Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
Hi Sam, first of all, let me thank you for your involvement in this—it's appreciated! Other comments follow in-line. By the time we see a final-draft plan in April/May, there is already little leeway for significant change. This probably means that there is something wrong with the process and the timing; we all know that getting community feedback (and replying to it) is a lengthy procedure, so I guess we should start it much earlier next time, probably around the New Year. Wouldn't it be better if, say, a draft of the budget and plan is submitted for community feedback, and only then brought up at a Board meeting so that the Board can include community feedback, too? Here is the assessment from this past February, as linked from the minutes of the Feb 1-2 board meeting: Yes, the PDF file is exactly the one I mentioned in my e-mail from weeks ago; it's also the same that Nemo_bis wrote about on this mailing list the moment it appeared on the WMF wiki. However, it should be noted that the community is at a very serious disadvantage here; that Board meeting took place in the first days of February, and the notes (and that file) were only published on March 8, leaving very little time for feedback. -- Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Strategic plans of the Wikimedia entities: could you link your strategy, please?
Excellent idea Ziko! I have added the WMAU strategic plan ( http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Strategic_plan ) to the list on Meta also. Cheers, Craig Franklin President - Wikimedia Australia On 23 April 2013 09:21, Everton Zanella Alvarenga t...@wikimedia.org wrote: Great idea. [2] I think WMF independent consultants that work in Brazil could add theirs and I invited my colleagues that support Wikimedia projects in Brazil to do the same. Tom On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 12:09 AM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: Great idea, Ziko. I helped clean up that page a bit also. If you are part of planning for the future of wiki Projects as well - such as Wikidata or Wikisource, please link to those docs (or just the collector-bugs listing their top-priority feature requests) as well. SJ On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 6:22 PM, Ziko van Dijk vand...@wmnederland.nl wrote: Hello, At the Wikimedia Conference in Milan several people have asked me about the strategy document of Wikimedia Nederland. We have the link on our chapter's page on Meta Wiki: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Nederland Then, I looked up the Meta Wiki page Strategy. It seems that the page can use some update. I allowed myself to link to the WMF Strategic Plan, and start a section with chapter strategies. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy Would you like to make a link to your strategy document? Kind regards Ziko --- Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter http://wikimedia.nl Wikimedia Nederland Postbus 167 3500 AD Utrecht --- ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom) A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Strategic plans of the Wikimedia entities: could you link your strategy, please?
On 22 April 2013 23:22, Ziko van Dijk vand...@wmnederland.nl wrote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy Would you like to make a link to your strategy document? I added a link to WMUK's five year strategy document, however I am wondering if this might work even better if the links appeared in a column of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports? This then becomes a more central place to find the status of all chapters (and thorgs) which you can then compare to the published strategy (and indeed, confirm if the have a published strategy). Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimania-l] Creating a Wikimania Committee
Hi, It's already there: - Provide advice (on request) with regards to other large-scale Wikimedia events to the community and movement bodies. *~Orsolya* 2013/4/23 Butch Bustria bu...@wikimedia.org.ph Hi, I suggest Wikimedia Conference Coordination Committee (WC3) so that conferences similar to *Regional Wikimanias* or *Thematic Wikimania* be accommodated. Butch On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 1:42 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.ay...@gmail.comwrote: On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 10:17 PM, James Forrester jdforres...@gmail.com wrote: Dear all, A small group of long-time Wikimaniacs have been working on the perrenial plan to produce a Wikimania Committee - a community group who would help steer Wikimania from year to year, advising each local hosting team and ensuring that the processes are open, transparent and community-led. Here are our drafts of what we think we'd want the committee to be like, a charter, and the resolution which we're submitting to the WMF Board: * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Committee * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Committee/Charter * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_resolutions/Wikimania_Committee Comments are very welcome; we're trying to get this done fairly quickly, and of course we will iterate these plans as we get feedback and hopefully more forward on the oft-stalled next steps. J. -- James D. Forrester jdforres...@gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity) I've been working on these documents as well, and am glad that we're once again moving forward on this idea. It's been discussed for a long time -- for at least the last five Wikimanias! And from the conversations I've been in over the years, I think there's been pretty broad consensus that having a community-driven oversight committee for Wikimania, as proposed here, is a good idea. The idea is that the committee would ensure continuity and planning from year to year as well as help provide oversight of annual conference planning; and it would be a more formal and representative mechanism than we've had in the past. After long discussions, I think we are finally (!) in a good position to make the committee happen now. Please add your feedback and questions, and help make this proposal better. I'm also happy to propose James as the initial chair of the committee, and also very happy that he's willing to do it :) He's been working hard at keeping the Wikimania process generally on track this year and for the past several years, has helped shepherd many ideas into this proposal, and is in my opinion the best person to get the committee off the ground. best, Phoebe ___ Wikimania-l mailing list wikimani...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l -- Roman Butch Bustria Jr. Vice President (2012-2013) Wikimedia Philippines Inc. -- The information contained in this message is privileged and intended only for the recipients named. If the reader is not a representative of the intended recipient, any review, dissemination or copying of this message or the information it contains is prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify the sender, and delete the original message and attachments. Please consider the environment before printing this email. ___ Wikimania-l mailing list wikimani...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposal: [WCA][Governance] Training for chapter and thematic org. board members
As you say, the WMF and a few chapters do have such an induction process already. Perhaps we can coordinate those existing processes with whatever is developed for the rest of the affiliates. For instance, there might be a few of these workshops each year; at least one of them at Wikimania. The WMF could co-sponsor the Wikimania workshop, since at that meeting we usually induct some new Trustees (including any new elected or chapter-selected Trustees). There should also be in-depth training available for those who want to learn about specific tasks of boards, which at least one Trustee should be familiar with: financial oversight; legal oversight; recruiting and evaluating an ED; strategy development. It may be more cost-effective for us to invite some experts to come and give a dozen workshops over the 3 days of Wikimania than to send dozens of individual Trustees to such workshops around the world. @Rodrigo - yes, materials developed for such workshops should be shared publicly, translated, available to all. And yes, some topics will be different in different countries - not only based on whether they are in Europe, but also based on the national laws in their jurisdiction. But I think shared training is still a good idea. Regards, SJ On Apr 21, 2013 4:20 AM, Fae f...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: The majority of chapter boards (and the proposed thematic organizations) do not routinely have an induction process with training in expected reporting requirements, liability as directors, the role of oversight and how to maintain a competent and professional board function, etc. At the Milan conference, I shall be proposing that the WCA takes a lead in arranging a shared training course and workshop with the aim of this being a regular planned activity, so that chapters and other groups agree basic expectations for the behaviours and competencies of board members, and benefit from the efficiencies of a shared training event, hopefully hosted by one of the chapters with handy facilities to support it. I have chatted about this proposition during coffee breaks with 4 different 'large' chapters, and the feedback so far is that this would be an easy way of improving the quality of our governance and of definite direct benefit to many of our organizations. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 2:26 AM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tom...@twkozlowski.net wrote: Hi Sam, first of all, let me thank you for your involvement in this—it's appreciated! Other comments follow in-line. By the time we see a final-draft plan in April/May, there is already little leeway for significant change. This probably means that there is something wrong with the process and the timing; we all know that getting community feedback (and replying to it) is a lengthy procedure, so I guess we should start it much earlier next time, probably around the New Year. Gah! As someone who works for the foundation and has had to deal with budget issues in engineering (though this is my personal opinion) the budget process is already incredibly long, drawn out, and stressful. If I had to start the planning in November to get a draft out by Jan 1, then keep revising it until May... not only would that take up a large amount of staff time, it'd also cause a stressful process to be even more stressful. Wouldn't it be better if, say, a draft of the budget and plan is submitted for community feedback, and only then brought up at a Board meeting so that the Board can include community feedback, too? -- Leslie Carr Wikimedia Foundation AS 14907, 43821 http://as14907.peeringdb.com/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
Hello again, A few comments inline: Leslie Carr writes: As someone who works for the foundation and has had to deal with budget issues in engineering (though this is my personal opinion) the budget process is already incredibly long, drawn out, and stressful. This is a problem that we should address. A good budget process should be a helpful planning exercise, aligned with existing work, and not overly stressful. Particularly in our movement, where we have the flexibility to raise funds for whatever seems truly important and urgent. Last fall, Erik suggested moving towards a more continuous planning model and away from monolithic annual plans; we should certainly think about this and other more natural budgeting/planning models in the coming year. If I had to start the planning in November to get a draft out by Jan 1... I don't think any /additional/ planning would be needed to realize Tomasz's suggestion - just faster communication. The Board already gets a draft of the midyear-review-and-lookahead a few weeks ahead of its Q3 meeting. All we need to do is publish a simple version of this for the community, at around the same time. That would allow any first-blush feedback from the community to inform the Board discussion. On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 5:26 AM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tom...@twkozlowski.net wrote: Wouldn't it be better if, say, a draft of the budget and plan is submitted for community feedback, and only then brought up at a Board meeting so that the Board can include community feedback, too? I would say shared for community discussion rather than submitted for community feedback. That is, staff might not respond directly to community feedback. But the staff and Board would see related community discussion and take that into consideration. You are right to point out that it took too long to publish the final version of that review after the meeting. Materials from Board meetings that can be public -- such as the midyear review -- can be published right away, without waiting for meeting minutes to be approved. We have done this on occasion (especially for materials from the ED, who has often developed her recommendations directly on Meta) -- but should make this a habit, linked from the agenda as soon as it is published. Sam. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
The necessity of public comment on a detailed budget is overblown. I don't think the Foundation should dedicate a lot of time or resources into getting input into the budget development process from members of the community. This is one area where expertise and the ability to dedicate a substantial amount of time does matter, crowdsourcing a budget doesn't work. The WMF is not a wiki. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
On Tuesday, April 23, 2013, Nathan wrote: The necessity of public comment on a detailed budget is overblown. I don't think the Foundation should dedicate a lot of time or resources into getting input into the budget development process from members of the community. This is one area where expertise and the ability to dedicate a substantial amount of time does matter, crowdsourcing a budget doesn't work. The WMF is not a wiki. I fully agree. My team, Editor Engagement Experiments, was one of the few submitted to the FDC for approval.[1] We got almost no substantive questions or comments on the Talk page or mailing lists from community members about our budget. I got a lot more valuable feedback/questions from single hour-long meeting with Dariusz (chair of the FDC) than from any of the public discussion or question period. To Leslie's point and SJ's replies: no matter how efficient our process internally, adding a lengthy community discussion period adds overhead for staff. The idea that we would publish and not respond directly to volunteers, as SJ suggested, is silly. Of course we would. Having that discussion is the whole point of publishing something before it's finalized. The question is: is it worth the cost in staff time? In this case I think the answer is that it would suck time and energy from budget planning and would not add much real value to the budget other than warm and fuzzy feelings. The amount of transparency would also not be substantively increased, because we already publish the WMF budget and annual plan, and respond to inquiries about it. I'll finally note that budget planning internally is not a totally open collaborative process. Budget owners (typically directors at the management level) and above gather feedback and input from teams, but otherwise we leave it up to them to work out with Sue and and C-level staff. I am very happy to do this, and to be able to do my job without having to argue about money with anyone. I'd like it to stay that way, thanks. Steven 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Wikimedia_Foundation/Proposal_form ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Consultation opened for Bylaws change
Thank you for taking this step! I am glad that the board now involves the community in its bylaw changing process. Lodewijk 2013/4/22 Risker risker...@gmail.com Just in case others had problems with the links (thanks gmail...) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws/May_2013_-_Article_IV_Section_6_%28Vacancies%29 Risker On 22 April 2013 16:54, Alice Wiegand awieg...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi all, as Ting has announced in his earlier mail, the WMF Board prepared an amendment for its Bylaws to clarify the wording and ensure its ability to act especially in situations where a resignation reduces the number of trustees to less than nine or an officer position is affected. Please take a look at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws/May_2013_-_Article_IV_Section_6_(Vacancies)and leave your comments on the talk page. Tell us what you think about it, your comments are welcome. Regards, Alice. -- Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] The Human Hacking Field Guide - a story about open source and open content hackerdom - What's in it for you and how you can help.
The Human Hacking Field Guide - a story about open source and open content hackerdom - What's in it for you and how you can help. Hi all, you will hopefully enjoy reading this story: http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/human-hacking/ The Human Hacking Field Guide Taglined: Who said girls can't code? Furthermore, if you read it and enjoyed it, you can help by translating it to other languages (there are already translations to Arabic and to Hebrew), by making a sound recitation of parts of the story or one of its translations, or in extreme cases, also create recording of dramatic versions of it or selected scenes. And if you don't like it, you can make a derivative work: a parody, a mutation, etc. Here is the abstract for the story: [QUOTE] Jennifer is a trendy and popular high school senior who is living and studying in the vicinity of Los Angeles. Her best friend, Taylor, convinces her to try to become a developer of open source software. He puts her under the tutorship of a different friend of his, the female open source contributor Eve, who prefers to be called “Erisa”, and who is a self-conscious and rebelling punk, with whom Jennifer finds it hard to deal. Jennifer remains determined to learn how to become an open source developer from Erisa, but there are some surprises along the road. The story (a novella) is original and complete, and is made available, along with its source code, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License (Unported), either version 3.0, or at your option, any later version. Share, build upon, even sell, and Enjoy! (As long as you keep the derivatives under the same licence.) [/QUOTE] The story emulates a teenage story (but was enjoyed by many people - both old and young, who detest most of this genre), and certainly is not perfect, and has some unrealistic elements (see http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/human-hacking/conclusions/ ), and in a sense I tend to project a very good reality that may not take place yet, in hope that it will materialise in part and carry reality forward and make it progress, rather than just reflect or echo reality as badly as it is or I think it is. ( Like I said in a different story - http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Star-Trek/We-the-Living-Dead/ : « Some people may rather err on naïvity than on cynicism. » and that includes me. I've been an idealist from a very early age, and still am today, even though I'm a very different idealist than what I used to be even a year ago. I hope to remain an idealist forever. ) Anyway, if you are interested in contributing to the Human Hacking Field Guide (or HHFG for short) project, its publicity, etc. just reply. I'm not forcing you to, but it will be appreciated. NOTE If you have a good accent in English, and good English diction, you can help me with recording this story. Here is my best attempt at it: http://www.shlomifish.org/Files/files/sounds/HHFG-chapter-1-The-Things-you-do-to-Get-to-College.mp3 and it's not too good. This story may be useful for advocating contributing to open source and open content, so any help with it, may pay in spades with a lot of interest among young and old people in contributing to it. If you want, you can make the samples CC-by-sa, but I can also exempt you for having a different, non-commercial-by-default licence (in exchange to a share of the profit). /NOTE Best Regards, Mr. Shlomi Fish (a.k.a Rindolf). -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ The Human Hacking Field Guide - http://shlom.in/hhfg There is no IGLU Cabal! Its members can be arranged in N! orders to form N! different Cabals. The algorithm to find which order formulates the correct IGLU Cabal is NP‐Complete. Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Consultation opened for Bylaws change
Lodewijk, 23/04/2013 18:11: Thank you for taking this step! I am glad that the board now involves the community in its bylaw changing process. +1 What appears obvious in bylaws changes, never is. Vacancies, in particular, are among the trickiest matters to deal with in bylaws; I left a comment about this on talk. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
Steven Walling, 23/04/2013 17:58: I fully agree. My team, Editor Engagement Experiments, was one of the few submitted to the FDC for approval.[1] We got almost no substantive questions or comments on the Talk page or mailing lists from community members about our budget. [...] That the FDC process has these problems, is a well-known issue and is completely unrelated. Also, WMF is surely not the entity having more problems coordinating its planning process with the FDC's. On both the matters see http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/wmconf2013-fdc-feedback ; please don't mix things up. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
Steven, I am actually disappointed to see you bring such an example to back up a thesis that — that's the impression I'm getting — the community cannot provide valuable feedback on budget-related matters. The experience that I have is quite opposite: as far as I am aware, community members have been providing fantastic feedback for all kinds of issues, including financial ones (with the GAC, which is a community committee, being the most prominent example). In this case I think the answer is that it would suck time and energy from budget planning and would not add much real value to the budget other than warm and fuzzy feelings. The amount of transparency would also not be substantively increased, because we already publish the WMF budget and annual plan, and respond to inquiries about it. As I wrote in one of my previous e-mails, there is very little point in providing feedback/commenting on something that's already been adopted and put into motion. It would be much more inviting and empowering for community members if they could comment on an actual plan, with the feeling that their feedback might actually be put into consideration and make a difference. Commenting on a budget for a fiscal year that starts in on July 1 in August does not give that feeling—let us just take this year's annual plan as an example: https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf was only published on July 28. That getting feedback on budget might suck time and energy from Foundation staff is probably of little concern for community members. -- Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
from my point of view, it would be really great if there was more feedback from the community on the FDC proposals, but I also understand that reading detailed proposals is not necessarily something that many active members have the necessary time for. I think it is clear that the community can provide valuable feedback, although any feedback just in itself should not be the purpose in its own, right? best, dariusz On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 8:09 PM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tom...@twkozlowski.net wrote: Steven, I am actually disappointed to see you bring such an example to back up a thesis that -- that's the impression I'm getting -- the community cannot provide valuable feedback on budget-related matters. The experience that I have is quite opposite: as far as I am aware, community members have been providing fantastic feedback for all kinds of issues, including financial ones (with the GAC, which is a community committee, being the most prominent example). In this case I think the answer is that it would suck time and energy from budget planning and would not add much real value to the budget other than warm and fuzzy feelings. The amount of transparency would also not be substantively increased, because we already publish the WMF budget and annual plan, and respond to inquiries about it. As I wrote in one of my previous e-mails, there is very little point in providing feedback/commenting on something that's already been adopted and put into motion. It would be much more inviting and empowering for community members if they could comment on an actual plan, with the feeling that their feedback might actually be put into consideration and make a difference. Commenting on a budget for a fiscal year that starts in on July 1 in August does not give that feeling--let us just take this year's annual plan as an example: https://wikimediafoundation.**org/w/index.php?title=File:* *2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_**Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdfhttps://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File:2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf was only published on July 28. That getting feedback on budget might suck time and energy from Foundation staff is probably of little concern for community members. -- Tomasz __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- __ dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak profesor zarządzania kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i centrum badawczego CROW Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours about upcoming account creation and login redesigns
Hey all, As you might know, the Editor Engagement Experiments team spent several weeks in 2012-13 testing changes to the account creation page, aiming to make it easier for new editors to join our projects.[1] Soon you'll see wider announcements on-wiki and on the blog about the soft launch of the interface changes we've built now that testing is over. The short version: for roughly a week, we're initially launching the changes in MediaWiki core on an opt-in basis, so that editors can test the localizations and hunt for bugs on their home wiki without potentially disrupting the essential functions of login and account creation. This Saturday the 27th at 18:00 UTC,[2] we'll be hosting IRC office hours to talk about these changes with anyone interested. Please join us. :-) -- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/ 1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Account_creation_user_experience 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
Exactly. The community is involved in the strategic planning process, and has the opportunity to review the spending and changes over time, both through the visible elements of annual planning and the annual reports. In addition, there is (obviously) pretty robust discussion here when questions arise about priorities. I don't know that a new stage of budget development of community feedback would be very useful. Many people may not be familiar with what an in-process budget for $30m+ of spending looks like, or how they arrive at the final product (which is usually presented publicly, and even internally at higher levels, in a summary format). It simply isn't reasonable to expect that anyone outside the WMF is going to have meaningful input on the minutiae of budgeting. Time and attention of community members is best spent on FDC proposals, strategic planning and Board elections - and the levers for those roles already exist. ~Nathan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
It's good to see so much interest in this thread. The purpose of transparency is not feedback. It is valuable in its own right. It reduces surprise and supports planning discussions elsewhere in the movement. And any information shared in a lookahead document would be at a high level; not budget minutiae. To be clear about my earlier comment, I started a section about it on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Proposal:_Sharing_future_forecasts_and_annual_plans On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com writes: adding a lengthy community discussion period adds overhead for staff. This assumes the only options are total secrecy and lengthy public discussion. We have other options. I see at least four: 0) Secrecy -- noone sees drafts or ideas until they are finalized. 1) Publishing to inform -- private drafting; a few draft snapshots published for transparency; comments not encouraged (nor responded to, except to correct errata). 2) Public drafting -- iterating on an idea in public, with comments expected (but only occasionally responded to). 3) Collaborative drafting -- requesting feedback and comments (regularly responded to and acted upon, including changing tone focus) The last is the only one that involves scheduling time for public discussion. Sue has, wonderfully, developed some personal thoughts and recommendations as public drafts. She makes it clear how much feedback is welcome (This is just a scratch pad for me... You can probably just ignore it. # it's not a collaborative process # I'll respond as much as I've got time to). This is clear, well-received, and limited-overhead. I think our planning should fall somewhere between 1 and 2; currently it is around 0.5. We want to solicit thoughtful feedback through FDC review. And we can be faster about sharing the drafts we already publish. Phoebe writes: I think ideally we'd actually be talking about community input into more of an ongoing strategic-planning type process that helps shape budget planning, not the other way around. Yes, this is why the timing of discussions triggered by each plan is not so sensitive. But annual planning is a natural trigger for revisiting our longer-term strategies. SJ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lack of community involvement in WMF budget planning
On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: It's good to see so much interest in this thread. The purpose of transparency is not feedback. It is valuable in its own right. It reduces surprise and supports planning discussions elsewhere in the movement. I do agree with this. (Though transparency in this area might come more naturally if it was easier to work on a spreadsheet in a wiki!) But, this thread was started with the specific idea of increasing community input into the budgeting process, so the question I was trying to answer is: how can that be made most effective? -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
