I agree with you analysis, and that we need to come up with some
definition of entities not being a chapter but in need of official
recognition and having some rights being formally regulated .
I would suggest we
1. come up with a name for these types of groups - "Friends of..",
"Associates of ..." or something like that.
2. start to look into in how to regulate the relation to these new
entities and how to control them. Actually I think Mike Godwins proposal
for a new Chapter agreement, while being overly controlling for a
chapter, would be appropriate as a start for a contract with these new
entities. Yearly renewal periods and regular reporting should be OK in
these cases..
Anders Wennersten
treasurer Wikimedia Sverige
Member of ChapCom
> Aside from the new chapters, right now the Board of Trustees is looking
> at what kinds of related groups we want to have relationships with.
> (What prompts this directly is the case of Wikimedia Brazil, which was
> approved to become a chapter last year, but whose organizers have since
> decided they did not want to proceed as a formal entity at this time.
> However, I want to ask about the general principle, not the specific
> case.) The basic question is, what can or should we do to encourage
> grassroots groups that want to support our mission, but may not fit into
> the chapters framework?
>
> There are various possibilities here. One example is interest groups
> that aren't tied to geography, the way the chapters are. I always cite
> the idea of an Association of Blind Wikipedians, who might wish to
> organize to promote work on accessibility issues. As with the Brazilian
> situation, informal groups could also fit local conditions better
> sometimes, or serve as a proto-chapter stage of development. Maybe
> there's a benefit in having an association with some durability and
> continuation, but without going to the effort of incorporation and
> formal agreements on trademarks and such. It could also make sense to
> have an organization form for a specific project and then disband after
> it is completed, such as with Wikimania (somebody can correct me if I'm
> wrong, but I understand the Gdansk team is planning something like this
> as distinct from Wikimedia Polska).
>
> Anyway, I would like to invite ideas and discussion on this. Is this
> something we should do? What kinds of models are people interested in?
> How should we appropriately recognize and work with volunteer-organized
> groups? And in all of this, how would we make it both distinct from and
> compatible with the current structure of chapter organizations?
>
> --Michael Snow
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Internal-l mailing list
> Internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-l
>
>
After an initial reference implementation in the English Wikipedia and
some bottom-up implementations in a number of projects, the licensing
update to the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License as the
primary text license, with GFDL as a secondary license with
limitations, has now been implemented in all previously GFDL-licensed
Wikimedia Foundation projects.
Wiki communities can now customize these texts further in accordance
with the implementation guidelines issued by the Wikimedia Foundation
at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Implementation
Importantly, this allows Wikimedia wiki communities to create their
own copy of the terms of use, with specific limitations on or
guidelines for attribution of externally imported CC-BY-SA content,
more detailed explanations for re-users, etc. The implementation
guidelines do allow significant flexibility, but we're hoping to
ensure baseline consistency across projects and languages, so please
do not deviate significantly from the guidelines. (If you feel the
guidelines are flawed, feel free to comment on the talk page on meta.)
If the messages have not been translated into your language yet, it is
appreciated to do this work through <translatewiki.net> so that it
doesn't have to be redundantly done for each Wikimedia project in that
language. As translatewiki.net translators know, localization changes
from there are rolled out regularly alongside normal code updates.
Thanks to our good friends there for helping with the process so far,
and thanks to all the translators.
The relevant user interface texts are MediaWiki system messages and
can be viewed and edited through the MediaWiki: namespace. They are:
[[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright]] for the site footer
[[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning]] for the editing page, above
the save/preview buttons
[[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-editpage-tos-summary]] for the editing page,
below the save/preview buttons.
For the more technical users, these changes were introduced to
MediaWiki in the following code revision:
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/52361>. They
live in the WikimediaMessages extension, which is only used by
Wikimedia Foundation wikis. These messages override standard system
messages, [[MediaWiki:Copyright]] and [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]].
[[MediaWiki:Edittools]] has sometimes been used to move this type of
licensing information below the buttons/summary; the newly introduced
[[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-editpage-tos-summary]] is meant to reflect this
need while allowing us to consistently update/review these messages.
Finally, a note on trademark recognition. Some projects have a little
trademark notice in the footers, others don't. This notice isn't
required (but helpful); we're working on standardized trademark usage
guidelines, and we'll probably add a link to the site footer to these
once they're finalized.
I'll be checking the wikis, and particularly [[m:Talk:Licensing
update]] and [[m:Talk:Licensing update/Implementation]] for comments,
but please let me know if there are any immediate issues.
Thanks,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020620.html
Unfortunately OGG Theora didn't make it as the default codec for the
HTML5 <video> element in the spec. Until one of the two major formats
(Theora and H264) is clearly the major format the HTML5 spec will not
specify a default codec for the <video> element.
-- Hay
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\ \/ \/ / | |/ / |_ / | '_ \ / _ \
\ /\ /| | <| |/ /| | | | | __/
\/ \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
.org
Year: 2009 Week: 27 Number: 110
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Michael Jackson Kills WP] - Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop", died
this week and nearly took Wikipedia down with him (as well as many
other websites). Wikimedia sites were unresponsive for a whole due to
the large number of page hits. The Michael Jackson article got nearly
6 *million* hits on June 26, more than the Main Page.
In the evening of the 2th July (UTC) Wikipedia&Co was virtually down
because of power outage of the European servers. The remaining servers
choked on the additional traffic routed to them.
http://stats.grok.se/en/200906/Michael_Jackson -- page hit statistics
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/current-events/ -- techblog
explanation of issues
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/News_of_Michael_Jackson's_death_overloads_Internet_sites_and_sparks_hoaxes -- wikinews
article
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/power-outage-in-wikimedias-european-s… -- wiki
down
[Usability] - the Usability team has released its first set of
usability improvement (the "acai" release) for testing. As of press
time, the new "vector" skin has been made available on all wikis for
users who select it from their preferences, please help test the new
features!
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/first-usability-release-is-coming-up-… -- blog
post
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Releases#Acai -- "acai" release
description
[Usability BIS] - one aspect is already live by default; the new
design of the search results. Just use the internal search and see.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Designs#Search_Results
=== Request for help ===
[Fundraising 2009] - the Wikimedia Foundation is preparing for its
next fundraiser and would like feedback from the community on some of
the pages it has developed so far. In addition to the creation of a
new survey that they would like comments on, the Foundation is also
trying to enhance the visibility of the donate button. The new buttons
will be placed on the skin and will be viewable on every page. There
are also several design proposals that need community input!
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/25/would-you-press-this-button/ --
blog post about it
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Donation_buttons_upgrade --
buttons
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Survey -- survey
=== Foundation ===
[Licensing] - The "licensing update" changes have now been rolled out
to all languages and projects, with the new license being featured in
the footer and new interface items to translate for your wiki.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/30/licensing-update-rolled-out-in-all-wik… -- blog
post
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2009-June/000959.html --
translation steps
http://tinyurl.com/LU-interface-trans -- betawiki trans interface
[Board election] - Once again an election for the board of trustees of
the Wikimedia Foundation is coming up. It is for 3 seats this time.
But before there can be elections there must be someone to vote for.
Submissions of candidacy are open between 6th and 20th July.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009
[New grant: Commons] - the Wikimedia Foundation was just awarded a
US$300,000 grant that will research problems with and design new
tools/fix current tools for uploading files to the global Wikimedia
image repository, the Wikimedia Commons.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/02/ford-foundation-awards-300k-grant-for-… -- blog
post
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Ford_Foundatio… -- press
release
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:WMF_Ford_Multimedia_Participation_… -- full grant
proposal
[Job: "Bookshelf"] - as a further development from the "Scribus
operator" volunteer position noted in Wikizine a few months ago, a new
job opening has been posted for project manager of the "Bookshelf"
project. The "Bookshelf" project strives to develop a slate of basic
educational materials (print, online and video) to attract new authors
and editors to Wikipedia.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Project_Manager_Bookshelf --
job opening
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_outreach/Get_involved --
volunteer position, scribus operator
=== Community ===
[David Rohde] - it turns out that Wikipedia, along with tons of other
media outlets, kept the kidnapping of journalist David Rohde out of
its article on him. This has caused a few Wikipedians and Wikipedia
critics to note this and either scream censorship or just point out
the fact that it was unsourced information that could help save
someone's life by erring on the side of caution.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/technology/internet/29wiki.html?ref=media --
nytimes article
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/06/29/was-wikipedia-correct-t… -- blog post about
censorship
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/29/2120257/Wikipedia-Censored-To-Protec… -- slashdot
discussion
[A reliable article?] - A new tool tries to help make scholars feel
better about using Wikipedia by telling how reliable an article seems
to be by using "wikibu-points". These points are based on statistical
criteria and represent only possibilities, the creators hope that
warnings will help people think to look at the discussion pages or
article history. Wikibu is only available on the German Wikipedia at
this time.
http://www.wikibu.ch/ -- site/tool
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2009-July/000833.html --
mailing list post
[EN Wikibooks] - is now using Meta's unified "user language" template.
It will enable greater collaboration on the textbooks that teach
foreign languages.
[enwp AFD] - An interesting AFD (deletion discussion) on the English
Wikipedia was recently closed -- it resulted in the deletion of 4077
articles, probably the most ever from a single AFD on enwp!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Anybot's_algae_articles -- deletion
discussion
=== Media ===
[No tourists] - an article by a New Zealand newspaper tells that
"references to gang violence and crime on Palmerston North's Wikipedia
page have seen overseas investors and professionals shy away from the
city"!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/2516472/Wikipedia-entries-slag-off-Palmer…
=== Stats ===
[bn.wp] - The Bengali Wikipedia (bn) has reached 20,000 articles.
http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/???????????_???????_?_?????????_?????_???????_…
-- 20,000th article
=== Other news ===
[Who owns transit schedules?] - Only marginally related but
interesting nevertheless, the subject of a recent battle has been
pretty simple: who owns the copyright to bus arrival times? Public
transportation agencies are trying to assert that they own the times
and stop people from making iPhone apps (and similar items) off of the
content, so that they can do it themselves and charge people. Not
very FOSS of them!
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090628/1419595382.shtml
[Wikizine@Foundation-l] - Wikizine will now be featured on
foundation-l too! Thanks to Milos for proposing it and the list
members for agreeing.
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation
[Firefox 3.5] - ... is finally out. This main stream browser supports
natively Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis, the media file formats our
projects are using.
http://www.mozilla.com/
=== Quote ===
"Programming languages are like cats. It is easier to get a new cat
than to get an old cat fixed." -- Douglas Crockford
//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Casey, Walter
Corrector(s): Alex
Thanks to: Rand, Steve Bennett, Brion, Domas, Nando, Erik, Belayet,
Naoko, Chad, Kul, Jay, Signpost, Adrignola, rainman-sr
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]].
Wikizine is a irregular publication as long as there is noteworthy
news (and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
and also the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
Hi,
I'm happy to tell you that I have just posted to the Foundation website,
the 2009-10 Annual Plan along with Questions and Answers. The
resolution in the plan was unanimously approved by the full board.
To give you some context, the previous plan covering 2008-09, was the
second official plan in the history of the Foundation and the first plan
to set revenue targets; targets that called for doubling revenue from
the previous year. We started building the 2008-09 plan just 15 weeks
after opening the San Francisco office. Our priority at that time was
to invest in revenue-generating staff while making small, essential
investments in technology and programmatic activity,
We have ended 2008-09 having surpassed our revenue goals and having
spent less than planned due to a conscientious reduction in spending
from October through January in response to the global economic uncertainty.
The 2009-10 year again increases revenue. Spending increases are
focused primarily in tech and other program spending including our key
initiative for 2009-10, the collaborative strategy development project.
Please take a look at the Annual Plan for more detail and information
at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports#2009-2010_fiscal_year
Veronique
The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking a term-limited (one year) full-time
Project Manager for its new "Bookshelf" Project (text below). Feel free
to share.
Link to WMF jobs:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Project_Manager_Bookshelf
Job Title: Project Manager
Employment Duration: August 2009 to September 2010.
Reports to: Head of Public Outreach
About the “Bookshelf Project”
In 2009–2010, the Wikimedia Foundation will be developing a slate of
basic educational materials –print, online and video– to attract new
authors and editors to Wikipedia. The collective set of these resources
is internally being called “The Bookshelf.”
As a collaborative project, Wikipedia's success is based on the steady
contributions of a global volunteer community of active contributors.
The more people share their knowledge with others, the better and more
diverse Wikipedia's content gets. We believe that raising and broadening
participation is one of the keys to improve Wikipedia's overall quality
and to eliminate cultural perspective gaps.
Currently, there are limited resources to attract new contributors and
to teach them how to get involved. Most of them lack consistency and are
often out of date. There are therefore still many basic educational
resources that need to be developed. These materials will teach people
about Wikipedia and how to edit Wikipedia; provide teachers with lesson
plans (to use Wikipedia in the classroom); provide volunteers and local
Wikimedia chapters with training resources to do their own outreach; and
to enable people to be skillful and responsible creators and producers
of encyclopedic content.
Job Summary
The Project Manager is responsible for successfully executing the
Bookshelf project: for ensuring high quality outputs are developed on
time and inside the project budget. The Project Manager will need a
prior demonstrated experience in managing a complex print and media
project, excellent communications skills, and a passion for doing
high-quality work. Part of this job will include actively moderating
volunteer and external expert discussions to help them be focused and
productive.
Responsibilities
* Create and get sign-off for the project plan, including
review-and-refine cycles
* Recruit and manage the dedicated project team and identify
suitable outside contractors for video production
* Plan and execute internal project communication (encompassing the
project team, senior management, other departments, external expert
groups, outside contractors and community stakeholders)
* Keep the project on track: on time and on budget
* Ensure all deliverables are of appropriate quality level, and
success measures are met or exceeded
Required Qualifications
* 5+ years of project management experience
* Ability to work in a highly collaborative, consensus-oriented,
highly-diverse environment
* Ability to work effectively within Wikimedia's values and
mission. Must be emotionally committed to free knowledge and willing to
attune oneself to the larger Wikimedia community's norms and expectations
* Passion for doing high-quality work
* Ability to work effectively with graphic designers, writers, and
outside contractors to ensure deadlines are met
* Experience prioritizing and creating accountability towards
critical milestones and deadlines
* Ability to assess and report project status, and escalating risks
to senior management
* Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability
to interpret and translate information to teams and individuals and to
report effectively to senior management
Preferred Qualifications
* Experience in education
* Experience with non-profit
* Prior demonstrated experience working in print and media production
* Experience working with translations and/or international clientele
Salary
The salary is in the range of $74,000 to $85,000, commensurate with
experience. Generous benefits are included.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a US-registered 501(c)(3)
tax-deductible non-profit charity dedicated to encouraging the growth,
development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to
providing the full content of wiki-based projects to the public free of
charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest
collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world, including
Wikipedia, one of the world's 10 most visited websites, Wiktionary,
Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikinews and the Wikimedia Commons
media repository. The organization has received numerous honors for its
work, among them the Webby Award, the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica,
the Japan Advertisers Association's Web Creation Award and the World
Technology Award in Communications Technology.
The Wikimedia Foundation was created in 2003 to manage the operation of
Wikipedia and its sister projects and is based in San Francisco,
California. It currently employs 27 staff members. Wikimedia is
supported by local chapter organizations in 21 countries or regions.
To Apply
Please send a CV and cover letter to jobs(at)wikimedia.org, before July
20, 2009. Please put the position title (Project Manager "Bookshelf") in
your subject line.
Applications that do not include a cover letter will not be considered.
This position will be filled in June 2009. In your cover letter, please
address:
* Why the Wikimedia Foundation would benefit from your skills at
this position
* What factors have been important to project success in your
previous experience
Please copy and paste the text of your CV into the e-mail, in addition
to attaching the file.
Due to the volume of applications we receive, we regret that only those
selected for an interview will be contacted.
This position is based in our San Francisco, CA. office.
Going forward, how does the Foundation plan to make large changes to the
software in full consultation with the community consensus?
Is the assumption that all of the members of the community who are
knowledgeable and interested have already signed up to the relevant mailing
lists and all that is needed is to send out a quick 'ping' and get their
thoughts?
What constitutes the community when it comes to the software?
Or is this just a guideline that has been on Jimbo's user page for many
years which is not really relevant since laymen should not really be
involved in technical decisions? Is there anyone at the Foundation who
currently takes this principle seriously? Honestly? What about the
developers - are they aware of and actively engaged in implementing this
principle?
Does the Foundation feel that it doesn't actually need to consult the
community? It can determine the technically best solution for the projects
and then implement it without soliciting feedback from as many people as
possible?
What would constitute due diligence in contacting the community? For
example, suppose that the Foundation had determined that there were 5 really
good solutions to a problem in the software and that they take full
consultation seriously. Could you then present those 5 solutions to the
community en masse using a survey, analyze the results and choose a winner
(or have a runoff?).
How large of a change to the software requires full consultation?
After consulting the community, does the Foundation feel it is within its
power to then choose something different?
Does the Foundation take the requirement that all changes to the software
must be gradual and reversible seriously, or not? What does that mean to
you?
Thanks,
Brian
All,
I'm very happy to announce that the Ford Foundation has awarded a
$300,000 grant to the Wikimedia Foundation to improve our interfaces
and workflows for multimedia uploading. Press release here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Ford_Foundatio…
For the first time we're also sharing a full grant proposal, with
permission of the Ford Foundation. You can find it here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f9/WMF_Ford_Multimedia_P…
It should give you a good idea about what we can do within the scope
of this project. As a brief recap, Michael Dale has already done some
good work on external repository searches and transfers, and
integration of uploading into the editing UI, so we're hoping to build
on top of this to really get the workflow for
licensing/upload/review/embedding of media files nailed.
We've also been having initial discussions with some of the Wikimedia
chapters about possible models for working together on the execution
of this. For example, we want to make sure that we can facilitate
fruitful face-to-face meetings with Commons practitioners, and there
is plenty of technical work to be done that can be decentralized and
shared. Exciting projects like Wikimedia Germany's investment in
multilingual search are already underway, so hopefully over the next
year, we'll see lots of useful activity culminating in genuine
improvements for Commons and beyond.
Big thanks to Sara Crouse and Naoko Komura for their work on this
grant proposal, and of course to the Ford Foundation for funding it.
:-) Wikimedia Commons deserves to grow to many more millions of free
educational media files, and hopefully this strategic investment will
help us to get there.
All best,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate