For your information, thanks.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Katherine Maher <kmaher(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 12:26 AM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] [Covid-19] Update on Wikimedia conference grants
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: <conferencegrants(a)wikimedia.org>, Janeen Uzzell <juzzell(a)wikimedia.org>,
WMF Grants Administrator <grantsadmin(a)wikimedia.org>, Foundation Official <
foundation-official(a)wikimedia.org>, Chen Almog <calmog(a)wikimedia.org>
Hi everyone,
I wanted to share the following email. I send this to all current Wikimedia
conference grant recipients earlier today.
*Summary:*
- All conferences funded by Wikimedia Foundation grants must be
cancelled or postponed until further notice
- Cancellation fees and other penalties can be covered through grant
funds
- Not complying with these instructions might affect future grant
requests
- Please contact your program officers for further guidance
- We will not be approving grants for conferences until further notice
Thanks for your understanding, and stay safe!
Katherine
===
Hi all,
I’m writing to you as applicants and recipients of funding for Wikimedia
movement conferences scheduled or planned before December 2020. You will
not be surprised to learn that we are making some changes to our support
for movement conferences during the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic.[1][2]
Two weeks ago, I sent all Project, Rapid, and Annual Plan grantees a
request to cancel or reschedule all public programs, and last week, we
canceled Wikimania[4]. Today, I want to provide clarity for recipients of
conference grants.
*== Cancelling or postponing events: next steps == *
We are asking all grantees with previously-approved and funded conferences
to postpone or cancel their conference until the World Health Organization
declares the COVID-19 pandemic over.
We recognize that you have already put a lot of effort into organizing and
planning your conference. However, our first priority is the health and
safety of you, your Wikimedia community, and the general public. We thank
you for modeling social responsibility and leadership by postponing your
event.
Global public health guidance indicates that the more quickly the world
responds to a pandemic, the better off the outcomes. In order to safeguard
free knowledge, we must also prioritize the well-being of the people who
make it possible.
*To facilitate postponing* the events and rescheduling them to a date *after
15 September 2020*, we ask the following:
1. Gather the data regarding all prepaid expenses, and report on any
unused funds. Any incurred costs due to cancellations will not be
deducted
from your total grant. In due time, we will review any increase requests
on
a case-by-case basis.
2. Determining the new event date should be done in collaboration with
your program officer (Chen Almog, calmog(a)wikimedia.org) to ensure your
new event date does not overlap with other movement events or other
potential constraints.
3. Please hold the grant funds until they can be repurposed to cover the
rescheduled event. Those funds should not be repurposed to accommodate
any
other activity without your program officer’s approval.
4. If you have a proposal for repurposing the grant funds that is
different than simply postponing your event, please discuss this with
your
program officer.
5. Our hope is that we will have better insight into the future by June.
We will reach out to you by June 30th to revisit the situation. Please
feel
free to reach out if you think you are ready to discuss this earlier.
6. If you wish to* cancel* your proposed event, we ask you to
communicate this to us soon so we can specifically work with you on
returning the funds to the Wikimedia Foundation for other use.
*== Thank you == *
We know how important it is to support one another and keep our communities
connected right now. We also know how important it is that you are able to
take care of yourself, your family, and other aspects of your life. If you
want to continue planning Wikimedia activities appropriate for this moment
(such as online, distributed events), we support you. Hosting online events
will be new for many of us, but we have already seen Wikimedians around the
world working on new approaches. We encourage you to connect with them, and
review this growing collection of resources on Meta-Wiki.[5]
We also recognize some people may need to pause in their volunteer efforts
in order to take care of those around them. That’s also okay. You should
not feel pressure to redesign your activities in order to meet previous
goals. There is no penalty for canceling.
Your program officer can work with you to discuss any ideas or answer
questions, so please reach out to us if you would like to talk. We’ll also
keep sharing more information and resources in the coming weeks via usual
community channels and this Meta-Wiki page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19 [6]
We are all here to support you and your communities right now. If you have
any questions about this email or your grant, please contact your program
manager, or send an email to eventsteam(a)wikimedia.org.
Stay safe and take care!
With thanks,
Katherine Maher - Chief Executive Officer,
Janeen Uzzell - Chief Operating Officer,
Joël Letang - Events Team Manager
[1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/COVID-19_Notice
[4] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiProject_remote_event_participation
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19
--
Katherine Maher (she/her)
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
--
Katherine Maher (she/her)
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
_______________________________________________
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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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Hi all,
I hope you have noticed that data regarding COVID-19 pandemic in India, its
states and districts are getting updated regularly from last few days. Now,
we have formally created a on-wiki page to better co-ordinate the
activities as the disease is spreading rapidly and the number of cases are
increasing.
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_India/COVID-19_task_force
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
For your information, thanks
Thanks
Tito Dutta
Note: If I don't reply to your email in 2 days, please feel free to remind
me over email or phone call.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Katherine Maher <kmaher(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2020 at 02:27
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] [Covid-19] Postponing Wikimania Bangkok until 2021
To: Wikimania General List, (open subscription) <
wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia Mailing List <
wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Dear everyone,
As a part of the Wikimedia movement’s ongoing response to the COVID-19
pandemic, we are postponing Wikimania Bangkok 2020. This decision was made
with the full support of the ESEAP host team and Wikimania Committee.
Together, we will hold Wikimania in Bangkok in 2021.
We are filled with sadness to not see you all in Bangkok in August.
However, we are confident that this is the best possible decision for the
well-being of our global community and public health overall. This decision
was proposed by the ESEAP organizers in line with their countries’ response
to the COVID-19 pandemic and is in line with recommendations from the World
Health Organization (WHO).
You are certain to have many questions. We hope to answer some of your
questions below. We will continue to answer questions on the Wikimania
Meta-Wiki page and on the Wikimania Telegram group chat (more information
below).
*== What does “postponing” Wikimania mean? ==*
We will not host an in-person Wikimania in 2020. We are rescheduling
Wikimania Bangkok until 2021. The ESEAP organizing team[2] will continue
their work as a regional collaborative between affiliates in the East,
South East, and Pacific regions to host us in Thailand next year.
The hotel and venue[3] in Bangkok will remain the same. We have not yet
finalized dates for 2021. We will work with the ESEAP team and Wikimania
Steering Committee to confirm new dates. We will let you know these dates
by the end of 2020.
The good news is that Wikimania 2021 will coincide with Wikipedia’s 20th
birthday year. We expect this to be a truly memorable Wikimania -- an
opportunity to celebrate reconnection after a year apart, along with the
remarkable accomplishment of two decades of free knowledge.
*== Will there be an alternative to the in-person event? ==*
There are no plans by the 2020 Wikimania hosts to organize a virtual,
online event. Hosting Wikimania is a lot of work. The ESEAP team is
committed to hosting the best possible in-person event in Bangkok in 2021.
Therefore, they will not have the capacity to organize a virtual Wikimania
this year.
However, the Wikimania committee, the ESEAP host team, and the Wikimedia
Foundation all recognize that other members of the community may be
interested in organizing a remote, global Wikimedia event for 2020.
Although the Wikimedia Foundation does not have the capacity at this time
to lead the organizing of a virtual online conference, we recognize others
may have the desire to do so.
We welcome discussion about online events. Interested parties are welcome
to contact the Wikimania Steering Committee and Wikimania Foundation staff
for advice on the Wikimania Meta-Wiki page[1].
We are also considering proposals for improving the capacity of communities
to organize local virtual convenings, and for how we can support
communities in organizing impromptu local and regional Wikimedia events
once the pandemic passes. As the situation has been changing rapidly we are
still working on specifics and will share more information in the coming
weeks.
*== What does this mean for scholarship applications? ==*
We are working on a plan for how to process Wikimania 2020 scholarship
applications.[4] We will share more information in the coming weeks.
*== How was this decision made? ==*
This recommendation was made by the ESEAP organizers based on what we know
about the current COVID-19 global health pandemic and current WHO
guidelines. The decision was made together with the ESEAP team in
consultation with the Wikimania Steering Committee and Wikimedia
Foundation. Together we are fully and unanimously aligned around this
decision.
Although we are genuinely sad to not have the opportunity to see you all
this year, we also are fully supportive of this decision in all of our best
interests. It allows our ESEAP community hosts to focus on the immediate
needs of their families, local Wikimedia communities, and local communities
as a whole. It is in line with global public health guidance and aligns the
Wikimedia movement as a responsible actor in support of our common public
good.
We want to thank all volunteers and affiliates that have been involved with
planning Wikimania. We’re especially appreciative of the ESEAP for their
leadership, flexibility, and compassion, as we have worked together to make
some difficult decisions on this important event.
*== Where can I learn more about Wikimania 2021? ==*
There are a number of channels where Wikimania is regularly discussed and
where plans for 2021 will be posted as they develop. We welcome all
interested participants to bring together our collective wisdom and
creativity to discuss what happens next with Wikimania. You can find these
channels here:
- Wikimania wiki: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania
- Wikimania mailing list:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
- Freenode IRC channel: #wikimania
- Telegram group chat: https://t.me/wikimaniachat
*== Where can I learn more about COVID-19 and Wikimedia? ==*
We know the Wikimedia community as generous and altruistic. Unsurprisingly,
many volunteers have started applying their skills and attention to this
current global pandemic. The Foundation created a page on Meta-Wiki where
we can share and document the steps the Foundation and movement members are
taking and ways to participate. We invite you to join us in documenting
more about our collective response: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19
*== Thank you ==*Our world, and many of our lives, have changed rapidly
over these past few weeks. Yet we can look to history to take comfort that
crises are also often moments when people put aside differences, prioritize
community and care, and find ways to connect. The sense of community and
purpose within the Wikimedia movement is a powerful rejoinder to these
uncertain times.
This is a moment in which not only what we do, but how we do it, will make
a meaningful impact on the world. We are so grateful for all that you do as
a movement to continue to rise to the challenges of our moment.
Please, stay safe and take care.
Katherine, on behalf of the:
- ESEAP Core Organizing Team
- Wikimania Steering Committee
- Wikimedia Foundation Events Team
P.S. You can help translate and share this message via Meta-Wiki: <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2020>
You can also find additional information about Wikimedia's other actions
regarding COVID-19 on Meta-Wiki: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2020
[2] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2020:Organizers
[3] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2020:Venue
[4] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarship_Committee
--
Katherine Maher (she/her)
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
_______________________________________________
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Hi list,
As COVID-19 has forced the Wikimedia communities to stay at home and like
many other affiliates, CIS-A2K has decided to suspend all offline
activities till 15th September, 2020 (or till further notice), I present to
you again Wikidata Skill Share
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:INDSS>, a zero-budget (or low
budget, as seems fit) capacity building initiative, where Wikidata
contributors, both newcomers and experienced, can share knowledge and
skills with each other and clear confusions. Most of the time, it is done
online on 1:1 basis, so it is just the right time to participate there, if
you have not planned to do or done it already. Lets learn Wikidata together!
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
Wikidata Advisor, CIS-A2K
Hello,
You are aware of the unfortunate coronavirus outbreak globally. In light of
the concerns with respect to COVID 19/Coronavirus outbreak in several parts
of the world, CIS-A2K, after getting instructions from WMF[1] and
recommendations from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) management
and the board, will be implementing the following measures:
1) Given the risk of human to human transmission, we are currently
cancelling/postponing our all offline/on-site Wiki-events such as
workshops, conferences etc. You might have noticed in another thread[2] on
this mailing list that we have decided not to conduct Hackathon at this
moment, which was supposed to be conducted at the end of March. Similarly,
Advanced Train-the-Trainer has been kept on hold as well.
2) CIS-A2K request page[3] currently won't support any offline/onsite
Wiki-events such as photowalk, workshop etc.
As of now, this will be applicable till 15 September 2020.
To keep the energy of the Wikimedia communities in India, CIS-A2K is
planning to support and organise online Wiki-events (remote participation,
where no physical presence is required), we'll get back to you with further
details.
Thank you for your understanding and co-operation. For any question, please
reply in this thread or email tito+wetogether(a)cis-india.org
Stay safe.
With regards and good wishes,
T
--------------------------------------
Some other reading:
A few Wikimedians have started and working on a WikiProject remote event
participation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiProject_remote_event_participation You
may have a look. Similarly, a Coronavirus tech handbook is being prepared
(crowdsourced) as well for remote working and events:
https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/remote
Please follow
Indian Government: Ministry of Health of Family Welfare (MOHFW) helpline
and support advice: http://www.mohfw.gov.in/, MOHFW consolidated travel
guidelines: http://www.mohfw
.gov.in/ConsolidatedTraveladvisoryUpdated11032020.pdf Mass gathering
advisory: http://www.mohfw.gov.in/advisoryformassgathering.pdf
Coronavirus safety advice by WHO:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-…
References
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/COVID-19_Notice
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2020-March/014530.ht…
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Requests
Thanks
Tito Dutta
Hi Nicolas,
Thanks for your reply and interest in the partnership.
It was discussed during the Delhi meeting that as a first step, NDLI will
come up with a unique authority control for the authors listed in their
website and we will match them with corresponding Wikidata items, thus
starting to link Wikidata content with NDLI website. The process was
expected to initiate from January, but due to some other other commitments
from NDLI as a government agency, it has not been started yet.
As a major part of this partnership will largely depend on the data model
stated in Wikidata WikiProject Books
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Books>, we need works
and their editions on different Wikisource projects properly linked with
Wikidata exactly following the data model. For Indian language Wikisources,
I can say, the linkages are still very low. It would be great, if we can
collaboratively engage as many as Wikisource communities as possible to
start linking their contents on Wikidata. We definitely need suggestions
and all kinds of help there organizing this.
We appreciate if highly experienced community members like you share inputs
and insight w.r.t. this collaboration. Please feel free to do so
pro-actively at any time.
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
On Sat, 14 Mar 2020, 15:49 Nicolas VIGNERON, <vigneron.nicolas(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> That's a really great news! Thanks for sharing it.
> I browse quickly the content they have and wow, this is really
> multilingual. I even found some bilingual books with Breton (mislabelled as
> French) and I saw a lot of other minority languages!
>
> Do you already know what the next steps will be? Do you need help?
>
> Cheers, ~nicolas
>
> Le sam. 14 mars 2020 à 09:52, Bodhisattwa Mandal <
> bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> a écrit :
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> It gives us immense pleasure to announce to the Wikimedia community that National
>> Digital Library of India
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Digital_Library_of_India>
>> (NDLI), Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Wikimedia Foundation
>> (WMF) have signed a tripartite non-binding Memorandum of Understanding
>> (MoU) for a 2-years partnership. National Digital Library of India is a Ministry
>> of Human Resource Development
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Human_Resource_Development>
>> project, developed at IIT Kharagpur
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Technology_Kharagpur>
>> which aims to build a virtual repository of learning resources and
>> literature metadata.
>>
>> Through this understanding, we will work together on:
>>
>> - integrating Wikisource and Wikidata contents on NDLI website.
>> <https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/>
>> - building up technical infrastructure on NDLI website to crowdsource
>> metadata curation on Wikidata and proofreading on Wikisource websites.
>> - importing relevant contents and data from NDLI website to Wikidata
>> and Wikisource.
>> - identifying and pursuing collaboration opportunities around other
>> Wikimedia projects, such as Wikibooks.
>>
>> After months of discussion among the three parties, the understanding was
>> finalized during International Symposium on Knowledge Engineering for
>> Digital Library Design 2019, <http://kedl2019.ndl.gov.in/> an
>> international conference organized collaboratively by NDLI and UNESCO at IIT
>> Delhi
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Technology_Delhi>,
>> where WMF was a technical partner.
>>
>> Many apologies for cross-posting the announcement in different relevant
>> mailing lists.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Jayanta and Bodhisattwa
>> CIS-A2K
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikisource-l mailing list
>> Wikisource-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikisource-l mailing list
> Wikisource-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
>
Hi all,
It gives us immense pleasure to announce to the Wikimedia community
that National
Digital Library of India
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Digital_Library_of_India> (NDLI),
Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) have
signed a tripartite non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a
2-years partnership. National Digital Library of India is a Ministry of
Human Resource Development
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Human_Resource_Development>
project, developed at IIT Kharagpur
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Technology_Kharagpur>
which aims to build a virtual repository of learning resources and
literature metadata.
Through this understanding, we will work together on:
- integrating Wikisource and Wikidata contents on NDLI website.
<https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/>
- building up technical infrastructure on NDLI website to crowdsource
metadata curation on Wikidata and proofreading on Wikisource websites.
- importing relevant contents and data from NDLI website to Wikidata and
Wikisource.
- identifying and pursuing collaboration opportunities around other
Wikimedia projects, such as Wikibooks.
After months of discussion among the three parties, the understanding was
finalized during International Symposium on Knowledge Engineering for
Digital Library Design 2019, <http://kedl2019.ndl.gov.in/> an international
conference organized collaboratively by NDLI and UNESCO at IIT Delhi
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Technology_Delhi>, where
WMF was a technical partner.
Many apologies for cross-posting the announcement in different relevant
mailing lists.
Regards,
Jayanta and Bodhisattwa
CIS-A2K
Greetings from CIS-A2K,
India Hackathon 2020 (IH2020) will take place on 27 - 29 March 2020. India
Hackathon 2020 will be a 3 (three) days residential hackathon where topics
related to MediaWiki, Toolforge will be taken place. Earlier Mediawiki
Training iterations were conducted in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019. This
year we have a plan for a hackathon.
For more information, you can look at -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/India_Hackathon_2020
If any community members from India, who are interested to join this
hackathon, please fill this form
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUdY5HhubTIzVdNwkXJVhvsJdeM4q1Q-o…>
.
*The last date of showing interest to participate is 1st March 2020.*
Thanks and Regards,
Jayanta Nath
CIS-A2K
Dear Wikimedians,
Thank you for your patience. With careful consideration of the ongoing COVID-19
pandemic <https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/summary.html>, we have
made a decision to cancel the physical WikiCite Satellite New Delhi. We are
in contact with the Wikimedia Foundation, they support this decision and
are ready and flexible to support any follow-up actions. We will shift the
format of the conference to online discussions and presentations and will
be postponing this virtual event to the next month. The format and the
dates of this virtual event would be determined by the Program Committee in
collaboration with presenters.
We are disappointed that we won’t be able to collaborate in person but the
safety of the conference participants is our highest priority and we look
forward to engaging with you in our virtual program. We will be in touch
soon with further plans and next steps for participating.
Thank you for your understanding. Please direct any questions to
info(a)openheritagefoundation.org.
On behalf of Open Heritage Foundation
Kind regards,
Hardarshan
[1] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite_Satellite_Event_India_2020>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/COVID-19_Notice
[2] <https://forms.gle/L4tU6tDwcHRmFMcE9>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite_Satellite_Event_India_2020
[3] http://openheritagefoundation.org/
Hello all,
This is for your information, that West Bengal Wikimedians User Group will
not be organizing and/or supporting any offline Wikimedia activities and
projects till 15th September, 2020, (or until further notice) due to the
recent COVID-19 pandemic. This decision from the side of the user group was
taken as the user group primarily runs on WMF funds through rapid grants as
of now and WMF has decided
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/COVID-19_Notice> to
not provide grants for any offline events until the said date. This means,
apart from our regular plans for meetups and workshops, we are also
suspending our Wiki Exploration, Documenting City Heritage and upcoming
GLAM plans and activities. We have informed our community leads who were
organizing and/or planning such events and they have all welcomed the
decision.
We will however organize and support online activities, as usual.
Currently, we have asked our community members to come up with their
proposals, which we can support in coming days. Requests can be done here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/West_Bengal_Wikimedians/Requests>.
We thank WMF for taking the tough but necessary decision. Needless to say,
the decision has affected all our future plans, like many other affiliates,
but considering the safety and health of our extremely valuable volunteer
contributors, we heartily welcome this decision and will fully abide by it.
Regards,
Bodhisattwa