On Feb 10, 2008 8:17 PM, <gwern0(a)gmail.com> wrote: There was some discussion on WikBack, mostly speculation about the travel expenses. I don't think what was released was detailed enough or recent enough to say much about. One noteworthy figure to me was that the Foundation had just over $1 million in cash, but that figure is long obsolete, there's been lots of spending and lots of fundraising in the mean time. The fact that the audit is completed and unqualified is good.

gwern0(a)gmail.com wrote: Actually, me too :-) I am not sure what you see as "interesting" here. Stock may be owned and given by anyone. Not Google guys only. going from non-paid to paid status, and all the other hires. It strikes me as odd to see employee expenses rising past equipment and hosting costs, but I suppose that just marks me as being a product of the old days where the mission of the Foundation was seen as keeping the servers running (and not whatever else the Foundation does these days). The same (board)/staff who * negotiated much better hosting costs (which decrease operating costs) * provided a lot of optimization work (see Tim email) * got hardware donations (which decrease operating costs) * managed to get hosting donations (eg, Kennisnet) Even today, most of the activity of the Foundation is about running the website. But to get a 24/24, 7/7 website running, you need tech staff. Once you get bills to pay (high amount and numerous), you need an accountant. Once you get people calling the office once every 5 minutes, you need an office manager. Once you get invited to visit the tribunal from time to time, you need lawyers etc... And once you need more money to get in, you need staff to make the money get in. There are tasks which may be handled by volunteers. But others tasks may not. And other necessary tasks which could be handled by volunteers are ... not always handled. Firstly, I am concerned by the almost doubling in travel expenditure: I don't see any particular reason for that. Yes, I am sure Jimbo and others did an awful lot of traveling to promote Wikia and its search engine - but that obviously wouldn't be on the Foundation's dime. Yes, no doubt expenses increased with the decline of the dollar, increase in jetfuel costs and so on - but I can't see that. I have to question what good all this traveling does the community. It's eating up an impressive amount of resources (a substantial fraction of what we spend on important stuff like keeping the servers running), and strikes me as 'fat'. If people really want WMF people to give a lecture or something, what's wrong with having them pay the fare? If WMF people need to meet, what's wrong with videoconferencing? Why should donations from strapped college students and so on be going to this. has money to spare. The particular reasons for travel costs increase are * during the previous fiscal year, we had 2 staff members. We now have over 10 staff members, not all of them located at the same place. They need to meet face to face from time to time * when Jimbo was chair, the board basically only met on irc. When I got chair, I made sure that the board would have face to face board meetings. It may be more expensive, but it is also incredibly productive. Additionally, now that we have an office and staff, it also make sense that board members sometimes meet with the staff. Sure enough, it has a cost, but this cost is at the benefit of strategy and control. You do not run an organization of 50 000 dollars (2004) in the same way than an organization of 5 000 000 dollars (2007) * travel costs include scholarships of wikipedians to go to Wikimania. This is not really a cost since we got restricted donations from sponsors to precisely cover that cost * last, we are more known (and criticized) than in 2004. There are travels which make sense from a political and advocacy perspective. I'll add that "others" did not travel to promote Wikia. I'll also add that in the very very large majority of cases, people who want us to give lectures pay the travel fare. Last, regarding videoconferencing, you have a point. However, videoconferencing will NEVER replace the richness of real life meeting. For example, no reasonable organization will ever hire an executive director without even meeting her. That's non sense. This said, I agree that installing videoconference system in ALL the homes of board members and offsite staff might be an idea for the future. Will be costly though :-) Yeah. Board members free time is also not measured ;-) This was very explained by another person. Afaik, we have only one lawsuit going on, and it is pretty obvious there is little to fear from it. is the non-profit branch of Wikia, or vice versa? I'm also troubled by the sharing of costs bit - why is Wikia using WMF resources (presumably why they are paying WMF) and isn't it awfully convenient how the two amounts cancel out? Small potatoes, but still. Tim answer was pretty straightforward. We have no share staff. We now share no more office, nor hardware. When Wikia was only a couple of people, Michael was working in WMF office, and paying the rent to WMF. They also had a couple of servers in our hosting facility. There was sharing in the past. Both organizations decided to make the separation complete and clear, for the sake of both organizations. What else is there to say ? I'd love to hear someone say something along those lines "Thank you to the staff and board to have succeeded to have the Foundation audited for the 4th time" There are over 200 000 000 people reading Wikipedia everyday. It would be very cool even ONE says "thank you". It would go a long way to keep us working. Something like "for every criticism you voice, provide a thank you on another point"

gwern0(a)gmail.com wrote: Since the audit covers a period of time that's in the past, a few last vestiges of the Olden Days were still in effect during the audit period and are naturally covered. Today, Wikia and Wikimedia don't share any data hosting. We don't currently share any office space. We don't currently share any employees. So what is the current relationship? * We do currently share one board member, Jimmy Wales. * Wikia sometimes sponsors Wikimedia events or makes other donations to Wikimedia. * Wikia uses our open-source software, and sometimes contributes back patches or plugins. * Various people are involved in the communities of sites operated by both companies. (Eg, our target audiences overlap.) And what was the past relationship? Here's a quick historical summary: 2001-2002: * Wikipedia is created as a side project that Jimmy Wales kindly operates on servers belonging to his company, Bomis. * Wikipedia gets dedicated servers, kindly donated and hosted by Jimmy/Bomis. 2003-2005: * Jimmy moves from Southern California to Florida, taking both Bomis and Wikipedia with him. * Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is founded to start taking over Wikipedia's resources so it can be operated independently as a not-for-profit. * For convenience, Jimmy and Michael (pretty much the entire company at the time) share a tiny office in Saint Petersburg, and a hosting center in Tampa, between the two companies. The hosting costs of the two companies are accounted separately. * WikiCities/Wikia is founded; Bomis "fades away". [audit period starts here] 2006-2007 * Wikia gets private funding, moves offices and most of their hosting from Florida to Northern California. * The Florida hosting account and office space are taken over fully by Wikimedia. (That's the one-time donation of office space you see in the audit.) * A whopping 3 Wikia servers remain in Florida; Wikia pays Wikimedia monthly rent to cover hosting of those servers. (That's the shared hosting costs you see above in the audit.) * Wikimedia expands its own staff to better handle its growing requirements: tech staff, finance, fundraising, legal, office staff, public relations. [audit period ends here] 2007-2008 * The last remaining non-Jimmy, Wikia-related Wikimedia board member resigns. (That's the end of 50% of the board overlap you see above in the audit.) * Wikimedia moves offices to elsewhere in Northern California (*not* sharing office space with Wikia, which is miles away in a different city). * The last three Wikia servers in Florida are shut off. (That's the end of the shared hosting costs you see above in the audit.) (There may be minor details off, this is from memory.) -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)