Wikimedia-l July 2009

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

138 participants
98 discussions

[Foundation-l] [Fwd: A chapters-related question]
by Anders Wennersten 06 Jul '09

06 Jul '09

I agree with you analysis, and that we need to come up with some definition of entities not being a chapter but in need of official recognition and having some rights being formally regulated . I would suggest we 1. come up with a name for these types of groups - "Friends of..", "Associates of ..." or something like that. 2. start to look into in how to regulate the relation to these new entities and how to control them. Actually I think Mike Godwins proposal for a new Chapter agreement, while being overly controlling for a chapter, would be appropriate as a start for a contract with these new entities. Yearly renewal periods and regular reporting should be OK in these cases.. Anders Wennersten treasurer Wikimedia Sverige Member of ChapCom > Aside from the new chapters, right now the Board of Trustees is looking > at what kinds of related groups we want to have relationships with. > (What prompts this directly is the case of Wikimedia Brazil, which was > approved to become a chapter last year, but whose organizers have since > decided they did not want to proceed as a formal entity at this time. > However, I want to ask about the general principle, not the specific > case.) The basic question is, what can or should we do to encourage > grassroots groups that want to support our mission, but may not fit into > the chapters framework? > > There are various possibilities here. One example is interest groups > that aren't tied to geography, the way the chapters are. I always cite > the idea of an Association of Blind Wikipedians, who might wish to > organize to promote work on accessibility issues. As with the Brazilian > situation, informal groups could also fit local conditions better > sometimes, or serve as a proto-chapter stage of development. Maybe > there's a benefit in having an association with some durability and > continuation, but without going to the effort of incorporation and > formal agreements on trademarks and such. It could also make sense to > have an organization form for a specific project and then disband after > it is completed, such as with Wikimania (somebody can correct me if I'm > wrong, but I understand the Gdansk team is planning something like this > as distinct from Wikimedia Polska). > > Anyway, I would like to invite ideas and discussion on this. Is this > something we should do? What kinds of models are people interested in? > How should we appropriately recognize and work with volunteer-organized > groups? And in all of this, how would we make it both distinct from and > compatible with the current structure of chapter organizations? > > --Michael Snow > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Internal-l mailing list > Internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-l > >

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[Foundation-l] Licensing update rolled out in all languages/projects
by Erik Moeller 03 Jul '09

03 Jul '09

After an initial reference implementation in the English Wikipedia and some bottom-up implementations in a number of projects, the licensing update to the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License as the primary text license, with GFDL as a secondary license with limitations, has now been implemented in all previously GFDL-licensed Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wiki communities can now customize these texts further in accordance with the implementation guidelines issued by the Wikimedia Foundation at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Implementation Importantly, this allows Wikimedia wiki communities to create their own copy of the terms of use, with specific limitations on or guidelines for attribution of externally imported CC-BY-SA content, more detailed explanations for re-users, etc. The implementation guidelines do allow significant flexibility, but we're hoping to ensure baseline consistency across projects and languages, so please do not deviate significantly from the guidelines. (If you feel the guidelines are flawed, feel free to comment on the talk page on meta.) If the messages have not been translated into your language yet, it is appreciated to do this work through <translatewiki.net> so that it doesn't have to be redundantly done for each Wikimedia project in that language. As translatewiki.net translators know, localization changes from there are rolled out regularly alongside normal code updates. Thanks to our good friends there for helping with the process so far, and thanks to all the translators. The relevant user interface texts are MediaWiki system messages and can be viewed and edited through the MediaWiki: namespace. They are: [[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright]] for the site footer [[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning]] for the editing page, above the save/preview buttons [[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-editpage-tos-summary]] for the editing page, below the save/preview buttons. For the more technical users, these changes were introduced to MediaWiki in the following code revision: <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/52361>. They live in the WikimediaMessages extension, which is only used by Wikimedia Foundation wikis. These messages override standard system messages, [[MediaWiki:Copyright]] and [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]]. [[MediaWiki:Edittools]] has sometimes been used to move this type of licensing information below the buttons/summary; the newly introduced [[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-editpage-tos-summary]] is meant to reflect this need while allowing us to consistently update/review these messages. Finally, a note on trademark recognition. Some projects have a little trademark notice in the footers, others don't. This notice isn't required (but helpful); we're working on standardized trademark usage guidelines, and we'll probably add a link to the site footer to these once they're finalized. I'll be checking the wikis, and particularly [[m:Talk:Licensing update]] and [[m:Talk:Licensing update/Implementation]] for comments, but please let me know if there are any immediate issues. Thanks, Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Foundation-l] No default codec for <video> and <audio> in HTML5
by Hay (Husky) 03 Jul '09

03 Jul '09

http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020620.html Unfortunately OGG Theora didn't make it as the default codec for the HTML5 <video> element in the spec. Until one of the two major formats (Theora and H264) is clearly the major format the HTML5 spec will not specify a default codec for the <video> element. -- Hay

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[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2009 Week: 27 Number: 110
by EN Wikizine 02 Jul '09

02 Jul '09

****************************************** __ __ _ _ _ _ / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __ ___ \ \/ \/ / | |/ / |_ / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ /| | <| |/ /| | | | | __/ \/ \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___| .org Year: 2009 Week: 27 Number: 110 ****************************************** An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community ////////////////////////////////////////// === Technical news === [Michael Jackson Kills WP] - Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop", died this week and nearly took Wikipedia down with him (as well as many other websites). Wikimedia sites were unresponsive for a whole due to the large number of page hits. The Michael Jackson article got nearly 6 *million* hits on June 26, more than the Main Page. In the evening of the 2th July (UTC) Wikipedia&Co was virtually down because of power outage of the European servers. The remaining servers choked on the additional traffic routed to them. http://stats.grok.se/en/200906/Michael_Jackson -- page hit statistics http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/current-events/ -- techblog explanation of issues http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/News_of_Michael_Jackson's_death_overloads_Internet_sites_and_sparks_hoaxes -- wikinews article http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/power-outage-in-wikimedias-european-s… -- wiki down [Usability] - the Usability team has released its first set of usability improvement (the "acai" release) for testing. As of press time, the new "vector" skin has been made available on all wikis for users who select it from their preferences, please help test the new features! http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/first-usability-release-is-coming-up-… -- blog post http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Releases#Acai -- "acai" release description [Usability BIS] - one aspect is already live by default; the new design of the search results. Just use the internal search and see. http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Designs#Search_Results === Request for help === [Fundraising 2009] - the Wikimedia Foundation is preparing for its next fundraiser and would like feedback from the community on some of the pages it has developed so far. In addition to the creation of a new survey that they would like comments on, the Foundation is also trying to enhance the visibility of the donate button. The new buttons will be placed on the skin and will be viewable on every page. There are also several design proposals that need community input! http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/25/would-you-press-this-button/ -- blog post about it http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Donation_buttons_upgrade -- buttons http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Survey -- survey === Foundation === [Licensing] - The "licensing update" changes have now been rolled out to all languages and projects, with the new license being featured in the footer and new interface items to translate for your wiki. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/30/licensing-update-rolled-out-in-all-wik… -- blog post http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2009-June/000959.html -- translation steps http://tinyurl.com/LU-interface-trans -- betawiki trans interface [Board election] - Once again an election for the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation is coming up. It is for 3 seats this time. But before there can be elections there must be someone to vote for. Submissions of candidacy are open between 6th and 20th July. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009 [New grant: Commons] - the Wikimedia Foundation was just awarded a US$300,000 grant that will research problems with and design new tools/fix current tools for uploading files to the global Wikimedia image repository, the Wikimedia Commons. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/02/ford-foundation-awards-300k-grant-for-… -- blog post http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Ford_Foundatio… -- press release http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:WMF_Ford_Multimedia_Participation_… -- full grant proposal [Job: "Bookshelf"] - as a further development from the "Scribus operator" volunteer position noted in Wikizine a few months ago, a new job opening has been posted for project manager of the "Bookshelf" project. The "Bookshelf" project strives to develop a slate of basic educational materials (print, online and video) to attract new authors and editors to Wikipedia. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Project_Manager_Bookshelf -- job opening http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_outreach/Get_involved -- volunteer position, scribus operator === Community === [David Rohde] - it turns out that Wikipedia, along with tons of other media outlets, kept the kidnapping of journalist David Rohde out of its article on him. This has caused a few Wikipedians and Wikipedia critics to note this and either scream censorship or just point out the fact that it was unsourced information that could help save someone's life by erring on the side of caution. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/technology/internet/29wiki.html?ref=media -- nytimes article http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/06/29/was-wikipedia-correct-t… -- blog post about censorship http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/29/2120257/Wikipedia-Censored-To-Protec… -- slashdot discussion [A reliable article?] - A new tool tries to help make scholars feel better about using Wikipedia by telling how reliable an article seems to be by using "wikibu-points". These points are based on statistical criteria and represent only possibilities, the creators hope that warnings will help people think to look at the discussion pages or article history. Wikibu is only available on the German Wikipedia at this time. http://www.wikibu.ch/ -- site/tool http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2009-July/000833.html -- mailing list post [EN Wikibooks] - is now using Meta's unified "user language" template. It will enable greater collaboration on the textbooks that teach foreign languages. [enwp AFD] - An interesting AFD (deletion discussion) on the English Wikipedia was recently closed -- it resulted in the deletion of 4077 articles, probably the most ever from a single AFD on enwp! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Anybot's_algae_articles -- deletion discussion === Media === [No tourists] - an article by a New Zealand newspaper tells that "references to gang violence and crime on Palmerston North's Wikipedia page have seen overseas investors and professionals shy away from the city"! http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/2516472/Wikipedia-entries-slag-off-Palmer… === Stats === [bn.wp] - The Bengali Wikipedia (bn) has reached 20,000 articles. http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/???????????_???????_?_?????????_?????_???????_… -- 20,000th article === Other news === [Who owns transit schedules?] - Only marginally related but interesting nevertheless, the subject of a recent battle has been pretty simple: who owns the copyright to bus arrival times? Public transportation agencies are trying to assert that they own the times and stop people from making iPhone apps (and similar items) off of the content, so that they can do it themselves and charge people. Not very FOSS of them! http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090628/1419595382.shtml [Wikizine@Foundation-l] - Wikizine will now be featured on foundation-l too! Thanks to Milos for proposing it and the list members for agreeing. http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation [Firefox 3.5] - ... is finally out. This main stream browser supports natively Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis, the media file formats our projects are using. http://www.mozilla.com/ === Quote === "Programming languages are like cats. It is easier to get a new cat than to get an old cat fixed." -- Douglas Crockford ////////////////////////////////////////// Editor(s): Casey, Walter Corrector(s): Alex Thanks to: Rand, Steve Bennett, Brion, Domas, Nando, Erik, Belayet, Naoko, Chad, Kul, Jay, Signpost, Adrignola, rainman-sr Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org Website: http://www.wikizine.org ////////////////////////////////////////// Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]]. Wikizine is a irregular publication as long as there is noteworthy news (and time) Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html and also the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/

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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation 2009-10 Annual Plan and Questions and Answers
by Veronique Kessler 02 Jul '09

02 Jul '09

Hi, I'm happy to tell you that I have just posted to the Foundation website, the 2009-10 Annual Plan along with Questions and Answers. The resolution in the plan was unanimously approved by the full board. To give you some context, the previous plan covering 2008-09, was the second official plan in the history of the Foundation and the first plan to set revenue targets; targets that called for doubling revenue from the previous year. We started building the 2008-09 plan just 15 weeks after opening the San Francisco office. Our priority at that time was to invest in revenue-generating staff while making small, essential investments in technology and programmatic activity, We have ended 2008-09 having surpassed our revenue goals and having spent less than planned due to a conscientious reduction in spending from October through January in response to the global economic uncertainty. The 2009-10 year again increases revenue. Spending increases are focused primarily in tech and other program spending including our key initiative for 2009-10, the collaborative strategy development project. Please take a look at the Annual Plan for more detail and information at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports#2009-2010_fiscal_year Veronique

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[Foundation-l] Job Opening at WMF - Project Manager
by Jennifer Riggs 02 Jul '09

02 Jul '09

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking a term-limited (one year) full-time Project Manager for its new "Bookshelf" Project (text below). Feel free to share. Link to WMF jobs: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Project_Manager_Bookshelf Job Title: Project Manager Employment Duration: August 2009 to September 2010. Reports to: Head of Public Outreach About the “Bookshelf Project” In 2009–2010, the Wikimedia Foundation will be developing a slate of basic educational materials –print, online and video– to attract new authors and editors to Wikipedia. The collective set of these resources is internally being called “The Bookshelf.” As a collaborative project, Wikipedia's success is based on the steady contributions of a global volunteer community of active contributors. The more people share their knowledge with others, the better and more diverse Wikipedia's content gets. We believe that raising and broadening participation is one of the keys to improve Wikipedia's overall quality and to eliminate cultural perspective gaps. Currently, there are limited resources to attract new contributors and to teach them how to get involved. Most of them lack consistency and are often out of date. There are therefore still many basic educational resources that need to be developed. These materials will teach people about Wikipedia and how to edit Wikipedia; provide teachers with lesson plans (to use Wikipedia in the classroom); provide volunteers and local Wikimedia chapters with training resources to do their own outreach; and to enable people to be skillful and responsible creators and producers of encyclopedic content. Job Summary The Project Manager is responsible for successfully executing the Bookshelf project: for ensuring high quality outputs are developed on time and inside the project budget. The Project Manager will need a prior demonstrated experience in managing a complex print and media project, excellent communications skills, and a passion for doing high-quality work. Part of this job will include actively moderating volunteer and external expert discussions to help them be focused and productive. Responsibilities * Create and get sign-off for the project plan, including review-and-refine cycles * Recruit and manage the dedicated project team and identify suitable outside contractors for video production * Plan and execute internal project communication (encompassing the project team, senior management, other departments, external expert groups, outside contractors and community stakeholders) * Keep the project on track: on time and on budget * Ensure all deliverables are of appropriate quality level, and success measures are met or exceeded Required Qualifications * 5+ years of project management experience * Ability to work in a highly collaborative, consensus-oriented, highly-diverse environment * Ability to work effectively within Wikimedia's values and mission. Must be emotionally committed to free knowledge and willing to attune oneself to the larger Wikimedia community's norms and expectations * Passion for doing high-quality work * Ability to work effectively with graphic designers, writers, and outside contractors to ensure deadlines are met * Experience prioritizing and creating accountability towards critical milestones and deadlines * Ability to assess and report project status, and escalating risks to senior management * Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability to interpret and translate information to teams and individuals and to report effectively to senior management Preferred Qualifications * Experience in education * Experience with non-profit * Prior demonstrated experience working in print and media production * Experience working with translations and/or international clientele Salary The salary is in the range of $74,000 to $85,000, commensurate with experience. Generous benefits are included. About the Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a US-registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible non-profit charity dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the world's 10 most visited websites, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikinews and the Wikimedia Commons media repository. The organization has received numerous honors for its work, among them the Webby Award, the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, the Japan Advertisers Association's Web Creation Award and the World Technology Award in Communications Technology. The Wikimedia Foundation was created in 2003 to manage the operation of Wikipedia and its sister projects and is based in San Francisco, California. It currently employs 27 staff members. Wikimedia is supported by local chapter organizations in 21 countries or regions. To Apply Please send a CV and cover letter to jobs(at)wikimedia.org, before July 20, 2009. Please put the position title (Project Manager "Bookshelf") in your subject line. Applications that do not include a cover letter will not be considered. This position will be filled in June 2009. In your cover letter, please address: * Why the Wikimedia Foundation would benefit from your skills at this position * What factors have been important to project success in your previous experience Please copy and paste the text of your CV into the e-mail, in addition to attaching the file. Due to the volume of applications we receive, we regret that only those selected for an interview will be contacted. This position is based in our San Francisco, CA. office.

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[Foundation-l] How do you fully consult the community consensus?
by Brian 02 Jul '09

02 Jul '09

Going forward, how does the Foundation plan to make large changes to the software in full consultation with the community consensus? Is the assumption that all of the members of the community who are knowledgeable and interested have already signed up to the relevant mailing lists and all that is needed is to send out a quick 'ping' and get their thoughts? What constitutes the community when it comes to the software? Or is this just a guideline that has been on Jimbo's user page for many years which is not really relevant since laymen should not really be involved in technical decisions? Is there anyone at the Foundation who currently takes this principle seriously? Honestly? What about the developers - are they aware of and actively engaged in implementing this principle? Does the Foundation feel that it doesn't actually need to consult the community? It can determine the technically best solution for the projects and then implement it without soliciting feedback from as many people as possible? What would constitute due diligence in contacting the community? For example, suppose that the Foundation had determined that there were 5 really good solutions to a problem in the software and that they take full consultation seriously. Could you then present those 5 solutions to the community en masse using a survey, analyze the results and choose a winner (or have a runoff?). How large of a change to the software requires full consultation? After consulting the community, does the Foundation feel it is within its power to then choose something different? Does the Foundation take the requirement that all changes to the software must be gradual and reversible seriously, or not? What does that mean to you? Thanks, Brian

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[Foundation-l] $300K grant for Wikimedia Commons
by Erik Moeller 01 Jul '09

01 Jul '09

All, I'm very happy to announce that the Ford Foundation has awarded a $300,000 grant to the Wikimedia Foundation to improve our interfaces and workflows for multimedia uploading. Press release here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Ford_Foundatio… For the first time we're also sharing a full grant proposal, with permission of the Ford Foundation. You can find it here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f9/WMF_Ford_Multimedia_P… It should give you a good idea about what we can do within the scope of this project. As a brief recap, Michael Dale has already done some good work on external repository searches and transfers, and integration of uploading into the editing UI, so we're hoping to build on top of this to really get the workflow for licensing/upload/review/embedding of media files nailed. We've also been having initial discussions with some of the Wikimedia chapters about possible models for working together on the execution of this. For example, we want to make sure that we can facilitate fruitful face-to-face meetings with Commons practitioners, and there is plenty of technical work to be done that can be decentralized and shared. Exciting projects like Wikimedia Germany's investment in multilingual search are already underway, so hopefully over the next year, we'll see lots of useful activity culminating in genuine improvements for Commons and beyond. Big thanks to Sara Crouse and Naoko Komura for their work on this grant proposal, and of course to the Ford Foundation for funding it. :-) Wikimedia Commons deserves to grow to many more millions of free educational media files, and hopefully this strategic investment will help us to get there. All best, Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Wikimedia-l July 2009