Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes in Engineering leadership
On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 3:30 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote: Pinging Quim in case he can give us some demographics of Wikimedia's volunteer tech pool and whether he thinks it might be possible to find an engineering executive in that pool. I'm not sure which demographics we should look at. While we have data about technical contributions, they won't tell us much about the skills required to perform well in an engineering executive role. I think that if there would be a good candidate for a VP of Engineering in our community, they wouldn't have been unnoticed (but I might be wrong). If anything, we could improve our communication about open positions to reach likely targets in our community and our readership, but I have no idea how this could be done; it's not an easy task. Most importantly, I think the main point of this discussion is this answer in the FAQ: 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. Do you know a Wikimedia contributor that could become a good CTO? Is our future CTO editing articles, writing bots or reviewing code in Gerrit, unaware that this job hunt is happening? Ask them to apply! http://grnh.se/30f54b -- Quim Gil Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes in Engineering leadership
Anders, I don't think I'm underestimating the competence we have in this community. I'm wondering which demographics we should look at in order to detect potential candidates for engineering executives (replying to Pine's ping). I'm also suggesting that improving the communication of our open positions with our communities is probably the way to go because I think potential candidates do exist, although finding a good CTO is more complex than finding a good JavaScript developer (although, wait..) ;) Pine, for what is worth, in almost every Google Summer of Code / Outreachy round we have ended up recruiting a volunteer. Several WMF teams offer internships, some of them filled with Wikimedia volunteers. A percentage of new hires comes from our communities (I don't have data but I do read the announcements). I'm sure more can be done, and I'm sure implementable solutions are welcome. But back to this thread, one thing is to help volunteers to develop skills and experience to apply for junior positions, and another thing is to do... what? to ease the search of potential executives within our communities. I don't want to argue, I just want to know what can the Engineering Community team realistically do to connect better our technical volunteers with our technical job openings. I'm sure HR welcomes feedback about implementable improvements as well. They want to find best candidates anywhere, and they know that Wikimedia itself is a good pool. But we cannot hire the candidates that don't find us or that we cannot find... Which brings us back to the need to formulate practical solutions. On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 3:14 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote: Another thought: perhaps more investment could be made in providing career development support for our volunteers of all kinds. It's relatively common in the United States for organizations with lots of volunteers to put some investment explicitly into helping the volunteers develop skills snd experience that are useful for both their voluntary and paid work CVs. If more of that kind of investment was made by WMF, volunteering would be more attractive *and* WMF would benefit by having more ability to fill paid positions from the ranks of volunteers. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Quim Gil Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes in Engineering leadership
Another thought: perhaps more investment could be made in providing career development support for our volunteers of all kinds. It's relatively common in the United States for organizations with lots of volunteers to put some investment explicitly into helping the volunteers develop skills snd experience that are useful for both their voluntary and paid work CVs. If more of that kind of investment was made by WMF, volunteering would be more attractive *and* WMF would benefit by having more ability to fill paid positions from the ranks of volunteers. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiktionary language study
Online flashcards would be useful for demonstrating the idea to those not familiar with some aspect of them. Directing users to the sources of software for their platforms would be in the interests of both users (better individualization, no need for connectivity) and MW (less server load). The need is to overcome some of the barriers that the blog article identified to make the enterprise appear likely to succeed so that more folks can get involved and hep it succeed. Priorities for achieving early successes are important. 1. Simple flashcards do not require the development of inflection templates, though inflection templates would be important milestones. 2. Core vocabulary is basic and may help recruit folks with the skills required to achieve more advanced objectives. On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote: I agree: there are excellent free-software flashcard programs out there, and no need to duplicate that functionality. This does suggest that convenient export functions (e.g. by category, by language) in formats expected by Anki etc. could enable a lot more use of Wiktionaries as sources for vocabulary study. A. On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 5:56 PM, Dennis During dcdur...@gmail.com wrote: The flashcard function idea is not essential, given the availability of superior free, open-source, multi-platform flashcard programs like Anki. But it might be a good tool for engaging folks. There are Swadesh lists for many languages, which should be supplemented by more contemporary words and phrases. It seems interesting and possibly grant-worthy. But finding the talent to persevere is non-trivial. On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:50 PM, d...@bisharat.net wrote: Of possible interest - perspectives on use of en.woktionary fr.wiktionary for vocabulary learning/review, with focus on African languages: http://niamey.blogspot.com/2015/07/wiktionary-as-tool-for-african-language.html An idea buried in the text: Would it be possible to develop a kind of flashcard function based on random page by language where entry headwords for the chosen language would be generated without the definition(s)? Don Osborn Sent via BlackBerry by ATT ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Dennis C. During ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Dennis C. During ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes in Engineering leadership
Quim Gil skrev den 2015-07-03 14:27: I think that if there would be a good candidate for a VP of Engineering in our community, they wouldn't have been unnoticed (but I might be wrong). Please do not underestimate the competence existing in the community. For myself I have seven years of experience of being a successful manager of a department made up by of 130 sw designer producing sw design tools for 4000 sw engineers residing in 40 different local offices all over the world. Almost a blueprint of the CTO position at WMF But I am certainly not a candidate, and only mention this to counter your statement. And I do would like that WMF sometimes took a look outside the Bay area and into out global community, also for recruiting key personnel Anders ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Changes in Engineering leadership
Another thought: perhaps more investment could be made in providing career development support for our volunteers of all kinds. It's relatively common in the United States for organizations with lots of volunteers to put some investment explicitly into helping the volunteers develop skills snd experience that are useful for both their voluntary and paid work CVs. If more of that kind of investment was made by WMF, volunteering would be more attractive *and* WMF would benefit by having more ability to fill paid positions from the ranks of volunteers. Pine I'm curious, concretely speaking, what do you have in mind? FWIW, I'm very thankful to say that Wikimedia has given me many opportunities to develop skills etc. When I made my first edit I didn't know how to program, now that's what I do for living. Much of that is thanks to help and guidance of many Wikimedians. Obviously that's a different type of mentoring than you're suggesting, but nonetheless much of what I know can be directly attributed to mentoring by various people associated with the movement. -- bawolff ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes in Engineering leadership
Hi Quim, I was digressing a little from the original subject of this thread when I talked about WMF career development support for volunteers, but here are a few suggestions: 1. Prioritize work on the open badges system. 2. Make information about WMF contract positions more public. Currently, the system for hiring contractors seems to be opaque and largely at the discretion of the C staff. The discretion is fine, but some additional openness could be beneficial here, for recruiting purposes and for financial programmatic transparency. 3. Develop a central hub where WMF, Wikimedia affiliates, and mission-aligned organizations can post links to intern, contract, and staff openings. WMF could do this in partnership with an organization like Mozilla, the Free Software Foundation, Code for America, or the Ford Foundation. This hub might fit well with the WMF Partnership Department's mission, in addition to WMF HR's recruiting mission. 4. Support the Volunteer Supporters Network https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Supporters_Network initiative on Meta; encourage peer support and networking opportunities among Wikimedia volunteers. 5. Post monthly emails to appropriate Wikimedia mailing lists about intern, contract, and full-time openings at WMF and affiliates that may be of interest to members of those lists. 6. Develop an active mentorship program at WMF that encourages WMF employees to mentor high-potential volunteers in their career development, ideally leading to a role at WMF or a mission-aligned organization. The Individual Engagement Grants Program and GSOC already do some of this with their grantees and interns, and the concept could be expanded to other programs and departments. 7. Continue to expand the number of intern opportunities at WMF. WMF benefits from the inexpensive labor, and the interns benefit from the experience and the networking opportunities. Thoughts? We can take this discussion to Meta if it's getting to complicated and diverging too much from the original purpose of this thread. Thanks! Pine Pine On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 7:13 AM, Quim Gil q...@wikimedia.org wrote: Anders, I don't think I'm underestimating the competence we have in this community. I'm wondering which demographics we should look at in order to detect potential candidates for engineering executives (replying to Pine's ping). I'm also suggesting that improving the communication of our open positions with our communities is probably the way to go because I think potential candidates do exist, although finding a good CTO is more complex than finding a good JavaScript developer (although, wait..) ;) Pine, for what is worth, in almost every Google Summer of Code / Outreachy round we have ended up recruiting a volunteer. Several WMF teams offer internships, some of them filled with Wikimedia volunteers. A percentage of new hires comes from our communities (I don't have data but I do read the announcements). I'm sure more can be done, and I'm sure implementable solutions are welcome. But back to this thread, one thing is to help volunteers to develop skills and experience to apply for junior positions, and another thing is to do... what? to ease the search of potential executives within our communities. I don't want to argue, I just want to know what can the Engineering Community team realistically do to connect better our technical volunteers with our technical job openings. I'm sure HR welcomes feedback about implementable improvements as well. They want to find best candidates anywhere, and they know that Wikimedia itself is a good pool. But we cannot hire the candidates that don't find us or that we cannot find... Which brings us back to the need to formulate practical solutions. On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 3:14 PM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote: Another thought: perhaps more investment could be made in providing career development support for our volunteers of all kinds. It's relatively common in the United States for organizations with lots of volunteers to put some investment explicitly into helping the volunteers develop skills snd experience that are useful for both their voluntary and paid work CVs. If more of that kind of investment was made by WMF, volunteering would be more attractive *and* WMF would benefit by having more ability to fill paid positions from the ranks of volunteers. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Quim Gil Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annual Plan FY15-16
Hi Lila, Your email references the mission throughout, which is published as a mission statement[1] and has been stable in wording since 2007. Could you please use the wording from the mission statement, rather than paraphrasing as our mission of ubiquitous shared knowledge? I know this will be seen as a bit picky, but having worked in the area of developing and implementing organizational strategy, I am keenly aware that an accurate and precise adherence to a defined mission is key to avoiding later mission creep or propagating flaws in understanding; for example disseminate or global are entirely different from ubiquitous. The annual plan is carefully reviewed against the top level mission and I'm sure everyone wants it to accurately be measured for success in this way. Your comments on improving the volunteer consultation process were appreciated. I look forward to this being better next year and will try to take part in time. Links 1. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae On 2 July 2015 at 03:09, 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
