Review of NumFocus, many of its sponsored and associate projects they are not monitoring closely enough

Leah,

Every day for 25 years I have reviewed websites and groups using the Internet. I focus on global open standards to make the world more efficient. I am NOT asking for money.  Just taking a few hours to check your group internet footprints.  I have seen and reviewed many of your projects over the years. In depth.

I sent some money to SageMath a while ago, but it has not really made much progress.  I was reviewing math formats on the Internet today, saw SageMath and its connection to NumFocus.

I have reviewed hundreds of large projects on Github, and Python, astroPy and others are in that group.

In the 2021 YouTube video that you (Leah) did, 23 Million and $700,000 stood out.  And only a few ten thousand people impacted?

Physical conferences are expensive. There are many countries now and you help 20?  And a few ten thousand?  Even a few hundred thousand is small on the Internet with 5000 Million users.

( site:github.com “numfocus” ) has 123,000 entry points and you have not cleaned that up so that is a single clear effort, not thousands of fragments.

( site:youtube.com “numfocus” ) has only 5,000 entry points and you miss the largest and fastest growing community and educational opportunities.

YouTube PyData is current. But it is little apps, not national and international programs. A place for NumFocus people to post videos about what they are doing. Not a place for discussion, community, interactions, and for people worldwide to collaborate. Your PyData video on “Using LLMs to improve your Search Engine” has ZERO links to resources, background materials, groups.

( site:twitter.com “numfocus” ) has 1170 entry points and you are not managing that footprint. There is only 1 entry for ( site:x.com “numfocus” )

Minimize “cute” and concentrate on clear messages in all human and STEMC-FGOT (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics Computing – Finance Government Organizations Topics) quantitative areas.

( “numfocus” ) has 229,000 entry points and that is tiny, if you intend to have an impact on global STEMC, let alone FGOT.  There are about 2000 Million children now from 4 to 24. I call them “first time learners” and you are impacting them hardly at all. Python has great potential, but it is bloated and sprawling and requires too much memorization and searching to use. The AIs can be adapted to help, but the bigger groups are using unverifiable and untraceable methods.  More aimed at sprawling programming than solving the tens of thousands of outstanding global topics and opportunities.

My impression is you are trying to promote projects that were started some time ago and they were not really well organized and sustainable. Now you have a lot of people on staff and you are letting them each do their own thing.  You give money because you feel you ought to give money, but you are too narrow in countries. And, are not mapping the topics and what people are doing already.

Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation

You must also allow reject all when you show a cookie banner or privacy policy. Or a simple close button [x].

You ought to have a “contact us” form. It is more courteous and you can send a nice reply thanking people and giving them a copy of their message and context.

Your 1099 is not very open.  You can be proactive to say how all those many people listed under People/Staff are paid. And say what they are doing now, not in the past.

Your online Annual Report is also hiding, not showing.

Do not mark YouTube videos as “for children”.  You are the good guys and want them to bookmark and follow your work. Open the comments and use that for supporting the global user community. Train AIs to help monitor and record and summarize.  Post the lessons learned in a permanent location.

Richard K Collins

About: Richard K Collins

Director, The Internet Foundation Studying formation and optimized collaboration of global communities. Applying the Internet to solve global problems and build sustainable communities. Internet policies, standards and best practices.


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