Hello,
I received an email earlier today, in which the person who was the subject
of an article I wrote last year decided to make a donation to the WMF.
Excerpted from the email:
"Has it occurred to the people running Wikipedia that some people might
think Wikipedia is affiliated with Wikileaks?
It would be an easy mistake to make, and even I balked because I am totally
anti-Wikileaks.
I found a page Wiki stating you were not affiliated, but you should really
include that info with your donation requests.
I suspect thousands of would-be donors did not donate because they were not
totally sure and didn't want to take the chance.
Please pass this piece of info onto the people in charge, because I think
it's a really important point to stress!"
Regardless of how I feel on the matter, this person does make a good point.
I have come across many people who view Wikileaks as irresponsible and
dangerous. Calling out our non-affiliation with Wikileaks on the donation
page seems fairly drastic. However, because this may be a common
misconception, clarification should be made *somewhere*.
Chris
Hello, everyone.
We are pleased to announce that the registration period and the scholarship
application period for Wikimania 2011, which will be held in Haifa, Israel,
on August 4th to 7th, 2011, have *just begun!*
== Registration ==
Those who register early will enjoy considerable discounts in both
registration and accommodation fees, so be sure to register as early as
possible.
* Full information about registration, including fees and registration
periods: http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration
* Our registration website: http://wmreg.wikimedia.org.il/
== Scholarship application ==
If you require a scholarship to attend Wikimania 2011, you can apply for one
until the end of January 2011. This year, there will be partial scholarships
to cover travel costs up to USD 300, in addition to full scholarships.
* Full information about scholarships:
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
* Our scholarship application website: http://wmschols.wikimedia.org.il/
== Call for Papers ==
The Call for Papers for the conference has been available for a while now.
You are welcome to submit workshop, seminar, tutorial, panel, and
presentation proposals.
* The Call for Papers:
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Papers
== Translators required ==
You are welcome to help translate as much of our conference wiki into as
many languages as possible, using the regular {{Other languages}} and
{{Translation}} templates.
If you are interested in translating the registration website into
additional languages, please contact us at wikimania
-registration(a)wikimedia.org.
== Got any questions? ==
You can contact us in any of the ways listed on
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Contact.
If you have questions that might interest others, please post them on
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Information_Desk.
Please bear with us if the registration or scholarship application websites
are momentarily unavailable due to maintenance.
Wishing you all a happy 2011 and looking forward to hosting you in Haifa,
Asaf Bartov
on behalf of the entire Wikimania 2011 local team
--
Asaf Bartov <asaf.bartov(a)gmail.com>
This 73 minute podcast features the 4th Annual Robert C. Heterick Jr.
Lecture, given by Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media
Studies Program at MIT. The lecture is entitled, "What Wikipedia Can
Teach Us About the New Media Literacies".
Emblematic of the new participatory cultures and the emerging practices
of collective intelligence, Wikipedia has drawn fire from academic
institutions and traditional gatekeepers. Using segments from a
forthcoming documentary about the Wikipedia movement produced by MIT's
Project NML, this session will discuss how educators might use Wikipedia
to introduce students to the ways that new forms of cultural production
and knowledge sharing are reshaping the research process.
http://www.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/ELIPodcastWhatWikipediaCanTeac/167442
Along the same line there is a Webinar:
Wikipedia in the Classroom: Changing the Way Teachers and Students Use
Wikipedia
January 5, 2011 1:00 p.m. ET (12:00 p.m. CT, 11:00 a.m. MT, 10:00 a.m. PT)
Register Now
Yonatan Moskowitz
Wikimedia Campus Ambassador, Georgetown University
Rod Dunican
Education Programs Manager, Wikimedia Foundation
Summary
Very few educators have thus far used Wikipedia as a teaching tool in
their classrooms, but this is beginning to change due to the Wikipedia
Public Policy Initiative. The Wikimedia Foundation launched the Wikipedia
Public Policy Initiative in fall 2010 in order to find new ways to
incorporate Wikipedia into higher education environments. In the fall
2010 semester, 13 classes from 10 universities participated by developing
various assignments that incorporated Wikipedia editing as a main
component, with many more signing up for the second iteration in spring
2011.
In these classes, professors and trained ambassadors worked together to
develop assignments that achieved the learning goals of the professor
while contributing to the development of new content on the free
encyclopedia. Though the first classes to receive ambassadors focus on
developing mainly public policyoriented pages, one of the program's end
goals is to develop a model that can be expanded to other disciplines.
In this session, staff from the Wikimedia foundation and a Campus
Ambassador will discuss the program in general, some examples of how
Wikipedia is being used in the classroom, where the program is going, and
how professionals in higher education technology can bring some of the
advantages of this program to their institutions.
http://www.webinarreviews.org/wikipedia-in-classrooms-educational-webinar/http://net.educause.edu/live111
Fred Bauder
One fix that developers could do, and which would address 93.6% of the
problem is to move the template editing out-of-normal-editing-space.
Disentangle the template code, from the editable text.
W
Most of the templates in our project, imho are just more clutter.
The number of people who know how to use any particular template, can
probably be counted with a box of marbles. However when others see the
templates, they just shy away, they don't bother to try to learn them.
If we want to make things easier for editors, we should scrape templates
entirely. What they add to the project is not worth, what they detract.
W
Hi everyone,
We wanted you to hear first: in about three hours, we're switching the messaging on the banners to "Thank you!" It's time to thank the world, because the world came together to help support the Wikimedia projects. We're delighted to report that nearly half a million donations came in. It's a resounding vote of confidence in what you've done with the projects. So take a moment to stop, to celebrate, and to enjoy the accomplishment... and then it's time to focus on the tenth anniversary year!
You may notice that the fundraising statistics page doesn't quite say $16M. Since you might be asked about that, here's the math we used to arrive at the end of the fundraiser:
In addition to the amount posted on the graph (roughly $13.5M), we have about $1.5 million in revenue received during testing or received but not yet posted (manual check entry, etc). We've been counting on $500,000 from the chapters in our thermometer formula but given the extraordinary chapter fundraising success this year, we're confident that we'll be over the $16M mark. (We're also including an adjusted value for the recurring gifts that we've received this year.)
We're delighted to be able to start 2011 with our community giving goal already met. We did this in a collaborative fashion: testing nearly 200 banner ideas submitted by the community, using translations, with community involvement in the testing, and in the next phase of the campaign - encouraging people to edit.
We'll be running "Thank you" banners for the next few days to tell the world how much this editing community appreciates their financial support, and then will convert to banners inviting people to get involved in tenth anniversary celebrations around the world, and to make their first edit (the "contribution" phase of the campaign).
Now let's go celebrate!
Zack Exley
Philippe Beaudette
Megan Hernandez
_______________________
Philippe Beaudette
Head of Reader Relations
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
pbeaudette(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://donate.wikimedia.org