We shouldn't criticise people for coming up with programs such as IEP and
AFT, but we should look at how long it took to stop them after serious
opposition arose and major flaws were pointed out. As a movement we need to
get much better at switching our efforts from blind alleys to things that
we can get consensus for.
WSC
Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:19:41 +0100
> From: "Federico Leva (Nemo)" <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Cc: ENWP Pine <deyntestiss(a)hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Office hour inside out (program evaluation)
> Message-ID: <514B250D.8040301(a)gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> ENWP Pine, 21/03/2013 05:48:
> > I'd also suggest that people read the report about
> > projects that encountered significant problems at
> > WMF, particularly the IEP,
>
> I suppose the past tense here means that
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IEP/Welcome> should be tagged
> {{historical}} rather than {{draft}}?
>
> > and a more recent example
> > is the mixed reception to AFT5. I hope that program
> > managers at WMF learn both good practices and what
> > to avoid. I also hope that WMF ties program metrics
> > to evaluations for the responsible supervisors when
> > considering whether to continue or renew
> > employment contracts, as well as when
> > considering promotions.
>
> Nemo
>
>
>
I agree that the general ideas about IEP and AFT5 were worth considering,
but I get the impression that there were preventable shortcomings in their
designs and planning, and it bothers me a lot that I think I see *similar*
flaws in the two programs. I get the impression that lessons from the IEP's
catastrophic failure were not absorbed by the AFT5 planners and designers.
I would need to do a "deep dive" comparison of IEP and AFT5 before I'm
sure of the commonalities in planning and design problems, but I sure hope
that someone at WMF is looking at this and shares the lessons widely.
Pine
Hi everyone,
Wikimedia Hungary had rented its first office (33sqm or 350sq feet, good
for meetings up to 20~25ppl) and hired its first full time (administrative)
employee, so I'm happy to tell you, if you'll ever happen to be in or
around Budapest, feel free to drop by in our
office<https://maps.google.com/maps?q=1075+Budapest,+Mad%C3%A1ch+Imre+t%C3%A9r+4.&…>
:)
(just don't forget to tell, if you're coming at out of office hours :P)
cheers :)
*Balazs Viczian*
Executive Vice President
*Wikimédia Magyarország*
Tel: +36 70 633 6372
Mail: balazs.viczian(a)wikimedia.hu
Web: www.wikimedia.hu Blog: Magyar Wikipédia Magazin<http://huwiki.blogspot.hu>
Facebook: Magyar Wikipédia <https://www.facebook.com/hu.wikipedia>
Hello,
I would like to promote the current brain storm effort on wiktionnaries
future[1] with a cross wiki message, but I don't know how to proceed.
I think it's very important to have a cross chapter implication on this
topic, not only because more people will lead to more bright ideas, but
also and mainly for community management reasons. As you know, each
chapter have it's specificities, and it's important to take account of
them, because they are a part of their respective community sustain.
Now the idea behind the current brainstorm is that we would gain in
normalization and storing cross-chapter information. I don't doubt
people participating on the meta page are well aware of this, but all
wiktionnaries regular contributors should become aware of it. So we can
avoid a situation where some contributors discover that a new way to
organize will compel on all chapters, and that this way of doing things
doesn't match some of their specificities.
So, of course I could go manually accross all chapters, but probably
there's a more efficient way to do it, isn't it?
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary_future
--
Association Culture-Libre
http://www.culture-libre.org/
Hi folks,
Tomorrow at 17:00 UTC, I will be holding an office hour about program
evaluation on #wikimedia-office. The target audience for this office
hour will be chapter representatives and volunteers who are currently
running (or planning to run) programs and programmatic activities.
You'll find some background information about why program evaluation
might be worth talking about in my most recent blog post on the
Foundation's blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/01/lets-start-talking-about-program-eval…
As we all know, most office hours follow a certain rule: there's one
poor staffer who is getting grilled by the people on the IRC channel –
people ask a variety of questions and the staff person tries to answer
every question in a limited amount of time. It's a lot of fun (I
guess, at least for the people who're asking the questions) and it has
been a good way of direct communication between WMF employees and the
community.
Now, this office hour will be different. Not that I don't enjoy being
grilled for one hour :-) I've done IRC office hours several times
before and I always enjoyed answering questions. The reason for this
office hour to be different is that I want to _listen to you in the
first place_. I would like to learn more about
* _your_ thoughts about why evaluation might be important
* _your_ experiences with making evaluation a part of program design
* _your_ hopes and fears when it comes to increasingly evaluating
programs and programmatic activities in the future
* _your_ ideas and feedback on evaluation practices
Ideally, we would have some people in the room tomorrow who have done
some kind evaluation in the past or who are planning to embark on
evaluation work in the near future. With that said – if you have no
idea about what program evaluation is and you'd like to learn more
about it, you're invited as well! Or maybe you're just curious to see
if this "office hour inside out" is going to play out well ;-)
I'm looking forward to meeting you tomorrow at 17:00 UTC,
Frank
Dear friends and colleagues,
Another component of the Wikimedia Foundation's increased focus on
grantmaking is now ready for discussion: it is a retrospective report on
the history, evolution, and processes of the Wikimedia Grants Program (the
Foundation's first, and until fairly recently only, grants program).
We were interested in an independent report by someone with a good
understanding of wikis and our shared values, and chose a local Wikipedian
named Kevin Gorman (User:Kevin Gorman), active on English Wikipedia, who
has volunteered in the Wikipedia Education Program and also had an (unpaid)
internship at the Foundation office in San Francisco for a few months in
2011. Kevin was paid our standard contractor wage for his work on this.
Kevin has posted the report here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Retrospective_2009-2012
I'd like to thank Kevin for his work.
I invite anyone interested to read the report and discuss it on its talk
page. We believe your inputs will help us improve our current and future
processes, especially as we deepen and widen our grantmaking programs and
strategies. We look forward to a productive discussion.
Please _do_ share this message and link with your respective communities
and lists; please _don't_ discuss this on the lists, but on the talk page,
so that Kevin can respond to questions, and so that I and others at WMF can
provide input as well.
Cheers,
Asaf
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org
[Forwarding from the the toolserver-l branch of this thread]
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daniel Schwen <lists(a)schwen.de>
Date: Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Toolserver-l] [TS logo] Fwd: Free as in Wikimedia Foundation
To: Wikimedia Toolserver <toolserver-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
What a nonsense issue. This superfluous discussion is fueled by two
fallacies, the confusion of copyright and trademarking and an
unhealthy paranoia toward the foundation. Protection of logos
associated with the wikimedia community is a good thing. The
foundation is an asset to the community! They can offer legal support
in cases of abuse of wikimedia related symbology. It is absurd to
create a spectre of a community-suing evil foundation while at the
same tie ignoring the very real threat of dilution and abuse of
wikimedia symbols and resulting damage of wikimedia community
reputation by spam, phishing, link farming etc. sites.
Sorry, but this is alarmist hippie crap and typical "netizen-outrage".
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marc A. Pelletier <marc(a)uberbox.org>
Date: Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Toolserver-l] [TS logo] Fwd: Free as in Wikimedia Foundation
On 03/19/2013 11:35 AM, Daniel Schwen wrote:
> Sorry, but this is alarmist hippie crap and typical "netizen-outrage".
I'm not sure I'd have put it in such strong words, but I agree that this
is very much overblown and misguided.
It's important that any marks not be misused for "evil" purposes, and
Trademark is the method to prevent it. That the foundation is willing
to step up and handle the legalities is a /good/ thing.
Making sure nobody can use a mark for bad reasons *means* having to okay
proposed uses. If you want something "everyone can use without asking
for any reason", you'll get something everyone *will* use for reasons
you wish they wouldn't -- and then have no way to stop them.
-- Coren / Marc
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Thomas, I agree with you that it would make sense to have a more
thoroughly defined reserve policy, but I also caution against
micromanaging the reserve. I believe that I said in my previous
email directed to Erik that I'm wondering what the downside is
of having some underspend for payroll due to hiring that happens
later than planned. Unless the underspend is significant enough
that it should impact the targets used by the Annual Fundraiser
in a significant way, believe that the underspend isn't much of
a concern. The issue that worries me about delayed hiring is the
possibility of delays or disruptions to program schedules.
Pine
Hello:
The mid-year financial statements of the Wikimedia Foundation are available
at the Wikimedia Foundation - Financial Reports
page.<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports>
This report is for the period from July 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012.
Please contact me with any questions.
Regards,
Garfield Byrd
--
Garfield Byrd
Chief of Finance and Administration
Wikimedia Foundation
415.839.6885 ext 6787
415.882.0495 (fax)
www.wikimediafoundation.org
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
*https://donate.wikimedia.org*