Wikimedia Highlights, May 2014
Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for May 2014, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
Wikimedia Foundation highlights
12 new individual engagement grants
The Foundation's Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) support projects from individuals or small teams to organize, build, create, research or facilitate something that enhances the work of Wikimedia’s volunteers. The 12 winning grants from the first round of 2014 were announced on May 30.
Inviting anonymous editors to join the Wikipedia community
On the English, German, French, and Italian Wikipedias, the Foundation's Growth team conducted two experiments to test user interface changes for encouraging anonymous editors to create an account and join the community of registered users. In the first test, a recommendation to create an account was shown when the user clicks "edit", and in the second test, the invitation was displayed after the user saved an edit. Preliminary data strongly suggested a positive effect on new registrations.
Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) recommendations announced
In May, the nine-member Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) met for its face-to-face deliberations and published its recommendations to the WMF Board of Trustees on proposals from four organizations (three chapters and the Foundation) on how to spend Wikimedia donation money. The Board will make its decision on these recommendations by 1 July. The Advisory Group to the FDC also met in Frankfurt for their final meeting, to provide the Executive Director of the WMF with a recommendation on whether or not the FDC process (begun in 2012) should continue, and if so, what modifications should be made. They unanimously agreed to recommend to continue the process.
Data and Trends
Global unique visitors for April:
- 465 million (-6.00% compared with March; -9.92% compared with the previous year)
- (comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release May data later in June)
Page requests for May:
- 20.654 billion (-0.2% compared with April; -1.6% compared with the previous year)
- (Server log data, all Wikimedia Foundation content projects including mobile access, but excluding Wikidata and the Wikipedia main portal page.)
Active Registered Editors for April 2014 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month, excluding bots):
- 75,364 (-2.25% compared with March / -7.25% compared with the previous year)
- (Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects.
- Note: These numbers were recently adjusted to correct a bug involving IPV6 addresses.)
Report Card (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF projects):
Financials
 |
 |
(Financial information is only available through April 2014 at the time of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and Year-To-Date April 30, 2014.
| Revenue | 49,194,784 |
|---|---|
| Expenses: | |
| Engineering Group | 13,800,658 |
| Fundraising Group | 3,209,299 |
| Grantmaking Group | 1,472,907 |
| Programs Group | 1,493,168 |
| Grants | 4,066,472 |
| Governance Group | 725,565 |
| Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group | 3,256,914 |
| Finance/HR/Admin Group | 5,484,592 |
| Total Expenses | 33,509,575 |
| Total surplus | (15,685,209) |
| in US dollars |
- Revenue for the month of April is $8.24MM versus plan of $1.71MM, approximately $6.53MM or 383% over plan.
- Year-to-date revenue is $49.19MM versus plan of $46.76MM, approximately $2.43MM or 5% over plan.
- Expenses for the month of April is $3.19MM versus plan of $4.69MM, approximately $1.50MM or 32% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, FDC grants, and payment processing fees partially offset by higher legal fees, outside contract services, and travel expenses related to community convening events.
- Year-to-date expenses is $33.51MM versus plan of $41.06MM, approximately $7.55MM or 18% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, legal fees, payment processing fees, staff development expenses, grants and travel expenses partially offset by higher outside contract services.
- Cash and Investments - $55.6MM as of April 30, 2014.
Other highlights from the Wikimedia movement
Annual Wikimedia Hackathon in Zürich, Switzerland
From May 9-11, more than 150 developers, engineers, sysadmins, and technology enthusiasts gathered in Zürich for the annual European Wikimedia hackathon, organized by Wikimedia CH, the local Wikimedia chapter. Among many other topics of interest, participants focused on maps and geographical data, Flow (the new discussion system intended as replacement for wiki talk pages), and Wikidata.
"Wikidata Game": A fun new way to improve Wikidata
On May 20, Magnus Manske, a longtime Wikimedian and volunteers software developer, announced "Wikidata – The Game", a set of simple games, each asking the user to make a certain decision about Wikidata - for example, deciding whether two items describe the same topic, or whether an item describes a person or not. After two weeks, "643 players [had] made an astonishing 352,710 decisions through the game, many of which result in improving Wikidata directly".
Wiki Loves Earth goes international
Wiki Loves Earth is an international photography competition with the subject of natural heritage. Started in 2013 for the Ukraine by the local chapter, this year it extended to 14 countries, and attracted tens of thousands of submissions. Similar to Wiki Loves Monuments, juries will first determine national winners for each country, from which the global winners will be selected.
