Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-10-31/News and notes

On October 11, a Twitter user pointed out that millions of dollars donated "to Wikipedia" had been used for non-Wikimedia grants. Above two pictures of Wikimedia fundraising banners, the user (@echetus) said:

The tweet attracted well over 10,000 retweets and more than 35,000 "likes" (NB: perhaps helped along by OP's tasteful Haruhi av).

The thread attached to the tweet focused on the Knowledge Equity Fund, "a new US$4.5 million fund created by the Wikimedia Foundation in 2020, to provide grants to external organizations that support knowledge equity by addressing the racial inequities preventing access and participation in free knowledge".
 * What was the Twitter user talking about?

The money was transferred to an outside organisation, Tides Advocacy, sometime in the 2019–2020 financial year when the Foundation found it had a large amount of money left over because of an underspend. This transfer of millions of dollars of donated funds to Tides Advocacy bypassed established grants processes, and was not publicised at the time.

The creation of the Tides Advocacy fund thus remained unknown to the community and the public at large until December 2020, when the Wikimedia Foundation's 2020 Audit Report and associated FAQ were published, leading to instant controversy. Concerns expressed then focused on the secrecy of the grant, the break with the participatory grantmaking principles the Foundation had until then embraced, and the fact that the transfer coincided with Amanda Keton's move in the 2019–2020 financial year from General Counsel of the Tides Network and CEO of Tides Advocacy to General Counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Subsequently, in 2021, a little over $1 million was given to three U.S. grantees as well as one Brazilian, one West African and one Jordanian organisation in the first round of grants from the fund, leaving several million dollars in Tides Advocacy's accounts to this day.

This October (the 12th to be precise), Wikipedian and former Wikimedia UK trustee and fundraiser Chris Keating inquired on the Wikimedia-l mailing list about the fund's status, specifically referencing the Twitter thread:
 * Community questions

Wikimedia Foundation Chief of Staff Nadee Gunasena replied on the fund's talk page on Meta-Wiki:

Long-time Wikimedian Steven Walling and Wiki Education Foundation Executive Director Frank Schulenburg expressed their disagreement:

The discussion is ongoing at the time of writing. On Twitter meanwhile a user shared that they cancelled their donation after reading the thread and received the following response from the Wikimedia Foundation:
 * WMF response to a user cancelling his donation

What stands out in this response is the claim that the Foundation "distributed grants across more than 90 countries around the world". The first thing to say here is that according to its most recent Form 990 tax filing, the Wikimedia Foundation spent over 95% of its money in North America and Europe. Grantmaking in the global South accounted for just 1.2% of revenue (see previous Signpost  coverage for figures).

Moreover, a look at the overall budget shows that grants to the community, emphasised in the above response, are a very minor part of the overall budget and not constrained by any budget shortfall. In the Wikimedia Foundation's most recent audited financial statements, "Awards and grants" amounted to $9.8 million, of which $5 million (possibly $5.5 million) represented a grant to the Wikimedia Foundation's own Endowment held by the Tides Foundation. This leaves somewhere between $4 and $5 million for actual grants made to the community – a figure dwarfed by the Wikimedia Foundation's $50 million budget surplus in 2020–2021. There was no lack of money for grants.

The auditors also point out on page 14 of the financial statements that the actual sum transferred to Tides Advocacy was $8.723 rather than $4.5 million. They add that a part of this money ($4.223 million, presumably) would be used "to fund the annual operating expenses of other Wikimedia chapter organizations".

A side effect of this arrangement is that neither the Wikimedia Foundation's audited financial statements nor its Form 990 filings will now show if, when, or how this money is or was spent by Tides Advocacy to fund chapter organisations – just like there has never been any public accounting for the over $100 million in Wikimedia Endowment funds held by the Tides Foundation (see previous Signpost coverage as well as the WMF's Governance update in this Signpost issue). Whatever purpose these arrangements with Tides organisations serve – it is not transparency. – AK

Lisa Seitz-Gruwell takes on additional role as Deputy CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia CEO Maryana Iskander announced last month that longstanding Chief Advancement Officer Lisa Seitz-Gruwell now also serves as Deputy CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, in addition to her responsibilities for fundraising, strategic partnerships and grantmaking. Moreover, a recent advertisement looking for at-large directors of the Wikimedia Endowment described Lisa Seitz-Gruwell as President of the new Wikimedia Endowment organisation, whose application for 501(c)3 non-profit status has now been approved (see News from the WMF).

Other C-level changes announced by Maryana Iskander included Stephen LaPorte taking on the role of Deputy General Counsel, working closely with Amanda Keton, and Maryana Iskander herself temporarily heading up the Talent & Culture department in addition to serving as CEO. Nadee Gunasena's role as Chief of Staff has been broadened to include supporting the entire organisation and movement rather than just the CEO. As previously reported, Product/Technology is now headed by Selena Deckelmann, who came to the WMF from Mozilla, where she was head of Firefox.

Iskander said that while the Wikimedia Foundation's headcount had grown by over 200 since 2020, this growth would not continue. Instead there would now be a period of stabilisation. – AK

Wikimedia Foundation stops publication of its quarterly "tuning sessions"
Nadee Gunasena, the Wikimedia Foundation's chief of staff, has announced that the WMF will no longer publish the presentation decks from its quarterly reviews or "tuning sessions" providing an update on each WMF department's progress against Annual Plan targets. Instead of this year's fourth quarter tuning session decks, which in the past were posted on Commons by mid-July (the WMF's fiscal year runs from July to June), there will now only be an unspecified but most likely very abridged "update" posted on Meta-Wiki "by mid-November" – a delay of at least four months.

The community and public are thus deprived of timely information that the WMF had been happy to provide for the past ten years – including reports of financials, staffing levels and partnerships that formed the basis of Signpost and media reports in the past. – AK

Wikimedia Summit Report
The programme documentation for last month's Wikimedia Summit 2022 is now available on Meta. As announced this week on the Wikimedia-l mailing list –

An English-language report on the event is also available as well as on Meta-Wiki.

The Wikimedia Summit is an annual meeting of Wikimedia Foundation leadership – both trustees and executives – with affiliate representatives and members of movement committees. The event is usually held in Berlin, Germany. It was cancelled last year due to COVID; this year, around 150 people from around the world attended in person, with a similar number participating online.

Early indications are that this hybrid format – mixing in-person attendance and online participation – worked better this time round than at the recent Wikimania (see previous Signpost coverage). Survey results on this aspect will be reported around the end of next month, along with the event's budget.

Key topics discussed at this year's Summit included the Movement Charter, Hubs, and Revenues & Resources.

The run-up to the Berlin Summit also saw WMF board members coming together in person for a quarterly board meeting. During the meeting, it was decided to keep the size of the board at 12 members for the next two years, this size being deemed more effective than a larger board.

The minutes of the previous quarterly board meeting held in June 2022 were approved and are now online here. In addition to updates on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and the Movement Charter, the minutes also spell out the board's expectations for the 2022–2023 financial year:

The Annual Plan, as shown in the Resolution, envisages total expenses of $175 million. Total expenses in 2020–2021, the most recent year for which figures are available, were $112 million; the most recent projection for 2021–2022, in the third-quarter Finance and Administration tuning session deck, forecast total expenses of $142 million for the financial year ended June 30, 2022. – AK

"Think big – open letter about Wikimedia Commons"
An open letter was published on Commons on 10 October, asking the Wikimedia Foundation to invest in Wikimedia Commons:

At the time of writing, the open letter has attracted well over 200 signatures. – AK

Brief notes

 * Some more admins and some fewer: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrators, and, and thanks , , ,  and  for their service.
 * Administrator desysopped after RfA comment, arb case in progress: Athaenara was desysopped and indefinitely blocked pursuant to these two threads at the administrators' noticeboard for incidents. An Arbitration Committee case regarding the subsequent reversal and reinstatement of this block is open as of press time, with Lourdes (who reversed the block) and TheresNoTime (who reinstated it) as named parties.
 * Admin resignation: Pratyeka (signature "prat") resigned from Wikipedia and requested removal of the tools after an editing dispute, saying that "every time I have added good content for the last few years I get hassled or it gets outright deleted".


 * Articles for Improvement: For the week following publication, the Article for Improvement will be Moulay Hassan, Crown Prince of Morocco. Please be bold in helping improve this article!