Recent discussion of the Knowledge Engine/Wikimedia Discovery project,
issues with senior leadership, lack of transparency, and the like has been
fairly well spread across several Wikimedia projects and mailing lists, as
well as on Facebook, in the media, and in other venues.
I just published an attempt to aggregate some of the events that I think
are particularly informative given what's been going on:
http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/
I hope it's helpful, and please feel free to suggest changes if it's
incomplete.
– Molly (GorillaWarfare)
First complex interactive graph in Wikipedia explores the most expensive
paintings in history. Move the mouse around to view images, click the
period or artist to highlight their work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings#Interactive_…
Thank you Jane [[user:Jhoffswell]], the VegaJS team, and [[user:Primaler]]
who designed the original graph!
P.S. See graph demo page for examples and tutorial links
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Graph/Demo
P.P.S. The "click to open a page" feature is still missing in Graphs
extension, but is on my todo list.
I think the discussion about post-mortems is vitally important, so I'm
adding a new subject line for the discussion about the venue. I was one of
the people involved in the discussion of post-mortems, and I'll add my
comments to the original thread (and summarize what others have said) in a
moment.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 4:26 PM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I can agree with what you're saying, Craig. I can also understand what
> Brandon is saying - that some people prefer that interface.
>
> Unlike many Facebook pages, though, this one is not public and cannot be
> viewed by anyone who does not have a FB account. It's the one venue that
> many interested parties cannot even read, let alone participate in, unless
> they're willing to give up some fairly significant privacy. I am
> disappointed, but I do not hold it against anyone for preferring to discuss
> issues in a venue not associated with Wikimedia.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On 21 February 2016 at 19:01, Craig Franklin <cfranklin(a)halonetwork.net>
> wrote:
>
> > People will have discussions at a location that is personally convenient
> > for them. Unless you're going to reprogram human nature, I don't see
> that
> > there's anything to be done about the resulting balkanisation of the
> > discussion.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Craig
> >
> > On 22 February 2016 at 09:54, Thyge <ltl.privat(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I really wonder why wikimedia discussions have migrated to FB. Are we
> > > applying for a grant?
> > >
> > > Thyge
> > >
> > > 2016-02-22 0:51 GMT+01:00 Newyorkbrad <newyorkbrad(a)gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > > I too am one of those people who is not to be found on Facebook. I
> > > > only have room in my life for one online timesink ... and I already
> > > > have Wikipedia :)
> > > >
> > > > Newyorkbrad
> > > >
> > > > On 2/21/16, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > As has already been explained on this list, many people do not have
> > > > access
> > > > > to Facebook. If this is something germane and useful to a lot of
> > > people
> > > > on
> > > > > this list, perhaps it would be appropriate to ask Jonathan to post
> it
> > > > here.
> > > > >
> > > > > Risker/Anne
> > > > >
> > > > > On 21 February 2016 at 18:34, Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu(a)gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >> For those not following, I recommend the discussion in response to
> > > > >> Jonathan
> > > > >> Cardy's comment here:
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/960989863948845/
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Anthony Cole
> > > > >> _______________________________________________
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Good evening everyone
Another day... another announcement :)
We closed yesterday the last vote session for winning pictures of Wiki
Loves Africa 2015.
We are happy to announce our winners
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2015/Winners
First picture is a very relaxing sight of two beautiful ladies having
fun together on a sunny afternoon, from a Kenyan photograph. The picture
is considered a Quality Image on Commons and is currently used to
illustrate one article : friendship.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitié
Second picture was actually taken by a French citizen, and features a
fashion designer in Senegal.
It currently illustrates one article about fashion :
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(habillement)
The third picture represent a lady in Ghana, also by a photograph (I
found his site and facebook page, but got no answer from him...)
We actually used that picture to illustrate our Wiki Loves Women writing
contest :
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Wiki_Loves_Women/Concours_d%27écriture
The 4th picture is from Algeria and features a beautiful woman wearing
an haik. This image has a featured status on Commons. It currently
illustrate the article on veil : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil
The first 3 pictures have been selected by a mixed jury of wikipedians
and non wikipedians (including photographers, developer, chemical
engineer, fashion blogger, and fashion designer).
Jury composition available here :
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2015/FAQ#What_…
The 4th picture was chosen by the community.
Tunisia is the country who made it first in terms of number of images,
followed closely by Côte d'Ivoire, our leader in 2014.
------
Whilst this was the continental contest, other winners were identified
locally.
For example, check out winners in Algeria
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2015_in_Algeri…
As you may notice, several of their images made it Quality Images or
Featured Images status. And more prizes were delivered :)
------
In other countries, images have been celebrated differently.
For example, in Cameroon, a show of the best images have been set up at
the Institut Français. Check out a few first pictures here :
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.500234113496441.1073741904.365857…
The show room is open till 27th of February.
------
More details will be featured in a couple of weeks on Commons in a
project report.
Florence
Hi,
This is so cool. Great effort.
Thanks to the team,
Bodhisattwa
On Feb 23, 2016 10:40 AM, "Sam Klein" <sjklein(a)hcs.harvard.edu> wrote:
So nice - I just spent 10 minutes playing with this with friends over
dinner.
It's tough to construct a new one without a debugger, though.
On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 10:15 PM, Yuri Astrakhan <yastrakhan(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
>
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings#Interactive_…
>
> Thank you Jane [[user:Jhoffswell]], the VegaJS team, and [[user:Primaler]]
> who designed the original graph!
>
Yes!
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>
> I can only speak for myself here, but I'm really not tied to my position :)
> If there is a clear signal from the wider community that I should step
> down, I will.
>
There aren't such signals, and FWIW I think there shouldn't be: while quite
a few people (myself included) expressed disappointment with the BoT as a
governing body, you are the only member to have frequently and openly
shared thoughts and information with the community. FWIW, I do hope you
stick around - there are turbulent times ahead.
I do suggest, however, that for us to emerge better from all this, an
honest, independent and *transparent* inspection of the BoT should take
place. Such an inspection needs to offer suggestions to improve Board
formation and size, communication, transparency, and, well, accountability
towards the Foundation *and* the community. Dariusz, I hope you stay
onboard (...) and push for something like that.
One side note, directed at Pine:
It's irresponsible (and *deeply* disrespectful) for anyone on this list to
be calling for resignations publicly - either those of Trustees, WMF
Executives or anyone else. Yes, many of us agree that change needs to
happen but let's not lose sight of how a good change process needs to
occur: with civility and humility, with transparency and honesty and while
preserving the good values[1] that already exist in our Movement and in the
Foundation.
Ido
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Values
That's a great wrap-up - thanks Molly!
For something a bit different, here is an outsiders view. I found this on
reddit, posted by a user named Ken_Thomas (I don't know who this is, but it
seems to be someone vaguely aware of, but not heavily involved in, the
off-wiki side of things). I thought it was worth sharing - even if there
are some factual inaccuracies and savage opinion - because it offers a much
different point of view from everyone here.
(Note that this is a copy of his post verbatim, and is *not my opinion)*
*"From reading through the various articles, following the story for
awhile, and picking up data nuggets here and there, this is what I think is
going on.Wikimedia is a non-profit. Salaries there are pretty low for the
tech sector, and the workload is high. People who end up working there do
it because they believe in the mission. Over time, this has created a
pretty unique culture. The place is saturated with purists and idealists
who have good intentions but can be pretty insufferable about the whole
thing. They are also, generally speaking, not particularly disciplined and
not great business people.Tretikov was brought onboard to tighten things
up, basically. She comes from a business background. When she was hired all
the stories were about how she was going to 'save' Wikipedia by putting it
on a firm financial foundation and cracking the whip with the workforce.
I'm sure she admires the mission and thinks it's important and all that,
but I wouldn't put her in that 'purist and idealist' category at all.So
you've got this culture clash at the top, and the frustration from that has
been building for awhile.Some people had this idea to build a search engine
that would only search sites that offered 'free' information, probably
public domain or CC images, that sort of thing. Other people were irked
that Google is snagging Wikipedia's content and pasting it on their search
result pages. You get the impression that these two ideas came together and
they started some preliminary work on a search engine, saw how expensive it
was going to be, and applied for a grant to do it. The grant they got was
like 1/20th of what they requested, so they pretty much shut the project
down but were still noodling with the concept.None of that is really the
problem. Well, it was probably a dumb idea, but the search engine is kind
of the red herring here. The problem is that it was being done in
secret.Why? Because if you're from the business world, that's how things
are done.If you're a purist Wikipedian, it means you're literally
Hitler.Now it's coming out in the open and everybody is mad and no one can
understand why the other side is mad.Did that help?"*
Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/46rz1i/the_wikimedia_foundation…
Regards,
Charles / User:Chuq
On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 11:43 PM, Steven Crossin <cro0016(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> minor correction - the ? in my reply was meant to be a period. I'll be
> keeping an eye on this timeline and watch the events unfold.
>
> *Steven Crossin*
> *cro0016(a)gmail.com <cro0016(a)gmail.com>*
>
> On 22 February 2016 at 23:37, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Yes - very handy - thanks GorillaWarfare!
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 12:31 PM, Steven Crossin <cro0016(a)gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Thank you Molly. This is indeed helpful?
> > >
> > > *Steven Crossin*
> > > *cro0016(a)gmail.com <cro0016(a)gmail.com>*
> > >
> > > On 22 February 2016 at 23:20, GorillaWarfare <
> > > gorillawarfarewikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Recent discussion of the Knowledge Engine/Wikimedia Discovery
> project,
> > > > issues with senior leadership, lack of transparency, and the like has
> > > been
> > > > fairly well spread across several Wikimedia projects and mailing
> lists,
> > > as
> > > > well as on Facebook, in the media, and in other venues.
> > > >
> > > > I just published an attempt to aggregate some of the events that I
> > think
> > > > are particularly informative given what's been going on:
> > > > http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/
> > > >
> > > > I hope it's helpful, and please feel free to suggest changes if it's
> > > > incomplete.
> > > >
> > > > – Molly (GorillaWarfare)
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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>
> Why we’ve changed
> I want to address some of the many questions that are coming up in this
> forum. From the general to the very concrete, they all touch on the fact
> that many things about the WMF have been changing. We are in the thick of
> transformation, and you all have the right to know more about how and why
> this is occurring. This is not a statement of strategy, which will come out
> of the community consultation next week. This is the ED’s perspective only.
> After 15 years since the birth of Wikipedia, the WMF needs to rethink
> itself to ensure our editor work expands into the next decade. Recently we
> kicked-off some initiatives to this end, including aligning community
> support functions, focus on mobile and innovative technology, seeding the
> Wikimedia Endowment, re-organizing our internal structure, exploring
> partnerships and focusing on the most critical aspects of our mission:
> community and technology. We started this transformation, but as we move
> forward we are facing a crisis that is rooted in our choice of direction.
> The choice in front the WMF is that of our core identity. Our mission can
> be served in many ways, but we cannot do them all. We could either fully
> focus on building our content and educational programs. Or we can get great
> at technology as the force multiplier for our movement. I believe the the
> former belongs to our volunteers and affiliates and that the role of the
> WMF is in providing global support and coordination of this work. I believe
> in -- and the board hired me to -- focus on the latter. To transform our
> organization into a high-tech NGO, focused on the needs of our editors and
> readers and rapidly moving to update our aged technology to support those
> needs. To this end we have made many significant changes. But the challenge
> in front of us is hard to underestimate: technology moves faster than any
> other field and meeting expectations of editors and readers will require
> undistracted focus.
Umm, since when have the volunteers stopped being part of the WMF? I
thought that volunteers are the heart of the the purpose, central to
the Foundation. Since which point has the STAFF and their output
become *the WMF*?
I don't think that you will hear staff or volunteers dispute that we
want technological advancement, in fact it is clearly wanted. However,
I don't believe that they want technological advancement to come at
the expense of the community, or the exclusion of community. It is
this community that has invested itself in building the
content/systems/tools in wikipedia, commons, wikidata, wikisource,
wikiquote, wikiversity, wikivoyage, wiktionary, wikibooks, wikinews,
wikispecies, mediawiki,
The community strives to understand, and the community strives to
support. That it is hard to do so, especially in the current times,
can hardly be the fault of the community.
> What changed?
1) that staff are resigning at record rate;
2) that remaining staff seem to be in general revolt;
3) that the board and the CEO stopped presenting matters that clearly
illustrate a clear picture and vision
4) that the board didn't heed the implicit message from the political
editor-base about transparency, openness, and their desires
5) the peasants are now revolting;
6) there is next to no support for the CEO
After the staff leave, WMF stops being an employer of choice for the
socially conscience. The political editor-base get nothing but
disillusioned.
>From outside, I have no clear perspective whether you are doing a good
job or a bad job for your hire. That there is turmoil in the
workplace doesn't indicate that there is control, or the likelihood of
regaining control.
The indications that I see are a toxic workplace, and I see no
solution put forward. I see staff that I have watched, 'known' and
interacted for numbers of years in pain, in frustration, and
disengaging. I see numbers of them cowed, and I see few of them
leading any more. So we have the choice of removing all of those
staff, and trying to re-hire, and then the change management process
of engagement, team-building, ...
I don't see emotional intelligence, sustainable change, resonant
leadership, or team-building. I don't see evident situational
awareness, clear dynamic risk assessment and most definitely I don't
see effective controls.
I think that I see risk denial, and risk blindness from the the board
and the CEO.and a task-focus on a matter of a ship apparently left
harbour without passengers as it wants to get to a place. I see
megaphone diplomacy.
I may be completely wrong in my assessment; I know that it is a harsh
judgment; but that is how it looks to me from the outside, and and
from the little bit of the inside that I had when I was a steward. It
is a situation that volunteers should not be forming such an opinion,
however the inability of yourself and the board to achieve a
resolution is a damning indictment.
Regards, Billinghurst
(now retreating to my hole pulling the rock back over my head)