Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-11-04/News and notes



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%).

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 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, 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:

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:

AK 

Brief notes

 * 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 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, (Nov. 5). AK