Hoi, For a bit of background form 990 is probably something everybody knows about as it is financial and important and that is why we mention this.. For all of you who do not know, we have a FAQ where you may find what is relevant about all this. Thanks, GerardM
PS sorry Greg for pulling your leg. :)
On 18 May 2016 at 20:55, Gregory Varnum gvarnum@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sent on behalf of Wikimedia Foundation's Finance Team:
The Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 for FY 2014 - 2015 has been posted on the Wikimedia Foundation Wiki's Financial Reports page: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports
A list of answers to frequently asked questions about this form has also been posted on the same page.
Please contact Jaime Villagomez or Tony Le with any questions: jvillagomez@wikimedia.org or tle@wikimedia.org
Thank you, Finance Team Wikimedia Foundation
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
Thanks Greg.
I hope this is a good place also to ask a few questions about the form. When reading and comparing https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/27/Form_990_FY_2014-2015_-_Public.pdf with previous forms, two things jumped out as 'odd'. Probably there's a reasonable explanation, and I'm mostly curious for it. They were conveniently missed in the FAQ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1d/Form_990_Questions_and_Answers_2014.pdf .
First, there's an overview of 'highest paid contractors' (for reading along: page 61) and the top one is a law firm for 1.7 Million USD. Which is quite a big sum of money. I'm confident this was necessary and unavoidable, but given the much lower amounts in previous years, what happened in 2014/2015 that made this necessary? I understood the NSA lawsuit was done pro bono, which is the most visible thing I remember from that year.
Second, I noted a steep increase in the costs for the Executive Director (for readers: someone put together a helpful overview of top salaries here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries). I generally don't like to dig into personal finances, but what really stood out, was the increase from 200k in 2013/2014 for the ED at that time, and 300k for the ED in 2014/2015. Now that is an increase of 50% - which is a lot and partially mitigated by the salary freeze the ED had the three years before. But what is even more striking, is the additional 300k that was paid to the outgoing ED, which means basically that the compensation to the 'ED team' was tripled from 200k to 600k. Could someone touch on this, and give some pointers to what happened here? Was there a general rationale behind this, or was the new ED simply a tougher negotiator? Are there any catches how these numbers are being presented, and how they should be read and not misinterpreted?
Best, Lodewijk
2016-05-19 8:52 GMT+02:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, For a bit of background form 990 is probably something everybody knows about as it is financial and important and that is why we mention this.. For all of you who do not know, we have a FAQ where you may find what is relevant about all this. Thanks, GerardM
PS sorry Greg for pulling your leg. :)
On 18 May 2016 at 20:55, Gregory Varnum gvarnum@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sent on behalf of Wikimedia Foundation's Finance Team:
The Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 for FY 2014 - 2015 has been posted on
the
Wikimedia Foundation Wiki's Financial Reports page: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports
A list of answers to frequently asked questions about this form has also been posted on the same page.
Please contact Jaime Villagomez or Tony Le with any questions: jvillagomez@wikimedia.org or tle@wikimedia.org
Thank you, Finance Team Wikimedia Foundation
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
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Hoi,
First, there's an overview of 'highest paid contractors' (for reading along: page 61) and the top one is a law firm for 1.7 Million USD. Which is quite a big sum of money.
I'd like to second this question - 1.7M is a very significant sum and I am surprised that WMF has reason to spend this much on legal services (I had the impression that the WMF legal department handled most things themselves).
It would be useful to know a bit more about this figure.
Regards,
Chris
19.05.2016, 17:25, "Chris Keating" <email clipped>:
<clipped for brevity>
I'd like to second this question - 1.7M is a very significant sum and I am surprised that WMF has reason to spend this much on legal services (I had the impression that the WMF legal department handled most things themselves).
I was surprised how little WMF Legal do themselves. When a legal matter comes up, it seems what they do is find a law firm to pay to handle it. This happened in the case of Yank Berry, vocalist of 60s rock and roll group the Kingsmen (Louie Louie, etc.), who was astounded at the edits at his article by editors and administrators who very openly said on-wiki their intent was to portray him as a swindler and someone of low moral character. Mr. Berry credibly threatened a libel lawsuit and WMF Legal reacted by hiring some law firm to defend the editors.
What WMF Legal seems to do itself is modify and update the terms of service, give advise to the board, coordinate with WMF Trust and Safety in the banning of certain editors, and handle routine inquiries.
Trillium Corsage
but that does make sense in some ways as you'd expect the WMF legal be able to review most written issues and deal with initial contact issues. As an issue deepens then its only logical to have legal hand over the case to a local practitioner who is licensed and has the depth of knowledge specific to jurisdiction and speciality in which they operate something the WMF cant do in 190 odd countries with countless more subnational entities.
On 30 May 2016 at 05:47, Trillium Corsage trillium2014@yandex.com wrote:
19.05.2016, 17:25, "Chris Keating" <email clipped>:
<clipped for brevity>
I'd like to second this question - 1.7M is a very significant sum and I
am
surprised that WMF has reason to spend this much on legal services (I had the impression that the WMF legal department handled most things themselves).
I was surprised how little WMF Legal do themselves. When a legal matter comes up, it seems what they do is find a law firm to pay to handle it. This happened in the case of Yank Berry, vocalist of 60s rock and roll group the Kingsmen (Louie Louie, etc.), who was astounded at the edits at his article by editors and administrators who very openly said on-wiki their intent was to portray him as a swindler and someone of low moral character. Mr. Berry credibly threatened a libel lawsuit and WMF Legal reacted by hiring some law firm to defend the editors.
What WMF Legal seems to do itself is modify and update the terms of service, give advise to the board, coordinate with WMF Trust and Safety in the banning of certain editors, and handle routine inquiries.
Trillium Corsage
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Thanks Lodewikj for your excellent catches.
1. The form-990 covers the period from 01-July 2014 to 30-June 2015. During which the payments of US$ 300,000 to Sue Gardner (SpecialAdvisor) was comparable to Lila Tretikov's (E.D.)
2. The largest contractor was "Jones Day" US$ 1,742,916 (almost 2 million) for legal services.
To illustrate the WMF's sheer wastage of donated money (incl. lunch money from Scottish schoolkids) on unnecessary litigation, I cite that the single most prominent case they defended in the period was apparently a domain name dispute (said to billed at US$ 317,490) in which the opposite party (a Wikipedian of long standing) who had only booked the domain name to prevent it from being snaffled by "cyber squatters" had immediately offered to donate it WMF free of cost before the case began. Had WMF accepted that voluntary and good faith donation offer, they would have also got back 75% of the filing fees (a not insubstantial amount). Somebody should report this to the IRS.
Dave
On 5/19/16, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Thanks Greg.
I hope this is a good place also to ask a few questions about the form. When reading and comparing https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/27/Form_990_FY_2014-2015_-_Public.pdf with previous forms, two things jumped out as 'odd'. Probably there's a reasonable explanation, and I'm mostly curious for it. They were conveniently missed in the FAQ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1d/Form_990_Questions_and_Answers_2014.pdf .
First, there's an overview of 'highest paid contractors' (for reading along: page 61) and the top one is a law firm for 1.7 Million USD. Which is quite a big sum of money. I'm confident this was necessary and unavoidable, but given the much lower amounts in previous years, what happened in 2014/2015 that made this necessary? I understood the NSA lawsuit was done pro bono, which is the most visible thing I remember from that year.
Second, I noted a steep increase in the costs for the Executive Director (for readers: someone put together a helpful overview of top salaries here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries). I generally don't like to dig into personal finances, but what really stood out, was the increase from 200k in 2013/2014 for the ED at that time, and 300k for the ED in 2014/2015. Now that is an increase of 50% - which is a lot and partially mitigated by the salary freeze the ED had the three years before. But what is even more striking, is the additional 300k that was paid to the outgoing ED, which means basically that the compensation to the 'ED team' was tripled from 200k to 600k. Could someone touch on this, and give some pointers to what happened here? Was there a general rationale behind this, or was the new ED simply a tougher negotiator? Are there any catches how these numbers are being presented, and how they should be read and not misinterpreted?
Best, Lodewijk
2016-05-19 8:52 GMT+02:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, For a bit of background form 990 is probably something everybody knows about as it is financial and important and that is why we mention this.. For all of you who do not know, we have a FAQ where you may find what is relevant about all this. Thanks, GerardM
PS sorry Greg for pulling your leg. :)
On 18 May 2016 at 20:55, Gregory Varnum gvarnum@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sent on behalf of Wikimedia Foundation's Finance Team:
The Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 for FY 2014 - 2015 has been posted on
the
Wikimedia Foundation Wiki's Financial Reports page: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports
A list of answers to frequently asked questions about this form has also been posted on the same page.
Please contact Jaime Villagomez or Tony Le with any questions: jvillagomez@wikimedia.org or tle@wikimedia.org
Thank you, Finance Team Wikimedia Foundation
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
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These seem like reasonable questions, and I'm interested to hear the answers.
David: could you point us to some sources about that domain name dispute?
*Neil P. Quinn* +1 (202) 656 3457
On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 9:39 AM, David Emrany david.emrany@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Lodewikj for your excellent catches.
- The form-990 covers the period from 01-July 2014 to 30-June 2015.
During which the payments of US$ 300,000 to Sue Gardner (SpecialAdvisor) was comparable to Lila Tretikov's (E.D.)
- The largest contractor was "Jones Day" US$ 1,742,916 (almost 2
million) for legal services.
To illustrate the WMF's sheer wastage of donated money (incl. lunch money from Scottish schoolkids) on unnecessary litigation, I cite that the single most prominent case they defended in the period was apparently a domain name dispute (said to billed at US$ 317,490) in which the opposite party (a Wikipedian of long standing) who had only booked the domain name to prevent it from being snaffled by "cyber squatters" had immediately offered to donate it WMF free of cost before the case began. Had WMF accepted that voluntary and good faith donation offer, they would have also got back 75% of the filing fees (a not insubstantial amount). Somebody should report this to the IRS.
Dave
On 5/19/16, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Thanks Greg.
I hope this is a good place also to ask a few questions about the form. When reading and comparing <
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/27/Form_990_FY_2014-2015...
with previous forms, two things jumped out as 'odd'. Probably there's a reasonable explanation, and I'm mostly curious for it. They were conveniently missed in the FAQ <
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1d/Form_990_Questions_an...
.
First, there's an overview of 'highest paid contractors' (for reading along: page 61) and the top one is a law firm for 1.7 Million USD. Which
is
quite a big sum of money. I'm confident this was necessary and
unavoidable,
but given the much lower amounts in previous years, what happened in 2014/2015 that made this necessary? I understood the NSA lawsuit was done pro bono, which is the most visible thing I remember from that year.
Second, I noted a steep increase in the costs for the Executive Director (for readers: someone put together a helpful overview of top salaries
here
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries). I generally don't like to dig into personal finances, but what really stood out, was the increase from 200k in 2013/2014 for the ED at that time, and 300k for the ED in 2014/2015. Now that is an increase of 50% - which is a lot and partially mitigated by the salary freeze the ED had the three
years
before. But what is even more striking, is the additional 300k that was paid to the outgoing ED, which means basically that the compensation to
the
'ED team' was tripled from 200k to 600k. Could someone touch on this, and give some pointers to what happened here? Was there a general rationale behind this, or was the new ED simply a tougher negotiator? Are there any catches how these numbers are being presented, and how they should be
read
and not misinterpreted?
Best, Lodewijk
2016-05-19 8:52 GMT+02:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, For a bit of background form 990 is probably something everybody knows about as it is financial and important and that is why we mention this.. For all of you who do not know, we have a FAQ where you may find what is relevant about all this. Thanks, GerardM
PS sorry Greg for pulling your leg. :)
On 18 May 2016 at 20:55, Gregory Varnum gvarnum@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sent on behalf of Wikimedia Foundation's Finance Team:
The Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 for FY 2014 - 2015 has been posted
on
the
Wikimedia Foundation Wiki's Financial Reports page: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports
A list of answers to frequently asked questions about this form has
also
been posted on the same page.
Please contact Jaime Villagomez or Tony Le with any questions: jvillagomez@wikimedia.org or tle@wikimedia.org
Thank you, Finance Team Wikimedia Foundation
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
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