Thank you for highlighting something I should have clarified better in my post, MZMcBride. That sentence should have read "paid advocacy editing" in line with Sue's blog post that you referenced.
We continue to support the important work Sarah and others have done in the GLAM sector through projects like Wikipedians in Residence.
Frank
On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 6:22 PM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
Frank Schulenburg wrote:
>[...] it is widely known that paid editing is frowned upon by many in the
>editing community and by the Wikimedia Foundation.
No.
Paid editing is not the same as paid advocacy (editing). This is a very
important point.
Suggested reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQhttps://blog.wikimedia.org/?p=25830
N.B. an example of paid editing that few would likely have an issue with
in the first link and Sue's careful and correct wording in the second link.
If we're going to have such a fine distinction, we should probably better
document it to avoid misunderstandings.
MZMcBride
Hi all,
In 2013 the WMF Board of Trustees started to publish proposed bylaw changes
on Meta for consultation with the community. As we want to continue with
this new tradition you find a proposed change at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws/January_2014_-_…
The Board Governance Committee (BGC) was commissioned by the Board to
prepare the resolution and the BGC present it to the Board at the same time
we publish it on Meta. Now a 10 day discussion phase starts after which the
Board starts voting.
I'm happy to invite you to review and discuss the resolution draft. Please
share your comments on the talk page.
Regards,
Alice.
--
Alice Wiegand
Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Odder has published a fantastic blog piece at
http://twkozlowski.net/paid-editing-thrives-in-the-heart-of-wikipedia/ in
which it is revealed that a WMF employee is engaged in undeclared paid
editing on English Wikipedia, and charging what it appears to be $300 per
article.
I have cc'ed both Sue and Jimmy in on this email, but also sending to this
list as I know they, and other WMF employees, do use this list, and I think
it would be pertinent that they respond publicly to the issues raised here.
It is ever so more important given that the undeclared paid editing
occurred AFTER the whole Wiki-PR debacle (Sue's press release, WMF's
cease-and-desist, and of course the resultant media attention).
What do Jimmy and Sue believe should occur given that such editing violates
Wikipedia policies and also Jimmy's so-called Bright Line Rule. In relation
to Jimmy's line, many are still clueless as to what exactly this Bright
Line is (it's not very bright), and how it should be applied in practice,
so Jimmy, if you are out there, your comment is requested on that.
Cheers,
Russavia
The report on Wikimedia Nederland's activities in December is available:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Nederl….
It is also included as plain text below.
Sandra Rientjes
Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland
*Wikimedia Nederland activity report for December 2013*
*COMMUNITY: supporting and mobilising volunteers and editors*
· Sweden-week on NL-Wikipedia
The Dutch Wikipedia community decided to organise a ‘Sweden week’ to
support the Netherlands-Sweden friendship year in 2014. More than 1000
articles about topics related to Sweden were added to Dutch Wikipedia. WMNL
supported this initiative by liaising with WMSE and the Swedish Embassy in
the Netherlands who promoted the activity via their website.
· End-of-year Wiki-Saturday
On December 21 volunteers, boardmembers and staff met at the WMNL office
for the last Wiki-Saturday of the year. In total, 20 people came to Utrecht
for this special festive event.
· Wiki-café Groningen en Den Haag
Wikipedians met in café’s in Den Haag and Groningen to get to know each
other better and talk Wikipedia. In total some 11 Wikipedians attended.
They enjoyed this opportunity to meet fellow Wikipedians and want to repeat
the event.
*WORK: content, collaboration and activity development*
· Kick-off meeting World War II project
A group of volunteers and staff met with representatives of the National
Committee for Remembrance (Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei) to start
preparations for a campaign aimed at improving content concerning war
monuments both on Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia. April 2014 will be war
monument month.
· DISH 2013
Staff member Sebastiaan ter Burg co-hosted Alex Hinojo's chef table about
starting Wiki-related projects for GLAM's at DISH 2013, an international
conference about digital strategies in heritage.
· Presentation Landscape Heritage Utrecht
Staff member Sebastiaan ter Burg gave a presentation about GLAM projects at
the soft launch of UtrechtAltijd, a province wide new landscape heritage
platform. This event was organized by Landscape Heritage Utrecht on the
19th of December.
· Event organisation and evaluation toolkit
WMNL is developing a (beta) version of an event organisation and evaluation
toolkit. The toolkit is designed to support volunteers in setting up events
and to increase the quality and consistency of the evaluations. In January,
it will become available for testing.
· GLAMWiki Toolset
The GLAMWiki Toolset is a tool for uploading large content donations. The
tool has been added (can be used from) the 17th of December. Wikimedia
Nederland was one of the partners of this project.
*WMNL*
· Media coverage
An article in national newspaper NRC Handelsblad about the future of
Wikipedia (partly based on the MIT report and interviews with Wikipedian
Lodewijk Gelauff and WMNL executive director Sandra Rientjes) led to two
radio-interviews and and a 10-minute item in a well-watched current affairs
programme on national tv. Although the original article had a quite
negative focus on problems within Wikipedia concerning editor recruitment
and software, the media follow-up was more nuanced and generally
sympathetic to Wikipedia.
(Full list of media coverage)
· Membership
On December 31, WMNL had 217 members. We started the year with 175 members.
This growth occurred despite a rigorous ‘cleaning’ of the membership list
to remove people whose membership expired in 2012.
· Newsletter
The last Newsletter of the year was published. In 2013, the number of
people receiving the newsletter rose from 189 to 360.
*MONEY*
· A private grant-making foundation donated € 20,000 to
Wikimedia Nederland to improve coverage on Dutch wildlife and nature via
Wiki Loves Earth.
*ORGANISATION: board, management and support*
· WMNL started the search for candidate Board Members.
Elections will take place in March 2014. More information can be found on
the WMNL website.
*Upcoming*
The New Years Reception will take place on January 18 in The Hague.
tel. (+31) (0)6 31786379
www.wikimedia.nl
*Postadres*: * Bezoekadres:*
Postbus 167 Mariaplaats 3
3500 AD Utrecht Utrecht
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Hi Rupert,
I agree that individual outreach can be effective. How do you suggest that we get a substantial number of our existing editors to feel motivated to recruit new editors?
I think our problems with editor retention are widespread enough that they need to be addressed on a meta scale, even if that is "simply" to find effective ways of motivating existing users to assume good faith, be civil, and invite new people to edit on an individual basis.
Pine
> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:14:45 +0100
> From: rupert THURNER <rupert.thurner(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] New year's plans for editor engagement
> Message-ID:
> <CAJs9aZ_zynDU8JEEeahzJekiu3riEH7VcRJ2vwUddWf9a0O0HA(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> hi pine,
>
> as a volunteer, my personal stance is that editor engagement is best
> experienced on a personal, pragmatic, and not-meta level. let me give an
> example:
>
> when i met anasuya sengupta last year i was very impressed by her. such a
> nice and welcoming person to talk to. such a bright person, making
> intelligent suggestions to topics we have. she told us at wikimedia ch,
> that we do not reach the volunteers very well - basically 50 times more
> people edit wikipedia than the ones willing to engage in any form with an
> organisation around the movement, like wikimedia.ch. besides that, she is
> kind of the "dream wikimedian" who would be able to correct two of the most
> prominent editor statistics: she is woman, she is from india. and she is
> educated, she is organized, she is successful.
>
> after meeting, i did what i usually do, look on the contributions. to my
> great surprise, anasuya seems not have any billable edits ("billable" is,
> in my personal definition, an edit on a page where a donor would click and
> give money, so no talk page, meta, etc.). she as well does not seem to
> write open source software used by the movement. i cannot say if she really
> does not edit - she just does it in a way that a regular volunteer like me
> would not notice.
>
> funny enough, anasuya sits for one and a half years next to sue gardner in
> the san francisco office of the wikimedia foundation. sue gardner supported
> the editor engagement program, and the india program, she put efforts in
> making wikipedia nicer for women. and wmf put hundred thousands of dollars
> into efforts which basic target is to win anasuya as a contributor.
>
> happy new year as well!
>
> rupert.
>
> ps: if this mail is the cause to have one additional editor, its goal is
> fullfilled ;) and if every volunteer convinces one person to become
> wikimedia volunteer this year, you, pine, will write a different mail at
> the beginning of 2015.
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 4:32 AM, ENWP Pine <deyntestiss(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > We had a good 2013 year for readership statistics, fundraising, website
> > reliability, and many other metrics.
> >
> > We are continuing to have challenges with our editor population declining.
> > Statistics are at http://reportcard.wmflabs.org. WMF discussed some of
> > the research around these issues a monthly metrics meeting.
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-07-11
> > .
> >
> > We have thousands of new accounts registered each month. However we are
> > still losing more active editors than we gain each month. To date WMF and
> > the chapters haven't solved this problem although resources are being spent
> > on it. Projects include Echo, VisualEditor, Snuggle, GettingStarted, and
> > education outreach.
> >
> > Some discussion of these issues for English Wikipedia is happening at
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#P…
> > .
> >
> > Also check out the book review that is being published in this week's
> > Signpost
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Sandbox/Notes#.C5.BBycie_Wirtual…,
> > and the 2010 editor study results
> > https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_…
> > .
> >
> > I hope there will be many and sustained conversations in 2014 about
> > questions such as these:
> >
> > * What should WMF, Jimmy, chapters and affiliates, and the online
> > communities do differently regarding editor retention in 2014 and beyond?
> >
> > * What non-technical initiatives should be done to improve editor
> > recruiting and retention?
> >
> > * How can we make Wikipedia editing be as mainstream as playing mobile
> > games? I would like to see WMF take leadership on this issue and make a big
> > push in 2014-2015 to make mobile editing a popular activity.
> >
> > * Since negative feedback is a major reason that editors leave, should we
> > review how we revert and warn editors, how we handle content disputes, and
> > how we deal with editors who are uncivil or disruptive?
> >
> > * How can we be a community that is efficient while being civil and
> > hospitable?
> >
> > In the next Annual Plan I hope that someone at WMF will be appointed as a
> > point person for promoting all editor engagement initiatives and regularly
> > initiate discussions such as this one.
> >
> > Closing thought:
> >
> > "Whatever the weather
> > We must move
> > together"
> >
> > from a Marshall Plan poster,
> > https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Marshall_Plan_poster.JPG, seen on the
> > English WikiQuote main page on December 31, 2013.
> >
> > Happy new year,
> >
> > Pine
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>
>
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>
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> End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 118, Issue 2
> *******************************************
hello all!
January 1st was Public Domain Day [1] and after xx years of copyright, it expires on the first of January of the year after. As result hundreds of images were restored on Commons on the 1-1-2014, but many of them did not get a place in articles on Wikipedia and her sister projects.
I added all the restored media to this gallery: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Romaine/Public_Domain_Day/2013
Everyone is invited to place those images in appropriate places in articles!
Romaine
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Domain_Day
[x-posted]
Hello,
The Wikimedia Language Engineering team [1] invites everyone to join the
team’s monthly IRC office hour on January 8, 2014 (Wednesday) at 1700 UTC/
0900 PST on #wikimedia-office. During this session we would be talking
about highlights from our team’s activities and updates from ongoing
projects. Event details and agenda are listed below.
Questions can be sent to me directly before the event. See you all at the
IRC office hour!
regards
Runa
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Language_Engineering_team
== Details: ==
# Event: WMF Language Engineering Office Hour
# Date and Time: Wednesday, January 8, 2014, 1700-1800 UTC, 0900-1000 PST
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140108T1700
# IRC channel: #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net
== Agenda: ==
Project Updates
Q/A (questions can be sent to runa at wikimedia dot org before the event)
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
On sv:wp we are several hundreds of competent and active contributers.
Many of these have limited technical competence, so it will only be
about a third of these able to enter iw links in wikidata and writing a
template. This still leaves a few hundreds who easily supports the other
2/3rds with this competence
But when in comes understand the other parts of Wikidata and how to get
that data into articles and templates, the number dwindles leaving only
about 50 understanding this. It is still enough to discuss and give
general broader support but it is starting to become a bottleneck in
implementing broader usage of Wikidata. Then we come to the fact that
for a successful implementation you need to develop Modules written i
Lua. And here it is needed full programming comptence, and on sv:wp
there will only be 5-10 having this level of competence. And this then
becomes a subcritical mass as these persons do not have the ambition to
develop Modules for others. Also two of these competent ones are
employed by WMSE, perhaps this is typical, if you have that level of
competence you will be very busy in your paid profession as sw developer.
We are now in a discussions in WMSE and the community if it would be
acceptable that chapter resources help in writing Lua code in Modules
for people in the community in need but lacking that competence? It is
not a volume or cost issue as it is still no major effort, but more a
principle one if if can be Ok in this way to make the Chapter not only
support the community but also in this direct way creating thing for
Wikipedia.
Are there experince from other communities or chapters on this dilemma?
Anders
[pardon the cross-posting]
Happy New Year everyone!
The Program Evaluation and Design team at the Wikimedia Foundation has a
new evaluation to share with you.
*We have released the latest program evaluation about on-wiki writing
contests.*
As we have asked previously, we would love your thoughts and comments on
this report. Preferably, on the talk page of the evaluation page. *On-wiki
writing contests have shown that they do meet their priority goals* *of
quality content improvement* and *editor retention*, but more research
needs to be done, and more data collected (like all of the evaluations we
have produced so far).
*We hope you'll find time to share and review this report, we are excited
about it: *
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/On-wiki_…
Also, I'll be contacting many of you about *survey collection*. If you have
produced surveys at anytime in the past, or have a survey you would like to
share with us, we want it! *We need to collect surveys so we can develop
high demand surveying tools* that so many of you have asked us about.[1]
Thanks everyone, and happy new year,
Sarah
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Parlor/Questions…
--
*Sarah Stierch*
*Wikimedia Foundation Program Evaluation & Design Community Coordinator*
Donate<http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Donate/en&utm_source=&utm_…>
today
and keep it free!
Visit me on Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch>!
