Possibly of interest: Creative Commons is running a workshop in April
on how to get a Creative Commons project funded. "The course consists
of a series of workshops and seminars that will take you through the
steps from an initial idea to having a finished project proposal for
submission, including assistance in identifying and finding funding
bodies and collaborations relevant for your project." Applicants from
CC affiliates are prioritized but anyone can apply.
https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/26669http://p2pu.org/general/getting-your-cc-project-funded
Note, I am just passing this on and can't answer questions about it :)
-- Phoebe
--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *
> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 01:05:59 +0300
> From: Victor Vasiliev <vasilvv(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] multilingual mailing list
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <AANLkTingbZREF8n5A-yhjsh7+igUH3TSCMCjKtpRSE=c(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=KOI8-R
>
> On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 12:21 AM, Casey Brown <lists(a)caseybrown.org>
> wrote:>
> > This *is* a multilingual list. ?All languages are welcome here.
>
> ?? ??? ????????? ??? ???????, ?????? ?? ????????? Google Translate
> ???? ??????? ???????. ? ???? ?? ??? ???? ? ????????????? ?
> ???????????????, ?? ??????? ?????????????? ??????????? ?????????
> ????????????
>
> -?????? ????????
>
>
And with some luck, the foundation-l Digest could even include non-ascii
characters in the mail aggregation, instead of the sequence of question
marks I see above :)
This is of course also a problem for English texts that reference e.g. names
with accented characters and the like (and yes, I do know about the
work-around of going via http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l).
\Mike
Hi,
perhaps now that most of the fundraising stress is over, we can discuss
the direction WMF should be taking in terms of raising funds. While I'm
glad that WMF and most chapters reached or exceeded their fundraising
goals, I feel qualmishly about where we're heading.
In order to meet a very ambitious goal, standards have shifted in the
2010/2011 fundraiser. Previously, we limited our efforts to text
banners. Only if our fundraising goal wasn't going to be met, we used
our Joker card "Personal appeal by Jimmy Wales". Now the standard for an
banner of acceptable efficiency is Jimmy's appeal, and all other banners
have to be of comparable efficiency. (This lead to the fact, that almost
none of the hundreds of text banners created by the community were
used.[1] Not exactly a respectful interaction with Wikimedia's
volunteers, as I already wrote on another mailing list.)
Our banners are getting more annoying every year. We're being more
aggressive. And we're putting words like "Urgent"[2] on the banners and
suggest that we haven't paid our bills for 2010 yet[3] (which is at the
very least misleading).
We simply can't keep up with expectations of a (nearly) exponential
growth in revenue WITHOUT drastically changing the way we raise funds.
Since the changes WMF already implemented are undesirable ("make the
banners bigger and more annoying every year"), I think we either have to
come up with completely new ways to raise funds, or become aware of what
our limits are and at which point WMF needs to stop growing.
I'm not a financial analyst, I'm simply a volunteer concerned about
the direction Wikimedia is heading at.
One comment by a Wikimedia Foundation staff member made me think a lot
about this. He said:
> Asking us to change messaging to something that impacts performance
> costs the Foundation and the movement real money. These are not
> theoretical decisions: my coworkers keep their jobs based on our
> performance on this fundraiser. Chapters that get grants are funded
> based on the success of this fundraiser. Real people and their
> families lose money based on the performance of these banners. So
> yeah, we're doing everything we can to maximize the income.
I found that comment to be very disturbing. It makes the Wikimedia staff
look like it is mostly concerned with keeping their jobs,[4] instead of
making Wikimedia's mission succeed. Money is not something inherently
good that we should strive for. It is but a tool, in pursuing our mission.
In that regard, I believe we have to think about how we can ensure that
we're being friendly and respectful towards our readers and donors,
raise enough money, define what 'enough money' is and how all that
affects our mission.
Best regards,
Tobias
User:Church of emacs
[1] Hundreds of banners, contributions of more than 200 volunteers in 24
languages, over a thousand comments:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Messages
[2] e.g.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&tem…
[3] e.g.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&tem…
[4] I do not believe that they are, but the thought has certainly
crossed my mind after reading the aforementioned quote.
Today we started the Ada Initiative Census of women in open technology
and culture:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/adacensus2011-email
The survey (intended for both women and men) asks two broad sets of
questions: What open projects are you working on, and what is your
opinion of how women are treated in your project and in the open
community in general? The goal of the census is to periodically "take
the temperature" of women in the open technology and culture
community, so we can know what areas to work on and whether the Ada
Initiative is making a difference for women in the community.
The survey takes only 5 minutes to do. Take the census now! The
census closes on March 29th, 2011.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/adacensus2011-email
Want to spread the word? Check out the census page for ideas and draft text:
http://adainitiative.org/projects/census/
Please especially post this on women in open source, open data, and
other open "stuff" mailing lists, blogs, and other forums!
Sending on behalf of Danese...
> Hello,
>
> Yes, the rumors are true! Today I am pleased to announce that after more than a year away, Brion Vibber will be returning as a full-time employee of Wikimedia Foundation on March 31, 2011. The public posting is available http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/03/07/brion-vibber-rejoins-wikimedia-fo…. I'm really excited to be announcing this hire, especially at this time. I've been looking for a Lead Architect for the next generation MediaWiki platform, and Brion is of course the ultimate expert in MediaWiki internals. He's also deeply committed to the work we are doing to keep MediaWiki relevant for the next 10 years.
>
> I completely enjoy working with Brion, and I'm totally looking forward to having him back on the team full time (he has always helped out on a volunteer basis).
>
> Anyway, I wanted to give you all a heads up before the public announcement. Please join me in welcoming him back!
>
> Danese Cooper
> CTO, Wikimedia Foundation
>
As far as academic journals go most people have some access and don't know
it. Most public libraries subscribe to one or more services, and a library
card is all they need for that access.
Any wmf sponsored access plan needs to keep this in mind and encourage
editors to use access they already have first.
If we did that and limited to established editors by request we could
probably license by number of seats and come out ahead with respect to
efficient use of resources. Targeting these efforts towards areas of
systematic bias would also be a way in which the foundation could gently
steer projects without actually exerting any editorial control.
Anyway great brainstorming hope something comes of it.
On Mar 8, 2011 3:54 PM, "Andrea Zanni" <zanni.andrea84(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 9 Mar 2011, John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > And if there is interest in advocating on this issue, SPARC
developed
> > the Alliance for Taxpayer Access
> > (http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/index.shtml) which represents
> > universities, libraries, patient advocacy groups, and physicians
working
> > to promote OA.
>
> I haven't heard of this before.
>
> The website/campaign name begs a lot of questions.
>
> "Why tax-payer access only?"
The message of public access to publicly funded research resonates with
policymakers.
> "What copyright license allows for tax-payer only redistribution?"
Once it is available to the taxpayers who fund it, it is made freely
available online to everyone, in every country.
> If I understand correctly, they are promoting unrestricted access to
> tax-payer funded research. Do they explicitly want govt-funded
> research to be public domain, like US federal works are, and therefore
> accessible to everyone, in every country?
Probably the biggest victory to date for the OA movement was a mandate
adopted by the U.S. NIH which stipulates that all the research funded by
the NIH (which amounts to approximately $29 billion annually) is now
made freely available through PubMed Central
(http://publicaccess.nih.gov/). Now the OA movement in the U.S. is
trying to extend this type of mandate to all federal research funding
agencies with budgets over $100 million. Likewise, there are projects
underway in other countries to advocate for similar policies, including
an open letter recently announced which targets UK funding councils
(http://tinyurl.com/64v9nvc). And finally, in addition to federal
research funding agencies, the OA movement also works with universities
to advocate for the adoption of institutional mandates which stipulate
that all research produced by those affiliated with a university or
faculty be made freely available (see OA policies adopted by several of
Harvard's Faculties http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/).
So some progress, but much more to do!
Melissa
> --
> John Vandenberg
Sorry I forgot to edit the subject. I post it again with the right subject.
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 3:56 PM, Joan Goma <jrgoma(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> We have to thank Góngora for the report.
>
> He did the hard job of translating it into English and sending it. The
> merit is outstanding if we take into account that he comes from Uruguay and
> his mother tongue is Spanish neither Catalan nor English.
>
> Regarding the strategic plan 2011 2013 for Catalan Wikipedia and sister
> projects it has been discussed and consensuated in Catalan Wikipedia also
> with the participation of users of the sister projects. It was started as a
> follow up of the global Wikimedia strategic plan:
> http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquip%C3%A8dia:Pla_estrat%C3%A8gic_2011_-_2013
>
> The aid is to develop 3 of the actions planed for 2011.
>
> * Several improvements to de tools we have to facilitate translations. Here
> you have a sample of what it does:
> http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tribunal_de_Just%C3%ADcia_de_Prim…
> (By the way, perhaps some day we cold exchange experiences and ideas with
> the people of the COSYNE project in WM NL).
> * Tools to improve content from statistical data. Sample:
> http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=La_Celle-sur-Loire&diff=next&oldi…
> * Extension of the project http://www.viquibalear to schools outside
> Balearic Islands. (the Balearic Islands version was explained last year in
> Wikimania):
> http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikipedia_at_schools._T….
>
> * Creation of a network of points (libraries, cultural organizations...)
> where they have brochures “Welcome to wikipedia” and printed copies of the
> book “Wikipedia” and help people wiling to start editing wikipedia.
>
>
>
>> Message: 9
>> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 11:34:34 +0100
>> From: Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Amical:
>> December-February Report
>> To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> Cc: J. G. G?ngora <ganastonia(a)hotmail.com>
>> Message-ID:
>> <AANLkTikZ+76mWPX2+or=sEbLYjM3JKvGE4x+dKtyBmdP(a)mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>>
>> Thank you Goma for this report! Always nice to hear so much is going on
>> everywhere on the world and I am glad you are reporting about your part.
>>
>> Could you perhaps share more detailed information/links about the 20k
>> grant
>> you received? And how you plan to create a "Strategic plan of Wikipedia" ?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>>
>
We have to thank Góngora for the report.
He did the hard job of translating it into English and sending it. The merit
is outstanding if we take into account that he comes from Uruguay and his
mother tongue is Spanish neither Catalan nor English.
Regarding the strategic plan 2011 2013 for Catalan Wikipedia and sister
projects it has been discussed and consensuated in Catalan Wikipedia also
with the participation of users of the sister projects. It was started as a
follow up of the global Wikimedia strategic plan:
http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquip%C3%A8dia:Pla_estrat%C3%A8gic_2011_-_2013
The aid is to develop 3 of the actions planed for 2011.
* Several improvements to de tools we have to facilitate translations. Here
you have a sample of what it does:
http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tribunal_de_Just%C3%ADcia_de_Prim…
(By the way, perhaps some day we cold exchange experiences and ideas with
the people of the COSYNE project in WM NL).
* Tools to improve content from statistical data. Sample:
http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=La_Celle-sur-Loire&diff=next&oldi…
* Extension of the project http://www.viquibalear to schools outside
Balearic Islands. (the Balearic Islands version was explained last year in
Wikimania):
http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikipedia_at_schools._T….
* Creation of a network of points (libraries, cultural organizations...)
where they have brochures “Welcome to wikipedia” and printed copies of the
book “Wikipedia” and help people wiling to start editing wikipedia.
> Message: 9
> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 11:34:34 +0100
> From: Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Amical:
> December-February Report
> To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Cc: J. G. G?ngora <ganastonia(a)hotmail.com>
> Message-ID:
> <AANLkTikZ+76mWPX2+or=sEbLYjM3JKvGE4x+dKtyBmdP(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>
> Thank you Goma for this report! Always nice to hear so much is going on
> everywhere on the world and I am glad you are reporting about your part.
>
> Could you perhaps share more detailed information/links about the 20k grant
> you received? And how you plan to create a "Strategic plan of Wikipedia" ?
>
> Thanks!
>
>