User talk:BilledMammal/2023 Wikimedia RfC

Initial draft

Following a conversation at the Signpost, I put this together as an initial draft for how an RfC on granting enwiki limited oversight over the dissemination of donor monies could be structured. Note that it is a very early draft put together quickly; there are likely to be aspects that are fundamentally flawed and need significant work.

In particular, the current section around transparency of finance likely need to be completely revised by editors who have better knowledge of WMF finances that I do. I am also concerned by aspects of the enforcement mechanism - I believe we must make it clear that we are proposing an exception to WP:CONEXCEPT, but I am not certain that the manner I am currently doing it is appropriate or likely to find consensus.

I am also of two minds over the line Enforcing this consensus is exempt from standard rules on edit warring and wheel warring. I want to give editors and admins permission to enforce this consensus in the face of active WMF opposition, but I worry that this line will be controversial and possibly unnecessary.

@Chris troutman, Piotrus, Levivich, North8000, Jayen466, Bilorv, and SilkTork: Pinging some editors who I believe may have thoughts on this; I will likely ping others later, and please feel free to ping others yourselves. BilledMammal (talk) 05:11, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Fram: Looking at some past comments you have made, I suspect you might have useful thoughts on how necessary the following paragraph is:

The English Wikipedia asserts its primacy in regards to decisions about what is presented on the English Wikipedia to readers, with the sole exception being where the Wikimedia Foundation has a legal obligation under the laws of the location it is incorporated in. A consensus here will partially curtail the current rights of the WMF under WP:CONEXCEPT.

To all, please feel free to make any changes you feel are necessary to the draft; it's currently in my user space, but I don't consider myself to WP:OWN it. BilledMammal (talk) 05:19, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: In the previous RfC, you spoke about it being without any attempt to turn it into something that actually benefits the community (except insofar as not running banners benefits the community). Do you feel that this is an improvement on that? It won't directly result in more funding being allocated to tasks that will contribute towards our core purpose, building an encyclopedia, but my hope is that it will indirectly do so. BilledMammal (talk) 05:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

For any oversight to have legitimacy to the WMF, we either need them to willingly accept it or to have some enforcement mechanism. The one you propose looks good to me. Site-wide blackouts would be another option. I don't think the WMF will willingly accept this, however. Like with Superprotect or the Fram ban, if you want to overturn a WMF decision you need to cause a fuss, and the fiscal direction of the organisation is much, much bigger than either of those incidents. — Bilorv (talk) 08:58, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I like the core idea; I would prefer if this applied to every project, but this would set precedent for other projects to make similar decisions. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 13:23, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

The big problem and fix is structural/systemic. Currently WMF is essentially self appointed and also gets to write the constitution, a ridiculous structure. They need to be 100% elected by the community and the constitution has to be written by the community. But I also support the initiative above. One thing that can help in the long run is that Wikipedia (and it's images on commons) is more than the flagship, it is THE ship that the WMF and it's pet projects and beneficiaries rides on. We should never damage Wikipedia. Worst comes to worst Wikipedia should fire WMF and get something better in place. North8000 (talk) 12:25, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

The enwp community cannot and should not have line item veto power over the entirety of wmf finances. There is no workable way for that to happen, and it's a terrible idea. What happens when other communities run rfcs about the same right? Then what happens when we disagree about a grant? Whichever project brings in the most money gets all the power? Yuck. There's no way wmf could go along with that, so all running an rfc will do is increase anger and conflict. Maybe that's the goal (hasten the day, justify a fork, increase bad will towards the wmf...). It would be a detriment to the project(s). If your goal is actually to see change, aim for what's in the realm of reasonability. Focus on transparency maybe? Get a commitment for a certain type of funding for enwp community needs, etc. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:51, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I want to go further then Rhododendrites. I think if you run this RfC, it will mean that the current leadership will be less likely to partner in the way that they did during last year's fundraising drive. The fact that they are now truly listening to the enwiki community about the content of fundraising banners is a huge win and is something I'm really glad to see because I too saw the harm by previous banners. But our win came at a literal cost to the foundation in terms of how much money they raised. We can debate if this is a good thing or not, but I can tell you from the perspective of foundation employees, who saw colleagues laid off (or maybe were themselves laid off) and foundation leadership (who had to do the layoffs) it was not a good thing. The foundation leadership decided that partnership with the community was worth it and so bore this cost. Previous foundation leadership would not have done that and I see no way that the foundation leadership can get to "yes" on this proposal.

For enwiki members who want to see this happen, there is already community oversight of the WMF's finances in the way that this RfC contemplates. It's more indirect but still present: the community elects at least a majority of the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. I would suggest the way to achieve the goals of this RfC is to elect candidates who pledge to do what this contemplates. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:27, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Generally agreed; the coordination and bridge building last year was an excellent step forward and this seems like a regression. On oversight: community-selected trustees tend to be open to discussion about specific issues like how fast the org grows, priorities, features of community health. Abstract contrarian issues like "should project X get to decide Y for the movement" are hard to have discussions about, and not always well-formed [as you point out, there's an existing mechanism for decisions at this scale; how would a new mechanism be better, or work at all?] – SJ + 10:13, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: I was actually considering pinging you to this discussion; I felt that insight from those who have experience with the communications between enwiki and the WMF might be very helpful.

To address one point: I see no way that the foundation leadership can get to "yes" on this proposal. The goal of this proposal is to give the foundation a Hobson's choice; they either say yes, or they massively scale down their activities. This is also why the enforcement mechanism would be at the center of this proposal; while the WMF could try to prevent us from blocking fundraising we have too much control over the site for them to successfully do so; I have already composed several ways that we could block or limit the WMF's ability to fundraise here, and our more technically minded editors can likely think of dozens more.

I wasn't privy to the backroom discussions that I expect you and others had with the WMF during the previous RfC, but the lesson I took from it is that the only way we can get the WMF to act is by threatening their cash flow, because we have only ever got results when their cash flow was under threat. Andreas tried for years to get the WMF to address issues with their communication, but every attempt was ignored, even when they got a clear consensus to address issues with the wording of the emails sent out - until we gave them the Hobson's choice of either addressing it, or massively scaling down their activities.

This doesn't just apply to fundraising; Andreas has tried for years to get increased transparency, and again they have been rebuffed at every turn.

It's more indirect but still present: the community elects at least a majority of the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. I would suggest the way to achieve the goals of this RfC is to elect candidates who pledge to do what this contemplates. Unfortunately, that isn't true. The board consists of 16 members; seven are appointed, and one is Jimbo. Of the remaining eight, six are elected by the community, and two are elected by the affiliates. Even if we count the affiliate-elected members as being elected by the community, that only leaves us with 50% of the board - not enough to overrule the foundation. In general, I don't have faith in the boards ability to address this; even if we did have the technical ability for a majority (I'm not sure that Jimbo is still an active board participant?), that isn't the same as a practical ability for a majority; the WMF only needs to get one community or affiliate elected board member on their side to be able to prevent any reform, even though 7 out of 8 elected members would demonstrate overwhelming support for it.

However, I am not wedded to this idea. If you believe there is a better way to curtail the mission creep and bureaucratic inefficiencies that are harming our mission, and to increase the transparency of the WMF, but that the WMF are more likely to accept, then I would be eager to propose it instead of this.

(I was saddened when I heard that the RfC I opened had resulted in layoffs; I had hoped that such a result could be avoided, and still believe it could have been had the WMF responded to our concerns years ago, and thus not had to scramble to get appropriate banners - the banners run at the end of the fundraising period were far more efficient than the ones run at the start) BilledMammal (talk) 15:09, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

A couple of brief responses. six are elected by the community, and two are elected by the affiliates was not true in the last election that was affiliate based. Affiliates got to do the nominations but all the community voted on those affiliate people. Also, and I admit I could be wrong here, I'm don't know if Jimmy is still a voting member of the board?

The goal of this proposal is to give the foundation a Hobson's choice; they either say yes, or they massively scale down their activities. these are not the only options. We get into extreme options - WP:SUPERPROTECT came from a time where the foundation felt they had to resort to extreme measures - but the foundation does have those options. 2023 Reddit API controversy shows the way another organization which relied on volunteers chose to use extreme measures to get a decision through. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:30, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Meta wiki must be out of date then; it still says two are selected by the affiliates, not just nominated by them. Meta wiki also suggests that Jimbo is still a voting member of the board; as far as I can tell his position, Community Founder Trustee Position, has the same rights as any other member.

We get into extreme options - WP:SUPERPROTECT came from a time where the foundation felt they had to resort to extreme measures - but the foundation does have those options. That is true; the foundation can contest our ability to block fundraising. It's part of the reason I have already composed alternative methods of enforcing the consensus (including ones that any editor, and not just admins, can impose), and why I am considering including the line Enforcing this consensus is exempt from standard rules on edit warring and wheel warring. If they do fight us on this I believe we won't be able to fully prevent them from fundraising, but I do believe that we will be able to sufficiently restrict it that the cost will be too high for them to risk fighting.

Maybe this will go the way of the Reddit API controversy, but I believe we have to try; the WMF needs to be reined in before its excesses, bureaucracy, and mission creep does irreversible damage to our mission. With that said, this isn't necessarily the best way to try; there may be a less confrontational method, and if you or anyone else can think of it I would be eager to try it first. BilledMammal (talk) 17:03, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

A couple hundred enwiki volunteers that would participate in an RfC on this are a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS over Wikimedia Foundation activities. So yes I would personally use less confrontational channels like open office hours, and working through the board, including electing board members who share your views. However, I understand why you don't find that sufficient, so if you want to do this, the RfC should be at Meta which can at least form a global consensus among volunteers. Speaking personally, I would really rather we not lose the high ground over when they try to do things like VECTOR by starting a war over something that has a more tenuous connection to enwiki, in marked contrast to last year's fundraising banners. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: The ASBS Meta-Wiki page is sort of out of date. More specifically, the Board/Elections Committee has not committed to what the process will be for future elections, so it's possible that it will go back to having Affiliates vote directly on candidates, but Barkeep is correct that it didn't happen in the previous election (affiliates did one round of voting to eliminate half the candidates and the community selected two from the remainder). Legoktm (talk) 19:14, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Jimmy is a full voting member of the board. Legoktm (talk) 19:12, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: Whichever project brings in the most money gets all the power? At the heart of this proposal is the unfortunate fact that the WMF needs oversight; mission creep and bureaucratic inefficiencies are damaging our primary purpose, to build an encyclopedia. This is exacerbated by a lack of transparency, with the WMF refusing to provide basic information on the disposition of over 100 million dollars. However, the WMF is not going to accept this oversight by choice, and unfortunately we are the only Wikimedia Project who is in the position to compel them to accept it.

Considering this, I would phrase it as Whichever project is the largest stakeholder bears the responsibility of oversight. This isn't a proposal for us to dictate to the WMF where the money goes; they will still make those decisions. All it will allow us to do is say "No" when we find the WMF has stepped beyond the confines of its mission.

With that said, I have been wondering whether we should seek to internationalize this effort and bring in a few of the larger projects, such as the French Wikipedia and the German Wikipedia. However, I am not certain we could establish a structure that would be workable, and I am also not certain what the chances of those projects joining an endeavor like this would be.

If your goal is actually to see change, aim for what's in the realm of reasonability. Focus on transparency maybe? Get a commitment for a certain type of funding for enwp community needs, etc. I actually think it will be easier to convince the WMF to go along with veto power than it will be to convince the WMF to go along with us dictating where funds go. However, I do see your point; complete veto power might be a step too far. Perhaps if we scale it back? Limit the veto power to grants (one of the most controversial aspects of the WMF budget), as well as mandating increased transparency - in other words, remove Oversight of other activities from the proposal? Is that something you could get on board with? BilledMammal (talk) 14:29, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

IMO the foundation for evolution is that Wikipedia needs to become more of an entity. For example, the structure to create and have stances and policies. We really don't have that now. It would incubate in English Wikipedia and then grow to include the other large/ stable Wkikpedia's.I'd be happy to help in such an effort. North8000 (talk) 15:30, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• As contemplated, I think this would cause a firestorm and also not pass. If the community wants a greater say in WMF affairs, that's not gonna happen by threatening the nuclear option. Compliance through coercion is not a way to create a healthy cooperation, nor is it a way to create checks and balances. I know this is probably hard to hear, but if we really want a say, we're going to have to focus on building a healthy relationship between the community and the WMF. Handing governance oversight to community consensus is not a workable solution. There is a reason the WMF has a board, executives, and trustees. There is an already extant legal system of non-profit governance. If we really want something to happen, we're going to have to use that system. It'll mean talking to trustees, growing trust and relationships over time, and doing the hard work of strengthening institutions. Using the nuclear button can never achieve that, and I suggest we focus our energies into campaigning for change. To that end, there are people already working on creating positive relationships with the WMF, wherein the WMF will listen to the community. I've seen this on ArbCom: we've spent the years since Framgate growing relationships with folks at the WMF, and they increasingly listen to us, and thus the community. That is how we will achieve change, not through holding the WMF's pocketbook hostage. I sincerely ask you to reconsider posting such an RfC, as it will very likely fail, and only serve to drive a wedge between the WMF and the community. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• The WMF employees/ members are living off of money donated to them under false pretenses. They stopped seeing editors as partners long ago. As Guy Macon has pointed out, This profit motive still drives their annual disingenuous pleas for more money. The fact that this money is now being handed out to unrelated charities proves that the WMF is buying political capital for themselves instead of the expensive furniture they used to buy. Somehow these supposedly-improving relations with the editing community have not brought them to a saner state. The nuclear option is necessary and I'd support it. In all honesty, I doubt this measure would pass because I know how fallible our editors are. That said, the coordination of a few key editors and admins could bring a halt to the Main Page, sending a signal to the reader-base that there's a problem. I have already self-selected to stop being part of the problem and I ask that you join me. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:52, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Based on some recent emails I exchanged with WMF staffers, this is not the impression I got. I mean, the relationship may be "ok", but only because it seems there is a form of truce: WMF doesn't interfere with us, we don't interfere with them. That's bad on many levels, including letting them waste "our money" (as in, money we, the Wikimedia Community, earned for them and that should be spent on the Community) with no oversight. Out of sheer curiosity, how would you propose we can make them not waste our money other than using the one and only leverage we have discussed here? Politely ask? To which they can politely reply that they'll think about it, and after a year implement some minor change that doesn't do anything , hoping we gave up? No, we need them to stop wasting money ASAP. It's ridcolous we have so many things the Community needs to have money spent on yet they are spending it on some semi-random feel-good-about-bridging-global-digital-divide ideas. They have lost sight of their mission (support Wikimedia Community projects), at least partially (I am not saying they are not doing anything good, stuff like WikiFunctions etc. shows they still do some usefull stuff). But they are also wasting money on things they should not, and they need to be corrected about this. And as a sociologist of organization, I very much doubt that asking them politely will achieve anything outside polite waste of time (at best, with simply being ignored being a close second most likely outcome). Iron law of oligarchy etc. Those who have no power can't do anything. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:06, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)RTP, here are my thoughts:

• First and foremost, let's permanently dispel this idea that the revised fundraising banners led to layoffs. No such thing happened. The original (pre-December 2022) budget for 2022-2023 (the year that just ended July 31) was $175M. We don't have the final numbers yet, but as of June 30, revenue was $174M, and expenses were $167M, so they're netting $7 million, which they are going to add to their war chest of $250+M (that's in addition to the $100+M endowment). They have $7 million left over, and they only missed their target by $1 million, so they could have saved all those jobs. The truth is, the previous administration hired too much, and this administration reduced the workforce. Changes to the fundraising banners reduced their income, but not enough to require mass layoffs, that's just corporate cover. The pandemic-era growth and post-pandemic reduction of the workforce is a broad trend in the US tech industry; WMF is just going up and down along with the tide, not because of the fundraising banners.
• Secondly, let's forget about board majority, elected-vs-appointed, and community-vs-affiliate; none of those distinctions matter, because the board acts unanimously and pretty much always has. Go look at the list of Board resolutions and find any board member who voted against anything ever; sometimes they abstain; almost all of the time, everything is approved unanimously. The elected board members vote the same as the appointed ones, the community-elected ones vote the same as the affiliate-elected ones. That doesn't mean that there aren't diverse opinions on the board, just that they don't let it show in public, e.g. in their votes. It's likely all the decisions will continue to be unanimous in the future regardless of who is elected.
• While there are some advantages of the unanimous-Board approach, one problem is that if the community can't see the disagreements, the community can't effectively provide oversight over Board members. We have no idea who is advocating for what behind closed doors, all we see are unanimous votes. Board minutes provide little or no details.
• This is the flaw in the "indirect-community-control-through-trustees" viewpoint; the community can't oversee what it can't see, and it can't see disagreements among trustees
• Nevertheless, in the last election, the biggest financial transparency/reform candidate, Lego, was not elected, and IIRC, candidates that believed in less reform, more stay-the-course, were elected. Personally, that's when I gave up on this issue; if the rest of the community doesn't care, why shout into the void?
• So I think the community that didn't elect Lego is not going to care about line-item veto of financials. While the community didn't like the messaging of the banner, I'm not convinced that they have a problem with how the WMF is spending its money (e.g. issuing grants, etc.). I think the people who have a problem with that (like me) are in a minority. Otherwise, Lego would have been elected. Or, the vote was rigged :-D Personally I don't trust SecurePoll and I think the WMF should be a member organization, but that's a whole 'nother discussion, and even if it were a member organization, I'm not sure the members would make any better decisions than are being made now. Also, it's hard to distinguish enwiki's voting results from the overall voting results across projects. So basically, I have no idea what anybody thinks, but the momentum of the status quo convinces me that the largest community doesn't really care much or doesn't have a big problem with WMF finances, but it's hard to tell who thinks what, among the electorate, and among the trustees
• So I think the RFC is too specific, and there are unanswered preliminary questions like: Does enwiki have a problem with how the WMF is spending money? If so, what is the problem? Does enwiki want to exercise some veto or other enforcement power? If so, how? Is enwiki an outlier compared with other wikis on this?

HTH. Levivich (talk) 20:27, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm on the board of 5 non-profits and 1 for-profit. The clash / conversation of conflicting opinions, input of opinions to the process, horse trading, compromising, influence of the process by advocates results in (modifications to) what gets voted on. The final vote is the rubber stamp at the end of the process and is nearly always unanimous. So unanimous votes are not an indicator of lockstep opinions. North8000 (talk) 21:37, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

BTW I wrote the by-laws/ constitutions for 3 of them. It's incredulous to me to see a set of bylaws/ constitution where the board gets to decide who can run for the board, whether or not anyone can run, including having the option to self-appoint 100 % of itself, and where the boards even writes/rewrites the constitution/by-laws. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:44, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Levivich: Lego is great, and their ideas should make progress. Formulating and proposing specific improvements, in an implementable way, is often the bottleneck & doesn't depend on who is on the Board. I agree that members would probably not make much different decisions; and concerns in past discussions about 'how $ is spent' have been limited + varied. But the general unease that growth has been undirected and too fast, and that foundation efforts should be more responsive to community needs + current community-led work, is real and deserves address. a) Probably not like this! b) There seems to be progress on both sides of that... worth discussing in its own space. – SJ + 10:13, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

First and foremost, let's permanently dispel this idea that the revised fundraising banners led to layoffs. No such thing happened. The original (pre-December 2022) budget for 2022-2023 (the year that just ended July 31) was $175M. We don't have the final numbers yet, but as of June 30, revenue was $174M, and expenses were $167M, so they're netting $7 million, which they are going to add to their war chest of $250+M (that's in addition to the $100+M endowment). They have $7 million left over, and they only missed their target by $1 million, so they could have saved all those jobs. Hello JVillagomez (WMF). Was wondering if you or someone from your team wanted to comment on this green quotation here that I took from the above discussion. Are these revenues and expenses correct? Does the "war chest" refer to money kept in the operating fund? What kind of shortfall were we looking at due to fundraising problems this year? With all this money sitting around in various places (operating fund, endowment), would pulling money from these funds have been a viable option instead of laying folks off? Please help us understand the nuances of this decision. Thank you. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:06, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your question, @Novem Linguae. These numbers are broadly correct, and the net $7 million from the previous fiscal year was added to the Board-approved working capital reserves. At a high level, the Foundation’s operating budget covers day to day operations. Our working capital reserves are to help cover unforeseen problems or large one-time expenses that could arise during the year, such as a global recession. The Wikimedia Endowment is intended to support the Wikimedia projects forever as a long term source of partial funding. JVillagomez (WMF) (talk) 09:46, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi there, I wanted to add some additional context. This year’s annual plan offers detailed information about our reduced expenses, our budget ($177 million for FY2023-2024), a budget breakdown by topic area and revenue sources.

Regarding use of our working capital reserves, Charity Navigator grants four stars (the highest rating, which we have achieved) to nonprofits that have greater than 12 months or more of working capital reserve. While keeping this in mind, the Foundation does consider responsible one-time uses of the reserves. Staff are a recurring, multi-year operating expense that need to be paid for with what we can expect to raise each year.

To answer your question about fundraising shortfalls, last year our English Wikipedia banner fundraising campaign underperformed against our targets. In the second half of the fiscal year, we worked to reduce the revenue gap through major gifts and other fundraising channels. The full fundraising report for last year will be available in the next quarter (previous years here).

We’ve also been reviewing our fundraising model with multi-year projections, and concluded that our previous rate of growth was not sustainable. This is due to multiple factors including banner optimization with more visible trade-offs, changes in search trends, and the global economic climate. As noted in our annual plan, the Foundation reduced both staffing and non-staffing costs, while preserving our $18.7 million grants budget for Wikimedia communities. KSargatzke (WMF) (talk) 10:02, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm on vacation right now so my internet time is pretty limited, hence I'm responding briefly but hopefully not too brief.

• let's permanently dispel this idea that the revised fundraising banners led to layoffs. I don't think it's a direct correlation, but a definite part of the story. There was a downturn in the economy, plus the revised fundraising banners did not perform as well as they wanted them to, and the fact that the outgoing C-team had overhired, all led to layoffs. And agreed, the WMF 100% could have kept all the jobs had they wanted to and made cuts/reductions elsewhere. However, from what I understand, even internally WMF staff never learned the full extent of layoffs so it's hard to know how management is being held accountable for their decisions.
• That doesn't mean that there aren't diverse opinions on the board, just that they don't let it show in public, e.g. in their votes. You might be surprised to learn this is somewhat on purpose. From the Board CoC: "Board Members should not undermine a Board decision by stating their opposition to it" and "Board members should avoid taking a public position on a matter that will (or is likely to) come before the Board." I think this is totally backwards; dissent is a very powerful tool that the board should encourage, not restrict. I think most people would want Board members to participate in discussions (being cognizant of their soft power ofc), even if it would end up at the Board's door eventually.

The one thing I haven't seen brought up yet is that most (all?) of the power the WMF was originally held by the communities and slowly ceded to them over time, whether intentionally (CHILDPROTECT stuff) or not (development resources, some global bans, etc.). Because it's the area I specialize in, it frustrates me to no end when I see people complain about languishing bugs/feature requests on VPT and then act helpless as if only the WMF can solve them. That absolutely isn't true and we need to both 1) shift power back to communities and 2) counteract said false narratives. Legoktm (talk) 19:01, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that Board CoC goes even further than democratic centralism. Levivich (talk) 15:00, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Personally I want any board member I voted for to be free to say whether they agreed with a board decision or not. That is so I can make an informed choice whether to vote for them again or not. This rule in the Board CoC is a huge impediment to meaningful democratic participation.

It is also blindingly obvious that the current board structure (5 appointees, Jimmy Wales, 6 community-and-affiliate seats) is too heavily weighted towards appointees and affiliates. Andreas JN466 00:51, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

My 2c: I am in general support of this, but I'd make the following modifications: I'd exempt small grants (under 1,000 USD or maybe 500 USD) from community oversight - too much micromanagement and chance for semi-trolling when someone requests something like WMF pays for something small, like newspaper subscription that they use for sourcing articles or whatever (in fact, I believe we should be spending much more money on our volunteers in such a fashion, and this process should be streamlined and as easy as possible). On the other hand, I'd require an RfC for all and any grants that are larger than this, and further, I'd stress that this has to be visible to the community - we should create a WMF grant noticeboard on meta AND en wiki, with en wiki noticeboard having just sections with redirects to meta - the point is I want to be able to watchlist things on en (I hardly check my meta watchlist). Possibly other wikis could opt in to that, and possibly there is some better solution but the point is, this needs to be visible and not hidden or meta, otherwise soon this grant oversight, even if implemented, will be forgotten (or abducted by several well-meaning folks). Lastly, I think this needs rewording: "Should the English Wikipedia become concerned by the use of donor monies in areas beyond grants it may open a Request for Comment about the use". English Wikipedia is not a sentient entity, it cannot do anything. Either we go the bureacracy mode and create some body that can do so, or better and simpler, just say that any English Wikipedia user (that is semiconfirmed to eliminate trolling) can do this. But again, I think that instead of waiting for someone to complain, we should have RfCs for each grants, running as needed. Oh yeah, we don't need to make the treshold to approve them too high - I'd be fine even with 50% support. If half of the community feels something is a good cause, let's fund it. As simple as that. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:57, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

• I would highly oppose both the process and the content in play here. Process wise, it reads as no less than an aggressive moving of the goalposts from last year, and doing so in the face of drastically increased co-operation from the WMF in this fundraising vein. Co-operation I believe likely to be impaired significantly from this RfC. Content wise, it is a mass power-shift to English Wikipedia coupled with a mass increase in bureaucracy. Even putting aside what the WMF may do were this RfC to go live, this would dramatically poison the well for our relations with every sister project, individuals editors and affiliates. If we were going to demand increased financial transparency in a more concrete manner I would advice actions more like triggering a meta-RfC specifically breaking down a number of specific changes in separate proposals we want - or putting together a voting block to specifically pick trustees with a financial transparency focus. Nosebagbear (talk) 02:16, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
• This discussion has become quite sprawling, so I've opened several sections below; they are each indirect replies to comments made here. Hopefully it will allow the discussion to be more focused and less confusing. BilledMammal (talk) 12:58, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

The idea that enwiki can get a veto over all grants seems like it won't go anywhere. But the idea of letting WMF know that we want money being granted to outside organizations to instead be spent within the movement is something that could potentially gain traction. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:16, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping BilledMammal, this is something that I am very much interested in; unfortunately I am unable to get involved at this moment. I'll keep this page watchlisted, and if I am more able down the line, I'll make some contributions. I like the idea that WMF should be more transparent regarding how they spend the money people give them, especially on salaries and on gifts/grants/payments to outside agencies; I like the idea that WMF should be restricted from giving out grants without first getting the consent of the community; and I like the notion that the three next biggest Wikis should also be involved in voting - such voting should, of course, take place on the home Wikis and not be diverted to someplace else like MetaWiki. It does seem odd to me that the Foundation was formed to assist Wikipedia, but over the years it feels like the tail is wagging the dog. Well done on getting this started. SilkTork (talk) 16:55, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Constructive spin-off: what WMF should spend money on

This is semi-relevant (as an illustration of what WMF should be spending money on that it clearly has but isn't), but it has been on my mind for a while - maybe I'll write an OPED to TS on this. But I'd like to hear from others, and this forum is likely to draw some folks :) Some of my ideas:

• hire staffer(s) that will look at all backlogged items at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request‎ and explain why they (and WMF's funds) are unable to acquire sources asked. This can be tied to expanding the Wikipedia Library initative, which is excellent but does not suppoort as many databases as it could (why?). A technical link: this is a good idea, except it seems like proposals there are ignored or not discussed anywhere visible. To me, this is WMF today in a microcosm - lots of good ideas on the surface, but poor follow through. Perhaps this is a growing problem - Wikipedia Library, a great idea, is pretty old, and the system of ignoring suggestions suggests that there's nobody taking care of this at WMF anymore, and rather then buy the subscriptions to the suggested databases (there is no indication anyone over the WMF is even reading them), they are wasting our money on some stuff that does nothing for us).
• hire staffer(s) to provide psychological counselling to editors affected by stress, burnout and like (as I've suggested in my academic papers several years ago)
• hire staffer(s) to provide more support for struggling WikiJournals project (@OhanaUnited)
• spend more $$$ on feel-good gifts for the community members (like gadgets with Wikipedia logos), tied to editors activity and various competitions or such (Polish Wikipedia, with much, much smaller funds does that - I am not as active there as here, but I've received several gifts like that from pl wiki chapter over the last few years, compared to the big fat nothing here).
• provide an easy way for scholars writing about Wikipedia to apply for grants for open access publishing

What else would you like to see WMF spend money on? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:27, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Resource exchange, cool gifts (from a cooler expanded store?), and OA grants for related scholarship all sound like good ideas. I started User:Sj/Awe to gather ideas like this and start supporting them. Many of these don't actually need anyone's permission or new channels of funds to implement (WikiJournals has gotten substantial funding through the standard grants channels to organize its own support; curious to know where you see it struggling)

Counselling options are something that larger platforms do invest in for moderators, I can see it for our community but it doesn't seem like a good staff role. There are other options including sharing an existing / more general public counseling service. [we might want a bit of time across a wide range of languages] – SJ + 09:35, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I would hope that at the very least the WMF makes counseling available to admins that need to deal with disturbing content, such as (maybe?) ArbCom? BilledMammal (talk) 13:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal IMHO, ArbCom parties may need councelling much more... but yeah, both groups need it. And yes, outsourcing to a specialized outlet may be better than hiring staff, sure. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:46, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Sj Re wikijournals, a few months ago I applied to join the board of their humanities one but sadly found I don't have the time to help there much. But I've learned enough to know that even the flagship Medicine journal could use more help, and the Humanities and others are on the verge of being shelved due to next to nobody having time to help :( They are great projects, but we clearly don't have enough volunteers to handle stuff there (ex. review articles/look for reviewers/etc.). I've pinged OU above, if my description is too dire, they may correct me. But I think that great project needs help, and more funds could help. Clearly, whatever grant WJ got wasn't enough, and clearly, WMF has plenty of funds they could use to save it. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:45, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I think boring things like software developers and conference scholarships should be priorities. I'd hesitate to experiment with new things until existing things are improved to a satisfactory level. I have some ideas of things to de-prioritize, such as the equity fund, odd software like WikiStories, and AI. I listened to a talk today where the C-levels talked about how WMF is focusing internally for awhile instead of focusing on growth, and I think this is a good idea. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:39, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I often hear that a bug fix or enhancement won't happen due to lack of resources, by which I mean a few thousand rather than millions of dollars. Perhaps we could do some of that work ourselves but, because the WMF hires paid developers and not paid editors, there's a feeling that implementing software is the WMF's responsibility while the communities get on with the editing. We need to either divert WMF resources to development, or admit that the development team is inadequate (in quantity rather than quality) and ask volunteers with suitable skills and ambitions to divert their attentions from editing to coding. Certes (talk) 20:29, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Open source software development by volunteers isn't a result of inadequacy of a paid development team, and as I understand it there's a significant amount of MediaWiki development done by volunteers today. The challenge of any software base where the original developers are no longer around is how to maintain sufficient knowledge of the legacy code in order to support new development work, whether it is by paid or volunteer developers. The WMF can help support all developers by funding more code guardians to guide and review development. isaacl (talk) 20:44, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it boggles my mind we can't afford to hire a few code monkeys to tackle stuff from the Community Wishlist and such, but we can give away tens of thousands of dollars in grants for random feel good causes. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:29, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

With respect to where we need funds, can we add multimedia/graphs/video to the list Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:26, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

@Doc James: In what regard? Better support for displaying and creating them? BilledMammal (talk) 10:18, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

We have folks working on these interactive graphs, it would be nice to get the grapher extension working again, we have videowiki that used to work, so lot of work needed on rich media. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:04, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I find it pretty funny that the graphs at User:Levivich/Where the money went no longer work. Where did the money go? Not to making these graphs work. Levivich (talk) 21:36, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 21:39, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, we could use a steamlined procedure for Wikipedia:Graphics Lab, where if no volunteer makes / improves a requested image, we would reach out to one of the zillion artists out there who would do it for $$. There should be a WMF staffer taking care of the backlog (by outsourcing this using WMF funds), just like what I suggested for RESEXchange. And there are probably other backlogs like that that could be dealt in a similar manner, with a staffer+outsourcing $$ thrown on those. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:12, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

WMF claims it has no funds to fund OA research

I was browsing Rapid Grants funds, and here's a very recent (early August) rationale for declining an OA fund request by User:Hydra Rain: meta:Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Quality of Male and Female Medical Content on English-Language Wikipedia (ID: 22187880): For the time being, the Rapid Fund is not adequately funded to equitably support OA publication needs across the movement. At the same time, there are funds for the KEF that has next to nothing to do with our movement. Something is obviously wrong with fund allocation (at least, IMHO, requests for OA funding for Wikipedia-related research should be given priority over supporting random initiatives in the broader movement, such as the ones described at meta:/Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Grant_recipients). PS. Side note to Hydra Rain: do consider submitting your paper to WikiJournal of Medicine, I just had my article published there - and one of the reasons was that like you I cannot published in pay-for OA journals, and have a choice of having my research paywalled or... usually no other choice. But in medicine, at least, we have a SCOPUS-indexed Wikijournal (sadly, for all other branches of science, there is no Wikijournal that's SCOPUS level right now). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:52, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Alternatives

Board elections

In principle, this seems a simple way to resolve the issue; organize an advocacy group and use it to push candidates aligned with our goals. However, I see two issues:

1. Not enough of the board is elected. Assuming Jimbo still votes, it is impossible to gain a majority; assuming he doesn't, it is technically possible but impractical; it isn't reasonable to assume we can get every elected board member on side.
2. It's impossible to determine which board members are on our side, as there is no transparency in the board proceedings.

To address this, two things need to happen. First, we need to convince the WMF to increase the number of elected board members - preferably, to 100%. Second, we need to convince the WMF to publish genuine board meeting minutes, rather than publishing minutes that were prepared before the meeting even took place.

Personally, I don't see it at all likely that the WMF will agree to either of these options, although editors (Barkeep49?) with better insight into how the WMF operates may disagree? BilledMammal (talk) 12:56, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

My experience serving on boards has been similar to @North8000. Even 3 board members would likely be enough to get a lot of what you want in terms of transparency because there is real social pressure to get to unanimous decisions and that means there is some give on priorities of other board members which you don't find objectionable but may not care about yourself. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:52, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that just a few board members can have a lot of sway if organized properly. I'd love to see more "reform" minded candidates run and better organized voter-outreach efforts to support their candidacies. Legoktm (talk) 19:18, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Those are excellent, practical doable and reasonable ideas. North8000 (talk) 14:44, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the board being almost 50% members that are appointed by other board members is concerning. There is probably a reason for it, and it might even be a good reason, but this definitely reduces the ability of communities to influence the composition of the board, potentially increasing the disconnect between volunteers and the WMF. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:44, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

My 2c. I often don't vote b/c I don't have time to familiarize myself with people and platforms. I'll try to vote next time, but, sigh, time. If anyone tells me they'll run and try to deal with the issues raised here, you have my vote. Or feel free to ping me and tell me about such a candidate. Maybe what we need is a wiki-political party focused on that issue, i.e. a systematic approach to "my" problem? I expect many folks are in similar shoes - they'd agree this is a problem, but they don't have time to figure out who to vote for or even when to fix it. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:49, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I tend to vote for folks that are knowledgeable about English Wikipedia (demonstrated by high experience on English Wikipedia), so that enwiki interests can hopefully be well-represented at the top levels, where our interests have to compete with the interests of almost 1,000 other projects. Luckily it is fairly easy to identify the candidates who are active on English Wikipedia. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:00, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

It sounds like what we need to do is form a Wikiproject for the purpose of coordinating Enwiki's position in WMF polls, with a particular focus on trustee elections. I imagine this would involve:

1. Finding suitable candidates and encouraging them to run
2. Creating a How-to-vote card
3. Getting the endorsement of Enwiki for this card, probably through an RfC
4. Sending this card to every editor eligible, based on their enwiki activity, to vote in the poll.

I imagine that this would be very efficient at electing board members; I'm not certain how our guidelines on canvassing apply to WMF polls, but a consensus to endorse the how-to-vote card should be enough to justify canvassing.

What I am less sure is how well this will work at actually bringing about change, given the concerns above and Legoktm's point about public dissent by board members being forbidden, but there is no harm in trying. BilledMammal (talk) 15:29, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

This is feeling kind of yucky. Have a subset of the community pick winners based on the priorities of the majority (or at least majority of people with strong enough feelings to persevere through the long processes which will generate said priorities), push the result on the minority and everyone who didn't participate, and ensure the richest, most powerful group dominates an election that's supposed to represent the world [for their own good, of course]. Granted, this objection obviously invites questions about where the lines should be between grassroots organizing and plotting a global takeover, and I don't have a solution. This specific idea, literally spamming users telling them how to vote to ensure the English Wikipedia reigns supreme just feels bad. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:33, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

It's politics. Nothing else, nothing more. I for one want to be asked (spammed) with guides/information on candidates, and in particular, their stance on financial things. I don't have time to research this myself but I want to vote based on this kind of information that I hope someone will analyze, digest, present and inform me of. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:00, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I think I'm with Piotrus on this matter. I do want to see reform in the WMF, better communication (which they appear to be working on), different priorities etc. But I'm not here to fight fights or politick. I'm just tryna fix articles. I did vote in the last board election (for Lego), but I remember the whole process being more than I wanted to engage with.

There's probably a not inconsiderable number of people like me who will be glad to exert a smol effort to help enact positive change, without getting into multi-hundred-kilobyte pitchfork battles about it. Kind of like people who scrupulously recycle, but never pick up litter? and drive their cars to locations they could easily walk to in ten minutes? I'd be glad to be spammed with a cabal approved voting list at the appropriate time. Folly Mox (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I think some points of clarification may help here. I would also encourage you to have a read through m:Wikimedia Foundation Board Handbook - which will also help clear up other concerns/issues you have.

• The majority of the WMF Board is selected through a community nomination process. Jimmy has a vote. Appointed trustees bring a lot of value to the Board through their specific expertise (e.g., finance, tech, etc.).
• I think you may be mixing the issue of the minutes from the Endowment Board with those from the WMF Board - and Jimmy has already replied on-wiki about this at m:Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Update_on_endowment. For the latter, see wmf:Minutes:2023-03-09 as an example. Bear in mind most Board work is done in committees, and the minutes reflect that, plus there are parts of the meeting that are closed.
• Hopefully you've already seen communications from the WMF changing, e.g., with the 2022 Fundraising RfC, and the discussion for this year's fundraiser has already started at Wikipedia:Fundraising/2023 banners. Also see m:Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024 - in particular 'we are prioritizing established editors ... to ensure that they have the right tools for the critical work they do'. There is also a very detailed section about this year’s budget and overall finances.
• The m:Wikimedia Foundation Community Affairs Committee hosts regular "Conversation with the Trustees" sessions, with open calls for questions - if you have specific topics you want to know more about, these are great places for it. We just had the latest one at Wikimania, the next is towards the end of November. There's also the 'Contact the CAC' email address between meetings too, and you can always ask me and other trustees questions too.
• Enwiki does have a very strong input into the WMF Board elections, due to the number of eligible voters, and it is important to remember that other Wikimedia projects and languages also have priorities and participate in the same elections.

I hope this helps inform the discussion. Thanks. MPeel-WMF (talk) 11:32, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Communication with the WMF is improving in some ways, but every month brings a surprise announcement that significant resource has been invested in some unexpected development that no one asked for nor wants. The WMF's stated mission is to "advance equity", with not a single mention of Wikipedia or any other concrete aim. I feel that the WMF has tired of Wikipedia, and we're now just a legacy product – a cash cow to fund whatever more exciting activity the WMF feels like doing today. Certes (talk) 20:41, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Would you like to comment on this? Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 20:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

User:MPeel-WMF, thank you for the info and for reminding people of meta:Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024. As to the key result of improving workflows for editors with advanced permissions, have the conversations started about which workflow(s) will be improved? Given the clouds gathering here, and the fact that any conversation is likely to take months, it would probably be best for everyone if that started sooner rather than later. Apologies if I've missed the conversation. I don't hold advanced permissions. Folly Mox (talk) 01:08, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@MPeel-WMF The majority of the WMF Board is selected through a community nomination process. Surely it is half (6 out of 12 at present, or 8 out of 16 if the board is expanded to maximum size), not the majority?

As for appointees' expertise, they could equally provide this as non-voting members, or members of an advisory board (there used to be one). Andreas JN466 07:52, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Non-binding resolution

Rather than jumping straight to the nuclear option, we could seek to issue a non-binding resolution, and at the same time gauge the level of opposition to the WMF's current actions, in line with Levivich's final paragraph about unanswered preliminary questions.

I am convinced that the WMF won't listen to such a resolution, but there would be benefits to it; it would allow us to show that we tried, and it would allow us to understand what aspects the enwiki community may be willing to act over, and which ones they are not willing to act over.

I'm not certain what questions should be asked, but I think they should revolve about where the WMF should focus it's money, where it shouldn't, and whether the WMF should be more transparent. For example, whether it should provide more funding to the community wishlist and less funding to external organizations who are not aligned with our primary mission. BilledMammal (talk) 12:56, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Mhm. They won't ignore it. That would be bad. They'll just say something like 'we will write a white paper', take their sweet time doing so, and deliver something inconsequential in a year or two. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:01, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I expect so, but I hope not. Further, if it does come to threatening the nuclear option I want the result to be the WMF backing down, not the WMF committing to fight us over this. As part of that, I want an overwhelming consensus for any proposal like this, similar to what we had in the 2022 fundraising RfC, one that shows the WMF that the community is united on this and is not going to back down.

However, at the moment while I do expect a consensus for this proposal, I do not expect an overwhelming consensus, as based on comment from editors like Barkeep I see a significant minority that wants to try a less confrontational approach - if we try a less confrontational approach and don't get a response, I believe that many of them will recognize the need for something more dramatic. BilledMammal (talk) 09:49, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Encouraging collaboration

Another alternative is growing our relationship with the WMF. This is not something that can be done by RfC, and overall I am not convinced it will work in part because we haven't seen it working; the WMF didn't address the banner issues because of this relationship, but because we threatened them with the nuclear option.

Similarly, we have seen the WMF ignore consensuses that they don't like when the nuclear option is not threatened, most prominently the consensus to improve the wording of the emails and the consensus to set full width by default on new Vector. Further, we haven't seen the WMF resolve key concerns of the community that have not yet been expressed through an RfC, such as concerns about the transparency of the Wikimedia Endowment.

Perhaps what we need to see is the benefits that this approach brings; evidence that the WMF is willing to listen without the nuclear option being threatened. In line with this, CaptainEek, perhaps it would now be an appropriate time to ask the WMF to address some key concerns of enwiki that would be simple for the WMF to provide? Two that come to mind are asking the WMF to providing a statement detailing the revenue and expenses of the Wikimedia Endowment for every year of its existence, and asking the WMF to respect the consensus to set full width by default on new Vector.

Would this be more likely to succeed if done in concert with #Non-binding resolution? BilledMammal (talk) 12:56, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion of alternatives

There are practical reasons why large communities/organizations frequently make decisions using representatives. Many community members have views on their desired outcomes, but aren't able to invest the time needed to evaluate every decision being made. When there's a large body of affected stakeholders, it's more efficient and effective for it to delegate authority on its behalf to a smaller group who is able to spend the required effort. I think it would be better to look for more ways that the global community, which includes readers as well as editors, can be involved in setting the direction of the Wikimedia Foundation. This probably starts with electing board members with this philosophy, but can include other operation-affecting changes, such as having a standing community advisory committee that has the authority to influence the Foundation's mission and how it carries it out. I don't think having the entire community review each grant, program, or initiative above $X is a good use of its time, but it's reasonable for the community to play a significant role in setting annual goals, and evaluating whether or not they have been met. I appreciate many editors might think these should be mainly information technology and community-management goals, but there can also be room for forward-looking projects on other ways of spreading knowledge freely, or research on what would better meet reader needs. This isn't an easy change to accomplish (Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy applies), but a long-term sustainable approach is needed. Large community discussions do not scale up well to handle dozens of decisions. Some form of indirect representation will be more productive. isaacl (talk) 02:59, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

General sanctions at WP:VPW

One goal here is to increase the WMF's willingness to communicate with us. One impediment to that is that it wouldn't be unreasonable to call VPW WP:CESSPIT 2, and historically that has been part of the reason the WMF is unwilling to engage with us there.

I believe it may be worth applying general sanctions to that page, empowering and encouraging any uninvolved admin to deal strictly with any violations of our policy on civility. BilledMammal (talk) 09:27, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Reducing the privileges accorded to the WMF under WP:CONEXCEPT

Currently, WP:CONEXCEPT states The WMF has legal control over, and liability for, Wikipedia. Decisions, rulings, and acts of the WMF Board and its duly appointed designees take precedence over, and preempt, consensus. A consensus among editors that any such decision, ruling, or act violates Wikimedia Foundation policies may be communicated to the WMF in writing.

While historically this has been all-but-impossible for the WMF to enforce and WP:IARs has typically overridden it, it is also a relic of the mid-2000's when the WMF and Enwiki relations were stronger and more productive. I think weakening it would be a good idea, and would be seen by the WMF as a warning sign that if they don't at least try to meet us in the middle on a non-binding resolution then we will take more drastic steps.

Perhaps the following wording would be appropriate?

The WMF has legal control over, and liability for, Wikipedia. Decisions, rulings, and acts of the WMF Board and its duly appointed designees that are needed to comply with legal obligations under the laws of the location it is incorporated in take precedence over, and preempt, consensus.

Copy editing would likely be needed. BilledMammal (talk) 10:21, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

@Edward-Woodrow, Piotr, and Bilorv: Ping editors who have been discussing office actions at the signpost; while this is a different aspect of WP:CONEXCEPT, I believe it is one that is more relevant to any efforts to re-balance the relationship between the WMF and Enwiki. However, I may be incorrect on that, and thoughts on which one is more problematic are welcome. BilledMammal (talk) 10:24, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I haven't read the entire discussion above (give me few weeks; I'll get there), but here's what I think about office actions and WMF rulings:

• The WMF should act as the legal body representing the Wikimedia community; it should thus have the ability to react to legal, privacy, and security threats.
• Such ruling pertaining to legal threats etc. can be subject to community review and rollback if necessary (but it probably won't be necessary; leave the legal stuff to the WMF and let us get on with writing an encyclopedia.)
• The community should work with the WMF; the WMF is not inherently more powerful than the community
• The WMF should implement office actions and other rulings ONLY regarding threats to privacy, security, and legal rulings (see bullet point one)
• The WMF should not make rulings in other areas; it should leave those to the community to decide (e.g., WP:FRAMGATE = no-no)

I like the new proposed wording in that it makes clear that the WMF should only be handling the legal stuff, and keep their hands off other incidents. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 13:16, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Rethinking the original proposal

Transparency effort

Rather than focusing on giving ourselves direct oversight, focus solely on giving ourselves indirect oversight by demanding more transparency from the WMF. This may both be less controversial - other projects, affiliates, etc can hardly complain about us giving everyone more information - and something that the WMF is more willing to accept.

Jayen466, do you have thoughts on what areas are most in need of light? BilledMammal (talk) 12:56, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

1. I have been quizzing Jimmy Wales on the Endowment. That is clearly one area: in all the 7.5 years the Endowment has existed, we have never yet had the equivalent of a financial statement detailing its revenue and expenses (including highest-paid employees and contractors earning over $100k in any year), as is standard for the Wikimedia Foundation and indeed legally mandated for any 501(c)(3) non-profit. But judging by the only two years we have any data at all on, there have probably been something like $15 million of expenses for the Endowment since 2016 – and no public accounting for them. In particular, we don't know how much Tides were paid for hosting the Endowment (and it's worth noting that the head of Tides at one point moved across to the WMF to become WMF General Counsel).
2. I have long wanted to know how many full-time employees (US and non-US, if any) the Form 990 figure for "Salaries, other compensation, employee benefits" (Line 15 on page 1, most recently it was $88 million) represents – the WMF has always refused to answer, saying knowing the actual figure would be "misleading" (!).
3. It would also be good to have prominent and timely documentation on what the m:Knowledge Equity Fund grantees have done with their grants.

So those are some examples. Andreas JN466 15:02, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466 All good points. I don't want to say WMF has corruption issues, but there's a lot of inefficiency, to say the least. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

International oversight

Rather than granting ourselves the ability to review and veto aspects of the WMF finances (or even just WMF grants), we grant metawiki the ability.

I see two issues with this:

1. I don't trust the metawiki RfC process; it appears to be overly controlled by the WMF
2. I don't know how willing we will be to allow a consensus on metawiki to result in action on enwiki. Ie, if metawiki decides that a grant should not be issued, and the WMF issues it anyway, we will be willing to work to block fundraising on enwiki?

Both of these can be resolved; for the first, I might be incorrect about the meta RfC process, and if I am not there is no reason we have to use it; we can compose an alternative.

For the second, it may be that the enwiki community is willing to cede this authority to the broader community; I personally would have no objection to that, and based on the discussion here it appears many other editors do not either (Barkeep49, North8000, and Piotrus - please correct me if I have incorrectly assessed your positions on this). However, the initial RfC establishing it would still, in my opinion, need to be held here; we need a consensus on enwiki granting metawiki this authority.

This would also provide a pathway to truly internationalize the effort; we could hold parallel RfC's on some of the other major Wikipedia's, who would also act to block fundraising should the WMF seek to ignore a consensus at metawiki. BilledMammal (talk) 12:56, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Responding on your question, the broader the community in authority the better. But it would probably need to be incubated here in enwiki first. Otherwise there are too many major challenges to tackle at once. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

The WMF doesn't feel like it controls metawiki, which has volunteer admins and is really run by the elected stewards, which is why it's moving policy and other foundation things to its own wiki it does control. Beyond metawiki, it also ocurred to me that the MCDC feedback would be a place that you could work to get some traction for these ideas. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:49, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

That is good to hear - although it's not good to hear that the WMF is currently engaged in a power grab in regards to that, which makes me less convinced that dialogue and collaboration will work.

MCDC feedback? I haven't heard of that before. BilledMammal (talk) 13:51, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Consultation on several chapters of the Movement Charter is currently linked on CENT (it's a meta link, so it'll be at the bottom). Nosebagbear (talk) 15:57, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

According to [1], the four Wikipedias with the most users are, in order, English, Spanish, French, and German. I would like to see some sort of system where you would need a supermajority (maybe 60% in an RfC?) on three out of four of those Wikipedias to take any radical action like blocking fundraising ads. I don't like the idea of enwiki alone having too much power. Ideally, the fourth wikipedia would go along with the majority. It would be a lot harder politically for the W?F to overide the wishes of three or four of the largest wikipedias. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:37, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Guy Macon To me such safeguards are necessary less if something is radical and more if it will have drastic negative effects on projects other than ours.

Blacking out the project is a radical action, but different projects do it at different points when they think the circumstances require it, rightly. Beyond that, if we're looking at the 4 largest projects, we might as well run a meta-rfc (as I firmly disagree that there is "WMF control") and include everybody.

There may also be exceptions if a project was facing particularly onerous consequences that were provoking the radical action, but such conditions don't apply here. Nosebagbear (talk) 04:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't see a problem. En wiki can block ads on en wiki. De wiki can decide what do on de wiki. In fact, I don't think meta vote should affect individual wikis. Meta, at best, can block ads on meta :P _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:04, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Just a reminder that there *are* other ways the foundation *could* raise money -- are they better for the project?

Many of these proposals are simply nonstarters, either because they won't get support here or because even if they get support they won't result in the changes because those changes are unworkable. But let's say some demands are made and the WMF does not meet them. Denying them banners on enwiki doesn't necessarily mean anything has to change outside of their fundraising department. Donor emails still go out and could increase. Spam could increase. They could use advertisements and underwriting. Many people will still donate even without a banner. And, the big one for the purpose of discussion, you may note above that we worked to reduce the revenue gap through major gifts and other fundraising channels (emphasis mine). Wikimedia Enterprise and major gifts could simply expand. IIRC the foundation has historically rejected most very large gifts -- that could simply stop. Is it really preferable to have tech giants, billionaires, and corporations funding operations? This is tangential to producing demands -- just something that should be kept in mind as a further reason to keep demands within the realm of reality. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:12, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I have long advocated that the W?F do an experiment with 1% of the readers, replacing the banners and hard sell with a simple soft-sell "Donate" link in the upper right corner, and delivering it to all of that 1%. (with the banners, registered users can turn them off). I predict that the soft sell will bring in more money than the hard sell. So far the W?F has refused to even talk about my proposal. I wonder what they are afraid of? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:09, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Has anyone ever said why they can't or won't try this experiment? It seems entirely foolhardy not to try to measure this. Sandizer (talk) 01:19, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Soften?

While I agree wholeheartedly with the aims of this proposed RFC, could we soften the language so that it comes off less like a suicide pact ultimatum and more like a friendly and constructive requirements and collaboration specification for WMF behavior? Sandizer (talk) 01:18, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

@Sandizer Go for it - suggest changes here or edit the proposal itself? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:05, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm planning to, in line with #Non-binding resolution, but you are welcome to make edits as well. BilledMammal (talk) 10:26, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Incorporating Edward-Woodrow’s letter

Is it possible to incorporate my draft letter into this RfC? It's kind of redundant. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 18:39, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we will use much of the wording - I'm leaning towards an RfC format, rather than a letter format, but that is still up for discussion - but most of the principles, definitely. BilledMammal (talk) 18:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I think that the letter format, directly addressed to the WMF and less aggressive then some of the proposals made here, may be slightly better.

One thing is sure, the signatures have a big influence on the actuel effect of the document whatever format it is. They are proof that there are many editors preoccupied about this. Although the latter fact was already proven on multiple occasions, the reiteration of this is important, and the signatures have a different, a better impression on the reader. Reman Empire (talk) 20:27, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

An RfC gets more community input. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 21:12, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards an RfC for that reason, and because it will fulfill the side purpose of allowing us to determine what the communities priorities are; I think we have a good idea here, but an RfC will give us a better one.

I also think it will make more of an impact on the WMF because a signed letter only demonstrates that a certain number of editors feel strongly about something; an RfC allows editors to dissent, and if there is a consensus despite that possibility is demonstrates the community as a whole is concerned about something and suggests a specific resolution to it. BilledMammal (talk) 10:17, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation grants processes

Hi, I’m Kassia, the Director for the Community Resources team. It is worth noting that the current grant making process at WMF is led by regional fund committees, which are made up entirely of volunteers and make all grant making decisions at a regional level. There was recently a call for applications for new committee members in three regions: Latin America & the Caribbean, North and West Europe, and North America. The full process, as well as all grant proposals and reports, are available here ~~~ KEchavarriqueen (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

@Antiqueight, Lajmmoore, I JethroBT, Emjackson42, Effeietsanders, Redwidgeon, Matthewvetter, Wugapodes, and AbhiSuryawanshi: The pages in Meta linked above list you folks as the responsible committee members active on en-wp. Can you please explain how this grant project went awry? Chris Troutman (talk) 19:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. I am frankly appalled at these grants. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 20:14, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

If you have constructive feedback on how the process (or the outcomes) could be improved, that is always welcome. I would suggest to use the appropriate talk pages on meta for this, rather than a talkpage on en.wikipedia that is in someone's private user space. It might be helpful if you can be a bit more specific what you exactly are interested in understanding better. I don't want to presume to be able to guess what your possible objections could be - is your concern related to the fact that there are no applications for new committee members in North America? I'll point out the obvious that our committee is only involved in the question how to distribute funding, and has no involvement whatsoever in how to raise funds. effeietsanders 20:21, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I believe this is the most controversial issue. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 20:26, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

@Effeietsanders: I'm sorry for not providing a TLDR when I pinged everyone so here it is: Recent coverage from The Signpost regarding these grants indicates some wide disagreement with the program goals. KEchavarriqueen points out above that the funds allocation decisions fall to volunteers, a fact which was perhaps overlooked earlier. We would appreciate an explanation from our fellow volunteers before editors consider shutting this website down. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:28, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I think you're confusing Knowledge Equity Fund grants (what the Signpost article is about) with WMF grants (what KE is talking about, with regional fund committees)? Or maybe I'm the one who is confused. The Knowledge Equity Fund committee is listed at m:Knowledge Equity Fund. Levivich (talk) 20:32, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I think you're right. @Effeietsanders: my apologies. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 20:38, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

This is correct. Regional grant committees review general support grants and alliance fund grants. Other grant programs, such as the Knowledge Equity Fund, are handled by others. See m:Knowledge Equity Fund#Volunteers for a list of that committee's members. — Wug·a·po·des 20:39, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. On the subject of Regional Funds, where can we see a list of stuff that was funded? I clicked through to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Regions/ESEAP but all 'approved' secitons in the template are empty, similar for Africa... hard to praise or criticize if the outcome is 'nothing'. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:26, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Pinging volunteers listed there: @MassiveEartha, @Emnamizouni, @Biyanto R, @Galahmm (fifth volunteer does not appear to have an account linked). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:37, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

@MassiveEartha: Your name is listed at meta:Knowledge Equity Fund. These grants as discussed in The Signpost have caused consternation. Can you explain what happened? Chris Troutman (talk) 20:51, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I suspect the KEF committee decides how to spend the funds allocated to the KEF, not whether to allocate funds to the KEF. That's probably the person/people you want to ping, though I don't know who it is. Perhaps KEchavarriqueen (WMF) could help? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:55, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Right. The issue isn't how the KEF committee spent KEF funds, it's that KEF exists in the first place. The (former) CEO, with the (former) Trustees' approval, are who decided to have a KEF, and they (the current ones) are the only ones who can decide not to have a KEF.

There are two more layer to this: first, if you take as a given that the KEF should exist, then there is nothing really wrong with the KEF grants; the grants further the KEF's mission.

Second, that the KEF exists makes perfect sense... if you take as a given that the WMF's role is to lead a "free knowledge movement" (as opposed to "support a free online encyclopedia"). I don't agree with that, but that's what the WMF thinks it's doing, and it thinks that because that's what the community in the past said it wants (e.g. Movement Strategy, the "Vision 2030" or whatever they called it). Therein lies the real problem. Levivich (talk) 21:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

The odd thing is that we were told the KEF was over. User:Victoria said last year,

Equity Grants were an idea of the previous CEO who is no longer with the Foundation so there isn't a chance of them recurring. The Board has done its main job - changed the CEO. Victoria (talk) 10:39, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

See also Maryana Iskander's January message after last year's RfC. Andreas JN466 23:45, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

My feeling about the movement strategy process is that Whitney Williams, who led the effort and is really a person from the world of US politics, had an outsized impact on the result. Andreas JN466 23:59, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

And here I find myself agreeing with Levivich (which I actually do on on occasion...). KEF should not exist. How cam we make that happen and ensure it is not recreated again? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Addendum: I think there's more to WMF mission than supporting Wikipedia, but supporting "free knowledge movement" is way to far. Support should be limited to WMF projects (Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.). If an initiative is not related to one of those, sorry. I love Internet Archive, EFF, etc. but if people donating to Wikipedia (and let's face it, that's where 99% donations come from) are donating, well, to Wikipedia, not to IA or other worthy causes. (And frankly, having been a reviewer of one round of KEF grants, a lot of those strike me as not worthy but an attempt to squeeze money for projects of little value, with the fig leaf of "this supports free knowledge in devloping world", gives us $$ you rich first worlders and don't ask inconvinient questions). The ones that were funded in the end seem better (what I described above was just what I think of an 'average rejected project', or at least 'an average project I recommended rejecting'), but they are still not things WMF should be funding (projects that support non-profit journalism for example - nice, but the only angle to fund here would be if they were intending to work with Wikinews. Etc.). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:33, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it really shouldn't exist. $200K USD for a non-profit organization based in Indonesia that works on human rights and advocacy issues for indigenous people is a nice plan, but not related to the project in any way. KEchavarriqueen (WMF) described the KEF as a a limited fund of $4.5 million from the Foundations 2020-2021 budget. 4.5M is "limited"? KEchavarriqueen also said we do not see these grants as tangential to the Wikimedia movement; they are intended to find new ways of supporting knowledge creation on underrepresented topics, so that newly available knowledge resources can be used to strengthen content on the projects themselves. I have asked them how they believe the above example to be related to the project in any way, but they have not yet responded. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 14:11, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

(perhaps helpful to point to the discussion that was taking place on wikimedia-l. While I am not involved with the program, I did respond to that thread (as did others). But also for the benefit of my colleagues that may or may not want to respond to this discussion: it might be helpful if you can point out exactly what your concerns are and what you would like to know. The Signpost article discusses a number of different issues, and conflating them might not be helpful. I do also suspect that if you have constructive suggestions on how to improve this Fund and its disbursements, you may want to leave those on Meta: m:Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund. effeietsanders 21:00, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

The Wiki Piggy Bank

New (2 days ago) article: The Wiki Piggy Bank: Wikimedia grows rich as Wikipedia donations are used for political causes

https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4458111/the-wiki-piggy-bank

--Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 19:17, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

To be added to Signpost in the news? @Jayen466 _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:13, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you, Guy. I wanted to pull out a few headlines from that article for use here, but it has so many shocking quotes that I'd end up in breach of copyright. Please, everyone, read it. Certes (talk) 12:56, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Is anyone willing to contact the author of that article and ask if they would be willing to release it under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License so we could post a copy on Wikipedia? I would do it myself but am having health issues that keep me away from my computer for extended periods. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:21, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Draft Resolutions

I have updated the draft to make it into a series of non-binding resolutions. It is currently structured as an RfC, but can be changed to a request for signatures if editors belief that would be more effective.

Currently, there are six resolutions; I believe I have addressed most of the concerns raised here, but there may be concerns that are not currently addressed in a resolution, or that are currently expressed that should not be. I encourage editors to boldly edit the draft, including by adding proposed resolutions, and we can discuss here if there is a point of contention.

Transparency within the WMF Board of Trustees

Discussion (Transparency within the WMF Board of Trustees)

• I feel like I'd want to hear from the board about this and how they understand these restrictions. I suspect this privacy functions at least in part to ensure that people can vote in the manner they think best serves the mission, even if it's unpopular. If you're on record taking an opinion that proves unpopular, you're now open to be harassed. In general, a lot of these changes may encourage populist board candidates. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:19, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Transparency within the Wikimedia Endowment

Discussion (Transparency within the Wikimedia Endowment)

• This seems the least controversial of the bunch IMO. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:02, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Grants to organizations intending to be active on the English Wikipedia

The English Wikipedia community is concerned about the distribution of grants related to activity on the English Wikipedia that will either not contribute to our goals of building an encyclopedia or will actively hinder those goals. We request that the Wikimedia Foundation informs the English Wikipedia of all non-trivial grants that will result in activity on the English Wikipedia through the opening of a discussion at the Village Pump (WMF) prior to the grant being issued. We also request that the Foundation considers comments made in the discussion and does not proceed with the grant if the English Wikipedia is not convinced of its utility.

We hope this will prevent recurrences of grants such as the $20,000 grant to improve coverage of Deforestation in Nigeria, which has been a net negative to the project and was based on incorrect information – that there was no information on the topic of deforestation in Nigeria, despite the existence of the article Deforestation in Nigeria.

Discussion (Grants to organizations intending to be active on the English Wikipedia)

• Should Non-trivial grant be better defined, perhaps with a monetary figure? BilledMammal (talk) 03:15, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
• I think it would be better to be involved earlier in the screening process and in setting direction on the type of grants, rather than only being involved at the end. I think having some type of standing committee representing the global community would be more efficient and thus more effective. (I have the same view for all grants, regardless of which areas they may affect.) isaacl (talk) 03:25, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  I agree that engagement earlier in the process would be beneficial, but I'm not sure how that work would - a single standing committee, giving the general direction for all grants, would be an option but we already have a number of standing committees (meta:Grants:Committees and meta:Knowledge Equity Fund#The Knowledge Equity Fund Committee, among possibly others) and they don't appear to be doing a good job at aligning the issuing of grants to the communities priorities.

  Perhaps a single, well-advertised and elected committee that these lesser committees are made subordinate to would be more representative? BilledMammal (talk) 04:09, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  The community needs to provide feedback to its representatives, and be more involved in selecting ones that they trust to represent its wishes. It needs to understand what problems may exist with the current committees, and figure out how to make them work better (replacing or restructuring them being an option). isaacl (talk) 04:20, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  Hmmm. This needs to be worded better. I was not aware of the Nigerian mess of a grant - effectively 20k for a few poor articles, "nice". Ugh. But in theory, that project aimed to "contribute to building an encyclopedia", so while it was a bad project / bad grant, it is not a good example for what you write. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:03, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  The intent of this section is to discuss grants that have the stated intent of contributing to building an encyclopedia, but fail to do so because of reasons that should have been obvious during the grant request process - these are unfortunately common. Grants that don't have the intent of contributing to building an encyclopedia are intended to be addressed in #Grants to organizations unrelated to supporting Wikimedia Projects.

  However, rewording is probably needed; based on your comment it seems the intent of this section isn't obvious. BilledMammal (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• activity on the English Wikipedia - This could probably use some tweaking. If someone creates a meetup page, do you really want to be notified? A grant to an affiliate probably means a nonspecific series of events that may have activity on enwp. Do you want to know about all of them? That would be hundreds of notifications, and most of them are already visible on-wiki. Be as specific about what you mean as possible, bearing in mind there are a whole lot of grant-funded events every year that involve activity on enwp but aren't like the deforestation project. Maybe e.g. something to the effect of "notify us/consider feedback before giving content improvement grants to groups/individuals that do not have an established track record of constructive contributions to enwp and which will involve large numbers of new contributors/contributions" (though doesn't this already exist on meta? it's just less common for people to express objections to grants rather than to endorse or abstain). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:29, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Grants to organizations unrelated to supporting Wikimedia Projects

The English Wikipedia community is concerned that the Wikimedia Foundation has found itself engaged in mission creep, and that this has resulted in funds that donors provided in the belief that they would support Wikimedia Projects being allocated to unrelated external organizations, despite urgent need for those funds to address internal deficiencies.

We request that the Wikimedia Foundation reappropriates all money remaining the Knowledge Equity Fund, and we request that prior to making non-trivial grants that a reasonable individual could consider unrelated to supporting Wikimedia Projects that the Foundation seeks approval from the community.

Discussion (Grants to organizations unrelated to supporting Wikimedia Projects)

• I'm not convinced that the double-majority is necessary, and I'm less convinced that the WMF will agree to it, but I believe it may be useful in terms of ensuring more WMF engagement with the concerns of its "flagship products". Either way, I think the option of including that in the proposed resolution is worth discussing. BilledMammal (talk) 03:15, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  Rough support. Some wording issues, but we need to kill KEF with fire, ASAP. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:04, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  Seconded. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 14:12, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• A proposal challenging the KEF is certainly something it seems many want, but three points: (1) Just to clarify something from discussions above, in case I was not the only one confused: the KEF was funded with 4.5 million in 2020. It was controversial, with some statements that it will not be renewed. In fact, it was not renewed. The 4.5 million was just being distributed over multiple years. When I add up the figures at meta:Knowledge Equity Fund I come to 2,305,000. So that's about 2.2m left in the fund. (2) There are multiple separate proposals here: cancel the KEF without spending the rest, or finishing the KEF experiment and declining to fund it again. It's not realistic to think we can dictate exactly what that 2.2m would be reallocated to -- it would just be returned to the foundation coffers or potentially the endowment. It makes more sense to use this as an example when arguing to increase spending on community needs rather than think we can just seize control of it. (3) Hard pass on "major projects" supremacy. We're the largest -- we already have the most people and a lot of leverage -- we don't need to form an alliance of majorities to demand we call the shots for the rest of the world (though yes, I appreciate this time that the scope of calling the shots is limited to a particular type of grant in this case -- that's progress :) ). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:48, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Increased support for internal needs

The English Wikipedia community is concerned that the Wikimedia Foundation has neglected critical areas of the project, and that continued neglect of these areas may endanger the project.

To improve the resilience of the project, we request that money be reallocated to hiring more technical staff, whose role will be to fulfill requests from the community such as those expressed on the Community Wishlist, as well as restoring access to tools such as grapher extension.

To improve knowledge equity we also request that that the Foundation provides funding to assist established editors in accessing the resources they need to improve the encyclopedia, such as by increasing the number of libraries accessible through the Wikipedia Library and by giving micro-grants for the purchase of backlogged items at Resource Request.

Discussion (Increased support for internal needs)

• Are there other areas we should explicitly call on for the WMF to provide increased support to? In a current ARBCOM case Wugapodes said Somewhat of a tangent: there was a year where the "]" key on my laptop didn't work. Contributing was an absolute pain. Wikipedia destroys keyboards. I genuinely believe keyboard damage is a problem that we don't acknowledge enough. I think the WMF should have some kind of keyboard fund for contributors. Obviously don't go making fun of people with broken keyboards---that's so petty---but if the WMF gave contributors money to repair damaged equipment we would probably could have avoided at least one negative interaction (or that's what I'd tell them at least).

I don't know if that was a serious comment, or if it was if we should be encouraging the WMF to provide resources to keep key contributors online, but it may be worth considering adding a line related to it. BilledMammal (talk) 03:15, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

I was serious. As an aside, I think this is a good list. As a practical matter, I would recommend reframing this in terms of one or two Movement Strategy Principles. For example, the request for more technical support could be framed in terms of "resilience": the lack of resiliency in our code base led to major problems with our graph extension including a wide-spread outage that impacted readers. Funds for acquisitions could be framed in terms of knowledge equity: high quality content often relies on access to esoteric or expensive resources and providing funds to acquire long-requested resources lowers the financial barrier to contributing for many. I'm just spitballing here, so feel free to take a look and think about how they might apply. The Foundation and global movement in general have come up with ways to talk about strategic priorities, and using that language will make it easier to convince those unfamiliar with the work or problems faced on EnWiki. — Wug·a·po·des 05:47, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• This is the only one on the list that I know I would support, and which I think there would be broad support for. I'd encourage someone (touches nose) to put some thought into how this could be transformed into something more concrete. It's easy enough to say "ok" to this, hire a part-time coder, and say it's been satisfied (not saying that would happen -- just illustrating that it would help to be more specific). At some point someone (maybe it was Guy Macon) suggested securing a commitment to spend 1% of revenue on community tech projects. Something like that. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:54, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  I suggested the 1%, though I wouldn't be surprised if others had the idea too. Really it should be 100% spent on Wikipedia and sister projects and 0% squandered on politics, but that is an unrealistic aim with current management and 1% going in the right direction is a start. Certes (talk) 17:58, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Board Composition

Discussion (Board Composition)

• I'm not convinced that we should be issuing a resolution in regards to this. However, I have included it to give us a chance to discuss if it is appropriate. BilledMammal (talk) 03:15, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
• A fairly straightforward question, though I would just personally disagree that a board where fully half are community representatives underrepresents the community. I don't know that I'd support it, but one specific way to change it rather than the vague "request ... reorganizing" is to suggest simply increasing the size of the board by one and having the affiliates elect a third. IMO it would be better to increase the affiliate-selected ones because that election requires talking to lots of stakeholders around the world to secure votes rather than just appealing to the largest group. YMMV. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:59, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

IMO the fundamental fix would be for the board to be 100% elected by the community (except Jimbo's position) and for the constitution/bylaws and any change to them requiring ratification by the community. EnWiki stating it's position on this (= a wide-participation RFC with a clear cut result) is a fine step one. We don't have to chart out the next 10 steps in order to take step 1. North8000 (talk) 18:02, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

General discussion

I feel the community needs to be involved earlier to make most efficient use of everyone's time and the WMF's financial resources. I think more community discussion is required to form a proposal, though. I would like the global community to consider a way to select representatives to collaborate with WMF management on setting annual goals and organization objectives, and on evaluating whether or not they have been achieved. isaacl (talk) 03:34, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

My understanding is that that is what the board is supposed to do, with the community elected members being our representatives. Unfortunately, due to the structure of the board, it does not operate that way. BilledMammal (talk) 04:00, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Not sure what goes in in the WMF, but in typical companies/organizations, senior management plays a big role in developing the company's mission, annual goals, and strategy for implementation. The community would benefit from a greater partnership with WMF management to set goals and review them at an operational level, below the board level. To save everyone time, the community needs to steer the organization on a desired path earlier on, rather than trying to redirect it later. isaacl (talk) 04:15, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

If I have understood you correctly, you are suggesting that the community would select representatives to sit in on, among others, Wikimedia Technology strategy meetings, and work with them to ensure that their goals align with the goals of the community? For example, with Technology, our representatives could work to get more resources directed to community priorities like the wishlist and less resources directed to projects that the community doesn't consider beneficial?

I imagine that this would result in increased transparency, as our representatives would be in a position to inform the community about the current priorities of the department at a much earlier stage than we currently become informed about it. I like the idea, but I'm not sure how we could propose it, and I'm not convinced the WMF will be receptive to it. BilledMammal (talk) 04:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I am suggesting that the community have representatives sitting in strategy meetings to decide on direction and implementation approach. This is more efficient than WMF management trying to figure out what might attain community approval later and then having a poll. If (big if) the community can figure out how to make its representation effective, and not deadlock discussion, then I think WMF management should be open to it. However, the real wildcard is setting the mission and allocating the budgets. If, for example, the global community consensus is to narrow the WMF focus to supporting Wikipedia and closely related resources, and it wants to turn the WMF into mostly a tech company (with perhaps a bit of research and government lobbying in support of this focus), I expect there will be push back. This is why I feel board support is also needed to support more community involvement in WMF direction. isaacl (talk) 04:42, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• Is having six resolutions and thus six discussions and six surveys, apart from general comments, really necessary? Splitting them into six separate RfCs isn't ideal either, but at least then all that discussion isn't put in the hands of one unlucky closer. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 12:36, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
  • I think splitting it into six individual RfC's (rather than sub-RfC's) would be worse; it would make it harder for editors to see the "big picture", and probably drive down overall turnout.

  What I wanted to do is to allow the community to consider each resolution separately; while they are related, they each deal with distinct concepts and splitting them will enable us - and the WMF - to better understand the communities position, and will ensure that less controversial resolutions do not have their support damaged by more controversial resolutions.

  However, I am concerned that this structure will make it difficult for the community to participate and drive down turnout; I am hoping we will be able to merge a couple of the resolutions, and I am considering adding "Support" and "Oppose" sections - since there is very little Wikipedia policy that is relevant to these discussions weight of argument will have minimal impact on the consensus and thus it will come down to the level of community support making votes - as opposed to !votes - appropriate, and we may avoid turnout issues by structuring the RfC in such a way to encourage editors to submit votes rather than feeling obligated to provide an argument for or against every resolution. BilledMammal (talk) 22:16, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Grant review

Above, at #Discussion (Grants to organizations intending to be active on the English Wikipedia), Rhododendrites made the comment that it would likely result in hundreds of notifications each year. In order to determine the scale of notifications that we would recieve under that proposal I started the following grant review. It is still in progress - so far I have only done meta:Category:Wikimedia Alliances Fund/Proposals/Funded and part of meta:Category:Wikimedia Community Fund/Proposals/Funded - but before I continue I wanted to confirm that this information doesn't exist in an easily accessible format somewhere already?

I don't have a conclusion on the number of notifications we would recieve each year yet, but from an initial review of the data I am concerned about the number of grants going to individuals who have very little activity on any Wikimedia Project.

Note that I did not review any of these grants in depth, and so there may be inaccuracies in my summary as well as my assessment of whether they are active on Enwiki or any Wikimedia Project. BilledMammal (talk) 21:42, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Link	Provided Wikimedia Usernames	Grant Program	Budget (USD)	End date	Activity on enwiki	Activity related to Wikimedia Projects	Summary
Accessible knowledge digitizing Libyan culture		Wikimedia Alliances Fund	21,478	2023-01-15		Maybe	Build an online training program to support digitization history/culture in Libya, this program will support spreading knowledge about Libya, that keeps pace with the rapid changes have occurred in the last couple of years and guaranteeing free and equal access to information. Build a community of researchers and editors through partnerships to form a nucleus for the Wikipedia user group, which will also focus on digitizing information about different Libyan groups.
Catalyzing Africa's knowledge creation ecosystem through AfroCuration:Building the connective tissue between the WikiMovement and cultural and creative organizations	Papa Baiden (182 edits) Tochiprecious (3,076 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	60,000	2023-08-31	Maybe		The objective of the project is to connect Wikipedia communities with cultural organizations to contribute to the development of more diverse and inclusive Wikimedia platform. Through trainings constituencies will develop the capacity to generate more open knowledge content about African culture, communities and people while also expanding content in African languages. This approach will increase the relevancy of Wikipedia to underserved African communities and youth.
Community Archives in Singapore	Mycommunitysg (22 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	100,000	2024-06-30			Preserve the stories of common people for our collective memory, by using Wikidata and Wikibase.
Guía de buenas prácticas en el uso de Wikipedia y Wikimedia Commons para periodistas y comunicadores.	Letssingaboutit (1 edit)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	34,000	2023-03-03	Maybe		Co-create with Wikimedia a guide to the use of Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons with a gender and human rights perspective, disseminate it and hold workshops to enhance its reach. Publish news articles on individuals for the purpose of generating new profiles for Wiki articles.
Historical Crowd-Source Spatial Data for Sustainable Development and Inclusive Mapping	Dewisulistio (22 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	50,260	2023-06-30			This project aims to update and enrich the historical infrastructures database that is accessible to the public with the help of youth. Partnering with Wikimedia Movement helps to achieve this goal because using the Wikimedia platform would guarantee the accessibility of the database is open to all. Wikimedia platform would also enable the participation of the community, especially youth, to update, enrich, and utilize the historical place database. Editors note: The platform referred to is OpenStreetMap. While it is a Wiki project, it is not a Wikimedia project
POSTCARD - Popular Sciences through Creative Contents for Indonesians	Indikafoundation (0 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	80,000	2023-07-31		Partial; Instagram, Youtube, and Wikipedia	This project aims to increase Indonesians content creators’ capability to develop higher quality & more entertaining Internet contents that provide high-value knowledge in Indonesia’s national & local languages, and gain their commitment to consistently producing contents even after completing the program. Wikimedia Movement will be an invaluable partner to enhance efforts in substance development and supporting ecosystems to sustain creator’s commitment.
Pour une plus grande représentativité des arts littéraires québécois et canadiens francophones sur Wikipédia, sur Wikimedia Commons et sur Wikidata	FrederiqueDube (4210 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	51,929	2023-08-18			By August 2023, we want to improve, enrich and evaluate the content (existing and future) of French-speaking Quebec and Canadian writers, including Indigenous and cultural diversity writers, as well as their literary works, on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. To do this, we plan to reach at least 100 people through our events and build a community made up of volunteers and institutional partners of at least 30 members.
Programa de Educación mediática e informacional para docentes (Media and informational education programme for teachers)		Wikimedia Alliances Fund	69,730	2023-06-30			Through the main problems that are addressed in the different Wikimedia projects, the following initiative will seek to conceptually and didactically train approximately 500 teachers in Argentina in critical and reflective skills on the management and consumption of information in digital environments. The project will be carried out in partnership with Wikimedia Argentina and its Education and Human Rights team.
Promoting and Fostering the Use of Open Educational Resources in Indonesia	Fitri Penyalai (780 edits) RaymondSutanto (58,222 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	53,949	2023-08-31			Educate Indonesian educators about Open Educational Resources (OER) Raise educators’ awareness of Wikimedia Commons & Wikibooks as OERs that they can benefit from Produce OERs in Indonesian that can be contributed to Wikimedia Commons & Wikibooks Address common misconceptions on copyright & open licenses. Partnering with Wikimedia is important because Wikimedia projects are the best platform for the application of the 5R OER principles (Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute)
Promoting Open Knowledge practices in African Libraries through WikiData	AfricanLibrarian (15,458 edits) AfLIALibrarian (user does not exist) DoreenAppiah (905 edits) SBAbigstan (484 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	60,000	2023-10-31			Train 200 African librarians from at least 20 African countries on how to effectively open up and link knowledge by making their library collections more visible through Wikidata, and step-down skills learned to their user communities through at least 20 edit-athons across Africa.
Promoviendo la justicia ambiental en Perú a través de Wikipedia	TNiederberger (14 edits) Rumillaqta (0 edits) KC096 (37 edits) TNiederberger (14 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	16,537	2024-04-01			The movement in defense of human rights, indigenous communities and peoples, and the environment in Peru knows and uses Wikipedia tools to expand content relevant to environmental justice, and increase, diversify, and articulate the base of editors among grassroots organizations and indigenous students. CooperAcción and Wikimedia share values ​​such as the disclosure of reliable and neutral information, and the need to incorporate perspectives that have been historically excluded.
ReCreate South Africa		Wikimedia Alliances Fund	50,000	2023-12-31			Ensure that the Copyright Amendment Bill is gazetted into law Organise in 9 provinces and 10 constituencies to build a social movement for free access to knowledge. Promote public awareness of how copyright exceptions benefit the public good. Promote the broader objectives of the Wikimedia Movement including broadening participation in knowledge creation and access. Produce a best practice guide for Wikimedia chapters engaged in copyright reform efforts.
Scaling Communities-Expansion of Wiki Networks through Partnerships, Infrastructure, and Outreach		Wikimedia Alliances Fund	99,299.9	2022-10-07	Maybe		By partnering with Wikipedia, we hope to expand and diversify user groups in order to fill knowledge gaps, grow content libraries for communities living under authoritarian or transitional contexts, and develop organisational capacity of Wiki user groups to recruit and train new editors as well as manage outreach activities for future expansion.
Supporting an Open Climate movement-Increasing the knowledge commons and collaborative communities of practice	Scann (37,908 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	40,000	2023-06-30			We will build an engagement path for Movement Organizers from the open tech community to engage with climate action movements. Through free culture, open tools, and community building, we will promote a collaborative in which information, solutions and strategies to address climate change are publicly accessible. The work of Wikimedia communities will benefit from dialogue with other organizers, and our stakeholders will benefit from the “hands-on” solutions of Wikimedia communities.
The missing link-Incorporating policy reports into the free knowledge ecosystem	Brigid van Wanrooy (user does not exist) Camilo Jorquera (user does not exist)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	41,234	2023-06-30			The objective is to improve the presence of valuable policy and research material and coverage of important policy issues in Wikimedia. This will be achieved by using APO’s database to verify the most reputable and prolific publishing organisations as sources, feeding in APO metadata into Wikidata, and conducting an edit-a-thon on First Peoples public policy. This can be achieved within a year (by 12 June 2023) by collaborating with Wikimedia Australia.
Una alianza contra la desinformación-periodistas & Wikimedia	Red Periodistas (0 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	28,370	2022-10-31		Maybe	Teach 60 journalists from Mexico to combat disinformation, through training workshops where they will learn verification tools and learn about the Wikimedia ecosystem. We believe that Wikimedia + local journalism can contribute to the fight against disinformation, without forgetting the value of independent journalism that allows the expansion of wikipedia information sources with quality information, by covering knowledge gaps in underrepresented communities and topics.
Understanding our past:using Wikipedia as a tool to support local history in Tāmaki Makaurau	Jetaynz (846 edits) Prosperosity (134,017 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	32,841	2023-12-31			Our main objective is to address this gap in local history resources by improving the quality of Auckland suburb and region articles on Wikipedia. Our research has shown that teachers and students regularly use Wikipedia, so we want to contribute towards it being a more trusted educational resource for teaching local histories and local contexts. It also allows the Museum to engage at scale with the curriculum, making open access collections and knowledge available to a vast online audience.
Wiki Digital Volunteering Club - Palestine		Wikimedia Alliances Fund	30,000	2024-06-30			The proposed action aims to expand the current Wiki Digital Volunteering Club - Palestine community and its capacity to contribute to the global knowledge ecosystem by providing information on the Palestinian society, particularly in Israel. Additionally, it aims to contribute to the digital literacy development of young Palestinians in Israel by preparing the foundation for the design and implementation of an large-scale educational program.
Wiki for change and inclusion in Nigeria	shelia lucifer (13 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	25,000	2024-04-30			The objective of the project is simply to connect queers in Nigeria to Wikipedia thereby bridging the content gap about LGBTQ content on the Wikimedia projects and creating a community of Nigeria LGBTQ+ Wikimedia editors, and content creators. And to further change the narratives of the survey done here (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Research/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusion_research/Nigeria_-_2022/en) in respect to LGBTQ+
Wikicredibility Initiative:Wikimedians Strengthening Knowledge and News Credibility on the Internet	Kevin Payravi (39,090 edits) SuperHamster (38,033 edits) Sj (53,811 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	100,000	2023-05-31	Maybe		This grant proposal will extend the work of the previous WikiCredibility Initiative campaign. The objective here is to continue helping communities of new editors, readers, technologists and other ecosystem members who rely on Wikipedia for verified information, sourcing, understanding and creating better processes and frameworks for content creation and information provenance with the help of Wikimedians
WikiGraphers-Visualizing Open Knowledge	Armenmir (73,303 edits) Lilitik22 (114,968 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	60,000	2023-01-31			The primary goal of the project is to improve the visual content of Wikipedia which will be done by a diverse group of 20 students who will gain visualization and design skills. As part of their practical learning, they will visualize the 200 most viewed educational articles of the Armenian Wikipedia (September 2020 - October 2021). This project will lay the foundation for the formation of a new community of Wikigraphers who will contribute to the visual development of Wikimedia projects.
Wikipedia at the Thies University	GuillaumeG (6,340 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	10,000	2024-04-30	Maybe		Improve information on water and sanitation in Senegal available on Wikimedia projects.
Wikipedia Educational Development Outreach in Mongolia	Orgio89 (9,595 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	22,500	2023-12-31			Our project main objective is to expand local Wikipedia usage through enhancing its educational values and to involve more wider communities into this effort.
各地街景踏查團 2022 Group for capturing Street-level Images in Taiwan 2022	Supaplex (438,271 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	12,218	2023-06-30	Maybe	114 edits across four Wikimedia projects	We want to travel and while traveling, we could also capture street-level images for OpenStreetMap editing, and also contribute to Wiki Commons by selecting images from viewpoints and attractions to upload to Wiki Commons. We can combine forces together to benefit both OpenStreetMap and WIki Commons projects.
維基融入歷史專業教學與研究：以成大歷史系及臺灣地方醫療史為核心	Opiumgentleman (81 edits)]]	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	64,946	2023-12-31			Integrating Wikipedia into the teaching and research of history majors: Focusing on the Department of History of Chengda University and Taiwan's local medical history as the core
臺灣替代空間藝術資料庫建置計劃：維基數據與 Wikibase 技術應用前期研究	KOKUYO (268,219 edits) Joycewikiwiki (2,013 edits) Allenwang6212a (37,186 edits)	Wikimedia Alliances Fund	34,957	2023-05-31			Alternative Space Art Database Construction Plan in Taiwan: Preliminary Research on the Application of Wikidata and Wikibase Technology
Wikimedia Rwanda General Support fund 2023-2024	Mrbobax (969 edits) RebeccaRwanda (3,272 edits) UWIMPUHWE Va (777 edits) GATETE Pacifique (2,324 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	30,000	2024-06-30			Activities developed and delivered: Photographics contests: WikiLovesAfrica 2024 WikiLovesEarth 2023 WikiLovesMonuments 2023 WikipediaPagesWantingPhotos. 2023 WikilovesFolklore 2024 Content Generation projects : WikiGap 2024 Wiki4Human Rights 2024 Wiki4Sports 2024 Wiki Loves Folklore 2024 Wikivibrance 2023 Monthly editing challenges
WikiJournal User Group/2022	Mikael Häggström (85,255 edits) Evolution and evolvability (124,867 edits) Daniel Mietchen (28,022,953 edits) Several others	Wikimedia Community Fund	103,900	2022-12-31			Fund WikiJournal activities
Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska/One-Year General Support Grant/2022-2023	Bojana Wiki PG (15,483 edits) Петковићева15 (1,200 edits) Jeeleeenaaa (1,133 edits) BoMaric (1,527 edits) Several others	Wikimedia Community Fund	40,488.1	2023-06-30			Serbian Annual Conference GLAM: Wiki Loves Folklore Photo Competition Edu: Conference for professors
2022-2024 GLAM Macedonia's Three-year General Support Grant	Violetova (5,355 edits) MacedonianBoy (136,343 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	26,127	2023-12-31			Establish at least 3 new Wiki Clubs or Wiki sections Recruit at least 150 new editors and contributors Engage at least 50 women and seniors in Wikimedia projects in order to avoid gender and age gap Educate and train at least 120 teachers on how to use Wikipedia in classroom Organize at least 45 special events *New content on Wikipedia: at least 4,100 new articles, multimedia content and references Collaborate with at least 45 institutions and organizations
University Students Wikimedians 2022/2023	Magotech (5,818 edits) codtz (537 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	30,000	2023-07-01			The main objective is to increase the number and diversity of contributors on the Wikimedia projects which in turn will lead to increased content, images, and videos in English and Swahili languages.
Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda Support Grant 2022/2023	Ndahiro derrick (3,416 edits) Mrbobax (969 edits) RebeccaRwanda (3,272 edits) Cnyirahabihirwe123 (2,701 edits) Mr.TallBoy (user does not exist)	Wikimedia Community Fund	30,000	2023-06-30			To improve articles on Wikimedia Foundation project websites and promote free and open access to knowledge locally in Kinyarwanda, French & English and investing in projects that sensitize and train different communities in Rwanda about Wikipedia with much emphasis on Kinyarwanda Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos International Team/2023 coordination	Ammarpad (66,961 edits) Macdanpets (3,551 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	22,660	2023-11-30			Add images already in Wikimedia Commons to articles in need of images. Includes prizes for top participants
2023 GLAM Macedonia General Support Grant	Violetova (5,355 edits) MacedonianBoy (136,343 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	30,050	2023-12-31			Establish at least 3 new Wiki Clubs or Wiki sections Recruit at least 150 new editors and contributors Engage at least 50 women and seniors in Wikimedia projects in order to avoid gender and age gap Educate and train at least 120 teachers on how to use Wikipedia in classroom Organize at least 45 special events *New content on Wikipedia: at least 4,100 new articles, multimedia content and references Collaborate with at least 45 institutions and organizations
Wikimedia Armenia General Support Fund/2023-2024	M.D. Shahinyan Beko (user does not exist)	Wikimedia Community Fund	146,692	2024-12-31			Activities developed and delivered: To bring wiki-projects and tools used for education, teaching, and learning to all regions of Armenia: to schools, organizations, and every individual. Increase the number of actively involved and contributing members and volunteers of Wikimedia Armenia. Develop new ideas and projects to sustain and expand wiki movement in Armenia, Promote knowledge and innovation exchange through collaboration, joint projects and representation. Risk assessment and overcoming.
Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska/One-Year General Support Grant/2023-2024	Bojana Wiki PG (15,483 edits) Петковићева15 (1,200 edits) Jeeleeenaaa (1,133 edits) BoMaric (1,527 edits) Several others	Wikimedia Community Fund	52,214	2024-06-30			Quality networking with different types of institutions and organizations in order to create free content and use shared resources Reducing the gap between Wikipedians and Wikimedians and striving for better communication and mutual support Expanding the network of volunteers, which would also include decentralization Multiplication of free content with a focus on its quality Promotion of free knowledge and Wikimedia movement and projects
2023-2025 Art+Feminism WMF Grant Application	kiraface (1,364 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	1,145,055	2025-12-31			Build a community of activists who are committed to closing information gaps related to gender, feminism, and the arts on Wikipedia and beyond.
Tanzanian University Students Wikimedians User Group 2023/2024	Magotech (5,818 edits) codtz (537 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	28,053.85	2024-06-30			Promote the use of Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia, Wikicommons, and Wikidata, among Tanzanian university students and the wider community.
Activating Botswana 2022/23	Shoodho (2,022 edits) Kolobetsoo (1,910 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	20,000	2023-06-30			Setswana Wikipedia Challenge - one of the events where we train the community to create more articles about Botswana and notable people in our native language Setswana. Hence with the great relation we have with University of Botswana Librarians we believe that we will be able to edit more articles in Setswana language especially with the great qualification background of the Librarians to edit quality articles. WikiGap, WLW, Artfeninism edit-a-thons - The Botswana community members have close relations with other established Wikimedian communities such as the Wikimedia Uganda Community user group who have hosted several events in the gender gap diversity and inclusion are, therefore we believe we would be able to get support and guidance on best practices to host such events and have the best outcome by also engaging more female editors. The Wiki Loves events gives the chapter a chance to enhance coverage of Botswana topics on Wikipedia by generating photographic content to illustrate relevant articles. We have been hosting these events since 2019.
Wikimedia ZA annual grant 2023/24	Discott (19,767 edits) Bobbyshabangu (7,424 edits) TwinMosia (831 edits) IngridThomson (204 edits) Lefcentreright (37,119 edits) Oesjaar (215,214 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	100,000	2024-06-30			Grow the Wiki community within Southern Africa Increase community health and group cohesion within the diverse South African Wiki community Increase diversity within the South African Wiki community; both demographic and geographic diversity Increase coverage of African and South African content on Wikipedia - currently African, and even South African, topics are under represented on Wikipedia and the Wikis generally Increase public awareness - currently the general public in South Africa is still relatively unaware of Wikipedia and how it works Make South Africa a friendlier place for open/free knowledge
Activating Botswana 23/24, WikiConnect:Building Bridges and Fostering Free Accessible Knowledge For All	Shoodho (2,022 edits) Kolobetsoo (1,910 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	39,550	2024-06-30			Expand Setswana Wikipedia
Acquisition of missing pages and books of Nationalised books, Wikisource workshops and a GLAM activity in TamilNadu	info-farmer (404,963 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	4,260	2022-07-15			Resolving issues related to a 2016 upload of 2217 Tamil Nadu public domain books.
African & Proud General Support.	B.Korlah (2,170 edits) Edriiic (976 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	22,200	2023-12-29			Preserving and promoting Africa’s rich cultural heritage through African culture, festivals, cuisines, quotes, language, and various African-related information/content while also contributing to global free knowledge on the world’s largest free encyclopedia; Wikipedia, and her sister projects.
AfroCROWD: Championing Communities of African Descent on and in Wikimedia and Improving the relevance of Wikipedia and open technology to communities of Color	Shanluan (6,517 edits) Alicaba (3,032 edits) Adjoajo (12,203 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	133,489.33	2025-07-01			Enhancing the Capacity of Participants for the Promotion of Diverse Content Developing Workshops/Events Building the relevancy of Wiki as a learning tool Enhance Existing Diverse Content Building on knowledge gained from pioneering efforts
AfroCROWD:Continuing to Champion Communities of African Descent on and in Wikimedia and Improving the relevance of Wikipedia and open technology to communities of Color	Shanluan (6,517 edits) Alicaba (3,032 edits) Adjoajo (12,203 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	145,000	2025-07-01			Provide more than 40 online and in-person workshops by 2025, with the aim of training over 1,000 participants across their local and international partnership hubs in the Caribbean and African regions.
Amical Wikimedia 2023 Grant	Robertgarrigos (10,142 edits) Lluis tgn (27,494 edits) Kowalskyn (8,203 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	60,345.6	2023-12-31	Maybe		Increase the amount of Catalan-language content available on Wikipedia, and increase the amount of content related to Catalan in any language.
WBG/Annual Plan 2022-23	Bodhisattwa (2,170,512 edits) Atudu (222,857 edits) Amitabha Gupta (27,805 edits)]]	Wikimedia Community Fund	14,630	2023-06-30			National-level photographic competitions on Wikimedia Commons Field documentation of heritage Proofread competitions on Bengali Wikisource Digitization program Infrastructure and logistics support
Annual Plan Grant for Wikimedia UG Georgia, 2022	Mehman97 (user does not exist) MIKHEIL (164,886 edits) Mikheil (WMGE) (user does not exist)	Wikimedia Community Fund	32,460	2022-12-31			Decrease content gap Increase participation Community Support, Development and Promoting Wikimedia Collaborate with GLAM, Universities, Educational Institutions and Governmental Institutions Collaborate with Wikimedia and Non-Wikimedia organizations
Annual plan of the Centre for Internet and Society Access to Knowledge	Tito (CIS-A2K) (2,048 edits) Subodh (CIS-A2K) (4,071 edits) Jayanta (CIS-A2K) (4,285 edits) Medini (CIS-A2K) (81 edits) Nitesh (CIS-A2K) (3,009 edits) Bodhisattwa (CIS-A2K) (586 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	131,379.05	2023-06-30	Maybe		Wikisource: We will continue to support Indian language Wikisource projects and the Wikisource communities in India. Partnership: We have been putting effort to connect and work with like-minded partners, and we would like to further focus. Content creation: Creation of high-quality content has been a top priority of CIS-A2K's work-plan and strategy. We will conduct and support a series of Wiki-events which will help to produce high quality content in different Indic Wikimedia projects. Other than Wikisource proofread-a-thon and content relicensing Leadership development: The Wikimedia movement has been able to grow and sustain due to excellent community leaders and their leadership. We would like to continue working on conducting/supporting activities to enhance leadership skills.
APG Wikimedistas de Bolivia - 2023	Alhen (30,895 edits) Caleidoscopic (15,204 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	94,433.56	2023-12-29			Improve access to Wikimedia as a learning tool in the Bolivian education ecosystem.
Art+Feminism 2022	kiraface (1,364 edits) 13ab37 (496 edits) Masssly (95,467 edits) Nyeboah (1,829 edits) Yhhue91 (3,621 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	305,000	2022-12-31			Build a community of activists who are committed to closing information gaps related to gender, feminism, and the arts on Wikipedia and beyond.
Audio-visual documentation of endangered Igbo dances in Nigeria.	Dolphyb (10,544 edits) Ptinphusmia (4,297 edits) Emmanuel Obiajulu (2,544 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	24,250	2023-05-31			Develop a knowledge base of identified dances that includes dance name, custodians, history/origin, in the form of high quality audiovisuals that will be properly described and archived on wikimedia commons, US Library of congress, internet archives and possibly other open license platforms. Produce not less than 56 videos of Igbo dances focusing on history, significance, performance, costumes, demography, and period of performance in a format (WebM, .ogg) that is acceptable on wikimedia commons Organize Edit-a-thons every last Saturday of every month to use uploaded audiovisual contents on wikimedia commons on relevant articles on Wikipedia. Write articles about the dances on Igbo wikipedia, as notability standards as less strict there; Kindly note that the clause "This knowledge will likely fail Wikipedia's notability criteria” is applicable to only English Wikipedia which form one out of 300+ wikipedia projects where this content will be used.
AvoinGLAM 2023	Susannaanas (257,375 edits) Tarmo (1,214 edits) Tove Ørsted (91 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	55,355	2023-12-31	Maybe		Promote Open Access to cultural heritage as a local branch of the global GLAM community.
Boosting the Korean Wikimedia Community and Diversifying Editors and Contents on Wikimedia Movement	Motoko (WMKR) (1,604 edits) Jjw (49,577 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	65,538	2022-12-31			The two main objectives of the proposal are To improve the “health” of the Korean Wikimedia community by increasing opportunities for collaboration; and To reduce the systematic bias and gender gap by increasing the diversity of editors and contents
Building a firmer base for knowledge sharing on Wikimedia projects.	Elisabeth Carrera (WMNO) (997 edits) Jon Harald Søby (WMNO) (30,258 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	209,722	2026-06-30			Day to day operations of Wikimedia Norge Wiki community meeting places To recruit and follow up on members and Wikimedia projects volunteers Start to develop wiki training for high school and/or university level programs Communications work To strengthen small under-represented languages in the Wikimedia projects, beginning with Wikipedia in Northern Sámi
Centre for Internet and Society's annual work plan for 2023-2024	Subodh (CIS-A2K) (4,071 edits) Jayanta (CIS-A2K) (4,285 edits) Medini (CIS-A2K) (81 edits) Nitesh (CIS-A2K) (3,009 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	212,635	2024-06-30	Maybe		A2K is planning to improve, reshape and scale up its successful projects to address evolving needs and strategies.
Consolidando el futuro del conocimiento libre en México.	Carmen Alcázar (WMMX) (40 edits) Padaguan (2,692 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	205,000	2023-06-30			Grow and retain the number of people participating in Wikimedia Mexico Increase the participation of teachers and educational institutions in Wikimedia projects Increase and improve the content in Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata) Increase the participation of women in Wikimedia projects. Ensure the operation of the chapter, implement institutional strengthening and develop strategic planning.
Creating free knowledge through educational, GLAM & capacity building projects & collaborations while enhancing diversity & social representation in He-WP & AR-WP	RevitalP-WMIL (315 edits) Shai-WMIL (4,917 edits) Ruti-WMIL (5,842 edits) Abeer-WMIL (3 edits) OphirT- WMIL (user does not exist) Hanna-WMIL (15 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	386,183.12	2023-12-31			Increasing the engagement & representation of the various sectors and genders of the Israeli society Enhancing and diversifying our activities with partners to create quality content, information & data Developing capabilities, skills & tools to position ourselves as the leading organization in the field of free content Increasing our visibility & organizational sustainability in our geographical domain & within the movement.
Dagbani Wikimedians User Group 2022 Annual Programs	Shahadusadik (9,622 edits) Din-nani1 (277,705 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	55,000	2023-07-31	Maybe		Organizing Media outreach campaign Organizing a series of contests, with prizes, to create and improve biographies of Ghanaian parliamentarians through our parliament of Ghana contest series Organizing online and offline workshops, edit-athons and hack-a-thons on various projects we will be embarking on to equip volunteers with the requisite skills necessary for contributing to Wikimedia projects Organizing Edit-a-thons to add existing images to articles created
Dagbani Wikimedians User Group 2023 Annual Programs	Shahadusadik (9,622 edits) Din-nani1 (277,705 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	75,000	2024-06-30	Maybe		Organizing Media outreach campaign Organizing a series of contests to create and improve biographies of Ghanaian parliamentarians through our parliament of Ghana contest series Organizing online workshops
Developing Free Knowledge in Georgia, 2023	Mehman97 (user does not exist) MIKHEIL (164,886 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	47,731	2023-12-31			Increase and improve the content of Wikimedia projects, primarily in Georgian, but also in other regional languages Conduct open training courses and workshops for all interested parties who want to contribute to the development of Wikimedia projects in Georgian Conduct WikiCamps Continue to develop a network of WikiClubs Organize in-person meetups Expand our network of partnerships and actively work with current partners to develop free knowledge in Georgia
Discover, Develop, Invent on Wikipedia, Together	Strainu (133,818 edits) Klaul (3,281 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	20,047	2024-05-31			WMROMD is making continual efforts to diversify the pool of new editors, enhance content and invest in training editors to better understand and use the wikimedia platforms.
Diversifying Wikimedia’s content and contributors, removing barriers to knowledge, and developing new ways of engaging with the public, partners, learners and contributors in the UK, 2022		Wikimedia Community Fund	468,000	2023-01-31			Wikimedia UK will continue to focus on KNOWLEDGE EQUITY and INFORMATION LITERACY as our key strategic themes, whilst also developing work in response to the CLIMATE CRISIS. Our objectives under each of these themes are listed in our three year Strategic Framework. Our Partnerships Paper also gives an indication of the scope and scale of the work we hope to deliver.
Documenting and increasing Jewish language representation on Wikimedia	JKodner18 (49 edits) Bogreudell (1,051 edits)	Wikimedia Community Fund	54,000	2023-11-21			Produce a total of 2 hours’ worth of video content in 6 critically endangered Jewish languages/dialects. These videos will be transcribed, translated, and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Using these authentic language samples, we will coordinate members of our team — for whom these languages are parts of their heritage — to edit and improve the Wikipedia pages for each language/dialect (= 8 in total) as well as their entries in Wikidata.
Editing Wikipedia Together - online free course for volunteers invested in community development and open access		Wikimedia Community Fund	17,100	2023-05-12			Improve the quality of content available in Wikipedia Romania and grow the Wikipedia Romania community.