The on-wiki version of this newsletter can be found here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates/2021-03-17
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Logo concept vote
Earlier this week, the voting for the logo concept for Wikifunctions
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Wikifunctions_logo_concept>
concluded. We are very happy to have seen so much participation in the
process — to be honest, I was personally worried whether there would be
enough participation or not.
The last time we started Wikimedia projects was in 2012: Wikidata
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page> was started from
scratch, and Wikivoyage <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Main_Page> moved to
the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikivoyage came with an already existing
community, and for Wikidata we presented the project in many face-to-face
events as it was getting started, talking with many members of the global
Wikimedia community. The two projects had their logo votes in 2012 and
2013, where Wikidata saw 493 voters, Wikivoyage saw 521 voters.
I was worried that we would fall short of both numbers: due to global
events, there was no Wikimania at which we could have explained the
importance of Wikifunctions in person. Wikimania 2012 was a huge boost for
Wikidata, a place where we could share excitement, answer questions, and
find our first Wikipedia communities willing to try out Wikidata. For
Wikifunctions, we did go to many virtual events, but we didn’t know how
successful these would be in creating excitement and helping people to
understand what we are doing.
I am thus extremely pleased to see that 561 voters participated in the
Wikifunctions logo concept vote, casting 1051 votes on the 22 logo concepts
which were taken from the almost fifty submitted proposals and variants.
The race was very tight for the first week, and then one proposal started
gathering more momentum, eventually displaying a quite comfortable lead
over the runner-up. Proposal 11 had 124 votes, and thus is the community
favorite.
It is followed by Proposal 5 with 112 votes and Proposal 9 with 107 votes.
(We have vetted the votes of the winning proposal, but we did not go
through all votes on all proposals beyond that, so numbers are not final.)
I am personally saddened that my favorite proposal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Wikifunctions_logo_concept/Proposal_20>
not only didn’t win, but in fact ended up not fourth, but fourth from the
bottom of the list.
We have now forwarded the results to the Legal department of the Wikimedia
Foundation, in order to screen the top logo concept. After this, we will
let the design team have a pass on the logo. We expect that this whole
process will take four to six weeks, depending on possible complications,
and hope to be able to announce the refined logo by the end of April.
Congratulations to user NGC 54
<https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilizator:NGC_54> for creating the winning
proposal! Congratulations to Jon Harald Søby
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by> and Steven Liu
Yi <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stevenliuyi> for having their
logos perform so well! Thanks to everyone who has submitted a proposal, and
to everyone who has participated in the contest.
30 Lexic-o-days
The Wikidata team have begun a festival of events bringing focus around
lexicographic data on Wikidata, which will be a key part of the future of
Wikifunctions and particularly Abstract Wikipedia. Check out the 30
Lexic-o-days
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Events/30_lexic-o-days_2021>
program, and if you want to see something happen there, feel free to join
in or to suggest it!
The submissions for focus languages for Abstract Wikipedia and the
lexicographic extension for Wikidata are on-going. We currently have seven
applications, and the last day to apply is April 7:
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Lexicographical_data/Focus_languages
During the 30 Lexic-o-days, we will also have Question and Answer sessions
regarding the Focus language selection. There will be two of them to
accommodate two different time zones: March 30th, 17:00 UTC, and April 6th,
03:00 UTC
Other
“XLSemanal”, the most widely circulated magazine in Spain, had an article
about Abstract Wikipedia:
https://www.xlsemanal.com/conocer/tecnologia/20210225/wikipedia-20-aniversa…
(it is mostly a translation of the article published earlier this year in
the German magazine “Der Spiegel”)
We presented Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions at the Alan Turing
Institute <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing_Institute>, opening
the Knowledge Graph Interest Group. A video will be made available later.