Hey all,
I feel a little bad raising this because I know there was some community
vetting of fundraising initiatives that I ignored, but please forgive me. I
brought this up in the Wikimedia Weekly Facebook group asking where best to
raise the issue, and it was suggested I post here.
I was looking something up on my phone just now, apparently not logged in
to Wikipedia, and I discovered that mobile users in the US (and presumably
elsewhere) are being shown enormous ads. It took four full page scrolls for
me to reach the content of the article I was hoping to read. Even once I
made it past the ads at the top of the page, I was greeted with a pop-in
banner from the bottom of the page, as if I could possibly have not noticed
the four pages of text asking me to donate. (Screenshots attached).
I understand that we need donations to keep the site running and all, but
this seems excessive. I particularly worry for people who use assistive
technology who are having to listen to or try to skip through four pages'
worth of text-to-speech before they can get to what they want to know. The
WMF needs donations, but I think we need to weigh the need for cash against
the goal of providing free and accessible information to our readers. A
couple of page scrolls might not seem like much, but I assume if they're
off-putting to me (a reader with good vision and generally high tolerance
for WMF money pleas) they'll be off-putting to others.
So much of this text could be cut out. I work for a marketing/sales company
in a non-marketing role, and I've heard from colleagues that it's
frustrating when people writing copy like this hear from people who are not
educated about appealing to people, so I don't pretend to know better than
you at the WMF or your consultants about how to write good donation copy.
But to my (admittedly uneducated eye), copy like "It's a little awkward to
ask you, this Friday, as we're sure you are busy and we don't want to
interrupt you." and "We can't afford to feel embarrassed, asking you to
make a donation—just like you should never feel embarrassed when you have
to ask Wikipedia for information." seems like at best it's not adding
anything besides more words to have to scroll past, and at worst it's
pretty cringey to read. Are you really expecting people will read all four
pages?
– Molly (GorillaWarfare)
Semantic Web languages allow to express ontologies and knowledge bases in a
way meant to be particularly amenable to the Web. Ontologies formalize the
shared understanding of a domain. But the most expressive and widespread
languages that we know of are human natural languages, and the largest
knowledge base we have is the wealth of text written in human languages.
We looks for a path to bridge the gap between knowledge representation
languages such as OWL and human natural languages such as English. We
propose a project to simultaneously expose that gap, allow to collaborate
on closing it, make progress widely visible, and is highly attractive and
valuable in its own right: a Wikipedia written in an abstract language to
be rendered into any natural language on request. This would make current
Wikipedia editors about 100x more productive, and increase the content of
Wikipedia by 10x. For billions of users this will unlock knowledge they
currently do not have access to.
My first talk on this topic will be on October 10, 2018, 16:45-17:00, at
the Asilomar in Monterey, CA during the Blue Sky track of ISWC. My second,
longer talk on the topic will be at the DL workshop in Tempe, AZ, October
27-29. Comments are very welcome as I prepare the slides and the talk.
Link to the paper: http://simia.net/download/abstractwikipedia.pdf
Cheers,
Denny
Hey Everyone,
I wanted to send a quick reminder that on Tuesday, 27th November, at 16:00
UTC, we will launch our mobile and banner campaigns. We expect to run the
fundraising campaign on English Wikipedia in 6 countries: USA, Canada, UK,
Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. You may notice some final systems
tests running between now and then.
---Banners and Ideas---
You can see all of our current most effective fundraising banners on our
Fundraising Ideas page where you can also contribute any specific ideas or
stories we should tell via social media, banners, emails etc. (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2018-19_Fundraising_ideas )
Like last year, we will come to you for ideas and suggestions to test. In
addition to bringing in donations, we aim to use the campaign to educate
all readers about Wikipedia and the community who creates it. The
fundraising team’s A/B testing strategy works in iterative steps, so look
at our banners and have a think about what one element you would change or
add and how would you make it different. Think of sentences we can use to
tell our story that would make you proud. Look at other non-profit websites
and see if there are ideas that you think we should try.
To get people thinking, here is a list of things of what works and what
does not:
WHAT WORKS
* Localisation - We refer to which country the reader is from, what day it
is and the general type of device they use (mobile or desktop).
* Reverse Social Proof/Exceptionalism - Unlike other commercial or
non-profits, our donors like to feel special. (They should. They are.)
* A personal, frank tone - Words like humbly or sincerely are important in
asks
* Anchoring the donation amount - We refer to the $3 small amount, we refer
to the average donation amount and in email we refer to past donation
amounts.
* Coffee and Ubiquity - It works, mainly because it is something that is
common in many people’s lives. Coffee, metro lines, libraries, public parks
etc.
WHAT DOESN'T
* Social proof (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof) - It’s a well
known concept that individuals will align their actions to others in order
to acquire acceptance from a wider group. It is a concept used very broadly
in both commercial and non-profit worlds. We've been told by people from
all industries, academics and from our communities that this works. For
Wikipedia it doesn't. We've tried and tested and re-tested again and again.
It really doesn't work for us
* Idealism - Wikipedia: As long as the internet/the world exists, we pledge
that Wikipedia will strive to make it a better place. Stories of helping
farmers or children across the world.
* Breadth - Facts like: English Wikipedia just passed 5 million articles.
>From Argentina to Zimbabwe, your gift keeps the world learning.
---Reporting Issues---
If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems please
do report it on phabricator:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862
If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions
about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer
them to: donate {{at}} wikimedia.org.
Here is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent
technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising (
http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4)
---Next Updates & Social Media---
Tomorrow we will be posting a blog and also releasing some updated social
media frames.
A huge thank you to everyone who works to create and support Wikipedia who
make it a resource that people love and want to donate to. Fingers crossed!
--
Seddon
*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
Hello,
This email is mainly addressed to Affcom and WMF but I would like to hear
others' comments also.
Some background information regarding the context for this email: the
recently published annual reports from user groups reminded me of some
issues that I first considered a few years ago. I believe that user group
annual reports are currently not standardized, and I think that the public
and WMF might like to have standardized quantitative and comparable ways to
understand affiliates' work, including use of volunteer hours and
per-program benefits, while minimizing the burden on volunteers for
administrative tasks.
I would like to suggest that Affcom and WMF require that all affiliates'
annual reports include:
1. A list of programs which the affiliate supported in the past year. For
each program the affiliate should state the financial costs to the
affiliate including overhead costs and overhead person-hours attributable
to the program, how much time the organizers and participants spent on the
program, the Wikimetrics/Global Metrics results of each program, and
results for any custom-defined measures of success. Auditable performance
information can be made public and/or shared privately with WMF, depending
on privacy rules and the willingness of participants to share information
regarding their participation.
2. A financial summary for the year that states all sources of income and
amounts from each source, how funds were spent, funds payable, funds
receivable, debts, reserves, assets, etc.
3. Total annual organizer and participant person-hours and a summary of how
those hours were used, for both programmatic and non-programmatic
activities.
4. Total annual Wikimetrics/Global Metrics results for the year, and total
annual results for any custom-defined metrics. Again, auditable performance
information can be made public and/or shared privately with WMF, depending
on privacy rules and the willingness of participants to share information
regarding their participation.
This information is important enough that I would support reasonable staff
or contractor expenses to produce reports with these details. I am mindful
of how precious volunteer time is, and I do not want to burden already
generous volunteers with administrative work that could be done by
contractors or staff. Some cooperation and support for reporting from
volunteer organizers may be necessary, such as when gathering information
from participants at individual events. Some affiliates may have such
generous volunteers that they can do all of the reporting with volunteer
time. But for many affiliates I would support reasonable expenses for
producing standardized quantitative information in annual reports while
minimizing the administrative burden on volunteers.
Regards,
--
Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
This mailing list is usually positive, but we need to talk about
something rotten. I was linked to this Meta RfC by my Russian colleague:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Administrator_abuse_on…
The author and commentators, with notable evidence, allege that admins
and editors on Croatian Wikipedia are biased in favour of far-right
denialist talking points, especially in regards to World War II, and use
their rights to continue this type of deal. From my further readings,
the problems in Croatian Wikipedia exist for a long time with the same
participating actors. This RfC exists for 2 years already without any
signs of notice from the WMF or Meta stewards, all while nothing is
changing and the local press is continuing to report about this (maybe
authors should get American coverage to get any support, though). What
exactly is the course of action on this and what has already been done
in regards to this by Meta stewards or WMF?
Editors have tried to sound their alarms via different means:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?oldid=857974834#2013_controversy_about_right-wing…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_231#On_the_stat…
Support of extremist viewpoints should be the most pressing issue for
Wikimedians, as we must recognise that our articles have consequences,
and unabashed defence of Nazis in Wikipedia in one of the official
languages of the EU is a big deal. I personally had to organise with
others before to remove genuine jihadist view points from being reported
as facts in one of Wikipedias (successfully), in the last year I also
had to report to one steward that admin in one Wikipedia was deleting
all (seemingly not bad) content in regards to LGBT without any
explanation (unsuccessfully).
Every time significant institutional bias towards non-neutral and
harmful view points goes unnoticed, we poison our readers, especially
students, and discourage other people from constructive contribution in
our projects. Perhaps, on the larger point, it is good to talk about
some kind of committee akin to CoCC that would safely enforce the
founding principles of our projects, if these issues go unnoticed so much.
I hope that something will be done with this eventually.
Oleg
Hello,
This is an announcement about the first installment of the Language
Showcase—a series of presentations about various aspects of language
diversity and its connection to Wikimedia Projects.
This first installment will deal with the challenges of the languages of
sub-Saharan Africa and the Wikimedia projects in them.
This session is going to be broadcast over YouTube, and a recording will be
kept for later viewing.
Please read below for the event details, including local time, youtube
links and do let us know if you have any questions.
Thank you!
Amir
== Details ==
# Event: Language Showcase #1
# When: December 6, 2018 (Thursday) at 13:00 UTC (check local time
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20181206T1300)
# Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoRrKnG2z2Y
# Agenda:
The challenges of the languages of sub-Saharan Africa and the Wikimedia
projects in them
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Hello!
What happened this year in the Wikimedia movement? We want to hear about it
at the 6 December activities meeting!
Submissions for lightning talks at next month's Wikimedia monthly
activities meeting (formerly known as the Metrics meeting) are still being
accepted on Meta-Wiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings/Sign_…
Thank you to folks that have already reached out with your submissions - we
have room for more!
End of year lightning talks are 1-3 minutes presentations on a topic or
project you or your group worked on within the Wikimedia movement this past
year. The talks will be given during the Wikimedia monthly activities
meeting on 6 December 2018 at 18:00 UTC.
For more information about the meetings, please visit the info page
Meta-Wiki: https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=1446937
Thank you!
-greg
--
Gregory Varnum
Communications Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org
Pronouns: He/His/Him
Hi everyone!
I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
[1] Wikimedia Community User Group Guinea Conakry [2] as a Wikimedia User
Group. The group aims to encourage the growth, development and
dissemination of educational content in multiple languages, with a
particular emphasis on activities taking place in Guinea.
Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
Regards,
Kirill Lokshin
Chair, Affiliations Committee
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Recognit…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Guinea_Conak…
Hello all,
*I know that this is a second call, and I apologize for the potential bacn
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bacn>, but it's very important to me that
we grab as wide a pool of OC applicants as we can, so I want to re-draw
people's attention to it. *
It's coming close to time for annual appointments of community members to
serve on the Ombudsman commission (OC). This commission works on all
Wikimedia projects to investigate complaints about violations of the
privacy policy, especially in use of CheckUser tools, and to mediate
between the complaining party and the individual whose work is being
investigated. They may also assist the General Counsel, the Executive
Director or the Board of Trustees in investigations of these issues. For
more on their duties and roles, see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission
This is a call for community members interested in volunteering for
appointment to this commission. Volunteers serving in this role should be
experienced Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used
the CheckUser tool OR who have the technical ability to understand the
CheckUser tool and the willingness to learn it. They are expected to be
able to engage neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when
to recuse when other roles and relationships may cause conflict.
Commissioners are required to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation and must
be willing to comply with the appropriate Wikimedia Foundation board
policies (such as the access to non-public data policy[1] and the privacy
policy[2]). This is a position that requires a high degree of discretion
and trust.
If you are interested in serving on this commission, please write me an
email *off-list* to detail your experience on the projects, your thoughts
on the commission and what you hope to bring to the role. The commission
consists of nine members; all applications are appreciated and will be
carefully considered. The deadline for applications is end of day on 31
December, 2018.
Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think
may be qualified and interested.
Thank you!
-Karen Brown
On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Trust & Safety team
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy
2. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
--
Karen Brown
Trust & Safety Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation
kbrown(a)wikimedia.org