[Foundation-l] NEH grant

Thu Jul 8 19:41:36 UTC 2004

Sj wrote:

>The recent interest in grants is super!, as is the enthusiasm to apply 
>for our first grant as soon as possible. Moreover, the requirements for serious 
>grants tend to be good metrics for the successful and organized completion of 
>subprojects, so the effort required to fill out these applications is
>not wasted.
>I am excited for the near future.
>
>That said, please let us not use this particular grant to get our feet
>wet.  It would
>require multiple heroic efforts to submit an application in time, and
>this grant isn't
>designed for projects at our stage of development.  We need to pace
>ourselves for
>the long haul, not burn out our grant enthusiasts in the first sprint.
>
I hesitated to comment when I first read of this proposal.  A number of 
the strong supporters of this are also among the Wikimedians that I most 
respect, so I was not about to dump ice-water on their vision.  Sj is 
right in his criticism, and for the best of reasons.

I fear that this quest for $500,000 is based more on wishful imaginings 
than on any kind of coherent plan.  I don't think that it is very 
productive when an organisation begins to adapt its approaches simply 
for the sake of obtaining a grant.  The idea should come first; 
afterwards we can ask for grants that further those ideas.  We've only 
begun to think of topics like budgets and financial management.  Mav's 
proposal that we follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) 
is a perfectly sound one, but I don't know how many of us are that 
familiar with even the most rudimentary accounting principles.  What 
internal audit procedures do we have in place?

The application asks about resumés and expertise and credentials, etc.  
Some of us may have very fine resumés, but that's not what the wiki is 
about.  The lack of credentials is not an impediment to editing; we have 
had excellent efforts from 12-year-olds who deserve the same respect as 
PhD's. That point needs to be sold to grant reviewers who have gotten to 
where they are through traditional hierarchical means.  The idea of an 
encyclopedia that anybody can edit at any time is completely 
counterintuitive to a system of thinking that has been developing since 
the time of Aristotle.  It also butts heads with prevailing ideas of 
intellectual property, and other proprietary interests in the 
development of electronic media.  Who among us has given throrough 
thought to this?

The 1.0 project is a more achievable venture at this stage, but after a 
flurry of discussion a few months ago it ended up on the back burner.  
The conversation at the time lapsed into a lot of unproductive fears 
over what should or should not be included.  It certainly failed to 
consider that a faulty 1.0 would preferably be followed by an improved 
2.0.  A coherent plan to deal with this could lead to funding 
opportunities.  The sales that such a project might generate could also 
become the basis for dependable funding of routine administration.

Ec