The official part of Wikimania is over, this does not prevent ourselves
from celebrating Africa's first Wikimania online, in more particular:
writing Wikipedia articles.
Africa is under represented in Wikipedia, by writing about it we both
celebrate our great conference as well as we work on solving the Africagap
With some Dutchies we started the idea of having a list of like 10-20
articles of subjects from Cape Town and surrounding area. For example:
Well-known park in Cape Town:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company%27s_Garden
The often referred to Dassie:
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q323847
Input needed!
Romaine
Just wanted to make you all aware of a useful new feature of the Wikipedia
mobile app. You can share text from any Wikipedia page as a nice image by
highlighting it, pressing share, and then choosing the app you want to
share it to, like Twitter. See the images attached. Hope you all find this
useful.
All,
A huge thanks to the Wikimedia South Africa team + the WMF logistics &
travel team + all the volunteers from around the world on the program
committee and assisting in other capacities + all of the enthusiastic
attendees - for making this a wonderful Wikimania.
We got to experience the beautiful city of Cape Town and surrounds, which
was for many attendees our first time in South Africa (or anywhere in
Africa). We met new friends and people in the movement doing amazing work
on the continent & beyond. We talked about editing the projects, about
movement strategy, about next steps. We had a fun dance party... and I know
that I, and many others, are newly inspired to work with the people I met
to improve and strengthen our projects in and about Africa and the African
diaspora.
Thanks again to the organizers (especially to Douglas Scott for hosting us
& running a week-long Wikimania and THEN leading (amazing) walking tours
for two days, to Liam Wyatt for running program logistics and getting
everything organized so that we could have a program, and to Ellie Young &
her WMF team for running things smoothly behind the scenes) -- and to
everyone who participated for making this such a great time. I encourage
everyone, whether you attended or not, to watch some talks, get inspired to
host local events and connect with the Wikimedians who presented their
projects and initiatives, and edit about South Africa!
greetings and wikilove from my last (alas) day in Capetown,
Phoebe
--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at>
gmail.com *
Hi Teemu
I would like to point out that the below statement is possibly slightly
misleading. So please allow me to point out that in Anne sentence below:
"The WikiFundi team has been working on the product for a couple of
years now, with support from WMF and the Orange Foundation."
the "WikiFundi team" is actually NOT Kiwix. The "editor" of WikiFundi is
"Wiki in Africa" :)
And actually, the first version of WikiFundi was NOT based on Kiwix at
all. Back then, I asked Emmanuel to actually work on WikiFundi V1, due
to his experience, but the software was based on MediaWiki, not on Kiwix
at all; also, at version 1 release, the Kiwix association did not exist
yet... Emmanuel invoiced his time directly, as an individual.
However, for version 2, the Kiwix association was born, and we (Wiki in
Africa) asked help from the Kiwix association to do the technical
management. Aside from the tech management, the WikiFundi project
directly benefit from various elements developped as part of the Kiwix
project the past year.
In my perspective, we (Wiki in Africa) clearly benefit from a stronger
and more reliable Kiwix association.
Teemu, you are right that we should never consider people from the
offline world as merely readers, but should try as hard as we can to get
them become writers.
This is why I conceived WikiFundi. When Isla and I were working with
some new african wikipedians, or when working in schools and libraries
over there, or when organizing edit-a-thons in cultural centers or
museums, we run MANY times into the situation where the internet was
down, or missing, or unstable. That was very frustrating. Hence the idea
of having a plateform that could help bridge the gap between online and
offline.
This is by no means a perfect solution, but a solution that help go into
the right direction.
I invite you to read
* https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/03/10/digest-wiki-fundi/
Which was the blog published when we released WikiFundi V1
* https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/05/10/offline-access-wikipedia-wikifundi/
Which is an interview of myself by Anne a few months ago
* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiFundi_Generic_Poster-A2.jpg
This is a brand new poster, released at Wikimania Cape Town, showcasing
WikiFundi
*
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Africa_Schools_Subs_-_Final.we…
This is a video that outline some of the uses we have of WikiFundi
(English, subtitled French)
*
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiChallenge_poster-High_Resolutio…
This is a brand new poster, released at Wikimania Cape Town, which
showcase one educational project we made with WikiFundi (in French)
There are ongoing discussions to set up asynchronized systems that would
automatically collect (when possible...) content written offline to
transfer them on an intermediary server, from which we could populate
the online wikis. It sound super complicated I fear. But at the moment,
our best shot is to *train* the future users and make it possible for
them to write content collaboratively on offline plateforms.
Flo
Although there will not be a WMF Metrics and Activities Meeting this month,
I'm wondering, would people be interested in having a "Wikimedia Community
Metrics and Activities Meeting"? People could present lightning talks about
their subjects of interest (one to five minutes long), and we could have
round-table discussion about subjects of interest (like the strategy
process), and have Q&A with any presenters. Presentations from individual
Wikimedians and from affiliates would be welcome.
I think that tomorrow may be too soon because people might want to prepare
some lightning talks, so maybe we could do this next week.
I'm going to do a minimal setup for the meeting because I have discovered
through painful experience that "Pine does everything and isn't paid for
any of it" is emotionally exhausting and financially unsustainable, so this
will be less structured (and probably a bit more spontaneous and perhaps
chaotic) than a WMF metrics meeting, but I think that it could be fun. :)
I've set up a Doodle poll, and I'll use the number of votes there as an
indication of how many people are interested and available. If people want
to meet again in future months then I'll think some more about scheduling
for future months and also about how to include the possibility of
presentations in diverse languages.
The Doodle poll is here: https://doodle.com/poll/a84hz3k7rui8rg7b. I set up
the times in UTC, so you may need to convert them to your local timezone.
Especially if a lot of people show up, there may be some chaos and missed
opportunities the first time around, but if there's a high level of
interest and people want to do this again then we can make modifications
for future meetings.
We'll probably use Zoom as our online meeting tool, and at least for the
first meeting it won't be recorded but I (or maybe someone else) will take
notes and post the notes on Meta.
I realize that this is a risky experiment, but I think that overall it
could be something that people like and find to be beneficial for making
international connections.
Regards,
Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
This press release is also available on the Wikimedia blog here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/07/18/wikimedia-foundation-and-kiwix-partne…
Foundation and Kiwix partner to grow offline access to Wikipedia
*The Wikimedia Foundation and Switzerland-based Kiwix announce a global
collaboration to increase offline access to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia
projects.*
Lausanne, Switzerland, and San Francisco, USA, 18 July 2018 – The Wikimedia
Foundation has announced a partnership with Kiwix, the free and open-source
software solution that enables offline access to educational content, to
expand and improve access to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects
globally. This partnership will include a $275,000 contribution to Kiwix to
further enhance offline access to Wikipedia in parts of the world where
consistent, affordable internet connectivity presents a significant barrier
to accessing Wikipedia.
“Our hope is that one day everyone will have access to the internet, and
eliminate the need for other offline methods of access to information.”
said Kiwix CEO Stephane Coillet-Matillon. “But we know that there are still
serious gaps in internet access globally that require solutions today.
Kiwix is a tool to start fixing things right now.”
The Wikimedia Foundation and Kiwix have had a long-standing collaborative
relationship to expand access to Wikipedia around the world. This includes
recent support to Kiwix and WikiProject Medicine to improve the
availability of offline Wikipedia medical content [1], as well as
improvements to the Kiwix desktop experience.
Through this partnership, the two organizations will collaborate to create
a long-term strategy for third party reuse of Kiwix’s free access platform,
fix longstanding code debt, improve Kiwix’s usability across mobile
platforms including Android, and integrate Kiwix’s and the Wikimedia
Foundation’s technical operations more closely for improved Wikipedia
offline experiences.
“As part of the 2030 direction for Wikimedia’s future [2], we’re thrilled
to be partnering with Kiwix to invest in solutions to address one of the
critical barriers to participating in Wikipedia globally: reliable internet
access,” said Anne Gomez, Senior Program Manager at the Wikimedia
Foundation. “We have made a commitment as an organization to actively
address the challenges and barriers to reaching our global Wikimedia
vision: a world in which everyone can freely share in knowledge. Today
marks an important step toward realizing that commitment.”
The Wikimedia vision is global: a world in which everyone can freely share
in the sum of all knowledge. While there has been a significant reduction
in high mobile data costs and other barriers to participating in Wikipedia,
more than half the world’s population is not yet online. [3]
Today, Kiwix sits at the heart of the offline ecosystem with more than 3
million users from more than 200 countries. It can store millions of
Wikipedia articles from any of Wikipedia’s nearly 300 languages along with
thousands of books and videos on a single flash drive or microSD card for
access on smartphones and computers. Kiwix has also worked with nonprofits
such as the Orange Foundation, Human Rights Foundation, Internet in a Box,
WikiFundi, and Digisoft to scale distribution of offline education
materials around the world to students, teachers, and the general public.
More information about the Wikimedia Foundation’s work to expand access and
participation to Wikipedia globally, including information about this
partnership with Kiwix, can be found in the Wikimedia Foundation’s
2018-2019 annual plan. [4]
About the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that supports and
operates Wikipedia and its sister free knowledge projects. Wikipedia is the
world’s free knowledge resource, spanning more than 45 million articles
across nearly 300 languages. Every month, more than 200,000 people edit
Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects, collectively creating and improving
knowledge that is accessed by more than 1 billion unique devices every
month. This all makes Wikipedia one of the most popular web properties in
the world. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is
a 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
About Kiwix
Kiwix is an open-source software that brings internet content to millions
of people without internet access - be it because of cost, poor
infrastructures or even censorship. Websites like Wikipedia, TED talks, the
Gutenberg library and many more can be stored and browsed as if users were
online. Kiwix is available in more than 100 languages, and runs on all
major desktop and mobile platforms. Based in Lausanne, Switzerland, Kiwix
Association is a registered Swiss Verein that is funded solely through
donations and grants. For more information, see www.kiwix.org.
Press contacts
Wikimedia Foundation
Kui Kinyanjui
press(a)wikimedia.org
Kiwix
Stéphane Coillet-Matillon
+41 79 215 8510 or stephane(a)kiwix.org
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Stephane/Kiwix/Offline_medic…
[2] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/11/03/wikimedia-movement-new-direction/
[3] https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers/Annual_Plan_1819
--
*Samantha Lien*
Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
1Montgomery Street
Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
(To be unsubscribed from this press release distribution list, please reply to communications(a)wikimedia.org with 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the subject line)
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Greetings,
Due to the timing of Wikimania travel, upcoming remote work time in the office, and planned changes to the meeting - this month’s Metrics and Activities meeting will not be taking place.
We will return with some changes next month on 30 August 2018 starting at 18:00 UTC (usual date and time).
If you have any questions - please let me know. Enjoy the rest of your July and we shall see you next month!
-greg
_______________
Gregory Varnum
Communications Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi all,
this link is somewhat offtopic, but relevant to an earlier discussion:
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/
it seems well-researched and informative.
Among other things, it tries to refute the common argument that Linux will have
a virus popular when and if it becomes more popular.
Regards,
Shlomi
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/http://is.gd/i5eMQd - Emma Watson’s Interview for a Software Dev Job
Java is a DSL (= Domain Specific Language) to transform big XML documents
into long exception stack traces. — Scott Bellware
Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .
Hi, here's a link to a proposal I have for adding visual search to
Wikipedia:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Use_visual_search_frontend_for_Wikipedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Use_visual_search_frontend_for_Wikipedia#Pr…>
(This was created with user ID: tomasohara
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Tomasohara>.) I can move it into a
better location if desired as it as not a "sister project" proper. The
Proposals
for new projects
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects> page doesn't
offer suggestions for alternative postings, so I left it there for now.
Below is a copy of the project overview. See the link above for details on
how this can be applied to foreign language wikipedias. Note that most can
be supported right "out of the box" except for the text categorization used
to select images for documents without images. A Wikipedia-specific way to
do this might be possible (e.g., based on the hierarchy of pages).
Best,
Tom
---------
It would be good for Wikipedia to use a general-purpose visual search front
end. Note that a big incentive for this is that users will be drawn to
Wikipedia to use this type of search rather than Google Search or Bing.
This would be beneficial because these search engines often show Wikipedia
content for popular entities like sports stars or tourist attractions,
which cuts down on Wikipedia traffic.
You will be able to use the visual search frontend I developed without
charge for the duration of my patent in the works (a la license free). Here
is a link to an example with Wikipedia search on left and my Scrappy Search
on right:
http://www.scrappycito.com/wikipedia-vs-scrappy-search-small
-dog-breeds-en-wiki-site.png
Two other examples illustrate some added benefits of this visual search
with respect to Wikipedia. First, disambiguation becomes based on images
and keywords rather than just snippets of text. See the following:
http://www.scrappycito.com/wikipedia-vs-scrappy-search-bob-j
ones-en-wiki-site.png
In addition, links to other pages for the same entity become much more
engaging:
http://www.scrappycito.com/wikipedia-vs-scrappy-search-taylo
r-swift-en-wiki-site.png
See http://www.scrappycito.com for the stable version of the system and
http://www.tomasohara.trade:9330 for the work-in-progress version. The
latter has support for handheld devices and also better aesthetics (n.b.,
version used in examples).
I think this will be extremely popular with the Instagram crowd and younger
users in general (e.g., younger than 30). To do similar Wikipedia-specific
searches with the visual search front end, just add *site:en.wikipedia.org
<http://en.wikipedia.org>* to the query*,* as in following example:
Lionel Messi site:en.wikipedia.org
Scrappy Search uses the Google search API, so all of the search operators
<https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en> are supported.
The patent for this visual search will be owned by my company ScrappyCito,
LLC. If the company gets acquired, I will require that they honor the
license-free usage of the visual search system by Wikimedia for Wikipedia.
(They will likewise be required to pass along this license-free usage
requirement if they in turn are acquired). You will have access to the
current source code for use in Wikipedia and other approved projects.
I am doing this both for exposure and because I want to help keep Wikipedia
viable (e.g., by enabling higher traffic). This is a great way for users to
browse the encyclopedia, so it can keep users on the Wikipedia domain
longer.
If this sounds interesting, I can develop a prototype for the Simple
English Wikipedia for use on one of my servers. After review, I help with
the deployment for the regular English Wikipedia on your servers once
approved.
==============================================================
Tom O'Hara, founder ScrappyCito, LLC. PO Box 6430
tomasohara(a)gmail.com Austin, TX 78762-6430
737-203-1577 www.scrappycito.com
Hello WMF folks,
I have some concerns about this job posting: https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/1239209
In some ways I appreciate that WMF wants to invest more money and time in identifying and developing potential volunteer leaders. However, I also have some concerns.
* This role appears to have multiple redundancies with efforts that are already being done, or are planned to be done, in areas of WMF such as GLAM, Community Resources, and Audiences, plus activities that are undertaken by affiliates and grantees, so I wonder whether this position is adding unnecessary overhead expense and/or attempting to take over work that is already being done by community members. Can you clarify what value this position is adding, and whether WMF intends to take over scopes of work that are currently generally done by affiliates and grantees?
* Was this position described in the 2018-2019 WMF Annual Plan? I was not able to find this position, or a scope of work that seemed to fit this position, in the Community Engagement Annual Plan. I was able to find a statement that talked about researching the needs of community organizers (which I think is a good idea!), but this position seems to have multiple objectives that are outside of that scope of work. Where is this specific position, or its specific scope of work, articulated in the Annual Plan for Community Engagement?
* I have a more general concern. The idea of WMF placing itself in the position of managing community development is problematic. I generally would not want community organizers to learn directly from WMF how the Wikimedia community works and/or give new aspiring community leaders the idea that they should look to WMF for guidance. WMF's purpose is to serve the community, not to manage it, and generally WMF's idea of managing the community seems to go something like this: "We will decide what choices you get to make" (such as with Superprotect) and "We will decide what to fund and how the trademarks are used" (given WMF's centralization of funding and its legal monopoly on Wikimedia trademarks). If this position will be funded then I think that "Community Development Support Specialist" would be a much better title, and could be aligned with a scope of work that is more supportive of community goals and respectful of community autonomy.
Thank you for listening to my concerns. I look forward to reading your response.
Pine( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
