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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)