Dear All,
The Access to Knowledge (A2K) team at CIS has been engaged with work on
research on Indian language Wikimedia projects as part of the APG since
2019. This year, following up on our learnings from work so far, we are
undertaking a needs assessment exercise to understand a) the awareness
about research within Indian language Wikimedia communities, and identify
existing projects if any, and b) to gather community inputs on knowledge
gaps and priority areas of focus and the role of research in addressing the
same.
We would therefore request interested community members to respond to the
needs assessment questionnaire here: https://forms.gle/2xGAUBKSVJTK7Wks9
Please respond in any Indian language as suitable. The deadline for this
exercise is February 20, 2021. For any queries do write to us on the
CIS-A2K research talk page here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CIS-A2K/Research
User:Jayanta (CIS-A2K)
Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)
Access to Knowledge
Dear Indic Wikimedians,
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has discussed and approved some
improvements to the Board’s governance structure and processes, in two
recent meetings on December 9 and January 8. As the governing body for
Wikimedia Foundation, we want to improve our capacity, performance, and
representation of the movement’s diversity. We have amended the Bylaws in
support of that goal.
The new Bylaws incorporate these main changes:
- *Increase of the Board size to a maximum of 16 trustees (it was 10).*
The trustee role is volunteer, unpaid. The Board thinks that more trustees
are needed to adequately cover the many areas of expertise required to
steer the Wikimedia Foundation, a +450 staff organization supporting an
international movement formed by hundreds of projects and communities.
- *Combining community- and affiliate-selected trustees into one
category.* Rather than a specified number of community-selected and a
specified number of affiliate-selected seats, the Board has determined that
8 seats on the 16-seat Board shall be “community-and-affiliate-selected”
seats. These processes are not defined in the Bylaws, and we will discuss
them separately. The Board appoints up to seven seats directly. The status
of Jimmy Wales as Community Founder Trustee remains unchanged. We have not
used the term “community-sourced” that we initially proposed and instead
now call these “communty-and-affiliate-selected” seats.
- *Maintaining a balance between community/affiliate-selected seats and
Board-selected seats.* The Board has added a safeguard to ensure that a
Board-appointed seat cannot be added if it would mean outnumbering the
community-and-affiliate-selected” seats. The Board is committed to ensuring
strong community representation.
Other changes refer to the terms and renewals of trustees, the resignation
of other staff and governance roles before joining the Board, and the
creation of an optional second Vice-Chair role. We have clarified the
Bylaws language in topics like the fiduciary duty of trustees, the CEO’s
role in meetings, the Treasurer’s duties, and the wording around the legal
requirement that the Board make final appointments to the Board - including
where there is a community/affiliate process to nominate candidates.
The Bylaws page on Foundation Wiki
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bylaws>[1] has been updated to
include these revisions (check the diff).
The Trustee Evaluation Form
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Approving_Trustee_Evaluati…>[2]
to aid in evaluating Board candidates, initially presented as “Candidate
rubric”, has been approved by the Board.
We are organizing a multilingual call for feedback
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_Boa…>[3]
to discuss the processes to select trustees from the community. The Board
will put forward a series of options for consideration and discussion, each
one intended to meet the goal of strong community processes to select
representatives, and a goal of improved skills, qualifications, and
diversity in the candidates that are ultimately appointed. This call will
start on February 1 and will run until March 14. The Foundation is
preparing a team of facilitators to ensure broad awareness, participation,
and representation across the movement.
The results of this call for feedback will inform the Board's decision
about these processes expected to come in March-April. The Board will meet
to review and approve a final selection pathway. After the pathway is
approved, we plan to start the process to renew the three overdue community
trustee seats and appoint the three new ones.
Please let me know if you have any questions. I will be facilitating the
conversations related to this in the South Asian region during the call
feedback.
Regards,
Krishna Chaitanya
Board Governance Facilitator
Wikimedia Foundation
[1] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bylaws
[2]
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Approving_Trustee_Evaluati…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_Boa…
Hello all,
Tomorrow is the *last date to submit* session proposals for Wikimedia
Wikimeet India 2021, the upcoming online wiki-event which is to be
conducted from 19 – 21 February 2021 during the occasion of International
Mother Language Day.
If you are interested to present, run a workshop or organize a panel
discussion, you can check this link and submit a session proposal.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
On behalf of WMWM India 2021
Hello all,
The *last date to submit* session proposals for Wikimedia Wikimeet India
2021, the upcoming online wiki-event which is to be conducted from 19 – 21
February 2021 during the occasion of International Mother Language Day is
just after 6 days i.e. on *24th January 2021*.
If you are interested to present, run a workshop or organize a panel
discussion, you can check this link and submit a session proposal.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
On behalf of WMWM India 2021
Dear Wikimedians,
I am writing this email as a follow up to our communication earlier on meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunc…>.
Community Resources team is reviewing its current grant programs. To ensure
that we are working closely with the communities that we wish to serve we
are hosting office hours to discuss the *process* and collect feedback.
As indicated on meta we have scheduled office hours on 21 January UTC 1400
to meet with community members from the Asian continent. I request that you
take time to participate in the meeting and also encourage members from
your communities and projects to take part in the meeting. Please share
this email and the participation details with interested community members.
Date of the meeting: 21 January 2020
Time: 1400 UTC
Duration 60 min
*Link to the meeting: meet.google.com/mea-tczc-krc
<http://meet.google.com/mea-tczc-krc>*
Please feel free to write to me if there is anything that we can be of
assistance.
Regards,
--
*Tanveer Hasan *(him/his/they/their)
Community Resources
Wikimedia Foundation Grants
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello everyone,
We are excited to announce that registration for participation has been
opened for Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021, the upcoming online wiki-event
which is to be conducted from 19 – 21 February 2021 during the occasion of
International Mother Language Day. The registration will remain open until
16 February 2021.
You can register yourself here -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Registration
If you have any questions or comments please contact
wmwm(a)cis-india.org Otherwise,
please continue to follow our program and developments on Wikimedia
wikimeet 2021 on meta-wiki.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021
Please help us by forwarding this email to relevant lists!
Jayanta Nath
Namaskara,
This is the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia. Happy birthday to Wikipedia and
more importantly, to the collaborative effort of the volunteers in these 20
years. On this day perhaps we can make a bouquet of 20 randomly selected
facts/anecdotes related to Wikipedia.
* I am starting with 10 stories/anecdotes related to Wikipedia. If "you"
know an interesting Wikipedia story (fact, achievement, specific community
achievement/glory, specially India-related), why don't you share by
responding to this email on the "Wikipedia anniversary"?
* You can also comment on these stories. #3, #6, #8, and #9 below have open
questions where you can share your knowledge.
20 Amazing Facts or Anecdotes related to Wikipedia on its 20th birthday
(first 10 as of now. Please add stories from your side, which we all can
read.)
1. We have Wikipedias in 25 Indian languages. As of 14 January 2021,
there are 4,823 active editors on Wikipedias on these projects (it does not
include English Wikipedia). As of 14 January, 32.5 million edits have been
made on Indian-language Wikipedias. There are 173 admins on these projects.
2. The domains wikipedia.com and wikipedia.org were registered on 12 and
13 January 2001. Then it was a single-domain edition www.wikipedia.org.
One of the very first policies on Wikipedia was "Neutral Point of View"
3. The first, second Wikipedians (and possibly the third also) to
complete #1000wikidays (thousand wikidays) are from India (personally
speaking: perhaps this achievement needed better documentation (blog post
or other mediums)?)
4. Magnus Manske has been an amazing developer Wikimedian to support
Wikipedia, Wikidata, and the Wikimedia movement in general. He developed
MediaWiki and MANY other tools we use today. Learn more about him in your
language: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q13520818#identifiers There is a
day called Magnus Manske Day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Magnus_Manske_Day
5. Wikipedia has been edited from space. An astronaut from space made
edits on Wikipedia:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2017/11/29/astronaut-spoken-voice/
6. Wikipedia was proposed as a world heritage site. In 2011, when we
were celebrating the 10th anniversary it was in the news.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/8538333/Wikipedia-seeks-Wo…
I am not sure what happened to the attempt after that. Does anyone know the
recent updates? Did we apply to be a part of the intangible list?
7. There is an asteroid named after Wikipedia: Read in your language
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3913001#identifiers
8. A very large number of books, scholarly articles have been published
on Wikipedia. Wikidata queries all the items where the "main subject" is
Wikipedia: https://w.wiki/uPn (feel free to share a better query)
9. Wikipedia has been widely used as a reference in popular culture (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_in_culture). In India also
several. In India also, we have seen references to Wikipedia in songs (song
in Chennai Express film). Has Wikipedia in mentioned in songs, films,
books, etc in your language? Could you mention it?
10. There is a Wikipedia Monument is Poland:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Monument There is an anthem/hymn
on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_hymn_1.0.ogv
Please share any Wikipedia story you find interesting so that we can make
it a bouquet of 20.
(Congratulations and good wishes to Bangla Wikipedia for completing 100,000
articles, and Hindi Wikipedia for completing 5 millionth edits recently.
(Do you know more stories? Please share.))
Happy Birthday, Wikipedia. (Bengali: শুভ জন্মদিন উইকিপিডিয়া)।
Thanks
User:Titodutta
(As a Wikipedian/Wikimedian)
Hello everyone,
Hope you are all doing well, and keeping safe.
I am happy to share with you all an update about the Small wiki toolkits
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Small_wiki_toolkits> initiative in India,
and the larger South Asian region. As part of the Small wiki toolkits
initiative, in the second half of 2020, Indic-TechCom, in collaboration
with WMF's Developer Advocacy team, designed and conducted a technical
workshop series: "Small wiki toolkits - Indic workshop series 2020.” A
report of the same can be seen at https://w.wiki/Yqf.
There has been positive response from community members, as the workshops
have been helpful in understanding basic to intermediate level technical
processes on wikis. Two more workshops have been conducted towards the end
of last year. So, we are now planning to continue to run these workshops
(one per month on average) and expand them to the Wikimedia communities in
the South Asian region. The objective is to impart basic to intermediate
level technical skills for volunteers working on Wikimedia projects of
languages in the South Asian region. More information can be found at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SWT_South_Asia/Overview, and we have also
applied for rapid grant to support this initiative through 2021, the
proposal for the same can be seen at https://w.wiki/tWE.
The first session will be a brainstorming session on technical challenges
faced by contributions on their wikis, from 6 pm to 7:30 pm (IST) on 24
January 2021. It will be facilitated by Birgit Müller (Director of
Technical Engagement at WMF). If you are interested, please register at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SWT_South_Asia/Registration. This
discussion will be crucial to decide topics for future workshops. Community
members are also welcome to suggest topics for future workshops anytime at
https://w.wiki/t8Q.
These workshops are being organized with the help of a handful of
volunteers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh, and if anyone is interested to
help in organizing, please let us know.
Regards,
Krishna Chaitanya
on behalf of SWT South Asia organizers
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SWT_South_Asia/Organization>
Greetings,
We write to thank you for your immense contribution so far to our event
titled *"Wikipedia 20th celebration the way I & my family feel
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_20th_celebration_the_way_I_%26_my…>"*
To give more time to participate we have decided to extend the contest for
four additional weeks and continue the celebration.
So the new date is now 14th February 2021.
To know about already submitted creative work, kindly visit here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_20th_birthday>
For more information, kindly have a look at the event page: '*"Wikipedia
20th celebration the way I & my family feels
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_20th_celebration_the_way_I_%26_my…>"*
Let's all be creative and celebrate Wikipedia20 birthday, *"the way I and
my family feels"*.
If you are interested to contribute please participate. Do feel free to
share the news and ask others to participate.
Namaste,
Rajeeb.
(U:Marajozkee)
Namaskara,
This is an interesting thought " Gift Wikipedia a Citation on its 20th
Wikipedia". Perhaps some of you would like to try it/find the email
interesting.
Quick link: The tool mentioned at [1] in the email below is Citation Hunt:
https://citationhunt.toolforge.org/
I checked and it looks like we do not have this tool for a few Indian
languages. This page states how to add a new language support:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Citation_Hunt#Adding_support_for_a_new_lang…
Thanks
User:Titodutta
---------- Forwarded message ---------
প্রেরক: Felix Nartey <fnartey(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: বৃহস্পতি, ১৪ জানু, ২০২১ তারিখে ৫:২২ AM টায়
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Gift Wikipedia a Citation on its 20th Birthday!
To: <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia & Libraries <
libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, #1Lib1Ref general list <
1lib1ref(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
To commemorate Wikipedia's birthday, we will once again be adding citations
to improve the reliability of the platform. This year's 1Lib1Ref campaign
however is very different as Wikipedia turns 20; we are celebrating the
humans that make Wikipedia possible, highlighting their contributions and
commitment to the platform. In view of this we are asking every human out
there to join us in the celebration by gifting Wikipedia a citation to make
it more reliable, starting from the 15th Jan to 5th Feb 2021!
We are adding a new layer of contribution to celebrate the humans that
contribute to the success of the platform as part of the Wikipedia20
celebrations. Join the #1Lib1Ref Human Challenge by contributing citations
to improve the quality of articles around human rights on Wikipedia and
with top contributors receiving swags from the Wikimedia Store.[1]
How can I contribute?
Add a citation
1.
Let the tool suggest a citation needed statements for you, or use the
search menu at the bottom to choose a category (Wikipedia's version of a
tag) of an article that you have a special expertise in (for example,
British novels or Provinces of Afghanistan ).
2.
Go to the article, find the statement
3.
Click edit in the section header
4.
Add the source following the source guidelines
5.
Remove the "Citation needed" template (highlight and backspace in Visual
Editor, or remove the template which adds that tag (it looks like
{{citation needed}} ))
6.
Add the hashtag #1lib1ref to your edit summary
7.
Save the page.
Visit the participate page to learn more.[2]
Communicate
-
Share a post from our communicate and share page.[3]
-
We will be sharing a post on diff on Friday, as part of the Wikipedia
birthday communication, keep an eye out for that.
Help organize?
If you are from the CEE don’t miss out on the 1Lib1Ref CEE regional
competition, contact Gorana Gomirac WMRS (gorana.gomirac(a)vikimedija.org )
and Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska WMPL (natalia.szafran(a)wikimedia.pl ) for
more information.[4] You can also find an activity around you as some
countries and institutions such as Canada, Israel, France, Spain, AfLIA,
etc. are organizing their own activities.[5]
If you are organizing, add your event to the 1lib1ref Event Dashboard or
your virtual event to digital events list to enable people across the world
participate in your activity.[6][7]
It is not too late to schedule an event -- the campaign runs through
February 5th and in past years organizers have run #1lib1ref events year
round or scheduled activities for #1lib1ref May during the January
campaign.
Remember to add #1Lib1Ref in the edit summary of your contribution to help
us track your activity!
Happy 20th Birthday!
Felix Nartey
[1] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Participate#…
!
[2] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Participate
[3] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Share
[4] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/1Lib1RefCEE_campaign
[5] -
https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/campaigns/1lib1ref_january_2021/overv…
[6] -
https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/campaigns/1lib1ref_january_2021/overv…
[7] -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Virtual_Coff…
--
Felix Nartey
Community and Partnerships Coordinator, Campaigns
*Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>*
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