Hello everyone!
The annual report of Whose Knowledge? User Group is available in Meta. We are glad to share with all of you our journey from September 2020 to September 2021.
Please find the report here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Whose_Knowledge%3F/Reports/2021
We recognize that 2021 was a year to build up resilience after all that 2020 brought to us and our communities. Even though we continued to face the effects of Covid-19, and of other intersecting pandemics of racism, patriarchy, and the climate crisis, we also started to get our strength back and to embrace the future with joy and hope:
- Whose Knowledge? celebrated five mighty years of its existence in Sep 2021 with a special social media campaign.
- WK? incorporated in the State of CA, as a public benefit corporation in June 2021. We have worked with our esteemed Board in the last few months as well, to move WK? in the direction of its mission.
- The #VisibleWikiWomen campaign 2021 brought over 1700 images to Wikimedia Commons, illustrating pages in 38 different Wikipedia languages.
- We have successfully designed and developed a fully tailored website that will present the State of the Internet's Languages report to our wide audience in a user-friendly manner.
- We hosted a multilingual event on Decolonising Structured Data as a pre-WikidataCon event and we did a keynote at WikidataCon itself.
You can learn more about our activities, access the materials and resources created, and see photos and presentations in the full report.
In the next few weeks we will be sharing a multilingual, accessible and multimedia website for the State of the Internet's Languages, and we will launch our next #VisibleWikiWomen campaign. Stay tuned through our website (https://whoseknowledge.org/), social media channels (@whoseknowledge on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) and consider subscribing to our newsletter (https://whoseknowledge.org/join/), or reach out us in our discussion page on Meta (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Whose_Knowledge%3F).
In solidarity,
Mariana and the Whose Knowledge? team
We just published the results of the #SheSaid campaign
;tldr
During the SheSaid Drive hosted end of 2021, nine different language
communities created 1500+ entries about notable *women* on *Wikiquote*.
+ some entries improved. + Wikipedia articles created.
We rock ;)
All data, info, how to join, next drive :
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Women/SheSaid
++++++++++++++++++
;Long version
Wiki Loves Women’s 2021 #SheSaid campaign was launched in October.
SheSaid is a drive that encourages *an increase in visibility for
notable women’s voices online by adding their notable quotes to various
language WikiQuote sites.*
For 2021, nine different language communities contributed –*Italian,
Ukrainian, English, Tagalog, Igbo, Spanish, French, Central Bikol, and
Catalan*. In addition to the global drive, 12 members of Wiki Loves
Women’s Focus Group held local training and participation drives with
their communities.
Across the 9 language Wikiquotes a collective of*1,514 articles were
created*. This ensures that 1,514 notable women whose voices and wisdom
had previously not been featured, can now be easily accessed. Articles
for a further*309 women were improved*. In addition,*638
articles*featuring notable women were created onKinyarwanda Wikipedia
(/Wikipediya mu Kinyarwanda/)
<https://rw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intangiriro>by the activities of the Wiki
Loves Women Focus Group member in Rwanda in collaboration with Wikimedia
Rwanda Usergroup.
The Italian language community through the enthusiasm of theWiki Donne
user
groupwas<https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/q:Wikiquote:SheSaid_2021>again
the most outstanding contributor to the SheSaid Campaign. This community
created articles about 609 women and improved a further 227 articles.
The next prolific contender, the Tagalog language community (currently
in incubator status) created 308new articles. The third highest
contributing language community was to the English language Wikiquote by
creating 156 articles and improving a further 18 articles. The drive is
also the opportunity to add structure to Wikiquote in creating relevant
categories to host all those entries.
Below are the stats impact for the SheSaid Campaign across 9 different
languages that participated in 2021;
* SheSaid onItalian Wikiquote
<https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/q:Wikiquote:SheSaid_2021>:609 new
articles
<https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/q:Wikiquote:SheSaid_2021#Nuove>,227
improved articles
<https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/q:Wikiquote:SheSaid_2021#Migliorate>
* Tagalog Wikquote
<https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wq/tl/Unang_Pahina#set-project-Wq/tl>:
308 new articles (currently inTagalog
<https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wq/tl/Unang_Pahina#set-project-Wq/tl>incubator)
* SheSaid on Ukrainian Wikiquote
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/uk:%D0%92%D1%96%D0%BA%D1%96%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%82…>:
169 new articles, 55 improved articles
* SheSaid on English Wikiquote
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/en:Wikiquote:SheSaid>: 156 new
articles and 18 improved articles
* SheSaid on the Central Bikol Wikquote
<https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wq/bcl/Panginot_na_Pahina#set-project-…>:
138 new articles (currently in incubator status)
* SheSaid on French Wikiquote
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/fr:Wikiquote:SheSaid>: 65 new
articles and 7 Improved articles
* SheSaid o <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/fr:Wikiquote:SheSaid>n Igbo
Wikiquote incubator
<https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wq/ig/Wikiquote:SheSaid/Redlists>:
40 new articles
* SheSaid on the Catalan Wikiquote
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/ca:Viquidites:SheSaid>: 20 new
articles and 2 improved articles
* SheSaid on the Spanish wikiquote
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/es:Wikiquote:Wiki_Loves_Women/SheSaid/Ella_di…>:
9 new articles
The lack of women’s voices in the digital domain is a global issue, one
that we can collective work on in order to change how women are viewed.
By hosting drives such as Wiki Loves Women’s SheSaid campaign, Wikimedia
groups focused on gender help to right this historical imbalance whilst
growing communities as they learn how to contribute.
We are awed by the response and enthusiasm to the second edition of this
drive, and looks forward to the third version in 2022!
We urge that anyone can join this initiative and continue to make an
impact by adding more articles about women.
All data, info, how to join, next drive :
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Women/SheSaid
Dear Wikimedia Communities in Asia,
We are inviting you to join the #WikiForHumanRights2022 conversation and
support hour tomorrow to learn everything you need to know to begin taking
action.
This years campaign is themed: Right to a Healthy Environment (the newest
human right to be recognized by the UN)
Interested and not sure how or what to do? Need help in getting started?
There will be representatives from the Community Resources team to share
insights on grant-making.
Join the conversation and support hour;
Date: Saturday 29th Jan, 2022
Time: 15:00 UTC + 8 (7:00 am UCT)
Venue: Zoom- https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/86011791455
Best
Ruby
Hey all,
Nice to meet many of you for the first time! Thanks for your feedback and for raising larger concerns around resource allocation at the Foundation. These concerns are extremely valid-- especially the ones around allocating resources for less supported platforms such as Commons and broken infrastructure. The wishlist process will begin next week with the proposal phase starting Jan 10.
In the email thread, I identified some open questions about the Wishlist process so I am answering them here.
Can we vote/focus on the maintenance of tools rather than new tools?
Yes. The wishes that we work on do not have to be associated with a new tool. In the past we’ve taken on projects that were maintenance related. For example, in the last year, we took on improvement projects for Wikisource Export and Wikisource OCR tools, among other initiatives. We also maintain and fix all the tools we’ve built in the past. Check out the fresh documentation about what qualifies as a proposal here. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey/FAQ#How_to_create…>
Gnangarra, your points about the issues with bulk uploads in Commons would make a sound proposal-- a proposal does not have to be a new tool in the least. The part about uploading large files is out of scope for our team though (see link above about our areas of focus, the issue is infrastructural <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T86436> and too large for what we can take on). I still believe there is value in suggesting it, though.
We have Talk to Us <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey/Updates/Talk_to_Us> hours on January 19-- where the entire team will be available for a video call to help folks who want to write proposals and polish them so that they may get selected.
What if what we want fixed is larger than what the Community Tech team can accomplish?
This year, we will be talking directly with leadership about larger wishes that we can't fulfill ourselves. To make this possible, we will no longer be formally 'Archiving' ideas. One improvement we are implementing from conversations with all of you at past Talk to Us Hours and other places, is that we will place projects that are too large for us into a new category called “Larger Suggestions'' because we still want people to be able to voice those needs. We plan to share this with the Foundation's leadership during the WMF's annual planning, which takes place in the spring.
This being said, if you have an idea that may be too large for us to take on, I would also encourage you to come to Talk to Us Hours (link above) and see if we can help you workshop the proposal into something we can help with. If we can’t then I would still highly encourage you to propose, by all means! Chances are if you think it’s an important problem, many other members do as well.
Finally, the wishlist isn't just for Community Tech. Volunteer developers and other Wikimedia Foundation teams have taken on wishes from the wishlist. For this reason, there is a chance that a wish may not be appropriate for our team, but it can be addressed by someone else.
Why isn’t the WMF fixing what we feel are be the most urgently needed fixes in functionality?
This is a larger question that gets answered at the board and C-leadership levels. There are also some relatively new teams at the Foundation, such as Architecture and Platform Engineering, that aim to improve the technical infrastructure overall in the years to come. However, every team can help with the answer and Community Tech can help with communication of technical needs. This “Larger Suggestions” collection of wishes I mentioned in the previous answer will not be a silver bullet that fixes all of the problems, but I believe in the power of incremental steps to steer us in that direction.
How can we communicate the urgency of the fixes that we need?
I don’t believe there is any lack of documentation of concerns about functionality that is broken. Folks are right to point out that it’s about synthesizing what is most urgently broken, the maintenance that is really necessary, and surfacing it to leadership. We, the Community Tech team, had a lot of hard conversations about how to handle this because we never want to mislead anyone into thinking we are going to work on ideas that are too large for our team. However, we all collectively came to the conclusion that we should still be the team that gives people the space to voice what they need from a technical perspective.
The wishlist itself can communicate urgency. If you submit a detailed wish (the more details, the better!), and if the wish receives a high number of votes, we definitively know as a team that it's urgent and high-priority. From there, we have the information we need to take next steps. This may involve taking on the wish ourselves or communicating the wish to leadership.
Does the Community Tech team work in isolation?
No, we constantly collaborate with other teams at the Foundation and most importantly, with all of you. This year our goal is to share the top wishes with other product managers who are responsible for products related to the categories in the wishlist. This way, they may incorporate relevant wishes into their team's roadmap, or they will at least consider community requests as they plan upcoming work. We always check to see if other teams are already working on solutions related to what is asked inside of the Wishlist. We plan to do more and are energized that the conversation is already beginning to happen in this thread.
Why is the Community Tech team so small? Why can't more people be hired, or why can't a second Community Tech team be formed?
As a team, we deeply believe in our work, and we hope to keep growing. We know how important it is to work directly with community members and fulfill community requests. If you want our team to grow, one of the best ways you can champion us is to participate in the wishlist. As participation rates grow (and they have!), the more effectively we can advocate for our team and its resources.
P.S. We are still welcoming help to promote the survey and to translate the updated documentation. Thanks for reading.
Best,
Natalia Rodriguez
Senior Product Manager, Community Tech
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!*
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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(Forwarding on behalf of Diane Ranville)
Hello dear Wikimedia community,
We are very happy to present you the latest annual report of Wikimedia
France (attached).
We would also like to introduce you to our new board, elected at our last
general meeting, with 4 new members and a new directing committee:
- Capucine-Marin Dubroca Voisin, Chairperson *(newly elected)*
- Jonathan Mouton, Vice-Chairperson *(newly elected in this role)*
- Pascal Radigue, Treasurer
- Diane Ranville, Secretary *(newly elected in this role)*
- Julien Gardet
- Agnes Lafourcade *(newly elected)*
- Roger Gotlib
- Nadine Le Lirzin
- Pierre-Yves Beaudouin
- Carole Renard
- Antoine Srun *(newly elected)*
- Cédric Tarbouriech *(newly elected)*
We would like to thank Pascale Camus-Walter and Benoît Soubeyran, whose
mandate ended on this occasion, for their commitment to the movement. We
would also like to extend our thanks to Pierre-Yves Beaudouin who, after 5
years of intense dedication as a chairperson, left his role to
Capucine-Marin, while remaining in the board to ensure continuity.
The board now includes new faces from all around France, including from
overseas territory La Réunion. It is also composed of 7 men and 5 women,
among which we are very proud to welcome our first non-binary chairperson,
Capucine-Marin (she/they), a seasoned wikimedian whose deep commitment
to free knowledge and equity will continue to show with this new role in
the movement.
Please feel free to reach out to the new board if you would like to discuss
projects or ideas.
With wikilove,
*Diane Ranville*
Secretary of Wikimédia France
Hi all,
Join the Research Team at the Wikimedia Foundation [1] for their monthly
Office hours this Wednesday, 2022-02-02 at 00:00-1:00 UTC (16:00 PT 02-01 /
19:00 ET 02-01 / 1:00 CET 02-02). Find your local date and time here
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1643760056>.
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]. 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].
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
--
Emily Lescak (she / her)
Senior Research Community Officer
The Wikimedia Foundation
Hello dear Wikimedia community,
We are very happy to present you the
latest annual report of Wikimedia France (attached).
We would also
like to introduce you to our new board, elected at our last general
meeting, with 4 new members and a new directing committee:
*
Capucine-Marin Dubroca Voisin, Chairperson _(newly elected)_
*
Jonathan Mouton, Vice-Chairperson _(newly elected in this role)_
*
Pascal Radigue, Treasurer
* Diane Ranville, Secretary _(newly elected
in this role)_
* Julien Gardet
* Agnes Lafourcade _(newly elected)_
* Roger Gotlib
* Nadine Le Lirzin
* Pierre-Yves Beaudouin
*
Carole Renard
* Antoine Srun _(newly elected)_
* Cédric Tarbouriech
_(newly elected)_
We would like to thank Pascale Camus-Walter and
Benoît Soubeyran, whose mandate ended on this occasion, for their
commitment to the movement. We would also like to extend our thanks to
Pierre-Yves Beaudouin who, after 5 years of intense dedication as a
chairperson, left his role to Capucine-Marin, while remaining in the
board to ensure continuity.
The board now includes new faces from all
around France, including from overseas territory La Réunion. It is also
composed of 7 men and 5 women, among which we are very proud to welcome
our first non-binary chairperson, Capucine-Marin (she/they), a seasoned
wikimedian whose deep commitment to free knowledge and equity will
continue to show with this new role in the movement.
Please feel free
to reach out to the new board if you would like to discuss projects or
ideas.
With wikilove,
DIANE RANVILLE
Secretary of Wikimédia France