Diversity for WMF is in its fundraising and in its results

Diversity is a stated objective and the Wikimedia Foundation does a comparatively good job.. except that it could be so much better.

It is known that (read Gapminder) genuinely rich people live in every country. The Wikimedia Foundation as a rule does not target the truly rich and consequently the average donation is low. It makes us independent of the vagaries of the opinions of the really rich. As Wikimedia becomes a truly global organisation, it should raise funds everywhere and report what WMF does locally. 

As we report on what we do locally, it follows that we have an interest for any locality. As local children do use Commons we ask people to upload pictures of a local policeman, firefighter, nurse, police car ambulance etc for them to use. As students read in their own language we easily offer e-books using the hub best suited for the purpose. When as a response we are asked to provide services, we prioritise the local service and we will internationalise and localise to get the most out of our investments.

As we become more global and diverse, the percentage of what the provision of our services will represent more and more the global distribution of people. It will grow our community, it will grow our audience and we will evolve away from an organisation managed from "the center of the world".

Plenty of challenges ahead but not so much the amount of money the highest earners in the WMF get paid. At that I do not give a fuck as long as the job gets done and, so should you.

Thanks,

        GerardM

@Wikimedia needs your support because what it does, what we do is not enough

 An article in the "Daily Dot" insists that Wikimedia has plenty of money.  This is based on the growth of Wikimedia budgets and yes, it has grown substantially over time. Particularly the English Wikipedia provides a lot of content and serves some 50% of the Wikimedia traffic. 

When people analyse its content, it becomes problematic. Even though its content is referenced, many of the references are old and could do with new insights that science brings on a regular basis. The content is male oriented and thanks to projects like "Women in Red" it has improved substantially but not enough. 

We know all mayors of Denver and we do not know National government ministers of African countries. Lists are to be maintained on EVERY Wikipedia, English consensus insists, and they are not properly maintained as a result. Not even on the English Wikipedia.

Money buys you things. When you donate to the WMF, you gain a sense of ownership. That is important; we may not need more money but we do need a sense of ownership in India, Columbia, Nigeria and Guinea. When the other 50% of Wikimedia traffic takes ownership away from those who had enough, we find topics with more real world relevance. Commons becomes usable in the other 299 languages and we seek out these 299 communities to make it work for them.

Given that we don't do enough for 300 languages, given that we can do much better, I will argue that Wikimedia needs more support, even money.

Thanks, GerardM

#Wikimedia and what it could do with money

Some say that the Wikimedia Foundation is having enough money and does not need as much as they do. Some who say such things are fairly influential and are so convinced of their opinion that they happily give their opinion to the Washington Post. It is one way of making their opinion count most and it is sad for numerous reasons.

It is as easy to argue that the Wikimedia Foundation deserves more money. It could do with more money and it would be obvious if the point of view differs just a little. These people are active in the English Wikipedia and they are involved in policies, they do not take it kindly when they are ignored or opposed. The Wikimedia Foundation has as its aim to share in the sum of all knowledge. When we are to evaluate if the WMF has enough money, it should be in the light of what it aims to achieve.

I can imagine that Wikipedia suffices for some Americans, America is relatively well described. I can imagine when young professionals find that their subject is well described in English that because of this they are content, do not see the need for more activity. If that describes there point of view, then they are not aware of the discrepancies with other countries, with other cultures and in other languages. When we are to be afraid of Syrians, Wikipedia shares the blame because it does not cover Syria and Syrians with the same quality it does for Americans.

People may express their point of view. However, when are they held to account for their actions? When Joe Public reads that these fine Wikipedians arguably find that WMF is a fat organisation not worth the money it asks for, the WMF and its fundraising effort suffer. From the point of view of these precious Wikipedians, it is fine. They voiced their opinions before and they may have evaluated what others have to say.

However, they are in their own circle, they will not suffer the consequences. So my question to them is can you convincingly prove, not suggest but prove that we are done, that we do not need more money to do a better job, a job that is to deliver the sum of all knowledge.

In this blog I have said it time and again, we do not even share in the sum of all knowledge available in the Wikimedia Foundation. So I am sad to say that these precious Wikipedians costs us a lot of money, money that we could spend effectively in the quest to bring information to the world.
Thanks,
       GerardM

CC-BY-SA; Creative Commons needs our support

The CC-BY-SA licenses are crucial to the Wikimedia movement. All but one of the Wikimedia Foundation projects are licensed with CC-BY-SA; Wikidata being the exception.

I find it astounding to learn that Creative Commons is in financial dire straits. As Wikimedians we are part of a world that is shaped by copyright law and the fight for free and fair license. When a crucial player like Creative Commons cannot take its role, it shows our weakness, It indicates that we are fighting a losing battle because our priorities are wrong.

Creative Commons deserves our support. We rely on Creative Commons.

It is one of those organisations that the WMF could do something special for. For instance a fund raiser on their behalf. <grin> WMF is good at that </grin> and in this way commit ourself more to free and fair licenses.
Thanks,
        GerardM

#Wikimedia - #empower the #chapters

It has been #budget time for the Wikimedia chapters. As it is centrally decided what chapters "get" and as the finances of the main organisation are not considered under equal terms, they are secondary by definition.

To prove this, a few points:

• The WMF director defined criteria for quality for the chapters
• The chapters are barred from involvement in the annual WMF fundraising
• The chapters rely on funding from the WMF AND the metrics of success do not exclude the cost of WMF related admin
• The chapters can not compete for the resources the WMF assumes its own for new endeavours
• The chapters are not represented at the office of the WMF

Many of these points have a long history and are sacred cows to some. My point is very much that there are many small things that can make the distinction less stark. It starts with an awareness that chapters support open culture and a community in a country. They would benefit from shared resources that can be made available after minor modifications of what is already there.  Our movement is not only English Wikipedia and does not only have an USA or alternatively a world view.

Thanks,

      GerardM

A #Wikimedia #storyteller is the new #Communications manager

There are many wonderful stories waiting to be told relating to any and all of the Wikimedia projects. When Matthew Roth one of the three storytellers transitioned into the role of Global Communication Manager, I asked him ten questions and as I am happy to have received his answers.
Thanks,
      GerardM

You were a storyteller for the last Fundraiser, how many stories were written and how many stories were used?

At the Wikimedia Foundation, the three Storytellers -- Victor Grigas, Aaron Muszalski, and I -- did approximately 220 interviews over 5 months. The Storytellers worked with the fundraising directors to narrow those interviews down to about 40 that we thought might make for good fundraising appeals. Of those, the managers of the fundraiser wrote appeals from 14 Wikipedia editors from around the world, in addition to the Jimmy Wales appeal (some Wikimedia chapters ran localized appeals with other people). We were very proud to show a more diverse and demographically disparate group of appeals than in past fundraisers and I think the goal will be to continue this trend moving forward in 2012 and beyond.

What story is behind a title of "global communications manager" role? Is it about communicating WMF or communicating Wikipedia ?

I think my staff page says it best: In the role of Global Communications Manager for the Wikimedia Foundation, I work to support the community of communications volunteers representing Wikimedia chapters around the world. With them, I help craft the global story of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, while working to increase the population of editors, raise funds from our readers, and serve our enormous volunteer community. I'm accountable for promoting the Wikimedia Foundation mission and vision through our public communications materials, including press releases, our social media channels, and community listservs. Every day I have the privilege of conversing with the the dynamic community of Wikimedians, as well as the world’s top reporters, bloggers and thought leaders.

As there is a global audience, we may have to localise some messages to be really effective. What are your thought

Where possible Foundation messaging should be localized and reflect the audience. In many cases, Wikimedia chapters will be best positioned to communicate localized messages and influence our global message to better align with localized need. My role involves supporting this work at the Chapter level. Similarly for very active individuals who are not in formal chapters but who do very meaningful work to promote the health of the projects, I want to be sure their work is promoted.

There are many social media platforms. They are wildly popular and many Wikimedia related activity can be found on them. At the same time people say "Wikipedia is not a social media". I think this attitude does not help, what do you think

I think the Wikipedia community will debate the merits of incorporating more social platforms within the editing space and will arrive at solution that works for the various projects. There is probably a spectrum of what will or won't work across the different projects. In an anecdotal way, photowalks can be a great way to get photographers together to take photos and upload them to Commons and hackathons can work wonderfully for developers and programmers. Such social meet-ups might not be as effective in every situation for writing and editing Wikipedia.
For more standard social media platforms, like Identi.ca, Twitter, Facebook or Google +, the Foundation is having ongoing discussion about how to better utilize our assets. Even though the Facebook page has 1 million likes, for web properties as big and well-known as Wikipedia and sister projects, that's not very many people. Our Twitter account has a relatively tiny following, given the size and reach of the projects. For instance, @tinucherian, a communications member of the Wikimedia India Chapter, currently has 10,000 more followers than Wikipedia (this attests to his remarkable social media acumen, and to our underachievement as a large and worldwide entity).

These facts reflect the historical distance we've kept between Wikipedia and social media. There is no single staff member who is responsible for updating social media platforms, but rather the role is done by a committee of people from different departments.

How does your work relate to other people blogging about and reaching out the Wikimedia message

Again, I think it's safe to say social media has not historically been one of the highest priorities of the Foundation, so there have not been too many formal or informal relationships developed with bloggers or others in social media spaces. I think to the extent we can, the Foundation supports initiatives through the Community, Tech, and Global Development departments to support those improving Wikipedia projects and those committed to the Wikimedia mission and goals, but it is an open question how far we will go to embrace social media.

We do not communicate really about Commons, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikisource ...

I don't have enough background to comment on this assertion. I personally use and rely on Commons often and greatly enjoy contributing photos there (though with work, I haven't had as much time as I would like to take or process photos). I hope to do a great deal to promote these projects where and when I can.

Issues like the extension of copyright are not so much a Wikipedia but very much a Commons, Wikisource and Wikibooks issue, should our movement take up this issue as it does affect our mission so much.

I'm not as well versed as some in the foundation about this, but our legal department often works in this space and promotes open licenses and free access. Our stance on Golan v. Holder -- that public domain works should not be taken from the public domain and returned to copyright -- is only the most recent example. If you want more detail on this, however, I'd have to defer to our legal team, as they know much more than I do. 

When "global" is in your title, reaching out to people who do not speak English is part of the job. What do you think about translation?

While I haven't been fully apprised of the extent of the translation work you and the localization team are doing for the Foundation, I think some of the most exciting work in the projects happens with translation. The MediaWiki Translate extension and translatewiki.net provide some of the more important tools for enabling successful translation of open source materials throughout the world. Their application in numerous platforms speaks to their importance. I certainly hope to learn more about the work as part of my job.

From the exposure I had to the translation infrastructure for the Wikimedia Fundraiser, I was amazed by the organization and cooperation among volunteers around the world who quickly and efficiently translated fundraising appeals and guaranteed the 2011 fundraiser was a remarkable success. 

I speak Spanish and Portuguese, so from a personal level, I'm very interested in language and translation. I often say that I learned the most about my native language, English, when I learned to speak and write in Spanish. For instance, I had no idea there was a subjunctive tense and that I constantly used it until I had to render my thoughts in another language where its usage is frequent and vital. I'm also very interested in linguistics and language formation in bilingual (or trilingual and beyond) children. My understanding of it is limited, but I've read some material about language formation and I always have it in the back of my head that I would love to take more classes in linguistics.

I am also interested in the politics of translation as it relates to what gets translated and published across different languages and in different countries, and what that means for cultural and political relationships. One of the more interesting classes I took on the issue was in 2003 at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The professor was a Mizrahi Jewish translator and publisher who talked a lot about the politics and culture behind what gets published and what doesn't in Hebrew. Completely opened my eyes to a power dynamic I didn't understand before.

With the rise of free knowledge and the ever eroding limits to publication, I think the dynamics of power have already shifted dramatically and will continue to shift. The ability to freely disseminate information and knowledge in ones own language, and the ability to have that translated into other language, can have significant socio-political implications. I'm probably not smart enough to really even understand how significant that is :) Feel free to point me to good reading on the issue, if you like.

Two of our regular bloggers followed the excellent workshop Siebrand gave on Translate our translation software, do you know it, have you used it

I have not used it.

You moved from telling stories to get us funding. Now all our stories and all our objectives is your domain. Do you have room to decide on what is hot and what is not?

I don't know about "hot" stories, but I am very interested in expanding the stories we tell about the Wikimedia movement and include as many engaging, thoughtful voices as possible. We are actively working to expand the public's understanding of the marvelous work that happens in the projects and the fascinating people behind them.

Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation

#Fundraising is a growth path for a #Wikimedia chapter

The Dutch chapter is meeting. First line of business, providing some clarity about the existing fundraising situation. The current situation materialised because the American authorities require the Foundation to ensure a consistent world-wide practice.

As a consequence there are now chapters that have a fundraising agreement and chapters with a grant agreement. Several pains were mentioned; the Foundation was not present in Vienna at a conference on fundraising and, WMF officers are found not to have room to negotiate.

Currently the Dutch chapter has a grant agreement. The question raised is, what does this mean for the chapter and its activities. Fundraising takes a lot of effort and it takes away from the activities these funds are needed for. On the other hand a chapter involved in fund raising will grow its ability to run projects.

The biggest issue raised however is who decides what is strategic in a specific area. The Dutch chapter has been very active in GLAM and Wikimedia loves Monuments. This is not that much in line with the published WMF strategy but the effect has been stellar. The autonomy of a chapter to have local strategies and projects is why we are a Wikimedia movement and not a single organisation.

The question is, how will we ensure that we remain effective and a grass roots movement.
Thanks,
       GerardM

To #Translate on #Wikimedia Meta

Providing adequate tools at Meta has been a holy grail for the developers of the Translate extension. To get to this stage a page translation mode was developed a long time ago. This has been in use successfully at KDE for the translation of its user documentation.

Having tools to manage texts that need translation is extremely valuable when the message can and does alter. This has always been the case for the Wikimedia Fundraiser and it was more or less managed with templates. The Translate extension brings the kind of functionality that cannot be managed with templates.

Making use of the Translate extension also unifies the skills needed for the translation and localisation of the fund raiser. One other and essential part of the fundraiser is the software that has always been localised at translatewiki.net.

At this time Translate has just been implemented and everybody is granted the privilege to translate. Only some people can enable a page for translation. As a consequence the only page currently available for translation is a test page explaining page translation.

It was important to get the software ready as soon as possible because the annual fundraiser is already quite near. Thanks to Niklas, Siebrand, Roan and Sam it has been realised. Testing at Meta materialised a final bug that will be fixed before Translate will be used in earnest.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Think globally, act locally

Dedalus or Ad Huikeshoven is a Dutch Wikimedian and accountant. He has been a member of the audit committee for quite some time. It is therefore of interest what he has to say of the annual fundraiser.
Thanks,
      GerardM

The Wikimedia Foundation is a global organisation with a global mission and a global vision. Every year a lot of money is collected to financially support its organizational and technical infrastructure. The foundation and the chapters maintain a track record of raising funds on time and on budget, and every year for bigger dollar amounts. Changes in the design and banner and donation landing pages follow evidence based research findings for best effect.

A dozen local chapters of the Wikimedia Foundation participate in the online fundraiser. Chapter participation is part of the success of the last fund-raisers. Growth in dollar amount collected was partly a result of an increase in chapter participation.

All Wikimedians should be thankful to the many volunteers around the globe who have devoted time and energy to get a chapter organized. Institutionalizing a legal entity requires a lot of tough work. I am very glad fellow Wikimedians are willing to go through these motions. Eventually it pays of.

At Wikimania this year quite a lot of people were heavily upset by a letter and resolution from the board of the Wikimedia Foundation about the fundraiser. I happen to serve as a community member on a board committee, that is, the Audit Committee. The scope of its audits is the Wikimedia Foundation itself, not the chapters per se. My position is that I would love to see all local chapters participating in the annual online fundraiser or working towards participating in the future.

The Wikimedia movement as a whole has a responsibility to ensure accountability to donors about money received through the online fundraiser and the way that money is spent. Providing a link to the latest financial statement on [[m:Reports]] is a transparent way for a chapter to show they have fulfilled their accountability responsibilities toward donors. A September 1 deadline has been set for chapters to show financial reporting compliance for this year.

You can find links to recent financial statements for ten chapters that participated in the last fundraiser on [[m:Reports]]. The score so far is eleven out of twelve. Eleven down, one to go. Ok, have I mentioned Wikimania yet? Let me tell you this: I really enjoyed Wikimania this year (my first Wikimania ever). And I really would like to thank the local team from WMIL for organizing such a great event for the global movement as a whole. So, they have been very busy. In my humble opinion they should be forgiven that this year their financial report is late.
---Ad

PS just after I submitted this blog post there was this. Keeping my fingers crossed for the last financial report...

Dear #Wikimedia chapters; a request for funding

#ttfautohint is a tool that helps people who design fonts. It removes a part of the design process that is a mystery to many font designers, it is boring and it is one part of what makes designing fonts expensive. This software provides functionality to Windows, Apple and Linux. It works well for the Latin script and it will provide prototype support for Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. It will provide hooks to other font design tools.

When you look at the Arabic example, you will notice that the characters do go from top right to bottom left. This is how I am told Arabic looks like when a "proper" font is used.

Santhosh is enthusiastic about ttfautohint; he pointed it out to me. When you watch the video, you will learn that a sum of $ 30K is needed to improve the system. They are looking for the full funding by October first.

This is the kind of investment that will lift the look and feel of all of the Internet. It is open source. It plays nice with the development of the MediaWiki WebFonts extension. It is something that any chapter flush with cash can support. When a chapter like the English chapter has given their excess cash to the WMF, it is likely that they may consider such a request from the English chapter positively.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikimania question: "Jimmy what would you do with a million dollar"

The oral history of Wikimania has it that during a traditional board Q&A, I asked Jimmy Wales what we would do with one million dollars. Jimmy referred to this in his latest "state of the Wiki", the closing presentation of all Wikimanias.

In those days, the scrutiny of the community was no less; for many people Wikipedia only needed money for hosting, all other things were considered distractions from our "mission".

The Wikimedia Foundation has grown up considerably, its budget runs now in the multiple millions, its staff has grown to run programs that absorb the money that is put to good use. There is a steady flow of reports. The Wikimedia Foundation is doing well.

It is different with some of our chapters. Chapters are very much integral of our movement, they often gain considerable amounts of money during the annual fund raiser and it is often not known what they do, if they spend it and, how they spend it.

I urged several chapter people at Wikimania to let their stories be heard. Many of them are truly inspirational, a lot of good work is done but unknown to our wider community. As you approach them with good faith, even when you accept their good intentions, the sheer amount of money involved makes it hard if not impossible to accept the radio silence from many chapters. Spending money well is an art in itself, it is already hard when you are flush with cash and you have to consider even more money from future fund raisers...

There is a big dust up between chapter people and the board of the WMF. The board now insists on the transparency that has always been a must in the fund raising agreement. No longer is it a matter only of "thou shall be transparent", there are now sanctions on the horizon as well.

So, dear chapters get your stories out, become transparent, plan ahead, spend your money wisely, be happy to share your wealth when it achieves our goals. One more piece of advice and one question.

• all chapters could do with one PR man getting the chapter stories out
• the language committee knows how to spend some of your money... developing fonts for instance. Even the Latin script will benefit.

Thanks,
      GerardM

#CTM11 is also a meeting of #Wikmedians

Alice of #WMDE is one of the wikimedians present at communicating the museum. We talked about Wikipedia and the possibility of funding several projects by the German chapter.

What we discussed is funding the development and outreach for SignWriting. SignWriting is exceptional because it has the potential to alter the culture of all the people who use any sign language. There are several technical projects that need resources:

• the work needed to get SignWriting included in Unicode
• the work needed to include vertical scripts in MediaWiki
• the work needed to include SignWriting in MediaWiki in vertical lanes

This is a substantial amount of work for a project, an organisation that has been underfunded for a long time. The relevance of this development is global; it has the potential to impact all people everywhere who sign to communicate. It will bring existing cultures to a state where what they do can be written down.

There are already two requests for a Wikipedia in a sign language. They have the special status of "on hold". The language committee considers these request as "eligible", we consider SignWriting as the only viable option to write sign languages.

What we are looking for is EUR 150,000.- and we know the German Verein has a program that allows for the funding of up to EUR 50,000.- This request for funding is on behalf of the SignWriting organisation; a registered charity under California law. The first 50K will be mainly used for the technical work needed.

As I promised Alice, this request is short and to the point. It contains all the relevant facts. I hope that the Verein will honour this request because of its relevance. I hope that the Verein will work with the SignWriting organisation to realise the other 100K, this is needed for the outreach and training in those places where SignWriting is still an unknown..

PS SignWriting is used in Germany.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Money makes the world go around

The #Wikimedia meta discussion on movement roles has a personal point of view published by Sue. One of the issues she addresses is funding.

Funding produces the go-juice for our many activities but this go-juice is not distributed equitably and its mileage can be improved. Funding has a life-cycle; first you acquire the spending power, then you spend it and finally you enjoy the benefits.

Money is best held tightly and in order not to pry it from tight fists, it would work miracles when it can only be held conditional on it going around our world. Benefits going around or not is observable Take WikiPortret, Toolserver or PDF export they all have limited use while having a global potential. Contrast that with Wiki Loves Monuments Europe, GLAM outreach or MediaWiki development where the result goes beyond a language, a country, a culture.

So lets make use of the inclination to be tight fisted and let our organisations retain control over money when its projects have an observable global reach. When "others" rate the reach of projects, it will promote cooperation. As each project is rated, it will be known and, that is in itself observably good.
Thanks,
        GerardM

What to do when the #CLDR does not have it II

In #MediaWiki messages we support the plural of items. Its implementation differs per language and at translatewiki.net we use the CLDR as the source for these rules.

This presents its own problem as the CLDR does not do fractions. Saper has just added Bug 28128 - "Consider whether {{PLURAL:}} should handle fractional numbers".

Having proper support for fractions is relevant when you want to inform for instance how many millions the Fundraiser has made for us. The current messages are mostly based on lists so that keeps it nicely integer.

Given the complexity of the support for integers in all our languages, it is a nice can of worms we are opening up. It helps that the Fundraiser only starts in November.
Thanks,
        GerardM

#Fundraising in #India II

Every year #Wikipedia hosts banners urging people to #donate to the #Wikimedia Foundation. Every year it is wonderful to see the response of so many people, a response that allows us to run one of the biggest and one of the most efficient websites in the world.

The focus of the fundraiser is very much on the collaboration with the chapters. This has proven itself as very effective. Fund raising in countries that do not have a chapter is therefore sadly something of a side show.

The Hindu mentions that India raised $193,000 for the WMF. This is serious money and, it is serious money coming from the "global south". It shows us what Hans Rosling has been making clear to us for so long: there is no such thing as one homogeneous global south. There are prosperous people everywhere and they are not that dissimilar to people elsewhere.

For a global organisation like the WMF, the Hindu shows that doing well in the fundraiser is something people take notice of and take pride in. When the cost of the traffic to the countries of the global south is paid by their own people, it shows ownership and involvement in their projects, their Wikipedias, their Wiktionaries, Wikibooks and Wikisources.

The localisation of the fundraiser software at translatewiki.net is a process that is largely independent. It has been recently completed for languages like Swahili as well. For me this is a sign that they want to own their projects as much as we do.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Fundraising in #India

In telling the developing story of Narayam, only one aspect of the issues languages face on the Internet is concentrated on. It is the part that helps our editors write articles in our projects. It is understood that they are able to read what they write and, for this to be true they have the right font, the right browser on their computer.

Having the right font and the right browser is something that is easily taken for granted. For many people the realities are starkly different. Santosh told me that in the cyber cafes in rural India Windows XP with IE 6 are dominant. The screen shot I received from Santosh comes with annotations of everything that is wrong when displaying Malayalam with IE 8.

When people see their language mangled like this, it is quite obvious that they will not get to the page where Jimmy is telling us that he is also a volunteer let alone that people will donate. There may be many poor people in India, there are also many rich people in India and in order to lure the latter to our donation link, a solution is needed that makes the Indic languages look good for all of them.

Webfonts provide an answer to this problem. It is a solution under development and this solution has a working solution for Firefox users. As there are still cross browser issues, there is no complete solution yet. Indian news portals are using Unicode technology with webfonts and these do not work for Chrome.

Even though more development is needed, supporting our languages with a partial solution will give us more traffic. It will bring our content to more readers and we will even get a fighting chance to raise funds in India.
Thanks,
      GerardM

The #Wikimedia #fundraiser is done. Its #localisation is not

On every #Wikipedia page, Jimmy was appealing to you to help with its mission. During the 2010 fundraiser, it was vitally important that its message was loud and clear in any language. That, his piercing eyes and maybe a bit of gratitude for what Wikipedia delivers made for a big success.

Now that the fundraiser is over, the words of thanks have been said, there is a more modest appeal from the sidebar.  An appeal with the same message.

In MediaWiki and at translatewiki.net, the development and the localisation of the software goes on. This means that during the year more languages will become ready to handle this appeal. During the year more chapters will get ratified and get ready to raise funds not only for the Foundation but also for themselves.

Our fund raising effort is concentrated only on the annual fund raiser. However the sums of money we receive during the year are quite significant. The localisation of the "Donate Interface" and the "Payflow Pro Gateway" extension does continue and we should update the fund raising message for the rest of the year as well.
Thanks,
        GerardM

Let's have the best #Wikimedia fundraiser possible IX

This years fundraiser is ambitious, it is our best fundraiser ever and it is still going strong. Never before has there been so much data to understand what message does well what we can do to optimise the results.

New is the ability to donate every month. Believe it or not, there are people who put it on their list to Santa Claus and, this gift came early. Testing has been going on for a week for the message in English and it is an option that has to find its way into the message in other languages. At translatewiki.net new messages became available and consequently there is this appeal to help with the messages in your language for the "Donate Interface" and the "Payflow Pro Gateway" extension.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Let's have the best #Wikimedia fundraiser possible VIII

With the #localisation of the two donation extensions in Farsi completed we hit an interesting situation. There are people in Iran who are willing and able to support the aims of the Wikimedia Foundation financially. Let's call them our friends.

Our friends want to help us with our ambition to bring the sum of all knowledge to all the people in the world. Our friends, their family, friends, neighbours live in a country that is not our friend according to some laws and consequently our friends cannot support our effort by donating money.

That is, they cannot donate money by transferring money out of their country. So the challenge is to allow our friends to donate to our cause and make these donations count towards achieving our goal.

The donations do not have to leave Iran. When Wikimedia activities in Iran are supported by these donations, we have a clear winner. The question is, can we arrange something while this fundraiser is still hot?
Thanks,
      GerardM

Let's have the best #Wikimedia fundraiser possible VII

The fundraiser is doing well, with over 5,6 million dollar donated we are likely to achieve the goal that exists that was set. There have been several nice spoofs of Jimmy Wales, la Giacondo is well known for all kinds of alterations and, having a beard as well is more then what Marcel Duchamp added.

The localisation of the two MediaWiki extensions, the "Donate Interface" and the "Payflow Pro Gateway" extension, is doing well. There are now 33 languages with great localisations.

There has been an argument if size matters when you should consider localising for a specific language. It is obvious that a Wikipedia with little traffic is unlikely to generate large amounts of money for the Wikimedia Foundation. Then again, it does not cost much either and, in this way a project, a language pays its own way.

Helping make the fundraiser a success in your language is one way of showing commitment to our shared goal. This is also a great signal to the WMF to consider helping with specific needs for your community.
Thanks,
      GerardM