Since Ed Erhart didn't honor my request of posting in this mailing lists to
discuss the plans to appropriate the Wikimedia Blog for the Wikimedia
Foundation [1] (although I would have preferred that he had done it himself
as he is the visible face behind this change, and therefore the burden of
proof is on him to prove to the community that this is the right change), I
am posting to this list with the hope that it can be discussed with people
for whom these things matter.
The Wikimedia Blog [2] has the title "News from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia
movement", and in case you don't know it it is run by the WMF [3]. This
blog has been operating under the existing URL for many years, and I
believe there was a general satisfaction with the way is run, the quality
of the stories, the amount, etc. However, as I mentioned in the Phabricator
ticket [1] I find the idea of moving the blog to the Wikimedia Foundation
site not adequate and not in the spirit of the Wikimedia movement.
I do not find the intention to move the blog to the WMF site to be in the
spirit of the Wikimedia movement because our movement is a diverse field
that is based on the idea of "commons" [4], and I feel that the Wikimedia
Blog is one of those commons. As I see it now the blog sits in the middle
of the community, and although it is run by the WMF, it can be seen as a
shared space between the WMF, the affiliates, and the community. By moving
the blog to the WMF site, the blog would lose its status as a commons and
it would become "the blog of the WMF". I think that if the WMF wants a
blog, they can create a new one, but they should leave the existing blog as
it is, as a shared space.
Intentions like this makes me think that in the WMF there is not enough
"wisdom", that strange quality that I am trying to make important in our
movement without much success [5]. This lack of wisdom is not only present
in the WMF, also in our movement I percieve, if not lack of wisdom, at
least lack of empathy [6]. It saddens me and it makes me stressed.
Issues like this one about the blog make me think that the movement needs
dedicated people that cultivate wisdom and encyclopedic knowledge about the
movement (I might have the former, but not the later), and that we put the
qualities of those people to the service of our community. I feel like a
little kid who wants to play a nice game with his friends, and then he sees
a big bulldozer coming to destroy his playing field. If it is not clear for
you, the "bulldozer" is how I see the "corporate WMF" coming to destroy the
soul of what I love most.
Tracking these kind of "behind the scenes" events takes me too much time. I
feel that I have reached more than the maximum of my capacity as a
"volunteer" (ha, what a joke of a word), and that I would risk losing my
current job if I am caught again participating in the Wikimedia projects
during my work hours, which I do without restrain. Not only that, it also
takes most of my waking time, specially because the movement has grown so
big that I feel overwhelmed in my capacity as metapedian [7]. I also feel
that it has started affecting my mental health. I do not know if I am the
only one, but as it is right now contributing to the Wikimedia projects is
*very* stressful, and since it is my main activity, I don't have time to
wind down, and since I do it as a "volunteer", I do not have free time to
recover. I also fear that if I would not do it myself nobody else would do
it, and if nobody would take their individual responsibility seriously,
then nobody would care for the good things in this world, and if nobody
would take care of the good things in this world, then we better start
saying goodbye to it RIGHT NOW, because the world is a fucking mess and
nobody is standing up to say the things as they are, or as they should be.
I spent 14 years of my life in the Wikimedia projects with various degrees
of involvement, working for free, and receiving compensation [8], and I
must say that the quality of my work has been exactly the same, my
responsability has been exactly the same, and it never mattered if I hold a
position of "power" or not, I always acted exactly the same, the only thing
that has changed is my "awareness", and my capacity to listen, which allows
me to have more effective conversations that build real consensus [9]. I
say all that because many people in this movement seem to have an issue
with money. Get over it guys. It is just a tool, like a computer, like a
hammer, like whatever tool you want to imagine. You take it, you use it,
and then you forget about it. That is the way it should be done. All the
rest is stories that people have in their heads that are totally wrong and
misinformed.
To go back to the topic of the Wikimedia Blog, I believe that, as one above
the average wise people said, "the best that can come from it is that
nothing happens".
I don't think it is done with bad intentions. I trust Ed as a reputable
member of the community, but I do believe that I am suffering as a result
of his lack of awareness.
So to anyone that feels part of the community and is reading this message,
I would like to ask you to express your view if you really care about all
the things that I am saying here. If you don't have much to say, or you
don't feel that you can't add much to the conversation, a simple "I hear
you, I support you" or something in those lines would make a big difference
for me.
Thank you,
Micru
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193912
[2] https://blog.wikimedia.org/
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Blog&oldid=17563315
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Micru/Draft_RFC
[6]
https://es.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiviajes:Tabl%C3%B3n_de_anunc…
[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapedianism
[8]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Elaborate_Wikisource_strategic_v…
[9]
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:Lexicographical_data#Replacing_…
Hello all,
This is something that made me happy this weekend and am happy to share --
check out these stats from Hebrew Wikipedia regarding new users, per
gender, per year, that Asaf generated via a WD query.
You might notice a jump in numbers of female users in 2011, and then again
in 2013 and 2015. I don't presume to be able to explain everything in the
table below, but I'd like to think this is because of Wikimedia Israel's
outreach efforts, which I'm proud to be part of since 2011.
Here are some example milestones that I know of know of, which might
explain these stats. Note they are a small part of numerous, varied and
diverse outreach projects that WM-IL has been running for years now in
GLAM, EDU, WikiWomen, WLM etc. --
* 2011 is when we started GLAMing and doing Education work more seriously.
* 2013 is when my WikiMed academic course started.
* 2015 is when my second Wiki academic course opened, and also when
WikiWomen started to work in an organized manner in Israel.
While we still have much work to do in shrinking the gender gap and being
really inclusive, it's nice to be reminded that our work *does* matter and
has actual impact on the voices that get to be heard in our community. So
to all those running workshops, GLAM / EDU projects, contests etc -- keep
up the good work, because your work matters. These numbers are merely one
way of demonstrating that.
A lovely weekend, everyone!
Shani Evenstein Sigalov
Volunteer, WM-IL.
Stats generated by this Quarry query: https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/27458
Year Male Female Unspecified % female % specified
2004 --- --- --- ---
2005 0 1 42 100.00 2.33
2006 201 21 3698 9.46 5.66
2007 180 22 5451 10.89 3.57
2008 214 33 5347 13.36 4.42
2009 503 107 5432 17.54 10.10
2010 455 96 5392 17.42 9.27
2011 393 105 5259 21.08 8.65
2012 294 143 5602 32.72 7.24
2013 260 220 5794 45.83 7.65
2014 258 237 7035 47.88 6.57
2015 214 239 6327 52.76 6.68
2016 169 254 5835 60.05 6.76
2017 143 175 6824 55.03 4.45
2018 42 49 3074 53.85 2.88
Hello.
Im the admin of a newish (by definition) mediawiki.org wiki. and have
a few queries about which settings etc i should be using.
i am very familiar with web design / programming etc (not a newbie),
however when looking over your mailing lists for this type of wiki, I
am confused.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists
also - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Overview
im finding mailing lists of requesting funds, setting up new local
groups, competitions, education progarmmes, committees, media etc &
all these other "administration" type lists.
Can anyone advise which list i should be joining on "how to" do, or
"how to find" etc type queries. for people who are new to running a
wikimedia wiki and want to set up the wiki correctly.
Thank you
--
Gordon.
Dear all,
As we reflected on our Wikimedia Conference experience and as we just got an answer from the FDC, which we thank warmly, the Wikimédia France Board thought we should give you an update on our current situation.
Since September 2017, the newly elected Board and the staff have dedicated their energy to the improvement of the governance and an organizational restructuring. We would like to share with the community all the efforts that have been made during the last 8 months in order to restore confidence and to rebuild Wikimédia France.
First steps
The first steps we took were:
* Reopening communication channels with our members;
* Having two general assemblies[1][2] and widely renewing the Board;
* Successfully completing the Grant expectations process[3] which had been set by WMF during the 2017 crisis at Wikimédia France;
* Governance review by external auditors (report will be published soon);
* Constant discussions with WMF.
Major staff restructuring
Since then, a major staff reorganization and a transition to a flatter organization have taken place.
The two employees at the head of the organization(Executive Director and Deputy Executive Director) of the Association in 2017 left Wikimédia France (WMFr) in the last quarter of the year.
In order to work on the reorganizing, during the second half of 2017, the Board conducted individual interviews with all employees to establish a general state of the organization and to collect ideas for WMFr's and its staff's future. With those elements in hand, and after several months reflecting and observing how the Association functioned in the absence of salaried management, the Board came to the conclusion that the team's maturity and relative autonomy made possible a less hierarchical organization than the classical one (i.e. “Board / Executive Director / staff”). It has been decided to carry out an internal reorganization of the team, without further recruitment to replace the Directors.
The new organization unfolds as follows[4]. The Board stays in charge of managing the Association, whilst proceeding to two delegations of power: a delegation to Resources and an operational delegation, each receiving part of the Employer's liability and part of strategic functions. The Board occupies its role in strategy and budget matters, and also reserves the right of final decision for all sensitive Employer competencies (like decisions of dismissal, sanction or recruitment). Our goal here is twofold: to no longer concentrate all responsibilities in the hands of only one person and to minimize the risk of having the Board disempowered by depriving it of its right (and duty) to take fundamental decisions.
In addition to these HR and Operational delegations of power, he Board is also considering implementing a Financial delegation of power, able to bring together the skills of an accountant and a chartered accountant within the internal staff. This would lead, in the medium term, to an organization presenting as a four-headed structure: Human Resources, Operations , Finances and Board — all of these under the control of the General Assembly.
To fill the two new positions created, the Board has decided to choose two staff members whom it trusts and whose qualities it has had the opportunity to observe in the past few months: Cindy David for the HR part and Rémy Gerbet for the Operational part. Being aware that an organization without salaried direction is not without difficulties, the Board has decided to begin with a three-month probationary period, during which the work of the two appointees will be evaluated, as well as the ability of the Board itself to properly fulfil its role. At the end of these three months, a first assessment will be made and the new organization will be either validated, abandoned, or tested for three more months before final decision. In order to implement this new organization, our staff will be provided, if need be, with professional training.
The new structure now counts 8 FTEs, including a newly hired Junior Fundraiser position, instead of 11 in 2017. We are confident that this new structure is well suited to bring Wikimédia France forward effectively.
The reorganizing of the team also comes with a complete overhaul of the salary grid[5][6].
Relying on the global Movement
Our Chair, Vice-Chair and Operational Coordinator took part in the Wikimedia Conference. This was an amazing opportunity to learn, to work on the strategy, to develop partnerships and, perhaps more importantly, to strengthen our relationships with the numerous organizations and individuals that constitute the Wikimedia movement.
We were especially glad to have the opportunity to attend the first meeting of affiliates without Executive Director (France, Italy, New York City, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine), which was a first promising step towards a fruitful collaboration. We benefitted from their feedback regarding their organizational experience and we hope we will soon be able to offer a sustainable alternative model to an ED-based organization.
Looking to the future
On top of all this efforts, we are looking to the future:
* We have submitted our proposal to the FDC[7], with a positive feedback[8]. We took into account the criticisms of the last two years, notably by drastically reducing the amount requested from the FDC (-236,000 €). We are really glad that the FDC gave such consideration to our efforts and we sincerely thank them.
* Although very busy with our internal projects, we do not forget that we are part of the Wikimedia movement. We intend to allocate time to attend Wikimania, Wikimedia Conference, Executive Directors and Chairpersons meetings, Big Fat Meeting and to be involved in the elaboration of Wikimedia 2030 strategy.
* The chapter's governance has been fully reviewed by two teams of external auditors. A governance review report will be published and discussed with our community[9]. First major changes are due for the next general assembly at the end of 2018.
The last few months were not easy. However, moral support and help from the Wikimedia movement and its wish that Wikimédia France would become a successful chapter again helped us find the energy to overcome the many challenges we had to face.
We are looking forward to the year ahead, as we strengthen our organization and develop efficient and impactful programs and would like to thank our members, the Wikimedia Foundation, the affiliates, and all the individual people who supported us during these difficult times.
Thank you,
Charlotte Matoussowsky
Vice-chair of Wikimédia France
<mailto:charlotte.matoussowsky@wikimedia.fr> charlotte.matoussowsky(a)wikimedia.fr
--------
[1]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikim%C3%A9dia_France/Assembl%C3%A9e_g%C3…
[2]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikim%C3%A9dia_France/Assembl%C3%A9e_g%C3…
[3]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_expectations_for_Wikimedia_France_-…
[4]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Organigramme_WMFR.png
[5]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikim%C3%A9dia_France/Gouvernance/Salaires
[6]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikim%C3%A9dia_France/Gouvernance/Grilles…
[7]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2017-2018_round_2/Wi…
[8] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_recommendations/2017-2018_Ro…
[9] Links to this report will be provided shortly.
---
L'absence de virus dans ce courrier électronique a été vérifiée par le logiciel antivirus Avast.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
*Dear Wikimedia colleagues and friends,The effective use of Wikimedia
movement resources, including the grants made by the Wikimedia Foundation,
is critical to our collective effort toward becoming the essential
infrastructure for free knowledge.[1] As we look ahead, the Wikimedia
movement will be developing a new approach to resource allocation, in order
to support this new strategic direction. Developing a new approach requires
careful consideration and collaboration, and commitment to our values of
sharing power in decisions, transparency, and accountability.To that end,
the Community Resources team has made some temporary changes to our
grantmaking programs to free up staff and community time to do engage in
Phase 2 of the movement strategy work on issues of resource allocation,
while still meeting essential support commitments. In order to ensure we
have the capacity in our upcoming fiscal year (July 2018 - June 2019) to
work effectively on the big questions around movement resource allocation,
we have made temporary changes to our grant programs. While many of you are
aware of these changes, I’m writing to ensure everyone has the best
information and to address some concerns we have heard. What’s changing?
These changes are designed to make the processes lighter and free up
resources for everyone involved in the grant processes. This means that the
Community Resources team, staff and volunteers in grantee organizations and
committee members will benefit from lightened processes. We hope these
changes will support all involved to direct their energies in the coming
year toward participation in the movement’s strategic planning. The main
changes for 2018-2019 fiscal year are as follows: Annual plan grants: -
Application processes will be simplified for all APG grantee-applicants.
Reporting requirements will stay the same.- The APG programs will review
proposals from new applicants in November of 2019 (for funding starting
January 2020). Program officers will continue to work with organizations
looking at entering the APG program to make sure they're ready to apply in
2019.- Current grantees will be able to apply for the same amount of
funding that they are receiving this year.- Increases may be considered for
emerging communities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Rapid grants: -
Proposals will be accepted from the 1st - 15th of each month.- Eligible
proposals have a minimum of $500 USD and a maximum of $2,000 USD. We seek
to reduce administrative overhead for a more effective use of our shared
resources. Project grants: - Project grants proposals will be accepted
during one grant cycle, likely November 2018. Since there will only be one
grant cycle, applicants will need to prepare in advance. - Proposals
between $2,000 USD and $100,000 USD will be accepted. - Please reach out to
the Program Officer well in advance to discuss your ideas and questions.
Conference grants: - There will be two rounds of funding (likely to
September 2018 and February 2019). - We anticipate continued grant funding
for the annual regional conferences (Iberoconf, Indaba, CEE, Arabia) as
well as thematic conferences already under development (education, ICT and
gender in Africa, Wikidata).- Proposals from emerging communities for
national/local conferences up to $10,000 USD will be accepted. For more
information on these changes, visit our Meta page, where you will find
links to all eligibility information.[2] Please direct your comments and
questions there, or reach out to the program officer overseeing the
relevant grant program. What happens next? In collaboration with Wikimedia
communities, including current grantees, grants committees, the Wikimedia
Foundation staff and Board, and the forthcoming working group on movement
resources from the movement strategy, we will participate in Phase 2 of the
movement strategy. This temporary phase will be critical to defining how
our movement can direct resources more effectively towards our shared goal
of becoming the essential infrastructure for free knowledge. We expect that
there could be major changes to our funding processes in the long term, and
that these changes will reengineer the roles of participating organizations
(the Wikimedia Foundation, committees, and grantees alike). This is why it
is important for everyone interested to participate, and that what comes
next derives from a collective effort. Kindly direct any questions or
comments to the discussion page on Meta wiki.[2] Best wishes,Katy
LoveDirector, Community Resources team[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction>
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Annual_Plan/Temporary_c…
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Annual_Plan/Temporary_c…>
*
Hello everyone,
to better serve the technical communities that build free and open source software for the movement as well as the communities who use Wikimedia's APIs to interact with our projects, the Wikimedia Foundation is making some structural changes. The Technical Engagement team is a new team in the Technology department of the Wikimedia Foundation reporting to the Foundation's Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Victoria Coleman. This new team has two sub-teams: the Wikimedia Cloud Services team and the Technical Advocacy team. Bryan Davis will manage the Technical Engagement teams. He will also lead the hiring process for a new Developer Advocacy Manager position, which will take over some of the management duties.
The Wikimedia Cloud Services team will continue to focus on maintaining the Wikimedia Cloud VPS infrastructure as a service <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing#Infrastructure_as_a_service_.…> platform, the Toolforge platform as a service <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service> project, and additional supporting technologies used in the Cloud Services environment such as the Wiki Replica databases and the hosting infrastructure for dumps.wikimedia.org <https://dumps.wikimedia.org/>. The existing team of Andrew Bogott, Arturo Borrero Gonzalez, Brooke Storm, and Chase Pettet will be joined by James Hare in the role of Product Manager. The team is also hiring for a fifth Operations Engineer and for a part-time technical support contractor.
The Technical Advocacy team will focus on creating improved documentation for Wikimedia APIs and services as well as providing support for technical contributors and API consumers. The new team is being formed by moving the Foundation's Developer Relations team to the Technology department, with the exception of Rachel Farrand who will remain in Community Engagement in close collaboration with other event organizers. Andre Klapper and Srishti Sethi are both taking the role of Developer Advocate in the new team. A developer advocate is someone whose primary responsibility is to make it easy for developers to use a platform. Typically they do this by producing example software, tutorials, and other documentation explaining how to use the platform's products and services. Sarah R. Rodlund will also be joining the team as a Technical Writer. Technical writing has many subspecialties. Sarah will be focusing on improving our existing documentation by helping create a style guide and editing existing documentation to fit with that guide. She will also be supporting volunteers who are interested in practicing their technical writing skills on Wikimedia documentation. The team will be hiring for a Developer Advocacy Manager role in July. This new person will help round out the skills of the team and will take the lead in developing their programs.
The Technical Engagement team will work with other teams inside the Wikimedia Foundation as well as groups at affiliate organizations and the larger Wikimedia volunteer community to provide technical outreach services and support. We hope to continue to grow the number of people involved in our programs until we can confidently say that we are providing the best help possible to the hundreds of volunteer developers, designers, technical writers, and end users of the Wikimedia movement's APIs and services. We will continue to be involved in existing programs to attract and support new technical contributors like the Wikimedia Hackathons, Outreachy, and Google Summer of Code. We also hope to find new ways to connect with new and existing technical contributors as we support the Wikimedia movement's 2030 strategic direction and the shared goals of knowledge as a service and knowledge equity.
Very excited to be getting started down the path of strengthening our developer advocacy program!
Best wishes,
Victoria Coleman
Chief Technology Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
+1-650-703-8112
vcoleman(a)wikimedia.org
Hi, folks.
It occurs to me there are tens or hundreds of thousands of images donated
en masse (GLAM etc.) that are only categorized as "image from X collection"
or "Files donated by X", i.e. essentially uncategorized by content.
This obviously greatly reduces the likelihood of discoverability and
re-use. But it's hard to find such files, and the massive categories
(thousands of files, often) don't make organizing the work easy.
I'm think of a gamified interface -- à la Wikidata Game -- that would let a
volunteer (after OAuth identification) pick a category (from a pre-fed list
of massive categories of donated files) and show one photo from the
category that has only that category listed (i.e. has no categorization by
content), and let the volunteer type (with auto-complete, like HotCat) some
appropriate categories and hit Save, and the categories would be added, and
the next file shown.
(Optionally, a second layer of verification could be added, where
volunteers would [also] be invited to vet or change previous volunteers'
categorization, and actual change to categories on Commons would only take
place after 2 (or N) users approved the categories. I'm not at all sure
this is needed, and I think we can start without it and see how it goes.)
So, does something like this exist? If not, who wants to build it? :)
A.
Hi all,
The agenda for the next Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees meeting, on
June 12, 2018, is now available on Meta-Wiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_board_agenda_2018-06
Best,
Charles M. Roslof
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
croslof(a)wikimedia.org
(415) 839-6885
NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged
information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please
delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the
Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice
to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff
members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see
our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.
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My main worry, during my daily patrolling, is if we manage to neutralize
the bad editing (vandalism, POV pushing) or if the destructive editing
is slowly successfully degenerating the great content we have created in
our projects.
In todays Sign-post it indicates an accelerating rate of decrease of
admins on enwp, and some likewise tendency on dewp. Is this a sign that
the "good" powers are losing out to the "bad" ones?
I also seen a very passive response to two massPOV editing . One, on 35
versions, is related to Hans Asperger, to state he was a nazi doctor
(false, even if he was somewhat passive in some cases). Here dewp
reacted quickly and after a while enwp, so these articles are OK, but in
most of the other 35 this false info lies unchanged. Also I react to the
effort from GazProm promoting their propaganda article /Football for
Friendship / in up to 80 version, and where almost noone has neutralized it.
Are we slowly losing the battle against the "evil" forces? And if so,
is then our new strategy (being good in itself) and the plan to
implement it all too naive? For example I like very much the ambition
to help out on areas in the world where Wikipedia etc is not
established, but would it be more correct to put effort in regaining
control of the very many Wikipedia versions, that is definitely
degenerating and we are loosing what has been done on these. (as a test
look at "latest changes" on some of the versions with low editing, it is
depressing to see that there often are more vandal editing, not being
undone, then proper new material)
Would it be most appropriate if we all in a 2-3 years effort
concentrated on getting (back) control on our material in our projects,
before we start efforts in implementing the strategy we have agreed
upon. Perhaps a number of paid admins, vandal/pov fighters, about as
many as there are stewards today, would be necessary not to lose out.
Anders
//
![4]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Organigramme_WMFR.png](http://4]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Organigramme_WMFR.png){kind=link}