I've had a number of discussions with our stewards over the years. Many of
them are dedicated, polite, clever, and highly sophisticated in the ways of
the Wiki. They get no pay and little glory for their delicate work, and we
often take their availability for granted. The title of this article [1],
"The 36 People Who Run Wikipedia: What the weirdest, wildest, most
successful participatory project in history tells us about working
together" overstates the stewards' influence a bit, but I enjoyed reading
the article and think that other Wikimedians might also.
To our stewards: thank you.
Pine
[1] https://medium.com/matter/the-36-people-who-run-wikipedia-21ecca70bcca
[x-posted announcement]
Hello,
The next monthly IRC office hour of the Wikimedia Language Engineering team
will be on Wednesday, November 12, 2014 at 1700 UTC on #wikimedia-office.
We will be taking questions and also discussing about the availability of
the new version of the Content Translation tool[1][2] and upcoming plans.
Please see below for event details and local time
Thank you.
Runa
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation
[2]
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/11/03/announcing-the-second-version-of-the-c…
Monthly IRC Office Hour:
==================
# Date: November 12, 2014 (Wednesday)
# Time: 1700 UTC (Check local time:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20141112T1700)
# IRC channel: #wikimedia-office
# Agenda:
1. Content Translation project updates and plans
2. Q & A (Questions can be sent to me before the event)
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
Dear all,
The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on Thursday,
November 6, 2014 at 7 PM UTC (11 AM PST). The IRC channel is
#wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net and the meeting will be broadcast as
a live YouTube stream.
The current structure of the meeting is:
* Welcoming recent hires
* Update and Q&A with the Executive Director, if available
* Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also
specialized reports and analytic
* Review of financials
* Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on highest priority
initiatives
Please review
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further
information about how to participate.
We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting.
Thank you,
Praveena
--
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant to the VP of Product & Strategy and the VP of
Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation \\
www.wikimediafoundation.org
(sorry this conversation is happening across multiple lists, I should have
used cc for the emails... )
Responding to Mitar on open access:
You know I think it's sad too that we have to go around asking for
donations and selling Wikipedia's value as a portal to publishers. On the
other hand, we have 500 million monthly readers and when they come to
Wikipedia they will see the content we have summarized from sources. The
only question is whether that content is from full-text-available-online
sources *only*, or from all of the best sources regardless of their access
status.
At the end of my day, I have to serve our editors and readers as best I can
and that means giving them as much access to the best research as possible
today. You may think this is a devil's bargain, but I have to admit that
I'm a pragmatist and I'd rather have our editors summarize paywalled
content for our readers than for that content to not be represented on
Wikipedia at all, even if readers may hit a paywall when they click-through.
It's long been Wikipedia's policy (at least English Wikipedia) that
accessibility is not a deciding factor when it comes to what is a reliable
source. That applies to out of print manuscripts as well as to embargoed
journals--we use the best sources now because we have an encyclopedia to
write. If we aim to change that, it requires a very deep discussion about
how we prioritize and strategize our mission.
I do whatever I can to support OA, to tweet about open access button
efforts, to promote WikiProject Resource Exchange, to support the OA
signalling project, to engage with initiatives like the Open Access reader,
and to discuss the broader mission of sharing knowledge with reference
experts and journals. The tides are changing and I see it daily as I speak
with librarians and journal publishers.
In other words, the efforts of The Wikipedia Library advance our mission
and are indeed *complementary* to the radical vision of open access that I
wholeheartedly support.
So, I hope you take this as my saying, "I agree completely" and also "So
what, we have an encyclopedia to write!"
Happy to continue discussing this.
Best,
Jake (Ocaasi)
On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 6:42 PM, Mitar <mmitar(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> This reminds me of ugly practices of proprietary software companies
> giving free software to students so that they are able to learn the
> tools and then later on have to pay. So we will be making links to
> paywalled journals and we will be able to do it for free, but then our
> readers will have to pay to read them? So Wikipedia will provide free
> advertisements for paywalled content? Nicely done, nicely done.
>
> This is not open access. This direct opposite to open access. We
> should not be proud of this.
>
> (Please don't take this as an attack on anybody personally and I think
> The Wikipedia Library Team is doing a great job, but I really feel
> this is a bad deal. And it was sent to the open access mailing list.
> Which this is not.)
>
>
> Mitar
>
> On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 3:30 PM, Jake Orlowitz <jorlowitz(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi!
> > The Wikipedia Library has new, free research donations available:
> >
> > NEW
> > *DeGruyter: 1000 accounts for English and German-language research, sign
> up
> > on one of two language Wikipedias:
> > English signup <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:De_Gruyter>
> > German signup <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:De_Gruyter>
> > *Fold3: 100 accounts for American history and military archives
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fold3>
> > *Scotland's People: 100 accounts for Scottish Genealogy database
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ScotlandsPeople>
> >
> > EXPANDED
> > *British Newspaper Archive: 100+ new accounts for British Newspapers
> > archives
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BNA>
> >
> > OPEN
> > *Highbeam: 100+ accounts for newspapers and magazines
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HighBeam>
> > *Questia: 100+ accounts for various aggregated journals and social
> science
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Questia>
> > *JSTOR: 100+ accounts for journal archives
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:JSTOR>
> >
> > Accounts are available to ALL global editors with a 1 year old account
> and
> > 1000 edits. Please notify your local community about the signups.
> Signups
> > for now are mostly on English Wikipedia, UNLESS you have started a local
> > Wikipedia Library branch like we've done on Arabic, Chinese, and
> German. To
> > get started, please contact Ocaasi at [[m:User:Ocaasi (WMF)]] or
> > ocaasi(a)wikimedia.org
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > The Wikipedia Library Team
> > <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenAccess mailing list
> > OpenAccess(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/openaccess
> >
>
> --
> http://mitar.tnode.com/
> https://twitter.com/mitar_m
>
> _______________________________________________
> OpenAccess mailing list
> OpenAccess(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/openaccess
>
Hey everyone :)
I forgot to send this to wikimedia-l this morning as well...
I'm incredibly happy to share the news with you that Wikidata has won
the Open Data Award of the Open Data Institute in the category
publisher. The world is starting to notice that we have something big
with Wikidata.
http://opendatainstitute.org/news/first-odi-open-data-awards-presented-by-s…
Cheers
Lydia
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lydia Pintscher <lydia.pintscher(a)wikimedia.de>
Date: Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 10:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] Wikidata wins the ODI Open Data Award
To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." <wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hey everyone,
Wooooow! We won! \o/ This is incredible. I am so happy to see this
recognition of all the work we've put into Wikidata together. Magnus
and I had a blast at the award ceremony yesterday night. Here's a
picture of us on stage with Sir Nigel Shadbolt and Sir Tim
Berners-Lee: https://twitter.com/opencorporates/status/529721444549550080
Here's Wikidata written in huge letters above the heads of the
audience: https://twitter.com/marin_dim/status/529721419580854272 And
here is Magnus and me with the price:
https://twitter.com/wikidata/status/529723778558083074
I am delighted that they especially recognized the breath of topics
Wikidata covers and that it has been developed in the open since the
beginning. This award is for everyone in this community. We should be
proud! This is a perfect start into year 3 of Wikidata :)
Cheers
Lydia
--
Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
Product Manager for Wikidata
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
Dear all,
We are pleased to announce the recognition [1] of the third Wikimedia
User Group from the Arab World and the fifth from Africa: Algeria
Wikimedians User Group.
Our Wikimedian brothers and sisters in Algeria have for a long time
wanted to associate and multiply their contributions tigether, since as
early as 2009, when started attempts to create projects in different
languages spoken in Algeria in the Incubator, an education program in an
Algerian university, and participating in Wiki Loves Monuments in 2013
Algeria, which was quite a success and created a lot of awareness at a
local level about the need of making more and more knowledge open in
Algeria.
So, now we have them joining the family of affiliates.Please, let's give
them a warm welcome!
Soyez les bienvenus, amis algériens!
Carlos
1:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Algeria_…
--
"*Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua
junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain."
Carlos M. Colina
Vicepresidente, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 |
www.wikimedia.org.ve <http://wikimedia.org.ve>
Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Affiliations Committee
Phone: +972-52-4869915
Twitter: @maor_x
Does anyone have contact information for the wayback machine? I am trying
to improve one of my tools for wikipedia, and am wondering if we can get a
minor change/feature request implemented.