Wikimedia Foundation Releases FY2014-15 Budget

[Randy from Boise]

On July 8, 2014 the WMF released its annual plan for FY2014-15, which began on July 1.

I've uploaded a copy of the document to Archive.org for preservation. It appears at

https://archive.org/details/WikimediaFo ... AnnualPlan

Here is my summary:

Annual planning document for the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation, owner and operator of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The plan calls for annual revenue of $58.5 million in FY2014-15, an increase of 11.4% over projected actual revenues for the previous fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2014. An increase in planned spending by WMF from $41.0 million actually spent in FY2014-15 to $50.3 million in FY2014-15 was called for. According to the report, 40% of the $9.3 planned increase was to be dedicated to "Product and Engineering" and 49% to staffing.

The plan calls for an increase in WMF staffing from 191 employees to 240, a hike of 25.7%.

A new Community Engagement Department is to be established according to the plan in an effort to help ameliorate the sometimes combative relationship between WMF's software project managers on the one hand and the active core community of Wikipedia volunteers on the other. "Having more staff in these areas will enable us to design, develop, and roll out new functionality with higher quality, less friction, and more community input, with the overall goal of making contributing to and reading Wikipedia and our other projects easier and more fun," the plan optimistically projects.

Four focus areas are identified for FY2014-15, including (1) Infrastructure, (2) Mobile, (3) Editor Engagement, and (4) Nontechnical Movement Support.

The WMF bureaucracy is clearly ramping up, with 49 new hires projected. On the plus side, they recognize they have disconnect between the software development people and the WP volunteer community and seem to be trying to address this source of dysfunction.

Any comments?


RfB

[HRIP7]

Thanks, Tim. From page 5:

In 2014-2015 our plan is to increase revenue to $58.5 million from a 2013-2014 projection of $52.5 million, an increase of 11%. Our revenue targets are designed to fund investments in the WMF, primarily in product development and engineering. We believe that if we chose to, we could increase revenues more than is reflected in this plan, but we believe this target reflects and appropriate balance between funding growth while minimizing annoyance to the readers of the projects.

As I said in the Media Viewer blog post, money on tap. Page 6 has a breakdown of spending. Product / Engineering is by far the largest item – over half, if you include the requisite proportion of HR, Finance and Admin, Management etc.

Note that many people who see the fundraising banners think Wikipedia is in the middle of an acute financial crisis, and in danger of going offline.

[HRIP7]

For reference, the original of the Annual Plan on the Wikimedia Foundation website is here.

[Randy from Boise]

Let it be noted that when Wikimedia Foundation announced plans to boost their employment to 240 people by the end of FY2014-15 — they had just one paid employee in FY2004-05 — of all the people reading and posting on this self-proclaimed "Wikipedia Watchdog Site," only JN said a peep...

I find that figure appalling.

RfB

[Randy from Boise]

I just figured it out... WMF is using crude First Five Year Plan type Stalinist planning, projecting a revenue bump with magical numbers drawn from the sky and then swelling their spending to match it.

That fine business model ended by helping create the Great Famine of 1932/33, for the record.

RfB

[thekohser]

Let it be noted that when Wikimedia Foundation announced plans to boost their employment to 240 people by the end of FY2014-15 — they had just one paid employee in FY2004-05 — of all the people reading and posting on this self-proclaimed "Wikipedia Watchdog Site," only JN said a peep...

It's almost not worthy of acknowledging such an announcement, because they're utterly predictable increases. I'll save everyone some trouble and pre-announce that the 2015-16 goal will be 275; and 2016-17 will be 300; and 2017-18 will be 340 (to help with the new "Children's Wikipedia", headed by Lila's love interest).

[HRIP7]

Let it be noted that when Wikimedia Foundation announced plans to boost their employment to 240 people by the end of FY2014-15 — they had just one paid employee in FY2004-05 — of all the people reading and posting on this self-proclaimed "Wikipedia Watchdog Site," only JN said a peep...

I find that figure appalling.

RfB

I find it appalling too. Where there is money, people with pockets will magically appear. The ludicrous thing, given what Wikipedia aims to be, is that all those millions are spent on getting software people jobs. Apart from one or two Wikipedians in Residence, none of that money is spent on getting the content right that millions of people access every day, or even measuring the current quality of that content.

They don't have people with experience in creating a reference source. They have (generally inexperienced) programmers, pottering about, doing substandard work, and want more of those on staff. If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

[Vigilant]

Let it be noted that when Wikimedia Foundation announced plans to boost their employment to 240 people by the end of FY2014-15 — they had just one paid employee in FY2004-05 — of all the people reading and posting on this self-proclaimed "Wikipedia Watchdog Site," only JN said a peep...

I find that figure appalling.

RfB

I find it appalling too. Where there is money, people with pockets will magically appear. The ludicrous thing, given what Wikipedia aims to be, is that all those millions are spent on getting software people jobs. Apart from one or two Wikipedians in Residence, none of that money is spent on getting the content right that millions of people access every day, or even measuring the current quality of that content.

They don't have people with experience in creating a reference source. They have (generally inexperienced) programmers, pottering about, doing substandard work, and want more of those on staff. If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

To sum up Brandon Harris, "I've never worked somewhere where they expect results so I'm going to blather on and not answer your question."

[dogbiscuit]

Let it be noted that when Wikimedia Foundation announced plans to boost their employment to 240 people by the end of FY2014-15 — they had just one paid employee in FY2004-05 — of all the people reading and posting on this self-proclaimed "Wikipedia Watchdog Site," only JN said a peep...

It's almost not worthy of acknowledging such an announcement, because they're utterly predictable increases.

I would be more inclined to comment if there was any sign of competence in the plan.

There are times when no more needs to be said, the WMF levels of incompetence appear boundless so this is no surprise.

[Vigilant]

Let it be noted that when Wikimedia Foundation announced plans to boost their employment to 240 people by the end of FY2014-15 — they had just one paid employee in FY2004-05 — of all the people reading and posting on this self-proclaimed "Wikipedia Watchdog Site," only JN said a peep...

It's almost not worthy of acknowledging such an announcement, because they're utterly predictable increases.

I would be more inclined to comment if there was any sign of competence in the plan.

There are times when no more needs to be said, the WMF levels of incompetence appear boundless so this is no surprise.

It's nice to see that their business managers are every bit as competent as their engineering managers!

[Capsot]

Hi,
+ 1
I absolutely agree with what you said and I was thinking of another side effect that some of you have probably thought of before me.
It is that, since WMF employees can vote to elect the Board members, any outsider or dissenting candidate will have a lesser possibility to be chosen as the number of employees grow constantly and that they will be compelled (or "obliged") to vote while the number of voting wikipedians won't grow as much. Does anyone know how much they can currently represent in the mass of voters (15-20%?)
The current Board could stay there then endlessly like some "Presidents for life"...
Bye, see you
Claudi/Capsot

[Randy from Boise]

I would like to see a graph superimposing the growth of Wikimedia Foundation's paid staff (starting at 0 on Jan. 1, 2004 and ending today) with the rise and gradual decline of the sum total very active editors over all WP projects (found here: link).

Actually, come to think of it, those two graphs would be interesting even if not superimposed.

There were a few people on this site complaining about WMF bankrolling tens of millions of dollars in donation money a couple years ago. In this new plan they are intent on spending every last cent plus millions of dollars from theoretical increases in donations that may never materialize so that they can add nearly 50 more staff people to the empire.

I would rather see the former situation than the current one...

RfB

[Midsize Jake]

I would like to see a graph superimposing the growth of Wikimedia Foundation's paid staff (starting at 0 on Jan. 1, 2004 and ending today) with the rise and gradual decline of the sum total very active editors over all WP projects...

What do they always say - correlation doesn't imply causation? Or is it vice-versa, I can never remember. Anyway, on the off-chance that anyone wants my opinion on this, it's the user decline causing the growth of the paid staff, not the other way around. A great deal of money and dev resources are being spent trying to get those user retention and registration numbers back up, and while the increased number of WMF staff (many of whom are chosen from the ranks of the Faithful) obviously causes a proportional increase in the number of incidents in which WPers are pissed off by something done by WMF staff members, I just don't think it's enough to account for significant declines overall... do you? I agree that it's an interesting question, it just seems like it can't have anywhere near the same reciprocal causative effect.

Also, not to toot my own horn excessively, but I sort-of predicted this back around 2006-07 or so, when I started posting about the "maintenance phase" most likely transitioning into an "attrition phase" due to their increasingly poor treatment of established content-focused users (not to mention n00bs), and that this would in turn prevent them from moving into a "stability phase" in which everyone is reasonably nice to each other and the numbers mostly level off. In theory they could still turn it around, but only if they give up on the notion of endless growth, and of course they'd have to know what they were doing.

There were a few people on this site complaining about WMF bankrolling tens of millions of dollars in donation money a couple years ago. In this new plan they are intent on spending every last cent plus millions of dollars from theoretical increases in donations that may never materialize so that they can add nearly 50 more staff people to the empire.

I believe the word you want there is "hoarding," not "bankrolling." At the time, I recall that our assumption was that they were hoarding cash because they were afraid of lawsuits and/or legislative challenges to various statutes (such as Section 230) that partially or completely immunize them from liability for their content. Their current increased-spending behavior shouldn't mean that they feel safer legally than they did a few years ago, because they aren't. Still, they are also somewhat delusional about their own importance, etc., so who knows.

Regardless, my assumption would be the (IMO) obvious one, which is that they want those active-user counts back up and are desperately throwing money at the problem because they know their system is designed from the ground up to promote shite user behavior, and that they can't make their users behave better just by asking them nicely.

[thekohser]

...causes a proportional increase in the number of incidents in which WPers are pissed off by something done by WMF staff members, I just don't think it's enough to account for significant declines overall... do you? I agree that it's an interesting question, it just seems like it can't have anywhere near the same reciprocal causative effect.

I wouldn't underestimate it. The very month the Essjay fiasco unfolded is the same month that new editor counts topped out. Essjay wasn't a Wikimedia Foundation employee, but he was as close as one could get to being one without being one. He was a Wikia employee appointed to serve on the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee.

[Midsize Jake]

I wouldn't underestimate it. The very month the Essjay fiasco unfolded is the same month that new editor counts topped out. Essjay wasn't a Wikimedia Foundation employee, but he was as close as one could get to being one without being one. He was a Wikia employee appointed to serve on the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee.

Ah, those were the days. Well then, this is an even more important point then, isn't it? It actually impacts on the direction of this very website, given that a good many of us (including myself) believe the best thing we can do here is try to convince people that joining the Faithful is not a good use of their time and energy, and may indeed have harmful psychological effects that could necessitate expensive courses of therapy and/or anti-depressants. If this really does have a significant impact, then we should be putting even more effort into pointing out WMF mismanagement (and poor hiring choices in particular) than we already do.

Personally, I've always been of two minds about this. While WMF hiring practices are clearly misguided and lack basic competency, I don't really like criticizing companies who are hiring in general because jobs are good for the economy. The fact that they're in San Francisco paying Omaha wages is a good example of them trying to have their cake and eat it too - as usual - but still, they're hiring people and that's better for the economy than if they weren't, especially given that the people they're hiring would probably be working for minimum wage elsewhere due to their apparent lack of ability to produce usable stuff.

Then again, as you yourself have said many times, this is a tax-advantaged, donor-funded organization, and maybe if it wasn't so keen on empire-building and their growth-at-all-costs philosophy, some of that money might go to actual charities and help people who are really in need of various forms of assistance, financial or otherwise.

The only thing I'd say in addition to that is that personally, I don't believe that having the WMF concentrate funds on programs to improve actual encyclopedic content would be any better a use of funds than programs to improve Mediawiki or develop their mobile platform. As badly as they're screwing up with the software, I have to believe that increased WMF direct involvement in content development would be even more horrific - the only thing that might work on that score would be to have independent, and paid, third-party ombudsmen and fact-checkers with real authority to deal with disputes. And while that's obviously never going to happen, I personally don't think having the WMF play that role would be any better than what they have now, and it could very easily be even worse.

[Poetlister]

What do they always say - correlation doesn't imply causation? Or is it vice-versa, I can never remember.

You were right the first time. The saying is due to William Sealy Gosset (T-H-L).

[HRIP7]

Anyway, on the off-chance that anyone wants my opinion on this, it's the user decline causing the growth of the paid staff, not the other way around. A great deal of money and dev resources are being spent trying to get those user retention and registration numbers back up, ...

In my opinion, it's the 1,000 per cent growth in revenue over the past six years or so and nothing else that's causing the growth of paid staff.

The growth in revenue is due to the fundraising banners and the involvement of small donors, and based on the goodwill the content work done from 2005 onwards has generated.