Hi Everyone,
Last year, as part of our annual planning process, the Wikimedia Foundation
shared a list of external trends
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Chief_Executive_Office…>
that we believed were likely to significantly impact the context in which
the Wikimedia movement operates. Our focus at the time was on the changing
nature of search, the astronomical rise in the global demand for content,
and rich media content in particular, and the concerning rise of
misinformation and disinformation. We heard from many in our movement about
additional trends that our movement faces that we didn’t include in that
list, but that are critical to how we as a movement operate, including the
de-prioritization of investigative journalism, and the damage to GLAM
institutions wrought by the global pandemic.
As part of this year’s annual planning process, we set out to update that
list. In particular, we’ve been tracking recent advancements in artificial
intelligence (AI). In our recent Diff post on the topic, [1] we noted some
risks as well as some potential opportunities for our movement as this
technology continues to evolve. Since there has been a great deal of
interest in and discussion about AI products like ChatGPT and what it means
for Wikimedia over the past few months (including several threads on the
topic on this mailing list), we’d love to explore this topic in more depth
with you and continue the conversation about its implications for us as a
free knowledge movement.
I’d like to invite you all to an open call on 23 March at 18:00 UTC (find
your local time here) [2] where we can share reflections on the
opportunities, risks, and questions we see raised by new AI tools and
products.
The call will be held on Zoom. If you’re interested in joining, email
answers(a)wikimedia.org and we will share the Zoom link with you via email.
We will work to coordinate interpretation for languages where there are 3
or more interested community members; please email answers(a)wikimedia.org
with interpretation requests as well.
For those who are unable to join the call, but interested in following and
contributing to the conversation, we plan to share notes on our External
Trends Meta page [3] afterward so that you can add your thoughts.
Whether in person or on-wiki, I hope you’ll share your ideas so that we can
all get a broader understanding of the potential benefits and challenges of
this emergent technology. Looking forward to the discussion!
Best,
Yael Weissburg
1.
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/17/looking-outward-external-trends-in-20…
2.
https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1679594401
3.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/…
*Yael Weissburg* (she/her)
VP, Partnerships, Programs & Grantmaking
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
M: (+1) 415.513.6643
I work from San Francisco. My time zone is UTC -7/-8.
Hi Wikimedians,
As we approach Earth Day (April 22) next week, I wanted to remind you about
how you can contribute to the #WikiForHumanRights Campaign.
Each year we partner with the UN Human Rights and UN Environmental program,
to focus on the key issues related to the human impacts of the global
environmental crises.
Join our launch webinar!
On 18 April at 15:00 UTC, we invite you to join the launch of this year’s
#WikiForHumanRights campaign, with a special focus on the Pollution
crisis. Register
here on Zoom
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/event/wikiforhumanrights-launch-webinar-focus-on…>
.
This panel explores how improved public knowledge, through platforms like
Wikimedia projects, can help both global and local communities better
understand and exercise their right to a clean, healthy and sustainable
environment in efforts to prevent, minimize and remedy pollution. Join
panelists Monika Stankiewicz (Executive Secretary of the Minamata
Convention on Mercury <https://mercuryconvention.org/en>), Jo Banner
(Co-Founder & Co-Director, Descendents Project
<https://www.thedescendantsproject.com/>) and Soledad Mella Vida (Asociación
Movimiento Nacional Recicladores de Chile <https://anarch.cl/>) as they
discuss how public knowledge can play an important role in protecting human
rights and the environment.
The event will include live translations in Spanish, Portuguese, French,
and Arabic.
Register here on Zoom
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/event/wikiforhumanrights-launch-webinar-focus-on…>
.
Contribute to the campaign!
The heart of every Wikimedia campaign are contributions to Wikimedia
communities. Join us in one of the actions.
-
Join the Writing Contest
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiForHumanRights/Join_the_Challenge>—
help us create local knowledge on key human rights and environmental
knowledge topics in more languages, this year the special focus is on
-
Connect with Local Communities
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiForHumanRights/Join_Community_Events>—
Join an event in your language or community
-
Join the Human Rights Interest Group
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1imdKKVlWcZ91BY6ou4t3ZzdJkBHflH2qaSUxp5CTHV…>
— advise the Wikimedia Movement on addressing human rights
-
Share the campaign with your communities! -- Help us share the campaign
with your community, by sharing the blog post on Diff:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/03/30/join-the-wikiforhumanrights-campaign-…
Looking forward to you joining the campaign!
The International WikiForHumanRights Team
--
Alex Stinson
Lead Program Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation
Twitter: @sadads
Learn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and other
Wikimedia projects create calls to action to invite new contributors
through campaigns: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns
Far from a pipe dream, a strategy of keeping useful functionality
maintained and working through known problems, sounds like a much better
use of IT resource than one of neglecting deployed software to prioritise
the latest fads.
WSC
On Mon, 17 Apr 2023, 1:04 pm , <wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> 1. Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour (Gergő Tisza)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2023 17:50:57 -0700
> From: Gergő Tisza <gtisza(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening
> tour
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <
> CAEVcXn0rA1t9ErCzYmUrD-prc4psRL_tT26Z1twmvTHzaTchDg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="0000000000006a8f6905f97d969b"
>
> On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 7:49 AM AntiCompositeNumber <
> anticompositenumber(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Agreed. It has long been the case that infrastructure critical to the
> > operation of the various wikis has been left without a clear
> > maintainer, or has been maintained only in the volunteer time of a
> > single staffer already fulfilling a full-time role. Teams would be
> > dissolved or reassigned to completely different projects after
> > completion, without the ability and/or willingness to even review
> > patches. That assumes that the team doing the work wasn't made up of
> > contractors who departed the Foundation when the project was
> > "completed", taking their knowledge of it with them.
> >
> > This was a major factor in causing the technical debt problem, and
> > must be addressed to have any chance of solving it.
> >
>
> At some point we will have to admit that we have created a feature set many
> times larger than we have the capacity to actively maintain and improve.
> Either we make software development cheaper somehow (move the WMF to
> Romania or something), or we cut some of the non-software spending (but we
> already spend 50%+ of movement funds on software, and we'd have to increase
> capacity way more than by a factor of two to maintain all our code), or we
> undeploy most current features, or we'll have to put up with most things
> being unmaintained, which is the status quo. That's not to say we can't be
> smarter about it (e.g. microservices are a great way to have maintenance
> overhead spin even more out of control) or that maintenance efforts
> couldn't be better prioritized (e.g. the lack of maintainership of our
> authentication stack is somewhat wild), but fundamentally changing the
> current mode of operation (where most things are deployed and
> then abandoned to work on the next thing) is a pipe dream IMO.
>
Dear all,
I am writing on behalf of the Community Affairs Committee of the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees [1] to invite you to work with us as a Volunteer
Advisory Member of the Board’s newest task force–the Sister Projects Task
Force. The Sister Projects Task Force will be a group of community members
and Foundation trustees working together on a strategy to support the life
cycle of non-Wikipedia projects across the movement.
The Community Affairs Committee charter calls on addressing “the review of
the existing sister projects and new sister site applications, including
creating a formalized procedure, from application to approval/rejection”
[2] as one of the responsibilities of the Committee. We are forming the
Sister Projects Task Force to deliver on this commitment. This Task Force
will create processes to support the development of sister projects, which
enrich and expand the way we share knowledge with the world.
We need your expertise to make this happen. We welcome applicants from
different sister projects, regions and languages, bringing different
perspectives to the table. You can read more about the selection process
and apply to join us on Meta [3]. Apply until 15 May 2023.
Please share this email with anyone you think may be interested in applying.
Best regards,
Victoria Doronina
Wikimedia Foundation trustee, Lead of the Wikimedia Foundation Board Sister
Projects Task Force (SiPTaF)
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…
[2]
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Affairs_Committee_Charter#R…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…
--
Victoria Doronina
Trustee
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality.
Hello Wikimedia community!
This email is to announce that the GLAM Wiki: The Culture, Heritage and
Wikimedia Conference will take place in Montevideo, Uruguay, in November
16-18, 2023. Save the dates!
Last week, the Wikimedia Foundation and the Conference Committee approved
our grant application [1] to host the conference in Montevideo, Uruguay.
The event will take place in the School of Information & Communications of
the University of the Republic [2], a beautiful building surrounded by a
public park within a walking distance from the "rambla", a walking path
next to the Río de La Plata River.
Our community has a lot of important topics to discuss in person, from
better supporting our tools for content partnerships with cultural heritage
institutions, to decolonizing knowledge, to more access to capacity
building and networking to grow the next generation of GLAM Wiki
collaborations.
To better engage with the community in the design of this event, we're
offering a launch event, taking place on April 13 at 5 PM UTC. We want to
learn from you! Please register on Meta [3] to receive the Zoom link. We
will be offering simultaneous interpretation in Spanish & Portuguese.
Want to get even more involved? Join our Scholarship or Program Committee.
[4]
Looking forward to seeing you all in beautiful Uruguay.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/Co…
[2] https://fic.edu.uy/home
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:GLAM_Wiki_Conference_Launch_Event
[4]
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZli8PE7vnLViWhWiaxUT2WyPu9yGD3AN…
--
Evelin Heidel
Encargada de Programas
Wikimedistas de Uruguay