Hi everyone,
The Foundation is pleased to announce that our Annual Plan is now on
Meta.[1] This year's plan focuses on improving support for--and
consultation with--community, responding effectively to changing user
needs, and addressing strategic challenges facing our movement. We're
investing in areas that we believe the Foundation is uniquely positioned to
address, including readership and reach, volunteer retention and
engagement, and support for knowledge creation.
Thank you to everyone who contributed earlier this year to the strategy
consultations, which helped guide our thinking.
We look forward to your feedback!
Warmly,
Katherine
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2016-2017/…
--
Katherine Maher
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635
+1 (415) 712 4873
kmaher(a)wikimedia.org
Dear all,
I’m thrilled to share with you something very unusual:
This is a call for participation to all Wikipedians all over the world.
Today, we set up a global community discussion about taking Wikipedia to
the Moon – yes, in the literal sense. It is a special birthday gift in the
year of Wikipedia’s 15th anniversary. Please find all the details on
Meta-Wiki <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_to_the_Moon>[1], where
you can also contribute immediately and on-wiki. The following is a
nutshell of the project, containing some additional information regarding
communications:
At Wikimedia Deutschland’s we’ve been contacted by Berlin-based Google
Lunar XPRIZE competitor “Part-Time Scientists”, who are among the few
remaining teams preparing to send their own lunar vehicles to the Moon by
2017. They’ve asked us for support, because they love Wikipedia and would
like to include it in their Moon rover’s scientific payload as a gift.
According to the rules of the Lunar challenge, their rover must make it
safely to the Moon surface, drive 500 meters and transmit images to earth.
However, the Part-Time Scientists, whose motto is “Hell yeah, it’s rocket
science!”, thought it would be even cooler to also preserve the sum of all
knowledge on the Moon. So that’s why they’ve offered Wikimedia Deutschland
20GB of disc space on a ceramic-made medium, provided that we handle the
selection of Wikipedia content. That, however, is something we feel we
cannot do on our own/alone:
After 15 years of free knowledge, approaching 40 million articles in almost
300 languages, it wouldn’t be easy for anyone to take the responsibility
and decide on a selection of the work of tens of thousands of volunteers.
We believe that any preparation of Wikipedia content for such a symbolic
purpose ought to be community-driven, and necessarily even on a global
level: This is bigger than single language communities or single groups or
organizations within our vast movement. So we’ve decided to be bold and
make every step of the process open for anyone who wants to contribute. It
is up to the international community of editors how to move forward. Again,
please find more information on Meta-Wiki (and all the links)[1].
Today we are kicking off the initial discussion of possible scenarios. It
will be open until June 3. In order to match payload deadlines we need to
prepare our data long before the actual launch date. Our goal is to finish
the Wikipedia anniversary year with a successful Moon project on
International Volunteers Day, December 5.
Wikimedia Deutschland’s spokesperson Jan Apel will be handling press
inquiries and media planning with the Part-Time Scientists here in Germany.
We’ve been in contact with the WMF Communications team (thanks guys for
your support!) and hereby extend a warm invitation to communications people
all over the movement to join in[2]. It would be great to coordinate
internationally, serving as many language communities as possible.
Beginning at Wikimedia Conference, we’ll reach out and coordinate in
person, but you can sign up right away on Meta-Wiki and become part of the
Moon team yourselves.
Let’s take Wikipedia to the Moon together!
Michael
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_to_the_Moon
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_to_the_Moon/About#Press_contacts.…
--
Michael Jahn
Leiter Kommunikation & Partnerschaften
Head of Communications & Partnerships
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 260
http://wikimedia.de <http://www.wikimedia.de>
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch freien Zugang zu der
Gesamtheit des Wissens der Menschheit hat. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Please find a summary of last month’s highlights from the Wikimedia blog at
the following link:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_March_2016
Contents:
• The new alchemy: turning online harassment into Wikipedia articles on
women scientists • New completion suggester helps you find what you need on
Wikimedia sites • Jimmy Wales tells South by Southwest that community is
key to Wikipedia’s future • In brief
Translations for March 2016 are greatly appreciated.
--
Andrew Sherman
Digital Communications Intern | Wikimedia Foundation
*E:* asherman(a)wikimedia.org
*WMF:* ASherman (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ASherman_(WMF)>
andrewsherman.work
All,
As many of you already know, Denny Vrandečić has announced his resignation
from the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, effective today, April
8th. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Denny for his service to
the movement and to the Wikimedia Foundation. We wish him the best during
his wikibreak, and look forward to seeing him on the projects and around
the movement.
When Denny informed the Board that he was stepping down, we began to
consider how we would move forward. We recognize the importance of filling
the two vacancies on the Board, and would like to proceed in a way that
respects the will of the community and responds to existing Board needs.
The Board will be meeting in Berlin during the Wikimedia Conference on
April 22nd and 23rd - during this time we will discuss how we should fill
the open community-nominated and appointed Trustee seats.
I look forward to sharing more information with you in late April.
Patricio
--
Sharing on behalf of Anna Khrobolova of Wikimedia Ukraine:
Dear all,
On May, 1st, an international photographic competition Wiki Loves Earth
2016 starts in over a dozen of countries. The basic aim of the competition
is to collect photos of natural heritage sites such as nature reserves,
landscape conservation areas, national parks, scenic/landscape areas,
remarkable gardens, etc. to illustrate articles in Wikipedia and other
Wikimedia Foundation projects.
Wiki Loves Earth International Team invites all chapters and user groups
that are not on the list of participants yet consider joining the contest.
[1]
The international team will gladly help you with technical coordination,
support with list conversion, supporting your grant requests, providing
souvenirs.
If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact
wle-team(a)wikimedia.org.ua.
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Earth_2016
*Kind regards,*
*Anna Khrobolova*
*Wikimedia Ukraine*
--
*Samantha Lien*
Communications | Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
slien(a)wikimedia.org
Forward on behalf of Kelly Battles.
Hello All -
My name is Kelly Bodnar Battles and I am honored to have joined the
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees in January of this year.
Professionally, I am a Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and a material part
of my near term Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) Board responsibilities will be
to chair the Audit Committee. Currently, the voting members of the Audit
Committee are myself, Alice Wiegand, María Sefidari and Denny Vrandečić.
WMF’s CFO and Treasurer Jaime Villagomez is also an important stakeholder
on this committee as well.
As you may know, we have the precedent of having non-voting members (please
see role definition below) from outside the board participate in the Audit
Committee as well. Toward that end, I would like to:
- First and foremost, thank Matt Bisanz, Michael Snow, Abhijith
Jayanthi, Ben Creasy and Florian Gerl for participating in this committee
as non-voting members in the recent past.
- Request that if you are interested (or know of other volunteers in
the community who may be interested) in serving in this capacity for this
next cycle (from selection through June 2017), please send to me at this
email address (kbattles(a)wikimedia.org) your resume, the top 3 reasons why
you want to do this and the top 3 things you will add to the Audit
Committee.
- Propose the following steps and timeline for the selection process:
- Candidates submit their interest and the above information to me
no later than April 15
- The Audit Committee will interview top 4 candidates by May 10
- The Audit Committee will select the top 2 candidate by May 15
- Selected candidates join the Audit committee by June 1 and attend
July Audit Committee meeting
- Outline the following important preferences for candidates
interested in this role:
- 5+ years of operational finance and or accounting experience
- Solid understanding of the mission and operations of WMF
- Prior executive or board experience
- CPA (Certified Public Accountant) or MBA (Masters in Business
Administration), or equivalent earned
- Capacity to commit an estimated 20-30 hours annually to attend
both quarterly and other ad-hoc meetings, prepare or review required
materials, and interact with committee, staff and/or board as required.
Once again, I am thrilled to be part of this amazing organization. Thank
you for the warm welcome I have received so far.
Best,
Kelly
See link for Audit Committee charter
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Audit_Committee_charter
This message is available for translation on Meta-Wiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Committee/2016_c…