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Chapter selected board seats - call for candidates, deadline extended
by Jay Walsh 18 May '10

18 May '10

> From: Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> > Date: May 17, 2010 10:23:36 AM PDT > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: [Foundation-l] Chapter selected board seats - call for candidates, deadline extended > Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > > To whom it may concern, > > All nominations for candidates for the chapter selected board seats > were supposed to be received by the end of today, however only three > have been received. The chapters will be more likely to make a good > selection if they have a large group of candidates to choose from, > therefore I am extending the deadline for nominations by 10 days, > until the 27th May. Subsequent stages of the process will be pushed > back accordingly. Hopefully a decision will still be made in time for > the board meeting at Wikimania, but this cannot be guaranteed. > > The original call for candidates, with the new deadline, is repeated > below. Please help us get a large number of nominations by > distributing this call as widely as possible on mailing lists, blogs > and wikis. > > Can you, or someone you know, help guide Wikimedia Foundation through > the next exciting steps of its strategic development and growth? > > The Wikimedia Chapters are looking for two candidates to sit on the > Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees for 2 years commencing in > July 2010. The new board members will be faced with the challenge of > helping decide the future direction of the only top-10 internet > property that is run by a non-profit organisation. The Wikimedia > websites are constructed by hundreds of thousands of volunteers > world-wide, supported by a small but growing number of staff and an > international network of chapters. > > The successful candidates will most importantly be committed to the > Wikimedia mission and willing to work with the various stakeholders of > the Wikimedia movement, including the volunteers and the chapters that > provide essential support for the movement. They will have the time to > do this, with the appropriate communication skills (including a good > standard of English) and ability to work as a team. They will also be > able and willing to travel, and have an international attitude. > > The candidates will ideally be open-minded with experience of > international affairs and governance techniques. They will have good > communication skills, as well the ability to think strategically and > to work independently as well as part of a team. > > The process that will be followed for this selection can be viewed > here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/Process > > All nominations must be sent to the moderator (Thomas Dalton from > Wikimedia UK) and deputy moderator (José Spierts from Wikimedia > Nederlands) by 23:59 UTC 27th May. If you would like to nominate > yourself or someone else, please see the instructions here: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/Nominate > > The chapters wish to locate truly excellent board members and believe > that can best be done if there are a large number of varied and > quality candidates to consider. Therefore, the chapters ask that > everyone that thinks they, or someone they know, would be a good board > member submit a nomination. They also ask that this call for > candidates be distributed as widely as possible on mailing lists, > village pumps, blogs, etc.. > > Best regards, > > Thomas Dalton, > Moderator

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Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
by Jay Walsh 13 May '10

13 May '10

Hi folks, Over the next day or so you'll be seeing some exciting changes to the Wikipedia user interface as Vector rolls out across English Wikipedia. In an earlier note on that topic, User Experience team project manager Naoko Komura mentioned another change - one that will bring some small improvements to the Wikipedia identity, namely the Wikipedia puzzle globe and the construction of the Wikipedia wordmark - the word and sentence underneath the puzzle globe. The first major change you'll see is a slightly different looking Wikipedia puzzle globe. Over a year ago the Foundation began to recognize the need to have the puzzle globe logo improved slightly - mostly because we had some errors in the type characters featured in the puzzle globe, and also because we needed a better quality version that could print better and at a larger scale. We also needed to do that without dramatically changing one of the most recognized and beloved logos on the internet. It seemed like an opportune moment to take our 2D globe, lovingly created by WP user:Nohat and improved/modified a cast of many other volunteers back in 2003, and take it to a truly 3D object. If we were going to undertake this process, we knew we would first need to populate the 'dark side of the puzzle globe' - and of course we turned to our volunteers to do just that. Cary Bass worked with a team of volunteers to begin that process, and to revisit the many suggested and improvised fixes to the globe that have taken place over the years. Most of that discussion played out on a meta page here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/Logo The results are fantastic, and now you can see many new languages and scripts represented. The final state for our puzzle globe is quite similar to the original, fixes some errors, and has replaced the Klingon logo with an Amharic character. The actual 3D construction of the new mark was carried out by a professional 3D animator, art director, and graphic designer, Philip Metschan, who is based in the SF Bay Area. Through his career Philip has worked for Industrial Light and Magic and Pixar, and currently he's also a visualization and concept artist for the DIRECT program (not surprisingly, it can be learned about on Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIRECT). We've created a new page on the Foundation wiki that talks about the revised 3D globe as well as the other improvements underway to the wordmark: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks/About_the_offi… You'll notice that the new variation of the typeface uses Linux Libertine as an alternative to Hoeffler, the original typeface used to create the wordmark. In order to facilitate the creation of so many new variations of the Wikipedia identity it was important to find a viable alternative - Hoeffler is a commercial typeface that not every project would have access to, nor own. Linux Libertine is very close to Hoeffler in its shape and style, and for on-screen viewing is almost identical to Hoeffler. The User Experience team also investigated another minor improvement: replacing the italicized "The Free Encyclopedia" with regular typeface. This ultimately resulted in improved on-screen readability, particularly in non-roman character sets. Right now volunteers are working with the new localization guide to create the hundreds of new identities needed for each language variation of Wikipedia. You can see the Commons gallery filling up here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/2.0 If you're interested in supporting this effort you can simply follow the guide referenced on the page, or reach out to the Foundation's volunteer coordinator, Cary Bass, directly, cary(a)wikimedia.org. It will take some time to create all of the marks, and initially the ops and User Experience team are rolling out the new identity on English Wikipedia and then focussing on other languages as soon as possible. Hopefully the millions of dedicated users of Wikipedia will appreciate this minor improvement to the Wikipedia identity across all of the project languages. This is also a great new tool for chapter and volunteer representatives around the world - this scalable, crisper version of the new puzzle globe is easier to work with in a variety of situations, but retains the character and look of its predecessor. As with any important identity, I'm certain it will see further evolutions and improvements. We're open to hearing your thoughts and views for the next iteration. Later today we'll also be posting this news to the Wikimedia blog, alongside updated news about the Vector roll-out, scheduled to unfold over the next 12 hours. I'd like to thank again the dozens of volunteers who have worked over the last year+ to navigate the challenge of filling up this now 3D globe with new symbols and marks, and the countless others who have scrutinized the first drafts of the logo to suggest improvements (like proper orientation for characters). Cary Bass has been instrumental in mapping out all of these minor and major changes along with the volunteers, and the user experience team - particularly Parul, Naoko, Trevor, and Nimish, along with Hannes, should also be recognized for putting so much patience and dedication into this effort. Thanks as well to Philip Metschan for spending so much time and investing so much effort and detail into the design. We also have to recognize the dozens of (and next dozen of) volunteers who will continue to localize the new identity in different languages, as well as the original efforts of user:nohat and those early pioneers who brought this identity to life in 2003. This enormous and truly unique design effort astounds me, and it's one of the most impressive examples of our collaborative capacity outside of the work of Wikipedia itself. Thanks! jay -- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org blog.wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw

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Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia
by Jay Walsh 12 May '10

12 May '10

Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia $1.2 million grant from the Stanton Foundation to support first initiative of its kind for Wikipedia SAN FRANCISCO May 11, 2010 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Wikipedia, today announced a new project designed to improve the quality of public policy-related articles on Wikipedia. It is the first time the Wikimedia Foundation has launched a project designed to systematically increase the quality of articles in a particular topic area. The project will be funded via a $1.2 million grant from the US-based Stanton Foundation, a long-time funding partner of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Stanton Foundation is the beneficiary foundation created in the name of the US broadcasting industry leader and media innovator, Frank Stanton. Dr. Stanton's commitment to civic education and freedom of speech carries on through his philanthropic legacy, the Stanton Foundation. "Wikipedia is a key informational resource for hundreds of millions of people," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "The Stanton Foundation wants to increase people's understanding of public policy-related issues, and supporting quality on Wikipedia is a great way to accomplish that goal. Meanwhile, the Wikimedia Foundation is keen to experiment with techniques for encouraging subject-matter experts to work alongside our volunteers to improve quality. This funding will enable us to do that, and I am --as always-- very grateful to the Stanton Foundation for its support." Wikipedia is written by hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world, and that won't change with this project. The Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will recruit Wikipedia volunteers to work with public policy professors and students to identify topic areas for improvement, and work to make them better. Some of that work will take the form of classroom assignments, and pilot activities will begin during the 2010 fall academic semester. The project will continue through summer 2011. "I am excited to begin this work," said Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public Outreach at the Wikimedia Foundation. "There have already been professors around the world who assign their students to rewrite and improve Wikipedia articles: it's a proven model, and it benefits everyone. My hope is that this project will enable us to experiment and document best practices, so that academics and educational institutions worldwide can partner with us in helping Wikipedia to continually improve in quality and content." About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 370 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web property worldwide (March 2010). Available in more than 270 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 15 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Press inquiries Jay Walsh WikimediaFoundation.org blog.wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609 jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org (To UNSUBSCRIBE from this mailing list, please reply to this note with 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the subject line)

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Wikimedia Foundation Appoints Jing Wang and Mimi Ito to its Advisory Board
by Jay Walsh 12 May '10

12 May '10

Wikimedia Foundation Appoints Jing Wang and Mimi Ito to its Advisory Board SAN FRANCISCO May 11, 2010 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, today announced the appointment of two new members to its Advisory Board, Mimi Ito and Jing Wang. Mimi Ito is a cultural anthropologist with a focus on new media use among young people. Jing Wang is an author and professor of Chinese cultural studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is the chair of the International Advisory Board of Creative Commons China Mainland. Mimi Ito is a cultural anthropologist examining children and youth’s changing relationships to media and communications. She is an Associate Researcher with the University of California Humanities Research Institute with appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Her research in Japan focuses on use of mobile technologies, and she has recently completed a multi-year project on digital kids and informal learning. She has authored and edited three books on kids' use of technology, and most recently, she has led a three-year collaborative ethnographic study, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, examining youth new media practices in the US, focused on gaming, digital media production, and Internet use. She has worked at the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center, the Institute for Research on Learning, Xerox PARC, and Apple Computer. She has a PhD in Education and a PhD in Anthropology, both from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. "Although we're seeing more and more examples of crowdsourced, non-commercial, and community produced media on the Internet today, Wikipedia continues to set the gold standard," said Mimi Ito. "At a time when so many of our past models of knowledge making and circulation are being challenged, Wikipedia provides proof of a sustainable and robust form of public media in the digital age. I'm delighted to be part of Wikimedia and the movement that it represents." Jing Wang is an author and editor of seven books, Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies at MIT and founder and organizer of MIT’s New Media Action Lab. She is also an affiliated faculty with MIT's Comparative Media Studies. In spring 2009, Professor Wang launched an NGO 2.0 project in collaboration with two Chinese universities, three Chinese NGOs, and three corporate partners including Ogilvy & Mather China and Frog Design. The project, funded by Ford Foundation in Beijing, is designed to enhance the digital literacy of grassroots NGOs in the underdeveloped regions of China and will deliver an interactive platform complete with Web 2.0 training courses and a Chinese field guide to best practices and software of social media for nonprofits. Professor Wang started working with Creative Commmons in 2006 and serves as the Chair of the International Advisory Board of Creative Commons Mainland China. She also worked as the co-organizer of the Policy Culture Research Project with Anthony Saich at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. "I'm excited to join Wikimedia's Advisory Board," said Jing Wang. "The challenge of increasing the diversity of participation in regions such China can be difficult to navigate. The Foundation has radically impacted access to free knowledge for everyone in the world. I'm thrilled to volunteer my time to help create richer, higher-quality information resources by increasing the diversity of voices that contribute to the projects." "I am thrilled to welcome both Jing and Mimi to the Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board," said Michael Snow, Chair of the Board of Trustees. "Both Mimi and Jing are respected academics who will bring new expertise to us in their respective areas, and I look forward to them making a substantial contribution." The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the volunteer-written encyclopedia with a staff of just over 30 people, created its Advisory Board in January 2007 as a mechanism for input from leaders and thinkers in fields such as education, technology, and free culture. Advisory Board members convene with Wikimedia's leadership once a year at the annual Wikimania conference, and also support the organization in their specific areas of expertise. The current Advisory Board membership includes: Angela Beesley Starling (Co-founder, Wikia) Ward Cunningham (Developer of the first wiki) Melissa Hagemann (Open access and open education advocate, Open Society Institute/Soros foundations) Mimi Ito (Cultural Anthropologist at University of California, Irvine) Mitch Kapor (Founder/Co-founder Lotus Development, EFF, Mozilla Foundation) Neeru Khosla (Co-founder, CK-12) Teemu Leinonen (Professor, Media Lab, Aalto University) Rebecca MacKinnon (Journalist; founder, Global Voices Online) Wayne Mackintosh (Education specialist, Commonwealth of Learning) Benjamin Mako Hill (Author, free software advocate) Domas Mituzas Former Executive Secretary, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees; Database Engineer, Facebook) Roger McNamee (Venture capital, musician) Trevor Neilson (Partner, Global Philanthropy Group) Craig Newmark (Founder, Craigslist.org) Florence Nibart-Devouard (Former Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees; Consultant in Collaborative Media) Achal Prabhala (Researcher and writer) Clay Shirky (Associate Teacher, Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU) Jing Wang (Professor, MIT; Founder MIT New Media Action Lab) Ethan Zuckerman (Research Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School) About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 370 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web property worldwide (March 2010). Available in more than 270 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 15 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.

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English Wikipedia: Upcoming Changes to the User Interface
by Howie Fung 08 May '10

08 May '10

Everyone, As many of you already know, the Wikimedia Foundation's User Experience team has been running a beta program focused on improving the user interface for over six months now. More details may be found here <http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Usability_Initiative> [a], but our main goal has been to reduce the barriers to participation in Wikipedia by making it easier for new contributors to edit. Since the start of the program, over 635,000 users across all Wikimedia projects have participated in this beta program - testing and providing feedback on the new interface. Roughly 80% of the test users who tried the beta are still using it (view details <http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey> [b]). On the English Wikipedia, almost 270,000 users have tried the test interface and about 84% of those users continue to use it. On April 5, the beta features became the default experience for users of Wikimedia Commons, a wiki similar to Wikipedia that hosts the millions of free image and media files within our projects. The summary of feedback from Commons users may be found here <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/04/16/a-quick-update-on-vector-acceptance-by…> [c]. The WMF blog <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/25/wikimedia-gets-ready-for-some-big-chan…> [d] and the tech blog <http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/the-change-in-interface-is-coming/> [e] also provide more information on this project. This new user interface will become the default for users of the English Wikipedia during the second week of May. We are currently scheduled to make the switch at 5:00am UTC on May 13. Once we make the switch, all users will begin to see the new features [1]. These features include an enhanced toolbar, a new skin (which we named 'Vector'), and a number of other features we're very excited about (FAQs may be found here <http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers> [f]). If you prefer not to make the change, there will be 'Take me back' link to restore the original features. Those who would like to experience the new interface sooner may do so via the 'Try Beta' link at the top of the page. We understand that the English Wikipedia relies heavily on custom user scripts and site-specific JavaScript. Information on how to test gadgets is included in the FAQs <http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers> page. If you encounter issues using the new skin, please share your feedback <[http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers> [g]. We're looking forward to rolling out the new features next week. In the meantime, if you have any questions/comments, please share them here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_experience_feedback> [h] -- we're trying to consolidate feedback as much as we can. Howie Wikimedia Usability Experience Team [1] Users that have opted out of the beta will still get the new features. We apologize in advance for this inconvenience, but these users may restore their features via the "Take Me Back" link. [a] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Usability_Initiative [b] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey [c] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/04/16/a-quick-update-on-vector-acceptance-by… [d] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/25/wikimedia-gets-ready-for-some-big-chan… [e] http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/the-change-in-interface-is-coming/ [f] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers [g] [http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers [h] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_experience_feedback

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Statement on appropriate educational content
by Michael Snow 08 May '10

08 May '10

The Board of Trustees has directed me to release the following statement: The Wikimedia Foundation projects aim to bring the sum of human knowledge to every person on the planet. To that end, our projects contain a vast amount of material. Currently, there are more than six million images and 15 million articles on the Wikimedia sites, with new material continually being added. The vast majority of that material is entirely uncontroversial, but the projects do contain material that may be inappropriate or offensive to some audiences, such as children or people with religious or cultural sensitivities. That is consistent with Wikimedia's goal to provide the sum of all human knowledge. We do immediately remove material that is illegal under U.S. law, but we do not remove material purely on the grounds that it may offend. Having said that, the Wikimedia projects are intended to be educational in nature, and there is no place in the projects for material that has no educational or informational value. In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists. We encourage Wikimedia editors to scrutinize potentially offensive materials with the goal of assessing their educational or informational value, and to remove them from the projects if there is no such value. --Michael Snow

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[Announcement] Howie Fung joins Wikimedia
by Erik Moeller 06 May '10

06 May '10

Hello all, I'm pleased to announce that Howie Fung, who has been supporting us as a consultant since October 2009, is joining the Wikimedia Foundation as Senior Product Manager. In the immediate future, Howie will continue to support the deployment of our user experience improvements, as well as the continuing development and deployment of the FlaggedRevs extension for the English Wikipedia. In the longer term, Howie will help us to build Wikimedia's product development roadmap by commissioning and assessing research and analytics, and by engaging in broad consultative processes. Most recently, Howie was Senior Product Manager at Rhapsody, where he helped grow the music site's traffic five-fold within the the first year on the basis of extensive customer research, including web analytics, focus groups, user testing, and customer surveys. Prior to that, Howie was Product Manager at eBay, prioritizing features based on business objectives, usability studies, and economic impact. Howie has more than 15 years of experience in product management, business analysis and strategy, technology evaluation, and team incubation. He has an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. As a consultant, Howie completed several key projects, including the survey of former contributors [1], the analysis of feedback from the user experience beta [2], and extensive analysis of the user interface, workflows and terminology used in the FlaggedRevs extension. He has also supported Wikimedia's five-year business planning process. We're very pleased that Howie is joining Wikimedia's permanent staff: please join me in welcoming him! All best, Erik [1] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Former_Contributors_Survey_Results [2] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Public Policy Initiative
by Frank Schulenburg 05 May '10

05 May '10

Hi all, I am pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation received a generous grant from the Stanton Foundation for a 17-month pilot program that will help inform how to best engage new contributors in the improvement of subject-specific articles on Wikipedia. The Stanton Foundation also supports the Wikipedia Usability Initiative and other Wikimedia activities; we are very grateful for this ongoing support and interest. A public announcement of this grant will follow later this week. Subject-matter experts have always been valued Wikipedia contributors, and a key goal of this initiative is to facilitate their collaboration with and among the Wikipedia editing community. We will experiment with different methods of using Wikipedia as a teaching and learning tool in universities, and ways to provide incentives and support participation by students, teachers, and volunteers. The overarching goal of this project, called the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative, is to effectively increase the quality of public policy articles on Wikipedia, and to support Wikimedia Chapters with a model for working with universities to enhance other topic areas. We have chosen the particular subject area of public policy because this topic area is interdisciplinary, and requires collaboration among many fields (including history, economics, law, and various social and hard sciences). We also believe this subject area is underdeveloped on Wikipedia and therefore offers a big opportunity for improvement. Furthermore we recognize that public policy articles may pose special problems -- they may center on issues and debates that are more controversial and less settled than other articles in the sciences or in the humanities. We feel that if we can succeed with public policy articles, other topic areas can be improved based on this model. This is a completely new and exciting model for outreach with subject matter experts on Wikipedia. It's also a first for the Wikimedia Foundation, and something we hope will lead us towards new best practices and a solid foundation to better collaborate with our volunteers and with academic and institutional partners. During the 17-month time frame of the project timeline, the Initiative will be led by a project team at the Wikimedia Foundation working with two keys groups of volunteer Wikipedia editors: "Campus Ambassadors" doing in-classroom training and face-to-face evangelizing, and "Online Ambassadors" providing online support, coaching and mentoring. The Wikipedia volunteers will support university classes, students and professors as they engage in quality improvement of public policy articles on Wikipedia. The execution of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will take a phased approach. This will include the recruitment of an advisory Steering Committee of public policy experts, establishment of quality measures, baseline assessment of the current quality of public policy articles, and development of educational and training materials specific to this project. We will then pilot quality improvement activities with 3-5 schools during the fall and winter of 2010, learn from the experiences of the pilot schools, and scale up to run work with an additional 7-12 schools during the spring of 2011. The project will culminate in a conference at which best practices will be shared and prizes awarded. We believe that the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will both improve public policy content during the duration of the project, and also produce information and infrastructure that could inform the design and development of a long term sustainable model. The Foundation will more publicly announce this new initiative later this week with a press release, but we wanted to give everyone advance notice and share these job openings. The Public Policy Initiative will be led by Rod Dunican, our Education Programs Manager. Pete Forsyth and I will remain closely engaged as the project unfolds, and we will build a project team specifically around the initiative. We invite you to have a look at the current job openings: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings For more information, click the links below to review: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative_project_details http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative_FAQ If you have further questions about the Initiative or the current job openings, please contact rdunican[at]wikimedia[dot]org Thanks for your interest, Frank Schulenburg, Public Outreach

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Wikimania 2010: Call for Participation is there!
by Marcin Cieslak 29 Apr '10

29 Apr '10

Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe (including Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wiktionary, Wikispecies, Wikimedia Commons, and MediaWiki). The conference is a community gathering, giving the editors, users and developers of Wikimedia projects an opportunity to meet each other, exchange ideas, report on research and projects, and collaborate on the future of the projects. The conference is open to the public, and is a chance for educators, researchers, programmers and free culture activists who are interested in the Wikimedia projects to learn more and share ideas about the Wikimedia projects. This year's conference will be held JULY 9-11, 2010 in Gdansk, Poland at Polish Baltic Philharmonic. For more information, please visit the official Wikimania 2010 site: http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/ Wikimania 2010 will be a mix of submitted talks, open space meetings, birds of a feather groups, and lightning talks. Submissions will be discussed and selected in an informal process on the wiki. If your submission is not added to the schedule, you will still have many opportunities to bring topics forward on-site. IMPORTANT DATES * Deadline for submitting workshop, tutorial, panel and presentation proposals: May 20 * Notification of acceptance: May 25 (workshops), May 31 (panels, tutorials, presentations) * All proposals and presentations will be welcome in the Open Space track of the conference, whether or not they are accepted in this initial process. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Submissions will be reviewed informally by a team of volunteers. TRACKS This year Wikimania will offer three tracks for submissions for members of wiki communities and interested observers to share their own experiences and thoughts and to present new ideas: People and Community The People and Community track provides a unique forum for discussing topics related to people using/building wikis. Relevant topics include, but are not restricted to, the following: * Wiki Community: Conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and identity; * Wiki Outreach: Promotion of wikis and Wikimedia projects among the general public; * North meets south, east meets west: How can people of a different cultural background create an encyclopedia according to common rules? Same subject in the eye of different cultures. * Special: Wikipedia in Central/Eastern Europe: this theme will provide a forum to present and discuss the latest progress of Wikis in the central/eastern European community. Knowledge and Collaboration The Knowledge and Collaboration track aims to promote research and find exciting ideas related to knowledge... * Wiki Content: New ways to improve content quality, credibility; legal issues and copyrights (is free knowledge free?); use of the content in education, journalism, research; * Semantic Wikis: The use of semantic web technologies, linked data; semantic annotation and metadata (in particular manual vs. automated approaches). Infrastructure Track The Infrastructure track at Wikimania will provide a forum where both researchers and practitioners can share new approaches, applications, and explore how to make Wiki access ever more ubiquitous: * MediaWiki development: issues related to MediaWiki development and extensions; * Moving beyond MediaWiki: what other Wiki-like platforms exist; what tools and features do we need for collaboration on different types of knowledge? * Mobile Wikis: The Web is moving off the desktop and into mobile phones, how we use wikis on mobile devices?; wiki-based Augmented Reality (AR) applications, location based services * User Interface Design: Usability and user experience; accessibility, adaptive interfaces and personalization; novel UI designs. WIKISYM 2010 Please note that Wikimania 2010 is co-located with WikiSym, The International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration. More information about WikiSym can be found on the conference website: http://www.wikisym.org/ SUBMIT A PROPOSAL To submit a proposal for a presentation, workshop, panel or tutorial, please visit: http://bit.ly/Submit2010 Thank you for helping make Wikimania 2010 a successful event. :-) See you in Gdansk, July 9-11! -- Marcin Cieslak Wikimania 2010 Gdansk

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Wikimedia Form 990 Now Filed and Posted
by Veronique Kessler 27 Apr '10

27 Apr '10

Please note that the 2008 Form 990 which covers fiscal year July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009 has been posted to the Wikimedia Foundation website at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:WMF_2008_2009_Form_990.pdf Also posted are questions and answers which can be found at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Form_2008_Questions_and_Answers Of course I am available to answer questions as well. Veronique

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