Hi -
I want to introduce Anasuya Sengupta as the new Director, Global Learning
and Grantmaking at the Wikimedia Foundation. She will be starting on
Monday, July 2. In this role, Anasuya will lead our work in support of the
Funds Dissemination Committee, work with Asaf Bartov on grant-making and
with Jessie Wild in helping us to plan, monitor, evaluate and learn from
our programmatic work in a new team area, Global Learning and Evaluation
that Jessie will be leading (more soon on this). She will also serve as a
close thought-partner for me and the rest of the GD team in the leadership
of our work.
I am thrilled that Anasuya is joining us. She brings a deep passion for
social justice and an understanding of the power of free knowledge as an
enabler of opportunity for everyone. She will help us hold to our
commitments to increase the diversity of our community and has great
experience working collaboratively to change communities for the better.
She is also a really interesting person who I think we will all enjoy being
around and learning from.
Below is an introduction that Anasuya prepared.
For those of you who will be at Wikimania, I know Anasuya is excited to
meet with all of you there.
Please join me in welcoming Anasuya to our team.
Best,
Barry
************************
*Life will be measured *
*by notability test?*
*My secrets are mine!* ;-)
...but until we meet in person:
I am an activist turned grant-maker, who has worked nationally, regionally,
and internationally, to build and strengthen multi-generational feminist
leadership and networks, and to amplify voices from the margins – whether
across gender, sexuality, class, caste, race, age, geography or language. I
grew up in north Karnataka (southern India), and returned to work in this
part of the world after my undergraduate degree in Economics, as a
Programme Officer at Samuha, a rural development organisation. I took its
lessons with me into an M.Phil. in Development Studies at Oxford, where I
studied as a Rhodes Scholar. I led a UNICEF initiative with the Karnataka
police from 2001-2007, designing and implementing a state wide system of
response to issues of violence against women and children. Over the same
period, I served as Associate and researcher with Gender at Work, an
international knowledge network for gender equality. I co-edited and wrote
for the Association of Women's Rights in Development (AWID)
publication, *Defending
Our Dreams: global feminist voices for a new generation* (AWID and Zed
Books, 2006), arguably the first international anthology of young feminist
analyses and experience. I have founded campaigns, and been involved with
national and international networks against religious and cultural
fundamentalisms, and for sexual and reproductive rights and women's health.
In 2007, I moved from Bangalore to Berkeley, as a Visiting Scholar at UC
Berkeley and the Managing Trustee of a small Stanford-based family
foundation funding in South India. Over the past three years, I have been
Regional Program Director for Asia and Oceania at the Global Fund for
Women, one of the world's largest grant-making organisations exclusively
for women's human rights. In this capacity, I have overseen over 300 grants
to women-led organisations in the region – from Afghanistan to Kiribati -
and helped develop a framework for evaluating and learning our impact on
organisational growth and movement sustainability. My interest in the
politics of technology has been from the point of view of a women’s rights
activist, academic, and grant-maker. With Bangalore as home, surrounded by
friends and family who are progressive technologists, I started questioning
the politics of the software and hardware that is ubiquitous in our lives –
and ended up using Ubuntu Linux on my laptop. However, the Free/Libre and
Open Source Movement is not simply about technologies; at its heart is the
feminist principle that governs my politics: if knowledge is power, then
the empowerment of the marginalised is through a democratisation of
knowledge, and the equality of the future is through a deconstruction of
the privileging powers of access, voice, representation and participation.
I am passionate about poetry (a haiku a day keeps my blues away), theatre,
and music, and challenge myself with yoga. I tend to stick with my
post-colonial British form of spelling and punctuation ('s' over 'z' and a
nuanced use of the Oxford comma) unless explicitly asked not to do so.
--
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
Donate to Wikimedia <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>
Wikimedia España and Fundación ONCE have signed a collaborative agreement
aimed to promote the accesibility of the projects hosted by Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., including internationally famed Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia.
In a first phase of this agreement, reading access to content will be
studied, although it is also contemplated the possibility of people with
disabilities being able to edit Wikipedia.
A team composed of highly qualified personnel in accesibility by Fundación
ONCE and Grupo Fundosa company Technosite, and another in MediaWiki (the
software of Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia) put forward by
Wikimedia España will work coordinately to try to achieve the set purpose.
Even though both teams will initially focus their work in Spanish
Wikipedia, everything possible will be done so that results can be shared
and used in all language Wikipedias.
Wikimedia España
Wikimedia España is a non-profit Spanish association, officialy recognised
by Wikimedia Foundation Inc., as a Wikimedia Chapter in Spain. Its puepose
is to promote, directly or indirectly, all free content initiatives, such
as those hosted and supported by WMF. Wikimedia España promotes free
knowledge especially through the work of volunteers. Its commiment is to
work to achieve a world in which all human beings can access knowledge.
Fundación ONCE
ONCE, in 1988, creates Fundación ONCE for the Cooperation and Social
Inclusion of People with Disabilities. It has as purpose the full inclusion
in society of this collective and the improvement of their quality of life,
through their incorporation to the work market and by doing activities that
support universal accesibility, the design of products and services for
everbody, and access to an independent life. Fundación ONCE has contributed
to create more than 69,000 jobs and has destined to accesibility projects
more than 500 million euros.
--
Jorge A. Sierra (aka Lucien leGrey)
Chair, Wikimedia España
------------------------------------------------------------
¡Participa en Wikimedia España!: http://www.wikimedia.org.es/
Hello everyone,
Today, I'm delighted to say that we at the Wikimedia Foundation have
launched a new prototype “visual editor” for MediaWiki. The visual
editor will be a new editing environment that won’t require everyone
to learn our special markup language in order to contribute to our
projects.
Though it’s possible to learn what wikitext means and use it
powerfully, many of our editors, and especially new editors, want to
contribute content, not learn technical formatting. We identified the
difficulty in learning wikitext as a key inhibitor to growing our
editor community in the Wikimedia movement’s strategic plan[0].
We want the process of learning how to edit to be trivial, so our
volunteers, both new and experienced, can devote themselves to what
they edit. That’s why we’re building the visual editor, so that
contributing to a wiki is as easy and natural as other modern editing
systems, and new editors are not dissuaded from making their changes.
You may remember a similar announcement in December 2011, when we
revealed a developer prototype of our “visual editor"[1], but after a
great deal of feedback, we've reworked it so that it's more useful to
our our community of users.
We learned a lot from building our first prototype. It was great how
many of you helped with feedback, bug reports and comments about how
we were doing. In the months since then, based on your feedback and
technical issues we encountered, we’ve overhauled the entire editor.
We changed the technical design and how it works, rewriting its
components so that we can support more editors more easily. We’ve also
integrated it into the MediaWiki platform, so now it can load and edit
wiki articles, and not just sit separately.
To build this iteration of our open source visual editor, we have been
working with some of the team from Wikia, a collaborative publisher
that operates the largest network of video game, entertainment and
lifestyle wikis in the world. We both believe that this kind of tool
should be built not just for the Wikimedia wiki projects, but for
everyone using MediaWiki software, and when it’s done we look forward
to including the visual editor “out of the box” for anyone setting up
a wiki with our software.
Thanks to all this, our new prototype is now live on mediawiki.org[2].
This is just a demonstration, and very far from a finished product —
for example, we haven’t yet added image or table handling. It’s
currently locked down to only work on a self-contained area of the
wiki, so that it doesn’t encounter any unsupported content or break
anything else. We intend to work on small pieces of the overall story,
releasing a new version every two weeks or so, and adding features
one-by-one until the editor is good enough to deploy for everyone (and
release in MediaWiki’s core).
Over the next few weeks and months, we will be working with you in the
community to find bugs, to focus on what our priorities should be, and
most importantly, to make sure that what we’re building is right for
you and that it supports your “workflow”.
So please, try out the prototype, see our frequently-asked
questions[3], and tell us what you think[4].
[0] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summ…
[1] - https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/help-test-the-first-visual-editor-dev…
[2] - https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor:Welcome
[3] - https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor/June_2012_release_FAQs
[4] - https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor/Feedback
On behalf of the Visual Editor Team:
Trevor Parscal, Inez Korczyński, Roan Kattouw, Rob Moen, Subramanya
Sastry, Brion Vibber, Gabriel Wicke, Christian Williams.
--
James D. Forrester
Product Manager for Visual Editor and Flagged Revisions
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
jforrester(a)wikimedia.org | @jdforrester | +1 415-839-6885 x6844
The following translation are now available for the May 2012
"Wikimedia Highlights", which combine some of the most relevant
information from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia
engineering report for May 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,_May_2012/tr
Mayıs 2012 Vikimedya Vakfı Raporu ve Vikimedya mühendislik raporu ile
diğer önemli Vikimedya hareketi etkinliklerinden oluşan bülten
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_May_2012/ru
Важные новости из отчёта Фонда Викимедиа за май 2012 и технического
отчёта за май 2012 года, с подборкой важнейших событий движения
Викимедиа
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_May_2012/nl
Dit zijn de hoogtepunten uit de Wikimedia Foundationrapportage en de
Wikimedia technische rapportage voor mei 2012, aangevuld met een
selectie van andere belangrijke gebeurtenissen binnen de
Wikimediabeweging.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_May_2012/mk
Значајни новости од Извештајот на Фондацијата Викимедија и
Инженерскиот извештај на Викимедија за месец мај 2012, со избор на
други поважни збиднувања во движењето Викимедија
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_May_2012/ja
2012年5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,_May_2012/fr
Temps forts du rapport de la Wikimedia Foundation et du rapport
d’ingénierie Wikimédia pour mai 2012, avec une sélection d’autres
événements importants du mouvement Wikimédia.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_May_2012/da
Hovedpunkter fra Wikimedia Foundations månedsrapport for maj 2012 og
Wikimedias tekniske rapport for maj 2012 med et udvalg af andre
betydningsfulde hændelser i Wikimedia-bevægelsen
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_May_2012/ar
مقتطفات من تقرير مؤسسة ويكيميديا و تقرير القسم التقني في ويكيميديا
لشهر مايو 2012، ومختارات من أحداث هامة من حركة ويكيميديا
Of course further translations continue to be welcome at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_May_2012 .
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
[Apologize for cross posting... ]
Hello,
Wikimedia France is very happy to announce a great new project :
A partnership has been formalized on last Friday between Wikimédia France,
the Institut Français
<http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_fran%C3%A7ais>(the network of
the french cultural institutes in the world) and the Agence
Universitaire de la
Francophonie<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agence_universitaire_de_la_Francophonie>(Association
of Universities of the Francophonie) to support a common
program about the development of Wikipedia in French-speaking Africa: this
project is called "Afripedia".
Afripedia is a project to support the "digital development" of Africa.
While the most part of the contributions and contributors on Wikipedia are
from the North, we want to make easier the offline reading of Wikipedia and
the production of content about Africa and made by African contributors.
The project entails projected workshops to help use the encyclopedia and
produce content on the Wikimedia projects.
Based on the offline technologies developped by
Kiwix<http://www.kiwix.org/index.php/Main_Page/en>(and helped by
Kiwix), the project will involve several phases:
1/ software development to produce offline versions of Wikipedia (and
probably other Wikimedia projects like Wiktionary) regularly and easily,
and then a download solution to get these offline versions easier, with no
technical ability needed.
2/ Installation of these offline versions on flash drives, plugged on
little computers extremely energy-efficient, without screen or keyboard.
The computer spreads the content of the flash drive (=Wikipedia) with a
wireless connection without internet (the content of the flash drive is
available just by connecting to this wifi) [see [[Plug
computer<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_computer>
]]
3/ Installation of the computers and flash drives and training of students
and professors on the "Digital campus of Francophonie", a network of
digital points supported by the Association of Universities of the
Francophonie, to support the dissemination of Wikipedia content without the
issues of irregular access to internet. One plug (with or without repeater)
can provide Wikipedia for dozens of students !
4/ Training in contribution on Wikipedia (in French and local languages)
5/ After a first implementation (autumn 2012) in 20 points in 15 countries
of West Africa, we will assess the project and extend it over a larger
scale for 2013, if the results are good.
As it is one of our missions, we consider producing free knowledge in
French and in local languages and making it accesible in territories
developping access to digital technology but having no active Wikimedia
community yet, to be essential. So we will also support the forming of
contributors communities in these countries.
See also (in french) http://www.wikimedia.fr/afripedia
==
The Institut Français is the operator for the French Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in charge of the cultural action in foreign countries. Through its
French Language Department, the Institut Français works towards the
attractivity and spreading of French language across the world. It
particularly takes care of the development of the teaching of French
language and culture in secondary school and in universities.
http://www.institutfrancais.com/
The Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (Association of Universities of
the Francophonie) groups 786 higher education and research institutions
from 98 countries on the five continents, using French language as a
language for teaching and research. Its mission is to contribute to the
solidarity between French-speaking higher education establishments and to
the development of a scientific arena in French, respecting the cultures
and languages diversity.
http://www.auf.org/
--
Adrienne Charmet-Alix
Directrice des programmes - Wikimedia France
Twitter : @AdrienneAlix
adrienne.alix(a)wikimedia.fr | 07.62.92.42.01
http://www.wikimedia.fr
Dear Wikimedians,
The final round for the 2011 Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year
contest is now open!
The 36 images were chosen from the first round, thanks to voters like
you. In order to determine the very best picture of the remaining
candidates, you have exactly one vote left.
The finalists are listed here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2011/Finalists.
If you are eligible, you can vote in the final even if you didn't vote
in the first round. Please visit here
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2011/Introduc…
for the detail. Final voting is open for about a week, so be sure to
get in quick!
Wikimedia Commons would be happy to see you vote for whatever image
you believe deserves to be called the Picture of the Year 2011.
Thanks,
Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year committee
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2011
Hi all,
please find below the WMF report for May 2012, in plain text.
As always, the editable and formatted version is on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_May_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,_May_2012
Many thanks to those who translated last month's "Highlights" into
Arabic, Danish, Japanese, Macedonian, Russian, Swahili, Tamil,
Turkish and (partially) Italian and Dutch.
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 June issue are welcome at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights#Movement_news_ite…
(until July
5). Many thanks to those who suggested items for the May issue.
Regards, Tilman
--
Wikimedia Foundation Report, May 2012
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_June_7,_201…
Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting
covering the month of May (June 7, 2012)>
* 1 Data and Trends
* 2 Financials
* 3 Highlights
o 3.1 New Wikimedia fellows working on dispute resolution and
small language wikis
o 3.2 1 million media files uploaded using Upload Wizard
o 3.3 Wikipedia Zero launches in Asia
* 4 Technology
o 4.1 Operations
o 4.2 Features Engineering
o 4.3 Internationalization and Editor Engagement Experiments
o 4.4 Mobile Engineering
o 4.5 Platform Engineering
* 5 Fundraising
o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations
o 5.2 Fundraiser
* 6 Global Development
o 6.1 Global Development Highlights
o 6.2 Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) design
o 6.3 Grants Program Updates
+ 6.3.1 Grants Awarded and Executed
o 6.4 Global South Relationships
o 6.5 Fellowships
o 6.6 Editor Growth and Contribution Program
o 6.7 Brazil Catalyst
+ 6.7.1 Brazil Media coverage
o 6.8 Arabic Language Initiative
o 6.9 US Cultural Partnerships
o 6.10 Mobile and Business Development
o 6.11 Wikipedia Education Program
+ 6.11.1 India
+ 6.11.2 Brazil
o 6.12 India Programs
+ 6.12.1 Indic Languages
+ 6.12.2 India Outreach
+ 6.12.3 India Communications
+ 6.12.4 India Community Support
o 6.13 Communications
+ 6.13.1 Major announcements
+ 6.13.2 Major Storylines through March
+ 6.13.3 Other worthwhile reads
+ 6.13.4 Wikipedia Signpost
+ 6.13.5 WMF Blog posts
+ 6.13.6 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 April:
*473.38 million* (-3.27% compared with March; +24.34% compared with
the previous year)
(comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will
release May data later in June)
Page requests for May:
*18.0 billion* (3.9% compared with April; 19.0% 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 April 2012 (>= 5 edits/month):
*78,519* (-1.71% compared with March / -1.60% compared with the
previous year)
(Database data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors>, all Wikimedia
Foundation projects except for Wikimedia Commons)
*Report Card* (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF
projects) for April 2012:
http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/
== Financials ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Financial_Reve…
Wikimedia Foundation YTD revenue as of April 30, 2012>
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Financial_Metr…
Wikimedia Foundation YTD expenses by department as of April 30, 2012>
(Financial information is only available for April 2012 at the time of
this report.)
All financial information presented is for the period of July 1, 2011 -
April 30, 2012.
Revenue $34,904,252
*Expenses:*
Engineering Group $9,295,397
Community/Fundraiser Group $3,429,034
Global Development Group $3,342,651
Governance Group $809,714
Finance/Legal/HR/Admin Group $5,225,408
Total Expenses $22,102,204
Total surplus/(loss) $12,802.047
* Year-to-date Revenue is $34.9MM vs plan of $28.8MM, approximately
$6.1MM or 21% over plan.
* Year-to-date is $22.1MM vs plan of $23.5MM, approximately $1.4MM or
6% lower than plan.
* Cash position is $31.6MM as of April 30, 2012 – approximately 13.6
months of expenses.
== Highlights ==
=== New Wikimedia fellows working on dispute resolution and small
language wikis ===
The Wikimedia Fellows Program
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships> added two
Community Fellows
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/16/announcing-community-fellows-tanvir-r…>:
Steven Zhang <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Steven_Zhang> (a
Wikipedian since 2008) is
analyzing dispute resolution on the English Wikipedia. Tanvir Rahman
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Wikitanvir> (active on the
Bengali Wikipedia since 2009, and
elected as a steward by the global community in 2011) is experimenting
with on-wiki strategies for growing the number of editors on
small-language wikis, with an initial focus on the Bengali Wikipedia.
Another Fellowship project, the Teahouse
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse> (where experienced
Wikipedians are helping new editors), concluded its 3 month pilot phase
on the English Wikipedia and was preparing a full analysis. Initial
results indicated that it had a positive impact on new editors. The
Teahouse concept is already being adapted to Arabic and Indic language
projects.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Commons_uploader_statisti…
Upload Wizard usage statistics on Commons for January 2011 to April 2012
(September 2011 spike coincides with Wiki Loves Monuments)>
=== 1 million media files uploaded using Upload Wizard ===
One year after it was announced, the Upload Wizard
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Upload_Wizard> has been used to
upload more than 1 million freely licensed media files
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/29/1-million-media-files-uploaded-using-…>
to Wikimedia Commons, and has contributed to an acceleration of its
community's growth. Developers are working on a more reliable upload of
large files (up to 500MB), on a mobile upload application to support the
Wiki Loves Monuments contest
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_mobile_application> in
September, and on improving Flickr integration and geolocation support
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Drecodeam/GSoC_2012_Application> in the
Upload Wizard.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Zero_Landing_Page_on_Digi…
Wikipedia Zero landing page for Digi users in Malaysia>
=== Wikipedia Zero launches in Asia ===
Wikipedia Zero <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero>, the
Foundation's initiative to enable free mobile access to Wikipedia,
became available in Asia for the first time on May 21: Malaysian mobile
operator Digi started offering
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/26/wikipedia-zero-launches-in-malaysia-w…>
the lightweight, text-only version of Wikipedia free of data charges to
its 10 million customers. The program is already live in Tunisia and
Uganda, and will launch in many other countries in the coming months.
== Technology ==
A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for May 2012 can
be found at:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2012/May
Department Highlights
Major news in May include:
* the publication of the Architecture of Open-Source Applications book
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/11/book-architecture-mediawiki-open-sour…>,
which contains a chapter on MediaWiki;
* initial designs for a universal language selector
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/21/introducing-designs-for-the-universal…>;
* a new and easier way to view a wiki's interwiki map
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/29/wikimedia-wikis-reveal-interwiki-map/>;
* 1 million files
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/29/1-million-media-files-uploaded-using-…>
uploaded with our UploadWizard;
* the Wikidata/RENDER summit
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/31/wikidata-summit-kicks-off-in-berlin/>
in Berlin, followed by the hackathon
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/06/02/diverse-wikimedia-tech-crowd-gathers-…>.
=== Operations ===
*Data Centers*
May has been a busy month for racking, stacking and provisioning of
newly purchased servers. Recently, we purchased new hardware for
server refresh, adding capacity and redundancy, and for new
projects, including servers for Search, Analytics, Fundraising,
OpenStreetMap, databases, Varnish, Memcached and backups. Much
effort was put into OS installation and servers network; they are
now ready for the various system and application deployments. With
Ubuntu 12.4 /(Precise Pangolin)/ available, we have packaged and
started using it selectively in some of our systems, including
Search at Tampa and half of the LVS servers. Next, we will be
setting up the Apache servers at Ashburn data center using /Precise/
as well.
*Wikimedia Labs <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Labs>*
The Labs infrastructure had a couple outages, due to excess load and
the GlusterFS system. Long-term mitigation plans include
investigating Ceph and possibly writing a new filesystem mode in
OpenStack to use DRBD in a way similar to Ganeti. We implemented a
new way of managing puppet
<https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:SelfHostedPuppet> that
allows users to test all of their changes locally before pushing
them in for review.
*Data Dumps <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Projects/Data_Dumps>*
We've been creating bundles of media in use per project and the
first set of files is almost complete. For each wiki, there is now
one or more files containing all media uploaded locally to the wiki,
and one or more files containing all media used by the wiki but
uploaded to Commons.
=== Features Engineering ===
*Article feedback <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback>*
This month, the team deployed a new look and feel for the article
feedback page
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ArticleFeedbackv5/San_Francisco> as
well as a central feedback page
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ArticleFeedbackv5>, where editors
can monitor posts from all articles on Wikipedia. We also developed
a final feedback form, which gradually engages users to contribute
to the encyclopedia. We collected and analyzed data on how posting
feedback impacts both conversion and newcomer quality
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Article_feedback/Stage_3/Conversio…>.
Based on this analysis, we now project over 2 million feedback posts
per month on the English encyclopedia when the tool is widely
deployed later this year (on par with the total number of edits per
month). Our research suggests that posting feedback encourages a
substantial number of users to productively edit articles on
Wikipedia, which is expected to help reverse the recent decline in
both new and existing editors.
*Page Triage <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Page_Triage>*
We deployed the first prototype of a list view for Page Triage on
the English Wikipedia, called New Pages Feed
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:NewPagesFeed>. It provides an
enhanced list of pages for review by community patrollers. The team
started work on a new curation toolbar to appear on article pages,
enabling patrollers to get more article info, mark pages as
reviewed, tag them or nominate them for deletion.
=== Internationalization and Editor Engagement Experiments ===
*Internationalization and localization tools
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization_tools>*
The team continued integrating the first round of UI design for the
Universal Language Selector
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector> (ULS) for
desktop and mobile browsers. The prototype to showcase the first
version of ULS was completed and demonstrated. The team completed
development and deployed enhancements to the Translate extension
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Translate> with notification
support, added more language support to the Narayam extension
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Narayam>, fixed bugs, reviewed
code for i18n support in Mediawiki, and completed a first draft for
language impact metrics.
=== Mobile Engineering ===
*Wiki Loves Monuments mobile application
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_mobile_application>*
We spent the month defining specifications, prototyping, and
implementing the first version of the Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM)
app. In particular, we worked with various members of the WLM
community to better understand the requirements of the contest.
*Wikimedia Apps <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps>*
The mobile team spent the month of May converting the Wikipedia app
to use the API, increasing the amount of supported platforms, and
porting it to the latest PhoneGap codebase. We used the new mobile
API to fully decouple the Wikipedia app and started beta testing. By
using the new mobile API, the Wikipedia app no longer has to
screen-scrape the site, allowing us to make design changes that
don't break the app experience. We also released the Windows 8
version
<http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-US/app/wikipedia/6b80bf54-1a31-4651-acc…>
of the Wikipedia app. This new Wikipedia app is built following the
Windows 8 Metro Style guidelines and only uses CSS, HTML5, and
Javascript.
*Mobile support in MediaWiki core
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_support_in_MediaWiki_core>*
We worked on the very ambitious project of moving MobileFrontend
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend> to MediaWiki
core. We now have a dedicated set of tasks for the project and have
started to process them. We added modular device detection support
to core, and migrated HTMLForm.
=== Platform Engineering ===
*MediaWiki 1.20 <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.20/Roadmap>*
In May, MediaWiki 1.20wmf2
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.20/wmf2> and 1.20wmf3
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.20/wmf3> were rolled out to
all Wikimedia wikis. MediaWiki 1.20wmf4
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.20/wmf4> has been deployed to
mediawiki.org, as well as the test wikis (test.wikipedia.org and
test2.wikipedia.org).
*SwiftMedia <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SwiftMedia>*
We deployed a new version of the thumbnail handler to Commons, test,
test2, and mediawiki.org, that uses our Swift FileBackend code. It
should provide us with useful production testing prior to using
Swift FileBackend for handling original files. Cleanup of corrupted
thumbnails is now finished.
*Report card <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Reportcard>*
The team updated the datasets to include April's data, and improved
the graphs' appearance. We've also been working behind the scenes to
make the framework behind the Reportcard, named "Limn", a
best-of-breed project for general use. While not ready for public
consumption, we implemented a GUI for selecting and manipulating
datasets, and began work to support multiple visualization types.
== Fundraising ==
=== Major Gifts and Foundations ===
* Secured a $100,000 grant from the Qatar Foundation for our work in MENA.
* Worked to renew past mid-range donors.
=== Fundraiser ===
* New Payment Service Providers were recommended and Tech, Legal and
Finance departments did their due diligence. One of them got vetoed
by Tech and one of them is currently in the process of negotiation.
* Coordinated with the German chapter to perform donor research in
early June.
* Weekly testing continued in May. Please see the meta page for more
information:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2012/We_Need_A_Breakthrough
== Global Development ==
=== Global Development Highlights ===
* Global Development Team week in May focused on program reviews and
planning for India, Brazil, Arabic Language Initiative, Education
and new Editor Growth and Contribution program.
* Global Development welcomes Tilman Bayer to the team and introduces
two new Community Fellows - Tanvir Rahman and Steven Zhang.
* Offical launch of Wikipedia Zero in Malaysia
* The Funds Dissemination Advisory Group met for the first time in
early May.
* Members of the U.S./Canada Education Program working group are
announced.
=== Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) design ===
* Work on the FDC design process accelerated with the development of
draft recommendations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Draft_FDC_Pro…>
(which are to be finalized by the end of June) and vibrant
discussion
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Draft_FD…>
of open issues by the FDC Advisory Group
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/FDC_Advisory_…>,
interested
community members and WMF staff.
=== Grants Program Updates ===
* Participation Support Program name change implemented and announced:
this name change will better reflect the nature of this program as a
travel reimbursement program rather than a grants program
* Efforts to localize information about Grants Program and
Participation Support Program are underway: we are calling for
translation of key pages on Meta, including the instructions for
applying for grants or support through both of these programs in
order to make them more accessible
=== Grants Awarded and Executed ===
1. Grant to Wikimedia Austria
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:German-speaking_Wikipedia_Community/…>
to
fund the German-speaking Wikimedians' conference WikiCon 2012
2. Grant to Wikimedia New York City
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-NYC/Short_term_funding_program>
to supplement
program costs until an annual grant is awarded
3. Grant to Wikimedia Philippines
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_PH/Philippine_WikiCon_2012>
to support Philippine
WikiCon 2012
4. Grant to Wikimedia Finland
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_FI/Tervetuloa_Wikipediaan!>
to fund printing
outreach materials in Finnish
5. Grant to Patricio Molina
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Patricio_Molina/Bylaws_translation>
to lay the
groundwork for the development of a Bolivian chapter by translating
some key documents
=== Global South Relationships ===
* Asaf <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ijon> visited Turkey to
keynote a two-day Wikipedia
outreach event at Bilkent University, organized by Turkish
Wikipedian Nazif İlbek and the Bilkent IT club, with help from the
Turkish Wikipedia community.
* Asaf and Turkish Wikipedian Nazif İlbek gave outreach talks at three
other universities (Galatasaray, Atılım, and Işık), and met with
members of the Turkish editing community in Istanbul and in Ankara.
=== Fellowships ===
* New Fellowships - Tanvir Rahman and Steven Zhang were announced
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/16/announcing-community-fellows-tanvir-ra…>
and started work as Wikimedia Community Fellows, bringing the
fellows count to 6. Steven is analyzing and sharing learnings from
Dispute Resolution on English Wikipedia, and Tanvir is experimenting
with online engagement strategies for growing the number of editors
on small-language wikis, with an initial focus on Bangla Wikipedia.
(See also "Highlights" section)
* Teahouse Project - As we come to the end of the 3 month pilot phase
of the Teahouse <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse>, the
team is analyzing pilot outcomes. The full pilot report and
recommendations for the project’s future is in progress, meanwhile
some relevant metrics
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse/Metrics> from May’s
report include:
o On May 24th, the Teahouse Q&A board celebrated its 500th question.
o In a survey of over 120 Teahouse visitors, 70% of both new and
experienced Wikipedians report being "Satisfied" or "Very
satisfied" with their Teahouse experience, versus only 5% who
said they were "Dissatisfied" or "Very dissatisfied".
o A new analytics report confirms earlier findings on retention
and impact. Compared to other new editors, Teahouse guests go on
to edit more articles, edit more frequently and contribute more
content, and have less of their contributions reverted or deleted.
* Help Project - Peter Coombe visited WMF to engage with WMF staff and
fellows about the Help page redesign project
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_Project/Community_fellowship>.
Research is complete on Help page stats
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_Project/page_statistics> and
a content analysis of questions asked at Teahouse and Help Desk
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_Project/Community_fellowship/R…>
to help prioritize topics and pages to focus on. A survey is in
progress to determine how new and experienced editors find and use
current help documentation.
* Translations Project - Jon Harald Soby updated the Meta translation
portal with simplified pages for coordinating translations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_translation> and
requesting a new translation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Request_a_new_translation>.
Fundraiser Translators are being
encouraged to move over to the new notification system for
translators <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:TranslatorSignup>.
=== Editor Growth and Contribution Program ===
In ongoing discussion with the Arabic community, we’re laying plans for
a contribution portal to experiment with ways to recruit and get new
editors started on Arabic Wikipedia. Phase one of these experiments is
under construction: The Teahouse is being localized for Arabic and a
basic portal layout
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/ar:%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A…>
and registration page is under development.
=== Brazil Catalyst
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Catalyst_Project> ===
* May was a month with lots of travel focused on planning and on the
Education Program.
* Jessie and Oona analyzed history of debates on Brazil Catalyst
Program and revised and created data and structured the content for
opening the debate.
* Engaged with community through online meetings on IRC, face to face
meetings, telephone calls and talk pages.
* Finalized and published page with draft of the
Revitalization/Catalyst Program for open debate with the community
and published it on Meta: the debate started more actively in June.
* Meeting in the Brazilian National Library with 3 departments:
digital library, international relations and Book and Readership
Program staff.
* Oona and Jessie worked on planning, management and institutional
relations.
=== Brazil Media coverage ===
*UOL* (Brazil's largest news website):
* http://tecnologia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2012/05/24/wikipedia-quer-1-b…
* http://tecnologia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2012/05/24/wikipedia-prepara-…
* http://tecnologia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2012/05/24/wikipedia-os-desaf…
* http://tecnologia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2012/05/24/wikipedia-aceita-a…
* http://tecnologia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2012/05/24/fundador-da-wikipe…
*Veja Website* (Veja is the largest weekly magazine in Brazil. Its
website had 7.3 million unique visitors
<http://www.publiabril.com.br/noticias/920> in May):
* http://veja.abril.com.br/noticia/vida-digital/com-parceria-academica-wikipe…
*Piauí* (New Journalism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Journalism>):
* Journalist Bernardo Esteves wrote a very long article about
Wikipedia which will probably be published in July.
=== Arabic Language Initiative
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Arabic_Language_Initiative> ===
* Shared draft of our strategic plan
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Development/Arabic_Language_Initiati…>
and getting ready to announce it for public discussion with the
Wikipedia community, for a call for partnerships and initiative
vacancies .
* Planning further online-based work with Taghreedat initiative after
Dubai workshop
<http://thenextweb.com/me/2012/05/30/taghreedat-launches-arabic-wikipedia-ed…>.
* Working with regional NGOs on finalizing their plans for grant
requests to support the Arabic Language Initiative strategy.
* Planning the second pilot of the Wikipedia Education Program, with
expansion in Egypt and regionally.
=== US Cultural Partnerships ===
* Presented at the Association of Museums conference
<http://www.aam-us.org/am12/American> April 29 - May 2. Networked
with museum professionals and followed up with interested parties.
Contributed to blog coverage for Wikimedia
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/07/glam-wiki-aam/> and the New
Media Consortium
<http://midea.nmc.org/2012/05/glam-wiki-takes-the-aam/>.
* Ongoing coordination with US cultural organizations and support and
advisement for early stages of planning processes, including support
for GLAM OTRS queue and other email inquiries.
* Assistance with Monmouthpedia coverage and other GLAM-Wiki social
media promotion.
* Coordinated New Mexico Museum Association proposal for US GLAM-Wiki
presentation.
* Prepared for and presented at the MuseumNext
<http://www.museumnext.org/conference/conference.html> conference in
Barcelona, which included a Wikipedia Lounge and a QRpedia
presentation. Promoted GLAM-Wiki US network and followed up with
interested parties.
=== Mobile and Business Development ===
* Officially Launched Wikipedia Zero in Malaysia with Digi:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/26/wikipedia-zero-launches-in-malaysia-w…
* Continued monitoring and bug fixes on soft launches in Uganda and
Tunisa on Orange's networks.
* Began testing in five new African countries for Orange: Kenya,
Congo, Niger, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.
* Building out the Wikipedia Zero project page on mediawiki.org
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero>
=== Wikipedia Education Program ===
* *Czech Republic program reflects after one year*: Volunteers from
Wikimedia Czech Republic kicked off their Wikipedia Ambassador
program one year ago, with great success. Students have created
hundreds of articles on the Czech Wikipedia as part of their
coursework, assisted by volunteer Ambassadors, and the Czech team is
gearing up for more articles in the future. Read more about the
progress of the Wikipedia Ambassadors in the Czech Republic.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/22/the-czech-ambassador-program-at-one-ye…>
* *Cairo outreach event encourages students to edit*: Campus
Ambassadors in Cairo, Egypt, led an outreach event on May 2 to
encourage students to edit the Arabic Wikipedia. Ambassadors and
students from the British Engineering Institution in Egypt taught
Cairo University engineering students to contribute to
engineering-related articles. Students who are participating in the
Cairo Pilot joined the event as well.
<https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9…>
* *Cairo Pilot nears end of academic term*: The first term of the
Cairo Pilot has gone extraordinarily well. Students are making final
edits to Wikipedia now as they finish their last month of courses,
but already the students have had a noticeable impact on the content
on the Arabic Wikipedia. Students have enhanced articles related to
the 2012 French presidential elections, events that happened in
Egypt in 2011, and more. In some classes, students are translating
articles, whereas in others they are writing original content.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/25/cairo-pilot-update/>
* *U.S./Canada Education Program*: Members of the Working Group that
will prepare the spin-out of the U.S. and Canada branch of the
Wikipedia Education Program have been announced. The Working Group
comprises of seven Wikipedia editors and Ambassadors, seven members
of higher education institutions, and two Wikimedia Foundation staff
members. It will meet for the first time right after Wikimania in
Washington D.C. to discuss the future picture of what the new
structure will look like that will be in charge of running the
program from May 2013 on. After this meeting, Working Group members
will work in task forces to come up with an action plan for how to
get to that future picture. Mike Cline — a Wikipedia editor, Campus
Ambassador, and professional strategy consultant —agreed to act as a
facilitator for the group. Wikimedia Foundation staff member Annie
Lin will support the group in an advisory role.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/Working_Grou…>
* *Upcoming end-of-term conference in Egypt*: Wikipedians, students,
instructors and volunteer Ambassadors are getting ready for the
first end-of-term conference in Cairo. Participants of the two-day
conference will celebrate the successes of the Cairo pilot and talk
about best practices and lessons learned. It is the first event of
its kind in the Arabic-speaking world and will largely follow the
example set by the "Wikipedia in Higher Education Summit" held in
Boston last year. We expect more than 60 participants to join the
conference.
==== India ====
* Conducting one-on-one discussions with Indian community members to
hear their opinions on how we should implement the program in the
next semster
* Going through various talk and program pages associated with the
Pune pilot to collate the suggestions and ideas of community members.
==== Brazil ====
Details on the 2 partial reports below:
* May 15:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Program/Reports/wep-20120515
* June 2:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Program/Reports/wep-20120602
A general report on the WEP in Brazil is underway and will be the result
of all learning points of the pilot:
* We are going to improve the professors selection who will join the
program, which is going to be done through an open call before next
semester starts
* Discussions on institutionalizationare under way in an important
university.
* Outreach in two important universities we are working with (one with
great support of ambassadors).
* Lots of learning from students editing and their interaction with
the community:
o How to improve online and campus ambassadors interaction among
themselves
o Some deletion cases when students haven't used a draft page or
even in the draft
* Gathering feedback from professors and ambassadors who joined the
program, planning for the coming semester (still under
construction), discussing a workshop about the WEP with ambassadors
and professors at the beginning of next semester (August)
=== India Programs ===
==== Indic Languages ====
* Discussing the education program in Indic languages with IT @
School, prepared proposal for Indic GLAM and education projects
* Malayalam conference and community meetings, met with the Hindi
Wikipedians in Delhi
* Supported 10th anniversary celebrations in the Kannada, Assamese,
Nepali communities
* Getting the Bengali and Telegu Wikisource ready for proofread
extension and other required support
* Initiated discussions for Assamese Wikisource
* Blog post on the numeral issue of Hindi Wikipedia: India
Program/Indic Languages/Numerals in Indic Languages & Indic language
Wikipedias#The Debate in Hindi
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Indic_Languages/Numerals_in_I…>
==== India Outreach ====
* Capacity building or 'train the trainer' pilot
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Train_the_t…>
to train
community members on how to conduct effective outreach session and
increase the number of community members currently helping.
* Partnered with British Council to incorporate Wikipedia editing as a
part of their regular activity for their library group members:
first in-class session planned for 23rd June.
* Supporting translation of documents for outreach translated into
various languages with other Indic Wikipedians : India
Program/Outreach Programs/Handbook#Repository of Documents in Indic
languages
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Handbook#Re…>
==== India Communications ====
* Social media pilot: Created social media mentor note/guidelines
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Social_Media#Pr…>
with
comprehensive learnings and insights from the first month
experiences on two groups (en and or), Skype calls with mentors -
spoke to 6 en mentors and 3 or mentors, explained, guided and
redesigned messaging for groups.
* Successfully published third issue of Wikipatrika
<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2012-05/Community_News> in May.
* Press: Medianama story on Wikisource
<http://www.medianama.com/2012/05/223-wikipedians-digitizing-out-of-copyrigh…>
* Supported Odia press story, Times of India story on Internet
freedom, media contacts to support Assamese, Kannada, Nepali
Wikipedia 10th anniversary celebrations
==== India Community Support ====
* *Buddy system*: Worked on a new offline program called "Buddy
system" which will function to support new editors offline by the
local experienced editors as mentors
* *Teahouse/Chatasabha*: An onwiki new editor support system called
"Chatasabha
<https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AC%89%E0%AC%87%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%AA…>"
was initiated on the Odia Wikipedia, taking the lessons from the
Teahouse project on the English Wikipedia. Based on lessons from the
English Teahouse and Chatasabha, similar systems will be implemented
on other Indic Wikipedias with the help of community members.
* Planning support of Delhi-Hindi community
* *Meta updates*: Updated FAQ (in PDF), translated Outreach letter,
press release and translated Prezi
* *Sugar customization*: A CRM Package called SugarCRM is being
customized for the use of India Program for several works related to
reaching out to existing wikipedians, managing contacts, etc.
* *India project tracker*: Worked on preparing an analysis of Indic
Wikipedia projects, their current community progress, growth in the
number of active editors, new editors, content growth, and readership
* Supported engagement of more than 30 new editors
(https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediasupport/ ) and 12 new
editors in the Odia group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/OdiaWiki/ )
* *Media support*: Supported a press release
<http://www.orissadiary.com/CurrentNews.asp?id=33852> and a
newspaper story
<http://www.orissadiary.com/ShowOriyaColumn.asp?id=34007> on the
Odia Wikipedia
=== Communications ===
In May Global Development officially welcomed Tilman Bayer, who will be
helping out with research analytics and also bringing his considerable
background in blogging and reporting to help the communications team. In
May we also watched our communications colleagues in the UK draw
considerable attention to the first-ever Wikipedia town with the
Monmouthpedia initiative.
Communications has also been working closely with Wikimedia DC on
preparations for Wikimania 2012 in July.
The blog team made strides in opening up the blog for more community
involvement, moving the calendar of planned blog posts
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog/Calendar> from the
internal Office wiki to the
public Meta wiki, starting to experiment with drafting posts in public
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog/Drafts> and holding
its first ever IRC office hour
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2012-05-09>.
The Shop <http://shop.wikimedia.org/> took part in the 2012 MakerFaire,
gaining valuable feedback and helping to boost monthly sales to a new
high as we prepare for a more public launch.
==== Major announcements ====
Announcing Wikimania 2012 (May 30, 2012)
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimania_comes_to_Wash…
Our only major announcement in May was an updated media advisory
highlighting speakers and sessions for this year's Wikimania in DC. The
advisory is primarily an effort to draw media attention and increase
media registration for the event.
==== Major Storylines through March ====
Google knowledge graph increases Wikipedia viz in search (May 16, 2012)
Global press were generally supportive of Google's major announcement of
the 'knowledge graph' in May. The new search function automatically
loads relevant info, data, or images as part of search results.
Wikipedia is one of several key information sources, and was most widely
cited in coverage of the new feature.
http://gigaom.com/2012/05/16/google-shakes-up-search-with-new-wikipedia-lik…http://searchengineland.com/google-launches-knowledge-graph-121585http://techland.time.com/2012/05/16/the-knowledge-graph-googles-next-fronti…
Monmouthpedia and the world's first wiki-town kicks off (May 18, 2012)
Monmouth, Wales, is now covered in a sea of QR codes linking noteworthy
landmarks and civic locales to Wikipedia, making it one of the world's
first 'wiki towns.' Wikipedians and townsfolk collaborated in the
massive project, which also includes free wifi access across the town.
The story resulted in hundreds of global news stories, mostly praising
the unique initiative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/MonmouthpediAhttp://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/05/17/worlds-first-wikipedia-town-lau…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/9274591/Monmouth-to-be-worl…http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/monmouthpedia-monmouth-wikipedia-t…
==== Other worthwhile reads ====
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/When-Wikipedia-Vandals-Attack-75075.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/01/wikipedia-research-jimmy-w…
==== Wikipedia Signpost ====
* Volume 8, Issue 19, 7 May 2012
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-05…>
* Volume 8, Issue 20, 14 May 2012
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-05…>
* Volume 8, Issue 21, 21 May 2012
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-05…>
* Volume 8, Issue 22, 28 May 2012
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2012-05…>
==== WMF Blog posts ====
A total of 40 individual blog posts on WMF blog through May, 2012.
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/
==== Media Contact ====
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#May_2012
== Human Resources ==
* Supported work on staffing plans for the 2012-13 Annual Plan
=== Staff Changes ===
New Hires
* Vibha Bamba, Interaction Designer (Engineering)
* James Forrester, Technical Product Analyst (Engineering)
* Stephen LaPorte, Legal Counsel (Legal and Community Advocacy)
* Ori Livneh, Software Developer Frontend (Engineering)
* Praveena Maharaj, Executive Assistant (Administration)
* Subbu Sastry, Senior Software Developer Javascript (Engineering)
* Tilman Bayer, Senior Operations Analyst - Movement Communications
(Global Development)
New Contractors
* Danielle Benoit (Engineering)
* Claude Boulingui (Office IT)
* Tanvir Rahman, Community Fellow (Global Development)
* Kristie Robinson (Fundraiser)
* Sage Ross (Global Development)
* Steven Zhang, Community Fellow (Global Development)
Contract Extended
* Andrew Bogott (Engineering)
* Karen Chelini (Human Resources)
* Aaron Halfaker (Engineering)
* Mark Holmquist (Engineering)
* Angela Robeson (Human Resources)
Exit
* Mark Hershberger
Contract Ended
* Michelle Collins
* Rayne MacGeorge
=== Statistics ===
Total Requisitions Filled:
Actual: 111
May Plan: 115, May Filled: 6, May Attrition: 1,
YTD Filled: 54, YTD Attrition: 17
Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end: 11
=== Department Updates ===
Real-time feed for HR updates: http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or
http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
[edit
</w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_May_2012&action=edit§ion=48>]
Finance and Administration
Projects we are working on:
* The WMF Annual Plan
* Reducing the cost and risk of foreign exchange transactions
* Providing support for the FDC advisory committee
== Legal and Community Advocacy ==
* Hired Stephen LaPorte
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Slaporte_%28WMF%29> as
junior counsel on the team. Stephen is an experienced Wikimedian and
represents a great addition to the team!
* Posted blog post on the subject of ad injectors: "If you’re seeing
ads on Wikipedia, your computer is probably infected with malware
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/14/ads-on-wikipedia-your-computer-infecte…>"
* Updated terms of use
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use> became effective May
25, 2012.
* Reviewing proposed fundraising agreement
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2012-13_Fundraising_Agreement_(Master)>
with qualified chapters.
* New interns started. We are posting their short biographies here
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors#Legal_and_Commun…>.
* Strong FDC legal support
* Large workload, including about twice as many contracts than normal (32)
* Preparing for corporate governance review
* Working on drafting a policy on when WMF should affiliate with
certain legislative or regulatory issues, such as this one
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/25/wikimedia-foundation-endorses-mandate…>.
* Wikilaw posting:
* Copyright status of MIDI files
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/MIDI_Files>,
William Hahn
* Stats:
o 32 contracts submitted
o 16 trademark requests submitted
+ Approved - 4
+ Pending - 8
+ Approval not needed - 1
+ Misc. - 3
== Visitors and Guests ==
Visitors to the WMF office in May 2012
1. Jocelyn Berl (NexGenEdu)
2. Faidon Laimbotis (visiting contractor)
3. Laura Lanzerotti (Bridgespan Group)
4. Libbie Landles-Dowling (Bridgespan Group)
5. Meera Chary (Bridgespan Group)
6. Kathy S.Prestigiacomo (Morgan Stanley Smith Barney)
7. Richard Triolo (Morgan Stanley Smith Barney)
8. Danielle Benoit (visiting contractor)
9. Juan Negrillo (futura networks)
10. Polkan Garcia (futura networks)
11. Sam Reed (remote staff)
12. Chris McMahon (remote staff)
13. Antoine Musso (remote staff)
14. Rufus Pollock (co-founder of the Open Knowledge Foundation)
15. Krisztina Radosavljevic-Szilagyi (Manager, Global Communications and
Public Affairs - Google)
16. Liam Wyatt (Creative Commons Australia)
17. Randall Benson (consultant for culture study)
18. Kim Dodson (consultant for culture study)
19. Peter Coombe (visiting staff)
20. Joy Mihara Meer (FBI)
21. Christine Moellenberndt (Wikimedian)
22. Sebastian Jacobs (Cornerstone)
23. Moushira Elamrawy (visiting contractor)
24. Hisham Mundol (visiting contractor)
25. Oona Castro (visiting contractor)
26. Haitham Shamma (visiting contractor)
27. Nitika Tandon (visiting contractor)
28. Matthias Mullie (visiting staff)
29. Diederik van Liere (visiting staff)
30. Mike Schwartz (Senior VP Engineering, Wikia) and 18 other Wikia
employees
31. Asheeshn Laroia (OpenHatch)
32. Joe Arnold (swiftstack)
33. John Dove (Credo Online Library)
34. Daniel Phifer (Social Imprints)
35. Deborah Bezona (D. Bezona & Company)
36. Jonathan Morgan (visiting research fellow)
37. Ted Nelson <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson> (brownbag
presenter/guest)
38. Roger Gregory <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Gregory_(programmer)>
(brownbag presenter/guest)
39. Jeremy Thurgood (Global Development contractor)
40. Mike Cline (Wikipedian)
41. Pete Forsyth (Wikipedian)
42. Sumana Harihareswara (remote staff)
43. Peter Youngmeister (remote staff)
44. Stu West (Treasurer - Board of Trustees)
45. Phoebe Ayers (Executive Secretary - Board of Trustees)
46. David Peters (Exbrook)
47. John Jefferson (ATT)
48. Reza Musavi (Cushman & Wakefield)
49. Georgia Collins (DEGW)
50. Sweta Vohra (Al-Jazeera English)
51. Sebastian Walker (Al-Jazeera English)
52. Peter Caparso (Adyen)
53. Roeland Prins (Adyen)
54. Lisa Groover (Accounting Principals)
55. Steve DeVetter (KPMG)
56. Sizhe Liu (KPMG)
57. Valerie Ball (KPMG)
58. Liz Williams (Collaboration Zone)
59. Brad Rissley (Digital River)
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
