Wikimedia-l August 2010

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140 participants
80 discussions

[Foundation-l] Reminder: RCC Canberra: August 11, 2010
by Laura Hale 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

This is just a reminder. :) We'd love to see more people attend. *RecentChangesCamp* is an open<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology> conference <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference> on online collaborative practices centered around wikis<http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wiki>. RCC follows an open space<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology> unconference <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference> model. The main characteristics are that it is free to attend and self-organized by having a program determined on the day by attendees, with the aid of a facilitator. The aim of this event is to draw together interested people regardless of level of use of wiki and online collaborative spaces, to discuss, question and share knowledge in a friendly face to face setting. For catering and information purposes, please register<http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/University_of_Canberra/RCC_Canberra/Registra…>your interest in this event. - Recent Changes Camp <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_Changes_Camp>Canberra - 10am - 5pm, Wednesday 11 August. 2010 - University of Canberra, Building 7, Level C, Room 7XC37 - Contact Leighblackall<http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Leighblackall>0404561009 - Tags: #RCC and #UCRCC Transportation [edit<http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=University_of_Canberra/RCC_Canb…> ] <http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/File:Campus-map-east.png> <http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/File:Campus-map-east.png> click to enlarge To the University of Canberra The University of Canberra is located in Bruce, ACT. To get there via bus, you get off at the University of Canberra (College Street) stop. The following weekday routes serve the University of Canberra: 3, 7, 30, 31, 56, 58, 59, 73, 74, Intertown, 300, 312, 313, 314, 315, 318, 319. [1]<http://www.action.act.gov.au/routes_by_suburb.html> The University of Canberra is easily accessible by bicycle. Bicycle paths can be found here <http://www.tams.act.gov.au/move/cycling>. The easiest way is to look for signs to Belconnen Town Centre. Cross the little wooden bridge going away from the mall, continue straight past the aquatic center and college, continue under the underpass, past the student housing and you will arrive in the centre of campus. There are a number of bike racks available. To Canberra CountryLink (train) <http://www.countrylink.nsw.gov.au/>, Murray's Coaches (bus) <http://www.murrays.com.au/>, and Greyhound Australia(bus)<http://www.greyhound.com.au/>all serve Canberra. You can also fly into Canberra. From the airport, there is coach service into the city centre. Sincerely, Laura Hale

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Re: [Foundation-l] Announcing my departure from the Wikimedia Foundation
by Belayet Hossain 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

I am very shocked. :( I'll definitely miss you my friend. Belayet [[User:Bellayet]] -- Belayet Hossain http://www.facebook.com/bellayet http://twitter.com/bellayet http://bellayet.wordpress.com (Bangla) Knowledge is universal ...so share it. Hillel____ If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?

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[Foundation-l] Free translation memory
by Amir E. Aharoni 03 Aug '10

03 Aug '10

This is a follow-up to the discussions about Google Translate and Translator Toolkit. One of the problems that quickly arises in discussions about it is that this software is not Free-as-in-Freedom. The Translator Toolkit website is not too complicated, so it's not very important whether it's Free or not, but the stored translations belong to Google and are used by Google to improve their non-Free services. I don't mind Google making money out of my translation efforts, but i am less happy about the fact that, unless i am missing something, the stored translated strings can only be read by Google. Sometimes i will actually want to give up on my privacy and publish the sentence pairs and make them useful to researchers. (And if it is possible to enforce them to use it only in Free software, all the better.) Is there a Free competitor to the Google Translator Toolkit in terms of online storage and sharing? I heard about OmegaT, but if i understand correctly, it is a local application that doesn't offer online storage and sharing - but correct me if i'm wrong. Are there any other Free-minded translation memory services? -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore

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[Foundation-l] Banner ads in sitenotice
by geni 03 Aug '10

03 Aug '10

Job adverts? Really?. Site notice is for critical stuff (fund raising, servers about to explode) even if you play with the notice to only appear ~%10 of the time. Central notice even more so. For less important stuff where you want to contact the community there is [[MediaWiki:Watchlist-details]] which would have the additional advantage of not putting English ads on the Italian (substitute almost every non english wikipedia of your choice) wikipedia. The size is also problematical. On my screen it takes up about twice the space of the average image thumbnail something people who come to wikipedia actualy want to see. Incidentally: "In one or two sentences, describe the process in which users are approved to become administrators on English Wikipedia. " Is this some kind of test to see if people know how to use semi colons? -- geni

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[Foundation-l] Call for Volunteers: Wikimedia Research Committee
by Erik Moeller 03 Aug '10

03 Aug '10

Hello all, The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for volunteers who would like to support the management of relationships between Wikimedia communities and the broader communities of researchers who study Wikimedia projects. We hope to create a committee with volunteers from both groups with a rich combination of skills and backgrounds. Here are some areas of work that this new Wikimedia Research Committee, with help from the Wikimedia Foundation staff, is intended to explore: * developing policy around researcher permissions for non-public data * supporting the development of subject recruitment processes * reviewing research projects when conflicts-of-interest arise * articulating and channeling requests for data and technical resources * helping to formulate the key strategic research objectives of the Wikimedia movement (see strategy.wikimedia.org) * helping to formulate small tactical experiments related to Wikimedia's strategic goals * developing an open access policy as a requirement for significant support from the Wikimedia Foundation * helping create a "starter kit" for researchers to avoid duplication of effort To date, many of these issues have been handled by the Wikimedia Foundation on a case-by-case basis, with various points of contact and unclear responsibilities. The research committee will act as a first point of contact for many, if not most, of these requests, and help us to formulate processes and policy beyond the boundaries of projects and languages. We are estimating the minimum time commitment for membership in this committee to be 2-4 hours per week. To be clear, we are also hiring additional research and engineering staff. This committee is intended to work in close partnership with Wikimedia Foundation staff. If you are interested in joining this committee, please write an off-list e-mail response to <erik at wikimedia dot org> with the following information: 1) Your name and background; 2) Explanation of your role and interest in research projects and/or community; 3) Key areas of activity you'd like to focus on as a member of such a committee. This will help us seed the committee with a diverse group of individuals. The committee can later be expanded beyond the initial membership, once internal processes for doing so are established (similar to the chapters committee). We look forward to hearing from you. :-) Please disseminate this message further where relevant. We will aim to respond to applications within two weeks. All best, Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Foundation-l] Community Hiring banner
by Philippe Beaudette 03 Aug '10

03 Aug '10

Hi all, Just wanted to report back on the "Work at Wikimedia" banners that ran on the site the last few days. The idea behind them was to uncover talent for the community department that doesn't necessarily haunt the "usual" places. We specifically wanted to reach out to people who used the projects, that had new, interesting, or well developed and thought-out ideas for the community department. We knew the banner usage was a little unusual but honestly believed that we'd cast a wider net and turn up some interesting candidates for positions in the community department. I'm pleased to say that we're thrilled with the results. After a few days of running the banner at a relatively low display percentage, we have more than 1500 submissions, many of which are very interesting. It's obviously going to take us some time to look through them, but from our perspective, the banners did what we wanted them to do. With all that said, the comments about the "opportunity cost" of running those banners on the world's fifth most-viewed web properties is an important one. It's one that we explored and will continue to explore. You may have noticed that we actually tried out two different "sizes" of banners, as well. I don't have any numbers yet to report as to whether the smaller size of the later banners made a different in the number or quality of the applicants; it's just too early to know. While I'm about to turn off the banners, we want to continue to encourage people to go to the application page ( http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:CommunityHiring ), since we're actually turning the banners off in advance of the deadline that we set. However, we continue to look for talented people, and the community hiring page will stay live for the immediate future. Thanks, everyone, for your feedback during this trial. Please look for people that would be interested in sending us their information for jobs in the community department. Best, Philippe ____________________ Philippe Beaudette Head of Reader Relations Wikimedia Foundation philippe(a)wikimedia.org 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

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[Foundation-l] RfC: Global Arbitration Committee
by Milos Rancic 02 Aug '10

02 Aug '10

Stewards had meeting during the Wikimania. One of the conclusions is that we need Global arbitration committee as there are more and more cases which just stewards are able to solve somehow. And we are not elected to make decisions. Please, add your ideas [1] and join the discussion [2]. Below is the initial page. [1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Global_Arbitration_Comm… [2] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Global_Arbitration… * * * During Wikimania 2010 in Gdansk [[stewards]] had meeting. They've concluded that there are more and more issues all around Wikimedia projects in which they have to make urgent decisions, which is according to the [[Steward policy]], but the number of needed decisions is above the comfortable limits. At the other side, as stewards are not able to make any non-urgent decision, conflicts remain unsolved. Thus, the conclusion is that we need the body which would have mandate to make decisions in conflict resolution, mostly related to the projects which don't have their own arbitration committees or if it is about a dispute which involves at least one whole community (or majority of it). This body will be called "Dispute-resolution committee" or "DRC" below. The other idea is that it would be good to have one global body which would deal with complains on decisions of other arbitration committees, including with complains on DRC's decisions. This body will be called "Global arbitration committee" or "GAC" below. Feel free to [[Talk:Requests for comment/Global Arbitration Committee|discuss]] about it, as well as to edit this page by adding your proposals. == Committees == === Dispute-resolution committee === ==== Scope ==== This body would have next responsibilities: * First level of dispute-resolution for the communities without arbitration committees. * First level of dispute-resolution which involves one or more communities as whole (or as majority). ==== Choosing members ==== Possible methods for choosing members: * Wikimedia-wide elections. * A group of stewards who are willing to volunteer for this purpose. (This is the suggestion of one of the Board members.) * Appointing the group by some other body. * Wikimedia-wide election for most of the members, and two or three stewards elected from and by the stewards (for fact-finding, etc.) * ... === Global arbitration committee === ==== Scope ==== This body would have next responsibilities: * Defining requirements for having an arbitration committee inside of one project. * Accepting and solving complains on decisions of project-specific arbitration committees. * Accepting and solving complains on decisions of DPR. * Abuse and misuse of high-level access ([[checkuser]], [[oversight]], [[steward]]-rights, taking over the job of the [[Ombudsman commission]]) ==== Choosing members ==== Possible methods for choosing members: * Wikimedia-wide elections. * Giving the authority to the [[Ombudsman commission]]. * Appointing the group by the community members of the [[Board]]. * ... == Other ideas == [[Category:Requests for comments]]

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[Foundation-l] Random factoid
by Asaf Bartov 02 Aug '10

02 Aug '10

"The study found that the nation's 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. A dozen sites each installed more than a hundred. The nonprofit Wikipedia installed none." -- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703940904575395073512989404.h… -- Asaf Bartov <asaf.bartov(a)gmail.com>

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[Foundation-l] Global banners requests for comment
by MZMcBride 02 Aug '10

02 Aug '10

Hi. After becoming annoyed yet again at what I view as excessively large and generally unnecessary global banners, I've started a Requests for comment at Meta on the issue.[1] It's an attempt to gauge community consensus on the use of these global banners. The specific focus is to what extent these global banners should be used for non-fundraising-related reasons. I've advertised the Requests for comment at the English wiki projects and obviously I'm advertising it to foundation-l. Please feel free to advertise it elsewhere, as you see fit. MZMcBride [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Global_banners

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[Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?
by Shiju Alex 01 Aug '10

01 Aug '10

Hello All, Recently there are lot of discussions (in this list also) regarding the translation project by Google for some of the big language wikipedias. The foundation also seems like approved the efforts of Google. But I am not sure whether any one is interested to consult the respective language community to know their views. As far as I know only Tamil, Bengali, and Swahili Wikipedians have raised their concerns about Google's project. But, does this means that other communities are happy about Google efforts? If there is no active community in a wikipedia how can we expect response from communities? If there is no response from a community, does that mean that Google can hire some native speakers and use machine translation to create articles for that wikipedia? Now let us go back to a basic question. Does WMF require a wiki community to create wikipedia in any language? Or can they utilize the services of companies like Google to create wikipedias in N number of languages? One of the main point raised by the supporters of Google translation is that, Google's project is good *for the online version of the language*.That might be true. But no body is cared to verify whether it is good for Wikipedia. As pointed out by Ravi in his presentation in Wikimania, ( http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddpg3qwc_279ghm7kbhs), the Google translation of wikipedia articles: - will affect the biological growth of a Wikipedia article - will create copy of English wikipedia article in local wikis - it is against some of the basic philosophies of wikipedia The people outside wiki will definitely benefit from this tool, if Google translation tool is developed for each language. I saw the working example of this in Poland during Wikimania, when some people who are not good in English used google translator to communicate with us. :) Apart from the points raised by Ravi in his presentation, this will affect the community growth.If there is no active wiki community, how can we expect them to look after all these junk articles uploaded to wiki every day. When all the important article links are already turned blue, how we can expect any future potential editors. So according to me, Google's project is killing the growth of an active wiki community. Of course, Tamil Wikipedia is trying to use Google project effectively. But only Tamil is doing that since they have an active wiki community*. Many Wiki communities are not even aware that such a project is happening in their wiki*. I do not want to point out specific language wikipedas to prove my point. But visit the wikipedias (especially wikipedias* that use non-latin scripts*) to view the status of google translation project. Loads of junk articles are uploaded to wiki every day. Most of the time the only edit in these articles is the edit by its creator and the inter language wiki bots. This effort will definitely affect community growth. Kindly see the points raised by a Swahali Wikipedian<http://muddybtz.blog.com/2010/07/16/what-happened-on-the-google-challenge-t…>. Many Swahali users (and other language users) now expect a laptop or some other monitory benefits to write in their wikipedia. That affects the community growth. So what is the solution for this? Can we take lessons from Tamil/Bengali/Swahili wikipedias and find methods to use this service effectively or continue with the current article creation process. One last question. Is this tool that is developing by Google is an open source tool? If not, we need to answer so many questions that may follow. Regards Shiju Alex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shijualex

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Wikimedia-l August 2010