So you want to run a top-10 web site? Now’s your chance…

We’re now hiring for a full-time system administrator to help monitor, maintain, and document the 400+ Linux/Unix servers that operate Wikipedia and its sister projects. This position will be based at our San Francisco headquarters, but will work closely with our remote staff and volunteers.

Currently, system administration tasks are spread over our other tech staff and volunteers, who have to split their time with software development, data center management, and network planning. A full-time system administrator will let us be more responsive to site issues when they happen, and more importantly be more proactive about planning for and averting problems before they affect the folks back home.

We’ve got operating systems to upgrade, configurations to document, software installations to automate, and a lot of service data that needs to be monitored and digested… if you think you’ve got the chops for it, send us your CV by the end of January!

Brion Vibber
CTO, Wikimedia Foundation

Earlier today the Foundation announced in a press release that Roger McNamee, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Elevation Partners (and a professional musician!) has joined the Wikimedia Advisory Board.  Roger’s been working with the Foundation since before our move to the bay area, both as an active supporter of Wikipedia and the Foundation’s project, and helping to introduce us to many new stakeholders and like-minded organizations.

Welcome, Roger!

Jay Walsh, Communications<

We’re very pleased to share news today that Mike Godwin, General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, has been appointed to the Board of Directors for the Student Press Law Center.

Mike was recognized for his media and internet law expertise in the appointment.  His resumé also includes a post as editor of The Daily Texan, the student newspaper at the University of Texas.

The Student Press Law Center is based in Washington DC.  They provide legal support and advice to student journalists and media outlets, and answer questions and concerns regarding freedom of speech, censorship, and First Amendment issues.  Mike joins other members that represent expertise in journalism, law, education, and non-profit management.

Congratulations, Mike!

Jay Walsh, Communications<

Today we’re very pleased to announce that Neeru Khosla will be joining the Wikimedia Advisory Board. Neeru is co-founder of CK-12, a non-profit based in Palo Alto, California which is pioneering the concept of “open source textbooks.”

The Advisory Board provides help and advice to the Wikimedia Foundation on a range of topics and issues, predominantly in the education, technology, philanthropic, and legal fields. Neeru will be adding to the broad range of experiences and skills reflected in the Board. Welcome, Neeru!

Jay Walsh, Communications

No, it’s not democracy on wheels… Mobile Asia Congress, or MAC, is the top annual fiesta for the GSM Association in (you guessed it) Asia. GSMA is a global trade group representing more than 750 mobile operators across 218 countries and territories-more than 86% of the world’s mobile phone connections.

I was honored to be invited to speak at a panel at MAC last month in Macau, China. You might be asking yourself why a busy guy like me would sit on a plane for 15 hours, surrounded by screaming babies, to fly half way around the world to talk to executives of the mobile communications industry. Well, it wasn’t for the frequent flier miles (though those were nice too). The Wikimedia Foundation is committed to spreading knowledge to more people in more ways. If you look at how people are connecting with information these days, mobile devices are becoming more and more important. In developing countries, a lack of infrastructure and internet access means mobile devices are sometimes the only way that people can access information online.

My panel was on Monetising the assets of mobile for a new Internet – location, charging and demographics. That may sound strange, seeing as we don’t charge anyone to use or edit Wikipedia or any of our other projects. However, all the terrific content on Wikipedia can add a lot of value to the mobile experience.
*    Imagine GPS-powered software automatically offering up Wikipedia content based on your trip to London or Tokyo
*    Or photo-recognition software providing the Wikipedia article based on your mobile-phone picture at the Golden Gate Bridge.

We’re exploring partnerships with prominent mobile carriers, device makers, application developers, etc., to make these kinds of dynamic experiences a reality. It’s all about giving people the most relevant knowledge, whenever and wherever they need it.

While I was in Asia, I also had the opportunity to visit dedicated Wikipedians in Hong Kong, Macau and Japan. We already have a chapter in Hong Kong, and Macau is on it’s way to forming one. The Japanese Wikipedians are thinking about starting up a chapter and I was able to help them out with some Dos and Dont’s (such as DO buy the Head of Business Development a round of Kirin; DON’T stop at one round). We’re excited to expand the Wikipedia presence in Asia, where it’s growing faster than monkeyweed on Miracle Grow (also known as Japanese knotweed).

It was a lot of fun to meet all the smart, committed people working to make Wikipedia bigger and better. Wikipedia is currently accessible by people in mainland China and it growing at a rapid rate due to all the Chinese speaking contributors from every corner of the world. Japanese Wikipedia is our sixth-biggest language, with more than 540,000 articles. I want to thank all the Wikipedians that took the time to meet with me: Jerry (Hong Kong); Agostinho and Albert (Macau); and, Shun, Kotaro, Kazuhiro, and Tomoaki (Japan).

Also, a special thanks to Simone Craig, Lisa West, Andy McGuire, and everyone at GSMA for making me part of their great event.

Kul Wadhwa, Business Development<

Admittedly, this is a year of growth and testing for the Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising team. We have 4 new members and the Annual Fundraiser is a new experience for all of us. In fact, I’m not sure how many fundraising projects have had this kind of reach (250+ million unique viewers in November).  This provides us with an amazing opportunity to test different pitches through our site notices. With the fundraiser reaching a huge audience, we knew we had a great chance to test different messages and see what works and what doesn’t.

We started the Annual Fundraiser on November 3rd with 4 site notices (the big banners across the top of every Wiki article). Our tech team worked to track each notice and each notice had a randomized 25% chance of displaying on any given article (on every Wikipedia, in localized languages, and in other other Wikimedia projects). In theory, every notice had the same number of views. You can see the 4 site notices here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2008/design_drafts.

Now, which notices do you think did the best? The results are surprising:

People love to click on the links with the thermometer…but less than 10% donated after clicking-though. However, it’s interesting to see the strength of the “Wikipedia is there when you need it — now it needs you” message. While it had significantly less clicks, nearly 17% of people donated after clicking on it.

What do you make of that? What other conclusions would you draw?

And what do you think our next test should be?

-Rand Montoya
Head of Community Giving<

Today, we are 11 days into the 2008 Annual Giving Campaign…it’s been quite an exciting experience. You’ve probably seen the site notices up on just about every Wiki-project page and almost every language. Our volunteers and tech team have worked overtime to get everything working. We’ve had an amazing response from the community (This page still stuns me and I spend far too much time refreshing it).

After 11 days last year, we had 10,599 donors who gave $289,091.08 in total.

After 11 days this year, we have 22,736 donors who have given $629,825.92 in total.

Those are some nice numbers and we’ll be working to make sure that they continue. But to see that type of progress reminds me of one of the things I’ve heard more often than anything else related to my work at Wikimedia was/is: “What? Wikipedia is a non-profit?”

People don’t seem to know yet how dependent the Wikimedia Foundation is on the goodwill of our community. This year, community gifts (donations of less than $10,000) are expected to make up nearly half of our $6 million budget. Part of our strategy this year is to emphasize our charitable status and make a case to our users that they can help us maintain and promote the free knowledge movement.

And, to date, they have. And that’s pretty exciting.

-Rand Montoya
Head of Community Giving

Today we are very pleased to announce the kick-off for the 2008 Annual Giving Campaign for the Wikimedia Foundation. For most Wikipedia users that means you’re now seeing a shiny banner at the top of every Wikipedia page – likewise for the other Wikimedia Foundation projects.

The campaign will run through January 15, 2009 – which will mark the eight birthday of Wikipedia. We’ve increased our goal this year to $6million USD – it’s ambitious, but with more resources to spread the word and help bring in donations, we’re confident we’ll get there and beyond.

To make things run smoothly we’ve rebuilt the entire front-end of the donation system at donate.wikimedia.org, and we’ve streamlined the Wikipedia donation banners. Live comments from donors return, and we’ve also added a series of standard ‘Support Wikipedia’ buttons. We’re also encouraging fans and users to remix the Wikipedia puzzle mark to show support in their own way.

For the podcasters or internet/traditional radio folks out there we’ve also produced a series of audio public service announcements in varying lengths, and in broadcast quality formats.

Last (but not least) we’ve created a form so anyone can share their stories about how Wikipedia has made their lives easier. This is the perfect time to reflect on the impact Wikipedia has had on your life – and you’ll help us build our understanding of how Wikipedia is being used by people every day. We’ll be sharing your stories here on the blog.

A huge thank-you to our ongoing and new donors – your donation will support global access to free knowledge, and a long, healthy future for Wikipedia.

Here’s to a successful campaign!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications

In December 2007, the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation formally decided to ask the Free Software Foundation, which administers the GNU Free Documentation License under which Wikipedia is distributed, to release a new version of the license which will allow Wikimedia to switch its content to the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license (CC-BY-SA). The underlying motivation of this change is that CC-BY-SA is an easier-to-use license granting the same essential freedoms as the GFDL. It is also more widely used by other educational projects, and switching the license would allow Wikimedia wikis to freely share content with those projects.

We’re very pleased that the Free Software Foundation has today released version 1.3 of the GNU Free Documentation License which implements this requested change. Next, the Wikimedia Foundation will organize a community wide referendum to decide whether existing GFDL wikis should be made availabe under the terms of the CC-BY-SA license.

We are deeply grateful to the Free Software Foundation for making this change. I’ve posted a more in-depth summary of what it means on the Wikimedia Foundation mailing list, and an energetic discussion on the topic has already begun. We will post more details on this topic soon.

See also:

• Free Software Foundation FAQ on the FDL 1.3 release
• Creative Commons blog entry on the FDL 1.3 by CC VP Mike Linksvayer
• Blog entry on the FDL 1.3 by Creative Commons founder Larry Lessig

Erik Möller
Deputy Director<

We’re very pleased to announce the release of our first Annual Report.  This report, which covers the 2007/2008 fiscal year, represents a big leap forward in helping our stakeholders, donors, and volunteers better understand the Foundation’s goals and objectives.

As you might expect, all photos and content (with the exception of trademarked logos) are CCBYSA, public domain (PD), or under the GFDL.  We worked with a local designer, Dustin York, to develop a report built on the Foundation’s current objectives: reach, participation, and quality.

We welcome your comments or suggestions.  It’s our first of many reports – and we look forward to building future versions with input from our volunteer and user community.

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications<