Wikimedia-l July 2020

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

94 participants
58 discussions

Affiliations Committee 2020 Mid-Term Election results
by Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight 13 Jul '20

13 Jul '20

Subject line: Affiliations Committee 2020 Mid-Term Election results Dear everyone, We are happy to share that Başak Tosun, Bunty Avieson, Jeffery Keefer, Ravan Al-Taie, and Suyash Dwivedi are new members who have been appointed to the Affiliations Committee, while Camelia Boban has been re-appointed. Here are Başak Tosun, Bunty Avieson, Jeffery Keefer, Ravan Al-Taie, and Suyash Dwivedi, in their own words: 1. Başak Tosun: I have been a contributor to Wikimedia projects since 2005. I mainly contribute to Turkish Wikipedia. For a long time, I was only an online contributor; I discovered that contributions to free knowledge could go beyond editing after I joined an international WikiCamp in 2015. Then I contacted fellow wikipedians to form a user group in Turkey and became one of the founder members of Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey. I took the responsibility of Wikipedia Education Programs in the group and organised Education Programs in several courses at 8 different universities. Additionally, I take part in organising edit-a-thons, partnership search, organising local contests. 1. Bunty Avieson: I am a media academic at University of Sydney and a member of Wikimedia Australia. I learned to edit at an Art & Feminism event in March 2017 and immediately followed up with an online course. I have since hosted edit-a-thons in Sydney and Bhutan, but my interest goes beyond editing to the larger goals of the Wikimedia movement, particularly around knowledge equity and diversity. I’m currently leading two research projects to build smaller language Wikipedias. One is a collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai to train two groups of retired Tamils, in both Sydney and Mumbai, to edit Tamil Wikipedia. The other is a three-year project funded by the Australian Research Council, to train Bhutanese to publish on both English Wikipedia and also develop their Dzongkha site. I'm an active member of Women Write Wiki and Women In Red. 1. Jeffery Keefer: I serve as a Wikimedian in Residence for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). I started editing Wikipedia three years ago while attending an open education conference in London where I went to a workshop and was challenged to learn to try editing Wikipedia. Between then and now Wikimedia has become my online home, where I edit and teach students how to use our Wikimedia projects, am active across all three types of Affiliates, and was one of the writers of the Movement Strategy Recommendations. I have a PhD in educational research. I am or have been involved in a number of Wikipedia + Wikimedia projects across the Movement: Wikimedia Movement Strategy: Integrator, Writer, and Co-Coordinator of the Capacity Building Working Group; Election Facilitator for the Affiliate-Selected Board Seats (ASBS) election, 2019; Member of the Board, Wikimedia New York City; Member, Project Grants Committee; AffCom Reporting Representative, LGBT+ User Group; Member, Editorial Board of the WikiJournal of Humanities; Member, Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network; Member, Wiki Project Med Foundation Member; WikiConference North America User Group. 1. Ravan Al-Taie: I am Ravan Al-Taie. I'm the founder of Iraqi Wikimedians User Group. I am an engineer, working as a professional in the Oil industry. I started editing Wikipedia in 2008, edited Arabic wikipedia and became an admin in 2013 for more than 6 years. In 2015, My mother language is Arabic, but I speak Kurdish language fluently as well, that's why I helped in Kurdish Wikipedia and currently helping other colleagues to correctly start Kurdish Wikipidian user group as per the foundation process because I strongly believe the more diverse we are the best to be in representing the global knowledge heritage. I've led several offline activities such as organizing WLM for 3 years in Iraq, as well as starting the first editathon and learning workshop in all Iraq with great success. After that, I've focused on bringing more women to the movement in order to decrease the big gender gap that we have in Arabic Wikipedia. 1. Suyash Dwivedi: I have done my graduation in Electronics Engineering and have been a Wikimedian since 2013. Mostly I edit on Commons, Hindi, English, Wikidata, GLAM, Wikivoyage and sometimes on other Wikipedia projects. I have organized many outreach activities, including conferences and edit-a-thons. I am the founder member of Hindi Wikimedians User Group. Apart from Hindi, I also contribute to English Sanskrit, Marathi, and Punjabi language Wikimedia projects. I was the Lead Organizer of Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 in India, hosted Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy Salon in Bhopal, organized Wikipedia Asian Month for Hindi and Sanskrit languages in 2016-2017-2018 and 2019 (for Sanskrit). I have also worked on a short term contract with the Trust and Safety team as ‘Universal Code of Conduct Facilitator’. Currently, I am working on the Internet in a Box (IIAB) hardware to make this device easy to install and control in public places. I also contribute to various other projects like-Creative Commons, ‘Common Voice’ by Mozilla. Raspberry Pi Foundation (JAM organizer), OSM, OpenCon, and Internet Archive. I am volunteering in various UN Environment Programme and campaigns, Google Local Guides (Level 9) and a member of the National Ataxia Foundation. Please join me in welcoming the newly-appointed members of AffCom. Respectfully, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight (she/her) Chair, Affiliations Committee

2 1

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New essay on the ambiguity of NC licenses
by WereSpielChequers 12 Jul '20

12 Jul '20

Doc James raised the issue of pragmatism v idealism and that essay is indeed rather focussed on the idealistic arguments against NC. EmuFarmers has touched on the pragmatic side of the debate, and I think it worth reminding ourselves about that dimension as well. So here are some pragmatic arguments against us hosting NC content: 1 For some users NC content and the ambiguity about it is a commercial opportunity. There is minimal cost to distributing emails threatening takedown notices and other legal sanction, and for many small resusers the cost of checking their case with a lawyer is less than the cost of paying to use what they thought was free to use and maybe writing a letter of complaint to the media library that let them down. Few of our volunteers are going to be keen to volunteer to handle such complaints, whether or not the use was clearly NC, clearly commercial or down right ambiguous. 2 We have been hosting openly licensed material for nearly two decades and we now have a lot of it. If we now change to allowing NC on Commons, some of our contributors, institutional or individual, will want to shift their material from an open licence to NC. Whether or not we allow this, the disruption and complications are not something that the Commons volunteer community is geared up to handle. 3 Ideally when we choose an image to illustrate a Wikipedia article we are choosing the best image available to us on Commons. OK there are people whose ego gets in the way and prefer to use the images they have taken, and occasionally there are other arguments, but it is rare for anyone to have a commercial incentive to choose one image over another. Once you allow NC imagery you make Wikipedia a shop window for content from image libraries and others who are prepared to forego the genuinely non commercial uses, and the uses in parts of the world where copyright is hard to enforce, in return for revenue from the unwary in parts of the world where they can charge for any use they can argue is "commercial". Wikipedia has enough on its hands combatting spammers and reputation managers who want our content to promote their business, Opening up a whole new front in that conflict, against a group of editors "upgrading" images to ones they strongly assert are "better quality" without necessarily disclosing their conflict of interest re those images is not something that the Wikipedia volunteer community is geared up to handle. Those are three pragmatic reasons why it would be a mistake for us to allow NC images on Commons and the English Wikipedia. This is one of those areas where pragmatism and idealism both push us in the same direction. Regards WereSpielChequers > > > Message: 3 > Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 18:31:54 -0600 > From: James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] New essay on the ambiguity of NC licenses > Message-ID: > <CAF1en7UHgi= > Zv8XsA4KFknGpBWrTyMaPCMPkcg1B69m0XdPTig(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > Yes one of the stronger reasons to reject all use of the NC license is that > it increases incentives for other organizations to actually adopt open > licenses. I simply wish that such a position would convince more > organizations. WHO has repeatedly told me that we, as a non-profit, are > already free to use their work and if we chose not to, that is on us. > > James > > On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 6:19 PM Erik Moeller <eloquence(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi James :) > > > > (This is my last reply for today, given the recommended posting limit > > on this list.) > > > > > We all agree that NC licenses are exceedingly poor due to the reasons > > > listed, yet we leave a lot of useful content (such as Khan academy > > videos) > > > less accessible to our readers because we disallow any such use. > > > > I completely agree. I'm wondering if efforts have been made at the WMF > > or chapter level to partner with these organizations on new > > initiatives, where a more permissive license could be used? This could > > perhaps help to introduce CC-BY-SA/CC-BY to orgs like Khan Academy, > > and help lay the groundwork for potentially changing their default > > license. > > > > > This is a balance between pragmatism and idealism. > > > > I disagree with your framing here. There are many pragmatic reasons to > > want to build a knowledge commons with uniform expectations for how it > > can be built upon and re-used. It's also pragmatic to be careful about > > altering the incentive structure for contributors. Right now, > > Wikimedia Commons hosts millions of contributions under permissive > > licenses. How many of those folks would have chosen an "exceedingly > > poor" (your words) option like NC, if that was available? And if a > > nonfree carve-out is limited to organizations like Khan Academy, how > > is such a carve-out fair and equitable to contributors who have, in > > some cases, given up potential commercial revenue to contribute to > > Wikimedia projects? > > > > If a license is "exceedingly poor" and harmful to the goals of the > > free culture movement, incorporating more information under such terms > > strikes me as neither idealistic nor pragmatic -- it would just be > > short-sighted. > > > > Warmly, > > Erik > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > -- > James Heilman > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian > > >

1 0

An update from Movement Strategy
by Kaarel Vaidla 10 Jul '20

10 Jul '20

Hi everyone, I’m excited to share an update from Movement Strategy. It’s been two months since the final recommendations were shared [1] and we remain indebted to numerous individuals from across our movement that brought us to this milestone. We have 10 recommendations and 10 principles to work with and collaboratively create the future that we want for our movement. This necessitates building on our strengths and creating cultural and structural changes where needed. The recommendations and principles as well as blogs and other supporting materials have been prepared in text, audio, and video formats and in a variety of languages so they can be accessible for many. [2] Familiarize yourself with them at your own time, if you haven’t already. The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a series of virtual events from September to November where, as a movement, we will transition to implementing the recommendations. Organizing online events at such a scale requires a lot of thinking and consideration. How to make sure everyone interested can participate? How to provide language, technical, and facilitation support to overcome participation barriers? How to allocate resources and nurture commitments for implementation? For this, we have convened a collaborative Design Group [3] that over the next two months will create a plan for the transition events. We have also assembled a small team to support this work. [4] Design discussions are underway and will be open and shared on-wiki for concurrent input. [5] There will also be a more dedicated feedback sprint planned for the initial draft in early August. This way we can prepare for transition events that are inclusive and transparent for deciding what ideas from the recommendations will be implemented when, in what order, by whom, and with what resource and support structures. [6] All interested individuals are encouraged to participate in the design discussions as reviewers and later in the actual transition events that will shape implementation. Watch our page as we continue to share materials and updates. Many of the ideas in the recommendations stem from longstanding discussions in the movement that predate movement strategy. It has been one of the purposes of the process to provide a clear and public platform for these conversations. These ideas include better coordination mechanisms for individuals and affiliates, organizational structures for a more equitable movement, enhanced skill building, movement-wide generation and allocation of resources, researching our impact in the world, and evaluating ourselves and our work. Advancing these complex and essential topics needs learning and experimentation. As examples, the Universal Code of Conduct [7] and OKAPI [8] [9], which are also part of the recommendations and under the umbrella of our Strategic Direction, are progressing with movement consultations. We can learn from these discussions and integrate lessons learned in the planning for the implementation of other initiatives in the recommendations during the transition. In short, a summary from the first Design Group discussion has been uploaded. [5] and we look forward to a fruitful design period ahead and lively implementation discussions starting in September. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts in our meta space or at the virtual events later this year! On behalf of the Support Team, Kaarel [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme… [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme… [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transit… [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transit… [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Tr… [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transit… [7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct [8] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OKAPI [9] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/OKAPI -- Kaarel Vaidla (he/him) Movement Strategy <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/2030> Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>

1 0

Call for participation: World War II… 75 Years After
by WМ RepublikaSrpska 09 Jul '20

09 Jul '20

World War II… 75 Years After Soon, will be 75 years since the end of the deadliest episodes in human history. Over 60 countries took part in the 6-years long military conflict. World War II took over 50.000.000 lives, and more 35.000.000 was wounded. Many of them lost their lives after the war. Hundreds of battles were fought on dozens of fronts. Thousands of buildings were demolished and hundreds of new ones built. Despite that, life was renewed and continued after this catastrophe of global proportions. New ideas, new movements, - new history were born. Events from the past have largely defined our present and left us the obligation to document and preserve them for the future. So, we invite you to use the month of September for marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War with a series of Edit-a-Thones and competitions dedicated to this topic. Also, actions and cooperation with GLAM institutions, that are treasures of information and materials, are welcome. Please note that if you fund such actions with WMF grants, you must follow the instructions about COVID-19 pandemic. All informations about project you can find on Meta (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/World War II… 75 Years After <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_II%E2%80%A6_75_Years_After>). Looking forward to work with all of you! Best regards, Bojana Podgorica, Wikimedia Community of Republika Srpska *„**Замислите свијет у коме **свака особа на планети има **слободан приступ цјелокупном људском знању.* *То је * *оно на чему ми радимо.“*

2 1

Call for participation: World War II… 75 Years After
by WМ RepublikaSrpska 08 Jul '20

08 Jul '20

World War II… 75 Years After Soon, will be 75 years since the end of the deadliest episodes in human history. Over 60 countries took part in the 6-years long military conflict. Word War II took over 50.000.000 lives, and more 35.000.000 was wounded. Many of them lost their lives after the war. Hundreds of battles were fought on dozens of fronts. Thousands of buildings were demolished and hundreds of new ones built. Despite that, life was renewed and continued after this catastrophe of global proportions. New ideas, new movements, - new history were born. Events from the past have largely defined our present and left us the obligation to document and preserve them for the future. So, we invite you to use the month of September for marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War with a series of Edit-a-Thones and competitions dedicated to this topic. Also, actions and cooperation with GLAM institutions, that are treasures of information and materials, are welcome. Please note that if you fund such actions with WMF grants, you must follow the instructions about COVID-19 pandemic. All information about project you can find on Meta (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/World War II… 75 Years After <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_II%E2%80%A6_75_Years_After>). Looking forward to work with all of you! Best regards, Bojana Podgorica, Wikimedia Community of Republika Srpska *„**Замислите свијет у коме **свака особа на планети има **слободан приступ цјелокупном људском знању.* *То је * *оно на чему ми радимо.“*

1 0

Fwd: Annual Report and elections for Wikimedia Portugal
by GoEthe.wiki 07 Jul '20

07 Jul '20

Dear all, Last Sunday, Wikimedia Portugal held an online only General Assembly where we approved last year's activity and financial report (in Portuguese: https://pt.wikimedia.org/wiki/Relat%C3%B3rios/Anual/2019; English translation will follow). We usually have a physical location where participants meet, and others can join through video-conference, but due to restrictions of public gatherings issued by the health authorities and the health risks involved we held a fully online General Assembly. We also held our biennial election, which elects our governing bodies: Board of directors, General Assembly Table and Audit Commision. The only change from the previous composition is that Miguel Correia (user:Miguelmcorreia) was elected as secretary of the General Assembly Table. Miguel is a librarian previously at the National Library of Portugal, and more recently at the NOVA Business School library, and has been a Wikimedian since 2013, and has recently been involved, together with Catarina Reis, in getting bibliographic information from NOVA researchers into Wikidata (https://scholia.toolforge.org/organization/Q1979891). He is also the main organizer of our upcoming WikiData Days Conference to be held in Lisbon in 2021 (https://wikidatadays.wikimedia.pt/). Our newly elected governing bodies are listed here: ( https://pt.wikimedia.org/wiki/%C3%93rg%C3%A3os_sociais) Best regards, Gonçalo Themudo *Presid**ente* *Wikimedia Portugal* *Email: *go <goncalo.themudo(a)wikimedia.pt>ncalo.themudo(a)wikimedia.pt <goncalo.themudo(a)wikimedia.pt> *Website: *http://pt.wikimedia.org <https://sites.google.com/view/themudo> *Imagine um mundo onde cada ser humano pode partilhar livremente a soma de todo o conhecimento, na sua própria língua.*

1 0

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Operation and oversight of OTRS system
by Jonatan Svensson Glad 06 Jul '20

06 Jul '20

Most likely since tickets can be discussed in detail on the wiki amongst agents, and therefore a protective silence on the entire wiki has been put in place. For the other questions (such as how to remove another user as an agent), OTRS admins are not really admins as in the normal wiki-way, but more like "rulers of OTRS". Their word is law (kinda). So, to change any of this, they (or WMF staffers) would need to do it. -- Jonatan

1 0

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Operation and oversight of OTRS system
by Jonatan Svensson Glad 06 Jul '20

06 Jul '20

At the bottom of https://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/ you can see that there is a link called "Confidentiality notice” <https://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Project:General_disclaimer>. What is stated in that confidentiality notice is also confidential, since it is located on the wiki. But https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/L45 is the actual agreement singed by OTRS agents to gain access ot he OTRS software and the wiki. It is also stated in the footer of https://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/: "Please be aware that this is a private wiki, so content should not be shared externally.” -- Jonatan Svensson Glad Josve05a

2 1

Wikimedians of Colorado User Group Annual Report 2019
by Isarra Yos 06 Jul '20

06 Jul '20

Wikimedians of Colorado is proud to announce we've published our report for the past year. See it here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Colorado_User_Group/Annual_R… I'd make a joke about it being the world's shortest report, but I'm sure we'll really outdo ourselves with the next one, the way this year is going, and probably have a fair bit of competition from some of the other regional groups as well. Nothing wrong with that, though. Lots of other ways for folks to keep involved in the meantime! Thanks, y'all. -Isarra

2 1

Elena Sanz passed away last night
by Santiago Navarro 06 Jul '20

06 Jul '20

Hello. I have bad news, the kind of news we never want to have. Our friend and colleage Elena Sanz (user ElsaBornFree) passed away last night. Elena Sanz was a strong, intelligent and brilliant woman. She joined Wikimedia movement in 2014 and after two years she because secretary of Wikimedia España, possition she had till now. Many of you met her in many conferences and events, such as Wikimedia Conferences, Wikimanias or Iberoconfs, but also meeting for advocacy in the EU, the Wikipedia+education conference in Donostia, next to her home town. A very active person, this has been a huge shock for all of us. If you want to leave your condolences, you can write in a page created for that on Spanish Wikipedia.[1] We wrote also a blog post dedicated to her memory.[2] As a president of Wikimedia España and a friend of her, I want to express our condolences on behalf of Wikimedia España to his family and friends. We will always remember her. [1] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedistas_fallecidos/ElsaBornFree [2] https://www.wikimedia.es/2020/07/06/hasta-siempre-elena/ -- Santiago Navarro Sanz Presidente Wikimedia España www.wikimedia.es

7 6

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

Wikimedia-l July 2020