Wikimedia-l February 2013

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

148 participants
116 discussions

Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member

by Alice Wiegand

Hi everyone, as you know, we have one vacant appointed seat on the Board of Trustees. We have asked m/Oppenheim Associates to assist us in finding a new board member and and we are reaching out to the community for suggestions and nominations. The Board functions as a governance body that is ultimately responsible for the Wikimedia Foundation and its activities, supervises the disposition and solicitation of donations, and evaluates the organization’s Executive Director who leads all Foundation staff. As arguably the most influential and respected organization in the free knowledge movement, the Wikimedia Foundation and its Board have a great responsibility for setting policy deliberately and with due consideration for the diverse interests of a truly global community. To find out more about the responsibilities and workings of the board you can have a look at the Board manual<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_board_manual> . As with any search process we will be communicating with a lot of potential candidates to see if we are a good match. The Board’s objective is to use this search to strengthen its competence with regards to board governance, grantmaking, strategy, and expertise with regions where Wikimedia is trying to make rapid strides in the growth of our projects. Board terms are for a two year period. Compared to other boards the time commitment is very significant. The Board of Trustees meets four times a year, twice in San Francisco and twice in changing locations around the globe. Meetings take two days and travel can add another two days to each meeting. In addition, the Board communicates frequently by email and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) as it navigates policy issues. This can absorb 4-10 hours weekly. Board members also regularly engage with the Community through wiki pages. We think that the WMF would benefit from a Board member who has experience with organizations that have grown and evolved rapidly, and who understands how boards can evolve to provide appropriate governance support in these changing circumstances. Experience with international, community-driven, consensus organizations is also important as the Foundation would not exist without the community. We would like to call upon you to help us out with finding the right individual. A complete position description can be found here<http://moppenheim.com/searches/links/Wikimedia%20Foundation%20-%20Board%20M…>and additional information can be found at www.moppenheim.com and www.wikimediafoundation.org. Your suggestions and nominations are very welcome. Please feel free to reach out to your networks and distribute this note as you deem appropriate. Interested individuals should contact Lisa Grossman lisag(a)moppenheim.com -- Alice Wiegand Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

11 years, 3 months

Wikimedia UK - IRC Office Hours chat session reminder

by Stevie Benton

Hello everyone, This is a gentle reminder that the Wikimedia UK office will be hosting an IRC Office Hours chat tomorrow from 1730 GMT. Everyone is welcome. Some of the staff (and hopefully Trustees) of Wikimedia UK will be on hand to answer any questions you might have about recent activity. For full details, and information on how to join the chat, please visit this page on our wiki <http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours>. Thanks and regards, Stevie -- Stevie Benton Communications Organiser Wikimedia UK+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173 @StevieBenton Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*

11 years, 3 months

WCA - Meeting Report / WCA - Bericht

by Manuel Schneider

-------- Deutsche Version: siehe unten - german version: see below -------- A short report from the WCA meeting last weekend. This is a personal point of view and might not cover all aspects and details and might contain subjective views. There will be an official report by the chair and you can also read the minutes on Meta. * How to proceed with WCA after the Letter from the Board? WCA has its goals and ideas and we still stand for them. We accept the criticism made and are adjusting the organisation, just as we did before in Berlin and Washington when meeting with the chapters. The WCA has a working council which provides a value in itself, a forum to reach out to chapters, discuss and get things done. There has been a dilemma of expectations about the WCA. Accountability and Governance were topics WCA picked up first and received a lot of agreement from the WMF for this. A strong and secure framework was needed to provide a governance body and as such we tried to set WCA up. Narrowing focus was another point WCA took up and in further discussions with people - especially from WMF - there was a certain pressure to get WCA in place and take over the expectations. To the chapter it was clear that in order to deliver these we need to have support from experts who are not doing WCA as a volunteer, mostly beside chapter board positions. Therefore we put a lot of hope in hiring a Secretary General who would be able to execute many of these tasks the Council would have oversighted and initiated. Now this focus of the WCA on structures and staff has been the doom of WCA. The WMF board of trustees provided us with their input right in time, shortly before our planned meeting in London so we were able to pick this feedback up and adjust expectations and plans. We feel freed from some of the burden while we feel another pressure for activities. We will use the existing structures to execute our updated plans. Therefore there are no further plans for hiring a Secretary General, so we don't need to incorporate and don't need a budget. Instead we are focusing on smaller activities which can be done by the chapters themselves while WCA is their to communicate and coordinate, bringing together the right people. The resolustions about the position of the Secretary General and the incorporation in Geneva are still valid and will be implemented once there is a need for them. Alice and Jan-Baart, trustees from the WMF, have joined our meeting on Saturday and engaged in our discussions in a very good and constructive way. We could feel that there was a mutual understanding and agreement. * Communication Wikimedia has many communication channels and for WCA there are several facilities that have been used in the past. We agreed that we don't want our own mailinglist and that we want to communicate as public as possible. Therefore we will use whenever possible wikimedia-l. A special, moderated list wca-announce will be used to announce new things, mostly links to Meta. Working space has been and will stay Meta. There seems to be a misconception about having had a lot of discussions behind closed doors. There were actually discussions on the chapters list which is not public but used by all chapters, but most likely there was less communication then oustiders expect. The work and results have all been placed on Meta and there were phone conferences which have been openly announce and were open for everyone and their minutes are on Meta as well. The meeting in London was open to virtual attendees via video conference, all discussions have been documented live on Etherpad. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013… * Openess / Inclusion Open communication is inclusive by itself but we also discussed about membership in the WCA. Actually every chapter is a member who sends a council member and agrees to the basic principles of the Charta. The Charta has the same basic principles as the Wikimedia Movement as a whole, so any chapter should by definition agree to our Charta anyway. Basically a member is an organisation that actively participates in the activities of the WCA. The WCA is a body which provides a forum and services, done by its members. Any organisation - being a member or not - can make use of these services. This includes thematic organisations, user groups... whatever organisations have been accepted by the AffCom and the Board. Currently we have no experiences in working with other Wikimedia organisations than chapters and we are busy in serving these, getting our first results to become reality. Therefore we currently don't actively reach out to other entities, nevertheless they are open to participate in discussions and use our material and services. * Chair The WCA has a Chair and Vice Chair who have been elected in a democratic process during our physical meeting in Washington. While both of them a doing good work there is an issue that the Chairman is a disputed person and banned on English Wikipedia. This has reflected negatively on the WCA. It has been planned long before that we are going to have new elections of the Chair during the Wikimedia Conference in Milan, in April. There are now requests to the Chair to resign. The dilemma is here that we had a democratic process to elect the chair and that he is doing very good work. We accept the reputation issue and therefore had the plan for elections before the term officially ends. Anyway we can't accept that outside bodies try to impose their own rules on the WCA and try to overrule democratic processes by pushing for a new Chair. We are reacting on this by starting the election process this week already and publish a call for candidates while we stick to our initial plan to elect a new chair in Milano. There has been a different discussion on the same matter: Do we really want and need a Chair? Isn't it a too prolific position which makes it look like the chair is "the face" of the WCA while the chair mainly has a procedural function to make sure the Council works and achieve results? With the new layout of chapters implementing activities and different levels of participation in WCA based on the interest, needs and abilities of the chapters we thought about replacing the Chair by an Executive Committee, making it more clear that this is just a working body, nothing that deems to represent something. We are not yet clear about it as there is also the Charta we need to follow but we want to have this discussion now and maybe we can achieve a result in Milano in April. * Activities After a lot of thinking, collecting, clustering and discussing we came up with three areas for what WCA provides: Advice, Research and a Voice. Advice: Chapter helpig chapters, a FAQ, a Chapter's Exchange where chapters can post their offers and requests for help or support, best practices, peer reviews Research: listening, trying to find out what the chapters need, collecting historical information for a Wikimedia Yearbook, surveys, doing analysis Voice: offering point of contacts to chapters and Wikimedia committees, communicating results, participation in meetings and conferences, gathering the opinions of chapters for joint statements There is now a plan with concrete activities and responsibilities on Meta to start working in these areas. Expect first results in Milano and later in Hong Kong. This is just a start - more help, ideas and activities are welcome! http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association -> see infobox "Action Teams" * Conclusion: It was a very useful and constructive meeting. We have now a plan how we could proceed. It is important now that we can get as many chapters on board as possible. This means participation in the work but also in the decision-making. The WCA has to and wants to be built on the broadest basis possible. Regards, Manuel (User:80686) WCA Council Member for Wikimedia Österreich -------- Deutsch: -------- Ein kurzer Bericht über das Treffen der Wikimedia Chapters Association letztes Wochenende. Dies sind meine persönliche Eindrücke die nicht unbedingt alle Aspekte und Details beinhalten und auch subjektiv sein können. Ein offizieller Bericht vom Vorsitz folgt noch, ausserdem kann auf Meta das Protokoll nachgelesen werden. * Wie geht es mit der WCA nach dem Brief des WMF-Vorstandes weiter? Die WCA hat ihre Ziele und Ideen und hinter denen wir nach wie vor stehen. Wir nehmen die Kritik entgegen und nehmen Änderungen an der Organisation vor, wie es auch an den Treffen der Wikimedia-Vereine in Berlin und Washington getan wurde. Die WCA hat einen funkionierenden Rat der einen eigenen Wert darstellt, ein Forum um die Vereine zu erreichen, zu diskutieren und Dinge umzusetzen. Es gab ein Dilemma über die Erwartungen an die WCA. Accountability und Governance waren die Themen, die WCA aufgegriffen und dafür zuerst viel Zustimmung der WMF erhalten hat. Eine starke und sichere Grundlage wird benötigt um eine solche Überwachungs- und Prüffunktion zu übernehmen, und so haben wir versucht die WCA zu gestalten. "Narrowing Focus" war ein weiterer Punkt den WCA aufgenommen hat und in weitere Diskussionen - vorallem mit der WMF - wurde ein gewisser Druck ausgeübt diese Erwartungen zu erfüllen. Für die Vereine war es daher klar, dass man eine professionelle Person benötigt, die die entsprechende Unterstützung bietet die nicht als Ehrenamt - wie die WCA-Ratsmitglieder, die darüber hinaus meist auch noch Vorstandpositionen bkleiden - arbeitet. Daher lag die Hoffnung auf einem Generalsekretär der die Aufgaben, die der Rat beaufsichtigen und initiieren würde, ausführt. Nun wurde gerade diese Konzentration auf Strukturen und bezahlte Positionen der WCA zum Verhängnis. Der WMF-Vorstand hat uns zur rechten Zeit seine Meinung mitgeteilt, kurz vor unserem Treffen in London, so dass wir nun Gelegenheit hatten darauf zu reagieren und die Erwartungen und Pläne anzupassen. Wir fühlen uns von einigen Lasten befreit, gleichzeitig lastet ein neuer Druck auf uns Aktivitäten zu zeigen. Wir werden die bestehenden Strukturen nutzen um unseren neuen Pläne umzusetzen. Es gibt daher keine weiteren Pläne einen Generalsekretär einzustellen, daher werden derzeit weder die Eintragung als Organisation, noch ein Budget benötigt. Stattdessen konzentrieren wir uns auf kleinere Aktivitäten die von den Vereinen selbst durchgeführt werden können wobei die Rolle der WCA es ist zu kommunizieren, zu koordinieren und die richtigen Leute zusammenzubringen. Die bisherigen Resolutionen bezüglich der Position des Generalsekretärs und der Eintragung als Organisation in Genf bleiben gültig und werden umgesetzt, wenn die Notwendigkeit dafür besteht. Alice und Jan-Baart, Vorstandsmitglieder der WMF, nahmen am Samstag an unseren Diskussionen auf sehr gute und konstruktive Art teil. Gegenseitiges Verständnis und Zustimmung waren spürbar. * Kommunikation Es gibt vile Kommunikationskanäle in der Wikimedia-Bewegung und für die WCA wurden verschiedene Möglichkeiten genutzt. Wir haben uns darauf geeinigt keine eigenen Mailinglisten zu verwenden und so öffentlich wir möglich zu kommunizieren. Daher werden wir die Liste wikimedia-l verwenden. Eine spezielle, moderierte Liste wca-announce wird ausserdem auf neue Themen hinweisen, meistens Links auf Meta. Die Arbeitsplatform war Meta und wird es auch bleiben. Es scheint falsche Vorstellungen von geheimen Diskussionen hinter verschlossenen Türen zu geben. Es gab zwar Diskussionen auf der chapters Mailingliste die nicht öffentlich, aber von allen Vereinen gelesen wird, allerdings gab es wohl weniger Kommunikation als Aussenstehende es erwartet haben. Unsere Aktivitäten und deren Ergebnisse liegen alle auf Meta und die Telefonkonferenzen wurden öffentlich angekündigt, waren offen für jeden und sind ebenso auf Meta protokolliert. Das Treffen in London war per Videokonferenz offen für virtuelle Teilnehmer, die Gespräche wurden auf Etherpad live dokumentiert. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013… * Offenheit / Inklusion Die offene Kommunikation ist in sich bereits inklusiv, aber wir haben auch über die Mitgliedschaft bei der WCA gesprochen. Jeder Verein der ein Ratsmitglied entsendet und dem Grundprinzipien der Charte zustimmt ist ein Mitglied. Die Charta hat die selben Grundprinzipien wie die Wikimedia-Bewegung als solche, so dass jedes Chapter automatisch auch mit der Charta übereinstimmen müsste. Ein Mitglied ist daher in erste Linie eine Organisation die sich aktiv an den Aktivitäten der WCA beteiligt. Die WCA ist eine Körperschaft die ein Forum und Dienste anbietet, durch seine Mitglieder. Jede Organisation - ob Mitglied oder nicht - kann diese Dienste in Anspruch nehmen. Das beinhaltet auch thematische Organisationen, Benutzergruppen... welche Organisationen auch immer vom AffCom und WMF-Vorstand anerkannt wurden. Derzeit haben wir noch keine Erfahrungen in der Zusammenarbeit mit anderen Wikimedia-Organisationen ausser Chaptern und sind erst einmal damit beschäftigt diese zu bedienen und Ergebnisse zu erzielen. Daher werden wir momentan nicht aktiv auf andere Organisationen zugehen, trotzdem steht es ihnen offen an den Gesprächen teilzunehmen und unsere Materialien und Dienste zu nutzen. * Vorsitz Die WCA hat einen Vorsitzenden und stelvertretenden Vorsitzenden die durch einen demokratischen Prozess während des persönlichen Treffens in Washington gewählt wurden. Obwohl beide gute Arbeit leisten besteht das ein Problem, dass der Vorsitzende eine umstrittene Person ist und auf der englischsprachigen Wikipedia gesperrt wurde. Dies lässt die WCA in einem schlechten Licht erscheinen. Seit einiger Zeit besteht bereits der Plan den Vorsitz an der Wikimedia-Konferenz in Mailand im April neu zu wählen. Es gibt nun Forderungen an den Vorsitzenden zurückzutreten. Das Dilemma dabei ist, dass es einen demokratischen Prozess gab um den Vorsitzenden zu wählen und dass er sehr gute Arbeit leistet. Wir akzeptieren, dass dies Auswirkungen auf unsere Reputation hat und haben daher geplant, den Vorsitzenden vor Ende seiner Amtszeit auszutauschen. Allerdings können wir es nicht akzeptieren wenn nun externe Kräfte versuchen der WCA ihre eigenen Regeln aufzudrängen und den demokratischen Prozess versuchen zu übergehen indem sie einen neuen Vorsitzenden fordern. Wir begegnen dem so, dass wir die Vorbereitungen zur Wahl nun in dieser Woche schon beginnen und zur Kandidatensuche aufrufen. Die Wahl wird allerdings gemäss dem ursprünglichen Plan in Mailand stattfinden. Es gab weitere Diskussionen zu diesem Thema: Benötigen wir überhaupt einen Vorsitz? Ist dies nicht eine zu profilierte Position die es aussehen lässt, also ob der Vorsitzende "das Gesicht" der WCA wäre, während er eigentlich eine prozedurale Funktion hat und dafür sorgen soll, dass der Rat funktioniert und Ergebnisse erzielt? Mit dem neuen Konzept, bei dem die Vereine die Aktivitäten der WCA umsetzen und es verschiedene Grade der Beteiligung - je nach Interesse, Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit der Vereine - geben wird, dachten wir darüber nach den Vorsitz eventuell durch ein "Executive Committee" (Geschäftsführungsgremium) zu ersetzen, welches deutlich als Arbeitsgremium und nicht als Repräsentant zu erkennen ist. Wir sind uns noch nicht klar wie es genau aussehen soll da wir auch die Charta berücksichtigen müssen aber es wäre nun der richtige Zeitpunkt darüber zu sprechen um in Mailand etwas erreichen zu können. * Aktivitäten Nach langem Denken, Sammeln, Zusammenführen und Diskutieren haben wir das Angebot der WCA auf drei Themen spezifiziert: Unterstützung, Analyse und Stimme. Unterstützung: Vereine helfen Vereinen, Fragen und Antworten, eine Platform namens "Chapter's Exchange" wo Vereine ihre Angebote und Anfragen für Hilfe und Unterstützung veröffentlichen können, Best Practises, Peer Review Analyse: zuhören, herausfinden was die Vereine brauchen, historische Informationen für ein Wikimedia-Jahrbuch sammeln, Umfragen, Untersuchungen Stimme: Kontaktmöglichkeiten zu Vereinen und den Wikimedia-Ausschüssen bieten, Ergebnisse kommunizieren, Teilnahme an Treffen und Konferenzen, Meinungen der Vereine einholen und in gemeinsamen Aussagen veröffentlichen Es gibt nun einen Plan mit konkreten Aktivitäten und Verantwortlichkeuten auf Meta um in diesen Bereichen mit der Arbeit zu beginnen. Erste Ergebnisse kann man in Mailand und später in Hong Kong erwarten. Dies ist nur ein Start - um weitere Hilfe, Ideen und Aktivitäten wird gebeten. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association -> siehe Infobox: Action Teams * Abschluss Das Treffen war gut und konstruktiv. Wir haben einen Plan wie es weitergehen kann. Wichtig ist nun, dass sich möglichst viele dafür begeistern können. Dies bedeutet in erster Linie Mitarbeit, in der Konsequenz aber auch Mitbestimmung. Die WCA will und muss auf möglichst breiter Basis aufgebaut sein. Änderungen, Ergänzungen und Diskussionen erwünscht. Viele Grüsse, Manuel (Benutzer:80686) WCA-Ratsmitglied für Wikimedia Österreich -- Manuel Schneider Wikimedia Österreich - Gesellschaft zur Förderung freien Wissens www.wikimedia.at Mit freundlichen Grüssen, Manuel Schneider -- Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch

11 years, 3 months

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New proposal for a wiki Project!

by Kevin Behrens

Oh, yes please let’s switch to the discussion site! I am totally confused with all the emails and the Mailing list. 😉 Von: Gerard Meijssen Gesendet: ‎18‎. ‎Februar‎ ‎2013 ‎23‎:‎09 An: Wikimedia Mailing List Betreff: Re: [Wikimedia-l] New proposal for a wiki Project! Hoi, The one thing I am really interested in learning is how information about and content in a specific languages will be handled. Information about is likely to be in another language, consequently WHAT language. Content could be in something like Wikisource / Wikibooks. Thanks, Gerard On 18 February 2013 22:57, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On 18 February 2013 16:33, Kevin Behrens <kevin_behrens(a)hotmail.de> wrote: > > Hello! > > > > I have started a proposal for a new wiki project: WikiLang ( > meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiLang). It is about endangered languages and > >language documentation/decipherment. It is a very important step in order > to save our linguistic diversity which is ongoing faster than >the > extinction of animals. > > Why? Most of the languages in question have so little information > stored in them that even if we assume a total loss of that information > (which is unlikely) that downside will be massively outweighed by the > upside of easier communication between people. > > -- > geni > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

11 years, 3 months

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New proposal for a wiki Project!

by Kevin Behrens

Hello, thank you for your reply. I updated the text now and hope that some questions are answered now. 😉 Von: Thomas Goldammer Gesendet: ‎18‎. ‎Februar‎ ‎2013 ‎17‎:‎48 An: Wikimedia Mailing List Betreff: Re: [Wikimedia-l] New proposal for a wiki Project! Hi. Could you explain in more detail (on the wiki page you linked) what the content would look like and how it would differ from the Incubator wiki? For example, would original research be allowed? Best regards, Thomas. 2013/2/18 Kevin Behrens <kevin_behrens(a)hotmail.de>: > Hello! > > I have started a proposal for a new wiki project: WikiLang (meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiLang). It is about endangered languages and language documentation/decipherment. It is a very important step in order to save our linguistic diversity which is ongoing faster than the extinction of animals. Most of our languages are highly endangered and there are pessimistic estimations that by 2100 90% of them will be extinct. So, please support the project and vote for it and/or give your feedback! (I for myself belong to a language minority and I can tell how important this is.) Thanks a lot! > > Kevin > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

11 years, 3 months

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WCA - Meeting Report / WCA - Bericht

by Markus Glaser

Thanks, Manuel, for writing this report! The meeting was conducted in an open and very constructive way with many stakeholders at the table. I think we came to some good and tangible conclusions. The next few weeks will have to prove our plan works in practice. Just for the record:there was a minor mistake in your email concerning the Chair election timeline. We hope to have a decision until March 6th. Best, Markus Am 18.02.2013 13:43, schrieb Manuel Schneider: > -------- Deutsche Version: siehe unten - german version: see below -------- > > A short report from the WCA meeting last weekend. This is a personal > point of view and might not cover all aspects and details and might > contain subjective views. There will be an official report by the chair > and you can also read the minutes on Meta. > > * How to proceed with WCA after the Letter from the Board? > WCA has its goals and ideas and we still stand for them. We accept the > criticism made and are adjusting the organisation, just as we did before > in Berlin and Washington when meeting with the chapters. The WCA has a > working council which provides a value in itself, a forum to reach out > to chapters, discuss and get things done. > > There has been a dilemma of expectations about the WCA. Accountability > and Governance were topics WCA picked up first and received a lot of > agreement from the WMF for this. A strong and secure framework was > needed to provide a governance body and as such we tried to set WCA up. > Narrowing focus was another point WCA took up and in further discussions > with people - especially from WMF - there was a certain pressure to get > WCA in place and take over the expectations. To the chapter it was clear > that in order to deliver these we need to have support from experts who > are not doing WCA as a volunteer, mostly beside chapter board positions. > Therefore we put a lot of hope in hiring a Secretary General who would > be able to execute many of these tasks the Council would have > oversighted and initiated. Now this focus of the WCA on structures and > staff has been the doom of WCA. > > The WMF board of trustees provided us with their input right in time, > shortly before our planned meeting in London so we were able to pick > this feedback up and adjust expectations and plans. We feel freed from > some of the burden while we feel another pressure for activities. We > will use the existing structures to execute our updated plans. > > Therefore there are no further plans for hiring a Secretary General, so > we don't need to incorporate and don't need a budget. Instead we are > focusing on smaller activities which can be done by the chapters > themselves while WCA is their to communicate and coordinate, bringing > together the right people. The resolustions about the position of the > Secretary General and the incorporation in Geneva are still valid and > will be implemented once there is a need for them. > > Alice and Jan-Baart, trustees from the WMF, have joined our meeting on > Saturday and engaged in our discussions in a very good and constructive > way. We could feel that there was a mutual understanding and agreement. > > * Communication > Wikimedia has many communication channels and for WCA there are several > facilities that have been used in the past. We agreed that we don't want > our own mailinglist and that we want to communicate as public as > possible. Therefore we will use whenever possible wikimedia-l. A > special, moderated list wca-announce will be used to announce new > things, mostly links to Meta. > > Working space has been and will stay Meta. > > There seems to be a misconception about having had a lot of discussions > behind closed doors. There were actually discussions on the chapters > list which is not public but used by all chapters, but most likely there > was less communication then oustiders expect. The work and results have > all been placed on Meta and there were phone conferences which have been > openly announce and were open for everyone and their minutes are on Meta > as well. The meeting in London was open to virtual attendees via video > conference, all discussions have been documented live on Etherpad. > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013… > > * Openess / Inclusion > Open communication is inclusive by itself but we also discussed about > membership in the WCA. Actually every chapter is a member who sends a > council member and agrees to the basic principles of the Charta. The > Charta has the same basic principles as the Wikimedia Movement as a > whole, so any chapter should by definition agree to our Charta anyway. > > Basically a member is an organisation that actively participates in the > activities of the WCA. The WCA is a body which provides a forum and > services, done by its members. Any organisation - being a member or not > - can make use of these services. This includes thematic organisations, > user groups... whatever organisations have been accepted by the AffCom > and the Board. > > Currently we have no experiences in working with other Wikimedia > organisations than chapters and we are busy in serving these, getting > our first results to become reality. Therefore we currently don't > actively reach out to other entities, nevertheless they are open to > participate in discussions and use our material and services. > > * Chair > The WCA has a Chair and Vice Chair who have been elected in a democratic > process during our physical meeting in Washington. While both of them a > doing good work there is an issue that the Chairman is a disputed person > and banned on English Wikipedia. This has reflected negatively on the > WCA. It has been planned long before that we are going to have new > elections of the Chair during the Wikimedia Conference in Milan, in April. > > There are now requests to the Chair to resign. The dilemma is here that > we had a democratic process to elect the chair and that he is doing very > good work. We accept the reputation issue and therefore had the plan for > elections before the term officially ends. Anyway we can't accept that > outside bodies try to impose their own rules on the WCA and try to > overrule democratic processes by pushing for a new Chair. We are > reacting on this by starting the election process this week already and > publish a call for candidates while we stick to our initial plan to > elect a new chair in Milano. > > There has been a different discussion on the same matter: Do we really > want and need a Chair? Isn't it a too prolific position which makes it > look like the chair is "the face" of the WCA while the chair mainly has > a procedural function to make sure the Council works and achieve results? > > With the new layout of chapters implementing activities and different > levels of participation in WCA based on the interest, needs and > abilities of the chapters we thought about replacing the Chair by an > Executive Committee, making it more clear that this is just a working > body, nothing that deems to represent something. We are not yet clear > about it as there is also the Charta we need to follow but we want to > have this discussion now and maybe we can achieve a result in Milano in > April. > > * Activities > After a lot of thinking, collecting, clustering and discussing we came > up with three areas for what WCA provides: Advice, Research and a Voice. > > Advice: Chapter helpig chapters, a FAQ, a Chapter's Exchange where > chapters can post their offers and requests for help or support, best > practices, peer reviews > > Research: listening, trying to find out what the chapters need, > collecting historical information for a Wikimedia Yearbook, surveys, > doing analysis > > Voice: offering point of contacts to chapters and Wikimedia committees, > communicating results, participation in meetings and conferences, > gathering the opinions of chapters for joint statements > > There is now a plan with concrete activities and responsibilities on > Meta to start working in these areas. Expect first results in Milano and > later in Hong Kong. This is just a start - more help, ideas and > activities are welcome! > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association -> see > infobox "Action Teams" > > * Conclusion: > It was a very useful and constructive meeting. We have now a plan how we > could proceed. It is important now that we can get as many chapters on > board as possible. This means participation in the work but also in the > decision-making. The WCA has to and wants to be built on the broadest > basis possible. > > Regards, > > > Manuel (User:80686) > WCA Council Member for Wikimedia Österreich > > > -------- Deutsch: -------- > Ein kurzer Bericht über das Treffen der Wikimedia Chapters Association > letztes Wochenende. Dies sind meine persönliche Eindrücke die nicht > unbedingt alle Aspekte und Details beinhalten und auch subjektiv sein > können. Ein offizieller Bericht vom Vorsitz folgt noch, ausserdem kann > auf Meta das Protokoll nachgelesen werden. > > * Wie geht es mit der WCA nach dem Brief des WMF-Vorstandes weiter? > Die WCA hat ihre Ziele und Ideen und hinter denen wir nach wie vor > stehen. Wir nehmen die Kritik entgegen und nehmen Änderungen an der > Organisation vor, wie es auch an den Treffen der Wikimedia-Vereine in > Berlin und Washington getan wurde. Die WCA hat einen funkionierenden Rat > der einen eigenen Wert darstellt, ein Forum um die Vereine zu erreichen, > zu diskutieren und Dinge umzusetzen. > > Es gab ein Dilemma über die Erwartungen an die WCA. Accountability und > Governance waren die Themen, die WCA aufgegriffen und dafür zuerst viel > Zustimmung der WMF erhalten hat. Eine starke und sichere Grundlage wird > benötigt um eine solche Überwachungs- und Prüffunktion zu übernehmen, > und so haben wir versucht die WCA zu gestalten. "Narrowing Focus" war > ein weiterer Punkt den WCA aufgenommen hat und in weitere Diskussionen - > vorallem mit der WMF - wurde ein gewisser Druck ausgeübt diese > Erwartungen zu erfüllen. Für die Vereine war es daher klar, dass man > eine professionelle Person benötigt, die die entsprechende Unterstützung > bietet die nicht als Ehrenamt - wie die WCA-Ratsmitglieder, die darüber > hinaus meist auch noch Vorstandpositionen bkleiden - arbeitet. Daher lag > die Hoffnung auf einem Generalsekretär der die Aufgaben, die der Rat > beaufsichtigen und initiieren würde, ausführt. Nun wurde gerade diese > Konzentration auf Strukturen und bezahlte Positionen der WCA zum Verhängnis. > > Der WMF-Vorstand hat uns zur rechten Zeit seine Meinung mitgeteilt, kurz > vor unserem Treffen in London, so dass wir nun Gelegenheit hatten darauf > zu reagieren und die Erwartungen und Pläne anzupassen. Wir fühlen uns > von einigen Lasten befreit, gleichzeitig lastet ein neuer Druck auf uns > Aktivitäten zu zeigen. Wir werden die bestehenden Strukturen nutzen um > unseren neuen Pläne umzusetzen. > > Es gibt daher keine weiteren Pläne einen Generalsekretär einzustellen, > daher werden derzeit weder die Eintragung als Organisation, noch ein > Budget benötigt. Stattdessen konzentrieren wir uns auf kleinere > Aktivitäten die von den Vereinen selbst durchgeführt werden können wobei > die Rolle der WCA es ist zu kommunizieren, zu koordinieren und die > richtigen Leute zusammenzubringen. Die bisherigen Resolutionen bezüglich > der Position des Generalsekretärs und der Eintragung als Organisation in > Genf bleiben gültig und werden umgesetzt, wenn die Notwendigkeit dafür > besteht. > > Alice und Jan-Baart, Vorstandsmitglieder der WMF, nahmen am Samstag an > unseren Diskussionen auf sehr gute und konstruktive Art teil. > Gegenseitiges Verständnis und Zustimmung waren spürbar. > > * Kommunikation > Es gibt vile Kommunikationskanäle in der Wikimedia-Bewegung und für die > WCA wurden verschiedene Möglichkeiten genutzt. Wir haben uns darauf > geeinigt keine eigenen Mailinglisten zu verwenden und so öffentlich wir > möglich zu kommunizieren. Daher werden wir die Liste wikimedia-l > verwenden. Eine spezielle, moderierte Liste wca-announce wird ausserdem > auf neue Themen hinweisen, meistens Links auf Meta. > > Die Arbeitsplatform war Meta und wird es auch bleiben. > > Es scheint falsche Vorstellungen von geheimen Diskussionen hinter > verschlossenen Türen zu geben. Es gab zwar Diskussionen auf der chapters > Mailingliste die nicht öffentlich, aber von allen Vereinen gelesen wird, > allerdings gab es wohl weniger Kommunikation als Aussenstehende es > erwartet haben. Unsere Aktivitäten und deren Ergebnisse liegen alle auf > Meta und die Telefonkonferenzen wurden öffentlich angekündigt, waren > offen für jeden und sind ebenso auf Meta protokolliert. Das Treffen in > London war per Videokonferenz offen für virtuelle Teilnehmer, die > Gespräche wurden auf Etherpad live dokumentiert. > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013… > > * Offenheit / Inklusion > Die offene Kommunikation ist in sich bereits inklusiv, aber wir haben > auch über die Mitgliedschaft bei der WCA gesprochen. Jeder Verein der > ein Ratsmitglied entsendet und dem Grundprinzipien der Charte zustimmt > ist ein Mitglied. Die Charta hat die selben Grundprinzipien wie die > Wikimedia-Bewegung als solche, so dass jedes Chapter automatisch auch > mit der Charta übereinstimmen müsste. > > Ein Mitglied ist daher in erste Linie eine Organisation die sich aktiv > an den Aktivitäten der WCA beteiligt. Die WCA ist eine Körperschaft die > ein Forum und Dienste anbietet, durch seine Mitglieder. Jede > Organisation - ob Mitglied oder nicht - kann diese Dienste in Anspruch > nehmen. Das beinhaltet auch thematische Organisationen, > Benutzergruppen... welche Organisationen auch immer vom AffCom und > WMF-Vorstand anerkannt wurden. > > Derzeit haben wir noch keine Erfahrungen in der Zusammenarbeit mit > anderen Wikimedia-Organisationen ausser Chaptern und sind erst einmal > damit beschäftigt diese zu bedienen und Ergebnisse zu erzielen. Daher > werden wir momentan nicht aktiv auf andere Organisationen zugehen, > trotzdem steht es ihnen offen an den Gesprächen teilzunehmen und unsere > Materialien und Dienste zu nutzen. > > * Vorsitz > Die WCA hat einen Vorsitzenden und stelvertretenden Vorsitzenden die > durch einen demokratischen Prozess während des persönlichen Treffens in > Washington gewählt wurden. Obwohl beide gute Arbeit leisten besteht das > ein Problem, dass der Vorsitzende eine umstrittene Person ist und auf > der englischsprachigen Wikipedia gesperrt wurde. Dies lässt die WCA in > einem schlechten Licht erscheinen. Seit einiger Zeit besteht bereits der > Plan den Vorsitz an der Wikimedia-Konferenz in Mailand im April neu zu > wählen. > > Es gibt nun Forderungen an den Vorsitzenden zurückzutreten. Das Dilemma > dabei ist, dass es einen demokratischen Prozess gab um den Vorsitzenden > zu wählen und dass er sehr gute Arbeit leistet. Wir akzeptieren, dass > dies Auswirkungen auf unsere Reputation hat und haben daher geplant, den > Vorsitzenden vor Ende seiner Amtszeit auszutauschen. Allerdings können > wir es nicht akzeptieren wenn nun externe Kräfte versuchen der WCA ihre > eigenen Regeln aufzudrängen und den demokratischen Prozess versuchen zu > übergehen indem sie einen neuen Vorsitzenden fordern. Wir begegnen dem > so, dass wir die Vorbereitungen zur Wahl nun in dieser Woche schon > beginnen und zur Kandidatensuche aufrufen. Die Wahl wird allerdings > gemäss dem ursprünglichen Plan in Mailand stattfinden. > > Es gab weitere Diskussionen zu diesem Thema: Benötigen wir überhaupt > einen Vorsitz? Ist dies nicht eine zu profilierte Position die es > aussehen lässt, also ob der Vorsitzende "das Gesicht" der WCA wäre, > während er eigentlich eine prozedurale Funktion hat und dafür sorgen > soll, dass der Rat funktioniert und Ergebnisse erzielt? > > Mit dem neuen Konzept, bei dem die Vereine die Aktivitäten der WCA > umsetzen und es verschiedene Grade der Beteiligung - je nach Interesse, > Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit der Vereine - geben wird, dachten wir > darüber nach den Vorsitz eventuell durch ein "Executive Committee" > (Geschäftsführungsgremium) zu ersetzen, welches deutlich als > Arbeitsgremium und nicht als Repräsentant zu erkennen ist. Wir sind uns > noch nicht klar wie es genau aussehen soll da wir auch die Charta > berücksichtigen müssen aber es wäre nun der richtige Zeitpunkt darüber > zu sprechen um in Mailand etwas erreichen zu können. > > * Aktivitäten > Nach langem Denken, Sammeln, Zusammenführen und Diskutieren haben wir > das Angebot der WCA auf drei Themen spezifiziert: Unterstützung, Analyse > und Stimme. > > Unterstützung: Vereine helfen Vereinen, Fragen und Antworten, eine > Platform namens "Chapter's Exchange" wo Vereine ihre Angebote und > Anfragen für Hilfe und Unterstützung veröffentlichen können, Best > Practises, Peer Review > > Analyse: zuhören, herausfinden was die Vereine brauchen, historische > Informationen für ein Wikimedia-Jahrbuch sammeln, Umfragen, Untersuchungen > > Stimme: Kontaktmöglichkeiten zu Vereinen und den Wikimedia-Ausschüssen > bieten, Ergebnisse kommunizieren, Teilnahme an Treffen und Konferenzen, > Meinungen der Vereine einholen und in gemeinsamen Aussagen veröffentlichen > > Es gibt nun einen Plan mit konkreten Aktivitäten und > Verantwortlichkeuten auf Meta um in diesen Bereichen mit der Arbeit zu > beginnen. Erste Ergebnisse kann man in Mailand und später in Hong Kong > erwarten. Dies ist nur ein Start - um weitere Hilfe, Ideen und > Aktivitäten wird gebeten. > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association -> siehe > Infobox: Action Teams > > * Abschluss > Das Treffen war gut und konstruktiv. Wir haben einen Plan wie es > weitergehen kann. Wichtig ist nun, dass sich möglichst viele dafür > begeistern können. Dies bedeutet in erster Linie Mitarbeit, in der > Konsequenz aber auch Mitbestimmung. Die WCA will und muss auf möglichst > breiter Basis aufgebaut sein. > > > Änderungen, Ergänzungen und Diskussionen erwünscht. > > Viele Grüsse, > > > Manuel (Benutzer:80686) > WCA-Ratsmitglied für Wikimedia Österreich -- Markus Glaser WCA Council Member (WMDE) Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.

11 years, 3 months

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member

by James Salsman

Samuel Klein wrote: > >... The person we find this time will also be through our community > and advisor networks.... Will there be an opportunity for the community to pose questions to finalists, the answers to which the Board might be able to evaluate in making a final decision?

11 years, 3 months

[Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Report, January 2013

by Tilman Bayer

Hi all, please find below the WMF report for January 2013, in plain text. As always, the editable and formatted version has been published on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_January_2013 and the reports are being posted on the Wikimedia blog, too: https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/ As usual, we are also publishing a separate "Highlights" summary. Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay updated, by providing a translation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_January_2013 Many thanks to those who have translated the December "Highlights" into Arabic, Bulgarian, Breton, Danish, German, Spanish, Indonesian, Mongolian, and Simplified Chinese (and partially into some other languages)! While still focussing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement. Suggestions for the January issue are welcome until March 6 at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights . Regards, Tilman -- Wikimedia Foundation Report, January 2013 <Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_February_7,…> Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting covering the month of January <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-02-07> (February 7, 2013) Contents * 1 Data and Trends * 2 Financials * 3 Highlights o 3.1 New program offers financial support for projects by individual Wikimedians o 3.2 Successful migration to new data center o 3.3 New partnership grows the reach of Wikipedia Zero to 330 million mobile users o 3.4 Wikivoyage becomes newest Wikimedia project * 4 Engineering o 4.1 VisualEditor o 4.2 Editor engagement o 4.3 Mobile * 5 Fundraising o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations o 5.2 Annual Fundraiser * 6 Grantmaking and Programs o 6.1 Grantmaking o 6.2 Strategic Goals Metrics + 6.2.1 Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) + 6.2.2 WMF Grants Program # 6.2.2.1 Grants approved in January 2013 # 6.2.2.2 Reports accepted in January 2013 + 6.2.3 Participation Support requests approved in January 2013 + 6.2.4 Individual Engagement Grants + 6.2.5 Fellowships + 6.2.6 Wikimania Scholarships + 6.2.7 Editor Growth and Contribution Program o 6.3 Programs + 6.3.1 US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator + 6.3.2 Brazil # 6.3.2.1 Catalyst Project development * 6.3.2.1.1 Team building * 6.3.2.1.2 Institutional Development # 6.3.2.2 Outreach * 6.3.2.2.1 Campus Party * 6.3.2.2.2 Digitalia # 6.3.2.3 Education - Brazil * 6.3.2.3.1 2012 Results Report * 6.3.2.3.2 Program development + 6.3.3 Mobile + 6.3.4 Global Education o 6.4 Learning & Evaluation * 7 Human Resources o 7.1 Staff Changes o 7.2 Statistics o 7.3 Department Updates * 8 Finance and Administration * 9 Legal and Community Advocacy o 9.1 Contract Metrics o 9.2 Trademark Metrics o 9.3 Other Activities o 9.4 Communications Report, January 2013 + 9.4.1 Major announcements + 9.4.2 Major Storylines through January + 9.4.3 Other worthwhile reads + 9.4.4 WMF Blog posts + 9.4.5 Media Contact + 9.4.6 Wikipedia Signpost * 10 Visitors and Guests == Data and Trends == Global unique visitors for December: *472.6 million* (-2.46% compared with November; +3.39% compared with the previous year) (comScore data <http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/unique_visitors> for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release January data later in February) Page requests for January: *22.2 billion* (10.3% compared with December; +23.4% compared with the previous year) (Server log data <http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyAllProjects.htm>, all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access) Active Registered Editors for December 2012 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month, excluding bots): *78,536* (-1.04% compared with November / +0.09% compared with the previous year) (Database data <http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors>, all Wikimedia Foundation projects. Note: We recently refined this metric <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/08/31/improving-the-accuracy-of-the-active-…> to take into account Wikimedia Commons and activity across several projects.) *Report Card* (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF projects) for December 2012: http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/ (Definitions <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Metric_definitions>) == Financials == <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Revenue_%26_Expenses_December_2…> Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of December 31, 2012 <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses_by_Functions_December_…> Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of December 31, 2012 (Financial information is only available for December 2012 at the time of this report.) All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and Year-To-Date December 31, 2012. Revenue $30,916,665 *Expenses:* Engineering Group $6,289,609 Fundraising Group $2,039,275 Grantmaking & Programs Group $2,390,621 Governance Group $364,699 Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group $1,557,154 Finance/HR/Admin Group $2,820,212 Total Expenses $15,461,570 Total surplus/(loss) $15,455,095 * Revenue for the month of December is $14.30MM vs plan of $14.41MM, approximately $109K or 1% under plan. * Year-to-date revenue is $30.92MM vs plan of $29.91MM, approximately $1.01MM or 3% over plan. * Expenses for the month of December is $2.70MM vs plan of $3.14MM, approximately $433K or 14% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, and travel expenses partially offset by higher legal expenses, bank fees, and outside contract services. * Year-to-date expenses is $15.46MM vs plan of $17.78MM, approximately $2.31MM or 13% under plan, primarily due to personnel expenses, internet hosting, travel expenses, and capital expenses partially offset by higher legal expenses, bank fees, and awards and grants. * Cash position is $41.17MM as of December 31, 2012. == Highlights == <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IdeaLab_kitten_logo.png> Logo of the IdeaLab === New program offers financial support for projects by individual Wikimedians === The Foundation's Individual Engagement Grants <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG> program launched on January 15. While most WMF grants have so far gone to organizations like chapters, the new program will finance initiatives by individual Wikimedians or small teams to improve Wikimedia projects. The first application period lasts until February 15. During the first two weeks, 31 ideas, drafts, and proposals were submitted. An "IdeaLab <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab>" has been set up where draft proposals can be discussed, and applicants can get help to turn their ideas into complete proposals. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Servers-8055_0…> Wikimedia Foundation servers === Successful migration to new data center === On January 22, Wikipedia and all other Wikimedia sites were migrated <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/19/wikimedia-sites-move-to-primary-data-…> to the Foundation's new primary data center in Ashburn, Virginia (US). The prior data center in Tampa, Florida had been the main hosting site since 2004; it will remain on standby to take over in case the new data center experiences an outage. The switch worked nearly without any problems. The Operations Team attributes <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/05/how-the-technical-operations-team-sto…> this success to the careful preparation since 2011. This involved reviewing, improving and documenting the configuration of the servers (currently about 885) in a way that has already improved stability <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/05/how-the-technical-operations-team-sto…> in 2012, and will make it possible to set up new data centers much faster. === New partnership grows the reach of Wikipedia Zero to 330 million mobile users === VimpelCom <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VimpelCom>, the sixth largest mobile network operator in the world, joined the Wikipedia Zero program <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/vimpelcom-partnership-grows-wikipedia…> in January, raising the number of mobile users who are eligible to access Wikipedia without data fees by 100 million, to 330 million worldwide. Among the countries serves by VimpelCom are Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and other countries of the former USSR. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikivoyage-logo-en-TTO-attempt.svg> Wikivoyage logo === Wikivoyage becomes newest Wikimedia project === On January 15, the 12th anniversary of Wikipedia, Wikivoyage <https://www.wikivoyage.org/> was officially launched <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/15/wikimedia-foundation-launches-wikivoy…> as the newest project of the Wikimedia Foundation. The free travel guide that anyone can edit is already available in nine languages - Dutch <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/nl:>, English <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/en:>, French <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/fr:>, German <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/de:>, Italian <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/it:>, Russian <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/ru:>, Portuguese <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/pt:>, Spanish <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/es:> and Swedish <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/sv:> - with more being added. There are more than 50,000 articles, which are edited and improved by a core group of approximately 200 volunteer editors. == Engineering == A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for January 2013 can be found at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2013/January Major news in January include: * the successful migration of our main services <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/19/wikimedia-sites-move-to-primary-data-…> to our data center in Ashburn, Virginia (see general "Highlights" section) * new features <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/11/mobile-beta-a-sandbox-for-new-experim…> available in our mobile beta; * progress on input methods <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/25/language-engineering-progress-with-in…> and our upcoming translation interface <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/11/a-more-efficient-translation-interfac…>; * the announcement of GeoData <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/31/geodata-a-new-age-of-geotagging-on-wi…>, a feature to attach geo-coordinates to Wikipedia and Wikivoyage articles; * a testing event to assess how VisualEditor handles non-Latin characters <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/28/help-us-test-and-investigate-visualed…>. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Roan Kattouw presenting about VisualEditor and Parsoid (slides <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor-Parsoid_-_2013-02_Metr…>) === VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> === In January, the VisualEditor team worked primarily on reviewing and cleaning up the code that was enabled on the English Wikipedia <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/12/try-out-the-alpha-version-of-the-visu…> in December. They spent time with their colleagues in the Parsoid team planning the next phase of development, which aims to make the VisualEditor the default editor for all Wikipedias from July 2013. The alpha version on mediawiki.org and the English Wikipedia was updated twice, fixing a number of bugs reported by the community and making some adjustments based on feedback. The Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid> team (who are creating the parsing program <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsing> that translates plain wikitext into HTML annotated for easy editing, and /vice-versa/) also cleaned up their code and fixed bugs. Parsoid's features were overhauled to be more robust and extend support for wikis in various configurations (including in languages other than English). The team also discussed the longer-term strategy in the Parsoid roadmap <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid/Roadmap>, in which they decided to focus their efforts on performance improvements and HTML storage for the existing implementation, instead of the performance-oriented C++ version of Parsoid. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Terry Chay presenting about editor engagement/features engineering (slides <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltqNe-ZyANE>) <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Screenshot_of_GettingStarted_guided…> Demo screenshot of guided tours === Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> === This month, the Editor engagement team stepped up development on the Notifications project /Echo/ <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo_(Notifications)>, and updated the first experimental release on mediawiki.org. The user experience for core features was improved (such as the badge, fly-out, all-notifications page and email notifications) and development started on new features, like preferences. The team completed work on HTML emails and started development of a more robust job queue. A first release on the English Wikipedia is expected by the end of March; in the meantime, users can try the current version <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo/Testing> on mediawiki.org. Flow <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow>, a feed-like interface to enable users to better interact with their projects, entered the product design phase in early January. It has several "modules", one of which is a design for a structured user-to-user communication system. User research began in order to learn how user-to-user talk pages are handled, and how to improve them. Engineering discussions started about potential back-end and performance difficulties, the possible use of Wikidata's ContentHandler <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ContentHandler>, and the evaluation of Wikia's MessageWall. A consultation with the community is planned for February, with experienced and newer users alike. Regarding Article Feedback v5 <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5> (a quality assessment feature), its code was cleaned up in January, and new features (simpler moderation tools and better filters) were developed. An internal feedback evaluation study <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Article_feedback/Final_quality_ass…> suggests that about 39% of the feedback collected can be used to improve articles. Discussions happened on the English <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Article_feedba…> and French <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fr:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Mise…> Wikipedia regarding the future use of the tool, and the German pilot program <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/de:Wikipedia:Artikel-Feedback> is expected to continue until May. The Editor Engagement Experiments team ("E3") launched <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/01/guided-tour-launch/> guided tours <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/guided_tours> on the English Wikipedia, a feature allowing developers and Wikimedians to build tours to guide newer users. The team also tested the Getting Started <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GettingStarted> landing page and task list, measuring the effect it had on driving new contributions. Analysis showed that the onboarding experience is leading to small but statistically significant increases in new English Wikipedians attempting to edit, as well as saving their first edit. In addition to measuring the effects of the guided tour associated with this project, immediate plans are to redesign the landing page and add additional task types, to entice more new contributors. Work also continued on refining the reliability and precision of the data collected from the EventLogging extension <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:EventLogging>. In particular, it was migrated to a dedicated database, and the team began collecting data to measure, for example, account creations on desktop and mobile. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Maryana Pinchuk demonstrating mobile photo uploading (slides <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1A2URDSkSIa7kBYDHu1DaxZfnR6Wd9z-K0iV…>) === Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> === After its soft launch in December, GeoData <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/GeoData_Storage_%26_API> was officially announced <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/31/geodata-a-new-age-of-geotagging-on-wik…> this month; this functionality, which attaches geo-coordinates to articles, will be particularly useful for the mobile "Nearby" feature (enabled on an experimental version of the site), to help contributors identify articles in need of photos not far from their location. This month, the mobile web team also finished work on the watchlist feature, and focused their efforts on photo uploads by first adding basic uploading functionality: uploading images to Wikimedia Commons. A workflow was put in place to allow users to add a thumbnail of an image they just uploaded to the appropriate article on their local Wikipedia or sister project. These features are currently live on the Beta mobile site and are set to be released to the full mobile site in February. Uploading photos was also the focus of the newly created "Apps team", who started to develop iOS and Android versions of an app to upload photos to Commons <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Apps/Commons>. The two basic apps can already upload, share and show the user's contributions. == Fundraising == <Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WEB_Clip.webm> Clip from the upcoming documentary "Web", showing how Wikipedia has impacted a small village in Peru <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestina,_Peru> Department highlights * Sent the Thank You email for donors including a link to the 'The Impact of Wikipedia' video <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_Of_Wikipedia.webm> * We reached our $6 million annual goal for Major Gifts! === Major Gifts and Foundations === * We reached our $6 million annual goal * Received a $500,000 gift from the Milner Foundation. === Annual Fundraiser === * The Thank You email to donors included a link to the 'The Impact of Wikipedia' video <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_Of_Wikipedia.webm> ) on Youtube, which features Wikipedia editors from around the world, and a clip from Michael Kleiman <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WEB_Clip.webm> about how Wikipedia has impacted a small village in Peru, taken from his upcoming documentary 'Web'. Public responses to the videos on YouTube have been almost entirely positive. Here is one example: “Your videos are amazing. Thank you for sending them out. I have given donations in the past because I appreciate Wikipedia. Now, I have a much stronger commitment to support you. Thank you for giving us a fuller picture of the worldwide impact of knowledge made available through WIkipedia.” * The fundraising team prepared banners, translations, and donation pages to begin 2013 testing in various languages and countries that were not included in the year-end 2012 campaign. * Reconciliation: The Fundraising and Finance teams are creating tools and establishing best practices for funds reconciliation. * The donor services team pulled reporting numbers on top payment method requests and major issues from the fundraiser. Disseminated this information to the rest of team to set 2013 implementation priorities. * Donor messaging: The team spent time collaboratively editing, revising, and translating new donor messages based on feedback from the 2012 fundraiser. The goal is to give donors all the information they need to make easy, successful online donations. == Grantmaking and Programs == Department Highlights * Launch of the Individual Engagement Grants <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG> program, which support Wikimedians to complete projects that benefit the Wikimedia movement, lead to online impact, or otherwise serve our mission, community, and strategic priorities. * Launch of the new Grants Portal <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start> * Launch of the 2013 Wikimania Scholarships <http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships>. Working with a committee of 8 volunteers to review and select between hundreds of applicants worldwide. * Welcoming FDC Senior Program Officer Katy Love and Head of the Education Program Rod Dunican === Grantmaking === === Strategic Goals Metrics === Metric Value MoM MoM% Chart Free Wikipedia Zero Page Requests 3.0m 232k +8.4% Increase [1] <http://gp.wmflabs.org/graphs/free_mobile_traffic_by_version_monthly_desc> Global South Active Editors (5+ edits in main namespace) 15.8k +453 +2.9% Increase [2] <http://gp.wmflabs.org/graphs/global_north_south_active_editors> ==== Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) ==== * The FDC proposal form was reviewed and minor edits were made to make it more user-friendly for applicants and the FDC. These suggested edits <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposal_form_v2> came largely from the FDC members, entities, and FDC staff. All are welcome to continue to make suggestions about the proposal form on the Talk page. * In anticipation of the second round of funding, the FDC proposal creation tool has now been launched on the FDC portal <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee>. Eligibile entities <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_criteria> must close their eligibility gaps <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_status/2012-2013_rou…> by Feb 15 2013 in order to apply for Round 2 FDC grants. Please contact the FDC support team with any questions or comments. * Senior Program Officer Katy Love <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:KLove_(WMF)> joined the Wikimedia Foundation staff last month. Katy's role, specified in the framework, is to facilitate the FDC process from start to finish, ensuring a smooth and effective process. Feel free to reach out to Katy on her talk page. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Siko Bouterse presenting about WMF Grants ==== WMF Grants Program ==== * Improvements to the Grants:Index <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index> include more detailed pages describing WMF Grants Program policies and procedures and improved templates to track the status of submissions and reports. The status of submissions and reports may also be viewed at Grants:Table <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Table>. * Policy change: Grant reports will now be due within 60 days of the project completion date listed on the approved grant submission (this will apply to grants with agreements signed after 31 January 2013). ===== Grants approved in January 2013 ===== Grants:WM_NO/christmas_seminar_and_wlm_ceremony <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NO/christmas_seminar_and_wlm_cere…> The Wikimedia Foundation has funded a meetup and seminar with the the Arts Council Norway, organized by Wikimedia Norge, where winners of Wiki Loves Monuments, the worlds largest photo contest, were celebrated. Wikimedia Norge's collaboration with the Arts Council has produced over 35 editing events with more than 600 participants. Grants:Shipmaster - Community of Arabic Wikipedia/Producer Prize-2013 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Shipmaster_-_Community_of_Arabic_Wik…> Wikimedia Foundation grant for the "Producer Prize" to encourage quality content creation on Arabic Wikipedia ===== Reports accepted in January 2013 ===== * Grants:WM NO/Nordic Chapter Meeting 2012/Report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NO/Nordic_Chapter_Meeting_2012/Re…> * Grants:Ciphers and Shipmaster - Community of Arabic Wikipedia/Producer Prize/Report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Ciphers_and_Shipmaster_-_Community_o…> * Grants:WM NO/Outreach GLAM <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NO/Outreach_GLAM> ==== Participation Support requests approved in January 2013 ==== * Participation:Nicola/International Cycling History Conference <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Nicola/International_Cycling_…> * Participation:Eduardofeld/WikiSalvador2.0 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Eduardofeld/WikiSalvador2.0> ==== Individual Engagement Grants ==== This new program launched <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG> on January 15 with a request for grant proposals <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-applying> and volunteer committee members <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee> to help select the first round of grantees. We also launched an IdeaLab <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab> to offer help to potential grantees in turning ideas into complete proposals. In the first 2 weeks of what will be a month-long RfP, 31 ideas, drafts, and proposals have been submitted. 15 candidates have signed up for the committee. (see also general "Highlights" section) ==== Fellowships ==== January was the end of the Fellowships program at WMF. Tanvir Rahman and Sarah Stierch completed their projects, and all fellows final reports will be available on Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Fellows>. ==== Wikimania Scholarships ==== We've launched a search for a Conference Coordinator <http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=o1k2Wfw3&c=qSa9VfwQ/> to act as point of contact for WMF in supporting the Wikimania teams each year. Launch of the Wikimania Scholarships Program: These are full scholarships for anyone to attend Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong. See the Wikimania Scholarships page <http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships> and encourage quality volunteers to apply! ==== Editor Growth and Contribution Program ==== <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editor_Growth_and_Contribution_Prog…> Logo of the Editor Growth and Contribution Program A new project proposal on Geo-targeted Editors Participation <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Geo-targeted_Editors_Participation> was posted on English Wikipedia. The new project proposal aims at experimenting with new ways to increase participation of editors on English Wikipedia from underrepresented geographies where the most likely contribution language for editors is English. === Programs === ==== US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator ==== The role of Lori Byrd Phillips as 2012 US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator has ended on Dec 31st, and a final report about her year as USCPC is forthcoming. ==== Brazil ==== ===== Catalyst Project development ===== ====== Team building ====== * Hiring of Data and Experiments consultant <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>: finalized hiring process in Brazil, still under approval process. Results to be announced soon. * Hiring of a short term, part time community member contractor, to develop data analysis projects in partnership with the community and the new Data and Experiments consultant ====== Institutional Development ====== * Rental of a co-working space <http://saopaulo.the-hub.net/> for an experimental three months period in São Paulo, where the team will be able to work together more often * Update of the annual planning and budget Learn more <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…> ===== Outreach ===== ====== Campus Party ====== WMF and Wikimedia Brasil promoted activities in Campus Party 2013 <http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campus_Party/2013>, an event held in São Paulo, with the participation of 7 volunteers and 2 WMF staff members. Two lectures have been presented (one by Mateus Nobre, volunteer from Mossoró (RN) and one by Everton Alvarenga, coordinator of the Education Program). Additionally, WMF had the opportunity to contact possible future partners at this event, such as the Mozilla Foundation which will launch the new Firefox OS in Brazil including the Wikipedia app by default. Read more about the Campus Party activities. <http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campus_Party/2013/Relat%C3%B3rio> ====== Digitalia ====== Organization of the Wiki Meet-up at Digitalia, a digital culture event in Salvador (Bahia). Digitalia brings together academians, artists and activists to debate and propose projects and research on digital culture. The event, organized with the support of the Wikimedia Brasil Community, had 25 attendees on Wikimedia Workshops and 8 new Wikipedia accounts created as one of its results. More details will be included in the February report. Wiki Meet up in Salvador <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Encontros/WikiSalvador_2.0> Check out more information about Digitalia 2013 <http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Digitalia/2013> ===== Education - Brazil ===== ====== 2012 Results Report ====== * The 2012 report summarizing the results, achievements, key findings and activities of the Education Program in Brazil can be accessed at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ezalvarenga/Report#Results ====== Program development ====== * Wikiprojects revamp: Health Wikiproject development with the participation of experienced Wikipedia editors and medicine students, professors and researchers. They already started editing <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Projetos/Medicina>. * Translation of articles in partnership with Gama Filho University <http://www.posugf.com.br/cursos/pos-graduacao-ead/50-traducao> * Interview with Everton by a national radio station: Listen to it (in Portuguese) <http://cbn.globoradio.globo.com/programas/revista-cbn/2013/01/06/EDITORES-Q…> * Article on the Education Program at [3] <http://diariodigital.sapo.pt/news.asp?id_news=613443>. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Kul Wadhwa presenting about Wikipedia Zero (slides <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GYvFMatdD5gG1Kxzy6OHJq93S1QNZ-TGcfc…>) <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Kul Wadhwa explaining Wikipedia via Text ==== Mobile ==== * Launched a new partnership with VimpelCom to provide Wikipedia Zero to at least 100 million additional customers this year (WMF press release <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/VimpelCom_partners_with…>) * In January, the Wikimedia Foundation was awarded a grant <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/17/wikimedia-foundation-winner-of-knight…> in the Knight News Challenge for our work in expanding Wikimedia mobile projects. Part of this grant ($600,000 for two years) will be used for Wikipedia Zero <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero> and the SMS/USSD <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_over_SMS_%26_USSD> projects to improve access to knowledge in the developing world. Press releases: WMF <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_Kn…>, Knight Foundation <http://www.knightfoundation.org/press-room/press-release/eight-mobile-ventu…> * Wikipedia Zero was of the 2012 winners of the African News Innovation Challenge <http://africannewschallenge.org/2012-Winners/> for making information available free of charge on mobile phones to Africans in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, and Uganda. * On other mobile platforms, we've begun to explore ways to reduce the memory and processor requirements of our J2ME app <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_S40_J2ME_app>, to increase the number of phones that can use this application; we are also finishing work on capturing the metrics from the SMS server <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_over_SMS_%26_USSD> to learn usage numbers and determine how many sessions are completed. ==== Global Education ==== Blog profiles design professor in Brazil <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professora_Iara_Camargo.jpg> Professor Iara Camargo The Wikimedia Foundation blog published a profile of Iara Camargo, a professor of design in Brazil who participated in the Wikipedia Education Program last term. She joined students in her Editorial Design course in improving articles on the Portuguese Wikipedia about subjects such as designers, design concepts, and publishing houses. Iara wrote an article on book design as part of her work with her students. Learn more about her experiences by reading the post. <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/14/iara-camargo-wikipedia-education-progr…> Brazil program organizes Campus Party activities <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestra_Mateus_Nobre_CPBR6.JPG> Mateus Nobre presents at Campus Party in Brazil. Wikimedia Brasil together with the Wikimedia Foundation organized activities supporting the use of Wikipedia in education in Brazil through Campus Party. Mateus Nobre, a Wikimedia Brasil volunteer, talked about Wikipedia and Free Culture, giving a general panorama on the history of encyclopedias, from the medieval to the information age, where we have Wikipedia as part of the free culture movement. The coordinator of the Wikipedia Education Program in Brazil, Everton Zanella Alvarenga, also talked about Wikipedia and the Future of Education. Learn more about the Campus Party activities. <http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campus_Party/2013/Relat%C3%B3rio> U.S., Canada Thematic Organization proposed A group of Wikipedia Ambassadors and program instructors known as the Working Group have developed a plan for supporting the Wikipedia Education Program in the U.S. and Canada starting in Summer 2013. The group is in the process of applying for Thematic Organization approval through the Affiliations Committee. All current instructors and Ambassadors are encouraged to stay up-to-date on the next few months' progress. If you plan to continue using Wikipedia in the classroom in the U.S. and Canada and would like to become a member of the new organization, please sign up on the interest list linked from the proposal! To read more about the current plans, see the current proposal and feel encouraged to provide and feedback or ask questions on the talk page. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/Proposal> Welcome (back), Rod Dunican! <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RDunican_April_2010_wikimedia_03_10…> Rod Dunican Rod Dunican re-joined with Wikimedia Foundation family last month as the director of the Wikipedia Education Program. Frank Schulenburg, the former director, had been promoted to Senior Director of Programs in December 2012. Rod was previously the project manager for the Public Policy Initiative, the pilot of the Wikipedia Education Program in the United States, so he is extremely familiar with the program and the Wikimedia projects. In his new role, Rod is responsible for building systems that enable quality at scale in different educational environments. Leave a welcome note for Rod on his talk page. <http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rdunican> === Learning & Evaluation === * Migrated the former global development dashboard into a new Grantmaking & Programs dashboard <http://gp.wmflabs.org/>! Shifting into the new version of Limn <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Limn> (the visualization software) now. * Pull up review of the advancement towards annual goals based on the board meeting. To summarize: o Mapped the last 6 months of grantmaking: $8.7M allocated globally via FDC, grants, and participation support, primarily to Europe. This includes 18 project based grants, 11 annual planning grants (via FDC), and 8 participation support grants (travel) o During the months of heavy activity of the Cairo Education Program, contributions from the Education Program comprised 3-4% of total bytes added to Arabic Wikipedia <http://gp.wmflabs.org/graphs/ar_bytes_monthly>. * Migrated team over to Asana for evaluation requests == Human Resources == WMF managers have been conducting their mid-year employee reviews. HR has been supporting Finance and Administration in preparing staffing baselines for the WMF annual planning process, and facilitating a senior management team 2-day meeting to kick-off the annual planning process. The purpose of the meeting was to coordinate and build alignment on priorities and interdependencies, so that we work with better assumptions as we move into the annual planning process. HR also staffed up our recruiting function. === Staff Changes === New Requisitions Filled * Doreen Dunican, Travel Manager (Administration) * Rod Dunican, Global Education Program Director (Grantmaking and Programs) * Yuvi Panda, Software Developer – Mobile (Engineering) * Ram Ramanath, Senior Software Engineer – Platform (Engineering) New Legal Interns * Missy Black * Megumi Yukie * Ava Miller New Contractors * Emily Blanchard (Human Resources) * Runa Bhattacharjee (Engineering) * Heather McAndrew (Human Resources) * Shankar Narayanan (Engineering) Contract Extended * Oliver Keyes (Engineering) * Siebrand Mazeland (Engineering) * Robert Miller (Administration) * Stefan Petrea (Engineering) Departure * Sangeeta Prashar Contract Ended * Lauren Bocknek * Desirina Boskovich * Mimi Li * Tanvir Rahman * Sarah Stierch * Steven Zhang New Postings * Conference Coordinator (Contract) * Site Reliability Engineer * Tools Lab Operations Engineer (Contract) * Technical Writer === Statistics === Total Requisitions Filled Jan Actual: 131 Jan Total Plan: 172 Jan Filled: 4, Month Attrition: 1, YTD Filled: 36, YTD Attrition: 17 1 Position canceled for FY Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end 42 (8 of which are on hold) === Department Updates === Real-time feed for HR updates http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork == Finance and Administration == The Wikimedia Foundation has begun its Annual Planning process. We now have a master calendar which will result in Board review and approval of the annual plan by June 29 and be released to the community on July 1. == Legal and Community Advocacy == === Contract Metrics === * Submitted : 23 * Completed : 20 === Trademark Metrics === * Submitted : 14 * Approved : 3 * Pending : 10 * Denied : 1 <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Philippe Beaudette presenting about Community Advocacy work (slides <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GYvFMatdD5gG1Kxzy6OHJq93S1QNZ-TGcfc…>) === Other Activities === * Community Advocacy announced the expansion of the ombudsman commission <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission> and will be working with the new team to streamline processes. * One of our observations: The OTRS team processed more than 50,000 pieces of mail last year! See the full report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Reports/2012>. OTRS admins also announced updates to their recruiting processes. * We've been taking a close look at staff advanced permissions on wiki (together with Engineering and HR) and implementing training and auditing schemes. * Philippe and Geoff will be joining the election committee <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_committee> (Philippe for the fourth time!) to support that team in organizing the Board and FDC election processes. * Since September 2012, we have worked with Compass Partnership and WMUK in providing information relevant to the governance report, which was released February 7, 2013. For details, please see: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/07/wikimedia-uk-and-wikimedia-foundation-… * The draft conflict of guidelines discussion is presently scheduled to close on February 15, 2013 (after international outreach). People should feel free to provide feedback and suggestions. See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_in… * Favorable German decision addressing the German right of personality of a deceased individual was upheld after withdrawal of appeal. See update at the bottom of the blog here <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/04/two-german-courts-rule-in-favor-of-fre…> * Developed grant templates for FDC grants, WMF individual grants, and WMF individual engagement grants. We are presently updating the WMF organizational grant template. * Case summary on Flava Works, Inc. v. Gunter <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Flava_Works,_Inc._v._Gunter> - Missy Black === Communications Report, January 2013 === January was a busy month for WMF Communications. The follow-up coverage of the annual campaign, four major announcements (including the launch of Wikivoyage), and media stories kept the team and communications contacts around the globe active. January saw our first public promotion of the Wikimedia Shop as well, which resulted in close to 500 orders over two days with English-project messages encouraging users to celebrate Wikipedia day with WP fan gear. ==== Major announcements ==== * *The Wikimedia Foundation launches Wikivoyage, a free, worldwide travel guide that anyone can edit <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_la…>* (15 January 2013) * *Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner named to the Board of Directors at Global Voices <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Sue_Gardner_joins_Globa…>* (16 January 2013) * *Wikimedia Foundation winner of Knight News Challenge <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_Kn…>* (17 January 2013) * *VimpelCom partners with the Wikimedia Foundation to offer free mobile Wikipedia access through Wikipedia Zero <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/VimpelCom_partners_with…>* (25 January 2013) ==== Major Storylines through January ==== ‘’Wikipedia losing editors, says another study’’ 4 January Aaron Halfaker’s University of Minnesota study of declining participation on Wikipedia gained considerable coverage in early January, owing largely to a high-profile AFP wire story that carried the story to dozens of outlets. Mostly negative/neutral tone stories repeated the main findings in Halfaker’s study, few of which outlined the Foundation’s ongoing work to tackle editor decline. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hb2pGE23MQU4AoQYjmUhR-7X… http://mashable.com/2013/01/08/wikipedia-losing-editors/ http://www.dailydot.com/business/wikipedia-editors-decline-wikimedia-fellow… ‘’WikiVoyage takes flight under the Wikimedia flag’’ 15 January Considerable media coverage in January of the successful launch of a new Wikimedia project, Wikivoyage. Mostly positive tone coverage discussed how the project came into being, and speculated on the opportunities for the new, non-commercial platform. http://skift.com/2013/01/15/interview-wikipedias-travel-site-wikivoyage-lau… http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57563426-93/wikimedia-foundation-launches-… http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/0111/With-Wikivoyage-Wikipedia-mak… ‘’Fictional article on Bicholim Conflict makes global headlines’’ early January Global media spent time highlighting the story of a high profile Wikipedia hoax, the long-standing but fictional article about an alleged Portugal/India war, ‘Bicholim Conflict’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Bicholim_confl…). The majority of coverage repeated the details from other mainstream media stories, with some critical stories attacking the credibility of Wikipedia and its editor community. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257482/The-war-Wikipedia-fooled-ye… http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-06/social-media/3617319… http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/06/an-imaginary-war-a-wikipedia-hoax/ ‘’Remembering Aaron Swartz’’ 12 January The sad news of the passing of Aaron Swartz dominated headlines throughout the US and around the world through late January. An active Wikipedian and proud defender of free culture, Aaron’s legacy and impact on our projects was well known amongst Wikimedians. Media coverage frequently cited his involvement with the project. WMF Blog post: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/12/remembering-aaron-swartz-1986-2013/ http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/aaron-swartz-a-data-crusa… http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/technology/aaron-swartz-a-data-crusader-a… http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020128045_apusswartzprosec… ==== Other worthwhile reads ==== Sue Gardner op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, 13 January “Wikipedia, the people's encyclopedia: If anyone can write and edit Wikipedia, how do we know it's accurate?” http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gardner-wikipedia-2013… Jimmy Wales, featured guest on Colbert Nation, 7 January http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/422660/january-07-20… Mashable’s top ten most interesting Wikipedia stories of the year, 3 January http://mashable.com/2013/01/03/most-interesting-wikipedia-stories/ ==== WMF Blog posts ==== https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/ Forty-five blog posts in January - an active month, with posts reflecting a high degree of news and announcement activity as well. Through January 2013 the Communications team and other WMF staff conducted <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/04/help-us-improve-the-wikimedia-blog-by…> the first-ever WM blog survey. With around 200 respondents we gathered first-time input from our readers on views and perceptions of the blog. A final top-line review will be posted later in February, but we're now aware that roughly 60% of readers are Wikimedia editors, and lots of readers arrive via the Planet Wikimedia aggregator or other RSS feeds. Some highlights from the blog in January: * *Can beginners write high-quality articles? Czech students prove yes again! <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/31/wikipedia-education-program-czech-rep…>* * *Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum announces first Wikipedian in Residence <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/22/gerald-r-ford-presidential-library-mu…>* * *Wikimedia Foundation winner of Knight News Challenge <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/17/wikimedia-foundation-winner-of-knight…>* * *Afripedia project increasing off-line access to Wikipedia in Africa <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/afripedia-project-increasing-off-line…>* ==== Media Contact ==== https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#January_2013 ==== Wikipedia Signpost ==== For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the community-edited newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” for January 2013: * Volume 9, Issue 1, 7 January 2013 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-01…> * Volume 9, Issue 2, 14 January 2013 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-01…> * Volume 9, Issue 3, 12 January 2013 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-01…> * Volume 9, Issue 4, 28 January 2013 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-01…> == Visitors and Guests == Visitors and guests to the WMF office in January 2013: 1. Anya Shyrokova (consultant) 2. Cindy Hawley (Arthur J. Gallagher) 3. Brendan Quinla (Arthur J. Gallagher) 4. Ted Dulittle (Arthur J. Gallagher) 5. Chad Nitschke (Axis) 6. Kerri Malek (Axis) 7. Jim Giles (New Scientist) 8. Denise Larsen (Concern: EAP) 9. Ann Wagner (Concern: EAP) 10. James Raffell (unhosted e.V.) 11. Ellie Young (The Ada Initiative) 12. Cindy Hawley (Arthur J Gallagher) 13. Jon Kate (Wikipedia editor) 14. Jake Orlowitz (Wikipedia editor) 15. James Heilman (Wikipedia editor) 16. Lisa Groesz (Taos) 17. Grant Joung (Thoughtworks) 18. Jaspar Weir (TaskUs) 19. Matt Clark (TaskUs) 20. Koen van Praet (Global Collect) 21. Doug Lambert (Global Collect) 22. Patricia Reed (Global Collect) 23. Valerie Aurora (The Ada Initiative) 24. Shane Quivey (Licom EQIX) 25. Berylnn Bell (Blue Shield) 26. Mandy Lee (SITZMANN MORRIS & LAVIS INSURANCE AGENCY) 27. Sam Harnett (NPR Marketplace) 28. Trevor Bolliger (Wikia) 29. Lisa Groesz (Taos) 30. Mark Oppenheim (m|Oppenheim) 31. Dariusz Jemielniak (FDC Member) 32. Ian Blei (Optimized Results) 33. Kathy Ramsey (The Ada Initiative) 34. Myleen Hollero (photographer) 35. Paul Cardoso (Sequioa) 36. Brendan Corriga (JP Morgan) 37. Ryan McNeil (JP Morgan) 38. Charu Gorrepati (JP Morgan) 39. Rebecca Kankei (JP Morgan) 40. Ian Thatcher (N/A) 41. Ting Chen (WMF Board of Trustees member) 42. Kat Walsh (Chair, WMF Board of Trustees) 43. Jan-Bart de Vreede (Vice Chair, WMF Board of Trustees) 44. Bishakha Datta (WMF Board of Trustees Member) 45. Stu West (WMF Board of Trustees Member) 46. Jimmy Wales (WMF Board of Trustees Member) 47. Samuel Klein (WMF Board of Trustees Member) 48. Alice Wiegand (WMF Board of Trustees Member) 49. Patricio Lorente (WMF Board of Trustees Member) 50. Jove Oliver (Minassian Media) 51. Chris Cavanaugh (CCS Consulting Inc.) 52. Roland Navas, Jr. (Travelers Insurance) 53. Matt Fisher (N/A) -- Tilman Bayer Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l

11 years, 3 months

Fwd: Announcement of Wikimania 2014 jury

by James Forrester

All, For info. Yours, James. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: James Forrester <jdforrester(a)gmail.com> Date: 17 February 2013 15:40 Subject: Announcement of Wikimania 2014 jury To: "Wikimania general list (open subscription)" <wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> [Please note that I send this purely as a volunteer, and in no connexion to the Wikimedia Foundation.] Dear all, I write to announce the Jury to select which bid will be chosen to host Wikimania in 2014. The twelve members will be: * Deror Avi - [[User:Deror avi]] from Israel (Wikimania 2011 General Manager) * Philippe Beaudette - [[User:Philippe (WMF)]] from the US (Wikimedia Foundation Director, Community Advocacy) * Jeromy-Yu Chan - [[User:Yuyu]] from HK (Wikimania 2013 Co-ordinator-in-Chief) * Shujen Chang - [[User:Shujenchang]] from HK * Florence Devouard - [[User:Anthere]] from France * Orsolya Gyenes - [[User:OrsolyaVirág]] from Hungary (Wikimania 2012 Deputy Program Chair) * James Hare - [[User:Harej]] from the US (Wikimania 2012 Co-chair) * Achal Prabhala - [[User:Aprabhala]] from India - Wikimedia Advisory Board member * Konarak Ratnakar - [[User:Kondicherry]] from India * Noopur Raval - [[User:Noopur28]] from India * Manuel Schneider - [[User:80686]] from Austria (Wikimedia Österreich; perpetual Wikimania organiser) * [[User:Whiteghost.ink]] from Australia Jan-Bart de Vreede and Sam Klein (of the Wikimedia Foundation Board) will also be part of the Jury, as normal. I and Phoebe Ayers - [[User:Phoebe]] - will be serving as moderators, neutral aides for the Jury who do not vote. To re-iterate what we've said before, it would be lovely if this was the last year we used this process, and that for 2015 onwards we could create a new, community-led and more open and transparent process. Some earlier discussions took place at [[m:Talk:Wikimania Advisory Group]]. Please feel free to give your thoughts there. As a reminder, bids have two weeks (until 23:59 UTC on 3 March 2013) until bidding creation closes. All cities which intend to run for the bidding process should have created a page on meta and entered the official list by this point. Thank you, and good luck to all Bids. Yours, -- James D. Forrester jdforrester(a)gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity) -- James D. Forrester jdforrester(a)gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)

11 years, 3 months

Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member

by Gayle Karen Young

To respond in brief on the m|Oppenheim hire to support us administratively on this search, board searches are incredibly time and resource intensive, and need to be handled with a great deal of sensitivity. We already have a great many interested parties, so the task needs to include screening hundreds of people in a very short amount of time - within the next month - (screening first bios and then phone screens to gauge initial fit and interest), writing summaries of each candidate for the board for their consideration, setting up the board interviews which requires international coordination at multiple stages, and a host of other things. m|Oppenheim ran the searches for the senior leadership team at WMF except for Erik and Frank, so they have the advantage of knowing us pretty well and how quirky we are, and they are scouring their international network to find the right talent to augment the existing board skill set and competencies. Please do feel free to reach out to me if you have additional questions! Sent from my mobile device

11 years, 3 months

← Newer
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
...
12
Older →

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

Wikimedia-l February 2013