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
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 1:08 PM
Subject: Update on Wikimedia partnerships
To: "Staff (All)" <wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
*Hi everyone,As we consider the new strategic direction we identified from
Wikimedia 2030[1], the Foundation is evolving how we work with partners to
address barriers to participating in free knowledge around the world. After
careful evaluation, we’ve decided to discontinue the Wikipedia Zero
program[2] as one of the partnership approaches we offer. Over the course
of this year, we won’t be taking on any new Wikipedia Zero partnerships,
and current partnerships will expire. The Wikipedia Zero program was first
created to address one barrier to participating in free knowledge globally:
high mobile data costs. Through the program, we partnered with mobile
operators to waive mobile data fees for their customers to freely access
Wikipedia on mobile devices. In the program’s six year tenure, we have
partnered with 97 mobile carriers in 72 countries to provide access to
Wikipedia to more than 800 million people free of mobile data charges. As
stewards of Wikipedia Zero, I want to congratulate and thank the Global
Reach team for the success of this program during its tenure, and for their
leadership in continuing to support new and meaningful partnerships aligned
with our movement’s values and vision. In the past couple of years, we
identified a few developments that have impacted Wikipedia Zero’s continued
relevance. Beginning in 2016, we’ve seen a significant drop off in adoption
and interest in Wikipedia Zero, and as a result, our reach today stands at
a quarter of where it was at its peak. During this time, we also conducted
research[3] to better understand the full scope of barriers to using
Wikipedia around the world. For example, awareness is one of the key issues
we identified - even when people have smartphones and use Facebook, Google,
or WhatsApp, many of those same people have never heard of Wikipedia. In
addition, limited local language content is another barrier we identified
that inhibits the discovery and use of our projects. We’ve had initial
success with projects and partnerships[4] designed to build awareness in
parts of the world where Wikipedia is not widely known or used. These
successes have given us several ideas for where we may take our partnership
work next, and over the coming year, we will explore other ways we can
leverage the findings from our research and the Wikipedia Zero program to
direct future work with partners. We remain committed to creating impactful
partnerships that align with our own values and direction for the Wikimedia
movement’s future. We look forward to sharing more information and updates
on our work with partners in the coming year. Thank you, LisaWe’ve also
published a blog post about this announcement here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/02/16/partnerships-new-approach/
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/02/16/partnerships-new-approach/>[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction>[2]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero>[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Reach/Insights
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Reach/Insights> and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers>[4]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/09/21/nigeria-wikipedia-awareness/
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/09/21/nigeria-wikipedia-awareness/>*
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)
It is about an online video chat platform or social media that allows
people to make their own profile and they can make a video chat with anyone
else for educational purpose. First, people have to make a profile about
their abilities and upload their resume and choosing a price for a chat
with other people and other users can do the payments with a payment
service and start a video chat. It can be one-way or two-way and private or
public video chat and it’s suitable for freelancers. It may also have a
10-minute trial mode for the beginner or a preview for advanced users.
People can rate themselves, they can run classes on this platform and
somehow if they want to provide vital counseling like medical counseling
they have to approve first. In fact, there is two kind of users, first,
people who present materials, second, people who pay for these educational
materials.
One of the problems of searching on the internet to find an answer to your
question is sometimes it takes a lot of time to find the answer. I think
this online video chat might be the answer. it will design into several
categories how people easily access to right ones.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiclass
(Apologies for the formatting issues in the previous email.)
Hi Everyone,
On Thursday, we released an extensive research report [1] about Wikimedia’s
role in shaping the future of the information commons. The report was
created as part of the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process, as the Foundation
engaged research teams to examine awareness and usage of Wikimedia projects
and evolving information consumption habits. The consulting teams conducted
desk research and spoke both with people familiar with and involved in the
Wikimedia movement and expert observers who could inform the strategy
process but who are not directly involved today. In one-on-one interviews,
experts in geographic areas where the projects are most heavily used were
asked to think about future trends in their fields and how the trends might
apply to the Wikimedia movement’s strategy. This particular research
focused on six broad topics that seemed most likely to further or frustrate
the vision for growth that the Foundation embraces.
In this report, the Foundation’s staff and its consulting teams present
top-level insights from this global process. Perspectives from interviewees
around the world are also provided with context about their region and area
of expertise. The report draws from six comprehensive research briefs,[2]
published on Wikimedia’s strategy website, which address these topics:
- Demographics: Who is in the world in 2030? The report outlines global
population trends, which project the highest population growth in places
where Wikimedia has significant room to expand.
- Emerging platforms: How will people around the world be using
communications technologies to find, create, and share information? The
report considers future technologies, from the imminent to the speculative,
and examines what range of new hardware, software, and content production
capabilities might mean for content creation and user access.
- Misinformation: How will people find trustworthy sources of knowledge
and information? The report explores how content creators and technologists
can ensure that knowledge is trustworthy and also identifies threats to
these efforts.
- Literacy: How will the world learn in the future? The report forecasts
that technology will transform learning and educational settings as well as
expand the requirements for literacy beyond text and images.
- Open knowledge: How will we share culture, ideas, and information? The
report documents the global trend toward opening collections and archives
to the public and making them freely available online, and explores ways
the Wikimedia movement might partner with people and organizations to
accelerate this sharing.
- Expect the unexpected: How can we know what the world will look like in
2030 — and what the Wikimedia movement’s role will be in it?
The report proposes that a study of trends can never be truly predictive
and introduces alternative visionary tools such as scenario planning and
speculative social science fiction.
The consulting team published an additional research brief on the future of
the digital commons,[3] examining the political and commercial forces that
could lead to the contraction or expansion of the open web. Looking at the
constellation of issues most important to the Wikimedia community, this
brief identifies access, censorship, privacy, copyright, and intermediary
liability as active battlefronts.
The fate of the digital commons is the single subject that rises above and
intersects with each of the other areas of research. The commons of the
future will shape the environment that ultimately fosters or blocks all of
the Wikimedia projects’ work. Thus, this report weaves research findings
about the future of the commons throughout.
Specifically, the report highlights growing concerns across civil society
about the quality of and access to open knowledge online, as well as
compounding threats to the Wikimedia movement and its open knowledge
allies. Between now and 2030, open knowledge advocates face headwinds that
include censorship by governments and corporations, internet shutdowns,
surveillance of users, information monopolies, and troubling developments
such as the arrests of scholars and journalists operating in closed
societies.
The Wikimedia movement is positioned to work toward potential solutions to
these threats. Despite the trend toward a “darkening globe,” some leaders
see the Wikimedia movement as among the brightest hopes and most inspiring
exemplars of the global digital commons.
The Wikimedia movement has immediate internal challenges to address,
including adapting to an increasingly mobile internet, recruiting a new
generation of volunteers, and expanding its partnerships with schools and
“GLAM” organizations (i.e. galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and
other cultural institutions that have access to knowledge as their
mission). But Wikimedia and its open knowledge allies, working together,
can lift up people everywhere, empowering communities through access and
participation in knowledge creation and sharing. Across the interviews and
salons, there was a clarion call for the building of this larger, more
active, and multi-partner open knowledge movement.
For extended narratives, many more citations, and community discussion of
the research, visit the Wikimedia strategy page that aggregates into a
single web directory not only this work but also the totality of the
Foundation’s strategy process: 2030.wikimedia.org.
The report concludes with an analysis of cross-cutting themes that arose
from the research, as well as a set of recommendations and discussion
questions for the movement and its partners. The goal of these final
sections is not to close the discussion. Instead, it is to set the stage
for the next phase of work for the Foundation and the movement: to move
from strategies to actions that not only will preserve what has already
been built, but also make the projects useful and vital for billions of
future Wikimedia users.
We're grateful to the Wikimedia staff, volunteers, consultants, and
interviewees who made this report possible.
Best,
Caitlin Virtue
[1] You can read this on Wikimedia Commons (PDF):
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Strategy_2030_Wikipedia%27s_role_in…
Or Medium:
https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/wikimedia-2030-f…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Sources/St…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Sources/St…
--
Caitlin Virtue
Director of Development
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 839-6885 x6733
cvirtue(a)wikimedia.org
www.wikimediafoundation.org
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate.
<https://donate.wikimedia.org>*
*We've moved! *
*Wikimedia Foundation*
*1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600 *
*San Francisco, CA 94104*
Hi everyone!
I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
the Don Wikimedians User Group [1] as a Wikimedia User Group. The group's
goals are the development and dissemination of free knowledge about the Don
region and Cossack culture, and the promotion of Wikimedia projects in the
Don region.
Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
Regards,
Kirill Lokshin
Chair, Affiliations Committee
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don_Wikimedians_User_Group
Hey all,
I'm pleased to announce a proposed followup for WikiProject X, a project
previously funded by an Individual Engagement Grant. I have now
submitted a Project Grant, according to the new system, with which I
intend to complete and fully assess the development of CollaborationKit,
the extension James Hare, Brian Wolff, and I created in 2016 in the
renewal round of the original grant to facilitate the creation,
management, and usage of WikiProjects on the English Wikipedia.
While the CollaborationKit extension is largely complete as a
functioning prototype, it has yet to be deployed to the target wiki, the
English Wikipedia (while technically in production, at present it's only
enabled on testwiki). Subsequent to that deployment, actual testing can
begin, and only then will it be possible to iterate on the extension's
layout and functionality to effectively address the needs and pitfalls
that come up in practice. Only then, too, will we be able to effectively
assess the overall project: how successful has WikiProject X, as both
IEG and Project Grant, been at meeting the outcomes originally
described? How effective is this kind of design and software project as
a whole? What can we learn, and how can others learn from this approach?
I would like to invite anyone interested in the project to check out the
new proposal, and to comment or ask any questions you might have:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Isarra/WikiProject_X
For more information on the original grant:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/WikiProject_X
WikiProject X on the English Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_X
CollaborationKit: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CollaborationKit
Thanks!
Isarra
Greetings,
As the subject line says, there will be a Wikimedia Foundation-hosted IRC
office hours [0] this coming Tuesday, 13 February 2018, from 18:00-19:00
UTC [1]. The topic is Structured Data on Commons, and the subjects are
mainly whatever those who attend would like to discuss. The Structured Data
hub has information about what the development team has been up this past
year as well as upcoming plans [2] for those who might like to prepare or
find interesting things to talk about.
The Structured Data team also issues a newsletter every few months. You can
subscribe to have it delivered to a talk page, receive a notification
instead delivery, and read past issues. Find out more on Meta [3].
I'll be sending out a reminder email a few hours before this occurs in one
week's time.
Thank you for your time, I hope to see you there.
0. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
1. To check your local date and time for the office hours <
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?hour=18&min=00&sec=0&…
>
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data/Development
3.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Structured_…
--
Keegan Peterzell
Technical Collaboration Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi everyone!
I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
the Wikibase Community User Group [1] as a Wikimedia User Group. The group
aims to promote and encourage the development of Wikibase, as well as
encouraging like-minded developers and data analysts to create and improve
tools for Wikibase.
Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
Regards,
Kirill Lokshin
Chair, Affiliations Committee
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibase_Community_User_Group
I liked the interview (link below) of Cindy Cicalese by Yaron Koren. I
learned
information about Enterprise MediaWiki and about government use of
MediaWiki that was new to me. Also, given Cindy's extensive experience
with MediaWiki, I'm glad that WMF hired her to be the product manager for
MediaWiki Core.
What's making you happy this week?
Pine <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine>
P.S. For those who are unfamiliar with the history of "What's making you
happy
this week?", I believe that the concept of these threads in the Wikimedia
ecosystem started in the *Wikipedia Weekly* Facebook group, and the concept
was copied from there to Wikimedia-l. I'm being bold by expanding the
distribution of this thread to Wikitech-l, which I hope will be accepted by
Wikitech-l subscribers since there are often mentions of technical
developments in these threads. If someone feels strongly that these threads
shouldn't be shared on Wikitech-l, they're welcome to email me (on list or
off
list) or comment on my talk page. I feel that technical contributors are
welcome to comment in these threads about what is making them happy
this week, and I hope that WIkitech-l subscribers will generally like the
concept.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Yaron Koren <yaron(a)wikiworks.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 7:51 AM
Subject: [MediaWiki-l] New MediaWiki podcast: "Between the Brackets"
To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list <
mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi everyone,
I decided to start a podcast in which I interview developers and users from
the MediaWiki community - it's called "Between the Brackets". The first
episode was just published today - it's an interview with Cindy Cicalese,
who worked with MediaWiki for a long time at MITRE and is now the Product
Manager for the MediaWiki Platform at the Wikimedia Foundation.
Here it is:
http://betweenthebrackets.libsyn.com/
I hope you like it!
-Yaron
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CatherineMunro/Bright_Places>