Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Lua scripting enabled today on all wikis
Le 2013-03-13 19:38, Guillaume Paumier a écrit :
Greetings,
As you might have seen on the Wikimedia tech
bloghttps://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/lua-templates-faster-more-flexible-pages/(article
included below) or the tech
ambassadors
listhttp://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2013-March/000171.html,
a new functionality called Lua is being enabled on all Wikimedia
sites
today.
That's so great, thank you! I know there are plenty of templates that
need it. For example I was waiting for it to write one which generate
wiktionnaire articles for number, so you can go to
https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/15687435, and get a description of how
you prononce it in (hopefuly) each wiktionnaire covered language, plus
some description.
Thank you to bring us this tool. :)
Kind regards,
mathieu
Lua https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Lua is a scripting language
that enables Wikimedia editors to write faster and more powerful
MediaWiki
templates.
If you have questions about how to convert existing templates to Lua
(or
how to create new ones), we'll be holding two support sessions on IRC
next
week: one on
Wednesdayhttp://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?hour=02min=00sec=0day=20month=03year=2013(for
Oceania, Asia America) and one
on
Fridayhttp://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?hour=18min=00sec=0day=22month=03year=2013(for
Europe, Africa America); see m:IRC
office hours https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours for
details. If you can't make it, you can also get help at mw:Talk:Lua
scripting https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Lua_scripting.
If you'd like to learn about this kind of events earlier in advance,
consider becoming a Tech
ambassadorhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/Ambassadorsby
subscribing to the mailing
list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors.
=
New Lua templates bring faster, more flexible pages to your
wikihttps://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/lua-templates-faster-more-flexible-pages/
Posted by Sumana Harihareswara
https://blog.wikimedia.org/author/sumanah/on March 11th, 2013
Starting Wednesday, March 13th, you’ll be able to make wiki pages
even more
useful, no matter what language you speak: we’re adding
Luahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lua_%28programming_language%29as a
templating language. This will make it easier for you to create and
change infoboxes, tables, and other useful MediaWiki templates. We’ve
already started to deploy
Scribuntohttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Scribunto(the
MediaWiki extension that enables this); it’s on several of the sites,
including
English Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lua,
right now.
You’ll find this useful for performing more complex tasks for which
templates are too complex or slow *—* common examples include numeric
computations, string manipulation and parsing, and decision trees.
Even if
you don’t write templates, you’ll enjoy seeing pages load faster and
with
more interesting ways to present information.
Background
MediaWiki developers introduced templates and parser
functionshttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ParserFunctionsyears
ago to allow end-users of MediaWiki to replicate content easily and
build tools using basic logic. Along the way, we found that we were
turning
wikitext into a limited programming language. Complex templates have
caused
performance issues and bottlenecks, and it’s difficult for users to
write
and understand templates. Therefore, the Lua scripting
projecthttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Lua_scriptingaims to make it
possible for MediaWiki end-users to use a proper scripting
language that will be more powerful and efficient than ad-hoc, parser
functions-based logic. The example of Lua’s use in World of
Warcrafthttp://www.wowwiki.com/Luais promising; even novices with
no
programming experience have been able to
make large changes to their graphical experiences by quickly learning
some
Lua.
Lua on your wiki
As of March 13th, you’ll be able to use Lua on your home wiki (if
it’s not
already enabled). Lua code can be embedded into wiki templates by
employing
the {{#invoke:}} parser function provided by the Scribunto MediaWiki
extension. The Lua source code is stored in pages called modules
(e.g.,
Module:Bananas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Module:Bananas). These
individual modules are then invoked on template pages. The example:
Template:Lua
hello world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Lua_hello_world
uses
the code {{#invoke:Bananas|hello}} to print the text “Hello, world!”.
So,
if you start seeing edits in the Module namespace, that’s what’s
going on.
Getting started
Check out the basic “hello, world!”
instructionshttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Scribunto/Lua_reference_manual#Getting_started,
then look at Brad Jorsch’s short
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Hi, Am 14.03.2013 06:48, schrieb MZMcBride: I've started collecting notes about a possible Wikimedia or Wikimedia Foundation endowment here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment. thanks for collecting these links, they are interesting. Anyway, I didn't fully understand the idea behind the page, especially as a non-native speaker I have problems to come up with a proper translation / understanding of Endowment. I understand it as what WM(F) owns and it may refer to the right WM(F) expects to have on getting / using their donated money or may refer to the reserves WMF is currently building. Can you explain this a bit better for people like me, please? Maybe right on that Meta page would be good, so others can read it as well. Thank you, Manuel -- Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
See also: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment ___ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 415-839-6885, x 6643 phili...@wikimedia.org On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 4:12 AM, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.ukwrote: On 14 March 2013 08:09, Manuel Schneider manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch wrote: thanks for collecting these links, they are interesting. Anyway, I didn't fully understand the idea behind the page, especially as a non-native speaker I have problems to come up with a proper translation / understanding of Endowment. I understand it as what WM(F) owns and it may refer to the right WM(F) expects to have on getting / using their donated money or may refer to the reserves WMF is currently building. Can you explain this a bit better for people like me, please? Maybe right on that Meta page would be good, so others can read it as well. Hi Manuel, The basic idea of an endowment is that it's a large sum of money collected to set up a charity - it then uses the income from investing this money to cover some or all of its operating costs, rather than just spending it over a long period of time. The Wellcome Trust is a pretty good high-profile example; it has a capital endowment of around fifteen billion pounds, and spends about six hundred million (4%) a year. (In the US context, they're very common for universities, but this is less so in Europe; here it's more traditional charities) I've given a quick outline on the meta page. Building up an endowment sufficient to run WMF would be tricky, of course :-) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Thanks Andrew and Philippe for your explanation and links. So that is a plan to build a reserve of funds that is so big that the operation can be funded by the capital's gain - interest, dividends... Sounds interesting, even though the endowment must be huge to cover our yearly budgets. Another problem is that it is currently very hard to find an interesting investment with low risks. Interest rates have been reduced by the major central banks in order to overcome the global recession, many formerly safe and interesting investments became risky and those who are still safe partly have even negative interest rates (eg. german state bonds). /Manuel -- Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On 14 March 2013 13:00, Manuel Schneider manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch wrote: Thanks Andrew and Philippe for your explanation and links. So that is a plan to build a reserve of funds that is so big that the operation can be funded by the capital's gain - interest, dividends... Yes, although reserve generally refers to money kept in case something goes wrong. An endowment would be a separate fund specifically raised for that purpose. Sounds interesting, even though the endowment must be huge to cover our yearly budgets. Another problem is that it is currently very hard to find an interesting investment with low risks. Interest rates have been reduced by the major central banks in order to overcome the global recession, many formerly safe and interesting investments became risky and those who are still safe partly have even negative interest rates (eg. german state bonds). An endowment is a long-term thing. Current low interest rates probably won't last more than a few years. Even so, it would need to be a very large fund, yes. If you can get a return of, say, 2% over inflation (you can get more than that if you're willing to take some risks) you need 50 times your annual budget to fund it all from the endowment. That would be something like $2 billion for the WMF. It doesn't need to fund the entire budget to be useful, though, and can be built up over time (eg. from legacies in people's wills). ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Hi Manuel, In my professional experience with endowments (which isn't that extensive, I must confess), the investments are typically extremely conservative and designed to give a steady and reliable long term flow of dividends, rather than shooting for quick capital gains through risky investments in shares or property. Things like debentures, government bonds, fixed interest deposits, and so forth. Even in these current times of financial uncertainty, a competent investment adviser should be able to construct an investment portfolio that provides a modest return with little risk. Regards, Craig Franklin Message: 5 Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:00:21 +0100 From: Manuel Schneider manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment Message-ID: 5141bbd5.8050...@wikimedia.ch Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Thanks Andrew and Philippe for your explanation and links. So that is a plan to build a reserve of funds that is so big that the operation can be funded by the capital's gain - interest, dividends... Sounds interesting, even though the endowment must be huge to cover our yearly budgets. Another problem is that it is currently very hard to find an interesting investment with low risks. Interest rates have been reduced by the major central banks in order to overcome the global recession, many formerly safe and interesting investments became risky and those who are still safe partly have even negative interest rates (eg. german state bonds). /Manuel -- Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Le 2013-03-14 12:12, Andrew Gray a écrit : On 14 March 2013 08:09, Manuel Schneider manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch wrote: thanks for collecting these links, they are interesting. Anyway, I didn't fully understand the idea behind the page, especially as a non-native speaker I have problems to come up with a proper translation / understanding of Endowment. I understand it as what WM(F) owns and it may refer to the right WM(F) expects to have on getting / using their donated money or may refer to the reserves WMF is currently building. Can you explain this a bit better for people like me, please? Maybe right on that Meta page would be good, so others can read it as well. Hi Manuel, The basic idea of an endowment is that it's a large sum of money collected to set up a charity - it then uses the income from investing this money to cover some or all of its operating costs, rather than just spending it over a long period of time. The Wellcome Trust is a pretty good high-profile example; it has a capital endowment of around fifteen billion pounds, and spends about six hundred million (4%) a year. (In the US context, they're very common for universities, but this is less so in Europe; here it's more traditional charities) I've given a quick outline on the meta page. Building up an endowment sufficient to run WMF would be tricky, of course :-) Let's hope it won't turn up into a charity business like the Gates Foundation whose investisements are benefits driven, with no consideration to ethical problems. -- Association Culture-Libre http://www.culture-libre.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Nederland February activity report
The February activity report by Wikimedia Nederland is now available on meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/WIkimedia_Nederland/201302 It is also included as text below. WMNL February report Technical projects · The closing conference of the EU-funded CoSyne project in which WMNL was a partner took place in Amsterdam on February 1. WMNL Board Member Frans Grijzenhout presented the results of the testing carried out by WMNL volunteers. CoSyne produced a tool for the synchronisation and translation of wiki-pages. · A team of enthousiastic volunteers and staff are making good progress in preparing for the International Hackathon 2013, which will take place in Amsterdam, May 23 - 26. For the first time, participants will be able to stay overnight at the venue where they will be working during the day. Content projects · Further steps were made towards integrating the Dictionary of Hebrew and Jiddish words in use in the Dutch language into Wiktionary. This dictionary was compiled by the Foundation Sofeer, who want to make their work permanently available to a larger audience. · On February 15. Wikimedia volunteers went on a photo-excursion to the city of Arnhem to gather images of war-monuments. This is part of a wider discussion between WMNL and the Netherlands National Committee 4 and 5 May (responsible for official commemoration of World War II) about cooperation. · WMNL staff and board members are working with the international coordination group of Wiki Loves Monuments to ensure funding for activities in 2013. Board and Staff · Sebastiaan ter Burg started work as GLAM project-coordinator on February 15 · Via the WMNL newsletter and other media a call went out for candidate Board Members. PR · A new issue of the WMNL Newsletter was published · Work is in progress on redesigning the WMNL website · Research bureau Motivaction carried out surveys among WMNL members and Dutch Wikipedia editors to assess to what extent they are aware of the work done by WMNL, their expectations/ideas concerning future activities, and their motivation to contribute to Wikimedia projects. At the same time a survey was done among a general public focusgroup to assess whether they know and use Wikipedia, their potential willingness to contribute and their insight into the way Wikipedia is maintained and funded. Results will be available mid March. Other meetings · WMNL Director Sandra Rientjes and GLAM coordinator Sebastiaan ter Burg met with staff of the European Centre for Nature Conservation (Tilburg, the Netherlands) to discuss how they could contribute images concerning biodiversity and protected areas to Wikimedia Commons and how they could encourage their constituency to become active as Wikipedia editors. · Board Member Sandra Fauconnier and director Sandra Rientjes had a meeting with the Director of the Netherlands National Archives to discuss the possibility of a Wikipedian in Residence, and other forms of cooperation. Upcoming · The Algemene Ledenvergadering (General Assembly) of WMNL will take place on Saturday, March 23. On the agenda will be the annual report and accounts 2012, as well as the election of Board Members · Workshops on including recorded sound in Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia - March 30 April 20 · European Fashion Editathon. May 13. * * Sandra Rientjes Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland tel. (+31) (0)6 31786379 *Postadres*: * Bezoekadres:* Postbus 167Mariaplaats 3 3500 AD Utrecht Utrecht ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Thomas Dalton wrote: An endowment is a long-term thing. Current low interest rates probably won't last more than a few years. Even so, it would need to be a very large fund, yes. If you can get a return of, say, 2% over inflation (you can get more than that if you're willing to take some risks) you need 50 times your annual budget to fund it all from the endowment. That would be something like $2 billion for the WMF. It doesn't need to fund the entire budget to be useful, though, and can be built up over time (eg. from legacies in people's wills). Exactly. As I understand it, the yearly annual Wikimedia Foundation budget is about $35 million. It costs about $2.5 million to keep the sites operational for a year. So even if an endowment weren't large enough to cover well over 130 full-time staff members, it could still keep us up and running for a while. Assuming $2.5 million, that's about $125 million, using your multiply by 50 formula. That's still a shitload of money, but it's much less than $2 billion. :-) I think we need to decide, as a community, whether this is something we want. If it is, we should set up an endowment fund sooner rather than later, so that people willing to donate to such an endowment have a place to put their money, I think. The question then becomes: how do we decide on this? A community vote (similar to the licensing update vote) followed by a Board resolution? A Wikimedia-wide requests for comment? Just a Board resolution (assuming a majority of members support this, of course)? Thoughts on how to figure out what the next step here is would be really appreciated. (Particularly looking at you, Philippe, given your work on both the strategic plan and the licensing vote. Gerard's Law and all. ;-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 10:47 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: (Particularly looking at you, Philippe, given your work on both the strategic plan and the licensing vote. Gerard's Law and all. ;-) For the record, I didn't do the licensing vote. :) Erik gets all the sblame/s credit for that. :-) My feeling would be that the obvious first place to start would be the Board of Trustees. I'd probably start by emailing them and asking them what they think. It seems to me, if I were in your shoes (and I'm carefully taking no position here, not because I don't have an opinion but because I don't have a considered opinion), that the response to that would drive the next set of actions. pb ___ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 415-839-6885, x 6643 phili...@wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Philippe Beaudette wrote: On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 10:47 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: (Particularly looking at you, Philippe, given your work on both the strategic plan and the licensing vote. Gerard's Law and all. ;-) For the record, I didn't do the licensing vote. :) Erik gets all the sblame/s credit for that. :-) Hah, my bad. For some reason, I was associating it with you in my head. I thought you did the strategic plan in 2008 and the licensing update in 2009. Meta-Wiki bears you out, though. Maybe I got the licensing update vote confused with the image filter referendum? Anyway, sorry about that. My feeling would be that the obvious first place to start would be the Board of Trustees. I'd probably start by emailing them and asking them what they think. It seems to me, if I were in your shoes (and I'm carefully taking no position here, not because I don't have an opinion but because I don't have a considered opinion), that the response to that would drive the next set of actions. Well, I think a few of the Board of Trustees members read this mailing list occasionally. Perhaps they'll chime in. I'd not seen https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment. Thank you kindly for that. (Now if only strategy.wikimedia.org were folded back into meta.wikimedia.org so that I had a chance of finding these pages on my own) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 2:47 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: As I understand it, the yearly annual Wikimedia Foundation budget is about $35 million. It costs about $2.5 million to keep the sites operational for a year. So even if an endowment weren't large enough to cover well over 130 full-time staff members, it could still keep us up and running for a while. Assuming $2.5 million, that's about $125 million, using your multiply by 50 formula. That's still a shitload of money, but it's much less than $2 billion. :-) I think we need to decide, as a community, whether this is something we want. If it is, we should set up an endowment fund sooner rather than later, so that people willing to donate to such an endowment have a place to put their money, I think. This used to be my pet project for a while. My first edit to strategy wiki was about an endowment fund[1], I don't think there was anything on the subject before that one. Stu and Eugene's edit on the subject came later, so I'll still take some credit for this one. ;) I brought this up in person to a few board members, and to the foundation staff on another mailing list an year or two ago. I believe they are all aware of the idea and its implication. Eugene suggested at some point that we should come back to this discussion later. The answers were always ambiguous from what I recall. There seems to be absence of a long term sustainable financial vision for the foundation, or if there is, it doesn't seem to be public. The majority of it seems to revolve around retaining x months of operational reserves and putting all the chips on the annual fundraiser. I always thought that's not a very mature financial strategy for an organization. I started discussing this on strategy wiki, etc. and the first thought was separating the core and non-core activities, and then separating the funding models. The core activities are relatively stable, the non-core differentiate a lot more year on year - moving the non-core to a variable model where the revenue would define spending, and core activities to its self-contained sustainable model would be an ideal strategy. The bare-minimum operational cost of hosting, and being online, could be covered with such a fund easily, leaving the annual fundraiser target to be a variable each year without any target, which in turn can define the spending. The correct calculation,as thomas started alluding to would be - operating expenses + projected growth (year on year) + annual inflation rate + reserve/contingency. I had a lot more worked out somewhere according to tax laws and specific interest rates. Either way, the first implication would be that this would nullify to some extent, the majority of the urgency the fundraiser raises, the success of the fundraiser would be irrelevant to the long term existence of the projects. Regards Theo [1]http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Wikipedia_Fund ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
I was marginally involved on this issue two years ago. And by then the focus/priority was to ramp up the Fundraising activities. As this now has been successfully done, I believe this discussion is now much better in timing, and worthwhile to work through I like the idea that the basic running costs for servers etc should have guaranteed income by Endowments, but that the programmatic activities should still be dependent on the yearly fundraising Anders Theo10011 skrev 2013-03-14 19:23: On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 2:47 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: As I understand it, the yearly annual Wikimedia Foundation budget is about $35 million. It costs about $2.5 million to keep the sites operational for a year. So even if an endowment weren't large enough to cover well over 130 full-time staff members, it could still keep us up and running for a while. Assuming $2.5 million, that's about $125 million, using your multiply by 50 formula. That's still a shitload of money, but it's much less than $2 billion. :-) I think we need to decide, as a community, whether this is something we want. If it is, we should set up an endowment fund sooner rather than later, so that people willing to donate to such an endowment have a place to put their money, I think. This used to be my pet project for a while. My first edit to strategy wiki was about an endowment fund[1], I don't think there was anything on the subject before that one. Stu and Eugene's edit on the subject came later, so I'll still take some credit for this one. ;) I brought this up in person to a few board members, and to the foundation staff on another mailing list an year or two ago. I believe they are all aware of the idea and its implication. Eugene suggested at some point that we should come back to this discussion later. The answers were always ambiguous from what I recall. There seems to be absence of a long term sustainable financial vision for the foundation, or if there is, it doesn't seem to be public. The majority of it seems to revolve around retaining x months of operational reserves and putting all the chips on the annual fundraiser. I always thought that's not a very mature financial strategy for an organization. I started discussing this on strategy wiki, etc. and the first thought was separating the core and non-core activities, and then separating the funding models. The core activities are relatively stable, the non-core differentiate a lot more year on year - moving the non-core to a variable model where the revenue would define spending, and core activities to its self-contained sustainable model would be an ideal strategy. The bare-minimum operational cost of hosting, and being online, could be covered with such a fund easily, leaving the annual fundraiser target to be a variable each year without any target, which in turn can define the spending. The correct calculation,as thomas started alluding to would be - operating expenses + projected growth (year on year) + annual inflation rate + reserve/contingency. I had a lot more worked out somewhere according to tax laws and specific interest rates. Either way, the first implication would be that this would nullify to some extent, the majority of the urgency the fundraiser raises, the success of the fundraiser would be irrelevant to the long term existence of the projects. Regards Theo [1]http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Wikipedia_Fund ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia Zero wins!
Hi Orsolya, On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Orsolya Gyenes gyenes.orso...@wiki.media.hu wrote: Is there a blog post or a press release about it? The blog post is up: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/wikipedia-zero-wins-2013-sxsw-interactive-activism-award/ -- Kul Wadhwa Head of Mobile Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia Zero wins!
Thank you! Can't wait to be launched in Hungary! ;) *~Orsolya* 2013/3/14 Kul Wadhwa kwad...@wikimedia.org Hi Orsolya, On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Orsolya Gyenes gyenes.orso...@wiki.media.hu wrote: Is there a blog post or a press release about it? The blog post is up: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/wikipedia-zero-wins-2013-sxsw-interactive-activism-award/ -- Kul Wadhwa Head of Mobile Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Aha, a welcome topic :) MZMcBride writes: I think we need to decide, as a community, whether this is something we want. If it is, we should set up an endowment fund sooner rather than later, so that people willing to donate to such an endowment have a place to put their money, I think. Yes, let us build an endowment. It makes practical sense: As a community institution that aims to serve our society for the next 100 years, it matches our scope and vision. And as a respected and visible global project, we can raise the funds we need. It also makes financial sense: Some donors prefer to donate to one. And there are economies of scale: the flexibility of long-term investments let them generate better average returns, and large funds can invest significantly more effectively than small ones. Anders Wennersten m...@anderswennersten.se writes: I was marginally involved on this issue two years ago. And by then the focus/priority was to ramp up the Fundraising activities. As this now has been successfully done, I believe this discussion is now much better in timing, and worthwhile to work through Right. When we first considered an endowment, the WMF didn't have the financial expertise to set one up; later, in 2010, fundraising was growing quite quickly and took priority. Now we are in a good position to plan longer-term investments. This is good timing for another reason as well. These issues were raised at the WMF Audit Committee meeting last week, and the WMF is considering what an endowment might look like. Strong community support would speed that consideration. SJ -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 5:16 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: On 14 March 2013 13:00, Manuel Schneider manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch wrote: Thanks Andrew and Philippe for your explanation and links. So that is a plan to build a reserve of funds that is so big that the operation can be funded by the capital's gain - interest, dividends... Yes, although reserve generally refers to money kept in case something goes wrong. An endowment would be a separate fund specifically raised for that purpose. It doesn't need to fund the entire budget to be useful, though, and can be built up over time (eg. from legacies in people's wills). Yes. In an university context, which is what I'm most familiar with (and where endowments are very common in the U.S.), there is often a specific endowment campaign to plan for and build the endowment that is separate from normal fundraising -- for instance, you might have a dedicated team that would work on the endowment, solicit wealthy donors, etc. And in turn, the endowment is not meant to fund all expenses or to preempt normal fundraising. It can fund some expenses, and provides long-term stability for the organization. Endowments often come about when you either have a very wealthy donor who is setting up a foundation, or when you have a humanitarian institution that wants to be in business essentially forever (as is the case with most universities). There is complicated law and best practice around endowments that I don't pretend to understand. I do know it's more complicated than setting up a bank account and calling it the endowment fund, at least to do it well. Having an endowment would ideally be a part of the WMF's strategic and long-term financial plan, with some dedicated resources (i.e. staff time to manage the fund and solicit donations) applied to it. And we would want to be clear on what we wanted the endowment to do -- what its role would be over time -- and how it would interact and perhaps affect annual fundraising. All that said, I strongly support the idea, on the principle that what we do is important for the long-term and needs to be supported as such. We did discuss the idea during my time on the board, a year or so ago, and it sounds like it's coming up again, which is great! -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
My team here at the foundation has begun to do a little leg work so that we are ready to go, if the Board should decide to pursue an endowment. We have begun to tip our toes into the world of planned giving and have had conversations with some of our major donors about it. At this point, the planned gifts are for general support, but our strategy would likely be to direct these types of gifts to an endowment, if we go that route. We also set up a simple page on the foundation site about planned giving or Legacy Gifts, as we are calling it. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Legacy_Gift So far, the conversations have gone well. There is an interesting challenge in that donors have to be convinced that the organization is going to be relevant in 20 or 30 years (or in the case of an endowment – forever). I'd love to hear your best arguments for why that this true. (Or maybe we could devote some thinking to this during the next strategic planning process). Best, Lisa Gruwell On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 12:47 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: Aha, a welcome topic :) MZMcBride writes: I think we need to decide, as a community, whether this is something we want. If it is, we should set up an endowment fund sooner rather than later, so that people willing to donate to such an endowment have a place to put their money, I think. Yes, let us build an endowment. It makes practical sense: As a community institution that aims to serve our society for the next 100 years, it matches our scope and vision. And as a respected and visible global project, we can raise the funds we need. It also makes financial sense: Some donors prefer to donate to one. And there are economies of scale: the flexibility of long-term investments let them generate better average returns, and large funds can invest significantly more effectively than small ones. Anders Wennersten m...@anderswennersten.se writes: I was marginally involved on this issue two years ago. And by then the focus/priority was to ramp up the Fundraising activities. As this now has been successfully done, I believe this discussion is now much better in timing, and worthwhile to work through Right. When we first considered an endowment, the WMF didn't have the financial expertise to set one up; later, in 2010, fundraising was growing quite quickly and took priority. Now we are in a good position to plan longer-term investments. This is good timing for another reason as well. These issues were raised at the WMF Audit Committee meeting last week, and the WMF is considering what an endowment might look like. Strong community support would speed that consideration. SJ -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.orgwrote: My team here at the foundation has begun to do a little leg work so that we are ready to go, if the Board should decide to pursue an endowment. We have begun to tip our toes into the world of planned giving and have had conversations with some of our major donors about it. At this point, the planned gifts are for general support, but our strategy would likely be to direct these types of gifts to an endowment, if we go that route. We also set up a simple page on the foundation site about planned giving or Legacy Gifts, as we are calling it. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Legacy_Gift So far, the conversations have gone well. There is an interesting challenge in that donors have to be convinced that the organization is going to be relevant in 20 or 30 years (or in the case of an endowment – forever). I'd love to hear your best arguments for why that this true. (Or maybe we could devote some thinking to this during the next strategic planning process). Best, Lisa Gruwell Thanks Lisa -- now *that's* a good question :) I added a quick section to the endowment page, if people want to discuss there: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment#Will_we_be_relevant_in3F -- phoebe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 8:47 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: Aha, a welcome topic :) MZMcBride writes: I think we need to decide, as a community, whether this is something we want. If it is, we should set up an endowment fund sooner rather than later, so that people willing to donate to such an endowment have a place to put their money, I think. Yes, let us build an endowment. It makes practical sense: As a community institution that aims to serve our society for the next 100 years, it matches our scope and vision. And as a respected and visible global project, we can raise the funds we need. It also makes financial sense: Some donors prefer to donate to one. And there are economies of scale: the flexibility of long-term investments let them generate better average returns, and large funds can invest significantly more effectively than small ones. let me play advocatus diaboli here ... the strong point of the wikimedia movement always has been that it attracts small donations, which are of immediate use. some reserves to allow keep the lights on for a couple of years is very understandable. lets assume our donors are average people, people who have the time to click and give 10 dollars. why should somebody who earns a little salary want to give 10 dollars to a foundation which has 40 million on its bank account? ok - you say the movement does not need these little donations any more, because if the foundation would have 800 million dollar it would leave 40 million to spend as well (5% interest rate). but what if the foundation only has 200 million? this earns only 10 million a year, and the sum might be sufficient that we might loose the donors which made this success possible. and you say, some people might really _want_ to donate to an endowment fund, just let the people choose. but - does this choice cannibalize the normal donations of people who do not want to donate to an endowment fund? if yes, then the foundation, the websites, and the content got disconnected from the donors, and from the contributors. advocatus diaboli mode out. rupert. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] GLAM-Wiki 2013 - one month to go!
Hi all, and apologies for crossposting - We've been pushing ahead with the last stages of planning for the GLAM-Wiki conference these past couple of weeks, and I thought I'd send around a reminder that it'll be four weeks from now! The conference will be looking at the work done by Wikimedians working with cultural organisations over recent years, and highlighting the prospects for future cooperation. It will involve a series of talks and reports (Friday), workshops (Saturday), and an unconference\hackathon run by THATcamp (Sunday). The conference is hosted by the British Library in London from 12-14 April, and organised by Wikimedia UK with support from Wikimedia Sweden and Europeana. Speakers include Michael Edson (Smithsonian), Lizzy Jongma (Rijksmuseum), and Nick Poole (Collections Trust), as well as twenty or thirty others from inside and outside the Wikimedia community. More details on WMUK's blog post: http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/03/glam-wiki-celebrating-culture-and-open-access/ An outline of the conference is here: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM-WIKI_2013 with a detailed schedule here: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM-WIKI_2013/Schedule Looking forward to seeing some of you there, and please do circulate this to anyone who might be interested! -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Erik Moeller wrote: On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 10:47 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: It costs about $2.5 million to keep the sites operational for a year. How did you come up with that number? I used to say $2 million, but Roan recently told me that it had probably gone up since that estimate (from 2009). So now I say $2.5 million. It's advertised on Meta-Wiki here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/?banner=money_or_die. ;-) As I recall, the $2 million (now $2.5 million) figure came from discussions with technical staff about what it would cost to keep the site running for a year and an examination of relevant Wikimedia-related budget breakdowns that were split out between non-technical staff costs, overhead costs, etc. However, following Cunningham's Law, if you have a better figure, please share. :-) We can certainly say it's far less than $35 million to only keep the sites up and running (barebones hosting support and related tech staff costs), the question is how much less. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 2:51 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 5:42 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: Last year's financial report shows almost exactly $2.5m for Internet hosting. I'm not sure quite what that covers Only data-center usage (facilities, bandwidth, power). It does not include capital expenditures (servers, storage, network gear, etc.; budgeted at $1.9M in 2012-13) nor ops engineering staffing, nor of course any software engineering staffing or the basics of an organizational support structure (management/administration, legal, etc.). What's a bare minimum amount? It's a hard question to answer, because it depends on what you consider an acceptable bare minimum. - Is it acceptable for the projects to be without legal defense? - Is it acceptable to revert back to a single data center mode of operation? - Is it acceptable for ops to just barely be able to keep the lights on, with minimal effort dedicated to backups/monitoring/maintenance, etc.? - Is it acceptable for there to be no software engineers to aid with reviewing code contributions, and making improvements to the software? and so on. WMF has operated in the past without staffing and with very minimal staffing, so clearly it's _possible_ to host a high traffic website on an absolute shoestring. But I would argue that an endowment, to actually be worthwhile, should aim for a significantly higher base level of minimal annual operating expenses, more in the order of magnitude of $10M+/year, to ensure not only bare survival, but actual sustainability of Wikimedia's mission. The what's the level required for bare survival question is, IMO, only of marginal interest, because it is much more desirable, and should be very much possible, to raise funds for sustaining our mission in perpetuity. I like the fact that megalomania is infectious and escalating disease, which has roots in reality :) I started to write something like: Come on, it's better to have a bare minimum than nothing. Then I realized that WMF endowment needs two year of Mozilla's income. Thus, quite possible for WMF, as well. Not in two, but yes in five or so years. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 8:45 PM, George Herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:
[Hosting...] Then various operational and administrative costs. My finger in
the
air estimate would be a total of about $4m-$5m.
It is important to know how much money is going on essentials and how much
on nice-to-haves. (That ought to be how the core/non-core split works,
really)
I think a useful breakdown is
{([hosting + core operations] + core projects) + additional
projects} = budget
The boundaries get fuzzier, moving out.
Hosting :Bandwidth and hardware; has two line-items in the budget.
Core ops : Everything needed to make hosting work with [reasonable]
uptime / disaster response / critical updates.
Core projects : Everything needed to make the Projects and
Foundation work with [reasonable] efficiency and accessibility.
Including fundraising, financial and legal project support,
development of major features, mediawiki platform innovation, support
for community tech innovation.
Additional projects A : Efforts to upgrade reasonable service to
excellent. Support for new Projects. Experiments in engagement /
collaboration / governance.
Additional projects B : Work to bridge gaps in current projects,
research to find solutions to unsolved problems, outreach to new
audiences. Other exploratory work, e.g., in design / communication /
education / dissemination / translation.
There are other ways we could classify our work. There are options
for in-kind donations or volunteer-run versions of many costs, though
this is not always sustainable. There are options for degrading the
quality of services rather than dropping them entirely.
This classification isn't perfectly tied to long-term importance: it
focuses on things we've already done and want to protect. Something
supported by an additional project today may become a core project
tomorrow, or key to the future of the movement... or it may be spun
off or handed off to a partner.
Last year, our definition of non-core WMF projects was I believe
similar to group B above.
SJ
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
We also have to consider what these costs will be in 5 years and beyond to
know really how big an endowment would need to be. This will require some
fairly complicated projects, that will most certainly be wrong at some
point in time. :)
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 7:16 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 8:45 PM, George Herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:
[Hosting...] Then various operational and administrative costs. My
finger in the
air estimate would be a total of about $4m-$5m.
It is important to know how much money is going on essentials and how
much
on nice-to-haves. (That ought to be how the core/non-core split works,
really)
I think a useful breakdown is
{([hosting + core operations] + core projects) + additional
projects} = budget
The boundaries get fuzzier, moving out.
Hosting :Bandwidth and hardware; has two line-items in the budget.
Core ops : Everything needed to make hosting work with [reasonable]
uptime / disaster response / critical updates.
Core projects : Everything needed to make the Projects and
Foundation work with [reasonable] efficiency and accessibility.
Including fundraising, financial and legal project support,
development of major features, mediawiki platform innovation, support
for community tech innovation.
Additional projects A : Efforts to upgrade reasonable service to
excellent. Support for new Projects. Experiments in engagement /
collaboration / governance.
Additional projects B : Work to bridge gaps in current projects,
research to find solutions to unsolved problems, outreach to new
audiences. Other exploratory work, e.g., in design / communication /
education / dissemination / translation.
There are other ways we could classify our work. There are options
for in-kind donations or volunteer-run versions of many costs, though
this is not always sustainable. There are options for degrading the
quality of services rather than dropping them entirely.
This classification isn't perfectly tied to long-term importance: it
focuses on things we've already done and want to protect. Something
supported by an additional project today may become a core project
tomorrow, or key to the future of the movement... or it may be spun
off or handed off to a partner.
Last year, our definition of non-core WMF projects was I believe
similar to group B above.
SJ
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Grants Program Retrospective 2009-2012 published
After reading this more thoroughly: I am deeply impressed. This sort of review should be carried out for all major ongoing projects. For instance, it could be useful to have a similar retrospective on major technical features that have been implemented or formally requested by large Wikimedia wikis over the past 4 years -- and those that have been developed by the WMF and either implemented or not (depending on how they were received). I realized recently that many developers believe their work's implementation, and what it is possible for them to accomplish, is governed by whether the community likes it or not. Meanwhile many community members feel they have no control over what features are developed or prioritized. An independent review could help demystify that cycle. SJ On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:23 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Asaf Bartov wrote: Another component of the Wikimedia Foundation's increased focus on grantmaking is now ready for discussion: it is a retrospective report on the history, evolution, and processes of the Wikimedia Grants Program (the Foundation's first, and until fairly recently only, grants program). We were interested in an independent report by someone with a good understanding of wikis and our shared values, and chose a local Wikipedian named Kevin Gorman (User:Kevin Gorman), active on English Wikipedia, who has volunteered in the Wikipedia Education Program and also had an (unpaid) internship at the Foundation office in San Francisco for a few months in 2011. Kevin was paid our standard contractor wage for his work on this. Kevin has posted the report here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Retrospective_2009-2012 Hi. I haven't had a chance to read the report yet, but I just want to say thank you for the transparency here. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Only data-center usage (facilities, bandwidth, power). It does not include capital expenditures (servers, storage, network gear, etc.; budgeted at $1.9M in 2012-13) nor ops engineering staffing, nor of course any software engineering staffing or the basics of an organizational support structure (management/administration, legal, etc.). I'm not technically inclined, but those numbers sound odd. Maybe I'm missing something? The traffic ranking didn't go up nearly as substantially in the last couple of years as the hosting and cap-ex mentioned above. The total listed revenue for 06/07 is around 2.7 Million, 07/08 is 5 million, 08/09 is 8.6 million from there on it started doubling, but that was the total revenue at the time, assuming it had to be higher than the actual hosting cost. I don't think there were any substantial visitor milestones crossed after that, another argument could be made that the costs associated with hosting went down in that period. Either way, the two don't seem to be growing at the same pace. What's a bare minimum amount? It's a hard question to answer, because it depends on what you consider an acceptable bare minimum. - Is it acceptable for the projects to be without legal defense? - Is it acceptable to revert back to a single data center mode of operation? - Is it acceptable for ops to just barely be able to keep the lights on, with minimal effort dedicated to backups/monitoring/maintenance, etc.? - Is it acceptable for there to be no software engineers to aid with reviewing code contributions, and making improvements to the software? and so on. How about door #3. Any idea what amount that would be close to. Ops keeping the light on seems like a good definition of core. WMF has operated in the past without staffing and with very minimal staffing, so clearly it's _possible_ to host a high traffic website on an absolute shoestring. But I would argue that an endowment, to actually be worthwhile, should aim for a significantly higher base level of minimal annual operating expenses, more in the order of magnitude of $10M+/year, to ensure not only bare survival, but actual sustainability of Wikimedia's mission. The what's the level required for bare survival question is, IMO, only of marginal interest, because it is much more desirable, and should be very much possible, to raise funds for sustaining our mission in perpetuity. In 2011, I calculated that amount to be closer to $6M/year from a diversified low-to-medium risk portfolio. A fund like that would need to have a variable yield above a certain set amount to negate any year-on-year increases. I believe there are companies that can calculate the annual projected cost over the next 10 years and suggest options. On Fri, Mar 15, 2013, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.org wrote: We also have to consider what these costs will be in 5 years and beyond to know really how big an endowment would need to be. This will require some fairly complicated projects, that will most certainly be wrong at some point in time. :) Actually, that's the benefit of separating the costs between core and non-core. The projection for the hosting and bare-minimum operations already has 10 year of past data to draw from. The cost would also remain the same for every large internet property, things like bandwidth and datacenter usage would be fairly the same for everyone. The non-core expenses however are a different story. They depend on whatever direction the foundation chooses. Those expenses would be nearly impossible to predict from what I've seen. Regards Theo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
currently the bylaws say: transfer the money to any 501(c) organisation. wmf would not be allowed to be charitable in switzerland as it is not guaranteed the donors money end up what it was ment for: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#Section_2._Distribution_of_Assets. rupert. On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 6:17 AM, Peter Southwood peter.southw...@telkomsa.net wrote: Parallel to that question, is what happens to the endowment if the WMF is wound up. This would be of some interest to possible donors. In principle I am in favour of an endowment. Cheers, Peter - Original Message - From: phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 10:52 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.orgwrote: My team here at the foundation has begun to do a little leg work so that we are ready to go, if the Board should decide to pursue an endowment. We have begun to tip our toes into the world of planned giving and have had conversations with some of our major donors about it. At this point, the planned gifts are for general support, but our strategy would likely be to direct these types of gifts to an endowment, if we go that route. We also set up a simple page on the foundation site about planned giving or Legacy Gifts, as we are calling it. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Legacy_Gift So far, the conversations have gone well. There is an interesting challenge in that donors have to be convinced that the organization is going to be relevant in 20 or 30 years (or in the case of an endowment – forever). I'd love to hear your best arguments for why that this true. (Or maybe we could devote some thinking to this during the next strategic planning process). Best, Lisa Gruwell Thanks Lisa -- now *that's* a good question :) I added a quick section to the endowment page, if people want to discuss there: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment#Will_we_be_relevant_in3F -- phoebe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2240 / Virus Database: 2641/5673 - Release Date: 03/14/13 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On 3/14/2013 10:26 PM, Theo10011 wrote: On Thu, Mar 14, 2013, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Only data-center usage (facilities, bandwidth, power). It does not include capital expenditures (servers, storage, network gear, etc.; budgeted at $1.9M in 2012-13) nor ops engineering staffing, nor of course any software engineering staffing or the basics of an organizational support structure (management/administration, legal, etc.). I'm not technically inclined, but those numbers sound odd. Maybe I'm missing something? The traffic ranking didn't go up nearly as substantially in the last couple of years as the hosting and cap-ex mentioned above. I'm not sure why you would use traffic ranking for financial analysis, even the envelope-and-napkin kind of analysis we're engaging in here. I'm pretty confident that just because Google has been sitting at #1 for some time, it doesn't mean that their core operational costs have remained flat over that period. Aside from that, it's only recently that Wikimedia sites have approached having the kind of redundancy and failover capabilities we've talked about needing for a long time. That's at least one example of something that can add pretty significant costs without having a material impact on traffic (except in emergencies, of course). --Michael Snow ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
