Hello everyone - this note is cross-posted on the Wikimedia blog at: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/07/01/wikimedia-foundation-2008-2009-annual-p...
Earlier today we uploaded the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2008/2009 Annual Plan presentation and Questions and Answers page to the Wikimedia Wiki. These materials were approved at the June 20 Board of Trustees meeting. They can be accessed via the Finance Report page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report
Posting our plan and (hopefully) answering some of your questions in advance is part of our commitment to providing transparent information about the Foundation’s goals and spending.
The Annual Plan lays out projected spending through the next fiscal year (which for us starts today and runs the rest of the year). The plan describes spending in our three main operational areas: technology, programming, and financeand administration. We also introduce our 2008/2009 organizational goals, which we hope to discuss in more detail in the coming months.
For your information and awareness!
1) «Invest in software developers to improve management of volunteer code contributions and to execute strategic priorities (e.g., database dump production, usability initiatives)» (p. 7). 2) «Increased spending on technical infrastructure»; «Additional technical staff»; «deferred necessary spending fot reliability, backups & performance; elimination of artificial restrictions on upload file size» (p. 13).
Great (especially devs, reliability, backups & performance), but why do you think that we will not underspend 2 M$ next year, too? And how can we nearly decuple «in-kind revenue» and «income from live feed deals, trademark deals, etc.» (p. 8)? Thanks,
Nemo
-----Messaggio Originale----- Da: Jay Walsh A: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Data invio: martedì 1 luglio 2008 22.23 Oggetto: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation 2008-2009 Annual Plan
Hello everyone - this note is cross-posted on the Wikimedia blog at: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/07/01/wikimedia-foundation-2008-2009-annual-p...
Earlier today we uploaded the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2008/2009 Annual Plan presentation and Questions and Answers page to the Wikimedia Wiki. These materials were approved at the June 20 Board of Trustees meeting. They can be accessed via the Finance Report page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report
Posting our plan and (hopefully) answering some of your questions in advance is part of our commitment to providing transparent information about the Foundation’s goals and spending.
The Annual Plan lays out projected spending through the next fiscal year (which for us starts today and runs the rest of the year). The plan describes spending in our three main operational areas: technology, programming, and financeand administration. We also introduce our 2008/2009 organizational goals, which we hope to discuss in more detail in the coming months.
For your information and awareness!
-- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609
Hoi, You cannot bank on making a substantial saving in the future. When you find that you do NOT spend money, you are happy as you have more money in the bank. This is in and of itself a good thing because as it is, the Wikimedia Foundation could do more seriously good work when it had more serious amounts of money. There have also beenpeople clamoring for the WMF having big reserves.. Money that has been cautiously budgetted may not be all used. This money could go into such reserves..
So really, it is GOOD when there is some conservative bookkeeping because the budget is based on many unknownables in the first place..
Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 12:26 PM, Nemo_bis nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
- «Invest in software developers to improve management of volunteer code
contributions and to execute strategic priorities (e.g., database dump production, usability initiatives)» (p. 7). 2) «Increased spending on technical infrastructure»; «Additional technical staff»; «deferred necessary spending fot reliability, backups & performance; elimination of artificial restrictions on upload file size» (p. 13).
Great (especially devs, reliability, backups & performance), but why do you think that we will not underspend 2 M$ next year, too? And how can we nearly decuple «in-kind revenue» and «income from live feed deals, trademark deals, etc.» (p. 8)? Thanks,
Nemo
-----Messaggio Originale----- Da: Jay Walsh A: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Data invio: martedì 1 luglio 2008 22.23 Oggetto: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation 2008-2009 Annual Plan
Hello everyone - this note is cross-posted on the Wikimedia blog at:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/07/01/wikimedia-foundation-2008-2009-annual-p...
Earlier today we uploaded the Wikimedia Foundation's 2008/2009 Annual Plan presentation and Questions and Answers page to the Wikimedia Wiki. These materials were approved at the June 20 Board of Trustees meeting. They can be accessed via the Finance Report page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report
Posting our plan and (hopefully) answering some of your questions in advance is part of our commitment to providing transparent information about the Foundation's goals and spending.
The Annual Plan lays out projected spending through the next fiscal year (which for us starts today and runs the rest of the year). The plan describes spending in our three main operational areas: technology, programming, and financeand administration. We also introduce our 2008/2009 organizational goals, which we hope to discuss in more detail in the coming months.
For your information and awareness!
-- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609 _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
GerardM, 2 2008 14.50
You cannot bank on making a substantial saving in the future. When you find that you do NOT spend money, you are happy as you have more money in the bank.
I'm not happy if I saved money because I was not able to buy food and I'm starving, especially if other expenses drained all my money. E.g., we need servers, although the situation is not catastrophic.
Nemo
Hoi, We need more then just servers. Just servers and bandwidth gives us just servers and bandwidth. Because of a more organised staff, we have been able to get funding from other organisations.. If we were flush with cash, I would know some things that would REALLY help us achieve our aims.
The thing with just servers and bandwidth is that they at best allow for business as usual while achieving the aims of our organisation requires a bit more... :) Just consider for instance everyone being able to read all the texts using legitimate fonts ... :) Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 4:10 PM, Nemo_bis nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
GerardM, 2 2008 14.50
You cannot bank on making a substantial saving in the future. When you
find
that you do NOT spend money, you are happy as you have more money in the bank.
I'm not happy if I saved money because I was not able to buy food and I'm starving, especially if other expenses drained all my money. E.g., we need servers, although the situation is not catastrophic.
Nemo _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, We need more then just servers.
Agreed. I'd say tech staff is the most desperate need. Especially now that the biggest showstopper of SUL has been implemented.
The database dump system needs to be redesigned. Global watchlists need to be implemented. Stable versions needs to be made more user friendly. Deletion of single revisions needs to be simplified. And that's just off the top of my head. There are 3038 bugs in bugzilla that need to be addressed.
And lack of funds is no longer an acceptable excuse for it not getting done.
E.g., we need servers, although the situation is not catastrophic.
The site seems to be running fine at the moment. There's been downtime, but nothing excessive, and the speed of the site is reasonable. We'll need new servers soon enough, but if we can hold off a year before buying them, why not?
Thomas Dalton wrote:
E.g., we need servers, although the situation is not catastrophic.
The site seems to be running fine at the moment. There's been downtime, but nothing excessive, and the speed of the site is reasonable. We'll need new servers soon enough, but if we can hold off a year before buying them, why not?
That is true (or at least reasonable) - but actually, the main reason we held off on planned server purchases is because we've been actively developing a couple of relationships that we hoped would fund some/all of those costs. One of those is just about finalized now: we'll probably be in a position to make an announcement within a few weeks. So the upshot is, we will not need to spend X amount of general operating cash on hardware, since it will likely end up being paid for by an external party :-)
Sue wrote:
So the upshot is, we will not need to spend X amount of general operating cash on hardware, since it will likely end up being paid for by an external party :-)
Thanks. Great. And what about «general conservatism and caution on the part of the tech team» and «delays in hiring» (from: Monthly ED Report to the Board: May 2008)? I didn't understand.
Nemo
Nemo_bis wrote:
Sue wrote:
So the upshot is, we will not need to spend X amount of general operating cash on hardware, since it will likely end up being paid for by an external party :-)
Thanks. Great. And what about «general conservatism and caution on the part of the tech team» and «delays in hiring» (from: /Monthly ED Report to the Board: May 2008/)? I didn't understand.
Nemo
Without speaking on behalf of the tech team necessarily, I would make the observation that it seems generally conservative about spending. That's not unique to Wikimedia; it's consistently been my experience that tech people tend to be fairly cautious spenders. Our team did not want to spend money until it needed to: that is not a bad thing.
Re delays in hiring, the tech team has had approval to hire two software developers since last October. With the 08-09 budget, they have approval to hire I believe five technical people in total during FY 2008-09. I am not surprised we've been slow to hire: the move's been pretty disruptive. But my understanding is that we're pretty close to announcing one new dev, with another in the works. This is good.
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 7:48 PM, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
Without speaking on behalf of the tech team necessarily, I would make the observation that it seems generally conservative about spending. That's not unique to Wikimedia; it's consistently been my experience that tech people tend to be fairly cautious spenders. Our team did not want to spend money until it needed to: that is not a bad thing.
Just wanted to underscore Sue's comment here.
I spent a number of years directly in charge of spending a technology budget of size comparable to Wikimedia's.
The frenetic pace of new technology development, and the fairly short lead times of equipment vendors strongly favored "just in time" procurement practices: I regretted many of my more preemptive purchases.
This reality resulted in an occasional bit of tension between myself and my management, when sometimes I'd find myself two months from the end of the fiscal year with a couple of hundred thousand still unspent.... and a resulting scramble to get things taken care of.
Many of the external factors triggering technology purchases are themselves bursty (new facilities, new applications), further exacerbating the situation.
If we assume that moore's law applies directly to price/performance (which isn't a totally outrageous assumption in many cases) money differed on technology spending has an annualized return of 60%! Thats astonishingly good: almost as good as printing money.
Obviously technology spending can't be differed forever, but when the cards play out in a way which otherwise favors it, technology is probably the best place to have a capital spending shortfall.
From that experience I think I've taken the position that the best
results can be achieved by tolerating the bursty nature of technology purchases but keeping a gentle pressure towards consistency and good forecasting.
I don't see any reason to believe that the WMF is doing a poor job here. If there were years and years of significant shortfalls, I'd say otherwise.
From that experience I think I've taken the position that the best results can be achieved by tolerating the bursty nature of technology purchases but keeping a gentle pressure towards consistency and good forecasting.
The recent announcement of a new contractor to work on gathering statistics should be of use there!
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:36 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
I spent a number of years directly in charge of spending a technology budget of size comparable to Wikimedia's.
[...]
If we assume that moore's law applies directly to price/performance (which isn't a totally outrageous assumption in many cases) money differed on technology spending has an annualized return of 60%! Thats astonishingly good: almost as good as printing money.
Sure, for new hardware purchases. But, when you were in charge of a tech budget, what percentage of that budget was spent on hardware? Servers tend to be cheap compared to people.
I guess that differs from company to company, but in the case of the WMF, Sue has suggested that a significant amount of new hardware is going to be donated by a third party.
I can't agree with Sue that not spending money until it's "needed" is a good thing, unless by "needed" she means more like "useful". But then, that must be what she means, because she agrees that finally hiring another dev is a "good thing".
I can't agree with Sue that not spending money until it's "needed" is a good thing, unless by "needed" she means more like "useful". But then, that must be what she means, because she agrees that finally hiring another dev is a "good thing".
I think the comment about not spending money until it's needed was in reference to hardware, rather than people - she explained that at least part of the reason for not hiring new staff was the need to get the new office sorted out first. For hardware, I don't think there is much time between "useful" and "needed". When we start to run out of servers we'll start to see the site slowing down and downtime being more frequent. I expect that we would reach unacceptable levels pretty quickly after that, so new servers would be needed. The servers would serve little purpose before we start to have problems - you can't speed things up beyond a certain level by just throwing money at it.
It's important to remember, of course, that the accounts that have just been published are for the period ending a year ago - much has happen in that year, so they shouldn't be relied on to describe the current state of the foundation.
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 9:14 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It's important to remember, of course, that the accounts that have just been published are for the period ending a year ago - much has happen in that year, so they shouldn't be relied on to describe the current state of the foundation.
Huh? The accounts that have just been published are annualized figures for the 2007-2008 fiscal year which ended two days ago. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Image:FY_2008_09_Annual_Plan.PDF
2008/7/3 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 9:14 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It's important to remember, of course, that the accounts that have just been published are for the period ending a year ago - much has happen in that year, so they shouldn't be relied on to describe the current state of the foundation.
Huh? The accounts that have just been published are annualized figures for the 2007-2008 fiscal year which ended two days ago. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Image:FY_2008_09_Annual_Plan.PDF
I'm going to blame this on it being 2:30 in the morning here... I'm going to bed, just ignore me!
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 6:14 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
It's important to remember, of course, that the accounts that have
just been published are for the period ending a year ago - much has happen in that year, so they shouldn't be relied on to describe the current state of the foundation.
We're talking about the period ending June 30th (i.e. a few days ago), or at least I am. If you go back to the start of this thread you'll see info on the 08-09 budget and comparisons to the just completed 07-08 fiscal year. It's preliminary data, so not audited, etc., but it is also very current.
-Robert Rohde
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:50 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
When you find that you do NOT spend money, you are happy as you have more money in the bank.
I don't understand this sentence. Can you rephrase it? And can you explain how it applies to non-profit organizations?
Hoi, This is not specific to non profit organisations, it is true for all organisations. A dollar not spend is a dollar saved and a dollar profit. This is what keeps the bean counters happy :) Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:47 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:50 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
When you find that you do NOT spend money, you are happy as you have more money in the bank.
I don't understand this sentence. Can you rephrase it? And can you explain how it applies to non-profit organizations?
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, This is not specific to non profit organisations, it is true for all organisations. A dollar not spend is a dollar saved and a dollar profit. This is what keeps the bean counters happy :) Thanks, GerardM
That only helps if your goal is "profit". For a non-profit, you don't want them to have lots of unplanned savings because that implies they have not allocating resources effectively.
I don't think Nemo's comment about servers is fair (they are working well by historical standards), but at the same time one can ask: "Does not spending this money mean that the mission is 6 months behind where it could be?" Any real budget will include contingencies and have unplanned variances, but at the same time we don't want the budgets to be consistently too high OR too low as it generally implies resources are not being allocated as efficiently as they could be towards accomplishing the Foundation's goals. We want to know that unplanned resources go towards making the world better. Having savings and a contingency fund can be part of that, but it should be part of the plan and not just something one falls into for the lack of other things to do.
-Robert Rohde
Hoi, Ehm, so you are happy when money is spend according to plan as it shows that the plans were implemented and the budget was used according to plan... Now I am really happy when there is a plan that will allow for the spending of money according to a plan that will get us the results. I am even more happy when the people spending the money are smart and find ways to improve on the budget and spend less. In a company it is profit in a "Not for profit" is allows for other / more activities, this is a different kind of benefit and it is positive in my book.
Now when the WMF budgets for the acquisition of hardware and at the same time tries to find donors to provide us with the same hardware, I think this is an excellent way of operating because it allows for the donations not to materialise.
When you are of the opinion that this is not the proper way to do this, then i would say tough. I prefer a common sense approach that allows to spend our money as effective as possible. Let me be clear on one thing; the money has to achieve a goal. I want to see money spend, others want the WMF to have reserves. Having sufficient reserves that prevent the WMF from having to rely on donors is in my book excellent management.
Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 9:43 PM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, This is not specific to non profit organisations, it is true for all organisations. A dollar not spend is a dollar saved and a dollar profit. This is what keeps the bean counters happy :) Thanks, GerardM
That only helps if your goal is "profit". For a non-profit, you don't want them to have lots of unplanned savings because that implies they have not allocating resources effectively.
I don't think Nemo's comment about servers is fair (they are working well by historical standards), but at the same time one can ask: "Does not spending this money mean that the mission is 6 months behind where it could be?" Any real budget will include contingencies and have unplanned variances, but at the same time we don't want the budgets to be consistently too high OR too low as it generally implies resources are not being allocated as efficiently as they could be towards accomplishing the Foundation's goals. We want to know that unplanned resources go towards making the world better. Having savings and a contingency fund can be part of that, but it should be part of the plan and not just something one falls into for the lack of other things to do.
-Robert Rohde _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Please don't put words in my mouth. Trying to reduce costs is a good thing. Trying to get donated hardware is a good thing.
Anytime you make a budget sometimes you will have unplanned savings, and sometimes you will have extra expenses.
My reaction is motivated by your comment that "it is GOOD when there is some conservative bookkeeping", which I disagree with. Conservative bookkeeping shouldn't be the goal. Rather, we want effective bookkeeping that includes planned contingency funds but is on target more often than not. It is too early to say whether the WMF will ultimately have a good track record, but I would discourage a policy of intentionally overstating likely spending. Being conservative, with the intent of being consistently underbudget, would be a bad thing. It would imply that one is holding too many resources back and misrepresenting your needs to the donor community.
AND if there are going to be large variances, then I would want to see that money put to good use. For example, if UNICEF (or insert your favorite large charity) did have the good fortune to decrease their operating costs by a large percentage, then you can bet they would almost immediately put more money into feeding starving children (or your appropriate analogy).
Having extra savings is not a bad thing, but unless there is a good plan for those savings then it is a sub-optimal place to allocate resources. For example, if you discover that you don't need to buy servers now, then one could choose to accelerate hiring etc., which serves the mission more directly that simply sitting on capital.
I'm not upset with the recent WMF performance (there are much worse things than saving money), but in the long-run underutilizing capital should be seen as an anomaly and should not be seen as a desirable goal.
-Robert Rohde
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 12:58 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Ehm, so you are happy when money is spend according to plan as it shows that the plans were implemented and the budget was used according to plan... Now I am really happy when there is a plan that will allow for the spending of money according to a plan that will get us the results. I am even more happy when the people spending the money are smart and find ways to improve on the budget and spend less. In a company it is profit in a "Not for profit" is allows for other / more activities, this is a different kind of benefit and it is positive in my book.
Now when the WMF budgets for the acquisition of hardware and at the same time tries to find donors to provide us with the same hardware, I think this is an excellent way of operating because it allows for the donations not to materialise.
When you are of the opinion that this is not the proper way to do this, then i would say tough. I prefer a common sense approach that allows to spend our money as effective as possible. Let me be clear on one thing; the money has to achieve a goal. I want to see money spend, others want the WMF to have reserves. Having sufficient reserves that prevent the WMF from having to rely on donors is in my book excellent management.
Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 9:43 PM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, This is not specific to non profit organisations, it is true for all organisations. A dollar not spend is a dollar saved and a dollar
profit.
This is what keeps the bean counters happy :) Thanks, GerardM
That only helps if your goal is "profit". For a non-profit, you don't
want
them to have lots of unplanned savings because that implies they have not allocating resources effectively.
I don't think Nemo's comment about servers is fair (they are working well by historical standards), but at the same time one can ask: "Does not
spending
this money mean that the mission is 6 months behind where it could be?" Any real budget will include contingencies and have unplanned variances, but
at
the same time we don't want the budgets to be consistently too high OR
too
low as it generally implies resources are not being allocated as efficiently as they could be towards accomplishing the Foundation's goals. We want
to
know that unplanned resources go towards making the world better. Having savings and a contingency fund can be part of that, but it should be part of the plan and not just something one falls into for the lack of other
things
to do.
-Robert Rohde _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi, So you want the money spend. I do so agree. Let us spend money and Open Source FONTS. Fonts that are free that are good. If this means that we spend money on developing fonts so that everybody can see ALL the characters and that we do not have to resort to ugly screen prints to show devangari for instance ...
If we spend EUR 100.000,- on developing content in languages like Wolof Swahili Xhosa Zulu we can REALLY make a difference for such languages. We are saving more then that so we can do these things.
Really tell me how much to spend, and I can get it spend on things that will help us achieve the aims of the Foundation or the projects.. Finding good projects and executing them is not a problem. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 10:36 PM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
Please don't put words in my mouth. Trying to reduce costs is a good thing. Trying to get donated hardware is a good thing.
Anytime you make a budget sometimes you will have unplanned savings, and sometimes you will have extra expenses.
My reaction is motivated by your comment that "it is GOOD when there is some conservative bookkeeping", which I disagree with. Conservative bookkeeping shouldn't be the goal. Rather, we want effective bookkeeping that includes planned contingency funds but is on target more often than not. It is too early to say whether the WMF will ultimately have a good track record, but I would discourage a policy of intentionally overstating likely spending. Being conservative, with the intent of being consistently underbudget, would be a bad thing. It would imply that one is holding too many resources back and misrepresenting your needs to the donor community.
AND if there are going to be large variances, then I would want to see that money put to good use. For example, if UNICEF (or insert your favorite large charity) did have the good fortune to decrease their operating costs by a large percentage, then you can bet they would almost immediately put more money into feeding starving children (or your appropriate analogy).
Having extra savings is not a bad thing, but unless there is a good plan for those savings then it is a sub-optimal place to allocate resources. For example, if you discover that you don't need to buy servers now, then one could choose to accelerate hiring etc., which serves the mission more directly that simply sitting on capital.
I'm not upset with the recent WMF performance (there are much worse things than saving money), but in the long-run underutilizing capital should be seen as an anomaly and should not be seen as a desirable goal.
-Robert Rohde
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 12:58 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, Ehm, so you are happy when money is spend according to plan as it shows that the plans were implemented and the budget was used according to plan...
Now
I am really happy when there is a plan that will allow for the spending
of
money according to a plan that will get us the results. I am even more happy when the people spending the money are smart and find ways to improve on the budget and spend less. In a company it is profit in a "Not for profit" is allows for other / more activities, this is a different kind of benefit
and
it is positive in my book.
Now when the WMF budgets for the acquisition of hardware and at the same time tries to find donors to provide us with the same hardware, I think this is an excellent way of operating because it allows for the donations not
to
materialise.
When you are of the opinion that this is not the proper way to do this, then i would say tough. I prefer a common sense approach that allows to spend our money as effective as possible. Let me be clear on one thing; the money
has
to achieve a goal. I want to see money spend, others want the WMF to have reserves. Having sufficient reserves that prevent the WMF from having to rely on donors is in my book excellent management.
Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 9:43 PM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, This is not specific to non profit organisations, it is true for all organisations. A dollar not spend is a dollar saved and a dollar
profit.
This is what keeps the bean counters happy :) Thanks, GerardM
That only helps if your goal is "profit". For a non-profit, you don't
want
them to have lots of unplanned savings because that implies they have not allocating resources effectively.
I don't think Nemo's comment about servers is fair (they are working
well
by historical standards), but at the same time one can ask: "Does not
spending
this money mean that the mission is 6 months behind where it could be?" Any real budget will include contingencies and have unplanned variances,
but
at
the same time we don't want the budgets to be consistently too high OR
too
low as it generally implies resources are not being allocated as efficiently as they could be towards accomplishing the Foundation's goals. We want
to
know that unplanned resources go towards making the world better.
Having
savings and a contingency fund can be part of that, but it should be
part
of the plan and not just something one falls into for the lack of other
things
to do.
-Robert Rohde _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2008/7/2 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, So you want the money spend. I do so agree. Let us spend money and Open Source FONTS. Fonts that are free that are good. If this means that we spend money on developing fonts so that everybody can see ALL the characters and that we do not have to resort to ugly screen prints to show devangari for instance ...
Mozilla Foundation might be a better bet there.
If we spend EUR 100.000,- on developing content in languages like Wolof Swahili Xhosa Zulu we can REALLY make a difference for such languages. We are saving more then that so we can do these things.
We do things for people not languages.
Gerard forgets this. Often. Fortunately, the office is more than capable of spending *their* money effectively without his help.
If we spend EUR 100.000,- on developing content in languages like Wolof Swahili Xhosa Zulu we can REALLY make a difference for such languages. We are saving more then that so we can do these things.
We do things for people not languages.
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 5:01 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, So you want the money spend. I do so agree. Let us spend money and Open Source FONTS. Fonts that are free that are good. If this means that we spend money on developing fonts so that everybody can see ALL the characters and that we do not have to resort to ugly screen prints to show devangari for instance ...
If we spend EUR 100.000,- on developing content in languages like Wolof Swahili Xhosa Zulu we can REALLY make a difference for such languages. We are saving more then that so we can do these things.
Really tell me how much to spend, and I can get it spend on things that will help us achieve the aims of the Foundation or the projects.. Finding good projects and executing them is not a problem. Thanks, GerardM
Hoi, As I have to spell it out for you:
- Wolof: 3,612,560 people - Swahili: 772,642 first language 30,000,000 second language users - Xhosa: 7,214,118 people - Zulu: 7,214,118 first language 15,700,000 second language users
It is people who speak languages. It is people we aim to provide information to.
As to the Mozilla Foundation; the point is that our aim is to provide information to all people. It is essential that the infrastructure is there to achieve it. Fonts are essential in this game. The Mozilla foundation is to provide functionality to people that are already on the web. In what we aim to do, we do not say that people have to be online in order to be part of our potential public.
Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 1:00 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/7/2 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, So you want the money spend. I do so agree. Let us spend money and Open Source FONTS. Fonts that are free that are good. If this means that we
spend
money on developing fonts so that everybody can see ALL the characters
and
that we do not have to resort to ugly screen prints to show devangari for instance ...
Mozilla Foundation might be a better bet there.
If we spend EUR 100.000,- on developing content in languages like Wolof Swahili Xhosa Zulu we can REALLY make a difference for such languages. We are saving more then that so we can do these things.
We do things for people not languages.
-- geni
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2008/7/3 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, As I have to spell it out for you:
- Wolof: 3,612,560 people
Cost benefit analysis suggests that removing it and replacing it with something more widely spoken works out better in the long run.
- Swahili: 772,642 first language 30,000,000 second language users
Which would put it about level with Polish. How much polish content did we directly fund?
- Xhosa: 7,214,118 people
English coverage is pretty good there.
- Zulu: 7,214,118 first language 15,700,000 second language users
Most of whom speak English or Afrikaans
2008/7/3 geni geniice@gmail.com:
2008/7/3 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, As I have to spell it out for you:
- Wolof: 3,612,560 people
Cost benefit analysis suggests that removing it and replacing it with something more widely spoken works out better in the long run.
- Swahili: 772,642 first language 30,000,000 second language users
Which would put it about level with Polish. How much polish content did we directly fund?
None, but did Polish need it? I think you can't compare the situation of a language in Africa with that of a language in Europe. The question is, what would be the added value. Asking what we did with other languages that did not need it sounds ridiculous to me, sorry (at least your other arguments make *some* sense... ).
- Xhosa: 7,214,118 people
English coverage is pretty good there.
- Zulu: 7,214,118 first language 15,700,000 second language users
Most of whom speak English or Afrikaans
-- geni
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None, but did Polish need it? I think you can't compare the situation of a language in Africa with that of a language in Europe. The question is, what would be the added value. Asking what we did with other languages that did not need it sounds ridiculous to me, sorry (at least your other arguments make *some* sense... ).
I don't understand... why do people in Europe have a lesser need for knowledge than people in Africa?
2008/7/3 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
None, but did Polish need it? I think you can't compare the situation of a language in Africa with that of a language in Europe. The question is, what would be the added value. Asking what we did with other languages that did not need it sounds ridiculous to me, sorry (at least your other arguments make *some* sense... ).
I don't understand... why do people in Europe have a lesser need for knowledge than people in Africa?
I think you misunderstood me. In Europe the content is being created anyway, in Africa it apperently is not, and apperently they need a little help, where the Europeans don't (or, well, the Polish, which is good, actually!).
Hoi, The people of Africa have the same need as the people of Europe. We are doing a good job for the people of Europe. There needs are taken care off, the projects in the European language are in a great shape. This is in marked contrast with the projects in the African languages even the African subjects.
At the Wikimanias of the past the wish was expressed to do a better job for Africa.. we have this opportunity, we can take this. Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
None, but did Polish need it? I think you can't compare the situation of a language in Africa with that of a language in Europe. The question is, what would be the added value. Asking what we did with other languages that did not need it sounds ridiculous to me, sorry (at least your other arguments make *some* sense... ).
I don't understand... why do people in Europe have a lesser need for knowledge than people in Africa?
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Except, Africa faces problems that extend far beyond simple language penetration: there is simply not enough internet and broadband coverage, not enough computer access and computer ownership, and in several countries the political climate inhibits any access to free information.
If we're truly worried about peoples of Africa, we ought to be addressing those problems first, rather than setting up languages for them. We can't bring knowledge to Zimbabwe if Mugabe kills all of his opponents and their supporters, and controls the internet access. We can't bring knowledge to Somalia if there simply aren't enough telecom companies doing business there to achieve significant internet access. Such issues are far more pressing than languages.
-Dan
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 8:59 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, The people of Africa have the same need as the people of Europe. We are doing a good job for the people of Europe. There needs are taken care off, the projects in the European language are in a great shape. This is in marked contrast with the projects in the African languages even the African subjects.
At the Wikimanias of the past the wish was expressed to do a better job for Africa.. we have this opportunity, we can take this. Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
None, but did Polish need it? I think you can't compare the situation of a language in Africa with that of a language in Europe. The question is, what would be the added value. Asking what we did with other languages that did not need it sounds ridiculous to me, sorry (at least your other arguments make *some* sense... ).
I don't understand... why do people in Europe have a lesser need for knowledge than people in Africa?
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On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Except, Africa faces problems that extend far beyond simple language penetration: there is simply not enough internet and broadband coverage, not enough computer access and computer ownership, and in several countries the political climate inhibits any access to free information.
If we're truly worried about peoples of Africa, we ought to be addressing those problems first, rather than setting up languages for them. We can't bring knowledge to Zimbabwe if Mugabe kills all of his opponents and their supporters, and controls the internet access. We can't bring knowledge to Somalia if there simply aren't enough telecom companies doing business there to achieve significant internet access. Such issues are far more pressing than languages.
-Dan
And you know...basic necessities like food and water.
Call me naive, but I think those are more important than bringing them a DVD with articles about everything from [[w:Walrus]] to [[w:Fantasy (fragrance)]]
-Chad
Chad wrote:
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Except, Africa faces problems that extend far beyond simple language penetration: there is simply not enough internet and broadband coverage, not enough computer access and computer ownership, and in several countries the political climate inhibits any access to free information.
If we're truly worried about peoples of Africa, we ought to be addressing those problems first, rather than setting up languages for them. We can't bring knowledge to Zimbabwe if Mugabe kills all of his opponents and their supporters, and controls the internet access. We can't bring knowledge to Somalia if there simply aren't enough telecom companies doing business there to achieve significant internet access. Such issues are far more pressing than languages.
-Dan
And you know...basic necessities like food and water.
Call me naive, but I think those are more important than bringing them a DVD with articles about everything from [[w:Walrus]] to [[w:Fantasy (fragrance)]]
-Chad
Have you two guys already been to Africa ? You seem to have a rather "limited" view of a huge continent with incredible diversity of situations. Even within a country where some poeple are dying from hunger or diseases, there are scholars and educated people who can help get the ball rolling.
Ant
2008/7/3 Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com:
Have you two guys already been to Africa ? You seem to have a rather "limited" view of a huge continent with incredible diversity of situations. Even within a country where some poeple are dying from hunger or diseases, there are scholars and educated people who can help get the ball rolling.
Ant
Problem is most of them will likely speak and work in English or French.
geni wrote:
2008/7/3 Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com:
Have you two guys already been to Africa ? You seem to have a rather "limited" view of a huge continent with incredible diversity of situations. Even within a country where some poeple are dying from hunger or diseases, there are scholars and educated people who can help get the ball rolling.
Ant
Problem is most of them will likely speak and work in English or French.
It is not a problem. It is an opportunity. Nothing more.
Ant
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 10:49 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Chad wrote:
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Except, Africa faces problems that extend far beyond simple language penetration: there is simply not enough internet and broadband coverage, not enough computer access and computer ownership, and in several countries the political climate inhibits any access to free information.
If we're truly worried about peoples of Africa, we ought to be addressing those problems first, rather than setting up languages for them. We can't bring knowledge to Zimbabwe if Mugabe kills all of his opponents and their supporters, and controls the internet access. We can't bring knowledge to Somalia if there simply aren't enough telecom companies doing business there to achieve significant internet access. Such issues are far more pressing than languages.
-Dan
And you know...basic necessities like food and water.
Call me naive, but I think those are more important than bringing them a DVD with articles about everything from [[w:Walrus]] to [[w:Fantasy (fragrance)]]
-Chad
Have you two guys already been to Africa ? You seem to have a rather "limited" view of a huge continent with incredible diversity of situations. Even within a country where some poeple are dying from hunger or diseases, there are scholars and educated people who can help get the ball rolling.
Ant
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My statement reaches beyond Africa; I would prefer the local population of my own city have food and water before Wikipedia.
If the WMF is going to jump on the "Save the African Children" bangwagon, it would be nice if they'd actually send something useful.
-Chad
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 10:49 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Have you two guys already been to Africa ? You seem to have a rather "limited" view of a huge continent with incredible diversity of situations. Even within a country where some poeple are dying from hunger or diseases, there are scholars and educated people who can help get the ball rolling.
Ant
Ever been to Antarctica? Is it cold there?
-Dan
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 10:49 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Have you two guys already been to Africa ? You seem to have a rather "limited" view of a huge continent with incredible diversity of situations. Even within a country where some poeple are dying from hunger or diseases, there are scholars and educated people who can help get the ball rolling.
Ant
Ever been to Antarctica? Is it cold there?
-Dan
Yeah, last winter. First class. On Wikimedia Foundation bill.
I did not find any dying african babies there though. Strange.
Ant
2008/7/3 Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com:
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 10:49 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Have you two guys already been to Africa ? You seem to have a rather "limited" view of a huge continent with incredible diversity of situations. Even within a country where some poeple are dying from hunger or diseases, there are scholars and educated people who can help get the ball rolling.
Ant
Ever been to Antarctica? Is it cold there?
-Dan
Yeah, last winter. First class. On Wikimedia Foundation bill.
I did not find any dying african babies there though. Strange.
Ant
ohnoes, tell me you're kidding! Only first class....
You have to dig, they're way down there in the ice, buried somewhere beneath logic and common sense.
-Dan
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 8:33 PM, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
2008/7/3 Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com:
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 10:49 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Have you two guys already been to Africa ? You seem to have a rather "limited" view of a huge continent with incredible diversity of situations. Even within a country where some poeple are dying from hunger or diseases, there are scholars and educated people who can help get the ball rolling.
Ant
Ever been to Antarctica? Is it cold there?
-Dan
Yeah, last winter. First class. On Wikimedia Foundation bill.
I did not find any dying african babies there though. Strange.
Ant
ohnoes, tell me you're kidding! Only first class....
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On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
You have to dig, they're way down there in the ice, buried somewhere beneath logic and common sense.
When the OLPC people have saturated their "market", there may be opportunities for the One Laptop Per Penguin project. ;-)
Ec
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Penguins might have issues with the crank-shaft power. You know, lack of opposable thumbs and all.
I for one must say "Boo!" to the OLPP project for such a serious oversight and their lack of caring for the penguins' physical situation.
-Chad
Down with One Laptop Per Penguin. Long Live One Pebble Per Penguin!!!!!!
-Dan
On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
You have to dig, they're way down there in the ice, buried somewhere
beneath
logic and common sense.
When the OLPC people have saturated their "market", there may be opportunities for the One Laptop Per Penguin project. ;-)
Ec
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Penguins might have issues with the crank-shaft power. You know, lack of opposable thumbs and all.
I for one must say "Boo!" to the OLPP project for such a serious oversight and their lack of caring for the penguins' physical situation.
-Chad
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And you know...basic necessities like food and water.
Call me naive, but I think those are more important than bringing them a DVD with articles about everything from [[w:Walrus]] to [[w:Fantasy (fragrance)]]
I think both are important. Food and water and medical care are naturally primary. But knowledge in a language they know and of which they can afford of is just second to that. The first is not our goal, but the second is. And on that we concentrate.
Ting
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
The people of Africa have the same need as the people of Europe. We are doing a good job for the people of Europe. There needs are taken care off, the projects in the European language are in a great shape. This is in marked contrast with the projects in the African languages even the African subjects.
At the Wikimanias of the past the wish was expressed to do a better job for Africa.. we have this opportunity, we can take this.
European needs are filled because there are Europeans to fill the needs.
African subjects in European languages (at least English) can too easily get tied up in some people's advanced society notions of notability and verifiability. We have few enough people to work on these, so it woule help to bemore relaxed on these standards.
The upcoming Wikimania is in Africa, so I would expect to see more Africans when I get there.
Ec
2008/7/3 Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:
European needs are filled because there are Europeans to fill the needs.
African subjects in European languages (at least English) can too easily get tied up in some people's advanced society notions of notability and verifiability. We have few enough people to work on these, so it woule help to bemore relaxed on these standards.
Nor really. Between the old imperial records, various travel guides, travel books, various studies written by people looking for stuff outside the norm and the general rule that someone will make at least some attempt to cover almost any war there are a fair number of sources out they. They may take some looking for mind.
The upcoming Wikimania is in Africa, so I would expect to see more Africans when I get there.
I doubt it cost of travel within africa tends to be quite high.
effe iets anders wrote:
2008/7/3 geni:
2008/7/3 Gerard Meijssen:
Hoi, As I have to spell it out for you:
- Wolof: 3,612,560 people
Cost benefit analysis suggests that removing it and replacing it with something more widely spoken works out better in the long run.
- Swahili: 772,642 first language 30,000,000 second language users
Which would put it about level with Polish. How much polish content did we directly fund?
None, but did Polish need it? I think you can't compare the situation of a language in Africa with that of a language in Europe. The question is, what would be the added value. Asking what we did with other languages that did not need it sounds ridiculous to me, sorry.
The bottom line for these languages is having a core group willing to work on/in them. Until then paternalisticly throwing money at them is bound to fail. I do remember the attempts to pay for articles in Bambara and Ossetian; are those projects any more active now? I wouldn't completely close the door to spending money on these languages, but we should first require a plan from the advocates.
Ec
Ultimately, the purpose of the WMF is to help people spread free knowledge, not to collect money in a bank account.
So a dollar not spent today is nothing more than a dollar which will be spent tomorrow (ignoring interest and inflation, which nowadays about cancel each other out). For example, is the WMF better off hiring someone today to implement global watchlists, or waiting a year to do this? The cost isn't going to go down a year from now - if anything it's going to go up.
In the for-profit world, you also need to consider that a dollar spent today might mean a dollar earned tomorrow. In the for-profit world, a company which saves too much money is a bad investment. In the non-profit world it's a different explanation, but much the same principle. If the WMF fails to spend its donations, eventually the donations are going to slow down or stop. Why donate to a non-profit which has 2 million in the bank, another 1 million in committed donations, and a history of underspending its alleged budget?
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, This is not specific to non profit organisations, it is true for all organisations. A dollar not spend is a dollar saved and a dollar profit. This is what keeps the bean counters happy :) Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:47 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:50 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
When you find that you do NOT spend money, you are happy as you have more money in the bank.
I don't understand this sentence. Can you rephrase it? And can you explain how it applies to non-profit organizations?
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On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 3:48 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Ultimately, the purpose of the WMF is to help people spread free knowledge, not to collect money in a bank account.
Anthony?
When you play blackjack do you bet all your money the first time the odds look like they are in your favor? Why not? You'd just bet the money later when the odds looked no better. ... If you did, you would not be playing for long.
Presumably operating Wikimedia isn't entirely like gambling, but the truth remains that sometimes there will be times where luck (or good judgment!) is in short supply, and it would be a loss to everyone if things ran dry and either had to either shut down or change drastically simply because income is not constantly distributed through all time.
A solid backup fund increases the organization's freedom to follow its mission without unreasonable compromise. If the money is well cared for the cost of such security is low.
Would you really rather a future where the foundation found itself subject to the whims and manipulations of large sponsors (or public fads!), possibly against the interests of the mission, because a failure to heed these forces would result in program cancellations, layoffs, or other results which the management considered to be unacceptable?
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 3:48 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Ultimately, the purpose of the WMF is to help people spread free knowledge, not to collect money in a bank account.
Anthony?
When you play blackjack do you bet all your money the first time the odds look like they are in your favor? Why not?
I don't play blackjack, because the odds are rarely in my favor, I don't have the skills to determine when they are in my favor, and the casino wouldn't allow me to bet all my money only when the odds are in my favor anyway.
You'd just bet the money later when the odds looked no better. ... If you did, you would not be playing for long.
Depends what you mean by betting "all my money". If casinos let people count cards and bet "all their money" when the odds were in their favor, then I could probably get a loan any time I needed one, so "all my money" isn't really well defined.
Presumably operating Wikimedia isn't entirely like gambling, but the truth remains that sometimes there will be times where luck (or good judgment!) is in short supply, and it would be a loss to everyone if things ran dry and either had to either shut down or change drastically simply because income is not constantly distributed through all time.
Sure, there's a point where you can save too little. But my argument is that there's also a point where you can save too much. Gerard seemed to be suggesting that not spending = saving = good; always, not just to some extent.
Would you really rather a future where the foundation found itself subject to the whims and manipulations of large sponsors (or public fads!), possibly against the interests of the mission, because a failure to heed these forces would result in program cancellations, layoffs, or other results which the management considered to be unacceptable?
No, I wouldn't.
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 4:23 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote: [snip]
Sure, there's a point where you can save too little. But my argument is that there's also a point where you can save too much. Gerard seemed to be suggesting that not spending = saving = good; always, not just to some extent.
[snip]
Ah, sorry. Obviously I must not have been been following the discussion.
Right, at the limit saving everything is equivalent to having no money at all. ;)
Man, it's easy and fun to deal in maximums, absolutes, and corner cases.
;)
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