Wikimedia-l April 2015

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

143 participants
85 discussions

Re: [Wikimedia-l] A "Listen" Button
by James Heilman 29 May '15

29 May '15

I guess I see this as making it easier for people to generate files to put on their ipod or for those with a limited ability to read who might not have figured out more complicated solutions. Those who are blind have likely already figured out good solutions. It is those of us who are sighted that need the help. I know that I personally would find such a button helpful. But through a great many steps I could likely figure out a work around. People prefer stuff that is simple. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com

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A "Listen" Button
by James Heilman 29 May '15

29 May '15

While human read articles are great they quickly become out of date and are available for only a fraction of our articles. Why don't we have a "Listen" button beside our read button that when clicked will read the article for the person in question? There are 37 open source text-to-speech listed here http://www.findbestopensource.com/tagged/text-to-speech. Some of them support up to 50 languages. This of course would require the support of the Wikimedia Foundation. I guess we could also do it with a gadget initially. Thoughts? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com

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Good Bye as CIS-A2K Program Director
by Vishnu T 30 Apr '15

30 Apr '15

Dear Wikimedians, This is my last day as the CIS-A2K Program Director. The last 2 years and 3 months have been immensely exciting with tons of learning and work! I have loved meeting many Wikimedians, face to face, across the length and breadth of India. The interactions I had with many of the Wikimedians in India have been immensely useful to my learning. The diversity of our community and the Wikimedia projects in India is so rich and intricate - I wish I could map out my entire set of impressions, to only give a slight glimpse of it!! Signing off as the Program Director for now. See you on-wiki, here on the lists and in real life whenever our paths cross. A quick update: The next A2K Program Director selection is under process and hopefully we should all be able to welcome the new incumbent in June, 2015. Until then the A2K team is being internally monitored by CIS leadership. Best wishes, Vishnu

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Wiki Towns
by dzo＠bisharat.net 30 Apr '15

30 Apr '15

What is the status of the Wiki Towns effort? I first heard of it at Wikimania 2012, but looking at the list of actual projects, it appears to have had limited appeal. Noting also that in a couple of cases there were controversies. I tracked down a "Wikitown" email list, but no reply to an inquiry there. TIA for any info, Don Osborn Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

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[x-post] Next Language Engineering IRC Office Hour is on 5th May 2015 (Tuesday) at 1430 UTC
by Runa Bhattacharjee 30 Apr '15

30 Apr '15

[x-posted announcement] Hello, The next IRC office hour of the Language Engineering team of the Wikimedia Foundation will be on May 5, 2015 (Tuesday) at 1430 UTC on #wikimedia-office. We missed a few of our regular monthly office hours, but from May onwards we will be back on schedule. There has been significant progress around Content Translation[1] and it is now available as a beta feature on several Wikipedias[2]. We’d love to hear comments, suggestions and any feedback that will help us make this tool better. Please see below to check local time and event details. Questions can also be sent to me ahead of the event. Thanks Runa [1] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/08/the-new-content-translation-tool/ [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation/Languages#Available_lang… Monthly IRC Office Hour: ================== # Date: May 5, 2015 (Tuesday) # Time: 1430 UTC (Check local time: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20150505T1430 ) # IRC channel: #wikimedia-office -- Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator Wikimedia Foundation

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2015 Strategy/Community consultation
by Anthony Cole 30 Apr '15

30 Apr '15

Who has been tasked with summarising the themes in the feedback from the 2-week community consultation that was held in February/March? https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Strategy/Community_consultation Anthony Cole <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole>

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FINAL DAY: Nominations being accepted for 2015 Wikimedia Foundation FDC elections
by Gregory Varnum 30 Apr '15

30 Apr '15

Greetings, *FINAL DAY: The candidacy submission phase ends at 23:59 UTC April 30 for the FDC and FDC Ombudsperson.* Additionally, the questions and discussion phase of the FDC elections will begin soon, you are invited to begin submitting questions to the FDC election <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/FDC_election…> and FDC Ombudsperson election <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/FDC_Ombudspe…> . This year the Board and the FDC Staff are looking for a diverse set of candidates from regions and projects that are traditionally under-represented on the board and in the movement as well as candidates with experience in technology, product or finance. To this end they have published letters <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Call_fo…> describing what they think is needed and, recognizing that those who know the community the best are the community themselves, the election committee is accepting nominations <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015#Informa…> for community members you think should run and will reach out to those nominated to provide them with information about the job and the election process. This year, elections are being held for the following roles: *Board of Trustees* The Board of Trustees is the decision-making body that is ultimately responsible for the long term sustainability of the Foundation, so we value wide input into its selection. There are three positions being filled. More information about this role can be found at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Board_e…. *Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC)* The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) makes recommendations about how to allocate Wikimedia movement funds to eligible entities. There are five positions being filled. More information about this role can be found at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/FDC_ele… . *Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) Ombud* The FDC Ombud receives complaints and feedback about the FDC process, investigates complaints at the request of the Board of Trustees, and summarizes the investigations and feedback for the Board of Trustees on an annual basis. One position is being filled. More information about this role can be found at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/FDC_Omb… . The candidacy submission phase lasts from 00:00 UTC April 20 to 23:59 UTC May 5 for the Board and from 00:00 UTC April 20 to 23:59 UTC April 30 for the FDC and FDC Ombudsperson. This year, we are accepting both self-nominations and nominations of others. More information on this election and the nomination process can be found at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015. Please feel free to post a note about the election on your project's village pump. Any questions related to the election can be posted on the talk page on Meta, or sent to the election committee's mailing list, board-elections(a)wikimedia.org On behalf of the Elections Committee, -Gregory Varnum (User:Varnent) Volunteer Coordinator, 2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee Text on-wiki: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/MassMes…

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Next steps regarding WMF<->community disputes about deployments
by Erik Moeller 30 Apr '15

30 Apr '15

Hi folks, This is a response to Martin's note here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-August/073936.html .. and also a more general update on the next steps regarding disputes about deployments. As you may have seen, Lila has also posted an update to her talk page, here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov#Working_Together I want to use this opportunity to respond to Martin's and other people's criticisms, and to talk about next steps from WMF’s perspective following discussions with Lila and the team. I’m also sending a copy of this note to all the stewards, to better involve them in the process going forward. I am -- genuinely -- sorry that this escalation occurred. We would have preferred to avoid it. I would like to recap how we find ourselves in this situation: As early as July, we stated that the Wikimedia Foundation reserves the right to determine the final configuration of the MediaViewer feature, and we explicitly included MediaWiki: namespace hacks in that statement. [1] When an admin implemented a hack to disable MediaViewer, another local admin reverted the edit. The original admin reinstated it. We then reverted it with a clear warning that we may limit editability of the page. [2] The original admin reinstated the hack. This is when we protected the page. Because all admins have equal access to the MediaWiki: namespace, short of desysopping, there are few mechanisms to actually prevent edit wars about the user experience for millions of readers. Desysopping actions could have gotten just as messy -- and we felt that waiting for a "better hack" to come along (the likeliest eventual outcome of doing nothing) or disabling the feature ourselves would not be any better, either from a process or outcome standpoint. Our processes clearly need to be improved to avoid these situations in the future. We recognize that simply rejecting a community request rather than resolving a conflict together is not the right answer. We’ve been listening to feedback, and we’ve come to the following conclusions: - We intend to undertake a review of our present processes immediately and propose a new approach that allows for feedback at more critical and relevant junctures in the next 90 days. This will be a transparent process that includes your voices. - As the WMF, we need to improve the process for managing changes that impact all users. That includes the MediaWiki: namespace. For WMF to fulfill its role of leading consistent improvements to the user experience across Wikimedia projects, we need to be able to review code and manage deployments. This can be done in partnership with trusted volunteers, but WMF needs to be able to make an ultimate determination after receiving community feedback regarding production changes that impact all users. - We are prepared to unprotect MediaWiki:Common.js on German Wikipedia and enter constructive, open-ended conversations about the way forward, provided we can mutually agree to do so on the basis of the current consistent configuration -- for now. We would like to request a moratorium on any attempts to disable the feature during this conflict resolution process. The goal would be to make a final, cross-wiki determination regarding this specific feature, in partnership with the community, within at most 90 days. With regard to the German Wikipedia situation, we’d like to know if stewards want to at all be involved in this process: In a situation like this, it can be helpful to have a third party support the conversation. Stewards are accountable to "valid community consensus within the bounds of the Foundation's goals" [3], which seems to be precisely the intersection of concerns at issue here. We would like to suggest an IRC meeting with stewards ASAP to talk about the specific question of stewards’ involvement, if any. If stewards prefer not to be involved, we understand, but it's probably a good idea to have a sync-up conversation regardless. I hope we can move forward in good faith from here, and find better ways to work together. As Lila has expressed, we believe there is a need for a clear understanding of our role. It is as follows: Managing software development, site configuration and deployment is a core WMF responsibility. The community leads in the development of content; the Wikimedia Foundation leads in the development of technology. Because these processes are deeply interdependent, we need to develop better protocols for timely feedback and resolution of disagreements. At the same time Lila’s and the Board’s statements make it very clear that the WMF will not accept RfCs or votes as the sole determining factor in global software deployments. This means that technology and UX changes should not be decided by vote or poll and then disabled at-will: where we disagree, we need to talk to each other (and yes, that means a more judicious application of RESOLVED WONTFIX on our end, as well!). We need to ensure a process where the community voice is heard earlier at critical junctions in the product development. All of this is consistent with the principle of "shared power" articulated in the Guiding Principles [4] approved by the Board of Trustees. At the same time, as noted above and earlier, the superprotection feature should be replaced with a better mechanism for code review and deployment in the MediaWiki: namespace. This is discussed in [5] and ideas and suggestions are welcome. Let’s be upfront about control structures for production changes to avoid misunderstandings and ambiguity in the future. We are exploring options on how to improve dispute resolution mechanisms -- whether it’s e.g. a standing working group or a better protocol for responding to RfCs and engaging in discussions. We've started a brainstorming page, here, which we hope will usefully inform the process of conflict resolution regarding German Wikipedia, as well, so we can arrive at a more concrete conflict resolution process soon. Your thoughts/suggestions are welcome, so we can (in NPOV style) look at different possibilities (e.g. workgroups, committees, votes, surveys) that have been discussed in the past: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_(Product)/Process_ideas We’re absolutely not saying that WMF simply wants to be able to enforce its decisions: we completely understand there need to be mechanisms for the community to influence decisions and outcomes at all stages of the development and release of software. We need to arrive at this process together. Again, we are sorry that this escalation occurred - and we hope we can move forward constructively from here. Sincerely, Erik [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_Diskussion:Meinungsbil… [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_Diskussion:Common.js&d… [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards_policy [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Guiding_Principles#Sha… [5] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69445 -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

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A new structure for WMF Engineering.
by Lila Tretikov 29 Apr '15

29 Apr '15

Dear Wikimedians, Today we had a meeting at the Foundation to announce changes in our Product and Engineering team structure. They represent the outcome of many conversations with people from across the Wikimedia community and within the Foundation. These changes will organize our teams around the needs of people they serve, and empower them to focus deeply on their audiences to deliver great outcomes. We’re bringing together our Product and Engineering departments to form new audience teams, reporting to Damon Sicore, our VP of Engineering. We’re grouping core research, architecture, performance, and security functions together, and will begin the search for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to lead our engineering future. And we’re integrating support for Community Engineering into the broader Community Engagement team. These changes are effective today. Earlier this year we set out some goals for our work at the Foundation, described in our Call to Action <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Found…> for 2015. These goals came out of conversations with you, and with Foundation staff. You’ll see that the first thing we identified was the need to improve our technology and execution. These goals focused on defining commitments, data-driven decision making, support for community engineering requests, and a commitment to engineering leadership. The new changes reflect these commitments. We have organized our product engineering around six teams each with unique audiences. This includes a Community Tech team dedicated to supporting tools for core contributors, as well as teams for Editing, Reading, Search & Discovery, Infrastructure, and Fundraising Tech. In particular, I wanted to share more about the plans for the Community Tech team. The creation of this team is a direct response to community requests for more technical support. Their mission is to understand and support the technical needs of core contributors, including improved support for expert-focused curation and moderation tools, bots, and other features. Their mandate is to work closely with you, and the Community Engagement department, to define their roadmap and deliverables. We are hiring for a leader for this team, as well as additional engineers. We will be looking within our communities to help. Until then, it will be incubated under Toby Negrin, with support from Community Engagement. We’re also committed to our long-term technology future. A new CTO will support teams and functions dedicated to performance, architecture, security, privacy, structured data, user experience, and research. Their mandate is to keep Wikimedia fast, reliable, stable, and secure -- and to support the Engineering team in their development of excellent products and features. You may notice there is no standalone Product department. We are moving away from a matrix management structure. Instead, product managers, designers, analysts, engineers, and others working together will report to the same manager, who will report through to the VP of Engineering. This is because we believe that everyone is responsible for user experience and each team is ultimately responsible for delivering on the product vision and a roadmap. It also gives teams ability to make decisions that are best for their audiences, based on their user’s feedback. This represents a maturation of our organization and processes, and will give each new teams more focus, dedicated focus, and more support. I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard to bring this new structure together. Thank you to everyone in the community, for being thoughtful and honest with your needs, criticisms and encouragements. Thank you to our engineers, designers, researchers, and product managers, who have given us extensive feedback about what works best for you. Thank you to our new team managers and leads for stepping up into new roles. And thank you to Erik and Damon, who have worked closely for many months to make this happen. You can find more information about this new structure, the new teams, their missions, and leadership, as well as other questions in a FAQ on Metawiki <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Engineering_reorganiza…>. We will update the Wikimedia Foundation site Staff page soon to reflect these new teams. ~~~~Lila

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Board of Trustee elections
by Itzik - Wikimedia Israel 29 Apr '15

29 Apr '15

Hey, Don't worry, we indeed have a lot of time till the next elections, but as this issue had been raised during the last elections - and we decided that we can't change the rules few weeks before the elections, now I want to raise the discussion enough time before. According to the current rules [1], in order to influence and vote in the elections, you need to be active editor, developer or WMF staff/contractor. Last year this issue concern some of us. The foundation is not small organizations as it been before, and by comparison, the number of people participating in the elections every year is not high. For example, last elections there were 1809 valid votes. By comparison, the number of WMF staff this days is 218, what makes there voting power 12% of the total voters last year. This consider to be a great amount of power when we are talking about elections (In the last election you would have around 650 votes in order to be elected...) Wikimedia thematic organizations staff and contractors for example don't have the same privilege to vote only because they are employees of the movement, only if they are editors as well. The question - what make the WMF staff different, and if this is not a little bit problematic that the staff have such power to decide on their direct board, but in general - the board of the whole movement. Do we need to give the same privilege also to all the staff in our movement? Should we limited the elections to staff (both WMF and chapters) that are active editors or developers as additional to their work in the movement? I'll be happy to hear yours input. [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Vote_Qu… [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Results *Regards,Itzik Edri* Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!

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Wikimedia-l April 2015