Hi Andy,
The password isn't a single point of failure in the sense that Jarry and Ed both had the password and either of them might have become available to publish hours or days later, but I felt the Signpost was already late, we had enough material to publish, and waiting another week would mean we would lose the work that had gone into the Traffic Report and we would need to reformat the Featured Content Report to add another week's worth of material. This is the first time I have felt confident enough to make a decision to publish in Ed's absence with Tony's agreement, so this is the first time I have needed the password.
Tony and I now have the password. I hope that future publications are normal even if Ed is absent.
Thanks for your interest in the Signpost. Do you have any other questions?
Pete, thanks for your comments. It is good to feel that the Signpost's all-volunteer staff is appreciated.
Pine
tl;dr Self-nominations invited for four Board-appointed members of the FDC.
Nominate here.[3]
Dear members of the Wikimedia community,
The Funds Dissemination Committee Advisory Group (FDC AG) met recently in
Frankfurt to recommend to the Executive Director (ED) of the Wikimedia
Foundation whether the FDC - the nine member volunteer committee reviewing
annual plan grants or allocations for Wikimedia and allied organisations -
should continue or not, after the first two years of its existence.[1] The
detailed recommendations of the FDC AG will be shared with the Executive
Director and the community shortly, but we are happy to announce that the
AG recommends that the FDC continues to exist with some suggested
improvements to the process.
The final decision on the FDC will be taken by the ED and the Board of WMF
over the next few months (the FDC Framework’s timeline suggests August),
but the AG’s overall recommendation is a testimony to the deep commitment
and energy of the current FDC and the community members who have
participated in this unique peer-review grantmaking process. Thank you.
Without anticipating the ED and Board’s decision, we would like to move
forward with the process of renewing the current FDC with four
Board-appointed members of the FDC so that a full FDC is in place by August
2014. As per the Framework,[2] four of the current committee members will
be ending their two year terms in July, and four new members will be
appointed by the WMF Board to fill these vacancies.
I write to ask those of you interested in joining the FDC to signal your
interest on Meta by self-nominating by end of day UTC June 15.[3] The
schedule for the nominations process is as follows:
* May 30 - June 15: Self nominations to join the FDC. Candidates indicate
their interest through a short paragraph about themselves, and respond to
an initial set of questions from the FDC staff
* June 1 - June 30: Public question and answer [4] from community members
to candidates
* June 24 - July 3: FDC staff in consultation with the FDC Board
representatives (Bishakha Datta and Patricio Lorente) interview a sub-set
of nominated candidates
* July 3: Shortlist of candidates announced
* July 4 - 10: Decision on final four FDC candidates by the Board reps in
consultation with the full Board
* July 11: Public announcement to community of the four new members
* August: Based on the ED and Board’s decision on the FDC’s existence,
orientation of the new FDC at Wikimania
To be eligible to join the FDC, members need to meet the requirements
below, as outlined by the Framework.[5] They must:
* have sufficient time and dedication to commit to this time-heavy process,
including attending two 4-6 day face-to-face meetings (likely in mid-May
and mid-November) and be able to meet the expectations outlined in more
detail on the nominations page
* have a track record of constructive engagement in community discussions
and an orientation toward collaborative problem solving
* be able to set aside any conflicts of interest and work towards the
mission goals of the Wikimedia movement without considering individual or
organizational interests
* be over 21 years in age and over the age of majority in their home country
* be able to work effectively in English (note that full fluency is not
required)
* present to WMF appropriate personal identification
* Staff / board members of entities requesting funds from the FDC may serve
on the FDC;
however, they must recuse themselves from deliberations pertaining to their
entity's application.
The *skills and attributes* being sought for in FDC members include:
* Experience directing or evaluating programs;
* Grant-making expertise (either as a grantee or grantor of funds);
* Exposure to, understanding of, and personal credibility in the Wikimedia
movement (experience across different Wikimedia projects as well as
experience in programs, chapters, or administrative roles within the
Wikimedia movement);
* Gender, geographic and linguistic diversity.
There are no term limits for FDC members, and current members may choose to
re-apply for the FDC. The members whose terms end this July are Anders
Wennersten, Arjuna Rao Chavala, Mike Peel (current Secretary), and Yuri
Perohanych. The members who continue on the FDC for another year are Ali
Haidar Khan (current Vice-Chair), Dariusz Jemielniak (current Chair),
Cristian Consonni, Delphine Ménard and Sydney Poore. More information
about the Committee’s roles is available on Meta.[6]
We’ll hold IRC office hours to answer questions, particularly for those of
you interested in joining the committee. Current FDC members may join these
office hours, based on their availability. Office hours will be held on the
#wikimedia-office channel on Wednesday, June 4 at 0:00 UTC and again later
that day at 16:00 UTC.[7]
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and my FDC staff colleagues at
FDCsupport(a)wikimedia.org. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may
have about joining the committee.
Warmly,
Anasuya
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee_Advisory_Grou…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Fr…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/No…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/No…
[5]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Fra…
[6]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee#Rol…
[7] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
--
*Anasuya SenguptaSenior Director of GrantmakingWikimedia Foundation*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
Support Wikimedia <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>
Chris writes:
> As I understand it, the "right to be forgotten" will only affect the
> discoverability of content, rather than existence of content.
>
> So if we rely on a source which says that person X did Y many years ago,
> and X succeeds in invoking their "right to be forgotten", then the source
> will no longer appear in search engine results. The source, whether offline
> or online, will continue to exist and will continue to be a valid reference.
>
> My understanding may well be wrong, and if there is anything that
> summarises this issue as it affects Wikimedians I would be really
> interested to read it.
Your understanding is essentially correct, as far as it goes. The ECJ
(aka "Curia") opinion makes clear that the decision applies to search
engines but not (yet) to the databases of source journals (such as The
New York Times or the Guardian).
But of course it can affect the work of Wikipedia editors and other
Wikimedians looking for online sources if search engine results can be
censored in this way. In addition, it seems possible that the ECJ
opinion can be understood to apply to Wikipedia itself, which, while
not a search engine, may qualify as a "controller" as that word is
defined under Article 2 of Directive 95/46 of the European Parliament
("on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of
personal data and on the free movement of such data"). Look at these
relevant definitions from the text of the ECJ opinion:
------------
Article 2 of Directive 95/46 states that ‘[f]or the purposes of
this Directive:
(a) “personal data” shall mean any information relating to an
identified or identifiable natural person (“data subject”); an
identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or
indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or
to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological,
mental, economic, cultural or social identity;
(b) “processing of personal data” (“processing”) shall mean any
operation or set of operations which is performed upon personal data,
whether or not by automatic means, such as collection, recording,
organisation, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval,
consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or
otherwise making available, alignment or combination, blocking,
erasure or destruction;
...
(d) “controller” shall mean the natural or legal person, public
authority, agency or any other body which alone or jointly with others
determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data;
where the purposes and means of processing are determined by national
or Community laws or regulations, the controller or the specific
criteria for his nomination may be designated by national or Community
law;
...
Article 9 of Directive 95/46, entitled ‘Processing of personal
data and freedom of expression’, provides:
‘Member States shall provide for exemptions or derogations from the
provisions of this Chapter, Chapter IV and Chapter VI for the
processing of personal data carried out solely for journalistic
purposes or the purpose of artistic or literary expression only if
they are necessary to reconcile the right to privacy with the rules
governing freedom of expression.’
---------------
(Note that "processing of personal data" need not be done "by
automatic means." I read this to mean that Wikipedia editors
themselves may qualify as engaging in the "processing of personal
data." And the definition of "controller" expressly includes a
"natural ... person."
Assuming that Member States would assert jurisdiction over Wikipedia
(even though Wikipedia is hosted in the United States), could
Wikipedia articles be defended under the "solely for journalistic
purposes or the purpose of artistic or literary expression" language
of Article 9 of the Directive? That language doesn't strike me as a
very good fit for what Wikipedia does.
The English-language version of the full text of the opinion is here:
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=152065&pageI…
.
Ilario writes:
> But I think that something will change for users writing content (no more
> references in the main search engine) but also to discover copyright
> infringements.
And, possibly much more than that, as I suggest above.
Not impossibly, and assuming EU can establish jurisdiction of
Wikimedia Foundation or its agents or its volunteer editors, this
particular news story might have turned out differently:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html?_r=0 .
--Mike
On 2 April 2014 16:12, Jon Davies <jon.davies(a)wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
...
> This could help reduce costs and avoid any duplication?
I can now confirm that Wikimedia UK is not going to make a public
report of the total costs of sending 8 people to the Wikimedia
Conference 2014. I doubt that Jon Davies' wish to reduce costs can be
considered a commitment if as the Chief Executive, he has chosen to
not report on them.
Discussion on the UK wiki on this topic started on 27 March, and I
waited for 5 weeks for an answer to the direct question of costs
(raised 24 April), in which time the original discussion thread on the
chapter wiki was manually archived and I had to create a second
discussion in an attempt to pursue an answer. This wasted volunteer
time, employee time and goodwill, if the answer could have been "no,
we have no plan to report on these costs" with a rationale as to why.
Perhaps other chapters have reported on costs and can offer links for
Jon, in order to show how this can be achieved in a non-bureaucratic,
open and transparent fashion for the benefit of chapter members?
Links:
1. https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room/2014#Attendees_at_the_Wikimedia_C…
2. https://wikimedia.org.uk/w/index.php?title=Engine_room&diff=57343&oldid=573…
Thanks,
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Because VE has repeatedly been mentioned in this list as something that is improving and may help us with acquisition of editors and their knowledge, I have started to draft an RfC about re-enabling VE on English Wikipedia.
I am not proposing any specific outcome in the RfC. My goal is to set up a framework which the community can use to decide which of several paths we would like to take.
This is not my personal RfC, I just happen to think that with recent discussions trending positively about VE's improvement over the past several months and with the comments in this list about its possible value to acquiring new editors, I'm willing to put in some time to draft a framework for a discussion on-wiki. I am providing this note to let the community know that someone (me) is drafting a framework for on-wiki discussion. If someone else wants to start an RfC before I get around to starting one, that's completely ok.
Cheers,
Pine
Dear all,
On behalf of the election facilitators I would like to let you know the
results of the Affiliate Selected Board Seats election.
The candidates who won the election are Patricio Lorente and Frieda
Brioschi, and therefore the movement affiliates recommend the Board
appoints them.
There were 27 votes cast by movement affiliates, and the results at each
stage of the count (under the STV system) were as follows.
STEP 1
Votes:
Sums: Patricio Lorente (15.50); Alice Wiegand (5.50); Frieda
Brioschi(5.00); Anders Wennersten (1.00)
Patricio wins.
STEP 2
Votes:
Sums: Frieda (8.73); Alice (6.74); Anders (1.53)
Anders loses.
STEP 3
Votes:
Sums: Frieda (9.26); Alice (7.74)
Alice loses.
STEP 4
Votes:
Sums: Frieda (17.00)
Frieda wins.
The 0.5 votes in the first round occur because some affiliates put two
candidates as 1st preference: this was treated as a half-vote for each
candidate.
The election result was counted independently by two of the facilitators,
one using a script and the other using pen-and-paper, to verify one
anothers' results.
Do let us know if you have any further questions regarding the process.
I would like to thank all the candidates and everyone who participated in
the selection process, and particularly Alice Wiegand for her two years of
service on the WMF Board.
Regards,
Chris
on behalf of James Hare, Lorenzo Losa and Chris Keating, election
facilitators
Martijn asked me which things I thought that some people on this list
don't want anyone to discuss, so here are the two examples that I'm
most interested in:
Child Protection- I'd like to hear about ways that policy might be
changed here to better protect children, especially given some of the
content on Commons. I'd also like to hear about specific examples of
content on Commons that a parent might not find appropriate for their
children. Note that this is not a repeat of the discussion to
understand what policies are in place, as I have already opened a
specific thread for that.
Harassment- I'd like to hear about existing policies around harassment
and potential changes to such policies. In particular, I'm interested
in how the community might tackle this problem to make the site a more
comfortable place for the oft-mentioned female constituent that has
long been in decline.
Since I don't have enough experience with the community and WP yet to
discuss controversial topics myself, I will not chime in unless the
thread has very obviously gone off topic. Just to pick an arbitrary
about of time that is more than the few months that others have
mentioned here, let's say that you can only participate in this
discussion if you have at least one year of experience as an active
contributor.
Now, I'll just sit back and hear all sides of the story.
,Wil
Hello Everyone,
As Lila officially takes over from Sue as the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation after this weekend it really is a moment to not only wish Lila a lot of succes in the coming years, but also to give a tremendous thanks to Sue for her work in the past years. Of course I did so last year in March when she announced her departure but it bears repeating that Sue took us from a small organisation in St. Petersburg Florida, which was struggling to create impact, to a mature and stable organisation which makes a huge difference. Building up a professional staff who are dedicated to our mission, incredible fundraising growth and working through complex situations to create concepts such as the FDC stand out amongst many other achievements.
It was Sue herself who indicated that it was time to find a new Executive Director, someone who was more suitable for our focus on Engineering and Grantmaking. As I mentioned more than a year ago, its hard to imagine the Wikimedia Foundation without Sue at the helm. However, due in large part to her efforts we have managed to find a new Executive Director who gives me confidence in the future of the Foundation. I am happy that we managed to find the “unicorn” that we were looking for, but that didn’t happen by accident. Most of you know that we concluded the first round of our search in early december with candidates that we did not feel were ideal for the job. We decided to change our tactics and this involved both Erik and Sue spending a lot of their (spare) time with potential candidates and making sure that we were getting the right candidates. As a result our second round had a great set of candidates, which ultimately led to the selection of Lila. On the transition team Sue has been very crucial in holding up a mirror and reminding us what we were looking for.
After a well deserved vacation Sue will be available as a Special Advisor to both the Lila and the Board of Trustees and we are grateful to her for making herself available to do this. However, what intrigues me more is what she will end up doing in the coming years. I am hoping it is in the space of Open Content or the Open Internet, as she will undoubtedly have a tremendous impact in there, and we need her! I am also happy to inform you that Sue will attend a part of Wikimania where she will for once not have an packed schedule, so feel free to take the opportunity to thank her in person if you are so inclined :)
On behalf of the entire Board and all the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation: thank you so much all that you have given the Foundation, and especially your efforts in the past year to ensure that there was both stability within our organisation and a great succesor.
Jan-Bart de Vreede
Chair
Wikimedia Board of Trustees
_______________________________________________
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
Greetings,
Based on continuing changes to Wikimedia's approach to movement affiliates
(chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups), input from the
community, and discussions with WMF board and staff - the Affiliations
Committee has begun work on expanding our support of affiliates once the
recognition process itself concludes.
An early step that we are taking is to provide each Wikimedia movement
affiliate with at least one liaison from the Affiliations Committee to help
with communications, finding resources, answering questions, and supporting
successful contributions to the Wikimedia movement.
Each member of the Affiliations Committee is assigned as a liaison to
multiple affiliates. Each affiliate will be assigned a primary liaison, who
will be their main contact, and a secondary liaison, who is available if
the primary is not and able to help with more complex situations. While an
affiliate's liaisons may change over time, they will always have at least
one liaison assigned to them. We will soon be adding more members to the
committee, so there are a few liaison assignments not yet filled.
Liaisons will be making initial contact in the coming weeks - and will then
be in contact periodically, or affiliates may contact them at any time. We
welcome any feedback or ideas on how we can help support your chapters,
thematic org, or user group moving forward.
More info - including specific liaison assignments:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Liaisons
-greg aka varnent
Vice-Chair
Wikimedia Affiliations Committee
Hello fellow Wikimedians,
*Two special events just before Wikimania aimed at spreading good practice.*
*Governance workshop 7th of August.*
Based on the successful board training workshop held in March this year, we
are organising another such workshop, this time coinciding with Wikimania
here in London. This workshop will be based on the successful March
training workshop, with largely the same material covered. It's intended
for people who are (or will shortly be) board members of Chapters or
Thematic Organisations. This session is planned for 7 August 2014, i.e. as
a pre-meeting to Wikimania.
For more details, including a provisional agenda and registration link,
please go to <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Boards_training_workshop_August_2014>.
Places are strictly limited, on a first come first served basis.
*Train the Trainers - two day course. 4th and 5th of August*
We are also hosting an international version of our successful 'Train the
trainers' workshop which we've advertised to you previously. The
application deadline for a place there is Sunday 15 June. More information
and registration is at <
https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?id=68&reset=1>. Don't
miss out on a place, especially if you have previously indicated an
interest in attending but have not yet registered.
Hope to see many of you in London in August,
Katie
--
Katie Chan
Volunteer Support Organiser
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 20 7065 0990
+44 (0) 7885 980 534
PGP Key-ID: 0x483767A3
Wikimedia UK is a Charitable Company registered in England and Wales.
Registered Company 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.
--
*Jon Davies - Chief Executive Wikimedia UK*. Mobile (0044) 7803 505 169
tweet @jonatreesdavies
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).
Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990.
Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk