[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Report, October 2013
Tilman Bayer
tbayer at wikimedia.org
Fri Nov 15 06:49:56 UTC 2013
Hi all,
please find below the WMF report for October 2013, in plain text.
As always, the editable and formatted version has been published on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_October_2013
and the reports are being posted on the Wikimedia blog, too:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/
As usual, we are also publishing a separate "Highlights" summary.
Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay
updated, by providing a translation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_October_2013
Many thanks to those who have translated the September "Highlights"
into Spanish, Japanese, Norwegian Bokmål, Dutch and Chinese (help
continues to be welcome for completing the partial translations in
French, Portuguese, Russian and some other languages)!
While still focusing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a
small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement.
Suggestions for the upcoming November issue are welcome until
Wednesday December 4 at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights#Movement_news_items_for_November_2013.
Regards, Tilman
--
= Wikimedia Foundation Report, October 2013 =
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_November_7,_2013.ogv>
Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting
covering the month of October
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-11-07>
(November 7, 2013)
Contents
* 1 Data and Trends
* 2 Financials
* 3 Highlights
o 3.1 Pilot project for free mobile access to Wikipedia via text
messages in Kenya
o 3.2 Video about South African students' grassroot efforts to get
Wikipedia free on their cellphones
o 3.3 Planning the replacement of the Florida data center
* 4 Engineering
o 4.1 VisualEditor
o 4.2 Editor engagement
o 4.3 Mobile
* 5 Fundraising
o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations
o 5.2 Online Fundraising
* 6 Grantmaking
o 6.1 Strategic Goals Metrics
o 6.2 Annual Plan Grants (FDC)
o 6.3 Project and Event Grants
+ 6.3.1 Grants awarded in October 2013
+ 6.3.2 Reports accepted in October 2013
o 6.4 Travel and Participation Support
+ 6.4.1 Requests awarded in October 2013
+ 6.4.2 Reports accepted in October 2013
o 6.5 Individual Engagement Grants
o 6.6 Brazil Catalyst Project
+ 6.6.1 Institutional
+ 6.6.2 Outreach & tutorials publishing
+ 6.6.3 GLAM
+ 6.6.4 Education
+ 6.6.5 Data Analysis
+ 6.6.6 Participation in events
o 6.7 Grantmaking Learning & Evaluation
* 7 Programs
o 7.1 Program Evaluation and Design
o 7.2 Wikipedia Zero
o 7.3 Wikipedia Education Program
* 8 Human Resources
o 8.1 Staff Changes
o 8.2 Statistics
o 8.3 Department Updates
* 9 Finance and Administration
* 10 Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications Department
o 10.1 LCA Report, October 2013
+ 10.1.1 Contract Metrics
+ 10.1.2 Trademark Metrics
+ 10.1.3 Domains Obtained
+ 10.1.4 Coming & Going
+ 10.1.5 Other Activities
o 10.2 Communications Report, October 2013
+ 10.2.1 Major announcements
+ 10.2.2 Major storylines in October
+ 10.2.3 Other worthwhile reads
+ 10.2.4 Wikimedia Blog posts
+ 10.2.5 Media Contact
+ 10.2.6 Wikipedia Signpost
* 11 Visitors and Guests
== Data and Trends ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_November_Metrics_Meeting_Photo_03.jpg>
Dario Taraborelli presenting an analysis of trends in active editor numbers
Global unique visitors for September:
*506 million* (+1.82% compared with August; +6.54% compared with the
previous year)
(comScore data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/unique_visitors> for all
Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release October data
later in November)
Page requests for October:
*27.05 billion* (+4.4% compared with September; +36.6% compared with
the previous year)
(Server log data
<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyAllProjects.htm>,
all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for September 2013 (>= 5 mainspace
edits/month, excluding bots):
*76,959* (+0.76% compared with August / -5.83% compared with the
previous year)
(Database data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors>, all Wikimedia
Foundation projects.)
*Report Card* (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF
projects):
http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/
(Definitions <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Metric_definitions>)
== Financials ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Revenue_%26_Expenses_September_2013_-_Actual_vs_Plan.png>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of September
30, 2013
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses_by_Functions_September_2013.png>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of September 30, 2013
(Financial information is only available through September 2013 at the
time of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and
Year-To-Date September 30, 2013.
Revenue $7,868,439
*Expenses:*
Engineering Group $4,046,942
Fundraising Group $825,991
Grantmaking Group $441,816
Programs Group $424,627
Grants $674,032
Governance Group $152,461
Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group $843,218
Finance/HR/Admin Group $1,982,059
Total Expenses $9,391,146
Total deficit ($1,522,707)
* Revenue for the month of September is $2.46MM versus plan of
$0.99MM, approximately $1.47MM or 149% over plan.
* Year-to-date revenue is $7.87MM versus plan of $2.98MM,
approximately $4.89MM or 164% over plan.
* Expenses for the month of September is $3.33MM versus plan of
$3.48MM, approximately $157K or 5% under plan, primarily due to
lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, legal
fees, and travel expenses partially offset by higher grants, payment
processing fees, and outside contract services.
* Year-to-date expenses is $9.39MM versus plan of $11.17MM,
approximately $1.78MM or 16% under plan, primarily due to lower
personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, legal fees,
grants, and travel expenses partially offset by higher payment
processing fees.
* Cash position is $37.77MM as of September 30, 2013.
== Highlights ==
=== Pilot project for free mobile access to Wikipedia via text
messages in Kenya ===
Wikipedia Zero, the program to provide access to Wikipedia on mobile
phones free of data charges, became available in Kenya this month. The
partnership with mobile provider Airtel also involves a pilot project
testing free access to Wikipedia via USSD/SMS
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/24/airtel-wikipedia-zero-text-trial/>. For
the first time, this service enables people who cannot afford
data-enabled smartphones to read Wikipedia through SMS on low-cost basic
phones ("feature phones <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/feature_phone>").
*
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Screen_Shot_Cheetah_1.png>
Entering a search term on a mobile phone using USSD
*
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Screen_Shot_Cheetah_2.png>
Choosing from a list of matching Wikipedia articles
*
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Screen_Shot_Cheetah_3.png>
Choosing which section to read from the selected article
*
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Screen_Shot_Cheetah_Reply.png>
A part of the article is sent via text message, and the user can
respond to read more
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Letter_for_Free_Access_to_Wikipedia.webm>
An open letter for free access to Wikipedia
=== Video about South African students' grassroot efforts to get
Wikipedia free on their cellphones ===
In November 2012, the students of Sinenjongo High School, South Africa
wrote an open letter on Facebook, encouraging cellphone carriers to
waive data charges for accessing Wikipedia, so they can do their
homework. Victor Grigas and filmmaker Charlene Music visited them and
asked them to read their open letter on camera, resulting in a short
video that was published this October. Help is welcome
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/11/08/open-letter-free-access-wikipedia-south-africa/>
with the translation, design and promotion of this video and of the
longer documentary that will be published about the students' call for
the carriers to sign up to the Wikipedia Zero partnership program
organized by the Wikimedia Foundation.
=== Planning the replacement of the Florida data center ===
The Wikimedia Foundation’s Technical Operations team published a
detailed request for proposals (RfP)
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/21/rfp-new-datacenter-continental-us/>,
inviting offers for the location of a new data center in the United
States. It will join the existing primary data center in Virginia, and
replace the data center in Tampa, Florida. Wikipedia and its sister
projects have been hosted in Florida since 2004.
== Engineering ==
A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for October 2013
can be found at:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2013/October
Department Highlights
Major news in October include:
* A request for proposals for a new datacenter in the continental US
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/21/rfp-new-datacenter-continental-us/>,
published by the Operations team (see also general "Highlights"
section);
* The creation of the Autonym Font
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/28/the-autonym-font-for-language-names/>,
which allows language names to be displayed properly without
degrading page loading time.
Presentation slides from the quarterly review meeting for 2013/14 Q1
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/VisualEditor-Parsoid/November_2013>
of the VisualEditor (right) and Parsoid (left) teams
ParsoidreviewQ1201314.pdf <Image:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ParsoidreviewQ1201314.pdf>
VisualEditor - 2013-14 Q1 quarterly review deck.pdf
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor_-_2013-14_Q1_quarterly_review_deck.pdf>
=== VisualEditor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/VisualEditor/Portal>
===
In October, the VisualEditor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Portal> team continued to improve
the stability and performance of the system, and added new features. The
version of the software present on Wikimedia sites was updated five
times. Beyond fixing bugs, the focus of the team's work this month was
to make the system more reliable and easier to extend.
They also continued to improve usability. For example, you now need to
press the "delete" key twice to delete a template, reference or image;
the first time, they only become selected, to avoid accidental deletion
of infoboxes and similar content. A new feature, allowing users to
switch from editing in VisualEditor to editing wikitext directly without
having to save the page, was also added.
In October, the Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid> team
continued to work on the conversion between wikitext and annotated HTML
for unusual cases. Speed was improved by making the software run more
requests at the same time. The speed of the testing server
<http://parsoid.wmflabs.org:8001/> used to check for conversion errors
was also improved: we can now run tests on 160,000 pages overnight.
Support for private wikis was also added this month.
=== Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_November_Metrics_Meeting_Photo_12.jpg>
Results from a test of interface changes designed to invite new users
make their first edit (from a presentation of the Growth team at the
metrics meeting for October
In October, we enabled Notifications worldwide
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo/Release_Plan_2013#Completed> on about 800
Wikimedia sites, including most of the remaining Wikipedia wikis and
'sister projects'. Community members we've spoken to generally find this
tool helpful, across languages and world regions. Notifications are also
available on mobile devices, and seem to be adding value on these
platforms as well. We now plan a final release of Notifications on the
German and Italian editions of Wikipedia at the end of November.
In October, the Flow <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow_Portal> team
redesigned the prototype
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow_Portal/Interactive_Prototype> of this new
discussion system. We also continued to add basic features. We held a
User Experience workshop
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow_Portal/Team/Meetings/2013-10-15_Flow_workshop>,
primarily with users new to Wikipedia, to get feedback on the usability
of the new design. We're planning to demo the basic Flow product to
interested WikiProjects in November to get more feedback on what's
needed for a first trial on Wikipedia.
In October, the Growth <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Growth> team completed
its sixth and final major A/B test of the GettingStarted
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GettingStarted> and GuidedTour
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GuidedTour> extensions for the
onboarding new Wikipedians
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/onboarding_new_Wikipedians> project. Data
analysis results <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:OB6> for
this test were also published,
making way for rolling out the winning version on non-English Wikipedias
in November. This month, the team also completed background research and
early designs for its upcoming work on anonymous editor acquisition
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Anonymous_editor_acquisition> and
Wikipedia article creation
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_article_creation>.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mobile_Contributions_Quarterly_Review_10-2013.pdf?page=15>
Slides from the Mobile Contribution Team's quarterly review meeting
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/Mobile_contributions/October_2013>
on October 24, 2013
=== Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> ===
Many changes were made to the iOS Commons app
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Commons> in October. Users can
now select the license among the most common ones, and swipe to delete
categories on yet-to-be-uploaded images. A number of visual and
interface improvements have been made, notably for iOS 7 compatibility.
Icon consistency has been improved throughout the app. The app now also
has better internationalization support, as well as better landscape and
iPad support.
The Wikipedia Zero <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero> team,
supporting the program to give Wikipedia access to mobile users at no
cost, worked on many features and enhancements as well. Part of their
work focused on reducing accidental data charges, for example by adding
warnings for users who don't benefit from the Zero program. They also
made improvements to the settings system that allows the configuration
of parameters for different mobile companies.
The mobile web <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_web_projects> team has
been focusing on many new features, as well as running tests about new
mobile editors. They've improved the general design for a better user
experience, and started to try to integrate VisualEditor to tablets. In
beta, user profiles are now available, as well as 'Keep Going', a series
of calls to action for new editors.
== Fundraising ==
Department highlights
* Caitlin Virtue joined the team as Development and Outreach Manager.
* Caitlin Cogdill joined the team as Fundraising Program Associate.
=== Major Gifts and Foundations ===
* Received a $1 million grant from the Sloan Foundation.
* Worked on end of the year reports for foundations and reapplied to
new foundations.
* Continued work on a proposal for the Stanton Foundation regarding
moblie and flow.
* Continued work with Tarnside on finding foundation funders in Europe.
* Held event with Jimmy Wales which raised USD $220,000.
* FDC impact report submitted, letter of intent (LOI) next month
* Caitlin Virtue joined the team as Development Outreach Manager.
=== Online Fundraising ===
* The fundraising team ran campaigns worldwide throughout October.
Banners were displayed to 13% of readers for 1 impression per
reader. The team continued to run A/B tests of banner messages,
designs, and payment flows. In the month of October, approximately
USD 2.7 million was raised from 200,000 donors (preliminary numbers
as donations are still settling). The team also sent email tests to
past donors and experimented with mobile fundraising testing. For
more information on testing, please see the 2013 fundraising
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013> page on Meta-wiki.
* Uploaded a 2-minute appeal for Wikipedia Zero
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Letter_for_Free_Access_to_Wikipedia_(EN_subtitles).webm>
from the 12A students of Sinenjongo High School in South Africa (see
general "Highlights" section).
* Caitlin Cogdill joined the team as Fundraising Program Associate.
== Grantmaking ==
Department Highlights
* *Quarterly Review on Grantmaking* in partnership with Program
Evaluation and Design team, focusing on our Learning and Evaluation
systems and processes. See slides on Commons
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grantmaking_%26_Program_Eval_Quarterly_Review,_Oct_2013.pdf>
(with appendix
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grantmaking-Quarterly_Review_May_2013_(Appendix).pdf>;
minutes are to be published later)
* The second year of the *Annual Plan Grants/FDC process* kicked off
with proposals from 11 Wikimedia organizations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals>, including
the first Thematic
Organization (Amical Wikimedia).
* Launch of the *Evaluation portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal>*
in partnership with Program Evaluation and Design; contribute a
Learning Pattern
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/Learning_patterns>!
=== Strategic Goals Metrics ===
(See the Quarterly Metrics
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_%26_Evaluation/Quarterly_Metrics>
page on Meta-wiki)
At the completion of the first quarter of FY2013-14, the Grantmaking
team is currently at the following points in reaching its targets:
* Grants to *Global South*: 55% (namely, CIS-India) /(Target: 10%)/
* Grants to *Individuals*: 13.5% (namely, Wikimania Scholarships)
/(Target: 7%)/
* Grants to *Gender Gap* work: 0.2% /(Target: 1%)/
* *Spent*: $1.2M, or 12% of total budget
Note on targets: Two of the grants programs - Annual Plan Grants and
Individual Engagement Grants - are only offered 2x per year. The first
round for both these programs is occuring in Q2. We anticipate these
will greatly increase the proportion of grants budget that is used, as
well as decrease the proportions to the Global South and to individuals.
=== Annual Plan Grants (FDC) ===
* 11 FDC annual plan grant proposals
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals> were
submitted in Round 1 2013-2014 to the FDC.
* Community review
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/Community/Review>
of
these proposals took place during the month of October. Comments,
feedback and questions from the community were shared on all 11
proposals, though some proposals received much more feedback than
others.
* Quarter 3 progress reports from Round 1 2012-2013 and Quarter 1
progress reports from Round 1 2012-2013 were submitted on October 30.
* The FDC face-to-face deliberations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/FDC_members/2013-2014_round1/Deliberations>
on
these proposals will be held from November 17-21 in San Francisco,
and they will publish their recommendations to the Board by December
1, 2013.
(More about the FDC process and timeline can be found on Meta on the FDC
portal <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Timeline>, and as
always, staff support is
available at FDCsupport at wikimedia.org .)
=== Project and Event Grants ===
* Asaf Bartov participated in Iberoconf 2013 - Mexico City
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Iberocoop:Encuentro_Wikimedia_Iberoamericano_2013>,
and gave
a talk on funding in the context of Iberocoop, as well as funding
for international events.
==== Grants awarded in October 2013 ====
Three project and event grants were awarded in October: to Wikimedia
Philippines for Wiki Loves Monuments, Wikimedia Czech Republic for their
media work and to Wikimedia South Africa, to support their
organizational development (matching external funding secured by WMZA).
* Grants:WM_PH/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_PH/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013>
* Grants:WM_CZ/Mediagrant_II
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_CZ/Mediagrant_II>
* Grants:WM_ZA/2013_OSF_bridging_funding
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_ZA/2013_OSF_bridging_funding>
==== Reports accepted in October 2013 ====
* Grants:Katie_Filbert_-_Wikimedians_in_DC/GLAM-MCN_outreach/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Katie_Filbert_-_Wikimedians_in_DC/GLAM-MCN_outreach/Report>
* Grants:WM_PH/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_PH/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Report>
* Grants:Kannan Shanmugham - Malayalam Wikipedia/10th Birthday
Celebrations/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Kannan_Shanmugham_-_Malayalam_Wikipedia/10th_Birthday_Celebrations/Report>
* Grants:WM US-NYC/Events Grant Reapportionment/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-NYC/Events_Grant_Reapportionment/Report>
* Grants:Jackson_Peebles/Video_and_Interactive_Tutorials/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Jackson_Peebles/Video_and_Interactive_Tutorials/Report>
=== Travel and Participation Support ===
This program supports Wikimedians to actively participate in
non-Wikimedia events.
==== Requests awarded in October 2013 ====
* Participation:Seeris/PanelFreeCulture
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Seeris/PanelFreeCulture>
==== Reports accepted in October 2013 ====
* Participation:Valeriej,_DNarvaez/Grace_Hopper_Open_Source_Day/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Valeriej,_DNarvaez/Grace_Hopper_Open_Source_Day/Report>
=== Individual Engagement Grants ===
* The IEG round 2 selection process kicked off this month. 21
proposals were marked eligible
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-reviewing> for
round 2 review, with funding requests ranging from $40 to $30,000
for proposals to build tools, conduct research, and lead online
community organizing and offline outreach and partnerships. A
community discussion period encouraged comments and input from
across the movement, in order to help the IEG committee make
recommendations.
* 2 proposals withdrew after passing eligibility, so ultimately 19
proposals went into the committee's official review
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee/Workroom/Review>,
which began on Oct 23.
Scores on each proposal have been submitted by committee members,
and these will be shared back with proposers on Meta-wiki in
November. Funding decisions will be announced in December.
* Round 1 IEG projects continue. Grantees are beginning to prepare
their final reports, which will be available in November-January.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acaoeducativa_onboarding.jpeg>
Onboarding activity at Ação Educativa
=== Brazil Catalyst Project ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brazil_Catalyst_Program_2013-2014_-_Metrics_Meeting_November.pdf>
Presentation slides about the transition of the Brazil Catalyst Project
into a grants program
==== Institutional ====
* Contracts analyses, wrap up of partnership process between *Ação
Educativa* and Wikimedia Foundation.
* Onboarding activity at Ação Educativa: about 20 people participated
in the onboarding activity about the Wikimedia project at Ação
Educativa. Gustavo Paiva, from Ação Educativa, and our team
presented our project proposal in detail to representatives from
departments other than the one hosting our project.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acaoeducativa_onvoardinv.jpeg>
Onboarding activity at Ação Educativa
* Opened a discussion page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/2013-2014/Microgrants>
about
Microgrants strategy on Meta-wiki
==== Outreach & tutorials publishing ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_and_PubRioBranco.jpeg>
Brazil Catalyst program staff meeting with students and professor at
Faculdades Integradas Rio Branco
* Work in progress: production of complete *tutorial* on how to
participate and engage in Wikimedia Projects
* Finalized review on *Basic principles brochure* made by students
from Faculdades Integradas Rio Branco
==== GLAM ====
* *Projeto Reflora:* offered partnership to Reflora's project (public
archive of plants species collected in the 19th and 20th centuries).
There was progress until the top directors, but it didn't succeed in
end.
* *Instituto Butantan:* offered partnership to Instituto Butantan, but
didn't have much progress so far either.
* Based on those two unsuccessful experiences we started *re-designing
the GLAM approach strategy* in order to either get, even by force of
law, content in public domain collected with public funding, or to
change dramatically the approach and communications.
* Engaged in the community discussion about a *photographic contest*
<https://br.wikipedia.org/wiki/chapter:Discuss%C3%A3o:Wiki_Ama_a_Natureza>,
to
support and work together on this programatic activity planned in
our project proposal
==== Education ====
* Brazilian Education Program presentation on *Iberoconf 2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Iberocoop:Encuentro_Wikimedia_Iberoamericano_2013>*
* Advances in partnership negotiations with *universities*: UFF, Passo
Fundo University, BandTech, UFRJ, USP
* Meetings and discussions with the local community of contributors
* Meetings at *Wikimedia's office in San Francisco* with Asaf,
Anasuya, Rod and LiAnna about the education program in Brazil and
the next steps
* *Education Extension* tests, updates, translation and wiki pages
creation around the extension
* Event participation planning at *Passo Fundo University*
* Partnership conversations with *UFMA* (Federal University of Maranhão)
==== Data Analysis ====
* Localized the L2 Research Portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Labs2/pt-br>.
* Organizing the Inaugural L2 Research Hackathon
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Labs2/Hackathons/November_9th,_2013>
in Rio de Janeiro.
* Helped community designing an evaluation system
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Filtro_de_edi%C3%A7%C3%B5es/An%C3%A1lise>
of the AbuseFilter on ptwiki.
* Helped designing the i18n of the Evaluation Portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal>.
* Translated Beta Features documentation
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/About_Beta_Features/pt-br>.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oona_Castro_@_Tedx.jpg>
Oona Castro at TEDx
Under development:
* Adding daily access data from dumps to tool labs
<http://tools.wmflabs.org/ptwikis/Acessos>
* Developing a non-tech interface to add events on the PT Wikipedia
timeline <http://tools.wmflabs.org/ptwikis/Linha_do_tempo> through
editing Wikipages
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Arqueologia/Linha_do_tempo>,
so that any editor can help improve it in the future.
* Localizing the anti-vandalism tool STiki to ptwiki
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:STiki>.
* Debating an experiment with welcome messages
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoria:!Mensagens_de_boas-vindas>.
* Setting up tracking for ptwiki guided tours
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Esplanada/propostas/Qual_deve_ser_o_nosso_primeiro_tour%3F_(3out2013)>.
==== Participation in events ====
* Participation in TEDx event led by Dante Alighieri School:
explaining Wikimedia projects, the education program and discussing
access to knowledge (video of the presentation
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAkralMUyD4&list=PLsRNoUx8w3rPXlhPBjZGdk8orytldLa9j&index=6>)
* Participation in Iberoconf 2013 - Mexico City
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Iberocoop:Encuentro_Wikimedia_Iberoamericano_2013>
* Participation in Mozilla Summit 2013 - Santa Clara
=== Grantmaking Learning & Evaluation ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Questions_pattern_infobox.png>
Example of an infobox summarizing a learning pattern ("Asking the right
questions <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/Asking_the_right_questions>")
* *Launch of the Evaluation portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal>!* See
the "Program Evaluation and
Design" section for more updates
* *Learning & Evaluation community:* In addition to the portal, we
were invited to speak at Iberoconf 2013 in Mexico City, to update
the Iberocoop community members about what tools are available for
evaluation as well as the need and purpose for evaluation/learning.
Much time was spent going over the Wikimetrics tool, with which most
were unfamiliar. See the presentation links in Spanish and English
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/Presentations>
on the
evaluation portal.
* Developed *Learning Patterns
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/Learning_patterns>*,
a new
way of capturing "key learnings" for mission-aligned projects and
programs. Learning Patterns are a new type of resource that will be
featured in the Evaluation Portal (see "Program Evaluation and
Design" for more info). They are in
a simple page format, based on design patterns
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patterns>, that allow us to easily
document and share actionable solutions to common problems we
encounter when we plan, participate in, and evaluate the impact of
events, online initiatives, and other programmatic activities. A
learning pattern is structured around a problem statement (which can
also be phrased as a question, an instruction, or a short scenario)
and a description of the solution to that problem. Patterns can also
include examples, links to related resources, general
considerations, and media such as images or embedded videos. Anyone
can create a pattern around a piece of advice or set of instructions
that they think would benefit others who may be performing a similar
activity in the future. We intend to encourage grant recipients to
write patterns to capture what worked (and what didn't work) when
they report on their activities. As the Learning Pattern library
grows, the Grantmaking & Program teams can use this resource to
identify common challenges that grantees face, successful strategies
they have developed, and to help identify types of activities that
have a high potential for impact. Some examples of patterns we have
so far: /"Let the media know
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/Let_the_Media_Know>",
"Cookies by
the exit <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/Cookies_by_the_exit>",
"Short reports go a long way
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/Short_reports_go_a_long_way>",
"Photographic evidence
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/Photographic_evidence>."/
Grants Program evaluations
* *Annual Plan Grants:* worked on financial analysis of the different
applicants to Round 1 of the Annual Plan Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1>.
Also helped collect
and administer feedback from the FDC.
* *Travel & Participation Support Grants:* Launched survey and
collecting feedback for the Travel & Participation Support Program
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grantmaking_and_Programs/Learning_%26_Evaluation_portal/Participation_Support_Program_revamp>.
Results will be posted in November, with a call for continued
community conversation at that time.
* *Wikimania Scholarships*: Published a blog post summary of the
Wikimania Scholarships 2013
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/08/scholarships-wikimedians-around-the-world-wikimania/>
program, which funded 95 individuals from 54 countries.
Pipeline
* Results from *First Employee Study*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikimedia_First_Employee_Survey/2013_Survey_Results>
survey
* Results from *Travel & Participation Support Program*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grantmaking_and_Programs/Learning_%26_Evaluation_portal/Participation_Support_Program_revamp>
survey
* Updated grants pages on Meta
* New management tool for grants (Fluxx)
* External research projects, looking at organizational methodologies
for other movements
* IEG impact assessment design
* IEG post-award survey development
* Conversations around impact evaluation for gender-related work
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Diversity_Conference/Schedule#Alyssa_Wright_and_Siko_Bouterse_.2F.2F_Creating_a_toolset_for_impact>
at the diversity conference, hosted by our community in Berlin!
* Research hackathon
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Labs2/Hackathons/November_9th,_2013>
* Translation opportunities on Evaluation portal
* Further development of learning patterns
== Programs ==
Department Highlights
* The Wikipedia Zero team launched its first *USSD/SMS pilot in
Kenya*. Airtel Kenya mobile subscribers now have free access to
Wikipedia through text messages for the first time. The service
targets mobile subscribers who use low-cost basic phones ("feature
phones") that are not internet-enabled. See also the general
"Highlights" section, and for more information, see
below and our blog post: "Airtel Wikipedia Zero
partnership to pilot Wikipedia via text
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/24/airtel-wikipedia-zero-text-trial/>".
* Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager LiAnna Davis and
Communications Contractor Sage Ross put together draft text for a
completely *redone version of the /Welcome to Wikipedia/ brochure*
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_(Bookshelf)/2013_edition/draft>
for newcomers, now titled /Contributing to Wikipedia/.
=== Program Evaluation and Design ===
Data Collection Survey updates
Program Evaluation and Design has been knee-deep in reviewing the
results from their data collection survey. The survey, which opened at
the end fo September and closed on October 7, received responses from 23
program leaders. Those who responded are associated with chapters,
affiliates and usergroups. Some program leaders who responded identify
as individuals, producing and evaluating programs without chapter
support. Respondents, whom will remain anonymous in the end report,
reported data for edit-a-thons, workshops, online editing contests, GLAM
content donations, photography competitions, and the Wikipedia Education
Program. The report will feature two showcase reports about edit-a-thons
and Wiki Loves Monuments. Through the beginning of November, the team
will be producing a report, requesting community feedback, and then it
will be presented to the FDC, and the broader Wikimedia community in
mid-November on Meta.
Two interns join the Program Evaluation and Design team
The Program Evaluation & Design team has brought on two paid interns to
assist with the Data Collection Survey. These two interns, Edward Galvez
and Yuan Li, bring well-honed skills from John Hopkins University and
the University of Cincinnati, respectively. They are primarily assisting
Program Evaluation and Design Specialist, Jaime Anstee, with mining,
cleaning, checking and examining the data voluntarily provided by the
Wikimedia community during the recent Data Collection Survey. Through
their internship, they will be learning skills like wiki mark-up, the
basics of contributing to Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Meta, gain
an understanding about the way the Wikimedia community works and the
programs they are doing to engage the public, how to use WikiMetrics,
and extended evaluation data skills.
Communications update
* *The Program Evaluation Portal on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal>
launched on October 4.* The
portal, which was designed by Program Evaluation and Design in
partnership with the Learning & Evaluation team, provides a unique
and friendly environment to learn about evaluation and design. The
portal features four main components: the library, full of resources
about evaluation and design, the machine shop which features
resources related to tools like WikiMetrics, the parlor, a social
space for program leaders to introduce themselves through easy to
create profiles and to ask questions for crowdsourced support and
help, and the printing press, which features the latest news related
to evaluation. The portal also contains a work space for the two
teams to develop reports and resources on Meta-wiki, before
launching them formally in the portal. This space is called the
Boiler Room. The portal's front page is automatically updated by a
bot with the latest changes and activity.
* *Facebook continues to be a popular space* for program leaders to
seek help and socialize regarding evaluation and design. As of
October 31, the "Program Evaluation & Design" Facebook group
<https://www.facebook.com/groups/programevaluation/> had 101 members.
* *The Program Evaluation & Design Annoucement List hits 73 members.*
(October archives
<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-ped/2013-October/thread.html>)
* *Jaime and Sarah hosted an open office IRC sessions on October 7* in
the Program Evaluation and Design IRC channel (#wikimedia-ped). They
spent a total of four hours, split into two sessions
(morning/afternoon), in the room allowing for casual conversation,
questions and assistance regarding evaluation and design between
them and the community. Approximately 10 participants.
* *Quarterly Review took place on October 25*, in partnership with the
Grantmaking department. Program Evaluation & Design presenting about
their work, goals and blockers from the teams inception in April
until the present.
=== Wikipedia Zero ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Feature-phone.jpg>
A typical low-cost feature phone, the type of phone targeted with the
SMS/USSD pilot
* Wikipedia Zero partnerships delivered *39M free mobile page views in
20 countries* in October.
* We launched Wikipedia Zero with *Airtel in Kenya*, along with our
first *USSD/SMS pilot*. Airtel Kenya customers now have free access
to Wikipedia through text messages. With this partnership, the
Wikimedia Foundation for the first time delivers access to Wikipedia
through SMS free of charge. The service targets customers who use
low-cost basic phones ("feature phones") instead of data-enabled
smartphones. From the lessons learned in this pilot, we hope to
eventually make this service widely available to reach the billions
of people who have mobile phones, but cannot afford access to the
internet. See also the general "Highlights" section,
and our blog post: "Airtel Wikipedia Zero partnership to pilot
Wikipedia via text
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/24/airtel-wikipedia-zero-text-trial/>".
* We got great *news coverage* of the Wikipedia via Text pilot,
validating the importance of text messaging as a channel to reach
the many mobile users whose older phones do not support mobile
internet access. We are collecting usage data and also qualitative
user feedback during the three-month pilot, so we can refine the
service. We intend to do multiple pilots this year, then plan for a
wider rollout next year, depending on the trial results.
* We launched Wikipedia Zero for the first time in *Bangladesh*. Our
partner Banglalink did a press release and is seeing a great
response in the market. Bangladesh brings our total number of
launched Wikipedia Zero markets to 20.
* Our carrier partners love the story of the *school kids from Joe
Slovo township in South Africa*, documented beautifully by Victor
Grigas, WMF Storyteller, in the two-minute video released this month
(see also general "Highlights" section). Orange, our
first Wikipedia Zero partner, is particularly proud because the kids
heard about free access to Wikipedia in Orange Uganda and Kenya.
Hearing the value of free access to Wikipedia straight from the kids
should inspire new partners to support our mission.
=== Wikipedia Education Program ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:English_Wikipedia_plagiarism_study_-_November_2013_metrics_meeting.pdf?page=5>
Slides from a presentation about the Education Program's plagiarism study
Global
* The Wikipedia Education Program team has begun working with
developer Andrew Russell Green on fixing bugs and usability problems
in the *MediaWiki extension for course pages
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Education_Program>*. Several
vexing bugs have been patched, and some small but much-requested
features have been developed. We're now turning to planning out the
longer term roadmap for our course page technology.
United States/Canada Program
* The US and Canada Education Program has begun its transition from
being led by the Wikimedia Foundation staff to the volunteers and
new staff of the *new nonprofit, the Wiki Education Foundation*. The
program should be completely coordinated by the Wiki Education
Foundation by the end of November.
* *More than 1,200 new student editors* on English Wikipedia created
user accounts this semester and enrolled in their classes on the
education extension. Many of them spent October completing the
online student training
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Training/For_students> before
creating sandboxes and beginning to edit in the article namespace.
Arab World Program
* Arab World Education Program Manager Tighe Flanagan traveled to
Cairo to support the *end of term celebration conference hosted by
Ain Shams University*. The conference was attended by more than 50
students and professors who participated in the third term of the
Wikipedia Education Program in Egypt. Tighe also met with professors
and administrators at Ain Shams Al-Alsun (Languages) Faculty, Ain
Shams Arts Faculty and Cairo University, to get feedback from the
past semester and set goals for the upcoming term.
* Tighe represented the Wikipedia Education Program at the 2013 *World
Innovation Summit for Education* in Doha, from October 29–31. This
annual conference brought together more than 1,000 education
professionals to present, discuss, and debate the future of
education. This event was part of a larger regional visit to Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.
* Meetings were also held with the *Qatar Computer Research Institute
(QCRI) and Qatar University* to discuss the potential for the
expansion of the Wikipedia Education Program in Qatar. QCRI is eager
to support the initiative, and formal proposals will be sent to
initiate the process. Hamid Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar,
is also interested in the program, although they were not able to
attend any meetings.
Communications
* Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager LiAnna Davis and
Communications Contractor Sage Ross put together draft text for a
*completely redone version of the /Welcome to Wikipedia/ brochure*
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_(Bookshelf)/2013_edition/draft>
for newcomers, now titled /Contributing to Wikipedia/. They are
currently seeking community feedback and refining the text, while
designer David Peters has begun developing the layout of the new
brochure. The former "Welcome to Wikipedia" brochure ranks among the
most widely distributed learning materials for newcomers to Wikipedia.
* Following the research on *plagiarism*
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_program/Research/Plagiarism>
completed last month, Communications Contractor Sage Ross created a
new video
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Wikipedia:Training/For_students/Copyright_and_plagiarism>
to explain to student editors the ins and outs of plagiarism and
close paraphrasing on Wikipedia.
* Two newsletters:
o 1 October
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program/News/1_October_2013>
o 15 October
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program/News/15_October_2013>
== Human Resources ==
The primary October activities for HR included ongoing support of *three
executive searches* (ED, VP of Engineering, Chief Communications
Officer), organizing a 3-day off-site *group facilitation training*,
researching and testing of a *new ergonomic program*, coordinating
initial work on *role calibration* (levels of jobs throughout WMF and
what these levels look like between departments), and kicking off the
prep work and renewals for the annual *US benefits open enrollment*
(more to come in December). HR also helped the new WMF Aliens *expat
group* with their first (and fabulous!) pot-luck. We are also in the
middle of conducting our annual *employee engagement survey*, as well as
an ongoing *search for a new Manager of Recruiting*.
=== Staff Changes ===
New Requisitions Filled
* Caitlin Cogdill, Fundraising Program Associate (Fundraiser)
* Gergő Tisza, Software Engineer (Engineering)
* Caitlin Virtue, Development Outreach Manager (Fundraiser)
Conversion
* Christian Aistleitner, Systems Engineer (Engineering)
* Dan Garry, Product Manager – Platform (Engineering)
New Interns
* Edward Galvez (Programs)
* Yuan Li (Programs)
* Angelica Tavella (IT)
* Gina Vasyanina (IT)
New Contractors
* Andrew Green (Engineering)
* Kunal Mehta (Engineering)
* Moriel Schottlender (Engineering)
* Rummana Yasmeen (Engineering)
Contracts Extended
* Steven Bernardin (Engineering)
* Emily Blanchard (Human Resources)
* Arlo Breault (Engineering)
* David Chan (Engineering)
* Dan DeJarnatt (Human Resources)
* Michelle Grover (Engineering)
* Oliver Keyes (Engineering)
* Andre Klapper (Engineering)
* Niklas Laxström (Engineering)
* Erica Litrenta (Engineering)
* Heather McAndrew (Human Resources)
* Matthias Mullie (Engineering)
* Marc Ordinas (Engineering)
* Sherry Snyder (Engineering)
Departure
* Jay Walsh
Contracts Ended
* Henrique Andrade^[1]
* Oona Castro^[1]
* Celio Costa^[1]
* Faris El-Gwely
* Jan Gerber
* Joanie Hjulmand
* Kristan Johnson
* Kirsten Menger-Anderson
* Sarah Mitroff
* Rebecca Neumann
* Sophie Österberg
* Rodrigo Padula^[1]
1. ↑ ^/*a*/ ^/*b*/ ^/*c*/
^/*d*/ These changes
stem from the November launch of the Brazil 'partnership grant' from
WMF, funding Ação Educativa (a Brazilian education non-profit) to
support Wikimedia communities and related activities in Brazil.
Oona, Henrique and the rest of the current Brazil team (Celio and
Rodrigo) are joining Ação Educativa as part of this grant,
increasing the October attrition number by three.
New Postings
* Chief Communications Officer
* Recruiting manager
* Software Engineer Mobile
* Sr. Data Engineer Analytics
=== Statistics ===
Total Requisitions Filled
October Actual: 153
October Total Plan: 179
October Filled: 5, Month Attrition: 4,
YTD Filled: 20, YTD Attrition: 12
Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end
40
=== Department Updates ===
Real-time feed for HR updates
http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or https://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
== Finance and Administration ==
* Completed a review of the WMF bond fund with Rockefeller & Company.
As of September 30, 2013, WMF has $13.5 million in this fund with a
current yield of 2.67% and estimated annual income of $359,967.
* Garfield is beginning a conversation with potential investment
advisors for the Long Term Reserve Fund that is under consideration.
One of the criteria that are current being looked at is capabilities
in providing a Socially Responsible portfolio.
* Garfield is working with our insurance brokers on the renewals of
the WMF insurance policies.
== Legal, Community Advocacy, and Communications Department ==
=== LCA Report, October 2013 ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg>
The Community logo
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_November_Metrics_Meeting_Photo_27.jpg>
Yana Welinder presenting about the upcoming Trademark Policy Update
It has been a big month for community consultations by LCA, with 4
simultaneous consultations occurring during October. One of the most
active discussions occurred in the community consultation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation>
about the trademark
registration of the Community logo
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg>
as a collective membership
mark to allow community members to use the mark without a trademark
license while preventing abuse of the mark by others.
==== Contract Metrics ====
* Submitted : 37
* Completed : 35
==== Trademark Metrics ====
* Submitted : 10
* Approved : 2
* Pending : 8
==== Domains Obtained ====
* vikipedi.com.tr
* vikipedia.com.tr
==== Coming & Going ====
No new arrivals or departures for LCA in October 2013.
==== Other Activities ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metrics_Slides_November_7.pdf?page=3>
Presentation slides about the Trademark Policy update (image
attributions
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Metrics_Slides_November_7.pdf&page=8>)
* LCA is finishing up a *community consultation on our Trademark
Policy and practices
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Trademark_practices_discussion>*
and is preparing to launch a new Trademark Policy draft for a two
month community consultation period.
* The *community consultation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy>* for the
*Privacy Policy draft
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy>* continued into its
second month (out of a 4.5 month-long period). LCA continues to edit
the draft in response to community feedback and thanks the community
for its helpful and thoughtful feedback.
* The *community consultation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy>*
for the *Access
to Nonpublic Information Policy draft
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy>*
also continued into
its second month (out of a 4.5 month-long period). The discussion
was particularly active in October, with many serious concerns
raised by community members. LCA has posed a question to the
community about whether such a policy is still in line with the
movement’s needs and whether it should be retained.
* LCA participated in two *legal design workshops* at Stanford
Institute of Design and the Embassy Network to visualize the new
trademark policy draft, as described in a blog post: "Designing a
user-friendly trademark policy for some of the world’s most
recognizable marks
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/29/designing-a-user-friendly-trademark-policy/>".
* Yana gave a *talk about Wikimedia at Yale* ISP, as described in a
blog post: "Speaking about free knowledge and the law at Yale ISP
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/17/speaking-about-free-knowledge-at-yale-isp/>".
* LCA continues to coordinate closely with engineering on socializing
the *VisualEditor product deployment* and is further engaged in
discussing best practices for rolling out change.
* LCA worked with the *Wikipedia Zero* team on implementation of the
partnership with Airtel.
* Luis discussed open licensing, along with a panel from Creative
Commons, Public Library of Science, and University of California, at
an *Open Access Un/Conference at San Jose State
<http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/oa-un-conference/2013_Program>*.
* Creative Commons announced the conclusion
<http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2013-November/007489.html>
of the *Creative Commons 4.0 drafting* process. LCA participated in
this process throughout, has begun analyzing the final license, and
congratulates CC on the completion of a successful process.
* LCA analyzed *licensing questions for the Multimedia team*,
including copyright license questions for the Media Viewer
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer>, open
source questions related to our video player, and patent questions
around the recent Mozilla-Cisco H264 announcement.
=== Communications Report, October 2013 ===
The Communications team has been learning to function well without Jay
Walsh at the helm. We were treated to a very busy month with numerous
high-profile storylines converging to keep us occupied. The sockpuppetry
and paid advocacy editing investigation dominated the month. There were
also a number of reports following the MIT Technology Review story “The
Decline of Wikipedia,” and a flurry of press around U.S. Senator Rand
Paul, who reportedly used Wikipedia content in a speech without proper
attribution.
The Wikimedia Foundation is recruiting a Chief Communications Officer to
succeed Jay. The recruitment effort kicked off in late October and will
continue through November into the middle of December. Please share the
announcement with your networks and help us find good candidates:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/31/wikimedia-foundation-chief-communications-officer-search/
==== Major announcements ====
*Statement from Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia
Foundation, in response to paid advocacy editing and sockpuppetry
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Sue_Gardner_statement_paid_advocacy_editing>*
(21 October 2013)
Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner denounces paid
editing for promotional purposes, or paid advocacy editing, which she
describes as a "black hat" practice that violates Wikipedia’s core
principles.
*Airtel joins Wikipedia Zero partnership with pilot in Kenya
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Airtel_joins_Wikipedia_Zero_partnership_with_pilot_in_Kenya>*
(24 October 2013)
Airtel is partnering with the Wikimedia Foundation to bring free access
to Wikipedia to 70 million people in 17 countries. The partnership also
introduces a pilot initiative to provide free access to Wikipedia via
text messages (SMS and USSD).
==== Major storylines in October ====
/(For a detailed list of press clips about Wikipedia and the
Wikimedia Foundation in October, see the list on Meta-wiki here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee/Press_clippings#October>./)
UCSF Medical School incorporates editing Wikipedia for class (late
September, early October)
The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical School
announced that it will offer an medical elective course that will assign
editing Wikipedia as part of the curriculum for the class. UCSF claims
to be the first medical school in the United States to do so.
New York Times - Editing Wikipedia Pages for Med School Credit
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/business/media/editing-wikipedia-pages-for-med-school-credit.html>
WebProNews - Doctors Decide They Need to Be the Ones Editing Medical
Wikipedia Articles
<http://www.webpronews.com/doctors-decide-they-need-to-be-the-ones-editing-medical-wikipedia-articles-2013-10>
Nonprofit Quarterly - Medical Students Offered Course Credit for
Editing Wikipedia
<http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/23010-medical-students-offered-course-credit-for-editing-wikipedia.html>
Sockpuppetry and paid advocacy editing investigation (all of October)
On October 8, the technology news site Daily Dot published a story by
Simon Owens that chronicled an investigation by English Wikipedia
editors. It detailed allegations that sockpuppet accounts may have been
linked to a paid public relations firm working to create and manage
Wikipedia articles on behalf of corporations and other organizations. As
the story developed, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner
released a statement condemning sockpuppetry and paid advocacy editing
as “black hat” practices. The story resulted a couple hundred articles
in many languages.
* Sue Gardner’s statement on the Wikimedia Blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/21/sue-gardner-response-paid-advocacy-editing/
* For an extensive list of press clippings on this topic, see the
Meta-wiki page here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee/Press_clippings/2013_Wiki-PR_coverage>
* Select coverage here:
The Daily Dot - The battle to destroy Wikipedia's biggest sockpuppet
army
<http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/wikipedia-sockpuppet-investigation-largest-network-history-wiki-pr/>
VICE - Is the PR Industry Buying Influence Over Wikipedia?
<http://www.vice.com/read/is-the-pr-industry-buying-influence-over-wikipedia>
Wall Street Journal - Wikipedia Probes Suspicious Promotional
Articles
<http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/10/21/wikipedia-probes-suspicious-promotional-articles/?mod=WSJBlog>
PRWeek - New Wikipedia editing furore provokes CIPR ire
<http://www.prweek.com/article/1217351/new-wikipedia-editing-furore-provokes-cipr-ire>
The reported “decline” of Wikipedia (mid and late October)
The MIT Technology Review published an extensive story, “The Decline of
Wikipedia,” which examined the declining active editor trend across
Wikipedias and highlighted some of the work the Wikimedia Foundation was
doing to try to reverse the declining numbers. Though the story was
well-written and thoroughly researched, subsequent coverage in other
media outlets played up the sensational title and often didn’t carefully
represent the issue in its historical context. One article from November
in Newsweek tried to take a more balanced view and showcased various
examples of initiatives to retain new editors, particularly women.
MIT Technology Review - The Decline of Wikipedia
<http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/>
The Atlantic - 90% of Wikipedia's Editors Are Male—Here's What
They're Doing About It
<http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/90-of-wikipedias-editors-are-male-heres-what-theyre-doing-about-it/280882/>
Business Insider - Lots Of Internet Industry People Are Suddenly
Worried About The Future Of Wikipedia
<http://www.businessinsider.com/lots-of-internet-industry-people-are-suddenly-worried-about-the-future-of-wikipedia-2013-10>
Newsweek - Wikipedia Wobbles But Doesn't Fall (Citation Needed)
<http://www.newsweek.com/wikipedia-wobbles-doesnt-fall-citation-needed-1536>
U.S. Senator Rand Paul reportedly copies Wikipedia entries without
proper attribution (late October and early November)
MSNBC’s news show host Rachel Maddow accused conservative U.S.
politician and 2016 presidential hopeful Rand Paul of plagiarizing
portions of a speech he gave from the Wikipedia article on Gattaca, a
sci-fi movie from the late 1990s. Following her segment, numerous other
outlets discovered plagiarizing in Senator Paul’s speeches and writing.
The scandal expanded so far, there has been talk of the Senator not
running for president in 2016.
New York Times - Senator Rand Paul Is Accused of Plagiarizing His
Lines From Wikipedia
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/us/politics/senator-rand-paul-is-accused-of-plagiarizing-his-lines-from-wikipedia.html>
Buzzfeed - Rand Paul Has Given Speeches Plagiarized From Wikipedia
Before
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/rand-paul-has-given-speeches-plagarized-from-wikipedia-befor>
MSNBC - More Wikipedia copying in Rand Paul speeches
<http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/more-wikipedia-copying-in-rand-paul-speeches-58387523656>
==== Other worthwhile reads ====
Wikipedia’s Economic Value <http://infojustice.org/archives/30858> |
Infojustice | October 3
Wikipedia pilots articles-via-SMS service aimed at Africans
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24662267> | BBC | October 25
Wikipedia China Becomes Front Line for Views on Language and Culture
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/technology/wikipedia-china-becomes-front-line-for-views-on-language-and-culture.html>
| New York Times | October 27
==== Wikimedia Blog posts ====
Blog.wikimedia.org published 33 posts in October 2013.
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/> Six posts were multilingual
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/>, including Arabic,
German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. Some highlights from the blog:
* *Scientific multimedia files get a second life on Wikipedia
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/21/scientific-multimedia-files-get-a-second-life-on-wikipedia/>
| October 21, 2013*
* *As Arab countries participate in Wiki Loves Monuments for the first
time, stakes are especially high in Syria
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/24/syria-loves-monuments/> |
October 24, 2013*
* *Airtel Wikipedia Zero partnership to pilot Wikipedia via text
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/24/airtel-wikipedia-zero-text-trial/>
| October 24, 2013*
* *Designing a user-friendly trademark policy for some of the world’s
most recognizable marks
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/29/designing-a-user-friendly-trademark-policy/>
| October 29, 2013*
==== Media Contact ====
Media contact through October 2013: wmf:Press room/Media Contact#October
2013 <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#October_2013>
==== Wikipedia Signpost ====
For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the
community-edited newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” for October 2013:
* Volume 9, Issue 39
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-10-02>,
02 October 2013
* Volume 9, Issue 40
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-10-09>,
09 October 2013
* Volume 9, Issue 41
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-10-16>,
16 October 2013
* Volume 9, Issue 42
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-10-23>,
23 October 2013
* Volume 9, Issue 43
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-10-30>,
30 October 2013
== Visitors and Guests ==
Visitors and guests to the WMF office in October 2013:
1. Sameer Verma (SF State University)
2. Arash Ghassemi (Union Bank)
3. Obie Howe (Adaptive)
4. Kenji Nasahashi (Internet Archive)
5. Lani Van Dusen (FCG Global)
6. David Spach (FCG Global)
7. Alina Mierlus (Mozilla)
8. Taylor Keep (VITAL)
9. Stefan Priebsch (thephp.cc)
10. Sebastian Bergmann (thephp.cc)
11. Danielle W. (Fluxx)
12. Evan Powell (Stack Storm)
13. Dimitri Zimine (Stack Storm)
14. Val Aurora (TAI)
15. Darla Ling (Paylocity)
16. Peter Dwyer (Liturgical Press)
17. Rian Wanstreet (Access Now)
18. Brett Solomon (Access Now)
19. Kimberly Smith (Morningside Translations)
20. Ana Almeyda-Cohen (Morningside Translations)
21. Dara Ling (Paylocity)
22. Ta-Tanisha Henry (SFIPCA)
23. J. Jaffe (W3C)
24. Prakash Advani (Canonical)
25. Toni Maraviglia (Eneza)
26. John Nichols (Nation)
27. Bob McChesea (Nation)
28. Craig Aarc (Free Press)
29. Doug Hessel (Johnson & Dugan)
30. Cathy Christie-Patton (Johnson & Dugan)
31. Jove Oliver (Minassian Media)
32. Arzhel Younsi (Mozilla France)
33. Josie Ramos (PRN)
34. Kaylah Sterling (acupuncturist)
35. Ellen Pao (Reddit)
36. Jason Ricci (Fluxx Labs)
37. Graham Ulvestad (Fluxx Labs)
38. Philip Solis (Target CW)
39. Cindy Hawley (Arthur J. Gallagher)
40. Patrick Chew (Change.org)
41. Ariana Younai (LinkedIn)
42. Holly Procter (LinkedIn)
43. Chris Kohler (World Pay)
44. Kevin Hennessy (World Pay)
45. Mike Schwartz (Wikia)
46. Owen Davis (Wikia)
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
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