Wikimedia-l April 2014

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

173 participants
124 discussions

Agenda Board of Trustees Spring Meeting
by Jan-Bart de Vreede 19 Apr '14

19 Apr '14

Dear fellow members of the community, Following is the board agenda for next weeks meeting. As usual we have tried to make room for more substance rather than process. After a thorough consultation period the board will be discussing the amendment to the terms of use with regards to undisclosed paid editing and we will spend a significant amount of time in an executive session thinking about different aspects of our board and its role in different processes of the movement. We will also be reflecting on the Wikimedia Conference 2014, where 6 board members were present. Jan-Bart de Vreede Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees PS: As always I would ask you to discuss the agenda and other board related topics at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard rather than on the mailing list == Thursday, April 24, 2014 == Executive Session Strategy Considerations (Open Discussion) Board Development Chapters Dialogue Update Transition Team == Friday, April 25, 2014 == Housekeeping Items Status update on the Annual Plan News from AffCom and FDC News from committees Investment Policy Privacy policy Amendment to the Terms of Use on undisclosed paid editing Discussion on user groups Open and Action Items Executive Session

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I'm back
by Milos Rancic 18 Apr '14

18 Apr '14

For those who care, I'm back. My absence wasn't related to Wikimedia. It was about first world problems, which hit me quite hard. I never thought that the transition from the second to the first world problems would be painful. Few years ago I'd have called it "decadence". So, lesson learned. Anyway, I thought that I would see something completely different here and was worried a bit about my ability to adapt. But, I see that everything is as it was. Good old heated debates. And known [virtual] faces :D I feel I am home again :)

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10 years of wikimedia-l
by phoebe ayers 18 Apr '14

18 Apr '14

Hello everyone! So, to change the subject entirely, I just discovered that this is the 10 year anniversary of foundation-l/wikimedia-l! Foundation-l was founded in April 2004, and was renamed to wikimedia-l two years ago: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/ Foundation-l was originally an offshoot from wikipedia-l, which is where the first discussions about policies and issues on the projects were held. It was proposed as a separate list in order to discuss "Wikimedia-wide issues". Over the years, we have had debates on every subject under the sun. We've gone through high points, hammering out constructive policies and debates, sharing our experiences as encyclopedists and free culture enthusiasts; and we've gone through low points, with allegations of bad behavior flying left and right and people belaboring points beyond all reason. Sometimes -- usually, in fact -- it's both at once, in different threads. The list has been a place to send ideas, manifestos, and information as well as a place to discuss with others who share our passions. We've debated the list and its place a lot over the years. We have talked about moderation, but rarely done anything with it. We've implemented posting limits (still in place: 30 posts/person/month); enforced posting limits; forgotten to enforce posting limits; talked about stricter or weaker limits. We've split sub-topic lists out; we've merged lists back together. We've debated the cost in time and energy of each email, the burden that being subscribed to the list means, how impossible to keep up it is. We've tried summaries, filters, translations. We've talked about languages, and tried many times (unsuccessfully to date) to make the list truly multilingual. We've called each other out on bad behavior, and every once in a while we've remembered to praise each other too. The list has chronicled the growth of the Wikimedia Foundation from the days when we celebrated raising $50,000 in the fundraiser and held the first board elections to today. And it has chronicled the growth of the Wikimedia movement, across languages and communities, and of the projects, as they changed from rather odd novelties to a core part of the internet. People on the list have come and gone. Sometimes, for months or years at a time, someone will post on nearly every thread and every subject. Usually they eventually taper off, and then someone new will take their place, making the rest of the subscribers wonder "how do they have so much time?!" For those who have been subscribed for a long time, these names are recognizable because of their many posts and their (in)famous dedication to the list. (Wouldn't it be fun if we could get those folks all together in person, for a Wikimania panel or something?) Many subscribers never post; others are able to find a balance. It is a truism that those who rarely post often send the most thoughtful mails. People have used the list to join the movement, to get to know others. They've also used the list to quit the movement, sometimes loudly and angrily, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes silently; it is always sad when this happens. Sometimes, people have used the list to return (welcome back!) The list can be endlessly irritating. It's a source of conversation: "wow, the list is blowing up right now, can you believe it?!" It also can be a source of connection with other people who we may only know through their emails, and a source of joy and inventive new ideas. It is disconnected from the on-wiki communities, but is connected too. It serves as a place to share with people across our movement, when there are few general channels to do so. It is thousands of mails in thousands of in-boxes, over many years. The list is ours, our commons, ours to take care of and to try to make better. Happy anniversary, Wikimedia-l. -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *

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[Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia engineering report, March 2014
by Guillaume Paumier 18 Apr '14

18 Apr '14

Hi, The report covering Wikimedia engineering activities in March 2014 is now available. Wiki version: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/March Blog version: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/ We're also proposing a shorter, simpler and translatable version of this report that does not assume specialized technical knowledge: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/March/summ… Below is the HTML text of the report. As always, feedback is appreciated on the usefulness of the report and its summary, and on how to improve them. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Major news in March include: - an overview of webfonts<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/03/07/webfonts-making-wikimedia-projects-re…>, and the advantages and challenges of using them on Wikimedia sites; - a series of essays<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/03/25/seeing-through-the-eyes-of-new-techni…> written by Google Code-in students who shared their impressions, frustrations and surprises as they discovered the Wikimedia and MediaWiki technical community; - Hovercards<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/03/26/hovercards-now-available-as-a-beta-fe…> now available as a Beta feature on all Wikimedia wikis, allowing readers to see a short summary of an article just by hovering a link; - a subtle typography change<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/03/27/typography-refresh/> across Wikimedia sites for better readability, consistency and accessibility; - a recap of the upgrade and migration<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/03/28/wikimedias-road-to-bugzilla-4-4/> of our bug tracking software. *Note: We’re also providing a shorter, simpler and translatable version of this report <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/March/summ…> that does not assume specialized technical knowledge.* Engineering metrics in March: - 160 unique committers contributed patchsets of code to MediaWiki. - The total number of unresolved commits<https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#q,status:open+project:%255Emediawiki.*,n,z>went from around 1450 to about 1315. - About 25 shell requests <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Shell_requests> were processed. Contents - 1 Personnel<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Personn…> - 1.1 Work with us<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Work_wi…> - 1.2 Announcements<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Announc…> - 2 Technical Operations<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Technic…> - 3 Features Engineering<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Feature…> - 3.1 Editor retention: Editing tools<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Editor_…> - 3.2 Core Features<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Core_Fe…> - 3.3 Growth<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Growth> - 3.4 Support<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Support> - 4 Mobile<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Mobile> - 5 Language Engineering<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Languag…> - 6 Platform Engineering<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Platfor…> - 6.1 MediaWiki Core<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#MediaWi…> - 6.2 Quality assurance<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Quality…> - 6.3 Multimedia<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Multime…> - 6.4 Engineering Community Team<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Enginee…> - 7 Analytics<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Analyti…> - 8 Kiwix<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Kiwix> - 9 Wikidata<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Wikidata> - 10 Future<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/18/engineering-report-march-2014/#Future> Personnel Work with us <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us> Are you looking to work for Wikimedia? We have a lot of hiring coming up, and we really love talking to active community members about these roles. - VP of Engineering<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Software Engineer – Growth<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Software Engineer – VisualEditor (Features)<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Software Engineer – Fundraising Team<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Software Engineer – Internationalization<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Software Engineer- Mobile (Frontend)<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Automation Engineer (Ruby)<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Release Engineer<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Research Analyst – Fundraising<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Director of Community Engagement (Product)<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Product Manager – Language Engineering<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> - Operations Security Engineer<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> Announcements - Chase Pettet joined the Wikimedia Operations Team as as Operations Engineer (announcement<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-March/075122.html> ). - Following changes in the Engineering Community Team<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Engineering_Community_Team>, Quim Gil took over as Engineering Community Manager, and Sumana Harihareswara transitioned to the role of Senior Technical Writer ( announcement<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-March/075308.html> ). - Kevin LeDuc joined the Wikimedia Foundation as Analytics Product Manager (announcement<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/analytics/2014-March/001737.html> ). Technical Operations *Datacenter RFP <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/RFP/2013_Datacenter>* Final negotiations and coordination are still ongoing for the data center RFP, but we expect to be able to make an announcement soon. *Wikimedia Labs* Labs metrics in March: - Number of projects: 149 - Number of instances: 310 - Amount of RAM in use (in MBs): 1,288,704 - Amount of allocated storage (in GBs): 14,925 - Number of virtual CPUs in use: 635 - Number of users: 2,907 The Labs Ops team has spent the month shepherding projects from the Tampa cloud to the Ashburn cloud. Dozens of volunteers contributed to the move, and all tools and projects have now been copied to or rebuilt in Ashburn. Some projects and tools are in a non-running state pending action on the part of their owners or admins. Ashburn Labs is running OpenStack Havana, with NFS for shared storage. The usage stats this month are quite a bit different from last month. Quite a number of obsolete instances have been purged, and last month’s stats may have included some data center duplication. *Tampa data center* During March, the Ops team has been decommissioning and shutting down a lot of hosts in the old Tampa data center, including all former appservers. The amount of energy consumed in the old data center has been greatly reduced. A few hosts are going to be migrated to another floor in the existing data center and physical data center work is coming up. Features Engineering<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Features_engineering> Editor retention: Editing tools *VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor>* <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor_-_2013-14_Q2%E2%80%93Q…> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor_-_2013-14_Q2%E2%80%93Q…> Presentation slides from the VisualEditor team’s quarterly review meeting<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_e…> on 26 March. In March, the VisualEditor team continued their work on improving the stability and performance of the system, and added some new features and simplifications, helping users edit and create pages more swiftly and easily. Editing templates is now much simpler, moving most of the advanced controls that users don’t often need into a special version of that dialog. The media dialog was improved and stream-lined a little, adding some hinting to the controls to explain how they work a bit more. The cursor entry points inserted by VisualEditor next to items like images or templates to give users somewhere to put the cursor now animate on hover and cursor entry to show that they’re special. The overall design of dialogs and controls was improved a little to make it flow better, like double-clicking a block to open its dialog. A new system for quickly and simply inserting and editing “citations” (references based on templates) neared completion and will be deployed in the coming month. The deployed version of the code was updated four times in the regular releases ( 1.23-wmf17<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.23/wmf17#VisualEditor> , 1.23-wmf18<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.23/wmf18#VisualEditor> , 1.23-wmf19<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.23/wmf19#VisualEditor> and 1.23-wmf20<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.23/wmf20#VisualEditor> ). *Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid>* <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parsoid_review_Q3,_March_2014.pdf> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parsoid_review_Q3,_March_2014.pdf> Presentation slides from the Parsoid team’s quarterly review meeting<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…> on March 28 March saw the Parsoid team continuing with a lot of unglamorous bug fixing and tweaking <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid/Deployments>. Media / image handling in particular received a good amount of love, and is now in a much better state than it used to be. In the process, we discovered a lot of edge cases and inconsistent behavior in the PHP parser, and fixed some of those issues there as well. We wrapped up our mentorship for Be Birchall and Maria Pecana in the Outreach Program for Women<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/FOSS_Outreach_Program_for_Women/Round_7>. We revamped our round-trip test server interface<http://parsoid-tests.wikimedia.org/> and fixed some diffing issues in the round-trip test system. Maria wrote a generic logging backend that lets us dynamically map an event stream to any number of logging sinks. A huge step up from our console.error based basic error logging so far. We also designed and implemented a HTML templating library which combines the correctness and security support of a DOM-based solution with the performance of string-based templating. This is implemented as a compiler<https://github.com/gwicke/knockoff> from KnockoutJS-compatible HTML syntax to a JSON intermediate representation<https://github.com/gwicke/tassembly>, and a small and very fast runtime for the JSON representation. The runtime is now also being ported to PHP in order to gauge the performance there as well. It will also be a test bed for further forays into HTML templating for translation messages and eventually wiki content. Core Features *Flow <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow/Project_information>* This month the Core Features team focused on improvements to how Flow works with key MediaWiki tools and processes. We made changes to the history, watchlist, and recent changes views, adding more context and bringing them more in line with what experienced users expect from these features. We also worked on improvements to the API and links tables integration. On the core discussion side, we released a Flow thank feature, allowing users to thank each other for posts, and began work on a feature to close and summarize discussions. Lastly, we continued work on rewriting the Flow front-end to make it cleaner, faster, and more responsive across a wide number of browsers/devices, which will be ongoing over the next month. Growth *Growth <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Growth>* In March, the Growth team primarily focused on bug fixing, design enhancements, and refactoring of theGettingStarted<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GettingStarted> and GuidedTour <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GuidedTour> extensions, which were recently launched on 30 Wikipedias. We updated icons and button styles, rewrote the interface copy, and refactored the interface to be more usable in non-English languages. We also began work on a significant refactor of the GuidedTour API, in order to support interactive tours that are non-linear. Non-linear tours will not depend on a page load to run, which will enable better support for tours in VisualEditor<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor>, among other things. Last but not least, we made progress on measuring the impact of GettingStarted<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Onboarding_new_Wikipedians/Rollout> across all wikis where it is deployed, with results for the first 30 days of editor activity expected in early April. Support *Wikipedia Education Program <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program>* This month, thanks to the work of Facebook Open Academy student JJ Liu, we added a new type of notification for course pages: users are now notified whenever they get added to a course. We also fixed inconsistencies with interface messages, user rights, and the deletion of institutions from the system. Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> *Wikimedia Apps <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps>* The team worked on logged-out editing to logged-in editing, and table of contents refinements. *Mobile web projects <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_web_projects>* The team worked on the link inspector for VisualEditor on tablets, and a switch between VisualEditor and wikitext on tablets. Both are in alpha. *Wikipedia Zero <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero>* During the last month, with the assistance of the Ops and Platform teams, the Wikipedia Zero team added hosting for the forthcoming Partners Portal and continued work on image size reduction for the mobile web. Additionally, the team added Wikipedia Zero detection to the Wikipedia for Firefox OS app and added contributory features support for users on partner networks supporting zero-rated HTTPS connections. The team also removed search thumbnails for zero.wikipedia.org connections in order to avoid spurious charges on devices supporting high-end JavaScript yet using zero.wikipedia.org. Analytics fields were added for the purpose of counting proxy-based and HTTPS-based connections. Routine pre- and post-launch configuration changes were made to support operator zero-rating, and technical assistance was provided to operators and the partner management team to help add zero-rating. The Wikipedia Zero automation testing server was also migrated. The forthcoming Android and iOS apps were also updated to make Wikipedia Zero detection a standard fixture. Yuri continued analytics work on SMS/USSD pilot data. Post hoc analysis was performed on WML usage after its deprecation; it is still low, although obtaining more low-end phones to check for how well HTML renders and how to enhance the HTML could be useful. Post hoc analysis was also performed on anomalous declines and growth spurts in log lines (not strictly related to pageviews); in the former it much had to do with API changes and in the latter it had much to do with an external polling mechanisms. With the assistance of the Apps team, User-Agent, Send App Feedback, and Random features were added to the forthcoming reboots of the Android and iOS apps, while making the Share feature for Android allow for a different target app each time and providing code review assistance on the Android and iOS apps code; proof of concept for fulltext search was started on iOS. Wikipedia for Firefox OS bugfixes were also pushed to production. Screencap workflows and preload information was put together for the Android reboot with respect to Wikipedia Zero as well. The team worked with Ops on forward planning in light of the extremely infrastructure-oriented nature of the program. Quarterly review as held with the ED, VP of Engineering, and the W0 cross-functional team, and the W0 cross-functional team reviewed presentation material for publication. The team also continued work on additional proxy and gateway support. To help partner tech contacts, the team worked on reformatting the tech partner introductory documentation. Finally, the team explored proactive MCC/MNC-to-IP address drift correction, and will be emailing the community for input soon. *Wikipedia Zero (partnerships)* Smart, the largest mobile operator in the Philippines, is giving access to Wikipedia free of data charges through the end of April. They announced the promotion in a press release. Ingrid Flores, Wikipedia Zero Partner Manager, visited the Philippines and arranged a meeting with local community members and Smart. They are now exploring ways to collaborate in support of education. The partnerships team kicked off account reviews with the 27 existing Wikipedia Zero partners, to update the implementation, identify opportunities for collaboration in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and get feedback on the program. The account reviews will continue for the next few months. Last, we continued recruiting for Wikipedia Partner Manager<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&pag…> for the Asia region. Language Engineering<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Language_engineering> *Language tools <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Language_tools>* MediaWiki’s LocalisationUpdate extension was rewritten<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/03/modernising-mediawikis-localisation-u…> by Niklas Laxström to modernize its internal architecture to be able to support JSON message file formats<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Localisation_format>. Kartik Mistry released the team’s monthly MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle (MLEB 2014.3) with the latest version of LocalisationUpdate (see release notes<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-i18n/2014-March/000838.html>). Niklas Laxström also started migrating the Translate extension’s translation memory and translation search back-end from Solr to ElasticSearch in line with Wikimedia’s search<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Search> migration. David Chan continued his work on input method support for the VisualEditor project. *Milkshake <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Milkshake>* Santhosh Thottingal, Kartik Mistry and Niklas Laxström made numerous bugs and performance improvements in jquery.webfonts, jquery.ime and jquery.uls. Amir Aharoni started collecting metrics on usage of Universal Language Selector. *Language Engineering Communications and Outreach <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Language_engineering_communications_and_outr…>* Runa Bhattacharjee and Kartik Mistry set up a manual testing infrastructure using the Test Case Management System<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Language_Testing_Plan/TCMS_Guide> (TCMS) to help get greater participation from the volunteer community of software tools and features developed by the team. Volunteer testing is expected to be kickstarted for language software this coming month. The team’s monthly office hour<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2014-03-12> was hosted by Runa Bhattacharjee on March 12. An overview of webfonts<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/03/07/webfonts-making-wikimedia-projects-re…> with advantages and challenges of using them on Wikimedia sites was also published by the team. *Content translation <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation>* [image: File:CX Section Alignment Preview and Basic Editing.webm] <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/CX_Section_Alignment_Pr…> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CX_Section_Alignment_Preview_and_Ba…> Preview of section alignment and basic editing in Content translation Santhosh Thottingal and David Chan continued development and technology research on the Content Translation project. Development was focused specifically on updates to the side-by-side translation editor and section alignment of translated text. Kartik Mistry and Santhosh Thottingal worked on infrastructure for testing the Content Translation server. David Chan continued his technology research on sentence segmentation. Pau Giner updated the Content Translation UI design specification<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Content-translation-designs.pdf>incorporating review comments from UX and product reviews. The team also participated in a review of the Content Translation project with the product team leadership. Platform Engineering<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Platform_Engineering> MediaWiki Core *HHVM <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/HHVM>* The team continued to work on porting C extensions to HHVM. Tim Starling did major work on a compatibility layer allowing Zend extensions to be used by HHVM, and started further work on making the layer compatible with newer HHVM interfaces. The team has made a preliminary deployment of HHVM to the Beta cluster, but this still needs further debugging before it is useful to a wider audience. *Release & QA <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Release_and_QA_Team>* The Beta Cluster <http://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Main_Page> has been migrated from the Tampa data center to the Ashburn data center. In the move, a ton of cleanup and Puppetization work was done. This will make future Beta Cluster work easier. In addition, the Beta Cluster is getting closer to a place where we can test our current main deployment tool known as “scap” along with future/other deployment tools. The team continued on the rewrite of scap into python (from Bash scripts + PHP), improving both performance and maintainability in addition to being in a better position to move to a new tool in the future. We have also started doing SWAT deploy windows <https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/SWAT_deploys> twice a day (Monday to Thursday) which has greatly increased momentum for many developers who would otherwise have to wait until the weekly deployment cycle. *Search <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Search>* In March we upgraded to the newest version of Elasticsearch and expanded onto more wikis. We also started a performance assessment which has started showing us the work required to use Cirrus as the primary search back-end for the larger wikis. We then started in on that work. *Auth systems <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Auth_systems>* The team prepared the migration of the central OAuth database from mediawiki.org to Meta-Wiki, and got input from the Wikimedia Foundation’s legal team regarding the OAuth process. *Wikimania Scholarships app <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimania_Scholarships_app>* Support of production application during applicant review period continued in March. A dataset of applicants passing the phase 1 review criteria who had opted-in to sharing application details with chapters and thematic organizations was prepared and delivered to Foundation staff. The beta testing server was migrated from the Tampa data center to the Ashburn data center as a component of the Labs environment migration. The new beta server in Labs is now managed via the MediaWiki-Vagrant role::wikimania_scholarships puppet role and labs-vagrant<https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Labs-vagrant>. This should make keeping development changes and the testing application in sync easier in the future. *Security auditing and response <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Security_auditing_and_response>* MediaWiki 1.19.13, 1.22.5, 1.21.8 and 1.19.14 were released for security issues. An internal security training session was held for Wikimedia Foundation staff. Quality assurance *Quality Assurance <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Quality_Assurance>* The QA team continues to identify and report issues in a timely way. Of particular interest in March was that an automated test uncovered an issue in the interaction of the MobileFrontend and VisualEditor extensions. This is exactly the kind of cross-cutting concern that our QA systems are designed to uncover. It is likely that we will be in a position to discuss these systems at the Wikimania conference in London. *Beta cluster <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_cluster>* There was a substantial effort to migrate the Beta cluster over from the Tampa data center to the Ashburn, VA (“eqiad”) data center. This was led by Antoine Musso with assistance from Bryan Davis and many others. *Continuous integration <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Continuous_integration>* Erik Bernhardson and Chad Horohoe managed to create jobs using Jenkins Job Builder (JJB) based on the tutorials on installing JJB<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Continuous_integration/Jenkins_job_builder> and Adding a MediaWiki extension<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Continuous_integration/Tutorials/Adding_a_Me…> . *Browser testing <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Quality_Assurance/Browser_testing>* Besides a particular focus on MobileFrontend browser tests in March, we have also made available some new features, in particular shared code to upload files properly in all browsers, the ability to check for ResourceLoader problems in any test in any repository, and a basic wrapper in order to use the Mediawiki API from within browser tests to set up and tear down test data. Multimedia *Multimedia <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia>* <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Multimedia_Quarterly_Review_-_Q3_20…> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Multimedia_Quarterly_Review_-_Q3_20…> Slides for the Multimedia Quarterly Review Meeting<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Meetings/Quarterly_Review_Q3_2013…> for Q3 2013-14. In March, the multimedia team’s main project was Media Viewer v0.2<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer>, as we completed final features for the tool’s upcoming release next quarter<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Release_Plan>. Gilles Dubuc, Mark Holmquist, Gergő Tisza and Aaron Arcos developed a number of new features, including: share<https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/147> , embed<https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/148> ,download<https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/79> , opt-out preference<https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/264> ,file page link<https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/226> and feedback link<https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/261>, based on designs by Pau Giner. We invite you to test the latest version<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Lightbox_demo> (see thetesting tips<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer#How_can_I_help…>) and share your feedback<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer> . Fabrice Florin coached the multimedia team as product manager and hosted several planning and review meetings, including a cycle planning meeting<http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/multimedia-planning-meeting-2014-03-12> (leading to the next cycle plan<https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/grid?ag…>) and the Multimedia Quarterly Review Meeting<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Meetings/Quarterly_Review_Q3_2013…> for the first quarter of 2014, which summarizes our progress and next steps for coming work (see slides<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Multimedia_Quarterly_Review_-_Q3_20…>). He also worked with Keegan Peterzell to engage community members for the gradual release of Media Viewer<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Release_Plan>, to be enabled by default on a number of pilot sites next month, then deployed widely to all wikis a few weeks later. For more updates about our multimedia work, we invite you to join the multimedia mailing list<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/multimedia> . Engineering Community Team<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Engineering_Community_Team> *Bug management <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bug_management>* Beside working on the Project Management Tools Review<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project_management_tools/Review#Status>, Andre Klapper retriaged many older tickets with high priority set for >2years, older PATCH_TO_REVIEW tickets and older critical tickets and investigated moving the Bugzilla instance on Wikimedia Labs to the Ashburn data center (easier to set up from scratch<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62658#c6>). Andre added<https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Annoying_little_bugs&diff=92289…>project-specific sections and Bugzilla queries to Annoying little bugs<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Annoying_little_bugs> to help newcomers finding an area of interest for contributing, and blogged about the 4.4 upgrade<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/03/28/wikimedias-road-to-bugzilla-4-4/> (which took place in February) and moving Bugzilla to a new server. In Bugzilla’s tickets, all remaining Cortado tickets were closed<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54063#c4> and new Versions for “Wikipedia App” product<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62660> set up. *Project management tools review <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project_management_tools/Review>* Guillaume Paumier and Andre Klapper reached to the teampractices<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/teampractices/2014-March/000270.html> and wikitech-l<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-March/074896.html> mailing lists in order to shorten the list of options<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Project_management_tools/Review/Options> that can come out of this review process. They also hosted a lively IRC office hour<https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2014/wikimedia-office.20…> to give an overview of the current situation, answer questions and discuss the first version of the related RFC<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Project_management_tool…> . *Mentorship programs <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs>* The six ongoing FOSS Outreach Program for Women<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreach_Program_for_Women/Round_7> were completed successfully, setting a new benchmark<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-March/075146.html> for success in our outreach programs. Check the results: - Niharika’s compact language links is now a Beta feature<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector/Design/Interlang…> - Anu’s upload wizard with OSM support<http://uploadwizard-osm.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard> - Diwanshi’s Wikipedia API courses in Codecademy 1<http://www.codecademy.com/courses/web-beginner-en-vj9nh/0/1> and 2 <http://www.codecademy.com/courses/web-beginner-en-yd3lp/0/1> - Brena’s prototype of mediawiki.org’s redesigned homepage<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki/Homepage_redesign/Preview> - Be’s clean up of Parsoid’s round-trip testing UI is merged<https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/owner:bebirchall%2540gmail.com,n,z> - Maria’s clean up of Parsoid’s tracing/debugging/logging is merged<https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/owner:maria.pacana%2540gmail.com,n,z> We received 43 Google Summer of Code<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code_2014> proposals from 42 candidates, and 18 FOSS Outreach Program for Women<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/FOSS_Outreach_Program_for_Women/Round_8> proposals from 18 candidates. Dozens of mentors are pushing the selection process<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Selection_process> that will conclude on April 21 with the announcement of selected participants. *Technical communications <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_communications>* In addition to ongoing communications support for the engineering staff, and contributing to the technical newsletter<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News> , Guillaume Paumier <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Guillom> edited and published a series of essays<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/03/25/seeing-through-the-eyes-of-new-techni…> on the Wikimedia Tech blog written by Google Code-in students, who shared their impressions, frustrations and surprises as they discovered the Wikimedia and MediaWiki technical community. *Volunteer coordination and outreach <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Volunteer_coordination_and_outreach>* The bulk of work to create community metrics<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Community_metrics> around five Key Progress Indicators is completed, and now we are polishing help strings and usability details. The next step is to share the news with the community and start looking at bottlenecks and actions. Check: - Who contributes code<http://korma.wmflabs.org/browser/who_contributes_code.html> - Gerrit review queue<http://korma.wmflabs.org/browser/gerrit_review_queue.html> - Code contributors new and gone<http://korma.wmflabs.org/browser/code_contrib_new_gone.html> - Bugzilla response time<http://korma.wmflabs.org/browser/bugzilla_response_time.html> - Top contributors<http://korma.wmflabs.org/browser/top-contributors.html> A page about Upstream projects<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Upstream_projects> was drafted collaboratively in order to start mapping the key communities where we Wikimedia should be active, either as contributor / stakeholder, or promoting our own tools. We helped selecting participants sponsored to travel to the Zürich Hackathon 2014<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrich_Hackathon_2014> in May. *Architecture and Requests for comment process <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Architecture_process>* We held four RfC review meetings on IRC: - on passwords, TitleValue, and inline diffs<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Architecture_meetings/RFC_review_2014-03-05> - on configuration, URL shortener, Assert, and the Linker refactor<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Architecture_meetings/RFC_review_2014-03-12> - on MVC framework and structured logging<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Architecture_meetings/RFC_review_2014-03-19> - on allowing styling in templates and a Minifier<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Architecture_meetings/RFC_review_2014-03-26> . Analytics <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics> *Kraken <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Kraken>* We reached a milestone in our ability to deploy Java applications at the Foundation this month when we stood up an Archiva build artifact repository. This enables us to consistently deploy Java libraries and applications and will be used in Hadoop and Search initially. The first Analytics use case for this system will be Camus, Linked-In’s open source application for loading Kafka data into Hadoop. Once this is productized, we’ll have the ability to regularly load log data from our servers into Hadoop for processing and analysis. *Wikimetrics <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Wikimetrics>* We did some significant architectural work on WikiMetrics this month to prepare it for its role as our recurrent report scheduling and generation system. The first use case for this system will be the Editor Engagement Vital Signs project, which will provide daily updates on key metrics around participation. *Kafka <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Logging_infrastructure>* We continue to investigate network issues between our data centers that are causing occasionally delivery issues. As noted above, we are currently deploying Camus, our software for transferring data between Kafka and Hadoop. *Data Quality <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Data_Quality>* We fixed a number of issues around data quality in Wikistats, Wikipedia Zero and Wikimetrics. *Research and Data <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Research_and_Data>* [image: File:Wikimedia Research Showcase - March 2014.webmhd.webm] <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Wikimedia_Research_Show…> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Research_Showcase_-_March…> Video of the March session of theResearch and Data monthly showcase<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Research_and_Data/Showcase#March_2…> . This month we concluded the first stage of work on metrics standardization. We created an overview<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Metrics_standardization> of the project with a timeline and a list of milestones and deliverables. We also gave an update<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metrics_Standardization_-_Wikimedia…> on metrics standardization during the March session of the Research and Data monthly showcase<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Research_and_Data/Showcase#March_2…>. The showcase also hosted a presentation<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maintaining_production_efficiency_(…> by Aaron Halfaker on his research on the impact of quality control mechanisms on the growth of Wikipedia. We published an extensive report<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2014-March/003306.html> from a session we hosted at CSCW ’14<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2014/February#CSCW_.271…> on Wikipedia research, discussing with academic researchers and students how to work with researchers at the Foundation. We submitted 8 session proposals<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Wikimania_2014> for Wikimania ’14, authored or co-authored by members of the research team. We attended the Analytics team’s Q3 quarterly review<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…> during which we presented<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Analytics_Quarterly_Review_Q3_2013_…> the work performed by the team in the past quarter and our goals for the upcoming quarter (April-June 2014). We completed the handover of Fundraising analytics tools and knowledge transfer in preparation for a new full-time research position that we will be opening shortly to support the Fundraising team. We continued to provide support to teams in focus area (Growth and Mobile) with an analysis of the impact of therollout<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Onboarding_new_Wikipedians/Rollout> of the new onboarding workflows across multiple wikis<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cross-wiki_deployments.slides.2014-…>; an analysis of mobile browsing sessions<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Mobile_sessions> and ongoing analysis of mobile user acquisition tests. We also supported the Ops team in measuring<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Reports/ULSFOImpact> the impact of the deployment of the ULSFO cluster<https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ulsfo_cluster>, which provides caching for West USA and East Asia. Kiwix <http://www.kiwix.org/> *The Kiwix project is funded and executed by Wikimedia CH <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CH>.* This month, we released a new version of Kiwix for Android<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.kiwix.kiwixmobile> that adds support for older versions of Android like Gingerbread; about 50% more devices than before are now supported. Wikidata <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata> *The Wikidata project is funded and executed by Wikimedia Deutschland <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/en>.* The team worked on making ranks more useful. From now on, by default the property parser function and Lua always return the values with the “preferred” rank or, when none is available, the one with the “normal” rank. This allows for example to exclude past mayors when asking Wikidata for the mayor of a city. Additionally, considerable speed improvements have been made; browsing Wikidata is now a lot faster. Diffs between versions of pages on Wikidata have also been improved to make it easier to see what changes were made to an item. Last but not least, the user interface redesign research went on. FutureThe engineering management team continues to update the *Deployments <https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments>* page weekly, providing up-to-date information on the upcoming deployments to Wikimedia sites, as well as the *annual goals <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2013-14_Goals>*, listing ongoing and future Wikimedia engineering efforts. ------------------------------ *This article was written collaboratively by Wikimedia engineers and managers. See revision history <http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_engineering_report/201…> and associated status pages. A wiki version <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/March> is also available.* -- Guillaume Paumier Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ 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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COI editing by WMF staff
by Russavia 18 Apr '14

18 Apr '14

Hi all, I just wanted to find out what the stance of the WMF is on the issue of WMF employees and contractors editing articles on themselves, or fellow employees, in direct contravention of COI guidelines? Is this a practice that is officially frowned upon? Whilst researching the Belfer fiasco I came across User:Wikitedium. The contributions[1] lead me to believe that isn't just a normal editor but one who has an ingrained conflict of interest, and it is pretty clear that the editor is Zack Exley, who is the former WMF Chief Financial Officer. In April 2006, Exley added links to rootsprimary.org to the 2008 US Presidential election article.[2] Whilst rootsprimary.org no longer exists, it's archived version states: "Who's doing this?: Just me, Zack Exley, and a couple of friends."[3] In August 2006, Exley created the article on himself.[4] Over the years, Exley made numerous edits to this article. In December 2009, Exley created the article on Argentine Middle School[5], which is in Argentine, a community of Kansas City, Kansas. Exley at the time (so it appears) lived in Kansas City, Missouri.[6] In March 2010, Exley wrote himself into the "Smart mob" article.[7] In March 2013, Exley created a "nice little article about a notable Springfield coffee shop"[8] -- the coffee shop being in Springfield, Missouri, which is another place that Exley appears to have resided.[9] Whilst the edits relating to himself were done before he joined the WMF, his article looks like a standard puff piece which is discouraged -- it uses WMF press releases, articles on ThoughtWorks which only mention him in passing[10], a self-authored article on motherjones.com[11]. Exley's only real claim to fame is that George W. Bush once called him a "garbage man".[12] I had a look at Exley's Linkedin profile[13] which appears to begin in 1987-1988 when he was at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and is current up to the present time, and correlated these to Wikitedium's other edits, and couldn't see anything else of major concern. What does concern me, however, is that there was a steady stream of WMF staffers/contractors who have edited Exley's wikibio. Although, the edits themselves may not seem to be worrisome, the fact that the puff nature of the article was not picked up on by these staffers is troubling. Also, given that the WMF and the community in general is against COI editing, these edits, as innocent as they are, should not be done by WMF staffers, but rather by others who don't have any perceived COI. Could the WMF and the BoT perhaps clarify whether COI editing amongst WMF staff/contractors is officially discouraged/forbidden, and whether there is something official in writing which lays out guidelines for how and when WMF staff/contractors should be editing articles relating to their fellow WMF'ers. Cheers Russavia [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Wikitedium [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_presidential_elect… [3] http://web.archive.org/web/20060423010423/http://rootsprimary.org/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zack_Exley&action=history [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Argentine_Middle_School&action=h… [6] http://keywiki.org/index.php/Zack_Exley [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Smart_mob&diff=prev&oldid=347706… [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Coffee_Ethic&action=history [9] https://clarity.fm/zackexley [10] http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=9999100029386 [11] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/12/organizing-online [12] http://web.archive.org/web/20060704033659/http://www.tjcenter.org/past2000.… [13] http://www.linkedin.com/in/zackexley

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] I'm back
by Carlos M. Colina 18 Apr '14

18 Apr '14

Welcome back :-) Sent from Samsung Mobile -------- Original message -------- From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> Date: 17/04/2014 23:47 (GMT+02:00) To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] I'm back For those who care, I'm back. My absence wasn't related to Wikimedia. It was about first world problems, which hit me quite hard. I never thought that the transition from the second to the first world problems would be painful. Few years ago I'd have called it "decadence". So, lesson learned. Anyway, I thought that I would see something completely different here and was worried a bit about my ability to adapt. But, I see that everything is as it was. Good old heated debates. And known [virtual] faces :D I feel I am home again :) _______________________________________________ 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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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sponsorship/donations to other organizations
by James Salsman 17 Apr '14

17 Apr '14

I would love to see the Foundation support archive.org and webcitation.org. I have seen dozens of community members express hopes for Foundation monetary support of both continued survival and faster response time for both. But I am not aware of any acknowledgement from the Foundation other than Jimmy saying that he hoped someone would help them apply for grants. Did anyone in the Foundation ever do that? And in line with my hopes that the Foundation will some day start acting in direct support of the volunteer community, I would love to see some direct financial support for e.g. paywatch.org and healthcare-now.org. Systematic polling of the community is the correct way to decide the allocation of scarce resources. We need more than the goals that were set back when the community was growing apparently exponentially. We need something that proves to editors, would-be editors, and former editors that the Foundation is trying to improve their lives.

2 1

Our next strategy plan-Paid editing
by Anders Wennersten 16 Apr '14

16 Apr '14

The discussion on the proposed amendment is now closed [1) and it is up to the Board will review the community comments. And with almost 5,000 edits in the discussion - with more than 2,000 editors and 320,000 words in various languages and with very different opinions on the subject, it will be a challenge for the Board to come to a common standpoint if it as all is possible Stephen LePorte writes: /The !vote is one strong indicator of the importance of addressing this topic/, in which I fully agree I would like suggest that the issue of paid editors should become one area to look when we start the work with the next version of our strategy plan In our last strategy it stated "more editors" which in reality became about the same number but where a few became semi-professional who make an increasing percentage of all edits. And I believe we should instead of "more editors" had stated "more, better articles with higher quality" and then been more open to means to reach that goal (where more editors could had been one mean) In the same way I would like something like "more, better articles with higher quality" to be a goal for next five year strategy plan and where paid edits could be one mean to reach that goal, but which then need to be supported with proper guidelines recommendations etc. Personally I am a bit concerned that we introduce more and more elaborate rules for qualified editing at the same time the base technique is getting more complicated (wikidata is great but it puts higher demand on skill for editors). I do not see that this trend necessary means higher treshhold for new beginner, as other tools like visual editors make it easier to start. But I do beleive the treshhold to become a qualified a "semi-professional editor" IS becoming higher. And perhaps the receipt for last five years - more semiprofessional - is not a viable option for next five years Anders [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment

14 18

Documentation of the Wikimedia Conference 2014
by Cornelius Kibelka 16 Apr '14

16 Apr '14

Hi Wikimedians, on behalf of the Documentation Team of the Wikimedia Conference 2014 I'm happy to announce that we published all the minutes and photos of all sessions, as far as they were available and ready. Check them out on https ://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2014/Documentation. We tried to summarise the sessions ("too long, didn't read"). However, sometimes this was not possible due to the most different opinions. Furthermore, you find most of the presentation slides and photos of the Conference on Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki /Category:Wikimedia_Conference_2014) Any comments, any questions, drop me a line. Best regards Cornelius on behalf of the Documentation Team of the conference (Benjamin, Conny, Lukas and Cornelius) ---- Cornelius Kibelka Twitter: @jaancornelius

5 4

"Because you don't hear it enough"
by ENWP Pine 16 Apr '14

16 Apr '14

An editor wrote this on Jimbo's talk page. I hope you will appreciate this as much as I do. "Because you don't hear it enough" "I love it here. I love Wikipedia. It's got its problems - lots of them. It has its issues. It's not perfect. But that, in its way, is the point. It's not a complete encyclopedia, it's an encyclopedia that you, and I, and everyone else on the planet (and maybe people not on it) are welcome to edit, as long as we're trying to make it a better encyclopedia. It is flawed, but that is the essence of humanity's works. So I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for making this magical, wonderful, flawed, human endeavor. - Jorgath (talk) (contribs) 19:24, 2 April 2014 (UTC)"

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