Sj,
I appreciate your kind words because I am somewhat frustrated.
> thank you for your nuanced statistical comments; something we could use more of.
Well, I have two additional questions for you and your colleagues
concerning fiduciary duties relative to the observed growth rates. I'm
not going to go into my issues with the volunteer contributed
messaging not being tested, or whether multivariate testing can or can
not measure donations. My previous message should make my sentiment on
those issues clear.
This year, after the Chief Revenue Officer claimed that it would be
unlikely to "significantly" exceed last year's fundraising,[1] the
Annual Plan was adjusted to reflect a much slower growth rate in
fundraising.[2] However, page views grew from 16.4 billion last
December to 20.8 billion last month in line with their longstanding
exponential trend,[3] and it became immediately apparent from the
first days of presenting banners to all readers on November 27th that
fundraising was occurring at about double last year's rate.[4] In
spite of that, fundraising was deactivated just over a week later.[4]
Then, on December 14, the fundraiser goal was announced for the first
time as $25 million.[5] And now, apparently, fundraising has been
discontinued for the year.[6]
Would you and the other members of the Board of Trustees please state
whether, and why or why not, deliberately slowing fundraising while
page views continue to grow at the same exponential rate they have
been over the past several years, is compatible with the fiduciary
duty of the Board and employees? Would you please request comment
concerning whether the community has confidence in this deliberate
slow-down? Thank you.
Best regards,
James Salsman
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2012/How_Wikimedia_revenue_grows…
[2] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Ans…
[3] http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/pageviews
[4] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics
[5] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-December/123043.html
[6] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Fundraising_2012&diff=4885…
Hi,
Changing topic to keep the COI thread on-topic :)
I understand it's frustrating to have these texts only in english, but
could you also please try to get things from WMF perspective?
In what languages should it translated? The most spoken in the world?
The top 10 active communities? The top 10 editing community? The top
10 growing community? All of them? And if they pick 10 languages, it
won't end the moaning.
And translating all the documents in 10 or 20 languages would be quite
expensive in the end, would it be the best use of donors money?
Isn't the issue in how we organize ourselves, in the movement (and
that includes everyone from community members to wikimedia
organizations) to handle translations? Perhaps the best way to do it
would be to have an automated translating script. Wouldn't be perfect,
but it would provide a raw translation and if the community wants to
get involved they just have to fix the automatic translation.
I don't know though how hard it would be to code that kind of things?
We could perhaps use Google Translate (even if it's a paying service
it doesn't seem that expensive
https://developers.google.com/translate/v2/pricing?hl=fr)
--
Christophe
On 21 December 2012 16:14, Mbingu Safidi <mginbu.safidi(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks.
>
> I see. A text only in English is very welcome to other communities
> know there is a consultation.
>
> Best,
>
> MS
>
> On 21 December 2012 13:09, Philippe Beaudette <pbeaudette(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> Yes. From the linked page:"We encourage international participation,
>> and, if more time is needed to allow for translations or comments, we
>> want to take that into consideration."
>>
>> So please, yes!
>>
>> PB
>>
>> —————————
>> Philippe Beaudette
>> Director, Community Advocacy
>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc
>>
>>
>>
>> On Dec 21, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Mbingu Safidi <mginbu.safidi(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> is Wikimedia Foundation interested in involving communities that don't
>>> speak English in this consultation?
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>>
>>> MS
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Geoff Brigham <gbrigham(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>> *Hi all, *
>>>> *
>>>> *
>>>> *We are asking for community consultation on five proposed guidelines
>>>> relating to potential conflicts of interest when people ask for resources
>>>> belonging to the Wikimedia movement.
>>>>
>>>> For your review and comments, you may find more information, a proposed
>>>> Board resolution, and the proposed guidelines here:
>>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_in…
>>>>
>>>> Please feel free to join the discussion on the talk page:
>>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for your time and expertise.
>>>>
>>>> *
>>>> Geoff Brigham
>>>> General Counsel
>>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>>> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Hello,
is Wikimedia Foundation interested in involving communities that don't
speak English in this consultation?
Thank you,
MS
On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Geoff Brigham <gbrigham(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> *Hi all, *
> *
> *
> *We are asking for community consultation on five proposed guidelines
> relating to potential conflicts of interest when people ask for resources
> belonging to the Wikimedia movement.
>
> For your review and comments, you may find more information, a proposed
> Board resolution, and the proposed guidelines here:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_in…
>
> Please feel free to join the discussion on the talk page:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
>
> Thank you for your time and expertise.
>
> *
> Geoff Brigham
> General Counsel
> Wikimedia Foundation
*Hi all, *
*
*
*We are asking for community consultation on five proposed guidelines
relating to potential conflicts of interest when people ask for resources
belonging to the Wikimedia movement.
For your review and comments, you may find more information, a proposed
Board resolution, and the proposed guidelines here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_in…
Please feel free to join the discussion on the talk page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest
Thank you for your time and expertise.
*
Geoff Brigham
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
Today we’re excited to launch the Wikimedia Foundation’s latest Annual Report
(see today's blog post as well:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/19/wikimedia-foundations-2011-12-annual-…)
(on wiki here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Annual_Report/2011-12)
This year marks the fifth edition of our Annual Report, which focuses
on the achievements and core work of the preceding fiscal year
(2011-12), and gives us a chance to recognize the amazing
contributions of our volunteers and the generous support of our
donors. You can read both the PDF and wiki versions. We welcome your
comments on the discussion page
(https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Annual_Report/2011-12).
The Foundation uses the report primarily to support our conversation
with donors, to help build relationships with prospective partners, to
recruit new staff, and of course general outreach.
This year’s report is quite different from our previous efforts.
Instead of a multi-page book format, this year we created a folding,
vertical brochure (when it’s printed). It’s considerably shorter in
terms of text and we hope it will help make for a quicker and more
impactful read.
We’re currently in the midst of a translation effort that will result
in another 12 language editions to be released in the coming weeks. If
you have an account on Meta-Wiki and you’re interested in helping with
the review of these translations and other community translation
efforts, please sign up. We will be posting this new project for
translation shortly.
Many thanks to the photographers whose work we used in the report. I'd
also like to thank David Peters from Exbrook, the design studio that
has been working with us over the last 4 annual reports. David really
helped us tackle the shift from the classic book format annual report
to our new style.
And big thanks to Tilman Bayer in the WMF Communications team for
driving a complex process around developing translated versions of the
report - we're pushing the envelope on approaches to automated
translation, but it's a really important envelope for us :) And thanks
also to Matthew from Communications for supporting us with a lot of
the writing and editing.
We’re looking forward to another amazing year in the Wikimedia movement!
--
Jay Walsh
Senior Director, Communications
WikimediaFoundation.orgblog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
Wishing you a very happy Christmas and wonderful 2013, from the staff and
trustees of Wikimedia UK! Our office closes on 21 December 2012 and reopens
again on Wednesday 2 January 2013. In the meantime we'll be doing our best
to keep an eye out for urgent emails. For urgent out of hours media
contacts please call 07803 505 173. Have a great break!
Image credit: Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
You can view the original at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trafalgar_Square_Christmas_Carols_-_…
--
Stevie Benton
Communications Organiser
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
@StevieBenton
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street,
London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a
global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the
Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal
control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
