Hello,
While contributing to wiktionary, I discovered Tatoeba, a website where
you can find translated sentences, and share your knoledge with new
translation.
The project database is free (CC-by if I well remember), and the team
behind it seems very responsive: think that they made this post[1] just
because I am incorrigible curious person.
Now as our moto is "the sum of all knowledge…" I was curious to know
your opinion on integrating such a project within Wikimedia. As I
already don't have time to make all the contributions that I would like
to bring to the community, I won't be able to bring energy on such a
project. So I just share the idea, "just in case", to my mind it's
always better than drop it nowhere.
Kind regards,
mathieu
[1] http://blog.tatoeba.org/2013/05/the-story-of-tatoeba.html
Hi all,
It recently came to my attention by way of this blog by Odder
(http://twkozlowski.net/how-40k-dollars-turned-to-petty-cash/) that
the AffCom approved a $40,000 budget to send 9 of their members to HKG
in August (the 10th member lives in HKG). The issue was raised at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Affiliations_Committee#.2440.2C000_Hong…
(I see the words "transparent" being used there a lot).
The budget request resolution was then published a
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Budget_re…
- discussion has carried on at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Budg…
What we are seeing is that there is a lot evasive answers, with
questions not really being answered. After asking about accommodation,
it's been advised that AffCom is basically budgeting approximately
US$12,600 towards accommodation (based upon NINE single rooms for 7
nights at a cost of $200 per night). This, I feel, is an outrageous
amount of money to be spending. There is no reason that twin rooms can
not be used (i.e. 2 per room); or less "luxurious" accommodation can
be booked.
I understand that the guys on AffCom might feel like they are being
singled out here, but given that they are members of the community,
first and foremost, they should be open to such criticism on their
spending. It's unfortunate that none of the 9 feel it necessary to
comment there, given all the talk of transparency.
Perhaps some gentle nudges from others in the community (especially
those involved with Chapter wikipolitics) could get this particular
committee to understand that although WMF is flush with cash, this is
simply not on. I'll leave other issues which have been raised to
others. Odder's latest blog at
http://twkozlowski.net/saving-by-spending-according-to-affcom/ might
be of interest.
Cheers,
Russavia
*
Hey all,
For the last 18 months, the Engineering & Product Development department
has been experimenting with the role of “Community Liaison, Product
Development” - a staff member embedded in the Product team and tasked with
factoring community concerns into our software development process, keeping
editors informed about what we’re doing, and maintaining a dialogue between
those who write code and those who write articles.
While there is always room for improvement, I think this role has shown a
lot of promise. We have a number of large projects coming down the
pipeline (e.g., visual editor, discussion systems) and we need more help
reaching out to our contributor communities, especially our non-English
speaking projects, as our outreach there has traditionally been challenged.
We’d like to recruit a small number of English-speaking or multilingual
editors to do the Community Liaison job with different development teams
and focuses.
In particular we’re looking for people with a strong history of
contributions to our projects who can provide sound and reasoned judgment
and are trusted to do so by their community. Speaking other languages in
addition to English is a major plus, as one of the objectives here is to
ensure we can properly interact with and support non-English projects.
I’ve included the full job description below.
Our immediate need is for help with the Visual Editor. We’d like to hire a
few community liaisons to help inform different Wikipedia language
communities of the upcoming launch, create spaces for feedback and
discussion, synthesize feedback for the Visual Editor team, and other
activities required to support the Visual Editor launch later this year.
If this is a role that would interest you, please e-mail Philippe Beaudette
at pbeaudette(a)wikimedia.org<https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=pbeaudette@wikimedia.org>.
And if you know someone else who might fit the role, let them know about
it :-). We’re provisionally interested in hiring 2-3 liaisons, at an hourly
rate commensurate with experience. This can be a part-time role, but we’ll
need at least 15 hours/week for the length of the engagement (minimum 3
months). Please do apply if you think it’s a role that suits you, and if
you find places we haven’t notified, spread the word!
Thanks.
Howie
*
_________________________
Howie Fung
Director of Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation
*
Community Liaison Job Description
Background Information and Statement of Purpose
The Wikimedia Foundation’s Engineering & Product Development Department is
looking at ways to more effectively incorporate broad community
perspectives in decisions and hold dialogues with our editors about the
scope, pace and features of upcoming changes to Wikimedia projects. As part
of this, it is hiring additional Community Liaisons from our volunteer
community.
Scope of Work
Support and improve our ongoing software development projects, in
particular:
-
Building up a network of volunteers from both English language and
non-English language wikis, increasing the number of projects we can
interact with;
-
Engaging the community in the software development process, by acting as
a conduit for community questions, bugs and and feature requests, talking
to editors about our work and how they can participate in it effectively,
and recruiting them for workgroups and studies;
-
Being available from time to time to provide expertise and knowledge
about our projects, including but not limited to training
externally-sourced staff in the way our projects work, answering their
questions, and providing expert advice on an ad-hoc basis;
-
Ensuring that our community is represented in the decision-making
process and that our planned software adequately reflects user needs;
-
Monitoring Wikimedia projects, with the assistance of a network of
volunteers, for emerging issues that have an impact on Engineering
programmes; and
-
Other duties as needed.
Requirements
Effective Community Liaisons will be:
-
Experienced users of Wikimedia projects, capable of representing our
community within the Foundation and vice-versa.
-
Strong communicators (both verbally and with the written word), able to
explain our products to different groups of users with different levels of
technical understanding.
-
Able to focus on the larger picture, understanding which concerns and
views are widespread and which are marginal or individual.
-
Approachable, as both users and product developers must be able to trust
these people for the relationship to function.
-
Self-motivated - they will be given important projects and expected to
execute with little to no supervision.
-
Strongly empathetic - they excel at understanding the perspectives of
others and bridging the gap between different approaches to the world.
-
Willing and able to remain resilient in the face of frustration from our
users, in order to get the job done.
Pluses
Other positive attributes or areas of knowledge include:
-
Diverse language skills. While the Wikimedia Foundation communicates
internally in English, we aim to be able to talk to our different
communities natively.
-
Experience with the software development process. You will be thrown
into teams that are actively working on new features; having a background
that reduces the slope of your learning curve is a plus.
- Familiarity with multiple Wikimedia projects is a major plus; we are
about more than just Wikipedia.
*
_______________________________________________
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
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WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/unesco_to_make…
Great step done by UNESCO! If I understood well, only credit will be
necessary.
I am glad to see that, since in some conversations I've participated with
UNESCO folks or at their events, mainly about open education resources,
some didn't get why the non-commertial restriction is closed/non-free.
Tom
--
Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom)
OKFN Brasil - Rede pelo Conhecimento Livre
http://br.okfn.org
> Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 12:47:08 -0700
> From: Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)frontier.com>
> To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Patience
> Message-ID: <519537BC.6000503(a)frontier.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> On 5/16/2013 11:52 AM, ENWP Pine wrote:
> > I agree that patience is a very important virtue in some situations, such as when we coach newbies or seek consensus among many people. But it's sometimes not a virtue, such as in many crisis situations. As a metrics and performance enthusiast, I feel that it's possible to have an appropriate mix of patience and impatience, and people should be appropriately accountable for their performance.
> I suppose it depends what implications you attach to those words, but I
> would not recommend using "impatience" when what you really want is
> "urgency". In my experience, the self-discipline that goes into everyday
> patience can actually remain a virtue in crisis situations as well, as
> it may help you remain clear-headed and make better decisions than you
> would if you let the circumstances overwhelm your ability to think
> rationally. And as Fred points out, a big part of my message relates
> especially to making emergencies out of things that are not.
>
> I also do not believe that patience is in any way incompatible with
> accountability. Patience does not require ignoring commitments,
> discarding performance evaluation, or even disregarding agreed
> timeframes. However, it does mean that the results of the evaluation
> should be well-considered and any consequences appropriate to the
> circumstances. Impatience tends to drive us to choose excessive
> consequences, like a lot of the "somebody should be fired" kind of talk
> over things that are honest mistakes.
>
> --Michael Snow
>
>
>
I think I understand your distinction between urgency and impatience in
the sense that the former doesn't necessarily imply the brusqueness
that the latter can.
Whether a situation is an emergency is sometimes subjective. I think
that someone on this list pointed out that something that's a crisis
for one entity may be viewed as a minor issue by another entity.
I agree that employment consequences for poor performance
should be carefully considered prior to implementation. However,
sometimes demoting or firing someone is appropriate, even if a poor
decision was an "honest mistake". Serious negligence is unacceptable.
On the other hand, it's also a good idea do praise and celebrate
success and good performance, as we're doing now with regards
to Spanish Wikipedia's significant milestone.
Pine
Hi Everyone
I have posted the draft ED job description online at the ED transition site.
If you want to comment on:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_Director_Transition_Team/Position_…
Please do so before the end of Sunday (PST). Sorry for the rush, but its not a long document :) Along with other members of the transition team I will be available to discuss this this weekend.
Thanks
Jan-Bart de Vreede
Chair ED Transition Team
Hi folks!
Maybe many of you have it already noticed. Nevertheless, spanish speakers
wikimedians want to share with you our joy of that the spanish version of
Wikipedia has surpassed the million of articles.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Estad%C3%ADsticas
Thanks and congratulations to all volunteers that make it possible.
Let's party!
--
*Salvador Alcántar*
*WMMX*
*Iberocoop*
Hello all,
Are you interested in policy and legislative issues that could affect the
Wikimedia movement? If so, please join the the Advocacy Advisory Group at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
The Advocacy Advisory Group is an open, public email list that focuses on
legislative advocacy, affiliations, and other related issues. The group
discusses these topics, advises the Wikimedia Foundation on advocacy and
affiliation actions, and shares updates on similar activities by chapters
and other organizations. Additional background is available in the
Foundation's Policy and Political Association Guideline:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Poli…
Many thanks,
Stephen
--
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
*For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia
Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer
for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal
capacity.*
_______________________________________________
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
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Hi
A few weeks ago MZMcBride proposed an exit interview for Sue on Meta. I
believe his intention was something similar to Reddit's IAmA. I thought
that this was a good idea and supported it. Sue has been at the helm for a
long while, it would be interesting to get her reflection on all the
changes, and give everyone who missed the last IRC office hour session, a
chance to ask any lingering questions.
Sue graciously accepted to do an exit interview a couple of weeks ago. The
page is already set up on Meta[1] for this, and we have a few questions
already. So far, things are organizing themselves pretty well with everyone
voting on what questions are finally picked. Please understand that we want
this to be a slow process, so everyone has time to see the questions and it
can take weeks to get your answer.
I would like to invite everyone reading this to have a look at the page.
Please feel free to post your questions or vote for the ones already
listed. Signpost, Wikinews or any other project/group that wants to use the
exit interview is welcomed to follow that page and add to it. Thanks to MZ
for getting things rolling on Meta and Sue, for accepting to do this.
Regards
Theo
[1]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_exit_interview/Sue_Gardner