Wikimedia-l October 2020

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84 participants
54 discussions

[Foundation-l] Improving search in Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery
by Brian J Mingus 09 Sep '22

09 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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Local partnerships and funding sources towards multilingual Wiki-Smart Humanity
by Фархад Фаткуллин / Farhad Fatkullin 13 Jan '21

13 Jan '21

Dear colleagues, This is 1 to introduce a reworked concept for Wiki-Smart Humanity ([[m:WISH]], https://w.wiki/QGD ) project page 2 to update you on the groundwork in Tatarstan and around Russia for growing local and regional public support for Wikimedia community projects, as well as discussions about funding Outreach and other local activities (since my previous report back in early April https://w.wiki/MFm ) 3 to inform you of the upcoming pilot regional procurement tender initiated by one of our partners as the easiest way for them to incentivize multilingual article creation and improvement regarding important regional phenomena of Tatarstan. Below you will find detailed description of for each point above. Comments would be greatly appreciated. regards, farhad P.S. I am in an uncharted territory, so very grateful to all Russia and international colleagues that help me with listening, advice and ideas. Tatar is a non-dominant language community, though in a much better shape than many others around the world - this opens my eyes to the reality that long-term preservation of currently living human languages (over 7000) and their inherent riches of cultural knowledge would require significantly more effort, funding and attention than needed to have enWP, ruWP, trWP and all others in official state languages of UN member countries (about 50) to describe everything that's currently missing. We are talking about amounts that no fundraising will ever bring - something that can only be achieved by staying true to the powerful Wikimedia Vision and aspiring to win the hearts of our existing and potential volunteers for them to be ready and willing to help us with something much more precious than money. -- Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417 1) [[m:WISH]] (https://w.wiki/QGD) is community-supported (myself so far) undertaking to collect and chart initiatives that bring us closer to Wikimedia vision: - various initiatives that help making all forms, types and categories of knowledge equally well described in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, - as well as those that help make everyone a Wikimedian. No individual or even a group can give equal attention and priority to everything in the world, but we can chart initiatives that help us to move towards the world where things are more equal. This started as a Meta-page for the project around regions, languages, and different topic-specific initiatives I started in Wikimedia Russia wiki, but Meta offered a great chance to bring together similar initiatives that exist elsewhere. 2) I am in Kazan (Republic of Tatarstan / Russian Federation), so that's where I start with regarding the Russia-regions' specific part of m:WISH - https://w.wiki/WDk My first priority is to make editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects something widely respected, so I'm working with institutional partners. Locally I am still in touch with or contacted since last update: * Tatarstan Presidential Administration (description https://w.wiki/WDz ) * Municipality of Kazan (description https://w.wiki/MFH / stats by Wikimedia projects https://w.wiki/JZh in Russian) * Tatarstan Tourism board (description https://w.wiki/WDD / lists https://w.wiki/WDC ) * Tatarstan Investment Promotion Agency (description https://w.wiki/MFL / articles for creation list https://w.wiki/PSU ) and * Tatarstan Ministry for Culture (proposal in Russian https://w.wiki/R7g) Russia's Wikimedians helped me in reaching out to Moscow Trade and Industry Chamber Committee on cross-regional and international cooperation, as well as National Tourism Union - I spoke about Wikimedia opportunities for growing international awareness about regional realities (https://w.wiki/Qht in Russian) at their joint Online meeting on "Tourism post COVID-19" https://mostpp.ru/guilds_news/budet-li-turizm-posle-covid-eksperty-obsudili… - very much interested to see how Tatarstan project will evolve to learn and copy 3) We've advanced most with Tatarstan Investment Development Agency (TIDA) WHY: TIDA has English-speaking staff with global exposure (came across Wikipedia before), the head of the Agency has an MBA from UK, and she happens to know and trust me with interpreting various important events for over 10 years. PARTNERSHIP: * March 19 in-person meeting https://w.wiki/WEP to present the idea https://w.wiki/MFL * Issues discussed - developing articles for creation lists and Wikidata element creation for them first in agency specialization area, then to cover all phenomena of importance in Tatarstan - 3+8 target languages for TIDA - presentations, training session to staff and various stakeholders and WiR-type ongoing consulting - ways to prepare the ground to have targeted Tatarstan Presidential or Government grants to local Wikimedia community, to avoid Wikimedian-in-Residence positions (complicated for TIDA and other agencies) and otherwise available procurement tenders (perceived low efficiency due to too much red tape and legal complexity vs. Wikipedia's strict policy compliance requirements for content) * current Wikidata based multilingual (3+8) priority articles for creation list https://w.wiki/PSU WHERE WE ARE: TIDA will be announcing a pilot public procurement tender for multilingual Wikipedia content creation (at this stage Tatar, Russian, possibly allow for English) any day now. It's expected to be organized at Tatarstan public procurement entity's https://goszakupki.tatarstan.ru/eng/ (CC-BY 4.0) dedicated procurement portal http://portal-zakupok.tatar in line with Russian Federation Public Procurement Law (FZ 44). It's expected to amount for RUB 1 million (USD13900) & open to bidding for by any legal entity or private proprietor that would like to apply. References: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_procurement_in_Russia * Full text of Federal Law 44 Inofficial English translation at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Antimonopoly_Service portal - https://en.fas.gov.ru/netcat_files/File/44-FZ%20eng.pdf HOW DID WE GET THERE: 1 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikidata_Map_November_2019_Huge.png - we need to get whole of the map bright and info available in all languages. 2 TIDA is interested to help with Tatarstan, would like to advance with small trial steps, being guided by those with experience and readiness to help them. They are capable and comfortable to organize a procurement contract first, meanwhile observing how others work on topics in the area they feel comfortable with 3 I am keeping Wikimedia Russia informed of all my contacts and progress, so during April 2 Online Meeting https://w.wiki/LsZ WMRU director Vladimir Medeyko https://w.wiki/WFi stated that our partnership or its individual experienced members should take part in TIDA-originated and other similar regional procurement procedures 4 Once TIDA got the approval to initiate procurement (approvals by Tatarstan Ministry of Finance, then Prime Minister, then President of the Republic, May 29, communicate to [wikimedia-ru] Russian-language list https://w.wiki/W7q & English-language Telegram group https://t.me/WikimediaGeneral/15582 ), I inquired with Wikimedia Russia colleagues and identified three respected editors from Russian Wikipedia (that have extensive experience with Paid editing and disclosing COI), who then agreed with my request to take part in the upcoming bidding procedure & provide a detailed response to preliminary request by TIDA: * Anna Biryukova - https://w.wiki/WEZ * Dmitry Erokhin - https://w.wiki/WEa * Dmitry Rozhkov - https://w.wiki/WEb OVERSIGHT I was unable to identify previous Wikimedia experience (and thus templates) for large scale cross-project and multilanguage declaration of Paid Editing & disclosure of possible Conflicts of Interest, as well as providing for Community Oversight of such projects, so I'm trying my best to keep the caravan moving whilst assuring everybody is informed and feels in control. TIDA and others agreed with my request that: 1 / Project is advancing stage-by-stage (first only Russian and Tatar, possibly some English) 2 / We do things publicly, including open statements on mandatory compliance with sourcing and other Wikipedia quality standards in the tendering procedure 3 / I keep Russia & International Wikimedia Community informed at all stages 4 / When preparing tender documentation, TIDA analyses links to specific policies that I provided them with in the project description, experienced Wikipedia editors' comments and other available experience 5 / I don't take part in either preparation or the tendering process to avoid COI as both initiator and an acquaintance of various parties, and my role of impartial communicator (3), 6 / As an interested party (citizen of Kazan, Tatarstan & Russia, as well as project initiator who wants to see this experience then scale globally), I am ready and willing to consult all parties, and open to engaging at the later stages (article analysis, improvement, translation, Wikidata Elements or Commons categorization etc.) MOVING FORWARD * I was informed that Russian Government Procurement Law does NOT allow setting too stringent qualifications for bidding participants, so the process will only set content qualification criteria. Keeping in mind how these can be interpreted by those without any prior Wikipedia experience (let's assume some copyrighting or PR company is willing to bid), I asked our partner to be ready that they might end up with a contractor who is unable to prepare content in line with target language Wikipedia communities' policies, practices and other expectations. TIDA seems to understand this and is willing to mitigate this possible outcome by breaking the process into stages, for necessary improvements to be done at later stages. I also calmed them down that whoever wins the bidding is better be ready to play well, as this case will most likely end up at the radar of Russia's and international Mass media, might be investigated and then forever described in Wikipedia. * I will post the link to this on English-speaking Facebook groups and Telegram channels of Wikimedia movement * I will inform respective Wikipedia language section's Village pumps once procurement contract details are out (Russian and Tatar for certain, possibly English). * Meanwhile, I start hearing similar interest from Tatarstan's Tourism Board (to be continued) -------- Пересылаемое сообщение -------- 30.05.2020, 15:26, "Фархад Фаткуллин / Farhad Fatkullin" <frhd(a)yandex.com>: Dear Richard and WREN colleagues, I have good news to share and a request for comment - one of my counterparts in Tatarstan receiving regional department of finance approval for funding Wikipedia related services via tendering state procurement contract in line with Russian regulations. Details below, grateful for any advice. regards, farhad -- Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417 We will start with them by making sure that https://w.wiki/SBF list entries (plus a few more Wikidata entities to be created) are equally well developed and sourced in Tatar, Russian and English, after which the intent is to venture into other domains (images, data, etc.) and 8 more languages of initial interest to them. I'm now thinking on how to structure all this in a way that our first engagement with the regional government entity is seen as a mutual success, as this is an important step to get backing of Tatarstan President necessary to have local GLAMs and Education entities more willing to consider cooperation with Wikimedia. In parallel, we are discussing a WiR position for training their staff, organizing events for their local and foreign partners, and moving their investments portal to CC-BY. I seem to be the only experienced local Wikimedian to be both active internationally and proficient in regional language (Tatar), so I am still undecided if I should concentrate on getting local partners happy or, instead of doing the raw writing and sourcing work they are ready to pay for, I better concentrate on making sure global Wikimedia community is comfortable with this activity. I understand that myself and other Wikimedia Russia members serving as eyes to assure material meets Wikipedia and wider Wikimedia principles and policies would be good, with international oversight from outside of Russia likely being an important component as well. On top of this, I am also talking to Tourism, Youth Affairs and Culture departments, as well as Office of the President for their Tatar language related initiatives, was recently invited to join an Advisory Committee on Preservation and Development of Tatar language. -------- Конец пересылаемого сообщения --------

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads
by WereSpielChequers 06 Dec '20

06 Dec '20

Given the large reserves that the WMF carries, and the savings from cancelling events such as Wikimania 2020, I would have thought that the WMF was one organisation that could afford to pause its fundraising for a few months. At least in countries where the economy is in freefall. In a few months time lots of people will still be in a financial mess. But the large number of people who are currently going to be worried about their financial future will hopefully be divided into those who have kept their jobs. or got new ones and those who were right to be worried. Hopefully some of those who come through this financially OK will be in a position to donate. WSC On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 11:25, <wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: > Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to > wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > wikimedia-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Annoying ads (John Erling Blad) > 2. Re: Annoying ads (Benjamin Ikuta) > 3. Re: Annoying ads (Robert Fernandez) > 4. Re: Annoying ads (Pierre-Yves Beaudouin) > 5. Re: Annoying ads (Nick Wilson (Quiddity)) > 6. Re: Annoying ads (Samuel Klein) > 7. Re: Annoying ads (Paulo Santos Perneta) > 8. Re: Annoying ads (Paulo Santos Perneta) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 4 May 2020 16:55:50 +0200 > From: John Erling Blad <jeblad(a)gmail.com> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads > Message-ID: > <CAJcMX2= > 5GgwUNkrfG6EjJsn6sB1rBF1H_FnyPhPd_Wjr5otu0A(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > Often I surf Wikipedia without being logged in, and so I did right now. I > got the usual banners, but this time they popped up repeatedly in several > locations. This quickly gets extremely annoying, and I find it unwise. > Create one banner, and stick with that. Several banners are simply way over > the top. > > /jeblad > > > ------------------------------ > > ***************************** >

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2021 Ombuds Commission nominations now open
by Karen Brown 02 Dec '20

02 Dec '20

Hello all, Please accept my apologies if you are receiving this a number of times today. We have sent it out to multiple mailing lists in order to reach as many community members as possible. Please feel free to forward this to any other community mailing lists you believe are relevant. It's coming close to time for annual appointments of community members to serve on the Ombudsman commission (OC). This commission works on all Wikimedia projects to investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy, especially in use of CheckUser and Oversight tools, and to mediate between the complaining party and the individual whose work is being investigated. They may also assist the General Counsel, the Executive Director or the Board of Trustees in investigations of these issues. For more on their duties and roles, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombuds_commission This is a call for community members interested in volunteering for appointment to this commission. Volunteers serving in this role should be experienced Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used the CheckUser tool OR who have the technical ability to understand the CheckUser tool and the willingness to learn it. They are expected to be able to engage neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when to recuse when other roles and relationships may cause conflict. Commissioners are required to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation and must be willing to comply with the appropriate Wikimedia Foundation board policies (such as the access to non-public data policy[1] and the privacy policy[2]). This is a position that requires a high degree of discretion and trust. If you are interested in serving on this commission, please write me an email off-list (kbrown(at)wikimedia.org) to detail your experience on the projects, your thoughts on the commission and what you hope to bring to the role. The commission consists of ten members; all applications are appreciated and will be carefully considered. The deadline for applications is the end of day on 31 December, 2020. Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think may be qualified and interested. Thank you! -Karen Brown On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Trust & Safety team 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy 2. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy -- Karen Brown Trust & Safety Specialist Wikimedia Foundation kbrown(a)wikimedia.org

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Movement Strategy Rapid Grants
by Kaarel Vaidla 13 Nov '20

13 Nov '20

Hi everyone, We are announcing the opening of Movement Strategy Rapid Grants [1]. The grants are intended to support organizations and project communities in organizing local, regional or thematic discussions on Movement Strategy. The purpose of the grant is to encourage community participation, provide the necessary online tools and software, enable facilitation and documentation for the discussions, and share translated information. Rapid Grants can support your event plans with a budget up to 2,000 USD, with no minimum requirement. We are accepting grants between October 26 and November 12. In our global discussions, we often have more participation from established affiliates and online project communities, and in general from those who are relatively financially secure to take the time to organize and participate in events. We hope that this grant program will enable and support a wider range of organizations and communities to take part in strategy discussions. Grant details Scope: For organizing Movement Strategy discussions, for example: - to discuss local, thematic, and regional priorities for implementation - to prepare for global discussions Examples of items supported by the budget: - Translating materials into local languages and back - Contracting someone to facilitate the calls - Contracting someone to take excellent notes during the call - Mobile data packages for a reliable connection Reporting requirements: - A simple report from the meeting or the list of prioritized initiatives for implementation. - Receipts or contracts will be needed for reimbursement. Apply by November 12! I look forward to reading your applications! We are available for any follow-up questions or clarifications via strategy2030{{at}}wikimedia.org. Kind regards, Kaarel [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Apply#Movement_Strateg… -- Kaarel Vaidla (he/him) Movement Strategy <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/2030> Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>

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Rapid Grants for Wikipedia 20 celebration events
by Samir Elsharbaty 10 Nov '20

10 Nov '20

Hi everyone, (Apologies for cross-posting.) Last month, we shared a survey to inform the planning and funding processes of Wikipedia 20 anniversary celebrations. The survey results have demonstrated interest in hosting virtual and in-person events around the world to celebrate Wikipedia’s 20th birthday. We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation will be supporting individuals and groups planning to hold Wikipedia 20 celebration events through the Rapid Grants program. The Rapid Grants program can support event plans with a budget ranging from 500 USD, up to 2,000 USD. All the details, the eligibility criteria, and the application form are available on the Wikipedia 20 grants meta page. [1] Applications for Rapid Grants are accepted between the 1st and 15th of each month, and a decision on the application is, typically, ready by the end of that month. For applicants who would like to host Wikipedia celebration events during the month of January 2021, we highly recommend applying as soon as possible (i.e. during the November 2020 cycle). For later events through the end of 2021, applications will continue to be open later in the year. *Other funding opportunities* If your plans for the Wikipedia 20 celebration event don’t meet some of the eligibility criteria for a Rapid Grant (e.g. your budget is expected to exceed $2000), you may want to consider reducing the scale of your activities, or to explore other grant opportunities that may better support your plan: - Additional funding for Conference & Event grantees (e.g. for a regional or thematic conference) who wish to incorporate a celebration event to an existing conference. [2] - Conference & Event Grants to support celebration events for more than 2000 USD. [2] *Round one applications for Conference & Event grants is now closed. Details for round two (for events that will be held between July and December 2021) will be announced on the conference and event grants page. For more information on Wikipedia 20, please visit the Wikipedia 20 grants meta page. [1] Thank you and please share the message with your communities! On behalf of the Wikipedia 20 team, Samir Elsharbaty [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_20/Grants [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Conference Samir Elsharbaty (he/him) Brand Associate Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>

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Sharing a new project: community resources platform
by Anna Torres 05 Nov '20

05 Nov '20

Dear all, I am happy to share with you that during 2020 we have launched a new Community Resources platform. This project is the outcome of the effort and collaboration between affiliates and allied organizations from the Wikimedia movement. “Recursos Comunitarios” was created to facilitate access and cooperation between current and future Wikimedia communities. Its main objective is sharing information and resources that we have been developing from our contexts. So far, it includes presentations, tutorials, and communication & media content, mainly in Spanish and Euskera. You can visit the platform at https://recursoscomunitarios.wikimedia.org.ar/ Looking forward to comments or opinions! Best, PS: If you would like to create a similar project and need any help, please write us an email at proyectos(a)wikimedia.org.ar. -- Anna Torres Adell Directora Ejecutiva *A.C. Wikimedia Argentina*

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Invitation for Wikimedia Research Office hours November 3, 2020
by Martin Gerlach 03 Nov '20

03 Nov '20

Hi all, Join the Research Team at the Wikimedia Foundation [1] for their monthly Office hours on Tuesday, 2020-11-03 at 17:00-18:00 PM UTC (9am PT/6pm CET). To participate, join the video-call via this Wikimedia-meet link [2]. There is no set agenda - feel free to add your item to the list of topics in the etherpad [3] (You can do this after you join the meeting, too.), otherwise you are welcome to also just hang out. More detailed information (e.g. about how to attend) can be found here [4]. Through these office hours, we aim to make ourselves more available to answer some of the research related questions that you as Wikimedia volunteer editors, organizers, affiliates, staff, and researchers face in your projects and initiatives. Some example cases we hope to be able to support you in: - You have a specific research related question that you suspect you should be able to answer with the publicly available data and you don’t know how to find an answer for it, or you just need some more help with it. For example, how can I compute the ratio of anonymous to registered editors in my wiki? - You run into repetitive or very manual work as part of your Wikimedia contributions and you wish to find out if there are ways to use machines to improve your workflows. These types of conversations can sometimes be harder to find an answer for during an office hour, however, discussing them can help us understand your challenges better and we may find ways to work with each other to support you in addressing it in the future. - You want to learn what the Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation does and how we can potentially support you. Specifically for affiliates: if you are interested in building relationships with the academic institutions in your country, we would love to talk with you and learn more. We have a series of programs that aim to expand the network of Wikimedia researchers globally and we would love to collaborate with those of you interested more closely in this space. - You want to talk with us about one of our existing programs [5]. Hope to see many of you, Martin (WMF Research Team) [1] https://research.wikimedia.org/team.html [2] https://meet.wmcloud.org/ResearchOfficeHours [3] https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Research-Analytics-Office-hours [4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Office_hours [5] https://research.wikimedia.org/projects.html -- Martin Gerlach Research Scientist Wikimedia Foundation

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Aknowledge Russia. Novgorod lands
by Коля Красный 31 Oct '20

31 Oct '20

Good times everyone! I’m happy to inform you that North-West Russia Wiki-historians UG and Wikimedia Russia are starting edit-a-thon that goes from November 1 to December 15, 2020 (UTC). It's thematic contest for writing Wikipedia and Wikivoyage articles about geography, history and culture of the Republic of Karelia, Vologda Oblast, Leningrad Oblast, Pskov Oblast and Saint Petersburg: the regions of Russia which relates to the historical concept of Novgorod Lands. This time it’ll take part in Wikipedia and Wikivoyage in different languages. As one of the organizers of this contest I invite you to join it in any available form: by promoting event in your local language Wikimedia community, translating of technical pages to your language and, of course, participating with your Wikipedia and Wikivoyage articles — we’ll appreciate everything that's useful and well done. For those who’s interested, here’s link to a main page . -- Best regards, Nikolay Bulykin, UG NWR-Hist.

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