User:Julia Kirchner (WMDE)/sandboxAPG2015
3. How much does your organization project to spend on staff during the current funding period, or in the twelve month period before your proposed grant will start (e.g. 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016), in currency requested and US dollars?
| 2015 | Currency requested | US dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Expenses | 3,072,744 € | $3,446,973.49 |
4. How much does your organization expect to spend on staff during the proposed funding period (e.g. 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016), in currency requested and US dollars?
| 2016 (Planned) | Currency requested | US dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Expenses | 3,803,678 € | $4,266,927.94 |
Table 5
| Anticipated revenues for the upcoming funding period | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue source | Currency requested | US dollars | Status (e.g. guaranteed, application) | Explanation | |
| Donations | 2,489,528 € | $2,792,727.62 | Distribution based on the last fundraising period (WMDE: 21,73% of total funds raised) | ||
| APG Grant (Software Development / Wikidata) | 1,500,000 € | $1,682,685.00 | FDC proposal for funding Software Development/ Wikidata | ||
| Membership dues | 1,260,000 € | $1,413,455.40 | Revenue expectations based on current number of members | ||
| Carry-over from 2015 | 0 € | $0 | |||
| Fundraising reimbursement WMFG | 217,274 € | $243,735.80 | Lump sum | ||
| Federal Contract | 65,000 € | $72,916.35 | For the Open Educational Resources Conference | ||
| Other Revenues | 15,000 € | $16,826.85 | Small, externally funded projects that have either been planned or already been applied for in 2015 | ||
| PEG Funding | 152,193 € | $170,728.59 | For Wikimedia Conference | ||
| Grant funds from private donor (WikiData+) | 501,600 € | $562,689.86 | Pending | Wikidata growth beyond activities in this proposal | |
| Total revenues (should equal the sum of the rows) | 6,200,595 € | $6,955,765.47 | Increased revenues due to additional, listed external funding as well as FDC funding | ||
Table 6a
| Total WMDE Expenses by Focal Point | ||
|---|---|---|
| Program (Focal Point) | Currency requested | US dollars |
| 1.1 Attract and retain new volunteers for Wikimedia projects | 452,767 € | $507,909.49 |
| 1.2 Software Development: Extend Wikidata, implement the community’s needs, and further develop MediaWiki | 1,470,496 € | $1,649,587.71 |
| 1.3 Strengthen political and legal work aimed at promoting Free Knowledge | 396,967 € | $445,313.61 |
| Total Priority Level 1 | 2,320,230 € | $2,602,810.81 |
| 2.1 Improve relationship between WMDE and volunteers | 420,000 € | $471,151.80 |
| 2.2 Recruit educational, scientific, and cultural institutions for flagship projects | 113,000 € | $126,762.27 |
| 2.3 Improve the conditions for Free Knowledge through OER practice and policy | 180,000 € | $201,922.20 |
| 2.4 Define and consolidate WMDE’s position within the international movement | 330,378 € | $370,614.74 |
| Total Priority Level 2 | 1,043,378 € | $1,170,451.01 |
| 3.1 Regionalization of volunteer structures: Continue and analyze | 75,000 € | $84,134.25 |
| 3.2 Involvement of volunteers | 62,000 € | $69,550.98 |
| 3.3 Clarification of WMDE identity and strategy | 114,336 € | $128,260.98 |
| Total Priority Level 3 | 251,336 € | $281,946.21 |
| Total Priority Levels 1-3 | 3,614,944 € | $4,055,208.03 |
| Other Program and Program Support Cost | 722,485 € | $810,476.45 |
| Administration | 1,748,226 € | $1,961,142.44 |
| Operating Reserves | 114,940 € | $128,938.54 |
| Total Annual Expenses | 6,200,595 € | $6,955,765.47 |
Table 6a notes:
External funding supporting programs amounts to €0.7M - see external funds notes above in Table 5.
Due to data protection, personnel costs are not listed separately from other cost here, and aggregated personnel cost will be provided to the FDC separately.
Table 6b (Wikidata+)
Table 6b: Software development expenses for the movement (APG funds plus matching WMDE funds)
| Software Development Expenses for the Movement | ||
|---|---|---|
| Program Cost by Activity | Currency requested | US dollars |
| Article placeholder | 62,534 € | $70,150.02 |
| Automated list generation | 126,674 € | $142,101.63 |
| Structured data support for wikimedia sister projects | 382,334 € | $428,898.46 |
| Unit conversion | 90,507 € | $101,529.85 |
| Partnerships for Wikidata and foster collaboration in Open Data | 74,596 € | $83,681.05 |
| Continued Mentoring Program Volunteers | 69,370 € | $77,818.57 |
| New datatypes and improvements to existing ones | 83,298 € | $93,442.86 |
| Continue to evolve the user interface | 89,633 € | $100,549.40 |
| Agile development of community requests from the technical wishlist | 272,676 € | $305,885.21 |
| Scaling cooperation with the Community Tech Team (WMF) for implementation of internationally relevant community’s needs | 36,961 € | $41,462.48 |
| Hacking on international technical requests | 57,540 € | $64,547.80 |
| International development events | 55,919 € | $62,729.38 |
| Collaboratively organized user-specific workshops FOSS communities | 22,012 € | $24,692.84 |
| Floating capacity 1 | 166,220 € | $186,463.93 |
| Subtotal | 1,590,274 € | $1,783,953.47 |
| Administrative Overhead 2 | 448,370 € | $502,976.54 |
| Total program expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) | 2,038,644 € | $2,286,930.01 |
| Matching funds WMDE including grants | -538,644 € | -$604,245.01 |
| APG grant | 1,500,000 € | $1,682,685.00 |
Table 6b notes:
1 Management, coordination and developer capacity that is flexibly allocated to activities as needed throughout the year.
2 Proportion of WMDE administrative overhead within Wikidata+.
Table 7
| Total WMDE Expenses | ||
|---|---|---|
| Expense type | Currency requested | US dollars |
| Wikidata+ Expenses (total from table 6b) | 1,500,000 € | 1,682,685.00 € |
| Non-Wikidata+ Expenses | 4,585,655 € | 5,144,141.92 € |
| Amount to be added to operating reserves (if applicable) | 114,940 € | 128,938.54 € |
| Total expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) | 6,200,595 € | 6,955,765.47 € |
Programs: upcoming year's annual plan
[edit]APG-funded Program: Software Development for the Wikimedia Movement
[edit]1. Global Metrics
[edit]WMDE appreciates the thought and work that went into developing shared evaluation structures and capacities for the movement. In the past two years, Global Metrics have been introduced and tested as a means to evaluate the impact of APG program activities on Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons, and on the strategic goals related to content and participation. We share the view that a vital base of contributors and a constant improvement in content is crucial for our mission and the viability of the Wikimedia projects. In response to the fact that Global Metrics are not easily transferrable to technical projects such as Wikidata and the associated software development processes, conversations around measuring technology projects such as Wikidata have started recently.
As a result, WMDE has been working to expand the shared metrics approach to our software development program and its impact. This was recently reflected in our progress report. Aligned with the data that was shown there, for the purposes of this proposal, we show a set of global Wikidata metrics which focus (1) on editors, (2) Wikidata content (quantity & quality) and (3) the usage of Wikidata’s data in its sister projects. Many of Wikidata’s central key performance measures are already monitored by WMDE via tools and report cards (pls. see table below), while others, e.g. usage metrics for Wikidata uses by external entities, will have to be developed in 2016 and beyond.
| General Wikidata Metrics/KPIs | |
|---|---|
| Editors | |
| Metric | Baseline 06/2015 |
| editors (1+/ 30 days) | 15,074 |
| active editors (5+/ 30 days) | 6,005 |
| very active editors (100+/ 30 days) | 915 |
| new active editors (10th edit threshold, 01-05/2015) | 733 / month (average, 01-06/2015) |
| Content | |
| Metric | Baseline 06/2015 |
| # of Wikidata pages (item pages, discussion pages, property pages etc.) | 18,284,555 |
| # of Wikidata items | 17,880,164 |
| # of statements (total) | 65,993,797 |
| # of Wikidata items with referenced statements | 10,017,235 |
| # of edits (total) | 227,708,671 |
| # of new edits per quarter | ~ 1.8M in Q1 / ~ 2.1M in Q2 |
| Usage | |
| Metric | Baseline 06/2015 |
| # of data uses from Wikidata in WM projects | ~ 153M (total, by 08/2015) |
The metrics in the table above are overall project KPIs, and are not directly related to specific activities. They reflect the overall growth of the project and the size of the community. They are not associated with specific targets. Nevertheless, based on the observed changes in 2015, we expect an overall growth of more than 10% in 2016 for most of these metrics. WMDE constantly monitors the KPIs and shares them with the public and the community via a dashboard, reviewing and analyzing the performance on a quarterly basis. WMDE’s Software Development Team and communities then adjust and align Wikidata-related activities based on the analysis. This is accomplished using the principles of agile planning.
2. Program Metrics
[edit]In addition to the KPIs above, each goal in the section below is measured with a set of metrics that fall under three types: Milestones, indicators and targets.
Developing and improving software tools and features is not comparable to holding an edit-a-thon or a photo competition. Often the direct impact of an activity cannot be measured using standard means and tools, and a correlation between the activity and a growth in users or content is difficult to prove. Annual targets are in some cases not appropriate, or can only be developed as an activity moves out of the experimental phase and begins to show an impact, which may or may not back up the initial theory of change. This is consistent with the processes that both WMF and WMDE utilize for software development.
Similar to the WMF Engineering Department, WMDE’s planning and monitoring of software development for the Wikimedia movement is done using the well-known principles and processes of agile development. For the organisation-wide planning process, WMDE starts with annual goals (as described in the WMDE Annual Plan and in detail in this proposal). The Software Development Department, however, works with much shorter planning, monitoring and iteration cycles than other programs that are based on annual plans. In agile development, the SCRUM flow turns planning and implementation into ONE process, with constant iteration (sprints), incrementation and improvisation of the WHAT, while using highly structured work processes organizing the HOW. Starting from the annual goals, the development teams break the work down into concrete action items, milestones, deliverables and metrics for the next quarter. Supported by the SCRUM master and the product manager, the teams conduct quarterly reviews, and then work on the adjustment and next steps of planning and prioritization, based on data and learnings gathered from the previous quarter. Then the teams move on to the next sprint. This highly structured process also allows us to quickly integrate user/community feedback on each iteration. While always keeping the annual goals in mind, it often becomes necessary to react to circumstances, changing requirements, opportunities presented by the movement, or changes in the software environment, which then leads to a re-prioritization and modification of targets, metrics and deliverables. The environmental variables and changing requirements that impact the work can be external (such as the Google data donation), or internal (such as sudden resource limitations at WMF engineering), or community-triggered (such as specific user feedback). In 2016, just as the WMF engineering team, WMDE will share quarterly reviews and metrics, including the analysis and resulting changes, with the FDC and the public.
With these processes and principles of agile development in mind, and in order to report to the FDC and our other stakeholders, we have developed the three categories of metrics mentioned above: Milestones, targets and indicators. Milestones (often represented as qualitative targets in the APG context) are necessary process steps that are a pre-condition of moving the needle on participation, content and usage. This could be the first iteration of a feature or tool, or the establishment of capacity, or the development of a process. Indicators are metrics that are assumed to be of importance when measuring the output or outcome of an activity or a tool. We do not know target values yet, however, because the quantitative impact is still unknown, based on theory, and subject to a large number of variables, such as community acceptance and other external factors. Additional indicators may be added as we go through agile development cycles. Targets are indicators that already have a value assigned to them, and that we will be striving to reach or exceed. Some indicators may be moved up into the target category, as we find out more about the impact of our activities after a few iterative cycles, and are better able to predict the scale of outcomes.
3. Program Description
[edit]A. Story
[edit]The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland jointly launched Wikidata in October of 2012. The functionality of Wikidata.org has since been expanded from initially only managing the connections between Wikipedia articles in different languages (called interlanguage links) to supporting structured “statements” describing the items in Wikidata, to new data types like geographic coordinates.
In addition to the software that powers Wikidata.org, the team in Germany has also developed basic integration support for Wikimedia projects interfacing with Wikidata. Information from Wikidata associated with a given Wikipedia article, for example, can be accessed from within templates and Lua scripts. Relevant content from Wikimedia sister projects is shown in the sidebar via Wikidata.
Since its launch, the Wikidata community has grown continuously, numbering over 6.000 human active editors (5+ edits) as of August 2015. In addition, there are 184 bot accounts, the 50 most active of which have contributed a total of 193.2M edits. Human-operated editing and contribution tools, primarily the ones created by Magnus Manske in Wikimedia Labs, have been used for more than 25 million edits.
The development of Wikidata could not have come at a more crucial point in the history of the Internet. Since Google’s and Microsoft’s early efforts, knowledge graphs and machine learning have become integral to all next-generation user experiences developed by the major commercial players. The development of an open community around data and algorithms provides a true alternative to these proprietary approaches. It is without a doubt a necessary, if not sufficient, precondition for a future where the augmentation of the human intellect is not tied to any single corporation, but it itself an open, collaborative effort in the spirit of Wikipedia.
However, much work remains to be done for Wikidata to reach its full potential. In order to strategically develop the project, it is essential for Wikimedia Deutschland and the Wikimedia Foundation to continuously look beyond the engineering aspect and consider community, content, operative, and environmental aspects as well. For this long-term, strategic and collaborative approach, WMF and WMDE are currently engaged in a planning process. This work is ongoing, and we anticipate, based on conversations between leadership, that the financing of the next few years of Wikidata will be established through this planning process in time for the WMF 2015/16 fiscal year. Until then, to keep the project going, WMF has asked that the FDC continue to provide the APG as bridge funding. The following goals describe how WMDE views the development of the product for the year 2016, however, the long-term sustainability perspective applies to all proposed goals and objectives.
B. Goals, Objectives and Targets
[edit]Goal 1a: Grow Reach of Wikidata into the Wikimedia projects
[edit]Story
[edit]
Wikidata’s first and foremost function is to provide a structured data backbone for the Wikimedia projects. Despite all the interest from entities external to the movement, in 2016 WMDE Software Development will continue to put a strong focus on making Wikidata even more meaningful, useful and utilized by Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and other sister projects. Our strategy here lies in continued development of the project’s usability and in offering useful features. These features are aimed at making contributions to the Wikimedia projects easier and the process of editing an amazing and rewarding experience.
In 2015, the team started redesigning Wikidata's user interface to make it more appealing to a wider audience beyond the core Wikidata admin group. In 2016, we will continue to evolve the user interface based on results of usability testing, user feedback and trends in our larger ecosystem.
Another area of focus is Wikimedia Commons, which, through support by Wikidata, has the potential to be more useful and usable for more people. Commons needs structured data as a foundation in order to continue to grow, and to be useful and usable to the communities. In 2015, the Wikidata development team and the WMF Multimedia team started working on improving Wikimedia Commons' infrastructure by providing it with structured data support. In 2016, we will continue to allocate resources to working on issues related to Commons, such as making it possible to store metadata about files on Commons. Here, the work of WMDE developers relies heavily on the capacities of the WMF Multimedia Team, which have been limited in 2015, leading to delays.
Given these caveats, the plan is to make a demo-system available to the Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata communities for testing and feedback. Details are subject to the collaborative work of both teams.The end result will be a good technical foundation to store metadata related to multimedia files in a structured and machine-readable way. This will allow many future innovations such as multilingual search and display of file information, easier, license-compliant re-use of our content and a richer multimedia experience on Wikipedia.
In addition, the Wikidata product team will work on specific tools and features that increase the usefulness of Wikidata for Wikimedia sister projects and the number of volunteers contributing to them. These features are (1) the article placeholder which was chosen because of its immediate significant impact on boosting content in small Wikipedias, and (2) an automated list generator, which has been on the agenda since the early days of the project, but could not be addressed until the query service feature had been completed.
Smaller Wikipedias that still have a low number of articles struggle to provide their readers with the information they are searching for because the project lacks sufficient numbers of volunteers to create articles. The article placeholder can help those projects. When searching for a concept that is not covered by an article on the Wikipedia, the reader will be shown a quick overview which displays facts from the connected Wikidata page. This overview will be identified as not generated by a human. It is anticipated that it encourages the readers to write a Wikipedia article or to translate an existing Wikipedia article. The article placeholder extension will therefore suggest making use of the content translation tool. Outcomes we hope to trigger with this tool start with a significant number of projects choosing to use the extension, and, as a result, the facilitation of adding additional articles in the smaller Wikipedias. In the long run, we hope that this will attract new editors, increase page views in the smaller Wikipedias, and decrease the number of missing articles and stubs in all projects. Ultimately, readers and users will have access to more data-based, reliable knowledge.
The automated list generator addresses the fact that currently, a large number of lists on Wikipedia are generated and maintained by hand. Editors can be supported by automated list creation based on data from Wikidata in reducing their workload and keeping lists up-to-date across all our projects.
By developing these features, combined with our participatory software development approach (see Goal 5), we aim to significantly increase the instances of data uses from Wikidata by Wikimedia projects (see KPI under Program Metrics above). This includes basic information provided by Wikidata if an article does not exist in a certain Wikipedia, new articles created based on basic data from Wikidata, Wikipedia lists based on and updated by Wikidata, as well as templates and info boxes using data from Wikidata. Ultimately, these uses will facilitate the work of volunteer editors, improve and increase content, and contribute to the viability of the projects.
Goal 1b: Grow the reach of Wikidata beyond the Wikimedia projects.
[edit]Story
[edit]
Data from external sources will become increasingly important as Wikidata grows. Data donations enrich not just Wikidata, but are then also available to generate more content in Wikimedia sister projects. From the external perspective, WMDE has the opportunity to grow Wikidata’s reach, relevance and usability for partners and institutions beyond the Wikimedia projects. Wikidata has already proven to be of central importance to volunteers and organizations working with Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAMs). Community-led efforts such as the “Sum of all Paintings” project are actively working to create schemas useful for GLAMs and to import relevant data. Europeana, a consortium of European GLAMs, has been especially engaged with the Wikidata community. In a post on the Europeana blog, Wikidata was identified as being of central importance to the GLAM sector.
Beyond GLAMs, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland have both received interest from a large number of organizations and governments involved in the open data community. And many times, data imports proceed without either organizations’ active involvement, because Wikidata is an open community.
Given the strong interest from external entities and the clear benefits to our products and our projects, it is important that we build the capacity to accommodate partnerships and the resulting data donations. However, the what and the how is crucial, as our recent experience shows.
In late 2014, Google discontinued its Freebase database in favor of Wikidata. This meant that Wikidata received a large data donation without being able to plan for the integration, processing and quality control of the data. The data itself and the accompanying publicity was a blessing. The shutdown of Freebase certainly was a victory for Wikidata and the open data community. However, migrating the Freebase data into Wikidata and coping with the resulting work continues to be a major challenge for our volunteer editors and our team. Other activities had to be delayed in order to plan and resource the migration, assure the overall quality of data in Wikidata, and maintain user trust.
From this experience we learned that for the future, we will need extra capacity to nimbly respond to data ‘donations’, as well as a solid process that allows us to develop and implement data partnerships based on set criteria. Data criteria will most likely include: Reliability, trustworthiness, up-to-dateness, ability to reference, relevance, likeliness to be used (in Wikimedia projects), and the existence of champions and long-term curators. Specific criteria for partnerships will be developed in more detail with the community, but the most important ones are ability and willingness to work with the Wikidata community in planning and throughout the data migration processes.
In addition to a process with transparent criteria, staff capacity at the Berlin office will be allocated to handle data partnerships. A designated point person will be responsible for processing requests, handling negotiations, planning data contributions and implementing data donation projects in close coordination with the community and collaboration with WMFs engineering and advancement teams. Depending on the nature of a data partnership, development may be as simple as working with the community to create a bot, or it may require the creation of new curation tools, new data types, new visualizations, new user interfaces, or new infrastructure.
While working on our capacity to handle data partnerships, we will improve the technical conditions for receiving data and making it usable: Unit conversion provides an increase in possible uses of Wikidata’s data for its users within Wikimedia projects and outside. For example, the height of a mountain and other measurements can be entered in Wikidata using the unit given in the original source of the data point. However, to be able to meaningfully query all this data and generate a list of the ten highest mountains, these data points need to be converted to a base unit. We will make this possible and provide access to converted data via Wikidata Query Service.
Improving the user interface (see also Goal 1) will remove barriers to participation that currently exist for new contributors, including those who bring and curate new data sets into Wikidata. The current user interface is complicated, highly technical, and thus only accessible to a limited group of skilled and persistent volunteer editors. New editors often fail to engage because the user interface is hard to master and unattractive to look at. Through improving the user interface further, we will open the project to a larger group of potential editors with lower entry skills and valuable data donations.
With a transparent process, improved technical conditions, and a Berlin-based responsible point persons in place by the end of 2016, we are confident that we can accommodate valuable data donations in a more controlled manner, and add to our learning on how to grow Wikidata while maintaining quality, trust and meaningful long-term partnerships. Our 2016 metrics here are not focused on the number of data partnerships, but rather on quality and a well implemented migration and integration process.
Goal 2a: Build sustainable trust in Wikidata through continued improvement of data quality
[edit]Story
[edit]
Data quality in Wikidata is measured by the following criteria: Data is useful, complete and referenced. Data quality is important to maintain the trust of users inside and outside of the Wikimedia projects. In 2016, we will take a more strategic approach to data quality monitoring and improvement.
In 2015, our main metric to measure quality has been the number and percentage of statements that had external, non-wiki references. We made great strides in moving this indicator up. The recent increase is the result of targeted groundwork activities carried out in 2015 and beyond. We will continue to increase and monitor the percentage of referenced statements. Nevertheless, by end of 2016 this metric will probably reach its ceiling and other quality markers will become more and more important instead. So we are planning ahead:
In order to make monitoring and addressing data quality a public process and allow users and editors to participate and take ownership, we will implement the Wikidata dashboard in 2016. Indicators reflected there may include a variety of metrics regarding references (referenced statements by type, referenced statements to Wikipedia by type, referenced statements to other sources by type, references by type), regarding statements (statement ranks, statements per item) and item metrics (labels per item, descriptions per item, wikilinks per item). The dashboard may be similar to the prototype displayed in the picture on the right.
.PNG)
Every day, the development team and the volunteer editors conduct a large variety of activities aimed at increasing data quality, and the dashboard will show how effective they are. Wikidata communities and staff will use it to recognize problems and respond accordingly, informed by the use of additional monitoring tools. As successfully practiced in other Wikimedia projects, we would like to move Wikidata to a point where contributors (staff and volunteers) are enabled to make data-based decisions to address quality issues with the dashboard. The anticipated outcome is for the dashboard to show that the level of data quality is high and continuously improving, and as a result remove some users’ negative perceptions around data quality. Trust in quality is increased with Wikimedia sister projects. The mid-term outcomes are measured by instances of Wikidata uses in WM projects (see also Goal 1).
One of the quality markers monitored by the dashboard will be the average rate for number of statements per item. Complex items (for example, Q183, Germany) require a large amount of statements to be described well. While this is not true for all items, the average rate does indicate quality, because it points at how rich the data for the average item is at any given time. In 2016, we will focus on increasing this rate through adding data types. Data types are determining which kinds of data can be entered and stored in Wikidata. We will improve the user experience around the input of the existing data types and add new data types. This could for example be a new data type for identifying concepts by their URI, formulas, multilingual text or geoshapes. Which ones will be focused on will be determined throughout the year, based on requests from the community and on necessities for developing additional features.
Goal 2b: Assure sustainability of Berlin-based software development hub through building relationships with established and emerging FOSS developers and activists.
[edit]Story
[edit]
Free and Open Source software is the technical foundation for the Wikimedia movement to organize and distribute free knowledge. Open-source software is created by the dedicated developers, coders and FOSS activists who advance and develop the code. With the sustainability of Berlin-based software development infrastructure for the movement in mind, WMDE has begun a number of activities in 2015 aimed at supporting and engaging the FOSS developer community, and at involving emerging developers in the projects as staff and volunteers. Building this community of developers is essential for the viability of Wikidata and other engineering projects - so we view this as mid- and long-term capacity building work.
In 2016, WMDE will continue the successful work to support this community, increase awareness about Wikidata, provide opportunities for shared learning and community building, and identify and support young coders as part of a recruitment pipeline. The Sourcecode.Berlin website serves to share all information and documentation of activities. The Sourcecode.Berlin podcast, created in English, has begun to establish WMDE as a thought leader in the German open-source movement and to create new networks for advancing and supporting open source as an issue and a community. Sourcecode.Berlin will be continued with two podcasts per month through the first half of 2016 and will then be evaluated for its reception and acceptance in the communities.
The mentoring program, on the other hand, is directly aimed at young developers. These are students and interns who are working on school-based research projects, or those with a relation to Wikidata or open source development for free knowledge. The desired outcome of the mentoring program is to recruit talented young developers and to introduce them to our work, to the principles of open source development and the free knowledge movement, and to create a recruitment pipeline for the Berlin hub of the movement. In 2016, software development staff will work intensively with six mentees, support them in their projects, and assure that they maintain close ties with our staff and volunteers.
In addition, we are budgeting for a few volunteer developers to be able to participate at movement events so they can collaborate with the global developer community on improving MediaWiki. This includes Wikimania and the annual hackathon. This will serve to create face to face connections between German and international volunteers, introduce young developers to the international community, and create strong bonds with the movement.
Financials: current funding period
[edit]Table 2: Revenues and Expenditures WMDE/WMFG 2015
| Financial Information | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EXPENDITURES | |||||||||||||
| APG expenses | Q1 expenditures | Q2 expenditures | Q3 expenditures | Q4 expenditures | |||||||||
| cost unit | line item | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | Cumulative | Cumulative in USD | Percentage spent do date | Explanation of variances from plan |
| Software Development | |||||||||||||
| 101/102 | Program Coordination/Internal Meetings | 5,542 € | 35,893 € | 16,261 € | 49,944 € | 6,973 € | 35,106 € | 149,719 € | $167,135 | 77.23% | |||
| 104 | Vacation (project-employees) | - | 25,294 € | - | 10,866 € | - | 21,068 € | 57,228 € | $63,884 | 86.09% | |||
| 105 | Sick (project-employees) | - | 8,496 € | - | 5,596 € | - | 4,498 € | 18,590 € | $20,752 | 86.09% | |||
| 219-221 | Info Camp/Ent Con/Game Jam | 0 € | 6,312 € | 507 € | 11,387 € | 5,716 € | 8,811 € | 32,733 € | $36,541 | 66.33% | |||
| 222 | Communication Networks | 0 € | 1,641 € | 2,314 € | 3,437 € | 1,480 € | 2,886 € | 11,758 € | $13,126 | 92.94% | |||
| 223 | Communication Communities | 258 € | 4,152 € | 1,501 € | 5,657 € | 3,291 € | 1,294 € | 16,153 € | $18,032 | 91.97% | |||
| 224 | Technical Requests | 0 € | 14,717 € | 0 € | 24,922 € | 0 € | 31,365 € | 70,995 € | $79,253 | 86.09% | |||
| 225 | Internal Projects of WMDE | 0 € | 3,306 € | 0 € | 13,486 € | 0 € | 18,611 € | 35,402 € | $39,520 | 86.09% | |||
| 55100 | Wikidata | 4,101 € | 117,632 € | 18,135 € | 111,741 € | 6,492 € | 70,424 € | 328,525 € | $366,740 | 94.34% | |||
| Lump Sum Project Department | 144,221 € | $160,997 | |||||||||||
| Total | 9,901 € | 217,443 € | 38,718 € | 237,037 € | 23,952 € | 194,053 € | 0 € | 0 € | 865,325 € | $965,980 | |||
| Non APG expenses | Q1 expenditures | Q2 expenditures | Q3 expenditures | Q4 expenditures | |||||||||
| cost unit | line item | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | Cumulative | Cumulative in USD | Percentage spent do date | Explanation of variances from plan |
| 101/102 | Program Coordination/Internal Meetings | 4,819 € | 32,553 € | 3,197 € | 36,396 € | 96 € | 16,852 € | 93,913 € | $104,837 | 98.50% | |||
| 104 | Vacation | - | 35,337 € | - | 24,600 € | - | 13,737 € | 73,674 € | $82,244 | 102.54% | |||
| 105 | Sick | - | 14,428 € | - | 12,156 € | - | 2,449 € | 29,033 € | $32,411 | 102.54% | |||
| 132 | Wikimedia Conference | 1,317 € | 10,024 € | 72,877 € | 18,736 € | - | 5,300 € | 108,253 € | $120,845 | 101.86% | |||
| 201 | ABC des Freien Wissens (Event Series) | 2,055 € | 3,393 € | 3,693 € | 4,221 € | 2,206 € | 1,339 € | 16,907 € | $18,874 | 93.59% | |||
| 202 | Beratungsmodule | 841 € | 3,305 € | 1,328 € | 5,596 € | 161 € | 3,200 € | 14,430 € | $16,109 | 44.45% | |||
| 203 | Open Education Alliance | 763 € | 5,094 € | 214 € | 0 € | 0 € | 511 € | 6,582 € | $7,348 | 54.25% | |||
| 204 | Coding da Vinci | 20,000 € | 6,332 € | 1,790 € | 6,343 € | 254 € | 3,782 € | 38,501 € | $42,980 | 126.72% | |||
| 205 | Tools for Volunteers | 0 € | 222 € | 0 € | 0 € | 0 € | 0 € | 222 € | $247 | 102.54% | |||
| 206 | Glam on Tour | 4,772 € | 2,707 € | 811 € | 1,466 € | 324 € | 496 € | 10,576 € | $11,807 | 49.84% | |||
| 207 | Development of Materials | 19 € | 3,556 € | 8,333 € | 1,997 € | 4,284 € | 2,069 € | 20,258 € | $22,615 | 73.85% | |||
| 208 | Open Science Project | 300 € | 8,469 € | 630 € | 6,929 € | 0 € | 5,450 € | 21,777 € | $24,310 | 58.86% | |||
| 209 | Monsters of Law | 91 € | 707 € | 125 € | 1,650 € | 0 € | 0 € | 2,573 € | $2,872 | 86.77% | |||
| 210 | OER Project | 221 € | 15,829 € | 455 € | 0 € | 2,083 € | 0 € | 18,588 € | $20,751 | 99.03% | |||
| 211 | WikiCon | 0 € | 1,845 € | 1,120 € | 1,018 € | 296 € | 522 € | 4,801 € | $5,359 | 145.44% | |||
| 213 | Volunteer Support | 37,393 € | 18,205 € | 30,826 € | 20,789 € | 26,262 € | 11,375 € | 144,850 € | $161,699 | 125.10% | |||
| 214 | Development | 90 € | 1,684 € | 11,946 € | 1,990 € | 245 € | 0 € | 15,954 € | $17,810 | 94.32% | |||
| 215 | Community Events | 0 € | 0 € | 73 € | 90 € | 5,137 € | 0 € | 5,300 € | $5,916 | 11.34% | |||
| 216 | Large Community Projects | 8,091 € | 70 € | 2,320 € | 69 € | 7,394 € | 0 € | 17,944 € | $20,032 | 10.76% | |||
| 217 | Local Community Spaces Active | 8,813 € | 225 € | 8,141 € | 0 € | 5,246 € | 0 € | 22,425 € | $25,034 | 55.76% | |||
| 218 | Local Community Spaces Development | 730 € | 0 € | 1,831 € | 283 € | 229 € | 0 € | 3,073 € | $3,430 | 1113.46% | |||
| 226 | Free Knowledge Advocacy Group | 7,312 € | 0 € | 0 € | 0 € | 0 € | 0 € | 7,312 € | $8,163 | ||||
| 227 | Mapping OER | 0 € | 0 € | 8,858 € | 37,746 € | 41,005 € | 29,296 € | 116,905 € | $130,503 | 101.44% | |||
| Total | 97,627 € | 163,984 € | 158,568 € | 182,074 € | 95,222 € | 96,377 € | 0 € | 0 € | 793,852 € | $886,193 | |||
| Administrative and Program Support Cost | Q1 expenditures | Q2 expenditures | Q3 expenditures | Q4 expenditures | |||||||||
| cost unit | line item | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | nonpersonnel-costs | personnel-costs | Cumulative | Cumulative in USD | Percentage spent do date | Explanation of variances from plan |
| Administration | |||||||||||||
| Board, ED, Operations, HR, IT | 159,170 € | 126,174 € | 204,027 € | 152,039 € | 132,725 € | 83,897 € | 858,032 € | $957,839 | 88.58% | ||||
| Expenses 2014, paid in 2015 | 32,634 € | - | - | - | - | - | 32,634 € | $36,430 | |||||
| Program Support | |||||||||||||
| Communication | 24,098 € | 43,444 € | 38,182 € | 39,411 € | 14,365 € | 36,184 € | 195,683 € | $218,445 | 75.70% | ||||
| Partnerships und Development | 2,900 € | 42,051 € | 2,298 € | 56,664 € | 726 € | 32,446 € | 137,085 € | $153,031 | 79.11% | ||||
| Event Management | - | 13,599 € | 5,065 € | 12,110 € | 2,028 € | 16,885 € | 49,687 € | $55,467 | 89.89% | ||||
| Total | 218,802 € | 225,268 € | 249,572 € | 260,224 € | 149,844 € | 169,412 € | 1,273,122 € | $1,421,213 | |||||
| REVENUES | |||||||||||||
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Cumulative | Cumulative in USD | Percentage spent do date | Explanation of variances from plan | ||||||
| Anticipated | |||||||||||||
| Donations | 2,150,000 € | 2,002,590 € | 124,499 € | - | 2,127,089 € | $2,374,513 | 98.93% | ||||||
| APG Grant | 840,000 € | 840,000 € | - | - | 840,000 € | $937,709 | 100.00% | ||||||
| Membership fees | 1,100,000 € | 598,776 € | 294,124 € | 122,596 € | 106,305 € | 1,121,801 € | $1,252,289 | 101.98% | |||||
| Contracts | 500,000 € | - | 106,473 € | 76,503 € | 182,976 € | $204,260 | 36.60% | ||||||
| Carry-over | 30,000 € | 30,000 € | - | - | 30,000 € | $33,490 | 100.00% | ||||||
| Other Revenues | 100,000 € | 42,328 € | 5,836 € | 11,537 € | 59,701 € | $66,645 | 59.70% | ||||||
| Fundraising lump sum | 150,000 € | 75,000 € | - | 75,000 € | 150,000 € | $167,448 | 100.00% | ||||||
| Wikimedia Conference | 100,000 € | - | 108,882 € | - | 108,882 € | $121,547 | 108.88% | ||||||
| Total | 4,970,000 € | 3,588,694 € | 639,814 € | 285,636 € | 106,305 € | 4,620,449 € | $5,157,902 | ||||||
| Wikimedia Fördergesellschaft | |||||||||||||
| REVENUES | |||||||||||||
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Cumulative | Cumulative in USD | Percentage spent do date | Explanation of variances from plan | ||||||
| Anticipated | |||||||||||||
| Donations within the Fundraising Agreement (carry-over 2014) | 6,602,173 € | 6,602,173 € | - | - | 6,602,173 € | $7,370,142 | 100.00% | ||||||
| Donations for WMDE (carry-over 2014) | 1,718,145 € | 1,718,145 € | - | - | 1,718,145 € | $1,918,001 | 100.00% | ||||||
| Donations within the Fundraising Agreement (first term 2015) | 1,340,832 € | 726,829 € | 336,608 € | - | 1,063,437 € | $1,187,137 | 79.31% | ||||||
| Donations for WMDE (first term 2015) | 434,852 € | 284,445 € | 124,499 € | - | 408,944 € | $456,513 | 94.04% | ||||||
| Donations within the Fundraising Agreement (second term 2015) | 7,629,463 € | - | - | 113,827 € | 113,827 € | $127,067 | 1.49% | ||||||
| Donations for WMDE (second term 2015) | 1,907,366 € | - | - | 28,421 € | 28,421 € | $31,727 | 1.49% | ||||||
| Interests | 20,000 € | 6,684 € | 1,164 € | - | 7,848 € | $8,761 | 39.24% | ||||||
| Total | 19,652,831 € | 9,338,276 € | 462,271 € | 142,248 € | 0€ | 9,942,795 € | $11,099,347 | ||||||
| EXPENDITURES | |||||||||||||
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Cumulative | Cumulative in USD | Percentage spent do date | Explanation of variances from plan | ||||||
| Anticipated | |||||||||||||
| Transfer of Donations to WMDE on January 1st | 1,718,145 € | 1,718,145 € | - | - | 1,718,145 € | $1,918,001 | 100.00% | ||||||
| Transfer of Donations to WMDE on September 1st | 434,852 € | 284,445 € | - | 124,499 € | 408,944 € | $456,513 | 94.04% | ||||||
| Transfer of Donations to WMF on January 1st | 4,862,173 € | 4,862,173 € | - | - | 4,862,173 € | $5,427,744 | 100.00% | ||||||
| Transfer of Donations to WMF on September 1st | 1,340,832 € | 726,829 € | 336,608 € | - | 1,063,437 € | $1,187,137 | 79.31% | ||||||
| Transfer of FDC funds to WMDE | 840,000 € | 840,000 € | - | - | 840,000 € | $937,709 | 100.00% | ||||||
| personnel-costs | 306,000 € | 46,969 € | 62,158 € | 29,715 € | 138,842 € | $154,992 | 45.37% | ||||||
| nonpersonnel-costs | 444,000 € | 59,248 € | 165,358 € | 13,735 € | 238,341 € | $266,065 | 53.68% | ||||||
| Lump Sum transfer to WMDE | 150,000 € | 75,000 € | - | 75,000 € | 150,000 € | $167,448 | 100.00% | ||||||
| Transfer of donations for WMDE 2016 | 1,927,366 € | - | - | 28,421 € | 28,421 € | $31,727 | 1.47% | ||||||
| Transfer of donations for WMF 2016 | 7,629,463 € | - | - | 113,827 € | 113,827 € | $127,067 | 1.49% | ||||||
| Total | 19,652,831 € | 8,612,809 € | 564,124 € | 385,197 € | 0€ | 9,562,130 € | $10,674,403 | ||||||