This paper (first reference) is the result of a class project I was part of
almost two years ago for CSCI 5417 Information Retrieval Systems. It builds
on a class project I did in CSCI 5832 Natural Language Processing and which
I presented at Wikimania '07. The project was very late as we didn't send
the final paper in until the day before new years. This technical report was
never really announced that I recall so I thought it would be interesting to
look briefly at the results. The goal of this paper was to break articles
down into surface features and latent features and then use those to study
the rating system being used, predict article quality and rank results in a
search engine. We used the [[random forests]] classifier which allowed us to
analyze the contribution of each feature to performance by looking directly
at the weights that were assigned. While the surface analysis was performed
on the whole english wikipedia, the latent analysis was performed on the
simple english wikipedia (it is more expensive to compute). = Surface
features = * Readability measures are the single best predictor of quality
that I have found, as defined by the Wikipedia Editorial Team (WET). The
[[Automated Readability Index]], [[Gunning Fog Index]] and [[Flesch-Kincaid
Grade Level]] were the strongest predictors, followed by length of article
html, number of paragraphs, [[Flesh Reading Ease]], [[Smog Grading]], number
of internal links, [[Laesbarhedsindex Readability Formula]], number of words
and number of references. Weakly predictive were number of to be's, number
of sentences, [[Coleman-Liau Index]], number of templates, PageRank, number
of external links, number of relative links. Not predictive (overall - see
the end of section 2 for the per-rating score breakdown): Number of h2 or
h3's, number of conjunctions, number of images*, average word length, number
of h4's, number of prepositions, number of pronouns, number of interlanguage
links, average syllables per word, number of nominalizations, article age
(based on page id), proportion of questions, average sentence length. :*
Number of images was actually by far the single strongest predictor of any
class, but only for Featured articles. Because it was so good at picking out
featured articles and somewhat good at picking out A and G articles the
classifier was confused in so many cases that the overall contribution of
this feature to classification performance is zero. :* Number of external
links is strongly predictive of Featured articles. :* The B class is highly
distinctive. It has a strong "signature," with high predictive value
assigned to many features. The Featured class is also very distinctive. F, B
and S (Stop/Stub) contain the most information.
:* A is the least distinct class, not being very different from F or G. =
Latent features = The algorithm used for latent analysis, which is an
analysis of the occurence of words in every document with respect to the
link structure of the encyclopedia ("concepts"), is [[Latent Dirichlet
Allocation]]. This part of the analysis was done by CS PhD student Praful
Mangalath. An example of what can be done with the result of this analysis
is that you provide a word (a search query) such as "hippie". You can then
look at the weight of every article for the word hippie. You can pick the
article with the largest weight, and then look at its link network. You can
pick out the articles that this article links to and/or which link to this
article that are also weighted strongly for the word hippie, while also
contributing maximally to this articles "hippieness". We tried this query in
our system (LDA), Google (site:en.wikipedia.org hippie), and the Simple
English Wikipedia's Lucene search engine. The breakdown of articles occuring
in the top ten search results for this word for those engines is: * LDA
only: [[Acid rock]], [[Aldeburgh Festival]], [[Anne Murray]], [[Carl
Radle]], [[Harry Nilsson]], [[Jack Kerouac]], [[Phil Spector]], [[Plastic
Ono Band]], [[Rock and Roll]], [[Salvador Allende]], [[Smothers brothers]],
[[Stanley Kubrick]]. * Google only: [[Glam Rock]], [[South Park]]. * Simple
only: [[African Americans]], [[Charles Manson]], [[Counterculture]], [[Drug
use]], [[Flower Power]], [[Nuclear weapons]], [[Phish]], [[Sexual
liberation]], [[Summer of Love]] * LDA & Google & Simple: [[Hippie]],
[[Human Be-in]], [[Students for a democratic society]], [[Woodstock
festival]] * LDA & Google: [[Psychedelic Pop]] * Google & Simple: [[Lysergic
acid diethylamide]], [[Summer of Love]] ( See the paper for the articles
produced for the keywords philosophy and economics ) = Discussion /
Conclusion = * The results of the latent analysis are totally up to your
perception. But what is interesting is that the LDA features predict the WET
ratings of quality just as well as the surface level features. Both feature
sets (surface and latent) both pull out all almost of the information that
the rating system bears. * The rating system devised by the WET is not
distinctive. You can best tell the difference between, grouped together,
Featured, A and Good articles vs B articles. Featured, A and Good articles
are also quite distinctive (Figure 1). Note that in this study we didn't
look at Start's and Stubs, but in earlier paper we did. :* This is
interesting when compared to this recent entry on the YouTube blog. "Five
Stars Dominate Ratings"
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html…
I think a sane, well researched (with actual subjects) rating system
is
well within the purview of the Usability Initiative. Helping people find and
create good content is what Wikipedia is all about. Having a solid rating
system allows you to reorganized the user interface, the Wikipedia
namespace, and the main namespace around good content and bad content as
needed. If you don't have a solid, information bearing rating system you
don't know what good content really is (really bad content is easy to spot).
:* My Wikimania talk was all about gathering data from people about articles
and using that to train machines to automatically pick out good content. You
ask people questions along dimensions that make sense to people, and give
the machine access to other surface features (such as a statistical measure
of readability, or length) and latent features (such as can be derived from
document word occurence and encyclopedia link structure). I referenced page
262 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to give an example of the
kind of qualitative features I would ask people. It really depends on what
features end up bearing information, to be tested in "the lab". Each word is
an example dimension of quality: We have "*unity, vividness, authority,
economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance,
precision, proportion, depth and so on.*" You then use surface and latent
features to predict these values for all articles. You can also say, when a
person rates this article as high on the x scale, they also mean that it has
has this much of these surface and these latent features.
= References =
- DeHoust, C., Mangalath, P., Mingus., B. (2008). *Improving search in
Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery*. Technical Report.
PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/6/68/DeHoustMangalat…>
- Rassbach, L., Mingus., B, Blackford, T. (2007). *Exploring the
feasibility of automatically rating online article quality*. Technical
Report. PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/d/d3/RassbachPincock…>
Hoi,
I have asked and received permission to forward to you all this most
excellent bit of news.
The linguist list, is a most excellent resource for people interested in the
field of linguistics. As I mentioned some time ago they have had a funding
drive and in that funding drive they asked for a certain amount of money in
a given amount of days and they would then have a project on Wikipedia to
learn what needs doing to get better coverage for the field of linguistics.
What you will read in this mail that the total community of linguists are
asked to cooperate. I am really thrilled as it will also get us more
linguists interested in what we do. My hope is that a fraction will be
interested in the languages that they care for and help it become more
relevant. As a member of the "language prevention committee", I love to get
more knowledgeable people involved in our smaller projects. If it means that
we get more requests for more projects we will really feel embarrassed with
all the new projects we will have to approve because of the quality of the
Incubator content and the quality of the linguistic arguments why we should
approve yet another language :)
NB Is this not a really clever way of raising money; give us this much in
this time frame and we will then do this as a bonus...
Thanks,
GerardM
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: LINGUIST Network <linguist(a)linguistlist.org>
Date: Jun 18, 2007 6:53 PM
Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
To: LINGUIST(a)listserv.linguistlist.org
LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831. Mon Jun 18 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.
Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar(a)linguistlist.org>
Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry(a)linguistlist.org>
Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project
<reviews(a)linguistlist.org>
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/
The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University,
and donations from subscribers and publishers.
Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyer(a)linguistlist.org>
================================================================
To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html
===========================Directory==============================
1)
Date: 18-Jun-2007
From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org >
Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:49:35
From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org >
Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers
Dear subscribers,
As you may recall, one of our Fund Drive 2007 campaigns was called the
"Wikipedia Update Vote." We asked our viewers to consider earmarking their
donations to organize an update project on linguistics entries in the
English-language Wikipedia. You can find more background information on this
at:
http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/wikipedia/index.cfm.
The speed with which we met our goal, thanks to the interest and generosity
of
our readers, was a sure sign that the linguistics community was enthusiastic
about the idea. Now that summer is upon us, and some of you may have a bit
more
leisure time, we are hoping that you will be able to help us get started on
the
Wikipedia project. The LINGUIST List's role in this project is a purely
organizational one. We will:
*Help, with your input, to identify major gaps in the Wikipedia materials or
pages that need improvement;
*Compile a list of linguistics pages that Wikipedia editors have identified
as
"in need of attention from an expert on the subject" or " does not cite any
references or sources," etc;
*Send out periodical calls for volunteer contributors on specific topics or
articles;
*Provide simple instructions on how to upload your entries into Wikipedia;
*Keep track of our project Wikipedians;
*Keep track of revisions and new entries;
*Work with Wikimedia Foundation to publicize the linguistics community's
efforts.
We hope you are as enthusiastic about this effort as we are. Just to help us
all
get started looking at Wikipedia more critically, and to easily identify an
area
needing improvement, we suggest that you take a look at the List of
Linguists
page at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguists. M
Many people are not listed there; others need to have more facts and
information
added. If you would like to participate in this exciting update effort,
please
respond by sending an email to LINGUIST Editor Hannah Morales at
hannah(a)linguistlist.org, suggesting what your role might be or which
linguistics
entries you feel should be updated or added. Some linguists who saw our
campaign
on the Internet have already written us with specific suggestions, which we
will
share with you soon.
This update project will take major time and effort on all our parts. The
end
result will be a much richer internet resource of information on the breadth
and
depth of the field of linguistics. Our efforts should also stimulate
prospective
students to consider studying linguistics and to educate a wider public on
what
we do. Please consider participating.
Sincerely,
Hannah Morales
Editor, Wikipedia Update Project
Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable
-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831
Hi folks,
to increase accountability and create more opportunities for course
corrections and resourcing adjustments as necessary, Sue's asked me
and Howie Fung to set up a quarterly project evaluation process,
starting with our highest priority initiatives. These are, according
to Sue's narrowing focus recommendations which were approved by the
Board [1]:
- Visual Editor
- Mobile (mobile contributions + Wikipedia Zero)
- Editor Engagement (also known as the E2 and E3 teams)
- Funds Dissemination Committe and expanded grant-making capacity
I'm proposing the following initial schedule:
January:
- Editor Engagement Experiments
February:
- Visual Editor
- Mobile (Contribs + Zero)
March:
- Editor Engagement Features (Echo, Flow projects)
- Funds Dissemination Committee
We’ll try doing this on the same day or adjacent to the monthly
metrics meetings [2], since the team(s) will give a presentation on
their recent progress, which will help set some context that would
otherwise need to be covered in the quarterly review itself. This will
also create open opportunities for feedback and questions.
My goal is to do this in a manner where even though the quarterly
review meetings themselves are internal, the outcomes are captured as
meeting minutes and shared publicly, which is why I'm starting this
discussion on a public list as well. I've created a wiki page here
which we can use to discuss the concept further:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…
The internal review will, at minimum, include:
Sue Gardner
myself
Howie Fung
Team members and relevant director(s)
Designated minute-taker
So for example, for Visual Editor, the review team would be the Visual
Editor / Parsoid teams, Sue, me, Howie, Terry, and a minute-taker.
I imagine the structure of the review roughly as follows, with a
duration of about 2 1/2 hours divided into 25-30 minute blocks:
- Brief team intro and recap of team's activities through the quarter,
compared with goals
- Drill into goals and targets: Did we achieve what we said we would?
- Review of challenges, blockers and successes
- Discussion of proposed changes (e.g. resourcing, targets) and other
action items
- Buffer time, debriefing
Once again, the primary purpose of these reviews is to create improved
structures for internal accountability, escalation points in cases
where serious changes are necessary, and transparency to the world.
In addition to these priority initiatives, my recommendation would be
to conduct quarterly reviews for any activity that requires more than
a set amount of resources (people/dollars). These additional reviews
may however be conducted in a more lightweight manner and internally
to the departments. We’re slowly getting into that habit in
engineering.
As we pilot this process, the format of the high priority reviews can
help inform and support reviews across the organization.
Feedback and questions are appreciated.
All best,
Erik
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Narrowing_Focus
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM
Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
To: Staff All <wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi folks,
consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking &
talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people
about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product
department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take
seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view
that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept
and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I
want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below
is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan,
I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to
anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting
tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can
also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to
wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in
this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering
and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more
conversations at that level about the work that most of the
organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is
represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an
engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in
managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform
issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that
are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams --
we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.),
and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly
autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two
functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications
breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would
outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the
negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities
and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as
a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start
that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue
that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of
Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in
place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of
the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new
world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role,
so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the
search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the
kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions.
Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes
sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and
User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated
Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes
a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working
closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as
follows:
* VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
* VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new
leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize
here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I
believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build
this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past
experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering
operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned
issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of
thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening
questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in
coming weeks.
All best,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hello!
I have started a proposal for a new wiki project: WikiLang (meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiLang). It is about endangered languages and language documentation/decipherment. It is a very important step in order to save our linguistic diversity which is ongoing faster than the extinction of animals. Most of our languages are highly endangered and there are pessimistic estimations that by 2100 90% of them will be extinct. So, please support the project and vote for it and/or give your feedback! (I for myself belong to a language minority and I can tell how important this is.) Thanks a lot!
Kevin
Hi,
Last November, I started to clean up on the Glossary page on meta, as
an attempt to revive it and expand it to include many technical terms,
notably related to Wikimedia Engineering (see e-mail below).
There were (and are) already many glossaries spread around the wikis:
* one for MediaWiki: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Glossary
* one for Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Glossary
* one for Labs: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Terminology
* two for the English Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Glossary &
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiSpeak
* etc.
My thinking at the time was that it would be better to include tech
terms in meta's glossary, because fragmentation isn't a good thing for
glossaries: The user probably doesn't want to search a term through a
dozen glossaries (that they know of), and it would be easier if they
could just search in one place.
The fact is, though, that we're not going to merge all the existing
glossaries into one anytime soon, so overlap and duplication will
remain anyway. Also, it feels weird to have tech content on meta, and
the glossary is getting very long (and possibly more difficult to
maintain). Therefore, I'm now reconsidering the decision of mixing
tech terms and general movement terms on meta.
Below are the current solutions I'm seeing to move forward; I'd love
to get some feedback as to what people think would be the best way to
proceed.
* Status quo: We keep the current glossaries as they are, even if they
overlap and duplicate work. We'll manage.
* Wikidata: If Wikidata could be used to host terms and definitions
(in various languages), and wikis could pull this data using
templates/Lua, it would be a sane way to reduce duplication, while
still allowing local wikis to complement it with their own terms. For
example, "administrator" is a generic term across Wikimedia sites
(even MediaWiki sites), so it would go into the general glossary
repository on Wikidata; but "DYK" could be local to the English
Wikipedia. With proper templates, the integration between remote and
local terms could be seamless. It seems to me, however, that this
would require significant development work.
* Google custom search: Waldir recently used Google Custom Search to
created a search tool to find technical information across many pages
and sites where information is currently fragmented:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-March/067450.html
. We could set up a similar tool (or a floss alternative) that would
include all glossaries. By advertising the tool prominently on
existing glossary pages (so that users know it exists), this could
allow us to curate more specific glossaries, while keeping them all
searchable with one tool.
Right now, I'm inclined to go with the "custom search" solution,
because it looks like the easiest and fastest to implement, while
reducing maintenance costs and remaining flexible. That said, I'd love
to hear feedback and opinions about this before implementing anything.
Thanks,
guillaume
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 7:55 PM, Guillaume Paumier
<gpaumier(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The use of jargon, acronyms and other abbreviations throughout the
> Wikimedia movement is a major source of communication issues, and
> barriers to comprehension and involvement.
>
> The recent thread on this list about "What is Product?" is an example
> of this, as are initialisms that have long been known to be a barrier
> for Wikipedia newcomers.
>
> A way to bridge people and communities with different vocabularies is
> to write and maintain a glossary that explains jargon in plain English
> terms. We've been lacking a good and up-to-date glossary for Wikimedia
> "stuff" (Foundation, chapter, movement, technology, etc.).
>
> Therefore, I've started to clean up and expand the outdated Glossary
> on meta, but it's a lot of work, and I don't have all the answers
> myself either. I'll continue to work on it, but I'd love to get some
> help on this and to make it a collaborative effort.
>
> If you have a few minutes to spare, please consider helping your
> (current and future) fellow Wikimedians by writing a few definitions
> if there are terms that you can explain in plain English. Additions of
> new terms are much welcome as well:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Glossary
>
> Some caveats:
> * As part of my work, I'm mostly interested in a glossary from a
> technical perspective, so the list currently has a technical bias. I'm
> hoping that by sending this message to a wider audience, people from
> the whole movement will contribute to the glossary and balance it out.
> * Also, I've started to clean up the glossary, but it still contains
> dated terms and definitions from a few years ago (like the FundCom),
> so boldly edit/remove obsolete content.
--
Guillaume Paumier
Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation
https://donate.wikimedia.org
> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 07:31:59 +0800
> From: Josh Lim <jamesjoshualim(a)yahoo.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Are chapters part of the community and
> board seats for affiliates?
> Message-ID: <56A3C552-D6ED-47BA-8EA2-E56F9A1B833B(a)yahoo.com>
>
> On Feb 23, 2013, at 4:27 AM, Fae <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The vast majority of volunteers like the idea that there is a Chapter
>> they can turn to to ask for help, or to get their idea for a project
>> reviewed, funded and looking "official". If a volunteer came to a
>> wikimeet with a brilliant idea for a project, but said they could not
>> stand the stupid bureaucracy of chapters, I'd say "excellent mate, you
>> go for it and I'll see what I can do to help with funding if you need
>> it."
>
> I'm inclined to believe that bureaucracy exists despite, not because of, chapters. As it is, volunteers, especially those from the Global South, can be classified into two types:
>
> 1. They're "detached": they're part of the community, but they don't know about the support options open to them
> 2. They're so involved in the community, they could care less about the "bureaucracy" (in my university, this is called "going down the hill", as my university is on a hill)
>
> Chapters aside, I'm in fact curious to know how many volunteers do know about the Foundation's grants system, or the research program, or heck, Wikimedia User Groups or Wikimania scholarships. Granted, it's a good thing that volunteers have options open for them whether or not they want to deal with the bureaucracy, but it's all for nought if they're left unaware of those options.
>
> Josh
>
> JAMES JOSHUA G. LIM
I just wanted to follow up on this and reinforce Josh Lim's point.
Yesterday, I spent several hours chatting with volunteers, seasoned and
new, at the Wikipedia Day that the New York City chapter put together:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Wikipedia_Day (thank
you, volunteers of New York City!). I was dismayed at how few people
knew about the Participation Support subsidies that they could apply for
to help them do outreach (more on that & related opportunities at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start ).
In my role helping MediaWiki sysadmins and developers, I often ask
whether they've heard of our conferences, our paid internships, our
online events, and so on. More and more of the undergraduate students
have heard of Google Summer of Code
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2013 , but graduate
students often don't know that they're eligible, and students in North
America and Europe often haven't heard of it.
I don't know the answer. Like Josh, I don't know how well our publicity
about these things is penetrating our volunteer communities, and I don't
know what level of penetration I would be satisfied with. I suspect
that others have better answers regarding what we've tried, what works,
and what we're doing next, and I'd love to hear them.
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi Asaf, WSC made several points here that address your question and that are very similar to my own views. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-March/124824.html
After re-reading my email to Jessie and looking again at some of the recent WMF Monthly Reports, I think I may be making some assumptions about how Programs and Evaluations works that may be incorrect. Jessie, would you be willing to have an IRC office hour? I think that might address my questions and concerns faster than a prolonged email discussion on this list, although it has the disadvantage that fewer people are able to participate. Please email me off-list if you're willing to set up a time when we're both available.
Thanks, and happy Easter.
Pine
Dear all,
The next WMF metrics and activities will take place on Thursday, April
4, 2013 at 6:00 PM UTC (11 AM PDT). The IRC channel is
#wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net and the meeting will be
broadcast as a live YouTube stream.
The current structure of the meeting is:
* Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also
specialized reports and analytics* Review of financials* Welcoming
recent hires* Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on
highest priority initiatives* Update and Q&A with the Executive
Director, if available
Please review https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings
for further information about how to participate.
We'll post IRC logs and the video recording publicly after the meeting.
Thank you, Praveena
--
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering and Product Development
+1 (415) 839 6885 ext. 6689
www.wikimedia.org
Dear WCA and friends,
we have found a date for our next call. It will be on
Friday, 29th of March @ 2 pm UTC
You can find the details including the agenda and dial-in instructions here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013…
Please add to the agenda, it's not closed yet. Unfortunately, I cannot
post the phone room number publicly. So please feel free to contact me
if you want to join in or if you have any other questions. Meeting
minutes will be taken in real time on Etherpad:
http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/WCA
Hope to hear and read you on Friday,
Markus
--
Markus Glaser
WCA Council Member (WMDE)
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.