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>
Hey folks,
Today I was browsing the many fine articles that have been edited on EN as
part of the Wikipedia initiative by the Association for Psychological
Science.[1] There is no doubt that the articles which these professors and
students have worked are better by any measure of quality.
But I was left with a nagging annoyance: these articles are almost all
incomprehensible to someone without a advanced college education and a high
degree of proficiency in English. Topics as basic as [[job satisfaction]]
or [[social network game]] are written like a literature review or a paper
for a journal. When an article about gaming on Facebook is that academic, I
think we might have a problem. ;-)
That's not to say the articles written by regular volunteers are always so
concise and clear. But I think it's pretty obvious that professors and grad
students in particular have trouble adapting to a more general interest
audience. This is an issue that could seriously impact how useful Wikipedia
is to most of our potential readership around the world.
I think the addition of uncovered topics and much-needed citations balances
out the inherent tendency of academics to write unnecessarily complex
prose. But maybe there are ways that folks in the General Education Program
at the WMF and in volunteer projects can start to be bolder about letting
academics know that they direly need to conform to the Wikipedia style of
"Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid
ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording."
Thoughts? Do people from non-English outreach programs to academics have
any similar experiences?
Steven
1.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/members/aps-wikipedia-initiat…
Heya folks,
I just wanted to let you know that the next Wikidata office hours will
be on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Denny and I will be around on
IRC in #wikimedia-wikidata to answer any question you might have and
discuss. I assume there will be a few more questions than usual now
that we have a demo system. Logs will be published afterwards.
English: May 29 at 16:30 UTC
(http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?hour=16&min=30&sec=0&d…)
German: May 30 at 16:30 UTC
(http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?hour=16&min=30&sec=0&d…)
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.
>From Rick Falkvinge, an English-language writeup of a Swedish study:
http://falkvinge.net/2012/05/21/study-despite-tougher-copyright-monopoly-la…http://svt.se/nyheter/fortsatt-fildelning-trots-skarpt-lag (Swedish news report)
61% of 15-25-year-olds in Sweden fileshare personally, and heavy
sharers have gone up. Furthermore - industry copyright education
campaigns create resentment, defiance and disrespect for the law in
general.
So, is the time ripe yet for us to start pushing for a 14-year term,
or do we wait a bit? I suggest we start contemplating it, however.
- d.
Dear Wikimedia Community,
As many of you know, a deep discussion has been happening on Meta over the past few weeks about the design of the new Funds Dissemination Committee. For those of you who haven't followed along in great detail, we've created a short summary of the goals of the work and the recommendation that is emerging.
The link to this summary is here [1]. (See the full draft resolution here [2] and the corresponding discussion here[3]).
Three requests:
* Please read the summary, as this has important implications for future funding within the movement
* Please forward it along to any lists or communities that you think should be aware of this work
* Please translate it or ask others to translate it so that other communities can stay up to date as well. To date, the majority of this discussion has happened in English and we are eager to share this update in other languages as well.
Thanks in advance for helping us on this! As always, let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Meera
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Update_on_the_…
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Draft_FDC_Prop…
[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Draft_FDC…
Meera Chary
The Bridgespan Group
465 California Street, 11th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: 415.627.4540| Fax: 415.627.4575
meera.chary(a)bridgespan.org
www.bridgespan.org
Bridgespan's free newsletters offer topics and tools for leaders in nonprofits and philanthropy. www.bridgespan.org/subscriptions
___________________NOTICE____________________________ This electronic mail transmission, including any attachments, contains confidential information of the Bridgespan Group ("Bridgespan") and/or its clients. It is intended only for the person(s) named, and the information in such e-mail shall only be used by the person(s) named for the purpose intended and for no other purpose. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other persons, or by the person(s) named but for purposes other than the intended purpose, is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please notify the sender by reply e-mail and then destroy this e-mail. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of Bridgespan shall be understood to be neither given nor endorsed by Bridgespan. When addressed to Bridgespan clients, any information contained in this e-mail shall be subject to the terms and conditions in the applicable client contract.
Just a quick reminder that this is happening in less than an hour.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, May 21, 2012 at 6:08 PM
Subject: Office hours about the new mobile site and other mobile work at
the WMF
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi everyone,
This Friday the Wikimedia Foundation's mobile team will be hosting an IRC
office hours to talk about the new version of the Wikipedia mobile site,
along with other upcoming updates to the way readers and contributors
experience the projects on mobile devices.
This is the first office hours with Phil Chang, the product manager for
mobile, since the Foundation has worked to release new versions of the
mobile site, iPhone app, and the Android app. If you're interested in those
projects and future work on mobile contributions, I highly encourage
attending. :)
We'll be in #wikimedia-office from 18:00-19:00 UTC, Friday. As usual, docs
are on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
--
Steven Walling
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
(Pardon the crosspost)
Hi everyone!
Our second Smithsonian edit-a-thon is going to start in about an hour (1
PM EST) and we'll be utilizing an Etherpad compliments of Wikimedia DC
http://notes.wikimediadc.org/p/SIEdit2
Feel free to join in! We'll also be utilizing the #glamwiki hashtag.
Our goal is to improve content about Smithsonian people and places and
we've love your help - translations, lending a hand, writing something
yourself, whatever!
See you there :)
-Sarah
--
*Sarah Stierch*
*/Wikimedia Foundation Community Fellow/*
>>Mind the gap! Support Wikipedia women's outreach: donate today
<https://donate.wikimedia.org/><<
Hello all.
I would like to report on some initiatives and ongoing projects that we
have been conducting this academic year in Spain, from our local Wikimedia
Chapter, regarding the use of Wikipedia in higher education. Several
members of Wikimedia-España have delivered courses, seminars and practical
workshops on Wikipedia editing, using Wikipedia in higher education
courses, and Wikipedia participation from libraries, archives and museums
(many libraries are in universities). Overall, more than 10 sessions have
taken place all over Spain. In addition, there have been similar
initiatives and projects coordinated by Amical in Catalonia.
In many of these sessions, there has been a thrilling interest from
faculties to attend, sometimes running out of free seats in less than
24h after the announcement of sessions. In fact, we are already identifying
volunteers from our local chapter members to help with this dissemination
and training sessions, so that we can scale up effectively as new
universities get on board.
We have also produced content for this sessions in Spanish. As an example,
these are the links for a workshop at University of Salamanca in March:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taller-edicion-wikipedia-USAL.pdfhttp://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:GlimmerPhoenix/Taller_USAL
As a result, we are starting to see new promising projects. More
specifically:
- WikiUSAL, a new 'Wikipedia club' with students and faculties of Univ. of
Salamanca. Several teachers are already preparing plans to incorporate
Wikipedia in their courses for the next academic course (starting September
2012). This will be articulated by an teaching innovation project at USAL:
"Wikipedia as a learning tool".
http://diarium.usal.es/wiki
- Two professors at University Pablo Olavide in Seville (Biology) and
University of Pais Vasco (Physics) are also planning to incorporate
Wikipedia tasks in their courses. In fact, in the first case they were
already doing so without support (there may be multiple other cases that we
are still discovering).
- At University Rey Juan Carlos (URJC, my home) we are also preparing for
the next course a proposal for a teaching innovation project, following the
same lines of the USAL initiative. We also intend to integrate
participation from different departments (Computer Science, Journalism,
Medicine and Sociology).
In summary, we are quite happy to see this progress, and we will continue
to help raising new initiatives step by step. Looking forward to meeting
some of you at the next Wikimania 2012 in Washington, and share some
experiences and suggestions to keep up the good work.
Kind regards,
Felipe Ortega.
Board member for Higher Education and Universities.
Wikimedia España.
--
+ Lucien
------------------------------------------------------------
¡Participa en Wikimedia España!: http://www.wikimedia.org.es/
Hello all.
I would like to report on some initiatives and ongoing projects that we
have been conducting this academic year in Spain, from our local Wikimedia
Chapter, regarding the use of Wikipedia in higher education. Several
members of Wikimedia-España have delivered courses, seminars and practical
workshops on Wikipedia editing, using Wikipedia in higher education
courses, and Wikipedia participation from libraries, archives and museums
(many libraries are in universities). Overall, more than 10 sessions have
taken place all over Spain. In addition, there have been similar
initiatives and projects coordinated by Amical in Catalonia.
In many of these sessions, there has been a thrilling interest from
faculties to attend, sometimes running out of free seats in less than
24h after the announcement of sessions. In fact, we are already identifying
volunteers from our local chapter members to help with this dissemination
and training sessions, so that we can scale up effectively as new
universities get on board.
We have also produced content for this sessions in Spanish. As an example,
these are the links for a workshop at University of Salamanca in March:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taller-edicion-wikipedia-USAL.pdfhttp://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:GlimmerPhoenix/Taller_USAL
As a result, we are starting to see new promising projects. More
specifically:
- WikiUSAL, a new 'Wikipedia club' with students and faculties of Univ. of
Salamanca. Several teachers are already preparing plans to incorporate
Wikipedia in their courses for the next academic course (starting September
2012). This will be articulated by an teaching innovation project at USAL:
"Wikipedia as a learning tool".
http://diarium.usal.es/wiki
- Two professors at University Pablo Olavide in Seville (Biology) and
University of Pais Vasco (Physics) are also planning to incorporate
Wikipedia tasks in their courses. In fact, in the first case they were
already doing so without support (there may be multiple other cases that we
are still discovering).
- At University Rey Juan Carlos (URJC, my home) we are also preparing for
the next course a proposal for a teaching innovation project, following the
same lines of the USAL initiative. We also intend to integrate
participation from different departments (Computer Science, Journalism,
Medicine and Sociology).
In summary, we are quite happy to see this progress, and we will continue
to help raising new initiatives step by step. Looking forward to meeting
some of you at the next Wikimania 2012 in Washington, and share some
experiences and suggestions to keep up the good work.
Kind regards,
Felipe Ortega.
Board member for Higher Education and Universities.
Wikimedia España.
--
+ Lucien
------------------------------------------------------------
¡Participa en Wikimedia España!: http://www.wikimedia.org.es/