User:MKampurath (WMF)/sandbox/data glossary mockup1

This page collects definitions of essential and core metrics that teams in the Wikimedia Foundation use to guide tactical and strategic decisions. The sibling Data Dictionary page documents various data sources.

Essential Metric Criteria

These are a set of standards that every metric maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation in production should meet.

1. Essential metrics must be:
   1. trustable;
   2. accessible to decision makers;
   3. transparent towards those affected by the decisions made by the usage of the metrics;
2. Measurements of essential metrics must:
   1. be relevant for one or more of the following cases:
      1. frequent decision-making in situations where erroneous decisions can have department, Foundation, or Movement-level impact;
      2. frequent decision making about the Wikimedia Foundation's strategic direction;
      3. frequent monitoring of important operations.
   2. trustable;
   3. The definition and measuring, storage, use, and potential publishing of the metric and its measurement must meet relevant WMF policies and guidelines. More specifically: WMF's Privacy Policy, Data Collection Guidelines, Data Retention Guidelines, Data Publication Guidelines, and Human Rights Policy.

Please refer to the FAQ and more details to learn more about essential metrics.

Definitions for distinct categories of metrics

Core Metrics

A small, well-defined group of high-level metrics that are directly aligned to our product strategies. These metrics are broad enough to represent a strategic area of our work and are sensitive to the impacts of work we control. We use these metrics to hold ourselves accountable for progress in a strategic area. As our strategies evolve we should also modify our set of core metrics but care should be taken in order to maintain multi-year consistency.

Indicator Metrics

Low-level measures that help us understand a subset of our work. These are measures that are helpful for evaluating work within a KR or hypothesis but don't have the scope to independently indicate if our overall strategy is moving in the right direction

Movement Health Metrics

High-level measures that indicate the health of key areas of our operating environment. While we struggle to influence these directly and at scale, understanding them is crucial to our strategic success.

Subsidiary Metrics

These measures are below the level of Indicator metrics. They assist with monitoring and evaluation of the product feature but cannot define or indicate the success of the feature.

Core Metrics

Contributor metrics

Retained Editors

Out of the logged-in users who made at least one edit in the previous month, the number who also edited during the current month. This includes all edits (including edits to content, talk, and other namespaces) whether or not the edits have been reverted. |Unlike Wikistats, this metric includes edits to pages which were later deleted.

Financial metrics

Programmatic Ratio

The percentage of the budget spent on program expenses, called the Programmatic Ratio, is an important financial metric that we track. Each year, we set a target for our programmatic expense ratio is to align with nonprofit sector best practices.

Independent charity assessment organizations like Charity Navigator help establish these best practices. Charity Navigator sets its benchmark for highest-scoring nonprofits as exceeding >70% programmatic expenses. Charity Navigator provides the following explanation and formula to calculate this ratio:

"Charities exist to provide programs and services. They fulfill the expectations of givers when they allocate a good portion of their budgets toward their stated missions. While administration expenses are necessary for efficient charity operations, organizations that grossly underspend on their programs and services will most likely not have as strong an impact on their charitable missions. We calculate the nonprofit's average program expense percentage over its three most recent fiscal years and then assign a numeric score based on an established scale.

Average Program Expense Percentage = Average Program Expenses ÷ Average Total Expenses (When Calculating Using Form 990) = Average of Part IX line 25B ÷ Average of Part IX line 25A"

Data platform systems and infrastructure include the data lake, ingestion and processing pipelines, and production search and query services.