[WikiEN-l] Coming soon to a wiki near you: Meet a Wikipedian or staff!

2012-07-27 Thread Rob Schnautz 

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Beginning Wednesday (August 1st), two-way communication between English 
Wikipedia editors and Wikipedia Education Program staff in the San Francisco 
office will no longer need to be directed through a middle-man anymore for 
translation. I encourage anyone of either party needing to communicate to 
the other party to check out the new Google Translate option that translates 
between WMFese English and Wikipedian English.


I’d like to thank everyone I’ve worked with and around who has helped make 
this one of the most enjoyable jobs I’ve ever worked. I’ve had a wonderful 
time working with the amazing folks at the Foundation on the United States, 
Canada, and India Education Programs, as well as with the other community 
liaisons. I’ve never had the opportunity to work in such a cheerful and 
supportive environment as this. I wish all of you the best as you fill in 
any gaps I leave behind—I know you’ve got some big challenges ahead of you 
the next several months.


English Wikipedians, you haven’t seen the last of me yet! [[:en:User:Bob the 
Wikipedian]] is about to come out of hibernation. As for the IRC clan, it 
was great getting to know you, and I sure hope this won’t be the last 
opportunity I get to interact with most of you. You may now resume normal 
chat (if there’s such a thing) knowing that the only staff watching you 
during my former office hours is Ironholds. (Please be gentle with him on 
occasion, though!)


It’s been very exciting to see the Wikipedia Education Program from a staff 
perspective and to relay messages to the community. Likewise, it was 
interesting to see how the editing community felt about the Wikipedia 
Education Program, and to share those feelings with my manager and 
coworkers—that’s an experience they don’t teach you in computer science 
courses! From questions and comments to even the biggest complaints—I’ve 
enjoyed providing my services to you all. This job has opened my eyes to a 
whole new career path for me to explore in online community liaising.


I think any of you Wikipedia editors and staff will agree with me that 
having a roof over one’s head and a working Internet connection are two of 
the most valuable privileges life has to offer, so here’s a link to my 
résumé in the event someone out there has (or knows of) an opening for which 
they’d like to consider me: http://www.massmirror.com/50136cb944818


If you do plan on responding to this email, please make sure you include my 
permanent email address bobthewikiped...@gmail.com —thanks!


Adios, y’all!

Rob Schnautz
Online Communications Contractor
Global Development
Wikimedia Foundation
Evansville, Indiana, U.S.

P.S. I don’t have any plans at the moment to quit my volunteer work as 
regional ambassador for the Wikipedia Education Program to Wisconsin, 
Michigan, and Kentucky. So Jami, and all my fellow volunteers, see you on 
the other side!



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Re: [WikiEN-l] Office hour: Wikipedia Education Program

2012-06-21 Thread Rob Schnautz 
Just a reminder that this will be happening in a few minutes.

Rob

From: Rob Schnautz 
Subject: Office hour: Wikipedia Education Program

The Wikimedia Foundation staff for the Wikipedia Education Program (Frank 
Schulenburg, Annie Lin, LiAnna Davis, Jami Mathewson, and I) will be hosting a 
scheduled public office hour in the #wikimedia-office IRC channel.

Date: Thursday, 21 June 2012
Time: 16:00 – 17:00 UTC (noon-1 p.m. EDT, 9-10 a.m. PDT) (click here for local 
time)
Topic: Wikipedia Education Program

This will be a general question and answer session. We have several exciting 
new developments coming up: a transition from staff-led programs to 
volunteer-led programs in North America, and a new piece of software for 
Wikipedia that will help us manage the program better. We also are happy to 
answer general questions you may have about the program.

If you have questions or concerns about the programs, or are simply curious, 
this is a great opportunity to gain better insight into these programs. If you 
are unable to attend, a link to the chat log will be posted at 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours for public viewing following 
the session.

Details on how to join the session are included below. We look forward to 
chatting with you!

Rob Schnautz
Online Communications Contractor
Global Development
Wikimedia Foundation
---
If you haven't used IRC before, it may be easiest to use a web client; this 
means you don't have to install any software on your computer. Just click here 
to join in, and then choose a username when prompted: 
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikimedia-office You may be prompted to 
click through a security warning. It's fine.
For more information about IRC software you can install on your computer, go to 
the Wikipedia entry on IRC or the Meta page on Wikimedia IRC. If using 
dedicated software, connect to the channel #wikimedia-officeconnect on the 
freenode network.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Office hour: Wikipedia Education Program

2012-06-18 Thread Rob Schnautz 
Just a reminder about the office hours coming up on Thursday this week. The 
topic for this session has been expanded to include all Foundation-run 
Wikipedia Education Program initiatives, which take place in the U.S., Canada, 
Brazil, Egypt, and India.

Like all IRC office hours, the format will be an open question-and-answer 
session, so come with questions, and we’ll come with answers! Questions do not 
have to be limited to the upcoming changes (e.g. transition away from staff-led 
programs in North America, rollout of new software on Wikipedia to help support 
the program)—we’d be happy to answer general questions you have about the 
program as well.

Please refer to the information at the bottom of this email for instructions on 
how to join.

Thank you,

Rob Schnautz
Online Communications Contractor
Global Development
Wikimedia Foundation


From: Rob Schnautz 
Sent: Tuesday, 12 June 2012 2:42 PM
To: Wikipedia Ambassadors ; English Wikipedia ; Wikimedia 
Cc: Frank Schulenburg ; Annie L. Lin ; LiAnna Davis ; Jami Mathewson 
Subject: Office hour: Wikipedia Education Programs in Canada and U.S.

In anticipation of some major changes that are coming up in the U.S. and Canada 
Education Programs, the Wikimedia Foundation staff for the Wikipedia Education 
Program (Frank Schulenburg, Annie Lin, LiAnna Davis, Jami Mathewson, and I) 
will be hosting a scheduled public office hour in the #wikimedia-office IRC 
channel.

Date: Thursday, 21 June 2012
Time: 16:00 – 17:00 UTC (noon-1 p.m. EDT, 9-10 a.m. PDT) (click here for local 
time)

If you have questions or concerns about the programs, or are simply curious, 
this is a great opportunity to gain better insight into these programs. If you 
are unable to attend, a link to the chat log will be posted at 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours for public viewing following 
the session.

Details on how to join the session are included below. We look forward to 
chatting with you!

Rob Schnautz
Online Communications Contractor
Global Development
Wikimedia Foundation

---
If you haven't used IRC before, it may be easiest to use a web client; this 
means you don't have to install any software on your computer. Just click here 
to join in, and then choose a username when prompted: 
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikimedia-office You may be prompted to 
click through a security warning. It's fine.
For more information about IRC software you can install on your computer, go to 
the Wikipedia entry on IRC or the Meta page on Wikimedia IRC. If using 
dedicated software, connect to the channel #wikimedia-officeconnect on the 
freenode network.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit, _The Atlantic_

2012-05-16 Thread Rob Schnautz 

This discussion has flowed onto Wikipedia's Administrator's Noticeboard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AN#False_articles_created_for_the_good_of_education

Rob

-Original Message- 
From: Charles Matthews

Sent: Wednesday, 16 May 2012 1:34 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught 
by Reddit, _The Atlantic_


On 16 May 2012 16:49, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote:


Indeed. Why *are* the skeptical geeks now on Reddit and not Wikipedia?


And why haven't they taken those who generalise broadly from a single
example with them?

Charles

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[WikiEN-l] Invitation to help beta-test the MediaWiki 1.19 extension for the Wikipedia Education Program

2012-03-06 Thread Rob Schnautz 
The MediaWiki developers have been working hard to integrate certain elements 
of the Wikipedia Education Program into MediaWiki. If anyone is interested in 
helping beta-test the new extension, click (or copy and paste) the link below 
to get started:

http://education.wmflabs.org/index.php/MW_1.18:Community_portal/Welcome,_beta_testers!

Please note that this site does not will not represent official Wikipedia 
Education Program data. Feel free to alter the data on the wiki however you 
wish; the more testing you do, the better!

Thanks,

Rob Schnautz
Online Communications Contractor
Global Development
Wikimedia Foundation

11450 Northridge Dr
Evansville IN 47720
c. 812.746.8347
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation to help beta-test the MediaWiki 1.19 extension for the Wikipedia Education Program

2012-03-06 Thread Rob Schnautz 
No, the Education Program admin refers to a volunteer administrator of the 
program, such as a regional or national ambassador. The title varies 
depending on what part of the world they operate in, so simply calling them 
Education Program regional ambassador doesn't quite line up on some 
individuals. I'm personally not fond of the admin nomenclature myself, as 
it does (as you point out) confuse the individual with sysops. We're open to 
other ideas for naming the user access level if you have any.


The users that are assigned this user access level will inherit privileges 
from the ep-instructor, ep-campus-ambassador, and ep-online-ambassador, and 
will be able to administer those user access levels. Other than that, it's a 
typical autoconfirmed user.


Thanks,
Rob

-Original Message- 
From: Anirudh Bhati

Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2012 2:45 AM
To: English Wikipedia
Cc: mediawik...@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation to help beta-test the MediaWiki 1.19 
extension for the Wikipedia Education Program


Thanks for the post, Rob.  Will an Education Program admin have the same
access levels as a sysop on the English Wikipedia?

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 1:30 AM, Rob Schnautz rschna...@wikimedia.orgwrote:


The MediaWiki developers have been working hard to integrate certain
elements of the Wikipedia Education Program into MediaWiki. If anyone is
interested in helping beta-test the new extension, click (or copy and
paste) the link below to get started:


http://education.wmflabs.org/index.php/MW_1.18:Community_portal/Welcome,_beta_testers
!

Please note that this site does not will not represent official Wikipedia
Education Program data. Feel free to alter the data on the wiki however 
you

wish; the more testing you do, the better!

Thanks,

Rob Schnautz
Online Communications Contractor
Global Development
Wikimedia Foundation

11450 Northridge Dr
Evansville IN 47720
c. 812.746.8347
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Re: [WikiEN-l] So ...

2011-10-11 Thread Rob Schnautz 
If you're into mythology/cryptozoology, I did some translation from Old
Norse and Old Icelandic this summer to put together what is probably the
most complete syntheses (in any language) of [[Hafgufa]] and [[Lyngbakr]],
two legendary sea monsters.

Bob

On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 12:17 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.netwrote:

  ... written anything good on the encyclopedia lately?
 
 
  - d.

 Well, yes,

 I discovered the answer to the mystery of why Mao adopted Stalinism and
 put it into History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)

 A lot of people have wondered where he got those ideas. Turns out they
 came from History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik):
 Short Course which was adopted by the Comintern as official history in
 1938.

 This solution was developed by Hua-yu Li, of Oregon State University and
 published in his book, Mao and the Economic Stalinization of China,
 1948-1953, Rowman  Littlefield (February 17, 2006) (hardcover), pp. 266.
 ISBN 0742540537.

 The introduction is on the publisher's website at

 http://chapters.scarecrowpress.com/07/425/0742540545ch1.pdf

 So yes, progress is made

 Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Italian Wikipedia - probably best discussed on Foundation

2011-10-05 Thread Rob Schnautz 
facepalm Just kidding; thanks for the link. :)

Bob

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 12:59 PM, WereSpielChequers 
werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote:

 There are reams of postings on this in the Foundation mailing list.

 foundation-l mailing list
 foundatio...@lists.wikimedia.org
 https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

 May I suggest that anyone who wants to follow this one signs up to
 Foundation, if only for the current discussion? I'm not trying to squash
 discussion here, but if people do discuss it here without reading the posts
 by the Italians, by Sue and many others on  Foundation then I suspect a
 fair
 amount will be repetition and explanation of what has been said on
 Foundation.

 WereSpielChequers


 On 5 October 2011 18:48, Rob Schnautz bobthewikiped...@gmail.com wrote:

  Woah. I just checked it.wikipedia.org because it sounded like a
  hoax...it's
  real. Does the law apply to website providers or to those who contribute
 to
  the website? If it's the former, you're right; Wikipedia is in Florida.
 But
  if it's the latter, then Wikipedia is most certainly affected by the law.
 
  Unfortunate indeed.
 
  Bob
 
  On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:40 AM, Daniel R. Tobias d...@tobias.name
 wrote:
 
   There have been a bunch of items in my Twitter feed about how the
   Italian Wikipedia has shut down in response to a proposed repressive
   law regarding mandatory takedowns of allegedly defamatory online
   material in Italy.  I have some problems with such a move, as it sets
   a precedent of having a particular language edition of Wikipedia tied
   to an uncomfortable degree with the politics of one country just
   because that's the primary place the language is spoken.  It's always
   been true that the separate editions of Wikipedia are by language,
   not country.  The Chinese Wikipedia keeps operating despite the
   repressive censorship of China, and if that country chooses to block
   it, that's their problem.  English Wikipedia doesn't belong to
   England, or America, or any other English-speaking country, though
   the fact that the primary servers are in the USA does force it to
   comply to U.S. law.
  
   Unless there are servers in Italy, the Italian Wikipedia isn't
   compelled to follow any Italian law, though there could be
   consequences for any Italy-based participants if they don't,
   including the possibility of individuals there being held responsible
   for what they write or fail to take down, or possible mandatory
   blockage of the site in that country if they choose to go the Great
   Firewall route.
  
   I remember the German Wikipedia being affected at one point by a
   court injunction, but that only shut down a redirected .de domain,
   not the site itself as a subdomain of US-registered wikipedia.org.
  
  
   --
   == Dan ==
   Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
   Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
   Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
  
  
  
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Facepalm?

2011-10-04 Thread Rob Schnautz 
If ArbCom would be damaged by people opening [[WP:DICK]] labeling cases, it
certainly wouldn't be helped by people opening facepalming cases.

Be it namecalling or implication of rude gestures, these are both civil
issues and both need attention.

At the same time, I feel the {{facepalm}} template can be (as I often see)
used effectively without directing it at another individual, usually as in
oh I can't believe I just said/did that.

And re: the Star Trek stuff, I think the most credit we can give Star Trek
(if even this) is coining the phrase (if they in fact did). It's found
throughout common American culture predating Star Trek.

Bob

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 12:42 PM, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipe...@ntlworld.com
 wrote:



  -Original Message-
  From: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-
  boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Risker
  Sent: 04 October 2011 18:25
  To: English Wikipedia
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Facepalm?
 
 
  So perhaps a better focus of discussion would be how to deal with
  editors
  who are unable to or unwilling to understand project guidelines and
  policies. It seems that the primary use of this template is by editors
  expressing frustration at the inability, despite their best efforts, to
  address this issue.
 
  Risker/Anne

 But 'facepalming' them in (even legitimate) frustration at their evident
 obtuseness is, like calling someone a WP:DICK, unlikely to improve their
 behaviour, whilst it encourages people to use the same facepalm in
 situations where the recipient is a good faith editor, and the inference
 that they are being obtuse is unhelpful and uncivil/inflammatory.

 Anyway, templates are always poor substitutes for actual communication,
 particularly in situations where tempers are apt to fray, and
 miscommunications are more than likely.

 Scott


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Facepalm?

2011-10-03 Thread Rob Schnautz 
Usually when I facepalm it's because I have a moment, not someone
else...

I believe [[WP:DICK]] is a bigger issue than {{facepalm}} at the moment

Bob

On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.comwrote:

 On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Scott MacDonald
 doc.wikipe...@ntlworld.com wrote:

  Granted, removing uncivil templates won't magically increase patient and
  constructive discussion, but I do suspect we'd still nevertheless delete
  {{jackass}} or {{moron}}. If people are going to mock others, we
 shouldn't
  be giving them shortcuts to do so. The existence of the template serves
 to
  legitimise such dismissive discourse.

 Template:Jackass exists as a navigational template for the show.

 Carcharoth

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