Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-06-15/News and notes



In response to ongoing questions from Wikipedia volunteers about Sue Gardner's $300,000+ compensation in the 2014 calendar year (see the Signpost's special report last month), Wikimedia Foundation board chair Patricio Lorente provided an additional explanation in an email to the Wikimedia-l mailing list, which shed some more light on the matter: it turns out that Sue Gardner was promised and received a $165,000 bonus to make her stay on until a successor could be found. This bonus, paid at the end of her tenure in 2014, accounted for more than half her compensation in the 2014 calendar year.

Patricio's email is quoted here in full:

The further clarification provided was generally welcomed by contributors to the mailing list discussion.

The Signpost also asked Patricio Lorente whether Lila Tretikov, who stepped down as executive director at the end of March 2016 after months of public controversy (see previous Signpost coverage), received a similar kind of bonus upon leaving and whether she is currently employed by the Wikimedia Foundation as a special advisor or in any other capacity.

Patricio advised us as follows:

As things stand, further details on Lila Tretikov's compensation upon leaving will thus only be known when the 990 form for the 2016 calendar year will be published, probably around this time of the year in 2018.



Brief notes

 * Picture of the Year: The Commons Picture of the Year 2015 results are in. See also the related op-ed in this week's Signpost issue.
 * New user groups: The Affiliations Committee last month announced the approval of another Wikimedia movement affiliate, the Florida Librarians of Wikipedia. On June 1, the Wikiversity Journal User Group was approved as the latest addition to the Wikimedia affiliates family (see the special report in this week's Signpost issue for more on the Wikiversity Journal).
 * Wikidata is looking for a community communications person: Wikidata are hiring for a Community Communication project manager (full-time, either based in Berlin or remote) to work as a liaison between the contributors, the developers, and other users. While the project manager will be employed by Wikimedia Germany, a knowledge of German is not required for the position.
 * Freedom of panorama: Wikimedia UK comments on the current freedom of panorama debates, republishing an article by Wikipedian Owen Blacker.