[Wikimedia-l] Thank you for our time together.

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear fellow Wikimedians,



It is with great respect that I have tendered, and the board has accepted,
my resignation as Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation earlier
this week. I am both inspired by, and proud of, the many great things we
have all accomplished at the Foundation over the last two years, most
significantly reversing the loss of our editorial community. I would like
to thank our Board of Trustees
 and Advisors
, our Foundation staff
, as well as
the many outstanding community members
 for their support
and encouragement on this journey. I remain passionate about the value and
potential of open knowledge and Wikimedia to change the world. My last day
at the Foundation will be March 31, 2016.

Wikimedia occupies a special place in the world. It is a cultural and
technological revolution. Change is necessary to keep it thriving. In
bringing me in as the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation the
Board tasked me with making changes

to serve the next generation and ensure our impact in the future. Driving
these changes has been challenging, and I have always appreciated the open
and honest discourse we have had along the way. However, I am moved by the
accomplishments we have achieved during this time:


   -

   Strategically, we laid out our summary of the vision for united in
   knowledge
   

   and future of Wikimedia last June.
   -

   Operationally, we have reformed our procedures and initiated key performance
   metrics and reviews
   
.

   -

   Technologically we have introduced innovative approaches such as machine
   learning
   
   and mobile
   
   applications, started improvements in search
   ,
   grew translations
   
   and dramatically improved website performance
   
.
   In 2015, we made visual editor the default for all new users on English
   Wikipedia.
   -

   We united our community support departments and created a new community
   tech team to address community needs
   
.

   -

   Profoundly, for the first time in seven years, highly active editor
   numbers have increased
    and
   overall editor decline has stopped.
   -

   Equitably, I am proud of our efforts to address the gender gap
   
,
   our growing focus on site safety and anti-harassment
    initiatives and child
   protection -- I believe these are essential to protecting the fundamental
   principles of tolerance, open discourse and mutual respect -- our greatest
   strengths.
   -

   We fought against censorship and surveillance
   
,
   which  pose severe existential threats to our mission of free knowledge.
   -

   Financially, we grew rapidly in 2014 to seed and launch the Wikimedia
   Endowment  and secure our
   future for years to come.


I move on with confidence that the Foundation can meet new challenges in a
challenging environment. I believe in our ability to continue to lead
through this change. At this critical juncture for the Foundation, and for
the free and open knowledge movement as a whole, solidarity, creativity,
adaptability and passion will continue to propel our movement forward, and
empower our vision towards our future.

I will support the process of identifying our new leadership in every way
that I can, and offer my assistance to the Board as they conduct their
search for my successor. It has been an honor to serve and to contribute to
our great movement.




With warm regards,

Lila
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[Wikimedia-l] Why we changed

[Lila Tretikov]

Why we’ve changed


I want to address some of the many questions that are coming up in this
forum. From the general to the very concrete, they all touch on the fact
that many things about the WMF have been changing. We are in the thick of
transformation, and you all have the right to know more about how and why
this is occurring. This is not a statement of strategy, which will come out
of the community consultation next week. This is the ED’s perspective only.


After 15 years since the birth of Wikipedia, the WMF needs to rethink
itself to ensure our editor work expands into the next decade. Recently we
kicked-off some initiatives to this end, including aligning community
support functions, focus on mobile and innovative technology, seeding the
Wikimedia Endowment, re-organizing our internal structure, exploring
partnerships and focusing on the most critical aspects of our mission:
community and technology. We started this transformation, but as we move
forward we are facing a crisis that is rooted in our choice of direction.


The choice in front the WMF is that of our core identity. Our mission can
be served in many ways, but we cannot do them all. We could either fully
focus on building our content and educational programs. Or we can get great
at technology as the force multiplier for our movement. I believe the the
former belongs to our volunteers and affiliates and that the role of the
WMF is in providing global support and coordination of this work. I believe
in -- and the board hired me to -- focus on the latter. To transform our
organization into a high-tech NGO, focused on the needs of our editors and
readers and rapidly moving to update our aged technology to support those
needs. To this end we have made many significant changes. But the challenge
in front of us is hard to underestimate: technology moves faster than any
other field and meeting expectations of editors and readers  will require
undistracted focus.


What changed?


When Jimmy started Wikipedia, the early editors took a century-old
encyclopedia page and allowed anyone to create or edit its content. At the
time when creating knowledge was still limited to the chosen few, openly
collaborating online gave us power to create and update knowledge at a much
faster rate than anyone else. This was our innovation.


As we matured, we encountered two fundamental, existential challenges. One
is of our own doing: driving away those who would otherwise join our
mission through complex policies, confusing user experiences, and a caustic
community culture. The other is external and is emerging from our own value
of freely licensed content: Many companies copy our knowledge into their
own databases and present it inside their interfaces. While this supports
wider dissemination, it also separates our readers from our community.
Wikipedia
is more than the raw content, repurposed by anyone as they like. It is a
platform for knowledge and learning, but if we don't meet the needs of
users, we will lose them and ultimately fail in our mission.


Meanwhile, in the last 15 years revolutionary changes have taken hold. The
rate of knowledge creation around the world is unprecedented and is increasing
exponentially . User
interfaces are becoming more adaptive to how users learn. This means we
have a huge opportunity to accelerate human understanding. But to do so
requires some significant change in technology and community interaction.


So let’s begin with technology: Many at the WMF and in our community
believe that we should not be a high-tech organization. I believe we
should. With over half of our staff fully committed to delivering product
and technology, it is already our primary vehicle for impacting our mission
and our community. In fact we constantly see additional technology needs
emerging from our Community department to help amplify theirs and our
community work.


What do we need to do in light of the changes I described above? We need to
focus on increasing productivity of our editors and bringing more readers
to Wikipedia (directly on mobile, and from 3rd party reusers back to our
sites).


When we started, the open knowledge on Wikipedia was a large piece of the
internet. Today, we have an opportunity to be the door into the whole
ecosystem of open knowledge by:



   -

   scaling knowledge (by building smart editing tools that structurally
   connect open sources)
   -

   expanding the entry point to knowledge (by improving our search portal)


There are many ways to alleviate the manual burdens of compiling and
maintaining knowledge currently taken on by our editing community, while
quickly expanding new editing. We made significant strides this year with
our first steps to leverage artificial intelligence

to remove grunt work from editing. But that is just a start. Connecting
sources through structured data 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

[Lila Tretikov]

n.)
> > >
> > > * The view that because Wikipedia is non-commercial, it is
> > anti-advertising
> > > and anti-Google.
> > >
> > > * A belief that Knol is an attempt by Google to compete with Wikipedia.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I personally don't believe any of this: I think Google and Wikipedia
> can
> > > and should have a complementary and positive relationship. And I gather
> > > Larry and Sergey feel the same: I believe they've told Jimmy that
> Google
> > > has no ill will towards Wikipedia, and that they'd be willing to make a
> > >
> > > donation to us in order to signal that publicly.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I also believe that any real or perceived tensions in the
> > Google/Wikipedia
> > > relationship may be being exacerbated at some levels inside Google by
> > their
> > > unfulfilled desires to do business with us. Since relocating to the Bay
> > > Area in January, we've had plenty of Google folks reach out to us. But
> --
> > > we have a total staff of 21 people, with just one person responsible
> for
> > > business development, so I am not sure we are even able to politely
> keep
> > up
> > > with their pitches. IMO, rather than spending our time on multiple
> > > product-specific pitches, it would probably be more productive for
> > > Wikipedia and Google to develop a single umbrella
> relationship/agreement
> > > (obviously within the limits of Wikipedia's non-commercial context).
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > So. I think a good next step would be some kind of high-level meeting
> > > between Wikipedia and Google, to talk through these issues and see if a
> > > donation and/or business deal makes sense.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I appreciate your advice on this issue :-)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Sue
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >  ---o0o---
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Now, some of this isn't earth-shattering news -- it's long been known
> > that
> > > relations between Google and Wikipedia have been friendly. The lobbying
> > > partnership between Google and Wikipedia may well date back to the
> > meetings
> > > that followed that email exchange.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > What wasn't known to me was that Sue found people in Silicon Valley
> > > unwilling to donate because of their "loyalty to Google". (This
> reasoning
> > > raises questions of its own about Google's influence, but we'll leave
> > that
> > > aside.)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Now it has become clear over the past few days that Damon Sicore, to
> use
> > > Jimmy Wales' words at Lila's Knowledge Engine FAQ,[2] "really was
> > > advocating for taking a run at Google", and gave "strict orders to keep
> > it
> > > top secret".
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Sue referred to her wish to have "a single umbrella
> > relationship/agreement"
> > > with Google, in part to help with the donation problems she was
> > > encountering. If such an agreement ever came into being, then being
> seen
> > to
> > > be planning a campaign against Google behind Google's back, as it were,
> > > might well jeopardise that relationship, and be seen as disloyal.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > That would have been a compelling reason for continued secrecy,
> > especially
> > > if these plans to compete against Google were in the end given up,
> > meaning
> > > that any loss of face vis-à-vis Google and its friends would in effect
> be
> > > for nothing.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Of course this is just supposition.
> > >
> > >
> > > But there are issues here worth reflecting upon. I recall plenty of
> > > volunteers over the years saying it was very good that Google seemed to
> > > treat Wikipedia favourably. Yet I don't recall the community ever being
> > > asked whether they wanted the WMF to seek any kinds of agreements with
> > > for-profit players.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > At any rate, whatever the facts of this case, it seems to me that
> > > maintaining transparency becomes very hard if you pursue such
> agreements.
> > > It becomes very easy to tie yourself into knots.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [1] http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/sandberg.pdf
> > >
> > > [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine/FAQ
> > > ___
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> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Lila Tretikov
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > *“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”*
> > ___
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-- 
Lila Tretikov
Wikimedia Foundation

*“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

[Lila Tretikov]

t; relations between Google and Wikipedia have been friendly. The lobbying
> partnership between Google and Wikipedia may well date back to the meetings
> that followed that email exchange.
>
>
>
> What wasn't known to me was that Sue found people in Silicon Valley
> unwilling to donate because of their "loyalty to Google". (This reasoning
> raises questions of its own about Google's influence, but we'll leave that
> aside.)
>
>
>
> Now it has become clear over the past few days that Damon Sicore, to use
> Jimmy Wales' words at Lila's Knowledge Engine FAQ,[2] "really was
> advocating for taking a run at Google", and gave "strict orders to keep it
> top secret".
>
>
>
> Sue referred to her wish to have "a single umbrella relationship/agreement"
> with Google, in part to help with the donation problems she was
> encountering. If such an agreement ever came into being, then being seen to
> be planning a campaign against Google behind Google's back, as it were,
> might well jeopardise that relationship, and be seen as disloyal.
>
>
>
> That would have been a compelling reason for continued secrecy, especially
> if these plans to compete against Google were in the end given up, meaning
> that any loss of face vis-à-vis Google and its friends would in effect be
> for nothing.
>
>
>
> Of course this is just supposition.
>
>
> But there are issues here worth reflecting upon. I recall plenty of
> volunteers over the years saying it was very good that Google seemed to
> treat Wikipedia favourably. Yet I don't recall the community ever being
> asked whether they wanted the WMF to seek any kinds of agreements with
> for-profit players.
>
>
>
> At any rate, whatever the facts of this case, it seems to me that
> maintaining transparency becomes very hard if you pursue such agreements.
> It becomes very easy to tie yourself into knots.
>
>
>
> [1] http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/sandberg.pdf
>
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine/FAQ
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>



-- 
Lila Tretikov
Wikimedia Foundation

*“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

[Lila Tretikov]

ijin.com :: made of steel wool and whiskey
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___
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-- 
Lila Tretikov
Wikimedia Foundation

*“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

[Lila Tretikov]

For a few 2015 accomplishments by the product/technical teams you can see
them listed here:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Wikimedia_Foundation_Product_and_Technology_Highlights







On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 10:56 AM, Casey Dentinger <cdentin...@wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> I would like to second what Ori said and add:
>
> > and in technology we're years behind the curve
>
> I think this is a reductive view of the technology at WMF.  It is true that
> many systems have been around in name for a long time, but that doesn't
> mean they haven't been evolving under the hood (as Ori describes) to scale
> with demand at the same (or better) pace as our trendier peers (who are
> often married to fly-by-night technologies).  In an era of 10s pageloads
> hauling megabytes of trackware, WP's stats are actually pretty stellar.
>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 11:33 AM, Ori Livneh <o...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 4:47 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak <dar...@alk.edu.pl>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > There is way too much blaming/bashing/sour expectations
> > > working both ways - we almost forget how unique we are, irrespective of
> > > many slips and avoidable failures we make (and WMF  is definitely
> leading
> > > here, too! ;)
> > >
> >
> > No, we're not. My peers in the Technology department work incredibly hard
> > to provide value for readers and editors, and we have very good results
> to
> > show for it. Less than two years ago it took an average of six seconds to
> > save an edit to an article; it is about one second now. (MediaWiki
> > deployments are currently halted over a 200-300ms regression!). Page load
> > times improved by 30-40% in the past year, which earned us plaudits in
> the
> > press and in professional circles. The analytics team figured out how to
> > count unique devices without compromising user anonimity and privacy and
> > rolled out a robust public API for page view data. The research team is
> in
> > the process of collecting feedback from readers and compiling the first
> > comprehensive picture of what brings readers to the projects. The TechOps
> > team made Wikipedia one of the first major internet properties to go
> > HTTPS-only, slashed latency for users in many parts of the world by
> > provisioning a cache pop on the Pacific Coast of the United States, and
> is
> > currently gearing up for a comprehensive test of our failover
> capabilities,
> > which is to happen this Spring.
> >
> > That's just the activity happening immediately around me in the org, and
> > says nothing of engineering accomplishments like the Android app being
> > featured on the Play store in 93 countries and having a higher user
> rating
> > than Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Netflix, Snapchat, Google Photos, etc.
> Or
> > the 56,669 articles that have been created using the Content Translation
> > tool.
> >
> > This is happening in spite of -- not thanks to -- dysfunction at the top.
> > If you don't believe me, all you have to do is wait: an exodus of people
> > from Engineering won't be long now. Our initial astonishment at the
> Board's
> > unwillingness to acknowledge and address this dysfunction is wearing off.
> > The slips and failures are not generalized and diffuse. They are local
> and
> > specific, and their location has been indicated to you repeatedly.
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-- 
Lila Tretikov
Wikimedia Foundation

*“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your questions about KE.

[Lila Tretikov]

just a quick note... quite a few questions are being answered on the page.

On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 6:33 PM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote:

> Lila Tretikov wrote:
> >There are a lot of questions still floating around around the Knowledge
> >Engine, in a lot of different places. I want to answer them fully,
> >directly and in one central place. To that end, I’m going to be putting
> >together an FAQ page
> ><https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine/FAQ> on Meta to ask and
> >answer questions and - with the help of our staff -- to address them. We
> >will release answers as we are able to collect and address them, so
> >depending on the number of questions we get it may take a while, but we
> >will begin responding during Pacific working hours today.
>
> Thank you for starting this page and for taking the lead in responding to
> questions raised about the proposed Knowledge Engine.
>
> >If you have questions, please send them or leave them there. We may
> >aggregate similar questions, but we will do our best to answer all of them
> >to your satisfaction.
>
> I've e-mailed you privately.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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-- 
Lila Tretikov
Wikimedia Foundation

*“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”*
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[Wikimedia-l] Your questions about KE.

[Lila Tretikov]

Hello, everyone.

There are a lot of questions still floating around around the Knowledge
Engine, in a lot of different places. I want to answer them fully, directly
and in one central place. To that end, I’m going to be putting together an FAQ
page  on Meta to ask
and answer questions and - with the help of our staff -- to address them.
We will release answers as we are able to collect and address them, so
depending on the number of questions we get it may take a while, but we
will begin responding during Pacific working hours today.

If you have questions, please send them or leave them there. We may
aggregate similar questions, but we will do our best to answer all of them
to your satisfaction.

Thank you for sharing,

Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi everyone,

As promised, here is the blog post we published earlier today:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/02/16/wikimedia-search-future/ . We are also
having internal conversations on how we can improve communication and
transparency to increase collaboration on ideation with all of you going
forward.

I hope this helps contextualize the grant agreement and our broader efforts
while addressing some of the confusion around this topic. As always, I
welcome your feedback and discussion and look forward to our ongoing
discussion.

Lila

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 11:01 PM, Lila Tretikov <l...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> + Footnotes.
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Lila Tretikov <l...@wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Mike,
>>
>> We plan to publish a blog tomorrow that addresses some of the questions
>> raised here and confusion in the press. To briefly address your questions
>> specifically, here is where we are today: the the grant allows us to pursue
>> strictly (1) -- a better Wiki search. In that, it supports testing of some
>> of our hypotheses on how to best do this.
>>
>> It is possible we could pursue (2) in the future (for example,
>> integrating a few specific ones such as OpenStreetMaps or Internet
>> Archive). At some point we have looked into (2+) -- adding broader
>> knowledge sources, though we didn't get into specifics there, and have
>> since decided against increasing the scope. I am not considering (3).
>> Going after general search engine traffic and users is inconsistent with
>> our mission. Our focus is on knowledge.
>>
>>
>> To be clear, search itself is only one aspect of the work of the
>> Discovery team.  This team is also tasked with discovering how to better
>> interconnect our various formats of knowledge, thus amplifying the impact
>> of our volunteers' contributions. Only some of our knowledge is actually
>> connected and discoverable today, other is very hard to find. Search is a
>> simple, non-invasive point of entry into the Wikimedia knowledge ecosystem.
>>
>> I welcome and appreciate the feedback and support of members of our
>> Wikimedia movement.  Collectively, our thinking evolves as we learn. We
>> will continue to make hypotheses, test them, and adjust our path
>> accordingly.
>>
>> Lila
>>
>>
>>
>> [1] Wikimedia specific: index all of Wikimedia's content and make that
>> easier for users of the sites to find
>>
>> [2] Wikimedia + selected others: like (1), but also allow some other
>> like-minded sources into the mix (limited, identified sources)
>>
>> [2+] Wikimedia + other knowledge
>>
>> [3] Google-scale: crawl and index everything (duckduckgo-like) all
>> content included (shops, goods, etc.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Craig Franklin <
>> cfrank...@halonetwork.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this Michael.  Reading the
>>> documents
>>> I've seen, it seemed like (1) to me, but a lot of the assumptions seem to
>>> lean towards (3).  If it is (1), then that is an entirely reasonable
>>> thing
>>> for the Foundation to be putting development effort into.  The problem is
>>> that the statements in the grant documents are quite vague, and given the
>>> rest of the shenanigans that the WMF has been involved in lately, people
>>> are quite predictably jumping to the least flattering conclusion.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Craig
>>>
>>> On 16 February 2016 at 05:36, Michael Peel <em...@mikepeel.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> >
>>> > > On 15 Feb 2016, at 17:10, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com
>>> >
>>> > wrote:
>>> > >
>>> > > Hoi,
>>> > > The notion that WMF should out google Google is stupid, certainly at
>>> that
>>> > > kind of money.
>>> >
>>> > I'm still confused about what kind of 'search engine' is actually being
>>> > proposed here. Is it:
>>> > 1) Wikimedia specific: index all of Wikimedia's content and make that
>>> > easier for users of the sites to find
>>> > 2) Wikimedia + selected others: like (1), but also allow some other
>>> > like-minded sources into the mix
>>> > 3) Google-scale: index everything (duckduckgo-like)
>>> > ... or somewhere on the scale between those points?
>>> >
>>> > A lot of people seem to be assuming (3), others are liking the idea of
>>> > (1)

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?

[Lila Tretikov]

+ Footnotes.




On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Lila Tretikov <l...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hi Mike,
>
> We plan to publish a blog tomorrow that addresses some of the questions
> raised here and confusion in the press. To briefly address your questions
> specifically, here is where we are today: the the grant allows us to pursue
> strictly (1) -- a better Wiki search. In that, it supports testing of some
> of our hypotheses on how to best do this.
>
> It is possible we could pursue (2) in the future (for example, integrating
> a few specific ones such as OpenStreetMaps or Internet Archive). At some
> point we have looked into (2+) -- adding broader knowledge sources, though
> we didn't get into specifics there, and have since decided against
> increasing the scope. I am not considering (3). Going after general
> search engine traffic and users is inconsistent with our mission. Our focus
> is on knowledge.
>
>
> To be clear, search itself is only one aspect of the work of the Discovery
> team.  This team is also tasked with discovering how to better interconnect
> our various formats of knowledge, thus amplifying the impact of our
> volunteers' contributions. Only some of our knowledge is actually connected
> and discoverable today, other is very hard to find. Search is a simple,
> non-invasive point of entry into the Wikimedia knowledge ecosystem.
>
> I welcome and appreciate the feedback and support of members of our
> Wikimedia movement.  Collectively, our thinking evolves as we learn. We
> will continue to make hypotheses, test them, and adjust our path
> accordingly.
>
> Lila
>
>
>
> [1] Wikimedia specific: index all of Wikimedia's content and make that
> easier for users of the sites to find
>
> [2] Wikimedia + selected others: like (1), but also allow some other
> like-minded sources into the mix (limited, identified sources)
>
> [2+] Wikimedia + other knowledge
>
> [3] Google-scale: crawl and index everything (duckduckgo-like) all
> content included (shops, goods, etc.)
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net
> > wrote:
>
>> I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this Michael.  Reading the
>> documents
>> I've seen, it seemed like (1) to me, but a lot of the assumptions seem to
>> lean towards (3).  If it is (1), then that is an entirely reasonable thing
>> for the Foundation to be putting development effort into.  The problem is
>> that the statements in the grant documents are quite vague, and given the
>> rest of the shenanigans that the WMF has been involved in lately, people
>> are quite predictably jumping to the least flattering conclusion.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Craig
>>
>> On 16 February 2016 at 05:36, Michael Peel <em...@mikepeel.net> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > > On 15 Feb 2016, at 17:10, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Hoi,
>> > > The notion that WMF should out google Google is stupid, certainly at
>> that
>> > > kind of money.
>> >
>> > I'm still confused about what kind of 'search engine' is actually being
>> > proposed here. Is it:
>> > 1) Wikimedia specific: index all of Wikimedia's content and make that
>> > easier for users of the sites to find
>> > 2) Wikimedia + selected others: like (1), but also allow some other
>> > like-minded sources into the mix
>> > 3) Google-scale: index everything (duckduckgo-like)
>> > ... or somewhere on the scale between those points?
>> >
>> > A lot of people seem to be assuming (3), others are liking the idea of
>> > (1), but (2) (or maybe (1) leading to (2)) might be closer to the
>> reality?
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > Mike
>> > ___
>> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
>> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>> >
>> ___
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>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Lila Tretikov
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> *“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”*
>



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Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi Mike,

We plan to publish a blog tomorrow that addresses some of the questions
raised here and confusion in the press. To briefly address your questions
specifically, here is where we are today: the the grant allows us to pursue
strictly (1) -- a better Wiki search. In that, it supports testing of some
of our hypotheses on how to best do this.

It is possible we could pursue (2) in the future (for example, integrating
a few specific ones such as OpenStreetMaps or Internet Archive). At some
point we have looked into (2+) -- adding broader knowledge sources, though
we didn't get into specifics there, and have since decided against
increasing the scope. I am not considering (3). Going after general search
engine traffic and users is inconsistent with our mission. Our focus is on
knowledge.


To be clear, search itself is only one aspect of the work of the Discovery
team.  This team is also tasked with discovering how to better interconnect
our various formats of knowledge, thus amplifying the impact of our
volunteers' contributions. Only some of our knowledge is actually connected
and discoverable today, other is very hard to find. Search is a simple,
non-invasive point of entry into the Wikimedia knowledge ecosystem.

I welcome and appreciate the feedback and support of members of our
Wikimedia movement.  Collectively, our thinking evolves as we learn. We
will continue to make hypotheses, test them, and adjust our path
accordingly.

Lila








On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net>
wrote:

> I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this Michael.  Reading the documents
> I've seen, it seemed like (1) to me, but a lot of the assumptions seem to
> lean towards (3).  If it is (1), then that is an entirely reasonable thing
> for the Foundation to be putting development effort into.  The problem is
> that the statements in the grant documents are quite vague, and given the
> rest of the shenanigans that the WMF has been involved in lately, people
> are quite predictably jumping to the least flattering conclusion.
>
> Cheers,
> Craig
>
> On 16 February 2016 at 05:36, Michael Peel <em...@mikepeel.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > > On 15 Feb 2016, at 17:10, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Hoi,
> > > The notion that WMF should out google Google is stupid, certainly at
> that
> > > kind of money.
> >
> > I'm still confused about what kind of 'search engine' is actually being
> > proposed here. Is it:
> > 1) Wikimedia specific: index all of Wikimedia's content and make that
> > easier for users of the sites to find
> > 2) Wikimedia + selected others: like (1), but also allow some other
> > like-minded sources into the mix
> > 3) Google-scale: index everything (duckduckgo-like)
> > ... or somewhere on the scale between those points?
> >
> > A lot of people seem to be assuming (3), others are liking the idea of
> > (1), but (2) (or maybe (1) leading to (2)) might be closer to the
> reality?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mike
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> >
> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>



-- 
Lila Tretikov
Wikimedia Foundation

*“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?

[Lila Tretikov]

 > > I
> > > > > > > > > think that we may need new leadership to make that happen.
> I
> > am
> > > > > > > > interested
> > > > > > > > > to hear your thoughts.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > Pine
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak <
> > > > > > dar...@alk.edu.pl
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > 11.02.2016 10:23 PM "SarahSV" <sarahsv.w...@gmail.com>
> > > > > napisał(a):
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > > > > > ​Hi ​
> > > > > > > > > > > Dariusz,
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > ​T​
> > > > > > > > > > > he grant application doesn't restrict the search engine
> > to
> > > > > > > Wikimedia
> > > > > > > > > > projects. It says that the "Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia
> > [is
> > > > a]
> > > > > > > system
> > > > > > > > > for
> > > > > > > > > > discovering reliable and trustworthy public information
> on
> > > the
> > > > > > > > Internet.
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > My understanding is that the top range could potentially
> be
> > > all
> > > > > > > > > open/public
> > > > > > > > > > resources, but this is the far stretched total goal, and
> > > still
> > > > > not
> > > > > > a
> > > > > > > > > > general search engine of all content including commercial
> > > one.
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > And a rrasonable realistic outcome can be just improving
> > our
> > > > > > searches
> > > > > > > > > > across projects.
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > I can't comment on the initial ideas or goals, as I was
> not
> > > on
> > > > > the
> > > > > > > > Board
> > > > > > > > > > before August 2015, but this is what I understand we
> build
> > > now.
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > .
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > The document says the "Search Engine by Wikipedia"
> budget
> > > for
> > > > > > > > 2015–2016
> > > > > > > > > > ($2.4 million) was approved by the ​board. Can you point
> us
> > > to
> > > > > > which
> > > > > > > > > board
> > > > > > > > > > meeting approved it and what was discussed there?
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > I dont recall this specifically, and I'm going to elude
> > this
> > > > > > question
> > > > > > > > by
> > > > > > > > > > going to sleep (and hoping someone better informed may
> > pick).
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > Good night!
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > Dj
> > > > > > > > > > ___
> > > > > > > > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > > > > > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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> > > > > > > > > > Unsubscribe:
> > > > > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > > > > > > > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > > > ?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > ___
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> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > ___
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> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > ___
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> > > ?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > ___
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> > > > > >
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>
>
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> President Wikimedia Australia
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wmfall] CTO Search | Status

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi all,

Earlier this week Amy Elder -- our head of recruiting -- has shared a
preview of the CTO role with the staff and I would like to share it with
you early as well, before the job description is posted and the process
starts. I am very grateful to our technical staff and leaders here at the
WMF for collaborating on both the description and the process.

If you have any nominations or recommendations, which I hope you will
please email Amy directly.

Thank you all for engaging.
Lila



-- Forwarded message --
From: Amy Elder 
Date: Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 3:53 PM
Subject: [Wmfall] CTO Search | Status
To: Staff All 


Hi Everyone,


We are excited to announce the launch of our search for a Chief Technology
Officer, and proud to confirm this search is being handled internally by
our very own WMF Recruiting Department.

As we greatly value and respect your opinion, we are contacting you for
your candidate nominations/referrals. We are also open to hearing any
related suggestions or comments in general on the job description as minor
changes can still happen (this is not a call for mass edits).

Please see the below link for a preview of the job description. The entire
technical team has been deeply focused on collaborating and contributing to
this (nearly finished) draft.


If you have nominations please let me over the next few days.

With appreciation,
Amy

-- 
Amy Elder
Director of Recruiting
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 999-8140
Join Us: WorkWithUs 
Connect with me on LinkedIn 
Follow us on Twitter @wikimediaatwork

*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. **That's our commitment and you can help continue to
make it a reality: *https://donate.wikimedia.org/


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Responsibilities[edit

 | edit source

]

   - Oversee development of key performance metrics such as site
   availability and responsiveness, bug response time, code review response
   time, etc., and ensure consistent improvement along these metrics.
   - Lead, transform, and grow complex technology infrastructure and high
   performance cross-functional technology teams. Foster projects and future
   product ideas that will lead to innovations in the years to come. Broker
   and drive to resolution, key architectural and technology implementation
   decisions. Foster an energetic culture and an ownership of, and commitment
   to, shared product development goals.
   - Develop, inspire, and coach the technology leadership team across
   software engineering, technical operations, research, and product
   development. Support technical managers and directors in operationalizing
   technical vision into specific objectives, products, and services, to
   deliver high quality software in support of our global mission. Regularly
   review and update organizational goals, formalize budgets, and balance
   priorities. Work cross-functionally with the rest of the executive team and
   the ED, to develop and communicate top-level goals.
   - Enable Wikimedia engineering efforts to expand its technical community
   to be comparable to the Wikimedia editing community, growing its reach and
   influence far beyond paid Wikimedia Foundation staff.
   - Design and implement an effective organizational structure, that
   supports maximum communications and effective execution of technology
   initiatives. Work closely with project management to transform priorities
   and requirements, into plans that optimize resources and set appropriate
   expectations.
   - Own and drive technical organization integrity: achieve status as a
   recognized technology leader by using proven and scalable execution
   processes (e.g. agile) in development, technical operations, and
   architecture. Work closely with product management to transform
   requirements into technical specifications and software designs.
   - In collaboration with the ED and the Technology group, own and advance
   the overall architectural roadmap, setting the vision and long-term
   strategy for technology at the Foundation.
   - Contribute to that strategy by qualifying and prioritizing
   infrastructure efforts.
   - Grow and build highly complex technology infrastructure. Anticipate
   technology scale and capability challenges, and communicate clear proactive
   plans to address these challenges. Work closely with tech leads and
   operations to resource key technology initiatives, and drive them to
   completion for existing and future technology 

[Wikimedia-l] Upcoming Changes to Community Engagement

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear all,


I am sad to let you know that Luis Villa, our lead for the Community
Engagement department, will be leaving the Wikimedia Foundation. A year
ago, Luis took on a big challenge, transitioning from the Legal Department
to lead the newly created  Community Engagement organization. In that role,
Luis and our teams were tasked with many recent community initiatives, such
as the creation of the Community Tech team, gender-related and
anti-harassment programs, and improved alignment of WMF annual planning
with the Funds Dissemination Committee. Prior to that, as Deputy General
Counsel he was responsible for a number of legal initiatives, including
licensing, contracts, and product counseling. I’m grateful for his counsel,
and his leadership in the WMF movement throughout these years.

Later this month, Luis will transition out of his current position with the
Wikimedia Foundation to pursue other opportunities. He will remain in a
consulting role with the Foundation over the next few months, continuing to
support our ongoing strategy and annual planning processes.

I want to thank Luis for his commitment to the WMF mission, and for the
inspired energy and contributions he has brought to our movement. I’m
looking forward to his future accomplishments and staying in close touch as
he grows in his career.

Maggie Dennis will step in as the interim director for the CE team
effective immediately. Her deep community background, passion for our
mission, and outstanding teamwork are great assets in this transition. She
will also continue to serve as Director of Support and Safety. Maggie is a
respected leader, colleague, and community member. I am confident she will
bring critical insights, especially now as we plan for our next year.

The work of of the CE department will continue as planned, and the overall
structure of the department (including the Community Tech team, which will
continue to report into the Product organization) will stay on-course. Our
goal is to ensure a smooth transition as we continue our progress to
improve the WMF support for our communities.

It is my priority that the WMF continues to build upon the initiatives we
started in 2015 in support for the global Wikimedia community. Continued
leadership of the Community Engagement department at executive level in the
WMF is a part of delivering on those commitments. We will be looking to
fill the Community Engagement leadership role with someone with a strong
background in community programs, and an understanding of the Wikimedia
movement. We will also look to engage with you to find the right person for
this role. We will send an update on the next steps and the job description
shortly, which will include a further discussion of the role on-wiki.


Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2015 Harassment Survey - Results Report

[Lila Tretikov]

Patrick,

Thank you for posting this -- excellent work done by our team and deep
engagement with the community. I encourage everyone to review as we
continue to assess best ways to support healthy and safe Wikimedia
environment for all our contributors and readers.

Lila

On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 1:20 PM, Patrick Earley <pear...@wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> The preliminary report of the results of the 2015 Harassment survey is now
> available on Commons, as linked from Meta.[1]  This is the first version of
> our analysis of the results, and while it is nearly completed, it will be
> amended and updated within a week as we finish developing it. The data set
> is large, involving sixteen languages with several free text questions, and
> it has also been linked from the Meta page.
>
> This information is an important factor in gaining a better understanding
> of both the forms harassment takes and the impact it has on the Wikimedia
> projects.  We welcome your feedback and impressions on the Research talk
> page on Meta.[2]
>
> We want to thank the many Wikimedia volunteers, academics, and Wikimedia
> Foundation staff who helped prepare and translate the survey, and who gave
> feedback on the report.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Patrick, for the Support and Safety team[3]
>
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Harassment_survey_2015#Results
>
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Harassment_survey_2015
>
> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Support_and_Safety
>
> --
> Patrick Earley
> Community Advocate
> Wikimedia Foundation
> pear...@wikimedia.org
> (1) 415 975 1874
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi Anthony,

I know this request was for the Board, but I took time to explain as much
as I could about the context of this grant and the work it funds as well as
to answer as many questions as possible that I have seen. I realize many
people a curious about what it actually funds, so you will find the
statement of work cut and pasted there.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)#Knowledge_Engine_grant
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmeta.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FUser_talk%3ALilaTretikov_%28WMF%29%23Knowledge_Engine_grant=D=1=AFQjCNHbv_CPFd5d3dh7WKET5YlNSZvHdA>

Hope this answers some of your questions,
Lila



On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 1:53 PM, Anthony Cole <ahcole...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Just copying part of Andreas's comment from another thread:
>
> "...can the board now please come to a decision on whether the Knight
> Foundation grant letter and grant application documents will be posted on
> Meta, and if not, provide an explanation to the community why they cannot
> be made public?
>
> "To recap, Jimmy Wales said over two weeks ago on his talk page[1] that in
> his opinion the documentation should be posted on Meta, to clear the air
> around this issue. However, nothing appears to have happened since then."
>
> [1]
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJimbo_Wales=698861097=698860874
>
> Anthony Cole
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?

[Lila Tretikov]

Thank you, Sarah for an excellent question.  Sometimes I compare Wikimedia
with an iceberg, only a small portion is visible.

When we started investigating this problem we found out that nearly 30% of
searches on Wikipedia return no results at all. That motivated us to dig
deeper.

Since then we've made our first improvements (by about  1 million  searches
a day) , but we have a very long way to go...especially searching across
sites. Commons for example is a very tough one that we will need to help
one day.

I encourage you to read through,  I tried to explain our thinking the best
I could,  but I can always use help :)

Lila

sent from mobile. please excuse typos.
On Jan 29, 2016 3:50 PM, "SarahSV" <sarahsv.w...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Lila, thank you for posting this. I have no technical background, so I only
> have a limited understanding of how the Discovery project works. But as an
> editor and reader I've been frustrated by the limitations of Wikipedia
> search. Even things that I know are there, because I added them myself, are
> regularly not returned. Sometimes for reasons I can't fathom; sometimes
> because I've mistyped something.
>
> It's the same with Siri on iPhone. I ask it something that I know is on
> Wikipedia and it can't seem to find it. Or it will return a link to
> articles in which certain terms appear. But people don't want to have to
> look at whole articles.
>
> We have this enormous and wonderful amount of knowledge to some extent
> trapped inside Wikipedia. How do we unlock it? How do we teach computers
> how to find and deliver it? In future, could Wikipedia reply to questions
> on people's phones, instead of Siri?
>
> This kind of research sounds very exciting, and the Foundation is
> well-placed to do it.
>
> Sarah
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 4:27 PM, Lila Tretikov <l...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > Hi Anthony,
> >
> > I know this request was for the Board, but I took time to explain as much
> > as I could about the context of this grant and the work it funds as well
> as
> > to answer as many questions as possible that I have seen. I realize many
> > people a curious about what it actually funds, so you will find the
> > statement of work cut and pasted there.
> >
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)#Knowledge_Engine_grant
> > <
> >
> https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmeta.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FUser_talk%3ALilaTretikov_%28WMF%29%23Knowledge_Engine_grant=D=1=AFQjCNHbv_CPFd5d3dh7WKET5YlNSZvHdA
> > >
> >
> > Hope this answers some of your questions,
> > Lila
> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes in the Board

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi Josh,

I agree there are solid improvements to be made with respect to recruiting
of our trustees, and with partnering with our community.  Perhaps the
election committee can play a role in checking out the finalists, for
example.

On-boarding trustees and leadership is a critical process, during which it
can be so easy to make unexpected mistakes. For trustees and leadership
coming from outside of our movement, being aligned with our vision and our
values is simply the first step in the process. As I have learned, from
there it is a long and difficult journey to learn what matters *most* to
our diverse community, and to align those values with the Foundation.  I am
still learning, and will never stop learning, growing and adapting.
Similarly, when trustees and leadership come from the *within* the
movement, they must adapt to and grok new perspectives, and see with new
lenses.

An essential part of improving our governance involves welcoming our
incoming trustees and leadership, integrating them into our movement, and
providing support and guidance as they take their important first steps.

I know this is something our trustees are actively thinking about.

Lila



On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 4:04 AM, Josh Lim <jamesjoshua...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Thank you, Patricio, for the heads-up.  I’m sure that it must’ve been
> difficult for everyone, especially those on the Board.
>
> It was very honorable of Arnnon to step down in deference to the
> community, and I hope that while we may be indignant at his past actions,
> we can continue to find places for people in our community who may show an
> interest in what we do but to who we don’t always see eye-to-eye on our
> values.  While I still think that this episode will generate a whole lot of
> lessons for us to learn from, I hope that Arnnon will continue to engage
> with the movement in a meaningful way even though he is no longer a part of
> the Board.  Thank you for taking heed of the community, and I hope that
> despite what may be a rude awakening, that you will find your place among
> us, somehow, somewhere in the movement.
>
> Hopefully, now that this episode has come to a close, we can finally begin
> the process of healing and figuring out what went wrong.  There’s still a
> lot of things left unaccounted for, and I hope that after this, the Board
> will continue to build on that momentum by doing the right thing and
> helping the community understand what on Earth happened over the last few
> weeks so we can finally move forward.
>
> Josh
>
> > Wiadomość napisana przez Patricio Lorente <patricio.lore...@gmail.com>
> w dniu 28.01.2016, o godz. 04:52:
> >
> > Dear All,
> >
> > Throughout the discussion about the appointment of Arnnon Geshuri to the
> > Board of Trustees, the Board has carefully listened to you and discussed
> > internally. Earlier today, Arnnon decided to step down from the Board. To
> > paraphrase his words, he doesn't want to be a distraction for the
> important
> > discussions that the community and the Foundation need to face in the
> times
> > to come. We want to thank Arnnon for his ongoing commitment and for
> helping
> > us to move forward.
> >
> > The Board Governance Committee is working to improve and update our
> > selection processes before we fill the vacancy left by Arnnon’s
> departure.
> > We are sorry for the distress and confusion this has caused to some in
> our
> > community, and also to Arnnon.
> >
> > Patricio and Alice
> >
> > 
> >
> > Patricio Lorente
> > Chair, Board of Trustees
> >
> > Alice Wiegand
> > Vice Chair, Board of Trustees
> > --
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>
> JAMES JOSHUA G. LIM
> Bachelor of Arts in Political Science
> Class of 2013, Ateneo de Manila University
> Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
>
> jamesjoshua...@yahoo.com <mailto:jamesjoshua...@yahoo.com> | +63 (915)
> 321-7582
> Facebook/Twitter: akiestar | Wikimedia: Sky Harbor
> http://about.me/josh.lim <http://about.me/josh.lim>
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[Wikimedia-l] Proposed change to Metrics schedule

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi all,

We’re proposing to change the schedule of the Foundation’s monthly public
Metrics meeting. We plan to move the meeting to the final Thursday of each
month, in order to better align these important presentations with the
Foundation’s regular data production cycles. This will result in a three
week delay for February’s meeting as we move to a new cycle.

As many know, the Foundation’s monthly Metrics meeting is an open,
hour-long series of presentations on key data related to the projects,
highlights of Foundation and community projects and achievements, research
and product demos, and other updates on Foundation operations. The meeting
is livestreamed and recorded, and open to public participation on IRC.

Currently, the Foundation’s Metrics meeting is held the first Thursday of
each month. However, most of our data for the preceding month isn’t
actually available until mid-month. For example, it may take until
mid-January to process data from December, and at that point, the January
Metrics meeting has already taken place. As a result, we end up presenting
December data in February, with up to six weeks delay.

By moving the Metrics meeting to the last Thursday of the month, Foundation
departments will be able to prepare their presentations using the most
recent data available, and align on a more consistent cycle.

The Foundation is planning to implement this change for February. The first
meeting to be affected will be the planned February 4th meeting, which will
be moved to February 25th. Our next step is to update this schedule in
public venues. The Foundation will continue to send a monthly invitation
and reminder, and post the full Metrics presentation and video, aligned
with the new cycle.

Many thanks to the Analytics and Finance teams for raising this issue and
proposing the change.

Lila
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[Wikimedia-l] Launch of Community Consultation on strategic approaches

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear Wikimedians,



We are excited to have you participate in an important Community Engagement
regarding our strategic approaches. This is a major step to help us
prioritize the work of the Foundation beginning in July 2016 and running
for the next 12 to 24 months thereafter into a strategic plan.

Throughout 2015 the Foundation has been exploring how to prioritize its
work to best support the movement's goals, set forth, but not yet reached,
in the 2010-15 strategic plan.

The strategic approaches presented here are based on our vision, strategy
consultations in 2010 
and 2015
,
research on external impacts, and input from staff and a few small
community think groups on key challenges and potential solutions.

Timeline: These are our target dates for this process.

   -

   January 11: Put up pages for translation (done)
   -

   January 18: Launch of community consultation on key questions
   -

   February 15: Close of consultation
   -

   By February 26: Release synthesis of consultation
   -

   By March 4: Publish first draft strategy for comment


We appreciate your time and efforts to help guide the Foundation in its
work to support the movement.

Warm regards,

Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Monetizing Wikimedia APIs

[Lila Tretikov]

es for further discussion at a Board meeting in 2016.
> > > Source: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2015-11-07
> > > -Pete[[User:Peteforsyth]]
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia's 15th BD

[Lila Tretikov]

Mardetanha, thank you for kicking off the celebration from Tehran.
Congratulations
Wikimedians of the world on your massive achievement.

Lila

On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 3:30 PM, Mardetanha <mardetanha.w...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Fellow Wikimedians
> I would like to congratulate you on Wikipedia's 15th birthday, it was
> historic moment for all of us, I am glad to let you know we had a
> celebration in Tehran and we were the first country to celebrate it.
> you can find images here
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_15_in_Iran
> Mardetanha
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Annual Plan 2016-17

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear Wikimedians,



It is that time of year again (but earlier this year because we are making
some changes based on your -- and FDC -- feedback :), the time when we all
at the WMF work together to craft our plans and the budget for the upcoming
fiscal year - July  1, 2016 - June 30, 2017. This year the initial draft of
the Annual Plan will be submitted using the FDC Format and will be
available on the April 1 FDC deadline date.

Why are we doing this? We want to give our communities more time and
insight into the WMF budgetary and impact planning, hear feedback from the
FDC, and to experience how our affiliates do this planning ourselves.

The 2016-17 Annual Plan Timeline, as currently composed, is posted
here:  2016-17
Annual Plan Time Line
.
As you would expect, there are typically minor changes that will occur in
the timeline as we work through the process, so if you want to know where
we are in the process at any given moment, please feel free to check in.

Based on Community and FDC input, we have scheduled the following review
periods of the 2016-2017 Annual Plan and Budget which will be posted on
Meta on April 1, 2016:


   - April 1 - April 29 - Community review and recommendations
   - April 1 - May 16 FDC review and recommendations
   - June 6 - June 13 Audit Committee review and recommendations
   - April 1 - June 17 Board review, recommendations and consideration for
   approval


Input offered during the Community review period will be forwarded directly
to the appropriate C-Level Team Member for response.  The FDC will make
their final recommendations as a group during their Spring meeting.  The
Audit Committee will review the second version of the 2016-17 Annual Plan
once the Community and FDC input has been integrated into the first
version; but they will also have access to the earlier version when it is
posted online on April 1, 2016.  The Board’s vote is expected on June 17.
The final 2016-17 Annual Plan, Budget and FAQ are posted on July 1, 2016.

We look forward to working with everyone this year to build an Annual Plan
and Budget that will support our mission, our staff, and our global
Community of volunteers.


Lila
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Introducing Jaime Villagomez as our Chief Financial Officer

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear Wikimedians,


Sharing this from our internal WMF list for your visibility...



I'd like to introduce Jamie Villagomez, our incoming Chief Financial
Officer. He brings more than 20 years of experience leading finance in
small startups and large companies, and supporting non-profits as a
volunteer and an advisor. Jaime will be joining us February 1st, overseeing
our Finance, Administration, and OIT teams.

Most recently, Jaime served as CFO at two startups: AnyCOMM, a smart cities
startup, and Karum Group, which focused on extending credit services to
underserved, unbanked communities in Mexico. Before then he was Vice
President of Finance at Advent Software, QRS, and Northpoint
Communications. He held senior strategy and finance roles at several large
telecommunication companies, including AT, Lucent Technologies, and
Pacific Bell, often acting as an ambassador to local communities they
served.

Jaime is a first generation San Franciscan. He speaks fluent Spanish, and
has strong connections to his extended family in Latin America. Jaime holds
a deep appreciation for diversity, the importance of learning environments,
and the urgency of advancing the lives of those in need. He is committed to
bringing his experience to these issues through support for local community
organizations and non-profits, including the Salvation Army, the San
Francisco Conservation Corps, the San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of
Commerce, and Arriba Juntos, a San Francisco-based educational and
vocational training organization.

Jaime’s work gives him an important perspective on our current needs and
future opportunities. He has experience in small companies and large global
organizations, has planned and budgeted for major technology and
programmatic work, has led and developed strong finance and operating
teams, and mentored non-profits with a focus on integrity, accountability,
authenticity, and trust. He is a great fit for our values and needs.

Jaime has a BS in electrical engineering from Stanford University and an
MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He lives with his
wife and their two children in Walnut Creek. He loves to spend time with
family and friends, travel to Latin America, and support the adventures and
passions of his children.

I would like to thank everyone involved in this search, especially Amy
Elder and Boryana , who managed the recruiting process through a new, open
approach. We had more than 200 candidates, interviewed 34 people, and
followed up with six finalists. Everyone who spoke with Jaime throughout
the process gave unanimously positive feedback (a combination of staff,
executives and board members). Jaime will be reporting directly to me.  We
are very excited to have him as a part of the Foundation’s leadership team.

Please join me in welcoming Jaime.



Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Branislav Jovanovic, User:BraneJ in critical condition

[Lila Tretikov]

Thank you for your sad note, Milos. Our thoughts are with you and his close
ones.

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 2:19 AM, Milos Rancic  wrote:

> Brane died today. He read your messages and it mattered to him. I am
> content as we sent him the message while he was alive and able to feel it.
>
> Thanks to all of you who made him feel better during the last days of his
> life.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation IEG program will fund 14 community-led projects

[Lila Tretikov]

Thank you Marti, committee. And congratulation to all of the grantees.

Lila

On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Marti Johnson 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> In the latest round of Individual Engagement Grants
> , 29 eligible proposals were
> submitted for review. The committee recommended 14 for funding, with 19
> grantees selected to receive $83,113 overall.  WMF has now approved all
> 14 grants.  Here’s what we’re funding.[1]
>
> Tools - 7 projects funded
>
> * Batch Uploader for small GLAM projects
> 
> :
> This project will create a simple batch content upload tool in order to
> address the needs of smaller GLAM institutions who may not have the
> necessary resources, including budget, time, or staff expertise, to operate
> the existing tools used by larger galleries, libraries, archives, and
> museums.[2]
>
> * Pan Scandinavian Machine Assisted Content Translation
> 
> :
> Using Apertium, an open-source machine translation platform, this project
> will create translation data for closely-related languages Swedish, Danish
> and Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) for use in Content Translation, an
> on-wiki translation tool.[3]
>
> * StrepHit: Wikidata Statements Validation via Reference
> 
> :
> Using natural language processing, this project will take online content
> from a selection of (non-Wikimedia) websites and documents and then
> automatically convert the raw text into references to external sources
> thereby verifying the data provided in existing Wikidata statements.[4]
>
> * Wikimaps Warper 2.0
> :
> This project will focus on improvements to Map Warper, an open-source tool
> used for digitally aligning and overlaying historical maps, in order to
> make the software more accessible to Wikimedians and better integrated with
> Wikimedia projects.[5]
>
> * Wiki Needs Pictures
> :
> By centralizing multiple sources of data including local templates,
> category labels, and Wikidata item properties in one application, this
> project will create a coordinated image request system with a
> mobile-friendly map-based interface that allows contributors to easily
> discover where there is demand from Wikimedia projects for specific
> images.[6]
>
> * Semi-automatically generate Categories for Vietnamese Wikipedia
> 
> :
> By implementing natural language processing patterns, this project aims to
> create and apply English Wikipedia category structures to Vietnamese
> Wikipedia with the help of the community to evaluate and standardize the
> naming convention process.[7]
>
> * Proofreading semi-automatically the Catalan Wikipedia with LanguageTool
> 
> :
> Using the open source program LanguageTool, this project will supervise
> the analysis of content, document common grammar errors, and develop bots
> and scripts to replicate their corresponding edits in Catalan Wikipedia.
> [8]
>
> Offline Outreach & Partnership - 5 projects funded
>
> * Editing Maithili Wikipedia
> :
> This project will deliver a series of in-person training sessions to
> students in Nepal’s Satpari District in order to create and nurture an
> active group of editors on Maithili-language Wikipedia.[9]
>
> * Increase Awareness of and Participation in Indic Language Wikipedias in
> Colorado
> 
> :
> Small group instruction and training in native language typing in multiple
> Indic scripts are the focus of this project which seeks to eliminate some
> of the barriers preventing the Indian diaspora community of Colorado
> Springs, CO from editing on Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi,Telugu, and Tamil
> Wikipedias.[10]
>
> * Motivational and educational video to introduce Wikimedia Video
> 
> :
> This project will create a modular series of instructional videos that can
> be updated and translated as needed, and that can be used to successfully
> onboard new editors en masse, for example, at edit-a-thons and other events
> where it is not possible to have the involvement of experienced
> Wikimedians.[11]
>
> * Wikitherapy :
> An 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Endowment Discussion

[Lila Tretikov]

Lisa,

Thank you for sharing these exciting news and all the work the team has
completed so far.  I know I have spoken with many of our community members
in the past about this important milestone in protecting our community's
work long-term. I am looking forward to hearing more from everyone as we
make this real.

Lila

On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 9:09 AM, Lisa Gruwell 
wrote:

> Hi all-
>
> For several years, the Wikimedia movement has been having discussions
>  about whether and when to
> begin
> building an endowment. I put an essay up on meta recently in an attempt to
> rekindle this conversation with the community.  We included launching an
> endowment in the FY 2015-16 annual plan.  We also plan to have this
> conversation as a part of the larger strategic planning process because
> building an endowment means prioritizing some future needs over some
> current needs.
>
> Before we can begin to support an endowment, there is strategic groundwork
> that should be completed to ensure that the effort is both thoughtful and
> successful. To help get the conversation moving, I seeded the discussion
> page with a few questions that we are hoping you will help us answer.
> Please add the questions I didn't think to ask, too. We'd appreciate
> hearing your thoughts on this and your help in thinking through some of the
> strategic questions.
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment_Essay
> Best regards,
>
> Lisa Gruwell
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Quality issues

[Lila Tretikov]

Hoi Gerard,

What I hear in email from Andreas and Liam is not as much the propagation
of the error (which I am sure happens with some % of the cases), but the
fact that the original source is obscured and therefore it is hard to
identify and correct errors, biases, etc. Because if the source of error is
obscured, that error is that much harder to find and to correct. In fact,
we see this even on Wikipedia articles today (wrong dates of births sourced
from publications that don't do enough fact checking is something I came
across personally). It is a powerful and important principle on Wikipedia,
but with content re-use it gets lost. Public domain/CC0 in combination with
AI lands our content for slicing and dicing and re-arranging by others,
making it something entirely new, but also detached from our process of
validation and verification. I am curious to hear if people think it is a
problem. It definitely worries me.

We have been looking very closely at Wikidata and the possibilities it
offers. I am curious to understand more about your note on Resonator:

"As long as Wikidata does not
have the power of a Reasonator, the data is just that. It does not make
itself in information and consequently it is awful. When there is one thing
the Wikidata engineers do not do, it is considering the use of the data and
the workflows to improve the data and the quality."

Am I understanding you saying that until the data sees the light of day it
will not become of high quality?

Thanks,
Lila

On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 10:26 AM, Gerard Meijssen  wrote:

> Hoi,
> When a benefit is "Wikimedia specific" and thereby dismissed, you miss much
> of what is going on. Exactly because of this link most items are well
> defined as to what they are about. It is not perfect but it is good.
> Consequently Wikidata is able to link Wikipedia in any language to sources
> external to Wikipedia. This is a big improvement over linking external
> sources to a Wikipedia. The disambiguation of subjects is done at the
> Wikidata end.
>
> You make Wikidata to be a "default reference source". Given its current
> state, it is a bit much. Wikidata does not have the maturity to function as
> such. The best pointer to this fact is that 50% of all items has two or
> fewer statements.
>
> When you compare the quality of Wikipedias with what en.wp used to be you
> are comparing apples and oranges. The Myanmar Wikipedia is better informed
> on Myanmar than en.wp etc.
>
> When you qualify a Wikipedia as fascist, it does not follow that the data
> is suspect. Certainly when data in a source that you so easily dismiss is
> typically the same, there is not much meaning in what you say from a
> Wikidata point of view.
>
> I am thrilled that sources are so important to the Wikimedia movement and
> again, I am wondering what you hope to achieve by this pronouncement. Be
> realistic what is it that you want to achieve? Is quality important to you
> and, how do you define it and more importantly how do you want to achieve
> it. Have you seen the statistics on sources [1]? Then have a better look
> and you will find that real sources are mostly absent. Adding sources one
> statement at a time will not significantly improve quality because that is
> a numbers game and it is easier to achieve quality in a different way.
>
> When a librarian says that many sources copy each others data and that this
> is a problem, the bigger problem is missed. The bigger problem is not where
> they agree but where they disagree. Arguably they are the statements where
> quality is more likely an issue. Now ask your librarian what is likely to
> improve Wikidata more either find Sources for the statements that differ of
> find Sources where the statements agree. Wikidata is not authoritative but
> when our community starts researching such issues both Wikidata and other
> sources will improve rapidly their quality. This is not to say that in the
> end you want both Sources where sources agree and disagree.
>
> Then ask your librarian if there is a problem with missing data  We can
> import data from sources and consequently be more informative or we do not
> import more data and people have to magically combine information that
> exists in many sources to get a composite view. We could see Wikidata as a
> place where data is combined and compared with other sources, Do tell your
> librarian that the process mentioned above should be iterative and it will
> be easily understood that comparing with just one additional source will
> improve the focus on likely issues even more.
>
> PS What does your librarian think when she knows that the Dutch National
> Library is inclined to provide us with software so that books can be
> ordered at Dutch libraries from Wikidata data (and by inference from
> Wikipedias)?
>
> When some see Wikidata as a source of reference, they will increasingly be
> served a better product. At this moment it is not good at all.
>
> When 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] FDC recommendations for 2015-2016 Round 1 APG grant requests

[Lila Tretikov]

One of the things proposed during our FDC conversation was a 3rd party
review of the WMF annual plan. This could avoid the "circular" nature of
Board->FDC->WMF and also provide us with another perspective from an
organization that has a similar scale.

Lila

On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 5:50 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak 
wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 3:50 AM, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > Perhaps there should be a new Budget Committee of the board, with a
> similar
> > composition to the Audit Committee in that the membership would include
> > some WMF board members and some community members. The Budget Committee
> > could do FDC-like reviews of WMF's Annual Plan proposals each year.
> >
>
> It is an idea worth considering, but setting up yet another committee gives
> me goosebumps...
>
>
> >
> > I personally would prefer to avoid the "core" and "non-core" division of
> > the WMF budget, since I feel that the whole budget and the performance of
> > the whole organization should be reviewed at least annually. The Budget
> > Committee could look at the big picture in more depth than the Board as a
> > whole and the FDC would have the time to do.
> >
>
> I understand this view. My concerns are related to scale (the most common
> FDC applicant has a budget 1000 smaller than the WMF), FDC's competence to
> review such budgets with the same professionalism in a highly limited time,
> and also mixing the cashflows (after all, the FDC's allocation is also part
> of WMF's budget), but these issues can probably be addressed somehow.
>
> In general, I strongly believe that the WMF should lead by example - it
> will be much easier for other organizations to prepare strategy, goals,
> budgets, plans, etc., if they have a clear good example set by the WMF.
>
> Dariusz
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] FDC recommendations for 2015-2016 Round 1 APG grant requests

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi Craig,

You are right, this has been an ongoing request for years. This year we did
many infrastructure updates for financial planning. However we missed some
objectives. I take responsibility, specifically for the very short
community feedback window on the annual plan this year. We fixed this in
our upcoming plan. Overall we have improved in some of our core budgeting
and accounting areas, but still have work to do.

This is what we have done this year to set up for financial controls:

+ Implemented KPIs across the organizations.
+ Implemented quarterly goals and reviews across organization.
+ Reduced book close to 15 days.
+ Catalogued projects to set up project-based accounting.
+ Created business cases to evaluate cost/benefit analysis as an evaluation
tool for new projects.
+ Accounting/analytics software updates.

Here is what is upcoming the rest of the fiscal year:

+ 3 year forward revenue/spend forecast.
+ A consultation with community about strategic goals.
+ A 30 day review period for the annual plan.
+ More detailed annual plan, project based accounting where possible.
Impact goals.
+ Gap analysis of the annual plan vs. FDC.
+ Wikidata integration into the annual plan.

Here is what under advisement:

+ 3rd party review of the annual plan.
+ FDC process alignment.

Project based budgeting and 3 year forward projections are going to give us
good understanding of the overall costs of multi-year projects. We will be
able to answer for the total cost of developing Wikidata or new editing
environment. This is a great improvement over what we were able to do
previously and will help us with setting priorities in the future.


Lila




On Tue, Nov 24, 2015 at 4:28 AM, Craig Franklin <cfrank...@halonetwork.net>
wrote:

> Hi Lila,
>
> I very much appreciate your prompt response, but this has been an ongoing
> issue for years.  What is required now is not more going around in circles
> with "consultation" and "discussions" that don't go anywhere; what is
> needed is for the WMF to take action to improve the transparency of its
> planning, and review its planning process so that the plans end up having a
> closer relation to the actual outcomes.  The ball, as they say, is firmly
> in your court.
>
> Cheers,
> Craig
>
>
> On 24 November 2015 at 14:27, Lila Tretikov <l...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> We fully acknowledge the issue with the shortened AP review this year and
>> are committed to the 30 day review going forward. Since the overall issue
>> has been noted since as far back as 2012 we are doing a review of our
>> process in comparison to the FDC standards to build best practices going
>> forward. You can add you comments here to help guide the conversation:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)#Annual_Plan
>>
>> Lila
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 8:09 PM, Craig Franklin <
>> cfrank...@halonetwork.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I likewise appreciate the strong language on the situation with the WMF;
>>> the general opacity and vagueness of public budget plans (especially
>>> considering the requirements for affiliate organisations in this area) is
>>> something that has been widely noted on this list and elsewhere, and to
>>> my
>>> mind not answered in a satisfactory way.  It is good to see a fearless
>>> FDC
>>> that is prepared to "tell it as it is", and make sure that this problem
>>> is
>>> receiving continued attention.
>>>
>>> It is my hope that the Foundation will address the issues raised here in
>>> a
>>> constructive and transparent manner, rather than ignoring them or trying
>>> to
>>> spin them away.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Craig
>>>
>>> On 24 November 2015 at 12:04, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Thank you FDC.
>>> >
>>> > Many of the small and midsized APG requests fared well in this round.
>>> That
>>> > is nice to see.
>>> >
>>> > I find it concerning that the larger the organization, the more
>>> problems
>>> > the FDC  seemed to find with the org's budget and performance
>>> management
>>> > practices. One would expect the larger organizations to have mature and
>>> > robust practices in these areas. Regarding WMF in particular, my
>>> concerns
>>> > about its budget practices are well documented and I appreciate that
>>> the
>>> > FDC is also taking note of the persistence of the problems. I hope
>>> that WMF
>>> > will get serious about its financial transpatency.
>&g

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Free Bassel

[Lila Tretikov]

We will check on both.

On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 10:17 AM, rupert THURNER <rupert.thur...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Lila, would you be able to somehow contact the Russian government?
> On Nov 23, 2015 18:25, "Samir Elsharbaty" <selsharb...@wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Some suggestions of things we can do:
> >
> > 1. The list of signatories on the amnesty international website does not
> > include the WMF, the Wikimedia community, any of our affiliations or any
> > representation from the Wikimedia movement. I wonder if we can contact
> them
> > and request adding any of the above mentioned?
> >
> > 2. Use our SM channels to retweet the WMF blog post [1] about him with
> the
> > news that he is sentenced to death.
> >
> > 3. We all try to share supporting tweets on the #FreeBassel hashtag.
> >
> > [1] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/10/08/bassel-missing-syria/
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Samir
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 7:02 PM, Lila Tretikov <l...@wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Gerard, this is devastating news. Please send our love to Bassel's
> > family.
> > > I still hope this is not true.
> > >
> > > If there is anything we can do from here please let us know.
> > > Lila
> > >
> > > On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 2:12 AM, Gerard Meijssen <
> > > gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hoi,
> > > > I was so afraid when I read that Bassel has been sentenced to death.
> I
> > > read
> > > > it on the website of Amnesty International [1]. I blogged about him
> in
> > > the
> > > > past [2]. I am sad to say that it is him.
> > > >
> > > > Bassel was active as a Wikimedian, he worked towards making
> information
> > > > available about Palmyra.
> > > >
> > > > If there is anything that we can do, please let us do this.
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >   GerardM
> > > >
> > > > [1]
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.amnesty.nl/nieuwsportaal/pers/syria-fears-life-free-expression-advocate
> > > > [2]
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2015/10/freebassel-free-culture-advocate-who.html
> > > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] FDC recommendations for 2015-2016 Round 1 APG grant requests

[Lila Tretikov]

We fully acknowledge the issue with the shortened AP review this year and
are committed to the 30 day review going forward. Since the overall issue
has been noted since as far back as 2012 we are doing a review of our
process in comparison to the FDC standards to build best practices going
forward. You can add you comments here to help guide the conversation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)#Annual_Plan

Lila



On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 8:09 PM, Craig Franklin 
wrote:

> I likewise appreciate the strong language on the situation with the WMF;
> the general opacity and vagueness of public budget plans (especially
> considering the requirements for affiliate organisations in this area) is
> something that has been widely noted on this list and elsewhere, and to my
> mind not answered in a satisfactory way.  It is good to see a fearless FDC
> that is prepared to "tell it as it is", and make sure that this problem is
> receiving continued attention.
>
> It is my hope that the Foundation will address the issues raised here in a
> constructive and transparent manner, rather than ignoring them or trying to
> spin them away.
>
> Cheers,
> Craig
>
> On 24 November 2015 at 12:04, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > Thank you FDC.
> >
> > Many of the small and midsized APG requests fared well in this round.
> That
> > is nice to see.
> >
> > I find it concerning that the larger the organization, the more problems
> > the FDC  seemed to find with the org's budget and performance management
> > practices. One would expect the larger organizations to have mature and
> > robust practices in these areas. Regarding WMF in particular, my concerns
> > about its budget practices are well documented and I appreciate that the
> > FDC is also taking note of the persistence of the problems. I hope that
> WMF
> > will get serious about its financial transpatency.
> >
> > A couple of questions about Wikidata:
> >
> > I'm confused about the funding for Wikidata. In one place the FDC says
> that
> > "Nonetheless, the FDC is exasperated by the inability of WMDE to to
> > disaggregate the costs of Wikidata from other projects." and in another
> > place the FDC says that "We have recommended a reduced amount for WMDE in
> > this round with the expectation that WMDE will not cut Wikidata or their
> > other tech development work, but will instead find cost savings elsewhere
> > in its annual plan." If the FDC wants a disaggregated budget (which is
> > understandable) then why is the FDC expecting WMDE to dip into its other
> > funds and/or make cuts elsewhere in order to cover the work in this
> > proposal that the FDC is declining to fund in this proposal? This
> > expectation seems to be a bit of a contradiction.
> >
> > I'm also wondering how WMDE is able to submit a dedicated request for
> > restricted funding for Wikidata if the Wikidata project is so integrated
> > into WMDE's other budgets that the FDC finds the integration to be
> > problematic. Can the FDC or our colleagues at WMDE explain this?
> >
> > Wikidata is a high profile project with a good reputation, and I hope
> that
> > the issues can be resolved soon.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Pine
> > On Nov 23, 2015 14:09, "matanya moses"  wrote:
> >
> > > Hello Wikimedians,
> > >
> > > tl;dr: The FDC’s recommendations for this round of the APG grant
> requests
> > > have now been published at:
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2015-2016_round1
> > >
> > > The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) meets twice a year to help make
> > > decisions about how to effectively allocate movement funds to achieve
> the
> > > Wikimedia movement's mission, vision, and strategy. [1] We met for four
> > > days last week in San Francisco to review 11 proposals submitted for
> this
> > > round of funding. [2]
> > >
> > > The committee has now posted our Round 1 2015-2016 recommendations on
> the
> > > annual plan grants (APG) to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.
> > [3]
> > > The WMF Board representatives to the FDC (Denny Vrandecic, Jan-Bart de
> > > Vreede and Dariusz Jemielniak) will lead the Board in its review of
> these
> > > recommendations. The WMF Board will review the recommendations and then
> > > make their decision on them before 1 January 2016.
> > >
> > > This round, the eleven proposals came from ten chapters and one
> thematic
> > > organisation, totaling requests of approximately $3.8 million USD. Ten
> > > affiliates were returning to the APG program, and one was a new
> > applicant.
> > > This round, one organisation requested a restricted grant to support
> one
> > > particular program. All other grant requests were for general funding.
> > >
> > > Before we met for our face-to-face deliberations, the FDC carefully
> > > reviewed all proposals and supporting documentation (e.g., budgets,
> > plans,
> > > strategies) in detail, aided by 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community revitalization

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi Michal -- good to hear from you and wonderful blog post. Congratulations
on the partnership with the Academy of Hebrew Language.

With respect to both cross-linking Wikimedia projects (not just Wiktionary)
and SEO this is in the domain of the Discovery team which reports to Tomasz
Finc. The Readership team, as Toby pointed out already, is also looking at
cross-project integration. I think it may be easier to improve Wiktionary
SEO in languages other than English sadly because there is less online
content. You may want to connect with Tomasz and Toby directly to share
ideas.

We know we have a lot of content in sister-projects that is currently not
easily discoverable and this is a topic of many discussions.

L



On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 10:10 PM, Gnangarra  wrote:

> Peter that would be very useful both the contributors and to readers
>
> On 18 November 2015 at 14:00, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
>
> > How about a tool to look up in Wiktionary from Wikipedia?
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > Behalf Of Pine W
> > Sent: Tuesday, 17 November 2015 11:40 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List; Toby Negrin
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community revitalization
> >
> > Thanks Michal.
> > I periodically use English Wiktionary and am pleased with it as a reader.
> > I am wondering what it might take to increase our readership of
> > Wiktionaries in general, perhaps by increasing the prominence of them in
> > Google search results. Pinging Toby to see if he has any ideas on how to
> > increase the readership of Wiktionaries.
> > Regards,
> > Pine
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 11:14 AM, Michal Lester <
> mles...@wikimedia.org.il>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Dear friends and colleague,
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I would to share with you the post we published on Wikimedia Blog
> > > (November 13, 2015) [1]. It describes how WMIL works with few
> > > *Wiktionary* volunteers in a process of revitalization of *Wiktionary*
> > > community. I believe it could be useful case study for those of you who
> > deal with similar issues.
> > >
> > > I would be happy to provide more info. to anyone who is interested
> > > Michal
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> > > https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/13/hebrew-wiktionary-community-revi
> > > talization/
> > >
> > > *Regards,*
> > >
> > >
> > > *Michal Lester,*
> > >
> > > *Executive DirectorWikimedia Israel*
> > > *http://www.wikimedia.org.il   *
> > > *972-50-8996046 ; 972-77-751-6032  *
> > > ___
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> --
> GN.
> President Wikimedia Australia
> WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra
> Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Harassment consultation on Meta

[Lila Tretikov]

Patrick,

Thank you for posting this.I am really hoping a lot of people will
participate. Anti-harassment and child protection is something that we took
on only about a year ago and I am very grateful to see the team pushing
ahead with this. Your work on this is one of the most important new
initiatives to support more inclusive, diverse and gender-balanced
communities.

Since this is ongoing, it would be great if you could share what we are
hoping will be the result of this phase and what is upcoming.

What are we doing for outreach, especially to female Wikimedians?

Lila


On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 3:11 PM, Patrick Earley 
wrote:

> Thanks Lodewijk.  We didn't mean "ideas" to limit contributions to full
> proposals or solutions.  It could just be "Random thoughts from Lodewijk" -
> it's meant to be very open.  You can also start a conversation about
> another idea by clicking on it to find its discussion, or take part in an
> ongoing one.  I'll talk to my team to see if we can improve the language to
> make it clear all levels of participation are welcome.
>
> Best,
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Lodewijk 
> wrote:
>
> > Thanks for addressing the theme. While looking at the page, I'm having a
> > hard time getting my head around it though. You seem to ask for
> 'thoughts'
> > on a number of issues, but then you only allow a field for 'ideas' (which
> > sounds like 'solutions' to me). Maybe this is a language issue, but would
> > there be a lower threshold pathway to contribute to the conversation than
> > putting an 'idea' out there which suggests that it is good all by itself?
> >
> > I hope you can clarify the page a bit. But then, maybe it's just me.
> >
> > Best,
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 2:30 AM, Anna Stillwell <
> astillw...@wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I've heard about the hard work that this team has done to launch this
> and
> > > the kind of transformation you're seeking. Well done. Congratulations.
> > > /a
> > >
> > > On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 4:44 PM, Patrick Earley  >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hello all,
> > > >
> > > > Community Advocacy at the WMF is running a month-long discussion on
> the
> > > > topic of harassment on our projects.  This will be the first in a
> > series
> > > -
> > > > as it is the initial discussion, we are keeping it open and broad to
> > > > encourage brainstorming and creativity.
> > > >
> > > > It is currently live on Meta, and will be open until at least Dec.
> 16:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Harassment_consultation_2015
> > > >
> > > > We encourage all to participate, share ideas, and provide feedback on
> > the
> > > > ideas of others.  Online harassment is a complex, pervasive issue,
> and
> > we
> > > > can't make progress without exploring the best ways forward.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > --
> > > > Patrick Earley
> > > > Community Advocate
> > > > Wikimedia Foundation
> > > > pear...@wikimedia.org
> > > > ___
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> > > > 
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Anna Stillwell
> > > Major Gifts Officer
> > > Wikimedia Foundation
> > > 415.806.1536
> > > *www.wikimediafoundation.org *
> > > ___
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>
>
> --
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> Community Advocate
> Wikimedia Foundation
> pear...@wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paris

[Lila Tretikov]

My thoughts are going to Parisian and French Wikipedian. Please stay safe.

L

On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 5:33 PM, Katy Love  wrote:

> Thank you so much for this update, Alex. I really appreciate it.
>
> Thinking of all in Paris tonight. Absolutely heartbreaking.
>
> Katy
>
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 4:19 PM, Alex Cella  wrote:
>
> > All the staff is safe, I'm in touch with them.
> >
> > Thnaks for asking.
> >
> > --
> >
> > *Alex Cella*
> > Finance Fellow
> > ace...@wikimedia.org
> > LinkedIn 
> >
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> > 149 New Montgomery St., San Francisco, CA., 94105
> > www.wikimediafoundation.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 4:09 PM, Milos Rancic  wrote:
> >
> > > May WMFR coordinate efforts to inform us if all Wikimedians from Paris
> > are
> > > live and well?
> > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Passing of User:Belissarius

[Lila Tretikov]

condolences

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 11:50 PM, Shlomi Fish  wrote:

> On Thu, 5 Nov 2015 13:52:54 -0800
> Pine W  wrote:
>
> > Colleagues,
> >
> > The Wikipedia community has received news of the passing of
> > User:Belissarius. He spoke Polish natively and English at a high level of
> > proficiency. He wrote about himself on his Wikipedia user pages at
> > https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Belissarius
> > and  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Belissarius. Confirmation of his
> > passing appeared in the *Polish Daily News *at
> > http://dziennikzwiazkowy.com/polonia/red-piotr-domaradzki-nie-zyje/
> >
>
> Sorry to hear about that.
>
> Regards,
>
> Shlomi Fish
>
> > A self-portrait of him appears here:
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pulkownik_P.JPG
> >
> > His record includes 107,753 edits to Polish Wikipedia, and over 1000
> edits
> > each to English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/Belissarius
> >
> > May he rest in peace.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Pine
> > ___
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>
>
> --
> -
> Shlomi Fish   http://www.shlomifish.org/
> My Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/shlomif/
>
> The prefix “God Said” has the extraordinary logical property of converting
> any
> statement that follows it into a true one.
>
> Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Changes in operational management.

[Lila Tretikov]

All,

I’m writing to let you know that Terry Gilbey will be leaving the WMF. As
Interim Chief Operating Officer this year, he helped us improve operational
processes across the organization during an important time. I thank him for
completing this service.

During this time WMF teams became stronger, with more freedom to make right
decisions in support of our communities. The Team Practices Group will
continue to carry forward maintaining and helping improve the
organizational processes we put into place.

With improved processes in place, I see the need to focus our attention on
WMF culture. With this change, we will take the first step: Boryana will
join the C-Level team, representing HR and employee voice at the top level
of organizational leadership.

Our search for a new Chief Financial Officer is well on its way. Until we
have a new CFO on board, the Finance team will report to me. The Office IT,
Administration, and the Team Practices teams will report to Boryana. The
Technology team that was co-managed by Terry and Wes will continue to be
managed by Wes until we fill the leadership role internally or externally.


  Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Khalid Mahmood is gone

[Lila Tretikov]

Thank you Asaf. A huge loss. Condolences to all who were close.

sent from mobile. please excuse typos.
On Nov 1, 2015 4:47 AM, "Tito Dutta"  wrote:

> Sad news. :(
> I agree with Bodhisattwa that it is a huge loss.
>
>
>1. His English Wikipedia userpage is fully protected (WP:DECEASED
>guideline #1)
>2. His name is added here:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deceased_Wikipedians/2015
>
> Thanks.
>
> On 1 November 2015 at 16:16, Shlomi Fish  wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 31 Oct 2015 21:14:11 -0700
> > Asaf Bartov  wrote:
> >
> > > Dear friends,
> > >
> > > Our colleague User:Khalid Mahmood, the most prolific contributor to the
> > > Western Punjabi Wikipedia[1], has died earlier this month, after long
> > > illness.
> > >
> >
> > sorry to hear about that. My condolences go to his family and friends.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Shlomi Fish
> >
> > --
> > -
> > Shlomi Fish   http://www.shlomifish.org/
> > http://youtu.be/xZLwtc9x4yA - Anime in Real Life!! (Parody)
> >
> > Vizzini: He didn’t fall?! Inconceivable!
> > Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you
> > think it means.
> > — http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Princess_Bride_%28film%29
> >
> > Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply
> .
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Happy 3rd Birthday, Wikidata!

[Lila Tretikov]

I hope you had a great party! !!!

sent from mobile. please excuse typos.
On Oct 29, 2015 12:44 PM, "Redon Skikuli"  wrote:

> Happy Birthday Wikidata, from the growing Albanian community!
>
> *---*
>
> *Redon Skikuli*
> *e-mail: **re...@skikuli.com *
> *web: **www.skikuli.com *
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 12:29 AM, Lydia Pintscher <
> lydia.pintsc...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
>
> > Hey everyone :)
> >
> > Today we are celebrating Wikidata's 3rd birthday. I've been with the
> > project since we started development 3.5 years ago and I can't believe
> > what a ride it has been and how far we've come.
> >
> > As for every birthday celebrations are in order. We've created a page
> > at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Third_Birthday. There you
> > can find editorials (by Harmonia Amanda, Ash Crow and me) about the
> > past year and what is coming. Please take a moment to read it. There
> > you will also find a section for congratulations and wishes, presents
> > and more.
> >
> > Here's to many more years of Wikidata. Stay as awesome as you are!
> >
> >
> > Cheers
> > Lydia
> >
> >
> > PS: The development team has presents as well. I'll send an email
> > about them in a few hours. Ohhh the suspense :D
> >
> > --
> > Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
> > Product Manager for Wikidata
> >
> > Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
> > Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
> > 10963 Berlin
> > www.wikimedia.de
> >
> > Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
> >
> > Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
> > unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
> > Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
> >
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wiki Loves Monuments] Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy largely blocked by WMF fundraising

[Lila Tretikov]

First, thanks to all of those who worked in good faith, with patience and
care for each other to solve this problem. I appreciate the level of
compromise and empathy that was required from teams at WMIL and WMF. Thank
you!

Second, I want to highlight that this is a *our* issue, we are a community
and we need to think about our *one mission* to engage every human with
knowledge, before our individual goals. Let's please remember that before
we detract and distract with polarizing rhetoric (you know who you are on
this list). Bring up issues, suggest solutions. But please, in good faith
and with care for each other.

Thanks all,
Lila


On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 8:26 AM, Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> I was referring to the fundraising targets, which have been cited as a
> cause of the dispute. WMIT/WLM have explained at length their reasons for
> needing banners in September. I am in no position to comment on whether
> their analysis is correct or not . Fundraising has not been so forthcoming
> in response to queries.
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pine W
> Sent: Friday, 04 September 2015 1:45 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wiki Loves Monuments] Wiki Loves Monuments in
> Italy largely blocked by WMF fundraising
>
> I guess I'm not clear on whether you're asking about the Fundraising
> targets or the WLM/WMIT targets, or both. Can you clarify?
>
> My understanding from this email chain is that there will be a
> deconfliction of banner space via better scheduling next year. I think that
> someone suggested setting up a calendar to track banner use, which might
> also be helpful.
>
> I think I'll step out of this conversation for the moment, and let the
> stakeholders take it from here.
>
> Pine
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 4:25 AM, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > One of the basic tenets of health and safety, is that if you have a
> > near miss incident, it should be analysed the same way that a fatal
> > incident would be investigated. Not to apportion blame, even if it is
> > due, but so that the same situation can be avoided in the future.
> > Organisations that fail to do this are doomed to repeat their
> > mistakes, not necessarily by the same people, who may well have
> > learned, but often by other departments, where the people did not get
> the opportunity to learn by the mistake.
> > Refusal to answer reasonable and legitimate questions by stakeholders
> > often leads to accusations of conspiracy and bad faith and can end in
> > the local demagogues, of which we have an adequate supply, inciting
> > the torch and pitchfork brigade. Things may go downhill at this point.
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pine W
> > Sent: Friday, 04 September 2015 8:43 AM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wiki Loves Monuments] Wiki Loves Monuments
> > in Italy largely blocked by WMF fundraising
> >
> > Yes, I think it is the case that Fundraising and other organizations
> > (like the WLM coordinators, Wikimedia Italia, and Community Resources
> > / FDC) were working from different playbooks. But now that Fundraising
> > has agreed to change their plans, I think we should give them some
> > breathing room, especially because they say that banner scheduling
> > will be coordinated next year.
> >
> >
> >
> > Pine
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 11:24 PM, Peter Southwood <
> > peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Who set the targets that will now not be met, how were they decided,
> > > and when were they set? I must assume that WLM annual project was
> > > not taken into consideration by these planners.
> > > Cheers,
> > > P
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pine W
> > > Sent: Thursday, 03 September 2015 10:51 PM
> > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wiki Loves Monuments] Wiki Loves
> > > Monuments in Italy largely blocked by WMF fundraising
> > >
> > > I just want to respond to this point in particular:
> > >
> > > "Postponing the Italian fundraising campaign means for the first
> > > time in at least 4 years, the fundraising team will not be meeting a
> > > target. The team will pick up extra work in October to make up for
> > > work missed in September.
> > > It's not possible to do two months of work in one month, so there
> > > will need to be adjustments later throughout the year to make up for
> > > missing the September target."
> > >
> > > It was somewhat courageous for WMF Fundraising to change its
> > > schedule and forecast missing a target as a result. Two quotes 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of Iranian Wikimedians UG

[Lila Tretikov]

Congratulations Iran User Group! Really great to see this!!! Was wonderful
to meet some of you at Wikimania :)

On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 1:10 PM, Carlos M. Colina ma...@wikimedia.org.ve
wrote:

 Dear all,

 I'm pleased to announcce the recognition [1] of a new member of the family
 of Wikimedia affilates, the Iranian Wikimedians User Group. Among their
 main interests are encouraging the use of Wikimedia resources in education
 (at cultural centres, associations and Universities), outreach work and the
 use of social media to tell people about Wikipedia and its sister projects;
 edit-a-thons and participation in different cultural events, photo trips
 and upload-a-thons to teach users how to upload images to Commons.

 Welcome!!

 1:
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Iranian_Wikimedians_User_Group_-_Liaison_approval,_July_2015
 --
 *Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua
 junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain.
 Carlos M. Colina
 Socio, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 | www.wikimedia.org.ve
 http://wikimedia.org.ve
 Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Affiliations Committee
 Phone: +972-52-4869915
 Twitter: @maor_x
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of Wikimedians of Korea as a Wikimedia User Group

[Lila Tretikov]

Congratulations! (how do I say this in Korean?)

On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 8:50 AM, Carlos M. Colina ma...@wikimedia.org.ve
wrote:

 Dear all,

 We have another group of wikimedians being recognised [1], the Wikimedians
 of Korea User Group. They have been around for some time and among their
 main interests is the development of educational content in South Korea
 available for all, along with supporting the development of other Wikimedia
 projects.

 Welcome!!

 1:
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Wikimedians_of_Korea_User_Group_-_Liaison_approval,_July_2015
 --
 *Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua
 junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain.
 Carlos M. Colina
 Socio, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 | www.wikimedia.org.ve
 http://wikimedia.org.ve
 Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Affiliations Committee
 Phone: +972-52-4869915
 Twitter: @maor_x
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Innovation

[Lila Tretikov]

Gerard,

Thanks for bringing this up. That is exactly what we are attempting to
resolve with changes to product process and program strategies.

We've made improvements with the public VE triage where anyone could submit
a critical blocker, and discuss with the team on a weekly call. And we
tested some ideas for prioritizing new features together early this year.

This quarter we aim to propose and test a strawman approach that would be
used by our newly forming community tech team to do some of what you are
looking for.

It is critical that it is not a black box decision-making process,  because
the work is meant to benefit our editors.

Luis can tell you more how we are thinking to ensure that. The Engineering
leaders are coming together to discuss this in depth in August, including
ideas that came from our strategy and working together community
consultations.

Lila

sent from mobile. please excuse typos.
On Jul 12, 2015 2:53 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Hoi,
 Luis I like what I read. What you can do to make it even more pleasing is
 establish better how this will benefit projects other than Wikipedia.

 For instance I blogged abut red link functionality that will easily
 enhance the quality of links and red links in most project including
 Wikipedia because it allows for providing information where there is none
 yet to bothnot readers and editors AND maintains the functionality as if
 nothing has changed.

 I have no idea if the WMF would consider such an idea. My impression is
 that the WMF and its agenda is very much a black box. When you explain how
 an idea like this might get attention, it is less theoretical and it
 explains me and others if innovation in the WMF has a place and what that
 place is.
 Thanks,
   GerardM


 http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2015/07/wikipedia-is-it-about-articles-or-about_10.html

 On 12 July 2015 at 05:03, Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 10:21 AM, Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org
 wrote:
 
   On Thu, Jul 9, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Rogol Domedonfors 
 domedonf...@gmail.com
  
   wrote:
  
   The 2015 Call to Action identified the need to Support innovation 
   new knowledge
   * Integrate, consolidate, and pause or stop stalled initiatives.
   * Create spaces for future community-led innovations and new
   knowledge creation.
   * Facilitate and support new models and structures for knowledge
   curation.
   * Strengthen partnerships with organizations that use or
   contribute free content, or are aligned with the WMF in the
   free-knowledge movement.
  
   Yet no-one at WMF seems tasked with driving innovation in the
   community.  I have started a Meta page for Innovation at
   https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Innovation to stimulate discussions.
  
  
   I'm going to respond more on-wiki, but tl;dr: I disagree strongly that
  no
   one at WMF seems tasked with driving innovation.
  
 
 
 
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Innovationtype=revisiondiff=12668489oldid=12623768
 
  Constructive suggestions welcome - no one wants to see innovation more
 than
  me, trust me :)
 
  Luis
 
 
  --
  Luis Villa
  Sr. Director of Community Engagement
  Wikimedia Foundation
  *Working towards a world in which every single human being can freely
 share
  in the sum of all knowledge.*
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[Wikimedia-l] Changes in Engineering leadership

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear all,


I wanted to let you know that Damon Sicore’s last day with the WMF was June
30th. Damon has served as the Vice President of Engineering and played a
role in our strategic thinking as we retool to fulfill our mission of
delivering free and open knowledge to the world. We wish him well.


Some of you may have questions about this transition and our plans for
Engineering leadership. There’s a small FAQ attached below that should
address some of the immediate questions about next steps. While I know you
may have additional questions, we can’t share more regarding personnel
issues. Thank you for respecting that confidentiality.


Lila







Q. Why did Damon leave?


Damon’s departure is a personnel issue, so we are not able to comment on
it. Thank you for respecting that confidentiality and Damon’s privacy.


Q. Who will manage Engineering and Technology?


Lila and our interim Chief Operating Officer Terry Gilbey will be sharing
oversight for the Engineering and Technology teams at the C-level. They'll
work closely with the strong leadership of the audience verticals and
individual teams. Lila, Terry, Katie Horn, Toby Negrin, Trevor Parscal, Wes
Moran, and the C-team are committed to doing our best to minimize
disruption to your day-to-day work, and to support you during this
transition.


Q. Who will guide Engineering decisions and set goals?


The basic direction for the Engineering team is articulated in their
approved Q1 goals. The team will continue to deliver on these commitments.
The audience team leads will meet regularly with Lila to ensure that their
work remains aligned with the WMF’s technical vision.


Q. What does this mean for the new Engineering and Technology department
structure?


The department structures for Engineering and Technology remain the same.
The audience verticals reflect the emerging strategy, and we believe they
remain the best way to organize the WMF’s teams, based on the work we have
ahead of us in the next few years.


Q. Will there be any additional department reorganization as part of this?


We’re not planning any additional organizational changes.


Q. What does this mean for the ongoing CTO search?


We are already underway with the CTO search; this will continue as planned.
The CTO role is an important part of executing against the WMF’s
engineering strategy. We look forward to bringing on board a new CTO with
the leadership, perspective, and skills that the position entails.


Q. Will we recruit for a new Vice President of Engineering? What is the
timeline?


Our priority will continue to be filling the CTO role. Once we have
identified a CTO we’ll revisit the role of VPE, to ensure that the new
CTO’s perspective is taken into consideration.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annual Plan FY15-16

[Lila Tretikov]

Hello all,

You can now find a copy of the 2015-16 Annual Plan on Meta to better
support conversation and questions:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2015-16

We will do our best to reply to your questions in a timely manner, but
please note that tomorrow is a U.S. holiday and then we move into the
weekend. Due to this, we may not be able to respond to questions on Meta
until early next week. Thank you in advance for your patience.

Lila

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 8:21 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks for the update. I've drafted some questions and comments about the
 new version. The updated plan is located on Foundation Wiki; can it be
 copied to Meta where it's more accessible to the community for discussion?

 Thanks, Pine

 Pine


 On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 7:09 PM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  All,
 
  I want to provide an update on the Annual Plan. I’m happy to let you know
  that the Board of Trustees has approved the proposed 2015-­16 Wikimedia
  Foundation annual plan. Thank you for your patience as we have worked to
  incorporate your feedback and review with the Board.
 
  The approved plan includes $68.2 million in revenue, with $65 million of
  spending and $3.2 million for the reserve. In addition, we will raise $5
  million for our endowment, which will help secure long-term support for
 our
  mission. In total, this accounts for a 17% growth in total budget. The
 plan
  also includes a stretch goal of exceeding the fundraising target by 20%
 to
  contribute additional funds to the reserve. The approved and updated plan
  is now available here
  https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan.
 
  In our last Metrics Meeting, I presented an emerging strategy for the
  Wikimedia Foundation that focused on building a strong core in the
  near-term, allowing for innovation in the long-term toward our mission of
  ubiquitous shared knowledge. Strengthening our core has been our focus
 over
  this past year. We published the Call to Action
  
 
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action
  ,
  which refocused us on community and technology, introducing new thinking
  and skills to the WMF, and improved products for the world.
 
  We have made significant changes this past year that are showing early
  results. But this is just a start.  The world is changing rapidly in
 areas
  like mobile, user behavior, media formats, and access to knowledge. In
  order to make free knowledge available for generations to come, we need
 to
  continually improve our work and challenge our thinking. The Annual Plan
  for this year is focused on building our capabilities as a springboard
 for
  future innovation.
 
  In this year’s plan, budget adjustments are designed to fill in the gaps
 in
  current user needs, in particular in the areas of community (including
  affiliates and partners), technology, and communication. The plan builds
 on
  the foundational work from this past year, when we set up team structures
  and introduced new focus to align our organization with communities and
  demands for knowledge. For the first time, this year’s plan also
 introduces
  a Quarterly Metrics Scorecard to track our progress on delivering on our
  commitments. We will use both top-level and departmental metrics to
 measure
  our progress and report back.
 
  I also want to acknowledge some of the issues with this year’s Annual
 Plan
  process. We shared the first draft with you late, giving you limited time
  to provide feedback. We introduced a new, lighter weight format in the
  first iteration that left some of you with questions about proposed
  changes. This final, approved version has been updated to clarify our
  rationale, incorporate the feedback we did receive, link our plans to
  success metrics, and orient the next year within a broader strategy. As
  always, we continue to iterate toward a better process. Going forward we
  plan to have an extended window for your review and comments so we can
  refine our plan with your valuable feedback in mind.
 
  Thank you. I look forward to working together as we continue to
 strengthen
  our core capabilities to support our mission and prepare for our emerging
  strategy.
 
  ~~~Lila
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[Wikimedia-l] Annual Plan FY15-16

[Lila Tretikov]

All,

I want to provide an update on the Annual Plan. I’m happy to let you know
that the Board of Trustees has approved the proposed 2015-­16 Wikimedia
Foundation annual plan. Thank you for your patience as we have worked to
incorporate your feedback and review with the Board.

The approved plan includes $68.2 million in revenue, with $65 million of
spending and $3.2 million for the reserve. In addition, we will raise $5
million for our endowment, which will help secure long-term support for our
mission. In total, this accounts for a 17% growth in total budget. The plan
also includes a stretch goal of exceeding the fundraising target by 20% to
contribute additional funds to the reserve. The approved and updated plan
is now available here
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan.

In our last Metrics Meeting, I presented an emerging strategy for the
Wikimedia Foundation that focused on building a strong core in the
near-term, allowing for innovation in the long-term toward our mission of
ubiquitous shared knowledge. Strengthening our core has been our focus over
this past year. We published the Call to Action
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action,
which refocused us on community and technology, introducing new thinking
and skills to the WMF, and improved products for the world.

We have made significant changes this past year that are showing early
results. But this is just a start.  The world is changing rapidly in areas
like mobile, user behavior, media formats, and access to knowledge. In
order to make free knowledge available for generations to come, we need to
continually improve our work and challenge our thinking. The Annual Plan
for this year is focused on building our capabilities as a springboard for
future innovation.

In this year’s plan, budget adjustments are designed to fill in the gaps in
current user needs, in particular in the areas of community (including
affiliates and partners), technology, and communication. The plan builds on
the foundational work from this past year, when we set up team structures
and introduced new focus to align our organization with communities and
demands for knowledge. For the first time, this year’s plan also introduces
a Quarterly Metrics Scorecard to track our progress on delivering on our
commitments. We will use both top-level and departmental metrics to measure
our progress and report back.

I also want to acknowledge some of the issues with this year’s Annual Plan
process. We shared the first draft with you late, giving you limited time
to provide feedback. We introduced a new, lighter weight format in the
first iteration that left some of you with questions about proposed
changes. This final, approved version has been updated to clarify our
rationale, incorporate the feedback we did receive, link our plans to
success metrics, and orient the next year within a broader strategy. As
always, we continue to iterate toward a better process. Going forward we
plan to have an extended window for your review and comments so we can
refine our plan with your valuable feedback in mind.

Thank you. I look forward to working together as we continue to strengthen
our core capabilities to support our mission and prepare for our emerging
strategy.

~~~Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What's cool?

[Lila Tretikov]

This is really cool indeed and I am told (by the little birdie) that there
is more we can do. Thank you, team! Awesome!!!

On Mon, Jun 8, 2015 at 9:59 AM, Brion Vibber bvib...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 8:49 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman wrote:
 [re: experiments using video.js to improve UI of TimedMediaHandler]

  And we will need brion’s ogv.js https://brionv.com/misc/ogv.js/demo/
 work
  to support browsers without OGV/WebM support.
 

 A couple updates on that front:

 1) It looks like it should be easy to integrate ogv.js into video.js as a
 player tech.

 2) I have an early version of WebM decoding in JavaScript
 https://brionv.com/log/2015/06/07/im-in-ur-javascript-decoding-ur-webm/
 working! It's much slower than Ogg but has higher video quality when
 there's CPU available for it, as on a fast desktop/laptop that's running
 Safari or IE without WebM drivers natively installed.

 3) I've also found a combination of free-but-crappy codec options that
 works in iOS natively: AVI with Motion-JPEG video and uncompressed audio
 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T101716! To keep the bitrate sane
 we'll
 have to turn quality down, but 5fps and scratchy audio is often better than
 nothing. This will work at times when ogv.js can't be used, such as the
 embedded web browsers in iPhone apps that haven't updated to Apple's latest
 embedding APIs.

 -- brion
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The Hague Declaration on Knowledge Discovery in the Digital Age

[Lila Tretikov]

Thanks for sharing Andy, I've asked our team to take a look.

sent from mobile. please excuse typos.
On May 8, 2015 7:00 AM, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:

 An impressive number of reputable organisations have signed The Hague
 Declaration on Knowledge Discovery in the Digital Age:


 http://thehaguedeclaration.com/the-hague-declaration-on-knowledge-discovery-in-the-digital-age/

 I think the WMF should, too. It aligns closely with existing WMF
 polies and the Wikimedia community's ethos.

 How can this best be taken forward?

 --
 Andy Mabbett
 @pigsonthewing
 http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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[Wikimedia-l] A new structure for WMF Engineering.

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear Wikimedians,

Today we had a meeting at the Foundation to announce changes in our Product
and Engineering team structure. They represent the outcome of many
conversations with people from across the Wikimedia community and within
the Foundation. These changes will organize our teams around the needs of
people they serve, and empower them to focus deeply on their audiences to
deliver great outcomes.

We’re bringing together our Product and Engineering departments to form new
audience teams, reporting to Damon Sicore, our VP of Engineering. We’re
grouping core research, architecture, performance, and security functions
together, and will begin the search for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to
lead our engineering future. And we’re integrating support for Community
Engineering into the broader Community Engagement team. These changes are
effective today.

Earlier this year we set out some goals for our work at the Foundation,
described in our Call to Action
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action
for 2015. These goals came out of conversations with you, and with
Foundation staff. You’ll see that the first thing we identified was the
need to improve our technology and execution. These goals focused on
defining commitments, data-driven decision making, support for community
engineering requests, and a commitment to engineering leadership.

The new changes reflect these commitments. We have organized our product
engineering around six teams each with unique audiences. This includes a
Community Tech team dedicated to supporting tools for core contributors, as
well as teams for Editing, Reading, Search  Discovery, Infrastructure, and
Fundraising Tech.

In particular, I wanted to share more about the plans for the Community
Tech team. The creation of this team is a direct response to community
requests for more technical support. Their mission is to understand and
support the technical needs of core contributors, including improved
support for expert-­focused curation and moderation tools, bots, and other
features. Their mandate is to work closely with you, and the Community
Engagement department, to define their roadmap and deliverables. We are
hiring for a leader for this team, as well as additional engineers. We will
be looking within our communities to help. Until then, it will be incubated
under Toby Negrin, with support from Community Engagement.

We’re also committed to our long-term technology future. A new CTO will
support teams and functions dedicated to performance, architecture,
security, privacy, structured data, user experience, and research. Their
mandate is to keep Wikimedia fast, reliable, stable, and secure -- and to
support the Engineering team in their development of excellent products and
features.

You may notice there is no standalone Product department. We are moving
away from a matrix management structure. Instead, product managers,
designers, analysts, engineers, and others working together will report to
the same manager, who will report through to the VP of Engineering. This is
because we believe that everyone is responsible for user experience and
each team is ultimately responsible for delivering on the product vision
and a roadmap. It also gives teams ability to make decisions that are best
for their audiences, based on their user’s feedback. This represents a
maturation of our organization and processes, and will give each new teams
more focus, dedicated focus, and more support.

I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard to bring this new structure
together. Thank you to everyone in the community, for being thoughtful and
honest with your needs, criticisms and encouragements. Thank you to our
engineers, designers, researchers, and product managers, who have given us
extensive feedback about what works best for you. Thank you to our new team
managers and leads for stepping up into new roles. And thank you to Erik
and Damon, who have worked closely for many months to make this happen.

You can find more information about this new structure, the new teams,
their missions, and leadership, as well as other questions in a FAQ on
Metawiki
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Engineering_reorganization_FAQ.
We will update the Wikimedia Foundation site Staff page soon to reflect
these new teams.

Lila
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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Fwd: A new structure for WMF Engineering.

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear Wikimedians,

Today we had a meeting at the Foundation to announce changes in our Product
and Engineering team structure. They represent the outcome of many
conversations with people from across the Wikimedia community and within
the Foundation. These changes will organize our teams around the needs of
people they serve, and empower them to focus deeply on their audiences to
deliver great outcomes.

We’re bringing together our Product and Engineering departments to form new
audience teams, reporting to Damon Sicore, our VP of Engineering. We’re
grouping core research, architecture, performance, and security functions
together, and will begin the search for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to
lead our engineering future. And we’re integrating support for Community
Engineering into the broader Community Engagement team. These changes are
effective today.

Earlier this year we set out some goals for our work at the Foundation,
described in our Call to Action
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action
for 2015. These goals came out of conversations with you, and with
Foundation staff. You’ll see that the first thing we identified was the
need to improve our technology and execution. These goals focused on
defining commitments, data-driven decision making, support for community
engineering requests, and a commitment to engineering leadership.

The new changes reflect these commitments. We have organized our product
engineering around six teams each with unique audiences. This includes a
Community Tech team dedicated to supporting tools for core contributors, as
well as teams for Editing, Reading, Search  Discovery, Infrastructure, and
Fundraising Tech.

In particular, I wanted to share more about the plans for the Community
Tech team. The creation of this team is a direct response to community
requests for more technical support. Their mission is to understand and
support the technical needs of core contributors, including improved
support for expert-­focused curation and moderation tools, bots, and other
features. Their mandate is to work closely with you, and the Community
Engagement department, to define their roadmap and deliverables. We are
hiring for a leader for this team, as well as additional engineers. We will
be looking within our communities to help. Until then, it will be incubated
under Toby Negrin, with support from Community Engagement.

We’re also committed to our long-term technology future. A new CTO will
support teams and functions dedicated to performance, architecture,
security, privacy, structured data, user experience, and research. Their
mandate is to keep Wikimedia fast, reliable, stable, and secure -- and to
support the Engineering team in their development of excellent products and
features.

You may notice there is no standalone Product department. We are moving
away from a matrix management structure. Instead, product managers,
designers, analysts, engineers, and others working together will report to
the same manager, who will report through to the VP of Engineering. This is
because we believe that everyone is responsible for user experience and
each team is ultimately responsible for delivering on the product vision
and a roadmap. It also gives teams ability to make decisions that are best
for their audiences, based on their user’s feedback. This represents a
maturation of our organization and processes, and will give each new teams
more focus, dedicated focus, and more support.

I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard to bring this new structure
together. Thank you to everyone in the community, for being thoughtful and
honest with your needs, criticisms and encouragements. Thank you to our
engineers, designers, researchers, and product managers, who have given us
extensive feedback about what works best for you. Thank you to our new team
managers and leads for stepping up into new roles. And thank you to Erik
and Damon, who have worked closely for many months to make this happen.

You can find more information about this new structure, the new teams,
their missions, and leadership, as well as other questions in a FAQ on
Metawiki
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Engineering_reorganization_FAQ.
We will update the Wikimedia Foundation site Staff page soon to reflect
these new teams.

Lila
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[Wikimedia-l] A transition and a new chapter.

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear Wikimedians,

I have some important news to share with you. Erik Moeller will be leaving
the Wikimedia Foundation on April 30th. Last week he let me know that he
decided it is time for him to explore his passions beyond our walls.

I want to thank Erik. For more than a decade, he gave his all to Wikimedia
-- first as a volunteer, then as a board member, and finally as a leader at
the WMF. For the past year, has been my personal guide, particularly in my
critical few months as the ED.

Earlier this year, I announced a Call to Action
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action
designed to organize the WMF around focus on product and communities. We
have already started putting some of these key initiatives into place.

In February, we brought the key community-facing functions into one team,
Community Engagement under Luis Villa, to improve support for community
needs and priorities. In March, we brought on Terry Gilbey as our new Chief
Operating Officer, to improve our organizational effectiveness, and
introduce rigor and discipline into our operational processes, metrics, and
reporting. And just two weeks ago, we introduced Kourosh Karimkhany as our
new Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, to build meaningful
partnerships, projects, and relationships that advance our mission.

Improving technology and execution are a major part of our Call to Action,
and I have been working with Erik, Damon, and others to determine our path
forward. Erik has been a key thought partner and thought leader in this
effort. We are near completion in this planning, and I look forward to
sharing more information with you all next Tuesday.

I am excited to see Erik’s next incredible adventure. Please join me in
supporting him on his path.

Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF office location and remodel

[Lila Tretikov]

All --

As a matter of strategy we should be leveraging our open-source roots more
as we grow. This means distributed, loosely-coupled teams. We know from
software industry history that distributed teams work best when they are
*entirely* distributed.  We are working on some structures that will allow
teams to either be entirely distributed or mostly co-located, consistent
with what we know about best outcomes. In SF, remote working is not very
common as the software companies demand people to be on-site and we have an
advantage with remote talent, but it is also not for everyone as it can be
isolating. Net-net.. before we worry about growth and costs we need to
worry about effectiveness, but we are thinking about this.

Thanks,
Lila

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 9:02 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 9 April 2015 at 16:47, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote:
  Hi Fae,
 
  We have 215 staff in total, with a hub of activity in San Francisco and
  other staff in several other states and 18 countries.  So I agree
 talented
  people can be found globally and WMF does hire the best talent it can
 find
  wherever they are located.  At this point adding offices in other
 locations
  add cost without any benefits to the community or the Wikimedia
  Foundation.  We also do not have the luxury of Mozilla's $300 million
  budget that can support a London office or Microsoft's billions to have a
  globally distributed workforce with offices.  So we are not closing the
  door to anything. Based on our test project of trying to develop centers
 of
  activity in other parts of the United States there is no need for
  additional offices. We do need and will continue to hire a globally
  distributed staff of talented people to support our global community of
  talented volunteers.

 Thanks for the response, it makes sense to me.

 I agree with avoiding additional offices unless there is a very good
 business case. Back in the late 1990s I was part of a small
 consultancy where we chose to eliminate having a central office
 altogether. It was a strange thing to try back last century, but
 moving more of the administrative functions into the virtual working
 space, and arming employees with excellent teamworking tools they can
 use from home (or bookable office spaces locally) has become part of
 the ordinary world of work these days.

 WMF development happens this way already, and you writing here shows
 that management/executive level folks are comfortable and skilled with
 virtual spaces. It would be jolly interesting if the WMF were seen to
 try out more virtual methods in other parts of its operation, and find
 meaningful ways of reporting on benefits or avoidable costs. I see
 this as part of the learning organization... Maybe a topic for another
 thread at some point. :-)

 Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing: The Wikipedia Prize!

[Lila Tretikov]

All,

As Tim mentioned we are seriously looking at
privacy/identity/security/anonymity issues, specifically as it pertains to
IP address exposure -- both from legal and technical standpoint. This won't
happen overnight as we need to get people to work on this and there are a
lot of asks, but this is on our radar.

On a related note, let's skip the sarcasm and treat each other with
straightforward honestly. And for non-English speakers -- who are also (if
not more) in need of this -- sarcasm can be very confusing.

Thanks,
Lila

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 4:02 PM, Cristian Consonni kikkocrist...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Hi Brian,

 2015-03-30 0:25 GMT+02:00 Brian reflect...@gmail.com:
  Although the initial goal of the Netflix Prize was to design a
  collaborative filtering algorithm, it became notorious when the data was
  used to de-anonymize Netflix users. Researchers proved that given just a
  user's movie ratings on one site, you can plug those ratings into another
  site, such as the IMDB. You can then take that information, and with some
  Google searches and optionally a bit of cash (for websites that sell user
  information, including, in some cases, their SSN) figure out who they
 are.
  You could even drive up to their house and take a selfie with them, or
  follow them to work and meet their boss and tell them about their views
 on
  the topics they were editing.

 somewhat tangentially, and to bring back this to topic to a more
 scientific setting I would like to point out that there has already
 been reasearch in the past on this topic.

 I highly recommend reading the following paper:

 Lieberman, Michael D., and Jimmy Lin. You Are Where You Edit:
 Locating Wikipedia Contributors through Edit Histories. ICWSM. 2009.
 (PDF 
 http://www.pensivepuffin.com/dwmcphd/syllabi/infx598_wi12/papers/wikipedia/lieberman-lin.YouAreWhereYouEdit.ICWSM09.pdf
 )

 For those of you that don't want to read the whole paper, you can find
 a recap of the most relevant findings in this presentation by Maurizio
 Napolitano:
 
 http://www.slideshare.net/napo/social-geography-wikipedia-a-quick-overwiew
 

 The main idea is associating spatial coordinates to a Wikipedia
 articles when possible, this articles are called geopages. Then you
 extract from the history of articles the users which have edited a
 geopage. If you plot the geopages edited by a given contributor you
 can see that they tend to cluster, so you can define an edit area.
 The study finds that 30-35% of contributors concentrate their edits in
 an edit area smaller than 1 deg^2 (~12,362 km^2, approximately the
 area of Connecticut or Northern Ireland[1] (thanks, Wikipedia!)).

 For another free/libre project with a geographic focus like
 OpenStreetMap this is even more marked, check out for example this
 tool «“Your OSM Heat Map” (aka Where did you contribute?)»[2] by
 Pascal Neis.

 This, of course, is not a straightforward de-anonimization but this
 methods work in principle for every contributor even if you obfuscate
 their IP or username (provided that you can still assign all the edits
 from a given user to a unique and univocal identifier)

 C
 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_degree
 [2a] http://yosmhm.neis-one.org/
 [2b] http://neis-one.org/2011/08/yosmhm/

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

[Lila Tretikov]

Wikimedians,

Per my commitment, we have now added this escalation process/whistleblower
policy to the WMF staff handbook to address the issues discussed in this
thread:

To serve the WMF Guiding Principles of shared power and stewardship, it's
important that our work reflects community policies. If you feel that some
of your work is not consistent with key community policies, you should feel
free to escalate the matter to your manager, the Deputy Director, or the
Executive Director, as appropriate under the circumstances.

We will also do work around staff training as I previously mentioned,
including adding this to our on-boarding.

Thanks to everyone who have provided input on this issue.

Lila

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 5:27 PM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hi Nemo,

 Thanks for bringing this to my attention. You are correct -- this did not
 make my to do list, but I believe honoring commitments made by the WMF is
 important and therefor I've been looking this issue. Here is what I found
 and what we will do:


- This issue was a clear oversight error.
- To prevent issues like these in the future two paths are important:
1. ability to highlight issues through escalation
   2. improved clarity on which programs or grants qualify for funding
   (through training) and the process by which that is done
- The first point will be addressed this quarter by HR in the employee
handbook through the modified escalation policy and escalation channel.
- The second will be addressed through changes to grantmaking program,
which we proposed to open for discussion this spring/summer (Q4/Q1)
starting with the FDC-level grants

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014/ED_Response.
In short, we are looking to be very clear on goals, parameters, and focus
of grants we distribute to ensure they are handled and validated
consistently and accurately.


 The two aspects together should help avoid these types of issues. I am
 also asking to include some 'guardrail items in employee training. No
 system is perfect however, and we will continue to tune it to avoid
 problems.

 Finally, while I sincerely appreciate you bringing up the issue, I would
 also appreciate if this is done without snark or disparagement in the
 future. This would ensure everyone is more productive in their solutions.
 We will respond in kind.

 Thank you,
 Lila

 On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 4:23 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Sue Gardner, 01/04/2014 05:23:

 On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 We will update the wiki page at
 https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_
 Residence/Harvard_University_assessment
 with more information and details. I encourage others to participate
 in this as a collaborative process.


 Thanks Erik.

 For everyone: following up on Erik's e-mail, the WMF has done a
 postmortem of the Belfer situation, which I've just posted at the link
 from Erik above.


 https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_
 Center_Wikipedian_in_Residence_program#Decisions_made said:
  The ED plans, with the C-level team, to develop a better process for
  staff to escalate and express concerns about any WMF activities that
  staff think may in tension with, or in violation of, community
  policies or best practices. It will take some time to develop a
  simple, robust process: we aim to have it done by 1 May 2014.

 I think we're well past the deadline–unless 2014 was a typo for 2015,
 or ED a typo for Sue Gardner in her spare time. Any updates?

 Nemo

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[Wikimedia-l] Introducing Kourosh Karimkhany, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear Wikimedians,

In order to encourage the expansion of knowledge, we’ve been considering
new ways to support and develop the work you do. Collaboration is an
essential part of the Wikimedia movement, and today, I’m excited to let you
know about a new addition at the Wikimedia Foundation that will support our
collaboration with like-minded organizations.

For some time now, we’ve planned to hire a Vice President of Strategic
Partnerships. Today, I am pleased to announce that Kourosh Karimkhany will
step into this role on March 30, 2015.

Kourosh will be responsible for crafting a strategy to grow long-term value
for Wikimedia projects through building meaningful partnerships, projects,
and relationships on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation. He will become
part of the C-level team and will report to Lisa Gruwell. Kourosh will also
oversee Wikipedia Zero, which will transition to the partnerships team.

The Wikimedia community has many fruitful and creative partnerships that
help support knowledge creation and sharing around the world. The
partnerships Kourosh will support will will help us better support these
partnerships and your work, as well as grow strategic initiatives we take
on at the WMF.

Kourosh was born in Iran and moved to the U.S. as a child with his family.
Today, he is an experienced digital media professional with a passion for
sharing information with the world. He started his career as a technology
journalist covering Silicon Valley for Bloomberg, Reuters and Wired. He
switched to the business side of media when he joined Yahoo as senior
producer of Yahoo News. Later, he led corporate development at Conde Nast
where he spearheaded the acquisition of Wired.com, Ars Technica and Reddit.
He also cofounded Food Republic in 2009, which was acquired in 2013. He's
an active angel investor and startup advisor.

In light of the expanded scope of the Fundraising team and the revamped
partnerships team, we’re changing the team's name to better reflect their
mission. The new name is the Advancement Department.  To learn more about
the new role, visit the FAQ here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Partnerships_FAQ

Please join me in welcoming Kourosh as the newest member of the WMF
leadership team. We have many exciting projects in 2015 and I’m looking
forward to all the great things we will accomplish as we work together to
support our mission.

Lila
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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcing interim COO

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear Wikimedians,



At the Wikimedia Foundation, our mission is to empower, support and engage
people around the world to share in free knowledge. One of our top
priorities for the WMF in 2015 is improving organizational effectiveness in
service of this mission. This means we need to strengthen WMF's ability to
set and deliver on commitments, improve organizational discipline around
decision making, and mature internal processes and systems.

To ensure we can execute on our vision, mission, forthcoming strategy and
our Call to Action, we have hired for a new position within our C-level
team. Terry Gilbey will be joining us as interim Chief Operating Officer,
responsible for building rigor and discipline around our operational
processes. Terry’s role will help WMF stabilize our core operations so we
will be ready and able to adapt and innovate in our changing environment.
It will also help me find more time to focus on our products and
communities.

Terry comes from managing his own consulting firm and has been in a
consulting role at WMF working on a number of projects such as
goal-setting, financials, and budgeting. He has first-hand experience
working with the WMF leadership team, and we are all excited to work more
closely with him. Previously, Terry was the Executive Director of
Enterprise Operations at Kaiser Permanente, a nationwide healthcare
organization, and served in various management roles at IBM Global Services.

Terry is originally from England and has lived in the U.S., Europe, Asia,
and Central America. He currently lives in the South Bay, but also spends a
lot of time in Panama on a rural farm. He spends his spare time pursuing
unusual hobbies, such as bull riding, surfing, and more recently,
supporting a women’s flat track roller derby team. He also rides
motorcycles, does metal work, and has an avid interest in sustainability.
An early adopter of Tor, Terry believes strongly in the right to privacy
and the free and open access to knowledge as an equalizer.

With the COO position, we will be organizing our HR and Finance teams to
report to Terry. Garfield will continue as the CFO for the organization, a
member of the C-level team, and Treasurer of the Board. His roles and
responsibilities will remain unchanged, reporting to Terry. Terry and
Garfield will manage all financial and business planning activities and are
already making progress together. We’ll introduce Terry properly with a
short QA at the April metrics meeting.

It is with sadness that I report to you that Gayle Karen Young, Chief
Talent and Culture Officer has decided move onto her next adventure. Gayle
let me know she has been looking to move on some time ago, and she felt
this was the right moment in time. In her three and a half years within the
Foundation, she has made a tremendous impact creating a HR department that
is fundamentally about caring for the people in the organization and
offering services that allow people to do their best work, which has
supported our mission to help our communities thrive and curate knowledge.
While we will miss her wisdom and warmth, we thank her for her leadership
and celebrate her future adventures. HR will report directly to Terry at
this time.

Our purpose is to help Wikimedians around the world make the sum of all
knowledge available to everyone. We believe these changes, effective
immediately, will help us focus on our continued service to our community
and readers, and progress toward this mission.

Please join me in welcoming Terry as the newest member of our leadership
team and wishing Gayle well.  We have much exciting work in 2015, and I’m
looking forward to all the great things we will accomplish as we work
together to support our vision.

Lila
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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcement: A new structure for WMF Community Engagement

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear Wikimedians,

Among the WMF’s top priorities for 2015 is strengthening our engagement
with Wikimedia editors and volunteers. Today we are taking the first step
by bringing together the people who know our communities best and asking
them to break barriers and improve engagement. Everyone at the WMF who
carries responsibilities directly related to the communities will join a
new Community Engagement department.

I have asked Luis Villa to lead the Community Engagement organization as
the Senior Director of Community Engagement, reporting to me. Promoting
from within the WMF for this critical role will allow us to leverage the
knowledge and experience with our communities and reinforce the strengths
of our people.

Luis’s experience with communities is lengthy and deep. He has been
involved in open communities since the late 1990s, from communities as
small as the Lego Mindstorms hackers to those as large as Mozilla. He
worked in open communities as a lawyer, a programmer, a bugmaster, an
engineering lead, a community leader, and a board member. Luis has
performed exceptionally within the Foundation and supported some of our
most fruitful community engagements. The Grantmaking, LE, Education,
Community Advocacy and Community Liaisons teams will join the new Community
Engagement department [2] under his leadership.

Unfortunately, Anasuya Sengupta -- our beloved leader of grantmaking --
will be leaving us due to personal health concerns at the end of March. We
will invite you soon to celebrate her time with us, her work at the WMF and
the deep insight she brought to the Foundation. We are saddened to see her
go. The team she has nurtured will provide an important foundation for our
upcoming work.

Siko Bouterse will move up to lead  the day-to-day work of the Grantmaking
team as Director of Community Resources, supervising all department Grant
programs and the Global South strategy. Siko has been instrumental in
innovating programs at the WMF, including initiatives like the Teahouse[1]
and the IdeaLab[2] combining vision with strong support for volunteer
community, tough decision making, and great project management skills.

These changes are an opportunity to improve the coordination of our work
supporting the communities. To accelerate this, I have asked Luis to lead
an internal “tiger” team to better understand the needs, concerns and
priorities of our volunteers, and to develop recommendations for future
programs. This work will be shared with all of you as it becomes available.

Please join me in congratulating Luis and Siko and in supporting our teams.
The Wikimedia communities are what makes the projects strong, unique, and
irreplaceable. This is the next step forward in our support to them, and in
service of our mission.


Lila



[1] As Director of Community Resources, Siko will oversee the IdeaLab,
Annual Plan Grants, Project and Event Grants, and Travel and Participation
Support. Her team will include Katy Love, Winifred Olliff, Alex Wang,
Janice Tud, Jonathan Morgan, and Asaf Bartov. Asaf will also take on a new
title as Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities.

[2] Rachel DiCerbo, Philippe Beaudette, Siko, and Anasuya’s other direct
reports, and their respective teams (CL, CA, and Grantmaking/GLEE) will
report to Luis. The Engineering Community team will be part of the tiger
team but will continue to report to Engineering.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse

[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi Nemo,

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. You are correct -- this did not
make my to do list, but I believe honoring commitments made by the WMF is
important and therefor I've been looking this issue. Here is what I found
and what we will do:


   - This issue was a clear oversight error.
   - To prevent issues like these in the future two paths are important:
   1. ability to highlight issues through escalation
  2. improved clarity on which programs or grants qualify for funding
  (through training) and the process by which that is done
   - The first point will be addressed this quarter by HR in the employee
   handbook through the modified escalation policy and escalation channel.
   - The second will be addressed through changes to grantmaking program,
   which we proposed to open for discussion this spring/summer (Q4/Q1)
   starting with the FDC-level grants
   
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014/ED_Response.
   In short, we are looking to be very clear on goals, parameters, and focus
   of grants we distribute to ensure they are handled and validated
   consistently and accurately.


The two aspects together should help avoid these types of issues. I am also
asking to include some 'guardrail items in employee training. No system
is perfect however, and we will continue to tune it to avoid problems.

Finally, while I sincerely appreciate you bringing up the issue, I would
also appreciate if this is done without snark or disparagement in the
future. This would ensure everyone is more productive in their solutions.
We will respond in kind.

Thank you,
Lila

On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 4:23 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Sue Gardner, 01/04/2014 05:23:

 On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 We will update the wiki page at
 https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_
 Residence/Harvard_University_assessment
 with more information and details. I encourage others to participate
 in this as a collaborative process.


 Thanks Erik.

 For everyone: following up on Erik's e-mail, the WMF has done a
 postmortem of the Belfer situation, which I've just posted at the link
 from Erik above.


 https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_
 Center_Wikipedian_in_Residence_program#Decisions_made said:
  The ED plans, with the C-level team, to develop a better process for
  staff to escalate and express concerns about any WMF activities that
  staff think may in tension with, or in violation of, community
  policies or best practices. It will take some time to develop a
  simple, robust process: we aim to have it done by 1 May 2014.

 I think we're well past the deadline–unless 2014 was a typo for 2015,
 or ED a typo for Sue Gardner in her spare time. Any updates?

 Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

[Lila Tretikov]

For everyone here: I've asked our Grantmaking team to comment and clarify
the details of this plan.

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org
wrote:

 Answering to Teemu and Chris:

 I do think that the for Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Art it is safe
 to claim that if we organize it the way we would always do, it would still
 tip the gender balance in our community a little more to the female side.
 However, I disagree that this should be a main consideration, because I
 think that would be true for so many outreach projects. Focusing on that
 would be a pity and a distraction imho. Also, for most participants we
 don't know the gender, and we don't want to know the gender (because asking
 for it alone can scare people away) - except for a sample of them, who
 happen to answer the survey afterwards. All data on that is quite shaky.

 If necessary, I could easily make a case why WLM is a wonderful gendergap
 project - the point is that I don't want volunteers to waste their time on
 making such cases, but rather let them be innovative, come up with new
 ideas instead of rebranding existing ideas on something like the gendergap.
 My problems are more fundamental than 'I can't get money for my specific
 project'.

 So Chris: yes, these people do a lot for reducing the gender gap in our
 projects. Also, Wikimedia organizers tend to hop between projects - their
 next might be more focused on a topic that is popular with women, if their
 current idea isn't yet. Drawing them into a topic in a positive way (what
 we do is cool! Join us!) tends to be more successful than telling them they
 are not allowed to do other stuff (we won't fund you at all unless you do
 this specific theme).

 Prioritisation sounds great, but that only works that way if you have one
 clearly defined pool of resources, that you can actually control. What do
 you think is the major bottle neck in organizing activities in the
 Wikimedia movement? In my experience, that is not money, or even WMF staff
 capacity (even though it is a limiting factor sometimes), but the primary
 bottle neck is volunteer organizers (or editors). And volunteer time is not
 a resource you can easily 'control'. If you want to influence it, the most
 effective way is by persuading the volunteers why another angle is more
 interesting, more fun, more effective.

 Best,
 Lodewijk



 On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Like Bence, I would be interested to see how this kind of experiment in
 WMF
  grantmaking works out. And also like him I would be a little surprised if
  something like this is implemented with no notice period.
 
  A couple of responses to Lodewijk's post;
 
 
   with people
   confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community
 support
   (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for
 gendergap-related
   projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or
 jealousy.
 
 
  Out of interest, were any of these people doing anything at all to
 support
  the reduction of the gender gap in the first place? ;)
 
 
 
   I
   called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not
  about
   actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather
   about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that
   people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap
   related event.
  
 
  Equally, if you have limited resources, prioritising one thing means
  reducing attention to something else. So saying we shouldn't work on the
  gender gap if anything else gets less atention as a result is logically
  equivalent to saying We shouldn't work on the gender gap.
 
  Regards,
 
  Chris
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Royal Society of Chemistry journal donation

[Lila Tretikov]

Thanks Andy --- this is great.

On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 7:28 AM, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk
wrote:

 The Royal Society of Chemistry (disclosure: I'm Wikimedian in
 Residence there) has made a massive journal subscription donation to
 Wikipedia Library:


 http://www.rsc.org/news-events/rsc-news/articles/2014/dec/gold-journals-donation-for-wikipedia-editors/

 Please visit that page for details, to check your eligibility, and to
 request an account.

 --
 Andy Mabbett
 @pigsonthewing
 http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)

[Lila Tretikov]

I recommend those of you who would like to come up with some test wording
assuming the current word count do so and after you pick top 3-5 we can
pilot with one of our next user groups.



On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter pute...@mccme.ru
wrote:

 On 04.12.2014 02:30, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:

 On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 7:46 AM, svetlana svetl...@fastmail.com.au
 wrote:

 John Mark Vandenberg wrote:

  i.e. specifically asking
 previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing
 whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work
 being adequately supported?


 Thanks for your great wording, John.

  ...


 Have you looked into the funding situation of your local chapter?
 Does it have large cash reserves and large predicable revenue flows?


 John, you do realize she is most likely talking about the same chapter you
 belong to, right?

 Cheers
 Yaroslav


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community engagement - Product Survey

[Lila Tretikov]

FYI -- this is just one pilot in our program to improve community
participation and direct prioritization of editor-focused engineering work.
More to come.

Thank you team and the community.

Lila

On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 5:57 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote:

 This!

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_(Product)/Product_Surveys

 Thank you to the WMF Community Engagement team for trialling this new way
 of prioritising improvements to tools - by asking the community for some
 structured feedback.
 As the page says:

 The *Product Roadmap survey* intends to offer a lightweight, data-informed
  way for communities across the entire Wikimedia movement to contribute
  ideas the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) product roadmap.
  The question we are currently wanting to answer is: If the communities
  were to collectively decide on a gadget or tool which could be expanded
  into an extension for use across all Wikimedia-supported projects, what
  would it be?


 I saw this today as a Watchlist notification.
 The survey has just over 20 ideas which the user is asked to rank in a
 series of paired comparisons. A simple, easy, and intuitive way to get some
 genuine feedback from the editing community about the improvements that we
 believe would be of most use to us. [it would be nice if there were more
 options to compare in this survey]

 As the FAQ section explains - this is an experimental process and not a
 promise that the 'winner' will be built - and that's perfectly fair. One
 reason I particularly like this is that I think that if the WMF would
 regularly invest in building tools that were prioritised by the so-called
 power users, that would help ease the tension that can occur when the WMF
 builds tools that focus on the needs of new editors (but which also change
 the existing-editors' workflows).

 The Page Curation https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Page_Curation system
 was a step in that direction - a genuine effort to make the work of
 new-page-patrollers easier, in recognition that tools for power-users
 help decrease their stress levels which indirectly helps to decrease the
 likelihood of good-faith newbies being unintentionally bitten. From what
 I can see, the product survey idea is a more formalised approach in that
 same general direction. So, thank you. I hope this pilot project is a
 success.

 -Liam
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi all,

This type of fundraising is -- by its very nature -- obtrusive. We are
thinking about other options. But, as with anything, every action has
equal and opposite reaction. Anything we do, we have to consider the
consequences and we will find flaws.

Now for the specifics:

Yes -- the fundraising team works incredibly hard to optimize and adjust to
changes in our environment and to minimize obtrusiveness (there are
multiple ways to measure this: total impressions, % conversions, size,
parallelizing campaigns, etc.). It is a complex multi-variable equation.
Fundraising uses A/B tests to do much of the optimization, but they also
use surveys, user tests, and sentiment analysis. Some of what you see is
counter-intuitive (even to me, and I have experience with this), but they
work. All of this year's tests showed minimal brand impact even from the
overlay screen. That said, going forward we are considering an unbiased 3rd
party to do some of this analysis.

No -- we are not perfect we are constantly working at improving. There are
a million opinions on how this should be done, and then there is research
and live data. This year we made only minimal changes to the text of the
banner. Next year we are going to play with different messaging, and the
team will welcome you suggestions.

Finally thank you for supporting the team. They are literally locked-up in
a room and working around the clock!
Lila


On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 8:44 AM, pajz pajzm...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 3 December 2014 at 14:09, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote:

  Dear WMF Fundraising team, please do not take this thread (or this email)
  as an attack on yourselves or the professionalism that you apply to your
  work.
 

 I would suspect that what drives this is indeed the professionalism of the
 Fundraising team. I don't mean to be overly speculative, but what we are
 talking about here is an issue that doesn't readily translate into metrics.
 Creating and gathering metrics for damage to the Wikipedia brand would be
 extremely difficult and expensive. On the other hand, creating and
 gathering metrics for the number/amount/... of donations received is easy
 and cheap. Relatedly, damage to the Wikipedia brand is not something the
 impact of which you feel directly, while the number/amount/... of
 donations received is something that immediately translates into WMF's
 budget.

 So I assume the Fundraising team is in a somewhat uncomfortable position
 here. Getting them to change the way they run the campaigns might, in this
 case, really not work on its own; rather, in my view, any decision on this
 likely has to come from the very top of the Foundation (those that
 Fundraising reports to), who, to some degree, have to place their gut
 feeling over the implications derived from the available/feasible set of
 hard quantitative metrics.

 Cheers,
 Patrik
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)

[Lila Tretikov]

I would like to expose this more, maybe after this crunch. Just keep in
mind that it takes time to anonymize and process -- a time that is
otherwise spent on optimizing or collaborating. One bucket of resources,
many demands... and I'd like to keep us as lean as we are :)

Below is a soundbite I got from many notes I get from our donors, this is
not unusual about this banner:

*...banner on wikipedia today motivated me to donate for the first time.
I think the increased size properly conveyed the importance of the
donations to running the site.  Previous banners were a bit too polite or
subtle to get me thinking.*


On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 11:19 AM, Ryan Lane rlan...@gmail.com wrote:

 Lila Tretikov lila@... writes:

 
  This type of fundraising is -- by its very nature -- obtrusive. We are
  thinking about other options. But, as with anything, every action has
  equal and opposite reaction. Anything we do, we have to consider the
  consequences and we will find flaws.
 
  Now for the specifics:
 
  Yes -- the fundraising team works incredibly hard to optimize and adjust
 to
  changes in our environment and to minimize obtrusiveness (there are
  multiple ways to measure this: total impressions, % conversions, size,
  parallelizing campaigns, etc.). It is a complex multi-variable equation.
  Fundraising uses A/B tests to do much of the optimization, but they also
  use surveys, user tests, and sentiment analysis. Some of what you see is
  counter-intuitive (even to me, and I have experience with this), but they
  work. All of this year's tests showed minimal brand impact even from the
  overlay screen. That said, going forward we are considering an unbiased
 3rd
  party to do some of this analysis.
 

 I was unaware of these other metrics that fundraising collects. Can you
 share them with us? It would be really great to get information about the
 methodology used, the raw or anonymized data, and the curated
 data/visualizations that's being used to show there's no brand damage.

 Anecdotal evidence and social media suggests the opposite of what you're
 saying, so I'm eager to see the evidence that shows nothing's wrong.

 - Ryan


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Deutschland: New board elected, annual plan postponed.

[Lila Tretikov]

Congratulations, new board!

On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 5:04 AM, Nurunnaby Hasive n...@nhasive.com wrote:

 ​Congratulations WMDE new board!
 ​

 On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org
 wrote:

  Congratulations to WMDE





 --
 *Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive*
 Administrator | Bengali Wikipedia
 http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:nhasive
 Member | IEG Committee, Wikimedia Foundation
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/People
 Moderator, Social Media Interaction | The Daily Prothom-Alo
 http://www.prothom-alo.com
 Bangladesh Ambassador | Open Knowledge http://www.okfn.org
 Treasurer | Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) http://www.bdosn.org
 Task Force Member | Mozilla Bangladesh http://www.mozillabd.org
 Author  Translator | Global Voice
 http://bn.globalvoicesonline.org/author/hasive
 fb.com/nhasive | @nhasive http://www.twitter.com/nhasive | Skype:
 nhasive
 | www.nhasive.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Italia Executive Director

[Lila Tretikov]

Welcome Giuliana. Congratulations Wikimedia Italia!

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 10:00 AM, Katy Love kl...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Congratulations and welcome, Giuliana! I look forward to working together.

 Warmly,
 Katy

 On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 2:03 AM, Stevie Benton 
 stevie.ben...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:

  Welcome Giuliana, and good luck from Wikimedia UK!
 
  Stevie
 
  On 2 December 2014 at 09:08, Santi Navarro 
  santiagonava...@wikimedia.org.es
   wrote:
 
   Auguri! Congratulations WMIT and Giuliana. This is a very important
 step
   in the history of WMIT, so best luck.
  
   Regards from WMES.
  
  
  
   El 2014-12-02 09:59, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel escribió:
  
Good luck Giuliana, and good luck WMIT with your next step in the
   professionalization process.
  
   I defiantly know that WMIL, but I'm sure that the others chapters as
  well,
   will be happy to give advises, information and help her with the first
   steps in our movement. Feel free to contact us.
  
  
  
  
  
   *Regards,Itzik Edri*
   Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel
   +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il
   Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
  the
   sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!
  
  
   On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Andrea Zanni 
  andrea.za...@wikimedia.it
   wrote:
  
Hello everybody,
  
   It's with great pleasure that I announce Giuliana Mancini as the new
   Executive Director of Wikimedia Italia.
  
   It took us over 6 months to select her within a pool of 450
 candidates:
   it
   has been an incredibly hard work, and tough decisions were made.
   I'd like to acknowledge that one of the most active members of the
   selective committee was Alessio Guidetti aka Cotton, who recendly
  passed:
   it saddens us to know that he won't have the chance to see her
 working
   with
   us.
  
   But this is a moment of joy, because the Wikimedia family just got a
  new
   member.
   Giuliana will help us become a more mature and structured
 association:
   her
   deep experience and competence will be used to for make Wikimedia
  Italia
   scale and increase its impact in the world of free and open
 knowledge.
  
   Before being appointed Executive Director at Wikimedia Italia, in the
   last
   12 years, she has covered several roles of increasing commitment in
 the
   field of arts and culture. She spent 9 years in a grant making
  foundation
   where she supervised the activities of a cello academy and the
 concerts
   of
   an ensemble of classical musicians, assisting the board in setting
   strategies and coordinating the comprehensive management.
   She participated in the board of a company in the field of Fine Arts
   with a
   mandate for promotion of a multimedia exhibition, creating strategic
   relationship with Italian and foreigner museums.
   She drafted several feasibility studies and business plans for
 theatres
   and
   other cultural institutions as well as for start up companies.
   She can speak English fluently and has a good understanding of
 Spanish
   and
   French, and she graduated in Economics and in Law (her second degree
  was
   completed while working).
  
   She was officially introduced to the Wikimedia Italia assembly this
   Saturday, and this is her second week of work.
  
   Please welcome her in our incredible Wikimedia movement.
  
   Best regards,
  
   Andrea Zanni
  
   --
   Presidente
   Wikimedia Italia
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   --
   Santiago Navarro Sanz
   Wikimedia España
   http://www.wikimedia.org.es/
  
  
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  --
 
  Stevie Benton
  Head of External Relations
  Wikimedia UK
  +44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
  @StevieBenton
 
  Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
  and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
  Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street,
  London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a
  global 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)

[Lila Tretikov]

All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.

I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of those
in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a
quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include
fundraising.

Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly
changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in
emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the
knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where free
speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep
supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see Wikipedia
becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web
searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great too:
people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however can
make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so we
have to make sure we adapt.

We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified
fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site banners.
Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high with
readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of
impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns however. The
Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While our
launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a pop-up,
overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will iterate
daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given time.

Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the process
to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the coming
month.

And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising team
for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have helped
with the campaigns.

 Lila




On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 7:39 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 Ori Livneh wrote:
 On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:
 The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned with Wikimedia's
 values.
 
 I wouldn't come out quite as strongly against these banners, but I share
 the underlying sentiment.

 What happened to we make the Internet not suck? What happened to the
 near-universal agreement that pop-ups are bad?

 (a) solicit input from a neutral reputation management consultancy, and

 Consultants are the reason the fundraising campaigns and associated
 banners are so awful. To the idea that we continue paying people
 needlessly for bad advice, I'm going to say no thank you. I'd rather not.

 (b) create a forum for staffers to talk openly about this matter, without
 fear of reprisal

 What's wrong with wikimedia-l? I can assure you that this mailing list has
 grade-A reprisal, far better than what you'll receive from work. :-)

 David Gerard wrote:
 Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. Advertising isn't evil
 they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down.
 
 https://twitter.com/enemyplayer/status/539180814739988481

 Indeed. It might help if we started referring to the fundraising banners
 as full-page advertising. Calling a spade a spade, and all that.

 It also occurred to me that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Adblock (Plus)
 to reconsider its classification of the fundraising notices (even
 banners is generous). Historically banners on Wikimedia wikis have not
 been considered ads by Adblock and friends, but this assumed decency and
 common sense on Wikimedia's part. These full-page gremlins lack both.

 Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*.
 
 What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the
 brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour.

 We used to have live-updating statistics about the annual fundraiser at
 https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics. That
 error message is probably highly misleading and we really ought to have
 better reporting about donations. As far as I know, we've taken several
 steps backward in recent years in terms of donation transparency and this
 should be addressed in 2015. (I'm somewhat hoping someone will quickly
 prove me wrong with a link to up-to-date donor stats... go on!)

 MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi All --

A quick note to all of you. Please keep in mind this is one of the A/B
test, the design changes daily based on data/performance results. The team
will let you know which variations will be available next week, although
even those will change daily.

This is not to stifle this discussion (I personally read the comments to
see how we can make this better for next year), this is just to give you
some insights on the workings of this.

Happy Thanksgiving if you are celebrating!

Lila

On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 4:36 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 11:44 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote:

 I am however negatively-struck by the finishing statement, a return to the
  old motto of keep us online without advertising for one more year. I
  thought that we had collectively agreed that banners that directly
 threaten
  advertising next year were not going to happen any more.



 The Foundation just reported in its latest financial statements[1] assets
 including –

 · Cash and cash equivalents of $28 million (up 5.7 million),
 · Investments of $23 million (also up 5.7 million).

 Claiming in the fundraising banner that money is needed to keep Wikipedia
 online and ad-free verges on dishonesty, in my opinion.

 See also the graphs in the Wikipedia article[2] on the Wikimedia Foundation
 (this latest financial report is not yet included).

 I remember Jimmy Wales proudly telling the public[3] in 2005 how little it
 cost to run Wikipedia:

 *“So, we’re doing around 1.4 billion page views monthly. So, it’s really
 gotten to be a huge thing. And everything is managed by the volunteers and
 the total monthly cost for our bandwidth is about 5,000 dollars, and that’s
 essentially our main cost. We could actually do without the employee … We
 actually hired Brion [Vibber] because he was working part-time for two
 years and full-time at Wikipedia so we actually hired him so he could get a
 life and go to the movies sometimes.”*


 While today, the Wikimedia Foundation attracts rather more page views – 21
 billion a month, i.e. 15 times as much – even 15 times the $5,000 a month
 Wales mentioned would only be $75,000 a month, or $900,000 a year; and that
 is without allowing for economies of scale, and the fact that bandwidth
 costs have decreased since 2005. I am sure this is balanced by various
 server-side improvements, but still. The Foundation is now regularly
 taking, and asking for, more than $50 million a year.


 I am sure these banners, which have been in testing for months now, work
 in terms of bringing money in. But wouldn't it be nice if the public were
 told what the money is really for, instead of being left with the
 impression that lack of money is jeopardising the continued existence of
 Wikipedia?


 [1]

 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG.pdf
 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Finances
 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQR0gx0QBZ4#t=275
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Fundraiser] fundraising blocked in Russia

[Lila Tretikov]

All --

We do and will continue to defend the freedom knowledge and autonomy of our
sites in every corner of the world.

Due to rapidly changing circumstances in some areas, occasionally we have
to put holds on some activities. Currently we have a hold on fundraising in
Russia while we figure out the changing legal landscape. This is fairly
standard process that we go through many times throughout the year with
multiple regions. We are working as fast as we can towards solving this or
creating an acceptable work-around. We would appreciate your help and
support through this process.

Thank you,
Lila

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 3:01 PM, Dorożyński Janusz (4-webd) 
dorozyns...@wampnm.webd.pl wrote:

 | -Original Message-
 | From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-
 | boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Geoff Brigham
 | Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2014 9:08 PM
 /
 | Hello rubin16 and all,
 |
 | I wanted to follow up on Lisa's email.  As she said, the decision to
 limit
 | fundraising in Russia was not a political decision or a response to
 sanctions or
 | US laws on Russia. ...

 Geoff, I do not share the satisfaction towards your above statement.

 The more words, the less clarity. The less respect for others. The more
 you deny something the more it is likely.

 We, me have not received answers to few simple questions. Instead, we
 received strenuous ensure that this is not a political issue, that matters
 are under consideration, that this will not have any impact, and so on and
 so on. That is why I personally believe that this is a political issue. Or
 ... but never mind, I do not want to offend anyone.

 And not as the opposite, but great respect and thanks for Rubin's efforts
 to disclose this mysterious issue.

 Regards, Janusz Ency Dorożyński


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Project Med

[Lila Tretikov]

Congratulations!

On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 4:46 AM, Nurunnaby Hasive n...@nhasive.com wrote:

 Great! Congratulations team Wiki Project Med!

 On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 6:31 PM, Vishnu visdav...@gmail.com wrote:

  Congratulations team Wiki Project Med!
 
  Best wishes.
 
  Vishnu
 
 
  On Wednesday 12 November 2014 05:44 PM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
 
  Hi everyone,
 
  I'm pleased to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
  Wiki
  Project Med [1] as a Wikimedia User Group [2].  The group is working to
  promote the development of medical content on Wikimedia projects.
  Let's welcome them to the family of Wikimedia affiliates!
  Regards,Kirill LokshinAffiliations Committee
  [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med
  [2]
  https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/
  Resolutions/Wiki_Project_Med_-_Liaison_approval,_November_2014
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 --
 *Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive*
 Administrator | Bengali Wikipedia
 http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:nhasive
 Member | IEG Committee, Wikimedia Foundation
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/People
 Moderator, Social Media Interaction | The Daily Prothom-Alo
 http://www.prothom-alo.com
 Bangladesh Ambassador | Open Knowledge http://www.okfn.org
 Treasurer | Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) http://www.bdosn.org
 Task Force Member | Mozilla Bangladesh http://www.mozillabd.org
 Author  Translator | Global Voice
 http://bn.globalvoicesonline.org/author/hasive
 fb.com/nhasive | @nhasive http://www.twitter.com/nhasive | Skype:
 nhasive
 | www.nhasive.com
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[Wikimedia-l] ED response to the recommendations by the FDC Advisory Group on the APG program

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear all,

As you know, over the last few months I’ve been learning about the work of
the organizations we fund through the many grantmaking programs here at
WMF. I’ve been particularly focusing on the impact evaluations that have
been done on WMF grants with the first round of Impact Reports. [1] I
expect I will learn more from you all in the coming months, and I will be
creating opportunities to do so.

The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) Advisory Group met this past May to
review the first years of the FDC’s grantmaking through the Annual Plan
Grants program. I want to thank them for their thoughtful recommendations. [2]


With the Board of Trustees, I’ve carefully reviewed the Advisory Group
recommendations, in order to understand our successes and our challenges.
I would like to outline my current view of our capabilities and our
opportunities, and I am now publishing my response to these recommendations
on Meta. [3]  Please post questions and comments on the Talk page of that
document. [4]

I would like to offer some time for any feedback  or questions you may have
on my response. To that end, I’ll be holding a virtual meeting on Monday
Nov 3 at 17:00 UTC, and I invite you to watch the streaming video and join
the conversation. [5]  You can ask questions via IRC on #wikimedia-office
directly or message FDC support staff, Katy Love (kl...@wikimedia.org or on
IRC at Katy.Love) with questions or comments; she will voice them in the
Hangout.

I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Lila Tretikov

Executive Director, WMF
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ED response to the recommendations by the FDC Advisory Group on the APG program

[Lila Tretikov]

Thanks Katie. Here is the full set of links.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Impact_Evaluations

[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014

[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014/ED_Response

[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014/ED_Response

[5] http://youtu.be/J-RYwNFXBfg


On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 3:58 PM, aude aude.w...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 11:30 PM, Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net wrote:

  Hi Lila,
 
  I’m afraid that your footnote links didn’t make it through to the list…
 
 
 here is Lila's response:

 [3]

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014/ED_Response

 Cheers,
 Katie



  Will you also be replying to the FDC’s comments about the WMF’s budget
  proposal earlier this year?
 
  Thanks,
  Mike
 
   On 31 Oct 2014, at 22:23, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:
  
   Dear all,
  
   As you know, over the last few months I’ve been learning about the work
  of
   the organizations we fund through the many grantmaking programs here at
   WMF. I’ve been particularly focusing on the impact evaluations that
 have
   been done on WMF grants with the first round of Impact Reports. [1] I
   expect I will learn more from you all in the coming months, and I will
 be
   creating opportunities to do so.
  
   The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) Advisory Group met this past
 May
  to
   review the first years of the FDC’s grantmaking through the Annual Plan
   Grants program. I want to thank them for their thoughtful
  recommendations. [2]
  
  
   With the Board of Trustees, I’ve carefully reviewed the Advisory Group
   recommendations, in order to understand our successes and our
 challenges.
   I would like to outline my current view of our capabilities and our
   opportunities, and I am now publishing my response to these
  recommendations
   on Meta. [3]  Please post questions and comments on the Talk page of
 that
   document. [4]
  
   I would like to offer some time for any feedback  or questions you may
  have
   on my response. To that end, I’ll be holding a virtual meeting on
 Monday
   Nov 3 at 17:00 UTC, and I invite you to watch the streaming video and
  join
   the conversation. [5]  You can ask questions via IRC on
 #wikimedia-office
   directly or message FDC support staff, Katy Love (kl...@wikimedia.org
  or on
   IRC at Katy.Love) with questions or comments; she will voice them in
 the
   Hangout.
  
   I look forward to speaking with you soon.
  
   Lila Tretikov
  
   Executive Director, WMF
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia needs an IDE, not a WYSIWYG editor

[Lila Tretikov]

Keep in mind that the projects on Y are brainstorms/seeds -- so it is
important to keep that in perspective. By the time they've evolved they
often look radically different.

That said I think there is kernel of truth there. Our components solve
often every problem with one solution. We do need a way to code on top of
wikis, but that is not necessarily the same thing as a tool to quickly
add/remove text. But we tend to think of them as one.

Do we need a better interface for writing components of top of wikis -- I'd
think so. Do we need a better way to edit text -- for sure. Are those two
the same thing?

Lila

On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 11:03 AM, Amir E. Aharoni 
amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:

 Perpetuating it with a dedicated IDE wouldn't help it go away.
 בתאריך 25 באוק 2014 20:51, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com
 כתב:

  On Oct 25, 2014 7:20 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il
 
  wrote:
  
   Because, even though I'm well aware of the fact that lots of
 experienced
   wikipedians love wiki syntax, the wiki syntax must go away, and will go
   away. Maybe in five years, maybe ten, maybe twenty. But it will go
 away.
   Investing effort in an IDE for it is pointless.
 
  So fortunately we didn't invest in something five years ago with an
  expected lifespan of 10 to 25 years?
 
  
   Templates are, indeed, programs. Articles aren't. Wikidata and Winter
 (or
   something like Winter) will remove the need to edit transclusions as
 part
   of the articles' source code in maybe three years (maybe much less).
   Development should focus on that, rather than on an IDE for a language
  that
   should as soon as possible become transparent to all editors.
  
   (This is not an official representation of the Wikimedia Foundation's
   opinion.)
   בתאריך 25 באוק 2014 19:40, Martijn Hoekstra 
 martijnhoeks...@gmail.com
  
   כתב:
  
On Oct 25, 2014 6:17 PM, Amir E. Aharoni 
  amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il
  
wrote:

 Thank goodness this wasn't written five years ago, otherwise
 somebody
could
 get the awful idea to implement it.
   
Having a side by side really time wikitext - display doesn't sound
 like
  an
aweful idea at all to me. I'm quite surprised anyone would find that
  aweful
actually. I don't understand why you're so dismissive of that idea.
   
--Martijn
 בתאריך 25 באוק 2014 18:26, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl
  כתב:

  I spotted this article linked from news.ycombinator.com,
  arguing -well- what it says on the tin. ;-)
 
  Apologies if someone else already posted a link.
 
 
 
   
   
 
 
 https://medium.com/@MrJamesFisher/wikipedia-needs-an-ide-not-a-wysiwyg-editor-7acd85b582c8
 
  I'm not sure scratches head. Well, if we allow lua in
 templates,
  I suppose things actually are already pretty Interesting.
 
  sincerely,
  Kim Bruning
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Alessio Guidetti, Cotton

[Lila Tretikov]

This is a very sad moment and I am so sorry for the loss. Andrea, please
let us know how we can support you and other volunteers that were close
with Alessio.

Lila

On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 6:24 AM, Andrea Zanni zanni.andre...@gmail.com
wrote:

 It is with great sorrow that Wikimedia Italia announces the death of
 Alessio Guidetti, better known on the projects as Cotton. He has been
 treasurer of the organization for about five years, from 2009 until last
 April.

 Alessio started to contribute to Wikipedia at the end of 2006: after a few
 months he became already a sysop. He was a tireless translator of English
 articles in the most diverse fields, and also part of the small group of
 the patrollers -and, indeed, he continued his precious work until the last,
 even if invisible for most of the editors.

 From the moment he joined Wikimedia Italia, Alessio was very keen to
 contribute effectively, guided by his well-known pragmatism. He run for the
 Board: as soon as he was elected, he took the role of treasurer, a
 difficult task and a fundamental one for us but little recognized. It was
 Alessio who took care of the most delicate and complicated tasks, and he
 did so in the years during which Wikimedia Italia was starting to grow big,
 the years of our quantum leap.

 This spring he decided to not run again for the Board, but he kept
 collaborating with his successor for an effective -and not only formal-
 handover. He took care of the accounting, donations and employees'
 paychecks till his very last days. He has been an incredible help:
 trustworthy, precious, always ready for a joke.

 Alessio has been a pillar of Wikimedia Italia: his pragmatism, his
 hardworking disposition, his sense of humor were, and are, a part of our
 organization. A part of how it was born and how it is growing. A part of
 what we are.

 Wikimedia Italia is close to the family and the friends of Alessio in this
 grievous moment.

 We will terribly miss him.





 Many of you have know Alessio in Wikimanias and conferences.

 If you wish, you can leave a last goodbye here on his userpage:
 https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussioni_utente:Cotton#Ciao.





 Andrea Zanni

 on behalf of Wikimedia Italia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Serbia Executive Director

[Lila Tretikov]

добродошли на покрету , Иван!


On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Tanweer Morshed wiki.tanw...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Welcome Ivan and congratulations to Wikimedia Serbia!

 Tanweer Morshed
 Wikimedia Bangladesh

 On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 5:47 AM, Erlend Bjørtvedt erl...@wikimedia.no
 wrote:

  Dobre!
 
  Welcome to the movement, Ivan!
 
  Erlend Bjørtvedt
  Wikimedia Norway
 
  Den søndag 12. oktober 2014 skrev Filip Maljković dungod...@gmail.com
  følgende:
 
   Hello everyone,
  
   I'd like to announce Ivan Nikčević as the new Executive Director of
   Wikimedia Serbia.
  
   After a two month process, and with more than 200 submissions, we
 finally
   managed to narrow it down to one person, who we hope will be a great
   contribution to our organization, and a successful leader thereof.
 Ivan's
   first day was on Friday.
  
   Here's a short auto-bio that he provided:
  
   Born in the 1970, an Information Technologies engineer by education.
  During
   his 20 years long work experience Ivan was marketing and PR manager,
   journalist, TV producer, TV host and presenter and an editor in chief
  for a
   weekly TV show on IT on Serbian national TV, he also was digital
   communications consultant.
  
   His last post before joining Wikimedia team in Serbia was project and
   online communications manager in Serbian Ministry of Trade, Tourism and
   Telecommunications.
  
   Ivan was awarded twice for his exceptional contribution for development
  and
   promotion of IT technologies in Serbia, by  major professional
  associations
   from Serbian ICT sector and was an author of a documentary film “50
 years
   of ICT in Serbia”.
  
   Behind an amazing professional career, a proud father of 17 years old
   daughter, a lead singer and song writer in a pop band, addicted on
 movies
   and popcorn, pop music, internet and video games he lives his life
 online
   and offline trying to be as one of his icons – George Carlin would say
 “a
   modern man, digital and smoke-free; a man for the millennium.”
   Cheers,
   Filip Maljković
   Wikimedia Serbia
   President
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  --
  *Erlend Bjørtvedt*
  Nestleder, Wikimedia Norge
  Vice chairman, Wikimedia Norway
  Mob: +47 - 9225 9227
   http://no.wikimedia.org http://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/About_us
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 Tanweer Morshed
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Lila Tretikov]

We are planning to do a review of alignment/divergence with the plan mid
year. That would be the right time for this discussion as we will have a
good overview/gap analysis at that time.

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks for the detailed comments, Erik.

 As someone who spent several volunteer hours reviewing the current Annual
 Plan, I would appreciate getting an understanding of how the change of
 emphasis to quarterly reviews affects budgets, hiring plans, and
 fundraising goals. Is that something that you can address or should I ask
 Garfield?

 Thanks,
 Pine
 On Oct 9, 2014 4:44 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 10:26 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   I'm sure a Board member, Lila, or Erik will correct me if I am
 mistaken,
   but my understanding is that there is internal agreement at Board level
   that the Product side of the org needs some systemic changes, that Lila
  was
   chosen with the goal of making those changes, and that some changes are
   already happening.
 
  There's agreement at all levels that we want to continue down the path
  set by Sue back in 2012 [1] for WMF to truly understand itself as a
  technology and grantmaking organization. That path led to where we are
  today:
 
  1) As part of the ED transition, Sue recommended (and the Board
  accepted the recommendation) to seek an ED with a strong
  technology/product background, and we hired Lila Tretikov as Sue's
  successor who matches those requirements.
 
  2) In November 2012, I recommended that we prepare for building out
  new functions for UX and Analytics, and prepare for dedicated
  leadership for Engineering and Product. Sue accepted this
  recommendation. I hired Directors for UX and Analytics in 2013,
  followed by Community Engagement in 2014, and finally we hired a VP
  Engineering last week to complete the process.
 
  3) To better account for the need to learn quickly and adjust course
  as appropriate, we introduced quarterly reviews in December 2012 [3]
  and increasingly reduced the specificity of Annual Plan level
  commitments while increasing the focus on metrics and accountability
  in the reviews.
 
  4) On the technology and product front, many improvements to process
  and support infrastructure have been implemented in the last couple of
  years, including but not limited to:
 
  - Development of MediaWiki Vagrant as a standardized dev environment,
  to reduce failure cases due to developer environment inconsistencies
  - Improvements to continuous integration infrastructure for PHP unit
  tests and QUnit JavaScript unit tests, and increased focus (but not
  nearly enough yet) on automated tests, especially for newly developed
  features
  - Introduction and continued improvement of BetaLabs as a staging
  environment for all commits, increased use of automated end-to-end
  browser tests and QA testing by humans to catch bugs and regressions
  prior to production rollouts
  - Introduction and use of various tools for measuring the impact of
  features, including EventLogging as a standard instrumentation
  framework for measuring feature usage, dashboards for visualizing
  usage, WikiMetrics for analyzing editor cohort behavior, Editor
  Engagement Vital Signs for understanding system-wide user behavior,
  analysis of pageview data using Hadoop (just rolled out), etc.
  - Highly specialized automated testing frameworks for specific
  projects, e.g. Parsoid round-trip testing and visual diffing (!) to
  detect dirty diffs or output problems
  - Introduction of design research as a discipline in the UX team
  (through hiring of Abbey Ripstra as User Research Lead)  and
  incorporation of user studies in a much more systematic way across
  products
  - Community liaisons dedicated to key products, responding to user
  feedback and helping Product Managers understand more complex
  community needs
  - Continued shortening of release/deployment cycles; significant
  improvements to deployment tooling, rewriting our legacy scap tools
  to increase the ability to monitor and reason about deployments;
  introduction of daily SWAT deploys to quickly release fixes, etc.
  - Introduction of various infrastructure tools that help us better
  analyze/profile issues, including logstash for log analysis, increased
  use of graphite for performance metrics collection and various
  front-ends for visualizing those metrics
  - Shift towards loosely coupled services, addressing the difficulty of
  maintaining and improving our highly monolithic codebase (examples
  include Parsoid, Citoid, Mathoid, and the new Content API in
  development)
  - Introduction of Beta Features framework to stage features for early
  adopters
 
  5) The changes Lila has pushed for since we started include:
 
  - Greater focus on quarterly prioritization and a rolling roadmap
  rather than a fiscal year view of the world
  - Increased emphasis

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Lila Tretikov]

Yes Pine, you may. Let's give Damon a bit of time to settle in and we can
arrange that.

We are also in the midst of working through documenting and exposing our
product development process, which would help set up parameters for success
of projects.

Lila

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 11:14 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Lila,

 May I request a Tech Talk about efficiency and quality of Wikimedia
 software development? It would be interesting to have you, Erik and Damon
 as presenters.

 Thanks,

 Pine
 On Oct 7, 2014 9:07 AM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:

  Are you in? Or are you out? That is the question.
 
 
  Lila
 
  P.S. If you'd like to talk about operational efficiency and quality of
  software manufacturing -- please start a thread on that. We are deep into
  working on that here, so would be happy to share the love!
 
  On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 7:36 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
   On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  
Because of that, I am very happy to see somebody with courage and
integrity in the top management. Such person has much larger
 potential
to create the momentum and build community enthusiasm again.
   
  
  
   Is someone saying I have courage and integrity all it takes to
 convince
   you that they are indeed possessed of those qualities? Every politician
   says that. I'd reserve judgment and wait to see their performance.
  
   Besides, what has been lacking is not courage. Creating the
  Superprotection
   feature, pressing ahead with the Flow concept in the face of massive
   community skepticism and rolling out a very poorly implemented
  VisualEditor
   undoubtedly took courage of a sort.
  
   What's been lacking is an ability to convince the community through
   argument rather than the exercise of power, an ability to understand
 the
   community's needs and concerns, and sheer old-fashioned engineering
   competence – something the VisualEditor signally failed to demonstrate.
  
   Jimmy Wales acknowledged that there have been huge problems. Recently,
 a
   Wikipedian quoted the following to him on his talk page:
  
   *“The Foundation has a miserable cost/benefit ratio and for years now
 has
   spent millions on software development without producing anything that
   actually works; the feeling is that the whole operation is held
 together
   with the goodwill of its volunteers and the more stupid Foundation
  managers
   are seriously hacking them off”,*
  
   Wales replied[1] (my emphasis),
  
   *“Other than the extreme nature of the comment (‘without producing
   ANYTHING’ is too strong) why do you think I would disagree with that?
  This
   is precisely the point of the new CEO and new direction – to radically
   improve the software development process. That statement, while too
  strong,
   is indeed an accurate depiction of what has gone wrong. I’ve been
   frustrated as well about the endless controversies about the rollout of
   inadequate software not developed with sufficient community
 consultation
   and without proper incremental rollout to catch showstopping bugs.”*
   I don't want to be unduly churlish to Damon, who deserves his welcome
  here
   like any new team member, but given the above background I personally
  would
   have appreciated an intimation from Damon that he is aware of the
  problems
   to date, that roll-outs will be handled more competently on his watch,
  and
   that the community will not be presented with substandard software
 again.
  
   [1]
  
  
 
 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesdiff=nextoldid=623290066
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call to Action

[Lila Tretikov]

Are you in? Or are you out? That is the question.


Lila

P.S. If you'd like to talk about operational efficiency and quality of
software manufacturing -- please start a thread on that. We are deep into
working on that here, so would be happy to share the love!

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 7:36 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote:

  Because of that, I am very happy to see somebody with courage and
  integrity in the top management. Such person has much larger potential
  to create the momentum and build community enthusiasm again.
 


 Is someone saying I have courage and integrity all it takes to convince
 you that they are indeed possessed of those qualities? Every politician
 says that. I'd reserve judgment and wait to see their performance.

 Besides, what has been lacking is not courage. Creating the Superprotection
 feature, pressing ahead with the Flow concept in the face of massive
 community skepticism and rolling out a very poorly implemented VisualEditor
 undoubtedly took courage of a sort.

 What's been lacking is an ability to convince the community through
 argument rather than the exercise of power, an ability to understand the
 community's needs and concerns, and sheer old-fashioned engineering
 competence – something the VisualEditor signally failed to demonstrate.

 Jimmy Wales acknowledged that there have been huge problems. Recently, a
 Wikipedian quoted the following to him on his talk page:

 *“The Foundation has a miserable cost/benefit ratio and for years now has
 spent millions on software development without producing anything that
 actually works; the feeling is that the whole operation is held together
 with the goodwill of its volunteers and the more stupid Foundation managers
 are seriously hacking them off”,*

 Wales replied[1] (my emphasis),

 *“Other than the extreme nature of the comment (‘without producing
 ANYTHING’ is too strong) why do you think I would disagree with that? This
 is precisely the point of the new CEO and new direction – to radically
 improve the software development process. That statement, while too strong,
 is indeed an accurate depiction of what has gone wrong. I’ve been
 frustrated as well about the endless controversies about the rollout of
 inadequate software not developed with sufficient community consultation
 and without proper incremental rollout to catch showstopping bugs.”*
 I don't want to be unduly churlish to Damon, who deserves his welcome here
 like any new team member, but given the above background I personally would
 have appreciated an intimation from Damon that he is aware of the problems
 to date, that roll-outs will be handled more competently on his watch, and
 that the community will not be presented with substandard software again.

 [1]

 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesdiff=nextoldid=623290066
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] First Wikipedia Article has been Formally Peer Reviewed and Published

[Lila Tretikov]

James -- this is really great, thank you for sharing.

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 4:24 PM, James Heilman jmh...@gmail.com wrote:

 Article published by the journal Open Medicine
 http://www.openmedicine.ca/article/viewFile/562/564

 Will soon be pubmed indexed. Editorial regarding the efforts are here
 http://www.openmedicine.ca/article/view/652/565

 Hope these sorts of efforts will improve the reputation of Wikipedia and
 the number of contributors. I guess we will see.

 --
 James Heilman
 MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian

 The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
 www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Damon Sicore joins WMF as Vice President of Engineering

[Lila Tretikov]

Frederico, in simple terms:

Product == what (we build)
Engineering == how (well we build it)

Think of this as an architect and the builder. Both are required to make
sure the building is sound.

L

On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 11:41 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Lila Tretikov, 29/09/2014 19:38:

 We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice
 President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role.


 Nice to see this long story reach an end. Welcome, Damon. It will be
 interesting to see the experience from previous friend orgs merge into ours.

 Will we also soon get to know what this role is actually going to do? :)
 I still have the same questions: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.
 org.wikimedia.foundation/62910/focus=62937 (98 weeks old, gmane helpfully
 calculates).

 Nemo


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[Wikimedia-l] Damon Sicore joins WMF as Vice President of Engineering

[Lila Tretikov]

Dear all,

We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice
President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role.
Please join us in welcoming him to the team.

The VPE role will be crucial to further developing and maintaining the
technology that supports the very core of the Wikimedia movement, and
ensuring the development, scale, and stability of the MediaWiki
architecture.


Damon joins us as part of planned growth of our product and engineering
teams, first announced in November 2012. As we have grown, we need
dedicated focus on product and engineering as separate departments, to
ensure development of best practices like performance engineering,
continuous delivery, A/B testing, software re-architecture, UI/UX work, and
user research. Erik Moeller, who filled the role of VP for both product and
engineering since 2011, led in the creation of this new role and was
essential to the search process.  From today onward, Erik will focus on his
role as VP of Product and Strategy and Deputy Director of the WMF, while
Damon will take over leadership of the Engineering team; both will report
to me as part of the c-level team.

Damon has a unique track record of managing large platform rollouts using
distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of
community contributions and working in a transparent, open source
environment. These skills and experiences will be invaluable in his work
here at the Foundation. It’s unusual to find someone who understands us so
well, and so I want to thank the many people from across the organization,
especially in the engineering, product, and human resources teams, who have
been involved in making this search successful.

We are very happy to have Damon on board. His proven track record of
managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while
understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in
a transparent, open source environment, is unique and invaluable as part of
our movement.

We’ll be sending around a copy of the press release shortly. You’ll also be
be able to meet Damon, and ask him questions, this Thursday at our monthly
Metrics Meeting
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings.
Please join us there!

Please join me in welcoming Damon.

Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedian in Residence at the Royal Society of Chemistry

[Lila Tretikov]

Congratulations Andy!

On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk
wrote:

 [Reposting after previous copy fell foul of a spam filter]

 I have some news:


 http://pigsonthewing.org.uk/wikimedian-residence-royal-society-chemistry/

 I'll set up on-wiki pages in a week or so.

 --
 Andy Mabbett
 @pigsonthewing
 http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Where should we organize ideas for the Strategic Plan update?

[Lila Tretikov]

We are planning to open a few pages for comments as we plan for this to be
an iterative, participatory process from the ground. Let us know if you'd
like to participate in setting up the pages themselves.

L


On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 SJ, OK, currently we have mostly the 2010-15 strategy and chapter
 strategies featured on [[m:strategy]], and some 2015+ strategy on
 [[m:strategy project]]. I could reorganize these pages, but given the
 highly visible nature of those pages to internal and external stakeholders
 in the Strategy update, I would feel more comfortable reorganizing those
 pages after discussing the design with WMF Communications or someone from
 the Board in more detail. I'd be happy to have WMF Communications work on
 this anyway because it might take a few hours to do a good job with the
 redesign, and Communications might also be good to involve in the design of
 templates for strategy pages.

 Katherine, would it be possible to set up a time with you or someone from
 your team to discuss the organization of those pages? Please contact me
 off-list.

 Thanks,

 Pine

 On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 7:03 AM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote:

  How about a category on Meta with a set of infobox templates like those
 on
  the strategy wiki?  With a summary kept updated at [[m:strategy]]
  On Sep 5, 2014 5:03 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   Heh. That was not my first time when I started typing my email address
  and
   instead Gmail autofilled wikimedia-l. This is what I get for choosing
   wiki.pine instead of pine.wiki. I need some coffee or more sleep.
  
   Anyway, this is what was supposed to go to Wikimedia-l:
  
   Do we have a central place for collecting ideas relevant to the
 strategic
   plan update? I suppose we could use Idealab but a dedicated space on
 Meta
   might be easier for everyone in the long run, or we could re-open the
   Strategy wiki.
  
   Thanks,
  
   Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

[Lila Tretikov]

Martijn,

First, *thank you* for drafting this -- I believe this is a fundamental
architectural and maintenance issue we need to resolve. It is also a long
term innovation issue -- as it is one of the ways individuals can
participate in extending our user experience.

This would be a great case to plan and work on together, starting with
gathering all of the different use cases currently covered, goals,
problems, catalogue of current templates with usage data and desired
improvements via a requirement document on-wiki.

We (WMF engineering) should provide support for this (so this complements
any refactoring in Media Wikis and features under development), which means
we would need to prioritize and schedule on our side as well. But
requirement gathering can start now.

Martijn -- thank you for this,
Lila


On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 2:40 AM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com
wrote:

 tl;dr: We've been collectively whining about templates for long enough. Who
 wants to help with fixing them?

 In the recent discussions/debacles about technical and stylistic advances,
 a recurring theme is that the use of some templates causes major headaches,
 and a commonly heard complaint from the developers and designers is that
 their products exhibit problems and shortcoming because of that. Anecdotal
 evidence I've lately encountered includes:

 * The mobile skin obfuscates talk page access because the templates
 commonly found on talk pages makes them render horribly.
 * The mobile skin special-cases some templates (notably issue templates and
 infoboxes) because they would render horribly.
 * Media-viewer has a tough time doing to correct thing with attribution and
 license information because parsing template-madness is hard.
 * VE development has spent a large amount of time around templates, and
 it's still one of its weakest suits. Template substitution is still a
 problem, as well as templates that produce wikitext that in itself doesn't
 map cleanly to HTML tokens.
 * Scribunto has been developed specifically because writing and maintaining
 templates with more complicated logic is horrible, both from a
 writers/maintainers perspective as well as from a performance perspective

 All this together is sufficient to assert we have a template problem. The
 main editing community has a problem with how templates are and must be
 used, the readers have a problem with display issues on mobile as well as
 style inconsistencies, the technical editing community has a problem with
 writing and maintaining templates, and the development community has a
 problem with the difficulty in correctly parsing and interpreting templates
 and there contents.

 It would be great if this problem were tackled; it would be even greater if
 the WMF could work together with the community to identify the pain points,
 and jointly take steps to tackle them. Templates are currently
 extraordinarily powerful, and most if not all of this power is finding use
 in the projects, possibly in ways nobody ever foresaw. As we all know from
 Uncle Ben, with great power comes great responsibility, and it's about time
 we all took our share of that responsibility, tough up, and fix it.

 We should keep in mind that current use is paramount, and any fixing of
 templates that breaks the wiki is frankly unacceptable, which probably
 means we can't go from insane to sane overnight, even if we could define
 sane and insane with regards to templates overnight. At the same time we
 shouldn't shy away from fixes that would break some exotic use of
 templates, if as part of the process of making things better, before
 implementation, we can fix those templates.

 I hope we can, for the coming period, accomplish the following:

 * Catalog the problems with templates. Make a comprehensive list that
 enumerates the problems with templates we have now, categories the problems
 (right now I'm roughly thinking in style, wikitext parsing rules and
 generated HTML, creation and writing issues (let's hope there is little of
 this one left after Scribunto), and usability by editors).
 * Note which quirks that lead to technical difficulties are used in the
 wild as features rather than bugs.
 * Brain storm possible (partial) solutions.
 * Find candidates that have high bang-for-buck possible solutions without
 impeding future improvements much.
 * Refine those solutions so we know quite exactly what it will fix, what it
 won't fix, and what it would possibly break.
 * Define sane fallback procedures for when things break; this should mainly
 come from the editing communities, but could probably use some guidance of
 what is possible/easy/logical/feasible from a technical POV from the
 development community.
 * Fix templates.

 Personally, I'm all talk and no action, so to get this of the ground we
 would need a lot of help. First, we need to know if I'm on to something, or
 if this is just the raving of a lunatic (please tell me if it is!). If the
 idea is sound, we 

[Wikimedia-l] Please be considerate of everyone's time.

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi all,

As I scanned through the weekend emails on this list I noticed that many of
you are ready to get back to discussing the goals we are all working on. I
am really glad to see that. We have plenty of interesting projects to
discuss without the gossip. Let's respect the time that many following this
list are donating to the project by sticking to constructive, on topic
matters.

And for starters: the Wikipedia Android Beta app is in store and is
awaiting your comments.

Thanks,
Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The first three weeks.

[Lila Tretikov]

MZMcBride -- We are a little bit in the tricky situation because our
strategy has not been updated yet. Allocation should follow strategic
priorities and it is the strategy that helps answer this question. On a
more operational scale, resources tend go to where the users are or where
the opportunity is. When they go to opportunity, it is towards verifying
hypothesis that it would yield results.

I am thinking through this now and will post more thoughts as we begin
planning for the strategy update.

L


On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 6:24 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 Lila Tretikov wrote:
 I wanted to give you an update on my first three weeks of Wikimedia
 immersion -- this will also go on the blog.  As you probably noticed, my
 leadership approach is rooted in observation and focused discussions --
 this means I watch and listen more than I talk. But I expect that you are
 probably curious about what I have observed and learned so far, and to
 know a little more about who I am.
 
  [...]

 Thank you for this write-up. It was nice to read. :-)

 Your recommendations on areas you see as priorities for development
 (while keeping in mind that not everything can be a priority at
 once!); [...]

 I think this continues to be a huge pain point. Developer resources are
 scarce and expensive and there's often a feeling that the latest Wikimedia
 Foundation initiatives trump all other worthwhile projects. I think we
 need to find a better way to more fairly allocate resources.

 As a concrete example, there continue to be dozens of Wikimedia Foundation
 developers and other staff specifically focused on the English Wikipedia
 and sometimes Wikimedia Commons, while the other sister projects such as
 Wiktionary, Wikibooks, and Wikisource continue to receive almost no direct
 attention. (Over the past few years, even the term sister projects has
 become mildly insulting. These projects are more accurately the red-headed
 stepchild projects.) This won't happen quickly, but we must make it a goal
 to do better in this area.

 MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A personal note.

[Lila Tretikov]

For the record, I take any safety issues concerning both staff and
volunteers extremely seriously. In the case of a threatening message left
on an employee's talk page, GorillaWarfare took immediate action, for which
I am very grateful. And I am grateful to see this kind of community at work.

Creating an open, safe and welcoming environment is extremely important to
me, and that includes maintaining a friendly space by clearly excluding
individuals who harass and threaten others and preventing their presence on
our pages.



On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 1:57 PM, Molly White 
gorillawarfarewikipe...@gmail.com wrote:

 Wil Sinclair wllm@... writes:

  I've apologized to you here and on Wikipediocracy, but apologies are
  always worth doing directly and for as many to see as possible: I'm
  very sorry for mistaking you for a WMF employee. I take full
  responsibility for my words and actions. I hope you can forgive me.

 No need to apologize. I'm really not horrified at being mistaken for a
 staffer, I'm just trying to clear up any confusion.

  To be clear, a WMF employee did mail Lila with safety concerns. That
  was obviously not Molly, and, ultimately, I don't think it's important
  who it was. It just made me personally uncomfortable communicating
  with WMF employees in any private setting. I'm hoping that will change
  as we all begin to trust each other more. Even then, I have no plans
  to discuss WMF matters of any sort with WMF employees; that's to
  everyone's benefit IMO.

 Ah, this segues well into the email I was just drafting: I have to say that
 I was surprised to see the contents of what appears to be an internal staff
 email being brought up both on Wikipediocracy and here by a non-staff
 member. Wil, can you clarify if you were copied on the email, and if not,
 how you gained access to it? You've repeatedly emphasized that you are not
 affiliated with/do not influence/are completely separate from the WMF, and
 even that you and Lila are not even discussing Wikimedia-related matters
 with one another at home, so I'm sure you can understand the confusion.

 Yours,
 Molly (GorillaWarfare)


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The first three weeks.

[Lila Tretikov]

Thanks Anders for the advice -- I will look into those. Maintaining freedom
of speech is especially close to my heart.


On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 1:03 AM, Anders Wennersten m...@anderswennersten.se
 wrote:

 Thanks for this update.

 Ii is refreshing to see both your will to act in accordance with our
 tradition of transparency and also to see your open curious approach to
 your new assignment (and your will to start up strategy work).

 I get two reflections when I read through your mail.

 Do not forget to learn of the real wikimedia world behind the SF office
 and the English community. With your background familiar with russian
 language, why not visit:
 *our Ukraine chapter where they have a fascinating story of their efforts
 with the Ukraine language and culture and being a key actor in the build up
 of an Ukrainian identity, which effect we have seen this year in the news
 daily (and where one member even had to our sorrow to pay with his life
 defending the rights on free knowledge for all on Euromajdan)
 *our Russian chapter where they have been extremely successful in keeping
 its independence (and existence) away from the autocratic authorizes and
 even winning respect from top key persons in their political hierarchy. And
 they have been most successful in our movement in fighting off some of the
 most awful POV attacks we have seen (in their case mostly from fascist)

 Also do not forget to look into but what we are NOT doing in our
 swdevelopment, but ought to. We are seeing many commercial companies
 looking into how to make money from the content of Wikipedia by introducing
 new type of readers interfaces put on top of Wikipedia. There are
 Californain companies looking into developing a QA type of interface, and
 Google are for the moment nice to us, but what if they became less nice and
 steered away search hit away from Wikipedia?

 Good luck in your job, and hope to meet you in some part of the strategic
 work that now soon seems to get started

 Anders
 (being the most active contributer on Swedish Wikipedia  member of FDC
 until July 1)


 Lila Tretikov skrev 2014-05-28 01:53:

 Hello Wikimedians,

 I wanted to give you an update on my first three weeks of Wikimedia
 immersion -- this will also go on the blog.  As you probably noticed, my
 leadership approach is rooted in observation and focused discussions --
 this means I watch and listen more than I talk. But I expect that you are
 probably curious about what I have observed and learned so far, and to
 know
 a little more about who I am.

   I believe the most precious commodity in life is time. I seek challenges
 worthy of it. I do not work for a job, I work for impact and I chose this
 role above all others because I believe this is a critical moment for the
 future of our movement.

 I also believe no one person can be good at everything, myself included,
 so
 I build great teams of people with complementary strengths. This means
 that
 I believe that best decisions come informed by a range of views, and that
 I
 respect a wide plurality of opinions. It also means that I choose to
 surround myself with people who are strong, which often requires
 negotiating conflicts.

 How have I spent my first three weeks at the WMF:


 -

 Reading and watching: wikis, lists, talk pages, annual plans, reports,
 videos, emails and videos
 -

 Dozens of 1:1s with staff, board, and community members
 -

 Attending the Zurich hackathon

 -

 Participating in the recent Board meeting
 -

 Progress with ongoing decisions, such as the Terms of Use discussion
 -

 Deep-dive into product roadmap and data analytics
 -

 Four days of deep-dive and knowledge transfer with Sue
 -

 IRC office hours, writing my first blog, and engaging on my talk page
 -

 Training to be an even more effective communicator for the media
 -

 Review of on-going product initiatives: mobile, Flow, and VE
 -

 Recruiting


 What I found to be challenging:


 -

 The extensive documentation, which provides plenty of context, but
 makes
 it hard to find distilled essences of historical decisions quickly.
 -

 The complexity of the community, roles, differences in points of view
 and perspectives.


 What is coming:

 -

 A deep-dive into a few selected projects that are already in the
 works,
 to understand where they are currently, what the expected outcomes
 are, and
 how we measure success;
 -

 A retreat with the c-level leadership to align our work, and identify
 and address immediate Foundation priorities; and
 -

 Starting the process for our next strategic planning exercise, which
 will be different from last time, and focused on improving our
 ability to
 react quickly and adjust as necessary to opportunities and challenges.


 These are the things I’ve been working on -- but I know that there’s a lot
 more

[Wikimedia-l] Edit #1 and Challenge #1

[Lila Tretikov]

I wanted to share my first editing experience and ask for your help. Here
it is:

Today I have made the first edit on English Wikipedia. As I said in my
first meeting -- I believe in traveling the path of our editors, so I can
better understand them and so taht we can make their experience more
natural.

I have edited in private wikis before and I have edited the talk pages. I
used the Visual Editor, even though I am well-versed in the syntax. I had
the advantage of a very very experienced user by my side and it went pretty
smooth -- so this report is not entirely fair. Even though, I did stumble
in a few places, however, and this is a learning experience for me and for
our team.

Overall I wish I had this on video. It is a bit like an experience of a kid
making their first goal. Exhilarating.

So now I have a challenge back to you:


   - Please pick a friend who has never edited before.
   - Ask them to make an edit. Any edit in any language.
   - Please have them write one paragraph about their experience.
   - Have them send it to lila at wikimedia with the subject: #1


Thank you!!!
Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Edit #1 and Challenge #1

[Lila Tretikov]

Any language :)


On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 1:55 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Lila Tretikov, 29/05/2014 10:24:

 - Have them send it to lila at wikimedia with the subject: #1


 In any language? ;)

 Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks]

[Lila Tretikov]

We have deeper graphs. I want to be sensitive to our product team's time,
but I am sure they will share when they can.

The short answer -- I believe -- the the community tends to gravitate
towards its current state and loose new editors at a higher rate. This is
not unusual in general of course -- what is concerning is the delta in
those rates. So we also need to understand the differences in the loss
between now and say 5 years ago when rules of engagement, dynamics and
overall state of the internet where different, and how that influenced
retention.

Again, I am still learning, and our PMs may correct me on this :)

L


On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 7:31 AM, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Frederico

 Neither of those answers my question. I doesn't tell me whether we are
 bleeding new or old members. The reason for an editor of either group to
 leave are different. All that that graph shows is that there has been a
 frightful drop since 2007.

 Rui


 2014-05-29 15:28 GMT+02:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com:

  Rui Correia, 29/05/2014 15:01:
 
   Do we have any figures on retention of new editors?
 
 
  https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%
  3ASearchprofile=advancedsearch=retentionfulltext=
  Searchns202=1profile=advanced
 
 
   How long does the
  average new editor stay? What percentage of new editors stays on for 6
  months; one year; two years? Do we have these figures for all languages?
 
 
  In the end what retention matters for is http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/
  TablesWikipediansEditsGt5.htm
 
  Nemo
 
 
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 _
 Rui Correia
 Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Work Consultant
 Bridge to Angola - Angola Liaison Consultant

 Mobile Number in South Africa +27 74 425 4186
 Número de Telemóvel na África do Sul +27 74 425 4186
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Edit #1 and Challenge #1

[Lila Tretikov]

All,

It'd be wonderful to be able to share these stories publicly in the future.
I'm going to reach out to those who have already shared their experiences
with me to confirm they're comfortable with sharing. If you're not
comfortable with sharing your story, or want to withhold your name, please
let me know in your email. Otherwise, we will consider them public, so we
can build on your experiences and share them widely!

Thank you!
Lila


On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 10:42 AM, Victor Grigas vgri...@wikimedia.org
wrote:

 Here's the link to that video:

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editing_makes_me_feel_stupid.ogv


 On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Steven Zhang cro0...@gmail.com wrote:

  Sounds like a great way to get insight from our new editors :)
 
  If video reactions are desired, I think at one point we (WMF) videoed
  people that had never edited before, try and edit with the source code
  editor, and they described their experience after. Might also be helpful
 in
  addition to this. I recall viewing it during Sue's Wikimania keynote in
  Hong Kong.
 
  Steve
 
  Sent from my iPhone
 
   On 29 May 2014, at 6:24 pm, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:
  
   I wanted to share my first editing experience and ask for your help.
 Here
   it is:
  
   Today I have made the first edit on English Wikipedia. As I said in my
   first meeting -- I believe in traveling the path of our editors, so I
 can
   better understand them and so taht we can make their experience more
   natural.
  
   I have edited in private wikis before and I have edited the talk
 pages. I
   used the Visual Editor, even though I am well-versed in the syntax. I
 had
   the advantage of a very very experienced user by my side and it went
  pretty
   smooth -- so this report is not entirely fair. Even though, I did
 stumble
   in a few places, however, and this is a learning experience for me and
  for
   our team.
  
   Overall I wish I had this on video. It is a bit like an experience of a
  kid
   making their first goal. Exhilarating.
  
   So now I have a challenge back to you:
  
  
 - Please pick a friend who has never edited before.
 - Ask them to make an edit. Any edit in any language.
 - Please have them write one paragraph about their experience.
 - Have them send it to lila at wikimedia with the subject: #1
  
  
   Thank you!!!
   Lila
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 --

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 Storyteller https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knv6D6Thi0
 Wikimedia Foundation
 vgri...@wikimedia.org
 https://donate.wikimedia.org/
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Edit #1 and Challenge #1

[Lila Tretikov]

Thanks so much Leigh -- when you do this please let me know if it is OK to
share publicly. We will be using these to learn about how to best improve
the UX.

L


On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 5:52 AM, Leigh Thelmadatter osama...@hotmail.com
wrote:

 Ok! I have a training session with Tec de Monterrey students doing
 community service on Sat. This will be part of their introduction!

  Date: Thu, 29 May 2014 01:24:33 -0700
  From: l...@wikimedia.org
  To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
  Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Edit #1 and Challenge #1
 
  I wanted to share my first editing experience and ask for your help. Here
  it is:
 
  Today I have made the first edit on English Wikipedia. As I said in my
  first meeting -- I believe in traveling the path of our editors, so I can
  better understand them and so taht we can make their experience more
  natural.
 
  I have edited in private wikis before and I have edited the talk pages. I
  used the Visual Editor, even though I am well-versed in the syntax. I had
  the advantage of a very very experienced user by my side and it went
 pretty
  smooth -- so this report is not entirely fair. Even though, I did stumble
  in a few places, however, and this is a learning experience for me and
 for
  our team.
 
  Overall I wish I had this on video. It is a bit like an experience of a
 kid
  making their first goal. Exhilarating.
 
  So now I have a challenge back to you:
 
 
 - Please pick a friend who has never edited before.
 - Ask them to make an edit. Any edit in any language.
 - Please have them write one paragraph about their experience.
 - Have them send it to lila at wikimedia with the subject: #1
 
 
  Thank you!!!
  Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Bad usage of money in Brazil

[Lila Tretikov]

Rodrigo -- what do the bubbles represent in the chart -- countries?


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:08 AM, Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton 
rodrigo.argen...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey Pine,

 For me, this is just a small and visible part of the iceberg, sadly.
 I not will go deeper in that, because I do not have stomach for, patiences,
 and way to do that.

 I already send massages to Asaf pointing this, in respect. But thanks for
 the tip.

 Cheers.



 On 22 May 2014 03:52, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote:

 
  Hi Rodrigo,
 
  Thank you for these questions. There have been questions about the India
  program as well, so these questions about Brazil can be added to the list
  of
  issues for WMF to investigate.
 
  I am not personally familiar with either of the Brazil or India catalyst
  programs,
  but I suggest that you contact Asaf or Anasuya if you don't get a
 response
  on this list or on the discussion page within two days.
 
  Thank you again for bringing up these questions.
 
  Pine
 
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 rodrigo.argen...@gmail.com
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[Wikimedia-l] A personal note.

[Lila Tretikov]

Hi all,

This is a personal note to clarify a some questions that recently came up,
specifically in the context of my role as the incoming ED.


My partner Wil and I are partners in our private lives. We have always both
been extremely independent, and we respect that in each other. That said we
have different roles: I am the Executive Director with responsibilities
towards the Foundation and the movement, and he is an independent community
member with his own voice.

I make my decisions using my own professional judgement in conjunction with
input from the community and staff. I don’t consult Wil on these matters,
ask him to do anything on my behalf or monitor his engagements with the
community. When I speak here, it is in my capacity as an ED.

Wil, on the other hand, has a very strong personal interest in the
community and agreat deal of curiosity about how the Wikimedia
projectswork. It is very important to him that he remains an
independent individual
able to speak with his own voice and ask his own questions. He does not
take direction from me. He will not work for the WMF or engage with the WMF
employees.

I hope this addresses some of the questions and draws distinction between
my role as ED and Wil’s participation as an independent member. If you have
any questions for Wil you can reach him directly. If you have any questions
for me or the WMF, you can get a hold of me by email or on my talk page.


Thanks,

Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Welcome Rachel diCerbo, Director of Community Engagement

[Lila Tretikov]

Welcome Rachel!


On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 7:41 AM, Birgit Müller
birgit.muel...@wikimedia.dewrote:

 Welcome, Rachel. Congratulations on your new job!

 Birgit




 2014-05-28 2:26 GMT+02:00 Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org:

  Hi folks,
 
  It’s my great pleasure to tell you that Rachel diCerbo is joining us
  as Director of Community Engagement (Product), starting today. In this
  role, Rachel will manage the community liaison team (Keegan Peterzell,
  Sherry Snyder, Nick Wilson, and Erica Litrenta) and ensure that our
  technical projects receive community engagement support throughout
  their development.
 
  Rachel discovered her love for collaborative communities with
  Couchsurfing. When she joined the community in 2005, Couchsurfing was
  a small non-profit, with essential functions being filled by
  volunteers. This included responding to safety issues: staying at
  someone else’s home or hosting a stranger carries risks, some obvious,
  some less so. Rachel founded and led the community’s all-volunteer
  safety team. She was also a member of the non-profit’s Board of
  Directors from 2007-2011.
 
  After volunteering for two years, she joined the organization
  full-time as Head of Trust  Safety in 2008. She was responsible for
  enacting policies related to incident reporting, profile removal, and
  other safety issues, and handled any high level legal issues and
  communications related to Couchsurfing member safety. She implemented
  training, documentation, and case review processes for her team.
 
  As part of her role, she also directly interfaced with Couchsurfing’s
  engineering team and helped scope functionality related to safety 
  moderation. The work on the safety team also equipped her well for
  working across culture and languages, as issues would often arise
  around differing cultural sensitivities. She’s travelled to 38
  countries and lived on 5 continents.
 
  Prior to Couchsurfing, Rachel pursued a passion for theater while
  temping in various roles for various companies. Her additional
  interests include digital rights, women’s rights and safety worldwide,
  and scuba diving. In her spare time, she seeks to perfect her pulled
  pork recipe, sews, and reads all the things.
 
  Rachel is new to the community, and due to the nature of her role,
  she’ll be spending some time just learning how to edit and how things
  work in our weird  wonderful world. She’s planning a face-to-face
  meeting with her team the week of June 9th and will be attending
  WikiConference USA later this week.
 
  Please join me in welcoming Rachel to the Wikimedia Foundation and to
  the community.
 
  Warmly,
 
  Erik
 
  PS: Big thanks to everyone who’s been part of the search process, to
  the liaison team for doing awesome work in an emerging structure, and
  to Philippe, Maggie and Howie for all their work in bootstrapping the
  team, and for supporting Rachel as she steps into the role. :-)
 
  --
  Erik Möller
  VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A personal note.

[Lila Tretikov]

Thanks Michael for spelling this out further. Your understanding is correct.


On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 7:55 AM, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.comwrote:

 On 5/28/2014 5:59 AM, Fæ wrote:

 On 28/05/2014, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 ...

 independent individual
 able to speak with his own voice and ask his own questions. He does not
 take direction from me. He will not work for the WMF or engage with the
 WMF
 employees.

 I do not really understand the point being made about not engaging

 with WMF employees, any active volunteer on Wikimedia projects should
 and must be free to engage with WMF employees. The statement does not
 appear to match actions over the last 24 hours, with Wil freely making
 public comments about his dissatisfaction after conversations
 (emails?) with some WMF employees.

 I believe the point is that Wil, in particular, will not interfere with
 Wikimedia staff in carrying out their duties, assign them specific tasks,
 or otherwise attempt to supervise and direct their work. These functions
 properly belong to the employee's supervisor, so it's good for community
 members to keep this in mind generally, but especially important for Wil
 because otherwise his connection to Lila might create concern or confusion
 for the staff (as in the recent GitHub situation, which I believe was
 already mentioned). If those guidelines are respected, there should be no
 problem about Wil interacting with staff in an ordinary fashion. I'm sure
 Wil understands this and will be careful about it, and it's also good that
 Lila has said this publicly so that people have something to point to, in
 case anything is uncertain about whether Wil has some sort of special
 authority.

 --Michael Snow


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The first three weeks.

[Lila Tretikov]

Thank you, Risker -- we do have lots of work to do :)


On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 1:33 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:

 It is great to hear how you are working to learn about the vast Wikimedia
 community, its projects, its priorities and its challenges, Lila.

 I'm thinking there's something else that all of us should help you
 celebrate as well:  after only a few weeks on the job, being named to the
 Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women:
 http://www.forbes.com/profile/lila-tretikov/

 That's a great start.


 Risker


 On 28 May 2014 08:58, Anna Torres a...@wikimedia.org.ar wrote:

  +1
 
  Great to hearing your experience. As being a new ED too (3 months now) I
  can indentify myself with your experience: the first month is about
  listening and getting to know :)
 
  All the best for what is to come! Hope to meeting you asap!
 
  Hugs from Argentina.
 
 
  2014-05-28 2:48 GMT-03:00 Nurunnaby Chowdhury n...@nhasive.com:
 
   +1
   Thank you for this write-up. Happy to read..:)
  
  
  
   On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 7:24 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:
  
Lila Tretikov wrote:
I wanted to give you an update on my first three weeks of Wikimedia
immersion -- this will also go on the blog.  As you probably
 noticed,
  my
leadership approach is rooted in observation and focused discussions
  --
this means I watch and listen more than I talk. But I expect that
 you
   are
probably curious about what I have observed and learned so far, and
 to
know a little more about who I am.

 [...]
   
Thank you for this write-up. It was nice to read. :-)
   
Your recommendations on areas you see as priorities for development
(while keeping in mind that not everything can be a priority at
once!); [...]
   
I think this continues to be a huge pain point. Developer resources
 are
scarce and expensive and there's often a feeling that the latest
   Wikimedia
Foundation initiatives trump all other worthwhile projects. I think
 we
need to find a better way to more fairly allocate resources.
   
As a concrete example, there continue to be dozens of Wikimedia
   Foundation
developers and other staff specifically focused on the English
  Wikipedia
and sometimes Wikimedia Commons, while the other sister projects such
  as
Wiktionary, Wikibooks, and Wikisource continue to receive almost no
   direct
attention. (Over the past few years, even the term sister projects
  has
become mildly insulting. These projects are more accurately the
   red-headed
stepchild projects.) This won't happen quickly, but we must make it a
   goal
to do better in this area.
   
MZMcBride
   
   
   
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   --
   *Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive*
   Administrator | Bengali Wikipedia
   http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:nhasive
   Member | IEG Committee, Wikimedia
   Foundationhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/People
   Social Media Interaction Expert | The Daily
   Prothom-Alohttp://www.prothom-alo.com
   Bangladesh Ambassador | Open Knowledge Foundation Network
   http://www.okfn.org
   Treasurer | Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) 
 http://www.bdosn.org
  
   Task Force Member | Mozilla Bangladesh http://www.mozillabd.org
   fb.com/nhasive | @nhasive http://www.twitter.com/nhasive | Skype:
   nhasive
   | www.nhasive.com
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  --
  Anna Torres Adell
  Directora Ejecutiva
  *A.C Wikimedia Argentina*
 
  *Imprime este correo solo si es realmente necesario*
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[Wikimedia-l] The first three weeks.

[Lila Tretikov]

Hello Wikimedians,

I wanted to give you an update on my first three weeks of Wikimedia
immersion -- this will also go on the blog.  As you probably noticed, my
leadership approach is rooted in observation and focused discussions --
this means I watch and listen more than I talk. But I expect that you are
probably curious about what I have observed and learned so far, and to know
a little more about who I am.

 I believe the most precious commodity in life is time. I seek challenges
worthy of it. I do not work for a job, I work for impact and I chose this
role above all others because I believe this is a critical moment for the
future of our movement.

I also believe no one person can be good at everything, myself included, so
I build great teams of people with complementary strengths. This means that
I believe that best decisions come informed by a range of views, and that I
respect a wide plurality of opinions. It also means that I choose to
surround myself with people who are strong, which often requires
negotiating conflicts.

How have I spent my first three weeks at the WMF:


   -

   Reading and watching: wikis, lists, talk pages, annual plans, reports,
   videos, emails and videos
   -

   Dozens of 1:1s with staff, board, and community members
   -

   Attending the Zurich hackathon
   -

   Participating in the recent Board meeting
   -

   Progress with ongoing decisions, such as the Terms of Use discussion
   -

   Deep-dive into product roadmap and data analytics
   -

   Four days of deep-dive and knowledge transfer with Sue
   -

   IRC office hours, writing my first blog, and engaging on my talk page
   -

   Training to be an even more effective communicator for the media
   -

   Review of on-going product initiatives: mobile, Flow, and VE
   -

   Recruiting


What I found to be challenging:


   -

   The extensive documentation, which provides plenty of context, but makes
   it hard to find distilled essences of historical decisions quickly.
   -

   The complexity of the community, roles, differences in points of view
   and perspectives.


What is coming:

   -

   A deep-dive into a few selected projects that are already in the works,
   to understand where they are currently, what the expected outcomes are, and
   how we measure success;
   -

   A retreat with the c-level leadership to align our work, and identify
   and address immediate Foundation priorities; and
   -

   Starting the process for our next strategic planning exercise, which
   will be different from last time, and focused on improving our ability to
   react quickly and adjust as necessary to opportunities and challenges.


These are the things I’ve been working on -- but I know that there’s a lot
more that you as community members have to offer, and much more that I can
learn. Here’s just a few of the things I’m looking forward to from you:


   -

   Engaging with the strategic planning process;
   -

   Continuing to provide feedback and on beta features, products, and
   ongoing projects and initiatives to help make them better, more useful, and
   lead to more successful outcomes;
   -

   Help drive decision-making and consensus across the community through
   your individual leadership;
   -

   Your recommendations on areas you see as priorities for development
   (while keeping in mind that not everything can be a priority at once!); and
   -

   Your recommendations on community and WMF decision-making processes,
   while keeping in mind that no process is ever perfect but there is always
   room for improvement.



The past three weeks have made one thing very clear: it’s because of the
energy and labor of each of you that we’re all here. On May 1st, I said
that this was big in every way. The last three weeks have reinforced this
for me: we have a huge mission, incredible opportunity, a vast number of
users, and a strong unique community. I look forward to facing challenges
together, having honest discussions, and coming together to seize
opportunities in front of us. There will be much for us to learn from each
other as we work together, and even more to do!

Lila
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] FDC recommendation round 2 announced

[Lila Tretikov]

Thank you FDC for completing this work and providing valuable feedback. As
we continue to improve our planning process and our funding programs we
hope to make your work easier as well.

Thanks everyone else who has participated with comments and recommendations.

Lila


On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 11:05 AM, Samuel Klein s...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Dear Dariusz and FDC,

 Thank you for this fine recommendation.  I just read through it for
 the first time (of many, I expect), and the analyses are clearly
 getting crisper over time. There are many constructive details packed
 into each review, and the results are relevant both to the applying
 organizations, and to how we plan for the future.


 I am glad to see the analysis of the excellent Wikimedia France
 proposal.   And both the CIS and the Wikimedia Norge proposals seem to
 have been complicated in their own way, but were handled smoothly.

 The analysis of WMF's own proposal is clear and rewardingly thorough.
 (Other organizations may be jealous and ask for a more detailed report
 next time)
 A few points I found particularly useful: the focus on areas where we
 need clearer goals + measures, the detailed feedback on technical
 changes, and the observation that legal work is a significant part of
 our budget and work, and central to our mission, but here was lumped
 in with administration.  The last point is indicative of a larger
 blind spot, I think.

 I also appreciate the emphasis on regular checks of our work against a
 strategy, and the need to organize an effective transition to new
 strategic goals. The suggestions for a community-led strategy advisory
 group, and for a pool of global metrics for [cross-]evaluation, are
 well considered.  Both could also make the FDC's work easier in the
 future...

 Congratulations on this work.  And good luck to those FDC advisors
 meeting over the coming days.

 Sam.


 On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 9:51 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl
 wrote:
  Hello friends,
 
  The Funds Dissemination Committee meets twice annually to help make
  decisions about how to effectively allocate movement funds to achieve the
  Wikimedia movement's mission, vision, and strategy. [1]
 
  On behalf of the committee, I am pleased to announce that Round 2
 2013-2014
  recommendations to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees have now
 been
  posted on Meta [2]:
 
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2013-2014_round2
 
  The WMF Board will make their decision on these recommendations by 1 July
  2014.
 
  For the second round of this fiscal year, the committee received four
  proposals.  [3] These four proposals came from two chapters, WMF and one
  non-Wikimedia organization, totaling requests of '''$1.56''' million USD.
   Prior to our face-to-face deliberations in Frankfurt from 21st-24th May,
  the FDC reviewed the proposals in careful detail, aided by staff
  assessments and analysis on programs, finances, grant compliance and
  history, as well as community comments on the proposals. Staff presented
 an
  overview of these findings to the FDC during the deliberations. The FDC
 and
  FDC staff also asked clarifying questions to the entities on the proposal
  form discussion pages during the four-week community review period (and
  prior to the publishing of staff assessments), and observed the
 discussions
  about the proposals.
 
  The committee thanks all organizations that submitted proposals, as it
  required significant effort to both create the proposal and to respond to
  the questions and feedback from the community, FDC, and FDC staff.  We
  sincerely appreciate them all for this work.
 
  For formal complaints or appeals about the recommendations, there is a
  separate process that entities should follow. Note that at the request of
  many stakeholders, we are clarifying the complaints and appeals
 terminology
  so that complaints are made about the process to the ombudsperson and
  appeals on the recommendations are made to the WMF Board representatives.
  These are further explained below:
 
  Any organization that would like to submit an appeal on the FDC’s Round 2
  recommendation should submit it to the Board representatives to the FDC
 by
  '''end of day UTC 8 June 2014''' in accordance with the appeal process
  outlined in the FDC Framework. The process is as follows:
 
  Appeals to the WMF Board on the recommendations of the FDC (formerly
 called
  complaints, terminology changed to avoid further confusion):
 
  * A formal appeal to challenge the FDC’s recommendation should be in the
  form of a 500-or-fewer word summary directed to the two non-voting WMF
  Board representatives to the FDC (Patricio Lorente and Bishakha Datta).
 
  * The appeal should be submitted on-wiki through the FDC portal page
  designated for this purpose. [4]
 
  * Formal appeals can be submitted only by the Board Chair of a
  funding-seeking organization.
 
  * Formal appeals must be filed within seven