Hi all, just a reminder that we will be having our monthly SWAN (Strategic
Wikimedia Affiliates Network) calls this coming weekend, with three major
topics:
* "The Future of Wikimedia Governance" document by Wikimedia Deutschland
lays out some possible scenarios for the future. Presenting: Nicole Ebber.
* Hubs. Reflecting on the Hubs Workshop November 27 event, and a proposal
for a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Hub. Presenting: Camelia Boban.
* Movement Charter Drafting Committee. An update on the status, and how
might SWAN be helpful in the drafting process.
Call 1 - 03:00 UTC – 2021-11-28 (Asia-Pacific friendly time)
Call 2 - 18:00 UTC – 2021-11-28 (Europe-Africa-Americas friendly time)
All are welcome: You do not need to be in an affiliate to participate in
the calls. Learn about SWAN, review the agenda items, sign up and find the
meeting link at the following meta page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
Dear Wikimedians,
Greetings from the EduWiki Collaborators - Community Specialist Group!
Eduwiki collaborators is a peer network group that aims to help increase
the visibility of community work around Wikimedia in Education! Are you an
affiliate, organizer, or individual? Would you like to learn something new,
innovate in your project around education or increase your network and
collaboration within the movement?
Ahead of our first Regional Education Meeting for Sub-Saharan in January,
the Edu Wiki Sub-Saharan Community invites you to join its Facebook
Community <https://www.facebook.com/groups/869386360300949> and Telegram
Group channel <https://t.me/joinchat/CHskfDz9ZkxlODA0>. The idea is to
provide a platform for Wikipedians, affiliates, and other community members
within the region to learn something from each other, share their work and
ideas on activities around Wikimedia and Education. The platform also will
not only provide opportunities to strengthen the EduWiki network but will
help community members to explore collaboration opportunities and identify
common practices or challenges that are faced by our community members in
different parts of the world.
We are excited to have you and we can’t wait to help share your work!
Kind regards,
Ruby D-Brown
Eduwiki Collaborator Sub Saharan Africa
Dear Wikimedians,
Dear members of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,
Today I am excited to share a document with you that I hope will help
level up the global conversations about Movement Governance to be well
informed and solution-oriented.
Our team at Wikimedia Deutschland developed two scenarios for a future
movement governance model. Both scenarios are built upon the “ensure
equity in decision-making” recommendation and describe a future global
council. In Scenario 1, this council advises the WMF Board of
Trustees. In Scenario 2, the Council is a General Assembly that
governs the movement. Scenario 2 over time would likely result in the
formation of an international organization, and a gradual
redistribution of tasks among affiliates, WMF and the new entity.
As a basis for this paper, our team conducted a review of
international organizations and their governance models. We found that
these operate predominantly as international membership organizations
as described in Scenario 2.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/The_Future_of_Wikimed…
These scenarios are not the ultimate wisdom. Our intention is for this
conversation to become more concrete, and most importantly, begin it
by agreeing on where the journey will go – before starting to collect
content for the charter. So we encourage the members of the MCDC to
review the scenarios, discuss, add to or adjust them, and then –
before they start drafting – determine which one they will base their
work on.
The Movement Strategy team at WMDE is happy to engage in conversations
about these and possible other scenarios that can help further inform
and enrich the transformation towards a more equitable movement. The
value base and language of the charter will shape the movement for
decades to come. One thing is especially important to note: While many
questions will arise from these conversations, no one in particular is
currently able to immediately have answers – not WMDE, not the WMF,
not any other body. Answers will come step by step through the
sensemaking of the MCDC and its consultations with the movement, and
finding each answer will take time.
Kind regards,
Nicole
--
Nicole Ebber
Director Movement Strategy and Global Relations
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de
Keep up to date! Current news and exciting stories about Wikimedia,
Wikipedia and Free Knowledge in our newsletter (in German):
https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/
Wikimedia Deutschland – Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts
Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig
anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Hello all,
just wanted to share a quick "save the date":
The Movement Strategy and Governance team of the Wikimedia Foundation will
host a co-creation workshop on the concept of "Hubs" on November 27, 2021,
from 13:00 to 17:00 UTC. (your timezone
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1638018002>). Registration will open early
next week. We are looking for participants who are working on "Hubs"
proposals, have engaged on that topic previously, or are planning to do so
in the near future.
The overall goal of the event is convergence and alignment regarding the
concept of hubs and principles for the development of hubs. The idea is to
convene on the topic of hubs, to reach an initial definition of regional
and thematic hubs, and to clarify essential questions on the concept of
hubs (e.g. scope, responsibilities, connection to existing entities, and
hub life cycle). Ideally, the work done during this event will inform the
Movement Charter Drafting Committee and its drafting process.
More information here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hubs/Workshop_November_27,_2021
Best regards,
Cornelius
--
Cornelius Kibelka (he/him)
Event Coordinator
Movement Strategy + Governance
2030.wikimedia.org
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate.
<https://donate.wikimedia.org/>*
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello all,
The next Wikimedia Research Showcase will be on Wednesday, November 17, at
17:30 UTC (9:30am PST/12:30pm EST/ 18:30 CET). The topic is content
moderation.
Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx3xesDkp2o
*Amy S. Bruckman (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)Is Deplatforming
Censorship? What happened when controversial figures were deplatformed,
with philosophical musings on the nature of free speech*
Abstract: When a controversial figure is deplatformed, what happens to
their online influence? In this talk, first, I’ll present results from a
study of the deplatforming from Twitter of three figures who repeatedly
broke platform rules (Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Owen Benjamin).
Second, I’ll discuss what happened when this study was on the front page of
Reddit, and the range of angry reactions from people who say that they’re
in favor of “free speech.” I’ll explore the nature of free speech, and why
our current speech regulation framework is fundamentally broken. Finally,
I’ll conclude with thoughts on the strength of Wikipedia’s model in
contrast to other platforms, and highlight opportunities for improvement.
*Nathan TeBlunthuis (University of Washington / Northwestern University,
USA)Effects of Algorithmic Flagging on Fairness. Quasi-experimental
Evidence from Wikipedia*
Abstract: Online community moderators often rely on social signals such as
whether or not a user has an account or a profile page as clues that users
may cause problems. Reliance on these clues can lead to "overprofiling bias
when moderators focus on these signals but overlook the misbehavior of
others. We propose that algorithmic flagging systems deployed to improve
the efficiency of moderation work can also make moderation actions more
fair to these users by reducing reliance on social signals and making norm
violations by everyone else more visible. We analyze moderator behavior in
Wikipedia as mediated by RCFilters, a system which displays social signals
and algorithmic flags, and estimate the causal effect of being flagged on
moderator actions. We show that algorithmically flagged edits are reverted
more often, especially those by established editors with positive social
signals, and that flagging decreases the likelihood that moderation actions
will be undone. Our results suggest that algorithmic flagging systems can
lead to increased fairness in some contexts but that the relationship is
complex and contingent.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase
--
Janna Layton (she/her)
Administrative Associate - Product & Technology
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hi,
Since several weeks or months, upload for large files is essentially broken.
It is now nearly impossible to upload a file larger than 100 MB. All file
formats are affected (PDF, TIFF, videos, etc.). Upload even failed for a 77
MB TIFF file from Internet Archive.
See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T292954 for details.
There has not been much feedback from developers.
However this is a serious issue and needs an urgent fix.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Maximum_file_size#Maximum_upload…https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Maximum_file_size#%3E_100_MB
As consequence, a Server side upload was requested:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T292769
The task is waiting for 3 weeks without action for a routine task which
should take only a very short time. I wonder if there are still developers
alive...
Instead of fancy features development, WMF budget should be used on
priority for maintaining the existing functionalities. Uploading large
files used to work very well, so why has no effort been done to fix this
bug?
Regards,
Yann Forget
--
Jai Jagat 2020 Grand March Coordination Team
https://www.jaijagat2020.org/
+33-780 60 90 42
+91-74 34 93 33 58 (also WhatsApp)
Hi everybody.
Today, on the social media channels, we received the news about another
wikimedian who is passed away: Steve Suleeman (User:Stephensuleeman from
idwiki). As others in the recent or distant past: Spasimir Pilev
(User:Спасимир Пилев from bgwiki), Pier Luigi Rocco (User:Moroboshi from
itwiki), Elena Sanz Queiruga (User:ElsaBornFree from
eswiki), User:SlimVirgin from enwiki, Krzysztof Machocki
(User:Halibutt from plwiki).
For these losses, I think we - as a community, through the Wikimedia
Foundation - need to set up a fund to build a commemorative plaque to
remember all the wikimedians we have lost.
I would suggest it to be a thought from the community, extended also to all
other major events of a wikimedian's life (marriage, birth of a child). We
know a wikimedian often sacrifices the free time, dedicating a large part
of their own real life to our projects and the movement. Would be a
recognition from the community for the work done and a memory for the
families, a "small gratitude to our fellow wikimedians" as someone said.
I know that some affiliates are already doing this (eq. Wikimedia
Indonesia), would be a lovely idea to do it in a centralized way at the
level of the whole movement.
What do you think?
Camelia