Hello folks,
This morning (PST) the Foundation sent out the following news about the appointment of Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org, to the Wikimedia Advisory Board. Craig is incredibly excited to be working with the Foundation and volunteers. He's also blogging about this:
http://www.cnewmark.com/2009/11/wikipedia-is-a-big-deal-so-if-i-can-help-a-…
And yesterday newsweek.com ran a great post by Craig about Wikipedia as an indispensable aspect of life today:
http://2010.newsweek.com/top-10/unknown-in-1999-indispensable-now/wikipedia…
Thanks,
jay
--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.orgblog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw
>
> Wikimedia Foundation Appoints Craig Newmark to its Advisory Board
>
> SAN FRANCISCO November 13, 2009 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Wikipedia, today announced the appointment of Craig Newmark to the Foundation's Advisory Board. Newmark is the founder of craigslist.org, a site where users connect to find and exchange goods and services, including housing and jobs. He currently works as a customer service representative for the site. Over the past 30 years, Newmark has worked in the technology industry with companies such as IBM, GM, Charles Schwab & Co, and Bank of America.
>
> “Craig’s experience as an innovator and evangelist, coupled with his knowledge of online communities and cultures of trust, will make him an invaluable adviser to the organization,” said Michael Snow, chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. “His deep understanding of customer service and his dedication to fostering an enormous and engaged community of users will be a tremendous asset as we strive to be responsive to our readers and volunteers.”
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the volunteer-written encyclopedia with a staff of just over 30 people, created its Advisory Board in January 2007 as a mechanism for input from leaders and thinkers in fields such as education, technology, and free culture. Advisory Board members convene with Wikimedia's leadership once a year at the annual Wikimania conference, and also support the organization in their specific areas of expertise.
>
> "We’ve known Craig as a longtime friend and supporter of our projects and we’re deeply grateful for that,” said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. “Craigslist is a like-minded organization with values similar to ours and we’re excited to incorporate his energy and understanding of online communities into our work.”
>
> “Wikipedia is the first draft of history, and is becoming a preeminent tool for grassroots democracy. It's a great example of people working together, professionals and citizens, for the common good,” said Newmark. “The Wikimedia Foundation strives to ensure Wikipedia has high-quality content, but it does share the accuracy and reliability issues common to all media. In my day job, I've learned a little about that, and about general customer service. I figure one of the best things I can do with my life would be to help apply the few things I've learned for the greater good via Wikipedia. I’m excited to dive in."
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is in the midst of the sixth annual annual fundraising campaign, aiming to bring in over $7.5 million in community contributions to finance operations for the upcoming year. For more information, visithttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_launches_…
>
> The current Advisory Board membership includes:
>
> • Angela Beesley Starling (Chair, Wikimedia Advisory Board; co-founder, Wikia)
> • Ward Cunningham (Developer of the first wiki)
> • Melissa Hagemann (Open access and open education advocate, Open Society Institute/Soros foundations)
> • Mitch Kapor (Founder/Co-founder Lotus Development, EFF, Mozilla Foundation)
> • Neeru Khosla (Co-founder, CK-12)
> • Teemu Leinonen (Professor, Media Lab, Aalto University)
> • Rebecca MacKinnon (Journalist; founder, Global Voices Online)
> • Wayne Mackintosh (Education specialist, Commonwealth of Learning)
> • Benjamin Mako Hill (Author, free software advocate)
> • Roger McNamee (Venture capital, musician)
> • Trevor Neilson (Partner, Global Philanthropy Group)
> • Craig Newmark (Founder, Craigslist.org)
> • Florence Nibart-Devouard (Former Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees; Consultant in Collaborative Media)
> • Achal Prabhala (Researcher and writer)
> • Clay Shirky (Associate Teacher, Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU)
> • Ethan Zuckerman (Research Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School)
>
> ###
>
> About the Wikimedia Foundation
> http://wikimediafoundation.org
> http://blog.wikimedia.org
> The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 300 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web property world-wide (June, 2009). Available in more than 265 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 12 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
>
>
> Press inquiries
>
> Jay Walsh
> WikimediaFoundation.org
> blog.wikimedia.org
> +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609
> jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org
It's interesting that this list has been effectively closed just
before it would be getting a true storm of protest... But on the
off-chance that it's actually nobody writing here rather than nobody
being there to get the messages through:
Why o why these ugly, YELLING, unclear banners? At many places there
are storms of protest, and when there is a reaction from 'above' it
can be summarized as "You are always complaining, so we will listen to
what you say, but then just do what we planned before". The distance
between the Wikimedia Foundation and the people from the projects
seems to be growing and growing.
--
André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com
Hi everyone,
Strategic Planning office hours are tonight, Wednesday, November 11,
from 04:00-05:00 UTC, which is: 8-9pm PST, 11pm-12am EST.
We meet in #wikimedia-strategy on the freenode network. You can
access the chat by going to https://webchat.freenode.net/ and filling
in a username and the channel name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be
prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine. Another
option is http://chat.wikizine.org.
For more information about IRC clients, go to the Wikipedia entry on
IRC or the Meta page on Wikimedia IRC.
Hope to see you there!
=Eugene
--
======================================================================
Eugene Eric Kim ................................ http://xri.net/=eekim
Blue Oxen Associates ........................ http://www.blueoxen.com/
======================================================================
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Just a quick reminder about today's office hours with Naoko Komura and
the usability team (from 1700 to 1800 UTC).
If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come chat
using a web browser: First is using the Wikizine chat gateway at
<http://chatwikizine.memebot.com/cgi-bin/cgiirc/irc.cgi>. Type a
nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and
#wikimedia-office from the following menu, then login to join.
Also, you can access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/,
typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as
the channel. You may be prompted to click through a security warning.
It should be all right.
- --
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation
Support free knowledge:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Support_Wikipedia
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Right now the list remains on moderation, and will remain so for the time
being. Our goal is to reach a consensus on what changes to make over the
next few days.
Since the list was put on moderation this weekend, we've heard from members
of the community regarding various issues with the list, who have given
various potential solutions. From those, we have posted a straw poll on the
Meta discussion page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l#Moving_forward
Among the options we're considering, based on suggestions from community
members, include:
- Imposing a monthly, weekly and/or daily post limit.
- Establishing rules and consistently enforcing them.
- Moderating the most prolific and most problematic posters.
- Replacing the list with a web forum or newsgroup
- Creating a new "announcements" list and keeping foundation-l as-is.
These options have both positives and negatives
Previous efforts to make changes to the list have not been taken seriously
by all, and have not received much discussion. We want to make it clear
that in order for this list to be useful to many members of the community
yet again, changes must be made, and they must be made immediately. We
welcome any comments that may be fruitful in this regard.
Discussion on this topic should not be posted to foundation-l; all comments
should be directed to the Meta discussion page, or, if preferred, privately
to us at foundation-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org.
We do not intend to unmoderate the list only for topics to devolve into the
same inane arguments that have at times occurred. Our hope is that we can
find a good solution that addresses the issues in a complete and fair
manner.
Sincerely,
Austin Hair
Ryan Lomonaco
The fundraising banners went live yesterday, but in spite of efforts
to test them, there were serious issues with their basic functionality
and IE6 and IE7. My apologies; it's an inexcusable screw-up on our
part, and we won't go live again until we've resolved this. (We're
looking into the feedback on the messaging/style of the banners as
well, and have been from the beginning.)
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Now that the list is running again, here's a quick look at the board's
agenda for the upcoming meeting, November 13-15.
Friday, November 13
9:00 Welcome, housekeeping items
9:30 Approve audited financials and review risks analysis
10:00 Board operations, roles, self-assessment
11:15 Major donor case studies
12:00 Lunch with staff
1:30 Bylaws update, future of appointed seats and Nominating Committee
Saturday, November 14
9:00 Strategic plan presentation with Bridgespan
11:00 Board strategic plan discussion
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Board strategic plan discussion (continued)
Sunday, November 15
9:00 Advisory Board
11:00 Executive session
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Wrap-up, carryover agenda items
We've also been getting briefings on the fundraiser, although it isn't
directly on the agenda. In addition, one of the things we'll be looking
at is whether we can condense future meetings into two days instead of
three. One of the challenges in recruiting qualified board members is
that participation requires a fairly heavy time commitment, compared to
most nonprofit boards. Right now we try not to overload each day's
agenda to keep our work more effective (partly to deal with the fact
that jetlag for at least some of the group is unavoidable), but we may
need to fill things up more in fewer days.
--Michael Snow
Hello,
First of all, apologize for any inconvenience made by my poor English.
I've found that Google sometimes delete some copyvio materials from
its database per the DMCA <http://www.google.com/dmca.html>. And see
<http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BD>, it's an article list of
the copyvio ones in the "largest" Chinese encyclopedia, Baidu Baike.
This kind of copying is blocking the development of Chinese Wikipedia,
and some people even think that it's Wikipedia who copies.
So can anyone tell me, is it possible to mail Google to let it remove
these search results per its DMCA implement?
Thanks.
Jimmy Xu, from zhwiki
--
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimmy_xu_wrk
Hello all!
Next Thursday's office hours will feature Naoko Komura, the Program
Manager for the Stanton Foundation Usability Project. If you don't know
Naoko, you can get to know her at
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Naoko_Komura>.
Office hours on Thursday are from 1600 to 1700 UTC (9:00 AM - 10:00 AM PDT).
If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come chat
using a web browser: First is using the Wikizine chat gateway at
<http://chatwikizine.memebot.com/cgi-bin/cgiirc/irc.cgi>. Type a
nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and
#wikimedia-office from the following menu, then login to join.
Also, you can access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/,
typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as
the channel. You may be prompted to click through a security warning.
It should be all right.
Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any other
relevant email lists you happen to be on. (Naoko is able to speak
English and Japanese with a great degree of competancy!)
--
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate