Re: [Wikimedia-l] Writing Wikimedia's history [Re: Institutional memory @WMF]

[Philippe Beaudette]

Adam writes:

“The Wikimedia-pedia [1] is a treasure, thank you Philippe for linking!  
I'd love to see this content migrated to a public wiki, where maybe it 
can come to life again.”

Not-terribly-secretly, Eugene and I had always hoped that this section of the 
deliverables would continue to be updated and would then be useful for the next 
strategy design process. Obviously, once the wiki was locked, that ceased to be 
an option without moving/transcluding/transmogrifying/something-scary-sounding 
the content somewhere else. I’ve always thought that was a great loss.

Philippe



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[Wikimedia-l] Update to the Conference Grants program dates and new proposals deadline

[Chen Almog]

Hello everyone!

Following our last update

regarding in-person gatherings, we wanted to share another update on the
new dates for the upcoming Conference Grants program funding round.


As we want to allow more time for potential grantees to review and utilize
the forthcoming September release of guidance for in-person gatherings, we
have extended the upcoming deadline for new Conference Grants proposals
until  September 28, 2020. Please see all the specific dates on the
conference grants meta page
.
We will be accepting applications in September for events occurring between
January - June 2021.

For this round we will also include Growth events

and innovative ideas that will welcome more contributors to our movements
and projects; and on gatherings that will support the implementation of the
Wikimedia 2030 strategy recommendations.

We also wanted to take the opportunity to officially welcome the new member
of our team, Rachel Farrand
, who probably
many of you already know from managing our past Technical Events Ecosystem
and who has been working at the Wikimedia Foundation on community events
since 2011. She is now a Senior Program Officer and will be joining me in
managing our Conference grants program.Rachel will be overseeing our Thematic
and
Growth
events,
and I will continue focusing on our Regional
events.
We will also continue to support other projects related to Community Events.


 If you have any questions as for the upcoming funding round, potential
proposals or need feedback on draft proposals - please reach out to us at
conferencegra...@wikimedia.org .


All the best,

Chen

-- 

Chen Almog (she/her)

Senior Program Officer, Conference Grants

Wikimedia Foundation 
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 for FY 2018-2019 now on-wiki

[Jaime Villagomez]

Hello everyone,

The Wikimedia Foundation has submitted our annual Form 990 for the Fiscal
Year 2018-19 to the US Internal Revenue Service
 (IRS) and posted
on-wiki[1]. The Form 990 is the annual financial reporting, known as an
“information return,” which the IRS requires nonprofit organizations in the
United States to file.

In addition to posting the Form 990 on-wiki, we have also posted an
accompanying page with answers to frequently asked questions related to the
form and information we reported.[2]

Here are a few key highlights on this year’s Form 990:

-  The Wikimedia Foundation's total revenue for fiscal year
2018-2019 was US $118.6 million. Our total expenses during this period were
US $90.1 million and our total net assets at the end of the fiscal year
were US $165.6 million.

-  At the end of our fiscal year 2018-2019, our revenue exceeded our
expenses by US $28.5 million, which increased our operating reserve to
$166.5 million, or the equivalent of 17-18 months of expenses per the
fiscal year 2019-2020 annual plan
.
As reported under our prior Form 990, we have been maintaining the
operating reserve at 17-18 months.  Our goal is to have sufficient reserve
funds to conservatively provide at least 12-18 months of operating expenses
in order to mitigate against unforeseen risk, secure operational stability,
and ensure the overall financial health of the organization. This principle
is consistent with many other financially stable, non-profit organizations
that are rated by Charity Navigator .
With a stable and secure reserve, we have the ability to fund specific
Wikimedia Movement investment opportunities that may arise.

-  During the fiscal year 2018-2019, we continued to experience
growth in our fundraising revenue and success that was attributed to our
fundraising campaigns.

-  We continue to invest in programmatic activities and evaluate to
ensure that our allocation percentage is at or above the standard benchmark
of 65%. During the fiscal year 2018-2019, we invested 74% in programmatic
activities, 14% in Management & General activities, and 12% in fundraising
activities. For fiscal year 2019-2020, we continued to maintain our
commitment to our programmatic activities and invested approximately 76% of
our total spending.

-  Our expenses increased due to the investment to support our
strategic direction with the focus on knowledge equity and knowledge as a
service, that is outlined in the Annual Plan
.
The major programmatic areas are to evolve our systems and structures and
to grow new contributors and content.

-  Our Governance, Management, and Disclosure practices are
committed to maintaining best practices for non-profit charitable
organizations, we’ve achieved a score of 100% from Charity Navigator for
our accountability and transparency and meet the IRS requirements as
applicable.

Through reports and discussions like these, the Wikimedia Foundation will
continue to strive to provide a responsible level of transparency and
accountability. I imagine there are other questions, and I invite you to
review the on-wiki FAQ[2], or post your questions on the discussion page
should you have any.

Thank you to the Foundation's Audit Committee for their oversight and our
Staff for their work in developing this year's Form 990 and related
communications for filing and public disclosure.

Best Regards and Be Well,

 Jaime

[1] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/

[2] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRS_tax_related_information/2018_Wikimedia_Foundation_Form_990_Frequently_Asked_Questions


Jaime Villagomez

Chief Financial Officer

Wikimedia Foundation 


*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.Donate.
*
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[Wikimedia-l] Upcoming WMF/Research-Team Office hours on September 1st, 2020

[Martin Gerlach]

Hi all,

Join the Research Team at the Wikimedia Foundation [1] for their monthly
Office hours on 2020-09-01 at 16.00-17.00 (UTC).

Through these office hours, we aim to make ourselves more available to
answer some of the research related questions that you as Wikimedia
volunteer editors, organizers, affiliates, staff, and researchers face in
your projects and initiatives (*).

To participate, join the video-call via this Wikimedia-meet link [2]. There
is no set agenda - feel free to add your item to the list of topics in the
etherpad [3] (You can do this after you join the meeting, too.), otherwise
you are welcome to also just hang out. More detailed information (e.g.
about how to attend) can be found here [4].

Started in the beginning of 2020 as an experiment [5], after the first 6
editions we have evaluated the scope and format of the Research office
hours. In order to decrease barriers of accessibility and to facilitate
more direct interaction, we have switched the format from IRC to video
call. We will re-evaluate the current format at the end of the year. We
would also be glad to hear your feedback and/or comments.

(*) Some example cases we hope to be able to support you in:

   -

   You have a specific research related question that you suspect you
   should be able to answer with the publicly available data and you don’t
   know how to find an answer for it, or you just need some more help with it.
   For example, how can I compute the ratio of anonymous to registered editors
   in my wiki?
   -

   You run into repetitive or very manual work as part of your Wikimedia
   contributions and you wish to find out if there are ways to use machines to
   improve your workflows. These types of conversations can sometimes be
   harder to find an answer for during an office hour, however, discussing
   them can help us understand your challenges better and we may find ways to
   work with each other to support you in addressing it in the future.
   -

   You want to learn what the Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation
   does and how we can potentially support you. Specifically for affiliates:
   if you are interested in building relationships with the academic
   institutions in your country, we would love to talk with you and learn
   more. We have a series of programs that aim to expand the network of
   Wikimedia researchers globally and we would love to collaborate with those
   of you interested more closely in this space.
   -

   You want to talk with us about one of our existing programs [6].


Hope to see many of you,
Martin (WMF Research Team)

[1] https://research.wikimedia.org/team.html

[2] https://meet.wmcloud.org/ResearchOfficeHours

[3] https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Research-Analytics-Office-hours

[4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Office_hours

[5]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2019-December/007039.html

[6] https://research.wikimedia.org/projects.html


-- 
Martin Gerlach
Research Scientist
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Writing Wikimedia's history [Re: Institutional memory @ WMF]

[Adam Wight]

The Wikimedia-pedia [1] is a treasure, thank you Philippe for linking!  
I'd love to see this content migrated to a public wiki, where maybe it 
can come to life again.


Nearly every time I'm involved in onboarding, I find a chance to mention 
the Visual Editor rollout, Wikimedia's origins and the Foundation's 
transformation away from being a membership organization, and other 
formative episodes from our rich history. It's great to see this 
historical enculturation process explicitly called out, I support any 
efforts to write about our history.


However, it would be a mistake to hire an official WMF staff historian, 
there's a clear conflict of interest.  Even the most conscientious staff 
historian would have strong motivations to accomplish organizational 
goals ("spin"), and would be less likely to cover embarrassing bits such 
as the wiki first emerging from under a porn company.  But maybe we can 
still get professional help, for example through an external grant 
funding an editor-in-residence?


- [[mw:User:Adamw]]

(Views here are my own and do not represent my employer, WMDE.)

[1] https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-pedia


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Institutional memory @ WMF

[Adam Wight]

On 8/25/20 10:51 PM, Strainu wrote:


It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional
memory


I think I see where you're coming from, and I appreciate the generous 
turn away from individuals and towards potential structural problems.  
Whatever the latest incident was, we can assume good faith and find 
constructive ways to prevent it from happening again.


Still, it's strange to see this thread veer into "onboarding" and 
building up an archive of knowledge and experiences.  These are 
important topics, perennial even, but I feel it totally misses the point 
of the incident itself.


As a service organization potentially liable for content stored on their 
infrastructure, it makes sense that the WMF would have a large team 
dedicated to threats of physical harm like terrorism, suicide.  It also 
makes sense that they wouldn't invest explicitly in the emotional 
well-being of editors and mediating interpersonal problems.


Perhaps we shouldn't expect this of an organization not ultimately 
accountable to the editors?  No amount of onboarding can change the 
Foundation's corporate Bylaws or the fact that it owns the trademarks 
whose value is based on editor labor.  Perhaps if we had a membership 
organization instead, which would have to report to the editors and 
justify its progress on initiatives directly voted on by its members...


Just my usual 2 cents!
-[[mw:User:Adamw]]

(Views here are my own and do not represent my employer, WMDE.)


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Institutional memory @ WMF

[Peter Southwood]

Maybe you could take on an official historian.
Cheers,
P

-Original Message-
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Delphine Ménard
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2020 19:06
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Institutional memory @ WMF

Dan, you're right, it's a bit of all, formal and informal, and it is
important that we keep this process flexible. This allows us to adapt to
changing circumstances and a movement which well... moves. :-)

This fiscal year, Talent & Culture (HR) will be working on streamlining the
onboarding experience at the Foundation. This is why I joined the Talent &
Culture department, to coordinate this project and contribute my Wikimedia
experience. One of my mandates is to tackle the piece of onboarding that
takes into account our history as a movement, our common failures and
successes and the cultural pieces that are at the heart of our relationship
with each other (Individuals in the community, Foundation, affiliates,
external partners...).

Our movement is complex, and there are no amount of explanations that will
portray its richness. I will be working to make sure that new hires at the
Foundation know to ask the right questions at the right time and to the
right people to minimize errors. Of course, I want to set realistic
expectations, this will not happen in a day, nor will it happen in a year
only. My goal is to start a process that will change and evolve with time,
as does our movement.

If any of you have any questions about how we are working on this, or want
to contribute ideas, please talk to me offlist!

Best,

Delphine

Le mer. 26 août 2020 à 14:40, Dan Garry (Deskana)  a
écrit :

> On Wed, 26 Aug 2020 at 12:16, Strainu  wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the response Dan!
> >
> > A rigorous study is IMHO impossible, since we're lacking a rigorous
> > definition of the limits between WMF and community.
> >
>
> Absolutely agreed.
>
>
> > OK, but how is this done precisely? Are there written docs? Mentors?
> > Is cross-team help common? Or is this kept at the anecdotal level ("oh
> > yeah, you should also keep in mind..." )?
> >
>
> In my experience, all of the above. What is done exactly depends on the
> situation, but all of those things you've listed can and do happen,
> depending on the nature and size of the project, the people involved, and
> so on. People keep their eye out, through both formal and informal
> mechanisms, and help out if they think they can.
>
> I don't want to go into specific details, as I'm doing it purely from
> memory and might misremember things, and things might've changed since I
> left the WMF two years ago. To be clear, I'm not under any kind of
> non-disclosure agreement, I just don't want to be inaccurate.
>
> Dan
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>


-- 
*Delphine Ménard* (she/her)
Lead Orientation Specialist
User:Delphine_(WMF)
Wikimedia Foundation 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Institutional memory @ WMF

[Peter Southwood]

This is the sort of information that should be in the official history.
Cheers,
P

-Original Message-
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf
Of Pete Forsyth
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2020 22:37
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Institutional memory @ WMF

Correction:

It's been pointed out that I erred in two significant ways when discussing
Katherine's background: Prior to becoming CEO, she was Chief Communications
Officer, which is a more senior position than the one I named; and, where I
said that prior to her time at WMF her career was "largely in
communications," I was simply mistaken. Her background is covered in her
Wikipedia bio, and is indeed quite varied.

I regret both of those errors.

Pete

>
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