Partly in reaction to the two recent proposals for the adoption of global
user rights, I've started a page on meta containing a proposal for a policy
governing the establishment, implementation and use of all global rights on
Wikimedia Foundation projects. Before we establish a number of different
global rights, with different principles and controls expressed in each
policy, it is essential that we create a framework in which to control these
new rights. After a period of time of discussion on meta, I'll publicize the
proposal on the English Wikipedia and ask that others do the same elsewhere.
After the commons view_deleted proposal, I'll ask that the community on meta
delay consideration of new rights proposals until a broader umbrella policy
can be agreed upon.
Nathan
Congrats from me too!
----- Original Message ----
From: Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 12:20:35 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 2008 Wikimedia Board Election results
My best wishes to Ting Chen who was a fair and friendly candidate and
to the election committee which ran the whole thing professionally and
smoothly. I enjoyed being a candidate and might try my luck again best
time. Getting into WMF matters proved a rewarding experience to me.
Thanks also to those who voted for me.
Harel Cain
On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 10:09 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Congratulations, Ting Chen, and best of luck!
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
--
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
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Hi,
What is the official policy and requirements for OTRS and Checkuser
volunteers, who both have access to private information, to disclose
themselves to the WMF? What are they required to reveal to the Foundation,
and how is that information vetted and verified? How does this line up with
the WMF's board policy on private material?
There was a comment from someone who helped draft original OTRS policy, and
who was an administrator and Arbitration Committee member on the English
Wikipedia, that some individuals for some reason do not have to disclose
themselves, which sounded odd, and another person, a current Board
candidate, stated that his entire disclosure to the WMF consisted of a Gmail
stating his name and age. That seems... rather concerning on the former, and
rather thin on the latter.
Thanks!
- Joe
Hello friends,
A board meeting will be held this saturday (21st) on irc.
The agenda may be found here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_meetings#IRC_june
Details are
1. approval of Resolution:Minutes approval April 2008
2. review of the D&O (not received at last board meeting)
3. approval of the Role of the treasurer (already drafted)
4. approval of the Role of the chair (drafted)
5. approval of the Role of the secretary (drafted)
6. approval of new privacy policy
7. approval of budget (to be approved in june, whether at meeting or email)
8.
http://board.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:FY_2008_09_Business_Plan_RELEASED_TO_…
9.
http://board.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:FY_2008_09_Business_Plan_FAQ_RELEASED…
10. approval of Resolution: Pluralism, Internationalism, and Diversity
Policy
11. approval of Resolution: Duty Entertainment Guidelines Policy
12. approval of Resolution: Purchasing and Disbursement Process Policy
13. first feedback from new treasurer
14. official (re)-creation of the ED evaluation committee and timeline
1. After approval, minutes will be published on wmf site
6. As a reminder, you are invited to comment on draft of privacy policy
here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Draft_Privacy_Policy_June_2008
10. is a very good proposition made from the staff to the board, and is
related to hiring policies (not community issues as you might imagine
from the title :-))
11. is meant to come along with already approved travel policy.
14. might be delayed to july meeting if the board decides so.
If you have any URGENT issue you wish to be added on the agenda, here is
the right time to ask. Since this is an irc meeting, I prefer to avoid
any difficult discussion best held face to face. Thanks
Florence
Dear all,
below a rough translation of an email to be sent to the Dutch
community / the members. It includes some good ideas, and I hope
everybody will post more of them! I will try very hard to implement
some of these in Wikimedia Nederland if there is animo. Please give
some feedback! I forward this to foundation-l as well after the
request to do so by some people.
BR, Lodewijk
----
Dear all,
A while ago, there was a chapters meetup in Nijmegen, initiated by
Wikimedia Nederland, as a conclusion of the meetup in january with a
group of our members. During this meeting, there were many subjects
for discussion, amongst which an evaluation of the current
organisation, a talk about the selection of the chapter selected seats
in the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, improvement of
business development, improvement of the online fundraising and an
improvement of the communicatio between the several chapters and the
Foundation.
I experienced these talks, both on the program and off the program as
extremely positive and constructive, and I am glad we took this
initative. Soon more (English) information will be published about the
exact topics and discussions, but I would like to give a head start.
Besides the formal program, a lot of other topics were informally
discussed, such as how other chapters organise certain actvities,
which is to me personally very interesting. I will give a summary
below of some activities initiated by other chapters, which I found
the most relevant and interesting to our chapter. This also means that
there is already some experience out there on these areas, which can
be used positively. Of course every extra activity also means that
more work has to be done by volunteers, so without extra votunteers
nothing will get done! I sincerely hope that volunteers who feel good
about these ideas, will also initiate, and help out!
Grant system – Both Wikimedia PL as Wikimedia IT have a system where
small reimbursements can be given for all kinds of small expenses
which improve the quality of the community of the content on the
Wikimedia projects. Think about train tickets, photo cameras and
access tickets for instance. The nice thing about this project is that
all kinds of small projects can be covered by this, and the
inventivity of the projects can be used fully.
Proactive Press Approach – In France, Wikimedia receives a lot of bad
press attention. Wikipedia is mainly bad approached, which lead to the
attitude to correct the press constantly when errors are being made.
Also in Israel the press is approached actively for interviews and
news articles. Here the press contact plays an important role, as he
approached the journalists both by phone and writing. This has lead to
successes several times, including television appearences.
Wikimedia has warm connections with the press in Germany, which is
partially caused by the fact that Wikimedia Deutschland has some staff
available (1,5 FTE). The main reason seems to be though that Wikimedia
DE is just calling the press (and mainly tv press) with the question
what they might find attractive and useful to know about with respect
to news items. This way the wishes and interests of the press are used
to their full potential.
OTRS Seminar – The German chapter is of the opinion that contacts with
the outer world are important. Not only because it is good PR and
brings goodwill, but also because a good and effective point of
contact, can prevent/dissolve many legal issues. This can save costs
for lawyers etc for both parties. This is the reason that Wikimedia DE
organized an OTRS seminar, where the on OTRS active Wikipedians were
being instructed and trained how to handle certain issues. Of course
this is also very usable to exchange experience and knowledge.
In Sweden it has been attempted to cooperate with like minded
organisations, and tried to let the members of those also to become
member in Wikimedia Sweden. This was very effective, taking their high
membership number into account (118) in such a short time of
existence. Even though there is certainly a cultural difference, on
average one new member per day is very much.
Librarian Project – In this project in Sweden the librarians are
instructed and taught on how to help their members/visitors with the
use of Wikipedia, and how to edit Wikipedia. This results hopefully in
a higher activity amongst librarians (which does not seem bad to me,
taking their knowledge and thoroughness into consideration), but it
also results in the fact that the librarian will advise on the use of
Wikipedia, which means that it will be used more often in a correct
way.
Wikipedia Academy – I talked about this mainly with Jan (Sweden) and
Frank (DE, WMF). The Foundation is willing to cooperate on this area,
and help out a bit if required. Both with experience as with for
instance contacts. Seems very interesting to me to get in touch with
for instance the older academics, or to persuade the scientists to
edit Wikipedia. It is attempted in Sweden currently to copy this
originally German system, which has successfully be done before in
South Africa as well. Ideally I would like to try to get this running
as well in the Nederlands (not so much me myself, but I would love to
see it happening!) because Wikipedia Academy is targeted to scientists
and there is always a need on many expertises for this. Thus it could
result in an improvement of the quality of free content, and the
acceptance of it.
Association Retreat I – In Poland there is twice a year some type of
three day Wikicamp being organised. This includes lectures and
activities, helping the community to cooperate more closely, which
will undoubtly have a positive impact on the projects. It is doubted
that this will fit well in the Dutch attitude and way of life.
Association Retreat II – In Switzerland there is also an attempt to
get the members actively involved, but somewhat less "extreme" as in
Poland. There are plans for a two day meeting on the strategy for the
coming years of Wikimedia CH. The exact details are still under
construction.
Political activities – Both in Sweden as in France there are active
attempts to influence the political situation for matters with
relevance to the Wikimedia projects, such as copyright, free licenses,
the by the government used license, the possibilities the musea have
to forbid photo's, limitations of citizen journalism etc. I think that
there is a need for this as well in the Netherlands, especially since
there are ongoing activities and attemps in this direction. It might
be interesting to contact the involved board members of these chapters
for advice.
I sincerely hope that this includes some interesting talking points
for members. I realize that these are mainly large projects, which
require a lot of time and enthusiasm, but none the less I hope this
gives inspiration, maybe for a thoroughly revised version. Not
everything will be workable, and not everything will be in line of
what we want and can do. I am looking forward to positive responses!
(on the mainling list or on the wiki:
http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Overleg:Activiteiten )
With kind regards,
Lodewijk
Hello participants !
"term used on purpose"...
Mike has drafted a new version of the privacy policy. Given that this
policy is one of the nearest thing to define terms of agreements between
WMF and editors, I invite you to not only read it carefully, but please
also inform your community members on the relevant village pump.
Your input is welcome. Please note that voting on this policy is planned
next week-end during the 21st of June board meeting. So, input is
welcome NOW.
Thank you
Anthere
THE PAGE: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Draft_Privacy_Policy_June_2008
Here's my report for May :-)
Month of: May 2008
Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director
Prepared for: Wikimedia Board of Trustees
MY CURRENT PRIORITIES
1.Finalizing 2008-09 annual plan
2.Finalizing new fundraising hires
3.Ongoing major donor solicitation and stewardship
4.Planning for all-staff meeting and fall Funders' briefing
5.Bits and pieces (Wikimania planning, June 21 board meeting
preparation, finalizing of various policies)
WHAT HAPPENED IN MAY
DEVELOPMENT OF THE 2008-09 ANNUAL PLAN
Much of May was spent developing the Wikimedia Foundation's 08-09 annual
plan, which includes development of the 08-09 budget, revenue targets,
goals, and hiring projections. The 2008-09 fiscal year begins July 1, 2008.
The 08-09 annual plan will be released to the board in mid-June, for
approval at the June 21 IRC board meeting. Following approval, the plan
will be released to the staff and community. However, we are now in a
position to release some information about our current financial state.
(Please note that since the current fiscal year has not yet ended, this
information is projections only. It is also, obviously, unaudited.)
* The approved budget for 07-08 was USD $4.6 million. Because FY 07-08
has not yet ended, we don't yet know how much we will actually spend.
However, as of April 30, 3008, we had spent $2.5 million, and the total
spending for the year is projected to be about $2.9 million. By
contrast, in 06-07, the Foundation spent $2.1 million; in 05-06 it spent
$800K; in 04-05 it spent $200K. In general, spending has increased each
year, as the projects and organization have grown.
* The 07-08 budget was constructed with very little historical
information, and was really a series of 'best guesses.' As it turned
out, underspending in some areas was cancelled out by overspending in
other areas, which resulted in a total underspend of $1.7 million. If
you factor out the technology budget underspend of $1.7 million, the
actuals will probably turn out to have been within 1% of budget.
* The biggest departmental underspend was in the technology budget
(-$1,673). We attribute this underspending to general conservatism and
caution on the part of the tech team, a desire to defer equipment
purchases while various donations and sponsorship deals were under
negotiation, and delays in hiring.
* Other projected large variances in 07-08 include: the legal department
will overspend by about 100K. This is because we spent an unanticipated
$50K strengthening our employment and labor law compliance and
researching various regulatory issues, and because basic trademark work
turned out to be more expensive than had been estimated. The “programs”
(mission) budget will underspend by roughly $100K due to deferred
hiring. The Finance and Administration department overspent by about
60K, due mainly to consultant and recruiter fees, including
higher-than-budgeted audit costs. And the board will underspend by
roughly $60K, due in part to its having held only two face-to-face
meetings (not counting Wikimania) in 07-08, rather than the projected
three. There were other variances, but these are the largest.
Here is how the 08-09 annual plan was constructed: In planning
spending, we started with 07-08 historical spending information. We
modified those numbers in consultation with the staff and the board,
adjusting for increased costs due to anticipated project growth and
other changes, and adjusting for underspending in the prior year. We
then approved new spending in key areas, consistent with our strategic
goals. Also this year, for the first time in the Foundation's history,
we have set revenue targets for business development and fundraising.
The business development targets were set by Kul in consultation with
Véronique; the fundraising targets were set by Sue, Erik and Véronique.
The annual plan will be released to the public as soon as it is
approved by the board.
TECHNOLOGY
[At this time, the monthly report only covers work by paid staff and
contractors, and a lot of technology work is done by volunteers. A good
way to track key technical changes is to read the Wikipedia Signpost's
weekly “B.R.I.O.N.” report:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost ]
A long-awaited feature, Single User Login, is now available to all
Wikimedia account holders. It allows participation in all Wikimedia
projects and languages using a single account. In order to benefit from
it, existing users need to merge their accounts. In the future, all new
accounts will be part of the system by default.
Another long-awaited feature, FlaggedRevs, also known as "stable
versions," has been deployed on the German Wikipedia. In the
configuration used on the German Wikipedia, edits by new and
unregistered users have to be reviewed by longer time registered users
before becoming the default version shown to readers who are not logged
in. The feature is highly configurable, and the experiences collected in
the German test should help to inform other project communities
interested in deploying this functionality. You can see live data on
the usage of the feature on the German Wikipedia here:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~aka/cgi-bin/reviewcnt.cgi?lang=english
Consolidation of past fundraising data in a new system, CiviCRM 2.0, is
progressing. This will make donor data much more accessible and useful,
and provide us with much needed functionality for tracking donor
relationships.
A simple but clever anti-spam solution was deployed on all wikis which
blocked a significant number of dumb spam-bots.
A new MediaWiki feature allows any MediaWiki installation to access
Wikimedia Commons content as if it was locally uploaded.
The MediaWiki write API is being tested on test.wikipedia.org.
Further tests have been conducted on the PediaPress PDF generator code.
For scalability reasons, portions of the code are now being rewritten by
PediaPress.
Backups of internal office data have been much improved, including the
use of the "Time Machine" application on Macs to sync backups to the
fileserver.
OTHER
On May 23 and 24, Foundation staff and board members attended the
chapters meeting in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The staff was represented
by Sue, Erik, Delphine and Kul, with Florence, Jan-Bart and Frieda
attending from the board. Discussion topics included communications,
fundraising and business development: outcomes will be reported
elsewhere by the participants. Many thanks to Lodewijk and the Dutch
chapter for their initiative and hospitality.
Kul used the trip to meet with several potential and current European
business partners, and will follow up in the coming weeks.
Frank Schulenburg, who coordinates public outreach efforts for the
Foundation, has published his first report. It included the results of a
survey of older (50+) German Wikipedians, naming as barriers to
participation “a lack of self-confidence, lack of person contact people,
and an atmosphere of conflict and stress.” It also detailed the staging
of lectures and workshops teaching senior citizen internet tutors about
Wikipedia, and the development and release of an online course entitled
“Wikipedia in internet cafes for older people” Frank's full report is
available here:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-May/043486.html.
Major media interviews given by staff and community members in the month
of May include The Courier-Post (New Jersey, U.S.); the Canadian Press
news agency; the Globe & Mail newspaper; The Age (Australia); the
Toronto Star; Newsweek magazine; National Public Radio; PR Week
magazine; the Washington Post; the San Francisco Chronicle. Media
contacts are now starting to be tracked on
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact_2008 by Jay.
On May 3 and 4, six Wikimedia Foundation employees and 17 community
members staffed a booth at [[Maker Faire]], a California-based O'Reilly
event that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science, tech and the
do-it-yourself (DIY) community. Jay estimates our booth was visited by
about 5,000 people (two of whom are major donors to the Foundation).
On May 28 and 29, Sue, Erik and Véronique staged hiring interviews for
the Head of Community Giving and Head of Major Gifts fundraising roles.
We had terrific applicants, and the successful candidates will be
announced in June. Also in May, Sue, Erik and Véronique, with the
support of an external consulting firm, developed a “community giving”
strategic plan, focused on online fundraising. This plan will be given
to the new Head of Community Giving.
Sue, Erik, Jay Walsh and Sara Crouse developed a draft BHAG (business
jargon for a 'big hairy audacious goal') for the Wikimedia Foundation.
It's designed to be a succinct, big-picture, easy-t0-understand
statement that we can use to explain, in a very simple way, where we're
going and what we're trying to do. It's also deliberately audacious,
i.e., not necessarily attainable: it's a stretch goal. The draft goal,
which will be further developed and discussed over the next few months,
is this: To increase Wikimedia's educational reach to one-third of the
planet's population by 2020, and to motivate every 10th reader to become
an active participant.
Sue and Erik had good introductory meetings with colleagues at
likedminded organizations including EFF, Zero Divide, the Participatory
Culture Foundation (the organization behind Miro [[Miro_(software)]],
the free open-source video player), the NonProfit Finance Fund and the
Shuttleworth Foundation. Erik spoke at NetSquared, a conference aimed
at advancing international social change using social networks and
social web tools, and also gave a presentation at a Creative Commons Salon.
Mike attended the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in New
Haven, Connecticut and met with the Ford Foundation in New York. He
developed a draft privacy policy. Mike & Erik continued to negotiate
the release of the FDL 1.3 with the Free Software Foundation. Mike
brought onboard a legal intern, Shun-ling Chen, who has been helping
with many ongoing issues.
An ergonomics consultant assessed and fine-tuned staff's individual work
setups. We did a first brainstorming exercise to identify issues with
our office space. We have also engaged a planning firm (an eco-friendly
husband-and-wife team called Because We Can) to help us better utilize
the space.
IN COMING WEEKS
The 2008-09 annual plan will be finalized, then approved by the board.
The 2007-08 fiscal year will close, and work will begin finalizing the
financial statements and preparing for the annual audit. The audit
committee, led by board treasurer Stu West, has now set its 2008-09
calendar.
The new fundraising team will be announced.
Single User Login and FlaggedRevs, two key technologies, will be
improved further, and a procedure for wider deployment of FlaggedRevs
will be announced.
There will be an all-staff meeting at the office in San Francisco on
June 26 and 27. Its purpose will be to deliver people's 08-09 budgets,
and develop 08-09 goals. It will be the first time that all non-San
Francisco-based employees (Delphine, Mark, Tim, Rob and Frank) will have
a chance to meet with their new San Francisco colleagues, including the
new fundraising team.
On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 5:53 PM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> However, I object to the use of the term "wikimedia foundation projects"
> or "wmf projects". WMF do not own the projects any more than other
> organizations, and the existence of most projects is actually older than
> the existence of the Foundation. I'll add that in people's mind, it
> could tend to give more weight to the idea that WMF is the one in charge
> (increase legal exposure).
>
I don't see the WMF doing very much to promote project
self-governance, though. Obviously the projects are highly dependent
on the WMF - they require the servers and bandwidth and domain name if
nothing else (without the domain name the project's value would be
decimated or worse). WMF employees have root access to these servers
and are needed to approve any major technical features. And obviously
these provisions come with certain requirements -
[[Resolution:Licensing policy]] being a prime example, but most of
these requirements aren't written and clear. At the very least, some
formal documentation as to what choices projects have and what is
mandatory would be useful. Can the English Wikipedia overthrow the
ArbCom and still get to keep its domain name? Do ArbCom rulings "in
fact hold greater authority than that of mobs, democratic or
otherwise"? What is the formal role of Jimmy Wales? Would the WMF
deal with a democratic body which isn't approved by him? What type of
approval would a self-formed governance committee need for the WMF to
grant it permission to act as a liason between a project community and
the WMF, so that for example Brion need only ask this committee if
there is consensus for a change? Where can we go to get answers to
these questions?
Have you gotten a chance to listen to Steve Smith's interview on
NotTheWikipediaWeekly (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NotTheWikipediaWeekly/Episode_18)?
He talked about this point I believe very well. Here's my transcript
in relevant part:
"The other thing of course that I really want to get into is giving
the larger projects especially the tools by which they can continue to
govern themselves. I think self-governance, certainly of the English
language Wikipedia, has broken down and I don't think it's going to be
fixed until [sic] some intervention by the board.
[....]
I like almost everybody else would like to see the board of trustees
stay away from making direct policy decisions at the community level
(there's the 230 [inaudible] other issues there) but what I do support
doing is stepping in with a governance model - saying OK, we're going
to come in and impose this body that has some authority on you - you
have the authority to elect this body, to change its scope, to change
its mandate, and all the rest of it, but here at least is a tool by
which you can govern your own community, rather than being reliant on
whatever consensus might happen to mean on any given day and any given
debate." (transcript is dual licensed under the GNU Free Documentation
License and the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; please feel
free to correct any mistakes and please point me to a copy of any
fixes you make).
Would Mike Godwin sign off on such a plan? If not, is there something
maybe a little less involved that the WMF can do to help? I don't see
much happening without the WMF helping, at least by clarifying the
ground-rules as to how a self-governance model would look. Although,
maybe the ArbCom is finally willing to take up the task - some recent
rulings and proposed rulings seem to imply it is finally willing to
expand its role and/or at least to help form a body to fill in the
gaps.
Thomas Dalton writes:
> 2008/6/22 Mike Godwin <mgodwin(a)wikimedia.org>:
>> I don't think education is exclusive as binding policy. Any policy we
>> publish is going to have a binding effect, to the extent that people
>> rely on our representations about what we do. That's why we have
>> taken
>> the pains to make the policy match our actual practice as completely
>> as possible.
>
> You'll note, I said "primarily as binding policy". I know it is
> binding policy now, but that's not its primary function, its primary
> function is clearly one of education, and that should be changed.
I am not sure what it is you are saying should be changed (it's
unclear which function is referenced by "that"), but there is no
question that the document has to function both as a statement of
binding policy and as an educational document. Attempting to separate
one from the other is asking for trouble down the line.
We considered for a while separating the current policy into a
statement of policy and an FAQ. That would have "solved" the length
problem, more or less, but it also would create a problem, since the
FAQ itself would have functioned as a legally binding public promise
as well. In other words, it would have seemed to be more elegant but
would have raised potentially more legal problems, especially to the
extent that the public relied on representations in the FAQ rather
than in the policy statement proper.
We really did review a range of options before taking the particular
approach we took, and we took this approach in full awareness that
we'd end up with a longer work product. But that turns out to be the
more legally prudent course to take.
--Mike
Nathan writes:
>
> * Consistent terminology: Projects are variously referred to as
> projects,
> wikis, WMprojects, WMProjects, Wikiprojects, etc.
This is an entirely fair criticism, in my view.
> * Editing for length: I think there are a number of paragraphs that
> could be
> condensed without losing readability or meaning. I've done a bit of
> that,
> most especially in the first half. Might not be able to save a huge
> amount
> of text this way, but there are definitely opportunities.
Thanks! I was hoping someone might tackle this.
> If you want, this version can be copied into the other draft version
> as a
> revision (and then reverted) so that the differences can be easily
> seen.
I think this is a fine idea -- just make sure you're the one who does
both the substitution and the reversion, so that it's clear to anyone
who's reviewing the history that you're doing this for diff purposes.
--Mike