Wikimedia-l June 2015

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155 participants
111 discussions

Bylaw proposal on term limits
by Stephen LaPorte 23 Jun '15

23 Jun '15

Hi all, The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is considering an amendment to the Bylaws to add term limits and adjust the term lengths. You can see the proposed change here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws/June_2015_-_Ter… Please share your comments on the talk page. The proposal will be available for two weeks before the Board votes on the amendment. Best, Stephen -- Stephen LaPorte Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation *NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and ethical reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*

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Farewell
by Fabrice Florin 23 Jun '15

23 Jun '15

Hello everyone, After three great years working at the foundation, the time has come to say goodbye. I will be leaving WMF at the end of June, to spend more time with my family, focus on personal art projects and consult part-time on worthy causes. I would like to thank all the community and team members I have had the pleasure to work with over the years. It has been an honor to serve our movement together — and to help our contributors share free knowledge with each other and the world. I’m particularly grateful to Katherine Maher and our WMF communications team for being such wonderful collaborators. I really enjoyed working with them to manage and edit the Wikimedia blog, help grow our team and publish some great stories together, to celebrate the heroes of our movement. Going forward, WMF's Juliet Barbara will manage the Wikimedia blog, in close collaboration with Ed Erhart. As many of you know, Ed is the former editor-in-chief of the Wikipedia Signpost and has now joined our team for the summer. I've worked with him for nearly a month now and find him uniquely qualified for this project. Starting today, please contact them directly with any questions about the blog (they are Cc:d on this message). After June 30, you can reach me at <fabriceflorin(a)gmail.com> — or follow me on Twitter ( @fabriceflorin ) or on my blog ( http://fabriceflorin.com ). The last three years have been an incredible experience for me, and I am grateful for all that I have learned from so many of you. You’ve been an inspiration to me and I have many fond memories of our time together. I wish you all the best with the next chapter of the Wikimedia movement and can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with next. Best regards, Fabrice _______________________________ Fabrice Florin Movement Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)

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Call for auditors: the WMF Audit Committee is looking for community members
by Samuel Klein 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

Dear all, The Wikimedia Foundation has an Audit Committee that supports the Board in overseeing financial, accounting, and risk reviews. This includes reviewing the WMF's annual financials and tax return, its annual independent audit, and its risks analysis. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Audit_Committee We are forming the committee for 2015-16, and looking for volunteers from the community. Members serve on the committee for one year, from July through July. An audit of the past year's financials is carried out August-September, the WMF files its U.S. tax return in April, and publishes its annual plan in June. Time commitment is roughly 20 hours over the course of the year. Reviews are done through 3-4 conference calls. The primary requirement is financial literacy: experience with finance, accounting or auditing. If you are interested in joining the committee for the coming year, email me at *sj* at *wikimedia.org <http://wikimedia.org>* with 'Audit Committee' in the subject, your CV, and thoughts on how you could contribute. Sam -- @metasj +1 617 529 4266

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Thousands of images on Wikipedia and Commons in danger, action needed
by James Heilman 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

Yes I agree an example of what Wikipedia would look like if this regulation passed is an excellent idea. Could we base it on the geo tags? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian Starting July 2015 I am a board member of the Wikimedia Foundation My emails; however, do not represent the official position of the WMF The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com

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"Can Wikipedia Survive?" op-ed
by MZMcBride 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

Hi. This op-ed by Andrew Lih appeared in today's New York Times. I'm sending it here in case anyone is interested in reading or discussing it. I enjoyed the piece; congrats to Mr. Lih on getting this published! MZMcBride ---- http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/can-wikipedia-survive.html Can Wikipedia Survive? By Andrew Lih June 20, 2015 WASHINGTON — WIKIPEDIA has come a long way since it started in 2001. With around 70,000 volunteers editing in over 100 languages, it is by far the world’s most popular reference site. Its future is also uncertain. One of the biggest threats it faces is the rise of smartphones as the dominant personal computing device. A recent Pew Research Center report found that 39 of the top 50 news sites received more traffic from mobile devices than from desktop and laptop computers, sales of which have declined for years. This is a challenge for Wikipedia, which has always depended on contributors hunched over keyboards searching references, discussing changes and writing articles using a special markup code. Even before smartphones were widespread, studies consistently showed that these are daunting tasks for newcomers. “Not even our youngest and most computer-savvy participants accomplished these tasks with ease,” a 2009 user test concluded. The difficulty of bringing on new volunteers has resulted in seven straight years of declining editor participation. In 2005, during Wikipedia’s peak years, there were months when more than 60 editors were made administrator — a position with special privileges in editing the English-language edition. For the past year, it has sometimes struggled to promote even one per month. The pool of potential Wikipedia editors could dry up as the number of mobile users keeps growing; it’s simply too hard to manipulate complex code on a tiny screen. The nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia’s operations but is not directly involved in content, is investigating solutions. Some ideas include touch-screen tools that would let Wikipedia editors sift through information and share content from their phones. What has not suffered is fund-raising. The foundation, based in San Francisco, has a budget of roughly $60 million. How to fairly distribute resources has long been a topic of debate. How much should go to regional chapters and affiliates, or to groups devoted to non-English languages? How much should stay in the foundation to develop software, create mobile apps and maintain infrastructure? These tensions run through the community. Last year the foundation took the unprecedented step of forcing the installation of new software on the German-language Wikipedia. The German editors had shown their independent streak by resisting an earlier update to the site’s user interface. Against the wishes of veteran editors, the foundation installed a new way to view multimedia content and then set up an Orwellian-sounding “superprotect” feature to block obstinate administrators from changing it back. The latest clash had repercussions in the election this year for seats to the Wikimedia Foundation’s board of trustees — the most influential positions that volunteers can hold. The election — a record 5,000 voters turned out, nearly three times the number from the previous election — was a rebuke to the status quo; all three incumbents up for re-election were defeated, replaced by critics of the superprotect measures. Two other members will leave the 10-member board at the end of this year. Meanwhile, the foundation’s new executive director, Lila Tretikov, has been hiring developers from the world of open-source technology, and their lack of experience with Wikipedia content has concerned some veterans. Could the pressure from mobile, and the internal tensions, tear Wikipedia apart? A world without it seems unimaginable, but consider the fate of other online communities. Founded in 1985, at the dawn of the Internet, the Well, the self-proclaimed “birthplace of the online community movement,” hosted an influential cast of dot-com luminaries on its electronic bulletin board discussion forums. By 1995, it was in steep decline, and today it is a shell of its former self. Blogging, celebrated a decade ago as pioneering an exciting new form of personal writing, has decreased significantly in the social-media age. These are existential challenges, but they can still be addressed. There is no other significant alternative to Wikipedia, and good will toward the project — a remarkable feat of altruism — could hardly be higher. If the foundation needed more donations, it could surely raise them. The real challenges for Wikipedia are to resolve the governance disputes — the tensions among foundation employees, longtime editors trying to protect their prerogatives, and new volunteers trying to break in — and to design a mobile-oriented editing environment. One board member, María Sefidari, warned that “some communities have become so change-resistant and innovation-averse” that they risk staying “stuck in 2006 while the rest of the Internet is thinking about 2020 and the next three billion users.” For the last few years, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives and other world-class institutions, libraries and museums have collaborated with Wikipedia’s volunteers to improve accuracy, quality of references and depth of multimedia on article pages. This movement dates from 2010, when the British Museum saw that Wikipedia’s visitor traffic to articles about its artifacts was five times greater than that of the museum’s own website. Grasping the power of Wikipedia to amplify its reach, the museum invited a Wikipedia editor to work with its curatorial staff. Since then, similar parternships have been set up with groups like the Cochrane Collaboration, a nonprofit organization that focuses on evidence-based health care, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These are vital opportunities for Wikipedia to tap external expertise and enlarge its base of editors. It is also the most promising way to solve the considerable and often-noted gender gap among Wikipedia editors; in 2011, less than 15 percent were women. The worst scenario is an end to Wikipedia, not with a bang but with a whimper: a long, slow decline in participation, accuracy and usefulness that is not quite dramatic enough to jolt the community into making meaningful reforms. No effort in history has gotten so much information at so little cost into the hands of so many — a feat made all the more remarkable by the absence of profit and owners. In an age of Internet giants, this most selfless of websites is worth saving. --- Andrew Lih is an associate professor of journalism at American University and the author of “The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia.”

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Can Wikipedia Survive?" op-ed
by WereSpielChequers 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

I agree with Jane that it is great that one of us gets to write in the NY Times. But I would slightly disagree with Andrew. Yes smartphones are becoming ubiquitous, and for smartphone users Wikipedia is a broadcast medium not an interactive one. That's not great, especially for those languages where Wikipedia is far less written than in English. But I'm not seeing this as an existential threat. I'm sure the WMF has some clue full people trying to make the site as mobile friendly as possible, I'd put money on the smartphone industry trying to cram yet more PCfunctionality into their hardware, I know that the smartphone generation are capable of doing things with their phones that I can barely comprehend - and that the kids growing up with smartphones will be more proficient still; and whilst we are seeing PC and Laptop sales fall, an element of that is market stabilisation and commodification - why worry that PC sales are falling if that just means people are replacing their PCs less frequently? If ownership of PCs was falling, people were moving all their internet activity to the smartphone, and Wikipedia was pretty much the only bit of the Internet left behind when you migrate to smartphone, then I would be worried. As it is I just see this as a change to the environment we are in, a change that makes things more difficult for us, but not one that threatens our survival. Regards Jonathan > > Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 11:59:25 +0200 > From: Jane Darnell <jane023(a)gmail.com> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Can Wikipedia Survive?" op-ed > Message-ID: > <CAFVcA-GGPdA6m8V=imteQNEnn6zCdF0hiG73hej5dERT8z=v_Q(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > What I absolutely *love* in this piece is that it's by our own GLAM-Wiki > podcast host Andrew Lih and it's in the New York f***ing Times! Yay! > > Plus I totally agree with his lead point, which holds for all languages: "One > of the biggest threats it faces is the rise of smartphones as the dominant > personal computing device." If I had to pick the one thing that would stop > me editing Wikipedia projects, then yes, this *is* that thing. Though I > truly love Wikidata and I do feel strongly about the Gendergap, I agree > with him and feel that the biggest threat to the Wikiverse is the demise of > the desktop. > >

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Thousands of images on Wikipedia and Commons in danger, action needed
by Pine W 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

Pinging Mark H. in the Multimedia Team to ask about the feasability of Jane's clever suggestion. Pine On Jun 22, 2015 12:21 AM, "Jane Darnell" <jane023(a)gmail.com> wrote: Actually, considering how effective the blackout was for SOPA, I think another action based on the most prominent images we stand to lose would be in order. So the take on the London Eye and maybe some popular buildings, art and bridges in Euro-FoP countries? I don't know if you could rig a java script to flag these with a red lightbox that links to the Commons page, but that would probably be more effective than any other lobbying efforts On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 12:39 AM, Sam Klein <sjklein(a)hcs.harvard.edu> wrote: > On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 8:47 AM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > Are WMF and the European affiliates allowed to lobby regarding this > issue? > > > > The WMF could lobby or support lobbying on such an issue. It is eligible > to spend up to $1M per year tax-free on lobbying. But I don't believe it > has directly engaged in anything of the sort, since the SOPA action. > > Sam > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

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Renewal of the Recognition to Wikisource Community User Group
by Carlos M. Colina 21 Jun '15

21 Jun '15

Dear all, On behalf of the Affiliations Committee, I am honoured to announce the renewal of the recognition of Wikisource Community User Group as a Wikimedia User Group. They have been working hard this past year and it is the Affiliations Committee's opinion that they meet the criteria for having their user group status renewed indefinitely, starting the date of publication of the resolution. Congratulations!!! 1: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Renewals… -- "*Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain." Carlos M. Colina Socio, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 | www.wikimedia.org.ve <http://wikimedia.org.ve> Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Affiliations Committee Phone: +972-52-4869915 Twitter: @maor_x

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Printed Wikipedia is go!
by David Gerard 20 Jun '15

20 Jun '15

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/books/moving-wikipedia-from-computer-to-m… 7,600 volumes, to be available on Lulu. He's printing 106 of them for the exhibition. - d.

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What is the wikipedia http API address now?
by Yuri 20 Jun '15

20 Jun '15

Now all previously http URLs redirect to https. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page also still mentions the old http address that now redirects. What is the new purely http API address? I need to know the hit of https on various processes. Yuri

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Wikimedia-l June 2015