Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-10-23/News and notes
Money! WMF fundraising, Wikimedia strategy, WMF new office!
Fundraising report
The WMF have published the fundraising report for 2016–2017. US$91 million was raised from 6.1 million donations – an increase of $13.8 million over the 2015–2016 total. The designated place for public discussion of the report, clarifications of finance, conspiracy theories, or calls for the Wikimedia Foundation or wiki community to attract or repel donors is at Meta-Wiki. Comments or rants about spending rather than the income are accepted annually on the latest page for the annual plans; 2017-18 is closed but watch Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan to comment in the next round. Other opportunities to inspect finances and speak up include reviewing Wikimedia community grant applications, overseeing the activities and finances of Wikimedia chapters and usergroups, or doing your own investigative journalism and writing for The Signpost.
Strategic direction
After many months and cycles of discussions, a strategic direction has emerged from the 2017 Movement strategy:
Our strategic direction: Service and Equity
By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us.
We, the Wikimedia contributors, communities and organizations, will advance our world by collecting knowledge that fully represents human diversity, and by building the services and structures that enable others to do the same.
We will carry on our mission of developing content as we have done in the past, and we will go further.
Knowledge as a service: To serve our users, we will become a platform that serves open knowledge to the world across interfaces and communities. We will build tools for allies and partners to organize and exchange free knowledge beyond Wikimedia. Our infrastructure will enable us and others to collect and use different forms of free, trusted knowledge.
Knowledge equity: As a social movement, we will focus our efforts on the knowledge and communities that have been left out by structures of power and privilege. We will welcome people from every background to build strong and diverse communities. We will break down the social, political, and technical barriers preventing people from accessing and contributing to free knowledge.
Comments and criticisms, on the final and previous versions, proliferate the talk page.
Endorsements will be sought on 26 October, with discussions on implementation to begin in November.
New office for Wikimedia Foundation headquarters
On Friday 20 October 2017 Katherine Maher announced that the Wikimedia Foundation had shifted location. The current Wikimedia Foundation headquarters is at One Montgomery Tower in the Financial District of San Francisco, a 10-minute walk from the previous location. One reason for the new location was to move into a smaller space.
Brief notes
- New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrators, Megalibrarygirl and TonyBallioni. Both were supported by more than 200 Wikipedians in their requests for adminship.
- New user-groups: The Affiliations Committee announced the approval of the newest Wikimedia movement affiliates, Open Foundation West Africa and Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia.
- Milestones: The following Wikipedia projects reached milestones: 2,000: Russian Buryat (25 September 2017); 50,000: Luxembourgish (10 September 2017).
- Milhist milestone: WikiProject Military history recently surpassed 1,000 featured articles in the project's scope, which is approximately one fifth of all FAs on the English Wikipedia.
Discuss this story
I'm very impressed by Wikiproject Military History's recent one thousandth featured article milestone. Well done, guys. Abyssal (talk) 17:04, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Fundraising
It would be very helpful if someone could update Wikipedia:Fundraising statistics, a page which currently includes no post-2015 data. – Athaenara ✉ 22:44, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like the message is getting across, clearing the goal in quicker and quicker times... I still find myself pointing out to people that it wikipedia is in the top ten sites and yet no adverts ... all thanks to the good nature of donors, great job fellow humans!
Oh, really?
"One reason for the new location was to move into a smaller space." Income escalating, size of the bureaucracy growing at a cancerous rate, and we're supposed to believe that WMF is trying to move into a smaller space? Uh, that I seriously doubt. Very, very seriously, I doubt. How much was the old rent? How much is the new rent? Which space is more trendy? Did WMF try to get more space at the new site and get put on a waiting list? There is absolutely something missing from this picture... Carrite (talk) 15:27, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]