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Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009

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sgardner at wikimedia

Sep 8, 2009, 7:15 PM

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Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009

Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Covering: June 2009
Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

MILESTONES FROM JUNE

1. Finalization and approval of the 2009-10 Annual Plan and staff goals
2. 2008-09 staff performance reviews
3. Hiring interviews for the Strategy Project

KEY PRIORITIES FOR JULY

1. Finalization of staff hiring for Strategy Project
2. Advisory Board member Wayne Mackintosh will visit the Wikimedia
Foundation for meetings related to strategy, technology and outreach
3. Proposals from public relations firms will be reviewed for the
2009-10 communications campaign

THIS PAST MONTH

In June, Facebook overtook the Wikimedia Foundation sites as the
fourth-most-popular in the world, with Wikimedia dropping to number
five, serving 302 million global unique visitors according to comScore
Media Metrix. Currently, the most popular web properties in the world
are 1. Google sites, 2. Microsoft sites, 3. Yahoo sites, 4.
Facebook.com, and 5. Wikimedia sites.

2009-10 ANNUAL PLAN

In June, following months of consultation and planning, Sue Gardner
and Veronique Kessler finalized the 2009-10 Annual Plan and presented
it for approval to the Board of Trustees at a special IRC meeting June
16. The Board voted unanimously in support of the plan. The 2009-10
Annual Plan and an FAQ are at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2009-2010_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers

STRATEGY PROJECT

During June, interviews began for the Strategy Project team. The
Wikimedia Foundation received more than 200 applications for the
Project Manager position, most from people with project manager
experience in for-profit technology companies. Sue, Erik Moeller and
Jennifer Riggs interviewed seven candidates for the Project Manager
role. More than one hundred people applied for the Facilitator
position, including many people with professional backgrounds in
facilitation and organizational development, as well as several
Wikimedia community members: Sue, Erik and Jennifer interviewed five
candidates. More than one hundred people applied for the Research
Analyst position. Sue, Erik and Erik Zachte interviewed six candidates
for the Research Analyst role. Hiring decisions will be announced by
mid-July.

OUTREACH & PROGRAMS

During June, Jennifer Riggs and Frank Schulenburg worked with a
volunteer team to finalize nearly nine months of preparations for a
July Wikipedia Academy staged in partnership with the National
Institute of Health. This event is intended to model new strategies
for welcoming new editors and sustaining their participation.

Jennifer worked with Sue, Erik Moeller and Veronique to review and
evaluate proposals submitted through the Chapters Funding Request
process. Twenty-six of thirty proposals received were approved.
Recipients will be posting descriptions of their events and lessons
learned on Meta, linked from
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants

Sara Crouse and Cary Bass continued to support the Wikimania
scholarships committee and coordinate travel bookings for scholarship
recipients.

Cary recruited a volunteer team to conduct an analysis of the
efficiency, effectiveness and levels of customer service provided
through the current OTRS customer service ticket system.

COMMUNICATIONS

Major coverage during June revolved around the following stories:

1. Keeping news of kidnapping off Wikipedia (June 28): Reports of the
freeing of kidnapped NY Times journalist David Rohde by the Taliban in
late June drew international coverage, much relating to Rohde's
Wikipedia page. News of Rohde's kidnapping had been kept off Wikipedia
by Jimmy Wales and other volunteers through careful application of
Wikipedia's policies on reliable sourcing and biographies of living
persons. Coverage was mostly positive: the intent was applauded, but
some onlookers felt it set a worrying precedent.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?&entry_id=42811
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/06/29/was-wikipedia-correct-to-censor-news-of-david-rohdes-capture/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/technology/internet/29wiki.html

2. Michael Jackson's death “breaks the internet,” sets a record for
Wikipedia (June 26):
News of Michael Jackson's death caused traffic to surge on some big
sites including Wikipedia, with over one million hits to Jackson's
Wikipedia article in a single one hour period.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/06/26/michael.jackson.internet/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=42557
http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2009/06/26/michael-jackson-is-dead-news-of-tragic-death-brings-google-and-wikipedia-to-a-halt-115875-21472173/

3.Wired editor and prominent author Chris Anderson apologized
following criticisms that his new book "Free" contained unattributed
text from Wikipedia (June 25):
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-free25-2009jun25,0,3226325.story
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/editor-of-wired-apologizes-for-copying-from-wikipedia-in-new-book/
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/chris-dannen/techwatch/chris-andersons-free-contains-lifted-wikipedia-passages

4. Wikipedia picks green data center (June 23): Significant tech-media
coverage of Evoswitch's donation of hosting space for cache servers in
Amsterdam.
http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/wikimedia-moves-into-green-european-data-centre-1198
http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/062309_EvoSwitch_Hosts_the_Wikimedia_Foundation

5. Google News picks up Wikipedia (June 21): Bloggers and media
reporters reported that Google News nows includes Wikipedia articles.
Google initially tested the technology quietly, but later publicly
announced that Wikipedia articles would now appear alongside other
news and information results.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/09/AR2009060902850.html

6. Wikipedia preps for video (June 19): An MIT Technology review
interview with Erik and Michael Dale shed light on the ongoing video
editing / uploading development work led by Michael in partnership
with Kaltura.
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/22900/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_getting_video_within_months.php
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10269308-17.html

7. Wikipedia turned into a book (June 18, and earlier)
Never underestimate the power of an image. Designer Rob Matthews'
sculpture creation of a book containing over 5,000 pages based on 473
featured WP articles initially caused a wave of twitter coverage,
followed by hundreds of blog posts and considerable conventional media
coverage.
http://livenews.com.au/entertainment/wikipedia-converted-into-gigantic-book/2009/6/18/210370
http://www.rob-matthews.com/index.php?/project/wikipedia/

8. Scientology row stirs a war on words (June 1): June kicked off with
major coverage of the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee
decision to block a group of editors associated with the hundreds of
Scientology articles on Wikipedia. Some onlookers criticized the
decision as censorship, while others lauded it as preserving
neutrality on Wikipedia.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/06/01/wikipedia-bans-scientology-churchs-edits/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/technology/internet/08link.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/05/business/fi-wikipedia-scientology5
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/229645/june-04-2009/wikipedia-bans-scientologists

During June, the Wikimedia Foundation participated in interviews with
Australian daily newspaper The Age (Melbourne, Australia); Newsweek
magazine (New York City, USA); the Canadian Press news agency (Ottawa,
Canada and Vancouver, Canada); the San Francisco Chronicle daily
newspaper (San Francisco, USA); the Washington Post (Washington DC,
USA); PR Week Magazine (New York City, USA); National Public Radio
(Baltimore, USA); the Toronto Star (Toronto, Canada); The Municipalist
(Washington DC, USA); the Courier Post (Cherry Hill, New Jersey, USA);
the Spanish daily newspaper Publico (Madrid, Spain); Ha'aretz Business
(Tel Aviv, Israel); the International Regional Magazine Association;
the New York Times (New York City, USA); the Houston Chronicle
(Houston, Texas, USA); NBC 6 (South Florida, USA); Hot Press Magazine
(Dublin, Ireland); NBC News (Miami, Florida, USA); BBC Radio News
(London, UK); the Rockford Register Star (Rockford, Illinois, USA);
and Human Events (Washington DC, USA).

During June, the Wikimedia Foundation released one press release,
announcing its signing of a contract with EvoSwitch, the
carrier-neutral data center in Amsterdam that operates fully
CO2-neutral. As part of the contract, Evoswitch is providing more than
EUR 300,000 of in-kind support in the form of bandwidth and hosting
services. Wikimedia will use the Amsterdam site as its HUB for Europe.
“Wikimedia Selects Green Data Center EvoSwitch as Internet HUB for
Europe.” http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Selects_EvoSwitch_June_2009

TECHNOLOGY

The technology department began their month upgrading the search
services to allow the Wikimedia Foundation sites to switch in advanced
search features such as spelling correction. Previously these
advanced features were limited to only a few of the Wikimedia sites.
The technology team officially launched the new mobile gate way
(http://m.wikipedia.org/), with automatic redirection from the regular
website for some popular devices, especially iPhones, for the English
Wikipedia.

The release of the Mozilla Firefox 3.5 web browser was an important
milestone to improve usability of video and audio in Wikipedia. Thanks
to built-in support for the HTML5 <audio> and <video> tags, and the
Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis file formats, videos and audio files from
Wikimedia project sites can be played without any additional plug-ins.
Wikimedia uses the Ogg Vorbis and Theora formats because they are
unencumbered by software patents and can therefore be freely used by
anyone for any purpose.

In June Steve Kent joined the Wikimedia Foundation team as the Head of
Office IT Support. Steve comes to the Foundation with more than 20
years of IT systems management experience. He has been in similar
roles with several organizations including: RR Donnelley, Charrette
LLC, Communicomp and CMP Media. Steve was most recently the Director
of Information Technology for Sandbox Studios located in San
Francisco. Once Steve is fully oriented in his new position Ariel
Glenn will return to software development on a full-time basis.

The technology team has started to use the tech blog
<http://techblog.wikimedia.org> more actively to explain and analyze
site events and issues, e.g. with regard to the Michael Jackson
traffic spike: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/current-events/

USABILITY

The focus of the usability team in June was to continue developing the
first release of usability improvements, to collect feedback from the
community, and to address any technical or linguistic issues before
the production deployment. The feedback from the community was
positives and the community took a great part in stabilizing the
software. The first release called Acai was deployed to production as
one of user preferences to all Wikimedia projects except
right-to-left-languages. The support for the right-to-left languages
will be available early August. More information about the Acai
release:
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Acai

The design team, Parul Vora and Hannes Tank, put together design
concepts and mock-ups for the next round of usability improvements and
shared them internally. The concept designs are now shared publicly:
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Babaco_Designs

An intensive interviewing and evaluation process took place to fill
two software developer positions, however two final candidates fell
though at the last stage of hiring.

The work of the usability initiative was described in a blog post on
Read Write Web, and the team was interviewed by the Wikipedia Weekly
podcast:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/06/can-890000-make-mediawiki-useful.php
http://wikipediaweekly.org/2009/07/09/episode-76-usability/

FUNDRAISING, GRANTS & PARTNERSHIPS

During June, the Wikimedia Foundation received 901 donations, with a
combined total dollar value of USD 91,693. This brings the 2008-09
year total to USD 5,720,713 in donations, 43% above the full-year
target of USD 4,000,000.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Kul Wadhwa secured five corporate sponsorships for Wikimania 2009,
with Telefonica (Premier Sponsor), Answers.com (Benefactor), Kaltura
(Benefactor), Wikihow (Supporter), and Wikia (Supporter).

LEGAL

The Wikimedia Foundation licensing update was implemented in all
relevant Wikimedia projects and languages:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/30/licensing-update-rolled-out-in-all-wikimedia-wikis/

Mike worked on completing consolidation of the Wikimedia Foundation's
trademark portfolio and providing the portfolio to the international
law firm, Squire Sanders. This puts Wikimedia in a better position
going forward to negotiate business partnerships and rationalize our
handling and licensing of trademarks for non-business partnerships.

Mike is continuing to revise a draft trademark policy pursuant to the
Board's April trademark resolution, using the new draft Mozilla
trademark policy, which provides expressly for non-commercial partner
use of the trademarks, as a model for our own. Mike is continuing to
discuss trademark policy generally with Mozilla's in-house counsel
with the general aim of creating model standards of trademark policy
for free-culture projects.

FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION

After finalizing and receiving Board approval for the 2009-10 Annual
Plan, Veronique met individually with each department head to review
their approved budget for the upcoming fiscal year. She also worked
with Daniel Phelps to solve some challenges related to hiring non-US
citizens, and to refine the policy on background checks for
contractors. Additionally, Veronique and Daniel finalized and
released the first official employee handbook, which was distributed
to all staff.

Veronique also worked with KPMG, the Wikimedia Foundation's audit
firm, to determine the most appropriate definition of conditional
gifts vs. restricted gifts. Veronique also worked with Jennifer on
efforts to create the most efficient and financially protected process
for the Wikimedia Foundation to provide grants to chapters and
community members.

Also in June, all Wikimedia Foundation staff had 2008-09 performance
assessment meetings with their immediate supervisors, and finalized
their 2009-10 goals.

CONFERENCES AND TRAVEL

Sue attended a Knight Foundation News Challenge conference at MIT in
Boston. Erik attended the Open Video Conference in New York. Ariel
attended the Open Translation Tools conference in Amsterdam.

--
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!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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thomas.dalton at gmail

Sep 9, 2009, 6:36 AM

Post #2 of 22 (1325 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

Once again, thank you for this. One question:

2009/9/9 Sue Gardner <sgardner [at] wikimedia>:
> Jennifer worked with Sue, Erik Moeller and Veronique to review and
> evaluate proposals submitted through the Chapters Funding Request
> process. Twenty-six of thirty proposals received were approved.
> Recipients will be posting descriptions of their events and lessons
> learned on Meta, linked from
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants

I emailed Jennifer shortly after the requests were approved asking if
the details of what was and wasn't approved would be made public and
was told it would once the chapters had all been contacted and had had
a chance to accept the grants. As far as I can see, that information
has yet to be made public. Has that plan changed or is there just a
delay?

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sgardner at wikimedia

Sep 10, 2009, 9:39 AM

Post #3 of 22 (1323 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

Hi Thomas!

Sorry to top-post, and to be late replying. I believe that all 26
proposals are up now on the meta page. Let me know if you can't find
it, and I can post the link tonight when I'm back on my laptop.

Thanks,
Sue

On 09/09/2009, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail> wrote:
> Once again, thank you for this. One question:
>
> 2009/9/9 Sue Gardner <sgardner [at] wikimedia>:
>> Jennifer worked with Sue, Erik Moeller and Veronique to review and
>> evaluate proposals submitted through the Chapters Funding Request
>> process. Twenty-six of thirty proposals received were approved.
>> Recipients will be posting descriptions of their events and lessons
>> learned on Meta, linked from
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants
>
> I emailed Jennifer shortly after the requests were approved asking if
> the details of what was and wasn't approved would be made public and
> was told it would once the chapters had all been contacted and had had
> a chance to accept the grants. As far as I can see, that information
> has yet to be made public. Has that plan changed or is there just a
> delay?
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
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!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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thomas.dalton at gmail

Sep 10, 2009, 10:41 AM

Post #4 of 22 (1312 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

2009/9/10 Sue Gardner <sgardner [at] wikimedia>:
> Hi Thomas!
>
> Sorry to top-post, and to be late replying. I believe that all 26
> proposals are up now on the meta page. Let me know if you can't find
> it, and I can post the link tonight when I'm back on my laptop.

The proposals are up, but not the details of which were accepted and
which weren't. It would be useful to have that information when
considering what to request funding for in future.

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pharosofalexandria at gmail

Sep 10, 2009, 12:27 PM

Post #5 of 22 (1307 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail> wrote:
> 2009/9/10 Sue Gardner <sgardner [at] wikimedia>:
>> Hi Thomas!
>>
>> Sorry to top-post, and to be late replying. I believe that all 26
>> proposals are up now on the meta page. Let me know if you can't find
>> it, and I can post the link tonight when I'm back on my laptop.
>
> The proposals are up, but not the details of which were accepted and
> which weren't. It would be useful to have that information when
> considering what to request funding for in future.

There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance

Since 26 were accepted in total, I guess this list in not quite
complete yet; but still it makes for very useful reading.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
Wikimedia NYC-personal view

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thomas.dalton at gmail

Sep 10, 2009, 12:40 PM

Post #6 of 22 (1313 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

2009/9/10 Pharos <pharosofalexandria [at] gmail>:
> There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance

Ah, well found! I didn't think to check that page - the title doesn't
suggest it would contain such info.

> Since 26 were accepted in total, I guess this list in not quite
> complete yet; but still it makes for very useful reading.

They may still be waiting to hear back from the other chapters.

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thomas.dalton at gmail

Sep 10, 2009, 12:53 PM

Post #7 of 22 (1309 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

2009/9/10 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail>:
> 2009/9/10 Pharos <pharosofalexandria [at] gmail>:
>> There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page:
>>
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance
>
> Ah, well found! I didn't think to check that page - the title doesn't
> suggest it would contain such info.

I must say, I am amazed that this was approved:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/WM_PT/Start-up

WMUK managed to get set up without paying for any meals and all
meetings have taken place in pubs or rooms we've got hold of for free.
Paying nearly $3,500 for that out of charitable donations is patently
ridiculous.

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innocentkiller at gmail

Sep 10, 2009, 1:02 PM

Post #8 of 22 (1319 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail> wrote:
> 2009/9/10 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail>:
>> 2009/9/10 Pharos <pharosofalexandria [at] gmail>:
>>> There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page:
>>>
>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance
>>
>> Ah, well found! I didn't think to check that page - the title doesn't
>> suggest it would contain such info.
>
> I must say, I am amazed that this was approved:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/WM_PT/Start-up
>
> WMUK managed to get set up without paying for any meals and all
> meetings have taken place in pubs or rooms we've got hold of for free.
> Paying nearly $3,500 for that out of charitable donations is patently
> ridiculous.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

I hadn't read that either. Ridiculous, I agree. I doubt people are donating
to the WMF for them to send the money to the Portuguese chapter for
their lunches.

The only part of that budget that makes sense to me is the legal fees, and
they're certainly not a back-breaking amount either.

-Chad

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thomas.dalton at gmail

Sep 10, 2009, 1:04 PM

Post #9 of 22 (1308 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

2009/9/10 Chad <innocentkiller [at] gmail>:
> I hadn't read that either. Ridiculous, I agree. I doubt people are donating
> to the WMF for them to send the money to the Portuguese chapter for
> their lunches.
>
> The only part of that budget that makes sense to me is the legal fees, and
> they're certainly not a back-breaking amount either.

I have no objection, in principle, to travel and admin costs - WMUK
paid for them out of our first membership fees. We didn't travel that
much, though - I think there was one face-to-face meeting to actually
sign things, everything else was done online.

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gerard.meijssen at gmail

Sep 10, 2009, 1:12 PM

Post #10 of 22 (1311 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

Hoi,
I think it is not reasonable to judge others by how you do things. Please
remember that there are different cultures where things are done in
different ways. I am sure there are things in the history of the WMUK that
you do not wish onto others.. Everyone has to deal with the local
environment. This is one reason why we have different chapters ...
Thanks,
GerardM

2009/9/10 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail>

> 2009/9/10 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail>:
> > 2009/9/10 Pharos <pharosofalexandria [at] gmail>:
> >> There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page:
> >>
> >>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance
> >
> > Ah, well found! I didn't think to check that page - the title doesn't
> > suggest it would contain such info.
>
> I must say, I am amazed that this was approved:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/WM_PT/Start-up
>
> WMUK managed to get set up without paying for any meals and all
> meetings have taken place in pubs or rooms we've got hold of for free.
> Paying nearly $3,500 for that out of charitable donations is patently
> ridiculous.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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thomas.dalton at gmail

Sep 10, 2009, 1:21 PM

Post #11 of 22 (1307 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

2009/9/10 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen [at] gmail>:
> Hoi,
> I think it is not reasonable to judge others by how you do things. Please
> remember that there are different cultures where things are done in
> different ways. I am sure there are things in the history of the WMUK that
> you do not wish onto others.. Everyone has to deal with the local
> environment. This is one reason why we have different chapters ...

Nonsense. If British Wikimedians can afford their own food, so can
Portuguese Wikimedians. They can bring a packed lunch from home if
they want - they would be eating anyway.

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notafishz at gmail

Sep 10, 2009, 1:37 PM

Post #12 of 22 (1309 views)
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Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 22:21, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail> wrote:
> 2009/9/10 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen [at] gmail>:
>> Hoi,
>> I think it is not reasonable to judge others by how you do things. Please
>> remember that there are different cultures where things are done in
>> different ways. I am sure there are things in the history of the WMUK that
>> you do not wish onto others.. Everyone has to deal with the local
>> environment. This is one reason why we have different chapters ...
>
> Nonsense. If British Wikimedians can afford their own food, so can
> Portuguese Wikimedians. They can bring a packed lunch from home if
> they want - they would be eating anyway.

Once in a while does not harm, I have to agree with Thomas on this
one. As a matter of fact, the amount is irrelevant to me, it's the
whole idea of having face to face meetings 12 (twelve!) times in a
year that I find incredible.
In a country like Australia, or even the US where getting people
together even just once might cost that kind of money, I would have
found the expense justified. In a country like Portugal, I am sorry, I
don't.

Cultural differences may exist, but there is no chapter that I know of
which does a monthly face to face meeting of their board (heck, if
Wikimedia France had that kind of money, we would!). And if they do,
they manage to get the funds together, as Thomas puts it, especially
for the meals. If anything, this helps measure the commitment of
people to making the chapter work. What happened to volunteers eating
sandwiches and fruits while sitting in a caf� with free wifi?

So yeah, I must say that I would have brought down this grant to
around 1000 USD for a first face to face meeting in order to get
things going, and would have only included legal fees, renting rooms
and travel, for example.

Delphine

--
~notafish

NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will
get lost.
Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org

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waldir at email

Sep 11, 2009, 1:49 AM

Post #13 of 22 (1310 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

Hi Thomas, and all who showed concern about Wikimedia Portugal's planned
expenses.

I am one of the persons who calculated that budget, and thus I feel I should
provide you with some information.

First of all, I'd point out that none of us has any experience in
nation-wide nonprofit organizations. We thus had no way to know what we
would need to make it work, and chose to play safe. Obviously, we were aware
that the value for meetings was fairly high, and we pointed that out in our
proposal, as you can read in the page you linked:

"We are (...) willing to reduce the frequency of the meetings if the total
value is considered too high"

And we indeed were advised to do so, when the grant was conceded:

"The award was reduced from the requested USD $7,909 to encourage a smaller
budget for travel."

Let me assure you, we are as much as yourself concerned in not wasting the
grant's money with "lunches for the members". We have plenty of planned
activities (as you can see in
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Portugal/Actividades) for which we
didn't include a budget in our request, since it was for the start-up only.
But we are very much willing to find ways to meet less and apply the money
in these projects instead.

We would love to receive advice on how we can make the chapter work (well)
with people so spread across the country (almost all the involved people
live in different cities), and since much of the money WMF has was
volunteer-contributed, we will take into account the wishes of the
community. If you feel we should meet less (how many times do you think are
enough? let us know your thoughts on our mailing list:
wikimediapt [at] lists), then we certainly will consider your
advice.

Thanks,
Waldir

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 8:53 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail>wrote:

> 2009/9/10 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail>:
> > 2009/9/10 Pharos <pharosofalexandria [at] gmail>:
> >> There are 21 accepted proposals listed on this page:
> >>
> >>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/Reporting_Guidance
> >
> > Ah, well found! I didn't think to check that page - the title doesn't
> > suggest it would contain such info.
>
> I must say, I am amazed that this was approved:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants/WM_PT/Start-up
>
> WMUK managed to get set up without paying for any meals and all
> meetings have taken place in pubs or rooms we've got hold of for free.
> Paying nearly $3,500 for that out of charitable donations is patently
> ridiculous.
>
> _______________________________________________
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> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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thomas.dalton at gmail

Sep 11, 2009, 7:25 AM

Post #14 of 22 (1297 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

2009/9/11 Waldir Pimenta <waldir [at] email>:
> Hi Thomas, and all who showed concern about Wikimedia Portugal's planned
> expenses.
>
> I am one of the persons who calculated that budget, and thus I feel I should
> provide you with some information.

Thank you very much, I appreciate your willingness to discuss this issue.

> We would love to receive advice on how we can make the chapter work (well)
> with people so spread across the country (almost all the involved people
> live in different cities), and since much of the money WMF has was
> volunteer-contributed, we will take into account the wishes of the
> community. If you feel we should meet less (how many times do you think are
> enough? let us know your thoughts on our mailing list:
> wikimediapt [at] lists), then we certainly will consider your
> advice.

I'll offer you some advice here - I'd rather not join a non-English
mailing list and I don't like to email a list I am not subscribed to.

WMUK has almost all its meetings on IRC (every week at first, now down
to once a fortnight usually), which are completely free. It is not
quite as efficient as face-to-face meetings, but it does work. We have
our Annual General Meeting (AGM - you may call it a General Assembly
or similar, a meeting of all members) in person (at the last one the
only cost was travel for the board, we got the room for free and I
think there was free tea and coffee, everything else people paid for
themselves - the next one will be part of a larger conference and we
are trying to get sponsorship for that). There is also a plan for one
board meeting a year in person in addition to the AGM, I expect the
only cost for that will be travel again.

We find people are generally happy to buy their own food when we meet
in a pub or similar, or eat before they arrive (we usually start
things around 1-2pm so people can get there since we are spread out
all over the country and have a terrible train system). The conference
we are planning will probably include a lunch, but it will either be
paid for by sponsorship or a registration fee for attendees, it won't
come out of general charity funds.

I wish you the best of luck and offer you whatever assistance and
advice I can - just ask.

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dgerard at gmail

Sep 11, 2009, 7:29 AM

Post #15 of 22 (1297 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

2009/9/11 Waldir Pimenta <waldir [at] email>:

> We would love to receive advice on how we can make the chapter work (well)
> with people so spread across the country (almost all the involved people
> live in different cities), and since much of the money WMF has was
> volunteer-contributed, we will take into account the wishes of the
> community. If you feel we should meet less (how many times do you think are
> enough? let us know your thoughts on our mailing list:
> wikimediapt [at] lists), then we certainly will consider your
> advice.

WMUK (both versions) made very sure that official meetings were
explicitly allowed to be conducted online, not just in person. This
means an IRC meeting can be official (and a lot less nuisance).

- d.

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nawrich at gmail

Sep 11, 2009, 7:47 AM

Post #16 of 22 (1289 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 4:49 AM, Waldir Pimenta <waldir [at] email> wrote:
> Hi Thomas, and all who showed concern about Wikimedia Portugal's planned
> expenses.
>
> I am one of the persons who calculated that budget, and thus I feel I should
> provide you with some information.
>
> First of all, I'd point out that none of us has any experience in
> nation-wide nonprofit organizations. We thus had no way to know what we
> would need to make it work, and chose to play safe. Obviously, we were aware
> that the value for meetings was fairly high, and we pointed that out in our
> proposal, as you can read in the page you linked:
>
> "We are (...) willing to reduce the frequency of the meetings if the total
> value is considered too high"
>
> And we indeed were advised to do so, when the grant was conceded:
>
> "The award was reduced from the requested USD $7,909 to encourage a smaller
> budget for travel."
>
> Let me assure you, we are as much as yourself concerned in not wasting the
> grant's money with "lunches for the members". We have plenty of planned
> activities (as you can see in
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Portugal/Actividades) for which we
> didn't include a budget in our request, since it was for the start-up only.
> But we are very much willing to find ways to meet less and apply the money
> in these projects instead.
>
> We would love to receive advice on how we can make the chapter work (well)
> with people so spread across the country (almost all the involved people
> live in different cities), and since much of the money WMF has was
> volunteer-contributed, we will take into account the wishes of the
> community. If you feel we should meet less (how many times do you think are
> enough? let us know your thoughts on our mailing list:
> wikimediapt [at] lists), then we certainly will consider your
> advice.
>
> Thanks,
> Waldir

Thanks for commenting, Waldir. The last thing anyone wants to do is
discourage or impede the formation of a new Wikimedia chapter, and I
think any constructive criticism of the grant process should focus on
the Foundation and not recipients. As you say, new chapters are *new*
- you have the opportunity to benefit from the experience of the
Foundation staff and other chapter groups, and the grant review
process should be seen as an avenue to deliver that experience in
addition to funding.

I'm curious - Portugal isn't on this list of officially recognized
chapters[1], but the grant criteria[2] say that grants are contingent
on chapter recognition by the WMF. Has that happened and just not made
it to meta?

Thanks,

Nathan

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Local_chapters
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants

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wikipedia at verizon

Sep 11, 2009, 7:59 AM

Post #17 of 22 (1287 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

Nathan wrote:
> I'm curious - Portugal isn't on this list of officially recognized
> chapters[1], but the grant criteria[2] say that grants are contingent
> on chapter recognition by the WMF. Has that happened and just not made
> it to meta?
>
I'm not sure what part of the criteria you're reading to paraphrase them
in those contingent terms. To quote from the page itself, "If your
chapter is still in development, you can still apply for funds
(especially when they are relevant to getting your chapter off the ground)".

--Michael Snow
> [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Local_chapters
> [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grant

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thomas.dalton at gmail

Sep 11, 2009, 8:02 AM

Post #18 of 22 (1297 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

2009/9/11 Michael Snow <wikipedia [at] verizon>:
> Nathan wrote:
>> I'm curious - Portugal isn't on this list of officially recognized
>> chapters[1], but the grant criteria[2] say that grants are contingent
>> on chapter recognition by the WMF. Has that happened and just not made
>> it to meta?
>>
> I'm not sure what part of the criteria you're reading to paraphrase them
> in those contingent terms. To quote from the page itself, "If your
> chapter is still in development, you can still apply for funds
> (especially when they are relevant to getting your chapter off the ground)".

I'm curious, in that situation, who does the WMF actually give the money to?

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nawrich at gmail

Sep 11, 2009, 8:10 AM

Post #19 of 22 (1289 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Michael Snow <wikipedia [at] verizon> wrote:
>> I'm not sure what part of the criteria you're reading to paraphrase them
> in those contingent terms. To quote from the page itself, "If your
> chapter is still in development, you can still apply for funds
> (especially when they are relevant to getting your chapter off the ground)".
>
> --Michael Snow
>> [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Local_chapters
>> [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grant
>
> --

You're right, Michael - in an e-mail to the other thread I was a bit
more clear with my question, which was in two parts - had the chapter
been recognized, and if not was ChapCom involved? (I have no reason to
doubt this, just thought I'd ask.) I also asked how money was
disbursed in the absence of a legal entity to take responsibility for
it, and what monitoring steps were planned, which I'm still curious
about. Sorry for the unclear wording.

Nathan

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gerard.meijssen at gmail

Sep 11, 2009, 8:12 AM

Post #20 of 22 (1289 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

Hoi,
The likely and obvious answer is to someone who is known and trusted to be
involved in this.
Thanks,
GerardM

2009/9/11 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton [at] gmail>

> 2009/9/11 Michael Snow <wikipedia [at] verizon>:
> > Nathan wrote:
> >> I'm curious - Portugal isn't on this list of officially recognized
> >> chapters[1], but the grant criteria[2] say that grants are contingent
> >> on chapter recognition by the WMF. Has that happened and just not made
> >> it to meta?
> >>
> > I'm not sure what part of the criteria you're reading to paraphrase them
> > in those contingent terms. To quote from the page itself, "If your
> > chapter is still in development, you can still apply for funds
> > (especially when they are relevant to getting your chapter off the
> ground)".
>
> I'm curious, in that situation, who does the WMF actually give the money
> to?
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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lists at caseybrown

Sep 12, 2009, 8:11 AM

Post #21 of 22 (1242 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 10:47 AM, Nathan <nawrich [at] gmail> wrote:
> I'm curious - Portugal isn't on this list of officially recognized
> chapters[1],

The chapter has been approved for creation, but has not been created
yet, so it's not on wmf:Local chapters. (Last time WMBR was on there
without being registered, people complained, so now we wait until
there's an actual organization in place).

However, it is mentioned on Meta:
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters#Existing_chapters>
and the approval resolution can be found on foundationwiki:
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Approval_of_Wikimedia_Portugal>

--
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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saintonge at telus

Sep 13, 2009, 7:28 PM

Post #22 of 22 (1183 views)
Permalink

Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 [In reply to]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> 2009/9/11 Waldir Pimenta <waldir [at] email>:
>
>> Hi Thomas, and all who showed concern about Wikimedia Portugal's planned
>> expenses.
>>
>> I am one of the persons who calculated that budget, and thus I feel I should
>> provide you with some information.
>>
> Thank you very much, I appreciate your willingness to discuss this issue.
>
>
Indeed! I don't fault the Portuguese Wikipedians in this at all. They
acted in the way they felt was best for their own interests.

Ec

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