When you're running an event, sometimes you want to help lots of people
create accounts on Wikimedia sites. To prevent spamming/vandalism,
ordinarily there's a cap on the number of accounts that can be created
from one IP address in a single day. But there's a way to ask for a
temporary removal of that restriction. The Foundation's Maggie Dennis
has written a quick HOWTO:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/How_to_request_lift_of_an_IP_cap
and so please feel free to link to it in your outreach HOWTOs, event
planning checklists, and so on. Thanks, Maggie!
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
Here's an opinion piece, "The Problem with Wikidata", by Mark Graham, who
"is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute," which appears on
The Atlantic's website. I'm not personally supporting or opposing his views
but I found this to be an interesting read.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-problem-with-wiki…
Dear all,
I was the [[:m:User:555]], mainly active on the last years of my volunteers
actions on Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. I've left the Wikimedia
projects mainly because the lack of energy from my side to keep trying to
get free time to work in projects fully neglected by the Wikimedia staff,
developers team and some volunteers in the core of the Foundaction acts.
A friend told me about the http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/ . I've
checked http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:SiteMatrixand...
surprise! no Wikisource wikis with blue color links! I asked myself
random things about the [[bug:21653]] lasted for 26 months until gets
PARTIALLY fixed and decided to check some 'Recent changes' pages and found
this:
http://pt.wikisource.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=233269
Come on guys! What is the point to run a bot spamming on all wikis if the
tests are only to the Wikipedias? Attempt of a 'politically correct' action
to these worse guys from others projects get's 'socially included'? Like in
the real life, those worse guys aren't in need of assistencialism [1]
actions...
Well, I don't expect any change on the Wikipediocentric actions in short,
medium or long time (in fact the Foundation and some local chapters are
trying to make things for the Wikimedia Commons project, but only because
that project is the central media source for Wikipedias), this was only a
mutter.
Despite my apparently hatred on this message, I really hope that the 3-4
extensions only enabled on Wikisources wikis don't get's any aditional bugs
than the current ones in the new version of MediaWiki in the same intensity
that your guys hopes that focusing in a project that only describes the
knowledge in an encyclopedic way fully meets the
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement
[1] - wow, a concept from social sciences yet not defined neither on
en.wikpedia or en.wiktionary? O_O
As on all of my previous messages, sorry for my limited English skills.
Best regards,
[[:m:User:555|Lugusto]]
Hi all,
we are about to prepare the April issue of the monthly Wikimedia
Highlights (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights ),
which as usual combines a few of the most notable aspects of the
Wikimedia Foundation report and the Wikimedia engineering report with
a brief selection of other important events in the Wikimedia movement.
For the latter part, suggestions are welcome at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights#Movement_news_ite…
until this Saturday, as are comments on the existing suggestions:
*Israel edit-a-thon
*Oregon Archives mass upload
*Monmouthpedia Charles Rolls Challenge concluded
*CCCB workshop
*Wikipedians in Residence updates?
*Tamil contest
*HighBeam collaboration
A main purpose of the format is to reach those Wikimedians who don't
follow international movement news regularly (for example, don't read
this mailing list), in particular for language reasons. All items are
kept brief and limited in number - in the movement news section to
three to five - so as to facilitate translations and avoid TLDR. The
Highlights are regularly translated into up to 12 languages, the last
edition into Russian, Dutch, Macedonian, Italian, French, Arabic and
Danish.
--
Tilman Bayer
Movement Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Betreff: Report to Board: Chinese Internet Research Conference
Datum: Sun, 27 May 2012 18:07:54 +0200
Von: Ting Chen <tchen(a)wikimedia.org>
An: Board list <board-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hello dear all,
at Mai 21st and 22nd I attended the 10. Chinese Internet Research
Conference at the University of Southern California and this is my
report on this conference.
At the begin of the year Andrew Lih, who as you know is maybe one of the
first researchers who took Wikipedia as a research topic and certainly a
longtime Wikimedian, asked me if I can give a keynote on the 10. Chinese
Internet Research Conference that he was organizing. And I said yes. He
wanted me to talk about the Chinese Wikipedia, which is a relatively
easy topic for me.
The first CIRC took place in USC and this is their anniversary and it
again went to USC. It was organized by the Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism. Andrew is currently an assistant professor
there. There were about 150 attendees of the conference from all arround
the world. According to Andrew the number of attendees vary in the
years. Last year for example there were only 50 attendees and this year
there were more than 100. The attendees are mostly researchers, so
university professors, doctoral and graduate students, and a few
journalists.
The topics of the conference can mainly be grouped in two: The influence
of internet on chinese politics and the situation of less previleged
peoples and their use of internet in China. On the first topic there are
a lot of papers about the microblogging [1]: The community, the
influence of the microblogging on the politics (especially on the
current events), how the government and the party regulate the
microblogging, how they use microblogging as an instrument for
themselves, etc. On the second topic there were a handful papers on
field studies about the use of internet by the migrant workers, and how
internet influenced their work and life, and studies about the use of
internet in the rural areas of China in different provinces.
To my surprise the papers are all very bold and direct in internet
censoring and GFW (Great Firewall). Before I planned my speech I asked
Andrew if I should mention the blocking and he said yes, and its
influence on the project. I was a little skeptical because meanwhile all
Wikipedians I know in China were visited by the National Security there.
So in my presentation I didn't mention blocking directly by said that we
had connectivity problems. But actually almost all papers on the first
topic mentioned censoring and blocking and deleting of blog entries as
such. Some of the papers have these topics as their main research area.
There were no paper about Wikipedia (my speech doesn't count), but all
attendees I spoke with use Wikipedia, independant of where they live and
work (US, the Netherlands, France, Singapur, mainland China, Hongkong
and Taiwan). To my surprise most of them don't know that we are a
nonprofit organization. There were a few questions about if we pay
Google to get a high ranking.
My speech was the closing speech of the conference. I organized it in
three sections: A brief history of the chinese Wikipedia, the current
state of the project and what we can offer researchers and how
researchers can help us.
There were two high-lights for me personally on this conference. One is
that I met our Advisory Board member Jing Wang [2] there. When we met
each other two years ago in Gdansk Jing just started her work on her
project NGC 2.0 in China and she told me that she is very successful in
the last two years. Her work there is concentrating on bringing the
local NGOs (mostly not registered as organizations, but more grassroot
groups) and enterprices together so that entrepreneurs who want to fund
charitable works and NGOs who do social works can find each other. In
her opinion the central government is more open and progressive then the
provincial and local governments. She experiences more troubles with the
provincial governments than the central gorvernment (which she stated is
very supportive to her work). She believes that between the two there
are a lot of room and freedom which one can use and thinks that the art
to work in China is to explore that room and freedom. She repeated that
we should try to get our chance there. She expressed her sorry about not
be able to attend Wikimania this year because at that time she will be
in China again, and not be abled to do any work for the Foundation
because she is so busy.
The other high-light for me I had already mailed you. It was the keynote
speech by Jenova Chen [3]. Jenova is a game designer and some of the
most remarkable games he designed were Flow [4], Flower [5] and Journey
[6]. Especially the design principle of Journey impressed me most. So
Jenova said in online games in most cases gamers try to kill each other
or try to group with each other to kill something. And he thought this
is a very poor social interaction. He thinks that most games explore
only one emotion: the power, to be a superhero is in most cases the
motive of a game. But the human emotion is more complex. To be able to
explore and induce the complex emotion of an attendee for example is the
difference between a good movie and a bad movie, or a good book and a
bad book. He thinks that the emotion of want to be powerful is a very
adolescent one, that is why most mature adults won't play games any
more, because they are beyond that level of emotion. So he has two
design principles, the first one is to explore the emotional
possibilities of a game. The second one is the to create a special
environment of communication between the gamers. He says that internet
(game, forums, Twitter, whatever<and I can add mailing-list, talk pages
and villege pumps>) are mostly hostile. And he wanted to create an
environment where gamers can interact with each other, but don't have
the possibility to be hostile to each other. So for example by designing
Journey he decided to not give the gamers the possibility to chat with
each other, but only to interact with each other in a non verbal way.
When he was talking I could not help as to think about Wikipedians and
how they interact with each other. Naturally, language is the essential
of our projects we cannot avoid Wikipedians talking with each other. But
then again, people always thought that games can only be successful if
they are violent, and Jenova proved that this is not the case. And what
his speech told me is, even when we always think that something have to
be done in a certain way and only in that way, there are always chances
to explore other possibilities. And we should not stop to think about
those trying and being innovative, and being innovative in an
unconventional way.
This is why I think we should invite him as a keynote speaker of
Wikimania, or at least for the staff retreat. And why I was so excited
after his speech that I mailed you immediately.
Greetings
Ting
References:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging_in_China
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jing_Wang
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenova_Chen
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28video_game%29
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_%28video_game%29
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_%282012_video_game%29
(This release is also posted at
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimania_comes_to_Wash…
)
*Wikimania, the global Wikimedia/Wikipedia conference, comes to Washington,
DC, July 12-14, 2012*
WASHINGTON, DC -- May 30, 2012 -- Wikimania 2012 is coming to Washington,
DC, this summer. Wikimania has been, since 2005, the premier annual
international gathering of the Wikimedia community, including experts,
academics, and enthusiasts whose vision is to empower people around the
world through free access to global knowledge. Wikimania has been
previously held in Frankfurt, Germany; Boston, Mass.; Taipei, Taiwan;
Alexandria, Egypt; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gdańsk, Poland; and Haifa,
Israel. Expected attendance this year is 1000+ global participants.
*WIKIMANIA’S OPENING SESSION*
On July 12, Wikimania’s opening session will feature Mary Gardiner,
co-founder of the Ada Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to
increasing participation among women in open technology and culture; and
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia
with over 21million articles in 285 languages.
*WIKIMANIA PROGRAM*
The theme this year is “Explore. Engage. Empower.” More than 100
presentations out of 400 global submissions have been selected.
Presentations are divided into five categories: Wikis, Collaboration, and
the Public Sector; GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, & Museums);
Culture & Community; Research, Analysis, and Education; and Technology &
Infrastructure. More information is available at www.wikimania2012.org.
*WHERE*
George Washington University, Foggy Bottom Campus
Plenary Sessions: Lisner Auditorium, 730 21st St NW
Breakout Sessions: Marvin Center, 800 21st St NW
*WHEN*
Wikimania Hackathon: July 10-11,
Conference: July 12-14,
Unconference: July 15
*PARTNERS & COLLABORATORS*
Wikimania 2012 is organized by Wikimedia District of Columbia in
partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland.
Collaborators for Wikimania 2012 include the US Department of State, Office
of eDiplomacy; the Library of Congress; and the Broadcasting Board of
Governors.
*SPONSORS*
Wikimania 2012 is sponsored by Google, Ask.com, Wikia, WikiHow, The Saylor
Foundation, The Lounsbery Foundation, and the Encyclopedia of Life. Irene
Lynch, a 78-year-old great grandmother from New Jersey, is also a sponsor.
*PRESS PASSES*
Press passes are available. Journalists interested in obtaining Press
Credentials should contact press(a)wikimediadc.org.
*About Wikimedia DC*
http://wikimediadc.org/ <http://http//wikimediadc.org/>
Wikimedia District of Columbia is the official regional chapter of the
Wikimedia Foundation in the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia,
and Delaware. A non-profit educational organization, Wikimedia DC is
dedicated to the advancement of general knowledge and the collection,
development, and dissemination of educational content under a free license
or in the public domain.
*About the 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 473 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, April 2012).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 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.
*
*
*Press contact*
Nicholas Michael BashourPhone: (313) 377-4589, press(a)wikimediadc.org
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
_______________________________________________
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
Dear Wikimedians,
Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2011 Picture of the Year
competition is now open at last. We're interested in your opinion as to
which images qualify to be the Picture of the Year for 2011 (not for 2012).
Any user registered at Commons or a Wikimedia wiki SUL-related to Commons
with more than 75 edits before 1 April 2012 (UTC) is welcome to vote. Check
your eligibility
now<http://toolserver.org/%7Epathoschild/accounteligibility/?user=&wiki=&event=…>
! If you meet the criteria, you are eligible to vote.
Nearly 600 images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the
international Wikimedia Commons community in the past year are all entered
in this competition. From professional animal and plant shots to
breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historically relevant
images, images portraying the world's best architecture, maps, emblems,
diagrams created with the most modern technology, and impressive human
portraits, Commons features pictures of all flavors.
For your convenience, we have sorted the images into topic categories. Two
rounds of voting will be held: In the first round, you can vote for as many
images as you like. The first round the top 32 images , by number of votes,
from any category will go to the final round - the categories are
irrelevant when it comes to counting the votes. If no picture of one topic
category is not in the top 32s, that will be also promoted to the Final to
guarantee a diverse final. In the final round, when a limited number of
images are left, you must decide on the one image that you want to become
the Picture of the Year.
To see the candidate images just go to:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2011/Galleries
Wikimedia Commons is interested in hearing your opinions on our featured
images of 2011. The deadline for first round voting is 2012-06-04 at 23:59
(UTC).
Thanks,
Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year committee
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:POTY/2011
Dear all:
Here are two announcements and one request from the Participation Support
Program Committee (formerly the Participation Grants Committee) and the WMF
regarding the Participation Support Program (formerly the Participation
Grants Program).
==A note from the Participation Support Program Committee regarding the
Participation Support Program's name change==
In order to better comply with US tax regulations that affect the Wikimedia
Foundation, we must change the name of the "Participation Grants Program"
to "Participation Support Program" to more consistently reflect the nature
of these transactions as reimbursements rather than grants. This will allow
WMF and WMDE to continue to administer this program without imposing
additional burdensome technical requirements on recipients of these funds,
while still keeping us in compliance with US regulations. We will not be
changing this program substantially or procedurally: we are only naming it
more accurately.
To read more about this program, see [1].
If you'd like to discuss the name change, see [2].
==A related note from the WMF grants team regarding funding participation
in Wikimedia-organized events==
The Participation Support Program (a partnership between WMF and WMDE
distinct from the WMF Grants Program) will not fund individual
participation in "Wikimedia-organized events" (defined as events organized
by Wikimedia chapters, the WMF, or other Wikimedian groups). However, WMF
is likely to fund participation in Wikimedia-organized events when the
event organizers apply for funding through the WMF grants program.
Therefore, individuals seeking funds for participation in
Wikimedia-organized events should apply through the event organizers during
the planning stages of the event so that the organizers can budget
appropriately to cover these costs.
This note applies especially to event organizers and to individuals who may
apply for funding to participate in Wikimedia-organized events. Our hope is
that these guidelines will streamline this process for event organizers and
attendees alike and that we might avoid duplication of efforts and
excessive administrative burdens for all.
For more details on this policy how may affect participants and event
organizers, see the Q&A[3].
==Please help make this accessible to all==
We need your help in bringing the news about the availability of this
program to our non-English-speaking colleagues. Please help translate the
program information page by clicking the "Translate this page" in [1].
Please relay this message to your local chapter/community mailing lists to
help us find volunteer translators to make this program as accessible as
possible.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov (WMF)
Johannes Rohr (WMDE)
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Support
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Support/Program_Name
[3]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Support/Guidelines_on_funding_…
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>