[Wikimedia-l] Re: Form 990 clarification request (for the attention of WMF accounts staff)

[Andreas Kolbe]

Hi Gnangarra and all,

I only mentioned how little money went to India in 2020/2021 because of the
WMF's recent claim in the Indian Express that "a lot" of the money raised
is flowing into the Global South.[1]

You raise the messaging used to request donations. Here are six key phrases
from the India emails (as linked on Meta[2]) that caught my eye (my
emphases):

Phrase 1: We *choose not to charge a subscription fee*, but that doesn't
mean we don't need support from our readers
Phrase 2: kindly consider giving again, or even increasing your gift, *to
keep Wikipedia free* and independent.

Should the option of charging a subscription fee for "The Free
Encyclopedia" even be hinted at in a fundraising email? Bear in mind that
the WMF Mission is "to make and keep useful information from its projects
available on the internet *free of charge, in perpetuity*." It is only
because of this commitment that volunteers are prepared to work for free.

Also, isn't there something of a logical contradiction in begging people –
especially people in developing countries – for money "to keep Wikipedia
free"?

Phrase 3: About a year ago, you donated Rs. 313 to *keep Wikipedia online
for yourself and millions of people around the world*. Each year, fewer
than 2% of Wikipedia readers choose to support our work.
Phrase 4: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia *remains
independent, ad-free, and growing* for years to come
Phrase 5: can we count on you to renew your solidarity with a small
donation? It will *keep Wikipedia online, ad-free, and growing* for years
to come

Wikipedia's independence (also used as a hook on the Wikipedia banners) is
safer than ever, if it's to be measured by the WMF's money reserves, which
at an estimated $400 million are now greater than they've ever been.

Wouldn't we like to see the WMF saying more about what it actually does
with the money, rather than falling back on these old stock phrases from
yesteryear, about keeping Wikipedia online, or keeping it free? They might
have been appropriate fifteen or twenty years ago, when the Foundation was
finding its feet financially, but seem very out of step with the current
financial realities.

Phrase 6: 31% of your gift will be used to *support the volunteers* who
share their knowledge with you for free every day.

31% of 2020/2021 donations revenue would have been about $50 million. I've
been told the 31% figure comes from the Annual Report[3] (where it is
called "*Direct support to communities*" and refers to 31% of spending,
which is much less than 31% of revenue). But even so, it is unclear to me
what specifically this amount refers to. It is certainly an order of
magnitude more than the WMF's grants to the community in 2020/2021.

Andreas

[1]
https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/raju-narisetti-interview-wikipedia-trust-transparency-7940621/
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising#Indian_email_texts
[3]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2020-2021-annual-report/financials/


On Sun, Jun 19, 2022 at 10:55 AM Gnangarra  wrote:

> It doesn't matter where the money goes, everyone benefits and there was a
> period where the WMF was doing a lot of work in India without fundraising
> there. Its all relative Australia was contributing over 2m per year(highest
> per capita of anywhere at the time) yet there was nothing being spent in
> Australia.
>
> The issue is the messaging requesting donations should be honest. At least
> two of those statements are very much questionable, and at the same time we
> shouldn't be sending multiple requests close enough to each other that
> people are complaining which means many others are just sending emails to
> spam which become permanent filters.
>
> On Sat, 18 Jun 2022 at 23:33, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
>> Dan,
>>
>> I am happy to give you the TL;DR version:
>>
>> As best I can make out, the WMF's average salary cost per employee is now
>> about $200,000.
>>
>> More could be said, of course:
>>
>> – The WMF had already exceeded its revenue goals for the 2021/2022 fiscal
>> year by the end of March, bringing in over $150 million in the first three
>> quarters[1] (total expenses last year were $107 million).
>>
>> – Including the endowment, I estimate the WMF now has about $400 million
>> in assets (almost all in cash and investments).
>>
>> – In India, past donors are reporting being inundated with daily WMF
>> emails telling them money is needed to keep Wikipedia online, independent,
>> ad-free and thriving.[1]
>>
>> – Internet hosting costs are $2.4 million per year, and Erik Möller
>> thought in 2013 the Wikimedia mission was sustainable on $10M+/year.
>>
>> – Very little of Wikimedia's money actually goes to India (0.64 million
>> in 2020 for all of South Asia, per Form 990).[3]
>>
>> Andreas
>>
>>
>> [1]
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Tuning_Session_FY21-22_Q3_Advancement.pdf&page=9
>> [2] https://www.fa

[Wikimedia-l] Re: what do we do with all this opportunity?

[Andreas Kolbe]

Hi WSC,

For some time now, the edit window has included the following phrase: "You
agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative
Commons license."

This has no bearing on the "share alike" part of your argument, but as far
as the "attribution" part of CC BY-SA is concerned, there is now much less
to enforce.

Best,
Andreas


On Sun, Jun 19, 2022 at 4:22 PM WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi SJ,
>
> Re " Even as the world moves on to new frontiers and companies race to
> enclose derivatives of our work." Not an easy task when work is licenced
> Share Alike and By Attribution. But yes it is a real threat, and should be
> one that both the WMF and the volunteer community can agree to combat. For
> the WMF unattributed reuse reduces clickthroughs and thereby potential
> donations. For some volunteers not being credited for the work you
> contribute reduces motivation, for others it increases the difficulty of
> avoiding circular referencing. Especially when Wikipedia winds up citing as
> a source an article copied from a page on Wikipedia that has itself been
> deleted.
>
> Attribution and share alike are at times a pain to comply with, and I fear
> that there are those in the movement who see this feature as a bug, and
> that this contributed to the use of CC0 on Wikidata.
>
> But the opportunity is still there. The WMF could employ some legal staff,
> or fund a legal charity, that would strongly encourage reusers to respect
> the CC-BY-SA licence. This would protect the work people have done from
> being  used to derive works that are neither attributed nor shared alike.
> It would protect WMF revenue, maintain volunteer motivation and make it
> difficult to "enclose derivatives of our work.
>
> Employing a few dozen legals and paralegals in a country such as India
> could make a real difference to this, and at least partially address the
> issues others have raised about the lack of WMF spending in developing
> countries.
>
> WSC
>
>>
>>
>> Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2022 17:48:12 -0400
>> From: Samuel Klein 
>> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: what do we do with all this opportunity?
>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> Message-ID:
>> > q...@mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>> boundary="b566b205e1bfd4c3"
>>
>> We face the paradox 
>> of
>> choice , the lull of peace, and
>> the fog of distributed bureaucracy.
>> ~ With great possibility comes disfocus. (and a few things with focus!)
>> ~ With no clear challenge or adversary, we've become comfortable fussing
>> over small changes... Even as the world moves on to new frontiers and
>> companies race to enclose derivatives of our work. This peace is coming to
>> an end.
>> ~ Our central overhead costs are quite high. So high^ that it seems to
>> baffle everyone involved, each believing the bureaucracy must be caused by
>> some other part of the system, outside of their or their org's control.
>>
>> Our projects are already a global standard for multimodal collaboration at
>> scale, we should embrace that and rise to meet it.  Building some of the
>> world's best free, mulitilingual, accessible tools for is within our
>> remit,
>> experience, and budget.
>>   [Discourse raised a *total *of $20M over its lifetime. we could support
>> +
>> spin out free-knowledge free-software layers like that every year.]
>>
>> Let's practice working together, focusing on a few things each year that
>> can change not only our projects but the world, honoring existing work and
>> aggressively shedding anything we are doing that others are alreay doing
>> almost as well.
>>
>> SJ
>>
>> *^* Up to 10-to-1 in some areas, plus delays of years inserted into
>> otherwise continuous processes.  This ratio can slip into the negative if
>> one includes opportunity cost, or funded work that displaces or drives out
>> comparable voluntary work; or that demands thousands of hours of input for
>> little result.
>> 🌍🌏🌎🌑
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 8:45 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
>> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Or, maybe, just making Wikimedia a non-obsolete environment. I'm sure
>> the
>> > money can go to that effort.
>> > --
>> > *From:* Felipe Schenone 
>> > *Sent:* Friday, June 17, 2022 12:51 PM
>> > *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> > *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff
>> >
>> > I agree with the diagnosis, but maybe not with the solution. If
>> Wikimedia
>> > is getting "overfunding" and doesn't quite know what to so with it,
>> there's
>> > probably plenty of good things to do. We could start a community
>> process to
>> > decide it, because as you say, reducing funding efforts or saving
>> > indefinitely for the future isn't likely to happen or even desirable,
>> > considering the alternatives.
>> >
>> > Here are some ideas:
>> >
>> >

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Form 990 clarification request (for the attention of WMF accounts staff)

[Gnangarra]

Kaya

"Global South" a term we had discontinued to emphasise as a way to divide
the community did apply to more than just India.

I really dont think looking at 2020/2021 figures is really fair either by
yourself or by the fundraising people if that's what they used.  That
period had a significant downturn in everyone's capacity to do anything.
Everything the WMF does would be in some way to support volunteers either
directly or indirectly; whether that is keeping the servers running and
updating software, providing community support through funding initiatives,
raising awareness, or simply managing the whole circus.  I'm not supportive
of playing mind games nor word games with statistics and dollar signs by
anyone, especially where it pits the value of volunteers against the value
of staff. We are as a community better than that.

Getting good messaging out there is necessary, we should be moving away
from those early messages and evolving new messages that reflect where we
are as a movement now and where we want to be in 10 years.  What we don't
need is messaging that confuses people. After 20 years we need any
promotion of the movement to reflect the community as a valuable long term
respectable, trustworthy, reliable, and neutral partner organisation.


Boodarwun
Gnangarra


On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 at 20:06, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Hi Gnangarra and all,
>
> I only mentioned how little money went to India in 2020/2021 because of
> the WMF's recent claim in the Indian Express that "a lot" of the money
> raised is flowing into the Global South.[1]
>
> You raise the messaging used to request donations. Here are six key
> phrases from the India emails (as linked on Meta[2]) that caught my eye (my
> emphases):
>
> Phrase 1: We *choose not to charge a subscription fee*, but that doesn't
> mean we don't need support from our readers
> Phrase 2: kindly consider giving again, or even increasing your gift, *to
> keep Wikipedia free* and independent.
>
> Should the option of charging a subscription fee for "The Free
> Encyclopedia" even be hinted at in a fundraising email? Bear in mind that
> the WMF Mission is "to make and keep useful information from its projects
> available on the internet *free of charge, in perpetuity*." It is only
> because of this commitment that volunteers are prepared to work for free.
>
> Also, isn't there something of a logical contradiction in begging people –
> especially people in developing countries – for money "to keep Wikipedia
> free"?
>
> Phrase 3: About a year ago, you donated Rs. 313 to *keep Wikipedia online
> for yourself and millions of people around the world*. Each year, fewer
> than 2% of Wikipedia readers choose to support our work.
> Phrase 4: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia *remains
> independent, ad-free, and growing* for years to come
> Phrase 5: can we count on you to renew your solidarity with a small
> donation? It will *keep Wikipedia online, ad-free, and growing* for years
> to come
>
> Wikipedia's independence (also used as a hook on the Wikipedia banners) is
> safer than ever, if it's to be measured by the WMF's money reserves, which
> at an estimated $400 million are now greater than they've ever been.
>
> Wouldn't we like to see the WMF saying more about what it actually does
> with the money, rather than falling back on these old stock phrases from
> yesteryear, about keeping Wikipedia online, or keeping it free? They might
> have been appropriate fifteen or twenty years ago, when the Foundation was
> finding its feet financially, but seem very out of step with the current
> financial realities.
>
> Phrase 6: 31% of your gift will be used to *support the volunteers* who
> share their knowledge with you for free every day.
>
> 31% of 2020/2021 donations revenue would have been about $50 million. I've
> been told the 31% figure comes from the Annual Report[3] (where it is
> called "*Direct support to communities*" and refers to 31% of spending,
> which is much less than 31% of revenue). But even so, it is unclear to me
> what specifically this amount refers to. It is certainly an order of
> magnitude more than the WMF's grants to the community in 2020/2021.
>
> Andreas
>
> [1]
> https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/raju-narisetti-interview-wikipedia-trust-transparency-7940621/
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising#Indian_email_texts
> [3]
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2020-2021-annual-report/financials/
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 19, 2022 at 10:55 AM Gnangarra  wrote:
>
>> It doesn't matter where the money goes, everyone benefits and there was a
>> period where the WMF was doing a lot of work in India without fundraising
>> there. Its all relative Australia was contributing over 2m per year(highest
>> per capita of anywhere at the time) yet there was nothing being spent in
>> Australia.
>>
>> The issue is the messaging requesting donations should be honest. At
>> least two of those sta

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia

[Ziko van Dijk]

Hello Samuel,

Thank you for your mail. I would like to see more attention from the
Wikimedia movement for the target group children age ca. 8-14.

I am afraid there is no real comprehensive study about the best way to
provide encyclopedic wiki content to children, or even to involve them in
the content creation.

In general, children are a very special and vulnerable group. This can
become problematic when they are directly involved on a platform, and when
it comes to the content itself.

Kind regards
Ziko


Samuel Klein  schrieb am Mo. 20. Juni 2022 um 02:25:

> Reminded today of how beautifully this kids encyclopedia has worked out:
> Txikipedia:Azala  (main
> page),  Txikipedia:Gengis_Khan
> 
>
> More languages should try that.   a) simple skin hack, b) loving and
> lovely idea, c) more compelling to me than the standalone kidipedia
> projects :)   Anyway, thanks for improving my weekend, Txikipedians.   SJ
>
> (posting to wm-l since wp-l is gone now...)
>
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-- 

Dr. Ziko van Dijk | zikovandijk.de
Autor von "Wikis und die Wikipedia verstehen"

Offizieller Wikipedia-Kulturbotschafter 2022-2024
"Niederlande & Deutschland": https://www.youtube.com/ZikovanDijk
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Deutschland looking for a partner affiliate to organize the WikidataCon 2023

[Léa Lacroix]

--- TL;DR ---

Wikimedia Deutschland is looking for a partner organization to jointly
design and run the WikidataCon 2023. This organization should be recognized
legally in their country, be located in the Global South, have previous
experience with running events and have a Wikidata-enthusiastic community.
If your organization is interested, please reach out directly to Léa
Lacroix before July 31st.



Dear Wikimedians,

As you may know, the last edition of the WikidataCon in 2021
 was organized
jointly by Wikimedia Deutschland and Wiki Movimento Brasil. The result of
these intense 10 months of collaboration was an incredibly successful
online event with about 500 participants, more than 40% of which joined
from the Global South.

This partnership not only created an innovative event, hosting multiple
conversations about the future of Wikidata and reimagining it from the
margins, but also gave us the opportunity to examine our priorities and
points of views, to learn from each other’s experiences and to share
skills. You can find a summary of what we learned, tried and achieved in
our common documentation

.

We’re starting to work on the concept and planning of a new WikidataCon
event for 2023, and so we’re very eager to form a new partnership with a
new organization in the Wikimedia movement. Together we would design and
organize the event and bring new perspectives to this important gathering
for the international Wikidata community.

We have defined baseline criteria to help select our future partner, based
on our vision of WikidataCon:

   -

   In order to broaden our perspectives and decenter from the existing
   majority of Wikidata editors, we are looking for an organization located in
   the Global South;
   -

   Those involved in co-organizing the conference should show a lot of
   enthusiasm for Wikidata and have an existing connection to local
   communities involved in Wikidata-related activities;
   -

   We are looking for a group of people with prior experience in organizing
   events who are keen to experiment with new formats and design the future of
   Wikimedia events together;
   -

   For administrative reasons, we can only partner up with a group legally
   recognized as an organization in their country that is able to sign
   contracts, issue invoices and receive funds from Germany.


This call for proposals will remain open until July 31st. If your
organization would like to apply, you need only to send me a private email
so we can start a conversation about your ideas and how this partnership
would work.

The selection of a partner will take place in August/September 2022. After
a public announcement, the collaboration between Wikimedia Deutschland and
this organization would run from October 2022 to November 2023. The event
itself would take place in a format to be later decided among the
organizers (online, onsite or hybrid) in October 2023.

Feel free to share this email with anyone who might be interested or on any
relevant channels.

I remain available for any questions, and I’m very excited to engage in
discussions with the many organizations of Wikidata enthusiasts in the
movement!

Best regards,
-- 
Léa Lacroix
Community Engagement Coordinator

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.

Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Form 990 clarification request (for the attention of WMF accounts staff)

[Andreas Kolbe]

Gnangarra,

Surprisingly enough, Covid-19 had little discernible effect on WMF spending
outside the US, which reached its highest ever level in 2020/2021.

Below are the non-US expense totals for the last five fiscal years, per the
Form 990 (Schedule F, usually starts around p. 30) for each[1]:

2016/2017: $11,636,258
2017/2018: $15,191,106
2018/2019: $16,639,727
2019/2020: $19,387,650
2020/2021: $20,076,181

Spending in the global south in 2020/2021 was also the highest it's ever
been, at $3.8 million (based on adding the totals for Sub-Saharan Africa,
South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, South America, and Central
America and the Caribbean), with the 2019/2020 total the second highest at
$3.0 million.

Andreas

[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/


On Mon, Jun 20, 2022 at 2:01 PM Gnangarra  wrote:

> Kaya
>
> "Global South" a term we had discontinued to emphasise as a way to divide
> the community did apply to more than just India.
>
> I really dont think looking at 2020/2021 figures is really fair either by
> yourself or by the fundraising people if that's what they used.  That
> period had a significant downturn in everyone's capacity to do anything.
> Everything the WMF does would be in some way to support volunteers either
> directly or indirectly; whether that is keeping the servers running and
> updating software, providing community support through funding initiatives,
> raising awareness, or simply managing the whole circus.  I'm not supportive
> of playing mind games nor word games with statistics and dollar signs by
> anyone, especially where it pits the value of volunteers against the value
> of staff. We are as a community better than that.
>
> Getting good messaging out there is necessary, we should be moving away
> from those early messages and evolving new messages that reflect where we
> are as a movement now and where we want to be in 10 years.  What we don't
> need is messaging that confuses people. After 20 years we need any
> promotion of the movement to reflect the community as a valuable long term
> respectable, trustworthy, reliable, and neutral partner organisation.
>
>
> Boodarwun
> Gnangarra
>
>
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 at 20:06, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
>> Hi Gnangarra and all,
>>
>> I only mentioned how little money went to India in 2020/2021 because of
>> the WMF's recent claim in the Indian Express that "a lot" of the money
>> raised is flowing into the Global South.[1]
>>
>> You raise the messaging used to request donations. Here are six key
>> phrases from the India emails (as linked on Meta[2]) that caught my eye (my
>> emphases):
>>
>> Phrase 1: We *choose not to charge a subscription fee*, but that doesn't
>> mean we don't need support from our readers
>> Phrase 2: kindly consider giving again, or even increasing your gift, *to
>> keep Wikipedia free* and independent.
>>
>> Should the option of charging a subscription fee for "The Free
>> Encyclopedia" even be hinted at in a fundraising email? Bear in mind that
>> the WMF Mission is "to make and keep useful information from its projects
>> available on the internet *free of charge, in perpetuity*." It is only
>> because of this commitment that volunteers are prepared to work for free.
>>
>> Also, isn't there something of a logical contradiction in begging people
>> – especially people in developing countries – for money "to keep Wikipedia
>> free"?
>>
>> Phrase 3: About a year ago, you donated Rs. 313 to *keep Wikipedia
>> online for yourself and millions of people around the world*. Each year,
>> fewer than 2% of Wikipedia readers choose to support our work.
>> Phrase 4: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia *remains
>> independent, ad-free, and growing* for years to come
>> Phrase 5: can we count on you to renew your solidarity with a small
>> donation? It will *keep Wikipedia online, ad-free, and growing* for
>> years to come
>>
>> Wikipedia's independence (also used as a hook on the Wikipedia banners)
>> is safer than ever, if it's to be measured by the WMF's money reserves,
>> which at an estimated $400 million are now greater than they've ever been.
>>
>> Wouldn't we like to see the WMF saying more about what it actually does
>> with the money, rather than falling back on these old stock phrases from
>> yesteryear, about keeping Wikipedia online, or keeping it free? They might
>> have been appropriate fifteen or twenty years ago, when the Foundation was
>> finding its feet financially, but seem very out of step with the current
>> financial realities.
>>
>> Phrase 6: 31% of your gift will be used to *support the volunteers* who
>> share their knowledge with you for free every day.
>>
>> 31% of 2020/2021 donations revenue would have been about $50 million.
>> I've been told the 31% figure comes from the Annual Report[3] (where it is
>> called "*Direct support to communities*" and refers to 31% of spending,
>> which is much less than 31% of revenue). But even so, it is unclear to 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: what do we do with all this opportunity?

[Nathan]

On Sun, Jun 19, 2022 at 3:22 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Samuel and James for the constructive approach in your messages.
>
> I know that I have said this before, but there's a huge problem with
> accountability here. We have money to become a great platform and we have
> staff to do it, but there's no way to go forward, and that problem is seen
> clearly at every opportunity: migrating to Discourse because we don't have
> "good enough" discussing software, not having centralized templates or the
> completely broken wishlist survey (where only 1/4 of the projects voted by
> the community are done, and some of them in a sub-optimal and non-usable
> way).
>
> James points out the integration of data from OurWorldInData. This is so
> impressive and useful that is hard to think how the WMF can't afford to
> expend staff time (or give 1.000 USD to someone) to do that. Instead, Wiki
> Project Med has to ask for it outside. The Basque Wikimedians User Group is
> funding this effort, and is doing it with its own funds. Do you know how we
> get these funds? Well, sometimes they call us for a lecture somewhere about
> free knowledge, copyright or whatever, and the money they usually give the
> speaker goes to a fund. Whenever we have a good amount of money there (like
> 1.000USD), we invest in free knowledge projects. So, at the end of the day,
> is volunteer's time, expressed as money, and re-invested in things that
> will make our experience better. Of course, we are happy to help with this
> project, but the question is why the WMF, with 400.000.000 USD a year,
> can't afford to do this. And the answer is that no one cares, and those who
> should care about that are not accountable.
>
> Indeed, there's quite a big group of workers thinking in design, and they
> work to do some things, like the new Vector (but not only, they have a
> bunch of projects open). But every time they get a critic about the
> approach by a volunteer, there's an attack to the volunteer. Let's take
> some examples: here's a Phab ticket (
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T293405) with a proposal to build a
> Main Page that will easily be copied by every project. You can read the
> answers and the attitude towards the proposal. Or this one, when they
> decided to move the interwiki links to the bottom of the main page because
> they didn't think that Main Pages where relevant (
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T290480). Or here, when a bug report is
> closed because someone thinks that breaking things is not a bug:
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T289212.
>
> And I could continue, but the reality shows us that sub-optimal solutions
> are our way of finishing projects. The same teams that are moving things
> around in the Vector-2022, for example, decided to break the PDF creator
> (still has many issues) and decided that creating books wasn't relevant, so
> they broke it on purpose. No one cares, and if you do, you shouldn't: no
> one is going to fix it. No accountability. The same team has decided that
> hiding our sister projects from the main page, something that goes against
> the Strategic Direction, is a good idea at all (
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T287609). And there we are, some
> volunteers, trying to make any sense of all of this, and trying to point
> that the Strategic Direction is something that should be granted at every
> decision. But, again, if there's no accountability, then every team will
> make what they think is better, they won't accept any proposal from
> volunteers, and our years-long strategy discussions will be a completely
> loss of time and donor's money, because no one is implementing what it was
> decided there.
>
> Things are broken, and we could still be here discussing about that for
> ages. We have money and staff to fix this. Who is going to fix it? This is
> the great question.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Galder
>
>
>
Galder - I wish I was optimistic that the WMF's strategy and actual
performance will be responsive to your points. The consequences of the
disconnect you describe (between the people whose labor feeds the
organizations, and the paid staff of the various orgs) have been clear and
tragic for many years.

The WMF spent half a billion in donor funds in the last five years (not
including endowment contributions). Was it money well spent? What enormous
accomplishments match that figure?
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[Wikimedia-l] Writing LGBTIQ+ biographies in Wikipedia: tips and strategies to overcome barriers - a skillshare meeting!

[Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska]

Dear Wikimedians,
Volunteer Supporters Network would like to invite you to another
skillsharing meeting. This time it will be an event around writing LGBTIQ+
biographies in Wikipedia.

The event will happen at *June 28th at 4 PM UTC on Zoom.* During the
training conducted by Vic Sfriso from Wikimedia Argentina you will:

   - learn tips and strategies to overcome barriers in writing LGBTIQ+
   biographies in Wikipedia
   - know more about a guide from Wikimedia Argentina focused on LGBTIQ+
   biographies, which is currently being translated into English

You can learn more about the event and register here (registration is
required to get the link do meeting)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Supporters_Network/VSN_Training:_Writing_LGBTIQ%2B_biographies_in_Wikipedia:_tips_and_strategies_to_overcome_barriers

The event is a part of a series of open skill-share events organized by
the Volunteer Supporters Network - you can check other upcoming events
here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Supporters_Network/Meetings
As always - we are looking forward to seeing you all!

-- 
Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska
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[Wikimedia-l] Invitation to Wikimania 2022 - Open Space call

[Antoni Mtavangu]

Dear Wikimedians,

I am writing to let you know that the Wikimania COT 2022 has organized a
second Wikimania Open Space call that will happen on the coming *Friday
24th June 2022* from *(6:00-7:30)pm UTC*.

This is an opportunity for everyone to come with questions related to
Programming and Wikimania in general.

For more information please visit the Wikimania 2022 Help Desk Page
.

On behalf of Wikimania 2022 COT

,



Antoni Mtavangu (He/Him)

Wikimania 2022 COT member



Cofounder-Wikimedia Tanzania

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[Wikimedia-l] Re: what do we do with all this opportunity?

[Benjamin Lees]

Is there no public notice or rationale given when grant applications are
declined?  The only update on the status of your grant that I can see was
by you: <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants:Project/Rapid/WPM:VideoWiki&diff=23125476&oldid=23110705
>.

On Sat, Jun 18, 2022 at 6:37 PM James Heilman  wrote:

> I have not found getting funding from the WMF for projects easy. VideoWiki
> for example has mostly been funded by WikiProjectMed / personally funded.
> Our first grant application since fully taking on the effort was declined
>  and
> our programmer working on the project has thus moved on. Our experience has
> been similar regarding our collaboration with Our World in Data. We have
> gotten the interactive graphs working on our own site
>  and offered to work on
> doing the same for Wikipedia (plus making them multilingual). Jumping
> through hoops to meet WMF requirements will; however, cost about 1,000 USD.
> WikiProjectMed has never received funding from the WMF and as a much much
> smaller NGO cannot cover these programming expenses for the movement.
>
> James
>
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2022 at 3:49 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:
>
>> We face the paradox 
>> of choice , the lull of peace,
>> and the fog of distributed bureaucracy.
>> ~ With great possibility comes disfocus. (and a few things with focus!)
>> ~ With no clear challenge or adversary, we've become comfortable fussing
>> over small changes... Even as the world moves on to new frontiers and
>> companies race to enclose derivatives of our work. This peace is coming to
>> an end.
>> ~ Our central overhead costs are quite high. So high^ that it seems to
>> baffle everyone involved, each believing the bureaucracy must be caused by
>> some other part of the system, outside of their or their org's control.
>>
>> Our projects are already a global standard for multimodal collaboration
>> at scale, we should embrace that and rise to meet it.  Building some of the
>> world's best free, mulitilingual, accessible tools for is within our remit,
>> experience, and budget.
>>   [Discourse raised a *total *of $20M over its lifetime. we could
>> support + spin out free-knowledge free-software layers like that every
>> year.]
>>
>> Let's practice working together, focusing on a few things each year that
>> can change not only our projects but the world, honoring existing work and
>> aggressively shedding anything we are doing that others are alreay doing
>> almost as well.
>>
>> SJ
>>
>> *^* Up to 10-to-1 in some areas, plus delays of years inserted into
>> otherwise continuous processes.  This ratio can slip into the negative if
>> one includes opportunity cost, or funded work that displaces or drives out
>> comparable voluntary work; or that demands thousands of hours of input for
>> little result.
>> 🌍🌏🌎🌑
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 8:45 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
>> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Or, maybe, just making Wikimedia a non-obsolete environment. I'm sure
>>> the money can go to that effort.
>>> --
>>> *From:* Felipe Schenone 
>>> *Sent:* Friday, June 17, 2022 12:51 PM
>>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
>>> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff
>>>
>>> I agree with the diagnosis, but maybe not with the solution. If
>>> Wikimedia is getting "overfunding" and doesn't quite know what to so with
>>> it, there's probably plenty of good things to do. We could start a
>>> community process to decide it, because as you say, reducing funding
>>> efforts or saving indefinitely for the future isn't likely to happen or
>>> even desirable, considering the alternatives.
>>>
>>> Here are some ideas:
>>>
>>> * Investing in clean energy sources for Wikimedia servers.
>>> * Funding of external developers and libraries on which MediaWiki
>>> depends.
>>> * Funding of open knowledge projects beyond Wikimedia, to not stray too
>>> far the original intentions of donors and volunteers.
>>> * Funding of other non-knowledge altruistic projects (like buying land
>>> for a natural reserve). I'm sure the funding team could rethink and
>>> generalize the campaign to justify this use for future donations.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:47 AM  wrote:
>>>
>>> The question of you is important. The Wikimedia Foundation hired a lot
>>> of people in the last years and I do not see so big change in the output.
>>> It is a question that is from my point of view relevant for different areas
>>> at the Wikimedia Foundation. I dont support a too big focus on efficiency
>>> that needs a lot of metrics to measure and to create these metrics needs
>>> then a lot of staff. What is needed and what not is not easy to measure.
>>> With increasing available resources the staff will probably increase. This
>>> is an

[Wikimedia-l] Re: what do we do with all this opportunity?

[James Heilman]

The "decline" was via email, rather than publically. The concern was that
VideoWiki supposedly lacks broad consultation, coordination, and research
to provide an implementation framework. They suggested that rather than
working to update the software to the new operating environment and adding
improvements, that we conduct consultations within communities and gather
further learnings from community members. They mention that there may
also be other channels of funding.

Anyway instead we updated the software and moved it to new servers, plus
made a number of improvements with the small amount of internal funds we
raise directly ourselves. And then the programmer moved on as we were
unable to offer him the amount of work they were looking for. The software
still works and we are using it to make videos for MDWiki...
https://mdwiki.org/wiki/Video:Abdominal_thrusts

James

On Mon, Jun 20, 2022 at 8:54 PM Benjamin Lees  wrote:

> Is there no public notice or rationale given when grant applications are
> declined?  The only update on the status of your grant that I can see was
> by you: <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants:Project/Rapid/WPM:VideoWiki&diff=23125476&oldid=23110705
> >.
>
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2022 at 6:37 PM James Heilman  wrote:
>
>> I have not found getting funding from the WMF for projects easy.
>> VideoWiki for example has mostly been funded by WikiProjectMed / personally
>> funded. Our first grant application since fully taking on the effort was
>> declined
>>  and
>> our programmer working on the project has thus moved on. Our experience has
>> been similar regarding our collaboration with Our World in Data. We have
>> gotten the interactive graphs working on our own site
>>  and offered to work on
>> doing the same for Wikipedia (plus making them multilingual). Jumping
>> through hoops to meet WMF requirements will; however, cost about 1,000 USD.
>> WikiProjectMed has never received funding from the WMF and as a much much
>> smaller NGO cannot cover these programming expenses for the movement.
>>
>> James
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 18, 2022 at 3:49 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:
>>
>>> We face the paradox 
>>> of choice , the lull of
>>> peace, and the fog of distributed bureaucracy.
>>> ~ With great possibility comes disfocus. (and a few things with focus!)
>>> ~ With no clear challenge or adversary, we've become comfortable fussing
>>> over small changes... Even as the world moves on to new frontiers and
>>> companies race to enclose derivatives of our work. This peace is coming to
>>> an end.
>>> ~ Our central overhead costs are quite high. So high^ that it seems to
>>> baffle everyone involved, each believing the bureaucracy must be caused by
>>> some other part of the system, outside of their or their org's control.
>>>
>>> Our projects are already a global standard for multimodal collaboration
>>> at scale, we should embrace that and rise to meet it.  Building some of the
>>> world's best free, mulitilingual, accessible tools for is within our remit,
>>> experience, and budget.
>>>   [Discourse raised a *total *of $20M over its lifetime. we could
>>> support + spin out free-knowledge free-software layers like that every
>>> year.]
>>>
>>> Let's practice working together, focusing on a few things each year that
>>> can change not only our projects but the world, honoring existing work and
>>> aggressively shedding anything we are doing that others are alreay doing
>>> almost as well.
>>>
>>> SJ
>>>
>>> *^* Up to 10-to-1 in some areas, plus delays of years inserted into
>>> otherwise continuous processes.  This ratio can slip into the negative if
>>> one includes opportunity cost, or funded work that displaces or drives out
>>> comparable voluntary work; or that demands thousands of hours of input for
>>> little result.
>>> 🌍🌏🌎🌑
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 8:45 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
>>> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
 Or, maybe, just making Wikimedia a non-obsolete environment. I'm sure
 the money can go to that effort.
 --
 *From:* Felipe Schenone 
 *Sent:* Friday, June 17, 2022 12:51 PM
 *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
 *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

 I agree with the diagnosis, but maybe not with the solution. If
 Wikimedia is getting "overfunding" and doesn't quite know what to so with
 it, there's probably plenty of good things to do. We could start a
 community process to decide it, because as you say, reducing funding
 efforts or saving indefinitely for the future isn't likely to happen or
 even desirable, considering the alternatives.

 Here are some ideas:

 * Investing in clean energy sources for Wikimedia servers.
 * Fun