Thank you for your continued comments and ideas on the Universal Code of
Conduct enforcement guidelines. Your responses have helped to build a
stronger Universal Code of Conduct.
If you have not already provided your comments, now is the time as the
drafting committee has been meeting to update the enforcement guidelines
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Universal_Code_of_Conduc…>
[1].
The drafting committee wants to consider all comments as they make their
updates. Please submit any comments by the end of November. The Committee
hopes to finish its revisions before the end of the year, and the revised
guidelines will be published as soon as they have been completed.
The next steps for the Universal Code of Conduct include conversations
about ratification of the enforcement guidelines. There will be a
conversation about ratification on Nov 29
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Universal_Code_of_Conduc…>
15:00
UTC [2] .
The Wikimedia Foundation will make recommendations to the Board of Trustees
about the ratification of the guidelines in December. The recommendations
will inform the next steps in the Universal Code of Conduct process.
Thank you for participating in the UCoC consultations!
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Drafting_committe…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/2021_consultation…
--
*Youngjin Ko *(he/him)
Movement Strategy and Governance facilitator
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi all,
Join the Research Team at the Wikimedia Foundation [1] for their monthly
Office hours this Wednesday, 2021-12-08 at 00:00-1:00 UTC (16:00 PT 12-07 /
19:00 ET 12-07 / 1:00 CET 12-08). Find your local date and time here
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1638921637>. Please note the time change!
We are experimenting with our Office hours schedules to make our sessions
more globally welcoming.
To participate, join the video-call via this link [2]. There is no set
agenda - feel free to add your item to the list of topics in the etherpad
[3]. You are welcome to add questions / items to the etherpad in advance,
or when you arrive at the session. Even if you are unable to attend, you
can leave a question that we can address asynchronously. If you do not have
a specific agenda item, you are welcome to hang out and enjoy the
conversation. 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 research related questions that you as Wikimedia volunteer editors,
organizers, affiliates, staff, and researchers face in your projects and
initiatives. Here are some example cases we hope to be able to support you
with:
-
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].
This is also a good opportunity to learn more about the Research Fund [6]!
Hope to see many of you,
Emily on behalf of the WMF Research Team
[1] https://research.wikimedia.org
[2] https://meet.jit.si/WMF-Research-Office-Hours
[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
[6]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Research_%26_Tech…
--
Emily Lescak (she / her)
Senior Research Community Officer
The Wikimedia Foundation
Hello everyone
Wiki Loves Africa launches again in 2022!
Our 2022 theme will be Home + Habitat.
Another amazing opportunity to submit photos, videos or audios that will
this year celebrate Home+Habitat across Africa!
To have a better idea of what can be covered by the theme, check out
this page :
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2022/Theme
We plan to launch at the same time than last year, Feb 15th.
Whilst it seems we are back in touch very early on (nearly 3 months in
advance), it is to give the time to interested parties to organize
themselves.
As a reminder, everyone can participate to WLA, as long as it is on the
theme and related to Africa.
Contrariwise to contests such as WLM, there is no notion of "registered
countries". It is possible to participate from the entire African
continent and beyond. However, every year, some african teams
auto-organize to propose a program in their region or country around the
photo contest. Such program can include training sessions, photo-walks,
edit-a-thons, photo upload sessions, press conferences, ceremonies for
national winners. The key point is flexibility. A group of two people
will not do as much as a group of 15 people. A group may have grand
ideas with many activities whilst another group will simply organize a
photo-walk. Another will simply do some buzz on social media. The choice
is entirely the group decision and any participation will be welcome.
HOW YOU CAN HELP (even if you are not african and/or not living in Africa)
1) you may participate to the contest
- if you have relevant pictures on your hard drive,
- or if visit Africa in the next 3 months, or
- if you go to museums/festivals relevant to this year theme.
2) you may volunteer to help organize the contest. Typically, we are
ALWAYS looking for people to
- translate the meta pages or the Commons pages in French, Arabic and
Portuguese in particular
- join the jurys (national and international)
- review the images, categorize them, label them as best images etc.
- help on social media to promote the contest
- etc.
There is a organizing portal on meta with lot's of information :
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2022
And a telegram group : https://t.me/+Smc82PP53yscNUIs
ACTIVITY FUNDING
When a group decides to host activities, it may need some funding.
Funding can be obtained through different means, and in particular
through rapid grants requests.
What is important is that... to have a chance to have the funds in time
for the contest, it is required to submit a Rapid Grant application now.
The Rapid grants application deadline is 15th December.
To best support you, this year, the Wiki Loves Africa team propose
Office Hours in the next two weeks. 2 will be hosted in English and 2
will be in French. More meetings will be organized early 2022, but those
December Office Hours are primarily meant to help you if you need
support to submit a Rapid Grant to Wikimedia Foundation. If you can not
join one of those, we can always help on the Telegram Channel. Do not
hesitate to ask for feedback and advice.
WLA Rapid Grants Office Hours:
•In English, Saturday 4th December 2021 (10:00 AM UTC+2)
•In French, Monday 6th December 2021 (12:00 PM UTC+1)
•In English, Monday 13th December 2021 (17:00 UTC+2)
•In French, Wednesday 15th December 2021 (18:00 UTC+1)
Details: https://bit.ly/3d5wIvY
Florence for the team
Hello all,
Here is a conversation and decision we need to have before launch of
Wikifunctions:
*How should the contents of Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions be
licensed?*
Since the discussion is expected to be potentially complicated, let us keep
a single place of record for discussing this question:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Licensing_discussion
We would like the discussion to go on for four weeks and that we have some
form of consensus by December 20th. This is not planned to be a vote
(although it might have votes in it and it might even be closed by a vote
in case no other form of consensus finding works out).
I hope to see you all on wiki!
Denny
Greetings,
Thank you all for your participation and support during the 2021 Months of
African Cinema Contest[1] which ended on 30th November 2021.
Based on our initial statistics, we have been able to get about 3,000
articles created in over 14 languages![2] A big thank you to everyone who
created articles during the contest for making this happen. We also want to
sincerely thank all organizers who have managed to make the contest happen
in their local communities.
The review of all the submitted articles will commence as soon as possible
and we hope to announce winners in February 2022. If you haven’t already,
please remember to list your articles in both the Users by Articles page[3]
and the article achievement section[2] in order to get your articles
assessed by the international jury.
We wish you all a fulfilled month ahead and look forward to your
participation in future projects!
Warm regards,
Eben Mlay
Community Liaison, Afrocine project
1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AfroCine/Months_of_Afri…
2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AfroCine/Months_of_Afri…
3.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AfroCine/Months_of_Afri…
Dearest Community Members,
The Wikimania 2021 Core Organizing Team
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2021#Organising_team> and Wikimania
Steering Committee <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Committee>
are excited to share with you the evaluation results of Wikimania 2021.
We wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone – that’s 1700 of you from
across the movement – that helped create the first online Wikimania.
Whether talking about welcoming newcomers, fascinating presentations,
catching up with old friends, or singing and dancing together, you were
essential to the success.
After the event, we asked you to share your thoughts about the first-ever
virtual Wikimania: How accessible and inclusive was Wikimania 2021? What
did you most like about the event? What would you have changed? And how did
the newcomers among us feel? We invite you to read the report
<https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2021:Evaluation>.
And if you’re feeling nostalgic, you can watch back all of the great video
content
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimania_2021_presentations>,
including the session that brought out the performers in all of us:
the Wikimania
2021 song <https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2021:Wikimania_Song>.
The Wikimania Steering Committee will be sharing more information on how to
get involved for 2022 in the coming days, so stay tuned … and get excited!
Best wishes from the 2021 Wikimania COT,
Winnie Kabintie
Hi all,
This is a reminder that the Wikimedia Foundation is still accepting
applications for the 2022 Ombuds Commission until the end of the month.
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 sign the Access to NonPublic Information NDA
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. Commissioners must also be over 18 years of age.
If you are interested in serving on this commission, please write me an
email off-list 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 twelve members; all applications are appreciated and will be
carefully considered. The deadline for applications is the end of day[3] on
31 December, 2021.
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
3. This deadline is flexible in terms of time zones; as long as your
application is in while it's 31 December somewhere in the world, you're
fine.
--
Karen Brown
Trust & Safety Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation
kbrown(a)wikimedia.org
*-- tl;dr --*
We share our lessons learned from this year's edition of the Wikimedia
Accelerator UNLOCK: Be inspired by our successes and failures of designing
and implementing a new program for Free Knowledge!
*+++*
Dear Wikimedians, dear all,
Today we are excited to share with you our core lessons learned from the
past year!
This year, we finished up the second edition of the Wikimedia Accelerator
program UNLOCK <https://www.wikimedia.de/unlock/> [1]. We supported five
project teams with brilliantly new ideas for Free Knowledge with coachings,
mentoring, and tons of input from experts within our movement and beyond
that helped them bring their ideas to life.
Throughout the second edition of the UNLOCK Accelerator we made it our
mission to evaluate often and experiment continuously as a means to learn
from new and previous challenges. In one comprehensive document we would
like to share our core lessons learned with you, with the intention of making
freely available what went particularly well and what we might change in
the future in designing and implementing an accelerator program.
For instance, did you know that eradicating a jury meeting for the
selection process of the participating teams and going fully virtual ended
up not working as planned? And while the participants were much more eager
to engage in cross-team setups than last year, it wasn’t the thematic theme
of the program (Re)Building trust in the digital age
<https://www.wikimedia.de/unlock-blog/rebuilding-trust-in-the-digital-age/>
[2] that they bonded over most? We share the full inside scoop of what
worked and what simply didn't.
We hope to get a conversation going. Perhaps we will also inspire someone
who can use our recommendations as a helpful resource in the development of
their own work.
Download here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNLOCK2021_Lessons_Learned_ENG.pdf>
[3]
The basis of this document are 1:1 feedback sessions as well as anonymous
surveys with the participants of the program, regular debriefs and
retrospectives with all persons involved in the program implementation
(e.g. coaches, jury members, organizational and communication team), as
well as our own evaluation sessions following each milestone of the program.
Enjoy the read and get in touch if you want to learn more!
Best,
the UNLOCK team
(Kannika, Lucia, Mia)
[1] https://www.wikimedia.de/unlock/
[2] https://www.wikimedia.de/unlock-blog/rebuilding-trust-in-the-digital-age/
[3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNLOCK2021_Lessons_Learned_ENG.pdf
--
Lucia Obst (she/her)
Projektmanagerin UNLOCK Accelerator
*We accelerate your ideas. Together we build the future of Free Knowledge.*
www.wikimedia.de/unlock <http://www.wikimedia.de/unlock>
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23–24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de