Dear all,
I am pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
has appointed Maryana Iskander as the new CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation
[1] [2].
Since 2013, Maryana has served as the CEO of Harambee Youth Employment
Accelerator [3], a South African non-profit social enterprise focused on
building African solutions for the global challenge of youth unemployment.
Prior to this, she spent six years as Chief Operating Officer of Planned
Parenthood Federation of America [4], a volunteer-led social movement
focused on access to women’s healthcare. Maryana has also worked in
academia as the Advisor to the President of Rice University [5], an
international research university based in the United States.
Her professional career has been motivated by breaking down systemic
barriers, creating opportunities for collaborative solution-building, and
community empowerment. She has a proven track record for leading complex
organisations shaped by shared decision-making.
In looking for the next CEO, we on the Board convened a Transition
Committee [6], primarily to guide us in finding the right person for this
critical role and secondly to oversee the executive Transition Team. The
Transition Committee conducted a far-reaching and competitive global
search, receiving around 400 recommendations and speaking to about 50
potential candidates. Throughout this selection process, Maryana impressed
us as someone who is deeply inspired by the Wikimedia vision and who
embodies the values of equity and community that inform all Wikimedia work.
She has extensive leadership experience working with volunteer-led
initiatives and building partnerships across public, private and social
sectors. Maryana also brings expertise in technology-led innovation to
accelerate meaningful social change. She does this with a global
perspective: Maryana was born in the Middle East, educated in the United
States and the United Kingdom, and has spent the last decade living and
working on the African continent.
Maryana joins the Wikimedia Foundation at a crucial time. The movement is
larger than ever, and it has never been more relevant or more trusted. This
is an inflection point, as decisions need to be made to execute a shared
vision for where the Movement wants to be in 2030. We believe that Maryana
is the right person to help lead the Foundation at this moment.
As Maryana begins, her priorities will include supporting movement efforts
to implement the Wikimedia 2030 recommendations, such as the development of
a Movement Charter and the finalization of a Universal Code of Conduct. She
will continue the Foundation’s focus on knowledge equity and exploring ways
to address the gaps in content and the diversity of contributors to
Wikimedia projects. She will be supported by the Board in this journey.
Maryana will officially start at the Wikimedia Foundation on January 5,
2022, as she transitions from her current job. Until then, the Foundation
will continue to be led by the Transition Team, with guidance from the
Board. In my conversations with her, I have seen that Maryana is a fan of
direct communication and excited to learn from the movement. In the coming
weeks, she will share ways to connect. Please join me in welcoming Maryana
(CCed) to the Foundation!
PS. For translations of this message, or to help translate it into more
languages, please visit Meta-Wiki [7]
*[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/14/wikimedia-foundation-appoin…
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/14/wikimedia-foundation-appoin…>*
*[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryana_Iskander
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryana_Iskander> *
*[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harambee_Youth_Employment_Accelerator
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harambee_Youth_Employment_Accelerator>*
*[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood>*
*[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_University
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_University> *
*[6]
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Creating_a_CEO_Transition_…
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Creating_a_CEO_Transition_…>
*
*[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/14_S…
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/14_S…>*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/14_S…>
Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
Acting Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
*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!*
_______________________________________________
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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.
Hi,
A few years ago there was a public consultation on moving the Wikimedia
license to cc-by-sa-4.0 instead of 3.0. Now, obviously that never happened
but I couldn't find the decision documented anywhere. Why was the proposal
scrapped? Are there any plans to revisit this?
Steainu
Hello all,
We are writing to invite you to take part in a new project that the
Wikimedia Foundation Trust & Safety Team is creating. This project aims to
maintain and expand peer-support networks within the Wikimedia communities,
improve the working atmosphere on our projects, and aid in the fight
against harassment.
In the Foundation, we believe that your participation and opinion is
important as it will enable us to gain diverse perspectives and new
information.This Peer Support Project endeavors to connect volunteers in a
way where they can support each other, and your knowledge, skills and
experience would be highly appreciated. For more information on the
project, please visit our Meta page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Peer_Support_Networks_within_the_Wikimedia_…>
.
If you'd like to lend your expertise here, we are organizing Focus group
meetings as a next step. In those meetings, we hope to learn about already
existing networks, ideas on how volunteers could connect more and better,
and what support they would need to do so. These meetings will cover three
different time zones, and each meeting will last two hours. Feel free to
sign up for the meeting that is most comfortable for you!
Focus group meetings will be held on Google Meet on the days and times
listed below:
1 October 2021, 7:30 - 9:30 UTC
15 October 2021, 15:00 - 17:00 UTC
22 October 2021, 19:00 - 21:00 UTC
Please feel free to encourage more members of your community or other
wikifriends to reach out to us if you believe that this project will be of
interest to them.
Do let us know if you are available to participate in one of those meetings
listed above and we will send out calendar invites to you. If you are
interested, but are unavailable in the time slots listed above, let us
know and we will look for ways to connect.
Please be aware that Trust & Safety will also reach out soon with a similar
offer to talk about training around the UCoC. Feel free to concentrate on
the issue that is most important to you, but of course you are also very
welcome to take part in both discussions. We are aware that capacity is
limited and will highly value any kind of participation!
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Christel Steigenberger (she/her)
Senior Trust and Safety Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello, everyone.
TLDR:
Join the Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
on October
20, 2021 at 11:00 UTC (check for your local time
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1634724017>).
During the meeting, you will:
* Meet the incoming CEO, Maryana Iskander.
* Meet the candidates nominated through the latest Community-Selection
process to the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees
* Learn about Board Committees’ work
* Engage through a Question & Answers session (partly pre-sent, and partly
live).
Now in more details:
What are we announcing?
The Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees’ Community Affairs Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…>
(CAC) is hosting its second Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation
Board of Trustees (formerly called an Office Hour), which is an open forum
for the community to directly engage with Trustees.
Come and meet the Board of Trustees, including the candidates nominated for
the Board through the latest Community-Selection process, and the incoming
CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation; learn about what the Board of Trustees has
been up to lately; and engage through the Question & Answers section!
When & Where?
The meeting will be held on October 20, 2021 at 11:00 UTC (check for your
local time <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1634724017>)!
We promised at the last meeting to alternate the timings for these in order
to accommodate a wider range of time zones to be able to join in.
At least 3 Trustees and relevant Wikimedia Foundation 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.
Those who cannot attend are welcome to send questions in advance to the
session (details below).
How will it work?
The meeting will last for 90 minutes.
The first 40 minutes will include a short introduction to the session, and an
update on what the Board has been working on lately.
It will be followed by 50 minutes of Questions & Answers: around 20-30
minutes of answering questions sent in advance, and an additional 20-30
minutes of live questions.
We will be monitoring YouTube, the Wikimedia General Chat Telegram group
<https://t.me/WikimediaGeneral> and the Meta talk page for live questions.
We would like to encourage everyone, especially those who cannot
participate at the designated time, to send questions for the Board in
advance of the meeting. 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. This will both increase the
transparency around the Board’s work and will help inform the CAC’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 Wikimedia Foundation Staff, we are
encouraging
community members to send questions in advance. Please send all questions
to askcac(a)wikimedia.org, by Wednesday, October 13 (midnight, whatever time
zone you may be in).
The Q & A section in the meeting agenda will be based on the main topics
related to the questions received. We will share more exact topics on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…>
3 days before the meeting, including final names of Trustees in attendance.
Please note --
* Participants will still be able to ask questions live if that is
preferred.
* If you miss the deadline for sending questions (October 13th), you can
still send questions, if they are not addressed during the meeting, we will
follow up in writing after the meeting.
Registering to attend the meeting
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. The title
should be: “Registration for the October 20 Conversation with Trustees”,
and it should indicate your name, username, affiliation if you have any,
and whether you will require live translation.
Requests for live translation must be sent at least a week before the
session, October 13th. As live translation is costly, there is a minimum of
5 people registering and requesting translation to a specific language that
is required to request for a live translation. If you miss the deadline of
requesting translation, or if there is no minimum of 5 people requesting
translation, you will still be able to see the main points after the
meeting, which will be translated to Arabic, Spanish, French, Russian,
Chinese, German and English.
Please note --
-
The session will be moderated based on the Universal Code of Conduct
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct>
-
Globally banned users will not be allowed in the zoom 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 community.
Hoping to see as many of you as possible,
Shani Evenstein Sigalov, on behalf of the CAC.
Shani Evenstein Sigalov
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/shani-evenstein-sigalov/>
Acting Vice Chair, Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
<http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_cam…>
Virus-free.
www.avg.com
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<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
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
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience &
Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department.
I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to
consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board
evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the
chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she
provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising.
Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm>, in which she has a broad
range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this
week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation
to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to
tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting
Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving
onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me
as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited
that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly
given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more
than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase
will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into
our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her
at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining
one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021>
this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021>!
I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward
to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
--
Maggie Dennis
She/her/hers
Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Hello friends!
Nigeria proclaimed independence from British rule on 1 October 1960. On
this day we celebrate Nigeria independence.
The Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation Inc. is inviting all our friends in the
Wikimedia movement to join us on the 1st of October, 2021 for a 24hrs
online edit-a-thon to mark and celebrate the independence of Nigeria by
improving any Nigerian-related articles on
on any language Wikipedia.
Please add #NG to the summary of all articles improved or created as part
of this event.
The community is also planning a one-hour virtual meet-up on the same day.
You can join the virtual meet-up via the link below;
Time: Oct 1, 2021 12:00 PM West Central Africa
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89726776105?pwd=dVQvNmFpZGsrVENSUUxHSTE2ZS9vZz09
Meeting ID: 897 2677 6105
Passcode: 545487
Thank you.
Olaniyan Olushola
Chair, Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation Inc.