Wikimedia-l June 2018

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83 participants
65 discussions

FDC recommendations: Round 2, 2017-18
by Bishakha Datta 03 Jun '18

03 Jun '18

Dear Wikimedians, The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) meets twice a year to make recommendations about how to effectively allocate movement funds to achieve the Wikimedia movement's mission, vision, and strategy. This is now the 12th round of allocations made by the FDC, and we met in person from June 1-3, 2018 in Lisbon to deliberate on 5 proposals submitted in this round. We would like to thank all of the participating organizations for the hard work they put into this round’s proposals. Our recommendations for Round 2 2017-2018 on the annual plan grants to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees have now been posted on Meta.[1] The Board will review our deliberations and make a decision by June 30, 2018. We received grant requests for approximately USD 1,289,978 this round. Before we met, committee members reviewed all of the proposals and documents submitted. We were assisted in this review with input from the FDC staff assessments which included analysis on impact, finances, and programs, as well as community comments on the proposals. There is a formal process to submit complaints or appeals about these recommendations. Appeals may be filed with the Wikimedia Foundation Board before 8 June 2018. Anyone can file a complaint about the FDC process [2] with the Ombudsperson at any time. The complaint should be submitted on wiki. The Ombudsperson will publicly document the complaint, and investigate as needed. The Wikimedia Foundation Board will publish its decision on this and all recommendations by June 30, 2018. On behalf of the FDC, Bishakha Datta FDC Chair [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_recommendations/2017-2018_Ro… [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Complaints_about_the_FDC_process

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Wat maak jou gelukkig hierdie week? / What's making you happy this week? (Week of 3 June 2018)
by Pine W 02 Jun '18

02 Jun '18

* From the WMF blog: "Annual Wikimedia conference “Wikimania” to make debut in Sub-Saharan Africa <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/05/31/wikimania-cape-town-announcement/>" * A few weeks ago, the WMF Audiences Department published its Q3 check-in slides and notes <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2018-May/089989.html>. I read a portion of these. I'm grateful to Audiences in general and Toby in particular for regularly publishing this information, and I would encourage other WMF departments to do the same. * New filters for edit review <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_Review_Improvements/New_filters_for_edi…> are likely to be deployed to production in the next few months <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2018-May/090034.html>. * WMDE's Technical Wishes Team announced <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2018-May/090032.html> the deployment of an update to diff views <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Show_text_changes_whe…> to most wikis. What's making you happy this week? You are welcome to comment in any language. Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Are we losing out against bad editing?
by Pine W 01 Jun '18

01 Jun '18

Based on the limited information that I have, it seems to me that there are already numerous contribtors who are paid to engage in promotional activity on Wikipedia, whether declared or undeclared, and the community does not have adequate human resources to patrol and investigate all of these. I expect that the problem will continue to get worse unless WMF gets more energetic about investigating TOS violations involving undeclared COI and WMF becomes predictable about extracting financial penalties that are severe enough to deter most of the undeclared COI contributors. Unfortunately, as far as I know, WMF has been largely passive about the problem of undeclared COI and has not announced any plans to become more aggressive. As nice as it would be if everyone could afford and was willing to work for free, this is not the case. If it was then we could safely eliminate the salaries of the entire WMF staff. However, I think that financial support makes sense for some paid staff to handle activities like network operations, interface design, legal defense, and responses to safety problems. Some types of Wikimedia activities are better suited to volunteer work than others. I encourage volunteers to avoid burning themselves out; there are some activities that I did in the past that I would not do again as a volunteer. Better to be an occasional and long-term contributor than to get burned out. I have some ideas about how to pay people to do certain types of work that, so far, WMF has not funded. Unfortunately these are merely ideas and not likely to become reality in the short term. Perhaps later this year or in the next few years I will have specific proposals with reasonable chances for sustainable success. I share the concern that paid participants in the Wikiverse, like staff of WMF and affiliates, WMF grantees, and potentially like the paid contributors that I have in mind, may become so numerous that they can drown out the consensus of the volunteers. Unfortunately I do not have easy solutions for this issue. We could prohibit all paid contributors from participating in RFCs and related decision processes, but we would be largely relying on people to self-disclose their paid status, which seems unlikely to be adequate. Perhaps the issues that we are discussing in this conversation should be included in the Structures and Systems prong of the WMF strategy process. I am pinging Nicole to ask for her input about that idea. However, keep in mind that the strategy process is financially sponsored by WMF, and it is not free of potential conflicts with the interests of WMF. I wish that I could be more optimistic. These are difficult topics. Regards, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) null

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Category: French Jews on en.wp / GDPR
by sashi 01 Jun '18

01 Jun '18

Another follow-up: ====== Benjamin Lees wrote: "No, French Christians are just tagged with subcategories of Category:French Christians. The "requiring diffusion" category that you complain of is in fact a way to tell editors that pages in the category should really be in subcategories instead." ====== Aha! You're right, I had not realized that "diffuse" (disseminate/spread widely) was being used as specialized en-wiki-jargon for "subcategorize". It might be wise to give that hidden category a more descriptive name. I looked into one of the many BLP entries with an unscourced Category:French Jews tag, and found a review of a book they wrote. In that book, the person stated that while they had a Jewish mother, they did not consider themselves Jewish. Given that the category French Jews contains more members than the category French Roman Catholics, and that there are living people included in both categories... I seriously wonder what it is that motivates folks to anonymously tag others in this way (i.e. whether they want to be tagged or not). The Library of Congress, the BNF, Wikidata, etc. don't label people according to religion, unless their notability is due specifically to their religion (e.g. Alfred Dreyfus, Maimonides, etc.). On en.wp people being labeled as Jewish/Catholic, etc. tend to be industrialists, politicians, journalists, bankers etc. I don't think this is "best practice" and I'm afraid I do not agree that en.wp is mostly "getting it right" with regard to this specific question. Fr.WP and Wikidata are doing much better. The relevant section on "data subject" privacy rights in the GDPR (in English) is based on the 1978 French law I cited earlier (though it has become more restrictive since -- see below). As David Gerard noted, it is quite likely that this affects not only Wikipedians (who can petition to have libel/slander concerning their *online identity* (cf. definition of data subject) removed from (inter alia) block logs), but also the *content* of biographies of living people in the encyclopedia. == GDPR (Article 9)== *Processing* of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation shall be prohibited. ====== As one who has contributed to the projects since 2006, I am posting this here not because I wish to sow dissent, but because I think some quick thinking and corrective action is needed. sashi

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Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 for FY 2016-2017 now on-wiki
by Tony Le 31 May '18

31 May '18

*---- Sending on behalf of Jaime Villagomez ----Hello Everyone, The Wikimedia Foundation has submitted our annual Form 990 to the US Internal Revenue Service <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Service> (IRS) and posted on-wiki[1]. The Form 990 is the annual financial reporting, known as an “information return,” which the federal government requires nonprofit organizations in the United States to file. In addition to posting the Form 990 on-wiki, we have also posted an accompanying page with answers to frequently asked questions related to the form and information we reported[2]. Almost all financial reports by their very nature can be confusing, so to add clarity here is a simple breakdown of key disclosures this form covers. We have previously explained that the applicable dates for information disclosed on our financial reports can be confusing, given that our July 1 fiscal year is different from the January 1 calendar year. For example, this "2016 Form 990" covers the financial activities of the Wikimedia Foundation for our 2016-2017 fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017. However, the calendar year applies to disclosure of compensation of our officers, key employees, highest paid staff and independent contractors. Those disclosures are based on payments made during the 2016 calendar year -- in other words, compensation paid from January 1, 2016 - December 31, 2106. The compensation paid to individuals that is disclosed therefore spans part of Foundation’s 2015-2016 fiscal year and part of its 2016-2017 fiscal year. The Wikimedia Foundation's total revenue in our fiscal year 2016-2017 was US $89,973,967. Our total expenses during this period were US $69,076,192 and our total net assets at the end of the fiscal year were US $113,330,197.The Form 990 also includes information about compensation paid to the Wikimedia Foundation's five highest paid employees. The salaries for all paid positions are set according to salary bands which are determined bi-annually based on independent third party survey data[3]. Executive salaries are subject to this same standard. All executive salaries, with the exception of the Executive Director's salary, are set by the Executive Director, using the survey data, and in discussion with the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees also uses the independent third party survey data, as well as comparative data from other nonprofit organizations, to set the salary of the Executive Director, and to assess and advise on other executive salaries. This is not only a best practice, but is a process that is required under applicable law.In addition to salary information, the report includes other payments made to certain of the highest employees upon their departure from the organization -- even where those departures may have occurred in 2016, but prior to the Foundation’s fiscal year. Following our regular practice for staff departures, these severance amounts are set on a case-by-case based on a person's tenure with the organization. We recognize that people have an interest in this topic, and that there will be some questions. However, as an employer we are limited in what we can discuss publicly, both because of legal requirements, as well as respect for employees’ confidentiality. We are very transparent about executive payments, while ensuring that our transparency is consistent with a respectful work environment that does not violate the confidential personnel information of our staff.Through reports and discussions like these, the Wikimedia Foundation will continue to strive to provide a responsible level of transparency and accountability. I imagine there are other questions, and I invite you to review the on-wiki FAQ[2], or email me if your question is not answered there.Thank you to the Foundation's Talent & Culture, Legal, Advancement and Communications departments for their assistance with developing this year's Form 990 and related communications. A very big thank you to our Finance and Administration department for their hard work preparing this important public filing. Jaime VillagomezChief Financial Officer* *[1] Link to PDF <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports#2016%E2%80%932017_fi…>* *[2] Link to FAQ <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRS_tax_issues_and_information/2016_Wikimed…>* *[3] https://www.radford.com/home/surveys/gts/ <https://www.radford.com/home/surveys/gts/>* -- Tony Le Wikimedia Foundation Ph: 415-839-6885 ext 6749 Fax: 415-882-0495 tle(a)wikimedia.org *We've moved! **Our new address:* Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600 San Francisco, CA 94104 This message is confidential and may be legally privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, please telephone or email the sender and delete this message and any attachment from your system; you must not copy or disclose the contents of this message or any attachment to any other person.

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Wikimedia-l June 2018