"In honor of David's concerns, I have decided to make the title of my own talk at Wikimania 2008 "Free knowledge and human rights" and I will use this opportunity to speak out against censorship and other violations of human rights around the world, including examples from Egypt." --Jimbo
Jimbo, I belive you have adopted the best possible attitude towards the issue raised by David. It is not because the internet is censored in many places that we shouldn't try to improve it with wikimedia projects, and it's not because some countries denies main basic rights such as freedom of speech that their population shall be left aside with their difficult conditions. If it can be an opportunity to advocate human rights in the country, I applaude strongly. But if the wish to make the event in Egypt makes the organizers try to censor human rights talks in order not to get any trouble from the authorities, I say hell NO!
The Jury for Wikimania 2008 bids have met and are pleased to announce
that Wikimania 2008 will be held in Alexandria, Egypt.
The Bids were assessed by a Jury[0] which included community members
representing various geographical areas, and organisers of the previous
conferences. The Jury used 12 criteria[1] to judge the bids, which were
drawn up based on the Jury's previous experiences organising the
conference and with input from a wide range of community concerns.
Alexandria was found to be particularly strong in the areas of
reflecting the Wikimedia Foundation's roots in geo-diversity and
multi-lingualism, of the very exciting nature of the proposed venue
and its local facilities, and of the particularly advanced nature of
the financial planning.
All three Bids were very strong in differing ways, each with stronger
and weaker points. We would like to draw particular attention to the
efforts of the team behind the Atlanta bid, which came in second place
and was particularly commendable in the areas of providing in-facility
accommodation and social space, and for doing great outreach to local
Wikimedians. Their efforts could serve as an example to any team
hoping to get the local community involved. The Cape Town bid was
marked strongly by the Jury for cultural diversity, a particularly
benign local environment, and efforts to secure local recognition and
facilities. We'd especially like to congratulate Cape Town on
providing our very first strong bid from the Southern Hemisphere.
A table of the results is given below. Each member of the jury had up
to 60 points to allocate to the bids in each of the 12 categories,
which they did after a period of discussion and careful deliberation.
Category Alexandria Atlanta Cape Town
Accommodation 251 298 71
Funding 264 224 152
Location 294 154 182
Internet Access 204 263 133
Local Laws 155 253 222
Press 232 235 153
Organizing Team 244 206 163
Rotation 305 55 260
Social Areas 222 258 140
Cost 289 206 125
Venue 323 158 139
Visas 243 109 263
Total 3026 2419 2003
Note that a 13th category, on personal preference, was polled but is
not included as it had no significant effect on the result.
The Jury would like to thank all of those involved in bids, including
those whose bids did not go forward to the final selection, for their
efforts which combined to produce a competitive field.
We strongly encourage all those who bid this year, and those of you
wondering whether your city could have done the same, to consider
bidding for Wikimania 2009, for which the decision will begin very
shortly. See the Wikimania 2009 page on meta[2] for further updates
within the next few days.
We are especially looking forward to the Wikimedia Foundation
collaborating with one of the most famous repositories of knowledge in
the world, and emphasising the newly developing Wikimedia projects in
Africa and the Middle East. We would like to encourage the entire
community to support the Alexandria team over the coming year in
producing an outstanding conference, and look forward to meeting as
many of you as possible there.
On behalf of the Wikimania 2008 bid Jury.
[0] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Jury
Sue Gardner and Jan-Bart DeVreede abstained from voting.
[1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania 2008/Judging criteria
[2] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2009
--
James D. Forrister
Cary Bass
I'm too excited to write now indeed, so here's a quick mail :)
I just want to say thank you to all the people who supported this bid and
thanks to the jury for their choice which I believe was hard due to the 2
wonderful bids from Atlanta and Cape town.
We would like to give special thanks for Bibliotheca Alexandrina and its
head Dr. Ismail Serageldin and Dr. Noha Adly (ICT director) for the huge
support we received through the last year since WM 07 bid, and their
interest in helping out spreading free knowledge all over Egypt.
We're all happy here for this choice and we promise you a wonderful
Wikimania in Alexandria, don't miss it ;)
We'll very much appreciate all the possible help you can offer guys and
would like to thank all the people who offered to help since the
announcement was out! I'm overwhelmed indeed.
We're having a small meeting irl including the core bidding team after
tomrrow.
and we're having a grand meeting after Eid (end of Ramadan) here in Egypt
(between 22-25 Oct) more updates will follow on this, stay tuned for online
help details soon!
Thank you all again, and see you next Wikimania in Alexandria :)
Best regards,
Mohamed Ibrahim [[Mido]]
Lead coordinator for Wikimania 2008
On 10/9/07, Cary Bass <cbass(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> Majorly wrote:
> > On 09/10/2007, *Aude* <audevivere(a)gmail.com
> > <mailto:audevivere@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > >From what I've seen of the bid, I'm sure the organizers will do a
> > great job.
> >
> > Are any specific dates set for Wikimania 2008? Please let me know
> > ASAP so I can plan accordingly.
> >
> > -Aude
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimania-l mailing list
> > Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > <mailto:Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
> >
> >
> > 18-21 July
> >
> According to their page, the dates are estimated and subject to revision.
>
> --
>
> Cary Bass
> Volunteer Coordinator
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> Phone: 727.231.0101
> Fax: 727.258.0207
> E-Mail: cbass(a)wikimedia.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimania-l mailing list
> Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
>
--
- Arabic Wikipedia: http://ar.wikipedia.org/ "Share your knowledge"
>From what I've seen of the bid, I'm sure the organizers will do a great
job.
Are any specific dates set for Wikimania 2008? Please let me know ASAP so I
can plan accordingly.
-Aude
The Foundation needs to put a higher priority on numerical metrics,
and the database dumps from which they are derived.
We see the consequences of neglecting regular enwiki dumps in the
academic studies that come out about Wikipedia. The most recent
study, "<a href="http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~reid/papers/group282-priedhorsky.pdf">Creating,
Destroying, and Restoring Value in Wikipedia</a>", used year-old data
(the same dump used by the last several studies). This greatly limits
the relevance of the results, given how much English Wikipedia has
changed in the last year.
Erik Zachte hasn't been able to provide updated statistics for enwiki
since last October. Understanding the up-to-date structure of the
editing community, especially in conjunction with the increasingly
sophisticated analyses that computer scientists are producing, can be
a great asset for Wikimedians trying to manage the problems of scale
that projects are now facing. But without good, recent statistics, we
lose the opportunity to take full advantage of such research.
The fact that the study above relied on specially-requested log data
to calculate per-page view rates is even more troubling; article hit
counters are desperately needed. One benefit of hit counts, among
many, is to entice experts to edit by showing them just how many
people read the (possibly sub-par) articles related to their
expertise. Demonstrating the readership levels of important political
and public policy topics would also be helpful in grant application.
Greg Maxwell informs me that he has written a hit counting tool that
(unlike the standard MediaWiki counter) could be enabling without a
detrimental performance hit. I hope this can be implemented as soon
as possible.
Yours in discourse,
Sage (User:Ragesoss)
on iCommon:
Author: Rebecca Kahn, iCommons reporter (South Africa) ·
http://www.icommons.org/articles/afrikaans-wikipedia-a-tiny-giant
Insightful essay and good promotion of the project :)
While the essay is focus on Afrikaans Wikipedia, I believe many small
Wikipedia (specially significantly small comparing with its speaker
population) share the same problems.
Enjoy!
--
KIZU Naoko
Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
* habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *
Wikimedia's past fundraising campaigns have traditionally focused on
one simple message: "We are growing fast, and we need your help to
support our infrastructure." While enough funds were raised to support
Wikimedia's survival, this message is unlikely to arouse emotion or
passion among potential donors.
Even the appeal to "imagine a world in which every human being can
share in the sum of all knowledge" is, at its heart, factual and
generic; it does not tell stories of individuals, or describe deep
changes in people's lives. Such stories depend not just on facts, but
also on poetic writing and carefully chosen photographs or videos. It
is not enough for a potential donor to rationally understand that they
are supporting an important website. They must be emotionally
convinced that they have a moral obligation to contribute to a
world-changing mission.
Before one can tell stories, however, one must gather and write them.
We can identify the following sources of stories that are relevant to
fundraising efforts, ordered by the level of control the Foundation
can exercise over the messaging:
* Foundation-level programs
* Chapter-level programs
* Community experience
* Outside experience
The potential impact of new WMF and chapter programs on future
fundraising initiatives should at least be taken into consideration
during program planning. It makes sense to attempt to measure this, by
rating ongoing programs according to their impact on fundraising.
In addition to monitoring its own programs, the Foundation can reach
out to community members and readers using many different means:
* calling for readers to tell their stories through its website properties
* targeting community members through mailing lists and online forums
* specifically contacting donors through newsletters or one-time mailings
* contacting organizers of local meetups (whether these are tied to a
chapter or not)
* indirectly reaching out to motivated and curious contributors
through contests, events, and so on.
Stories, once collected, need to be organized. The most interesting
ones can then be developed by following up with individuals. In doing
so, one should attempt to develop a story along a traditional
narrative structure. In the most common storytelling pattern, a
protagonist is introduced to the audience and must overcome challenges
to reach a certain goal. Whenever possible, video, audio and pictures
should be gathered to supplement the narrative. If no directly
relevant media can be found, symbolic media can be used when correctly
labeled.
There are many resources providing detailed advice on storytelling for
non-profits, but I specifically recommend this 45 minute video of a
presentation by communications consultant Andy Goodman:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-289257716014946841
Goodman's publication "Storytelling as Best Practice" is worth
ordering as a brief introduction with a good bibliography:
http://www.agoodmanonline.com/publications/storytelling/index.html
Also take a look at the CBS "60 Minutes" video about the "One Laptop
Per Child" project and carefully watch for typical storytelling
techniques in the beginning:
http://olpc.com/videos.html
In its coming fundraisers, the Foundation has to tell its own stories:
of human beings who "share in the sum of all knowledge".
--
Toward Peace, Love & Progress:
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
For a while now, we've been releasing squid log data, stripped of
personally identifying information such as IP addresses, to groups at
two universities: Vrije Universiteit and the University of Minnesota. We
now have a request pending from a third group, at Universidad Rey Juan
Carlos in Spain. They are asking if they can have the full data stream
including IP addresses, and they are prepared to sign a confidentiality
agreement to get it.
I'm leaning towards letting them have it. Via the confidentiality
agreement, we can avoid the most likely abuse scenarios, such as release
of individual user profiles. Currently we let toolserver users process
similar data, assisted by Wikipedia administrators who put web bugs on
the site. They use it to produce the WikiCharts report. Are we to tell
prospective research groups to use the toolserver, rather than their own
substantial hardware, for analysis of Wikipedia traffic patterns?
I'm not sure if this would be allowed on the privacy policy, which does
mention statistics, but doesn't say who is making them. Maybe the use of
web bugs by administrators is already against the privacy policy. In any
case, I think the question would benefit from community discussion,
which is why I am posting it here.
-- Tim Starling
Folks,
This message is in regards to my recent posts about doing a Projects survey.
A member of our treatment group has taken ill, and will be unable to
continue with his work for the foreseeable future. Consequently, the rest of
us on the team must continue the work he began with his patients. As a
result my work load has increased dramatically. Therefore, at least for now,
I will not be able to follow through with any work on a survey. I still
believe very much in the value of such a survey for the future of the
various projects, and their relationships with their people. If someone else
would like to pick up the idea and move forward with it, that would be
wonderful. And, just as soon as my work settles down to its usual never-dull
roar, I would be happy to join the endeavor.
Be healthy,
Marc Riddell