What is May 17th?
The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia was
created in 2004 to draw the attention to the violence and discrimination
experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex people and all
other people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities or
expressions, and sex characteristics. The date of May 17th was specifically
chosen to commemorate the World Health Organization’s decision in 1990 to
declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. https://may17.org
One year ago in 2020 we started QueeringW in hope #1 Queering Wikipedia
conference would be happening with a year of delay...now we hope it is in
2022!
Meanwhile we are "Together, we Resist, Support, and Heal"
<https://twitter.com/may17org>
Happy #May17 #IDAHOT #IDAHOTBITQ
for those who celebrate and would support
https://www.instagram.com/QueeringW
@may17org <https://twitter.com/may17org> #IDAHOT
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/IDAHOT?src=hashtag_click> #IDAHOT2021
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/IDAHOT2021?src=hashtag_click>
https://twitter.com/QueeringW
Dear all,
Over the last few months, a small team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been
working on a project that has been discussed by many people in our movement
for many years: building ‘enterprise grade’ services for the high-volume
commercial reusers of Wikimedia content. I am pleased to say that in a
remarkably short amount of time (considering the complexity of the issues:
technical, strategic, legal, and financial) we now have something worthy of
showing to the community, and we are asking for your feedback. Allow me to
introduce you to the Wikimedia Enterprise API project – formerly codenamed
“okapi”.
While the general idea for Wikimedia Enterprise predates the current
movement strategy process, its recommendations identify an enterprise API
as one possible solution to both “Increase the sustainability of our
movement” and “Improve User Experience.”[0] That is, to simultaneously
create a new revenue stream to protect Wikimedia’s sustainability, and
improve the quality and quantity of Wikimedia content available to our many
readers who do not visit our websites directly (including more consistent
attribution). Moreover, it does so in a way that is true to our movement’s
culture: with open source software, financial transparency, non-exclusive
contracts or content, no restrictions on existing services, and free access
for Wikimedia volunteers who need it.
The team believes we are on target to achieve those goals and so we have
written a lot of documentation to get your feedback about our progress and
where it could be further improved before the actual product is ‘launched’
in the next few months. We have been helped in this process over the last
several months by approximately 100 individual volunteers (from many
corners of the wikiverse) and representatives of affiliate organisations
who have reviewed our plans and provided invaluable direction, pointing out
weaknesses and opportunities, or areas lacking clarity and documentation in
our drafts. Thank you to everyone who has shared your time and expertise to
help prepare this new initiative.
A essay describing the “why?” and the “how?” of this project is now on
Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay
Also now published on Meta are an extensive FAQ, operating principles, and
technical documentation on MediaWiki.org. You can read these at [1] [2] and
[3] respectively. Much of this documentation is already available in
French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
The Wikimedia Enterprise team is particularly interested in your feedback
on how we have designed the checks and balances to this project - to ensure
it is as successful as possible at achieving those two goals described
above while staying true to the movement’s values and culture. For example:
Is everything covered appropriately in the “Principles” list? Is the
technical documentation on MediaWiki.org clear? Are the explanations in the
“FAQ” about free-access for community, or project’s legal structure, or the
financial transparency (etc.) sufficiently detailed?
Meet the team and Ask Us Anything:
The central place to provide written feedback about the project in general
is on the talkpage of the documentation on Meta at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise
On this Friday (March 19) we will be hosting two “Office hours”
conversations where anyone can come and give feedback or ask questions:
-
13:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/95580273732
-
22:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/92565175760 (note:
this is Saturday in Asia/Oceania)
Other “office hours” meetings can be arranged on-request on a technical
platform of your choosing; and we will organise more calls in the future.
We will also be attending the next SWAN meetings (on March 21)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network, and
also the next of the Wikimedia Clinics
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Clinics
Moreover, we would be very happy to accept any invitation to attend an
existing group call that would like to discuss this topic (e.g. an
affiliate’s members’ meeting).
On behalf of the Wikimedia Enterprise team,
Peace, Love & Metadata
-- Liam Wyatt [Wittylama], Wikimedia Enterprise project community liaison.
[0]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme…
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Principles
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise
*Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*
WikiCite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite> Program Manager & Wikimedia
Enterprise <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Okapi> Community Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation
This paper (first reference) is the result of a class project I was part of
almost two years ago for CSCI 5417 Information Retrieval Systems. It builds
on a class project I did in CSCI 5832 Natural Language Processing and which
I presented at Wikimania '07. The project was very late as we didn't send
the final paper in until the day before new years. This technical report was
never really announced that I recall so I thought it would be interesting to
look briefly at the results. The goal of this paper was to break articles
down into surface features and latent features and then use those to study
the rating system being used, predict article quality and rank results in a
search engine. We used the [[random forests]] classifier which allowed us to
analyze the contribution of each feature to performance by looking directly
at the weights that were assigned. While the surface analysis was performed
on the whole english wikipedia, the latent analysis was performed on the
simple english wikipedia (it is more expensive to compute). = Surface
features = * Readability measures are the single best predictor of quality
that I have found, as defined by the Wikipedia Editorial Team (WET). The
[[Automated Readability Index]], [[Gunning Fog Index]] and [[Flesch-Kincaid
Grade Level]] were the strongest predictors, followed by length of article
html, number of paragraphs, [[Flesh Reading Ease]], [[Smog Grading]], number
of internal links, [[Laesbarhedsindex Readability Formula]], number of words
and number of references. Weakly predictive were number of to be's, number
of sentences, [[Coleman-Liau Index]], number of templates, PageRank, number
of external links, number of relative links. Not predictive (overall - see
the end of section 2 for the per-rating score breakdown): Number of h2 or
h3's, number of conjunctions, number of images*, average word length, number
of h4's, number of prepositions, number of pronouns, number of interlanguage
links, average syllables per word, number of nominalizations, article age
(based on page id), proportion of questions, average sentence length. :*
Number of images was actually by far the single strongest predictor of any
class, but only for Featured articles. Because it was so good at picking out
featured articles and somewhat good at picking out A and G articles the
classifier was confused in so many cases that the overall contribution of
this feature to classification performance is zero. :* Number of external
links is strongly predictive of Featured articles. :* The B class is highly
distinctive. It has a strong "signature," with high predictive value
assigned to many features. The Featured class is also very distinctive. F, B
and S (Stop/Stub) contain the most information.
:* A is the least distinct class, not being very different from F or G. =
Latent features = The algorithm used for latent analysis, which is an
analysis of the occurence of words in every document with respect to the
link structure of the encyclopedia ("concepts"), is [[Latent Dirichlet
Allocation]]. This part of the analysis was done by CS PhD student Praful
Mangalath. An example of what can be done with the result of this analysis
is that you provide a word (a search query) such as "hippie". You can then
look at the weight of every article for the word hippie. You can pick the
article with the largest weight, and then look at its link network. You can
pick out the articles that this article links to and/or which link to this
article that are also weighted strongly for the word hippie, while also
contributing maximally to this articles "hippieness". We tried this query in
our system (LDA), Google (site:en.wikipedia.org hippie), and the Simple
English Wikipedia's Lucene search engine. The breakdown of articles occuring
in the top ten search results for this word for those engines is: * LDA
only: [[Acid rock]], [[Aldeburgh Festival]], [[Anne Murray]], [[Carl
Radle]], [[Harry Nilsson]], [[Jack Kerouac]], [[Phil Spector]], [[Plastic
Ono Band]], [[Rock and Roll]], [[Salvador Allende]], [[Smothers brothers]],
[[Stanley Kubrick]]. * Google only: [[Glam Rock]], [[South Park]]. * Simple
only: [[African Americans]], [[Charles Manson]], [[Counterculture]], [[Drug
use]], [[Flower Power]], [[Nuclear weapons]], [[Phish]], [[Sexual
liberation]], [[Summer of Love]] * LDA & Google & Simple: [[Hippie]],
[[Human Be-in]], [[Students for a democratic society]], [[Woodstock
festival]] * LDA & Google: [[Psychedelic Pop]] * Google & Simple: [[Lysergic
acid diethylamide]], [[Summer of Love]] ( See the paper for the articles
produced for the keywords philosophy and economics ) = Discussion /
Conclusion = * The results of the latent analysis are totally up to your
perception. But what is interesting is that the LDA features predict the WET
ratings of quality just as well as the surface level features. Both feature
sets (surface and latent) both pull out all almost of the information that
the rating system bears. * The rating system devised by the WET is not
distinctive. You can best tell the difference between, grouped together,
Featured, A and Good articles vs B articles. Featured, A and Good articles
are also quite distinctive (Figure 1). Note that in this study we didn't
look at Start's and Stubs, but in earlier paper we did. :* This is
interesting when compared to this recent entry on the YouTube blog. "Five
Stars Dominate Ratings"
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html…
I think a sane, well researched (with actual subjects) rating system
is
well within the purview of the Usability Initiative. Helping people find and
create good content is what Wikipedia is all about. Having a solid rating
system allows you to reorganized the user interface, the Wikipedia
namespace, and the main namespace around good content and bad content as
needed. If you don't have a solid, information bearing rating system you
don't know what good content really is (really bad content is easy to spot).
:* My Wikimania talk was all about gathering data from people about articles
and using that to train machines to automatically pick out good content. You
ask people questions along dimensions that make sense to people, and give
the machine access to other surface features (such as a statistical measure
of readability, or length) and latent features (such as can be derived from
document word occurence and encyclopedia link structure). I referenced page
262 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to give an example of the
kind of qualitative features I would ask people. It really depends on what
features end up bearing information, to be tested in "the lab". Each word is
an example dimension of quality: We have "*unity, vividness, authority,
economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance,
precision, proportion, depth and so on.*" You then use surface and latent
features to predict these values for all articles. You can also say, when a
person rates this article as high on the x scale, they also mean that it has
has this much of these surface and these latent features.
= References =
- DeHoust, C., Mangalath, P., Mingus., B. (2008). *Improving search in
Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery*. Technical Report.
PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/6/68/DeHoustMangalat…>
- Rassbach, L., Mingus., B, Blackford, T. (2007). *Exploring the
feasibility of automatically rating online article quality*. Technical
Report. PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/d/d3/RassbachPincock…>
Hoi,
I have asked and received permission to forward to you all this most
excellent bit of news.
The linguist list, is a most excellent resource for people interested in the
field of linguistics. As I mentioned some time ago they have had a funding
drive and in that funding drive they asked for a certain amount of money in
a given amount of days and they would then have a project on Wikipedia to
learn what needs doing to get better coverage for the field of linguistics.
What you will read in this mail that the total community of linguists are
asked to cooperate. I am really thrilled as it will also get us more
linguists interested in what we do. My hope is that a fraction will be
interested in the languages that they care for and help it become more
relevant. As a member of the "language prevention committee", I love to get
more knowledgeable people involved in our smaller projects. If it means that
we get more requests for more projects we will really feel embarrassed with
all the new projects we will have to approve because of the quality of the
Incubator content and the quality of the linguistic arguments why we should
approve yet another language :)
NB Is this not a really clever way of raising money; give us this much in
this time frame and we will then do this as a bonus...
Thanks,
GerardM
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: LINGUIST Network <linguist(a)linguistlist.org>
Date: Jun 18, 2007 6:53 PM
Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
To: LINGUIST(a)listserv.linguistlist.org
LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831. Mon Jun 18 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.
Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar(a)linguistlist.org>
Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry(a)linguistlist.org>
Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project
<reviews(a)linguistlist.org>
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/
The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University,
and donations from subscribers and publishers.
Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyer(a)linguistlist.org>
================================================================
To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html
===========================Directory==============================
1)
Date: 18-Jun-2007
From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org >
Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:49:35
From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org >
Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers
Dear subscribers,
As you may recall, one of our Fund Drive 2007 campaigns was called the
"Wikipedia Update Vote." We asked our viewers to consider earmarking their
donations to organize an update project on linguistics entries in the
English-language Wikipedia. You can find more background information on this
at:
http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/wikipedia/index.cfm.
The speed with which we met our goal, thanks to the interest and generosity
of
our readers, was a sure sign that the linguistics community was enthusiastic
about the idea. Now that summer is upon us, and some of you may have a bit
more
leisure time, we are hoping that you will be able to help us get started on
the
Wikipedia project. The LINGUIST List's role in this project is a purely
organizational one. We will:
*Help, with your input, to identify major gaps in the Wikipedia materials or
pages that need improvement;
*Compile a list of linguistics pages that Wikipedia editors have identified
as
"in need of attention from an expert on the subject" or " does not cite any
references or sources," etc;
*Send out periodical calls for volunteer contributors on specific topics or
articles;
*Provide simple instructions on how to upload your entries into Wikipedia;
*Keep track of our project Wikipedians;
*Keep track of revisions and new entries;
*Work with Wikimedia Foundation to publicize the linguistics community's
efforts.
We hope you are as enthusiastic about this effort as we are. Just to help us
all
get started looking at Wikipedia more critically, and to easily identify an
area
needing improvement, we suggest that you take a look at the List of
Linguists
page at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguists. M
Many people are not listed there; others need to have more facts and
information
added. If you would like to participate in this exciting update effort,
please
respond by sending an email to LINGUIST Editor Hannah Morales at
hannah(a)linguistlist.org, suggesting what your role might be or which
linguistics
entries you feel should be updated or added. Some linguists who saw our
campaign
on the Internet have already written us with specific suggestions, which we
will
share with you soon.
This update project will take major time and effort on all our parts. The
end
result will be a much richer internet resource of information on the breadth
and
depth of the field of linguistics. Our efforts should also stimulate
prospective
students to consider studying linguistics and to educate a wider public on
what
we do. Please consider participating.
Sincerely,
Hannah Morales
Editor, Wikipedia Update Project
Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable
-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831
Dear friends and colleagues
Please permit me to publicise an academic conference that we're holding at
Hong Kong Baptist University on 15-17 December 2021.
The conference will be an ideal forum in which to discuss research
methodologies, issues of collaborativity, theoretical frameworks that have
proven valuable for the study of Wikipedia translation, the use of
Wikipedia in the translation classroom and by translation professionals,
and the nature of Wikipedia translation and how it differs not only from
other more traditional types of translation but also from other newly
emerging types. While the conference's main focus is interlingual
translation within the online encyclopaedia, we are also interested
in research into the multilingual Wikipedia that makes no explicit
reference to translation issues.
The conference will be online, face-to-face or mixed mode, depending on
prevailing circumstances. Please see the conference website at
https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/ for full details and the Call for
Papers.
I hope to see some of you there!
Mark
Professor Mark Shuttleworth 夏致遠
Department of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies
Hong Kong Baptist University
Phone: +852 3411 6641
http://www.tran.hkbu.edu.hkhttps://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/
--
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information.
Dear all,
We hope this email finds you well and safe. The COVID 19 situation
continues to affect many of us across the globe and our thoughts are with
everyone affected. We are also aware that there are several processes
currently in progress that demand volunteer time and we do not want to add
more work to anyone's plate.
We do want to draw your attention to our new Regional Committees for Grants
though as they are an opportunity for you to have an active say in the
future of our Movement!
📣 So today, we invite you to join our new Regional Committees for Grants!
📣
We encourage Wikimedians and Free Knowledge advocates to be part of the new
Regional Committees that the WMF Community Resources team is setting up as
part of the grants strategy relaunch [1]. You will be a key strategic
thought partner to help understand the complexities of any region, provide
knowledge and expertise to applicants, to support successful movement
activities, and make funding decisions for grant applications in the region.
👉Find out more on meta [2].
Regional Committees will be established for the following regions:
- Middle East and Africa
- SAARC [3] region (Includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the
Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka)
- East, Southeast Asia, and Pacific (ESEAP) region
- Latin America (LATAM) and The Caribbean
- United States and Canada
- Northern and Western Europe
- Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)
👉All details about the Committees and how to apply can be found on meta
[4]. Applications have to be submitted by *June 4, 2021*!
If you have any questions or comments, please use the meta discussion page
[5].
Please do share this announcement widely with your Network.
Best wishes,
Julia on behalf of the Community Resources Team
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunc…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunc…
[3] https://www.saarc-sec.org/index.php/about-saarc/about-saarc
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunc…
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Re…
--
*Julia Brungs*
Senior Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Dear list,
Risker posed an excellent question in the AffCom thread about *review and
development of movement funding*, which could use its own dedicated
thread. Riffing on the theme, here are a dozen questions for anyone who
knows part of the answer -- particularly those who helped develop the 2019
recommendations on resource allocation
<http://Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Resource_Allocati…>
,
the 2020 approach to hubs and participatory resource allocation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme…>,
and the grants strategy relaunch
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunc…>
.
We can move this discussion to meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MSIG>
if the thread becomes unwieldy. (:
*1. Current state of movement funding*
1a. Roughly what % of global fundraising is currently allocated to
affiliates, or other entities + projects not run by the WMF? (*my poor
guess <User:Sj/wikilibrium#Timeline_of_funds_distribution>*)
1b. Roughly how much regional fundraising goes directly to major
affiliates?
1c. Which affiliates with annual plan grants have been growing over time,
and how is the expansion of existing budgets approved?
1d. Which affiliates have gotten their first APG in the past five years,
and how has that developed over time?
*2. Current review process*
2a. How is funding by WMF of movement affiliates (general operations, and
large specific projects) currently determined? Does the Board engage with
this?
2b. Is the funding of affiliate work linked to goals of increasing equity
across the world, and supporting underrepresented communities? If so, how /
how is this visualized?
2c. What other mechanisms for focusing and allocating resources are good
examples to replicate?
2d. What other bilateral projects (such as joint projects, and grant or
microgrant programs), run by large affiliates and hubs other than the WMF,
currently exist? Which seem like examples to replicate?
*3. Desired futures!*
3a. What movement bodies are expected to play any role in recommendations
about funding (extending, withdrawing, denying funding) to new and existing
affiliates, now that the FDC is inactive?
3b. Is there a possibility of the FDC returning? How do past FDC members
have about this? What was found to be good and bad about the FDC process?
3c. What elements of this is the global council expected to take up in
its first year? What elements are hubs expected to take up, now and in the
future?
3d. What roles do we envision each of {WMF, hubs, affiliates, community
members} to play in reviewing movement budgets/plans and the volume and
focus of future funding [re]allocation?
Hello, everyone.
TLDR:
The Board of Trustees’ Community Affairs Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…>
(CAC) is hosting its first office hour on May 13, 2021 at 19:00 UTC (check
for your local time <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1620928828>)!
Now in more details:
What are we announcing?
The CAC is a new Board of Trustees
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees>
committee established to assess, explore and address current and future
community-related efforts. The Committee's Charter
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Affairs_Committee_Charter>
lists its full responsibilities, with the first 3 being a priority for this
coming year.
As part of our commitment to foster better communications with the
Wikimedia Movement Community, and based on feedback received from community
members requesting more availability from the Board of Trustees, the CAC
will be hosting its first Office hours.
When & Where?
The Office hours will be held on May 13 2021, at 19:00 UTC (check for your
local time <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1620928828>) via Zoom. At least
3 Trustees, as well as relevant WMF staff will be in attendance. The
session will be streamed live and recorded, so those who cannot participate
live will be able to watch later.
How will it work?
The meeting will last for 60 minutes and an additional 30 minutes of an
“open room”. The first 60 minutes will be divided into 45 minutes of
structured Q & A (based on either updates from the CAC and questions sent
by the community in advance). The final 15 minutes will be in the “ask us
anything” format, with live participation. We will be monitoring live
YouTube, Wikipedia Weekly Facebook group
<https://www.facebook.com/groups/553393111375191> and the Wikimedia General
Chat Telegram group <https://t.me/WikimediaGeneral> and the talk page on
Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…>.
The structure is meant to enable the CAC to not only update the community
on current matters the Board is working on, but also hear directly from the
community, which will help inform the Committee’s future work.
Setting the agenda with your Questions
In order to be as efficient as possible, and since we anticipate that some
questions will require answers from WMF Staff, we are encouraging community
members to send questions in advance. Please send all questions to
askcac(a)wikimedia.org, by Friday, May 7th (midnight, whatever time zone you
may be in). The office hour agenda will be based on the main topics related
to the questions received. We will share this agenda on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…>
on May 12, including final names of Trustees in attendance.
How to register?
For security reasons and specifically to avoid Zoombombing
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoombombing>, we will be sending the Zoom
link only to people who have registered in advance close to the meeting. In
order to register, please send an email to askcac(a)wikimedia.org, indicating
your name, username, affiliation if you have any. The title should be:
“Registration for the May 13th CAC Office Hours”.
Please note --
-
This is the first time that the Board is attempting something of the
sort. This is an experiment. We’ll see how it goes - how many people are
interested in attending, timing, translation needs etc -- and make
decisions about future meetings / changes to format accordingly.
-
The session will be moderated based on the Universal Code of Conduct
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct>
-
Universally blocked users will not be allowed in the room, but can still
participate by watching live and sending questions in real-time.
Please help us spread the word by sharing this message with your local /
online communities.
Hoping to see as many of you as possible,
Shani Evenstein Sigalov
Chair, Community Affairs Committee
Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation.
Shani Evenstein Sigalov
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/shani-evenstein-sigalov/>
Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
According to the recent Independent Auditors' Report of the WMF [1], at
some point prior to the end of June 2020, an entity called the "Wikimedia
Knowledge Equity Fund" was established, and $8.723 million was transferred
to it by the WMF, in the form of an unconditional grant. The Fund is
"managed and controlled by Tides Advocacy" (a 501(c)(4) advocacy nonprofit
previously led by the WMF's current General Counsel/Board Secretary, who
served as CEO, Board Secretary, and Treasurer there). Given that a Google
search for "Wikimedia Knowledge Equity Fund" yields zero results prior to
the release of the report, it is clear that the WMF kept this significant
move completely secret for over five months, perhaps over a year. The
Report FAQ additionally emphasizes that the WMF "has no right of return to
the grant funds provided, with the exception of unexpended funds."
The WMF unilaterally and secretly transferred nearly $9 million of movement
funds to an outside organization not recognized by the Affiliations
Committee. No mention of the grant was made in any Board resolutions or
minutes from the relevant time period. The amount was not mentioned in the
public annual plan, which set out rather less than this amount for the
entire grantmaking budget for the year. No application was made through any
of the various Wikimedia grants processes. No further information has been
provided on the administration of this new Fund, or on the text of the
grant agreement.
I am appalled.
-- Yair Rand
[1]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikimedia_Foundation…
Dear Wikimedians,
As you know, today is my last day as the Executive Director of Wikimedia
Deutschland.
What an incredible journey it has been. When I started in 2012, I couldn’t
have even dreamed of all the things I would experience, what I would do,
whom I would meet, where I would go, and what I would learn. And then it
all turned out to be even more intense, more magical, and more fulfilling
than I had thought or could have imagined in my boldest dreams.
In 2012, when Pavel Richter brought me into the organisation to build up
the Wikidata team and to bootstrap the project together with Denny
Vrandečić, I already had a slight notion that something huge that was about
to emerge; “Wikidata, the next big thing” still echoes in my ears today.
The vision of this free and open knowledge base excited and inspired me
from day one. It was an honour for me to establish the initial Wikidata
team and later to build the software development department at Wikimedia
Deutschland. I could really follow my passion to bring people together,
empowering them, promoting their strengths and challenging them to be
innovative, to try new things off the beaten track.
Then in 2016, a whole new phase began when I was appointed as Executive
Director. Over these four and a half years, Wikimedia Deutschland has grown
considerably: our staff has doubled to 150 and we now have over 85,000
members. Together with a large and successful community, we work as a
strong and respected partner together with educational and cultural
institutions, politics, media and digital civil society to liberate
knowledge. Alongside these audience groups in Germany, the Wikimedia
Movement - you! - has always been one of the most exciting and relevant
stakeholders. I am therefore particularly pleased that we and our members
unanimously decided in 2017 to support the 2030 Strategic Direction and its
implementation, that we were able to play a strong role in the development
of the recommendations, and that we are now continuing to pursue the
implementation with all our might.
I have had the great privilege of getting to know and learning from many of
you personally. The vast array of experience that Wikimedians bring to the
Movement, the rich ideas, and the people at the heart of it all are truly
extraordinary. In each Wikimedian I’ve met, I’ve felt the passion for the
overarching theme of our common vision. The spark in your eyes when you
start speaking about your favourite topics, be it the encyclopedia,
technology, governance, photos, food, commas, fondue, karaoke – it’s
impressive and a memory that I am glad will remain with me forever. What
each of you bring to this Movement is inspiring and truly special - and
that’s what makes this movement more than the sum of its parts.
It never gets boring in the wikiverse. There is always something new coming
along, be it in movement strategy, in our programs, or in how we work
together and grow our reach. At times, it can take awhile to get things
done. But that is often because we want to make sure everyone has a say and
has the opportunity to shape how we do things. It is a testament to the
respect Wikimedians have for each other and each other’s perspectives.
Wikimedians are very thoughtful: we take care of each other and treat each
other's needs and opinions as one of the highest goods.
Wikimedia is one of the strongest and last-standing proponents of the free
and open internet, one that continues to work toward making digital society
better for the sake of humanity.
Don’t give up this fight, don’t lose hope, be bold, unite – the world needs
you!
Yours sincerely,
Abraham
--
Geschäftsführender Vorstand / Executive Director
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
http://wikimedia.de