Hi everyone!
I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
the Wikimedians of Erzyan Language User Group [1] as a Wikimedia User
Group.
The group aims to promote the development of Wikipedia in the Erzya
language, and to document topics related to the Erzya language, culture and
community.
Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
Regards,
Kirill Lokshin
Affiliations Committee
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Erzya_language_User_Group
Hello
Other people reported that in other channels, but I just realized no one
has done so here.
I invite you to watch http://www.3sat.de/mediathek/?mode=play&obj=65290
This video was made by Tim Lienhard, commissionned by the Goethe
Institute. A longer video will be published later. The video was made in
partnership with Goethe-Institut, Lagos 3SatTV (Germany) and Wikimedia
Nigeria.
It was shot in Nigeria with the Nigeria Team under the leadership of
Olaniyan Shola. The Facebook page of Shola reports a lot the story of
the video shooting with great pictures :)
Check out posts around the 23rd of February :
https://www.facebook.com/olaniyan.shola?fref=nf
And as always... to know more about Wiki Loves Women, please head to
https://www.facebook.com/WikiLovesWomen/ and like our page ;)
Florence
I think I went over my self-defined post allowance the last 2 days. I'll
be quiet now. But that was an amazing International Woman Day !
An unscheduled CentralNotice just started running, linking to a rather
bizarre page [1]. Purporting to be the WMF's 2016 Annual Report, it starts
off with some text about refugees. "FACT: Half of refugees are school-age",
followed by some completely unencyclopedic text about the topic: "That
means 10 million children are away from their homes, their communities, and
their traditional education. Each refugee child’s experience is unique, but
every single one loses time from their important learning years. Many of
them face the added pressure of being surrounded by new languages and
cultures." The linked page goes on to detail some of Wikimedia's vision and
how Wikimedia projects aid refugee populations. Following that, we have an
entire page on climate change and some of its effects, similarly written in
a style that is not befitting the movement: "In 2015, [Wikimedian Andreas
Weith] photographed starving polar bears in the Arctic. As the ice
declines, so does their ability to find food. “It’s heartbreaking,” he
says." After all that, we finally have some pages on interesting statistics
about Wikimedia, mixed in with some general odd facts about the world,
followed by a call to donate. There are also letters from the ED and
founder linked.
So, this could be a mix of coincidence and bad stylistic choices, and not
politically motivated at all, but it is getting increasingly hard to assume
good faith on this, especially with the blog post a month ago specifically
calling for a change in refugee policy.
Using Wikimedia projects to push politics is not okay. If the WMF does not
accept this, I suspect many projects will simply block CentralNotices,
avoid associating with WMF statements, and quite possibly fork/leave.
This is a serious problem.
-- Yair Rand
[1] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2016/?pk_campaign=
WikiBanners&pk_kwd=AR2016_dsk_short
Three points:
When I first saw the document, I was exceedingly unhappy, but fortuitously,
I was unable to respond at the time due to RL travel. Fortuitous, because
my writeup would have been a pale version of Risker's excellent response,
so if anyone hasn't managed to read all the posts on this subject, please
make sure to read that one. In short, this is an exceedingly bad idea.
My small contribution is to make a positive point - I'm impressed at the
number of people who observed that the content very much mirrored their own
beliefs, yet they were adamant that this should not be a Wikimedia
Foundation document. It might well be an award-winning presentation for
some advocacy group, but it doesn't feel right for this Foundation. Some
has asked what aspects are disconsonant with the Wikimedia Mission, but
that's the wrong question. When one's prime directive is to "given free
access to the sum of all human knowledge", almost by definition, no subject
is "outside" our mission. It is a different question to determine which
subjects best summarize our core mission.
Third, while this discussion has been most illuminating, I share the
concerns of those who wonder where we go from here. I don't even know if we
are viewing a draft, and there is a potential for change, or if it has
already been finalized and we are merely evaluating the mistakes.
Sphilbrick
This is a tool done by Envel Le Hir using WikiData and published today.
I actually inspired him the idea during a conference, when talking of my
desire to get generic data about women professionnal occupation. My main
argument is that I felt many of the added biographies about women were
about actors, singers, or football players. Much less about politicians
and business. But it was a "guess" and I wanted more hard data.
And apparently... he got busy
http://tools.dicare.org/gaps/gender.php
Ok.
Hard data (1950-2005 birth dates):
* 80% of the biographies of porn actors are about women.
* 98.3% of beauty pageant contestants are about women.
* 24% of politicians are about women
* 8.4% of computer scientists are about women.
Or ... In Algeria... the more popular occupation of women by far is...
Volley Ball !
In France... actors.
And in Guinea... well... hard to say... only 17 biographies about
Guinean women anyway.
Florence
Hoi,
A lot of effort has gone into getting ready to support OSM in our projects.
What I want the Wikimedia Foundation is to allow the use of OSM maps in the
Haitian Wikipedia because existing maps are largely not in sync with the
reality in Haiti. As I understood from information at the website of
Doctors without Borders, much of the infrastructure is gone and it is
problematic to know what exists. They rely on OSM.
By providing the best maps to the Haitian Wikipedia we provide a relevant
service. I understand that we do support OSM in Wikivoyage.
Could we please support OSM maps in the Haitian Wikipedia.
Thanks,
GerardM
Dear all,
We are looking for members of the 2017 Wikimania program committee!
The committee will help put together the program and schedule for
Wikimania Montreal, to be held on 9-13 August 2017:
https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/
Committee member responsibilities include helping promote the call for
submissions and recruiting speakers, helping design the program and
reviewing program submissions. Review dates this year are April 2017
and mid-May through June 2017; program committee members should commit
to having availability for reviewing submissions and regular meetings
during those times.
If you are a Wikimedian interested in building a great Wikimania, you
are welcome to apply! We are especially looking for committee members
with experience with (one or more of) sister projects, non-English
speaking communities, technical projects, or GLAM and education
projects. We are also especially looking for French speakers who can
assist in recruiting and reviewing French-language submissions.
Please let us know if you are interested by contacting
wikimania-program(a)lists.wikimedia.org with your name, interest, and
availability. We will be forming the committee quickly. More
information on the program, including the call for submissions, will
be coming soon.
Thank you!
Marc-Andre Pelletier (Wikimania chair)
Phoebe Ayers (program co-chair)
Deror Lin (program co-chair)
Guillame Paumier (program co-chair)
--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *
This code has been under discussion at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft since the summer
of 2015, and is finally nearing completion. The original consensus in 2015
had been that the completed code would be submitted to the community for
ratification and adoption. However, since the end of 2015 the drafting of
the code has largely been in the hands of a small group of WMF staff, and
they have taken it on themselves to change that consensus and stated that
the code will come into effect as soon as the last section is agreed, which
will be quite soon.
Do the WMF and the wider Community wish to adhere to the initial consensus,
and put the draft code out to the comunity for adoption? Or will the WMF
choose to enact it on their own authority irrespective of any community
views on the subject?
If the code is to be voted on by the Community, what would be the
appropriate venue for the vote, and where should the vote be publicised?
"Rogol"
Hi everyone!
I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
the Wikimaps User Group [1] as a Wikimedia User Group.
The group aims to gather Wikimedia users engaged in a variety of activities
related to geographic information from across the movement, so that people
with different ideas for using geographic components in their projects are
able to come together, share their expertise, and help each other.
Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
Regards,
Kirill Lokshin
Affiliations Committee
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimaps_User_Group
Dear All,
Trust you are fine
As part of our efforts to improve the awareness of Wikimedia related projects and activities in Nigeria. This is to officially inform the global community that Wikimedia UG Nigeria (WUGN) has been official approved to run Wikimedia Fan Club, University of Ibadan at the oldest University in Nigeria, University of Ibadan (UI).
We will really appreciate all your supports and assistance.
Best Olushola Team Lead, Wikimedia UG Nigeria