(This press release is also posted on the WMF wiki at
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/WMF_and_STC_partner_on_…)
'''The Wikimedia Foundation and Saudi Telecom (STC) partner to provide
access to Wikipedia free of mobile data charges in the Middle East'''
''Service available immediately to STC customers in Saudi Arabia''
San Francisco, California and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- October 14, 2012
-- Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and the Wikimedia Foundation announced
a new partnership today to offer Wikipedia free of data charges on
mobile devices to STC customers in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait.
By making Wikipedia available to its 25 million mobile customers, STC
and the Wikimedia Foundation commit to increasing access to the free
and open knowledge available on Wikipedia. Wikipedia Zero enables
customers to browse the website for free and with high flexibility on
all mobile phones.
This partnership is part of the Wikimedia Foundation's mobile
strategy, which focuses on reaching billions of people around the
world whose primary opportunity to access the Internet is via a mobile
device. This initiative is particularly important, given that the
Foundation has made Arabic language countries a special priority in
its strategic planning.
“We are thrilled that STC has joined us in removing a major barrier to
accessing Wikipedia on mobile phones. Improving access to the
Wikimedia projects in the Arabic speaking world is a strategic
priority for the Foundation, and this partnership is a step forward in
our mission to enable everyone on the planet to access free
knowledge,” said Kul Takanao Wadhwa, Head of Mobile, Wikimedia
Foundation. “With Wikipedia Zero, the Wikimedia Foundation is able to
provide free Wikipedia access to almost 230 million mobile users
around the world. We’re very excited that STC is joining us in this
mission.”
In collaboration with “Intigral”, a company specialized in providing
digital media solutions to telecom operators, STC subscribers can now
access the free service in both Arabic and English by pointing their
mobile browser to m.wikipedia.org. A lightweight, text-only version
optimized for slower connections is also available at
zero.wikipedia.org. The move comes as STC continues to consolidate its
leadership in various fields, especially in social awareness and the
fostering of a knowledge-sharing culture. Wikipedia Zero will also be
available through the mobile browser, and features high browsing
speeds despite being a free service.
Eng. Ibrahim Al Omar, Vice President for Personal Services, said “One
of the principles that STC adheres to is the commitment to spreading
social awareness and the fostering of a knowledge-sharing culture that
accomplishes the aspirations of all segments of our customer-base.” He
then added, “Wikipedia Zero is considered an additional cornerstone
that supports the continuous efforts of STC in the field of social
awareness.”
The launch of Wikipedia Zero comes in line with STC’s strategy to
prioritize customer needs, and is an affirmation of the company’s
commitment to fulfilling customer expectations while meeting their
demands, and to continuously develop its services to satisfy their
aspirations and give them a variety of unrestricted options and
alternatives.
For more information, please refer to the partnership Q&A at:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships#STC
'''About Saudi Telecom'''
www.stc.com.sa
Saudi Telecom Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides
telecommunications services to individuals and businesses primarily in
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Its GSM segment primarily offers mobile,
prepaid cards, international roaming, and messaging services. The
company’s Landline segment principally provides fixed line, card
telephones, interconnect, and international call services. Its DATA
segment primarily offers leased data transmission circuits, DSL, and
Internet services. The company also engages in the operation of
communications projects; transmission and processing of information;
wholesale and retail trade of recharge card services,
telecommunication equipment and devices, and computer services; sale
and re-sale of various landlines and mobiles telecommunication
services; and maintenance and operation of commercial centers. In
addition, it provides mobile services, international
telecommunications, broad band, and other related services in Bahrain;
and operates third generation mobile network in Indonesia. The company
was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
'''About Wikimedia Foundation'''
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 456 million unique visitors per month, making them
the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, August
2012). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 22
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of
roughly 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the
Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded
primarily through donations and grants.
'''Media contact'''
For the Wikimedia Foundation
Jay Walsh, Head of Communications
jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org
+1 415 839 6885, x 6609
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Can I second this one, we've run into it occasionally in WMAU outreach
sessions as well, and it's always fun explaining why it's said "no" to
someone without a foundation in computers or internet culture. A brief
explanation of why it's happened and what to do in order to not lose your
edit, made in simple language, would be lovely.
We do find that the best way to get around the account creation throttle is
to get people to create their accounts beforehand. In a given class,
there's usually one or two who don't get the message or are unable to do
it, but they can usually be dealt with by the instructor without triggering
anything.
Cheers,
Craig
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2012 18:33:54 +0100
> From: Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
> Philippe Beaudette <pbeaudette(a)wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please can someone put 50p in the meter
> Message-ID:
> <CAE4f==
> fLJhrgCK+9FTTTqMHSx1cGd+Ob50VXTom0+qCJrihKog(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> I evade account creation by always making them log in first...
>
> Periodically, with a roomful of users, we'll get told that an edit has been
> "throttled"; no further details, I think. It seems to happen with one or at
> most two editors at a time out of a dozen, but it can happen to different
> people later on. This happened several times in a couple of weeks in the
> summer (I only started workshops in June), and then occasionally since -
> including yesterday. I originally assumed it was related to external-link
> additions by new users, but I've seen it for no-link sandbox edits as well.
>
> My guess is that this entails something to do with checking for multiple
> edits from the same IP at once, but I don't know if this is actually the
> reason, or if it can be disabled/whitelisted.
>
> (It's the one I give, though! Corrections gratefully appreciated)
>
> - Andrew.
> On 13 Oct 2012 17:25, "Philippe Beaudette" <philippe(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 9:07 AM, WereSpielChequers
> > <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > > As it is this combined with the "throttling feature" made for
> > > quite a bit of disruption to a session where we had ten people having
> an
> > > introduction to editing.
> >
> > By "throttling feature", do you mean the account creation
> > restrictions? If so, you know there are ways around that, right?
> > Email me offlist, so as not to clutter the list, and I'll give you a
> > pointer.
> >
> > If you mean something different, disregard :)
> >
> > pb
> > ___________________
> > Philippe Beaudette
> > Director, Community Advocacy
> > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> >
> > 415-839-6885, x 6643
> >
> > philippe(a)wikimedia.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
>
>
>
Thanks everyone, especially Mike and Leslie,
Hopefully these sort of incidents will be so rare that we won't need to
work out how to use IRC and get involved there when they happen. But when
they do occur a little note from IT to mailing lists like this would be
helpful.
Just because we can't do anything about it, it doesn't mean we don't need
something to say to a room full of newbies who've come for an editing
session. As it is this combined with the "throttling feature" made for
quite a bit of disruption to a session where we had ten people having an
introduction to editing.
WSC
Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:56:06 +0100
> From: Michael Peel <michael.peel(a)wikimedia.org.uk>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please can someone put 50p in the meter
> Message-ID: <C147FF5A-AB31-43FD-8E5F-71C7C3DE0F83(a)wikimedia.org.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> From #wikimedia-tech:
>
> "paravoid: bits was giving us trouble in Europe, we've redirected it to
> the US for the moment" at 4:56pm.
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:05:23 -0700
> From: Leslie Carr <lcarr(a)wikimedia.org>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please can someone put 50p in the meter
> Message-ID:
> <CAK=
> Zh6orbpMP7JShVaCZJQqh7E9MVGTe+fR9v2hZZaR7soA1Ng(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> FYI -
> When you notice an outage, jumping on #wikimedia-tech on freenode
> (IRC) is the best way of getting a hold of the people who are
> (probably) already working on fixing this. If you do not have irc
> access, wikitech-l is a better second notification.
>
> If you are curious, this was limited to the european region and was
> due to some instabilities in a network upgrade.
>
> Leslie
>
> On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 10:27 AM, Richard Symonds
> <richard.symonds(a)wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
> > My 3G in East London has also gone down. Connected?
> >
> > Richard Symonds, Wikimedia UK
> > On Oct 12, 2012 4:45 PM, "WereSpielChequers" <
> werespielchequers(a)gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Does anyone know why Wikipedia and Commons have both gone down?
> >>
> >> WSC
> >>
> >> Writing from a slightly modified editing workshop in London
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> >> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:30:43 -0400
> From: Newyorkbrad <newyorkbrad(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please can someone put 50p in the meter
> Message-ID:
> <CAGbz8Te7ri8_o57wokvehgLpQbca_0-F2=
> xTqjTyZsfZ8Ks8NQ(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> I think WSC was trying to log onto Wikipedia Review by mistake. :)
>
> Newyorkbrad
>
In case others on these lists would be interested in participating, I’m forwarding a couple of links.
Sue’s page regarding the “narrowing focus” recommendation for the October meeting of the WMF Board: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus
Talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus. Participants so far: Djembayz, MZMcBride, Goldzahn, Angel 54 5, Charles Andrès, Pine, Tbayer (WMF), odder, Theo10011, and BrownHairedGirl.
For those who are interested in WMF’s budget and priorities, I highly recommend reading Sue’s recommendations and the discussions on the talk page.
Pine
Hi,
Jessie started to work on a page that shown breakdown of the scholarships
given in 2012, by the WMF and the chapters - and the cost.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/2012
I think it's great, but we need to share much more information about "how
much Wikimania cost to the movement".
Wikimania is our biggest and most expensive event\project - and the costs
spread around movement. Beside scholarships, the chapters and the WMF
spending money on their staff and boards - and this also need to
be transparent. When we know Wikimedia Israel gave 4 scholarships for
people from Israel, the WMF gave another two - this is not the full
picture. WMIL also sent paid for the travel of one board member. In some
others chapters the numbers are much bigger (staff+board).
Also, we have WMF and Chapters support to the conference itself.
I published here Wikimania 2011 costs & income:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/2011/Budget
I'm not asking everyone now to start digging for their costs in 2011, but I
think we can start do it from this year.
I posted here WMIL travel costs:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/2012/Budget/Chapters
I'll be happy if the chapters and the WMF can post their costs also
and I'm encouraging Wikimania 2012 local team also to post
their conference costs and incomes.
I think this transparency is important, and this knowledge about the total
costs to the movement is also important to others who planning Wikimania in
the future.
Itzik
WMIL
Please help us design the main page for Wikidata. :)
Cheers,
Katie
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lydia Pintscher <lydia.pintscher(a)wikimedia.de>
Date: Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 11:46 AM
Subject: [Wikidata-l] Main Page design
To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." <
wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Heya folks,
It's time we figure out what the Main Page of Wikidata should look
like. It'd be great if you helped out with this. I've started a page
on Meta here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Main_Page_draft
We'll copy the content of that page to Wikidata once it's live.
Go crazy and make it useful and pretty ;-)
Cheers
Lydia
--
Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
Community Communications for Wikidata
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Obentrautstr. 72
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
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--
Board member, Wikimedia District of Columbia
Wikidata developer, Wikimedia Deutschland
@wikimediadc / @wikidata
I'm forwarding a reply from Maggie Dennis with her permission.
Pine
--
Hi, Pine.
I've had a chance to speak to one of the attorneys, and evidently this document is in the early draft phase. It is still open to public comment and is expected to undergo revisions in Brussels in early November 2012. The final documents will probably be published sometime in early to mid-2013. Our legal team is aware of and following the situation, but can't predict the risk for these reasons.
If you haven't already (I don't have access to the list), you might want to consider joining the Advocacy Advisors mailing list. It's a bit quiet at the moment, but there are occasional bulletins or comments. https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors It's a good place to monitor if you want to keep an eye on items of concern or to share your thoughts about them, including urging the legal team (who watch that list closely) to look into matters.
Maggie