Hi everyone,
I’m emailing to let you know that the Terms of Use comment period has
opened! You can read more about it on Meta at the page about the ToU update
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Legal_department/2023_…>.
We’ve also released a blog discussing the changes, which you can find here
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/21/were-revising-the-wikimedia-foundatio…>
.
The comment period will be open until April 24. We will also be having
office hours for discussion on March 2, at 17:00 UTC to 18:30 UTC and April
4, at 17:00 UTC to 18:30 UTC. You can read more about them here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Legal_department/2023_…>.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Best,
Jacob
--
Jacob Rogers
Associate General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
Pronouns: He/him
NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged
information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please
delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the
Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice
to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff
members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see
our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.
Hello everyone,
We invite you to take a look at our Diff post
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/08/26/wikimedia-foundation-aclu-and-knight-…>
about
a recent update in our lawsuit against the U.S. National Security Agency
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency>, the agency
responsible for a number of mass surveillance practices that first came to
light in 2013
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2013/07/18/wikimedia-foundation-letter…>.
As we describe in the post, we first filed
<https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/opinion/stop-spying-on-wikipedia-users.h…>
this case in 2015 to protect the privacy and free expression rights of
Wikimedia users worldwide. In the coming months, we will share more about
this case, its implications, and how you can get involved.
Best,
Jim Buatti on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Affairs and Global
Advocacy Teams
--
James Buatti (he/him)
Senior Manager, Legal
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged
information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please
delete it and let us know about the mistake. 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.
Thanks Abel for bringing our community ‘s attention to this issue though (
I don’t think using all these avenues before reaching to the user who did
that was really necessary but I understand the context )
I just had a phone call with user:Nkunda102 , he is newbie with no skills
of editing the metapage, he regrets his actions and will write a formal
apology to the original author and the team receiving grants .
Best regards
On Sat, 18 Feb 2023 at 13:10 Abel MBULA <bam6192(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Forward as received
>
> FYI dear community member
>
> Abel Lifaefi Mbula
> Free Software Dev
> Free Culture Enthousiast
>
> Please do not send me Microsoft Office/Apple iWork documents. Send
> OpenDocument instead! http://fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument/
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: patience kavira <patiencekavira(a)gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2023 at 13:07
> Subject: Fwd: My project was stolen by a user from Rwanda - User:Nkunda102
> To: Abel MBULA (via Google Drive) <bam6192(a)gmail.com>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> De : patience kavira <patiencekavira(a)gmail.com>
> Date: sam. 18 févr. 2023 à 12:55
> Subject: My project was stolen by a user from Rwanda - User:Nkunda102
> To: fdevouard(a)anthere.org <fdevouard(a)anthere.org>,
> donatien.kanga(a)gmail.com <donatien.kanga(a)gmail.com>,
> emmanuelleg22(a)gmail.com <emmanuelleg22(a)gmail.com>, isla(a)wikiinafrica.org <
> isla(a)wikiinafrica.org>
> Cc: <wikifranca(a)lists.wikimedia.fr>, <
> african-wikimedians(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >
>
>
> Dear Florence,
>
> It is with great regret that I am writing to report suspicious behavior by
> a user from Rwanda.
>
> As part of the African Environment project that you are conducting in
> partnership with Wikimedia CI, I have submitted a funding request since
> February 14th [1].
>
> However, as I was checking this morning to see if you have already decided
> on my project, I was surprised to see that the project has been slightly
> modified, and I am no longer the project owner. It is now the user
> Nkunda102 who has taken over the project. I did not want to simply undo his
> modifications, at the risk that he might come back again. I want to bring
> the situation to your level so that you know what to do, but at the same
> time, I would like to alert the whole community so that such behavior
> cannot happen again, because it tarnishes the image of Africa, as well as
> of Wikipedia.
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Environment/Microfunding/Let%E2%80%9…
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Patience Kavira
> Environmental specialist
> University of Kisangani
>
>
> --
derrick
Hi everyone. I have seen some of the reactions to the narratives generated by Chat GPT. There is an obvious question (to me at least) as to whether a Wikipedia chat bot would be a legitimate UI for some users. To that end, I would have hoped that it would have been developed by the WMF but the Foundation has historically massively underinvested in AI. That said, and assuming that GPT Open source licensing is compatible with the movement norms, should the WMF include that UI in the product?
My other question is around the corpus that Open AI is using to train the bot. It is creating very fluid narratives that are massively false in many cases. Are they training on Wikipedia? Something else?
And to my earlier question, if GPT were to be trained on Wikipedia exclusively would that help abate the false narratives?
This is a significant matter for the community and seeing us step to it would be very encouraging.
Best regards,
Victoria Coleman
Hello Everyone,
*Today the results of the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines
vote were tallied*. We are pleased to report the results show that the
Enforcement Guidelines are strongly supported by the community, with *76%
of participants voting in support *of the Enforcement Guidelines.
A report with a summary and analysis of comments submitted in the voting
process is being prepared by the staff members supporting the Universal
Code of Conduct work and will be available soon.
Below is a message created by the staff members supporting the Universal
Code of Conduct work, which has translations available on Meta-wiki
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Revised_enforceme…>
.
The recent community-wide vote on the Universal Code of Conduct revised
Enforcement Guidelines
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Universal_Code_of_Conduc…>
has been tallied and scrutinized. Thank you to everyone who participated.
After 3097 voters from 146 Wikimedia communities voted, the results are 76%
in support of the Enforcement Guidelines, and 24% in opposition. Statistics
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Universal_Code_of_Conduc…>
for the vote are available. A more detailed summary of comments submitted
during the vote will be published soon.
From here, the results and comments collected during this vote will be
submitted to the Board of Trustees for their review. The current
expectation is that the Board of Trustees review process will complete in
March 2023. We will update you when their review process is completed.
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated in this
process.
This list includes the people who voted in 2022 and those voters who
provided comments so we could strengthen and clarify the Enforcement
Guidelines into the version the community supports.
I especially want to thank the Drafting Committee, who took the time to
reconvene and review community feedback from the 2022 Enforcement Guideline
vote and continue to engage with the community and feedback throughout
2022.
Finally, thank you to the people who voted and shared feedback during this
voting period. We look forward to reviewing the report of the feedback and
discussing next steps with the rest of the Board.
Shani, on behalf of the CAC.
Shani Evenstein Sigalov
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/shani-evenstein-sigalov/>
Vice Chair, Board of Trustees
Chair, Community Affairs Committee
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hi everyone
Sending across a reminder for the Women's History Month Office Hour *happening
today at 4pm UTC. *
Please visit this link for log in information:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Women_History_Month_Conversation
More details below.
To respond to the gender gap and create opportunities to strengthen the
gender diverse content on Wikipedia, the Gender Organizing community in the
Wikimedia Movement hosts an annual campaign
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Celebrate_Women> during International
Women’s Month. This campaign is an important opportunity for the Wikimedia
movement to engage with the work of different communities highlighting the
gender gap in each Wikimedia project.
We invite you to a conversation hour!
For this reason (and many more), we are excited to invite you to a
Campaigns Programs Office Hour on Gender Organizing as a Wikimedians. Here,
I hope to listen to your experiences of gender organizing across the
WikiProjects and share some exciting tools that we’ve developed to support
your work! Join this conversation hour to:
-
Share what your community is doing in campaign organizing on the Gender
Gap during International Women’s Day and beyond.
-
Learn about this year’s volunteer-led Central Notice banner and central
calendar and how you can give feedback on the pages.
-
Learn how the new event registration tool
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xb6-ZElpN4&ab_channel=WikimediaFoundation>can
help improve your registration experience for newcomers joining events.
Please join the Office Hour to connect and share.
International Women’s Day Office Hour
16 February 2023
1600 UTC
Register here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Women_History_Month_Conversation>
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Masana Mulaudzi <mmulaudzi(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 4:02 PM
Subject: Women's History Month Conversation
To: <wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi Wikimedia Organizers,
My name is Masana Mulaudzi and I recently joined the Wikimedia Foundation
as the new Senior Manager for the Campaigns Programs team. Before joining
the Wikimedia Foundation I worked extensively in the gender justice
movement across Africa, and in solidarity with feminists around the world
in economic and social justice campaigning. I am really humbled to be
joining the Movement and to learn and act in solidarity with gender
organizers in this vibrant community.
To respond to the gender gap and create opportunities to strengthen the
gender diverse content on Wikipedia, the Gender Organizing community in the
Wikimedia Movement hosts an annual campaign
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Celebrate_Women> during International
Women’s Month. This campaign is an important opportunity for the Wikimedia
movement to engage with the work of different communities highlighting the
gender gap in each Wikimedia project.
We invite you to a conversation hour!
For this reason (and many more), we are excited to invite you to a
Campaigns Programs Office Hour on Gender Organizing as a Wikimedians. Here,
I hope to listen to your experiences of gender organizing across the
WikiProjects and share some exciting tools that we’ve developed to support
your work! Join this conversation hour to:
-
Share what your community is doing in campaign organizing on the Gender
Gap during International Women’s Day and beyond.
-
Learn about this year’s volunteer-led Central Notice banner and central
calendar and how you can give feedback on the pages.
-
Learn how the new event registration tool
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xb6-ZElpN4&ab_channel=WikimediaFoundation>can
help improve your registration experience for newcomers joining events.
Please join the Office Hour to connect and share.
International Women’s Day Office Hour
16 February 2023
1600 UTC
Register here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Women_History_Month_Conversation>
*Masana Mulaudzi (She/Her)*
Senior Manager, Campaigns Programs
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello everyone,
If you are interested in organizing or joining a hackathon event, but
cannot attend the in-person Hackathon event in May in Athens, Greece, this
email is for you!
We encourage communities, user groups or chapters to organize satellite
events connected to the in-person Hackathon. These events are to be
organized autonomously and share the hackathon's purpose: bringing the
global technical community together to connect, hack, run technical
discussions, and explore new ideas.
You can work with your wiki community to organize these events before,
during, or after the main event to onboard newcomers to the technical
aspects of the Wikimedia movement, hosting watch parties or meetups in your
region to offer an alternative to people who cannot join the in-person
event in Athens.
To obtain help with organizing an event, you can apply for funds via the *Rapid
Grants* maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. The deadline to apply for
funding is *March 20*. When preparing for your event, you can reach out to
the Hackathon organizing team for support with resources, designing the
program, and guidance on getting involved in the global event.
Learn more about the satellite events, funding process, and a checklist for
organizing on the wiki page: <
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2023/Satellite_events>
[1]
Cheers,
Srishti
On behalf of the Hackathon organizing team
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2023/Satellite_events
*Srishti Sethi*
Senior Developer Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello everyone,
The next Research Showcase will be livestreamed next Wednesday, February 15
at 9:30AM PT / 17:30 UTC. The theme is The Free Knowledge Ecosystem.
YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VJmR-3lTac
We welcome you to join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research. You
can also watch our past research showcases:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase
This month's presentations:
The evolution of humanitarian mapping in OpenStreetMap (OSM) and how it
affects map completeness and inequalities in OSMBy *Benjamin Herfort,
Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology*Mapping efforts of
communities in OpenStreetMap (OSM) over the previous decade have created a
unique global geographic database, which is accessible to all with no
licensing costs. The collaborative maps of OSM have been used to support
humanitarian efforts around the world as well as to fill important data
gaps for implementing major development frameworks such as the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). Besides the well-examined Global North - Global
South bias in OSM, the OSM data as of 2023 shows a much more spatially
diverse spread pattern than previously considered, which was shaped by
regional, socio-economic and demographic factors across several scales.
Humanitarian mapping efforts of the previous decade have already made OSM
more inclusive, contributing to diversify and expand the spatial footprint
of the areas mapped. However, methods to quantify and account for the
remaining biases in OSM’s coverage are needed so that researchers and
practitioners will be able to draw the right conclusions, e .g. about
progress towards the SDGs in cities.
Dataset reuseː Toward translating principles to practiceBy *Laura Koesten,
University of Vienna*The web provides access to millions of datasets. These
data can have additional impact when used beyond the context for which they
were originally created. But using a dataset beyond the context in which it
originated remains challenging. Simply making data available does not mean
it will be or can be easily used by others. At the same time, we have
little empirical insight into what makes a dataset reusable and which of
the existing guidelines and frameworks have an impact.In this talk, I will
discuss our research on what makes data reusable in practice. This is
informed by a synthesis of literature on the topic, our studies on how
people evaluate and make sense of data, and a case study on datasets on
GitHub. In the case study, we describe a corpus of more than 1.4 million
data files from over 65,000 repositories. Building on reuse features from
the literature, we use GitHub’s engagement metrics as proxies for dataset
reuse and devise an initial model, using deep neural networks, to predict a
dataset’s reusability. This demonstrates the practical gap between
principles and actionable insights that might allow data publishers and
tool designers to implement functionalities that facilitate reuse.
We hope you can join us!
Warm regards,
Emily
--
Emily Lescak (she / her)
Senior Research Community Officer
The Wikimedia Foundation
Hello everyone,
Free Knowledge Africa is organising a contest; The 2023 Afrosport Writing
Contest!
Afrosport is an African games and sports writing contest on Wikipedia.
There is a huge content gap on the internet/Wikipedia as regards contents
on African Sports in English and other Languages.
This contest aims to bridge the content gap on Wikipedia by writing
articles about the historical and contemporary African Sports Scene
focusing on the English Wikipedia and 6 African languages; Wikipedia
(Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Dagbani, Swahili and Kinyarwanda.)
If you're interested in promoting sports in your local community, writing
about the favourite games and sports you grew up playing, translating sport
related articles on wikipedia to your local languages, or anything related
to the Sports scene in your country, join us on this exciting venture!
Come join us on the 15th of February in The Afrosport Writing Contest.
There are amazing prizes to be won and also there will be training sessions.
Register here <https://bit.ly/Afrosport2023>
Visit the project page on Meta
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Afrosports_Contest_2023>
to know more about the contest.
Remember, If we don’t write stories about Africa, who will?
Best regards,
Hopeabby
Associate, Free Knowledge Africa (FKA)