The on-wiki version of the newsletter is available here (and might be
easier to read with the images):
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2023-05-25
--
Our new viewing and editing experience is now available
Last week, we made another huge step forward to launch. After months of
development, we switched the standard viewing and editing experience from
the old, never-designed ZObject viewer and editor to the new Default view
component.
The default view component begins to highlight the advantages of having
individual functions being implemented through the Web. It is difficult to
avoid Wikifunctions being compared to decades' worth of work in modern
development environments. But with the default component now enabled, it
really feels to me that some of the interesting possibilities of
collaboratively working on individual functions through a Web interface
start to shine through.
The widgets keep relevant information available for you at a glance while
you are working on a tester or implementation. You can quickly re-run the
tests while updating an implementation, making sure they still pass. And
this is just our first version: we expect that as Wikifunctions evolves, as
you use it and find what does and doesn't work for you, that we will grow
and refine the repertoire of widgets at our disposal. I am very excited
about the future of Wikifunctions!
This change is coupled with tons of other changes that were now enabled by
using the new components. In this newsletter we will focus on two types of
objects where the new user experience is particularly beneficial: testers
and implementations.
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Function_view_of_add_s_to_end_Wikifunc…>
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Function_view_of_add_s_to_end_Wikifunc…>
View of the function "add s to end" in the Wikifunctions Beta
Our examples start with a function called “add s to end
<https://wikifunctions.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Z10210>”. As you can see on
the left hand side, the function takes a string as an input and returns a
string. On the right hand side you can see that the function currently has
one implementation (called “Add s composition”) and one tester (called “Add
s to book”). To give an example, if you enter a string such as “wall” as
the input, the function will add an s to the end and return “walls”.
Let’s take a look at the tester:
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_to_book_Tester_Default_component…>
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_to_book_Tester_Default_component…>
Default component for the tester "Add s to book" in the Wikifunctions Beta
The tester, as with most objects, now has three columns, with the main
content in the middle and additional helpful information and sometimes
actions on the left and right column. On smaller screens (like mobile
devices), we show the left column's contents first, then the main content,
and finally the right column.
In the center we see that this is a tester for the “Add s to end” function.
The test is invoked by the call “Add s to end (book)”, i.e. by the function
all “add s to end” with the argument “book”. We are using functional syntax
here as a shortcut for describing the call. By expanding the call, you can
see the function call in more detail. The result validation then says to
check with string equality against “books”. So this tester basically says
that, by adding “s” to the end of “book”, the system should return “books”.
Expanding and collapsing objects is particularly useful for the editing
mode, where the contributor can expand and focus on the parts of the object
they are interested in, and get a reasonably compact view of the rest of
the object.
The left hand column has two widgets, one “About”, to view and edit the
multilingual information of the object, and the other a function explorer,
offering a quick overview of the function we are testing. On the right hand
side we have a widget offering the list of implementations and whether they
pass this tester or not. There's also the JSON syntax representing the
object for debugging; don't be alarmed by this, we use it for our
convenience while we develop but we plan to remove it from view.
[image: ZObject-Viewer for the tester "Add s to book" in the Wikifunctions
Beta]
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_to_book_Tester_ZObject-Viewer_Wi…>
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_to_book_Tester_ZObject-Viewer_Wi…>
This is the view in the (now deprecated) ZObject-Viewer component of the
tester "Add s to book" which tests the function "Add s to end of word", in
the Wikifunctions Beta
Here, for comparison, is the previous ZObject viewer. The label box is at
the top, not the side, and below we see the tester, first pointing to the
function that is being tested, followed by the call and result validation.
We see the test results at the bottom in the form of a table, below
everything and out of sight.
[image: Default component for the implementation of "Add s composition" in
the Wikifunctions Beta]
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_composition_collapsed_wikifuncti…>
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_composition_collapsed_wikifuncti…>
This is the view in Default component of "Add s composition", which is a
composition implementing "Add s to end of word", in the Wikifunctions Beta.
The composition is collapsed.
The collapsed composition is opened one level in the following screenshot.
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_composition_expanded_Wikifunctio…>
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_composition_expanded_Wikifunctio…>
Default component for the implementation of "Add s composition" in the
Wikifunctions Beta with an expanded composition
This is the new default view for implementations. Again, we have the three
column view, with helpful widgets in the side columns. The right hand
column now contains a widget with the relevant testers, which also shows
that this implementation passes against the tester we saw before, “add s to
book”. Whereas every object would have an About widget, each type of object
can have different widgets on them as appropriate. For example, we will
soon have a Function Evaluator widget in the implementation page, similar
to the “Evaluate Function” box we had in the old view.
The center column contains the implementation itself, in this case a
composition. Some compositions can become rather long! The function “days
in a standard year calendar month
<https://wikifunctions.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Z10470>” has for example an
implementation via composition
<https://wikifunctions.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Z10483> with functions nested
four levels deep. This is where the new default component really shines, as
we can compact and expand each of the levels and branches of the
composition.
[image: ZObject-Viewer for the implementation of "Add s composition" in the
Wikifunctions Beta]
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_composition_zobject_viewer_wikif…>
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Add_s_composition_zobject_viewer_wikif…>
This is the view in the (now deprecated) ZObject-Viewer component of "Add s
composition", which is a composition implementing "Add s to end of word",
in the Wikifunctions Beta
Again, for comparison, here’s the previous viewer for an implementation. We
saw the test results at the bottom. Here we also had the evaluate function
widget on the right, which will be soon ported over to the new view as well.
Such a big change to the front end, touching almost every content page in
the Wikifunctions wiki, has also led to a flurry of bug reports, as a
number of things are temporarily not working as intended. Please bear with
us as we catch up and fix those. But also, take a moment with us to
celebrate this large step forward!
Particular shout outs to Geno as the lead engineer on this task, Allan and
Julia for their work, and to Amin for his designs!
Dear all,
Please save the date: #SMWCon 2023, December 11-13, Paderborn, Germany
https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2023
Tickets will be available beginning of September, but you can already announce your participation on the above page and think about possible contributions (talks, tutorials, workshops, etc.).
Hope to see you in Paderborn,
Bernhard and Tobias
On Tue, 25 Jul 2023 at 10:00 pm, <
abstract-wikipedia-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Send Abstract-Wikipedia mailing list submissions to
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Newsletter #121: Planning deployment dates (Andy)
> 2. Re: Newsletter #121: Planning deployment dates (Denny Vrandečić)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2023 03:02:23 +0200
> From: Andy <borucki.andrzej(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Abstract-wikipedia] Re: Newsletter #121: Planning deployment
> dates
> To: General public mailing list for the discussion of Abstract
> Wikipedia and Wikifunctions <
> abstract-wikipedia(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAE2KeA+oohVQ2pe8xFOnXC=
> eYpQ-+LzgoHc2+dAGaGQh0LMwVg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Where can I vote? I vote to 4)Concatenate
> is useful
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2023 18:05:58 -0700
> From: Denny Vrandečić <dvrandecic(a)wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Abstract-wikipedia] Re: Newsletter #121: Planning deployment
> dates
> To: General public mailing list for the discussion of Abstract
> Wikipedia and Wikifunctions <
> abstract-wikipedia(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CA+bik1dVE+HXwPaVwsS_jYb+3sKt=
> MXcP-1NvDxmWfrKiExYVw(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="0000000000000074620601455648"
>
> Either in the telegram channel at t.me/Wikifunctions or on mastodon at
> wikis.world/@wikifunctions or via a email here or a message on IRC. I am
> happy to count your email as your vote.
>
> On Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 18:02 Andy <borucki.andrzej(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Where can I vote? I vote to 4)Concatenate
> > is useful
> > _______________________________________________
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The on-line version of this newsletter can be found here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2023-07-26
--
Wikifunctions is up (read-only)
Wikifunctions is up on www.wikifunctions.org 🥳
For now, there’s really not much to see or do. The built-in objects have
been loaded to the wiki. In the next few days, we will create some initial
pages (the main page, legal stuff, documentation, etc.), and also the first
function, as discussed last week. The first function will be *“join
strings”*, also known as concatenate.
We encountered a number of issues while deploying, and it was fascinating
to fix these live while the community was watching. There are still a
number of high-priority bugs, and we need to fix those before we get to the
next step. The current plan is to open the wiki for editing on Tuesday,
August 1st 2023, and we’ll update you if that changes. Read more about
our deployment
plan <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2022-08-05>
and planned dates
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2023-07-20>.
Welcome Megan!
As we are making our initial deployment, we also welcome Megan Neisler
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MNeisler_(WMF)> to our team. Megan is
joining us from Analytics to help us with instrumenting Wikifunctions,
counting the important numbers, and counting the numbers correctly, in
order to help us understand how WIkifunctions grows and where contributors
stumble. I'll let Megan introduce herself with her own words.
*Hi everyone! I've been with the Wikimedia Foundation for eight years,
working in various roles including project and event coordinator but have
always had a strong interest in data analysis. I started working with the
Product Analytics team in 2017 and since then I've had the opportunity to
provide data insights for several projects including discussion tools on
talk pages, content and section translation tools, and the desktop
improvements project. While working on these projects, I've discovered new
insights about the community and learned new approaches to address the
challenges of making data and insights more accessible.*
*Aside from work, I enjoy being outside whenever possible and have spent
lots of my free time hiking, camping, or just walking around my town of
Leesburg, Virginia where I currently live. Lately, I spend a good amount of
time exploring playgrounds with my 3-year-old daughter.*
*I'm very excited to have the opportunity to support Abstract Wikipedia and
look forward to working with the team!*
Welcome Megan! It’s great to have you on the team.
We are hiring
If you want to work with Megan and the rest of the team, here’s an
opportunity: the Wikimedia Foundation is hiring for a Senior Software
Engineer <https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/5191315> for
Wikifunctions and Abstract Wikipedia! As you can see from our Beta, there
are so many more things we need to work on. Our team members have been
spread over countries in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The positions
can be remote and can be outside the United States.
If you are interested in Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia, please apply.
If you know someone with the relevant experience and interest, please let
them know!
The on-wiki version of this newsletter can be found here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2023-07-20
--
Summary: The initial deployment of Wikifunctions is coming up in the next
few weeks. This newsletter provides details on our release plan, what will
be possible, and an update on changes to the development in the last few
weeks.
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikifunctions-logo-en.svg>Deploying
the initial wikifunctions.org
We are very excited to announce our plan to slowly roll out
Wikifunctions.org!
Within the next few weeks, the Wikimedia Foundation will begin deploying
early versions of Wikifunctions, a new Wikimedia project that will allow
anyone to create and maintain code. We have previously published our plan
for this
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2022-08-05>,
and now we are adding some preliminary dates to the previous plan.
*Phase 1: Locked-down deployment* to wikifunctions.org is planned for
Wednesday, 26 July 2023. The site will be readable by everyone, but all
rights for editing and calling functions will be limited to staff accounts.
This release is mostly for testing purposes, to check if there are any
major issues. We will copy over a small set of community and documentation
pages to Wikifunctions, and make a few test edits to the Object pages. This
includes creating a first Function with a set of Testers and
Implementations. Because of the simplicity, we suggest using a Function
with Boolean inputs and outputs, but String is also a possibility. Join us
in discussing what the very first function should be! We have changed Beta
Wikifunctions's Main Page
<https://wikifunctions.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:Main_Page> into
a first sketch of the future. Feel free to join us in improving and
discussing it.
*Phase 2: Limited roll out*. If all tests go well, we plan to allow for
wikitext-based content to become editable on or around Tuesday, 1 August
2023. All logged-in users will be able to create and edit talk pages,
project pages, help pages, etc. Everyone will be able to call functions.
Only contributors with a special role will be able to edit Objects in
Wikifunctions (i.e. creating and maintaining Functions, Testers,
Implementations, etc.). We will set up a page on Wikifunctions where
contributors can request this role - this will be assigned slowly at first,
and ramped-up soon after, if all goes well. The reason for this gradual
roll-out is to decrease the chance that things break too badly.
*Phase 3: General availability*. A few weeks later, depending on the
results – certainly after Wikimania, but hopefully before November – we
will declare the limited roll out over and allow every logged-in user to
edit Objects on Wikifunctions. At this point, Wikifunctions will be fully
launched. Together with the community, we will keep developing and working
on Wikifunctions. As you will see below, Wikifunctions will start out with
a limited set of features, and we will add more over the coming years.
All dates in this plan are preliminary. There are still a few show-stopping
bugs and issues to resolve, but we and colleagues are working hard on
those. We will keep you all updated on the IRC / Telegram channel, on the
mailing list, and, eventually, on the wiki. We'll maintain a page with our
status, and what you can expect, on-wiki once Wikifunctions is online.
Capabilities at the start
Initially, we will support two pre-defined Types for the inputs and outputs
of Functions: Strings
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_(computer_science)> and Booleans
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_data_type>. The creation of new
Types will at first be restricted to staff members. Staff members will
create Types following community consensus, and we will support the
community in describing and designing additional Types. There are some
caveats around new Types which we will describe in detail soon. Better
support for more Types, and making it easier to create them, is high on our
list of follow-up tasks after getting the site up.
At first, there won’t be any integration between Wikifunctions and the
other Wikimedia projects. You won't be able to fetch data from Wikidata, or
include Wikifunctions calls in Wikipedia articles yet. These integrations
will be the first larger tasks we will work on after release.
Press, outreach, and expectation management
Given the very limited capabilities and the uncertainty surrounding parts
of the deployment, we hope for a quiet initial deployment – as far as that
is possible. We understand that a new Wikimedia project is an exciting
development (certainly, for us!), and there could be public interest around
this – but we don’t want to push for a lot of visibility at this point
while the project is still in an early production phase. We are starting
with an empty wiki, with a new wiki's community, and with very limited
capabilities as outlined above. As they say, there is only one opportunity
for a first impression, so we want to make that count for a lot of people.
Just as with Wikipedia in its early years, there wasn’t that much to point
people to.
Wikifunctions will start as a promise, a blank slate, where a community of
people interested in Wikifunctions’s vision and, more importantly, friendly
with each other, can come together to work towards a library of useful
functions. And in a few months, or even years, we will have a site that
will be interesting and useful to the general public. We think we are still
a few steps away from a launch to the wider public audience. We will keep
you all updated on our progress while building and learning on the way.
About the development phases
We had previously organized our pre-deployment development work into eleven
functional phases, named after the first eleven letters of the greek
alphabet <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Phases>. While
we were laboring on Phase θ (theta), some parts of it took longer than
expected, whereas other development resources freed up. We thus pulled work
from the other phases forward, and partially reprioritized them in order to
more swiftly reach you, our users. This way we are basically finishing
Phase ι (iota), which was about adding short documentation strings to the
objects in Wikifunctions, and Phase κ (kappa), which was about cleaning up
threads that were left open pre-release together with Phase θ, and are
moving right into our final Phase λ (lambda).
The details on how the deployment will proceed are described above. Given
this development, we will also stop using the Greek-letter-named,
feature-focussed development phases. It was fun while it lasted!
Please, join us in deciding on the very first Function to be created in
Wikifunction, which will get the identifier Z10000.
The on-wiki version of this newsletter can be found here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2023-07-17
--
Google.org supports Abstract Wikipedia with $3 Million grant
We are very happy to share that Wikifunctions and Abstract Wikipedia will
be supported by a Google.org <https://www.google.org/> grant. Let’s first
introduce Google.org in their own words:
*About Google.org*: Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, supports
nonprofits that address humanitarian issues and apply scalable, data-driven
innovation to solving the world's biggest challenges. They accelerate
progress by connecting nonprofits with a unique blend of support that
includes funding, products, and technical expertise from Google volunteers.
They engage with these believers-turned-doers who make a significant impact
on the communities they represent, and whose work has the potential to
produce meaningful change. Google.org wants a world that works for
everyone—and they believe technology and innovation can move the needle.
The goal of Abstract Wikipedia is to build a knowledge base independent of
language, making it easier for Wikipedia editors to share, add, translate,
and improve knowledge across languages on the online encyclopedia. In
short, the initiative will enable more people to contribute content in
their preferred languages, making the knowledge available to a larger and
more global audience. This is aligned with the goal of Google.org for a
world that works for everyone.
Google.org is supporting the Wikimedia Foundation with a grant of $3
million over the course of three years in order to support the development
of Wikifunctions and Abstract Wikipedia, as accepted by the Wikimedia
Foundation board.
As previously reported, Google.org had supported Abstract Wikipedia through the
fellowship program in the summer of 2022
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2022-04-12>.
This grant supports us in bringing the results of the fellowship program to
fruition.
This grant is part of an ongoing relationship between the Foundation,
Google, and Google.org
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_Wikimedia_Foundation_and_Google…>.
We’re happy to continue our work with both entities to support a healthy
web ecosystem, making knowledge more accessible and representative of the
diversity of the web’s users.
This grant will join in funding Abstract Wikipedia, in addition to the
previously announced grants by The Rockefeller Foundation
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/07/12/abstract-wikipedia-gains-new-support-…>
and the Wikimedia Endowment
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2023-04-28>.
Public NLG meeting tomorrow, Tuesday 18 July
We have our monthly public meeting of the natural language generation group
tomorrow, Tuesday, July 18, 2023, at 16:00 UTC
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1689696059>, on
meet.jit.si/AWVolunteersCorner
Due to the Northern Hemisphere's summer vacation period, many of the group
members will not be able to attend, so we expect a short meeting.
This update can be found on the Wikimedia Diff blog here:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/07/12/abstract-wikipedia-gains-new-support-…
--
We are pleased to announce today that Abstract Wikipedia has gained the
support of The Rockefeller Foundation. We are quoting here from the Diff
blog post
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/07/12/abstract-wikipedia-gains-new-support-…>
:
*Abstract Wikipedia gains new support from The Rockefeller Foundation*
The Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to share that The Rockefeller Foundation
<https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/> has provided a $1 million grant to
support the development of Abstract Wikipedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia>, an initiative that
will enable more people to share more knowledge in more languages across
Wikipedia, accelerating the Wikimedia movement
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement>‘s Knowledge Equity
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strate…>
goals.
The long-term aim of Abstract Wikipedia is to build a knowledge base
independent of language, making it easier for Wikipedia editors to share,
add, translate, and improve knowledge across languages on the online
encyclopedia. In short, the initiative will enable more people to
contribute content in their preferred languages, making the knowledge
available to a larger and more global audience.
The grant from The Rockefeller Foundation will also allow the Abstract
Wikipedia team to further develop Wikifunctions
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia>, the technical
infrastructure behind the idea of Abstract Wikipedia. Wikifunctions will
empower volunteers to create reusable code that can perform specific tasks,
such as generating text in a certain language.
“We are grateful to The Rockefeller Foundation for its generous support
towards the Wikimedia Foundation’s mission to ensure every person on the
planet has free and equitable access to knowledge,” shared Denny Vrandečić,
Head of Special Projects at the Wikimedia Foundation. “This project will
enable different language communities of Wikipedia volunteers to work
closer together by sharing code and content when writing Wikipedia
articles, regardless of whether they speak the same language.”
The Rockefeller Foundation is a pioneering philanthropy built on
collaborative partnerships at the frontiers of science, technology, and
innovation that enable individuals, families, and communities to flourish.
Their focus is scaling renewable energy for all, stimulating economic
mobility, and ensuring equitable access to health care and nutritious food.
Their support of Abstract Wikipedia aligns closely with The Rockefeller
Foundation’s goal of increasing access to reliable knowledge and
information.
“We are thrilled to support the Wikimedia Foundation and the wider
Wikimedia movement in its efforts to create Abstract Wikipedia, which has
the potential to revolutionize the way we think about and share knowledge,”
said Zia Khan, Senior Vice President of the Innovation initiative at The
Rockefeller Foundation. “By generating content from structured data,
Abstract Wikipedia can make knowledge more accessible and inclusive than
ever before. We are proud to be a part of this exciting project and look
forward to seeing its impact in the years to come.”
The Wikimedia Foundation remains focused on building a secure financial
future
<https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/building-a-secur…>.
Purpose-specific donations are one way to work with other organizations
that share our goals and want to support the vision of the Wikimedia
Foundation and wider free knowledge movement. Abstract Wikipedia’s work to
address knowledge gaps and increase the availability of multilingual
knowledge is closely connected to the movement’s 2030 strategic direction
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strate…>
goals
of Knowledge Equity and Knowledge as a Service.
Thanks to The Rockefeller Foundation for their trust!
The on-wiki version of this newsletter can be found here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2023-07-07
--
Welcome Amy!
We are very happy to welcome Amy Tsay, who has joined the Abstract
Wikipedia team as Director of Product. Eagle-eyed observers may have
noticed Amy already as a member of our Delft offsite
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2023-06-22>.
Amy will be responsible for product management and engineering for the team.
"I am super excited to be part of the Abstract Wikipedia team. I grew up in
Southern California and have worked in the software industry for over 20
years, half of that time in open source. I’ve worn many hats in my career,
but the common thread is that I love working with teams to build and ship
software. In my spare time I read, garden, and create social media posts
for my local animal shelter to help pets get adopted–a hobby that led me to
adopt a calico kitten last year!"
We look forward to working with Amy to bring our products to the community!
Monthly Volunteer's Corner July 10
Usually, the Volunteer’s Corner is on the first Monday of the month. Given
that this month this was on July 3, which was a holiday for a number of
team members, we had decided to move it to July 10th, at the usual time,
instead. Bring your questions and ideas!
The Volunteer’s Corner will be on July 10th, 2023, at 17:30 UTC
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1689010228> on Jitsi at
meet.jit.si/AWVolunteersCorner
Apologies. Last week's newsletter wasn't sent as an email because I forgot
to. I am sending it now. This week's newsletter will follow in a short time.
The on-wiki version of this newsletter can be found here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2023-06-28
--
Thank you, Cai!
Cai Blanton joined us in 2021
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updat…>
as
the engineering manager for the Abstract Wikipedia team. I wanted to share
a few words about the impact Cai had on our team, but my colleague Geno put
it into words better than I could, and she speaks for me too when she says:
*Cai built a sense of togetherness, focus, initiative to look at ourselves
and figure out ways to do our work better. And I am not talking about code.
I am talking about how we treat each other, how we care, how we look out
for our colleagues and make spaces that makes us feel every morning that
it's worth going through the trouble.*
*I am deeply grateful for the time you have been with us and how you have
consistently demonstrated that the end does not justify the means. It is
not only important what we do, our goal, our mission. It is crucial how we
get there, what culture we build on the way.*
*It is not only us, the Abstract Wikipedia team, that is losing a valuable
member, but the whole Wikimedia Foundation. Your dedication to fairness,
equity and belonging will be missed and will continue to be needed.*
We will let Cai take leave in her own words.
*It’s been a wild journey working with all of you wonderful humans to build
Wikifunctions and begin ideating on Abstract Wikipedia. I have been proud
to be a Wikimedian and your colleague. Thank you so much for trusting me,
being vulnerable with one another, and building a safe, decolonial, and
feminist culture together. Thank you for how much you have taught me and
how much we have learned together. I wish Wikifunctions a successful launch
and continued growth and success to the mission.*
Thank you Cai for your contributions, and for your lasting impact on the
project team and the project.
Thank you, Allan!
Allan Jeremy from ThisDot joined us earlier this year
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updat…>,
and he has been very active in developing the front end, making it work
smoother, and adding tests to make it run more stable. Allan has been
joining us from Nairobi, Kenya. We enjoyed his great work and his positive
attitude.
*Hey Wikimedians, Allan Jeremy here.*
*6 months ago, I got to join one of the most exciting projects of my career
as an Engineer. The idea of representing human language in an abstract
enough form that would empower the accessibility of human knowledge to
people from all backgrounds felt fascinating and challenging at the same
time. As soon as I joined, I was welcomed by one of the friendliest and
most helpful teams I have ever worked with. Each person has their own
unique perspective, but all share that they are all really, really smart.
Everyone on the team was and is aligned with the same vision: to make the
sum of all human knowledge accessible to everyone. I was really excited to
be part of this team and to be able to contribute to this vision.*
*Working on this has been really cool, challenging, and innovative. I’d
like to officially thank the Wikimedia Foundation for allowing me to work
on this project and for the support they have given me during this time.
I’d also like to thank the Abstract Wikipedia team for being so welcoming
and helpful. I’m really proud of what we have accomplished together, and
I’m sure this is just the beginning of a long journey. I am sad to leave so
soon but cherish the entire experience. Thank you all for being awesome and
allowing me to be part of the future!*
Thank you, Allan, for your contributions to Wikifunctions, and we wish you
all the best on your future path!
