The Wikimedia Nederland monthly report over March is available on meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Nederl…
.
It is also included as text in this message.
*COMMUNITY: supporting and mobilising volunteers and editors*
· DBpedia - WikiData meeting
Volunteers working on the DBPedia project met with volunteers working on
Wikidata at the WMNL office to discuss cooperation and synergy between the
projects.
· Zurich Hackathon
Three volunteers applied for and received scholarships to attend the
Wikimedia Hackathon in Zürich.
*WORK: content, collaboration and activity development*
· Education Programme
WMNL wants to explore the feasibility of developing a successful education
programme in the Netherlands. Following a brainstorming meeting with
interested community members, we issued a call for tender asking proposals
concerning a first exploratory feasibility study. We received 7 responses
and selected a small consultancy with a good track record in the education
field. As a first step, they will interview key stakeholders. A meeting
with the community is planned on May 24. More information, including the
proposal of the 'winning' consultants can be found on the project page on
the WMNL wiki.
· Wiki Loves Earth
WMNL is organising a Wiki Loves Earth competition in the Netherlands as
part of wider drive to improve content and coverage of issues related to
nature, wildlife and biodiversity in the Wikimedia projects. A group of
volunteers is taking the lead in organising a series of activities in May.
This will be done in cooperation with the Dutch National Parks. A series
of activities are in preparation, including workshops on uploading images
and sounds, writing events and photo-safaris.
· World War II: photos of war monuments
This year, improving and adding to content on the Wikimedia projects
related to World War II is a priority for WMNL. As a first step a group of
volunteers is organising a photo-drive to obtain images of all war
monuments in the Netherlands. WMNL cooperates with the Nationaal Comité 4
en 5 mei (the official organisation in charge of remembrance). The
photo-drive kicked off April 1. (Spoiler: on April 15, already 677 images
had been uploaded.)
· Other
On March 10, Frans Grijzenhout and Wikipedian in Residence Hay Kranen
demonstrated working with Wikipedia for students of the Social science dept
of the University of Amsterdam. The students (bachelor level) take part in
a special honors program. The theme of their course is crowd findings. On
March 20, Ziko van Dijk presented Wikipedia issues at the IPON fair for
educational resources, in the Utrecht Jaarbeurs.
*WMNL*
· General Assembly and Board elections
On March 29, there was a WMNL General Assembly, which included Board
Elections. Chair Ziko van Dijk and Treasurer Paul Becherer stepped down,
both after having served on the Board for a good many years. Frans
Grijzenhout, Ad Huikeshoven en Jan Anton Brouwer were re-elected. They were
joined on the Board by newcomers André Engels, Ronn Boef, Marlon Thé and
Justus de Bruijn.
The General Assembly also approved the annual report and the accountsof
WMNL.
· Newsletter
An issue of the newsletter was sent out.
*FUNDING*
· A private grant making foundation donated €30,000 to WMNL. This
is in support of our planned work with public libraries (with a possible
focus on Dutch literature and writers) and a pilot project to provide
access to relevant Wikipedia articles via image recognition of objects in a
museum collection.
*GLOBAL*
· Board Governance Training Workhop London
On March 1 and 2, WMUK organised a training workshop for Board members of
Wikimedia affiliates. WMNL Board member Frans Grijzenhout took part in the
training. Executive director Sandra Rientjes was involved as a facilitator.
*GOVERNANCE*
· Reporting
March was a busy month for reporting. The Annual report and accounts over
2013 were approved by the auditor. Also WMNL submitted its impact report to
the Funds Dissemination Committee.
· Board
The (old) board met on March 13 and discussed i.a. last preparations for
the annual assembly.
*Upcoming*
· April: War monuments photo-drive
· May 24: Education Programme - presentation and discussion at the
Wikimedia office in Utrecht
· May - June: Wiki Loves Earth
Sandra Rientjes
Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland
tel. (+31) (0)30 3200238
mob. (+31) (0)6 31786379
www.wikimedia.nl
*Postadres*: * Bezoekadres:*
Postbus 167 Mariaplaats 3
3500 AD Utrecht Utrecht
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Zack Exley <zexley(a)thoughtworks.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 6:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI editing by WMF staff
To: rupert THURNER <rupert.thurner(a)gmail.com>
Cc: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Yes, sorry - I was being immature with that comment. I was just
feeling grumpy. But I do think this kind of thing is very counter
productive and off-putting for new and low-level editors who would
like to do good work. It's just too bad. The community of editors is
shrinking and the experience that new editors are having is getting
worse and worse. I am very worried about the future of Wikipedia.
There are so many amazing editors. The problem is not that
"experienced editors are being mean to newbies." In fact, analysis we
did while I was still at WMF (that we were never able to refine and
verify to publishable quality) showed that the vast majority of heavy
editors are welcoming and good to editors. But a few are not. And a
huge portion of editors who are like me -- i.e. who would really like
to contribute more, but need to learn more -- find their talk pages
covered with cryptic warnings and have their first articles (whether
they're about themselves or a legitimate topic) deleted.
This is totally anecdotal -- I'm not sure if anyone's actually
benchmarking this -- but I feel like I keep finding gaps in Wikipedia
that wouldn't have been there a few years ago. Like new bands, local
politicians, software products etc... I want to read about these
things on Wikipedia, not on commercial sites. So does the bast
majority of the world.
If the community continues to shrink and Wikipedia continues to fall
behind, it's only a matter of time before a Google or Facebook or new
start up takes what Wikipedians have created and continues in a more
open and inviting way.
Hopefully that's a more mature version of my offhand, frustrated
comment about grinding Wikipedia to halt from yesterday.
On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 3:44 AM, rupert THURNER
<rupert.thurner(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 9:49 PM, Zack Exley <zexley(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > I haven't read this thread, but I'll explain my editing history as
> > Wikitedium:
> >
> > First of all, I listed my user name as soon as I started at Wikipedia. It's
> > still listed here on my (out of date) staff/contractor page:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley
> >
> > I did start an article about myself a long time ago. I didn't know there
> > was a policy against it. I wasn't an active editor and knew virtually no
> > policies. I created the article because right wing media personalities were
> > doing hit pieces on me and the Republican party was sending out emails
> > asking people to write letters to the editor about me featuring lots of
> > false facts. So I saw Wikipedia as an open encyclopedia "that anyone can
> > edit" where I could set the record straight. Later I learned it was against
> > policy and FELT REALLY BAD.
> >
> > As for the other edits on projects I was involved with. My personal opinion
> > is that those kinds of edits are vital to the future of Wikipedia. I want
> > everyone to add everything they're working on to Wikipedia -- and then all
> > their critics to come and add what they know. I'm saddened every time I go
> > looking for something I expect to be in Wikipedia and find nothing -- and
> > am forced to rely on the organization's own site or whatever.
> >
> > OK -- I think that's all you need from me. Now enjoy yourselves as you
> > continue to grind Wikipedia to a whining halt.
>
> zack, i find this a little offending. most of the persons in this
> discussion thread did more edits in the last months than you in your
> lifetime - and this without touching an article about self, or
> accepting that the colleagues at work do so. its you who gets a 6
> digit number of donors money wired to your bank account every year.
> you can be sure they did not give it because of your edits.
>
> instead of "feeling bad" you might consider doing something about the
> cause. e.g. you might propose your own article for deletion
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion).
>
> what makes this whole story confusing to me are the following pages:
> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Organizing_Institute
> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_freeman
> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Carteroni
> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mstemp
>
> the zack exley wikipedia page says you are president of new organizing
> institute, and you let some one time wikipedia user create an article
> about your organization again, and let another one time user create a
> page for your only partner in that organization? after feeling
> terribly bad? after being chief community officer at WMF responsible
> for developing the foundations relationship with the editing
> community?
>
> many thanks, zack, that you are there. otherwise "the whole thing
> would have fallen apart" (wikimedia), as you say in this interview:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQfHVGMrHCY
>
> rupert
I came across Pete Forsyth's blog on the upcoming TOU amendment at:
http://wikistrategies.net/terms-of-use-amendment
and it raises quite a few interesting talking points.
Thought you all might like to take a peek and discuss.
Cheers
Russavia
>... the Foundation is not going to be active on stuff like
> pushing for community broadband.
Who is going to stop monoculture ISPs from interposing ads on top of
Foundation content HTTP streams?
>... It's not within even the broad remit of the Foundation.
That's entirely debatable. It's far more empowering to give someone
10x faster internet at cost plus than keep them on a slow line paying
three times as much to make sure CEOs get more villas in France than
it is to be one of 8,000 voices in the copyright policy cacophony.
I welcome a cost-benefit-risk-resource analysis of all strategic
options, based on facts instead of mere assertions.
http://stopthecap.com/2014/01/30/anti-community-broadband-bill-introduced-i…http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/alec-tech-and-the-telecom_b_16…
Is the Foundation active on this issue? My question to the
advocacy_advisors mailing list was not approved by the moderator, but
after a few days now I don't have any reason that it's not a
legitimate question. Was there any discussion about whether that list
should be moderated?
Does the Foundation want to base advocacy efforts on issues that can
help a declining number of volunteers instead of the no longer extant
exponentially growing number of volunteers?
At the request of the WMF Board of Trustees, I am posting the minutes of
the January 31 - February 1, 2014 meeting, which you may find here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2014-01-31
Best,
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
*For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia
Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer
for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal
capacity.*
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Here's a recent article from The Economist. Some of the reader comments about the article were interesting, especially considering the population that is likely to be reading and commenting about an article in The Economist.
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21597959-popular-online-encyclo…
Pine
Dear all,
We are happy to inform you that Wikimedia Indonesia and Humanitarian
OpenStreetMap Team (HOT OSM) just received the news that our proposal
submitted to "Making All Voices Count" grant program was accepted. We
got £ 31,000
worth of grant to work on growing open content in Kalimantan, Indonesia.
The proposal was submitted last year and co-written by Wikimedia
(Siska Doviana, Ivonne Kristiani, John Vandenberg) and HOT OSM (Kate
Chapman and Yantisa Akhadi). We are so excited because this is our first
big collaboration project together and out of 500 proposals worldwide
(well, seven countries) only 28 received funding, and we are one of them. We
also realized that we just became internationally competitive in grant
seeking. Thank you to them, and back to work for us!
Official page from Making All Voices Count:
http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/project/open-content-in-kalimantan-wiki…
Cheers,
--
*Isabella Apriyana*
*Wakil Sekretaris Jendral*
*(Deputy Secretary General)Wikimedia Indonesia*
Seluler +628889752858/ +6281213700084
Surel isabella.apriyana(a)wikimedia.or.id
Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan!
http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi
Support us to free the knowledge!
http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi
Hi, guys.
I just wanted to let you know, so you could mark your calendars if
interested, that there are two IRC office hours scheduled to discuss
VisualEditor in March and one in April.
The first will be held on Monday March 17 at 1500 UTC and the second will
be held on Wednesday March 19 at 0100 UTC. (See
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours for time conversion
links.)
Logs will be posted on meta after each office hour completes. You'll find
them, along with logs for older office hours on the topic, at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:VisualEditor_office_hours_logs
The April office hour is scheduled for Saturday April 19 at 2000 UTC.
Please see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours for more
information on what office hours are and how to join in.
Thanks!
Maggie
--
Maggie Dennis
Senior Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
