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Hi everyone,
As I near my one-and-a-half year mark as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, I
intend to continue providing updates here and elsewhere every few months
based on your ongoing feedback. (You can find my note from January 2023
here [1], and all of my past letters on Meta [2]).
My top three priorities have remained consistent: (1) strategy/planning,
(2) leadership, and (3) culture/values. On strategy, Wikimedia Foundation
Board of Trustees Chair Nataliia Tymkiv recently shared the outcomes [3] of
a strategic planning retreat that brought together Foundation leadership
with the Wikimedia Endowment Board and members of the Movement Charter
Drafting Committee. On planning, I will share more below.
On leadership, last Friday, our Chief Product & Technology Officer Selena
Deckelmann reflected on her first six months on the job. Selena named some
of the big issues [4] she hopes to help us all tackle in the years to come.
Thank you to those who have already given her some initial reactions.
Finally, I continue to believe more strongly than ever that culture and
values will be the most sustainable way to make lasting, positive change
together – on this front, the Wikimedia Foundation will complete a refresh
of our organizational values [5] by July.
The main purpose of this letter is to point you to the Foundation’s draft
annual plan [6] for our coming fiscal year (July 2023 through June 2024).
One of the first tasks I named when I started this job was to reimagine the
Foundation’s annual planning processes. Last year’s plan, my first at the
Foundation, was focused on radically changing how we did our work. This
included organizing our work more regionally to better respond to varying
needs around the world, and also leveling up our own performance,
accountability, and internal collaboration. This has put us in a better
position to more meaningfully describe what we can do in the year ahead.
Five quick observations about the draft plan before you hopefully take time
to look at the 17,000+ word document:
1.
Looking outward: Like last year, the plan starts by looking outward and
persistently asking ‘what does the world need from us now’? This question
remains at the heart of the Foundation’s approach to strategy and
planning. Earlier
this year, we shared external trends [7] impacting the mission of free
knowledge, and built on those trends with a well-attended community
conversation about recent advancements in generative AI and what that may
mean for the projects. Your reflections [8] on these trends is probably
the most important way to help make sure we’re all focused on the right
things over the long term.
1.
Anchored in movement strategy: For the second year, the plan is firmly
and unambiguously anchored in movement strategy. Our intention is to
connect the Foundation’s work even more deeply with the Movement Strategy
Recommendations [9] for more rapid progress towards the 2030 Strategic
Direction [10]. This is made actionable in our commitments to advancing
knowledge equity, growing the resource base for community-driven
priorities, and making sure the Foundation’s own effectiveness measurably
improves from learning and iteration.
1.
Our role in Product & Technology: Wikimedia’s people-centered movement
is powered by product and technology delivered by the Foundation and
volunteers. We have tried to more intentionally describe our unique role
as the platform provider supporting communities who are collaborating on a
massive scale. The bulk of this effort, called “Wiki Experiences,”[11]
recognizes that volunteers are at the heart of the Wikimedian process of
sensemaking and knowledge creation, and prioritizes established editors
(including those with extended rights, like admins, stewards, patrollers,
and moderators of all kinds, also known as functionaries) to ensure that
they have the right tools for the critical work they do every day to expand
and improve quality content, as well as manage community processes.
1.
Slower growth and trade-offs: As you will see in the draft plan, an
important driver of multi-year strategic planning will focus on the
structure of the Foundation’s budget, future financial projections, and
possible revenue/product trade-offs. As I shared in my note in January,
given the revenue shortfall from the December English fundraising campaign,
as well as an uncertain global economic outlook, the Foundation is
projecting reduced expenses and slower growth than in past years. Over the
past month, we have made internal budget cuts, prioritizing non-personnel
expenses but also reducing staffing by 5 percent. These difficult decisions
were made to support a more sustainable trajectory in expenses for the
coming few years, and also to maintain our overall funding levels to
movement partners (including more funding in all regions while prioritizing
proportionally larger growth in underrepresented regions).
1.
More granular information about how the Foundation operates. To increase
visibility and accountability [12], this annual plan includes more detailed
financial projections, such as various budget breakdowns of how we allocate
our resources. It also shares more granular organizational information,
such as our department goals, people processes, global guidelines, and
compensation principles. This is meant to complement some of the
Foundation’s recently published Diff posts outlining our approach to pay
visibility [13] and describing how we support a highly-distributed remote
workforce [14]. I hope this level of detail will result in more good-faith
conversations about what is, and what is not, possible to do with the
resources that we have.
Over the next month, all of us at the Wikimedia Foundation look forward to
hearing more from you on the direction we are taking. We have tried to
enable this in whatever form you prefer: on-wiki on Meta [15], project
village pumps, and open calls both virtual and in person [16] that are
being hosted over the coming weeks, many in partnership with global
communities around the world. Your comments, reflections, and provocations
will help improve what we have proposed to do before the Foundation’s Board
of Trustees considers the plan and budget in their June meeting.
I continue to welcome your direct engagement at miskander(a)wikimedia.org or
on my talk page [17].
Maryana
Maryana Iskander
Wikimedia Foundation CEO
p.s. On a more personal note – in keeping with the tradition of
transparency on additional board roles, earlier this year I shared with the
Wikimedia Foundation Trustees that I am under consideration to join the
board of Yale University, my law school alma mater. The alumni election
process is underway now, and I will let you know the results when they are
finalized.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Chief_Executive_Office…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Chief_Executive_Office…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Marc…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Leadership_team/Chief_…
[5]
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/04/17/we-are-in-this-mission-together-refre…
[6]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024
[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/…
[8]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/…
[9]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Summary
[10]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
[11]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/…
[12]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Principles#Transparency_&…
[13]
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/17/wikimedia-foundation-remote-first-and…
[14]
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/04/06/wikimedia-foundation-global-guideline…
[15]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-…
[16]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/…
[17]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User_talk:MIskander-WMF
Hi Everyone,
Last year, as part of our annual planning process, the Wikimedia Foundation
shared a list of external trends
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Chief_Executive_Office…>
that we believed were likely to significantly impact the context in which
the Wikimedia movement operates. Our focus at the time was on the changing
nature of search, the astronomical rise in the global demand for content,
and rich media content in particular, and the concerning rise of
misinformation and disinformation. We heard from many in our movement about
additional trends that our movement faces that we didn’t include in that
list, but that are critical to how we as a movement operate, including the
de-prioritization of investigative journalism, and the damage to GLAM
institutions wrought by the global pandemic.
As part of this year’s annual planning process, we set out to update that
list. In particular, we’ve been tracking recent advancements in artificial
intelligence (AI). In our recent Diff post on the topic, [1] we noted some
risks as well as some potential opportunities for our movement as this
technology continues to evolve. Since there has been a great deal of
interest in and discussion about AI products like ChatGPT and what it means
for Wikimedia over the past few months (including several threads on the
topic on this mailing list), we’d love to explore this topic in more depth
with you and continue the conversation about its implications for us as a
free knowledge movement.
I’d like to invite you all to an open call on 23 March at 18:00 UTC (find
your local time here) [2] where we can share reflections on the
opportunities, risks, and questions we see raised by new AI tools and
products.
The call will be held on Zoom. If you’re interested in joining, email
answers(a)wikimedia.org and we will share the Zoom link with you via email.
We will work to coordinate interpretation for languages where there are 3
or more interested community members; please email answers(a)wikimedia.org
with interpretation requests as well.
For those who are unable to join the call, but interested in following and
contributing to the conversation, we plan to share notes on our External
Trends Meta page [3] afterward so that you can add your thoughts.
Whether in person or on-wiki, I hope you’ll share your ideas so that we can
all get a broader understanding of the potential benefits and challenges of
this emergent technology. Looking forward to the discussion!
Best,
Yael Weissburg
1.
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/17/looking-outward-external-trends-in-20…
2.
https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1679594401
3.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/…
*Yael Weissburg* (she/her)
VP, Partnerships, Programs & Grantmaking
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
M: (+1) 415.513.6643
I work from San Francisco. My time zone is UTC -7/-8.
Hi Wikimedians,
As we approach Earth Day (April 22) next week, I wanted to remind you about
how you can contribute to the #WikiForHumanRights Campaign.
Each year we partner with the UN Human Rights and UN Environmental program,
to focus on the key issues related to the human impacts of the global
environmental crises.
Join our launch webinar!
On 18 April at 15:00 UTC, we invite you to join the launch of this year’s
#WikiForHumanRights campaign, with a special focus on the Pollution
crisis. Register
here on Zoom
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/event/wikiforhumanrights-launch-webinar-focus-on…>
.
This panel explores how improved public knowledge, through platforms like
Wikimedia projects, can help both global and local communities better
understand and exercise their right to a clean, healthy and sustainable
environment in efforts to prevent, minimize and remedy pollution. Join
panelists Monika Stankiewicz (Executive Secretary of the Minamata
Convention on Mercury <https://mercuryconvention.org/en>), Jo Banner
(Co-Founder & Co-Director, Descendents Project
<https://www.thedescendantsproject.com/>) and Soledad Mella Vida (Asociación
Movimiento Nacional Recicladores de Chile <https://anarch.cl/>) as they
discuss how public knowledge can play an important role in protecting human
rights and the environment.
The event will include live translations in Spanish, Portuguese, French,
and Arabic.
Register here on Zoom
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/event/wikiforhumanrights-launch-webinar-focus-on…>
.
Contribute to the campaign!
The heart of every Wikimedia campaign are contributions to Wikimedia
communities. Join us in one of the actions.
-
Join the Writing Contest
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiForHumanRights/Join_the_Challenge>—
help us create local knowledge on key human rights and environmental
knowledge topics in more languages, this year the special focus is on
-
Connect with Local Communities
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiForHumanRights/Join_Community_Events>—
Join an event in your language or community
-
Join the Human Rights Interest Group
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1imdKKVlWcZ91BY6ou4t3ZzdJkBHflH2qaSUxp5CTHV…>
— advise the Wikimedia Movement on addressing human rights
-
Share the campaign with your communities! -- Help us share the campaign
with your community, by sharing the blog post on Diff:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/03/30/join-the-wikiforhumanrights-campaign-…
Looking forward to you joining the campaign!
The International WikiForHumanRights Team
--
Alex Stinson
Lead Program Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation
Twitter: @sadads
Learn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and other
Wikimedia projects create calls to action to invite new contributors
through campaigns: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns
Far from a pipe dream, a strategy of keeping useful functionality
maintained and working through known problems, sounds like a much better
use of IT resource than one of neglecting deployed software to prioritise
the latest fads.
WSC
On Mon, 17 Apr 2023, 1:04 pm , <wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> 1. Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour (Gergő Tisza)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2023 17:50:57 -0700
> From: Gergő Tisza <gtisza(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:
> <
> CAEVcXn0rA1t9ErCzYmUrD-prc4psRL_tT26Z1twmvTHzaTchDg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="0000000000006a8f6905f97d969b"
>
> On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 7:49 AM AntiCompositeNumber <
> anticompositenumber(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Agreed. It has long been the case that infrastructure critical to the
> > operation of the various wikis has been left without a clear
> > maintainer, or has been maintained only in the volunteer time of a
> > single staffer already fulfilling a full-time role. Teams would be
> > dissolved or reassigned to completely different projects after
> > completion, without the ability and/or willingness to even review
> > patches. That assumes that the team doing the work wasn't made up of
> > contractors who departed the Foundation when the project was
> > "completed", taking their knowledge of it with them.
> >
> > This was a major factor in causing the technical debt problem, and
> > must be addressed to have any chance of solving it.
> >
>
> At some point we will have to admit that we have created a feature set many
> times larger than we have the capacity to actively maintain and improve.
> Either we make software development cheaper somehow (move the WMF to
> Romania or something), or we cut some of the non-software spending (but we
> already spend 50%+ of movement funds on software, and we'd have to increase
> capacity way more than by a factor of two to maintain all our code), or we
> undeploy most current features, or we'll have to put up with most things
> being unmaintained, which is the status quo. That's not to say we can't be
> smarter about it (e.g. microservices are a great way to have maintenance
> overhead spin even more out of control) or that maintenance efforts
> couldn't be better prioritized (e.g. the lack of maintainership of our
> authentication stack is somewhat wild), but fundamentally changing the
> current mode of operation (where most things are deployed and
> then abandoned to work on the next thing) is a pipe dream IMO.
>
Dear all,
I am writing on behalf of the Community Affairs Committee of the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees [1] to invite you to work with us as a Volunteer
Advisory Member of the Board’s newest task force–the Sister Projects Task
Force. The Sister Projects Task Force will be a group of community members
and Foundation trustees working together on a strategy to support the life
cycle of non-Wikipedia projects across the movement.
The Community Affairs Committee charter calls on addressing “the review of
the existing sister projects and new sister site applications, including
creating a formalized procedure, from application to approval/rejection”
[2] as one of the responsibilities of the Committee. We are forming the
Sister Projects Task Force to deliver on this commitment. This Task Force
will create processes to support the development of sister projects, which
enrich and expand the way we share knowledge with the world.
We need your expertise to make this happen. We welcome applicants from
different sister projects, regions and languages, bringing different
perspectives to the table. You can read more about the selection process
and apply to join us on Meta [3]. Apply until 15 May 2023.
Please share this email with anyone you think may be interested in applying.
Best regards,
Victoria Doronina
Wikimedia Foundation trustee, Lead of the Wikimedia Foundation Board Sister
Projects Task Force (SiPTaF)
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…
[2]
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Affairs_Committee_Charter#R…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…
--
Victoria Doronina
Trustee
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality.
Hello Wikimedia community!
This email is to announce that the GLAM Wiki: The Culture, Heritage and
Wikimedia Conference will take place in Montevideo, Uruguay, in November
16-18, 2023. Save the dates!
Last week, the Wikimedia Foundation and the Conference Committee approved
our grant application [1] to host the conference in Montevideo, Uruguay.
The event will take place in the School of Information & Communications of
the University of the Republic [2], a beautiful building surrounded by a
public park within a walking distance from the "rambla", a walking path
next to the Río de La Plata River.
Our community has a lot of important topics to discuss in person, from
better supporting our tools for content partnerships with cultural heritage
institutions, to decolonizing knowledge, to more access to capacity
building and networking to grow the next generation of GLAM Wiki
collaborations.
To better engage with the community in the design of this event, we're
offering a launch event, taking place on April 13 at 5 PM UTC. We want to
learn from you! Please register on Meta [3] to receive the Zoom link. We
will be offering simultaneous interpretation in Spanish & Portuguese.
Want to get even more involved? Join our Scholarship or Program Committee.
[4]
Looking forward to seeing you all in beautiful Uruguay.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/Co…
[2] https://fic.edu.uy/home
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:GLAM_Wiki_Conference_Launch_Event
[4]
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZli8PE7vnLViWhWiaxUT2WyPu9yGD3AN…
--
Evelin Heidel
Encargada de Programas
Wikimedistas de Uruguay