Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[phoebe ayers]

On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:46 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:36 PM, phoebe ayers 
> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen <
> > daniel.mietc...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would
> >> benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.
> >>
> >> For instance,
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot
> >> is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author.
> >> It is currently being ported to Labs (
> >> https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot )
> >> to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other
> >> areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an
> >> ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?
> >>
> >
> > Yes! From a user perspective, that's definitely an area of need, and a
> > great example too. Personal note: I LOVE Citation Bot, and I hope it
> comes
> > back soon!
>
> It appears to be operating
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Citation_bot
>

Ah, thanks, I didn't check -- just saw the inactive note on the bot page.
Glad to see that it's operating; I was super sad when it went away as it
makes it so easy to cite recent journal articles.

Anyway, yes, a good example of a small tool that makes editing easier :)

-- phoebe


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[Marc A. Pelletier]

On 07/28/2013 11:46 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
> So chapters can offer to help porting tools like this to Labs and
> ongoing maintenance of these tools?
> Is there a list of such tools that have been identified as needing paid 
> support?

It's probably worth nothing that WMDE has, in fact, already earmarked
staff (and a budget) to do the migration aspect of this.  Silke Meyer (I
think) heads that effort.

On the other hand, there are a number of tools on which projects rely
that -- even if they do not need help migrating at this moment -- could
benefit from continued support.  Perhaps the current efforts by the WMDE
staff can be used as a model for how chapters can contribute on the
engineering aspects of the projects?  I'm sure they are gathering a
great deal of experience in how to do this thanks to the migration
efforts and the ongoing work on Wikidata.

-- Marc


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's have the courage to sit down and talk about VisualEditor

[Robert Rohde]

I don't speak German, but with the aid of Google Translate, I think
one can get a decent gist of the results.


Firstly, let me note that this German "Umfragen" process is structured
largely as a vote.  Some participants added short explanatory
statements, but it is not a discussion forum so one shouldn't expect
detailed explanations.

Participants were asked their opinion about how VE should be deployed
on dewiki.  The vote is still ongoing, but so far the results are:

22 individuals (4.4%) feel that VE should be deployed for anonymous
users as scheduled.

7 users (1.4%) feel that VE should stay at its present status, i.e.
deployed for registered users but not anons.

442 users (87.7%) feel that the VE deployment should be rolled back so
that it is only available to users who explicitly opt-in at this time.

33 users (6.5%) chose a fourth opinion, the meaning of which is
somewhat unclear to me using Google Translate, but which appears to
express the opinion that VE should continue to be active in the
interface but that it should be assigned a new button and not take
over the "edit" functions.


Some of the people voting for the fourth option also supported one of
the other three options as an alternative / supplemental preference.

Rather than continuing with the deployment to anons (scheduled for
tomorrow), it appears that most of the contributors in this poll would
prefer that VE be rolled back and only delivered as an opt-in process
at this time.

Among the users choosing to offer an explanatory statement, the most
common opinions offered in support of rollback (in no particular
order) were perceptions that:

VE is too buggy / error-prone.
VE is missing too many essential features.
The current performance of VE is too slow.
Various complaints about UI ("edit" section animation, button labels, etc.)
Creates more work than benefits.
Poor experience will deter rather than encourage new editors.
Not intuitive.


The overarching theme of the comments is that VE was perceived as too
immature/incomplete to justify any form of wide-scale deployment at
this time.  It should also be acknowledged that many participants
agreed with the idea of a visual editor, in principle, but felt that
the current implementation wasn't yet adequate.

-Robert Rohde


On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 5:43 PM, Bence Damokos  wrote:
> Can somebody summarize the concerns raised in that RfC?
>
> Best regards,
> Bence
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 2:36 AM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski > wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> there is a famous quote on courage by Winston Churchill, a British Prime
>> Minister, who once wisely said: "Courage is what it takes to stand up and
>> speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
>>
>> Over the weekend, more than 440 editors of the German Wikipedia took part
>> in an RfC-like process ("Umfragen") at > wiki/Wikipedia:Umfragen/**VisualEditor_Opt-in>
>> and voted against the activation of the VisualEditor for anonymous users,
>> asking the WMF to revert to an opt-in phase instead of the currently
>> existing opt-out.
>>
>> This is yet another signal coming from the community that there is
>> something very broken about the process in which VisualEditor is being
>> rolled out. Most of the criticism has been ignored so far, but on the other
>> hand, we haven't yet seen such an enormous community objection against the
>> VisualEditor anywhere.
>>
>> Let us therefore use this opportunity, and have the courage to sit down
>> and listen. Or, perhaps, in the wiki spirit, let's edit this quote, and let
>> us sit down and talk.
>>
>> And, together, let's learn a lesson from this, and correct the errors so
>> that they don't become mistakes.
>>
>>   Tomasz
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[John Vandenberg]

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:36 PM, phoebe ayers  wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen <
> daniel.mietc...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would
>> benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.
>>
>> For instance,
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot
>> is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author.
>> It is currently being ported to Labs (
>> https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot )
>> to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other
>> areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an
>> ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?
>>
>
> Yes! From a user perspective, that's definitely an area of need, and a
> great example too. Personal note: I LOVE Citation Bot, and I hope it comes
> back soon!

It appears to be operating

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Citation_bot

So chapters can offer to help porting tools like this to Labs and
ongoing maintenance of these tools?
Is there a list of such tools that have been identified as needing paid support?

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[phoebe ayers]

On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen <
daniel.mietc...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would
> benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.
>
> For instance,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot
> is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author.
> It is currently being ported to Labs (
> https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot )
> to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other
> areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an
> ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?
>

Yes! From a user perspective, that's definitely an area of need, and a
great example too. Personal note: I LOVE Citation Bot, and I hope it comes
back soon!

-- phoebe


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[Wikimedia-l] Questions for the WMF Board of Trustees?

[phoebe ayers]

Hi all,

Every year at Wikimania the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees hosts a
panel where they take questions from the audience on the work of the WMF
and the Board.

In past years the board has also taken questions via IRC. This year we'd
also like to provide the opportunity to leave questions on a wiki page
ahead of time:
http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Board_Q%26A

While there is only time to answer a few questions during the session
itself, hopefully this will be a good way of getting questions from
attendees as well as from those who can't make it. The board will also take
questions from the audience at Wikimania, as time permits.

Remember the Board doesn't deal directly with work on or problems on the
projects, and does not have a direct hand in how the WMF operates
day-to-day. Rather, the board thinks about the big picture, and gives
direction on strategy for the WMF. You can find out more about what the
board does (and does not do) here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_handbook

best,
phoebe

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[Daniel Mietchen]

I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would
benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.

For instance,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot
is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author.
It is currently being ported to Labs (
https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot )
to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other
areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an
ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?

Some bot owners manage to handle all this on their own, but having
support from a chapter for such things (on an opt-in basis) or for
feature requests from the wider community would probably be widely
appreciated.

Daniel



On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 5:41 AM, Craig Franklin
 wrote:
> Hi Erik (and whomever from WMDE),
>
> For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you
> offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for
> a chapter to take on?  I think that most chapters* would be willing to help
> out in the software development space if we got a bit of direction on how
> we could be the most useful.
>
> Cheers,
> Craig Franklin
>
> * Keeping in mind that my chapter probably wouldn't have the capacity to
> start anything in this space for at least another twelve months.
>
>
> On 27 July 2013 09:57, Erik Moeller  wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, rupert THURNER
>>  wrote:
>>
>> > If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other
>> > countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy.
>>
>> For my part, I'm happy to offer feedback to the FDC on plans related
>> to the development of engineering capacity in FDC-funded
>> organizations. I'm sure Wikimedia Germany, too, would be happy to
>> share its experiences growing the Wikidata development team. I'd love
>> to find ways to bootstrap more engineering capacity across the
>> movement, as so many of our shared challenges have a software
>> engineering component. If any folks on-list want to touch base on
>> these questions at Wikimania, drop me a note. :)
>>
>> Erik
>>
>> --
>> Erik Möller
>> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[phoebe ayers]

On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Erik Moeller  wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 8:41 PM, Craig Franklin
>  wrote:
> > For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you
> > offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type
> for
> > a chapter to take on?
>
> It's a great question, Craig. One idea that I think is worth kicking
> around is how we can partner together in increasing diversity in our
> developer, design & product community while working on important
> problems.
>

On this topic, one thing that was brought up in the Board elections
questions & answers was the (ongoing) need to triage feature requests by
the community, including especially requests for features from experienced
& admin users, and feature requests from the sister projects.

One of the ideas in the candidate answers was to focus more on building a
central place where feature requests (and cool existing tools) can be
shared between language editions and projects, and where feature ideas
could get refined outside of bugzilla & the lists; another idea was to
build a kind of technical committee to help collect and refine these ideas.
Then of course there is the actual technical work of addressing these
requests.

I don't know if working on this would fit in with what any of the chapters
are doing, but it does seem like a social/technical/community area that
could use some energy.

best,
-- phoebe


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's have the courage to sit down and talk about VisualEditor

[Bence Damokos]

Can somebody summarize the concerns raised in that RfC?

Best regards,
Bence


On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 2:36 AM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski  wrote:

> Hi,
> there is a famous quote on courage by Winston Churchill, a British Prime
> Minister, who once wisely said: "Courage is what it takes to stand up and
> speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
>
> Over the weekend, more than 440 editors of the German Wikipedia took part
> in an RfC-like process ("Umfragen") at  wiki/Wikipedia:Umfragen/**VisualEditor_Opt-in>
> and voted against the activation of the VisualEditor for anonymous users,
> asking the WMF to revert to an opt-in phase instead of the currently
> existing opt-out.
>
> This is yet another signal coming from the community that there is
> something very broken about the process in which VisualEditor is being
> rolled out. Most of the criticism has been ignored so far, but on the other
> hand, we haven't yet seen such an enormous community objection against the
> VisualEditor anywhere.
>
> Let us therefore use this opportunity, and have the courage to sit down
> and listen. Or, perhaps, in the wiki spirit, let's edit this quote, and let
> us sit down and talk.
>
> And, together, let's learn a lesson from this, and correct the errors so
> that they don't become mistakes.
>
>   Tomasz
>
> __**_
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> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org 
> Unsubscribe: 
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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[Wikimedia-l] Let's have the courage to sit down and talk about VisualEditor

[Tomasz W. Kozlowski]

Hi,
there is a famous quote on courage by Winston Churchill, a British Prime 
Minister, who once wisely said: "Courage is what it takes to stand up 
and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."


Over the weekend, more than 440 editors of the German Wikipedia took 
part in an RfC-like process ("Umfragen") at 
 
and voted against the activation of the VisualEditor for anonymous 
users, asking the WMF to revert to an opt-in phase instead of the 
currently existing opt-out.


This is yet another signal coming from the community that there is 
something very broken about the process in which VisualEditor is being 
rolled out. Most of the criticism has been ignored so far, but on the 
other hand, we haven't yet seen such an enormous community objection 
against the VisualEditor anywhere.


Let us therefore use this opportunity, and have the courage to sit down 
and listen. Or, perhaps, in the wiki spirit, let's edit this quote, and 
let us sit down and talk.


And, together, let's learn a lesson from this, and correct the errors so 
that they don't become mistakes.


  Tomasz

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] 3rd Global Congress on IP & OpenAir Conference on Innovation & IP in Africa

[Oona Castro]

Thanks!



On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> David Ricfield (User:Slashme) might be interested
> Cheers,
> Peter
> - Original Message - From: "Oona Castro" 
>
> To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
> 
> >
> Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2013 9:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] 3rd Global Congress on IP & OpenAir Conference
> on Innovation & IP in Africa
>
>
>  Hi Lodewijk,
>> I haven't.. I actually don't remember of knowing anyone from South Africa
>> here. But, yes, I think that would be awesome to have someone from there,
>> as I suggested in the email - I just don't know to whom I should send it
>> to. Would you suggest anyone in particular?
>>
>> Oona
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 2:23 PM, Lodewijk **
>> wrote:
>>
>>  Lodewijk
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Oona Castro
>> Consultant for the Brazilian Catalyst Program at Wikimedia Foundation
>> + 55 21 81812505
>>
>> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
>> the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!
>>
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org > org/wiki/Donate >
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>>
>
>
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-- 
Oona Castro
Consultant for the Brazilian Catalyst Program at Wikimedia Foundation
+ 55 21 81812505

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org 
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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Tech News summary #31 is out

[Tomasz W. Kozlowski]

Hi community,
the latest issue of the Tech News summary has been published and is now 
being delivered to its subscribers across the wikis:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2013/31

The newsletter aims to help Wikimedians stay informed about recent and 
future technical changes that are likely to impact their work. Thanks to 
our amazing community of volunteers translators, the current issue is at 
least partially available in 10 languages: for the first time ever, it 
will be also delivered to recipients in Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv).


Please note that you can also subscribe to get the newsletter directly 
on your talk page: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambassadors


Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns. I 
appreciate your help, feedback and involvement.


  Tomasz

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[Wikimedia-l] Software projects a chapter could take on

[Sumana Harihareswara]

Subject: was Re: About the concentration of resources in SF (it was:
"Communication plans for community engagement")

I hope Erik doesn't mind if I jump in here and give my opinion.  I'm
also cc'ing Markus from WCA to highlight that I'd love to hear his
opinion here.

Chapters are especially well-placed to do Wikimedia-related development
because the people of chapters already know a lot about what their
communities need.  For instance, if the people who edit WMF sites for
your language have to do a lot of tedious work to maintain the main
page, you could translate and insert the template that helps automate
that, which some volunteers wrote for Tamil Wikipedia:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2013-May/000263.html
 If the Wikipedia in your language doesn't have the "Comments in Local
Time" gadget that "changes UTC-based times and dates, such as those used
in signatures, to be relative to local time", you can localise and add
this gadget to your wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Comments_in_Local_Time

Chapters who have never taken on any MediaWiki-related software projects
before should probably take a look through
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Possible_projects .
The projects listed are good for students and first time contributors,
and the MediaWiki development community is ready to give guidance -- for
each Featured Project Idea you see a mentor who's agreed to shepherd new
contributors who want to work on it.  You are invited to work on any of
these items.  The estimate of how long it would take for you to complete
one of these items strongly depends on how much skill the developer
already has in PHP/JavaScript/jQuery/CSS, responding to code review,
asking for help when stuck, and learning from the answers.  But we
expect that a college-level student with some experience in PHP could
potentially do any of the Featured Project Ideas as a three-month project.

Also on that page, "Raw projects" are interesting ideas that have been
proposed but might lack definition, consensus or mentors.

And I see Erik has replied in another message so I should read that
before I continue. :)

-- 
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation

Sun, 28 Jul 2013 08:17:57 +0200, Michał Buczyński wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> +1 to this question.
> 
> If we learn that there are items where we are invited to the MediaWiki and 
> some estimates how many e.g. developerdays we would need to finance so we 
> know it is possible.
> 
> However, we should mind that most of the chapters are not really development 
> houses and we are lacking experience in this area.
> 
> michał.
>  
>  28 lipca 2013 5:41 Craig Franklin  napisał(a):
> 
> 
>> > 
>>> > > Hi Erik (and whomever from WMDE),
>> > 
>> > For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you
>> > offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for
>> > a chapter to take on? I think that most chapters* would be willing to help
>> > out in the software development space if we got a bit of direction on how
>> > we could be the most useful.
>> > 
>> > Cheers,
>> > Craig Franklin
>> > 
>> > * Keeping in mind that my chapter probably wouldn't have the capacity to
>> > start anything in this space for at least another twelve months.
>> > 
>> > 
>> > On 27 July 2013 09:57, Erik Moeller  wrote:
>> > 
>>> > > On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, rupert THURNER
>>> > >  wrote:
>>> > >
 > > > If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other
 > > > countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy.
>>> > >
>>> > > For my part, I'm happy to offer feedback to the FDC on plans related
>>> > > to the development of engineering capacity in FDC-funded
>>> > > organizations. I'm sure Wikimedia Germany, too, would be happy to
>>> > > share its experiences growing the Wikidata development team. I'd love
>>> > > to find ways to bootstrap more engineering capacity across the
>>> > > movement, as so many of our shared challenges have a software
>>> > > engineering component. If any folks on-list want to touch base on
>>> > > these questions at Wikimania, drop me a note. :)
>>> > >
>>> > > Erik
>>> > >
>>> > > --
>>> > > Erik Möller
>>> > > VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[Erik Moeller]

On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 8:41 PM, Craig Franklin
 wrote:
> For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you
> offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for
> a chapter to take on?

It's a great question, Craig. One idea that I think is worth kicking
around is how we can partner together in increasing diversity in our
developer, design & product community while working on important
problems.

One of the programs I'm most excited about is our involvement in
Outreach Program for Women (huge kudos to Sumana Harihareswara and
Quim Gil for making this happen):
https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen

OPW is similar to Google Summer of Code, in that participants receive
a stipend for their work, but it is specifically targeted at bringing
women into the open source / free software community, is not limited
purely to development, and is sponsored by participating
organizations.

The reason I bring it up in this context is that I think seeing
Wikimedia chapters engage in similar efforts to bring women, as well
as other underrepresented groups, into our engineering/design/product
community would align very well with our shared interest in increasing
diversity. We already have mentorship models for GSOC and OPW which
ensure that people participating in these programs can actually get
their code reviewed, and that both candidates and ideas are vetted.

You can read more about our GSOC and OPW processes here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2013
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreach_Program_for_Women

Our OPW interns and our GSOC students are working on pretty important
problems. For example, math and RTL support for VisualEditor are being
developed by GSOC students. This is no accident and a lot of
coordination work was done upfront to ensure we get solid project
submissions that relate to our most important problems.

So, how could this work for a Wikimedia chapter? Perhaps as a new
diversity outreach program run by the chapter, inspired by OPW? Or
perhaps integrated with OPW, if GNOME Foundation is open to it? Or a
completely different approach, e.g. learning from Etsy's efforts to
increase diversity by partnering with Hacker School? [1] I don't know
- but I think it's worth experimenting with.

I do think it's something a small org could pull off, because a lot of
it is about communication/coordination more than about managing a
complex cross-disciplinary engineering effort. And it's perhaps a good
way for a chapter, too, to get familiar with some of the intricacies
and complexity of doing engineering work in our context without
committing yet to building out a full-on tech department.

The important part is that we connect people new to our ecosystem with
capable mentors/reviewers -- whether those are experienced volunteers,
employed by WMF, or employed by a chapter that's already doing
engineering work like WMDE. Without that mentorship support, it
doesn't work.

Erik

[1] 
http://firstround.com/article/How-Etsy-Grew-their-Number-of-Female-Engineers-by-500-in-One-Year
-- 
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

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