Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-11-20/News and notes
Update on Wikimedia's financial health
Wikimedia Foundation publishes audit report for FY2022–2023
Green: revenue (excluding direct donations to the endowment)
Red: expenses (including WMF payments into the endowment)
Black: net assets (excluding the endowment)
The Wikimedia Foundation has released the audit report for the fiscal year 2022–2023, prepared by its auditors, KPMG. You can read the full report here and a summary on Diff. The main takeaways are slowed financial growth in line with targets, and record donations income. Here are some key figures.
- The Foundation took $180 million in total support and revenue (a new record and up $25 million on the previous year) versus total expenses of $169 million (up $23 million).
- The Foundation missed their target for donations from Wikipedia fundraising banners, but were able to compensate for this with major gifts and other donation channels. Overall, donations revenue increased from $164.8 million in 2021–2022 to $168.9 million in 2022–2023, the Diff post said.
- Among expenses:
- Salaries and benefits increased from $88 million to $101 million.
- Awards and grants increased from $19 million to $24 million.
- Hosting costs went up slightly from $2.7 million to $3.1 million.
- The Foundation's net assets grew by $16 million over the year prior, to $255 million at the end of the year.
- This total does not include assets held by the Wikimedia Endowment, currently valued at $119 million.
The table below shows the development of Wikimedia Foundation finances over the past ten years, as indicated by its audit reports. Annual support and revenue has more than tripled, expenses have more than quadrupled, and net assets at the end of the financial year (not including the Wikimedia Endowment, which is organizationally separate) have increased more than fivefold.
| Year | Source | Revenue | Expenses | Asset rise | Net assets at end of year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022/2023 | $180,174,103 | $169,095,381 | $15,619,804 | $254,971,336 | |
| 2021/2022 | $154,686,521 | $145,970,915 | $8,173,996 | $239,351,532 | |
| 2020/2021 | $162,886,686 | $111,839,819 | $50,861,811 | $231,177,536 | |
| 2019/2020 | $129,234,327 | $112,489,397 | $14,674,300 | $180,315,725 | |
| 2018/2019 | $120,067,266 | $91,414,010 | $30,691,855 | $165,641,425 | |
| 2017/2018 | $104,505,783 | $81,442,265 | $21,619,373 | $134,949,570 | |
| 2016/2017 | $91,242,418 | $69,136,758 | $21,547,402 | $113,330,197 | |
| 2015/2016 | $81,862,724 | $65,947,465 | $13,962,497 | $91,782,795 | |
| 2014/2015 | $75,797,223 | $52,596,782 | $24,345,277 | $77,820,298 | |
| 2013/2014 | $52,465,287 | $45,900,745 | $8,285,897 | $53,475,021 | |
| 2012/2013 | $48,635,408 | $35,704,796 | $10,260,066 | $45,189,124 |
The Foundation also made a belated correction to the Endowment figures published a few weeks ago (see previous Signpost coverage). The table provided in late September had erroneously indicated financial years ending 30 June; in fact, the Foundation said, the figures provided related to fiscal years ending 31 December, in line with the Tides Foundation's accounting period. – NW1223, AK
Help wanted: Sockpuppet investigations
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A large backlog has developed at WP:Sockpuppet investigations, where there are dozens of cases pending in Category:SPI cases awaiting review and, at one point prior to publication of this issue, over 140 cases awaiting administrative finalization in Category:SPI cases awaiting archive.
Key to keeping this process running are the SPI clerks. Currently, only about a dozen are active. Clerks are an important part of alignment of English Wikipedia with Wikimedia Foundation Access to Nonpublic Personal Data Policy, reviewing cases carefully for evidence and endorsing Checkuser use of tools that can reveal users' IP addresses and other private information. Such review and concurrence prior to use of the tools is important to maintain community trust in pseudonymity and integrity surrounding use of Checkuser tools.
From the SPI Clerks page, this is what the clerks actually do:
- Clerks analyze behavior, make findings, and either impose or decline imposing sanctions.
- Clerks help to ensure the smooth operation of SPI pages, cases and processes.
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- Ensuring SPI cases and processes stay in good order, including obtaining reasonable and productive conduct by participants;
- Endorsing or declining CheckUser requests;
- Ensuring cases have proper evidence (especially for CheckUser requests) and requesting such evidence when not provided; and
- Assisting with housekeeping tasks, including closing, archiving, merging and formatting of cases.
Any user in good standing is considered qualified to apply at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks, and a talkpage discussion there (begun by this Signpost contributor) has indicated interest in new applicants. Applicants go through a semi-formal training process; non-admin trainees usually show good experience and working knowledge of the community's policies and practices at the point they request traineeship
, and clerking can be a step on the way to adminship for some. – B
Help wanted: Election for ArbCom
If you want to run for a place on the Arbitration Committee you've got until this Tuesday, at 23:59 UTC, November 21 to self-nominate in this year's election. Eight editors already have (in random order): Cabayi, ToBeFree, Sdrqaz, Z1720, Aoidh, HJ Mitchell, Maxim, and Firefly.
- a registered account with at least 500 mainspace edits before 1 November 2023,
- not blocked or banned,
- meets the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public personal data, and willingness to sign the Foundation's non-public information confidentiality agreement, and
- all previous or alternate accounts are disclosed in your election statement, or privately declared to the Arbitration Committee (before the close of nominations).
There is one week after the end of the self-nomination period before voting begins on Tuesday, November 28. Editors may use this period to ask questions of the candidates.
You may vote from Tuesday 00:00, 28 November 2023 (UTC) until Monday 23:59, 11 December 2023 (UTC) if you meet the following qualifications:
- have registered an account before October 1, 2023
- have made at least 150 mainspace edits and 10 live edits (in any namespace) before 1 November 2023 and,
- are not blocked from the English Wikipedia when you vote.
See WP:ACE2023 for further details. – S
Help wanted: Wikimedia New York City (WMNYC)'s first Executive Director
Founded in 2009, WMNYC is currently looking to hire its founding Executive Director.
Their duties will include:
- local organizing, as well as coordinating with and sometimes leading wider Wikimedia initiatives on a national and international scale.
- implementing the Strategic Plan of the WMNYC Board of Directors and preparing detailed reports for WMNYC’s primary funder, the Wikimedia Foundation.
- building the chapter's community and coordination of fundraising campaigns.
- managing the operations of the Chapter, and
- a whole bunch of other stuff.
Remote workers are allowed. See Wikimedia New York City/Jobs for further details. – S
WikiConference North America receives bomb threat
Wikiconference North America 2023 was held from November 9 to 12, 2023 at the Toronto Reference Library. The program was interrupted on the morning of Saturday, November 11, when the library received a bomb threat. According to local media, the threat was received at 8:44 A.M. and the building was placed in a hold-and-secure state thereafter while police searched the building. No explosive devices were found, and the hold-and-secure state was lifted by 11:45 A.M., allowing programming to resume following that point.
The bomb threat comes two weeks after the Toronto Public Library system, of which the Toronto Reference Library is part, was hit with a ransomware attack on October 27. The ransomware attack resulted in staff social insurance numbers being compromised, and has caused prolonged outages in many of the library's digital systems.
On another note, many slide decks from conference's various presentations are available on Commons. – R
Brief notes
- Annual reports: Wikimedians of Kerala User Group, Yoruba Wikimedians User Group, Tyap Wikimedians User Group, WikiDonne User Group
- New user-groups: The Affiliations Committee announced the approval of this month's newest Wikimedia movement affiliates, the Wikimédiens du Burkina Faso, the Wikimedia Community Zambia and the Wikimedistas de Ecuador.
- Milestones: Wikimedia Commons now contains over 100 million uploaded files (statistics).
- Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement is Human-centered design, followed from 27 November by Sports science. Please be bold in helping to improve this article!
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