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Hi all,
Community members in the 2022 Board of Trustees election
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_ele…>
are
invited to propose statements to use in the Election Compass.
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_ele…>
An Election Compass is a tool to help voters select the candidates that
best align with their beliefs and views. The community members will propose
statements for the candidates to answer using a Lickert scale
(agree/neutral/disagree). The candidates’ answers to the statements will be
loaded into the Election Compass tool. Voters will use the tool by entering
in their answer to the statements (agree/disagree/neutral). The results
will show the candidates that best align with the voter’s beliefs and views.
Here is the timeline for the Election Compass:
July 8 - 20: Community members propose statements for the Election Compass
July 21 - 22: Elections Committee reviews statements for clarity and
removes off-topic statements
July 23 - August 1: Volunteers vote on the statements
August 2 - 4: Elections Committee selects the top 15 statements
August 5 - 12: candidates align themselves with the statements
August 15: The Election Compass opens for voters to use to help guide their
voting decision
The Elections Committee will select the top 15 statements at the beginning
of August. The Elections Committee will oversee the process, supported by
the Movement Strategy and Governance team. MSG will check that the
questions are clear, there are no duplicates, no typos, and so on.
Best,
Movement Strategy and Governance
*This message was sent on behalf of the Board Selection Task Force and the
Elections Committee*
--
Jackie Koerner (she/her) Communication Specialist, Movement Strategy and
Governance Location: Midwestern US (UTC-5)
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Dear Maryana, Jeff, and all,
Allow me to raise a couple of points with respect to the interview
published yesterday in the San Francisco Examiner, titled "What does the
CEO who oversees Wikipedia do? We ask her."
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/what-does-the-ceo-who-oversees-wikipedia-do…
I'll quote the relevant passages.
1. "[Q:] *You said there’s hundreds of thousands of volunteer editors. So
how many people get paid and are professional editors of Wikipedia?* [A:]
Wikipedia is written by volunteers, unpaid people helping the rest of us
make sure that we find information on the internet that is accurate and
verified and cited and sourced. There are employees of the Wikimedia
Foundation that provide support to these communities and volunteers, but
the volunteers themselves are not paid staff."
This is a good statement inasmuch as it makes clear that Wikipedia is
written and curated by volunteers, countering the widespread but erroneous
assumption that the WMF's paid staff plays an active role in this. On the
other hand, that point had already been made, and given that this appears
to have been a direct question about how many paid and professional editors
of Wikipedia there are, the article would have benefited from a mention of
the thousands of editors who *are* paid by individuals and organisations
(other than the WMF). There are over 5,000 Wikipedia editors who openly
disclose being paid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=100&offset=…
To these must be added an unknown number of additional paid editors who
operate without disclosure, or use a different method of disclosure than
the one searched for by this URL. Could this be added to the article, and
mentioned in future interviews where this question is asked?
2. "[A:] ... We have roughly 600 people scattered across over 40 countries
and every region of the world. ..."
The article would have given a more accurate impression if it had mentioned
that well over half of these are based in the US. Could this info be added,
and included in future interviews?
3. "[Q:] *Why does Wikipedia have banners on its website asking people to
give money? *[A:] They’re a small invitation for folks who find value in
Wikipedia to chip in and ensure that this can remain as it is: An
enterprise that doesn’t rely on selling you anything with ads. I’m not
incentivizing you to stay longer than you need to stay."
The WMF has never asked for money to ensure that things "can remain" as
they are, or to avoid having to put up ads. It has asked for money to
enable exponential growth of the Wikimedia Foundation – whose salary costs
have increased tenfold over the past decade[1] – and to accumulate vast
reserves, which have increased by an even greater factor over that time
period. Last year alone, the Foundation's assets and the Wikimedia
Endowment together grew by about $90 million dollars, a surplus that is
almost the equivalent of one full year's expenses.[2] Seen in this context,
I find the answer given paints a misleading picture, especially given a
prior sentence saying that "her 600-employee organization humbly raises
funds to keep operating ..." – as though there were an acute need for
donations to keep the WMF going.
I'd love to see the WMF communicate more openly and transparently about the
growth of its organisation and the additional things it is doing, or
planning to do, with its additional funds, and to see more detailed media
reporting on Wikimedia's financial growth. The WMF pattern of growth is
really markedly different from that of other donor-funded organisations
that have a more or less stable budget – there is a story here that is
being missed.
Best,
Andreas
[1] See
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries#Total_salarie…
For sources see the PDFs linked in the table shown here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development
[2] See the following articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/Speci…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_developmenthttps://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/
Dear all,
Following up on my message from a few weeks ago about prior meeting
outcomes of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees [1], Maryana and I
wanted to share more information about the board’s most recent meeting in
June 2022.
The Board spent most of the meeting reviewing the Wikimedia Foundation’s
Annual Plan, which the Board unanimously approved. This plan is a summary
of the Foundation’s goals for the coming 2022—2023 fiscal year [2]. The
plan is now anchored in the strategic direction of our movement strategy:
knowledge equity and knowledge as a service. It identifies the Foundation’s
focus on regions and on projects. Thank you to volunteers who provided
input. There were about 12,000 pageviews of the plan on Meta-wiki (4x
increase from last year) with 30+ contributors engaging on the talk page
from across 8 wikis, including Arabic, Swedish, German Wikipedias,
Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. 750+ community members from all regions of
the world were reached through ‘two-way planning conversations’ that
included multilingual support in 15 languages [3]. The final version
includes an appendix and summary of the feedback we received from these
processes. The Board of Trustees will continue to partner with Maryana and
Foundation leadership to share information and invite co-planning with
communities as the year progresses. Please continue to share any
reflections and questions about the Annual Plan on Meta; while the plan has
been approved, we welcome opportunities to explain, elaborate, or take into
account (and for future planning) things not considered before [4].
There were a few other items on the meeting agenda including an update on
the Universal Code of Conduct, reviewing [5] the Foundation’s annual
environmental sustainability report [6] and approving a working capital
policy for the Foundation [7].
In the spirit of making the board’s work more visible to others, two
observers from the Movement Charter Drafting Committee joined the Board
meeting and the Board hosted an open call with Wikimedia Foundation staff
immediately following the meeting.
The Board will also host a session at Wikimania for conversation and
answering questions on these topics or others that you may have. We plan to
meet again in September in Berlin in conjunction with the Wikimedia Summit.
We hope to see some of you there.
Nat and Maryana
[1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2022-2023
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2022-2023/…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2022-…
[5]
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Updating_Environmental_Sus…
[6]
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/06/27/wikimedia-foundations-carbon-footprin…
[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/June…
Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
*NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
advance!*
Dear all,
A week ago, the WMF issued a press release, "Seven Wikimedia chapters
rejected as permanent observers to the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO)":
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/07/15/seven-wikimedia-chapters-re…
This stated, in part, "China was the only country to oppose the Wikimedia
chapters’ request for observer status, again, claiming that chapters were
complicit in spreading disinformation and are subsidiaries of the Wikimedia
Foundation. These statements are unfounded and misrepresent Wikipedia’s
model which prioritizes accuracy, neutrality, as well as the fact that the
chapters are completely autonomous."
About a week ago, I had seen and retweeted a Twitter thread[1] by James
Love[2], the Director of Knowledge Ecology International, listing a whole
litany of countries that had supported China's position.
I checked the webcast of the July 15 WIPO proceedings today,[3] and there
were over a dozen countries – Russia, Belarus, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Iran, Syria, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia,
Venezuela, North Korea – that took the floor to support and endorse China's
position – more, in fact, than took the floor to support the chapters'
approval.
Would it be possible to amend the press release accordingly?
Best,
Andreas
[1] https://twitter.com/jamie_love/status/1550520525180518400
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Love_(NGO_director)
[3] Available here: https://webcast.wipo.int/ (afternoon session of July
15, part 6. Admission of Observers)
Dear Andreus,
If you are going to compare that figure of over 5,000 editors who admit to
being paid editors to the hundreds of thousands figure for editors, you
might want to filter it a bit. I had a quick look at what you linked to and
found one account whose last edit was in 2017, and another who hasn't
edited since they were blocked in 2018. It would be interesting to know the
proportion of currently active English Wikipedia editors who disclose that
they've done paid editing, better still the proportion of edits that they
do.
Regards
WSC
On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 at 14:55, <wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to
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>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..."
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Maryana Iskander interview in San Francisco Examiner
> (Andreas Kolbe)
> 2. Re: Maryana Iskander interview in San Francisco Examiner
> (F. Xavier Dengra i Grau)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2022 14:16:22 +0100
> From: Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Maryana Iskander interview in San Francisco
> Examiner
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
> Miskander(a)wikimedia.org, jelder(a)sfexaminer.com
> Message-ID:
> <CAHRTtW8s608V_46=w62AeR9XW5jHDuQZ7CPCdnK8=
> azrn34WvQ(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="00000000000075d2be05e478c23d"
>
> Dear Maryana, Jeff, and all,
>
> Allow me to raise a couple of points with respect to the interview
> published yesterday in the San Francisco Examiner, titled "What does the
> CEO who oversees Wikipedia do? We ask her."
>
>
> https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/what-does-the-ceo-who-oversees-wikipedia-do…
>
> I'll quote the relevant passages.
>
> 1. "[Q:] *You said there’s hundreds of thousands of volunteer editors. So
> how many people get paid and are professional editors of Wikipedia?* [A:]
> Wikipedia is written by volunteers, unpaid people helping the rest of us
> make sure that we find information on the internet that is accurate and
> verified and cited and sourced. There are employees of the Wikimedia
> Foundation that provide support to these communities and volunteers, but
> the volunteers themselves are not paid staff."
>
> This is a good statement inasmuch as it makes clear that Wikipedia is
> written and curated by volunteers, countering the widespread but erroneous
> assumption that the WMF's paid staff plays an active role in this. On the
> other hand, that point had already been made, and given that this appears
> to have been a direct question about how many paid and professional editors
> of Wikipedia there are, the article would have benefited from a mention of
> the thousands of editors who *are* paid by individuals and organisations
> (other than the WMF). There are over 5,000 Wikipedia editors who openly
> disclose being paid:
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=100&offset=…
>
> To these must be added an unknown number of additional paid editors who
> operate without disclosure, or use a different method of disclosure than
> the one searched for by this URL. Could this be added to the article, and
> mentioned in future interviews where this question is asked?
>
> 2. "[A:] ... We have roughly 600 people scattered across over 40 countries
> and every region of the world. ..."
>
> The article would have given a more accurate impression if it had mentioned
> that well over half of these are based in the US. Could this info be added,
> and included in future interviews?
>
> 3. "[Q:] *Why does Wikipedia have banners on its website asking people to
> give money? *[A:] They’re a small invitation for folks who find value in
> Wikipedia to chip in and ensure that this can remain as it is: An
> enterprise that doesn’t rely on selling you anything with ads. I’m not
> incentivizing you to stay longer than you need to stay."
>
> The WMF has never asked for money to ensure that things "can remain" as
> they are, or to avoid having to put up ads. It has asked for money to
> enable exponential growth of the Wikimedia Foundation – whose salary costs
> have increased tenfold over the past decade[1] – and to accumulate vast
> reserves, which have increased by an even greater factor over that time
> period. Last year alone, the Foundation's assets and the Wikimedia
> Endowment together grew by about $90 million dollars, a surplus that is
> almost the equivalent of one full year's expenses.[2] Seen in this context,
> I find the answer given paints a misleading picture, especially given a
> prior sentence saying that "her 600-employee organization humbly raises
> funds to keep operating ..." – as though there were an acute need for
> donations to keep the WMF going.
>
> I'd love to see the WMF communicate more openly and transparently about the
> growth of its organisation and the additional things it is doing, or
> planning to do, with its additional funds, and to see more detailed media
> reporting on Wikimedia's financial growth. The WMF pattern of growth is
> really markedly different from that of other donor-funded organisations
> that have a more or less stable budget – there is a story here that is
> being missed.
>
> Best,
> Andreas
>
> [1] See
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries#Total_salarie…
> For sources see the PDFs linked in the table shown here:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development
> [2] See the following articles:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/Speci…
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_development
> https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/
>
My Fellow Wikimedians,
I am delighted to announce that the Wikimedia East, South East Asia and the
Pacific also known as* ESEAP* will be having an in-person conference in
Sydney, Australia on November 18-20.
The goals for the conference are:
- *Strategic discussions:* ESEAP Hub governance, process of moving from
an informal group to more formal structure aligned with the Hubs/Minimum
Criteria for Pilots
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hubs/Minimum_Criteria_for_Pilots>
- *Partnership, Tools & Skills*: Outreach and community collaboration
support networks; building a network of skill sets so that communities in
the region can provide extra outreach support and collaboration across the
region; and
- *Leadership development* through building networks that encourage* new
and wider diversity *of participants to enable future growth
For more information, please visit https://w.wiki/5RVH or at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ESEAP_Conference_2022.
Scholarship application is ongoing. You may go to
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ESEAP_Conference_2022/Attend to know
more. Deadline for scholarship application is on* 24 July* (Sunday) at
12:00 UTC.
We also call for volunteers to the following committees:
- Scholarship committee
- Program submissions review committee
- Communications committee
- Onsite & technical volunteers
For inquiries, please reach us at eseap.conf[image: @]wikimedia.org.au.
Thank you!
--
Kind Regards,
Butch Bustria
in behalf of ESEAP
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