Re: [Wikimedia-l] Quarterly reviews of high priority WMF initiatives

[ENWP Pine]

Eric,

This is great. I think this initiative may lead to benefits on multiple fronts. 
Thank you for this good news!

Cheers,

Pine
  
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[Wikimedia-l] Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources

[Geoff Brigham]

*Hi all, *
*
*
*We are asking for community consultation on five proposed guidelines
relating to potential conflicts of interest when people ask for resources
belonging to the Wikimedia movement.

For your review and comments, you may find more information, a proposed
Board resolution, and the proposed guidelines here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest

Please feel free to join the discussion on the talk page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest

Thank you for your time and expertise.

*
Geoff Brigham
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources

[Mbingu Safidi]

Hello,

is Wikimedia Foundation interested in involving communities that don't
speak English in this consultation?

Thank you,

MS

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Geoff Brigham  wrote:
> *Hi all, *
> *
> *
> *We are asking for community consultation on five proposed guidelines
> relating to potential conflicts of interest when people ask for resources
> belonging to the Wikimedia movement.
>
> For your review and comments, you may find more information, a proposed
> Board resolution, and the proposed guidelines here:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
>
> Please feel free to join the discussion on the talk page:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
>
> Thank you for your time and expertise.
>
> *
> Geoff Brigham
> General Counsel
> Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources

[Philippe Beaudette]

Yes. From the linked page:"We encourage international participation,
and, if more time is needed to allow for translations or comments, we
want to take that into consideration."

So please, yes!

PB

—
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc



On Dec 21, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Mbingu Safidi  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> is Wikimedia Foundation interested in involving communities that don't
> speak English in this consultation?
>
> Thank you,
>
> MS
>
> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Geoff Brigham  
> wrote:
>> *Hi all, *
>> *
>> *
>> *We are asking for community consultation on five proposed guidelines
>> relating to potential conflicts of interest when people ask for resources
>> belonging to the Wikimedia movement.
>>
>> For your review and comments, you may find more information, a proposed
>> Board resolution, and the proposed guidelines here:
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
>>
>> Please feel free to join the discussion on the talk page:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
>>
>> Thank you for your time and expertise.
>>
>> *
>> Geoff Brigham
>> General Counsel
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

There are already a few questions on the talk page.

Mbingu Safidi, 21/12/2012 16:07:

is Wikimedia Foundation interested in involving communities that don't
speak English in this consultation?


Involving more communities is always a good thing, but (for the sake of 
clarity) as far as I can understand this involves only WMF 
administration, not Wikimedia projects: the en.wiki COI policy was 
linked probably by mistake and e.g. the page states clearly that paid 
editing is outside of the scope of the proposal.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources

[Mbingu Safidi]

Thanks.

I see. A text only in English is very welcome to other communities
know there is a consultation.

Best,

MS

On 21 December 2012 13:09, Philippe Beaudette  wrote:
> Yes. From the linked page:"We encourage international participation,
> and, if more time is needed to allow for translations or comments, we
> want to take that into consideration."
>
> So please, yes!
>
> PB
>
> —
> Philippe Beaudette
> Director, Community Advocacy
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc
>
>
>
> On Dec 21, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Mbingu Safidi  wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> is Wikimedia Foundation interested in involving communities that don't
>> speak English in this consultation?
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> MS
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Geoff Brigham  
>> wrote:
>>> *Hi all, *
>>> *
>>> *
>>> *We are asking for community consultation on five proposed guidelines
>>> relating to potential conflicts of interest when people ask for resources
>>> belonging to the Wikimedia movement.
>>>
>>> For your review and comments, you may find more information, a proposed
>>> Board resolution, and the proposed guidelines here:
>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
>>>
>>> Please feel free to join the discussion on the talk page:
>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
>>>
>>> Thank you for your time and expertise.
>>>
>>> *
>>> Geoff Brigham
>>> General Counsel
>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>> ___
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>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Translation of documents [was: Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources]

[Christophe Henner]

Hi,

Changing topic to keep the COI thread on-topic :)

I understand it's frustrating to have these texts only in english, but
could you also please try to get things from WMF perspective?

In what languages should it translated? The most spoken in the world?
The top 10 active communities? The top 10 editing community? The top
10 growing community? All of them? And if they pick 10 languages, it
won't end the moaning.

And translating all the documents in 10 or 20 languages would be quite
expensive in the end, would it be the best use of donors money?

Isn't the issue in how we organize ourselves, in the movement (and
that includes everyone from community members to wikimedia
organizations) to handle translations? Perhaps the best way to do it
would be to have an automated translating script. Wouldn't be perfect,
but it would provide a raw translation and if the community wants to
get involved they just have to fix the automatic translation.

I don't know though how hard it would be to code that kind of things?
We could perhaps use Google Translate (even if it's a paying service
it doesn't seem that expensive
https://developers.google.com/translate/v2/pricing?hl=fr)

--
Christophe


On 21 December 2012 16:14, Mbingu Safidi  wrote:
> Thanks.
>
> I see. A text only in English is very welcome to other communities
> know there is a consultation.
>
> Best,
>
> MS
>
> On 21 December 2012 13:09, Philippe Beaudette  
> wrote:
>> Yes. From the linked page:"We encourage international participation,
>> and, if more time is needed to allow for translations or comments, we
>> want to take that into consideration."
>>
>> So please, yes!
>>
>> PB
>>
>> —
>> Philippe Beaudette
>> Director, Community Advocacy
>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc
>>
>>
>>
>> On Dec 21, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Mbingu Safidi  wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> is Wikimedia Foundation interested in involving communities that don't
>>> speak English in this consultation?
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>>
>>> MS
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Geoff Brigham  
>>> wrote:
 *Hi all, *
 *
 *
 *We are asking for community consultation on five proposed guidelines
 relating to potential conflicts of interest when people ask for resources
 belonging to the Wikimedia movement.

 For your review and comments, you may find more information, a proposed
 Board resolution, and the proposed guidelines here:
 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest

 Please feel free to join the discussion on the talk page:
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest

 Thank you for your time and expertise.

 *
 Geoff Brigham
 General Counsel
 Wikimedia Foundation
>>>
>>> ___
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>>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Translation of documents [was: Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources]

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Christophe Henner, 21/12/2012 16:27:

I understand it's frustrating to have these texts only in english, but
could you also please try to get things from WMF perspective?

In what languages should it translated? The most spoken in the world?
The top 10 active communities? The top 10 editing community? The top
10 growing community? All of them? And if they pick 10 languages, it
won't end the moaning.


Moot argument. Priorities for languages could and should be set, if 
someone cared about it.



Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Translation of documents [was: Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources]

[Christophe Henner]

On 21 December 2012 16:36, Federico Leva (Nemo)  wrote:
> Christophe Henner, 21/12/2012 16:27:
>
>> I understand it's frustrating to have these texts only in english, but
>> could you also please try to get things from WMF perspective?
>>
>> In what languages should it translated? The most spoken in the world?
>> The top 10 active communities? The top 10 editing community? The top
>> 10 growing community? All of them? And if they pick 10 languages, it
>> won't end the moaning.
>
>
> Moot argument. Priorities for languages could and should be set, if someone
> cared about it.
> 
>
> Nemo
>
>

Well, feels weird to see french as 1st priority frankly.

That said, I would rather have a document with a medium quality
translation for all languages possible rather than a very good in 14
languages :)

Wouldn't the solution I mentionned, automated translation through
Google Translate, be a good way to do that? And we could of course top
the automated system with a human one for the most "important"
language.

--
Christophe

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[Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[James Salsman]

Sj,

I appreciate your kind words because I am somewhat frustrated.

> thank you for your nuanced statistical comments; something we could use more 
> of.

Well, I have two additional questions for you and your colleagues
concerning fiduciary duties relative to the observed growth rates. I'm
not going to go into my issues with the volunteer contributed
messaging not being tested, or whether multivariate testing can or can
not measure donations. My previous message should make my sentiment on
those issues clear.

This year, after the Chief Revenue Officer claimed that it would be
unlikely to "significantly" exceed last year's fundraising,[1] the
Annual Plan was adjusted to reflect a much slower growth rate in
fundraising.[2] However, page views grew from 16.4 billion last
December to 20.8 billion last month in line with their longstanding
exponential trend,[3] and it became immediately apparent from the
first days of presenting banners to all readers on November 27th that
fundraising was occurring at about double last year's rate.[4] In
spite of that, fundraising was deactivated just over a week later.[4]
Then, on December 14, the fundraiser goal was announced for the first
time as $25 million.[5] And now, apparently, fundraising has been
discontinued for the year.[6]

Would you and the other members of the Board of Trustees please state
whether, and why or why not, deliberately slowing fundraising while
page views continue to grow at the same exponential rate they have
been over the past several years, is compatible with the fiduciary
duty of the Board and employees? Would you please request comment
concerning whether the community has confidence in this deliberate
slow-down? Thank you.

Best regards,
James Salsman

[1] 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2012/How_Wikimedia_revenue_grows#So_how_much_more_can_we_raise_in_2012.3F

[2] 
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers#What.27s_the_revenue_target_for_2012-13.2C_and_how_does_it_compare_to_previous_years.3F

[3] http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/pageviews

[4] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics

[5] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-December/123043.html

[6] 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Fundraising_2012&diff=4885494&oldid=4884949

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Translation of documents [was: Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources]

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Christophe Henner, 21/12/2012 16:43:

Well, feels weird to see french as 1st priority frankly.


That's an old proposal meant to start a discussion, it gives some criteria.



That said, I would rather have a document with a medium quality
translation for all languages possible rather than a very good in 14
languages :)

Wouldn't the solution I mentionned, automated translation through
Google Translate, be a good way to do that? And we could of course top
the automated system with a human one for the most "important"
language.


I don't see the point of the proposal. I'm quite sure people are able to 
use Google Translate themselves, and the Translate extension already 
provides machine translation features. 

Not to mention that /reading/ a document is not enough to actively 
engage in (the discussion about) it, someone should be listening...


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Thomas Dalton]

Raising money you don't need would be a gross breach of a charity trustee's
fiduciary duties...
On Dec 21, 2012 3:55 PM, "James Salsman"  wrote:

> Sj,
>
> I appreciate your kind words because I am somewhat frustrated.
>
> > thank you for your nuanced statistical comments; something we could use
> more of.
>
> Well, I have two additional questions for you and your colleagues
> concerning fiduciary duties relative to the observed growth rates. I'm
> not going to go into my issues with the volunteer contributed
> messaging not being tested, or whether multivariate testing can or can
> not measure donations. My previous message should make my sentiment on
> those issues clear.
>
> This year, after the Chief Revenue Officer claimed that it would be
> unlikely to "significantly" exceed last year's fundraising,[1] the
> Annual Plan was adjusted to reflect a much slower growth rate in
> fundraising.[2] However, page views grew from 16.4 billion last
> December to 20.8 billion last month in line with their longstanding
> exponential trend,[3] and it became immediately apparent from the
> first days of presenting banners to all readers on November 27th that
> fundraising was occurring at about double last year's rate.[4] In
> spite of that, fundraising was deactivated just over a week later.[4]
> Then, on December 14, the fundraiser goal was announced for the first
> time as $25 million.[5] And now, apparently, fundraising has been
> discontinued for the year.[6]
>
> Would you and the other members of the Board of Trustees please state
> whether, and why or why not, deliberately slowing fundraising while
> page views continue to grow at the same exponential rate they have
> been over the past several years, is compatible with the fiduciary
> duty of the Board and employees? Would you please request comment
> concerning whether the community has confidence in this deliberate
> slow-down? Thank you.
>
> Best regards,
> James Salsman
>
> [1]
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2012/How_Wikimedia_revenue_grows#So_how_much_more_can_we_raise_in_2012.3F
>
> [2]
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers#What.27s_the_revenue_target_for_2012-13.2C_and_how_does_it_compare_to_previous_years.3F
>
> [3] http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/pageviews
>
> [4] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics
>
> [5]
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-December/123043.html
>
> [6]
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Fundraising_2012&diff=4885494&oldid=4884949
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Nathan]

Hi James,

How do you see the fiduciary responsibilities of the board playing into
fundraising targets? Are you suggesting the Board has a duty to raise as
much money as possible? I'm also curious why you highlight "deliberately
slowing fundraising" despite the 32% increase in revenue goals for the
12-13 fiscal year. That is an aggressive increase, even if less aggressive
proportionally than we've seen in prior years.

Nathan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[David Gerard]

On 21 December 2012 16:18, Thomas Dalton  wrote:

> Raising money you don't need would be a gross breach of a charity trustee's
> fiduciary duties...


Citation needed.

When WMF didn't have a financial buffer, people bitched about it. Now
it's getting one, people are bitching about that. Often the same
people.


- d.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Thomas Dalton]

Money for reasonable reserves is money you need...
On Dec 21, 2012 4:22 PM, "David Gerard"  wrote:

> On 21 December 2012 16:18, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
>
> > Raising money you don't need would be a gross breach of a charity
> trustee's
> > fiduciary duties...
>
>
> Citation needed.
>
> When WMF didn't have a financial buffer, people bitched about it. Now
> it's getting one, people are bitching about that. Often the same
> people.
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Sage Ross]

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 11:19 AM, Nathan  wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> How do you see the fiduciary responsibilities of the board playing into
> fundraising targets? Are you suggesting the Board has a duty to raise as
> much money as possible? I'm also curious why you highlight "deliberately
> slowing fundraising" despite the 32% increase in revenue goals for the
> 12-13 fiscal year. That is an aggressive increase, even if less aggressive
> proportionally than we've seen in prior years.
>

It's clear that this year, the fundraiser could easily raise much more
than the revenue goals, thanks to dramatic increases in banner
effectiveness. It probably wouldn't even "cost" that much in terms of
annoying readers -- not like ~2 months of 100% banners from previous
years.

Given the huge challenges our projects are facing -- at the rate we're
growing, we're never going to come close to the vision of "a world in
which every single person on the planet is given free access to the
sum of all human knowledge -- I do feel a little uncomfortable cutting
the fundraiser so short. It's hard to find effective and responsible
ways to spend that much donor money, but I guess now is the time to
start thinking more ambitiously about future budgets.

-Sage

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources

[Samuel Klein]

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Mbingu Safidi wrote:

> Thanks.
>
> I see. A text only in English is very welcome to other communities
> know there is a consultation.
>

Good point.  Is there a short three-word message like "Please translate
this!" that we can put in a template and translate into every language?

We used to use templates like this one:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:TranslationDescML

SJ


>
> Best,
>
> MS
>
> On 21 December 2012 13:09, Philippe Beaudette 
> wrote:
> > Yes. From the linked page:"We encourage international participation,
> > and, if more time is needed to allow for translations or comments, we
> > want to take that into consideration."
> >
> > So please, yes!
> >
> > PB
> >
> > —
> > Philippe Beaudette
> > Director, Community Advocacy
> > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc
> >
> >
> >
> > On Dec 21, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Mbingu Safidi 
> wrote:
> >
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> is Wikimedia Foundation interested in involving communities that don't
> >> speak English in this consultation?
> >>
> >> Thank you,
> >>
> >> MS
> >>
> >> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Geoff Brigham 
> wrote:
> >>> *Hi all, *
> >>> *
> >>> *
> >>> *We are asking for community consultation on five proposed guidelines
> >>> relating to potential conflicts of interest when people ask for
> resources
> >>> belonging to the Wikimedia movement.
> >>>
> >>> For your review and comments, you may find more information, a proposed
> >>> Board resolution, and the proposed guidelines here:
> >>>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
> >>>
> >>> Please feel free to join the discussion on the talk page:
> >>>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
> >>>
> >>> Thank you for your time and expertise.
> >>>
> >>> *
> >>> Geoff Brigham
> >>> General Counsel
> >>> Wikimedia Foundation
> >>
> >> ___
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> >> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
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-- 
Samuel Klein  @metasj   w:user:sj  +1 617 529 4266
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Nathan]

I think raising a lot more money because its possible to raise a lot more
money is a for-profit mentality; the WMF has been actually narrowing its
scope, in the understanding that it can't solve all problems or be all
things, and it makes a lot of sense to me to raise only what it already
knows can be spent on core, planned activity. To David's point, I do
believe that it's financially responsible to have a cushion (i.e. a reserve
or endowment) - and if the WMF decided to establish a true endowment, and
fund-raise for that, you wouldn't hear an objection from me. But otherwise,
it would be wrong to raise money purely based on the amount you thought you
could raise and without regard to what you plan to responsibly spend.

Nathan
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[James Salsman]

> How do you see the fiduciary responsibilities of the board playing into
> fundraising targets?

The employees of the board share their fiduciary responsibilities.

> Are you suggesting the Board has a duty to raise as
> much money as possible?

No. When actual fundraising far exceeded expectations, it was scaled
back to meet expectations based on the nonquantative predictions of
the Chief Revenue Officer. That is questionable behavior to say the
least, and suggests that the current leadership does not want to
continue to grow the organization to reach the full potential of the
current programs. In addition to the pageview growth continuing at
exponential rates, much of the Strategic Plan has been abandoned in a
recent reorganization, while employees other than executives are paid
far less than typical technology workers in San Francisco, and some of
the best performing Foundation efforts, such as the Education Program,
are so woefully understaffed that they continually cause serious
problems for the community. Have you seen how few Education Program
article talk page templates contain the correct date? Meanwhile, the
senior staff's most vaunted projects are behind schedule and lack
meaningful community volunteer participation. The leadership has not
been able or willing to address these issues.

> I'm also curious why you highlight "deliberately
> slowing fundraising" despite the 32% increase in revenue goals for the
> 12-13 fiscal year. That is an aggressive increase, even if less aggressive
> proportionally than we've seen in prior years.

If pageviews weren't increasing at double that rate, projects were on
time, and junior staff didn't have to live in high crime area Oakland
hovels, I would be less concerned.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Translation of documents [was: Request for consultation on proposed guidelines relating to potential conflicts of interest in requesting Wikimedia resources]

[Samuel Klein]

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
wrote:

> Christophe Henner, 21/12/2012 16:43:
>
>  Well, feels weird to see french as 1st priority frankly.
>>
>
> That's an old proposal meant to start a discussion, it gives some criteria.


That was based on primary/secondary language users and activity of
community, from a few years ago.  Chinese, French, and Spanish do still
seem to open up access to the largest communities of people around the
world when one considers [second-language readers who don't read English as
a first/second language].

Other suggestions welcome, of course.


> I don't see the point of the proposal. I'm quite sure people are able to
> use Google Translate themselves, and the Translate extension already
> provides machine translation features.  2012/09/07/translation-memory-**all-wikimedia-wikis/
> >
> Not to mention that /reading/ a document is not enough to actively engage
> in (the discussion about) it, someone should be listening...


Right.  Starting with a good human translation of a thumbnail summary, no
longer than a paragraph, is a useful standard that lot of multilingual
communities / processes use.

Then readers can know whether they should start reading the full document,
and discussing it in theiir language; others who don't want to read a poor
translation but do want to discuss the topic can engage without themselves
reading the whole thing.  This scales fairly well as long as 1-2 people are
willing to read in detail or know one of the languages into which the whole
has been thoroughly translated.

SJ

PS - Every time a topic like this comes up recently, I think about how
*totally wonderful*
the recent improvements in the translation toolchain we use are and make
translation by our community vastly easier than ie was even a year ago.  We
no longer have to think in terms of using Google Translate; we can start to
build our own translation memory -- or more than one in focused topic
areas.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Peter Coombe]

On 21 December 2012 17:00, James Salsman  wrote:
>> How do you see the fiduciary responsibilities of the board playing into
>> fundraising targets?
>
> The employees of the board share their fiduciary responsibilities.
>
>> Are you suggesting the Board has a duty to raise as
>> much money as possible?
>
> No. When actual fundraising far exceeded expectations, it was scaled
> back to meet expectations based on the nonquantative predictions of
> the Chief Revenue Officer. That is questionable behavior to say the
> least, and suggests that the current leadership does not want to
> continue to grow the organization to reach the full potential of the
> current programs. In addition to the pageview growth continuing at
> exponential rates, much of the Strategic Plan has been abandoned in a
> recent reorganization, while employees other than executives are paid
> far less than typical technology workers in San Francisco, and some of
> the best performing Foundation efforts, such as the Education Program,
> are so woefully understaffed that they continually cause serious
> problems for the community. Have you seen how few Education Program
> article talk page templates contain the correct date? Meanwhile, the
> senior staff's most vaunted projects are behind schedule and lack
> meaningful community volunteer participation. The leadership has not
> been able or willing to address these issues.
>
>> I'm also curious why you highlight "deliberately
>> slowing fundraising" despite the 32% increase in revenue goals for the
>> 12-13 fiscal year. That is an aggressive increase, even if less aggressive
>> proportionally than we've seen in prior years.
>
> If pageviews weren't increasing at double that rate, projects were on
> time, and junior staff didn't have to live in high crime area Oakland
> hovels, I would be less concerned.
>

Costs don't scale linearly with pageviews. Nor do donations,
especially when you consider that much of that growth in pageviews now
comes from the 'Global South' (where people generally have less
disposable income to donate) and from mobile devices (which we don't
really fundraise on, although I believe this is something WMF wants to
work on next year).

Peter / the wub
(a personal view)

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[James Salsman]

> Costs don't scale linearly with pageviews. Nor do donations,
> especially when you consider that much of that growth in pageviews now
> comes from the 'Global South' (where people generally have less
> disposable income to donate) and from mobile devices (which we don't
> really fundraise on, although I believe this is something WMF wants to
> work on next year).

This very reasonable sounding theory is contradicted by measuring the
actual data at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics

I have heard so many reasonable sounding theories from Foundation
staff who refuse to measure the corresponding data over the past year
that I am beginning to wonder whether I should compile them for
publication.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Thomas Dalton]

On Dec 21, 2012 5:48 PM, "James Salsman"  wrote:
>
> > Costs don't scale linearly with pageviews. Nor do donations,
> > especially when you consider that much of that growth in pageviews now
> > comes from the 'Global South' (where people generally have less
> > disposable income to donate) and from mobile devices (which we don't
> > really fundraise on, although I believe this is something WMF wants to
> > work on next year).
>
> This very reasonable sounding theory is contradicted by measuring the
> actual data at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics

There is no data on page views on that page...
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Matthew Walker]

>
> It's clear that this year, the fundraiser could easily raise much more
> than the revenue goals, thanks to dramatic increases in banner
> effectiveness. It probably wouldn't even "cost" that much in terms of

annoying readers -- not like ~2 months of 100% banners from previous
> years.


While true; I've been trawling around the web reading articles about our
fundraiser and though the articles have mostly been positive I have read
several that are substantially negative. What's even more worrying is the
number of comments on all the articles I've read which are starting to have
a tone that we're misrepresenting what we're doing, that we're misspending
the money, and even more concerning to me, that we already have more than
enough money and that we're turning into a glutton.

It's hard to find effective and responsible
> ways to spend that much donor money, but I guess now is the time to
> start thinking more ambitiously about future budgets.


I think it might also be time to begin to rethink about how to responsibly
fundraise -- we've moved far beyond needing money just for servers which is
the message we've left a lot of donors with in previous years. Zack and
Megan have made a good start with moving this perception but there's still
shaping left to be done. Until we do move it though, because of the
sentiment I've been seeing I feel like we should be extra careful --
especially in the arena of raising extra money that we do not already have
allocated and approved.

~Matt Walker
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Samuel Klein]

Hello James,

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:00 PM, James Salsman  wrote:


> > Are you suggesting the Board has a duty to raise as
> > much money as possible?
>
> No. When actual fundraising far exceeded expectations, it was scaled
> back to meet expectations based on the nonquantative predictions of
> the Chief Revenue Officer.


This assumption is incorrect.

Fundraising targets have been set to match our projected needs for the
year, for the past few years.  We have committed to ending the active
banner-driven fundraising once we meet our targets.

I'm a strong proponent of an endowment; but to fundraise for one you
message for one: you define what long-term support the endowment will
guarantee for the coming century, and you solicit contributions directly
towards that.

As Matt notes, there are many countervailing reasons for us to be moderate
in our requests of readers and donors, to ask only for what we need, and to
describe precisely each year what we plan to do with donor's help.  There
are similar reasons related to our own communities to be moderate in how
fast we grow staff compared to how fast we grow our global active community.

As to your specific concerns, I encourage fleshing them out as part of a
discussion of next year's budget.  You may find a helpful counterpoint to
your own anxiety in the discussion there, driven by people who feel that
our current budget is both too high and not directed at our bottlenecks.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Budget
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#2012-13

SJ
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[Wikimedia-l] chronically ill paraplegic, and donating to wikipedia ...

[rupert THURNER]

from the german "spendenticker":
... am chronically ill, paraplegic and have to use a wheelchair. but i
do get a small pension, and certainly i donate 

"Es ist für mich absolut notwendig für Wikipedia zu spenden. Jeder der
das Internet nutzt, nutzt auch Wikipedia und so ist der Egoismus an
dieser Stelle *nicht* angebracht. Ich selbst bin chronisch krank,
querschnittgelähmt und sitze im Rollstuhl mit einer sehr kleinen
Rente. Doch es ist für mich eine Selbstverständlichkeit zu spenden,
auch wenn ich keine tausende von Euro hinlegen kann. Doch wenn die
Internetgemeinde einen kleinen Beitrag spenden würde, müsste keine
Aufforderung mehr geschrieben werden. Jeder sollte sich darüber
Gedanken machen der Wikipedia nutzt. Eine aufwendige Aufgabe mit einem
Wissensinhalt, der nicht von alleine ins Netz kommt!
Also User, spendet für Wikipedia, damit es eines Tages nicht aus dem
Web verschwunden ist.

Schöne Weihnachten, ein gutes 2013 und Grüße!"

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] chronically ill paraplegic, and donating to wikipedia ...

[Quim Gil]

On 12/21/2012 10:25 AM, rupert THURNER wrote:

from the german "spendenticker":
... am chronically ill, paraplegic and have to use a wheelchair. but i
do get a small pension, and certainly i donate 

"Es ist für mich absolut notwendig für Wikipedia zu spenden. Jeder der
das Internet nutzt, nutzt auch Wikipedia und so ist der Egoismus an
dieser Stelle *nicht* angebracht. Ich selbst bin chronisch krank,
querschnittgelähmt und sitze im Rollstuhl mit einer sehr kleinen
Rente. Doch es ist für mich eine Selbstverständlichkeit zu spenden,
auch wenn ich keine tausende von Euro hinlegen kann. Doch wenn die
Internetgemeinde einen kleinen Beitrag spenden würde, müsste keine
Aufforderung mehr geschrieben werden. Jeder sollte sich darüber
Gedanken machen der Wikipedia nutzt. Eine aufwendige Aufgabe mit einem
Wissensinhalt, der nicht von alleine ins Netz kommt!
Also User, spendet für Wikipedia, damit es eines Tages nicht aus dem
Web verschwunden ist.

Schöne Weihnachten, ein gutes 2013 und Grüße!"


I couldn't stop two tears while reading this!

Thank you for forwarding. Messages likes this are the best reminder to 
make the best use of each minute of my paid time and any cent spent.


And now... back to work!  :'-)

--
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[James Salsman]

SJ,

Thank you for your reply:

> Fundraising targets have been set to match our projected needs for the
> year, for the past few years.

Does the very recent abandonment of several aspects of the Strategic
Plan, after the July 2012-3 Annual Plan goal was set at $46.1 million,
which itself was substantially reduced after the Chief Revenue Officer
reported that "significant" increases in fundraising would be very
difficult, and without any messaging to donors that those aspects were
being abandoned, represent a breach donors' trust?

Why should donors who believed they were giving to fund the Strategic
Plan in line with the growth of the actual utilization of Foundation
services not feel betrayed by this?

Why should donors who expect the Foundation to prepare for contingency
not feel betrayed by the abandonment of fundraising in the last week
of December, which has over the past several years produced two to
four times as much funding per day than a typical fundraising day?

> As Matt notes, there are many countervailing reasons for us to be moderate
> in our requests of readers and donors

On one hand, we have anecdotal reports of a handful of opinion pieces
complaining about fundraising, but nowhere near the ridicule and
outrage across the web from last year's campaign. On the other hand we
have actual small donor fundraising amounting to roughly double per
day over last year. Which do you think is more representative of
actual donor sentiment?

> As to your specific concerns, I encourage fleshing them out as part of a
> discussion of next year's budget.  You may find a helpful counterpoint to
> your own anxiety in the discussion there, driven by people who feel that
> our current budget is both too high and not directed at our bottlenecks.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Budget
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#2012-13

I have looked through those, and they do not seem to be a traditional
accounts-based budget, or even a discussion of specific budget line
items. Which specific items on those pages represents the salary ratio
between executive and junior staff?  Which represents the Education
Program staffing level?  Where is the discussion of an endowment that
you mentioned? Where is the recent abandonment of much of the
Strategic Plan discussed on those pages?

Thomas Dalton wrote:

> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics
>
> There is no data on page views on that page...

My first message today included a link to
http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/pageviews which can also be found
by searching various indices for "wikimedia pageviews".

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[Wikimedia-l] Ombudsman Commission

[Maggie Dennis]

Hi

It's coming close to time for annual appointments of community members to
serve on the Ombudsman commission. This commission works on all Wikimedia
projects to investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy,
especially in use of CheckUser tools, and to mediate between the
complaining party and the individual whose work is being investigated. They
may also assist the General Counsel, the Executive Director or the Board of
Trustees in investigations of these issues. For more on their duties and
roles, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission

This is a call for community members interested in volunteering for
appointment to this commission. Commissioners should be experienced
Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used the CheckUser
tool OR who have the technical ability to understand the CheckUser tool and
the willingness to learn it. They are expected to be able to engage
neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when to recuse when
other roles and relationships may cause conflict. (In the past,
commissioners have turned in other roles that could cause conflict.)

Commissioners are required to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation and must
be willing to comply with the appropriate board policies (such as the
access to non-public data policy and the privacy policy). This is a
position that requires a high degree of discretion and trust.

If you are interested in serving on this commission, please drop me a note
detailing your experience on the projects, your thoughts on the commission
and what you hope to bring to the role. The commission is deliberately
quite small, so slots are limited, but all applications are appreciated.
The deadline for applications is January 10. Any timezone. :)

Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think
may be interested.

Thank you!
Maggie


-- 
Maggie Dennis
Community Liaison
WikimediaFoundation.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Quarterly reviews of high priority WMF initiatives

[Erik Moeller]

On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 7:31 PM, Steven Walling
 wrote:

>> - Discussion of proposed changes (e.g. resourcing, targets) and other
>> action items

> One quick item of clarification here Erik: does "Discussion of proposed
> changes" mean proposals by the team, or proposals by those on the review
> panel?

Ultimately the shape of these reviews is really up to Sue, but I'll
give you my quick take on it.

In general, a project team needs to take ownership of its commitments,
and should come into a review with a realistic and honest assessment
of where things are, and be prepared to bring clear recommendations
and questions, such as:

- We won't be able to hit target X unless we get resource Y;

- We set a target on the basis of unrealistic assumptions, we're
proposing the following new projections;

- We've dropped X deliverable because relative to our core commitments
it was lower priority, let us know if you need us to put it back on
the list.

But let's not pretend that things are always a straightforward
sign-off process. Sometimes there may be a disconnect where a project
team thinks a project is just about to turn the corner, but the
organizational leadership isn't buying it, or where there are major
concerns about some choices a team has made.

This may lead to challenging questions, suggestions ("you're welcome
to drop X deliverable if it'll help you make Y commitment") or
concrete asks ("please bring us a set of recommendations to address
Z"). The point would typically be to explore issues in an honest way
as early as possible and set the stage for changes driven by the team.
Where that's not possible (i.e. because fundamentally a project is
doomed, or a team structure doesn't make sense), at least the
quarterly review process should foreshadow these concerns and support
honest and direct communications.

Erik
-- 
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Wikimedia-l] Legal Considerations: Naming of Organizations

[Geoff Brigham]

Hi all,

Some have asked me to give some thought to various considerations in the
naming of thematic organizations and user groups.  I'm putting some ideas
here:

1.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Thematic_Organizations#Thoughts_regarding_the_naming_of_thematic_organizations;
and
2.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Thematic_Organizations#Additional_thoughts_in_the_naming_of_thematic_organizations_and_user_groups

I of course welcome feedback and comments as we think these issues through.

Many thanks,

Geoff
-- 
Geoff Brigham
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Meet up in San Fran

[James Heilman]

*WikiProject Medicine / Wiki Med Foundation / UCSF College of Medicine is
having Events Jan. 8-11 in San Francisco at the UCSF Medical Campus:*

*Wikipedia/Wikimedia and Medicine Overview by me *(repeats every day at
noon)**
12-1PM on Fri. in N217
12-1PM on Tues. and Thurs. in Toland Hall
12-1PM on Wed. in HSW 303
* *
*Drop-in Editing Sessions*
1-3PM Tue-Fri in the Nursing Mezzanine

Other Wikipedians in the area are invited. Would be great to have
additional experienced Wikipedians for the editing sessions. Further
details and sign up here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/UCSF
-- 
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian

The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Matthew Walker]

James,

the Chief Revenue Officer reported that "significant" increases in
> fundraising would be very difficult
>

I cannot speak for what Zack was thinking -- but I can tell you - as a
member of the fundraising technology team - that I was shocked, utterly
amazed, and astounded at how successful this years fundraiser was. There's
a couple of reasons for this.

One -- banner impressions were down! Yes the report card says page views
went up; but did you know that when looking at only at the number of HTML
pages served to the top five deskop browsers that they actually went down a
couple percent from the same time last year? See [1] but you'll have to do
the maths yourself. This also serves the point that next year we do need to
get fundraising working on mobile devices.

Two -- The tests that Zack and Megan did in the months up to the official
launch showed that our old 'Sad Jimmy' banners were not pulling in anywhere
as near as much money as they used to. There's a reason the test results
page [2] is titled "We need a breakthrough". We were persistent and lucky
and got one. I strongly feel that it was extremely prudent to not gamble on
an unknown.

Three -- let's take a look at the numbers ceteris paribus. I'm going to
assume that fundraising numbers taken straight from [3] can be modeled as
an exponential because it'll make a bigger number, I've not normalized my
data for the length of the fundraisers (which was 50 days last year), nor
accounted for the state of the economy, nor taken out big donations, nor
for the loss in number of desktop browsers all of which will reduce the
number in actuality. Doing so I get ~50M raised from fundraising this year.
As an engineer I was trained to over-engineer to about 20% -- that turns
that number into ~40M. As you state, expected revenue from the plan would
be 46.1M -- that falls in the middle of my two numbers. If Zack did reduce
the expected revenue number it would be because he took a similar back of
the hand model and said "look how unrealistic that is -- that's just
silly". Which is what I would expect from someone using reasonable
judgement.


> Why should donors who believed they were giving to fund the Strategic
> Plan in line with the growth of the actual utilization of Foundation
> services not feel betrayed by this?


I could be wrong because I wasn't a member of the foundation last year and
didn't read all the banners - but I did donate my 20$ and thought I was
helping support the site's programmers and servers. I was not, I recall
with some clarity, donating because I'd read the strategic plan and agreed
with it. I don't feel betrayed at all.

Why should donors who expect the Foundation to prepare for contingency
> not feel betrayed by the abandonment of fundraising in the last week
> of December, which has over the past several years produced two to
> four times as much funding per day than a typical fundraising day?
>

My opinion would be that - it's laudable the board looked at what they a
considered reasonable sustainable growth curve and then held themselves too
it. Anything else would be corporate greed.


> On one hand, we have anecdotal reports of a handful of opinion pieces
> complaining about fundraising.
>

That's a fair point and I thank you for holding me accountable to my
statement. I will inject here, however, that my point was not about current
sentiment but about a potential growth of the "vocal minority" causing the
majority to think again about donating in the future. In any case I
routinely perform the following experiment as a small part of what I
consider my job. I search google for 'wikimedia fundraising' and limit the
time period to a month. I did so again this evening. In the first 20 twenty
results I had 4 positive, 2 negative, and 4 neutral sites. (The other ten
were Foundation pages or by foundation employees.) In them, I had a small
majority of positive comments, but with some very loud naysayers in the
background, the rest were fairly neutral. Your results may vary. Mine do
over time -- it seems that yes people are happy with the current campaign.
Possibly because we bugged them less? But in the lead up to it my fuzzy
memory recalls seeing a lot more negativity. Once again, I simply state we
need to be careful with public sentiment -- it's not a resource to squander
lightly.

~Matt Walker

[1] 
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportRequests.htmnormalized
by
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportClients.htm
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2012/We_Need_A_Breakthrough
[3] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics see
also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2012/FundStatScraper.py to
get the raw numbers
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