Hi,
As agreed, the WMF is also sending their non-core program to the FDC approval, you can see their proposal here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Wikime...
But I'm asking myself, that's all what we consider as non-core? I didn't really done a deep research in the WMF budget (as every item in the WMF budget is like the whole big chapter budget and there are no breakdown), but for example what jumped in my mind immediate: Merchandise store (311,000$=Wikimedia Magyarország + Wikimedia Israel + Wikimedia Argentina annual budget) - what make it core? or research (324,000$) and others (again, can't go deeply with that as the items in the budget are general..).
Itzik
It seems clear to me, based on the end result and what foundation board and senior staff have said, that they decided an account of money they wanted to request from the FDC and then decided what to designate as non-core so that it added up to that amount.
Rather disingenuous of them, but Sue has been very clear that she only sees the foundation's application as a way of testing the process rather than as actually being the right way to determine the budget. On Oct 8, 2012 11:14 AM, "Itzik Edri" itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
Hi,
As agreed, the WMF is also sending their non-core program to the FDC approval, you can see their proposal here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Wikime...
But I'm asking myself, that's all what we consider as non-core? I didn't really done a deep research in the WMF budget (as every item in the WMF budget is like the whole big chapter budget and there are no breakdown), but for example what jumped in my mind immediate: Merchandise store (311,000$=Wikimedia Magyarország + Wikimedia Israel + Wikimedia Argentina annual budget) - what make it core? or research (324,000$) and others (again, can't go deeply with that as the items in the budget are general..).
Itzik _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On 8 October 2012 12:18, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It seems clear to me, based on the end result and what foundation board and senior staff have said, that they decided an account of money they wanted to request from the FDC and then decided what to designate as non-core so that it added up to that amount.
Rather disingenuous of them, but Sue has been very clear that she only sees the foundation's application as a way of testing the process rather than as actually being the right way to determine the budget. On Oct 8, 2012 11:14 AM, "Itzik Edri" itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
Hi Thomas & Itzik,
There's FAQ material on the wikis about how core versus non-core were determined -- I think it's part of the annual plan FAQ. (I'd link you to it, but I'm in a bit of a rush. Maybe somebody else can point to the right place?)
The Board and I had a number of discussions about core versus non-core -- to very swiftly recap, we decided that we did not want core to mean the rock-bottom base costs of operating the site. We realized that in making that decision we'd risk being confusing, and that people would likely end up sending inquiries like the one Itzik just sent, because they'd likely be operating on the assumption that core did indeed mean base costs. We considered whether to label it as something other than "core" in order to avoid being confusing, but in the end went ahead with core for lack of a better word.
Going from memory -- core is intended to represent the ordinary costs of running the global sites -- so for example, it would include all the costs of maintaining the trademark portfolio, providing legal defence where necessary, doing media stuff and internal global movement communications work, etc. For example we decided that internationalization & localization are part of "core," because our core work includes providing a service in multiple languages.
We did not want core to represent the base, rock-bottom, non-negotiable costs of operating the sites on a shoestring, because that's not the purpose of this exercise, because we're not in a position where we need to make extraordinarily difficult choices about whether to preserve, for example, internationalization & localization versus site performance. If we were in that position (needing to make very painful choices due to financial necessity) of course we would. But that's not where we are.
Thomas, it's not actually true that I see this as purely an exercise in testing the FDC process, although I do definitely think running part of the WMF budget through the FDC will help us be sensitive to fund-seeker needs as we iterate the process. I do also see value in the process itself -- getting community input on the WMF's non-core activities, etc., will be useful.
(Just FYI -- I won't be able to reply any more to this thread for much of the rest of the day, by the way -- I'm swamped and doing a bunch of things.)
Thanks, Sue
Dear Sue, I partially disagree with the statement "we're not in a position where we need to make extraordinarily difficult choices about whether to preserve"
If you consider the WMF financial reserves it's true, but for what I understand, the FDC should decide about the distribution of the forthcoming fundraising and so we can only guess that the movement has no fundings problem. If this winter we cannot reach the total amount fixed, what will happen? The entities that apply to the FDC will have to share the money that remain after the WMF took a lot more than what is needed to operate the project (bottom base).
I personnaly agree that the "core" should be more than only the basics, but there should be something between this extremitiy and the actual WMF FDC proposal where the community can comment only 10% of the real WMF budget.
What I could suggest is too split the WMF proposal in two parts: 1)the expanded core (high priority) 2) the non core (lower priority=actual FDC proposal). In this case, if the fundraising is not successful has intend, the cost of the difficult choices will be assumed by all the part of the movement.
sincerely
Charles
___________________________________________________________ Charles ANDRES, Chairman "Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch
Le 8 oct. 2012 à 14:08, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org a écrit :
On 8 October 2012 12:18, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It seems clear to me, based on the end result and what foundation board and senior staff have said, that they decided an account of money they wanted to request from the FDC and then decided what to designate as non-core so that it added up to that amount.
Rather disingenuous of them, but Sue has been very clear that she only sees the foundation's application as a way of testing the process rather than as actually being the right way to determine the budget. On Oct 8, 2012 11:14 AM, "Itzik Edri" itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
Hi Thomas & Itzik,
There's FAQ material on the wikis about how core versus non-core were determined -- I think it's part of the annual plan FAQ. (I'd link you to it, but I'm in a bit of a rush. Maybe somebody else can point to the right place?)
The Board and I had a number of discussions about core versus non-core -- to very swiftly recap, we decided that we did not want core to mean the rock-bottom base costs of operating the site. We realized that in making that decision we'd risk being confusing, and that people would likely end up sending inquiries like the one Itzik just sent, because they'd likely be operating on the assumption that core did indeed mean base costs. We considered whether to label it as something other than "core" in order to avoid being confusing, but in the end went ahead with core for lack of a better word.
Going from memory -- core is intended to represent the ordinary costs of running the global sites -- so for example, it would include all the costs of maintaining the trademark portfolio, providing legal defence where necessary, doing media stuff and internal global movement communications work, etc. For example we decided that internationalization & localization are part of "core," because our core work includes providing a service in multiple languages.
We did not want core to represent the base, rock-bottom, non-negotiable costs of operating the sites on a shoestring, because that's not the purpose of this exercise, because we're not in a position where we need to make extraordinarily difficult choices about whether to preserve, for example, internationalization & localization versus site performance. If we were in that position (needing to make very painful choices due to financial necessity) of course we would. But that's not where we are.
Thomas, it's not actually true that I see this as purely an exercise in testing the FDC process, although I do definitely think running part of the WMF budget through the FDC will help us be sensitive to fund-seeker needs as we iterate the process. I do also see value in the process itself -- getting community input on the WMF's non-core activities, etc., will be useful.
(Just FYI -- I won't be able to reply any more to this thread for much of the rest of the day, by the way -- I'm swamped and doing a bunch of things.)
Thanks, Sue
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A quick reply:
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:38 AM, charles andrès charles.andres@wikimedia.ch wrote:
If you consider the WMF financial reserves it's true, but for what I understand, the FDC should decide about the distribution of the forthcoming fundraising and so we can only guess that the movement has no fundings problem. If this winter we cannot reach the total amount fixed, what will happen?
A good question for us to answer before this becomes a problem. Presumably it will at some point, as long as people are looking for ways to 'do more with more resources'. (There are other ways to grow that involve doing more with a fixed pool of resources, or through more partners, or... &c. Some may even be more sustainable than our current model. But at present the whole movement has been expanding in this way.)
I personnaly agree that the "core" should be
more than only the basics, but there should be
something between this extremitiy and the actual WMF FDC proposal where the community can comment only 10% of the real WMF budget.
Agreed. If we split movement-wide costs into "essential", "high priority", and "non-core", I think the FDC should grow to review most of the non-essential funds. Which would include more than 10% of the WMF budget.
This should improve over the first few years of the FDC's operation. To be effective, these changes should be worked into the WMF's annual plan in the spring (as the budget line-item for the next year's FDC) and into the fundraising targets, as well as into individual plans submitted to the FDC.
SJ
On 10 October 2012 00:31, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Agreed. If we split movement-wide costs into "essential", "high priority", and "non-core", I think the FDC should grow to review most of the non-essential funds. Which would include more than 10% of the WMF budget.
If you view it from a functional perspective, what "core" actually means is "so much more important than anything any other eligible entity does that there is no way the FDC could reasonably decide not to fund it". Things like keeping wikipedia.org up and running clearly fall into that category, as do a few other things, but there are plenty of things the WMF is calling core that I don't think can actually be described that way.
My preference would be to just send the whole lot through the FDC. If it's so important, then why not trust the FDC to realise that? The WMF's core budget should definitely be funded, but why should it be the WMF that gets to decide what is core and what isn't? (The WMF has a fair bit of revenue that doesn't come from the fundraiser, in the same way most chapters do, so it would still be able to fund its basic functions autonomously).
Here's the relevant part of the Annual Plan FAQ: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Ans... (see in particular the items "How are core and non-core defined?" and "Why is non-core defined the way it is? Doesn’t it make more sense to define core as the rock-bottom costs of operating the projects (e.g., bandwidth and servers), and define everything else as non-core?")
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 5:08 AM, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 8 October 2012 12:18, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It seems clear to me, based on the end result and what foundation board
and
senior staff have said, that they decided an account of money they wanted to request from the FDC and then decided what to designate as non-core so that it added up to that amount.
Rather disingenuous of them, but Sue has been very clear that she only
sees
the foundation's application as a way of testing the process rather than
as
actually being the right way to determine the budget. On Oct 8, 2012 11:14 AM, "Itzik Edri" itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
Hi Thomas & Itzik,
There's FAQ material on the wikis about how core versus non-core were determined -- I think it's part of the annual plan FAQ. (I'd link you to it, but I'm in a bit of a rush. Maybe somebody else can point to the right place?)
The Board and I had a number of discussions about core versus non-core -- to very swiftly recap, we decided that we did not want core to mean the rock-bottom base costs of operating the site. We realized that in making that decision we'd risk being confusing, and that people would likely end up sending inquiries like the one Itzik just sent, because they'd likely be operating on the assumption that core did indeed mean base costs. We considered whether to label it as something other than "core" in order to avoid being confusing, but in the end went ahead with core for lack of a better word.
Going from memory -- core is intended to represent the ordinary costs of running the global sites -- so for example, it would include all the costs of maintaining the trademark portfolio, providing legal defence where necessary, doing media stuff and internal global movement communications work, etc. For example we decided that internationalization & localization are part of "core," because our core work includes providing a service in multiple languages.
We did not want core to represent the base, rock-bottom, non-negotiable costs of operating the sites on a shoestring, because that's not the purpose of this exercise, because we're not in a position where we need to make extraordinarily difficult choices about whether to preserve, for example, internationalization & localization versus site performance. If we were in that position (needing to make very painful choices due to financial necessity) of course we would. But that's not where we are.
Thomas, it's not actually true that I see this as purely an exercise in testing the FDC process, although I do definitely think running part of the WMF budget through the FDC will help us be sensitive to fund-seeker needs as we iterate the process. I do also see value in the process itself -- getting community input on the WMF's non-core activities, etc., will be useful.
(Just FYI -- I won't be able to reply any more to this thread for much of the rest of the day, by the way -- I'm swamped and doing a bunch of things.)
Thanks, Sue
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In short, don't worry about what's "core" or "non core", those are just words (like calling horses "fishes" and vice versa). The WMF runs the FDC process and of course decides also what are its boundaries.
Nemo
Does the merchandise store, which will cost USD 311000, have an ROI published somewhere?
I think some 'Research' is needed in WMF core, however any funds under 'Research' should be granted to, and administrated by, an academic institution. Preferably via a competitive program.
John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Oct 8, 2012 5:14 PM, "Itzik Edri" itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
Hi,
As agreed, the WMF is also sending their non-core program to the FDC approval, you can see their proposal here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Wikime...
But I'm asking myself, that's all what we consider as non-core? I didn't really done a deep research in the WMF budget (as every item in the WMF budget is like the whole big chapter budget and there are no breakdown), but for example what jumped in my mind immediate: Merchandise store (311,000$=Wikimedia Magyarország + Wikimedia Israel + Wikimedia Argentina annual budget) - what make it core? or research (324,000$) and others (again, can't go deeply with that as the items in the budget are general..).
Itzik _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:07 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Does the merchandise store, which will cost USD 311000, have an ROI published somewhere?
I think some 'Research' is needed in WMF core, however any funds under 'Research' should be granted to, and administrated by, an academic institution. Preferably via a competitive program.
Thanks John. I'm not sure I agree, since without an internal research team it's hard for the WMF to interface with outside researchers. But I find this sort of specific feedback on WMF expenses most welcome.
Hopefully this can be refactored on the wiki as comments on the annual plan. Along the lines of Charles's comment, it is also helpful to get feedback on what seems 'high priority, extended core' and what seems 'non core' (though we don't have crisp definitions for that distinction yet, we should develop one).
Sam.
On Oct 10, 2012 6:38 AM, "Samuel Klein" sj@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:07 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Does the merchandise store, which will cost USD 311000, have an ROI published somewhere?
I think some 'Research' is needed in WMF core, however any funds under 'Research' should be granted to, and administrated by, an academic institution. Preferably via a competitive program.
Thanks John. I'm not sure I agree, since without an internal research team it's hard for the WMF to interface with outside researchers. But I find this sort of specific feedback on WMF expenses most welcome.
The interfacing is not a research activity. Communications team should have some who can interface. Analytics/Corporate intel unit should have someone who can interface. Research is research. WMF staff may be doing real research, but they should be formally engaged on the research project as a researcher. In Australia we call these people industry partner investigators. Using research output is not research.
Hopefully this can be refactored on the wiki as comments on the annual plan.
I feel it is too late to comment on the wiki about the annual plan. My understanding of events is that the board approved the annual plan before it was even available for public comment. Questions were asked on the wiki, but answers were not provided promptly. E.g. Over one month for an answer re the merchandise shop.
Along the lines of Charles's comment, it is also helpful to get feedback on what seems 'high priority, extended core' and what seems 'non core' (though we don't have crisp definitions for that distinction yet, we should develop one).
Improving definitions for next time is all well and good. . . however, there is a definition of core v non-core in the FAQ. Do you believe that definition is appropriate for 2012-13? The minutes of the 7 May & 6 June board meetings say FDC implications for the WMF annual plan were discussed, but wmf board minutes tend to be scant on useful information that might give the reader any idea about the opinion of the board. The only info in these minutes is that it was discussed and there are no minutes from the 11 July board meeting yet. If I am reading the resolution approving the annual plan correctly, it approves the annual plan and yet it also calls on the ED to revise the annual plan and present it to the 26-27 board meeting. I am confused by resolutions like that, esp when there are no minutes, detailed or otherwise. :)
-- John V
On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 9:12 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Hopefully this can be refactored on the wiki as comments on the annual plan.
I feel it is too late to comment on the wiki about the annual plan.
There are many reasons to comment on past plans. To get better at mutual peer review, we need to simply do more peer review.
A public drafting period with open commentary, as you hint at, is important. The FDC process is helping systematize that, and we may hope for a similarly open drafting process for the WMF's core plan next year.
But that's neither the only nor the most important time to comment. Review of plans and budgets should be steady throughout the year, should look more than a year into the future and past, and can be more specific once a plan is underway.
Before a plan is finalized, feedback helps make it better. After it is finalized, it can be compared to similar or related plans and work across the movement. While it is being carried out, its work can be measured and visualized. Before the next planning cycle begins, feedback helps frame the following period's plan.
In the case of the WMF, annual plans are developed from roughly Jan to May. So the next few months are a good time to inform the start of that process. The best place I know to organize feedback is http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget
It is also helpful to get
feedback on what seems 'high priority, extended core'
Improving definitions for next time is all well and good. . . however, there is a definition of core v non-core in the FAQ. Do you believe that definition is appropriate for 2012-13?
Yes, that seems fine for this year. It is an improvement on the previous year, when we did not make any such distinctions. Next year should have a more nuanced definition. (In particular, we should start distinguishing barebones operating needs from other work, as has been discussed on and off since the strategic plan work.)
The only info in these minutes is that it was discussed and there are no minutes from the 11 July board meeting yet.
They have been reviewed and are waiting for the approval vote to finish in ~a week; they should be published soon.
SJ
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 7:07 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Does the merchandise store, which will cost USD 311000, have an ROI published somewhere?
*Hey John,
I put a bit about the shop budget at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Shop after a request from Nemo but I’m happy to try and gather more data or answer more questions as they come up. Sorry again for the slow response on that thread by the way, I was trying to get some questions answered on my side and it got buried accidentally. The currently budgeted net ‘cost’ is actually around 116k after you account for the budgeted income but obviously that depends on how popular the store is and how much we are able to give away. We’ve designed our business plan to ultimately focus on cost recovery with some extra padding to give us resources to design new product etc. Some of the costs in this budget are also about getting merchandise out to a wide range of Wikimedia events.
The main focus of the shop isn’t as a revenue source as much as it’s about trying to give away merchandise to the community and spreading brand awareness. Members of both the editor and the reader community have asked for some type of merchandise operation for a long time now and we wanted to provide something that would provide that as affordably as possible (while making sure we were keeping everything high quality).
The other goal of the shop is obviously to break even, including a hefty amount of donated merchandise. We don’t expect that to happen instantly but we’re going to be pushing the store more visibly to the public in the coming weeks and months. It will take time, and we’ve got plans across a number of different channels (not just WP itself) to increase visibility.
* *We’ve already given thousands of dollars worth of shop merchandise away to different groups but that has generally been for larger meetups, conferences and events. This will continue but over the next week there are two projects that are going to start rolling out, including an on-wiki nomination process for individual community members to get awarded for their service as well as a data driven experiential marketing campaign (originally focusing on Social Media and tracked on meta). Keep an eye on wikimedia-l for the individual nomination roll out and if you’re interested in participating or keeping track of the marketing tests you can join the Shop Team ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_merchandise/Shop_teamhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_merchandise/Shop_teamon meta or directly to the google group at https://groups.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/group/shopteam. We’ll also be sending out the link to the meta tracking page as it gets fleshed out.*
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