[Foundation-l] Personal Image Filter results announced

[phoebe ayers]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 3:01 AM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> Fae wrote:
>>> Fae wrote:
>>>> Is there a link somewhere to the total budget and actual staff costs
>>>> of the referendum?
>>>
>>> This was asked very early on:
>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Image_filter_referendum/Archive1#Cost
>>
>> Sorry, not the same question as expected costs of implementation. I am
>> asking for the actual staff costs for running and analysing the
>> referendum itself (so far) plus any further planned costs. This should
>> be entirely known and openly reported.
>
> Oops. My bad.
>
> I don't know of any such link and I doubt you'll ever seen one (unless you
> write the page yourself!). The Wikimedia cost side would largely be focused
> in Philippe (for organizing the referendum) and maybe in a contractor or two
> for some work on SecurePoll. Off-hand, I can't think of anyone else who was
> really involved from Wikimedia's side. I don't know if there's a cost
> associated with the vote hosting (by SPI, I believe), though I'd assume
> there is. (Unless the hosting is donated.)
>
> Philippe organized a committee of users, so their time and resources would
> be calculated separately. All of their work was unpaid, as far as I know.
> Just another thankless task. "On Wikipedia, the reward for a job well done
> is another three jobs," as Mr. Gerard says. :-)
>
> Other than costs noted above, I can't really think of too much else that
> went into this. Some Board people and staffers have commented on this list
> and on the talk page, but most of that is negligible cost and/or volunteer
> cost. There are grey areas to consider as well. For example, would you
> consider the time and resources that went into the mock-ups as part of the
> referendum costs?

Thanks Mzm -- this is all correct. Of course the work on SecurePoll
also translates over for all the other elections; and work on filter
mockups was actually done beforehand and could more accurately be
counted as part of the implementation itself. As for the referendum
committee everyone was a volunteer, just like all the other election
committees, with the exception of Philippe who did this as yet another
task added to his list of things to do (so some percentage but not the
total of his overall time), and Maggie who observed (as she does many
projects).

Other staff time? Sue's spent hundreds of hours thinking about this; I
have no idea how you would separate that out from all the things she
does in her 18-hour days :) There's been a few meetings with tech
staff. Everyone on the staff has had to sort through a million emails
on the subject, because we're all subscribed to the same lists, but
that's a cost for everyone. In terms of people-hours spent replying on
the lists and such... that's awfully hard to calculate. A lot, to be
sure, but mostly volunteer time. I have personally spent heaven knows
how many hundred (unpaid) hours on this, but I just chalk it up to
being yet another Wikimedia project, albeit one that is taking a
disproportionate amount of energy... it's what we do. (Of course I am
not counting my therapy bills after this is all over, LOL).

-- phoebe