Wikimedia-l February 2019

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99 participants
59 discussions

Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changed plus next steps
by Nataliia Tymkiv 22 Feb '19

22 Feb '19

Hello all! The Wikimedia Foundation Board has unanimously approved the changes to the Bylaws [1] during the last Board meeting on January 30, 2019. This will be covered in the minutes, and the resolution will be published in short order. This change allows the participation of User Groups [2] in the Affiliate-selected Board seats (ASBS) 2019 process [3]. The discussion about this process should start as soon as possible in order to have these two seats selected by Wikimania. This is why we are sending this letter now, before the resolution is published. There are now over 100 recognized User Groups, covering over 50 countries, several languages and topics, many of whom represent new and emergent communities within the Wikimedia movement. The Board believes that the added perspectives of the User Groups, combined with the voices of Chapters and Thematic Organizations, will lead to a richer collection of guidance for our movement. The conversation about how User Groups may participate in this process has been on for years, it is not a new topic [4]. Once the facilitators of the Selection process are appointed by the affiliates, they should work with María Sefidari, who has been chosen by the Board as the Board liaison for the ASBS process. Given the potential complexity of organizing a process that now will include over a hundred user groups, the Wikimedia Foundation is offering its support to set up infrastructure and help with communications if requested by the affiliates. A page for translation can be found at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Wikimed… On behalf of the Board antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv Chair of the Board Governance Committee [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws/December_2018_-… [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019 [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws/January_2014_-_… *NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in advance!*

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New Affiliations Committee appointments
by Farah Jack Mustaklem 22 Feb '19

22 Feb '19

Hi everyone, I'm pleased to announce that Reda Kerbouche, Manavpreet Kaur, and May Hachem have appointed to the Affiliations Committee as new members. In addition, two incumbent members -- Kirill Lokshin and Camelia Boban -- have been re-appointed for an additional term. Please join me in welcoming our new and returning members. The committee extends its profound gratitude to Tanweer Morshed, who is stepping down after having served three years on the committee, and to everyone who participated in the recent selection process, whether by standing as a candidate or by providing feedback on the applications. Regards, Farah Mustaklem Affiliations Committee

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Invitation to a "Wikimedia Café" casual online meetup
by Pine W 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

Hi folks, Based on comments that I received on Wikimedia-l, I would like to invite people to a casual online meetup one hour before the monthly WMF Metrics and Activities Meeting. There will be no set agenda. You can come with questions or ideas that you would like to discuss. Please be willing to listen to questions and ideas from other Wikimedians. I will host the meeting with the Zoom software. You can join with software or by using your phone. If you join by phone then your phone number will be visible to other participants. The primary language of the meeting will be English, but if people would like to communicate in diverse languages then that is okay too. We can facilitate translation by text chat. Many Wikimedians, myself included, are multilingual in varying degrees, so we might try to have live interpretation also. Here is information about how to connect: Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/136978210 Or iPhone one-tap : Argentina: +543415122188,,136978210# Or Telephone: Dial (for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): Argentina: +54 341 512 2188 Australia: +61 (0) 2 8015 2088 or +61 (0) 8 7150 1149 Canada: +1 647 558 0588 Hong Kong, China: +852 5808 6088 France: +33 (0) 1 8288 0188 or +33 (0) 7 5678 4048 Germany: +49 (0) 30 3080 6188 or +49 (0) 30 5679 5800 Israel: +972 (0) 3 978 6688 Italy: +39 069 480 6488 Japan: +81 (0) 3 4578 1488 or +81 524 564 439 Mexico: +52 229 910 0061 or +52 554 161 4288 Spain: +34 84 368 5025 or +34 91 198 0188 Sweden: +46 (0) 7 6692 0434 or +46 (0) 8 4468 2488 Russia: +7 495 283 9788 United Kingdom: +44 (0) 20 3051 2874 or +44 (0) 20 3695 0088 US: +1 408 638 0986 or +1 646 558 8665 Meeting ID: 136 978 210 International numbers available: https://zoom.us/u/ekaPibJIy The first "Wikimedia Café" meetup will be on 30 August 2018, at 17:00 UTC / 10:00 Pacific. Let me emphasize that the environment won't be like this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:West_Hartford,_Connecticut_health_care_r…>, so please don't feel intimated if you are nervous about public speaking. (If a conversation feels to me like it is becoming uncivil or intimidating, then I will ask the debaters to quiet themselves or to move to somewhere else.) The meeting will generally have an environment that is more like this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caf%C3%A9_M%C3%A9lange,_Wien.jpg> or this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Takamatsu-Castle-Building-Interior-M3488…>. I anticipate that few people will come, which is okay. I hope that if you come then you will enjoy the environment and conversation. Until next time, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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International Mother Language Day 2019 data-thon
by Bodhisattwa Mandal 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

Hi all, The International Mother Language Day 2019 data-thon <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_India/Events/IMLD_2019> has started today. Everyone is welcome to join. Regards, Bodhisattwa

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[Wikimedia Research Showcase] February 20 at 11:30 AM PST, 19:30 UTC
by Janna Layton 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

Hello everyone, The next Research Showcase, “The_Tower_of_Babel.jpg” and “A Warm Welcome, Not a Cold Start,” will be live-streamed next Wednesday, February 20, 2019, at 11:30 AM PST/19:30 UTC. The first presentation is about how images are used across language editions, and the second is about new editors. YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jpJIFXwlEg As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research. You can also watch our past research showcases here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase This month's presentations: The_Tower_of_Babel.jpg: Diversity of Visual Encyclopedic Knowledge Across Wikipedia Language Editions By Shiqing He (presenting, University of Michigan), Brent Hecht (presenting, Northwestern University), Allen Yilun Lin (Northwestern University), Eytan Adar (University of Michigan), ICWSM'18. Across all Wikipedia language editions, millions of images augment text in critical ways. This visual encyclopedic knowledge is an important form of wikiwork for editors, a critical part of reader experience, an emerging resource for machine learning, and a lens into cultural differences. However, Wikipedia research--and cross-language edition Wikipedia research in particular--has thus far been limited to text. In this paper, we assess the diversity of visual encyclopedic knowledge across 25 language editions and compare our findings to those reported for textual content. Unlike text, translation in images is largely unnecessary. Additionally, the Wikimedia Foundation, through the Wikipedia Commons, has taken steps to simplify cross-language image sharing. While we may expect that these factors would reduce image diversity, we find that cross-language image diversity rivals, and often exceeds, that found in text. We find that diversity varies between language pairs and content types, but that many images are unique to different language editions. Our findings have implications for readers (in what imagery they see), for editors (in deciding what images to use), for researchers (who study cultural variations), and for machine learning developers (who use Wikipedia for training models). A Warm Welcome, Not a Cold Start: Eliciting New Editors' Interests via Questionnaires By Ramtin Yazdanian (presenting, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne) Every day, thousands of users sign up as new Wikipedia contributors. Once joined, these users have to decide which articles to contribute to, which users to reach out to and learn from or collaborate with, etc. Any such task is a hard and potentially frustrating one given the sheer size of Wikipedia. Supporting newcomers in their first steps by recommending articles they would enjoy editing or editors they would enjoy collaborating with is thus a promising route toward converting them into long-term contributors. Standard recommender systems, however, rely on users' histories of previous interactions with the platform. As such, these systems cannot make high-quality recommendations to newcomers without any previous interactions -- the so-called cold-start problem. Our aim is to address the cold-start problem on Wikipedia by developing a method for automatically building short questionnaires that, when completed by a newly registered Wikipedia user, can be used for a variety of purposes, including article recommendations that can help new editors get started. Our questionnaires are constructed based on the text of Wikipedia articles as well as the history of contributions by the already onboarded Wikipedia editors. We have assessed the quality of our questionnaire-based recommendations in an offline evaluation using historical data, as well as an online evaluation with hundreds of real Wikipedia newcomers, concluding that our method provides cohesive, human-readable questions that perform well against several baselines. By addressing the cold-start problem, this work can help with the sustainable growth and maintenance of Wikipedia's diverse editor community. -- Janna Layton (she, her) Administrative Assistant - Audiences & Technology Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>

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Next Wikimedia monthly activities meeting will be on 22 February
by Gregory Varnum 20 Feb '19

20 Feb '19

Greetings, Our next Wikimedia monthly activities meeting will be on 22 February 2019. More information will be available on Meta-Wiki: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings But wait?!? What about January? Good catch! We are cancelling this month's meeting due to scheduling issues. In short, there is a lot going on this month for the Wikimedia Foundation and other planned presenters. As a result, we did not feel we could put on an effective meeting. If you are interested in presenting at a future meeting, we want to hear from you! Please visit the sign-up page on Meta-Wiki: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings/Sign_… -greg -- Gregory Varnum (pronouns - he/his/him) Communications Strategist Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>

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Minor update: AWight upgrading to "volunteer" Wikimedian
by Adam Wight 19 Feb '19

19 Feb '19

Greetings, This is just a courtesy notice that I'm no longer employed by the Wikimedia Foundation as of the end of the month, but will continue to stay engaged as a volunteer. I see this as an opportunity, since I'll be free of the conflict of interest caused by my financial and legal relationship as an employee. I'm looking forward to rejoining the volunteer community, if you will have me :-) Please contact me through my wiki page [[mw:User:Adamw]], and do drop a line on my talk page if any of the projects listed there catch your fancy! Kind regards, Adam

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Developing instructional material for Wikidata Query Service
by Michal Lester 18 Feb '19

18 Feb '19

Dear all, One recurring phenomenon we encounter when we present Wikidata to various audiences, is the enthusiasm with they react to the Wikidata Query Service, and the possibilities it offers for extracting specific information from the vast network of linked and structured data contained in Wikidata. This enthusiasm is not surprising, as the query feature of Wikidata is quite unique within the landscape of information services available today. The Wikidata Query Service is powered by SPARQL – a semantic query language for databases. Unfortunately, for users who are new to Wikimedia platforms, there is currently little instructional material on how to learn SPARQL for use in Wikidata. At Wikimedia Israel we believe that a user-friendly tutorial to Queries/SPARQL will attract new users to engage with Wikidata and help build a community around the project. In recent years, Wikimedia Israel has developed online instructional materials, such as the Wikipedia courseware and the guide for creating encyclopedic content. We plan to use our experience in this field, and in collaboration with Wikimedia Deutschland, we intend to develop a website with a step-by-step tutorial to learn how to use the Wikidata Query Service. The instructional material will be available in three languages (Hebrew, Arabic and English) but it will be possible to add the same instructions in other languages. We are quite confident that having a tutorial that explains and teaches the Query Service will help expand Wikidata to new audiences worldwide. *Best regards,* *Michal Lester,* *Executive DirectorWikimedia Israel*

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Please welcome the Wikimedia Foundation's new Chief Operating Officer, Janeen Uzzell
by Katherine Maher 15 Feb '19

15 Feb '19

Hello all! I am delighted to share with you that we have added a Chief Operating Officer to the Wikimedia Foundation leadership (c-level) team. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Janeen Uzzell. Janeen started on January 23rd, in time for the Foundation's All Hands retreat late last month, and has since been working out of our office in San Francisco. Janeen was most recently the head of Women in Technology for GE, where she worked with GE’s global CEOs to revise practices across their workforce of 300,000 employees, increasing the number of women in technology roles. Previously, she was GE’s Global Director of External Affairs and Technology Programs, and before that, she spent 5 years as Director of Healthcare Programs for GE Africa, based in Accra, Ghana. She also served as the Director of Global Healthcare Programs, Director of Healthcare Disparity Programs, and Director of Service Operations for GE. Janeen has nearly two decades of experience implementing the design and use of technology to drive impact on global outcomes. She is a people developer, transformational leader, storyteller, engineer and self-proclaimed “global citizen” — with a passion for incubation and impact. She says she is on a mission to use her influence and voice to lead casual work that changes lives, communities and the world. She has a MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. The Chief Operating Officer is not a new role for the Foundation, although we haven't had one recently. As the Foundation has grown in recent years, I've been talking to both the Board and the c-team about the value of reinstating the COO role. We all agreed this was an important addition to the Foundation to help us become more effective. At the end of 2018, we met Janeen while recruiting for a different position. After completing the interview process, many people felt as though she had the skills for the Chief Operating Officer role. While we generally do not hire before a job is posted, we also do not like to miss out on opportunities. So, in consultation with and support from the Board and c-team team, we agreed to create this new role and ask Janeen to join the Foundation. As the Foundation continues to grow and work to meet the needs of the Wikimedia communities, Janeen's expertise will be instrumental in helping the organization continue to meet the needs of our growing and evolving movement. Please join me in welcoming Janeen to the Foundation and to the incredible Wikimedia community! Katherine PS. A public announcement has also been posted on our blog: https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/02/12/wikimedia-foundation-appoints-ja… -- Katherine Maher (she/her) Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>

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Proposed changes to the Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws
by María Sefidari 15 Feb '19

15 Feb '19

Dear all, The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is considering amending the Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws. Nataliia Tymkiv, Chair of the Board Governance Committee, is leading this process. She has posted the proposed changes on Meta for discussion <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws/December_2018_-…> prior to our vote on them during the Board meeting scheduled for January 23, 2019. We invite you to comment on the proposal's talk page. As usual in these cases, two weeks are provided for community comment, from December 7 to December 21. By making the proposed changes to the Bylaws, the Board intends to achieve three goals: *1. Include User Groups in the trustee selection process* Though User Groups have existed as a model of affiliation within the Wikimedia movement for a number of years, they have not been included together with Chapters and Thematic Organizations as participants in selecting Wikimedia Foundation trustees. There are now over 100 recognized User Groups, many of which represent emerging communities within the Wikimedia movement. The Board believes that the perspectives of User Groups combined with those of Chapters and Thematic Organizations will lead to the selection of the best trustee candidates. The Board acknowledges that the ongoing Wikimedia movement strategy process may result in changes to many aspects of the Wikimedia movement, including the structure of movement affiliates. As a result, any changes we make now to the Foundation Bylaws regarding the role of affiliates in the trustee selection process may need to be modified again in the future, in turn requiring additional amendments to the Bylaws. However, the Board did not want to delay providing User Groups with a voice in the upcoming 2019 trustee selection process. *2. Raise term limits for trustees from two to three consecutive terms* Term limits for trustees were added to the Bylaws in 2015. At the time, there was a desire on the Board to bring in new voices and specific skill-sets needed for the growth and development of Wikimedia projects. The changes made at that time have resulted in some notable successes in that regard. The Board remains committed to seeking out new voices, and providing the community with ample opportunities to promote such voices as candidates for the Board. As the Wikimedia movement and the Wikimedia Foundation think forward further to the future, the Board will need to oversee the Foundation in setting, following through on, and achieving longer-term goals. The Board believes it will be better able to fulfill its role if it allows for the potential of a longer time on the Board for individual trustees who bring essential expertise and insight to the Board. The possibility of serving one additional term on the Board also reduces the amount of time the Board and Foundation staff spend on trustee recruitment and onboarding. Raising the maximum number of consecutive terms a trustee may serve from two to three terms achieves these goals, and is also consistent with the practice of many other boards. Raising the maximum number of terms that can be served consecutively does not change the fact that the community, including affiliates, will continue to be able to determine every three years whether or not to re-elect currently serving trustees or whether to elect new candidates - just as is the case now. *3. Reaffirm the Board’s commitment to diversity* The Wikimedia movement is global, built on a vision of reaching every single human being and working toward a strategic goal of knowledge equity for all. The Board believes that it can best serve the Wikimedia Foundation and the movement by reflecting a wide range of human experiences. We want to underscore and codify this belief in the Bylaws by adding express language affirming our commitment to diversity and inclusion of all voices, throughout our communities - new, older and emerging. Kind regards, María Sefidari Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board

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Wikimedia-l February 2019