Hi folks,
to increase accountability and create more opportunities for course
corrections and resourcing adjustments as necessary, Sue's asked me
and Howie Fung to set up a quarterly project evaluation process,
starting with our highest priority initiatives. These are, according
to Sue's narrowing focus recommendations which were approved by the
Board [1]:
- Visual Editor
- Mobile (mobile contributions + Wikipedia Zero)
- Editor Engagement (also known as the E2 and E3 teams)
- Funds Dissemination Committe and expanded grant-making capacity
I'm proposing the following initial schedule:
January:
- Editor Engagement Experiments
February:
- Visual Editor
- Mobile (Contribs + Zero)
March:
- Editor Engagement Features (Echo, Flow projects)
- Funds Dissemination Committee
We’ll try doing this on the same day or adjacent to the monthly
metrics meetings [2], since the team(s) will give a presentation on
their recent progress, which will help set some context that would
otherwise need to be covered in the quarterly review itself. This will
also create open opportunities for feedback and questions.
My goal is to do this in a manner where even though the quarterly
review meetings themselves are internal, the outcomes are captured as
meeting minutes and shared publicly, which is why I'm starting this
discussion on a public list as well. I've created a wiki page here
which we can use to discuss the concept further:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…
The internal review will, at minimum, include:
Sue Gardner
myself
Howie Fung
Team members and relevant director(s)
Designated minute-taker
So for example, for Visual Editor, the review team would be the Visual
Editor / Parsoid teams, Sue, me, Howie, Terry, and a minute-taker.
I imagine the structure of the review roughly as follows, with a
duration of about 2 1/2 hours divided into 25-30 minute blocks:
- Brief team intro and recap of team's activities through the quarter,
compared with goals
- Drill into goals and targets: Did we achieve what we said we would?
- Review of challenges, blockers and successes
- Discussion of proposed changes (e.g. resourcing, targets) and other
action items
- Buffer time, debriefing
Once again, the primary purpose of these reviews is to create improved
structures for internal accountability, escalation points in cases
where serious changes are necessary, and transparency to the world.
In addition to these priority initiatives, my recommendation would be
to conduct quarterly reviews for any activity that requires more than
a set amount of resources (people/dollars). These additional reviews
may however be conducted in a more lightweight manner and internally
to the departments. We’re slowly getting into that habit in
engineering.
As we pilot this process, the format of the high priority reviews can
help inform and support reviews across the organization.
Feedback and questions are appreciated.
All best,
Erik
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Narrowing_Focus
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM
Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
To: Staff All <wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi folks,
consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking &
talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people
about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product
department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take
seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view
that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept
and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I
want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below
is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan,
I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to
anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting
tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can
also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to
wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in
this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering
and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more
conversations at that level about the work that most of the
organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is
represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an
engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in
managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform
issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that
are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams --
we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.),
and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly
autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two
functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications
breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would
outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the
negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities
and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as
a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start
that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue
that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of
Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in
place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of
the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new
world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role,
so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the
search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the
kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions.
Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes
sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and
User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated
Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes
a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working
closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as
follows:
* VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
* VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new
leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize
here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I
believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build
this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past
experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering
operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned
issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of
thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening
questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in
coming weeks.
All best,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hello!
I have started a proposal for a new wiki project: WikiLang (meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiLang). It is about endangered languages and language documentation/decipherment. It is a very important step in order to save our linguistic diversity which is ongoing faster than the extinction of animals. Most of our languages are highly endangered and there are pessimistic estimations that by 2100 90% of them will be extinct. So, please support the project and vote for it and/or give your feedback! (I for myself belong to a language minority and I can tell how important this is.) Thanks a lot!
Kevin
> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 07:31:59 +0800
> From: Josh Lim <jamesjoshualim(a)yahoo.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Are chapters part of the community and
> board seats for affiliates?
> Message-ID: <56A3C552-D6ED-47BA-8EA2-E56F9A1B833B(a)yahoo.com>
>
> On Feb 23, 2013, at 4:27 AM, Fae <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The vast majority of volunteers like the idea that there is a Chapter
>> they can turn to to ask for help, or to get their idea for a project
>> reviewed, funded and looking "official". If a volunteer came to a
>> wikimeet with a brilliant idea for a project, but said they could not
>> stand the stupid bureaucracy of chapters, I'd say "excellent mate, you
>> go for it and I'll see what I can do to help with funding if you need
>> it."
>
> I'm inclined to believe that bureaucracy exists despite, not because of, chapters. As it is, volunteers, especially those from the Global South, can be classified into two types:
>
> 1. They're "detached": they're part of the community, but they don't know about the support options open to them
> 2. They're so involved in the community, they could care less about the "bureaucracy" (in my university, this is called "going down the hill", as my university is on a hill)
>
> Chapters aside, I'm in fact curious to know how many volunteers do know about the Foundation's grants system, or the research program, or heck, Wikimedia User Groups or Wikimania scholarships. Granted, it's a good thing that volunteers have options open for them whether or not they want to deal with the bureaucracy, but it's all for nought if they're left unaware of those options.
>
> Josh
>
> JAMES JOSHUA G. LIM
I just wanted to follow up on this and reinforce Josh Lim's point.
Yesterday, I spent several hours chatting with volunteers, seasoned and
new, at the Wikipedia Day that the New York City chapter put together:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Wikipedia_Day (thank
you, volunteers of New York City!). I was dismayed at how few people
knew about the Participation Support subsidies that they could apply for
to help them do outreach (more on that & related opportunities at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start ).
In my role helping MediaWiki sysadmins and developers, I often ask
whether they've heard of our conferences, our paid internships, our
online events, and so on. More and more of the undergraduate students
have heard of Google Summer of Code
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2013 , but graduate
students often don't know that they're eligible, and students in North
America and Europe often haven't heard of it.
I don't know the answer. Like Josh, I don't know how well our publicity
about these things is penetrating our volunteer communities, and I don't
know what level of penetration I would be satisfied with. I suspect
that others have better answers regarding what we've tried, what works,
and what we're doing next, and I'd love to hear them.
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
tl;dr Issues like copyright are crucial for us. So let’s join forces
in Brussels to make a difference. All we need is a bunch of smart
people.
Dear fellow Wikimedians,
it’s been quite some time since we have talked on various occasions
about the need for the European Wikimedia chapters to join their
forces in the political arena. Regarding the threats for Free
Knowledge which derive from harmful legislation, it just might be the
right moment to reassess our current practices and take a huge step
forward, as a loose combination of chapter representatives and
volunteers.
An according EU policy project is already being prepared. User:Dimi z
[1], a Wikimedian currently based in Brussels, versed and active in
political affairs, did the hard job to gather the required amount of
information to finally get started. He created a document on Meta [2]
which might serve as a starting point to exchange and develop ideas.
== What’s at stake? ==
Concerning European regulations, we have to develop a clear and
unified position on major legislative and political changes affecting
our mission, which is to create a better environment for Free
Knowledge. Building upon the tremendous efforts of Brussels-based NGOs
like EDRI [3] and La Quadrature Du Net [4], we should take the job to
speak for the Wikimedia movement and its particular role in, let’s
say, the ongoing Copyright Wars.
To build a sustainable model for advocacy it is necessary to
* monitor EU policy proceedings and initiatives
* comprehensively inform the participating chapters and communities
about EU dossiers
* initiate discussions about what is desirable or might be risky for Wikimedia
* take action where necessary
* reach out to like-minded projects and communities
== OK, point taken. But HOW shall we do this? ==
Firstly, we are dedicated to a culture of sharing and a significant
level of transparency. So we need to work in Brussels in accordance to
our principles which differ remarkably from the “black box” approach
usually applied by industry representatives.
Secondly, we are searching for an organizational basis that follows
our capacities. So let’s come up with a smart, inclusive structure
that ensures easy access and leaves enough space for latecomers or
people that engage only occasionally.
Thirdly, we need someone on site. Since we have to give established
institutions and public officials a face, a name, and a direct way to
contact us, a specific contact person in Brussels would be more than
useful. S/he needs to know everything about the drafting process of
relevant directives and regulations, find access to political parties
and hangs out in the preferred bars of staff members working for
Neelie Kroes, Michael Barnier or Androulla Vassiliou.
== In a nutshell: Imagine a working group, which ==
* does lobbying - but in full disclosure, on the open stage
* seeks strategic alliances, but not only with affiliated organizations
* partly consists of full-time-employees, but heavily relies on
volunteer-engagement
== Interested in being a part of it? ==
Let’s get started and talk about this challenge! Your input and ideas
on the aforementioned Meta page are highly appreciated. To discuss the
working methods of an EU Policy Group and develop a project plan
together, we suggest to meet face-to-face in Brussels for one day and
a half. Wikimedia Deutschland would be happy to organize this
kick-off-gathering in March/April. We’d like to ask interested
Wikimedians to join us there. Please use the doodle below to identify
the most suitable date:
http://doodle.com/ntiz6gup7z49e7p5
(Please choose either a friday/saturday or saturday/sunday option.)
Looking forward to seeing you all in Brussels,
Jan Engelmann
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dimi_z
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_Policy
[3] http://www.edri.org/
[4] http://www.laquadrature.net/
--
Jan Engelmann
Leiter Politik & Gesellschaft
-------------------------------------
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Obentrautstr. 72
10963 Berlin
Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0
www.wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
**** Helfen Sie mit, dass WIKIPEDIA von der UNESCO als erstes
digitales Weltkulturerbe anerkannt wird. Unterzeichnen Sie die
Online-Petition! http://wikipedia.de ****
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
Hi all,
We wanted to let you know the fundraising team is starting up testing in
February. We're starting at low levels, so most people will not even
notice banners to start with. 5% of anonymous users will see a banner just
one time. We are not showing any banners to logged in users.
There was an announcement in November about us splitting up the fundraiser
this year. Just a very quick recap: We ran the end-of-year campaign in
November and December in the top 5 English-speaking countries (US, UK,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). The campaign was successful and we
were able to take the banners down a few weeks ahead of schedule:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_ra…
We are now working on starting up testing in countries that were not
included in the end-of-year campaign. We'll be working on translations and
optimizing our donation pages in many countries over the coming months.
We will post a report of the year-end campaign with much more detailed
information and will send a note to this mailing list when it's available.
We always need help making improvements in different countries and
languages. If you have any suggestions, please do leave us a note on the
fundraising meta discussion page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2013
Thanks!
Megan
--
Megan Hernandez
Head of Annual Fundraiser
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi.
As I understand it, many Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to
sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Is there a copy of the current
version of this non-disclosure agreement anywhere? I briefly checked
Meta-Wiki and wikimediafoundation.org, but didn't see anything off-hand.
(I did come across other interesting and somewhat related pages such as
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statement>, though.)
MZMcBride
Matt Walker wrote:
>...
> If you'd like I can provide a dump of the aggregated data....
I saved a copy of the graph, and would much rather see the results of
this year's testing first.