>>> The people who are loudest in their demands for consensus
>>> do not represent the Wikimedia movement.
>>
>> The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the
>> Trump administration are not representative of the Wikimedia
>> movement either....
>
> Is the Community Process Steering Committee currently
> prepared to "engage more 'quiet' members of our community"
> with a statistically robust snap survey to resolve this question?
Anyone can go to Recent Changes and send a SurveyMonkey link to the
most recent few hundred editors with contributions at least a year
old, to get an accurate answer.
Will a respected member of the community please do this? I would like
to know what the actual editing community thinks of the travel ban and
their idea of an appropriate response. I don't want to see community
governance by opt-in participation in obscure RFCs.
I would offer to do this myself, but I value keeping my real name
unassociated with my enwiki userid.
-Will
Hullo everyone.
I was asked by a volunteer for help getting stats on the gender gap in
content on a certain Wikipedia, and came up with simple Wikidata Query
Service[1] queries that pulled the total number of articles on a given
Wikipedia about men and about women, to calculate *the proportion of
articles about women out of all articles about humans*.
Then I was curious about how that wiki compared to other wikis, so I ran
the queries on a bunch of languages, and gathered the results into a table,
here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ijon/Content_gap
(please see the *caveat* there.)
I don't have time to fully write-up everything I find interesting in those
results, but I will quickly point out the following:
1. The Nepali statistic is simply astonishing! There must be a story
there. I'm keen on learning more about this, if anyone can shed light.
2. Evidently, ~13%-17% seems like a robust average of the proportion of
articles about women among all biographies.
3. among the top 10 largest wikis, Japanese is the least imbalanced. Good
job, Japanese Wikipedians! I wonder if you have a good sense of what
drives this relatively better balance. (my instinctive guess is pop culture
coverage.)
4. among the top 10 largest wikis, Russian is the most imbalanced.
5. I intend to re-generate these stats every two months or so, to
eventually have some sense of trends and changes.
6. Your efforts, particularly on small-to-medium wikis, can really make a
dent in these numbers! For example, it seems I am personally
responsible[2] for almost 1% of the coverage of women on Hebrew Wikipedia!
:)
7. I encourage you to share these numbers with your communities. Perhaps
you'd like to overtake the wiki just above yours? :)
8. I'm happy to add additional languages to the table, by request. Or you
can do it yourself, too. :)
A.
[1] https://query.wikidata.org/
[2] Yay #100wikidays :) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/100wikidays
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org
Hi all,
==Background==
In November 2016, I presented the result of a joint research that
helped us understand English Wikipedia readers better. (Presentation
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIaMuWA84bY ). I talked about how
we used English, Persian, and Spanish Wikipedia readers' inputs to
build a taxonomy of Wikipedia use-cases along several dimensions,
capturing users’ motivations to visit Wikipedia, the depth of
knowledge they are seeking, and their knowledge of the topic of
interest prior to visiting Wikipedia. I also talked about the results
of the study we did to quantify the prevalence of these use-cases via
a large-scale user survey conducted on English Wikipedia. In that
study, we also matched survey responses to the respondents’ digital
traces in Wikipedia’s server logs which enabled us in discovering
behavioral patterns associated with specific use-cases. You can read
the full study at https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.05379 .
==What do we want to do now?==
There are quite a few directions this research can continue on, and
the most immediate one is to understand whether the results that we
observe (in English Wikipeida) is robust across languages/cultures.
For this, we are going to repeat the study, but this time in more
languages. Here are the languages on our list: Arabic, Dutch, English,
Hindi, Japanese, Spanish (thanks to all the volunteers who have been
helping us translating all survey related documents to these
languages.:)
==What about your language?==
If your language is not one of the six languages above and you'd like
to learn about the readers of Wikipedia in it (in the specific ways
described above), please get back to me by Monday, April 24, AoE. I
cannot guarantee that we can run the study in your language, however,
I guarantee that we will give it a good try if you're interested. The
decision to include more languages will depend on: our capacity to do
the analysis, the speed at which your community can help us translate
the material to the language, the traffic to that language, a couple
of sentences on how you'd think the result can help your community,
and your willingness to help us document the results for your language
at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Characterizing_Wikipedia_Reader_Be…
(Quite some work will need to go to have readable/usable
documentations available and we are too small to be able to guarantee
that on our own for many languages.)
Best,
Leila
--
Leila Zia
Senior Research Scientist
Wikimedia Foundation
Dear Katherine,
I hope this email finds you well.
As resolved from the recent Wiki Indaba 2017 in Accra, Ghana please find
attached the L2K.[1]
This letter consists of the feedback collected from participants on two
sets of questions (explained further in the letter). The organizers of
Indaba analysed this data on behalf of the African conference participants.
We would also like to take the opportunity to appreciate Wikimedia
Foundation support including Asaf Bartov and Kacie Harold from Community
Engagement, Jack Rabah from the Global Reach Team, and Zack McCune from the
Communications Team.
See you soon at our next Wiki Indaba in Tunisia.
Best,
- Felix Nartey
[1] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2017/Letter_to_Kather…
Hi all!
I apologize that we have not had a formal update the last couple of weeks —
with Wikimedia Conference, the associated Board meeting, and our regular
annual planning, I dropped the ball. The good news is that — as you have
probably seen and heard — a lot of discussions are taking place!
This week, I’m experimenting with a different type of update: now that the
conversations have launched, I will be sharing fewer bullet points about
the process, and more paragraphs about the overall work that is going on
around the movement. As more conversations happen, I hope future updates
will continue to be substantive, sharing key themes and discussions as we
see them emerge.
Last week, more than 350 Wikimedia community leaders from 70 countries and
many different stakeholder groups converged on Berlin, during the annual
meeting of movement affiliates, the Wikimedia Conference. This year,
leaders from movement affiliates were joined by an additional 200 leaders
from across the Wikimedia movement to participate in a program track
focused on movement strategy. In addition to participating in some
in-person discussions about our shared future direction, volunteers also
discussed ways to help spread this effort across their activities and
groups.
You may be wondering — where are the minutes from our meetings in Berlin?
Great question. Unusually for our community, the Berlin strategy track was
almost entirely analog, with markers and paper and sticky notes. The
facilitation team is in the process of digitalizing all of these materials,
from session notes to summaries and final statements. You can keep an eye
(or watch) on the Sources page[1] to keep track as additional materials are
posted - and jump in to respond and discuss as appropriate!
The discussions in Berlin are just one of the many ways people across the
movement have been able to engage in the strategy process since my last
update. Approximately 50 volunteers and groups are helping coordinate
discussions and several on-wiki discussions are already underway. This
cycle (the first of three) will run until April 15th, so there’s still a
week to share your thoughts - please do!
All of these are opportunities for you to contribute your thoughts on the
question, "What do we want to build or achieve together over the next 15
years?" For example, if you think we should go to deep space (after all,
we've gone to the Moon[2]), tell us more! Have a quick thought you want to
contribute? We want to hear it! Check out the participation page on
Meta-Wiki's movement strategy portal for more information on where and how
you can engage in this global conversation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10152617
As conversations continue, we are busy following along. Summaries of the
on-wiki discussions are being posted on Meta-Wiki,[3] along notes from 64
recent discussions (and counting!)[1] We are thrilled to see the many
different ways and places our community are finding to have this important
discussion about our future. As key themes emerge across communities, I
hope to share them here.
About communications: recently, Nicole provided an overview of the progress
and plans for Track A during our monthly activities and metrics meeting.[4]
We are also working on a blog post announcing the official start of the
movement strategy process. In addition to these communications, we’ll keep
updating these weekly updates. We appreciate all the positive and
constructive feedback we have received on these updates so far, and invite
you to send us more on-wiki.[5] As we know, the more communications about
what is going on, the better.
Thank you for your continued engagement in this process. I have to confess
that while I’ve been excited about these conversations, I wasn’t fully
certain how everything would go once we launched. There is a big difference
between having a lot of notes on a whiteboard, and actually starting a
free-wheeling, global, multilingual community conversation with such a wide
and diverse group of people. Three weeks into the launch of the first
discussion, I’m genuinely humbled by what everyone is bringing to the
conversation. This community is brilliant, our vision is inspiring, our
challenges are great (and exciting), and we have so much opportunity ahead.
I’m grateful to be able to work alongside you.
Schönes Wochenende! (German translation: “Have a good weekend!”)
Cheers,
Katherine
PS. A version of this message is available for translation on Meta-Wiki.[6]
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Sources
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_to_the_Moon
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Sources/Su…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_metrics_and_activities…
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Updat…
[6]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Updates/7_…
--
Katherine Maher
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635
+1 (415) 712 4873
kmaher(a)wikimedia.org
Hi all,
As we have stated in our annual plan [1], “currently, community members
must search many pages and places to stay informed about Foundation
activities and resources.” We have worked in the past two quarters to
create a single point of entry. We call it the Wikimedia Resource Center,
and its alpha version is now live on Meta Wikimedia:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Resource_Center
As the movement expands to include more affiliates and more programmatic
activities every year, newer Wikimedians are faced with lack of experience
in the movement and its various channels for requesting support. In order
to expand Wikimedia communities’ efforts, we want to provide easy access to
resources that support their very important work. The [[m:Wikimedia
Resource Center]] is a hub designed in response to this issue: it is
intended to evolve into a single point of entry for Wikimedians all over
the world to the variety of resources and types of staff support they may
need to develop new initiatives or also expand existing ones.
This version of the Resource Center is only the beginning. For phase two of
the project, we will enable volunteer Wikimedians to add resources
developed by other individuals or organizations to the Wikimedia Resource
Center, and in phase three, the Wikimedia Resource Center will include
features to better connect Wikimedians to other Wikimedians that can
support them.
We want to hear what you think about this prototype and our plans for it!
If you have comments about the Wikimedia Resource Center, you can submit
your feedback publicly, on the Talk Page, or privately, via a survey hosted
by a third party, that shouldn’t take you more than 4 minutes to complete.
A feedback button is on the top right corner on every page of the hub.
Looking forward to more collaborations!
Best,
María
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2016-2017/…
--
María Cruz
Communications and Outreach Project Manager, Community Engagement
Hi everyone,
I'm pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Plan is now
on Meta.[1]
This year we are continuing to adhere to the three strategic priorities
laid out in the 2016-2018 interim strategic plan: reach, communities, and
knowledge.
Across the organization, we've introduced cross-departmental programs and
planning, with a holistic approach to program support that draws on our
community, technical, and other capacities. We feel that this new approach
creates stronger and better outcomes for programs, and is also clearer as
to what the Foundation is prioritizing. Some examples of these
cross-departmental programs include New Readers, Structured Data, and
Community Health, which have been discussed on this list and on wiki
throughout the past year.
Throughout the rest of the organization and department programs, we're
continuing to invest in the areas we identified through the 2016-2018
interim strategic plan, as well as core work such as operational
improvements, deepening diversity and inclusion, improving privacy and
security, and funding the Wikimedia endowment.
Thank you all for your support over the past year. Your participation in
the movement strategy process launched this year is deeply appreciated, and
it is remarkable to think that next year's plan will begin to incorporate
the directions we design together.
In the meanwhile, I'm looking forward to your feedback on this year's
proposed plan during this open comment period.
Yours,
Katherine
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_
Plan/2017-2018/Draft
--
Katherine Maher
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635
+1 (415) 712 4873
kmaher(a)wikimedia.org
Please join for the following talk:
*Tech Talk**:* A Gentle Introduction to Wikidata for Absolute Beginners
[including non-techies!]
*Presenter:* Asaf Bartov
*Date:* February 09, 2017
*Time: *19:00 UTC
<https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Tech+Talk%3A+A+Ge…>
Link to live YouTube stream <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVrAx3AmUvA>
*IRC channel for questions/discussion:* #wikimedia-office
*Summary: *This talk will introduce you to the Wikimedia Movement's latest
major wiki project: Wikidata. We will cover what Wikidata is, how to
contribute, how to embed Wikidata into articles on other wikis, tools like
the Wikidata Game, and how to query Wikidata (including SPARQL examples).
An English Wikipedia gender neutral policy, similar to the one
developed for Commons, is now under "lively" discussion in a Requests
for Comment started this afternoon. You can read the proposed policy
and join in by adding your viewpoint at:
Shortcut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/RFC_GNL
Full link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RfC_to_adopt_a…
Some of the comments may be upsetting for some readers. I've actually
been a bit surprised. If it's too much drama for you, go focus on
something more fun.
Thanks,
Fae
Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+
On 5 April 2017 at 11:44, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Defaulting_to_gende…
>
> Hi,
>
> One of the outcomes from my weekend at the Wikimedia Conference in
> Berlin, was that the various discussions over /feeling/ more welcoming
> in our language presumptions for non-male contributors made me think
> about taking some practical steps on my home project. Commons is lucky
> that having a standard policy language of English makes it easier to
> use neutral gender in policy statements. I'm taking that further by
> proposing that we stick to a neutral gender for all our policies and
> help pages. In practice this means that policies avoid using "he or
> she" and stick to "they" or avoid using a pronoun at all. I'm hoping
> that the outcome will feel like a much more natural space for people
> like me that prefer to stay gender neutral, possibly give a slightly
> safer feeling to the project by the very act of making the effort, as
> well as avoiding an over-emphasis on binary gender when it's pretty
> easy to simply avoid it.
>
> Comments are welcome on the specific proposal, or you may have ideas
> for other local projects to do something similar. I'm aware that this
> is much more difficult to make progress on in languages such as German
> or Spanish that have a presumption of male/female gender within their
> vocabulary, so any cases of on-project initiatives in non-English
> would be especially interesting. Solving these challenges is an
> opportunity to make our projects a leader on gender neutrality...
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Hey,
FYI - sad news from Turkish.
*Regards,Itzik Edri*
Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel
+972-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Itzik - Wikimedia Israel <itzik(a)wikimedia.org.il>
Date: Sat, Apr 29, 2017 at 11:42 AM
Subject: [PRESS] Turkish authorities block Wikipedia
To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39754909
Reuters just published that a 15 minutes ago, so it will be soon all over
the news.
---
*Turkey has blocked all access inside the country to the online
encyclopaedia Wikipedia, one of the world's most popular websites.*
It was not initially clear why the ban had been imposed.
The Turkey Blocks group said the site was inaccessible from 08:00 (05:00
GMT) by order of the Turkish authorities.
People in the capital Istanbul were unable to access any Wikipedia pages
without using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
"After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr.
5651, an administrative measure has been taken for this website," Turkey's
Information and Communication Technologies Authority was quoted as saying.
No reason was given.
Turkey Blocks and Turkish media, including the Hurriyet Daily News, said
the provisional order would need to be backed by a full court ruling in the
next few days.
Social media was in uproar as news of the ban emerged, with some users
speculating that it might be a bid to suppress criticism on President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan's Wikipedia page.
Mr Erdogan narrowly won a controversial 16 April referendum on increasing
his powers, but the issue has deeply divided the country.
Turkey has temporarily blocked popular social media sites including
Facebook and Twitter in the past, especially in the wake of mass protests
or terror attacks.
The government has previously denied censoring the internet, blaming
outages on spikes in usage after major events.
*Regards,Itzik Edri*
Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel
+972-54-5878078 <+972%2054-587-8078> | http://www.wikimedia.org.il
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!