December 2016 - Wikimedia-l - lists.wikimedia.org

LGBT+ safety considerations for conference venues
by Pax Ahimsa Gethen 20 Dec '16

20 Dec '16

Hello all. I had a positive experience at WikiConference North America last weekend, where I gave a talk on transgender issues and Wikipedia.[1] I'm posting because there's an active discussion in Wikipedia Weekly on Facebook about choosing a host country for Wikimania 2018.[2] I am concerned that some of the suggestions are not taking into account the safety of LGBT+ people; not just those attending the conference, but also those living in the host country. As a queer trans atheist in a same-sex marriage, there are a number of places where I am considered a criminal for just existing or going about my daily routine. This applies to some parts of the U.S. as well, by the way; I won't be visiting North Carolina as long as it's illegal for me to use the men's restroom there. Please keep these considerations in mind when planning meetups and conferences. Thank you. - Pax aka Funcrunch [1] http://funcrunch.org/blog/2016/10/12/making-connections-at-wikiconference-n… [2] https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/1114259788621851/ -- Pax Ahimsa Gethen | http://funcrunch.org

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Quotes from WMF donors
by Pine W 20 Dec '16

20 Dec '16

Below are some quotes from past donors to WMF, courtesy of Megan Hernandez. I appreciated reading these in 2014 and thought that others might appreciate them again also: --I consider Wikipedia one of the few (the only?) big internet company who are actually trustworthy. I value Wikipedia and I want to support it --I read a comic about a Wikipedia-Comcast merger. It was terrifying. --Keep doing what you are doing. I love Wikipedia. My most visited site by a mile. Any time I watch a new documentary, nature show, or read a book about a topic I find fascinating, I always Wikipedia the information. Irreplaceable! --Very helpful! As a nursing student I frequently use Wikipedia to reference science and engineering topics so I can get a deeper understanding concepts and extra learning. Ilove it. As a young child in the early 1960s I thought that computers were going to be giant machines you could ask any question and get answers, Wikipedia is that machine! It's wonderful! Just sharing. --It can finish a debate in a couple of clicks --Once upon a time far far away I wanted a set of encyclopedias, but, alas I could not afford them. Wikipedia now fills that void. --I visit and utilize Wikipedia multiple times every week, sometimes daily. Going to Wikipedia has become second nature to me. It is synonymous with knowledge - there's nothing more profound. I support it with the small donations I can afford in the hope of setting an example, and so that others may have the same opportunities I've had. --There have been so many ways that the internet has disappointed me in my hopes that it would improve the human condition. However, there is this one shining exception, and from my least expected source. Wikipedia is that best thing that humanity has done with the internet, contributing to both a common knowledge set and re-learning how to find areas of agreement with others, instead of just shouting and not listening. --Most often I turn to Wiki in order to answer a question that my grandson has asked about life, the universe and everything...in the old days we had a kids' encyclopedia on the bookshelf, but it became outdated and Wiki has taken its place. --Knowledge is the key to so many locks. Thank you

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Berlin
by Nicole Ebber 20 Dec '16

20 Dec '16

Dear all, A lot of people reached out to us to ask if Wikipedians and Wikimedians in Berlin are safe. Thank you to all of you who are thinking of us right now! >From what we know by now, everyone around us is OK. Our thoughts are with families and friends of those who have been affected by the incident last night. Take care, Nicole -- Nicole Ebber Referentin Internationale Beziehungen Adviser to the ED, International Relations Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. +49 30 21915826-0 http://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/ Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

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Board approval of FDC recommendation 2016-2017- Round 1
by Dariusz Jemielniak 20 Dec '16

20 Dec '16

Dear members of the Wikimedia community, On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, I write to share the news that we have approved [1] the full slate of the FDC’s Round 1 2016-2017 recommendations [2] for the Annual Plan Grants. In this round, 11 organizations will be receiving a total of roughly US$3,210,000. Grants are made in local currency, so the USD figure is approximate. We want to thank the Funds Dissemination Committee members and staff for the time and effort they have put into this process, as well as all members of the community who have participated in this round of analysis and deliberations. This year introduced the possibility for some organizations to apply for multi-year funding [3] (a 2-year program) for the first time. We are glad to see that this was taken into consideration by the FDC and are looking forward to learn from this pilot how the Wikimedia organizations can better support long-term programs. Thank you to all the organizations involved in this round, and for the work that the volunteers and staff of these organizations have put in to further our mission. We are glad to witness that our movement’s efforts to foster thoughtful planning show in the annual plans of the participating organizations and are looking forward to the next round of applications in April 2017. Sincerely, Dariusz, on behalf of the WMF Board of Trustees

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Proposing creation of WikiTalk
by George Ho 19 Dec '16

19 Dec '16

I created https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/WikiTalk I invite whoever is interested to participate in the discussion. George Ho

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Fwd: [Publicpolicy] U.S. Copyright Office seeks feedback on next Register of Copyright
by James Salsman 18 Dec '16

18 Dec '16

I am forwarding my reply to Luis on the Public Policy list here because the request is for both individual and corporate responses. -Jim ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 10:00 AM Subject: Re: [Publicpolicy] U.S. Copyright Office seeks feedback on next Register of Copyright To: Publicpolicy Group for Wikimedia <publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Thanks, Luis! I am on their mailing lists but did not see that. They send me things like http://www.loc.gov/crb/fedreg/2016/81fr89867.pdf Here are my answers to the first two questions: > What are the knowledge, skills, and abilities you believe are the most important for the Register of Copyrights? The ability to present a plan to the Copyright Royalty Judges which returns the economic incidence of compulsory license distributions to that which existed and supported the number of new and small artists and authors prior to the advent of mass consumer copying technology and subsequent media conglomerate consolidation. > What should be the top three priorities for the Register of Copyrights? 1. Economic equity for artists and authors in proportion to the quantity and popularity of their work 2. Prevention of regulatory capture by monied, powerful, and popular interests contrary to the Constitutional motive of advancing progress in science and the useful arts 3. Enforce equitable assessment of compulsory license fees from commercial and for-profit beneficiaries of mass copying technologies The direct link is https://www.research.net/r/RegisterOfCopyrights Best regards, Jim On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 9:36 AM, Luis Villa <luis(a)lu.is> wrote: > Possibly of interest to Americans on this list. > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Library of Congress <loc(a)service.govdelivery.com> > Date: Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 11:10 AM > Subject: U.S. Copyright Office, NewsNet Issue 648 > > NewsNet Issue 648 > December 16, 2016 > > Librarian of Congress Seeks Input on Register of Copyrights > > The public will have the opportunity to provide input to the Library of > Congress on expertise needed by the Register of Copyrights, the Librarian of > Congress, Carla Hayden, announced today. > > Beginning today, December 16, an online survey is open to the public. The > survey will be posted through January 31, 2017. Input will be reviewed and > inform development of knowledge, skills, and abilities for fulfilling the > Register position. > > Information provided through the survey will be posted online and > submitters’ names will appear. Note that input will be subject to review, > and input may not be posted that is off-topic or contains vulgar, offensive, > racist, threatening or harassing content; personal information; or > gratuitous links to sites that could be considered spam. The Library’s > complete comment policy can be viewed here. > > To provide input through the survey, click here. > > > > > > ________________________________ > This email was sent to ryan(a)publicknowledge.org using GovDelivery, on behalf > of: Library of Congress · 101 Independence Ave, SE · Washington, DC 20540 · > 202-707-5000 > -- > Ryan Clough > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "lawful use" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to lawfuluse+unsubscribe(a)publicknowledge.org. > > _______________________________________________ > Publicpolicy mailing list > Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy >

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Notes from the Cascasdia Wikimedians User Group annual meeting
by Pine W 18 Dec '16

18 Dec '16

Hello colleagues, This afternoon, Cascadia Wikimedians User Group had our annual meeting at the University of Washington in Seattle. Meeting notes (not yet finalized) are available at http://cascadia.wiki/Workroom/Meeting_minutes/December_17,_2016. Regards, Pine Acting Secretary

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AffCom call for new members
by Maor Malul 17 Dec '16

17 Dec '16

Dear all, The Affiliations Committee – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is looking for new members! If you are interested in joining us, please submit an application by 31 December 2016. Based on the successful experience of last call, this one will include too a public review and comment period. All applications will be posted on Meta, and all members of the community are invited to provide comments and feedback about each candidate, always keeping a friendly tone. The full call for candidates, which contains more information on the committee's work, membership criteria, and instructions for how to apply, can be found on Meta at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/MassMessages/Call_fo… We invite all community members to consider to apply or invite those members that you think could make it cool as AffCom members. We make a special call to women since AffCom is worried to keep or increase its women quota among its members. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me or any other member of the committee. Regards, M -- "*Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain." Maor Malul Socio, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 | www.wikimedia.org.ve <http://wikimedia.org.ve> Member, Wikimedia Israel | www.wikimedia.org.il <http://wikimedia.org.il> Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Affiliations Committee Phone: +972-52-4869915 Twitter: @maor_x

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Project Grants program will fund 12 community-led projects
by Marti Johnson 16 Dec '16

16 Dec '16

Hi all, In the second round of Project Grants, 21 eligible proposals were submitted for review. The committee recommended 12 projects for a total of $194,490 in funding. WMF has now approved all 12 grants. Here’s what we’re funding. [1] - Kiwix/Offline medical <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Stephane/Kiwix/Offline_medic…> Wikimed is a medical encyclopedia app that runs on the offline platform Kiwix <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kiwix_-_Wikipedia_Offline>. It serves as a powerful resource for its users, who are predominantly based in areas of the Global South with limited connectivity. This project will update the existing Kiwix code to improve access and content quality, benefitting both Wikimed and other Wikimedia projects supported by Kiwix. [2][3] - Video templates <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Ainali/Video_templates>Video is used by Wikimedians for many reasons, like sharing on social media, providing trainings, reporting on successes and more. This project will produce templates to enable volunteers to more easily develop professional-level videos compatible with our visual identity guidelines <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Visual_identity_guidelines>. The templates will be developed for open source software. [4][5] - GLAMpipe <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/GLAMpipe>GLAMpipe is an open source web application that allows GLAM institutions to upload and process more complex data sets. Initially developed in 2016 with support from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the grant will fund the next phase of improvements, focused on adoption by key GLAM-Wiki contributors, and extension of the tool to bring data to Wikidata. [6] - Fountain <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/%D0%9B%D0%B5_%D0%9B%D0%BE%D0…> Running wiki contests involves extensive preparation for organizers and volunteers, from devising requirements and guidelines, to scoring edits and determining winning participants. Fountain is a tool that creates and organizes online contests, and includes the ability to review edited quality articles. It has already been used on Russian Wikipedia, and was used by organizers of Asian Wikipedia Month <https://tools.wmflabs.org/fountain/editathons/asian-month-2016-en> in November 2016! This grant will expand the tool for multiple-language and multi-project environments. [7][8] Offline outreach: seven projects funded - Offline Wikipedia outreach in Mongolia <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Offline_Wikipedia_outreach_i…>Progress Gateway, an NGO that specializes in building better education in Mongolia, will lead a pilot project that will integrate offline Wikipedia into classroom curriculum in both urban and rural areas. The project aims to build skills in utilizing English Wikipedia, and provide an introduction to editing in Mongolian Wikipedia. [9] - Let’s fill the gender gap through community building <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Let%27s_fill_the_gender_gap_…>This project seeks to build on the success of the Let’s fill the gender gap workshops <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/User:Nattes_%C3%A0_chat/Let%27s_…> for another year. Focused on building motivation among new female volunteers in the Geneva region, regular meetings will be hosted to build personal relationships among participants and a sense of belonging to the Wikimedia community as a whole. [10] [11] - Joburgpedia 2016 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/WM_ZA/Joburgpedia_Digitizati…> Wikimedia South Africa, in partnership with South African History Archives, will be engaging participants in edit-a-thons and in a digitization initiative as part of Johannesburg-based JoburgpediA <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/JoburgpediA>. Notably, this project will include documentation of the work of photojournalist and activist Gille De Vlieg, who photographed life in South Africa’s townships and shanty towns during the Apartheid era. [12][13] - Music in Canada @ 150: A Wikipedia and Wikidata Project <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Music_in_Canada_@_150:_A_Wik…>This project aims to fill a gap in content about Canadian music. Through a collaboration between music communities, librarians and archivists across the country, a series of offline events will strategically encourage new contributions to both Wikipedia and Wikidata. [14] - Bashkortostan User Group Event Planning for Q1 2017 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/UG_BAK/Event_Planning_for_Q1…>Through this multi-part project, Bashkortostan Wikimedians will run contests, conduct trainings and offer social meet-up opportunities to build the volunteer community contributing to Bashkir language Wikimedia projects. [15] - Initialization project for Iraq Wikimedians User Group <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Initialization_project_for_I…>The Iraqi User Group will run a multi-part project focused on: building the user group, conducting trainings and edit-a-thons, hosting photo trips, coordinating Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments campaigns and launching their first version of the Wikipedia Education Program. [16] - Wikimedia Belgium Public facing activities 2017 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/WM_BE/Public_facing_activiti…>Two years after its founding, Wikimedia Belgium seeks to further build its capacity by developing GLAM partnerships, establishing education programs and expanding its volunteer community through offline events. [17] Online outreach: one project funded - Whose Knowledge? <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Whose_Knowledge%3F> This project seeks to build a base for a global campaign to create, collect and curate knowledge from and with marginalised communities. The grantees will pilot their model with two communities: the Dalit <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit> community in India and its diaspora in the US, and women’s human rights defenders <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_activists> in the global South. [18] You can read more about this round on the Wikimedia Foundation blog <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/12/16/twelve-project-grants/> [19] The next open call for 2017 Round 1 of Project Grants <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project> will begin February 13, 2017 and end March 14, 2017. Note that this is a change from the previously posted schedule, reflecting a shift from quarterly to biannual funding rounds. After piloting our new programs for the last six months, we determined that we are not adequately staffed to conduct four rounds per year and still maintain the level of support we want to offer our grantees. Consequently, we are scaling back to make sure we offer quality support all the way through the life of our grants. Assessment of the design of all our new grants programs will be ongoing as we seek to meet the needs of the community and align with Foundation’s resources and capacity. We will be doing a community survey in early 2017 to understand how the changes have impacted our grantees. [20] In the month leading up to the next Project Grants open call, an Inspire Campaign <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire> will be conducted to invite community ideas on engaging and developing partnerships with outside knowledge networks – such as experts, libraries, and cultural institutions – to improve the quality of content in our projects. These ideas may be developed into Rapid or Project grants in cases where funding is needed. [21] Congratulations to the successful grantees! 1. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Browse_applications> 2. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Stephane/Kiwix/Offline_medic… > 3. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kiwix_-_Wikipedia_Offline> 4. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Ainali/Video_templates> 5. <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Visual_identity_guidelines> 6. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/GLAMpipe> 7. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/%D0%9B%D0%B5_%D0%9B%D0%BE%D0… > 8. <https://tools.wmflabs.org/fountain/editathons/asian-month-2016-en> 9. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Offline_Wikipedia_outreach_i… > 10. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Let%27s_fill_the_gender_gap_… > 11. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/User:Nattes_%C3%A0_chat/Let%27s_… > 12. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/WM_ZA/Joburgpedia_Digitizati… > 13. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/JoburgpediA> 14. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Music_in_Canada_@_150:_A_Wik… > 15. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/UG_BAK/Event_Planning_for_Q1… > 16. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Initialization_project_for_I… > 17. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/WM_BE/Public_facing_activiti… > 18. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Whose_Knowledge%3F> 19. <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/12/16/twelve-project-grants/> 20. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project> 21. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire

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Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#1!)
by Katherine Maher 16 Dec '16

16 Dec '16

*(Apologies for cross posting)* Hi all, Since joining the Wikimedia Foundation and movement in 2014, I have often heard community members, movement organizations, and staff members speak of a need for a clear, unifying, and inspirational strategic direction for our movement. These conversations tend to follow a pattern: they start by recognizing the incredible work of our movement over the past 15 years, while seeking clarity on what we do next. What do we want to achieve over the next 15 years? What role do we want to play in the world? How will we prioritize our work and resources? At the June 2016 Board of Trustees meeting, the Board identified[1] the development of a long-term movement strategy as one of our top priorities for the coming year. Coming to consensus on a long-term strategic direction will help us know where we are headed, which path we will take, and how we will ensure our work is supported. At the Foundation’s December metrics meeting this morning, Anna Stillwell and Lisa Gruwell shared a presentation on the work the Foundation has done since June to prepare for a movement strategy consultation in the coming year.[2] We have been working to understand past Wikimedia strategy efforts, estimate future budgets and timelines, and secure resources for the year to come. In this email, I want to present some additional detail on this progress, and next steps we can take together. (*Fair warning: this is a very long email.* The critical information is as follows: The Wikimedia Foundation Board has approved a spending resolution and timeline for the upcoming strategy work. We anticipate beginning broad community conversations on the process, goals, and themes in early 2017. The Foundation is looking for an external expert to work with us (community and staff) to support an effective, inclusive process. I’ve been remiss in regular updates, but we will share them going forward. And of course, please share your thoughts and feedback on this list and on Meta [3].) *Strategic direction* We are expecting that we will begin a movement-wide strategy discussion in early 2017, with a process that runs throughout the year. The goal is to close 2017 with clarity and consensus on a strategic direction for our movement, and begin planning for how we will make progress in that direction. We are currently doing good work across our movement, but lack a unifying sense of how that work coheres into something greater than its individual parts. Wikipedia and the sister projects are remarkable, and our community is responsible for their success. Our movement has done an incredible job spreading our values and principles around the world—but we often look backwards to improve on our past, rather than looking fully at both our past and future. There’s an opportunity for us to consider how our vision and mission will remain current amidst changing media, demographics, and technology, and how we can better coalesce our efforts (ecosystem of affiliates, users, experts, new users, cultural and educational institutions, and the Wikimedia Foundation). Additionally, we (community, affiliates, Board, and staff) are increasingly aware of the challenges which arise without a unified movement strategy. We have heard from members of the FDC, grant applicants, community leaders, and a growing number of affiliates that they at times struggle with understanding how our separate efforts tie together and where we are going as an overall movement. The absence of a movement strategy, in other words, is hampering our ability to work toward our mission. Given the importance of that mission, and the need to hold ourselves to the highest account on responsible stewardship of donor resources, this is an expensive opportunity cost. *Budget* At the June Board meeting, I committed to develop a proposed process and budget in time for the Board’s annual November Board retreat. This process would reflect the type of approach we might take, and be accompanied by an estimated budget for the associated work. To prepare, we wanted to understand past efforts at developing strategies for our movement. We audited these past processes (2010, 2012/Narrowing Focus, 2014, and some other efforts) and interviewed past participants to learn what worked and what did not,[4] and took stock of what was missing—from external expertise to audience research—to clear ownership of outcomes. We recognized that, for example, while the 2010 process was highly collaborative, it had some notable challenges. For example, it was unable to turn collaborative goal setting into shared ownership of the work needed to reach those goals. It also did not have strong participation from emerging communities, particularly those in countries outside of Europe and North America. For movement planning to succeed in the future, we will need both broad and deep participation, from various perspectives and languages. To consider how we could realize this level of meaningful consultation, we spoke to people in the Foundation’s Community Engagement team and elsewhere, taking recommendations on everything from community toolkits and convenings to multilingual translation. Past processes have also often focused on qualitative perspectives, usually of our existing communities of editors and readers. We have had limited ways of understanding how broadly representative these experiences, needs, and challenges were, even for our existing communities. We have tens of thousands of editors, but even in our most collaborative effort in 2010, only 2,000 people contributed to the strategic discussions. Similarly, we have limited research about why and how people around the world use and engage with the Wikimedia projects as non-editors—and our understanding about what keeps people from using the projects, as editors or non-editors, is highly qualitative. As we engage in the consultation going forward, we see an opportunity to bring substantive audience-based research into our discussion, to inform our possibilities and challenges with good data. We worked with the Global Reach team, and staff from the New Readers and Audience Research projects to scope out qualitative and quantitative audience research in new, emerging, and existing editor and reader communities, and estimate associated budgets. And while we see this as an exciting opportunity to incorporate new data into our conversations, we also expect it to have lasting value beyond the coming year. Good audience research and data will help inform not just strategy discussions, but also should be helpful for Foundation and other product and programming decisions now and in the future. And of course, we are not alone in the world! We exist in an ecosystem of people who use, reuse, and remix the knowledge on the Wikimedia projects in all sorts of ways. We have a strong and growing community of institutions and partners in education, government, culture, and the sciences. We also have many technical partners and re-users who have a vested interest in our health. These stakeholders offer valuable insight into how our work extends into the world, well beyond the sites we run. We want to talk to them, understand the opportunities they see in the future, and the challenges they face today. We want to speak to people working at the edge of innovation in technology, to better understand how these trends affect our future, and to engage them in our mission. And last, but certainly not least, these discussions, collaborations, and conclusions need to be open and consultative. We want to work together to design a process of consultation, with opportunities for on-wiki conversation, face to face meetings, working groups, and more. In some cases, this may mean new conversations, and in others, we may want to bring additional capacity and participation to already scheduled community events. We will need additional resources for multilingual facilitation, or documentation. We will also need additional capacity to support these discussions, so that community and staff alike can retain their focus on the programs, grants, and product work to which they have committed. We want to bring this to life. But before we could commit to this approach, we needed to be sure we could assemble the appropriate resources to make it happen. Based on our research into past processes, best practices, and conversations with community and staff—we built a high-level estimated budget with resources for the following: inclusive, multilingual community consultation on-wiki and in-person; research into our users, new users, and consultation with external experts and stakeholders; and additional external capacity for management and production of the process. All in, we estimate that the full scope of work over 1.5 years will cost somewhere around US$2.5 million. This is divided out roughly as 35% support for direct community participation, 35% support for audience research and understanding external ecosystems, and 30% support for facilitation and external support. I know this sounds like a lot! As we break it down into budget lines, it starts to become more tangible. This estimated budget was developed in close consultation with the Community Engagement, Global Reach, and Finance teams. We worked with the Community Engagement team to use their models for community events and facilitation to budget for additional support and participation in community events. We worked with the Global Reach team to estimate the costs of qualitative and quantitative research around the world. And we worked with the Finance teams to understand hourly rates for non-profit strategic consultancies (finding that, even with non-profit organizations our commitment to meaningful consultation quickly added many hours to our planning). An overview of this budget estimate was presented to the Board at the 13 November Board meeting. There the Board approved a spending resolution of up to $2.5 million over Fiscal Year 2016-17 (July 2016 - June 2017) and Fiscal Year 2017-18 (July 2017 - June 2018). We are currently working to migrate this proposed budget into a format similar to the one we use for Annual Planning, for the purpose of consistency and clarity of review. This detailed budget, tied to specific events, contracts, and research areas, will be shared with to the Foundation Board’s Audit Committee[5], and with the greater communities for feedback. *Assembling a team* To increase our likelihood of success, we want to bring additional capacity and expertise to the table. No single Wikimedia Foundation department or Wikimedia movement affiliate currently has the complete skillset or available capacity to independently manage a strategy process of this size and scale. Our goal is to find an external entity with experience in organizational or movement strategies to help move us all (affiliates, current users, new users, experts, cultural and educational institutions, community committees, and Wikimedia Foundation) toward collaborative development of a movement strategy, and assembling a team to support this process. Practically, this means finding an entity capable of recommending a strategic approach, identifying necessary inputs (e.g., user research or sector mapping) to inform meaningful consultation and decision making, making timely process against deadlines, and helping ensure the delivery of the final work. We’re referring to this role as the “lead architect,” although it is likely to be a team, rather than an individual. We recognize that several individuals in our community already possess significant expertise in strategic planning, and we hope you will contribute your talents to the shape and content of the discussion. We also recognize it can be difficult to both facilitate a conversation and contribute to it at the same time. To help alleviate procedural and operational pressures on community contributors, and enable people to participate in primarily strategic and generative roles, we expect the lead architect and team will work closely with existing community and staff liaisons and advocates to support discussions as facilitators. They will be expected to support any community and Wikimedia Foundation bodies involved in the development of strategy. Last month, I asked Lisa Gruwell, Anna Stillwell, and Guillaume Paumier to begin a search for this external capacity. They spoke with a number of smaller organizations—a deliberate choice, to find someone who could be flexible and open to our needs—and put together a request for proposal (RFP) for interested firms. The minimal criteria for the lead architect is someone who: - Has created successful strategies before (organizational or movement strategies, rather than just a strategy for a department, a program, or a product) - Has proposed a coherent outcome and understands the need to build an incredibly inclusive process - Is willing to be paired with a full-time partner/advisor who knows the movement well - Has significant nonprofit experience - Has significant international experience - Understands that Wikimedia communities are passionate! There will be an occasional raucous[6] debate. They must be willing and able to have difficult conversations (difficult in substance, but not in tone). Although we spoke to many firms that were interested, some were unable to mobilize resources on our timeline. Others we didn’t feel were the right fit. In the end, we received two viable responses. We are hoping to make a decision by the end of this or next week. We recognize that our movement, mission, and culture are wonderfully idiosyncratic. While we know we need external skills in the area of movement strategies, we also know that any external organization will need extensive support understanding our movement values, culture, history, and projects. We are proposing pairing any external consultants with community and staff members who have deep community experience as guides, translators, and mentors. We don’t know exactly how we will work yet, or who will be interested in playing these roles. This is one question of many we will need to answer together. *Next steps* All the resource and planning progress in the world doesn’t get us far without community conversation. Beyond the budget, the decision to bring in additional expertise, and the timeline of the coming year, we don’t have many more concrete details at this point. That’s intentional. We are committed to developing the specifics in partnership with you as we move forward. We also recognize we are embarking on something new. We’re proposing a model that, while based on research, past experience, extensive conversations, and a detailed budget—may not be perfect. We welcome the ideas you bring to make it stronger. We anticipate we will work in the open, communicate among ourselves regularly, pause along the way to assess our progress, and course-correct as necessary. This will be part of building together. Additionally, we’ll be providing regular documentation via email, and adding it to Meta-Wiki.[7] If you would like to receive updates via your user talk page, you can do so by signing up on Meta-Wiki.[8] If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I imagine this is the start of many conversations. I look forward to them. Thank you! Katherine PS. An on-wiki version of this message is available for translation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Updates/15… [1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-June/084627.html [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_metrics_and_activities… [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017 [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Audit_of_p… [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Committee [6] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/raucous [7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017 [8] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Updates/Si… -- Katherine Maher Wikimedia Foundation 149 New Montgomery Street San Francisco, CA 94105 +1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635 +1 (415) 712 4873 kmaher(a)wikimedia.org

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Community Wishlist Survey: Top 10 wishes of 2016!
by Danny Horn 16 Dec '16

16 Dec '16

Hi everyone, The Community Tech team is happy to announce the top 10 wishes from the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey! More than 1,100 people participated in the survey this year -- proposing, discussing and voting on 265 ideas. There was a two-week period in November to submit and discuss proposals, followed by two weeks of support voting. The top 10 proposals with the most support votes now become Community Tech's backlog of projects to evaluate and address. And here's the top 10: #1. Global gadgets (91 support votes) #2. Edit summary length for non-Latin languages (90) #3. Section heading URLs for non-Latin languages (88) #4. Global settings (84) #5. Rewrite Xtools (84) #6. Wikitext editor syntax highlighting (82) #7. Warning on unsuccessful login attempts (73) #8. Automatic archive for new external links (72) #9. Fix Mr. Z-bot's popular pages report (72) #10. User rights expiration (70) You can see the whole list here, with links to proposals and Phabricator tickets: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2016_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Results So -- who's going to work on all these wishes? The Community Tech team is responsible for investigating and addressing the top 10 wishes. If there's a wish in the top 10 that we can't work on, because it's unfeasible or because another group is working on it, then we'll explain what's happened. Community Tech will also pick up some wishes below the top 10 that support smaller user groups who are doing important work, but don't have the numbers to vote a proposal all the way up to the top 10. This will apply to some combination of: campaign and program organizers, GLAM participants, stewards and CheckUsers, and people working on smaller projects or smaller languages. We haven't determined which wishes we'll pick up yet; we'll be talking about these as we get into 2017. Also, some of these wishes will be granted by volunteer developers; the Technical Collaboration team will help to connect volunteers with important wishes that they can work on. Some of these wishes are or will be on the roadmap for our colleagues on the WMDE Technical Wishes team, and other Wikimedia Foundation product teams. To get updates on our progress: There are project pages for each of the top 10 wishes, which you can put on your watchlist. We'll update them as the project progresses. (At time of writing, these are just skeletons; actual information on each project is still to come.) Feel free to post questions and suggestions on the project talk pages: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Community_Tech_-_Current_projects If you're familiar with the Phabricator ticketing system, the main Phab task for each wish is noted on the Results page. You can subscribe to those tickets for updates. We also publish several status reports through the year, to keep people updated. You can watch the main Community Tech page for updates: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech There are more questions and answers on the Wishlist Survey FAQ: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2016_Community_Wishlist_Survey/FAQ Thanks to everybody who proposed, discussed, debated and voted on ideas in this year's Wishlist Survey, to everyone who's said nice things to us recently, and to all people everywhere in time and space, on general principles. Danny Horn Sr Product Manager, Community Tech

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#1!)
by James Salsman 16 Dec '16

16 Dec '16

> Regarding the external expert for inclusive process you are looking for, > maybe this article is of help: > > https://hbr.org/2016/12/how-employees-shaped-strategy-at-the-new-york-publi… What did the New York Public Library do that the Foundation doesn't already do in their ordinary course of action? "The three core teams were given a month to present to senior leaders options for their experiments, and the capabilities needed to try them." That sounds like business as usual at the WMF. I have specific questions about this week's strategy announcement; in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5R5PgBk5b8&t=42m25s "A general layer of meaning that sits right below the Vision" is the Mission. I am certain that the Foundation doesn't want to dictate a Movement strategy at variance with or supplanting the Mission. So why not declare that the Mission already is the de facto Strategic Direction and save the time and money to re-do it for implementing the recommendations of previous strategy work? Seriously: these strategic directions from 10 years ago still need work: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee/strategic_goals#… And what happened to the Recommendations from the past couple years' strategy work? https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_Foundation/2016/Recommen… Can we use the ratio of FTE hours working on new strategy projects and those working on prior strategic goals and recommendations as a measurable key performance indicator in a way that encourages accomplishing prior recommendations and developing new ones in a way that doesn't lead to discarding work?

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Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] Invitation to WMF December 2016 Metrics & Activities Meeting: Thursday, December 15, 19:00 UTC
by Pine W 15 Dec '16

15 Dec '16

Forwarding to Wikimedia-l because it appears that automatic forwarding from the Announcements list still isn't working. Pine ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Lena Traer <ltraer(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 10:35 AM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Announcements] Invitation to WMF December 2016 Metrics & Activities Meeting: Thursday, December 15, 19:00 UTC To: wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org REMINDER: This meeting starts in 30 minutes. On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 3:01 PM, Lena Traer <ltraer(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Hello everyone, > > > The next Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting will take > place on Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 7:00 PM UTC (11 AM PST). The IRC > channel is #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net, and the meeting will be > broadcast as a live YouTube stream. > > > The theme of the December meeting is: "Wikimedia's role in the world > today." We want to explore the unique role we play in the world, and why > our work is more important than ever. > > > Meeting agenda: > > > * Welcomes, theme introduction > > * Movement update > > * Wikimedia audiences update > > * English fundraiser messaging and update > > * Movement strategy update > > * Questions and discussion > > * Wikilove > > > Please review https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_ > metrics_and_activities_meetings for further information about the meeting > and how to participate. > > > We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting. > > > Thank you, > > Lena > > > Lena Traer > > Project Assistant // Communications // Advancement > > Wikimedia Foundation > > 149 New Montgomery Street > > San Francisco, CA 94105 > _______________________________________________ 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: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l

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Fundraising - Social Media Update
by Joseph Seddon 15 Dec '16

15 Dec '16

The Social Media team have been providing fantastic support of the English online fundraiser and we wanted to provide a quick update dedicated to that work. There were some cool images to go with but unfortunately our wikimedia-l mailman is dull and boring so here is a summary of their efforts: * 3.1 million different Facebook users have seen our "I love Wikipedia profile picture frames on their friends’ profile pictures. ( http://tinyurl.com/hcfqpcs) * 2 million different Twitter users have seen the hashtag #ilovewikipedia on Twitter. * 9K people have put the picture frame on their pic, telling the world that they love Wikipedia. * 6.5K have used the hashtag #ilovewikipedia, which we only adopted a month ago. Reporting shows the sentiment rating for #ilovewikipedia remains almost spotless. * More than 1,000 donors have been thanked on Twitter by Aubrie Johnson, Jeff Elder, Christophe Henner, and Katherine Maher. Influential donors publicly stating their support included: *Joseph Gordon Levitt - https://twitter.com/hitRECordJoe/status/805841296354988032 * Baratunde Thurston - https://twitter.com/baratunde/status/805521678205931520 * Kate Beaton - https://twitter.com/beatonna/status/806217554721177600 * Cory Doctorow - https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/806257053425537024 Impressive work and a huge shout out to the team for a really successful social media drive for this time of year. We will hopefully have a few updates regarding fundraising coming out in the next few days so keep an eye out :) Regards -- Seddon *Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation*

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Wikimedia Conference 2017 - Registration closes in three and a half weeks!
by Daniela Gentner 15 Dec '16

15 Dec '16

Dear Wikimedians, Thanks to those of you who have already registered for the Wikimedia Conference 2017 – we are already very excited to host the conference from March 31 to April 2, 2017 in Berlin! == Registration information == You have not registered for the conference yet? Your affiliation is eligible [1] to attend the conference and you have been selected to represent your affiliation in Berlin? Then please be kindly reminded to register until Sunday, January 8, 2017. To register for the conference, please find the link to the registration form below.[2] == Holiday break of the organizing team == In view of the upcoming holidays, we would like to inform you that the WMCON17 organizing team will be out of the office from December 23, 2016 until January 3, 2017. If you need assistance or have any questions, we recommend you to contact us before. Otherwise, we will respond to your emails as soon as possible upon our return. == Visa information== We strongly advise all those of you who need a visa to register until Monday, December 19, 2016. When registering afterwards, there is a serious risk that you may not clear the visa process in time. From our experience, the visa process takes always longer than expected and we want to avoid any last minute actions and cancellations. We will do our best to send the documents (letter of invitation, foreign travel health insurance, copy of identity card from WMDE’s Executive Director) by December 22, 2016, which are needed for the visa application process, to everyone, who registers until Monday, December 19, 2016. Should you register after this date, we will prepare and send the documents to you beginning of January. Further information on the visa process and assistance can be found on Meta.[3] Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Best regards, Wenke & Daniela on behalf of the organizing team Wikimedia Deutschland wmcon(a)wikimedia.de [1] http://wmde.org/WMCON17_Eligibility_Criteria [2] http://wmde.org/wmcon17registration link [3] http://wmde.org/WMCON17_Visa_Information

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Deutschland: Abraham Taherivand appointed Interim Executive Director
by Christian Rickerts 13 Dec '16

13 Dec '16

Dear Wikimedians, As Tim has already written, with effect from today I have stepped down from the position as Executive Director and handed over the business to Abraham. Tomorrow I will take the oath in my new position. I am looking back today at an incredible exciting, busy and funny time and I am proud to see what we were able to achieve together. I also want to thank you for all the warm and cheering messages I received after Tims announcement. WMDE is in very good hands with Abraham, with a great team and solid structures and processes in place. Therefore I am leaving with a tear in one eye and a smile in the other. Congratulation Abraham (!) and good bye, Christian Am 08.12.2016 15:52 schrieb "Tim Moritz Hector" < tim-moritz.hector(a)wikimedia.de>: Dear Wikimedians, Earlier this week I informed you that Christian Rickerts might become the Undersecretary of State for the new Berlin ministry of economy, energy and enterprises. This has been confirmed today and Christian has stepped down from his WMDE role. I am very pleased to announce that the WMDE Supervisory Board appointed Abraham Taherivand as Interim Executive Director as of 8 December 2016. Abraham has joined WMDE in March 2012 and is the Head of our Software Development department. He has been on the transition team during the last ED search, has headed our works council and has been appointed deputy of the Executive Director recently. In his multiple roles, Abraham’s decisions have always been made in the sense of the Wikimedia Deutschland as a whole. With immediate effect, he has the full rights and duties of the Executive Director and will also continue to lead the Software Development Department. This solution allows us as a board to approach the next steps with the necessary calmness and deliberate thought. On 28-29 January 2017, we will meet for our regular board retreat and discuss all questions regarding the permanent filling of the ED position. Christian, once again a big thank you for your work with us. Congratulations and a good start in politics. I would like to thank you, Abraham, for your agreement to take on this crucial task and look forward to the further, close cooperation with you! I will keep you posted on future updates in the transition process. For the Supervisory Board Tim Moritz Hector Chair -- Tim Moritz Hector Chair of the Board Wikimedia Deutschland _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] investments still poor; return improved +0.3% to 1.5%
by James Salsman 12 Dec '16

12 Dec '16

James Heilman wrote: > > I personally invest in stuff that gives 1.5% to 1.7% returns.... Whether you call it fake news, disinformation, public relations, manufactured consent, astroturfing, propaganda, or simply clever advertising campaigning, bankers are thrilled when people think such returns are reasonable, because they make so much money by turning around those investments into payday loans, overdraft fees, student loans, and high credit card interest rates to the vast majority of the population which has already depleted their savings: https://www.gobankingrates.com/personal-finance/data-americans-savings/ However, that such returns are reasonable is a false narrative which only serves to increase economic inequality. Many nonprofits (and some people) are in a precarious financial condition and therefore should invest in government bonds (or cash accounts.) But the WMF is among the most financially solvent nonprofits in the history of civilization, and certainly beyond the level of the wealthiest educational institutions because of the lack of physical plant overhead. For what such institutions with competent financial management typically earn, please see e.g. Figure 1 on page 2 of: https://institutional.vanguard.com/iam/pdf/EndowmentPerformanceResearch.pdf Individuals should be earning the same high rates too, and easily can, but bankers and fund managers hate it when their customers are savvy enough to ask for endowment-grade returns. Please see: https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/s342.pdf Disclaimer: I have no financial, familial, or other ties to Vanguard, but I like them more than their competitors, in part because of the "number two tries harder" effect, and in part because of the fact Renaissance was behind the effort, which shows to me that they have lost focus on fundamental value investing because arbitrage over politicians is (temporarily?) more lucrative, shown here: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/7090/5653 > Why is it assumed we should be investing in stocks? I am not recommending stocks. I recommend managed endowment-grade mutual fund(s) with divestitures using short sales with limit orders to remove the short sale risk. > And where is the evidence that "brilliant minds" do better at > stocks than random chance? Again, unless one has the resources to keep current investigations on the fundamental financial conditions of stocks such as the top performing endowment fund management fund companies do, I am not suggesting one should be picking stocks. However, the evidence that those funds are superior to what a small team (such as the Wikimedia Endowment Advisory Board) is completely clear; see: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rzeckhau/EndowmentsPaperPartI.pdf and https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rzeckhau/EndowmentsPaperPartII.pdf > The endowment is under separate management from the WMF, with > the people running the endowment specialized in that area. While my questions are about the Foundation's primary investments for which an endowment-grade fund is most appropriate, but not the nascent endowment itself, I have been trying to follow the Endowment news. Has its Board even met yet? I have absolutely no confidence that they have the resources necessary to outperform a top-5 endowment-grade mutual fund. If you don't agree, please see for yourself: http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/133/133947823/133947823_… Annette Campbell-White's Kia Ora Foundation made $73K interest, dividends, and capital gains on $2.8 million cash, savings, and investments, only 2.6%. Peter Baldwin's Arcadia Fund doesn't even disclose their endowment financials: http://www.arcadiafund.org.uk/media/10233/Arcadia-triennial-report-2013-201… Nor have they ever. They are also not listed in GuideStar UK, Charity Financials, nor http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/regist… While they are listed at https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/IC000448 their financials are missing, and the referral has no information at all: https://register.fca.org.uk/shpo_nosearchresultpage?search=IC000448 In any case, the thought that Wales, Campbell-White, and Baldwin have the resources to investigate the fundamentals of tens of thousands of investment choices is absurd, and the thought that they have any hope of outperforming any of the top-5 endowment mutual fund is even less likely. If there is any evidence to the contrary I would like to read it. Best regards, Jim

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investments still poor; return improved +0.3% to 1.5%
by James Salsman 12 Dec '16

12 Dec '16

Over the past decade, the Foundation's low rate of return on investments has been dismal and embarassing, in part because it reflects poor choices in the use of donors' money and sets a terrible example. The ease with which the Foundation can raise funds is simply not compatible with purchasing 1.5% certificates of deposit on which bankers easily earn 10% or more that we could earn by cutting out the banking middlemen. It's time to set a better example. Please see pages 9 and especially 10 the Audit Report released in October: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Report… In particular, Foundation investments increased from $38 million in June 2015 to $54 million in 2016, and investment income increased from $445,000 to $813,000. 1. Why is Foundation, which presumably has the benefit of the most brilliant volunteer minds in the world, during years of record high stock market prices, with income so secure that detractors have to beg every year on this list for fundraising to be halted when it reaches its goal, only earning 1.5% interest for its donors? 2. Are there any practical reasons not to liquidate 90% of the Foundation's stock, bond, fund, and REIT investments over the next quarter and deposit the balance in a top-5 nonprofit foundation endowment-grade fund? E.g.: https://institutional.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/institutional/clientsolut… 3. How does the Foundation intend to convince donors that the endowment is a good idea when investment stewardship is so poor? 4. What proportion is invested in fossil fuel interests? 5. Should we divest from fossil fuel interests? 6. Does the Foundation have any strategic investments in sustainable technologies such as wind and solar power, power-to-gas, gas-to-liquids, underground compressed air and pumped hydro power storage, and composite lumber? 7. Should we divest from interests opposed to single payer health care? 8. Should we divest from interests in support of the payroll tax? 9. Should we divest from educational interests which have not shown a firm commitment to public school class size reduction? 10. Should we divest from interests opposed to increasing public school teacher salaries? We can offset mutual fund holding investments in such interests with short sales (while there is a risk with doing so, that risk can be completely offset with limit orders.) Best regards, Jim Salsman

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Statement by Wikimedia Board on Healthy Community Culture, Inclusivity, and Safe Spaces
by Christophe Henner 09 Dec '16

09 Dec '16

Hello everyone, As many of you know, over the past couple of years the Wikimedia Foundation has taken a focused look at community health—particularly in regards to harassment. The Foundation's Board has been monitoring and discussing this issue over the past year with great interest. We have prepared a statement offering our thoughts on this topic, and providing a clear mandate for the Foundation’s leadership to fully engage on this issue. Our statement is below and has been posted on Meta-Wiki, where it is set up for translation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Nove… Since the Foundation was established, we have been invested in building a positive community culture. As part of these efforts, we have monitored the projects for instances of harassment, escalating our capacity to respond in recent years. Thanks to the work of the Foundation's Support and Safety Team, we now have data in the form of the 2015 Harassment Survey[1] about the nature of the issue. This has enabled us to identify key areas of concern, and step up our response appropriately. This research shows that harassment has a negative impact on participation in our projects. This has implications for our ability to collect, share, and disseminate free knowledge in support of the Wikimedia vision. Our statement speaks to the Board's duty to help the Foundation fulfill its mission. The Board is committed to making our communities safer and will not accept harassment and toxic behavior on Wikimedia projects. We believe this matter deserves the Foundation's attention and resources, and have confirmed this responsibility at our latest Board meeting on November 13th. The questions that lay before us all now are how to best address this threat, rather than if we should attempt to do so. The Board especially appreciates and applauds the work being done to address this important issue by many community leaders across the movement and teams within the Foundation. We look forward to seeing this cooperative work not only continue, but expand. Finally, we encourage everyone who is interested in helping the Foundation address this threat to our vision and mission to engage in the upcoming discussions around this issue. On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Christophe Henner, Board Chair María Sefidari, Board Vice Chair [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Harassment_survey_2015 Statement by the Wikimedia Board on Healthy Community Culture, Inclusivity, and Safe Spaces At our Board meeting on November 13, and in Board meetings in September and June, we spent considerable time discussing the issues of harassment and hostility on the internet generally, and more specifically on the Wikimedia projects. This is an important issue. Approximately 40% of internet users, and 70% of women internet users, have personally experienced harassment.[1] Of people who have reported experiencing harassment on Wikimedia projects, more than 50% reported decreasing their participation in our community.[2] Based on this and other research, we conclude that harassment and toxic behavior on the Wikimedia projects negatively impacts the ability of the Wikimedia projects to collect, share, and disseminate free knowledge. This behavior is contrary to our vision and mission. Our communities deserve safe spaces in which they can contribute productively and debate constructively. It is our belief that the Wikimedia Foundation should be proactively engaged in eliminating harassment, promoting inclusivity, ensuring a healthier culture of discourse, and improving the safety of Wikimedia spaces. We request management to dedicate appropriate resources to this end. We urge every member of the Wikimedia communities to collaborate in a way that models the Wikimedia values of openness and diversity, step forward to do their part to stop hostile and toxic behavior, support people who have been targeted by such behavior, and help set clear expectations for all contributors. [1] 2014 Pew Research Center Study, found at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/ [2] 2015 WMF Harassment Survey, found at: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Harassment_Survey_2015_… Christophe HENNER Chair of the board of trustees chenner(a)wikimedia.org +33650664739 twitter *@schiste* skype *christophe_henner*

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Public call for applications for 2016-17 Ombuds Commission
by Karen Brown 09 Dec '16

09 Dec '16

Hi all, It's coming close to time for annual appointments of community members to serve on the Ombudsman commission. This commission works on all Wikimedia projects to investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy, especially in use of CheckUser and Oversight tools, and to mediate between the complaining party and the individual whose work is being investigated. They may also assist the General Counsel, the Executive Director or the Board of Trustees in investigations of these issues. For more on their duties and roles, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission *This is a call for community members interested in volunteering for appointment to this commission.* Commissioners should be experienced Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used the CheckUser/Oversight tool OR who have the technical ability to understand the CheckUser/Oversight tool and the willingness to learn it. They are expected to be able to engage neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when to recuse when other roles and relationships may cause conflict. (In the past, commissioners have retired from other roles that could cause conflict.) Commissioners must be willing to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation and to comply with the appropriate board policies (such as the access to non-public data policy < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy> and the privacy policy <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy>). This is a position that requires a high degree of discretion and trust. *If you are interested in serving on this commission, please drop me a note (kbrown(a)wikimedia.org <kbrown(a)wikimedia.org>) detailing your experience on the projects, your thoughts on the commission and what you hope to bring to the role.* The commission is deliberately quite small, so slots are limited, but all applications are appreciated. The deadline for applications is January 2. Any timezone. :) Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think may be interested. Thank you! Sincerely, Karen Brown -- Karen Brown Community Advocate Wikimedia Foundation kbrown(a)wikimedia.org

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Passing of User:Coyau
by Guillaume Paumier 09 Dec '16

09 Dec '16

Dear all, It is with great sadness that I must share the news of the passing of User:Coyau, a pillar of the francophone Wikimedia community. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Coyau https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Coyau He joined our community over a decade ago, and had become an active editor on several French-language wikis (Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary), as well as a prolific contributor to Commons and Wikidata. He had made over 1.5 million edits across Wikimedia projects. We learned of his death on Tuesday; he was 38. He was deeply committed, delightfully absurd, and absolutely genial. You may have met him if you've ever had drinks with Wikimedians in Paris. He also had a blog in French where he wrote about Wikimedia projects and shared tutorials about topics like photo processing for other Wikimedians to learn: http://coyau.blogspot.com/ He was a genuine and soulful human being, whose sudden death has left many of his wiki friends and colleagues heartbroken. His loss is felt profoundly among the communities, where people have been expressing their grief and condolences on his talk page: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_utilisateur:Coyau#Bip_bip_bip... He had uploaded thousands of files on Commons, among which a photo of a deflated yellow balloon in a tree (which has become emblematic of him), and a stitched 360° panorama assembled from 219 photos of a seemingly random Parisian street: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quai_de_la_Seine_(Paris),_baudruche… https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris,_Rue_Watt.jpg As an homage, you are invited to browse his photos on Wikimedia Commons and add them to articles and pages in need of relevant pictures: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_by_User:Coyau -- Guillaume Paumier

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Early Update - Fundraising
by Joseph Seddon 09 Dec '16

09 Dec '16

Hello All! So originally we were going to send an update after the first two weeks but with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much as I can in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned: - Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of times a reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose to not dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or viewing a banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being suppressed for a period of 1 week. - Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the ideas of “fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since 2013, we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in this case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews Fundraising did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October. - Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the dark navy blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner with red border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline banners over the weekend replacing the top header banners. - Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised around $13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has been helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is allowing us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a brilliantly performing e-mail campaign. - Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24 hour period with approximately a similar number of e-mails. - Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a technical standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing issue being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on December 1st for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for 2 days but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a bigger issue if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue. - Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very busy, and have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this period of the year compared with last year which means this page [3] getting a lot of updates recently. - A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been done by them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :) [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_1117_en6C_dsk_p1… [2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors -- Seddon *Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation*

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Early Update - Fundraising
by WereSpielChequers 08 Dec '16

08 Dec '16

Hi Seddon, I can understand a few anomalies where people give when they don't have funds to cover it, and for a difference between estimated exchange rates and the actual exchange rate that applied when the transaction was processed (currencies float and are quite capable of moving between the moment you are aware of a donation and the moment it is converted into one of the currencies you bank in). But I'd expect such anomalies to be a tiny fraction of a percent. OK one of these days we will have a record breaking donation day in a currency that then devalues by half before we convert that money into dollars, but I don't recall any spectacular devaluations in the last two weeks. Is it worth checking to see why these numbers in the frdata dump are only a rough guide? If its something as innocent as our estimates still working on say 2012 currency conversions and the actual currency conversions are based on the day rate, then meh. But if one set of figures is gross before credit card and other transaction costs and the other figures are net, or one set assumed a UK Gift Aid sign up as high as Wikimedia UK could have got and the reality was much lower, then I'd be alarmed at such a difference. Jonathan > > > Hey Andreas > > > > > > A very quick email just noting I don't know the method by which > > > that > > frdata > > > dump is created (its very old and not maintained) but it would > > > seem > that > > > numbers in the frdata dump are only useful as a rough guide. > > > > > > We are basing our numbers on internal accounting figures which is > > > more representative of the actual cash flow since it is more > > > closely based > on > > > actual cleared payments. > > > > > > Seddon

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Seddon's Fundraising Question of the Day: Wikipedia in a media world
by Joseph Seddon 08 Dec '16

08 Dec '16

We are looking for ideas to build on the success of the fact matters series of banners based on the importance of wikipedia in the media world we live in today. Go to this form: https://goo.gl/forms/eOHRvlSeZVPwI3KJ3 Answer the question! There will be more. -- Seddon *Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation*

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Statement by Wikimedia Board on Healthy Community Culture, Inclusivity, and Safe Spaces (Christophe Henner
by James Salsman 08 Dec '16

08 Dec '16

Christophe, Are there any plans and is there any budget and headcount to measure the effectiveness of the recommendations in Figure 51 on page 46 of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Harassment_survey_2015 ?

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Wikimedia-l December 2016