Hi all,
The next Research Showcase, *Wikipedia's Languages*, will be live-streamed
Wednesday, June 15, at 4:00 AM PST/11:00 AM UTC. View your local time here
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1655290800>.
YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZQM1dtn3g0
You are welcome to ask questions via YouTube chat or on IRC at
#wikimedia-research.
This month's presentations:
Quantifying knowledge synchronisation in the 21st centuryBy *Jisung Yoon
(Pohang University of Science and Technology)*Humans acquire and accumulate
knowledge through language usage and eagerly exchange their knowledge for
advancement. Although geographical barriers had previously limited
communication, the emergence of information technology has opened new
avenues for knowledge exchange. However, it is unclear which communication
pathway is dominant in the 21st century. Here, we explore the dominant path
of knowledge diffusion in the 21st century using Wikipedia, the largest
communal dataset. We evaluate the similarity of shared knowledge between
population groups, distinguished based on their language usage. When
population groups are more engaged with each other, their knowledge
structure is more similar, where engagement is indicated by socio-economic
connections, such as cultural, linguistic, and historical features.
Moreover, geographical proximity is no longer a critical requirement for
knowledge dissemination. Furthermore, we integrate our data into a
mechanistic model to better understand the underlying mechanism and suggest
that the knowledge "Silk Road" of the 21st century is based online.
The Language Geography of WikipediaBy *Martin Dittus*Every language is a
system of being, doing, knowing, and imagining. With over 7,000 active
languages in the world, how many languages are fully represented online? To
answer this question, digital non-profit Whose Knowledge? initiated the
first ever report on the State of the Internet's Languages. As part of this
report, Martin Dittus and Mark Graham have investigated the languages of
Wikipedia. Wikipedia began with a single English-language edition more than
two decades ago, and now offers more than 300 language editions, which
places it at the forefront of digital language support. However, this does
not mean that speakers of these languages get access to the same content:
Wikipedia’s language editions vary widely in scale. We further find that
this inequality is also reflected in Wikipedia’s geographic coverage: not
all places are captured in every language. Wikipedia's coverage often
follows the global distribution of speakers of the respective language. Yet
even when we account for the distribution of language populations, certain
language communities are much more strongly represented on Wikipedia than
others. As a consequence, we find that for many countries in Africa,
Central and South America, and South Asia, most of the content about those
countries is in a foreign language, often a European-colonial language. In
other words, in many of these places, people may need to be able to speak a
second (possibly foreign) language in order to access Wikipedia information
about their own places. Why do we see these differences? And what can be
done to improve things?
You can also watch our past research showcases here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase
Emily, on behalf of the Research team
--
Emily Lescak (she / her)
Senior Research Community Officer
The Wikimedia Foundation
Hi everyone,
I am delighted to share Wikimedia Deutschland’s annual report 2021.[1]
In 21 articles we look back on a year marked by the pandemic and present
what we have done to set knowledge free. The report features our work and
the people behind topics like
knowledge equity, digital policy, WikidataCon, planting trees, Movement
Strategy, and of course the celebrations around Wikipedia 20.
Take a look!
Nicole
[1] https://www.wikimedia.de/2021/en/homepage/
--
Nicole Ebber
Director Movement Strategy and Global Relations
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 577 11 62-0
https://wikimedia.de
Keep up to date! Current news and exciting stories about Wikimedia,
Wikipedia and Free Knowledge in our newsletter (in German):
https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/
Wikimedia Deutschland – Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
_______________________________________________
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Hi all,
The Global Advocacy team is launching our monthly conversation hours. We have two calls to accommodate timezones, one on June 29 and another on July 1. Find your local time and details on how to join the Zoom call on our MetaWiki page [1].
The agenda is split between a dedicated theme for the month and whatever items you wish to cover. This month we will share some of our work on disinformation. There is no set agenda for the second half of the call - feel free to add your item to the list of topics in the etherpad [2].
These forums are an opportunity for us to answer questions about our work or about your initiatives, and to connect, share, and learn from each other. Come and talk to us! Ask us anything, or tell us anything, related to public policy and advocacy initiatives for free knowledge online. For example:
* You want to learn more about our team and our current initiatives
* You would like to share a policy development or advocacy campaign idea and would like to get feedback or support
* You have questions about a specific WMF policy priority or development
Hope to see you there!
Ziski, on behalf of the Global Advocacy Team
______
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_policy/Conversation_hours_and_Events…
[2] https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Agenda_%26_Notes%2C_Global_Advocacy_Conver…
Hello all,
On behalf of the Celtic Knot Conference
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Knot_Conference_2022> organization
team, I’m happy to share some exciting news about the online event, taking
place in less than one month!
☘ You can now register for the online conference
The registration form
<https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/celtic-knot-conference-2022-tickets-33712523…>
is now available and will remain open until and during the conference,
taking place online on July 1-2. Attendance is free of charge and doesn’t
include the satellite events
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Knot_Conference_2022/Satellite_events>
that may be organized by individuals or groups before or after the main
program.
Please note that registration is necessary to attend most of the sessions
of the conference, especially the 4 workshops that we offer during the
event.
For each workshop, you have two options:
-
Sign up as an active participant: you will be able to enable your
microphone and camera, share your screen, interact directly with the
speakers, and your participation will appear in the livestream for all
participants (limited spots available) ;
-
Join as a watcher: your sound and image don’t appear on the recording,
and you can interact with others via the chat.
☘ A first glimpse of the program
On the program page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Knot_Conference_2022/Online_program>,
you can now see what the structure of the online event will look like: a
light program with one track and a lot of time to take breaks and watch the
asynchronous content of the conference.
We selected a few important topics out of the requests expressed in the
community survey, and we are currently working with experienced community
leaders to offer four workshops that will allow participants to upgrade
their skills and help their project grow:
-
Community growth
-
Organize or join an editing campaign
-
Databox, the simple Wikidata-powered infobox
-
Translate Wikidata properties in your languages
If you’re interested in one or several of these workshops, don’t forget to
register
<https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/celtic-knot-conference-2022-tickets-33712523…>
!
As previously communicated, the collaborative part of the program takes the
shape of the “News from the Language Communities” session, where various
groups will present what they have been working on over the past year. More
information about these presentations will be added on the program page in
the next few weeks.
☘ Connect with participants
When you fill in the registration form, no data will be shared publicly ;
if you want to let other people know that you will attend the event, feel
free to add your name on the participants list
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Knot_Conference_2022/Knot_together#L…>
.
To start connecting with other attendees ahead of the conference, you can
also join our social channels
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Knot_Conference_2022/Knot_together#S…>
.
We’re looking forward to seeing you soon at the Celtic Knot! If you have
any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact me, Daria Cybulska or
Richard Nevell.
For the organizing team,
--
Léa Lacroix
Community Engagement Coordinator
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Dear all,
Last weekend, an interview with Raju Narisetti, titled "Wikipedia is
building trust with transparency", was published in the Indian Express, one
of the major daily newspapers in India.
For your convenience, here is an archive link for the article:
https://archive.ph/RaCwX
The Indian Express link is:
https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/raju-nari…
The article quotes Raju as saying (my emphases),
----
“*More than 75% of the money we raise globally* goes to two things. One is
to *give money back to the volunteer community* so they can launch a new
language. Two is about *half of it goes to the infrastructure.* You need to
have databases and put it on the cloud and make sure it’s reliable,” he
said. Although a lot of the money is raised in the more developed Western
markets, *most of it is actually flowing into the global south,* where the
growth will come in languages and users.
----
This diverged sharply from my understanding of WMF finances. So I looked at
the records to try to fact-check these statements.
I found the Foundation raised $163 million in the 2020/2021 financial
year.[1] But it actually only spent $112 million of it (69%).[1] If the WMF
kept 31% of its revenue to itself, it obviously can't have spent "more than
75%" (i.e. over $120M) of the money it raised on anything.
This is a trivial point. But I was even more astonished by the other
statement in the article, that most of the money raised "is actually
flowing into the global south".
Raju was talking to an Indian audience. This article was timed to coincide
with the start of the Indian fundraiser – Indians are currently faced with
fundraising banners on Wikipedia as well as emails soliciting repeat
donations.[2] So I appreciate it is a good soundbite that might motivate
Indian citizens to reach for their purses and wallets. After all, few
people in India feel it is their job to send financial aid to the US,
right?
But is this soundbite really true?
To fact-check that claim, I looked at the official figures in the latest
(2020) WMF Form 990 tax return detailing WMF spending outside the US.
According to the Form 990 section "General Information on Activities
Outside the United States", spending on activities outside the US amounted
to a total of $20,076,181 in 2020.[3] This means well over 80% of WMF
expenditure was in the US.
The Form 990 also provides a breakdown by global regions, detailing the
precise amounts the WMF spent in each region. Again, I found this paints a
very different picture to what the Indian public has been told in the
Indian Express.
First I added up all the amounts (Program Services, p. 29, and Grantmaking,
pp. 30–31) that were spent in Europe and North America (excluding the US).
I arrived at a total of $14.8M – which means that 73.5% of the total
spending on non-US activities was in these regions of the affluent north.
This left only $5.3M, or about 3% of total WMF revenue in 2020/2021, for
the entire rest of the world, which also includes countries like Saudi
Arabia, Russia, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, which are not usually included in
the Global South. The actual money flowing into the Global South is thus
even less than 3% – hardly "most" of the money raised.
Raju mentioned the volunteers. I thought, let's leave Program Services
expenses (which presumably would include servers and caching centres
abroad) out of the equation and look at Grantmaking alone (pages 30 and 31
of the Form 990).
The Grantmaking total for activities outside the US given in the Form 990
is $3,475,062.
Almost exactly $1.2M (35%) of that went to Europe and North America
(excluding the US).
So total grantmaking in the entire rest of the world outside Europe and
North America was $2.3M, or 1.4% of the money the WMF raised in 2020/2021.
Again 1.4% is not "most of the money raised", by any stretch of the
imagination. And the Global South only accounts for a part of that 1.4%.
Lastly, as Raju was speaking to the Indian public, I wanted to find out how
much money the WMF actually spent on grantmaking in India. The Form 990
only gives grantmaking totals for "South Asia" – which along with India
includes other major countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan.
These totals are $75,198 (grants and other assistance to 22 individuals,
certainly not rank-and-file Wikipedians, given the average amount) and
$3,339 (grants to organisations). This yields a total of $78,537 for all of
South Asia.
I make that 0.048% of the WMF's 2020/2021 revenue. Only a part of that may
have been spent in India.
Please verify these figures for yourselves; I have provided the sources
below. If I have made a mistake somewhere, please tell me.
It occurred to me that perhaps some grantmaking figures in 2020 were
particularly low because of the Covid pandemic, which began in the spring
of that year. But Covid was a global pandemic affecting countries around
the world. So all countries would have been affected equally. And Covid was
not as serious in India in 2020 as it was in 2021.
I also know the WMF increased its grantmaking budget for the current year.
But even if grants to South Asia were to increase a hundredfold compared to
2020, they would still represent only 5% of WMF revenue. Such is the gap
between what is said in the Indian Express and the reality on the ground.
Allow me to make an appeal to your conscience.
The Wikipedia idea is to provide neutral and accurate information to the
public. I would say that Wikimedians – especially Indian Wikimedians – who
believe in that idea have a job to do here, because based on the above,
what the Indian public has been told in the Indian Express simply does not
match the reality.
Look at it like a Wikipedia article. If you found an article making claims
so wildly at variance with published facts, would you let them stand? Or
would you at least start a discussion on the talk page, to try and find out
why there is such an apparent discrepancy?
Let's have that discussion now, here and on social media.
Best,
Andreas
[1]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikimedia_Foundation…
– see also https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising#Indian_email_texts
[3]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e4/Wikimedia_Foundation…
Hi all,
Join the Research Team at the Wikimedia Foundation [1] for their monthly
Office hours Tuesday, 2022-06-07. Find your local time here
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1654642800>.
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 the
session, 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 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
Dear all,
*The first month of the Wiki Loves Earth international photo contest
devoted to nature heritage, May, has passed!* Let's look at the results:
* 12 countries had their local contest this month,
* more than 17 thousand photos were uploaded during this period,
* and 2 more months are ahead!
Today 13 more countries/regions have started their local competitions,
check them out in the list
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Earth_2022/Participat…>.
Are
you interested in joining WLE by organising your local contest? There is
still time to run it in June or July. Do you have any questions about this
process? *The international Wiki Loves Earth team will answer your
questions and tell you all the details you want to know about WLE during
our online Q&A tomorrow!*
⏱️ When: June 2nd at 15 pm (UTC), the event will last about 1 hour.
💻 Meeting link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81125659103?pwd=YlpLdlV3ZzZ5dUZFQmtxR0pQNTdEdz09
Meeting ID: 811 2565 9103
Passcode: wle22
We are also very pleased to share that we now have* lists of protected
areas for 192 countries *which allows more countries to take part in Wiki
Loves Earth! The lists are collated by the United Nations Environment
Programme through their Protected Planet project. Our collegues
from Wikimedia Sweden have provided a table with lists of sites for each
country and instructions on how to download them here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Earth_2022/Lists>.
If you have any questions or suggestions for the international team, please
contact us at wle-team(a)wikimedia.org.ua.
Best wishes,
Iryna Yehiazarova
Project Manager for International Wiki Loves Earth 2022
our website <https://wikilovesearth.org/> | page on Wikimedia Commons
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Earth_2022>
Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/interwle> Instagram
<https://www.instagram.com/wikilovesearth/> Twitter
<https://twitter.com/WikiLovesEarth>