Anthony writes:
"I wonder if the WMF will shut down in protest should one of the
proposals to amend the constitution to overturn Citizens United gain
traction in Congress."
I'm not speaking for WMF, but I don't see the connection here.
Wikimedia Foundation, as a corporation, is profoundly regulated in
what it can and cannot do politically, and is even more regulated by
virtue of its being a nonprofit corporation (NGO). There's no Citizens
United connection with regard to anything being discussed here.
As is generally known, I favored the English Wikipedia blackout with
regard to SOPA/PIPA, and I also supported the Italian Wikimedians'
earlier blackout, driven by fear of (effectively) similar regulation.
At the heart of the Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects' success is
democratic action, driven by those who are engaged in the process of
promoting, supporting, and maintaining these projects. So my instinct
is to believe, respect, and support the Russian-language Wikimedia
project activists' decision to demonstrate in an effective way that
what we all are working on here is under threat by ill-considered
legislation by legacy governmental traditions that are used to having
their own top-down way.
To my Russian comrades: I am with you.
--Mike
In less than half an hour Russian Wikipedia will go on one-day strike
against SOPA/PIPA-like law in Russia [1] (in Russian).
As in previous cases with Italian and English Wikipedia, it would be
good if the wider community would be activated in support of our
fellow Wikimedians. They need wider promotion on Meta etc.
Party is on #wikipedia-ru@freenode
[1] http://tinyurl.com/law89417-6
We will be meeting in the main lunch room.
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
A travel guide discussion will be taking place today at Wikimania during
lunch. Representatives from Wikivoyage and from the editor community of
WIkitravel will be hear to answer any questions. A request for comment is
ongoing http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Travel_Guide
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
Hi,
[cc:ing wikimedia-l because this message is also for Wikimedia users.]
I've been asked to weigh in on this topic, because this is going to be
an area of focus for me over the coming year. I've been tasked with
improving the 2-way communication between users & developers, possibly
using the wikitech-ambassadors list as a medium.
A few people have already explained the scope of the different lists,
but here's my understanding:
* wikitech-l: A high-traffic, unapologetically technical, discussion
list for developers talking to developers
* wikitech-announce: A low-traffic, plain English, announce-only list
for developers talking to Wikimedia users
* wikitech-ambassadors: A (currently) low-traffic, mostly-announce
list for developers talking to Wikimedia users
* mediawiki-announce: A low-traffic, announce-only list for developers
talking to (mostly 3rd-party) MediaWiki users
* wikimediaannounce: A low-traffic, plain English, announce-only list
for general Wikimedia usues.
And the possible change would be for wikitech-ambassadors to become a
medium-to-high-traffic, plain English, list for discussion between
developers and Wikimedia users, to report issues, share ideas and
provide feedback in unapologetically layman terms. The "Ambassadors"
part also means that users who are on that list will have a role in
disseminating information to their local communities, and reporting
back issues possibly raised on local wikis.
FYI, if you're at Wikimania this week, this 2-way communication
channel between developers and users will be a main focus of the
"Transparency" discussion with Sumana, Rob and myself on Saturday 14
at 10:30 in Room 310:
https://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Transparency_and_colla…
I've also just noticed that there are two other talks related to this topic:
* Oliver's "Engaging the Community: What We've Tried and Where We're
Going" (Thursday July 12, 11:40, Room 310)
https://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Engaging_the_Community…
* Tilman and Max's "Movement Broadcasting - 'Stop Spamming' vs.
'Nobody Told Me" (Thursday, July 12, 14:00, Room 302)
https://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Movement_Broadcasting_…
If you can't attend any of those sessions, but you want to discuss /
rant / share ideas about (mis)communication between MediaWiki
developers and Wikimedia users, please come to me at any time during
the hackathon or the conference (If we don't already know each other,
my photo is on https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors
)
And if you're not at Wikimania, feel free to drop me an e-mail with
your thoughts on the subject.
--
Guillaume Paumier
Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation
Dear chapter folks, WCA council members, and all other interested
Wikimedians,
The Wikimedia Chapters Association holds a promise: within the Wikimedia
universe, we draw our strength from our diversity, our different cultures
and experiences, our extraordinary dedication to create a better world
where everyone can access the sume of all knowledge. Through their many
different kinds of engagements and activities, local chapters have already
made a huge difference. With the founding of the chapters association, we
want to go one step further, ensuring that collaboration is not something
limited to our online or local projects, but easily expands across our
entire movement on a global scale.
Today, I'm declaring my candidacy for Secretary General of the Wikimedia
Chapters Association. After recent conversations with a number of people at
different chapters, I've decided to run for this position because I believe
that it would allow the chapters to make best use of my skills and
experiences. Last year, when I worked with four European chapters on
starting developing strategies for their organizations, I realized
first-hand what huge potential we have still left uncovered. Many chapters
excel in some areas while failing in others, rarely for lack of enthusiasm,
but mostly for lack of support, guidance, and advice. When discussion of a
council of chapters started again last year, I felt that it was one of the
most promising ways that could allow chapters to excel much more often than
to fail in the future.
The newly elected Secretary General will have a tremendous assignment
before him. With a rather short period of time, he will need to get a new
internaional organization off the ground and running that will effectively
support and assist chapters around the globe. Through my previous work,
both within the Wikimedia universe and professionally as a manager and
consultant, I think I am well-equipped to handle this difficult task.
If I am elected as Secretary General, I will make the following commitments:
# All WCA activities will be made in public to the extent that is legally
permissible. If the WCA wants to promote openness and accountability among
the chapters, it has to live these same values as well. I'm not a fan of
closed-subscription, private mailing lists, wikis, or chats and will
therefore do what I can to avoid using them within the WCA.
# Whenever the WCA engages in chapter development activities, it will
respect the diversity we have in our movement. There are no solutions that
work for everyone. While many chapters face similar challenges, the
solutions often differ taking note of differences in culture, community,
and local socio-political background.
# For the WCA to succeed, we need to be open and inviting to anyone who
wants to contribute. I commit to providing ample and novel opportunities to
engage with WCA so that everyone interested in chapter development can
participate. I also commit to regularly and comprehensively report on WCA
activities so that they can be scrutinized and improved by anone interested.
== Plans ==
Following the council meeting in Washington DC at Wikimania, I think the
following tasks need to be addressed:
# Finalizing the budget for 2012/2013.
# Negotiating financing of the budget with chapters and the Foundation.
# Getting the organization legally registered in a suitable jurisdiction.
# Setting up a chapters development programs in Europe, East Asia, and
South America.
# Setting up a working group to determine standards of accountability for
chapters.
# Setting up an actively supported platform for information sharing and
dissemination between the chapters.
# Actively inviting more chapters to join.
In all these tasks, close work with the members of the council will be
crucial for our success.
== Background ==
=== Wikimedia ===
* joined English Wikipedia in 2004, German Wikipedia in 2005 (admin from
2006 until 2011)
* joined Wikimedia Deutschland in 2006, board member since 2007, president
since 2009
* member of Chapters Committee
* conducted chapter development pilot project with Wikimedia Nederland,
Wikimedia Sverige, Wikimedia Česká republika and Wikimédia Magyarország in
2011
=== Professional ===
* Consultant for businesses and non-profit organizations (since 2007)
* CEO at NetService24 GmbH (Munich, Germany, 2009-2012)
* Interim Executive Director at Wikimedia Deutschland (Berlin, Germany,
2008-2009)
* Project Manager at Entriq Inc. (Essen, Germany and London, United
Kingdom, 2007-2009)
* Tech Lead at avario business solutions GmbH (Berlin, Germany, 2006-2007)
=== Education ===
Bachelor of Science in Economics from Texas Christian University, 2006
I am looking forward to this extraordinary opportunity to serve the
Wikimedia movement for the coming two years. As the role of Secretary
General requires independence and impartiality from any one chapter, I will
immediately resign my current position as president of Wikimedia
Deutschland, if elected.
I hope I have your support. I have copied this statement to Meta for
further discussion, questions, and criticism:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Secretary-Gen…
Best regards,
Sebastian Moleski
This is the chapter report of Wikimedia España for the months of April, May
and June 2012.
April
- 30.03-01.04.2012: Participation at Wikimedia Conference in Berlin.
- 12.04.2012: Talk about Wikipedia and Wikimedia at iParty "Wikipedia y
Wikimedia, todo lo que siempre quisiste
preguntar<http://iparty.aditel.org/content/wikipedia-y-wikimedia-todo-lo-que-siempre-…>",
in Universitat Jaume I of Castellón.
- 13.04.2012: Workshop "Wikipedia para GLAMs: Participación en Wikipedia
desde bibliotecas, archivos y
museos<http://socialbiblio.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/wikipedia-para-glams-participa…>"
in SocialBiblio (on-line community)
- xx.04.2012: Advising Fundación Telefónica about Wikimedia Commons
images to be used in an exhibition.
May
- 01.05.2012: Our sites were moved to Free Knowledge Foundation Server,
renewal of Wiki Loves Monuments contest domain and we bought two domains
for WM-ES (which were previously owned by another person)
- 02.05.2012: Photographic coverage of Isabel Pantoja's recital. Madrid
- 08.05.2012: A Twitter acount for Spanish Wikipedia is created
(@eswikipedia). Later shared with other members of Spanish-speaking
Chapters and Spanish Wikipedia editors
- 23-25.05.2012: Participation in WikiWomenCamp 2012, co-organised by
Wikimedia Australia, Wikimedia Argentina, Wikimedia Deutschland and
Wikimedia Portugal members, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 26.05.2012: Participation in Wikigénero, organised by Wikimedia
Argentina, in Buenos Aires, Argentina
- 29.05.2012: Creation of another open mailing list for "Announcements"
[1] <https://listas.wikimedia.org.es/mailman/listinfo/anuncios>
June
- 1-3.06.2012: Participation in Wikimedia Iberocoop Conference 2012.
Santiago de Chile.
- 01.06.2012: Articles about Wiki Loves Monuments and Wikimediasphere
published: "Wiki Loves Monuments: the experience in Spain and
reflections regarding the diffusion of cultural
heritage<http://digithum.uoc.edu/ojs/index.php/digithum/article/view/n14-rodriguez-g…>"
and "Panorama of the
Wikimediasphere<http://digithum.uoc.edu/ojs/index.php/digithum/article/view/n14-gomez>"
in Digithum nº
14<http://digithum.uoc.edu/ojs/index.php/digithum/issue/view/n14>,
journal of Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
- 15.06.2012: Colaboration with Real Academia Nacional de Medicina who
liberated text to create an article about the new "Diccionario de términos
médicos".
- 16.06.2012: Meeting with Fundación ONCE and Technosite to kickstart
collaborative project. Madrid.
- 18.06.2012: Participation of two asociation members in *III Jornadas
eMadrid sobre e-Learning*, Madrid
[2]<http://www.emadridnet.org/iii-jornadas-emadrid-sobre-e-learning>
- 25.06.2012: Agreement between Wikimedia España and Fundación ONCE. Prees
release in Spanish in the blog of Wikimedia
España<http://wikimedia-es.blogspot.com.es/2012/06/wikimedia-espana-y-la-fundacion…>
- 27.06.2012: Change from CC-BY-SA-NC to CC-BY-SA of wiki project about
gastronomy in Spanish.
EncicloChef<http://www.enciclochef.com/index.php/EncicloChef_-_Wiki_de_recetas_de_cocin…>
- 30.06.2012: Article about cultural heritage digital libraries and
Wikipedia published: "Analysis of links to digital libraries and
archives of cultural heritage from Wikipedia pages in Spanish and
Catalan<http://www.ub.edu/bid/28/saorin2.htm>"
in BiD nº 28, juny 2012 <http://www.ub.edu/bid/bid28.php>, Journal of
Librarianship of Universitat de Barcelona.
--
+ Lucien
------------------------------------------------------------
¡Participa en Wikimedia España!: http://www.wikimedia.org.es/
Hi all,
I am pleased to announce that the first monthly edition of the Fellowship
News is now available on Meta-Wiki!
Come learn what the Wikimedia Fellows have been working on in June:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fellowship_News
Projects covered in this edition include:
*Dispute Resolution
*Gender Gap
*Help Pages Redesign
*Small Wiki Editor Engagement
*Teahouse
*Translations
--
Siko Bouterse
Head of Community Fellowships
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
sbouterse(a)wikimedia.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
Ah yes, some more context would have been good in my original post :-)
The fellows decided to put together a monthly digest that rolls together
all their updates from their projects in the past month, because we noticed
that until now everyone in our group shares progress and learning in
different ways for each fellowship project, it can take a lot of hunting to
find it all, and isn't always as transparent as we would like. We wanted a
way to start sharing as a group what the fellows "team" is doing. I also
like the idea because those who are interested in the fellows program and
browse our meta pages now have a place to sample what fellows actually do
each month.
We do report some of this in the WMF metrics report each month, and that
won't change (it will just make it easier for me to write, since the info
will be compiled already!) - so to some degree, Lodewijk, I think the
fellowship news has always been incorporated into a report with other cool
stuff being done by staff and volunteers. I would love to see more updates
from others on cool projects, though, and don't want this to be seen as a
split. If this inspires someone to roll this all up together elsewhere that
would be great! We've got to start somewhere still. If is not of interest
to those on the mailing lists - I know there are a lot of things to read
out there already - we don't need to announce each month though, they can
be watched and subscribed to on-wiki.
Confirming Maggie's thoughts, Richard, this report covers all projects
being worked on by current fellows (which can, indeed, be a varied range of
topics!).
Siko
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2012 07:43:46 -0400
> From: Maggie Dennis <mdennis(a)wikimedia.org>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcing the
> Fellowship News
> Message-ID:
> <CAMuth1wujQsOO6c6nKOZzxm+SStnOur9s5owu+=
ayDRQ+LGa6w(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> I haven't spoken to Siko about this at all (first I'm hearing about it),
> but I imagine, Richard, that it will focus on the work being done on
> fellowships by WMF Fellows.
>
> Lodewijk, I think it would be great to have a newsletter about the cool
> things people are doing around the Wiki World. :) If somebody chooses to
> put something like that together, surely having material to incorporate
> about Fellows would be useful? The content is freely licensed and can be
> reused (and modified) like other material on the projects under the same
> terms.
>
> Maggie
>
> On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 9:15 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org
>wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > while it is great that you do this responsibly, I am indeed also
wondering
> > how we can make this a worth while read. Because while it is a nice
> > program, there are many other people around Wiki World doing similarly
cool
> > things (no offence) - as are "real" staff members. By splitting this
off in
> > a seperate news section (as we have been splitting off a lot) I'm afraid
> > you might be putting the news actually on a bigger distance than you
would
> > otherwise.
> >
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > 2012/7/6 Richard Symonds <richard.symonds(a)wikimedia.org.uk>
> >
> > > Thanks Siko!
> > >
> > > Could you explain what exactly this covers? Teahouse, translations,
small
> > > Wikis and dispute resolution is a very wide net - and presumably it
will
> > > change according to which fellows are 'employed' at the time it's
> > written.
> > > Is there an overarching theme?
> > >
> > > Richard Symonds, Wikimedia UK
> > > On Jul 6, 2012 11:54 PM, "Siko Bouterse" <sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi all,
> > > > I am pleased to announce that the first monthly edition of the
> > Fellowship
> > > > News is now available on Meta-Wiki!
> > > >
> > > > Come learn what the Wikimedia Fellows have been working on in June:
> > > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fellowship_News
> > > >
> > > > Projects covered in this edition include:
> > > > *Dispute Resolution
> > > > *Gender Gap
> > > > *Help Pages Redesign
> > > > *Small Wiki Editor Engagement
> > > > *Teahouse
> > > > *Translations
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Siko Bouterse
> > > > Head of Community Fellowships
> > > > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> > > >
> > > > sbouterse(a)wikimedia.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
> > > >
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Maggie Dennis
> Community Liaison
> WikimediaFoundation.org
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
>
> End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 100, Issue 23
> ********************************************