I have a slightly different take on the current purposes of the endowment.
When the community was discussing the setting up of an endowment several
years ago, I was one of those involved in our GLAM outreach who saw a big
opportunity. At some point the endowment would be big enough that the WMF
would be able to promise the cultural sector that Wikimedia Commons and or
WikiSource would be around for the foreseeable future.
For those of us who talk to museums, archives, libraries and anyone else in
the cultural sector who has invested in digitising content, one of the big
issues is future proofing. How can I deposit a digital copy of this
material in such a way that it is likely to survive for the use of future
generations. Whether or not an individual cultural organisation survives in
the longterm, the ability to upload a copy of their digital collection to
an institution that does have a credible plan for being around for the
foreseeable future should be a huge positive.
This is not a new issue. It wasn't a new issue over 800 years ago when
multiple copies were made of the Magna Carta and deposited with different
institutions. Four of those copies survive today. Handwritten copies on the
finest sheepskin parchment are very different things to digital copies with
an institution that has multiple servers in multiple locations, and an
endowment that should be able to fund migrating that information to
whatever the internet becomes in future centuries. But the principle is a
good one, and a role that I think the WMF could usefully step into.
If the endowment has grown to the point where the WMF could now announce
that it can be confident of financing Wikimedia Commons and WikiSource for
the foreseeable future, that doesn't mean that one penny need be tapped
from that endowment while other fundraising is healthy. A guarantee can be
issued on the understanding that it is unlikely to need to be redeemed for
some years. Hopefully in those years the endowment could grow to the point
where the guarantee could be extended to other projects such as Wikidata,
WikiVoyage, Wiktionary and Wikipedia. But there is a case for prioritising
Wikimedia Commons and WikiSource for such a guarantee, it would open more
doors in the cultural sector and attract uploads of materials that could be
used to improve Wikipedia and other projects..
I suspect that the endowment is already big enough to issue such a
commitment, if not, at the least the WMF should be able to set a target for
how big the endowment needs to be for this to be possible.
As for the more topical question of current fundraising and fundraising for
the endowment, I for one would be happy with a compromise whereby in future
donations would only be added to the endowment if they were specifically
given for the endowment, and each years fundraising would stop when it had
raised enough money to cover the following year's budgeted expenditure.
Regards
WereSpielChequers
>
>
Dear Gonçalo,
Thank you for sharing Wikimedia Portugal's Annual Report of Activities.
Despite all we have faced as a global society last year it is amazing to
see how important work that is done in the movement remains. Thank you and
thanks to the Portuguese community for all you do.
Talk soon,
João
Em qua., 5 de mai. de 2021 às 07:43, Gonçalo Themudo <
goncalo.themudo(a)wikimedia.pt> escreveu:
> Dear all,
>
> Last Thursday, the Board of Directors of Wikimedia Portugal completed and
> approved our Annual Report for 2020. You can read it, in Portuguese, at our
> wiki [1].
> This report will still need to be approved by our General Assembly that
> will take place later this month.
>
> Thank you,
>
> [1] - https://pt.wikimedia.org/wiki/Relat%C3%B3rios/Anual/2020
>
> Gonçalo Themudo
>
> *Presid**ente*
> *Wikimedia Portugal*
> *Email: *go <goncalo.themudo(a)wikimedia.pt>ncalo.themudo(a)wikimedia.pt
> <goncalo.themudo(a)wikimedia.pt>
> *Website: *http://pt.wikimedia.org <https://sites.google.com/view/themudo>
> *Imagine um mundo onde cada ser humano pode partilhar livremente a soma de
> todo o conhecimento, na sua própria língua.*
> _______________________________________________
> Affiliates mailing list
> Affiliates(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/affiliates
>
--
*João Alexandre Peschanski | User:JPeschanski (WMB)*
*Coordinator | **Wiki Movimento Brasil*
*wmnobrasil.org <http://wmnobrasil.org/>*
Dear all,
Last Thursday, the Board of Directors of Wikimedia Portugal completed and
approved our Annual Report for 2020. You can read it, in Portuguese, at our
wiki [1].
This report will still need to be approved by our General Assembly that
will take place later this month.
Thank you,
[1] - https://pt.wikimedia.org/wiki/Relat%C3%B3rios/Anual/2020
Gonçalo Themudo
*Presidente*
*Wikimedia Portugal*
*Email: *goethe.wiki(a)gmail.com
*Website: *http://pt.wikimedia.org <https://sites.google.com/view/themudo>
*Imagine um mundo onde cada ser humano pode partilhar livremente a soma de
todo o conhecimento, na sua própria língua.*
Hi all,
Join the Research Team at the Wikimedia Foundation [1] for their monthly
Office hours on 2021-05-04 at 16:00-17:00 UTC (9am PT/6pm CET).
To participate, join the video-call via this link [2]. There is no set
agenda - feel free to add your item to the list of topics in the etherpad
[3] (You can do this after you join the meeting, too.), otherwise you are
welcome to also just hang out. More detailed information (e.g. about how to
attend) can be found here [4].
Through these office hours, we aim to make ourselves more available to
answer some of the research related questions that you as Wikimedia
volunteer editors, organizers, affiliates, staff, and researchers face in
your projects and initiatives. Some example cases we hope to be able to
support you in:
-
You have a specific research related question that you suspect you
should be able to answer with the publicly available data and you don’t
know how to find an answer for it, or you just need some more help with it.
For example, how can I compute the ratio of anonymous to registered editors
in my wiki?
-
You run into repetitive or very manual work as part of your Wikimedia
contributions and you wish to find out if there are ways to use machines to
improve your workflows. These types of conversations can sometimes be
harder to find an answer for during an office hour, however, discussing
them can help us understand your challenges better and we may find ways to
work with each other to support you in addressing it in the future.
-
You want to learn what the Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation
does and how we can potentially support you. Specifically for affiliates:
if you are interested in building relationships with the academic
institutions in your country, we would love to talk with you and learn
more. We have a series of programs that aim to expand the network of
Wikimedia researchers globally and we would love to collaborate with those
of you interested more closely in this space.
-
You want to talk with us about one of our existing programs [5].
Hope to see many of you,
Martin on behalf of the WMF Research Team
[1] https://research.wikimedia.org/team.html
[2] https://meet.jit.si/WMF-Research-Office-Hours
[3] https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Research-Analytics-Office-hours
[4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Office_hours
[5] https://research.wikimedia.org/projects.html
--
Martin Gerlach
Research Scientist
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi all,
Would you like to get more people taking part in the Wikimedia Foundation’s
Board of Trustees election?
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees announced the plan for the 2021
Board elections
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/2021…>.
That plan includes outreach and communication support for the Board
elections. The Board election facilitators will:
- Inform communities of the trustee selection process
- Invite communities to engage in voting
- Encourage people representing emerging Wikimedia communities to run as
candidates
Voter turnout in prior elections was about 10% globally. It was better in
communities with volunteer election support. Some of those communities
reached over 20% voter turnout. We know we can get more voters to help
assess and promote the best candidates, but to do that, we need your help.
We are looking for volunteers to serve as Election Volunteers. Election
Volunteers should have a good understanding of their communities. The
facilitation team sees Election Volunteers as doing the following:
- Promote the election in their communities’ channels
- Organize discussions about the election in their communities
- Translate messages for their communities
*Who are the Election Volunteers to connect your community with this
movement effort? Is it you? Or someone you know?* *Check out more details
about Election Volunteers*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Electio…>
and
add your name next to the community you will support in this table
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Electio…>
or get in contact with a facilitator
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021#Team>.
We aim to have at least one Election Volunteer for Wiki Projects in the top
30 for eligible voters. Even better if there are two or more sharing the
work.
Best,
--
*Jackie Koerner*
*she/her*
Board Election Facilitator
*English language and Meta-Wiki*
Dear Wikimedians,
We are happy to announce the maiden edition of the Africa Wiki Challenge, a
writing contest that calls on all Africans, people of African descent,
people that identify with the continent or any one with an interest in
Africa to contribute content about the many things that make up the true
and rich identity of the continent (its rich and colourful cultures,
history, landmarks, education, cities, rivers, lakes, food, vegetation,
etc.) from 23rd May to 30th June 2021.[1] The campaign seeks to project
stories of Africa, project its identity and help reduce the content gap
about the continent on the web.[2]
Each year, we will select a theme to guide users on what to contribute to
as part of the campaign. This year, we have selected the theme “Landmarks
in Africa”.[3] The aim is to document all landmarks that cover historical,
cultural, geographical and places of key significance to a country or the
continent. These include but not limited to;
-
Monuments - Statues, Memorials, Historic buildings, Archaeological sites
-
National Demarcations - Districts, Municipalities, Metropolitan,
Regions, States, etc.
-
Geographical Endowments - Mountains, Valleys, Forests, Waterfalls,
Wildlife, Beach, etc.
-
Infrastructural Developments - Roads, Hospitals, Churches, Mosques,
Schools, Rails, Water parks, Hotels, Theme parks, etc.
Individuals or affiliates are welcome to participate or support the
project. You can participate in the competition by writing new articles or
improving existing articles in the destubathon contest.[4] Visit our
participate page for more information about how to join the competition.[5]
Do you want to organise an activity in your group/country/region? Check out
our organizers page or organizers guide for more information.[6][7]
There will be virtual office hours prior to the start and during the
campaign.[8] These office hours are opportunities to learn more about the
campaign, ask questions, or receive support.
Kindly send questions, suggestions, comments or concerns to
info(a)ofwafrica.org or visit the campaign page on meta or on our website.[9]
Ruby Damenshie-Brown
Administrative Executive
Open Foundation West Africa
[1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Wiki_Challenge
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjD7DqepQdg
[3 ]- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2LDKzenfc4
[4] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Wiki_Challenge/Destubathon
[5] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Wiki_Challenge/Participate
[6] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Wiki_Challenge/Organize
[7] -
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Organisers_Guide_for_AW…
[8] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Wiki_Challenge/Participate#Join_our_…
[9] - http://awc.ofwafrica.org/
Ruby Damenshie-Brown
Administrative Executive
Open Foundation West Africa
www.ofwafrica.org