Wikimedia-l March 2010

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

124 participants
119 discussions

[Foundation-l] New project in our family
by Milos Rancic 20 Mar '10

20 Mar '10

Thanks to Rob, we've got Wikipedia in Karachay-Balkar language [1]. Import of content from Incubator is on the way. Karacyah-Balkar language [2] is a Turkic language spoken in Central Russia. According to Ethnologue [3], there are 113.700 native speakers. [1] - http://krc.wikipedia.org/ [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachay-Balkar_language [3] - http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=krc

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[Foundation-l] Credo
by Jon 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Is the Credo donation open to all Wikipedia project editors, or just the English Wikipedia project editors. Thank you for your help. Jon -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkuiqp4ACgkQxlOuhm8Z7WOo8gCeMKjMcLOLc/Xz9i2h1bAK3MpP 14YAn0OIfDKGTZzCM2WFI8NOcoBxxp44 =tvcY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[Foundation-l] Living Person Task Force update: Policy writing
by Apoc 2400 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

> > The recommendations draft > is just about ready to move into finalized writing in a couple weeks > > http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People/Drafting_pages/… > It look ok, but coming from enwiki most of it seems rather obvious. It this recommendation mostly intended for smaller wikis that may not have developed clear BLP rules? The exception is the end of the last item: > [...] and content is suggested to be removed if the result of a deletion > debate determines that there is no consensus to keep the hosted content. > which appears be meant to force "no consensus means delete" onto English Wikipedia. Is that correct? Can you tell me if any of the other items are meant to impose changes on enwp? Btw, are there logs from the March 15 IRC meeting? Thanks, Apoc2400

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Re: [Foundation-l] Banners to increase editors
by Nicholas Moreau 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Along Keegan's idea about encouraging contributions in the reader's native language, does Wikimedia track the preset language of visitors? I know some analytics packages do, not sure if this is against Wikimedia's privacy policies. If the server senses the reader is preset to en, and looking at en, then no message would be displayed during the campaign. If their preset is say, sl, and they're looking at en, or vice-versa, then the message would appear. Is this technically possible? Is this within the boundaries of taste (ie not being creepy)? Nick

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[Foundation-l] Banners to increase editors
by James Heilman 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Having trouble posting. Trying again: We had a banner last year to raise funds for the WMF. Unsure if anyone has suggested this yet but how about running a banner to encourage our readers to: 1) add content 2) correct spelling 3) revert vandalism? I have asked many people about their use of Wikipedia and many are unaware that it is even possible for them to edit. We could have something like "Wikipedia is in the public domain that means it belongs to all of us. Please help us expand, protect, and improve it" or some such thing? We could either run this sort of message alone or combine it with the fun raiser banner next year? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Living Person Task Force update: Policy writing
by Gregory Kohs 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Paul Keegan notes: "The Living people task force is churning along." After looking for about 2 minutes at the linked Recommendations to the Board of Trustees/Draft 2, I found numerous grammatical and typographic errors in the statement. However, I am disinclined to chip in and help correct these mistakes because Philippe Beaudette has indefinitely blocked me from that wiki because I offered a strategic recommendation regarding Jimmy Wales that he disagreed with. Gregory Kohs

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[Foundation-l] January 2010 Report to the Board
by James Owen 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Covering: January 2010 Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees MILESTONES FROM JANAURY 1.Wikimedia's most successful fundraiser wraps up, raises $8 million (USD) 2.Wikimedia Foundation hires Danese Cooper as Chief Technical Officer 3.2008-09 Annual Report released 4.First hiring interviews for Chief Development Officer KEY PRIORITIES FOR FEBRUARY 1.CDO hiring continues 2.Review of strategic plan recommendations at San Francisco Board meeting 3.Preparation begins for five-year business plan THIS PAST MONTH KEY PROGRAM METRICS Reach of all Wikimedia Foundation sites: 365 million unique visitors (rank #5) +25.8% (1 year ago) / +5.1% (1 month ago) Source: comScore Media Metrics Pages served: 11.1 billion -3.1% (1 year ago) / +6.4% (1 month ago) Active number of editors (5+ edits/month): 98,597 -1.4% (1 year ago) / +5.0% (1 month ago) Source: January 2010 Report Card <http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2010_01_detailed.html> KEY FINANCIAL METRICS Operating revenue year to date: USD 11.4MM vs. plan of USD 8.6MM Operating expenses year to date: USD 4.9MM vs. plan of USD 5.5MM Unrestricted cash on hand as of 2/17/10: USD 14.2MM STRATEGIC PLANNING PROJECT This month marked the end of the second phase for Strategy development process. The team is now halfway through the process, and are moving into the third and final phase. On January 12, nine Task Forces delivered recommendations. A few weeks later, The Bridgespan Group delivered a synthesis of the strategic planning process thus far and its immediate implications for the Wikimedia Foundation's strategy. That synthesis drew from the recommendations and research on the wiki, and was also published on the wiki. Feedback to the work thus far has been positive, and seeing an increase in participant growth on the wiki for the first time in several months. The end of this January saw the wiki surpass 900 contributors, and about 80 new contributors to the LiquidThread discussions. Moving forward, the strategy team will focus is on evaluation, prioritization, synthesis, and activation, with a goal to create consensus on the movement's priorities over the next five years. In order to do this, the team has formed a Strategy Task Force, which will focus on these issues using the same open methodology that the previous Task Forces used. The team are also working hard to bring even more participants to the wiki process. TECHNOLOGY – CORE In January, the Wikimedia Foundation completed its search process for a Chief Technical Officer, following the departure of former CTO Brion Vibber late last year. The new CTO is Danese Cooper. Danese has a wealth of experience in open source technology. Most recently, she developed open source strategy for the tech start-up REvolution Computing. Prior to that, she was Senior Director of Open Source Strategies at Intel from 2005 until 2009, and Chief Open Source Evangelist at Sun Microsystems from 1999 to 2005. In those roles, she led or supported major open source initiatives, including Sun’s OpenOffice.org application suite, the Java platform, JXTA, NetBeans, GridEngine, OpenSolaris and Intel’s Channel Software Operations and Moblin platform initiatives. Prior to working at Sun, she managed technology teams at Symantec and at Apple Computing for a total of nine years. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/28/danese-cooper-our-new-cto/ The search process was supported on a pro bono basis by Walker Talent Group. Wikimedia Foundation contract project manager William Pietri posted a detailed update on the development and deployment of the Flagged Revisions technology, and the specific functionality requested through a community poll in the English language Wikipeda. Development and testing of the new functionality continues and can be tracked through a public project tracker. http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/flagged-revisions-your-questions-answ… http://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/46157 Newly hired Code Maintenance Engineer Priyanka Dhanda completed her first project and upgraded Wikimedia's bug tracker, BugZilla. Priyanka is also evaluating alternatives to BugZilla and open source project management tools. The GlobalUsage extension, which shows where in the Wikimedia universe multimedia files from Wikimedia Commons are used, was re-activated. This led to the development of new community scripts and hacks to make use of that data for statistical purposes. Static files such as CSS and JavaScript files were moved to a dedicated set of cache servers to optimize performance: http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Bits_and_pieces A set of new search servers was deployed, which made it possible to lift previously implemented restrictions on the number of search results: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2010-January/046297.html Code review continued for the MediaWiki 1.16 release. TECHNOLOGY - USABILITY The usability team continued its development work for the scheduled release on January 27th. This release replaces the plain-old text editing window with an HTML IFrame element , which allows more precise addressing of text for purposes such as navigation and formatting. It is also the foundation for the next release, Citron, which will collapse complex syntax such as templates to reduce the immediate complexity of wiki editing for first-time editors. The release also includes language-specific icons for formatting. Due to an overwhelming amount of cross-browser testing for introducing the Iframe element, the release was delayed for a week and was released on February 4th. http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/babaco-enhancments/ Evaluation of usability research firms for the third usability study which is scheduled in March 2010 started. Three qualified usability firms were contacted for proposal submission, based on the evaluation from the submission in response to call for proposal for the second round of the usability study in August 2009. http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability,_Experience,_and_Progress_Stu… In January, beta usage continued to increase. As of January 31, 2010, a total of 512,000 users have tried the beta. Out of these users, 409,000 have kept using the beta, a retention rate of 80%. In January, the monthly retention for all Wikimedia projects was 81.5%. This is down slightly from December 2090, where the incremental retention was 82.4%. This slight decrease is mainly caused by the decline of the retention rate of English Wikipedia, which was 84.3% in January compared to 85.6% in December. The retention of Japanese Wikipedia in the month of January has increased to 72.1% from 64.9% in December. http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey MULTIMEDIA USABILITY PROJECT A simplified and streamlined new upload interface design and user flow was proposed for discussion by Guillaume Paumier, product manager of the multi-media usability project. The next step is to prototype the new design and refine the user flow. http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multimedia:NewUpload Neil Kandalgaonkar, software developer for the multimedia usability project, completed his relocation to San Francisco. The call for proposals for the first multimedia usability study has started. The plan is to conduct the study with ten study participants in March 2010. http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multimedia:UX_study,_March_2010/CfP A project update was posted to the WMF blog by Naoko Komura. The story of successful multimedia assets donated from Galleries, Libraries, Museums and Archives, made possible by chapters and volunteers, and how these assets are integrated into Wikimedia projects, was told in a blog post by Erik Moeller. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/26/multimedia-usability-project-underway/ http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/27/enriching-wikimedia-commons-a-virtuous… OTHER PROGRAM ACTIVITIES During January, Frank Schulenburg and Pete Forsyth wrote a report about the first phase of the Public Policy Initiative, a pilot subject matter improvement initiative. The document gives a summary of the results of the planning phase (November/December 2010) and draws first conclusions for the design of the quality improvement phase (February 2010–September 2011). It documents the outcome of conversations with over 40 professors and other academics at nine major universities. The document is freely accessible on the outreach wiki: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Subject-Matter-Improvement_Pilot_Program http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Public_Policy_Phase_I_Planning_-_Re… To keep in touch with the participants of phase I, Pete wrote a newsletter that informed all faculty members about the current status of the project. As part of the planning for the second phase of the initiative, Pete reached out to retired faculty associations as an additional potential target group. Marlita and Frank continued to work with the Bookshelf Project vendors. They finished the work on the video script about NPOV and Verifiability and reviewed the first version of the Welcome Packet content design. Marlita started to create the infrastructure for working with secondary school teachers and reached out to a number of institutions in order to create interest and to recruit volunteers. Finally, Marlita kicked off the relationship between WestEd, a national non-profit research and service agency working with education and human development communities, and the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, Frank and Pete started a conversation with WestEd about the evaluation of Wikimedia's educational initiatives. Frank attended a meeting organized by the Craigslist Foundation and discussed – with a group of changemakers from the Bay Area – how to increase the impact of communities by sharing success stories online. As a follow-up, Frank and Kathrin met with Peggy Duvette from Wiser Earth, a user-generated online community space for the social and environmental movement, and shared experiences about ways to document best practices. Cary attended the Wikimeetup in Washington DC, the tour of the Library of Congress and dinner with numerous functionaries from English Wikipedia. Customer service and OTRS were among the discussion topics. Cary had meetings with Thomas de Souza Buckup about Wikimedia Brasil's future and relationship with the chapters and Siska Doviana from Indonesia about their upcoming contest and Wikimania sponsorship. COMMUNICATIONS The 2008-09 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report was published online. This is WMF's second Annual Report, and one of its key instruments of accountability and transparency to donors, partners and stakeholders. The report is a summary of the organization's financials, program activities, milestones and accomplishments for a fiscal year. The report was designed by Exbrook in San Francisco. It includes a timeline of Wikimedia milestones together with significant world events, a spread focusing on Wikipedia's coverage of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, a global traffic chart comparing Wikipedia against other informational websites, feature pages about Wikimedia Commons, Wikimania 2008 and “Wikis take Manhattan”, as well as specific summaries of WMF and chapter activities. It was e-mailed to all Wikimedia Foundation donors. The communications team in January was also busy following up on a very successful fundraiser, and preparing for major announcements in January and February. Major Press Announcements: January 5- Wikipedia Annual Fundraiser Goal Supported by Record Number of Donors http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/2009_Fundraiser_Closing_… January 28- Wikimedia Foundation Hires Danese Cooper as Chief Technical Officer http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Danese_Cooper_joins_Wiki… January blog posts http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/ Major coverage through January 1. Wikimedia beats its USD 8,000,000 goal (January 5) Less coverage of our major fundraiser success this year than last, but still a lot of positive blog and mainstream media mentions. With the goal being met over the late December holidays, several key blogs drove coverage in December ahead of the press announcement on Jan 5. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/30352/53/ http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2010/01/05/annual-wikipedia-fundraiser-nets-8-… http://flosse.blogging.fi/2010/01/13/should-the-wikimedia-grow-yes-because-… 2. Hebrew Wikipedia pushes past 100,000 articles (January 12) Hebrew Wikipedia's 100,000 article milestone made waves in a number of major Hebrew dailies and blogs, driven largely by the initiative of Wikimedia Israel. Coverage ranged from the ongoing question of credibility of information and facts on Wikipedia to the range of topics now covered. (HE) http://www.140.co.il/blog/2010/01/06/סך-התרומות-שגייסה-ויקיפדיה-ב-2009-8-מי… (HE) http://www.calcalist.co.il/internet/articles/0,7340,L-3385795,00.html http://www.mediabistro.com/baynewser/wikipedia/100000th_hebrew_wikipedia_en… 3. Wikipedia's 9th birthday (January 15) Media outlets, bloggers, and microbloggers covered Wikipedia's 9th birthday again this year, with positive tone reflection on the value of the project. Coverage in India and southeast Asia focussed on related meetups and discussions about expanding the presence of Wikipedia in the region. http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_wikipedia-hits-a-sixer-this-year_1… http://www.theawl.com/2010/01/nine-fine-wikipedia-entries-on-the-occasion-o… http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/01/15/wikipedia-happy-birthday/ http://platonic.techfiz.info/2010/01/17/bangalore-wikipedians-celebrate-wik… 4. Coverage of our new Chief Technical Officer (January 28) Upbeat coverage of the hiring of Danese Cooper as CTO. Microblog traffic highlighted the very probably fact that Danese is the first female CTO of the top ten web giants. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000028-264.html http://ostatic.com/blog/wikimedia-hires-danese-cooper-as-new-cto Other worthwhile reads: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/jan/24/digital-media-skype-dld10-w… http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/technology/25link.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/books/15book.html Communications campaign update, January 2010: Fenton shifted its annual campaign work towards post-event reporting in January, and is now in the process of developing a survey and report on our now 240,000 strong donor base, building on a previous effort to launch a donor survey. The report/analysis will provide us with direction and thinking about best methods for outreach and engagement with the donor base. Fenton's work is also shifting towards a series of key communications products: a short, modular video project that will be used in major Wikimedia presentations, and for on-line sharing; a refined Wikimedia presentation system for use by staff and volunteer spokespersons, and a 'leave-behind' printed product intended to shed light on Wikimedia/Wikipedia history, movement, and direction. During January, the Wikimedia Foundation participated in interviews with Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, North Carolina, USA); NewTeeVee.com (San Francisco, California, USA); TheStreet.com (New York, New York, USA); Danish Broadcasting Corporation (Copenhagen, Denmark); New York Times (New York, New York, USA); CNN (Atlanta, Georgia, USA); El Universal (Mexico City, Mexico); History Channel (New York, New York, USA); Mail Today (New Delhi, India); The Daily Record (Jacksonville, Florida, USA). FUNDRAISING, GRANTS, & PARTNERSHIPS On January 5, WMF closed its 2009-10 annual campaign, its most successful fundraiser ever. We're grateful to every donor, and to everyone who helped to make the campaign a success: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/2009_Fundraiser_Closing_… http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/05/wrapping-up-an-amazing-20092010-annual… A comparison of the 2009-10 campaign with the previous two campaigns can be found on this reporting page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics The Wikimedia Foundation received 19,522 donations in January, totaling approximately USD 844,423. Year-to-date, the Foundation has raised USD 9,150,343 in individual donations, 22% above its annual goal of USD 7,500,000. Including revenue from restricted and unrestricted gifts the Wikimedia Foundation has raised USD 10,700,343, 15% above the goal of USD 9,297,000. Within the first few weeks of the fundraiser, the Wikimedia Foundation met the conditions for a challenge grant of USD 500,000 from the Omidyar Network, by raising matching donations for every gift between USD 100 to USD 9,999. This matching grant proved an effective tool in raising the average dollar amount of a donation during the time it was offered. During the campaign the Community Gifts and Communications teams saw positive results through enhanced marketing through Social Networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). The messaging displayed on the donations portal, site notices and Social Networking sites combined to provide a cohesive communications effort to our donors via multiple channels. On the donations processing side, this year Wikimedia was able to offer donors the options of donating by credit card and via Mobile Phone (in US only). Donors located in the same country as a participating chapter also had the option of donating directly to their local chapter. We believe that an expanded array of donations options enabled the Foundation to increase its ability to appeal to a larger population of first time donors. With the increase in donations the site also received an equal increase in direct donor communications. Over the few months, Anya and Megan have responded to over 1,000 OTRS questions and more than 200 phone calls from donors and non-donors on issues from refunds over technical issues to matching gifts inquiries. An estimated amount of over 5,000 emails from donors was received and responded to during the annual fundraising campaign by a dedicated team of four OTRS volunteers. In January, Rand and the Community Giving team continued work on follow-up to the Annual Fundraiser: entering offline transactions, cleanup of donor records, and preparing reports. Rand also conducted several postmortems regarding the Annual Fundraiser and will compile those results into planning for the 2010 Fundraiser. After an extensive search process, interviews began for the Chief Development Officer position, a leadership position for the fundraising department. The search process is supported by m/Oppenheim Associates: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Chief_Development_Officer In the area of major gifts, Rebecca held several prospect & donor meetings throughout the month of January, including six in New York City where Jimmy joined her. She worked on finalizing details of a large gift (to arrive soon), and participated in the financial sustainability task force. Planning began for fall cultivation event in NYC hosted by two of our current funders. With regard to Foundation Relations, Sara has been working with the public outreach team on developing a major grant proposal for foundation support for the aforementioned subject-matter improvement pilot program. Grant reporting to foundation funders also continued throughout January. In support of the strategic planning process, Rebecca and Rand participated in the Financial Sustainability task force, which collaboratively developed several recommendations. Sara developed a proposal for a general partnerships strategy, in support of the Partnerships and Alliances task force. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Business development finalized the Wikimedia Foundation's second major, multi-national telecom and mobile partnership with Telefónica, a Fortune 500 global telecommunications company. Telefónica is one of the largest in the world - with a major presence in Europe and especially throughout Latin America. This is a three-year worldwide deal where Telefónica operates: Spain, Europe (select territories), Latin America and US (Spanish speaking population only). Telefónica also runs a non-profit Foundation that supports non-business activities to promote education in Spanish and Portuguese languages and, with good faith efforts, will find ways to help us with the development of content in those languages (via chapter activities, etc). Telefónica companies will create new tools and applications to improve the functionality and accessibility of Wikimedia content on their multiple platforms such as mobile, web, IPTV, and other internet devices. Telefónica will also explore the development of offline readers for Wikimedia content. FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION Veronique Kessler and the finance team completed the client worksheets for the 2008 Form 990. She also researched cash management strategies and investment policy proposals. Daniel Phelps kicked off an internal staff compensation committee. The committee consists of 9 Foundation staff representing different departments (technology, administration, programs, and fundraising). The committee will provide the Foundation's management team with a list of recommendations which could be implemented to improve recruitment and retention of skilled employees. Daniel has contacted a variety of like minded organizations to review monetary and non-monetary compensation. LEGAL In January Mike Godwin finalized and posted the new trademark policy, and authorized the obtaining of Cyrillic versions of the leading Wikimedia domain names in the .ru domain. He has also been interviewing candidates for summer legal clerkships.

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[Foundation-l] December 2009 Report to the Board of Trustees
by James Owen 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Covering: December 2009 Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees MILESTONES FROM DECEMBER 1.Annual Giving Campaign continues: record number of donations 2.New hires: Priyanka Dhanda, Guillaume Paumier in San Francisco 3.Meeting with Wikimania 2010 Organizers KEY PRIORITIES FOR JANUARY 1.Begin Interviews for Chief Development Officer 2.Wikipedia Roundtable in NYC 3.Prepare for February Board of Trustees Meeting THIS PAST MONTH KEY PROGRAM METRICS Reach of all Wikimedia Foundation sites: 347 million unique visitors (rank #5) +27% (1 year ago) / +0% (1 month ago) Source: comScore Media Metrics Pages served: 10.4 billion +0% (1 year ago) / -9.2% (1 month ago) Active number of editors (5+ edits/month): 95,849 +3.8% (1 year ago) / -0.4% (1 month ago) Source: December 2009 Report Card <http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2009_12_detailed.html> KEY FINANCIAL METRICS Operating revenue year to date: USD 10.5MM vs. plan of USD 7.MM [1] Operating expenses year to date: USD 3.7MM vs. plan of USD 4.7MM Unrestricted cash on hand as of January 28: USD 12.2MM [1] Year to date revenue is equal to annual plan for the fiscal year STRATEGIC PLANNING PROJECT December was a whirlwind month for the strategic planning process. It was crunch-time for the Task Forces, which picked up its activity significantly. The average number of LiquidThreads posts per day jumped from 25 to 30, and we picked up another 50 active contributors. More importantly, that discussion continued to also result in synthesis, with many new Wikimedia-pages that summarized Task Force work. Ten of the 14 Task Forces look like they will produce quality recommendations. With so much of the energy devoted to the Task Forces, growth in overall participants slowed. We expect to attract a slew of new participants in January and February once the Task Force work is done. In the meantime, the project team (including The Bridgespan Group) devoted much of its energy to developing a snapshot of the five-year priorities that seem to be emerging from this process. The work that we're doing to develop that synthesis is regularly integrated into the wiki so as to inform the community at large. By the time the synthesis is ready to present at the February board meeting, the community should have a good preview as to what will be said there. TECHNOLOGY – CORE Significant time of the technology team in December was spent in support of the fundraiser, including improvements to our new credit card processing gateway, message performance tracking, banner and landing page development and testing, geographic targeting, real-time statistics, and more. On December 16, the Wikimedia Foundation hired Priyanka Dhanda as Code Maintenance Engineer. Priyanka joins us from SourceForge Inc., where she worked since 2002 as a software developer and also was involved in operations, working on most pieces of the infrastructure, and integrating third party software with the SourceForge platform (including MediaWiki). Priyanka holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Toledo, Ohio, and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from the Pondicherry Engineering College in India. Relevant tech blog post: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/priyanka-dhanda-joins-wikimedia-tech-… Original opening: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Code_Maintenance_Engineer Hampton Catlin announced a community process for developing mobile Wikipedia homepages in new languages: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/mobile-homepage-in-your-language/ TECHNOLOGY - USABILITY On December 15 the usability team presented the progress of the project, how the usability beta has been received, and upcoming milestones to Liz Allison from the Stanton Foundation. The feedback from Liz Allison was positive and she praised the Wikipedia Usability Initiative as a “model” project. http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stanton_Usability_Presentation_Dec… A total of 442,000 users tried the usability beta by the end of December, an increase of 50,000 users that month. A total of 350,000 users continue using the usability beta. Monthly retention rates per language show an upward trend. Languages with relatively low retention rate, such as German, Polish, and Japanese also started showing an upward trend. However, the retention rate of Japanese and Korean are still in the sixties, which requires further analysis for solutions. http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aikdcg5HdSKbdDVMM2l2SGM2dUtBU25MLUt… The usability team continued working on the design and development work for the next releases. The software foundation for editing is being overhauled and subjected to extensive cross-browser testing. This will increase precision of the new editor table of contents, and allow for future development such as collapsing ("folding") of complex syntax to simplify the interface for new editors. The new dialogues for links and tables have been re-designed based on findings from our second usability study. A tutorial has been published to allow translators to develop language-specific icons. Language specific icons for English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portugese and Polish are scheduled be integrated in the upcoming release in January. http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Babaco_Designs http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Text_format_icons Guillaume Paumier, the Product Manager for the Ford Multimedia Usability Initiative, finalized his relocation to San Francisco after obtaining a United States work visa. He arrived San Francisco from Toulouse, France, early December. Guillaume joined the usability team in the San Francisco office on December 11. Test were prepared for the the multimedia search and insertion tool developed by Michael Dale, the "Add Media Wizard". The tool enables users to find related multimedia files from Wikimedia Commons and other media repositories and allows users to edit names of the file and caption, and crop the image. http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/10/new-media-features-gadget/ OTHER PROGRAM ACTIVITIES During December, Frank Schulenburg and Pete Forsyth continued reaching out to U.S. Universities as part of a pilot project to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles in a particular subject area. They started to evaluate and document the outcome and presented their preliminary findings to a potential funder. Based on feedback from faculty members, they created documents that explain the process of working collaboratively on Wikipedia (e.g. Evolution of an article). They established and began executing a basic framework for sustaining the relationships established at various universities. http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Subject-Matter-Improvement_Pilot_Program http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_an_article_%28Celilo_Falls%… Marlita and Frank participated in a kick-off meeting with the Bookshelf Project vendors and conducted a Production Survey among the chapters in order to get a better picture about the chapters' experiences with print production. The Bookshelf writer conducted a series of interviews with community members from various language Wikipedias to inform the content design and writing. The development schedule was expanded and vetted. We worked with Common Craft on the video script about NPOV and Verifiability. http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Production_Survey_%28Bookshelf%29 http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf_Project#Interview_Notes Cary wrapped up the task force on biographies of living people on Meta, and worked with User: Keegan on a reboot. Cary continued to work with contractors to develop proposal for Compassionate Communications course for English Wikipedia functionaries and OTRS agents. He also organized and taught a workshop for new staff members to orient them to the community and wiki-markup, and inducted the Wikimania 2011 Jury. COMMUNICATIONS December was a busy month for the entire organization and especially Communications, with energy focused on supporting the creative direction and publicity around the Annual Giving Campaign. Considerable energy was invested in the final steps of the 08/09 Annual Report, working with outside designers on digital prep and pre-press for a renewed look for the report. There were no major press announcements in December. Major coverage during December 1. United Kingdom Blackmail case (December 2) Mostly European media tackled a UK story about a senior judge's decision to seek the name of a Wikipedia editor from the Wikimedia Foundation. Most stories focussed on the precedent of the decision - the first time a judge ordered revelation of information from Wikipedia - rather than the specific details of the case. The Foundation wasn't widely quoted, and most coverage was neutral about the decision. http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2009/12/4/wikipedia-forced-r… http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/12/03/2009-12-03_wikipedia_to_re… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6710237/Wikipedia-ordered-b… 2. Continued coverage of Wall Street Journal editor decline story (early December) Mostly blog spill-over through December highlighting the Ortega research from the November WSJ story. Of note were blogs that cited the recent Foundation post on the topic and provided a more sober perspective on the data and the urgent claims. http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2009/11/29/overall-number-ed… http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2009/11/30/whats-right-with-wikipedia/ 3. Wikimedia shatters fundraising record (mid to late December) Although this year's annual fundraising campaign garnered less media attention overall than last year, news of the ultimate fundraising goal achievement broke through readwriteweb before the end of 2009. Less coverage of the milestone overall, even though more funds were generated in a shorter period of time. Light reporting overall during the Christmas/NY break makes coverage difficult at year-end. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/75_million_wikipedia_reaches_fundraisi… http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/12/17/wikipedia-shatters-fundraising… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6839463/Wikipedias-Jimmy-Wa… http://www.fundraising.co.uk/node/179407 Other worthwhile reads: http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/1208/p09s05-coop.html?OZCB… http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,184447/printable.html http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/12/wikipedia-redesign-whats-in-store/ www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-1221-decade-internet-listdec21,0,1… Blog posts through December, 2009 http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/ Media interviews and interaction through December, 2009 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#December_2009 Communications campaign update, December 2009 Communications campaign consultants Fenton/SeaChange were most active during December/November - focussing on support to the community giving team, monitoring metrics and performance, and providing counsel to foundation staff. Fenton also assisted with a draft of the end of fundraiser press release and began work on placement of stories in high profile publications, including the Chronicle of Philanthropy (pitch ongoing). Fenton worked with the communications team to finalize a list of five major items/goals to tackle during Q1/Q2 of 2010 - items focussed on helping the Foundation simplify and improve our basic story-telling tactics, with an aim to better fundraising, public outreach, and strategic communications and relationship building. During December, the Wikimedia Foundation participated in interviews with Anniston Star (Anniston, Alaska, USA); Inc Magazine (New York, New York, USA); Wall Street Journal (New York, New York, USA); CBC Radio (Toronto, Ontario, Canada); Financial Times (London, United Kingdom); St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg, Florida, USA). FUNDRAISING, GRANTS, & PARTNERSHIPS The Wikimedia Foundation received 185,958 donations in December, totaling approximately USD $6,513,743. Year-to-date, the Foundation has raised USD 8,305,921 in individual donations, 11% above its annual goal of USD 7,500,000. Including revenue from restricted and unrestricted gifts the Wikimedia Foundation has raised USD 9,855,921, 6% above the goal of USD 9,297,000. December was the most successful month ever for the Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising team. With the support and direction of Rand Montoya, the community giving team and countless volunteers, the campaign finished ten days ahead of schedule on January 5, thanks in large part to the overwhelming generosity of our amazing donors. Over 230,000 people around the world showed their support for the projects and mission of the Wikimedia community. Rand attributes the success of the fundraiser to a solid communications campaign, the implementation of new payment methods for donations and the unprecedented amount of volunteer support. Once again the users of our projects responded positively to the personal appeal by Jimmy Wales. His letter was widely read and distributed on the Internet. On its first full day of activation, the appeal letter raised USD 430,000. This record-breaking day for Wikimedia fundraising was the Foundation's biggest single day in donations, with the help of over 13,000 supporters. Other communications highlights included the “I couldn’t ignore that banner at the top of the site anymore…I use Wikipedia far too often to ignore the need!” and the “My amount is little, but my support is sincere” site notices created from donor quotes and selected with help fromour partners at Fenton Communications. As a transparent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation shares data about which messages resonate with donors with the public. Tracking data was available in real-time, and additional reports can be found here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/11/annual-fundraiser-checking-banner-resu… http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/12/18/annual-fundraiser-our-best-day-ever/ During January the fundraising team will continue to wrap up the fundraiser. As we compile the donations, we will gain a better idea of what new trends have emerged and will begin to refine the process and ideas for next year's campaign. On December 3, Wikimedia had an open house event at its new San Francisco office. Wikimedia friends and supporters joined a reception with music (thanks to Pandora's Tom Conrad), donated wine, and Wikipedia displays and posters. FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION With the support of the Strategic Plan's Financial Sustainability task force, Veronique Kessler completed a draft recommendation for the strategy team and Board of Trustees. Veronique also began working on the Foundations 2008-2009 990 Tax Form which Veronique hopes to have completed and reviewed by the audit team at KPMG by mid February. Daniel Phelps and Veronique identified a set of benchmarks related to workplace flexibility and non-salary compensation/benefits. These benchmarks will be reviewed by the Foundation's employee Compensation Committee which is slated to begin its work reviewing the Foundation's benefits and compensation in early January. The employee Compensation Committee will make recommendations to the Foundation's management team to determine ways the Foundation can structure compensation/benefits to strengthen the organization's ability to recruit and retain skilled employees. Over the past several months, Daniel and Veronique have also been researching 403b retirement savings benefits to be implemented in March or April of 2010. The hiring process for the Office IT Manager position continued through December. LEGAL In December, the Legal Department began pursuing registration of Russian (Cyrillic) trademarks for Wikipedia. The Foundation succeeded in getting the case brought against Wikimedia by Gary Null in New York dismissed. Mike Godwin attended a Wikimedia-Google-co-sponsored event for Washington policymakers. The Foundation was sued by a fringe Republican candidate in Illinois, USA – Mike expects the case to re resolved quickly in the Foundation's favor. Mike investigated and initiated action against a trademark infringer, WikiMobiPedia.org. OTHER The Wikimedia Foundation facilitated meetings with Marcin Cieslak and Grzegorz Lucjan from the Wikimania 2010 planning team. These meetings focused on conference finances/sponsorships, public/community outreach, scholarships, programs, venue logistics, press/media, and other areas where Foundation staff can provide support and guidance to the local team. The management and operational aspects of Wikimania are under the control and development of the local planning team, with the support and collaboration of the Wikimedia Foundation.

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[Foundation-l] How to kill a mailing list
by Anthony 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

August 2009: 1030 September 2009: 791 October 2009: 326 November 2009: 513 December 2009: 234 January 2010: 207 February 2010: 213 March 2010: ???

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[Foundation-l] list o' image donations?
by phoebe ayers 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

Hello Foundation-l, Is there an list somewhere of major image donations/collections that have been uploaded to Commons in the last few years? E.g., the Bundesarchiv donation, Antweb, etc. We've been trying to note these in the Signpost as they come up, but it would be nice to also have a comprehensive list to be able to refer to... maybe even a table with their current status noted? -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *

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Wikimedia-l March 2010