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Is the Credo donation open to all Wikipedia project editors, or just the
English Wikipedia project editors. Thank you for your help.
Jon
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>
> The recommendations draft
> is just about ready to move into finalized writing in a couple weeks
>
> http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People/Drafting_pages/…
>
It look ok, but coming from enwiki most of it seems rather obvious. It this
recommendation mostly intended for smaller wikis that may not have developed
clear BLP rules?
The exception is the end of the last item:
> [...] and content is suggested to be removed if the result of a deletion
> debate determines that there is no consensus to keep the hosted content.
>
which appears be meant to force "no consensus means delete" onto English
Wikipedia. Is that correct?
Can you tell me if any of the other items are meant to impose changes on
enwp?
Btw, are there logs from the March 15 IRC meeting?
Thanks,
Apoc2400
Along Keegan's idea about encouraging contributions in the reader's
native language, does Wikimedia track the preset language of visitors?
I know some analytics packages do, not sure if this is against
Wikimedia's privacy policies.
If the server senses the reader is preset to en, and looking at en,
then no message would be displayed during the campaign. If their
preset is say, sl, and they're looking at en, or vice-versa, then the
message would appear.
Is this technically possible? Is this within the boundaries of taste
(ie not being creepy)?
Nick
Having trouble posting. Trying again:
We had a banner last year to raise funds for the WMF. Unsure if anyone has
suggested this yet but how about running a banner to encourage our readers
to: 1) add content 2) correct spelling 3) revert vandalism?
I have asked many people about their use of Wikipedia and many are unaware
that it is even possible for them to edit. We could have something like
"Wikipedia is in the public domain that means it belongs to all of us.
Please help us expand, protect, and improve it" or some such thing? We
could either run this sort of message alone or combine it with the fun
raiser banner next year?
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc.
Paul Keegan notes:
"The Living people task force is churning along."
After looking for about 2 minutes at the linked Recommendations to the
Board of Trustees/Draft 2, I found numerous grammatical and
typographic errors in the statement. However, I am disinclined to
chip in and help correct these mistakes because Philippe Beaudette has
indefinitely blocked me from that wiki because I offered a strategic
recommendation regarding Jimmy Wales that he disagreed with.
Gregory Kohs
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-answ…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 release.
TECHNOLOGY - USABILITY
The usability team continued its development work for the scheduled
release on January 27th. This release replaces the plain-old text
editing window with an HTML IFrame element , which allows more precise
addressing of text for purposes such as navigation and formatting. It is
also the foundation for the next release, Citron, which will collapse
complex syntax such as templates to reduce the immediate complexity of
wiki editing for first-time editors. The release also includes
language-specific icons for formatting.
Due to an overwhelming amount of cross-browser testing for introducing
the Iframe element, the release was delayed for a week and was released
on February 4th.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/babaco-enhancments/
Evaluation of usability research firms for the third usability study
which is scheduled in March 2010 started. Three qualified usability
firms were contacted for proposal submission, based on the evaluation
from the submission in response to call for proposal for the second
round of the usability study in August 2009.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability,_Experience,_and_Progress_Stu…
In January, beta usage continued to increase. As of January 31, 2010, a
total of 512,000 users have tried the beta. Out of these users, 409,000
have kept using the beta, a retention rate of 80%. In January, the
monthly retention for all Wikimedia projects was 81.5%. This is down
slightly from December 2090, where the incremental retention was 82.4%.
This slight decrease is mainly caused by the decline of the retention
rate of English Wikipedia, which was 84.3% in January compared to 85.6%
in December. The retention of Japanese Wikipedia in the month of January
has increased to 72.1% from 64.9% in December.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey
MULTIMEDIA USABILITY PROJECT
A simplified and streamlined new upload interface design and user flow
was proposed for discussion by Guillaume Paumier, product manager of the
multi-media usability project. The next step is to prototype the new
design and refine the user flow.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multimedia:NewUpload
Neil Kandalgaonkar, software developer for the multimedia usability
project, completed his relocation to San Francisco.
The call for proposals for the first multimedia usability study has
started. The plan is to conduct the study with ten study participants in
March 2010.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multimedia:UX_study,_March_2010/CfP
A project update was posted to the WMF blog by Naoko Komura. The story
of successful multimedia assets donated from Galleries, Libraries,
Museums and Archives, made possible by chapters and volunteers, and how
these assets are integrated into Wikimedia projects, was told in a blog
post by Erik Moeller.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/26/multimedia-usability-project-underway/http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/27/enriching-wikimedia-commons-a-virtuous…
OTHER PROGRAM ACTIVITIES
During January, Frank Schulenburg and Pete Forsyth wrote a report about
the first phase of the Public Policy Initiative, a pilot subject matter
improvement initiative. The document gives a summary of the results of
the planning phase (November/December 2010) and draws first conclusions
for the design of the quality improvement phase (February 2010–September
2011). It documents the outcome of conversations with over 40 professors
and other academics at nine major universities. The document is freely
accessible on the outreach wiki:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Subject-Matter-Improvement_Pilot_Programhttp://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Public_Policy_Phase_I_Planning_-_Re…
To keep in touch with the participants of phase I, Pete wrote a
newsletter that informed all faculty members about the current status of
the project. As part of the planning for the second phase of the
initiative, Pete reached out to retired faculty associations as an
additional potential target group.
Marlita and Frank continued to work with the Bookshelf Project vendors.
They finished the work on the video script about NPOV and Verifiability
and reviewed the first version of the Welcome Packet content design.
Marlita started to create the infrastructure for working with secondary
school teachers and reached out to a number of institutions in order to
create interest and to recruit volunteers. Finally, Marlita kicked off
the relationship between WestEd, a national non-profit research and
service agency working with education and human development communities,
and the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, Frank and Pete started a
conversation with WestEd about the evaluation of Wikimedia's educational
initiatives.
Frank attended a meeting organized by the Craigslist Foundation and
discussed – with a group of changemakers from the Bay Area – how to
increase the impact of communities by sharing success stories online. As
a follow-up, Frank and Kathrin met with Peggy Duvette from Wiser Earth,
a user-generated online community space for the social and environmental
movement, and shared experiences about ways to document best practices.
Cary attended the Wikimeetup in Washington DC, the tour of the Library
of Congress and dinner with numerous functionaries from English
Wikipedia. Customer service and OTRS were among the discussion topics.
Cary had meetings with Thomas de Souza Buckup about Wikimedia Brasil's
future and relationship with the chapters and Siska Doviana from
Indonesia about their upcoming contest and Wikimania sponsorship.
COMMUNICATIONS
The 2008-09 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report was published online.
This is WMF's second Annual Report, and one of its key instruments of
accountability and transparency to donors, partners and stakeholders.
The report is a summary of the organization's financials, program
activities, milestones and accomplishments for a fiscal year.
The report was designed by Exbrook in San Francisco. It includes a
timeline of Wikimedia milestones together with significant world events,
a spread focusing on Wikipedia's coverage of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist
attacks, a global traffic chart comparing Wikipedia against other
informational websites, feature pages about Wikimedia Commons, Wikimania
2008 and “Wikis take Manhattan”, as well as specific summaries of WMF
and chapter activities. It was e-mailed to all Wikimedia Foundation donors.
The communications team in January was also busy following up on a very
successful fundraiser, and preparing for major announcements in January
and February.
Major Press Announcements:
January 5-
Wikipedia Annual Fundraiser Goal Supported by Record Number of Donors
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/2009_Fundraiser_Closing_…
January 28-
Wikimedia Foundation Hires Danese Cooper as Chief Technical Officer
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Danese_Cooper_joins_Wiki…
January blog posts
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/
Major coverage through January
1. Wikimedia beats its USD 8,000,000 goal (January 5)
Less coverage of our major fundraiser success this year than last, but
still a lot of positive blog and mainstream media mentions. With the
goal being met over the late December holidays, several key blogs drove
coverage in December ahead of the press announcement on Jan 5.
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/30352/53/http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2010/01/05/annual-wikipedia-fundraiser-nets-8-…http://flosse.blogging.fi/2010/01/13/should-the-wikimedia-grow-yes-because-…
2. Hebrew Wikipedia pushes past 100,000 articles (January 12)
Hebrew Wikipedia's 100,000 article milestone made waves in a number of
major Hebrew dailies and blogs, driven largely by the initiative of
Wikimedia Israel. Coverage ranged from the ongoing question of
credibility of information and facts on Wikipedia to the range of topics
now covered.
(HE)
http://www.140.co.il/blog/2010/01/06/סך-התרומות-שגייסה-ויקיפדיה-ב-2009-8-מי…
(HE) http://www.calcalist.co.il/internet/articles/0,7340,L-3385795,00.htmlhttp://www.mediabistro.com/baynewser/wikipedia/100000th_hebrew_wikipedia_en…
3. Wikipedia's 9th birthday (January 15)
Media outlets, bloggers, and microbloggers covered Wikipedia's 9th
birthday again this year, with positive tone reflection on the value of
the project. Coverage in India and southeast Asia focussed on related
meetups and discussions about expanding the presence of Wikipedia in the
region.
http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_wikipedia-hits-a-sixer-this-year_1…http://www.theawl.com/2010/01/nine-fine-wikipedia-entries-on-the-occasion-o…http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/01/15/wikipedia-happy-birthday/http://platonic.techfiz.info/2010/01/17/bangalore-wikipedians-celebrate-wik…
4. Coverage of our new Chief Technical Officer (January 28)
Upbeat coverage of the hiring of Danese Cooper as CTO. Microblog traffic
highlighted the very probably fact that Danese is the first female CTO
of the top ten web giants.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000028-264.htmlhttp://ostatic.com/blog/wikimedia-hires-danese-cooper-as-new-cto
Other worthwhile reads:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/jan/24/digital-media-skype-dld10-w…http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/technology/25link.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/books/15book.html
Communications campaign update, January 2010:
Fenton shifted its annual campaign work towards post-event reporting in
January, and is now in the process of developing a survey and report on
our now 240,000 strong donor base, building on a previous effort to
launch a donor survey. The report/analysis will provide us with
direction and thinking about best methods for outreach and engagement
with the donor base.
Fenton's work is also shifting towards a series of key communications
products: a short, modular video project that will be used in major
Wikimedia presentations, and for on-line sharing; a refined Wikimedia
presentation system for use by staff and volunteer spokespersons, and a
'leave-behind' printed product intended to shed light on
Wikimedia/Wikipedia history, movement, and direction.
During January, the Wikimedia Foundation participated in interviews with
Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, North Carolina, USA); NewTeeVee.com (San
Francisco, California, USA); TheStreet.com (New York, New York, USA);
Danish Broadcasting Corporation (Copenhagen, Denmark); New York Times
(New York, New York, USA); CNN (Atlanta, Georgia, USA); El Universal
(Mexico City, Mexico); History Channel (New York, New York, USA); Mail
Today (New Delhi, India); The Daily Record (Jacksonville, Florida, USA).
FUNDRAISING, GRANTS, & PARTNERSHIPS
On January 5, WMF closed its 2009-10 annual campaign, its most
successful fundraiser ever. We're grateful to every donor, and to
everyone who helped to make the campaign a success:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/2009_Fundraiser_Closing_…http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/05/wrapping-up-an-amazing-20092010-annual…
A comparison of the 2009-10 campaign with the previous two campaigns can
be found on this reporting page:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics
The Wikimedia Foundation received 19,522 donations in January, totaling
approximately USD 844,423. Year-to-date, the Foundation has raised USD
9,150,343 in individual donations, 22% above its annual goal of USD
7,500,000. Including revenue from restricted and unrestricted gifts the
Wikimedia Foundation has raised USD 10,700,343, 15% above the goal of
USD 9,297,000.
Within the first few weeks of the fundraiser, the Wikimedia Foundation
met the conditions for a challenge grant of USD 500,000 from the Omidyar
Network, by raising matching donations for every gift between USD 100 to
USD 9,999. This matching grant proved an effective tool in raising the
average dollar amount of a donation during the time it was offered.
During the campaign the Community Gifts and Communications teams saw
positive results through enhanced marketing through Social Networking
sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). The messaging displayed on the
donations portal, site notices and Social Networking sites combined to
provide a cohesive communications effort to our donors via multiple
channels.
On the donations processing side, this year Wikimedia was able to offer
donors the options of donating by credit card and via Mobile Phone (in
US only). Donors located in the same country as a participating chapter
also had the option of donating directly to their local chapter. We
believe that an expanded array of donations options enabled the
Foundation to increase its ability to appeal to a larger population of
first time donors.
With the increase in donations the site also received an equal increase
in direct donor communications. Over the few months, Anya and Megan have
responded to over 1,000 OTRS questions and more than 200 phone calls
from donors and non-donors on issues from refunds over technical issues
to matching gifts inquiries. An estimated amount of over 5,000 emails
from donors was received and responded to during the annual fundraising
campaign by a dedicated team of four OTRS volunteers.
In January, Rand and the Community Giving team continued work on
follow-up to the Annual Fundraiser: entering offline transactions,
cleanup of donor records, and preparing reports. Rand also conducted
several postmortems regarding the Annual Fundraiser and will compile
those results into planning for the 2010 Fundraiser.
After an extensive search process, interviews began for the Chief
Development Officer position, a leadership position for the fundraising
department. The search process is supported by m/Oppenheim Associates:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Chief_Development_Officer
In the area of major gifts, Rebecca held several prospect & donor
meetings throughout the month of January, including six in New York City
where Jimmy joined her. She worked on finalizing details of a large gift
(to arrive soon), and participated in the financial sustainability task
force. Planning began for fall cultivation event in NYC hosted by two of
our current funders.
With regard to Foundation Relations, Sara has been working with the
public outreach team on developing a major grant proposal for foundation
support for the aforementioned subject-matter improvement pilot program.
Grant reporting to foundation funders also continued throughout January.
In support of the strategic planning process, Rebecca and Rand
participated in the Financial Sustainability task force, which
collaboratively developed several recommendations. Sara developed a
proposal for a general partnerships strategy, in support of the
Partnerships and Alliances task force.
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Business development finalized the Wikimedia Foundation's second major,
multi-national telecom and mobile partnership with Telefónica, a Fortune
500 global telecommunications company. Telefónica is one of the largest
in the world - with a major presence in Europe and especially throughout
Latin America. This is a three-year worldwide deal where Telefónica
operates: Spain, Europe (select territories), Latin America and US
(Spanish speaking population only). Telefónica also runs a non-profit
Foundation that supports non-business activities to promote education in
Spanish and Portuguese languages and, with good faith efforts, will find
ways to help us with the development of content in those languages (via
chapter activities, etc). Telefónica companies will create new tools and
applications to improve the functionality and accessibility of Wikimedia
content on their multiple platforms such as mobile, web, IPTV, and other
internet devices. Telefónica will also explore the development of
offline readers for Wikimedia content.
FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
Veronique Kessler and the finance team completed the client worksheets
for the 2008 Form 990. She also researched cash management strategies
and investment policy proposals.
Daniel Phelps kicked off an internal staff compensation committee. The
committee consists of 9 Foundation staff representing different
departments (technology, administration, programs, and fundraising). The
committee will provide the Foundation's management team with a list of
recommendations which could be implemented to improve recruitment and
retention of skilled employees. Daniel has contacted a variety of like
minded organizations to review monetary and non-monetary compensation.
LEGAL
In January Mike Godwin finalized and posted the new trademark policy,
and authorized the obtaining of Cyrillic versions of the leading
Wikimedia domain names in the .ru domain. He has also been interviewing
candidates for summer legal clerkships.
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-…
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_Dec…
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=0Aikdcg5HdSKbdDVMM2l2SGM2dUtBU25MLUt…
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 such as collapsing ("folding") of complex syntax to
simplify the interface for new editors.
The new dialogues for links and tables have been re-designed based on
findings from our second usability study. A tutorial has been published
to allow translators to develop language-specific icons. Language
specific icons for English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portugese
and Polish are scheduled be integrated in the upcoming release in January.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Babaco_Designshttp://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Text_format_icons
Guillaume Paumier, the Product Manager for the Ford Multimedia Usability
Initiative, finalized his relocation to San Francisco after obtaining a
United States work visa. He arrived San Francisco from Toulouse, France,
early December. Guillaume joined the usability team in the San Francisco
office on December 11.
Test were prepared for the the multimedia search and insertion tool
developed by Michael Dale, the "Add Media Wizard". The tool enables
users to find related multimedia files from Wikimedia Commons and other
media repositories and allows users to edit names of the file and
caption, and crop the image.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/10/new-media-features-gadget/
OTHER PROGRAM ACTIVITIES
During December, Frank Schulenburg and Pete Forsyth continued reaching
out to U.S. Universities as part of a pilot project to improve the
quality of Wikipedia articles in a particular subject area. They started
to evaluate and document the outcome and presented their preliminary
findings to a potential funder. Based on feedback from faculty members,
they created documents that explain the process of working
collaboratively on Wikipedia (e.g. Evolution of an article). They
established and began executing a basic framework for sustaining the
relationships established at various universities.
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Subject-Matter-Improvement_Pilot_Programhttp://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_an_article_%28Celilo_Falls%…
Marlita and Frank participated in a kick-off meeting with the Bookshelf
Project vendors and conducted a Production Survey among the chapters in
order to get a better picture about the chapters' experiences with print
production. The Bookshelf writer conducted a series of interviews with
community members from various language Wikipedias to inform the content
design and writing. The development schedule was expanded and vetted. We
worked with Common Craft on the video script about NPOV and Verifiability.
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Production_Survey_%28Bookshelf%29http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf_Project#Interview_Notes
Cary wrapped up the task force on biographies of living people on Meta,
and worked with User: Keegan on a reboot. Cary continued to work with
contractors to develop proposal for Compassionate Communications course
for English Wikipedia functionaries and OTRS agents. He also organized
and taught a workshop for new staff members to orient them to the
community and wiki-markup, and inducted the Wikimania 2011 Jury.
COMMUNICATIONS
December was a busy month for the entire organization and especially
Communications, with energy focused on supporting the creative direction
and publicity around the Annual Giving Campaign. Considerable energy was
invested in the final steps of the 08/09 Annual Report, working with
outside designers on digital prep and pre-press for a renewed look for
the report.
There were no major press announcements in December.
Major coverage during December
1. United Kingdom Blackmail case (December 2)
Mostly European media tackled a UK story about a senior judge's decision
to seek the name of a Wikipedia editor from the Wikimedia Foundation.
Most stories focussed on the precedent of the decision - the first time
a judge ordered revelation of information from Wikipedia - rather than
the specific details of the case. The Foundation wasn't widely quoted,
and most coverage was neutral about the decision.
http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2009/12/4/wikipedia-forced-r…http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/12/03/2009-12-03_wikipedia_to_re…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6710237/Wikipedia-ordered-b…
2. Continued coverage of Wall Street Journal editor decline story (early
December)
Mostly blog spill-over through December highlighting the Ortega research
from the November WSJ story. Of note were blogs that cited the recent
Foundation post on the topic and provided a more sober perspective on
the data and the urgent claims.
http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2009/11/29/overall-number-ed…http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2009/11/30/whats-right-with-wikipedia/
3. Wikimedia shatters fundraising record (mid to late December)
Although this year's annual fundraising campaign garnered less media
attention overall than last year, news of the ultimate fundraising goal
achievement broke through readwriteweb before the end of 2009. Less
coverage of the milestone overall, even though more funds were generated
in a shorter period of time. Light reporting overall during the
Christmas/NY break makes coverage difficult at year-end.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/75_million_wikipedia_reaches_fundraisi…http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/12/17/wikipedia-shatters-fundraising…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6839463/Wikipedias-Jimmy-Wa…http://www.fundraising.co.uk/node/179407
Other worthwhile reads:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/1208/p09s05-coop.html?OZCB…http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,184447/printable.htmlhttp://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/12/wikipedia-redesign-whats-in-store/www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-1221-decade-internet-listdec21,0,1…
Blog posts through December, 2009
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/
Media interviews and interaction through December, 2009
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#December_2009
Communications campaign update, December 2009
Communications campaign consultants Fenton/SeaChange were most active
during December/November - focussing on support to the community giving
team, monitoring metrics and performance, and providing counsel to
foundation staff. Fenton also assisted with a draft of the end of
fundraiser press release and began work on placement of stories in high
profile publications, including the Chronicle of Philanthropy (pitch
ongoing).
Fenton worked with the communications team to finalize a list of five
major items/goals to tackle during Q1/Q2 of 2010 - items focussed on
helping the Foundation simplify and improve our basic story-telling
tactics, with an aim to better fundraising, public outreach, and
strategic communications and relationship building.
During December, the Wikimedia Foundation participated in interviews
with Anniston Star (Anniston, Alaska, USA); Inc Magazine (New York, New
York, USA); Wall Street Journal (New York, New York, USA); CBC Radio
(Toronto, Ontario, Canada); Financial Times (London, United Kingdom);
St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg, Florida, USA).
FUNDRAISING, GRANTS, & PARTNERSHIPS
The Wikimedia Foundation received 185,958 donations in December,
totaling approximately USD $6,513,743. Year-to-date, the Foundation has
raised USD 8,305,921 in individual donations, 11% above its annual goal
of USD 7,500,000. Including revenue from restricted and unrestricted
gifts the Wikimedia Foundation has raised USD 9,855,921, 6% above the
goal of USD 9,297,000.
December was the most successful month ever for the Wikimedia
Foundation's fundraising team. With the support and direction of Rand
Montoya, the community giving team and countless volunteers, the
campaign finished ten days ahead of schedule on January 5, thanks in
large part to the overwhelming generosity of our amazing donors. Over
230,000 people around the world showed their support for the projects
and mission of the Wikimedia community. Rand attributes the success of
the fundraiser to a solid communications campaign, the implementation of
new payment methods for donations and the unprecedented amount of
volunteer support.
Once again the users of our projects responded positively to the
personal appeal by Jimmy Wales. His letter was widely read and
distributed on the Internet. On its first full day of activation, the
appeal letter raised USD 430,000. This record-breaking day for Wikimedia
fundraising was the Foundation's biggest single day in donations, with
the help of over 13,000 supporters. Other communications highlights
included the “I couldn’t ignore that banner at the top of the site
anymore…I use Wikipedia far too often to ignore the need!” and the “My
amount is little, but my support is sincere” site notices created from
donor quotes and selected with help fromour partners at Fenton
Communications.
As a transparent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation shares data
about which messages resonate with donors with the public. Tracking data
was available in real-time, and additional reports can be found here:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/11/annual-fundraiser-checking-banner-resu…http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/18/annual-fundraiser-our-best-day-ever/
During January the fundraising team will continue to wrap up the
fundraiser. As we compile the donations, we will gain a better idea of
what new trends have emerged and will begin to refine the process and
ideas for next year's campaign.
On December 3, Wikimedia had an open house event at its new San
Francisco office. Wikimedia friends and supporters joined a reception
with music (thanks to Pandora's Tom Conrad), donated wine, and Wikipedia
displays and posters.
FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
With the support of the Strategic Plan's Financial Sustainability task
force, Veronique Kessler completed a draft recommendation for the
strategy team and Board of Trustees. Veronique also began working on the
Foundations 2008-2009 990 Tax Form which Veronique hopes to have
completed and reviewed by the audit team at KPMG by mid February.
Daniel Phelps and Veronique identified a set of benchmarks related to
workplace flexibility and non-salary compensation/benefits. These
benchmarks will be reviewed by the Foundation's employee Compensation
Committee which is slated to begin its work reviewing the Foundation's
benefits and compensation in early January. The employee Compensation
Committee will make recommendations to the Foundation's management team
to determine ways the Foundation can structure compensation/benefits to
strengthen the organization's ability to recruit and retain skilled
employees. Over the past several months, Daniel and Veronique have also
been researching 403b retirement savings benefits to be implemented in
March or April of 2010.
The hiring process for the Office IT Manager position continued through
December.
LEGAL
In December, the Legal Department began pursuing registration of Russian
(Cyrillic) trademarks for Wikipedia. The Foundation succeeded in getting
the case brought against Wikimedia by Gary Null in New York dismissed.
Mike Godwin attended a Wikimedia-Google-co-sponsored event for
Washington policymakers. The Foundation was sued by a fringe Republican
candidate in Illinois, USA – Mike expects the case to re resolved
quickly in the Foundation's favor. Mike investigated and initiated
action against a trademark infringer, WikiMobiPedia.org.
OTHER
The Wikimedia Foundation facilitated meetings with Marcin Cieslak and
Grzegorz Lucjan from the Wikimania 2010 planning team. These meetings
focused on conference finances/sponsorships, public/community outreach,
scholarships, programs, venue logistics, press/media, and other areas
where Foundation staff can provide support and guidance to the local
team. The management and operational aspects of Wikimania are under the
control and development of the local planning team, with the support and
collaboration of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Hello Foundation-l,
Is there an list somewhere of major image donations/collections that
have been uploaded to Commons in the last few years? E.g., the
Bundesarchiv donation, Antweb, etc.
We've been trying to note these in the Signpost as they come up, but
it would be nice to also have a comprehensive list to be able to refer
to... maybe even a table with their current status noted?
-- phoebe
--
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