[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

[Felipe Schenone]

Hi Andreas, fair points!

Just to clarify, my suggestion is a community process to decide how to
allocate the extra resources. I do agree with you and Galder that not
nearly enough resources are spent on MediaWiki, automatic translation tools
being one of many weak points. Another one that to my mind is unforgivable
is that after 10+ years of needing and requesting, there's still no
centralized system for templates, or even Lua modules.

However, we could argue or even agree all day about this and other worthy
causes (within or beyond Wikimedia, within or beyond open-knowledge), but
in the end I think nothing will change unless a big community process
happens (perhaps something similar to the Movement Strategy one).

Lastly, MZMcBride, for what it's worth, the design team seems to at least
be working actively in the Vector skin, but you may not have noticed if you
haven't enabled the Vector 2022 skin in your preferences.

Cheers,
Felipe
User:Sophivorus

On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 9:36 PM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Hi Felipe,
>
> Funding open knowledge projects beyond Wikimedia, or other altruistic
> projects that have nothing to do with Wikimedia at all (the Knowledge
> Equity Fund is a case in point, of course ...) doesn't seem right to me.
>
> The WMF has been fundraising in India (as well as in Latin America and
> South Africa) this month, telling people there:
>
> – that "a lot" of the money Wikimedia raises is flowing into the Global
> South[1] (according to the WMF tax return, it's about 2.5% of the money
> raised)
> – to donate because it will "keep Wikipedia online, ad-free and growing
> for years to come" (India emails)
> – "We request you to sustain Wikipedia's independence. 98% of our readers
> don't donate ..." (India fundraising banners)
>
> Leaving aside what "keeping Wikipedia online" and "sustaining Wikipedia's
> independence" actually mean in this context, given that Wikimedia is richer
> than it has ever been and last year alone brought in about $90 million more
> than it spent – leaving that aside, you cannot beg a people earning a
> fraction of what you make on average for money as if Wikipedia's survival
> depended on it and then go and give their money away to some completely
> different cause.
>
> Just for reference, according to the India FoodBanking Network[1],
>
> – India is home to the largest undernourished population in the world
> – 189.2 million people i.e. 14% of India's population is undernourished
> – 20% of children under 5 are underweight
> – 34.7% of children under 5 years of age are stunted
> – 51.4% women in the reproductive age (15-49 years) are anaemic
>
> Reading such statistics one wonders whether Wikipedia's Indian fundraising
> banners wouldn't be more appropriately used if they advertised some
> charities that will improve the quality of life of some of the most
> vulnerable people in India, instead of asking people there to send money to
> the US.
>
> Should the WMF still find itself saddled with an embarrassment of riches:
> I recall that the other day we were encouraged here on this list to endorse
> a Discourse forum for Wikimedia strategy discussions – because it has good
> machine translation capabilities that MediaWiki lacks. If there is such a
> big surplus, wouldn't it be better to use it to incorporate similar
> translation capabilities in MediaWiki? MediaWiki is woefully obsolete in
> this respect, and in Wikimedia's case international communication across
> language barriers is arguably more important than it is in the case of
> sites like Facebook, which incorporated automatic translation a fair while
> ago.
>
> This still wouldn't be about "keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free" or
> "sustaining Wikipedia's independence", but at least it would help the
> volunteers who actually write Wikipedia.
>
> Best,
> Andreas
>
> [1] https://www.indiafoodbanking.org/hunger
>
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 1:18 PM Felipe Schenone 
> wrote:
>
>> I agree with the diagnosis, but maybe not with the solution. If Wikimedia
>> is getting "overfunding" and doesn't quite know what to so with it, there's
>> probably plenty of good things to do. We could start a community process to
>> decide it, because as you say, reducing funding efforts or saving
>> indefinitely for the future isn't likely to happen or even desirable,
>> considering the alternatives.
>>
>> Here are some ideas:
>>
>> * Investing in clean energy sources for Wikimedia servers.
>> * Funding of external developers and libraries on which MediaWiki depends.
>> * Funding of open knowledge projects beyond Wikimedia, to not stray too
>> far the original intentions of donors and volunteers.
>> * Funding of other non-knowledge altruistic projects (like buying land
>> for a natural reserve). I'm sure the funding team could rethink and
>> generalize the campaign to justify this use for future donations.
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:47 AM  wrote:
>>
>>> The question of you is important. The Wikimedia Foundation hired a lot

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

[Andreas Kolbe]

Hi Felipe,

Funding open knowledge projects beyond Wikimedia, or other altruistic
projects that have nothing to do with Wikimedia at all (the Knowledge
Equity Fund is a case in point, of course ...) doesn't seem right to me.

The WMF has been fundraising in India (as well as in Latin America and
South Africa) this month, telling people there:

– that "a lot" of the money Wikimedia raises is flowing into the Global
South[1] (according to the WMF tax return, it's about 2.5% of the money
raised)
– to donate because it will "keep Wikipedia online, ad-free and growing for
years to come" (India emails)
– "We request you to sustain Wikipedia's independence. 98% of our readers
don't donate ..." (India fundraising banners)

Leaving aside what "keeping Wikipedia online" and "sustaining Wikipedia's
independence" actually mean in this context, given that Wikimedia is richer
than it has ever been and last year alone brought in about $90 million more
than it spent – leaving that aside, you cannot beg a people earning a
fraction of what you make on average for money as if Wikipedia's survival
depended on it and then go and give their money away to some completely
different cause.

Just for reference, according to the India FoodBanking Network[1],

– India is home to the largest undernourished population in the world
– 189.2 million people i.e. 14% of India's population is undernourished
– 20% of children under 5 are underweight
– 34.7% of children under 5 years of age are stunted
– 51.4% women in the reproductive age (15-49 years) are anaemic

Reading such statistics one wonders whether Wikipedia's Indian fundraising
banners wouldn't be more appropriately used if they advertised some
charities that will improve the quality of life of some of the most
vulnerable people in India, instead of asking people there to send money to
the US.

Should the WMF still find itself saddled with an embarrassment of riches: I
recall that the other day we were encouraged here on this list to endorse a
Discourse forum for Wikimedia strategy discussions – because it has good
machine translation capabilities that MediaWiki lacks. If there is such a
big surplus, wouldn't it be better to use it to incorporate similar
translation capabilities in MediaWiki? MediaWiki is woefully obsolete in
this respect, and in Wikimedia's case international communication across
language barriers is arguably more important than it is in the case of
sites like Facebook, which incorporated automatic translation a fair while
ago.

This still wouldn't be about "keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free" or
"sustaining Wikipedia's independence", but at least it would help the
volunteers who actually write Wikipedia.

Best,
Andreas

[1] https://www.indiafoodbanking.org/hunger

On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 1:18 PM Felipe Schenone  wrote:

> I agree with the diagnosis, but maybe not with the solution. If Wikimedia
> is getting "overfunding" and doesn't quite know what to so with it, there's
> probably plenty of good things to do. We could start a community process to
> decide it, because as you say, reducing funding efforts or saving
> indefinitely for the future isn't likely to happen or even desirable,
> considering the alternatives.
>
> Here are some ideas:
>
> * Investing in clean energy sources for Wikimedia servers.
> * Funding of external developers and libraries on which MediaWiki depends.
> * Funding of open knowledge projects beyond Wikimedia, to not stray too
> far the original intentions of donors and volunteers.
> * Funding of other non-knowledge altruistic projects (like buying land for
> a natural reserve). I'm sure the funding team could rethink and generalize
> the campaign to justify this use for future donations.
>
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:47 AM  wrote:
>
>> The question of you is important. The Wikimedia Foundation hired a lot of
>> people in the last years and I do not see so big change in the output. It
>> is a question that is from my point of view relevant for different areas at
>> the Wikimedia Foundation. I dont support a too big focus on efficiency that
>> needs a lot of metrics to measure and to create these metrics needs then a
>> lot of staff. What is needed and what not is not easy to measure. With
>> increasing available resources the staff will probably increase. This is an
>> usual behaviour of humans that they try to use resources if available and
>> do not only allocate them for the future or say no and try to reduce the
>> needed resources if not neccessary. From my point of view the Wikimedia
>> Foundation should reduce the Fundraising acitivities and try to reduce in
>> the next years the yearly expenses or pay at least attention that they do
>> not increase further. The salaries at the Wikimedia Foundation are
>> currently from my point of view in relation to Germany based NGOs high. I
>> think interesting documents to get an overview about the work of the
>> Wikimedia Foundation are the quaterly tuning sessions.
>> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Form 990 clarification request (for the attention of WMF accounts staff)

[Philippe Beaudette]

Are we back to this?  Seriously?  I thought this topic was dead for at
least six months.  It’s almost enough to make me walk away and give up on
this list.

Philippe


On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 5:25 PM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> As the topic of WMF salaries has come up again in another thread – a while
> ago I asked WMF accounts staff to clarify here on this list whether the
> "Salaries, other compensation, employee benefits" figure in Part I, Line 15
> of the Form 990 related solely to the number of employees indicated in Part
> I, Line 5, or whether it also included salaries, compensation and benefits
> for any contractors listed in Part V, Line 1a of the Form 990, as people
> had been speculating here on this list.
>
> While the WMF chose not to reply here, I can report that they did
> eventually include a couple of notes in the Form 990 FAQ that answered this
> question.[1] They explain that Line 5, the number of employees, only
> includes –
>
> "individuals that were issued W-2s in the calendar year. Thus, the total
> shown is the number of US-based full-time and part-time employees employed
> during the calendar year. It does not include non-US-based workers, as well
> as contractors which may be hired part-time or for specific assignments, as
> those individuals are not issued W-2s from the Foundation."
>
> They explain further that the salary costs total in Line 15 –
>
> "includes salary, benefits, retirement, wellness, and payroll taxes for
> full-time and part-time staff members in the US and outside of the US
> employed by Wikimedia Foundation or its Employer of Record. These costs as
> well as salaries vary significantly by geography. This number does not
> include fees paid to contractors, vendors, or consultants. Please also note
> that the amount shown is for the fiscal year (July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021)
> while other information in the Form 990 is as of the calendar year (January
> 1- December 31, 2020)."
>
> So now we know that contractors are definitely NOT included in the salary
> costs total, but a number of non-US employees are. I have asked how many
> non-US employees there were in 2020, but have not received an answer to
> date.[2]
>
> However, as I have learned since, the Form 990 does actually enable us at
> least to determine an upper bound for the number of non-US employees there
> might have been. Schedule F of the Form 990 (page 29) tells us that in
> 2020, the Foundation had a total of 54 "employees, agents, and independent
> contractors" outside the US.[3]
>
> So let us put this information together.
>
> In the 2020 Form 990, we have 320 employees in Line 5, a maximum potential
> number of non-US employees of 54, and salary costs of $67,857,675.
>
> As the Foundation appears unwilling to tell us the number of full-time
> equivalents (FTEs) this salary costs total relates to, and refuses to say
> how much of it was spent on US employees and how much of it was spent on
> non-US employees, we are restricted to using an informed guess to work out
> average salary costs overall. In doing so, we have to bear in mind the
> following:
>
> 1. The number of employees in Line 5 includes part-time staff and people
> that worked only for part of the year. It is bound to be higher than the
> actual number of FTE employees.
> 2. The number of employees in Line 5 relates to the 2020 calendar year,
> whereas the salary costs total relates to the fiscal year 2020/2021 – a
> six-month difference. So in that sense the number of employees in Line 5 is
> lower than it would be if it were based on the fiscal year, as WMF staff
> numbers increase all the time (the Line 5 figure increased from 291 in 2019
> to 320 in 2020).
> 3. Only some of the 54 "employees, agents, and independent contractors"
> based outside of the US will have been non-US employees whose salary costs
> are included in the Line 15 total. After all, we all know that there are
> independent contractors outside the US, and they would have been included
> in the 54.
>
> So where does that leave us? Let us pretend that ALL of the 54 non-US
> people were actual employees included in the salary costs. This
> overestimate will perhaps make up for the fact that staff numbers increased
> in those six months. As for the fact that this new total of 374 employees
> includes part-timers and people who left during the year, let's just forget
> about that and assume they were all FTEs for the entire year. This will
> result in an overestimate of the employee number and thus an underestimate
> of average salary costs, but let's err on that side rather than
> overestimating salaries.
>
> So we have 2020 salary costs of $67,857,675 divided among 374 employees
> (US and non-US, but excluding contractors). The average salary cost per WMF
> employee, then, is :
>
> $181,438.
>
> Bear in mind, however, that this is the 2020/2021 figure; present-day
> figures are likely to be about 10 per cent higher. So we've probably
> reached the $200,000 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Form 990 clarification request (for the attention of WMF accounts staff)

[Andreas Kolbe]

Hi all,

As the topic of WMF salaries has come up again in another thread – a while
ago I asked WMF accounts staff to clarify here on this list whether the
"Salaries, other compensation, employee benefits" figure in Part I, Line 15
of the Form 990 related solely to the number of employees indicated in Part
I, Line 5, or whether it also included salaries, compensation and benefits
for any contractors listed in Part V, Line 1a of the Form 990, as people
had been speculating here on this list.

While the WMF chose not to reply here, I can report that they did
eventually include a couple of notes in the Form 990 FAQ that answered this
question.[1] They explain that Line 5, the number of employees, only
includes –

"individuals that were issued W-2s in the calendar year. Thus, the total
shown is the number of US-based full-time and part-time employees employed
during the calendar year. It does not include non-US-based workers, as well
as contractors which may be hired part-time or for specific assignments, as
those individuals are not issued W-2s from the Foundation."

They explain further that the salary costs total in Line 15 –

"includes salary, benefits, retirement, wellness, and payroll taxes for
full-time and part-time staff members in the US and outside of the US
employed by Wikimedia Foundation or its Employer of Record. These costs as
well as salaries vary significantly by geography. This number does not
include fees paid to contractors, vendors, or consultants. Please also note
that the amount shown is for the fiscal year (July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021)
while other information in the Form 990 is as of the calendar year (January
1- December 31, 2020)."

So now we know that contractors are definitely NOT included in the salary
costs total, but a number of non-US employees are. I have asked how many
non-US employees there were in 2020, but have not received an answer to
date.[2]

However, as I have learned since, the Form 990 does actually enable us at
least to determine an upper bound for the number of non-US employees there
might have been. Schedule F of the Form 990 (page 29) tells us that in
2020, the Foundation had a total of 54 "employees, agents, and independent
contractors" outside the US.[3]

So let us put this information together.

In the 2020 Form 990, we have 320 employees in Line 5, a maximum potential
number of non-US employees of 54, and salary costs of $67,857,675.

As the Foundation appears unwilling to tell us the number of full-time
equivalents (FTEs) this salary costs total relates to, and refuses to say
how much of it was spent on US employees and how much of it was spent on
non-US employees, we are restricted to using an informed guess to work out
average salary costs overall. In doing so, we have to bear in mind the
following:

1. The number of employees in Line 5 includes part-time staff and people
that worked only for part of the year. It is bound to be higher than the
actual number of FTE employees.
2. The number of employees in Line 5 relates to the 2020 calendar year,
whereas the salary costs total relates to the fiscal year 2020/2021 – a
six-month difference. So in that sense the number of employees in Line 5 is
lower than it would be if it were based on the fiscal year, as WMF staff
numbers increase all the time (the Line 5 figure increased from 291 in 2019
to 320 in 2020).
3. Only some of the 54 "employees, agents, and independent contractors"
based outside of the US will have been non-US employees whose salary costs
are included in the Line 15 total. After all, we all know that there are
independent contractors outside the US, and they would have been included
in the 54.

So where does that leave us? Let us pretend that ALL of the 54 non-US
people were actual employees included in the salary costs. This
overestimate will perhaps make up for the fact that staff numbers increased
in those six months. As for the fact that this new total of 374 employees
includes part-timers and people who left during the year, let's just forget
about that and assume they were all FTEs for the entire year. This will
result in an overestimate of the employee number and thus an underestimate
of average salary costs, but let's err on that side rather than
overestimating salaries.

So we have 2020 salary costs of $67,857,675 divided among 374 employees (US
and non-US, but excluding contractors). The average salary cost per WMF
employee, then, is :

$181,438.

Bear in mind, however, that this is the 2020/2021 figure; present-day
figures are likely to be about 10 per cent higher. So we've probably
reached the $200,000 mark now or are very close to it – at least in the
case of US employees, because remember, the FAQ points out that non-US
employees may earn significantly less.

Of course, the WMF could always give us more precise data, such as the
actual number of FTEs; employee numbers and salary cost figures for one and
the same timeframe; separate figures for US and non-US employees;
current-year 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

[effe iets anders]

I see, it sounds like you're less genuinely interested in what this team is
doing, but rather trying to look for arguments why WMF would be wasting
money. I'm not sure if that is a terribly constructive approach to start a
conversation. Thanks for being open about it at least. Given this, and the
fact that you're not interested in thinking about what good metrics would
be to make such determination, before jumping to conclusions - I don't
think I'll be a good conversation partner for you, and I'll let this thread
be.

Lodewijk

On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 1:36 PM MZMcBride  wrote:

> On Jun 17, 2022, at 9:08 AM, effe iets anders 
> wrote:
> > How would you propose to measure 'output' in a somewhat objective way?
> It is of course easy to identify that our own pet projects don't get the
> attention we feel they deserve, but given that the priorities of the WMF
> are so much broader than those of you and me personally, that may not be
> entirely fair.
>
> I'm not sure we need an objective measure of output, per se. Lots of
> measures could be sufficient. If "pet" projects—by which I assume you mean
> projects that community members are interested in—are not being worked on,
> then what is being worked on instead? That's essentially my question. (The
> Phabricator link you provided shows a massive backlog and maybe three or
> four tasks currently in development.)
>
> I'm developing a thesis that Wikimedia Foundation Inc., with a budget of
> over $150,000,000 USD per year, "has bloated to become unwieldy,
> unaccountable, and it has little to show for the hundreds of millions of
> dollars it has wasted and continues to waste." I think the design team is
> potentially a good case study for this, but first I need to better
> understand the inputs versus the outputs. I can see the inputs pretty
> clearly, about 25 staff members and a couple million dollars of donor money
> being spent per year. What are the outputs for this recurring investment?
> Is the site user experience improving due to this investment? Are we
> publishing a lot of useful design research due to this investment?
>
> > Especially if you consider that the changes that the WMF comes up with
> often meet a lot of pushback from the community.
>
>
> This framing suggests that Wikimedia Foundation Inc. should be pursuing
> its own agenda and priorities that may not align with the needs or wants of
> the Wikimedia community. I think that's entirely the wrong framing.
> Wikimedia Foundation Inc. should be serving the community's needs and we
> seem to have drifted, over many years, very far from what was an
> established truth. This is partially what I mean by a lack of
> accountability.
>
> > (as a sidenote: it turns out that the team has been roughly this big for
> a while now)
>
> Sure, though if we conclude that too much donor money is being spent per
> year on, for example, design resources, it just means the problem has
> compounded over the course of many years to be even larger. We could be
> talking about $6M or $8M or more. That's a lot of money to spend and I'm
> struggling to understand what the return on investment is.
>
> MZMcBride
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/ULEUDQ7SOZBMENICPZMYVKWBM7UKNMGE/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/5GMC2T6U35YP2NA3KWTMT2KYYFMLKM4S/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

[MZMcBride]

On Jun 17, 2022, at 9:08 AM, effe iets anders  wrote:
> How would you propose to measure 'output' in a somewhat objective way? It is 
> of course easy to identify that our own pet projects don't get the attention 
> we feel they deserve, but given that the priorities of the WMF are so much 
> broader than those of you and me personally, that may not be entirely fair.

I'm not sure we need an objective measure of output, per se. Lots of measures 
could be sufficient. If "pet" projects—by which I assume you mean projects that 
community members are interested in—are not being worked on, then what is being 
worked on instead? That's essentially my question. (The Phabricator link you 
provided shows a massive backlog and maybe three or four tasks currently in 
development.)

I'm developing a thesis that Wikimedia Foundation Inc., with a budget of over 
$150,000,000 USD per year, "has bloated to become unwieldy, unaccountable, and 
it has little to show for the hundreds of millions of dollars it has wasted and 
continues to waste." I think the design team is potentially a good case study 
for this, but first I need to better understand the inputs versus the outputs. 
I can see the inputs pretty clearly, about 25 staff members and a couple 
million dollars of donor money being spent per year. What are the outputs for 
this recurring investment? Is the site user experience improving due to this 
investment? Are we publishing a lot of useful design research due to this 
investment?

> Especially if you consider that the changes that the WMF comes up with often 
> meet a lot of pushback from the community.


This framing suggests that Wikimedia Foundation Inc. should be pursuing its own 
agenda and priorities that may not align with the needs or wants of the 
Wikimedia community. I think that's entirely the wrong framing. Wikimedia 
Foundation Inc. should be serving the community's needs and we seem to have 
drifted, over many years, very far from what was an established truth. This is 
partially what I mean by a lack of accountability.

> (as a sidenote: it turns out that the team has been roughly this big for a 
> while now)

Sure, though if we conclude that too much donor money is being spent per year 
on, for example, design resources, it just means the problem has compounded 
over the course of many years to be even larger. We could be talking about $6M 
or $8M or more. That's a lot of money to spend and I'm struggling to understand 
what the return on investment is.

MZMcBride
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/ULEUDQ7SOZBMENICPZMYVKWBM7UKNMGE/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

[effe iets anders]

How would you propose to measure 'output' in a somewhat objective way? It
is of course easy to identify that our own pet projects don't get the
attention we feel they deserve, but given that the priorities of the WMF
are so much broader than those of you and me personally, that may not be
entirely fair. Especially if you consider that the changes that the WMF
comes up with often meet a lot of pushback from the community. It might be
nice though to make a little more explicit someplace how our environment is
changing over time, because I am sure that there's a lot of things that we
almost don't notice, but make life better, or forget quickly because it's
such a logical improvement. Not so much from accountability perspective,
but more from a historical lens.

(as a sidenote: it turns out that the team has been roughly this big for a
while now)

If your question is asking about 'what are you working on' (which is
related to but different from 'what have you seen as output'), you could
take a peek at their phabricator board
.

Best,
Lodewijk

On Thu, Jun 16, 2022 at 3:06 PM MZMcBride  wrote:

> Hello.
>
> I happened to look at  earlier
> today and I noticed that the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design team is about
> 24 people these days. I found this very surprising, as that's quite a few
> people. And it's even more perplexing if you have visited Wikimedia wikis
> previously, as they're somewhat infamously not known for cutting-edge
> design. The vast majority of the content is very simple headings, body
> text, and sometimes thumbnails, all wrapped within a site skin that very
> infrequently changes.
>
> If we assume that each design person's salary is $70,000/year USD, which I
> think is a very conservative estimate, that's about $1,680,000 of donor
> money spent per year on just design team salaries. Again, the actual figure
> is probably much higher.
>
> When $1.68M of donor money is spent each year, what are we getting in
> return? Concretely and specifically, what is the return on this very large
> amount of money being spent every year? I see the various titles listed
> such as design researcher and user experience designer, but I can't wrap my
> head around what all of this money is being spent on, having personally
> used Wikimedia sites and services for more than 15 years.
>
> MZMcBride
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/6W2OATORZGI3D33GNPU3QXFM3VBTILFW/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
>
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/MCSNQTE3VYCFDMCIVQWBXVYIMTH3GYJE/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

[Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga]

Or, maybe, just making Wikimedia a non-obsolete environment. I'm sure the money 
can go to that effort.

From: Felipe Schenone 
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2022 12:51 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

I agree with the diagnosis, but maybe not with the solution. If Wikimedia is 
getting "overfunding" and doesn't quite know what to so with it, there's 
probably plenty of good things to do. We could start a community process to 
decide it, because as you say, reducing funding efforts or saving indefinitely 
for the future isn't likely to happen or even desirable, considering the 
alternatives.

Here are some ideas:

* Investing in clean energy sources for Wikimedia servers.
* Funding of external developers and libraries on which MediaWiki depends.
* Funding of open knowledge projects beyond Wikimedia, to not stray too far the 
original intentions of donors and volunteers.
* Funding of other non-knowledge altruistic projects (like buying land for a 
natural reserve). I'm sure the funding team could rethink and generalize the 
campaign to justify this use for future donations.

On Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:47 AM mailto:tim.h...@gmx.de>> wrote:
The question of you is important. The Wikimedia Foundation hired a lot of 
people in the last years and I do not see so big change in the output. It is a 
question that is from my point of view relevant for different areas at the 
Wikimedia Foundation. I dont support a too big focus on efficiency that needs a 
lot of metrics to measure and to create these metrics needs then a lot of 
staff. What is needed and what not is not easy to measure. With increasing 
available resources the staff will probably increase. This is an usual 
behaviour of humans that they try to use resources if available and do not only 
allocate them for the future or say no and try to reduce the needed resources 
if not neccessary. From my point of view the Wikimedia Foundation should reduce 
the Fundraising acitivities and try to reduce in the next years the yearly 
expenses or pay at least attention that they do not increase further. The 
salaries at the Wikimedia Foundation are currently from my point of view in 
relation to Germany based NGOs high. I think interesting documents to get an 
overview about the work of the Wikimedia Foundation are the quaterly tuning 
sessions.  
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Foundation_tuning_sessions,_FY2021-22

Hogü-456
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- 
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, 
guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/LL7NEZZNI7QBLBXDCKFFBVYHBJCDRMXX/
To unsubscribe send an email to 
wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/T4WUKPJA4KZ4L3EFUFGLM22SRDJBFCQU/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

[Felipe Schenone]

I agree with the diagnosis, but maybe not with the solution. If Wikimedia
is getting "overfunding" and doesn't quite know what to so with it, there's
probably plenty of good things to do. We could start a community process to
decide it, because as you say, reducing funding efforts or saving
indefinitely for the future isn't likely to happen or even desirable,
considering the alternatives.

Here are some ideas:

* Investing in clean energy sources for Wikimedia servers.
* Funding of external developers and libraries on which MediaWiki depends.
* Funding of open knowledge projects beyond Wikimedia, to not stray too far
the original intentions of donors and volunteers.
* Funding of other non-knowledge altruistic projects (like buying land for
a natural reserve). I'm sure the funding team could rethink and generalize
the campaign to justify this use for future donations.

On Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 4:47 AM  wrote:

> The question of you is important. The Wikimedia Foundation hired a lot of
> people in the last years and I do not see so big change in the output. It
> is a question that is from my point of view relevant for different areas at
> the Wikimedia Foundation. I dont support a too big focus on efficiency that
> needs a lot of metrics to measure and to create these metrics needs then a
> lot of staff. What is needed and what not is not easy to measure. With
> increasing available resources the staff will probably increase. This is an
> usual behaviour of humans that they try to use resources if available and
> do not only allocate them for the future or say no and try to reduce the
> needed resources if not neccessary. From my point of view the Wikimedia
> Foundation should reduce the Fundraising acitivities and try to reduce in
> the next years the yearly expenses or pay at least attention that they do
> not increase further. The salaries at the Wikimedia Foundation are
> currently from my point of view in relation to Germany based NGOs high. I
> think interesting documents to get an overview about the work of the
> Wikimedia Foundation are the quaterly tuning sessions.
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Foundation_tuning_sessions,_FY2021-22
>
> Hogü-456
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/LL7NEZZNI7QBLBXDCKFFBVYHBJCDRMXX/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/6O6D2LNXVVJR4TQFMFMZM4YHL2ISS6NQ/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Selena Deckelmann joins as Chief Product & Technology Officer

[Dan Garry (Deskana)]

Welcome, Selena! Great to have you onboard.

Dan
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/ECMN564XVZW6GEQQYHN2W6KW6SQXO3ER/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Inc. design staff

[tim . herb]

The question of you is important. The Wikimedia Foundation hired a lot of 
people in the last years and I do not see so big change in the output. It is a 
question that is from my point of view relevant for different areas at the 
Wikimedia Foundation. I dont support a too big focus on efficiency that needs a 
lot of metrics to measure and to create these metrics needs then a lot of 
staff. What is needed and what not is not easy to measure. With increasing 
available resources the staff will probably increase. This is an usual 
behaviour of humans that they try to use resources if available and do not only 
allocate them for the future or say no and try to reduce the needed resources 
if not neccessary. From my point of view the Wikimedia Foundation should reduce 
the Fundraising acitivities and try to reduce in the next years the yearly 
expenses or pay at least attention that they do not increase further. The 
salaries at the Wikimedia Foundation are currently from my point of view in 
relation to Germany based NGOs high. I think interesting documents to get an 
overview about the work of the Wikimedia Foundation are the quaterly tuning 
sessions.  
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Foundation_tuning_sessions,_FY2021-22

Hogü-456
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/LL7NEZZNI7QBLBXDCKFFBVYHBJCDRMXX/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org

[Wikimedia-l] WikiJournal

[Mikael Häggström]

Dear all,

The 2021 activity and financial reports of WikiJournal User Group is now
available.

Thank you,

Mikael Haggstrom
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/QB6VYZSXHRJQZVX5SFYHQAPFPEWQIRMW/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org