[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation Report, January 2011
Lodewijk
lodewijk at effeietsanders.org
Sat Feb 12 11:39:18 UTC 2011
Thank you Erik!
I would like to pass on my compliments to the Wikimedia Foundation
staff for putting together these reports. I remember me complaining in
Buenos Aires that, even though I was heavily involved in Wikimedia, I
did not have a clear image of what the Wikimedia Foundation was doing.
With these reports, that becomes much clearer - especially now they
are also closer to the end of the preceeding month and timely! Huge
thanks for this big improvement, which increases transparency a lot
and allows people to participate much easier.
With kind regards,
Lodewijk
2011/2/12 Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>:
> Hi folks,
>
> please find below the Wikimedia Foundation report for January.
>
> As always, you'll find a wikified version on Meta (this one includes a
> selection of 10th anniversary photos, so do take a look):
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_January_2011
>
> Edits and feedback are always welcome.
>
> All best,
> Erik
>
> In this report:
>
> * 1 Data and Trends
> * 2 Financials
> * 3 Highlights
> o 3.1 10th Anniversary
> o 3.2 New Wikimedia Foundation Fellowships
> o 3.3 Movement Roles Workshop
> * 4 Technology
> o 4.1 General Engineering
> o 4.2 Operations
> o 4.3 Features
> * 5 Research and Strategy
> * 6 Community
> o 6.1 Fundraising Team
> o 6.2 Public Policy Initiative
> * 7 Global Development
> o 7.1 Offline
> o 7.2 Global Development Research
> o 7.3 Grantmaking and Wikimania Scholarships
> o 7.4 Brazil Catalyst Project
> o 7.5 India Catalyst Project
> * 8 Communications
> * 9 Human Resources
> * 10 Finance and Administration
> * 11 Visitors and Guests
>
> ---------------
> Data and Trends
> ---------------
>
> [Only December data is available as of February 10, 2011]
>
> Global unique visitors:
> 395 million (-3.7% compared to previous month / +14% compared to
> previous year)
> comScore data for December, all Wikimedia Foundation projects;
> comScore will release January data later in February
>
> Page requests:
> 13.9 billion (-6.7% compared to previous month / + 22.9% compared to
> previous year)
> (Wikimedia Foundation data for December, all Wikimedia Foundation
> projects including Wikipedia mobile)
>
> Report Card for December 2010: http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/
>
> ----------
> Financials
> ----------
>
> [Only December data is available as of February 10, 2011]
>
> Operating revenue for December: USD 8.0MM vs plan of 9.9MM.
> Operating revenue year-to-date December: USD 18.1MM vs plan of 15.1MM.
>
> The successful 2010 fundraising campaign has resulted in the Wikimedia
> Foundation exceeding its revenue targets year-to-date. Revenue above
> does not reflect amounts expected to be received from chapters: that
> revenue will be reflected once payments are received.
>
> Operating expenses for December: USD 1.7MM vs plan of 1.8MM
> Operating expenses year-to-date: December: USD 7.7MM vs plan of 10.0MM
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is under-spent for December primarily due to
> timing of capital expenditures and internet hosting, as well as
> under-spending in staffing costs (a decision was made early in the year
> to bias towards hiring slowly and well, rather than prioritizing speed).
> Major data center purchases that occurred in January will make up for
> much of this underspend.
>
> Cash and investments as of December 2010 totaled $22.8MM (approximately
> 13 months of expenses).
>
> ----------
> Highlights
> ----------
>
> ----------------
> 10th Anniversary
> ----------------
>
> On January 15, 2011, Wikipedia was 10 years old, an event that was heard
> around the wikis and celebrated around the globe. The Wikimedia
> Foundation supported chapters, volunteers, and other groups hosting
> celebrations in self-organizing events, spreading the good news, and
> generally marking this a once-in-a-movement historic event.
>
> *Celebrations everywhere*
>
> More than 400 celebrations were logged at http://ten.wikipedia.org/.
> Many took place on or around January 15, with more planned for later in
> the year. Photo gallery can be found here:
>
> http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_gallery
>
> The celebrations included wiki-conferences, photo walks, casual
> meet-ups, dance parties, pub nights and kite flying. Wikimedia
> Foundation staff and board members travelled to support a variety of
> events, including: Ting Chen in Nairobi, Jimmy Wales and Jan-Bart de
> Vreede in London, Bishakha Datta in Kolkata, Phoebe Ayers in San
> Francisco, Frank Schulenburg in Budapest, and Barry Newstead and Moka
> Pantages in Mumbai. Many celebrations included an airing of a special
> message from Jimmy Wales produced by WMF for the Wikipedia community:
>
> http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WalesCalltoAction.ogv.
>
> On January 15, Bay Area Wikimedians staged an all-day conference
> featuring speakers Ward Cunningham and Kevin Kelly. The Wikimedia
> Foundation supported that event by staging a party for roughly 250
> guests that same evening.
>
> Barry Newstead spoke at the Wikipedia 10 celebration in Mumbai. He also
> spoke at three events in Pune, India: a TEDxPUNE event for school
> children, a meeting of public administrators in Pune, and the official
> Wikimedia community event.
>
> *T-Shirts and buttons for the mission*
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation shipped more than 80 Wikipedia 10 celebration
> kits to support volunteer-organized events all over the world. Each
> included 50 custom-themed T-shirts, buttons, and stickers. This was an
> important pilot for the Wikimedia movement: new data about customs,
> logistics, and postal services for a wide range of nations has been
> gathered, and new processes for soliciting orders from chapters or other
> groups for timely delivery have been developed.
>
> *Collaborative design*
>
> With the help of San Francisco graphic designer David Peters, WMF
> produced a simple design scheme to help celebrate Wikipedia 10. The
> Wikipedia 10 design concept was at the center of event-related
> merchandise, and was further localized and developed by dozens of local
> Wikipedia groups in the form of icons, banners, cakes, and other products.
>
> http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design
>
> ------------------------------------
> New Wikimedia Foundation Fellowships
> ------------------------------------
>
> Lennart Guldbrandsson began a six-month fellowship during which he will
> work on the Bookshelf Project (public outreach resources and many
> languages) and the Account Creation Improvement Project (exploring ways
> to engage more people to become editors after making a Wikimedia project
> account). The full announcement can be found at:
>
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/07/announcing-our-fourth-fellow-lennart-guldbrandsson/
>
> Liam Wyatt began a 12-month fellowship to build the capacity of the
> Wikimedia community to undertake partnerships with cultural institutions
> known as GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums), following
> his pioneering work in this area:
>
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/19/announcing-our-glam-fellow-liam-wyatt/
>
> Achal Prabhala began a four-month fellowship focused on the role of oral
> citations as a source for Wikimedia projects. He will be conducting
> field research in rural South Africa and India with Wikipedians and
> non-Wikipedians across three languages - he plans to explore ways to
> compensate for the lack of written source material in many local
> languages. The full announcment can be found at:
>
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/12/new-wikimedia-fellow/
>
> Maryana Pinchuk's fellowship has been extended for an additional 12
> months, so that she can coordinate the writing of histories of several
> more Wikipedias. She and fellow Victoria Doronina will soon be releasing
> their history of the Russian Wikipedia in both Russian and English on
> Meta and on the Russian Wikipedia. See the previous announcement:
>
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/30/two-new-community-department-fellows/
>
> -----------------------
> Movement Roles Workshop
> -----------------------
>
> The Movement Roles project is a project of the WMF Board of Trustees
> supported by contractors Austin Hair and Jon Huggett acting as
> facilitators. Its goal is to clarify the roles and responsibilities of
> different entities, groups, and people working to support the
> international Wikimedia movement. It is working on recommendations for
> the development of Wikimedia as a global network of organizations.
>
> The working group held an in-person meeting in Frankfurt on January 29
> and 30. The meeting reviewed suggestions from the past few months,
> identified areas of agreement and disagreement, and proposed ideas to
> provoke discussion in the broader community. Work will continue on Meta
> and is open to input and participation from all.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project/2011-01-29
>
> The group drafted a matrix of organizational roles and responsibilities:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project/2011-01-29/roles_matrix
>
> The next in-person meeting of the group will be the day before the March
> chapters meeting in Berlin.
>
> ----------
> Technology
> ----------
>
> As in previous months, details of our technology activities in the month
> of January 2011 can be found in the tech blog:
>
> http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2011/02/february-wmf-engineering-update/
>
> Highlights below:
>
> -------------------
> General Engineering
> -------------------
>
> *MediaWiki 1.17*
>
> MediaWiki 1.17 is the upcoming release of the MediaWiki software. We
> plan to deploy MediaWiki 1.17 to Wikimedia Foundation sites on February
> 8th. We are still working through the code review queue (revisions,
> graph) and fixing some integration issues. The major noticeable feature
> of this deployment will be Resource Loader, which will enable the
> release of the second iteration of Article Feedback sometime afterwards.
> We are also dark-launching the improved category collation code that
> Aryeh Gregor wrote back in August, and will enable this feature shortly
> after the 1.17 launch. Some new extensions will also wait until after
> the dust settles from the 1.17 launch.
>
> ----------
> Operations
> ----------
>
> *Data Center*
>
> In January, we finally placed orders for most of the equipment for the
> Ashburn VA Data Center. We expect to be slightly over budget on this
> order as we have decided to order extra high-availability storage
> hardware for backups. Starting in February, teams of Ops engineers will
> be working to rack these new machines. We plan to post a link to a live
> video feed of our enclosure where you can see the work in progress.
>
> *Media Storage*
>
> Since December, we have been working with a contract engineer to create
> a new extensible Media Storage Architecture, and are now at the point of
> testing on a single machine. As the new Upload Wizard is coming closer
> to production-quality release, we are trying to anticipate a substantial
> increase in media contributions.
>
> *Monitoring*
>
> We signed a deal with Watchmouse, a global website and application
> performance monitoring company. The community can expect us to broaden
> the public information we make available on performance of our wikis
> around the world.
>
> *Virtualization Cluster*
>
> We continued to work on creating an environment to deploy temporary
> machines for testing and experimentation, for use by WMF staff and
> volunteers working on important projects (as capacity allows). WMF Ops
> Engineer Ryan Lane announced the release of the OpenStackManager
> extension for MediaWiki, which interacts with OpenStack, an open source
> toolset for cloud computing. There was a bit of a setback, however, with
> some missing features in OpenStack testing, so we are waiting for the
> next OpenStack release before deploying this. We have a little more
> hardware to configure as well.
>
> --------
> Features
> --------
>
> *Threaded Discussions - Liquid Threads*
>
> A formal evaluation of LiquidThreads, a new discussion system for talk
> pages, is underway. This includes its UI, code and database
> architecture. We are modifying the design to incorporate input from
> several community discussions as well as from our engineering staff. We
> plan to consolidate all of our documentation on these discussions on
> mediawiki.org in the next month.
>
> *Other Features*
>
> Tomasz Finc began work with two new engineering contracts on offline
> content projects. Tomasz blogged about it here:
>
> http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2011/01/update-on-offline-wikimedia-projects/
>
> ---------------------
> Research and Strategy
> ---------------------
>
> Wikipedia's 10th anniversary saw several scholarly outlets call for
> experts and researchers to join Wikipedia and help "overcome the
> prejudices against Wikipedia in academic circles" [1-2]. To this aim,
> Dario Taraborelli, in collaboration with Daniel Mietchen and Panagiota
> Alevizou from the Wikimedia Research Committee, designed a survey to
> better understand the barriers to expert participation in Wikimedia
> projects [3]. The pilot phase started in December and ended in January
> and the official launch of the survey is due on February 8, 2011.
>
> On January 10, 2011, Dario Taraborelli published, in collaboration with
> Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia and Moritz Stefaner, an interactive
> visualization of the 200 longest Article for Deletion discussions in the
> history of Wikipedia [4], introducing scholarly research on the
> functioning and impact of AfD discussions to a broader audience.
>
> Research continued on the Article feedback study and Dario Taraborelli
> joined Howie Fung in analyzing the early data, with new results to be
> published later this month.
>
> Members of the Research Committee continued the discussion on subject
> recruitment guidelines for Wikimedia research projects in collaboration
> with WMF staff. The committee also started to explore possible venues
> for a research panel, with the goal of discussing research directions of
> strategic importance to the Wikipedia community at a major social
> computing conference.
>
> Howie Fung, Diederik van Liere and Erik Moeller continued review of
> first data from the Editor Trends Study [6] conducted by Diederik van
> Liere. The study is an in-depth quantitative analysis of major trends in
> Wikipedia editing communities, and will be published on StrategyWiki in
> February. Howie and Erik also continued work on the Product Whitepaper,
> a comprehensive assessment of product development priorities in
> strategic context. [7]
>
> [1] http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/125899/
> [2] http://www.jmir.org/2011/1/e14/
> [3]
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Areas_of_interest/Expert_involvement/2011_survey
> [4] http://notabilia.net
> [5]
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Areas_of_interest/Subject_recruitment_processes
> [6] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_Trends_Study
> [7] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Product_Whitepaper
>
> ---------
> Community
> ---------
>
> ----------------
> Fundraising Team
> ----------------
>
> The fundraising team wrapped up the successful 2010 fundraising campaign
> in January. The team ran contribution banners that asked people to get
> involved with Wikipedia by starting to edit. These banners were later
> replaced by banners that highlighted Wikipedia's 10 year anniversary.
>
> The team spent the rest of January beginning an in-depth retrospective
> on the testing and operations of the 2010 fundraiser.
>
> ------------------------
> Public Policy Initiative
> ------------------------
>
> The Public Policy Initiative Team kicked off the new year with a two-day
> train-the-trainer session in San Francisco prior to the start of the
> spring semester. A group of current ambassadors were trained as trainers
> to prepare them to lead five two-day regional ambassador trainings in
> various US locations: San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., Baton
> Rouge, and Indianapolis. As a result, the number of Wikipedia
> Ambassadors is growing rapidly, and about 46 % of them female. With the
> goal of globalizing the program, Wikipedia community observers from
> Sweden, Israel, Germany, and Brazil attended the train-the-trainer
> session and the San Francisco ambassador training. Sage Ross spoke about
> the Public Policy Initiative at the Wikipedia 10th anniversary
> celebration in Washington D.C.
>
> ------------------
> Global Development
> ------------------
>
> -------
> Offline
> -------
>
> * We began pursuing partnerships with computer manufacturers and
> other education agencies to aid in the distribution of the offline
> materials upon completion. Meanwhile, milestones were accomplished
> by the Wikimedia community:
> o The community neared completion of new releases of the
> "Wikipedia 1.0" project and Wikipedia for Schools, two
> article selection projects in the English language Wikipedia
> that select the most applicable and high-quality subset of
> articles. Other language communities also actively
> contributed to the development of offline content, including
> Tamil.
> o Community distribution began of the Wikipedia for Schools
> English version, using the Kiwix offline reader, throughout
> Kenya.
>
> ---------------------------
> Global Development Research
> ---------------------------
>
> * Completed a first draft of the English version of the Wikipedia
> editor survey;
> * Created a mobile strategic plan for current and next fiscal year
> with engineering, including a detailed timeline for different
> phases of mobile research beginning with ethnographic research and
> survey in key markets to UX testing;
> * Started work on the readership survey, working with vendors to
> conduct a household survey in key countries;
> * Worked with engineering team to conduct analytics for global
> development, including the creation of a monthly report card that
> focuses on India.
>
> --------------------------------------
> Grantmaking and Wikimania Scholarships
> --------------------------------------
>
> * Funded 13 new grants in December and January, nine of which were
> in support of Wikipedia 10 celebrations;
> * Met our budget for grantmaking in 2010-11 at the end of January;
> * Held an open call for Wikimania 2011 scholarship applications
> throughout January and then closed the call on January 31, 2011.
>
> -----------------------
> Brazil Catalyst Project
> -----------------------
>
> Kul Takanao Wadhwa and Jessie Wild spent the last half of January in
> Brazil, with these goals:
>
> * Raising awareness of Wikimedia projects and Wikimedia's presence
> in Brazil;
> * Finding productive partnerships for WM initiatives in Brazil;
> * Introducing the Brazilian community members to different
> organizations;
> * Better understanding what WM presence in Brazil could and should
> look like going forward.
>
> They met with universities, community members, student organizations,
> government officials, and potential tech partners. The trip was very
> productive, and a full set of details including the agenda and materials
> utilized can be found here:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global/Brazil/Agenda_January_2011
>
> Progress on the Brazil Catalyst Project work included:
>
> * Mobile research:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global/Brazil/Brazilian_Digital_Landscape#Mobile_Landscape_in_Brazil
> * January Community Interviews:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Catalyst_Project/Community_Interviews#Sobre_ajuda_vinda_da_WMF
> * Debate on structures:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global/Brazil/Debate_sobre_estruturas
> * Started to document laws that could affect WMF in Brazil:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Catalyst_Project/Brazilian_Digital_Landscape#Policy_Debate.2FDebate_de_Politicas_Publicas
> * Started documenting possible legal structures as well as more
> practical issues that will help with logistics, such as "how to
> send money to Brazil". Also started checking-in with lawyers and
> accountants who can help with logistics on the ground:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Catalyst_Project/Procedures_to_open_a_local_office_in_BrI
>
> ----------------------
> India Catalyst Project
> ----------------------
>
> Barry Newstead and Moka Pantages spent one week in India to attend
> Wikipedia 10 celebrations, meet with community, stakeholders, NGO and
> government officials, and conducted fact-finding meetings with
> associated organizations.
>
> Highlights from the trip included:
>
> * Barry attended Wikipedia 10 celebrations in Mumbai at VJTI and in
> Pune at the Symbiosis Institute. Moka joined Wikimedians in Bangalore;
> * Barry met with some members of the newly formed Indian chapter,
> Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, and Achal
> Prabhala, Wikimedia Advisory Board member;
> * Barry, Moka and Arjuna from the India chapter had an introductory
> discussion with Nokia Research;
> * Barry and Moka traveled to Mumbai to meet with a group of students
> and educators at IIT-Mumbai, as well as to visit Reliance
> Telecommunications for introductory discussions on their mobile
> strategy and tour their operations center and data center;
> * After Mumbai, Barry and Moka traveled to Delhi met with Bishakha
> Datta, Hari Prasad Nadig from the Wikimedia India chapter, and
> contracted legal counsel to attend a round table discussion with
> local NGOs and officials working in similar areas as the Wikimedia
> Foundation;
> * Barry and Moka met with Google India's communications and legal
> teams in Gurgaon;
> * Moka stayed behind and conducted additional meetings with
> community members, as well as press and communications
> organizations in India, Hong Kong and Seoul;
> * In Hong Kong, Moka met with Chinese Wikipedians from Hong Kong, as
> well as a group of five who traveled from neighboring Macau;
> * In Seoul, Moka met with a group of 16 Korean Wikipedians. This
> meeting kicked-off a group initiative to continue regular meetings
> to begin the chapter creation process.
>
> --------------
> Communications
> --------------
>
> Since Wikipedia's inception, journalists and other cultural commentators
> have struggled to assess its societal impact, often criticizing the
> content as inaccurate, or the model as one that cannot work. As the 10th
> anniversary approached, the international media seized the opportunity
> to reassess: this resulted in hundreds of stories around the world that
> were overwhelmingly positive. The media coverage painted a picture of
> Wikipedia as a successful educational endeavor serving more than 400
> million people. Its volunteer and non-profit nature were recognized and
> celebrated.
>
> January 4-6 NYC Media Tour with Jimmy Wales
>
> * Jimmy was interviewed by six media outlets, including the Daily
> Show with Jon Stewart.
>
> January 9-12 NY Media Tour with Sue Gardner
>
> * Sue was interviewed by 10 media outlets, including an
> off-the-record lunch with the New York Times, which prompted the
> "Gender Gap" story January 30.
>
> January 12 Media Call
>
> * Both Sue and Jimmy participated in an hour-long media call with 15
> journalists including the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and
> ReadWriteWeb.
>
> Highlights included:
>
> * Cover stories for BusinessWeek and the Economist
> * Front page of the New York Times
> * Substantial pieces by Time magazine, La Tercera, the Washington
> Post, Wired, Agence-France-Press, Origó, Hong Kong Economic Times,
> Associate Press, Spiegel, The Guardian, Chronicle of Higher
> Education, El País, NPR, Times of India, PC world (macedonian
> edition), LA Times, The Hindu, The Atlantic and the Huffington
> Post, La Repubblica.
>
> Links to coverage:
>
> * http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage
> * http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Wikipedia-to-increase-local-language-content/articleshow/7279863.cms
> * http://www.makpcworld.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1065:2011-01-13-12-44-33&catid=35:%D0%94%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%BD%D0%B0%20%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0&Itemid=55
> * http://www.economist.com/blogs/theworldin2011/2011/01/wikipedias_tenth_birthday
> * http://www.economist.com/node/17902943?story_id=17902943
> * http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/internet/article1073395.ece
> * http://news.etnet.com.cn/feature/shisuibaike20110114.html
> * http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/wikipedia-marks-10-years-of-edit-it-yourself/
> * http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/01/201111571716655385.html
> * http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,739367,00.html
> * http://www.repubblica.it/spettacoli-e-cultura/2011/01/11/news/10_anni_wikipedia-11072136/
> * http://www.elpais.com/articulo/Pantallas/Wikipedia/anos/278/ediciones/elpepirtv/20110111elpepirtv_2/Tes
> * http://www.origo.hu/techbazis/20110115-az-alapitokat-is-meglepte-a-wikipedia-sikere-tizeves-a.html
> * http://diario.latercera.com/2011/01/14/01/contenido/tendencias/16-56057-9-diez-anos-de-wikipedia-sus-editores-en-chile-revelan-como-son-los-usuarios.shtml
>
> Other links and information for January 2011:
>
> Press releases issued in January 2011:
>
> * http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Half_a_Million_People_Donate_to_Keep_Wikipedia_Free
> * http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Celebrates_10_Years_of_Free_Knowledge
>
> Media contact through January 2011:
>
> * http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#January_2011
>
> Blog posts through January 2011:
>
> * http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/
>
> For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the
> community-edited Wikipedia Signpost editions for January 2011:
>
> * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-01-03
> * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-01-10
> * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-01-17
> * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-01-24
> * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-01-31
>
> ---------------
> Human Resources
> ---------------
>
> A large percentage of the staff in San Francisco was out for at least a
> week with the "WikiPlague", a variant of the RSV virus that we seem to
> have caught at the 10th Anniversary Party.
>
> We made solid progress in recruiting over January and posted and boarded
> all of the positions we wanted to. We engaged two new recruiting firms,
> and are starting to see results from them. HR also conducted a hiring
> and onboarding process overhaul.
>
> We started tracking metrics for new hires and the Wikimedia Foundation
> as a whole, and will start compiling anonymized data regarding diversity
> and other internal characteristics so that we stay mission-aligned.
>
> The fellowship engagements have prompted the formalizing of the
> Fellowship program and other alternative employment options at the
> Wikimedia Foundation, and initiated a conversation that is currently
> ongoing.
>
> We have decided on an HRM software called OrangeHRM, which is an open
> source project. More news on this in February as we start engaging with
> them.
>
> New Hires
>
> * Maryana Pinchuk, Research Fellow (Community) – Temp Full Time
>
> Extended
>
> * James Alexander, Community Associate (Community) – Temp Full Time
> * Ryan Faulkner, Data Analyst (Tech) – Temp Full Time
> * Mark Hershberger, Bugmeister (Tech) – Temp Full Time
>
> New Openings Posted
>
> * Data Analytics Engineer (Tech)
> * Fundraiser Data Analyst (Community)
> * Development Associate (Community)
> * Volunteer Development Coordinator (Community)
> * Community Department Research Fellow (Community)
> * Performance Engineer (Tech)
> * Operations Engineer (Tech)
> * Software Developer – Features (Tech)
>
> Openings Still Posted
>
> * Head of Community Fellowship Program
> * Senior QA Engineer
> * Software Developer (Mobile)
>
> Contracts Completed
>
> * Keegan Peterzell, Community Associate
> * Dan Rosenthal, Community Associate
> * Alexander Zariv, Community Associate
> * Pete Forsyth, Public Outreach Officer
>
> Total Employee Count
>
> Plan: 81
> Actual: 60
>
> Remaining Open Positions to fiscal year end: 31
>
> Job Openings - http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings
>
> Real-time feed for HR updates: http://identi.ca/wikimeidaatwork or
> http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
>
> --------------------------
> Finance and Administration
> --------------------------
>
> * Submitted draft of the 2009 Form 990 tax return to KPMG;
> * Identified a firm for sellers permits, sales tax, etc. related to
> the planned Wikimedia merchandising webstore;
> * Worked with attorneys regarding residency certificates needed to
> receive Telefonica licensing payments (certificates should arrive
> in February);
> * Worked with KPMG regarding India entity and proposed legal structure.
>
> -------------------
> Visitors and Guests
> -------------------
>
> 1. Edward Erhar (User:The_ed17) (Online Ambassadors, who support
> professors and students via online means such as IRC and Wikipedia
> talk pages)
> 2. Lennart Gulbrandsson (Bookshelf and Account Creation Improvement
> Project)
> 3. Nevio Carlos de Alarcao (Wikimedia Brazil)
> 4. Achim Raschka (Wikimedia Germany)
> 5. Dan Vaks (Wikimedia Israel)
> 6. Federico Rampini (US Bureau Chief for one of Italy's top daily
> papers, La Repubblica)
> 7. Brent Barnum (Trivad)
> 8. Hans Lim (Trivad)
> 9. Gabriel Mugar (User:Gabrielm199) (Wikipedia Campus Ambassador
> Train-the-Trainer event)
> 10. PJ Tabit (User:Pjthepiano) (Wikipedia Campus Ambassador
> Train-the-Trainer event)
> 11. Chanitra Bishop (User:Etlib) (Wikipedia Campus Ambassador
> Train-the-Trainer event)
> 12. Rob Pongsajapan (User:Pongr) (Wikipedia Campus Ambassador
> Train-the-Trainer event)
> 13. Dominic Grifo (User:AMDomG) (Wikipedia Campus Ambassador
> Train-the-Trainer event)
> 14. Derrick Coetzee (User:Dcoetzee) (Wikipedia Campus Ambassors Training)
> 15. Dominic McDevitt-Parks (User:Dominic, formerly User:Dmcdevit)
> (Wikipedia Campus Ambassors Training)
> 16. Mike Cline (User:Mike Cline) (Wikipedia Campus Ambassors Training)
> 17. David Lee (User:bibliomaniac15) (Wikipedia Campus Ambassors Training)
> 18. Joni Spigler (User:Saudade7) (Wikipedia Campus Ambassors Training)
> 19. Christopher Cheney (Wikipedia Campus Ambassors Training)
> 20. David Guz (Wikipedia Campus Ambassors Training)
> 21. Matt Senate (Wikipedia Campus Ambassors Training)
> 22. Jodi Wilson (Wikipedia Campus Ambassors Training)
> 23. Honor Gunday (Paymentwall)
> 24. Brian Roth (Paymentwall)
> 25. Jonathan Zittrain, Elizabeth Stark and 17 students from the
> Stanford Cyberlaw Class
> 26. Ward Cunningham (Advisory Board)
> 27. Corey O'Brien (OMP Consultant)
> 28. Frank O'Brien (OMP Consultant)
> 29. Steve Geer (OMP Consultant)
> 30. Ken Berger (President and CEO of Charity Navigator)
> 31. Christine Herring (Arabic production called 'On the Road in America')
> 32. Arthur Honegger (Swiss public TV)
> 33. Amar Ashar (Berkman Center at Harvard)
> 34. Madeline Stranionis (Watershed)
> 35. Karen Valby (Fast Company)
> 36. Mimi Zhang (Penn State University)
> 37. Sarah Novotny (Blue Gecko)
> 38. Martin Schulz (Yale Computer Science Department)
>
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
> _______________________________________________
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> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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