Wikimedia-l January 2018

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

81 participants
59 discussions

RFC on wikimedia-l posting limits
by John Mark Vandenberg 19 Feb '18

19 Feb '18

Hi list members, The list admins (hereafter 'we', being Austin, Asaf, Shani and I, your humble narrator) regularly receive complaints about the frequent posters on this list, as well as about the unpleasant atmosphere some posters (some of them frequent) create. It is natural that frequent posters will say specific things that more frequently annoy other list members, but often the complaints are due to the volume of messages rather than the content of the messages. We are floating some suggestions aimed specifically at reducing the volume, hopefully motivating frequent posters to self-moderate more, but these proposed limits are actually intending to increasing the quality of the discourse without heavy subjective moderation. The first proposal impacts all posters to this list, and the last three proposals are aimed at providing a more clear framework within which criticism and whistle-blowing are permitted, but that critics are prevented from drowning out other discussions. The bandwidth that will be given to critics should be established in advance, reducing need to use subjective moderation of the content when a limit to the volume will often achieve the same result. -- Proposal #1: Monthly 'soft quota' reduced from 30 to 15 The existing soft quota of 30 posts per person has practically never been exceeded in the past year, and yet many list subscribers still clearly feel that a few individuals overwhelm the list. This suggests the current quota is too high. A review of the stats at https://stats.wikimedia.org/mail-lists/wikimedia-l.html show very few people go over 15 in a month, and quite often the reason for people exceeding 15 per month is because they are replying to other list members who have already exceeded 15 per month, and sometimes they are repeatedly directly or indirectly asking the person to stop repeating themselves to allow some space for other list members also have their opinion heard. -- Proposal #2: Posts by globally banned people not permitted As WMF-banned people are already banned from mailing lists, this proposal is to apply the same ‘global’ approach to any people who have been globally banned by the community according to the https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_bans policy. This proposal does not prevent proxying, or canvassing, or “meat puppetry” as defined by English Wikipedia policy. The list admins would prefer that globally banned people communicate their grievances via established members of our community who can guide them, rather than the list admins initially guiding these globally banned people on how to revise their posts so they are suitable for this audience, and then required to block them when they do not follow advice. The role of list moderators is clearer and simpler if we are only patrolling the boundaries and not repeatedly personally engaged with helping globally banned users. -- Proposal #3: Identity of an account locked / blocked / banned by two Wikimedia communities limited to five (5) posts per month This proposal is intended to strike a balance between openness and quality of discourse. Banned people occasionally use the wikimedia-l mailing list as a substitute of the meta Request for comment system, and banned people also occasionally provide constructive criticisms and thought provoking views. This proposal hopes to allow that to continue. However people who have been banned on a few projects also use this list as their “last stand”, having already exhausted the community patience on the wikis. Sometimes the last stand is brief, but occasionally a banned person is able to maintain sufficient decorum that they are not moderated or banned from the list, and mailing list readers need to suffer month after month of the banned person dominating the mailing lists with time that they would previously have spent editing on the wikis. -- Proposal #4: Undisclosed alternative identities limited to five (5) posts per month Posting using fake identities allows people to shield their real life *and* their Wikimedia editing 'account' from the repercussions of their actions. This provision to allow fake identities on wikimedia-l is necessary for whistle-blowing, and this mailing list has been used for that purpose at important junctures in the history of the Wikimedia movement. However it is more frequently abused, especially by some ‘critics’ who have used incessant hyperbole and snark and baiting to generally cause stress to many readers. Sometimes this is also accompanied with many list posts on various unrelated threads as the ‘critic’ believes their criticism is so important that all other discussions about Wikimedia should be diverted until their problem has been resolved to their satisfaction, which is unlikely anyway. Note this explicitly does not include anyone posting using their real world identity, whether or not they have a Wikimedia account. Where a poster does not clearly link to either Wikimedia account, or does not appear to be using a real identity, and only after it is exceeding the five post limit, the list admins will privately ask the poster to either verify their identity or stop posting until the end of the month. Very frequently a whistle-blower is able and even prefers to be documenting the problem on meta, but needs the high profile of this list to spark the discussion and draw attention to their meta page. --- The five post allowance for proposals 3 and 4 are to ensure that anyone who has not been globally banned can post criticisms without repercussions, which is vital for whistleblowing and transparency generally, but they need to use their five posts per month wisely. Once they have used their five posts, community members can reply with less concern about being drawn into a direct argument with the poster. It aims to force the poster to listen to others in the community once their limit of five posts has been reached. If there is support for these proposals, the list admins would not immediately add moderation or bans, but would implement them as needed, when we notice someone has exceeded one of these limits, and we would make a note on a meta page where the community can review these actions without allowing moderation meta-discussion to dominate the discourse on the mailing list. Refinements to the list moderation limits can then occur organically as we see how these rules plays out in practise. The RFC is at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/wikimedia-l-post-limits However please also feel welcome to reply on-list if you wish to express explicit support or opposition to any of the four proposals above (please identify them by number, to ease counting). We will count votes (here and on the meta RFC) after two weeks, and post a more refined final version back to this mailing list. The list administrators will default to *enacting* all four proposals, but will refrain from enacting any proposal receiving more opposition than support. -- John Vandenberg

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Wikimedia and Libraries User Group Steering Committee Election
by UY Scuti 16 Feb '18

16 Feb '18

Hi everyone! As promised by the Wikipedia Library <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TWL> team at the inception of the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WLUG>, we are conducting an *open-election for the steering committee* with 5 to 8 positions. Nominations are open now and will remain open until the *9th*. If you are interested in being a part of this committee, you can nominate yourself <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Library_User_Group/Steering_commi…>! This position should attract Wikipedians and librarians with dedication and time to lead the user group in its first year. The elections will happen following the nominations phase starting from *10 January 2018 to 23 January 2018*. Please forward your queries to libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org, and for private correspondence, please get in touch with one of the founding members <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Library_User_Group/Contact_list>. And finally, wishing you a prosperous and happy new year on behalf of the user group founding members! On behalf of the user group founding members, Aaron (UY Scuti)

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Windows 10 lockscreen images
by Andy Mabbett 12 Feb '18

12 Feb '18

Those of you running Windows 10 will be familiar with the regularly-changing "lockscreen" images showing things like beautiful scenery and scenes from nature: https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/find-windows-spotlight-lock-screen-images-wind… The last one I just saw was labelled "copyright [photographer name] and Shutterstock" Is there someone at WMF, with contacts at Microsoft, who could persuade them to use some featured images from Commons, with a small piece of text explaining that people may upload their own images? That would seem to be a simple way to do a massive piece of outreach, to a new audience. -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing the 2018 Ombuds Commission members
by Karen Brown 08 Feb '18

08 Feb '18

Apologies for the broken formatting in my original message! I forgot how Mailman handles HTML in messages. Please see below for (hopefully) a more legible version of the announcement: ----------- Hello all, I am happy to announce the new and returning members of the 2018 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 2018 recently closed. The Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work. This year we received applications representing the widest variety of languages, projects, and regions I’ve seen since I started working with the committee three years ago. Given the increasing caseload OC has been handing year over year, we have decided to take advantage of the opportunity the diverse candidate pool afforded us and expand the committee by one seat; this year’s OC will consist of eight, rather than seven, members, with a two-member advisory team who will guide the new commission. I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2018 OC. First, the *new members* are: *Billinghurst* Billinghurst (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Billinghurst>) is a long-term Metapedian/Wikimedian who served as a steward from 2012 to 2016 and still serves as a global sysop. He considers his home wiki to be the English Wikisource where he's performed over 260,000 edits and focuses on transcribing biographical reference data from the 19th and early 20thC. In addition, however, to serving as a local administrator on Wikisource he also holds the sysop hat on Commons, Meta and the English Wikipedia racking up almost 700,000 edits across the projects with almost a million edits when you count his bot. He claims to still have a bit of wisdom and knowledge to give. *Jamie Tubers* Sam, who edits as Jamie Tubers (< https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jamie_Tubers>), joined the English language Wikipedia community in 2011 and has over the years expanded his activities into a wide range of movement activities including co-founding the Wikimedia user group Nigeria and helping to organize events like Wiki Loves Africa and Wiki Loves Women. He is dedicated to correcting our content gaps and biases related to Africa and raising awareness of the projects on the continent. *Dyolf77* Habib (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dyolf77>) started editing in 2010 and has been heavily engaged in community affairs, both onwiki and as part of user groups, for years. A native of Tunisia, he has been a free-culture advocate on a wide range of issues in and beyond the movement. Onwiki, you can mainly find him helping out on Commons, where he is a sysop, as well as the Arabic and French language editions of Wikipedia. *Saileshpat* Saileshpat (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Saileshpat>) started editing Wikipedia in 2012 and soon became deeply involved in the Odia community. He has helped organize outreach events and worked to spread awareness in his region. In addition he was one of the co-organizers of WikiConference India 2016. Saileshpat has helped in a content relicensing process, where the Government of Odisha decided to release content under Creative Commons licenses. Online he is mainly active on the Odia Wikipedia and Commons. *Elmacenderesi* Elmacenderesi (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Elmacenderesi>) has been working on Wikimedia projects since 2007, primarily on the Turkish Wikipedia. There, he has been a CheckUser and a Bureaucrat since 2008 and an Oversighter since 2011. He is also a member of Wikimedia OTRS and serves as a global outreach coordinator, working with academic institutions and GLAMs, for The Wikipedia Library. *Teles* Lucas (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Teles>) became a Wikipedian in 2007 and started to engage with CheckUser rights in 2009, when he became a local CU on the Portuguese Wikipedia. He held both Oversight and Checkuser rights on Ptwiki between 2015 and 2017, when his term with the rights expired. He is currently an administrator on Commons. His traditional main focus has been on anti-vandalism work. In 2012, the global community elected him as a steward, a position he has held since. In addition, experienced OC members Lankiveil and Góngora will be *returning as members of the Ombuds Commission*: *Lankiveil* Lankiveil (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lankiveil>) is a long-term user, admin, and oversighter on the English Wikipedia, having made his first edits in 2004. He served on the Ombuds Commission in 2017, and is also an OTRS volunteer. He also sometimes edits at Irish Wikipedia, and Wikidata. He is a native speaker of Australian English and is a member of Wikimedia Australia. *Góngora* Góngora, J. Gustavo Góngora-Goloubintseff, (< https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:G%C3%B3ngora>) primarily edits Spanish Wikipedia, Catalan Wikipedia and Norwegian bokmål Wikipedia. He has been an administrator and bureaucrat on the Spanish Wikipedia since 2007, and an administrator on the Catalan Wikipedia from 2010 until 2017, where he is also a CheckUser. He was a member of the Spanish Arbitration Committee in 2008, before it was dismantled. He was a board member of Wikimedia España in 2011. He is currently a member of both Wikimedia España and Wikimedia Norge. And the following experienced OC members will be returning as *advisors to the commission* (this advisory role provides expertise when needed, but does not participate in all discussions): *Pajz* Pajz (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pajz>) has edited the Wikimedia projects since 2005. He was a Wikipedia administrator between 2007 to 2016 and is a member of the Volunteer Response Team. He served as one of the OTRS administrators from 2013 to 2015, before being first appointed to the Ombudsman Commission in 2016. *Krd* Krd (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Krd>), who is primarily active on German Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, and also serves at the Volunteer Response Team as an agent and OTRS admin, and was a prior member of German Wikipedia Arbitration Committee for more than three years. He joined the OC in 2017. And finally, please join me in *thanking the following outgoing volunteers*, who have given substantially of their time to serve the commission: *Vogone* Vogone (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Vogone>) has contributed to Wikimedia projects since early 2012. While they began their involvement on the German Wikipedia, they quickly branched out to Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikivoyage, and Wikiversity. They were the first bureaucrat on the Wikidata project. Vogone has worked heavily assisting our smaller projects as a global rollbacker, global sysop, and member of the Small Wiki Monitoring Team. They have experience in translation administration, both on Meta and translatewiki.net. Vogone has shown a keen interest in the technical side of user privacy, including contributing to MediaWiki software around edit suppression. Vogone joined OC in 2017. *Richwales* Richwales (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Richwales>) has been an active Wikimedian since 2005. He is an administrator, oversighter, and sockpuppet investigation clerk on the English Wikipedia. Richwales also served on the now-defunct Audit subcommittee, which served a similar role to the Ombudsman Commission. Rich joined the OC in 2017. *Alan* Alan (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alan>) 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 ~4 years. In the past he has served as an administrator and bureaucrat on Spanish Wikivoyage. He joined the OC in 2016. *Rubin16* Rubin16 (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rubin16>) 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. He joined the OC in 2015. *Polimerek* Polimerek (<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek>) 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. --- I'd also like to offer a huge “thank you” to those returning and those coming aboard for the first time, as well as to all those applied. The applications we received this year showed us an extremely able group of volunteers across a diverse array of languages and projects, and while this appointed mix of users may best serve the need for this year, I hope that those who applied and were not appointed will consider applying again in future years. Yours, Karen Brown On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 6:29 PM, Karen Brown <kbrown(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > *Hello all,* > [...]

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User Halibutt has passed
by Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska 08 Feb '18

08 Feb '18

I am sad to inform you that today Krzysztof Machocki (user:Halibutt) has passed away. With his passing our community loses a brilliant and passionate Wikimedian and Wikimedia Polska loses a valued spokeperson. But what is the most important - many of us lose a beloved, beloved friend. Krzysztof was known for his joy and passion. For his faith in how Wikipedia makes the world better. We lose him but let us not lose that faith. There is a memorial page on Polish Wikipedia. You can leave your condolences there and we will give them to Krzysztof's family. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Halibutt/Ksi%C4%99ga -- Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> Wolny od wirusów. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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Let's map capacities! (Announcing the CCM)
by Asaf Bartov 05 Feb '18

05 Feb '18

Dear Wikimedians, *How many Wikimedia communities have embraced advanced Wikidata use? How many have active social media accounts, and are there geographic or cultural patterns to which groups have and have not? Which groups have a written, current strategy? What are the most common gaps in capacity in Latin America? or in Eastern Europe? What kind of investment in capacity building would be likely to bring the most value?* To answer these questions and more, we invite all of you to participate in the new *Community Capacity Map (CCM)*: a *self-assessment exercise* for communities, groups (whether formally recognized user groups or not), thematic organizations, and chapters, to *map capacities* across the movement, with a view to identifying *existing gaps* as well as *opportunities for capacity-building*. The CCM is here on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map The context for this work, as well as "likely-asked questions, with answers" ("LAQ"?), are explained here, including an answer to "*why should I take the time to read all this?*" -- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map/About (and also pasted at the bottom of this e-mail, for your convenience.) The self-assessment is to be done based on the detailed *Guidelines* provided here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map/Guidelines I am looking forward to learning more about your groups' and orgs' capacities and gaps, and to do my best to play matchmaker between those needs and our available resources and opportunities. While I encourage you to begin contributing straightaway, *there is no deadline *-- this is envisioned to be a long-term, ongoing, and tracked-over-time tool -- so contribute if and when your group is able to make the time. (don't forget to scroll down to the LAQ!) Warmly, Asaf Bartov Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities ========================================== Likely-asked questions, with answers this exists with working links and [modest] formatting here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map/About#Likely-asked_q… Why do this at all? The Community Resources team is doing this to attempt a more *comprehensive* view of capacities and gaps across the movement, to enhance our existing, anecdotal and ad-hoc, impressions of only some of the communities and affiliates. See the goal statement above. Why now? The CCM experiment is an implementation of one of the recommendations made at the conclusion of the Community Capacity Development pilot year <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Development/Overall_pilo…> . Why should I spend the time to read through it or go through the self-assessment? There are a couple of reasons you may want to put in the time: First, by self-assessing your group/organization's capacities and gaps, you are giving WMF and other potential investors in community capacity a chance to provide your group/org with resources and opportunities to *build up* those capacities. Secondly, self-assessing according to the Guidelines page <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map/Guidelines> may be in itself a worthwhile exercise and discussion-starter for your group/org, pointing at potential areas for proactive work by *your org/group itself*, for example in your next annual plan. Finally, self-assessing (at least some) capacities today would enable you to review and re-assess in six months, or two years, and see how your group/org has developed (or not) in each of these aspects. So does WMF expect all groups and organizations to do this? No. This is an opportunity and a tool. Like all other tools, you are free to use it or not, and we certainly understand that it would take time and that you may have more pressing priorities in your group/org. We *hope* as many groups, organizations, and communities eventually take the time to self-assess, at least on some capacities, but it is not mandatory, and there would be no penalty for not participating. Would we have to provide self-assessments for *all* of the capacities? No. Feel free to self-assess on as many or as few capacities as you are able to, interested in, or find relevant. You can also add assessments gradually, as your group/org finds time to discuss and agree on assessments. Should I assess capacities in the context of my wiki community, my user-group/chapter, or what? It depends. It may make sense to do separate assessments, or just one. For example, while the English community has plenty of bot builders and technical experts, you may belong to a small community contributing in English in a country with little or no bot-building expertise, such as Wikimedians in Uganda. In this case, it would make sense to describe the capacities of the Ugandan group you're part of, and not of the whole English Wikipedia community. On the other hand, it is possible that there is a very high degree of overlap between the Estonian community's capacities and the Estonian chapter's capacities, and in that case, it may be most useful to assess just once, for the Estonian community *or* Wikimedia Estonia, or possibly once for the community for on-wiki capacities, and separately for Wikimedia Estonia only for the organizational and off-wiki capacities. See the Guidelines <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map/Guidelines> page for more details. Okay, and suppose we did put in the time and provided some assessments. What can we expect next? You can expect, at the very least, one program officer at Community Resources paying attention to your contribution, and possibly, depending on each specific capacity and assessment, that officer may have resources or opportunities to suggest to your community/group/org. *The more groups provide assessments, the better-informed WMF would be*, and the more likely it would be that *WMF could allocate resources and create training opportunities* for your group. Shared needs in a region would increase the likelihood of WMF acting even further, as it would allow economizing on the investment by training/supporting several groups/communities at once. Are you saying if X number of communities demonstrate need Y, WMF is *guaranteed* to allocate resources to fill that need? I'm afraid not. But it does make it *more likely*, in that it demonstrates the need, making it easier to argue for it in internal budgeting and allocation discussions, and to marshal internal WMF resources (such as borrowing the time of subject experts at WMF to conduct training or mentor groups). Okay, so how would WMF decide which communities to offer resources to? There's no simple deterministic algorithm, but WMF would prioritize emerging communities <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement/Defining_Emerging_Comm…> over other communities, larger groups serving larger populations over smaller ones, and at least at first, would probably prioritize "low-hanging fruit" -- lower-cost/lower-risk investments, as we learn and improve this program's use of resources. Wouldn't the fact these are self-assessments mean we'd be comparing apples to oranges, given some groups would overestimate or underestimate their own capacities? No. We do understand there are some cultural tendencies (some cultures are more self-critical than others, or have rosier or more pessimistic views of future prospects and current capabilities). However, we think the fairly coarse granularity of the assessments (none/low/medium/high), coupled with *the Guidelines <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map/Guidelines>* for self-assessing, would lead most groups to make reasonably comparable assessments. Ultimately, these would remain subjective and unscientific assessments; but they would certainly at least indicate a group/org's *own* perception of their capacity. And before WMF (or others interested in investing in capacity building) make a decision to tackle a particular capacity with a particular community/group/org/region, we would be sure to take into consideration *all the relevant context* we have, i.e. not just the aggregate of the self-assessments in the CCM, but also all the accumulated experience, context, and history we are aware of at WMF, regarding that community/group/org/region. Okay, this may not be *the worst* idea ever to come from WMF We're glad you think so. :) What if none of this turns out the way you hope? Then we'll archive these pages and look for other ways to do effective capacity building. The CCM is an experiment, based on observed needs and an expectation that it would be useful. But we are ready to learn that it may not, and to change course if necessary. Let's give it a shot, though! What if I have another question? Use the talk page! :)

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New language code for Western Armenian language
by David Saroyan 04 Feb '18

04 Feb '18

Dear all, I'm pleased to announce that the efforts of Wikimedia Armenia to get separate ISO 639-3 language code for Western Armenian [1] were finally succeeded. SIL International, the ISO 639-3 Registration Authority, decided to create the code element [hyw] for Western Armenian. [2] We initiated this process three years ago when we started the collaboration with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation [3] in order to foster and improve free content in Western Armenian. This resulted in "Western Armenian project" where Wikimedia Armenia through different events and activities started to disseminate and support the creation of Western Armenian content with the help of local and diasporan Western Armenian community members. >From the launch of the "Western Armenian project" we were challenged with the problem that Western Armenian has no ISO 639-3 language code which did not allow the community to split Western Armenian content into a separate language Wikipedia. This problem made lots of trouble for us, as hy.wiki often had two versions of the same page. Wikimedia Armenia with Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation eventually decided to apply for code split. [4] This was done mainly with the help of Michael Everson. [5] Besides WM AM and Armenian Communities Department of Calouste Gulbenkian foundation there were also other parties involved, such as the department of Armenian Studies of the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris and other academic institutions. Today is a special day for Wikimedia Armenia and Western Armenian speaking community as our proposal was accepted. Thanks all Wikimedians who supported us in this work. Best, Davit Saroyan Program Manager Wikimedia Armenia 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Armenian 2. http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/PastComments/CR_Comments_2017-023.p… 3. https://gulbenkian.pt/en/ 4. http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2017-023.pdf 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Everson

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Invitation to the Wikimedia Foundation January 2018 Metrics & Activities Meeting: Thursday, February 1, 16:00 UTC (WMDE edition)
by Nicole Ebber 01 Feb '18

01 Feb '18

Dear all, We are excited to host the January metrics and activities meeting next week and invite you all to join! It will take place on Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 4:00 PM UTC (8:00 AM PST) in our office in Berlin. You can join in person, tune in via a live YouTube stream[1] or via the IRC channel #wikimedia-office on https://webchat.freenode.net. During the January metrics meeting, we'll hear from different presenters about past, present and future endeavours, each with a specific movement-relevant angle. We will not only present successes but strive to also talk about things that did not go so well – and what we learned from these setbacks. Meeting agenda draft (subject to change): * Introduction and welcomes * Coding da Vinci * WMF topic (tba) * Wikidata/Wikibase (tbd) * Guest speaker (tba) * To wiki or not to wiki * WMCON sneak preview * Wikilove * Questions and discussion Please review the meeting's Meta-Wiki page for further information about the meeting and how to participate: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_metrics_and_activities… We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting. All the best, Nicole [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFzqTxTfq2Y On 24 January 2018 at 02:09, Gregory Varnum <gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > The currently-scheduled January metrics and activities meeting is scheduled > to occur during the Wikimedia Foundation's annual meeting for staff and > contractors (known as All Hands). Given this, we have a need to reschedule, > and decided to use that change to experiment. > > So, I am very excited to share that the January metrics and activities > meeting will be hosted by Wikimedia Deutschland on February 1 from 16:00 to > 17:00 UTC (8:00-9:00 PT). > > Please stay tuned for more details from Wikimedia Deutschland in the days > to come! I hope that you will turn out and support our friends in Germany > in this experiment as part of our ongoing efforts to make the monthly > metrics and activities meetings representative of our global movement. > > Best, > Greg and Sam > -- > Gregory Varnum > Communications Strategist > Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/> > gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> -- Nicole Ebber Adviser International Relations Movement Strategy Track Lead: Organized Groups Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

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Duty of care
by Renée Bagslint 01 Feb '18

01 Feb '18

Looking at a couple of situations that have arisen recently on one of the projects, where the health and well-being of volunteers might have been affected by their participation, I wonder where we can find a clear statement of the Foundation's Duty of Care towards the volunteers? I looked on Meta, but the search appeared to return only pages relevant to the Trustees duty towards the Foundation. I was looking for something about the Foundation's duty towards the community? Can anyone help?

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Announcing the 2018 Ombuds Commission members
by Karen Brown 01 Feb '18

01 Feb '18

*Hello all,I am happy to announce the new and returning members of the 2018 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… <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 2018 recently closed. The Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work. This year we received applications representing the widest variety of languages, projects, and regions I’ve seen since I started working with the committee three years ago.Given the increasing caseload OC has been handing year over year, we have decided to take advantage of the opportunity the diverse candidate pool afforded us and expand the committee by one seat; this year’s OC will consist of eight, rather than seven, members, with a two-member advisory team who will guide the new commission.I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2018 OC. First, the new members are:Billinghurst <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Billinghurst>Billinghurst is a long-term Metapedian/Wikimedian who served as a steward from 2012 to 2016 and still serves as a global sysop. He considers his home wiki to be the English Wikisource where he's performed over 260,000 edits and focuses on transcribing biographical reference data from the 19th and early 20thC. In addition, however, to serving as a local administrator on Wikisource he also holds the sysop hat on Commons, Meta and the English Wikipedia racking up almost 700,000 edits across the projects with almost a million edits when you count his bot. He claims to still have a bit of wisdom and knowledge to give. Jamie Tubers <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jamie_Tubers>Sam, who edits as Jamie Tubers, joined the English language Wikipedia community in 2011 and has over the years expanded his activities into a wide range of movement activities including co-founding the Wikimedia user group Nigeria and helping to organize events like Wiki Loves Africa and Wiki Loves Women. He is dedicated to correcting our content gaps and biases related to Africa and raising awareness of the projects on the continent.Dyolf77 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dyolf77>Habib started editing in 2010 and has been heavily engaged in community affairs, both onwiki and as part of user groups, for years. A native of Tunisia, he has been a free-culture advocate on a wide range of issues in and beyond the movement. Onwiki, you can mainly find him helping out on Commons, where he is a sysop, as well as the Arabic and French language editions of Wikipedia.Saileshpat <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Saileshpat>Saileshpat started editing Wikipedia in 2012 and soon became deeply involved in the Odia community. He has helped organize outreach events and worked to spread awareness in his region. In addition he was one of the co-organizers of WikiConference India 2016. Saileshpat has helped in a content relicensing process, where the Government of Odisha decided to release content under Creative Commons licenses. Online he is mainly active on the Odia Wikipedia and Commons.Elmacenderesi <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Elmacenderesi>Elmacenderesi has been working on Wikimedia projects since 2007, primarily on the Turkish Wikipedia. There, he has been a CheckUser and a Bureaucrat since 2008 and an Oversighter since 2011. He is also a member of Wikimedia OTRS and serves as a global outreach coordinator, working with academic institutions and GLAMs, for The Wikipedia Library.Teles <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Teles>Lucas became a Wikipedian in 2007 and started to engage with CheckUser rights in 2009, when he became a local CU on the Portuguese Wikipedia. He held both Oversight and Checkuser rights on Ptwiki between 2015 and 2017, when his term with the rights expired. He is currently an administrator on Commons. His traditional main focus has been on anti-vandalism work. In 2012, the global community elected him as a steward, a position he has held since.In addition, experienced OC members Lankiveil and Góngora will be returning as members of the Ombuds Commission:Lankiveil <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lankiveil>Lankiveil is a long-term user, admin, and oversighter on the English Wikipedia, having made his first edits in 2004. He served on the Ombuds Commission in 2017, and is also an OTRS volunteer. He also sometimes edits at Irish Wikipedia, and Wikidata. He is a native speaker of Australian English and is a member of Wikimedia Australia.Góngora <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:G%C3%B3ngora>Góngora, J. Gustavo Góngora-Goloubintseff, primarily edits Spanish Wikipedia, Catalan Wikipedia and Norwegian bokmål Wikipedia. He has been an administrator and bureaucrat on the Spanish Wikipedia since 2007, and an administrator on the Catalan Wikipedia from 2010 until 2017, where he is also a CheckUser. He was a member of the Spanish Arbitration Committee in 2008, before it was dismantled. He was a board member of Wikimedia España in 2011. He is currently a member of both Wikimedia España and Wikimedia Norge.And the following experienced OC members will be returning as advisors to the commission (this advisory role provides expertise when needed, but does not participate in all discussions):Pajz <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pajz> Pajz has edited the Wikimedia projects since 2005. He was a Wikipedia administrator between 2007 to 2016 and is a member of the Volunteer Response Team. He served as one of the OTRS administrators from 2013 to 2015, before being first appointed to the Ombudsman Commission in 2016.Krd <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Krd>Krd, who is primarily active on German Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, and also serves at the Volunteer Response Team as an agent and OTRS admin, and was a prior member of German Wikipedia Arbitration Committee for more than three years. He joined the OC in 2017.And finally, please join me in thanking the following outgoing volunteers, who have given substantially of their time to serve the commission:Vogone <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Vogone>User:Vogone has contributed to Wikimedia projects since early 2012. While they began their involvement on the German Wikipedia, they quickly branched out to Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikivoyage, and Wikiversity. They were the first bureaucrat on the Wikidata project. Vogone has worked heavily assisting our smaller projects as a global rollbacker, global sysop, and member of the Small Wiki Monitoring Team. They have experience in translation administration, both on Meta and translatewiki.net <http://translatewiki.net/>. Vogone has shown a keen interest in the technical side of user privacy, including contributing to MediaWiki software around edit suppression. Vogone joined OC in 2017.Richwales <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Richwales>User:Richwales has been an active Wikimedian since 2005. He is an administrator, oversighter, and sockpuppet investigation clerk on the English Wikipedia. Richwales also served on the now-defunct Audit subcommittee, which served a similar role to the Ombudsman Commission. Rich joined the OC in 2017.Alan <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alan>User:Alan 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 ~4 years. In the past he has served as an administrator and bureaucrat on Spanish Wikivoyage. He joined the OC in 2016.Rubin16 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rubin16>User:Rubin16 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. He joined the OC in 2015.Polimerek <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek>User:Polimerek 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.---I'd also like to offer a huge “thank you” to those returning and those coming aboard for the first time, as well as to all those applied. The applications we received this year showed us an extremely able group of volunteers across a diverse array of languages and projects, and while this appointed mix of users may best serve the need for this year, I hope that those who applied and were not appointed will consider applying again in future years.Yours,Karen Brown* -- Karen Brown Community Advocate Wikimedia Foundation kbrown(a)wikimedia.org -- Karen Brown Community Advocate Wikimedia Foundation kbrown(a)wikimedia.org

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