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Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] NYT: Museum Welcomes Wikipedia Editors
by Samuel Klein 01 Aug '13

01 Aug '13

This is a great foot in the door for working with museums - a lovely high-visibility piece. Worth pursuing with both campus and regional museums. SJ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Nothing novel for anyone who's followed GLAM activities in general, but it did get notice elsewhere: http://artmarketmonitor.com/2013/07/29/the-smithsonian-courts-wikipedia/ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/arts/design/museum-welcomes-wikipedia-edi… Museum Welcomes Wikipedia Editors By PATRICIA COHEN Published: July 26, 2013 WASHINGTON — No one knows the components of dark matter, the mystery of Mona Lisa’s smile or precisely how long it will take Kim Kardashian to lose the 50 pounds she gained during her pregnancy. Amid this vast ocean of bewilderment, however, a small group of volunteers managed to expand the well of shared human knowledge last week by joining a daylong group editing session sponsored by Wikipedia and the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum in Washington. The gathering — called an edit-athon — was the latest collaboration between the online encyclopedia and cathedrals of culture like the Smithsonian to expand and improve Wikipedia entries, which are subject to the vagaries of volunteer contributions. At the same time, the Smithsonian is able to better publicize what’s in its extensive collections. “Wikipedia is driven by this desire to share knowledge freely with the world, and that is in sync with our mission,” said Sara Snyder, webmaster at the Archives of American Art, a Smithsonian research center that held an editing session in March to beef up the digital encyclopedia’s entries on female artists. These amateur-professional collaborations began in 2010 as the brainchild of Liam Wyatt, a former bartender, fire twirler, podcaster and vice president of Wikimedia Australia, during an unpaid five-week stint as Wikipedian in residence at the British Museum. The following year, the Archives of American Art appointed its own Wikipedian in residence and organized an edit-athon, enlisting local volunteers to create new articles using the archives’ resources. Other institutions, including the New York Public Library, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and the Picasso Museum in Barcelona have joined what has been called the GLAM-Wiki initiative. (GLAM stands for galleries, libraries, archives and museums.) Institutions like the British Museum and the Smithsonian recognize that they cannot compete with Wikipedia’s popularity. Many more people searching for information online about the Smithsonian go to Wikipedia rather than the Smithsonian’s own Web site. Several members of the Smithsonian’s social media staff joined the dozen or so Wikipedia editors and novices who were lured to the American Art Museum last Friday by the prospect of disseminating knowledge, a behind-the-scenes tour and a free lunch. While somebody could just as easily add Wikipedia entries while home alone in skivvies, sitting around a conference table with a laptop and fellow Wikipedians can be a great way to socialize “for people who don’t like to meet,” said Gerald Shields, a Treasury Department tax attorney who lives in Prince George’s County, Md., and is a member of the local Wikipedia chapter. Mr. Shields said he generally edited articles on North Korea and on feminism, primarily because few other people do. He combs through the English-language version of The Pyongyang Times for citations, and last year, even spent part of a trip to China trying to track down a photograph of Ri Sol-ju, the wife of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. At the museum, Mr. Shields, camera in hand, took on the role of the day’s official chronicler. This was the first group editing session for Robert Greenwood, a retired police dispatcher from Catlett, Va., who has been editing Wikipedia entries, mostly on citizen science and ornithology, for more than two years. What got him hooked on the Wiki world, he said, was the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla. “I was a dispatcher myself, and I had listened to all of the recordings of 911 calls,” he said. Rather than having access only to snippets of conversations provided by the news media, Mr. Greenwood said, citizens should be able to listen to the entire conversation and come to their own conclusions. He formatted the recordings and uploaded them to Wikipedia. For the American Art Museum, Mr. Greenwood created an article on art conservation, one of two dozen subjects — digital conservation and the artists Paul Cadmus, Leo Friedlander and Margaret Boozer among them — that the museum had listed as needing more information or new entries. Making the museum’s list did not necessarily pass Wikipedia’s muster, however. The online encyclopedia relies on citations to determine whether someone is sufficiently notable to merit an entry. Fran Rogers, who is on Wikipedia’s technical committee, decided to write about Betty Spindler, a ceramist, after seeing one of her creations — a clay hot dog with relish and mustard — in the museum’s collection. Ms. Rogers said she hoped the inclusion of Ms. Spindler’s work in a couple of other collections and a mention in a few newspaper articles would get her past the notability hurdle. It seems to have worked. No other Wikipedians have challenged the entry. Ms. Rogers had come to the editing session primarily to help neophytes with technical problems. Like most of the other participants not on the Smithsonian’s staff, she had no particular interest in art. Madilynn Garcia, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, and her cousin, Chance Paglia, a student at Georgetown University, were interested in learning how to use Wikipedia to disseminate information — but not necessarily about art. “I know a lot about pre-Shamanistic native cultures,” Mr. Paglia said, explaining why he was working on entries for metallurgy in Japan and the pre-Roman Empire instead of those related to art. Ms. Garcia, a summer intern at the American Alliance for Theater and Education, was looking at the page for Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatists. When Wayne Clough, the secretary of the Smithsonian, stopped by for a brief visit, he peeked over Ms. Garcia and Mr. Paglia’s shoulders and asked “What are you working on?” Before they could answer, another Smithsonian employee distracted Mr. Clough. Ms. Garcia and Mr. Paglia flashed each other a quick smile. Mr. Clough thanked the volunteers. As he spoke, Mr. Shields and another veteran contributor, Jim Hayes, checked out Mr. Clough’s Wikipedia page and decided that the accompanying picture could be improved. So Mr. Shields snapped some photos and soon substituted a shot of Mr. Clough with a couple of the volunteers at 2:21 p.m. Fourteen minutes later, however, another editor somewhere in cyberspace named Duckduckgo restored the original photograph and moved the new image farther down because the Wikipedia community has agreed that biographical pictures are generally portraits only of the individual. “This is part of the way Wikipedia works,” Mr. Shields said. “Everyone can edit any article.” A version of this article appeared in print on July 27, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Museum Welcomes Wikipedia Editors. _______________________________________________ Wmfcc-l mailing list Wmfcc-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

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Fwd: [Wiki Loves Monuments] Job Offer: Technical Position for WLM 2013
by Sven Manguard 24 Jul '13

24 Jul '13

Since there was a heavy presence of very tech-literate people at the meetup, figured I'd forward this here. Sven ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Karthik Nadar" <karthikndr(a)wikimedia.in> Date: Jul 23, 2013 2:29 PM Subject: [Wiki Loves Monuments] Job Offer: Technical Position for WLM 2013 To: "Wiki Loves Monuments Photograph Competition" < wikilovesmonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Cc: Dear WLMers, > > > We at the Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 international coordination team are > looking forward to hire a contractor to take care of the maintenance of the > infrastructure behind Wiki Loves Monuments, and everything that is needed > to run smoothly the contest. Yes, this will be a paid contract and we would > expect the person to work for us for three months from August up-to > October. > > We are looking for a candidate of either gender with the following skills: > > - > > Python — at an experienced level; > - > > MySQL —at an experienced level; > - > > PHP — at an experienced level; > - > > CSS/JS/HTML at a basic level; > - > > Be a quick learner: need to learn basic MediaWiki code; > > > Among the tasks the contractor will need to perform you have: running > “Erfgoedbot” and adding countries to the monuments’ database. They will > need to write PHP–based tools (statistics) using data from a MySQL database. > > The contractor, when selected, will be working for the Wiki Loves > Monuments international coordination team. He will sign a contract with > Wikimedia Nederlands, the fiscal sponsor of the Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 > international project. > > If you are interested, please forward your resume and your portfolio to > cristian.consonni(a)wikimedia.it. *The deadline to send applications is 29 > July 2013.* The Wiki Loves Monuments international team consists of > volunteers and so, it might take time from our side to review your > applications, but we will make sure it doesn’t takes more than a week. > > > Regards, > > Karthik Nadar and Cristian Consonni, > > On behalf of the WLM international team. > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list > WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments > http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org >

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Please remove my name from Wikimedia-boston email list.
by roberto.perez41＠verizon.net 21 Jul '13

21 Jul '13

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Please remove my name from your email list.
by roberto.perez41＠verizon.net 21 Jul '13

21 Jul '13

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Images are up
by Kevin Rutherford 21 Jul '13

21 Jul '13

Hey everyone, Thanks again for the wonderful meeting, as I really enjoyed making progress on our user group. That being said, I have uploaded photos from today: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:2nd_Annual_Wikimedia_New_England… Also, I was thinking about this as I drove home, but would anyone have any objection to possibly dissolving the Connecticut list and moving it here, as it is a bit redundant and there is no activity there. Sam, is it really a good idea to have constant warfare in our midst, or do you think that this will work out in the end? Either way, October 13th is looking like a possible day for our next official meeting, but since it is in the middle of Columbus Day weekend, it isn’t set in stone yet. Well, I hope that’s everything, and thanks again for everyone’s help! Kevin

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Some links from discussions today
by Samuel Klein 21 Jul '13

21 Jul '13

The awesome Wiki Loves Monuments calendar: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_calendar_for_20… Whoops, I meant the awesome Wiki Loves Monuments /timeline/: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013/Timeline This law is ironclad. Also the subject if a paper Mako is publishing soon on Wiki culture. Also+ it applies to both admin culture and chapter/foundation culture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy The latest MediaWiki release is 1.21 - it has better new-account-creation tools, contenthandler support for new data types, and bundles a bunch of sweet extension you no longer have to install by hand. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.21 July 31st will be the 9th anniversary of this meetup group! Also my antepenultimate day in Boston before Wikimania. We should celebrate at S&S. I've posted a meeting date on the group page... I'll try to get a bunch of the original participants to come. Help organizing/outreaching would be welcome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Boston#July_31.2C_2013 We discussed having a bimonthly meetup at/near Northeastern. I leave it to the Warfares to reach a peaceful agreement on dates and venues; but created this bimonthly recurrent event that you should both be able to edit: http://www.meetup.com/wikipedia-5/events/130580262/ [if you want the August meeting to be there also, that's fine as well.] Finally, a new wikipage to discuss future events and plans, not just past ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Boston/Plans Summer swelter in Novel England, SJ

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Welcome to the new members from New England!
by Samuel Klein 21 Jul '13

21 Jul '13

Thanks to Caroline and Alan for hosting yet another blockbuster wiki event; to Kevin and Sven for organizing; and to Pharos and Lane and others for bringing essential out-of-town spirit. Secondary thanks to etherpad for being so wiki, to Bostonians for not towing anyone, and to the newbies who came to this as their first ever wiki-meeting. Warmly, Sam. PS - I have some thoughts on short-term practical things we can do as a group, which I'll write about separately.

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2nd Annual Wikimedia New England General Meeting is in two hours!
by Sven Manguard 20 Jul '13

20 Jul '13

The 2nd Annual Wikimedia New England General Meeting will be taking place in two hours. There will be important topics discussed, including the possibility of moving towards incorporation/chapter formation, and the possibility of electing a board to facilitate said incorporation/chapter formation. There will also be lunch, paid for by WMDC. The 1st Annual meeting was the single most heavily attended event of that year, and with guests coming from other regions, and Bostonians long absent from meetups making their returns, the annual meeting is truly like no other. So please come. Saturday, July 20th 12:00 PM – 2:30 PM Wu Rosen Associates 6 Edgerly Place, Boston More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/2nd_Annual_Wikimedia_New_Engl… Hope to see you there, --Sven

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Announcement and question
by Kevin Rutherford 19 Jul '13

19 Jul '13

Hey everyone, I promise this will be the final e-mail before Saturday, but I have great news: Thanks to the generosity of Wikimedia D.C., we will be having lunch for everyone! If anyone has a car and is willing to pick up said lunch, would they reply all and let us know, as I would like to try to save some money on delivery costs if possible. Thanks a lot everyone, and see you Saturday! Kevin Rutherford

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Ideas for agenda for Saturday
by Kevin Rutherford 16 Jul '13

16 Jul '13

Hey everyone, I’ve gone ahead and created a preliminary agenda here, so feel free to add to it: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_New_England/20_July_2… See you on Saturday! Kevin

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