Hi everyone,
It’s time for the fifth edition of the Coolest Tool Award!! 🎉
Tools play an essential role at Wikimedia, and so do the many volunteer
developers who experiment with new ideas, develop & maintain local & global
solutions, and enhance the experience for Wikimedia communities.
We’d like to invite you all to nominate your favourite & most used tools
and help us celebrate the people who create them!
To nominate your favourite tools, simply follow this link:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coolest_Tool_Award#Coolest_Tool_Award_2024.
Feel free to submit multiple nominations by completing the form as many
times as you'd like. The deadline for Nomination is* May 10th 2024.*
For further details on the nomination and selection process, the Coolest
Tool Award Academy, and the upcoming award ceremony, please visit
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coolest_Tool_Award.
The award is organized & selected by the Coolest Tool Academy. We plan to
award the coolest tools in a variety of categories (see last year’s
categories for an example). Excitingly, we're returning to an in-person
event for the first time since 2019, with winners set to be unveiled at
Wikimania 2024.
Thank you immensely for your participation and recommendations. Together,
let's celebrate innovation and collaboration within the Wikimedia community!
Regards,
On behalf of the Coolest Tool Academy 2024
We need your expertise! Your insights are crucial to the GLAM CSI
(Contributor Study Initiative) project, and we invite you to participate in
our survey today.
https://wikimediafoundation.limesurvey.net/985159?lang=en
Please fill out the GLAM CSI survey in the context of any GLAM-related work
you might have done, as we are attempting to capture user stories for
feedback to the WMF. You could answer it from the viewpoint of a volunteer
editor, a Wikimedian in Residence, an affiliate collaboration, or in the
persona of any existing (or recent) GLAM Wiki effort as well. (GLAM is
considered quite a broad term in this context, so content partnerships in
general are welcome.)
A description and survey can be found here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_CSI#Survey
Let me know if you have any questions or issues. I will be talking about
the project at the upcoming Wikimedia Hackathon in May and at Wikimania in
August.
Thanks!
-Andrew Lih
GLAM CSI, principal investigator
Smithsonian Institution, Wikimedian at Large
Hello everyone,
A few weeks ago, we announced the course on the learning platform,
WikiLearn, on how to upload and edit files on Wikimedia Commons using
OpenRefine: *OpenRefine for Wikimedia Commons: the basics*
<https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_GLAM001+2023/…>
.
Today, we are happy to announce two translations of the course: Spanish and
French!
- OpenRefine para Wikimedia Commons: conceptos básicos
<https://app.learn.wiki/learning/course/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_G…>
(Spanish
/ Español)
- OpenRefine pour Wikimedia Commons : les bases
<https://app.learn.wiki/learning/course/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_G…>
(French,
Français)
This course can be easily translated into other languages (more about the
translation process here
<https://studio.learn.wiki/meta_translations/discover_courses/> and here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutorial_on_how_to_translate_course…>).
More translations, such as Italian, Portuguese, and Basque, are being
worked on.
Just like the English course, the Spanish and French versions are available
at any time, for free. You only need a Wikimedia account and the course can
be followed at your own pace, with computer-graded exercises. A certificate
is awarded at the end and an average of 6 to 8 hours is needed to complete
the course.
Please, feel free to share these translations with people who speak these
languages and who you think might be interested in learning more about
OpenRefine or Wikimedia Commons.
Thanks, Carla Toro and Reda Kherbouche, for their amazing work translating
these courses!
Best,
Giovanna
Giovanna Fontenelle (she/her)
Program Officer, Culture and Heritage
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello,
On English Wikipedia there are some editors and reviewers accusing a
Wikimedian in Residence of misconduct. I am not asking for any particular
response from anyone, except that Wikimedians in Residence plan to support
members in achieving compliance with rules and defense of
misunderstandings.
The above is the minimum that anyone needs to read. What follows are
details.
---------------------------------------------
My own summary and perspective: Rachel Helps, Wikimedian in Residence at a
university in the United States since 2016, is accused of undisclosed
conflict of interest editing, biased editing, and recruiting paid and
unpaid colleagues in inappropriate editing. In my opinion, this editor has
done everything correctly as the Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network
recommends. I could be mistaken because the discussion and texts run for
hundreds of pages, but I do not immediately identify particular problems. I
posted in support of this editor in the discussion.
I do not think this accusation is easy to understand. Note also -
Wikipedia prohibits canvassing of uninterested parties to post in existing
discussions and decisions, and I am not asking anyone to casually join this
discussion.
See the discussion at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incid…
archived at
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noti…
Regardless, WREN needs the following to prevent this in the future -
1. clear guidance on how to be a good Wikimedian in Residence
2. a plan for reacting to accusations, if anyone ever wants an
organizational opinion on whether someone is following the rules
3. confirmation from the wiki community that our recommendations are
actually acceptable to wiki editors
I estimate that the university partner here has spent several hundred
thousand dollars of its own money, without Wikimedia Foundation grant
support, to develop Wikimedia content. Their particular expertise is in an
irreplaceable field of religious studies. I would regret the loss of this
institutional partnership, and our colleague, if there were a way to
negotiate a fix to this rather than an end to the program there.
thanks
--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry
🟦🌀💙🌀🟦
Hi all,
There are two days left for submissions for Wikimania panels or sessions.
Has anyone submitted or is anyone planning on submitting sessions on their
GLAM work, or might folks be interested in making a WREN panel to discuss
the last year's worth of learnings, and also do some evangelism for WREN?
A very regrettable thing for this year's Wikimania is that the submissions
are not public. That makes it impossible to figure out what other people
are submitting or what they are thinking. So if you have any sessions you
are proposing, do share them here. Or we can combine forces on a session.
Some thoughts:
1. From the Smithsonian side, we will likely submit one about the American
Women's History Initiative and summing up our edit-a-thon and other
activities - what we learned, what techniques have worked, and plans for
the future.
2. GLAM tools and best practices - Incorporating SDC into the workflow,
best tools for 2022? Might this be a session of interest for folks to
collaborate on?
3. We've had a GLAM Culture Crawl day in the past, where we have training
sessions and discussions oriented towards teaching GLAMs new to wiki
contribution. Might this be an interesting thing to propose?
Any other ideas welcome.
-Andrew
Hello,
I hope this message finds everyone well. A friendly reminder about this
event today, April 10th, at 6 pm UTC.
______________________
We are happy to extend an invitation to you for an upcoming workshop
entitled *Part II: Tr**ansforming Biodiversity Heritage Library Images
with Structured Data on Commons.*
*Workshop Details:*
- *Title:* *Part II: Transforming Biodiversity Heritage Library Images
with Structured Data on Commons*
- *Date/Time:* Wednesday, April 10th, @ 2:00 PM EST | Find your time
<https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20240410T180000&p…>
- *Event Page: *
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1coxEzJ3XZDxoD47AuW6T_HgRxLKIvCC-usu2VpP…
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1coxEzJ3XZDxoD47AuW6T_HgRxLKIvCC-usu2VpP…>
- *Zoom Meeting Link:*
https://smithsonian.zoom.us/j/86563563251?pwd=NEU3MWovMkRaQW5hV09BdTlRZ1ZVd…
In the first workshop, we began our data modeling efforts by mapping and
prepping BHL Flickr image data for Structured Data on Commons (SDC)
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data#:~:text=Structur….>.
SDC is a groundbreaking initiative funded by the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation that will allow media to be described using machine-readable,
structured data making it easier to view, translate, search, edit, and
curate visual content across all Wikimedia projects.
Converting BHL Image data in SDC was the second most voted use case from
the BHL Wikimedia White paper entitled *Unifying Biodiversity Knowledge to
Support Life on a Sustainable Planet <https://bhl.pubpub.org/>**.* For this
reason, we are thrilled to keep the momentum going to complete the mapping
work we started and continuing to uncover exciting possibilities with new
tools built to help GLAMS do this work. Join us as explore these tools
together:
*Tools and bots to explore! 🤖*
- Wiki Commons extension for OpenRefine
<https://github.com/OpenRefine/CommonsExtension>
- Flickypedia <https://www.flickr.org/tools/flickypedia/>
- FlickypediaBackfillrbot
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:FlickypediaBackfillrBot>
By completing our mapping work as a community and converting wiki text to
structured data, we will unlock the potential to describe BHL images more
robustly while building a viable SPARQL endpoint for BHL's Image
Collection. This work will improve the data ecosystems for Wikimedia
Commons, Flickr, and BHL alike and most importantly serve our global user
bases through enhanced search precision and retrieval.
Hope to see you there!
JJ, Sandra & Giovanna
Giovanna Fontenelle (she/her)
Program Officer, Culture and Heritage
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello!
We are happy to announce that there is now a free and publicly accessible
course on the learning platform, WikiLearn, on how to upload and edit files
on Wikimedia Commons using OpenRefine: *OpenRefine for Wikimedia Commons:
the basics*
<https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_GLAM001+2023/…>
.
OpenRefine <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OpenRefine> is a free
data-wrangling tool that can be used to process, manipulate, and clean
tabular (spreadsheet) data and connect it with knowledge bases, including
Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons.
This online course is available at any time, for free. Anyone with a
Wikimedia account can enroll with the click of a button. It can be followed
at your own pace, with computer-graded exercises. A certificate is awarded
at the end to those who complete the course.
The training is suitable for Wikimedians, Wikimedia affiliate staff, and
partners (e.g. GLAM staff and Wikimedians in Residence). Accomplishing the
course should take an average of 6 to 8 hours.
This course was developed as part of the Wikimedia Foundation's training
and sustainability grant to OpenRefine
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OpenRefine/Training_2023-24>.
It is currently available in English and can be easily translated into
other languages (more about the translation process here
<https://studio.learn.wiki/meta_translations/discover_courses/> and here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutorial_on_how_to_translate_course…>).
Translations for this course in French, Spanish, and Portuguese are being
worked on and will be available very soon.
Please, feel free to share this course with people you think might be
interested in learning more about OpenRefine or Wikimedia Commons, who are
part of your network, in groups, social media, or any other places.
Thank you!
Best,
Giovanna & Sandra
Giovanna Fontenelle (she/her)
Program Officer, Culture and Heritage
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello!
We are happy to announce that there is now a free and publicly accessible
course on the learning platform, WikiLearn, on how to upload and edit files
on Wikimedia Commons using OpenRefine: *OpenRefine for Wikimedia Commons:
the basics*
<https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_GLAM001+2023/…>
.
OpenRefine <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OpenRefine> is a free
data-wrangling tool that can be used to process, manipulate, and clean
tabular (spreadsheet) data and connect it with knowledge bases, including
Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons.
This online course is available at any time, for free. Anyone with a
Wikimedia account can enroll with the click of a button. It can be followed
at your own pace, with computer-graded exercises. A certificate is awarded
at the end to those who complete the course.
The training is suitable for Wikimedians, Wikimedia affiliate staff, and
partners (e.g. GLAM staff and Wikimedians in Residence). Accomplishing the
course should take an average of 6 to 8 hours.
This course was developed as part of the Wikimedia Foundation's training
and sustainability grant to OpenRefine
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OpenRefine/Training_2023-24>.
It is currently available in English and can be easily translated into
other languages (more about the translation process here
<https://studio.learn.wiki/meta_translations/discover_courses/> and here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutorial_on_how_to_translate_course…>).
Translations for this course in French, Spanish, and Portuguese are being
worked on and will be available very soon.
Please, feel free to share this course with people you think might be
interested in learning more about OpenRefine or Wikimedia Commons, who are
part of your network, in groups, social media, or any other places.
Thank you!
Best,
Giovanna & Sandra
Giovanna Fontenelle (she/her)
Program Officer, Culture and Heritage
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>