Dear All,
I just wanted to update you all on the Affiliate-Selected Board Seats
sessions at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin.
You have probably already seen that there are five nominations for these
two seats(1)
There are two sessions planned about this election:
9.45am - 10.30am Sunday: Open Q&A
Each candidate will be asked to make a short speech/presentation.
Candidates will then be asked to respond to questions. You are invited to
place your questions on Meta here;
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2014/Questio…
Alternatively, feel free to email me (or otherwise contact me) with your
question before the session.
Not all candidates will be present in Berlin. Those candidates not present
have the option of speaking to everyone present via a videocall, if they
wish. We are also looking into recording and/or streaming the session so
that people who aren't in Berlin can see what's going on, and I very much
hope this will be possible.
10.30am - 11.30am: Discussion among Movement affiliates
This will be a closed discussion among Board members of movement
affiliates.
I will be chairing both sessions as I happen to be the only one of the
election facilitators in Berlin. I will ensure that, as far as possible,
everyone who wishes to ask a question or to contribute to the discussion
has the chance to do so.
If you have any questions about these sessions, please don't hesitate to
contact me.
Kind regards,
Chris Keating
(1)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2014/Nominat…
Proposal: "Paid volunteers" should take care to identify themselves on
Wikimedia Projects and discussions related to Wikimedia Projects.
Sue Gardner's initial report by the WMF into the Belfer case makes a key
decision that there must be effective processes for escalation of employee
activities that may not comply with Wikimedia local project best
practice.[1][2] The WMF can direct their own processes for their staff, but
a consequence for the wider community is that on our projects we should
have policies that ensure there is simple and straight-forward transparency
for who is a paid volunteer and may have interests related to their edits
or their contributions to discussion. The current situation is that paid
volunteers have no requirement to identify themselves and may contribute
anonymously or pseudonymously in ways that obscure their interest, in fact
this is current common practice.
I am thinking of raising this proposal on meta, so initial thoughts and
comments on this list would be welcome to decide whether this is worth
taking forward as beneficial to our volunteer community.
*Definition of "paid volunteer":*
Paid volunteers are employees, contractors or part time contractors of
Wikimedia organizations or other organizations having agreements or
partnerships with Wikimedia. The paid volunteer contributes to Wikimedia
projects and discussions that influence the content of Wikimedia projects.
This includes employees and contractors that may not be paid for their
on-project activities, however their employer benefits from the content of
the same projects.
Links:
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-April/070827.html
[2]
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_Univers…
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
After a discussion[1] in Commons regarding this subject, a decision was
made, stating that URAA cannot be used as the sole reason for deletion.
We consider this a good solution for this situation, considering there is
currently no foreseeable change in US law, for example, to accept the "rule
of the shorter term".
Following our letter[1] and this decision, we would like to thank everyone
who supported this, including the WMF BoT, the legal department
(specifically Yana), WMES, WMAR, WMVE, the administrators in Commons and
the participants in the discussion.
Regards,
Yael Meron
Board of Wikimedia Israel
[1]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Massive_restoration_of_deleted_i…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Israel/Letter_to_the_BoT_regardin…
[x-posted]
Hello,
The Language Engineering team will be hosting the next monthly IRC office
hour on Wednesday, April 9 2014 at 1700 UTC at #wikimedia-office.
We will be discussing about our recent work and provide updates related to
changes in the translation file format (PHP to JSON) for MediaWiki core and
extensions. As always, we will be taking questions during the session.
Please see below for event details and local time. See you at the office
hour.
Thanks
Runa
Monthly IRC Office Hour:
==================
# Date: April 9, 2014
# Time: 1700 UTC/1000PDT (Check local time:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140409T1700)
# IRC channel: #wikimedia-office
# Agenda:
1. Translation file format changes
2. Other project updates
3. Q & A (Questions can be sent to me ahead of the event)
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi,
Sorry, sent too fast. ;o)
I think I need to explain the whole history of the issue.
1. On 22 February 2014, Alan started the Request for comment (RfC) on
whether we should host URAA-affected files, and restored previously
deleted ones (around 4,300 of them). [1]
2. On 28 February 2014, TeleComNasSprVen proposed a moratorium on
deletion of images under URAA.
3. On 18 March 2014, the initial proposal has received a huge support,
with some people opposing it, including some active admins. On that
date, I made a proposal for a compromise: only allowing a subset of
affected files. This has received only a few comments, and no
opposition. The discussion seems to be stalled around that date.
4. On 24 March 2014, I made a proposal for closuring the RfC as Yes.
This received 21 supports, and one opposition. None of the admins who
initially opposed the RfC cared to add any input. I mentioned that
closure will be done after one week.
5. On 2 April 2014, I close the RfC according to my proposal.
6. On 3 April 2014, Russavia unilaterally reverted my closure, and the
changes I made to the relevant policy pages, without any discussion.
Regards,
Yann
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Massive_restoration_of_deleted_i…
2014-04-04 2:02 GMT+05:30 Robinson Tryon <bishop.robinson(a)gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Yann Forget <yannfo(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Well, it doesn't go so easily. Some Commons admins refuse to accept the
>> community decision, and want to maintain the status quo inspite of the huge
>> majority of opinions for supporting this. They are usually the most vocal
>> and bold admins.
>> Some admins are supporting it, some are afraid to go against the bolder
>> ones. Some admins who support it do not take part because of language issue.
>>
>> Some admins specifically said that they would go against the community, no
>> matter what. One admin even says that the
>
> The suspense is killing me: What does the admin say?
>
> --R
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Hi all,
following up on Sue's invitation to comment on the draft annual plan (which
has since been posted on Meta), I'd like to call attention to a document
that we have published as appendix to the FDC proposal.
It's titled "Ongoing work areas of the Wikimedia
Foundation<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/Wikim…>
" and gives a comprehensive overview of ongoing, long-term work that WMF
staff and contractors are carrying out in support of the Wikimedia
projects, much of which is usually not very visible. This list of work
areas is complementing the larger, one-time endeavours and key programs
that are highlighted in the main WMF annual plan draft document and are
usually already documented fairly well in announcements, blog posts, etc.
elsewhere. I.e. you won't find much about, say, the work of the Flow or
VisualEditor/Parsoid teams, but on the other hand can read about the
constant software testing work done by the Quality Assurance team, or how
many contracts the Legal department negotiates, reviews, and approves per
year.
The text was put together for the WMF FDC proposal/annual plan publication,
but might be reused elsewhere as a long-time reference about the
Foundation's work.
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 8:05 PM, Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hey folks,
>
> The purpose of this note is to remind you that the WMF will be
> participating in the FDC Process Round 2, which begins tomorrow. I'd
> like to invite you to comment on the plan-in-progress, which will be
> at this URL within about 24 hours:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/Wikim…
>
> The WMF welcomes your thoughts on the draft plan. Of course you're
> free to ask questions and make comments on whatever aspects of it
> interest you, but we'd probably find high-level input the most useful.
> Does it seem to you that the WMF's 2014-15 planning is generally on
> the right track? Do you believe the four "crucial initiatives" as
> described in the draft are where the WMF should be focusing its
> energy? What do you think about our plans WRT the technical
> infrastructure, our mobile work, editor engagement, and non-technical
> movement support? Bearing in mind that we're an organization focused
> fairly narrowly on product & engineering and on grantmaking, is there
> anything really significant that you see as missing from the draft?
> Are we missing any important risks to the organization or to the
> movement overall?
>
> Please don't reply here, because your input might get missed by the
> people who should see it. Please reply on meta, at the link above.
>
> And a few explanatory caveats:
>
> First, it's important to know that the plan, at this point, is draft.
> That's new. Last year the WMF submitted material after it had been
> approved by the WMF Board and after the fiscal year had begun. That
> was an okay first step to getting input from community members, but
> obviously the input will have more impact if we get it before the
> plan's locked down. That's why this year we're submitting a draft
> version of the WMF plan, rather than a final version. We've
> deliberately synched up the timing of the WMF planning and FDC review
> processes such that the community/FDC input will come in during April
> and early May, which is exactly when the plan is being actively
> refined and revised on a near-daily basis by the team responsible for
> it (primarily the C-level people, and also the people who work in
> their departments).The benefit of this timing is that community/FDC
> input can easily be incorporated into our thinking while we're
> actively discussing and rethinking and revising internally at the WMF.
> The drawback is it means you'll be reviewing material that is still a
> work-in-progress, and so you may find mistakes. The plan may also be a
> little confusing, which is partly because it's still in-progress, and
> also partly because we are merging this year the original
> WMF-Board-only format with the FDC proposal requirements. It'll be a
> little clunky: we ask you to bear with us as we work out the kinks.
>
> Second. You'll need to bear with us if we seem a little slow or
> unresponsive during the discussions. It's a busy time for the WMF:
> we're currently actively recruiting my successor as ED, which means
> Erik, Geoff, Gayle and I are far busier than we normally would be.
> And, the WMF will be working through roles-and-responsibilities for
> the FDC process in real time during the discussion period, which means
> questions may languish for a while before we figure out internally
> who's supposed to answer them. It might also be worth me saying that
> we won't have unlimited time for the process, and we're hoping it will
> be broadly participatory rather than being dominated by a small number
> of people. That means that if any particular person has lots of
> questions and follow-ups, we may eventually be unable to keep
> responding. If that happens to you, please don't be insulted -- it
> won't be personal. Also, if questions are asked and you know the
> answers (or can link to answers or more information) please feel free
> to help each other as well: you don't need to wait for us.
>
> Third. You should know -- the WMF is not asking the FDC to recommend a
> dollar allocation for the WMF to the WMF Board for approval. Partly
> that's because from a timing perspective there's no good way to make
> it work. The WMF Board needs to approve the plan by 1 July 2014 when
> the new fiscal year begins, and the FDC input is released 1 June. That
> month-long window doesn't leave sufficient time for the WMF to
> adequately incorporate a dollar amount recommendation from the FDC
> into our cycle, particularly given that the window needs to also
> include WMF Board approval. Ultimately, I think it's fine that the WMF
> Board would approve a dollar amount from the WMF rather than the FDC:
> I think the most important function the FDC can play here is to help
> the WMF to evaluate and assess the strength of the plan overall. And
> so, I've asked the FDC to i) provide input on the plan on the WMF's
> proposal page during the community review period (the month of April),
> ii) give the WMF formal feedback (reinforcement, support, suggestions,
> concerns) on 8 May, and iii) if it chooses to, give a more full and
> detailed assessment of the WMF plan as part of its overall package of
> recommendations on 1 June. Any June assessment will not be received in
> time to significantly influence the plan upon which the Board votes,
> but we would take it under advisement as the year plays out. This is
> perhaps not ideal but there is no perfect solution, and I think it's a
> step forward from last year, because it'll mean the WMF gets community
> and FDC input at the point in the process when it will be most
> influential.
>
> I am really pleased to have the WMF participating for the first time
> with its full draft plan in the FDC process. The draft will be posted
> within the next 24 hours, and your input is welcome from then until 30
> April. We look forward to hearing what you think.
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
>
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--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
>... WMF is ... is inviting comment and participation from the
> FDC and the community in crafting WMF priorities....
I hope volunteer quality of life becomes a priority.
Hey all,
I came across
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/Wikim…,
and I noticed at the top it says:
'We ask that you please not make any changes directly to this page after
the proposal submission date (1 April), but comment on the discussion page."
Can someone please confirm that this actually was the WMF's April Fools
joke on us all?
Regards,
Russavia