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 --------
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:
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> 4. Re: Annoying ads (Pierre-Yves Beaudouin)
> 5. Re: Annoying ads (Nick Wilson (Quiddity))
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
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> 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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> *****************************
>
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
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/>
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/>
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*
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
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.
Surprised to not see this here yet. Not exactly reassuring and the
reference that the community process "may" feature voting is a dark shadow
on the rest of this, but it is what it is.
===
In response to comments from community members, the Board Governance
Committee has agreed to incorporate the following suggestions
immediately:[1][2]
1. *Replace the definition and repeated use in the Bylaws of “Chapters,
Thematic Organizations, and User Groups” with “Affiliates”.* This is
meant to make the language simpler, as well as not require a modification
to the Bylaws if movement affiliate models change.
2. *Clarify when the CEO is and can be excluded from executive
sessions.* This
further explains the current standard practice.
3. *Change the name “rubric” to “evaluation form”.* This addresses
issues of confusion and difficulty of translation related to the term
“rubric”.
In the next committee meeting on November 17, we plan to continue
discussing the following proposals:
- *Address concerns about the possibility of having a minority of
community-sourced seats compared to Board-selected seats.* Our intention
has always been to maintain the current structure of having a governing
majority of community-sourced trustees, and the Bylaws should reflect that.
Commenters have pointed out that the current draft of the revisions would
allow, in an extreme case, for there to be a 9-member Board with 7
Board-selected trustees, 1 Founder, and only 1 community-sourced trustee.
We will edit the draft to ensure that is not a possibility.
- *Clarify what it means to have a “community nomination process”.* Many
commenters have expressed concern that the proposed Bylaws language would
allow the Board to select community members to appoint to the
community-sourced seats without a community voting process. Specifically,
concerns have been raised about whether there will be a community vote on
nominated trustees.
The Board’s priority for the revised community nomination process is for a
process that enables diverse and equitable representation from communities
across the Wikimedia movement, in keeping with the goals and values of our
movement and strategic direction. The final process may feature voting; it
may integrate other means of community representative selection -- we are
looking at various models from communities and cultures around the world.At
the end of the day, we are committed to having a trustee selection process
that gives meaningful voice to the Wikimedia communities. For the purpose
of this effort, we will consider how to ensure that 1) the Bylaws confirms
the principle of community governance; 2) the selection process delivers
the diverse and strategic movement leadership required for the future of
our movement; 3) the selection mechanisms ensure appropriate community
input and agency in keeping with our culture and values.
- *Increase the amount of time it takes for the trustee term limits to
reset.* This addresses the concern that the current period of time, 18
months, is fairly short compared to the term limit of 9 years.
- *Remove or change the structure of the Founder seat.* This seat is
unique in that it is reserved for one person (Jimmy Wales), and it is not
subject to term limits. Commenters have suggested eliminating this seat,
converting it into a different type of seat, or converting it into a
different, non-trustee role.
- *Adjust the approach to community discussion for these governance
changes.* In addition to further refining these Bylaws changes, we are
hoping to launch the discussion of community-sourced trustee selection
pathways in early 2021. We have heard the requests to have longer
discussion periods and to have multiple rounds of discussions. We will take
these requests into consideration as we plan our timeline of next steps.
The Board expansion is meant, in part, to provide additional Trustee
capacity to engage directly with Communities in such discussions, and we
look forward to creating the conditions where this exchange can take place
more frequently.
We will post another update following our November 17 meeting.
In the meantime, we will update the documentation to reflect the current
status and to explain the process through which we expect to discuss and
make decisions on the topics above. This will include the conversation
about selection pathways. We are also thinking how to organize these
conversations in ways that make them enjoyable, open to nuance and
collaboration, and accessible across the diversity of our movement.
Dear all,
Just a quick update to last week's message: We are delighted by the
response to our announcement about the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS)
tutorial <https://wdqs-tutorial.toolforge.org/>. We already received
requests for collaboration to translate the tutorial into Italian,
Macedonian and Indonesian!
If you want to know what is required to create the tutorial website in your
language please contact Dr. Keren Shatzman <keren(a)wikimedia.org.il>, WMIL's
project coordinator, who leads this project.
You can also read about the background and context in which the tutorial
was developed in an interview with Dr. Shatzman, featured on the Wikimedia
Foundation blog
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2020/10/21/the-query-service-tutorial-for-wikida…>
.
Happy Wikidata Birthday 🎆
Revital Poleg
Executive Director, WMIL
בתאריך יום ד׳, 21 באוק׳ 2020 ב-22:59 מאת <
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. TOR- vs. ?ukaszGarczewski (WMPL) (masti)
> 2. Announcing the Wikidata Query Service Tutorial (Revital Poleg)
> 3. Re: Announcing the Wikidata Query Service Tutorial
> (Shani Evenstein)
> 4. Re: Announcing the Wikidata Query Service Tutorial (Asaf Bartov)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2020 19:02:23 +0200
> From: masti <mastigm(a)gmail.com>
> To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] TOR- vs. ?ukaszGarczewski (WMPL)
> Message-ID: <e33d2f4e-788e-50db-2a7e-5b0d92a28fb7(a)gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> ?ukasz,
> my?l?, ze warto by by?o, ?eby? edytowa?, w zakresie dyrektorskim, z
> konta s?u?bowego, tak jak pracownicy czyli jednak ?ukasz Garczewski
> (WMPL) a nie TOR.
>
> Starzy wikipedysci wiedz?, ale dla czysto?ci edycji my?l?, ?e warto
> zmieni?.
>
> masti
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2020 22:43:35 +0300
> From: Revital Poleg <revital(a)wikimedia.org.il>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing the Wikidata Query Service Tutorial
> Message-ID:
> <CA+8pE=GH8KBcC9iaht=
> XYSM4iuENgV_VVhGb_KN+q7U+u8OnDg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> In 2019 Wikimedia Israel (WMIL) decided to develop instructional material
> for the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS). The background for this decision was
> that we see audiences to whom we introduce Wikidata become especially
> enthusiastic when we present the *Wikidata query service tutorial
> <https://wdqs-tutorial.toolforge.org/> *, which offers quite a
> unique feature within the landscape of information services available
> today. This enthusiasm often dampens when audiences discover that querying
> is not done using natural language but rather requires learning SPARQL.
>
> We believe learning SPARQL is not rocket science, even for audiences with
> no programming background. We created a step-by-step tutorial website to
> give users an introduction and some basic lessons on how to use the query
> service. While WDQS has a great Help section, this section might not be so
> helpful to users who are new to Wikimedia platforms. We therefore built the
> tutorial website on the WordPress platform which has a more familiar design
> to most users. We believe this website will make the WDQS more accessible,
> and hope this will be a way to expand Wikidata to new audiences.
> Currently the site is in English but we are open for collaborations to add
> the tutorial in other languages.
> We are also keen to hear feedback from those involved in Wikidata Outreach.
>
> We hope you'll find it useful.
> All the Best
> Revital Poleg
> Executive Director, WMIL
>
> Revital Poleg
>
> Executive Director, WMIL
>
