Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF core and non core expenses

2012-10-09 Thread James Alexander 
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 7:07 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:

> Does the merchandise store, which will cost USD 311000, have an ROI
> published somewhere?
>
> *Hey John,

I put a bit about the shop budget at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Shop after a request
from Nemo but I’m happy to try and gather more data or answer more
questions as they come up. Sorry again for the slow response on that thread
by the way, I was trying to get some questions answered on my side and it
got buried accidentally. The currently budgeted net ‘cost’ is actually
around 116k after you account for the budgeted income but obviously that
depends on how popular the store is and how much we are able to give away.
We’ve designed our business plan to ultimately focus on cost recovery with
some extra padding to give us resources to design new product etc. Some of
the costs in this budget are also about getting merchandise out to a wide
range of Wikimedia events.

The main focus of the shop isn’t as a revenue source as much as it’s about
trying to give away merchandise to the community and spreading brand
awareness. Members of both the editor and the reader community have asked
for some type of merchandise operation for a long time now and we wanted to
provide something that would provide that as affordably as possible (while
making sure we were keeping everything high quality).

The other goal of the shop is obviously to break even, including a hefty
amount of donated merchandise. We don’t expect that to happen instantly but
we’re going to be pushing the store more visibly to the public in the
coming weeks and months. It will take time, and we’ve got plans across a
number of different channels (not just WP itself) to increase visibility.

*
*We’ve already given thousands of dollars worth of shop merchandise away to
different groups but that has generally been for larger meetups,
conferences and events. This will continue but over the next week there are
two projects that are going to start rolling out, including an on-wiki
nomination process for individual community members to get awarded for
their service as well as a data driven experiential marketing campaign
(originally focusing on Social Media and tracked on meta). Keep an eye on
wikimedia-l for the individual nomination roll out and if you’re interested
in participating or keeping track of the marketing tests you can join the
Shop Team ( 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_merchandise/Shop_teamon
meta or directly to the google group at
https://groups.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/group/shopteam. We’ll also be
sending out the link to the meta tracking page as it gets fleshed out.*



-- 
James Alexander
Manager, Merchandise
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF core and non core expenses

2012-10-09 Thread John Vandenberg 
On Oct 10, 2012 6:38 AM, "Samuel Klein"  wrote:
>
> On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:07 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> > Does the merchandise store, which will cost USD 311000, have an ROI
> > published somewhere?
> >
> > I think some 'Research' is needed in WMF core, however any funds under
> > 'Research' should be granted to, and administrated by, an academic
> > institution. Preferably via a competitive program.
>
> Thanks John.  I'm not sure I agree, since without an internal research
> team it's hard for the WMF to interface with outside researchers.  But
> I find this sort of specific feedback on WMF expenses most welcome.

The interfacing is not a research activity. Communications team should have
some who can interface. Analytics/Corporate intel unit should have someone
who can interface. Research is research. WMF staff may be doing real
research, but they should be formally engaged on the research project as a
researcher. In Australia we call these people industry partner
investigators. Using research output is not research.

> Hopefully this can be refactored on the wiki as comments on the annual
> plan.

I feel it is too late to comment on the wiki about the annual plan. My
understanding of events is that the board approved the annual plan before
it was even available for public comment. Questions were asked on the wiki,
but answers were not provided promptly. E.g. Over one month for an answer
re the merchandise shop.

> Along the lines of Charles's comment, it is also helpful to get
> feedback on what seems 'high priority, extended core' and what seems
> 'non core' (though we don't have crisp definitions for that
> distinction yet, we should develop one).

Improving definitions for next time is all well and good. . . however,
there is a definition of core v non-core in the FAQ. Do you believe that
definition is appropriate for 2012-13? The minutes of the 7 May & 6 June
board meetings say FDC implications for the WMF annual plan were discussed,
but wmf board minutes tend to be scant on useful information that might
give the reader any idea about the opinion of the board. The only info in
these minutes is that it was discussed and there are no minutes from the 11
July board meeting yet. If I am reading the resolution approving the annual
plan correctly, it approves the annual plan and yet it also calls on the ED
to revise the annual plan and present it to the 26-27 board meeting. I am
confused by resolutions like that, esp when there are no minutes, detailed
or otherwise. :)

--
John V
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF core and non core expenses

2012-10-09 Thread Thomas Dalton 
On 10 October 2012 00:31, Samuel Klein  wrote:
> Agreed.  If we split movement-wide costs into "essential", "high
> priority", and "non-core", I think the FDC should grow to review most
> of the non-essential funds.  Which would include more than 10% of the
> WMF budget.

If you view it from a functional perspective, what "core" actually
means is "so much more important than anything any other eligible
entity does that there is no way the FDC could reasonably decide not
to fund it". Things like keeping wikipedia.org up and running clearly
fall into that category, as do a few other things, but there are
plenty of things the WMF is calling core that I don't think can
actually be described that way.

My preference would be to just send the whole lot through the FDC. If
it's so important, then why not trust the FDC to realise that? The
WMF's core budget should definitely be funded, but why should it be
the WMF that gets to decide what is core and what isn't? (The WMF has
a fair bit of revenue that doesn't come from the fundraiser, in the
same way most chapters do, so it would still be able to fund its basic
functions autonomously).

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF core and non core expenses

2012-10-09 Thread Samuel Klein 
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:07 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> Does the merchandise store, which will cost USD 311000, have an ROI
> published somewhere?
>
> I think some 'Research' is needed in WMF core, however any funds under
> 'Research' should be granted to, and administrated by, an academic
> institution. Preferably via a competitive program.

Thanks John.  I'm not sure I agree, since without an internal research
team it's hard for the WMF to interface with outside researchers.  But
I find this sort of specific feedback on WMF expenses most welcome.

Hopefully this can be refactored on the wiki as comments on the annual
plan.  Along the lines of Charles's comment, it is also helpful to get
feedback on what seems 'high priority, extended core' and what seems
'non core' (though we don't have crisp definitions for that
distinction yet, we should develop one).

Sam.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF core and non core expenses

2012-10-09 Thread Samuel Klein 
A quick reply:

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:38 AM, charles andrès
 wrote:
>
> If you consider the WMF financial reserves it's true, but for what I 
> understand, the FDC should decide about the distribution of the forthcoming 
> fundraising and so we can only guess that the movement has no fundings 
> problem. If this winter we cannot reach the total amount fixed, what will 
> happen?

A good question for us to answer before this becomes a problem.
Presumably it will at some point, as long as people are looking for
ways to 'do more with more resources'.  (There are other ways to grow
that involve doing more with a fixed pool of resources, or through
more partners, or... &c.  Some may even be more sustainable than our
current model.  But at present the whole movement has been expanding
in this way.)

> I personnaly agree that the "core" should be
more than only the basics, but there should be
> something between this extremitiy and the actual WMF FDC proposal where the 
> community can
> comment only 10% of the real WMF budget.

Agreed.  If we split movement-wide costs into "essential", "high
priority", and "non-core", I think the FDC should grow to review most
of the non-essential funds.  Which would include more than 10% of the
WMF budget.

This should improve over the first few years of the FDC's operation.
To be effective, these changes should be worked into the WMF's annual
plan in the spring (as the budget line-item for the next year's FDC)
and into the fundraising targets, as well as into individual plans
submitted to the FDC.

SJ

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF core and non core expenses

2012-10-09 Thread Federico Leva (Nemo) 
In short, don't worry about what's "core" or "non core", those are just 
words (like calling horses "fishes" and vice versa). The WMF runs the 
FDC process and of course decides also what are its boundaries.


Nemo

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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] The Signpost -- Volume 8, Issue 41 -- 08 October 2012

2012-10-09 Thread Wikipedia Signpost 
News and notes: Education Program faces community resistance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-10-08/News_and_notes

Discussion report: Closing RfAs: Stewards or Bureaucrats?; Redesign of 
Help:Contents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-10-08/Discussion_report

WikiProject report: Ten years and one million articles: WikiProject Biography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-10-08/WikiProject_report

Featured content: A dash of Arsenikk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-10-08/Featured_content

Technology report: The ups and downs of September and October, plus extension 
code review analysis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-10-08/Technology_report


Single page view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost/Single

PDF version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-10-08


http://identi.ca/wikisignpost / https://twitter.com/wikisignpost
--
Wikipedia Signpost Staff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost

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[Wikimedia-l] proposal for a wiki collaboration project ( wikiproblems)

2012-10-09 Thread mohammed salih 












Dear all  
 
wikilems is an abbreviation to ( wikiprolems ) , which is a Global , 
multilingual , updated , platform to share , update and solve problems . you 
can write in it about the proplems around you and publish it to the world , 
others wheatehrs they are indviuduals , NGOs or Corporations will heve access 
to your propblem and try to solve it .
I want from you to study and critisize the Idea , I have already listed it in 
board.
Regards
 
M.H.Saleh
 
Founder and Coordinator of Wikilems

 







  
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[Wikimedia-l] Wiki Loves Monuments 2011 officially broke world record!

2012-10-09 Thread Lodewijk 
Hi all,

We have seen it coming for a while, but now it is official: Wiki Loves
Monuments has been officially recognized by Guinness World Records as the
Worlds Largest Photography Competition! With 168,208 submissions we
squashed the previous record by roughly 50%. For 2012 we will likely squash
our own record, but it will need some time to become official.

Please find the blog post on the Wiki Loves Monuments blog here:
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/wiki-loves-monuments-2011-officially-broke-world-record/

Thank you all for making this possible! It was a great journey and I am
very glad that all your work gets some extra touch this way!

Best,

Lodewijk
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