Hello everyone,
In order to adapt to current events and make the Wikimedia Foundation
Friendly Space Policy <
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Friendly_space_policy> inclusive of
virtual events, we are proposing to add the new wording found at the end of
this email to the policy.
We are very open to any alternative wording suggestions that extend the
coverage of these policies to include virtual conferences/events and will
wait two weeks 15 July, 2020 before making the changes. If you would like
to discuss different wording ideas please do so on the discussion page of
the Friendly Space Policy on meta. <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Friendly_space_policies#Adding_wording…
>
Proposed changes:
First sentence now:
The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to providing a harassment-free venue
and conference experience for everyone….
First sentence proposed change:
The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to providing a harassment-free
venue, virtual
event, and conference experience for everyone….
Last sentence now:
We expect participants to follow these rules at Wikimedia Foundation
venues, all conference venues, and conference-related social events.
Last sentence proposed change:
We expect participants to follow these rules at Wikimedia Foundation
venues, all conference venues, virtual events, and conference-related
social events.
This effort is done on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Conference Grants
program and was reviewed by WMF legal and WMF Trust and Safety
representatives.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions,
--
Rachel Farrand
Senior Program Manager
Events Team
Wikimedia Foundation
Dear list subscribers,
In my volunteer capacity as list-admin, I write to let you know that
subscriber Gerard Meijssen has been placed on indefinite moderation after
making toxic comments to another subscriber, and failing to apologize for
them after it was pointed out to him. Gerard had been warned before about
his aggressive conduct on this mailing list.
As most of you know, being placed in moderation still allows moderated
people to contribute to the list, but their posts don't go straight to all
subscribers, but wait for an admin to review and release them, or reject
them. They are a compromise between wanting to be inclusive of people who
are good faith volunteers but who sometimes find it difficult to maintain
civil discourse on the one hand, and protecting the list's other
subscribers from unacceptable discourse on the other hand.
However, Gerard chose to unsubscribe himself from the list. We want to be
clear that the moderation remains in force, should he choose to
re-subscribe in the future.
Asaf
on behalf of the list-admins
--
Asaf Bartov <asaf.bartov(a)gmail.com>
Hey everyone,
Did you know that:
Parvathishri from India is using Wikimedia projects to spread awareness on
digital literacy? or about Helena Dvořáková from Czech Republic as she is
working to support senior editors through Wiki Clubs in Prague? or about Oleh
Kushch from Ukraine who is highlighted in this month's Education Newsletter
for their experience in running Wikimedia education activities in High
schools?
There are other volunteers who are using Wikimedia projects in Education.
You can find some of them here: here:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Education_Highlights/Wikimedia…
If you want to highlight someone from the education community for their
work, please follow this:
https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/highlighting-individuals-involved-with-…
---
Also, the June edition of the Education Newsletter has been published, with
articles from Kosovo, Serbia and some updates from the education team! You
can find it here:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/June_2020.
Best!
--
*Sailesh Patnaik*
Program Coordinator, Education
Dear Natalia,
I wouldn't say that it was a badly designed survey, more that it was a
survey designed to constrain responses to three specific options. The
problem is with the choice of those options and that the survey seems to be
designed to push the community into a particular direction, rather than
find out what direction if any the community wanted to go in.
"No name change is necessary" is not the only missing option. I'm sure I am
not the only person who accepts that Wikipedia and Wikimedia are
sufficiently similar that it causes confusion, or who knows that some
people assume that we are connected to WikiLeaks. Changing the name of the
WMF to something that is a suitable parent for all the projects, not just
Wikipedia, and that reduces confusion with WikiLeaks should be a relatively
harmless thing for the WMF to do. There are only a limited number of
projects that the WMF can take on at any time, and this wouldn't have been
my priority. But if you are going to rebrand, then doing so without
differentiating yourselves from WikiLeaks, and without maintaining some
sense of being a parent for multiple projects not just one favoured child,
does seem to me to be a mistake. So "if you want to change your name, don't
change it to Wikipedia, Wiki or to something you can't trademark" is also a
position, I suspect it is stronger than "no name change is necessary".
Regards
WereSpielChequers
Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2020 02:27:11 +0300
> From: Nataliia Tymkiv <ntymkiv(a)wikimedia.org>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Board update on Branding: next steps
> Message-ID:
> <
> CAKt1n5oKs9e_vaez4LKizJrV_9p4OQjSCC26FvyVYKiP13yu7Q(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Dear all,
>
> I want to share with you the next steps of the Wikimedia Foundation Board
> of Trustees about the Brand Project.
>
> Originally the Board meeting dedicated to the brand project was supposed to
> happen no earlier than October. The expected outcome from the project were
> the recommendations on what the rebranding should look like - from changing
> fonts/logos to renaming. And if there is going to be a renaming - to what.
> Of course, the Board’s role is not in approving a change in fonts, but if a
> recommendation to rename was to be made - the Board’s role would have been
> to make a decision on that recommendation. The timeline has now been
> changed, and the renaming part of rebranding will be discussed in our
> August meeting.
>
> Moreover, the Board will meet in early July to receive a briefing about the
> project and talk about the process between June 2018 - June 2020. The
> consolidated materials on what the brand project team has been working on
> for a while now will be presented to the Board, and these materials are
> also going to be posted publicly. The more-strategic conversation is
> planned for the August meeting. Time to prepare the materials is needed,
> and the ongoing conversations need to be summarised, so the Board can have
> an in-depth discussion about this, before making any kind of decision.
>
> We would like to continue with the survey [1] - we have discussed the
> possibility of technical changes to the survey with an additional option
> like “no renaming is needed” (not the exact words, mind you), but with more
> than 700 respondents it is not methodologically sound to change the survey
> now. Staff have confirmed to the Board that responses to the survey will
> not be calculated as support for a change. The survey was only designed to
> collect feedback on the possible renaming options, not as a yes/no vote on
> whether to adopt them.
>
> Thus the timeline on rebranding for the next 6-7 weeks is as follows:
>
> * Early July - special Board meeting with the Brand project team to review
> and discuss the process so far, and for the Board members to receive the
> briefing on discussions happening;
>
> * July - consolidated materials prepared for the July meeting will be
> posted publicly after the meeting;
>
> * August 5th - the Board meeting on renaming part of the rebranding, not
> about the process. The Board will make the decision about whether to stop,
> pause, or continue the work on this, within the framework of a discussion
> on strategic goals, tensions and tradeoffs, and potential next steps.
>
> * August (after the meeting) - the Board statement on the next steps about
> the Brand project.
>
> I also want to acknowledge receiving the Community open letter on renaming
> [2] that was posted this week. Thank you for this statement on the position
> of those of you who signed. I know there are other perspectives, and that
> some would agree with it who have not signed it, and that there are also
> some who would not agree. We expect that the Board meetings and
> communication after them will address the concerns raised in the letter.
>
> Stay safe,
> antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
> Acting Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>
> [1] https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9G2dN7P0T7gPqpD
>
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_open_letter_on_renaming
>
>
>
>
>
I want to express my gratitude to the people who have put up this letter
on meta [1)
I see it as a much more professional way of expressing movement
opinions, then the usual Rfc's (that also already exist related to the
2030 movement brand project).
I do like that both entities (Affiliates, User groups and Chapters) and
users can express their opinions. And also that with the user
signatures, there are info on what projects they are active on and in
what capacity.
Besides being an very strong message to the Board, I believe this way
can also indicate ways of governing in the movement. In the strategy the
creation of a Global Council is recommended. But I wonder if any type of
representative body works well in our movement, or if it will just
beanother entity for the "community" to get angry with.
Could this type of expressing the will of the movement be an alternative
to creating a new body? And if we should learn to evolve this type of
expressing opinions even further?
Anders
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_open_letter_on_renaming
Hi everyone!
I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
[1] Wikimedia Sudan User Group [2] as a Wikimedia User Group. The group
aims to support Sudanese living in Sudan and in the diaspora working to
help bridge the content gaps about Sudan (and broadly Africa) on the web
through the largest online Encyclopedia, Wikipedia and its sister projects
as well as other open projects that allow sharing and accessibility of free
knowledge.
Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Recognit…
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Sudan
Respectfully,
Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight (she/her)
Chair, Affiliations Committee
"but with more than 700 respondents it is not methodologically sound to
change the survey now"
This is preposterous and incredibly disrespectful to the community. It is
not methodologically sound to continue a biased survey. If the Board and
WMF truly want a methodologically sound survey, they would immediately stop
the current one, and rewrite a new one, designed with minimal bias. If some
survey asked about ethnicity, and left off "Black/Afican American" as an
option, would you still continue the poorly written survey? As I have said
before, you have staff with survey expertise--use them!
This is yet another sign that those in charge do not truly want to know how
the community feels about the rebranding initiative. Y'all say "Branding
should protect and improve the reputation of the movement". That is
becoming harder and harder to believe. Not stopping a biased survey clearly
damages the reputation of our brand. I wonder if it is time to fork
Wikipedia.
Paul
User:Libcub
At 2020-06-26 04:27 p, you wrote:
Dear all, I want to share with you the next steps of the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees about the Brand Project. Originally the Board
meeting dedicated to the brand project was supposed to happen no earlier
than October. The expected outcome from the project were the
recommendations on what the rebranding should look like - from changing
fonts/logos to renaming. And if there is going to be a renaming - to what.
Of course, the Board’s role is not in approving a change in fonts, but if a
recommendation to rename was to be made - the Board’s role would have been
to make a decision on that recommendation. The timeline has now been
changed, and the renaming part of rebranding will be discussed in our
August meeting. Moreover, the Board will meet in early July to receive a
briefing about the project and talk about the process between June 2018 -
June 2020. The consolidated materials on what the brand project team has
been working on for a while now will be presented to the Board, and these
materials are also going to be posted publicly. The more-strategic
conversation is planned for the August meeting. Time to prepare the
materials is needed, and the ongoing conversations need to be summarised,
so the Board can have an in-depth discussion about this, before making any
kind of decision. We would like to continue with the survey [1] - we have
discussed the possibility of technical changes to the survey with an
additional option like “no renaming is needed” (not the exact words, mind
you), but with more than 700 respondents it is not methodologically sound
to change the survey now. Staff have confirmed to the Board that responses
to the survey will not be calculated as support for a change. The survey
was only designed to collect feedback on the possible renaming options, not
as a yes/no vote on whether to adopt them. Thus the timeline on rebranding
for the next 6-7 weeks is as follows: * Early July - special Board meeting
with the Brand project team to review and discuss the process so far, and
for the Board members to receive the briefing on discussions happening; *
July - consolidated materials prepared for the July meeting will be posted
publicly after the meeting; * August 5th - the Board meeting on renaming
part of the rebranding, not about the process. The Board will make the
decision about whether to stop, pause, or continue the work on this, within
the framework of a discussion on strategic goals, tensions and tradeoffs,
and potential next steps. * August (after the meeting) - the Board
statement on the next steps about the Brand project. I also want to
acknowledge receiving the Community open letter on renaming [2] that was
posted this week. Thank you for this statement on the position of those of
you who signed. I know there are other perspectives, and that some would
agree with it who have not signed it, and that there are also some who
would not agree. We expect that the Board meetings and communication after
them will address the concerns raised in the letter. Stay safe, antanana /
Nataliia Tymkiv Acting Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees [1]
https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9G2dN7P0T7gPqpD [2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_open_letter_on_renaming *NOTICE:
You may have received this message outside of your normal working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
advance!* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l
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