Wikimedia Foundation finances; Superprotect is gone

News and notes

Wikimedia Foundation finances; Superprotect is gone

2014–2015 end-of-year financial report

On October 30, the Wikimedia Foundation posted its financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2015, as audited by KPMG.

As expected, the figures show that the Foundation is in better financial health than ever. The growth in revenue (up 44.5% over the year before) and assets (up 45.5%) far outstripped growth in expenditure (up 14.6%).

Financial development of the Wikimedia Foundation (in US$), 2003–2015

Support and revenue

Expenses

Net assets at year-end

Here is an overview of the most important figures (rounded):

Net assets at end of year:
- $77.8M
- up $24.3M from $53.5M

Current assets include:
- $35.2M in cash and cash equivalents
- $29.0M in short-term investments

Total support and revenue:
- $75.8M
- up $23.3M from $52.5M

Total expenses:
- $52.6M
- up $6.7M from $45.9M

Main expense items:
- Salaries and wages: $26.0M (up from $20.0M)
- Professional service expenses: $7.6M (up from $7.1M)
- Awards and grants: $4.5M (down from $5.7M)
- Other operating expenses: $4.4M (up from $3.9M)
- Depreciation and amortization: $2.7M (almost unchanged)
- Donations processing expenses: $2.5M (up from $1.5M)
- Travel and conferences: $2.3M (up from $2.0M)
- Internet hosting: $2.0M (down from $2.5M)

As can be seen, the biggest expense item is salaries and wages, a reflection of the fact that the Foundation now has the money to employ over 280 paid staff (up from around 225 this time last year, and up from 11 in 2007). Staff grew by around 35% in 2014–15, 23% in 2013–14, 22% in 2012–13, 53% in 2011–12, and 56% in 2010–11.

Internet hosting, the Foundation's main expense item in its early years, now costs less than donations processing, and less than travel and conferences.

As the Foundation prepares for its year-end fundraiser, mailing-list debates about the appropriateness of "scary" fundraising banners asking readers of Wikipedia to donate money to "keep it online" continue, based on the fact that the Foundation is far better off today than it has been at any other point in its history, and most of the money spent serves other purposes than merely keeping Wikipedia online (see previous Signpost coverage: 1, 2). The Foundation has taken nearly a quarter billion dollars over the past five years.

Even so, the Foundation is concerned about its long-term financial prospects: the number of page views and unique visitors is in decline, as is Wikimedia projects' reach. Desktop views of the English Wikipedia, the main source of donations in the annual year-end fundraiser, are particularly strongly affected.

The Foundation's 2015–2016 annual plan calls for a 17% growth in budget and revenues of $73M (including $5M to start an endowment), with a "stretch goal" to exceed the fundraising target by 20%, equivalent to a revenue total of around $88M. AK

Superprotect is gone

The Wikimedia Foundation announced on November 5 that the controversial "Superprotect" feature has been removed from Wikimedia servers.

“

Superprotect [1] was introduced by the Wikimedia Foundation to resolve a product development disagreement. We have not used it for resolving a dispute since. Consequently, today we are removing Superprotect from Wikimedia servers.

Without Superprotect, a symbolic point of tension is resolved. However, we still have the underlying problem of disagreement and consequent delays at the product deployment phase. We need to become better software partners, work together towards better products, and ship better features faster. The collaboration between the WMF and the communities depends on mutual trust and constructive criticism. We need to improve Wikimedia mechanisms to build consensus, include more voices, and resolve disputes.

There is a first draft of an updated Product Development Process [2] that will guide the work of the WMF Engineering and Product teams.[3] It stresses the need for community feedback throughout the process, but particularly in the early phases of development. More feedback earlier will allow us to incorporate community-driven improvements and address potential controversy while plans and software are most flexible.

We welcome the feedback of technical and non-technical contributors. Check the Q&A for details.[4]

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Superprotect

[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Product_Development_Process
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering

[4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Product_Development_Process/2015-11-05#Q.26A

”

Superprotect

As one thousand of us requested, Superprotect has been removed
11 November 2015

Wikimedia Foundation finances; Superprotect is gone
4 November 2015

Superprotect, one year later; a contentious RfA
12 August 2015

Media Viewer—Wikimedia's emotional roller-coaster
27 August 2014

Media Viewer controversy spreads to German Wikipedia
13 August 2014

Superprotect was a special level of protection designed to restrict editing of certain wiki pages (in particular software configuration files) to Wikimedia Foundation employees in the Staff global group. It was implemented on August 10, 2014, and used the same day to stop a volunteer administrator on the German Wikipedia from disabling the new Media Viewer feature, which, in its original form, had attracted widespread criticism on both the German and English Wikipedias.

This followed a similar power struggle between the Foundation and its volunteer community in September 2013, when Kww, a volunteer administrator in the English Wikipedia, successfully implemented community consensus to return another software feature much criticised at the time, the VisualEditor, to opt-in status in the English Wikipedia, overriding the Foundation (see previous Signpost coverage).

The introduction of the Superprotect feature, designed to prevent a repeat of this scenario in the case of the Media Viewer, elicited widespread community protest; an open letter to the Foundation condemning the measure was signed by nearly 1,000 Wikimedia volunteers, a record in Wikimedia history.

Speaking at the November 2015 WMF Metrics meeting, executive director Lila Tretikov said:

“

We wanted to remove Superprotect. Superprotect set up a precedent of mistrust, and this is something that was really important for us to remove, to at least come back to the baseline of a relationship where we're working together, we're one community, to create a better process. To make sure that we can move together faster, and everybody is part of that process, and everybody is part of that conversation, not just us here at WMF.

”

The move was widely welcomed by volunteers and Foundation employees.

Addressing a question as to whether Superprotect had been completely removed from the MediaWiki software underlying Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites, the Foundation's lead software architect Brion Vibber provided the following clarification on the Wikimedia-l mailing list:

“

There is no code specific to "superprotect"; it's the exact same MediaWiki permissions/protection system that lets users in the 'sysop' group override the ability of anonymous or regular users to edit particular pages. Technically nothing has changed – particular protection levels can be added and removed via configuration at any time if they are needed.

In other words – ignore the superprotect red herring! Please look at the documentation of the product process and give feedback on that, it's much, MUCH more important:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Product_Development_Process

”

Brief notes

[[File:|center|300px]]

Teachers in Serbia attending Wikipedia training

Wikimedia Serbia includes training seminars for teachers: Along with regular education program activities for high school and university students in Serbia, Wikimedia Serbia has now added Wikipedia training for more than 100 teachers in three Serbian cities. The training, which will help teachers better understand the use of Wikipedia in the classroom, is a recognized course option in professional development training that is mandatory for teachers in Serbia. F
Doteli Wikipedia keeps growing: The number of Wikipedia articles written in Doteli is growing. Doteli is a language spoken in the far western and mid-western regions of Nepal, and some parts of India. With more than 1,000 articles now, and an active team of editors keeping them up to date, the minimum requirements to start up a new Wikipedia language edition have been met. F
Sad news from the Polish Wikipedia: The Signpost has learned that Belissarius recently passed away. A major contributor to the Polish Wikipedia, Belissarius made more than 100,000 edits to his home wiki, as well as over 1,000 edits each to Commons and the English Wikipedia. An activist, journalist and historian, he had been an editor of the Chicago-based Polish Daily News (Dziennik Związkowy), which has published an obituary (Google translation). AK
Terry Gilbey is leaving the WMF: Lila Tretikov has announced that Terry Gilbey, the Foundation's Interim Chief Operating Officer this year, will be leaving the Wikimedia Foundation. Vice President of Human Resources Boryana Dineva is joining the C-level team; the search for a Chief Financial Officer is still ongoing. AK
New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, Yamaguchi先生 (Nov. 5). AK

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4 November 2015 (all comments)

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Superprotect: Most welcome news as a sign that the WMF "gets it". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:31, 7 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]
The issue in German Wikipedia that caused the introduction of Superprotect is often described somewhat inaccurately - sadly, this Signpost article isn't an exception. The administrator on the German Wikipedia disabled the Media Viewer completely for the German WP, without an opt-in option, which isn't what the local consensus was. The outcome of de:Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Medienbetrachter was that the Media Viewer should be disabled per default, but with an option to enable it for those who wish to use it. I'm sure that the admin acted with the best of intentions, believing that entirely disabling MV (probably given technical limitations that made an opt-in option not feasible) was closer to the community consensus than just leaving it enabled, but the community actually wasn't pleased. It wasn't what we wanted. So, a large part of the community disagreed with the WMF enforcing the Media Viewer as well as with the admin who disabled it wholly. Consequently, the admin was recalled and not re-elected. That doesn't mean people welcomed Superprotect, quite the contrary - but we were protesting against Superprotect and at the same time not agreeing with the admin action that caused it. Most, I think, believe that this was a matter that we could have resolved locally. Gestumblindi (talk) 18:43, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks, Gestumblindi. Edited. Andreas JN 466 20:42, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks as well, Andreas! :-) For the convenience of readers: This was about the original, now edited phrasing "implementing local consensus". Gestumblindi (talk) 20:48, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - It was already correct before. It said before “implementing local consensus to disable” and that IS and WAS true. It was consensus to disable it. You CAN argue about the way, about side-affects or completeness, but not about the fact itself. --DaB. (talk) 11:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      - @DaB.: You know that local consensus was "disable by default, with opt-in". That's very different from just "disable", and you have seen how the community responded... You can't just assume that people who voted for "disable with opt-in" accept disabling the feature entirely as an "incomplete" step towards their goal. Gestumblindi (talk) 19:32, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hosting only costs the foundation $2 million? Do they get a lot of donations from tech companies? That figure seems very low just for the English Wikipedia alone, never mind all the hundreds of other Wikimedia projects! Cynical (talk) 20:29, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Page view stats: Technical note

Note that a technical note has just been added to the Wikimedia Foundation page view stats, which reads as follows:

“

Nov 6, 2015: Data in this report, from May 2015 onwards, are now based on the new pageview definition. In the old situation spider/crawler traffic (from search engines) wasn't filtered (a known issue, we needed hadoop to make this possible). Those requests made up almost 20% of total page 'views' on Wikipedia, and even much more on sister projects (details will follow) Obviously the top table row, with year-over-year changes, doesn't make sense until the new pageview definition will have been in effect for at least a year. That feature is now temporarily disabled.

Also, the new data stream does exclude housekeeping traffic (mainly used for fundraising banners). As usage grew these so called HideBanner requests became far more numerous even than actual traffic on smaller Wikimedia projects (not on Wikipedia). We will update the reports soon, to make the impact of this 'pollution' visible, which affected much of 2014 and first four months of 2015.

Thanks for your patience.

”

While the decline in page views started well before May this year, this adjustment means it is less severe than the Foundation's figures and graphs show. 20:38, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Donations processing expenses?

Why 2.6M??? Nergaal (talk) 21:48, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Credit card processing fees? 2.5/75.8 = ~3%, which feels about right. --Pres N 00:46, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Of note, while donations increased 45%, the cost of processing them increased 65%. The reason is not immediately apparent. I do recall some discussion about expanding the number of payment options for countries that had certain limitations, but do not know if this is related. Risker (talk) 02:00, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Control expenses now!

The chart shows support+revenue, expenses, and net assets all rising exponentially with a growth rate much greater than the economy as a whole. This cannot and will not continue. Inevitably, donations will level off (or go down) in the not too distant future. If expenses continue to grow rapidly when that happens, then we will quickly go into the red and then go bust. The time to start limiting expenses is now before support levels off. JRSpriggs (talk) 13:15, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost is looking for new talent.

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