Dear all,
Some years ago, when we started the Education Program at the Basque Wikipedia, we used a lot the Book Creator (or Collections) extension. It allowed to bind some articles and download them in PDF or DOC/ODT formats for further editing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Book). This was a great feature, as it allowed us to send the teachers and students a collection of articles they had created. The teacher could create free learning materials from the articles created by their students, and download them in DOC/ODT format allowed to edit them, rearrange and add other materials. Some teachers said us that they have created learning materials using Wikipedia articles created by their students.
Anyway, in 2017 the Wikimedia Foundation decided to break the book creator, because there were some errors in the PDF creator. So they disabled the book creator and added a note saying that the system is "Undergoing changes". The message is still visible, but no changes are being done. (You can follow the last messages of redesigning the book creator here:https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T175681).
I know that this is not the most important feature that is broken. There are many other broken things. But creating materials for students, and being able to read them offline or edited by teachers is a feature that aligns with our mission and vision. As always happens, no one is accountable for having something broke for six years. And it doesn't seem that this feature will return in the future. At least, the PediaPress link is still working, but there you can't edit your book, only pay for have it printed.
I think no one knows what will happen with this feature. I write this message simply to say that I miss it a lot.
Thanks
Galder Gonzalez
Dear Pete and The Cunctator,
Surely, Twitter is getting worse by the day, and, surely, Elon is not the best practices person in the world. And, indeed, the WMF has lots of things to tackle and worry about. Nevertheless, the WMF has a Communications Team and the Communications Team has a Social Media department, and the Social Media department's job is to handle social media. So, even if these shouldn't be our main concern, is something we may talk about.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 2:44 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Twitter has a poor recent record on protecting its users from government interference and privacy invasion, an area in which the Wikimedia community and the WMF have typically taken a keen interest.
In 2015, Wikimedia's then-general counsel took pride in the WMF's perfect score on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) rating system for ethical response to government interference, a series that ran under the title "Who Has Your Back?"
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2015/06/29/whos-got-your-back/
As far as I can tell, the EFF hasn't run these ratings since 2019. In that year they focused on the issue of censorship (the specifics of the ratings varied in different year. They didn't consider Wikimedia that year, but Twitter got 3 stars out of a possible 6, putting it behind such companies as YouTube, Medium, the Google Play Store, and the Apple Store.
Now, in 2023, Twitter has apparently ceased self-reporting relevant data altogether to the Lumen group, which is connected to Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. But according to the report linked below, it has not refused even one government request for data since Elon Musk took over in 2022. It previously refused about 50% of requests.
One example that may resonate for Wikimedians:
"Under previous ownership, Twitter actively resisted requests from many of these same regimes. For two weeks in 2014, the platform was banned from Turkey, in part due to its refusal to globally block a post accusing a former government official of corruption. (The executive who led that charge was Vijaya Gadde, one of the first executives fired after Musk took over.)"
https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-orders/?ref=nobsb…
Twitter's choice to stop submitting data to Lumen as of April 15, 2023: https://twitter.com/shreyatewari96/status/1651865580629114880
I prefer to see the WMF follow the leadership of such organizations as the (USA-based) National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and officially de-emphasize Twitter as a means for public communication.
Wikimedia already has one of the top websites in the world; it is better to stand up for important shared values than to overlook this mismanagement of a highly popular website.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Tue, May 2, 2023 at 5:27 AM The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com<mailto:cunctator@gmail.com>> wrote:
I honestly think the WMF has better things to do than worry about engagement on what is clearly a grossly mismanaged website.
On Tue, May 2, 2023, 3:53 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Dear Justice,
Yes, it works that way, because we are not measuring the total engagement (where @Wikipedia wins @euwikipedia bat not @viquipedia) but the engagement rate per tweet, which is balanced with the number of followers.
Another topic is that the take-over by Elon Musk is affecting our engagement, but this should also be taken in account by the Social media team. In fact, there should be a discussion following up here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Twitter_verification_chec….
Since the changes on the algorithm affects everyone, the @Wikipedia team should be interested in learning about successful stories and how other social media handles continue having engagement while the one that should be leading is losing engagement every month.
Finally, I don't think that any discussion is "settled" if there's no answer. For the moment, the answer to the proposal of working together is silence.
Thanks
Galder
________________________________
From: Justice Okai-Allotey <owulakpakpo(a)gmail.com<mailto:owulakpakpo@gmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2023 9:47 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Hi Galder,
Twitter has consistently seen a downward trend since the take over by Elon Musk. A lot of people are not using that platform like they did in the past.
And I thought this conversations was settled when WMF brought their social media strategy and engagement plan. But it looks like you keep bringing it up.
Again you don't expect accounts with less following to have same engagements with accounts with higher following it doesn't work that way.
Organizations define their own metrics and so success may mean different things to different organizations.
Regards,
Justice.
On Tue, 2 May 2023 at 07:41, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Dear all,
The impact of @wikipedia continues going down on Twitter. There's no strategy to turn this trend and the team seems happy with the numbers .https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Organic_social_media_strategy_update.
For context, the "Engagement Rate per Tweet" (this is the metric that the Communications Team proposed as a benchmark) felt to 0.011% (benchmark average is 0.035% and 0.05% for non-profits). Compare it with 0.27% of the Basque Wikipedia or the Catalan Wikipedia accounts (both have the same impact factor), or the 0.23% of the French Wikipedia account. We are talking about strategies with x25 impact.
Some months ago, some users made an offer to collaborate in making the social media communication strategy better, but there's no answer from the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm still waiting for an aswer to the offer.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 11:36 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Dear all,
I write to send a small update on this. In a message about the methodology followed to measure success (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Re:_Twitter_engagement_qu…), Laura Dickinson posted this: "According to its 2022 report<https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/social-media-industry-benchmark-report/>, the median Twitter engagement rate for brands across all industries is 0.037%; for nonprofits specifically, it is 0.054% [our engagement] over the last 28 day period is 2.7%."
I have measured the engagement with that methodology (https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/social-media-industry-benchmark-report/#title-…) for @Wikipedia in January (Likes+RT+Comments / Number of followers) and the result is: 0.012%, three times lower than the industry standard and 4.5 lower than for non-profits. For context, Basque Wikipedia had 0.055%, Catalan Viquipedia 0.060% and Indonesian Wikipedia an astonishing 2.79%. (You can check the numbers here: https://www.rivaliq.com/free-social-media-analytics/twitter-head-to-head)
There's an open question about the strategy followed and a sincere proposal of opening this account to a shared volunteers/WMF administration.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Àlex Hinojo <alexhinojo(a)gmail.com<mailto:alexhinojo@gmail.com>>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2023 7:42 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
+1
On Thu, 19 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Peter Southwood <peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net<mailto:peter.southwood@telkomsa.net>> wrote:
A Wikipedia account should be under the control of Wikipedians, following the editorial policy for Wikipedia, but they could let WMF do the technical work if such exists. WMF can and should run Wikimedia accounts. WMF running a Wikipedia account could be misrepresentation.
Cheers,
Peter
From: Andreas Kolbe [mailto:jayen466@gmail.com<mailto:jayen466@gmail.com>]
Sent: 19 January 2023 02:46
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Cc: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Dear all,
The obvious question surely is: Why not let volunteers (co-)run the Wikipedia Twitter account?
A number of Wikipedia language versions (French, Catalan, Portuguese, Basque, Waray, etc.) seem to have volunteer-managed Twitter accounts that are doing fine. If volunteers are good enough to write the encyclopedia and curate the main page of each language version, aren't they good enough to write (or suggest) the occasional tweet?
Andreas
On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 11:20 PM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>> wrote:
Hi/Bona nit,
This last tweet from @Wikipedia is a good example of what some of us have been mentioning in this list during the past days:
https://twitter.com/wikipedia/status/1615756186640334848?s=46&t=7wB7VI4gwIS…
Despite the fact that many Wikipedias have already had this new skin deployed since months ago as voluntary testers, not a single mention on their huge contribution was explained on Twitter (neither back then nor today…). We need to go to the 8th tweet of today's publication to read something like "The new features, which start rolling out on English Wikipedia today, were built in collaboration with Wikipedia volunteers worldwide."
If this is the situation in which the main account is monopolized only to the English version and its news/articles, why not specifying it as "English Wikipedia" in the profile and in the main link?
Days pass by and we keep sharing to this list proofs, data and justified arguments (even collagues offering themselves and willing to trace a joint planning!), but still not a word or single thought from the Comms department. Disappointing, I am sad to say.
Kind regards/Salutacions
Xavier Dengra
El ds, 14 gen., 2023 a 09:52, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> va escriure:
Egun on Boodarwun/Gnangarra,
You are righth in one thing: it is very difficult to prove a point only from one puntual statistic. That's why I have been tracking statistics for a long time, because patterns are here the most important thing. Neverthless, there is only one way to know if the point me and some other users in this thread are rising is valid: experimenting. @Wikipedia should try something: tweeting 6-7 times a day, with varied topics, "on this day" like tweets, varying timezones and even curiosities about how Wikipedia works (https://twitter.com/depthsofwiki/status/1614045362985082881 2 million impressions in 9 hours). Then, after -let's say- one month, if the results (engagement, followers, retention) are better, it would be quite obvious that there's a point changing the social media strategy. If not, if engagement is the same, no obvious uprise in followers or RTs is visible, the current strategy could be validated.
Me, personally, I'm ready to help the Communications Team with this task, proposing intercultural items that could be tweeted and promoted. If they want help, they know where to go for it. Again, I think that following the same pattern is a bad communication strategy (as we can see by our own eyes) and trying something new could be better. Is up to the communications team to aknowledge this and give a try.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com<mailto:gnangarra@gmail.com>>
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2023 6:00 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Kaya Galder
The assumption that despite there being a wider audience the interests of those audience members is exactly the same, if that was true why have multiple channels. What I am saying is that in different communities that doesnt and will never hold true. Using statistics to compare the two is the issue and then complaining about different audience responses to the same event being caused by those posting to the channel. Its not the channel operators, it's the underlying expectation that all audiences are the same and react exactly the same way every time even as the audience is increasing by many orders of magnitude.
Boodarwun
On Sat, 14 Jan 2023 at 02:06, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
@Gnangarra: I would doubt on the idea that Pelé is not relevant to the English audience, as it was the most visited article by far that day (https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/topviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=a…), and the second most visited next day, just after the less known Andrew Tate. Also, the account is not ENGLISH Wikipedia. Is called Wikipedia, so it should take into account, even if it tweets only about English Wikipedia (as pointed by @Xavier Dengra) a global audience. Because, again, the goal is "By 2030, Wikimedia is to become the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet.". Not only for US centered people, but by a global audience. Even with that in mind, Pelé was the most visited article in English Wikipedia.
@Yaroslav: Basque Wikipedia is not one of the few accounts tweeting about Pelé, and in perspective, there are more Basque tweeting accounts per speaker, than there are for other larger languages. We are not competing with major news outlets; we are competing to be "the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet". Wikipedia is doing well on that: nearly 2,5 million visits in two days for the article about Pelé only in English. I think that there may be very few web services having 2,5 million visits for a page about Pelé in two days, if there's any. Also, next day the most visited article was about Andrew Tate. So, you are right: we are not a news outlet, but we are visited according to the news. Any strategy that doesn't have this in mind, will fail.
You also ask how many tweets a day would be enough. I don't have an answer for this. I would like the communications team to come with one, but they don't seem either to have one. I don't think that tweeting every hour is better, but I'll explain why one tweet per day is a bad strategy, based only in what we know about the Twitter algorithm:
* The Twitter algorithm tends to show a tweet to followers and others more often if it gets more engagements (RTs, likes, comments...). So, maximizing engagements seems a something positive if we want to reach to new people.
* It also shows an account more often if the user interacts with it. If someone likes, RTs or comments a tweet, it seems that this account will be shown again soon. That's why you see more often tweets from your friends than others. And that's why ideological bubbles are created.
* If people are engaged with a tweet, it will be shown more regularly after a tweet by other people you follow once you scroll down. This is why if you open a tweet by a far-right politician, you will see below other tweets by far-right sided politicians and the opposite for left, libertarian, green or vegans. It shows you similar content, based on people's interaction.
So, tweeting more doesn't maximize engagement (if you tweet every minute, you will lose it), but tweeting less minimizes engagement. If you only tweet once a day, and you don't get too much attention, your next tweet will be less important for the algorithm, and so on. The only valid strategy is one that gets people engaged to your tweet, so you get more impressions, and this drives more interactions, and this drives more followers. Because, at the end of the day, we want to be "the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet".
I don't know how much is the ideal thing. In Basque Wikipedia our strategy is to publish 5-6 tweets every day, and then also interact with people talking about Wikipedia or speaking about articles they have created (like @viquipedia does, with great success). Our topics from the 5-6 daily tweets now (2023) are like this: every morning (yes, most of our followers live in the same time-zone) a biography of someone who was born/died on this day; then, something that happened 100 years ago. At noon, an artwork. If the artwork is depicting something interesting, a second tweet linked to that explaining the artwork itself. Two tweets in the afternoon: the first one, optional, about something related to Wikipedia itself (Statistics, projects, some user who has created something cool...) and then science/technology in a broad sense. At evening, we like to tweet something related to current events, if this is interesting. We have a shared doc with the daily tweets and we program them some days in advance. Also, we use MOA to have them copied to Mastodon.
I don't know, again, if this is the optimal. I know that is better than one-per-day, because data is obviously better. Engagements, followers and interactions are better this way, as I have proved above.
Best,
Galder
________________________________
From: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2023 3:37 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Cc: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau <xavier.dengra(a)protonmail.com<mailto:xavier.dengra@protonmail.com>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Hi/Bon dia
Yaroslav: Also, you say one tweet per day is too little, how may do you think is normal? If I personally see an account which tweets more than say 10 per day (not counting threads) I start thinking may be it is a spam generator.
Since 4 years ago we updated the social media methodology for the Catalan Wikipedia Twitter account (approx 4.5M native speakers, 10M audience), we boosted from 15.3K to 45.4K speakers, now being the 4th most followed language of Wikipedia.
Our method in a nutshell: we have up to 23 knowledge themes that we oblige ourselves to post at least once every week. The number of our daily tweets vary from 6 to 10 only in content (i.e., articles). This depends on, ofc, whether it's a working day vs a weekend or other time aspects (peak hours). Plus the interactions (RT+kudos) with our wikipedians that share their new articles tagging us, which has been a massive way to appreciate their task and to visibilize to others the task of being a volunteer in Wikipedia. In fact, the latter has been especially critical to bring us huge additional views and to renew a few of our new, most active editing community (especially young users!).
If our account, managed by volunteers, can conduct this organized work for a small-medium size language, why should we accept that a whole staffed team from the WMF, firstly, rejects to provide engagement data on our common, biggest handle? And secondly, why should we give up on them preparing a strategy to improve its scope and objectives?
Regarding the last question, I'd like to add a last thought: never ever in the 4 years that I've been upfront in the handles in my language, the @Wikipedia account has given a simple, courtesy RT of any knowledge content (articles) from the Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Basque, Catalan, Galician, French, Suda or Portuguese (etc.) existing handles. That should be a key aspect in our debate.
Because if @Wikipedia is mostly used as the “central account” for the project, then it should also be very careful 1) to not always post in English and give some room to interact with the other language handles, 2) to stop centering their tweets on English-speaking culture, and 3) to post without clear range of topics to stay balanced. Oppositely, if it is decided that @Wikipedia is only the English-language handle, then it may change its profile name to "English Wikipedia" and not continue as the reference speaker either for the WMF nor for significant news or events.
Best/Salutacions,
Xavier Dengra
------- Original Message -------
On divendres, 13 de gener 2023 a les 14:56, Yaroslav Blanter <ymbalt(a)gmail.com<mailto:ymbalt@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Galder,
on the other hand.. Basque Wikipedia is one of very few accounts twitting on the Pele death in Basque, whereas a lot was twitted in English. I do not think English Wikipedia twitter can compete with major news outlets, they operate on a completely different scale.The low-hanging fruit would be twitting DYKs, FAs, GAs, or may be some other randomly picked stuff. Also, you say one tweet per day is too little, how may do you think is normal? If I personally see an account which tweets more than say 10 per day (not counting threads) I start thinking may be it is a spam generator.
Best
Yaroslav
On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 2:26 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Some months have gone since I started this topic in this list, and still, we can't know how much engagement we have at Wikipedia, because data is not available. Twitter is now owned by Elon Musk, things are changing, there are more accounts in Mastodon daily, but still Twitter matters. I have been looking at the Twitter activity in the last days for @Wikipedia and I'm still very worried about the (lack of) strategy followed here. A full team, with staff members, which only produces one tweet per day, a lonely message in the vastness of the ocean, and gets really poor engagement numbers.
A couple of weeks ago Pelé, one of the greatest football players of all time, died. (English) Wikipedia Twitter account needed 7 days to tweet about it, even if the article was changed in a few minutes after the death (https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/1611363972174778368). The tweet had 13.729 impressions (now we can know the number of impressions), 14 RTs and 129 likes. Wikipedia account has nearly 644.000 followers. If we divide these two numbers, we get a rate of 2,13% of impressions per follower.
The same day Pelé died, Basque Wikipedia made a tweet. Not a week after, just when it was news (https://twitter.com/euwikipedia/status/1608541274491211776). The tweet had 964 impressions, 3 RTs and 2 likes. Basque Wikipedia account has 7,956 followers. This is a rate of 12,11% of impressions per follower. x5.68 times larger, relatively than (English) Wikipedia Twitter account.
(English) Wikipedia Twitter account has nearly 81 times more followers than the Basque one. English Wikipedia is more visible, because it has a (now golden) verified account symbol, so tweets are more often promoted. English has 1.500 million speakers around the world. Basque has fewer than one million. English Wikipedia should have around 1.000 more followers than Basque Wikipedia. English Wikipedia article about Pelé had 2,5 million pageviews in the two days after his death. Basque had 250 pageviews. This is 10.000 times more pageviews.
@Wikipedia has 644.000 followers, and @euwikipedia has nearly 8.000. Audience of English Wikipedia is 10.000 times larger for the same event. Why Wikipedia is not 10.000 times larger? Why doesn't Wikipedia account have 80 million followers? YouTube's Twitter account has 78 million followers. "By 2030, Wikimedia is to become the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet.". How could we if Youtube's account has 100x more followers than we have? How can think that we are in a good shape if our tweets are only seen by less than 2% of our followers?
I hope that 2023 comes with a change. A change to open these accounts, have a fresh way of thinking on social media ,and building engagement, both with momentum, not losing opportunities, and promoting good content.
Sincerely
Galder
________________________________
From: Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2022 3:21 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Dear all,
Some weeks ago, we had a discussion here about the different approaches we have for the @wikipedia account at Twitter. We don't know yet how many interactions does the account has, but as I said in the discussion, we try to find ways to measure our work at @euwikipedia. Today I want to share with you that this account was ranked last week as the most influential social-movements account in Basque language (https://umap.eus/ranking/gizartea) and the 10th most influential account in all categories (https://umap.eus/ranking/orokorra). This is a good metric we use to know if we are doing fine or not.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Andy Mabbett <andy(a)pigsonthewing.org.uk<mailto:andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk>>
Sent: Friday, August 5, 2022 8:50 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
On Mon, 18 Jul 2022 at 18:48, Lauren Dickinson <ldickinson(a)wikimedia.org<mailto:ldickinson@wikimedia.org>> wrote:
> Also, Andy, we will follow up this week regarding your questions
> about the @WiktionaryUsers and @Wiktionary accounts.
Three working weeks have passed since the above was written; I've seen
no such follow-up. Have I missed something?
--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
https://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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Gnangarra
'ngany dabakarn koorliny arn boodjera dardoon ngalang Nyungar koortaboodjar'
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Regards
Justice Okai-Allotey
Board Member Wikimedia Ghana User Group<https://wmgh.org/>
Communications Officer Humanists Association of Ghana<http://www.ghanahumanists.org>
Africa Coordinator Young Humanist International<https://humanists.international/about/young-humanists-international/>
Freelance Digital Marketer
Freelance Visual Storyteller
Mobile: +233 (054) 039 4970 Skype: okai_allotey
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"Our lives begin to the end the day we become silent about things that matter" - Unknown.
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Dear wikimedians,
Nearly one year ago, the Graphs extension was disabled from all wikis, because there was a security issue that should be solved (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T334940). A wide team from the WMF worked on a solution for some weeks, but after Northern Hemisphere spring ended, summer came, then the monsoon season, and now it is again summer in the Southern Hemisphere... and Graphs are still disabled. All the solutions proposed have been dismissed, but every two months there's a proposal to make a new roadmap to solve the issue. We have plenty of roadmaps, but no vehicle to reach our destination.
Seven years ago, we were discussing our Strategy for 2030. We used thousands of volunteer hours, thousands of staff hours and millions of dollars to build a really well-balanced strategy. There we concluded that "By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge". We also made some recommendations to improve the User Experience (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Improve_U…) and claimed that we wanted to Innovate in Free Knowledge (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Innovate_…). Well, the situation is now worse than it was seven years ago, let me give some examples:
* Graph extension is used in thousands of pages, some of them highly relevant, as COVID or Climate Change information. There are thousands of graphs broken now, and the only partial solution give is loading these graphs as images, instead of promoting an interactive solution.
*
Meanwhile, a place like Our World in Data has been publishing data and interactive content with a compatible license for years. (Remember, "By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge"). Trying to add this data and graphs to Wikimedia projects has been done by WikiMed, and it is technically possible, but still blocked to deploy (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T303853).
* Wolfram Alpha is like a light year ahead us on giving interactive solutions to knowledge questions, even the silliest ones (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=how+many+oranges+fit+in+the+Earth%3F). We have good technical articles about a lot of things, but sometimes "becoming the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge" needs to provide solutions to exact problems, like the answer to an equation, and how to solve it. That's also "free knowledge".
*
Brilliant (https://brilliant.org/) is brilliant if you want to learn lots of things, like geometry or programming. Way better than Wikipedia. But... you need to pay for it. How could we even try if we can't add anything interactive to our platforms?
* We can build interactive timelines using Wikidata, but we can't embed them at Wikipedia. Weird, because I can do it in any external page. Hopefully, Histropedia will do it better. http://histropedia.com/<http://histropedia.com/>
* We could have something very special: inline links in video and audio subtitles. We used to have them, but the new video infrastructure doesn't allow it. Imagine a world where you can watch a video and link a link in the subtitles just to know more about that.
* ...
The list can go on an on ("which phase the moon is today?"), but I think that the idea is clear. We could have interactive content, but we are going in the opposite direction, and every year we are further from our goal, because other platforms are doing it better, way better. And this seems like some wild ideas, but then I read the 2023-2024 annual plan section called "Wiki Experiences" (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/…) and it looks like we should be going there. But we aren't.
I'm sorry if this e-mail feels bitter. My experience in the last years is that we are now further of what we need that we were before, even if many chapters and volunteers are trying to overturn it.
Thank to everyone who have been trying.
Galder
Dear Wikimedians,
On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, I am pleased to announce the
publication of our first child rights impact assessment
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/01/17/protecting-youth-online-wikimedia-fou…>
(CRIA). This report forms an important part of the Foundation’s long-term
efforts to meet the commitments articulated in our Human Rights Policy
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Human_Rights_Policy>. The
assessment builds upon our 2020 organizational Human Rights Impact
Assessment
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Human_Rights_Impact_As…>
(HRIA), which identified risks to children’s rights as one of five
categories of significant human rights risks facing the Foundation and
Wikimedia communities. The HRIA recommended that the Foundation undertake a
targeted assessment to better understand this category of risks.
What is in the report?
Publishing this CRIA represents a significant step forward in the
Foundation’s human rights endeavors. The CRIA was prepared by Article One
<https://articleoneadvisors.com/>, a strategy consultancy with expertise in
human rights. In it, Article One identifies and analyzes the impacts,
risks, and opportunities posed to children that access and participate in
Wikimedia projects. It proposes recommendations that the Foundation and
Wikimedia’s volunteer community could implement to mitigate those risks, so
that children can fully benefit from participating in our projects
Of the recommendations, the Foundation is positioned to act upon a number
of them, while others provide an opportunity for collaboration between the
Foundation and the volunteer community to address, and others the volunteer
community is better positioned to lead. We hope these recommendations will
give us all a basis for dialogue and collaboration around making Wikimedia
a safer space for children.
Making sense of the findings
To help you digest this report, we’ve prepared a number of resources for
you, including:
-
A Diff blog pos
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/01/17/protecting-youth-online-wikimedia-fou…>t
summarizing the findings of the CRIA and what it means for the movement;
-
A Meta page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Child_Rights_Impact_As…>
to serve as the “home” for the report and to provide more background
information on the report, including its objectives, the timeline in which
it was completed, the methodology that was employed to develop the report,
and actions the Foundation has taken since first receiving the report;
-
The full report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ArticleOne_-_WMF_Child_Rights_Impact_A…>,
which contains a foreword from the Foundation’s General Counsel, an
executive summary, a risk analysis, and recommendations. The report is
available in English, French and Spanish.
Working together to protect child safety on Wikimedia projects
We want to hear from you on this topic: What questions do you have? What
are your thoughts on the risks and recommendations from the report? What is
your community already doing, or what would you like to do, to ensure the
safety of children on Wikimedia projects? How can we collaborate to make
progress? Leave a message on the report’s Talk page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Chil…>
or register and join us at either of the two community conversation hours
scheduled for the following times:
-
Friday, 23 February at 13:00 UTC
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkcOmoqDopEt38H6i8ueP2Gv_8oXQD…>
-
Friday, 23 February at: 18:00 UTC
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvde-trTspHtE5a7ZAnHOrtpblIctO…>
If you prefer to ask questions or share information privately, you can also
email us at youthsurvey(a)wikimedia.org. We will take the information we
gather across channels to prepare a map of efforts happening across the
movement and ideas for collaboration and implementation. We look forward to
hearing from you.
Thank you,
*Ricky Gaines*
Senior Human Rights Advocacy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
Dear all,
TL;DR
There are two topics this letter talks about – 1) the call for new members
of the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee (AffCom) is open
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Legal_department/Commi…>
on Meta until 17 November 2023; and 2) there are membership changes in the
committee to ensure the transition process for offboarding existing
members, and onboarding new ones.
== 2023 Call for AffCom members ==
The Affiliations Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee> is, until 17
November 2023, seeking additional members to help the Wikimedia Foundation
Board of Trustees (Board) support the affiliate ecosystem. As a note: two
other movement groups (Ombuds commission and Case Review Committee) are
also seeking members. You can read about the process and how to apply here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_Leg…>
on Meta.
AffCom makes recommendations to the Board on the recognition, approval, or
derecognition of Wikimedia movement affiliates. It helps Wikimedians from
around the world self-organise into chapters, thematic organizations, and
user groups, and to gain official recognition from the Wikimedia
Foundation. AffCom’s work involves the recognition of new affiliates,
helping them retain their affiliate status through yearly reportings, and
conflict mitigation when challenges happen within affiliates.
Volunteers in this role should be experienced Wikimedians from any project,
have experience working with affiliates to practice good governance.
International perspectives, collaboration, teamwork and experience handling
sensitive situations are among traits needed. Given the scope of work,
proficiency in English is required. AffCom seeks members committing 7-10
hours monthly for a 3-year term. The members will have the option to run
again after completion of their terms.
Members are required to sign the Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic
information
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Confidentiality_agreement_for_nonpublic_inf…>
and must be willing to comply with the appropriate Wikimedia Foundation
board policies (such as the access to non-public information policy
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy>).
Members must also be over 18 years of age.
The information about this was previously shared on village pumps of the
Wikimedia projects, but as usual this call is also shared here, on the
mailing list.
== AffCom transition period ==
The number of members AffCom needs to recruit this year is not set, as
there was the intentional delay in selecting new members last year
(announced in December 2022, as AffCom was “a key input for the Board in
developing the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy” [1]), but it has
created a need to stagger selection - as all AffCom members term come to
end at the same time: December 31, 2023. The number of seats available will
depend on how many existing members decide to carry on.
As having a committee formed entirely of new members is not sustainable,
there is an option for the current members to remain in their seats for a
transition period of 6 to 12 months (maximum until December 2024). Others
may choose to step down, before or after helping to onboard new members,
and pass on open tasks, and some may choose to join the volunteer process
to apply for another three year term as AffCom members.
With the goal of ensuring continuity, we, as the Board liaisons to AffCom,
have suggested to AffCom to convert two current AffCom advisors for a one
year term as AffCom members – as they have been a part of the AffCom work
for a while, they would need minimal onboarding, and would be able to
support the current workflows. Thus as of now, AffCom has two more members
joining it for a term ending 31 December 2024:
* Maor Malul, also known as user:Maor X
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Maor_X>, who has considerable
experience on this committee, having served even before his current role as
advisor as a member between 2013 and 2019, during which time he served
first as chair and then as co-chair;
* Aleksey Chalabyan, also known as user:Xelgen
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Xelgen>, who has already been
providing considerable value as an advisor since his appointment last year.
Speaking on behalf of the Board and reflecting the sentiments voiced by
AffCom itself, we are very happy that Maor and Aleksey have agreed to
support us in this way.
You can view more details about what this important committee does on Meta
in its “What we do
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee#what-we-do>”
section and also in their charter
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee_Charter>.
There will be a public comment period on applicants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Affiliations_Committee/C…>
from 17 October to 17 November. Candidates will meet with AffCom, Board
liaisons and staff to discuss the role and their interest in it. The
Board’s Community Affairs Committee will also review the AffCom candidates,
to provide input. Per its Charter [2] the AffCom will appoint new members,
taking into account also the community feedback. The new members will be
announced in late December 2023, after individuals have been notified.
Thank you for reading this long letter, and thank you in advance for your
interest to join AffCom – or Ombuds commission and Case Review Committee!
And if you are not interested but know someone who might be, please share
this message with them, personal encouragement goes a long way in the
Wikimedia Movement. Also please let us know if you have any questions.
[1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee_Charter
Best regards,
Nat & Shani & Lorenzo
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Liaisons to the Affiliations
Committee
------
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
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!*
Hello everyone,
Wikimedia is gearing up to apply as a mentoring organization for Google
Summer of Code 2024 <
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2024>[1] and Outreachy
Round 28 <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreachy/Round_28> [2].
Currently, we're crafting a list of exciting project ideas for the
application. If you have any suggestions for projects, whether coding or
non-coding (design, documentation, translation, outreach, research), please
share them by February 5th via this Phabricator task: <
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T354734> [3]. Note that for non-coding
projects eligible for Outreachy, slots are limited and will be allocated to
mentors on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Timeline
In your role as a mentor, your involvement spans the application period for
both programs, taking place from March to April. During this time, you'll
guide candidates in making small contributions to your project and address
any project-related queries they may have. As the application period
concludes, you'll further intensify your collaboration with accepted
candidates throughout the coding period, which extends from May to August.
Your support and guidance are crucial to their success in the program.
Guidelines for Crafting Project Proposals:
-
Follow this task description template when you propose a project in
Phabricator: <
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/outreach-programs-projects> [4].
You can also use this workboard to pick an idea if you don't have one
already. Add #Google- Summer-of-Code (2024) or #Outreachy (Round 28) tag.
-
Project should require an experienced developer ~15 days and a newcomer
~3 months to complete.
-
Each project should have at least two mentors, including one with a
technical background.
-
Ideally, the project has no tight deadlines, a moderate learning curve,
and fewer dependencies on Wikimedia's core infrastructure. Projects
addressing the needs of a language community are most welcome.
* Learn more about the roles and responsibilities of Mentors for both
programs:*
-
Outreachy: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreachy/Mentors> [5]
-
Google Summer of Code: <
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Mentors> [6]
Thank you,
Links:
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2024
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreachy/Round_28
[3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T354734
[4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/outreach-programs-projects
[5] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreachy/Mentors
[6] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Mentors
--
*Onyinyechi Onifade *
Technical Community Program Manager
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Dear Wikimedia Community,
Apologies for cross-posting this but I hope this email finds you well. We
are excited to officially announce the kick-starting of Wiki Loves Folklore
(WLF) and Feminism and Folklore! As active members of the Wikimedia
community, we invite you to join us in celebrating and documenting the folk
culture from around the world.
Wiki Loves Folklore (WLF):
Wiki Loves Folklore is an annual international photography competition that
runs throughout February, organized by Wikimedia community members and
local affiliates. The competition's mission is to preserve and promote
intangible cultural heritage through the lens of photography. We encourage
photographers to contribute media showcasing their local folk culture to
Wikimedia Commons under free licenses. The resulting media can then be
utilized on Wikipedia and various platforms with proper attribution.
Feminism and Folklore:
In addition to WLF, we are thrilled to present Feminism and Folklore, an
international writing contest held on Wikipedia annually during February
and March. This contest aims to document folk cultures and the role of
women in folklore across different regions of the world. Feminism and
Folklore is the written counterpart of the photography campaign Wiki Loves
Folklore (WLF) organized on Wikimedia Commons to capture and document
folklore traditions globally.
Key Dates:
- Start Date: February 1, 2024
- Deadline: March 31, 2024
How You Can Participate:
We encourage our local organizers to please start putting your houses in
order for this event. Whether you're a seasoned contributor or a newcomer,
your involvement is crucial in making these projects a success. Here's how
you can participate:
1. Organize Events: Plan meet-ups, edit-a-thons, or workshops to engage
your local community in contributing to Wiki Loves Folklore and Feminism
and Folklore. Share your event details on relevant platforms to attract
participants.
2. Spread the Word: Use your social media channels, mailing lists, and
community forums to spread awareness about these projects. Encourage others
to join and contribute their unique perspectives.
3. Document and Contribute: Be an active participant by documenting and
contributing content related to folk culture and feminism in folklore. Your
contributions will help enrich the global understanding of these important
cultural aspects and at the end of the day you win some fanatic prizes.
4. Support New Contributors: please let us Welcome the newcomers and guide
them through the process. Encourage them to share their images taken by
themselves and not download images off the internet.
Together, let's celebrate and preserve the diverse cultural heritage that
defines us.
For more details and to participate, visit the official Wiki Loves Folklore
and Feminism and Folklore pages on Facebook, Instagram, X, Telegram,
Youtube and on our Wikimedia talk pages on Commons
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Folklore> or just
email support(a)wikilovesfolklore.org. For any tools related
inquiries/suggestion/complaints write us on tools(a)wikilovesfolklore.org
Thank you for your dedication to the Wikimedia community. We look forward
to seeing your contributions and the vibrant documentation of folk culture
and feminism in folklore.
Best regards,
Isaac Chabota Kanguya
Communication Officer on behalf the
Wiki Loves Folklore International Team
Hi all, the 2023 annual report for the Wikipedia & Education User Group has
been published on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_%26_Education_User_Group/2023_Ann…
Many thanks to all who engaged with our work in 2023, and looking forward
to a great 2024!
-LiAnna, on behalf of the Wikipedia & Education User Group board