I don't work for the Foundation, but my understanding is that the HR folks
there - and I'm sure many others across the organisation - have thought a
lot about the staff (and salary) implications of being an international
project with a US HQ. One particular question that seems to come up is
about whether salaries should be adjusted to the cost of living in a
particular region, which I personally agree with for the reasons that
Felipe outlined.
I do find this comment interesting: "WMF already has many employees that
are based in countries where such immoral employment conditions dominate."
I don't know who determines whether employment conditions are moral or
otherwise? As a (not entirely random) indicator, the minimum required paid
maternity leave in the U.S. is zero weeks, whereas in Romania it's a year.
Lucy
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 at 13:05, <wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour
(Felipe Schenone)
2. Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour
(The Cunctator)
3. Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour (Gnangarra)
4. Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour
(Amir Sarabadani)
5. Re: Wiki Loves Monuments 2022 award ceremony announcement
(Ciell Wikipedia)
6. Re: Wiki Loves Monuments 2022 award ceremony announcement
(Kassia Echavarri-Queen)
7. Some Updates & Foundation’s 2023-2024 Annual Plan
(Maryana Iskander)
8. Re: 23 March: Invitation to Open Community Call on ChatGPT,
generative AI, and Wikimedia
(Kimmo Virtanen)
9. [Wikimedia Announcements] Voting open in the seventeenth annual
Picture of the Year contest
(Kunal Mehta)
10. WikiYouthCon Update (James Popoola)
11. Graph Extension (Tim Moody)
12. Re: Graph Extension (James Heilman)
13. Re: Graph Extension (Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga)
14. Re: Graph Extension (Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:22:21 -0300
From: Felipe Schenone <schenonef(a)gmail.com>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening
tour
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<
CABbLfopUW11bTNCSFGbE8Dq6TgXvJjofeiZfm-tyGXo68kvJYw(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="00000000000042bac405f99b5eed"
Just to put things into perspective, in Argentina, earning USD 4000 a month
means you're the fucking king. You can rent almost any place you want, buy
food and all necessities, eat out everyday, and have enough left over to
buy some land or a house in a few years. By contrast, a quick Google search
suggests that renting a 1-bedroom apartment in NYC costs around USD 4000,
while in Silicon Valley costs around USD 2500. I may be wrong, but judging
from
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries I can
see that nowadays, WMF salaries don't go below USD 200,000 per year, or USD
16,000 a month.
Rather than morally bankrupt, I'd argue that bringing salaries of even USD
5000 per month to people in countries like mine would be an economic
bonanza and a smart use of resources, a win-win situation. Regarding labor
laws, many non-US countries, like mine, have quite stringent labor laws
(such as Argentina, due to a long history of syndicalism). Perhaps it's
just a matter of finding countries that balance both criteria. I'm not sure
that expanding development to cheaper countries is the solution to all of
WMF software problems, but I think it could help a lot.
On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 8:55 AM Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com> wrote:
or the 3am meetings
On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 19:49, Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Hiring people because they are in such countries as the basis for saving
> money is morally bankrupt, yet we'll happily draw from the pool of
> donations that primarily come from those more expensive countries. Much
> like we talk about equity but decide that some places arent worth
engaging
> in because its too far to travel leaving
others to shoulder the burden
of
> travel.
>
> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 19:35, Felipe Schenone <schenonef(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Yet in some countries, like mine, paying for food, renting a place,
>> buying a house, etc. is far cheaper than in the US, so paying a lower
>> salary (in USD) wouldn't amount to a lower standard of living at all,
and
>> doesn't feel immoral, at least to
me.
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 8:00 AM Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Either we make software development cheaper somehow (move the WMF to
>>>> Romania or something)
>>>
>>>
>>> Hiring in countries with the worst labour laws and cheapest minimum
>>> wages is totally immoral. Especially in a community where equity is
part of
>>> our culture we must endeavour to
ensure that employees/contractors
>>> regardless of where they live paid fairly and equally subject to
skills and
>>> responsibilities of the role. WMF
already has many employees that are
>>> based in countries where such immoral employment conditions dominate.
>>>
>>>>
>>> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 05:49, Dan Garry (Deskana) <djgwiki(a)gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I agree with much of what Amir has said here, except one little
bit...
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, 17 Apr 2023 at 20:52, Amir Sarabadani
<ladsgroup(a)gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> And even if a software would have an owner, it used to be that the
>>>>> team was under so much pressure to produce new things instead of
>>>>> maintenance that the software would practically be without a
maintainer (or
>>>>> worse, as even volunteers
couldn't unofficially take the role). I
can
>>>>> example a few.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think pressure on a team to deliver new things is *one* reason why
>>>> this situation has come about, but it's far from being the only one.
Here's
>>>> a few others off the top of my
head:
>>>>
>>>> - Owning so many things that even if there was zero pressure to
>>>> deliver new features, the team still couldn't maintain everything
that they
>>>> own.
>>>> - Incredibly powerful and incredibly complex features that teams
>>>> are afraid of touching lest they break them and make community
members
>>>> angry.
>>>> - Conservatism and fear of community outrage causing reluctance to
>>>> deprecate functionality.
>>>> - Lack of understanding of the impact of the feature.
>>>> - Lack of a clear roadmap (a list of bug reports and feature
>>>> requests is not a roadmap).
>>>>
>>>> There's more but those are some that come to the top of my head.
And,
>>>> not everyone one of those always applies to every situation, e.g. I
>>>> definitely don't think all of the items in your list should be
deprecated!
>>>>
>>>> This causes the path of least resistance to be, for everyone
involved,
>>>> to leave things in limbo and hope
for the best.
>>>>
>>>> Dan
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Boodarwun
>>> Gnangarra
>>> 'ngany dabakarn koorliny arn boodjera dardoon ngalang Nyungar
>>> koortaboodjar'
>>>
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--
Boodarwun
Gnangarra
'ngany dabakarn koorliny arn boodjera dardoon ngalang Nyungar
koortaboodjar'
--
Boodarwun
Gnangarra
'ngany dabakarn koorliny arn boodjera dardoon ngalang Nyungar
koortaboodjar'
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