Wikimedia-l March 2013

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

172 participants
129 discussions

Big Fat Brussels Gathering
by Jan Engelmann 02 Apr '13

02 Apr '13

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.

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Crisis of conscience Fwd: [REA]
by Everton Zanella Alvarenga 02 Apr '13

02 Apr '13

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.com http://beespace.net

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"Adopt a page"
by Strainu 01 Apr '13

01 Apr '13

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

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"
by WereSpielChequers 01 Apr '13

01 Apr '13

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. > > >

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"
by ENWP Pine 31 Mar '13

31 Mar '13

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

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questions on the use of banner space to promote a cause
by James Salsman 31 Mar '13

31 Mar '13

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…

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reminder: Office Hours at 11PST, 6PM UTC
by Jan-Bart de Vreede 30 Mar '13

30 Mar '13

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

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Introducing Ellie Young as Conference Coordinator
by Siko Bouterse 30 Mar '13

30 Mar '13

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!*

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Office hour inside out (program evaluation)
by ENWP Pine 29 Mar '13

29 Mar '13

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

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Announcing Round 1 Individual Engagement Grantees
by Siko Bouterse 29 Mar '13

29 Mar '13

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!

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Wikimedia-l March 2013