Hello all-
Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation received more than 6 million donations
to support free knowledge. Today, we would like to share the Foundation’s
2016 - 2017 Annual Report which helps document how those donations were put
to use. [1]
This Report is meant mostly for donors, but it may be of use to any
audience looking to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation, our
activities, and our community support.
In (very) brief, last year:
* We worked on building safer communities with new tools like Abuse Filter
and Mute to reduce harassment on Wikipedia.
* We improved our services for mobile devices: making images smaller and
articles load faster, streamlining our apps to assist users.
* We partnered with international organizations to add missing languages
and knowledge to our sites.
Over 2017, our grants team disbursed 392 grants totaling more than 7
million dollars. More than half of these grants went to emerging
communities. [2]
We also began to plan the future of our movement, holding months of
discussions with thousands of volunteers. We were guided by a recurring
phrase that has become the theme of this year’s Annual Report: Knowledge
belongs to all of us.
Everything listed and linked above is possible because of you, the
Wikimedia movement. Y’all are great.
So please take a look at the 2016-2017 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report,
and if you are moved- share it with a friend.
Thank you,
- Zack McCune, Danny Kaufman, Lena Traer, Heather Walls, María Cruz, Ravi
Ayyakkannu, Caitlin Cogdill (the 2017 Annual Report team)
[1] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2017/
[2] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2017/community.html
--
Zachary McCune
Global Audiences
Wikimedia Foundation
zmccune(a)wikimedia.org
Now that the movement direction has been decided on and the endorsement
process seems to be complete, can anyone tell me where we are at with
regard to phase 2 of the process - "The main goal of phase 2 will be to
answer the question "How do we implement the strategic direction", which
means identifying the resources needed for execution, and the activities it
involves." [1]
Anthony Cole
1.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction/…
Greetings Wikimedians,
(And thank you for patience with me cross-posting.)
I'm writing to invite your input on the following Phabricator task ahead of
next week's Wikimedia Developer Summit 2018 [1] session.
Knowledge as a Service
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T183315
The purpose [2] of the Wikimedia Developer Summit 2018 sessions is to
provide guidance for Phase 2 of the Movement Strategic Direction [3] on
buildout of technology capabilities. We'd really love your thoughts to help
set context for our session next week, as Knowledge as a Service is a
primary consideration in the Movement Strategic Direction.
What is Knowledge as a Service? Its essence is about information
architecture approaches and the necessary software that will ultimately
allow content consumption and creation to radiate to new and different
types of interfaces and devices in addition to browser-based approaches. As
you review position papers from attendees [4] you'll notice that the way
they (myself included) think about best solving this is through a heavy
emphasis on technology that makes it easier to better structure information
and its metadata for re-use, remixing, and querying.
What might this mean? Does it mean we should build Wikimedia software in an
API- and metadata-first manner following industry standards compatible with
content structuration? Does it mean weaving our existing structured and
semi-structured data technologies together? How do we build technology that
can ensure successful collaboration between communities on increasingly
structured and interdependent information sources? And how can we ensure
the tech will bolster growth of multilingual and multimedia content
creation and consumption?
I've copied some of the essential material from the Movement Strategic
Direction concerning Knowledge as a Service so you have it here. We would
appreciate your input and hope you will subscribe to the Phabricator task
to contribute and follow along as we explore this topic.
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T183315
The following content is copied from
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction :
Knowledge as a service: To serve our users, we will become a platform that
serves open knowledge to the world across interfaces and communities. We
will build tools for allies and partners to organize and exchange free
knowledge beyond Wikimedia. Our infrastructure will enable us and others to
collect and use different forms of free, trusted knowledge.
...
As technology spreads through every aspect of our lives, Wikimedia's
infrastructure needs to be able to communicate easily with other connected
systems.
...
As a platform, we need to transform our structures to support new formats,
new interfaces, and new types of knowledge. We have a strategic opportunity
to go further and offer this platform as a service to other institutions,
beyond Wikimedia. In a world that is becoming more and more connected,
building the infrastructure for knowledge gives others a vested interest in
our success. It is how we ensure our place in the larger network of
knowledge, and become an essential part of it. As a service to users, we
need to build the platform for knowledge or, in jargon, provide knowledge
as a service.
...
Knowledge as a service: A platform that serves open knowledge to the world
across interfaces and communities
Our openness will ensure that our decisions are fair, that we are
accountable to one another, and that we act in the public interest. Our
systems will follow the evolution of technology. We will transform our
platform to work across digital formats, devices, and interfaces. The
distributed structure of our network will help us adapt to local contexts.
...
We will build tools for allies and partners to organize and exchange free
knowledge beyond Wikimedia.
We will continue to build the infrastructure for free knowledge for our
communities. We will go further by offering it as a service to others in
the network of knowledge. We will continue to build the partnerships that
enable us to develop knowledge we can't create ourselves.
...
Our infrastructure will enable us and others to collect and use different
forms of free, trusted knowledge.
We will build the technical infrastructures that enable us to collect free
knowledge in all forms and languages. We will use our position as a leader
in the ecosystem of knowledge to advance our ideals of freedom and
fairness. We will build the technical structures and the social agreements
that enable us to trust the new knowledge we compile. We will focus on
highly structured information to facilitate its exchange and reuse in
multiple contexts.
Thank you.
-Adam
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_Summit/2018
[2]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_Summit/2018/Purpose_and_…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction
[4] https://wikifarm.wmflabs.org/devsummit/index.php/Session:10
The Education team is happy to announce the release of the report, “Does
Wikipedia Belong in Education?,”
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Education_Program_Survey_Report_Web…>
a survey report on the Wikipedia Education Program
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education>.
In September and October 2017, we surveyed stakeholders in the Wikipedia
Education Program to get their perception of the program as a
whole—including where we were succeeding, and where we could do with some
improvement. More than 200 people completed it in 10 different languages.
In addition to the survey, the Education team conducted interviews with
Wikimedia affiliates that helped to qualify the survey data. We wanted to
find out what people think we are doing, what they think we should do,
whether they value Wikimedia projects being used in education, and what
they think of our current communications materials and resources.
The full report can be found on Wikimedia Commons
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Education_Program_Survey_Report_Web…>.
A Wiki version on our Outreach Portal <http://education.wikimedia.org> is
forthcoming.
Happy reading!
--
*Nichole Saad*
WMF | Education Program Manager
nsaad(a)wikimedia.org
user: NSaad (WMF)
*Want to talk about the Wikipedia Education Program?*
Schedule a meeting: https://calendly.com/nsaad-1
Hi Everyone,
The next Research Showcase will be live-streamed this Wednesday, January
17, 2018 at 11:30 AM (PST) 19:30 UTC.
YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-1uzYYneUo
As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research. And,
you can watch our past research showcases here.
This month's presentation:
*What motivates experts to contribute to public information goods? A field
experiment at Wikipedia*
By Yan Chen, University of Michigan
Wikipedia is among the most important information sources for the general
public. Motivating domain experts to contribute to Wikipedia can improve
the accuracy and completeness of its content. In a field experiment, we
examine the incentives which might motivate scholars to contribute their
expertise to Wikipedia. We vary the mentioning of likely citation, public
acknowledgement and the number of views an article receives. We find that
experts are significantly more interested in contributing when citation
benefit is mentioned. Furthermore, cosine similarity between a Wikipedia
article and the expert's paper abstract is the most significant factor
leading to more and higher-quality contributions, indicating that better
matching is a crucial factor in motivating contributions to public
information goods. Other factors correlated with contribution include
social distance and researcher reputation.
*Wikihounding on Wikipedia*
By Caroline Sinders, WMF
Wikihounding (a form of digital stalking on Wikipedia) is incredibly
qualitative and quantitive. What makes wikihounding different then
mentoring? It's the context of the action or the intention. However, all
interactions inside of a digital space has a quantitive aspect to it, every
comment, revert, etc is a data point. By analyzing data points
comparatively inside of wikihounding cases and reading some of the cases,
we can create a baseline for what are the actual overlapping similarities
inside of wikihounding to study what makes up wikihounding. Wikihounding
currently has a fairly loose definition. Wikihounding, as defined by the
Harassment policy on en:wp, is: “the singling out of one or more editors,
joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple
debates where they contribute, to repeatedly confront or inhibit their
work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or
distress to the other editor. Wikihounding usually involves following the
target from place to place on Wikipedia.” This definition doesn't outline
parameters around cases such as frequency of interaction, duration, or
minimum reverts, nor is there a lot known about what a standard or
canonical case of wikihounding looks like. What is the average wikihounding
case? This talk will cover the approaches myself and members of the
research team: Diego Saez-Trumper, Aaron Halfaker and Jonathan Morgan are
taking on starting this research project.
--
Lani Goto
Project Assistant, Engineering Admin
Hello everyone,
I am pleased to announce the 2018 Steward elections [1]. We are now taking
nominations from eligible candidates. Interested candidates can check their
eligibility, and the procedure to submit the nomination on the guidelines
page [2]. We are open to candidate submissions till January 28, 2018, 23:59
(UTC). Questions to the candidates can be submitted until February 8, 2018,
13:59 (UTC). Guidelines about questioning can also be found on our
guidelines page [2].
Please remember, the voting has not yet begun and will be not until
February 8, 2018, 14:00 (UTC). We will poke you once again when the voting
starts.
As always, the confirmation of existing stewards [3] will take place at the
same time as the election, beginning on February 8 and finishing on
February 28, 2018.
If you have any queries related to the election, you can ask us on the talk
page [4]. Alternatively, you are free to poke us in the IRC channel
#wikimedia-stewards-elections.
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to any list if you think it will be
useful. :-)
Regards,
Stryn
(On behalf of the Election Committee.)
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Elections_2018
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Elections_2018/Guidelines
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Confirm/2018
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Stewards/Elections_2018
*Stryn*
*Suomenkielisen Wikipedian ylläpitäjä & osoitepaljastaja / Admin and
checkuser on the Finnish Wikipedia*
*Wikidatan ylläpitäjä / Admin on Wikidata*
*Meta-Wikin ylläpitäjä / Admin on Meta-Wiki*
*Ylivalvoja / Steward*
At present it's literally only me as wikimediaau-l list admin. This is less
than ideal, i.e. I can't guarantee any sort of consistent service.
It fell to me when everyone actually in Australia quit after some spurious
legal threats. So that's the threat model ...
Anyone want to volunteer as backup?
The workload is absolutely minimal, i.e. I just let through a large message
and that's the first thing I had to do in months if not years. But it'd be
a good idea to have more than one person.
[cc'ing wikimedia-l to cast a wider net]
- d.