[Foundation-l] Sue Gardner's Speech at TedxDuba
Dear Wikipedians, On December 4, 2010, Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation spoke with the audience at TedxDubai. She focused her talk around why Wikipedia works the commitment of the volunteers in the Wikimedia movement and the notion encyclopedias are meant to be radical. Link: http://vimeo.com/19532861 I hope you enjoy, James T. Owen James Owen Executive Assistant Board Liaison Wikimedia Foundation Office +1.415.839.6885 x 6604 Mobile +1.415.509.5444 Fax +1.415.882.0495 Email- jo...@wikimedia.org Website- www.wikimediafoundation.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Report to the Board (February and March)
7,500,000. Including revenue from restricted and unrestricted gifts the Wikimedia Foundation has raised USD 13,408,323, 45% above the goal of USD 9,297,000. In March, the Community Gifts began planning for the 2010 Annual Fundraiser. The team began compiling reports of the make up on the Foundation's donors and the effects of various donor cultivation and stewardship efforts. The fundraising department plans to use the reports to fuel planning and upcoming budgets. In addition, the Community gifts team continued working the 2010 Fundraising Survey (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Survey ) with intents to understand the Foundation's donors, how they perceive the foundation’s work, and what kinds of interactions would be most valuable in maintaining long-term philanthropic relationships. The survey will launch in May after translation efforts are completed. With the assistance of the Technology team Community giving posted and boarded activity recruiting for two staff positions to support the 2010 Fundraising efforts. These positions should mitigate peak demand for engineering to support Fundraising without diverting resources from other technology functions. Major gifts activities in March including working with Bridgespan on the fundraising business plan, mapping out and event for the end of 2010, developing fundraising communications for Jimmy Wales and preparing for April donor meetings in New York. In addition, Rebecca conducted prospect/donor meetings with over ten individuals. LEGAL The legal team began a pro-bono relationship with the Perkins Coie law firm, which may be able to provide significant litigation work for the Foundation. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Business Development focused its attention on mobile and offline areas and its development in the strategic plan. In March Kul and Tomasz attended Mobile World Congress and spoke at the event about user data, trust, and the worldwide growth of content on mobile devices. Kul is directing developments in mobile apps with existing partners Orange and Telefonica, and is working toward a system to engage with many more partners in geographic regions such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and throughout Asia. Kul is also working with various partners to test several initiatives to bring Wikipedia in offline forms/ devices in markets. Currently the focus on offline Wikipedia has been on market research and product development with market and distributions tests soon to come. FINANCE ADMINISTRATION In March Veronique and KPMG worked to finalize the 2008 Form 990 Tax Return. The return was approved by the Audit Committee on March 24. The Board of Trustees will be presented with the final Form 990 during their April meeting in Berlin, Germany. To facilitate the rapid growth of Foundation staff as outlined in the preliminary version of the Strategy Plan, the administration team visited a vacant office space on the 6th floor of 149 New Montgomery Street, in San Francisco. After their visit the administrative team began negotiating a lease and hope to obtain the 6th floor to facilitate the Foundation's projected growth. With the current growth rates the Foundation will likely require the extra floor by early 2011. Bill Gong, the Foundation's accountant, began working with vendors to find an updated accounting system for the Foundation. Currently the organization has been using Quickbooks, but with the rapid growth of the organization this software is no longer a practical solution. The accounting team hopes to find a system that will be compatible with the open-source fundraising software CiviCRM. VISITORS AND GUESTS In March, the following people visited the Wikimedia Foundation offices for meetings and talks: Jesse Ansubel of the Sloan Foundation; Melissa Hagemann, Advisory Board member and Senior Program Manager with the Open Society Institute; a delegation from the Chinese State Department; New York Times journalist Jenny 8 Lee; former IDEO engineer and founder of BunchBall, Rajat Paharia; User: Erdrokan from Switzerland; a delegation from intercultural learning and student exchange non-profit AFS Intecultural Programs; User:Elonka; Bishakha Datta; Meghan Murphy of the X Prize Foundation; Megan Smith of Google, and Thomas Dalton of Wikimedia UK. STAFF ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES No changes were made during March. STAFF ACTIVITIES The bi-annual All Staff meeting was held on March 4th and 5th. Sue opened this year with an overview of the goals and targets coming out of the Strategic Plan for the next 5 years including a focus in on the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Bridgespan attended the meetings and helped facilitate as we broke into groups by department to determine the necessary positions and logistics that would get us from here to there with an emphasis on the next fiscal year. James Owen Executive Assistant Board Liaison
Re: [Foundation-l] final (*) strategy office hours on Tuesday
Dear All, Sue Gardner will be conducting IRC Office hours on Friday, July 23 22:30 UTC. Regards, James T. Owen On Jun 28, 2010, at 6:29 PM, susanpgard...@gmail.com wrote: I'm actually not sure if I managed to get scheduled for office hours anytime soon -- James has been a bit swamped with board meeting prep, so I haven't asked him. But I'll CC Cary and James on this note, and maybe they can get it fitted into my sked sometime pre-Wikimania. That'd be good, I think, since the 2010-11 plan will be published soon, and I'd be happy to talk about it. (I'm in Madrid pre-Wikimania too, which would make Euro-centric office hours way more doable for me than they normally are.) Thanks, Sue -Original Message- From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 01:55:50 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation- l...@lists.wikimedia.org Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] final (*) strategy office hours on Tuesday On 29 June 2010 01:50, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 8:42 AM, Eugene Eric Kim ee...@blueoxen.com wrote: Our final (*) strategic planning office hours .. ... * Several people have discussed continuing the weekly office hours beyond the scope of this project, which I think is a wonderful idea. I'm sure this will also be discussed tomorrow. Sue said she would like to attend an IRC office hours. http://old.nabble.com/WMF-investment-strategy-td28837343.html Is this still on the cards? The office hours (a QA session with a particular member of WMF staff) are different from the strategy office hours (a weekly meeting of anyone interested in the strategy project). The strategy office hours are coming to an end, but the office hours will continue. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l James Owen Executive Assistant Wikimedia Foundation Office +1.415.839.6885 x 604 Mobile +1.415.509.5444 Fax +1.415.882.0495 Email- jo...@wikimedia.org Website- www.wikimediafoundation.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] December 2009 Report to the Board of Trustees
Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Covering: December 2009 Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees MILESTONES FROM DECEMBER 1.Annual Giving Campaign continues: record number of donations 2.New hires: Priyanka Dhanda, Guillaume Paumier in San Francisco 3.Meeting with Wikimania 2010 Organizers KEY PRIORITIES FOR JANUARY 1.Begin Interviews for Chief Development Officer 2.Wikipedia Roundtable in NYC 3.Prepare for February Board of Trustees Meeting THIS PAST MONTH KEY PROGRAM METRICS Reach of all Wikimedia Foundation sites: 347 million unique visitors (rank #5) +27% (1 year ago) / +0% (1 month ago) Source: comScore Media Metrics Pages served: 10.4 billion +0% (1 year ago) / -9.2% (1 month ago) Active number of editors (5+ edits/month): 95,849 +3.8% (1 year ago) / -0.4% (1 month ago) Source: December 2009 Report Card http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2009_12_detailed.html KEY FINANCIAL METRICS Operating revenue year to date: USD 10.5MM vs. plan of USD 7.MM [1] Operating expenses year to date: USD 3.7MM vs. plan of USD 4.7MM Unrestricted cash on hand as of January 28: USD 12.2MM [1] Year to date revenue is equal to annual plan for the fiscal year STRATEGIC PLANNING PROJECT December was a whirlwind month for the strategic planning process. It was crunch-time for the Task Forces, which picked up its activity significantly. The average number of LiquidThreads posts per day jumped from 25 to 30, and we picked up another 50 active contributors. More importantly, that discussion continued to also result in synthesis, with many new Wikimedia-pages that summarized Task Force work. Ten of the 14 Task Forces look like they will produce quality recommendations. With so much of the energy devoted to the Task Forces, growth in overall participants slowed. We expect to attract a slew of new participants in January and February once the Task Force work is done. In the meantime, the project team (including The Bridgespan Group) devoted much of its energy to developing a snapshot of the five-year priorities that seem to be emerging from this process. The work that we're doing to develop that synthesis is regularly integrated into the wiki so as to inform the community at large. By the time the synthesis is ready to present at the February board meeting, the community should have a good preview as to what will be said there. TECHNOLOGY – CORE Significant time of the technology team in December was spent in support of the fundraiser, including improvements to our new credit card processing gateway, message performance tracking, banner and landing page development and testing, geographic targeting, real-time statistics, and more. On December 16, the Wikimedia Foundation hired Priyanka Dhanda as Code Maintenance Engineer. Priyanka joins us from SourceForge Inc., where she worked since 2002 as a software developer and also was involved in operations, working on most pieces of the infrastructure, and integrating third party software with the SourceForge platform (including MediaWiki). Priyanka holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Toledo, Ohio, and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from the Pondicherry Engineering College in India. Relevant tech blog post: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/priyanka-dhanda-joins-wikimedia-tech-team/ Original opening: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Code_Maintenance_Engineer Hampton Catlin announced a community process for developing mobile Wikipedia homepages in new languages: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/mobile-homepage-in-your-language/ TECHNOLOGY - USABILITY On December 15 the usability team presented the progress of the project, how the usability beta has been received, and upcoming milestones to Liz Allison from the Stanton Foundation. The feedback from Liz Allison was positive and she praised the Wikipedia Usability Initiative as a “model” project. http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stanton_Usability_Presentation_Dec2009.pdf A total of 442,000 users tried the usability beta by the end of December, an increase of 50,000 users that month. A total of 350,000 users continue using the usability beta. Monthly retention rates per language show an upward trend. Languages with relatively low retention rate, such as German, Polish, and Japanese also started showing an upward trend. However, the retention rate of Japanese and Korean are still in the sixties, which requires further analysis for solutions. http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aikdcg5HdSKbdDVMM2l2SGM2dUtBU25MLUtTMFEwMFEhl=en The usability team continued working on the design and development work for the next releases. The software foundation for editing is being overhauled and subjected to extensive cross-browser testing. This will increase precision of the new editor table of contents, and allow for future development
[Foundation-l] January 2010 Report to the Board
Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Covering: January 2010 Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees MILESTONES FROM JANAURY 1.Wikimedia's most successful fundraiser wraps up, raises $8 million (USD) 2.Wikimedia Foundation hires Danese Cooper as Chief Technical Officer 3.2008-09 Annual Report released 4.First hiring interviews for Chief Development Officer KEY PRIORITIES FOR FEBRUARY 1.CDO hiring continues 2.Review of strategic plan recommendations at San Francisco Board meeting 3.Preparation begins for five-year business plan THIS PAST MONTH KEY PROGRAM METRICS Reach of all Wikimedia Foundation sites: 365 million unique visitors (rank #5) +25.8% (1 year ago) / +5.1% (1 month ago) Source: comScore Media Metrics Pages served: 11.1 billion -3.1% (1 year ago) / +6.4% (1 month ago) Active number of editors (5+ edits/month): 98,597 -1.4% (1 year ago) / +5.0% (1 month ago) Source: January 2010 Report Card http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2010_01_detailed.html KEY FINANCIAL METRICS Operating revenue year to date: USD 11.4MM vs. plan of USD 8.6MM Operating expenses year to date: USD 4.9MM vs. plan of USD 5.5MM Unrestricted cash on hand as of 2/17/10: USD 14.2MM STRATEGIC PLANNING PROJECT This month marked the end of the second phase for Strategy development process. The team is now halfway through the process, and are moving into the third and final phase. On January 12, nine Task Forces delivered recommendations. A few weeks later, The Bridgespan Group delivered a synthesis of the strategic planning process thus far and its immediate implications for the Wikimedia Foundation's strategy. That synthesis drew from the recommendations and research on the wiki, and was also published on the wiki. Feedback to the work thus far has been positive, and seeing an increase in participant growth on the wiki for the first time in several months. The end of this January saw the wiki surpass 900 contributors, and about 80 new contributors to the LiquidThread discussions. Moving forward, the strategy team will focus is on evaluation, prioritization, synthesis, and activation, with a goal to create consensus on the movement's priorities over the next five years. In order to do this, the team has formed a Strategy Task Force, which will focus on these issues using the same open methodology that the previous Task Forces used. The team are also working hard to bring even more participants to the wiki process. TECHNOLOGY – CORE In January, the Wikimedia Foundation completed its search process for a Chief Technical Officer, following the departure of former CTO Brion Vibber late last year. The new CTO is Danese Cooper. Danese has a wealth of experience in open source technology. Most recently, she developed open source strategy for the tech start-up REvolution Computing. Prior to that, she was Senior Director of Open Source Strategies at Intel from 2005 until 2009, and Chief Open Source Evangelist at Sun Microsystems from 1999 to 2005. In those roles, she led or supported major open source initiatives, including Sun’s OpenOffice.org application suite, the Java platform, JXTA, NetBeans, GridEngine, OpenSolaris and Intel’s Channel Software Operations and Moblin platform initiatives. Prior to working at Sun, she managed technology teams at Symantec and at Apple Computing for a total of nine years. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/28/danese-cooper-our-new-cto/ The search process was supported on a pro bono basis by Walker Talent Group. Wikimedia Foundation contract project manager William Pietri posted a detailed update on the development and deployment of the Flagged Revisions technology, and the specific functionality requested through a community poll in the English language Wikipeda. Development and testing of the new functionality continues and can be tracked through a public project tracker. http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/flagged-revisions-your-questions-answered/ http://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/46157 Newly hired Code Maintenance Engineer Priyanka Dhanda completed her first project and upgraded Wikimedia's bug tracker, BugZilla. Priyanka is also evaluating alternatives to BugZilla and open source project management tools. The GlobalUsage extension, which shows where in the Wikimedia universe multimedia files from Wikimedia Commons are used, was re-activated. This led to the development of new community scripts and hacks to make use of that data for statistical purposes. Static files such as CSS and JavaScript files were moved to a dedicated set of cache servers to optimize performance: http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Bits_and_pieces A set of new search servers was deployed, which made it possible to lift previously implemented restrictions on the number of search results: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2010-January/046297.html Code review continued for the MediaWiki 1.16
[Foundation-l] November 2009 Report to the Board of Trustees
Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Covering:November 2009 Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees MILESTONES FROM NOVEMBER 1. Kick-off of 2009 Annual Giving Campaign 2. Multimedia Usability Meeting in Paris 3. Board meeting in San Francisco 4. Second usability study published 5. New hire: Neil Kandalgaonkar (software developer) KEY PRIORITIES FOR DECEMBER 1. Annual Giving Campaign 2. Wikimania 2010 planning meeting 3. CTO search continues THIS PAST MONTH KEY PROGRAM METRICS Reach of all Wikimedia Foundation sites: 346 million unique visitors (rank #5) +23.1% (1 year ago) / +0.4% (1 month ago) Source: comScore Media Metrics Pages served: 11.3 billion +7.7% (1 year ago) / -2.8% (1 month ago) Active number of editors (5+ edits/month): 96,521 +4.0% (1 year ago) / +0.1% (1 month ago) Source: November 2009 Report Card http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2009_11_detailed.html KEY FINANCIAL METRICS Operating revenue year to date: USD 3.7MM vs. plan of USD 3.93 MM Operating expenses year to date: USD 3.0MM vs. plan of USD 4.1 million 2009 ANNUAL GIVING CAMPAIGN LAUNCHES On November 11, the Wikimedia Foundation kicked off its 2009 Annual Giving Campaign under the theme “Wikipedia Forever”, with a campaign goal of USD 7.5 million in individual donations (including individual gifts received year-to-date), out of our budget of USD 10.4 million. This is the sixth WMF fundraising campaign. The Wikimedia Foundation was supported by Fenton Communications and Sea Change Strategies in the development of messaging for the campaign. After some initial rapid iteration of messaging in response to both fundraising results and community feedback, daily results began to outperform previous fundraisers on November 17, and by November 27, the cumulative total exceeded the success of previous fundraisers. The full progression of the fundraiser relative to previous ones can be followed here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics For the purpose of this fundraiser, several important changes were implemented: -The Wikimedia Foundation now offers “white label” credit card processing. While we still use PayPal to process credit card information, this can now be done without leaving the Wikimedia Foundation website. This change is meant to address potential confusion and fear associated with making payments through a separate website. -International Wikimedia chapters are more deeply integrated into our annual campaign than ever before. An IP address lookup determines the country-of-origin of potential donors, and gives them relevant chapter information on the donation landing page. Revenue sharing agreements are in place with all participating chapters. -The tracking infrastructure for comparing the success of individual banners, landing pages, and payment gateways has been and continues to be significantly improved. Tracking data is publicly shared at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionTrackingStatistics . -In spite of some hiccups with the first banners, the browser testing process was significantly improved compared with previous years. -As a result of the communications support and improved tracking, we could test more messages more quickly than ever before. -For the first time, mobile giving was added as an option for US-based donors. Press release about the campaign: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_launches_2009_annual_giving_campaign STRATEGIC PLANNING PROJECT The strategy project is almost halfway through: it started in July 2009 and will conclude in July 2010. In October, 14 task forces were created covering the following areas: increasing reach and participation in China, India, and Arabic-speaking countries; stimulating development of smaller “local language” Wikipedias; increasing Wikimedia project readership among the five billion people who don't currently have internet access; improving quality; expanding into additional content areas beyond what Wikimedia currently offers; increasing participation, particularly from high-potential under- represented groups; fostering a healthy, productive editing community; determining what organizational structures are required to support the Wikimedia movement and how they should intersect; ensuring financial sustainability; identifying the partnerships that are most critical to advancing Wikimedia's mission; identifying the ideal technology infrastructure, and ways to increase usability and foster technical innovation; and developing recommendations for strategically supporting high-priority advocacy. Throughout November, the task forces began their discussions, designed to culminate in recommendations in January. The strategy project is the first group using the LiquidThreads extension for these types of conversations, and its usage has helped drive the
[Foundation-l] September Report to the Board of Trustees
Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Covering:September 2009 Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees MILESTONES FROM SEPTEMBER 1. Recruitment begins for Chief Technical Officer and Chief Development Officer 2. 2009 Fundraiser planning begins 3. Strategy project launches Call For Participation 4. Usability team expanded 5. Bookshelf project for public outreach resources launched KEY PRIORITIES FOR OCTOBER 1. Begin interviewing Chief Technical Officer candidates 2. Planning for 2009 Fundraiser continues (launches November) 3. Strategy Project task forces kick off 4. Semi-annual All Staff Meeting October 21-23 5. Office moves to 149 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco REPORT FOR SEPTEMBER KEY PROGRAM METRICS Reach of all Wikimedia Foundation sites: 326 million unique visitors (rank #5) +19.8% (1 year ago) / +6% (1 month ago) Source: comScore Media Metrics Pages served: 11.4 billion +11.7% (1 year ago) / +5.1% (1 month ago) Active number of editors (5+ edits/month): 94,565 +2.3% (1 year ago) / -2.5% (one month ago) Source: September 2009 Report Card http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2009_09_detailed.html KEY FINANCIAL METRICS Operating revenue year to date: USD 1.1MM vs. plan of USD 1.1MM Operating expenses year to date: USD 1.6MM vs plan of USD 2.6MM. Unrestricted cash on hand as of October 22 was USD 6.0MM. STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS September marked the formal launch of the strategy planning process. In mid-September, a Call for Participation from Jimmy Wales and Michael Snow appeared at the top of all Wikimedia sites, encouraging people to volunteer to participate in strategy development task forces, which will be responsible for digging deeper into the key questions facing Wikimedia. The key questions include how to grow readership and participation in geographies where Wikimedia projects are under-performing (e.g., China, India, the Arabic-speaking countries); how to make Wikimedia project material available to the five billion people who don't yet have access to the internet; how to convert readers into participants and improve the diversity and general health of the Wikimedia movement, and how to enable Wikimedia, as a social and political movement, to best shape and influence public perception and public policy, internationally. The Call for Participation resulted in almost 3,000 applications from a wide variety of people, including active project participants and readers from many projects and languages. A selection committee carefully reviewed all applications, and in October will begin to populate the task forces with the applicants who seem most appropriate. Almost 30% of applicants committed to volunteering over 10 hours a week, indicating a strong desire to help and engage in this process. Meanwhile, in September, overall engagement on the strategy wiki continued to grow. The strategy wiki now contains almost 6,000 pages of content in more than 50 languages. Over 600 people have contributed to the wiki. Also in September, the Bridgespan Group continued to add data and analysis to the strategy wiki in support of the task forces, and also conducted a number of in-depth interviews with Wikimedia Foundation Board members, Advisory Board members, staff, other supporters and experts. Thus far, interviewees have included Board members Ting Chen, Samuel Klein and Jimmy Wales, Advisory Board members Angela Beesley Starling, Ward Cunningham, Clay Shirky, Achal Prabhala, Florence Nibart-Devouard, Teemu Leinonen, Benjamin Mako Hill, Roger McNamee, Melissa Hagemann, Mitch Kapor, Neeru Khosla, Wayne Mackintosh and Ethan Zuckerman. Other interviews were conducted with Ed Chi, researcher at Palo Alto Research Center, Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University law professor and researcher, Rima Kupryte, from eIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries), Andrew Lih, author of The Wikipedia Revolution, Mike Linksvayer, Vice President of Creative Commons, Misiek Piskorski, Harvard Business School professor and researcher, Jennifer Riggs, former Chief Program Officer for the Wikimedia Foundation, Joseph Reagle, researcher into open source communities, Matt Thompson, Online Community Manager at the Knight Foundation and Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States. The following staff have also been interviewed: Mike Godwin, General Counsel, Véronique Kessler, Chief Financial and Operating Officer, Rand Montoya, Head of Community Giving, Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public Outreach, Brion Vibber, Chief Technical Officer, Tim Starling, software developer, Kul Wadhwa, Head of Business Development, Jay Walsh, Head of Communications, Erik Zachte, Data Analyst, and Sue Gardner, Executive Director. All interview notes can be found here: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Interviews
[Foundation-l] October- Report to the Board of Trustees
Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Covering:October 2009 Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees MILESTONES FROM OCTOBER 1. Work begins on Multimedia Usability Project 2. Strategic Planning Task Forces Launch 3. Office move to 149 New Montgomery Street 4. Technology Staff and All Staff Meetings KEY PRIORITIES FOR NOVEMBER 1. (Ongoing) Chief Development Officer and Chief Technical Officer recruitment 2. Kickoff of 2009 Annual Giving Campaign 3. Launch of Public Outreach Resources Bookshelf Project 4. Multimedia Workshop in Paris 5. First Board of Trustees meeting in new office THIS PAST MONTH KEY PROGRAM METRICS Reach of all Wikimedia Foundation sites: 345 million unique visitors (rank #5) +24.3% (1 year ago) / +5.7% (1 month ago) Source: comScore Media Metrics Pages served: 11.6 billion +8.8% (1 year ago) / +1.9% (1 month ago) Active number of editors (5+ edits/month): 97,132 +1.9% (1 year ago) / +3.4% (1 month ago) Source: October 2009 Report Card http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2009_10_detailed.html KEY FINANCIAL METRICS Operating revenue year to date: USD 2.4MM vs. plan of USD 1.7MM [1] Operating expenses year to date: USD 2.2MM vs. plan of USD 3.5 million [2] Unrestricted cash on hand as of November 11: USD 5.4MM [1] Unanticipated early grant funding [2] Delays in some large purchases STRATEGIC PLANNING PROJECT With the preliminary exploration and research phase wrapped up, the Strategic Planning team spent October transitioning into a deep dive exploration of critical, strategic questions. In September, more than 3,000 people from inside and outside of the Wikimedia movement applied to participate in Wikimedia's strategic planning project. In October, the Task Force selection committee reviewed all 3,000 applications, and put together 14 task forces, each comprised of between four and eight members. Each of the Task Forces is exploring a specific topic, with the goal of eventually making two to four thoughtful recommendations aimed at the following areas: increasing reach and participation in China, India, and Arabic- speaking countries; stimulating development of smaller “local language” Wikipedias; increasing Wikimedia project readership among the five billion people who don't currently have internet access; improving quality; expanding into other content areas; increasing participation, particularly from high-potential under-represented groups; fostering a healthy, productive editing community; determining what organizational structures are required to support the Wikimedia movement and how they should intersect; ensuring financial sustainability; identifying the partnerships that are most critical to advancing Wikimedia's mission; identifying the ideal technology infrastructure, and ways to increase usability and foster technical innovation; and developing recommendations for strategically supporting high-priority advocacy. The task forces are expected to finalize their recommendations by January 12. Meanwhile, all discussions are happening publicly on the strategy wiki, and everyone is invited to participate. The strategy wiki increased from 600 editors in September to 780 in October: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Other important strategy URLs: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Interviews http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Planning_Guiding_Summary http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fact_base TECHNOLOGY - CORE Hiring has begun for the Code Maintenance Engineer position on the core engineering team, responsible for reviewing, integrating and deploying code, and advancing the overall MediaWiki development architecture. LiquidThreads, a complete overhaul of MediaWiki's discussion functionality, has been made available through a dedicated Wikimedia Labs site. The big picture here is that traditional wiki discussion require complex and atypical user interaction that make them difficult for new users to understand, and their lack of internal structure makes it harder to search or display them systematically. Thanks to hard work by contract developer Andrew Garrett based on the initial code from David McCabe, LiquidThreads is now maturing to a point to become useful for specific discussion spaces in the Wikimedia universe: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/10/mediawikis-new-discussion-system-in-testing-on-wikimedia-labs/ Wikimedia set up a part-time contract with Siebrand Mazeland to support the further growth and development of translatewiki.net, a third party project used for the localization of MediaWiki and other open source projects. Thanks to translatewiki.net and its large community of volunteers, MediaWiki is one of the most actively localized software packages available:
