Hi everyone,
We recently held the harmonization sprint in Tunis [1], where
representatives from each working group met in person to continue bringing
nine separate sets of draft recommendations into one set. The event also
brought together staff members from the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia
Deutschland, the WMF Chair of the Board of Trustees, and members of the
core team. A longer narrative report will be published in the coming weeks;
in the meantime, see a short day-by-day report on Meta, photos on commons
[2], and check out the hashtag #hs2030 on Twitter [3].
In the lead up to the meeting, the working groups were busy refining their
draft recommendations based on feedback received at in person events from
Wikimedians across the movement as well as on wiki, via email, and on
social media since March of this year. They had also begun identifying
overlaps in each other’s recommendations and content. A second iteration of
draft recommendations [4] was published on Meta just before the sprint for
the communities’ information.
At the sprint, we continued to group recommendations based on
commonalities. From there, we looked at what kinds of structures would need
to be in place to deliver the Wikimedia 2030 vision. A first, rough
grouping of recommendations came together at the sprint. But what became
clear during the event was that before it’s possible to create a coherent
and actionable set of recommendations, fundamental principles that underpin
the path towards 2030 need to be formalized.
The core team is currently processing the discussion materials and
outcomes. Analysis of the current draft recommendations will continue so as
to create one unified set. The timeline will shift and we are looking into
options for another round of community input.
I would like to make clear that the reason we were not able to achieve our
initial goal in Tunis was due to a lack of clarity and guidance on the core
team’s part. Still, the time was not wasted and important, honest
conversations were had. The working group members, as ever, devoted an
enormous amount of energy and care in the lead up to and during the event,
and demonstrated their deep understanding of the challenges and
opportunities in our movement. We are extremely grateful for all their
effort. In short, the harmonization sprint underlined the high level of
work and dedication every single working group member has put into getting
the movement strategy to its current point, and the passion to shape the
future of the diverse and inclusive movement we envision.
We have valuable lessons to take from this event and incorporate into the
overall process and the next steps. We will share these with you all as
soon as possible. If you have questions in the meantime, please feel free
to reach out to me.
Best regards,
Nicole
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme…
[2]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_2030_Harmonization_Sp…
[3] https://twitter.com/search?q=%23hs2030
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme…
--
Nicole Ebber
Adviser International Relations
Program Manager Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de
Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit
teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
*"A Wikilibrarian's story"*
(The text in this section was copied from *Books & Bytes*, Issue 35,
July–August 2019
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/Newsletter/July-Augus…>;
see the page history on Meta for attribution.)
One's advent into the world of Wikimedia projects is almost always a
noteworthy account. Here we share one such account of a librarian who was
introduced to Wikipedia in an unusual way and began their adventure trying
to better understand Wikipedia and now helps others understand it too!
*Laurie Bridges is an Instruction and Outreach Librarian at Oregon State
University in the US. She was introduced to Wikipedia by her son: at age 9,
he was assigned a class project to research and present about a species of
frog, and was told to only use Wikipedia for his research. When he related
this to her, she thought, "If 9-year-olds are being introduced to research
using Wikipedia, I better learn more about Wikipedia". So she got involved
because she wanted to better understand the resource her son, and the
students at her university, use. She explains:*
Students and faculty are familiar with [Wikipedia] because many use it
daily, although they do not cite it in their papers. As a librarian I teach
about information literacy and help students and faculty with their
research. Wikipedia is a familiar website that I can use to teach
information literacy and afterwards students and faculty leave equipped
with a better understanding of how the information source works. Students
are used to teachers and professors saying, "Don't use Wikipedia." However,
this dismissive statement doesn't teach the students how, why, or when they
can use Wikipedia or other online resources. We are living in a time of
misinformation and I want students to understand the information they are
using and become critical consumers of that information. Using Wikipedia to
teach students about information literacy is fun! In addition, it's
fulfilling because I can see students' excitement as they learn more about
Wikipedia, a website they use on a daily basis. I've found teaching with
Wikipedia to be so rewarding that I want to spread the word.
Finally, if librarians don't teach students about Wikipedia and what it is
(or isn't), who is going to teach them? I'd like to see more activity and
interest from librarians related to Wikipedia. This is why whenever I get a
chance, I will introduce other librarians to … the Wikimedia Movement. Last
year I received a scholarship to attend Wikimedia + Education in San
Sebastián, Spain. I was only one of two librarians in attendance (in
addition to Basque librarians who were volunteering at the event). It was a
great learning opportunity and I connected with so many enthusiastic
educators. I'd love to see enough interest from librarians to host a
Wikimedia + Libraries conference! That would be a great conference!
*The change of seasons*
There are a variety of ways to define seasons
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season>, including meteorologically and
culturally. For those in the northern hemisphere, the autumnal equinox was
on 23 September this year; the autumnal equinox marks the transition from
astronomical summer to astronomical autumn. For those in the southern
hemisphere, 23 September was the spring equinox, which marked the
transition from astronomical winter to astronomical spring.
Awhile back I learned of a Scandinavian practice called kulning
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulning>, which involves using songs to call
herds of cattle over long distances. Here is a video (YouTube link)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc7F_qv3eI8> that shows cattle being
summoned out of the field with a kulning call for the last time of the year
in September 2017.
Here are a few music selections for the transition from summer to fall:
* "Summer End | Chill & Jazzhop", by Fantastic Music (YouTube link)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icS__xweWnU>
* "Summer's Gone", by Bob Bradley & Thomas Balmforth (YouTube link)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uyuLrJZ4IM>
And for the transition from winter to spring:
(The performances linked below feature John Harrison on the violin,
and the Wichita
State University <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_State_University>
Chamber Players. The conductor was Robert Turizziani. The performance
rights release was received by Wikimedia Commons via OTRS
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS>.)
* Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, "*La primavera*" (Spring) —
Movement 1: Allegro from *The Four Seasons*, composed by Antonio Vivaldi
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:01_-_Vivaldi_Spring_mvt_1_Allegro_-…>
* Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, "*La primavera*" (Spring) —
Movement 2: Largo from *The Four Seasons, *composed by Antonio Vivaldi
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:02_-_Vivaldi_Spring_mvt_2_Largo_-_J…>
* Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, "*La primavera*" (Spring) —
Movement 3: Allegro from *The Four Seasons*, composed by Antonio Vivaldi
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:02_-_Vivaldi_Spring_mvt_2_Largo_-_J…>
Closing comments
Translations of the subject line of this email would be appreciated on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine/WMYHTW_translations>. Thanks to
User:Julle <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Julle> for the Swedish
translation.
What’s making you happy this week? You are welcome to write in any
language. You are also welcome to start a WMYHTW thread next week.
Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
(usual cross-posting apologies!)
TL;DR version:
* What: Wikipedia & Education User Group Open Meeting
* Who: Guest speakers Florencia Claes and Goran Milovanović
* When: Monday, September 30, from 17:00 UTC to 18:30 UTC
* Where: https://zoom.us/j/876197184
* Why: Be inspired about programs related to Commons and Wiktionary
Full version:
On behalf of the Wikipedia & Education User Group, we cordially invite you
to attend our next Open Meeting on Monday, September 30, from 17:00 UTC to
18:30 UTC. While our name includes Wikipedia, we support the use of all
Wikimedia projects in educational contexts. Our guest speakers this month
showcase that well!
Florencia Claes, Communication and Journalism professor at Rey Juan Carlos
University in Madrid, Spain, will speak about how she's helped her students
contribute multimedia projects to Wikimedia Commons and add them to
Wikipedia, and her current project to collaborate with a documentary
filmmaking class to have students shoot videos for Commons. Florencia's
talk should be inspiring for anyone who has noticed a trend of students
preferring video over text, as we can all learn from her experiences!
Goran S. Milovanović, PhD, Data Scientist, Software Department, Wikimedia
Deutschland, will speak about the Wiktionary Cognate Dashboard [1], and how
it can be used for identifying places for improvement on your language
Wiktionary. This is super relevant for anyone running programs on
Wiktionary!
[1] http://wmdeanalytics.wmflabs.org/Wiktionary_CognateDashboard/
To join the meeting on the 30th, click this link:
https://zoom.us/j/876197184
To add the invite to your calendar:
* Google Calendar:
https://zoom.us/meeting/tZMrduCvrzMup3tg0j_JqfZsHGec7RZlUw/calendar/google/…
* Outlook Calendar:
https://zoom.us/meeting/tZMrduCvrzMup3tg0j_JqfZsHGec7RZlUw/ics
* Yahoo Calendar:
http://calendar.yahoo.com/?v=60&VIEW=d&TITLE=Wikipedia%20%26%20Education%20…
Full agenda:
* Intros
* Update from UG board
* Updates from Wikimania
* Updates from working groups
* Featured speakers: Florencia Claes, Goran Milovanović
* Q & A
I've submitted my final report for the third grant-funded round of
WikiProject X.
This round of the project was intended to see through finalising current
development in order to fully deploy CollaborationKit, a MediaWiki
extension intended to overhaul how users maintain and interact with
WikiProjects, to the English Wikipedia. Unfortunately, this goal was not
met, as the proposed scope exceeded the resources allocated, and I am
not planning to resume work on it for the foreseeable future.
I feel that it is important that we honestly share what we have learned
from this, however, as best to help others avoid making the same
mistakes we did:
* To view our final report:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/WikiProject_X/CollaborationK…
* For more information about CollaborationKit itself, please see
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:CollaborationKit
Thanks,
-I
Hello,
Recently, the "draft recommendations" of the strategy working groups have
been published. As Nicole informed us, they are "key tools" for the future
of the movement. These documents are the result of one year of work of the
working groups.
If I am not mistaken, the Wikimedia volunteers now have one month to give
feedback. In October, the process of refining and finalizing has to be
ready, and in November, the movement will have to start with implementing
the recommendations.
Having seen now more of the documents, my conclusion can only be one: the
documents are simply not ready for this stage of the process. They are much
more unready than they should be for being put to the eyes of the Wikimeda
volunteers.
There are documents in which there is only one question answered, by one
sentence. Other documents don't show that any research has been used to
back the statements. Many obvious arguments and links are missing. At least
at one occasion I read as an answer to an important question: "todo".
The proposals often give the impression that they are not thought through.
There should be quotas for admins, but we see nowhere an explanation how
that would relate to the right to remain anonymous. There is the statement
that minorities sometimes can only express themselves with ND and NC
content, but the two links in the document hardly back that claim. After
years in which the Wikimedia organizations and other free and open content
organizations taught us that NC is problematic, now such a drastic change?
And there is this already infamous sentence: Instead of being informed
about the possible negative impacts of NC and ND, we only read: "All change
has negative connotations to some members of the community."
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…
I find it stunning that there was nobody who went through the documents
before publication and said: we cannot publish this sentence, it is giving
a very bad impression about our attitude towards the community (= the very
same people we are asking to invest their time for giving feedback).
This does not mean that all documents or all sections and recommendations
are unusable or damaging. I also cannot judge about the efforts invested,
as I have no insight in the inner workings. But it is very frustrating for
me to read the documents and often have to guess what they actually mean.
And it seems to me, given the comments on the user pages on Meta Wiki, on
this list, on de:WP:Kurier and on Facebook, that I am not the only one who
feels this frustration.
Therefore, I ask the people responsible: please reconsider the timeline. If
these documents are the result of one year work, then the documents will
not be ready within two and a half months. Consider several months for the
working groups to use the present feedback for a redraft, and then give the
Wikimedia volunteers at least the same amount of time for giving feedback
again.
Kind regards
Ziko
Nice to see that https://wikimediafoundation.org has a banner linking
to the global climate strike today.
Can anyone produce some verifiable metrics that the WMF has taken
significant action to reduce the total number of aircraft flights the
WMF uses?
I am asking as though there are no transparently published figures for
how much the WMF spends on air travel, I recall that the Katherine
Mahler was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, where is was part
of her impressive executive profile to be "on the road" for 200 days
of the year. This probably puts Katherine in the very top numbers for
CEOs with damaging carbon footprints resulting from travelling so
often by flying.[1] If the WMF wants to be seen as an ethical company
when it comes to reducing their organizational impact on climate
change, perhaps this could start with publishing travel figures for
the CEO and the rest of the management team, so that everyone can see
whether there is year on year improvement, or none.
Thanks again for the banner, it does help increase the sense of urgency.
Links:
1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-35-year-old-executive-director-of-wiki…
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Dear Antolepore,
It does seem that you want something fixed on Wikipedia but I am not quiet
sure your current approach would be productive. Please do not start
thinking that any of the people on this list would obey your order. I'd
encourage you to consider your tone and immediately stop the threat and
think of a civil approach to resolving the problem. If you need the help of
one or more of our volunteers on this mailing list, politely request for
assistant.
Thank you
Isaac
On Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 8:36 PM antolepore [gmail.com] <antolepore(a)gmail.com
wrote:
> Please remove all the filters that Vituzzo, the administrator of the
> Italian version of Wikipedia, put on both the antolepore(a)gmail.com
> account and all the IPs that he also blocked in IRC because he made a mess.
> The carabinieri and the state police are investigating the case. Please do
> as I say! Thanks
>
> Il giorno mar 24 set 2019 alle ore 19:20 Sam Oyeyele <samoye_(a)hotmail.com>
> ha scritto:
>
>> Greetings!
>>
>> Apologies for cross-posting. After a successful first iteration of the
>> “Months of African Cinema” last year, we are happy to announce that it will
>> be happening again this year, starting from October 1! In the 2018 edition
>> of the contest, about 600 Wikipedia articles were created in at least 8
>> languages. There were also contributions to Wikidata and Wikimedia commons,
>> which brought the total number of wikimedia pages created during the
>> contest to over 1,000. About 9 in-person events were also organised for the
>> edit-a-thon in different parts of the world.
>>
>> The contest is organized by a Wikimedia project called "The AfroCine
>> Project",[1] which is dedicated to improving the coverage of the history,
>> works, people, places, and events, that are associated with the cinema,
>> theatre and arts of Africa, African countries, the Caribbean, and the
>> diaspora.
>>
>> If you would love to join this exciting event, please list your username
>> as a participant on the English Wikipedia contest page.[2] If you would
>> love to lead this contest for your country or community, please list your
>> name in the coordinators page here.[3] The rapid grants team would be
>> accepting proposals throughout October and November, in case you'd need
>> funds to run local edit-a-thons or some other activities related to this
>> event. Upon listing your name on the coordinators' page, you'd be contacted
>> to talk about the resources you'd need to run the event in your community.
>> You can also contact me directly for any clarifications.
>>
>> Finally, We also need volunteers to handle some aspects of the AfroCine
>> project. These aspects include:
>>
>> 1. Community Liaison: This role essentially involves closely engaging
>> with local communities to support their activities within the scope of
>> Afrocine.
>>
>> 2. Communications: This involves the communications aspects of the
>> project. Sharing relevant information on mailing lists and social media
>> would be the responsibility of this person.
>>
>> 3. MAC Jury: This role involves joining the jury of Months of African
>> Cinema contest. We need as many people as we can get :).
>>
>> 4. Tools: Going forward, we would need relevant tools to better track the
>> metrics and also analyse the general impact of these events. We are calling
>> for Wikimedia volunteers who can navigate wikimedia tools that can be
>> useful for the project.
>>
>> If you would love to help with any of these roles, or some other roles
>> that have not been mentioned, please contact me directly.
>>
>> If you have further questions, complaints, suggestions, etc., please
>> reach out to me personally or right here on the mailing list or the project
>> talkpages.
>>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> Sam Oyeyele.
>>
>> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_AfroCine_Project
>> [2]
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AfroCine/Months_of_Afri…
>> [3]
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AfroCine/Coordinators
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>> Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>
>
> --
> [+] Antonio Lepore
> [-] email: antolepore(a)gmail.com
> [-] linkedin [10000 followers]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anlepore/
> [-] facebook: https://www.facebook.com/antonio.lepore.82
> [-] annunci: https://bit.ly/2vQ3Qm3
> [-] petizione: chng.it/pnNtLqwm
> [-] skype: leporeanto
> [-] paypal: antolepore(a)gmail.com
> [-] iban: IT03E0101004015100000069501
>
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