Forwarding to our local UK list, as requested by Chris. If anyone in the
UK would like to put themselves up as a candidate, or knows of someone
suitable, now's your chance.
Best regards
Michael
Wikimedia_UK_logo_40px.png
Michael Maggs
Chair, Wikimedia UK
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Chris Keating* <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com
<mailto:chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com>>
Date: Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 9:29 AM
Subject: Call for Candidates - Affiliate Selected members of the WMF Board
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Dear Wikimedia friends,
**Call for Nominations - Affiliate Selected Board Seats**
This year the Wikimedia chapters and Thematic Organisations will select
two members of the Wikimedia Foundation Board.
We would like to invite nominations for candidates to be elected to the
WMF board in this process. Please help us by distributing this call for
candidates as widely as possible through such forums as mailing lists,
village pumps, and blogs.
*Role of WMF Board members*
The Wikimedia Foundation board provide governance and strategic
oversight of the WMF. The role of Wikimedia Foundation board members is
set out in detail here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_member
Successful candidates will bring expertise and understanding to help the
Board further its goals and ability to work effectively at a strategic
and governance level. The work of the Board is conducted in English
(though fluency in additional languages is an advantage) and the role
involves a significant commitment, including travel to several in-person
meetings in California or worldwide.
*Nominations and selection process*
Nominations should be posted using this form on Meta-Wiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Nominat…
If you need assistance completing the wiki-template, please contact one
of the election facilitators who will be happy to assist.
Nominations are open until the end of 8 March 2016 (midnight UTC). To be
entered into the ballot, a candidate's nomination must be accompanied by
a statement of support from a Chapter or Thematic Organisation, which
may accompany the nomination or be received no later than 22 March 2016.
The timeline for the selection process can be seen here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016
There is also a selection FAQ here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats_election_FAQ
Many thanks,
Chris Keating
Lorenzo Losa
Lane Rasberry
- Election Facilitators
Hi,
After reading an interesting related discussion on GenderGap, I have
queried the top 10 users of the thanks feature last month, on both the
English Wikipedia and Commons. Snapshot image attached and report link
below.
Perhaps someone might think of a suitable barnstar and award these
folks for "being nice"? :-)
Link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:F%C3%A6/sandbox&oldid=1…
P.S. This is a long query to run, taking 20 to 30 minutes due to the
nature of the logging tables. However if someone wanted to make a
monthly summary on-wiki somewhere, part of an active "be nice"
campaign, I would be happy to set up an automated monthly report (if
someone discovers this is already reported somewhere, that's cool we
can use that).
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Hoi,
Sources are important. Practically they are neither easy nor always
obvious. When you consider a Wikipedia article with the same fact, it needs
a source in every language the article appears in. To top this off, there
are languages that require sources in their own language. The amount of
effort needed is arguably impossible to do this perfectly for all our
languages. It is therefore important to be smart about it.
Concept clouds [1] are a way developed by Magnus as part of Reasonator [2]
to show all the links to other articles in every Wikipedia for the same
article. Many of these links also exist as statements in Wikidata.
Arguably, when a link in one article is sourced and this source is known in
Wikidata, arguably the source can be shown in any Wikipedia that includes
that link.
When the Concept cloud view includes the known links, it can also indicate
if there are sources to add weight to the veracity of that link. Thinking
along these lines, it becomes easy and obvious to include some logic.
Wikidata should NEVER link statements to disambiguation, list pages etc.
However this is very much secondary.
The question is: what are the upsides and downsides of such an approach.
The point is very much that sources are important and knowing what links
are available on any level and the level of trust that they have will help
raise the quality of the information that we serve. The least this will do
is provide better tools to maintain sources.
Thanks,
GerardM
[1]
https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/cloudy_concept.php?q=Q6828277&lang=…
[2] https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=6828277
ha, i read the thread and i did not notice the core question :) lets
start from the annual plan then:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2015-16
there are 280 persons working for the WMF, all departments are
growing. money given to somebody else is shrinking below 10%. the word
"fun" is mentioned zero time, and innovation gets one important
sentence:
"We will create spaces for future community-led innovations and new
knowledge creation."
and after that innovation is mentioned in the *legal* and
*communications* paragraph. but - there is no money attached to it.
except maybe paying employees.
one could strive to allocate money differently, in the line of "30%
goes into grants to improve or develop new technology". making sure
that the innovation money is going to all regions of this planet
should be self evident. or one could clearly define that community
money is spent through local organisations, not central. one could
also suppose community money goes to members of the community, not
employees taking care about the community. this btw is also a major
fundraising problem - people have no problem to give money to
community members. but they have a problem if such money is spent on
employees.
to play the devils advocate, this increasing money spent not within
the WMF from <10% to 50% means, in reverse, WMF needs to shrink from
280 persons to 180 persons. one could even advocate for an upper limit
of 200 persons for central functions no matter of the income. as food
for thought, FIFA has a staff of 300. there are 250 million people
playing association football worldwide.
best,
rupert
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:33 PM, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> wrote:
> Potato potato - availability can be interpreted in many different ways.
> Thanks to the free license, we've covered a big part of that by design.
>
> What activities the WMF should be doing wasn't quite the core of the
> discussion though, but rather how big the WMF should be.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Tim Landscheidt <tim(a)tim-landscheidt.de>
> wrote:
>
>> (anonymous) wrote:
>>
>> > […]
>>
>> > But 'getting big' is maybe not the most important thing in the world.
>> > Working on our mission, is. And part of that, is security. The WMF is not
>> > in this world to play the odds, but rather to ensure that knowledge is
>> > freed, and stays free - most specifically by securing Wikipedia's
>> continued
>> > availability (at least, that is what our deck of cards looks like now).
>>
>> > Fully focussing on one sigle stream of money may indeed allow you to get
>> > more out of it. But the question here is rather, how to you tackle the
>> > situation when that stream dries up? And for that question,
>> diversification
>> > is actually key.
>>
>> > […]
>>
>> I don't agree with that. From the Library of Alexandria to
>> the Duchess Anna Amalia Library it has always been a mistake
>> to keep knowledge in one place and try really hard to keep
>> it from falling apart. The biggest advancement in that
>> field probably came from Gutenberg's press which allowed
>> knowledge to be spread around and resist attempts of censor-
>> ship.
>>
>> When cinema and television came along, the ancient pattern
>> repeated: Cultural goods are lost today because the broad-
>> casters put them in one vault and then did not maintain the
>> fire alarm properly.
>>
>> We have the same issue now with streaming services: During
>> dictatorships, you could hide books and jazz records. Net-
>> flix or YouTube just stops serving videos some entity does
>> not like, and Amazon can wipe your Kindle clean of anything.
>>
>> So the diversification for the purpose of the advancement of
>> knowledge should not lie in making WMF immortal, but ensur-
>> ing that it survives WMF's death.
>>
>> Tim
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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> _______________________________________________
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I can see the logic in trying for a different funding source, fundraising banners and their messaging have been a cause of tension between the WMF and the community; and asking our readers for money relies on our readers coming to our desktop sites directly and is at risk in a world where our data becomes ubiquitous, but increasingly repackaged and presented by others.
But there are a couple of alternate strategies which I think would serve us better.
Firstly evolution is better than revolution, and in our case that could mean shifting the emphasis from annual one off donations to signing people up for recurring donations. Here in the UK many people open a bank account in their teens and keep it for life. So if you sign people up for a regular payment by direct debit you have a revenue stream that will persist for decades. Short of financial disaster or death people rarely cancel direct debits to charities. I know WIkimedia UK had a lot of success at signing people up for direct debits back in 2011 when they were part of the fundraiser, there has also been some work done on asking former donors to give again. Shifting from a strategy of asking our readers for donations to one of asking new and past donors to sign up for a regular contribution would give us more financial security, less dependence on people using our sites directly and hopefully open the way for less intrusive messaging that is more mission aligned and doesn't scare people into thinking that Wikipedia is under financial threat. It would also be a much smaller step from our current strategy than one of asking big corporates and grant givers for money. When a donor who gives 0.0001% of the WMF's income threatens to stop donating you can ignore the threat and treat their complaint on its merits. When a donor who gives 0.1% of the WMF's income is upset they are likely to have inside contacts whose job it is to keep such donors donating.
Secondly having CC-BY-SA contributions repackaged and reused as if they were CC0 is a trend that the WMF could resist, first with diplomacy and if necessary with lawyers. Remember in most languages we aren't currently under threat from someone creating a rival to Wikipedia, our threat is from mirrors that present Wikipedia in more attractive ways. Attribution would undermine the business model of those mirrors who aim for the ads they wrap our content in to be less intrusive than WMF fundraising, legalese and editing options. It would keep a proportion of the really interested and the really grateful clicking through to Wikimedia sites where they can be recruited as donors of either time or money. It would also realign the strategy of the WMF with the aspirations of a large part of the community, those whose motivation comes in part from contributing under CC-BY-SA rather than CC0.
Regards
Jonathan/WereSpielChequers
Hello, everyone.
I'd like to announce the new and returning members of the 2016 Ombudsman
Commission (OC), the small group of volunteers who investigate complaints
about violations of the privacy policy, and in particular concerning the
use of CheckUser and Oversight[1] tools, on any Wikimedia project for the
Board of Trustees.
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Amending_the_Scope_of_the_O…
I apologize for the length of the announcement. :)
The application period for new commissioners for 2016 recently closed. The
Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and
insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work.
As it has for the past few years, this year’s OC will consist of seven
members, with a two-member advisory team who will guide the new commission.
I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2016 OC. First, the new
members are:
-
User:Alan, who has been a registered Wikimedian for more than three years,
but an anonymous editor since 2006, working primarily across Spanish
language projects. He is a global sysop and global rollbacker, an
administrator on Commons, as well as having been an OTRS volunteer for ~3
years. In the past he has served as an administrator and bureaucrat on
Spanish Wikivoyage.
-
User:NahidSultan, who has been volunteering on Wikimedia projects since
2012. He is mostly active on Bengali Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Meta,
where he holds administrator rights. Besides these roles, he is also part
of OTRS, a small wiki monitoring team member and a global administrator.
Other than his online contributions to the movement, he is also active
doing Wikimedia work offline, working actively for the Wikimedia Bangladesh
chapter, where he currently serves as a Board member.
-
User:Pajz, who has been an active contributor to the Wikimedia projects for
almost a decade. Formerly a bureaucrat on the German-language Wiktionary,
he has since mainly focused on contributing to Wikipedia (mostly on topics
from economic theory and copyright law) and helping out on the Volunteer
response team ("OTRS team"). He became a Wikipedia administrator and a
Volunteer response team member in 2007, and has served as one of the OTRS
administrators.
-
User:Taketa, who has been a Wikimedian since 2008. He mostly works on the
Dutch Wikipedia, writing content and organising projects. He was a member
of the Dutch Wikipedia Arbitration Committee in 2009/10 and 2012/13.
Currently, he helps as Wikimedia steward, nlwiki bureaucrat, listadmin for
the nlwiki admins and bureaucrats, OTRS volunteer and Wikidata admin.
Returning members:
User:Barras, who is primarily active on the Simple English Wikipedia and
Meta. He’s a steward, an Oversighter on Simple English and Meta, and also a
Checkuser on Simple and Meta. Barras joined the OC in 2015.
User:Polimerek, who primarily edits Polish Wikipedia (where he is an admin
and former arbitrator), Polish Wikibooks and Wikimedia Commons. He also
serves the Wikimedia movement as the president of Wikimedia Poland and on
the Grant Advisory Committee. He is a former Checkuser. Polimerek joined
the OC in 2014.
User:Rubin16, who primarily edits the Russian Wikipedia, where he is a
bureaucrat and administrator. He is formerly a member of their Arbitration
Committee. He is an administrator on Wikimedia Commons and is a Central
Notice and translation admin on Meta. (He is also a translation admin on
Commons.) He is a member of Wikimedia Russia, responsible for press
contacts and financial reporting.
The 2016 OC’s advisors (this advisory role provides expertise when needed,
but does not participate in all discussions) are:
-
User:Gnom, who primarily edits German Wikipedia. Gnom, a licensed attorney,
has previously served Wikimedia as a legal intern for the Wikimedia
Foundation. In 2014, he was elected to the Board of Wikimedia Deutschland,
where he serves as co-Vice Chair. Gnom joined the OC in 2014.
-
User:Huji, who primarily edits Farsi Wikipedia, where he is an
administrator, bureaucrat and former Checkuser. He has also contributed
substantially to Simple Wikipedia, English Wikipedia and Meta and is a
Wikimedia developer contributing to MediaWiki and WMF Labs projects.
-
These volunteers' willingness to remain, to bring their familiarity with
processes and their experience to the new arrivals, is greatly appreciated!
Please join me in thanking the following outgoing volunteers, who have
given substantially of their time to serve the commission:
-
User:Alhen, who primarily edits Spanish projects. He is a bureaucrat and
administrator on the Spanish Wikipedia and Spanish Wikibooks, and is also
an administrator on Commons. A prior member of the Spanish ArbCom, before
it was dismantled, he is a Checkuser on the Spanish Wikipedia.
-
User:Avraham, a steward, who primarily edits English Wikipedia where he is
a Checkuser, Oversighter, admin and bureaucrat. He also serves the Commons
as an admin and Oversighter and Meta as an admin. He joined the OC in 2014.
-
User:PhilKnight, who primarily edits the English Wikipedia. A former member
of its arbitration committee and its mediation committee, he is also a
Checkuser, Oversighter and administrator there.
-
User:Thogo primarily edits the German Wikipedia, where he is an
administrator and former arbitrator, and has also focused on Meta. He is a
former steward and has served as an administrator on several other
projects. He joined the OC in 2011.
-
I'd also like to say a hearty thank you to those returning and those coming
aboard for the first time, as well as to all those applied. Again, it was
an extremely able group of volunteers, and while this mix of users may best
serve the need for this year, I hope that those who applied will consider
applying again in future years.
--
Patrick Earley
Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation
pearley(a)wikimedia.org
(1) 415 975 1874
Hello all,
The preliminary report of the results of the 2015 Harassment survey is now
available on Commons, as linked from Meta.[1] This is the first version of
our analysis of the results, and while it is nearly completed, it will be
amended and updated within a week as we finish developing it. The data set
is large, involving sixteen languages with several free text questions, and
it has also been linked from the Meta page.
This information is an important factor in gaining a better understanding
of both the forms harassment takes and the impact it has on the Wikimedia
projects. We welcome your feedback and impressions on the Research talk
page on Meta.[2]
We want to thank the many Wikimedia volunteers, academics, and Wikimedia
Foundation staff who helped prepare and translate the survey, and who gave
feedback on the report.
Best regards,
Patrick, for the Support and Safety team[3]
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Harassment_survey_2015#Results
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Harassment_survey_2015
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Support_and_Safety
--
Patrick Earley
Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation
pearley(a)wikimedia.org
(1) 415 975 1874
Hey folks,
(Cross-posted to a number of mailing lists)
Last December, I sent out an invitation to
[[m:Grants:IdeaLab/Future_IdeaLab_Campaigns|help determine future ideaLab
campaigns]] by submitting and voting on different possible topics. I'm
happy to announce the results of your participation (<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Future_IdeaLab_Campaigns/Res…>)
and encourage you to review them and our next steps for implementing those
campaigns this year. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time to
participate, submit, and comment on campaign topics.
With great thanks,
Jethro
--
Chris "Jethro" Schilling
I JethroBT (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF)>
Community Organizer, Wikimedia Foundation
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>
Dear all,
after a long process, today Wikimedia Italia has been officially
recognized as the Italian OpenStreetMap chapter!
OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project that shares the same value as
the Wikimedia movement. It's not based on a wiki software and it's not
in the Wikimedia family, but from many points of views, it's the project
that is more similar to the Wikimedia ones; indeed, many wikipedians are
mappers also, and viceversa.
Similarly to Wikimedia, there is an OpenStreetMap Foundation (based in
the UK) and there are national OpenStreetMap chapters. In Italy, the
OpenStreetMap community has been talking for years about the creation of
a chapter. Most people felt that it was important, but also that
founding yet another association was pointless. Associations are not
built only on projects, but also, and mainly, on common values and on a
common vision: Wikimedia and OpenStreetMap share both, and it's just
natural to work together.
Wikimedia Italy officially started the process of becoming an
OpenStreetMap chapter in 2013 [1]. The association has supported
OpenStreetMap even before that (e.g., supporting the Italian
OpenStreetMap conference), and in the last two years, thanks also to the
work of many OpenStreetMap users that became members (and among them,
Simone Cortesi, OpenStreetMap volunteer since the beginning and WMI's
vicepresident), we have increased our efforts (as described also in
WMI's annual plan [2]). The recognition process has been quite long, but
today we've signed the chapters agreement, and now Italy is the second
country (after Iceland) to have an official OpenStreetMap chapter! (but
there are actually other unofficial chapters besides these two)
Lorenzo
[1]https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-July/127304.html
[2]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round2/Wik…