On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
I think your anti-Americanism is misplaced. Let's look at some of the key people involved in the VisualEditor project. Erik is German, James F is British, Roan Kattouw is Dutch, Timo Tijhof is Dutch. If you were to skim the list of the engineering staff, they are extremely diverse, with many remote employees throughout Europe and a number of relocated Europeans (and others) working in San Francisco. So I think your implication that the VE is some element of arrogant American imperialism is false, and you should retract it so that others will continue to take your feedback seriously.
I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it is true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF. As you say: "a number of relocated Europeans (and others) working in San Francisco." This concentration of resources in only one place is not healthy.
And it has additional problems like finding technical staff at a reasonable price there and having to relocate people from all over the world, when some development centers could be open at other locations too, which might be cheaper: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Development_centers_in_...
Why is this not done? Wikidata is being developed that way, so it is possible. Is there anything against repeating the experience?
Cheers, Micru
And it has additional problems like finding technical staff at a reasonable price there and having to relocate people from all over the world, when some development centers could be open at other locations too, which might be cheaper:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Development_centers_in_...
Why is this not done? Wikidata is being developed that way, so it is possible. Is there anything against repeating the experience?
I am thinking the same thing every time I read that "it is hard to find programmers in San Francisco for the offered salary" (a recurring statement over the years). We are a global movement with global projects and global goals. Secondly, in the IT industry having several locations on a global scale is more than common. Thridly, in the software engineering field employees are paid "good" salaries even in poor countries (albeit comparatively cheaper than in the Silicon Valley). Therefore we wouldn't have to worry about being accused of abusing underpaid labour.
Dimi
*We are a global movement with global projects and global goals.*
Indeed we are! But allow me to play devil's advocate here:
- How would you run HR meetings? Is it feasible to use videoconferencing? - What are the additional costs involved with this approach? Are there local taxes that would need administrating and paying? Would you need a HR team who can handle - Does it increase the WMF's liability if they have a permanent staff presence in another country (eg., EU data protection laws, or UK libel laws)? - What are the insurance implications of staff remote-working from (say) Ghana or India? - If employees from one country are entitled to certain privileges by law - eg paid paternity leave, or minimum break times - does that automatically get extended to others around the world? If not, will it create resentment between people who do the same job in different countries?
I'm not offering an opinion on this either way, but these are important things to consider if there is going to be a change.
Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
On 24 July 2013 15:10, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov < dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov@gmail.com> wrote:
And it has additional problems like finding technical staff at a
reasonable
price there and having to relocate people from all over the world, when some development centers could be open at other locations too, which
might
be cheaper:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Development_centers_in_...
Why is this not done? Wikidata is being developed that way, so it is possible. Is there anything against repeating the experience?
I am thinking the same thing every time I read that "it is hard to find programmers in San Francisco for the offered salary" (a recurring statement over the years). We are a global movement with global projects and global goals. Secondly, in the IT industry having several locations on a global scale is more than common. Thridly, in the software engineering field employees are paid "good" salaries even in poor countries (albeit comparatively cheaper than in the Silicon Valley). Therefore we wouldn't have to worry about being accused of abusing underpaid labour.
Dimi _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
(note this reply represents only my personal thoughts, and is in no way at all anything official)
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:44 AM, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
*We are a global movement with global projects and global goals.*
Indeed we are! But allow me to play devil's advocate here:
- How would you run HR meetings? Is it feasible to use videoconferencing?
I don't know if HR meetings are specially problematic, but WMF has plenty of meetings using videoconferencing. Although it is a bit annoying sometimes, it mostly works.
- What are the additional costs involved with this approach? Are there
local taxes that would need administrating and paying? Would you need a HR team who can handle
Don't forget the costs for office space, supplies, equipment, utilities, support staff, and so on too. And I can't even guess whether it might increase or decrease overall travel costs.
- Does it increase the WMF's liability if they have a permanent staff
presence in another country (eg., EU data protection laws, or UK libel laws)?
Wouldn't surprise me.
- What are the insurance implications of staff remote-working from (say)
Ghana or India?
- If employees from one country are entitled to certain privileges by
law - eg paid paternity leave, or minimum break times - does that automatically get extended to others around the world? If not, will it create resentment between people who do the same job in different countries?
I imagine just having to be aware of all the different laws and requirements in all those different countries and the extra work to comply with them all would be an issue. Probably a bigger one than just deciding whether Fooians should also get a benefit that must be provided to Barrians.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it is true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF.
Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported software engineering efforts by chapters. I'd actually love to see much more of that happen, and see other chapters build engineering capacity over time. It's legally challenging for WMF to have office presence in multiple jurisdictions, but having independent orgs like Wikimedia chapters build out development teams doesn't suffer from that challenge.
We're an open source project; being able to decentralize effort is our strength. The caveat I would add is that you actually need to ensure that complex projects are resourced sufficiently. Wikidata is a success in part because it's a well-resourced, well-managed team, and the partnership in areas where WMF does need to help was carefully negotiated.
So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity?
Erik
Erik Moeller, 24/07/2013 18:30:
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it is true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF.
Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported software engineering efforts by chapters. [...]
So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity?
Erik
Why should it be chapters? Anyway, being able to disband the SF office as regards software development (and perhaps more), and switch to remote work only, would probably be the single most effective measure for enhancing communication and cooperation in the movement.
Nemo
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:37 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.comwrote:
Anyway, being able to disband the SF office as regards software development (and perhaps more), and switch to remote work only, would probably be the single most effective measure for enhancing communication and cooperation in the movement.
As someone who moved to SF to work here, I could not disagree more. The amount of time and energy I save being near many of the people I work with closely in the same space is enormous. Not to mention the fact that many of us work better together with people we are able to see socially and so on. I could go on, but the truth is I think no one actually responsible for making such a decision is crazy enough to get rid of a central office. (Move the office? Maybe someday if we really are forced to. We've done it before. But get rid of a central office? No.)
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.comwrote:
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:37 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.comwrote:
Anyway, being able to disband the SF office as regards software development (and perhaps more), and switch to remote work only, would probably be the single most effective measure for enhancing communication and cooperation in the movement.
As someone who moved to SF to work here, I could not disagree more. The amount of time and energy I save being near many of the people I work with closely in the same space is enormous. Not to mention the fact that many of us work better together with people we are able to see socially and so on. I could go on, but the truth is I think no one actually responsible for making such a decision is crazy enough to get rid of a central office. (Move the office? Maybe someday if we really are forced to. We've done it before. But get rid of a central office? No.)
I hear texas is wide open http://www.texaswideopenforbusiness.com/ca.php.
Detroit also has lots of cheap real estate and should be a major contender.
- Ryan
Erik, if the WMF is supposed to be a global organization there is no need to concentrate all (physical) resources in SF, unless the WMF is acting as the US chapter, then it could be understood that it has to restrict its geographic presence. As I see it, for example there is no impedement to have a WMF Asia in any chosen country of that region with an engineering department dependent on the WMF.
I would like to hear from the legal team what are the challenges of having a distributed presence. It is not a new problem, many international organizations and companies have gone through the process, so there should be no need to invent new solutions. As you say, there is international staff already, the only thing missing would be a space to attract even more talent while keeping the costs down. Not everyone wants to work from home. Obviuously an external assessment would be necessary to establish what is the size necessary for that to happen and if the benefits outweight the costs.
As for chapters building engineering capacity I see it as something positive, unfortunately only at the reach of the biggest chapters, and with a very local (contry-level) organizational focus, which doesn't help in creating an international work environement.
Micru
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it
is
true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF.
Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported software engineering efforts by chapters. I'd actually love to see much more of that happen, and see other chapters build engineering capacity over time. It's legally challenging for WMF to have office presence in multiple jurisdictions, but having independent orgs like Wikimedia chapters build out development teams doesn't suffer from that challenge.
We're an open source project; being able to decentralize effort is our strength. The caveat I would add is that you actually need to ensure that complex projects are resourced sufficiently. Wikidata is a success in part because it's a well-resourced, well-managed team, and the partnership in areas where WMF does need to help was carefully negotiated.
So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity?
Erik
Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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David, do you have experience managing a fully distributed organization with offices and staff concentrations spread around the world? If so, can you outline how you resolved the various challenges (HR, coordination between teams and managers, effective oversight and mission management, insurance and liability, language barriers, etc.) such that you realized a major benefits in proportion with the costs and headaches?
While the WMF may not have an easy time of hiring developers, I haven't heard that many engineering slots are going unfilled because of a complete inability to recruit. So while you are addressing the challenges associated with your proposed model, could you outline the specific benefits you think would accrue? Would engineering outcomes be better with eng and product teams spread out around the world, in different timezones and speaking different languages? Would the cost of talent be drastically lower, and allow the WMF to hire many more engineers and thus significantly increase the pace of development? If you think these things are true, can you explain why?
If it sounds like I'm shifting the burden of justifying such a move back to you, I am. It seems more reasonable than expecting WMF leadership to rebut the proposition before anyone has truly outlined its value.
Nathan, you are wrong in shifting to me the burden of proof. The budget states that there are rising costs associated with the current location. That doesn't mean that the slots are going unfulfilled, it is always possible to raise salaries or "import" workers. But is this the best strategy? Have other strategies been considered?
The 2013-14 plan, page 26, says: "Nearly half of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering/product team is not based in the San Francisco Bay Area, so we're operating with the flexibility to hire people where they are, supporting them in making the shift to work at the central location if they're willing to do it and it makes sense for a given position. This gives us increased flexibility in recruiting and hiring."
Given that situation, would it make sense to look for answers to your questions? Because what you are asking needs a degree of analysis that only an external organisation could provide, not only a person, whatever experience they claim to have.
Micru
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 3:01 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
David, do you have experience managing a fully distributed organization with offices and staff concentrations spread around the world? If so, can you outline how you resolved the various challenges (HR, coordination between teams and managers, effective oversight and mission management, insurance and liability, language barriers, etc.) such that you realized a major benefits in proportion with the costs and headaches?
While the WMF may not have an easy time of hiring developers, I haven't heard that many engineering slots are going unfilled because of a complete inability to recruit. So while you are addressing the challenges associated with your proposed model, could you outline the specific benefits you think would accrue? Would engineering outcomes be better with eng and product teams spread out around the world, in different timezones and speaking different languages? Would the cost of talent be drastically lower, and allow the WMF to hire many more engineers and thus significantly increase the pace of development? If you think these things are true, can you explain why?
If it sounds like I'm shifting the burden of justifying such a move back to you, I am. It seems more reasonable than expecting WMF leadership to rebut the proposition before anyone has truly outlined its value.
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On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:38 AM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
Erik, if the WMF is supposed to be a global organization there is no need to concentrate all (physical) resources in SF, unless the WMF is acting as the US chapter, then it could be understood that it has to restrict its geographic presence. As I see it, for example there is no impedement to have a WMF Asia in any chosen country of that region with an engineering department dependent on the WMF.
I would like to hear from the legal team what are the challenges of having a distributed presence. It is not a new problem, many international organizations and companies have gone through the process, so there should be no need to invent new solutions.
I'm not a lawyer, so I won't pretend to speak expertly to the legal situations, but in my time on the Communications team I've seen several concrete examples of where it's very valuable to be far from a conflict physically and situated in the U.S. There's the disputed Kashmir maps in India issue (Google and other outfits with offices in those countries have given in to demandshttp://www.businessinsider.com/most-controversial-places-on-google-maps-2013-5?op=1from local authorities to alter maps in a number of cases). What kind of pressure would we get for this file if we had offices in India? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:India_disputed_areas_map.svg
The most recent example was with the DCRI in France. Had we had offices in France, I'm not sure the outcome would have been the same; I imagine our leverage would have been compromised.
Of course, there are significant challenges with U.S. laws around copyright, so it's not a panacea, certainly. But I do think it's a very complicated issue.
As you say, there is international staff already, the only thing missing would be a space to attract even more talent while keeping the costs down. Not everyone wants to work from home. Obviuously an external assessment would be necessary to establish what is the size necessary for that to happen and if the benefits outweight the costs.
As for chapters building engineering capacity I see it as something positive, unfortunately only at the reach of the biggest chapters, and with a very local (contry-level) organizational focus, which doesn't help in creating an international work environement.
Micru
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it
is
true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF.
Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported software engineering efforts by chapters. I'd actually love to see much more of that happen, and see other chapters build engineering capacity over time. It's legally challenging for WMF to have office presence in multiple jurisdictions, but having independent orgs like Wikimedia chapters build out development teams doesn't suffer from that challenge.
We're an open source project; being able to decentralize effort is our strength. The caveat I would add is that you actually need to ensure that complex projects are resourced sufficiently. Wikidata is a success in part because it's a well-resourced, well-managed team, and the partnership in areas where WMF does need to help was carefully negotiated.
So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity?
Erik
Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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Is WMF planning to outsource any of its engineering activities in the future? Or are there enough projects in the queue that makes the effort reasonable?
Otherwise I believe there is no point for any chapter to build out any software engineering capacity above their local needs or at all.
Balázs
2013/7/24 Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it
is
true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF.
Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported software engineering efforts by chapters. I'd actually love to see much more of that happen, and see other chapters build engineering capacity over time. It's legally challenging for WMF to have office presence in multiple jurisdictions, but having independent orgs like Wikimedia chapters build out development teams doesn't suffer from that challenge.
We're an open source project; being able to decentralize effort is our strength. The caveat I would add is that you actually need to ensure that complex projects are resourced sufficiently. Wikidata is a success in part because it's a well-resourced, well-managed team, and the partnership in areas where WMF does need to help was carefully negotiated.
So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity?
Erik
Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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2013/7/24 Balázs Viczián balazs.viczian@wikimedia.hu:
Is WMF planning to outsource any of its engineering activities in the future? Or are there enough projects in the queue that makes the effort reasonable?
I'd say this has already happened de facto with Wikidata. And projects are always a bunch - just not always aligned with the WMF priorities. Perhaps outsourcing some resources to local developers would help solve some of the long-opened bugs for projects related to a certain project.
Strainu
Otherwise I believe there is no point for any chapter to build out any software engineering capacity above their local needs or at all.
Balázs
2013/7/24 Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it
is
true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF.
Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported software engineering efforts by chapters. I'd actually love to see much more of that happen, and see other chapters build engineering capacity over time. It's legally challenging for WMF to have office presence in multiple jurisdictions, but having independent orgs like Wikimedia chapters build out development teams doesn't suffer from that challenge.
We're an open source project; being able to decentralize effort is our strength. The caveat I would add is that you actually need to ensure that complex projects are resourced sufficiently. Wikidata is a success in part because it's a well-resourced, well-managed team, and the partnership in areas where WMF does need to help was carefully negotiated.
So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity?
Erik
Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy. Last year Wmch offered to pay one additional developper for wikidata. It was refused because of "too much growth". For wmch this would have been just money flow while the person would have been managed by wmde's existing project team. For donors in Switzerland such a contribution would be easy to communicate. Much easier to communicate than 400000 instead of 300000 went as contribution to WMFs 30 mio budget.
Rupert Am 24.07.2013 22:56 schrieb "Balázs Viczián" balazs.viczian@wikimedia.hu:
Is WMF planning to outsource any of its engineering activities in the future? Or are there enough projects in the queue that makes the effort reasonable?
Otherwise I believe there is no point for any chapter to build out any software engineering capacity above their local needs or at all.
Balázs
2013/7/24 Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it
is
true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF.
Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported software engineering efforts by chapters. I'd actually love to see much more of that happen, and see other chapters build engineering capacity over time. It's legally challenging for WMF to have office presence in multiple jurisdictions, but having independent orgs like Wikimedia chapters build out development teams doesn't suffer from that challenge.
We're an open source project; being able to decentralize effort is our strength. The caveat I would add is that you actually need to ensure that complex projects are resourced sufficiently. Wikidata is a success in part because it's a well-resourced, well-managed team, and the partnership in areas where WMF does need to help was carefully negotiated.
So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity?
Erik
Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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Wikimedia Foundation planned a few years ago to open an office in Brazil, one India and one in the Middle East, but it has given up of this trial for several reasons.
I think before thinking about the idea of this thread, these cases should be seriously studied, inclusing some possible problems and challenges that can raise when you have far workers from different culture doing a work led by an Americo-centric organization (that was, at least, one thing pointed out by some consultants during the last all staff meeting, if I undersstood well).
And I think there is a good point about WMF office being in SF for a global organization. Its timezone is one example. What about the price of the city? But that would be a long discussion and the actual structure of the organization wouldn't allow this to change anytime soon.
Now that we know that Internet in US is as safe as in Chinas (:D), maybe an office there would be a good trial? :)
Le 2013-07-26 04:23, Everton Zanella Alvarenga a écrit :
Wikimedia Foundation planned a few years ago to open an office in Brazil, one India and one in the Middle East, but it has given up of this trial for several reasons.
I think before thinking about the idea of this thread, these cases should be seriously studied, inclusing some possible problems and challenges that can raise when you have far workers from different culture doing a work led by an Americo-centric organization (that was, at least, one thing pointed out by some consultants during the last all staff meeting, if I undersstood well).
Can you provide some relevant links on this subject, please?
And I think there is a good point about WMF office being in SF for a global organization. Its timezone is one example.
Could you be more explicit, please?
What about the price of the city?
What do you mean?
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy.
For my part, I'm happy to offer feedback to the FDC on plans related to the development of engineering capacity in FDC-funded organizations. I'm sure Wikimedia Germany, too, would be happy to share its experiences growing the Wikidata development team. I'd love to find ways to bootstrap more engineering capacity across the movement, as so many of our shared challenges have a software engineering component. If any folks on-list want to touch base on these questions at Wikimania, drop me a note. :)
Erik
Well, both Hungary and Budapest aims to be the R&D center of the region. There are multiple government and munipal funds and programmes plus a lot of favouring policies on both administrative levels, including a full dedicated neighbourhood on the bank of the Danube, named Infopark (since 1996 [1])
Setting up a formally for-profit company who's only contractor would be the WMF (and/or other chapters) in BP can be funded well over 50% from non movement funds (or low/no interest loans) during the first few years and would be much much cheaper than any parts of Western Europe and most of the CEE. Doing so though WMHU or a separate non-profit way - probaly also doable.
However having one such department for the sake of having one is a total waste of time, money and efforts everywhere in the World, so the main question is: are there enough projects that could make establishing such a department/spearate entity reasonable?
Balázs
[1] http://www.infopark.hu/lang/en/
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy.
For my part, I'm happy to offer feedback to the FDC on plans related to the development of engineering capacity in FDC-funded organizations. I'm sure Wikimedia Germany, too, would be happy to share its experiences growing the Wikidata development team. I'd love to find ways to bootstrap more engineering capacity across the movement, as so many of our shared challenges have a software engineering component. If any folks on-list want to touch base on these questions at Wikimania, drop me a note. :)
Erik
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On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 1:57 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy.
For my part, I'm happy to offer feedback to the FDC on plans related to the development of engineering capacity in FDC-funded organizations. I'm sure Wikimedia Germany, too, would be happy to share its experiences growing the Wikidata development team. I'd love to find ways to bootstrap more engineering capacity across the movement, as so many of our shared challenges have a software engineering component. If any folks on-list want to touch base on these questions at Wikimania, drop me a note. :)
Chapters undertaking technology work is definitely a good thing!
I can say personally, unofficially (as member of the wikidata team) that I am definitely happier working in Berlin (with lower salary, that goes pretty far), versus SF. I am not convinced I could afford same lifestyle in SF on salary offered by WMF.
Could one afford to live on their own in a 1b apartment in SOMA on WMF salary, which has median cost of $3,475 [1] a month? Or would I need have flatmate or need to commute from farther away?
The rule of thumb is that one should not spend more than 30% of their income (after tax!), and ideally smaller percentage than that. That requires $11,500 (after tax) salary, per month.
I can very easily live on my own in the best parts of Berlin, near the WMDE office, or whatever I want. Just sayin' .... :)
I understand that lots of people like to live in SF anyway, even with whatever sacrifices they must make to afford it. And good that WMF offers the remote work option.
[1] http://priceonomics.com/the-san-francisco-rent-explosion/
Cheers, Katie
Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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Hi Erik (and whomever from WMDE),
For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for a chapter to take on? I think that most chapters* would be willing to help out in the software development space if we got a bit of direction on how we could be the most useful.
Cheers, Craig Franklin
* Keeping in mind that my chapter probably wouldn't have the capacity to start anything in this space for at least another twelve months.
On 27 July 2013 09:57, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy.
For my part, I'm happy to offer feedback to the FDC on plans related to the development of engineering capacity in FDC-funded organizations. I'm sure Wikimedia Germany, too, would be happy to share its experiences growing the Wikidata development team. I'd love to find ways to bootstrap more engineering capacity across the movement, as so many of our shared challenges have a software engineering component. If any folks on-list want to touch base on these questions at Wikimania, drop me a note. :)
Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 8:41 PM, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for a chapter to take on?
It's a great question, Craig. One idea that I think is worth kicking around is how we can partner together in increasing diversity in our developer, design & product community while working on important problems.
One of the programs I'm most excited about is our involvement in Outreach Program for Women (huge kudos to Sumana Harihareswara and Quim Gil for making this happen): https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen
OPW is similar to Google Summer of Code, in that participants receive a stipend for their work, but it is specifically targeted at bringing women into the open source / free software community, is not limited purely to development, and is sponsored by participating organizations.
The reason I bring it up in this context is that I think seeing Wikimedia chapters engage in similar efforts to bring women, as well as other underrepresented groups, into our engineering/design/product community would align very well with our shared interest in increasing diversity. We already have mentorship models for GSOC and OPW which ensure that people participating in these programs can actually get their code reviewed, and that both candidates and ideas are vetted.
You can read more about our GSOC and OPW processes here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2013 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreach_Program_for_Women
Our OPW interns and our GSOC students are working on pretty important problems. For example, math and RTL support for VisualEditor are being developed by GSOC students. This is no accident and a lot of coordination work was done upfront to ensure we get solid project submissions that relate to our most important problems.
So, how could this work for a Wikimedia chapter? Perhaps as a new diversity outreach program run by the chapter, inspired by OPW? Or perhaps integrated with OPW, if GNOME Foundation is open to it? Or a completely different approach, e.g. learning from Etsy's efforts to increase diversity by partnering with Hacker School? [1] I don't know - but I think it's worth experimenting with.
I do think it's something a small org could pull off, because a lot of it is about communication/coordination more than about managing a complex cross-disciplinary engineering effort. And it's perhaps a good way for a chapter, too, to get familiar with some of the intricacies and complexity of doing engineering work in our context without committing yet to building out a full-on tech department.
The important part is that we connect people new to our ecosystem with capable mentors/reviewers -- whether those are experienced volunteers, employed by WMF, or employed by a chapter that's already doing engineering work like WMDE. Without that mentorship support, it doesn't work.
Erik
[1] http://firstround.com/article/How-Etsy-Grew-their-Number-of-Female-Engineers...
On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 8:41 PM, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type
for
a chapter to take on?
It's a great question, Craig. One idea that I think is worth kicking around is how we can partner together in increasing diversity in our developer, design & product community while working on important problems.
On this topic, one thing that was brought up in the Board elections questions & answers was the (ongoing) need to triage feature requests by the community, including especially requests for features from experienced & admin users, and feature requests from the sister projects.
One of the ideas in the candidate answers was to focus more on building a central place where feature requests (and cool existing tools) can be shared between language editions and projects, and where feature ideas could get refined outside of bugzilla & the lists; another idea was to build a kind of technical committee to help collect and refine these ideas. Then of course there is the actual technical work of addressing these requests.
I don't know if working on this would fit in with what any of the chapters are doing, but it does seem like a social/technical/community area that could use some energy.
best, -- phoebe
(sorry, going through this thread that happened while I was on holidays)
On 07/28/2013 07:35 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:
On this topic, one thing that was brought up in the Board elections questions & answers was the (ongoing) need to triage feature requests by the community, including especially requests for features from experienced & admin users, and feature requests from the sister projects.
Yes!
One of the ideas in the candidate answers was to focus more on building a central place where feature requests (and cool existing tools) can be shared between language editions and projects, and where feature ideas could get refined outside of bugzilla & the lists;
http://bugzilla.mediawiki.org IS a central place to discuss feature requests. For higher level discussions there is http://mediawiki.org
Any reason for the projects not to embrace these existing channels?
another idea was to build a kind of technical committee to help collect and refine these ideas.
<prejudice>Technical committees have a tendency to become less technical or less committee than you wish.</prejudice> Any reasons for technical people in the projects not to jump in the Wikitech/MediaWiki common pool? I'd say that the ones that do don't regret it.
See also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/Ambassadors & http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Product_development &
Then of course there is the actual technical work of addressing these requests.
I don't know if working on this would fit in with what any of the chapters are doing, but it does seem like a social/technical/community area that could use some energy.
Agreed. There are more than 5.000 open feature requests welcoming that kind of energy:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/report.cgi?x_axis_field=priority&y_axis_f...
(Or http://bit.ly/19CKsqf if the link is broken)
Subject: was Re: About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement")
Let me start off by saying: Different chapters, thematic orgs, etc. have different levels of tech expertise, and there is enough work for everyone to have some if they want. :-)
People who are experts in reading, editing, proofreading, uploading, teaching, etc. with Wikimedia sites can help by pairing with developers to mentor interns, and can test proposed changes to see if they work. People who are interested in dabbling a little and learning some of the technical side can sponsor audits, do community liaison work via https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors, and gather information about needed functionality to advise on products https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/11/21/lead-development-process-product-adviser-manager/. People who can code a little bit can improve, translate, and port gadgets and bots and Lua templates, or even fix bugs in MediaWiki, and then move on to one of the "mentored projects" ideas as a next step. And groups with a lot of technical expertise can follow Wikimedia Germany's example with a big project like Wikidata.
All of these are ways to make a difference.
On 07/28/2013 03:31 AM, Erik Moeller wrote http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-July/127237.html : ...
So, how could this work for a Wikimedia chapter? Perhaps as a new diversity outreach program run by the chapter, inspired by OPW? Or perhaps integrated with OPW, if GNOME Foundation is open to it? Or a completely different approach, e.g. learning from Etsy's efforts to increase diversity by partnering with Hacker School? [1] I don't know
- but I think it's worth experimenting with.
I do think it's something a small org could pull off, because a lot of it is about communication/coordination more than about managing a complex cross-disciplinary engineering effort. And it's perhaps a good way for a chapter, too, to get familiar with some of the intricacies and complexity of doing engineering work in our context without committing yet to building out a full-on tech department.
The important part is that we connect people new to our ecosystem with capable mentors/reviewers -- whether those are experienced volunteers, employed by WMF, or employed by a chapter that's already doing engineering work like WMDE. Without that mentorship support, it doesn't work.
Quim and others have continued talking about the specifics of using mentored projects as a place for Wikimedia organizations (chapters, thematic organizations, etc.) to start. Quim, on the mentorship project ideas http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Possible_projects :
I don't see why the chapters couldn't consider this list as a source of inspiration for software projects they could sponsor. They don't even need to have the technical capacity in house: we can help finding the right mentors for each project and we can also help selecting the right developer(s) - like we do for GSoC / OPW.
I agree! And I'd love to see this happen. But that's not the only way. I want to go back to Erik's idea and think about diversifying the whole software development process. I'd love to see chapters, thematic orgs, and other Wikimedia organizations helping get diverse voices and talents involved in information-gathering, in improving our plans about what to build, in testing prototypes to make sure the delivered software suits the needs of the movement, and so on.
For instance, check out https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Accessibility#People_and_organizations_working_on_MediaWiki_accessibility . It's helpful that WMDE is currently contracting with Marius Hoch, who is fixing accessibility-related bugs. But it has also been useful (in my opinion) for all the other people in that list -- from WMIT, WMDC, WMDE, WMFR, and others -- to hold workshops, fund and manage audits, write guides, and so on! All of these have helped make our sites more accessible.
Similarly, what WMUK plans to do with Wikimania next year https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Outreach -- reaching out to larger tech communities and bringing them to Wikimania, cross-pollinating us all together -- will help the movement's tech progress. It'll be great to have more opendata/bigdata and design experts reusing our work, suggesting improvements, and perhaps joining us longterm.
Phoebe wrote:
On this topic, one thing that was brought up in the Board elections questions & answers was the (ongoing) need to triage feature requests by the community, including especially requests for features from experienced & admin users, and feature requests from the sister projects.
One of the ideas in the candidate answers was to focus more on building a central place where feature requests (and cool existing tools) can be shared between language editions and projects, and where feature ideas could get refined outside of bugzilla & the lists; another idea was to build a kind of technical committee to help collect and refine these ideas. Then of course there is the actual technical work of addressing these requests.
I don't know if working on this would fit in with what any of the chapters are doing, but it does seem like a social/technical/community area that could use some energy.
Check out the notes from the Engineering Community Team's Wikimania session https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Submissions/Transparency_and_c... to see some ideas of where this is already happening -- Quim also talked about that in this thread -- and how we're encouraging people to participate. Our team's happy to help guide people who want to learn how to do this kind of liaising, triaging, and sharing.
Daniel Mietchen discussed porting and maintaining tools like Citation bot:
I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.
...
due to ongoing developments in other areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?
Some bot owners manage to handle all this on their own, but having support from a chapter for such things (on an opt-in basis) or for feature requests from the wider community would probably be widely appreciated.
to which John Vandenberg replied:
Is there a list of such tools that have been identified as needing paid support?
I believe Silke Meyer of WMDE is the best person to speak definitively about this so I'll defer to her. But yes, I would love for more Wikimedia organizations to customize, maintain, port, translate, and otherwise improve bots, tools, and gadgets.
Here are some instructions regarding documenting, localising and porting templates and gadgets -- written by one of our past OPW interns:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Extension_cite.pdf
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Documenting_noteworthy_local_templates.p...
According to Arjuna Rao Chavala, https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Essentials_for_Nurturin... it's really helpful to smaller Wikipedias to help them adopt tools like HotCat and Twinkle and bots.
Nemo wrote on Aug 24:
I offer myself as example of bad responsible for a small technical project by a chapter (WMIT) some years ago. We managed to help Kiwix a bit but we miserably failed with (Wikisource/Wikibooks) books management improvements: at some point I no longer had the time and mental strength to discuss and make decisions about the money the board had trusted me with; when I finally got the board to replace me, we failed to get the new responsible begin and restart/complete the job, till the board/assembly removed it from the annual budget.
Nemo, I'm glad you mentioned this problem. What do you think would be necessary in order to make future WMIT tech initiatives successful? Mentorship from more experienced IT project managers? Frequent check-ins to find dropped tasks faster? Paid contractors for engineering or administration? I'm just giving ideas - maybe you have an idea of what you would do, if you could do this over again. (And thank you for trying, and for talking about failure openly.)
I hope this is helpful (though long!). And thanks to Markus Glaser and others who spoke with me at Wikimania to think through a lot of this.
Sumana Harihareswara, 29/08/2013 23:42:
Nemo wrote on Aug 24:
I offer myself as example of bad responsible for a small technical project by a chapter (WMIT) some years ago. We managed to help Kiwix a bit but we miserably failed with (Wikisource/Wikibooks) books management improvements: at some point I no longer had the time and mental strength to discuss and make decisions about the money the board had trusted me with; when I finally got the board to replace me, we failed to get the new responsible begin and restart/complete the job, till the board/assembly removed it from the annual budget.
Nemo, I'm glad you mentioned this problem. What do you think would be necessary in order to make future WMIT tech initiatives successful? Mentorship from more experienced IT project managers? Frequent check-ins to find dropped tasks faster? Paid contractors for engineering or administration? I'm just giving ideas - maybe you have an idea of what you would do, if you could do this over again. (And thank you for trying, and for talking about failure openly.)
The main problems I can find are those I described (plus the legal bureaucracy of contracts/offers); I don't know in general what would actually help. An interesting approach is what chapters did with Europeana.
In the specific case, by spending a lot of effort on it I had managed to find a solution for all the biggest obstacles; in another period it could have just worked. As always, if you rely on a single volunteer for something and you don't have a replacement ready, a single moment of failure can bring the whole project down. However, it would have been much easier, had we had internal (or "internalisable") competence to assess with confidence whether an offer makes sense from a technical and financial point of view. It's very hard to find it together with understanding of the fitness to the chapter's goals and without any COI.
Nemo
P.s.:
I hope this is helpful (though long!). [...]
Long enough that I almost missed the question to me, especially given the 4th subject change of the thread + thread theft via References. ;)
Sorry for double post; Erik's post below is useful to illustrate my point which I failed to communicate (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-September/128053.html).
Erik Moeller, 28/07/2013 09:31:
On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 8:41 PM, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for a chapter to take on?
It's a great question, Craig. One idea that I think is worth kicking around is how we can partner together in increasing diversity in our developer, design & product community while working on important problems. [...]
So, how could this work for a Wikimedia chapter? Perhaps as a new diversity outreach program run by the chapter, inspired by OPW? Or perhaps integrated with OPW, if GNOME Foundation is open to it? Or a completely different approach, e.g. learning from Etsy's efforts to increase diversity by partnering with Hacker School? [1] I don't know
- but I think it's worth experimenting with.
I don't know if this is *the* way forward, but I think this proposal is an example of something that makes sense. Why? It defines a scope which works towards the goals and plans of all involved entities together (overlap) but is also under the control of each of them separately (accountability etc.). So, if e.g. WMF decides not to enable the new extension produced by an intern, at least the chapter can say it has successfully increased diversity in the developer community. Don't put all your eggs in one basket; especially if you're not holding it.
Nemo
I do think it's something a small org could pull off, because a lot of it is about communication/coordination more than about managing a complex cross-disciplinary engineering effort. And it's perhaps a good way for a chapter, too, to get familiar with some of the intricacies and complexity of doing engineering work in our context without committing yet to building out a full-on tech department.
The important part is that we connect people new to our ecosystem with capable mentors/reviewers -- whether those are experienced volunteers, employed by WMF, or employed by a chapter that's already doing engineering work like WMDE. Without that mentorship support, it doesn't work.
Erik
[1] http://firstround.com/article/How-Etsy-Grew-their-Number-of-Female-Engineers...
I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.
For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author. It is currently being ported to Labs ( https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot ) to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?
Some bot owners manage to handle all this on their own, but having support from a chapter for such things (on an opt-in basis) or for feature requests from the wider community would probably be widely appreciated.
Daniel
On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 5:41 AM, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
Hi Erik (and whomever from WMDE),
For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for a chapter to take on? I think that most chapters* would be willing to help out in the software development space if we got a bit of direction on how we could be the most useful.
Cheers, Craig Franklin
- Keeping in mind that my chapter probably wouldn't have the capacity to
start anything in this space for at least another twelve months.
On 27 July 2013 09:57, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy.
For my part, I'm happy to offer feedback to the FDC on plans related to the development of engineering capacity in FDC-funded organizations. I'm sure Wikimedia Germany, too, would be happy to share its experiences growing the Wikidata development team. I'd love to find ways to bootstrap more engineering capacity across the movement, as so many of our shared challenges have a software engineering component. If any folks on-list want to touch base on these questions at Wikimania, drop me a note. :)
Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen < daniel.mietchen@googlemail.com> wrote:
I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.
For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author. It is currently being ported to Labs ( https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot ) to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?
Yes! From a user perspective, that's definitely an area of need, and a great example too. Personal note: I LOVE Citation Bot, and I hope it comes back soon!
-- phoebe
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:36 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen < daniel.mietchen@googlemail.com> wrote:
I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.
For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author. It is currently being ported to Labs ( https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot ) to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?
Yes! From a user perspective, that's definitely an area of need, and a great example too. Personal note: I LOVE Citation Bot, and I hope it comes back soon!
It appears to be operating
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Citation_bot
So chapters can offer to help porting tools like this to Labs and ongoing maintenance of these tools? Is there a list of such tools that have been identified as needing paid support?
-- John Vandenberg
On 07/28/2013 11:46 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
So chapters can offer to help porting tools like this to Labs and ongoing maintenance of these tools? Is there a list of such tools that have been identified as needing paid support?
It's probably worth nothing that WMDE has, in fact, already earmarked staff (and a budget) to do the migration aspect of this. Silke Meyer (I think) heads that effort.
On the other hand, there are a number of tools on which projects rely that -- even if they do not need help migrating at this moment -- could benefit from continued support. Perhaps the current efforts by the WMDE staff can be used as a model for how chapters can contribute on the engineering aspects of the projects? I'm sure they are gathering a great deal of experience in how to do this thanks to the migration efforts and the ongoing work on Wikidata.
-- Marc
On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:46 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:36 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen < daniel.mietchen@googlemail.com> wrote:
I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.
For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author. It is currently being ported to Labs ( https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot ) to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?
Yes! From a user perspective, that's definitely an area of need, and a great example too. Personal note: I LOVE Citation Bot, and I hope it
comes
back soon!
It appears to be operating
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Citation_bot
Ah, thanks, I didn't check -- just saw the inactive note on the bot page. Glad to see that it's operating; I was super sad when it went away as it makes it so easy to cite recent journal articles.
Anyway, yes, a good example of a small tool that makes editing easier :)
-- phoebe
So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software engineering capacity?
Actually we've been having this conversation a bit as part of our strategic planning process - how much should Wikimedia UK be doing technology and what place should it have in our long-term goals? After some debate we decided it was important enough to merit a top-level point of its own;
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Towards_a_five_year_plan_2013-18/Draft_Goals_vs...
That said it's not something we are likely to make any big strides on in 2014.
Chris
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