Hey All
Few updates from my side:
1) The bank I inquired at in Canada cannot open accounts for a US based
charity.
2) I have volunteered to help facilitate the ongoing strategy discussion.
Best
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
Dear Mr. or Ms.,
I thank you for your endorsements that led my IdeaLab Inspire proposal to be ranked first among more than 60 ideas. This is an honour for me.
Yours Sincerely,
Houcemeddine Turki
Dear Mr. or Mrs.,
I thank you for your endorsements that led my Inspire proposal about creating a project to automatically detect and invite professors emeriti to freely contribute to Wikipedia to be ranked second as shown in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire/Leaderboard. So that this important idea would be ranked first and have more interest from Wikimedia Foundation, more endorsements are needed. So, please endorse my IdeaLab Inspire proposal by clicking on Endorse in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inviting_Professors_Emeriti_…. I will be happy for that.
Yours Sincerely,
Houcemeddine Turki
Dear Mr. or Ms.,
I thank you for your support. This is an honour for me to receive your comments and opinion about my Inspire proposal and efficiently to answer all of them. Thanks to your endorsements, my IdeaLab Inspire proposal is currently ranked first as shown in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire/Leaderboard. If you have not endorsed my proposal, please endorse it by clicking Endorse in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inviting_Professors_Emeriti_… so that it can keep its first rank for the five days that remained for this IdeaLab Inspire campaign and so that it can be applied after the campaign.
Yours Sincerely,
Houcemeddine Turki
Dear Mr.,
I have created a IdeaLab Inspire proposal this week. This idea is to automatically detect excellent professors emeriti that can contribute to Wikipedia articles using author citation network analysis and convince them to create a WMF account and contribute to Wikipedia using email messages. You can think of the usefulness of this idea to ameliorate the general quality of the medical output in Wikipedia. In order to let this idea come true, it should win the Inspire campaign. So, if you support this idea, please endorse it in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inviting_Professors_Emeriti_….
Yours Sincerely,
Houcemeddine Turki
Wiki Project Med Foundation
Meeting of the Board of Directors
January 28, 2017 at 19:00 UTC
In attendance:
* Shani Evenstein
* James Hare
* James Heilman
* Sydney Poore
* Vinicius Siqueira (partial)
* Doug Taylor
Guests in attendance:
* Anthony Cole
Not in attendance:
* Jacob de Wolff
* Daniel Mietchen
* Jake Orlowitz
* Subas Chandra Rout
* Carl Fredrik Sjöland
* Emily Temple-Wood
The Board did not reach a quorum until the arrival of Vinicius Siqueira in
the middle of the meeting, and in the interim held a period of informal
discussion.
1. James Hare recommended an amendment to the Bylaws concerning unexcused
absences of board members from meetings. He recommended language mirroring
Wikimedia District of Columbia’s bylaws: “If a Director is absent from
Board meetings three (3) times within a 12-month period, without such
absence being excused by the President not less than one (1) day prior to
the meeting, the Director shall be deemed to have resigned and the position
declared vacant.” This would only apply to participation in formal
meetings, and not informal discussion such as those over email. However, if
directors are participating over email, they can email to indicate they are
unavailable, and that would not count against them under this bylaw.
2. Decision-making outside of convened Board meetings was discussed. The
policy of actions without a ballot contained in Article III, Section 15 of
the Bylaws was referenced. It was pointed out that it is not feasible to
run a board purely on unanimous consent of all Board members, as required
by the Bylaws. A proposal was considered to reduce this to a simple
majority. An objection was raised over the value of the ability of the
Board to engage in deliberation. However, online voting was still
considered as an option for certain decisions.
3. The expectations of board members was discussed. There was an informal
consensus of six meetings per year (i.e. every other month) and for board
members to answer emails within two weeks.
4. The proposed resolution concerning officers was discussed. Doug Taylor
proposed removing Paragraph 4 of the proposed resolution: "This policy is
an exhaustive enumeration of officer positions, and no officer position
shall be deemed to exist unless it is described by this policy.” James
Hare, as the drafter of the resolution, agreed and deleted the paragraph
from the draft proposal.
5. James Hare agreed to start a Doodle poll for scheduling a February board
meeting.
6. Shani Evenstein agreed to announce the new Board of Directors through
various announcement channels.
7. James Heilman agreed to get in touch with absent Board members.
8. The role of committees was discussed, including the proposed Governance
Committee. There was a general agreement that committees and less formal
working groups can be created as the need arises.
9. Vinicius Siqueira arrived at 20:15 and there was a presence of a quorum.
James Heilman called the meeting at 20:15.
10. James Heilman moves to approve the agenda for the meeting. James Hare
seconded and the agenda was approved without dissent.
11. James Heilman delivered a report on the recent Board election. He noted
that there are now 12 elected members. He also proposed a slate of
officers, including himself for Chair, Shani Evenstein for Vice Chair and
Membership Secretary, James Hare as Secretary, and Doug Taylor as
Treasurer. James Heilman moved to confirm the new Board members and the new
officers. Doug Taylor seconded and the motion passed without dissent.
12. The Board agreed to defer on electing an outreach director. Shani
Evenstein agreed to engage in outreach. James Heilman noted that all Board
members are responsible for outreach.
13. James Hare discussed his proposal for a Governance Committee.
14. Vinicius Siqueira left the meeting at 20:23. James Heilman noted the
absence of a quorum, and scheduled business was tabled.
15. Doug Taylor recommended a review of our communication strategy. He
noted that in the future we may need a press policy. The concern was that
when a controversial issue comes up and there is no clear point of contact,
multiple people may try to respond. This could be an issue in the future.
Sydney Poore recommended that we prepare talking points about the
organization.
16. James Heilman discussed his research on banks and found a Canadian bank
that meets our needs. Shani Evenstein said that we need to make sure that
bank accounts outside of the United States do not pose any significant
issues for the organization. James Hare noted the existence of free
commercial checking services in the United States and that he will do
further research. The role of fiscal controls were discussed. James Hare
noted that the full fiscal policy can be decided later but that at minimum
the organization needed to decide on account signers. Shani Evenstein noted
that the account signers will depend on the country the bank account is
opened it. Sydney Poore noted that we should pick a bookkeeping system.
James Hare recommended Quickbooks Online, in use by Wikimedia District of
Columbia.
17. Discussion of the organization’s participation in the Wikimedia
Conference in Berlin was tabled.
18. James Heilman noted that the draft of the organization’s annual report
to the Wikimedia Foundation was complete.
19. Discussion of the organization’s strategy was tabled to the next
meeting of the Board, with initial discussions to be held over email.
20. James Heilman adjourned the meeting at 20:43.
Forwarding a WiR job posting. Quoting from the grants page: "The
overarching goal of the project is to enhance the bioscientific coverage in
Wikidata so it becomes a visible and used resource both for Wikipedians and
in general scientific research and discourse." The WiR position includes
work with the Cambridge University Library.
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thomas Arrow <tom(a)contentmine.org>
Date: Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 2:00 AM
Subject: [Wikidata] WikiFactMine Project is Advertising for a Wikimedian in
Residence
To: wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hi,
ContentMine is currently looking to hire a Wikimedian in Residence for
the WikiFactMine Project (see:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/ContentMine/WikiFactMine).
It's a six month long position and we're looking for someone who could
spend around half their time in Cambridge, UK. We expect it to have
quite a lot of Wikidata related work.
If you're interested or know someone who might be then the advert can
be seen at: http://contentmine.org/jobs
Cheers,
Tom
_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
Dear all,
I'm happy to announce that the user group "WikiProject Med Foundation" has a
new board <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med/Board> elected,
which includes:
1) *James Heilman* - chair
2) *Shani Evenstein* - vice chair; membership admin.
3) *Doug Taylor* - treasurer
4) *James Hare* - secretary
5) *Jacob F. de Wolff*
6) *Sydney Poore*
7) *Carl Fredrik Sjoland*
8) *Daniel Mietchen*
9) *Vinicius Siqueira*
10) *Subas Chandra Rout*
11) *Jake Orlowitz*
12) *Emily Temple-Wood *
Please join me in thanking previous board members *Anthony Cole*, *Peter
Coti* & *Brian Basden, *as well as *Lane Rasberry, *for their service thus
far and their support during the transition period.
Wishing all of us a fruitful and productive term,
Shani Evenstein,
On behalf of the WikiProject Med Foundation Board.
Dear WikiProject Med Foundation Members,
It is time to elect a new board for the WPMEDF that will serve and advance
our joint goals in the coming 2 years.
This election, we have 12 candidates applying for 12 sits on the new board
(listed below). As members of the WPMEDF and in compliance with our bylaws, *we
need your votes, **accepting the 12 candidates as board members. *This will
allow the new (and eager!) board to officially start its term.
Voting is enabled* via this google form
<https://goo.gl/forms/ja5gIyFffjOBWf3h2>*, which will remain available* till
Jan 14th 2017 @ midnight* (whatever timezone you are in). Please note --
that your voting details are confidential and available only to the
Membership Secretary, in order to verify votes' validity, as required by
our bylaws.
Thank you in advance for your participation and contribution and wishing
all of us a fruitful, active & exciting 2017!
Best,
Shani Evenstein
Membership Secretary
WikiProject Med Foundation.
----------------------------------------
List of candidates:
1) *James Heilman* - an ER doc, from *Canada*
2) *Jacob F. de Wolff* - an internal medicine doc, from the *UK*
3) *Sydney Poore* - a retired nurse, was the WiR at Cochrane, from the *US*
4) *Carl Fredrik Sjoland* - a medical student from *Sweden*
5) Daniel Mietchen* - * a researcher from *Germany*
6) *Vinicius Siqueira* - a young doctor from *Brazil *
7) *Doug* is a retired teacher and SCUBA diver, from the *UK*.
8) *Jake Orlowitz *- head of the WP Library Project at WMF, from the *US*
9) *James Hare* - WiR at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health; Secretary, WM-DC, from the *US *
10) *Emily Temple-Wood *- a medical student, from the *US*
11) *Subas Chandra Rout* - a retired orthopedic surgeon, contributes mostly
to Odia Wikipedia, from *India*
12) *Shani Evenstein* - Medical Education specialist, lecturer at Sackler
School of Medicine, TAU, from *Israel*.