Greetings,
Introducing myself, I am Krishna Chaitanya Velaga from Andhra Pradesh,
India. My user name is "Krishna Chaitanya Velaga", I've been actively
contributing to en Wikipedia and Commons since December 2014. I also form
the Executive Committee of Wikimedia Chapter (India). My mother tongue is
Telugu (te).
A Telugu movie titled Paisa Vasool
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisa_Vasool_(2017_film)> was released on 1
September 2017. In the movie, male lead boasts himself by referring to
Wikipedia. His statement in the movie is as follows: *"36 brawls, 24
murders, 36 stabbings, This is visible record in Wikipedia" *(The same may
be observed from the trailer of the movie, between 0:22 to 0:32 at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVUZ-jG_i3c). As far I am concerned I feel
this as serious defamation of the brand, the community and the work we do.
It really degrades the reality and the efforts we put to produce
encyclopedic content to the readers.
In this context, I request the community to take interest in their to voice
their opinions, and also discuss any legal action to be enforced.
Regards,
[image: photo]
*Krishna Chaitanya Velaga*
Member | Executive Committee
<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Executive_Committee_Members>
Wikimedia Chapter (India) <http://wiki.wikimedia.in/>
+91 94948 65420 | kcvelaga.blogspot.in
Dear all,
Board recruiting has been demanding. We launched our first truly global
search. It was far more work than we expected. But I am glad to say that we
have significantly expanded our talent network and are engaged in
conversation with four, uniquely talented finalists.
We have missed some deadlines given our focus on movement strategy and the
“all fronts” nature of the search for talent at the executive and board
level.
Now, I am able to present you with the new timeline and process, as we
decide among final candidates. We hope they will be able to join the Board
for our November meeting (the original plan was to have them join the Board
for Wikimania 2017).
Below is the last published timeline with comments and explanations at each
stage.
1) Application and referral submission period (January 23 - August)
We asked applicants to apply online:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us#Wikimedia_Careers. We
accepted applications and referrals by email at
board-nominations(a)lists.wikimedia.org.
The overview: We decided to start from our own networks and expand outward.
We reached far and wide, proactively, looking in Africa, Latin America,
Asia. In the course of our work, Katherine met a non-profit executive
recruiter. She volunteered to look for us. She delivered many very strong
and exciting candidates from multiple continents, one finalist. Slowly, our
networks then also produced three, very strong finalists as well.
Initially we planned for this stage to be over by March 6 [1], but the
timeline was ambitious It took us longer to find the right fit. We decided
the right fit is worth the wait. So we extended the deadline to May 6 [2].
It took us longer. The process required more networking.
At the end of May, Katherine was introduced to a non-profit recruiter. They
volunteered to look for us and they sourced a pool of very promising
additional candidates - 23 people with very diverse backgrounds - for the
BGC to evaluate on June 3.
We accepted referrals until August 10. For the record: we should always be
constantly looking for potential candidates, so it would not take so much
time for us in the future.
2) Application and referral review, proactive candidate recruitment, and
interviews (January - ongoing)
2a) Initial application review and screenings (January - August)
This stage was entirely conducted by Wikimedia Foundation staff. By
mid-April Katherine Maher and Anna Stillwell had spoken to 21 people,
either potential candidates themselves or people who could recommend
candidates. We also considered some of our former Trustees. They did not
have capacity, and required travel time seemed to be an issue.
We identified 4 candidates for the Growing a Global Movement and 4
candidates for Engaging New Communities, and 2 candidates for Social Sector
Governance.
One of the tangible results for this stage was structuring an emerging
talent network and gathering a pool of potential candidates, that we can
reach out to in future searches.
2b) Board Governance Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Governance_Commi…>
(BGC) discussions with candidates
The BGC (as a whole group) did not meet with the candidates. Instead,
people spoke one on one.
2c) BGC meets and makes short list (May - June)
We all agreed to reach out to candidates consecutively.We did not want to
reach out to all of the potential candidates at once, because we do not
want to incentivize unhealthy competition. If we are talking to someone, we
are interested. We are not interested in playing people against each other.
The BGC prioritized the list, Katherine reached out to them in that order
to understand if they are interested, and take it from there. If they are
not interested in working with us, or they do not fit, we shall move to the
next candidate in the relevant pool.
It turned out to require a lot more time than we planned for this stage: we
had to wait some time before we could assess genuine commitment and
interest in the position, so we could schedule further calls. And moving to
the next candidate seemed justified only after enough time passed between
our letters of offering this position and the response. This is not
uncommon.
2d) Second-round interviews (May - August)
This stage was not conducted as a group interview. Rather, we organised
one on one meetings for all voting members of the BGC with the finalists.
The meetings with a candidate from Engaging New Communities took place from
the end of May till the beginning of August, given the vacation / travel
times for some of us.
We are still scheduling interviews for our top candidate for Growing a
Global Movement profile.
After the meetings (interviews) with the voting members of the BGC, I wrote
a letter to the Board if there are any “red flags” they find in this
candidacy, and if they do not find any, the BGC recommends running a
background check.
2da) Background check conducted by BGC and Wikimedia Foundation staff
2daa) Criminal and financial background check conducted by outside firm
2dab) Thorough review of online and public coverage of candidates
This background check was started in August 2017, after the Board meeting.
The results were ready at the end of September. It is not unusual, this
process takes from 1 to 2 months.
3) Executive Director and BGC meet to determine recommendations and provide
recommendations to the full Board (June)
We did not have a special meeting for that, after the meeting on June 16,
2017 [3] we coordinated our efforts via emails.
4) Board vote to confirm candidate (September)
The draft resolution was posted on Board wiki on Thursday, September 28.
5) Announcement of new candidates (October)
We plan to announce a candidate next week. And we are working on scheduling
meetings for voting members of the BGC for another potential candidate.
I am aware that this letter is a bit long to read. Please ask questions if
something is confusing or not clear.
[1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-January/085978.html
[2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-March/086971.html
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Governance_Commi…
Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
*NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
advance!*
Hi all,
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees have approved and published
minutes from their meeting on July 21, 2017:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2017-07-21
Best,
Charles M. Roslof
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
croslof(a)wikimedia.org
(415) 839-6885
NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged
information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please
delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the
Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/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>.
_______________________________________________
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 everyone,
We've published a status report on Community Tech's work for the year so
far, based on the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2016_Community_Wishlist_Surv
ey/Status_report_1
I'll post the quick summary version here; there's lots more information on
the wiki page.
In the top 10...
Completed 5 wishes:
Wish #5: Rewrite XTools -- Live at xtools.wmflabs.org
Wish #6: Wikitext editor syntax highlighting -- Live as Beta feature on
left-to-right
language wikis. We’re still working on right-to-left languages.
Wish #7: Warning on unsuccessful login attempts -- Live on all wikis, see
Preferences/Notifications to change defaults.
Wish #9: Fix Mr. Z-bot's popular pages bot -- Live, see WikiProject
Spiders/Popular pages for an example.
Wish #10: User rights expiration -- Completed by volunteer developer This,
that and the other.
Currently working on 3 wishes:
Wish #2: Edit summary length for non-Latin languages -- MediaWiki Platform
team is deploying the necessary database changes. There are a few more
steps; we expect the wish to be completed by the end of the year.
Wish #3: Section heading URLs for non-Latin languages -- The work has
essentially been completed, but the changes will take a couple months to
propagate across all the pages. We expect to see the first changes in late
October, with everything completed by late November.
Wish #4: Global preferences -- Currently in active development; we expect
this to be completed by the end of the year.
Still investigating 2 wishes:
Wish #1: Global gadgets
Wish #8: Automatic archive for new external links
Projects for smaller groups:
There are also some non-wishlist projects that the Community Tech team has
been working on for smaller groups:
For Wikisource: Internet Archive Upload tool
For grant recipients: Grant metrics tool
For admins and checkusers: Range contributions
For admins: Cookie blocking
For English WP New Pages Patrol: ACTRIAL research, related to Wish #14:
Article Creation Workflow
That's the quick list; check out the status report for information on all
of these projects:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2016_Community_Wishlist_
Survey/Status_report_1
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2016_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Status_repor…>
The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey will start on November 6th! Stay tuned
for more info about the new survey.
Danny Horn & Ryan Kaldari
Senior Product Manager & Senior Engineering Manager
WMF Community Tech
Hey Yuri,
IMHO, this section is the closest thing (thus far) to an 'elevator pitch'
for the direction of the movement:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction#…
You could probably even knock it down to "The Wikimedia movement serves
open knowledge to the world across interfaces and communities. We break
down the social, political, and technical barriers preventing people from
accessing and contributing to free knowledge."
Anything that short is sure to lose the nuance in the longer document
(which I'm sure we've all read!), but it might be a little closer to what
you're looking for. Adapt as necessary.
Yours,
Chris K.
Hello all,
Please accept my apologies if you are receiving this a number of times
today. We have sent it out to multiple mailing lists in order to reach as
many community members as possible.
It's coming close to time for annual appointments of community members to
serve on the Ombudsman commission (OC). This commission works on all
Wikimedia projects to investigate complaints about violations of the
privacy policy, especially in use of CheckUser tools, and to mediate
between the complaining party and the individual whose work is being
investigated. They may also assist the General Counsel, the Executive
Director or the Board of Trustees in investigations of these issues. For
more on their duties and roles, see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission
This is a call for community members interested in volunteering for
appointment to this commission. Volunteers serving in this role should be
experienced Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used
the CheckUser tool OR who have the technical ability to understand the
CheckUser tool and the willingness to learn it. They are expected to be
able to engage neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when
to recuse when other roles and relationships may cause conflict.
Commissioners are required to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation and must
be willing to comply with the appropriate Wikimedia Foundation board
policies (such as the access to non-public data policy[1] and the privacy
policy[2]). This is a position that requires a high degree of discretion
and trust.
If you are interested in serving on this commission, please write me an
email off-list to detail your experience on the projects, your thoughts on
the commission and what you hope to bring to the role. The commission
consists of nine members; all applications are appreciated and will be
carefully considered. The deadline for applications is end of day on 18
December 2017.
Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think
may be qualified and interested.
Thank you!
-Karen Brown
On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Support & Safety team
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy
2. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
--
Karen Brown
Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation
kbrown(a)wikimedia.org
--
Karen Brown
Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation
kbrown(a)wikimedia.org