User talk:MIskander-WMF

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Technical debt

Hi!

The WMF should hire more technical people to work on Phabricator tickets. Can we pause shiny new projects, and prioritize working on existing problems and technical debt instead? Any website that exists for literal decades(!) builds up technical debt over time, and it is good to focus on that once in a while. Polygnotus (talk) 23:41, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: I saw this message and wanted to respond as my teams look after core MediaWiki functionality. I agree, technical debt is important. It is why the organisation's annual plan treats sustaining our infrastructure as essential work. The Product and Technology teams dedicate a permanent, year-round priority to the maintenance, accessibility and operation of the wiki projects. Last year Foundation staff were able to resolve 1500 tasks opened by community members (see tech news). I can see on Phabricator you have been having issues with massmessage - a tool that is showing its age. The Content Transform team in our Product & tech dept can look into this further and will respond on the Phab ticket. (They are Content-Transform-Team on Phabricator.)  My colleague @ELappen (WMF): can help with your other question. SCherukuwada (WMF) (talk) 16:19, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I wouldn't go to the CEO of the WMF to get help for just my Phab ticket. I want to ask the WMF to hire more technical staff. I think that there is broad support for this wish. Resolving 1500 community-reported tasks in a year is a great step in the right direction, so let's scale that up. Polygnotus (talk) 17:33, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Organizational chart

Looking at the Wikimedia Foundation/Organizational chart, it appears to be outdated. Some of the people have left (e.g. User:GBordoy (WMF) and User:AParker (WMF) and User:GBasha-WMF) and others never had a WMF account created (e.g. User:BKurgat (WMF) and User:AEspinoza (WMF)). It also appear to be incomplete (en:Wikimedia Foundation claims a total of 700 staff + contractors). For the average Wikipedian it is really difficult to figure out which WMF-er to talk to about which topic. Would you be so kind to ask someone to update the chart? Which departments does the WMF have and how many people work in each? Thanks, Polygnotus (talk) 00:02, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Polygnotus: thanks for the flag on the org chart. In terms of your need to reach someone in particular at the Foundation, we’ve done work on the Foundation pages and processes to make it easier for community members to get connected to the right staffer. We actually want to take the burden off you of combing through an org chart to try to guess who the right person might be, and so have set up an entire triage system to support community questions and requests. If you visit the Contact us page (or click on the button in the top right corner of all Foundation pages here on Meta-wiki), you’ll see information about how to reach out to us. We’ll then triage your question, making sure to connect you with the right person within a few business days. This helps keep it more light-touch for you, and also ensures that the right person sees your message and replies.

In terms of the org chart page itself, I’ve added a disclaimer to the top of the page to clarify the cadence at which the page is updated, and added a pointer to Contact us. Our org chart is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather a directory of leadership, as well as public-facing and community-facing staff, to give some faces to the work. Product & Tech is a bit sparse currently as we’re working to get these new staff listing templates on mediawiki.org and start using them there–that is coming. However, as an overall approach, to respect staff privacy and in some cases to comply with local law, we are committing to listing people in these roles plus those who have requested to be listed. This helps us balance privacy and transparency, while our improved Contact us system ensures practical needs are met. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! Leaving a note on the org chart is a good idea. Which departments does the WMF have and roughly how many people (or FTE, if that is a better metric) work in each? Polygnotus (talk) 17:18, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

The departments are all listed both in the Foundation’s header on Meta (which appears on all official Foundation pages, for example this one)--you can click to drill down into the teams. Departments are also listed in the org chart page you’ve referenced. 57% of the organization’s headcount, as well as close to 50% of the organization’s budget, is dedicated to our Infrastructure Annual Plan goal, which is Product and Technology work; this reflects our growing investment in infrastructure year over year. That linked page has more information about headcount and budget dedicated to the other goals as well, in case you’re interested. I’ll also point you toward our recent Annual Plan update, which details the work and investments made in Q1 and Q2 of this fiscal year (July-December)--it gives lots of information about the Product and Technology work that’s happening now. ELappen (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF) Thank you! So if I understand you correctly the answer to my questions is that the WMF agrees with me and is moving in that direction. That is good news. Polygnotus (talk) 20:51, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus joining the conversation to say yes, we are all agreed on this priority. Thank you for reaching out. –MIskander-WMF (talk) 10:27, 26 March 2025 (UTC)