Hi,
A few years ago there was a public consultation on moving the Wikimedia
license to cc-by-sa-4.0 instead of 3.0. Now, obviously that never happened
but I couldn't find the decision documented anywhere. Why was the proposal
scrapped? Are there any plans to revisit this?
Steainu
Hello Everyone,
AffCom is disappointed by the recent allegations surrounding the
Wikimedians of Slovakia (WMSVK) User Group, and the personal attacks
against Manavpreet Kaur, a full-time contributor to the movement both
professionally and personally.
While it is not our practice to comment on matters before the Conflict
Intervention sub-committee, out of respect for the privacy of the parties,
in the interests of transparency, we believe it is necessary to respond to
the recent emails posted to this list. AffCom has been engaging with Michal
Matúšov and the Wikimedians of Slovakia User Group since May 2020. The
dispute in question arose from a section of the 2018 Wikimedians of
Slovakia annual report.
In order to understand what happened and to determine the best course of
action, AffCom met the User Group representatives and Michal Matúšov
separately. After the meetings, AffCom reviewed the information and
documentation to identify the issues and offer ways to remedy the
questioned section in the 2018 report.
To reach a consensus with the parties, AffCom explored ways that the User
Group could voluntarily remove the disputed material. The best option was
for Michal Matúšov to provide receipts of the disputed section for the User
Group to review, and consequently use as supporting evidence to facilitate
the removal of the disputed section. AffCom took this route because it
lacks the mandate and the ability to demand the removal of content from
User Group reports.
Despite several requests, over several months, Michal Matúšov has been
unable to provide the receipts. Instead, he requested AffCom to derecognize
the Wikimedians of Slovakia User Group and to notify him in advance so that
he could step in and save the group. Towards this demand, AffCom clarified,
and still continues to clarify, that there are no specified bylaws or
governance guidelines for User Group affiliates. This is because User
Groups are the simplest affiliate model with no requirements for regional
non-profit status, Board or bylaws. This structure allows groups to
function as recognized bodies. Therefore, evaluating performance on
unspecified standards would be unfair.
It is important to note that AffCom can review implementation of bylaws if
they have been approved by the committee. In this case, as the bylaws are
not a mandate, they were never reviewed or approved, and as a result,
AffCom cannot undertake office action on the grounds of bylaw violation.
While we empathize with all the parties involved, we are highly concerned
at the way this matter has been addressed in a public forum. This is
especially so because we have clarified, to all parties, the formal route
and redress options available. We are also extremely concerned by the
extent of bullying that has occurred, across a number of forums. While we
may have different views, we should strive to respect and treat one another
with dignity and decency.
As we continue to explore ways on how best we can resolve this impasse,
AffCom wishes to request all parties to assume good faith in these
discussions (in public and private). Our next step will be to retry
mediation to determine the best outcome.
Finally, Michal Matúšov has been the primary applicant for the User Group
Esperanto to become a Thematic Organisation. As the conflict with WMSVK
escalated through 2021, we made the decision mid-year to pause that
application to try to keep Esperanto out of the WMSVK conflict. Affiliates
involved in conflict mediation need to trust in confidentiality through the
process. We notified Michal Matúšov, not the wider Esperanto community,
because he was the primary applicant with whom we had been corresponding.
We recognized that this was not fair on the Esperanto community and have
since suggested that, until the conflict between WMSV and Michal Matúšov is
resolved, another member of Esperanto User Group takes over the application
to move it forward. Any further discussions on this matter will only be
attended on official AffCom channels.
In the meantime, we would like to offer our sincerest apologies to
Manavpreet Kaur, Matej Grochal and all of those affected or upset by these
accusations and discussions.
*Kindly,---*
*Mehman Ibragimov*
*Vice-Chair*
*Affiliations Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee>*
Hi all,
Join the Research Team at the Wikimedia Foundation [1] for their monthly
Office hours this Tuesday, 2021-11-02, at 12:00-13:00 UTC (5am PT/8am
ET/1pm CET). Please note the time change! We are experimenting with our
Office hours schedules to make our sessions more globally welcoming.
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 are welcome to add questions / items to the etherpad in advance,
or when you arrive at the session. Even if you are unable to attend the
session, you can leave a question that we can address asynchronously. If
you do not have a specific agenda item, you are welcome to hang out and
enjoy the conversation. 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 research related questions that you as Wikimedia volunteer editors,
organizers, affiliates, staff, and researchers face in your projects and
initiatives. Here are some example cases we hope to be able to support you
with:
-
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,
Emily on behalf of the WMF Research Team
[1] https://research.wikimedia.org
[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
--
Emily Lescak (she / her)
Senior Research Community Officer
The Wikimedia Foundation
Dear wikimedians,
Some years ago, I visited Uzbekistan. I was shocked and amused to find that the largest paper note was 2.000 soʻm at that time, with a plan to start with the 5.000 paper note soon. The most used one still was the 1.000 soʻm note, that was about 35 US cents in the bank and about 20 US cents in the street markets. So, the first time we changed two 100 USD$ paper notes into soʻm we got around 800 paper notes in bunches of 100. It was quite interesting to note that people in the street went with black plastic bags full of money in order to buy at the market or get a taxi ride. Some days later, I talked to a local taxi driver and he told me that when he bought his car, he needed a small truck to carry all the paper notes to the car selling store. Of course, I took that as a joke. Then another man said that many houses have a room only for storing money, so you can buy a larger house in the future. I don't know if this was a practical joke, but that's how it was.
Yesterday we launched Wikimedia Enterprise. This e-mail is not to show my disagreement with the idea itself, but with the outcome. It seems that the purpose of Wikimedia Entrerprise is to have a large money revenue offering volunteer's time and content to the rich who are willing to pay for a better API. Believe it or not, I like to tax the rich.
We have millions of dollars in our money room, and, if everything goes as planned with Wikimedia Enterprise, we will soon need to buy a new house to have a larger room to store all those cheques, notes and assets. The room will soon look huge and plenty of money. Still, there's no plan to paint the house, arrange the sofa, solve the water leakage we have in the toilet, mow the lawn or buy a new set of pans so we can cook healthy food there. Soon, the cow will start aging and won't have more milk to sell. But yes, the money room will be huge. We will have more and more and more millions, but we will still... yes... obsolete.
Sincerely,
Galder
Hi all,
The next Wikimedia Research Showcase will be on October 27, 16:30 UTC (9:30am
PT/ 12:30pm ET/ 18:30pm CEST). The Wikimedia Foundation Research Team will
present on knowledge gaps.
Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Qg98EVmuI
Speaker: Wikimedia Foundation Research Team
Title: Automatic approaches to bridge knowledge gaps in Wikimedia projects
Abstract: In order to advance knowledge equity as part of the Wikimedia
Movement’s 2030 strategic direction, the Research team at the Wikimedia
Foundation has been conducting research to “Address Knowledge Gaps” as one
of its main programs. One core component of this program is to develop
technologies to bridge knowledge gaps. In this talk, we give an overview on
how we approach this task using tools from Machine Learning in four
different contexts: section alignment in content translation, link
recommendation in structured editing, image recommendation in multimedia
knowledge gaps, and the equity of the recommendations themselves. We will
present how these models can assist contributors in addressing knowledge
gaps. Finally, we will discuss the impact of these models in applications
deployed across Wikimedia projects supporting different Product initiatives
at the Wikimedia Foundation.
More information:
* Section alignment:
meta:Research:Expanding_Wikipedia_articles_across_languages/Inter_language_approach#Section_Alignment
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Expanding_Wikipedia_articles_acros…>
* Link recommendation:
meta:Research:Link_recommendation_model_for_add-a-link_structured_task
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Link_recommendation_model_for_add-…>
* Image recommendation:
meta:Research:Recommending_Images_to_Wikipedia_Articles
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Recommending_Images_to_Wikipedia_A…>
* Equity in recommendations:
meta:Research:Prioritization_of_Wikipedia_Articles/Recommendation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Prioritization_of_Wikipedia_Articl…>
--
Janna Layton (she/her)
Administrative Associate - Product & Technology
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
--
Janna Layton (she/her)
Administrative Associate - Product & Technology
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Dear Wikimedia Movement Colleagues,
SWAN Meeting is happening this weekend and you are encouraged to
participate.
What: SWAN (𝗦trategic 𝗪ikimedia 𝗔ffiliates 𝗡etwork October 31 Meeting
When: 31 October at 03:00 UTC and 18:30 UTC
Who: All interested Wikimedians regardless if part of an affiliate or not
How to participate: Go to
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network ,
review the agenda items, sign up and use the meeting link posted on the
meta wiki page.
--
Sincerely,
Butch Bustria
Attention Wikimedians!
Registration for Wiki Indaba 2021 closes today! There are only 50 more
tickets left for grabs. Don’t miss out on being part of this historical
event. Book your seat by registering here [image: 👉] bit.ly/wikiindaba2021
<https://t.co/LOmFwulfOZ>
If you have any queries, please reach out to wikiuganda(a)gmail.com
Looking forward to connecting with you.
Kind regards,
Geoffrey Kateregga, on behalf of the Wiki Indaba 2021 Local Organizing Team
Dear Wikimedians,
Wiki Indaba 2021 is happening in 10 days, from 5th to 7th of Septmber 2021
and we do have 10 booths available for Affiliates, Movement Groups, General
Wiki Projects and Conference Partners to exhibit at the virtual Wiki Indaba
2021 conference.
You can use the booth to get attendee traffic around the work that you are
doing and generate more traction and support for your work and local
communities! There are only limited spaces available and booths will be
assigned on a first come first serve basis.
The conference platform we are using is Airmeet
<https://www.airmeet.com/hub/product-blog/step-by-step-guide-use-airmeet-for…>,
and it will give you access to the following features as an exhibitor.
- Add a logo and banner image
- A video link
- Resources/Slides: You can add up to five items
- Social media links to connect with attendees
- Booth tables to meet directly with attendees.
Sign up here by 31st October
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2021/Exhibition
Kind regards,
Geoffrey Kateregga, Wiki Indaba 2021 Local Organizing Committee
Dear Mehman (and Wikimedia folks in copy for transparency),
I am contacting you as you are currently the highest responsible person
(Vice-Chair) in the Affiliations Committee.
As Manavpreet Kaur (current AffCom's Staff Liaison) is candidating for
a Movement Charter Drafting Committee, and AffCom is for (at least) months
showing issues about its work, which I consider that would be detrimental
for the work of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee if they would be
present there, and it is unclear what it Manavpreet's role in these
AffCom's issues, I ask you to publicly respond to the questions below. (I
have already asked Manavpreet to respond them but she have stated that she
won't be able to respond them [1] [2])
(I present the questions first and the context below, so it is easier for
low-involved folks to get the core part)
*Questions:*
1. *Do you personally consider the AffCom's happenings presented below
to be in line with Wikimedia Foundation Guiding Principles
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Guiding_Principles>
(especially Transparency and Accountability)?*
1. *If not, has Manavpreet done already something to rectify AffCom's
activity to be in full alignment with them? What has Manavpreet done?*
2. *If yes, please briefly clarify how (in your opinion) they are
showing Transparency and Accountability.*
2. *What is Manavpreet's role in the AffCom's happenings presented
below?* (have Manavpreet supported / encouraged / decided them? or have
Manavpreet tried to prevent them / discourage them? or have Manavpreet just
fully neutraly executed decisions that leaded to them? have Manavpreet
presented objections that the decisions are against Wikimedia Foundation
Guiding Principles or similar rules / recommendations / ...? or something
else? please be concrete)
3. As much of the presented cases show AffCom's issues about clear,
proactive communication, *do you consider Manavpreet to be capable
enough to clearly, proactively, helpfully communicate in the high
responsibility role of Movement Charter Drafting Committee member?*
1. *If it is not Manavpreet who is the source of AffCom's
communication issues, who is?*
4. *Do you believe that Manavpreet will not "import" AffCom-like issues
to the Movement Charter Drafting Committee? If yes, on what basis?*
*Context:*
I am in contact with Manavpreet mostly because of her role of Staff Liaison
of Affiliations Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee> (AffCom), which
relates with my roles of (ex)Chair of some Wikimedia Affiliations. While
AffCom have for years reputation of slowresponsedness, it was understanable
because of its structure (which, in turn, is understanable because of its
high responsibilities) and was rather only a little anoyance, not a big
deal. But that have changed (for worse) at least several months ago and
AffCom is still very reluctant to provide more information about it.
Several specific cases for ilustration:
- AffCom put on hold the recognition of User Group Esperanto and Free
Knowledge
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Esperanto_kaj_Libera_Scio>
as
a Thematic Organisation and informed the UG only reactively (after my
question), after unreasonably long time (after the expected deadline for
recognition) and provided false information as the reason; even after
several messages AffCom haven't revealed the requested information about
the pausing
- In February 2021, Meta admins deferred to AffCom the determination of
some specific hard Requests for deletion
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Requests_for_deletion/Archives/2020#Wi…'s_Annual_Report_2018>
with
intention to implement AffCom's determination; despite Manavpreet (in
her official WMF role) have considered it as a priority concern
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/21238644>, Affcom have not
provided its determination to Meta admins even after 7 months (as stated by
3 Meta admins - 2 of them confirming publicly: Xaosflux
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/21998260> and Camouflaged
Mirage <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/22000846> (by their
alternative account))
- AffCom was for several months totally unresponsive about proposed
recommendations to make WUG Wikimedians of Slovakia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Slovakia> to obey its
User Group Agreement
- For quite long time AffCom have been requiring (that time not yet a
WUG) Wikimedians of Slovakia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Slovakia> (WUG WMSVK) to
change its legal name to be recognized as a WM User Group, what blocked the
recognition for more than year, but suddenly after the recognition , AffCom
agreed to accept Wikimedians of Slovakia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Slovakia>'s prefered
official name which was for long time totaly unaccepted by AffCom
- Allegedly AffCom informed representatives of WUG WMSVK that it was me
who canceled the proposed mediation about WUG WMSVK's long-term bylaws
violations (while it is false - I haven't cancelled it) and AffCom never
ever confirmed to me whether it really provided this false information (to
my best Knowledge it was AffCom (or maybe someone who ordered it to
AffCom?) who canceled the mediation; but AffCom never clarified it to me
even after my explicit requests)
- AffCom is for months in silence about various questions and proposals
about WUG WMSVK for whom is AffCom fully responsible since December 2020
- As AffCom in December 2020 took full responsibility for WUG WMSVK,
AffCom is fully reponsible for:
- WUG WMSVK falsely publicly presents the meeting on March 2019 as a
valid Meeting of General Assembly
<http://wikimedia.sk//wp-content/uploads/2019/07/WMSK-VZ-20190309-ZAP.pdf>
despite
it clearly violates WUG WMSVK's bylaw and several WUG WMSVK's
board members
have already stated it, also publicly
- It is still not clear whether WUG WMSVK's meeting in March 2021 was
a valid Meeting of General Assembly, as evidence suggest it was not,
despite AffCom being repeatedly warned in advance about this possibility
- WMF is publicly hosting documents produced by WUG WMSVK that
contain false, defamatory information about myself (en
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Slovakia/Reports/2018/en>
, sk
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Slovakia/Reports/2018/sk>)
despite Manavpreet assurance that WUG WMSVK will rectify them
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/21238644>
- WUG WMSVK is no longer publicly presenting its *Annual plans*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Slovakia/Annual_agendas>
despite
its tradition of presenting them publicly, and is not presenting publicly
its *Financial reports* and *Annual Budgets* despite the tradition of
publicly presenting such documents and having the capacity to create at
least *Annual budget* since at least 2018. All of these 3 documents
are required to be prepared every year by WMSVK's Board.
I understand that Manavpreet personally is not an AffCom and not a voting
member. At the same time, I understand that Manavpreet is a paid staff
member whose job is liaisoning for AffCom and is often in contact with at
least some affiliations and proposed affiliations. So Manavpreet's
responsibility to AffCom is still present, although I do not know what is
its span.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Manavpreet_Kaur#Your_role_in_AffC…
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/22236019
Looking for your answers!
KuboF Hromoslav (Michal Matúšov)
Dear all
this is Matej Grochal, chair of Wikimedians of Slovakia and one of the
parties in the conflict. I am just coming into the discussion as I was not
aware of it from the beginning and was not a member of this mailing list.
Let me offer you my input on this matter.
About a year ago, Mr Matúšov and I (representing WMSK) agreed on mediation.
AffCom was to be the mediator. We had an individual call in December 2020
with AffCom but WMSK and I pushed for having a mediation call of both
parties and AffCom as the mediator. After some coordination during spring
2021, AffCom called off the mediation just as it seemed that it was going
to go ahead. The reason given was that both sides do not agree to the terms
of mediation. We emailed back for clarification while restating our
commitment to proceed with it. Around the time I reached out to Mr Matúšov
who seemed perplexed that the mediation had been cancelled and committed
himself as well. Not having a clear understanding of the situation, I
contacted AffCom who replied that mediation would not proceed due to
differences already mentioned. Since our commitment was clear, we wanted to
know what happened. They informed us that Mr Matúšov was of a different
mind about mediation and so it could not go ahead. (Not very surprising
since there are two parties to the mediation). This was somewhat perplexing
still so I kept in touch with Mr Matúšov and made sure we are on the same
page about what mediation means. We were. However, I also came to
understand that he was indeed not ready for mediation. The same conclusion
was reached from further communication with him and AffCom during the fall
of 2021.
Even if AffCom did not state explicitly that it was Mr Matúšov who
cancelled the mediation, they would have every right to do so. His mind set
did not allow it to proceed and he effectively cancelled the process. The
matter was further complicated by the fact that despite waiting for
mediation, Mr Matúšov kept posting his grievances in various places around
the community after having agreed not to do so with AffCom. I will let you
judge whether this is acting in good faith.
To sum up: while AffCom could have been somewhat faster and more clear on
certain issues, I would not blame AffCom for providing false information. I
would also appreciate if accusations of providing false behaviour were less
lightly thrown.
Thank you
Matej Grochal