Who decided on the priorities and non-priorities?

Who decided on the priorities and non-priorities?

I would like to know more about the decision process behind the chosen priorities and non-priorities. Was it done on a wiki? Or round-table meeting? Who was present?

Bodnotbod14:55, 20 January 2010

Just to be clear, these are proposed priorities for the Foundation, based largely on the work done here. The goal was to come up with priorities for the Foundation that would be consistent with the priorities that seem to be emerging here. There has not yet been a decision. The WMF board will vote on these priorities at its upcoming board meeting on February 6, understanding full well that this process has not yet ended.

The letter was written by Sue, with major assistance and contributions from the Bridgespan Group and Philippe and myself. Sue is hoping that others can give her feedback as well to help her with the letter before sending it to the Board.

Eekim16:54, 20 January 2010
 

Hi Bodnotbod,

The decision about what to label as "not prioritized" was made mainly by me, driven by the data, and in some areas after consultation with board members. (For example, the board and I have been thinking a lot about China. The decision not to put additional resources into China was made reluctantly, after lots of thought. Ting posted more about it, above.) "Non-priorities" were listed as such, either because --as with China-- we felt that there wouldn't be much bang for the buck (i.e., additional resources wouldn't achieve much or sufficient impact), or because I wanted to explicitly call out that the Wikimedia Foundation felt other entities would be more effective in a particular area, than the Wikimedia Foundation itself would be. So for example, the Wikimedia Foundation will not invest directly in staging outreach events or developing content partnerships with GLAM organizations, _because_ we believe that chapters are better suited than the Wikimedia Foundation for developing those relationships. So in some cases, the Wikimedia Foundation is calling out that it won't invest in a specific area, in order to signal to other entities (e.g., chapters) that they should consider investment there.

It's also possibly worth noting that the Wikimedia Foundation 1) is not disinvesting in any particular area -- i.e., we will not do less in China. And, 2) individual volunteers or other entities are free to make their own decisions, and to invest their energy differently from the way the Wikimedia Foundation invests it.

Hope this helps :-)

Sue Gardner18:44, 2 March 2010