No subject

together in Haifa, Israel for this year's annual Wikimania conference,
organized by volunteers from Wikimedia Israel.

The first day of the conference saw the keynote of Wikimedia Foundation
Executive Director Sue Gardner
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DCtE-IlhbM-A&t=3D3m32s ) followed by a Q&A
session with the Board of Trustees
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DCtE-IlhbM-A&t=3D30m30s ). Wikipedia
founder Jimmy Wales concluded the event with his customary "State of the
Wiki" address, highlighting the importance of making it easier to edit
Wikipedia. He also awarded the first annual "Global Wikipedian of the
Year" award to Rauan Kenzhekhanuly of the Kazakh Wikipedia.

Beyond these, the schedule
<http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schedule> included the following
presentations and panels by Wikimedia Foundation staff, fellows and
contractors:

Community

  * Philippe Beaudette, /"Get Jimmy off my screen!" - the donations
    model for the 2010-2011 fundraiser
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/%22Get_Jimmy_off_m=
y_screen!%22_-_the_donations_model_for_the_2010-2011_fundraiser>/
  * Frank Schulenburg, /Taking Wikipedia in Higher Education to the next
    level
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Taking_Wikipedia_i=
n_Higher_Education_to_the_next_level>/
  * Maryana Pinchuk and Victoria Doronina, /War and Peace: Writing
    Wikipedia Social Histories
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/War_and_Peace:_Wri=
ting_Wikipedia_Social_Histories>/
  * Lennart Guldbrandsson, /Account Creation Improvement Project
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Account_Creation_I=
mprovement_Project>/
  * Liam Wyatt, /What next in GLAM?
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/What_next_in_GLAM%=
3F>/
  * James Alexander, /WikiGuides and new users
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/WikiGuides_and_new=
_users>/
  * Ryan Kaldari, /Wikipedia Takes Your City (How to organize a
    Wikipedia photo scavenger hunt)
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikipedia_Takes_Yo=
ur_City>/
  * Ryan Kaldari, /Wikimedia and the Public Domain
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikimedia_and_the_=
Public_Domain>/

Global development

  * Barry Newstead, /Understanding Wikipedia Editors: Results from the
    Editors Survey
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Editor_Survey>/
  * Erik Zachte, /Global distribution of our community and readers
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Global_distributio=
n_of_our_community_and_readers>/
  * Kul Wadhwa: /Wikimedia Mobile: What we've learned and where we're
    headed
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikimedia_Mobile_P=
anel>/
    (panel, with Patrick Reilly)

Technology

  * Ryan Lane, /The Site Architecture You Can Edit
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/The_Site_Architect=
ure_You_Can_Edit>/
  * Patrick Reilly, etc., /Wikimedia Mobile: What we've learned and
    where we're headed
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikimedia_Mobile_P=
anel>/
  * Rob Halsell, /Wikimedia Operations Overview
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikimedia_Operatio=
ns_Overview>/
  * Roan Kattouw and Timo Tijhof, /ResourceLoader, modernizing
    client-side development
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/ResourceLoader>/
  * Guillaume Paumier, /A Qt library for MediaWiki, and what you can do
    with it
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/A_Qt_library_for_M=
ediaWiki,_and_what_you_can_do_with_it>/
  * Brion Vibber, /Editing 2.0: MediaWiki's upcoming visual editor and
    the future of templates
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Editing_2.0:_Media=
Wiki%27s_upcoming_visual_editor_and_the_future_of_templates>/
  * Sumana Harihareswara, /How to get what you want from MediaWiki
    developers
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/How_to_get_what_yo=
u_want_from_MediaWiki_developers>/
  * Brandon Harris, /Identity, Reputation, and Gratitude
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Identity,_Reputati=
on,_and_Gratitude>/
  * Markus Glaser, Timo Tijhof, Ryan Lane, /Testing for Mediawiki
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Testing_for_Mediaw=
iki>/
  * Andrew Garrett, /A brief introduction to MediaWiki extension
    development
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/A_brief_introducti=
on_to_MediaWiki_extension_development>/

Research and Strategy

  * Dario Taraborelli (with Daniel Mietchen and Giota Alevizou),
    /Barriers and opportunities for expert participation in Wikipedia:
    Results from a survey
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Barriers_and_oppor=
tunities_for_expert_participation_in_Wikipedia:_Results_from_a_survey>/
  * Erik M=C3=B6ller, Guillaume Paumier, /Quality and Engagement: Making th=
e
    Connection
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Quality_and_Engage=
ment:_Making_the_Connection>/
  * Dario Taraborelli (with Mathias Schindler, Angelika Adam, Denny
    Vrandecic), /Participation in research projects
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Participating_in_r=
esearch_projects>/
  * Dario Taraborelli (with Daniel Mietchen), /An open-access and
    open-data policy for projects of the Wikimedia Foundation
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/An_open-access_and=
_open-data_policy_for_projects_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation>/

Cross-departmental

  * Howie Fung, Steven Walling, Barry Newstead, and Diederik van Liere,
    /How the Wikimedia Foundation is Studying Editing Trends: 2010-2011
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Submissions/How_th=
e_Wikimedia_Foundation_is_Studying_Editing_Trends:_2010-2011>/
  * Moka Pantages and Steven Walling, /How to Start a Party on Six
    Continents
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/How_to_Start_a_Par=
ty_on_Six_Continents>/
  * Brandon Harris, Howie Fung, Steven Walling, /Encouraging
    Participation in Wikimedia Projects
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Encouraging_Partic=
ipation_in_Wikimedia_Projects>/
  * Dario Taraborelli, Diederik van Liere, Ryan Lane, /Opening up
    Wikipedia's data: A lightweight approach to Wikipedia as a platform
    <http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Opening_up_Wikiped=
ia%27s_data:_A_lightweight_approach_to_Wikipedia_as_a_platform>/

The Foundation supported Wikimania participants with 77 full
scholarships and 52 partial scholarships (awarded to a diverse group of
recipients, selected by a volunteer scholarship review committee), in
collaboration with Wikimedia Germany. In addition, various other
Wikimedia chapters provided self-administered scholarships.

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/07/30/wikimania-2011-scholarships/

At Wikimania, the Wikimedia Board of Trustees announced the 2011-2012
Board members and elected officers:

  * Ting Chen, Board Chair
  * Jan-Bart de Vreede, Vice-Chair
  * Stuart West, Treasurer
  * Phoebe Ayers, Secretary
  * Samuel Klein
  * Bishakha Datta
  * Matt Halprin
  * Arne Klempert
  * Kat Walsh
  * Jimmy Wales

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/08/03/shalom-from-wikimania-2011/


=3D=3D=3D Summer of Research wraps up =3D=3D=3D

<Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Summer_of_Research_Presentat=
ion_August_25.jpg
Presentation of Wikimedia Summer of Research results (August 25, WMF
offices)>

The Community Department concluded the inaugural Wikimedia Summer of
Research program, where eight academics from a variety of fields visited
the Foundation from June to August in order to take an intensive look at
the dynamics of Wikipedia=E2=80=99s editing community. They employed a vari=
ety
of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to tackle some of the most
pressing questions about current and historic editor trends. Their work
was organized as a series of weekly sprints, each devoted to a new topic
related to participation in Wikipedia by editors. In particular, they
focused on the participation of new editors, from the time they register
to how they first contribute and collaborate with existing community
members.

In the final weeks the researchers gave a presentation on the findings
to staff, released code on public repositories, and documented their
work on Meta wiki. A comprehensive summary of the topics covered and the
key findings can be found at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikimedia_Summer_of_Research_2011/S=
ummary_of_Findings
.


=3D=3D Technology =3D=3D

A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for August 2011
can be found at:

    http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2011/August

Department Highlights

  * Technical discussions at Wikimania (see also general "Highlights"
    section) and adjacent Hacking Days;
  * Progress on HTTPS, and generally better processes in Operations;
  * The kick-off of the Internationalization and localization tools project=
;
  * New features in UploadWizard, including major work on customized
    campaigns for the Wiki Loves Monuments event;
  * MediaWiki 1.18 and the new Mobile platform approaching deployment
    readiness;


=3D=3D=3D Operations =3D=3D=3D

  * *Tampa Data Center* =E2=80=94 Mark Bergsma put into production the seco=
nd
    router, which means we have now router redundancy in the Tampa
    network infrastructure. Mark also standardized LVS implementation
    and puppetized the configuration. Other highlights in August include
    software upgrade to Squid servers, and upload performance issues
    (now solved).

  * *Virginia Data Center* =E2=80=94 Asher Feldman deployed the new Mobile
    Varnish servers in the Eqiad data center. All six LVS servers are
    ready and two of them are in production now, load-balancing the
    mobile Varnish servers.

  * *HTTPS* =E2=80=94 Roan Kattouw and Ryan Lane fixed issues that surfaced
    during the internal testing period. Ryan also set up SSL servers in
    eqiad, enhancing Varnish to deal with X-Forwarded-For and
    X-Forwarded-Proto HTTP headers, and making necessary changes to
    Squid. On August 31st, HTTPS was enabled on wikimediafoundation.org
    and Wikimedia Commons.

  * *Virtualization test cluster* =E2=80=94 The puppet configuration used i=
n the
    production sites has been split into public and private
    repositories, and all sensitive information has been moved to the
    private repository. Gerrit has been configured, and the public
    puppet configuration will soon be moved into a public repository
    there. Labs LDAP and SVN LDAP are currently being merged, so that
    SVN users will more easily have access to Labs.


=3D=3D=3D Features Engineering =3D=3D=3D

  * *Visual editor* =E2=80=94 Trevor Parscal and Inez Korczynski worked on =
a
    transaction-based model for the visual editor, where the document is
    built as a series of events (instead of saving it entirely at every
    change), which makes it easier to undo actions. Neil Kandalgaonkar
    continued to work on real-time collaboration and is close to
    presenting a demo of Etherpad working inside a MediaWiki edit
    window. Ian Baker investigated and started to work on a chat system
    to be integrated to the concurrent editing interface, for
    collaboration and live help.

  * *Internationalization and localization tools* =E2=80=94 Siebrand Mazela=
nd,
    Niklas Laxstr=C3=B6m and Gerard Meijssen joined the project in August.
    Niklas focused on code review for MediaWiki 1.18 regarding
    internationalization issues; he also introduced more flexible
    language fallback sequences. Siebrand worked on the product roadmap
    for 2011-2012, and started to plan hackathons & localization sprints
    in India in November. The Kiwix offline app was added to
    translatewiki.net, where it can now be localized.

  * *Article feedback* =E2=80=94 Dario Taraborelli analyzed the volume of e=
dits,
    and couldn't yet find any statistically significant difference in
    edits before and after the activation of the feature on English
    Wikipedia articles. In order to clarify licensing and privacy
    policies regarding the data, an explanation was published, stating
    that user feedback data were considered public contributions just
    like any edit.

  * *UploadWizard* =E2=80=94 Ian Baker worked on the TitleBlacklist API, as=
 well
    as bug fixes for UploadStash. Jan Gerber added XHR FormData support
    to UploadWizard, and chunk uploads. Jeroen De Dauw's code to support
    customized campaigns was deployed to Wikimedia Commons. Neil
    reviewed Jeroen's and Jan's code, and generally prepared the code
    for deployment.

  * *ResourceLoader* =E2=80=94 Roan Kattouw and Timo Tijhof got together in=
 late
    August to do back-end work on Global gadgets. They improved the
    format for defining gadgets, which will eventually be done via a
    user interface. Gadget internationalization is now also fully supported=
.


=3D=3D=3D Mobile <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects> =3D=3D=3D

  * *Mobile Research* =E2=80=94 Mani Pande and Parul Vora continued to
    synthesize the findings from field research in India and Brazil.
    They launched user experience research in US with AnswerLab, and
    have started recruiting readers and editors for ethnographic
    research to be conducted in San Francisco, Dallas and Chicago.

  * *MobileFrontend* =E2=80=94 Tomasz Finc sent a second call for testers t=
o try
    out the new mobile platform developed by Patrick Reilly. The
    MediaWiki community provided code feedback on the wikitech-l list,
    which was addressed by Patrick. Tomasz called for developers to help
    fix the last remaining bugs before full deployment, planned for
    early September.


=3D=3D=3D Special projects =3D=3D=3D

  * *2011 Fundraiser
    <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/2011_Wikimedia_fundraiser>* =E2=80=94 Ry=
an
    Kaldari built views and filters to facilitate reviewing changes to
    CentralNotice campaigns and banners. Katie Horn added an API to the
    ContributionTracking extension as well as minor bug fixes to some
    Drupal/CiviCRM modules. Arthur Richards added a new log parser and
    made bug fixes to the contribution auditing framework. Jeff Green
    analyzed the server architecture and began taking strides to
    increase resiliency and security.


=3D=3D=3D Platform Engineering
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Platform_Engineering> =3D=3D=3D

  * *MediaWiki 1.18* =E2=80=94 Code review on MediaWiki 1.18 progressed wel=
l in
    August and should be over by mid September. Gradual deployment to
    Wikimedia wikis is planned over September, using the newly completed
    heterogeneous deployment system.

  * *Continuous integration* =E2=80=94 Chad Horohoe continued to set up the
    virtual machine environment, while the Operations team set up the
    physical hardware in the Virginia data center. The final server will
    use Jenkins instead of CruiseControl.

  * *Wikitext scripting* =E2=80=94 Volunteer Victor Vasiliev worked on a
    MediaWiki extension to embed scripts into pages; this was a result
    of discussions over the years about replacing ad-hoc template- and
    ParserFunctions-based logic by a more efficient and powerful
    solution. Tim Starling discussed the extension with Victor to become
    more familiar with his work, and researched other alternatives. He
    wrote a PHP extension embedding a Lua interpreter, and added support
    for it to the existing Lua MediaWiki extension for backward
    compatibility.

  * *Summer of Code 2011* =E2=80=94 In August, the GSoC students finished t=
heir
    projects and students and mentors turned in their final evaluations;
    all seven remaining students passed. They started to write to the
    wikitech-l mailing list to summarize what they finished and what
    still needs to be done.


=3D=3D=3D Research =3D=3D=3D

Research on new features continued with a particular focus on Moodbar, a
feature that was deployed in the English Wikipedia at the beginning of
this month. We also continued work on Article Feedback and contributed
to the wrap-up of the Public Policy Initiative with the collection of
data on article quality. We continued the analysis of the data collected
in the Expert participation survey (cf. Wikimania section).

Dario Taraborelli attended the DataCite 2011 Summit as an opportunity to
identify strategic partnerships on research data preservation and
publication. [1]

Members of the Research Committee continued evaluating and supporting
research proposals submitted over the last month by external researchers
and released the second issue of the Wikimedia Research Newsletter, a
monthly overview of Wikimedia research in collaboration with the
Wikipedia Signpost. [2] Daniel Mietchen led the drafting of a Wikimedia
response to the EU Consultation on scientific information in the digital
age. [3]

[1] http://www.datacite.org/node/30

[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2011-08-29

[3]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Committee/Areas_of_interest/Open-ac=
cess_policy/EU_Consultation_on_scientific_information_in_the_digital_age


=3D=3D Community =3D=3D

Department Highlight

Wrapped up Summer of Research with a rich set of results posted on Meta
at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikimedia_Summer_of_Research_2011 (=
see
general "Highlights" section)


=3D=3D=3D Projects =3D=3D=3D

Reader Relations and Support

We have implemented and field tested case management systems such as
SugarCRM to track issues that are being referred to us, and are pleased
with the results we're seeing. We continue to work closely with both
tech and legal to assure that community concerns are met. Average
time-to-close on cases is fairly extreme, because they're very complex -
they don't tend to get to us until all other avenues to resolve them
have failed.