[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] updates from Annual Plan Grant / FDC grantees
Hello, friends in the Wikimedia community, Organizations that receive Annual Plan Grants from the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) have been hard at work this last quarter! If you haven't yet had a chance to look at some of their most recent reports, do take a look to get a sense of some of the exciting developments. As always, the FDC staff has also produced an overview of these reports, including observations from global-level trends and program updates. [1] We've also highlighted some of the biggest successes and some ongoing challenges for these organizations, and included a financial summary of spending to date. I'm happy to say that the overview report is also available in French [2]; thank you to our amazing translators! I encourage you to take a look at the overview report. From there, you can easily find the progress reports from the organizations in depth, or see their associated Discussion pages for more in-depth appreciation, questions and suggestions from the FDC staff. You'll find some beautiful photos and interesting audio and video files, learn about recent work on Wiki Loves Monuments, celebrate with those completing tenth Wikipedia anniversaries, review updates on partnerships with GLAM institutions, and learn more about Wikipedians-in-Residence programs. And much more! You'll also get good insight into what is working well and how entities are adapting as they learn about programs or approaches that aren't working as well. I want to thank all the organizations submitting Annual Plan Grant reports to the FDC for their hard work over this last quarter. These progress reports are from both Round 1 and Round 2 2012-2013 and offer us all a chance to learn from movement organizations. I thank them for capturing and sharing what they are learning as they go so that we can celebrate and build on successes and grow together. Fell free to contact me with questions or comments. And a very Happy New Year to all! Katy [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Staff_summary/Progress_report_form/Q3 [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Staff_summary/Progress_report_form/Q3/fr ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Public Domain Day
hello all! January 1st was Public Domain Day [1] and after xx years of copyright, it expires on the first of January of the year after. As result hundreds of images were restored on Commons on the 1-1-2014, but many of them did not get a place in articles on Wikipedia and her sister projects. I added all the restored media to this gallery: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Romaine/Public_Domain_Day/2013 Everyone is invited to place those images in appropriate places in articles! Romaine [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Domain_Day ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Public Domain Day
Nice. It would be good to add a link at the top to Category:Undeleted in 2014 as well, or even to transclude all images from that category. Michael On 3 Jan 2014, at 14:03, Romaine Wiki romaine_w...@yahoo.com wrote: hello all! January 1st was Public Domain Day [1] and after xx years of copyright, it expires on the first of January of the year after. As result hundreds of images were restored on Commons on the 1-1-2014, but many of them did not get a place in articles on Wikipedia and her sister projects. I added all the restored media to this gallery: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Romaine/Public_Domain_Day/2013 Everyone is invited to place those images in appropriate places in articles! Romaine [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Domain_Day ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Public Domain Day
* Romaine Wiki wrote: January 1st was Public Domain Day [1] and after xx years of copyright, it expires on the first of January of the year after. As result hundreds of images were restored on Commons on the 1-1-2014, but many of them did not get a place in articles on Wikipedia and her sister projects. I added all the restored media to this gallery: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Romaine/Public_Domain_Day/2013 How did you obtain a list of the relevant files? I find it a bit worrying that Commons makes little effort to distinguish between copyright on this sculpture and copyright on this photograph of a sculpture. It would seem preferable if there was suitable meta data recording the reason why these media have been restored. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Public Domain Day
On 3 Jan 2014, at 14:22, Bjoern Hoehrmann derhoe...@gmx.net wrote: I find it a bit worrying that Commons makes little effort to distinguish between copyright on this sculpture and copyright on this photograph of a sculpture. It would seem preferable if there was suitable meta data recording the reason why these media have been restored. That distinction is made very carefully in Commons policies, and has been for many years.. If you have examples of some images that have been tagged incorrectly, please say. Michael ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Public Domain Day
* Michael Maggs wrote: On 3 Jan 2014, at 14:22, Bjoern Hoehrmann derhoe...@gmx.net wrote: I find it a bit worrying that Commons makes little effort to distinguish between copyright on this sculpture and copyright on this photograph of a sculpture. It would seem preferable if there was suitable meta data recording the reason why these media have been restored. That distinction is made very carefully in Commons policies, and has been for many years.. If you have examples of some images that have been tagged incorrectly, please say. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oeuvre_de_Gustav_Vigeland_(4846416424).jpg was the first I clicked and it does not seem to have any structured in- dication of a PD status. I take it some of the other images are in the `PD-author` category, so perhaps not all metadata has been updated for the images, hence my question how the list was obtained. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] WG: Invitation to Chapters and Photographers for the European Parliament Project 2014
Happy New Year to Everyone! After the holidays I'd like to make another approach to you and your chapters about Wikipedians in the European Parliament. * have you already forwarded this invitation to your local community? * has you chapter already decided about supporting volunteers participating in this project? * have you - if you are interested - already signed up for participation? Please let me know! Despite the holidays we already received a number of registrations from four countries and chapter support from five chapters, not including those who have informally announced their participation or support in personal mails. I am especially proud to see a significant number of female applications in this project! Also the Commons project page has been translated in four different languages - you may help as well: just click on translate this page on top of the page. The project has a lot of potential to increase the quality of our projects which can now be evaluated using the lists that have been created in the last days: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliame nt/Lists_of_pictures https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliamen t/Lists_of_pictures https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliame nt/Lists_of_articles https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliamen t/Lists_of_articles If you have any questions, please contact me or better - post them on the talk page on Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk:Wikipedians_in _European_Parliamentaction=edit https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk:Wikipedians_in_ European_Parliamentaction=edit Regards, Olaf Von: Olaf Kosinsky [mailto:olaf.kosin...@gmail.com] Gesendet: Montag, 23. Dezember 2013 00:03 An: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: Fwd: Invitation to Chapters and Photographers for the European Parliament Project 2014 Dear Chapters, this is a mail focused on chapters within the European Union but of course support and participation of any chapter is welcome! == Preamble == Some might have heard about the State Parliament Projects done in Germany and Austria since 2009: A bunch of Wikipedians and photographers meet politicians in the parliament, shoot professional photos, discuss their Wikipedia articles etc. This way hundreds of free licensed, high quality images have been made, Wikipedia articles have been improved. In the latest project at Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) we added videos, politicians give a short introduction about themselves, their position and political focus in German and in their mother tongue if different from German. About 20 photographers were able to participate and processes how to work with the parliament's administration, how to interact with the politicians, how to efficiently take a lot of photos in a short time and with good quality have been established. == Next Level: European Parliament == Now we would like to take this to next level: After contacting the European Parliament I was able to get their approval, the support by the parties and a date! Unfortunately the date is already in February, 3rd to 7th, as we have to use the short time gap between budget deliberations and elections. MEPs only travel to the EP when deliberations are ongoing but then they are also busy with meetings, as soon as the election preperation starts there won't be any time for our project within the next 6 months. Anyway I am sure we can do that - the elections are also a great opportunity to raise awareness on our material we have in Wikipedia and on Commons. It is also an excellent opportunity to bring together volunteers in doing our core work together, maybe we can transfer the idea of Parliament Projects to other countries. Volunteers get the opportunity to learn from each other - the EP is a very challenging project, having more than 700 MEPs to be handled within a few days. And Wikipedia may improve its articles, also by bringing together volunteers from different EU countries. Many MEPs have their articles only in a few of the European languages, some not even in their native language! == Your Chapter Involved == We are looking forward to get volunteers from as many countries as possible involved in this project. In order to be handle it we need approx. 35 people to help. Obviously the german and austrian photographers are already waiting for it, from past projects they already know what will go on. But there is much more to it: We want your volunteers! Imagine a project where we could bring together volunteers from all 24 language communities in the EU - that is what we are trying! Therefore we ask you for a favour: * please forward this invitation to your local community - you can point them to our project page on Wikimedia Commons: **
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WG: Invitation to Chapters and Photographers for the European Parliament Project 2014
On 3 January 2014 16:22, Olaf Kosinsky olaf.kosin...@gmail.com wrote: Happy New Year to Everyone! After the holidays I'd like to make another approach to you and your chapters about Wikipedians in the European Parliament. * have you already forwarded this invitation to your local community? I expect that has been done * has you chapter already decided about supporting volunteers participating in this project? Sending people to Brussels and Strasbourg for reasons other than to lobby on IP issues is not a good use of WMF donors money. You want 766 photos total. Find one person in Brussels (not Strasbourg even the majority of MEPs accept that Strasbourg is a bad idea at this point) and give them whatever support they need to get the photos. * have you - if you are interested - already signed up for participation? Of course not. Strasbourg is several hundred miles away across the English channel. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WG: Invitation to Chapters and Photographers for the European Parliament Project 2014
Could actually being there in front of UK MEP's could be one very effective way of bringing our influence to bear? Jon PS Strasbourg slightly closer to London than Edinburgh! On 3 January 2014 17:19, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 3 January 2014 16:22, Olaf Kosinsky olaf.kosin...@gmail.com wrote: Happy New Year to Everyone! After the holidays I'd like to make another approach to you and your chapters about Wikipedians in the European Parliament. * have you already forwarded this invitation to your local community? I expect that has been done * has you chapter already decided about supporting volunteers participating in this project? Sending people to Brussels and Strasbourg for reasons other than to lobby on IP issues is not a good use of WMF donors money. You want 766 photos total. Find one person in Brussels (not Strasbourg even the majority of MEPs accept that Strasbourg is a bad idea at this point) and give them whatever support they need to get the photos. * have you - if you are interested - already signed up for participation? Of course not. Strasbourg is several hundred miles away across the English channel. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- *Jon Davies - Chief Executive Wikimedia UK*. Mobile (0044) 7803 505 169 tweet @jonatreesdavies Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990. Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WG: Invitation to Chapters and Photographers for the European Parliament Project 2014
Hi Geni, Am 03.01.2014 18:19, schrieb geni: On 3 January 2014 16:22, Olaf Kosinsky olaf.kosin...@gmail.com wrote: [...] * has you chapter already decided about supporting volunteers participating in this project? Sending people to Brussels and Strasbourg for reasons other than to lobby on IP issues is not a good use of WMF donors money. that is your opinion, so are you already a member of the EU policy advocacy group? https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy You want 766 photos total. Find one person in Brussels (not Strasbourg even the majority of MEPs accept that Strasbourg is a bad idea at this point) and give them whatever support they need to get the photos. well, a) the minimum is 1,000 (https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk%3APEG%2FOlaf_Kosinsky%2FWikipedians_in_European_Parliamentdiff=6895596oldid=6895104) b) the EP has invited us to Strasbourg (not Brussels) as that is the place where the MEPs will be available for us c) one person is not enough, according to various calculations you need about 45 people to deal with all those MEPs in a short time (remember they are only available in a short timeframe, after the deliberations) This calculation has been done by people who are more experienced than me with this, as they already did 15 such projects since 2009: (https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk%3APEG%2FOlaf_Kosinsky%2FWikipedians_in_European_Parliamentdiff=6879964oldid=6879832) ...and by the way, this project does exactly this: Get enough people at the time and place where all the MEPs are and get them what they need. /Manuel -- Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Public Domain Day
On 03.01.2014 15:03, Romaine Wiki wrote: hello all! January 1st was Public Domain Day [1] and after xx years of copyright, it expires on the first of January of the year after. As result hundreds of images were restored on Commons on the 1-1-2014, but many of them did not get a place in articles on Wikipedia and her sister projects. I added all the restored media to this gallery: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Romaine/Public_Domain_Day/2013 Everyone is invited to place those images in appropriate places in articles! Romaine Hi Romaine, did you take the URAA provisions into account? I am afraid most of the files we though would be free are in fact not free: If the author died in 1943, in most of the countries the works were not free in 1996, which is the URAA dead hour. Then the date should be not 70 years from the death of the author but 95 years since creation (except if the work was created before 1923), which means only pre-1923 works become free. Cheers Yaroslav ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Public Domain Day
Romaine, I was wondering about the same thing as Yaroslav. As I have understood the URAA stuff up to now, I think a work by Kandinsky (died Dec 1944) is problematic but this one for example is OK (author died in 1943, but the work is dated before 1923): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Angorakatze1903.jpg Jane 2014/1/3, Yaroslav M. Blanter pute...@mccme.ru: On 03.01.2014 15:03, Romaine Wiki wrote: hello all! January 1st was Public Domain Day [1] and after xx years of copyright, it expires on the first of January of the year after. As result hundreds of images were restored on Commons on the 1-1-2014, but many of them did not get a place in articles on Wikipedia and her sister projects. I added all the restored media to this gallery: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Romaine/Public_Domain_Day/2013 Everyone is invited to place those images in appropriate places in articles! Romaine Hi Romaine, did you take the URAA provisions into account? I am afraid most of the files we though would be free are in fact not free: If the author died in 1943, in most of the countries the works were not free in 1996, which is the URAA dead hour. Then the date should be not 70 years from the death of the author but 95 years since creation (except if the work was created before 1923), which means only pre-1923 works become free. Cheers Yaroslav ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] [press] Erik Zachte in Wired
Just wanted to share this article, because it makes me so happy! Erik's one of our earliest contributors and *we've* all depended on his work for years, but it's mostly invisible to the world beyond Wikimedia. It makes me really happy to see him get some external recognition :-) Thanks, Sue -- Forwarded message -- From: Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org Date: 27 Dec 2013 12:20 Subject: [Wmfcc-l] [press] Erik Z in Wired To: Communications Committee wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/ Meet the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia’s Massive Data Trove BY ASHIK SIDDIQUE 12.27.13 9:30 AM Erik Zachte. Photo: Lane Hartwell/Wikimedia Foundation There are websites, and then there’s Wikipedia. The internet behemoth boasts 30 million articles written in more than 285 languages, tweaked by 70,000 active editors and viewed by 530 million visitors worldwide each month. As mountains of information go, it’s Everest. Teasing out trends from the open source encyclopedia’s archives is a task few would even attempt. Yet Erik Zachte did just that. Zachte used his statistical intuition to create “Wikistats,” an online statistics package that’s more than a trove of charts and graphs for data geeks. It’s the most direct measure yet of Wikipedia’s success in achieving its central objective: making the sum of all human knowledge available to everyone everywhere. “When I discovered Wikipedia I felt thrilled from the outset,” says Zachte, who was working as an IT guy at KLM Airlines in the early days of the Wiki revolution. Not content simply to edit articles, he joined the mailing lists in which a fervid network of volunteers debated how to increase the site’s functionality. As Wikipedia exploded in popularity, power users complained there was no consistent way to measure its growth in article count from the beginning. “In 2003 there was already an online page counter if I remember correctly, but not much else,” says Zachte. He realized it was possible to extract far more descriptive data from historical metadata in Wikipedia’s massive database dumps, copies of all raw content that available to anyone in XML format. He started crunching numbers and quickly became famous among fellow Wikiholics for developing Wikistats. The site’s monthly reports filled a valuable niche for descriptive metrics in the Wiki community, with measures like article count, number of editors, and edits per article that serve as proxy indicators of Wiki quality. Impressed by Zachte’s stat-fu, the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation that supports the Wikipedia infrastructure made him its data analyst in 2008. Since then, Zachte’s figures – all of which are open source and in the public domain – have revealed ongoing challenges to the organization’s growth, as well as noteworthy trends. Wikistats data made it clear that a core of Wikipedians does an outsize portion of the editing. As of October, 4.7 million people have contributed to the English language Wikipedia, but just over 26,000 people have made more than 1,000 edits. In fact, that relatively small group of people has made 73 percent of all edits. While a small core of very active editors has remained stable, a larger pool of active editors (those making at least five edits monthly) in all Wikipedia language editions peaked at 90,000 in 2007 and has dropped since. As of October, the count stands at 70,000. That has some worried that a shrinking community indicates declining quality and concerted efforts within the Wikimedia Foundation to boost editor engagement, which the organization considers one of the foremost indicators of Wikipedia’s success. In 2009, the organization launched an ambitious five-year strategic plan to drastically increase language and content diversity by encouraging internet users in the “Global South” – particularly the developing regions of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America – to contribute. Wikistats metrics gauge its progress each month. “Many projects exist within WMF to influence editor influx and retention,” says Zachte, “but in the end Wikistats gives the final count: Are we on the right track?” The numbers show reason for measured optimism. While the largest and most densely populated language editions like English, German, French, and Japanese, have seen the number of active editors level off or even decline since about 2007, newer editor networks in highly populous languages like Chinese, Arabic, and Persian continue to grow. In addition, the global share of page edits is slowly shifting to populous countries in the southern hemisphere, some of which, like India and the Philippines, use and edit Wikipedia overwhelmingly in English. Zachte’s reports also reveal idiosyncratic patterns of activity in different languages. For example, some volunteer coders program bots to create article stubs in massive bursts, hoping other users will expand the articles over time.
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] The Signpost -- Volume 10, Issue 0 -- 01 January 2014
News and notes: 2013âthe year in review http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-01-01/News_and_notes In the media: Does Wikipedia need a medical disclaimer? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-01-01/In_the_media Book review: Å»ycie Wirtualnych Dzikich http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-01-01/Book_review Discussion report: Article incubator, dates and fractions, medical disclaimer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-01-01/Discussion_report Traffic report: A year stuck in traffic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-01-01/Traffic_report WikiProject report: Where Are They Now? ''Fifth Edition'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-01-01/WikiProject_report Featured content: 2013âthe trends http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-01-01/Featured_content Technology report: 2013: Year in review http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-01-01/Technology_report Single page view http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost/Single PDF version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-01-01 http://identi.ca/wikisignpost / https://twitter.com/wikisignpost -- Wikipedia Signpost Staff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] [press] Erik Zachte in Wired
About time. The more recent Monthly Report Cards (http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/) which organizes stats by region are extremely useful and I often use your animated history of wikipedia to start presentations because it's so beautiful. Bravo! Bishakha On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 7:01 AM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: Just wanted to share this article, because it makes me so happy! Erik's one of our earliest contributors and *we've* all depended on his work for years, but it's mostly invisible to the world beyond Wikimedia. It makes me really happy to see him get some external recognition :-) Thanks, Sue -- Forwarded message -- From: Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org Date: 27 Dec 2013 12:20 Subject: [Wmfcc-l] [press] Erik Z in Wired To: Communications Committee wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/ Meet the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia’s Massive Data Trove BY ASHIK SIDDIQUE 12.27.13 9:30 AM Erik Zachte. Photo: Lane Hartwell/Wikimedia Foundation There are websites, and then there’s Wikipedia. The internet behemoth boasts 30 million articles written in more than 285 languages, tweaked by 70,000 active editors and viewed by 530 million visitors worldwide each month. As mountains of information go, it’s Everest. Teasing out trends from the open source encyclopedia’s archives is a task few would even attempt. Yet Erik Zachte did just that. Zachte used his statistical intuition to create “Wikistats,” an online statistics package that’s more than a trove of charts and graphs for data geeks. It’s the most direct measure yet of Wikipedia’s success in achieving its central objective: making the sum of all human knowledge available to everyone everywhere. “When I discovered Wikipedia I felt thrilled from the outset,” says Zachte, who was working as an IT guy at KLM Airlines in the early days of the Wiki revolution. Not content simply to edit articles, he joined the mailing lists in which a fervid network of volunteers debated how to increase the site’s functionality. As Wikipedia exploded in popularity, power users complained there was no consistent way to measure its growth in article count from the beginning. “In 2003 there was already an online page counter if I remember correctly, but not much else,” says Zachte. He realized it was possible to extract far more descriptive data from historical metadata in Wikipedia’s massive database dumps, copies of all raw content that available to anyone in XML format. He started crunching numbers and quickly became famous among fellow Wikiholics for developing Wikistats. The site’s monthly reports filled a valuable niche for descriptive metrics in the Wiki community, with measures like article count, number of editors, and edits per article that serve as proxy indicators of Wiki quality. Impressed by Zachte’s stat-fu, the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation that supports the Wikipedia infrastructure made him its data analyst in 2008. Since then, Zachte’s figures – all of which are open source and in the public domain – have revealed ongoing challenges to the organization’s growth, as well as noteworthy trends. Wikistats data made it clear that a core of Wikipedians does an outsize portion of the editing. As of October, 4.7 million people have contributed to the English language Wikipedia, but just over 26,000 people have made more than 1,000 edits. In fact, that relatively small group of people has made 73 percent of all edits. While a small core of very active editors has remained stable, a larger pool of active editors (those making at least five edits monthly) in all Wikipedia language editions peaked at 90,000 in 2007 and has dropped since. As of October, the count stands at 70,000. That has some worried that a shrinking community indicates declining quality and concerted efforts within the Wikimedia Foundation to boost editor engagement, which the organization considers one of the foremost indicators of Wikipedia’s success. In 2009, the organization launched an ambitious five-year strategic plan to drastically increase language and content diversity by encouraging internet users in the “Global South” – particularly the developing regions of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America – to contribute. Wikistats metrics gauge its progress each month. “Many projects exist within WMF to influence editor influx and retention,” says Zachte, “but in the end Wikistats gives the final count: Are we on the right track?” The numbers show reason for measured optimism. While the largest and most densely populated language editions like English, German, French, and Japanese, have seen the number of active editors level off or even decline since about 2007, newer editor networks in highly populous languages like Chinese, Arabic, and Persian continue to grow. In addition, the global share of page
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 118, Issue 2
Hi Rupert, I agree that individual outreach can be effective. How do you suggest that we get a substantial number of our existing editors to feel motivated to recruit new editors? I think our problems with editor retention are widespread enough that they need to be addressed on a meta scale, even if that is simply to find effective ways of motivating existing users to assume good faith, be civil, and invite new people to edit on an individual basis. Pine Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:14:45 +0100 From: rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] New year's plans for editor engagement Message-ID: cajs9az_zyndu8jeeeahzjekiu3rieh7vcrj2vwuddwf9a0o...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 hi pine, as a volunteer, my personal stance is that editor engagement is best experienced on a personal, pragmatic, and not-meta level. let me give an example: when i met anasuya sengupta last year i was very impressed by her. such a nice and welcoming person to talk to. such a bright person, making intelligent suggestions to topics we have. she told us at wikimedia ch, that we do not reach the volunteers very well - basically 50 times more people edit wikipedia than the ones willing to engage in any form with an organisation around the movement, like wikimedia.ch. besides that, she is kind of the dream wikimedian who would be able to correct two of the most prominent editor statistics: she is woman, she is from india. and she is educated, she is organized, she is successful. after meeting, i did what i usually do, look on the contributions. to my great surprise, anasuya seems not have any billable edits (billable is, in my personal definition, an edit on a page where a donor would click and give money, so no talk page, meta, etc.). she as well does not seem to write open source software used by the movement. i cannot say if she really does not edit - she just does it in a way that a regular volunteer like me would not notice. funny enough, anasuya sits for one and a half years next to sue gardner in the san francisco office of the wikimedia foundation. sue gardner supported the editor engagement program, and the india program, she put efforts in making wikipedia nicer for women. and wmf put hundred thousands of dollars into efforts which basic target is to win anasuya as a contributor. happy new year as well! rupert. ps: if this mail is the cause to have one additional editor, its goal is fullfilled ;) and if every volunteer convinces one person to become wikimedia volunteer this year, you, pine, will write a different mail at the beginning of 2015. On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 4:32 AM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: We had a good 2013 year for readership statistics, fundraising, website reliability, and many other metrics. We are continuing to have challenges with our editor population declining. Statistics are at http://reportcard.wmflabs.org. WMF discussed some of the research around these issues a monthly metrics meeting. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-07-11 . We have thousands of new accounts registered each month. However we are still losing more active editors than we gain each month. To date WMF and the chapters haven't solved this problem although resources are being spent on it. Projects include Echo, VisualEditor, Snuggle, GettingStarted, and education outreach. Some discussion of these issues for English Wikipedia is happening at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Possible_paths.2C_after_some_thoughts . Also check out the book review that is being published in this week's Signpost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Sandbox/Notes#.C5.BBycie_Wirtualnych_Dzikich, and the 2010 editor study results https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_April_2011.pdf . I hope there will be many and sustained conversations in 2014 about questions such as these: * What should WMF, Jimmy, chapters and affiliates, and the online communities do differently regarding editor retention in 2014 and beyond? * What non-technical initiatives should be done to improve editor recruiting and retention? * How can we make Wikipedia editing be as mainstream as playing mobile games? I would like to see WMF take leadership on this issue and make a big push in 2014-2015 to make mobile editing a popular activity. * Since negative feedback is a major reason that editors leave, should we review how we revert and warn editors, how we handle content disputes, and how we deal with editors who are uncivil or disruptive? * How can we be a community that is efficient while being civil and hospitable? In the next Annual Plan I hope that someone at WMF will be appointed as a
Re: [Wikimedia-l] New year's plans for editor engagement
Sorry. Email subject line corrected. Hi Rupert, I agree that individual outreach can be effective. How do you suggest that we get a substantial number of our existing editors to feel motivated to recruit new editors? I think our problems with editor retention are widespread enough that they need to be addressed on a meta scale, even if that is simply to find effective ways of motivating existing users to assume good faith, be civil, and invite new people to edit on an individual basis. Pine Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:14:45 +0100 From: rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] New year's plans for editor engagement Message-ID: cajs9az_zyndu8jeeeahzjekiu3rieh7vcrj2vwuddwf9a0o...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 hi pine, as a volunteer, my personal stance is that editor engagement is best experienced on a personal, pragmatic, and not-meta level. let me give an example: when i met anasuya sengupta last year i was very impressed by her. such a nice and welcoming person to talk to. such a bright person, making intelligent suggestions to topics we have. she told us at wikimedia ch, that we do not reach the volunteers very well - basically 50 times more people edit wikipedia than the ones willing to engage in any form with an organisation around the movement, like wikimedia.ch. besides that, she is kind of the dream wikimedian who would be able to correct two of the most prominent editor statistics: she is woman, she is from india. and she is educated, she is organized, she is successful. after meeting, i did what i usually do, look on the contributions. to my great surprise, anasuya seems not have any billable edits (billable is, in my personal definition, an edit on a page where a donor would click and give money, so no talk page, meta, etc.). she as well does not seem to write open source software used by the movement. i cannot say if she really does not edit - she just does it in a way that a regular volunteer like me would not notice. funny enough, anasuya sits for one and a half years next to sue gardner in the san francisco office of the wikimedia foundation. sue gardner supported the editor engagement program, and the india program, she put efforts in making wikipedia nicer for women. and wmf put hundred thousands of dollars into efforts which basic target is to win anasuya as a contributor. happy new year as well! rupert. ps: if this mail is the cause to have one additional editor, its goal is fullfilled ;) and if every volunteer convinces one person to become wikimedia volunteer this year, you, pine, will write a different mail at the beginning of 2015. On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 4:32 AM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: We had a good 2013 year for readership statistics, fundraising, website reliability, and many other metrics. We are continuing to have challenges with our editor population declining. Statistics are at http://reportcard.wmflabs.org. WMF discussed some of the research around these issues a monthly metrics meeting. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-07-11 . We have thousands of new accounts registered each month. However we are still losing more active editors than we gain each month. To date WMF and the chapters haven't solved this problem although resources are being spent on it. Projects include Echo, VisualEditor, Snuggle, GettingStarted, and education outreach. Some discussion of these issues for English Wikipedia is happening at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Possible_paths.2C_after_some_thoughts . Also check out the book review that is being published in this week's Signpost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Sandbox/Notes#.C5.BBycie_Wirtualnych_Dzikich, and the 2010 editor study results https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_April_2011.pdf . I hope there will be many and sustained conversations in 2014 about questions such as these: * What should WMF, Jimmy, chapters and affiliates, and the online communities do differently regarding editor retention in 2014 and beyond? * What non-technical initiatives should be done to improve editor recruiting and retention? * How can we make Wikipedia editing be as mainstream as playing mobile games? I would like to see WMF take leadership on this issue and make a big push in 2014-2015 to make mobile editing a popular activity. * Since negative feedback is a major reason that editors leave, should we review how we revert and warn editors, how we handle content disputes, and how we deal with editors who are uncivil or disruptive? * How can we be a community that is efficient while being civil and hospitable? In the next Annual Plan I hope that
