*Books and Bytes*
Welcome to the inaugural edition of *Books and Bytes*, The Wikipedia
Library's monthly newsletter. The Wikipedia Library is an open research hub
for connecting libraries to Wikipedia and encyclopedia editors back to
libraries and reliable sources.
There's lots of news this month for The Wikipedia Library, including new
accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved:
*New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer
Wikipedia Librarian
*Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United
States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.
*New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia
round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??
*New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog
Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges
* News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full
time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY
* Announcing WikiProject Open:''' WikiProject Open kicked off in October,
with several brainstorming and co-working sessions
* New ways to get involved: Free accounts, user profiles, subject guides;
room for library expansion and exploration
Read the full newsletter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Newsletter/Oct…
Thanks for reading! --Jake Orlowitz (Ocaasi) and Pat Earley (The Interior)
*To receive future updates of Books and Bytes on Wikipedia, please add your
name to *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The Wikipedia
Library/Newsletter/Recipients
I wanted to thank wikimedia UK for organizing EduWiki 2013. I think they
did a fantastic job with the conference, managed to get the right people
there, opened doors to make things happen and left me motivated to continue
to do educational outreach for Wikinews. Combine that with good wifi and
decent food, I cannot wait for next year's conference. My only request
would be less rain.
Great job. :)
Sincerely,
Laura Hale
--
mobile: 635209416
twitter: purplepopple
blog: ozziesport.com
Nemo suggests I tell more people about this, and this is a good
cross-project list :-)
Just LOOK at those diagrams.
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>
Date: 3 November 2013 17:21
Subject: Re: [Commons-l] LibreOffice's LibreLogo and diagram generation
To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
David Gerard, 02/11/2013 23:08:
> I'm going "holy crap!" at what you can do with LibreLogo for diagram generation.
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_with_LibreLogo_source_co…
Is this a tool which could help also the "maths community"? If yes you
could let them know e.g. at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/PlanetMath_Books_Project
Nemo
Since August we are implementing Wikidata for the Swedish 290 communes
and 1900 "towns", including automatic update from the authority
"Statistic Sweden" to Wikidata.
Our original assumption was that it would take us 8 month but it now
seems it will not be enough, it will probably be more like a year to get
it fully implemented, and I thought our experiences could be of interest
to several (even excluding anything of the WD community or the "science"
of properites etc)
QUALITY
My assumption was that the Swedish articles was 98% correct but that
Wikidata ought to have 99,8% correct info. We found, though, as a start
that WD was only 96% correct as it has been loaded from en:wp, which is,
from a Q point for these entities, worse then de.wp, nl:wp and sw:wp. A
critical information, that was missing, was the communcode/towncode,
that is needed to implement an automatic update. In practice this has
meat we have had to manually check and complement all objects on WD,
that with its primitive interface meant it taking a very long time, one
of us even temporary getting "repetitive strain injury"
INTRICACIES
When we have created articles on sv:wp we have only covered some finer
intricacies of these entities in the article text. But with Wikidata it
is not enough, it has to be handled fully correct. Trosa commun existed
1971-1973, was then merged into Nyköpings commun and 1994 broken out
with some more areas to become again a Trosa commun. Sv.wp hase only one
article for Trosa commun, but for wikidata we have created two entities
one called Trosa commun (1971-73), whos corresponding entity on sw.wp is
a redirect. Another example: Statistic Sweden defines the boundary of a
town by strange advanced citerias meaning a real town is some year is
seen by them as two towns. We have of these reasons been forced to
define new properties, and create some hundred new entities in Wikidata,
and check the corresponding redirect articles on sv:wp, giving them
Categories etc, all OK but it takes time...
POTENTIAL
We are still convinced of the strong potential of WIkidata, but believe
the full benefits requires an a (semi)automatic update of data from the
authorities databases. In our case "Statistic Sweden" are positive,
believe in Open data and have a nice API, but it is a new component for
us to take care of, the datatransfer/update program/script, who will be
responsible for this etc?
Experience from others are welcome to us
Anders
A post is live on Gizmodo today about a Commons contributor (Evan-Amos) who
takes high quality photos of video game systems and hardware.[1] Towards
the end it mentions that Evan started a Kickstarter to fund his efforts to
buy and photograph more systems as part of an online museum.[2]
Anyone know if this is the first Wikimedia-related Kickstarter campaign, or
has it happened before? What do people think about someone raising ~$13k to
contribute photos to Commons? How does that fit in the debate about paid
editing? To me it has a very different feel than, say, Wiki-PR. But...
[1]
http://gizmodo.com/how-i-became-gamings-most-popular-and-anonymous-photog-1…
[2]
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1699256938/the-vanamo-online-game-museum
Hey all,
Quick reminder that James Forrester is holding a second set of office hours
to discuss VisualEditor. These are scheduled for 1700 UTC on
November 2nd (10 hours from when I'm sending this email) and 0000 UTC on
November 3rd (apx 23:59:59 November 2nd or 17 hours from when I'm sending
this) . For local time conversions, see
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Office_hours and click on the starting time.
As always, logs will be posted on Meta after each hour completes.
Thanks!
James (Alexander)
James Alexander
Legal and Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
If your project needs gadgets or templates imported / adapted / fixed,
or other little technical tasks, and you have admins busy enough to do
the work but not to mentor it... this is your chance!
Google Code-in is a perfect program to bring technical help to your
projects. If you are interested read below, edit our Google Code-in wiki
page, or contact me directly.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Google Code-in: YES, WE ARE IN!
Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 09:06:29 -0700
From: Quim Gil <qgil(a)wikimedia.org>
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Wikimedia is one of the ten organizations selected to participate in
Google Code-in 2013! This means that on November 18 we will start having
hundreds of 13-17 year old students looking at Wikimedia tech tasks to
be completed.
The announcement:
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2013/11/mentoring-organizations-for-g…
Our GCI page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Code-In
If you are involved in FOSS Outreach Program for Women in any way you
can stop reading here. Otherwise, please stay with us. This program is a
very good opportunity to find fresh young helpers willing to complete
that little task that has been sitting in your ToDo list for too long.
WE NEED STRUCTURE
Andre Klapper and me are the Wikimedia org admins and we will take a lot
of dirty and boring work so the rest of you don't have to. However, we
won't be able to make it without meta-mentors.
META-MENTORS are seasoned contributors that have a good knowledge of the
relevant technologies, features and people involved in a specific area.
They are also mentors of some tasks in their areas, but their role
includes looking for more mentors that bring more tasks, and coordinate
with them. GCI organizations get an average of 150-200 tasks completed
during the program. You see the need for a distributed structure that
scales.
GCI has five areas:
* Code (proposing MatmaRex, helped by ?)
* Documentation/Training (guillom, helped by ?)
* Outreach/Research (?, helped by Quim - or the other way around)
* Quality Assurance (proposing Željko, helped by Andre)
* User Interface (Pau and Jorm)
Please, help substituting question marks with names.
WE NEED MENTORS BRINGING TASKS
The deal is simple: join GCI as mentor and bring your little tasks (that
would take you 2-3 hours to complete). You need to describe the tasks
for a newcomer, linking to the resources needed to complete them. You
also need to be ready to answer the questions of the students assigning
your tasks to them.
We will have more specific instructions for mentors before the beginning
of the program.
WE NEED PEOPLE PROPOSING TASKS
Even if you can't mentor a specific task we still want to know about it.
All we need is a bug report with
gci2013 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Code-In#Candidate_tasks
added to its Whiteboard field to make it easy to track them. Please CC
the related meta-mentors, Andre and me.
Questions? Please ask and you will help us improving our documentation.
--
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
Hi all,
please find below the WMF report for September 2013, in plain text.
As always, the editable and formatted version has been published on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_September_2013
and the reports are being posted on the Wikimedia blog, too:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/
As usual, we are also publishing a separate "Highlights" summary.
Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay
updated, by providing a translation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_September_2013
Many thanks to those who have translated the August "Highlights" into
Spanish, Italian, Korean, Norwegian Bokmål, Portuguese and Chinese
(and partly into some other languages like Russian, Japanese, French,
Swedish and German)!
While still focusing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a
small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement.
Suggestions for the upcoming October issue are welcome until next
Wednesday (November 6) at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights#Movement_news_ite…
.
Regards, Tilman
--
Wikimedia Foundation Report, September 2013
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_October…>
Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting
covering the month of September
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-10-03>
(October 3, 2013)
Contents
* 1 Data and Trends
* 2 Financials
* 3 Highlights
o 3.1 22 proposals for Individual Engagement Grants submitted
o 3.2 FDC receives 11 proposals for annual plan grants, looks back
on first year of operation
o 3.3 Community consultation about new privacy policy begins
* 4 Engineering
o 4.1 VisualEditor
o 4.2 Editor engagement
o 4.3 Mobile
* 5 Fundraising
o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations
o 5.2 Online Fundraising
* 6 Grantmaking
o 6.1 Funds Dissemination Committee
o 6.2 WMF Grants
+ 6.2.1 Grants awarded in September 2013
+ 6.2.2 Reports accepted in September 2013
o 6.3 Participation Support
+ 6.3.1 Requests awarded in September 2013
+ 6.3.2 Reports accepted in September 2013
o 6.4 Individual Engagement Grants
+ 6.4.1 Reports accepted in September 2013
o 6.5 Grantmaking Learning & Evaluation
o 6.6 Brazil Catalyst Project
+ 6.6.1 Partnership grant process
+ 6.6.2 Education
+ 6.6.3 Data Analysis
+ 6.6.4 Participation in events
* 7 Programs
o 7.1 Wikipedia Zero
o 7.2 Wikipedia Education Program
o 7.3 Program Evaluation and Design
* 8 Human Resources
o 8.1 Staff Changes
o 8.2 Statistics
o 8.3 Department Updates
* 9 Finance and Administration
* 10 Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications Department
o 10.1 LCA Report, September 2013
+ 10.1.1 Contract Metrics
+ 10.1.2 Trademark Metrics
+ 10.1.3 Domains Obtained
+ 10.1.4 Coming & Going
+ 10.1.5 Other Activities
+ 10.1.6 Wikilegal posts
o 10.2 Communications Report, September 2013
+ 10.2.1 Major announcements
+ 10.2.2 Major Storylines through September
+ 10.2.3 Other worthwhile reads
+ 10.2.4 WMF Blog posts
+ 10.2.5 Media Contact
+ 10.2.6 Wikipedia Signpost
* 11 Visitors and Guests
== Data and Trends ==
Global unique visitors for August:
*497 million* (+0.97% compared with July; +8.90% compared with the
previous year)
(comScore data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/unique_visitors> for all
Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release September data
later in October)
Page requests for September:
*25.90 billion* (+8.6% compared with August; +30.8% compared with
the previous year)
(Server log data
<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyAllProjects.htm>,
all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for August 2013 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month,
excluding bots):
*76,612* (-0.34% compared with July / -2.94% compared with the
previous year)
(Database data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors>, all Wikimedia
Foundation projects.)
*Report Card* (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF
projects):
http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/
(Definitions <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Metric_definitions>)
== Financials ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Revenue_%26_Expenses_August_201…>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of August 31, 2013
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses_by_Functions_August_20…>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of August 31, 2013
(Financial information is only available through August 2013 at the time
of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and
Year-To-Date August 31, 2013.
Revenue $5,408,836
*Expenses:*
Engineering Group $2,515,199
Fundraiser Group $573,336
Grantmaking & Programs Group $607,306
Grants $502,420
Governance Group $130,722
Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group $533,787
Finance/HR/Admin Group $1,201,542
Total Expenses $6,064,312
Total (loss) ($655,476)
Revenue for the month of August is $2.29MM versus plan of $0.99MM,
approximately $1.3MM or 133% over plan.
Year-to-date revenue is $5.41MM versus plan of $1.99MM, approximately
$3.42MM or 172% over plan.
Expenses for the month of August is $3.34MM versus plan of $4.26MM,
approximately $919K or 25% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel
expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, legal fees, grants, and
travel expenses partially offset by higher payment processing fees.
Year-to-date expenses is $6.06MM versus plan of $7.69MM, approximately
$1.63MM or 21% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses,
capital expenses, internet hosting, legal fees, grants, and travel
expenses partially offset by higher payment processing fees.
Cash position is $38.75MM as of August 31, 2013.
== Highlights ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia-October-Metrics-Meeting-P…>
Siko Bouterse presenting about Individual Engagement Grants (at the
Foundation's October 3 metrics and activities meeting
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-10-03>)
=== 22 proposals for Individual Engagement Grants submitted ===
The Foundation's Individual Engagement Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG> support
individuals or small teams working on projects that help Wikimedia's
volunteers do their work. The program was started in early 2013 and its
second round of proposals closed on September 30. 22 complete proposals
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-join> were submitted,
totaling $297,575 in
requested funding. The requested sums range from $10 to $30,000. Via
online community organizing, offline outreach, tool-building and
research, the proposals aim to impact at least 15 different Wikimedia
projects. Examples include a project for "Reimagining Mentorship on
Wikipedia <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Reimagining_Mentorship_on_Wikipe…>"
and
work on ensuring that gadgets that support editing are updated to be
compatible with the new VisualEditor
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Visual_editor-_gadgets_compatibi…>.
In October,
proposals are being checked for eligibility
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-learn>
while community discussion continues, before the committee's formal
review <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee/Workroom#committee-rev…>
begins on
23 October.
=== FDC receives 11 proposals for annual plan grants, looks back on
first year of operation ===
The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) process is another component of
WMF grantmaking, where organizations in the Wikimedia movement can
request larger grants to support their annual plans. This committee,
which reviews the requests and makes recommendations to the Board of
Trustees consists, entirely of volunteers, supported by WMF staff. The
second FDC round of 2013 was concluding in September, with 11 Wikimedia
organizations requesting a total of almost 6 million US dollars. Until
October 31, Wikimedians are invited to participate in the community
review period <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/Community/Review>
of the proposals
FDC staff also worked on preparing the 2012-2013 annual report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Annual_report_on_the_Funds_Disse…>
looking back at the first year of operation since the FDC was
established in 2012. It includes reflections from WMF Executive Director
Sue Gardner
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Annual_report_on_the_Funds_Disse…>
about the FDC process.
=== Community consultation about new privacy policy begins ===
The Foundation's Legal and Community Advocacy team announced
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/03/wikimedia-privacy-policy-community-inp…>
the launch of the 4.5 month-long community consultation and feedback
period <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy>
(scheduled to conclude on 15 January
2014) for the new *privacy policy draft
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy>*.
Feedback and discussion has been very fruitful thus far and have already
helped improve the draft.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia-October-Metrics-Meeting-P…>
Vibha Bamba presenting about some of the mobile web design experiments
(slides <Image:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikipediaMobileWeb_LightningTalk.pdf>)
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GSoC_2013_%26_FOSS_OPW_Round_6.pdf?…>
Presentation slides about Google Summer of Code and FOSS Outreach
Program for Women
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia-October-Metrics-Meeting-P…>
Quim Gil presenting about Google Summer of Code and FOSS Outreach
Program for Women
== Engineering ==
A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for September 2013
can be found *here
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2013/September>.*
Department Highlights
Major news in September include:
* A recap on how our engineers worked with volunteers
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/03/language-support-at-wikimania-2013-in…>
to improve language tools at Wikimania;
* A call for wikis willing to experiment with using HTTPS for all
users
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/10/https-by-default-beta-program/>;
* A recap on how our new image scaling system
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/12/vipsscaler-implementation-wikimedia-s…>
was implemented by a volunteer developer;
* A call for technical projects
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/16/call-for-wikimedia-tech-projects-need…>
that could for instance be completed as part of our mentorship programs;
* Design experiments to show the community behind Wikipedia articles
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/25/humanizing-wikipedia-editing-mobile-e…>
on mobile devices;
* Another release of the MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/26/get-introduced-to-internationalizatio…>,
with an explanation of how it's put together;
* The completion of the sixth round of the Outreach Program for Women
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/30/foss-outreach-program-for-women-succe…>;
* A recap of the launch of Notifications
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/01/notifications-launch-on-more-wikipedi…>
to more language versions of Wikipedia, and their impact.
=== VisualEditor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/VisualEditor/Portal>
===
In September, the VisualEditor team continued their work to improve this
visual tool to edit wiki pages, and enabled it on more wikis. The focus
in the team's work this month was to continue to improve the stability
and performance of the system, fix a number of bugs uncovered by the
community, and make some usability improvements.
Improvements were also made to Parsoid
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid>, the program that converts wikitext
to annotated HTML, and vice-versa. Bugs were fixed, performance
statistics were added, and the code base was cleaned up. We planned out
an implementation strategy for language variant support, and started
researching and experimenting with HTML storage options, which is
required for a number of projects in our roadmap.
=== Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> ===
In September, we released Notifications on more Wikipedias
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/01/notifications-launch-on-more-wikipedi…>,
such as the Dutch, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Ukrainian and
Vietnamese. Notifications allow users to stay informed of changes and
discussion that affect them. Community response has been very positive
so far, across languages and regions. For each release, we reached out
to community members weeks in advance, inviting them to translate and
discuss the tool with their peers. As a result, we have now formed
productive relationships with volunteer groups in each project, and are
very grateful for their generous support.
This month, we continued architecture work on Flow
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow_Portal>, the new discussion system, to
integrate it with watchlists, recent changes, mentions and
notifications. We also started experimenting with VisualEditor-enabled
posting. We began a sprint to create a new interface
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow_Portal/Design#Visual_design_iterations>
for the board and discussions that will work across desktop and mobile
platforms. We are aiming to implement this design next month, in
preparation for several rounds of new user and experienced user feedback
before the first release.
In September, the Growth <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Growth> team
(formerly known as Editor Engagement Experiments, or E3) primarily
worked on the onboarding new Wikipedians
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/onboarding_new_Wikipedians> project. In
particular, this included the creation and deployment of two new guided
tours <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/guided_tours> to teach any new user how
to make their first edit, using wikitext or VisualEditor. The guided
tours feature was also enabled to the following language editions of
Wikipedia: Catalan, Hebrew, Hungarian, Malay, Spanish, Swedish, and
Ukrainian. Along with the renaming, the team held its third quarterly
review (minutes and slides
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…>
are available) and published its 2013–2014 product goals
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2013-14_Goals#Editor_E…>.
Last, in accordance with the 2013-14 goals, the Growth team began
research into modeling newcomer retention
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newcomer_survival_models> on
Wikipedia, anonymous editor
acquisition <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Anonymous_editor_acquisition>,
and article
creation improvement
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Article_creation>.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mobile_Metrics_Presentation_-_Septe…>
Presentations slides about mobile metrics
=== Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> ===
This month, the Wikipedia Zero <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero>
team made a lot of improvement to the Zero platform, which provides free
access to Wikipedia on select mobile carriers. They released enhanced
URL rewriting and debug flag-only Edge Side Includes
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Side_Includes> (ESI) banner inclusion to
production, supported the Ops implementation of dynamic MCC/MNC
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_country_code> carrier tagging,
identified web access log and user agent anomalies, further analyzed and
recommended load balancer IP address-related changes in support of HTTPS
requirements, and tested JavaScript-based Wikipedia Zero user interface
enhancements.
The Mobile web <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_web_projects> team
mostly focused on tutorial A/B testing, Notifications overlay in Beta,
and adding campaign tracking to MobileFrontend.
== Fundraising ==
The Revenue Team has raised $5.41 million as of August 31, 2013, which
is $3.42 ahead of plan.
=== Major Gifts and Foundations ===
* Held a meeting with Sloan Foundation, one of our biggest funders.
* Prepared a proposal for the Stanton Foundation regarding moblie and
flow.
* Worked with Tarnside on finding foundation funders in Europe.
* Prepared for event on October 1st in NYC with Jimmy Wales.
=== Online Fundraising ===
* The fundraising team ran campaigns worldwide throughout September.
Banners were displayed to 5% of readers for 1 impression per reader.
The team continued to run A/B tests of banner messages, designs, and
payment flows. In the month of September, approximately USD 2
million was raised from 150,000 donors (preliminary numbers as
donations are still settling). The team also sent the first email
tests of this fiscal year to past donors. For more information on
testing, please see the 2013 fundraising
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013>
page on Meta-wiki.
* Held a meeting and Wikipedia user focus group session with
representatives from upworthy.com to better optimize virality of the
documentary film about the 2012 class of Sinenjongo High School in
South Africa and their campaign for free access to Wikipedia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinenjongo_High_School#Free_access_to_Wikiped…>.
== Grantmaking ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GLEE_monthly_metrics_Sept_2013.pdf?…>
Presentation slides: Grantmaking September 2013 update
Department highlights
* *Wikimania Scholarships*: Statistics and survey results about the
Scholarships of Wikimania Hong Kong 2013 have been posted
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/2013>. In
2013, the Wikimedia
Foundation sent 85 individuals to Wikimania (with some financial
support from WMDE). They came from 54 different countries, and 68%
of them live in the Global South. Satisfaction levels with the
scholarships process (including both Scholarship Review Committee
and internal WMF processes such as travel) were markedly higher in
2013 than 2012.
* *12 new grants funded* and 27 reports accepted or reviewed in
September 2013.
* *Eligibility for 2013 - 2014 Round 1 of the FDC process* confirmed
on 15 September, as entities prepared to submit proposals by the
deadline on 1 October.
* Both the Annual Plan (FDC) and Individual Engagement grants programs
prepare to launch new *proposal review periods in October 2013* as
proposal submission deadlines close at the end of September and
beginning of October.
=== Funds Dissemination Committee ===
* FDC staff published a summary of reports from Quarter 2 (Q2) of
2012-2013 Round 1
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Staff…>.
This document includes highlights and trends, as well as a table
showing rates of spending. The FDC and the FDC staff thank Round 1
2012-2013 entities for submitting their quarterly reports.
* During September, the FDC staff held two sets of IRC office hours
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Office_hour_logs>
with two sessions each (to
accommodate various timezones). These meetings focused on proposal
milestones, process questions, and proposal content. Some of the
chats were more active than others, and logs are available for your
review.
* On September 15, eligibility for 2013-2014 Round 1 of the FDC
process was confirmed
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_status/Current_round…>,
with
15 of 17 entities who submitted Letters of Intent (LOIs) confirmed
as eligible to submit proposals in the upcoming round. Eligibility
for 2013-2014 Round 1 was announced on Wikimedia-l
<http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/389897> the
day after the process closed.
* Annual plan grant proposals to the FDC for 2013-2014 Round 1 are due
October 1, 2013 at 23:59 UTC. At that time, the community review
period <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/Community/Review>
launches. The
FDC invites members of the community to review submitted proposals
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1>
and share questions
and feedback on the Discussion page of the proposal. If you have
questions about this process, contact FDCsupport at wikimedia.org.
=== WMF Grants ===
7 grant requests funded and 11 grant reports accepted in September.
==== Grants awarded in September 2013 ====
7 Requests funded in September 2013:
* Grants:WM_ES/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_Spain_2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_ES/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_Spain_2013>
* Grants:Ravidreams_-_Tamil_Wikimedians/TamilWiki_10_years
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Ravidreams_-_Tamil_Wikimedians/Tamil…>
* Grants:WM_UA/Programs_in_Ukraine_2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_UA/Programs_in_Ukraine_2013>
* Grants:WM_UA/Kolessa_recordings_digitalisation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_UA/Kolessa_recordings_digitalisat…>
* Grants:WM_ZA/2013_OSF_bridging_funding
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_ZA/2013_OSF_bridging_funding>
* Grants:WM_AM/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_AM/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013>
* Grants:Keilana/Loyola_Women_in_Science_and_Math_Workshop
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Keilana/Loyola_Women_in_Science_and_…>
==== Reports accepted in September 2013 ====
11 reports accepted in September 2013:
* Grants:Sofia_Zoo_and_Bulgarian_Wikipedians/Sofia_Zoo_Powered_by_Wikimedia/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Sofia_Zoo_and_Bulgarian_Wikipedians/…>
* Grants:WM_UA/Programs_in_Ukraine_2012/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_UA/Programs_in_Ukraine_2012/Report>
* Grants:WM_PH/Chapter_startup_2/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_PH/Chapter_startup_2/Report>
* Grants:Nkansah_Rexford_Nyarko-_PWM_GH/Wikimedia_outreach_in_Ghana/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Nkansah_Rexford_Nyarko-_PWM_GH/Wikim…>
* Grants:ITOCA/Train-the-trainer_South_Africa_workshop
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:ITOCA/Train-the-trainer_South_Africa…>
* Grants:WM_Wikisym/2013_WikiSym_OpenSym_Conference/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_Wikisym/2013_WikiSym_OpenSym_Conf…>
* Grants:WM_RS/Annual_plan_2012-2013/Report/Q3
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_RS/Annual_plan_2012-2013/Report/Q3>
* Grants:WM_CZ/Mediagrant/Report/2013/07
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_CZ/Mediagrant/Report/2013/07>
* Grants_talk:WM_US-NYC/Kick_start/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:WM_US-NYC/Kick_start/Report>
* Grants_talk:WM_US-NYC/Events_Grant_Reapportionment/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:WM_US-NYC/Events_Grant_Reapport…>
* Grants:WM_CA/Start_Up/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_CA/Start_Up/Report>
=== Participation Support ===
* Wikimedia CH formally joined the Participation Support Program in
September. The PSP Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Support/Committee>
is glad to welcome Charles Andrès
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Chandres>, Wikimedia
CH's Chief Science Officer, as our newest member. Along with Siko
Bouterse (WMF) and Rebecca Cotton (WMDE), Charles will be working
together to review requests and reports for Particiaption Support.
* We've partnered with the Learning & Evaluation team to conduct a
survey
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grantmaking_and_Programs/Learning_%26_Evalu…>
of the program's user-experience and gain an overview of outcomes
for these grants. We look forward to sharing results and discussing
possible avenues for growth and redesign in October.
==== Requests awarded in September 2013 ====
5 requests funded in September 2013:
* Participation:Amqui/Annual_Alberta_French_Congress_and_Contribution_Day
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Amqui/Annual_Alberta_French_C…>
* Participation:Toniher/SMWCon_Fall_2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Toniher/SMWCon_Fall_2013>
* Participation:Valeriej,_DNarvaez/Grace_Hopper_Open_Source_Day
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Valeriej,_DNarvaez/Grace_Hopp…>
* Participation:Susannaanas/State_of_the_Map_2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Susannaanas/State_of_the_Map_…>
* Participation:Himeshi/SMWCon_Fall_2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Himeshi/SMWCon_Fall_2013>
==== Reports accepted in September 2013 ====
3 reports accepted in September 2013:
* Participation:Susannaanas/State_of_the_Map_2013/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Susannaanas/State_of_the_Map_…>
* Participation:Thelmadatter/2013_Congreso_de_La_Asociación_Centroamericana_de_Lingüística_(ACALING)/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Thelmadatter/2013_Congreso_de…>
* Participation:Vantharith/BarcampKampongCham2013/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Vantharith/BarcampKampongCham…>
=== Individual Engagement Grants ===
* Round 2's call for proposals closed on 30 September! 22 complete
proposals <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-join>
were submitted, totalling
$297,575 in requested funding. (see also general "Highlights"
section)
* 7 new members joined the IEG Committee for round 2. In total, the 18
volunteer committee members
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee#ieg-members>
now bring experience and advice to IEG from 13 countries, 10
languages and 8 Wikimedia projects. Join us in welcoming our new
members:
o Achim Raschka <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Achim_Raschka>
o Ailura <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ailura>
o Anne Delong <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anne_Delong>
o Bellayet <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bellayet>
o Jane023 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jane023>
o Jayantanth <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jayantanth>
o Superzerocool <https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:Superzerocool>
* The committee has formed 4 working groups
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee/Members/Working_groups>
to coordinate
proposal review by type, in order to focus committee expertise and
energy on sets of proposals in a scalable manner. We'll be piloting
this new approach to proposal review for round 2 of IEG. A few new
specialized committee roles
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee/Workroom#committee-res…>
are
also being developed for members to take on at various stages of the
IEG process.
* Round 1 grantee spotlight: This month, WikiArs grantee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Consolidate_wikiArS_to_involve_a…>
Dvdgmz
released a new assignments workflow
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiArS/assignments> that enables
Wikipedians to request images from art and design students
participating in the program.
==== Reports accepted in September 2013 ====
* Grants:IEG/The Wikipedia Library/Midpoint
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Library/Midpoint>
* Grants:IEG/MediaWiki and Javanese_script/Midpoint
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/MediaWiki_and_Javanese_script/Mi…>
=== Grantmaking Learning & Evaluation ===
Grantmaking overall
* *First Employee Study
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikimedia_First_Employee_Survey>*:
Developed and
distributed a survey to all the chapters to get information on their
(a) decision as to whether or not to hire staff and (b) their
experiences in hiring. The results will be mined in October.
* Development of the *Evaluation portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal>*:
doing this alongside Sarah &
Heather; soft launch is Tuesday, Oct 1. This is the portal through
which we can share tools and learnings as a community, both on the
programmatic and organizational sides. One important development
with this is the proposal for learning Patterns
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/Learning…>,
which
will be one way that we capture learnings alongside the community.
If this works, we may want to incorporate the patterns into the
grantmaking reports.
* Working with the WMF *Analytics team* on the ability to gather and
display information, including Limn, geo-data, and Wikimetrics.
Wikimania Scholarships (see also Department highlights above)
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%25_of_scholarships_to_the_GS_2012-…>
% of scholarships to the GS 2012-13
* *Results from the Scholarships* of Wikimania Hong Kong 2013 are
posted <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/2013>.
In 2013, the Wikimedia
Foundation sent 85 individuals to Wikimania (with some financial
support from WMDE!), including 67 full scholarships and 18 partial
subsidized scholarships. These went to individuals in 54 different
countries, 68% of whom live in the Global South.
* *Satisfaction levels* with the scholarships process (including both
Scholarship Review Committee and internal WMF processes such as
travel) were markedly higher in 2013 than 2012. Besides the support
work of the Scholarship Committee and Jessie Wild for the
scholarships process itself, this speaks to the work of Doreen and
Leslie in the travel team, of the finance team in processing
reimbursements, and of Ellie Young on Wikimania overall.
* *Over 1200 individuals applied* for scholarships, and these
applications were reviewed by a committee of 9 Wikimedians from
around the world. Their ratings were used by the Wikimedia
Foundation as well as chapters around the world in order to award
travel scholarships.
Grants Program evaluations
* *Project & Event Grants*:
o Created and deployed a *post-grant survey* for those grantees
who have just submitted their report (but prior to the report's
approval). This will allow us to better understand the overall
experience for the grantee. The questions can be found on the
Learning & Evaluation space on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grantmaking_and_Programs/Learning_%26_Evalu…>.
The first round of analysis of this information will occur after
three months, in January 2014.
o Also working on a *post-application process survey
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grantmaking_and_Programs/Learning_%26_Evalu…>*,
which would be sent to all people who applied for a grant,
regardless of whether or not they received funding. This is a
survey similar to those sent following the rounds of
applications for the Annual Plan Grants and the Individual
Engagement Grants (IEG).
* *Participation Support Program*: For the first time, we are doing a
thorough review
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grantmaking_and_Programs/Learning_%26_Evalu…>
of the Participation Support Program's
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Support>
process and goals. Currently, there is a survey out to all past
participants to get their feedback on the program. We look forward
to processing the results of this survey with our PSP community &
partners throughout October!
* *Annual Plan Grants*:
o Aided in the development of visualizations for the *annual
report* following Y1 of the FDC process. See Category on Commons
for some examples
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:FY2012-13>
* *Individual Engagement Grants*:
o Expanded *GrantsBot
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:GrantsBot>* to automatically
notify individuals who had created a proposal of the proposal
deadline (which was Oct 1)
=== Brazil Catalyst Project ===
===== Partnership grant process =====
* *Community review* for Ação Educativa's proposal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>
started on September 20 and ends on October 10.
* Ação Educativa's proposal has been *translated* into Portuguese
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>.
===== Education =====
* The *Educacao-br mailing list
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/educacao-br>* was
created as a hub for discussions about the Wikimedia Education
Program in Brazil, building connections, having experiences and
strategies shared and allowing joint activities.
* All teachers involved in the program and members of the Brazilian
community were invited to join the mailing list (20 professors
joined the list).
* Translation and creation of all pages around the *Education
Extension* has been completed (following the USA/Canada example).
* Rodrigo Padula has traveled to the USA to meet the education team
and scheduled/participated in meetings at the Wikimedia Foundation's
office.
* The team has advanced in the conversation with *BandTec, UFRJ,
UNIRIO, UFPF universities* regarding the Education Program.
* Discussed *partnership with the editors of Nova Escola magazine*
(the major magazine targeting professors in Brazil): The proposal
includes a new blog on the magazine website written by Wikipedians
and the Brazil Catalyst Program team, videos, hangouts and events.
===== Data Analysis =====
* Developed a script to get *daily pageview data* about the Portuguese
Wikipedia from dumps and make them available in graph form
<http://tools.wmflabs.org/ptwikis/Acessos> on Tool Labs
* Started efforts to localize the *vandalism detection tool* STiki
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:STiki> to ptwiki.
* Helped community evaluating the *usage of gadgets* on ptwiki.
* Under development: a non-technical interface that allows to *add
events on the PT Wikipedia timeline
<https://tools.wmflabs.org/ptwikis/Linha_do_tempo>* through editing
wiki pages, so that any editor can help improve it in the future.
* Made *contact with researchers* from the Federal University of Rio
de Janeiro (pt:UFRJ <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFRJ>) and Faculdade de
Tecnologia Bandeirantes (BandTec) that research behavior on wikis
and are willing to use ptwiki data in their work.
===== Participation in events =====
* Oona in *Fórum da Internet*: see detailed report in Portuguese
<https://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/F%C3%B3rum_da_Internet_no_Brasil/2013>.
Oona presented a lecture on Education, Culture and copyright,
featuring Wikimedia projects, the education program and raising
aspects to be considered in the new legislation on copyright. About
120 people attended the presentation. Major outcomes were:
o *Partnership with UFPA*: meeting with the Federal University of
Pará, in the north region of Brazil, whose International
Relations rectory department wants to develop projects in
partnership with the Wikimedia movement, in order to publish
content about the state of Pará on Wikisource, Wikiversity,
Commons and Wikipedia. They want to get a formal contract with a
Brazilian institution (possibly our future partner) to be able
to have expenses with the project (organizing a seminar, paying
flights and hotels for speakers, etc).
o Started discussing a *hackathon* on MediaWiki and data analysis
to happen just before the *International Forum of Free Software
(FISL)* for 2014
o Created a page at Wikimedia Brasil website
<https://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marco_Civil_da_Internet/Mapeamento_de_Pesquis…>
to be a hub to keep track of documents and references on the
*Internet Civil Rights bill
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Civil_da_Internet>* developed by
civil society and researchers.
* Rodrigo Padula organized and participated in the 4º Seminário de
Educação e Tecnologia <http://sieuca.piraidigital.com.br>, an event
that is part of the *Piraí Digital project*. He presented a 2-day
workshop for the teachers of the local schools, teaching strategies
and methodologies about how professors can effectively apply
Wikimedia's projects on the classroom.
o During the event he had meetings with the event's organizers
starting to plan a partnership with the local Pirai schools.
o It has been proposed (and is under evaluation) the next activity
including a workshop for all the teachers of the Pirai Digital
project.
* Henrique participated in *Dev Brasil
<http://rioinfo.com.br/dev-brasil/> at Rio Info 2013* (on September
19), an event targeted at software developers aiming to create
networks for learning activities and technical knowledge sharing.
Entitled "Colaboração, Comunidade e Compartilhamento", Henrique
Andrade's presentation showed how to collaborate with the Wikimedia
community by offering technical contributions. The debate brought up
the possibility of creating a WikiProject at Wikibooks to write
tutorials in Portuguese for recently launched programming frameworks.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikisampa19_2.jpg>
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikisampa19_2.jpg>
Wikisampa 19
* On September 25, Henrique gave a presentation on "Hacking Wikipedia"
<http://ccsl.ime.usp.br/pt-br/news/13/09/23/palestra-hackeie-wikipedia>
at the Centro de Competências em Software Livre of pt:Universidade
de São Paulo
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universidade_de_S%C3%A3o_Paulo> (CCSL-USP)
- the *free software center at the University of São Paulo*. About
50 people (students, researchers and veteran Wikipedians) attended
the presentation. The debate was focused on the development and
localization of tools to combat vandalism as well as on academic
research opportunities. Those presentations aim at engaging more
developers and data analysts in the Wikimedia community in Brazil.
* On September 22, the *19th community meet-up in São Paulo
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Encontros/WikiSampa/WikiSampa_…>*
took place at CCSP
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centro_Cultural_S%C3%A3o_Paulo>. Twelve
people attended the meeting and they debated the participation of
Brazilians at Wikimania 2013, the relationship with PR people at
Wikipedia, tools to combat vandalism and ways of organizing the
community work. It's expected that monthly meet-ups will be set up,
hoping WikiSampa 20
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Encontros/WikiSampa/WikiSampa_…>
will happen in October.
== Programs ==
Department highlights
* Communications Manager LiAnna Davis kicked off an *overhaul of the
"Welcome to Wikipedia" brochure
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_(Bookshelf)/2013_e…>*.
Community members are encouraged to leave feedback on what they like
and don't like about the current version of the brochure, and offer
suggestions of things to include in the next edition. Over the past
three years, the "Welcome to Wikipedia" brochure has been used far
beyond the Education Program. The first version of the brochure has
been translated into 12 languages; more than 8,000 copies of the
English version have been distributed by the Wikimedia Foundation.
* In September 2013, we launched *Wikipedia Zero in Jordan and
Madagascar*, giving an additional 3 million people access to
Wikipedia on their mobile phones free of charge. The most recent
launch with Umniah, a mobile phone company in Jordan, has been our
fourth Wikipedia Zero launch in the first quarter of our fiscal year
2013/14.
* The Program Evaluation and Development team started the first round
of *data-gathering among program leaders*. People responsible for
organizing and executing programs will submit self-evaluations for
their programmatic activities, covering September 2012–August 2013.
This is the first time people across countries participate in an
effort to gather data that will be used to analyze the impact and
effectiveness of programmatic activities in our movement. The
deadline for submitting self-evaluation reports is October 7th.
=== Wikipedia Zero ===
* The team launched *Wikipedia Zero in Jordan* with mobile phone
company Umniah, giving Umniah's 2.4 million customers access to
Wikipedia on their mobile phones free of charge. Umniah promoted
Wikipedia Zero on Facebook andgot a lot of positive feedback. For
the Wikipedia Zero team, this is the fourth launch in the first
quarter of our fiscal year 2013/14.
* The team launched *Wikipedia Zero through Orange in Madagascar*.
Orange Madagascar is the ninth affiliate operator to launch under
our group agreement with Orange, the first partner we signed back in
2012. Orange is a big supporter of Wikipedia Zero, and they are
going to work with us to launch in the remaining markets in Africa
and the Middle East. Plus we're going to go back into the countries
where Wikipedia Zero is live and work with the local communities on
spreading the word about free access to Wikipedia on mobile phones.
* Kul, Dan and Adele *traveled to Africa* to work on upcoming launches
and to meet with new prospective partners.
* Wikipedia Zero is gaining momentum in the mobile industry! We're
getting a lot of inbound *requests from smaller carriers*, so it is
a huge priority for the Mobile Programs team to scale our internal
capacity to meet the demand. That includes setting up clear
processes, creating resources and *hiring two more people* for the
Wikipedia Zero team. (Please see the first job description on
Jobvite <http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/jobvite.aspx?b=nNxJnlwg>.)
* We're working on a *self-service portal* to guide our operator
partners through the process from pitch to contract to marketing to
implementation. There are many steps we can automate, and having a
central resource will make it a better experience for everyone. We
will deliver requirements and design in November.
=== Wikipedia Education Program ===
Global
* Global Education Program Manager Sophie Österberg visited the San
Francisco offices for two weeks and engaged in strategic planning
for the *future of the Wikipedia Education Program globally*. Sophie
is working on a plan to identify high-potential opportunities where
some targeted assistance can grow programs at scale.
* At this point in time, education efforts are underway in more than
60 countries globally
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education_Portal/Projects_and_Programs>.
As part of her work in creating an idea about the state of
educational efforts globally, Sophie has created pages on the
Outreach wiki *detailing the activities taking place in each
country*, and program leaders are encouraged to update the wiki with
additional activities.
United States/Canada Program
* We have shared initial results of *research on plagiarism*
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Education_Program/Rese…>
among student editors and other English Wikipedia editors. Results
show (with some caveats) that students plagiarize less than other
new editors, and slightly more than administrators and top article
editors on the English Wikipedia.
* Classes began at all universities for the Fall 2013 term. Professors
and Ambassadors have created *70 Course Pages
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Special:Courses>* on the Education
Program MediaWiki extension to document the activities students are
asked to do on-wiki. Already, more than 1,000 students have created
user accounts and enrolled themselves on course pages. Ambassadors
have introduced Wikipedia editing to students in classroom visits,
and nearly 50% of students enrolled this term have already completed
the student online orientation
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:WP:STUDENT>, a significant percentage
for this early in the term. A few Ambassadors and professors have
also facilitated workshops about teaching with Wikipedia.
* The *Wiki Education Foundation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Education_Foundation>*
completed steps to receive support for their grant from the GAC
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GAC> to transition the oversight
of the programmatic work in
the United States and Canada program from the Wikimedia Foundation
to the Wiki Education Foundation.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Education_Program_Sept13_Metrics_Me…>
Presentation slides about the Arab World Program
Arab World Program
* Arab World Education Program Manager Tighe Flanagan visited San
Francisco to work with colleagues on developing a *strategic plan
for the next term in the Arab World*. Classes were just getting
started toward the end of the month in Egypt and Jordan. Faris and
student volunteers led an Ambassador training workshop and did
outreach to new professors.
* Tighe and Arab World Education Program Consultant Faris El-Gwely
finished final *arrangements for an end of term celebration
conference in Cairo* (which had been scheduled for this summer but
delayed because of political unrest). Tighe will visit Cairo in
early October for this conference and to have meetings with program
participants.
* Tighe also made travel plans to attend the *WISE Summit in Doha*,
Qatar, at the end of October, and to travel to Saudi Arabia in
November to kick off the *Saudi edition* of the Wikipedia Education
Program.
Communications
* Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager LiAnna Davis
kicked off an *overhaul of the "Welcome to Wikipedia" brochure
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_(Bookshelf)/2013_e…>*.
Community members are encouraged to leave feedback on what they like
and don't like about the current version of the brochure, and offer
suggestions of things to include in the next edition.
* Blog posts:
o Wikipedia Education Program expands throughout Arab World
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/05/wikipedia-education-arab-world/>
(5 September)
o Why the student learning aspect matters in the Wikipedia
Education Program
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/10/student-learning-op-ed/>
(10 September)
o Nepal kicks off Wikipedia Education Program pilot
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/18/nepal-wikipedia-education-program-pilo…>
(18 September)
* Newsletters:
o 3 September 2013
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program/News/3_Sept…>
o 17 September 2013
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program/News/17_Sep…>
=== Program Evaluation and Design ===
* First Wikimedia *Evaluation Capacity Survey* completed in early
September. PE&D surveyed 114 program leaders from chapters,
affililates, and leading as individuals in the Wikimedia movement
about what they are, aren't, and wish to be evaluating regarding
programs. 61% completed the survey and early analysis of the results
show that a good amount of data is already being collected, with
room to grow. A blog reporting on this has been published and a more
detailed report of the results will be posted on meta.wiki later
this year. Blog post: "Survey shows strong culture of evaluation in
the Wikimedia movement, with room for growth
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/27/survey-strong-culture-of-evaluation-ro…>"
* The Program Evaluation and Development team started the first round
of *data-gathering among program leaders*. People responsible for
organizing and executing programs will submit self-evaluations for
their programmatic activities, covering September 2012–August 2013.
The results of this effort will help us with getting a first high
level view of the impact and efficiency of programmatic activities
across countries. A report will be produced and released by
mid-November.
* Released a new *evaluation of two edit-a-thons from 2012
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluations/WWHM>*. This
self-evaluation, developed
by PE&D Community Coordinator Sarah Stierch, features a replicable
template for edit-a-thon evaluations.
* PE&D teams up with Grantmaking's Learning & Evaluation team to
develop a *shared portal for evaluation resources
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal>*.
This portal is in the final
development stages, set to be launched Friday, October 4.
== Human Resources ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_2013_Staff_Photo.jpg>
2013 staff photo, taken during the All Hands meeting
The primary September activities for HR included ongoing support of
*three executive searches* (ED, VP of Engineering, Chief Communications
Officer), organizing and facilitating a *2-day AllHands* where all staff
come together to build alignment and teambuild, supporting Engineering's
two *tech days*, and hosting a *Bring Your Kids to Work Day*. HR also
hosted a leadership *roundtable for hiring managers* on hiring well for
the Wikimedia Foundation, and a course on *meditation*, as well as
another one on *stress busting*. We also conducted a *compensation
audit* with Finance, launched a *search for a new Manager of
Recruiting*, we have a *new recruiting intern*, and we've done more
back-end work on our *401k plan* for new fund selections and upgrades
for 12/1/2013.
=== Staff Changes ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:October_2013_HR_Metrics_meeting.pdf…>
Presentation slides
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia-October-Metrics-Meeting-P…>
Gayle Young presenting about HR matters at the October 3 metrics and
activities meeting
New Requisition Filled
* Kaity Hammerstein, Associate UX Designer (Engineering)
Conversions
* Aaron Halfaker, Research Analyst (Engineering)
* Anna Lantz, Administrative Assistant (Administration)
New Legal Interns
* Dashiel Renaud
* Jorge Vargas
New Contractors
* Daniel Garry (Engineering)
* Joel Krauska (Administration)
* Carlos Monterrey (Legal & Community Advocacy)
Contracts Extended
* Mark Bergsma (Engineering)
* Celio Costa (Grantmaking & Programs)
* Patrick Early (Engineering)
* Zeljko Filipin (Engineering)
* Pau Giner (Engineering)
* Erica Litrenta (Engineering)
* Antoine Musso (Engineering)
* Rebecca Neumann (Legal & Community Advocacy)
* Rodrigo Padula (Grantmaking & Programs)
* Keegan Peterzell (Engineering)
* Ken Snider (Engineering)
* Sherry Snyder (Engineering)
* Andrey Valkov (Fundraiser)
* Nick Wilson (Engineering)
Departure
* Asher Feldman
Contracts Ended
* Saumya Chopra
* Michael Ray
New Postings
* Software Engineer - Growth
* Software Engineer - Core Features
* QA Manual Tester for the VisualEditor (contract)
* Dev-Ops Engineer | SRE
* Software Engineer Data Analytics (Back End)
* Ops Engineer | Labs Contractor
=== Statistics ===
Total Requisitions Filled
September Actual: 152
September Total Plan: 174
September Filled: 3, Month Attrition: 1
YTD Filled: 15, YTD Attrition: 8
Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end
41
=== Department Updates ===
Real-time feed for HR updates
http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
== Finance and Administration ==
* FrontierMEDEX services are available to all *travelers* who are
traveling on WMF or Community business and have their travel booked
via the Wikimedia Foundation or its designated agency. This applies
to staff, contractors, volunteers and scholarship recipients.
* A "Duty of Care" protocol is now in place at the Wikimedia
Foundation. Any travel that has been booked via the Wikimedia
Foundation or it designated agency will be reviewed for *travel to
high risk areas*. If travel to a high risk area is reported, the
Travel Office of the Wikimedia Foundation will make sure that the
traveler is informed of the risk of travel to their destination and
will work with them to have a safe journey.
* The grants compliance team has completed all *OFAC
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFAC> SDN and other review* of all
applicants who submitted a "Letter of Intent" for the FDC process.
All applicants passed this screening.
* The *Wikimedia Foundation Audit* is complete. The audit report and
the corresponding FAQ will be published by the end of October.
== Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications Department ==
=== LCA Report, September 2013 ===
* LCA announced
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/03/wikimedia-privacy-policy-community-inp…>
the launch of the 4.5 month-long community consultation and feedback
period <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy>]
(scheduled to conclude on 15
January 2014) for the new *privacy policy draft
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy>*. Feedback and
discussion has been very
fruitful thus far and have already helped improve the draft. We look
forward to seeing where the discussion goes in the coming months.
==== Contract Metrics ====
* Submitted : 29
* Completed : 34
==== Trademark Metrics ====
* Submitted : 12
* Approved : 3
* Pending : 9
==== Domains Obtained ====
* 3ikipedia.org
==== Coming & Going ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Legal_interns,_fall_2013.…>
The fall 2013 legal interns, together with Rory, the legal mascot
We are happy to welcome two new *legal interns* joining us for the fall
semester - Dashiell Renaud joins us as a recent graduate from Vanderbilt
Law; and Jorge Vargas joins as a practicing trademark attorney from
Baker McKenzie’s Bogota, Colombia office and recent graduate from
Universidad de Los Andes. We say farewell to one of our summer interns,
Lukas Mezger, as he returns to Germany. We wish him all the best!
==== Other Activities ====
* In addition to the ongoing community discussion on trademarks
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Trademark_practices_discussion>,
LCA launched a request
for consultation on *protection for the community logo*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Logo>. We invite
community members to provide their
input in this discussion.
* LCA worked on reaching an *agreement with Airtel* to offer mobile
users in Kenya free access to Wikipedia.
* LCA is continuing to coordinate on the *VisualEditor rollout* and is
working with engineering to help with challenges in communicating
change to a widespread, multinational community.
* Lukas Mezger prepared a *blog post about the legal department’s
internship program
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/16/wikimedia-legal-intern-program/>*.
The blog post was translated from English into three languages
(German, French, and Spanish).
* LCA published a blog post announcing
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/05/wikivoyage-has-a-new-logo/>
the results of August’s *Wikivoyage logo contest
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikivoyage/Logo_2013>*.
==== Wikilegal posts ====
* Copyright threshold of originality for logos
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Copyright_threshold_of_originalit…>]
* Case summary on UMG Recordings v. Escape Media Group
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/UMG_Recordings_v._Escape_Media_Gr…>
=== Communications Report, September 2013 ===
*Special thanks to outgoing Senior Director of Communications, Jay
Walsh.* After nearly 6 years at the Wikimedia Foundation, Jay Walsh
announced that he was transitioning away from the organization in a
full-time capacity. He will continue with two projects through the end
of the year, but his departure marks a significant change for the
Communications team and the Foundation as a whole.
At a send-off event, Executive Director Sue Gardner gave a heartfelt
speech about Jay’s impact on the Wikimedia Foundation as it has grown
from a budding non-profit with fewer than 10 staff in St. Petersburg,
Florida, to the significant organization it is today. According to Sue,
when Jay began working in early 2008, the organization wasn’t nearly as
robust as it is currently, and every little press and media concern
seemed capable of derailing its growth. She complimented Jay for his
excellent judgment and his calm in navigating the most challenging media
scenarios. She credited him with keeping the organization focused on the
importance of its mission, while building capacity for managing an
international media ecosystem with the many Wikimedians around the world
entrusted with communicating our story to the public.
Over the next few months, the Foundation’s leadership team will conduct
an international search for the new Chief Communications Officer. In the
meantime, we’d like to express our thanks for all of Jay’s hard work. He
will be missed.
==== Major announcements ====
There were no Wikimedia Foundation press releases or significant
announcements in September.
==== Major Storylines through September ====
HTTPS by default for editors (late August, early September)
The Wikimedia Foundation has enabled HTTPS default browsing for nearly
all Wikimedia project editors. Notable exceptions include readers from
some countries that routinely block HTTPS. WMF Deputy Director Erik
Moller shared some thoughts on the rationale for not having HTTPS
default for all editors: "If we accommodate [China]'s or Iran's
censorship practices, we are complicit in their attempts to monitor and
control their citizenry. If a privileged user's credentials (e.g.
Checkuser) are misused by the government through monitoring of
unencrypted traffic, for example, this is an action that would not have
been possible without our exemption. This could potentially expose even
users not in the affected country to risks."
The Next Web - Wikimedia begins testing encrypted HTTPS browsing by
default for all internet users
<http://thenextweb.com/media/2013/09/11/wikimedia-begins-testing-encrypted-h…>
TechDirt - Should Wikipedia Force All Users to Use HTTPS?
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130906/11013724432/should-wikipedia-forc…>
The Next Web - Wikimedia Begins Testing Encrypted HTTPS Browsing by
Default for All Internet Users
<http://thenextweb.com/media/2013/09/11/wikimedia-begins-testing-encrypted-h…>
Chelsea Manning (end of August, early September)
Wikipedia editors move the Bradley Manning article to “Chelsea Manning”
and change use of pronouns to feminine after she declares she identifies
as a woman, which resulted in great praise in the press. After an RfC
and heated debate, article is moved back to Bradley Manning, though
feminine pronouns remain, which resulted in lots of condemnation in the
press. In the debate, many people accuse Wikipedia editors of being
insensitive to transgender issues.
Slate - Wikipedia Beats Major News Organizations, Perfectly Reflects
Chelsea Manning's New Gender
<http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/22/chelsea_manning_wikipedi…>
The New Statesman - Chelsea Manning gets put back in the closet by
Wikipedia
<http://www.newstatesman.com/alex-hern/2013/09/chelsea-manning-gets-put-back…>
Sue Gardner - How Wikipedia got it wrong on Chelsea Manning and why
<http://suegardner.org/2013/09/04/how-wikipedia-got-it-wrong-on-chelsea-mann…>
Konkani Wikipedia (early and late September)
Goa University worked with The Center for Internet and Society in India
and Wikimedia India to license the Konkani vishwakosh (or encyclopedia)
under Creative Commons. The Konkani encyclopedia is planned to be the
basis for the Konkani language Wikipedia, which will be developed over
the next 6 months. The university also hosted a workshop over several
days where roughly 40 people created new articles in Konkani Wikipedia.
DNA - Konkani Wikipedia climbing up the Indian language ladder
<http://www.dnaindia.com/blogs/1885294/post-konkani-wikipedia-climbing-up-th…>
Times of India - Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months
<http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-09-27/news/42459037_1_goa-…>
The Hindu - Konkani Wikipedia in the making
<http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/konkani-wikipedia-in-the-making/…>
The Navhind Times - Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani
encyclopedia on Wikipedia
<http://www.navhindtimes.in/goa-news/goa-university-announces-plan-upload-ko…>
South Africa “Wordathon” (mid to late September)
Academics from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa organized
an event with journalists from Lead SA to create and edit content on
Wikipedia in an attempt to expand and improve the content about South
Africa on the online encyclopedia.
University of the Witwatersrand - Adding to SA's digital footprint
<http://www.wits.ac.za/newsroom/newsitems/201309/21467/news_item_21467.html>
Lead SA - Lead SA hosts Wikipedia Wordathon
<http://leadsa.co.za/?p=15320>
Daily Maverick - Wikipedia: The Empire writes back
<http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-09-20-wikipedia-the-empire-writ…>
IT Web - Lead SA boosts SA's digital footprint
<http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67542:L…>
==== Other worthwhile reads ====
Meet a 74-year-old Wikipedia wiz
<http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/morning_roundup/2013/09/meet-a-74-y…>
| Philadelphia Business Journal | September 5
DC lawyer pursues suit to unmask authors who changed her Wikipedia page
<http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/dc_lawyer_pursues_suit_to_unmask_aut…>
| ABA Journal | September 16
Editing Wikipedia Pages for Med School Credit
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/business/media/editing-wikipedia-pages-fo…>
| New York Times | September 29
==== WMF Blog posts ====
Blog.wikimedia.org ran 20 posts in September 2013.
<https://https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/> Six posts were
multilingual <https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/>,
including Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Nepali, and
Spanish. Some highlights:
* *Your privacy, your policy - a call for Wikimedia community input
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/03/wikimedia-privacy-policy-community-in…>
| September 3, 2013*
* *Wikipedia Education Program expands throughout Arab World
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/05/wikipedia-education-arab-world/>
| September 5, 2013*
* *Wikivoyage has a new logo
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/05/wikivoyage-has-a-new-logo/> |
September 5, 2013*
* *VipsScaler implementation by volunteer developer improves image
handling on Wikimedia sites
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/09/12/vipsscaler-implementation-wikimedia-s…>
| September 12, 2013*
==== Media Contact ====
Media contact through September 2013: wmf:Press room/Media
Contact#September 2013
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#September_2013>
==== Wikipedia Signpost ====
For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the
community-edited newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” for September 2013:
* Volume 9, Issue 35
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-09…>,
4 September 2013
* Volume 9, Issue 36
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-09…>,
11 September 2013
* Volume 9, Issue 37
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-09…>,
18 September 2013
* Volume 9, Issue 38
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-09…>,
25 September 2013
== Visitors and Guests ==
Visitors and guests to the WMF office in September 2013:
1. Nancy Rose (KPMG)
2. Robert Brownstone (Fenwick & West)
3. Michael S. (Grupo Vida)
4. Rick Gerard (Stride Search)
5. RJ Dawson (Stride Search)
6. Dave Sherman (The Energy Collaborative)
7. Nigel Thomas (InkTank)
8. Neil Levine (InkTank)
9. Jason Asbahr (Monstrous)
10. Kelly Smith (Travel and Transport)
11. Saad Saleem (United Layer)
12. Julie Simpson (TCC Group)
13. Gerardo Capiel (Benetech)
14. Volker Sorge (U of Birmingham)
15. Rebecca Konker (JP Morgan)
16. Dana Ledyard (Girls Who Code)
17. Lisa Groover (Accounting Principles)
18. Brendan Corrigan (JP Morgan)
19. Ana Akhtar (KPMG)
20. Valerie Ball (KPMG)
21. Ning Wang (Alipay)
22. Jeffrey Zlotnik (The Meditation Initiative)
23. Kassie Wilner (Chaloner)
24. Tom Callahan (Vantage Partners)
25. Julie Locke (Vantage Partners)
26. Ramon Yvarra (CyberAntics) (ChickTech Social attendant)
27. Mayte Garcia-Salgado (ChickTech Social attendant)
28. Angelica Tavella (ChickTech Social attendant)
29. Janice Levenhagen (ChickTech)
30. Dani Gellis (ChickTech Social attendant)
31. Steven Lau (Law Office of Steve Lau) (ChickTech Social attendant)
32. Kevin Gorman (ChickTech Social attendant)
33. Evelyn Hammid (ChickTech Social attendant)
34. Kristen Duvall (Applifier) (ChickTech Social attendant)
35. Jen Laloup (PLOS) (ChickTech Social attendant)
36. Jen Davidson (ChickTech)
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
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