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Asaf Bartov | 1 Jan 2011 02:26
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Wikimania 2011 Registration Now Open

Hello, everyone.

We are pleased to announce that the registration period and the scholarship
application period for Wikimania 2011, which will be held in Haifa, Israel,
on August 4th to 7th, 2011, have *just begun!*

== Registration ==
Those who register early will enjoy considerable discounts in both
registration and accommodation fees, so be sure to register as early as
possible.

* Full information about registration, including fees and registration
periods: http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration
* Our registration website: http://wmreg.wikimedia.org.il/

== Scholarship application ==
If you require a scholarship to attend Wikimania 2011, you can apply for one
until the end of January 2011. This year, there will be partial scholarships
to cover travel costs up to USD 300, in addition to full scholarships.

* Full information about scholarships:
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
* Our scholarship application website: http://wmschols.wikimedia.org.il/

== Call for Papers ==
The Call for Papers for the conference has been available for a while now.
You are welcome to submit workshop, seminar, tutorial, panel, and
presentation proposals.

* The Call for Papers:
(Continue reading)

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Philippe Beaudette | 1 Jan 2011 03:34
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Fundraising banners

Hi everyone,

We wanted you to hear first: in about three hours, we're switching the messaging on the banners to "Thank
you!"  It's time to thank the world, because the world came together to help support the Wikimedia
projects.  We're delighted to report that nearly half a million donations came in.  It's a resounding vote
of confidence in what you've done with the projects.  So take a moment to stop, to celebrate, and to enjoy the
accomplishment... and then it's time to focus on the tenth anniversary year!  

You may notice that the fundraising statistics page doesn't quite say $16M.  Since you might be asked about
that, here's the math we used to arrive at the end of the fundraiser:

In addition to the amount posted on the graph (roughly $13.5M), we have about $1.5 million in revenue
received during testing or received but not yet posted (manual check entry, etc).  We've been counting on
$500,000 from the chapters in our thermometer formula but given the extraordinary chapter fundraising
success this year, we're confident that we'll be over the $16M mark.  (We're also including an adjusted
value for the recurring gifts that we've received this year.)

We're delighted to be able to start 2011 with our community giving goal already met.  We did this in a
collaborative fashion: testing nearly 200 banner ideas submitted by the community, using
translations, with community involvement in the testing, and in the next phase of the campaign -
encouraging people to edit.  

We'll be running "Thank you" banners for the next few days to tell the world how much this editing community
appreciates their financial support, and then will convert to banners inviting people to get involved in
tenth anniversary celebrations around the world, and to make their first edit (the "contribution" phase
of the campaign).  

Now let's go celebrate!

Zack Exley
(Continue reading)

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aude | 1 Jan 2011 04:00
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Re: Fundraising banners

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 9:34 PM, Philippe Beaudette <
pbeaudette@...> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> We wanted you to hear first: in about three hours, we're switching the
> messaging on the banners to "Thank you!"

Yay!!! Congratulations Philippe and the fundraising team and thanks for the
hard work!

Cheers,
Katie ( <at> aude)

> It's time to thank the world, because the world came together to help
> support the Wikimedia projects.  We're delighted to report that nearly half
> a million donations came in.  It's a resounding vote of confidence in what
> you've done with the projects.  So take a moment to stop, to celebrate, and
> to enjoy the accomplishment... and then it's time to focus on the tenth
> anniversary year!
>
> You may notice that the fundraising statistics page doesn't quite say $16M.
>  Since you might be asked about that, here's the math we used to arrive at
> the end of the fundraiser:
>
> In addition to the amount posted on the graph (roughly $13.5M), we have
> about $1.5 million in revenue received during testing or received but not
> yet posted (manual check entry, etc).  We've been counting on $500,000 from
> the chapters in our thermometer formula but given the extraordinary chapter
> fundraising success this year, we're confident that we'll be over the $16M
(Continue reading)

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Keegan Peterzell | 1 Jan 2011 07:24
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Re: Fundraising banners

+1 with a :) and a cherry on top.

On 12/31/2010 8:34 PM, Philippe Beaudette wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> We wanted you to hear first: in about three hours, we're switching the messaging on the banners to "Thank
you!"  It's time to thank the world, because the world came together to help support the Wikimedia
projects.  We're delighted to report that nearly half a million donations came in.  It's a resounding vote
of confidence in what you've done with the projects.  So take a moment to stop, to celebrate, and to enjoy the
accomplishment... and then it's time to focus on the tenth anniversary year!
>
> You may notice that the fundraising statistics page doesn't quite say $16M.  Since you might be asked about
that, here's the math we used to arrive at the end of the fundraiser:
>
> In addition to the amount posted on the graph (roughly $13.5M), we have about $1.5 million in revenue
received during testing or received but not yet posted (manual check entry, etc).  We've been counting on
$500,000 from the chapters in our thermometer formula but given the extraordinary chapter fundraising
success this year, we're confident that we'll be over the $16M mark.  (We're also including an adjusted
value for the recurring gifts that we've received this year.)
>
> We're delighted to be able to start 2011 with our community giving goal already met.  We did this in a
collaborative fashion: testing nearly 200 banner ideas submitted by the community, using
translations, with community involvement in the testing, and in the next phase of the campaign -
encouraging people to edit.
>
> We'll be running "Thank you" banners for the next few days to tell the world how much this editing community
appreciates their financial support, and then will convert to banners inviting people to get involved in
tenth anniversary celebrations around the world, and to make their first edit (the "contribution" phase
of the campaign).
>
(Continue reading)

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Huib Laurens | 1 Jan 2011 11:02
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Re: Fundraising banners

To bad this fundraiser used lies, and other things the community didn't want...

Sue exicutive director wikipedia as example

2011/1/1, Keegan Peterzell <kpeterzell@...>:
> +1 with a :) and a cherry on top.
>
> On 12/31/2010 8:34 PM, Philippe Beaudette wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> We wanted you to hear first: in about three hours, we're switching the
>> messaging on the banners to "Thank you!"  It's time to thank the world,
>> because the world came together to help support the Wikimedia projects.
>> We're delighted to report that nearly half a million donations came in.
>> It's a resounding vote of confidence in what you've done with the
>> projects.  So take a moment to stop, to celebrate, and to enjoy the
>> accomplishment... and then it's time to focus on the tenth anniversary
>> year!
>>
>> You may notice that the fundraising statistics page doesn't quite say
>> $16M.  Since you might be asked about that, here's the math we used to
>> arrive at the end of the fundraiser:
>>
>> In addition to the amount posted on the graph (roughly $13.5M), we have
>> about $1.5 million in revenue received during testing or received but not
>> yet posted (manual check entry, etc).  We've been counting on $500,000
>> from the chapters in our thermometer formula but given the extraordinary
>> chapter fundraising success this year, we're confident that we'll be over
>> the $16M mark.  (We're also including an adjusted value for the recurring
>> gifts that we've received this year.)
(Continue reading)

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Domas Mituzas | 1 Jan 2011 11:40
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Re: fundraiser suggestion

Hi!

> I need not imply that the WMF depends on money.

Or rather, "certain parts of WMF depends on certain amounts of money". 

> It's kind of obvious, isn't it?

It is not obvious how much money is "urgent", more urgent than the need to read the article.
It is not obvious how much money is sooooo urgent that it needs to distract me from reading the article by blinking.
It is not obvious how much money is urgent so we could entirely block people from reading the article until
they donate. 

I want to build Wikipedia so that people can read it.
I for one don't want to build Wikipedia so that it could be used as vehicle of WMF growth - I thought that was
supposed to be opposite (I guess my priorities are different from ones declared by strategy project :). 

> If individual donations did decline for some reason WMF would be forced to scale back operations.

Which isn't entirely bad. In lots of places, if you don't have money, you become more efficient at what you do
or do less. 
Having unlimited funding (which is brought by largest advertisement space on the internet) can spoil too
early. 

> There is no reason that they would have to resort to seeking large donations from
> extremely wealthy private interests.

They already do, don't they? 

> In the extreme of things we might find that there is only enough money to pay for servers and bandwidth.
(Continue reading)

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Delphine Ménard | 1 Jan 2011 12:26
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Re: Wikimania 2011 Registration Now Open

I just want to send here, along with best new year wishes, an enormous
thanks to the Haifa team. I believe they have beaten all previous
Wikimanias in opening the registration website so early.

Hat down.

Cheers,

Delphine

On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 2:26 AM, Asaf Bartov <asaf.bartov@...> wrote:
> Hello, everyone.
>
> We are pleased to announce that the registration period and the scholarship
> application period for Wikimania 2011, which will be held in Haifa, Israel,
> on August 4th to 7th, 2011, have *just begun!*
>
> == Registration ==
> Those who register early will enjoy considerable discounts in both
> registration and accommodation fees, so be sure to register as early as
> possible.
>
> * Full information about registration, including fees and registration
> periods: http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration
> * Our registration website: http://wmreg.wikimedia.org.il/
>
> == Scholarship application ==
> If you require a scholarship to attend Wikimania 2011, you can apply for one
> until the end of January 2011. This year, there will be partial scholarships
> to cover travel costs up to USD 300, in addition to full scholarships.
(Continue reading)

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Stephen Bain | 1 Jan 2011 14:45
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Re: fundraiser suggestion

On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Domas Mituzas <midom.lists@...> wrote:
>
>> It's kind of obvious, isn't it?
>
> It is not obvious how much money is "urgent", more urgent than the need to read the article.
> It is not obvious how much money is sooooo urgent that it needs to distract me from reading the article by blinking.
> It is not obvious how much money is urgent so we could entirely block people from reading the article until
they donate.

I think we can equate 'urgent' to 'keeping the sites operational'.
With that in mind we can look at the 2010-11 plan [1] to see how much
money is budgeted for doing that:

$1.8 M (up from $1 M) is budgeted for hosting costs, ie keeping the
servers operational and buying enough internets to feed them with.

$3.3 M (up from $0.96 M) is budgeted for capital expenses, most of
which (though an unspecified proportion) is to fit out a new
datacentre and get more bandwidth for the existing ones. We can count
this as urgent too (making sure the sites remain operational with
growth over the 12 months).

We don't know what proportion of the $9 M budgeted for salaries is for
the tech staff. With projected hirings over 2010-11 (16 new tech staff
for a total of 38), they will make up about 40% of staff (roughly the
same as at present). Not all of these will strictly be necessary for
keeping the sites operational though. Not all the new positions are
specified, but the ones that are range from strongly connected to
keeping the site operational (five new tech operations positions, a
datacentre engineer), to moderately connected (a couple of new
(Continue reading)

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Thomas Dalton | 1 Jan 2011 14:54
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Re: fundraiser suggestion

On 1 January 2011 13:45, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain@...> wrote:
> This puts a ceiling on 'urgent' costs at $8.8 M, or 43% of the budget
> of $20.4 M. [3]

This is a worthwhile analysis, but you have neglected the numerous
expenses involved in supporting a large organisation. You can't have
an organisation with an $8.8M budget without managers, fundraisers,
HR, legal counsel, etc.. The WMF could trim its budget a lot without
harming basic site function, but not as much as your method suggests.

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Stephen Bain | 1 Jan 2011 15:12
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Re: fundraiser suggestion

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 12:54 AM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
> On 1 January 2011 13:45, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain@...> wrote:
>> This puts a ceiling on 'urgent' costs at $8.8 M, or 43% of the budget
>> of $20.4 M. [3]
>
> This is a worthwhile analysis, but you have neglected the numerous
> expenses involved in supporting a large organisation. You can't have
> an organisation with an $8.8M budget without managers, fundraisers,
> HR, legal counsel, etc.. The WMF could trim its budget a lot without
> harming basic site function, but not as much as your method suggests.

Sure, I don't attempt to estimate overheads. But that's probably
balanced out by the generous assumptions made, particularly the one
that all tech staff are essential for site operation, when as many as
half of them are mostly about building functionality (eg, all the
people employed in connection with the usability project).

--

-- 
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain@...

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