Hello Wikimedia colleagues,
Some of you may remember the LearnWiki project [0]. Regrettably, the
project goals were not completed within the planned timeline and budget. If
you would like to read that grant's final report, you may find it here [1].
I continue to believe that there would be value in offering more online
training to Wikimedians through videos, and possibly interactive tutorials
and other resources, that could help Wikimedians with novice to
intermediate skill levels to improve their proficiency with navigating
Wikimedia online cultures, principles, referencing, VisualEditor, the 2017
New WikiText Editor (which I like to call "NEWT") [2], and other topics.
Currently, there is a variety of training throughout the Wikimedia
ecosystem. Training varies across projects (e.g. Wikipedia, Wikidata,
Commons), languages (e.g. English, Arabic, Japanese), settings (e.g. GLAM
workshops, university classes, online individual study), formats (e.g. in
person, remote, video, interactive tutorial, lecture), and themes (e.g.
Wiki Loves Monuments, Women in Red, WikiProject Military History).
I plan to create and distribute a survey during the next few months to ask
individual Wikimedians and Wikimedia affiliate organizations about the
training practices that you have used to train yourself or others, how
effective you think that those training practices are, and what types of
training you would like to have available in the future. This survey would
inform the development of training materials and methods.
Improving the quality and diversity of training is a long term goal of
mine. This campaign is currently not funded by the Wikimedia Foundation or
any Wikimedia affiliate, although I believe that the survey data will
provide valuable input for possible projects, and people may request
funding for some of those projects (whether or not they are collaborating
with me). I do not plan to request WMF funds for myself in the foreseeable
future, but I may request funding for other contractors or grantees for
some projects that are related to this campaign and who collaborate with
me. While I work on this initiative, I anticipate that numerous Wikimedia
affiliates and program leaders will continue to develop and refine a
variety of training materials, some of which will be funded by WMF,
affiliates, and/or other organizations. I hope to collaborate with others,
incrementally and over the course of years, to improve the quality and
diversity of training throughout the Wikimedia ecosystem.
I believe that WMF is planning to launch the 2018 Community Engagement
Insights survey in March, and to publish results in May. [3] The CEI survey
results from 2017 and 2018 are likely to influence plans for development of
training materials, although the survey that is focused on training will be
separate from the 2018 CEI survey. I plan to collaborate with WMF Community
Resources and WMF Learning and Evaluation *if* they have availability and
willingness to participate in the design and analysis of the training
survey. :)
Further updates about the training survey will be provided during the next
few months. In the meantime, you are welcome to contact me with questions
or comments through email, IRC, or on my Meta talk page, especially if you
would like to help with the design of the survey.
Regards,
Pine <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine>
[0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Learnwiki
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Motivational_and_educational_vid…
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/2017_wikitext_editor
]3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_Insights
Has anyone tried to use a Siamese neural network for image classification
at Commons? I don't know if it will be good enough to run in autonomous
mode, but it will probably be a huge help for those that do manual
classification.
Imagine a network providing a list of possible categories, and the user
just ticks off usable categories.
A Siamese network can be learned by using a triplet loss function, where
the anchor and the positive candidate comes from the same category, and the
negative candidate comes from an other category but are otherwise close to
the anchor.
Output from the network is like a fingerprint, and those fingerprints can
be compared to other images with known fingerprints, or against a
generalized fingerprint for a category.
John Erling Blad
Hello colleagues,
I have started an RfC here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Requests_for_comment/Account_creation_logs
This RfC is not intended to cast a negative light on communities and
individuals who are making good-faith efforts to welcome new users by
placing welcome messages on the new users' talk pages. The emphasis on the
RfC is on whether changes should be made to the privacy of account creation
logs, which appears to affect the privacy of logged-in users who are
reading Wikimedia wikis which they have not previously visited while logged
in. I made proposals in the RfC regarding how new users may be welcomed.
Regards,
Pine <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CatherineMunro/Bright_Places>
Dear All,
Please find here [1] a link to our draft Progress Report. This report will
be further reviewed for language, metrics, and other visualisation before
submission. We would like to thank you for the support during the drafting
of this report.
Do let us know if there is anything else,
[1]. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/
2016-2017_round_2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Progress_report_form
Thanks and Regards,
*ANANTH SUBRAY P V(ಅನಂತ್)*
Programme Associate
Access to Knowledge program
The Centre for Internet & Society
+91-9739811664
Hello everyone,
As many of you know, in October we concluded phase 1 of the movement
strategy process. The result was a final draft of the strategic
direction,[1] summarizing the hundreds of conversations that took place all
over the world, on wiki and off, about where we as a movement want
Wikimedia to go next. Many communities and individuals have signed on to
the direction, expressing their support for the guide we collectively
created for our future.
The Board recognizes the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in
making this direction a reality. In the next phase of the movement
strategy, we will get into more of the specifics of how to make that
happen. With that in mind, we would like to share a statement setting forth
our commitment to the future of Wikimedia, and a clear mandate for the
Wikimedia Foundation to invest the resources necessary to support the
growth and evolution required for the next chapter of Wikimedia’s future.
Our statement is included below, and on Meta-Wiki, where it has been set up
for translation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Nove…
The Board greatly appreciates all of the time and energy that thousands of
people have put into the movement strategy process. Special appreciation
goes out to the members of the community who stepped up to help lead local,
language, or global organizing efforts. We are not done yet, but what we
have created is something that we should all be proud of -- for the process
of how we got to this direction, as much as for the direction itself.
On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees,
Christophe Henner, Board Chair
***
Statement
At our most recent Board meeting on the 18th of November, the Wikimedia
Foundation Board focused much of our discussion on the needs and goals of
the Wikimedia 2030 movement strategy process.[1] We carefully considered
the next steps we as a movement, and the Wikimedia Foundation in
particular, need to take to build for our future.
The Board is committed to ensuring the vision outlined in the Wikimedia
2030 process becomes a reality. To support this direction and the future of
the Wikimedia movement, it is our belief that the Wikimedia Foundation must
expand its resources through healthy, sustainable practices. To this end,
we want to give a clear mandate for the Wikimedia Foundation to invest the
resources necessary to support the growth and evolution required for the
next chapter of Wikimedia’s future.
We specifically recommend that the Foundation:
-
Increase investment in Foundation staffing and other means of support
for the movement direction, sufficiently resourcing product, technology,
and community health commitments in particular;
-
Support and engage with individuals, groups, and organizations,
especially within the Wikimedia movement, to further develop their
capacities, including the specific needs of emerging communities;
-
Support the fundraising team in raising additional funds beyond what is
called for in the annual plan to prepare us for future growth;
-
Increase revenue as needed to support investment and growth;
-
Explore alternative revenue streams for the Foundation and movement; and
-
Undertake any capacity expansion in a healthy and sustainable way that
anticipates current and future needs.
Based on anticipated need and past performance, we envision an annual
budgetary growth rate of 10–20% over the next several years.
The Board takes seriously its responsibility to the Foundation and by
extension, to the global Wikimedia movement. We believe this mandate will
better ensure we can realize the future we all have outlined as part of
Wikimedia 2030. We are committed to ensuring the sustainable growth and
success of our movement, and the Wikimedia Foundation’s role in supporting
its future.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction
Christophe HENNER
Chair of the board of trustees
chenner(a)wikimedia.org
+33650664739
twitter *@schiste* skype *christophe_henner*
Thanks, Jonathan. Do you think we can convince Katherine Maher to
agree to enforce the Creative Commons Attribution requirements? There
is no doubt it would aid both editor recruitment, and as you point
out, morale too.
I also want to ask her about:
(2) survey metrics:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_2030/Process_plannin…
(3) benchmarking investment performance against institutional
endowment-grade mutual funds and studies of endowment performance:
https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rzeckhau/EndowmentsPaperPartII.pdf
and e.g., https://institutional.vanguard.com/iam/pdf/EndowmentPerformanceResearch.pdf
Related: endowment size required for full sustainability;
(4) testing replacing the pencil icon with the word "[edit]" on mobile;
(5) intelligibility remediation on Wiktionary as a Foundation
technology development project;
(6) systemic review of bias in economics articles; and
(7) an ongoing top performers' invitational essay contest for the
Education Program.
Katherine, what are your opinions on those recommendations?
Can (6) and (7) be combined?
Best regards,
Jim
On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 10:50 PM, Jonathan Cardy
<werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I wouldn't express it quite so bluntly, but agreed at a time when editing seems to have stabilised again after the 2015/16 rally, shifting the Foundation to a strategy of promoting compliance with both BY and SA would address a lot of problems. It is probably demotivating for editors to see their work used without attribution, and whilst a link back to Wikipedia is not as going to be as good as an edit button, we are greatly limiting ourselves if we rely on people coming directly to our sites and treat every extract from our sites as CC0 or Fair Use.
>
> A few legal letters and maybe a court case a year should be easily affordable for the WMF and an excellent investment.
>
> Regards
>
> Jonathan
>
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2018 00:12:43 +0000
>> From: James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com>
>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright enforcement?
>> Message-ID:
>> <CAD4=uZatXxeaxuod9R_sMsEujROG9s-XdhjyNpD9BvR6B5OC9g(a)mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>>
>> Attribution is often considered impractical, but providing the source
>> date along with e.g. the article name can be used to derive the
>> attribution, so it should be required. It's not just a good idea to
>> require this information from content re-users like Amazon, Apple, and
>> Google, but doing so will help encourage those who find issues to
>> edit.
>>
>> If the Foundation doesn't make attribution or at least article date a
>> requirement, then they are actively opposing editor recruitment.
>>
>>
>>> On Sat, Jan 27, 2018 at 7:34 PM, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The copyright requirement isn't attribution; it's attribution and copyleft
>>> retention for derived works.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
I wouldn't express it quite so bluntly, but agreed at a time when editing seems to have stabilised again after the 2015/16 rally, shifting the Foundation to a strategy of promoting compliance with both BY and SA would address a lot of problems. It is probably demotivating for editors to see their work used without attribution, and whilst a link back to Wikipedia is not as going to be as good as an edit button, we are greatly limiting ourselves if we rely on people coming directly to our sites and treat every extract from our sites as CC0 or Fair Use.
A few legal letters and maybe a court case a year should be easily affordable for the WMF and an excellent investment.
Regards
Jonathan
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2018 00:12:43 +0000
> From: James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright enforcement?
> Message-ID:
> <CAD4=uZatXxeaxuod9R_sMsEujROG9s-XdhjyNpD9BvR6B5OC9g(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Attribution is often considered impractical, but providing the source
> date along with e.g. the article name can be used to derive the
> attribution, so it should be required. It's not just a good idea to
> require this information from content re-users like Amazon, Apple, and
> Google, but doing so will help encourage those who find issues to
> edit.
>
> If the Foundation doesn't make attribution or at least article date a
> requirement, then they are actively opposing editor recruitment.
>
>
>> On Sat, Jan 27, 2018 at 7:34 PM, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> The copyright requirement isn't attribution; it's attribution and copyleft
>> retention for derived works.
>>
>>>
>>> --
Users on other projects are complaining about the welcome messages at
arwiki. A bot at that project are welcoming people that has no activity at
that project at all. The bot operator claims the activity is valid, but I
can't see that this is a well-behaving bot at all.[1]
I suspect the bot is welcoming every user it can find, but using user
accounts from central login and not users that has local contributions at
arwiki.
Can someone shut down the bot until the user fix the spam problem.
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Meno25#Welcome_messages