SJ,
I have been looking for the commitment you mentioned in Board and related records, but I can not find it:
We have committed to ending the active banner-driven fundraising once we meet our targets.
Does that commitment take precedence over the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010 that Nemo pointed out at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_princi... which directs the Executive Director to "implement ... 1) Maximizing public support: Fundraising activities in the Wikimedia movement should generally be directed at achieving the highest possible overall financial support for the Wikimedia movement, in terms of both financial totals and the number of individuals making contributions...."? If so, could you please share the background and Board deliberation records pertaining to it? I am concerned that the Foundation is bowing to the wishes of op-ed critiques in the press to the exclusion of the Board's unanimous resolutions.
Again, I would not be so concerned if it were not for the evidence of the deception regarding measured fundraising message effectiveness, the nearly two million dollars in missing reserve funds, the sharply widening ratio between executive and junior staff pay, the high staff turnover, late vital projects, insufficient staff for the Education Program, employee dissatisfaction and below par compensation reported on Glassdoor.com, lack of a meaningfully wide call for community consultation or reasonable numbers of community members commenting on the recent "narrowing focus" changes, and lack of telepresence options for Wikimania attendees. Many of these issues dwarf the ignominious events of the Foundation's past, so I hope you, the other trustees, and the Foundation leadership will address all of them swiftly.
Sincerely, James Salsman
James,
Merry Christmas.
I feel most of your points have already been addressed. Two quick comments, that others also asked about:
* As Zack noted earlier this month, banners are down until the end-of-year push. This has not changed. "From December 26 to Dec 31 we'll begin showing banners again to everyone for a final push to the year end goal."
* I was also confused by the slide on reserves in the November monthly report, and looked into it. Let me correct a statement I made yesterday: reserves were projected to be at 6 months of expenses in October, and have stayed above 6.3 months.
For the first time this year there are two different ways to measure expenses, thanks to the FDC budget, which allowed the confusion. For details, see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Reserves
SJ
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:29 PM, James Salsman [email protected] wrote:
SJ,
I have been looking for the commitment you mentioned in Board and related records, but I can not find it:
We have committed to ending the active banner-driven fundraising once we
meet our targets.
Does that commitment take precedence over the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010 that Nemo pointed out at
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_princi... which directs the Executive Director to "implement ... 1) Maximizing public support: Fundraising activities in the Wikimedia movement should generally be directed at achieving the highest possible overall financial support for the Wikimedia movement, in terms of both financial totals and the number of individuals making contributions...."? If so, could you please share the background and Board deliberation records pertaining to it? I am concerned that the Foundation is bowing to the wishes of op-ed critiques in the press to the exclusion of the Board's unanimous resolutions.
Again, I would not be so concerned if it were not for the evidence of the deception regarding measured fundraising message effectiveness, the nearly two million dollars in missing reserve funds, the sharply widening ratio between executive and junior staff pay, the high staff turnover, late vital projects, insufficient staff for the Education Program, employee dissatisfaction and below par compensation reported on Glassdoor.com, lack of a meaningfully wide call for community consultation or reasonable numbers of community members commenting on the recent "narrowing focus" changes, and lack of telepresence options for Wikimania attendees. Many of these issues dwarf the ignominious events of the Foundation's past, so I hope you, the other trustees, and the Foundation leadership will address all of them swiftly.
Sincerely, James Salsman
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:40 PM, Samuel Klein [email protected] wrote:
... As Zack noted earlier this month, banners are down until the end-of-year push. This has not changed. "From December 26 to Dec 31 we'll begin showing banners again to everyone for a final push to the year end goal."
That's a huge relief. I was afraid those comments of December 4th had been superseded by his and his employees' subsequent comments.
Cheers, James
On 25 December 2012 12:49, James Salsman [email protected] wrote:
That's a huge relief. I was afraid those comments of December 4th had been superseded by his and his employees' subsequent comments.
Your posts are assuming a ridiculous degree of bad faith, where you start from your own confusion and extrapolate downwards. If you try not to do that, you might get results more in accordance with reality.
- d.
James -
I don't fully understand all your concerns in this case, but I can say a few things that might clear things up:
I have said recently that we'd have to put banners back up at the end of the year for a final push. Since then, however, we raised money faster than expected and so we no longer need to put up banners for fundraising at the end of the year. We are going to run our planned "thank you" campaign a little early this year instead of the normal final push.
Regarding the reserves: When we decided to split the campaign in two (UK+CA+US+AU+NZ in Nov-Dec and then the rest of the world in April or May) we set a goal for this first campaign that would keep the reserves above the required level. That goal was $25M. Additional funds have been raised by our major gifts team. When we run our next campaign in April or May that will again increase the reserve.
Our tradition has always been to raise our budget and then stop asking as close to when we reach that goal as possible. That's why we're not trying to raise more and more and more. "Maximizing" for us means raising our budget with as little negative impact on the projects as possible (and as much positive impact as possible!).
Zack
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Samuel Klein [email protected] wrote:
James,
Merry Christmas.
I feel most of your points have already been addressed. Two quick comments, that others also asked about:
- As Zack noted earlier this month, banners are down until the end-of-year
push. This has not changed. "From December 26 to Dec 31 we'll begin showing banners again to everyone for a final push to the year end goal."
- I was also confused by the slide on reserves in the November monthly
report, and looked into it. Let me correct a statement I made yesterday: reserves were projected to be at 6 months of expenses in October, and have stayed above 6.3 months.
For the first time this year there are two different ways to measure expenses, thanks to the FDC budget, which allowed the confusion. For details, see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Reserves
SJ
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:29 PM, James Salsman [email protected] wrote:
SJ,
I have been looking for the commitment you mentioned in Board and related records, but I can not find it:
We have committed to ending the active banner-driven fundraising once
we
meet our targets.
Does that commitment take precedence over the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010 that Nemo pointed out at
which directs the Executive Director to "implement ... 1) Maximizing public support: Fundraising activities in the Wikimedia movement should generally be directed at achieving the highest possible overall financial support for the Wikimedia movement, in terms of both financial totals and the number of individuals making contributions...."? If so, could you please share the background and Board deliberation records pertaining to it? I am concerned that the Foundation is bowing to the wishes of op-ed critiques in the press to the exclusion of the Board's unanimous resolutions.
Again, I would not be so concerned if it were not for the evidence of the deception regarding measured fundraising message effectiveness, the nearly two million dollars in missing reserve funds, the sharply widening ratio between executive and junior staff pay, the high staff turnover, late vital projects, insufficient staff for the Education Program, employee dissatisfaction and below par compensation reported on Glassdoor.com, lack of a meaningfully wide call for community consultation or reasonable numbers of community members commenting on the recent "narrowing focus" changes, and lack of telepresence options for Wikimania attendees. Many of these issues dwarf the ignominious events of the Foundation's past, so I hope you, the other trustees, and the Foundation leadership will address all of them swiftly.
Sincerely, James Salsman
-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Zack Exley [email protected] wrote:
James -
I don't fully understand all your concerns....
I think you might have tried to contact me via IM. Sorry but I'm too distractible, so I limit my IM contacts. Just email me and I will try to respond promptly. Probably better to ask me on list though
Zack, is it inaccurate to say that you measured banners on May 11, 2012 which outperformed all of the banners used in last year's campaign?
And then a day later you renamed the page with those measurements to "We Need A Breakthrough" and wrote in some detail about how you believed you would not be able to "significantly" outperform last year's fundraising?
When the 2012-2013 Annual Plan was drafted, was growth projected at not just a slower rate, but less in absolute dollar terms than was projected and occurred during the previous year?
Relative to that slowed budget growth, were even more programs from the Annual Plan and Strategic Plan cut in the "narrowing focus" changes a few months ago, with no wide announcement for community consultation and less than two dozen community members providing feedback, the vast majority of whom were opposed or strongly opposed to the cuts?
Since May 11, have the baseline fundraising messages you were testing performed as well or better than the tests of May 11, which outperformed all of last year's banners?
And over the past year have pageviews continued to grow at their longstanding exponential rate from 16 billion per month to 21 billion per month?
Over the past year, have pageviews on non-mobile browsers also strictly increased, with mobile page views under 2.7 billion per month over the past twelve months?
During the past year has the ratio of the Foundation's top executive pay to the pay of junior staff and contractors increased by more than 50%?
And during the past year has Foundation employee turnover risen to a record high for at least the past five years on a percentage basis?
Our tradition has always been to raise our budget and then stop asking as close to when we reach that goal as possible.
Has the Foundation ever forgone the most valuable last few days of the year, even when the fundraising goal was already met? (As I believe has happened at least twice in the past five years when non-web donations are considered.)
"Maximizing" for us means raising our budget with as little negative impact on the projects as possible
Where do you find that meaning or any suggestion of it in the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010?
Has the Board deliberated or voted on any resolution which is compatible with the meaning you suggest?
(and as much positive impact as possible!).
Given the answers to the questions above, how would you characterize your impact this year?
Sincerely, James Salsman
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Samuel Klein [email protected] wrote:
James,
Merry Christmas.
I feel most of your points have already been addressed. Two quick comments, that others also asked about:
- As Zack noted earlier this month, banners are down until the end-of-year
push. This has not changed. "From December 26 to Dec 31 we'll begin showing banners again to everyone for a final push to the year end goal."
- I was also confused by the slide on reserves in the November monthly
report, and looked into it. Let me correct a statement I made yesterday: reserves were projected to be at 6 months of expenses in October, and have stayed above 6.3 months.
For the first time this year there are two different ways to measure expenses, thanks to the FDC budget, which allowed the confusion. For details, see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Reserves
SJ
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:29 PM, James Salsman [email protected] wrote:
SJ,
I have been looking for the commitment you mentioned in Board and related records, but I can not find it:
We have committed to ending the active banner-driven fundraising once we
meet our targets.
Does that commitment take precedence over the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010 that Nemo pointed out at
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_princi... which directs the Executive Director to "implement ... 1) Maximizing public support: Fundraising activities in the Wikimedia movement should generally be directed at achieving the highest possible overall financial support for the Wikimedia movement, in terms of both financial totals and the number of individuals making contributions...."? If so, could you please share the background and Board deliberation records pertaining to it? I am concerned that the Foundation is bowing to the wishes of op-ed critiques in the press to the exclusion of the Board's unanimous resolutions.
Again, I would not be so concerned if it were not for the evidence of the deception regarding measured fundraising message effectiveness, the nearly two million dollars in missing reserve funds, the sharply widening ratio between executive and junior staff pay, the high staff turnover, late vital projects, insufficient staff for the Education Program, employee dissatisfaction and below par compensation reported on Glassdoor.com, lack of a meaningfully wide call for community consultation or reasonable numbers of community members commenting on the recent "narrowing focus" changes, and lack of telepresence options for Wikimania attendees. Many of these issues dwarf the ignominious events of the Foundation's past, so I hope you, the other trustees, and the Foundation leadership will address all of them swiftly.
Sincerely, James Salsman
-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
-- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 12:18 PM, James Salsman [email protected] wrote:
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Zack Exley [email protected] wrote:
"Maximizing" for us means raising our budget with as little negative impact on the projects as possible
Where do you find that meaning or any suggestion of it in the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010?
That is in fact what was meant (evident on the discussion page on Meta): the foundation should aim to maximize fundraising efficiency; or support raised per unit of fundraising activity.
Maximizing the activity itself - fundraising 24/7/365.2524 - would reduce the usefulness of the projects.
SJ
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:18 AM, James Salsman [email protected] wrote:
During the past year has the ratio of the Foundation's top executive pay to the pay of junior staff and contractors increased by more than 50%?
James, I'm not going to get too far into the other specifics of this really (for me) perplexing and troubling thread, but I personally wish this piece of your litany would stop. I'm only speaking for myself here, so if others have a wildly different view on compensation at the Wikimedia Foundation, then I'll let them speak up. Having worked in non-profits, from small (a transportation advocacy group in New York City with 25 employees or a non-profit news outlet in San Francisco with 3 employees) to larger ( Doctors Without Borders/MSF in NYC, 130 employees there and thousands worldwide) and now here, I can say the salary is quite competitive when compared to other non-profits.
From what I understand of the history of the organization (I started
working here June 2011), the salaries have been pegged to be somewhere between similar non-profits and similar tech companies, understanding that our sweet spot is both as a tech company and also as a mission-driven change-the-world type of place. I know we hammer "mission" all the time in our recruiting material and in our fundraising material, but it really is true. I don't think anyone who works here will do well if they are not mission-focused. If I can generalize a lot, we believe that the work we are doing is valuable and that counts for a lot in our consideration of whether or not to work here.
That said, I'll re-iterate that the salaries (when compared to similar non-profits) are quite good. In fact, I was surprised by the offer I got when I started: it was $20,000 USD/year higher than I was expecting it to be for a position with no management requirements (this was when I worked on the fundraiser last year, my current position has more responsibility). Similar positions at other Bay Area non-profits had additional responsibility and provided much less pay. The other serious job I was being considered for at the time of my hire here was as director for an entire communications department for a division of the City of San Francisco and it was exactly the same compensation as the position I took here (I mention this to compare to another public-minded sector that I would have been interested in).
From your links to Glassdoor and from what I've heard from my
programmer/developer peers, I understand that other large outfits/corporations in the Bay Area often pay higher for equivalent experience. That being said, I also understand that one is often part of a massive team with a tiny job that is repeated over and over and over. Here, one can have one's hands in all kinds of interesting projects and the exposure is quite a bit more, given how small our teams are and how huge the web property is.
We also have excellent benefits. I was recently married and my wife will be joining my health insurance on January 1 because it is more generous than hers (she works at an emergency room in the premier hospital in the area). In addition to a wide variety of options for our health plans, we can opt for Health Spending Accounts, which the Foundation pays into with every paycheck. Given that I am young and (blessedly) my healthcare bills were low last year, I have nearly $5,000 saved up since I started at WMF for use on health-related expenses. With my wife joining my plan, the amount the Foundation pays into my account will now double, so we will very likely be able to cover the entire cost of having our first child by the time we decide to start a family some time next year (and having a kid in the U.S. is expensive business to be sure). That's a tremendous burden off my shoulders when considering my near future and it makes me quite grateful to my employer.
I don't live an extravagant life, but I am able to afford a good home in a good neighborhood (Glen Park, San Francisco) with a relatively comfortable commute, which usually takes me 30-35 minutes by bicycle or public transportation. At the end of my first year here, my manager and I went through a formal review process and I ended up getting a raise, so that now with 18 months of experience, I feel my compensation has grown with my experience. If I had stayed in my last position in journalism (granted it's a pretty rough market for journalists), I would be making 40% less than what I make now.
That's not to say there aren't really stressful parts of this job and that it doesn't carry its burdens. I don't mean to single you out for what I'm about to say, because it could come from any number of threads on any number of lists, but this is the most current iteration of a type of thread that I find contributes a great deal of stress to my work here. There are a number of assumptions that strike me as bad faith and many of them are targeted at people I work with (some of them I consider friends), so it is very difficult for me to read this. There is so often acrimony and rancor on Wikimedia-l toward people I regularly rely on, that if my job weren't in Communications and I didn't feel like I should keep up to date on threads like this in case there are serious issues I should monitor, I would probably unsubscribe from the list (leaving Internal-l in deep in the recesses of my inbox where I don't see it every day lowered my blood pressure significantly). It's just not fun to feel like you or others you work with are being assailed, often times for reasons that don't make sense to you.
In this case, since I started here (working on last year's fundraiser) I've constantly felt the pressure to minimize the impact of the fundraiser by not keeping banners up too long. Last year that pressure was coming from WMF peers and community who expressed their ire about how big/imposing the banners were (on what was then Foundation-l and the staff lists). Then that pressure came in the form of ridicule and mocking on blogs and in the press around the left-orientation of the banners from the 2011 campaign. None of that was fun to read and it was even less enjoyable because I had a hand in a lot of the work that went into those banners/appeals.
So when the fundraising team this year was able to raise so much money with a relatively small burden (measured in having banners on Wikipedia X time the banners were up), I believe we were all quite ecstatic. I know that first test day on November 15th, when they brought in nearly $2 million, I went home for the weekend with quite a smile on my face. And that contentment was not for my own work, but for the Foundation as a whole and for the health of the projects.
I'll let others get further into the weeds on your list of questions if they like, but having had now nearly a decade of non-profit experience, I think what the fundraising team has accomplished is really remarkable and I'm sure most of their peers at other outfits would love to replicate their success.
I guess I should stop now. Cheers and Happy New Year.
Matthew
James -
I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier. Your questions are kind of like a legal deposition at this point. It's too complex and you seem to be trying to prove some series of points, but I can't figure out what they are.
In the end, it's just too confusing for me to approach. Sorry,
Zack
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 12:18 PM, James Salsman [email protected] wrote:
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Zack Exley [email protected] wrote:
James -
I don't fully understand all your concerns....
I think you might have tried to contact me via IM. Sorry but I'm too
distractible, so
I limit my IM contacts. Just email me and I will try to respond
promptly. Probably
better to ask me on list though
Zack, is it inaccurate to say that you measured banners on May 11, 2012 which outperformed all of the banners used in last year's campaign?
And then a day later you renamed the page with those measurements to "We Need A Breakthrough" and wrote in some detail about how you believed you would not be able to "significantly" outperform last year's fundraising?
When the 2012-2013 Annual Plan was drafted, was growth projected at not just a slower rate, but less in absolute dollar terms than was projected and occurred during the previous year?
Relative to that slowed budget growth, were even more programs from the Annual Plan and Strategic Plan cut in the "narrowing focus" changes a few months ago, with no wide announcement for community consultation and less than two dozen community members providing feedback, the vast majority of whom were opposed or strongly opposed to the cuts?
Since May 11, have the baseline fundraising messages you were testing performed as well or better than the tests of May 11, which outperformed all of last year's banners?
And over the past year have pageviews continued to grow at their longstanding exponential rate from 16 billion per month to 21 billion per month?
Over the past year, have pageviews on non-mobile browsers also strictly increased, with mobile page views under 2.7 billion per month over the past twelve months?
During the past year has the ratio of the Foundation's top executive pay to the pay of junior staff and contractors increased by more than 50%?
And during the past year has Foundation employee turnover risen to a record high for at least the past five years on a percentage basis?
Our tradition has always been to raise our budget and then stop asking as close to when we reach that goal as possible.
Has the Foundation ever forgone the most valuable last few days of the year, even when the fundraising goal was already met? (As I believe has happened at least twice in the past five years when non-web donations are considered.)
"Maximizing" for us means raising our budget with as little negative impact on the projects as possible
Where do you find that meaning or any suggestion of it in the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010?
Has the Board deliberated or voted on any resolution which is compatible with the meaning you suggest?
(and as much positive impact as possible!).
Given the answers to the questions above, how would you characterize your impact this year?
Sincerely, James Salsman
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Samuel Klein [email protected]
wrote:
James,
Merry Christmas.
I feel most of your points have already been addressed. Two quick comments, that others also asked about:
- As Zack noted earlier this month, banners are down until the
end-of-year
push. This has not changed. "From December 26 to Dec 31 we'll begin showing banners again to everyone for a final push to the year end
goal."
- I was also confused by the slide on reserves in the November monthly
report, and looked into it. Let me correct a statement I made
yesterday:
reserves were projected to be at 6 months of expenses in October, and
have
stayed above 6.3 months.
For the first time this year there are two different ways to measure expenses, thanks to the FDC budget, which allowed the confusion. For details, see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Reserves
SJ
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:29 PM, James Salsman [email protected] wrote:
SJ,
I have been looking for the commitment you mentioned in Board and related records, but I can not find it:
We have committed to ending the active banner-driven fundraising
once
we
meet our targets.
Does that commitment take precedence over the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010 that Nemo pointed out at
which directs the Executive Director to "implement ... 1) Maximizing public support: Fundraising activities in the Wikimedia movement should generally be directed at achieving the highest possible overall financial support for the Wikimedia movement, in terms of both financial totals and the number of individuals making contributions...."? If so, could you please share the background and Board deliberation records pertaining to it? I am concerned that the Foundation is bowing to the wishes of op-ed critiques in the press to the exclusion of the Board's unanimous resolutions.
Again, I would not be so concerned if it were not for the evidence of the deception regarding measured fundraising message effectiveness, the nearly two million dollars in missing reserve funds, the sharply widening ratio between executive and junior staff pay, the high staff turnover, late vital projects, insufficient staff for the Education Program, employee dissatisfaction and below par compensation reported on Glassdoor.com, lack of a meaningfully wide call for community consultation or reasonable numbers of community members commenting on the recent "narrowing focus" changes, and lack of telepresence options for Wikimania attendees. Many of these issues dwarf the ignominious events of the Foundation's past, so I hope you, the other trustees, and the Foundation leadership will address all of them swiftly.
Sincerely, James Salsman
-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529
4266
Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
-- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation
James -
I just spent a little more time catching up on the W-l discussions. I see better now the point you're trying to make. I think I just have one thing to add on top of all that's been said by others:
Yes, on the fundraising team we really were worried about our ability to make the revenue this year for a whole bunch of reasons. The fundamental problem here is that raising all our revenue at the very end of the year creates much to much uncertainty for us.
That's why we're taking some steps to get away from that schedule. In 2013, I'm pretty sure that we won't have so much uncertainty because in various ways we're going to spread fundraising around the whole calendar.
Zack
On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 1:39 PM, Zack Exley [email protected] wrote:
James -
I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier. Your questions are kind of like a legal deposition at this point. It's too complex and you seem to be trying to prove some series of points, but I can't figure out what they are.
In the end, it's just too confusing for me to approach. Sorry,
Zack
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 12:18 PM, James Salsman [email protected]wrote:
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Zack Exley [email protected] wrote:
James -
I don't fully understand all your concerns....
I think you might have tried to contact me via IM. Sorry but I'm too
distractible, so
I limit my IM contacts. Just email me and I will try to respond
promptly. Probably
better to ask me on list though
Zack, is it inaccurate to say that you measured banners on May 11, 2012 which outperformed all of the banners used in last year's campaign?
And then a day later you renamed the page with those measurements to "We Need A Breakthrough" and wrote in some detail about how you believed you would not be able to "significantly" outperform last year's fundraising?
When the 2012-2013 Annual Plan was drafted, was growth projected at not just a slower rate, but less in absolute dollar terms than was projected and occurred during the previous year?
Relative to that slowed budget growth, were even more programs from the Annual Plan and Strategic Plan cut in the "narrowing focus" changes a few months ago, with no wide announcement for community consultation and less than two dozen community members providing feedback, the vast majority of whom were opposed or strongly opposed to the cuts?
Since May 11, have the baseline fundraising messages you were testing performed as well or better than the tests of May 11, which outperformed all of last year's banners?
And over the past year have pageviews continued to grow at their longstanding exponential rate from 16 billion per month to 21 billion per month?
Over the past year, have pageviews on non-mobile browsers also strictly increased, with mobile page views under 2.7 billion per month over the past twelve months?
During the past year has the ratio of the Foundation's top executive pay to the pay of junior staff and contractors increased by more than 50%?
And during the past year has Foundation employee turnover risen to a record high for at least the past five years on a percentage basis?
Our tradition has always been to raise our budget and then stop asking
as
close to when we reach that goal as possible.
Has the Foundation ever forgone the most valuable last few days of the year, even when the fundraising goal was already met? (As I believe has happened at least twice in the past five years when non-web donations are considered.)
"Maximizing" for us means raising our budget with as little negative impact on the projects as possible
Where do you find that meaning or any suggestion of it in the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010?
Has the Board deliberated or voted on any resolution which is compatible with the meaning you suggest?
(and as much positive impact as possible!).
Given the answers to the questions above, how would you characterize your impact this year?
Sincerely, James Salsman
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Samuel Klein [email protected]
wrote:
James,
Merry Christmas.
I feel most of your points have already been addressed. Two quick comments, that others also asked about:
- As Zack noted earlier this month, banners are down until the
end-of-year
push. This has not changed. "From December 26 to Dec 31 we'll begin showing banners again to everyone for a final push to the year end
goal."
- I was also confused by the slide on reserves in the November monthly
report, and looked into it. Let me correct a statement I made
yesterday:
reserves were projected to be at 6 months of expenses in October, and
have
stayed above 6.3 months.
For the first time this year there are two different ways to measure expenses, thanks to the FDC budget, which allowed the confusion. For details, see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Reserves
SJ
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:29 PM, James Salsman [email protected] wrote:
SJ,
I have been looking for the commitment you mentioned in Board and related records, but I can not find it:
We have committed to ending the active banner-driven fundraising
once
we
meet our targets.
Does that commitment take precedence over the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010 that Nemo pointed out at
which directs the Executive Director to "implement ... 1) Maximizing public support: Fundraising activities in the Wikimedia movement should generally be directed at achieving the highest possible
overall
financial support for the Wikimedia movement, in terms of both financial totals and the number of individuals making contributions...."? If so, could you please share the background and Board deliberation records pertaining to it? I am concerned that the Foundation is bowing to the wishes of op-ed critiques in the press to the exclusion of the Board's unanimous resolutions.
Again, I would not be so concerned if it were not for the evidence of the deception regarding measured fundraising message effectiveness, the nearly two million dollars in missing reserve funds, the sharply widening ratio between executive and junior staff pay, the high staff turnover, late vital projects, insufficient staff for the Education Program, employee dissatisfaction and below par compensation reported on Glassdoor.com, lack of a meaningfully wide call for community consultation or reasonable numbers of community members commenting on the recent "narrowing focus" changes, and lack of telepresence
options
for Wikimania attendees. Many of these issues dwarf the ignominious events of the Foundation's past, so I hope you, the other trustees, and the Foundation leadership will address all of them swiftly.
Sincerely, James Salsman
-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529
4266
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-- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation
-- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation