This message is being translated into other languages on Meta-wiki.
العربية • español • français • português • 中文 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updates/August_2024_Update
You can help with more languages. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updates/August_2024_Update
Hi everyone - It’s approaching three years since I started getting to know many of you through a nearly 300-person “listening tour” https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour that was designed to help me understand the current needs and the future aspirations of the Wikimedia movement. A couple of months later, I officially joined the Wikimedia Foundation as CEO. Since then, I have regularly communicated here and elsewhere https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updatesabout what I’ve been doing and learning. And by now, I have met with or spoken to thousands of you all over the world.
As some of us travel to Wikimania next week, I wanted to reflect on where we are now – both in the world, and in our movement. I also want to share a few thoughts on the things that are keeping me up these days, what is giving me hope, and where I need more help as we try to move forward together.
===Setting priorities, showing results===
When I arrived in 2022, it was a very difficult moment of transition at the Wikimedia Foundation. Leadership changes are always disruptive, and I was met with a growing list of demands from Foundation staff, affiliates, volunteers, and others about what needed to be changed, fixed, added, eliminated, expanded, or devolved. And there wasn’t much agreement on any of them.
I listened first, and then got to work prioritising the Foundation’s focus in areas that felt urgent and important, including:
-
Shifting more financial resources https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Budget_Details#Prioritizing_support_for_the_Movement to affiliates and other movement entities by slowing the Foundation’s own growth; -
Centering the technology needs of contributors and projects https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025#centeringtech as a top priority across the Foundation; -
Reaching and supporting global communities in many more languages https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Communications/Organization_communications_translators_group (from 6 to 30+); -
Providing more transparency about the Foundation’s staffing levels https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Budget_Details#Staff_overview, budgeting details https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Budget_Details, human resources policies https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/05/03/building-a-global-staff-community-at-the-wikimedia-foundation/, and executive salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/Foundation_Details#Compensation_Principles ; -
Assembling a capable leadership team https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updates/Nine_month_update#Priority_2:_Leadership through both new hires and internal promotions https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/executive/ that is committed to accountability, and strives to lead by example; -
Changing the Foundation’s orientation to have a more explicit external focus https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/External_Trends on technology and social trends, laws and regulations, funding and resourcing shifts that should inform our decisions and actions; -
And evolving our strategy and planning to more closely align to the movement’s strategic direction and recommendations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/History – more on this below.
In a relatively short period of time, we have made significant improvements responding to a range of concerns I encountered when I arrived. This is not the full list of what has improved – of course there is more to do and many more improvements to make. But I believe that the Wikimedia Foundation has changed for the better. Some of you have let me know whether or not you agree.
=== Puzzle solving===
And now? As I think about all the issues we face, I keep returning to these puzzles https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles because, for me, they remain difficult questions that require inventive and collective puzzle solving. I can’t solve them alone, and the Foundation can’t solve them in isolation, either.
The one that is keeping me up is whether we are delivering what the world needs from us https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_1:_What_does_the_world_need_from_us_now?, now? I want to talk more about how we strengthen communities all over the world in the face of increased risks and threats to our people and projects. Some of these include combating mis/disinformation https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/10/19/wikimedia-is-an-antidote-to-disinformation-introducing-a-repository-of-anti-disinformation-projects/ in this blockbuster year of elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elections_in_2024, the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks on our platforms, tracking complex legal requirements https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Goals/Safety_%26_Integrity#Legal_Defense_and_Compliance across a growing list of jurisdictions, responding to ongoing demands to remove content on our sites https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/transparency/2023-2/, the questions being posed in novel legal cases https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Legifer/juin_2024#Suite_concernant_les_deux_suppressions_juridiques_effectu%C3%A9es_par_la_Fondation_Wikimedia_sur_fr-WP that we are litigating right now, and the step-change increase I see in crisis management and brand attacks for a more polarising world.
These risks we face are mirrored by even bigger threats in the broader knowledge ecosystem. These include more frequent internet shutdowns https://www.accessnow.org/internet-shutdowns-2023/, threats to civic spaces https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2023/06/mapping-and-addressing-threats-civic-space-online, decreasing freedom online, attacks on free expression, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2023/repressive-power-artificial-intelligence lower levels of public trust in information sources, increased threats to human rights, and the amplification effect of powerful AI tools https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.05749 being introduced all at the same time.
In the face of all this, a mandate of our mission https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/mission/ is to “make and keep useful information from [our] projects available on the internet free of charge, in perpetuity.” What does this require of us, now? I want to talk more about how our projects become “multigenerational https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/multigenerational” to sustain themselves in this volatile future.
Are there enough contributors, administrators, and other editors with extended rights to create, revise, and share the sum of all knowledge? Are enough people with varied perspectives and experiences raising their hands to participate in shaping their project communities, our global movement, or even just to vote in elections? Can we maintain and increase the trust of the public in our content, and also for our financing?
All of this requires the Foundation to keep centering itself on enabling the essential technical infrastructure that is core to every aspect of our mission. In 2022, I said that while I can’t solve the puzzle of tech-enablement https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_3:_A_human-led,_tech-enabled_movement_must_be_strongly_%E2%80%98tech-enabled%E2%80%99alone, “I can take accountability for the leadership, focus, and clarity that is needed to begin closing the gap between where we are and where we need to be.” Since then, we’ve named this priority for the entire Foundation. Our teams have accelerated what they can improve quickly, and named the things that they can’t do alone.
====Making Progress ====
We are making progress. Over the last year, we have seen a 25% increase https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Product_Insights/Reports/June_2024 in MediaWiki core developers. Our engineering teams launched a new data centre in South America https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/26/the-journey-to-open-our-first-data-center-in-south-america/ reducing load times (by as much as one-third of a second) across the region. They have also upgraded core technical infrastructure for more security and sustainability. We’ve transformed accessibility https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/17/dark-modes-bright-future-how-dark-mode-will-transform-wikipedias-accessibility/ on our projects with dark mode. Our stewards now have the ability to globally block accounts https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/23/tech-news-2024-30/ (not just IP addresses and IP ranges). Patrollers now can tackle vandalism on mobile https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/10/%d9%90addressing-vandalism-with-a-tap-the-journey-of-introducing-the-patrolling-feature-in-the-mobile-app/. Communities can now customise wiki features https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Community_Configuration to meet their unique needs. Moderators can configure automated prevention or reversion of bad edits https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Moderator_Tools/Automoderator based on scoring from a machine learning model.
We also see progress in becoming more multilingual than in name only https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_4:_Multilingual_in_name_only? and making more contributions count https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_2:_Making_all_contributions_count. A new translation service (MinT https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/06/13/mint-supporting-underserved-languages-with-open-machine-translation/) supports 200+ underserved languages, including 44 with machine translation for the first time. MinT is becoming the second most used translation service (behind Google Translate) for Wikimedia projects. An Africa growth pilot https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Growth_Pilot experimented with growing the active editor base in sub-Saharan Africa. Early results https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Africa_Growth_Pilot_Live_Tutorials_Evaluation_report_6_months.pdf show that participants trained in core Wikipedia policies experienced a 38% decrease in 48-hour edit revert rate on English Wikipedia at 6 months. In addition, as part of a new project to create tools that guide newer editors to contribute in line with policies on their local wikis, we introduced References Check https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/06/17/references-check-encouraging-adding-citations-to-wikipedia/. With this tool, more than 42% of new content edits added references, and were not reverted within 48 hours.
The Foundation has worked to comply with significant new regulations https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/the-wikimedia-foundations-perspective-on-the-dsa-and-its-global-implications-b7e84a026d7e like the European Union’s Digital Services Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act?wprov=wppw2 when the Wikimedia Foundation was the only nonprofit organisation to be classified as a “very large online platform” (VLOP) alongside major tech platforms. A disinformation team has built this repository https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Anti-Disinformation_Repository to map volunteer efforts promoting trustworthy information and acting against disinformation. And many other Foundation teams have delivered results https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025#Progress_made_on_last_year%27s_plan on many other commitments.
Less visible has been tackling intractable topics that have sometimes been left unaddressed by the Foundation, probably because there is no happy answer. Difficult and unpopular decisions must be made, and we are still learning how to make them well together. Some of these include: how to evolve our systems to keep scaling Wikipedia as essential infrastructure for the internet while also enabling the varied needs of smaller projects? How to face into the realities of an internet that is becoming more fragmented, less open source, and less free? How to make the right collective choices for Wikimedia’s future as generative AI disrupts the search-driven web traffic we have relied on for decades?
I wake up every day thinking about how many hard things like this we need to solve together: protecting our people and projects from a now much-longer list of sophisticated attacks and threats, complying with (or dissenting from) a now much-longer list of laws, regulations, and legal requirements; making the best moves we can now to sustain Wikimedia projects for generations to come in a changed internet.
=== Progress also in our governance ===
With all of this need in the world, I hope that the governance of our movement does not become an impossible puzzle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impossible_puzzles Many are frustrated by the future of a charter, and the Foundation’s decision not to ratify the current version. I can’t solve that frustration or confusion here, but I can share my perspectives on what might help us move forward.
When I arrived, these were some of my views and questions https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_5:_Projects_and_organisations :
“Early on, I asked for help to learn more about the founding pillars of Wikimedia projects, about the organisational values of the Wikimedia Foundation, and about what led to prior successes and failures throughout our 20-year history. What emerged for me is the circular puzzle of how best to run and manage the centralised institutions of a decentralised, volunteer-led movement?
This question gets asked in many different ways: is the Wikimedia Foundation more like a non-profit development organisation or a technology company? What is the role of affiliated entities like chapters or user groups? How do we account for the majority of ‘unaffiliated’ volunteers who power our projects?
These issues then become layered with views about the power and trust relationship between movement actors, including (but not only) the Foundation and communities. How should decisions be made? How should resources be shared? In my experience, these are familiar debates across many volunteer-led social movements around the world.
In our context, I am learning that some dynamics are about fundamental values, structure and power-sharing: “We operate by the tyranny of the majority – consensus – this is not good enough.” “Transparency is a tool, not a value. What is the end goal of what we need transparency for – to build trust or to what end?” “Capacity is the issue, not resources. We are volunteers – giving us money doesn’t give us time.”
While other issues are about performance and execution: “Too much focus on governance, not actual enablement of people and projects.” “What is the focus of the Wikimedia Foundation today? It is totally unclear.” “We are never willing to turn things off, shut things down or stop doing anything.”
The puzzle is how to build convergence between our divergent organisational forms and in support of our movement strategy. How do we draw on similar pillars and principles even though our organisations cannot be run like our projects? How does our diversity (of every possible form) remain the catalyst for what it takes to create – not just imagine – a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge?”
I see similar sentiments echoed in the comments https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Ratification/Voting/Results#Voter_comments submitted alongside the charter ratification vote. For me, these dynamics are likely to remain a feature of any large, diverse, and divergent global movement. Yet, this movement has set shared goals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations that we all have an obligation to implement effectively.
The Foundation remains committed to the idea of having a charter for the Wikimedia movement. My prior experience from other volunteer-led movements is that we need more clarity than we currently have in the conversations about how to share and devolve accountabilities, not only power. The Foundation has put forward this open proposal to co-create practical, time-bound experiments https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix that are intended to represent a break from the past. This is a good-faith effort to work on the practicalities of shifting accountability and decision-making to representative councils and volunteer-led bodies. Your questions, suggestions, and comments on Meta https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix will help make the outcome more successful.
We have also asked for proposals for how to progress on discussions about a next version of a charter, taking into account challenges faced in this process and the need to change it going forward, the Board’s expressed reservations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_liaisons_reflections_on_final_Movement_charter_draft, and the input submitted in the ratification vote.
Even prior to this vote, the Foundation has itself been identifying areas of accountability that should responsibly be transferred to others. We have executed on this intent, like devolving educational programmatic implementation to affiliates and others. Through this, we are learning that even on a smaller scale, equity in decision-making requires multiple stakeholders to agree on strategy, governance, financing, operations, staffing, communications, risk management, and who takes ultimate responsibility at the end of the day.
Some of you joined a session I hosted at this year’s Wikimedia Summit to ask what the Foundation should stop doing or hand over to others. While no specific proposals were offered, it is a conversation that we intend to continue. We need more clarity, not less, on roles and responsibilities in our movement – this has been and remains a priority for me and the Board of Trustees, who I see as deeply committed to Wikimedia’s mission and global communities.
Where I need more help is how to make progress within my reality of managing a much larger, highly regulated, more distributed, exceedingly complex organisation like the Wikimedia Foundation is today. I personally believe it is possible to change nearly anything we want about the Foundation – with clear-eyed, informed, and realistic understandings of the practical trade-offs and real-world consequences of those changes.
I am confident that the input provided on the Foundation’s open proposal plus the conversations next week for those attending Wikimania will help us find a clearer path forward together.
===Rational optimism===
These governance questions may be discouraging to some of you right now. Not me. I know we can solve them… and draw on the best of our values and humanity along the way.
One second ago, people around the world accessed Wikipedia https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/26/the-journey-to-open-our-first-data-center-in-south-america/ 5,500 times. Our reach is consequential. I see from our readers, donors, partners, and allies that what we do is needed now more than ever before. I see that our values continue to unite people https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/04/23/open-letter-protect-wikipedia-global-digital-compact/ everywhere. I see that we can work with others to advance our commitments https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/open-the-knowledge/journalism-awards/ to equity.
In tough moments, this global community always finds its way through. That’s what the Wikimedia movement has been doing for almost 25 years, in spite of the critics, naysayers, and sceptics. We do this by assuming good faith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith, engaging with respect and civility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars#Wikipedia's_editors_should_treat_each_other_with_respect_and_civility, expressing appreciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Barnstars, and talking through our disagreements. And above all, having each other’s backs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)/Archive_7#c-Ganesha811-20240627142100-WMF_has_our_back now when the world is really counting on us.
I welcome your reflections and your input on-wiki https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix about the path forward. You can contact me at miskander@wikimedia.org or on my talk page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User_talk:MIskander-WMF or by signing up for a conversation https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Committee/Talking:_2024 with me and other Foundation leaders and Trustees at Talking: 2024.
Maryana
Maryana Iskander
Wikimedia Foundation CEO
Maryana, Just wanted to thank you for this email. Your openness, transparency, and dedication to listening to the movement's needs are deeply appreciated. I truly enjoy reading these emails, as they summarize many ongoing initiatives and achievements that we may not always be aware of.
Itzik
On Thu, Aug 1, 2024 at 6:36 PM Maryana Iskander miskander@wikimedia.org wrote:
This message is being translated into other languages on Meta-wiki.
العربية • español • français • português • 中文 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updates/August_2024_Update
You can help with more languages. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updates/August_2024_Update
Hi everyone - It’s approaching three years since I started getting to know many of you through a nearly 300-person “listening tour” https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour that was designed to help me understand the current needs and the future aspirations of the Wikimedia movement. A couple of months later, I officially joined the Wikimedia Foundation as CEO. Since then, I have regularly communicated here and elsewhere https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updatesabout what I’ve been doing and learning. And by now, I have met with or spoken to thousands of you all over the world.
As some of us travel to Wikimania next week, I wanted to reflect on where we are now – both in the world, and in our movement. I also want to share a few thoughts on the things that are keeping me up these days, what is giving me hope, and where I need more help as we try to move forward together.
===Setting priorities, showing results===
When I arrived in 2022, it was a very difficult moment of transition at the Wikimedia Foundation. Leadership changes are always disruptive, and I was met with a growing list of demands from Foundation staff, affiliates, volunteers, and others about what needed to be changed, fixed, added, eliminated, expanded, or devolved. And there wasn’t much agreement on any of them.
I listened first, and then got to work prioritising the Foundation’s focus in areas that felt urgent and important, including:
Shifting more financial resources https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Budget_Details#Prioritizing_support_for_the_Movement to affiliates and other movement entities by slowing the Foundation’s own growth;
Centering the technology needs of contributors and projects https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025#centeringtech as a top priority across the Foundation;
Reaching and supporting global communities in many more languages https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Communications/Organization_communications_translators_group (from 6 to 30+);
Providing more transparency about the Foundation’s staffing levels https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Budget_Details#Staff_overview, budgeting details https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Budget_Details, human resources policies https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/05/03/building-a-global-staff-community-at-the-wikimedia-foundation/, and executive salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/Foundation_Details#Compensation_Principles ;
Assembling a capable leadership team https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updates/Nine_month_update#Priority_2:_Leadership through both new hires and internal promotions https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/executive/ that is committed to accountability, and strives to lead by example;
Changing the Foundation’s orientation to have a more explicit external focus https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/External_Trends on technology and social trends, laws and regulations, funding and resourcing shifts that should inform our decisions and actions;
And evolving our strategy and planning to more closely align to the movement’s strategic direction and recommendations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/History – more on this below.
In a relatively short period of time, we have made significant improvements responding to a range of concerns I encountered when I arrived. This is not the full list of what has improved – of course there is more to do and many more improvements to make. But I believe that the Wikimedia Foundation has changed for the better. Some of you have let me know whether or not you agree.
=== Puzzle solving===
And now? As I think about all the issues we face, I keep returning to these puzzles https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles because, for me, they remain difficult questions that require inventive and collective puzzle solving. I can’t solve them alone, and the Foundation can’t solve them in isolation, either.
The one that is keeping me up is whether we are delivering what the world needs from us https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_1:_What_does_the_world_need_from_us_now?, now? I want to talk more about how we strengthen communities all over the world in the face of increased risks and threats to our people and projects. Some of these include combating mis/disinformation https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/10/19/wikimedia-is-an-antidote-to-disinformation-introducing-a-repository-of-anti-disinformation-projects/ in this blockbuster year of elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elections_in_2024, the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks on our platforms, tracking complex legal requirements https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Goals/Safety_%26_Integrity#Legal_Defense_and_Compliance across a growing list of jurisdictions, responding to ongoing demands to remove content on our sites https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/transparency/2023-2/, the questions being posed in novel legal cases https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Legifer/juin_2024#Suite_concernant_les_deux_suppressions_juridiques_effectu%C3%A9es_par_la_Fondation_Wikimedia_sur_fr-WP that we are litigating right now, and the step-change increase I see in crisis management and brand attacks for a more polarising world.
These risks we face are mirrored by even bigger threats in the broader knowledge ecosystem. These include more frequent internet shutdowns https://www.accessnow.org/internet-shutdowns-2023/, threats to civic spaces https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2023/06/mapping-and-addressing-threats-civic-space-online, decreasing freedom online, attacks on free expression, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2023/repressive-power-artificial-intelligence lower levels of public trust in information sources, increased threats to human rights, and the amplification effect of powerful AI tools https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.05749 being introduced all at the same time.
In the face of all this, a mandate of our mission https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/mission/ is to “make and keep useful information from [our] projects available on the internet free of charge, in perpetuity.” What does this require of us, now? I want to talk more about how our projects become “multigenerational https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/multigenerational” to sustain themselves in this volatile future.
Are there enough contributors, administrators, and other editors with extended rights to create, revise, and share the sum of all knowledge? Are enough people with varied perspectives and experiences raising their hands to participate in shaping their project communities, our global movement, or even just to vote in elections? Can we maintain and increase the trust of the public in our content, and also for our financing?
All of this requires the Foundation to keep centering itself on enabling the essential technical infrastructure that is core to every aspect of our mission. In 2022, I said that while I can’t solve the puzzle of tech-enablement https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_3:_A_human-led,_tech-enabled_movement_must_be_strongly_%E2%80%98tech-enabled%E2%80%99alone, “I can take accountability for the leadership, focus, and clarity that is needed to begin closing the gap between where we are and where we need to be.” Since then, we’ve named this priority for the entire Foundation. Our teams have accelerated what they can improve quickly, and named the things that they can’t do alone.
====Making Progress ====
We are making progress. Over the last year, we have seen a 25% increase https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Product_Insights/Reports/June_2024 in MediaWiki core developers. Our engineering teams launched a new data centre in South America https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/26/the-journey-to-open-our-first-data-center-in-south-america/ reducing load times (by as much as one-third of a second) across the region. They have also upgraded core technical infrastructure for more security and sustainability. We’ve transformed accessibility https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/17/dark-modes-bright-future-how-dark-mode-will-transform-wikipedias-accessibility/ on our projects with dark mode. Our stewards now have the ability to globally block accounts https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/23/tech-news-2024-30/ (not just IP addresses and IP ranges). Patrollers now can tackle vandalism on mobile https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/10/%d9%90addressing-vandalism-with-a-tap-the-journey-of-introducing-the-patrolling-feature-in-the-mobile-app/. Communities can now customise wiki features https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Community_Configuration to meet their unique needs. Moderators can configure automated prevention or reversion of bad edits https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Moderator_Tools/Automoderator based on scoring from a machine learning model.
We also see progress in becoming more multilingual than in name only https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_4:_Multilingual_in_name_only? and making more contributions count https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_2:_Making_all_contributions_count. A new translation service (MinT https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/06/13/mint-supporting-underserved-languages-with-open-machine-translation/) supports 200+ underserved languages, including 44 with machine translation for the first time. MinT is becoming the second most used translation service (behind Google Translate) for Wikimedia projects. An Africa growth pilot https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Growth_Pilot experimented with growing the active editor base in sub-Saharan Africa. Early results https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Africa_Growth_Pilot_Live_Tutorials_Evaluation_report_6_months.pdf show that participants trained in core Wikipedia policies experienced a 38% decrease in 48-hour edit revert rate on English Wikipedia at 6 months. In addition, as part of a new project to create tools that guide newer editors to contribute in line with policies on their local wikis, we introduced References Check https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/06/17/references-check-encouraging-adding-citations-to-wikipedia/. With this tool, more than 42% of new content edits added references, and were not reverted within 48 hours.
The Foundation has worked to comply with significant new regulations https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/the-wikimedia-foundations-perspective-on-the-dsa-and-its-global-implications-b7e84a026d7e like the European Union’s Digital Services Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act?wprov=wppw2 when the Wikimedia Foundation was the only nonprofit organisation to be classified as a “very large online platform” (VLOP) alongside major tech platforms. A disinformation team has built this repository https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Anti-Disinformation_Repository to map volunteer efforts promoting trustworthy information and acting against disinformation. And many other Foundation teams have delivered results https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025#Progress_made_on_last_year%27s_plan on many other commitments.
Less visible has been tackling intractable topics that have sometimes been left unaddressed by the Foundation, probably because there is no happy answer. Difficult and unpopular decisions must be made, and we are still learning how to make them well together. Some of these include: how to evolve our systems to keep scaling Wikipedia as essential infrastructure for the internet while also enabling the varied needs of smaller projects? How to face into the realities of an internet that is becoming more fragmented, less open source, and less free? How to make the right collective choices for Wikimedia’s future as generative AI disrupts the search-driven web traffic we have relied on for decades?
I wake up every day thinking about how many hard things like this we need to solve together: protecting our people and projects from a now much-longer list of sophisticated attacks and threats, complying with (or dissenting from) a now much-longer list of laws, regulations, and legal requirements; making the best moves we can now to sustain Wikimedia projects for generations to come in a changed internet.
=== Progress also in our governance ===
With all of this need in the world, I hope that the governance of our movement does not become an impossible puzzle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impossible_puzzles Many are frustrated by the future of a charter, and the Foundation’s decision not to ratify the current version. I can’t solve that frustration or confusion here, but I can share my perspectives on what might help us move forward.
When I arrived, these were some of my views and questions https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_5:_Projects_and_organisations :
“Early on, I asked for help to learn more about the founding pillars of Wikimedia projects, about the organisational values of the Wikimedia Foundation, and about what led to prior successes and failures throughout our 20-year history. What emerged for me is the circular puzzle of how best to run and manage the centralised institutions of a decentralised, volunteer-led movement?
This question gets asked in many different ways: is the Wikimedia Foundation more like a non-profit development organisation or a technology company? What is the role of affiliated entities like chapters or user groups? How do we account for the majority of ‘unaffiliated’ volunteers who power our projects?
These issues then become layered with views about the power and trust relationship between movement actors, including (but not only) the Foundation and communities. How should decisions be made? How should resources be shared? In my experience, these are familiar debates across many volunteer-led social movements around the world.
In our context, I am learning that some dynamics are about fundamental values, structure and power-sharing: “We operate by the tyranny of the majority – consensus – this is not good enough.” “Transparency is a tool, not a value. What is the end goal of what we need transparency for – to build trust or to what end?” “Capacity is the issue, not resources. We are volunteers – giving us money doesn’t give us time.”
While other issues are about performance and execution: “Too much focus on governance, not actual enablement of people and projects.” “What is the focus of the Wikimedia Foundation today? It is totally unclear.” “We are never willing to turn things off, shut things down or stop doing anything.”
The puzzle is how to build convergence between our divergent organisational forms and in support of our movement strategy. How do we draw on similar pillars and principles even though our organisations cannot be run like our projects? How does our diversity (of every possible form) remain the catalyst for what it takes to create – not just imagine – a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge?”
I see similar sentiments echoed in the comments https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Ratification/Voting/Results#Voter_comments submitted alongside the charter ratification vote. For me, these dynamics are likely to remain a feature of any large, diverse, and divergent global movement. Yet, this movement has set shared goals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations that we all have an obligation to implement effectively.
The Foundation remains committed to the idea of having a charter for the Wikimedia movement. My prior experience from other volunteer-led movements is that we need more clarity than we currently have in the conversations about how to share and devolve accountabilities, not only power. The Foundation has put forward this open proposal to co-create practical, time-bound experiments https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix that are intended to represent a break from the past. This is a good-faith effort to work on the practicalities of shifting accountability and decision-making to representative councils and volunteer-led bodies. Your questions, suggestions, and comments on Meta https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix will help make the outcome more successful.
We have also asked for proposals for how to progress on discussions about a next version of a charter, taking into account challenges faced in this process and the need to change it going forward, the Board’s expressed reservations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_liaisons_reflections_on_final_Movement_charter_draft, and the input submitted in the ratification vote.
Even prior to this vote, the Foundation has itself been identifying areas of accountability that should responsibly be transferred to others. We have executed on this intent, like devolving educational programmatic implementation to affiliates and others. Through this, we are learning that even on a smaller scale, equity in decision-making requires multiple stakeholders to agree on strategy, governance, financing, operations, staffing, communications, risk management, and who takes ultimate responsibility at the end of the day.
Some of you joined a session I hosted at this year’s Wikimedia Summit to ask what the Foundation should stop doing or hand over to others. While no specific proposals were offered, it is a conversation that we intend to continue. We need more clarity, not less, on roles and responsibilities in our movement – this has been and remains a priority for me and the Board of Trustees, who I see as deeply committed to Wikimedia’s mission and global communities.
Where I need more help is how to make progress within my reality of managing a much larger, highly regulated, more distributed, exceedingly complex organisation like the Wikimedia Foundation is today. I personally believe it is possible to change nearly anything we want about the Foundation – with clear-eyed, informed, and realistic understandings of the practical trade-offs and real-world consequences of those changes.
I am confident that the input provided on the Foundation’s open proposal plus the conversations next week for those attending Wikimania will help us find a clearer path forward together.
===Rational optimism===
These governance questions may be discouraging to some of you right now. Not me. I know we can solve them… and draw on the best of our values and humanity along the way.
One second ago, people around the world accessed Wikipedia https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/26/the-journey-to-open-our-first-data-center-in-south-america/ 5,500 times. Our reach is consequential. I see from our readers, donors, partners, and allies that what we do is needed now more than ever before. I see that our values continue to unite people https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/04/23/open-letter-protect-wikipedia-global-digital-compact/ everywhere. I see that we can work with others to advance our commitments https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/open-the-knowledge/journalism-awards/ to equity.
In tough moments, this global community always finds its way through. That’s what the Wikimedia movement has been doing for almost 25 years, in spite of the critics, naysayers, and sceptics. We do this by assuming good faith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith, engaging with respect and civility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars#Wikipedia's_editors_should_treat_each_other_with_respect_and_civility, expressing appreciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Barnstars, and talking through our disagreements. And above all, having each other’s backs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)/Archive_7#c-Ganesha811-20240627142100-WMF_has_our_back now when the world is really counting on us.
I welcome your reflections and your input on-wiki https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix about the path forward. You can contact me at miskander@wikimedia.org or on my talk page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User_talk:MIskander-WMF or by signing up for a conversation https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Committee/Talking:_2024 with me and other Foundation leaders and Trustees at Talking: 2024.
Maryana
Maryana Iskander
Wikimedia Foundation CEO
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العربية • español • français • português • 中文 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Late_August_2024_update
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Hi again - I wrote three weeks ago about where I thought we were heading as a movement. You can read this letter below and also on Meta https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updates/August_2024_Update. It focused on the many challenges I see facing us in the world, and the opportunities we have to respond. I also shared hopes for constructive discussions at Wikimania that might clarify some next steps in developing a charter for the Wikimedia movement.
Thank you to all who are engaging with me, the Wikimedia Foundation staff, and Trustees, with a spirit of generosity, openness, and collective problem-solving. I acknowledge the difficult feedback we received about how the Foundation’s actions in the charter process may have eroded some trust. It will be hard to get everything right going forward, but we intend to approach next steps with more clarity about the Foundation’s obligations, limitations, and what changes we believe are possible under what conditions.
While the Board of Trustees outlined reasons https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_liaisons_reflections_on_final_Movement_charter_draft for not ratifying this version of a charter, they also asked for help with this open proposal to co-create three realistic, time-bound experiments https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix related to grants distribution, product/technology, and the affiliate ecosystem (some of the areas identified for a future Global Council). On-wiki feedback and sessions hosted at Wikimania have already improved the design of these experiments, and more input is needed.
Also, a consensus emerged from the helpful comments https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Ratification/Voting/Results/Voter_comments_-_report that were submitted through the ratification vote, on-wiki input https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter, and constructive conversations during Wikimania sessions https://wikimania.eventyay.com/2024/talk/, that a “mapping exercise” could provide visibility into the areas of the charter where there is broad agreement, as well as areas of disagreement or divergence. The Board of Trustees tasked its Governance Committee https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Governance_Committee to work on this mapping with other stakeholders who wish to remain engaged (e.g., affiliates, interested contributors https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2024:Meetups/Trilogue, former members of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee) – input on how to design this exercise over the coming weeks is welcomed here https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Late_August_2024_update/mapping. A summary of this mapping exercise will be published https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Late_August_2024_update/mapping when it is completed. The intent is to find a practical path forward over the next several months.
The Wikimedia Foundation remains committed to a charter for our movement, with a goal of responsibly shifting more accountability and decision-making to representative councils and volunteer-led bodies. The 2030 movement strategy guides the Foundation’s work, and has been explicitly and repeatedly stated in the annual plan and budget https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025. How we achieve many of the recommendations – including that of equity in decision-making https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Ensure_Equity_in_Decision-making – is where I believe people have differences of opinion and approach. Yet, to make difficult decisions together, we must come together and agree on our shared roles and responsibilities.
As I wrote below, the world needs the Wikimedia projects now more than ever, and at a time when we are experiencing rapid changes in how knowledge is being created, curated, and transmitted. As usual, we must face into many complex social, technical, regulatory and financial trends that require us to adapt swiftly. Finding the opportunities in these changes needs us all.
This email is also co-signed by Board Chair Nat Tymkiv and Governance Committee Chair Dariusz Jemielniak as we all work on finding a collective path forward. You can always contact me at miskander@wikimedia.org or on my talk page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User_talk:MIskander-WMF or by signing up for a conversation https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Committee/Talking:_2024 with Foundation leaders and Trustees at Talking: 2024. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Committee/Talking:_2024 The Board of Trustees will watch this page https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Late_August_2024_update for ongoing input and questions, and I will also provide regular updates here and elsewhere.
Maryana Iskander
CEO, Wikimedia Foundation
Nataliia Tymkiv
Chair, Board of Trustees
Dariusz Jemielniak
Chair, Governance Committee
On Thu, Aug 1, 2024 at 5:35 PM Maryana Iskander miskander@wikimedia.org wrote:
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Hi everyone - It’s approaching three years since I started getting to know many of you through a nearly 300-person “listening tour” https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour that was designed to help me understand the current needs and the future aspirations of the Wikimedia movement. A couple of months later, I officially joined the Wikimedia Foundation as CEO. Since then, I have regularly communicated here and elsewhere https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updatesabout what I’ve been doing and learning. And by now, I have met with or spoken to thousands of you all over the world.
As some of us travel to Wikimania next week, I wanted to reflect on where we are now – both in the world, and in our movement. I also want to share a few thoughts on the things that are keeping me up these days, what is giving me hope, and where I need more help as we try to move forward together.
===Setting priorities, showing results===
When I arrived in 2022, it was a very difficult moment of transition at the Wikimedia Foundation. Leadership changes are always disruptive, and I was met with a growing list of demands from Foundation staff, affiliates, volunteers, and others about what needed to be changed, fixed, added, eliminated, expanded, or devolved. And there wasn’t much agreement on any of them.
I listened first, and then got to work prioritising the Foundation’s focus in areas that felt urgent and important, including:
Shifting more financial resources https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Budget_Details#Prioritizing_support_for_the_Movement to affiliates and other movement entities by slowing the Foundation’s own growth;
Centering the technology needs of contributors and projects https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025#centeringtech as a top priority across the Foundation;
Reaching and supporting global communities in many more languages https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Communications/Organization_communications_translators_group (from 6 to 30+);
Providing more transparency about the Foundation’s staffing levels https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Budget_Details#Staff_overview, budgeting details https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Budget_Details, human resources policies https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/05/03/building-a-global-staff-community-at-the-wikimedia-foundation/, and executive salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/Foundation_Details#Compensation_Principles ;
Assembling a capable leadership team https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Updates/Nine_month_update#Priority_2:_Leadership through both new hires and internal promotions https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/executive/ that is committed to accountability, and strives to lead by example;
Changing the Foundation’s orientation to have a more explicit external focus https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/External_Trends on technology and social trends, laws and regulations, funding and resourcing shifts that should inform our decisions and actions;
And evolving our strategy and planning to more closely align to the movement’s strategic direction and recommendations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/History – more on this below.
In a relatively short period of time, we have made significant improvements responding to a range of concerns I encountered when I arrived. This is not the full list of what has improved – of course there is more to do and many more improvements to make. But I believe that the Wikimedia Foundation has changed for the better. Some of you have let me know whether or not you agree.
=== Puzzle solving===
And now? As I think about all the issues we face, I keep returning to these puzzles https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles because, for me, they remain difficult questions that require inventive and collective puzzle solving. I can’t solve them alone, and the Foundation can’t solve them in isolation, either.
The one that is keeping me up is whether we are delivering what the world needs from us https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_1:_What_does_the_world_need_from_us_now?, now? I want to talk more about how we strengthen communities all over the world in the face of increased risks and threats to our people and projects. Some of these include combating mis/disinformation https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/10/19/wikimedia-is-an-antidote-to-disinformation-introducing-a-repository-of-anti-disinformation-projects/ in this blockbuster year of elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elections_in_2024, the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks on our platforms, tracking complex legal requirements https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/Goals/Safety_%26_Integrity#Legal_Defense_and_Compliance across a growing list of jurisdictions, responding to ongoing demands to remove content on our sites https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/transparency/2023-2/, the questions being posed in novel legal cases https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Legifer/juin_2024#Suite_concernant_les_deux_suppressions_juridiques_effectu%C3%A9es_par_la_Fondation_Wikimedia_sur_fr-WP that we are litigating right now, and the step-change increase I see in crisis management and brand attacks for a more polarising world.
These risks we face are mirrored by even bigger threats in the broader knowledge ecosystem. These include more frequent internet shutdowns https://www.accessnow.org/internet-shutdowns-2023/, threats to civic spaces https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2023/06/mapping-and-addressing-threats-civic-space-online, decreasing freedom online, attacks on free expression, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2023/repressive-power-artificial-intelligence lower levels of public trust in information sources, increased threats to human rights, and the amplification effect of powerful AI tools https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.05749 being introduced all at the same time.
In the face of all this, a mandate of our mission https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/mission/ is to “make and keep useful information from [our] projects available on the internet free of charge, in perpetuity.” What does this require of us, now? I want to talk more about how our projects become “multigenerational https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/multigenerational” to sustain themselves in this volatile future.
Are there enough contributors, administrators, and other editors with extended rights to create, revise, and share the sum of all knowledge? Are enough people with varied perspectives and experiences raising their hands to participate in shaping their project communities, our global movement, or even just to vote in elections? Can we maintain and increase the trust of the public in our content, and also for our financing?
All of this requires the Foundation to keep centering itself on enabling the essential technical infrastructure that is core to every aspect of our mission. In 2022, I said that while I can’t solve the puzzle of tech-enablement https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_3:_A_human-led,_tech-enabled_movement_must_be_strongly_%E2%80%98tech-enabled%E2%80%99alone, “I can take accountability for the leadership, focus, and clarity that is needed to begin closing the gap between where we are and where we need to be.” Since then, we’ve named this priority for the entire Foundation. Our teams have accelerated what they can improve quickly, and named the things that they can’t do alone.
====Making Progress ====
We are making progress. Over the last year, we have seen a 25% increase https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Product_Insights/Reports/June_2024 in MediaWiki core developers. Our engineering teams launched a new data centre in South America https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/26/the-journey-to-open-our-first-data-center-in-south-america/ reducing load times (by as much as one-third of a second) across the region. They have also upgraded core technical infrastructure for more security and sustainability. We’ve transformed accessibility https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/17/dark-modes-bright-future-how-dark-mode-will-transform-wikipedias-accessibility/ on our projects with dark mode. Our stewards now have the ability to globally block accounts https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/23/tech-news-2024-30/ (not just IP addresses and IP ranges). Patrollers now can tackle vandalism on mobile https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/10/%d9%90addressing-vandalism-with-a-tap-the-journey-of-introducing-the-patrolling-feature-in-the-mobile-app/. Communities can now customise wiki features https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Community_Configuration to meet their unique needs. Moderators can configure automated prevention or reversion of bad edits https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Moderator_Tools/Automoderator based on scoring from a machine learning model.
We also see progress in becoming more multilingual than in name only https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_4:_Multilingual_in_name_only? and making more contributions count https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_2:_Making_all_contributions_count. A new translation service (MinT https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/06/13/mint-supporting-underserved-languages-with-open-machine-translation/) supports 200+ underserved languages, including 44 with machine translation for the first time. MinT is becoming the second most used translation service (behind Google Translate) for Wikimedia projects. An Africa growth pilot https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Growth_Pilot experimented with growing the active editor base in sub-Saharan Africa. Early results https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Africa_Growth_Pilot_Live_Tutorials_Evaluation_report_6_months.pdf show that participants trained in core Wikipedia policies experienced a 38% decrease in 48-hour edit revert rate on English Wikipedia at 6 months. In addition, as part of a new project to create tools that guide newer editors to contribute in line with policies on their local wikis, we introduced References Check https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/06/17/references-check-encouraging-adding-citations-to-wikipedia/. With this tool, more than 42% of new content edits added references, and were not reverted within 48 hours.
The Foundation has worked to comply with significant new regulations https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/the-wikimedia-foundations-perspective-on-the-dsa-and-its-global-implications-b7e84a026d7e like the European Union’s Digital Services Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act?wprov=wppw2 when the Wikimedia Foundation was the only nonprofit organisation to be classified as a “very large online platform” (VLOP) alongside major tech platforms. A disinformation team has built this repository https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Anti-Disinformation_Repository to map volunteer efforts promoting trustworthy information and acting against disinformation. And many other Foundation teams have delivered results https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025#Progress_made_on_last_year%27s_plan on many other commitments.
Less visible has been tackling intractable topics that have sometimes been left unaddressed by the Foundation, probably because there is no happy answer. Difficult and unpopular decisions must be made, and we are still learning how to make them well together. Some of these include: how to evolve our systems to keep scaling Wikipedia as essential infrastructure for the internet while also enabling the varied needs of smaller projects? How to face into the realities of an internet that is becoming more fragmented, less open source, and less free? How to make the right collective choices for Wikimedia’s future as generative AI disrupts the search-driven web traffic we have relied on for decades?
I wake up every day thinking about how many hard things like this we need to solve together: protecting our people and projects from a now much-longer list of sophisticated attacks and threats, complying with (or dissenting from) a now much-longer list of laws, regulations, and legal requirements; making the best moves we can now to sustain Wikimedia projects for generations to come in a changed internet.
=== Progress also in our governance ===
With all of this need in the world, I hope that the governance of our movement does not become an impossible puzzle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impossible_puzzles Many are frustrated by the future of a charter, and the Foundation’s decision not to ratify the current version. I can’t solve that frustration or confusion here, but I can share my perspectives on what might help us move forward.
When I arrived, these were some of my views and questions https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Officer/Maryana%E2%80%99s_Listening_Tour/The_Puzzles#Puzzle_5:_Projects_and_organisations :
“Early on, I asked for help to learn more about the founding pillars of Wikimedia projects, about the organisational values of the Wikimedia Foundation, and about what led to prior successes and failures throughout our 20-year history. What emerged for me is the circular puzzle of how best to run and manage the centralised institutions of a decentralised, volunteer-led movement?
This question gets asked in many different ways: is the Wikimedia Foundation more like a non-profit development organisation or a technology company? What is the role of affiliated entities like chapters or user groups? How do we account for the majority of ‘unaffiliated’ volunteers who power our projects?
These issues then become layered with views about the power and trust relationship between movement actors, including (but not only) the Foundation and communities. How should decisions be made? How should resources be shared? In my experience, these are familiar debates across many volunteer-led social movements around the world.
In our context, I am learning that some dynamics are about fundamental values, structure and power-sharing: “We operate by the tyranny of the majority – consensus – this is not good enough.” “Transparency is a tool, not a value. What is the end goal of what we need transparency for – to build trust or to what end?” “Capacity is the issue, not resources. We are volunteers – giving us money doesn’t give us time.”
While other issues are about performance and execution: “Too much focus on governance, not actual enablement of people and projects.” “What is the focus of the Wikimedia Foundation today? It is totally unclear.” “We are never willing to turn things off, shut things down or stop doing anything.”
The puzzle is how to build convergence between our divergent organisational forms and in support of our movement strategy. How do we draw on similar pillars and principles even though our organisations cannot be run like our projects? How does our diversity (of every possible form) remain the catalyst for what it takes to create – not just imagine – a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge?”
I see similar sentiments echoed in the comments https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Ratification/Voting/Results#Voter_comments submitted alongside the charter ratification vote. For me, these dynamics are likely to remain a feature of any large, diverse, and divergent global movement. Yet, this movement has set shared goals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations that we all have an obligation to implement effectively.
The Foundation remains committed to the idea of having a charter for the Wikimedia movement. My prior experience from other volunteer-led movements is that we need more clarity than we currently have in the conversations about how to share and devolve accountabilities, not only power. The Foundation has put forward this open proposal to co-create practical, time-bound experiments https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix that are intended to represent a break from the past. This is a good-faith effort to work on the practicalities of shifting accountability and decision-making to representative councils and volunteer-led bodies. Your questions, suggestions, and comments on Meta https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix will help make the outcome more successful.
We have also asked for proposals for how to progress on discussions about a next version of a charter, taking into account challenges faced in this process and the need to change it going forward, the Board’s expressed reservations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_liaisons_reflections_on_final_Movement_charter_draft, and the input submitted in the ratification vote.
Even prior to this vote, the Foundation has itself been identifying areas of accountability that should responsibly be transferred to others. We have executed on this intent, like devolving educational programmatic implementation to affiliates and others. Through this, we are learning that even on a smaller scale, equity in decision-making requires multiple stakeholders to agree on strategy, governance, financing, operations, staffing, communications, risk management, and who takes ultimate responsibility at the end of the day.
Some of you joined a session I hosted at this year’s Wikimedia Summit to ask what the Foundation should stop doing or hand over to others. While no specific proposals were offered, it is a conversation that we intend to continue. We need more clarity, not less, on roles and responsibilities in our movement – this has been and remains a priority for me and the Board of Trustees, who I see as deeply committed to Wikimedia’s mission and global communities.
Where I need more help is how to make progress within my reality of managing a much larger, highly regulated, more distributed, exceedingly complex organisation like the Wikimedia Foundation is today. I personally believe it is possible to change nearly anything we want about the Foundation – with clear-eyed, informed, and realistic understandings of the practical trade-offs and real-world consequences of those changes.
I am confident that the input provided on the Foundation’s open proposal plus the conversations next week for those attending Wikimania will help us find a clearer path forward together.
===Rational optimism===
These governance questions may be discouraging to some of you right now. Not me. I know we can solve them… and draw on the best of our values and humanity along the way.
One second ago, people around the world accessed Wikipedia https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/26/the-journey-to-open-our-first-data-center-in-south-america/ 5,500 times. Our reach is consequential. I see from our readers, donors, partners, and allies that what we do is needed now more than ever before. I see that our values continue to unite people https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/04/23/open-letter-protect-wikipedia-global-digital-compact/ everywhere. I see that we can work with others to advance our commitments https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/open-the-knowledge/journalism-awards/ to equity.
In tough moments, this global community always finds its way through. That’s what the Wikimedia movement has been doing for almost 25 years, in spite of the critics, naysayers, and sceptics. We do this by assuming good faith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith, engaging with respect and civility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars#Wikipedia's_editors_should_treat_each_other_with_respect_and_civility, expressing appreciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Barnstars, and talking through our disagreements. And above all, having each other’s backs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)/Archive_7#c-Ganesha811-20240627142100-WMF_has_our_back now when the world is really counting on us.
I welcome your reflections and your input on-wiki https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix about the path forward. You can contact me at miskander@wikimedia.org or on my talk page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User_talk:MIskander-WMF or by signing up for a conversation https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Committee/Talking:_2024 with me and other Foundation leaders and Trustees at Talking: 2024.
Maryana
Maryana Iskander
Wikimedia Foundation CEO
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org