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End of the Wikimedia Foundation's regular public activity reporting

Additional context: This custom that now appears to be ending goes back more than the ten years stated in the article - these quarterly slide decks were the successor of monthly reports that the Wikimedia Foundation had been publishing since January 2008, when it had only a handful of employees and was just settling into its new office after moving from Florida to San Francisco. Per the then executive director, as quoted in the comprehensive overview at meta:Wikimedia Foundation reports, they originated as non-public reports to the Board of Trustees that she decided to make available on the public mailing list of the Wikimedia movement (the predecessor of today's Wikimedia-l):

You may know that I send regular reports to the Wikimedia board.

I don't see a really compelling reason _not_ to send the reports to foundation-l [as well]... Let me know if you find it helpful :-)
  – Sue Gardner, January 31, 2008

Apparently the new(ish) CEO Maryana Iskander does no longer not see such compelling reasons, so we are losing an important instrument of public accountability and transparency. (I assume that besides the anticipated "end of year" report, there will still be the annual reports that are standard for US nonprofits, but they are very different in content and audience.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:19, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

This statement:

Apparently the new(ish) CEO Maryana Iskander does no longer not see such compelling reasons

while amusingly (and, presumably, intentionally) convoluted, isn't entirely fair to Ms. Iskander. If they were only ever made public at the whim of the Foundation CEO, and that public dissemination was never codified as any sort of policy, then she (unfortunately) doesn't really need a compelling reason not to share the reports -- she just needs any reason at all. The reason could be anything from, "I want as little scrutiny as possible on the shady activities the Foundation is planning", to, "The general public is too stupid to comprehend the Foundation's activities, and will only misinterpret and distort the important work we do", to simply, "I don't wanna."

(In much the same way that, in the United States, the President's State of the Union address is televised only by tradition -- the Constitution requires that the President report to Congress, and nothing more. Congress would thus be perfectly within its rights, and would continue to fulfill all of its legal obligations, if it decided for any reason to stop broadcasting the proceedings.)

Of course, one would expect any CEO (or Congress) considering a break with such an established tradition to think long and hard about the public's reaction to the move, and whether they were prepared to deal with the inevitable backlash. Some people might even argue that a spirit of transparency and accountability, coupled with the weight of established tradition, constitute compelling reasons TO continue making the reports public despite having no obligation to do so. Alas, one thing we can fairly conclude from Ms. Iskander's decision is that she is not one of those people.

Another fair conclusion is that we probably shouldn't leave things to tradition that would be better codified as explicit policy. FeRDNYC (talk) 12:46, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

WMF response to a user cancelling his donation

One of the things that stands out - and this is just one example - is the the WMF's total cluelessness of business communications. Instead of employing people who work on the 'client side' who have studied marketing, they make it up as they go. A 2-line acknowledgement would have been quite sufficient. That just makes it all worse, besides all the lying through their back teeth in the fundraising about being in desperate need of cash to keep the servers running. Mark my words, one of the days the volunteers here who get nothing better than a slap in the face for their efforts and treated like galley slaves here will mutiny. It's going to be interesting to see how the NPP team's meeting with the WMF this week will pan out. It's my guess it will just be the usual whinging and whining: "We ain't got no dough". I'm supposed to be part of that meeting, but at 01:00AM I've probably got better things to do with my time while the WMF do their thing strictly during office hours and get paid very handsomely for it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that WMF knew that the "galley slaves" won't mutiny. The number of editors that actively edit Wikipedia without knowing anything about WMF is astounding. I participated in RfA in id.wiki few months ago, and all they have to say about WMF are praises, not one of them knew about the problems with WMF. And even when facing great injustice such as WP:FRAM, the number of editors that quit because of that case is almost none - most editors are happy to oppose WMF but continue to edit constructively. No matter how much we criticize WMF, they won't care unless it hit their pocket. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 01:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

You're probably right, SunDawn, except that it's most likey the English Wikipedia more than any other Foundation project that pulls the donations in. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:24, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Quitting Wikipedia is not an effective mutiny. Let's take a (semi-hypothetical) admin of 15 years who resigns in Framgate and leaves a very vocal and direct message on their userpage. The community takes a big hit—the admin even worked in important areas with a bus factor of 1 (themselves). It's big news to us. But to Maryana Iskander, it's nothing. Iskander wouldn't hear about it, or understand the significance if she did—she's not a Wikipedian. I wouldn't trust her to describe on a basic level what en.wiki adminship actually is. Or how editing works.

There are great people who work for the WMF and are a part of our Wikimedia community, and understand far more than me about it. But I'm not convinced that the decision-makers contain many such people.

To speak to the WMF about fundraising and spending, we need to use a language Iskander can understand. I would suggest blackouts like we did for SOPA or co-ordinating in ways that can make newspaper headlines. We need to mutiny pragmatically. — Bilorv (talk) 22:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

A pragmatic mutiny, that's an interesting idea Bilorv. I wonder what it would look like and what it would need to spark it off. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:06, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

One effort underway is Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign by User:BilledMammal. Andreas JN466 23:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Iteresting. Shame the banners for November are probably going to be based on the same untruths as usual. I have a better banner that could have been run in The Signpost but it's too late for that. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:36, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Problems with poorly supervised grants

See discussion last month. I've reviewed several grants and I remain deeply worried we are spending money on stuff that is a poorly disguised attempt to raid WMF coffers. A lot of grants are 1) being used for stuff that has ZERO connection with Wikimedia movement, 2) have little to no accountaiblity (people promise to do stuff, if they fail, I see no mechanism for money to be returned to WMF) and 3) seem to have very inflated costs (ex. one project I remember well asked for ~6k$ for open access publishing, whereas I know that the average costs of OA in this very field is usually under $2k, and a lot of similar research is published at no cost yet still using OA model). While I am sure some grants are being spent on worthy causes, the amount of problems I see here is very worrying. I am glad this issue is making more waves. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

There's a wide margin of open access fees, from US$2.5K in PNAS to US$11K in Nature. But better yet, publish it in WikiJournal which is already hosted in Wikiversity and funded by WMF through grants so WMF doesn't need to pay twice for facilitating open access publishing and contents can be quickly reused within Wikimedia movement. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:59, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited To be clear, I was talking about OA fees in education journals. There are good journals in the field, well indexed, were OA fees are ~2k. The authors don't explain why they are aiming at a much more expensive journal (or which one it is). The best solution, frankly, is to do a pre-print and then go with closed access, it's win-win - open access and no fees. As for WikiJournal, I am afraid it's not indexed in anything serious (SCOPUS, etc.) so I personally wouldn't publish in it. It wouldn't count for my career, and until it is indexed in respectable indices, it's a toy for students or scholars from minor institutions which have no requirements of its faculty to speak of. PS. Worse, the way that the grants are written, the authors can totally do pre-publishing, or publish in WikiJournal, and keep all the ~6k for themselves and spend it on anything they want, they don't have to return it. There is no accountability here. That's the problem. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:06, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Piotrus: One of the three WikiJournals (WikiJournal of Medicine) has already been approved and indexed by Scopus. Other two's approvals are still in the works. As the old adage goes, Rome isn't built in a day. I agree with your last point. There needs to be better accountability to ensure that the items that are requested in the funding request are actually used for the project and not reallocated to unspecified purpose. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 15:14, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited Great news re SCOPUS for WJoM. Can you update the info at WikiJournal_User_Group#Journals_in_this_group, which doesn't mention SCOPUS? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:50, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Funds are being poorly used

Given the state of New Page Patrol, the poor condition of the Commons mobile app, the absence of apps for projects like Wikisource, Wiktionary et al. and the apparent lack of developers for these basic (IMO) requirements, I don't think it is too far out for me to say that WMF is not using the available funds properly and maybe does not have its priorities in order. Ciridae (talk) 13:20, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

• Remember the DynamicPageList that caused huge server disorder. It also showed that MediaWiki engine basically needs full rewrite as it contains lots of outdated patches. WMF said at the time that DynamicPageList fixing is expensive. It's very sad now to read that millions of dollars are actually spent on things unrelated to Wiki movement. --ssr (talk) 14:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

  The structure for proposing improvements, through Community Wishlist Survey, has been problematic and broken for many years. They only work on proposals with highest votes, which turned it into a popularity contest where only Wikipedia, Commons and Wikidata (WP, COM, WD) stands any reasonable chance to have their proposals (or dictate which proposals) to succeed because they are the biggest projects and have the voting power to trump other proposals. Other smaller sister projects only get features on the margins of WP, CO, WD proposals that also benefit the small projects. Even in 2020, when they purposely forbid big projects like WP, COM, WD to submit to the wishlist, it still turned into a "which community can mobilize the most voters" competition that ended up with 4 out of 5 winning proposals belonging to Wikisource (and 6 Wikisource proposals in top 10). OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:18, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Hacker News discussion

There has been a worthwhile discussion of this article today on Hacker News: [1]

The sentiment there is quite clear, I believe: people would like more transparency. Andreas JN466 21:16, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Lack of transparency is actually one problem I don't agree we have here. We are able to have this discussion about whether the use of funds was good or not because of the unusual amount of transparency at the Wikimedia Foundation about grantmaking. We know exactly where money went, when, and why. What's lacking is that the WMF hasn't listened adequately here and acted with urgency to address donor/reader/editor concerns about the grants. Steven Walling • talk 20:36, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

@Steven Walling: I meant lack of transparency in the fundraising messages – though there is the additional aspect that the public (correct me if I'm wrong ...) has no way of knowing what happened to the other $7.5 million that were transferred to Tides Advocacy in 2019/20.

All the arrangements with Tides are actually the exact opposite of transparent. (The very purpose of Tides is to obscure money flows.) Andreas JN466 00:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

A cursory search of the mailing lists shows they answered that years ago. The Tides Advocacy transfer, which was approved by the Board, went to annual plan grants for chapters (or affiliates or whatever we're calling them now) and to Knowledge Equity Fund. Both of those have grant proposals documented on Meta. As a general point, your propensity to cry wolf about seemingly every single donor dollar that flows through the WMF dilutes the effectiveness of constructive criticism from the community. Saying stuff like "The very purpose of Tides is to obscure money flows" also shows a pretty clear presumption of bad faith on your part. Steven Walling • talk 18:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@Steven Walling: Look, a grant proposal on Meta is not the same as a Form 990. Can you show me public documents identifying the amounts paid to the various affiliates and stating in which year the payments were made, for the full $4.223 million?

Tides Foundation manages donor-advised funds. You don't seem to be familiar with the concept. From our article:

In this type of foundation, individuals or other foundations contribute money to the donor directed foundation, and it then makes grants based on the stated preferences of the original contributor. This process ensures that the intent of the contributor is met while also hiding that contributor's identity. Because contributions to a donor directed foundation are not required to be made public, their existence provides a way for individuals or corporations to make anonymous contributions.

In other words, you can see that some money was paid to some organisation, but you can't see whose money it was. That is why I said it is "designed to obscure money flows". Here is a Democratic Senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, calling it "dark money":

Whitehouse was willing to admit that, while the influence for years was largely Republican, Democratic dark money had also caught up — with groups like Arabella Advisors and the Tides Foundation playing a mirroring role with some Democratic Party members. “Now, Republican colleagues have faced massive attacks leveled through Democratic front groups,” Whitehouse said. “So perhaps this slime machine can be a bipartisan concern.” [2]

You might want to read up on this. Regards, Andreas JN466 19:04, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

What you're saying makes no sense. We know exactly how much money the Foundation sends to Tides—it's not anonymous at all—and you can correlate that with the approved grants that are documented publicly on Meta including finance reporting. The actual problem is that money is going to grants that don't do any work that directly benefits Wikimedia projects. Which again... we know because it's all public. Steven Walling • talk 17:05, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Steven Walling: Well, where for example can we see how much Tides Advoacy is paid for administering the fund? How much interest they have earned from WMF money? And where is there a summation that says affiliate grants approved on Meta and funded by Tides Advocacy add up to the $4.223 million that were sent to Tides for this purpose? Knowing how much money the WMF sends to Tides is surely only half the story; what really matters is transparent documentation about where this money ends up, and when.

When I looked for this information, I found m:Community_Resources/Grants_spending_analysis#Grants_funded_July_2020-June_2021, which divulges exactly nothing, beyond "Annual Plan Grants: administered by Tides Advocacy for Fiscal Year 2020-2021". There is not a single figure for the major rubrics, let alone individual affiliates. If you have found better links on Meta, I would be grateful if you could post them here. Regards, Andreas JN466 18:44, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Steven Walling: Since we discussed this three months ago, Tides Advocacy has released its Form 990 for 2021. I went through it and added up everything that relates to Wikimedia affiliates. As far as I can tell, the relevant amounts only sum to about $3.8 million. This would leave a $400k gap (a 10% commission would be an order of magnitude more than is customary). Would you have time to check my figures and let me know whether you come to a different result? The WMF have not replied to questions. For Form 990 links and sums see m:Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement. Regards, Andreas JN466 20:10, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Steven Walling, everything that Andreas says DOES make sense! I know about these things, as I do financial due diligence under U.S. jurisdictions IRL. It *IS* correct that donor advised funds exist for "the very purpose... of obscuring money flows". For Andreas to say so does NOT in any way "show a pretty clear presumption of bad faith". Democrats, Republicans, and special interest groups of all sorts use organizations such as Tides Advocacy as a de facto shield to conceal their grant-making activities. Tides Advocacy is a legitimate, U.S. registered non-profit entity. There are many organizations that are putatively non-profit but have not yet received a ruling by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service about their non-profit application status. In the interim, entities such as Tides Advocacy is allowed to temporarily "take them under its non-profit status wing" so to speak. Tides Advocacy does this only with organizations whose work is consistent with Tides own goals. Tides is not required to do any sort of audit of these organizations nor is it accountable for them.

Wikipedia was associating itself with Tides which involves additional hazards to WP's claim to NPOV and neutrality. I'm thinking of the specific example of the Black Lives Matter charitable foundation. Until BLM received non-profit organization status from the IRS, its funds were kept with Tides Advocacy, just as Wikipedia did. At that time (in 2018 or so) the Tides treasurer was Susan Rosenberg. She is a convicted felon and served time in U.S. federal prison for domestic terrorism about 25 years ago. I personally believe that she is a nice, responsible lady now, as I exchanged pleasant notes and emails with her in 2013 about matters unrelated to her past or to her work. Once it came to light about Susan's position at Tides in 2020, when there was a huge influx of funds to BLM which was still under the umbrella of Tides, it caused a big, potentially reputation-damaging brouhaha for BLM and Tides. This was because many people who lack Andreas's knowledge incorrectly inferred that a former Weatherman was the leader of BLM! Susan left her position at Tides but the media and detractors had a field day with it. Any use of organizations such as Tides (for left-wing groups that Tides approves of) or right-wing counterparts is the very definition of Dark Money as Sheldon Whitehouse described it. I will return with some links for reference.--FeralOink (talk) 19:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

We used to have discussions every year on Meta about how much money would be allotted to each Wikimedia "branch office" around the world, including number of staff, and sometimes breakouts of appropriate localized compensation and expense levels. I recall participating in those decisions for Wikimedia Norway in 2013 or maybe 2014. Are these budgetary decisions no longer done collaboratively and publicly by members of the Wikimedia community?--FeralOink (talk) 19:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Latest financial statements released

The WMF has released its latest audited financial statements, for the financial year ended June 30, 2022: [3]. This shows

• a $12 million negative investment income (loss),
• total support and revenue (including that $12 million investment loss) of $155 million (down $8 million; would have been up $3.5 million but for the negative investment income)
• total expenses of $146 million (up $34 million)
• salaries and wages of $88 million (up $20 million)
• net asset increase at end of year of $8 million

I have enquired what exactly the $12 million negative investment income means.

It's also odd that the end-of-year increase in net assets is so small. In the third-quarter Finance & Administration tuning session deck published in May 2022, the end-of-year increase in net assets was forecast to be $25.9 million. I wonder what happened. --Andreas JN466 12:06, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Admin desysopped

I have to say I'm grateful that so many Wikipedians responded swiftly to the abhorrent transphobic comments stated by Athaenara, but jesus christ. Stuff like that is something you never hope to hear coming out of the mouths of Wikipedia admins; you edit Wikipedia for the good of the community, you don't expect to encounter such horrid abuse here, of all places (it's more the style of Twitter, if anything). Thank you to everyone who picked up on it, and everyone who also attempted to change their mind and get through to them on their Talk page; though I think it's an effort in vain, it is at least something to see more than just transgender users having to fight this for once.—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 12:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Fundraising banner RfC

There is an ongoing RfC on the wording of the Wikimedia fundraising banners that are due to appear on Wikipedia in a couple of weeks' time:

• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign

Andreas JN466 19:16, 15 November 2022 (UTC)