As people may (or may not) have noticed, I haven't posted to this list
(or any other Wikimedia mailing list except the UK one) since the list
was taken off moderation a month ago. For my observations and thoughts
during that month and my suggestions for the future, please see the
first post on my new blog:
http://thomas-dalton.com/blog/2009/12/14/my-new-blog-and-foundation-l/
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Question_of_the_week
Last week's Question of the week focused on how Wikimedia could change
its technology to enable a friendlier and more welcoming environment.
Certainly new technology and increasing the friendliness is one tactic
that Wikipedia might use to increase participation. The following
graph shows that there are some key countries with a large online
populations where Wikipedia still has significant room to increase the
number of users and active participants. Specifically, in China,
Brazil, France, South Korea, Turkey and Indonesia, Wikipedia.org
ranking is below 10. What tactics do you think could be used to
increase participation in a specific country?
<Graph and link to participate are at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Question_of_the_week
>
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
It sounds like some Foundation-l readers are unfamiliar with Craigslist.
Here are some news clippings to better familiarize yourself:
*http://tinyurl.com/craigslist-in-news
*Gregory Kohs*
*
On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 6:51 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Wikimedians,
>
> Austin and I thought it might be fun to have a Secret Santa New Year's
> drawing among Wikimedia friends! We're basing it on the MetaFilter
> community Secret Santa drawing, which has 256 participants and uses a
> website called Elfster.
>
> Totally optional of course, but totally fun to get random things in
> the mail from other community members.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/WaldfogelDeadwei…
The next strategic planning office hours are Tuesday from 20:00-21:00
UTC (12-1PM PST, 3-4PM EST).
Office hours are on #wikimedia-strategy on freenode. 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. You can also, of course, use your
favorite IRC chat client.
See you there!
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
G'day all,
over on the wikimedia au mailing list, we've been having a discussion about
whether or not our 'official wiki' should be able to be edited by more than
just the current financial members (I think we've got around 30 - 50 members
at the mo) ( see
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaau-l/2009-December/002745.htm…
the thread, and it sort of gets just a little bit heated....)
I thought I'd flick this list a note because the tensions between the
foundation's aims and this more pragmatic decision have been discussed. What
I'd like to ask this list's members is whether or not you agree that open
editing is a good thing, and as many pages as possible on a chapter's wiki
should be open to as many folk as possible?
Obviously there are important factors to keep in mind in making these
decisions, but I feel it would be useful for others not quite so connected
to 'WMAU', but with a close connection to WMF in general, if they have a
moment, to review our thread, and offer feedback and ideas as to whether
we're doing it right, or (as I feel) we really should open up the wiki a bit
more :-)
best,
Peter,
PM.
Hi all,
Although I do realize this is a Dutch Wikipedia-topic, I would like to
get a somewhat broader set of input on this. I'll first sketch the
situation a bit, and then explain what my interpretation is.
On the Dutch Wikipedia, there are two related, relatively long
standing, policies:
* Usernames linked to companies / organizations / brands are not allowed
* Usernames are supposed to be strictly personal: groups of people
using one user name is not allowed.
This is enforced by a group of moderators by blocking the usernames
who fulfill one of these conditions, and notifying them on their
talkpage they can create a new username, but that their current is
blocked indefinitely.
I find this practice very unfortunate, for a few reasons. For one, we
assume bad faith: We assume that companies or even organizations are
not able and willing to edit NPOV. This is mentioned often as a main
reason for this policy. Often they are already blocked before they
even can make their first edit. This does not only harm their
feelings, it leaves a trail on the internet that is potentially
harmful for their PR (just imagine: "Company XX got blocked on
Wikipedia on sight"). As soon as a search engine does not fully
respect (intentionally or not) the limitations we asked them to comply
with, such as not search in these talk pages, this might even show up
in a query. In short: companies and organizations are being punisched
for trying to identify themselves.
In the past, there was a lot of hush about companies and organizations
who edited anonymously and they were even named and shamed (although
not by us). Now companies tell in advance who they are, so we can pay
close attention to their edits, and we ask them now to take another
name, which would be not recognizable? I think that is actually an
editorial disadvantage! If we can recognize them easier, we can make
sure they edit NPOV. Please, let's judge users on their actions, not
on their names... This way, also the Tropenmuseum got blocked at some
point, even though the account was created on another wiki!
Also, why would group accounts be bad? I mean, the only one that has
disadvantage from it, is the people using the account, right? If we
treat them as if they are one user, and we block them accordingly if
necessary, it is their problem if someone else on that account did
something bad and got the whole account blocked for it. We don't block
IP-adresses either just because they could be used by multiple people?
I assume this is no WMF topic (thy shall not block people because of
their username won't make it I guess), but I would like to get a
little more insight and experiences from you guys.
* Should editing by multiple people from one account be reason for
blocking on sight?
* Should usernames related to a company/organization name be blocked on sight?
** If not, should additional measures be taken for identification?
* Should wiki's be allowed in the first place to have naming policies
considering the SUL?
** If yes, should they be allowed to enforce them on people who
registered on another wiki?
Thanks,
Lodewijk
In the following news article, it is said that Google showed French
journalists in Paris a webpage with search results including Wikipedia
in its presentation of its new "Goggles" search engine.
I think the WMF lawyers should have a closer look at that and see if
WMF is not entitled to a compensation for letting Google use the
Wikipedia trademark as a sales argument. I think using the Wikipedia
name within a for-profit endeavour distorts the image of Wikipedia as
a non-profit charity. Should Wikipedia be associated to a service
restricted to the happy few who buy it ? Wikipedia should remain
something for everybody to enjoy, not necessarily more associated to
one operating system than another. It should not necessarily be
associated with the organised obsolescence of older computers, and
remain critical vis-à -vis the fascination for the new.
http://www.lepoint.fr/actualites-technologie-internet/2009-12-09/recherche-…
I am wondering if someone at the WMF (perhaps specifically Rand
Montoya) could give us an update on the status of the 2009 Fundraiser
Survey. I inquired about this at the appropriate Talk page, but over
two weeks have passed without any reply:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Fundraising_2009/Survey&di…
Personally, I applied about four or five hours of my time working on
the sampling design and questionnaire content and construction for
this effort. I realize that it is beyond hope that this will have
fielded before most of this year's fundraising efforts have been
executed (which is a shame, considering the "hurry up" timeline that
was in place back in July 2009), but now I wonder -- will this ever be
fielded? My impression is that an inordinate amount of time was
dedicated to translating the survey into at least a handful of world
languages, which I advised against, being that I knew it was a huge
challenge to meet translation and proofreading needs before the annual
fundraiser commenced.
I hope it is realistic to at least field this survey in the Spring of
2010, so that its results may be analyzed and contribute to
modifications (both tactical and strategic) for the 2010 fundraiser.
Gregory Kohs