Wikimedia-l April 2013

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

186 participants
145 discussions

CFAAA+CALEA vs. SOPA+PIPA: the amortization
by James Salsman 13 Apr '13

13 Apr '13

Hi Garfield, Would you please find out how much the CFAA and CALEA amendements would be expected to cost readers, editors, and the Foundation compared to what SOPA or PIPA would have cost if they had passed, and let the wikimedia-l and advocacy advisors lists know? Best regards, James Salsman

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 109, Issue 34
by Romaine Wiki 12 Apr '13

12 Apr '13

Hello Tilman, Thanks for composing the report and sending it. In section 9.2.6 I saw the Wikipedia Signpost. Perhaps it is also possible and interesting to add another newsletter that describes a mayor field of interest for Wikimedias in the world. For two years and three months now we publish every month a newsletter about what happened in the Wikimedias regarding GLAM in the past month. Each month the new edition can be found on http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter At the moment I am at GLAM WIKI conference (organized by Wikimedia UK) in London, together with more than hundred other participants, with one of them Kat Walsh. If there are any questions or wishes to help out, please let me know. Greetings, Romaine --- http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Romaine > Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:55:48 -0700 > From: Tilman Bayer <tbayer(a)wikimedia.org> > To: wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Cc: Staff All <wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia > Foundation > Report, March 2013 > Message-ID: > > <CAPDdKA5Yj6GR9YamGhdCoDni+SY6Sc_Mp4_B_TCz+4c0zRDj-g(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Hi all, > > please find below the WMF report for March 2013, in plain > text. > > As always, the editable and formatted version has been > published on Meta: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_March_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,_March_2013 > > Many thanks to those who have translated the February > "Highlights" > into Asturian, Catalan, Danish, German, Spanish, Maltese, > Russian and > Simplified Chinese (and partially into some other languages > like > French, Italian, Norwegian Bokmål andTraditional Chinese)! > > While still focussing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" > include a > small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole > movement. > Suggestions for the upcoming April issue are welcome until > May 1 at > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights#Movement_news_ite… > . > > Regards, Tilman > > > > -- > > Wikimedia Foundation Report, March 2013 > > <Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_April_4…> > Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and > activities meeting > covering the month of March > > Contents > > * 1 Data and Trends > * 2 Financials > * 3 Highlights > o 3.1 Lua speeds up pages and empowers > Wikimedia's technical > contributors > o 3.2 Mobile uploads launch for apps > and the mobile web > o 3.3 First Individual Engagement > Grants awarded to innovative > community projects > o 3.4 Wikipedia Zero wins award, > reaches new users > o 3.5 Ombudsmen meet, might expand > mandate > * 4 Engineering > o 4.1 VisualEditor > o 4.2 Editor engagement > o 4.3 Mobile > o 4.4 Other engineering news > * 5 Fundraising > o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations > o 5.2 Annual Fundraiser > * 6 Grantmaking and Programs > o 6.1 Strategic Goals Metrics > o 6.2 Grantmaking > + 6.2.1 Funds > Dissemination Committee (FDC) > + 6.2.2 WMF Grant > requests approved in March 2013 > + 6.2.3 WMF Grant reports > accepted in March 2013 > + 6.2.4 Participation > Support requests approved in March 2013 > + 6.2.5 Individual > Engagement Grants > + 6.2.6 Editor Growth and > Contribution Program > + 6.2.7 Wikimania > Support > + 6.2.8 Brazil > # 6.2.8.1 > Institutional Partnerships > # 6.2.8.2 > Hirings > # 6.2.8.3 > Data & Experiments > # 6.2.8.4 > Education > # 6.2.8.5 > Online tutorials > # 6.2.8.6 > Communications > # 6.2.8.7 > Medicin Wikiproject > # 6.2.8.8 > Community and High School > o 6.3 Programs > + 6.3.1 Wikipedia Zero > + 6.3.2 Global Education > o 6.4 Learning & Evaluation > * 7 Human Resources > o 7.1 Staff Changes > o 7.2 Statistics > o 7.3 Department Updates > * 8 Finance and Administration > * 9 Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications > Department > o 9.1 LCA Report, March 2013 > + 9.1.1 Contract Metrics > + 9.1.2 Trademark > Metrics > + 9.1.3 Domains Obtained > + 9.1.4 Coming & > Going > + 9.1.5 Other Activities > o 9.2 Communications Report, March > 2013 > + 9.2.1 Major > announcements > + 9.2.2 Major Storylines > through March > + 9.2.3 Other worthwhile > reads > + 9.2.4 WMF Blog posts > + 9.2.5 Media Contact > + 9.2.6 Wikipedia > Signpost > * 10 Office of the Executive Director > * 11 Visitors and Guests > > > == Data and Trends == > > Global unique visitors for February: > > *483 million* (-1.12% compared with January; > +1.53% compared with > the previous year) > (comScore data > <http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/unique_visitors> > for all > Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will > release March data > later in April) > > Page requests for March: > > *21.5 billion* (-1.1% compared with February; > +24.8% 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 February 2013 (>= 5 > mainspace edits/month, > excluding bots): > > *78,083* (-7.53% compared with January / > -2.43% 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) for February 2013: > > 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_February_2…> > Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of > February 28, > 2013 > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses_by_Functions_February_…> > Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of > February 28, 2013 > > (Financial information is only available through February > 2013 at the > time of this report.) > > All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date > and > Year-To-Date February 28, 2013. > > Revenue $35,650,340 > *Expenses:* > Engineering Group $9,379,205 > Fundraising Group $2,411,055 > Grantmaking & Programs Group > $3,935,546 > Governance Group $504,987 > Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group > $2,029,585 > Finance/HR/Admin Group $3,702,999 > Total Expenses $21,963,377 > Total surplus $13,686,963 > > * Revenue for the month of February is $1.89MM vs > plan of $276K, > approximately $1.61MM or 585% over plan. > > * Year-to-date revenue is $35.65MM vs plan of > $30.46MM, approximately > $5.19MM or 17% over plan. > > * Expenses for the month of February is $4.25MM vs > plan of $4.03MM, > approximately $215K or 5% over plan, primarily > due to higher capital > expenses offset by lower personnel expenses, > internet hosting, and > grant expenses. > > * Year-to-date expenses is $21.96MM vs plan of > $25.94MM, approximately > $3.98MM or 15% under plan, primarily due to > personnel expenses, > capital expenses, internet hosting, FDC grants > executed, WMF project > grants, and travel expenses partially offset > by higher legal > expenses and bank fees. > > * Cash position is $40.68MM as of February 28, 2013. > > > == Highlights == > > > === Lua speeds up pages and empowers Wikimedia's technical > contributors === > > On March 13 > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/lua-templates-faster-more-flexible-pa…>, > Lua <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lua_(programming_language)> > was enabled for > templates on all Wikimedia wikis. The existing syntax for > wikitext > templates is complicated and limited: it does not offer > loops > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_(computing)>, for > example. With Lua, > editors can now use a real programming language > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/14/what-lua-scripting-means-wikimedia-op…>, > in which they can also contribute to programming projects > outside > Wikimedia. For Wikimedia wikis, Lua means a big performance > gain in > widely used templates, such as citations. For example, 300 > citations on > an English Wikipedia article now render in 3 seconds instead > of 18 > seconds > <https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1gMw12QMPn0Xj_5tiUi1…>. > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mobile_web_upload_button.PNG> > The new image upload button in an article on the mobile > version of the > English Wikipedia > > > === Mobile uploads launch for apps and the mobile web === > > On the mobile version of Wikipedia, smartphone users can now > easily > upload a lead image > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/28/add-an-image-to-this-article-uploads-…> > to Wikipedia articles that lack one. Also in March, the > Mobile team > released a dedicated app for Wikimedia Commons > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/putting-commons-contributions-in-your…>, > allowing media uploads from Android and iOS devices. > > > === First Individual Engagement Grants awarded to innovative > community > projects === > > The recipients of the first Individual Engagements Grants > were announced > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/29/wikimedia-individual-engagement-grant…> > on March 29. These grants fund projects by individuals or > small teams > for a duration of six months. Among the largest of the eight > funded > grants are "The Wikipedia Library > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Library>" > ($7500), which aims to give > editors access to reliable sources, donated by publishers, > "The > Wikipedia Adventure > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Adventure>" > ($10,000), an on-wiki game for new editors, and a project > to > collaboratively define a vision for the future of > Wikisource > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Elaborate_Wikisource_strategic_v…> > (10,000 Euros). > > > === Wikipedia Zero wins award, reaches new users === > > Wikipedia Zero, which gives people around the world mobile > access to > Wikipedia free of data charges, won the 2013 SXSW > Interactive “Activism” > award > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/wikipedia-zero-wins-2013-sxsw-interac…>, > beating four other finalists. Also in March, Wikipedia Zero > became > available to more than 55 million additional subscribers in > Russia, as > part of a partnership with Beeline (VimpelCom). This was the > biggest > launch for the Wikipedia Zero team to date. The same month, > a new > Wikipedia Zero partnership with Axiata Group was announced > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/axiata-wikipedia-zero-partnership/>, > which will expand the program in Indonesia, Malaysia, > Cambodia, Sri > Lanka and Bangladesh this year. > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-Ombudsman-Commission-Publ…> > Four of the Ombudsmen during their visit at the WMF office > > > === Ombudsmen meet, might expand mandate === > > In March, the Foundation's LCA <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LCA> > team hosted five out of seven > members of the Ombudsmen Commission in San Francisco, where > these > community members from around the world met with each other > in person > for the first time > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/04/01/privacy-policy-complaints-on-wikipedi…>. > They consulted with various WMF departments and provided > input regarding > privacy topics and the work of administrators. Formed in > 2006, the > Ombudsmen Commission is currently tasked with investigating > complaints > of alleged Privacy policy > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy> > violations on behalf > of > the Board of Trustees. It has been proposed that the > Commission should > also be allowed to handle complaints about the global > CheckUser policy > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser_policy> > and Oversight > policy <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight_policy>. > An RfC (request for comment) about this is being prepared. > > > == Engineering == > > A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for > March 2013 can > be found at: > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2013/March > > Department Highlights > > > <Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sneak_Preview_-_Wikipedia_VisualEdi…> > "A Sneak Preview of the Wikipedia VisualEditor", narrated by > Trevor > Parscal (uploaded March 1, 2013) > > > === VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> === > > /(Accessible introduction to what the Visual Editor is > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/07/inventing-as-we-go-building-a-visual-…>)/ > > In March, part of the team worked on infrastructure for the > major new > features that they'll be adding in the coming months. We aim > for > VisualEditor to be the default way all users edit our sites > by July > 2013, so it needs to let everyone edit the majority of > content without > needing to use the usual "wikitext" editor. This will mean > adding > support for references, (at least) basic templates, > categories and > images, each of which is a very large piece of work. This > month the team > primarily worked on draft designs and initial code to ensure > users can > edit categories and templates. > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:VisualEditor-Parsoid_-…> > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor-Parsoid_-_2012-13_Q3_q…> > Slides from the VisualEditor/Parsoid quarterly review (see > also slides > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor_-_2013-04_Metrics_deck.pdf> > from the monthly metrics meeting) > > The VisualEditor team undertook its first ever "Quarterly > Review > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…>" > (minutes > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…>), > whose slides > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor-Parsoid_-_2012-13_Q3_q…> > detail these designs, the work done to date and expectations > for the > near future. The alpha version of VisualEditor on > mediawiki.org and the > English Wikipedia was updated twice, adding better input and > selection > support, fixing a number of bugs, and restructuring the > back-end so that > the new features will be simpler to create. > > The Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid> team (who > are creating > the parsing program <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsing> that > translates > plain wikitext into HTML annotated for easy editing, and > /vice-versa/) > continued writing specifications, fixing bugs, and improving > how Parsoid > deals with different human languages, newlines and > whitespace, and > transclusion. They wrote a blog post explaining their > challenges > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/04/parsoid-how-wikipedia-catches-up-with…>. > And late in March, C. Scott Ananian joined us as a > contractor. Welcome! > > > === Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> > === > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> > > Fabrice Florin presenting about Notifications (slides > <https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1cknqzVqRBPffahIBWc_…>) > > In March, the editor engagement features team worked on > three projects: > Notifications, Article Feedback and Flow. > > For Notifications (formerly code-named 'Echo'), we developed > a range of > new features, including: the 'thanks' and 'user rights' > notifications, > as well as HTML email notifications. We also started to > collect our > first metrics and prepared a socialization plan for our > upcoming release > on the English Wikipedia later this month. > > For Article Feedback, we deployed a new version of the tool > on the > French and German Wikipedias, for evaluation by their > communities. Final > features include 'discuss on talk page' and 'auto-archive. > The tool was > temporarily turned off on the English Wikipedia, where we > expect to > re-deploy it on an opt-in basis as soon as practical. > > Design work continued on Flow. We continued creating a > "Portal" that > will engage discussion about Flow at three locations > (mediawiki.org, > meta, and the English Wikipedia), and performing research. > > The Editor Engagement Experiments > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Editor_Engagement_Experiments> > team largely > placed other projects – such as guided tours > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/guided_tours>, > EventLogging > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/EventLogging>, and > others – on hold to focus > on two key initiatives: the "Getting Started > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GettingStarted>" > process for > onboarding new Wikipedians > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/onboarding_new_Wikipedians>, > and on making the > redesign of account creation and login > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/account_creation_user_experience> > a permanent, > internationalized part of MediaWiki core. > > For the Getting Started project, the team launched a new > version on > English Wikipedia, which included a new landing page with > additional > types of tasks suggested for brand new editors to try. The > list of tasks > is now generated by a basic recommender system > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Onboarding_new_Wikipedians/Recommender_system> > built by Ori Livneh, which gathers, filters, and delivered a > fresh list > of tasks automatically for every editor. This new backend > paves the way > for releasing the "getting started" feature on other > projects, after > we've completed data analysis and testing to understand > which kinds of > tasks are ideal for first time editors. Additionally, Matt > Flaschen > collaborated with the Editor Engagement Features team to > build > notifications <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo> to welcome new > editors and > invite them to contribute via the Getting Started. > > For the account creation and login work, S Page, Munaf > Assaf, and the > rest of the team rebuilt our design to work with MediaWiki > core, and > solicited reviews from outside the team. We currently plan > to launch > both interface redesigns on an opt-in basis in April, to > have editors > test the localization and other functional aspects of the > forms via a > URL parameter, before we enable them as default. > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> > > Maryana Pinchuk presenting mobile image uploads (slides) > <https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1EW-Io5mTXeNwaPBGvAe…> > > > === Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> > === > > We have a stable version of the mobile-optimized website, > which everyone > on a smartphone uses by default, and we have a beta version > that > logged-in Wikimedia users can opt to use to see features > we're still > building. When functionality is polished enough, we promote > it from the > beta site to the stable site. In March, we added the ability > to easily > upload a lead image > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/28/add-an-image-to-this-article-uploads-…> > to articles that lack one in the stable version of the > mobile site. We > also helped users by giving them a temporary fix to an issue > we > discovered that made logging in hard or impossible for some > users of > newer mobile web browsers; that problem had prevented a > number of users > from being able to upload photos via the mobile site. We are > now well on > our way to reach our goal of 1000 unique uploaders/month by > the end of > June 2013. Check out the mobile app dashboard > <http://mobile-reportcard.wmflabs.org/> > to see mobile contributions via > the website and via apps. > > Also: we've added thumbnails of lead images from articles in > the mobile > watchlist view, as well as a "last modified" timestamp on > articles in > the stable version of the mobile site. We are currently > focusing on some > performance enhancements for the mobile site. In April we > will graduate > the "uploads dashboard" feature from beta to stable, will > further refine > our photo upload features, and will let beta site users see > and use a > feature to identify articles on subjects near your current > location. > > The Mobile team that makes dedicated Wikimedia mobile apps > have created > an initial version of the Commons photo uploader app > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/putting-commons-contributions-in-your…> > for Android; it is available for download in Google Play. > The iOS > version is still in beta, but should be available in the > Apple app store > next month. > > In March, Wikipedia Zero > <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships> > added new telecom > partners (such as Axiata Group Berhad > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/axiata-wikipedia-zero-partnership/>), > fixed some technical problems, and onboarded new staff. We > also won an > SXSW Interactive "Activism" award for Wikipedia Zero > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/wikipedia-zero-wins-2013-sxsw-interac…>. > (see also the general "Highlights" section) > > Max Semenik, Arthur Richards and Faidon Liambotis held an > OpenStreetMaps > mini-hackathon at Open Source Days 2013 in Copenhagen > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Events/Wikimedia_Mapping_Event_2013>. > During > the event, they agreed on an implementation strategy for a > future WMF > mapping cluster. The cluster would serve OSM "tiles" and > thus help > integrate OSM functionality better into Wikimedia sites, and > help with > our mobile apps which already make use of OSM data. > > > === Other engineering news === > > * Lua scripting > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/lua-templates-faster-more-flexible-pa…> > has launched on all WMF wikis, making > templates faster and making > pages more flexible. You can read that post to > understand what to do > on your wiki to take advantage of this, and > you can also read about > the implications for Wikimedia's future > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/14/what-lua-scripting-means-wikimedia-op…> > (see also general "Highlights" section) > * We redesigned the Translate interface > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/25/redesigning-the-translation-experienc…> > and made other progress > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/12/new-release-of-the-mediawiki-language…> > on translation and language-related tools. > * We have fresh, friendly instructions on reporting a > technical > problem > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/18/how-to-create-a-good-first-bug-report/> > and invite you to help prioritize problems to > fix > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/help-wikimedia-squash-software-bugs/>. > * Our designers are collaborating with the Noun > Project > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/the-noun-project-and-the-wikimedia-fo…> > towards creating an "Encyclopedia Collection" > of free icons. > * Our Operations group (the systems administrators > who keep our > servers running) has started a twice-monthly > meeting with other > engineering teams, to keep communication > flowing about requirements > and possible upcoming problems or > infrastructure needs. > * The User Metrics API <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_Metrics> > launched; it's a service that allows > researchers to perform cohort > analysis <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohort_study> on > various data > sets, making it easier to measure the effects > of programs and > platform experiments among discrete sets of > users. The Analytics > group <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics>, which > works on software > to make statistics about Wikimedia available, > is currently working > on improving the web-based user interface, to > make it available for > use outside of Wikimedia Foundation staff in > the coming months. > > > == Fundraising == > > Department highlight > > * The fundraising team ramped up testing in languages > and countries > that were not included in the year-end 2012 > campaign, raising > approximately $5 million USD. > > > === Major Gifts and Foundations === > > * Received a $250,000 grant from Peter Baldwin and > Lisbet Rausing. > > > === Annual Fundraiser === > > * The fundraising team ran banners in languages and > countries that > were not included in the year-end 2012 > campaign (US, UK, Canada, > Australia, New Zealand, France, Switzerland, > Germany). Approximately > $5 million USD was raised from this campaign > in the month of March. > Banners were taken down on March 31, 2013. Any > future testing will > be announced on the Fundraising 2013 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013> > page > on Meta. > * Patricia Pena visited India and researched user > feedback and > possible opportunities for local processing in > the country. We > interviewed roughly 20 donors and networked > with over 20 Indian > payment providers. > * The fundraising tech team continued to add new > payment options > including Boletos for Brazil and Direct Debit > for Spain, > Netherlands, and Austria. In addition, the > team added the option to > make a recurring credit card donation for > countries where this was > not previously offered. > * Megan Hernandez, Katie Horn, and Bryony Jones > visited Japan, a top > donor country, and met with 3-5 Japanese > donors every day during the > week of March 11. The team tested 10 different > messages and designs > and developed a high performing fundraising > banner. > * Victor Grigas produced brief video introductions to > the VisualEditor > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sneak_Preview_-_Wikipedia_VisualEdi…> > (see above) > and the Wikipedia Education Program > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Wikipedia_Education_Program.webm> > (see below). > > > == Grantmaking and Programs == > > Department Highlights > > * Launched Wikipedia Zero with Beeline (Vimpelcom) in > Russia, largest > single operator to date (55+ million > subscsribers) > * First round of Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) > approved and > announced > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/29/wikimedia-individual-engagement-grant…>! > * Round 2 2012-2013 proposals to the Funds > Dissemination Committee > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals> > were > submitted on 1 March 2013 and have > been open to community review from 1 March to > 31 March. > > > === Strategic Goals Metrics === > > Metric Value MoM > MoM% Chart > Global South Active Editors (5+ edits in main namespace) > 15.5k -317 > -2.0% Decrease [1] > <http://gp.wmflabs.org/graphs/global_north_south_active_editors> > > > === Grantmaking === > > > ==== Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) ==== > > * Proposals for Round 2 2012-2013 were submitted on 1 > March 2013. 4 > proposals were submitted (presented > alphabetically) : > o Wikimedia Czech Republic > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikim…> > o Wikimédia France > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikim…> > o Wikimedia Hong Kong > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikim…> > o Wikimedia Norge > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikim…> > * *Community review:* From 1 March until 31 March, > members of the > Wikimedia community commented on the four > funding proposals > submitted to the FDC > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals> > (Wikimédia > France > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/…>, > Wikimedia Hong Kong > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/…>, > Wikimedia Norge > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/…>, > and Wikimedia Czech Republic > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/…>) > during the one-month open comment / community > review period. > Comments and questions were submitted for each > proposal: each > proposal discussion page had at least 20 > distinct authors and at > most 34 distinct authors. 111 was the maximum > total number of edits > made on the discussion pages of any proposal, > and 79 was the minimum > total number. The comments addressed many > topics, including > expressing overall support or concern for a > proposal, questioning > the specifics of financial tables, stating > concerns about an > entity's plans to hire staff, and requesting > more information about > specific programs. Questions and comments from > the community will be > summarized and reflected in the FDC staff > assessments published on > April 8, and will be considered by the FDC > when it deliberates in > Milan in late April. > * The Progress report form > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Progress_report_form> > was > finalized and made ready for use by entities > funded in 2012-2013 > Round 1 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1>, > who will > submit their first progress reports before 30 > April 2013. Entities > may submit their reports from their proposal > hub pages in the FDC > portal. > > > ==== WMF Grant requests approved in March 2013 ==== > > * Grants:WM IN/Program Grant Quarter 1 2013 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_IN/Program_Grant_Quarter_1_2013>: > Grant to support > the activities of Wikimedia India during the > first quarter of 2013. > * Grants:WM Wikisym/2013 WikiSym OpenSym Conference > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_Wikisym/2013_WikiSym_OpenSym_Conf…>: > Grant to > support the annual WikiSym conference. > * Grants:Jackson Peebles/Video and Interactive > Tutorials > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Jackson_Peebles/Video_and_Interactiv…>: > Jackson will use screen capture software to > author video tutorials > with potential interactivity for certain > Wikipedia tools and processes. > * FF portal/Recommendations/Fotofahrt im > Heißluftballon > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FF_portal/Recommendations/Fotofahrt_im_Hei%…>: > Flow funding request to support aerial > photography projects in Germany. > * FF portal/Recommendations/Faculty of Economics > Skopje > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FF_portal/Recommendations/Faculty_of_Econom…>: > Flow > funding request to support Wikipedia education > activities at the > Faculty of Economics in Skopje. > > > ==== WMF Grant reports accepted in March 2013 ==== > > * Grants:Abbas Mahmood - Creative Commons Community > in Kenya/CC Kenya > Formative Meeting/Report > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Abbas_Mahmood_-_Creative_Commons_Com…> > * Grants:WM US-DC/Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 > USA/Report > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012_U…> > * Grants:WM US-DC/Events 2012/Report > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Events_2012/Report> > * Grants:WM ZA/Wiki Loves Monuments/Report > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_ZA/Wiki_Loves_Monuments/Report> > * Grants:WM IN/Bootstrap Grant/Report > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_IN/Bootstrap_Grant/Report> > * Grants:WM HU/Annual Program Plan 2012/Report/Q4 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_HU/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Repor…> > * Grants:WM NL/Annual Program Plan 2012/Report/Q4 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NL/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Repor…> > * Grants:WM SE/Annual Program Plan 2012/Report/Q4 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_SE/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Repor…> > > Contractor Kevin Gorman has published a review of the > Wikimedia > Foundation’s grants program > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Retrospective_2009-2012> > from > fiscal year 2009-2010 through fiscal year 2011-2012. > > > ==== Participation Support requests approved in March 2013 > ==== > > * Participation:SarahStierch/NMLA Conference > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:SarahStierch/NMLA_Conference> > * Participation:Thelmadatter/Seminar on the > Acquisition of Latin > American Library Materials > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Thelmadatter/Seminar_on_the_A…> > * Participation:Umbrellas000/US OpenGLAM Launch > Weekend, Open > Knowledge Foundation > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Umbrellas000/US_OpenGLAM_Laun…> > * Participation:Bdcousineau/US OpenGLAM Launch Event > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Bdcousineau/US_OpenGLAM_Launc…> > * Participation:Hlong-lib/US OpenGLAM Launch Weekend, > Open Knowledge > Foundation > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Hlong-lib/US_OpenGLAM_Launch_…> > * Participation:Tedder/Legislative Data and Wikipedia > Conference > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Tedder/Legislative_Data_and_W…> > * Participation:Cryptic C62/Legislative Data > Workshop > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Cryptic_C62/Legislative_Data_…> > * Participation:Lpagola/LibreGraphicsMeeting > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Lpagola/LibreGraphicsMeeting> > > > ==== Individual Engagement Grants ==== > > The IEG Committee completed its review, and WMF announced > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/29/wikimedia-individual-engagement-grant…> > that all 8 recommended projects have been selected > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-engaging> > for round 1 funding. > > The selected projects are: > > * Build an effective method of publicity in PRChina > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Build_an_effective_method_of_pub…>, > led > by zh:User:AddisWang <https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AddisWang>, > funded at $350. 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. > * Replay Edits > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Replay_Edits>, > led by > w:User:Jeph_paul <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jeph_paul>, > funded at > $500. 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 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Library>, > funded at $7500 and The Wikipedia Adventure > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Adventure>, > funded at $10,000, will > both be led by w:User:Ocaasi <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ocaasi>. > 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 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Consolidate_wikiArS_to_involve_a…>, > led > by w:User:Dvdgmz <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dvdgmz>, funded > at > 7810 Euros. The WikiArS outreach program > builds partnerships with > art and design schools to teach students to > create images for > donation to Wikimedia Commons and for 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 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Elaborate_Wikisource_strategic_v…>, > led by > User:Micru <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Micru> and > User:Aubrey <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aubrey>, > funded at 10,000 Euros. 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 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/MediaWiki_data_browser>, > led by User:Yaron K. > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Yaron_K.>, > partially funded at > $15,000 in order to pilot the initial concept. > 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. > * MediaWiki and Javanese script > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/MediaWiki_and_Javanese_script>, > led by > User:Bennylin <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bennylin>, has > been provisionally approved > for funding at $3000, provided that a couple > of dependencies > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:IEG/MediaWiki_and_Javanese_scri…> > can be satisfied. 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. > > > ==== Editor Growth and Contribution Program ==== > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editor_Growth_and_Contribution_Prog…> > Logo of the Editor Growth and Contribution Program > > A landing page > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tambayan_Philippines/Get_started> > for > Geo-targeted Editors Participation > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Geo-targeted_Editors_Participation> > was created on English Wikipedia, and an invitation to edit > was > displayed using the geo-targeted centranl notice to readers > from the > Philippines, where readers were encouraged to registed an > account and > were surfaced random stub articles about local topics to > improve. > > > ==== Wikimania Support ==== > > * Hired Ellie Young, Contractor to take the lead on > orchestrating > Wikimania! Welcome, Ellie! > * Finalizing review of Wikimania Scholarship > applications. Over 1200 > applicants with 660 who made it into round 2 > of the review process > (i.e., non-spam). Committee of 9 voting > members thoroughly reviewed > and scored applicants. Anticipated ~100 > scholarships through WMF. > > > ==== Brazil ==== > > > ===== Institutional Partnerships ===== > > A debate on governance with Ação Educativa, WMF and a > member of the > community took place, to trigger a debate on meta. The > report on the > meeting has been published > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…> > and is now open for debate. > > > ===== Hirings ===== > > * Job positions of the Brazilian Wikipedia Education > Program for > substituting the current contractor opened! > (with coverage by big > media, thanks to Tom) > > > ===== Data & Experiments ===== > > * Translation of the Meta Page Research:Data > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Data> > into Portuguese is ongoing > <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Central_de_pesquisas/Portal_de…>. > * Prototype of the Data Center > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pt:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Central_de_pesquisas/Portal…> > has been developed and is being debated: the > proposal is to have a > central page with data and tutorials for > anyone to work on data > creation and analysis. > * IRC meetings > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pt:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Projetos/Wikip%C3%A9dia/Reu…> > to debate proposals for Analyses and Data > Center page > * Henrique’s onboarding in SF: Henrique attended > the Python conference > and various meetings in SF as part of his > onboarding. > * An initial proposal for data analyses and > experiments > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…> > has been published on Meta and is being > debated. > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade_-_FG…> > Wikipédia na Universidade - FGV SP (direito) > > > ===== Education ===== > > Partnerships with universities > > * FGV SP (Getulio Vargas Foundation): A lecture at > FGV Law School in > São Paulo for about 70 people has taken > place, with the > participation of a WMF team and one volunteer. > The university has > tried to implement actitivies at Wikipedia but > faced difficulties in > having the content accepted. They’re > restructuring the project with > our support now. > * Gama Filho: several videos <http://www.youtube.com/wikipediapt> to > invite students from the University to engage > in the translation > course/partnership with the Wikimedia > Foundation have been produced. > > > ===== Online tutorials ===== > > We’ve catalyzed and provided a first translation version > for online > tutorials <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pt:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Training>. > The > community has imported the pages and is customizing the > material. > > > ===== Communications ===== > > * The community has approved the recreation of > communications channels > as blogs > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pt:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Esplanada/propostas#Blog_da…> > - though the br.wikimedia claims it should be > under their website > <http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:%C3%81gora/Blog_Wikimedia/Wikip%C3%A…>. > We should run a test on the Correio da > Wikipédia > <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Correio_da_Wikip%C3%A9dia> > for one month and check the signpost > distribution system and would > publish that on br.wikimedia too, for > customization. > * Catalyzed initiative of a journalist volunteer who > started > interviewing volunteers > <http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:%C3%81gora#Entrevista_com_editores> > to write stories about them > > > ===== Medicin Wikiproject ===== > > * Bot: improvements have been made and it’s ready > to be tested on the > real environment by the community (request for > bot approval > <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Rob%C3%B4s/Pedidos_de_aprova%C…>) > > > ===== Community and High School ===== > > * The bridge reported last month built between the > community and High > School Peretz became the subject of an > article > <http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/tec/1251093-colegio-em-sp-estimula-alunos-a-ed…> > in Folha de S.Paulo <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folha_de_S._Paulo>. > The > newspaper has also produced an online > tutorial > <http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/tec/1251021-gravada-aprenda-a-editar-artigos-e…>. > > > === Programs === > > > ==== Wikipedia Zero ==== > > /(see also general "Highlights" section)/ > > * Launched Wikipedia Zero with Beeline (Vimpelcom) in > Russia, largest > single operator to date (55+ million > subscribers) > * Completed partnership contract and announcement > with Axiata, > expanding partner base of Wikipedia Zero to > 410 million subscribers > * Wikipedia Zero received the 2013 SXSW Interactive > Award for "Activism" > > <Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Wikipedia_Education_Program.webm> > The Wikipedia Education Program, in video form! (narrated by > Annie Lin > and LiAnna Davis) > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> > > Rod Dunican presenting about the impact of the Education > Program (slides > <https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1UYnRWTJ18JGCfeb747L…>) > > > ==== Global Education ==== > > Highlights: > > * Egypt term wrapped up with a celebration conference > in Cairo. > * Classes started in Egypt, Jordan, and Algeria, as > part of the > Wikipedia Education Program Arab World > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ar:%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF…>. > * Volunteers proposed new thematic organization to > run U.S. and Canada > Education Programs, the Wiki Education > Foundation > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Education_Foundation>. > > Egypt program celebrates end of second term > > The second term of the Wikipedia Education Program in Egypt > wrapped up > with a celebration conference at Cairo University. Dr. Abeer > Abd > El-Hafez, a professor of Spanish from Cairo University, > opened the > conference and spoke about the spirit of the program and its > importance > in the lives of students and teachers in terms of skills > development and > new experiences. Faris El-Gwely, the education program > consultant who > runs the program in Egypt, shared results from the second > term, and the > best students and Ambassadors from the program received > certificates > recognizing their hard work. Students and professors also > shared > information about their experiences in the program. Check > out photos > from the event. > <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Second_Celebration_Conference,_…> > > U.S. student shares special Wikipedia story > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Article_Photo.jpg> > Jacqueline McCrory > > University of San Francisco master's student Jacqueline > McCrory wrote > the Wikipedia article on habitat conservation plans for her > class with > Professor Aaron Frank in spring 2012 — and was then > astonished to > discover that she'd been assigned to read the article in a > different > class in fall 2012! Jacqueline talks about how her Wikipedia > article > experience gave her additional responsibility at work and > kudos from > professors in her department in a post on the Wikimedia > Foundation blog. > Read the post. > <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/student-assigned-to-read-a-wikipedia-a…> > > Quebec professor's work featured in WMF blog > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lauriers_C%C3%A9gep_de_Chicoutimi06…> > Simon Villeneuve's students > > Professor Simon Villeneuve of physics and astronomy at > Cégep de > Chicoutimi, a college in Quebec, has been using Wikipedia as > a teaching > tool in his classroom since 2008. Overall, his students have > created > more than 150 articles on the French Wikipedia on topics > related to > astronomy and physics, and Simon has learned a lot about the > best ways > of doing Wikipedia assignments. Read a post he wrote for the > Wikimedia > blog about his work. > <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/07/quebec-school-project-improves-french-…> > > News coverage highlights Poland, Ukraine programs > > An article in the Global Post highlights the work being done > in Poland > and Ukraine related to the Wikipedia Education Program. The > Ukraine > program ran a pilot last term that produced 23 improved > articles. The > Poland program is working with a university to replace a > bachelor's > thesis with a Wikipedia article. Learn more by reading the > article. > <http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/130313/wikipedia-aca…> > > Education project improves Catalan Wikipedia > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sagrada_Familia_nave_roof_detail.jpg> > Sagrada Familia nave roof detail, an example of modernism in > Barcelona. > > Esther Solé from Amical Viquipèdia wrote a post for the > Wikimedia > Foundation blog about the "Viquimoderisme" project to > improve articles > related to modernism on the Catalan Wikipedia. Around 100 > art history > students at the University of Barcelona are working with > researchers to > create new articles on Catalan modernism, a topic important > to the > cultural history of Catalonia. Esther's report highlights > their > learnings from the initial phase, and they're currently > embarking on the > second phase, in which a museum in Barcelona will also offer > students > access to resources they can use in their articles. Read > more about the > project. <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/21/viquimodernisme/> > > Online student trainings deemed a success > > A post on the Wikimedia Foundation blog highlights the > successful > development of an online training for students piloted on > the English > Wikipedia with the United States and Canada programs. In the > post, > author Sage Ross describes how early feedback and user > testing has led > to iterative improvements to the content of the training. > This term, > more than 400 students (about one third of all students > participating in > the program) have successfully completed the training. Read > more about > the online training. > <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/20/online-training-for-newcomers/> > > Education Program featured in video > > Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager LiAnna > Davis and > former Program Manager Annie Lin were featured in a video > describing the > basics of the education program. In the short video, Annie > and LiAnna > describe how the program works and talk about the impact the > program has > had in the last three years. Watch the video. > <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/wikipedia-education-program-video/> > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professor_Ruy_de_Queiroz.jpg> > Professor Ruy de Queiroz > > Brazil professor featured on Wikimedia blog > > Professor Ruy de Queiroz of Brazil is one of the pioneers of > using > Wikipedia in his classroom. In 2005, he was browsing the > Portuguese > Wikipedia in logic and theory of computation — his study > areas — and > found the Portuguese version lacking in comparison to the > English > version. Over the last seven years, he and his students have > added > content to more than 125 articles on the Portuguese > Wikipedia in an > effort to improve access to information. Read more about his > work. > <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/26/ruy-de-queiroz-profile/> > > > === Learning & Evaluation === > > * Working with the Analytics and E3 teams to expand > the UserMetrics > API tool to address the needs of the G&P > partners at large > * Plagarism study along with the Wikipedia Education > team, working on > tools to be able to query based on article > categories, editor type, > and contribution types > * Program mapping study, creating database of all > funding mapped to > programs. Thanks to volunteer Rosie Lewis for > this awesome work! > > > == Human Resources == > > <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> > > Gayle Karen Young presenting about hirings in the first > quarter (slides > <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NHoqUo8prz3GGWluoar3Y5hj5MvXMkf-YTS…>) > > In March, HR has made some changes to our benefits > providers, namely a > broker change and a flexplan provider change. HR also hosted > the second > remote employee task force meeting with a focus on improving > in-office > technology for better remote participation, which Office IT > has been > assiduously improving. We have also been working on > analyzing our > compensation structure, and our 401k committee has been > working to add > new low fee index funds and find a new plan advisor. > > > === Staff Changes === > > New Requisitions Filled > > * Adam Baso, Senior Software Developer (Engineering) > * Yuri Astrakhan, Senior Software Developer > (Engineering) > > New Contractors > > * Dan DeJarnatt (HR) > * Kristan Johnson (Fundraiser) > * Meron Kristos (Finance) > * Andrey Valkov (Fundraiser) > * Ellie Young (Grantmaking & Programs) > > Contract Extended > > * Oona Castro (Grantmaking & Programs) > * Jeroen DeDauw (Engineering) > > Departures > > * Peter Gehres (continuing as contractor) > * Svetlana Istrati > * Patrick Reilly > > Contracts Ended > > * Zoe Bernard > * Darrin Fox > * Aaron Halfaker > * Ian Poirier > * Jawad Qadir > * Mike Wang > * Anita Whites > > New Postings > > * A/P Clerk > * Communications Volunteer > * Development Associate > * Software Engineer | Language Engineering > * WordPress Developer (Contract) > > > === Statistics === > > Total Requisitions Filled > March Actual: 134 > March Total Plan: 175 > March Filled: 2, Month Attrition: 3, > YTD Filled: 43, YTD Attrition: 21 > 6 Position canceled for FY > > Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end > 34 (8 of which are on hold) > > > === Department Updates === > > Real-time feed for HR updates > > http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork > > > == Finance and Administration == > > * Review of FDC round 2 proposals for the FDC. > * Completed Wikimedia Argentina site visit report > which will be > presented to the WMF Audit Committee at their > summer meeting. > * Completed Version 1 of the WMF annual plan, which > is now being > reviewed by the WMF Senior Level Team and the > WMF Board of Trustees. > * Reviewing options for Foreign Exchange management > beyond the big > international banks to receive and distribute > funds for the global > movement. > > > == Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications Department > == > > > === LCA Report, March 2013 === > > > ==== Contract Metrics ==== > > * Submitted : 17 > * Completed : 20 > > > ==== Trademark Metrics ==== > > * Submitted : 26 > * Approved : 2 > * Pending : 20 > * Denied : 3 > * Approval not needed : 1 > > > ==== Domains Obtained ==== > > * wikipedia.us > * wikipedia.is > * softwarewikipedia.com > * wikispecies.org > * wikimedia.gr > > > ==== Coming & Going ==== > > * Two legal interns’ spring internships are coming > to an end. Thanks > to Ava Miller and Megumi Yukie for all of > their help this semester! > * One of our contract attorneys, Ian Poirier, left > the Foundation for > a permanent opportunity and we wish him the > best in his new job! > * We welcome Elaine Wallace, a talented and > experienced attorney who > will be volunteering her time with us over the > next few months. > > > ==== Other Activities ==== > > * Community Advocacy hosted a meeting in the office > of 5 out of 7 of > the Ombudsman Commission both to facilitate > their work with each > other and their assistance with various staff > on WMF initiatives > (see also general "Highlights" section) > * Community Advocacy set up the first of a series of > phone calls for > WMF management with highly connected community > members around the world. > * Legal continues to work through the trademark > registration process > to protect our marks around the world. > > > === Communications Report, March 2013 === > > In March we successfully issued another major announcement > for Wikipedia > Zero, highlighting a partnership with Axiata that will bring > WP Zero to > countries in Southeast Asia. We also worked closely with the > executive > team on news of Sue Gardner's upcoming departure from the > Foundation. > The team is also rotating our group of Communications > volunteers, and > hoping to bring in about four new volunteers to help us with > day to day > media monitoring and reporting. > > > ==== Major announcements ==== > > /Axiata partners with the Wikimedia Foundation to offer free > mobile > Wikipedia access through Wikipedia Zero > <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Axiata_partners_with_th…>/ > > 18 March 2013 - Axiata Group Berhad and the > Wikimedia Foundation > today announced a partnership to offer > Wikipedia on mobile devices > free of data charges to Axiata customers > throughout Asia. > > > ==== Major Storylines through March ==== > > /WMF ED Sue Gardner to leave Foundation/ (Mar 27, 2013) > > This month’s major news story focused on Sue Gardner’s > announcement that > she would be stepping down later this year once a successor > for her > position has been identified, to focus on defending the free > and open > Internet. Mostly positive-tone coverage of the news largely > followed a > highly visible story published by the NY Times shortly after > Sue made > the announcement on the WM Blog and on public and community > mailing lists. > > (blog post) > https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/27/sue-gardner-departure-announcement/ > http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/a-driving-force-behind-wik… > http://www.stern.de/digital/online/fuehrungssuche-beim-online-lexikon-wikip… > http://www.webpronews.com/sue-gardner-to-depart-wikimedia-foundation-uncomf… > > /BP Edits to WP make headlines/ (Mar 20, 2103) > > A flawed CNET story from mid-March sparked substantial > coverage of a BP > staffer’s presence on English Wikipedia. The original > story accused the > staffer of rewriting a number of BP related articles. > Subsequent > coverage was mostly critical of BP for its actions. Some > coverage > speculated that the BP staffer may have operated within the > approved > ‘policies’ around COI editing. > > http://prweek.tumblr.com/post/45989772176/wikipedia-editors-have-accused-a-… > http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/bp-accused-of-rewriting-wikipedia-… > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/bp-wikipedia-page_n_2923363.html > http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/bp_edited_its_own_environmental_record_on_w… > > /Wikipedia Zero / Axiata / SXSW/ (Mar 8, 2013) > > In early March Wikipedia Zero was honored with its first > major accolade, > the SXSW Interactive award. Later in March Wikipedia Zero > launched its > first major initiative in southeast Asia, further extending > the number > of global customers who will be able to access WP without > data charges > into the hundreds of millions. > > http://www.informationweek.in/Mobile/13-03-21/How_Wikipedia_plans_to_use_mo… > http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/sxsw-wikipedia-for-non-smartpho… > > > ==== Other worthwhile reads ==== > > How Jimmy Wales’ Wikipedia Harnessed the Web as a Force > for Good | Wired > | March 2003 > > http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/03/jimmy-wales-wikipedia/ > > Jane Goodall apologizes for plagiarizing Wikipedia | March > 22 > > http://www.dailydot.com/culture/jane-goodall-plagiarized-wikipedia/ > > Wikipedia, meet Lua! | March 18 > (blog post) > https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/14/what-lua-scripting-means-wikimedia-op… > http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/18/wikipedia-crowdsourcing-site-performance-… > http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Wikimedia-adopts-Lua-for-page-genera… > > > ==== WMF Blog posts ==== > > https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/ > > Thirty-two blog posts in March, with bilingual posts > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/> > in German, Dutch, > Portuguese, Catalan, Czech, and French. Some highlights: > > * *Parsoid: How Wikipedia catches up with the web > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/04/parsoid-how-wikipedia-catches-up-with…>* > > * *WikiAfrica project welcomes and trains > Cameroonians to contribute > to Wikimedia sites > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/15/wikiafrica-space/>* > > * *Evaluating the success of Wikimedia Czech > Republic’s Mediagrant > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/18/evaluating-czech-mediagrant/>* > > * *The recent UK report and movement governance > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/movement-governance-recommendations/>* > > > ==== Media Contact ==== > > https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#March_2013 > > > ==== Wikipedia Signpost ==== > > For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the > community-edited newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” for > March 2013: > > * Volume 9, Issue 9 > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-03…>, > 04 March 2013 > * Volume 9, Issue 10 > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-03…>, > 11 March 2013 > * Volume 9, Issue 11 > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-03…>, > 18 March 2013 > * Volume 9, Issue 12 > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-03…>, > 25 March 2013 > > > == Office of the Executive Director == > > Sue Gardner announced > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/27/sue-gardner-departure-announcement/> > that she plans to leave her position as Executive Director > of the > Wikimedia Foundation, to focus on defending the free and > open Internet. > She will remain fully engaged as Executive Director until > her successor > has been recruited, which is expected to take at least six > months. > > > == Visitors and Guests == > > Visitors and guests to the WMF office in March 2013: > > 1. Teemu Leinonen (Aalto University) > 2. Ken Collier (Thoughtworks) > 3. Dan Garry (Ombudsmen Commission) > 4. Lev Gloukhenki (Ombudsmen Commission) > 5. Leif Larsen (Ombudsmen Commission) > 6. Thomas Goldammer (Ombudsmen Commission) > 7. User:Erzbischof (Ombudsmen Commission) > 8. Erin Reading (NPS) > 9. Gershon Bialer (EventLogging Workshop) > 10. Mlitn (EventLogging Workshop) > 11. Piotr Bablok (EventLogging Workshop) > 12. Jonathan March (EventLogging Workshop) > 13. Valerie Ball (KPMG) > 14. Gour Lentell (BiNu) > 15. Ton Chookhare (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 16. Franzi Mare (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 17. Nikita Kiselev (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 18. Thomas Malec (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 19. Julio Santil (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 20. Joseph Zhou (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 21. Vishel Shah (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 22. Lauren Fernandez (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 23. Abigail Feuer (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 24. Sarah Walker (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 25. Adi Rubinovich (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) > 26. John McLear (Etherpad Project) > 27. Idoia Valencia (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 28. Mikel Garcia (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 29. Borja Pinedo (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 30. Patrizia Varela (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 31. Eneko Sieso (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 32. Asier Lopez (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 33. Beñat Egaña (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 34. Lucia Vazquez (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 35. Goio Arana (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 36. Tomas Tamayo (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 37. Jon Jimenez (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) > 38. Kim Dodson (consultants) > 39. Randall Benson (consultants) > 40. Mark Oppenheim (m|Oppenheim) > 41. Mikel Gazzia (SMASH co-op) > 42. Christine Cavanaugh-Simmons (CCS Consulting Inc) > 43. Deb Wolter (Red Bamboo Consulting) > 44. Mary Gardiner (TAI) > 45. Simon Turkalj (Simon Turkalj Associates) > 46. Patrick Dippery (COO and Co-Founder, Collabriv) > 47. Nimish Gautam (visitor) > 48. Thomas Shaffer (Change.org) > 49. Patrick Chen (Change.org) > 50. William Adams (Full Circle Group) > 51. Glenn Turner (Advanced Mobile Notary) > 52. Simon Cross and guest (Praekelt foundation) > 53. Drew Paroski (Facebook) > 54. Grant Joung (Thoughtworks) > 55. Brian Bocchino (Gravity People) > 56. Roman Garcia (User:Blurpeace > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Blurpeace>) > 57. August Wissmath (volunteer) > 58. Philip Steele (Pension Architects) > 59. Michael Rom (Pension Architects) > 60. Kunal Mehta (User:legoktm <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Legoktm>) > 61. Brian Behlendorf (Cofounder of the Apache Software > Foundation and > Board Member of the Mozilla Foundation) > 62. Liliana Bounegru (DataDrivenJournalism.net, European > Journalism Centre) > 63. Mat Dryhurst (Director of Public Programming, Gray Area > Foundation > for the Arts) > 64. Jonathan Gray (Director of Policy and Ideas, Open > Knowledge Foundation) > 65. Jay Nath (SF Mayor's Chief Innovation Officer) > 66. Timothy Vollmer (Manager of Policy and Data, Creative > Commons) > 67. Gregg Servis (Full Circle Group) > 68. Brett Victor (guest speaker) > 69. Andrew Lih (Author and guest speaker) > 70. Doug Hessel (Johnson & Dugan) > 71. Virginia Sutton (Johnson & Dugan) > 72. Linda Lam (Johnson & Dugan) > 73. Andrea De Ville (Radford) > 74. Zachary Osman (Radford) > > -- > Tilman Bayer > Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) > Wikimedia Foundation > IRC (Freenode): HaeB >

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Biggest Fake Conference in Computer Science
by georgepeter＠hushmail.com 12 Apr '13

12 Apr '13

We are researchers from different parts of the world and conducted a study on the world’s biggest bogus computer science conference WORLDCOMP ( http://sites.google.com/site/worlddump1 ) organized by Prof. Hamid Arabnia from University of Georgia, USA. We submitted a fake paper to WORLDCOMP 2011 and again (the same paper with a modified title) to WORLDCOMP 2012. This paper had numerous fundamental mistakes. Sample statements from that paper include: (1). Binary logic is fuzzy logic and vice versa (2). Pascal developed fuzzy logic (3). Object oriented languages do not exhibit any polymorphism or inheritance (4). TCP and IP are synonyms and are part of OSI model (5). Distributed systems deal with only one computer (6). Laptop is an example for a super computer (7). Operating system is an example for computer hardware Also, our paper did not express any conceptual meaning. However, it was accepted both the times without any modifications (and without any reviews) and we were invited to submit the final paper and a payment of $500+ fee to present the paper. We decided to use the fee for better purposes than making Prof. Hamid Arabnia (Chairman of WORLDCOMP) rich. After that, we received few reminders from WORLDCOMP to pay the fee but we never responded. We MUST say that you should look at the above website if you have any thoughts to submit a paper to WORLDCOMP. DBLP and other indexing agencies have stopped indexing WORLDCOMP’s proceedings since 2011 due to its fakeness. See http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/icai/index.html for of one of the conferences of WORLDCOMP and notice that there is no listing after 2010. See http://sites.google.com/site/dumpconf for comments from well-known researchers about WORLDCOMP. If WORLDCOMP is not fake then why did DBLP suddenly stopped listing the proceedings after? The status of your WORLDCOMP papers can be changed from “scientific” to “other” (i.e., junk or non-technical) at any time. See the comments http://www.mail-archive.com/tccc@lists.cs.columbia.edu/msg05168.html of a respected researcher on this. Better not to have a paper than having it in WORLDCOMP and spoil the resume and peace of mind forever! Our study revealed that WORLDCOMP is a money making business, using University of Georgia mask, for Prof. Hamid Arabnia. He is throwing out a small chunk of that money (around 20 dollars per paper published in WORLDCOMP’s proceedings) to his puppet (Mr. Ashu Solo or A.M.G. Solo) who publicizes WORLDCOMP and also defends it at various forums, using fake/anonymous names. The puppet uses fake names and defames other conferences to divert traffic to WORLDCOMP. He also makes anonymous phone calls and threatens the critiques of WORLDCOMP (see Item 7 in Section 5 of http://sites.google.com/site/dumpconf ).That is, the puppet does all his best to get a maximum number of papers published at WORLDCOMP to get more money into his (and Prof. Hamid Arabnia’s) pockets. Monte Carlo Resort (the venue of WORLDCOMP until 2012) has refused to provide the venue for WORLDCOMP’13 because of the fears of their image being tarnished due to WORLDCOMP’s fraudulent activities. WORLDCOMP’13 will be held at a different resort. WORLDCOMP will not be held after 2013. The paper submission deadline for WORLDCOMP’13 was March 18 and it was extended to April 6 and now it is extended to April 20 (it may be extended again) but still there are no committee members, no reviewers, and there is no conference Chairman. The only contact details available on WORLDCOMP’s website is just an email address! Prof. Hamid Arabnia expends the deadline to get more papers (means, more registration fee into his pocket!). Let us make a direct request to Prof. Hamid arabnia: publish all reviews for all the papers (after blocking identifiable details) since 2000 conference. Reveal the names and affiliations of all the reviewers (for each year) and how many papers each reviewer had reviewed on average. We also request him to look at the Open Challenge at https://sites.google.com/site/moneycomp1 Sorry for posting to multiple lists. Spreading the word is the only way to stop this bogus conference. Please forward this message to other mailing lists and people. We are shocked with Prof. Hamid Arabnia and his puppet’s activities http://worldcomp-fake-bogus.blogspot.com Search Google using the keyword worldcomp fake for additional links.

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[Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Report, March 2013
by Tilman Bayer 12 Apr '13

12 Apr '13

Hi all, please find below the WMF report for March 2013, in plain text. As always, the editable and formatted version has been published on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_March_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,_March_2013 Many thanks to those who have translated the February "Highlights" into Asturian, Catalan, Danish, German, Spanish, Maltese, Russian and Simplified Chinese (and partially into some other languages like French, Italian, Norwegian Bokmål andTraditional Chinese)! While still focussing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement. Suggestions for the upcoming April issue are welcome until May 1 at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights#Movement_news_ite… . Regards, Tilman -- Wikimedia Foundation Report, March 2013 <Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_April_4…> Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting covering the month of March Contents * 1 Data and Trends * 2 Financials * 3 Highlights o 3.1 Lua speeds up pages and empowers Wikimedia's technical contributors o 3.2 Mobile uploads launch for apps and the mobile web o 3.3 First Individual Engagement Grants awarded to innovative community projects o 3.4 Wikipedia Zero wins award, reaches new users o 3.5 Ombudsmen meet, might expand mandate * 4 Engineering o 4.1 VisualEditor o 4.2 Editor engagement o 4.3 Mobile o 4.4 Other engineering news * 5 Fundraising o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations o 5.2 Annual Fundraiser * 6 Grantmaking and Programs o 6.1 Strategic Goals Metrics o 6.2 Grantmaking + 6.2.1 Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) + 6.2.2 WMF Grant requests approved in March 2013 + 6.2.3 WMF Grant reports accepted in March 2013 + 6.2.4 Participation Support requests approved in March 2013 + 6.2.5 Individual Engagement Grants + 6.2.6 Editor Growth and Contribution Program + 6.2.7 Wikimania Support + 6.2.8 Brazil # 6.2.8.1 Institutional Partnerships # 6.2.8.2 Hirings # 6.2.8.3 Data & Experiments # 6.2.8.4 Education # 6.2.8.5 Online tutorials # 6.2.8.6 Communications # 6.2.8.7 Medicin Wikiproject # 6.2.8.8 Community and High School o 6.3 Programs + 6.3.1 Wikipedia Zero + 6.3.2 Global Education o 6.4 Learning & Evaluation * 7 Human Resources o 7.1 Staff Changes o 7.2 Statistics o 7.3 Department Updates * 8 Finance and Administration * 9 Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications Department o 9.1 LCA Report, March 2013 + 9.1.1 Contract Metrics + 9.1.2 Trademark Metrics + 9.1.3 Domains Obtained + 9.1.4 Coming & Going + 9.1.5 Other Activities o 9.2 Communications Report, March 2013 + 9.2.1 Major announcements + 9.2.2 Major Storylines through March + 9.2.3 Other worthwhile reads + 9.2.4 WMF Blog posts + 9.2.5 Media Contact + 9.2.6 Wikipedia Signpost * 10 Office of the Executive Director * 11 Visitors and Guests == Data and Trends == Global unique visitors for February: *483 million* (-1.12% compared with January; +1.53% compared with the previous year) (comScore data <http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/unique_visitors> for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release March data later in April) Page requests for March: *21.5 billion* (-1.1% compared with February; +24.8% 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 February 2013 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month, excluding bots): *78,083* (-7.53% compared with January / -2.43% 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) for February 2013: 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_February_2…> Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of February 28, 2013 <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses_by_Functions_February_…> Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of February 28, 2013 (Financial information is only available through February 2013 at the time of this report.) All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and Year-To-Date February 28, 2013. Revenue $35,650,340 *Expenses:* Engineering Group $9,379,205 Fundraising Group $2,411,055 Grantmaking & Programs Group $3,935,546 Governance Group $504,987 Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group $2,029,585 Finance/HR/Admin Group $3,702,999 Total Expenses $21,963,377 Total surplus $13,686,963 * Revenue for the month of February is $1.89MM vs plan of $276K, approximately $1.61MM or 585% over plan. * Year-to-date revenue is $35.65MM vs plan of $30.46MM, approximately $5.19MM or 17% over plan. * Expenses for the month of February is $4.25MM vs plan of $4.03MM, approximately $215K or 5% over plan, primarily due to higher capital expenses offset by lower personnel expenses, internet hosting, and grant expenses. * Year-to-date expenses is $21.96MM vs plan of $25.94MM, approximately $3.98MM or 15% under plan, primarily due to personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, FDC grants executed, WMF project grants, and travel expenses partially offset by higher legal expenses and bank fees. * Cash position is $40.68MM as of February 28, 2013. == Highlights == === Lua speeds up pages and empowers Wikimedia's technical contributors === On March 13 <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/lua-templates-faster-more-flexible-pa…>, Lua <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lua_(programming_language)> was enabled for templates on all Wikimedia wikis. The existing syntax for wikitext templates is complicated and limited: it does not offer loops <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_(computing)>, for example. With Lua, editors can now use a real programming language <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/14/what-lua-scripting-means-wikimedia-op…>, in which they can also contribute to programming projects outside Wikimedia. For Wikimedia wikis, Lua means a big performance gain in widely used templates, such as citations. For example, 300 citations on an English Wikipedia article now render in 3 seconds instead of 18 seconds <https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1gMw12QMPn0Xj_5tiUi1…>. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mobile_web_upload_button.PNG> The new image upload button in an article on the mobile version of the English Wikipedia === Mobile uploads launch for apps and the mobile web === On the mobile version of Wikipedia, smartphone users can now easily upload a lead image <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/28/add-an-image-to-this-article-uploads-…> to Wikipedia articles that lack one. Also in March, the Mobile team released a dedicated app for Wikimedia Commons <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/putting-commons-contributions-in-your…>, allowing media uploads from Android and iOS devices. === First Individual Engagement Grants awarded to innovative community projects === The recipients of the first Individual Engagements Grants were announced <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/29/wikimedia-individual-engagement-grant…> on March 29. These grants fund projects by individuals or small teams for a duration of six months. Among the largest of the eight funded grants are "The Wikipedia Library <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Library>" ($7500), which aims to give editors access to reliable sources, donated by publishers, "The Wikipedia Adventure <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Adventure>" ($10,000), an on-wiki game for new editors, and a project to collaboratively define a vision for the future of Wikisource <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Elaborate_Wikisource_strategic_v…> (10,000 Euros). === Wikipedia Zero wins award, reaches new users === Wikipedia Zero, which gives people around the world mobile access to Wikipedia free of data charges, won the 2013 SXSW Interactive “Activism” award <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/wikipedia-zero-wins-2013-sxsw-interac…>, beating four other finalists. Also in March, Wikipedia Zero became available to more than 55 million additional subscribers in Russia, as part of a partnership with Beeline (VimpelCom). This was the biggest launch for the Wikipedia Zero team to date. The same month, a new Wikipedia Zero partnership with Axiata Group was announced <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/axiata-wikipedia-zero-partnership/>, which will expand the program in Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh this year. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-Ombudsman-Commission-Publ…> Four of the Ombudsmen during their visit at the WMF office === Ombudsmen meet, might expand mandate === In March, the Foundation's LCA <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LCA> team hosted five out of seven members of the Ombudsmen Commission in San Francisco, where these community members from around the world met with each other in person for the first time <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/04/01/privacy-policy-complaints-on-wikipedi…>. They consulted with various WMF departments and provided input regarding privacy topics and the work of administrators. Formed in 2006, the Ombudsmen Commission is currently tasked with investigating complaints of alleged Privacy policy <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy> violations on behalf of the Board of Trustees. It has been proposed that the Commission should also be allowed to handle complaints about the global CheckUser policy <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser_policy> and Oversight policy <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight_policy>. An RfC (request for comment) about this is being prepared. == Engineering == A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for March 2013 can be found at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2013/March Department Highlights <Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sneak_Preview_-_Wikipedia_VisualEdi…> "A Sneak Preview of the Wikipedia VisualEditor", narrated by Trevor Parscal (uploaded March 1, 2013) === VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> === /(Accessible introduction to what the Visual Editor is <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/07/inventing-as-we-go-building-a-visual-…>)/ In March, part of the team worked on infrastructure for the major new features that they'll be adding in the coming months. We aim for VisualEditor to be the default way all users edit our sites by July 2013, so it needs to let everyone edit the majority of content without needing to use the usual "wikitext" editor. This will mean adding support for references, (at least) basic templates, categories and images, each of which is a very large piece of work. This month the team primarily worked on draft designs and initial code to ensure users can edit categories and templates. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:VisualEditor-Parsoid_-…> <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor-Parsoid_-_2012-13_Q3_q…> Slides from the VisualEditor/Parsoid quarterly review (see also slides <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor_-_2013-04_Metrics_deck.pdf> from the monthly metrics meeting) The VisualEditor team undertook its first ever "Quarterly Review <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…>" (minutes <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…>), whose slides <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor-Parsoid_-_2012-13_Q3_q…> detail these designs, the work done to date and expectations for the near future. The alpha version of VisualEditor on mediawiki.org and the English Wikipedia was updated twice, adding better input and selection support, fixing a number of bugs, and restructuring the back-end so that the new features will be simpler to create. The Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid> team (who are creating the parsing program <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsing> that translates plain wikitext into HTML annotated for easy editing, and /vice-versa/) continued writing specifications, fixing bugs, and improving how Parsoid deals with different human languages, newlines and whitespace, and transclusion. They wrote a blog post explaining their challenges <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/04/parsoid-how-wikipedia-catches-up-with…>. And late in March, C. Scott Ananian joined us as a contractor. Welcome! === Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> === <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Fabrice Florin presenting about Notifications (slides <https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1cknqzVqRBPffahIBWc_…>) In March, the editor engagement features team worked on three projects: Notifications, Article Feedback and Flow. For Notifications (formerly code-named 'Echo'), we developed a range of new features, including: the 'thanks' and 'user rights' notifications, as well as HTML email notifications. We also started to collect our first metrics and prepared a socialization plan for our upcoming release on the English Wikipedia later this month. For Article Feedback, we deployed a new version of the tool on the French and German Wikipedias, for evaluation by their communities. Final features include 'discuss on talk page' and 'auto-archive. The tool was temporarily turned off on the English Wikipedia, where we expect to re-deploy it on an opt-in basis as soon as practical. Design work continued on Flow. We continued creating a "Portal" that will engage discussion about Flow at three locations (mediawiki.org, meta, and the English Wikipedia), and performing research. The Editor Engagement Experiments <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Editor_Engagement_Experiments> team largely placed other projects – such as guided tours <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/guided_tours>, EventLogging <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/EventLogging>, and others – on hold to focus on two key initiatives: the "Getting Started <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GettingStarted>" process for onboarding new Wikipedians <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/onboarding_new_Wikipedians>, and on making the redesign of account creation and login <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/account_creation_user_experience> a permanent, internationalized part of MediaWiki core. For the Getting Started project, the team launched a new version on English Wikipedia, which included a new landing page with additional types of tasks suggested for brand new editors to try. The list of tasks is now generated by a basic recommender system <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Onboarding_new_Wikipedians/Recommender_system> built by Ori Livneh, which gathers, filters, and delivered a fresh list of tasks automatically for every editor. This new backend paves the way for releasing the "getting started" feature on other projects, after we've completed data analysis and testing to understand which kinds of tasks are ideal for first time editors. Additionally, Matt Flaschen collaborated with the Editor Engagement Features team to build notifications <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo> to welcome new editors and invite them to contribute via the Getting Started. For the account creation and login work, S Page, Munaf Assaf, and the rest of the team rebuilt our design to work with MediaWiki core, and solicited reviews from outside the team. We currently plan to launch both interface redesigns on an opt-in basis in April, to have editors test the localization and other functional aspects of the forms via a URL parameter, before we enable them as default. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Maryana Pinchuk presenting mobile image uploads (slides) <https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1EW-Io5mTXeNwaPBGvAe…> === Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> === We have a stable version of the mobile-optimized website, which everyone on a smartphone uses by default, and we have a beta version that logged-in Wikimedia users can opt to use to see features we're still building. When functionality is polished enough, we promote it from the beta site to the stable site. In March, we added the ability to easily upload a lead image <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/28/add-an-image-to-this-article-uploads-…> to articles that lack one in the stable version of the mobile site. We also helped users by giving them a temporary fix to an issue we discovered that made logging in hard or impossible for some users of newer mobile web browsers; that problem had prevented a number of users from being able to upload photos via the mobile site. We are now well on our way to reach our goal of 1000 unique uploaders/month by the end of June 2013. Check out the mobile app dashboard <http://mobile-reportcard.wmflabs.org/> to see mobile contributions via the website and via apps. Also: we've added thumbnails of lead images from articles in the mobile watchlist view, as well as a "last modified" timestamp on articles in the stable version of the mobile site. We are currently focusing on some performance enhancements for the mobile site. In April we will graduate the "uploads dashboard" feature from beta to stable, will further refine our photo upload features, and will let beta site users see and use a feature to identify articles on subjects near your current location. The Mobile team that makes dedicated Wikimedia mobile apps have created an initial version of the Commons photo uploader app <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/putting-commons-contributions-in-your…> for Android; it is available for download in Google Play. The iOS version is still in beta, but should be available in the Apple app store next month. In March, Wikipedia Zero <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships> added new telecom partners (such as Axiata Group Berhad <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/axiata-wikipedia-zero-partnership/>), fixed some technical problems, and onboarded new staff. We also won an SXSW Interactive "Activism" award for Wikipedia Zero <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/wikipedia-zero-wins-2013-sxsw-interac…>. (see also the general "Highlights" section) Max Semenik, Arthur Richards and Faidon Liambotis held an OpenStreetMaps mini-hackathon at Open Source Days 2013 in Copenhagen <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Events/Wikimedia_Mapping_Event_2013>. During the event, they agreed on an implementation strategy for a future WMF mapping cluster. The cluster would serve OSM "tiles" and thus help integrate OSM functionality better into Wikimedia sites, and help with our mobile apps which already make use of OSM data. === Other engineering news === * Lua scripting <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/11/lua-templates-faster-more-flexible-pa…> has launched on all WMF wikis, making templates faster and making pages more flexible. You can read that post to understand what to do on your wiki to take advantage of this, and you can also read about the implications for Wikimedia's future <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/14/what-lua-scripting-means-wikimedia-op…> (see also general "Highlights" section) * We redesigned the Translate interface <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/25/redesigning-the-translation-experienc…> and made other progress <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/12/new-release-of-the-mediawiki-language…> on translation and language-related tools. * We have fresh, friendly instructions on reporting a technical problem <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/18/how-to-create-a-good-first-bug-report/> and invite you to help prioritize problems to fix <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/help-wikimedia-squash-software-bugs/>. * Our designers are collaborating with the Noun Project <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/the-noun-project-and-the-wikimedia-fo…> towards creating an "Encyclopedia Collection" of free icons. * Our Operations group (the systems administrators who keep our servers running) has started a twice-monthly meeting with other engineering teams, to keep communication flowing about requirements and possible upcoming problems or infrastructure needs. * The User Metrics API <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_Metrics> launched; it's a service that allows researchers to perform cohort analysis <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohort_study> on various data sets, making it easier to measure the effects of programs and platform experiments among discrete sets of users. The Analytics group <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics>, which works on software to make statistics about Wikimedia available, is currently working on improving the web-based user interface, to make it available for use outside of Wikimedia Foundation staff in the coming months. == Fundraising == Department highlight * The fundraising team ramped up testing in languages and countries that were not included in the year-end 2012 campaign, raising approximately $5 million USD. === Major Gifts and Foundations === * Received a $250,000 grant from Peter Baldwin and Lisbet Rausing. === Annual Fundraiser === * The fundraising team ran banners in languages and countries that were not included in the year-end 2012 campaign (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Switzerland, Germany). Approximately $5 million USD was raised from this campaign in the month of March. Banners were taken down on March 31, 2013. Any future testing will be announced on the Fundraising 2013 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013> page on Meta. * Patricia Pena visited India and researched user feedback and possible opportunities for local processing in the country. We interviewed roughly 20 donors and networked with over 20 Indian payment providers. * The fundraising tech team continued to add new payment options including Boletos for Brazil and Direct Debit for Spain, Netherlands, and Austria. In addition, the team added the option to make a recurring credit card donation for countries where this was not previously offered. * Megan Hernandez, Katie Horn, and Bryony Jones visited Japan, a top donor country, and met with 3-5 Japanese donors every day during the week of March 11. The team tested 10 different messages and designs and developed a high performing fundraising banner. * Victor Grigas produced brief video introductions to the VisualEditor <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sneak_Preview_-_Wikipedia_VisualEdi…> (see above) and the Wikipedia Education Program <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Wikipedia_Education_Program.webm> (see below). == Grantmaking and Programs == Department Highlights * Launched Wikipedia Zero with Beeline (Vimpelcom) in Russia, largest single operator to date (55+ million subscsribers) * First round of Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) approved and announced <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/29/wikimedia-individual-engagement-grant…>! * Round 2 2012-2013 proposals to the Funds Dissemination Committee <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals> were submitted on 1 March 2013 and have been open to community review from 1 March to 31 March. === Strategic Goals Metrics === Metric Value MoM MoM% Chart Global South Active Editors (5+ edits in main namespace) 15.5k -317 -2.0% Decrease [1] <http://gp.wmflabs.org/graphs/global_north_south_active_editors> === Grantmaking === ==== Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) ==== * Proposals for Round 2 2012-2013 were submitted on 1 March 2013. 4 proposals were submitted (presented alphabetically) : o Wikimedia Czech Republic <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikim…> o Wikimédia France <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikim…> o Wikimedia Hong Kong <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikim…> o Wikimedia Norge <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/Wikim…> * *Community review:* From 1 March until 31 March, members of the Wikimedia community commented on the four funding proposals submitted to the FDC <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals> (Wikimédia France <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/…>, Wikimedia Hong Kong <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/…>, Wikimedia Norge <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/…>, and Wikimedia Czech Republic <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round2/…>) during the one-month open comment / community review period. Comments and questions were submitted for each proposal: each proposal discussion page had at least 20 distinct authors and at most 34 distinct authors. 111 was the maximum total number of edits made on the discussion pages of any proposal, and 79 was the minimum total number. The comments addressed many topics, including expressing overall support or concern for a proposal, questioning the specifics of financial tables, stating concerns about an entity's plans to hire staff, and requesting more information about specific programs. Questions and comments from the community will be summarized and reflected in the FDC staff assessments published on April 8, and will be considered by the FDC when it deliberates in Milan in late April. * The Progress report form <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Progress_report_form> was finalized and made ready for use by entities funded in 2012-2013 Round 1 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1>, who will submit their first progress reports before 30 April 2013. Entities may submit their reports from their proposal hub pages in the FDC portal. ==== WMF Grant requests approved in March 2013 ==== * Grants:WM IN/Program Grant Quarter 1 2013 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_IN/Program_Grant_Quarter_1_2013>: Grant to support the activities of Wikimedia India during the first quarter of 2013. * Grants:WM Wikisym/2013 WikiSym OpenSym Conference <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_Wikisym/2013_WikiSym_OpenSym_Conf…>: Grant to support the annual WikiSym conference. * Grants:Jackson Peebles/Video and Interactive Tutorials <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Jackson_Peebles/Video_and_Interactiv…>: Jackson will use screen capture software to author video tutorials with potential interactivity for certain Wikipedia tools and processes. * FF portal/Recommendations/Fotofahrt im Heißluftballon <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FF_portal/Recommendations/Fotofahrt_im_Hei%…>: Flow funding request to support aerial photography projects in Germany. * FF portal/Recommendations/Faculty of Economics Skopje <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FF_portal/Recommendations/Faculty_of_Econom…>: Flow funding request to support Wikipedia education activities at the Faculty of Economics in Skopje. ==== WMF Grant reports accepted in March 2013 ==== * Grants:Abbas Mahmood - Creative Commons Community in Kenya/CC Kenya Formative Meeting/Report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Abbas_Mahmood_-_Creative_Commons_Com…> * Grants:WM US-DC/Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 USA/Report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012_U…> * Grants:WM US-DC/Events 2012/Report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Events_2012/Report> * Grants:WM ZA/Wiki Loves Monuments/Report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_ZA/Wiki_Loves_Monuments/Report> * Grants:WM IN/Bootstrap Grant/Report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_IN/Bootstrap_Grant/Report> * Grants:WM HU/Annual Program Plan 2012/Report/Q4 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_HU/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Repor…> * Grants:WM NL/Annual Program Plan 2012/Report/Q4 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NL/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Repor…> * Grants:WM SE/Annual Program Plan 2012/Report/Q4 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_SE/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Repor…> Contractor Kevin Gorman has published a review of the Wikimedia Foundation’s grants program <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Retrospective_2009-2012> from fiscal year 2009-2010 through fiscal year 2011-2012. ==== Participation Support requests approved in March 2013 ==== * Participation:SarahStierch/NMLA Conference <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:SarahStierch/NMLA_Conference> * Participation:Thelmadatter/Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Thelmadatter/Seminar_on_the_A…> * Participation:Umbrellas000/US OpenGLAM Launch Weekend, Open Knowledge Foundation <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Umbrellas000/US_OpenGLAM_Laun…> * Participation:Bdcousineau/US OpenGLAM Launch Event <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Bdcousineau/US_OpenGLAM_Launc…> * Participation:Hlong-lib/US OpenGLAM Launch Weekend, Open Knowledge Foundation <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Hlong-lib/US_OpenGLAM_Launch_…> * Participation:Tedder/Legislative Data and Wikipedia Conference <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Tedder/Legislative_Data_and_W…> * Participation:Cryptic C62/Legislative Data Workshop <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Cryptic_C62/Legislative_Data_…> * Participation:Lpagola/LibreGraphicsMeeting <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Lpagola/LibreGraphicsMeeting> ==== Individual Engagement Grants ==== The IEG Committee completed its review, and WMF announced <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/29/wikimedia-individual-engagement-grant…> that all 8 recommended projects have been selected <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-engaging> for round 1 funding. The selected projects are: * Build an effective method of publicity in PRChina <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Build_an_effective_method_of_pub…>, led by zh:User:AddisWang <https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AddisWang>, funded at $350. 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. * Replay Edits <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Replay_Edits>, led by w:User:Jeph_paul <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jeph_paul>, funded at $500. 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 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Library>, funded at $7500 and The Wikipedia Adventure <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Adventure>, funded at $10,000, will both be led by w:User:Ocaasi <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ocaasi>. 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 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Consolidate_wikiArS_to_involve_a…>, led by w:User:Dvdgmz <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dvdgmz>, funded at 7810 Euros. The WikiArS outreach program builds partnerships with art and design schools to teach students to create images for donation to Wikimedia Commons and for 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 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Elaborate_Wikisource_strategic_v…>, led by User:Micru <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Micru> and User:Aubrey <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aubrey>, funded at 10,000 Euros. 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 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/MediaWiki_data_browser>, led by User:Yaron K. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Yaron_K.>, partially funded at $15,000 in order to pilot the initial concept. 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. * MediaWiki and Javanese script <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/MediaWiki_and_Javanese_script>, led by User:Bennylin <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bennylin>, has been provisionally approved for funding at $3000, provided that a couple of dependencies <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:IEG/MediaWiki_and_Javanese_scri…> can be satisfied. 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. ==== Editor Growth and Contribution Program ==== <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editor_Growth_and_Contribution_Prog…> Logo of the Editor Growth and Contribution Program A landing page <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tambayan_Philippines/Get_started> for Geo-targeted Editors Participation <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Geo-targeted_Editors_Participation> was created on English Wikipedia, and an invitation to edit was displayed using the geo-targeted centranl notice to readers from the Philippines, where readers were encouraged to registed an account and were surfaced random stub articles about local topics to improve. ==== Wikimania Support ==== * Hired Ellie Young, Contractor to take the lead on orchestrating Wikimania! Welcome, Ellie! * Finalizing review of Wikimania Scholarship applications. Over 1200 applicants with 660 who made it into round 2 of the review process (i.e., non-spam). Committee of 9 voting members thoroughly reviewed and scored applicants. Anticipated ~100 scholarships through WMF. ==== Brazil ==== ===== Institutional Partnerships ===== A debate on governance with Ação Educativa, WMF and a member of the community took place, to trigger a debate on meta. The report on the meeting has been published <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…> and is now open for debate. ===== Hirings ===== * Job positions of the Brazilian Wikipedia Education Program for substituting the current contractor opened! (with coverage by big media, thanks to Tom) ===== Data & Experiments ===== * Translation of the Meta Page Research:Data <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Data> into Portuguese is ongoing <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Central_de_pesquisas/Portal_de…>. * Prototype of the Data Center <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pt:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Central_de_pesquisas/Portal…> has been developed and is being debated: the proposal is to have a central page with data and tutorials for anyone to work on data creation and analysis. * IRC meetings <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pt:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Projetos/Wikip%C3%A9dia/Reu…> to debate proposals for Analyses and Data Center page * Henrique’s onboarding in SF: Henrique attended the Python conference and various meetings in SF as part of his onboarding. * An initial proposal for data analyses and experiments <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…> has been published on Meta and is being debated. <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade_-_FG…> Wikipédia na Universidade - FGV SP (direito) ===== Education ===== Partnerships with universities * FGV SP (Getulio Vargas Foundation): A lecture at FGV Law School in São Paulo for about 70 people has taken place, with the participation of a WMF team and one volunteer. The university has tried to implement actitivies at Wikipedia but faced difficulties in having the content accepted. They’re restructuring the project with our support now. * Gama Filho: several videos <http://www.youtube.com/wikipediapt> to invite students from the University to engage in the translation course/partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation have been produced. ===== Online tutorials ===== We’ve catalyzed and provided a first translation version for online tutorials <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pt:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Training>. The community has imported the pages and is customizing the material. ===== Communications ===== * The community has approved the recreation of communications channels as blogs <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pt:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Esplanada/propostas#Blog_da…> - though the br.wikimedia claims it should be under their website <http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:%C3%81gora/Blog_Wikimedia/Wikip%C3%A…>. We should run a test on the Correio da Wikipédia <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Correio_da_Wikip%C3%A9dia> for one month and check the signpost distribution system and would publish that on br.wikimedia too, for customization. * Catalyzed initiative of a journalist volunteer who started interviewing volunteers <http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:%C3%81gora#Entrevista_com_editores> to write stories about them ===== Medicin Wikiproject ===== * Bot: improvements have been made and it’s ready to be tested on the real environment by the community (request for bot approval <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Rob%C3%B4s/Pedidos_de_aprova%C…>) ===== Community and High School ===== * The bridge reported last month built between the community and High School Peretz became the subject of an article <http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/tec/1251093-colegio-em-sp-estimula-alunos-a-ed…> in Folha de S.Paulo <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folha_de_S._Paulo>. The newspaper has also produced an online tutorial <http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/tec/1251021-gravada-aprenda-a-editar-artigos-e…>. === Programs === ==== Wikipedia Zero ==== /(see also general "Highlights" section)/ * Launched Wikipedia Zero with Beeline (Vimpelcom) in Russia, largest single operator to date (55+ million subscribers) * Completed partnership contract and announcement with Axiata, expanding partner base of Wikipedia Zero to 410 million subscribers * Wikipedia Zero received the 2013 SXSW Interactive Award for "Activism" <Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Wikipedia_Education_Program.webm> The Wikipedia Education Program, in video form! (narrated by Annie Lin and LiAnna Davis) <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Rod Dunican presenting about the impact of the Education Program (slides <https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1UYnRWTJ18JGCfeb747L…>) ==== Global Education ==== Highlights: * Egypt term wrapped up with a celebration conference in Cairo. * Classes started in Egypt, Jordan, and Algeria, as part of the Wikipedia Education Program Arab World <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ar:%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF…>. * Volunteers proposed new thematic organization to run U.S. and Canada Education Programs, the Wiki Education Foundation <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Education_Foundation>. Egypt program celebrates end of second term The second term of the Wikipedia Education Program in Egypt wrapped up with a celebration conference at Cairo University. Dr. Abeer Abd El-Hafez, a professor of Spanish from Cairo University, opened the conference and spoke about the spirit of the program and its importance in the lives of students and teachers in terms of skills development and new experiences. Faris El-Gwely, the education program consultant who runs the program in Egypt, shared results from the second term, and the best students and Ambassadors from the program received certificates recognizing their hard work. Students and professors also shared information about their experiences in the program. Check out photos from the event. <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Second_Celebration_Conference,_…> U.S. student shares special Wikipedia story <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Article_Photo.jpg> Jacqueline McCrory University of San Francisco master's student Jacqueline McCrory wrote the Wikipedia article on habitat conservation plans for her class with Professor Aaron Frank in spring 2012 — and was then astonished to discover that she'd been assigned to read the article in a different class in fall 2012! Jacqueline talks about how her Wikipedia article experience gave her additional responsibility at work and kudos from professors in her department in a post on the Wikimedia Foundation blog. Read the post. <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/13/student-assigned-to-read-a-wikipedia-a…> Quebec professor's work featured in WMF blog <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lauriers_C%C3%A9gep_de_Chicoutimi06…> Simon Villeneuve's students Professor Simon Villeneuve of physics and astronomy at Cégep de Chicoutimi, a college in Quebec, has been using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in his classroom since 2008. Overall, his students have created more than 150 articles on the French Wikipedia on topics related to astronomy and physics, and Simon has learned a lot about the best ways of doing Wikipedia assignments. Read a post he wrote for the Wikimedia blog about his work. <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/07/quebec-school-project-improves-french-…> News coverage highlights Poland, Ukraine programs An article in the Global Post highlights the work being done in Poland and Ukraine related to the Wikipedia Education Program. The Ukraine program ran a pilot last term that produced 23 improved articles. The Poland program is working with a university to replace a bachelor's thesis with a Wikipedia article. Learn more by reading the article. <http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/130313/wikipedia-aca…> Education project improves Catalan Wikipedia <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sagrada_Familia_nave_roof_detail.jpg> Sagrada Familia nave roof detail, an example of modernism in Barcelona. Esther Solé from Amical Viquipèdia wrote a post for the Wikimedia Foundation blog about the "Viquimoderisme" project to improve articles related to modernism on the Catalan Wikipedia. Around 100 art history students at the University of Barcelona are working with researchers to create new articles on Catalan modernism, a topic important to the cultural history of Catalonia. Esther's report highlights their learnings from the initial phase, and they're currently embarking on the second phase, in which a museum in Barcelona will also offer students access to resources they can use in their articles. Read more about the project. <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/21/viquimodernisme/> Online student trainings deemed a success A post on the Wikimedia Foundation blog highlights the successful development of an online training for students piloted on the English Wikipedia with the United States and Canada programs. In the post, author Sage Ross describes how early feedback and user testing has led to iterative improvements to the content of the training. This term, more than 400 students (about one third of all students participating in the program) have successfully completed the training. Read more about the online training. <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/20/online-training-for-newcomers/> Education Program featured in video Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager LiAnna Davis and former Program Manager Annie Lin were featured in a video describing the basics of the education program. In the short video, Annie and LiAnna describe how the program works and talk about the impact the program has had in the last three years. Watch the video. <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/wikipedia-education-program-video/> <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professor_Ruy_de_Queiroz.jpg> Professor Ruy de Queiroz Brazil professor featured on Wikimedia blog Professor Ruy de Queiroz of Brazil is one of the pioneers of using Wikipedia in his classroom. In 2005, he was browsing the Portuguese Wikipedia in logic and theory of computation — his study areas — and found the Portuguese version lacking in comparison to the English version. Over the last seven years, he and his students have added content to more than 125 articles on the Portuguese Wikipedia in an effort to improve access to information. Read more about his work. <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/26/ruy-de-queiroz-profile/> === Learning & Evaluation === * Working with the Analytics and E3 teams to expand the UserMetrics API tool to address the needs of the G&P partners at large * Plagarism study along with the Wikipedia Education team, working on tools to be able to query based on article categories, editor type, and contribution types * Program mapping study, creating database of all funding mapped to programs. Thanks to volunteer Rosie Lewis for this awesome work! == Human Resources == <Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…> Gayle Karen Young presenting about hirings in the first quarter (slides <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NHoqUo8prz3GGWluoar3Y5hj5MvXMkf-YTS…>) In March, HR has made some changes to our benefits providers, namely a broker change and a flexplan provider change. HR also hosted the second remote employee task force meeting with a focus on improving in-office technology for better remote participation, which Office IT has been assiduously improving. We have also been working on analyzing our compensation structure, and our 401k committee has been working to add new low fee index funds and find a new plan advisor. === Staff Changes === New Requisitions Filled * Adam Baso, Senior Software Developer (Engineering) * Yuri Astrakhan, Senior Software Developer (Engineering) New Contractors * Dan DeJarnatt (HR) * Kristan Johnson (Fundraiser) * Meron Kristos (Finance) * Andrey Valkov (Fundraiser) * Ellie Young (Grantmaking & Programs) Contract Extended * Oona Castro (Grantmaking & Programs) * Jeroen DeDauw (Engineering) Departures * Peter Gehres (continuing as contractor) * Svetlana Istrati * Patrick Reilly Contracts Ended * Zoe Bernard * Darrin Fox * Aaron Halfaker * Ian Poirier * Jawad Qadir * Mike Wang * Anita Whites New Postings * A/P Clerk * Communications Volunteer * Development Associate * Software Engineer | Language Engineering * WordPress Developer (Contract) === Statistics === Total Requisitions Filled March Actual: 134 March Total Plan: 175 March Filled: 2, Month Attrition: 3, YTD Filled: 43, YTD Attrition: 21 6 Position canceled for FY Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end 34 (8 of which are on hold) === Department Updates === Real-time feed for HR updates http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork == Finance and Administration == * Review of FDC round 2 proposals for the FDC. * Completed Wikimedia Argentina site visit report which will be presented to the WMF Audit Committee at their summer meeting. * Completed Version 1 of the WMF annual plan, which is now being reviewed by the WMF Senior Level Team and the WMF Board of Trustees. * Reviewing options for Foreign Exchange management beyond the big international banks to receive and distribute funds for the global movement. == Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications Department == === LCA Report, March 2013 === ==== Contract Metrics ==== * Submitted : 17 * Completed : 20 ==== Trademark Metrics ==== * Submitted : 26 * Approved : 2 * Pending : 20 * Denied : 3 * Approval not needed : 1 ==== Domains Obtained ==== * wikipedia.us * wikipedia.is * softwarewikipedia.com * wikispecies.org * wikimedia.gr ==== Coming & Going ==== * Two legal interns’ spring internships are coming to an end. Thanks to Ava Miller and Megumi Yukie for all of their help this semester! * One of our contract attorneys, Ian Poirier, left the Foundation for a permanent opportunity and we wish him the best in his new job! * We welcome Elaine Wallace, a talented and experienced attorney who will be volunteering her time with us over the next few months. ==== Other Activities ==== * Community Advocacy hosted a meeting in the office of 5 out of 7 of the Ombudsman Commission both to facilitate their work with each other and their assistance with various staff on WMF initiatives (see also general "Highlights" section) * Community Advocacy set up the first of a series of phone calls for WMF management with highly connected community members around the world. * Legal continues to work through the trademark registration process to protect our marks around the world. === Communications Report, March 2013 === In March we successfully issued another major announcement for Wikipedia Zero, highlighting a partnership with Axiata that will bring WP Zero to countries in Southeast Asia. We also worked closely with the executive team on news of Sue Gardner's upcoming departure from the Foundation. The team is also rotating our group of Communications volunteers, and hoping to bring in about four new volunteers to help us with day to day media monitoring and reporting. ==== Major announcements ==== /Axiata partners with the Wikimedia Foundation to offer free mobile Wikipedia access through Wikipedia Zero <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Axiata_partners_with_th…>/ 18 March 2013 - Axiata Group Berhad and the Wikimedia Foundation today announced a partnership to offer Wikipedia on mobile devices free of data charges to Axiata customers throughout Asia. ==== Major Storylines through March ==== /WMF ED Sue Gardner to leave Foundation/ (Mar 27, 2013) This month’s major news story focused on Sue Gardner’s announcement that she would be stepping down later this year once a successor for her position has been identified, to focus on defending the free and open Internet. Mostly positive-tone coverage of the news largely followed a highly visible story published by the NY Times shortly after Sue made the announcement on the WM Blog and on public and community mailing lists. (blog post) https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/27/sue-gardner-departure-announcement/ http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/a-driving-force-behind-wik… http://www.stern.de/digital/online/fuehrungssuche-beim-online-lexikon-wikip… http://www.webpronews.com/sue-gardner-to-depart-wikimedia-foundation-uncomf… /BP Edits to WP make headlines/ (Mar 20, 2103) A flawed CNET story from mid-March sparked substantial coverage of a BP staffer’s presence on English Wikipedia. The original story accused the staffer of rewriting a number of BP related articles. Subsequent coverage was mostly critical of BP for its actions. Some coverage speculated that the BP staffer may have operated within the approved ‘policies’ around COI editing. http://prweek.tumblr.com/post/45989772176/wikipedia-editors-have-accused-a-… http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/bp-accused-of-rewriting-wikipedia-… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/bp-wikipedia-page_n_2923363.html http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/bp_edited_its_own_environmental_record_on_w… /Wikipedia Zero / Axiata / SXSW/ (Mar 8, 2013) In early March Wikipedia Zero was honored with its first major accolade, the SXSW Interactive award. Later in March Wikipedia Zero launched its first major initiative in southeast Asia, further extending the number of global customers who will be able to access WP without data charges into the hundreds of millions. http://www.informationweek.in/Mobile/13-03-21/How_Wikipedia_plans_to_use_mo… http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/sxsw-wikipedia-for-non-smartpho… ==== Other worthwhile reads ==== How Jimmy Wales’ Wikipedia Harnessed the Web as a Force for Good | Wired | March 2003 http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/03/jimmy-wales-wikipedia/ Jane Goodall apologizes for plagiarizing Wikipedia | March 22 http://www.dailydot.com/culture/jane-goodall-plagiarized-wikipedia/ Wikipedia, meet Lua! | March 18 (blog post) https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/14/what-lua-scripting-means-wikimedia-op… http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/18/wikipedia-crowdsourcing-site-performance-… http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Wikimedia-adopts-Lua-for-page-genera… ==== WMF Blog posts ==== https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/ Thirty-two blog posts in March, with bilingual posts <https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/> in German, Dutch, Portuguese, Catalan, Czech, and French. Some highlights: * *Parsoid: How Wikipedia catches up with the web <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/04/parsoid-how-wikipedia-catches-up-with…>* * *WikiAfrica project welcomes and trains Cameroonians to contribute to Wikimedia sites <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/15/wikiafrica-space/>* * *Evaluating the success of Wikimedia Czech Republic’s Mediagrant <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/18/evaluating-czech-mediagrant/>* * *The recent UK report and movement governance <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/19/movement-governance-recommendations/>* ==== Media Contact ==== https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#March_2013 ==== Wikipedia Signpost ==== For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the community-edited newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” for March 2013: * Volume 9, Issue 9 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-03…>, 04 March 2013 * Volume 9, Issue 10 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-03…>, 11 March 2013 * Volume 9, Issue 11 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-03…>, 18 March 2013 * Volume 9, Issue 12 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-03…>, 25 March 2013 == Office of the Executive Director == Sue Gardner announced <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/27/sue-gardner-departure-announcement/> that she plans to leave her position as Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, to focus on defending the free and open Internet. She will remain fully engaged as Executive Director until her successor has been recruited, which is expected to take at least six months. == Visitors and Guests == Visitors and guests to the WMF office in March 2013: 1. Teemu Leinonen (Aalto University) 2. Ken Collier (Thoughtworks) 3. Dan Garry (Ombudsmen Commission) 4. Lev Gloukhenki (Ombudsmen Commission) 5. Leif Larsen (Ombudsmen Commission) 6. Thomas Goldammer (Ombudsmen Commission) 7. User:Erzbischof (Ombudsmen Commission) 8. Erin Reading (NPS) 9. Gershon Bialer (EventLogging Workshop) 10. Mlitn (EventLogging Workshop) 11. Piotr Bablok (EventLogging Workshop) 12. Jonathan March (EventLogging Workshop) 13. Valerie Ball (KPMG) 14. Gour Lentell (BiNu) 15. Ton Chookhare (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 16. Franzi Mare (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 17. Nikita Kiselev (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 18. Thomas Malec (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 19. Julio Santil (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 20. Joseph Zhou (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 21. Vishel Shah (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 22. Lauren Fernandez (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 23. Abigail Feuer (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 24. Sarah Walker (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 25. Adi Rubinovich (UC Berkeley Haas MBA Tour) 26. John McLear (Etherpad Project) 27. Idoia Valencia (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 28. Mikel Garcia (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 29. Borja Pinedo (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 30. Patrizia Varela (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 31. Eneko Sieso (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 32. Asier Lopez (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 33. Beñat Egaña (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 34. Lucia Vazquez (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 35. Goio Arana (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 36. Tomas Tamayo (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 37. Jon Jimenez (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) 38. Kim Dodson (consultants) 39. Randall Benson (consultants) 40. Mark Oppenheim (m|Oppenheim) 41. Mikel Gazzia (SMASH co-op) 42. Christine Cavanaugh-Simmons (CCS Consulting Inc) 43. Deb Wolter (Red Bamboo Consulting) 44. Mary Gardiner (TAI) 45. Simon Turkalj (Simon Turkalj Associates) 46. Patrick Dippery (COO and Co-Founder, Collabriv) 47. Nimish Gautam (visitor) 48. Thomas Shaffer (Change.org) 49. Patrick Chen (Change.org) 50. William Adams (Full Circle Group) 51. Glenn Turner (Advanced Mobile Notary) 52. Simon Cross and guest (Praekelt foundation) 53. Drew Paroski (Facebook) 54. Grant Joung (Thoughtworks) 55. Brian Bocchino (Gravity People) 56. Roman Garcia (User:Blurpeace <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Blurpeace>) 57. August Wissmath (volunteer) 58. Philip Steele (Pension Architects) 59. Michael Rom (Pension Architects) 60. Kunal Mehta (User:legoktm <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Legoktm>) 61. Brian Behlendorf (Cofounder of the Apache Software Foundation and Board Member of the Mozilla Foundation) 62. Liliana Bounegru (DataDrivenJournalism.net, European Journalism Centre) 63. Mat Dryhurst (Director of Public Programming, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts) 64. Jonathan Gray (Director of Policy and Ideas, Open Knowledge Foundation) 65. Jay Nath (SF Mayor's Chief Innovation Officer) 66. Timothy Vollmer (Manager of Policy and Data, Creative Commons) 67. Gregg Servis (Full Circle Group) 68. Brett Victor (guest speaker) 69. Andrew Lih (Author and guest speaker) 70. Doug Hessel (Johnson & Dugan) 71. Virginia Sutton (Johnson & Dugan) 72. Linda Lam (Johnson & Dugan) 73. Andrea De Ville (Radford) 74. Zachary Osman (Radford) -- Tilman Bayer Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l

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Open Organizations
by Everton Zanella Alvarenga 12 Apr '13

12 Apr '13

Dear all, some friends and I were translating this nice diagram bellow focused on open government and I just had an idea. If you were going to add WMF in the middle of this diagram, where would be each element of the Wikimedia movement? Just a thought experiment. :) Tom [image: Imagem inline 1] -- Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom) OKFN Brasil - Rede pelo Conhecimento Livre http://br.okfn.org

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Swiss Federal Archives team up with Wikimedia CH
by charles andres 12 Apr '13

12 Apr '13

*Sorry for crossposting* Bern, 12.04.2013 - The Swiss Federal Archives and Wikimedia CH are joining forces to review source materials from the Federal Archives and publish them online. To this end, the post of a “Wikipedian in Residence” is now being advertised via Wikimedia. The first joint project will provide access to a photographic collection on the First World War. 2013 sees the start of a new collaboration between the Swiss Federal Archives and Wikimedia – two organisations committed to free access to knowledge. With a view to publishing freely usable, “public domain” source materials from the Federal Archives holdings online via Wikimedia – such as Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikiversity – a “Wikipedian in Residence” will be working in the Federal Archives over the next few months. Wikimedia has been gathering experience with the “Wikipedian in Residence” concept internationally since 2010, at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the British Library in London and the US National Archives near Washington. The Federal Archives partnership is the first collaboration with a GLAM (*Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums*) institution in Switzerland. The initial goal is to make more than 5,000 digitised photographs from a collection on the First World War searchable and freely accessible via Wikimedia by autumn 2013, providing researchers with a fascinating, well catalogued and freely accessible body of materials just in time for the centenary of the war’s outbreak in 1914. As a guest of the Federal Archives, the Wikipedian in Residence will promote entries in the online encyclopaedia that relate to the Federal Archives and their holdings, and publish material under open-content licences. Links between the Federal Archives and the Wikipedia community will also be expanded. The Federal Archives and Wikimedia CH will report on the collaboration and its results at regular intervals. The advertisement for the post of “Wikipedian in Residence”<http://members.wikimedia.ch/images/c/c7/Job-Advertisement-WiR.pdf> Français: http://www.bar.admin.ch/aktuell/00431/01503/index.html?lang=fr&msg-id=48486 Deutsch: http://www.bar.admin.ch/aktuell/00431/01503/index.html?lang=de&msg-id=48486 Italiano: http://www.bar.admin.ch/aktuell/00431/01503/index.html?lang=it&msg-id=48486 --- Charles ANDRES, Chairman Wikimedia CH <http://www.wikimedia.ch/>- Association for the advancement of free knowledge Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch

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Fwd: Sponsoring travel to Wikimedia Hackathon
by Quim Gil 11 Apr '13

11 Apr '13

fyi Please help making sure the gadgets & templates developers plus the admins and other contributors to the tech avantgarde of your projects are aware of this. In an ideal world all of them would follow wikitech-l but this is probably not the case today. Thank you! -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Sponsoring travel to Wikimedia Hackathon Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:05:53 -0700 From: Quim Gil <qgil(a)wikimedia.org> Organization: Wikimedia Foundation To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Hi, you have probably heard about Wikimedia Hackathon 24-26 May in Amsterdam (Netherlands) http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Hackathon_2013 There are about 100 participants registered, and we have some room for more. Registration is free but you need to sign up. There is also some travel sponsorship budget left after a first round of approvals. If your free software contributions and your Wikimedia love is more valuable than the money you have in the bank, you can just register and apply for scholarship. Please include public URLs where we can see your open source licensed contributions (code, pixels, wise words...). A CV alone won't cut it, no matter how many avatars appear to endorse your skills. Hurry up! The organizers are reviewing applications as they come. -- Quim Gil Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: The value of Wikipedia for the economy
by keilanawiki＠gmail.com 11 Apr '13

11 Apr '13

C'est très interessant. Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un qui l'a appliqué au Wikipédia anglais? Merci pour ce travail excellent! Kei Sent from my HTC One™ S on T-Mobile. America’s First Nationwide 4G Network. ----- Reply message ----- From: "Plyd" <wiki.vincent(a)amplyd.com> To: "wikimedia-l" <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: The value of Wikipedia for the economy Date: Thu, Apr 11, 2013 11:55 AM Hi, It looks like nobody received this email, so I try again! Vincent ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Plyd <wiki.vincent(a)amplyd.com> Date: Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 9:12 PM Subject: Re: The value of Wikipedia for the economy To: Plyd <wiki.vincent(a)amplyd.com> Cc: "lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org" <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>, " wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org" <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Sébastien Beyou <seb35wikipedia(a)gmail.com> Le mardi 9 avril 2013, Plyd a écrit : Hello, > Thanks Seb35 for pointing me this email. > > I did a study last year about the value of Wikipedia, as a thesis for my > diploma in HEC Paris. Here is the link below. It is written in french and I > used French Wikipedia as an example, but the methods used are the same for > all languages. > > I was looking for indicators on "how to value the job of wikipedians" so > my prefered indicator was the increase of pageviews. For a glam giving its > material, saying how many views it generated is the best convincing > argument imho. > > But I searched for a lots of different valuations, with each their own > limits. As an example : > - advertisement value : more or less the market value if a private company > would like to make an offer to the foundation, best evaluation is with a > simple ratio of pageviews * average page view value. > $8 per 1000 pageviews => $1 600 000 000 per year for all wikipedia > with discounted cash flow method (with the internet growth prediction), I > get a $8 800 000 000 value. (2% of Apple Market Capitalisation) > limitation : the value of wikipedia relays in its contributors and if it > was sold, no more contributors would keep writing (and a fork would be done) > limitation : the pageview value given by the foundation includes bots... > > - "how much would it cost to write Wikipedia" ? I used the indicator of > freelance journalist paid at the "word" and I multiplied by the monthly > size increase of Wikipedia. > limitation : of course the choice of journalist is discutable, it's not > the same job, but it is close enough to be compared. > I used 57,74€ for 1500 signs (a value found in france), which gave me €32 > 000 000 per month value for french wikipedia, so with a €3000 monthly cost, > it gives 900 employees for french wikipedia. > > - I also calculated with a "time spent" indicator, calculated with > wikiscan.org (15 minutes max per contribution), which gaves me a more or > less same result : 900 full-time contributors on fr.wikipedia.org > > Thesis: > http://www.amplyd.com/these/Valorisation%20du%20b%C3%A9n%C3%A9volat%20sur%2… > > Slides for a Wikimedia France presentation: > http://www.amplyd.com/these/Valorisation%20du%20b%C3%A9n%C3%A9volat%20sur%2… > > Don't hesitate to ask questions ! > > Plyd > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Seb35 <seb35wikipedia(a)gmail.com> > Date: 2013/4/8 > Subject: Valeur de Wikipédia > To: Plyd <wiki.vincent(a)amplyd.com> > > > Hello, > > Si tu veux parler de ton étude de la valeur de Wikipédia, il en est > question sur wikimedia-l (pas lu, juste vu le titre), ça intéressera > sûrement Lodewijk. > http://lists.wikimedia.org/**pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-** > April/125050.html<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-April/125050.html> > > Seb > > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

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Wikimedia Deutschland Monthly Report March 2013
by Katja Ullrich 11 Apr '13

11 Apr '13

Dear all, please find Wikimedia Deutschland's monthly report for March 2013 on Meta. You can find out more about the symposium "Wikidata meets Archeology" which took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the newly-launched project "Chapters Dialogue" which will coordinate communication between Wikimedia chapters and, of course, much more. Here's the link: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Deutsch… Best, Katja -- Öffentlichkeitsarbeit ------------------------------------- Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstraße 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/ Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

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Global Economic Map
by Alex Peek 11 Apr '13

11 Apr '13

I would love to see a Wiki project map out the global economy. In an organized format all local/country economic data would be collected. All authors would be required to write articles according to a standardized format. The model revolves around publicly released economic data: GDP, employment, industries, corporations, fiscal policy, etc. Economists and volunteers can help determine which economic data accounts are most appropriate to be required under the standardized format. There is nothing in the world that resembles this model. There is no Wiki that allows economists to add economic data under a standardized format. I have already written the article for 'Economy of the United States'. It is 7 pages long. This article contains what I believe is the most important economic data available to the public. The data is almost entirely in table format. Citations include the U.S. Census Bureau, the World Bank, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Yahoo Finance, CNN'S Money's Fortune 500 list, U.S. treasury releases, Federal Reserve websites, company annual reports and the IMF. The file can be seen at the Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Economy.pdf The Contents of the U.S. Economy article are: 1. States, 2. Industries, 3. Corporations, 4. Employment, 5. Fiscal Budget, 6. Monetary Policy, 7. Creditors, 8. Cities, 9. International Accounts 9. History All articles would be standardized and connected in an organized network. This model would go down to the most local level. All 196 countries would have a standardized country article to have the same exact format. This project would evolve as economists determine better ways to present the data. The 'Economy of ______' pages are very educational and are an awesome collection of economic data. I think that these articles would be greatly improved if they were modified to become more uniform. This would allow for greater comparability. I believe that these pages would be improved with a standardized and simplified format. This would allow for greater comparability and public understanding of the economy. Below are the Wikipedia Contents of the four biggest economy articles. As you can see, the Contents are inconsistent between them. I believe this can be fixed with my Wiki project proposal. Economy of the United States 1 History 2 Overview 3 Employment 4 Research, development, and entrepreneurship 5 Income and wealth 6 Financial position 7 Industry Sectors 8 Notable companies and markets 9 Energy, transportation, and telecommunications 10 Finance 11 Health care 12 International trade 13 Currency and central bank 14 Law and government 15 See also 16 References 17 External links Economy of China 1 History 2 Government role 3 Regional economies 4 Development 5 Macroeconomic trends 6 Financial and banking system 7 Industry Sectors 8 Labor and welfare 9 External trade 10 Foreign investment 11 Demographics 12 Transportation and infrastructure 13 Science and technology 14 See also 15 References 16 External links Economy of Japan 1 Economic history 2 Infrastructure 3 Macro-economic trend 4 Services 5 Industry 6 Mining and petroleum exploration 7 Agriculture 8 Labor force 9 Law and government 10 Culture 11 Other economic indicators 12 See also 13 Notes 14 External links Economy of Germany 1 History 2 Macroeconomic data 3 Economic region 4 Natural resources 5 Sectors 6 Infrastructure 7 Technology 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

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Wikimedia-l April 2013