Dear All,
I am here to inform you that Indic-TechCom had got its second request to
create a javascript to create the floatable editing button[1]. The
community members also mentioned that this tool may help them to avoid
carpal tunnel syndrome. This script will give you an extra icon on the top
right after adding the js and two more extra buttons to save and preview in
editing mode[2]. So, that editor can reduce the amount of time spent in
scoring the page.
[1]. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Indic-TechCom/Requests
[2].
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Indic-TechCom/Tools/FloatableEditingButton
Thanks and Regards,
ANANTH SUBRAY P V
Programme Associate
Access to Knowledge program
The Centre for Internet & Society
+91-9739811664
Forwarding some good news.
Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Markus Kroetzsch <markus.kroetzsch(a)tu-dresden.de>
Date: Sat, Oct 13, 2018 at 12:30 AM
Subject: [Wikidata] Passing on praise/ISWC trip report
To: Discussion list for the Wikidata project. <wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Dear all,
I am happy to report that we have just won the Best Paper Award of the
In-Use track of this year's International Semantic Web Conference
(ISWC), for our description of the SPARQL/RDF technology use on Wikidata
[1]. I keep telling people here that the general awesomeness of Wikidata
is the work of many, and in particular of this great community of editors.
Overall, the year's ISWC here in Monterey, CA has surprised Denny and me
with the huge uptake that Wikidata gets by now in industry and academia
alike, which was a huge breakthrough over last year. An amazing array of
people are doing great work based on this data, and again I would like
to pass on all the thank you's I have heard over this week to all of you
working hard to make this happen. Users range from individual students
to major tech companies, and I hope there will be many contributions
flowing back to us through these stakeholders. We also have seen an
increasing amount of research being done using Wikidata for evaluation
and testing, again both in published works and in conversations with
people in small and big organisations.
Let me also congratulate Fariz Darari, who is not a stranger to this
list either, on receiving the Best Dissertation Award of the Semantic
Web Science Association for the research that is also behind some of the
tools he has been creating for Wikidata.
I gave another talk related to Wikidata's ontological modeling, which I
hope did not represent the situation all too wrongly [2] ;-). There will
be videos of this and the best paper presentation, and most other ISWC
talks on VideoLectures in the not-so-far future.
Finally, since our best paper is about the use of BlazeGraph as a
platform for queries, let me also mention that we have had a number of
productive meetings here to discuss the future of this great software
(you may know that there were some organisational changes to the team
developing this so far). There will be opportunity to contribute to this
open source project, either as a developer or in other ways, in the
future. Stay tuned for more information on this.
So, thanks again to everyone working towards the great success of this
project -- amazing work!
Greetings from Asilomar
Markus
[1] Stanislav Malyshev, Markus Krötzsch, Larry González, Julius Gonsior,
Adrian Bielefeldt: "Getting the Most out of Wikidata: Semantic
Technology Usage in Wikipedia’s Knowledge Graph"
Talk slides and paper online:
https://iccl.inf.tu-dresden.de/web/Inproceedings3044/en
[2] Markus Krötzsch
Ontological Modelling in Wikidata
Invited keynote at the 9th Workshop on Ontology Design and Patterns (WOP'18)
Slides: https://iccl.inf.tu-dresden.de/web/Misc3058/en
--
Prof. Dr. Markus Kroetzsch
Knowledge-Based Systems Group
Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)
Faculty of Computer Science
TU Dresden
+49 351 463 38486
https://kbs.inf.tu-dresden.de/
_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
The original message was rejected due to a filter rule match, but you can
access it here:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediapt/2018-October/002698.html
I am sending it below without the links. Please access the link above for
the full version.
__________
Sorry in advance for the lengthy email – the tl;dr version is: Wikimedia
Portugal has done all it was asked to do, so the suspension that was held
conditional to performing those steps must be lifted accordingly. For the
sake of transparency, we are sending this out to not only the AffCom
mailing list, but also Wikimedia-l and WikimediaPT-l.
_________
Dear members of AffCom,
(cc to the Wikimedia Portugal mailing list, Wikimedia mailing list)
Last 5th October we were again surprised by the content of your email
(quoted below) in response to us completing the roadmap we had agreed upon
in order to remove the suspension of Wikimedia Portugal. On that message,
you say you have once more received information whose substantiation is not
mentioned, from sources that are not disclosed. And still you seem to
accept it as the truth without even providing us with the opportunity to
get properly acquainted with it, let alone rebate or contradict it. While
you speak of transparency, that message is unsettlingly opaque, as have
been multiple such messages relayed to us in the course of this whole
process.
As you are well aware, Wikimedia Portugal was faced in March with a
situation where the president of the Board, João Vasconcelos, became
demissionary without any previous warning [1]. It should be noted that when
Vasconcelos was elected as president of the Board back in 2015, he wasn’t
elected based on any background as a Wikimedia editor, as he has no history
of contribution to any of the Wikimedia projects, but rather on his self
proclaimed merits on organisational and conflict management (!). Despite
the best efforts of several people from Wikimedia Portugal over the years,
Vasconcelos sadly never really integrated well neither on Wikimedia
Portugal, nor in the Portuguese Wikimedia community.
So, in light of what looked like an existential threat for WMPT, I and a
number of other WMPT members have publicly and transparently mobilized
ourselves to organize an extraordinary General Election to elect the new
Board. Vasconcelos was probably expecting/hoping that we would ask him to
stay. But we have seen this sort of behavior elsewhere [a].We didn't.
Instead, we handled the situation cooperatively, as a group, openly.
Vasconcelos never voiced any desire to take part on this collective
solution-building, as evidenced by his silence from the discussion on the
Wikimedia Portugal mailing list in March [2] and April [3]. He was welcome
to do so. His only message to the mailing list was two days (13 April)
before the 15 April General Assembly, announcing that he considered the
planned General Assembly null [4]. Given the lack of legal standing for
that claim, we carried on with the General Assembly (the transparent,
inclusive, democratic governing body of associations), summoned according
to our by-laws. This General Assembly successfully elected new governing
bodies, including the Board of Directors.
In May we were surprised by a message from AffCom demanding that we stop
taking part in a conflict, and "refrain from representing ourselves as
representatives of Wikimedia Portugal" (see quoted message in [5]
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediapt/2018-May/002621.html>).This
was the very first time the Committee contacted Wikimedia Portugal about
this case. The message provided no legal precedent or framework for this
demand, no indication of what this conflict was, or why AffCom thought the
Board was a part of it.
>From what we understood, Vasconcelos went to the Wikimedia Conference in
Berlin, where he seems to have convinced AffCom that our General Assembly
of 15 April was legally void.
We have repeatedly provided concrete evidence that t it was not the case,
including quoting relevant court decisions backing this [6]
<https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/(https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/priva…>.
In response, AffCom reported having no time to read through legal texts,
and therefore not being able to assess the validity of our declarations,
but that is beyond our control. And yet AffCom accepted Vasconcelos’
version without question. It is a legal imperative to be held innocent
until proven guilty, and until it is legally proven there was some
wrongdoing, General Assemblies are valid and binding.
After the April General Assembly we were working, in addition to our
activities and programs, to put the association in order in terms of
obligations to the Portuguese state and the tax authorities, providing
access to WMPT’s bank account to the persons designated on the 15 April GA,
and so on. Things were getting on track...
We were surprised again in July by a message from AffCom temporarily
suspending Wikimedia Portugal’s recognition as a Wikimedia chapter [7]. In
that message for the first time you laid out a concrete roadmap that, if
followed (as we understood), would lead to lifting the suspension. The
roadmap set out a list of demands from AffCom which we diligently
fulfilled, even well ahead of the required deadlines. We organized and held
a new General Assembly in September, summoned according to the
interpretation of the Portuguese Civil Code that AffCom relayed to us (with
the exception of anything we believed would make the proceeding illegal,
which was communicated in due time to AffCom). This General Assembly had
the same result as before [8]. The Assembly was normally held, despite
severe attempts of sabotage from Vasconcelos, reported in due time to
AffCom, Legal and the Safety team. In addition to the minutes [9], an audio
recording of the assembly is available in Commons [10] ; video recording is
also available on request.
We then submitted our overdue Financial Report [11], demonstrated support
from the community to the continuation of the chapter [12], and wrote a
plan for improved chapter capacity [13]. All should be good now...
Having done all this, despite our disagreement that a new Assembly was
needed in the first place, we are now again surprised by the reception of
the opaque message I mention in the beginning, sent by AffCom to my email
(quoted below) affirming that the Committee had received reports from
unstated persons with unspecified concerns about the General Assembly and
the capacity of Wikimedia Portugal to run as a chapter. The message claims
that "there were a number of issues with lack of transparency [as well as
with] providing an opportunity to participate in an open, organizational
process" while not specifying these issues at all. Your message questions
whether we are "prepared as an Affiliate to prevent disruption in [our]
organization's collective pursuit of the movement’s mission", even though
we have so far been able to handle every attempt at disruption from
Vasconcelos.
If we rolled up our sleeves to activate the scattered energies of a stale
organization in order to prepare and execute April’s General Assembly, it
was because we were convinced that Wikimedia Portugal had a viable future
ahead, and was of value to the Wikimedia movement. At the time, the actions
of Vasconcelos were so absurd that the reaction to them even spurred some
founders and (by then) inactive members of WMPT to offer their help in
reestablishing a functional organization. Along with the help of a number
of historic as well as new members who have been steadily returning and
joining our ranks, that’s precisely what we are achieving.
That’s why we’ve been working on fulfilling the AffCom roadmap requests,
even if we didn’t like or agree with some aspects of it. All things
considered, it was a clear path to resolving our situation, and we found
that parts of it could be useful to the chapter. But AffCom’s validation of
Vasconcelos’ actions and claims, even if unintentional, have real
consequences for the mental state and safety of our members.
Back in March, when Vasconcelos claimed he had requested our bank to lock
the chapter’s bank account, started a process at the Public Prosecution
Service, and he had talked with an attorney on that subject, can you
imagine what André, our treasurer, felt waiting in line in the bank until
he found what really happened? In the end, the bank account had not been
locked because of any court order or legal reason as Vasconcelos implied,
but rather because someone had tried to access the bank account without the
proper credentials, and the system automatically locked the account.
Before the General Assembly in September, Vasconcelos sent out legal
threats and even menaces of police intervention to anyone participating. We
still went through with it, but can you imagine how we felt, the pressure
that was under some of us? It was all a bluff in the end, but this is what
you put us through.
Notwithstanding, WMPT activities were happening in parallel. They are
listed on our activities plan for anyone to see [14], and more are planned.
After several years of inactivity, we are happy to be on a sustainable
growth path, gradually building capacity and doing the best we can with the
resources available to us. We’ve also been using our personal contacts with
other movements in order to increase our organization’s capacity. Ana,
newly appointed to the Board, has just returned from Wiki Takes Zamora,
where she was learning from Wikimedia Spain, relaunching the collaboration
between both chapters. Two of the events we have planned for November are
using this paradigm. We’ll celebrate Wikidata’s sixth anniversary with a
local group of data enthusiasts in Porto, and near Lisbon we’re helping
with the organization and will participate in a FOSS event, so in both
cases we’ll also acquire event organization skills. This growth path is in
peril if you continue to undermine our efforts.
Over the last half year we’ve been attacked, offended, insulted, received
multiple threats of judicial action by Vasconcelos, and even an actual
intimidatory letter from a lawyer working for him (but purportedly on
behalf of WMPT); and during this entire time we’ve tried not to escalate
the situation, not to engage with such attempts at direct confrontation,
nor make them public. You force us now to disclose this in order to clear
our name and set the record straight. With the help and support of the
legal and security departments of the Wikimedia Foundation, we have dealt
with the actions of Vasconcelos so far. And we will follow the disciplinary
procedures foreseen for these situations in our bylaws which may result in
his removal from the chapter.
We’ve repeatedly complied in unusually strict terms with legal
requirements, and with AffCom’s roadmap, while dealing with Vasconcelos’
actions as privately as we could in order not to affect the public image of
the Wikimedia movement, nor its community – but honestly, we’re reaching
the point of exhaustion in light of AffCom’s puzzling behavior along this
process. We understand that AffCom may have reserves regarding our future,
but the way it is dealing with the situation is clearly counterproductive.
How can AffCom keep making new accusations without at least asking us for
information or confirmations?
Currently, our major source of disruption, distress and anxiety is each new
message we receive from AffCom, as they repeatedly defy our expectations of
a partner claiming to be attempting to help us getting back on our feet. We
are actually wary that the next address could be an announcement that
Wikimedia Portugal has been de-recognized, even after we have passed our
“road of trials”, due to the ever moving goalposts. Several of our key
people have reported insomnia, including myself, after receiving your
communications. We’re reaching our physical, psychological, and
motivational limit, in great part due to AffCom’s actions and inexplicable
lack of support and transparency.
It is time to stop this! Despite what we still believe were your best
intentions, AffCom has inadvertently caused significant destabilization for
Wikimedia Portugal.
Please honor your part of the compromise, lift this suspension and let us
proceed in the productive pursuit of our collective mission.
Regards,
Gonçalo
Gonçalo Themudo
*Presidente*
*Wikimedia Portugal*
*Email: *goethe.wiki(a)gmail.com
*Website: *http://pt.wikimedia.org <https://sites.google.com/view/themudo>
*Imagine um mundo onde cada ser humano pode partilhar livremente a soma de
todo o conhecimento, na sua própria língua.*
Greetings!
As you may have heard, the signup process to present at the Wikimedia monthly activities meetings (the meeting previously known as the Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meetings) has been opened to all within the movement!
Sign up page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings/Sign_…
If you were hoping for an invitation to present - here it is! Please head over to Meta-Wiki and sign up to present if you have an exciting project update to talk about or have some helpful lessons from past projects to share.
This meeting is an opportunity to share our work and progress with each other in a visual format. For more information about the meeting itself, please visit it’s Meta-Wiki page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings>
Thank you in advance for your interest!
-greg
-------
Gregory Varnum
Communications Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Apology for cross posting!
Dear Community Members,
We are now accepting applications for Programs Submission for Wiki Indaba 2019 in Nigeria.
WikiIndaba will be held in January 2019, in Abuja, Nigeria.Please check the below link for more information about submissions.https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2019/Subm… for submission is October 14th. Please reach out to wikiindaba2019program(a)gmail.com for more information or comments.
Kayode Yussuf,
Communications Lead, Wiki Indaba 2019 Nigeria
for: Programs Committee
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
Dear All,
We are very happy to inform you all that Indic-TechCom has made a new tool
to give a link to source file after doing the derivative work on commons.
We all know that how important to mention the source file correctly after
doing the derivative work. Based on the request of community members
Indic-TechCom has created. To know more about the tool visit the meta
page[1]. Indic-TechCom request you all to use it and spread the work to
your community members. In case if you have suggestions, please let us know.
[1]. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Indic-TechCom/Tools/FileLinkTool
The fundraising banner has gotten much bigger again:
https://i.imgur.com/vMVbAHz.png
I know it is bigger because it performs better relative to similar
somewhat smaller banners, but I have a quantitive question: How much
longer would the annual fundraiser need to take in order to raise the
same amount of money from a one-line banner such as Google uses for
their charitable fundraising? E.g.: https://i.imgur.com/mm31Qn5.png
As far as I can tell, the last time a one-line banner was tested seems
to be 2008. Shouldn't we try again? Section links don't work on a lot
of browsers when a large banner is written in through javascript after
the html vertical layout has been rendered, which is really annoying.
That and other factors could make a one line banner surprisingly more
effective than a big one. The pitch at the sidebar donation link's
donate.wikimedia.org landing page is just as persuasive and
featureful.
Wouldn't it be better to show more one-line banners to achieve the same amount?
Dear all!
The UG Wikipedia & Education elected a week ago its first board [1], and it
is my honor to communicate members and roles of this board to the movement.
The electoral process was both smooth and engaging, and thanks for everyone
who got involved with it. Please join me extending the traditional
honorific "Hooray" to the newly elected board members :)
The aim of the UG Wikipedia & Education is officially "to enhance and scale
local and global educational efforts, advocate for education within the
Wikimedia movement, and elevate the narrative of education outside our
movement" [2]. The group was recognized on 27 June 2018.
The first board meeting, that decided on internal board affairs and roles,
was held yesterday; information on meetings and action calls will be shared
on the education list [3]. Stay tuned!
== Board ==
Shani Evenstein, chair
Susanna Mkrtchyan, vice-chair
Ananth Subray, secretary
Filip Maljković, membership admin
Krishna Chaitanya Velaga, treasurer
== References ==
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_%26_Education_User_Group/User_Gro…
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_%26_Education_User_Group
[3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
__
Thanks all. Have a great week!
João Alexandre
reviewer of the 2018 electoral process
