Re: [Wikimedia-l] The 2016-2017 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
As a document targeting donors it is effective.

For me, it is indeed an accomplished selly thingie that does not connect.
It is all Wikipedia and Wikipedia is not that shiny. It is a community
where infighting is common, where external knowledge and tools are seen as
problematic because they do not comply with Wikipedia hard fought
"compromises". They do not entertain the thought that compromises are often
sub optimal seen in a different light but that light is not considered in
the "beauty" of all of Wikipedias accomplishments.

It takes an external organisation to come begging to bring us comparison
between the facts offered in all the Wikipedias and, it compares them also
with Wikidata.. We have a community that transcribes books but we do not
care for their finished products. It is apparently not part of the sum of
what we consider all knowledge.

We are so enthralled with the shine of Wikipedia that we do not consider
our primary objectives. In a world where fake news is well established, we
are postage stamp collectors as we do not consider what news is fake and
how that effects the information we provide. When it has to do with
nursing, the effect can be deadly in the first degree [1]. Then again, it
is not part of the big plan and it is officially not considered that
relevant. When we consider "biographies of living people" something that
applies to Wikipedia, Wikidata has... data not biographies. We do not
consider that comparison brings out the differences between what is stated
in a Wikipedia article and is stated elsewhere. The point; when we
concentrate on differences, we concentrate on what is problematic and that
is where our effort has the most effect on what is wrong, problematic or
even fake. We don't because of policies and we.. Wikipedia.. do not think
others have anything to offer.

Usability is something that is seen as important but Wikidata is not seen
as a project used by "end users" and consequently it is not even considered
to bring a more informative display to Wikidata like Reasonator. What
Reasonator brings is instant context to the data and an instant interface
to add missing labels in *your* language.. I used it for Russian for this
very Russian / American subject [2]. As an editor with over two million
edits, many of them manual edits, I can tell you it is indispensable. When
this type of functionality becomes standard, we will gain many more
contributors to Wikidata.. Then again the WMF outreach officer cannot stand
to be told how important usability is so it is unlikely to happen, him
being considered the/a guru of Wikidata..

While this selly thingie is an accomplished product and it is, there is
much more money to be made when you consider local fundraising. In the
Netherlands people tend to give automatically with typically larger amounts
of money. They tend to leave organisations like Wikimedia in their will and
for some really big charities this is as much as 40% of their income. I am
convinced that with one or two persona in the Netherlands raising funds for
the WMF we would more start to grow income exponentially at first. One
reason to do this is to make Wikimedia less reliant on USA money and
consequently make it culturally easy to do more elsewhere and take a non
USA point of view.

I do appreciate that it is almost impossible to write an acceptable annual
report for us, the contributors. What is possible is to write a composite
of different takes on Wikimedia projects and its place in the world. 
one award winning Wikimedian I would love to hear his opinion ..  Egon
Willighagen.  I would also love to hear an external view on
Wikisource for instance from the Internet Archive.. What I would seek in
this composite is the use of our projects, our efforts and what it
effectively means for them. I do not want us to dwell on what divides us, I
want us to concentrate at what it is we achieve, our purpose.
Thanks,
  GerardM

[1] https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2018/01/wikipedia-
fiduciary-responsibilities.html
[2] https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?q=Q47455696=ru

On 19 January 2018 at 01:35, Zachary McCune  wrote:

> Hello all-
>
>
> Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation received more than 6 million donations
> to support free knowledge. Today, we would like to share the Foundation’s
> 2016 - 2017 Annual Report which helps document how those donations were put
> to use. [1]
>
> This Report is meant mostly for donors, but it may be of use to any
> audience looking to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation, our
> activities, and our community support.
>
> In (very) brief, last year:
>
> * We worked on building safer communities with new tools like Abuse Filter
> and Mute to reduce harassment on Wikipedia.
>
> * We improved our services for mobile devices: making images smaller and
> articles load faster, streamlining our apps to assist users.
>
> * We partnered with international organizations to add missing languages
> and 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The 2016-2017 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report

[Lisa Gruwell]

Thanks for the question, James.  Performance benchmarking for the Wikimedia
Endowment is described in the Investment Policy, which can be found here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Endowment#Endowment_Investment_Policy

On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 1:00 AM, James Salsman  wrote:

> Thanks, Zack.
>
> Does anyone know what interest rates the $56 million short-term and $6
> million long-term investments earn?
>
> Are the CFO and the Endowment benchmarking their performance against
> commercial institutional endowment-grade mutual funds? I recently wrote the
> below to regulators; I hope it helps explain this question:
>
> --- excerpt ---
>
> ...Regarding the extent to which index funds may be siphoning wealth
> very sharply upward because of questionable inefficient practices in
> capital services, you know index funds comprise a huge portion of
> consumer savings and investment. I noticed that they have reliably
> been underperforming mutual funds such as institutional endowment
> funds which aren't required to rebalance, but follow the same general
> investment strategy
>
> https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rzeckhau/EndowmentsPaperPartII.pdf
>
> https://institutional.vanguard.com/iam/pdf/EndowmentPerformanceResearch.
> pdf
>
> https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/s342.pdf
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 12:35 AM, Zachary McCune 
> wrote:
>
> > Hello all-
> >
> >
> > Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation received more than 6 million
> donations
> > to support free knowledge. Today, we would like to share the Foundation’s
> > 2016 - 2017 Annual Report which helps document how those donations were
> put
> > to use. [1]
> >
> > This Report is meant mostly for donors, but it may be of use to any
> > audience looking to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation, our
> > activities, and our community support.
> >
> > In (very) brief, last year:
> >
> > * We worked on building safer communities with new tools like Abuse
> Filter
> > and Mute to reduce harassment on Wikipedia.
> >
> > * We improved our services for mobile devices: making images smaller and
> > articles load faster, streamlining our apps to assist users.
> >
> > * We partnered with international organizations to add missing languages
> > and knowledge to our sites.
> >
> > Over 2017, our grants team disbursed 392 grants totaling more than 7
> > million dollars. More than half of these grants went to emerging
> > communities. [2]
> >
> > We also began to plan the future of our movement, holding months of
> > discussions with thousands of volunteers. We were guided by a recurring
> > phrase that has become the theme of this year’s Annual Report: Knowledge
> > belongs to all of us.
> >
> > Everything listed and linked above is possible because of you, the
> > Wikimedia movement. Y’all are great.
> >
> > So please take a look at the 2016-2017 Wikimedia Foundation Annual
> Report,
> > and if you are moved- share it with a friend.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > - Zack McCune, Danny Kaufman, Lena Traer, Heather Walls, María Cruz, Ravi
> > Ayyakkannu, Caitlin Cogdill (the 2017 Annual Report team)
> >
> >
> >
> > [1] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2017/
> >
> > [2] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2017/community.html
> >
> > --
> > Zachary McCune
> > Global Audiences
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > zmcc...@wikimedia.org
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The 2016-2017 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report

[James Salsman]

Thanks, Zack.

Does anyone know what interest rates the $56 million short-term and $6
million long-term investments earn?

Are the CFO and the Endowment benchmarking their performance against
commercial institutional endowment-grade mutual funds? I recently wrote the
below to regulators; I hope it helps explain this question:

--- excerpt ---

...Regarding the extent to which index funds may be siphoning wealth
very sharply upward because of questionable inefficient practices in
capital services, you know index funds comprise a huge portion of
consumer savings and investment. I noticed that they have reliably
been underperforming mutual funds such as institutional endowment
funds which aren't required to rebalance, but follow the same general
investment strategy

https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rzeckhau/EndowmentsPaperPartII.pdf

https://institutional.vanguard.com/iam/pdf/EndowmentPerformanceResearch.pdf

https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/s342.pdf


On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 12:35 AM, Zachary McCune 
wrote:

> Hello all-
>
>
> Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation received more than 6 million donations
> to support free knowledge. Today, we would like to share the Foundation’s
> 2016 - 2017 Annual Report which helps document how those donations were put
> to use. [1]
>
> This Report is meant mostly for donors, but it may be of use to any
> audience looking to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation, our
> activities, and our community support.
>
> In (very) brief, last year:
>
> * We worked on building safer communities with new tools like Abuse Filter
> and Mute to reduce harassment on Wikipedia.
>
> * We improved our services for mobile devices: making images smaller and
> articles load faster, streamlining our apps to assist users.
>
> * We partnered with international organizations to add missing languages
> and knowledge to our sites.
>
> Over 2017, our grants team disbursed 392 grants totaling more than 7
> million dollars. More than half of these grants went to emerging
> communities. [2]
>
> We also began to plan the future of our movement, holding months of
> discussions with thousands of volunteers. We were guided by a recurring
> phrase that has become the theme of this year’s Annual Report: Knowledge
> belongs to all of us.
>
> Everything listed and linked above is possible because of you, the
> Wikimedia movement. Y’all are great.
>
> So please take a look at the 2016-2017 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report,
> and if you are moved- share it with a friend.
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> - Zack McCune, Danny Kaufman, Lena Traer, Heather Walls, María Cruz, Ravi
> Ayyakkannu, Caitlin Cogdill (the 2017 Annual Report team)
>
>
>
> [1] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2017/
>
> [2] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2017/community.html
>
> --
> Zachary McCune
> Global Audiences
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> zmcc...@wikimedia.org
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

[Wikimedia-l] The 2016-2017 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report

[Zachary McCune]

Hello all-


Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation received more than 6 million donations
to support free knowledge. Today, we would like to share the Foundation’s
2016 - 2017 Annual Report which helps document how those donations were put
to use. [1]

This Report is meant mostly for donors, but it may be of use to any
audience looking to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation, our
activities, and our community support.

In (very) brief, last year:

* We worked on building safer communities with new tools like Abuse Filter
and Mute to reduce harassment on Wikipedia.

* We improved our services for mobile devices: making images smaller and
articles load faster, streamlining our apps to assist users.

* We partnered with international organizations to add missing languages
and knowledge to our sites.

Over 2017, our grants team disbursed 392 grants totaling more than 7
million dollars. More than half of these grants went to emerging
communities. [2]

We also began to plan the future of our movement, holding months of
discussions with thousands of volunteers. We were guided by a recurring
phrase that has become the theme of this year’s Annual Report: Knowledge
belongs to all of us.

Everything listed and linked above is possible because of you, the
Wikimedia movement. Y’all are great.

So please take a look at the 2016-2017 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report,
and if you are moved- share it with a friend.



Thank you,

- Zack McCune, Danny Kaufman, Lena Traer, Heather Walls, María Cruz, Ravi
Ayyakkannu, Caitlin Cogdill (the 2017 Annual Report team)



[1] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2017/

[2] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2017/community.html

-- 
Zachary McCune
Global Audiences
Wikimedia Foundation

zmcc...@wikimedia.org
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,