Erik,
Thanks for the explanation. Let me ask about this issue from another
angle.
Is it much of a problem to have a requisition planned to fill early in the year
with the possibility that it won't be filled until late in the year? The delay likely
provides some excess financial capacity but I don't know if the amount would be
large enough to be significant.
Also, similar one of your points, I wonder about the downsides to unrealistically
precise predictions of when requisitions will be filled. I imagine that HR has unplanned
turnover during the year that they are tasked to deal with, and demanding that they
fill planned vacancies on a tight schedule might have the undesirable effect of limiting
their flexibility to deal with unplanned vacancies as turnover happens.
Pine
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:58:12 -0700
> From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
> Message-ID:
> <CAEg6ZHmd4DNtseC+-F+Z4yJApd2PBxrgo+pT27CLW1+-Hs8TBg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:12 PM, ENWP Pine <deyntestiss(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hm, I guess a planning problem could be the root cause, but since Erik
> > seems to be saying that WMF has found a number of good candidates
> > outside of SF and yet the statement in the FAQ for the mid-year financials
> > said that the competition in the SF region for engineers is the reason for WMF
> > hiring being slower than planned
>
> On the tech side, we've filled 11 position in the first half of 12-13,
> and we'll have filled another 6 by end of March. I'm confident that
> we'll have filled at least about 20 positions by the end of the fiscal
> (some of those are replacements for people who've left rather than new
> positions). We've also made 9 of 10 planned conversions of temporary
> contractors.
>
> While the competition for local talent does affect our velocity to
> some extent, I actually don't think the problem is with hiring
> velocity per se (we're hiring at a pretty reasonable rate), but rather
> with being more data-driven in how we construct the estimates for the
> plan, both in terms of # of requisitions, and in terms of calculating
> the spend for the planned hires.
>
> In the 12-13 Plan (and that was also largely the process before),
> hiring managers were generally asked to fill in estimated start dates
> for each hire. These estimates, with a little buffer to correct for a
> known tendency to optimism, were then used as the basis for the
> financial input into the plan.
>
> That may sound reasonable, but it essentially turns the question of
> hiring velocity into guesswork at the level of the individual hiring
> manager. Moreover, it has had a weird incentivizing effect of
> budgeting hires as early as possible, because that would give hiring
> managers the runway to open a position early, and the buffer to fill
> any backlogged requisitions in the second half of the fiscal year. If
> you review the hiring plan on the last page of the 12-13 plan, you'll
> notice that almost all start dates are in the first half of the
> fiscal. That's risk mitigation -- but not a very good way to do it.
>
> For 13-14, I've asked for finance and HR to work with us in applying
> performance metrics based on our hiring velocity and attrition rate in
> 12-13 against the hiring plan for the purpose of estimating the actual
> dollar spend. I've applied those same metrics to our total req # ask,
> as well. Instead of attaching unrealistically precise timing to each
> position, we'll develop a hiring plan that's focused on an a rough
> overall prioritization of requisitions.
>
> So there's definitely potential for a more accurate estimation while
> moving away from false precision. That said, I always caution people
> about the delusions of planning. An exercise like the "Narrowing
> Focus" this year was both very necessary, but has also had a
> significant impact on the organization as a whole and many planned
> expenditures, for example. We need to retain the flexibility to make
> conscious decisions that deviate from the plan, and the realism to
> acknowledge uncertainty.
>
> On the second point, while we have a record to look back on, obviously
> we don't really know what our true hiring velocity and attrition rate
> are going to be for 2013-14, and we can reasonably expect to be off by
> a few positions. I would much rather acknowledge that explicitly in
> the plan than pretend that this uncertainty doesn't exist.
>
> For this reason, I've proposed to Sue an explicit stage-gating of a
> set of hires. By that I mean that we would unlock a set of
> requisitions (we're considering building out a new team that could be
> easily gated) only if specific hiring objectives are met by a given
> date, and we'd clearly flag the associated expenses as being
> stage-gated in this fashion. I don't know if Sue or the Board will
> accept that proposal, but it would give us the flexibility to make
> certain hires if we perform well against the base-level plan.
>
> Erik
>
> --
> Erik Möller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
>
>
Creating a new thread because the other is apparently running in circles
now.
phoebe ayers, 14/03/2013 21:38:
> Yes. In an university context, which is what I'm most familiar with (and
> where endowments are very common in the U.S.), there is often a specific
> "endowment campaign" to plan for and build the endowment that is separate
> from normal fundraising -- for instance, you might have a dedicated team
> that would work on the endowment, solicit wealthy donors, etc.
Thanks for this, you reminded me that I sometimes should try to put at
profit some 12 months spent writing the bylaws of the most important
university of Italy (by LERU standards). :p
(Some) universities can have endowments because they are multi-centuries
insitutions with stable stuff to do and because they're deeply rooted in
their territory (be it a country or a region or whatever).[1] On the
other hand, they often have to set up different structures for more
ephemeral tasks, so they may own foundations or for-profits.[2]
The WMF has the opposite problem than a university, i.e. it's busy with
mostly short-term goals (few years) and that's most of its budget,
because Wikimedia projects are innovation and without that they die etc.
etc.
So why not use the same approach, just reversed? Make a spin-off for the
long-term purposes that are currently not covered anywhere. For once I
did an attempt at being a bit imaginative, consider it just a thought
experiment if you wish:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Trust
Nemo
[1] Harvard, for instance, is a special case because it aims at being
not only the best USA university but the center for the best minds of
the world, so "the world's university".
[2] Big donors and investors want to see some effect for their donation
(that ideally is not selfish). For instance, if I'm a rich widow with,
say, 50 million € to give away in my will, I may choose to donate to a
university because it's important and all, but if it goes to the general
budget I don't want the money to be consumed by usual operating
expenditure (especially wages) where it would be a drop in the ocean, so
I may set some very strict requirements... that however are very
19th-century-sounding and end up making the money impossible to use, so
that it will just rot on some bank account (true story).
> And in turn, the endowment is not meant to fund all expenses or to
preempt
> normal fundraising. It can fund some expenses, and provides long-term
> stability for the organization. Endowments often come about when you
either
> have a very wealthy donor who is setting up a foundation, or when you
have
> a humanitarian institution that wants to be in business essentially
forever
> (as is the case with most universities).
>
> There is complicated law and best practice around endowments that I don't
> pretend to understand. I do know it's more complicated than setting up a
> bank account and calling it the endowment fund, at least to do it well.
> Having an endowment would ideally be a part of the WMF's strategic and
> long-term financial plan, with some dedicated resources (i.e. staff
time to
> manage the fund and solicit donations) applied to it. And we would
want to
> be clear on what we wanted the endowment to do -- what its role would be
> over time -- and how it would interact and perhaps affect annual
> fundraising.
>
> All that said, I strongly support the idea, on the principle that what we
> do is important for the long-term and needs to be supported as such.
We did
> discuss the idea during my time on the board, a year or so ago, and it
> sounds like it's coming up again, which is great!
>
> -- phoebe
>
Hi all, and apologies for crossposting -
We've been pushing ahead with the last stages of planning for the
GLAM-Wiki conference these past couple of weeks, and I thought I'd
send around a reminder that it'll be four weeks from now!
The conference will be looking at the work done by Wikimedians working
with cultural organisations over recent years, and highlighting the
prospects for future cooperation. It will involve a series of talks
and reports (Friday), workshops (Saturday), and an
unconference\hackathon run by THATcamp (Sunday).
The conference is hosted by the British Library in London from 12-14
April, and organised by Wikimedia UK with support from Wikimedia
Sweden and Europeana. Speakers include Michael Edson (Smithsonian),
Lizzy Jongma (Rijksmuseum), and Nick Poole (Collections Trust), as
well as twenty or thirty others from inside and outside the Wikimedia
community. More details on WMUK's blog post:
http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/03/glam-wiki-celebrating-culture-and-open…
An outline of the conference is here:
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM-WIKI_2013 with a detailed schedule
here: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM-WIKI_2013/Schedule
Looking forward to seeing some of you there, and please do circulate
this to anyone who might be interested!
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
Rupert Thurner wrote:
>...
> why should somebody who earns a little salary want to give 10
> dollars to a foundation which has 40 million on its bank account?
Donors are on average much more well off than editors: 88% of them
have a college degree, more than three quarters work in skilled
professions, their worldwide median income is about USD $75,000, and
more than 5% make over $200,000 per year. And they depend on
Wikipedia: 89% of donors visit several times per week and 40% visit at
least once a day.
But more importantly, all of their email addresses are on file.
There's no point using staff and Board time to cogitate about
endowment strategies when it would take a few hours at most to email a
survey to randomly selected donors asking them what *they* think about
it. (And Leslie's champagne bonus/market pay fund to keep Facebook
etc. from hiring her away, for that matter, but I digress.) Do donors
think Wikipedia will last as long as brick-and-mortar universities?
There is only one way to find out. The value proposition of an
endowment is easy: We're fundraising not just to support current
operations, but to buy enough investment grade bonds so that current
operations can be supported without needing donations in the future.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carolina Rossini <carolina.rossini(a)gmail.com>
Date: 2013/3/14
Subject: [okfn-br] Wikipedia course to launch next week on School of Open
To: rea-lista(a)googlegroups.com, "Grupo de interesse em conhecimento livre
no Brasil, especialmente dados abertos" <okfn-br(a)lists.okfn.org>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Cable Green <cable(a)creativecommons.org>
You might be interested in this new School of
Open<https://p2pu.org/en/schools/school-of-open/>Course: Writing
Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and
Beyond<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001daWyI8uQHM_D_8VSSXzqEaSVrz2VYF9CRZzDa3uPjvAf…>
Cable
*14 March 2013*
We have an exciting announcement: next week we launch a free online course
focused on OER coverage on Wikipedia, and you're invited to enroll.
*Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and
Beyond<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001daWyI8uQHM_D_8VSSXzqEaSVrz2VYF9CRZzDa3uPjvAf…>
*
This will be one of several facilitated, synchronous courses marking the
launch of the School of Open, a new venture of Peer to Peer University.
Instructor Pete Forsyth, a veteran Wikipedia contributor and trainer, will
lead live webinars every Tuesday. We will also feature experts in Wikipedia
editing and in open educational resources in two roundtable sessions.
Students will work on Wikipedia articles throughout the course, and share
their experiences contributing to the largest collaborative project in
human history.
The course will run from 19 March to 23 April, at 15:30 GMT. The timing
should work well for the Americas (morning) and Europe and Africa
(afternoon). We plan to offer the course a second time, starting in late
April or early May, at a time that works better for Australia and Asia.
Want to learn a bit about Wikipedia? Or would you like to find a way to
make its articles relating to OER more accurate and informative? Join the
course today! We look forward to working with you.
https://p2pu.org/en/courses/49/writing-wikipedia-articles-the-basics-and-be…<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001daWyI8uQHM_D_8VSSXzqEaSVrz2VYF9CRZzDa3uPjvAf…>
-Pete, Sara, Bob and Lex
Communicate OER
project<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001daWyI8uQHM81NDWdDNWIw26PW0cgvfvA1gUl0CltBdmM…>
Twitter: @CommOER<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001daWyI8uQHM8cLqnY5hgmhTt5pVhe1A-G_adWeDjGTA0P…>
*p.s. Going to any OER conferences soon? We look forward to seeing you! We
will be sharing the wiki love at the following events:*
- *OER 13<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001daWyI8uQHM-RFQgpScFpUwsqld2EP1cUg6FuKLWleohp…>in
Nottingham, UK (March)
*
- *Hewlett Education Grantees Meeting in San Diego, California (April)*
- *Connexions
Conference<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001daWyI8uQHM9nECgDAwQjr45OH_reuyvvVveMS8uKO4Gd…>,
Houston,
Texas (April)*
*
*
*
*
Communicate OER is funded by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation.
--
Cable Green, PhD
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons
@cgreen <http://twitter.com/cgreen>
http://creativecommons.org/educationhttps://creativecommons.net/donate
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"OER Advocacy Coalition" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
email to oer-advocacy-coalition+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com.
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.
Visit this group at
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For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
*Carolina Rossini*
http://carolinarossini.net/
+ 1 6176979389
*carolina.rossini(a)gmail.com*
skype: carolrossini
@carolinarossini
_______________________________________________
okfn-br mailing list
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Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/okfn-br
--
Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom)
OKFN Brasil - Rede pelo Conhecimento Livre
http://br.okfn.org
Hey all,
Wikipedia Zero just won the Activism Award @ SXSW!
A big thanks to all of you for keeping knowledge free for EVERYONE!
--
Kul Wadhwa
Head of Mobile
Wikimedia Foundation
The February activity report by Wikimedia Nederland is now available on
meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/WIkimedia_Nederla…
It is also included as text below.
WMNL February report
Technical projects
· The closing conference of the EU-funded CoSyne
project in which WMNL was a partner took place in Amsterdam on February 1.
WMNL Board Member Frans Grijzenhout presented the results of the testing
carried out by WMNL volunteers. CoSyne produced a tool for the
synchronisation and translation of wiki-pages.
· A team of enthousiastic volunteers and staff are
making good progress in preparing for the International Hackathon 2013,
which will take place in Amsterdam, May 23 - 26. For the first time,
participants will be able to stay overnight at the venue where they will be
working during the day.
Content projects
· Further steps were made towards integrating the
Dictionary of Hebrew and Jiddish words in use in the Dutch language into
Wiktionary. This dictionary was compiled by the Foundation Sofeer, who
want to make their work permanently available to a larger audience.
· On February 15. Wikimedia volunteers went on a
photo-excursion to the city of Arnhem to gather images of war-monuments.
This is part of a wider discussion between WMNL and the Netherlands
National Committee 4 and 5 May (responsible for official commemoration of
World War II) about cooperation.
· WMNL staff and board members are working with the
international coordination group of Wiki Loves Monuments to ensure funding
for activities in 2013.
Board and Staff
· Sebastiaan ter Burg started work as GLAM
project-coordinator on February 15
· Via the WMNL newsletter and other media a call went
out for candidate Board Members.
PR
· A new issue of the WMNL Newsletter was published
· Work is in progress on redesigning the WMNL website
· Research bureau Motivaction carried out surveys among
WMNL members and Dutch Wikipedia editors to assess to what extent they are
aware of the work done by WMNL, their expectations/ideas concerning future
activities, and their motivation to contribute to Wikimedia projects. At
the same time a survey was done among a general public focusgroup to assess
whether they know and use Wikipedia, their potential willingness to
contribute and their insight into the way Wikipedia is maintained and
funded. Results will be available mid March.
Other meetings
· WMNL Director Sandra Rientjes and GLAM coordinator
Sebastiaan ter Burg met with staff of the European Centre for Nature
Conservation (Tilburg, the Netherlands) to discuss how they could
contribute images concerning biodiversity and protected areas to Wikimedia
Commons and how they could encourage their constituency to become active as
Wikipedia editors.
· Board Member Sandra Fauconnier and director Sandra
Rientjes had a meeting with the Director of the Netherlands National
Archives to discuss the possibility of a Wikipedian in Residence, and other
forms of cooperation.
Upcoming
· The Algemene Ledenvergadering (General Assembly) of
WMNL will take place on Saturday, March 23. On the agenda will be the
annual report and accounts 2012, as well as the election of Board Members
· Workshops on including recorded sound in Wikimedia
Commons and Wikipedia - March 30 & April 20
· European Fashion Editathon. May 13.
*
*
Sandra Rientjes
Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland
tel. (+31) (0)6 31786379
*Postadres*: * Bezoekadres:*
Postbus 167 Mariaplaats 3
3500 AD Utrecht Utrecht
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
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Hi Manuel,
In my professional experience with endowments (which isn't that extensive,
I must confess), the investments are typically extremely conservative and
designed to give a steady and reliable long term flow of dividends, rather
than shooting for quick capital gains through risky investments in shares
or property. Things like debentures, government bonds, fixed interest
deposits, and so forth. Even in these current times of financial
uncertainty, a competent investment adviser should be able to construct an
investment portfolio that provides a modest return with little risk.
Regards,
Craig Franklin
Message: 5
> Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:00:21 +0100
> From: Manuel Schneider <manuel.schneider(a)wikimedia.ch>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
> Message-ID: <5141BBD5.8050900(a)wikimedia.ch>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> Thanks Andrew and Philippe for your explanation and links.
>
> So that is a plan to build a reserve of funds that is so big that the
> operation can be funded by the capital's gain - interest, dividends...
>
> Sounds interesting, even though the endowment must be huge to cover our
> yearly budgets. Another problem is that it is currently very hard to
> find an interesting investment with low risks. Interest rates have been
> reduced by the major central banks in order to overcome the global
> recession, many formerly safe and interesting investments became risky
> and those who are still safe partly have even negative interest rates
> (eg. german state bonds).
>
>
> /Manuel
> --
> Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch
>
Hi all,
please find below the WMF report for February 2013, in plain text.
As always, the editable and formatted version has been published on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_February_2013
and the reports are being posted on the Wikimedia blog, too:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/
As usual, we are also publishing a separate "Highlights" summary.
Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay
updated, by providing a translation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_February_2013
Many thanks to those who have translated the January "Highlights" into
Breton, Danish, German, Spanish, Norwegian (Bokmål), Dutch,
Turkish, Ukrainian, and simplified/traditional Chinese (and partially
into some other languages like Arabic and French)!
While still focussing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a
small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement.
Suggestions for the upcoming March issue are welcome until April 3 at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights .
Regards, Tilman
--
Wikimedia Foundation Report, February 2013
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_March_7…>
Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting
covering the month of February
Contents
* 1 Data and Trends
* 2 Financials
* 3 Highlights
o 3.1 Legal victory for Wikivoyage and free knowledge
o 3.2 Mobile watchlist available
o 3.3 Language Engineering team attends open source conferences in
India
* 4 Engineering
o 4.1 VisualEditor
o 4.2 Editor engagement
o 4.3 Mobile
* 5 Fundraising
o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations
o 5.2 Annual Fundraiser
* 6 Grantmaking and Programs
o 6.1 Strategic Goals Metrics
o 6.2 Grantmaking
+ 6.2.1 Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC)
+ 6.2.2 WMF Grants approved in February 2013
+ 6.2.3 WMF Grant Reports accepted in February 2013
+ 6.2.4 Participation Support requests approved in February
2013
+ 6.2.5 Individual Engagement Grants
+ 6.2.6 Fellowships
o 6.3 Programs
+ 6.3.1 Brazil
# 6.3.1.1 Institutional Partnerships
# 6.3.1.2 Hirings and positions
# 6.3.1.3 Analysis
# 6.3.1.4 Education
* 6.3.1.4.1 Partnerships with universities
* 6.3.1.4.2 Class assignments
* 6.3.1.4.3 Medicin Wikiproject
* 6.3.1.4.4 Community and High School
# 6.3.1.5 Meet-ups
+ 6.3.2 Mobile
+ 6.3.3 Global Education
o 6.4 Learning & Evaluation
* 7 Human Resources
o 7.1 Staff Changes
o 7.2 Statistics
o 7.3 Department Updates
* 8 Finance and Administration
* 9 Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications Department
o 9.1 LCA Report, February 2013
+ 9.1.1 Contract Metrics
+ 9.1.2 Trademark Metrics
+ 9.1.3 Domains Obtained
+ 9.1.4 Coming & Going
+ 9.1.5 Other Activities
o 9.2 Communications Report, February 2013
+ 9.2.1 Major announcements
+ 9.2.2 Major Storylines through February
+ 9.2.3 Other worthwhile reads
+ 9.2.4 WMF Blog posts
+ 9.2.5 Media Contact
+ 9.2.6 Wikipedia Signpost
* 10 Office of the Executive Director
* 11 Visitors and Guests
== Data and Trends ==
Global unique visitors for January:
*488.5 million* (+3.37% compared with December; +1.31% compared with
the previous year)
(comScore data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/unique_visitors> for all
Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release February data
later in March)
Page requests for February:
*21.8 billion* (-2.1% compared with January; +20.2% compared with
the previous year)
(Server log data
<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyAllProjects.htm>,
all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for January 2013 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month,
excluding bots):
*84,848* (+8.60% compared with December / +2.03% compared with the
previous year)
(Database data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors>, all Wikimedia
Foundation projects.
*Report Card* (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF
projects) for January 2013:
http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/
(Definitions <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Metric_definitions>)
== Financials ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Revenue_%26_Expenses_January_20…>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of January 31, 2013
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses_by_Functions_January_2…>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of January 31, 2013
(Financial information is only available for January 2013 at the time of
this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and
Year-To-Date January 31, 2013.
Revenue $33,756,118
*Expenses:*
Engineering Group $7,393,053
Fundraiser Group $2,223,577
Grantmaking & Programs Group $2,617,926
Governance Group $413,747
Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group $1,818,707
Finance/HR/Admin Group $3,249,731
Total Expenses $17,716,741
Total surplus/(loss) $16,039,377
* Revenue for the month of January is $2.84MM vs plan of $276K,
approximately $2.56MM or 927% over plan.
* Year-to-date revenue is $33.76MM vs plan of $30.19MM, approximately
$3.57MM or 12% over plan.
* Expenses for the month of January is $2.26MM vs plan of $4.13MM,
approximately $1.87 or 45% under plan, primarily due to lower
personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, timing of
FDC grants disbursement, and travel expenses partially offset by
higher legal expenses and outside contract services.
* Year-to-date expenses is $17.72MM vs plan of $21.90MM, approximately
$4.18MM or 19% under plan, primarily due to personnel expenses,
capital expenses, internet hosting, timing of FDC grants
disbursement and travel expenses partially offset by higher legal
expenses and bank fees.
* Cash position is $41.47MM as of January 31, 2013.
== Highlights ==
=== Legal victory for Wikivoyage and free knowledge ===
The Wikimedia Foundation's legal team announced a settlement
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/15/a-victory-for-wikivoyage-and-free-know…>
in the legal proceedings between the Foundation and Internet Brands,
relating to issues stemming from the creation of Wikivoyage, our
community’s newest free knowledge project.
Last year, Internet Brands (owners of a for-profit wiki-based travel
project) sued two Wikimedians involved in supporting the travel wiki
project. The Foundation supported the legal defense of the volunteers
and the court ultimately dismissed Internet Brands’ lawsuit.
The Foundation also went on the offensive and filed its own separate
lawsuit against Internet Brands seeking a declaration from the court
that Internet Brands had no proper basis to block the travel wiki
project. That suit was resolved in an out of court settlement on
February 14, 2013. In that settlement, Internet Brands released the
Foundation and Wikivoyage e.V. (the German non-profit organization who
worked hard to make the travel project a success) from all claims
related in any manner to the creation and operation of the travel wiki
project. In return, the Foundation agreed to dismiss its suit.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mobile_Wikipedia_watchlist.PNG>
Screenshot of the new mobile watchlist
=== Mobile watchlist available ===
Facilitating contributions to Wikipedia on mobile devices is an
important goal for the Foundation's mobile team. As one of the first
results of these efforts, mobile Wikipedia users are now able to log
into their account, and to view and modify their watchlist
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/13/follow-your-favorite-wikipedia-pages-…>.
On the mobile version, the star symbol for the watchlist is shown to all
users, to encourage them to log in or create an account. Experienced
contributors can use the watchlist as usual: To track changes to the
selected pages and fix problems if necessary. But to make the watchlist
more newbie-friendly, the mobile version also offers a full view of all
selected pages, which can function as a reading list.
=== Language Engineering team attends open source conferences in India ===
The Wikimedia Foundation's Language Engineering team participated in two
conferences in Pune, India: GNUnify 2013
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/27/language-engineering-team-participate…>,
a major open source conference, and the Second Open Source Language
Summit
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/20/report-from-the-spring-2013-open-sour…>,
co-organized by the Foundation with Red Hat. The team aims to make
Wikipedia a website that can be used by anyone on the planet in their
own language. India's many different languages make it a natural
location for the team to see the effect of their work. At the Language
Summit, the engineers from the Wikimedia Foundation collaborated with
attendees from Red Hat, KDE, Google and other groups. The work areas
included the following:
* *Input methods* (enabling typing in a certain language), bringing
the number of supported languages to 140.
* *Translation tools*, including a demonstration of the new design and
features for the translation editor in MediaWiki's Translate
extension <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Translate>
* The *"Language Coverage Matrix"*, a detailed overview of language
support in different projects and platforms (with 285 languages
currently supported by Wikimedia, and more than 100 in the Fedora
Linux distribution)
== Engineering ==
A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for February 2013
can be found at:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2013/February
Major news in February include:
* The Wikipedia Zero project
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/22/getting-wikipedia-to-the-people-who-n…>
got a Knight News Challenge grant.
* Additional input methods
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/20/report-from-the-spring-2013-open-sour…>
were made available for jQuery.IME.
* The Translate extension introduced a new iteration of the
Translation Editor
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/15/inching-towards-enabling-our-improvem…>.
* The Wikimedia mobile web team launched the ability to view or add
pages to
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/13/follow-your-favorite-wikipedia-pages-…>
watchlist — all from mobile devices (see also general "Highlights"
section)
* Echo is A new notification system for Wikipedia
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/07/echo-a-new-notification-system-for-wi…>.
* The Technical Operations team found ways to stop problems
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/05/how-the-technical-operations-team-sto…>
in their tracks.
* Wikipedia Mobile hit 3 billion monthly page views
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/01/wikipedia-mobile-hits-3-billion-month…>.
=== VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> ===
VisualEditor is on schedule to become the default editor for Wikimedia
users by July 2013. The alpha version of the VisualEditor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> on the English Wikipedia and
mediawiki.org was updated twice, adding support for Microsoft Internet
Explorer (version 9 and above), improving the support for multiple
languages, preparing the backend for upcoming features and fixing
several issues reported by the community. Software engineer and Commons
contributor Ed Sanders
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-February/066421.html>
joined the team to work on the VisuaEditor data infrastructure.
In the backend, Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid> is going
through intense activity focusing on performance improvements. New
contributor volunteer contributor C. Scott Ananian improved its
performance by switching the DOM library from JSDom
<https://github.com/tmpvar/jsdom> to Domino
<https://github.com/fgnass/domino>. He also improved image handling and
contributed numerous other patches. The team wrote a blog post
explaining the technical challenges
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/04/parsoid-how-wikipedia-catches-up-with-…>.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Echo-Flyout-Screenshot-CloseUp-452p…>
User notifications in the new "Echo" system
=== Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Brandon Harris presenting the "Flow
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/FlowPortal>" project (slides
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flow-Slides-WMF_MetricsMeeting_03.1…>)
The Notifications <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Notifications> project
(codenamed /Echo/) is preparing its beta release to English Wikipedia by
the end of March. This new set of features, already enabled at
mediawiki.org <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki>, was summarized for
the Wikimedia community through a blog post
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/07/echo-a-new-notification-system-for-wik…>.
New features are being developed: bundling
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo/Feature_requirements#Bundling>
notifications, dismissing
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo/Feature_requirements#Dismiss> types of
notifications and defining user preferences
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo/Feature_requirements#Preferences>.
Article Feedback v5
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5> (AFT5) is now
feature complete, and a new release is being prepared for interested
Wikimedia projects. English Wikipedia will use it as an optional
feature, while French and German Wikipedia projects are planning to
enable it for all articles. The new features include simpler moderation
tools
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requireme…>,
better filters
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requireme…>,
new feedback link
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requireme…>,
auto-archive
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requireme…>
and discuss on talk page
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requireme…>.
We posted a usability study report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Article_feedback/Moderation_Tools_…>
about
the effectiveness of the new moderation tools.
The Editor Engagement Experiments
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Editor_Engagement_Experiments> team continued
testing Guided tours <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Guided_tours> as part of
the onboarding new Wikipedians
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/onboarding_new_Wikipedians> experiences
currently enabled on English Wikipedia. GuidedTour extension
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GuidedTour> was enabled on Wikimedia
Commons and six Wikipedias (including French, German, and Dutch). See
also the slides
<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1RBrkt6uIEopyyxoM3ok…>
from the monthly Metrics and Activities meeting. The GettingStarted
extension <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GettingStarted> is being
enhanced to include a wider variety of task types offered to new editors.
=== Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> ===
Mobile web uploads <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_design/Uploads>
functionality went out of beta and is now enabled in all Wikimedia
projects. All registered users have now the ability to upload and add
images to articles lacking them. We also explored two new upload
workflows: adding a call to action to articles that appear in the Nearby
and Watchlist view, and allowing users to quickly see articles near them
that may need an image. Lastly, we began collaborating with the
Fundraising team to enable CentralNotice
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CentralNotice> on the mobile web,
giving us the ability to deliver targeted banners to mobile users.
The new Commons app <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Commons>
beta for Android and iOS got a first wave of users ([mw:Mobile
QA/Commons uploads/Setup installation instructions) and feedback,
leading to many updates during the month. The Android app is in Google
Play
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikimedia.commons>.
iOS users need to go through a process for testers until the app is
stable and available at the Apple App Store.
== Fundraising ==
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:What%27s_a_Love_Dart%3F.webm>
"What's a Love Dart?" video for Valentine's Day
=== Major Gifts and Foundations ===
* Received a $250,000 anonymous gift
* Received a $50,000 gift from Graham Weston
=== Annual Fundraiser ===
* The fundraising team began testing in February in various languages
and countries that were not included in the year-end 2012 campaign.
Nearly $2 million USD was raised from this testing in the month of
February. For additional details, please see the Fundraising 2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013> page on Meta
* The fundraising tech team implemented new local payment methods for
various countries that were not included in the year-end 2012 campaign.
* Produced "What's a Love Dart?
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:What%27s_a_Love_Dart%3F.webm>",
a short video interview
with Wikipedian Susan Hewitt about the article 'Love Dart', that she
helped to write. The video was emailed to 150,000 U.S.-only donors
on Valentine's Day. It was designed to educate viewers that they can
write Wikipedia articles. The video received many positive
responses. One example: "I found the video to be quite engaging, and
the people in it utterly delightful. Quite truthfully, I haven't a
clue how Wikipedia "works." I've known it was non-profit and largely
volunteer... And, I donated because I've felt guilty not donating
based on how much I use it as a resource. But, I'm fully ignorant of
how articles get into Wiki and the degree of collaboration that it
takes to refine them. So, these videos that give me glimpses into
the people and the process are fascinating..."
== Grantmaking and Programs ==
Department Highlights
* Individual Engagement Grants committee forms and request for round 1
proposals closes. Decisions for the first round will be announced by
the end of March.
* FDC staff confirms eligibility and prepares for 2012-2013 Round 2
proposal deadline on 1 March.
* Siko Bouterse takes the lead on the Participation Support Program
(previously run by Asaf Bartov).
=== Strategic Goals Metrics ===
Metric Value MoM MoM% Chart
Global South Active Editors (5+ edits in main namespace) 15.8k +6
+0.0% Increase [1]
<http://gp.wmflabs.org/graphs/global_north_south_active_editors>
=== Grantmaking ===
==== Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Katy Love presenting about the FDC round 2 (slides
<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1cG-dHKgj3XUl-lFiMO0…>)
* WMF announces eligibility for 2012-2013 Round 2 of funding
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_status/Current_round…>.
* FDC staff prepares for 2012-2013 Round 2 proposal deadline on 1 March.
* Proposal form and hubpage templates are updated for the second
round; policy documents and Frequently Asked Questions page are
updated to reflect current policy and relevant dates.
==== WMF Grants approved in February 2013 ====
* Wikimedia Espana's Conferences and meeting for tenth anniversary of
the Galipedia: Grants:WM ES/Conferences and meeting for tenth
anniversary of the Galipedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_ES/Conferences_and_meeting_for_te…>
* Wikimedia Italia's Wikimedia Conference 2013: Grants:WM IT/Wikimedia
Conference 2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_IT/Wikimedia_Conference_2013>
==== WMF Grant Reports accepted in February 2013 ====
* Grants:WM SE/Annual Program Plan 2012/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_SE/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Report>
* Grants:Consumer Reports/Wikipedian in Residence/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Consumer_Reports/Wikipedian_in_Resid…>
* Grants:WM NO/christmas seminar and wlm ceremony/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NO/christmas_seminar_and_wlm_cere…>
* Grants:WM CA/In person meeting/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_CA/In_person_meeting/Report>
==== Participation Support requests approved in February 2013 ====
* Participation:Raystorm/2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships La
Molina
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Raystorm/2013_IPC_Alpine_Skii…>
* Participation:SarahStierch/ARLIS 2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:SarahStierch/ARLIS_2013>
* Participation:Bathlander/US OpenGLAM Launch
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Bathlander/US_OpenGLAM_Launch>
* Participation:Wittylama/Brisbane Library conferences
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Wittylama/Brisbane_Library_co…>
==== Individual Engagement Grants ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Siko Bouterse presenting on Individual Engagement Grants (slides
<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1v5nYEr2QwviH3sNYr74…>)
* Over 50 project ideas and proposal drafts
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab>
have been submitted for Individual Engagement Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG> and 22 complete proposals
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-join> were
confirmed eligible for round 1
review which began on February 15th.
* An IEGrants committee has been formed. 18 community members
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee#ieg-members>
from 12 countries, with
experience in 14 different Wikimedia projects were selected to
review and recommend grant proposals for WMF funding in this round.
* The first round of grantees will be announced at the end of March.
==== Fellowships ====
* The fellowships program has ended but some projects live on. The
Wikipedia Teahouse <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Teahouse> celebrated
its first birthday
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/27/wikipedia-teahouse-celebrates-its-firs…>
and increasing growth with metrics demonstrating impact
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse/The_Tea_Leaf/The_Tea_Leaf_8>
and cupcake badges.
=== Programs ===
==== Brazil ====
===== Institutional Partnerships =====
A research on possible partners
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>
for the Wikimedia Foundation Brazil Catalyst Program has been carried
out since October. This is part of the narrowing focus strategy and
implies the Brazil Catalyst program is to shift into the grantmaking model.
Ação Educativa
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>
and Coletivo Digital
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>
were considered the most likely institutions for the Wikimedia
Foundation to set up an institutional partnerhsip and host the
development of the Catalyst project in Brazil. Anasuya Sengupta,
consultants from Brazil and two community volunteers visited those
institutions during her trip to Brazil. The meetings were good and
clarifying. The results can be checked here:
* Meeting with Ação Educativa
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>
* Meeting with Coletivo Digital
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>
Next steps include: developing a medium term strategy with partners and
community and Skype meetings to make final decisions and define terms
and governance of this partnership.
===== Hirings and positions =====
* Arriving: Hiring and onboarding of Henrique Andrade
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usu%C3%A1rio:HAndrade_(WMF)> and Jonas
Xavier <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usu%C3%A1rio:JXavier_(WMF)>
* Leaving: Everton announced he’ll be leaving WMF for Open Knowledge
Foundation soon. We’re working on the transition (he’ll be working
part time for WMF until May or June) and on the opening of the job
position. More in March.
===== Analysis =====
Data & Experiments
* Data analysis: Comparison year-over-year
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Annual_Stats>
from 2009 to
2012. The Portuguese Wikipedia is still seeing a decrease in
editors, active editors and edits, but the descrease in 2012 was
lower than in 2011. We may be reverting the decrease trend (except
for very active editors), little by little, but it’s hard to say
yet. One more year is key to analyze it.
Staff & Community work
* Henrique’s and Jonas’ onboarding: access to data, tools, Toolserver,
guidance on the use of them, how tos, introducing to people, sharing
plans, targets etc. Both worked on a draft execution detailed plan
to be published and discussed by the community.
* IRC with community: agenda covered Toolserver-Wikimedia Labs
transition, methodologies to work on measures in Wikipedia, data
portal (ideas, objectives, structure and target), demand for data on
editors and edits per regions.
Workshop Surveys
* Creation of survey forms to be sent to every participant of offline
activities developed by us and by the community.
===== Education =====
====== Partnerships with universities ======
* FGV SP (Getulio Vargas Foundation): group of professors developing a
methodology in collaboration aiming at the second semester of 2013.
Professors plan to have class assignment activities as well as a
group of students who will be working throughout the semester on
Wikipedia.
* UGF - Gama Filho University: partnership with the coordination of
translation courses post graduation. Great part of their students
are in their e-learning/distance learning program. Professors in the
course are expected to assign students with translations of
Wikipedia articles in English and Spanish into Portuguese. Oona and
Everton have recorded a video interview in the University with
Sanchez (the coordinator), to invite students to participate in the
program and engage in Wikipedia activities. Activities will start in
April.
* UFBA - Federal University of Bahia: Presentation to professors and
to the university publisher: potential involvement in the Education
program and potential partnership on Wikibooks, Wikisources and
Commons through open educational resources.
====== Class assignments ======
* Everton contacted professors who will continue the program in their
courses: Iara (Faculdades Integradas Rio Branco), Rafael (UFRGS),
Yury (UFES), Rubens (UNESP), Maria Paula (UNESP), Sanchez + 4
professors (UGF), Regina (USP), and to be finalized during this
semester: Edivaldo (UFRJ), Juliana (UNIRIO), Viktor (UFF), Ricardo
(UFPR), Leni (UFES)
====== Medicin Wikiproject ======
* Bot: Jonathan has finalized the bot to invite new contributors to
edit the Medicin Wikiproject and Everton submitted the request for
approval by the Portuguese community. Jonas has worked on final
developments customizing categories and criteria for trigger.
====== Community and High School ======
* Making bridges between and engaging in conversation with 2 high
school teachers who looked for WMF and community volunteers who are
developing a project to be deployed in high schools.
===== Meet-ups =====
* Digitalia 2013
<https://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Discuss%C3%A3o:Digitalia/2013>
(Jan/Feb): Digital Culture debate and Wikipedia editing workshop
with 20 new editors. Usuário:Eduardofeld
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usu%C3%A1rio:Eduardofeld> led the workshop
and has adopted 10 new users. Oona and Everton organized, promoted
and led the activities on the mission of Wikimedia projects. Oona
was also one of the speakers in the opening session
<http://digitalia.com.br/?page_id=1155> (pictures
<http://digitalia.com.br/?page_id=1540>).
* Wiki meetup in Bahia: participation of 3 editors from Bahia and one
editor from Natal, who adopted 10 new users from the Workshop to
mentor them.
* 2 Wiki meetups in São Paulo: Feb 02 (fully community driven), and
Feb 23 (on the occasion of Anasuya’s visit).
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WP_Zero_Mid-Year_-_Master_Version_F…>
Slides from the quarterly review meeting for Wikipedia Zero
==== Mobile ====
* Launched Wikipedia Zero in a new country -- Botswana -- with Orange.
* We've started testing with Vimpelcom for an upcoming launch in March.
* Made Improvement to the partner dashboard which tracks Wikipedia
Zero usage
* Kul Wadhwa & Amit Kapoor traveled to Barcelona, Spain to attend
Mobile World Congress to meet with many current and potential
partners. The trip also involved attending talks on mobile usage in
developing countries and investigating potential pilots for
Wikipedia's USSD/SMS (text) service.
* Kul also wrote a blog post that was jointly posted on our funder's
site -- the Knight Foundation -- that explains our mobile strategy
and how we will use their grant to accelerate our mobile programs:
"Getting Wikipedia to the people who need it most
<http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2013/2/22/getting-wikipedi…>"
* The Wikipedia Zero team held its quarterly review meeting. Minutes
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…>
are available.
==== Global Education ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Education_Program_extension_Feb_201…>
Slides from Sage Ross' presentation about the Education Program
MediaWiki extension
Highlights:
* Fall 2012 data showed students in WMF-run programs contributed 12.1
million bytes to Wikipedia, putting us on track for our goal of 25
million bytes in 2012-13.
* More than 350 students in the U.S. and Canada program have completed
the online student training, at en:WP:STUDENT
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:STUDENT>, so far. That means half of the
students who have created user accounts and signed up on course
pages thus far have completed an online training about how to edit
Wikipedia.
* So far, 60 courses <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Courses> are
using the Education Program Extension on the English Wikipedia.
* Planning is underway to kick off a pilot of the Wikipedia Education
Program in Jordan
<https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/w:%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%…>.
U.S. professor shares student experiences
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22New_Media_and_Development_Commun…>
"New Media and Development Communications," Columbia University, Fall 2012
Anne Nelson, a professor from Columbia University participating in the
Wikipedia Education Program United States, contributed a post to the
Wikimedia Foundation blog last week on her experiences with the program.
Many of her students are English as a second language learners, and she
asked those students to contribute to Wikipedia in both their native
languages and English, leading to a unique multilingual learning
experience for both Anne and her students. Read more of her reflections
on the project.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/11/multilingual-learning-through-the-wiki…>
Spanish Wikipedia's art coverage grows thanks to professor
Lila Pagola, a professor at the National University of Villa María in
Argentina, started teaching with Wikipedia back in 2007. The lack of
good information on the Spanish Wikipedia on topics related to art, her
specialty, spurred her to work with her students to add articles on
Latin American photography to Wikipedia, and she's been hard at work
using Wikipedia in her classroom ever since. Read about her project in
Argentina.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/07/creating-local-content-for-wikipedia/>
Swedish program shares learnings
Sophie Österberg, the education program leader in Sweden, contributed a
long post for the Wikimedia Foundation blog talking about her
experiences so far as she has been having workshops with professors and
launching the Wikipedia Education Program in Sweden, Wikipedia i
utbildning. Sophie's post explains some of the mistakes she has made,
and what she has learned from them. Her post encourages people worldwide
to share learnings so we can ensure we are not repeating mistakes in
different geographic regions. Read her post.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/14/wikipedia-education-program-sweden/>
Egyptian student becomes active Wikipedia editor
Walaa Abdel Manaem, a master's student in Spanish at Cairo University,
learned how to edit Wikipedia through the Cairo Pilot of the Wikipedia
Education Program -- and shortly after she started translating articles
from the Spanish Wikipedia to the Arabic Wikipedia, Walaa was hooked.
Less than one year later, Walaa has more than 8,500 edits on the Arabic
Wikipedia. She's created 68 articles, and is steadily climbing the list
of the 100 most active editors on the Arabic Wikipedia. She's also
assisting the education program as a Campus Ambassador at Cairo
University. Read more about Walaa's experiences.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/25/walaa-wikipedia-education-program-egyp…>
Students in Greece add photos to Commons
Mina Theofilatou, an instructor at Argostoli Evening High School in
Kefalonia, Greece, wrote a post for the Wikimedia Foundation blog
explaining her project to add photographs to Wikimedia Commons, the free
image repository project. Mina and her students have embarked on two
projects: one to catalog edible species on the island of Kefalonia, and
one to photograph every village on the island. Learn more about Mina's
project by reading the blog post.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/21/education-program-greece/>
Teaching assistant works to improve Arabic Wikipedia
Doaa Seif, a teaching assistant at Ain Shams University's faculty of
Al-Alsun, is an active Wikipedia Ambassador in the Wikipedia Education
Program in Egypt. Doaa was featured on the Wikimedia Foundation's blog
in a post explaining her desire to improve the availability of
information on the Arabic Wikipedia. The two courses that Doaa is a
teaching assistant for both participated in the Egypt program last term,
and she's also organized workshops teaching students how to edit. Read
the profile on Doaa.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/20/doaa-seif-profile/>
Program leaders invited to workshop in Milan
Wikimedia chapter members and other volunteer leaders who are already
running education programs in countries around the world are invited to
attend the first Education Program Leaders Workshop, aimed at building a
global community to share learnings and help each other overcome
challenges. The workshop will be held in conjunction with the Wikimedia
Chapters Meeting in Milan, Italy, on April 18. If you are a program
leader, you're encouraged to check out this page for more information.
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program/Education_P…>
Farewell, Annie!
Annie Lin, who's been with the Wikipedia Education Program since its
beginning in 2010, left the Wikimedia Foundation on February 22 to
pursue other opportunities. The entire Wikipedia Education Program team
will miss her tremendously. Annie is sad to leave, and she says she is
very grateful to have had the opportunity to work with so many
brilliant, inspiring educators and volunteers.
=== Learning & Evaluation ===
* Facilitated G&P annual planning process and helped formalize goals
and success metrics
* Experimented with servicing analytics requests using a 1 week sprint
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_(scrum)#Sprint> methodology
* Built bot to automate various steps in the Individual Engagement
Grants <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG> program [2]
<https://github.com/jtmorgan/grantsbot>
* Built bot to automate certain tasks around the Brazil Education
Program <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Program/Education_program/Design>
* Built tool for analysis of category graphs [3]
<https://github.com/embr/mwcat>
* Built tool for analysis of cumulative user contributions to a page
by converting page history into Git repository [4]
<https://github.com/embr/mwgit>
* Investigated sources of error in our geolocation technology, MaxMind
(mw:MaxMind_Evaluation <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MaxMind_Evaluation>)
* Participated in Analytics Reboot Workshop led by ThoughtWorks
consultant in preparation for WMF Analytics reorganization
== Human Resources ==
Primary HR activities for the month include:
* modeling staffing projections in preparation for the WMF annual
planning process
* conducting the second segment of a three-part series in the WMF
pilot leadership development program for directors and managers
* co-hosted an event with the Op-Ed Project in mutual support of the
aim to shift the gender gap in media
* commissioned a study on Wikimedia Foundation salaries with Radford
as follow-up to the board-sponsored executive salary study conducted
last year
* Chief Culture and Talent Officer Gayle Karen Young was profiled on
the Wikimedia blog ("Gayle Karen Young: Supporting Wikimedia’s
dynamic culture
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/13/gayle-karen-young-supporting-wikimedi…>")
=== Staff Changes ===
New Requisitions Filled
* Henrique Andrade, Data Analyst & Experiments (Grantmaking and Programs)
* Greg Grossmeier, Release Manager (Engineering)
* Ed Sanders, Software Engineer, Visual Editor (Engineering)
* Luis Villa, Deputy General Counsel (Legal and Community Advocacy)
* Amy Vossbrinck, Executive Assistant to the Chief Finance &
Administration Officer (Administration)
New Volunteer
* Anita Whites (Fundraiser)
New Contractors
* Kraig Parkinson (Engineering)
* Marc-Andre Pelletier (Engineering)
* Jonas Xavier (Grantmaking & Programs)
Contracts Extended
* Michael Beattie (Fundraiser)
* LaTrisha Holliness (Finance)
* Rebecca Neumann (Legal and Community Advocacy)
* Joseph Seddon (Fundraiser)
Departure
* Annie Lin
Contracts Ended
* Peter Coombe
* Susan Walling
New Postings
* Partner Solutions Engineer
* Program Evaluation Community Coordinator
* Program Evaluation Specialist
* Senior Program Manager - Mobile
* Software Engineer - Multimedia User Interfaces
* Software Engineer - Parser
=== Statistics ===
Total Requisitions Filled
February Actual: 135
February Total Plan: 173
February Filled: 5, Month Attrition: 1
YTD Filled: 41, YTD Attrition: 18
1 Position canceled for FY
Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end
38 (10 of which are on hold)
=== Department Updates ===
Real-time feed for HR updates
http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
== Finance and Administration ==
We have begun active work on the Annual Plan, including setting a
baseline for annual expenditures.
The first financial review site visit occured with Wikimedia Argentina.
Our thanks to Osmar - Executive Director of Wikmedia Argentina for
hosting a sucessful site visit. A full report of the site visit will be
submitted to the FDC. The financial review portion of the site visit
showed that WMAR has good internal controls and is managing it financial
matters well.
== Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications Department ==
=== LCA Report, February 2013 ===
==== Contract Metrics ====
* Submitted : 28
* Completed : 20
==== Trademark Metrics ====
* Submitted : 21
* Approved : 1
* Pending : 11
* Denied : 4
* Request withdrawn : 3
* Approval not needed : 2
==== Domains Obtained ====
wikinews.de
==== Coming & Going ====
* Luis Villa, Deputy General Counsel, has joined the Legal Department.
:)
<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2013-February/0005…>
==== Other Activities ====
* We announced a settlement
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/15/a-victory-for-wikivoyage-and-free-know…>
in the legal proceedings between the Wikimedia Foundation and
Internet Brands relating to issues stemming from the creation of
Wikivoyage (see general "Highlights" section).
* The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK announced the release of
the final report and recommendations regarding the governance of the
Wikimedia UK chapter
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/07/wikimedia-uk-and-wikimedia-foundation-…>.
The report was completed by Compass Partnership, consultants in
non-profit management based in the UK. The report was commissioned
jointly by the Foundation and Wikimedia UK in October 2012 following
important Wikimedia community discussions about potential conflicts
of interest arising from a series of wiki outreach projects.
* After critical and extremely helpful community input and changes, we
proposed to the Board new guidelines on the disclosure of conflicts
of interests when requesting movement resources
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_i…>.
* We are drafting a template user group agreement (with appreciated
comments from members of AffCom) to serve our partnership with
independent groups of Wikimedian volunteers.
* We finalized the template for the organizational grant agreement for
use by the WMF Grants Program.
=== Communications Report, February 2013 ===
February was a relatively quiet month for the Foundation and projects
from a media relations perspective. Major media outlets were focused on
the news of the successful conclusion of the Internet Brands lawsuit as
well as a measured increase in coverage and requests related to
Wikipedia Zero.
==== Major announcements ====
No major press announcements in February.
==== Major Storylines through February ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Fidler_interviews_Sue_Gardn…>
Richard Fidler interviewing Sue Gardner
‘’WMF’s ED Sue Gardner in Brisbane, Australia’’ (Feb 17, 2013)
During a visit to Brisbane, Australia to speak at the ALIA conference at
the State Library of Queensland, Sue Gardner spent time with a number of
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio programs. Conversations
covered the Foundation’s work to recruit new editors and diversify our
community, including a lengthy discussion with Australian radio
personality Richard Fidler.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/wikipedia--dealing…http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/02/15/3691244.htmhttp://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacific/2013-02-13/wikipedia-flush-with-fu…
‘’A Victory for Free Knowledge and Wikivoyage’’ (Feb 15, 2013)
After five months of legal activity, the Foundation announced settlement
of litigation with Internet Brands. The announcement was made on the
Foundation’s blog
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/15/a-victory-for-wikivoyage-and-free-kno…>
and was followed by positive media coverage that repeated the mission
and focus of the non-commercial Wikivoyage project.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57569807-93/wikimedia-internet-brands-sett…http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/16/3995358/wikimedia-internet-brands-lawsuit…http://pandodaily.com/news/wikimedia-foundation-and-internet-brands-reach-s…
‘’Mobile Wikipedia and Wikipedia Zero: 3 billion pageviews and free
Wikipedia by SMS’’ (Feb 23, 2013)
A trio of blog posts and coverage relating to the Foundation’s mobile
work made positive headlines in February. The push past 3 billion page
views on our mobile WP site, coupled with coverage of our push for free
Wikipedia via SMS attracted significant interest, particularly from tech
and mobile industry blogs.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/23/wikipedia-expects-to-offer-sms-based-acc…http://www.ibtimes.com/wikipedia-reaches-3-billion-monthly-mobile-views-ami…http://thenextweb.com/media/2013/02/02/driven-by-developing-countries-wikip…
==== Other worthwhile reads ====
Infographic: An Amazing, Invisible Truth About Wikipedia | Fast Co.
Design | Feb 11
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671833/infographic-an-amazing-invisible-truth-…
Getting Wikipedia to the people who need it most | Knight Foundation |
Feb 22
http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2013/2/22/getting-wikipedi…
The Biggest Wikipedia Traffic Spikes Since 2010 Prove We’re All Morbid |
Gizmodo | Feb 11
http://gizmodo.com/5983295/the-biggest-wikipedia-traffic-spikes-since-2010-…
==== WMF Blog posts ====
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/
Forty-three blog posts in February, with bilingual posts
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/> in Arabic, Spanish,
Greek, Ukrainian and Portuguese. Some highlights from the month:
How the Technical Operations team stops problems in their tracks
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/05/how-the-technical-operations-team-sto…
Engaging the local community in a school project on Commons
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/21/education-program-greece/
Egyptian student creates 68 new articles on the Arabic Wikipedia in less
than a year
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/25/walaa-wikipedia-education-program-egy…
Wikipedia Teahouse Celebrates its First Birthday
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/27/wikipedia-teahouse-celebrates-its-fir…
==== Media Contact ====
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#February_2013
==== Wikipedia Signpost ====
For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the
community-edited newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” for February 2013:
* Volume 9, Issue 5, 4 February 2013
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-02…>
* Volume 9, Issue 6, 11 February 2013
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-02…>
* Volume 9, Issue 7, 18 February 2013
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-02…>
* Volume 9, Issue 5, 25 February 2013
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-02…>
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sue_Gardner_keynotes_ALIAonline.JPG>
Sue Gardner giving a keynote at the ALIA Online Conference
== Office of the Executive Director ==
Sue Gardner traveled to Australia in February, giving keynotes
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/February_2013/Contents/…>
at two library conferences in Brisbane: The Sixth New Librarians
Symposium (co-sponsored by Wikimedia Australia) and the Australian
Library and Information Association (ALIA) Online Conference. She also
did several interviews with Australian media (see the Communications
Report section above), in
particular a long discussion with Richard Fidler, and had productive
meetings with Australian Wikimedians.
== Visitors and Guests ==
Visitors and guests to the WMF office in February 2013:
1. Samantha Gaskin (Helms Briscoe)
2. Shannon Farley (Spark)
3. Amanda Brock (Spark)
4. Alex Wong (AAPIP)
5. Chris Cavanaugh (CCS Consulting Inc.)
6. Yvonne Ortmann (Reporter, t3n)
7. Eugene Eric Kim + guests (Consultant)
8. Kellie Brownell (TAI)
9. Erik Qualman (edx.org)
10. Abhishek Suryawanshi (Wikipedian)
11. Iara Camardo (Professor, Wikipedia Education Program Brazil)
12. Rosa Jiménez Cano (Reporter, El Pais)
13. Debra Wolter (CCS)
14. M. McCarthy (RDI)
15. J. Uppal (RDI)
16. Mike Chavet (Felice)
17. John Engers (Felice)
18. Kraig Parkinson (Thoughtworks consultant)
19. Marc Chenn (Salt Stack)
20. Thomas Hatch (Salt Stack)
21. Julie Jarratt (Cathay Pacific)
22. Maziebelle Riece (Cathay Pacific)
23. Valerie Aurora (TAI)
24. Kathy Ramsey (TAI)
25. Virginia Sutton (J&D)
26. Doug Hessel (J&D)
27. Linda Lam (J&D)
28. Ron Waliczek (JP Morgan)
29. Mike McKindey (JP Morgan)
30. Ryan McNeill (JP Morgan)
31. Paul Cardoso (Sequoia)
32. John Gaffney (Sequoia)
33. Melissa Sharp (Sequoia)
34. Jed Cloern (Sequoia)
35. Sheldon Renan (Video crew)
36. Mark Oppenheim (m|Oppenheim)
37. Stephany Kirkpatrick (LearnVest)
38. Denny Vrandecic (WMDE)
39. Daniel Kinzler (WMDE)
40. Galen Cranz (Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley)
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
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