November 2019 - Wikimedia-l - lists.wikimedia.org

[Foundation-l] Improving search in Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery
by Brian J Mingus 10 Sep '22

10 Sep '22

This paper (first reference) is the result of a class project I was part of almost two years ago for CSCI 5417 Information Retrieval Systems. It builds on a class project I did in CSCI 5832 Natural Language Processing and which I presented at Wikimania '07. The project was very late as we didn't send the final paper in until the day before new years. This technical report was never really announced that I recall so I thought it would be interesting to look briefly at the results. The goal of this paper was to break articles down into surface features and latent features and then use those to study the rating system being used, predict article quality and rank results in a search engine. We used the [[random forests]] classifier which allowed us to analyze the contribution of each feature to performance by looking directly at the weights that were assigned. While the surface analysis was performed on the whole english wikipedia, the latent analysis was performed on the simple english wikipedia (it is more expensive to compute). = Surface features = * Readability measures are the single best predictor of quality that I have found, as defined by the Wikipedia Editorial Team (WET). The [[Automated Readability Index]], [[Gunning Fog Index]] and [[Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level]] were the strongest predictors, followed by length of article html, number of paragraphs, [[Flesh Reading Ease]], [[Smog Grading]], number of internal links, [[Laesbarhedsindex Readability Formula]], number of words and number of references. Weakly predictive were number of to be's, number of sentences, [[Coleman-Liau Index]], number of templates, PageRank, number of external links, number of relative links. Not predictive (overall - see the end of section 2 for the per-rating score breakdown): Number of h2 or h3's, number of conjunctions, number of images*, average word length, number of h4's, number of prepositions, number of pronouns, number of interlanguage links, average syllables per word, number of nominalizations, article age (based on page id), proportion of questions, average sentence length. :* Number of images was actually by far the single strongest predictor of any class, but only for Featured articles. Because it was so good at picking out featured articles and somewhat good at picking out A and G articles the classifier was confused in so many cases that the overall contribution of this feature to classification performance is zero. :* Number of external links is strongly predictive of Featured articles. :* The B class is highly distinctive. It has a strong "signature," with high predictive value assigned to many features. The Featured class is also very distinctive. F, B and S (Stop/Stub) contain the most information. :* A is the least distinct class, not being very different from F or G. = Latent features = The algorithm used for latent analysis, which is an analysis of the occurence of words in every document with respect to the link structure of the encyclopedia ("concepts"), is [[Latent Dirichlet Allocation]]. This part of the analysis was done by CS PhD student Praful Mangalath. An example of what can be done with the result of this analysis is that you provide a word (a search query) such as "hippie". You can then look at the weight of every article for the word hippie. You can pick the article with the largest weight, and then look at its link network. You can pick out the articles that this article links to and/or which link to this article that are also weighted strongly for the word hippie, while also contributing maximally to this articles "hippieness". We tried this query in our system (LDA), Google (site:en.wikipedia.org hippie), and the Simple English Wikipedia's Lucene search engine. The breakdown of articles occuring in the top ten search results for this word for those engines is: * LDA only: [[Acid rock]], [[Aldeburgh Festival]], [[Anne Murray]], [[Carl Radle]], [[Harry Nilsson]], [[Jack Kerouac]], [[Phil Spector]], [[Plastic Ono Band]], [[Rock and Roll]], [[Salvador Allende]], [[Smothers brothers]], [[Stanley Kubrick]]. * Google only: [[Glam Rock]], [[South Park]]. * Simple only: [[African Americans]], [[Charles Manson]], [[Counterculture]], [[Drug use]], [[Flower Power]], [[Nuclear weapons]], [[Phish]], [[Sexual liberation]], [[Summer of Love]] * LDA & Google & Simple: [[Hippie]], [[Human Be-in]], [[Students for a democratic society]], [[Woodstock festival]] * LDA & Google: [[Psychedelic Pop]] * Google & Simple: [[Lysergic acid diethylamide]], [[Summer of Love]] ( See the paper for the articles produced for the keywords philosophy and economics ) = Discussion / Conclusion = * The results of the latent analysis are totally up to your perception. But what is interesting is that the LDA features predict the WET ratings of quality just as well as the surface level features. Both feature sets (surface and latent) both pull out all almost of the information that the rating system bears. * The rating system devised by the WET is not distinctive. You can best tell the difference between, grouped together, Featured, A and Good articles vs B articles. Featured, A and Good articles are also quite distinctive (Figure 1). Note that in this study we didn't look at Start's and Stubs, but in earlier paper we did. :* This is interesting when compared to this recent entry on the YouTube blog. "Five Stars Dominate Ratings" http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html… I think a sane, well researched (with actual subjects) rating system is well within the purview of the Usability Initiative. Helping people find and create good content is what Wikipedia is all about. Having a solid rating system allows you to reorganized the user interface, the Wikipedia namespace, and the main namespace around good content and bad content as needed. If you don't have a solid, information bearing rating system you don't know what good content really is (really bad content is easy to spot). :* My Wikimania talk was all about gathering data from people about articles and using that to train machines to automatically pick out good content. You ask people questions along dimensions that make sense to people, and give the machine access to other surface features (such as a statistical measure of readability, or length) and latent features (such as can be derived from document word occurence and encyclopedia link structure). I referenced page 262 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to give an example of the kind of qualitative features I would ask people. It really depends on what features end up bearing information, to be tested in "the lab". Each word is an example dimension of quality: We have "*unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth and so on.*" You then use surface and latent features to predict these values for all articles. You can also say, when a person rates this article as high on the x scale, they also mean that it has has this much of these surface and these latent features. = References = - DeHoust, C., Mangalath, P., Mingus., B. (2008). *Improving search in Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery*. Technical Report. PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/6/68/DeHoustMangalat…> - Rassbach, L., Mingus., B, Blackford, T. (2007). *Exploring the feasibility of automatically rating online article quality*. Technical Report. PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/d/d3/RassbachPincock…>

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
by GerardM 09 Aug '22

09 Aug '22

Hoi, I have asked and received permission to forward to you all this most excellent bit of news. The linguist list, is a most excellent resource for people interested in the field of linguistics. As I mentioned some time ago they have had a funding drive and in that funding drive they asked for a certain amount of money in a given amount of days and they would then have a project on Wikipedia to learn what needs doing to get better coverage for the field of linguistics. What you will read in this mail that the total community of linguists are asked to cooperate. I am really thrilled as it will also get us more linguists interested in what we do. My hope is that a fraction will be interested in the languages that they care for and help it become more relevant. As a member of the "language prevention committee", I love to get more knowledgeable people involved in our smaller projects. If it means that we get more requests for more projects we will really feel embarrassed with all the new projects we will have to approve because of the quality of the Incubator content and the quality of the linguistic arguments why we should approve yet another language :) NB Is this not a really clever way of raising money; give us this much in this time frame and we will then do this as a bonus... Thanks, GerardM ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: LINGUIST Network <linguist(a)linguistlist.org> Date: Jun 18, 2007 6:53 PM Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers To: LINGUIST(a)listserv.linguistlist.org LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831. Mon Jun 18 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875. Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar(a)linguistlist.org> Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry(a)linguistlist.org> Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project <reviews(a)linguistlist.org> Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/ The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, and donations from subscribers and publishers. Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyer(a)linguistlist.org> ================================================================ To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html ===========================Directory============================== 1) Date: 18-Jun-2007 From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org > Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers -------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:49:35 From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org > Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers Dear subscribers, As you may recall, one of our Fund Drive 2007 campaigns was called the "Wikipedia Update Vote." We asked our viewers to consider earmarking their donations to organize an update project on linguistics entries in the English-language Wikipedia. You can find more background information on this at: http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/wikipedia/index.cfm. The speed with which we met our goal, thanks to the interest and generosity of our readers, was a sure sign that the linguistics community was enthusiastic about the idea. Now that summer is upon us, and some of you may have a bit more leisure time, we are hoping that you will be able to help us get started on the Wikipedia project. The LINGUIST List's role in this project is a purely organizational one. We will: *Help, with your input, to identify major gaps in the Wikipedia materials or pages that need improvement; *Compile a list of linguistics pages that Wikipedia editors have identified as "in need of attention from an expert on the subject" or " does not cite any references or sources," etc; *Send out periodical calls for volunteer contributors on specific topics or articles; *Provide simple instructions on how to upload your entries into Wikipedia; *Keep track of our project Wikipedians; *Keep track of revisions and new entries; *Work with Wikimedia Foundation to publicize the linguistics community's efforts. We hope you are as enthusiastic about this effort as we are. Just to help us all get started looking at Wikipedia more critically, and to easily identify an area needing improvement, we suggest that you take a look at the List of Linguists page at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguists. M Many people are not listed there; others need to have more facts and information added. If you would like to participate in this exciting update effort, please respond by sending an email to LINGUIST Editor Hannah Morales at hannah(a)linguistlist.org, suggesting what your role might be or which linguistics entries you feel should be updated or added. Some linguists who saw our campaign on the Internet have already written us with specific suggestions, which we will share with you soon. This update project will take major time and effort on all our parts. The end result will be a much richer internet resource of information on the breadth and depth of the field of linguistics. Our efforts should also stimulate prospective students to consider studying linguistics and to educate a wider public on what we do. Please consider participating. Sincerely, Hannah Morales Editor, Wikipedia Update Project Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable ----------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831

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NEW Instructional website for Arabic WP editors and writers!‏
by Michal Lester 14 Oct '20

14 Oct '20

Dear all, I am writing to share some good news! After two years of brainstorming and planning, our instructional website in Arabic is out! This is yet another step for Wikimedia Israel in developing instructional tools. We’re thrilled to introduce Wiki Warsha ويكي ورشة <http://wikiwarsha.org/>! Wikiwarsha.org <http://wikiwarsha.org/> is a multimedia instructional website designed to introduce Wikipedia to Arabic readers, to invite new editors to write and edit content on Arabic Wikipedia, to assist teachers in school activities, and instructors in editing workshops. Warsha is the Arabic word for ‘workshop’, the website includes short instructional films, texts and images and is divided into 13 informative and instructional lessons: - Wikipedia homepage structure - About Wikipedia articles - Create account - Sign in to a registered account - Create a userpage - Create a new article - Edit an article - Formatting the article - Request edits approval on Arabic Wikipedia - Adding image - Adding internal and external links - Adding references - Adding categories In addition to those lessons, the website contains informative sections about copyright issues, FAQs, good article criteria, and talk pages, all in order to facilitate understanding how Wikipedia communities function. For further details and info: warsha(a)wikimedia.org.il Michal Lester Bekriah Mawasi [[user: bks-WMIL]] Michal Lester Executive Director Wikimedia Israel

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics
by Bill Takatoshi 25 Apr '20

25 Apr '20

>>> The people who are loudest in their demands for consensus >>> do not represent the Wikimedia movement. >> >> The voices loudest for the WMF doing something against the >> Trump administration are not representative of the Wikimedia >> movement either.... > > Is the Community Process Steering Committee currently > prepared to "engage more 'quiet' members of our community" > with a statistically robust snap survey to resolve this question? Anyone can go to Recent Changes and send a SurveyMonkey link to the most recent few hundred editors with contributions at least a year old, to get an accurate answer. Will a respected member of the community please do this? I would like to know what the actual editing community thinks of the travel ban and their idea of an appropriate response. I don't want to see community governance by opt-in participation in obscure RFCs. I would offer to do this myself, but I value keeping my real name unassociated with my enwiki userid. -Will

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fallout from 2018 Wikimedian of the Year announcement
by Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin 07 Apr '20

07 Apr '20

Dear colleagues, This is a request for your input and possible ideas (if any) regarding my management of the fallout from Jimmy's announcing myself as a 2018 Wikimedian of the Year. Emails below are a copy of my ongoing consultations with Wikimedia Foundation staff and other Wikimedians I personally know, as well as a report on what's already brewing in my region of Russia after this unexpected outcome. I would be grateful, if you can advise me on how to properly steer the enthusiasm of behalf of regional government, mass-media, NGOs, etc. which have just discovered about the possibility of participation in Wikimedia movement (think anything from U.S. is not getting much in-depth coverage in Russian by sources that regional public figures, NGOs, teachers or general regional journalists read) & are now placing great hopes on teaching whole of Tatarstan about how to Wiki & also engaging all Tatars globally (3/4 outside of Tatarstan, 1/5 outside of Russia). regards, farhad Updates: * Selet WikiSchool got presented to wider public @ the press-conference for Tatar-speaking journalists (July 31), at the poster session in the framework of the World Congress of Tatars Youth Forum (Aug.3), and later at a Tatar projects fair in the Downtown park of Kazan (Aug.5) * Contribution of those writing into Wikipedia in Tatar was recognized by choosing myself as one of the current year's "For the great service to Tatar nation" medal recipients. (Aug.3) * We recorded a 40 min interview in Turkish (Aug.4, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK3tFBWMWcs ) * We didn't yet meet the President of the Republic (his schedule changed once again), but I got another firm request to meet with the Minister for Youth Affairs (another good acquaintance of mine, ex-member of local Comedy Club type activity), as well as with the Head of World Congress of Tatars' Executive Bureau, and more TV & written press interviews are lining up. * I am trying to manage these guys' optimism & desire to move quickly, keeping in mind they are not really familiar with the Wiki-way or our communities' policies & practices * Bashkir (ba) & Sakha (sah) communities have shared advice about how to assure that local Wikimedia community stays clearly independent in a cultural environment where neither Education, nor GLAM programs will attract local partners unless those have a strong support of the regional or federal government entities. * Looking forward to meet with my Wikimania-2017 roommate from the Philippines in Singapore on Aug.16 to collect some more input from Asia -------- Пересылаемое сообщение-------- 03.08.2018, 19:35, "Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin" <frhd(a)yandex.com>: Thursday, 2 August 2018 Republic of Tatarstan Ministry for Informatization & Communication @ IT-park, Kazan 18:00-20:50 Meeting with Tatarstan Deputy Prime Minister - Minister for Informatization & Communications Roman Shaykhutdinov http://mic.tatarstan.ru/eng/minister.htm on opportunities Wikimedia projects & popularization thereof among the population of the Republic can bring for Tatarstan In attendance: * Almaz A. Valiullin, Director General of Tatarstan Center for Information Technologies http://mic.tatarstan.ru/eng/valiullin.htm * Tatyana S. Kamaletdinova, CEO of Tatarstan Center for Information Technologies http://mic.tatarstan.ru/eng/kamaletdinova.htm * Anna V. Yakovleva, Head of Ministry's Press-Service http://mic.tatarstan.ru/rus/about/structure_new?department_id=80576 * Farkhad N. Fatkullin, 2018 Wikimedian of the Year, Wikimedia Russia member https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frhdkazan Agenda: 1. Content creation contests 2. Education projects 3. How can these be organized in a systemic way, engaging students throughout all municipal districts of Tatarstan & Tatar diaspora globally, and assessing effectiveness of measures 4. Larger Tatar language internet development, promoting content creation in the language 5. .tatar domain 6. ContentTranslation 7. Generating lists for content creation 8. Free licenses 9. Wikidata 10. Regional educational Wiki-seminar for beginners, introduction & orientation 11. Smartphone oriented educational projects around Tatar & Tatar Wikipedia (beginning with Tatar version of www.kakprav.com & on to WOK Master type ) 12. OSM in Tatar 13. The way forward: visiting WMF to discover other opportunities, MoU with WMF? Decided: 1. Almaz Valiullin to head the Working Group on behalf of the Ministry 2. Next meeting set for / around 20th of August 3. Minister requested his staff to draft documents regarding moving all Regional & Municipal budget funded websites to CC-BY type free licenses 4. Minister proposed every organization website place a link to a Wikipedia article about it (in Tatar, Russian or English, depending on the language used) 5. Help is requested about developing simple samples or article creation guidelines for various institutions of Tatarstan & diaspora organizations to learn what is considered appropriate by Wiki-community & how should representatives of respective entities 6. Annual Tatar Internet Awards Ceremony to include awards to leading editors of Wikimedia projects in Tatar 7. Help is requested to develop a framework of Wikipedia Article Contests for Secondary School Children of Tatastan, with article quality assessment schemes (prizes & organization to be funded by Tatarstan goverment, promotion in local mass-media, schools & etc.) 8. Help is requested to develop a framework for a sustainable functioning of a Tatarstan & Tatar language oriented Wikimedia thematic organization to be responsible for systemic work around developing & promoting Wikimedia projects in Tatar, as well as Tatarstan-oriented content creation for various Wikis 9. Readiness to consider awarding *.tatar domain names to those, who develop attractive projects in Tatar that can't be hosted on Wikimedia platform or otherwise need a Tatar digital identity 10. Help is requested regarding drafting a program proposal, necessary budget & expected results for a Tatarstan oriented introductory Wiki-seminar, open for a wide public 11. Help is requested to provide links to Wikidata educational materials, Practical Use Cases & expert responses to the Deputy Minister (in English) 12. Help is requested in organizing a learning visit to WMF Headquarters during Tatarstan Delegation annual fall visit to Silicon Valley & other places in U.S. to discover other opportunities -- Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan 03.08.2018, 11:42, "Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin" <frhd(a)yandex.com>: > Hi Nochole & Kui, > > Thank you for your responses & readiness to help. > > Events on the ground are developing following predictable course - we had a very constructive 3 hour long discussion last night with Tatarstan's Deputy Prime Minister (IT minister) & his team, whilst earlier Thursday I got an invite to meet with another Deputy Prime Minister (President of the National Council of Trustees for the World Congress of Tatars Association). > > More TV & magazine interviews are expected, some in detail articles in Russian promoting Wikimedia projects are in the pipelines (expecting to see the texts for necessary corrections & adding links to respective WMRU, Meta, WMF & related independent media articles (thanks to ComCom). > > I hope to find time to prepare & email both you (in English) & IT ministry's Working Group (in Russian) my summary of yesterday late evening meeting, with attendees, topics discussed, request & proposals, etc. They want to move as fast as possible, because this will help them to meet promoting Tatar language use online task they are charged with by the region's President. > > Just a few to begin with: > * Ready to move all regional and municipal government websites into CC-BY, add links to respective WP articles from all these > * Willing to have Tatarstan & Tatar language oriented thematic organization in place to work with secondary schools & Universities, GLAMS, diaspora > * Ready to sponsor prizes for article writing contests (either through WMRU or this new entity) > * Requesting guidance from myself & Wikimedia community on what's the best way to make this all successful > * Interested in supporting WMRU organized general public educational Wiki-Seminar in Tatarstan Academy of Sciences or other respected facility with a large conference hall open to all public (September-October?) > * Willing to visit WMF headquarters in November to meet, learn more about what's there (I admit I don't read all mailing lists or Meta discussions, don't have time to see all wonderful YouTube videos available, haven't yet have time to visit a single Wikimedia Conference) & possibly sign MoUs or whatever that would help speed up Wikimedia acceptance & popularity growth among the population of the region. > > I am in touch with Wikimedia RU & Wikimedia Languages of Russia Community's regarding ongoing developments, benefiting from collective wisdom of Wikimedians I know. > > Should you be ready to bring any ideas to the table, please shoot them my way. > > regards, > farhad > > -- > Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan > > 02.08.2018, 16:35, "Nichole Saad" <nsaad(a)wikimedia.org>: >> Hi Farhad, >> >> First, congratulations on being named "Wikimedian of the Year!" We have received your letter, and are looking forward to engage with your ideas. Realistically, I'll be able to provide a more in depth response early next week. >> >> best regards, >> >> Nichole >> >> On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 2:45 PM Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin <frhd(a)yandex.com> wrote: >>> Dear Sirs, >>> >>> This is from Farhad, User:frhdkazan (ComCom member, now a.k.a. 2018 Wikimedian of the Year) with some proposals about how to leverage a fleeting opportunity I got. Please read the text below this letter ASAP & think how you can help seize the moment. I'm looking forward to first ideas within 24 hours from now. >>> >>> Any support of yours would be greatly appreciated. >>> Thanks a million. >>> regards, >>> farhad >>> >>> P.S. More on where I'm coming from can later be discovered @ http://frhd.narod.ru/resume-en.htm (dated, stopped my retainer contract with the Office of Tatarstan President in September 2013) & more up-to-date but in Russian @ http://sikzn.narod.ru/index/0-4 . I have previously translated & provided digital media with the link to Russian text of Wikimedia Blog post about Jess Wade https://ru.wikinews.org/wiki/?curid=176108 , & now contacted Asian colleagues to get similar content about Nahid Sultan & Wikimedia Bangladesh. Also on my agenda is to record a video-interview in Turkish for Wikimedia Turkey's communication campaign - I speak the language & we are in touch with Turkish community. I also need to get back to interpreting into Russian videos of Wikimania-2018 available on YouTube - maybe later this week, before I join my family for a few days off & then a week-long interpretation assignment in Singapore. >>> >>> -- >>> Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan >>> >>> TRIGGER >>> Following Jimmy's unexpected pass during Wikimania-2018 Closing Ceremony, I became an instant celebrity of sort - myself alone I've seen over 40 articles with positive PR about Wikipedia & wider body of Wikimedia projects, >>> * one by RT in Russian collecting over 1.1 million Facebook likes in under 8 hours from publication >>> * short positive ones from Russian Federation government's Official gazette & Russkiy Mir Foundation >>> * first ever mention that people can donate to Wikimedia Russia volunteers organization for us to be able to fund local Wiki-seminars, conferences & contests (WMF is not funding Wikimedia Russia & can't allow us to use donate link from Russian Wikipedia or place a link to "Thank you, but we don't accept donations from Russia" page where users from Russia are being routed >>> * about to get one with links published to various WMF & Wikimedia Russia projects, including promoting free licenses, Education & GLAM programs, etc. >>> I'm periodically collecting these @ https://tt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Википедия:Безнең_турында_матбугатта#Ел_викиме… when time permits, but there's more in my Facebook Messenger. >>> >>> CONTEXT >>> This is also generating very positive attention on behalf of the Republic of Tatarstan government, as well as our regional NGO partner, Selet Youth Education Foundation, with whom yet unrecognized Tatar Wikimedians are jointly running Selet WikiSchool project. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/May_2018/Selet_WikiSchool The latter want to introduce this joint initiative, as well as Wikimedia Russia executive director Stanislav Kozlovsky (Ph.D. in Psychology, Researcher & a Senior lecturer at Moscow State University) and myself to the President of Tatarstan during his visit to their Annual International Forum of Tatar-speaking High-School Age Youth on August 6th. Unrelated to that I was yesterday called up by a good acquaintance of mine (Tatarstan Vice Prime-Minister, Minister for IT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Shaykhutdinov ), who invited me to have a talk with him tomorrow about how promoting Wikimedia projects in wider Tatar-speaking world (only about 25% of Tatars live in Tatarstan) can help him get whatever current President wants him to do to develop Tatar language use online. There are some other Tatarstan Prime-Minister Office level things in the pipeline, & I am also waiting for a call from Russian Federation ex-IT Minister https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Nikiforov , whom I know from his years in Tatarstan government as well (until 2012). FYI: Wikimedia movement is still unknown in Russia, with local mass media outlets are predominantly speaking about Wikipedia in Russian when there is some lapse that can be exploited to show one's Russian patriotism & thus score some points (basically same political circus, as what we are seeing in U.S. with Russia-collusion story in the overdrive, just opposite direction), and here we get something to reverse the situation big time, explaining to the wide public that it's not only Ok, but even desirable they engage with Wikimedia projects. >>> >>> IDEA >>> Keeping in mind that Tatarstan President is the head of both Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group & Association of Innovative Regions of Russia, Jimmy gave me a-hell-of-an-opportunity for an elevator pitch for Wikimedia movement in Russia and some adjacent counties (think Turkey & Central Asia), and I would really hate seeing it go unused. I will do my part here (about CC-BY for regional government controlled websites, Wikipedia Education Program as an extracurricular activity in all secondary school & universities, GLAM, as well as some locally funded carrots for participants), but I also want your help in driving this to a home-run. Every fall Tatarstan President & the delegation is visiting Silicon Valley & other places of interest in U.S. & it would be great if we could set-up a physical visit to Wikimedia Foundation, with a first hand presentation of best international practices the movement if proud of & have some MoU on cooperation signed (as a bureaucratic basis for continuing the conversation) with either some department in Tatarstan government, just like the one you signed with the Mexican Ministry of Culture www.eluniversal.com.mx/cultura/secretaria-de-cultura-y-wikimedia-firman-con…. To set the context, Tatarstan has such formal documents with a number of American companies & institutions, with our private English-speaking IT Univesity @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innopolis having been developed jointly with Carnegie Mellon University (with consultancy fees paid by Tatastan), we have Russia's first publicly funded hospital certified to be meeting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Commission requirements & plenty of U.S. investors @ our https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabuga_Special_Economic_Zone . On top of this, we could benefit from having Selet Youth Educational movement http://selet.biz/en/ to embrace Wiki even further, so maybe a similar MoU on collaboration between them and Wikiedu.org signed simultaneously would be great (I met LiAnna and Jami in Montreal last year & was really impressed with what these guys are doing). >>> >>> REQUEST >>> Please shoot something my way before the same time tomorrow, for me to handle the meeting with Tatarstan Deputy Prime Minister more effectively to progressively open other opportunities I've touched on. On top of what I described above & my last year's ideas @ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frhdkazan/Wiki4RegionalDevt (in Russian), I'll be bringing to the table topics of: >>> * Wikidata >>> * OSM, as well as a >>> * WOK-like project for all things in Tatar (I was contacted by a local 9th grader who, on his own initiative with a help of a teacher, did something similar for students who want to train for Russian-language SAT/ACT type exam www.kakprav.com & now offered to develop such or bigger thing for Tatar). For more on WOK, see https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/01/wikipedia-wok-seek-nigerian-content-onl… >>> * whatever else you or anybody else can help me think of until then & or later opportunities >> >> -- >> Nichole Saad >> Wikimedia Foundation | Senior Program Manager, Education >> nsaad(a)wikimedia.org >> user: NSaad (WMF) -------- Конец пересылаемого сообщения -------- -- Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan

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Update on Wikimedia site and system outages
by Heather Walls 28 Feb '20

28 Feb '20

Hello everyone, By now you are likely aware that the Wikimedia sites suffered from a relatively significant botnet driven DDOS attack on September 6th, taking them offline in several countries throughout the day. This primarily affected Wikipedia access in Europe and the Middle East. We posted a short update of the event on our website.[1] I would like to thank everyone who stepped up to support the restoration of our projects, including the fast reporting of community members throughout the world and our security and engineering teams who worked long hours to address many complex issues surrounding the attack and our response—the Site Reliability Engineering team in particular. The Wikimedia Foundation leadership team is proud to work with such talented and dedicated staff and supporters. Yours, Heather 1. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/07/malicious-attack-on-wikiped… "Today, Wikipedia was hit with a malicious attack that has taken it offline in several countries for intermittent periods. The attack is ongoing and our Site Reliability Engineering team is working hard to stop it and restore access to the site. As one of the world’s most popular sites, Wikipedia sometimes attracts “bad faith” actors. Along with the rest of the web, we operate in an increasingly sophisticated and complex environment where threats are continuously evolving. Because of this, the Wikimedia communities and Wikimedia Foundation have created dedicated systems and staff to regularly monitor and address risks. If a problem occurs, we learn, we improve, and we prepare to be better for next time. We condemn these sorts of attacks. They’re not just about taking Wikipedia offline. Takedown attacks threaten everyone’s fundamental rights to freely access and share information. We in the Wikimedia movement and Foundation are committed to protecting these rights for everyone. Right now, we’re continuing to work to restore access wherever you might be reading Wikipedia in the world. We’ll keep you posted." -- Heather Walls (she/her) Chief Creative Officer Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org

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FY1819 Fundraising Report
by Patricia Pena 25 Feb '20

25 Feb '20

Hi all, I’m excited to share with you our FY1819 Fundraising Report <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2018-19_Report>. This report is an opportunity to provide insight into our revenue model and the strategy that goes into creating an impactful fundraising campaign. A sincere thank you to the millions of donors in nearly 30 countries who support our mission. I'd also like to thank everyone who contributed and collaborated on this document: Online Fundraising, Major Gifts & Endowment, Fundraising Operations, Donor Services, Fundraising Tech, Legal, Communications, Finance and more! Special thanks to Thea Skaff for once again project managing this entire effort. We welcome your feedback and questions on the talk page. Thank you, Pats -- *Pats Pena (she/her) * Director, Online Fundraising I Wikimedia Foundation 1 Montgomery Street I San Francisco, CA 94104 ppena(a)wikimedia.org I +1 (415) 816 3349 *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/>* Please Note: If I am emailing after hours or on the weekend, it's because Wikimedia allows me an awesome flexible schedule. Please do not respond until reasonable business hours in your timezone, unless of course I am shouting for help ;-)

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Fresh data on the gender gap in content
by Asaf Bartov 10 Feb '20

10 Feb '20

Hullo everyone. I was asked by a volunteer for help getting stats on the gender gap in content on a certain Wikipedia, and came up with simple Wikidata Query Service[1] queries that pulled the total number of articles on a given Wikipedia about men and about women, to calculate *the proportion of articles about women out of all articles about humans*. Then I was curious about how that wiki compared to other wikis, so I ran the queries on a bunch of languages, and gathered the results into a table, here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ijon/Content_gap (please see the *caveat* there.) I don't have time to fully write-up everything I find interesting in those results, but I will quickly point out the following: 1. The Nepali statistic is simply astonishing! There must be a story there. I'm keen on learning more about this, if anyone can shed light. 2. Evidently, ~13%-17% seems like a robust average of the proportion of articles about women among all biographies. 3. among the top 10 largest wikis, Japanese is the least imbalanced. Good job, Japanese Wikipedians! I wonder if you have a good sense of what drives this relatively better balance. (my instinctive guess is pop culture coverage.) 4. among the top 10 largest wikis, Russian is the most imbalanced. 5. I intend to re-generate these stats every two months or so, to eventually have some sense of trends and changes. 6. Your efforts, particularly on small-to-medium wikis, can really make a dent in these numbers! For example, it seems I am personally responsible[2] for almost 1% of the coverage of women on Hebrew Wikipedia! :) 7. I encourage you to share these numbers with your communities. Perhaps you'd like to overtake the wiki just above yours? :) 8. I'm happy to add additional languages to the table, by request. Or you can do it yourself, too. :) A. [1] https://query.wikidata.org/ [2] Yay #100wikidays :) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/100wikidays -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org

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.org TLD for sale?
by Andy Mabbett 11 Jan '20

11 Jan '20

I have just seen this: https://savedotorg.org/ "The .org domain is about to be sold to a private equity firm. "Join the coalition of nonprofits opposed to this blatant disregard of the public interest." WMF are among the signatories. -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Wikimedia Café online meeting for December 2019
by Pine W 19 Dec '19

19 Dec '19

Hello colleagues, For the next Wikimedia Café online video meeting, agenda items include: * Documentation for Wikitext <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikitext> * The NavWiki <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/NavWiki> project Last month's Wikimedia Café had a problem with an inaccurate time conversion from USA Eastern time to UTC. People attempted to join the meeting at different times based on whether they referred to UTC or to US Eastern time. I apologize for the error, and I think that it has been corrected for December. The meeting style for the Café will emphasize discussion rather than presentation. People are welcome to participate as listeners only if they prefer. Please see the page on Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Caf%C3%A9> for more information about the Café. Please watch the page for any updates, particularly to the schedule or the agenda. Signing up for the meeting is optional, but is helpful to the organizers so that we can estimate how many people will attend. Signing up for the meeting also informs us who we should notify individually if there are significant changes, such as to the schedule. If there are any problems with connecting to the meeting or if you have any questions or comments then please write on the Meta talk page. Regards, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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WikiForHumanRights: Help us Organize the Campaign, November 15-January 30
by Alex Stinson 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

Hello all, and apologies for crossposting! I hope you are doing well! As you may have noticed when we announced the partnership in August [1]: the Wikimedia Foundation is working with the UN Human Rights to help expand the availability of knowledge about human rights online. As one of our first collaborations, we are going to be running a campaign from November 15 - January 30 to add and improve knowledge about human rights on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. The initial focus of the campaign will be on improving articles about topics related to the UN Declaration of Human Rights and youth standing up for human rights. More information about the campaign is also available here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiForHumanRights We would like to invite you to get involved in the campaign in one of several ways: Help us build the list! - We need your help identifying more topics related to youth involved in human rights that don’t have articles on Wikipedia or could use further improvement. We would like to represent many different languages and geographies in the campaign. To propose topics for the list, see instructions at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiForHumanRights/List#Adding_a_topic_to_t… Organize an online or offline event! We need your help finding community leaders from throughout the Wikimedia to: - Host an online campaign on your language Wikipedia! To learn more about hosting a local topical campaign see the kit here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiForHumanRights/Organize#Campaign - Hold an in person editathon with local human rights organizations or partners! To learn more, check out the kit here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiForHumanRights/Organize#Editathon Promote the campaign starting Dec. 10 for International Human Rights Day! Help us amplify your efforts around the campaign and publicize it to wide audiences. We’ll be sharing a communications toolkit (including graphics) soon with suggestions on reaching out to folks about the campaign. - Reach out to local media and supporters: Journalists and the public can help add momentum to the campaign through storytelling and spreading the word. - Promote the campaign on social media: We’ll be using #WikiForHumanRights to promote the campaign on social media, when we increase the communication to the public on 10 December If you want to help in other ways, let us know on the discuss space #human-rights tag <https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/do-you-have-questions-about-organizing-…> or by emailing Alex Stinson <astinson(a)wikimedia.org and Luisina Ferrante < educacion(a)wikimedia.org.ar> If you are interested, let us know by indicating your interest to organize in the Organize sections linked above! Note: We are still updating the communications assets for the campaign! To watch for those materials, add https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiForHumanRights/Share to your meta watchlist. Have questions? If you have questions, we are going to be hosting an office hour next Tuesday <https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/community-office-hour-wikiforhumanright…>, or you can ask questions on the discuss space #human-rights tag <https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/do-you-have-questions-about-organizing-…> . Looking forward to your engagement with the campaign! Alex Stinson, Wikimedia Foundation Luisina Ferrante, Wikimedia Argentina [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/08/16/wikimedia-and-un-human-righ… -- Alex Stinson Senior Program Strategist Wikimedia Foundation Twitter:@glamwiki/@sadads Learn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and other Wikimedia projects partner with cultural heritage organizations: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM

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Remember Wikipedia Zero.. Where is the research about the effects of its demise?
by Gerard Meijssen 09 Dec '19

09 Dec '19

Hoi, The BBC shows how dramatically expensive internet is in Africa.. For in my opinion local political reasons Wikipedia Zero has terminated. That is ok up to a point; the point being that we understand the consequences from this action. Given that our data is NOT local, people have to pay a premium. What are we going to do to compensate for expensive Wikipedia that replaced Wikipedia Zero? Did we study the effects or are we not interested in the consequences of our actions? Thanks, GerardM https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-50516888

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Q2 Fundraising Update
by Joseph Seddon 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

Hey All Just wanted to give you a quick update. With upcoming fundraising in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the USA, and the United Kingdom; along with a completed fundraising campaign in France; Q2 sees us raise approximately half of the annual funds for the Wikimedia movement and as usual the team has been very busy. Starting back in October, our E-mail fundraising programme has been running in these countries. This programme focuses on asking previous donors to reaffirm their support to Wikimedia and our English campaign will continue steadily through the rest of this calendar year. October and November also sees us test and prepare for our main English fundraising banner campaign. We do this to explore new ideas, test systems, improve workflows etc all in time for the busiest period of the year. This year we will be looking to begin the main campaign on or around Monday, December 2 and will look to fundraise through the month of December. There are a number of ways you can help support the fundraiser: ---Message Ideas--- I’ll be following up with some asks later this week for ideas around themes and ideas the fundraising team should explore in it’s messaging. In the meantime, if you have specific ideas or stories we should tell via social media, banners, emails etc. Please add them to our fundraising ideas page. ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2019-20_Fundraising_ideas) ---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 ) Many thanks -- Seddon Community and Audience Engagement Associate *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*

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Coming up: A Knowlege Equity Calendar
by Cornelius Kibelka 01 Dec '19

01 Dec '19

Hi all, I’m delighted to pre-announce a small communication initiative called “Knowledge Equity Calendar” for the upcoming weeks: Back in 2017, the Wikimedia Movement agreed on its Strategic Direction with its core goal to be the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge until 2030.[1] One priority to achieve this goal is called "Knowledge Equity" (As a social movement, we will focus our efforts on the knowledge and communities that have been left out by structures of power and privilege. We will welcome people from every background to build strong and diverse communities. We will break down the social, political, and technical barriers preventing people from accessing and contributing to free knowledge.). But what does that mean in your context? What are others already doing to translate “Knowledge Equity” from the strategic to the programmatic level? In the light of the last days and weeks of the year, we'd like to adapt the German tradition of the “Advent calendar <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar>” counting the days towards Christmas (December 1 to 24), and share one story per day via Meta[2] and Wikimedia Space blog[3] on how Wikimedians are working towards achieving Knowledge Equity in their respective context. The idea is mainly to inspire Wikimedians what other Wikimedians are already doing. We’ll use Wikimedia Deutschland's Twitter and Facebook accounts to accompany that. On Meta, the translation extension is activated – so if you like, chip in and translate the stories to your language. Or just share the stories with other Wikimedians to show what kind of cool and inspiring initiatives and projects working towards Knowledge Equity we already have in the Wikimedia movement. If you have any questions about the initiative, the stories, or what an Advent calendar is, feel free to send me a message. Happy reading and sharing, Cornelius [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Calendar [3] https://space.wmflabs.org/blog/ -- Cornelius Kibelka Internationale Beziehungen | International Relations Vorstandsteam | Office of the ED Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 http://wikimedia.de Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei! http://spenden.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207

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Fundraising needs your help
by Joseph Seddon 01 Dec '19

01 Dec '19

Hey all, (reposting due to filter rejection) Fundraising are looking for ideas and suggestions for our writing team to explore for our messaging in this years fundraiser. I only need a minute of your time to answer the following question: --- What’s your favorite thing about Wikipedia that you wish our readers and donors knew? --- We'll use the responses to generate new test ideas Post your answers on list or directly to me :) Thanks in advance -- Seddon *Community and Audience Engagement Associate* *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*

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Brief request for advice about "What's making you happy this week?"
by Pine W 30 Nov '19

30 Nov '19

Hello colleagues, I would like to ask for your advice about one issue with the "What's making you happy this week?" emails. I was hoping that people would frequently comment in the email threads and/or on the talk pages of WMYHTW publications in *The Signpost* to share what is making them happy, in the Wikiverse or elsewhere. However, comments are somewhat rare. I am concerned that some people may feel too intimidated to comment. I understand that communicating in public requires courage, but I believe that people who try to be respectful will have their comments received well by the community if they comment in these threads. Perfection is not a requirement for WMYHTW. Also, I think that public communication becomes easier with practice, and these threads would be good places for people who want to become more experienced with public communication on Wikimedia-l to practice. Is there something else that you think could be done to facilitate participation in WMYHTW? I would appreciate your advice and input. Thank you, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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[Wikimedia Announcements] The Signpost – Volume 15, Issue 11 – 29 November 2019
by Wikipedia Signpost 29 Nov '19

29 Nov '19

>From the editor: Put on your birthday best http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/From_t… News and notes: How soon for the next million articles? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/News_a… In the media: You say you want a revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/In_the… On the bright side: What's making you happy this month? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/On_the… Arbitration report: Two requests for arbitration cases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/Arbitr… Traffic report: The queen and the princess meet the king and the joker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/Traffi… Technology report: Reference things, sister things, stranger things http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/Techno… Gallery: Winter and holidays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/Gallery Recent research: Bot census; discussions differ on Spanish and English Wikipedia; how nature's seasons affect pageviews http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/Recent… Essay: Adminitis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/Essay >From the archives: WikiProject Spam, revisited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/From_t… In focus: An update on the Wikimedia Movement 2030 Strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/In_foc… Special report: How many people edit in your favorite language? Where are they from? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-11-29/Specia… Single-page view https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost/Single https://facebook.com/wikisignpost https://twitter.com/wikisignpost -- *Signpost* team http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost> _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising needs your help
by Damon Sicore 29 Nov '19

29 Nov '19

> On Nov 27, 2019, at 4:08 PM, Joseph Seddon <jseddon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > > --- What’s your favorite thing about Wikipedia that you wish our readers > and donors knew? --- That Jimmy Wales and WMF sold the rights to the Wikipedia trademark to Apple for $40k back in the early 2000s, and that Apple has the right to use it forever and the agreement cannot be cancelled without legal cause. This is why Wikipedia is embedded in every iOS search result. That Apple and Google make billions and billions of dollars off of Wikipedia content annually and that WMF refuses to charge them for their exclusive use and access. Which means that the $70mil or so in donations from Wikipedia users is really a scam because WMF lacks the courage to stand up to those corporations and charge them $1billion each per year to guarantee Wikipedia’s success. > > We'll use the responses to generate new test ideas > > Post your answers on list or directly to me :) Thanks in advance > > -- > Seddon > > *Community and Audience Engagement Associate* > *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation* > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

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Movement Strategy: New roles for working group members, synthesis underway, and more
by Nicole Ebber 28 Nov '19

28 Nov '19

Hi everyone, I’m happy to share an overview of what’s been happening in movement strategy lately. == New roles and bringing the recommendations together == >From now until the end of the year, the focus will be on identifying the overlaps in the 89 recommendations produced by the nine thematic area working groups. The goal here is to create one synthesized set of recommendations and an accessible, digestible Movement Strategy document to be shared publicly in January. To do this, we asked working group members in October to let us know if they’d be interested in continuing to contribute to the Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy in one of the following roles: Writer, connector, or reviewer.[1] 15 have signed up to be writers, 10 as connectors, and 17 as reviewers. Writers will look for overlaps and similarities in the existing content to see where multiple recommendations could be merged and unified. Connectors will work closely with writers to help them improve and expand the content and assess how and where to best integrate phase 1 material, research, and community input. Reviewers will go through the synthesized recommendations and provide specific additional perspectives, expertise, contexts, and advice as needed. The writers are currently in a high period of activity, which began in early November and will run through December, with ongoing support from the connectors. Alongside bringing together the existing recommendations, they are also defining principles that underpin and guide the content of these recommendations. The writers will come together in Berlin in the first week of December to work intensively on consolidating the recommendations and finalize the work. == Next steps == When the synthesized recommendations are ready and published in early 2020, a final round of movement conversations will take place. Movement stakeholders will have a chance to understand the path towards these recommendations and to review the semi-final document. The final recommendations will be presented to the Board of Trustees in March and subsequently to the movement for approval. The first step towards implementation will be discussing prioritization and sequencing of the recommendations, as well as agreeing upon responsibilities for bringing each recommendation to life.[2] We’ll keep you posted on future developments and more concrete steps towards approval here and on Wikimedia Space, so stay tuned! Best wishes, Nicole [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working… [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Overvie… -- Nicole Ebber Leiterin Internationale Beziehungen Program Manager Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 https://wikimedia.de Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei! https://spenden.wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

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Wikimedians involved in association football
by Douglas Ssebaggala 28 Nov '19

28 Nov '19

Dear African Wikimedians, Warm greetings from Uganda, this message comes as a follow up from the meet-up for Wikimedians interested in Sports [1]. Incase you missed Wiki Indaba or were not able to participate in the above meet up, please find the general notes/outlines on etherpad (you are kindly requested to *read this brief background* <https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Meet_up_for_Wikimedians_interested_in_Spor…> and feedback) Another feedback channel [2] has been created for your input (*the form <https://forms.gle/ghUHVfiN1x5GtCgo6> takes less than two minutes to fill*), it's being shared with Wikimedians on other channels *(apologies for cross posting)*, and will be shared with more communities in the open/free knowledge Movement. Your responses are highly appreciated, and results will be shared back with you: [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2019/Meetups [2] https://forms.gle/ghUHVfiN1x5GtCgo6 Regards, *Please note* *This form is meant to understand and plan community activities (events, projects, e.t.c) by and with Wikimedians who have a passion in association football. Results will be used to avoid duplication, create collaboration or create new Wikimedia Community initiatives among affiliates and project communities within the open and free knowledge movement* *Wikimedian volunteer in Uganda <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Uganda> * *Ssebaggala Douglas | **Skype: douglo.m |** Twitter**:* @douglaseru <https://twitter.com/douglaseru> | *Mob - Uganda: +256 772 422524*

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Wikimedia Summit 2020: Registration closes December 16
by Cornelius Kibelka 27 Nov '19

27 Nov '19

Dear Wikimedians, If you wish to be part of the Wikimedia Summit 2020 [1] and you are not yet registered, please be reminded that registration closes on Monday, December 16, 2019. You can sign up using the link below [2]. == Eligibility criteria == Please have the eligibility criteria [3] for participating in the Wikimedia Summit in mind and make sure that your affiliate is marked as ready to register before filling out the registration form. Chapters, Thematic Organizations and User Groups must have shown signs of recent activity, be up-to-date on their reporting by December 1, 2019 [4] and need to be officially recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation before January 1, 2019 in order to attend the Wikimedia Summit. So far, 8 (eight) affiliates are not up to date with their reporting and thus not eligible for the Summit. It’s all set and you have been selected to represent your affiliate? Then please proceed with submitting the registration form [5]. Best regards, Cornelius, Jana, Florian For the Wikimedia Summit Organizing Team Wikimedia Deutschland wmsummit(a)wikimedia.de [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020 [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020/Registration_Informat… [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020/Eligibility_Criteria [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020/Registration_Informat… -- Cornelius Kibelka Internationale Beziehungen | International Relations Vorstandsteam | Office of the ED Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 http://wikimedia.de Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei! http://spenden.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207

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Paid translation pilot underway - seeking additional German, Chinese, and Russian translators
by Gregory Varnum 26 Nov '19

26 Nov '19

Hello! The Wikimedia Foundation's new “Organization communications translators group” pilot is now underway. We are ready for additional translators to join! In particular, we are in need of additional German, Chinese, and Russian translators. We are looking for 3–5 translators in each of the target languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Russian, and Spanish) to join this pilot for paid translations, which will last for the remainder of this fiscal year. Individuals interested in participating should apply via this Wikimedia Foundation position posting: https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/1795900 == More information == This is a new translation model we are testing for Wikimedia Foundation materials primarily used in external communications (such as the Foundation's website, transparency report, and organizational policies). These tend to be much longer than the materials for which we generally seek translations, and demand more stringent requirements with respect to precision, quality, and deadlines. For translations of this nature, fair paid compensation is often necessary. This model was developed based on experiences with past translation efforts and feedback from community translators, affiliates, and staff within the Foundation. It is not a replacement for existing translation work, and will not be used for materials such as project articles, fundraising, or other content which has an existing translation model in place. We will be testing this model over the coming months, and will make changes based on feedback and what we learn. For more information, please visit this Meta-Wiki page: https://w.wiki/CkV Thank you! -greg -- Gregory Varnum (pronouns - he/his/him) Communications Strategist Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>

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TLS
by Benjamin Ikuta 25 Nov '19

25 Nov '19

Was support for legacy TLS temporarily discontinued or something? I noticed I couldn't connect the other day, but now it seems I can again. For what it's worth, I strongly oppose any measure that makes Wikimedia projects less accessible.

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Meet Srpska 2019
by WМ RepublikaSrpska 24 Nov '19

24 Nov '19

Hi all! It is my pleasure to inform you on behalf of the Wikimedia Community of Republic of Srpska that the realization of the Meet Srpska 2019 project has started with us. This is a contest that takes place on Serbian Wikipedia, aimed at creating content related to Republic of Srpska. In addition to the competitions that are the mainstay of the project, there are other activities in the background - editing workshops and photo tours of a local character. Also, a cooperation with a few of international Wiki partners has been established: Wikimedia Community User Group Greece, Wikimedians of the Levant , GLAM Macedonia User Group, Wikimedia Russia and Don Wikimedians User Group. By the end of December, they will organize thematic activities in their countries and on their home Wikipedia, in which articles on Republic of Srpska will be translated. If anyone wants to join and contribute to the project, they can do so through this page <Википедија:Упознај Српску 2019/Welcome!>. Best, Bojana Podgorica Wikimedia Community of Republic of Srpska *„**Замислите свијет у коме **свака особа на планети има **слободан приступ цјелокупном људском знању.* *То је * *оно на чему ми радимо.“*

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What's making you happy this week? (Week of 24 November 2019) / ما الذي يجعلك تشعر بالسعادة هذا الأسبوع؟
by Pine W 24 Nov '19

24 Nov '19

*Milestone for Arabic Wikipedia* Arabic Wikipedia surpassed 1 million articles. <https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9…> *Wikimedia Technical Conference reports* - Daily reports by User:DTankersley (WMF) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DTankersley_(WMF)> - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-November/092746.html - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-November/092748.html - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-November/092755.html - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-November/092765.html - Math report by User:physikerwelt <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Physikerwelt> - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-November/092771.html *English Wikiquote of the day for 10 November 2019* "All writers … have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were — to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all." — Science fiction and fantasy author Neil Gaiman <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman> of England <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England> *Recent featured media on English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons* * Image 1 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WInd_Rose_Aguiar.svg>: Replica of a compass rose <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass_rose> from a chart of Portuguese cartographer Jorge de Aguiar <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18397388> that was made in the year 1492 * Image 2 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Lovers_Beneath_an_Umbrella_in_t…>: *Two Lovers Beneath an Umbrella in the Snow*, by Suzuki Harunobu <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Harunobu>, color woodblock print in the Ukiyo-e <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e> style, circa 1767 * Image 3 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_Baths_in_Bath_Spa,_England_-_…>: The Roman Baths (*Thermae* <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermae>) of Bath Spa, England <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Baths_(Bath)>. Buildings on the site have been created and modified several times from circa 60–70 A.D. onward. * Image 4 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_Hippopotamus_MET_DP248993.…>: Hippopotamus statuette <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Faience_Hippopotamus> from circa 1961–1878 B.C., during the reigns of Senwosret I <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senwosret_I> to Senwosret II <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senwosret_II>, in Egypt <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt>. (Credit to the authors of this article <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Faience_Hippopotamus> for the description of the statuette which is the basis for the following text, which I adapted from their original; I presume that the text is licensed according to Wikipedia's normal text license <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attributio…>): "According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art> *Bulletin*... this statuette is a "particularly fine example of a type found... among the funerary furnishings of tombs of the Middle Kingdom" and also an exemplary piece of Egyptian faience <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_faience>." * Image 5 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baha%27i_Temple_--_Wilmette_,_IL_--…>: Video taken by an unmanned aerial vehicle <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle> of the Bahá'í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, United States <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_House_of_Worship_(Wilmette…> * Image 6 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HR_8799_Orbiting_Exoplanets.gif>: Arabic description <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language>: العربية: أربع مشتريات هائلة تدور حول النجم HR 8799 (في المنتصف) خِلال فترةٍ زمنيَّةٍ تتراوح بين عُقُودٍ إلى قُرُونٍ. استُخدمت تقنيَّة إقحام الحركة على 7 صُور لِلنجم HR 8799 المُلتقة بِواسطة مقراب كك على مدار 7 سنوات في سبيل صنع هذه الصُورة.‎. English description: HR 8799 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HR_8799> harbors four super-Jupiters orbiting with periods that range from decades to centuries. Motion interpolate was used on 7 images of HR 8799 taken from the Keck Telescope <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keck_Telescope> over 7 years to create this image. (Arabic description provided by User:باسم <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%85>; English description provided by User:Hunster <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Huntster>; text licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.) Closing comments * Additional translations of the subject line of this email would be appreciated on Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine/WMYHTW_translations>. Thanks to User:Haytham abulela <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Haytham_abulela> for the Arabic <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language> translation. * What’s making you happy this week? You are welcome to write in any language. You are also welcome to start a WMYHTW thread next week. Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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Wikimedia-l November 2019