Wikimedia-l May 2010

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162 participants
148 discussions

[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] English Wikipedia: Upcoming Changes to the User Interface
by Howie Fung 07 May '10

07 May '10

Everyone, As many of you already know, the Wikimedia Foundation's User Experience team has been running a beta program focused on improving the user interface for over six months now. More details may be found here <http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Usability_Initiative> [a], but our main goal has been to reduce the barriers to participation in Wikipedia by making it easier for new contributors to edit. Since the start of the program, over 635,000 users across all Wikimedia projects have participated in this beta program - testing and providing feedback on the new interface. Roughly 80% of the test users who tried the beta are still using it (view details <http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey> [b]). On the English Wikipedia, almost 270,000 users have tried the test interface and about 84% of those users continue to use it. On April 5, the beta features became the default experience for users of Wikimedia Commons, a wiki similar to Wikipedia that hosts the millions of free image and media files within our projects. The summary of feedback from Commons users may be found here <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/04/16/a-quick-update-on-vector-acceptance-by…> [c]. The WMF blog <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/25/wikimedia-gets-ready-for-some-big-chan…> [d] and the tech blog <http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/the-change-in-interface-is-coming/> [e] also provide more information on this project. This new user interface will become the default for users of the English Wikipedia during the second week of May. We are currently scheduled to make the switch at 5:00am UTC on May 13. Once we make the switch, all users will begin to see the new features [1]. These features include an enhanced toolbar, a new skin (which we named 'Vector'), and a number of other features we're very excited about (FAQs may be found here <http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers> [f]). If you prefer not to make the change, there will be 'Take me back' link to restore the original features. Those who would like to experience the new interface sooner may do so via the 'Try Beta' link at the top of the page. We understand that the English Wikipedia relies heavily on custom user scripts and site-specific JavaScript. Information on how to test gadgets is included in the FAQs <http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers> page. If you encounter issues using the new skin, please share your feedback <[http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers> [g]. We're looking forward to rolling out the new features next week. In the meantime, if you have any questions/comments, please share them here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_experience_feedback> [h] -- we're trying to consolidate feedback as much as we can. Howie Wikimedia Usability Experience Team [1] Users that have opted out of the beta will still get the new features. We apologize in advance for this inconvenience, but these users may restore their features via the "Take Me Back" link. [a] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Usability_Initiative [b] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey [c] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/04/16/a-quick-update-on-vector-acceptance-by… [d] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/25/wikimedia-gets-ready-for-some-big-chan… [e] http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/the-change-in-interface-is-coming/ [f] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers [g] [http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers [h] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_experience_feedback _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l

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Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
by Joan Goma 07 May '10

07 May '10

I can’t imagine virtual reality playing a main role in an encyclopedia. But I see a lot of possibilities in creating learning materials. When people enroll a real live learning program they are paying for 3 things: For acquiring knowledge; for somebody (or some process) guiding and motivating them; and for a certificate crediting the knowledge they have acquired. Virtual reality certainly could help in creating virtual environments guiding and motivating people in the process of acquiring knowledge. Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 16:36:06 +0200 > From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> > Subject: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List > <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Message-ID: > <j2x846221521005060736g98d23555g73f6c0465b08b43e(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > The MMORPG Ryzom goes Free Software [1]. Although it was just a matter > of time, this event is very important for shaping our future. MMORPG > is virtual reality and VR worlds will be [a significant part of] our > future. > > Wikimedia should join FSF and Winch Gate Properties in shaping the future. > > [1] - http://dev.ryzom.com/news/13 > > > > ------------------------------ >

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[Foundation-l] Flagged Protection update for May 6
by William Pietri 07 May '10

07 May '10

As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update. The main news is that the team had a meeting this week with Danese and Erik to discuss rollout plans. Everybody concurs that we're close enough to launch to start a few release-related activities: 1) Starting a discussion with the enwiki community about how they'd like to handle the use of the feature once it's live, 2) Writing the release documentation, 3) Preparing for media interest, 4) Doing a final performance evaluation, and 5) Allocating engineering time to handle the rollout. This will pull in a variety of people, all of whom we're excited to have involved, including Tim, Jay, Moka, Rob L., Rob H, and even Mike G. a bit. Adam has also offered us to help us solve some cross-browser CSS issues that have been confounding us, for which we are grateful. Keep an eye out for activity relating to these efforts in the coming days and weeks. The actual release schedule depends on a number of factors, including the results of testing, the speed with which we resolve a couple of remaining UI difficulties, and the extent to which community testing on Labs turns up new issues. Speaking of which, if you'd like to try out the current software, you can do so here: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Lest you think it has achieved perfection, both Tango and Eper turned up interesting issues just this week. Thanks to them and the other testers! To see what we've changed this week, there's a list here: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Flagged_Protection_upd… To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog: http://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/46157 We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter until this goes live on the English Wikipedia. William P.S. On a personal note, after a dozen years of consulting, I've decided to join an early-stage web startup. Post launch, once things are running approximately smoothly, I'll be handing off my duties to Rob Lanphier, aka User:RobLa. I would ask everybody to be nice to him so I can safely make my escape, but there's no need; he's been around this place since 2001. But you should still be nice to him because he's a good guy who loves Wikipedia.

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Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
by robert_horning＠netzero.net 07 May '10

07 May '10

---------- Original Message ---------- From: George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> Let me pose this a different way, however. Take UI entirely out of the picture - the Wikimedia Foundation is all about supporting projects that gather and create information for the public good, presenting that to the public, and creating software to encourage that. ------ There was a time when the Wikimedia Foundation, or rather those involved with the various sister projects, were interested in some leading edge and bleeding edge stuff. Considerable experimentation was encouraged and some amazing things happened that pushed ideas and concepts to some pretty interesting extremes. Much of what we know today as Wikipedia certainly wouldn't exist today. I got started in this whole mess back in the days when Gnupedia was rolled into Nupedia and those two communities merged together. I remember numerous discussions on even trying to come up with how to edit content, what sort of raw standards ought to be invoked, and how to get participants to show up and contribute what they knew. Using a wiki in a democratic fashion was actually a rather novel concept, and in fact brought in a whole new group of users. Seriously, with this sort of attitude, Wikipedia would have never even been tried in the first place. I am so glad this particular mindset was not in place back in those days. I've also been involved in working on the various sister projects, and even helped to get Wikiversity going in the first place. Indeed, one of the founding missions of Wikiversity was explicitly to try out new technology, to "conduct original research" on various levels. Yes, I know that was a sticking point with the board of trustees when Wikiversity was started too, so it wasn't entirely without controversy. Still, there are various sorts of original research that has been happening that is tied to the Wikimedia community... some of which are directly supported by the Foundation and others that are instead in the periphery and more side projects of a sub-set of the larger community. Some are rather well known, and others are much more obscure. Fine, I'll admit this is more of a research project to see if anything could be done here, and there is no guarantee that much may come from this. I'm not even suggesting that the WMF ought to give even modest support in the form of server space for experimentation on this concept or even permitting a wiki page that would act as a central community message board and idea center for something like this. That is something that can or can't happen, but it sort of seems rough that the idea is dismissed completely out of hand before it is even started in the first place. It is also unfortunate that even discussion about what sorts of ideas might be useful under such a project is shut down before the discussion starts at all. -- Robert Horning ____________________________________________________________ Penny Stock Jumping 2000% Sign up to the #1 voted penny stock newsletter for free today! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL3241/4be37c8e6053c3be433st01vuc

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[Foundation-l] Chapter selected board seats - call for candidates
by Thomas Dalton 07 May '10

07 May '10

To whom it may concern, Can you, or someone you know, help guide Wikimedia Foundation through the next exciting steps of its strategic development and growth? The Wikimedia Chapters are looking for two candidates to sit on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees for 2 years commencing in July 2010. The new board members will be faced with the challenge of helping decide the future direction of the only top-10 internet property that is run by a non-profit organisation. The Wikimedia websites are constructed by hundreds of thousands of volunteers world-wide, supported by a small but growing number of staff and an international network of chapters. The successful candidates will most importantly be committed to the Wikimedia mission and willing to work with the various stakeholders of the Wikimedia movement, including the volunteers and the chapters that provide essential support for the movement. They will have the time to do this, with the appropriate communication skills (including a good standard of English) and ability to work as a team. They will also be able and willing to travel, and have an international attitude. The candidates will ideally be open-minded with experience of international affairs and governance techniques. They will have good communication skills, as well the ability to think strategically and to work independently as well as part of a team. The process that will be followed for this selection can be viewed here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/Process All nominations must be sent to the moderator (Thomas Dalton from Wikimedia UK) and deputy moderator (José Spierts from Wikimedia Nederlands) by 23:59 UTC 17th May. If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else, please see the instructions here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/Nominate The chapters wish to locate truly excellent board members and believe that can best be done if there are a large number of varied and quality candidates to consider. Therefore, the chapters ask that everyone that thinks they, or someone they know, would be a good board member submit a nomination. They also ask that this call for candidates be distributed as widely as possible on mailing lists, village pumps, blogs, etc.. Best regards, Thomas Dalton, Moderator

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[Foundation-l] How to make unstoppable petty complaint a feature?
by David Gerard 06 May '10

06 May '10

[This was a passing comment I made on wikien-l, but it's a reasonably serious topic for consideration in how the wikisphere works.] No matter how much work is put into flagged revisions on en:wp, it is 100% certain that it will be greeted with deafening whinging. This is not a reason not to make it as good as possible, but the complaint is a certainty. Anyone who's been around Wikipedia or Wikimedia long enough can see this is what will happen. There is no change that will not be greeted with complaint, significant or petty. 1. Is this a bug or a feature? 2. If it isn't a feature, how can we make it into one? 'Cos we really need to. (AGK suggests Special:Complain or Extension:Whine.) - d.

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Announcement] Howie Fung joins Wikimedia
by Erik Moeller 05 May '10

05 May '10

FYI. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> Date: 2010/5/5 Subject: [Announcement] Howie Fung joins Wikimedia To: wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Hello all, I'm pleased to announce that Howie Fung, who has been supporting us as a consultant since October 2009, is joining the Wikimedia Foundation as Senior Product Manager. In the immediate future, Howie will continue to support the deployment of our user experience improvements, as well as the continuing development and deployment of the FlaggedRevs extension for the English Wikipedia. In the longer term, Howie will help us to build Wikimedia's product development roadmap by commissioning and assessing research and analytics, and by engaging in broad consultative processes. Most recently, Howie was Senior Product Manager at Rhapsody, where he helped grow the music site's traffic five-fold within the the first year on the basis of extensive customer research, including web analytics, focus groups, user testing, and customer surveys. Prior to that, Howie was Product Manager at eBay, prioritizing features based on business objectives, usability studies, and economic impact. Howie has more than 15 years of experience in product management, business analysis and strategy, technology evaluation, and team incubation. He has an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. As a consultant, Howie completed several key projects, including the survey of former contributors [1], the analysis of feedback from the user experience beta [2], and extensive analysis of the user interface, workflows and terminology used in the FlaggedRevs extension. He has also supported Wikimedia's five-year business planning process. We're very pleased that Howie is joining Wikimedia's permanent staff: please join me in welcoming him! All best, Erik [1] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Former_Contributors_Survey_Results [2] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] Public Policy Initiative
by Gerard Meijssen 05 May '10

05 May '10

Hoi, Given that this was published two hours ago and, not published on Foundation-l, I forward it. It is rather intriguing. I am interested to learn what the community thinks of this and, if this is another en.wp only project. Thanks, GerardM ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Frank Schulenburg <fschulenburg(a)wikimedia.org> Date: 5 May 2010 19:50 Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] Public Policy Initiative To: WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Hi all, I am pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation received a generous grant from the Stanton Foundation for a 17-month pilot program that will help inform how to best engage new contributors in the improvement of subject-specific articles on Wikipedia. The Stanton Foundation also supports the Wikipedia Usability Initiative and other Wikimedia activities; we are very grateful for this ongoing support and interest. A public announcement of this grant will follow later this week. Subject-matter experts have always been valued Wikipedia contributors, and a key goal of this initiative is to facilitate their collaboration with and among the Wikipedia editing community. We will experiment with different methods of using Wikipedia as a teaching and learning tool in universities, and ways to provide incentives and support participation by students, teachers, and volunteers. The overarching goal of this project, called the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative, is to effectively increase the quality of public policy articles on Wikipedia, and to support Wikimedia Chapters with a model for working with universities to enhance other topic areas. We have chosen the particular subject area of public policy because this topic area is interdisciplinary, and requires collaboration among many fields (including history, economics, law, and various social and hard sciences). We also believe this subject area is underdeveloped on Wikipedia and therefore offers a big opportunity for improvement. Furthermore we recognize that public policy articles may pose special problems -- they may center on issues and debates that are more controversial and less settled than other articles in the sciences or in the humanities. We feel that if we can succeed with public policy articles, other topic areas can be improved based on this model. This is a completely new and exciting model for outreach with subject matter experts on Wikipedia. It's also a first for the Wikimedia Foundation, and something we hope will lead us towards new best practices and a solid foundation to better collaborate with our volunteers and with academic and institutional partners. During the 17-month time frame of the project timeline, the Initiative will be led by a project team at the Wikimedia Foundation working with two keys groups of volunteer Wikipedia editors: "Campus Ambassadors" doing in-classroom training and face-to-face evangelizing, and "Online Ambassadors" providing online support, coaching and mentoring. The Wikipedia volunteers will support university classes, students and professors as they engage in quality improvement of public policy articles on Wikipedia. The execution of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will take a phased approach. This will include the recruitment of an advisory Steering Committee of public policy experts, establishment of quality measures, baseline assessment of the current quality of public policy articles, and development of educational and training materials specific to this project. We will then pilot quality improvement activities with 3-5 schools during the fall and winter of 2010, learn from the experiences of the pilot schools, and scale up to run work with an additional 7-12 schools during the spring of 2011. The project will culminate in a conference at which best practices will be shared and prizes awarded. We believe that the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will both improve public policy content during the duration of the project, and also produce information and infrastructure that could inform the design and development of a long term sustainable model. The Foundation will more publicly announce this new initiative later this week with a press release, but we wanted to give everyone advance notice and share these job openings. The Public Policy Initiative will be led by Rod Dunican, our Education Programs Manager. Pete Forsyth and I will remain closely engaged as the project unfolds, and we will build a project team specifically around the initiative. We invite you to have a look at the current job openings: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings For more information, click the links below to review: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative_project_details http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative_FAQ If you have further questions about the Initiative or the current job openings, please contact rdunican[at]wikimedia[dot]org Thanks for your interest, Frank Schulenburg, Public Outreach _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l

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[Foundation-l] [Fwd: [Communia] Europeana launches its Public Domain Charter]
by Federico Leva (Nemo) 05 May '10

05 May '10

-------- Messaggio Originale -------- Oggetto: [Communia] Europeana launches its Public Domain Charter Data: Tue, 4 May 2010 07:13:58 -0600 Da: bernardo parrella <berny(a)cybermesa.com> A: communia(a)lists.communia-project.eu The Europeana Foundation has published a policy statement, the Public Domain Charter, to highlight the value of public domain content in the knowledge economy. It alerts Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audiovisual collections to the fact that digitisation of Public Domain content does not create new rights in it. The document highlights the Public Domain as a "shared resource that underpins contemporary societies" and it "provides a historically developed balance to the rights of creators protected by copyright." This initiative strengthens the recently-launched Public Domain Manifesto goal to protect today's cultural landscape particularly relevant to education, cultural heritage and scientific research -- thus ensuring that it can continue to function in a meaningful way. The Public Domain Charter is currently available as a pdf download in English, French, German, Spanish, and Polish. More info: http://communia-project.eu/node/406 http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-project/publications

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[Foundation-l] Wikipedia iPhone app goes v2.0
by Liam Wyatt 05 May '10

05 May '10

Sorry if this has been posted or announced before or somewhere else, but I just noticed it. For anyone out there with an iPhone, the official Wikipedia App has been updated to version 2.0 as of last week: http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/wikipedia-mobile/id324715238?mt=8 As it says in the release notes "now with maps, bookmarks and near-complete redesign" Maps!! For me, the killer aspect of Wikipedia+mobile has got to be the ability to find articles that are about things nearby me - so great job getting this standard in the official app. Here's hoping the mobile interface continues to flourish on different platforms, localisations and with ever shinier and faster-loading features :-) Thanks guys, -Liam [[witty lama]] wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata

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Wikimedia-l May 2010