Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
jennifer.pryorsummers(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is not
> thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or should the
> WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work out,
and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into trying
to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the Wikimedia
Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the
project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in
bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that? For
me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it just
isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think that.
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer things
but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan
reflects that it is trying to do so.
> Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would
> be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the big
> Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them down,
> on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
>
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this rebranding
effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external
consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some pages to
solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it might
take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead project.
I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things... yes,
I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan
Dear all,
We are glad to inform you of our recent courtesy visit to the University of
Nigeria.
Our mandate as Wikimedia User Group (operating as Wikimedia Nigeria
Foundation in Nigeria) is to introduce Wikipedia and it's sister projects
to all the citizen of the federal republic of Nigeria.
I and the Wikimedia community residing at the University of Nigeria Nsukka
(UNN) led by Professor Chinwe Nwogo Ezeani, the University Librarian met
with the Vice Chancellor of UNN professor Benjamin Chukwuma Ozumba and
the principal officers of the institution at the VC's conference room on
the 8th May 2019.
I am so honored and delighted to speak to the highest echelon of the
prestigious university about the impact of Wikipedia in education and the
support of Wikimedia Foundation in Africa and the entire globe to ensure
that every human being has access to the sum of all human knowledge.
UNN is one of the 10 tertiary institutions in Nigeria where Wikimedia
communities are established in Nigeria.
The meeting is made possible by professor Ezeani and Dr. Ngozi Osadebe the
coordinator of Art+ Feminism at the institution.
Regards
Olaniyan Olushola
CEO DataAccess Systems Ltd
President, Wikimedia Nigeria
Member, Affcom ( Wikimedia Foundation)
Co-director Wiki Women Radio
www.wikimedia.org.ng
shola(a)wikimedia.org.ng
olaniyanshola15(a)gmail.com
+2348167352512
Dear Wikimedia colleagues,
This is a preliminary heads-up & public outreach email on the initiative to invite Global representatives of Wikimedia Movement to speak at a Wikimedia projects dedicated program of Tatarstan Youth IT FORUM 2019 (July 16-21).[1]
The event is to bring together over a thousand young members of Selet Youth movement,[2] a partner of Wikimedia Russia & WUG TAT within a joint Selet WikiSchool project,[3] which is currently running its 4th session.[4]The project with Selet itself was initiated in 2016 on the request of Selet Founder Professor Dzhavdet Suleymanov [5] (Kazan Federal University & Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, D.S. in Computational Math, Founder of a Regional Applied Semiotics Institute).[6] Recently our institutional partner inquired on the willingness of Russia, CIS & Global Wikimedia Community to take the existing relationship to a new level, proposed to sign an MOU & start integrating participation in Wikimedia Projects & Programmatic activities into their ongoing Youth Outreach & Extracurricular Education work.
On the part of the speakers of Russian, we are to have Stanislav Kozlovsky [7] of Wikimedia Russia [8] & Wikimedia Education Program @ Moscow State University[9] & Susanna Mkrtchan [10] of Wikimedia Armenia [11] & Wikipedia & Education UG [12]), both of whom expressed their preliminary agreement to come & speak. This email is meant to inquire about our Global Community's readiness, as well as Katherine Maher & Jimmy Wales' willingness & availability to join us in this effort. Formal invitation letters to our non-Russian colleagues will eventually be sent by official representatives of Wikimedia Russia, as well as the President of Tatarstan [13] (on the request of Selet).
Selet camps started back in 1994 by members of local academic community as an extracurricular educational activities engaging the winners of various regional contests - I've been an active participant in 1995-1998, as a winner of regional high-school contests (Physics/English), later as a co-teacher & a team leader. Annual Summer Forum bringing together participants of thematic camps from around the region takes place in the vicinity of historic site of Volga Bulgaria capital of Bilär. Before Wikimania Montreal in 2017, we made a public presentation of WikiSchool at the Forum whose topic was Environment, Green Energy & SDGs. To my knowledge, this is the second time the event has an IT focused session.The idea of the Wikimedia-specific component was born within Selet. Funding for the session was requested from Tatarstan President by the Deputy Prime-Minister of the Republic (Tatarstan Minister for ICT),[14] who was previously instrumental in moving Tatarstan.ru portal to CC-BY 4.0 last August [15] & later gave me a chance to present Smart Region wiki-initiative [16] to the President of the Republic & Russia's Federal Deputy Prime-Minister back in February.[17]
This development seems to be a logical extension of the fact that State Bilingualism Working Group under Tatarstan President Chief of Staff very much welcomes contribution of Tatar Wikimedians, Wikimedia Russia & WMF towards supporting Tatar-language projects - this was witnessed to me by the Regional Minister for Culture,[18] when she met me right after one of their cross-departmental meetings, immediately inviting Wikimedians to come up with something in the GLAM realm that could be done together with her department. Recently I also wrote about the fact that Mr. President instructed our Regional Ministry of Education to look into introducing Wikimedia projects into Education (within or as an extracurricular activity) - I was contacted by the department of Tatar language education programs).[19] It seems that in such an environment a high-caliber public support on the part of the global Wikimedia community with its official representatives speaking directly to the young generation of Tatarstanians could help make the volunteer participation in the movement more popular in the region. I understand that representatives of cultures with less centralization might be concerned this kind of cooperation might lead the movement astray, so here I can only reiterate that we are to stay cold-headed, transparent & open to opportunities we are presented with.[20]
On top of strengthening fledgling movement within Tatarstan & throughout the Tatar world,[21] such an appearance by recognized figures, if possible, appropriate and desired, will contribute to improving Wikimedia recognition throughout the Russian Federation (Tatarstan is one of its leading regions), as well as in the Muslim world (Tatarstan is one of Russia's Muslim republics, Tatarstan President is a Chair of OIC-Russia Strategic Vision Group).[22] This will also be a strong signal to Turkey & and other Turkic nations, with whom Tatars [23] have common ethnic & linguistic roots. Other countries keeping an eye on what's happening in Tatarstan are China, Hungary, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkey & Uzbekistan (Consulate Generals in Kazan), as well as Belarus with a regional Office of their Embassy to the Russian Federation.[24] Germans, Americans, French & Dutch companies are among those that have strong presence and investments in the region as well.[25]
The project was initiated & the draft program in Russian [26] prepared by Mr. Timerkhan Shaykhutdinov,[27] a high-school senior WUG TAT volunteer from within Selet Community, who served as my replacement speaker at a panel during April's Wikimedia&Education Conference in Donostia - San Sebastian.[28] This gentleman, who was my first & only WikiSchool student back in 2016-2017 school year, has forwarded me an email confirming he was recently awarded a Full Scholarship to Wikimania 2019 in Stockholm.[29]
The copy of the above was sent in Russian to [wikimedia-ru] list a few days ago. [30]
regards,
farhad
--
Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417
P.S. Should above mentioned specific dates be busy, Selet will be happy to welcome Jimmy & Katherine at an early July session to be attended by the President in person, though that one will not be Wikimedia projects specific.
[1] - http://selet.biz/news/vii-international-youth-educational-forum-selet-held-… (Russian)
[2] - http://selet.biz/en/
[3] - https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/Selet_WikiSchool
[4] - https://tt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Википедия:Сәләт_ВикиМәктәбе/Программа/Яз-2019 (Tatar)
[5] - http://www.antat.ru/en/staff/5110/
[6] - http://www.antat.ru/ru/ips/ (Russian)
[7] - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21191631
[8] - https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/en
[9] - https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/Образовательная_программа_в_МГУ
[10] - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20747474
[11] - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20515521
[12] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_%26_Education_User_Group
[13] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustam_Minnikhanov
[14] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Shaykhutdinov (needs to be toned down, I was unable to convince his press-staff to change the style just yet)
[15] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2018-August/090955.html
[16] - https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/Smart_region
[17] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CEE/Newsletter/February_2019/Contents/Russi…
[18] - http://mincult.tatarstan.ru/rus/rukov/minister.htm (Russian)
[19] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2019-April/092264.html
[20] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2019-April/092331.html
[21] - projects with other local partners in Tatar realm https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/Smart_region/Multilingualism/Tatar that are worth mentioning include:
* Tatar 4.0 article project in conjunction with World Tatar Youth Forum's "I speak Tatar" campaign this year brought together 126 participants / 68 school teams https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:TATAR_4.0_contest
* initiatives with Tatar Internet Development Foundation http://tat-i.net/ (Tatar or Russian):
** Public Awarding of most fruitful contributors to ttWP - https://tt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Википедия:Белем_җәүһәрләре (Tatar)
** Taking ttWquote out of Wikimedia Incubator to engage participants of their other projects (planned)
[22] - https://www.ircica.org/news/meeting-of-the-group-of-strategic-vision-russia…
[23] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatars
[24] - https://www.tatar-inform.ru/news/2019/02/08/641442/ (Russian)
[25] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabuga_Special_Economic_Zone#Operating_enter…
[26] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-ru/attachments/20190508/8dc… (Russian)
[27] - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q56705756
[28] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia%2BEducation_Conference_2019/Submi…
[29] - https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania
[30] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-ru/2019-May/005098.html (Russian)
During the last WMNL general assembly board elections took place. Two
board members resigned, two new members were elected in their place.
The composition of the Board and division of responsibilities now is as
follows:
Frans Grijzenhout, chair
Bart Nieuwenhuis, treasurer
Justus de Bruijn, secretary
Michel Wesseling, fundraising
Marike van Roon, open knowledge and partnerships
(new) Lizzy Jongma, open knowledge and partnerships
(new) Jan Bart de Vreede, community health
Mike Nicolaye and Harriet de Man resigned from the Board. Mike was a board
member for 2 years and Harriet served two terms of two years and we are
grateful for their contributions to WMNL.
Kind regards, Frans
*Frans Grijzenhout*, voorzitter / chair
+31 6 5333 9499
--
*Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland*
Mariaplaats 3 - 3511 LH Utrecht
Kamer van Koophandel 17189036
http://www.wikimedia.nl/
Dear fellow Wikimedians,
What’s the best way to discuss movement strategy? Over a meal, of course!
Strategy salons are short events that bring people together in person to
enjoy a meal and talk about the movement strategy in detail. We encourage
affiliates to host strategy salons with their member community. This year,
we will also be funding 10 youth-focused strategy salons, where you can
host discussions about the future of Wikimedia with youth in your local
area. *This video [1] gives a short introduction to the strategy salon
concept. *
To help make strategy salons happen, we are launching a grant application
process: affiliates can apply for grants of between $500 and $1500 that can
be used to run an in-person strategy discussion event between June 1st and
September 15th.
To find out more about strategy salons and for links to the application,
visit our page on Meta-Wiki [2]. Thank you, and we’re excited to see what
events you come up with to take strategy discussions forward this summer.
Best,
Kelsi
[1] https://drive.google.com/open?id=1erKTu04NQjyTB2PFNY8W5ejCU8Fz09xM
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/2019_Co…
--
Kelsi Stine-Rowe
Community Relations Specialist, Movement Strategy
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
Dear fellow Wikimedians,
Discussions about what our future could look like are currently
underway - thanks to everyone who has already been taking part in the
community conversations. We’ve compiled all the insights gathered so
far from communities in a report (see below). Strategy salons will
also start happening in the next few months. If you wish to host a
small event to talk strategy with your affiliate or group, good news:
we are launching a strategy salon grant application process! Keep
reading for all the latest updates on movement strategy.
== Community conversations report March/April ==
We have just published our first community conversations report [1]
summarizing all the discussions that happened in March and April.
Conversations are happening at affiliates and other organized groups
as well as within various communities worldwide.
The insights, ideas, and information that are presented in these
conversations will enrich the working groups’ development of
recommendations. As part of this, the working groups are monitoring
the conversations and processing the input that comes out of this.
This will complement the high volume of overall input working groups
receive and the large amount of proactive research they are
conducting. From time to time, you may also see working group members
jump into the conversations and get back to some of the questions, but
this is at their discretion and may take time.
Community conversations will continue through to September. If you
want to take part or find out more, please visit Meta [2].
== Apply to host a strategy salon ==
Want to talk strategy with your affiliate’s community? Want to do it
over dinner? Apply for a strategy salon grant! Strategy salons are
short, small events where people share a meal and discuss how they can
enrich the conversation around our structural reform. Affiliates and
other organized groups are encouraged to apply for a grant of between
$500 and $1500. This grant can be used to run an in-person strategy
discussion event between June 1st and September 15th. Be quick - the
application deadline is May 31. Visit Meta for more info [3].
== What’s happening now and what’s to come ==
The focus of the movement strategy is currently shifting from
identifying the most essential questions in our movement to finding
answers. Between now and Wikimania in August, the goal is to gather
information and ideas that can be used to develop recommendations for
structural change within the movement. The working groups will process
research and data they are collecting as well as the insights that
arise during community conversations. In June and July, they will
begin formalizing all of this into draft recommendations for change.
Wikimania will be an opportunity to engage the with community on
these.
After Wikimania, the plan is to have members of the working groups
meet to bring together all the recommendations from each of the 9
groups and create one coherent set of recommendations. These will be
finalized throughout October. They will then be published and
presented to the Board of Trustees in November.
== Meet us in Lisbon ==
Kaarel and I will attend the Creative Commons Global Summit this week,
to connect with our friends from CC about the future of free
knowledge. We will host a session on Friday at 3:30 pm on Wikimedia
2030 [4]. If you’re also attending the summit, stop by and say hello!
We know that a few working group members and Wikimedians will also be
at the event and look forward to seeing you there.
If you have any questions or would like to connect about the movement
strategy, please feel free to contact me.
Best wishes,
Nicole
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Reports…
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Partici…
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/2019_Co…
[4] https://ccglobalsummit2019lisbonportugal.sched.com/event/MiW2/wikimedia-203…
--
Nicole Ebber
Adviser International Relations
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.
Hi,
The Hindi Wikisource is blocked by some technical problems with no
resolution expected shortly. The last comment in the ticket is:
The issue still exists and it's impossible to make new wikis without lots
of bandage and hacks. I'm doing this in volunteer capacity and I don't have
time to do it anymore :(
The ticket was opened on March 13th.
The community is actively waiting.
Some workshops are planned, but postponed because of this issue.
So this task should be given to some developer from WMF.
Regards,
Yann Forget
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordinator
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)