Dear members of the Wikimedia community,
On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, I want to
share the news that we have approved [1] the Funds Dissemination
Committee’s Round 2 2014-2015 recommendations [2] for the Annual Plan
Grants. In this round, five Wikimedia organizations will be receiving a
total of roughly $1,248,913, for a total of $5,060,913 allocated in both
rounds in 2014-2015. Grants are made in local currency, so the USD figure
is approximate. The remaining $939,087 from the FDC’s $6 million grants
envelope this year will be returned to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Congratulations to Wikimedia Armenia, Wikimedia Italia, Wikimedia
Norge, Wikimédia
France
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round2/Wikim…>,
and Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)! To the volunteers, staff, and
boards of these organizations receiving annual plan grants, we commend you
for your good work. It is not easy to develop strategic and impactful
annual plans, and we thank you for all you have done. We look forward to
the year ahead.
Sincerely,
Frieda and María, on behalf of the WMF Board of Trustees
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Board_decisions/2014-2015_round2
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2…
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals
___________________________________________
Frieda Brioschi
mail: ubifrieda(a)gmail.com - skype: ubifrieda
cell: 328 0731320
http://it.linkedin.com/in/frieda
This press release is also available online here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Annual_Wikipedia_confer…
And as a blog post in English and Spanish here: https://blog.wikimedia
.org/2015/06/22/wikimania-conference-2015/
ANNUAL WIKIPEDIA CONFERENCE “WIKIMANIA” COMES TO MEXICO CITY
Featured speakers include Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Wikimedia
Foundation executive director Lila Tretikov; entrepreneur Luis von Ahn and
other leaders in technology, culture and society
Event gathers volunteers and digital rights leaders to discuss access to
knowledge, participation in the Wikimedia projects, and the role of
Wikipedia in education
Wikimania 2015 <https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>, the
annual conference celebrating Wikipedia and its sister free knowledge
projects, will take place in México City from June 15-19. Digital rights
leaders and hundreds of volunteer editors will come together to learn about
new projects and approaches and discuss issues at the heart of the Wikimedia
movement. The event will be held at the Hilton México City Reforma.
Wikimania focuses on the Wikimedia vision: to make the sum of all knowledge
available to everyone on the planet. Unfortunately, access to knowledge
around the world is not equal. In some places, people do not have Internet
access or cannot afford access. In México, for example, only 40% of people
<https://www.amipci.org.mx/images/AMIPCI_HABITOS_DEL_INTERNAUTA_MEXICANO_201…>
have access to the Internet. In other places, access to knowledge is
censored or constrained. These issues, which directly impact our ability to
fulfill the Wikimedia mission, will be at the center of conversations at
the conference.
“One billion people will come online in this decade,” said Wikipedia
founder Jimmy Wales. “And the opportunities to consume and produce
knowledge are going to change and evolve as radically as the technology
that creates them. We need to work together as a global community to
leverage this growth to advance our mission of freely sharing in the sum of
all knowledge.”
Other themes to be addressed at Wikimania 2015 include the the state of
free knowledge, the role of Wikipedia in education, privacy and digital
rights, using technology to grow participation, and more. This year’s
conference, which is co-organized by the local Wikimedia México
<https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Conference_organizers> and the
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>, will also
feature a special focus efforts in Latin America and other countries
including Brazil, Spain and Portugal to grow the quality and amount of
knowledge on Wikipedia and the other projects.
“People across México read 44 million Wikipedia articles every month. While
we have made great strides in making knowledge available, we have a long
way to go to achieve our mission,” said Iván Martinez, president and
founder of Wikimedia México. “Wikimedia communities in Latin America and
other countries are increasingly finding solutions for growing quality
information on Wikimedia projects, including through partnerships with
educational, government, cultural, and civil associations. Wikimania is a
chance for us to share these kinds of experiences with each other to make
Wikipedia and its sister projects stronger.”
With more than 35 million articles in 288 languages, Wikipedia is the
largest shared knowledge resource in human history. Nearly half a billion
people turn to Wikipedia every month for everything from preserving
cultural heritage, to improving cancer detection, to researching homework.
This remarkable scope and scale was recognized this month by the
prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, awarded
by the Princess of Asturias Foundation in Spain. The jury recognized
Wikipedia as an "important example of international, democratic, open, and
participatory cooperation—to which thousands of people of all nationalities
contribute selflessly."
"Wikimedians collaborate digitally with each other from far corners of our
planet all of the time," said Lila Tretikov, executive director at the
Wikimedia Foundation. "Once a year we have a chance to gather in person and
we are so excited to meet this year in México City, and share our passion,
knowledge, and experiences.”
With the goal of ensuring that any person can access, share and contribute
to knowledge, the event has been organized globally for the last 10 years
to bring people together around this mission.
Registration is open for Wikimania 2015. To register, please visit:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wikimania-2015-mexico-city-registration-164212…
Program Summary
Notable sessions and workshops from prominent contributors to digital
rights and open source culture include:
-
"Bringing Free Education to the World
<https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bringing_Free_Education_to_the_Wor…>
" by Luis von Ahn, Guatemalan
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala> entrepreneur
and academic, founder of reCAPTCHA
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReCAPTCHA> and co-founder and CEO of
Duolingo <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duolingo>
-
“Wikipedia and the collective construction of knowledge
<https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_y_la_construcci%C3%B3n_c…>”
by César Rendueles, Spanish sociologist, researcher, and social critic
-
“Wikipedia Five Pillars Panel” featuring members of digital humanities
organization Red de Humanidades Digitales (RedHD)
<http://www.humanidadesdigitales.net/index.php/acerca-de>
-
A panel on “Latin America Internet Freedom”
<https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Latin_America_Internet_Freedoms_Pa…>
featuring Carlos Brito of Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales
<http://r3d.mx/> (R3DMX, Digital Rights Defense Network), Darío Ramírez
of Article 19 Mexico,
<http://www.article19.org/pages/es/resource-language.html>Katitza
Rodríguez of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
<https://www.eff.org/> (EFF),
Renata Ávila Guatemalan Human Rights and Intellectual Property Lawyer with
Web we want <https://webwewant.org/> and and country lead for Creative
Commons Guatemala, Paz Peña Chilean researcher and promoter of digital
rights in Latin America with Derechos Digitales, and Yana Welinder,
Senior Legal Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation
<https://www.derechosdigitales.org/>
-
A lecture from Carlos A. Scolari, renowned digital media researcher from
Argentina who studies new ways of communication that originated from the
rise of the Internet
-
“State of the Wiki” address from Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
-
Opening Plenary by Lila Tretikov, Executive Director of the Wikimedia
Foundation
All Spanish-language sessions will be simultaneously translated into
English for the international audience.
Special events include:
-
Welcome reception at the Hilton México City Reforma
-
Reception at the Museo Soumaya
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Soumaya>, which contains 66,000
works from 30 centuries of art
-
Pre-conference hackathon, where anyone is welcome to spend their time
hacking on anything related to MediaWiki or one of the Wikimedia projects
-
Education pre-conference where Mexican teachers will be trained by
experts about using Wikipedia to teach in the classroom as others 74
countries in the world
-
Closing reception at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda sponsored by Ache
Entretenimiento agency and Time Out México Magazine
Follow Wikimania 2015 on social:
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/wikimania2015
Twitter https://twitter.com/Wikimania2015
Follow Wikimedia México on social:
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/wikimediamx
Twitter https://twitter.com/Wikimedia_mx
GNU Social https://social.mayfirst.org/wikimediamx
Diaspora Wikimedia México <https://diasp.net/u/wikimedia_mx>
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv614ar6uOFcbpI1ocCbgfw
# # #
About the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia consists of more than 34
million articles in 288 languages. Every month, tens of thousands of active
volunteers contribute to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. With
nearly half a billion monthly users, projects operated by the Wikimedia
Foundation are one of the most popular web properties in the world. Based
in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
About Wikimedia México
Wikimedia México A.C. (WMMX) is a local chapter of the Wikimedia movement
and one of the most active in the Spanish speaking countries. Since its
recognition in 2011, it has been involved in almost 300 events, including
workshops, conferences and more. WMMX has strong ties with the culture,
education, TI companies, government sectors, as well as other volunteer
organizations that actively support the chapter’s work in the Mexico. Among
the institutions that WMMX have worked with are: Fine Arts Palace Museum
(Museo Palacio de Bellas Artes), Center for Digital Culture (Centro de
Cultura Digital), Chopo University Museum (Museo Universitario del Chopo),
and Soumaya Museum (Museo Soumaya) to name just a few. WMMX is working on a
wide variety of projects this year including their current support of
the Wikipedistas
en Puebla initiative to form a future Wikimedia User Group in that state.
About Wikimania
Wikimania is an annual conference centered on the Wikimedia projects
(Wikipedia and its sister projects) and the Wikimedia community of
volunteers. It features presentations on Wikimedia projects, other wikis,
free and open source software, free knowledge and free content, and the
social and technical aspects which relate to these topics. Wikimania 2015
marks the 11th year of the conference.
About Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the world’s free knowledge resource. It is a collaborative
creation that has been added to and edited by millions of people from
around the globe since it was created in 2001: anyone can edit it, at any
time. Wikipedia is offered in 288 languages containing a total of more than
34 million articles, and visited by nearly half a billion people every
month. It is the largest collection of free knowledge in human history, and
today its content is contributed and edited by the community of more than
75,000 volunteer editors each month.
Press Contacts
Martha Oliver
Another Company México City.
(55) 6392 1100 ext. 2416
55-28800940
moliver(a)anothercompany.com.mx
Katherine Maher
The Wikimedia Foundation
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6633
press(a)wikimedia.org
--
*Samantha Lien*
Communications | Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
slien(a)wikimedia.org
This press release is also available online here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikipedia_receives_Spai…
And as a blog post here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/06/17/princess-of-asturias-award/
Wikipedia receives Spain’s Princess of Asturias Award for International
Cooperation
- Prestigious award recognizes contributions to universal human heritage
The Princess of Asturias Foundation has announced that it is awarding
Wikipedia the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation
<http://www.fpa.es/en/princess-of-asturias-awards/laureates/2015-wikipedia.h…>.
The Princess of Asturias Awards (English
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_of_Asturias_Awards>, Spanish
<https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premios_Princesa_de_Asturias>), previously
known as Prince of Asturias Awards, recognize scientific, cultural and
social achievements that form part of the universal heritage of humanity.
“On behalf of our global community of Wikimedians, we are deeply honored to
accept this prestigious award,” said Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the
Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees. “The Princess of Asturias Awards
recognize achievements and organizations that celebrate and advance our
shared human heritage. As a collective project of shared human knowledge,
we are honored Wikipedia has been recognized today.”
Presented in eight different categories ranging from Arts to International
Cooperation, the Princess of Asturias Awards are considered to be amongst
the most important honors in the world, especially in the Spanish-speaking
world. These awards are intended to acknowledge exemplary and
internationally recognized cultural, scientific and social achievements.
“Wikipedia is an incredible project that has been created by millions of
people from around the world. We are honored to be recognized in the
category of international cooperation, which is at the heart of our
mission,” said Lila Tretikov, executive director at the Wikimedia
Foundation. “This award honors those volunteers—the editors, photographers,
writers, and developers—who make Wikipedia possible.”
Wikipedia is one of the most popular knowledge resources in the world and
is read by nearly half a billion people every month. Today, it offers more
than 35 million articles in 288 languages, including a number of indigenous
languages, all written by volunteers around the world. It represents nearly
fifteen years of cooperation, more than by millions of people around the
world,
According to the jury
<http://www.fpa.es/en/princess-of-asturias-awards/laureates/2015-wikipedia.h…>
of the Princess of Asturias Awards, Wikipedia is an “important example of
international, democratic, open and participatory cooperation—to which
thousands of people of all nationalities contribute selflessly—that has
managed to make universal knowledge available to everyone along similar
lines to those achieved by the encyclopedic spirit of the 18th century.”
"Cooperation is what Wikipedia is all about, and it is a tremendous honor
to be recognized by the Princess of Asturias Awards,” said Jimmy Wales,
founder of Wikipedia. “I hope this inspires more people to become involved
in the mission to share in the sum of all knowledge with the world."
Previous recipients of the Princess of Asturias Award for International
Cooperation include the Fulbright Program, the International Red Cross, the
World Health Organization, Al Gore, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and others.
The ceremony of the Princess of Asturias Awards will take place in Oviedo,
Spain, on the 23rd of October, under the presidency of H.M. King Felipe VI
of Spain. The Prize comprises a Joan Miro sculpture symbolizing the award
and a cash prize of 50,000 euros.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
-
https://wikimediafoundation.org
-
https://blog.wikimedia.org/
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia consists of more than 34
million articles in 288 languages. Every month, tens of thousands of active
volunteers contribute to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. With
nearly half a billion monthly users, projects operated by the Wikimedia
Foundation are one of the most popular web properties in the world. Based
in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
Wikimedia Foundation Press Contact
Katherine Maher
-
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6633
-
press[image: @]wikimedia.org
--
*Juliet Barbara*
Senior Communications Manager I Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street I San Francisco, CA 94105
jbarbara(a)wikimedia.org I +1 (512) 750-5677
The Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce that we have begun the
transition of the Wikimedia projects and sites to the secure HTTPS
protocol. You may have seen our blog post from this morning; it has also
been posted to relevant Village Pumps (Technical).
This post is available online here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/06/12/securing-wikimedia-sites-with-https/
Securing access to Wikimedia sites with HTTPS
BY YANA WELINDER <https://blog.wikimedia.org/author/ywelinder/>, VICTORIA
BARANETSKY <https://blog.wikimedia.org/author/victoria-baranetsky/> AND BRANDON
BLACK <https://blog.wikimedia.org/author/brandon-black/> ON JUNE 12TH
To be truly free, access to knowledge must be secure and uncensored. At the
Wikimedia Foundation, we believe that you should be able to use Wikipedia
and the Wikimedia sites without sacrificing privacy or safety.
Today, we’re happy to announce that we are in the process of implementing
HTTPS <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS> to encrypt all Wikimedia
traffic. We will also use HTTP Strict Transport Security
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Strict_Transport_Security> (HSTS) to
protect against efforts to ‘break’ HTTPS and intercept traffic. With this
change, the nearly half a billion people who rely on Wikipedia and its
sister projects every month will be able to share in the world’s knowledge
more securely.
The HTTPS protocol creates an encrypted connection between your computer
and Wikimedia sites to ensure the security and integrity of data you
transmit. Encryption makes it more difficult for governments and other
third parties to monitor your traffic. It also makes it harder for Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) to censor access to specific Wikipedia articles
and other information.
HTTPS is not new to Wikimedia sites. Since 2011, we have been working on
establishing the infrastructure and technical requirements, and
understanding the policy and community implications of HTTPS for all
Wikimedia traffic, with the ultimate goal of making it available to all
users. In fact, for the past four years
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/10/03/native-https-support-enabled-for-all-…>,
Wikimedia users could access our sites with HTTPS manually, through HTTPS
Everywhere <https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere>, and when directed to our
sites from major search engines. Additionally, all logged in users
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/08/28/https-default-logged-in-users-wikimed…>
have been accessing via HTTPS since 2013.
Over the last few years, increasing concerns about government surveillance
prompted members of the Wikimedia community to push
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/08/01/future-https-wikimedia-projects/>
for more broad protection through HTTPS. We agreed, and made this
transition a priority for our policy and engineering teams.
We believe encryption makes the web stronger for everyone. In a world where
mass surveillance has become a serious threat to intellectual freedom,
secure connections are essential for protecting users around the world.
Without encryption, governments can more easily surveil sensitive
information, creating a chilling effect, and deterring participation, or in
extreme cases they can isolate or discipline citizens. Accounts may also be
hijacked, pages may be censored, other security flaws could expose
sensitive user information and communications. Because of these
circumstances, we believe that the time for HTTPS for all Wikimedia traffic
is now. We encourage others to join us as we move forward with this
commitment.
The technical challenges of migrating to HTTPS
HTTPS migration for one of the world’s most popular websites can be
complicated. For us, this process began years ago and involved teams from
across the Wikimedia Foundation. Our engineering team has been driving this
transition, working hard to improve our sites’ HTTPS performance, prepare
our infrastructure to handle the transition, and ultimately manage the
implementation.
Our first steps involved improving our infrastructure and code base so we
could support HTTPS. We also significantly expanded and updated our server
hardware. Since we don’t employ third party content delivery systems, we
had to manage this process for our entire infrastructure stack in-house.
HTTPS may also have performance implications for users, particularly our
many users accessing Wikimedia sites from countries or networks with poor
technical infrastructure. We’ve been carefully calibrating our HTTPS
configuration to minimize negative impacts related to latency, page load
times, and user experience. This was an iterative process that relied on
industry standards, a large amount of testing, and our own experience
running the Wikimedia sites.
Throughout this process, we have carefully considered how HTTPS affects all
of our users. People around the world access Wikimedia sites from a
diversity of devices, with varying levels of connectivity and freedom of
information. Although we have optimized the experience as much as possible
with this challenge in mind, this change could affect access for some
Wikimedia traffic in certain parts of the world.
In the last year leading up to this roll-out, we’ve ramped up our testing
and optimization efforts to make sure our sites and infrastructure can
support this migration. Our focus is now on completing the implementation
of HTTPS and HSTS for all Wikimedia sites. We look forward to sharing a
more detailed account of this unique engineering accomplishment once we’re
through the full transition.
Today, we are happy to start the final steps of this transition, and we
expect completion within a couple of weeks.
Yana Welinder <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:YWelinder_(WMF)>,
Senior Legal Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation
Victoria Baranetsky
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:VBaranetsky_(WMF)>, Legal
Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation
Brandon Black <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BBlack_(WMF)>, Operations
Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation
--
*Juliet Barbara*
Senior Communications Manager I Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street I San Francisco, CA 94105
jbarbara(a)wikimedia.org I +1 (512) 750-5677