Hi all,
please find below the WMF report for December 2012, in plain text.
As always, the editable and formatted version has been published on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_December_2012
and the reports are being posted on the Wikimedia blog, too:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/
As usual, we are also publishing a separate "Highlights" summary.
Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay
updated, by providing a translation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_December_2012
Many thanks to those who have translated the November "Highlights"
into Danish, Spanish, Piedmontese, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian
and Simplified Chinese (and partially into some other languages)!
While still focussing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a
small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement.
Suggestions for the January issue are welcome until February 6 at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights
Regards, Tilman
--
Wikimedia Foundation Report, December 2012
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_January_10,…
Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting
covering the month of December
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-01-10>
(January 10, 2013)>
Contents
* 1 Data and Trends
* 2 Financials
* 3 Highlights
o 3.1 Visual Editor opt-in launch on English Wikipedia
o 3.2 Record donations in shortest ever fundraiser
o 3.3 First round of the new funds dissemination process ends
* 4 Engineering
o 4.1 VisualEditor
o 4.2 Editor engagement
o 4.3 Mobile
o 4.4 Other news
* 5 Fundraising
o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations
o 5.2 Annual Fundraiser
* 6 Grantmaking & Programs
o 6.1 Strategic Goals Metrics
o 6.2 Grantmaking
+ 6.2.1 Funds Dissemination Committee
+ 6.2.2 WMF Grants Program
# 6.2.2.1 Grants approved in December 2012
# 6.2.2.2 Reports accepted in December 2012
+ 6.2.3 Participation Support
+ 6.2.4 Individual Engagement Grants
+ 6.2.5 Fellowships
+ 6.2.6 Wikimania Scholarships
o 6.3 Learning and Evaluation
o 6.4 Programs
+ 6.4.1 Brazil
# 6.4.1.1 Education - Brazil
* 6.4.1.1.1 Reports on courses
* 6.4.1.1.2 Program development
+ 6.4.2 Mobile
+ 6.4.3 Global Education
* 7 Human Resources
o 7.1 Staff Changes
o 7.2 Statistics
o 7.3 Department Updates
* 8 Finance and Administration
* 9 Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications
o 9.1 LCA Report, December 2012
+ 9.1.1 Contract Metrics
+ 9.1.2 Trademark Metrics
+ 9.1.3 Domains Obtained
+ 9.1.4 Coming & Going
+ 9.1.5 Other Activities
o 9.2 Communications Report, December 2012
+ 9.2.1 Major announcements
+ 9.2.2 Major Storylines through December
+ 9.2.3 Other worthwhile reads
+ 9.2.4 WMF Blog posts
+ 9.2.5 Media Contact, December 2012
o 9.3 Wikipedia Signpost, December 2012
* 10 Visitors and Guests
== Data and Trends ==
Global unique visitors for November:
*484.5 million* (-0.79% compared with October; +2.06% compared with
the previous year)
(comScore data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/unique_visitors> for all
Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release December data
later in January)
Page requests for December:
*20.2 billion* (-0.8% compared with November; +23.5% compared with
the previous year)
(Server log data
<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyAllProjects.htm>,
all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for November 2012 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month,
excluding bots):
*79,532* (-0.03% compared with October / +0.59% compared with the
previous year)
(Database data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors>, all Wikimedia
Foundation projects. Note: We recently refined this metric
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/08/31/improving-the-accuracy-of-the-active-…>
to take into account Wikimedia Commons and activity across several
projects.)
*Report Card* (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF
projects) for November 2012:
http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/
(Definitions <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Metric_definitions>)
== Financials ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Revenue_%26_Expenses_November_2…
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of November 30,
2012>
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses_by_Functions_November_…
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of November 30, 2012>
(Financial information is only available for November 2012 at the time
of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and
Year-To-Date November 30, 2012.
Revenue $16,614,546
*Expenses:*
Engineering Group $5,309,228
Fundraiser Group $1,442,814
Grantmaking & Programs Group $2,159,357
Governance Group $314,952
Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group $1,265,059
Finance/HR/Admin Group $2,267,388
Total Expenses $12,758,798
Total surplus/(loss) $3,855,748
* Revenue for the month of November is $11.26MM vs plan of $10.29MM,
approximately $964K or 9% over plan.
* Year-to-date revenue is $16.61MM vs plan of $15.50MM, approximately
$1.11MM or 7% over plan.
* Expenses for the month of November is $2.83MM vs plan of $3.12MM,
approximately $290K or 9% under plan, primarily due to lower
personnel expenses and capital expenses partially offset by higher
legal expenses, bank fees, outside contract services, and operating
grants.
* Year-to-date expenses is $12.76MM vs plan of $14.64MM, approximately
$1.88MM or 13% under plan, primarily due to personnel expenses,
internet hosting, travel expenses, capital expenses, and outside
contract services partially offset by higher legal expenses, bank
fees, and awards and grants.
* Cash position is $28.06MM as of November 30, 2012.
== Highlights ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor-logo.svg>
=== Visual Editor opt-in launch on English Wikipedia ===
An alpha version of the VisualEditor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor>, the upcoming rich-text
interface which will make it easier to edit wiki pages, was enabled on
the English Wikipedia
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/12/try-out-the-alpha-version-of-the-visu…>
in December. Experienced editors can now test it and provide feedback on
problem and priorities.
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_Of_Wikipedia.webm
"The Impact Of Wikipedia" (video produced for the fundraiser, with
subtitles in various languages)>
=== Record donations in shortest ever fundraiser ===
The fundraising team reached their end-of-year goal of US $25 million
early this year, making 2012 the shortest fundraiser to date. We also
had a record-breaking total number of contributions: 1.484 million
donations since July 1. The campaign ended with a "Thank You" banner
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?banner=B12_1231_ThankYou_Getstrtd>
that introduced readers to a diverse group of editors
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All> through written messages
and video interviews. About half a million people watched a four-minute
video introduction to Wikipedia editors and we saw an increase in
account creation.
=== First round of the new funds dissemination process ends ===
The Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees approved
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Board_decisions/2012-2013_round1>
the recommendations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2012-2013_ro…>
of the Funds
Dissemination Committee (FDC), allocating $8.43 million to 11 Wikimedia
organizations. This marked the successful conclusion of the first round
of the new FDC process. This change in how money is distributed within
the Wikimedia movement was described
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/11/15/fdc-process-milestone-sharing-wikimed…>
by Trustees Jan-Bart de Vreede and Patricio Lorente as "a significant
devolution of power <http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/DevolvePower> to the
global volunteer community of Wikimedians". The committee was formed
earlier in 2012 and consists of seven volunteers from seven different
countries, who have editing experience on several Wikimedia projects,
and have founded or have been Board members of five Wikimedia chapters.
== Engineering ==
A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for December 2012
can be found at:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2012/December
Department Highlights
Major news in December include:
* The launch of an alpha, opt-in version of the VisualEditor
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/12/try-out-the-alpha-version-of-the-visu…>
to the English Wikipedia, a project more complex than it appears
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/07/inventing-as-we-go-building-a-visual-…>;
* A research study
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/20/article-feedback-new-research-and-nex…>
on the use of the Article Feedback feature;
* New metrics for the MediaWiki community
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/10/introducing-mediawiki-community-metri…>;
* The start of the Outreach Program for Women
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/11/welcome-to-floss-outreach-program-for…>;
* Continued work to improve the workflow
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/12/translation-interface-makeover-in-pro…>
and interface
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/31/translation-editor-growing-snazzier/>
for translators.
== VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> ==
In December, the VisualEditor team enabled on the English Wikipedia
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/12/try-out-the-alpha-version-of-the-visu…>
an alpha version of the VisualEditor (see also general "Highlights"
section). The VisualEditor team focused on ensuring that
it worked properly, on providing a dedicated tool to report problems
with editing, and on addressing the reports and ideas from editors after
deployment.
This successful release was also a major milestone for Parsoid
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid> (the parsing program
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsing> that translates plain wikitext into
HTML annotated for easy editing, and /vice-versa/). Parsoid needs to
handle the full range of arbitrary and complex existing wiki content,
including templates, tables and extensions; it did so very well, as
witnessed by the lack of mistakes
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?namespace=&tagfilter=visualeditor&titl…>
introduced by Parsoid in the wikitext. This was in large part due to the
team's efforts on automated conversion testing
<http://parsoid.wmflabs.org:8001/> and the completion of a strategy to
only convert the parts of the page what were edited ("selective
serialization").
=== Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> ===
This month, the Editor engagement team (E2) continued to develop new
features of the Notifications
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo_(Notifications)> project (called "Echo"),
and enabled a first experimental release on mediawiki.org
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki>. They worked on feature
requirements <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo/Feature_requirements>, the
user experience <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo_User_Experience> and
developed interface and behind-the-scenes components. More features will
be developed in January that are planned to be enabled on the English
Wikipedia in early 2013. Help is welcome to test these features
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo/Testing> to provide feedback and find
bugs. (see also: Presentation slides
<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qVzlgBOotLxaYDtRwQMmQDxh9_37v3eMjjo…>
from the metrics meeting for December)
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Dario Taraborelli explaining results
<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1s_ULakFx2pIc82CsAFc…>
about the AFTv5 tool and new user registrations at the metrics meeting
for December>
A research study
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/20/article-feedback-new-research-and-nex…>
on the use of the Article Feedback
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5> (AFT) tool on the
English Wikipedia confirmed that many readers use this quality
assessment feature, and a sizable number of them go on to register and
become editors. Based on that research and other suggestions, new
features were started to reduce the editor workload through better
filters and simpler moderation tools. The activation of Article Feedback
on all articles of the English Wikipedia is planned for March 2013. Some
wikis like the German Wikipedia have started to evaluate
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/de:Spezial:Artikelr%C3%BCckmeldungen_v5> this
tool as well, while others like the French Wikipedia are discussing it
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fr:Discussion_Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9…>.
No significant development activity happened on Page Curation
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Page_Curation> (an interface for experienced
contributors to review and improve newly created pages) following its
release on the English Wikipedia, but its localization and adaptation
for possible use on other wikis and in other languages is currently
under consideration.
In December, the Editor engagement experiments
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Editor_engagement_experiments> team (E3)
launched a new test aimed at Onboarding new Wikipedians
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Onboarding_new_Wikipedians>; it offers an
optimized task list immediately after sign up, inviting those without an
idea of how to get started to choose an article and try their hand at
editing. Development continued on the new account creation experience
and a Guided Tours <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GuidedTour>
feature that which will be launched in January 2013.
To support these and future experiments, the EventLogging tool
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:EventLogging> underwent heavy
development, including the launch of a dedicated space on meta-wiki for
defining the data collected in a public, collaborative manner.
Development of a user metrics interface
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Metrics> for programs also begun in
order to standardize user metrics, and provide infrastructure and access
to them.
Last, the E3 team collaborated with the Fundraising team to reach out to
donors and readers <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Donor_engagement>
as part of the annual fundraising campaign, via email and a "Thank You"
banner which ran at the end of the year.
=== Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> ===
The Mobile development and design team worked on finalizing contributory
and other experimental editor-focused features on the Beta site
(uploads, editing, and watchlist functionality) in order to clear the
way for mobile uploads by March 2013. They also worked to improve the
reader and potential editor experience by introducing features geared
toward educating and engaging users, such as a human-readable
last-modified indicator for articles and watchlists, and thumbnail
images to illustrate the watchlist view. Because of the huge interest
generated in the Beta testing site, an Alpha site was created to house
very early work on contributory features without disrupting the reading
experience of the 100,000+ Beta users.
Work continued on GeoData
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/GeoData_Storage_%26_API>, a tool to store and
retrieve GPS coordinates in Wikimedia databases, and it was deployed to
all Wikipedia and Wikivoyage sites; it is expected to become officially
operational shortly. This tool is a cornerstone of the discovery feature
for the mobile site, allowing users to read about places around them.
Orange Congo joined the list of mobile carriers who enable free mobile
access to Wikipedia via the Wikipedia Zero
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero> program. The Wikipedia Zero
team resolved operational issues and continued to work on more
partnerships
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/20/the-countries-in-which-mobile-matters…>.
Two other initiatives to bring Wikipedia to mobile devices, the
Wikipedia S40 J2ME app <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_S40_J2ME_app>
and the USSD service
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_over_SMS_%26_USSD>, are now ready to
launch pending contractual negotiations with carriers.
Last, the Mobile quality assurance <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_QA>
team started to work on an upcoming community testing event for Mobile
features, and support for the MobileFrontend extension in the Beta
cluster <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_cluster> testing environment.
=== Other news ===
* Community metrics
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/10/introducing-mediawiki-community-metri…>
are now generated every month to provide insights into the activity
and health of the MediaWiki contributor community.
* Six interns joined the technical community
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/11/welcome-to-floss-outreach-program-for…>
as part of the Outreach Program for Women
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreach_Program_for_Women>. They will
work full-time between January and March 2013 on projects ranging
from coding to documentation to bug triage.
* The Language engineering team continued to improve the workflow
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/12/translation-interface-makeover-in-pro…>
and interface
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/31/translation-editor-growing-snazzier/>
for translators; this is done as part of an initiative to improve
the user experience of the Translate extension
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Translate>, a tool used to
translate software as well as content of wiki pages.
== Fundraising ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zack_Exley_thinking_during_2012_Wik…
Zack Exley thinking under a large set of testing data during the 2012
Wikimedia Fundraiser. The team did more than 100 live A-B tests in December.>
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…
Katie Horn explaining banner statistics during the monthly metrics
meeting (slides
<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1snihaY1NRhf9cwAyY68…
>>
Department Highlights
see general "Highlights" section
=== Major Gifts and Foundations ===
* Received a $500,000 gift from M. Chastain, a $500,000 gift from A.
Sosnik, a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, and a $100,000
gift from an anonymous donor.
=== Annual Fundraiser ===
* We reached our $25,000,000 end-of-year goal early this year. See the
Fundraiser Statistics page
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics> for a
view comparing this year to previous years
* This was the shortest fundraiser to date. We showed everyone banners
only for the first 9 days and then experimented with a new feature:
hiding banners. We started showing banners /only/ to users who
hadn't seen them before, and only for a limited number of views
(usually 1 or 2). This lowered the visibilty of the banners while
still allowing us to reach our goal. This method of displaying
banners will impact our fundraising testing strategy in the future.
More information can be found in the Press Release: "The Wikimedia
Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012 Wikipedia
fundraiser
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_ra…>"
* Banners were only shown to the following five English-speaking
countries through December 31: US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New
Zealand in addition to fundraising chapters. This was a response to
a very successful start and worldwide testing which indicated we
could improve our global translations. The team will be working to
improve translations to re-launch the global fundraiser in all
remaining countries in the Spring of 2013.
* Through more than 100 live A-B tests, we discovered many new,
more-effective banner messages. We started the campaign on November
17 [1]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?banner=B12_112605_Min_US>
and took all fundraising-related banners down on December 31 [2]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?banner=B12_5C_121713_recurring_recur…>.
* The results of past fundraising tests are available on "We Need a
Breakthrough
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2012/We_Need_A_Breakthrough>"
and a
synopsis of December testing highlights will be included in the
upcoming Fundraising 2012 report, which is in the process of being
written.
* Customer Service worked with 10 agents to answer emails in English,
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Russian, French,
Chinese, as well as using community-translated messaging for
inquiries in German and Polish. We responded to over 20,000 emails
from October to December (peak-time) and worked closely with the
Tech team to identify, triage, and respond to donor issues. We also
worked cross-departmentally on a broad range of issues (Legal, Ops).
* We closed the campaign December 27 - 31 with a "Thank You banner"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?banner=B12_1231_ThankYou_Getstrtd>
that introduced our readers to a diverse group of editors through
written messages and video interviews. About 500,000 people watched
a four-minute video introduction to Wikipedia editors
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_Of_Wikipedia.webm>
and we saw an increase in
account creation. 'The Impact of Wikipedia' video series can be
found here
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/the-impact-of-wikipedia/>. You can
see the 51 featured editors here
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All>
* The campaign received some positive coverage this year in the media,
for example on Techcrunch
<http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/27/wikimedia-foundation-raises-25m-in-donatio…>
and The Next Web
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/12/28/wikimedia-foundation-raises-25-mil…>.
*
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ken_Thomas.jpg
Commons Uploader Ken Thomas>
*
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Netha_Hussain-925.jpg
Wikipedian Netha Hussain>
*
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tony_Santiago_%22Tony_The_Marine%22…
Wikipedian Tony Santiago>
*
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ravan_Jaafar_Altaie.jpg
Wikipedian Ravan Jaafar Altaie>
*
<Video: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/The_Impact_of_Wikipedia…
Wikipedian Ravan Jaafar Altaie>
== Grantmaking & Programs ==
Department highlights
* The WMF Board of Trustees approves FDC funds allocations for
2012–2013 Round 1.
* The Grantmaking team and the FDC welcomes Katy Love, who joined WMF
as the Senior Program Officer for the FDC on 28 December, 2012.
* Wikipedia Zero officially launches in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
* Preparation for the launch of the Individual Engagement Grants
program in January 2013 is underway.
=== Strategic Goals Metrics ===
Metric Value MoM MoM% Chart
Free Wikipedia Zero Page Requests 2.8m 87k +3.3% Increase
<http://global-dev.wmflabs.org/graphs/free_mobile_traffic_by_version_monthly…>
Global South Active Editors (5+ edits in main namespace) 15k -141
-0.9% Increase
<http://global-dev.wmflabs.org/graphs/global_north_south_active_editors>
=== Grantmaking ===
==== Funds Dissemination Committee ===
* The WMF Board of Trustees approves
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Board_decisions/2012-2013_round1>
funds
allocations for 2012-2013 Round 1 (see general "Highlights" section)
* Hiring of the Senior Program Officer for the FDC completed; Katy
Love joins from 28 December. Welcome, Katy! Read the job
description.
<http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=owwHWfwp&c=qSa9VfwQ>
* FDC Staff publishes reporting requirements and forms for 2012-2013:
FDC portal/Reporting requirements
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Reporting_requirements>.
* WMF Staff publishes eligibility status for each affiliate
organization for 2012-2013 Round 2: FDC portal/Eligibility
status/Current round
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_status/Current_round>
* FDC Grant Agreement finalized, and 2012-2013 Round 1 grantees are
contacted to begin Round 1 disbursements.
==== WMF Grants Program ====
* WMF prepares to initiate the Flow Funding pilot project, which will
begin in the New Year. Read more about it on the FF portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FF_portal>.
* 2 grants approved and 8 reports accepted in December 2012
===== Grants approved in December 2012 =====
1. Nkansah Rexford Nyarko's Wikimedia outreach in Ghana: Grants:PWM
GH/Wikimedia outreach in Ghana
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PWM_GH/Wikimedia_outreach_in_Ghana>.
Funds support the launch of "'Wikimedia Outreach in Ghana'
campaign which will be our first mass project. Our main goal, in
line with that of the Foundation's, is to train Ghanaians to
collect, refine and contribute Ghana- related content for free
use on some selected wiki projects -- Wikipedia, Wikinews,
Wikimedia Commons and Wikibooks (Cookbook)."
2. Malayalam Wikipedia 10th Birthday Celebrations approved:
Grants:Malayalam Wikipedia/10th Birthday Celebrations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Malayalam_Wikipedia/10th_Birthday_Ce…>.
"These events are conducted as a series of celebrations of the
tenth anniversary and birthday of Malayalam Wikipedia. Existing
Wikipedia editors, aspiring Wikipedia users, subject matter
experts and media representatives will be participating in these
events. Apart from introducing a lot of common public to the
concept of Wikipedia (both as readers and editors), it also
rejuvenates the spirits and passion of the existing user base."
===== Reports accepted in December 2012 =====
* Grants:WM_SE/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Report_Q3
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_SE/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Repor…>
* Grants:Susanna_Mkrtchyan/Wiki_conference
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Susanna_Mkrtchyan/Wiki_conference>
* Grants:WikiSangamotsavam_2012/Malayalam_Wiki_Conference_2012/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WikiSangamotsavam_2012/Malayalam_Wik…>
* Grants:WM_PH/Philippine_WikiCon_2012/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_PH/Philippine_WikiCon_2012/Report>
* Grants:Ada_Initiative,_Inc./AdaCamp_DC_Funding/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Ada_Initiative,_Inc./AdaCamp_DC_Fund…>
* Grants:WM_HK/Education_Toolkits_For_Liberal_Studies/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_HK/Education_Toolkits_For_Liberal…>
* Grants:WM_HK/Kick_Start/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_HK/Kick_Start/Report>
* Grants:WM_HK/Mac_Computer/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_HK/Mac_Computer/Report>
==== Participation Support ====
No requests approved or reports accepted in December 2012.
==== Individual Engagement Grants ====
* WMF begins community discussions and lays plans for new pilot
program focused on making grants to individuals to complete
projects, which will be launched in January. Read more about it here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Individual_Engagement_Grants>.
==== Fellowships ====
* Dispute Resolution Project: Results from a new survey of existing
English Wikipedia dispute resolution volunteers, aimed at
understanding their motivations and experiences in order to identify
ways to retain and recruit more volunteers, have been released:
wikipedia:Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_volunteer_survey
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_volunteer_survey>.
* Small-Wiki Editor Engagement Project: Results from the Bangla
Wikipedia help pilot
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Small_Wiki_Editor_Engagement_Project/Report…>
have been released, demonstrating that the number of active new
Bangla editors doubled during the pilot period:
* WikiWomen's Collaborative: We've launched a survey to gather
feedback on the project from participants, and results will be
available in January. The project has a new portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen%27s_Collaborative> and
is focusing on growing its
base of volunteers to sustain it post-fellowship.
==== Wikimania Scholarships ====
Committee selected to run the 2013 Wikimania Scholarships selection
process. Committee members are:
* User:AutoGyro
* User:Karthikndr
* User:KTC
* Osmar Valdebenito
* User:Kudpung
* User:CT Cooper
* Deryck Chan (WM HK)
* Simon Shek (WM HK)
* Jessie Wild (WMF)
The application process is expected to start in mid-January.
=== Learning and Evaluation ===
* Began drafting framework for evaluation and learning for the
Grantmaking and Programs team.
=== Programs ===
==== Brazil ====
* 2013 plan for Brazil Catalyst Program
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>
published for community comment.
* Acquired a quote for video production for tutorial and institutional
materials
* WikiMeeting in Recife
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Encontros/WikiRecife_I#Fotos>
held
in December.
* Finalized hiring selection process for Brazil Data analyst
consultant with a task for finalists
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>.
User:Jonas AGX's task
<https://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usu%C3%A1rio:Jonas_AGX/tarefa>
User:Crang115's task
<https://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usu%C3%A1rio:Crang115/tarefa>
=====Education - Brazil =====
====== Reports on courses ======
Ongoing development of courses that were selected but affected by a
national strike:
* History
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Physics
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Production systems
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Literature
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Physics
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Latin language
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Biology
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
Finalized 6 courses of the Education Program: 4 with good articles and
contributions (about 80% of the content has already moved to or
developed in the main domain of the Portuguese Wikipedia), and 2 under
review. More than 60 articles have been produced
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ezalvarenga/Report>.
* Law
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Psychology
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Chemistry
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Biology
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
* Maths (various articles in the main domain)
* Design
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade…>
====== Program development ======
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professor_Ruy_de_Queiroz.jpg
Professor Ruy de Queiroz>
* Development of restructure of Wikiprojects
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Esplanada/propostas/Wikiprojet…>
* Meeting with Ministry of Health to reach out to “school-hospitals”,
which have research groups that develop projects and may engage with
the project to improve Wikipedia articles on Medicine.
* Meeting with professor Ruy de Queiroz, who was already using
Wikipedia as an educational tool
* Brazilian professor featured on the Wikimedia blog:
Professor Yuri Leite
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/14/professor-yuri-leite-brazil/>
==== Mobile ====
* Free Access to Wikipedia has officially launched in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (via Orange).
* Mobile improved our usage reporting for more accurate analytics. In
many developing countries, Opera Mini is the most widely used
browser by users on mobile devices. For example, Opera Mini is the
primary way Telenor's customers access Wikipedia Zero. We previously
had no data on aggregate Opera usage on Wikipedia mobile, but now
that will be included in our mobile analytics (starting in 2013).
==== Global Education ====
U.S. student profiled on Wikimedia blog
Washington University senior Kevin Li's work on Wikipedia was featured
on the Wikimedia Foundation's blog. Kevin, a student in Joan
Strassmann's Behavioral Ecology course, contributed an article on worker
policing to the English Wikipedia. Kevin started the article, and it has
now achieved Good Article status. Read more about Kevin's experiences.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/06/wikipedia-as-a-miniature-classroom-for…>
Education Program kicks off in Sweden
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-wall_for_teachers_confere…
A Wikipedia wall at a teachers' conference in Sweden.>
Sophie Österberg, the education manager for Wikimedia Sverige, has
written a detailed update on the kick-off of the Wikipedia Education
Program in Sweden. She and the rest of the team in Sweden have been
meeting with instructors and institutions to determine the best ways of
working Wikipedia into the curriculum in Sweden. Wikimedia Sverige has
also produced T-shirts and brochures for the program, and they're
excited about the results so far: many instructors have expressed
interest in being part of the program, and they've started to build
relationships. Learn more about the Swedish education program's
activities.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/17/wikipedia-education-program-sweden-kic…>
Brazilian professor's work featured on blog
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yuri_L._R._Leite.jpg
Yuri L. R. Leite>
Professor Yuri Leite of the Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo in
Vitória, Brazil, has been using Wikipedia in his courses since 2009,
when he taught a class on the Charles Darwin book "The Origin of
Species" and had his students update the article on the book on the
Portuguese Wikipedia as he went along. Now, his students have
contributed to improving the information on evolution available on the
Portuguese Wikipedia for several terms, and Yuri looks forward to
continuing to grow the available articles. Read more about his
motivations for doing the project.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/14/professor-yuri-leite-brazil/>
Trophy Case highlights excellent student work
Professors and Ambassadors who worked with students in the United States
and Canada program in 2012 have added a series of links to the new
Trophy Case, which highlights the best student work. The Trophy Case
includes categories for articles that were featured on the English
Wikipedia's main page in the Did You Know section, those that have
achieved Good Article status, high quality new articles, significantly
expanded existing articles, and non-textual contributions. See the
Trophy Case, and add other student work you see to it.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Courses/Trophy_case>
Worldwide resources page created on outreach wiki
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Studenti_p%C3%AD%C5%A1%C3%AD_Wikipe…
Studenti píší Wikipedii is a brochure developed by Wikimedia Czech
Republic for their education program, one of the brochures featured on
the new page.>
A centralized repository of information for participants in the
Wikipedia Education Program worldwide has been created on the outreach
wiki's education portal. Broken down into information by target
audience, such as instructors and students, the page contains links to
brochures, handouts, and videos available in multiple languages.
Handouts created specifically for Wikipedia Education Program
participants in any language are welcome. See the page.
<http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education_Portal/Tips_and_Resources>
== Human Resources ==
In December on the celebratory front, HR hosted an annual holiday party
and organized a group excursion to watch "The Hobbit" movie. We kicked
off a Remote Employee Experience Task Force to improve the experience of
people who work remotely. We also hosted open enrollment for staff to
change their health plan benefits.
== Staff Changes ===
New Requisitions Filled
* Matt Flaschen, Software Engineer, Features (Engineering)
* Katy Love, Senior Program Officer, FDC (Grantmaking and Progams)
New Recruiting Intern
* Ion Vazquez (Human Resources)
New Contractor
* Joseph Silverman (Administration)
Contract Extended
* Antonella Amatulli
* Stephanie Coates
* Cristiana Coimbra
* Andrew Garrett
* Aaron Halfaker
* Joanie Hjulmand
* LaTrisha Holliness
* Sandra Hust
* Alexander Kuiper
* Mimi Li
* Jonathan Morgan
* Heather O'Malley
* Kritie Robinson
* Yuko Sakata
* Elena Strelnikova
* Julie Trias
* Heather Walls
Turnover
* Laura James
* Kelly Kay
* Raymond Lui
Contract Ended
* Alec Bogossian
* Arun Ganesh
* William Kelly
* Srikanth Lakshmanan
* Stacey Merrick
* Lori Phillips
* Karina Pulec
* Steph Thommen
New Postings
* Deputy General Counsel
* Director of User Experience
* Legal Intern (Summer)
* Software Engineer - Multimedia
* Software Engineer (Search)
* Software Engineer (Apps)
=== Statistics ===
Total Requisitions Filled
December Actual: 128
December Total Plan: 167
December Filled: 2, Month Attrition: 3
YTD Filled: 32, YTD Attrition: 16
1 Position canceled for FY
Remaining open positions to fiscal year end
45 (8 of which are on hold)
=== Department Updates ===
Real-time feed for HR updates
http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
== Finance and Administration ==
* We have been focusing on our insurance renewals for 2013. Our goals
for this insurance renewal are:
1. Improved D&O Coverage
2. Improved Media and Privacy Liability coverage
3. Improved travel coverage, with no country exclusions and a change to
an new travel assistance provider.
* We closed the space improvement project for the third floor
enginnering space and are beginning planning for space improvement
projects on the sixth floor for our next fiscal year.
* We have hired a Systems and Network specialist to work on Office IT
projects, on a temporary basis, while we are searching for a full
time person for this role.
== Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications ==
=== LCA Report, December 2012 ===
In December 2012, the Legal and Community Advocacy team presented a
draft of the first conflict of interest guidelines to Meta for community
comment and feedback. LCA also finalized standardized grant agreements
for the FDC organizations and continued to provide guidance regarding
Thematic Organizations.
==== Contract Metrics ====
* Submitted : 27
* Completed : 20
==== Trademark Metrics ====
* Submitted : 12
* Approved : 1
* Pending : 6
* Denied : 4
* No Response : 1
==== Domains Obtained ====
We obtained the following domains over the last month: wikiartpedia.org,
wikinews.info, wikimanialondon.org, wikiartpedia.biz, wikiartpedia.co,
wikiartpedia.info, wikiartpedia.me, wikiartpedia.mobi, wikiartpedia.net,
wikimania.net, wikipedia.bg, wiwkipedia.org
==== Coming & Going ====
* Rubina Kwon transitioned from being a legal intern to a contract
attorney.
* Billy Kelly and Karina Pulec’s legal internships ended.
* Ava Miller, Megumi Yukie, and Missy Black are coming on board as
legal interns for the spring.
==== Other Activities ====
* A draft of guidelines on potential conflicts of interest was posted
on Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_intere…>
for
public comment. Details of the guidelines were also set out in a
blog post
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/04/wikimedia-community-input-requested-fo…>.
* A California superior court overruled Internet Brands’ demurrer.
Details of the ruling were set out in a blog post
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/17/state-court-overrules-internet-brands-…>.
* GC Geoff Brigham shared some views on the naming of thematic
organizations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Thematic_Organizations#Addit…>.
* Grant agreement templates for FDC organizations were finalized.
* LCA continued to work with Creative Commons to ensure that the
interests of the Wikimedia community and WMF were represented during
the drafting of Creative Commons v.4 licenses.
* LCA provided support and guidance for internships for women in
software in conjunction with GNOME Foundation, Wikimania
scholarships, and the FDC process.
* The team has also been working on securing more expansive insurance
protection for potential issues that may arise in relation to the
defense of community-generated content.
=== Communications Report, December 2012 ===
In December the communications team formally launched the 2011-12 WMF
Annual Report, as a print product and in a wiki/PDF version. Further
work on translations and production of localized editions will continue
through January. In December we also announced the winners of the 2012
Wiki Loves Monuments global contest and issued a release celebrating the
conclusion of our recent successful online fundraiser.
Communications also supported WMF ED Sue Gardner during a series of
media interviews and panel discussions in New York, focusing on the
fundraiser, Wikipedia Zero, and diversifying and growing our community
of contributors.
==== Major announcements ====
The Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012
Wikipedia fundraiser
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_ra…>
(27 December)
Winners Announced in World’s Largest Photo Contest, Wiki Loves Monuments
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Announcement_of_Wiki_Lo…>
(3 December)
==== Major Storylines through December ====
WMF’s fundraiser breaks a record (December 27)
The Foundation’s most successful fundraiser ever got strong coverage in
late December around the announcement that marked the shift from
fundraising to a highly-visible ‘thank you’ campaign. This year’s
coverage also included unexpected news of a $70K donation from US based
‘Cards against humanity’ which offered a video appreciation of Wikipedia.
* Wikipedia edits its fundraising strategy (Bloomberg News)
http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-deals/2012-12-11-wikipedia-edits-fundraising-s…
* Wikimedia Raised $25M So Far in Annual Wikipedia Fundraiser (All
Things Digital)
http://allthingsd.com/20121227/wikimedia-raised-25m-so-far-in-annual-wikipe…
* Cards against humanity gives $70000 to Wikipedia (Web Pro News)
http://www.webpronews.com/cards-against-humanity-gives-70000-of-holiday-pac…
* Are people who edit Wikipedia better people? (NY Magazine)
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/12/wikipedia-donors-better-people…
End of year lists grab on to Wikipedia (December 27-30)
Annual end-of-year media coverage on 2012 lists included a popular list
of most-viewed articles in Wikipedia, based on results from a toolserver
app by Johan Gunnarsson. The list generated a lot of speculation about
how certain articles rose above others, including the curious inclusion
of the German article for ‘Sackgasse’ (cul de sac) topping the German
Wikipedia list.
* The Most Popular Pages on Wikipedia in 2012: Facebook, One Direction
and … Cul De Sacs? (All Things D)
http://allthingsd.com/20121227/the-most-popular-pages-on-wikipedia-in-2012-…
* Wikipedia's most-viewed articles in 2012 were... (CNET)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57561057-93/wikipedias-most-viewed-article…
* Wikipedia's hits of the year (Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2012/dec/27/wikipedia-most-viewed
==== Other worthwhile reads ====
* The Hindu | Indians win in Wiki mega photo contest (December 6)
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indians-win-in-wiki-mega-photo-contes…
* The Daily Nation (Kenya) | Wikipedia records high web traffic from
Kenya (December 10)
http://www.nation.co.ke/business/news/Wikipedia-records-high-web-traffic-fr…
==== WMF Blog posts ====
Fifty-four blog posts through December, including bilingual posts
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/> in German, Spanish,
Czech, and Portuguese. https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/
A few highlights:
The impact of Wikipedia
Ravan Jaafar Altaie (December 20)
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/20/the-impact-of-wikipedia-ravan-jaafar-…
(Through December the Foundation featured 12 video interviews
highlighting the contributions of volunteers from around the world. The
whole series can be viewed at
https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/the-impact-of-wikipedia/)
Article Feedback
New research and next steps (December 20)
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/20/article-feedback-new-research-and-nex…
15 million free media files on Wikimedia Commons (December 10)
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/10/15-million-free-media-files-on-wikime…
Wiki Loves Monuments (through December)
(Numerous posts through December profiled the incredible selections from
last year’s Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest, some of the most amazing
freely licensed photographs on the Internet)
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/community/wiki-loves-monuments/
==== Media Contact, December 2012 ====
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#December_2012
==== Wikipedia Signpost, December 2012 ====
For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the
community-edited newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” for December 2012:
* Volume 8, Issue 49, 3 December 2012
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-12…>
* Volume 8, Issue 50, 10 December 2012
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-12…>
* Volume 8, Issue 51, 17 December 2012
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-12…>
* Volume 8, Issue 52, 24 December 2012
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-12…>
* Volume 8, Issue 53, 31 December 2012
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-12…>
== Visitors and Guests ==
Visitors and guests to the WMF office in December 2012:
1. Craig Minassian (Minassian Media)
2. Jove Oliver (Minassian Media)
3. Eric Harris (Minassian Media)
4. Kat Walsh (Chair of the Board of Trustees)
5. Lisa Grossman (m|Oppenheim)
6. Valerie Aurora (The Ada Initiative)
7. Mark Oppenheim (m|Oppenheim)
8. Gray Lincoln (Fuze Box)
9. Trevor Bolliger (Wikia)
10. Jason Asbahr (Monstrou)
11. Jonathan Cooney (Monstrou)
12. Doron Weber (Knight Foundation)
13. Luis Villa (Greenberg Traurig)
14. Sarah Paris (UCSF)
15. Dr. Eric Widera (UCSF)
16. Andrew Rutledge (Microsoft)
17. David Sandwisch (Pacbell)
18. Richard Ortic (Gemini Model Art)
19. Rodney Dunican (Rod Ventures)
20. Saal Pean (Creative Commons)
21. Krista Boscoe (Kaplan)
22. Chad Spencer (DemiCreative, fundraising)
23. Dan Spencer (DemiCreative, fundraising)
24. Desirina Boscovich (Desirina Communications, fundraising)
25. Ben Thompson (Microsoft, engineering)
26. Lindsay Bayne (Microsoft, engineering)
27. Daniel Phifer (Social Imprints)
28. Kevin Mitchell (Fluxx)
29. Robert Kaye (Musicbrainz.org)
30. Caroline Young (ASG)
31. Cindy Hawley (ASG)
32. Brendan Quinla (ASG)
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
_______________________________________________
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
Dear Gayle,
Thank you for forwarding me the Employee Engagement report slides
which I've referred to in my questions for your upcoming office hour.
I didn't realize that attribution was preventing you from distributing
them, so I made some fair use excerpts at: http://imgur.com/a/XaY2K --
those are for my questions (3) and (4) at
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-January/123400.html
I am trying to get Dan Pink to join in the office hour. It was made
clear from Sue's office hour yesterday that she as well as Erik rely
on an interpretation of Dan's work which is opposed by all of the most
recent secondary sources (see
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-January/123422.html)
and which Dan himself disclaims at
http://www.danpink.com/2010/01/raises-do-matter -- in particular:
"if an organization doesn’t pay someone 'an adequate amount, or if her
pay isn’t equitable compared to others doing similar work—that
person’s motivation will crater,'" and, "...Providing an employee a
high level of base pay does more to boost performance and
organizational commitment than an attractive bonus structure."
I also want to share my current results for my informal donor survey
at http://tinyurl.com/wikidonors -- currently "The Foundation should
meet or exceed Silicon Valley competitive pay to attract and retain
the best talent while competing with firms able to offer equity
participation" is agreed or strongly agreed to by 32 of 37
respondents. All of the respondents were obtained by asking people on
popular Freenode channels to voluntarily take the survey. On one hand,
that self-selected group is likely to be more in favor of free
software than the typical donor, but they may also be more frugal. So
I want to urge the Foundation to perform their own survey on this
question. You should be able to get statistically significant results
by asking less than 100 randomly selected donors, depending on their
response rate.
Finally, I also want to ask that you perform a follow-up truly
anonymous survey about Foundation employee satisfaction with pay. I
hope you will also ask whether Foundation employees believe there is a
culture where austere pay is considered a badge of honor, and whether
they feel peer pressure to avoid speaking out on the topic. You can
use e.g. surveymonkey.com in a way which is far more anonymous than
the detailed demographics in the Ascent Advisor survey allowed. Since
it's only 25 minutes to office hours I better send this now and send
more information on how to do that later.
Best regards,
James Salsman
*Wikimedia India activity report: October 2012 to December 2012*Admin &
LegalTraining and induction of new EC
After the elections in September, a common meeting of the outgoing and
incoming Executive Council members was conducted. This had outdoor group
activities, induction training and also interaction with our consultant.
New office bearers were decided and roles and responsibilities of the new
EC members were defined. Our Executive Manager was also present and
participated in the activities.
Capacity
*Membership:*
Membership as of December 31, 2012 is 185.
*Donations:*
Amount of donations received during Oct-Dec 2012 was Nil.
*Appointments:*
Abhijit Jayanti was appointed as Hyderabad SIG chair.
Technology & Cultural UpdatesWiki Loves Monuments
- WLM India results were announced on November 3, 2012.
lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2012-November/008779.html
- WLM Global results were announced in December 2012. First and Sixth
prizes were won by Indian entries.
lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2012-December/008921.html
Grant UsageApproved Grants
- Wikimeetup Bangalore 50 - 13 October, 2012 - INR 19,100
- Wikipedia Workshop for Women, Mumbai - November 4, 2012 - INR 10,000
- Wikipedia Workshop for Women, participation grant for Netha Hussain -
November 4, 2012 - INR 8329
- Wiki Vana-Vignana Yatra Event - December 8-9, 2012 - INR 17,600
EventsOctober
1. Bangalore meetup #50 was organised at TERI. The keynote speaker was
WMF board member Bishakha Datta. It was a milestone event for the Bangalore
Wikimedia community. City SIG chair Radhakrishna and other wikipedians were
involved in its organisation.
2. A Wiki Academy was organised in IIT Chennai on October 6, 2012.
Speakers/Facilitators were Arjuna Rao Chavala and T. Sujatha (Telugu
Wikipedian). Executive Manager of WMIN Sowmyan Trimurthi also attended.
November
1. The Wikipedia Workshop for Women took place on November 4, 2012 in
Vidyalankar Institute of Technology (VIT), Wadala. More than 70 female
participants attended the workshop. The people who volunteered in
organizing this workshop were Bishakha Datta, Moksh Juneja, Karthik Nadar,
Pranav Curumsey, Pradeep Mohandas, Anshuman Fotedar, Aditi Juneja, Harriet
Vidyasagar, Nikita Belavate, Netra Parikh, Noopur Raval, Netha Hussain,
Rohini Lakshane. A detailed report on the community mailing list is
available at
lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2012-November/008782.html
2. Kannada Wiki Meetup -
6<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KN:%E0%B2%B5%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%95%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%…>
3. Wikipedia Bangalore Meetup 51 - November 18, 2012
December
1. Wiki Vana vignana yatra was organised by the Malyalam Wikipedians on
December 8-9, 2012. A public report is available
[here<http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%…>
]
2. Wikipedia Bangalore Meetup 52 - December 2, 2012
Thanks and regards,
Karthik Nadar,
Secretary, Wikimedia India Chapter.
Hello!
I'll be doing an open office hours on IRC at #wikimedia-office on January
28th. I'll talk about my first full year at WMF, and answer any questions
to the degree that I'm able to about current HR practices and where I see
the trajectory of needs for the coming year. I'm looking forward to meeting
and chatting with people!
Date: Monday, January 28
Time: 1000 PT/1800UTC
In the meantime, I wish you all a very happy holiday season and a great
start to 2013. :) Live long and prosper.
Warm regards,
Gayle
--
Gayle Karen K. Young
Chief Talent and Culture Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
p. 415.839.6885 x6691
c. 415.310.8416
www.wikimediafoundation.org
Hello, all.
Just a reminder that Sue Gardner, the Wikimedia Foundation's Executive
Director, is doing an IRC office hours on Saturday January 26 at 18:30:00
UTC. There is not currently an agenda set for the meeting, but I will
update the particulars on Meta if that changes. Please see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours for
particulars.
Thanks!
Maggie
--
Maggie Dennis
Community Liaison
WikimediaFoundation.org
Dear all,
after a long period of discussions and clarifications, we are now
finally starting our search for a Secretary-General to serve the
Chapters Association.
Please distribute to following text to as many of your contacts,
mailing-lists and networks as possible.
Thank you very much,
kind regards,
Markus
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
------------------------------------------
The Chapters Association (CA) will be an umbrella organization for
Wikimedia chapters established in various regions around the world. The
association represents the common interests of those chapters within the
Wikimedia movement.
One of its goals is to set, review and enforce standards of
accountability and participation among its members. The association will
facilitate the exchange of experiences, ideas, and knowledge between
chapters and assist them in their organizational development and to
develop common programs and projects.
To enhance external communication, coordinate the Wikimedia movement and
represent its chapters on official occasions, CA is looking for an
experienced and motivated person to become the full-time
Secretary-General (f/m)
of the Chapters Association.
CA is incorporated in Geneva, however depending on your place of
residence a relocation might not be necessary.
Job description
The Secretary-General is to be head of the CA?s Secretariat as defined
by the CA?s charter. The Secretariat performs the executive powers of
the Association. The Secretary-General will be elected by the Council.
The other Members of the Secretariat are appointed by the
Secretary-General, with the consent of the Council. The Secretariat
reports to the Council on the Association's activities and has the right
to submit proposals for Council resolutions.
She/He will be responsible for:
* Defining the organizational structure, publishing job offers and
hiring the officers of the secretariat;
* Building the strategic plan for the association;
* Assuring the financial stability of the organization;
* Coordinating between all association members;
* Building annual program plans to achieve the CA mission;
* Handling all formal administrative tasks including finance,
communications, legal and technical;
* and preparing the assemblies of the CA council.
Desired personal traits
* Leader -- the selected Secretary-General will have to build the
organization from its earliest stages according to the outlines set
by the CA council.
* Administrator -- some of the tasks of the Secretary-General would be
of administrative nature. She/He would have to write detailed
program plans, review by-laws, financial reports, program plans and
program reports of other organizations.
* Excellent communication skills -- one of the the Secretary-General's
primary tasks would be to communicate with member chapters. Those
chapters are dispersed in different regions of the worlds
representing various cultural habits. The selected Secretary-General
would have to be multi-culturally-minded to work effectively with
these partners.
* Willing and able to travel world-wide.
* Proven experience with building and managing a large diverse
organization.
* Comfortable working with people at all levels of the organization,
including community members and volunteers.
* Experience in other like-minded/ international/ volunteer-driven/
non-profit/ peer-review-driven organizations would be considered as
an advantage.
* The ideal candidate will be hard-working, creative,
highly-motivated, and able to operate and effectively manage
multiple cultural contexts, time-zones and expectations
* Incredible diplomatic problem-solving skills in an international
environment as well as the ability to deal comfortably and
efficiently with ambiguity and an ever changing environment
* Must be fluent in English; skill in other languages would be
considered as an advantage.
Great to have
* University degree
* Experience within the Wikimedia movement. However, according to CA?s
charter a Member of the Secretariat cannot be a Council Member or
hold a position in a Chapter or in the Wikimedia Foundation.
* Love working with a highly collaborative, consensus oriented environment
Competitive salary package. Please send your cover letter, full CV,
salary expectations and at least two references in one .pdf file to:
chaptersassociation(a)wikimedia.ch <mailto:chaptersassociation@wikimedia.ch>
In case of any questions, please also use email and the address given above.
Publication date: 26.01.2013 - Application deadline: 15.02.2013
Seat and postal address: Wikimedia Switzerland, 8008 Zurich
Office: Wikimedia CH, Escaliers du Marché 2, CH-1003 Lausanne
Web: www.wikimedia.ch
--
Markus Glaser
WCA Council Member (WMDE)
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Hi,
We are working with the City of Johannesburg to tag heritage sites, in
a project called JoburgpediA. The proposed logo has the Wikipedia
Globe as one of the elements: is this acceptable? Also, if we will be
putting up plaques which include the Wikipedia logo on buildings, what
approval do we need?
Thanks,
--
David Richfield
[[:en:User:Slashme]]
+27718539985
So, now that Wikimedia Italiano is over 1,000,000 articles, who's going to
update the page at http://www.wikipedia.org/ to match?
Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: .mau. (maurizio codogno) <wiki.mau(a)gmail.com>
Date: 23 January 2013 22:09
Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] WMIT bulletin no. 44: January 23, 2013
To: wikimedia-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org,
wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hi all,
the new bulletin from Wikimedia Italia (#44) is available.
This time we write about participation of Wikimedia Italia to an initiative
for an Open School, and of course the hitting of the one millionth article
mark for Wikipedia in Italian.
As usual a link has been added to meta, at
Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Italia ; raw text of the bulletin
follows below.
ciao, .mau.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The passing of Aaron Swartz
Andrea Zanni, a member of Wikimedia Italia board, spoke on Radio3 Science
commenting on the story of the sudden death of Aaron Swartz, a symbol of
the freedom of access to knowledge (you can listen him
here<http://bit.ly/UL0maR>,
from minute 3:20). On January 11, 2013, in New York, Aaron Swartz committed
suicide at the age of 26 years. Aaron was a young American programmer and
activist, engaged for years in the struggle for digital democracy and
freedom of knowledge.
One million articles on Italian Wikipedia
Italian Wikipedia has reached its millionth article, becoming thus the
fifth language to reach this milestone after English, German, French and
Dutch. The article which hit the threshold should be it:8mm_(gruppo_musicale)
8mm <http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/8mm_%28gruppo_musicale%29_8mm>. Read the
press release <http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Comunicati_stampa/unmilione>by
Wikimedia Italia (in Italian) and the
entry on Wikimedia
Blog<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/22/italian-wikipedia-surpasses-one-millio…>(in
English, Italian and Spanish).
Towards an Open School
“Verso una Scuola Open <http://bit.ly/ZacJlY>” (Towards an Open School) is
an initiative sponsored by the Centro Formazione Insegnanti (Teacher
Training Center) in Rovereto, which aims to raise awareness in the school
world on the topic of conscious access to shared knowledge. On Thursday,
January 17, the project held a conference in Trento, to weigh up the
state-of-the-art for Open Source for education at the local level. Frieda
Brioschi, the chair of Wikimedia Italia, participated as a speaker, telling
the audience about the educational projects promoted by the
association: Wikipedia
va a scuola <http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Wikipedia_va_a_scuola>(Wikipedia
goes to school).
Official launch of Wikivoyage
On January 15th, Wikipedia turned 12 years old. For the occasion, Wikimedia
Foundation officially launched the project Wikivoyage<http://wikivoyage.org/>,
a free travel guide anyone can contribute to. Find out how you can
participate<http://it.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Come_puoi_aiutare_Wikivoyage>(in
Italian).
News in brief
(Note: in this translated version only the news regarding Italy are shown)
- On January 15, the project Wikidata in Hungarian started, with the
activation of the dedicated extension. Project is scheduled to launch in
Italy in a short time: we will keep you updated!
- SAVE THE DATE: Next 2 March the official Members' Meeting for
Wikipedia Italia will be held in Milan. As usual, everyone can participate
but only members in good standing with the payment of the fee for 2013 will
be entitled to vote.
<http://xmau.com/>
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(this press release can also be found online at
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/VimpelCom_partners_with…)
* VimpelCom partners with the Wikimedia Foundation to offer free
mobile Wikipedia access through Wikipedia Zero
San Francisco, California and Amsterdam, The Netherlands -- January
25, 2013 -- VimpelCom Ltd. and the Wikimedia Foundation today
announced a partnership to offer Wikipedia on mobile devices free of
data charges to VimpelCom customers. By making Wikipedia available at
no data charge to its customers, VimpelCom is removing barriers to
information while joining the Wikimedia Foundation to increase access
to the free and open knowledge available on Wikipedia.
This partnership is part of the Wikimedia Foundation's Wikipedia Zero
program, which focuses on reaching the billions of people around the
world whose primary opportunity to access the internet is via a mobile
device.
"We're very happy VimpelCom is joining us in removing a major barrier
to accessing Wikipedia on mobile phones. This partnership is an
important step forward in our mission to bring free knowledge to
everyone on the planet," said Kul Takanao Wadhwa, Head of Mobile with
the Wikimedia Foundation. "In conjunction with VimpelCom, one of the
largest telecommunication providers in the world, we're now able to
expand free access to Wikipedia in more countries. With this
partnership, Wikipedia Zero is now available to 330 million mobile
users around the world."
VimpelCom customers will be able to access free Wikipedia knowledge by
pointing their mobile browser to m.wikipedia.org. Customers in each
VimpelCom market will be able to access local language versions of
Wikipedia along with the English version.
"The world's sixth largest telecommunications company and fifth
largest website globally are coming together to offer our customers a
better mobile experience and greater access to free knowledge,
particularly in emerging markets," said Mikhail Gerchuk, VimpelCom
Group's Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer. "This is a win-win
partnership that helps us promote mobile internet to our customers
while contributing to Wikipedia's mission to bring free access to all
the world's knowledge."
Wikipedia Zero will be rolled out in VimpelCom operations across the
globe starting this year, with focus on emerging markets in Eastern
Europe, Asia and Africa. While Wikipedia Zero will be the first
initiative of the partnership to launch, both partners are also
expected to jointly develop additional Wikimedia services to target
emerging markets in the future.
Questions and answers about the partnership and Wikipedia Zero can be found at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships#VimpelCom
* About VimpelCom
http://www.vimpelcom.com
VimpelCom is one of the world's largest integrated telecommunications
services operators providing voice and data services through a range
of traditional and broadband mobile and fixed technologies in Russia,
Italy, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia,
Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Laos, Algeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burundi,
Zimbabwe, Central African Republic and Canada. VimpelCom's operations
around the globe cover territory with a total population of
approximately 780 million people. VimpelCom provides services under
the "Beeline", "Kyivstar", "djuice", "Wind", "Infostrada" "Mobilink",
"Leo", "banglalink", "Telecel", and "Djezzy" brands. As of September
30, 2012 VimpelCom had 212 million mobile subscribers on a combined
basis. VimpelCom is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the
symbol (VIP).
VimpelCom Media Contact
Bobby Leach
+31 20 79 77 200 (Amsterdam)
pr(a)vimpelcom.com
* About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 483 million unique visitors per month, making them
the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November
2012). Available in 280 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 23
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of
roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the
Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded
primarily through donations and grants.
Wikimedia Foundation media contact
Matthew Roth
Communications
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6635 (San Francisco)
mroth(a)wikimedia.org
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