[Foundation-l] Report to the Board July 2009

[Samuel Klein]

Thank you, Sue.  I always save these to read when I need a pick-me-up,
and it's nice to have them out in time for comments to be relevant to
this current month's plans.  Questions/comments inline.


> I've been holding up release of this report, waiting on comScore data.

That's the least time-critical piece of the reports for me :-)
- Do we send supporters such as comScore things like
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipostcards ?


> MILESTONES FROM JULY
>        1. Hiring concluded for the Strategic Planning Project
< The strategy project also intended to hire a Research Analyst and
> interviewed a number of candidates, but has since reconsidered that

- Has the perceived need for research changed?
- Wasn't there a discussion about possibly expanding that to a more
stable research position over time?

I'd be interested to see this done scalably through the community, by
defining what valuable reseach needs doing and seeding research
groups.  In the context of Strategic Planning, where are existing
expressed priorities/desires of the Foundation published?


>       3. First Wikipedia Academy in the United States
< About 100 NIH employees received live presentations and
> training on Wikimedia mission and culture, as well as editing skills.
> The event was live-streamed to the entire NIH staff of over 350,000.
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academy/NIH_2009

- Has there been any followup?
- Is the idea for this sort of program to be organized by WMF in the
future, or for local groups of Wikimedians to organize similar
efforts?

A friend of mine at the Library of Congress is interested in engaging
local Wikipedians more in their efforts to contribute to Wikipedia.
<continuing a first contact with WMF from years ago>


> KEY PRIORITIES FOR AUGUST
>       5. Meetings with donor prospects

Perhaps community groups should be prioritizing meetings with
content-donor prospects.  This seems to me one of the best arguments
for a better-organized [network of] US chapter[s] -- since there are
so many valuable archives in the US, and we have a national commitment
to the public domain.


> MediaWiki contract developer Andrew Garrett worked on modernizing the
> LiquidThreads discussion forum extension and solicited feedback from

- Are the recent discussions on f-l about how to improve our use of
mailing lists already included in that feedback, or does someone need
to bridge that gap?

> A new 'wmf-deployment' branch was created for MediaWiki which allows

- Are there thoughts about a 'mediawiki-non-wikimedia' branch for
customizations useful to the millions of smaller MWiki users out
there, but not useful to Wikipedia & sibs?


> private offsite mirror hosted by eBart Consulting in Europe.

Hooray!


> Brion attended an Open Educational Research Search Discovery workshop

There was an unanswered question there : whether Wikiversity is
interested in including overviews of the world's notable educational
materials.
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Colloquium#Wikiversity_as_key_OER_site


< Open Translation Tools Conference:
> http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/open-translation-tools-2009-report/

- What tools are being considered for more serious adoption?
- What can people who weren't at the conference do to help?

This seems like a major area for improvement and optimization.
Philippe and Casey have suggested recently that translation as we
currently do it is a real burden for time-sensitive projects such as
strategic planning; and as Ariel notes in that post there is a wealth
of software out there that could make this much easier for us.

> The development for the next release called “Babaco” [2] has started.

( I'm starting to love Babaco. )

> Frank Schulenburg has also been focusing on building Wikimedia
> volunteer capacity by launching the Best Practices series on Meta
< http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Best_practices_in_public_outreach
> In July, Kathrin Jansen began volunteering in the San Francisco office

This is *fantastic*, and needs more public visibility.  Perhaps even a
site notice at some reasonable milestone.  (As does [[m:public
outreach]] in general.  )

This sort of investment of energy into building our community capacity
is one of the greatest things we can do.


> The Wikimedia Foundation approved 21 funding requests from 11
> chapters, in the pilot year of the chapters funding request process.
< http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants

I'd  be interested to see discussions by individuals with similar
requests.  Including those who are pursuing supporting grants from
outside bodies.  That set of ideas, some of which may not have been
submitted to the strategy process, are quite valuable.


> During July, the Wikimedia Foundation participated in interviews with [...]

I appreciate these roundups.  Something similar for potential
supporters or partners who have been met or spoken to -- at least
where that information is sharable public knowledge -- would also be
lovely.


> LEGAL
>
> Mike Godwin completed a first draft of the revised trademark policy.

- Nice.  Does this mean we are closer to a world in which awesome
Wikimedia swag is easy to come by... and not through cafepress? [
sorry, CP! :) ]


> Communications coach John Plank staged a series of workshops aimed at
> helping Wikimedia staff improve their presentation skills.

We might try to organize community presentation training (at meetups
and wikimanias?) as well.  See also [[m:public speakers]] .

SJ