I can think of a few reasons why we should accept bitcoin:
* It's consistent with our leadership in internet technology
* Our peers like EFF, and Internet archive accept it
* It's secured using the same kinds of encryption we rely on to maintain
user privacy
* It permits donations from countries that do not have Visa/Mastercard
services
* It has a fanatically loyal and growing following that is dying to give us
money in that currency
Most imporantly, current technology would permit us to accept bitcoin
without ever *holding* bitcoin.
Companies like BitPay ( https://bitpay.com/) and CoinBase (
https://coinbase.com/) are little different than accepting Visa,
Mastercard, or Paypal. It's now possible for funds received as bitcoins to
be *immediately* converted to USD.
I don't think we should 'make a statement' by accepting bitcoin, I think
the currency is simply at the stage where it would be to our benefit to do
so.
Jake (Ocaasi)
> The job of the "Community Advocacy" bit of "Legal and Community
> Advocacy" is, as I understand it, to advocate for the community's
> need within the Foundation, and act as a conduit to the community
> for legal stuff.
That department and its predecessors have hired professional attorneys
to lobby on copyright and patent issues for several years on multiple
continents. Recently they have been active in many other legal
advocacy areas including international trade, for example. The process
by which those issues was selected has in the past had more to do than
what the Board of Trustees could agree on, resulting in a common
denominator fare less inclusive than typical volunteer opinions on
what is an is not important to them, their families, their local
communities, and the factors which determine the time and effort they
are able to contribute. Willful ignorance of such factors is not good
volunteer recruiting practice.
> Their job is not to advocate for "reduction in public school
> class sizes"....
Is there any reason to think that reduction of public school class
sizes is not likely to result in more productive editors, with more
time to contribute, or that it would not attract quality volunteers
relative to taking no position on the question?
Hello,
In response to some community comments on the proposed amendment to the
Terms of Use on undisclosed paid edits, the WMF's LCA team has suggested
two optional changes to the scope of the amendment. The aim is to address
concerns regarding reactions against editors who are suspected of violating
the disclosure requirements, and protecting good-faith contributors (such
as professors, students, and Wikipedians in Residence). These options are
not mutually exclusive - both of them, either, or neither could be adopted,
depending on your input.
These new options are available in English, Spanish, French, German,
Italian, and other languages.
Please review these options on the Terms of Use amendment page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#O…
And please share comments or feedback in this discussion page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendm…
Many thanks for everyone's participation in the ongoing discussion on the
Terms of Use amendment.
Best,
Stephen Laporte
--
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
_______________________________________________
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
Dear Wikimedia contributors, please help spreading this call for Google
Summer of Code candidates in your projects, chapters, and surroundings.
Thank you!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Quim Gil* <qgil(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thursday, March 13, 2014
Subject: URGENT call for geographical diversity in Wikimedia @ GSoC
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Please forward this email wisely. Yes, we need your help getting the word
out.
So far, all our GSoC candidates come from only two (neighbor) countries:
India and Sri Lanka. While we are very happy seeing how popular Wikimedia
is among technical students in the Indian subcontinent, we are concerned
about the lack of candidates from anywhere else.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code_2014#Candidates
GSoC 2013 had accepted students from 69 countries [1], and we have
participants from eight.[2] We can discuss about the deep causes of this
situation but... Considering that we have less than 9 days before the GSoC
deadline for students (March 21 @ 19:00 UTC) we should focus on finding new
candidates.
There is still time to become a strong GSoC candidate for Wikimedia. Many
project ideas in our GSoC page (linked above) have mentors available and no
candidates yet. Go for them! Also, since our evaluation of candidates is
based on their proposals published in mediawiki.org, Google's deadline is
not a hard stop to keep improving your plans together with your mentors.
April 7 is when we need to decide how many slots we will request, meaning
how many teams (candidates and mentors with a common plan) we believe that
can complete GSoC 2014 successfully. That date is more than three weeks
from now.
Diversity is an important factor for Wikimedia. We are putting a lot of
effort promoting gender diversity in our outreach programs, and we are
seeing good progress. It would be surprising to realize that a global
project like Wikimedia has a serious problem with geographical diversity.
Your ideas and actions to fix this situation are welcome.
[1] https://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code/wiki/ProgramStatistics
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2013
PS: in comparison, FOSS OPW is doing a lot better, with five candidates
from four countries
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/FOSS_Outreach_Program_for_Women/Round_8#Cand…
coincidence?
--
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
Hello Everyone!
We're sending out another call for new Grant Advisory Committee (GAC)
members!
The GAC are community volunteers who are explicitly invited[1] to review
and evaluate grant proposals made in the Wikimedia Foundation Project and
Event Grants Program[2], and offer advice to both grant applicants and the
Foundation.
Read all about it on the Candidates page[3]. New members will be inducted
by the end of March 2014, so be sure to step forward before then.
Please help this message reach as many people as possible, by relaying it
to appropriate lists and village pumps.
And many thanks to our current and former GAC members!
Cheers,
Alex
[1] _everyone_ is implicitly invited!
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_Advisory_Committee/Candidates
--
Alex Wang
Program Officer
Project & Event Grants
Wikimedia Foundation <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>
+1 415-839-6885
Skype: alexvwang
Dear Wikimedians,
Here is the monthly report of Wikimedia Argentina for February 2014.
You can read the full report (in Spanish and English) here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Argentina/Reportes/2014-02
Also, the full reports of past months are available at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Argentina/Reportes
1. New Executive Director
2. New publication: Gender issues in Wikipedia
3. New scanner at our office
4. Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina on the URAA issue
== New Executive Director ==
After a selection process that was held during the first two weeks of
February, with several outstanding applicants, the board and staff of
Wikimedia Argentina hired Anna Torres Adell to be our new Executive
Director since March 1st, 2014.
Anna holds a BA in Political Sciences by the Pompeu Fabra University. She
has two postgraduate diplomas from FLACSO: one on International
Cooperation, Administration and Monitoring of Public Policy; and another
diploma in Local Development and Social Economics. She lived and worked in
Guatemala and Mexico, and she set residence in Argentina a couple years
ago. Before joining our organization, she worked as a coordinator of PROEM
Foundation, an institution that dedicates its efforts to work training and
enhancing new businesses.
At Wikimedia Argentina we are very happy with the applications received, as
well as hiring Anna, who was very welcomed within our community. We believe
her professional profile will allow us to take our organization up great
roads.
== New publication: Gender issues in Wikipedia ==
After a couple months of work, we have published the document «Gender
issues in the digital world. Wikipedia and other communities» (only
available in Spanish), that brings together a selection of presentations
held at WikiGénero. This congress was held on May 26, 2012, in Buenos Aires.
The meeting seek to debate the possible reasons of low women engagement in
the free encyclopedia, as well as reduced content of important women in the
history of Mankind. The presentations and discussions touched on these
topics, but also went further: subjects such as communication of science
and gender representation (in its wide spectrum) were also addressed.
With this publication, we hope to take back some of the valuable
discussions that took place back then, and put it at anyone's service, with
an aim to continue the discussion around these issues. Through these
actions we seek to improve Wikipedia's content ad expand its community with
new collaborators.
The document is available at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_cuesti%C3%B3n_de_g%C3%A9nero_en_el_…
== New scanner at our office ==
We now have available, at Wikimedia Argentina's headquarters, a DIY scanner
to digitalize books. The equipment is similar to those taken on loan by
several Argentine cultural institutions during 2013 that have made possible
to upload more than 100 books to Wikimedia Commons.
Among the benefits of this scanner are the preservation and care of old
books: the manual functioning prevents any binding from being hurt. In the
weeks to come, we will enable a schedule for our community to book the
scanner and use it for free culture promotion purposes.
== Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina on the URAA issue ==
The board of directors of our organization wrote a letter to give an
official answer on behalf of the chapter, regarding the multiple conflicts
originated by the application of URAA by the Wikimedia Commons community.
The board decided to address the conflict in a more active way when several
Argentinean collaborators of Commons received massive notifications that
their images were soon to be erased, based on URAA regulations. Among the
different exchanges that stem from this conflict, the Wikimedia Foundation
also expressed its position in a statement suggesting to stop massive
deletions of images. We hope to see an end to this discussion soon, not
without finding a solution that mirrors the prevailing rights on every
jurisdiction.
---------------------------
Kind regards,
*Osmar Valdebenito G.*
Director Ejecutivo
A. C. Wikimedia Argentina
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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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Hello,
A quick reminder that the Language Engineering IRC office hour is happening
later today at 1700 UTC on #wikimedia-office. Besides project updates, we
have 30 mins open for discussions about the internationalization and
localization projects in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and Outreach Program
for Women (OPW). Please see below for event details, agenda and local time.
Thanks
Runa
Event Details:
==========
# Date: March 12, 2014 (Wednesday)
# Time: 1700-1800 UTC, 1000-1100 PDT (Check local time:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140312T1700)
# IRC channel: #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net
Agenda:
======
1. Ongoing Projects - Content Translation tool
2. GSoC and OPW - open house for Language Engineering projects
3. Q & A
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Runa Bhattacharjee <rbhattacharjee(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 10:09 PM
Subject: Language Engineering IRC Office Hour on March 12, 2014 (Wednesday)
at 1700 UTC
To: MediaWiki internationalisation <mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia Mailing
List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
wikitech-ambassadors(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[x-posted]
Hello,
The Wikimedia Language Engineering team will be hosting the monthly IRC
office hour on March 12, 2014 (Wednesday) at 1700 UTC/ 1000 PDT on
#wikimedia-office.
In this edition, we will be talking about our ongoing projects, like the
Content Translation tool[1]. Also, we would like to extend this invitation
specially to the students who are looking forward to participate in Google
Summer of Code (GSoC) 2014 and Outreach Program for Women (OPW) - Round 8,
for the Language Engineering projects[2] under Wikimedia. We will be happy
to answer your questions about our work and projects. Please see below for
the event details and check for local time at your location.
Questions can also be sent to me before the event. See you all at the IRC
office hour!
Thanks
Runa
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation
[2]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Possible_projects#Intern…
Event Details:
==========
# Date: March 12, 2014
# Time: 1700-1800 UTC, 1000-1100 PDT (Check local time:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140312T1700)
# IRC channel: #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net
Agenda:
======
1. Ongoing Projects - Content Translation tool
2. GSoC and OPW - open house for Language Engineering projects
3. Q & A
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
