(CCing wikimedia-l as well, please send any replies to wikitech-l only)
The Wikimedia technical community wants to have another hackathon next year
in Europe. Who will organize it?
Interested parties, check https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Hackathons
We would like to confirm a host by Wikimania, latest.
The same call goes for India and other locations with a good concentration
of Wikimedia contributors and software developers. Come on, step in. We
want to increase our geographical diversity of technical contributors.
--
Quim Gil
Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
Is there a listing of the volunteer positions which work for the
Wikimedia Foundation?
I can think of several areas people volunteer in: system operators,
software development, public relations, correspondence management
(OTRS), list moderation, event management, conflict resolution (Arbcom),
Funds Distribution (FDC), Affiliations Committee, etc.
How many are there?
Regards, Richard.
Hi all,
We've got the first DRAFT (sorry for shouting, but can't hurt to
emphasize :)) of the annual goals for the engineering/product
department up on mediawiki.org. We're now mid-point in the process,
and will finalize through June.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2014-15_Goals
Note that at this point in the process, teams have flagged
inter-dependencies, but they've not necessarily been taken into
account across the board, i.e. team A may say "We depend on X from
team B" and team B may not have sufficiently accounted for X in its
goals. :P Identifying common themes, shared dependencies, and
counteracting silo tendencies is the main focus of the coming weeks.
We may also add whole new sections for cross-functional efforts not
currently reflected (e.g. UX standardization). Site performance will
likely get its own section as well.
My own focus will be on fleshing out the overall narrative, aligning
around organization-wide objectives, and helping to manage scope.
As far as quantitative targets are concerned, we will aim to set them
where we have solid baselines and some prior experience to work with
(a good example is Wikipedia Zero, where we now have lots of data to
build targets from). Otherwise, though, our goal should be to _obtain_
metrics that we want to track and build targets from. This, in itself,
is a goal that needs to be reflected, including expectations e.g. from
Analytics.
Like last year, these goals won't be set in stone. At least on a
quarterly basis, we'll update them to reflect what we're learning.
Some areas (e.g. scary new features like Flow) are more likely to be
significantly revised than others.
With this in mind: Please leave any comments/questions on the talk
page (not here). Collectively we're smarter than on our own, so we do
appreciate honest feedback:
- What are our blind spots? Obvious, really high priority things we're
not paying sufficient attention to?
- Where are we taking on too much? Which projects/goals make no sense
to you and require a stronger rationale, if they're to be undertaken at all?
- Which projects are a Big Deal from a community perspective, or from
an architecture perspective, and need to be carefully coordinated?
These are all conversations we'll have in coming weeks, but public
feedback is very helpful and may trigger conversations that otherwise
wouldn't happen.
Please also help to carry this conversation into the wikis in coming
weeks. Again, this won't be the only opportunity to influence, and
I'll be thinking more about how the quarterly review process can also
account for community feedback.
Warmly,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the notice boards on Commons, or who is subscribed to this mailing list, will be aware of a huge, wide-ranging and unfocused set of disputes and ill-natured arguments that have been raging for several months. The disputes are becoming more and more intemperate, and the positions of some editors more and more entrenched. While a few contributors have tried hard to pull the community back to constructive discussion and have made sensible suggestions, their comments have been drowned out in the noise.
We need to stop now and focus not on stating a re-stating positions, but on making definite and constructive proposals for ways in which these issues can be fixed. The discussion on this list has been non-productive for some time, and I suggest that editors should drop discussion there and should focus attention on the discussion on Commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Di…
Michael.
Dear all,
The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on Thursday,
July 3, 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:
* Welcoming recent hires
* Update and Q&A with the Executive Director, if available
* Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also
specialized reports and analytic
* Review of financials
* Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on highest priority
initiatives
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.
*** *Due to preparation for Wikimania 2014
<http://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>, the August metrics
meeting has been rescheduled to July 31, 2014 at 6 PM UTC (11 AM PDT).
We'll send a separate invitation one week prior to this date*. ***
Thank you,
Praveena
--
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering & Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi, folks,
Recently Lila had talk about #1 challenge in this mail-list which is
related to participation. I want to recall Ward Cunningham's idea
of observability in the very early days of wiki invention to address the
possibility to enhance participation of Wikipedia today.
If you visit the early page of c2.com, you will find the idea
of observability is one pillar principle of wiki software, and just follow
the idea, Ward invent the RecentChanges for all wikis.
At that time c2 is very small; now Wikipedia is so big. The original idea
of RecentChanges is not very effective today. We had made some extension
for the original idea in our mediawiki software, but I think the step is
too small.
Let's first take a look of what we had already invented are similar to
RecentChanges but more effective:
* Wikizine or Signpost: community stories every week
* some part of a Portal: recent changes under a subject compiled by human
Still possible for other kind of RecentChanges which is not invented yet,
for example:
* References and external links are very valuable resources, why not
extract them from articles and compile them into a timeline?
Content is only one aspect to observe, people are another:
* Who are the experts on some topics?
* Who are my buddies on some articles?
* Who did help me to improve an article originally I wrote?
In all, we may reshape our technical infrastructure in this direction for
new spaces of participation. And finally, one open question for the system
designer:
* Towards better content and community, what is the most important things
we want our user to observe?
Regards,
Mingli
Hi all,
please find below the WMF report for May 2014, in plain text.
As always, the editable and formatted version has been published on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_May_2014
and the reports are being posted on the Wikimedia blog, too:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/
As usual, we are also publishing a separate "Highlights" summary.
Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay
updated, by providing a translation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_May_2014
Many thanks to those who have translated the April "Highlights" into
various languages!
While still focusing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a
small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement.
Suggestions for the upcoming June issue are welcome until Wedneday, July 2 at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights#Movement_news_ite…
.
Regards, Tilman
--
Wikimedia Foundation Report, May 2014
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_June_5,…>
Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting
covering the month of May
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2014-06-05>
(June 5, 2014)
Contents
* 1 Data and Trends
* 2 Financials
* 3 Highlights
o 3.1 12 new individual engagement grants
o 3.2 Inviting anonymous editors to join the Wikipedia community
o 3.3 Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) recommendations
announced
* 4 Engineering
o 4.1 VisualEditor
o 4.2 Editor engagement
o 4.3 Mobile
* 5 Fundraising
o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations
o 5.2 Online Fundraising
* 6 Grantmaking
o 6.1 Annual Plan Grants (Funds Dissemination Committee)
o 6.2 Project and Event Grants
+ 6.2.1 Grants funded in May 2014
o 6.3 Travel & Participation Support
+ 6.3.1 Requests awarded in May 2014
+ 6.3.2 Reports accepted in May 2014
o 6.4 Individual Engagement Grants
o 6.5 Learning and Evaluation (including Program Evaluation)
+ 6.5.1 Grants Programs
+ 6.5.2 Grants Operations and tools
+ 6.5.3 Org effectiveness
+ 6.5.4 Other
o 6.6 Wikipedia Education Program
+ 6.6.1 Global programs
+ 6.6.2 Arab world programs
+ 6.6.3 Communications
* 7 Human Resources
o 7.1 May Staff Changes
o 7.2 May Statistics
* 8 Finance and Administration
* 9 Legal & Community Advocacy Department
o 9.1 LCA Report, May 2014
+ 9.1.1 Contract Metrics
+ 9.1.2 Trademark Metrics
+ 9.1.3 Domains Obtained
+ 9.1.4 Coming & Going
+ 9.1.5 Other Activities
* 10 Communications Report, May 2014
o 10.1 Major announcements
o 10.2 Major Storylines through May
o 10.3 Other worthwhile reads
o 10.4 WMF Blog posts
o 10.5 Media Contact
o 10.6 Wikipedia Signpost
o 10.7 Communications Design
* 11 Visitors and Guests
== Data and Trends ==
Global unique visitors for April:
*465 million* (-6.00% compared with March; -9.92% compared with the
previous year)
(comScore data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/unique_visitors> for all
Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release May data later
in June)
Page requests for May:
*20.654 billion* (-0.2% compared with April; -1.6% compared with the
previous year)
(Server log data
<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyAllProjects.htm>,
all Wikimedia Foundation content projects including mobile access,
but excluding Wikidata <https://www.wikidata.org> and the Wikipedia
main portal page <https://www.wikipedia.org/>.)
Active Registered Editors for April 2014 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month,
excluding bots):
*75,364* (-2.25% compared with March / -7.25% compared with the
previous year)
(Database data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors>, all Wikimedia
Foundation projects.
Note: These numbers were recently adjusted
<http://infodisiac.com/blog/2014/06/reassessment-of-active-editors/>
to correct a bug involving IPV6 addresses.)
*Report Card* (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF
projects):
http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/
(Definitions <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Metric_definitions>)
== Financials ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Revenue_%26_Expenses_April_2014…>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of April 30, 2014
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses_by_Functions_April_201…>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of April 30, 2014
(Financial information is only available through April 2014 at the time
of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and
Year-To-Date April 30, 2014.
Revenue 49,194,784
*Expenses:*
Engineering Group 13,800,658
Fundraising Group 3,209,299
Grantmaking Group 1,472,907
Programs Group 1,493,168
Grants 4,066,472
Governance Group 725,565
Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group 3,256,914
Finance/HR/Admin Group 5,484,592
Total Expenses 33,509,575
Total surplus (15,685,209)
/in US dollars/
* Revenue for the month of April is $8.24MM versus plan of $1.71MM,
approximately $6.53MM or 383% over plan.
* Year-to-date revenue is $49.19MM versus plan of $46.76MM,
approximately $2.43MM or 5% over plan.
* Expenses for the month of April is $3.19MM versus plan of $4.69MM,
approximately $1.50MM or 32% under plan, primarily due to lower
personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, FDC grants,
and payment processing fees partially offset by higher legal fees,
outside contract services, and travel expenses related to community
convening events.
* Year-to-date expenses is $33.51MM versus plan of $41.06MM,
approximately $7.55MM or 18% under plan, primarily due to lower
personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, legal fees,
payment processing fees, staff development expenses, grants and
travel expenses partially offset by higher outside contract services.
* Cash and Investments - $55.6MM as of April 30, 2014.
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ZoomProof_Wikisource_tool_concept.o…>
Demo video for "ZoomProof", a tool that will facilitate proofreading
work on the Armenian Wikisource - one of the 12 new IEG projects
== Highlights ==
=== 12 new individual engagement grants ===
The Foundation's Individual Engagement Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG> (IEG)
support projects from individuals or small teams to organize, build,
create, research or facilitate something that enhances the work of
Wikimedia’s volunteers. The 12 winning grants from the first round of
2014 were announced on May 30
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/30/new-grantees-fresh-perspectives-resea…>.
</w/index.php?title=File:Growth_team_update_(June_2014).pdf&page=8>
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Growth_team_update_(June_2014).pdf?…>
Test of a message inviting anonymous editors to create an account,
displayed after they have made an edit (presentation slide)
=== Inviting anonymous editors to join the Wikipedia community ===
On the English, German, French, and Italian Wikipedias, the Foundation's
Growth team conducted two experiments to test user interface changes
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/16/anonymous-editor-acquisition/>
for encouraging anonymous editors to create an account and join the
community of registered users. In the first A/B test, a recommendation
to create an account was shown when the user clicks "edit", and in the
second test, the invitation was displayed after the users saved an edit.
Preliminary data strongly suggested a positive effect on new registrations.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GLEE_FDC_update_-_Metrics_June_5.pd…>
Overview over the FDC proposals from round 2 (presentation slides)
=== Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) recommendations announced ===
In May, the nine-member Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) met for its
face-to-face deliberations and published its recommendations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2013-2014_ro…>
to the WMF Board
of Trustees on proposals from four organizations (three chapters and the
Foundation) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals> on
how to spend Wikimedia
donation money. The Board will make its decision on these
recommendations by 1 July. The Advisory Group to the FDC
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee_Advisory_Group>
also met in
Frankfurt for their final meeting, to provide the Executive Director of
the WMF with a recommendation on whether or not the FDC process (begun
in 2012) should continue, and if so, what modifications should be made.
Their unanimously agreed to recommend
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemi…>
to continue the process.
== Engineering ==
A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for May 2014 can
be found at:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/May
Department Highlights
Major news in May include:
* changes to the mobile site to better show the editors behind the
curtain
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/02/the-wikipedia-editors-behind-the-curt…>;
* the announcement of CyrusOne in Dallas
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/05/wikimedia-foundation-selects-cyrusone…>
as the location of the new Wikimedia data center;
* the Zürich hackathon
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/10/tech-wizards-behind-wikipedia-meet-in…>
and Lila Tretikov's perspective
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/15/hacker-osmosis-ideas-european-hackath…>
on it;
* experiments by the Growth team to encourage more contributors to
register
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/16/anonymous-editor-acquisition/>;
* the one-year anniversary
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/20/celebrating-one-year-of-tech-news/>
of the launch of Tech News;
* the launch of Wikipedia Zero in Nepal
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/22/wikipedia-zero-shall-accelerate-wikip…>
in partnership with NCELL;
* the launch of a second request for proposals
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/27/request-for-proposals-mediawiki-relea…>
for the release management of MediaWiki for third-party users.
=== VisualEditor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/VisualEditor/Portal>
===
In May, the VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> team
worked on the performance stability of the editor, rolled out a major
new feature to help users better edit articles, and made some
improvements to other features to increase their ease of use and
understandability, fixing 75 bugs and tickets
<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?list_id=318847&order=priority%2C…>.
The new *citation editor* is now available to all VisualEditor users on
the English, Polish, and Czech Wikipedias, with instructions
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Citation_tool> on how to enable
it on other wikis. The citation and template dialogs were simplified to
avoid technical language and some outcomes that were unexpected for
users. As part of this, the citation icons were replaced with a new,
clearer set, and the template hinting system now lets wikis mark
template parameters as "suggested", as a step below the existing
"required" state. The *formula editor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Beta_Features/Formulae>* is now
available to all VisualEditor users, and a new Beta Feature giving a
tool that lets you set the *language of content*
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Beta_Features/Language> was made
available for testing and feedback. Following a new set of user testing,
the *toolbar* was tweaked, moving the list and indent buttons to a
drop-down to make them less prominent, and removing the gallery button
which is rarely used and confused users. The *mobile version* of
VisualEditor, currently available for alpha testers, was expanded to
also have the new citation editor available, and had some significant
performance improvements made, especially for long or complex pages.
Work continued on making VisualEditor more *performant and reliable*,
and key tasks like *keyboard accessibility* have progressed. The
deployed version of the code was updated five times in the regular
release cycle.
Progress was also made on *Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid>*,
the parsing program that works behind the scenes of VisualEditor. The
team continued with ongoing bug fixes and bi-weekly deployments. Besides
the user-facing bug fixes, we also improved our *tracing support* (to
aid debugging), and did some *performance improvements*. We also
finished implementing support for HTML/visual *editing of transclusion
parameters*. This is not yet enabled in production while we finish up
any additional performance tweaks on it. As part of the Google Summer of
Code program, one student is working on a wikilint project
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid/Linting/GSoC_2014_Application> to
*detect broken/bad wikitext* in wiki pages.
=== Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> ===
In May, the Flow <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow> team prepared the new
*front-end redesign* of this new discussion system. We completed work on
sorting topics on a board by most recent activity, and changed hidden
post handling so that everyone can see hidden posts. Back-end
improvements include optimizations on how we handle unique identifiers
and generate standard URLs. We also accepted Special:Flow (a
community-created improvement that makes it easier to create redirects
to Flow boards) and made fixes for topic submission and replies for
users without JavaScript.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Growth_team_update_(June_2014).pdf?…>
Growth team presentation slides from the monthly Metrics meeting
The Growth <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Growth> team launched its A/B test
of two methods for *asking anonymous editors to sign up
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anonymous_editor_acquisition/Signup_invites>*
on the English, German, French, and Italian Wikipedias. Full analysis of
the test results
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Anonymous_editor_acquisition/Signu…>
is
expected in June, though preliminary data strongly suggests a positive
impact on new registrations. Last but not least, Growth released two
smaller enhancements to our *data collection regarding article
creation*, including adding page identifiers to MediaWiki's deletion
logs and tracking page restorations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schema:PageRestoration>
across all wikis.
=== Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> ===
This month, the Mobile Apps <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps>
team worked on a series of *navigation improvements* to the iOS and
Android alpha apps, focusing on the interface for searching, saving and
sharing pages, and navigating to the table of contents. We also worked
on restyling the global navigation menu and article content—typography,
color, and spacing—to create a *standardized experience* across the
mobile web and apps. In preparation for the launch of the Android app in
June, we tackled a number of user-reported *crashing bugs* to ensure a
more stable and reliable experience for our users.
The Mobile web <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_web_projects> team
continued to build out the basic features of *VisualEditor for tablet
users*, providing the ability to add references via VisualEditor. We
hope to finish refining the add and modify references workflow in
preparation for graduating VE for tablets to the stable mobile site
sometime in July. On the reader features side, we've made a number of
tablet-related *styling improvements* (typography, spacing, and Table of
Contents) to the stable mobile site. This should greatly improve the
reading experience for tablet users who are already accessing the mobile
version of our projects, and it is one of the last pieces of work we
planned to get done before we begin *redirecting all tablet users to the
mobile site* mid-June.
The Wikipedia Zero <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero> team worked
on *restructuring* ZeroRatedMobileAccess
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ZeroRatedMobileAccess> into several
extensions, and added support for graceful *image quality reduction
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Reducing_image_quality_…>*,
and worked on a proposal to use GIF images
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Unfragmented_ZERO_design>
for *Zero banners* instead of ESI
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Side_Includes>. We also added necessary
library support to the reboots of the Wikipedia apps, performed limited
app code review, added support for Nokia (now MS Mobile) proxies, and
started work with the Design team on the final polish for the Wikipedia
Zero experience in the forthcoming apps.
In May we launched Wikipedia Zero with Ncell in *Nepal*, Sky Mobile
(Beeline) in *Kyrgyzstan* and Airtel in *Nigeria*. We also added Opera
Mini zero-rating in Umniah in *Jordan*. We served roughly *67 million
free page views in May across 30 partners in 28 countries*. We met with
community members from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Jordan, as well as
prospective partners in Brazil, and kicked off the carrier portal design
with Noble studios.
== Fundraising ==
=== Major Gifts and Foundations ===
* The Major Gifts team welcomed Sylvia Ventura to the team as a
*Development Consultant* on a 3 month contract. Sylvia will be
helping plan our fall fundraising events and further developing our
relationships with international donors.
* We are working on an event at St. James Palace in London to *support
Wikimania* the last week of June.
=== Online Fundraising ===
* The online fundraising team ran low-level *banner tests* world-wide.
*Emails* were sent to previous donors in the Czech Republic and
Norway. Approximately *$700,000 USD* was raised in May (preliminary
numbers as donations are still settling).
* The team held *focus groups* with donors in the US, primarly focused
on optimizing mobile and email fundraising.
* The team prepared *translations* of fundraising messages into
multiple languages for upcoming international banner campaigns. If
you would like to help with the translation process, please get
involved <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/Translation>.
* The fundraising tech team successfully deployed a new *credit card
processor* allowing us to process payments more efficiently
internationally, fully customize forms, and have credit card
processing redundancy.
== Grantmaking ==
Department highlights
=== Annual Plan Grants (Funds Dissemination Committee) ===
* In May, the nine-member FDC met for its face-to-face deliberations
and published its *recommendations*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2013-2014_ro…>
to the WMF
Board of Trustees on 2013-2014 Round 2 proposals
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals>. The Board
will make its decision on
these recommendations by 1 July. A more detailed calendar on the
process, including upcoming milestones and deadlines, is available
on Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Calendar>.
* In addition, the *Advisory Group* to the FDC also met in Frankfurt
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/FDC_Advisory_…>
for their final meeting. Their goal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee_Advisory_Group>
was to provide
the Executive Director of the WMF with a recommendation on whether
or not the FDC process should continue, and if so, what
modifications should be made. Their unanimously agreed to recommend
to continue the process; more detailed recommendations are forthcoming.
* The FDC is currently accepting *four new members*. To that end,
self-nominations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/No…>
are
accepted through June 15. Four new members will be appointed by the
Board of Trustees, and will be announced in July. If you should have
questions about the process, contact FDCsupport at wikimedia.org.
=== Project and Event Grants ===
* *3 new requests* were funded in May 2014.
==== Grants funded in May 2014 ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Summer_of_Monuments.svg>
The logo for Wikipedia Summer of Monuments.
* Indigenous Knowledge for Wikipedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Pgallert/Indigenous_knowledge_for_Wi…>:
To support a workshop and the development of case studies examining
the use of oral citations for improving Wikipedia articles.
* Summer of Monuments 2014
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/WM_US-DC/Summer_of_Monuments_2014>:
To support
Wikimedia US-DC in organizing a photo campaign targeted at select
Southern US states to improve coverage of nationally-recognized
monuments on Wikipedia.
* Wikimedia Estonia office rental
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_EE/Continuing_office_rental>:
To support Wikimedia
Estonia with their rental office space.
=== Travel & Participation Support ===
* *3 new requests* were funded and *2 reports* were accepted in May 2014.
==== Requests awarded in May 2014 ====
Three requests involving participation in the 2014 *Open Source Bridge
Conference* to fund:
* Niharika <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Niharika>’s talk on
a compact interlanguage
selector tool that supports the many languages on Wikipedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Niharika/Open_Source_Bridge_Conf…>.
* Rjain’s hack session on Extension Development with Mediawiki
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Rjain/Open_Source_Bridge_2014>.
* Netha <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Netha_Hussain>’s
presentations at both the Ada
Camp and Open Source Bridge
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Netha_Hussain/Ada_Camp_and_Open_…>
conferences. At Ada Camp, Netha will hold discussions surrounding
the topic of increasing participation in women with plans on tying
in ideas to her proposed diversity workshop
<https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Diversity_Workshop:_Ge…>
at Wikimania 2014. At the OSB, her talk is on “The joy of
volunteering with open technology and culture
<http://opensourcebridge.org/proposals/1269>”.
==== Reports accepted in May 2014 ====
* LibreGraphics Meeting report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Rodelar/LibreGraphicsMeeting/Rep…>
* Libreplanet 2014 report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Noopur28/Libreplanet_2014/Report>
=== Individual Engagement Grants ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IEG_r1_2014_May_monthly_metrics.pdf…>
Presentation slides about new Individual Engagement Grants
* *12 new Individual Engagement grants* were selected and announced
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/30/new-grantees-fresh-perspectives-resear…>
in May! These grants, which range from $600 to $22,600, will support
16 grantees from 10 countries with countless volunteer participants
from around the world. Grantees will build tools and partnerships,
conduct research, and engage in online community organizing. Some
new investment areas in this round include funding mobile app
development, Wikipedia research, and projects aimed at improving
Wikivoyage and Wiktionary. The round 1 2014 projects are:
o Making Telugu Content Accessible
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Making_telugu_content_accessible>,
led by
Santhosh, funded at 104,000 Rupees.
o Medicine Translation Community Organizing
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Medicine_Translation_Project_Com…>,
led by CFCF, funded at $10,000.
o Open Access Reader
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Open_Access_Reader>, led
by
Edward Saperia, funded at $6550.
o Optimizing Wikimedia Category Systems
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Optimizing_Wikimedia_Category_Sy…>,
led by
Paul J. Weiss, funded at $9750.
o Promoting Wikivoyage
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Promoting_Wikivoyage>,
led by Tammy Bennert, funded at $600.
o Pronunciation Recording
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Finish_Pronunciation_Recording>,
led by Rillke
with participation from Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV and Infovarius,
funded at €1450.
o Reimagining Wikipedia Mentorship
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Reimagining_Wikipedia_Mentorship>,
led by I
JethroBT, Soni and Gabrielm199, funded at $22,600.
o Senior Citizens Write Wikipedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Senior_Citizens_Write_Wikipedia>,
led by
Vojtěch Veselý with participation from Vojtěch Dostál, Václav
Šulc, and Jan Sokol, funded at 160,000 CZK.
o Tools for Armenian Wikisource and beyond
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Tools_for_Armenian_Wikisource_an…>,
led
by Xelgen with participation from HrantKhachatrian and Mahnerak,
funded at $7600.
o The Wikiquiz
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikiquiz>, led by
Addis Wang,
Mys 721x, and Ericmetro, funded at $1070.
o WikiTrack
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/WikiTrack>, led by Hari
Prasad
Nadig, funded at $2500.
o Women and Wikipedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Women_and_Wikipedia>, led
by Amanda Menking, funded at $8075.
* Program Head Siko Bouterse attended the *Wikipedia Education Program
Hackathon* in Jordan to meet with Arabic Wikipedians. While there,
we launched the Arabic Wikipedia Library
<https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9…>,
participated in a group generating a list of online Arabic research
materials for use in editing articles
<https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9…>,
and presented about grantmaking
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_grantmaking_@_Jordan_Hackathon.…>
to a group of
educators and Wikipedians.
* Siko also facilitated an *IdeaLab workshop at Wikiconference USA
<http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/IdeaLab>*, where about 15
participants collaborated to develop a handful of ideas into action
plans <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab>.
* User scripts for an add-me gadget and a new Lua info-box template
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Build/Tools> have
been created to facilitate
joining and endorsing ideas, as part of the ongoing IdeaLab
worksprint <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Build/March-June_2014_sprint…>.
The team is wrapping up bug-fixing on the initial scripts before
moving to beta test as gadgets on Meta.
=== Learning and Evaluation (including Program Evaluation) ===
In May, much of the L&E teams time was set on developing the L&E logic
model and also bringing in new team member Maria Cruz! Also, much time
was spent on prepping for the FDC deliberations and advisory group
meeting and the revamp of the IdeaLab.
* Migrated the Evaluation portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal> to
the Grants namespace
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation>, as part of our
ongoing efforts to *re-integrate Learning & Evaluation and Program
Evaluation*.
* Collaborated with the IEG program officer, contract developer Jeph
Paul, and designer Heather Walls on the *IdeaLab revamp* project.
See IEG section above for more info.
* Assisted IEG grantee Ocaasi with a 6-month retrospective data
analysis of *The Wikipedia Adventure*.
* Worked with Analytics to develop a framework for gathering *active
editor geodata*.
In addition to participating with the full Learning and Evaluation team
in *strategy sessions* related to our integration under Grantmaking, the
program evaluation and design team members:
* Initiated a community dialogue
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Parlor/Dialogue>
around the evaluation
initiative, its evaluation, and grantmaking and posting/linking of
*Wikimetrics Brainstorm
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Parlor/Metrics_Brainstorm>*,
a metrics
dialogue and development prioritization activity, initiated at
Wikimedia Conference.
* Posted two blogs: *Beginning to Understand What Works: Measuring the
Impact of Wikimedia Programs* (2 May 2014)
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/02/beginning-understand-what-works-measu…>
and *A Collaborative Definition of Impact: Building Metrics
Together* (30 May 2014)
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/30/building-metrics-together/>.
* Two team members attended WikiConference USA in New York City and
presented a two part session *Growing the awesome in your Programs*
<http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Submissions:Growing_the_Awesome_in_your_P…>
overviewing the evaluation tools and resources and providing a
demonstration of Wikimetrics.
* Hired Maria Cruz on contract for *Program Evaluation Community
Coordinator*.
* Began L&E *Twitter feed* @WikiEval <https://twitter.com/WikiEval>
(gathered 75 followers in week one).
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GAC_Survey_Summary_2014.pdf>
Survey of GAC members
==== Grants Programs ====
* *Annual Plan Grants*: completed *impact analysis* for the first
round of funding, FDC year 1. Prepped materials for the FDC advisory
group (to be published); published *financial overviews
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/Finan…>*
for the entities applying for funds in Round 2, 2013-14.
* *Project & Event Grants*: finalized consulting engagement with
pro-bono consulting group Inspire <http://inspire-inc.org/>. Key
topic areas:
o *Survey of GAC members
<Image:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GAC_Survey_Summary_2014.pdf>*,
resulting in ongoing
discussion on meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_Advisory_Committee/Revamp_Discussion>
with GAC
members (facilitated by the PEG team).
o Analysis of the *pain points in the grants reporting and
application* processes; improvements to these areas forthcoming.
==== Grants Operations and tools ====
* Migrated the *Evaluation portal* to a new address at
Grants:Evaluation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation> making its
contents
searchable by default.
* Conducted research on available commercial *QDA (Qualitative Data
Analysis)* solutions.
* Worked with *Fluxx* labs on fixing major bugs in Fluxx site
including bank info, budgets, currencies and others.
* *Documentation of GrantsBot
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_%26_Evaluation/GrantsBot>*!
GrantsBot is a
critical tool used by the grantmaking team to update and maintain a
variety of pages and portals throughout the Grants namespace.
* *IdeaLab revamp* is underway! See IEG section
above.
==== Org effectiveness ====
* Closure of the *Wikimedia board governance survey
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikimedia_Board_Governance_Survey>*
developed with
of WMF Board, Wikimedia Chapters, and AffCom. Analysis to be done in
June. Thank you to all the participants!
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grants-gephi-visualization.png>
A visualization of users' interaction to the Grants namespace talk pages
on Meta (generated using Gephi)
==== Other ====
* Grants Strategy:
o Prepared a Gephi visualization
<http://haithams.github.io/community_visualization/use-user-weight/network/i…>
of *users' interaction on the Grants namespace* on Meta-wiki.
Future development and interpretation anticipated (ideas welcome!)
o Open questions to the broader community around *grantmaking
metrics*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Parlor/Dialogue>
(see Program
Evaluation below).
* External Grantmaking Outreach:
o Represented the Wikimedia Foundation at The Funder's Role in
Collective Impact forum
<https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/default.aspx?utm_campaign=FunderConv…>.
=== Wikipedia Education Program ===
==== Global programs ====
* The Wikipedia Education Program team is establishing a *baseline of
Wikipedia education initiatives* worldwide. The team is conducting a
large outreach effort to more than 60 programs worldwide that are
using Wikipedia in education. Currently, the outreach consists of
one-on-one talks with all program leaders to understand their
educational initiatives, activities, goals, and potential support
needs. Since beginning our outreach efforts in April 2014,Floor,
Anna, Tighe, and Rod have spoken to 32 initiatives worldwide that
are using Wikipedia in Education.
* The Wikipedia Education Program continues its support for the
*Education Cooperative
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/WEP_Coop>*, a group
of program leaders worldwide committed to working together to share
leanings and experiences using Wikipedia in education. Coop members,
together with the Wikipedia Education Program team, are currently
working on four initial areas for the Coop: Communications,
Resources, Recognition and Mentoring. Check out these works in
progress:
o Restructuring of the *education portal* on Outreach wiki
continues as we bring together five separate educational portals
into one site, combining trainings, materials and brochures,
learnings and worldwide Wikipedia in Education efforts. See:
Update on the education portal
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Education#Update_on_the_education_…>.
We'll be working on the content for each of the pages in the
upcoming months.
o Improvements
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Education/News#Newsletter_improvem…>
to the monthly community-led *newsletter*, /This Month In
Education <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/wiki/Education/News>/,
including an email subscription
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/This_Month_…>
option and a single-page edition
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/May_2014/Single>,
resulted in several new subscriptions as well as a significant
increase in page views.
* Floor Koudijs, Manager of the Wikipedia Education Program, attended
*WikiCon USA 2014
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_USA>*, in New York
from May
30 to June 1.
==== Arab world programs ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hack1110.JPG>
Volunteers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Lebanon and Jordan gathered
for a two-day hackathon in Amman. Photo: Samir I. Sharbaty
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Samir_I._Sharbaty> CC-BY-SA-3.0
* Arab World Education Program Manager, Tighe Flanagan, *organized the
Wikipedia Education Program hackathon in Amman, Jordan* from 16-17
May, 2014 with support from Dr. Nidal Yousef and Isra University;
WEP sponsored the participation of 11 volunteers from Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Yemen and Lebanon in addition to over 20 local volunteers
from Jordan.
* 35 volunteers (Wikimedians, educators and student ambassadors)
worked on tasks to improve the Wikipedia Education Program in the
region, documenting their teams and work on-wiki
<https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9…>;
the Editing Wikipedia Brochure
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Translate&group=pa…>
was partially translated into Arabic and several new institutions
were added to the Education Extension
<https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B5:%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%87%D…>
to track student activity and contributions on-wiki.
* Siko Bouterse from Grantmaking and Adele Vrana from Wikipedia Zero
helped *facilitate the Jordan Hackathon* from the Wikimedia Foundation.
* Egyptian students celebrated the accomplishments of the previous
semester, featured in the This Month in Education Newsletter
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/May_2014/Egyptian_…>.
==== Communications ====
Two blog posts:
* Armenian students enjoy editing Wikipedia
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/07/armenian-students-enjoy-editing-wikip…>
(May 7)
* Wikipedia Education Program students keep editing in Arabic long
after their assignments are finished
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/06/students-keep-editing-in-arabic-long-…>
(May 6)
== Human Resources ==
We supported F&A in the finalization of the WMF *annual plan* for
submisson to the board. We hired two employees, Elena Hernandez, who
began with us as *benefits and wellness coordinator*, and a *recruiting
coordinator* who will begin in June. We completed preparation work for
the *annual reviews* and compensation adjustments, and all the hiring
and onboarding for nine new req holders as well as managing our
portfolio of immigration-related work.
=== May Staff Changes ===
New Requisitions Filled
* Lila Tretikov (ED)
* Bernd Sitzmann (Engineering)
* Daniel Duvall (Engineering)
* Filippo Giunchedi (Engineering)
* Mukunda Modell (Engineering)
* Rachel DiCerbo (Product)
* Abigail Ripstra (Product)
* Elena Hernandez (HR)
Conversions (Contractor to Requisition)
* Rummana Yasmeen (Engineering)
Requisition Departures
* Charles Salvia (Engineering)
New Interns
* Ralph Torres (Office IT)
* Consuelo Jimenez (Office IT)
* Sylvia Ventura (Office IT)
* Mark Verstraete (Legal)
* Chuck Roslof (Legal)
* Joseph Jung (Legal)
* Eric Holmes (Legal)
New Contractors
* Maria Cruz (Grants)
Contracts Ended
* Ryan Faulkner
* Monica Breton
* Marshall Olin
* Shaila Nathu
* Jessica Tam
* Genya Vasyanina
* Aaron Arcos
* Sage Ross
=== May Statistics ===
Total Requisitions Filled
May Actual: 176
May Total Plan: 196 (full req#, with stage-gating and out of plan)
May Filled: 9, Month Attrition: 1,
FYTD Filled: 58, FYTD Attrition: 27
Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end
20 → reflects 4 total out of plan req#s 193-196 (for finance)
== Finance and Administration ==
* In the month of June, the Wikimedia Foundation will be issuing an
RFP (Request for Proposal) for *investment advisory* services.
* Beginning June 14 and ending June 30, the *6th floor* or the
Wikimedia Foundation office will be undergoing improvements which
will shift staff to the 3rd floor and offsite locations.
* The *Annual Plan* of the Wikimedia Foundation has been reviewed by
the Chair of the Audit Committee (Stu West) and is being prepared
for submission to the Board of Trustees for approval.
== Legal & Community Advocacy Department ==
=== LCA Report, May 2014 ===
* Following the closing
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/02/14/a-proposal-for-wikimedias-new-privacy…>
of a 5.5 month-long community consultation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy> in February,
the new draft *privacy
policy <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy>* was
approved by the WMF Board of
Trustees and will go into effect upon completion of an appropriate
notice period on 06 June 2014.
* After the vigorous debate during the 5.5 month-long community
consultation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy>
closed
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/02/14/a-new-access-to-nonpublic-information/>
and significant changes were made based off of community feedback,
the WMF Board of Trustees approved the new draft *Access to
Nonpublic Information Policy
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy>*,
which will go into
effect upon completion of an appropriate notice period. Importantly,
the new Access to Nonpublic Information Policy contains no
identification requirement by members of the community who are
entrusted with administrative rights that grant them access to
certain nonpublic information, but provides clear guidance about the
responsibilities that come with those rights and maintains
pre-existing minimum age requirements as the previous Access to
nonpublic data policy
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_data_policy>
contained.
==== Contract Metrics ====
* Submitted : 29
* Completed : 24
==== Trademark Metrics ====
* Submitted : 11
* Request withdrawn : 1
* Pending : 4
* Denied: 1
* Approval not needed : 5
==== Domains Obtained ====
wikimedia.co.za, wikwipedia.org, wikimedia-commons.wiki,
wikimedia.co.za, wikimedia.wiki, wikimediacommons.wiki, wikinews.wiki,
wikipedia.expert, wikipedia.wiki, wikisource.wiki, wikiversity.wiki,
wiktionary.wiki, wikwipedia.org,
==== Coming & Going ====
We said goodbye to our *spring interns*, Shaila Nathu, Jessica Tam,
and Marshall Olin. We thank them for all of their hard work and wish
them the best in the adventures that await them in the future.
We welcomed our new *summer interns*, Mark Verstraete, Joe Jung,
Chuck Roslof, and Eric Holmes. We are very excited to have them join
the Foundation for the summer and look forward to tackling
interesting projects with them.
==== Other Activities ====
* Roshni, a WMF privacy legal fellow, shared her experience about
attending *Yale's Big Data Symposium* in a blog post
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/21/yale-big-data-symposium/>.
* Wikimedia made its debut on the EFF's annual *Who Has Your Back
report <https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2014>*, earning 4 stars.
* Yana published a blog post
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/09/opposing-mass-surveillance-on-the-int…>
announcing our support for the 13 Principles
<https://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/take-action/digiges> that
demand that *governments respect human rights in their surveillance
actions, which earned Wikimedia an EFF star in the Who Has Your Back
report.*
* Legal interns published *notes in Wikilegal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal>* on
Copyright Status of Wikipedia Page Histories
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Copyright_Status_of_Wikipedia_Pag…>,
Authorship and Copyright Ownership
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Authorship_and_Copyright_Ownership>,
Uploading UK
Banknotes to Wikipedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Authorship_and_Copyright_Ownership>.
* We updated the *Wikimedia Legal Disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>* to
better explain the role of
the Legal Team and allow us to more freely discuss legal related issues.
* Manprit is working with *OTRS* to help them deal with questions from
users regarding legal topics. Manprit published a document
clarifying trademark related issues often faced by OTRS volunteers.
The document is the first of a series meant to provide OTRS
volunteers with a resource to consult when legal questions arise to
hopefully ease the burden they face.
== Communications Report, May 2014 ==
The major news story for the beginning of May was the announcement of
the *new Executive Director*, which resulted in stories in the
Economist, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, among others. A
ruling by the European Court of Justices in early May on the '*right to
be forgotten'* led to a flood of articles citing the impact of the
ruling on Wikipedia. In the UK, it was discovered that vandalism on an
article about the *Hillsborough stadium disaster* could be traced back
to government computers, promting numerous articles detailing the way
Wikipedia works, including how editors revert such vandalism. A study
released at the end of May on the "accuracy" of top-ten medical articles
garned wide coverage, but was dismissed as inaccurate and misleading by
editors from WikiProject Medicine. A ruling in Chile on the country's
Net Neutrality provisions prompted articles critiquing the potential
impact on projects such as Wikipedia Zero. Throughout the month, the
Communications team worked to support the onboarding of the new
Executive Director, the rollout of the Terms of Use, the launch of
Wikipedia Zero in Nigeria, and preparations for Wikimania, as well as
finalized the Communications Narrative for the Annual Plan for 2014-2015.
=== Major announcements ===
*Airtel offers Nigerians free access to Wikipedia
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Airtel_Offers_Nigerians…>*
(29 May, 2014)
*Wikimedia Foundation names Lila Tretikov as its new Executive
Director
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/WMF_announces_new_ED_Li…>*
(01 May, 2014)
=== Major Storylines through May ===
*Lila Tretikov*
Lila Tretikov becomes the Wikimedia Foundation’s new Executive Director
Wall Street Journal (01 May, 2014) [1]
<http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/05/01/wikipedia-names-software-executive-t…>
New York Times (01 May, 2014) [2]
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/business/media/open-source-software-speci…>
*Jimmy Wales and the EU Courts of Justices ruling*
Jimmy Wales describes the ruling on the “right to be forgotten” as
“ridiculous.”
NY Times (blog) (30 May, 2014). [3]
<http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/google-takes-steps-to-comply-with-…>
BBC News (15 May, 2014). [4]
<http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27423527>
International Business Times (15 May, 2014). [5]
<http://www.ibtimes.com/eu-google-ruling-wikipedias-jimmy-wales-ridicules-ri…>
CNET (14 May, 2014). [6]
<http://www.cnet.com/news/wikipedias-jimmy-wales-blasts-ruling-forcing-googl…>
*Hillsborough Wikipedia entries scandal*
Wikipedia page dedicated to the 1989 disaster in which 96 people
died was vandalized using government computers.
The Telegraph (21 May, 2014). [7]
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/10844002/Civil-se…>
International Business Times (21 May, 2014). [8]
<http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/hillsborough-wikipedia-edits-linked-liverpool-civi…>
Mirror (20 May, 2014). [9]
<http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hilsborough-wikipedia-scandal-strong-l…>
The Boar (9 May, 2014). [10]
<http://theboar.org/2014/05/09/response-hillsborough-wikipedia-scandal/#.U49…>
*Wikipedia and medicine*
Study claims that medical articles on Wikipedia contain inaccuracies.
ABC News Radio (28 May, 2014). [11]
<http://abcnewsradioonline.com/health-news/study-claims-wikipedia-medical-en…>
Yahoo (small business advisor) (28 May, 2014) . [12]
<https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/shocker-doctors-shouldn-t-rely-wiki…>
Huffington Post (Tech) (27 May, 2014). [13]
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/27/wikipedia-study-medical-informatio…>
The Telegraph (27 May, 2014). [14]
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10857468/Dont-diagnose-yoursel…>
Time (27 May, 2014). [15]
<http://time.com/118904/study-dont-trust-wikipedia-when-it-comes-to-your-hea…>
The Independent (27 May, 2014). [16]
<http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/don…>
=== Other worthwhile reads ===
”Wikipedia is a masterclass in digital democracy”
Wired (22 May, 2014)
[http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-05/22/digital-democracy/
”100 most edited Wikipedia articles”
FiveThirtyEight (30 May, 2014) [17]
<http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-100-most-edited-wikipedia-articles/>
Chile blocks free access to Wikipedia and Facebook
Quartz (30 May, 2014) [18]
<http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-a…>
100 most powerful women - Lila is #99
Forbes (28 May, 2014) [19]
<http://www.forbes.com/profile/lila-tretikov/>
”100 most obsessed-over people” on the internet
TIME (27 May, 2014) [20] <http://time.com/109947/web-ranking/>
Official Wikimedia affiliate organization recognized in Pakistan
Lahore Times (16 May, 2014) [21]
<http://lhrtimes.com/2014/05/16/official-wikimedia-affiliate-organization-re…>
An experiment intended to look at whether giving people an arbitrary
advantage over their fellows at the beginning of an endeavour led to a
significantly better outcome for those people, using Wikipedia.
The Economist (03 May, 2014) [22]
<http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21601494-and-science-h…>
=== WMF Blog posts ===
Blog.wikimedia.org published 32 posts in May 2014
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/5/>. Six posts were multilingual
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/>, with translations
in English, Spanish, Nepali, Russian, Polish, German, French, Italian,
Czech, Catalan, Chinese, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish,
Portuguese (Brazil) and Malay.
Some highlights from the blog include:
*Happy Birthday, Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/26/happy-birthday-ward-cunningham-invent…>*
(May 26, 2014).
*Donating his estate to the Wikimedia Founation: The story of Jim
Pacha
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/12/the-story-of-jim-pacha/>*
(May 12, 2014).
*“No interviews. Except for Wikipedia!” - Documenting the Eurovision
song contest on Wikimedia Commons
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/10/no-interviews-except-wikipedia-docume…>*
(May 10, 2014).
*Launching a privacy policy built the Wiki way
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/07/launching-a-privacy-policy-built-the-…>*
(May 07, 2014).
*Announcing our new Executive Director Lila Tretikov
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/01/wmf_announces_new_ed_lila_tretikov/>*
(May 01, 2014).
=== Media Contact ===
Media contact through May 2014: wmf:Press room/Media Contact#May 2014
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#May_2014>
=== Wikipedia Signpost ===
For detailed coverage and news summaries, see the community-edited
newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” for May 2014:
* Volume 10, Issue 17
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2014-05…>,
07 May 2014
* Volume 10, Issue 18
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2014-05…>,
14 May 2014
* Volume 10, Issue 19
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2014-05…>,
21 May 2014
* Volume 10, Issue 20
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2014-05…>,
28 May 2014
=== Communications Design ===
The legal team is creating guidelines for *app developers* to follow
when they create apps that integrate use our projects’ names or content.
One of the guidelines is how to create app logos that are not
confusingly similar to our trademarks or our own application logos. We
developed a few logos to provide as examples. We also created some logo
templates for Wikimedia *User Groups*.
We expanded the *endorse gadget* on Meta from last month with another
function to make it easy for people to join a project page in various
roles. Jonathan Morgan and Heather developed a Lua-based infobox to
summarize information across ideas and projects (see also the Individual
Engagement Grants section).
The *staff handbook* continues to be shaped on the Office wiki.
== Visitors and Guests ==
Visitors and guests to the WMF office in May 2014:
1. Violette (Gemalto)
2. Jeremie Acemyan (Gemalto)
3. Ajay Kaushik (Gemalto)
4. RAY KING (TL Design)
5. Tom Hehir (CCSC Inc.)
6. Rishi Sharma (Paul Hastings)
7. Peter Cooper (Paul Hastings)
8. Virgina Sutton (J.D.)
9. Kelly Johnson (J.D.)
10. Priscilla Imboden (Swiss Radio)
11. Hershel Mehta (Stanford)
12. Allison Dods (Stanford)
13. Alex Martell (Stanford)
14. Kent Blake (Stanford)
15. Ellie Redding (Stanford)
16. Gaurav Handa (Standford)
17. Howon Lee (Stanford)
18. Amber Rockwood (Stanford)
19. Julie Fortuna (Stanford)
20. Todd Davies (Stanford)
21. Gaurav Handa (Stanford)
22. Melissa Cliver (Melissa Cliver Design and Research)
23. Charlene Music (Boundless Media)
24. Carsten Voecker (WB)
25. Tamera White (WB)
26. Tom Hehir (CCSC Inc.)
27. Joe Zahradka (CNA)
28. Craig Aaron (Free Press)
29. Josh Levy (Free Press)
30. Humberto Chacon (Concern:EAP)
31. Rachel Connors (Yellow Leaf)
32. Joe Demin (Yellow Leaf)
33. Myleen Hollero (Myleen Hollero Photography)
34. Gregory Flipo (Sikana)
35. Joyce Cruz (Guardian)
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
_______________________________________________
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 friends in the Wikimedia community,
After meeting face-to-face in May to deliberate on the four proposals
they received for the 2013-2014 Round 2 annual plan grants, the Funds
Dissemination Committee (FDC) posted their funding recommendations to
the WMF Board of Trustees. [1]
Four proposals were submitted in this round, and one of them (the
Wikimedia Foundation) did not receive a dollar allocation. Funding
requests from the three other organizations (Centre for Internet and
Society, Wikimédia France and Wikimedia Norge) this round totaled
US$1,555,953.
The funds available for movement entities through the FDC process in
2013–2014 was US$6,000,000. Of this, $4,432,000 was allocated in Round
1, leaving $1,568,000 for Round 2. In this round, the FDC has
recommended funding allocations totaling approximately $1,235,062. The
remaining approximately $332,938 will be returned to the Wikimedia
Foundation's reserves. The recommended allocation for the WMF is
excluded from this, as it includes the next year's budget for the
Wikimedia movement as a whole.
I am pleased to share with you the news that the Board of Trustees has
made the decision to approve the FDC's 2013-2014 Round 2 funding
recommendations in full. [2] These funding recommendations will now be
implemented by the Foundation.
Many people have put in significant work to make this process a
success. As the Board Representatives to the FDC, we would like to
thank the Round 2 applicants themselves, the Funds Dissemination
Committee members and staff, and the members of the community who
participated in the community review period. We congratulate the
applicants and look forward to learning more about how their annual
plans progress.
Best,
Patricio Lorente and Bishakha Datta, Board Representatives to the FDC
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2…
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/Board_decisions/2013-…
--
Patricio Lorente
Blog: http://www.patriciolorente.com.ar
Identi.ca // Twitter: @patriciolorente
Dear all,
We would like to announce that Wikimedia Indonesia now officially has
a joint office in Jakarta with Humanitarian Open Street Map (HOT-OSM) and
World
Wide Web Foundation (Open Data Lab Jakarta Project).
It is a two level building in Menteng, Central Jakarta.
Our mailing address, however, is still unchanged.
Photo:
https://www.facebook.com/wikimedia.indonesia/photos/a.406789046084.197840.1…
Regards,
--
*Isabella Apriyana*
*Wakil Sekretaris Jendral*
*(Deputy Secretary General)Wikimedia Indonesia*
Seluler +628889752858/ +6281213700084
Surel isabella.apriyana(a)wikimedia.or.id
Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan!
http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi
Support us to free the knowledge!
http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi
Hi, Nathan!
2014-06-30 16:46 GMT-03:00 Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>:
> Has the board considered and or replied to the other recommendations of the
> FDC, in particular the process recommendations around the submission of the
> WMF proposal and the criticism offered by the FDC of the proposal submitted
> in this round?
Yes, we considered the FDC assessment on the WMF proposal, and we are
still discussing the implications. Anyway, we had a strict deadline to
approve the funding allocation and thus we decided to separate those
discussions.
Patricio
--
Patricio Lorente
Blog: http://www.patriciolorente.com.ar
Identi.ca // Twitter: @patriciolorente
