Hello all,
In this month’s showcase, we have two presentations on the importance and
value of Wikipedia outside of Wikipedia. In the first talk, Nick Vincent
will present results on the importance of Wikipedia for search engines in
which they looked how often and where Wikipedia links appeared in search
results of Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc. In the second talk, Tiziano
Piccardi will present a recent study on the value of Wikipedia’s links to
external websites by quantifying the amount of traffic generated by those
links and analyzing for which types of articles Wikipedia acts as a
stepping stone to the intended destination.
Time/date: May 19, 16:30 UTC (9:30am PT/ 12:30pm ET/ 18:30pm CET)
Youtube-link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoX5rFNzkXs
Talk 1
Speaker: Nick Vincent (Northwestern University, USA)
Title: The Importance of Wikipedia to Search Engines and Other Systems
Abstract: A growing body of work has highlighted the important role that
Wikipedia’s volunteer-created content plays in helping search engines
achieve their core goal of addressing the information needs of hundreds of
millions of people. In this talk, I will discuss a recent study looking at
how often, and where, Wikipedia links appear in search engine results. In
this study, we found that Wikipedia links appeared prominently and
frequently in Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo results, though less often for
searches from a mobile device. I will connect this study to past work
looking at the value of Wikipedia links to other online platforms, and to
ongoing discussions around Wikipedia's value as a training source for
modern AI.
Related paper:
-
A Deeper Investigation of the Importance of Wikipedia Links to Search
Engine Results. To Appear in CSCW 2021.
https://nickmvincent.com/static/wikiserp_cscw.pdf (pdf)
Talk 2
Speaker: Tiziano Piccardi (EPFL, Switzerland)
Title: On the Value of Wikipedia as a Gateway to the Web
Abstract: By linking to external websites, Wikipedia can act as a gateway
to the Web. However, little is known about the amount of traffic generated
by Wikipedia's external links. We fill this gap in a detailed analysis of
usage logs gathered from Wikipedia users' client devices. We discovered
that in one month, English Wikipedia generated 43M clicks to external
websites, with the highest click-through rate on the official links listed
in the infoboxes. Our analysis highlights that the articles about
businesses, educational institutions, and websites show the highest
engagement, and for some content, Wikipedia act as a stepping stone to the
intended destination. We conclude our analysis by quantifying the
hypothetical economic value of the clicks received by external websites. We
estimate that the respective website owners would need to pay a total of
$7--13 million per month to obtain the same volume of traffic via sponsored
search. These findings shed light on Wikipedia's role not only as an
important source of information but also as a high-traffic gateway to the
broader Web ecosystem.
Related paper:
-
On the Value of Wikipedia as a Gateway to the Web. WWW 2021.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.07385 (pdf)
--
Janna Layton (she/her)
Administrative Associate - Product & Technology
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
The Affiliations Committee <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Affiliations_Committee> – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is looking for new members!
The main role of the AffCom is to guide groups of volunteers that are interested in forming Wikimedia affiliates. We review applications from new groups, answer questions and provide advice about the different Wikimedia affiliation models and processes, review affiliate bylaws for compliance with requirements and best practices, and update the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees as well as advise them on issues connected to chapters, thematic organizations and Wikimedia user groups.
The committee consists of five to fifteen members, selected at least once every year, to serve two-year terms.
Being a part of the AffCom requires communication with volunteers all over the world, negotiating skills, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to understand legal texts. We look for a mix of different skill sets in our members.
Responsibilities
Availability of up to 5-8 hours per month
Participate in monthly one and two-hour voice/video meetings
Commitment to carry out assigned tasks in a given time.
Facilitate and support communications
Affiliate Support and growth
Required and Recommended Abilities, Skills, Knowledge for Affiliations Committee Members
Strong interpersonal relationship among members of the committee and also with the Wikimedia community members. Across all committee members, there are additional relevant skills as well as requirements which help to support the committee and its sustainability which include both required and relevant general skills
Required
Fluency in English
Availability of up to 5 hours per week, and the time to participate in a monthly one and two-hour voice/video meetings.
Willingness to use one's real name in committee activities (including contacts with current and potential affiliates) when appropriate.
Strong track record of effective collaboration
International orientation
Relevant for all members
Public Communications (English writing and speaking skills)
Skills in other languages are a major plus.
Understanding of the structure and work of affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation.
Documentation practices
Interviewing experience
Experience with, or in, an active affiliate is a major plus.
Teamwork: Project and people management skills to coordinate and collaborate with different parties on a shared plan and see it through to completion.
Problem-Solving: Ability to evaluate various solutions, consider multiple interests and points of view, revisit unresolved issues, seek compromise and work and communicate across languages and cultures.
Given the expectations for maintaining the course in 2021 and preparing for potential 2021 transitions as part of the Movement Strategy implementation process, it is important that we are also clear about two different skill sets critical to committee support at this time. The first skillset is oriented to understanding affiliate dynamics and organizational development patterns to successfully process affiliate applications for recognition; the other is oriented to conflict prevention and intervention support for affiliates in conflict.
Relevant to Affiliate Recognitions
Administration & Attention to detail
Readiness to participate in political discussions on the role and future of affiliates, models of affiliation, and similar topics.
Awareness of the affiliates ecosystem and models and understanding of community building, organizational development, and group dynamics
Relevant to Conflict Prevention & Intervention
Communication skills for active listening, clear instruction and turn-taking.
Stress Management skills for maintaining patience and positivity
Emotional intelligence to maintain awareness of emotions of oneself and others to practice empathy, impartiality, and mutual respect.
Facilitation, negotiation, and mediation skills to guide diverse individuals and groups toward cooperation.
Ability to work within a team
Do you have relevant skills and interest to support movement affiliates?
We are looking for people who are excited by the challenge of empowering volunteers to get organized and form communities that further our mission around the world. In exchange, committee members will gain the experience of supporting their world-wide colleagues to develop their communities as well as personal development in guiding organizational development, facilitating affiliate partnerships, and professional communications.
Selection process
As a reflection of our commitment to openness, transparency, and bilateral engagement with the Wikimedia community, the 2021 member selection process will include a public review and comment period and a self-assessment survey for candidates to share their skills and experience. This self-assessment information will help the committee to identify the skill sets relevant to our affiliate support processes. We invite you to apply for membership to the committee and join us in supporting the affiliates. The data shared in the self-assessment will only be made available to the committee and the relevant staff support. The nomination, candidate Q&A, and endorsements will be posted on Meta for public review at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Candidates/June_2021 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Candidates/June_2021>. Here the global community is welcome to provide comments and feedback about each candidate.
Once the nomination window closes June 30, 2021, the sitting members who are not candidates for re-election in this cycle will deliberate and then vote, taking into account all inputs from the meta page, self-assessment, advisors, Wikimedia Foundation staff and board liaisons, and committee member discussion.
A final decision will be made in late-July 2021, with new members to be notified for onboarding in August.
How to apply
If you are interested in joining the committee, please:
Step 1. Post your application on the nomination page <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Candidates/June_2021> by 30 June 2021. Your application must include the following information:
Your full name and Wikimedia username
A statement describing your relevant education, experience, abilities, skills, knowledge, availability, and motivation for joining the committee.
Step 2. Complete the self-assessment survey <https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1Yt1kHndXGBZhqe> between June 01, 2021 and June 30, 2021.
The privacy statement that applies to the survey can be found here <https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/AffCom_Elections_Self-Assessment_Surv…>.
NOTE: The survey will take 15 mins. Please do not close your browser. If you need a break, you are advised to keep the browser open. In case of losing the link, please reach out to mkaur-ctr(a)wikimedia.org
This survey must be completed before Steps 3 & 4, as it will provide more background as to the type of work and expectations of members of AffCom.
Step 3. Answers the following questions:
NOTE: Questions 1-3 are required for all candidates.
Question 4 & 5 should be answered by those interested in joining the Recognitions subcommittee.
Question 6 & 7 should be answered by those interested in joining the Conflicts Intervention subcommittee.
If you are willing to nominate yourself for both subcommittees, answer all questions.
What roles have you served across any Wikimedia projects and affiliates that you think have prepared you for this role?
AffCom members need to manage time, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, and diverse situations across the global movement. How do you envision managing these?
Members of AffCom serve on one of two subcommittees: Recognitions OR Conflicts Intervention. Which one of these are you most interested in serving on?
If you are interested in serving on the Recognitions subcommittee, what do you think makes a group of Wikimedians ready to function together as an affiliate?
If you are interested in serving on the Recognitions subcommittee, what do you think are the benefits and responsibilities of functioning as formal affiliates?
If you are interested in serving on the Conflicts Intervention subcommittee, please describe your experience working with conflicts resolution.
If you are interested in serving on the Conflicts Intervention subcommittee, please describe how you have helped build consensus and support diversity.
Step 4. Once you have completed the above, send an email announcing your application to affcom(a)wikimedia.org before the application deadline.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me and/or the committee as a whole. We are happy to chat or have a phone call with anyone about our work if this helps them decide to apply. Please distribute this call among your networks, and do apply if you are interested!
On behalf of the committee,
Jeffrey
User:FULBERT
Dear Wikimedia Community Members,
As promised, here we are providing more updates around the development of
Wikimania 2021!
With only 2 months and 26 days left, we are walking steadfast into the
first-ever virtual development for the biggest Wikimedia community event of
the year!
Without further ado, here are a few updates to kick start the week:
-
Session submissions:
-
Program submissions will open on May 21st. Proposals can be submitted
as a Movement Group, Affiliate, Individual or as a Collective of
individuals.
-
More details will be coming later this week, so please be on the
lookout for updates.
-
Scheduling Principles:
-
We are taking into consideration all time zones for Wikimania and
will have a broad mix of UTC start and end times.
-
We plan to have a more elaborate programme on the weekend, less heavy
program on weekdays to accommodate diverse individual schedules.
-
There will be a combination of live and on-demand content.
-
The first day of the five days of Wikimania is dedicated to the
Hackathon.
-
There is a two-hour break each day.
-
On-demand content will be available during the event.
-
Programming principles:
-
Unconference and Networking activities run concurrently during all
five days.
-
The Collective & Individual Submissions tracks are running
concurrently.
-
Level of participation and expertise level will be taken into
consideration (Three levels of content for: newcomers, intermediates, and
experts).
-
There will be on-demand content and support dedicated to newcomers.
-
Wikimania registration
-
Since this year will be our first-ever virtual experiment for
Wikimania, and we want to maximize attendance; there will be no
registration costs for event participants! Registering for the 2021
virtual Wikimania will be free of charge!
-
We are opening up an additional Call for volunteers: Fill out the survey
here. <https://survey.wikimedia.it/index.php/778836?lang=en>
-
Trust and Safety tasks (Session Moderation, Help Desk Support and
enforcing Trust and Safety Policy)
-
Session Submissions Peer Review (Reviewing Session Submissions and
logistics)
This is all folks! We’ll be back with more news next Monday and on Friday
the 21st with details around session submissions!
Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Best Wishes,
Winnie Kabintie (User:Ms_Kabintie
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ms_Kabintie>), on behalf of the
Wikimania 2021 Core Organizing Team.
Hello Librarians and library lovers,
From May 15th to June 5th 2021, we will be joining together once again to
continue providing reliable and factual information to the world through
Wikipedia and the #1lib1ref. To participate is easy, simply add a citation
to Wikipedia!![1]
May Experiments
This May we are focused on:
-
growing the campaign in East and South East Asia with local affiliates
-- if you want to help contact Felix Nartey via (fnartey(a)wikimedia.org)
or Venus Lui (vlui-ctr(a)wikimedia.org).
-
working closely with AfLIA to sustain our relationship with the
Librarians network in Africa. Last year the participation from African
Librarians was overwhelming, recording about 84% of the total numbers of
edits attained (33,257). This surged our campaign to a staggering increase
of 394%YoY for the May campaign.[2]
-
Supporting our long standing partner for the campaigns, IFLA as they
explore citations on Wikidata [3][4]
How can you engage?
We invite you to engage in three ways:
-
Make an edit - Participate globally and virtually by adding citations to
Wikipedia.[5]
-
Organise - Lead a community activity or event in your library, country
or region.[6]
-
Amplify - Share and just keep sharing the campaign within your networks
and help us reach out to library and research communities around the
world.[7]
Join local events or editathons
If you are organising an activity virtually or providing a space to teach
or train people with an interest in the campaign, please add your event(s)
here.[8] In light of the pandemic, we strongly encourage virtual activities
and advise everyone to follow the WHO health guidelines.[9] If restrictions
have been lifted in your country and are considering organising in-person
events, kindly follow the Wikimedia COVID risk assessment for events.[10]
Ensure all your contributions are recorded by using the #1Lib1Ref hashtag
in your edit summary! Add your activity to the campaign dashboard to help
us track the activities happening across the globe.[11] This is very
important for us to monitor the reach and success of the initiative.
Learn more in our office hour
Join the next campaigns office hour on Thursday 13th May at 3:00pm UTC,
where we will share about strategies in Asia and Africa, under the
theme “exploring
regional or thematic approaches to campaigns in tackling topics of interest
”.[12]
Please tell your library, researcher and knowledge-loving friends about
#1Lib1Ref in May. We need everyone's help to make Wikipedia more reliable!
You can join the 1Lib1Ref community via the Libraries (
libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org), and 1Lib1Ref (1lib1ref(a)lists.wikimedia.org)
mailing lists, or by joining the Wikimedia + Libraries User Group.[13]
Cheers,
Venus Lui
[1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref
[2] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Lessons/May_…
[3] -
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:IFLA_Wikidata_Working_Group/1Lib1Ref
[4] -
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:IFLA_Wikidata_Working_Group/1Lib1Ref
[5] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:MyLanguage/The_Wikiped…
[6] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:MyLanguage/The_Wikiped…
[7] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Share
[8] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Eve…
[9] - https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
[10] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Risk_assessment_during_COVID-19
[11] -
https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/campaigns/1lib1ref_may_2021/programs
[12] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns/Foundation_Campaigns_Team#Office_…
[13] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_and_Libraries_User_Group
A lovely story from From The New York Times:
They Met Online. Through Wikipedia, That Is.
Courtney Thurston and Matthew Del Buono first met in chat rooms they frequented as contributors to the online encyclopedia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/style/they-met-online-through-wikipedia-…
Best regards,
Victoria Coleman
Hi all,
I wanted to share some news. I will be stepping down as Chief Operating
Officer (COO) at the Wikimedia Foundation.
The past two years that I have served as COO have been a formative time in
my life, both personally and professionally. My time at the Foundation has
shaped me in many important ways, and I feel deeply connected to our shared
global mission--there is so much to learn and there are endless
possibilities to improve the world. Our movement is positioned on the cusp
of a more diverse and equitable future and I am so proud of the part I had
in that, and those of you I worked with to grow that vision.
I remain steadfast in my passion for sharing knowledge to any and everyone
for free, and supporting those who’ve been left out of structures of power
and privilege.
The weight of current US issues related to Black Lives Matter has had a
life changing impact on me. I am compelled to use my leadership platform to
address biases and injustices in technology. Closing the gaps in
diversity, equity, and inclusion in technology within the US is a mountain
that I want to have a greater impact in moving. After reflection on my
strengths and contemplation of the action required to make change, I intend
to find opportunities to focus solely on racial equity and technology in my
next venture.
I’ve dedicated my career to breaking down barriers, particularly in
technology, and you all gave me strength, stories and guidance on how to do
that as part of this movement. I am grateful for the many moments we have
shared, whether at community events from Wikimania in Sweden to Wikindaba
in Abuja, or at online gatherings and on-wiki. I am not planning to travel
far from this movement, and inviting more people to participate in our
projects is a cause I will continue to champion. #WhoTellsYourStory will
always be a part of my narrative.
My decision does not change the Foundation’s plans as we move into another
fiscal year this July. With our ongoing search for a new CEO, we currently
have a Transition Team in place to manage these changes, led by Amanda
Keton, General Counsel, Jaime Villagomez, Chief Financial Officer, and
Robyn Arville, Chief Talent and Culture Officer. Our new Executive Director
will then be able to decide what they would like to do with the COO
position.
I hope to see you all out in the world speaking on tech for good. We have a
lot of work to do, but it’s worth it.
Janeen
--
------------------------------
*Jáneen Uzzell*
Chief Operating Officer
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
@janeenuzzell
The first call for Movement Strategy Implementation Grants is open. These
grants can support short-term planning activities with a budget of up to
$2,000 USD.
*Apply by the end of June 15
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Apply#Movement_Strateg…>*!
We look forward to reading your applications. We are available for any
follow-up questions or clarifications via strategy2030[image: (_AT_)]
wikimedia.org.
--
Quim Gil (he/him)
Senior Manager of Community Relations @ Wikimedia Foundation
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Qgil-WMF