I reviewed some of the proposals that have been submitted for funding from
the aspects of concrete goals. I have a background in United States Human
Service charities as an Operations Manager and database administrator. One
of the most challenging activities for an agency is to identify goals in a
manner that is meaningful to all constituents and can be tracked. If a goal
cannot be defined with an action statement and specific target numbers and
the result that proves the target numbers, then the goal language must be
modified and/or the result that proves the goal changed. At the time of
goal identification the tracking methods should be determined and reviewed
for feasibility.
A goal should be so clearly written that anyone who is a member of the
organization understands how to collect the data that proves the goal. A
common failing is creating goals that sound really impressive but are so
vague that the people responsible for doing the work and collecting the
data don't know which activity proves the goal and what form or question or
whatever, they have to do to get the information back to the Main Office.
(And "don't they understand that I am very busy and who reads this, and oh
lord, what did I do last time I filled out this form and ...")
For example: Efforts will be made to increase the participation of women
and other minorities in monthly workshops by 30%. This goal will be
verified by sign-in sheets that ask for gender and (ethnicity, cultural
group or whatever concrete statistic defines the goal).
>From an operations standpoint the sign-in sheets should be sent to the Main
office after every workshop, the results tabulated and reported to the
appropriate constituents. At minimum, the board and the sponsoring group
should receive feedback on goals on a quarterly basis. This keeps the goals
in front of everybody and lets everyone know what progress is being is
being towards achieving those goals while there is still time to improve
their methods.
The most effective grants I worked with tied achievable goals to monetary
rewards. If quarterly goals weren't met, future financial allocations were
jeopardized and indeed, in cases of egregious inactivity, programs lost
funding mid-fiscal year.
The preceeding goal language was created in a vacuum without consultation
with any constituents in the space of approx. one hour and is to be used
only as an example.
Organizations tend to use too many words to describe what they are trying
to accomplish. Grant language must be straight-forward and easily
understood. If the average user/volunteer/staff member doesn't understand
the goals at first reading then further refining is of the highest
importance
Please let me know if there is anything I can do to be of service.
Regards,
Nora (Norawashere)
Hey all -
Unfortunately, we've become the target of some pretty serious spammers.
I've been getting a very large number of held for moderation email
messages each day, and only one in a hundred are legitimate messages. I'm
going to adjust our spam filters later tonight to hopefully let a higher
number of the messages that are legitimate through, but after that, I'm
going to start autofiltering the spam notifications out and not reading
them. I hate to do so, but there are just too many of them.
If you send a message to the list and it doesn't get through, please email
me personally so I can approve it. Additionally, if you're a member who
has been moderated and send an email to the list, please drop me a personal
email as well, so that I can approve it.
Thanks,
Kevin Gorman
Hello Gendergappians,
I was recently chatting on Wikidata-l about the model that exists on Wikidata for classifying sex [1].
If you didn't know of Wikidata, people are supposed to be classified as Male, Female, or Intersex. I once did some research on the composition Wikidtata given that classification [2] then Markus Kroetzscher investigated linking personal names to sex using this data [3].
Well when Markus released his research on-list, I applauded his innovative methods and techniques. I also wanted to remind that forcing this binary or trinary classification onto people is not something that the software is making us do, but rather the us inflicting our bias onto the database. At that point I received a dismissive answer that if I wanted to talk about the gendergap that I should this mailing list, and that my comments were off topic. Then another user responded saying that my comments were very much on topic, and that's where the conversation stopped.
I haven't wanted to continue the thread because of the emotional investment in what seems to be a fruitless debate. Although recently I was chatting to a friend of mine about my dissatisfaction who said something I really liked:
"basically since the categories are male, female, intersex, that means 1) you are talking about a person's gonads, not their gender identity, which means 2) applying that category to most historical figures should count as "original research" it's not like anybody's done a major interdisciplinary study to confirm the chromosomes of every historical figure we aren't even sure shakespeare was a real person. how in the world should we guess what medical conditions he had in conclusion, "sex: male female intersex" is utter nonsense"
I would like to send the point to the list, but am fearful that it will be muddied again in that this is "gendergap issue not a wikidata one" when I am really just trying to talk about classification schemes.
Do you have any advice on whether a) I should re-engage the debate, and if so b) how to best deliver my sentiments?
[1] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P21
[2] http://hangingtogether.org/?p=2877
[3] http://korrekt.org/page/Note:Sex_Distributions_in_Research
Best,
Maximilian Klein
Wikipedian in Residence, OCLC
+17074787023
I would be interested in doing more work in this area. If interested people
would like to contact me directly or through the list, we can see what we
know to be true. Of course, the assistance of Sydney and/or other
experienced people will be needed to move *this *goal to an effective
action state.
Regards,
Nora (Norawashere)
FYI
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Dario Taraborelli <dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org>
> Date: October 25, 2013, 13:55:05 EDT
> To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities <wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, "A mailing list for the Analytics Team at WMF and everybody who has an interest in Wikipedia and analytics." <analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Join the inaugural Wiki Research Hackathon on November 9
> Reply-To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities <wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> Cross-posting the announcement from the Wikimedia Blog. The details of the event are on Meta and we're also creating meetup.com pages for the local events. Check them out and RSVP if you're planning to attend. Looking forward to see you on November 9!
>
> Dario, on behalf of the organizers
>
> Join the inaugural Wiki Research Hackathon on November 9
>
> Last summer at Wikimania in Hong Kong, the annual global Wikimedia conference, we (a group of Wikipedia researchers) discussed how we could make wiki researchmore impactful. In our work in academia and on Wikimedia projects, we saw a host of missed opportunities to share ideas, hypotheses, code, and research methods. We set out to create a space to bring researchers together with Wikipedians and facilitate problem solving, discovery and innovation with the use of open data and open source tools. Labs2 (L2) aims to build this space, by providing infrastructure and venues for collaborative wiki research.
> Today we’re thrilled to announce the inaugural Wiki Research Hackathon – a global event hosted by Wikimedia Foundation researchers, academic researchers and Wikipedians from around the world on Saturday, November 9, 2013.
> What
> This hackathon is an opportunity for anyone interested in research on wikis, Wikipedia, and open collaboration to meet, share ideas, and work together. It is targeted at Wikipedia editors, students, researchers, coders and anyone interested in designing new tools, statistics and data visualization, and producing new knowledge about Wikimedia projects and their communities.
> The goal of this event is to:
> share knowledge about research tools and datasets (and how to use them)
> ask burning research questions (and learn how to answer them)
> get involved in ongoing research projects (or start new ones)
> design new data-driven apps and tools (or hack existing ones)
> Where
>
>
> (Locations are approximate)
> This hackathon will be held both as a series of local meetups (Perth, Mannheim, Oxford,Rio de Janeiro, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, etc.) and virtual meetups (Asia/Oceania, Europe/Africa & The Americas) for those who can’t make it to the local events. An IRC channel (#wikimedia-labsconnect) and a Google Hangout open throughout the day will allow attendees to connect online.
> How
> Interested attendees can sign up for the event on Meta-wiki.
> Local and virtual meetups are listed on theevent page. All you need to do is add your name to the list of participants for the event that makes sense for you.
> Who
> For any question about the event (including volunteering for a local meetup), you can reach us at wrh(a)wikimedia.org or leave a message on the hackathon’s talk page on Meta-wiki. We look forward to seeing you on November 9.
> Aaron Halfaker, Wikimedia Foundation
> Jonathan Morgan, Wikimedia Foundation
> Morten Warncke-Wang, University of Minnesota
> Aaron Shaw, Northwestern University
> Dario Taraborelli, Wikimedia Foundation
> Taha Yasseri, Oxford University
> Henrique Andrade, Wikimedia Foundation
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Hi all,
In July, we hosted a small gathering in San Francisco to consider the
current state of the gender gap and brainstorm some initiatives that
community and staff (WMF grantmakers, etc) might work on together in the
coming year. After a shamefully long time,[1] notes from this meeting are
finally up on meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap_strategy_2013
Please join in<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap_strategy_2013#August_2013_and_be…>,
improve, share your thoughts about what's there or add new
ideas<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap_strategy_2013#Brainstorm_of_ideas>to
the brainstorm list! If people are interested, we might build on this
more together both on meta and at Diversity Conference in Berlin next
month.[2]
I'm also planning to host an IdeaLab session at Diversity Conference to
work together on action plans for diversity-focused projects. If you aren't
able to attend in person, perhaps you'd want to write up your favorite idea
in the IdeaLab instead, to spark some more collaborations?
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab
Warm regards,
Siko
[1] Yes, it really did take me 3 months to finish removing an
under-construction template and decide some things are just going to stay
messy, sigh.
[2] Reminder to register by Oct 20th, I understand the program schedule
will be published later this week:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Diversity_Conference
--
Siko Bouterse
Head of Individual Grants
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. *
*Donate <https://donate.wikimedia.org> or click the "edit" button today,
and help us make it a reality!*
Thursday, October 24 6pm
The Book History Colloquium at Columbia presents
JANICE RADWAY, Walter Dill Scott Professor of Communications,
Northwestern University
Girls, Zines, and their Afterlives: On the Significance of Multiple
Networks and Itineraries of Dissent
523 Butler Library Columbia University Morningside Campus, 535 West
114th Street
Preceded by a tour of the Barnard Zine Library at 5pm (meet in the
lobby of the Barnard Library, Lehman Hall, Barnard campus, 3009
Broadway)
Dissident and non-conforming girls and young women developed an
interest in what are now called “girl zines” through a number of
different routes, with a range of different interests, and at
different moments over the course of the last twenty years. This
social, material and temporal variability raises interesting and
important questions about whether “girl zines” should be thought of as
a unitary phenomenon and, correlatively, whether the girl zine
explosion should be thought of as an event, a social movement, a
conversation, a political intervention, or something else. Drawing on
oral history interviews with former girl zine producers as well as
with zine librarians, archivists, and commentators, this presentation
will raise questions about the recent history of feminism and its
relationship to other “new social movements” at a time of significant
economic, political, and technological change in the 1980s, 90s, and
into the 21st century.
Janice Radway is the author of Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy
and Popular Literature, and A Feeling for Books: The Book-
of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle Class Desire. In
addition, Radway co-edited American Studies: An Anthology and Print in
Motion: The Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States,
1880-1945, which is Volume IV of A History of the Book in America. She
has served as the editor of American Quarterly, the official journal
of the American Studies Association.
Co-sponsored with the Barnard Zine Library, Barnard College
For more information on the Book History Colloquium at Columbia, see
http://library.columbia.edu/locations/rbml/exhibitions/2013-2014.html
--
Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey
"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food
and clothes."
-- Desiderius Erasmus
There is a discussion currently taking place on the talk page of the article "Sexualization". I would be grateful for some input from the gender gap community.
Thanks
The Vintage Feminist