James,
Can you describe the source of your authority, and that of the committee,
to make such a decision? Do you have the approval of Lila and/or the Board?
Which movement organizations, including those responsible for funding
endeavours like Wikimania, did you consult?
~Nathan
On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 2:10 PM, James Forrester <jdforrester(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> All,
>
> TL;DR: The Wikimania Committee and the WMF Community Engagement
> department will be working on coming up with a new process for venues for
> future Wikimanias, which we will be seeking input from the community in the
> next few months
>
> ------
>
> At the Committee’s meeting in Mexico City in August, we agreed to alter
> the way that Wikimania locations are decided.
>
> The existing bidding process has developed over time. It has become
> unwieldy and hard work for the community and staff. It demands that people
> pour a huge amount of effort into building local teams, contracts and
> institutional relationships only for rejected bids' work to be left unused.
> A lot of pressure is put on volunteers to try to work on logistics rather
> than dream about what would make a great programme for our communities.
> Each year, the jury has to decide on a venue based on what is presented by
> each group divisively, rather than what we as a community could come
> together and build.
>
> The process is too short-term, setting out venue much less than two years
> ahead (often only just more than twelve months in advance). This greatly
> increases expenses when other similar conferences plan locations out many
> years ahead. This makes it impossible for us to be strategic about
> location, prevents us from arranging co-location with like-minded
> conferences, and it means that some areas of the world are ignored when
> they could provide great Wikimanias.
>
> Consequently, from now on the Committee will pick an area for Wikimania
> four to five years in advance, from the following (provisional) list. The
> years in which we have already held Wikimanias in these areas are shown in
> parentheses
>
> * Western, Northern, and Southern Europe (2005, 2014)
>
> * Canada and United States (2006, 2012)
>
> * Asia-Pacific (2007, 2013)
>
> * Middle East and North Africa (2008, 2011)
>
> * Latin America (2009, 2015)
>
> * Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia (2010)
>
> * South Asia (none yet)
>
> * Sub-Saharan Africa (none yet)
>
> * Oceania (none yet)
>
> The Committee intends to deliberately rotate between these areas to make
> sure we allow as many community members to attend as cheaply as possible.
>
> The large majority of our community members are based in either North
> America or Europe; organising Wikimanias in these areas allows the majority
> of our community members to attend cheaply, so that money spent on
> scholarships can go further, and be more focussed in supporting our
> community members wherever they are based.
>
> Locating Wikimania in other continents does not assure that participants
> from these areas can attend more cheaply. Nevertheless, to support the
> movement worldwide, we do want to ensure that, every third year, Wikimania
> will take place neither in Europe nor North America.
>
> We propose that a sequence of "Western, Northern, and Southern Europe",
> "Canada and United States", and one of the others every three years, picked
> out several years into the future. Beyond the first two areas, we may not
> visit some as often as others. (I have not listed Antarctica as an area to
> which we will rotate, which may well be a disappointment to members of the
> British Antarctic Survey and others in that location.)
>
> More widely, we would like to encourage Wikimedia conferences as open,
> engaging and fun community meetups, alongside the annual Wikimania
> conference. I know that several chapters run country-specific conferences
> each year, which is a good move. I think that there should be at least one
> annual Wikimedia conference in each of these areas. This would help newer
> editors know that there are people like them nearby without requiring the
> existence of, or putting too great a demand on, every national chapter or
> other local affiliated body. In some areas like Africa where the distances
> are great, multiple regional conferences may make sense.
>
> As part of the new system of location selection, we will no longer have a
> 'bidding' process. Instead, the Committee invites people interested in
> leading or helping to run a Wikimania to contact us on-wiki
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania>, or via the wikimania-l
> list. If you think that you know a great team, venue or concept for holding
> Wikimania, in your area or anywhere else, please discuss the possibilities
> with us. We will work with interested community members to narrow down the
> selection to a particular venue.
>
> Our next few locations will thus go like this:
>
> * 2016: Western, Northern, and Southern Europe – Esino Lario in Italy
>
> * 2017: Canada and United States – TBD
>
> * 2018: TBD – TBD
>
> * 2019: Western, Northern, and Southern Europe – TBD
>
> * 2020: Canada and United States – TBD
>
> * 2021: TBD – TBD
>
> As you can see, as well as picking the 2017 venue in Canada or the United
> States, for which we have a candidate lined up, we need to select very
> quickly the area for 2018, and after that, 2019 and beyond. There are
> several areas we’ve outlined above that have never had a Wikimania, and
> others where we have not visited for some time. We would love your thoughts
> on the areas on which we should focus for 2018 and beyond. We’ll also be
> asking in future for your thoughts about how to structure the programme of
> each Wikimania to make it as good as it can be for you, for others, and for
> our community overall.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Yours,
>
> --
>
> James D. Forrester
>
> Chair, Wikimania Committee
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimania-l mailing list
> Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
>
>
Forwarding for info; please keep the e-mail conversation on one like,
wikimania-l. Thank you.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: James Forrester <jdforrester(a)gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2015 at 11:10
Subject: Coming up with a new process for Wikimania selection
To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) <
wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
All,
TL;DR: The Wikimania Committee and the WMF Community Engagement department
will be working on coming up with a new process for venues for future
Wikimanias, which we will be seeking input from the community in the next
few months
------
At the Committee’s meeting in Mexico City in August, we agreed to alter the
way that Wikimania locations are decided.
The existing bidding process has developed over time. It has become
unwieldy and hard work for the community and staff. It demands that people
pour a huge amount of effort into building local teams, contracts and
institutional relationships only for rejected bids' work to be left unused.
A lot of pressure is put on volunteers to try to work on logistics rather
than dream about what would make a great programme for our communities.
Each year, the jury has to decide on a venue based on what is presented by
each group divisively, rather than what we as a community could come
together and build.
The process is too short-term, setting out venue much less than two years
ahead (often only just more than twelve months in advance). This greatly
increases expenses when other similar conferences plan locations out many
years ahead. This makes it impossible for us to be strategic about
location, prevents us from arranging co-location with like-minded
conferences, and it means that some areas of the world are ignored when
they could provide great Wikimanias.
Consequently, from now on the Committee will pick an area for Wikimania
four to five years in advance, from the following (provisional) list. The
years in which we have already held Wikimanias in these areas are shown in
parentheses
* Western, Northern, and Southern Europe (2005, 2014)
* Canada and United States (2006, 2012)
* Asia-Pacific (2007, 2013)
* Middle East and North Africa (2008, 2011)
* Latin America (2009, 2015)
* Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia (2010)
* South Asia (none yet)
* Sub-Saharan Africa (none yet)
* Oceania (none yet)
The Committee intends to deliberately rotate between these areas to make
sure we allow as many community members to attend as cheaply as possible.
The large majority of our community members are based in either North
America or Europe; organising Wikimanias in these areas allows the majority
of our community members to attend cheaply, so that money spent on
scholarships can go further, and be more focussed in supporting our
community members wherever they are based.
Locating Wikimania in other continents does not assure that participants
from these areas can attend more cheaply. Nevertheless, to support the
movement worldwide, we do want to ensure that, every third year, Wikimania
will take place neither in Europe nor North America.
We propose that a sequence of "Western, Northern, and Southern Europe",
"Canada and United States", and one of the others every three years, picked
out several years into the future. Beyond the first two areas, we may not
visit some as often as others. (I have not listed Antarctica as an area to
which we will rotate, which may well be a disappointment to members of the
British Antarctic Survey and others in that location.)
More widely, we would like to encourage Wikimedia conferences as open,
engaging and fun community meetups, alongside the annual Wikimania
conference. I know that several chapters run country-specific conferences
each year, which is a good move. I think that there should be at least one
annual Wikimedia conference in each of these areas. This would help newer
editors know that there are people like them nearby without requiring the
existence of, or putting too great a demand on, every national chapter or
other local affiliated body. In some areas like Africa where the distances
are great, multiple regional conferences may make sense.
As part of the new system of location selection, we will no longer have a
'bidding' process. Instead, the Committee invites people interested in
leading or helping to run a Wikimania to contact us on-wiki
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania>, or via the wikimania-l
list. If you think that you know a great team, venue or concept for holding
Wikimania, in your area or anywhere else, please discuss the possibilities
with us. We will work with interested community members to narrow down the
selection to a particular venue.
Our next few locations will thus go like this:
* 2016: Western, Northern, and Southern Europe – Esino Lario in Italy
* 2017: Canada and United States – TBD
* 2018: TBD – TBD
* 2019: Western, Northern, and Southern Europe – TBD
* 2020: Canada and United States – TBD
* 2021: TBD – TBD
As you can see, as well as picking the 2017 venue in Canada or the United
States, for which we have a candidate lined up, we need to select very
quickly the area for 2018, and after that, 2019 and beyond. There are
several areas we’ve outlined above that have never had a Wikimania, and
others where we have not visited for some time. We would love your thoughts
on the areas on which we should focus for 2018 and beyond. We’ll also be
asking in future for your thoughts about how to structure the programme of
each Wikimania to make it as good as it can be for you, for others, and for
our community overall.
Thank you.
Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
Chair, Wikimania Committee
Hey Wikidata friends,
Wikidata is turning 3 years old on October 29th. This is a reason to
celebrate for all of us. We'll be having a big party in Berlin and we
would love to see as many of you there as possible.
The Wikidata team also has a few more things planned where they'd love
to have videos, images and other input from you.
Find all information including a draft schedule for the event with
exhibition, editathon, award ceremony, party and more on:
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Third_Birthday/Party
Here's the event on fb: https://www.facebook.com/events/1487210038273348/
And here's a tweet for you to share:
https://twitter.com/wikidata/status/649227676528545792
Cheers,
Nicole
--
Nicole Ebber
Vorstandsreferentin Internationale Beziehungen
Adviser to the ED, International Relations
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 | http://wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts
Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig
anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
_______________________________________________
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
Hi friends
The photographic contest Wiki Loves Africa is back !
Wiki Loves Africa (http://www.wikilovesafrica.org) is a public annual
contest where people across Africa can contribute media (photographs,
video and audio) about their environment to Wikimedia Commons.
WLAf is a two-month competition which started yesterday (1st October)
and will end on the 30th November 2015.
The 2015 theme is: Cultural Fashion and Adornment
The competition scope is: media that shows representations of cultural
dress and fashion; specifically fashion that is defined by local
cultural influences and determines cloth, styles, ways of wrapping and
hanging, etc. Adornment is also part of the theme, which means that
media of culturally defined jewellery, make-up, hairstyles and
headdresses, cloths, scarification and tattoos, woven materials, etc.
can also be entered.
The project is run across the whole african continent, however, some
specific actions (training, communication, press conference, photo hunt
etc.) are held in some countries with national organisers.
Check out the team here :
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2015
On the Wikimedia projects, the contest will be advertized during two
months in the site notice in African countries. The site notice will
also appear in France when the site notice slot is available.
As usual... if you can participate... please join !
You do not need to be african to join ;) There are african museums and
african collections all over the world. Consider a trip to your favorite
museum to document african fashion and adornement !
If you know people who might have good content to provide on this year
theme, please relay !
If you think that the project is cool and want to follow on SM :
* https://www.facebook.com/wikilovesafrica/
* https://twitter.com/WikiLovesAfrica
If you are willing to part of the jury (or if you have a name to
suggest), please contact me.
If you are a Commonist... help clean through the uploaded images :)
And last, if you have a bit of money and want to participate fund the
prizes, this is the way :
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-fund-prizes-for-wiki-loves-africa-2…
We need 1200 dollars and have already funded 28%. Please help us reach
our goal !
Anthere
Hello everyone,
I noticed on [1] that we're a bit behind schedule when it comes to
Wikimania 2017.
The Wikimania 2017 jury call for volunteers should have gone in August,
but I don't think one was sent (or at least I missed it). September 2015
is the time when jury selection should be announced (which can hardly be
done if there was no public call for jury members), and also the bidding
is supposed to open. I see two unofficial bids so far: Bali and Perth.
The former is filled with "Lorem ipsum" text and the latter is just
plain empty.
Did we forget about Wikimania 2017? Do we still want it? Who is in
charge of this process? Is this timeline accurate (since the only edit
on that page was done by a non-WMF person; however, the process
corresponds to the one from 2014 in terms of the timeline)? Is there an
underlying problem that is causing bidding fatigue (since there are no
valid bids so far)? Is it too early to go into this process altogether
(and am I just being too dramatic)?
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2017
Cheers,
Filip Maljković
Howdy (my apologies for cross-posting),
I'm pleased to announce that the Community Tech team has a new Product
Manager – Danny Horn, who will be moving from the Collaboration team to
join this new initiative. The Community Tech team is focused on building
improved curation and moderation tools for experienced Wikimedia
editors.[1] Danny will be working with the team to develop the upcoming
Community Wishlist Survey, which will help the team define and prioritize
future projects.[2] We're excited to have someone with Danny's product
management experience as well as extensive wiki community experience
working with this team.
Danny’s role on the Collaboration team will be filled by a new Product
Manager which the Foundation is hiring for now. There’s an open job posting
on the WMF job board.[3]
Looking forward to working with Danny to build some awesome tools for the
community!
1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Community_Tech_team
2.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Community_Tech_team/Community_Wishlist_Survey
3. https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/104264?t=k7xsjm
Ryan Kaldari
Engineering Manager, Community Tech
Wikimedia Foundation
FYI.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Trevor Parscal <tparscal(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: 1 October 2015 at 16:10
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Collaboration Team Update
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hi (and sorry for cross-posting)
I’d first like to say that I’m excited about Danny’s new role and the
positive impact I know he will have on the relatively new Community Tech
team, and that he will be missed in the Editing group. This change now
leaves an open position, which we are in the process of hiring a new
Product Manager to fill. There’s an open position posted.[1]
The Collaboration team, meanwhile, will continue their work to provide Flow
as an opt-in Beta feature, allowing contributors to use Flow on their user
talk page. This feature is currently available on MediaWiki.org, and will
be enabled on other wikis upon request. Especially as more users enable
Flow, the team will continue supporting users of the product by promptly
triaging and resolving bugs.
This quarter, which began yesterday, The Collaboration team will be
focusing on the development of cross-wiki notifications and other Echo
improvements. They’re also continuing to advance efforts to research and
prototype solutions for advanced editor workflows. Further feature
development on Flow discussion tools will be based on an assessment
following the 'workflows' research work, and on editor feedback at the
wikis already using Flow.[2]
Please ask any questions you may have on-wiki at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Flow to reduce fragmentation.
- Trevor
[1] https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/104264?t=k7xsjm
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow/Rollout
_______________________________________________
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Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
--
James D. Forrester
Lead Product Manager, Editing
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
jforrester(a)wikimedia.org | @jdforrester
It had started with Wikimedia Commons and then upload.wikimedia.org (so no
images) and now Persian Wikinews and I just realized except a few number of
ISPs all WM websites are blocked everywhere. Obviously analytics can give
more details.
I talked with legal team in Wikimania and asked them for a direct talk or
any kind of negotiation with Iranian government to make things easier but
It's going worse. they lifted block on CNN once Rouhani had interview with
them two years ago.
Any ideas?
Best
Dear all,
The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on Thursday,
October 1, 2015, at 6:00 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.
At next month's meeting, we will:
* Welcome recent hires
* Present a community update
* Review WMF top-level metrics
* Showcase recent work
* Share research findings
* Give a product demo
* Engage in questions/discussions
Please review
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further
information about the meeting and how to participate.
We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting.
Thank you,
Praveena
--
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant
Wikimedia Foundation \\ www.wikimediafoundation.org
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