Re: [Foundation-l] (fwd) Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Everton Zanella Alvarenga everton...@gmail.com wrote: 2010/5/11 Amory Meltzer amorymelt...@gmail.com: So if I could distill this announcement, it would be $1.2M to liaison with profs to essentially grade public policy articles so that our unpaid volunteers can correct errors, add sources, and fix the proverbial 'awk' in the margins - is that correct? Wikipedia is written by hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world, and that won't change with this project. The Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will recruit Wikipedia volunteers to work with public policy professors and students to identify topic areas for improvement, and work to make them better. Some of that work will take the form of classroom assignments, and pilot activities will begin during the 2010 fall academic semester Hummm, I don't know how this money will be used, but this can be a really good project. As stated above, Wikipedia will continue to be written by volunteers, then I don't think there wil be any liaison with professor. But also also want know details how it'lll be done. I really hope it can extends to other languages and I'll be happy to follow details of this project and talk to the organizers. I remember when Kul visited Brazil, I talked to him the importanc...e, in my opinion, of approaching specialists for estimulating them to write on Wikipedia and participate on other Wikimedia projects. It is great to have organizational support from the Foundation for this type of collaboration. There are international public policy projects and organizations that do collaborative work and would definitely be ripe areas for focus as a source of volunteer editors, a resource for content, and a topic for articles. The public policy area is one that can be taken across different language wikis by volunteers if there is there is an interest from the communities. Sydney Poore (FloNight) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] (fwd) Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia
Hi all - sharing our second press release of the day, re: the public policy initiative. Also shared via the WikimediaAnnounce-l list! Thanks, jay walsh Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia $1.2 million grant from the Stanton Foundation to support first initiative of its kind for Wikipedia SAN FRANCISCO May 11, 2010 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Wikipedia, today announced a new project designed to improve the quality of public policy-related articles on Wikipedia. It is the first time the Wikimedia Foundation has launched a project designed to systematically increase the quality of articles in a particular topic area. The project will be funded via a $1.2 million grant from the US-based Stanton Foundation, a long-time funding partner of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Stanton Foundation is the beneficiary foundation created in the name of the US broadcasting industry leader and media innovator, Frank Stanton. Dr. Stanton's commitment to civic education and freedom of speech carries on through his philanthropic legacy, the Stanton Foundation. Wikipedia is a key informational resource for hundreds of millions of people, said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Stanton Foundation wants to increase people's understanding of public policy-related issues, and supporting quality on Wikipedia is a great way to accomplish that goal. Meanwhile, the Wikimedia Foundation is keen to experiment with techniques for encouraging subject-matter experts to work alongside our volunteers to improve quality. This funding will enable us to do that, and I am --as always-- very grateful to the Stanton Foundation for its support. Wikipedia is written by hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world, and that won't change with this project. The Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will recruit Wikipedia volunteers to work with public policy professors and students to identify topic areas for improvement, and work to make them better. Some of that work will take the form of classroom assignments, and pilot activities will begin during the 2010 fall academic semester. The project will continue through summer 2011. I am excited to begin this work, said Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public Outreach at the Wikimedia Foundation. There have already been professors around the world who assign their students to rewrite and improve Wikipedia articles: it's a proven model, and it benefits everyone. My hope is that this project will enable us to experiment and document best practices, so that academics and educational institutions worldwide can partner with us in helping Wikipedia to continually improve in quality and content. About the Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 370 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web property worldwide (March 2010). Available in more than 270 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 15 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. Press inquiries Jay Walsh WikimediaFoundation.org blog.wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609 jwa...@wikimedia.org (To UNSUBSCRIBE from this mailing list, please reply to this note with 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the subject line) ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] (fwd) Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia
It would be nice if public policy documents were systematically archived onto Commons and Wikisource as part of this initiative. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] (fwd) Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:09 PM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: It would be nice if public policy documents were systematically archived onto Commons and Wikisource as part of this initiative. Yes! Likewise for legal and policy documents in all geographies -- we should make every effort for this project to be a global one, even though its initial impetus is from an organization with expertise and focus on US policy. SJ -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] (fwd) Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 20:05, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: Wikipedia is written by hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world, and that won't change with this project. The Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will recruit Wikipedia volunteers to work with public policy professors and students to identify topic areas for improvement, and work to make them better. Some of that work will take the form of classroom assignments, and pilot activities will begin during the 2010 fall academic semester. The project will continue through summer 2011. So if I could distill this announcement, it would be $1.2M to liaison with profs to essentially grade public policy articles so that our unpaid volunteers can correct errors, add sources, and fix the proverbial 'awk' in the margins - is that correct? ~Amory ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] (fwd) Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia
2010/5/11 Amory Meltzer amorymelt...@gmail.com: So if I could distill this announcement, it would be $1.2M to liaison with profs to essentially grade public policy articles so that our unpaid volunteers can correct errors, add sources, and fix the proverbial 'awk' in the margins - is that correct? Wikipedia is written by hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world, and that won't change with this project. The Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will recruit Wikipedia volunteers to work with public policy professors and students to identify topic areas for improvement, and work to make them better. Some of that work will take the form of classroom assignments, and pilot activities will begin during the 2010 fall academic semester Hummm, I don't know how this money will be used, but this can be a really good project. As stated above, Wikipedia will continue to be written by volunteers, then I don't think there wil be any liaison with professor. But also also want know details how it'lll be done. I really hope it can extends to other languages and I'll be happy to follow details of this project and talk to the organizers. I remember when Kul visited Brazil, I talked to him the importanc...e, in my opinion, of approaching specialists for estimulating them to write on Wikipedia and participate on other Wikimedia projects. Sometimes I really feel ignorance is a cause for not having more specialists participating of Wikimedia projects. I remember how much waste of time was *some* of my undergraduate studies with professors just copying books at blackboard, defining some important concepts for a physics course (even at high school level!), but all this information is lost, in the sense it could be archieve and accessible on a Wikipedia page, for example. Also, I have some Brazilian scientist friends who seems to contribute more to English Wikipedia than to the Portuguese version, in a sense much more needed because of the lack of open educatinal resources in Portuguese (I'm using a common jargon, I prefer the work free as opposet to open). I think it's really difficult to a English speaker to understand the difference of educational content in English and Portuguese (for sure also in other less spoken languages). Best wishes, Tom ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
