Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community RfCs about MediaViewer

[Sue Gardner]

Hey guys,

I use MediaViewer, I like it, and I am happy to trust the WMF product team
to build stuff. I didn't know about the RFC, but even if I had I would've
been unlikely to have participated, because I don't think small opt-in
discussions are the best way to do product development -- certainly not at
the scale of Wikipedia.

I think we should aim on this list to be modest rather than overreaching in
terms of what we claim to know, and who we imply we're representing. It's
probably best to be clear --both in the mails we write and in our own heads
privately-- that what's happening here is a handful of people talking on a
mailing list. We can represent our own opinions, and like David Gerard we
can talk anecdotally about what our friends tell us. But I don't like it
when people here seem to claim to speak on behalf of editors, or users, or
readers, or the community. It strikes me as hubristic.

Thanks,
Sue
On 10 Jul 2014 16:13, "MZMcBride"  wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
> >In this case, we will keep the feature enabled by default (it's easy
> >to turn off, both for readers and editors), but we'll continue to
> >improve it based on community feedback (as has already happened in the
> >last few weeks).
>
> Thanks for the reply. :-)
>
> If your feature development model seemingly requires forcing features on
> users, it's probably safe to say that it's broken. If you're building cool
> new features, they will ideally be uncontroversial and users will actively
> want to enable them and eventually have them enabled by default. Many new
> features (e.g., the improved search backend) are deployed fairly regularly
> without fanfare or objection. But I see a common thread among unsuccessful
> deployments of features such as ArticleFeedbackv5, VisualEditor, and
> MediaViewer. Some of it is the people involved, of course, but the larger
> pattern is a fault in the process, I think. I wonder how we address this.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Slide deck about Wikimedia?

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Yves,

I've been meaning to reply as well but had forgotten. So you know: the
Wikimedia Foundation tries to publish all our public, general decks on the
WMF site, so that other people can use them or pieces of them, as they see
fit. Not everything is there, but there should be lots of material you may
find helpful.

I don't have a link (on my phone) but perhaps if Tilman or somebody else
who know where they're kept sees this note, they can send it to the list.
If not, I'll do it later.

Thanks,
Sue
On 28 May 2014 14:22, "Yves Z"  wrote:

> Thank you, Federico and Jean-Frédéric.  This is what I was looking for.
>
> > From: jeanfrederic.w...@gmail.com
> > Date: Mon, 26 May 2014 09:31:09 +0200
> > To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Slide deck about Wikimedia?
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > Hello, Where can I find recent presentations about Wikimedia and what
> each
> > > of the main projects is for?  I visited outreach.wikimedia.org but
> didn't
> > > see slides or overviews.  Thanks!
> > >
> >
> > You might want to check out <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Presentations>.
> >
> > It’s probably not super up-to-date, but many folks indicate a way to get
> > the source ODP file  (usually by contacting them, SlideShare link, etc).
> >
> > --
> > Jean-Frédéric
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff

[Sue Gardner]

I feel like I've given the WMF's position pretty clearly upthread, so I'll
try not to repeat myself. I believe that policies like the one described
here would do more harm than good, for reasons including those given by
others in this thread.

To the suggestion that the WMF ought to hold staff to a higher standard of
on-wiki conduct than is generally required by the community: I can see how
that might seem like a good idea, but I believe it would actually have the
overall negative effect of discouraging staff participation in the
projects. The solution would be worse than the problem.

The WMF contains a widely-varying level of on-wiki expertise. That's always
been the case, and I'm sure it always will be. It seems unrealistic to
expect new non-Wikipedian staff to walk in the door and immediately become
excellent Wikipedians, and it seems equally unrealistic to expect seasoned
Wikipedians on the staff to never make mistakes on-wiki. I want WMF staff
to feel encouraged to learn and explore and contribute on the projects,
just like everyone else. I don't expect them to get special leniency just
for being staff, but neither do I expect or want them to be held to an
unattainably high standard. I am also not interested in giving anybody a
special stick with which to beat them.

To repeat what I said before: internal WMF staff policies are developed and
set and enforced by the WMF, based on what we think is best and informed by
our experiences. The community makes rules governing community conduct, and
the WMF makes rules governing staff conduct. The WMF alone makes
determinations about what happens when or if WMF standards are violated.
It's pretty simple.

Thanks,
Sue
Sue,

Thank you for your response, it is appreciated.

Indeed we are all n00bs at some stage, and we all make COI mistakes, and I
can admit to making this mistake myself twice early on. But we all learn
pretty quickly that COI editing is frowned upon, and can cause problems
later on.

I would like to echo pretty much what Pete Forsyth has stated, and
wholeheartedly agree that the WMF should go above and beyond what we would
expect other organisations to adhere to on our projects. Whilst, Pete's
suggestions on possibly policies certainly do go above and beyond what is
expected in the community, they would be quite difficult to implement. So
how about a simple WMF policy that states something along the lines of:

"Employees and contractors of the Wikimedia Foundation shall not edit
articles relating to the Wikimedia Foundation, broadly construed, but at
rather directed to raise potential edits on the talk pages of affected
articles. This directive does not apply to the reverting vandalism,
removing copyright violations or potentially libellous materials."

Such a directive for WMF people would be easy to make, easy to implement,
easy to enforce, and would demonstrate that the Wikimedia Foundation itself
is at the forefront, and setting an example for other organisations and
leading by example.

Comments welcome Sue.

Cheers

Russavia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff

[Sue Gardner]

On 16 April 2014 14:03, Russavia  wrote:
>
>
> Could the WMF and the BoT perhaps clarify whether COI editing amongst
> WMF staff/contractors is officially discouraged/forbidden, and whether
> there is something official in writing which lays out guidelines for
> how and when WMF staff/contractors should be editing articles relating
> to their fellow WMF'ers.

Hi Russavia,

When WMF staff edit the projects, they (we) are subject to the same
policies and guidelines as everybody else. That means that if a staff
person breaks a rule on the projects, that person risks being warned
or reverted or sanctioned by the community, the same as everybody.

There are no special WMF policies related to this. It might seem that
perhaps there should be, but I have thought about it a lot and I
believe it'd be a bad idea. In part that's because the on-wiki
policies/practices/guidelines/conventions are numerous and
ever-evolving, and so copying or mirroring or summarizing them, and
keeping that updated, would be a lot of work for the WMF. But it's
mainly a roles-and-responsibilities issue. Editorial policies are
developed, and therefore also best-understood and best-enforced, not
by the WMF but by the community. Equally, the community plays no role
in the development or enforcement of WMF internal staff policies and
practices.

I'll also briefly say this: my own first edits, back in 2005 or 2006
before I joined the WMF, were anon edits to the article about the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where I then worked. Back then I
had no idea that was frowned upon, and when I found out years later I
was mortified. But: long-time editors told me it was okay, that what I
did was actually very typical for a new editor, and that many people
who started out making vandalism or COI edits went on to become highly
valued contributors. It's been obvious to me in the years since that
yeah, my story is in no way unusual -- in fact, my experience is that
whenever a handful of editors gather together socially, usually within
a hour or two they'll start swapping funny stories about their early
on-wiki rule-breaking. It's no big deal. Upshot: making mistakes as a
not-very-experienced editor needs to be understood to be a normal part
of the learning process, and IMO trying to name-and-shame people for
it is bad form. We were all new once :)

Thanks,
Sue

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[Wikimedia-l] Communications Patterns Around the World

[Sue Gardner]

I stumbled across this last night and laughed out loud for a very long
time. May be useful for the folks headed to Berlin, in particular :)

(Obligatory: go Canada!)

Thanks,
Sue

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/communication-charts-around-the-world-2014-3

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

[Sue Gardner]

On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller  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. Suffice to say here that we implemented the Belfer
Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the
WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us
not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it.

I want to apologize for it, particularly to Asaf Bartov, Siko
Bouterse, LiAnna Davis, Frank Schulenburg, Pete Forsyth, Lori Phillips
and Liam Wyatt, who tried to guide the project in the right direction
and whose voices didn't get heard. We did advise the Belfer Center and
the Wikipedian-in-Residence about conflict-of-interest policies on
enWP, and so far we haven't seen any evidence to suggest major
problems with Timothy's edits. That said, we didn't structure the
program in a way that would've appropriately mitigated the risk of
problematic edits, and we wish we had. We also wish we'd been better
able to support our partner organizations in understanding and
navigating community policies and best practices.

Thanks,
Sue

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[Wikimedia-l] WMF FDC Proposal: we invite your participation

[Sue Gardner]

Hey folks,

The purpose of this note is to remind you that the WMF will be
participating in the FDC Process Round 2, which begins tomorrow. I'd
like to invite you to comment on the plan-in-progress, which will be
at this URL within about 24 hours:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/Wikimedia_Foundation/Proposal_form

The WMF welcomes your thoughts on the draft plan. Of course you're
free to ask questions and make comments on whatever aspects of it
interest you, but we'd probably find high-level input the most useful.
Does it seem to you that the WMF's 2014-15 planning is generally on
the right track? Do you believe the four "crucial initiatives" as
described in the draft are where the WMF should be focusing its
energy? What do you think about our plans WRT the technical
infrastructure, our mobile work, editor engagement, and non-technical
movement support? Bearing in mind that we're an organization focused
fairly narrowly on product & engineering and on grantmaking, is there
anything really significant that you see as missing from the draft?
Are we missing any important risks to the organization or to the
movement overall?

Please don't reply here, because your input might get missed by the
people who should see it. Please reply on meta, at the link above.

And a few explanatory caveats:

First, it's important to know that the plan, at this point, is draft.
That's new. Last year the WMF submitted material after it had been
approved by the WMF Board and after the fiscal year had begun. That
was an okay first step to getting input from community members, but
obviously the input will have more impact if we get it before the
plan's locked down. That's why this year we're submitting a draft
version of the WMF plan, rather than a final version. We've
deliberately synched up the timing of the WMF planning and FDC review
processes such that the community/FDC input will come in during April
and early May, which is exactly when the plan is being actively
refined and revised on a near-daily basis by the team responsible for
it (primarily the C-level people, and also the people who work in
their departments).The benefit of this timing is that community/FDC
input can easily be incorporated into our thinking while we're
actively discussing and rethinking and revising internally at the WMF.
The drawback is it means you'll be reviewing material that is still a
work-in-progress, and so you may find mistakes. The plan may also be a
little confusing, which is partly because it's still in-progress, and
also partly because we are merging this year the original
WMF-Board-only format with the FDC proposal requirements. It'll be a
little clunky: we ask you to bear with us as we work out the kinks.

Second. You'll need to bear with us if we seem a little slow or
unresponsive during the discussions. It's a busy time for the WMF:
we're currently actively recruiting my successor as ED, which means
Erik, Geoff, Gayle and I are far busier than we normally would be.
And, the WMF will be working through roles-and-responsibilities for
the FDC process in real time during the discussion period, which means
questions may languish for a while before we figure out internally
who's supposed to answer them. It might also be worth me saying that
we won't have unlimited time for the process, and we're hoping it will
be broadly participatory rather than being dominated by a small number
of people. That means that if any particular person has lots of
questions and follow-ups, we may eventually be unable to keep
responding. If that happens to you, please don't be insulted -- it
won't be personal. Also, if questions are asked and you know the
answers (or can link to answers or more information) please feel free
to help each other as well: you don't need to wait for us.

Third. You should know -- the WMF is not asking the FDC to recommend a
dollar allocation for the WMF to the WMF Board for approval. Partly
that's because from a timing perspective there's no good way to make
it work. The WMF Board needs to approve the plan by 1 July 2014 when
the new fiscal year begins, and the FDC input is released 1 June. That
month-long window doesn't leave sufficient time for the WMF to
adequately incorporate a dollar amount recommendation from the FDC
into our cycle, particularly given that the window needs to also
include WMF Board approval. Ultimately, I think it's fine that the WMF
Board would approve a dollar amount from the WMF rather than the FDC:
I think the most important function the FDC can play here is to help
the WMF to evaluate and assess the strength of the plan overall. And
so, I've asked the FDC to i) provide input on the plan on the WMF's
proposal page during the community review period (the month of April),
ii) give the WMF formal feedback (reinforcement, support, suggestions,
concerns) on 8 May, and iii) if it chooses to, give a more full and
detailed assessment of the WMF plan as part of its overall package of

[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Katherine Maher joins the Wikimedia Foundation as Chief Communications Officer

[Sue Gardner]

Hey folks,

I'm pleased to announce we've hired a Chief Communications Officer for the
Wikimedia Foundation, replacing Jay Walsh who left us in October. Our new
head of communications will be Katherine Maher, and she will join us on 14
April, reporting to me.

Katherine comes to the WMF from Washington DC, where she was Advocacy
Director for the global digital rights organization Access. At Access, she
was responsible for all media and communications work, including
communications between the organization and its 350,000 members. She also
handled coalition work and advocacy efforts and urgent global threats to
digital rights, participated in the organization's strategic planning, and
was deeply involved with the production of RightsCon.

Before Access, Katherine worked on the launch of the Open Development
Technology Alliance at the World Bank, and was a program manager for
internet freedom projects at the National Democratic Institute. Earlier,
she worked on the UniWiki initiative for the UNICEF Innovation team,
intended to improve MediaWiki's usability for people who were new to
computer use, using early-model technology, or connecting in low-bandwidth
environments. Through her career she's been a frequent media spokesperson
and writer of op-eds and other media materials.

Katherine has lived and worked in nine countries and visited many more. She
is a native speaker of English, and has a basic knowledge of French, Arabic
and German.

The purpose of the CCO role is to ensure fast, easy information flow about
Wikimedia in multiple languages, both internally within the movement and
outside of it, and I think Katherine will be a wonderful fit for that work.
Her experiences advocating for the rights of ordinary internet users and
communicating with a large global volunteer community are both rare and
directly relevant. She's got a solid understanding of internet
technologies. She's a crisp, clear communicator, and an experienced
spokesperson.

I want to thank the people who helped with the interviewing process: Geoff
Brigham, Jove Oliver, Gayle Karen Young, David Gerard, Erik Moeller, Lisa
Gruwell, Frank Schulenburg, and Jimmy Wales. A special thanks to Geoff,
who's ably overseen our communications functions for the past several
years, and to Jay, who's generously filled in when it took us longer than
we expected to hire for this role. Geoff and Jay will be helping Katherine
get on-boarded, and I know she'll benefit enormously from their guidance
and support.

Please join me in welcoming Katherine, who's on CC.

Thanks,
Sue

--

Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] [press] Erik Zachte in Wired

[Sue Gardner]

Just wanted to share this article, because it makes me so happy!
Erik's one of our earliest contributors and *we've* all depended on
his work for years, but it's mostly invisible to the world beyond
Wikimedia. It makes me really happy to see him get some external
recognition :-)

Thanks,
Sue

-- Forwarded message --
From: "Jay Walsh" 
Date: 27 Dec 2013 12:20
Subject: [Wmfcc-l] [press] Erik Z in Wired
To: "Communications Committee" 
Cc:

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/

Meet the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia’s Massive Data Trove

BY ASHIK SIDDIQUE
12.27.13
9:30 AM

Erik Zachte. Photo: Lane Hartwell/Wikimedia Foundation

There are websites, and then there’s Wikipedia. The internet behemoth
boasts 30 million articles written in more than 285 languages, tweaked
by 70,000 active editors and viewed by 530 million visitors worldwide
each month. As mountains of information go, it’s Everest. Teasing out
trends from the open source encyclopedia’s archives is a task few
would even attempt. Yet Erik Zachte did just that.

Zachte used his statistical intuition to create “Wikistats,” an online
statistics package that’s more than a trove of charts and graphs for
data geeks. It’s the most direct measure yet of Wikipedia’s success in
achieving its central objective: making the sum of all human knowledge
available to everyone everywhere.

“When I discovered Wikipedia I felt thrilled from the outset,” says
Zachte, who was working as an IT guy at KLM Airlines in the early days
of the Wiki revolution. Not content simply to edit articles, he joined
the mailing lists in which a fervid network of volunteers debated how
to increase the site’s functionality. As Wikipedia exploded in
popularity, power users complained there was no consistent way to
measure its growth in article count from the beginning.

“In 2003 there was already an online page counter if I remember
correctly, but not much else,” says Zachte. He realized it was
possible to extract far more descriptive data from historical metadata
in Wikipedia’s massive database dumps, copies of all raw content that
available to anyone in XML format.

He started crunching numbers and quickly became famous among fellow
Wikiholics for developing Wikistats. The site’s monthly reports filled
a valuable niche for descriptive metrics in the Wiki community, with
measures like article count, number of editors, and edits per article
that serve as proxy indicators of Wiki quality. Impressed by Zachte’s
stat-fu, the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation that supports the
Wikipedia infrastructure made him its data analyst in 2008.

Since then, Zachte’s figures – all of which are open source and in the
public domain – have revealed ongoing challenges to the organization’s
growth, as well as noteworthy trends.

Wikistats data made it clear that a core of Wikipedians does an
outsize portion of the editing. As of October, 4.7 million people have
contributed to the English language Wikipedia, but just over 26,000
people have made more than 1,000 edits. In fact, that relatively small
group of people has made 73 percent of all edits. While a small core
of very active editors has remained stable, a larger pool of active
editors (those making at least five edits monthly) in all Wikipedia
language editions peaked at 90,000 in 2007 and has dropped since. As
of October, the count stands at 70,000.

That has some worried that a shrinking community indicates declining
quality and concerted efforts within the Wikimedia Foundation to boost
editor engagement, which the organization considers one of the
foremost indicators of Wikipedia’s success. In 2009, the organization
launched an ambitious five-year strategic plan to drastically increase
language and content diversity by encouraging internet users in the
“Global South” – particularly the developing regions of Africa, Asia,
the Middle East, and Latin America – to contribute. Wikistats metrics
gauge its progress each month.

“Many projects exist within WMF to influence editor influx and
retention,” says Zachte, “but in the end Wikistats gives the final
count: Are we on the right track?”

The numbers show reason for measured optimism. While the largest and
most densely populated language editions like English, German, French,
and Japanese, have seen the number of active editors level off or even
decline since about 2007, newer editor networks in highly populous
languages like Chinese, Arabic, and Persian continue to grow. In
addition, the global share of page edits is slowly shifting to
populous countries in the southern hemisphere, some of which, like
India and the Philippines, use and edit Wikipedia overwhelmingly in
English.

Zachte’s reports also reveal idiosyncratic patterns of activity in
different languages.

For example, some volunteer coders program bots to create article
stubs in massive bursts, hoping other users will expand the articles
over time. While bots can supplement the work of active edi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Overloaded with CentralNotices (Tilman Bayer)

[Sue Gardner]

Just quickly while I walk down the street: I don't think the goal is
necessarily to get input from chapters members -- as you say, the best
avenue for those people to give input on chapter plans is probably simply
to be involved in the chapter's internal planning processes.

I think the purpose of the notices is probably equally/more to encourage
non-chapters members to express their views, if they have them. The
majority of Wikimedia participants (editors, admins, vandal fighters,
whatever) are not chapters members, and many, perhaps even most, don't live
in a geography where it's possible for them to join a chapter even if they
wanted to. As we've said before, the money given to support the Wikimedia
movement is the result of all volunteers' contributions, and so it makes
sense for everyone to be invited to give input on how it's spent. And, the
FDC has noted that it would like more involvement from all participants in
the movement in expressing their views on that.

In saying this, I don't mean to express a position on the notices themself.
They may indeed not be the best way to encourage input. And I totally
sympathize with editors who may not want to spend their spare time wading
through budgets etc. -- it's totally reasonable that they might not find it
fun :-) All I'm saying here is that efforts to encourage everyone to
express whatever their views are, to the extent they have them, are
consistent with the FDC's desire to hear from a wide range of people, which
I think is appropriate and good.

Thanks,
Sue
On Oct 30, 2013 2:37 AM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)"  wrote:

> Jane Darnell, 30/10/2013 09:30:
>
>> I second your skepticism. Especially since most Dutch Wikipedians have no
>> idea what WMNL is, according to a survey.
>>
>
> Good point. Maybe all those who care about a chapter and its spending are
> already members of the chapter so that they can participate in the assembly
> which decide on it (and related online discussions)? :)
>
> If we want greater community review of their spending, perhaps it would
> make sense to run campaigns for community members to join the chapter.
> Maybe other people have different experiences, but the associations I know
> of usually try to convince you to join the association ("it's cool for X!
> you are important for Y!") and then they try to gradually involve you more;
> I've never seen an association on a street distributing dozens-pages books
> "hey! do you want to review our budget? it's great fun! we value your
> input".
>
> Nemo
>
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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

As you know, in July 2012 the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees asked
me to set up the Funds Dissemination Committee, a volunteer-driven advisory
committee created to make recommendations to the Board allocating funds for
chapters and other Wikimedia movement entities. I did that, and the FDC has
now been fully operational for a little more than a year.

As part of the FDC framework, I committed that after the FDC’s first year
of operation I would create a report for the Board that documented the
state of the FDC at that moment in time, and told the Board about any
revisions we had made to the process as a result of stakeholder input
during its first year.

The purpose of this note is to tell you that report is now posted. It’s
here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Annual_report_on_the_Funds_Dissemination_Committee_process_2012-2013

If you’ve got comments on the report I’d suggest that rather than replying
to this list, you leave them on the talk page. And, my thanks to everyone
who contributed to the FDC's first year of operations, and also to the
report :-)

Thanks,
Sue
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mobile image upload

[Sue Gardner]

Wow, that *is* great. Thank you for showing us, James :-)
On Aug 25, 2013 5:14 AM, "James Heilman"  wrote:

> Mobile image upload is a huge plus thus thanks to all who made it
> happen. It is allowing those who might not otherwise have be able to
> get involved to do so. Just saw this image come in through the mobile
> site
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dirty_white_pseudomembrane_classically_seen_in_diptheria_2013-07-06_11-07.jpg
>
> I have never seen diphtheria as it is exceedingly rare in my area of
> the world. And technically this image is very hard to take. Look
> forwards to mobile editing arriving.
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[Sue Gardner]

A supportive anecdote for you, Matt:

Back in 2008, I got toured through the fundraising operation of one of the
major American public broadcasters. It had a large fundraising team that
included a group dedicated solely to tracking and shipping premiums. Its
boss advised us to avoid going down the premiums road: he said once you
start it's very difficult to stop, because donors grow to expect them. I
remember being reminded of a study, I think by Dan Ariely, in which he
found that if you offer people small material incentives for doing
something, they begin to see the transaction in self-interested terms, and
the incentive can end up being viewed as too small -- insulting, and not
good value. Essentially IIRC small material incentives can have the effect
of shifting people from an intrinsically-motivated mindset (donor) into a
transactional mindset (economically-self-interested rational actor).

So, I agree with you that before we instituted premiums, we'd want to think
long and hard about what benefits they would bring, and what unintended
consequences might result.

Thanks,
Sue
On Aug 15, 2013 4:20 AM, "Matthew Walker"  wrote:

> >>Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in the
> >>team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must* pay
> >>to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.
>
> >This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these
> >documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to
> >start a page. :-)
>
> In the past days there's been discussion internal to the fundraising team
> -- it appears that the 'fundraising principles' I thought we held are not
> uniformly held by others. In this particular instance it seems that gift
> premiums are not entirely off the table. I've been told that the reason we
> have not done them in the past is mostly due to technical limitations. The
> current view is that we should keep our options open to future
> experimentation if the situation allows.
>
> 
> At this I'll take off my foundation hat and state that I remain firmly
> opposed to gift premiums being used as a donation incitement. I hope that
> if we do, at some point, press forward and experiment with premiums that,
> before this happens, ...
> - We show reasonable evidence that the gain in monetary income will fully
> offset the new cost in managing gifts.
> - We either have some method to ship worldwide without subsidy; or we
> communicate beforehand that we will not be able to do this in some regions
> *and* that we understand and have a plan for the fallout that will probably
> cause.
> - We have premiums that actually mean something to the movement; e.g. you
> do not donate $100 and get a t-shirt.
> - We show reasonable evidence that if the experiment doesn't work that we
> will not have hurt our future donation prospects. (E.g. will people always
> expect premiums if we offer them once?)
> - That we have a solid communications plan in place to immediately offset
> any possible suggestion that you are 'buying' a piece of the foundation
> with your donation.
>
> Just my two cents.
> 
>
> ~Matt Walker
> Wikimedia Foundation
> Fundraising Technology Team
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 11:50 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:
>
> > Matthew Walker wrote:
> > >Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in
> the
> > >team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must*
> pay
> > >to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.
> >
> > Hi Matt.
> >
> > This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these
> > documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to
> > start a page. :-)
> >
> > MZMcBride
> >
> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Changes at the Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising Team

[Sue Gardner]

On 29 July 2013 17:41, Erik Moeller  wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 3:40 PM, Sue Gardner  wrote:
>
> etc. He's also been one of the strongest proponents of making
> decisions informed by data. We still rely on the bursts of insights
> generated in the Summer of Research, and Zack has helped kickstart
> many important habits in our work.

I know! In my first drafts of the announcement, I wrote quite a lot
about the Summer of Research and all the insight & intelligence Zack
brought to understanding the Wikimedia community and its internal
workings, as well as the specifics of the editor retention problem. I
took it all out because the note got too long, and was really supposed
to focus on the Fundraising department as well as just Zack. Thank you
for bringing it back up :-)

Sue

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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Changes at the Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising Team

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

I’m sorry to tell you that Zack Exley has decided he wants to leave
the Wikimedia Foundation, although I am glad to say he’s planning to
continue contributing his prodigious creative and analytic talents to
our fundraising. As of August 30, Zack will no longer be Chief Revenue
Officer, but will instead be a part-time consultant and advisor to the
WMF fundraising team, in addition to other consulting work he’s
planning to take on.

We all owe Zack enormous thanks and praise.

The year before Zack joined us, the WMF raised USD 16 million in
donations, and three years later that has more than tripled to USD 56
million -- and we are doing it in a way that’s 100% consistent with
our mission, vision and values. The many-small-donors model preserves
the Wikimedia movement’s independence by preventing over-reliance on a
small number of people, it enables the WMF to focus on readers and
editors without having their needs drowned out by other stakeholders,
and it makes us the largest amount of money at the smallest-possible
cost. Zack has earned his place in the histories of Wikimedia yet to
be written: for the past three years, he has been the single person
most responsible for funding the growth of resources for the global
movement.

Zack is leaving the WMF fundraising team in terrific shape, and I’m
very happy to announce I’ll be promoting into the position of Chief
Revenue Officer the deputy head of the department, Lisa Seitz Gruwell.

Since Lisa joined in 2011, both Zack and I have come to heavily rely
on her leadership, managerial and strategic abilities. Lisa has been
responsible for foundations and major donors as well as being Zack’s
deputy, and over the past two years she and her team have
significantly grown revenues without increasing the costs to the
organization. This is a big deal: most non-profits need their
non-fundraising staff to participate in fundraising efforts, and it’s
to Lisa’s credit that her team has figured out how to raise money
without that. Lisa is widely respected and trusted. I look forward to
her leadership and am confident she will continue Fundraising’s track
record of success.

We are also promoting Megan Hernandez, who has been the
behind-the-scenes creative talent of our last two online campaigns.
She will become Director of Online Fundraising, leading all our online
work. And we are promoting Sara Lasner to the role of Development
Director, where she will lead the foundations and major gifts team
that has been Lisa’s responsibility. Congratulations to Megan and
Sara.

Our fundraising strategy will not change. We will continue to focus on
the many-small-donors model, supplemented by unrestricted grants and
major gifts. Everything takes effect immediately, except Zack’s
official departure which will be August 30. He won't be at Wikimania,
but people in the San Francisco Bay Area will get a chance to see him
when he comes to town in early September. And of course we'll continue
to see him afterwards, in his new relationship with us.

I’m very confident in the trio of Lisa, Megan and Sara to lead
fundraising for the movement, and I’m delighted Zack will continue to
lend his guidance and creativity to our campaigns. Please join me in
thanking Zack for everything he has done for the Wikimedia movement
and for his continued involvement. And congratulations to Lisa, Megan,
and Sara on their well-deserved promotions.

Thanks,
Sue

--
Executive Director,
Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Invitation to WMF May 2013 Metrics and Activities Meeting: Thursday, June 6, 18:00 UTC

[Sue Gardner]

(Yes. Except the fire alarm is going off in the office now, so the
meeting may be delayed. If outside-SF people show up and we're not
here, that's why.)

--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

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/


On 6 June 2013 10:30, Praveena Maharaj  wrote:
> REMINDER: This meeting starts in 30 minutes.
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 3:43 PM, Praveena Maharaj 
> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> The next WMF metrics and activities will take place on Thursday, June 6, 
>> 2013 at 6:00 PM UTC (11 AM PDT). The IRC channel is #wikimedia-office on 
>> irc.freenode.net and the meeting will be broadcast as a live YouTube stream.
>>
>> The current structure of the meeting is:
>> * Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also 
>> specialized reports and analytics* Review of financials* Welcoming recent 
>> hires* Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on highest 
>> priority initiatives* Update and Q&A with the Executive Director, if 
>> available
>> Please review 
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further 
>> information about how to participate.
>>
>> We'll post the video recording publicly after the meeting.
>>
>> Thank you, Praveena
>>
>>
>> --
>> Praveena Maharaj
>> Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering and Product Development
>> +1 (415) 839 6885 ext. 6689
>> www.wikimedia.org
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Minutes from the April 18-19, 2013 Board Meeting

[Sue Gardner]

On 1 June 2013 13:20, Frédéric Schütz  wrote:
> I also see under "Fundraising Agreements" that "Sue updated the Board on the
> chapter fundraising agreements for 2013-14".
>
> Is it possible to know more about this ? As a board member in a fundraising
> chapter, I don't remember hearing anything about the 2013-14 fundraising
> agreements so far, so I'm obviously curious about the updates...

It was just a status report, Frédéric, a brief verbal update. What I
said about WMCH was something to the effect of "WMCH is in compliance
with our agreements, and their participation in the 2012-13 campaign
went fine. At this point, we expect them to payment-process again in
2013-14." Something to that effect.

If we'd had a more extensive discussion about WMCH, as a WMCH Board
member you would know it already :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New designs for account creation and login rolling out gradually to all projects

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Steven,

Just wanted to tell you (because I haven't run into you to say it, and
because people here may be interested) that last Saturday I helped some new
people at the San Francisco editathon register on the enWP, and the new
registration process was much easier for them than it was the last time I
helped people register, pre-this system. And, the Getting Started stuff is
great: the people I helped all immediately went to the typo-fixing queue,
and seemed to find it reasonably understandable and easy to use. I know you
know this from the testing data: now you know it from anecdata too :-)

Thanks,
Sue
On May 28, 2013 8:05 PM, "Steven Walling"  wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Per our blog post last month,[1] we've been testing redesigns for account
> creation and login across the projects. We've been doing so on an opt-in
> basis, but we've dealt with any major bugs and translations are complete
> for quite a few languages.
>
> Starting tomorrow and barring any last minute hiccups, we're going to start
> rolling out the new designs. Right now we're limiting it to about 30
> projects, including the following...
>
>- Wikipedia in 21 languages, including English, German, French, Italian,
>Polish, Dutch, Chinese, Hebrew, Arabic, Korean, Czech, Swedish, and
> others.
>- In English: Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wiktionary,
>and Wikiquote.
>- Wikimedia Commons
>- Wikidata
>- Meta
>- MediaWiki .org
>
> There are still local customizations that will need to be made in many of
> these, but they are the kind of thing that doesn't require a developer to
> do, just edits to the wiki. Look for announcements soon on your local
> Village Pump equivalent for more info, or check out our
> testing documentation.[2] I'll be around to help any of these wikis that
> don't have an admin handy to make requested changes.
>
> The remaining projects we have held off on because there are localizations
> still to be completed (on translatewiki) or there are problems with
> localizations already finished. Since the work of localizations is never
> 100% complete however, we are putting out a hard *deadline of June 5th*,
> after which we'll be turning on the forms for all projects, in all
> languages.  If you're interested in learning more about which wikis in
> particular need help, please email me off-list or get in touch via my user
> talk page anywhere.
>
> Please speak up if you have any questions. You can still try these new
> forms on any Wikimedia project via the method mentioned in the two links
> below...
>
> 1. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/04/25/try-new-login-accountcreation/
> 2. mediawiki.org/wiki/Account_creation_user_experience/Testing
>
> --
> Steven Walling
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/
>
> P.S. Sorry if there are odd linebreaks in this message. Has anyone figured
> out how to avoid this in Gmail?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Patience

[Sue Gardner]

On 15 May 2013 00:31, Chris Keating  wrote:
> Thank you Michael for the thoughtful post!

Yeah, agreed. I always look forward to reading anything Michael's
written. He doesn't write frequently, but when he does it is always
good.

> Email, usenet, PhPBB, wikis and the like means there is a technological
> method of ensuring that responses can be written and shared instantly (and
> angrily) and, indeed, in heated threads you can quite happily exchange
> messages which provoke an emotional response quickly enough that your
> flight-or-fight reflex is being triggered repeatedly over a period of hours
> with every ping of your inbox.

Yeah, this is true. I used to deliberately build into my day walks, so
I'd have time to reflect on things before responding. But of course
that strategy broke when I got my first mail-enabled phone :-/

I do deliberately wait an hour or two, often, before replying to mail
on our lists because it's so easy to get triggered and reply in a way
that makes things worse not better. Sometimes I'll write a draft
response, reread it the next day and be kind of horrified by how badly
my reply misunderstands the original mail. (Like, I will feel attacked
where there really was no attack. I'll interpret something in the
worst possible way rather than the most reasonable way.) It's the
[[Michael Shermer]] thing: if we ignore the rustling in the grass and
it's the wind, no harm done. But if we ignore it and it's a tiger,
we're dead. So rationally, we behave as though everything is a tiger,
without necessarily realizing that reflexively doing that has a pretty
high price-tag.

Anyway, yes. Patience, maturity, self-control and generosity for the win :-)
Sue

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)

[Sue Gardner]

Gayle is travelling today and not online, so I'll take a crack at
responding to this.

The editors are responsible for the projects: the Wikimedia Foundation
knows that, acknowledges it, and is deeply appreciative (as are all
readers) for the work that volunteers do in the projects. The Wikimedia
Foundation is responsible for the Wikimedia Foundation wiki (and the blog).
We are grateful to get community help there, and a small number of
community members do really good work with us on both the WMF wiki and the
blog. But ultimately that wiki, and the blog, are our responsibility, and
we are accountable for making sure that e.g. the staff page, the Board
bios, the resolution texts, etc., are maintained and in good shape. Most
material on the WMF is not created via collaborative production processes
-- it's "corporate" in nature, meaning that it is developed by the
Wikimedia Foundation, for an audience of Wikimedia Foundation stakeholders,
which includes community members and prospective community members, donors,
readers of the projects, media, and others.

My understanding is that administrator rights have been removed from a
small number of volunteers, but that those people still have basic editing
rights. My understanding is that the Wikimedia Foundation staff who work on
the Foundation wiki have been grateful (and are grateful) for the help
they've gotten from community members in maintaining the Foundation wiki,
and that we hope they'll continue to help us. They've been great, and we're
grateful.

But, my understanding is also that occasionally volunteers have overridden
decisions made by staff on the Wikimedia Foundation wiki. I don't think
that's ever been a huge problem: I don't think we've ever had a situation
in which extensive discussion hasn't reached an okay conclusion. But, the
extensive discussions --which, I understand, have typically been
one-on-one, by which I mean, not a large number of community members or a
community consensus against something the Foundation has wanted to do, but
rather one volunteer disagreeing with something staff have been asked to do
as part of their job --- occasionally, those discussions have been
extremely time-consuming. That's not good. The staff working on the
Wikimedia Foundation wiki have jobs they've got to get done, in support of
the entire movement. If they spend days or weeks needing to persuade a
single community member of the merits of something they want to do on the
Foundation wiki, or if they need to modify their plans extensively to
accommodate the opinions of a single community member, that reduces the
amount of time available for them to do the rest of their work. Which, I
repeat, is in the service of the movement overall.

So I would say this:

This decision is not about "the community" versus "the WMF." This decision
is about the WMF staff, and making it possible for them to do their work on
the WMF wiki with some reasonable degree of efficiency and effectiveness.
This decision clarifies roles-and-responsibilities. On the projects, the
volunteers are the editorial leads, and the WMF plays a supporting role by
creating functionality, maintaining the servers, paying the bandwidth
bills, and so forth. On the WMF wiki, the WMF is the editorial lead, and
volunteers can (and do) play a supporting role helping staff organize
pages, maintain pages, and so forth. That's a reasonable division, and I
think having clarity around it is a good thing.

Slightly more broadly: when the Wikimedia movement was very young,
everybody did everything and there wasn't much division of
roles-and-responsibilities. I remember when the Wikimedia Foundation
budgets were prepared by volunteers, when the trademarks were managed by
volunteers, and so forth. That was appropriate for the time, and even
though it was messy, it was kind of great. Then we all went through a
period in which roles-and-responsibilities were utterly unclear -- it
wasn't at all obvious who should do what, and many
roles-and-responsibilities were hotly disputed. Personally, I feel like
we're moving into a period now in which things are getting clearer. We
don't pay staff to edit the projects: staff who edit do it on their own
time, as a hobby or special personal interest. We do pay staff to do things
that are better done by staff than by volunteers, such as managing the
trademark portfolio. Some volunteers (such as Domas) have very special
privileges and powers, because they've proved over time they are
exceptionally skilled. Some volunteers support the Wikimedia Foundation
staff in their work in a variety of ways, because they've proved their
interest and abilities. Some work happens in close partnership between
staff and volunteers, such as production of blog posts, speaking with the
media, and in projects such as the Global Ed one. Sometimes organized
groups of volunteers are created by volunteers and supported by staff (e.g.
ArbCom or AffCom) and sometimes organized groups of volunteers are created

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board & FDC elections?

[Sue Gardner]

Interesting thread, Itzik --- to be honest, I had forgotten that staff had
been granted the right to vote regardless of edit count. I wouldn't be
surprised if the only staff members who do vote are those who would qualify
under the edit count requirement anyway.

Seems to me that rather than creating new exemptions from the edit count
requirement, we might be better off to lower the number of edits required
so that anybody who's demonstrated interest in the projects would qualify.
If edits on meta, mediawiki, outreach, etc., qualify, and we were to lower
the edit count requirement, then I think that would be inclusive of
most/all contributors. Would something like that make sense?

Thanks,
Sue
On Apr 28, 2013 1:26 PM, "Andrew Gray"  wrote:

> On 28 April 2013 06:15, rupert THURNER  wrote:
> > also agree to simplify the rules. what i'd really love would be to
> > better standardize and with it simplify "volunteer community", for all
> > elections and votes. and at least my wish would be that people who
> > donate their time by sending code patches to software considered
> > essential to run the site are included.
>
> The first elections (in 2004) had a simple "three months in the
> community" rule. After that, we added edit count restrictions. The
> first election with any "complicated" rules - allowing people in
> without passing the edit count limits - was 2008, when WMF staff,
> ex-Board members, *and* "Wikimedia server administrators with shell
> access" were added. In 2011, this got extended to people who "have
> commit access and have made at least one commit between 15 May 2010
> and 15 May 2011."
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/en
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/en
>
> So we've already got those in :-)
>
> I'm ambivalent about whether it's appropriate to have staff members
> (those who don't independently qualify as "community members") voting
> or not, but I think in principle Itzik has a very good point - either
> *both* WMF and Chapter staff should be able to vote, or *neither*
> should. I can't see any reason that it's right for a staffer in San
> Francisco to participate in the election, but it isn't right for one
> in Berlin!
>
> (It may be too late to change anything for this time around, of
> course, but it would be great if we could ensure consistency in future
> elections)
>
> - Andrew.
>
>
> > On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 11:49 PM, Asaf Bartov 
> wrote:
> >> Also agree with Nathan.  Those chapter board members who are not active
> on
> >> the projects already have a far greater relative weight in selecting the
> >> chapter-selected board seats.
> >>
> >>A.
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 1:10 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
> nemow...@gmail.com>wrote:
> >>
> >>> Nathan, 27/04/2013 21:34:
> >>>
> >>>  I would go the other way, and limit the participants in the election
>  for the community seat to people who are members of the volunteer
>  community. Presumably that would include most members of most
>  organizational boards, but only include those staff and other paid
>  workers who also participate as volunteers.
> 
> >>>
> >>> I agree with Nathan, simplifying the rules is useful while complicating
> >>> them for a few dozens voters is not.
> >>>
> >>> Nemo
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> __**_
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Asaf Bartov
> >> Wikimedia Foundation 
> >>
> >> 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
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>
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> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposal to use the internal wiki more

[Sue Gardner]

On 3 April 2013 03:34, Michael Peel  wrote:
> So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical 
> redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the 
> WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?

I'd argue against this. From the perspective of the Wikimedia
Foundation, I would rather staff bias towards putting information on
public wikis wherever possible, and I'd worry that staff energy going
into updating a closed private wiki would by necessity pull focus from
public work. I'd argue for closing both the internal wiki and the
internal mailing list: IMO there's nothing on either that needs to be
confidential.

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Nemo,

No, nothing is on hold. The Board and I were really explicit about this
when we talked together about the transition: we're going to continue with
everything as-is -- nothing will go on hold purely due to the transition.

That doesn't mean I won't change plans or make adjustments on a
case-by-case basis because I think the circumstances warrant it: I might.
But the default assumption should be that everything continues as planned,
unless I make a specific decision otherwise.

Thanks,
Sue

Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

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/


On 2 April 2013 01:50, Federico Leva (Nemo)  wrote:

> Erik Moeller, 06/11/2012 04:03:
>
>> FYI
>>
>
> Is it safe to assume that, until <https://meta.wikimedia.org/**
> wiki/ED_Transition_Team<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ED_Transition_Team>>
> ends, all this is on hold?
>
> Nemo
>
>
>
>>
>> -- Forwarded message --
>> From: Erik Moeller 
>> Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM
>> Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
>> To: Staff All 
>>
>>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking &
>> talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people
>> about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product
>> department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take
>> seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view
>> that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept
>> and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
>>
>> To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I
>> want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below
>> is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan,
>> I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to
>> anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting
>> tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can
>> also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
>>
>> There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to
>> wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in
>> this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
>>
>> Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering
>> and product departments:
>>
>> - It’ll give product development and the user experience more
>> visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more
>> conversations at that level about the work that most of the
>> organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is
>> represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
>> - me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
>> whack.
>>
>> - It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
>> as appropriate without making my head explode.
>>
>> - I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
>> recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an
>> engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in
>> managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform
>> issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that
>> are less visible than our feature priorities.
>>
>> A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams --
>> we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.),
>> and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly
>> autonomously.
>>
>> It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two
>> functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications
>> breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would
>> outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the
>> negatives.
>>
>> The way we’d get there:
>>
>> I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities
>> and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as
>> a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start
>> that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue
>> that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of
>> Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in
>> place today.
>>
&

[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcement *please read*

[Sue Gardner]

Hello Wikimedia community members,

This is not an easy e-mail to write, and it’s been a very hard
decision to make. But I’m writing to tell you that I’m planning to
leave my position as the Executive Director of the Wikimedia
Foundation.

My departure isn’t imminent -- the Board and I anticipate it’ll take
at least six months to recruit my successor, and I’ll be fully engaged
as Executive Director all through the recruitment process and until we
have a new person in place. We’re expecting that’ll take about six
months or so, and so this note is not goodbye -- not yet.

Making the decision to leave hasn’t been easy, but it comes down to two things.

First, the movement and the Wikimedia Foundation are in a strong place
now. When I joined, the Foundation was tiny and not yet able to
reliably support the projects. Today it's healthy, thriving, and a
competent partner to the global network of Wikimedia volunteers. If
that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t feel okay to leave. In that sense, my
leaving is a vote of confidence in our Board and executive team and
staff --- I know they will ably steer the Foundation through the years
ahead, and I’m confident the Board will appoint a strong successor to
me.

And I feel that although we’re in good shape, with a promising future,
the same isn’t true for the internet itself. (This is thing number
two.) Increasingly, I’m finding myself uncomfortable about how the
internet’s developing, who’s influencing its development, and who is
not. Last year we at Wikimedia raised an alarm about SOPA/PIPA, and
now CISPA is back. Wikipedia has experienced censorship at the hands
of industry groups and governments, and we’re --increasingly, I
think-- seeing important decisions made by unaccountable
non-transparent corporate players, a shift from the open web to mobile
walled gardens, and a shift from the production-based internet to one
that’s consumption-based. There are many organizations and individuals
advocating for the public interest online -- what’s good for ordinary
people -- but other interests are more numerous and powerful than they
are. I want that to change. And that’s what I want to do next.

I’ve always aimed to make the biggest contribution I can to the
general public good. Today, this is pulling me towards a new and
different role, one very much aligned with Wikimedia values and
informed by my experiences here, and with the purpose of amplifying
the voices of people advocating for the free and open internet. I
don’t know exactly what this will look like -- I might write a book,
or start a non-profit, or work in partnership with something that
already exists. Either way, I feel strongly that this is what I need
to do.

I feel an increasing sense of urgency around this. That said, I also
feel a strong sense of responsibility (and love!) for the Wikimedia
movement, and so I’ve agreed with the Board that I’ll stay on as
Executive Director until we have my successor in place. That’ll take
some time -- likely, at least six months.

Until then, nothing changes. The Wikimedia Foundation has lots of work
to do, and you can expect me to focus fully on it until we have a new
Executive Director in place.

I have many people to thank, but I’m not going to do it now --
there’ll be time for that later. For now, I’ll just say I love working
with you all, I’m proud of everything the Wikimedia movement is
accomplishing, and I’m looking forward to our next six months
together.

Jan-Bart’s going to write a note in a couple of minutes with
information about the transition process. We’ll be hosting office
hours this weekend as well, so anybody with questions can ask them
here or turn up to talk with us on IRC.

Thanks,
Sue



--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

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/

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[Wikimedia-l] Announcement *please read*

[Sue Gardner]

Hello Wikimedia community members,

This is not an easy e-mail to write, and it’s been a very hard
decision to make. But I’m writing to tell you that I’m planning to
leave my position as the Executive Director of the Wikimedia
Foundation.

My departure isn’t imminent -- the Board and I anticipate it’ll take
at least six months to recruit my successor, and I’ll be fully engaged
as Executive Director all through the recruitment process and until we
have a new person in place. We’re expecting that’ll take about six
months or so, and so this note is not goodbye -- not yet.

Making the decision to leave hasn’t been easy, but it comes down to two things.

First, the movement and the Wikimedia Foundation are in a strong place
now. When I joined, the Foundation was tiny and not yet able to
reliably support the projects. Today it's healthy, thriving, and a
competent partner to the global network of Wikimedia volunteers. If
that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t feel okay to leave. In that sense, my
leaving is a vote of confidence in our Board and executive team and
staff --- I know they will ably steer the Foundation through the years
ahead, and I’m confident the Board will appoint a strong successor to
me.

And I feel that although we’re in good shape, with a promising future,
the same isn’t true for the internet itself. (This is thing number
two.) Increasingly, I’m finding myself uncomfortable about how the
internet’s developing, who’s influencing its development, and who is
not. Last year we at Wikimedia raised an alarm about SOPA/PIPA, and
now CISPA is back. Wikipedia has experienced censorship at the hands
of industry groups and governments, and we’re --increasingly, I
think-- seeing important decisions made by unaccountable
non-transparent corporate players, a shift from the open web to mobile
walled gardens, and a shift from the production-based internet to one
that’s consumption-based. There are many organizations and individuals
advocating for the public interest online -- what’s good for ordinary
people -- but other interests are more numerous and powerful than they
are. I want that to change. And that’s what I want to do next.

I’ve always aimed to make the biggest contribution I can to the
general public good. Today, this is pulling me towards a new and
different role, one very much aligned with Wikimedia values and
informed by my experiences here, and with the purpose of amplifying
the voices of people advocating for the free and open internet. I
don’t know exactly what this will look like -- I might write a book,
or start a non-profit, or work in partnership with something that
already exists. Either way, I feel strongly that this is what I need
to do.

I feel an increasing sense of urgency around this. That said, I also
feel a strong sense of responsibility (and love!) for the Wikimedia
movement, and so I’ve agreed with the Board that I’ll stay on as
Executive Director until we have my successor in place. That’ll take
some time -- likely, at least six months.

Until then, nothing changes. The Wikimedia Foundation has lots of work
to do, and you can expect me to focus fully on it until we have a new
Executive Director in place.

I have many people to thank, but I’m not going to do it now --
there’ll be time for that later. For now, I’ll just say I love working
with you all, I’m proud of everything the Wikimedia movement is
accomplishing, and I’m looking forward to our next six months
together.

Jan-Bart’s going to write a note in a couple of minutes with
information about the transition process. We’ll be hosting office
hours this weekend as well, so anybody with questions can ask them
here or turn up to talk with us on IRC.

Thanks,
Sue

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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Fwd: Announcement: Wikimedia Foundation restructure (Global Dev & Engineering)

[Sue Gardner]

Hello folks,

On-passing this FYI --- I hope the formatting doesn't break too much.
If people want to discuss this, maybe the first person could put it on
a wiki page (attached to Narrowing Focus, maybe?) so the discussion is
recorded for other interested parties and can be revisited later,
rather than just being ephemeral.

Thanks,
Sue


-- Forwarded message --
From: "Sue Gardner" 
Date: Dec 5, 2012 7:05 PM
Subject: Announcement: Wikimedia Foundation restructure (Global Dev &
Engineering)
To: "Staff All" 

hey folks,

The purpose of this note is to lay out some changes to the structure
of the Wikimedia Foundation. Some will take place immediately, and
others will play out over the next six months. I’m announcing it in a
single big note rather than bits & pieces because I want everyone to
have the overview: where we’re headed and why. This will be long ---
please bear with me.

First, some context. Why are we restructuring? Basically: if an
organization’s going to function well, it needs to reorg every now and
then. As an organization grows and changes and learns, its
organizational structure gradually gets out-of-date --- it needs to be
refreshed based on our experiences and our ambitions, or else it’ll
eventually stop working. And structure should follow strategy: as
strategy evolves, structure needs to evolve as well. With the
Narrowing Focus emphasis on engineering and grantmaking, we’ve revised
our strategy, and so we need to refresh our structure too.

So what’s the purpose of this restructure? What are the problems it’s
aiming to solve, and what coming changes do we want to be ready for?

The whole purpose of this restructure is to support increased emphasis
on engineering and grantmaking. Some specific issues:
* The FDC is off to a good start: it’s proved it’s able to make tough
choices, and its decisions are being respected by the chapters and the
community. For the FDC to do a really good job for us next year
though, it's going to need to be able to assess the impact of the
funding it’s given out --- not just “is this organization capable of
spending this much money competently” but “to what extent is this
spending helping the movement achieve its goals.” The FDC won't be
able do that without support from us, and so we need and want to
invest in support for programmatic evaluation. At this point the
movement has very little ability to say “x kind of activity is having
a good effect” and “Y kind of activity is not” -- we need to help
equip it to do that.
* Currently more than half the organization’s staffing and spending is
concentrated in engineering. That’s great and it fits with our
strategy, but it doesn’t necessarily make sense to have half the
organization reflected at the C-level by a single person. I would like
the C-team to be less admin-heavy and more weighted towards
programmatic activities.
* Currently, as Erik has said in an earlier note, he personally makes
any trade-offs that need to be made in terms of where to focus
engineering/product resources. He believes, and so do I, that we could
get better decision quality if there were more debate at the executive
level about tradeoffs.
* After a couple of years of developing the foundations of the
engineering department, we’re ready now to upwards-prioritize user
experience, analytics, and high-level strategic planning and
assessment. We want to add more resources to those areas.

So, what are we going to do?

First, we’re going to revamp Global Development. Starting now, that
department will be called Grantmaking and Programs. It will be co-led
by Anasuya (grantmaking) and Frank (programs). Anasuya and Frank will
have separate direct reports and budgets, but we’re going to keep it
as a single department because neither sub-department is very large
and because the two are deeply interlinked: we wouldn’t have one
without the other. Anasuya, currently Director of Global Learning and
Grantmaking, will become Senior Director of Grantmaking, and Frank,
currently Global Education Program Director, will become Senior
Director of Programs.

Anasuya will be responsible for running all grantmaking processes (for
both individuals and entities) and for helping movement entities, like
chapters and thematic organizations, to develop and mature. Reporting
to Anasuya will be Asaf Bartov, Jessie Wild, Oona Castro and Siko
Bouterse, as well as a Senior Program Officer for the FDC (a new
position that will be filled within the next month or so).
* The Senior Program Officer will be responsible for facilitating the
FDC process, which recommends funding allocations for the largest and
wealthiest Wikimedia organizations such as Wikimedia Germany and
Wikimedia France.
* Asaf continues to be responsible for the Wikimedia Grants Program,
supporting younger, smaller Wikimedia organizations like Wikimedia
Venezuela and Wikimedia Mexico, and for finding non-Wikimedia
organizations that we can fund t

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long

[Sue Gardner]

We've been getting a ton of positive response to the banners this year. I
was at Newsfoo this weekend and a half-dozen people told me they donated
this year for the first time, because they liked the banners' factual tone.
I asked them if they found them ugly and they said yes, but that they
didn't mind or care. I've gotten the same kind of comments from other
channels as well: e-mails and Facebook and so on.

The campaign this year is hugely effective. The banners are smaller and the
campaign will be significantly shorter than in previous years, and yet we
will raise more money: that's excellent.

Thanks,
Sue
On Dec 2, 2012 7:30 PM, "Steven Walling"  wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 4:15 PM, Mono  wrote:
>
> >  They are now expanded
> > by default
> >
>
> Not //quite// the case, actually. So far as I can see, the banners slide
> open when you mouse over them, but stay closed by default.
>
> I think it's kind of bad tactic, since it defies user expectations that
> actions are triggered by clicks, not on hover. But it is fairly common
> among some advertisers. One thing that might balance this out would be
> making the close icon more high profile (previous banners have had a proper
> icon, rather than a simple letter-like X).
>
> One plus: the new dropdown takes up less space on the page than the
> previous version, since the Jimmy appeal seems to be either removed or
> squashed to a smaller size.
>
> Steven
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 105, Issue 1

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Pine,

We haven't articulated specific and measurable benefits: that's why you
haven't gotten an answer to your question. That's because the Narrowing
Focus exercise is not a one-off immediate-term event: it's a longer-term
decision which will have multiple implications in this year and in future
years.

The Board approved the general principle: that narrowing focus would
benefit the organization, which had been spread too thinly. But, the
precise implications won't be known until the process begins to play out.
For example, we've made a decision to outsource some of the WMF work
associated with Wikimania, but until we define the terms of the
outsourcing, we can't know what the exact implications will be. (Because we
don't know what it will cost, or what work the contractor/consultant will
be able to do. We *will* know those things in future, and I could make
educated guesses about them now, but we can't know with certainty until we
run an RFP process or similar.)

Upshot: this is a long-term-focused decision, and it'll take a while for
the implications to begin to play out. I've told the Board we shouldn't
expect to see too much in the way of benefits in 2012-13 (the current
fiscal year) because there will be work required to execute the various
components of it, which will offset whatever gain we might otherwise have
seen this year. We may see a little pay-off  this year, but mostly it will
start to happen in 2023-14.

Thanks,
Sue
On Dec 2, 2012 3:56 PM, "ENWP Pine"  wrote:

>
> Tilman,
>
> Thanks, I always like reading these reports.
>
> Again, I'd like to ask what specific and measurable benefits the "changing
> focus" changes will accomplish. I've been asking this for awhile.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pine
>
> > Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:55:37 -0800
> > From: Tilman Bayer 
> > To: wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation
> >   Report, October 2012
> > Message-ID:
> >vpoeztxxbgfz5kwncphee7m...@mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > please find below the WMF report for October 2012, in plain text.
> >
> > As always, the editable and formatted version has been published on Meta:
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_October_2012
> >
> > and the reports are being posted on the Wikimedia blog, too:
> > https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/
> >
> > As usual, we are also publishing a separate "Highlights" summary.
> > Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay
> > updated, by providing a translation:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_October_2012
> > Many thanks those who have translated the September "Highlights" into
> > Arabic, Breton, Czech, German, Spanish, French, Piedmontese, Russian,
> > Ukrainian, Chinese and Telugu!
> >
> > While still focussing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a
> > small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement.
> > Suggestions for the soon to be published November issue are welcome
> > until Wednesday (December 5) at
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights
> >
> > Regards, Tilman
> >
> > --
> >
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24-hour fundraising test

[Sue Gardner]

On 16 November 2012 16:30, Megan Hernandez  wrote:
> **You did it the right way, I think most people realize what a treasure
> trove of information Wikipedia has and your message was simple and honest,
> no tug-at-the-heartstrings kind of stuff. Appeals to smart people.*
> ** "This big, plain blue banner really caught my eye, and its message was
> simple yet powerful. So I gave my 5$."*
> **I liked the non-intrusive but catchy banner and the quick payment option.*
> **Really like the philosophy, the information and the layout.*
> ** The banner I clicked on felt simple and honest, and it reminded me that
> Wikipedia is a global resource which needs funding to pay for its resource
> usage*
> ** when put very straight-forwardly, honestly, and especially factually, I
> felt a bigger obligation to donate*
> ** "I've seen requests for donations before,but never as grabbing as this
> one. The blue and white, the boldness, made me pay attention."*
> ** i clicked b/c for once the fund-drive banner was green instead of dismal
> gray. *
> ** " Being blue they aren't too invasive. They also made me chill a little
> and think about how great Wiki is."*


"Simple, honest, straightforward, not too invasive" -- that's all
*exactly* what I want to hear.

The annual campaign is always a series of tradeoffs -- balancing
annoyance-of-readers against the desire to bring in revenue. I am so
happy that this year the team has managed to test and refine and
optimize such that we're annoying people less, and still making the
money we need.

I am so proud of everybody working on this campaign :-)

Thanks,
Sue


--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

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/

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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Thank you from the Wikimedia Foundation

[Sue Gardner]

The fundraiser has begun :-)

--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

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/

-- Forwarded message --
From: Sue Gardner 
Date: 15 November 2012 09:33
Subject: Thank you from the Wikimedia Foundation
To: Susan Gardner 


Dear Susan,

Thank you for donating to the Wikimedia Foundation. You are wonderful!

It's easy to ignore our fundraising banners, and I'm really glad you
didn't. This is how Wikipedia pays its bills --- people like you
giving us money, so we can keep the site freely available for everyone
around the world.

People tell me they donate to Wikipedia because they find it useful,
and they trust it because even though it's not perfect, they know it's
written for them. Wikipedia isn’t meant to advance somebody's PR
agenda or push a particular ideology, or to persuade you to believe
something that's not true. We aim to tell the truth, and we can do
that because of you. The fact that you fund the site keeps us
independent and able to deliver what you need and want from Wikipedia.
Exactly as it should be.

You should know: your donation isn’t just covering your own costs. The
average donor is paying for his or her own use of Wikipedia, plus the
costs of hundreds of other people. Your donation keeps Wikipedia
available for an ambitious kid in Bangalore who’s teaching herself
computer programming. A middle-aged homemaker in Vienna who’s just
been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. A novelist researching 1850s
Britain. A 10-year-old in San Salvador who’s just discovered Carl
Sagan.

On behalf of those people, and the half-billion other readers of
Wikipedia and its sister sites and projects, I thank you for joining
us in our effort to make the sum of all human knowledge available for
everyone. Your donation makes the world a better place. Thank you.

Most people don't know Wikipedia's run by a non-profit. Please
consider sharing this e-mail with a few of your friends to encourage
them to donate too. And if you're interested, you should try adding
some new information to Wikipedia. If you see a typo or other small
mistake, please fix it, and if you find something missing, please add
it. There are resources here that can help you get started. Don't
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editing and if it happens, other Wikipedians will be happy to fix it
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I appreciate your trust in us, and I promise you we'll use your money well.

Thanks,
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure

[Sue Gardner]

Quim, thanks for writing that. I am happy about the conversations that are
happening about this, and I'm finding people's thoughts and input useful.
There have been (and are being) lots of face-to-face conversations as well
as the ones on the lists and in other venues: it's all good.

There is of course no perfect ideal solution --it's a balancing-act among
multiple considerations-- and there is zero likelihood that we'll come up
with a result that is understandable for everyone, and fits their ideal
version of how the org should work. That's okay: we don't need to be
perfect (and there is no "perfect") --- we just need to be always
evolving-towards-better, as the org grows and changes. I'm glad Erik kicked
this off with a request for input: the input is useful :-)

Thanks,
Sue
On Nov 9, 2012 11:05 AM, "Quim Gil"  wrote:

> Thank you for the explanations.
>
>
> On 11/07/2012 11:47 AM, Terry Chay wrote:
>
>> It turns out we use a lot of industry
>> terminology, without realizing that we are poorly communicating what
>> that means to most people.
>>
>
> Actually I'm familiar with industry terminology, and also with the wrong
> assumptions and prejudices it carries many times. I know *you* get it right
> but a basic goal of any reorg is that *everybody* gets it right now and in
> the future.
>
> While it makes total sense to organize Product Management, Design and
> Analytics under "Product Development", it feels old school and odd to leave
> out the software engineers fully dedicated to product development. It
> enforces the old vision that software development is something that comes
> apart and after the product definition. But being Erik (a software
> developer himself) the proposed VP in that area I don't need to insist in
> this point.
>
> The current proposal of having software developers working on products
> (Language, Mobile, Platform...) together with Operations (sysadmins, not
> directly involved in product development) feels just as old school and odd.
> The common denominator seems to be "teams that know to code", "the command
> line dudes", etc. I might be mistaken, but it feels as consistent as a VP
> of Presentations overseeing Marketing, Analytics, Design and other teams
> with high communications skills and able to produce great slides.  :)
>
> And whoever leads the proposed "Engineering" team still would need to deal
> at a high level with two very different agendas: those from teams actually
> developing software features and those from the operations teams, the
> latter probably still complaining that they don't get as much attention at
> the top level.
>
> So...
>
> If the goals are "narrowing focus" + "scale the dept, and take seriously
> our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue)" (Erik says) then why not
> flattening more all this tech structure?
>
> Something like
>
> - Product Management.
> - Design.
> - Software development.
> -- Features
> -- MediaWiki.
> -- Language.
> -- Mobile.
> - Operations.
> - Analytics.
>
> This would mean 5 tech managers (already leading their teams) where now
> you have Erik alone, 4 of them focused on product development + Operations.
> Erik himself could act as EVP overseeing the product development
> activities, since this is the narrowed focus now. He should focus on
> vision, strategy and glue between the tech teams and with the rest of WMF.
> The reporting and leadership of each team would be done by those 5
> managers, now interacting with Sue & "non-tech managers" more often.
>
> Doesn't this sound like a more flat and scalable org, with a clearer tech
> org identity?
>
> PS: yes, it's easy for an outsider to shuffle proposals without much
> background and knowledge of the day to day.  :)  But since you asked for
> feedback... I hope it's useful, regardless of what you decide at the end.
> Thank you for listening!
>
> --
> Quim
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure

[Sue Gardner]

Hey folks,

I think all the conversation about this is really helpful, and it's
been particularly useful thus far to hear from community members about
what's confusing about the current and proposed structures. ("Not
being confusing" isn't the primary motivation for a restructure, but
it's obviously worth consideration.)

I do want to underline though, from Erik's original note, this: "To
avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I
want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below
is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan,
I’d love to hear from you," and "I look forward to hearing your
thoughts & discussing this further in coming weeks."

I kind of have the sense that people are considering this a done deal.
I understand why people might assume that -- in an ordinary
organization, a note like Erik's doesn't go out until things are
pretty much locked down. But it's important that you realize that's
not what's happening here: your input is wanted. Particularly for
staff who'd be directly affected by these changes --- this is your
window to shape what happens. If you think there are likely to be
downstream effects of these proposed changes that are worth
considering, or additional improvements that could be folded into
this, or an aspect that warrants being revisited: this is your window.
You can talk with Erik (by e-mail because he's travelling), me, Gayle,
or whoever else seems relevant. That was the whole point of Erik's
note :-)

So to be super-clear: None of this is a done deal at this moment. Lots
of conversations are happening in various places, and it's all good.
That's why Erik made the pre-announcement --- to create a window for
discussion & iteration and further thinking :-)

Thanks,
Sue



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure

[Sue Gardner]

On 7 November 2012 11:47, Terry Chay  wrote:
> Take care,
>
> terry

Terry this is great, thank you for writing it. I was on a two-hour
call glancing at this thread, knowing Erik's travelling, and wondering
if I should reply in his stead. Glad you did it :-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure

[Sue Gardner]

On 7 November 2012 08:40, Federico Leva (Nemo)  wrote:
> Crossposting is tricky – Sue's answer didn't reach wikimedia-l as far as I
> can see. From
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-November/064281.html :

Oh thanks, Nemo. I don't know what went wrong there, but I appreciate
you catching it :-)
Sue

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

[Sue Gardner]

On 8 October 2012 12:18, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> It seems clear to me, based on the end result and what foundation board and
> senior staff have said, that they decided an account of money they wanted
> to request from the FDC and then decided what to designate as non-core so
> that it added up to that amount.
>
> Rather disingenuous of them, but Sue has been very clear that she only sees
> the foundation's application as a way of testing the process rather than as
> actually being the right way to determine the budget.
> On Oct 8, 2012 11:14 AM, "Itzik Edri"  wrote:


Hi Thomas & Itzik,

There's FAQ material on the wikis about how core versus non-core were
determined -- I think it's part of the annual plan FAQ. (I'd link you
to it, but I'm in a bit of a rush. Maybe somebody else can point to
the right place?)

The Board and I had a number of discussions about core versus non-core
-- to very swiftly recap, we decided that we did not want core to mean
the rock-bottom base costs of operating the site. We realized that in
making that decision we'd risk being confusing, and that people would
likely end up sending inquiries like the one Itzik just sent, because
they'd likely be operating on the assumption that core did indeed mean
base costs. We considered whether to label it as something other than
"core" in order to avoid being confusing, but in the end went ahead
with core for lack of a better word.

Going from memory -- core is intended to represent the ordinary costs
of running the global sites -- so for example, it would include all
the costs of maintaining the trademark portfolio, providing legal
defence where necessary, doing media stuff and internal global
movement communications work, etc. For example we decided that
internationalization & localization are part of "core," because our
core work includes providing a service in multiple languages.

We did not want core to represent the base, rock-bottom,
non-negotiable costs of operating the sites on a shoestring, because
that's not the purpose of this exercise, because we're not in a
position where we need to make extraordinarily difficult choices about
whether to preserve, for example, internationalization & localization
versus site performance. If we were in that position (needing to make
very painful choices due to financial necessity) of course we would.
But that's not where we are.

Thomas, it's not actually true that I see this as purely an exercise
in testing the FDC process, although I do definitely think running
part of the WMF budget through the FDC will help us be sensitive to
fund-seeker needs as we iterate the process. I do also see value in
the process itself -- getting community input on the WMF's non-core
activities, etc., will be useful.

(Just FYI -- I won't be able to reply any more to this thread for much
of the rest of the day, by the way -- I'm swamped and doing a bunch of
things.)

Thanks,
Sue

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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Follow-up to Barry's note

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

I want to thank Barry for everything he’s done for the Wikimedia
movement, and express my regret that he’s leaving the Foundation.

Barry’s done a lot for the movement. He's been involved for three
years: first, as the Bridgespan lead for our strategy project, and
afterwards as Chief Global Development Officer for the Foundation. He
was a major contributor to the five-year strategic plan, and as CGDO
he’s set up and launched a number of key projects that arose as a
direct result of that plan, including the catalyst initiatives and
Wikipedia Zero. He’s also done some tough and useful work helping
Wikimedia grapple with issues related to movement roles and funds
dissemination -- the fact that we're now in a position to launch the
Funds Dissemination Committee is very much a credit to Barry. I want
to thank him for everything he’s accomplished for the movement, and
wish him all the best in the future. I know he plans to stay involved
as a volunteer, and I'm happy about that.

Here’s a quick summary of what will happen next:

Barry’s last day with the Wikimedia Foundation will be August 31. It
will likely take 4-6 months for us to complete the recruitment process
for his successor.

Beginning August 31 therefore, Global Development will be co-managed
by Frank Schulenburg and Anasuya Sengupta. Anasuya will be responsible
for grantmaking and the catalyst projects: Asaf Bartov, Jessie Wild,
and Winifred Olliff will report to her, and she will manage our
relationships with CIS for India, with Oona Castro for Brazil, and
with the Arabic Language Initiative. Frank will continue, of course,
to hold responsibility for the Global Education Program, and will also
now newly take on responsibility for fellowships and Wikipedia Zero,
with Siko Bouterse and Kul Wadhwa reporting to Frank.

I want to thank Frank and Anasuya for agreeing to take on, on an
interim basis, these extra responsibilities.

Also, we’re moving Communications to Legal and Community Advocacy from
Global Development: Jay Walsh will now report to Geoff Brigham. This
is independent of Barry’s departure. Why? There’s lots of natural
synchronicity between Community Advocacy and Communications -- both
groups need to understand and support the Wikimedia communities and
ensure good communications between them and the Wikimedia Foundation,
including coordinating translations with and for the
non-English-speaking communities. And, unlike the rest of Global
Development but like Legal, Communications is a service department
that supports the entire organization/movement. So it makes sense to
me that Communications should move over to become a part of LCA.

I also want to note, because I'm not sure if it's been announced
outside the staff, that beginning August 5 Winifred will move into a
new position. She has been the Program Assistant for Global
Development: as of August 5, she will be Grants Administrator for that
team, responsible for administering Wikimedia Foundation grants, funds
awarded by the Funds Dissemination Committee and other Wikimedia
Foundation volunteer support programs, and for supporting the
Wikimedia Foundation grants program in the areas of program
development, communications, relationship-building, compliance, and
community engagement.

Again: I want to thank Barry for everything he's done for the
movement, and I look forward to his continued involvement from
Australia :-)

Thanks,
Sue



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Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation

[Sue Gardner]

On 1 August 2012 09:47, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 1 August 2012 17:36, Sue Gardner  wrote:
>> I checked the page a couple of days ago and didn't see any questions: maybe
>> I was looking at the wrong page?
>
> The questions are on the page SJ suggested using:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget


Yep, got it, thanks. There are some questions that Garfield and Asaf
have already answered -- I will take a look later today and see what
remains. I think there's one outstanding from you, and one from Nemo.

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation

[Sue Gardner]

I checked the page a couple of days ago and didn't see any questions: maybe
I was looking at the wrong page?

I'll ask Tilman via this mail to help coordinate getting answers from the
appropriate people.

Separately/additionally: I thought the Signpost coverage was pretty good.
It wasn't extensive, but I thought they did a good job of capturing the
basics in what is a pretty complex plan. This year is a tough slog
understanding the financials, because the assumptions underpinning them
(about how revenue is reflected, and spending) have changed significantly
with the creation of the FDC. We tried to create apples-to-apples
comparisons, and to caveat appropriately where that wasn't possible, but
it's inherently pretty complex.

Thanks,
Sue
On Aug 1, 2012 4:35 AM, "Thomas Dalton"  wrote:

> On 29 July 2012 07:11, Samuel Klein  wrote:
> > Let's use the page we used to use to discuss plans and budgets:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget
>
> I thought this was implicit, but apparently not: can someone from the
> WMF please answer the questions that are on that page?
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours "The future of e-mail usage in Wikimedia projects" 2012-07-18 16:30 UTC

[Sue Gardner]

I think the top slot in the poll I took was Saturdays, either 11AM to noon
SF time (6PM-7PM UTC, going from memory) or noon to one SF time (7PM-8PM
UTC).

I am totally fine with either of those times, and so I will volunteer to do
my next office hours in one of those slots. Normally I'm scheduled via, and
accompanied by, Steven or sometimes Philippe. I'd like Steven to get me
scheduled (please), but Steven you don't need to come moderate: I can
probably just handle it by myself :-)

So, Wikimedia Foundation staff can turn up if they're online and free and
feel like it, but nobody should feel compelled to attend just because
they're on the staff. Like I said, I don't mind doing it -- arguably it's
easier for me than squeezing it into the middle of other meetings. But I
don't think the value-add of other staff being there necessitates them
breaking into the middle of their weekends.

Hope this makes sense for people. If we draw a different crowd that hasn't
otherwise been able to attend, we can figure out how to do more of it in a
way that works for staff -- meaning, we can lean on weekends when people
are travelling for work anyway, or are for some reason available and game.

Thanks,
Sue
On Jun 25, 2012 7:34 PM, "Steven Walling"  wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Risker  wrote:
>
> > Well, let's see - that's 7 a.m. Eastern time, and 4 a.m. Pacific, so it's
> > certainly not North American business hours.  Perhaps the bigger question
> > is who the target audience is, and whether or not you're likely to
> attract
> > it during that time.
> >
>
> I'm sorry, I forgot to check a box on one of those stupid time converters.
> I meant 22:00 UTC that day. That's late afternoon SF time and the early
> evening for the rest of the continent.
>
> The poll Sue took also suggested maybe we should try holding some on
> Saturdays. That might not be preferable for all staffers, but some of us
> don't mind.
>
> Steven
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] IRC office hours with Sue Gardner, 5/11 at 17:00 UTC

[Sue Gardner]

On 7 May 2012 11:19, Steven Walling  wrote:
> As usual, docs are on Meta at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours. Also note that if you
> have a preference for a better time than morning work hours for us here in
> San Francisco, there is a poll that Sue started:
> http://doodle.com/hnivrcvz3t5sf2gf#table


So far, by the way, the most-chosen option is Saturdays, 5-7PM UTC.
Which may just mean we need more participants living in eastern Asia
:-)

Thanks,
Sue

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Office hours reminder

[Sue Gardner]

On 2 May 2012 10:10, Risker  wrote:

> Have to say that the last several office hours (of varying nature) have all
> been during "business/school hours" in the Americas - and in some cases for
> (western) Europe/Africa as well - and the ones on the current schedule are
> all pretty much in the middle of business hours for these regions.  When so
> many office hours are occurring within the same narrow time window, it
> really limits the potential participation group to the same people all the
> time, and risks becoming a walled garden.  Please consider a more diverse
> window for office hours in the future. And no, I don't expect that every
> office hour be during a time that I'm available, but there's only been one
> (out of fifteen) that occurred during the period where Wikimedians are most
> active.

People can help by filling out this Doodle. If a
sufficiently-geographically-representative group fills this out, that
will help us standardize on a few times that (among them) would work
for a large majority. Please share the link on IRC or wherever if you
like, to encourage broad-enough participation :-)

http://doodle.com/hnivrcvz3t5sf2gf

Thanks,
Sue

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[Wikimedia-l] "Clerk" role description?

[Sue Gardner]

Hey folks,

I had a 90-second conversation the other day with SJ about whether it
would make sense for us to use volunteer "clerks" as support for the
FDC (Funds Dissemination Committee), and I'm wondering if anyone can
point me towards any documentation of the role -- a description of how
it's typically used, either inside Wikimedia or outside. I have the
gist, but am curious to learn more, if anyone's got links they could
point me towards.

Thanks,
Sue


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Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Sue Gardner]

Hey folks,

For those who've been following this thread -- I wanted to let you
know I've posted a comment from the Wikimedia Foundation, on the talk
page for the meta page James made, here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wiki_Travel_Guide#Comment_from_the_Wikimedia_Foundation

I pasted the full text below, for anyone who doesn't want to go to the
wiki. But if you want to discuss it, I think that's arguably better
done on the wiki than a mailing list, in order to keep the
conversation unfragmented.

Thanks,
Sue

Hey folks,

I've been very interested reading the discussions here and on the
mailing lists about whether the Wikimedia movement should start a new
travel project. In response to questions I've been getting privately,
I want to lay out the Wikimedia Foundation's position.

First, a quick recap: The initiator of this idea is enWP editor James
Heilman. James first proposed the idea in an e-mail to me about a
month ago, and a few weeks after that he made a formal proposal on
meta here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Travel_Guide, and
started raising it on the lists. So far, there has been a fair bit of
a discussion – here, and also on wikimedia-l (formerly foundation-l).
Some editors have expressed support; some have been questioning
whether travel fits inside our educational mission, and some have been
discussing how a travel site might handle or interpret NPOV. I've been
pleased, watching the talking, because in my time with the Wikimedia
projects, I have mostly seen new project proposals either ignored or
quickly quashed. IMO this one is getting more serious consideration
than is typical, and I am choosing to interpret that as a signal of
renewed energy in the Wikimedia movement :-)

So. Some thoughts from the Wikimedia Foundation:

* The Wikimedia Foundation is open to the idea of new projects, and is
happy to have the community discussing ideas for new projects.

* Whether it makes sense to create a Wikimedia travel project is a
discussion for the community to have with itself. I encourage you to
continue talking (and I, and the rest of the staff, and the Board,
will continue listening).

* The specifics of how new projects get created are not particularly
clear at this time. I think it would be great for the community to use
this as an opportunity to (re)define a good process for new project
creation, regardless of what happens regarding a travel project. I
imagine that a good process might look something like this (combining
the process that approved Wikiversity and the chapter approval
process): i) Someone from the community makes a basic, public
proposal; ii) there is some form of community discussion, which might
include an RfC; iii) when/if a decision is made to move forward, then
the Board is asked to provide approval; iv) the Board reviews and, if
it chooses to, provides provisional approval pending staff review. v)
The staff then works out the details and implements the decision. That
could work, or something like that.

Regardless of what the community decides regarding creating a
Wikimedia travel project, the Wikimedia Foundation believes there's
enough room for multiple travel sites to co-exist, and for community
members to contribute to multiple sites in this area. Of course, if
the community decides to support a travel project, we would need to
choose a name that is not confusing with that of other sites. That is
the kind of detail the staff would need to be involved in.

The main purpose of this comment is to encourage people to keep
discussing the idea, and to work towards further defining the process
for new project creation. It looks like James started an RfC
yesterday, just above this comment, which is great. Regardless of
whether or not a travel project moves forward, personally I am glad to
see the proposal being seriously discussed. To me it's a sign of
energy and openness and fertility in the movement, which makes me very
happy :-)

Thanks, Sue Gardner (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

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Wikimedia Foundation

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