Hi Everyone,
2015 is an election year for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia
Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees> as well
as for the Funds Dissemination Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee>.
As you may recall the Board has three directly-elected members who serve
for two years. Currently they are Phoebe Ayers (Phoebe
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Phoebe>), Samuel Klein (SJ
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sj>) and María Sefidari (Raystorm
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm>). As in the past years we
rely on an effective election committee to coordinate the elections for us
along with staff support and a Board liaison. Not only do they guarantee
that the election is overseen by an independent body, but they also make
sure that the tremendous amount of work that needs to be done is taken care
of. My job, as this year's Board liaison, is to coordinate the formation of
this committee and to support them in their work while serving as the
primary point of contact with the Board regarding the process..
This is a call for volunteers to serve on the election committee. If you
feel that you can contribute to this committee, please email James
Alexander (Jalexander(a)wikimedia.org) and give a small summary of why you
think you would be able to help out with this process.
The Committee is responsible for planning and maintaining virtually every
aspect of the Board election. For example, the Committee plans the type of
voting, suffrage criteria, and criteria for candidacy, helps to draft and
organize all of the official election pages on Meta, verifies that
candidates and voters meet the criteria, audits votes to ensure there are
no duplicate votes or other problems, et cetera. You can expect that this
work will take an average 5-10 hours a week with a few periods of relative
quiet and a few periods of heavy work during and after each election (the
FDC and Board elections are planned to be separate this year).
If you decide to join the committee you will have to identify to the
Wikimedia Foundation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_handbook/email_templates#Notificati…>
because
of the personal information you have access too and must be at least 18
years of age. In addition you cannot be part of the election committee if
you are planning to be a candidate or are planning to support any candidate
publicly.
To ensure we get going as quickly as possible, committee members will start
to be seated as soon as we have 4-5 good candidates with an anticipated
first meeting of Friday April 10th (or soon after, depending on committee
availability). The deadline for volunteers, however, is Friday, April 17th
UTC 12:00.
The committee and staff will be setting up the election pages soon and the
call for candidates, led by a letter from the Board, which will be going
out shortly. If you're interested in running for either the Board or the
FDC, I encourage you to read up on prior elections
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013>and
the groups themselves to prepare your statements!
Regards,
Alice.
--
Alice Wiegand
Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hi all,
Today the Wikimedia Foundation published a report on its activities in
calendar year 2014.
This State of the Wikimedia Foundation
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation.p…>
report
provides a snapshot view of the Foundation’s major initiatives and
considerations during that period. It also offers a baseline assessment of
key efforts made by internal Foundation departments, with an emphasis on
data-based results, project impact, challenges, and how our work supports
our mission.
Last December, the Wikimedia Foundation entered into the beginning of a
strategy planning exercise. As we progressed, we found people had differing
familiarities with the work, needs, and concerns of other departments --
the proverbial Blind Men and an Elephant.[1] In response, we began pulling
together information as a baseline reference so we would better understand
each others’ work. This report is the outcome of that research.[2]
Although the information in the report was originally gathered in response
to an internal Foundation need, we planned to make it public as a report
from the very beginning. It is intended to be relatively candid, sharing
insight into where teams feel they have strengths and where they feel there
are development areas.
The report also offers the first look at the Foundation’s internal Call to
Action for 2015
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Found…>.
The Call to Action is a set of actions for the 2015 calendar year to focus
the staff of the Foundation on our core functions. These include improving
the processes by which we do our work, building stronger community
relationships, and exploring new ways to expand free knowledge. Terry, our
new COO <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/20/wmf-welcomes-coo/>, will
manage its implementation over the coming year.
Finally, a note: the report is a standalone product designed to aide the
strategy development process, and does not substitute for the Quarterly
Reports, Annual Report, or Annual Plan process. It is scoped only against
the Foundation’s existing workflows in 2014, and not against the work of
the Wikimedia movement overall. We have not committed to making it an
annual exercise.
The full State of the Wikimedia Foundation report is available as a wiki
here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Found…>
and as a PDF on Wikimedia Commons here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation.p…>
. You can also find more information in our blog post:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/02/new-wikimedia-foundation-report/.
We hope you find it interesting, and welcome your feedback.
Thanks,
Katherine
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
[2] Thanks to everyone at the Foundation who contributed so much great
information to their various teams sections. And a special thanks to Juliet
Barbara and Heather Walls who wrote and produced the whole thing!
--
Katherine Maher
Chief Communications Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635
+1 (415) 712 4873
kmaher(a)wikimedia.org