Hello
In a recent blog post *A German court forced us to remove part of a
Wikipedia article’s ‘history.’ Here’s what that means* at
https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/04/11/a-german-court-forced-us-to-remo…
Jacob
Rogers and Alison Davenport write
> A German court ruled in September of last year that the content was in
fact defamatory, largely because the source in question had been taken
offline—what we call “link rot.”
This is not correct, and suggests that the lessons of this affair have not
been fully taken on board by WMF Legal, and that gives rise to the risk
that they WMF may be giving bad advice to volunteers, leaving them -- and
the Foundation of course -- exposed to further legal claims.
The first reason that the court found that the content was defamatory was
that it was both damaging to Prof, Weibel's reputation and, importantly,
*false*. The statements relied were irresponsible media speculation. The
second reason was that under German law the definition of a reliable source
is significantly more restrictive than that commonly held by Wikipedians.
The third reason was that the WMF had failed to respond correctly, in terms
of German law, to Prof. Weibel's complaint. None of these have anything to
do with "link rot". If volunteers are left with the impression that they
are somehow safe from libel action in Germany provided that links are kept
up to date, then that is dangerously misleading. This error is compinded
by the statement
> it does not impose any new editorial standards on individual Wikipedia
contributors
which is incorrect: as noted, the definition of a reliable source in the
applicable law is different from Wikipedia's editorial standards.
If the WMF is claiming to give legal advice to volunteers, it needs to
ensure that the advice it gives is correct.
JPS
>
Congratulations, Rocío!
*Itzik Edri*
Chairperson (volunteer)
itzik(a)wikimedia.org.il
+972-54-5878078
On Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 5:55 AM Marco Correa Pérez <
marco.correa(a)wikimediachile.cl> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> *Wikimedia Chile* (WMCL) held its annual General Assembly on April 13th,
> which was also the beginning of a new term of our Board (2019-2021). All
> the members from the 2017-2019 Board were reelected for the next two years,
> and the positions were filled as follows:
>
> - Rocío Consales, Chair;
> - Marco Correa: Vicechair;
> - Carlos Figueroa, Secretary;
> - Osmar Valdebenito, Treasurer;
> - Dennis Tobar, Director:
> - Claudio Loader, Director.
>
> We are glad to have Rocío serving as the new president of WMCL, not just
> for her amazing work as volunteer and Board Member, but also because she is
> the first woman to hold this position in our chapter's history.
> Congratulations, Rocío!
>
> Best regards,
>
> *Marco Correa Pérez*
> Vicechair - Wikimedia Chile
> http://www.wikimediachile.cl
> _______________________________________________
> Chairpersons mailing list
> Chairpersons(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/chairpersons
>
Hello!
Do you or someone you know have some great communication skills or ideas to
offer the Wikimedia movement? If so, this might be an exciting opportunity
to engage with some high-level work for Wikimedia communications!
As we mentioned last month,[1] the Wikimedia Foundation's Communications
department is seeking 10-15 individuals to work with us over the next three
years to deepen our department's work with the community and increase
overall support for communications work across the movement.
If you are interested in joining the new 10-15 person Communications
committee, please send an email to gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org by 17 April 2019
and include:
1. Acknowledgement that this is a three-year appointment and you are indeed
interested and able to serve.
2. Your community and staff (if you have any) usernames which you use on
Wikimedia projects. Also any information on other roles you may have within
the movement (please include both staff and volunteer roles). Please note
that you must be in good standing (ie. not blocked) on the wikis to
participate.
3. A brief statement on why you would like to serve on the Communications
committee, and in particular what you believe you can bring to the group
and what you hope to gain from the experience.
4. A brief statement on what ideas, if any, you have for what the new
Communications committee could do or how the Foundation could help support
its efforts.
If you are interested, but need a little more time to get your responses
together, no problem - just send me an email (gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org) before
17 April 2019 so I know you are interested.
The inaugural committee will be selected by the Communications department
in the coming weeks.
We are hoping to find a diverse group of individuals from around the world
to bring their regional, cultural, and language expertise to our
communications work. Please share this invitation with others in your
Wikimedia networks and communities who you believe may be interested.
Thank you!
-greg
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee/Call_for_members_-…
--
Gregory Varnum (pronouns - he/his/him)
Communications Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hoi,
Our projects, our organisation is fractured. In the perception of many we
are Wikipedia but in actuality there is no Wikipedia, there are over 180
Wikipedias. There are projects other than Wikipedia but for all kinds of
reasons they are not known, as a brand they have little recognition. At
this time we are considering how we can be our best in the future. One
recommendation of a marketing organisation is to rename the whole lot and
become "Wikipedia"..
Another approach is to strengthen the "Wikimedia" brand. This proposal aims
to achieve exactly that.
It has been said all too often: "sharing in the sum of all knowledge.." Our
knowledge is fractured like our projects and in a "Wikimedia search
engine" we change our focus from article/text centred to subject centred.
This brings the result from our projects together in one display. Like
other search engines, results are presented in a tabbed display. Obviously
it will have images from Commons, data presentations from Wikidata,
articles from Wikipedias, search results from "your" Wikipedia, dictionary
content from Wiktionary books from Wikisource.. All the components we have,
it is just a matter of sticking things together. This is not hard.
In the 2030 proposals we aim to collaborate widely. So what could it mean
for libraries.. Why not have a tab where you can search *your* library and
reserve a book. Why not point to OpenLibrary as well for books available
for reading. So what could it mean for science. Obviously all the
references used in every Wikipedia are known. We know about the public data
in ORCiD and for all the scientists involved we have a Scholia. For all the
publications we have a Scholia. For all the universities we have a Scholia.
For every subject studied in academia we have a Scholia. In a next
generation of Scholia the information is localised.
The "Wikimedia search engine is not only about consuming information, it is
also a Wiki. People can sign on using their Wikimedia profile or a profile
of one of the organisations we collaborate with. In this way a scientist
may trigger an update from ORCiD and update his Scholia .. he may even
update his ORCiD data from Crossref if there are new publications. When a
word, a concept is not known we will ask to provide us with the necessary
meta data to possibly link it to known. When a word for a subject in a
language is unknown, we ask people to link it to words for the same concept
in an other language improving search. We enable people interested in
pictures to upload their pictures in order to improve our coverage of any
and all subjects.
The best part.. We do not have to provide all of this in one go. Our
strategy aims for 2030. Having said that, I am sure that most of this can
be functioning within a few months.
Thanks,
GerardM
The Wikimedia Community Tech team is in the final stretch of their
Community Wishlist 2017 work and recently announced the beta launch of
the 'Event Metrics' project they worked on for the #3 wish. Since the
initial proposal [1] was to improve Wiki Education's program
organizing and metrics tool Programs & Events Dashboard [2], we've
heard from a lot of people worried that Event Metrics [3] is supposed
to be a replacement for the Dashboard or that the Dashboard is going
away.
To clear up any potential confusion: Wiki Education will keep
supporting Programs & Events Dashboard as part of our commitment to
making our technology work as useful as possible to the rest of the
Wikimedia movement. Our newly-expanded Technology department, along
with many awesome volunteers and interns, is more committed than ever
to improving the Dashboard as tool for global programs, because it's
been so essential for many of you.
Programs & Events Dashboard recently passed the milestone of 4,000
programs, from more than 100 different wikis, and more than 28,000
editors have logged in [4].
For those who haven't used it before, or haven't done so in a while,
some of the useful features include:
* Account registration for in-person edit-a-thons — to avoid getting
stopped by the IP limit for new accounts
* Automatically updated metrics for articles edited, number of edits,
Commons uploads, etc. [5]
* Additional downloadable metrics, including 7-day retention of new
editors, the complete list of edits made
* For English and Portuguese Wikipedia, tools for monitoring which
articles are involved in deletion processes [6]
* Translatable, wiki-editable training modules for newcomers [7]
* For all the languages with ORES "article quality" models, extra data
and visualizations based on ORES estimates
We have some additional features planned for the near future as well:
* Metrics for number of citations added
* Wikidata metrics for claims created and references added
If you have feature requests or complaints, please do let us know
either on the Meta talk page [8] or by opening an issue on GitHub [9].
Our team is small, so we rely heavily on the feedback we get from
Programs & Events Dashboard users to identify problems and make
improvements.
-Sage Ross
Wiki Education
----
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2017/Programs_and…
[2] https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/
[3] https://eventmetrics.wmflabs.org/
[4] https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/usage
[5] https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Wikimedia_ZA/Wiki_Loves_Afric…
[6] https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/campaigns/artfeminism_2019/alerts
[7] https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/training/editing-wikipedia/editing-ba…
[8] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Programs_%26_Events_Dashboard
[9] https://github.com/WikiEducationFoundation/WikiEduDashboard/issues/new/choo…
I would like to send some proposals, less than a kilobyte each, to
this email list, but just in case I would like to know whether anyone
seeing this would prefer that I not send them. Please let me know.
Thank you. Best regards, -Jim
Hi all,
The Election Facilitators met on Friday, April 5. We finalized the
resolution, which is now frozen.[1] The Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia
Foundation will be asked to approve the resolution.
We have made two small changes to be more inclusive. We extended the date
for compliance with AffCom reporting and being in good standing to May 8 to
allow time for as many Affiliates as possible to be current with these
requirements. The Election Facilitators adjusted the language in case a
quorum is not met during the election.
On the talk page of the resolution one issue was raised. The issue looks
like to be about a possible candidate. Affiliates will have ample time to
discuss the merits of candidates during nomination time, screening time,
and they can cast their votes on candidates. The Election Facilitators
didn't see the necessity for this change, and left the resolution on this
point unchanged.
The Election Facilitators will be Abhinav Srivastava, Lane Rasberry,
Jeffrey Keefer, Ad Huikeshoven, Neal McBurnett and Alessandro Marchetti. We
will welcome more volunteers to assist us in this process, to reach out to
the diversity in language and gender in our communities, and do so in an
advisory role.
The nomination period opens op April 15. We are going to prepare nomination
pages on meta. You can expect a call for nominations. There is a draft
call, including a candidates' profile section with non-binding guidelines
about experience and characteristics for nominees.[2] You are welcome to
add your insights, or discuss on the talk page.
Erica Litrenta (WMF staff) supports us in this process. She will reach out
to all affiliates through mail and other channels to make sure we are up to
date with (user)name and contact details of your primary contact.
On behalf of the Election Facilitators,
Ad Huikeshoven
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/Resolution_2…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Call_fo…
Hi everyone,
I'm pleased to announce the first draft of the Wikimedia Foundation’s
Medium-Term
Plan
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/Medium-ter…>!
[1] We intentionally designed a process that will enable the Foundation’s
medium-term plan and Movement Strategy to work together. You can find more
information about the Foundation’s planning process
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019/…>
and how it connects to the Wikimedia 2030 movement strategy process. [2]
*Your feedback*
Between now and 20 April, we are requesting comments and questions from all
parts of the community. We are looking for feedback on whether the outcomes
we hope to achieve are appropriate given the strategic direction of
Wikimedia 2030. We want to know: are these the right “big things” to
accomplish in the next 3-5 years? We would also like feedback on whether
our overall metrics are appropriate and aspirational enough given our
ambitious vision. Are we setting the right targets for how we will measure
our progress?
Please leave all comments and questions on the talk page of the Medium-Term
Plan’s Meta page[3]:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/Mediu…
*Next steps*
After we receive comments and feedback on the draft plan, we will make a
final round of updates before publishing it again on Meta-Wiki at the end
of May. In subsequent years, we intend to update the plan on an annual
basis to adapt to new information, changes in our environment, and the
things we learn along the way.
The Wikimedia Foundation has spent the last several months creating a
medium-term plan that will support the Wikimedia 2030 strategic
direction.[4] This plan represents the work the Foundation will do within
the global movement so Wikimedia becomes the essential infrastructure of
the ecosystem of free knowledge. Through this process, we are integrating
the strategic direction pillars of Knowledge Equity[5] and Knowledge as a
Service[6] into our programmatic goals to better align our work to the
larger movement. The Foundation is also working on identifying some of the
structural changes that might be necessary to support our programmatic
work, and will do so in dialogue with the movement strategy process.
*Foundation medium-term goals*
The Wikimedia Foundation will focus on two medium-term goals to support the
strategic direction:
*Grow participation globally, focusing on emerging markets. *We will expand
the use of Wikimedia sites, projects, and products, across the globe, with
a focus on increasing engagements in low-awareness or low-use geographies
and languages, in order to bring the number and diversity of our users in
line with rates of overall internet usage.
*Modernize our product experience. *We will make contributor and reader
experiences useful and joyful; moving from viewing Wikipedia as solely a
website, to viewing the Wikimedia ecosystem as a collection of knowledge,
information, and insights with infinite possible product experiences and
applications.
*Thank you!*
We hope that you all will provide your insight and thoughts to help the
Foundation build this plan and continue to make progress toward our
strategic direction!
Cheers,
Katherine
1.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019
2.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019/…
3.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/Mediu…
4. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20
5.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction#…
6.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction#…
--
Katherine Maher (she/her)
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>