[Foundation-l] 2008/2009 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report

[phoebe ayers]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Jay Walsh <jwalsh at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> In the next day or so Rand and the fundraising team will be sending out an email to all of our donors (about 230,000 - thanks to a tremendous fundraiser) recapping the campaign sharing our 2nd annual report, which you can also read here:
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report

Late to the party -- but just to reiterate what others have said --
this is a really lovely document, nice work. I especially like the
article anatomy spread -- it's very well done and could make a nice
separate handout on its own (with the timeline cut out).  I also
really like the choice of quotes on the back... we should get
Nicholson Baker to speak sometime at an event :)

A couple notes for next time:
* I don't think the photo of Jimmy is identified anywhere? The photo
credit is given but it doesn't say who he is :) perhaps this is
intentional... stealth founder... like a stealth bomber but so much
cooler.

* the timeline is quirky and fun and I like it. But I wonder if some
of these events could be tied back to wikip/media better. E.g. there's
a note about swine flu; but it could also be noted that our articles
on swine flu got over 200,000 hits/hour in the same time period,
making wikipedia the 2nd most popular website in the U.S. on the
subject.[1] There's a ton of interesting Wikimedia events, meetup
dates, project milestones, etc. that could populate such a timeline
instead of/in addition to general world events -- such a timeline
might help give context to the diversity and scope of the projects
better than prose can.

Having just written up an (incomplete!) summary of 2009[2], I am quite
aware of how hard it is to keep track of everything going on in
Wikimedia-land -- especially after the fact! I think we should create
some kind of in-progress history page on Meta -- a place to chronicle
milestones and significant events as they happen, and work on filling
in a timeline of past events.[3] There was also a suggestion for last
Wikimania from user:Henna that we put up big pieces of paper on the
wall to create a timeline of wikimedia history in-person. Sadly that
didn't happen at Wikimania, but it's still be a cool idea for a future
conference -- or maybe an ongoing project at the office, if there's
wallspace? Visitors could help edit the timeline -- byom (bring your
own marker) :)

-- phoebe


1. According to Erik Zachte,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-05-11/News_and_notes
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-01-11/2009_in_review
3. there's http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Goings-on but it could be
usefully expanded to include more stuff, in a different format --
easytimeline to the rescue?

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