants to? From what I've seen virtually all of their grantmaking activity serves one of two purposes: throwing parties for their insiders, and giving sinecure jobs to their insiders. Am I missing something here?

Given how their grantmaking activity seems mainly to benefit their own "community" it would seem to me that having decisions about that being made by that community actually runs the risk of running into waste, graft, and fraud. What stops the "participatory decision making process" from issuing grants that fail to efficiently serve the mission of the organization?

[DanMurphy]

Just who does WMF issue grants to? From what I've seen virtually all of their grantmaking activity serves one of two purposes: throwing parties for their insiders, and giving sinecure jobs to their insiders. Am I missing something here?

According to page 13, in the last fiscal year $6.3 million of the WMF's "participatory" grants (90% of the $7 million total) went to Wikimedia chapters. Of this money, $3.8 million (60 percent) went to four chapters, in order: Wikimedia Germany, Wikimedia France, Wikimedia UK, and Wikimedia Netherlands.

What are classed as "individual grantees" received 6 percent of the cash ($400,000), they say.

This is apparently unusual for what the WMF and their consultants have defined as "participatory grantmaking." Also from page 13:

In 2012, with 7 of 8 surveyed funds reporting, the grantmakers featured in "Who Decides" received a range of 64 to 1,146 proposals, with a total of 4,008 proposals. In contrast, in that same year the Wikimedia Foundation received only 87 proposals. In 2013 the number rose to 141. Even across the past three fiscal years, total number of Wikimedia Foundation proposals received and grants made are comparatively low.

In Fiscal 2011-12, Wikimedia gave $1.1 million to chapters, $200,000 to individuals and nothing to what they define as "groups." The next year it was $5.2 million for chapters, $100,000 to "groups" and $200,000 to individuals. Last year it was $6.3 million to chapters, $200,000 to groups and $400,000 to individuals. It appears that most of the individual grants are for travel and hotels at things like Wikimania.

This is on page 23:

Alex Wang also spoke about a need to begin allowing GAC (Grant Advisory Committee) members to provide private feedback, explaining that "Most of the committee members are also grantees, and it's a very tight community. Some of them have said they don't want to comment on their colleagues or friend's proposal because it's very hard because of personal connections."

I bet.

[Vigilant]

Ashley's probably still smarting from only getting a USB stick and an old MacMini...

[Jim]

Ashley's probably still smarting from only getting a USB stick and an old MacMini...

I know. I think of that every now and again. I must be a mean man.

[Vigilant]

Ashley's probably still smarting from only getting a USB stick and an old MacMini...

I know. I think of that every now and again. I must be a mean man.

The subject is hard not to feel schadenfreude over.

[DanMurphy]

Ashley's probably still smarting from only getting a USB stick and an old MacMini...

I know. I think of that every now and again. I must be a mean man.

The subject is hard not to feel schadenfreude over.

It's come up before. But Van Haeften was an absolute piker compared to the people who have won that little skirmish and that we rarely talk about. In that sense, a lot of us here, me included, have been unfair to him.

Here is their 25-member grant advisory committee. I know something about 2 of them.

[Vigilant]

Ashley's probably still smarting from only getting a USB stick and an old MacMini...

I know. I think of that every now and again. I must be a mean man.

The subject is hard not to feel schadenfreude over.

It's come up before. But Van Haeften was an absolute piker compared to the people who have won that little skirmish and that we rarely talk about. In that sense, a lot of us here, me included, have been unfair to him.

Here is their 25-member grant advisory committee. I know something about 2 of them.

No, he's an amateur.
In the big scheme, so are the WMF teat-sucklers.
It's just that we're all so close to this particular problem and that the WMF people like to promote themselves and their little cult as "doing great things for the world" which have shown is utter bullshit through and through.

The rank hypocrisy is what makes it all so delicious.

[HRIP7]

There is now some small print underneath the Wikimedia blog post.

This blog has been updated with a new title, replacing “Research” with “Report.” This update reflects that this report was commissioned by the Wikimedia Foundation, as is clear from the first paragraph. We have also added a footnote about the Wikipedia article on Participatory Grantmaking.

(1) The Wikipedia article on Participatory Grantmaking was written in part by Wikimedia Foundation staff in their capacity as Wikimedia volunteer editors. This was done on their own time, using their personal editor accounts, with the intent to share information with the larger philanthropic sector about a practice that is very much aligned with wikiculture. The article, which meets Wikipedia policies and guidelines, was developed based on the original report Advisory by the Lafayette Practice about participatory grantmaking. The study cited in the article did not include the Wikimedia Foundation. The subsequent report about the WMF’s participatory grantmaking approach was commissioned by Foundation in the months following the original report and is not referenced in any version of the Wikipedia article.

[HRIP7]

It's worth noting that the Wikimedia Foundation employees who wrote the article seem to be in compliance with the WMF terms of use. (User page disclosure is one of the three possible types of disclosure mentioned in the terms of use.)

[thekohser]

It's worth noting that the Wikimedia Foundation employees who wrote the article seem to be in compliance with the WMF terms of use. (User page disclosure is one of the three possible types of disclosure mentioned in the terms of use.)

So... if I model this:

Although I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, contributions under this account do not necessarily represent the actions or views of the Foundation unless expressly stated otherwise.

I can basically do this:

Although I work for a client paying me to develop content suitable for Wikipedia, contributions under this account do not necessarily represent the actions or views of my client unless expressly stated otherwise.

I'm cool with that.

[HRIP7]

The terms of use actually even allow people to add paid-for content as long as they point that fact out on their user page. (In this case, they are obviously arguing that the content wasn't paid for.)

There is no question that none of this meets the "not even an appearance of impropriety" standard.

[DanMurphy]

The terms of use actually even allow people to add paid-for content as long as they point that fact out on their user page. (In this case, they are obviously arguing that the content wasn't paid for.)

There is no question that none of this meets the "not even an appearance of impropriety" standard.

Ties right into Golumbia's article posted in the "wikignome" thread:

At the next level of abstraction, perhaps the most important one, the Wikimedia Foundation’s endorsement of Giraffedata’s work as among their “favorite” displays a kind of agnotology—a studied cultivation of ignorance—that feeds structureless tyrannies and authoritarian anti-hierarchies. In order to rule over those whose knowledge or expertise challenges you, the best route is to dismiss or mock that expertise wholesale, to rule it out as expertise at all, in favor of your own deeply-held convictions that you trumpet as a “new kind” of expertise that invalidates the “old,” “incumbent” kinds. This kind of agnotology is widespread in current Silicon Valley and digital culture; it is no less prominent in reactionary political culture, such as the Tea Party and rightist anti-science movements.

They are building a brave new world and musty old rules and conventions about conflicts of interest no longer apply. They have new, special, better rules.

[thekohser]

The Wikipedia article on Participatory Grantmaking was written in part by Wikimedia Foundation staff in their capacity as Wikimedia volunteer editors. This was done on their own time, using their personal editor accounts...

In part? Are you kidding? About 98% of the content was written by Wikimedia Foundation staff. But, I guess that is technically only "part" of the whole.


But, regarding that "own time" bit -- let's take a closer look, shall we?

On Wednesday, July 16, 2014, Asaf Bartov (Ijon (T-C-L)) presumably arrived at work around 9:00 AM local time (16:00 UTC). He edits Wikipedia at 10:25 AM. That must be a personal-time coffee break. Then he got back to work on WMF stuff, not at all related to participatory grantmaking. He wouldn't have been working on a draft article about participatory grantmaking, because that was something he did "on his own time". By some miracle, though, at 1:00 PM local time, he enters this nearly fully fleshed-out article about participatory grantmaking into Wikipedia. Now, I don't know if the WMF gives employees a half-hour or one full hour for personal lunch time, but we should presume that this article was authored during Asaf's lunch break, yes. But Asaf continues working on the article for the next 39 minutes. Smoke break, and afternoon water cooler break, to be sure. All personal time. Later in the day, Jessie Wild edited the article at about 4:15 PM in San Francisco. She was on her fair-trade hot cocoa break. Personal time, and her only Wikipedia edit of the day.

At that point, 95% of the article was written, so the subsequent edits that in fact took place in the evenings, were relatively minor.

Thank you for clearing this up, Wikimedia Foundation. I believe every word you say in support of your employees.


(Note that Jessie would leave the WMF in October to go work for IDEO, but not before putting in some Thursday afternoon editing about IDEO, her future employer.)

[thekohser]

Somebody's upset, but don't they know, they're doing original research?

[Kelly Martin]

Somebody's upset, but don't they know, they're doing original research?

Indeed, everyone knows that original research in Wikipedia articles may only be done pursuant to Wikimedia-approved research grants! When are people going to learn the rules?

[Kelly Martin]

Ties right into Golumbia's article posted in the "wikignome" thread:

At the next level of abstraction, perhaps the most important one, the Wikimedia Foundation’s endorsement of Giraffedata’s work as among their “favorite” displays a kind of agnotology—a studied cultivation of ignorance—that feeds structureless tyrannies and authoritarian anti-hierarchies. In order to rule over those whose knowledge or expertise challenges you, the best route is to dismiss or mock that expertise wholesale, to rule it out as expertise at all, in favor of your own deeply-held convictions that you trumpet as a “new kind” of expertise that invalidates the “old,” “incumbent” kinds. This kind of agnotology is widespread in current Silicon Valley and digital culture; it is no less prominent in reactionary political culture, such as the Tea Party and rightist anti-science movements.

They are building a brave new world and musty old rules and conventions about conflicts of interest no longer apply. They have new, special, better rules.

The belief that one's "movement" (and you'll note that Wikimedians constantly talk about the Wikipedia Movement) has better and superior access to The Truth, is commonplace with radicalized social groups of all sorts. This isn't a classical liberal-progressive embrace of gradual cumulative development with each new advancement standing on the shoulders of those that came before; rather, it's a "This is the discovery that sweeps away all of the rotten baggage of the past and lays the truth bare for all to see!" that is found in virtually every nutball screed going back centuries; there is nothing new about this at all. You hear the exact same language from the far left, far right, and far loon; they all say the same thing (but of course of very different things). The very nature of such radicalist movements is to categorically reject anything inconsistent with the shining central belief of the movement, which is (of course) not subject to rational discussion or debate. It is simply true, and anyone who doubts that is simply not part of the movement.

The "disrupt!" philosophy of Silicon Valley is related. While technological advance is almost always disruptive, the problem that some in Silicon Valley have developed is the belief that disruption is an end, and it is a good thing to be disruptive, even when you're not being disruptive to good purpose, or if the thing you are disrupting is something which ought to be disruptive. Disruption is not something to be actively avoided (that's a conservative philosophy inconsistent with liberal progressivism), but neither is it something to be produced for its own sake.

[DanMurphy]

Somebody's upset, but don't they know, they're doing original research?

Indeed, everyone knows that original research in Wikipedia articles may only be done pursuant to Wikimedia-approved research grants! When are people going to learn the rules?

Indeed. When I plug "participatory grantmaking" into Google "Scholar" it returns 5 results. One of them to the blog written by Katy Love two days ago.

One would have to spend a week or so in a decent library (or a day or two calling up experts on social justice-driven funding models - but NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH) to learn about the origins of this term and where it actually sits within ideas about aid, non-profit funding, and development (if it really sits anywhere at all). But aint no WMF employee (or generic Wikipedia editor) got time for that! "Knowledge" is not what it used to be.

[DanMurphy]

The "disrupt!" philosophy of Silicon Valley is related. While technological advance is almost always disruptive, the problem that some in Silicon Valley have developed is the belief that disruption is an end, and it is a good thing to be disruptive, even when you're not being disruptive to good purpose, or if the thing you are disrupting is something which ought to be disruptive. Disruption is not something to be actively avoided (that's a conservative philosophy inconsistent with liberal progressivism), but neither is it something to be produced for its own sake.

I could quibble Kelly. I see my views/temperament as classically liberal, or what is sometimes called "small c conservative" in America these days. But, broadly, yes.

[Notvelty]

Ties right into Golumbia's article posted in the "wikignome" thread:

At the next level of abstraction, perhaps the most important one, the Wikimedia Foundation’s endorsement of Giraffedata’s work as among their “favorite” displays a kind of agnotology—a studied cultivation of ignorance—that feeds structureless tyrannies and authoritarian anti-hierarchies. In order to rule over those whose knowledge or expertise challenges you, the best route is to dismiss or mock that expertise wholesale, to rule it out as expertise at all, in favor of your own deeply-held convictions that you trumpet as a “new kind” of expertise that invalidates the “old,” “incumbent” kinds. This kind of agnotology is widespread in current Silicon Valley and digital culture; it is no less prominent in reactionary political culture, such as the Tea Party and rightist anti-science movements.

They are building a brave new world and musty old rules and conventions about conflicts of interest no longer apply. They have new, special, better rules.

The belief that one's "movement" (and you'll note that Wikimedians constantly talk about the Wikipedia Movement) has better and superior access to The Truth, is commonplace with radicalized social groups of all sorts. This isn't a classical liberal-progressive embrace of gradual cumulative development with each new advancement standing on the shoulders of those that came before; rather, it's a "This is the discovery that sweeps away all of the rotten baggage of the past and lays the truth bare for all to see!" that is found in virtually every nutball screed going back centuries; there is nothing new about this at all. You hear the exact same language from the far left, far right, and far loon; they all say the same thing (but of course of very different things). The very nature of such radicalist movements is to categorically reject anything inconsistent with the shining central belief of the movement, which is (of course) not subject to rational discussion or debate. It is simply true, and anyone who doubts that is simply not part of the movement.

The "disrupt!" philosophy of Silicon Valley is related. While technological advance is almost always disruptive, the problem that some in Silicon Valley have developed is the belief that disruption is an end, and it is a good thing to be disruptive, even when you're not being disruptive to good purpose, or if the thing you are disrupting is something which ought to be disruptive. Disruption is not something to be actively avoided (that's a conservative philosophy inconsistent with liberal progressivism), but neither is it something to be produced for its own sake.

I call them "the moralistas". They are the same people (not literally, obviously) who closed schools to other races, cast out single mothers, drive the Inquisition and championed the holocaust. They have a new creed, but their reasons are the same.

That they know better, to them, is a given. They ARE better.

[thekohser]

The Wikipedia article on Participatory Grantmaking was written in part by Wikimedia Foundation staff...

In part? Are you kidding? About 98% of the content was written by Wikimedia Foundation staff.

I see that the addendum now magically reads "primarily" rather than "in part". Why doesn't the WMF just skip the do-si-do and just hire me as their communications ombudsman?

[Jim]

Why doesn't the WMF just skip the do-si-do and just hire me as their communications ombudsman?

I think they just don't like you. Otherwise you'd be a shoe-in.

Cry Gregophobia.

[thekohser]

A certain citizen journalist has published a story about this fiasco.

Wikimedia Foundation caught self-promoting on Wikipedia
by Gregory Kohs; Examiner.com - 21 February 2015

...None of the employees had disclosed on Wikipedia that the Wikimedia Foundation was a paying client of the source's author, which may have been a violation of the foundation's own "Terms of Use" regarding disclosure on Wikipedia. After a long day of evasion by both the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and the consulting firm, the foundation finally relented and published an attempted clarification on its blog, on February 20. But other evidence suggests the WMF may still be a long way from explaining itself.

[thekohser]

Oh, boy... look out!

Jimbo is going to "have to look into" this matter. Heads are going to roll when he sees how his Bright Line Rule was largely trampled upon. Right? Jimbo wouldn't just say that he's going to look into it, then let it disappear off his Talk page, never to be discussed again. You think?

[EricBarbour]

Jimbo is going to "have to look into" this matter. Heads are going to roll when he sees how his Bright Line Rule was largely trampled upon. Right? Jimbo wouldn't just say that he's going to look into it, then let it disappear off his Talk page, never to be discussed again. You think?

That would not be my style. I prefer to speak plainly and directly, and that's much easier to do when we have clear facts. As I only now know what you are referring to, and know nothing about it, I'll have to look into it before I can comment sensibly. I can speak in the abstract, of course, that the ethical principles which I think apply to all organizations in terms of their editing of Wikipedia apply in the extreme to the Wikimedia Foundation itself. It would be impossible for the Foundation to take a leadership role on the issue if they did not adhere to the strongest possible standards themselves, including my "bright line" rule. I can say that before knowing what is even being alleged here, because that is at the level of principle.--[[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] ([[User talk:Jimbo Wales#top|talk]]) 20:28, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Sounds ever more like a Chicago alderman caught taking bribes from a construction company.
If anything, you should amp up the sarcasm, Greg.

[thekohser]

Wikimedia Foundation caught self-promoting on Wikipedia
by Gregory Kohs; Examiner.com - 21 February 2015

Only 69 page views and one reader comment in about 22 hours. Typically, my Examiner stories pick up around 150 to 200 page views on the first day. Honestly speaking, would you all describe this particular story as less enticing or less important than my typical Examiner fare?

[Lukeno94]

Possibly because "WMF self-promoting on Wikipedia" is a bit vague, and something they do all of the time?

[Cedric]

Wikimedia Foundation caught self-promoting on Wikipedia
by Gregory Kohs; Examiner.com - 21 February 2015

Only 69 page views and one reader comment in about 22 hours. Typically, my Examiner stories pick up around 150 to 200 page views on the first day. Honestly speaking, would you all describe this particular story as less enticing or less important than my typical Examiner fare?

Actually, I regard it to be one of your best articles yet, cutting right to the chase of the insular, chummy and largely boys club atmosphere of "The Wikimedia Movement" and its {insert favorite Kafka or Orwell analogy here}. However, I don't participate on any of better-know social media sites (or any of them, actually), which has a fair amount to do with my own Wikipedia experience. This is why I cannot comment there.

[Neotarf]

It looks like there are actually two reports published by this French Lafayette organization. The first one is used as a source for the article. The second one was the one financed by the WMF.

So what about the phrase "participatory grantmaking"? A quick look around the internet turns up this report that says "the different types of funding that fuel nonprofits have never been clearly defined", but speaks of not-for-profit funding models in terms of "beneficiaries" and "funders". Another report uses the phrase "participation by beneficiaries". So "beneficiary participation" might be the more useful google term. Still, the Lafayette organization uses the term "participatory grantmaking", so if you accept their earlier report as a RS, and I don't see any reason not to, it appear that "participatory grantmaking" is a Thing. Their second report might be more problematic as a RS, although you can probably assume there are no errors of fact in anything quantifiable they might have said about WMF.

On Wednesday, July 16, 2014, Asaf Bartov (Ijon (T-C-L)) presumably arrived at work around 9:00 AM local time (16:00 UTC). He edits Wikipedia at 10:25 AM. That must be a personal-time coffee break. Then he got back to work on WMF stuff, not at all related to participatory grantmaking. He wouldn't have been working on a draft article about participatory grantmaking, because that was something he did "on his own time". By some miracle, though, at 1:00 PM local time, he enters this nearly fully fleshed-out article about participatory grantmaking into Wikipedia. Now, I don't know if the WMF gives employees a half-hour or one full hour for personal lunch time, but we should presume that this article was authored during Asaf's lunch break, yes. But Asaf continues working on the article for the next 39 minutes. Smoke break, and afternoon water cooler break, to be sure. All personal time.

Mr. Bartov started the article on 20:00, 16 July 2014, UTC. Doing the conversion to Pacific time at this website, the edits would appear to start at 12 noon and continue for about 40 minutes. In my neck of the woods, this is a proper time for a lunch break, although I have heard that in California "anything goes". A few days later he spends two minutes adding some cats at 04:43, 18 July 2014‎ UTC, which would be 8:43 PM San Francisco time.

I don't see a problem with a WMF employee editing a topic like this. If he was editing [[Wikimedia Foundation]], sure, but someone who is familiar with grants editing on the subject of grants is a feature, not a bug. The issue is not so much COI as RS, depending on how you feel about the French report.

[thekohser]

Don't forget -- daylight savings time... "spring forward" and all that.

How many minutes do we think it took Bartov to put this together? Just because it appeared on Wikipedia in that form at Noon (or 1:00 PM, who cares?) doesn't mean it was completed in the one minute prior. Judging by how much additional material that Bartov added in the subsequent 39 minutes, I'd estimate that the initial body of content took him at least 100 minutes to pull together. Fantastic perk there at the WMF, those 140-minute lunch breaks.

[Neotarf]

Don't forget -- daylight savings time... "spring forward" and all that.

Europe does have Summer Time. They don't overlap exactly, but July should be a safe bet for being in sync.

How many minutes do we think it took Bartov to put this together? Just because it appeared on Wikipedia in that form at Noon (or 1:00 PM, who cares?) doesn't mean it was completed in the one minute prior. Judging by how much additional material that Bartov added in the subsequent 39 minutes, I'd estimate that the initial body of content took him at least 100 minutes to pull together. Fantastic perk there at the WMF, those 140-minute lunch breaks.

I'm just guessing he was already working on it in connection with his job. It's easy enough to put something together when everything is fresh in your mind and you have all the tabs still open with the sources. It's not like he doesn't write every day, and coherently. I've done that myself a number of times when I googled something, didn't find an article, and had a lot of tabs open with enough info to start one. He didn't spend a lot of time with formatting the refs or anything, just the basic concepts. And some sources (prostitution??!?)

[eppur si muove]

Europe does have Summer Time. They don't overlap exactly, but July should be a safe bet for being in sync.

But UTC as used by Wikipedia does not have summer-time. The difference between the local clock time and the Wikipedia time will be different between the parts of the year wherever there is a summer-time system. The US West coast is 8 hours behind British time. In the Summer, both areas introduce daylight saving and effectively synchronise with the Sun's position an hour East of where they are. So the UK time is an hour ahead of GMT/UTC and the West Coast is only seven hours behind. The Wikipedia time remains on GMT/UTC.

[SB_Johnny]

Wikimedia Foundation caught self-promoting on Wikipedia
by Gregory Kohs; Examiner.com - 21 February 2015

Only 69 page views and one reader comment in about 22 hours. Typically, my Examiner stories pick up around 150 to 200 page views on the first day. Honestly speaking, would you all describe this particular story as less enticing or less important than my typical Examiner fare?

Actually, I regard it to be one of your best articles yet, cutting right to the chase of the insular, chummy and largely boys club atmosphere of "The Wikimedia Movement" and its {insert favorite Kafka or Orwell analogy here}. However, I don't participate on any of better-know social media sites (or any of them, actually), which has a fair amount to do with my own Wikipedia experience. This is why I cannot comment there.

I agree, a great post. I tried to leave a link to it from Jimmy's page just now but apparently examiner.com is blacklisted outright.

[Lukeno94]

It's been blacklisted for quite a while now, I think.

[SB_Johnny]

The Wikipedia article on Participatory Grantmaking was written in part by Wikimedia Foundation staff...

In part? Are you kidding? About 98% of the content was written by Wikimedia Foundation staff.

I see that the addendum now magically reads "primarily" rather than "in part". Why doesn't the WMF just skip the do-si-do and just hire me as their communications ombudsman?

In fact the only other contributor before Dan's tagging who seems to have made a "manual edit" (as opposed to a script or bot) appears to be a paid advocate of some sort. How terribly embarrassing.