tl;dr Issues like copyright are crucial for us. So let’s join forces
in Brussels to make a difference. All we need is a bunch of smart
people.
Dear fellow Wikimedians,
it’s been quite some time since we have talked on various occasions
about the need for the European Wikimedia chapters to join their
forces in the political arena. Regarding the threats for Free
Knowledge which derive from harmful legislation, it just might be the
right moment to reassess our current practices and take a huge step
forward, as a loose combination of chapter representatives and
volunteers.
An according EU policy project is already being prepared. User:Dimi z
[1], a Wikimedian currently based in Brussels, versed and active in
political affairs, did the hard job to gather the required amount of
information to finally get started. He created a document on Meta [2]
which might serve as a starting point to exchange and develop ideas.
== What’s at stake? ==
Concerning European regulations, we have to develop a clear and
unified position on major legislative and political changes affecting
our mission, which is to create a better environment for Free
Knowledge. Building upon the tremendous efforts of Brussels-based NGOs
like EDRI [3] and La Quadrature Du Net [4], we should take the job to
speak for the Wikimedia movement and its particular role in, let’s
say, the ongoing Copyright Wars.
To build a sustainable model for advocacy it is necessary to
* monitor EU policy proceedings and initiatives
* comprehensively inform the participating chapters and communities
about EU dossiers
* initiate discussions about what is desirable or might be risky for Wikimedia
* take action where necessary
* reach out to like-minded projects and communities
== OK, point taken. But HOW shall we do this? ==
Firstly, we are dedicated to a culture of sharing and a significant
level of transparency. So we need to work in Brussels in accordance to
our principles which differ remarkably from the “black box” approach
usually applied by industry representatives.
Secondly, we are searching for an organizational basis that follows
our capacities. So let’s come up with a smart, inclusive structure
that ensures easy access and leaves enough space for latecomers or
people that engage only occasionally.
Thirdly, we need someone on site. Since we have to give established
institutions and public officials a face, a name, and a direct way to
contact us, a specific contact person in Brussels would be more than
useful. S/he needs to know everything about the drafting process of
relevant directives and regulations, find access to political parties
and hangs out in the preferred bars of staff members working for
Neelie Kroes, Michael Barnier or Androulla Vassiliou.
== In a nutshell: Imagine a working group, which ==
* does lobbying - but in full disclosure, on the open stage
* seeks strategic alliances, but not only with affiliated organizations
* partly consists of full-time-employees, but heavily relies on
volunteer-engagement
== Interested in being a part of it? ==
Let’s get started and talk about this challenge! Your input and ideas
on the aforementioned Meta page are highly appreciated. To discuss the
working methods of an EU Policy Group and develop a project plan
together, we suggest to meet face-to-face in Brussels for one day and
a half. Wikimedia Deutschland would be happy to organize this
kick-off-gathering in March/April. We’d like to ask interested
Wikimedians to join us there. Please use the doodle below to identify
the most suitable date:
http://doodle.com/ntiz6gup7z49e7p5
(Please choose either a friday/saturday or saturday/sunday option.)
Looking forward to seeing you all in Brussels,
Jan Engelmann
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dimi_z
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_Policy
[3] http://www.edri.org/
[4] http://www.laquadrature.net/
--
Jan Engelmann
Leiter Politik & Gesellschaft
-------------------------------------
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Obentrautstr. 72
10963 Berlin
Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0
www.wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
**** Helfen Sie mit, dass WIKIPEDIA von der UNESCO als erstes
digitales Weltkulturerbe anerkannt wird. Unterzeichnen Sie die
Online-Petition! http://wikipedia.de ****
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
Good example.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barbara Dieu <beeonline(a)gmail.com>
Date: 2013/3/27
Subject: [REA] Crisis of conscience
To: rea-lista(a)googlegroups.com
Entire library journal editorial board resigns, citing 'crisis of
conscience' after death of Aaron Swartz
In a dramatic show of support for the open access movement, the
editor-in-chief and entire editorial board of the Journal of Library
Administration announced their resignation last week. In a letter to
contributors, the board singled out a conflict with owners over the
journal's licensing terms, which stripped authors of almost all claim
to ownership of their work.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/26/4149752/library-journal-resigns-for-open-…
Um abc
B.
--
Barbara Dieu
http://barbaradieu.comhttp://beespace.net
Hi,
I've just seen an OTRS ticket asking why isn't Wikipedia giving its
pages for "adoption" (like when you adopt a page and your name ends up
on its cage or something like that). I've moved the ticket to the
donations queue, but I was wondering if this has ever been
discussed/considered before.
Thanks,
Strainu
I see several issues/concerns re sponsoring pages.
Firstly it is a form of advertising, even if we don't name the sponsor on
the page (and there will be pressure to do so) then we will have headlines
along the lines of car maker x launches new "peregrine" car - sponsors
Wikipedia page on Peregine Falcon. A large enough part of the community
don't want to accept advertising, such a large part that any advertising
however disguised as "sponsorship" is going to be more trouble than its
worth.
Secondly there is the argument that sponsorship could help by funding the
buying of sources. We already have microgrants available to help here, why
do we also need sponsorship?
Thirdly there is the vexed issue of paid editing, here the important thing
is to avoid COI. At Wikimania in Gdansk Google's charity arm presented a
relatively uncontentious program they had run to translate medical articles
from English into various South Asian languages.
Fourthly you can expect news stories along the lines of "travel company Y
stops sponsoring Wikipedia articles on resorts X and Z, starts sponsoring
articles on resorts A and B as it moves out of Country Q and expands offer
in Country C".
My concern if you approach these via sponsorship is that you then have to
have a whole new bureaucracy around who is an acceptable sponsor, and
whoever seeks to control that has an impossible task as the sponsors may
not disclose their plans in advance (hypothetical example, a computer game
manufacturer known for science fiction themed games sponsors some unrelated
articles re Roman history and the Magonid dynasty, they then get a lot of
free publicity as the games press correctly speculates that they are going
to launch a "swords and sandals" type game based on the Punic Wars.
So in my opinion best to not allow sponsorship of articles.
WSC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:04:35 -0700
> From: Mono <monomium(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"
> Message-ID:
> <
> CAD6tHrU9DQS4bykOFq6gniwEC3d2UZN1Bj1b2KCOm+MvvsRwFg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> How so?
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 5:58 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > On Mar 30, 2013 12:55 AM, "Mono" <monomium(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Yes, but it might be nice if we could let people pay trusted editors to
> > > improve articles (without a COI and with a NPOV) that normally wouldn't
> > get
> > > attention.
> >
> > Would that be nice? I think that would be very harmful...
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:08:45 +0100
> From: Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"
> Message-ID:
> <CALTQccfVk7ABPZmeAC5K23XFa_kmO==
> DH1H5o1iJfu4++YtNcg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On Mar 30, 2013 1:04 AM, "Mono" <monomium(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > How so?
>
> It would be completely against our culture. Wikipedia is a volunteer
> written encyclopedia.
>
> You would end up with a two-tier system of paid editors and unpaid editors.
> There would inevitably be a lot of conflict between those groups. The whole
> concept would be extremely divisive.
>
>
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:29:33 +0000
> From: Thomas Morton <morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"
> Message-ID:
> <CAKO2H7_PR2CKzF=
> ZvAy7_fSLhuhz-d19Q8kUYfX3P6sC0HdKCw(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> It's a weird dichotomy.
>
> I've spent several hundred quid on source material for my current topic
> area. I could easily have spent several grand.
>
> Paid editing is a major issue, because it conflicts with our culture
>
> But if someone were able to buy my sources then it would be of huge
> benefit.
>
> And, controversially, if someone could fund me one day a week to write
> these articles I could likely expand from one GA per month to covering this
> entire field in GAs in a year.
>
> Without that it will take me a good five years
>
> I've come recently to see that funding article work is not inherently an
> awful thing. But it needs to be done with extreme care to protect our
> ideals and neutrality. And that is a HARD problem.
>
> Tom
>
> On Saturday, March 30, 2013, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
> > On Mar 30, 2013 1:04 AM, "Mono" <monomium(a)gmail.com <javascript:;>>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > How so?
> >
> > It would be completely against our culture. Wikipedia is a volunteer
> > written encyclopedia.
> >
> > You would end up with a two-tier system of paid editors and unpaid
> editors.
> > There would inevitably be a lot of conflict between those groups. The
> whole
> > concept would be extremely divisive.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:;>
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
> Message: 7
> Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:23:22 +0200
> From: Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"
> Message-ID:
> <CAC9meRLKPB5iX6MFqU-ZGUQQZwCGMDT=
> AUoKaLzGWLgAZOqPnw(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Guys, I think you're reading more into it than it is. When you're adopting
> an animal you don't get to decide what and how much it gets to eat.
> Similarly adopting a wiki page wouldn't mean you pay for having a say on
> the content. At the bottom end of the reward scale you could get a badge
> you could put on YOUR website, without having your name on Wikipedia at
> all.
>
> I'm not necessarely in favour of this idea but i wanted to see if it's been
> discussed before. I guess that if it has, people havebeen confusing this
> idea with paid editing.
>
>
>
Hmm. Once again, I largely agree with WSC. Unless I'm missing something, this idea is largely about fundraising, and I think it could introduce more problems than it solves.
The evidence that I've seen suggest that WMF is very successful at fundraising, but has ongoing difficulties with making progress toward the goal to get 200,000 active editors by 2015. So, I see little reason to implement page adoption if the goal is to fundraise, but if there is something about the proposal that's relevant to improving the active editor count from the current 85,000, I'd be interested in at least learning more about that.
Pine
In today's Office Hour[1] I had some questions about the "Promotional Use
of Website Assets" section of the Foundation Policy and Political
Association Guideline[2] which I'm not sure were addressed in accordance
with what that guideline actually says. And it was made clear that
decisions about it have been made in one-on-one and small group
discussions, instead of the wider consultations which the guideline
contemplates. I've asked similar questions on the Advocacy Advisors list
which weren't directly answered. So I want to ask some specific questions
and a general question of the community at large:
(A) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to
CISPA advocacy?[3][4]
(B) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to
CALEA advocacy?[5]
(C) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to CFAA
advocacy?[6]
(C) As there are economic issues on which advocacy would support the broad
volunteer editor community, but which could in some cases be seen as
politically partisan, where should the line be drawn on economic advocacy?
As a more specific practical reformulation of this question, how bad would
poverty in developed countries have to become before it would be
appropriate for the Foundation to advocate on the issue? Is it already
appropriate? Would it only be appropriate if the proportion of editors
leaving the project due to personal poverty was increasing? Would it never
be appropriate?
Sincerely,
James Salsman
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2013-03-30
[2]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Poli…
[3]
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/consequences-cispas-broad-legal-immun…
[4]
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/03/22/pro-cispa-lawmaker-deletes-re…
[5]
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/03/26/andrew_weissmann_fbi_wan…
[6]
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/congress-new-cfaa-draft-could-have-pu…
Sue and I will be having office hours in a few hours to answer questions on her decision and the Transition Team and the next steps.
(Europeans: please note that different implementations of daylight savings time has made the current difference between PST and CET 8 hours rather than 9!)
Regards
Jan-Bart
Pardon the cross-posting from WMF staff list - I expect this role will be
of interest to many here too. Welcome, Ellie!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Siko Bouterse <sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 11:22 AM
Subject: Introducing Ellie Young as Conference Coordinator
To: Staff All <wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi all,
Please join me in welcoming Ellie Young, who is taking on the role of
Conference Coordinator as an annual contract with WMF.[1]
As you may know, WMF's support for Wikimania in recent years has been
spread across a variety of staff members who have other core
responsibilities. With this new contract, we're creating a single point of
contact to act as liaison between WMF and the Wikimania organizing team, to
ensure that we're able to provide the host team with focused support where
help from WMF is needed.
Ellie brings with her a lot of experience in event planning for open
culture communities. She worked as Executive Director of USENIX
Association for over 20 years, where she and her team supported several
international conferences hosted by volunteers each year.[2] She also
currently serves on The Ada Initiative's Board of Advisors and has been an
activist for the democratization of educational materials most of her life.
Fun things we’ve learned about Ellie: Both sets of her grandparents helped
build the Panama Canal, and each generation since has had a pilot or two
doing transits of the ships. She has been to every country in Latin America
and the Caribbean except Brasil. You can often catch her hiking in the SF
East Bay Hills with her adorable mini-poodle, Jack.
As Conference Coordinator, Ellie will be facilitating and supporting the
work of the Wikimania host team and making sure there is good continuity
and knowledge-transfer as the conference moves to new hosts year-over-year.
She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and will be sometimes working
from the SF office (sitting on the 3rd floor near HR). Ellie would like to
hear from you on all things Wikimania, so please do stop by or email her
anytime!
Huge thanks to all staff and volunteers who helped us craft this role and
interview candidates.
Welcome, Ellie!
[1] http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=o1k2Wfw3&c=qSa9VfwQ
[2] https://www.usenix.org
--
Siko Bouterse
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge.
Donate or click the "edit" button today, and help us make it a reality!
--
Siko Bouterse
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. *
*Donate <https://donate.wikimedia.org> or click the "edit" button today,
and help us make it a reality!*
Hi Jessie,
Thanks for following up.
I think Gayle will be responding to this thread also, but she is a little
busy right now as I think we can all understand.
In the meantime, I hope that you add to your list of "all places receiving
movement funding resources" any major projects within WMF. I think the
situation with AFT5 repeating some errors from IEP which were well
documented by a consultant that WMF hired, which tells me there is need
for improvement within WMF. I think WMF should get its own house in order
before, or at least concurrently, with looking at evaluations and
accountability for outside organizations like chapters.
May I ask, if you're working on things like the Learning Portal, what
are Frank and other people within the programs and evaluations
group working on? I'm interested in seeing a list of the current
initiatives, what their goals are, when they started, who the task
leads are, and what progress has been made so far. I think Frank's
appointment was in August 2012 and it would be great to get an
overview about what's been happening in Programs and Evaluations
a since then. I've been hoping to see that information in the WMF
monthly reports but I've seen surprisingly little info in the
past few reports.
Thanks,
Pine
Hi all,
I’m happy to announce the first round of Individual Engagement
Grantees today! The Wikimedia Foundation makes a variety of types of
grants, many of which focus on groups and organizations. Individual
Engagement Grants exemplify our commitment to increase support to
individual contributors to Wikimedia projects, with a particular focus
on making online improvements. These grants will support 8 Wikimedians
working individually and in small teams for 6 months to complete
projects that benefit the Wikimedia movement, serve our mission, and
strengthen our communities.[1]
For this pilot round, which began in February 2013, Wikimedians
submitted over 50 ideas and drafts from around the world. WMF
grantmaking staff narrowed these down to 22 complete proposals meeting
the eligibility criteria for review.[2][3]
18 Wikimedians formed a volunteer committee, with participants from 12
countries and from Wikimedia projects in 14 languages. .[4] Committee
members reviewed each proposal carefully, scoring them against a
rubric of pre-defined selection criteria and making recommendations
based on available funding for this round.[5] WMF grantmaking staff
shared aggregated scores and comments back with the community, while
the committee continued its deliberations to finalize a recommendation
to WMF to fund 8 projects in total.
All eight projects have been approved for funding by the WMF. In
examining the recommendations, we were struck by how varied these
projects are in terms of grant size, project methodology and
engagement targets. A central aim of Individual Engagement Grants is
to foster innovation, with a particular focus on online impact. We
think that innovative ideas and the skills that various contributors
bring to Wikimedia projects can lead to better online environments for
everyone, and we hope to learn a lot from these grantees about how we
can support more of this across the movement.
The round 1 selected projects are:
“Build an effective method of publicity in PRChina,” led by Chinese
Wikipedian User:AddisWang, funded at $350.[6] Addis and a small team
of volunteers based in mainland China will be experimenting with
social media campaigns to grow awareness of Wikipedia in China.
“Reply Edits,” led by User:Jeph paul, funded at $500.[7] Jeph is
building a MediaWiki gadget that creates a visual playback of the edit
history of a Wikipedia article, allowing users to see an article’s
change over time.
“The Wikipedia Library,” funded at $7500 and “The Wikipedia
Adventure,” funded at $10,000, will both be led by User:Ocaasi.[8][9]
It is worth noting that we hadn’t anticipated a dual project situation
and don’t expect it to be a usual circumstance. We’ve decided to fund
both ideas in this round, though, because IEGrants focus on funding
promising, feasible projects with good community support wherever we
find them. For the Wikipedia Library, Ocaasi will be building and
consolidating partnerships with reference providers donating access to
reliable sources for Wikipedia editors, and improving the systems for
managing these programs. The Wikipedia Adventure is an on-wiki game
that will be piloted on English Wikipedia using the Guided Tours
extension to determine whether this type of interactive learning is an
effective engagement strategy for new editors.
“Consolidate wikiArS to involve art schools,” led by Catalan
Wikimedian User:Dvdgmz, funded at 7810 Euros.[10] The WikiArS outreach
program builds partnerships with art and design schools to teach
students to create images for donation to Wikimedia Commons and use in
Wikipedia articles. This grant will support focused experimentation in
the existing Catalan program’s models that can allow the initiative to
scale and to be sustained as an international program.
“Elaborate Wikisource strategic vision,” led by Catalan Wikisource
User:Micru and Italian Wikisource User:Aubrey, funded at 10,000
Euros.[11] This project brings together the global Wikisource
community and other stakeholders to define a vision for the project’s
future. They’ll begin work on near-term goals that can be accomplished
by volunteers on-wiki, and investigate paths forward for longer term
improvements to Wikisource.
“MediaWiki data browser,” led by User:Yaron K, partially funded at
$15,000 in order to pilot the initial concept.[12] Yaron’s project
will create a framework to allow any user to easily generate apps or
websites to browse sets of structured data that exist on Wikipedia and
other projects running on MediaWiki.
Finally, we’ve provisionally approved an 8th project for funding --
“MediaWiki and Javanese script,” led by User:Bennylin, funded at $3000
-- provided that a couple of dependencies can be satisfied.[13] This
project will provide technical support using a “train-the-trainers”
model that teaches volunteers how to use Javanese script online,
facilitating the transcription of Javanese texts to projects like
Javanese Wikisource. The newly developed Universal Language Selector
extension for MediaWiki makes the use of this script online
increasingly possible. Because Benny’s project will rely on the
availability of this extension on all Javanese Wikimedia projects, the
start of this grant depends on the WMF Internationalization team’s
completing its scheduled deployment in coming months. We would also
like to see more discussion and input from other members of the
Javanese community demonstrating the potential of this project, and
will be working with Benny to figure out how to support those
conversations while we await the deploy.
The new grantees will begin work on their projects in the coming weeks
and they’ll be sharing progress and learnings with us all along the
way. Please visit their pages on Meta-Wiki for complete project
information and updates.[1]
Thanks to everyone who participated in this round! We look forward to
seeing even more of your ideas and input in preparation for round 2,
which begins on August 1st.[14]
Warm regards,
Siko Bouterse, on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation and the IEG committee
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-engaging
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-learn
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee/Workroom/Review/All
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee#ieg-members
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee/Workroom/Review#review…
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Build_an_effective_method_of_pub…
[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Replay_Edits
[8] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Library
[9] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Adventure
[10] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Consolidate_wikiArS_to_involve_a…
[11] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Elaborate_Wikisource_strategic_v…
[12] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/MediaWiki_data_browser
[13] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/MediaWiki_and_Javanese_script
[14] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab
--
Siko Bouterse
Head of Individual Engagement Grants
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge.
Donate or click the "edit" button today, and help us make it a reality!