Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks]
On 1 June 2014 01:39, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 June 2014 04:26, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... ... selects strongly against women. Where is the evidence that women have more difficulty understanding wikitext than men? (Probably drifting to Increase participation by women) As someone who has run editathons on women focused topics, I found this an odd comment that does not match anecdotal experience. New women users seem little different to men in the issues that arise, and though I have found myself apologising for the slightly odd syntax, given the standard crib-sheet most users get on with basic article creation quite happily. There are far more commonly raised issues such as the complex issues associated with image upload (copyright!), or the conceptual difficulty of namespaces which mean that some webpages behave differently to others. None is something that appears to select strongly against women, though the encyclopedia's way of defining notability can make it harder to create articles about pre-1970s professional women, purely because sources from earlier periods tend to be biased towards men. If there are surveys that wiki-syntax is more of a barrier for women than men (after discounting out other factors), perhaps someone could provide a link? Fae, I don't know if wiki-syntax in and of itself is more of a barrier for women than men. What I do know is that wiki-syntax is a lot harder today than it was when I started editing 8 years ago, and that today I would consider it more akin to computer programming than content creation. That is where the barrier comes in. The statistics for percentage of women employed in computer-related technology is abysmal; we all know that. Even organizations that actively seek out qualified women (including Wikimedia, I'll point out) can't come close to filling all the slots they'd willingly open, because there simply aren't that many qualified women. They're not filling the seats in college and university programs, either. Eight years ago, only about a quarter of English Wikipedia articles had an infobox - that huge pile of wiki-syntax that is at the top of the overwhelming majority of articles today. There were not a lot of templates; certainly the monstrous templates at the bottom of most articles today didn't exist then. The syntax for creating references was essentially ref insert url /ref; today there is a plethora of complex referencing templates, some of which are so complex and non-intuitive that only a small minority of *wikipedians* can use them effectively. I know wiki-syntax, and I have found it increasingly more difficult to edit as time has gone on. I don't think it's because I'm a woman, I think it's because I'm not a programmer - and women who *are* programmers are only a small minority of all programmers, so it follows that women are less likely to have the skills that will help them sort through what they see when they click Edit. It's exactly why I've been following and keeping up with the development of VisualEditor - because I believe it will make it easier for those who aren't particularly technically inclined to contribute to the project. I believe it's the route to attracting a more diverse editing population, including but not limited to women. And I think that it's pretty close to being ready for hands-on use by those who are new to our projects, now that it can handle pretty well most of the essential editing tasks. It's not perfect, but it's getting there. Risker/Anne ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Increase participation
Of course I am just a sample of one, but in my personal circle of female friends, most of them only interact with a smartphone or tablet and though they may own a full-fledged computer, they only interact with that machine for certain boring and obligatory tasks such as filing taxes and printing. This is in and of itself, a reason not to edit, in my mind. Research into the use of tablets in 2012 in the Netherlands did indicate that more women were active on them than men, and a simple google search picked this 2013 BBC article up about the same holding true for women in the UK: Women own most of the UK's tablet computers says study http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23355944 Disclaimer: I am a frequent user of an iPad-1 that my mother (of all people!) gave me for my birthday. 2014-06-01 8:52 GMT+02:00, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com: Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 06:39:38 +0100 From: Fæ fae...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks] Message-ID: cah7nnd3meyllrfd+sss-trsajxrreq0uidom07m_9nx-oiq...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 1 June 2014 04:26, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... ... selects strongly against women. Where is the evidence that women have more difficulty understanding wikitext than men? (Probably drifting to Increase participation by women) As someone who has run editathons on women focused topics, I found this an odd comment that does not match anecdotal experience. New women users seem little different to men in the issues that arise, and though I have found myself apologising for the slightly odd syntax, given the standard crib-sheet most users get on with basic article creation quite happily. There are far more commonly raised issues such as the complex issues associated with image upload (copyright!), or the conceptual difficulty of namespaces which mean that some webpages behave differently to others. None is something that appears to select strongly against women, though the encyclopedia's way of defining notability can make it harder to create articles about pre-1970s professional women, purely because sources from earlier periods tend to be biased towards men. If there are surveys that wiki-syntax is more of a barrier for women than men (after discounting out other factors), perhaps someone could provide a link? Fae FWIW, I think that Lila said at the Zurich hackathon that she had found research indicating that fewer women click the edit button than men do. That sounds like a phenomenon that could use some research and experimentation. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014-05-10_Wikimedia_Hackathon_Lila_Tretikov.webm Also, the Individual Engagement Grants Committee and WMF have funded a research project in this IEG round focused on women's participation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Women_and_Wikipedia Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Airtel Offers Nigerians Free Access to Wikipedia
As the Quartz article from Jens's email discusses, the decision in Chile is very unfortunate.[1] It's an example of when net neutrality — which is an important principle for the free and open internet — is poorly implemented to prevent free dissemination of knowledge. Although Wikipedia Zero is not yet available in Chile, it is a country of interest for the program, so we are thinking about what options are available in light of this decision. That said, I would like to clarify a couple of points about the implementation of Wikipedia Zero that were raised in this thread: 1. The newer Wikipedia Zero partnerships have provided the full Wikipedia sites (m.wikipedia) free of data charges for some time now and we are phasing out the reduced version (zero.wikipedia) from the older partnerships. 2. While earlier Wikipedia Zero partnerships only zero-rated Wikipedia, we are working on getting carriers to zero-rate all the Wikimedia projects. 3. We are also working on getting editing functions zero-rated, though there are some technical hurdles for that right now. But, eventually, Wikipedia Zero will not only make knowledge more accessible, but also empower more people in the Global South to contribute to the projects. 4. Finally, WMF does *not* pay carriers to zero-rate Wikipedia under Wikipedia Zero. Carriers zero-rate the sites because they want to make a commitment to access to knowledge as a corporate social responsibility.[2] I believe this question has already been answered in this thread since Scott raised it earlier, but I just wanted to confirm that Wikipedia Zero does not involve payments. Hope this is helpful! Best, Yana [1] http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility -- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer. On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 5:52 AM, Jens Best jens.b...@wikimedia.de wrote: News from Chile Chile’s Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones just decided that zero-rating is a promotion tool which is against net neutrality. Therefore all zero-rated-related marketing deals have to stop at the 1st of June. According to a WMF-list in Chile no provider has been offering Wikipedia Zero. Also I'm not sure if this dismissal reflects only on zero-rated offers where payment of money is done by the content provider. So it still needs to be checked how/if this decision is influencing our intent to spread Wikipedia Zero. All in all it shows that we have to improve our arguments in a broader scale if we don't want to get caught by promoting Free Knowledge but in fact 'only' pushing the use of a reduced version of one (very well known and superb) website which stand exemplary for this idea. We are caught in a dilemma which imho only can be solved when reaching out to more partners which stand for Free Knowledge and Free Education. Not sure how this could work, but fortunately that never was a reason to stop. News from Chile: http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ http://www.subtel.gob.cl/noticias/138-neutralidad-red/5311-ley-de-neutralidad-y-redes-sociales-gratis?_ga=1.143290485.1915805894.1400742323 Overview Wikipedia Zero: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships 2014-05-30 6:59 GMT+02:00 rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com: participation is another aspect. wp zero allows free reading. it does not allow free participation. write emails, search for references, download and adjust code. just as a side note, the oxford university stated: until 2012, europe, i.e. 10% of the worlds population, produced 50%+ of wikipedias geotagged contents [1]. imo it is not necessary to terminate wikipedia zero, it just needs to be negotiated differently: if a telco wants to support our case, give every person 200mb free internet access. unrestricted. or, if we need to break some law like now or be in the grey area, we could support additionally a viral model, like: if somebody is a wikipedia contributor (as defined in election criteria, or like in ghana, 3 edits per week), give them 2 GB free internet traffic for free, unrestricted. if the WMF legal department would be able to negotiate _this_ e.g. in nigeria or india, i would have _big_ respect for them, and with pleasure say in future: you guys are worth every cent of the 5 million we pay you a year. [1]
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Airtel Offers Nigerians Free Access to Wikipedia
Hoi, Yana you mentioned that all WMF projects may become under the zero flag... is Labs being considered for this as well ? Thanks, GerardM On 1 June 2014 09:57, Yana Welinder ywelin...@wikimedia.org wrote: As the Quartz article from Jens's email discusses, the decision in Chile is very unfortunate.[1] It's an example of when net neutrality — which is an important principle for the free and open internet — is poorly implemented to prevent free dissemination of knowledge. Although Wikipedia Zero is not yet available in Chile, it is a country of interest for the program, so we are thinking about what options are available in light of this decision. That said, I would like to clarify a couple of points about the implementation of Wikipedia Zero that were raised in this thread: 1. The newer Wikipedia Zero partnerships have provided the full Wikipedia sites (m.wikipedia) free of data charges for some time now and we are phasing out the reduced version (zero.wikipedia) from the older partnerships. 2. While earlier Wikipedia Zero partnerships only zero-rated Wikipedia, we are working on getting carriers to zero-rate all the Wikimedia projects. 3. We are also working on getting editing functions zero-rated, though there are some technical hurdles for that right now. But, eventually, Wikipedia Zero will not only make knowledge more accessible, but also empower more people in the Global South to contribute to the projects. 4. Finally, WMF does *not* pay carriers to zero-rate Wikipedia under Wikipedia Zero. Carriers zero-rate the sites because they want to make a commitment to access to knowledge as a corporate social responsibility.[2] I believe this question has already been answered in this thread since Scott raised it earlier, but I just wanted to confirm that Wikipedia Zero does not involve payments. Hope this is helpful! Best, Yana [1] http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility -- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer. On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 5:52 AM, Jens Best jens.b...@wikimedia.de wrote: News from Chile Chile’s Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones just decided that zero-rating is a promotion tool which is against net neutrality. Therefore all zero-rated-related marketing deals have to stop at the 1st of June. According to a WMF-list in Chile no provider has been offering Wikipedia Zero. Also I'm not sure if this dismissal reflects only on zero-rated offers where payment of money is done by the content provider. So it still needs to be checked how/if this decision is influencing our intent to spread Wikipedia Zero. All in all it shows that we have to improve our arguments in a broader scale if we don't want to get caught by promoting Free Knowledge but in fact 'only' pushing the use of a reduced version of one (very well known and superb) website which stand exemplary for this idea. We are caught in a dilemma which imho only can be solved when reaching out to more partners which stand for Free Knowledge and Free Education. Not sure how this could work, but fortunately that never was a reason to stop. News from Chile: http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ http://www.subtel.gob.cl/noticias/138-neutralidad-red/5311-ley-de-neutralidad-y-redes-sociales-gratis?_ga=1.143290485.1915805894.1400742323 Overview Wikipedia Zero: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships 2014-05-30 6:59 GMT+02:00 rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com: participation is another aspect. wp zero allows free reading. it does not allow free participation. write emails, search for references, download and adjust code. just as a side note, the oxford university stated: until 2012, europe, i.e. 10% of the worlds population, produced 50%+ of wikipedias geotagged contents [1]. imo it is not necessary to terminate wikipedia zero, it just needs to be negotiated differently: if a telco wants to support our case, give every person 200mb free internet access. unrestricted. or, if we need to break some law like now or be in the grey area, we could support additionally a viral model, like: if somebody is a wikipedia contributor (as defined in election criteria, or like in ghana, 3 edits per week), give them 2 GB free internet traffic for free, unrestricted. if
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Cost of Wikimedia Conference 2014
Fae, On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 1:05 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: On 2 April 2014 16:12, Jon Davies jon.dav...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: ... This could help reduce costs and avoid any duplication? I can now confirm that Wikimedia UK is not going to make a public report of the total costs of sending 8 people to the Wikimedia Conference 2014. I doubt that Jon Davies' wish to reduce costs can be considered a commitment if as the Chief Executive, he has chosen to not report on them. I have read the links that you have provided and I find it totally unacceptable that an organisation can not provide costs for sending 8 people on a junket to New York. When I have operated businesses in the real world, I have been able to pull up any financial information (expenses, revenue, etc) within a matter of seconds and with a click of a mouse. It is astounding that WMUK is not able to do the same thing. That Richard Symonds is saying that it is not a good use of resources, and basically putting it in the too hard basket, to supply the amount of donor dollars which have been spent on this controversial junket is, to use a great British colloquialism, total bollocks. WMUK is an organisation which blows its own trumpet on how transparent it has become in the last 2 years, so it seriously should not be too difficult to do this in a timely fashion. Cheers Russavia ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Wikimedia Ukraine's anniversary
Congratulations to Wikimedia Ukraine on achieving the milestones. You've got too many great milestones for celebration! Regards, Tanweer Morshed Board member Wikimedia Bangladesh On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Jon Davies jon.dav...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: Well done! On 31 May 2014 22:21, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote: Indeed, congratulations on achieving these milestones! It is great to know that even in these turbulent times you are managing to reach new goals and have a positive effect! Sometimes in the bigger picture these seem like small steps, but they are important steps for us as a movement and society as a whole. Jan-Bart On 31 May 2014, at 22:38, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: Congratulations Wikimedia Ukraine on these milestones. 500,000 articles, 10 years as a language wiki, and 5 years as an organization are great reasons to celebrate. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Feuerwerk_Dreiländerbrücke.jpg Pine Date: Sat, 31 May 2014 21:13:16 +0200 From: Richard Ames rich...@ames.id.au To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Ukraine's anniversary Message-ID: 538a29cc.7030...@ames.id.au Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed - оригінальне повідомлення - Тема: Wikimedia Ukraine's anniversary Від кого: Levon Azizian levonaziz...@bigmir.net Кому: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Копія: Правління Вікімедіа Україна bo...@wikimedia.in.ua Відправлено: 31.05.2014 18:40, Today, our organization celebrates anniversary - 5 years from the date of creation. Exactly 5 years ago, on May 31, 2009, in Kyiv was held the constituent meeting, which approved the bylaws and elected its first Board of the new organization, known as Wikimedia Ukraine. Our community has gone through a long and difficult path. Birthday of Wikimedia Ukraine for our community is the third remarkable date this year. On January 30 was the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Ukrainian Wikipedia and on May 12 Ukrainian Wikipedia has crossed the threshold of 500 000 articles. We want to thank to Wikimedia Foundation Inc. for their help, to our neighboring communities for fruitful cooperation with us and of course to our community for their contributions! Regards, Levon Azizian Deputy chair Wikimedia Ukraine -- The greatest collection of shared knowledge in history. Help Wikipedia, participate now: http://wikimedia.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Regards - Tanweer Morshed ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Wikimedia Ukraine's anniversary
Congratulations Wikimedia Ukraine.. -- Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive | @nhasive Sysop, Bengali Wikipedia | User: Nhasive Member, IEG, WMF Sent from my Android device On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 3:06 PM, Tanweer Morshed wiki.tanw...@gmail.com wrote: Congratulations to Wikimedia Ukraine on achieving the milestones. You've got too many great milestones for celebration! Regards, Tanweer Morshed Board member Wikimedia Bangladesh On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Jon Davies jon.dav...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: Well done! On 31 May 2014 22:21, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote: Indeed, congratulations on achieving these milestones! It is great to know that even in these turbulent times you are managing to reach new goals and have a positive effect! Sometimes in the bigger picture these seem like small steps, but they are important steps for us as a movement and society as a whole. Jan-Bart On 31 May 2014, at 22:38, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: Congratulations Wikimedia Ukraine on these milestones. 500,000 articles, 10 years as a language wiki, and 5 years as an organization are great reasons to celebrate. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Feuerwerk_Dreiländerbrücke.jpg Pine Date: Sat, 31 May 2014 21:13:16 +0200 From: Richard Ames rich...@ames.id.au To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Ukraine's anniversary Message-ID: 538a29cc.7030...@ames.id.au Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed - оригінальне повідомлення - Тема: Wikimedia Ukraine's anniversary Від кого: Levon Azizian levonaziz...@bigmir.net Кому: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Копія: Правління Вікімедіа Україна bo...@wikimedia.in.ua Відправлено: 31.05.2014 18:40, Today, our organization celebrates anniversary - 5 years from the date of creation. Exactly 5 years ago, on May 31, 2009, in Kyiv was held the constituent meeting, which approved the bylaws and elected its first Board of the new organization, known as Wikimedia Ukraine. Our community has gone through a long and difficult path. Birthday of Wikimedia Ukraine for our community is the third remarkable date this year. On January 30 was the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Ukrainian Wikipedia and on May 12 Ukrainian Wikipedia has crossed the threshold of 500 000 articles. We want to thank to Wikimedia Foundation Inc. for their help, to our neighboring communities for fruitful cooperation with us and of course to our community for their contributions! Regards, Levon Azizian Deputy chair Wikimedia Ukraine -- The greatest collection of shared knowledge in history. Help Wikipedia, participate now: http://wikimedia.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Regards - Tanweer Morshed ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Cost of Wikimedia Conference 2014
On 1 June 2014 10:53, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: charge and let others get on where you stopped being the big man ? I was never the big man. I have only ever been an unpaid volunteer like everyone else. is a Dutch proverb.. you attempt to rule from the grave and people think I am not going to go away and die because you keep saying I should drop dead. This may be a Dutch proverb, in my eyes it is highly offensive and appears deliberately intended to be so here. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks]
On 01/06/2014 10:53, Ting Chen wrote: Nowaday Wikipedia articles (across all major languages) are highly biased in style and in content to academic thesis. There is good reason for this: 'anyone can edit'. In an encyclopedia produced using the 'one best way' approach, there is sparse use of references and citations. Take this article on the syllogism http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-syllogism written by Henrik Lagerlund. I don't spot any references, and generally SEP is sparing in their use. Henrik doesn't need to supply references, because he is an expert in his field, and because there is a traditional peer review process supporting SEP. In Wikipedia by contrast, 'anyone can edit', and there is no equivalent peer review process, and so the only control is insistence on citations. This is part of what makes it difficult for newcomers. I remember well the period 2006-7. The growth of Wikipedia was tremendous. Before that, it was possible to manage the occasional 'idiosyncratic' contributors. Towards the beginning of 2007 it became impossible. Then two things happened. (i) It became much easier to get the 'idiosyncratic contributors' blocked. Before that, you had to make a very strong case to a non-involved admin. After that, it progressively became more like shoot on sight. (ii) The policies on citation became increasingly established and enforced. This made it much easier to gain control of an article. 'Idiosyncratic' contributors found it difficult to find reliable sources for whatever version of flat earth theory they were promoting, and got discouraged. There was also (iii) an easy way to control the quality of an article was to impose a sort of change freeze on any contribution, good or bad. I still maintain contact with the few editors left on the Philosophy and NLP articles, and they tell me this is how they achieve it. Of course, all this will have the effect of deterring contributors. But the underlying reason is the trade-off between quality and participation. If you have a large user base under the 'anyone can edit' policy, then you are going to have quality control problems. If you address the quality problem by any of the three methods above, then you will have to limit participation in some way. No brainer. I would advise anyone with an interest in this to read Aaron Halfaker's seminal paper on this. The links are in his post here http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-May/072267.html . ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Cost of Wikimedia Conference 2014
Hoi, No need to drop dead. What I want you to take is more positive role, I said as much.. I want you to try the role of an elder statesman.. Their influence is because of their positive comments and their insight and help move things forward smoothly. You may try to assume you had a humble role by depicting yourself as only an unpaid volunteer. it does not help. It does not convince and it does not make your remarks helpful or pleasant or bring about a cooperative spirit. Thanks, GerardM On 1 June 2014 12:07, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 June 2014 10:53, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: charge and let others get on where you stopped being the big man ? I was never the big man. I have only ever been an unpaid volunteer like everyone else. is a Dutch proverb.. you attempt to rule from the grave and people think I am not going to go away and die because you keep saying I should drop dead. This may be a Dutch proverb, in my eyes it is highly offensive and appears deliberately intended to be so here. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks]
Phototypesetters were typically professionals, therefore not strictly comparable. There is a significant difference to learning a complex system because you are going to earn a living from it, and learning the same system so you can spend your free time doing unpaid work with it. Cheers, Peter -Original Message- From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of James Salsman Sent: 01 June 2014 05:26 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks] (non-CS) engineer friends ... upon hitting that edit button, basically went Gak! No way! Wikitext is simpler than what phototypesetter operators in the 1960s-1990s had to deal with, and they had a much better gender balance. Wikitext resitricts editing to pretty much only computer science professionals, highly computer-literate professionals (which excludes most of Academia -- have you ever done IT support for a university?), and westerners with enough leisure time to learn it the hard way. There are abundant counter-examples. ... selects strongly against women. Where is the evidence that women have more difficulty understanding wikitext than men? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4592 / Virus Database: 3955/7601 - Release Date: 05/31/14 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks]
On 01/06/2014 12:00, Peter Southwood wrote: Phototypesetters were typically professionals, therefore not strictly comparable. There is a significant difference to learning a complex system because you are going to earn a living from it, and learning the same system so you can spend your free time doing unpaid work with it. Cheers, Peter Which explains the gender bias, yes? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks]
I agree with Ting's remarks about the importance of the social aspect. Maybe we need a taskforce against rudeness. But looking into the social aspect does not exclude improvements on the tech side. I think that maybe instead of VE we should have an 'invisible editor', meaning that if someone hits edit, no edit window with syntax shows up, but the page gets open for marking/inserting some text and change it (like it is done in wordprocessing programs). To place the change correctly in the body text or in some highly complicated template should be done by the wikimedia software without user intervention. As it is now, even simple changes like correcting a typo or a date often requires a lot of effort in locating it in the edit window. If it is hidden inside a template, even a page search does not show it. Regards, Thyge 2014-06-01 11:53 GMT+02:00 Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de: Hello Risker, you have my sympathy, and let me tell you this: I am man and programmer, and when I edit articles nowaday I tend to ignore the info boxes and the templates at the end of each article. If I create a new article and I happen don't have a similar article with the templates and infobox already at hand, I simply create an article without both. And I think it is essential to tell the beginner to do the same: Don't bother with things that are too complicated, it is the content that counts. What I also do is help newcomers to wikify articles. I think it is an utterly bad habitate just to put a wikify template in a not nicely structured article instead of to do something by one self. It is usually just a few edits, two '''s, a few [[ and ]]s, and maybe a [[cateogry:...]] that can make the difference. Personally, there are two reasons that I don't really care about info boxes and templates: First it is my own habitate as a user. For me the summary at the begin of an article tells me more than the info boxes. Info boxes are great for machines, for semantic web or things like that, but as a human I am more content with the summary. Second, I am sure that there will be at some time some nice and capable people who will put the necessary info boxes and templates in the articles I created. I never try to start a perfect article (I even never start an article in my own sandbox, people can always see my progress in the articles), I just do something and then leave it as I am able to. In all the discussions about editor retention and new comer barriers there is one thing that astonishes me again and again, and that is the whole discussion seems to be highly biased on the technical aspect, while the social aspect mostly tend to be neglected. People put a HUGE TON of hope in the visual editor as if it can resolve everything. But actually I think what VE can do is very limited, as far as our rules and our scope don't change. Nowaday Wikipedia articles (across all major languages) are highly biased in style and in content to academic thesis. How references are used and put, the criteria for references as valid, are almost one-by-one copied by the standards from academic thesis. Content without references are by itself considered as delete candidates. Both of these strongly put up constraints on who can put new content in Wikipedia and what content is considered as viable. I always feel sorrow, that both the Foundation and the community neglected the Oral Citation Project lead by Achal ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oral_citations ). I believe it has the potential to revolutionary how anthropology (and maybe a lot of other sciences where field study is necessary) is done just like Wikipedia revolutionized how Encyclopedia can be done. And it can really give a lot of people, who did not enjoyed the academic training, the possibility to contribute their knowledge. The other major topic that I see neglected in this whole complex of discussion is how our rules are set up. They don't really put on a price or punishment against rude behavior. There are a lot of initiative to be welcoming and helpful, they are all great, but in the end, one rude comment can destroy efforts of two or three welcoming volunteers. Our rules only set in if the rude behavior is obvious, but not if they are acid and suttle. And people tend to ignore rude behavior if they come from a high performer editor. Change our attitude to non-academic-content and change our play rule on rude behavior is harder than change in technology, this is why people do so as if the VE is the holy grale. But it is not. By the start of the last strategic period, in the years 2009 and 2010, the Foundation conducted a lot of studies about why people leave our community, and Wiki-syntax is only one of at least three other reasons. VE is just a tool, tools can be used for good or for bad, it is the mind, that decides for which the tools are used. Greetings Ting Am 01.06.2014 08:55, schrieb Risker: On 1 June 2014 01:39,
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks]
On 6/1/14, 11:53 AM, Ting Chen wrote:
And I think it is essential to tell the beginner to do the same: Don't
bother with things that are too complicated, it is the content that
counts.
Yes, I think we need to publicize this more widely. People are usually
surprised when I tell them that as a new editor it's perfectly fine to
just ignore a wide range of formatting instructions and templates, as
long as the essential content is there. All they really need is good
text and *any* readable way of citing where they got the information
from. There is no need to create an infobox, and you don't even need to
deal with citation templates. Once I've convinced people they don't
*really* need to learn how to use {{cite book}} and such, they tend to
be more willing to contribute.
When I'm giving people a miniature intro for how to contribute
referenced information to a Wikipedia article, I tell them to just put a
plaintext reference in any format they're used to inside ref/ref
tags, like this:
This is a sentence supported by a reference.refAuthor, Book title,
Publisher, year, pp. xx-xy/ref
As long as the essential information for the reference is included, this
should be fine, and someone who knows the markup can prettify it later,
if necessary. (If newbies contributing in this manner are getting bad
reactions, then the message that this is a perfectly fine way to
contribute should be better publicized to existing editors/admins, too.)
-Mark
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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] Cost of Wikimedia Conference 2014
On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 4:36 AM, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote: I have read the links that you have provided and I find it totally unacceptable that an organisation can not provide costs for sending 8 people on a junket to New York. When I have operated businesses in the real world, I have been able to pull up any financial information (expenses, revenue, etc) within a matter of seconds and with a click of a mouse. It is astounding that WMUK is not able to do the same thing. That Richard Symonds is saying that it is not a good use of resources, and basically putting it in the too hard basket, to supply the amount of donor dollars which have been spent on this controversial junket is, to use a great British colloquialism, total bollocks. WMUK is an organisation which blows its own trumpet on how transparent it has become in the last 2 years, so it seriously should not be too difficult to do this in a timely fashion. Cheers Russavia The conference was in Berlin, not New York. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2014 ~Nathan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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: Bad usage of money in Brazil
how can you help yeah, you didn't get. - you are not welcome... I can't do this kind of things, you can (I think). Something is going wrong, the community is losing space for a programme imposed by the WMF to Brazil. And this is not just me that are saying that, i.e.: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_comment%2FBad_usage_of_money_in_Brazildiff=8709365oldid=8683364 And this is a request for a comment, not a stop the machines, is a what do you think about this spends?, it's ok they use the donation money in this way?, because I have a bias on this, I'm the guy how look this idea in 2011 and predicted the community losing space to the Programme, and this crazy no optimized uses of money, maybe the answer is it's ok, yeah, Brazilians volunteers are not capable do to this type of activities, let the professionals do (I already received this one)... Just one think, why are you concerning about the efficiency of my questions, but not if the spendings? 3 times more money, plus 100 times more people, why we can't expect at least 10 times more? Obs: I get you, and I really think that you are right, but this is not for all situations; and this one, that staffs are making funny of volunteers, using money without not even concerning about the communities thoughts, without any data about this money, and using a fake flag saying that this a community activity... this a think to stop for a moment and say well, this is ok? Xoxo On 31 May 2014 21:14, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote: Hi Rodrigo, asking questions about a WLM competition would be the right time now indeed. But then you should phrase your questions that way: are they still planning to organize a WLM, how can you help them and what are they planning budget/prize wise. You could also suggest to plan an evaluation moment between those two, to evaluate for example the prizes. Whether it is a chapter, WMF project or something else shouldn't matter (if it does, it usually is a sign something goes wrong). I'm just saying that complaining about the WLE competition right now is unhelpful - nothing is going to change anyway because the competition is already underway. In that case, it is more effective to wait until it is finished so that you can evaluate, and learn from it. You could focus right now on formulating questions to ask during evaluation. If you share those in advance, people can already think a bit about them. This is not a matter of caring or not caring - this is a matter of being effective and efficient. Best, Lodewijk 2014-06-01 2:06 GMT+02:00 Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argen...@gmail.com: Well Lodewijk, they announce the values during the WLE, not before to discuss (I wrote that in Meta), and more, they are trying to do a event after the WLE that will cost ~9000 USD. And they promised to do a WLM too, how much money they will spend on that too. Furthermore, I tried to do in the soft way, asking they in the page of the event, they blocked my for no reason, the reason given was you are not welcome... Remember, this is not a Wikimedia Chapter, this is the Brazil Program (WMF project) the are doing this event, without accountability, discussion with any community, transparency... We could not do that before because they did had not opened how much they would spend, and we can't wait moths to do, because we are not that far from WLM, and always have some guys saying this already go, doesn't matter... If we do not care, who will care? On 31 May 2014 06:37, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote: Dear Rodrigo, As you probably realize, the Wiki Loves Earth competition is ongoing already - and it is highly unlikely that things will change /during/ the competition. Raising this right now, in this aggressive way (not going towards a solution) is primarily obstructive. What would be much more constructive is if you either decide to invest your effort in making this investment worth while (increase the impact), or to help during the evaluation/next time's organization. That way you can actually impact the way money is being spent, and volunteers are being empowered effectively. Unless I'm missing something (what you're actually trying to accomplish) this is probably the least impactful moment to have this discussion - a few months earlier or later would have been. Best, Lodewijk 2014-05-31 3:50 GMT+02:00 Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argen...@gmail.com: way the topic was raised. funny Thank you Jaime Anstee, Lodewijk for the explanation and context. I don't if Mr. Alvarenga can see, but I don't criticize the organizers, they are newbies in the Wikimedia movement, is one of the main problems here, why they can have the power spend this money without consulting, your point increase the size of this issue, if they don't
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks]
On 06/01/2014 07:13 AM, edward wrote: Which explains the gender bias, yes? At least in large part; Risker explained it more eloquently than I. There is a bias against women because the skillsets currently useful to be able to edit wikitext (programming, heavy markup languages) are more common in professions where women are underrepresented. I didn't mean to imply that women were less skilled, but that the pool of potentially skilled editors had much fewer women in it than men. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Airtel Offers Nigerians Free Access to Wikipedia
Yana, may i suggest that you try at least one time in your life edit a wikipedia article so you experience how much bandwith is consumed to do a proper research of verifyable sources? Or just read an article and try to verify the contents? Yana, there is only one type of internet, please leave it up to the reader what is good and what is bad, and please let the wikipedia zero contracts reflect this. Rupert Am 01.06.2014 09:57 schrieb Yana Welinder ywelin...@wikimedia.org: As the Quartz article from Jens's email discusses, the decision in Chile is very unfortunate.[1] It's an example of when net neutrality — which is an important principle for the free and open internet — is poorly implemented to prevent free dissemination of knowledge. Although Wikipedia Zero is not yet available in Chile, it is a country of interest for the program, so we are thinking about what options are available in light of this decision. That said, I would like to clarify a couple of points about the implementation of Wikipedia Zero that were raised in this thread: 1. The newer Wikipedia Zero partnerships have provided the full Wikipedia sites (m.wikipedia) free of data charges for some time now and we are phasing out the reduced version (zero.wikipedia) from the older partnerships. 2. While earlier Wikipedia Zero partnerships only zero-rated Wikipedia, we are working on getting carriers to zero-rate all the Wikimedia projects. 3. We are also working on getting editing functions zero-rated, though there are some technical hurdles for that right now. But, eventually, Wikipedia Zero will not only make knowledge more accessible, but also empower more people in the Global South to contribute to the projects. 4. Finally, WMF does *not* pay carriers to zero-rate Wikipedia under Wikipedia Zero. Carriers zero-rate the sites because they want to make a commitment to access to knowledge as a corporate social responsibility.[2] I believe this question has already been answered in this thread since Scott raised it earlier, but I just wanted to confirm that Wikipedia Zero does not involve payments. Hope this is helpful! Best, Yana [1] http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility -- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer. On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 5:52 AM, Jens Best jens.b...@wikimedia.de wrote: News from Chile Chile’s Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones just decided that zero-rating is a promotion tool which is against net neutrality. Therefore all zero-rated-related marketing deals have to stop at the 1st of June. According to a WMF-list in Chile no provider has been offering Wikipedia Zero. Also I'm not sure if this dismissal reflects only on zero-rated offers where payment of money is done by the content provider. So it still needs to be checked how/if this decision is influencing our intent to spread Wikipedia Zero. All in all it shows that we have to improve our arguments in a broader scale if we don't want to get caught by promoting Free Knowledge but in fact 'only' pushing the use of a reduced version of one (very well known and superb) website which stand exemplary for this idea. We are caught in a dilemma which imho only can be solved when reaching out to more partners which stand for Free Knowledge and Free Education. Not sure how this could work, but fortunately that never was a reason to stop. News from Chile: http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ http://www.subtel.gob.cl/noticias/138-neutralidad-red/5311-ley-de-neutralidad-y-redes-sociales-gratis?_ga=1.143290485.1915805894.1400742323 Overview Wikipedia Zero: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships 2014-05-30 6:59 GMT+02:00 rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com: participation is another aspect. wp zero allows free reading. it does not allow free participation. write emails, search for references, download and adjust code. just as a side note, the oxford university stated: until 2012, europe, i.e. 10% of the worlds population, produced 50%+ of wikipedias geotagged contents [1]. imo it is not necessary to terminate wikipedia zero, it just needs to be negotiated differently: if a telco wants to support our case, give every person 200mb free internet access. unrestricted. or, if we need to break some law like now or
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] The Signpost -- Volume 10, Issue 20 -- 28 May 2014
Interview: Casliber reaches one hundred featured articles smallWikipedia's second featured article centurion/small http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-05-28/Interview News and notes: The English Wikipedia's second featured-article centurion; wiki inventor interviewed on video http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-05-28/News_and_notes Recent research: Overview of research on Wikipedia's readers; predicting which article you will edit next http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-05-28/Recent_research Featured content: Zombie fight in the saloon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-05-28/Featured_content Traffic report: Get fitted for flipflops and floppy hats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-05-28/Traffic_report Single page view http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost/Single PDF version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-05-28 https://www.facebook.com/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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Increase participation
Jane I think we are talking about two different things. Ownership of or access to equipment with access to the internet is not the same thing as we are talking about. If anything, the fact that more women own any such equipment only goes to reinforce what we already know, which is that not many girls/ women are taking part in editing the Wikipedia. Rui 2014-06-01 9:30 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: Of course I am just a sample of one, but in my personal circle of female friends, most of them only interact with a smartphone or tablet and though they may own a full-fledged computer, they only interact with that machine for certain boring and obligatory tasks such as filing taxes and printing. This is in and of itself, a reason not to edit, in my mind. Research into the use of tablets in 2012 in the Netherlands did indicate that more women were active on them than men, and a simple google search picked this 2013 BBC article up about the same holding true for women in the UK: Women own most of the UK's tablet computers says study http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23355944 Disclaimer: I am a frequent user of an iPad-1 that my mother (of all people!) gave me for my birthday. 2014-06-01 8:52 GMT+02:00, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com: Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 06:39:38 +0100 From: Fæ fae...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks] Message-ID: cah7nnd3meyllrfd+sss-trsajxrreq0uidom07m_9nx-oiq...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 1 June 2014 04:26, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... ... selects strongly against women. Where is the evidence that women have more difficulty understanding wikitext than men? (Probably drifting to Increase participation by women) As someone who has run editathons on women focused topics, I found this an odd comment that does not match anecdotal experience. New women users seem little different to men in the issues that arise, and though I have found myself apologising for the slightly odd syntax, given the standard crib-sheet most users get on with basic article creation quite happily. There are far more commonly raised issues such as the complex issues associated with image upload (copyright!), or the conceptual difficulty of namespaces which mean that some webpages behave differently to others. None is something that appears to select strongly against women, though the encyclopedia's way of defining notability can make it harder to create articles about pre-1970s professional women, purely because sources from earlier periods tend to be biased towards men. If there are surveys that wiki-syntax is more of a barrier for women than men (after discounting out other factors), perhaps someone could provide a link? Fae FWIW, I think that Lila said at the Zurich hackathon that she had found research indicating that fewer women click the edit button than men do. That sounds like a phenomenon that could use some research and experimentation. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014-05-10_Wikimedia_Hackathon_Lila_Tretikov.webm Also, the Individual Engagement Grants Committee and WMF have funded a research project in this IEG round focused on women's participation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Women_and_Wikipedia Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- _ Rui Correia Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Work Consultant Bridge to Angola - Angola Liaison Consultant Mobile Number in South Africa +27 74 425 4186 Número de Telemóvel na África do Sul +27 74 425 4186 ___ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Increase participation
I'll bet you have never tried to edit Wikipedia on an iPad 2014-06-01 20:25 GMT+02:00, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com: Jane I think we are talking about two different things. Ownership of or access to equipment with access to the internet is not the same thing as we are talking about. If anything, the fact that more women own any such equipment only goes to reinforce what we already know, which is that not many girls/ women are taking part in editing the Wikipedia. Rui 2014-06-01 9:30 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: Of course I am just a sample of one, but in my personal circle of female friends, most of them only interact with a smartphone or tablet and though they may own a full-fledged computer, they only interact with that machine for certain boring and obligatory tasks such as filing taxes and printing. This is in and of itself, a reason not to edit, in my mind. Research into the use of tablets in 2012 in the Netherlands did indicate that more women were active on them than men, and a simple google search picked this 2013 BBC article up about the same holding true for women in the UK: Women own most of the UK's tablet computers says study http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23355944 Disclaimer: I am a frequent user of an iPad-1 that my mother (of all people!) gave me for my birthday. 2014-06-01 8:52 GMT+02:00, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com: Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 06:39:38 +0100 From: Fæ fae...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks] Message-ID: cah7nnd3meyllrfd+sss-trsajxrreq0uidom07m_9nx-oiq...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 1 June 2014 04:26, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... ... selects strongly against women. Where is the evidence that women have more difficulty understanding wikitext than men? (Probably drifting to Increase participation by women) As someone who has run editathons on women focused topics, I found this an odd comment that does not match anecdotal experience. New women users seem little different to men in the issues that arise, and though I have found myself apologising for the slightly odd syntax, given the standard crib-sheet most users get on with basic article creation quite happily. There are far more commonly raised issues such as the complex issues associated with image upload (copyright!), or the conceptual difficulty of namespaces which mean that some webpages behave differently to others. None is something that appears to select strongly against women, though the encyclopedia's way of defining notability can make it harder to create articles about pre-1970s professional women, purely because sources from earlier periods tend to be biased towards men. If there are surveys that wiki-syntax is more of a barrier for women than men (after discounting out other factors), perhaps someone could provide a link? Fae FWIW, I think that Lila said at the Zurich hackathon that she had found research indicating that fewer women click the edit button than men do. That sounds like a phenomenon that could use some research and experimentation. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014-05-10_Wikimedia_Hackathon_Lila_Tretikov.webm Also, the Individual Engagement Grants Committee and WMF have funded a research project in this IEG round focused on women's participation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Women_and_Wikipedia Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- _ Rui Correia Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Work Consultant Bridge to Angola - Angola Liaison Consultant Mobile Number in South Africa +27 74 425 4186 Número de Telemóvel na África do Sul +27 74 425 4186 ___ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at:
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation
Well, from your previous post I was left the distinct impression that neither you nor your female friends edit the Wikipedia. So I have gone back and reread your post to see what I missed. I see that you and your friends interact. For the life of me I thought that by interact you meant go on the internet and interact with people - on social media etc. Nothing in it implied that you meant editing the WP. And no, I have never edited on an iPad - why should I, if I work on as big a screen as I can get that is still small enough to pack into a travel bakpack? ;-) Rui 2014-06-01 20:47 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: I'll bet you have never tried to edit Wikipedia on an iPad 2014-06-01 20:25 GMT+02:00, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com: Jane I think we are talking about two different things. Ownership of or access to equipment with access to the internet is not the same thing as we are talking about. If anything, the fact that more women own any such equipment only goes to reinforce what we already know, which is that not many girls/ women are taking part in editing the Wikipedia. Rui 2014-06-01 9:30 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: Of course I am just a sample of one, but in my personal circle of female friends, most of them only interact with a smartphone or tablet and though they may own a full-fledged computer, they only interact with that machine for certain boring and obligatory tasks such as filing taxes and printing. This is in and of itself, a reason not to edit, in my mind. Research into the use of tablets in 2012 in the Netherlands did indicate that more women were active on them than men, and a simple google search picked this 2013 BBC article up about the same holding true for women in the UK: Women own most of the UK's tablet computers says study http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23355944 Disclaimer: I am a frequent user of an iPad-1 that my mother (of all people!) gave me for my birthday. 2014-06-01 8:52 GMT+02:00, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com: Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 06:39:38 +0100 From: Fæ fae...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks] Message-ID: cah7nnd3meyllrfd+sss-trsajxrreq0uidom07m_9nx-oiq...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 1 June 2014 04:26, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... ... selects strongly against women. Where is the evidence that women have more difficulty understanding wikitext than men? (Probably drifting to Increase participation by women) As someone who has run editathons on women focused topics, I found this an odd comment that does not match anecdotal experience. New women users seem little different to men in the issues that arise, and though I have found myself apologising for the slightly odd syntax, given the standard crib-sheet most users get on with basic article creation quite happily. There are far more commonly raised issues such as the complex issues associated with image upload (copyright!), or the conceptual difficulty of namespaces which mean that some webpages behave differently to others. None is something that appears to select strongly against women, though the encyclopedia's way of defining notability can make it harder to create articles about pre-1970s professional women, purely because sources from earlier periods tend to be biased towards men. If there are surveys that wiki-syntax is more of a barrier for women than men (after discounting out other factors), perhaps someone could provide a link? Fae FWIW, I think that Lila said at the Zurich hackathon that she had found research indicating that fewer women click the edit button than men do. That sounds like a phenomenon that could use some research and experimentation. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014-05-10_Wikimedia_Hackathon_Lila_Tretikov.webm Also, the Individual Engagement Grants Committee and WMF have funded a research project in this IEG round focused on women's participation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Women_and_Wikipedia Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation
Hoi, grin Jane is in my top 1% of most accomplished Wikimedians /grin She is VERY effective on both Wikipedia, Commons and WIkidata. Thanks, GerardM On 1 June 2014 21:13, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com wrote: Well, from your previous post I was left the distinct impression that neither you nor your female friends edit the Wikipedia. So I have gone back and reread your post to see what I missed. I see that you and your friends interact. For the life of me I thought that by interact you meant go on the internet and interact with people - on social media etc. Nothing in it implied that you meant editing the WP. And no, I have never edited on an iPad - why should I, if I work on as big a screen as I can get that is still small enough to pack into a travel bakpack? ;-) Rui 2014-06-01 20:47 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: I'll bet you have never tried to edit Wikipedia on an iPad 2014-06-01 20:25 GMT+02:00, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com: Jane I think we are talking about two different things. Ownership of or access to equipment with access to the internet is not the same thing as we are talking about. If anything, the fact that more women own any such equipment only goes to reinforce what we already know, which is that not many girls/ women are taking part in editing the Wikipedia. Rui 2014-06-01 9:30 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: Of course I am just a sample of one, but in my personal circle of female friends, most of them only interact with a smartphone or tablet and though they may own a full-fledged computer, they only interact with that machine for certain boring and obligatory tasks such as filing taxes and printing. This is in and of itself, a reason not to edit, in my mind. Research into the use of tablets in 2012 in the Netherlands did indicate that more women were active on them than men, and a simple google search picked this 2013 BBC article up about the same holding true for women in the UK: Women own most of the UK's tablet computers says study http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23355944 Disclaimer: I am a frequent user of an iPad-1 that my mother (of all people!) gave me for my birthday. 2014-06-01 8:52 GMT+02:00, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com: Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 06:39:38 +0100 From: Fæ fae...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks] Message-ID: cah7nnd3meyllrfd+sss-trsajxrreq0uidom07m_9nx-oiq...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 1 June 2014 04:26, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... ... selects strongly against women. Where is the evidence that women have more difficulty understanding wikitext than men? (Probably drifting to Increase participation by women) As someone who has run editathons on women focused topics, I found this an odd comment that does not match anecdotal experience. New women users seem little different to men in the issues that arise, and though I have found myself apologising for the slightly odd syntax, given the standard crib-sheet most users get on with basic article creation quite happily. There are far more commonly raised issues such as the complex issues associated with image upload (copyright!), or the conceptual difficulty of namespaces which mean that some webpages behave differently to others. None is something that appears to select strongly against women, though the encyclopedia's way of defining notability can make it harder to create articles about pre-1970s professional women, purely because sources from earlier periods tend to be biased towards men. If there are surveys that wiki-syntax is more of a barrier for women than men (after discounting out other factors), perhaps someone could provide a link? Fae FWIW, I think that Lila said at the Zurich hackathon that she had found research indicating that fewer women click the edit button than men do. That sounds like a phenomenon that could use some research and experimentation. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014-05-10_Wikimedia_Hackathon_Lila_Tretikov.webm Also, the Individual Engagement Grants Committee and WMF have funded a research project in this IEG round focused on women's participation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Women_and_Wikipedia Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ,
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation
Gerard, Thanks for the vote of confidence! Rui, I meant interact in the sense of user interface, so to edit Wikipedia, one must first interact with the edit button, something I have tried endlessly to get my friends to do. Instead, whenever they notice something wrong on Wikipedia, they call me. Though I am flattered that they think I know all aspects of several million articles, it does frustrate me that they think they are doing me a favor by telling me they found a mistake. My point is that given a finite number of hours to edit Wikipedia for any given person (male or female), the number of those hours spent on a handheld device will affect the productivity of those available hours in a negative way (like as in zero productivity - go try editing Wikipedia on a smartphone!). 2014-06-01 21:16 GMT+02:00, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: Hoi, grin Jane is in my top 1% of most accomplished Wikimedians /grin She is VERY effective on both Wikipedia, Commons and WIkidata. Thanks, GerardM On 1 June 2014 21:13, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com wrote: Well, from your previous post I was left the distinct impression that neither you nor your female friends edit the Wikipedia. So I have gone back and reread your post to see what I missed. I see that you and your friends interact. For the life of me I thought that by interact you meant go on the internet and interact with people - on social media etc. Nothing in it implied that you meant editing the WP. And no, I have never edited on an iPad - why should I, if I work on as big a screen as I can get that is still small enough to pack into a travel bakpack? ;-) Rui 2014-06-01 20:47 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: I'll bet you have never tried to edit Wikipedia on an iPad 2014-06-01 20:25 GMT+02:00, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com: Jane I think we are talking about two different things. Ownership of or access to equipment with access to the internet is not the same thing as we are talking about. If anything, the fact that more women own any such equipment only goes to reinforce what we already know, which is that not many girls/ women are taking part in editing the Wikipedia. Rui 2014-06-01 9:30 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: Of course I am just a sample of one, but in my personal circle of female friends, most of them only interact with a smartphone or tablet and though they may own a full-fledged computer, they only interact with that machine for certain boring and obligatory tasks such as filing taxes and printing. This is in and of itself, a reason not to edit, in my mind. Research into the use of tablets in 2012 in the Netherlands did indicate that more women were active on them than men, and a simple google search picked this 2013 BBC article up about the same holding true for women in the UK: Women own most of the UK's tablet computers says study http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23355944 Disclaimer: I am a frequent user of an iPad-1 that my mother (of all people!) gave me for my birthday. 2014-06-01 8:52 GMT+02:00, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com: Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 06:39:38 +0100 From: Fæ fae...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks] Message-ID: cah7nnd3meyllrfd+sss-trsajxrreq0uidom07m_9nx-oiq...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 1 June 2014 04:26, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... ... selects strongly against women. Where is the evidence that women have more difficulty understanding wikitext than men? (Probably drifting to Increase participation by women) As someone who has run editathons on women focused topics, I found this an odd comment that does not match anecdotal experience. New women users seem little different to men in the issues that arise, and though I have found myself apologising for the slightly odd syntax, given the standard crib-sheet most users get on with basic article creation quite happily. There are far more commonly raised issues such as the complex issues associated with image upload (copyright!), or the conceptual difficulty of namespaces which mean that some webpages behave differently to others. None is something that appears to select strongly against women, though the encyclopedia's way of defining notability can make it harder to create articles about pre-1970s professional women, purely because sources from earlier periods tend to be biased towards men. If there are surveys that wiki-syntax is more of a barrier for women than men (after discounting out other factors), perhaps someone could provide a link? Fae FWIW, I think
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation
I am not disputing that and don't for a second doubt that. ;-) Down south here in South Africa interact would not be understood the way she meant it. So, I have learnt two things: that (interacting on WP), and grin as an alternative for ;-) A great week to all Rui PS: emoticons would not be a bad idea on the talk pages - they would certainly alleviate tensions and tone down fights. 2014-06-01 21:16 GMT+02:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: Hoi, grin Jane is in my top 1% of most accomplished Wikimedians /grin She is VERY effective on both Wikipedia, Commons and WIkidata. Thanks, GerardM On 1 June 2014 21:13, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com wrote: Well, from your previous post I was left the distinct impression that neither you nor your female friends edit the Wikipedia. So I have gone back and reread your post to see what I missed. I see that you and your friends interact. For the life of me I thought that by interact you meant go on the internet and interact with people - on social media etc. Nothing in it implied that you meant editing the WP. And no, I have never edited on an iPad - why should I, if I work on as big a screen as I can get that is still small enough to pack into a travel bakpack? ;-) Rui 2014-06-01 20:47 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: I'll bet you have never tried to edit Wikipedia on an iPad 2014-06-01 20:25 GMT+02:00, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com: Jane I think we are talking about two different things. Ownership of or access to equipment with access to the internet is not the same thing as we are talking about. If anything, the fact that more women own any such equipment only goes to reinforce what we already know, which is that not many girls/ women are taking part in editing the Wikipedia. Rui 2014-06-01 9:30 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: Of course I am just a sample of one, but in my personal circle of female friends, most of them only interact with a smartphone or tablet and though they may own a full-fledged computer, they only interact with that machine for certain boring and obligatory tasks such as filing taxes and printing. This is in and of itself, a reason not to edit, in my mind. Research into the use of tablets in 2012 in the Netherlands did indicate that more women were active on them than men, and a simple google search picked this 2013 BBC article up about the same holding true for women in the UK: Women own most of the UK's tablet computers says study http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23355944 Disclaimer: I am a frequent user of an iPad-1 that my mother (of all people!) gave me for my birthday. _ Rui Correia Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Work Consultant Bridge to Angola - Angola Liaison Consultant Mobile Number in South Africa +27 74 425 4186 Número de Telemóvel na África do Sul +27 74 425 4186 ___ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Increase participation
Hi Jane I got it. ;-) I am in a similar situation - as a translator, I sign up to a handful of mutual help lists. On a daily basis, whatever the cry for help in whatever language, someone will go to the WP and see what it says there (which of course is great and great news). If the same article is of good quality in any two languages, then it is better than any dictionary, as you can see the terms that you are working with and you get to better understand the concepts (if required - remember, members are translators, not necessarily experts in the specific subject). However, if the - in this case - Portuguese page is of poor quality, boy, do you get the little group that goes on about it. However, try as I may, I can't get them to donate a few hours to go and fix something that they moaned about. Some have 'discovered' the discussion pages and click there to see what I have been discussing with other editors. Rui 2014-06-01 21:31 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: Gerard, Thanks for the vote of confidence! Rui, I meant interact in the sense of user interface, so to edit Wikipedia, one must first interact with the edit button, something I have tried endlessly to get my friends to do. Instead, whenever they notice something wrong on Wikipedia, they call me. Though I am flattered that they think I know all aspects of several million articles, it does frustrate me that they think they are doing me a favor by telling me they found a mistake. My point is that given a finite number of hours to edit Wikipedia for any given person (male or female), the number of those hours spent on a handheld device will affect the productivity of those available hours in a negative way (like as in zero productivity - go try editing Wikipedia on a smartphone!). 2014-06-01 21:16 GMT+02:00, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: Hoi, grin Jane is in my top 1% of most accomplished Wikimedians /grin She is VERY effective on both Wikipedia, Commons and WIkidata. Thanks, GerardM On 1 June 2014 21:13, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com wrote: Well, from your previous post I was left the distinct impression that neither you nor your female friends edit the Wikipedia. So I have gone back and reread your post to see what I missed. I see that you and your friends interact. For the life of me I thought that by interact you meant go on the internet and interact with people - on social media etc. Nothing in it implied that you meant editing the WP. And no, I have never edited on an iPad - why should I, if I work on as big a screen as I can get that is still small enough to pack into a travel bakpack? ;-) Rui 2014-06-01 20:47 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: I'll bet you have never tried to edit Wikipedia on an iPad 2014-06-01 20:25 GMT+02:00, Rui Correia correia@gmail.com: Jane I think we are talking about two different things. Ownership of or access to equipment with access to the internet is not the same thing as we are talking about. If anything, the fact that more women own any such equipment only goes to reinforce what we already know, which is that not many girls/ women are taking part in editing the Wikipedia. Rui 2014-06-01 9:30 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com: Of course I am just a sample of one, but in my personal circle of female friends, most of them only interact with a smartphone or tablet and though they may own a full-fledged computer, they only interact with that machine for certain boring and obligatory tasks such as filing taxes and printing. This is in and of itself, a reason not to edit, in my mind. Research into the use of tablets in 2012 in the Netherlands did indicate that more women were active on them than men, and a simple google search picked this 2013 BBC article up about the same holding true for women in the UK: Women own most of the UK's tablet computers says study http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23355944 Disclaimer: I am a frequent user of an iPad-1 that my mother (of all people!) gave me for my birthday. 2014-06-01 8:52 GMT+02:00, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com: Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 06:39:38 +0100 From: Fæ fae...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks] Message-ID: cah7nnd3meyllrfd+sss-trsajxrreq0uidom07m_9nx-oiq...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 1 June 2014 04:26, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... ... selects strongly against women. Where is the evidence that women have more difficulty understanding wikitext than men? (Probably drifting to Increase participation by women) As someone
[Wikimedia-l] Is Wikipedia Really 90% Wrong
The journal article by Hasty et al published on May 1st 2014 basically took ten Wikipedia articles and ten “researchers” (either medical students or residents). Each Wikipedia article was then assessed by two of these researchers to try to determine how many statements of fact they contained. The first issue was that the number of statements of fact each reviewer found sometimes differed by nearly 100%. They than took these individual facts and the “researchers” compared them with the peer reviewed literature as found on pubmed or the medical website Uptodate. They did not check to see if the sources Wikipedia was using were high quality or were accurately reflected. Additionally medical students and residents are hardly experts in medical research. No errors in Wikipedia are mentioned directly in the original journal article. When I spoke with the lead author he declined to release the underlying data for us at Wikipedia to correct the “errors” they had found stating that he may 1) wish to publish more on the topic and 2) wished to protect the researchers. So much for independent verifiability in science. Hasty did make some claims to the popular press about errors on Wikipedia. Some of the facts he mentioned however accurately reflected some of the best available peer reviewed sources. For example he claimed that blood pressure should only be checked twice to make the diagnosis of hypertension and that when we state three times we are wrong. However look at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (previous known as the National Institute of Clinical Health / NICE) on page 7 in this document http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/CG18background.pdf It is thus a little ironic that the Telegraph, a UK paper, repeated this incorrect statement and the BBC covered the story so uncritically. Wikipedia has strong recommendations for what counts as a suitable source. We recommend the use of secondary sources published in well respected journals from the last 3-5 years, position statements of national or internationally recognized medical bodies or major textbooks. Is Wikipedia a perfect source? No, but it is just as good as many and better than most other sources out there. Or else why would the world be using it? Hasty's work did not have a comparison group. Basically he invented a new method to test the quality of medical content and then only applied this new method to one source, Wikipedia. Without a comparator this single data point is meaningless. I am curious what he would have found if he would have applied this to a NICE guideline or emedicine? We recently surveyed our top contributors and asked about their backgrounds. What we found was that 52% have either a masters, PhD, or MD. Another 33% have a BSc. About half are health care providers. 82% are male, 9% are female and 9% classified themselves as other or would rather not say. This is very similar to results published by Nusa Faric in her master's thesis. Additionally we are working with a number of organizations including: the National Institute of Health, the Cochrane collaboration, and the UCSF college of medicine among others to improve Wikipedia’s health care content. What Hasty did show was 1) the peer reviewed literature does not agree with itself (ie different peer reviewed sources come to different conclusions which is no surprise to anyone that has read much of it) 2) the peer review process is sometimes flawed as he was able to publish a peer reviewed article whose data does not support its conclusions. As someone who has read a lot of the peer reviewed literature this is also not surprising. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] [Wikimedia Announcements] Thank you Sue Gardner
Hello Everyone, As Lila officially takes over from Sue as the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation after this weekend it really is a moment to not only wish Lila a lot of succes in the coming years, but also to give a tremendous thanks to Sue for her work in the past years. Of course I did so last year in March when she announced her departure but it bears repeating that Sue took us from a small organisation in St. Petersburg Florida, which was struggling to create impact, to a mature and stable organisation which makes a huge difference. Building up a professional staff who are dedicated to our mission, incredible fundraising growth and working through complex situations to create concepts such as the FDC stand out amongst many other achievements. It was Sue herself who indicated that it was time to find a new Executive Director, someone who was more suitable for our focus on Engineering and Grantmaking. As I mentioned more than a year ago, its hard to imagine the Wikimedia Foundation without Sue at the helm. However, due in large part to her efforts we have managed to find a new Executive Director who gives me confidence in the future of the Foundation. I am happy that we managed to find the “unicorn” that we were looking for, but that didn’t happen by accident. Most of you know that we concluded the first round of our search in early december with candidates that we did not feel were ideal for the job. We decided to change our tactics and this involved both Erik and Sue spending a lot of their (spare) time with potential candidates and making sure that we were getting the right candidates. As a result our second round had a great set of candidates, which ultimately led to the selection of Lila. On the transition team Sue has been very crucial in holding up a mirror and reminding us what we were looking for. After a well deserved vacation Sue will be available as a Special Advisor to both the Lila and the Board of Trustees and we are grateful to her for making herself available to do this. However, what intrigues me more is what she will end up doing in the coming years. I am hoping it is in the space of Open Content or the Open Internet, as she will undoubtedly have a tremendous impact in there, and we need her! I am also happy to inform you that Sue will attend a part of Wikimania where she will for once not have an packed schedule, so feel free to take the opportunity to thank her in person if you are so inclined :) On behalf of the entire Board and all the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation: thank you so much all that you have given the Foundation, and especially your efforts in the past year to ensure that there was both stability within our organisation and a great succesor. Jan-Bart de Vreede Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees ___ 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Airtel Offers Nigerians Free Access to Wikipedia
Gerard: Labs is not currently considered for zero-rating because it can be misused. But it may be added over time if we figure out how to work around that and there is demand for it. Rupert: Your comment seems unnecessarily hostile to me, but I'm going to try to assume good faith. I have of course edited Wikipedia articles in my spare time, though I may not do it as much given that I spend most of my time defending the projects legally and creating a safer environment for other editors. To address your substantive point: that people need full Internet access to do research for Wikipedia articles. I do think there are ways the community could work with editors that have limited access to the Internet rather than dismissing them outright. The fact that people can't afford to pay for full Internet access should not exclude them from contributing to the projects. Best, Yana -- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer. On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 8:45 AM, rupert THURNER rupert.thur...@gmail.com wrote: Yana, may i suggest that you try at least one time in your life edit a wikipedia article so you experience how much bandwith is consumed to do a proper research of verifyable sources? Or just read an article and try to verify the contents? Yana, there is only one type of internet, please leave it up to the reader what is good and what is bad, and please let the wikipedia zero contracts reflect this. Rupert Am 01.06.2014 09:57 schrieb Yana Welinder ywelin...@wikimedia.org: As the Quartz article from Jens's email discusses, the decision in Chile is very unfortunate.[1] It's an example of when net neutrality — which is an important principle for the free and open internet — is poorly implemented to prevent free dissemination of knowledge. Although Wikipedia Zero is not yet available in Chile, it is a country of interest for the program, so we are thinking about what options are available in light of this decision. That said, I would like to clarify a couple of points about the implementation of Wikipedia Zero that were raised in this thread: 1. The newer Wikipedia Zero partnerships have provided the full Wikipedia sites (m.wikipedia) free of data charges for some time now and we are phasing out the reduced version (zero.wikipedia) from the older partnerships. 2. While earlier Wikipedia Zero partnerships only zero-rated Wikipedia, we are working on getting carriers to zero-rate all the Wikimedia projects. 3. We are also working on getting editing functions zero-rated, though there are some technical hurdles for that right now. But, eventually, Wikipedia Zero will not only make knowledge more accessible, but also empower more people in the Global South to contribute to the projects. 4. Finally, WMF does *not* pay carriers to zero-rate Wikipedia under Wikipedia Zero. Carriers zero-rate the sites because they want to make a commitment to access to knowledge as a corporate social responsibility.[2] I believe this question has already been answered in this thread since Scott raised it earlier, but I just wanted to confirm that Wikipedia Zero does not involve payments. Hope this is helpful! Best, Yana [1] http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility -- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer. On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 5:52 AM, Jens Best jens.b...@wikimedia.de wrote: News from Chile Chile’s Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones just decided that zero-rating is a promotion tool which is against net neutrality. Therefore all zero-rated-related marketing deals have to stop at the 1st of June. According to a WMF-list in Chile no provider has been offering Wikipedia Zero. Also I'm not sure if this dismissal reflects only on zero-rated offers where payment of money is done by the content provider. So it still needs to be checked how/if this decision is influencing our intent to spread Wikipedia Zero. All in all it shows that we have to
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is Wikipedia Really 90% Wrong
I am pretty sure that a 90% wrong figure would fail an elementary statistical test of significance... On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 12:55 PM, James Heilman jmh...@gmail.com wrote: The journal article by Hasty et al published on May 1st 2014 basically took ten Wikipedia articles and ten “researchers” (either medical students or residents). Each Wikipedia article was then assessed by two of these researchers to try to determine how many statements of fact they contained. The first issue was that the number of statements of fact each reviewer found sometimes differed by nearly 100%. They than took these individual facts and the “researchers” compared them with the peer reviewed literature as found on pubmed or the medical website Uptodate. They did not check to see if the sources Wikipedia was using were high quality or were accurately reflected. Additionally medical students and residents are hardly experts in medical research. No errors in Wikipedia are mentioned directly in the original journal article. When I spoke with the lead author he declined to release the underlying data for us at Wikipedia to correct the “errors” they had found stating that he may 1) wish to publish more on the topic and 2) wished to protect the researchers. So much for independent verifiability in science. Hasty did make some claims to the popular press about errors on Wikipedia. Some of the facts he mentioned however accurately reflected some of the best available peer reviewed sources. For example he claimed that blood pressure should only be checked twice to make the diagnosis of hypertension and that when we state three times we are wrong. However look at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (previous known as the National Institute of Clinical Health / NICE) on page 7 in this document http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/CG18background.pdf It is thus a little ironic that the Telegraph, a UK paper, repeated this incorrect statement and the BBC covered the story so uncritically. Wikipedia has strong recommendations for what counts as a suitable source. We recommend the use of secondary sources published in well respected journals from the last 3-5 years, position statements of national or internationally recognized medical bodies or major textbooks. Is Wikipedia a perfect source? No, but it is just as good as many and better than most other sources out there. Or else why would the world be using it? Hasty's work did not have a comparison group. Basically he invented a new method to test the quality of medical content and then only applied this new method to one source, Wikipedia. Without a comparator this single data point is meaningless. I am curious what he would have found if he would have applied this to a NICE guideline or emedicine? We recently surveyed our top contributors and asked about their backgrounds. What we found was that 52% have either a masters, PhD, or MD. Another 33% have a BSc. About half are health care providers. 82% are male, 9% are female and 9% classified themselves as other or would rather not say. This is very similar to results published by Nusa Faric in her master's thesis. Additionally we are working with a number of organizations including: the National Institute of Health, the Cochrane collaboration, and the UCSF college of medicine among others to improve Wikipedia’s health care content. What Hasty did show was 1) the peer reviewed literature does not agree with itself (ie different peer reviewed sources come to different conclusions which is no surprise to anyone that has read much of it) 2) the peer review process is sometimes flawed as he was able to publish a peer reviewed article whose data does not support its conclusions. As someone who has read a lot of the peer reviewed literature this is also not surprising. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] The Signpost is (sort of) published
On 1 June 2014 11:17, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: We need a password for the automated publishing process that we don't have, and we're trying to get it. I have been working through some of the (complicated and poorly documented) Signpost templates and LivingBot for manual publication but there are still parts that I can't work out. Why does such as an important service have a critical single point of failure? What changes will be made, as a result of the lessons learned from this? -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks]
I have seen little evidence either way. -Original Message- From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of edward Sent: 01 June 2014 01:14 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Increase participation [WAS: The first three weeks] On 01/06/2014 12:00, Peter Southwood wrote: Phototypesetters were typically professionals, therefore not strictly comparable. There is a significant difference to learning a complex system because you are going to earn a living from it, and learning the same system so you can spend your free time doing unpaid work with it. Cheers, Peter Which explains the gender bias, yes? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4592 / Virus Database: 3955/7601 - Release Date: 05/31/14 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] The Signpost is (sort of) published
Andy, I don't think we're learning anything new here -- the signpost has always been produced by volunteers, and has often had a somewhat irregular publication schedule. I think Pine is trying to do his/her best to get through an immediate challenge, and I'm not sure it's fair to him/her to use this as an excuse to bring up a topic that could be broached at any time. At minimum, it seems best to wait until this issue had shipped, and Ed has returned to an Internet enabled location, before giving into the broader questions. Pete User: peteforsyth On Jun 1, 2014 2:06 PM, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote: On 1 June 2014 11:17, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: We need a password for the automated publishing process that we don't have, and we're trying to get it. I have been working through some of the (complicated and poorly documented) Signpost templates and LivingBot for manual publication but there are still parts that I can't work out. Why does such as an important service have a critical single point of failure? What changes will be made, as a result of the lessons learned from this? -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] The Signpost is (sort of) published
On 1 June 2014 23:15, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: Andy, I don't think we're learning anything new here -- the signpost has always been produced by volunteers, and has often had a somewhat irregular publication schedule. I wasn't querying any irregualr publication schedule; I was asking why its seems Signpost relies on a single person, whose unavailability causes the issues described. I think Pine is trying to do his/her best to get through an immediate challenge I'm sure so too; that's why I didn't say anything to suggest otherwise. and I'm not sure it's fair to him/her to use this as an excuse to bring up a topic that could be broached at any time. An excuse? We're told something has gone wrong; I asked what steps are being taken to prevent a recurrence. At minimum, it seems best to wait until this issue had shipped, and Ed has returned to an Internet enabled location, before giving into the broader questions. I didn't set a deadline for a reply to my question. -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] The Signpost is (sort of) published
On Jun 1, 2014 4:28 PM, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote: I didn't set a deadline for a reply to my question. OK, fair enough. Sorry if I jumped the gun. Pete ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] Reset the Internet
https://www.resetthenet.org/ I see EFF, Reddit, FSF in the list of supporting organizations. Why isn't Wikimedia/Wikipedia part of this? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Airtel Offers Nigerians Free Access to Wikipedia
Regarding the news from Chile, the QZ article is pretty misleading regarding the decision taken by the Subtel. I've been talking with some people that have been more involved in net neutrality discussions in Chile and they say that the decision doesn't forbid zero-rated programs in general. It just says that the current promotions were illegal, considering certain social networks got preferential access (namely, Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp) over other services, breaking net neutrality and free market rules. The decree says specifically that arbitrary discrimination between services of similar nature is forbidden. Technically, Wikipedia Zero can still be applied in Chile (if mobile providers agree), but there shouldn't be a preferential treatment compared to those platform of similar nature. Certainly, it would be interesting to know what might be considered as the competition of Wikipedia and the rest of the market (is there a competing website? can we consider all educational resources as competition?). As far as I know, there were some internet pre-paid plans in the past that had several educational websites available for free, including Wikipedia, but I'm not sure if they are still available. The full decree (in Spanish) is available here: http://www.subtel.gob.cl/transparencia/Perfiles/Transparencia20285/Normativas/Oficios/14oc_0040.pdf 2014-06-01 3:57 GMT-04:00 Yana Welinder ywelin...@wikimedia.org: As the Quartz article from Jens's email discusses, the decision in Chile is very unfortunate.[1] It's an example of when net neutrality — which is an important principle for the free and open internet — is poorly implemented to prevent free dissemination of knowledge. Although Wikipedia Zero is not yet available in Chile, it is a country of interest for the program, so we are thinking about what options are available in light of this decision. That said, I would like to clarify a couple of points about the implementation of Wikipedia Zero that were raised in this thread: 1. The newer Wikipedia Zero partnerships have provided the full Wikipedia sites (m.wikipedia) free of data charges for some time now and we are phasing out the reduced version (zero.wikipedia) from the older partnerships. 2. While earlier Wikipedia Zero partnerships only zero-rated Wikipedia, we are working on getting carriers to zero-rate all the Wikimedia projects. 3. We are also working on getting editing functions zero-rated, though there are some technical hurdles for that right now. But, eventually, Wikipedia Zero will not only make knowledge more accessible, but also empower more people in the Global South to contribute to the projects. 4. Finally, WMF does *not* pay carriers to zero-rate Wikipedia under Wikipedia Zero. Carriers zero-rate the sites because they want to make a commitment to access to knowledge as a corporate social responsibility.[2] I believe this question has already been answered in this thread since Scott raised it earlier, but I just wanted to confirm that Wikipedia Zero does not involve payments. Hope this is helpful! Best, Yana [1] http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility -- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer. On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 5:52 AM, Jens Best jens.b...@wikimedia.de wrote: News from Chile Chile’s Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones just decided that zero-rating is a promotion tool which is against net neutrality. Therefore all zero-rated-related marketing deals have to stop at the 1st of June. According to a WMF-list in Chile no provider has been offering Wikipedia Zero. Also I'm not sure if this dismissal reflects only on zero-rated offers where payment of money is done by the content provider. So it still needs to be checked how/if this decision is influencing our intent to spread Wikipedia Zero. All in all it shows that we have to improve our arguments in a broader scale if we don't want to get caught by promoting Free Knowledge but in fact 'only' pushing the use of a reduced version of one (very well known and superb) website which stand exemplary for this idea. We are caught in a dilemma which imho only can be solved when reaching out to more partners which stand for Free Knowledge and Free Education. Not sure how this could work, but fortunately that never was a reason to stop. News from Chile:
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Airtel Offers Nigerians Free Access to Wikipedia
I asked to the Chilean Undersecretary of Telecommunications in Twitter, and he confirmed that Wikipedia Zero and the zero-rated programs are not forbidden in Chile. He said that the criteria applied is based on practices of providers. [1] I'm also happy to read that the WMF thinks that Wikipedia Zero could be applied in our country. Best, Marco Correa WMCL Board Member [1] https://twitter.com/huichalaf/status/473310511711682560 2014-06-01 23:17 GMT-04:00 Osmar Valdebenito b1mbo.wikipe...@gmail.com: Regarding the news from Chile, the QZ article is pretty misleading regarding the decision taken by the Subtel. I've been talking with some people that have been more involved in net neutrality discussions in Chile and they say that the decision doesn't forbid zero-rated programs in general. It just says that the current promotions were illegal, considering certain social networks got preferential access (namely, Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp) over other services, breaking net neutrality and free market rules. The decree says specifically that arbitrary discrimination between services of similar nature is forbidden. Technically, Wikipedia Zero can still be applied in Chile (if mobile providers agree), but there shouldn't be a preferential treatment compared to those platform of similar nature. Certainly, it would be interesting to know what might be considered as the competition of Wikipedia and the rest of the market (is there a competing website? can we consider all educational resources as competition?). As far as I know, there were some internet pre-paid plans in the past that had several educational websites available for free, including Wikipedia, but I'm not sure if they are still available. The full decree (in Spanish) is available here: http://www.subtel.gob.cl/transparencia/Perfiles/Transparencia20285/Normativas/Oficios/14oc_0040.pdf 2014-06-01 3:57 GMT-04:00 Yana Welinder ywelin...@wikimedia.org: As the Quartz article from Jens's email discusses, the decision in Chile is very unfortunate.[1] It's an example of when net neutrality — which is an important principle for the free and open internet — is poorly implemented to prevent free dissemination of knowledge. Although Wikipedia Zero is not yet available in Chile, it is a country of interest for the program, so we are thinking about what options are available in light of this decision. That said, I would like to clarify a couple of points about the implementation of Wikipedia Zero that were raised in this thread: 1. The newer Wikipedia Zero partnerships have provided the full Wikipedia sites (m.wikipedia) free of data charges for some time now and we are phasing out the reduced version (zero.wikipedia) from the older partnerships. 2. While earlier Wikipedia Zero partnerships only zero-rated Wikipedia, we are working on getting carriers to zero-rate all the Wikimedia projects. 3. We are also working on getting editing functions zero-rated, though there are some technical hurdles for that right now. But, eventually, Wikipedia Zero will not only make knowledge more accessible, but also empower more people in the Global South to contribute to the projects. 4. Finally, WMF does *not* pay carriers to zero-rate Wikipedia under Wikipedia Zero. Carriers zero-rate the sites because they want to make a commitment to access to knowledge as a corporate social responsibility.[2] I believe this question has already been answered in this thread since Scott raised it earlier, but I just wanted to confirm that Wikipedia Zero does not involve payments. Hope this is helpful! Best, Yana [1] http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility -- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer. On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 5:52 AM, Jens Best jens.b...@wikimedia.de wrote: News from Chile Chile’s Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones just decided that zero-rating is a promotion tool which is against net neutrality. Therefore all zero-rated-related marketing deals have to stop at the 1st of June. According to a WMF-list in Chile no provider has been offering Wikipedia Zero. Also I'm not sure if this dismissal reflects only on zero-rated offers where payment of money is done by the content provider. So it still needs to be checked how/if this decision is influencing our intent to spread
