Hi WMF folks, I'm still waiting. The issue of financial transparency isn't going away, and the silence here is getting to be a point of concern. Pine -------- Original message --------From: Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com Date: 7/14/17 11:31 AM (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19) Hi WMF folks,
I'm still waiting for a reply to this question.
Pine
On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 11:14 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote: Having had time to reflect further on this matter, I'm having difficulty with writing a comprehensive reply in a civil tone.
Rather than try to address multiple topics at once, I'd like to start by following up on a single topic. I'm hoping that this will help to keep the conversation focused and civil.
Regarding costs, as has been previously stated by the Foundation and Board, the Board approved a spending resolution last year for expenses related to the movement strategy of up to $2.5 million over Fiscal Year 2016-17 (July 2016 - June 2017) and Fiscal Year 2017-18 (July 2017 - June 2018).
Thanks for providing the project budget number, which is a good place to start. How much is the timeline extension projected to cost, and from what source are the funds being drawn? I imagine that an analysis of the cost of the extension was done before the extension was authorized, and that a funding source was identified. I hope that WMF can provide that information and that only a few minutes of staff time will be necessary to publish it.
I'm hoping that we can address this topic first, and then move on to other issues that have come up.
Thanks,
Pine
On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote: I have stayed away from this thread for awhile with the hope that I can approach it in a businesslike tone. I want to acknowledge those who have posted previously. I have drafted a response to the email that Greg sent, and out of respect for the holiday for US staff I'll wait until Wednesday to send that response. This matter is important, but I don't want WMF staff to feel like they need to think about this or respond to it during a holiday weekend. There will be time enough for more discussion after the holiday. I'm not trying to close off discussion, but I thought that I should explain why I'm planning to wait a few days before responding to staff.
Pine
Pine
It is for the Board members, collectively and individually, to oversee the management and affairs of the Foundation. You should ask them as Trustees to comment. I myself have had little success in that direction, but perhaps you will do better. However, the staff of the Foundation are answerable only to the Board, and the Board members as Trustees are answerable only to themselves. If you are unable to obtain the assurances you need, then your only recourse is to put your name forward for nomination to the Board yourself.
Good luck!
"Rogol"
On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 9:56 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi WMF folks, I'm still waiting. The issue of financial transparency isn't going away, and the silence here is getting to be a point of concern. Pine -------- Original message --------From: Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com Date: 7/14/17 11:31 AM (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia Mailing List < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19) Hi WMF folks,
I'm still waiting for a reply to this question.
Pine
On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 11:14 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote: Having had time to reflect further on this matter, I'm having difficulty with writing a comprehensive reply in a civil tone.
Rather than try to address multiple topics at once, I'd like to start by following up on a single topic. I'm hoping that this will help to keep the conversation focused and civil.
Regarding costs, as has been previously stated by the Foundation and
Board, the Board approved a spending resolution
last year for expenses related to the movement strategy of up to $2.5
million over Fiscal Year 2016-17 (July 2016 - June
- and Fiscal Year 2017-18 (July 2017 - June 2018).
Thanks for providing the project budget number, which is a good place to start. How much is the timeline extension projected to cost, and from what source are the funds being drawn? I imagine that an analysis of the cost of the extension was done before the extension was authorized, and that a funding source was identified. I hope that WMF can provide that information and that only a few minutes of staff time will be necessary to publish it.
I'm hoping that we can address this topic first, and then move on to other issues that have come up.
Thanks,
Pine
On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote: I have stayed away from this thread for awhile with the hope that I can approach it in a businesslike tone. I want to acknowledge those who have posted previously. I have drafted a response to the email that Greg sent, and out of respect for the holiday for US staff I'll wait until Wednesday to send that response. This matter is important, but I don't want WMF staff to feel like they need to think about this or respond to it during a holiday weekend. There will be time enough for more discussion after the holiday. I'm not trying to close off discussion, but I thought that I should explain why I'm planning to wait a few days before responding to staff.
Pine
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Hoi, With all due respect, when that is the reason to put yourself forward, given that it is possible to provide a negative assessment in the past. You will have mine. The board and its responsibility is not that narrow.
Arguably we do not spend enough, we could achieve more. Thanks, GerardM
On 23 July 2017 at 18:18, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
Pine
It is for the Board members, collectively and individually, to oversee the management and affairs of the Foundation. You should ask them as Trustees to comment. I myself have had little success in that direction, but perhaps you will do better. However, the staff of the Foundation are answerable only to the Board, and the Board members as Trustees are answerable only to themselves. If you are unable to obtain the assurances you need, then your only recourse is to put your name forward for nomination to the Board yourself.
Good luck!
"Rogol"
On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 9:56 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi WMF folks, I'm still waiting. The issue of financial transparency isn't going away, and the silence here is getting to be a point of concern. Pine -------- Original message --------From: Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com Date: 7/14/17 11:31 AM (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia Mailing List < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19) Hi WMF folks,
I'm still waiting for a reply to this question.
Pine
On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 11:14 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote: Having had time to reflect further on this matter, I'm having difficulty with writing a comprehensive reply in a civil tone.
Rather than try to address multiple topics at once, I'd like to start by following up on a single topic. I'm hoping that this will help to keep the conversation focused and civil.
Regarding costs, as has been previously stated by the Foundation and
Board, the Board approved a spending resolution
last year for expenses related to the movement strategy of up to $2.5
million over Fiscal Year 2016-17 (July 2016 - June
- and Fiscal Year 2017-18 (July 2017 - June 2018).
Thanks for providing the project budget number, which is a good place to start. How much is the timeline extension projected to cost, and from what source are the funds being drawn? I imagine that
an
analysis of the cost of the extension was done before the extension was authorized, and that a funding source was identified. I hope that WMF can provide that information and that only a few minutes of staff time will be necessary to publish
it.
I'm hoping that we can address this topic first, and then move on to
other
issues that have come up.
Thanks,
Pine
On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote: I have stayed away from this thread for awhile with the hope that I can approach it in a businesslike tone. I want to acknowledge those who have posted previously. I have drafted a response to the email that Greg sent, and out of respect for the holiday for US staff I'll wait until Wednesday to send that response. This matter is important, but I don't want WMF
staff
to feel like they need to think about this or respond to it during a holiday weekend. There will be time enough for more discussion after the holiday. I'm not trying to close off discussion, but I thought that I should explain why I'm planning to wait a few days before responding to staff.
Pine
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Gerard,
On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 5:39 PM, you wrote:
Arguably we do not spend enough, we could achieve more.
I would say that it is about spending money differently, not just more. However, here are some things that one could achieve for a modest $2.5M, as suggested in a thread on this list in January – considering the enormous surplus value accruing to the Foundation as a result of the work of the Community, any or all of these suggestions seem to be to be quite modest returns to the Community for that work.
"Rogol"
1. Fully-paid bursaies to Wikimania 2017 for one person from each of the 250 largest projects; 2. Purchase one reference book or similar for the 30,000 most active content contributors; 3. Purchase a one-year JSTOR subscription for the 10,000 most active content contributors; 4. Local travel bursaries to Wikimedia meetups and conferences for 50,000 members of the Community; 5. An office with ten staff paid for a year to resolve the requirements for improved tools from the Community Tech programme.
One could imagine folding some of these into the endowment at 4% as follows: 1'. Funding for 10 Wikimania bursaries per year for ever; 2'. Funding for 1,000 books per year for ever; 3'. Funding for 400 JSTOR subscriptions per year for ever; 4'. Funding for local travel for 2,000 people per year for ever.
Hoi, I have said before that we spend our money not equally over our audience. Less than 50 % of our traffic is English Wikipedia and less than 40% of the world population speak English well enough. Consequently we spend too much on English.
It is stupid to suggest that we should defund our current projects that primarily benefit English but we have the luxury to spend more on other languages, cultures and audiences. There are plenty of pocket money projects that will have a big impact on the smaller projects and will gain us an insight on what we are missing in our sum of available knowledge. The big thing is too leave the big project mentality behind us. Be bold, experiment, learn from experiments and advertise the positive and negative results. Regroup, think again and experiment again.
The question is do we dare to experiment leave some conventions behind us that are ill fitting in other projects. Do we dare to spend more to achieve more and ignore those "who know best".
When the outcome of this strategy thing is that we need to partner more, consider what we have not considered then all the additional money has been worth it. Thanks, GerardM
On 23 July 2017 at 19:01, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
Gerard,
On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 5:39 PM, you wrote:
Arguably we do not spend enough, we could achieve more.
I would say that it is about spending money differently, not just more. However, here are some things that one could achieve for a modest $2.5M, as suggested in a thread on this list in January – considering the enormous surplus value accruing to the Foundation as a result of the work of the Community, any or all of these suggestions seem to be to be quite modest returns to the Community for that work.
"Rogol"
- Fully-paid bursaies to Wikimania 2017 for one person from each of the
250 largest projects; 2. Purchase one reference book or similar for the 30,000 most active content contributors; 3. Purchase a one-year JSTOR subscription for the 10,000 most active content contributors; 4. Local travel bursaries to Wikimedia meetups and conferences for 50,000 members of the Community; 5. An office with ten staff paid for a year to resolve the requirements for improved tools from the Community Tech programme.
One could imagine folding some of these into the endowment at 4% as follows: 1'. Funding for 10 Wikimania bursaries per year for ever; 2'. Funding for 1,000 books per year for ever; 3'. Funding for 400 JSTOR subscriptions per year for ever; 4'. Funding for local travel for 2,000 people per year for ever. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi Rogol,
Thanks for the comments. I'm uninterested in running for the WMF board; I have plenty of unpaid responsibilities already and I'm trying to have fewer of them rather than more.
The thought has crossed my mind that maybe I should be having this conversation with the Board rather than the staff. However, as you have noted, the Board are often not particularly responsive, and in either case I think it should be very possible for the staff to respond to the questions that I asked with a few minutes of their time. It appears that staff is choosing not to cooperate, which is disappointing, so I do have the topic of financial transparency in general -- and the strategy budget in particular -- in mind as topics that I will likely ask Christophe to address, perhaps next week.
Pine
On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 9:18 AM, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
Pine
It is for the Board members, collectively and individually, to oversee the management and affairs of the Foundation. You should ask them as Trustees to comment. I myself have had little success in that direction, but perhaps you will do better. However, the staff of the Foundation are answerable only to the Board, and the Board members as Trustees are answerable only to themselves. If you are unable to obtain the assurances you need, then your only recourse is to put your name forward for nomination to the Board yourself.
Good luck!
"Rogol"
On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 9:56 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi WMF folks, I'm still waiting. The issue of financial transparency isn't going away, and the silence here is getting to be a point of concern. Pine -------- Original message --------From: Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com Date: 7/14/17 11:31 AM (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia Mailing List < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19) Hi WMF folks,
I'm still waiting for a reply to this question.
Pine
On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 11:14 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote: Having had time to reflect further on this matter, I'm having difficulty with writing a comprehensive reply in a civil tone.
Rather than try to address multiple topics at once, I'd like to start by following up on a single topic. I'm hoping that this will help to keep the conversation focused and civil.
Regarding costs, as has been previously stated by the Foundation and
Board, the Board approved a spending resolution
last year for expenses related to the movement strategy of up to $2.5
million over Fiscal Year 2016-17 (July 2016 - June
- and Fiscal Year 2017-18 (July 2017 - June 2018).
Thanks for providing the project budget number, which is a good place to start. How much is the timeline extension projected to cost, and from what source are the funds being drawn? I imagine that
an
analysis of the cost of the extension was done before the extension was authorized, and that a funding source was identified. I hope that WMF can provide that information and that only a few minutes of staff time will be necessary to publish
it.
I'm hoping that we can address this topic first, and then move on to
other
issues that have come up.
Thanks,
Pine
On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote: I have stayed away from this thread for awhile with the hope that I can approach it in a businesslike tone. I want to acknowledge those who have posted previously. I have drafted a response to the email that Greg sent, and out of respect for the holiday for US staff I'll wait until Wednesday to send that response. This matter is important, but I don't want WMF
staff
to feel like they need to think about this or respond to it during a holiday weekend. There will be time enough for more discussion after the holiday. I'm not trying to close off discussion, but I thought that I should explain why I'm planning to wait a few days before responding to staff.
Pine
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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I've been thinking more about this issue since yesterday.
I should correct myself and say that my comment about "the Board are often not particularly responsive" now appears to be a little outdated, I also should acknowledge that some Board members are more responsive than others rather than painting everyone with the same brush, and also that there seems to be some interest on the Board noticeboard in improving communications. I gladly support the interest in improving communications and in principle I would support a Board initiative on that subject. I am wondering if assigning a particular staff person to organize and support Board communications would be helpful both for the Board and for the community, and perhaps for other WMF employees as well. I apologize for letting my frustration get the better of me with my previous comment.
Turning to the subject of financial transparency, this a longstanding topic of frustration for me with WMF. From my perspective I don't understand why there's so much resistance to this, and my guess based on how long this has been happening is that there's a cultural issue in WMF that is limiting progress in this area. This may be a fruitful topic of conversation when I approach Christophe, and I'm hoping that he'll be open to having this conversation.
Pine
On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 4:31 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Rogol,
Thanks for the comments. I'm uninterested in running for the WMF board; I have plenty of unpaid responsibilities already and I'm trying to have fewer of them rather than more.
The thought has crossed my mind that maybe I should be having this conversation with the Board rather than the staff. However, as you have noted, the Board are often not particularly responsive, and in either case I think it should be very possible for the staff to respond to the questions that I asked with a few minutes of their time. It appears that staff is choosing not to cooperate, which is disappointing, so I do have the topic of financial transparency in general -- and the strategy budget in particular -- in mind as topics that I will likely ask Christophe to address, perhaps next week.
Pine
On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 9:18 AM, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
Pine
It is for the Board members, collectively and individually, to oversee the management and affairs of the Foundation. You should ask them as Trustees to comment. I myself have had little success in that direction, but perhaps you will do better. However, the staff of the Foundation are answerable only to the Board, and the Board members as Trustees are answerable only to themselves. If you are unable to obtain the assurances you need, then your only recourse is to put your name forward for nomination to the Board yourself.
Good luck!
"Rogol"
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org