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
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)
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
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,*
>
[...]
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! :)
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
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
> _______________________________________________
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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.
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?
*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