Hello,
This is a reminder that the Language Engineering team will be hosting an
IRC office hour later today, i.e. July 10, 2013 at 1700 UTC/1000 PDT on
#wikimedia-office (Freenode).
Thanks
Runa
Agenda:
======
1. ULS Rollout
2. Other updates
3. Q/A - We shall be taking questions during the session. Questions
can also be sent to runa at wikimedia dot org or siebrand at wikimedia
dot org before the event and can be addressed during the office-hour.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Runa Bhattacharjee <rbhattacharjee(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 10:11 PM
Subject: [Language Engineering] Office hour on July 10, 2013 at 1700
UTC/1000 PDT
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia
Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, MediaWiki
internationalisation <mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hello,
The Wikimedia Language Engineering team [1] invites everyone to join
the team’s monthly office hour on July 10, 2013 at 1700 UTC/ 1000 PDT
on #wikimedia-office. During this session we would be talking about
some of our recent activities, including the Universal Language
Selector (ULS) rollout and updates from the ongoing projects.
See you all at the IRC office hour!
regards,
Runa
Event Details:
==========
Date: July 10, 2013 (Wednesday)
Time: 1700-1800 UTC, 1000-1100 AM PDT
IRC channel: #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net
Agenda:
1. ULS Rollout
2. Other updates
3. Q/A - We shall be taking questions during the session. Questions
can also be sent to runa at wikimedia dot org or siebrand at wikimedia
dot org before the event and can be addressed during the office-hour.
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Language_Engineering_team
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
> On 9 July 2013 23:46, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote:
>
>> > Well, not wanting to wade into that "pirates' little helpers"
>> snarkiness,
>> > but it takes 30 seconds from anywhere on the web to find a copyright
>> > violation. Maybe a bit longer if you have a slow connection.
>> >
>> > Risker
>>
>> True enough, but why are we one of the ways?
>>
>> Fred
>>
>>
> I've not had that experience on English Wikipedia, although I've never
> tried it on other projects. Now, I can easily take just about any link
> anywhere on the web and find a copyvio within 2-3 clicks, and I'm pretty
> sure that would be true for links on Wikipedia too. I suppose we could
> always ban external links, but I think it would be counterproductive for
> our projects and mission, and it wouldn't solve anyone's copyright
> issues.
> But please don't conflate links directly from Wikipedia to copyright
> violations (which is, I believe, expressly forbidden on all of our
> projects) and being able to get to copyright violations from links in
> Wikipedia. The only way to prevent the latter is to ban all external
> links.
>
> Risker
>
I guess I view sites which host entertainment, as opposed to material
which contains knowledge, as different. So music or a movie seems
different from a newspaper article or a passage from a book which, at
least in my mind, seems more like fair use, but not, of course, how fair
use is actually defined by the courts.
So The Searchers, which is not entirely void of information, however
distorted, seems very different from a copied newspaper article which
might also imagine Monument Valley was in Texas.
Fred
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM
Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
To: Staff All <wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi folks,
consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking &
talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people
about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product
department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take
seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view
that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept
and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I
want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below
is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan,
I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to
anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting
tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can
also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to
wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in
this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering
and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more
conversations at that level about the work that most of the
organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is
represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an
engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in
managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform
issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that
are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams --
we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.),
and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly
autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two
functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications
breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would
outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the
negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities
and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as
a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start
that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue
that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of
Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in
place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of
the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new
world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role,
so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the
search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the
kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions.
Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes
sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and
User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated
Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes
a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working
closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as
follows:
* VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
* VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new
leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize
here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I
believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build
this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past
experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering
operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned
issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of
thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening
questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in
coming weeks.
All best,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Gayle,
Page 26 of the 2013-4 Annual Plan says that you have "optimized Wikimedia's
value proposition [with] reasonable compensation near the mid-point of the
tech sector".
How much of a change to previous compensation scales pegged to the
nonprofit sector does that represent in percentage terms?
Dear Wikimedians,
Here is the monthly report of Wikimedia Argentina for June 2013.
You can read the full report (in Spanish and English) here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Argentina/Reportes/2013-06
1. Edit-a-thon in the Legislative Palace
2. Wikimemory in Rosario
3. Wiki Loves Monuments exhibition
4. GLAM Congress in La Rioja
5. Gender-gap in Córdoba
6. Wikipedia in General Belgrano
== Edit-a-thon in the Legislative Palace ===
On Saturday, June 29, we held the First Legislative Edit-a-thon, the second
editing marathon in Buenos Aires, organized jointly with the Buenos Aires
City Legislature. It focused on the history and architecture of the
Legislative Palace.
In this opportunity we welcomed people that were editing for the first
time; amongst them, Elizabeth Kries, who had taken part as a young
architect in the team that refurbished the palace in the 1970s. The
activity started at 4 pm with a tour through the Palace that described the
most important historic events, as well as its architectural features and
basic aspects of the legislative process. Two new articles were created,
one about the Esteban Echeverría Library and another one about the historic
Buenos Aires City Council. On top of that, the articles about the City
Legislature, its Palace and the City's coat of arms were substantially
modified.
The event, which brought together over 30 people, was developed as part of
the collaboration started with the City Legislature months ago, which also
included the donation of 85 images of the historic building that were
uploaded to Commons. In the mid-term, we hope that this framework brings
new projects to the local community, as well as new books and documents
with a Creative Commons licence, that are being digitalized by the staff in
the Esteban Echeverría Library.
=== Wikimemory in Rosario ===
On June 6 and 7 we organized, together with the Free Faculty of Rosario,
the event “Wikimemory”, where 30 high school students from the “Soldados
Argentinos” School in Rosario took part of the editing workshop. They where
unaware of the editing option in Wikipedia before the event.
During the first day, Osmar Valdebenito and Nicolás Georgetti made an
introduction to the students about Wikipedia, the Wikimedia projects, and
how the community works to improve the contents on the free encyclopedia.
Some tests were carried out in the classroom, and during the second day,
the students visited the Museum of Memory in Rosario. They decided together
the new articles to create and divided into groups to take pictures, gather
information and upload everything onto the web. On the whole, it was a very
successful experience.
In this opportuniy, we also worked with an audience that does not
frequently attend our events: Susana Correa made a presentation for old
people. It versed on the age group difficulties to access new technologies
and the use of Wikipedia. Ten people attended the event, who regularly take
part in the seminars of the Free Faculty. Meanwhile, Osmar and Nicolás gave
an interview for the TV show “Juntos a la par”, produced by the Argentinean
Work Union of Independent Teachers, and it was broadcasted in Rosario’s
regional channel.
La exhibición de Wiki Loves Monuments en la Casa de la Cultura de Buenos
Aires.
Wiki Loves Monuments exhibition
On June 4th we held the award ceremony of Wiki Loves Monuments 2012, the
first Argentinean edition of the biggest photo contest in the world. The
event took place at the Buenos Aires House of Culture, and it was also the
scene to officially announce the launching of the 2013 edition of the
competition. At the end of the 2012 contest, 6,001 images were uploaded to
Wikimedia Commons from 445 participants; of the 1.881 monuments listed, 793
of them were photographed for the contest, representing 42,2%, so there are
opportunities to grow for 2013.
Also, there was an exhibition in the same place until June 17 of the 10
winning photos from the Argentinean edition, together with the first prize
of the global edition. We expect to organize more exhibitions in the coming
months in other places in Argentina.
=== GLAM Congress in La Rioja ===
The IV Conference of Archives, Museums and Libraries in La Rioja was
organized by the National University of La Rioja (UNLaR). Osmar Valdebenito
made a presentation called “From shelves to Wikipedia: How to reach
millions of people from our libraries?”, that showed the impact Wikipedia
has as a source, being as it is the 5th most visited website in the world.
This time, Osmar highlighted the importance of encouraging local
communities in the provinces of Argentina to spread their patrimony. The
main objetctive is to break the current paradigm in which knowledge, in the
national sphere, is generated in Buenos Aires.
This event, which took place on May 13 and 14, was developed within
Wikimedia Argentina’s program to approach cultural institutions. It was our
first official activity in the Northwest of Argentina.
=== Gender-gap in Córdoba ===
The workshop “Editing the gender gap in Wikipedia” was held on two
different days this time: June 14 and June 28, organized jointly with the
Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities of the National University in Córdoba,
as part of the cooperation framework signed with that institution.
The workshop, coordinated by Lila Pagola and Rayentrey Tappa, was attended
by 17 people on the first meeting, which lasted for three hours, and 11
people on the second meeting, which lasted for six hours. None of the
participants had edited Wikipedia before, hence, the experience was also a
chance for dialogue about what is the free encyclopedia and the principles
in which it is inspired.
=== Wikipedia in General Belgrano ===
On Wednesday, June 26, we gave a workshop to 4th year students of the Nº 1
High School of General Belgrano (province of Buenos Aires). We adressed the
questions waht Wikipedia is and how to edit it, with the aim of organizing
an edit-a-thon with them in the near future. The audience, mainly secondary
students, was very enthusiastic about collaborating in the Free
Encyclopedia.
In this opportunity we discussed together the meaning of Wikipedia and its
relevance within a community. Our mid-term goal is to organize an
edit-a-thon about the city of General Belgrano and its history, together
with the local Museum of History “Alfredo Enrique Múlgura”. The event
intended to generate a real interest in young people to write about their
own city. The activity was very highly appreciated by the authorities of
the high school.
---------------------------
Kind regards,
*Osmar Valdebenito G.*
Director Ejecutivo
A. C. Wikimedia Argentina
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Hi,
a couple of weeks ago, I noticed this interview given by Sue to
m/Oppenheim Associates <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gRqtx9-A0c>.
At 11:19 <http://youtu.be/4gRqtx9-A0c?t=11m19s> Sue mentions that in the
next year (2013/2014), the WMF is going to spend US$55 million.
Are there any documents that we as community members could read to see
what exactly will this money be spent on? And is mentioning budget plans
on YouTube now the preferred way of communication between the WMF and
its donors/community members?
-- Tomasz
Dear colleagues,
I wanted to remind us all of the importance of learning from when our plans
and efforts don't succeed, whether due to mistakes or just an experimental
hypothesis turning out to not be the case.
We at the Wikimedia Foundation have had such an experiment a few months
ago, and an idea we thought had potential turned out to have none of the
hoped-for impact. We wrote it up and drew some (I think) interesting
learning points from it, including possibly next steps for those who may
want to experiment along similar lines.
The learning is featured in a Wikimedia Blog post here:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/02/english-wikipedia-editor-pilot-philipp…
which also links to the full report on Meta. I am also pleased at the
discussion the blog post has already generated.
Cheers,
Asaf
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org
Hi all,
Today, the British Library announced the Picturing Canada project to
mark Canada Day (1st July). Those of you who were at GLAM-Wiki in
April may remember this collection: it's a digitisation of the
Canadian Copyright Collection, 1895-1924, covering photographs
deposited for copyright registration in Canada during this period.
There's currently about 2,000 photographs, many of which are
composites of multiple images stuck together; all are available as
full-resolution TIFFs and JPEGs.
There's more files still trickling up - including some interesting
aerial photographs, panoramas, and a collection of official
photographs from WWI - but almost all of the "general" images are now
online, and we're now just adding the oddities. Including the official
photographs, this will total around 4,000 works. Please do take a look
- there's some marvellous material in there.
WMF: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/01/picturing-canada/ (in
English and French; translation by Benoit Rochon)
BL: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/americas/2013/07/happy-canada-day.html
Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picturing_Canada
Thanks to Wikimedia UK and the Eccles Centre for American Studies for
funding this, and to Phil Hatfield at the British Library for
championing the collection!
Andrew.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
(sorry for cross posting)
Hello everyone,
I'd like to invite you to Wikimedia Hungary's strategic planning discussions on
http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikim%C3%A9dia_Magyarorsz%C3%A1…
Don't get scared of the many Hungarian words, Google translator is
there to help you :)
Feel free to comment, add suggestions or exact goals of your taste or
preference (or your chapter's); this wikipage has been created to
centralize all the discussions and have a pool of suggestions and
ideas for our next general assembly in November 30., We will issue our
own short, mid and long term goals and strategies of growth,
expansion, future focuses and all the other things on that meeting.
ALL suggestions, ideas and comments are welcomed, but of course not
all will be implemented (sorry :) )
You can contribute in your own language if your Hungarian (or English
or German) is not that good.
Cheers,
Balázs