(This release is also posted at
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimania_comes_to_Wash…
)
*Wikimania, the global Wikimedia/Wikipedia conference, comes to Washington,
DC, July 12-14, 2012*
WASHINGTON, DC -- May 30, 2012 -- Wikimania 2012 is coming to Washington,
DC, this summer. Wikimania has been, since 2005, the premier annual
international gathering of the Wikimedia community, including experts,
academics, and enthusiasts whose vision is to empower people around the
world through free access to global knowledge. Wikimania has been
previously held in Frankfurt, Germany; Boston, Mass.; Taipei, Taiwan;
Alexandria, Egypt; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gdańsk, Poland; and Haifa,
Israel. Expected attendance this year is 1000+ global participants.
*WIKIMANIA’S OPENING SESSION*
On July 12, Wikimania’s opening session will feature Mary Gardiner,
co-founder of the Ada Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to
increasing participation among women in open technology and culture; and
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia
with over 21million articles in 285 languages.
*WIKIMANIA PROGRAM*
The theme this year is “Explore. Engage. Empower.” More than 100
presentations out of 400 global submissions have been selected.
Presentations are divided into five categories: Wikis, Collaboration, and
the Public Sector; GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, & Museums);
Culture & Community; Research, Analysis, and Education; and Technology &
Infrastructure. More information is available at www.wikimania2012.org.
*WHERE*
George Washington University, Foggy Bottom Campus
Plenary Sessions: Lisner Auditorium, 730 21st St NW
Breakout Sessions: Marvin Center, 800 21st St NW
*WHEN*
Wikimania Hackathon: July 10-11,
Conference: July 12-14,
Unconference: July 15
*PARTNERS & COLLABORATORS*
Wikimania 2012 is organized by Wikimedia District of Columbia in
partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland.
Collaborators for Wikimania 2012 include the US Department of State, Office
of eDiplomacy; the Library of Congress; and the Broadcasting Board of
Governors.
*SPONSORS*
Wikimania 2012 is sponsored by Google, Ask.com, Wikia, WikiHow, The Saylor
Foundation, The Lounsbery Foundation, and the Encyclopedia of Life. Irene
Lynch, a 78-year-old great grandmother from New Jersey, is also a sponsor.
*PRESS PASSES*
Press passes are available. Journalists interested in obtaining Press
Credentials should contact press(a)wikimediadc.org.
*About Wikimedia DC*
http://wikimediadc.org/ <http://http//wikimediadc.org/>
Wikimedia District of Columbia is the official regional chapter of the
Wikimedia Foundation in the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia,
and Delaware. A non-profit educational organization, Wikimedia DC is
dedicated to the advancement of general knowledge and the collection,
development, and dissemination of educational content under a free license
or in the public domain.
*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 473 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, April 2012).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.
*
*
*Press contact*
Nicholas Michael BashourPhone: (313) 377-4589, press(a)wikimediadc.org
Hi everyone,
I am pleased to announce that Tilman Bayer has officially joined the Wikimedia Foundation's Global Development team as Senior Operations Analyst focused on movement communications starting this week. He has just relocated to SF after receiving his work visa.
As most of you will be aware, Tilman has been working in the communications team focusing on movement communications since last July, as a remote contractor based in Germany. He has been instrumental in the enhancement to our monthly reporting, continued improvement to our blogging and the development of our last annual report among other things. Tilman and Dario Taraborelli co-founded and continues to edit the monthly Wikimedia research newsletter. In particular, I'd like to highlight his work to get our reports translated, so that they are more accessible for the whole community.
In his new role as a staff member, Tilman will continue to work closely with the communications team in support of the whole foundation team, e.g. working on the WMF blog, editing the WMF monthly reports and annual report, and developing multi-lingual communications solutions . His role will now include the analysis of quantitative data and other research to understand and address movement communication challenges. He will work on projects to improve our communications systems in partnership with other groups in the Foundation. He will report to me for the short term, but will transition to reporting to our soon to be announced Director, Global Learning and Grantmaking.
As User:HaeB, Tilman has been active in both the German and English Wikipedia since 2003. He was a checkuser on the German Wikipedia for half a decade, and until joining WMF last year was the editor-in-chief of the Wikipedia Signpost, the English Wikipedia's community newsletter. He holds degrees in mathematics from the University of Cambridge and the University of Bonn.
Please join me in welcoming Tilman to the Wikimedia Foundation team in San Francisco.
Best,
Barry
--
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
The following translation are now available for the April 2012
"Wikimedia Highlights", which combine some of the most relevant
information from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia
engineering report for April with a selection of other important
events from the Wikimedia movement. Help is welcome in spreading the
translated versions among the project communities for these languages,
where this has not already been done. Many thanks to all translators!
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012/ar
مقتطفات من تقرير مؤسسة ويكيميديا و اتقرير لقسم التقني في ويكيميديا
لشهر أبريل 2012، ومختارات من أحداث هامة من حركة ويكيميديا
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012/ja
2012年4月のウィキメディア財団報告書及びウィキメディア技報の抄録ほかウィキメディア運動の重要行事について
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012/mk
Значајни новости од Извештајот на Фондацијата Викимедија и
Инженерскиот извештај на Викимедија за месец април 2012 г. со избор на
поважни настани во движењето Викимедија
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012/ru
Важные новости из отчёта Фонда Викимедиа за апрель 2012 и технического
отчёта за апрель 2012 года, с подборкой важнейших событий движения
Викимедиа
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012/sw
Maangazo kutoka kwa Ripoti ya Wakfa wa Wikimedia na Ripoti ya Uhasibu
wa Wikimedia ya Aprili 2012, na chaguo za matukio mengine ya maana
kutoka kwa harakati za Wikimedia
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012/ta
ஏப்ரல் 2012க்கான விக்கிமீடியா அறக்கட்டளை அறிக்கை மற்றும் விக்கிமீடியா
பொறியியல் அறிக்கை, விக்கிமீடியா இயக்கத்திலிருந்து தேர்ந்தெடுத்த மற்ற
முக்கியமான நிகழ்வுகள் ஆகியவற்றிலிருந்து சிறப்பம்சங்கள்
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012/tr
Nisan 2012 Wikimedia Vakfı Raporu ve Wikimedia mühendislik raporu ile
diğer önemli Wikimedia hareketi etkinliklerinden oluşan bülten
See for https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012
for partial translations into other languages, e.g. Italian. Of course
further translations continue to be welcome.
--
Tilman Bayer
Movement Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
Hi,
This is to inform those interested that User:Prad2609 and I have written a report on WCI 2011 which is public on meta [1]. A warning on queries; we probably wont answer those since Prad2609 has unsubscribed from all Wikipedia mailing lists and retired and Iv got other priorities myself.
Once again, we thank all those involved with WCI 2011 and thank the Indian Community which responsible for making it a resounding success.
Signing off,
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_IN/WikiConference_India_2011/Report
It is my great pleasure to introduce two new Community Fellows in the
Wikimedia Fellows Program: Tanvir Rahman and Steven Zhang.
Tanvir Rahman is a Wikimedian who serves the movement locally and
globally, both on- and off-wiki. Tanvir has been an active editor of
Bengali Wikipedia since 2009, he holds administrator rights on
multiple projects and he was elected a steward in 2011. He also
volunteers on the Small Wiki Monitoring Team, the Countervandalism
Network, as an OTRS agent, and is a translator for translatewiki.
Tanvir helped found Wikimedia Bangladesh and organizes local outreach
activities to raise awareness for Wikimedia and bring new editors to
the projects.
In his fellowship project, Tanvir will be experimenting with on-wiki
strategies to encourage and grow the editing community on small
language versions of Wikipedia, with specific focus on the Bengali
Wikipedia. Smaller projects have different needs and challenges than
the large language communities and may require different approaches to
engage with editors. By focusing on a community like Bengali
Wikipedia, which has about 50 active editors per month and sees 10 new
editors per month, Tanvir hopes to learn more about the basic editing
infrastructure needed to encourage new editors in new or small-scale
projects.
Steven Zhang is a Wikipedian with a passion for resolving on-wiki
disputes and helping others do the same. He has been contributing to
the English Wikipedia since 2008 and has been particularly active in
dispute resolution forums, including the Wikipedia Mediation Cabal.
Steven is studying a Certificate IV in Mediation at Open Colleges, and
over the past year he has made it his mission as a volunteer to
recruit more editors to join dispute resolution efforts. In 2011, he
helped create the dispute resolution notice board, an entry point for
mediating disputes on the English Wikipedia. Steven has noted that
there aren’t enough active participants to resolve all of the disputes
that arise on Wikipedia each day, and he believes that dispute
resolution processes could be streamlined to make them more accessible
and efficient to all editors who need them.
For his fellowship project, Steven will be analyzing community
feedback and dispute resolution activity in order to build a deeper
understanding of what is effective and what needs improvement in the
current systems. He will also be developing a guide for new editors
who want to get involved in resolving on-wiki disputes.
Steven and Tanvir will be documenting their work on-wiki and on the
Foundation blog. You can learn more about their projects and how to
get involved by visiting:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Fellows
Welcome, Tanvir and Steven!
--
Siko Bouterse
Head of Community Fellowships
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org
Hello,
Here the reports for the national Wikimedia organization of the
Netherlands, March and April, together. See the links at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports#Wikimedia_Nederla…
The most important event is the hiring of the first director of our
organization, Sandra Rientjes. Her work started on May, 1st.
Kind regards
Ziko van Dijk
president
This is the chapter report for Wikimedia Nederland for March 2012.
Cultural heritage
Wiki Loves Monuments - NL is starting off again. Volunteers are
being recruited, and a meeting was organized with the Rijksdienst voor
het Cultureel Erfgoed.
Conferences etc.
On March 24th a general assembly took place. Three of the seven
board members were reelected, four people joined the board.
Ziko and Paul participated in the Chapters Meeting in Berlin on 30
March - 1 April. Ziko also attended the Movement Roles meeting on 29
March and was involved in the preparing of a charter for the Wikimedia
Chapters Association.
Press and outreach
The working group around the Wikimedia Conference NL of coming
November takes shape. Most work still ahead.
Other
WikiSaturday on 10 and 24 March
Upcoming
14 & 15 April: Onboarding weekend for the new Board
21 April: WikiSaturday
28 April: Editathon at Teylers Museum
19 May: WikiSaturday
3 June: Members' barbecue
--------------------
This is the chapter report for Wikimedia Nederland for April 2012.
Cultural heritage
At Teylers Museum in Haarlem a Edit-a-thon took place on April 28th.
Press and outreach
Ziko talked with an active member about a certain project for
promoting free licences.
Other
The board met on April 14th/15th in Soesterberg. The transition
from the old to the new board took place, and the board spoke to two
candidates for the new position of a director. The board decided on
asking the candidate Sandra Rientjes to become director of WMNL.
WikiSaturday on April 21st
Upcoming
19 May: WikiSaturday
3 June: Members' barbecue
22 September: General Assembly WMNL
-----------------------------------------------------------
Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
http://wmnederland.nl/
Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hi all,
please find below the WMF report for April 2012, in plain text.
As always, the editable and formatted version is on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_April_2012
and the reports are posted on the Wikimedia blog, too:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/
As usual, we are also publishing a separate "Highlights" summary.
Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay
updated, by providing a translation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012
Many thanks to those who translated last month's "Highlights" into
Arabic, Danish, French, Italian, Macedonian, Dutch, Russian and
(partially) Japanese.
While still focussing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a
small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement.
Suggestions for the upcoming May issue are welcome at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights (until June
7). Many thanks to those who suggested items for the April issue.
Regards, Tilman
--
Wikimedia Foundation Report, April 2012
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_May_3,_2012…
Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting
covering the month of April (May 3, 2012)>
Contents
* 1 Data and Trends
* 2 Financials
* 3 Highlights
o 3.1 Expanding fundraising and affiliation models
o 3.2 Indic language outreach
o 3.3 Mobile pageviews target reached
o 3.4 Towards a rapid software deployment cycle
* 4 Technology
o 4.1 Events
o 4.2 Operations
o 4.3 Features Engineering
o 4.4 Internationalization and Editor Engagement Experiments
o 4.5 Mobile engineering
o 4.6 Platform Engineering
* 5 Fundraising
o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations
o 5.2 Fundraiser
* 6 Global Development
o 6.1 Grants Awarded and Executed
o 6.2 Fellowships
+ 6.2.1 Updates
+ 6.2.2 New Fellowships
+ 6.2.3 Teahouse Project
o 6.3 Editor Growth and Contribution Program
o 6.4 Arabic Language Initiative
o 6.5 Brazil Catalyst
+ 6.5.1 Brazil background notes
+ 6.5.2 Brazil outreach
+ 6.5.3 Brazil program updates
o 6.6 India Programs
+ 6.6.1 Indic Languages
+ 6.6.2 India Outreach
# 6.6.2.1 Storytelling for community building
# 6.6.2.2 Internal communications
o 6.7 Wikimania Scholarships
o 6.8 US Cultural Partnerships
o 6.9 Mobile and Business Development
o 6.10 Global development research
+ 6.10.1 Education program research
o 6.11 Wikipedia Education Program
o 6.12 Communications
+ 6.12.1 Major announcements
+ 6.12.2 Major Stories through March
+ 6.12.3 Other worthwhile reads
+ 6.12.4 Wikipedia Signpost
+ 6.12.5 WMF Blog posts
+ 6.12.6 Media Contact
* 7 Human Resources
o 7.1 Staff Changes
o 7.2 Statistics
o 7.3 Department Updates
* 8 Finance and Administration
* 9 Legal and Community Advocacy
* 10 Visitors and Guests
== Data and Trends ==
Global unique visitors for March:
*489 million* (+2.7% compared with February; +22.3% compared with
the previous year)
(comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will
release April data later in May)
Page requests for April:
*17.3 billion* (+0.4% compared with March; +18.2% compared with the
previous year)
(Server log data
<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyAllProjects.htm>,
all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for March 2012 (>= 5 edits/month):
*85.09K* (+0.2% compared with February / -4.5% compared with the
previous year)
(Database data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors>, all Wikimedia
Foundation projects except for Wikimedia Commons)
*Report Card* for March 2012: http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/
== Financials ==
(Financial information is only available for March 2012 at the time of
this report.)
All financial information presented is for the period of July 1, 2011 –
March 31, 2012.
Revenue $32,054,861
*Expenses:*
Technology Group $7,788,192
Community/Fundraiser Group $3,212,763
Global Development Group $2,984,100
Governance Group $718,116
Finance/Legal/HR/Admin Group $4,607,656
Total Expenses $19,310,826
Total surplus/(loss) $12,744,035
* Revenue for the month is $1.9MM vs plan of $3.9MM, approximately
$2MM or 53% under plan.
* Year-to-date is $32.1MM vs plan of $28.6MM, approximately $3.5MM or
12% over plan.
* Expenses for the month is $2.3MM vs plan of $2.2MM, approximately
$112K or 5% lower than plan.
* Year-to-date is $19.3MM vs plan of $21.1MM, approximately $1.8MM or
8% lower than plan.
* Cash position is $30.6MM as of March 31, 2012 – approximately 13
months of expenses.
== Highlights ==
=== Expanding fundraising and affiliation models ===
After the resolutions
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#March_2012> of the
Wikimedia Board of Trustees at its meeting in Berlin, work is ongoing to
implement a new model for distributing the money raised via Wikimedia
project sites. Except the costs for the core operations and operating
reserves of the WMF, all of it (including funds for chapters and
non-core operations of the WMF) will be distributed
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Funds_Dissemination_Committee>
based on the recommendations of the new volunteer-driven Funds
Dissemination Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee> (FDC).
Another resolution of the Board recognizes new models of affiliation
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Recognizing_Models_of_Affili…>
with the Wikimedia movement: “Movement Partners” (like-minded
organizations that actively support the movement’s work), “National or
Sub-national Chapters” (which includes the existing chapter model),
“Thematic Organizations” (non-profits representing the movement and
using the Wikimedia trademarks, which are supporting work focused on a
specific topic), and “User Groups” (open membership groups which may or
may not choose to incorporate).
=== Indic language outreach ===
Chief Global Development Officer Barry Newstead visited India
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/04/focusing-on-90-percent-of-india/>
meeting Wikimedians in Bangalore and attending Wikisangamotsavam, the
Malayalam community conference, as part of work to support Indic
language projects. The India team is working actively with seven Indic
language communities on outreach, social media strategy and initiatives
to build community momentum.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mobile_pageviews_vs_target,_Apr11-A…
Page views to the Wikipedia mobile site (red: non-English versions)
compared to the 2 billion target from the annual plan>
=== Mobile pageviews target reached ===
At the end of April, the Wikipedia mobile site reached the milestone of
2 billion monthly page views
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/03/mobile-milestone-two-billion-page-vie…>
– one of the goals for the 2011/12 WMF annual plan.
=== Towards a rapid software deployment cycle ===
Wikimedia engineers have begun switching to a more rapid deployment
cycle
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/12/mediawiki-1-20wmf1-deployment/>,
starting to deploy the latest MediaWiki software to Wikipedia and other
Wikimedia sites every two weeks.
== Technology ==
A detailed report of the Tech Department’s activities for April 2012 can
be found at:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2012/April
Department Highlights
Major news in April include:
* Substantial work on Wikimedia engineering’s goals for the next
fiscal year
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2012-13_Goals>;
* The selection of 9 Google Summer of Code
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2012> students and the
start of their work;
* The shift to a rapid deployment cycle
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/12/mediawiki-1-20wmf1-deployment/>;
* A new mobile skin deployed to Wikimedia sites;
* The Wikipedia mobile app for iOS switching to using OpenStreetMap data.
=== Operations ===
* *Search* — After months of preparation and refactoring work with our
dated Lucene implementation at the Tampa data center, we are glad to
report that Peter Youngmeister
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Pyoungmeister> (with help from
Asher Feldman, Robert Stojnic
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Rainman> and Jeff Green)
successfully built and deployed the new Search infrastructure at our
EQIAD data center. The performance improvement is quite amazing; at
the 99th percentile
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:99percentSearchLatency.png>
level, search latency dropped from a high of 9 seconds to 1 second,
and the average search
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AvgSearchLatency.png> is
only 100ms, down from 700ms. In addition, the new infrastructure
addresses some of the previous single point of failures and capacity
limitations.
* *Wikimedia Labs <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Labs>* —
Ryan Lane released a new version of OpenStackManager
<http://ryandlane.com/blog/2012/04/06/openstackmanager-1-4-released/>,
adding project filters for all interfaces, usability fixes and a
number of bug fixes. OpenStackManager
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:OpenStackManager> and
LdapAuthentication
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:LdapAuthentication> were
switched to Git <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Git>, allowing a few
more changes to be pushed thanks to being able to keep a stable
master branch. Notable changes were per-project sudo management,
allowing sysadmins in a project to manage who gets which sudo
permissions in a fine grained manner for their projects, and a
change in how groups are added to LDAP for projects. Sara Smollett
added Per-project ganglia monitoring <http://ganglia.wmflabs.org>,
displaying resource graphs for instances in projects. Andrew Bogott
finished work on a plugin framework for OpenStack Nova, and has
added an example plugin for a SharedFS driver, which would allow us
to manage gluster volumes via an API.
* *Data Dumps <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Projects/Data_Dumps>*
— The gluster share with the last 5 or so good dumps for all
projects is ready for use by Wikimedia Labs
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Labs> projects. A first
copy of uploaded media, accessible via rsync, was announced, and
some work was done on the infrastructure to generate downloadable
bundles of media per project. We’re working with the Internet
Archive to produce media bundles that they can host for download as
well. A new version of the dump scripts was deployed with some minor
bug fixes. Christian Aistleitner wrapped up work on the PHPUnit
tests for the dump maintenance scripts, and discovered a problem
with the database schema, which we will need to discuss with the
user community in order to find a resolution that works for everyone.
=== Features Engineering
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Features_engineering> ===
* *Visual editor <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor>* — Roan
Kattouw <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Catrope> and Trevor
Parscal <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Trevor_Parscal> are
rewriting the underlying data model to achieve feature compatibility
with the parser and correct a variety of problems that have been
previously deferred. Inez Korczynski
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Inez> and Christian Williams
have been continuing their work to stabilize and integrate the
content editable layer and have been working with Rob Moen
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Robmoen>, who has focused on
getting the user interface elements working with the content
editable layer. Gabriel Wicke
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:GWicke> has been working on
improving the parser <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid>‘s
ability to parse pages more quickly as well as increasing
compatibility with existing features such as thumbnails. A
template-heavy page like Barack Obama
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama> can now be expanded in
similar time as the production parser.
* *Article feedback <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback>*
— Fabrice Florin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin>
worked with OmniTi to develop a range of new features
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Article-Feedback-Map-04-22-800x600.…>
for version 5 of the Article Feedback Tool
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5> (AFT5).
This month, the team deployed the first versions of the abuse filter
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requiremen…>
and the relevance filter
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requiremen…>,
as well as new monitoring tools for editors
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requiremen…>,
to help surface useful suggestions and reduce the noise on the
feedback page where posts are listed for each article. Pau Giner
started designing a new look and feel for that feedback page, as
well as a final version of the feedback form, with guidance from
Brandon Harris <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Jorm_(WMF)>. We
also finalized a set of special tools for oversighters
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requiremen…>,
as well as new feedback links
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Feature_Requiremen…>.
Dario Taraborelli <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:DarTar>,
Oliver Keyes <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Okeyes_(WMF)> and
Aaron Halfaker <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EpochFail>
collected and analyzed data on how prominent feedback links impact
both volume
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Article_feedback/Stage_2/Volume>
and quality
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Article_feedback/Stage_2/Quality_a…>
of user feedback. Roan Kattouw
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Catrope> continued to review our
code and help deploy weekly releases, and Matthias Mullie
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:mlitn> contributed new code for
this project. We expect to complete feature development by the end
of May, with full deployment in the summer.
* *Article Creation Workflow
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_Creation_Workflow>* — Ian
Baker <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Raindrift>, Benny Situ
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Bsitu>, Ryan Kaldari
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Kaldari> and Brandon Harris
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Jorm_(WMF)> have developed the
Article Creation landing system
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_Creation_Workflow/Design>,
while focusing on deploying the New Page Triage (NPT) this month.
Oliver Keyes <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Okeyes_(WMF)>
prepared new templates for a proposed ‘Create a Draft’ section.
Fabrice Florin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin>
created a workflow diagram
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New-Pages-Workflow-04-30.png>
to illustrate the interdependencies between ACW and NTP. The goal is
to collect and analyze usage data on ACW in May with Dario
Taraborelli <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DarTar>, in order
to plan our next steps for this project, which is likely to be
deployed alongside NPT in coming weeks. The current ACW prototype
<http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:ArticleCreationLanding/test>
is available for testing on Wikimedia Labs.
=== Internationalization and Editor Engagement Experiments ===
* *Internationalization and localization tools
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization_tools>*
— The team has completed the first round of UI designs for a
Universal language selector (ULS) for desktop and mobile. UI/UX team
members (Pau Giner and Arun Ganesh) are now implementing a prototype
to showcase the first version of ULS. The team also added keymaps
for language support to Narayam
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Narayam>, added
notification support to Translate
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Translate>, fixed bugs,
reviewed code for localization support in MediaWiki 1.19, and
discussed language support metrics.
=== Mobile engineering
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> ===
* *Mobile design <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_design>* — The
final selection of section styles was supported by user experience
testing. We also added switches between Mobile/Desktop view and
Images on/off to the footer. These changes have now been deployed as
the default view of mobile Wikipedia. The first working prototype of
the new navigation UI has been completed in rough form and sent out
for feedback
<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mobile-l/2012-April/005560.html>.
* *Wikimedia Apps <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps>* —
Yuvaraj Pandian <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Yuvipanda>
released new versions
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/05/new-wikipedia-app-for-ios-and-an-updat…>
of our Android app and our first ever PhoneGap version of the iOS
app. Issues were identified with iOS 4.x and we released a update to
fix them. Yuvaraj also continued work on the API move branch. Brion
Vibber <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER> pushed
out a final build of the Wikipedia App to the BlackBerry market, and
started experimenting with a Windows mobile version.
* *MobileFrontend <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MobileFrontend>* —
Patrick <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Preilly>, Arthur
Richards <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:awjrichards> and Max
Semenik <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:MaxSem> continued work
on moving MobileFrontend to MediaWiki core
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_support_in_MediaWiki_core>.
We’ve updated its skinning, internals, and general architecture to
make it more core-friendly.
=== Platform Engineering
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Platform_Engineering> ===
* *MediaWiki 1.20
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.20/Roadmap>* — As of
April 2012, core software deployments to Wikimedia sites are done
from git (instead of Subversion) through incremental “wmf”-branches.
The first deployment of the 1.20 release cycle, labeled 1.20wmf1
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.20/wmf1/overview>, was
deployed to all Wikimedia sites
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.20/wmf1> this month; it
notably brought new diff colors for improve readability. The
1.20wmf2 <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.20/wmf2>
deployment cycle began on April 30. The 1.20.0 stable tarball is
expected to be released in fall of 2012.
* *Lua scripting <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Lua_scripting>* — Tim
Starling <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Tim_Starling> started
the implementation of a replacement for MediaWiki markup-based
template programming, using the Lua scripting language
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lua_(programming_language)>, embedded
via the Scribunto extension
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Scribunto>. The current
roadmap
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2012-13_Goals#Site_perf…>
aims for a deployment to Labs in May 2012, then to mediawiki.org;
full deployment to Wikimedia sites is scheduled for 2013. Tim will
lead tutorial sessions at the Berlin Hackathon 2012
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Berlin_Hackathon_2012>.
* *Summer of Code 2012
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2012/management>* —
Wikimedia engineers have chosen nine students for this year’s
program
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/23/wmf-selects-9-students-for-gsoc/>.
For the next few weeks, until May 21st, the students and their
mentors are working together to train the students in MediaWiki
development, so that they’ll have all the basic domain knowledge
they’ll need to succeed during the summer.
== Fundraising ==
=== Major Gifts and Foundations ===
* Secured a sponsorship from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation for
Wikimania.
* We began our push to renew Benefactors who gave in FY2010-11, but
not yet in FY2011-12 by June 30.
=== Fundraiser ===
* Posted a full report from the 2011 fundraiser
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/report>
* Researched improvements to make for the fundraiser in Spain, Italy
and Belgium. Held focus groups with donors to optimize messaging,
payment methods offered, donation forms and translations.
* Heavy research on the new payment methods to be added in 2012.
Roadmap and timeline to be released soon.
* Held a one hour systems test in the US.
* Continually iterating on forms and landing pages as well as the A/B
testing infrastructure.
* Implemented GlobalCollect recurring payments, bringing our recurring
monthly income up to approximately $40K/month, nearly a half-million
dollars a year.
== Global Development ==
New fellowship launched to focus on EN:WP help pages, good progress
on Teahouse projects and welcome Siko and fellows to global
development team!
New grants to the community in support of activities in seven countries
Barry attends the Malayalam community conference in Kollam, India
and visits with chapter and community in Bangalore (see also general
“Highlights” section)
=== Grants Awarded and Executed ===
* WM NO/Outreach GLAM
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NO/Outreach_GLAM>
* WikiSangamotsavam 2012:Malayalam_Wiki Conference 2012
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WikiSangamotsavam_2012:Malayalam_Wik…>
* WM AR/Wikigenero GroupLens Participation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_AR/Wikigenero_GroupLens_Participa…>
* Glam/Batak <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Glam/Batak>
* WM US-DC/Events 2012
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Events_2012>
* WM CA/Quebec Programs 2012
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_CA/Quebec_Programs_2012>
* Sofia Zoo and Bulgarian Wikipedians/Sofia Zoo Powered by Wikimedia
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Sofia_Zoo_and_Bulgarian_Wikipedians/…>
* WM CL/Ibero-American Wikimedia Summit 2012
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_CL/Ibero-American_Wikimedia_Summi…>
=== Fellowships ===
==== Updates ====
Gender Gap – Fellow Sarah Stierch completed wrap-up documentation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen%27s_History_Month_wrap_up> of
outcomes and lessons learned from WikiWomen’s History Month.
==== New Fellowships ====
* Peter Coombe was announced
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/12/help-is-on-the-way-announcing-communi…>
and started work this month as our newest Wikimedia Community
Fellow. Pete’s fellowship project is piloting a data-driven approach
to reorganize and rewrite key help pages on English Wikipedia in
order to make them more usable, particularly for new editors. His
work can be followed on the Help redesign project page
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_pages_redesign_project>.
* Two new 2012 Fellowships will be announced in May.
==== Teahouse Project ====
The Teahouse <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse> has been
live on English Wikipedia for two months and we’re beginning to see
evidence of the project’s impact for participating new editors. Some
relevant metrics from April’s report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse/Metrics#April_24th_metric…>
include:
* In April, the Teahouse had an average of 50 questions posted in the
Q&A forum per week and served about 20-30 new editors visiting for
the first time each week, in addition to repeat visitors (the
average guest asks 1.5 questions, 22% of guests asked more than one
question, and many guests return to the Teahouse more than once).
The median response time for questions is 30 minutes. The project’s
greatest challenge continues to be making Teahouse known to all new
editors in need of help, as our hosts have capacity to assist more
new editors than are making their way to the space via personal
invitation.
* Comparing a sample of 75 new editors who participate in the Teahouse
with a control group (of equivalent size and similar first-day
editing activity) points to Teahouse having a positive impact on new
editor engagement: New editors who participate in Teahouse edit 10x
the number of articles than the uninvited control group and make on
average 6x more global edits. The average participant adds 26x more
bytes of content that survive on Wikipedia (i.e. content that isn’t
reverted or deleted) than the uninvited control group.
* Among the 224 editors in our three experimental groups, 28% of new
editors who participate in the Teahouse were still active on
Wikipedia at least 10 days later, compared with 12% of new editors
who receive an invitation but don’t actively participate in the
Teahouse, and only 5% from a similar uninvited control group.
=== Editor Growth and Contribution Program ===
* The Global Development Department launched the Editor Growth and
Contribution Program
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_Growth_and_Contribution_Program>
in mid-April, and announced Haitham Shammaa as program consultant.
This program will focus on designing, testing, and implementing
online programs to attract and retain new editors in small-to-medium
sized Wikimedia projects.
=== Arabic Language Initiative
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Arabic_Language_Initiative> ===
* Haitham Shammaa visited Algeria to meet Wikipedians and other
supporters who can sustain Wikipedia activities in the future. The
visit included a lecture and Wikipedia workshop for students of
Médéa University in northern Algeria.
* Currently, we are working with a number of associates and NGOs in
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia to explore the
possibility of supporting Wikimedia program activities with grants.
=== Brazil Catalyst
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Catalyst_Project> ===
Summary: A rich month for outreach and institutional relations, as well
as advances in the institutional of scenario establishing the
representative office in Brazil: a relatively good start in community
engagement process
==== Brazil background notes ====
1. Brazil is a huge country with 27 states: São Paulo, Minas Gerais and
Rio de Janeiro in the Southeast have the highest populations, the
strongest economies, and stronger infrastructure.
2. São Paulo also has the greatest number of Wikipedia-PT editors,
followed by Rio de Janeiro. Minas Gerais curiously doesn’t play a
significant role in editorship now, but should be explored.
3. Until now major work has been done with the Wikimedia Brasil
community, but plan to increase focus in relationship building with
the Wikipedia-PT community.
==== Brazil outreach ====
* Trip to São Paulo to talk with community members, investigate
locations for the office, meet with lawyers, and meet with potential
partners
o Learnings: need to generate more compelling agendas for
community meetings to generate more interest and also need to
work with the community to find times/locations that would make
it more convenient to increase attendance
o Recommendations: set up a programatic agenda to organize
meetings objectively to highlight their value and in advance and
focus on mapping real resources based on what the community will
actually do.
* Trip to Uberlândia to participate in event at the Computing College
of the Federal University of Uberlândia. Jonas from Recife joined
the activity and contacted local editors, but no local editors
showed up.
o Learnings: students don’t know much about free licensing or
Wikipedia, bringing volunteers to events like this fosters
trustful relationships within the community.
o Recommendations:follow up to encourage future participation and
gather contact details of participants.
* Trip to Goiânia to bring community members together and participate
in an event at the Federal University of Goiânia, no community
members showed up but the event was successful (popular with
students and professors).
o Learnings: There’s a possibility to develop the education
program in the communications college of the Federal University
of Goiania. We can’t miss the chance to get local editors’
contacts. Alexandre Guiote (another lecturer in the event),
living in Spain, has done very interesting research on Wikipedia.
o Recommendations: consider developing an education program here
and maintain contacts.
* Second trip to São Paulo to attend a community workshop at Casa Fora
do Eixo and met with community members, as well as meet with Banco
do Brazil Foundation.
o Learnings: community members have a lot of knowledge (editing,
licensing, etc.), but outreach methodologies might be improved
to improve results.
o Recommendations: work with the community to build and share
methodologies and build outreach materials.
==== Brazil program updates ====
* Possible coworking places have been explored: the Hub in São Paulo
seems to be the most neutral, but no decision yet
* Partnerships update: Discussion of partnerships with Fiocruz
(institution related to the Ministry of Health for research and
development) to develop a validation process based on social
participation, the National Library is excited about doing things
together on access to books/reading programs and digital archives
=== India Programs ===
==== Indic Languages ====
* Kannada: Support for translated articles enhancement project and
enabling transwiki export
* Assamese: Medicine project outreach support at Jorhat medical
college. Ideas for 10th anniversary, Community translated outreach
ppt to Assamese, Ideas and inputs for a potential Assamese Wikipedia
CD project
* Odia: Helping Odia community for a medical project including
outreach at SCB Medical College. Supported 3 outreach events in Odisha
* Hindi: conducted Hindi Wikipedia outreach at Delhi University
* Bengali: support to enable sub pages in bn wikisource, support to
enable proof read extension in bn wikisource
* Malayalam: ad hoc support for Malayalam community conference
==== India Outreach ====
* Commons outreach handbook
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Commons_Out…>
that community members can adapt/adopt
* Worked on train-the-trainer program design
* Documented outreach correspondence with all institutes
* Supported outreach in four communities – AS, GU, MR, ML
* Translation work on outreach documents being done by community
members. 4 Indic languages have successfully finished translating.
Communications, Wikipatrika
* Work on the Wikipatrika newsletter is in progress
* First set of mails to contact previous issue coordinators
* Received response, initiated GU,NE,OR,AS pages on wiki
* Tech news done, AS,MR done
* Hope to publish it by May first week
===== Storytelling for community building =====
* Gujarati WikiSource blog post:
http://blog.wikimedia.in/2012/04/04/realizing-the-dreams-of-communities-3-y…
* Tamil Wiki Media contest blog post:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/20/postcard-from-the-tamil-community/
* Initiated Digital Outreach plan via Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediasupport/
* Initiated Social Media pilot plan
====== Internal communications =====
* Announcement for Communications + Outreach IRC meeting: India
Program#IRC_Meetings
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program#IRC_Meetings>
* Supported Malayalam community with press release draft and
journalist contacts
* Supported Kannada Translation project with messages for social media
* Started journalist database
* Contacted Indic journalists
* Made brief digest to post on all village pumps
* Supported Ahmedabad meetup with local press contacts
* Worked on train-the-trainer program design for outreach capacity
building
=== Wikimania Scholarships ===
Scholarship recipients for Wikimania were announced! We have 130
scholars from 57 countries around the world. Chapter scholarships are
also being organized now.
For more information, see the blog post:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/25/wikimania-2012-scholarships/
=== US Cultural Partnerships ===
* Final preparations for the American Association of Museums
conference <http://www.aam-us.org/am12/>, which took place April 29
– May 2. Wikimedia will be represented throughout the conference,
including in a traditional and a virtual Wikipedian in Residence
session, a Wikipedia basics table, a nomination for QRpedia at the
MUSE tech awards, and highlights in the Association of Children’s
Museum’s session.
* Featured on the Library of Congress blog in the post “Galleries,
Libraries, Archives, and Museums with Wikipedia (GLAM-Wiki):
Insights Interview with Lori Phillips
<http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2012/04/galleries-libraries-archiv…>“
* Coordination and updates to the GLAM/US portal
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLAM/US> in preparation for the
American Association of Museums conference
* Ongoing coordination with US cultural organizations, including
support and advisement for early stages of planning processes.
(Partnerships not yet publicly announced.)
* Ongoing coordination on recommendations for technical tools from
cultural professionals
* Preparations for the Wikipedia Lounge at the MuseumNext
<http://www.museumnext.org/conference/conference.html> conference in
Barcelona in May and session proposal writing and coordination for
the Museum Computer Network <http://mcn.edu/> conference
=== Mobile and Business Development ===
This month has been primarily dedicated to testing and implementation of
our new Free Access to Mobile Wikipedia programs with Orange and
Telenor. This has been a very complicated process as we work through
bugs and other technical problems but we have made great progress with
our first territories. We’ve spent most of this month on working through
browser support issues, landing pages, translation, banners, caching
issues, etc.
* Orange status update: Tunisia and Uganda are both live, although
features still need to be implemented
* Telenor status update: Digi Malaysia is ready from a technical
perspective. Currently preparing for a market launch.
=== Global development research ===
* Editor Survey: results from the December Editor Survey are
available: http://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/december-2011-editor-survey/
Our gender ratio held steady with only 9% of editors being women. We
also found that compared to other countries US fares better on the
gender divide, 14% of editors from US being women compared to other
countries for which we had a significant sample.
Outreach results
* First report from outreach events was delivered to the India team.
==== Education program research ====
A quantitative analysis undertaken by Ayush Khanna and Mani Pande from
the Global Development Research and Analytics team shows that Wikipedia
Education Program participants from the United States added more than
three times as much quality content as regular new users to the English
Wikipedia. The data also shows that students who are introduced to
editing Wikipedia through the U.S. Education Program are just as likely
to continue editing as any other newcomer. Read more on the Wikimedia
Foundation blog:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/19/wikipedia-education-program-stats-fall…
=== Wikipedia Education Program ===
* In order to determine the future of U.S. and Canada education
programs, we invited Wikipedia Ambassadors, class instructors, and
the Wikipedia community to contribute to an on-wiki application
process for joining a “Working Group” that will meet in July 2012
for a kick-off meeting of the planning process. This is the first
step in a year-long open and collaborative process to make the U.S.
and Canada program more volunteer-driven and to discuss the creation
of the Education Program Structure that will be in charge of the
day-to-day operations of the program. More information can be found
at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group
* Students at universities in the United States and Canada found that
contributing to Wikipedia as a class assignment through the
Wikipedia Education Program improved their media literacy and
technology skills, according to survey results from the Fall 2011
term. About two-thirds of the respondents agreed that doing a
Wikipedia assignment was a beneficial experience, with almost 20
percent of them strongly in favor of a Wikipedia assignment in place
of a traditional term paper. See more of the survey results:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/23/students-see-benefits-from-wikipedia-a…
* University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor Edward Erikson
wrote a post for the Wikimedia Foundation blog explaining why he is
glad he is asking students to contribute to Wikipedia. He argues
that Wikipedia is part of the classroom whether the professor likes
it or not, and by making Wikipedia the destination rather than the
route, students have a better learning experience.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/02/wikipedia-in-my-classroom/
* Canadian class adds two Good Articles: University of Alberta –
Augustana Psychology Professor Paula Marentette asked her students
to expand two articles on course-related topics this year for her
Language Acquisition class. The result? The seven students in her
class worked together to get two articles, “Vocabulary development
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocabulary_development>” and “Joint
attention <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_attention>,” to Good
Article status on the English Wikipedia. In a blog post published on
the Wikimedia Foundation blog, the students describe their reaction
to the assignment, and Dr. Marentette describes the learning
outcomes for her students:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/30/psychology-class-collaborates-on-two-g…
* A lot has happened in the Cairo Pilot, with students contributing
on-wiki at an increasing pace. Campus Ambassadors conducted several
workshops this month, and some outstanding student articles are now
live on the Arabic Wikipedia. Updates with the program are
documented in detail on the Arabic Wikipedia
<http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%…>.
Annie is also putting together a document with more updates about
the Cairo Pilot as a whole and each class individually (coming soon,
in next month’s GD report).
* More than 200 students and faculty members at Ain Shams University
in Cairo showed up to an in-person outreach event organized by
Wikipedia Ambassadors from the Cairo Pilot and a local student
group. Attendees learned how the Arabic Wikipedia works and how they
could contribute to it. Check out the group’s photo album to see
photos from this successful event
<http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.356259634425418.99070.242387659145…>
* Brazil education pilot continues with first semester: Report on the
current status of the classes
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Program/Reports/2012-semester01>
we are working with in the first semester of 2012 in Brazil
=== Communications ===
No major new projects, announcements, or media issues unfolded in April.
Tech press and culture blogs, as well as some main stream media,
continued to focus on the Wikipedia blackout and post-SOPA musings.
The communications team, along with the Wikimedia blogging and social
media teams have been putting considerable work into an effort to
increase the number and quality of Wikimedia blog postings. This month
37 posts hit the blog, including deeper profiles of active Wikipedians
and media creators from Wikimedia Commons.
Over the next few months we hope to bring a basic metrics/traffic
measurement tool back to the blog, bring in new volunteer contributors,
and revise the structure and design of the blog to create a more
engaging front page.
==== Major announcements ====
No major press releases or announcements in April.
==== Major stories through March ====
*PRSA on Wikipedia accuracy* (April 17, 2012)
In April, The Public Relations Society of America published a study by
Marcia W. DiStaso, Assistant Professor of PR at Penn State University,
surveying the wide range of views of PR practitioners and their
experiences with Wikipedia. The original summary incorrectly asserted
that ’60% of Wikipedia articles are wrong’ – an error that was repeated
across dozens of global main stream media press (the actual claim was
“60% of respondents found errors with their company’s articles”). PRSA,
at the urging of Wikimedia community members, revised the study headline
and press release (thank you!).
(updated PRSA survey data:
http://media.prsa.org/article_display.cfm?article_id=2582)
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/04/60-percent-wikipedia-entr…http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/04/wikipedia-survey-shows-60-pe…
*Wikipedia Zero gaining attention in Africa* (April 5, 2012)
February’s announcement from Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation about
providing free access to Wikipedia on mobile devices in specific markets
is beginning to get positive attention in the region. Regional programs
advertising the service are appearing as Orange affiliates expand the
program.
http://bikyamasr.com/65057/ugandans-access-wikipedia-for-free-through-orang…http://allafrica.com/stories/201204220118.html
*Wikipedia mobile switches to OpenStreetMap* (April 5, 2012)
A large number of tech press picked up on the fact that a revised
Wikipedia mobile app chose Openstreetmaps over Google maps in a recent
update.
(original blog post
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/05/new-wikipedia-app-for-ios-and-an-upda…
)
http://9to5google.com/2012/04/05/wikipedia-dumps-google-maps-for-openstreet…http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57410234-93/wikipedia-dumps-google-maps/http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/7/2931320/wikipedia-updates-mobile-apps-drop…
==== Other worthwhile reads ====
Clips from the Malayalam Wikipedia gathering in April
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/malayalam-wikipedia-could-be-emulated/253196-60-…http://ibnlive.in.com/news/youths-come-forward-to-fill-up-odia-wikipedia/24…
Download all of Wikipedia (from
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/09/download-the-text-of-the-entire-engli…)
http://www.webpronews.com/download-wikipedia-in-english-all-9-7gb-of-it-201…
Sarah Stierch on bringing women to Wikipedia in the Smithsonian
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2012/04/how-many-women-does-i…
Guardian on the ‘mapping Wikipedia’ project
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2012/apr/04/wikipedia-w…AllAfrica.com on the recent visit of Jimmy Wales
http://allafrica.com/stories/201204090023.html
The UCLA ‘Daily Bruin’ on the Foundation’s Wikipedia Education Program
http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2012/04/professors_students_wor…
FastCompany also reported on the Wikipedia Education Program
http://www.fastcompany.com/1830315/wikipedia-education-program-college-univ…
==== Wikipedia Signpost ====
* Volume 8, Issue 18 – 30 April 2012
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-04-…>
* Volume 8, Issue 17 – 23 April 2012
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-04-…>
* Volume 8, Issue 16 – 16 April 2012
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-04-…>
* Volume 8, Issue 15 – 09 April 2012
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-04-…>
* Volume 8, Issue 14 – 02 April 2012
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-04-…>
==== WMF Blog posts ====
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/
==== Media Contact ====
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#April_2012
== Human Resources ==
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_extended_HR_vi…>
“Work with Wikimedia” outreach video produced for the HR department,
featuring WMF employees>
This month, HR is experimenting with new metrics and presentation
styles, depicting better views of Foundation staff and contractor
composition as well as beginning to report on recruiting metrics.
On the jobs.wikimedia.org site, we premiered a new video created with
the support of the Communications team. Victor Grigas and Matthew Roth
did a fabulous job. See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us
We are still in the midst of implementing our Human Resources
Information System (HRIS) system. We are set to complete that by end of
June. We completed our bi-annual assessment of exempt/non-exempt
employees. In terms of new policy, we initiated out a comprehensive Paid
Time Off Policy, with an Immigration policy set to roll out next week.
These policies will all be codified in an updated employee handbook. In
the arena of benefits delivery, we kicked off a new 401K committee
comprised of employees interested in managing and diversifying the
retirement options for the organization.
HR is sponsoring the work of a qualitative, anthropological analysis of
culture and also leadership profiling. This will support later work in
leadership development. We have also initiated a coaching program for
WMF managers.
=== Staff Changes ===
New Hire
* Renee Bracey Sherman, Development Associate (Fundraising)
* Andrew Otto, Software Developer – Analytics (Engineering)
* Chris Steipp, Security Engineer (Engineering)
New Other Position Hires
* Mathias Mullie, Contractor, Software Developer, Features (Engineering)
* Haitham Shammaa, Contractor, program consultant for the Editor
Growth and Contribution Program (Global Development)
Conversions
* Rob Moen, Software Developer Front-end (Engineering)
Promotions
* Sumana Harihareswara, Engineering Community Manager (Engineering)
New Contractors
* Daisy Chen (Legal and Community Advocacy)
* Arun Ganesh (Engineering)
* Faidon Liampotis (Engineering)
* Tauhida Parveen (Engineering)
* Ricardo Saavedra (Fundraiser)
* Sandra Senderovich (Fundraiser)
Contract Extended
* Rayne MacGeorge (IT)
Exit
* Nimish Gautam
* Dana Isokawa
Contract Ended
* Farhan Choudary
* Emmanuel Engelhart
=== Statistics ===
Total Requisitions Filled:
Actual: 106
April Plan: 115 April Filled: 6, April Attrition: 2
YTD Filled: 48, YTD Attrition: 16
Remaining open requisitions to fiscal year end: 16
=== Department Updates ===
Department Changes, effective April 15, 2012
* Siko Bouterse joins Global Development
* Karyn Gladstone, Ryan Faulkner, Maryana Pinchuk and Steven Walling
join Engineering
Real-time feed for HR updates: http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or
http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
== Finance and Administration ==
Independent contractors traveling on business for the Wikimedia
Foundation, outside their home country now have limited medical and
travel coverage.
Our search for a Director of Administration is continuing with final
interviews in process.
We are beginning to look at the option of doing online expense
reimbursements for employee exepenses.
Based on feedback received on her IRC office hours, the Chief Talent and
Culture Officer is looking at socially responsible options for investing
some of the reserve for the Foundation.
== Legal and Community Advocacy ==
* Updated terms of use becomes effective May 25, 2012.
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/New_Terms_of_use/en>
* Proactive trademark actions (e.g., successful challenge to
third-party “Wikimedia UK” use & and winning globe logo in Mexico)
and trademark review for Wikidata
* Finalizing decision on appropriate license for Wikidata (probably CC0)
* Kelly Kay, Deputy General Counsel, will represent WMF at the Open
Source Initiative.
* Discovered and worked through backlog of trademark requests sent to
wrong email address
* Two strong candidates identified for the junior legal counsel,
including an active Wikimedian. Final decision: likely by May 15.
* Welcome to the newest Arbitration Committee, English Wikinews
* Working on electronic contract storage and approval process
* Agreed to support the Free Culture Conservacy through endorsement
* After winning signature issue as expected, we decided
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Loriot_Signature_Background#Case_…>
not to pursue appeal on German Loriot case regarding the stamps and
public domain issue.
* Reappointed the ombudsman commission
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission>
* Ongoing legal and community work on a wide variety of issues and
topics, including AFT5, CC 4.0, litigation, trademark portfolio, new
fundraising agreement, template agreements, FDC, Wikipedia town,
budget, privacy, internal policies, board issues and governance, etc.
* Daisy Chen joined as a paralegal (temporary contract) to help handle
workload.
* New interns expected to start end of May. Our last semester interns
have left (except for Stephen), and we wish them well. They did a
great job. New full-time summer interns will be from Harvard,
Stanford, and University of Minnesota.
* This month’s posted discussions on topics of community interest:
o CISPA
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/CISPA>
(not yet updated to reflect the final print of the bill)
o SABAM v. Netlog
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/SABAM_v._Netlog>
o Copyright status of flags and logos from international
organizations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Flags_and_logo…>
o Moral right of integrity
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Moral_right_of…>
o Copyright on utility items
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Copyright_on_u…>
* Metrics:
o Number of contracts in April – 14 (159 contracts to date in FY
2011/12)
o Number of trademark issues in April – 61
+ Number of backlogged trademark issues that were sent through
to the team in April (included in above total count) – 50
+ Approved – 7
+ Denied – 8
+ Request Withdrawn – 7
+ Pending – 34
+ Approval not needed – 2
+ No known response – 1
+ Closed due to lack of response – 2
== Visitors and Guests ==
1. Tammy Davidson (Chartis)
2. Jennifer Hills (Chartis)
3. Yanina Budkin (World Bank Senior Communications Officer for
Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay)
4. Gabriele Niola (Italian tech journalist for Punto Informatico and
Wired Italy)
5. Elisa Manheim (Institute for International Education)
6. Matjaz Panjan (Fulbright scholar, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
7. Cristiano Boccolini (Fulbright scholar, UC Berkeley)
8. Alona Sekan (Fulbright scholar, US Department of Agriculture,
Western Research Regional Center, Agricultural Research Service)
9. Phoebe Ayers (board member)
10. Tom Simonite (Computing Editor, MIT Technology Review)
11. Frieder Bronner (writing dissertation on parts of Wikipedia)
12. Matt Zimmerman (Technical Leader of Ubuntu)
13. Craig Newmark (Craigslist founder, visitor for Ushahidi brownbag)
14. Dan Perkel (visitor for Ushahidi brownbag)
15. Megan Finn (visitor for Ushahidi brownbag)
16. Nick Arnett (visitor for Ushahidi brownbag)
17. Aakash Desai (Product Manager, Mozilla)
18. Raj Ramabadran (Microsoft)
19. John P. Alioto (Microsoft)
20. Randall Benson (Benson Consulting)
21. Aaron Halfaker (WMF Research Analyst)
22. Ryan Merkeley (COO of Mozilla Foundation)
23. Faidon Laimbotis (visiting contractor)
24. Laura Lanzerotti (Bridgespan Group)
25. Libbie Landles-Dowling (Bridgespan Group)
26. Daniel Stid (Bridgespan Group)
27. Meera Chary (Bridgespan Group)
28. Divya Narayanan (Bridgespan Group)
29. Deborah Bezona (D. Bezona & Company)
30. Kelley Cope (Sitzmann, Morris and Lavis)
31. Alice Komarnicki (Sitzmann, Morris and Lavis)
32. Sandy Urgel (Sitzmann, Morris and Lavis)
33. Kate Antonini (First Data)
34. Patricia Brizio (First Data)
35. Thomas Tucker (First Data)
36. Anne Hiaring Hocking (Hiaring Smith)
37. Vijay Toke (Hiaring Smith)
38. David Evan Harris (Global Lives Project and Institute for the Future)
39. Gavin McConnon (BoxPay)
40. Kyle Hitchcox (BoxPay)
41. Aaron Nobles (BoxPay)
42. Tim Otten (CiviCRM)
43. Anand Gupta (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
44. Benedikt Lotter (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
45. Brandon Paton (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
46. Brianna Smrke (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
47. Charlie Javice (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
48. Charlie Stigler (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
49. Chris Olah (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
50. Clay Allsopp (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
51. Connor Zwick (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
52. Dylan Field (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
53. Eric Chang (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
54. Henry Lui (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
55. Ilya Vakhutinsky (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
56. Isaac Dietrich (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
57. Jimmy Koppel (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
58. Jon Lim (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
59. Kettner Griswold (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
60. Kevin Ma (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
61. Lindsay Haskell (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
62. Michael Moore-Jones (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
63. Noor Siddiqui (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
64. Omar Rizwan (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
65. Oskar Niburski (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
66. Param Jaggi (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
67. Paul Sebexen (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
68. Rebekah Austin (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
69. Rijul Gupta (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
70. Ritik Malhotra (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
71. Ryan Lelek (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
72. Saku Panditharantne (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
73. Samir Devalaraja (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
74. Semon Rezchikov (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
75. Shai Kiriati (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
76. Spencer Hewett (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
77. Tara Seshan (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
78. Taylor Wilson (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
79. Tony Ho (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
80. Vaibhav Kumar (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
81. Vijay Viswanathan (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
82. Wole Idowu (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
83. Yoonseo Kang (Thiel 20Under20 Finalists)
84. Maggie Dennis (visiting staff)
85. Sumana Harihareswara (remote staff)
86. Daniel Phifer and Kevin McCracken (Social Imprints)
87. Christina Dragwidge (Arthur J. Gallagher)
88. Henrik Bennetsen
89. Majd Abbar, Qatar Foundation
90. Ginny Jarrett (AJLI)
91. Alice Gardner-Boreta (AJLI)
92. Jodi Penn (AJLI)
93. Eileen Goodwin (AJLI)
94. Cynthia Foster (AJLI)
95. Olivia Thomas (AJLI)
96. Becker Holland (AJLI)
97. Delly Beekman (AJLI)
98. Sandra Thomas (AJLI)
99. Sarah Berthelot (AJLI)
100. Laurel Lee-Alexander (AJLI)
101. Liz Murley (AJLI)
102. Julie Siebel (AJLI)
103. Karla Wallace (AJLI)
104. Toni Freeman (AJLI)
105. Mary Jo Hunt (AJLI)
106. Kathy Rabon (AJLI)
107. Deann Cook (AJLI)
108. Liz Davis (AJLI)
109. Subha Lembach (AJLI)
110. Gwin Londrigan (AJLI)
111. Karen Miller (AJLI)
112. Terri Nass Reeder (AJLI)
113. Dona Ponepinto (AJLI)
114. Diann Rohde (AJLI)
115. Evelyn Zabo (AJLI)
116. Susan Danish (AJLI)
117. Anne Dalton (AJLI)
118. Maureen Mackey (AJLI)
119. Janine le Sueur (AJLI)
120. Carrie Holmes (AJLI)
121. Heather Mcleod-Grant (AJLI)
122. Rebecca Petzel (AJLI)
123. Kristin Cobble (AJLI)
124. Kat Walsh (Board Member)
125. Arthur Richards (Remote staff)
126. Martin Kalfatovic (Smithsonian)
127. Chris Freeland (Missouri Botanical Garden)
128. Diane Peters (Creative Commons)
129. Marion Strecker (Brazilian journalist)
130. Michiel Minderhoud (Mobile Code Challenge Winner)
--
Tilman Bayer
Movement Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
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