The Wikimedia Foundation has released the audit report for the fiscal year 2022–2023, prepared by its auditors,KPMG. You can read thefull report here and asummary on Diff. The main takeaways are slowed financial growth in line with targets, and record donations income. Here are some key figures.

• The Foundation took$180 million in total support and revenue (a new record and up $25 million on the previous year) versus total expenses of$169 million (up $23 million).
  • The Foundation missed their target for donations from Wikipedia fundraising banners, but were able to compensate for this with major gifts and other donation channels. Overall, donations revenue increased from $164.8 million in 2021–2022 to $168.9 million in 2022–2023, theDiff post said.
• Among expenses:
  • Salaries and benefits increased from $88 million to$101 million.
  • Awards and grants increased from $19 million to$24 million.
  • Hosting costs went up slightly from $2.7 million to$3.1 million.
• The Foundation's net assets grew by$16 million over the year prior, to$255 million at the end of the year.
  • This total does not include assets held by theWikimedia Endowment, currently valued at$119 million.

The table below shows the development of Wikimedia Foundation finances over the past ten years, as indicated by its audit reports. Annual support and revenue has more than tripled, expenses have more than quadrupled, and net assets at the end of the financial year (not including the Wikimedia Endowment, which is organizationally separate) have increased more than fivefold.

The Foundation also made a belatedcorrection to the Endowment figures published a few weeks ago (see previousSignpostcoverage). The table provided in late September had erroneously indicated financial years ending 30 June; in fact, the Foundationsaid, the figures provided related to fiscal years ending 31 December, in line with the Tides Foundation's accounting period. –NW1223,AK

A large backlog has developed atWP:Sockpuppet investigations, where there are dozens of cases pending inCategory:SPI cases awaiting review and, at one point prior to publication of this issue, over 140 cases awaiting administrative finalization inCategory:SPI cases awaiting archive.

Key to keeping this process running are the SPI clerks. Currently, only about a dozen are active. Clerks are an important part of alignment of English Wikipedia withWikimedia Foundation Access to Nonpublic Personal Data Policy, reviewing cases carefully for evidence and endorsing Checkuser use of tools that can reveal users' IP addresses and other private information. Such review and concurrence prior to use of the tools is important to maintain community trust inpseudonymity and integrity surrounding use of Checkuser tools.

From theSPI Clerks page, this is what the clerks actually do:

Clerks analyze behavior, make findings, and either impose or decline imposing sanctions.

Clerks help to ensure the smooth operation of SPI pages, cases and processes.

• Ensuring SPI cases and processes stay in good order, including obtaining reasonable and productive conduct by participants;
• Endorsing or declining CheckUser requests;
• Ensuring cases have proper evidence (especially for CheckUser requests) and requesting such evidence when not provided; and
• Assisting with housekeeping tasks, including closing, archiving, merging and formatting of cases.

Any user in good standing is considered qualified to apply atWikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks, and a talkpage discussion there (begun by thisSignpost contributor) has indicated interest in new applicants. Applicants go through a semi-formal training process; non-admin traineesusually show good experience and working knowledge of the community's policies and practices at the point they request traineeship, and clerking can be a step on the way to adminship for some. –B

If you want to run fora place on the Arbitration Committee you've got until this Tuesday, at 23:59UTC, November 21 to self-nominate in this year's election. Eight editors already have (in random order):Cabayi,ToBeFree,Sdrqaz,Z1720,Aoidh,HJ Mitchell,Maxim, andFirefly.

Qualifications include:

• a registered account with at least 500 mainspace edits before 1 November 2023,
• not blocked or banned,
• meets the Wikimedia Foundation'scriteria for access to non-public personal data, and willingness to sign the Foundation's non-public informationconfidentiality agreement, and
• all previous or alternate accounts are disclosed in your election statement, or privately declared to the Arbitration Committee (before the close of nominations).

There is one week after the end of the self-nomination period before voting begins on Tuesday, November 28. Editors may use this period to ask questions of the candidates.

You may vote fromTuesday 00:00, 28 November 2023 (UTC) untilMonday 23:59, 11 December 2023 (UTC) if you meet the following qualifications:

• have registered an account before October 1, 2023
• have made at least 150 mainspace edits and 10 live edits (in any namespace) before 1 November 2023 and,
• are not blocked from the English Wikipedia when you vote.

SeeWP:ACE2023 for further details. –S

Founded in 2009,WMNYC is currently looking to hire its founding Executive Director.

Their duties will include:

• local organizing, as well as coordinating with and sometimes leading wider Wikimedia initiatives on a national and international scale.
• implementing the Strategic Plan of the WMNYC Board of Directors and preparing detailedreports for WMNYC’s primary funder, the Wikimedia Foundation.
• building the chapter's community and coordination of fundraising campaigns.
• managing the operations of the Chapter, and
• a whole bunch of other stuff.

Remote workers are allowed. SeeWikimedia New York City/Jobs for further details. –S

Wikiconference North America 2023 was held from November 9 to 12, 2023 at theToronto Reference Library. Theprogram was interrupted on the morning of Saturday, November 11, when the library received abomb threat. According tolocal media, the threat was received at 8:44 A.M. and the building was placed in a hold-and-secure state thereafter while police searched the building. No explosive devices were found, and the hold-and-secure state was lifted by 11:45 A.M., allowing programming to resume following that point.

The bomb threat comes two weeks after theToronto Public Library system, of which the Toronto Reference Library is part, was hit with aransomware attack on October 27. The ransomware attack resulted in staffsocial insurance numbersbeing compromised, and has caused prolonged outages in many of the library's digital systems.

On another note, manyslide decks from conference's various presentations are available on Commons. –R

• Annual reports:Wikimedians of Kerala User Group,Yoruba Wikimedians User Group,Tyap Wikimedians User Group,WikiDonne User Group
• New user-groups: TheAffiliations Committee announced the approval of this month's newestWikimedia movement affiliates, theWikimédiens du Burkina Faso, theWikimedia Community Zambia and theWikimedistas de Ecuador.
• Milestones:Wikimedia Commons now containsover 100 million uploaded files(statistics).
• Articles for Improvement: This week'sArticle for Improvement isHuman-centered design, followed from 27 November bySports science. Please be bold in helping to improve this article!

• Happy 100 million files of Commons!--Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere!10:06, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• When is the Endowmemt expected to be out of Tides?Sandizer (talk)10:44, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• See alsothis informative Twitter thread about Wikiconference North America 2023 with photos and brief summaries of some of the talks. Regards,HaeB (talk)17:36, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Maybe somebody good with numbers can come up with how much of the funds are spent on Wikipedia each year and how much Wikipedians get to decide as to direction (Wikipedia is the financial elephant in the room as a fundraising tool), and a breakdown of where those funds go. Apparently many Wikiprojects or user groups need funds, if what I caught between a bomb threat and an Indian buffet in Toronto is accurate, although I don't know the details. When I heard that I thought that should be impossible, given the current state of donations, but, still don't know the details.Randy Kryn (talk)02:57, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• "Salaries and benefits increased from $88 million to $101 million" - but the real challenge is to find volunteers for over 140 (!) cases of possible sockpuppet-ing. Oh man. --Bernd.Brincken (talk)17:09, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]