Dear all,
The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on Thursday,
June 5, 2014 at 6 PM UTC (11 AM PDT). The IRC channel is #wikimedia-office
on irc.freenode.net and the meeting will be broadcast as a live YouTube
stream.
The current structure of the meeting is:
* Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also
specialized reports and analytic
* Review of financials
* Welcoming recent hires
* Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on highest priority
initiatives
* Update and Q&A with the Executive Director, if available
Please review
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further
information about how to participate.
We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting.
Thank you,
Praveena
--
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering & Product Development
www.wikimedia.org
(This press release is also available online here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Airtel_Offers_Nigerians…
)
*Airtel Offers Nigerians Free Access to Wikipedia*
- *Customers to Access Multilingual Content Free of Data Charges*
- *Restates Commitment to Educational Development, Youth Empowerment*
*Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, May 29th, 2014*: Leading telecommunications
services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has announced a strategic partnership
with the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia, to
offer their consumers across the country access to Wikipedia through their
mobile phones free of data charges.
The initiative, which is first of its kind in Nigeria, is dubbed Wikipedia
Zero, and it is aimed at reaching and empowering billions of people around
the world whose access to the Internet is primarily through a mobile
device. Airtel Nigeria subscribers can access Wikipedia free of data
charges at m.wikipedia.org.
With the new partnership, Airtel will help deliver knowledge and
information of Wikipedia to 21 million of new users in the West African
region. Speaking on the new partnership, Chief Commercial Officer, Airtel
Nigeria, Maurice Newa, said the initiative is in line with the company’s
corporate vision of becoming Nigeria’s number one Internet Company, saying
the new service will help connect Nigerians with relevant knowledge and
information that will empower them to succeed in their personal and
professional endeavors.
“We are excited with our partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation and we
will continue to provide innovative solutions that will uplift Nigerians in
line with our brand promise of becoming the most loved brand in the daily
lives of Nigerians,” he said. “At Airtel, we are passionate and committed
to creating solid educational and youth empowerment platforms that will
enrich and transform the lives of telecoms consumers across the country.”
“We commend Airtel Nigeria for taking a leadership role in empowering their
society through information access, and we’re thrilled to partner with
them,” said Carolynne Schloeder, Head of Mobile Partnerships at the
Wikimedia Foundation. “Expanding Wikipedia Zero to the people of Nigeria is
a big step forward for free knowledge in Africa.”
About Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with
operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New
Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers
globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings
include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line
services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services
including national & international long distance services to carriers. In
the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G wireless services and mobile
commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 297 million customers across its
operations at the end of April 2014. To know more please visit,
www.airtel.com
About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://wikipediazero.orghttp://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive 500 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most
popular web property world-wide (comScore, August 2013). Available in 287
languages, Wikipedia contains more than 29 million articles contributed by
a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San
Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
Wikimedia Foundation Press Contact:
Communications, Wikimedia Foundation
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6633 jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org
(To be unsubscribed from this press release distribution list, please reply with 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the subject line)
_______________________________________________
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
tl;dr Self-nominations invited for four Board-appointed members of the FDC.
Nominate here.[3]
Dear members of the Wikimedia community,
The Funds Dissemination Committee Advisory Group (FDC AG) met recently in
Frankfurt to recommend to the Executive Director (ED) of the Wikimedia
Foundation whether the FDC - the nine member volunteer committee reviewing
annual plan grants or allocations for Wikimedia and allied organisations -
should continue or not, after the first two years of its existence.[1] The
detailed recommendations of the FDC AG will be shared with the Executive
Director and the community shortly, but we are happy to announce that the
AG recommends that the FDC continues to exist with some suggested
improvements to the process.
The final decision on the FDC will be taken by the ED and the Board of WMF
over the next few months (the FDC Framework’s timeline suggests August),
but the AG’s overall recommendation is a testimony to the deep commitment
and energy of the current FDC and the community members who have
participated in this unique peer-review grantmaking process. Thank you.
Without anticipating the ED and Board’s decision, we would like to move
forward with the process of renewing the current FDC with four
Board-appointed members of the FDC so that a full FDC is in place by August
2014. As per the Framework,[2] four of the current committee members will
be ending their two year terms in July, and four new members will be
appointed by the WMF Board to fill these vacancies.
I write to ask those of you interested in joining the FDC to signal your
interest on Meta by self-nominating by end of day UTC June 15.[3] The
schedule for the nominations process is as follows:
* May 30 - June 15: Self nominations to join the FDC. Candidates indicate
their interest through a short paragraph about themselves, and respond to
an initial set of questions from the FDC staff
* June 1 - June 30: Public question and answer [4] from community members
to candidates
* June 24 - July 3: FDC staff in consultation with the FDC Board
representatives (Bishakha Datta and Patricio Lorente) interview a sub-set
of nominated candidates
* July 3: Shortlist of candidates announced
* July 4 - 10: Decision on final four FDC candidates by the Board reps in
consultation with the full Board
* July 11: Public announcement to community of the four new members
* August: Based on the ED and Board’s decision on the FDC’s existence,
orientation of the new FDC at Wikimania
To be eligible to join the FDC, members need to meet the requirements
below, as outlined by the Framework.[5] They must:
* have sufficient time and dedication to commit to this time-heavy process,
including attending two 4-6 day face-to-face meetings (likely in mid-May
and mid-November) and be able to meet the expectations outlined in more
detail on the nominations page
* have a track record of constructive engagement in community discussions
and an orientation toward collaborative problem solving
* be able to set aside any conflicts of interest and work towards the
mission goals of the Wikimedia movement without considering individual or
organizational interests
* be over 21 years in age and over the age of majority in their home country
* be able to work effectively in English (note that full fluency is not
required)
* present to WMF appropriate personal identification
* Staff / board members of entities requesting funds from the FDC may serve
on the FDC;
however, they must recuse themselves from deliberations pertaining to their
entity's application.
The *skills and attributes* being sought for in FDC members include:
* Experience directing or evaluating programs;
* Grant-making expertise (either as a grantee or grantor of funds);
* Exposure to, understanding of, and personal credibility in the Wikimedia
movement (experience across different Wikimedia projects as well as
experience in programs, chapters, or administrative roles within the
Wikimedia movement);
* Gender, geographic and linguistic diversity.
There are no term limits for FDC members, and current members may choose to
re-apply for the FDC. The members whose terms end this July are Anders
Wennersten, Arjuna Rao Chavala, Mike Peel (current Secretary), and Yuri
Perohanych. The members who continue on the FDC for another year are Ali
Haidar Khan (current Vice-Chair), Dariusz Jemielniak (current Chair),
Cristian Consonni, Delphine Ménard and Sydney Poore. More information
about the Committee’s roles is available on Meta.[6]
We’ll hold IRC office hours to answer questions, particularly for those of
you interested in joining the committee. Current FDC members may join these
office hours, based on their availability. Office hours will be held on the
#wikimedia-office channel on Wednesday, June 4 at 0:00 UTC and again later
that day at 16:00 UTC.[7]
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and my FDC staff colleagues at
FDCsupport(a)wikimedia.org. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may
have about joining the committee.
Warmly,
Anasuya
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee_Advisory_Grou…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Fr…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/No…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/No…
[5]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Fra…
[6]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee#Rol…
[7] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
--
*Anasuya SenguptaSenior Director of GrantmakingWikimedia Foundation*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
Support Wikimedia <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>
Chris writes:
> As I understand it, the "right to be forgotten" will only affect the
> discoverability of content, rather than existence of content.
>
> So if we rely on a source which says that person X did Y many years ago,
> and X succeeds in invoking their "right to be forgotten", then the source
> will no longer appear in search engine results. The source, whether offline
> or online, will continue to exist and will continue to be a valid reference.
>
> My understanding may well be wrong, and if there is anything that
> summarises this issue as it affects Wikimedians I would be really
> interested to read it.
Your understanding is essentially correct, as far as it goes. The ECJ
(aka "Curia") opinion makes clear that the decision applies to search
engines but not (yet) to the databases of source journals (such as The
New York Times or the Guardian).
But of course it can affect the work of Wikipedia editors and other
Wikimedians looking for online sources if search engine results can be
censored in this way. In addition, it seems possible that the ECJ
opinion can be understood to apply to Wikipedia itself, which, while
not a search engine, may qualify as a "controller" as that word is
defined under Article 2 of Directive 95/46 of the European Parliament
("on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of
personal data and on the free movement of such data"). Look at these
relevant definitions from the text of the ECJ opinion:
------------
Article 2 of Directive 95/46 states that ‘[f]or the purposes of
this Directive:
(a) “personal data” shall mean any information relating to an
identified or identifiable natural person (“data subject”); an
identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or
indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or
to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological,
mental, economic, cultural or social identity;
(b) “processing of personal data” (“processing”) shall mean any
operation or set of operations which is performed upon personal data,
whether or not by automatic means, such as collection, recording,
organisation, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval,
consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or
otherwise making available, alignment or combination, blocking,
erasure or destruction;
...
(d) “controller” shall mean the natural or legal person, public
authority, agency or any other body which alone or jointly with others
determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data;
where the purposes and means of processing are determined by national
or Community laws or regulations, the controller or the specific
criteria for his nomination may be designated by national or Community
law;
...
Article 9 of Directive 95/46, entitled ‘Processing of personal
data and freedom of expression’, provides:
‘Member States shall provide for exemptions or derogations from the
provisions of this Chapter, Chapter IV and Chapter VI for the
processing of personal data carried out solely for journalistic
purposes or the purpose of artistic or literary expression only if
they are necessary to reconcile the right to privacy with the rules
governing freedom of expression.’
---------------
(Note that "processing of personal data" need not be done "by
automatic means." I read this to mean that Wikipedia editors
themselves may qualify as engaging in the "processing of personal
data." And the definition of "controller" expressly includes a
"natural ... person."
Assuming that Member States would assert jurisdiction over Wikipedia
(even though Wikipedia is hosted in the United States), could
Wikipedia articles be defended under the "solely for journalistic
purposes or the purpose of artistic or literary expression" language
of Article 9 of the Directive? That language doesn't strike me as a
very good fit for what Wikipedia does.
The English-language version of the full text of the opinion is here:
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=152065&pageI…
.
Ilario writes:
> But I think that something will change for users writing content (no more
> references in the main search engine) but also to discover copyright
> infringements.
And, possibly much more than that, as I suggest above.
Not impossibly, and assuming EU can establish jurisdiction of
Wikimedia Foundation or its agents or its volunteer editors, this
particular news story might have turned out differently:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html?_r=0 .
--Mike
On 2 April 2014 16:12, Jon Davies <jon.davies(a)wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
...
> This could help reduce costs and avoid any duplication?
I can now confirm that Wikimedia UK is not going to make a public
report of the total costs of sending 8 people to the Wikimedia
Conference 2014. I doubt that Jon Davies' wish to reduce costs can be
considered a commitment if as the Chief Executive, he has chosen to
not report on them.
Discussion on the UK wiki on this topic started on 27 March, and I
waited for 5 weeks for an answer to the direct question of costs
(raised 24 April), in which time the original discussion thread on the
chapter wiki was manually archived and I had to create a second
discussion in an attempt to pursue an answer. This wasted volunteer
time, employee time and goodwill, if the answer could have been "no,
we have no plan to report on these costs" with a rationale as to why.
Perhaps other chapters have reported on costs and can offer links for
Jon, in order to show how this can be achieved in a non-bureaucratic,
open and transparent fashion for the benefit of chapter members?
Links:
1. https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room/2014#Attendees_at_the_Wikimedia_C…
2. https://wikimedia.org.uk/w/index.php?title=Engine_room&diff=57343&oldid=573…
Thanks,
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Martijn asked me which things I thought that some people on this list
don't want anyone to discuss, so here are the two examples that I'm
most interested in:
Child Protection- I'd like to hear about ways that policy might be
changed here to better protect children, especially given some of the
content on Commons. I'd also like to hear about specific examples of
content on Commons that a parent might not find appropriate for their
children. Note that this is not a repeat of the discussion to
understand what policies are in place, as I have already opened a
specific thread for that.
Harassment- I'd like to hear about existing policies around harassment
and potential changes to such policies. In particular, I'm interested
in how the community might tackle this problem to make the site a more
comfortable place for the oft-mentioned female constituent that has
long been in decline.
Since I don't have enough experience with the community and WP yet to
discuss controversial topics myself, I will not chime in unless the
thread has very obviously gone off topic. Just to pick an arbitrary
about of time that is more than the few months that others have
mentioned here, let's say that you can only participate in this
discussion if you have at least one year of experience as an active
contributor.
Now, I'll just sit back and hear all sides of the story.
,Wil
Greetings,
Based on continuing changes to Wikimedia's approach to movement affiliates
(chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups), input from the
community, and discussions with WMF board and staff - the Affiliations
Committee has begun work on expanding our support of affiliates once the
recognition process itself concludes.
An early step that we are taking is to provide each Wikimedia movement
affiliate with at least one liaison from the Affiliations Committee to help
with communications, finding resources, answering questions, and supporting
successful contributions to the Wikimedia movement.
Each member of the Affiliations Committee is assigned as a liaison to
multiple affiliates. Each affiliate will be assigned a primary liaison, who
will be their main contact, and a secondary liaison, who is available if
the primary is not and able to help with more complex situations. While an
affiliate's liaisons may change over time, they will always have at least
one liaison assigned to them. We will soon be adding more members to the
committee, so there are a few liaison assignments not yet filled.
Liaisons will be making initial contact in the coming weeks - and will then
be in contact periodically, or affiliates may contact them at any time. We
welcome any feedback or ideas on how we can help support your chapters,
thematic org, or user group moving forward.
More info - including specific liaison assignments:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Liaisons
-greg aka varnent
Vice-Chair
Wikimedia Affiliations Committee
Hi Rodrigo,
Thank you for these questions. There have been questions about the India
program as well, so these questions about Brazil can be added to the list of
issues for WMF to investigate.
I am not personally familiar with either of the Brazil or India catalyst programs,
but I suggest that you contact Asaf or Anasuya if you don't get a response
on this list or on the discussion page within two days.
Thank you again for bringing up these questions.
Pine
Congratulations Wikimedia Ukraine on these milestones.
500,000 articles, 10 years as a language wiki, and 5 years
as an organization are great reasons to celebrate.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Feuerwerk_Dreiländerbrücke.jpg
Pine
> Date: Sat, 31 May 2014 21:13:16 +0200
> From: Richard Ames <richard(a)ames.id.au>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Ukraine's anniversary
> Message-ID: <538A29CC.7030709(a)ames.id.au>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
>
>
> ----- оригінальне повідомлення -----
> Тема: Wikimedia Ukraine's anniversary
> Від кого: Levon Azizian <levonazizian(a)bigmir.net>
> Кому: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Копія: Правління Вікімедіа Україна <board(a)wikimedia.in.ua>
> Відправлено: 31.05.2014 18:40,
>
> Today, our organization celebrates anniversary - 5 years from the date
> of creation.
>
> Exactly 5 years ago, on May 31, 2009, in Kyiv was held the constituent
> meeting, which approved the bylaws and elected its first Board of the new
> organization, known as Wikimedia Ukraine.
>
> Our community has gone through a long and difficult path. Birthday of
> Wikimedia Ukraine for our community is the third remarkable date this
> year. On January 30 was the 10th anniversary of the establishment of
> Ukrainian Wikipedia and on May 12 Ukrainian Wikipedia has crossed the
> threshold of 500 000 articles.
>
> We want to thank to Wikimedia Foundation Inc. for their help, to our
> neighboring communities for fruitful cooperation with us and of course
> to our community for their contributions!
>
> Regards, Levon Azizian
> Deputy chair
> Wikimedia Ukraine
>
>
>
> --
> The greatest collection of shared knowledge in history. Help Wikipedia,
> participate now: http://wikimedia.org/
>
Rui Correia wrote:
>...
> tell me whether we are bleeding new or old members.
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_Trends_Study/Resultshttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Editor_lifecycle
and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Editor_classes
agree: we lose experienced editors at about the same rate we always
have, but what plummeted after 2007 is the rate at which we attract
new editors. That's why there was so much enthusiasm for the Visual
Editor, but it was misplaced because being able to figure out wikitext
is an excellent attribute in new editors (analogously, being able to
figure out that wikitext has ambiguities equivalent to the halting
problem would have been an excellent attribute in VE architects....)
None of the other technical solutions (Huggle, Wikilove, two click
thanking, etc.) have made a dent in the numbers, so it is time to
consider this the social problem that it is, and not just some
technical problem that can be coded around with a fancy new feature,
fewer bots, or addressed with nicer template warnings. Since the
typical editing tasks continue to transition from creating new
articles to maintaining the accuracy of old articles, that is even
more reason to want to attract highly educated editors who will be
able to overcome technical learning curves and social hurdles with
their own minds, not a Mediawiki extension.
Consider the supply and demand of both editors and their leisure time
by educational attainment:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/cognitive-surplus-visualized/
There is no shortage of new editors to attract. But how much free time
do those potential new editors have? For the typical highly educated
potential male editor, or the potential female editor of any
educational attainment level in the vast majority of the
English-speaking world, things have been getting a lot worse:
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Screen%20Shot%202013-0…http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Screen%20Shot%202013-0…
(from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/how-did-work-life-balan…
in case those URLs expire)
These are all pertinent to whether strategic priorities should include
direct action to improve the extent of leisure time among highly
educated people in the developed world. Do that, and there will be
plenty of new Mediawiki and Wikidata extensions to choose from as
potential symbiotic solutions to both editor recruitment and the
transition from creation to maintenance. If I had more free time, I
would do this one:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Develop_systems_for_accuracy_re…
That is on topic, because if we had that feature, maintaining accuracy
would be a lot easier in that it would take less volunteer time. But I
don't think for a minute that any of the external strategic priorities
I've listed would do less if they came to fruition.
Best regards,
James Salsman
