[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Wikimedia Enterprise API project

[Liam Wyatt]

Followup:
As previously mentioned, the public conversation "office hours" for the
Wikimedia Enterprise API project's *2022 Financial report & product
update, *was held yesterday.

For those who were interested but unable to attend, a recording of this
1h40m meeting - including timecodes for all questions/topics discussed - is
now available on on Commons and embedded in the project's talkpage:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#February_2023_Community_conversation_focusing_on_the_finance_report

Thank you to all who participated.

* Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*

Senior Program Manager
for *Enterprise,* *Campaigns, & WikiCite*
Wikimedia Foundation


On Wed, 8 Feb 2023 at 14:21, Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> Hello Sam, thank you for the kind words.
>
> And also thank you to Chris and Martin for yours.
>
>
> With regards to the “optimizations” mentioned in the product update: usage
> change over the course of 2022 wasn’t really the motivating factor here
> (given it’s only been one year so we’re fully expecting fluctuations), It’s
> more about trying to increase the system’s efficiency and limit areas where
> things could break at scale - in preparation for future demand. There has
> been some increase in costs over the 2022 calendar year, as shown in the
> finance report’s bar-graph and associated paragraph, but that was primarily
> due to staffing changes, not hosting costs.
>
> Our initial system architecture focused heavily on Wikipedia database
> dumps and now we’re focusing on expanding the “realtime” data feeds. We
> decided to rebuild the architecture to look more like an event-based
> system, to work alongside exported-data products, instead of adding on more
> services on top of the dump generation.
>
> As mentioned in the product update, for those interested in this topic
> there are quarterly summaries of the technical work on the project’s
> MediaWiki page:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise#Updates But, if you’d
> like to talk through the implementation details and the thinking behind it,
> then the best format is a real-time conversation. I encourage you to come
> to the “office hours” public meeting this Friday - etails at the top of the
> project page on Meta. Even if you can’t make it to that, we’ll make sure to
> discuss the product update and I’ll be uploading the recording afterwards
> to Commons, with a timecoded summary of the conversation.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Liam
>
>
> On Tue, 7 Feb 2023 at 23:29, Samuel Klein  wrote:
>
>> Chris - My thoughts exactly. A satisfying report: useful, informative,
>> densely linked.
>>
>> TLDR:  revenue at 2% of the WMF total; projected to be cashflow positive
>> this year.
>> 9 FTEs, up-to-date landing page
>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise>, even headshot
>> photos for a majority of the team.
>> (And a subtle reminder that we should consider doing something awesome
>> with a community-led merch store!)
>>
>> Liam - for the product update, I'm curious how hosting costs + usage have
>> changed over the year (and implications for what we learn to optimize)
>>
>> SJ
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 7, 2023 at 10:16 AM Chris Keating 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks Liam! That looks admirably clear and very thorough - would be
>>> great to see this level of detail and transparency in other aspects of the
>>> WMF's work
>>>
>>> Chris/ The Land
>>>
>>> On Tue, 7 Feb 2023, 14:35 Liam Wyatt,  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear all,
>>>>
>>>> Following the initial announcement and project launch in 2021, and
>>>> press release about first customers in 2022, the Wikimedia Enterprise team
>>>> has today published the *first financial report* and a summary of a
>>>> forthcoming *product update*.
>>>>
>>>> This has been published today on the Diff blog, here:
>>>>
>>>> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/07/wikimedia-enterprise-financial-report-product-update/
>>>> [also available in German
>>>> <https://diff.wikimedia.org/de/2023/02/07/wikimedia-enterprise-finanzbericht-und-produktupdates/>
>>>> ]
>>>>
>>>> One of the principles
>>>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Principles> of
>>>> the Wikimedia Enterprise project has been “the publication of overall
>>>> revenue and expenses, differentiated from those of the Wikimedia Foundation
>>>> in general, at least annually”. We are therefore proud to present the
>>>> inaugural edition of the Wikimedia Enterprise f

[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Wikimedia Enterprise API project

[Liam Wyatt]

Hello Sam, thank you for the kind words.

And also thank you to Chris and Martin for yours.


With regards to the “optimizations” mentioned in the product update: usage
change over the course of 2022 wasn’t really the motivating factor here
(given it’s only been one year so we’re fully expecting fluctuations), It’s
more about trying to increase the system’s efficiency and limit areas where
things could break at scale - in preparation for future demand. There has
been some increase in costs over the 2022 calendar year, as shown in the
finance report’s bar-graph and associated paragraph, but that was primarily
due to staffing changes, not hosting costs.

Our initial system architecture focused heavily on Wikipedia database dumps
and now we’re focusing on expanding the “realtime” data feeds. We decided
to rebuild the architecture to look more like an event-based system, to
work alongside exported-data products, instead of adding on more services
on top of the dump generation.

As mentioned in the product update, for those interested in this topic
there are quarterly summaries of the technical work on the project’s
MediaWiki page: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise#Updates
But, if you’d like to talk through the implementation details and the
thinking behind it, then the best format is a real-time conversation. I
encourage you to come to the “office hours” public meeting this Friday -
etails at the top of the project page on Meta. Even if you can’t make it to
that, we’ll make sure to discuss the product update and I’ll be uploading
the recording afterwards to Commons, with a timecoded summary of the
conversation.

Sincerely,

Liam


On Tue, 7 Feb 2023 at 23:29, Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Chris - My thoughts exactly. A satisfying report: useful, informative,
> densely linked.
>
> TLDR:  revenue at 2% of the WMF total; projected to be cashflow positive
> this year.
> 9 FTEs, up-to-date landing page
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise>, even headshot
> photos for a majority of the team.
> (And a subtle reminder that we should consider doing something awesome
> with a community-led merch store!)
>
> Liam - for the product update, I'm curious how hosting costs + usage have
> changed over the year (and implications for what we learn to optimize)
>
> SJ
>
> On Tue, Feb 7, 2023 at 10:16 AM Chris Keating 
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Liam! That looks admirably clear and very thorough - would be
>> great to see this level of detail and transparency in other aspects of the
>> WMF's work
>>
>> Chris/ The Land
>>
>> On Tue, 7 Feb 2023, 14:35 Liam Wyatt,  wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> Following the initial announcement and project launch in 2021, and press
>>> release about first customers in 2022, the Wikimedia Enterprise team
>>> has today published the *first financial report* and a summary of a
>>> forthcoming *product update*.
>>>
>>> This has been published today on the Diff blog, here:
>>>
>>> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/07/wikimedia-enterprise-financial-report-product-update/
>>> [also available in German
>>> <https://diff.wikimedia.org/de/2023/02/07/wikimedia-enterprise-finanzbericht-und-produktupdates/>
>>> ]
>>>
>>> One of the principles
>>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Principles> of
>>> the Wikimedia Enterprise project has been “the publication of overall
>>> revenue and expenses, differentiated from those of the Wikimedia Foundation
>>> in general, at least annually”. We are therefore proud to present the
>>> inaugural edition of the Wikimedia Enterprise financial report – covering
>>> the calendar-year 2022, its first year of operations.
>>>
>>> The update also includes a description of some of the API features that
>>> have been under development. While the primary use-case is companies which
>>> consistently require very high-speed updates of very large amounts of
>>> Wikimedia content, it is important to note that there are several
>>> free-access methods.
>>>
>>> If you have written questions or comments about the update, please share
>>> them on the project’s talkpage
>>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise> on Meta. As
>>> described in the blogpost, we consider this report covering the 2022
>>> calendar year to be a “beta” version. We are actively seeking feedback
>>> about how its structure, content, and explanations can be improved for the
>>> next edition in late 2023, which will cover the 2022-23 fiscal year.
>>>
>>>
>>> If you prefer real-time convers

[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Wikimedia Enterprise API project

[Liam Wyatt]

Dear all,

Following the initial announcement and project launch in 2021, and press
release about first customers in 2022, the Wikimedia Enterprise team has
today published the *first financial report* and a summary of a
forthcoming *product
update*.

This has been published today on the Diff blog, here:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/07/wikimedia-enterprise-financial-report-product-update/
[also available in German
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/de/2023/02/07/wikimedia-enterprise-finanzbericht-und-produktupdates/>
]

One of the principles
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Principles> of
the Wikimedia
Enterprise project has been “the publication of overall revenue and
expenses, differentiated from those of the Wikimedia Foundation in general,
at least annually”. We are therefore proud to present the inaugural edition
of the Wikimedia Enterprise financial report – covering the calendar-year
2022, its first year of operations.

The update also includes a description of some of the API features that
have been under development. While the primary use-case is companies which
consistently require very high-speed updates of very large amounts of
Wikimedia content, it is important to note that there are several
free-access methods.

If you have written questions or comments about the update, please share
them on the project’s talkpage
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise> on Meta. As
described in the blogpost, we consider this report covering the 2022
calendar year to be a “beta” version. We are actively seeking feedback
about how its structure, content, and explanations can be improved for the
next edition in late 2023, which will cover the 2022-23 fiscal year.


If you prefer real-time conversation: A public meeting will be hosted by
the Enterprise team this Friday, February 10 @1900 UTC to discuss this
announcement - details on the project homepage
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise>.

If you have any other questions please consult the FAQ
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ>.

Sincerely,

* Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*

Senior Program Manager
for *Enterprise,* *Campaigns, & WikiCite*
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Wikimedia Enterprise API project

[Liam Wyatt]

Thank you SJ, I think you've said it better than I could.

As I hope everyone can appreciate - different audiences are interested in
different pieces of information and look for that information in different
places. Today's 'press release' is differently formatted to, and with
different focus from, the message I've sent here (and Meta). And those are
different again from the (also public) 'tuning session' quarterly update
slides. Equally, for example, technical roadmap updates about this project
are published on its MediaWiki page
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise and the code is on its
GitHub page https://github.com/wikimedia/OKAPI - both of which have also
received substantial updates recently that I did not mention in my earlier
email because they were less relevant to this audience. But, since we're
talking about the different interests of different audiences I'm happy to
link them here now too.

For the benefit of the wider community here, it should be noted that I've
replied to Andres' comments about these quarterly update slides, with
relation to the Enterprise project, when he first raised them the 15th of
June on the Meta talkpage
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#How_are_we_doing?
and also on the WikipediaWeekly facebook group the same day
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/5144372348943888/
.

Sincerely,
- Liam
Peace, Love & Metadata.


On Tue, 21 Jun 2022 at 22:40, Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Andreas,
>
> Relax.
>
> There are three slides in that deck about Enterprise, much less detailed
> than the summary Liam just shared.
> There is no contradiction involved, and the transparency of sharing
> quarterly slides is all I could imagine wanting.
> In its context, they focus on OKRs and specific metrics, which are less
> relevant to this conversation (and were arbitrary in the first place).
>
> If you constantly cry wolf, valid concerns will not be heard.
> Meanwhile you are making this list less pleasant and less useful for
> normal, undramatic discussion.
>
> SJ
>
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 3:55 PM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
>> Dear Liam,
>>
>> There seem to be (at least) two types of presentations on Wikimedia
>> Enterprise here: a PR-optimised one for public consumption, given here, and
>> an internal one. I'd like the difference between the two to be smaller,
>> ideally, and for the community (also) to be given the internal one, as
>> found in Advancement's Q3 "tuning session" (quarterly review):
>>
>>
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Tuning_Session_FY21-22_Q3_Advancement.pdf=7
>>
>> This says:
>>
>> --
>>
>> *The situation *
>> Although we successfully closed an initial set of paying customers for
>> Wikimedia Enterprise at the end of the last calendar year, and have
>> continued to have ongoing sales conversations with additional potential
>> customers, we have been unable to close additional customers as quickly as
>> we projected due to unanticipated legal and product requirements, and will
>> not hit the revenue target for FY21/22.
>>
>> *The impact *
>> We are developing a clearer picture of what is required to successfully
>> scale sales of the Wikimedia Enterprise product within our non-profit
>> context. In particular, we need to redefine, and better articulate, the
>> relationship between our free and paid APIs, so that we can successfully
>> explain why they would choose our paid, commercial-grade services rather
>> than our free APIs.
>>
>> *Recommendation *
>> We are working with the legal team to develop a contractual structure
>> that allows us to sell to a wider set of countries, and with the product
>> team to better delineate the relationship between our free and paid API
>> services, so that by the end of this calendar year there will be a clear
>> value proposition that drives commercial customers to pay for the
>> Enterprise APIs.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Note that this tuning session presentation, too, is marked "PUBLIC", so
>> presumably there is a non-public version of that file as well.
>>
>> I find all of this (which I doubt is your decision, so please don't take
>> it as a criticism of you personally) lamentable. The community is the WMF's
>> partner in all of this. Why not speak openly to us? We are not paying
>> customers who need to be wooed, or wowed.
>>
>> And no – the solution is not to stop publishing the quarterly reviews, or
>> to delay their publication even more.
>>
>> Best,
>> Andreas
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 5:1

[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Wikimedia Enterprise API project

[Liam Wyatt]

Thank you SJ!
To your questions in order:
1) This is all metadata that is already publicly available (e.g. ORES,
page-protection status change, high % pageviews changes...). Crucially - it
is not creating some "value judgement" about an article or particular edit
but taking the information that Wikimedians (and therefore readers)
*already have access to* and helping API users make informed choices about
how to use the data. If the service proves effective, useful, and there's
community interest - anything's possible - but I will re-emphasise though
that this is in beta and how we grow/improve/incorporate this concept is
still in flux. General technical documentation at our MediaWiki page
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise API documentation on
the project's website: https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/docs/

2) Indeed, we have already met with the DBpedia team. We've been,
unsurprisingly, focused on launching v1.0 but we can and will now return to
some of those conversations.

- Liam Wyatt

On Tue, 21 Jun 2022 at 18:47, Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Beautiful work.
> ~ Are there plans to make the credibility signals visible somehow (in
> sparklines? in the header?) to readers who visit articles?
> ~ As you add wikidata, please consider also working with dbpedia (which
> has expanded its range of source material) to see how we can make their
> integration flows easier.
>
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 12:12 PM Liam Wyatt  wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>>
>>
>> TL;DR: Today the Wikimedia Foundation published a press release[1] about
>> the “Wikimedia Enterprise” API project - announcing our first set of
>> customers, as well as a new self-signup system. This is a significant
>> milestone because it fulfills several promises we have made to ourselves
>> and to the movement. There will be a community open meeting on Thursday
>> 23 June @ 1700 UTC as documented on our Meta page.[2] The text of this
>> email is also published on the talkpage - please centralise any
>> comments/feedback there.[3]
>>
>> Details
>>
>> I am writing today with details of the latest developments in the
>> “Wikimedia Enterprise” API project. This follows the project’s
>> community-discussion phase, which began approximately one year ago, focused
>> on Meta [and also this wikimedia-l thread]. Then, this past October, we
>> issued a press release announcing that we were “open for business” on the
>> project’s new site.[4] This wikimedia-l email thread contains the details
>> of those previous phases.
>>
>> Now is the third and final major announcement in this journey from “idea”
>> to “reality”. Today’s press release,[1] and associated story on the
>> project’s new “news” page,[5] states that:
>>
>>-
>>
>>Two well known organisations will be announced as the first customers
>>of the project. One is a major social/search corporation [Google], as
>>our first official paying customer. This also means that the project is 
>> now
>>covering its current operating costs. The other is a movement partner and
>>nonprofit organization [The Internet Archive] that will receive access at
>>no cost.
>>-
>>
>>Anyone will be able to sign up for an account and use/access the
>>service [but not at a commercial scale] for free. Furthermore,
>>payments for usage above that threshold will be calculated simply and
>>publicly based on the number of API requests and gigabytes of data used.
>>(Other free access methods for the dataset continue to exist, as 
>> documented
>>on our Meta FAQ)[6]
>>-
>>
>>The API’s metadata has been expanded to include the beta version of
>>what we are calling “credibility signals”. This is already public
>>information (such as pageviews, edit-rates, and page-protection status
>>changes) packaged within the single data feed to help users make more
>>informed decisions about when they should refresh their copy of the
>>dataset. (Emphasis on ‘beta’, as this is not available on all versions of
>>the product yet.)
>>
>>
>> This announcement is a significant milestone because it fulfills several
>> promises we have made to ourselves and to the movement, namely that:
>>
>>-
>>
>>We have built something that commercial organisations who are already
>>heavy users of Wikimedia content and Wikimedia Foundation services are
>>willing to invest in. The pricing is based on estimated usage, resulting 
>> in
>>a more manageable and transparent cost structure. The project is now
>>covering its current ope

[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Wikimedia Enterprise API project

[Liam Wyatt]

 with the Movement Strategy’s “strategic
direction”.[8] This is what OpenFuture.eu’s interview with the Enterprise
team referred to as our attempt at “lowering the playing field” – a term we
quite like.[9]


We are increasingly realising that the future of Wikimedia Enterprise is
much more nuanced than merely “making big tech pay”, but is about enabling
access to the many companies who want to use Wikimedia knowledge in their
own products but currently can’t. These organisations are willing to pay us
to find ways to better support their specific use of Wikimedia content,
both through more accessible technology, contractual guarantees of service
availability, and professional services to help them make the best use of
our content in their systems. As per our enumerated  Principles,[10] all
customers get the same product - there are no exclusive or bespoke features
- they only pay for the volume of usage. This will allow smaller companies
to compete and will ensure that Wikimedia knowledge is more widely
available. Our goal is for the future business model of Enterprise to
resemble “many paying a little” rather than “few paying a lot” – an
approach similar to our movement’s “many small donors” fundraising
methodology.

Still to come later this year will be:

   -

   Exploring options to integrate Wikidata in the dataset, which is a
   common customer request. We are working closely with Wikimedia-Deutschland
   to discuss how to best do this.
   -

   Small, and non-U.S. based customers. This is crucial to demonstrating
   the Knowledge as a Service value of the project. We already work with
   relevant Chapters when we have a potential ‘local’ customer who has
   expressed strong interest.
   -

   Publishing aggregate revenue/expense data, but only after there’s enough
   aggregate financial data collected, over a sufficient period of time, and
   with enough customers to be informative.
   -

   The “news” page on the Enterprise website itself will be where future
   software updates, customer case-studies, etc. will be published. This
   ensures that the information is available, while not detracting from
   community-focused places like the Diff blog. The first post on that news
   page is available today.[5]



In order to not distract from community-focused discussions, and of course
unless there’s something important for the community to know, in the future
we will announce new customers product updates etc. on the project
website’s news page and on Meta rather than on this mailing list etc. - but
we felt it was important to do it this time.



Finally, I would also like to ask you to keep your eyes and ears open for
anyone in your corner of the Wikimedia community who has questions or
concerns about the project. Please ask them to read and comment on our Meta
FAQ,[6] to contact me directly, or to attend the public community open
meeting on Thursday, which is already announced on Meta on the project’s
page & the mainpage calendar.

Sincerely, and on behalf of the Wikimedia Enterprise team,[11]

* Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*

Program Manager
for *Enterprise,* *Newcomer Experience, & WikiCite*
Wikimedia Foundation

[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/06/21/wikimedia-enterprise-announces-google-and-internet-archive-first-customers/


[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise

[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Update:_First_customers,_self-signup,_free-access_trial_accounts


[4] https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/

[5] https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/news/hello-world/

[6]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ#Will_the_community_be_able_to_access_the_Enterprise_API_without_paying


[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Statement_on_Wikimedia_Enterprise_revenue_principles


[8]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity


[9] https://openfuture.eu/blog/wikimedia-enterprise/

[10] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Principles
[11] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise#Team

On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 at 19:01, Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> Dear all, A lot has happened since March when we Introduced the Wikimedia
> Enterprise API
> <https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/03/16/introducing-the-wikimedia-enterprise-api/>
> and began community conversations about the project’s development. Now is
> an important milestone to give everyone:
> 1) an update responding to community advice we’ve received;  and
> 2) to describe what is happening next.
>
>
> The idea of an API for the specific needs of the commercial sector had
> been discussed for more than a decade
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ#Where_has_this_previously_been_discussed>
> (both for the purposes of improving user experience, and also to diversify
> revenue). The an

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Media coverage in Germany: Enterprise / Advocacy

[Liam Wyatt]

Dear Željko,

I wish to make a reply to some of the comments you raise - primarily to
emphasise to the rest of the subscribers on this list that there is already
an extensive community discussion about this Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung (FAZ)
opinion column on the German Wikipedia 'Kurier' forum, starting from here:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion:Kurier#Antwort_von_Wiki_Loves_Broadcast_zu_FAZ-Artikel_vom_18.01.2022
I encourage anyone who wishes to discuss the issues raised on the original,
and the reply, articles - to do so at that forum.

Relatedly, there is also this point-by-point rebuttal thread on Twitter,
which has been shared by WM-DE too:
https://twitter.com/leonidobusch/status/1483409545473015810?s=21 [with each
tweet being machine-translatable inside twitter's own interface].

But mostly, I wish to emphasise this letter, which written by the volunteer
community leaders behind the "Wiki Loves Broadcast" (WLB) project. The FAZ
opinion column is referring at a community-originating volunteer campaign
to obtain free-licensing for audiovisual material produced for public
service broadcasters. And so, I feel their response which should be the
thing which is emphasised:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Broadcast/Statement_zum_FAZ-Beitrag_vom_18.01.2022
[English language machine-translated version:
https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Broadcast/Statement_zum_FAZ-Beitrag_vom_18.01.2022?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB&_x_tr_pto=wapp
].
The WLB homepage is here:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Broadcast.[1]

To the other issues raised:
The concept of a free-license means that anyone can use use the material
for any purpose, including commercially: and as we know, many already do.
The FAZ opinion column conflates this fundamental principle of
free-licenses with an entirely separate project being run at the WMF. The
"Enterprise" API project is not licensing content - everyone can *already* use
it. Rather, it is a *service* with higher-speed/volume data throughput than
could (or should) be provided for free for commercial organisations, who
wish to use it. As we say: "Same water, thicker pipe." And ironically, for
the argument being made in FAZ, this API does not include any multimedia
content on Wikimedia projects. I say "should", because if it were a service
provided at no-cost to largest commercial users, that would mean
subsidising their business model with donors' money.
Also, since Željko asked if there was any comments provided by the WMF, I
would like to point out that myself and the WMF Comms team were
coordinating with WM-DE last week about this reply article in FAZ. And
furthermore that the *Enterprise *project FAQ on Meta - which is also fully
translated into German, and has many responses regarding the financial and
legal aspects
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ

Sincerely,
- Liam / Wittylama
*Wikimedia Enterprise *Project Manager, WMF

[1] somewhat relatedly, I ran a similar campaign with the ABC in my home
country Australia a decade ago, and every now and then I still see the
video files from it appearing in unexpected places across the internet:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2012/03/25/abc-joins-wikimedia-in-sharing-historic-footage/


On Sun, 30 Jan 2022 at 12:53, Željko Blaće  wrote:

> Thank you for engaging with this topic in public and doing the translation
> and sharing here (adding open-glam list).
>
> Aside from being a nice Sunday read I think this is a super useful case
> study for people working in the cultural sector and advocacy for open. Was
> this published elsewhere in English?
>
> I would love for us to have a better platform to comment and discuss
> individual aspects of both articles (Discourse as WM Spaces would be good -
> no?), but anyway few inline comments below.
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 7:24 PM Christian Humborg <
> christian.humb...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> we had articles in Germany published connecting the activities of
>> Wikimedia Enterprise with our licensing advocacy. Please find below the
>> article of a filmmaker, published last week in the Frankfurter Allgemeine
>> Zeitung, one of the large German newspapers.
>>
>
> I see the article did not get a huge amount of comments and in that way it
> failed to attract much attention or there were echoes elsewhere?
>
> https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/wikimedia-plant-die-kommerzialisierung-ihrer-inhalte-17736141-p2.html#lesermeinungen
>
>
>
>> Below you find our response, published this week in the Frankfurter
>> Allgemeine Zeitung. I hope this is useful for further debates.
>>
>
> One needs to register (or even pay?) to get to this article?  I wonder
> what was the quality and quantity of responses here?
>
> https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/wikimedia-ard-und-zdf-freie-lizenzen-fuer-das-gemeinwohl-17753492.html
>
>
>> Kind regards
>> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Are we losing our readers?

[Liam Wyatt]

Building on Francesc’s point:
This is also why [what is now known as] ‘Wikimedia Enterprise’ appears
twice in the Movement Strategy.[1] That is: to make sure that ‘downstream’
readers receive high quality Wikimedia knowledge (up to date, attributed…);
and also to create a new diversified revenue stream from those high-volume
reuse organisations (so that they’re financially subsidising Wikimedia, not
the other way around).

In effect: it’s an insurance policy against the risks of potential future
of declining ‘direct’ readership due to ‘intermediation’ by third parties.
It’s not a complete solution, but plays a part.[2]

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ#How_does_this_relate_to_the_movement_strategy

[2]
https://openfuture.eu/blog/wikimedia-enterprise/

- Liam / Wittylama

On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 at 12:39, Francesc Fort 
wrote:

> The slow but steady decrease in readerships is known and has been
> identified for a long. An important niche of readership are quick answers
> for trivia (such as "what's the capital of X country") and there are tools
> (some of those, powered by Wikidata) working better than a classical google
> search and clicking on the Wikipedia article.
>
> I mean, we talked a lot about this during Strategy. We just must find a
> solution.
>
> F.
>
> Missatge de RonnieV  del dia ds., 8 de
> gen. 2022 a les 10:03:
>
>> Could there something be wrong with the presentation?
>>
>> The total number of edits at the English Wikipedia should have dropped
>> 21,23% https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org
>> <https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org]>
>> The numbers at
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org/contributing/edits/normal|table|2-year|~total|monthly
>> do show 63.8M edits in 2021 and only 61.5M in 2020.
>>
>> Do I misinterpret the graph?
>> ---
>> Met vriendelijke groet,
>>
>> RonnieV
>>
>>
>> Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga schreef op 2022-01-07 18:51:
>>
>> There's another option: the 2020 pandemic lockdowns made a huge peak on
>> views, so year on year, 2021 has worse results.
>>
>> 2022(e)ko urt. 7(a) 18:41 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Anders Wennersten
>> ):
>>
>> When I look at statistics for mature wikipedias: en, de pl, nl they all
>> show a decrease of views of 13-15% in last 12 months from a year ago,
>> and number of active editors down 10- 20 % (with exception of en).
>>
>> Has this been analysed somewhere, are we losing our readers and
>> contributors or is it mostly Google that access our info "smarter" not
>> creating "views"
>>
>> Anders
>>
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/de.wikipedia.org
>>
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org
>>
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/nl.wikipedia.org
>>
>> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/pl.wikipedia.org
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Approval of Human Rights Policy

[Liam Wyatt]

To the question of who, how, whether, and for what, individuals should
receive direct financial support for their volunteer contributions - I
leave that to the discussions of movement Strategy and Charter.

To the specific question of if the eventual revenue raised via ‘Wikimedia
Enterprise’ commercial services should be directed towards that outcome:

We (the ‘Enterprise team), and also the WMF board in their statement on the
matter [1], have been quite clear in the design of the project that its
revenues will go into the same processes, and receive the same oversight
and decision-making as any other revenue - including however those
processes might change over time with movement strategy implementation.

It would be an unhelpful precedent to direct revenue from one specific
input, towards one specific purpose. By analogy: we don’t allocate “revenue
from X Wikipedia language banners in Y will pay for Z project”.

- Liam / Wittylama

P.S. just for clarity: the commercial service of ‘Wikimedia Enterprise’ is
the *service* (API access, customer service agents, SLA contract), and NOT
the content.

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Statement_on_Wikimedia_Enterprise_revenue_principles

On Sun, 19 Dec 2021 at 18:28, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Hi Tito and all,
>
> Tito said, in part,
>
>
> 1) Okay, we have an "urgent" policy. What is the plan and procedure to
>> safeguard the human rights of someone? Example: If a Wikimedian's human
>> right is in danger for using Wikimedia's/OSM's disputed map[1], what's the
>> "exact" procedure?
>> I do understand that the implementation plan is to be made (around 13:48
>> of the video[2]) and I fully understand that it is going to be difficult on
>> a global scale. However the execution plan and procedure will be more
>> important.
>>
>
>
>> 4) (around 20:00 of the video) "Three people on the Wikimedia-l mailing
>> list asked ..." I am one of the three I don't think we/I asked about
>> royalty etc. What we speak about is about Wikimedians' lives in different
>> socio-economic backgrounds. This is connected with editor retention,
>> community health, (and human rights). I'll be very happy to discuss it
>> separately on my Meta-Wiki talk page[3] or elsewhere.
>>
>
>
> As for the first question, it is early days, but could you give some
> indication what you think you can do to safeguard someone's human rights in
> another country? You could open communication channels to human rights
> organisations, perhaps, and inform them of problematic cases. Is this the
> kind of action you have in mind? I must say I sympathise with what Geni
> says in his mail – surely the WMF is quite limited in what it can do.
> Geni's point about the WMF potentially being perceived as a hostile
> campaigner (or, I would add, even a US foreign policy instrument), thus
> increasing the risks of participation for individuals, is worth pondering
> as well.
>
> As Tito says, there was also a question about the feasibility of
> royalties. This mentioned Tito's and others' posts here, though I think the
> questioner was only using those questions about healthcare and minimum pay
> as a springboard for their own question. They wondered whether there was
> any way to get royalties or licence fees from re-users who use more than a
> certain volume of Wikimedia data, and to provide support to volunteers in
> this manner. The answer was that it didn't seem likely. But it occurred to
> me that the for-profit Wikimedia Enterprise is doing a similar thing,
> charging large re-users for API services. So couldn't some of the profits
> from that business be used in the way the questioner suggested? The money
> would come from much the same companies.
>
> Andreas
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-- 

* Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*

Program Manager
for *Enterprise, WikiCite,* and *Newcomer Experience*
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: An Uzbek praktical joke and Wikimedia Enterprise

[Liam Wyatt]

Yes the website , and press release
,
were "launched" yesterday.
Yes, notification was given on this mailing list

two
weeks ago, as well as several others - including wikitech-l, affiliates-l.
That message included various new pieces of documentation (including Board
statement relating to revenue principles, methods of free-access to the
service for community, forthcoming public 'office hours' meetings).
Moreover, it also included notification of this impending launch.

- Liam

On Tue, 26 Oct 2021 at 17:35, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> The Wikimedia Enterprise site surely is up:
> https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/pricing/
>
> Did I miss an announcement here on this mailing list?
>
> At least there was a WMF blog post:
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/10/25/wikimedia-foundation-launches-wikimedia-enterprise-the-new-opt-in-product-for-companies-and-organizations-to-easily-reuse-content-from-wikipedia-and-wikimedia-projects/
>
> Anders: The best thing that could happen to Wikipedia would be to have a
> competitor. Think about it for a moment, for God's sake.
>
> Andreas
>
> On Tue, Oct 26, 2021 at 3:55 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear wikimedians,
>> Some years ago, I visited Uzbekistan. I was shocked and amused to find
>> that the largest paper note was 2.000 soʻm at that time, with a plan to
>> start with the 5.000 paper note soon. The most used one still was the 1.000
>> soʻm note, that was about 35 US cents in the bank and about 20 US cents in
>> the street markets. So, the first time we changed two 100 USD$ paper notes
>> into soʻm we got around 800 paper notes in bunches of 100. It was quite
>> interesting to note that people in the street went with black plastic bags
>> full of money in order to buy at the market or get a taxi ride. Some days
>> later, I talked to a local taxi driver and he told me that when he bought
>> his car, he needed a small truck to carry all the paper notes to the car
>> selling store. Of course, I took that as a joke. Then another man said that
>> many houses have a room only for storing money, so you can buy a larger
>> house in the future. I don't know if this was a practical joke, but that's
>> how it was.
>>
>> Yesterday we launched Wikimedia Enterprise. This e-mail is not to show my
>> disagreement with the idea itself, but with the outcome. It seems that the
>> purpose of Wikimedia Entrerprise is to have a large money revenue offering
>> volunteer's time and content to the rich who are willing to pay for a
>> better API. Believe it or not, I like to tax the rich.
>>
>> We have millions of dollars in our money room, and, if everything goes as
>> planned with Wikimedia Enterprise, we will soon need to buy a new house to
>> have a larger room to store all those cheques, notes and assets. The room
>> will soon look huge and plenty of money. Still, there's no plan to paint
>> the house, arrange the sofa, solve the water leakage we have in the toilet,
>> mow the lawn or buy a new set of pans so we can cook healthy food there.
>> Soon, the cow will start aging and won't have more milk to sell. But yes,
>> the money room will be huge. We will have more and more and more millions,
>> but we will still... yes... obsolete.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Galder
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: The Wikimedia Enterprise API project

[Liam Wyatt]

s> (as is the API
documentation
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Documentation>), and
the work is coordinated on our Phabricator board
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/wikimedia_enterprise/>.


Next public meeting.
As mentioned, the team has been holding regular public calls. If you would
like to meet with, and ask any questions of, the Enterprise team (a.k.a.
“Office hours”):

Friday October 22 @ 1500 UTC on Zoom
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/88994018553>. If you would like to arrange a
conversation about this project with a group in the community that you are
part of (at a time, language, and meeting-software platform of your
choice), please contact me directly.


2. What is happening next:


The launch of the project’s standalone website, denoting the service as
“open for business”, will take place early next week.


In parallel we will also be announcing the first customers - both from the
commercial and non-profit sectors. We expect this will generate some
attention in the media. Despite our best efforts to be visible across the
wikiverse, reading about the Wikimedia Enterprise API in the media will
probably be the first time that some Wikimedians hear about it - which
might be surprising for them. So, next week, if you see any Wikimedians
asking about this project on community forums, please notify me by email,
on-wiki [as user:LWyatt (WMF) ], and/or direct them to the project FAQ on
Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ>
(currently available in 7 languages).

Once again, thank you to all who have been involved in the development of,
or given feedback to, *Enterprise*. It’s been a long road getting from
there to here...


Sincerely,

* Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*

Program Manager for *Enterprise, WikiCite,* and *Newcomer Experience*
Wikimedia Foundation


On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 at 17:02, Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Over the last few months, a small team at the Wikimedia Foundation has
> been working on a project that has been discussed by many people in our
> movement for many years: building ‘enterprise grade’ services for the
> high-volume commercial reusers of Wikimedia content. I am pleased to say
> that in a remarkably short amount of time (considering the complexity of
> the issues: technical, strategic, legal, and financial) we now have
> something worthy of showing to the community, and we are asking for your
> feedback. Allow me to introduce you to the Wikimedia Enterprise API project
> – formerly codenamed “okapi”.
>
> While the general idea for Wikimedia Enterprise predates the current
> movement strategy process, its recommendations identify an enterprise API
> as one possible solution to both “Increase the sustainability of our
> movement” and “Improve User Experience.”[0] That is, to simultaneously
> create a new revenue stream to protect Wikimedia’s sustainability, and
> improve the quality and quantity of Wikimedia content available to our many
> readers who do not visit our websites directly (including more consistent
> attribution). Moreover, it does so in a way that is true to our movement’s
> culture: with open source software, financial transparency, non-exclusive
> contracts or content, no restrictions on existing services, and free access
> for Wikimedia volunteers who need it.
>
> The team believes we are on target to achieve those goals and so we have
> written a lot of documentation to get your feedback about our progress and
> where it could be further improved before the actual product is ‘launched’
> in the next few months. We have been helped in this process over the last
> several months by approximately 100 individual volunteers (from many
> corners of the wikiverse) and representatives of affiliate organisations
> who have reviewed our plans and provided invaluable direction, pointing out
> weaknesses and opportunities, or areas lacking clarity and documentation in
> our drafts. Thank you to everyone who has shared your time and expertise to
> help prepare this new initiative.
>
> A essay describing the “why?” and the “how?” of this project is now on
> Meta:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay
>
> Also now published on Meta are an extensive FAQ, operating principles, and
> technical documentation on MediaWiki.org. You can read these at [1] [2] and
> [3] respectively. Much of this documentation is already available in
> French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
>
> The Wikimedia Enterprise team is particularly interested in your feedback
> on how we have designed the checks and balances to this project - to ensure
> it is as successful as possible at achieving those two goals described
> above while staying true to the movement’s values and culture. For example:
> Is everything covered appropriately in

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Enterprise Office Hours

[Liam Wyatt]

Dear all,
In precisely one day (24 hours) from the time that this message is sent -
at 1500 UTC on Friday, May 21 - the Wikimedia Enterprise API team will be
holding our monthly community "office hours".

Details for joining, as well as recordings of past months' calls, at our
Meta page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise

You can also read the technical update summaries at our MediaWiki homepage:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise#Updates
Elements of the most recent technical update of potential particular
interest to the community include: API documentation and v1 schema,
progress towards community access via Dumps and Cloud Services, and a
revamped Phabricator board.

On behalf of the team, we hope to see you at the call. Sincerely,

*Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*
WikiCite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite> Program Manager & Wikimedia
Enterprise <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Okapi> Community Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation



On Fri, 9 Apr 2021 at 17:07, Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> On Friday 16th @1500 UTC - exactly one week from the time that this email
> was sent - the *Wikimedia Enterprise *team will be hosting the April
> edition of our monthly 'Office Hours'. You are most welcome to join us.
>
> Details for how to join are available at our documentation homepages
> [[Wikimedia Enterprise]] on MediaWiki.org
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise>, and on Meta
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise>.
>
> Equally on Meta are instructions for requesting a separate call for your
> community group (at a time and technical platform of your choosing); and
> the videos of the recordings of the two office-hours meetings from March.
>
> Relatedly, the team will be presenting at the forthcoming EMWCon Spring
> 2021 <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/EMWCon_Spring_2021> conference
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/EMWCon_Spring_2021> later in April.
>
> Details: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise
>
> Sincerely,
>
> *Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*
> WikiCite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite> Program Manager & 
> Wikimedia
> Enterprise <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Okapi> Community Liaison
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Enterprise Office Hours

[Liam Wyatt]

On Friday 16th @1500 UTC - exactly one week from the time that this email
was sent - the *Wikimedia Enterprise *team will be hosting the April
edition of our monthly 'Office Hours'. You are most welcome to join us.

Details for how to join are available at our documentation homepages
[[Wikimedia Enterprise]] on MediaWiki.org
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise>, and on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise>.

Equally on Meta are instructions for requesting a separate call for your
community group (at a time and technical platform of your choosing); and
the videos of the recordings of the two office-hours meetings from March.

Relatedly, the team will be presenting at the forthcoming EMWCon Spring 2021
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/EMWCon_Spring_2021> conference
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/EMWCon_Spring_2021> later in April.

Details: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise

Sincerely,

*Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*
WikiCite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite> Program Manager & Wikimedia
Enterprise <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Okapi> Community Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] The Wikimedia Enterprise API project

[Liam Wyatt]

Dear all,

Over the last few months, a small team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been
working on a project that has been discussed by many people in our movement
for many years: building ‘enterprise grade’ services for the high-volume
commercial reusers of Wikimedia content. I am pleased to say that in a
remarkably short amount of time (considering the complexity of the issues:
technical, strategic, legal, and financial) we now have something worthy of
showing to the community, and we are asking for your feedback. Allow me to
introduce you to the Wikimedia Enterprise API project – formerly codenamed
“okapi”.

While the general idea for Wikimedia Enterprise predates the current
movement strategy process, its recommendations identify an enterprise API
as one possible solution to both “Increase the sustainability of our
movement” and “Improve User Experience.”[0] That is, to simultaneously
create a new revenue stream to protect Wikimedia’s sustainability, and
improve the quality and quantity of Wikimedia content available to our many
readers who do not visit our websites directly (including more consistent
attribution). Moreover, it does so in a way that is true to our movement’s
culture: with open source software, financial transparency, non-exclusive
contracts or content, no restrictions on existing services, and free access
for Wikimedia volunteers who need it.

The team believes we are on target to achieve those goals and so we have
written a lot of documentation to get your feedback about our progress and
where it could be further improved before the actual product is ‘launched’
in the next few months. We have been helped in this process over the last
several months by approximately 100 individual volunteers (from many
corners of the wikiverse) and representatives of affiliate organisations
who have reviewed our plans and provided invaluable direction, pointing out
weaknesses and opportunities, or areas lacking clarity and documentation in
our drafts. Thank you to everyone who has shared your time and expertise to
help prepare this new initiative.

A essay describing the “why?” and the “how?” of this project is now on
Meta:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay

Also now published on Meta are an extensive FAQ, operating principles, and
technical documentation on MediaWiki.org. You can read these at [1] [2] and
[3] respectively. Much of this documentation is already available in
French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

The Wikimedia Enterprise team is particularly interested in your feedback
on how we have designed the checks and balances to this project - to ensure
it is as successful as possible at achieving those two goals described
above while staying true to the movement’s values and culture. For example:
Is everything covered appropriately in the “Principles” list? Is the
technical documentation on MediaWiki.org clear? Are the explanations in the
“FAQ” about free-access for community, or project’s legal structure, or the
financial transparency (etc.) sufficiently detailed?

Meet the team and Ask Us Anything:

The central place to provide written feedback about the project in general
is on the talkpage of the documentation on Meta at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise

On this Friday (March 19)  we will be hosting two “Office hours”
conversations where anyone can come and give feedback or ask questions:

   -

   13:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/95580273732
   -

   22:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/92565175760 (note:
   this is Saturday in Asia/Oceania)

Other “office hours” meetings can be arranged on-request on a technical
platform of your choosing; and we will organise more calls in the future.

We will also be attending the next SWAN meetings (on March 21)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network, and
also the next of the Wikimedia Clinics
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Clinics

Moreover, we would be very happy to accept any invitation to attend an
existing group call that would like to discuss this topic (e.g.  an
affiliate’s members’ meeting).


On behalf of the Wikimedia Enterprise team,

Peace, Love & Metadata
-- Liam Wyatt [Wittylama], Wikimedia Enterprise project community liaison.

[0]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Principles

[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise

*Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*
WikiCite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite> Program Manager & Wikimedia
Enterprise <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Okapi> Community Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation
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New mess

[Wikimedia-l] Announcing the WikiCite grant and eScholarship recipients

[Liam Wyatt]

I am pleased to announce the 23 recipients of the *WikiCite* project grants
and eScholarships. The WikiCite initiative focuses the development of open
citations and linked bibliographic data to serve free knowledge.

There is impressive diversity among these recipients in terms of:
- the types of activities (content creation & upload, outreach & training,
software development, and documentation/localization),
- the topics (everything from Balinese palm-leaf manuscripts, to Brazilian
legislation, to Nigerian newspapers...)
- and the recipient locations (15 countries, the majority of which are in
the global South).

Combined these grants are valued at $69k USD, yet we received more than
double the number of excellent applications than the budget could support.

To learn about each recipients’ project see this blogpost:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2020/10/22/wikicite-awards-23-grants-escholarships-to-improve-open-citations/

And while I’ve got your attention...
The WikiCite 2020 Virtual Conference is happening on Monday-Wednesday.
Sessions will be live-streamed on several platforms, in time zones across
the globe, and with presentations in English, French, German, Indonesian,
and Portuguese.
Please come and join us.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite/2020_Virtual_conference
-- 

*Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*
WikiCite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite> Program Manager & Okapi
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Okapi> Community Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Announcing two new WikiCite grant programs: Project & events, and e-scholarships

[Liam Wyatt]

Dear all,
I have the great pleasure to announce two new grant programs for projects
that support the goals of WikiCite: the promotion open citations and linked
bibliographic data to serve free knowledge.

The steering committee is now accepting applications for the following two
types of grants. For both types the application deadline is 1 October 2020,
and all projects must be completed by 1 May 2021.

--- Project & Event grants ---

Grants between $2,000 and $10,000 (USD equivalent) are available to
individuals, groups, and organisations with a project that supports the
goals of Wikicite.

All the details, the eligibility criteria (especially for in-person
events[1]), and the application form are available on the WikiCite project
& event grants homepage:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite/grants

Individuals, groups, and organizations may apply, and projects may be of
any nature. This includes technical (e.g. software, tools), event (online,
or in-person), resources (training materials, documentation), or other
forms not mentioned – as long as it supports the goals of WikiCite.

--- e-Scholarships ---

The e-scholarship program is a new kind of grant in Wikimedia, created in
response to an era of COVID-19 quarantines, and the 2030 Movement strategy
goals.

An e-scholarship provides a per-diem equivalent allowance for 1-5 people to
stay at their home(s) and work for 2-4 days on a project supporting the
mission of WikiCite. e-scholarship recipients' projects can be the kinds of
things they might have previously undertaken with a scholarship for an
in-person hackathon, unconference, or research trip, for example.

All the details, eligibility criteria, program design principles, and the
application form are available on the WikiCite e-scholarships homepage:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite/e-scholarship

Funding will:
- be provided in advance;
- be calculated at the WMF per-diem rate for the city where the
e-scholarship recipient lives;
- and (as it is a living allowance) not require recipients to submit
expense reports.

"Remote group" applications are encouraged, as are projects which focus on
content or communities which are historically underrepresented in Wikimedia
projects. Building a bot, fixing a tool, wrangling a dataset, writing
complete documentation... all are valid e-scholarship projects. A
confirmation letter (in advance) and/or participation certificate
(afterwards) can also be provided.

Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]
-- 
Program Manager for WikiCite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite>
Wikimedia Foundation

- WikiCite is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Wikimedia
Foundation -

[1] Applications for in-person events are eligible. The WMF will release a
risk assessment calculator for in-person events and a checklist of
precautions in early September. This protocol will apply to all Wikimedia
Foundation supported events. Applicants may publish a draft of their
proposals now, and edit it before the submission deadline to include a copy
of the results from the risk assessment protocol once it is published.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing the Spaces and call for submissions for Wikimania 2019 Stockholm

[Liam Wyatt]

Announcing the new EXTENDED DEADLINE for Wikimania program submissions:
June 9!


All the details are at:
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Submissions


Please spread this news, and encourage people you know are attending to
think about sharing their voice and perspective by presenting a workshop,
presentation, poster...


-- Liam / Wittylama, volunteer program chair & Eric Luth, WM-Sweden event
coordinator

On Thu, 2 May 2019 at 02:26, Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> Dear Wikimaniacs, Wikimedians, and friends of the Wikiverse!
>
> On behalf of the Wikimania 2019 Stockholm organising team, I am pleased to
> announce two things:
>
> - The list of accepted "Spaces".
>
> - That the Call for Submissions is now OPEN.
>
> https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Submissions
>
> Please join me in congratulating the Leaders of each of the accepted
> Wikimania 2019 Spaces! As per the program design[1], Wikimania this year
> has the format of "Spaces", each with its own group of "Leaders" - all of
> who made a proposal to host a Space back in March. The core team has been
> working with the Leaders since then to prepare an interesting, diverse, and
> coherent conference. Each Space has its own topic area, and in their own
> way they all of them help address the conference theme: "Stronger
> together: Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals".
> [2]
>
> Each Space will have its own room for a period of time in the conference
> to curate and coordinate as they see fit.[3] You can read about what each
> Space is planning to achieve, and who is Leading it, at the link above. In
> English-alphabetical order they are:
>
>-
>
>Accessibility (A11y): Components and Standards
>-
>
>Global Advocacy for Free Knowledge: Trends, Challenges, and
>Opportunities
>-
>
>Community Growth
>-
>
>Diversity
>-
>
>Education
>-
>
>Environmental sustainability
>-
>
>GLAM - cultural partnerships and Wikimedia
>-
>
>Growing Wikimedia’s readership worldwide
>-
>
>Health
>-
>
>Languages
>-
>
>Libraries belong in Wikimedia projects
>-
>
>Multimedia knowledge
>-
>
>Partnerships
>-
>
>Quality
>-
>
>Research
>-
>
>Thriving in Safety
>-
>
>Strategy for Wikimedia 2030 – The path towards our future
>-
>
>Transcription
>-
>
>Technology outreach & innovation
>
> And of course the Poster session, which will be a plenary event.
>
> For 2019, there is no 'central' program committee nor a single submission
> form. To make a submission, visit the page of the Space which most relates
> to your proposal, read its instructions for what kinds of submissions the
> Leaders of that Space wish to receive. Then click the submission button.
>
> Each Space is looking for different kinds of content or format. So it is
> important that people wanting to propose a presentation/workshop/panel/etc
> at Wikimania read the information that the Leaders of each Space have
> provided.
>
> Once again, the link to the list of all the accepted Spaces, each with its
> own submission form, is here:
> https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Submissions#Spaces
>
> Please feel free to share/forward this email.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> - Liam Wyatt (Volunteer program chair), and Eric Luth (Conference
> Manager, Wikimedia Sverige)
>
>
> [1] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Program_design
>
> [2] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Theme
>
> [3] Note that the Spaces do NOT all have the same room capacity, or
> duration. Thus the content of the Wikimania program is not intending to be
> 'evenly spread' across these topic areas.
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2019 Early Bird Registration is Now Open!

[Liam Wyatt]

Forwarding from Wikimania-l:

-- Forwarded message -
From: Isabel Cueva 
Date: Sat, 25 May 2019 at 01:33
Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2019 Early Bird Registration is Now
Open!
To: 


Great News! The Wikimania discount registration 'early bird' price period
has been extended to May 31st! Details:
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Registration

Also, don’t forget: If you want to make a presentation, run a workshop, or
display a poster during Wikimania, the Call for Submissions is NOW OPEN



On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 10:22 AM Isabel Cueva  wrote:

> Attention Everyone (and please spread the word):
>
> Early Bird Registration is now open for Wikimania 2019 on our Eventbrite
> 
> page.
>
> This discount pricing ends on May 24th so don’t delay!
>
>
> Online registration will be open from today to July 30th, 2019.
>
> For more information please visit:
> https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration
>
> Wikimania 2019 will be held at Stockholm University
> , Sweden
> , from 14th to 18th August 2019.
>
> The venue will host the majority of the conference, hackathon, meetups,
> and pre-events.
>
> We would like to encourage all speakers and attendees to register early
> and book their flight and travel as soon as possible. If you have questions
> about visas, please visit our wiki visa page
> .
>
> If you have any questions with regard to the conference, please contact:
>
> wikimania-i...@wikimedia.org
>
> Don’t forget: If you want to make a presentation, run a workshop, or
> display a poster during Wikimania, the Call for Submissions is NOW OPEN
> 
>
>
> We hope you can join us in Stockholm this summer!
>
>
> Isabel Cueva, WMF Event Program Manager
>
> on behalf of the Wikimania ‘19 Organizing Team
>
>
> --
> *Isabel Cueva*
> Event Program Manager
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>
>

-- 
*Isabel Cueva*
Event Program Manager
Wikimedia Foundation 

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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2019 Early Bird Registration is Now Open!

[Liam Wyatt]

Forwarding from Wikimania-l:

Attention Everyone (and please spread the word):

Early Bird Registration is now open for Wikimania 2019 on our Eventbrite

page.

This discount pricing ends on May 24th so don’t delay!


Online registration will be open from today to July 30th, 2019.

For more information please visit:
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration

Wikimania 2019 will be held at Stockholm University
, Sweden
, from 14th to 18th August 2019.

The venue will host the majority of the conference, hackathon, meetups, and
pre-events.

We would like to encourage all speakers and attendees to register early and
book their flight and travel as soon as possible. If you have questions
about visas, please visit our wiki visa page
.

If you have any questions with regard to the conference, please contact:

wikimania-i...@wikimedia.org

Don’t forget: If you want to make a presentation, run a workshop, or
display a poster during Wikimania, the Call for Submissions is NOW OPEN



We hope you can join us in Stockholm this summer!


Isabel Cueva, WMF Event Program Manager

on behalf of the Wikimania ‘19 Organizing Team


-- 
*Isabel Cueva*
Event Program Manager
Wikimedia Foundation 

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[Wikimedia-l] Announcing the Spaces and call for submissions for Wikimania 2019 Stockholm

[Liam Wyatt]

Dear Wikimaniacs, Wikimedians, and friends of the Wikiverse!

On behalf of the Wikimania 2019 Stockholm organising team, I am pleased to
announce two things:

- The list of accepted "Spaces".

- That the Call for Submissions is now OPEN.

https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Submissions

Please join me in congratulating the Leaders of each of the accepted
Wikimania 2019 Spaces! As per the program design[1], Wikimania this year
has the format of "Spaces", each with its own group of "Leaders" - all of
who made a proposal to host a Space back in March. The core team has been
working with the Leaders since then to prepare an interesting, diverse, and
coherent conference. Each Space has its own topic area, and in their own
way they all of them help address the conference theme: "Stronger together:
Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals".[2]

Each Space will have its own room for a period of time in the conference to
curate and coordinate as they see fit.[3] You can read about what each
Space is planning to achieve, and who is Leading it, at the link above. In
English-alphabetical order they are:

   -

   Accessibility (A11y): Components and Standards
   -

   Global Advocacy for Free Knowledge: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities
   -

   Community Growth
   -

   Diversity
   -

   Education
   -

   Environmental sustainability
   -

   GLAM - cultural partnerships and Wikimedia
   -

   Growing Wikimedia’s readership worldwide
   -

   Health
   -

   Languages
   -

   Libraries belong in Wikimedia projects
   -

   Multimedia knowledge
   -

   Partnerships
   -

   Quality
   -

   Research
   -

   Thriving in Safety
   -

   Strategy for Wikimedia 2030 – The path towards our future
   -

   Transcription
   -

   Technology outreach & innovation

And of course the Poster session, which will be a plenary event.

For 2019, there is no 'central' program committee nor a single submission
form. To make a submission, visit the page of the Space which most relates
to your proposal, read its instructions for what kinds of submissions the
Leaders of that Space wish to receive. Then click the submission button.

Each Space is looking for different kinds of content or format. So it is
important that people wanting to propose a presentation/workshop/panel/etc
at Wikimania read the information that the Leaders of each Space have
provided.

Once again, the link to the list of all the accepted Spaces, each with its
own submission form, is here:
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Submissions#Spaces

Please feel free to share/forward this email.

Sincerely,

- Liam Wyatt (Volunteer program chair), and Eric Luth (Conference Manager,
Wikimedia Sverige)


[1] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Program_design

[2] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Theme

[3] Note that the Spaces do NOT all have the same room capacity, or
duration. Thus the content of the Wikimania program is not intending to be
'evenly spread' across these topic areas.
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2018 Call for Submissions

[Liam Wyatt]

Dear Wikimedia community,

We are pleased to announce that Wikimania 2018 is now accepting proposals
for workshops, discussions, presentations, or research posters to give
during the conference. To read the full instructions visit the event wiki
and click on the link provided there to make your proposal:
https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions

The deadline for submissions is 23:59 UTC on *Sunday March 18, 2018*.
This is approximately 6 weeks away. Whether you are a community member of
one of the Wikimedia projects, or a fellow open content creator or
consumer, we welcome your proposal for a session.

*Theme*
This year, the conference will be taking place in Cape Town, South Africa,
where the organisers are giving this Wikimania a unique flavor — an
explicit theme based in African philosophy:

“Bridging knowledge gaps, the *ubuntu* way forward.”
Read more about this theme, why it was chosen, and what it means for the
conference program at the Wikimedia blog:
*https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/02/05/wikimania-cape-town-ubuntu/
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/02/05/wikimania-cape-town-ubuntu/>*

Throughout the conference program, this theme will be tightly held, but
loosely defined - in order to encourage a diverse range of responses to the
theme. It is our hope that this theme will give us the opportunity to
further our goal of creating the “sum of human knowledge”, by encouraging
greater diversity and inclusion in who participates and what we discuss at
Wikimania.

To learn more, and to make a proposal for the conference, please visit:
https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions

Please forward this announcement to other lists and groups across the
Wikimedia movement.
<https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions>
We look forward to reading your submissions. Sincerely,

*Program committee co-chairs Emna Mizouni, Felix Nartey, and Liam Wyatt.*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Esra’a Al Shafei to Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

[Liam Wyatt]

Fantastic Wikimania keynote, fascinating addition to the board, fabulous
addition to our community.

Welcome.


On Fri, 1 Dec 2017 at 22:28, Anna Stillwell 
wrote:

> Welcome, Esra'a. Thank you for taking the time to serve. I look forward to
> your contribution.
> /a
>
> On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 12:59 PM, Christophe Henner 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > With the appointment of Raju to the Board of Trustees a couple of months
> > ago, we were left with a remaining open vacancy to fill. I am thrilled to
> > share that after several months of searching and discussions, we have
> made
> > another important appointment. At our November Board Retreat, the Board
> > appointed and welcomed Esra’a Al Shafei to fill our vacant expert seat.
> >
> > Esra'a is a prominent international human rights activist and social
> > entrepreneur. She founded and directs Majal, a nonprofit which utilizes
> > digital media to amplify under-reported and marginalized voices
> throughout
> > the Middle East and North Africa. For those of you that heard her keynote
> > presentation at this year's Wikimania, I think you will agree she will
> make
> > a very valuable addition to the Board and brings an important perspective
> > and skillset to the Board's efforts.
> >
> > Below (and on the Wikimedia Blog) you will find the official announcement
> > about Esra’a Al Shafei. Please join me in warmly welcoming her to the
> > Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees and to the Wikimedia movement!
> >
> > Christophe
> > Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> >
> > P.S. Due to the nature of Esra’a’s work, sharing photos or videos of
> Esra’a
> > may endanger her safety or the safety of others. To help ensure the
> privacy
> > and safety of Esra’a and her colleagues, we are not sharing any
> photographs
> > or videos of Esra'a. We ask that you please join us in supporting this
> > important safety consideration.
> >
> >
> > Press release
> >
> > Header: Esra'a Al Shafei joins Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> >
> > Subheader: Bahraini human rights activist and social entrepreneur brings
> to
> > the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees more than a decade of
> experience
> > in applying creative solutions to challenges faced by underserved and
> > underrepresented communities.
> >
> > Image: https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Esraa.png[a]
> >  > LuEi5a9gJDpB7HWEft4/mobilebasic#cmnt1>
> > [b]
> >  > LuEi5a9gJDpB7HWEft4/mobilebasic#cmnt2>
> > [c]
> >  > LuEi5a9gJDpB7HWEft4/mobilebasic#cmnt3>
> > [d]
> >  > LuEi5a9gJDpB7HWEft4/mobilebasic#cmnt4>
> >
> > San Francisco, California, 1 December 2017 — The Wikimedia Foundation
> today
> > announced the appointment of Esra'a Al Shafei, a prominent human rights
> > activist and a passionate defender of free expression, to the Wikimedia
> > Foundation Board of Trustees.
> >
> > A native of Bahrain, Esra'a’s work aims to increase and protect free
> > speech, promote expression for youth and underrepresented voices, and
> > improve the lives of LGBTQ people in the Middle East and North Africa.
> She
> > founded and directs Majal, a network of online platforms that
> > amplify under-reported and marginalized voices.
> >
> > “Esra'a shares Wikimedia's foundational belief that shared knowledge can
> > facilitate shared understanding,” said Wikimedia Foundation Executive
> > Director, Katherine Maher. "Her achievements exemplify how intentional
> > community building can be a powerful tool for positive change, while
> > her passion
> > for beautiful and engaging user experiences will only elevate our work.
> We
> > are so fortunate to have her perspective in support of our global
> Wikimedia
> > communities."
> >
> > Esra'a founded Majal in 2006 as Mideast Youth, at the time a series of
> > blogs bringing a voice to marginalized and underrepresented young
> > people across the Middle East. Today, the organization's team helps build
> > communities that celebrate, protect, and promote diversity and social
> > justice. Their endeavors include CrowdVoice.org, which curates
> crowdsourced
> > media to contextualize social movements throughout the world; Mideast
> > Tunes, the largest web and mobile app showcasing underground musicians in
> > the Middle East and North Africa who use music as a tool for social
> change;
> > and Ahwaa.org, an open discussion platform for Arab LGBTQ individuals
> that
> > uses game mechanics to protect and engage its community.
> >
> >
> > “When I first encountered Wikipedia shortly after obtaining an internet
> > connection in the early 2000s, I felt that the true purpose of the
> internet
> > was realized. With Wikipedia, I accessed research 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Gabriele Theren and Peter Dewald to the WMDE Board of Trustees

[Liam Wyatt]

Thanks Cornelius!
Why am I not surprised that you would have the precise documentation
already prepared :-)

p.s. Sandra: understood. this is what I mean by the legal contexts being
different for how boards are formed but the desire being [approximately]
the same.

wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata

On 30 November 2017 at 15:05, Cornelius Kibelka <
cornelius.kibe...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> For those who are interested in cooption (appointing) of (volunteer) board
> members, I can recommend you to read the documentation of the Wikimedia
> Conference 2017 session "Cooption in Wikimedia boards":
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017/Program/45.
> Itzik
> Edri (WMIL), Michael Maggs (WMUK) and Nataliia Tymkiv (WMF) explained how
> their organizations' appointing processes, structures and experiences are.
>
> Best regards
> Cornelius
>
> On 30 November 2017 at 14:53, Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland <
> rient...@wikimedia.nl> wrote:
>
> > Hi Liam,
> >
> > Just a small point of clarification:  in Wikimedia Nederland the Board
> does
> > not have the possibility to appoint new Board Members. The General
> Assembly
> > 'appoints' (i.e. elects) all members of the Board.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> >
> > Sandra Rientjes
> > Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland
> >
> > tel.(+31) (0)30 3200238 <+31%2030%20320%200238>
> > mob. (+31) (0)6 31786379 <+31%206%2031786379>
> >
> > www.wikimedia.nl
> >
> >
> > Mariaplaats 3
> > 3511 LH  Utrecht
> >
> > 2017-11-30 14:35 GMT+01:00 Liam Wyatt <liamwy...@gmail.com>:
> >
> > > Thank you for this information Tim, and welcome Peter, and Gabriele!
> > >
> > > I know that the boards of Wikimedia- Germany, France, UK and
> Netherlands
> > > have "appointed" seats (also known as "external" or "expert" seats),
> and
> > so
> > > too does the WMF. I assume that the formal legal process for these are
> > all
> > > different according to local laws, but I also assume that the purpose
> is
> > > roughly the same: to ensure there is diversity of expertise and
> opinions,
> > > to fill specifically identified skill gaps, and to guard against a mere
> > > 'popularity contest' election.
> > >
> > > Do any other Chapters have "appointed" seats on their boards? Have some
> > > Chapters tried, but rejected the concept?
> > >
> > >
> > > wittylama.com
> > > Peace, love & metadata
> > >
> > > On 30 November 2017 at 14:08, Tim Moritz Hector <
> > > tim-moritz.hec...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi all,
> > > >
> > > > just a short rectification: We have up to 2 (not 3) appointed seats
> in
> > > the
> > > > board. So in total our board consists of 9 members: 7 elected by the
> > > > general assembly and 2 appointed.
> > > >
> > > > I am happy that now, with the appointment of Gabriele and Peter, we
> > have
> > > > all seats on our board filled.
> > > >
> > > > Best regards,
> > > > Tim
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > 2017-11-30 13:47 GMT+01:00 Tim Moritz Hector
> > > <tim-moritz.hector@wikimedia.
> > > > de
> > > > >:
> > > >
> > > > > Dear all,
> > > > >
> > > > > I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board has
> > taken
> > > > > the opportunity to appoint two new members for the first time. Dr.
> > > > Gabriele
> > > > > Theren and Peter Dewald are taking appointed seats in our board.
> > > > >
> > > > > After our general assembly decided to make way for up to 3
> appointed
> > > > > seats, we created a profile of skills we would like to add to the
> > > board.
> > > > We
> > > > > focussed on the future of Wikimedia Deutschland, strategically and
> > > > > financially, and got about 60 applications. Many of them showed
> > > > impressive
> > > > > profiles, striving for Free Knowledge.
> > > > >
> > > > > We decided for Gabriele, who is a trained lawyer, mediator and
> serves
> > > as
> > > > > department head in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the
> > > > German
> > > > > federal state of Saxony

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Gabriele Theren and Peter Dewald to the WMDE Board of Trustees

[Liam Wyatt]

Thank you for this information Tim, and welcome Peter, and Gabriele!

I know that the boards of Wikimedia- Germany, France, UK and Netherlands
have "appointed" seats (also known as "external" or "expert" seats), and so
too does the WMF. I assume that the formal legal process for these are all
different according to local laws, but I also assume that the purpose is
roughly the same: to ensure there is diversity of expertise and opinions,
to fill specifically identified skill gaps, and to guard against a mere
'popularity contest' election.

Do any other Chapters have "appointed" seats on their boards? Have some
Chapters tried, but rejected the concept?


wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata

On 30 November 2017 at 14:08, Tim Moritz Hector <
tim-moritz.hec...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> just a short rectification: We have up to 2 (not 3) appointed seats in the
> board. So in total our board consists of 9 members: 7 elected by the
> general assembly and 2 appointed.
>
> I am happy that now, with the appointment of Gabriele and Peter, we have
> all seats on our board filled.
>
> Best regards,
> Tim
>
>
>
> 2017-11-30 13:47 GMT+01:00 Tim Moritz Hector  de
> >:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I am delighted to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board has taken
> > the opportunity to appoint two new members for the first time. Dr.
> Gabriele
> > Theren and Peter Dewald are taking appointed seats in our board.
> >
> > After our general assembly decided to make way for up to 3 appointed
> > seats, we created a profile of skills we would like to add to the board.
> We
> > focussed on the future of Wikimedia Deutschland, strategically and
> > financially, and got about 60 applications. Many of them showed
> impressive
> > profiles, striving for Free Knowledge.
> >
> > We decided for Gabriele, who is a trained lawyer, mediator and serves as
> > department head in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the
> German
> > federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. We also elected Peter who has 35 years of
> > expertise as managing director at Apple and the software group Sage, was
> > member of the board of Germany’s digital association Bitkom and has a lot
> > of experience in volunteer work.
> >
> > Both will be members of the board until the next election by the general
> > assembly in about one year. Please join me in welcoming Gabriele and
> Peter
> > to the Wikiverse.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Tim Moritz Hector
> >
> >
> > --
> > Tim Moritz Hector
> > Chair of the Board
> > Wikimedia Deutschland
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners for logged-in users (was:How can we fix the two-stage page loading problem?)

[Liam Wyatt]

For what it's worth - and this might explain some people's circumstances:
I see many fundraising banners each year, even though I'm logged in, but
the reason I see them is because I've clicked on a Wikipedia article link
while using a third-party website (e.g. from Facebook, or twitter). In
those cases when I land on the wikipedia article i'm still within the
'mini-broswer' of facebook etc and the fundraising banner system can not
know that I'm logged in on my primary browser. This happen equally on my
desktop and then also on my mobile phone.

So, while it is true that the WMF is not showing banners to logged in
people, it is equally true that I see a lot of banners (when I've clicked
on wikipedia links from within other websites/platforms). No one is lying -
it's just we're talking about what we mean by 'logged in' differently.

This does not explain every possible circumstance, for every person, for
why people in this thread are saying that they see banners even though
they're logged in. But it is one explanation of a common situation that
might explain things for some people.

Hope that helps,
-Liam / Wittylama

wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata

On 12 September 2017 at 18:41, Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> Hey David & Romaine,
>
> I wanted to just give a quick reply to let you know that I am looking into
> this further.
>
> I will reiterate that WMF fundraising does not and has not actively shown
> fundraising banners to logged in users for the past five years and I do
> apologise if you've been disrupted in your work whether through human or
> technical error.
>
> The possible causes for this are numerous and it will take time to identify
> the scale, cause and solution to this.
>
> Regards
> Seddon
>
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 11:38 AM, Romaine Wiki 
> wrote:
>
> > I am sorry to say but I am constantly logged in and do see fundraising
> > banners every year.
> >
> > Each time when it was announced fundraising banners would come, I have
> seen
> > them logged in, in multiple countries.
> >
> > Romaine
> >
> >
> > Op dinsdag 5 september 2017 heeft Joseph Seddon 
> > het
> > volgende geschreven:
> >
> > > Hey Strainu,
> > >
> > > You are probably right in that you saw a banner but regarding
> > specifically
> > > fundraising banners, I am 100% certain that the WMF does not and has
> not
> > > for some years actively shown banners to users who are logged in. The
> > > caveat with that is this does not preclude any possibility of human
> error
> > > or a software bug. I'm not aware of any specific occasion where this
> has
> > > occurred in the last two years but with a piece of software that serves
> > > billions of page views, across 20-30 countries and some probably some
> > 3000
> > > banner tests during that period, probabilities that something hadn't
> gone
> > > wrong start reaching levels of sigma that not even I would attempt to
> > claim
> > > :P
> > >
> > > Regards
> > >
> > > Seddon
> > >
> > > On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 1:38 PM, Strainu  > > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Changing subject, the other thread is about something totally
> > different.
> > > >
> > > > 2017-09-05 14:38 GMT+03:00 Joseph Seddon  > > >:
> > > > > WMF hasn't shown fundraising banners to logged in users for several
> > > > years.
> > > >
> > > > While I wouldn't bet my life on it, I'm pretty sure I saw banners on
> > > > mobile just last month, while being logged in.
> > > >
> > > > Strainu
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Regards
> > > > > Seddon
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On 5 Sep 2017 08:33, "Lodewijk"  > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >> Hey Ori,
> > > > >>
> > > > >> I like the creative thinking :) For the fundraising that could
> > indeed
> > > > work
> > > > >> well (although I have no numbers on what percentage of domations
> > comes
> > > > from
> > > > >> logged in users etc), but there are also campaigns tht are quite
> > > > relevant
> > > > >> for logged in users.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Lodewijk
> > > > >>
> > > > >> On Sun, Sep 3, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Ori Livneh  > > >
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> > On Sep 3, 2017 13:02, "David Gerard"  > > > wrote:
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> > On 2 September 2017 at 02:09, Michael Peel  > > >
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> > > This is possibly the most annoying feature of the Wikimedia
> > > > projects at
> > > > >> > the moment. You access a page. Then you start reading or editing
> > it.
> > > > And
> > > > >> > then suddenly the page jumps when a fundraising banner / central
> > > > notice /
> > > > >> > gadget / beta feature loads. So you have to start reading the
> page
> > > > again,
> > > > >> > or you have to find where you were editing again, or you have to
> > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Deutschland: Annual Report 2016

[Liam Wyatt]

This annual report, and the numbers in it, are indeed very cool :-)
Congratulations.

I just want to add a clarification about the membership numbers, since that
is getting a lot of attention in this thread. Not because these numbers are
incorrect, or bad, but that other Chapters might be feeling upset that they
aren't also achieving such high numbers.

WM-De has, according to this report, 50,000 members in total
https://2016.wikimedia.de/en/report/members However, what the other
chapters need to understand - so they don't feel bad by comparison! - is
that the Germany system has two methods of membership. These are [as it
been described to me by a German-speaker, I apologise if I'm missing a
nuance of language]:
- "Aktives Mitglied", the members with voting rights
- "Fördermitglied", the people who become a member when they donate, but
have no voting rights.
The English version of the report uses the terms "active" and "sponsoring".
Other chapters only have this first group.

The German-language Wikipedia article about WMDE itself describes the ratio
between these in April 2015 as 1.921 active : 18.402 sponsoring. https://de.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland#Mitgliederversammlung

Another factor is that, unlike WM-De, other Chapters do not have direct
ownership of the fundraising banners and therefore they cannot promote
membership to donors in their country as easily. Finally, Germany also has
a strong cultural tradition of membership-associations which is not
necessarily the case in other countries.

All this is not to criticise WM-De, but to say to other chapters that they
should not feel bad by comparison, because these situations are not
directly comparable.

Sincerely,
- Liam / Wittylama

wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata

On 6 June 2017 at 16:16, Chris Keating  wrote:

> > No, it means 15,000 new (paying) members of the association Wikimedia
> > Deutschland.
> >
>
> Just to be clear - these are basically donors, not volunteers, right?
>
>
> >
> > However, we also try to recruit new authors/editors via banner campaigns
> > and are running several of them throughout the year. If you are
> interested
> > in this, consider joining Verena's session at Wikimania about "On-Wiki
> > Campaigning to Engage New Editors"[1]
>
>
> I look forward to hearing about this but won't be at Wikimania -will there
> be anything published about it ? :)
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Wikimedia Foundation's commitment around our environmental impact

[Liam Wyatt]

Excellent news, thank you for this María and to the Board!
And, thanks to those - especially Gnom/Lukas - who have been doing such a
good job of raising awareness in the community, and documenting their
progress, at [[Sustainability Initiative]] on Meta over many many months -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sustainability_Initiative

Sincerely,
- Liam/Wittylama [who is not part of the secret accords between Franklin D.
Rosevelt and King Faud of Saudi Arabia]

wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata

On 29 March 2017 at 19:30, James Salsman  wrote:

> A frustrating reason why it is difficult to "use green energy" in general
> is because of the secret accords between Franklin D. Rosevelt and King Faud
> of Saudi Arabia just after the end of WWII, wherein, according to the BBC
> documentary "Bitter Lake," the U.S. agreed to uninterrupted purchases of
> Saudi oil in return for regional security in the Middle East. The U.S. Navy
> has been sending masters' students to MIT to work on shipboard synthesis of
> liquid diesel fuel from the carbonate in seawater since the 1970s, and the
> U.S. Strategic "Petroleum" reserve stopped announcing purchases in the
> 1990s when the number of oilers assigned to carrier groups and their port
> fuel purchases both declined sharply. The SPR still frequently announces
> sales, however.
>
> Google recently developed a prototype of liquid transportation fuels
> synthesis from the dialysis of carbonate in seawater, which incidentally
> produces large quantities of fresh water as a byproduct:
> http://x.company/explorations/foghorn
>
> Other researchers have developed similar ways to recycle the flue exhaust
> from natural gas power plants: http://bit.ly/co2-ccr
>
> Both of these U.S. projects stopped abruptly, supposedly because they were
> not economical at the retail cost of power, and the researchers refuse to
> discuss the reasons that they did not calculate the cost of their outputs
> from off-peak power. I recommend efforts to encourage resumption of these
> projects using discounted nighttime wind power (which as per
> http://freenights.txu.com is so inexpensive as to be entirely free at
> retail in Texas, where some Foundation datacenters are located) as a more
> effective means of minimizing environmental impact than merely contracting
> for renewable energy.
>
> Merkel's Germany and her neighbors in Europe have developed a vibrant
> power-to-gas research and nascent industrial infrastructure which the U.S.
> Department of Energy has never yet touched because of the corrupt U.S. "all
> of the above" strategy of catering to fossil fuel producers because of
> their political power in this political environment where unlimited amounts
> of money from any source can be funneled to politicians' campaigns. If the
> Bitter Lake accords are in the way of lessening environmental impact,
> another approach would be to encourage national leaders to talk about how
> the increasing use of non-supply limited renewables and concordant
> continued decline in the price of all energy via power-to-gas and
> gas-to-liquids infrastructure which is already built out in Europe and
> Qatar (the Pearl GTL plant produces about 10% of Royal Dutch Shell's fuel
> output) will effect geopolitical crises. I am convinced that Syria would
> not have had a refugee crisis if they were producing their own fresh water
> as a byproduct of Project Foghorn-style fuel from the carbon in seawater
> instead of having to depend on changing weather patterns.
>
> The heart of the question is: can alleviating pressure of scarce energy
> resources, and in turn alleviating the scarcity all of the goods and
> services in the real economy that energy underpins, provide more
> geopolitical security than a 70 year old secret agreement to buy peace by
> uninterrupted purchases of oil?
>
> Another important consideration is that recycled carbon can be used for
> more than just carbon neutral fuel. Researchers such as those working on
> http://co2-chemistry.eu can use recycled carbon as plastic feedstock,
> allowing structural plastic fiberglass composite lumber to replace most if
> not almost all of the wood timber used in construction, allowing
> reforestation.
>
> Could the Endowment be chartered to ask the same environmental
> responsibility of the directors and officers of its investments?
>
> Best regards,
> Jim Salsman
>
> On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 8:10 AM María Sefidari 
> wrote:
>
> > Forwading.
> >
> > -- Mensaje reenviado --
> > De: "María Sefidari" 
> > Fecha: 29 mar. 2017 15:06
> > Asunto: Wikimedia Foundation's commitment around our environmental impact
> > Para: , <
> > wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org>,
> > 
> > Cc:
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Since early 2015, the Wikimedia Foundation has been evaluating efforts
> > and engaging in discussions related to the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] don't run away from the mess we've made, fix it (Re: Concerns in general)

[Liam Wyatt]

What a coincidence! "longstanding, pervasive, counter-factual, systemic
bias towards supply side trickle-down austerity libertarian objectivist
economics" was the name of the band I saw last week at the local pub. They
weren't very good though - I liked their earlier stuff.



On Fri, 27 Jan 2017 at 19:39, James Salsman  wrote:

> Does anyone doubt that the English Wikipedia's longstanding,
>
> pervasive, counter-factual, systemic bias towards supply side
>
> trickle-down austerity libertarian objectivist economics due at least
>
> in part to early influence of editors attracted to Jimmy Wales' former
>
> public positions isn't at least partially responsible for the
>
> situation Romaine describes below?
>
>
>
> Would it be better to move the Foundation out of the U.S., fix the
>
> bias, or both?
>
>
>
> https://twitter.com/JaneMayerNYer/status/808003564291244033
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jim Salsman
>
>
>
>  forwarded message 
>
> Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2017 04:33:53 +0100
>
> From: Romaine Wiki 
>
> To: Wikimedia 
>
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns in general
>
>
>
> Today I was reading in the (international) news about websites with
>
> knowledge on the topic of climate change disappear from the internet as
>
> result of the Trump administration. The second thing I read is that before
>
> something can be published about this topic, the government needs to
>
> approve this.
>
>
>
> Do you realise what the right word for this is? censorship.
>
> Even if it is only partially.
>
>
>
> Luckily there are many scientists working on getting all the data abroad,
>
> out of the US to ensure the research data is saved, including on servers in
>
> the Netherlands where Trump (hopefully) has no reach.
>
>
>
> In the past week I was reading about the Internet Archive organisation, who
>
> is making a back up in Canada because of the Trump administration. I did
>
> not understood this, you may call me naive, but now I do understand,
>
> apparently they have some visionary people at the Internet Archive.
>
>
>
> I miss a good answer to this situation from the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
>
>
> Trump is now promoting harassment and disrespect, already for some time,
>
>
>
> What signal is given to the rest of the world if an America based
>
> organisation is spreading the thought of a harassment free Wikipedia and
>
> the free word, while the president of the US is promoting harassment,
>
> disrespect and censorship on a massive scale.
>
>
>
> This is just the first week of this president!
>
>
>
> I am 100% sure everyone in the Wikimedia movement is willing to make sure
>
> Wikimedia faces no damage whatsoever, including in WMF, but to me this
>
> still starts to get concerning.
>
>
>
> If we as Wikimedia movement think that free knowledge, free speech, freedom
>
> of information, etc are important, I would think that the location where
>
> the organisation is based is that country where liberty is the largest, I
>
> do not know where this is but it is definitely not the US.
>
>
>
> To my impression WMF is stuck in the US, so I do not believe they would
>
> actually move when the danger grows.
>
>
>
> But I think it is possible to make sure risks are spread over the world.
>
> Certainly as we are an international movement that intends to cover the
>
> knowledge of the whole humanoid civilisation.
>
>
>
> To come to a conclusion, I think WMF and the Wikimedia movement should
>
> think about a back-up plan if it actually goes wrong.
>
>
>
>
>
> If you do not agree with me: that is perfectly fine, that's your right and
>
> should be protected.
>
>
>
> Thank you.
>
>
>
> Romaine
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board structure (Was: New Elections Committee)

[Liam Wyatt]

On Wednesday, July 27, 2016, Pine W  wrote:

>
>
> There are times when highly threaded discussions on wiki are easier to
> follow than large quantities of entangled mailing list posts, but that is
> an exception, and in any case I follow the philosophy of trying to meet
> people where they are whenever reasonably feasible.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pine


That's all well and good, but the significant difference is that email
lists are a "push" form of communication. Everyone subscribed receives
everything that is send, whether or not they're interested in that specific
email. For people who feel the need to comment frequently and at length on
every topic, then putting their comments on wiki is not only better for
collating their points into a coherent whole, but better for the other list
subscribers who don't have to wade through comments that didn't need to be
sent to everyone.


-- 
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Clarifications on 2014 Form 990

[Liam Wyatt]

Thank you for this comprehensive breakdown and effort to provide detailed
responses to the various questions that have been asked here, and
elsewhere.
No-doubt there will be follow-up questions or requests for clarification,
but I just wanted to say thanks to the team of people who evidently put
time into preparing this public response.

-Liam

On Wednesday, 8 June 2016, Patricio Lorente 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> We’ve heard your questions and want to address them broadly, as well as
> provide more information about the breakdown of Sue’s compensation during
> this time. We understand the confusion related to this recent 990, given
> the period it covers, and the aggregate amounts it reports. Below you’ll
> find additional information about the nature of our contract with Sue, the
> timeframe, and her work and compensation. I expect this will help resolve
> this conversation. As Chair, I am completely comfortable with all terms.
> Sue was a great ED and brought real value in exchange for her compensation.
>
> ==
>
> Background
>
> In re-reading Jan-Bart’s original email [1] where he stated that Sue was
> staying on as an advisor, it isn’t explicit that this was a paid position.
> We should have been more clear on this point. It is understandable that
> people wonder why Sue was not listed on the page of staff and contractors.
> However, everyone listed on the staff and contractors page report up to the
> ED. Sue did not report to the ED; she was accountable to the board chair.
> That's why she was not on that page.
>
> On the issue of compensation: We handled Sue's compensation the same way we
> do with other individuals: it is disclosed in the 990 as appropriate, and
> not elsewhere. That's our normal practice. This is true for a variety of
> reasons, including the fact that the results are certified through our
> external auditors. Other reasons include that it is a transparent
> mechanism, consistent with other large charitable organizations, and a
> matter of permanent, public record. The Foundation also wouldn’t normally
> announce the salary or contract compensation at the time of bringing
> someone on; that includes special advisors.
>
> We also don’t usually share the specific details of people’s compensation
> beyond what is published in the 990. However, the 990 can be confusing,
> especially when compensation levels change mid-year, and so in this case we
> (including Sue) are happy to clarify the specifics.
>
> Timeframe
>
> One point of confusion is for the period this compensation covers. This is
> reasonable, this confused even some of us involved in preparing this
> response. Although the majority of activities reported on the Form 990
> cover the Foundation’s fiscal year (specifically, the six months between
> July 1, 2014 - June 30, 2015), the IRS requires that details about
> compensation for certain highly-paid individuals are for the full calendar
> year in which the fiscal year begins or ends. So all the executive
> compensation reported is for twelve months, from January - December 2014,
> even though some of it it falls outside the fiscal year reporting (July 1,
> 2014 - June 30, 2015).
>
> Since Sue was on payroll during the 2014 calendar year, this means that the
> 990 contains her total compensation for the whole year, includes Executive
> Director salary, bonus, and special advisor work, at differing levels
> throughout that period.
>
> Total compensation
>
> The total compensation ($301,341) reported in the 2014 990 form is broken
> into three areas:
>
> (1) Compensation for her role as Executive Director during the 2014
> calendar year (January 1 - May 31 2014): $107,174
>
> This number is Sue’s regular compensation as full-time Executive Director,
> before the appointment of the new ED. This is for the 2014 calendar year
> period of January 1 - May 31, 2014. It does not include compensation for
> any of her efforts following May 31, 2014.
>
> (2) Retention bonus to compensate Sue for lost opportunities during the
> transition period: $165,000.
>
> Sue informed us of her intent to step down in March of 2013, but agreed to
> stay on until a new ED was identified. In August 2013, the Board of
> Trustees approved a one-time retention bonus to compensate Sue for lost
> opportunities and for her willingness to remain with the Foundation during
> an important transitional period. Sue continued to serve as Executive
> Director for more than a year after announcing her resignation, even though
> she could have sought opportunities elsewhere. In addition to her other ED
> responsibilities during this time, she led the creation of a transition
> plan for the new Executive Director and supported the search process.
>
> The Board discussed this agreement with Sue over a few months before
> reaching the agreement in August. This is a standard practice used to
> compensate individuals for lost opportunities and ensure organizational
> stability during transitional 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 for FY 2014-2015 now on-wiki

[Liam Wyatt]

On Sunday, 5 June 2016, Greg Varnum  wrote:

>  Sue served as a special advisor until May 31, 2016. Her pay included
> compensation for her extended role during the ED transition, and to match
> market rates for a role of this nature in organizations of similar size to
> the Wikimedia Foundation.


Not to put too fine a point on it... But are you saying that Sue remained
the most highly paid contractor to the WMF, and at a significantly higher
rate than when she was the actual ED, until FIVE DAYS ago? That is, well
beyond any 'transition period' (and in fact longer than the employment of
the person who replaced her)?

Interesting that Sue's contract ended on precisely the same day that
Lodewijk reiterated his questions about the nature of her contract?

- Liam


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New GLAM-Wiki Role at Wikimedia Foundation

[Liam Wyatt]

O frabjous day!
Dedicated WMF support for GLAM-Wiki activities is something that has been a
lng time coming. Congratulations Alex, and thank you!

-Liam / Wittylama

On Friday, 20 May 2016, Jake Orlowitz <jorlow...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> As you may have noticed in the Annual Plan, the Wikimedia Foundation has
> proposed more support of GLAM-Wiki. I want to happily announce that *Alex
> Stinson* will be expanding and transitioning his role as Wikipedia Library
> Coordinator to lead this new position as *GLAM-Wiki Strategist *within the
> Community Engagement department at WMF.  He will continue to report and
> work closely with me in Wikipedia Library land, which I'm very happy about!
>
> I'll let Alex introduce himself and his thoughts on the position, why it
> matters, and what its goals are.
>
> Best,
> Jake Orlowitz
>
> User:Ocaasi (WMF)
>
> Head of the Wikipedia Library
>
> jorlow...@wikimedia.org <javascript:;>
>
> --
>
> Hi all!
>
> I am particularly excited to be shifting towards helping with GLAM-Wiki
> support. I plan to bring my long history of working in Wikimedia outreach,
> first as a volunteer in GLAM and the Education program and then as an
> employee with the Wikipedia Library, to improve our global GLAM impact [1].
>
> As we point out in the proposed annual plan, [2] GLAM-Wiki has a long
> history as a programmatic strategy for volunteers and affiliates. These
> programs have collected some of our best content, pushed our technologies
> beyond their limits, and created a considerable volume of contributions
> from both Wikimedians and experts for over 8 years.
>
> However, as these practices become more and more sophisticated and varied,
> volunteers from smaller communities without connections to the leaders of
> successful projects have found themselves unable to replicate this success,
> or replicating many of the mistakes from earlier projects.  At the same
> time, larger initiatives have been hindered by a lack of investment in
> infrastructure and technology.
>
> WMF has been a great supporter of GLAM through grants and affiliate
> support, but we can do more. We haven’t provided consistent global
> connection, communication and support for GLAM-Wiki resources and tools.
> My goal is to help GLAM spread throughout our communities and potentially
> tens of thousands of organizations that - as folks like Liam Wyatt have
> been advocating from the beginning - share our same values: freely sharing
> knowledge with the world.
>
> Below I have outlined our approach for the GLAM-Wiki Strategist role [3]. I
> want to use the next few months to listen and evaluate the needs of the
> communities actively involved in GLAM-Wiki work to make sure that I
> prioritize projects correctly. I am also going to be at Wikimania, and have
> already talked to a number of GLAM-Wiki leaders at Wikimedia Conference.
>
> My role as strategist is to consult, collaborate, organize, and plan.  So,
> please reach out to me with your questions, thoughts, needs or other
> feedback.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alex Stinson
>
> GLAM-Wiki Strategist
>
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> astin...@wikimedia.org <javascript:;>
>
> [1] A little about me
>
> I have been working with the Wikipedia Library since May 2014, developing
> the Library’s publisher partnerships, building relationships with dozens of
> community and language leaders across our volunteer movement, crafting a
> broader strategy for engaging the largest libraries and international
> reference networks, and project managing tool and metrics improvements for
> our program.
>
> I also designed and deployed the successful #1Lib1Ref campaign (
> 1lib1ref.org)
> that drew nearly 30,000 viewers, 5 million tweet-impressions, and hundreds
> of participants from the library world to Wikipedia in our first ever
> viral, global micro-contributions drive for quality improvement.
>
> In my volunteer, time I try to stay active as User:Sadads, where I am
> mostly active on English Wikipedia ( >98,000 edits). I have been actively
> writing content about literature and novels since 2008. I have always
> thought of our movement as a community with a lot of opportunities around
> partnerships and collaboration.
>
> I was also one of the early adopters of GLAM-Wiki in the US:  While still
> in college, I approached the Smithsonian in 2010 about a partnership,
> establishing the dialogue which grew to one of our most successful
> long-term cultural partners within the movement. I have learned from those
> early attempts and have led GLAM-Wiki relationships with a handful of
> smaller organizations while in school and as a volunteer.
>
> I am also a long time su

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising Testing Update (Friday 6th May) - Hopefully the first of Many

[Liam Wyatt]

Thanks for the mention Seddon & Anna,
tl;dr version: This is a test to see if readers are more likely to donate
if the banner is more relevant to what they're reading. Thanks for testing
this community-suggested fundraising idea - sign of a new era regardless of
the results of the test!


As some may recall, in July last year a "fundraising ideas" page was
created by WMF fundraising to be able to give practical suggestions/ideas
for improvement:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas

I have been vocally about Fundraising's practices and adherence to the
'fundraising principles', so, when a request for specific suggestions was
made, it seemed only fair that I should try to submit productive ideas not
just critiques! :-) After all - whether we love them or hate them, the
fundraising banners are the single most important revenue-raising tool we
have and it is no secret that it is becoming increasingly difficult to
reach the donation targets [for a variety of reasons].

One of these suggestions on that page was "related content banners" and I'm
super-happy that WMF-Fundraising have taken the time to test the concept.
Not just because I hope the idea is successful, but also because it
indicates in a very practical way that they're trying to build a new era of
more collaborative practices. So, even if the test doesn't result in
anything useful, I'd like to say "thanks!" for giving a community-made
suggestion a go.

Wikimedia fundraising banners have always been about trying to optimise for
the most efficient design/text to be used across a whole language edition.
We have targeted by country, and by language, and that's it. Most of the
other kinds of personal-targeting that online advertising does is not
available to us because of our principles and policies (privacy,
cookies...). However, what we have never tried to do before is to target
the banners based on the vast array of areas-of-interest that people come
to read about. If someone is reading an article a sport, a chemical
element, a tv-show, a historic battle, etc. then we can assume they
are *interested
*in that topic. Furthermore, we have systems like Categories and thematic
'wikiprojects' to group these topics (as well as, in this test case, simple
manual selection) so we should leverage that!

The hypothesis that this banner-test is investigating is:
Are Wikipedia readers are more likely to click on the donation banner (and
actually donate) if the message that is displayed is more relevant to the
article-topic where it appeared?

As some people have asked already, this does have some potential
trademark-infringement questions when it is associated to an article about
a commercial product (which is why the legal department was indeed
definitely consulted for this test case). But, the targeting doesn't need
to be for that kind of thing. It could equally be, for example:
- a profile of a prolific Wikipedia feature article writer of articles
about Plants displayed above articles in category:botany.
- A winning picture from WikiLovesEarth or WikiLovesMonuments), used in
articles about places located in that country.
- A personal message by a nobel-prize winning chemist, appearing above
articles in category:chemistry.
- an 'easter egg' banner (somewhat like this Game of Thrones test) where
the text is a reference to that specific subject. I can imagine we could do
that with articles about Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?)
- A/B test the effectiveness of 'normal' banners based on the kind of
article they appear on e.g. maybe text-centric banners are more effective
on science-related articles, and image-centric banners are more effective
on biographies? Who knows...
[There would need to be many practical things worked out: avoiding
situations equivalent of when the 'Jimmy banner' appeared above the article
on Scopophobia (fear of being stared at)!]

An obvious downside to this concept is that the more targeted the banners
become, the fewer people who see them. Therefore the cost benefit of making
them becomes worse. Put another way - it's more financially useful to
improve the 'global' banner by 1% than it is to improve a very-targeted
banner by 30%. However, If the main hypothesis proves true, it could be an
excellent way for the global community to suggest culturally-appropriate
and interesting/clever banner suggestions, and also a way to re-ignite the
general public's interest in actually *reading *the banners. Imagine,
instead of making the banners more desperate/aggressive each year (which
makes the audience increasingly immune to them - known as 'banner
fatigue'), we made them *interesting to read*!

Sincerely,
-Liam / Wittylama

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Account of the events leading to James Heilman's removal

[Liam Wyatt]

There are several important issues that people have raised here already -
notably the question of confidentiality of information; the question of the
membership of this "task force"; and the question of whether the
whistleblower process was effective/sufficient.

However, I'd like to refer to this point in particular:

On 2 May 2016 at 19:10, Denny Vrandečić  wrote:

> This task force involved
> outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact finding. The first
> request of the task force to the Board members was to ask for all documents
> and notes pertaining to the case.


I'd like to ask about *who* this "professional fact finding" process talked
to? I'm not asking to "name specific names" but more about which groups of
people. In particular:

- I assume that the C-level [senior] staff were interviewed, but were any
non-executive staff interviewed as well? This question speaks to the level
of detail/depth that this investigation was expecting to have... I would
think that if the "task force" was serious then it would be interested in
hearing from across the organisation at all levels, and directly from the
people affected. However, if it only spoke with people in the executive of
the organisation then it would only be hearing views that either had
already been relayed to [some] members of the board by the executive, or
the views of the executive themselves. Obviously the C-Level staff
themselves should have been interviewed, but ALSO other staff so that, at
the very least, it didn't appear to be just a token-effort at investigating
claims.

- Were the Knight Foundation spoken with? Given that the apparent disparity
between what was in the grant document and what (some) on the board thought
was being build in the "knowledge engine" project, it seems important to
know if the Knight Foundation genuinely was of the same understanding as
the Board? This disparity also seems to have been a core issue to the
concerns raised by by the staff, and in the concerns that were held by
James, so it seems particularly pertinent to be checking what the the
Knight Foundation's perspective actually was.

-Liam

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] election for 2 seats on WMF board of trustees ends May 7...

[Liam Wyatt]

It seems like people are talking about two separate things at the same time:

- Some people are taking about publishing *the votes* (either before, or
after the election has finished)

- Some people are talking about publishing *the list of who has voted*
right now.

It is this second thing that I understood to be the request being made, and
it is also completely consistent with the way the community-election works
(where the voter, but not their vote, is published immediately). I also
wouldn't think that publishing the names of the Chapters that have voted
(and therefore identifying which ones have not yet) is still consistent
with the preference that the *vote itself* remain private.

So, in order for the community (and those of us who are members of Chapters
in particular) to encourage the chapters have not yet voted to do so, would
it be possible to please publish a table on Meta of the list of
voting-eligible organisations, and a "tick" next to their name if they have
indeed already submitted their vote. [NOT who they voted for]

Thanks,
-Liam


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Oh the irony

[Liam Wyatt]

"Number 7: Dropping subtle hints.
Dissatisfied employees sometimes drop physical or verbal hints that they're
looking to make a change.
What to do: Don't ignore the signs. Address them right away and ensure a
constant channel of communication between you and your team."

Much wise. Very insight.
Now... putting this into practice is a whole different story...



On 8 March 2016 at 18:09, Andy Mabbett  wrote:

> Tweet from Guy Kawasaki:
>
> https://twitter.com/GuyKawasaki/status/707250917360410624
>
> whose content is:
>
> "8 warning signs that your staff are about to quit"
>
> http://
> <
> http://holykaw.alltop.com/8-warning-signs-that-your-staff-are-about-to-quit-infographic?gk2
> >
> holykaw.alltop.com
> <
> http://holykaw.alltop.com/8-warning-signs-that-your-staff-are-about-to-quit-infographic?gk2
> >
> /8-warning-signs-that-your-staff-are-about-to-quit-infographic
> <
> http://holykaw.alltop.com/8-warning-signs-that-your-staff-are-about-to-quit-infographic?gk2
> >
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Katy Love to direct WMF Resources team

[Liam Wyatt]

On 26 February 2016 at 16:54, Maggie Dennis  wrote:

> That said, the role Katy had previously filled will be an open new hire,
> with opportunities for all to apply. It'll just take a little bit of time
> to put the hiring packet together.
>

Following up on Maggie's comment, applications for the position of "Program
Office, Annual Plan Grants" has now been published:
https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/178375?t=rf31sp#.VtyZbJMrKMQ

[note, that this is also offered as 'San Francisco or Remote' meaning that
the successful applicant doesn't necessarily have to work from the WMF
office]

-Liam

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Transition plans for WMF leadership - Board Reform

[Liam Wyatt]

On 23 February 2016 at 18:22, Todd Allen  wrote:

> So, five community elected seats, five filled by other means. No Founder
> seat. If Jimmy wants to serve, he's of course welcome to run for a
> community-elected seat, or seek appointment to one of the appointed seats.
>

Since you raise this point, it might be worth noting that Jimmy's
"Founder's Seat" was renewed at the November board meeting. The new term
continues until the end of 2018 - when it may be renewed again.
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Resolution_to_renew_the_Founder%27s_seat_(2015)

This resolution might not have gone unnoticed by many because the minutes
for that Board meeting were approved in December (and not published on Meta
until January) during the same meeting that also appointed Arnnon Geshuri
and removed James Heilman. Issues that, shall we say, occupied a lot of our
attention at the time!

[Chronological list of resolutions here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions ]

-Liam / Wittylama

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[Wikimedia-l] Why we changed

[Liam Wyatt]

On Monday, 22 February 2016, Faidon Liambotis > wrote:
>
> What you did instead was to sent a community-wide email making it sound
> like this was a carefully executed plan and the only reason people are
> revolting is because they're either change-averse or bitter for not
> getting a promotion. This is downright insulting.


It also slides over the fact that the people who have been leaving recently
are people who had been hired or promoted during Lila's tenure. This is
quite different from people leaving within the first months of a new
director's arrival.

The tricky thing is that the staff have been trying their best - because
they are professionals - to keep internal "office problems" hidden from
public view. They have not been advertising their frustrations on-wiki but
trying to express their concerns through private and official procedures.
This means that now we are at a stage where staff are OPENLY criticising
the leadership that can appear to the wider wikiverse like the first sign
of a problem and that they are being petty. But it is actually the end of a
long road, not the beginning.

Suffice to say - in an organisation where the staff are well know for their
commitment to the values of the movement, to be complaining publicly (and
not just one or two new people, all the senior people too - see the report
of the staff survey in The Signpost) means that this is not an
insignificant problem or concern only held by some troublemakers.


> Finally, with all of your references to "community", it also sounds to
> me like like you're trying to gain some support from our community and
> effectively stategically place the (almost unanimously) revolting staff
> at odds with our community, in the hopes that you can get supporters and
> salvage your position. This would be a pretty desperate and selfish
> move. I hope I'm wrong.
>

I too get the sense that this email as trying to claim a sense of
martyrdom. Of pointing to the staff and and saying that "they" are
unwilling to embrace change - particularly with regards to being a "high
tech organisation". This might be a more believable argument if it was not
for the tech department have been the most vocal in criticism. I don't
think anyone was implacably opposed to improvements in the way tech should
be managed - the smoothness of new rollouts and speed of development of new
products was famously poor. But that's quite different from the
silicon-valley mindset of paranoia about marketshare and product-secrecy.

As several people have said to me in the last week (referencing
an American-political aphorism) "it's not the crime, it's the coverup".





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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Open Letter to Wikimedia Foundation BoT

[Liam Wyatt]

On 18 February 2016 at 09:04, ido ivri  wrote:
> If any APG-receiving affiliate conducted itself in such a non transparent,
> dishonest manner and with lack of clear, timely communication with its
> community and stakeholders, it would get seriously reprimanded by the
> Foundation: its board audited, its budget cut, etc. Expecting the
> Foundation to be held to a lower standard than any of its worldwide
> affiliates is just hypocritical.

The principle of the WMF being a good role model for its affiliates -
and living up to minimum standards that it sets for those affiliates -
is one of the primary reasons that the FDC recommended the WMF submit
its next Annual Plan to the same APG system.[1]

This FDC recommendation was built into a full proposal WMF Community
Resources team,[2] and this proposal was accepted by the WMF
leadership - as described by Luis during the January Metrics
Meeting.[3]

This, means that there will at *least* the same level of detail
required from the WMF in annual planning documents, and the same
timeline of public consultation upon those documents. Alongside
Wikimedias Armenia, France, Norway and also CIS, the WMF will be
providing an Annual Plan by April 1 on the central application page on
Meta.[4]

During the 1 April to 30 April community review period,[5] everyone
will be encouraged to thoroughly investigate those documents.
Obviously, the scale of the WMF plan will be larger and (hopefully)
more detailed than would be required from an affiliate. As a member of
the FDC myself, I will be heavily relying on the analysis of the
community to help identify areas that are of concern or are unclear.

So, during the month of April, I strongly encourage everyone to help
with the analysis of the next WMF annual plan!

-Liam

[1] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_recommendations/2015-2016_round_1#Wikimedia_Foundation
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_2016-17_Annual_Planning_Recommendation
[3] Starting at 19:40. https://youtu.be/GpZOx1Mzmuk?t=19m40s  One
crucial difference will be that the FDC will be making recommendation
based on its analysis, but *not* be providing a recommendation in
terms of actual dollars.
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016_round_2
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Information#Calendar

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[Wikimedia-l] Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?

[Liam Wyatt]

This Grant document for a “Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia” is
*specifically and overtly stating* that its purpose is to start work
on an search engine as a rival for Google/Yahoo. That is the end goal
of the project. Near near the bottom of page 10 it summarises the
whole project as:

"knowledge Engine by Wikipedia will be the internet's first
transparent search engine, and the first one originated by the
Wikimedia Foundation". It will, "democratize the discovery of media,
news and information – it will make the Internet's most relevant
information more accessible and openly curated, and it will create an
open data engine that's completely free of commercial interests.
Today, commercial search engines dominate search engine use of the
internet...". A separate summary on page 2 states, "The project will
pave the way for non-commercial information to be found and utilised
by internet users".

At the bottom of page 13, the primary risk identified is "interference
by Google, Yahoo or another big commercial search engine could
suddenly devote resources to a similar project". As SarahSV pointed
out above, If the "Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia" is only about
improving the inter-connectedness of the Wikimedia sister projects by
improving how internal systems work - which no one is disputing is a
very useful goal - then google/yahoo releasing a new search engine
product would not be counted as the project's "biggest challenge".

- "Non commercial" -

The document itself refers to "non commercial" several times, and
seems to be using the term loosely. Nevertheless, it seems clear to me
that any reasonable person who is not deeply-immersed in
copyright-debates about the definition of "free" would understand the
words "non-commercial" in the context of *this document* to mean that
the search engine is *operated* non-commercially. Now, I do
acknowledge that a grant-request is by definition a “sales pitch” and
you have to write your request using the terminology and focus areas
of the grant-giver. However, it is my understanding that Lila
specifically wanted to build this - a competitor to Google - and that
this is most clearly expressed in the summary on page 10. It describes
the 6 principles through which the “Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia”
will "upend the commercial structure [of search engines]". These are
Public Curation, Transparency, Open Data, Privacy, No Advertising and
'Internalisation'. Nothing in this document talks about ways to limit
the *content* of the search engine to only "non-commercial" stuff (and
I if it did, then we would be talking about this:
https://search.creativecommons.org/ ).

- Lack of Strategy -

Now, maybe an open-source search engine would be a good thing for the
WMF to create! But that would be a major strategic decision. It would
be, in effect, a new sister project to sit alongside (above?)
Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata etc. However, this concept appears
*nowhere* in the current strategy consultation documents on Meta. As I
wrote on my blog last week: "Of 18 different approaches identified in
the...consultation process only one of them seems directly related to
[search]: 'Explore ways to scale machine-generated, machine-verified
and machine-assisted content'. It is also literally the last of the 18
topics listed".
http://wittylama.com/2016/01/30/strategy-controversy-part-2/

It seems to me extremely damaging for the relationship with the Knight
Foundation if Lila has approached them for funding a search engine,
without first having a strategic plan. Either the Board knew about
this and didn't see a problem, or they were incorrectly informed about
the grant's purpose. Either is very bad. And let me be very clear -
this is not a case of the Grants team going off by themselves. This is
an executive decision by either the Board to Lila, or Lila by herself.
The latter seems more likely given her own statement on her talkpage:

“I saw the Wikimedia movement as the most motivated and sincere group
of beings, united in their mission to build a rocket to explore
Universal Free Knowledge. The words “search” and “discovery” and
“knowledge” swam around in my mind with some rocket to navigate it.
However, “rocket” didn’t seem to work, but in my mind, the rocket was
really just an engine, or a portal, a TARDIS, that transports people
on their journey through Universal Free Knowledge.”
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)#Knowledge_Engine_grant

As pointed out by Risker back in May 2015, the Search team had already
been created and seemed *disproportionately* large
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2015-16/draft#Review_from_current_FDC_member
It seems clear to me that this was done in anticipation of the
“Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia” project, as it is described in this
grant document. I also understand that this very high initial target
has since been reduced, a lot. From a fully-fledged competitor to
Google, to a search engine of 

[Wikimedia-l] Another goodbye

[Liam Wyatt]

Another day, another "big name" in the movement is leaving... So sad that
it is coming to this.

It has been an honour and a prividge working with you Siko. You've a pillar
of integrity, insight and good-humour through so many different projects.
As Hunter S Thomson wrote - "buy the ticket, take the ride" - and ride you
have!

- Liam/Wittylama

On Friday, 12 February 2016, Siko Bouterse  wrote:

> Dear friends and colleagues,
>
> I’ve had the amazing privilege of serving this movement in a staff capacity
> for the past 4 ½ years, but I’ve now decided to move on from my role at the
> Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> Transparency, integrity, community and free knowledge remain deeply
> important to me, and I believe I will be better placed to represent those
> values in a volunteer capacity at this time. I am and will always remain a
> Wikimedian, so you'll still see me around the projects (User:Seeeko),
> hopefully with renewed energy and joy in volunteering.
>
> This movement has become my home in so many unexpected ways, and I’m truly
> honored to have learned from so many of you. It was an amazing experience
> to have partnered with smart, bold, and dedicated community folks to
> experiment with projects like Teahouse, IdeaLab, Inspire, Individual
> Engagement Grants, and Reimagining Grants. I’ve seen you create some really
> incredible content, ideas, tools, programs, processes, committees and
> organizations, all in the service of free knowledge.
>
> I expect my last day to be Thursday, February 25th. I have full confidence
> in Maggie Dennis's abilities to lead the Community Engagement Department,
> and I trust that my team will remain available to support the community’s
> needs for grants and other resources throughout this time of transition.
>
> Much love,
> Siko
>
> --
> Siko Bouterse
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
> sum of all knowledge. *
> *Donate  or click the "edit" button today,
> and help us make it a reality!*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why take grants? (was: Can we see the Knight grant application and grant offer?)

[Liam Wyatt]

I wish to respond to this specific statement:

On 3 February 2016 at 13:11, Gerard Meijssen 
 wrote:

>
> When the WMF wants more funding, it can if it trusts its chapters. The
> current funding model has chapters rely totally on the vagaries of the
> funding committee. Legally they are distinct and fundamentally they may
> want to do things different for reasons of their own. Now they cannot or do
> not because of the additional stress involved.


To take the sentences in turn:

When the WMF wants more funding, it can if it trusts its chapters.
>

This, I completely agree with and would like to see more of it. Now that it
seems clear that the maximum effectiveness of the centrally-coordinated
banner-centric fundraiser has been reached, and making the banner more
aggressive is only going to bring diminishing returns. We have reached
"peak-banner". Howver, what surprised me about this year's WMF annual plan
fundraising-related risk statements (here;
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan#Fundraising )
was that none of the proposed remedies included the involvement of the
Chapters.

It seems daft to me that the current model of fundraising in our movement
forces two affiliated organisations to compete for the same donors, in the
same jurisdiction, for the same money, at the same time, for the same
mission, in the same medium. No wonder donors are confused about who they
can get a tax receipt from! Rather than competing, I would LOVE to see the
WMF fundraising model invest in improving and coordinating the fundraising
capacity and efficiency for all. Rather than two groups fighting over who
gets to have a bigger slice of the available cake, the focus should be on
increasing the size of the cake in the first place, sharing it effectively
to who needs it most, and ensuring that it's a good moist cake that can
continue to be "eaten" every year rather than drying up.


> The current funding model has chapters rely totally on the vagaries of the
> funding committee.
>

As an elected member of that Committee, I should point out in fact that
many chapters do not rely on funding via the Annual Plan Grant process.
Some don't use it at all because they obtain all of their funds
independently (e.g. Indonesia, Poland); some use it as a major, but not
sole, source of income (e.g. UK, France); and some access WMF-funding
through other grant processes (e.g. by combining a series of "project and
event grants" or like Spain, Estonia in this year's newly created 'simple
APG' process https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Simple/About ).

Legally they are distinct and fundamentally they may want to do things
> different for reasons of their own. Now they cannot or do not because of
> the additional stress involved.


Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations for
applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter
investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and their
success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually been quite
successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant by
Wikimedia Sweden: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Connected_Open_Heritage

-Liam / Wittylama


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of María Sefidari to Wikimedia Foundation Board

[Liam Wyatt]

Congratulations María on your return to the Board - or commiserations
depending on your perspective!

Appointing María to the vacant seat is the best decision in the
circumstances IMO. Not only does she come with strong "community seat"
legitimacy as the person who came 'next' in the quite-recent election, she
also is coming BACK to the board. The shorter learning-curve means that,
during this difficult and important time, she will be able to be an
effective board member much faster than someone joining it for the first
time.

Running a new and timeconsuming election, now, would only have delayed
bringing the board back to full strength without adding any extra
legitimacy to the result than appointing María already brings. And, I say
this as the person she beat to 'third place' in the 2013 election which saw
her elected to the board in the first place :-) :-)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Results

- Liam / Wittylama
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Ethics of launching Wikidata, vs. ethics of WMF plans for Wikidata

[Liam Wyatt]

On 26 January 2016 at 11:24, Magnus Manske 
wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 7:33 AM Pete Forsyth 
> wrote:
>
> > (Note: I'm creating a new thread which references several old ones; in
> the
> > most recent, "Profile of Magnus Manske," the conversation has drifted
> back
> > to Wikidata, so that subject line is no longer applicable.)
> >
> > Andreas Kolbe has argued in multiple threads that Wikidata is
> fundamentally
> > problematic, on the basis that it does not require citations. (Please
> > correct me if I am mistaken about this core premise.)
>
>
> Every statement on Wikidata /should/ be referenced, unless the statement
> itself points to a reference (e.g. VIAF, images). However, at the moment,
> this is not a requirement, as Wikidata is still in a steep growth phase.
> Over the last few years, many statements were added by bots, which can
> process e.g. Wikipedia, but would be hard pressed to find the original
> reference for a statement.


To extend Magnus' point...
This is also the case on Wikipedia. Every Wikipedia sentence /should/ be
verified to a reliable source, and those without footnotes can be removed.
But, it is not a /requirement/ that every statement be verified. In short -
'verifiable not verified' is the minimum standard for inclusion of a
sentence in Wikipedia. The ratio of footnotes-to-sentences in Wikipedia
articles is on average probably much lower than the ratio of
references-to-statements in Wikidata. It's just that we have more easily
available /quantitative/ statistics for Wikidata that we do for Wikipedia,
which makes it easy for Wikidata-critics to point to the number of
un-referenced statements in Wikidata as a simple measure of quality, even
though many of them DO meet the "verifiable, even if not yet verified"
minimum standard that we accept for "stubs" on Wikipedia.

For example: even in a Feature Article Wikipedia biography, I've never seen
a footnote /specifically/ for the fact that the subject is "a human". That
reference is implied by other footnotes - citing for the birthdate, or
occupation for example. By comparison, in Wikidata, some people seem to be
a feeling that statements like "instance of -> human", "gender-> male" need
to be given a specific reference before they can be considered reliable.
This is even when there are other statements in the same Wikidata item that
reference biography-authority control numbers (e.g. VIAF).

Yes, ideally, every statement could be given a reference in Wikidata, but
ideally so should every sentence in Wikipedia. In reality we do accept
"stub" Wikipedia articles that have 5 sentences and 1 Reliable Source
footnote. Furthermore, we also do also have Wikidata properties that are,
in effect, "self verifying": like the "VIAF identifier" property - which
links to that authority control database, or the "image" property - which
links directly to a file on Commons. So, simply counting the number of
statements vs. the number of references in those statements on Wikidata and
concluding that Wikidata is therefore inherently unreliable is both
simplistic and quite misleading.

-Liam

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[Wikimedia-l] Announcing new Wikimedia Foundation Trustees

[Liam Wyatt]

Congratulations to Kelly and Arnon in joining the wikiverse at this crucial
time in our movement's existence. I hope their expertise - respectively in
Finance and HR - will be able to be put to good use!

However, I do have a concern about diversity...
Both of these appointees are white Americans from Iowa/Kansas with
top-pedigree Silicon Valley resumes.

I note that one of the other appointed WMF-board seats is currently also
occupied by Guy, also Silicon Valley, and one of the recently elected
community seats is occupied by Denny, who is a manager at Google. They all
live and work in the same field and within commuting distance to the WMF
office.

I've always believed that Wikimedia is an education charity that happens to
exist exists in a technology field. I often note in presentations that I
give that the Wikimedia vision statement does NOT use the words, Internet,
or Wiki, or Encyclopedia. But these appointments indicate the Board and WMF
Executive believe Wikimedia is a technology charity that happens to exists
in the education field.

These appointments will make a crucial difference to how the new WMF
strategic direction will go - and clearly the leadership is wanting to make
us act more like a Californian dot-com and less like a global education
charity. Less "community consensus building" and more "move fast and break
things" - is the message I am reading here.

Can the board please address how it accounts for the geographical
proximity and professional-background similarity between three of the four
Board-appointed seats? And, whether you would define the WMF as a "tech
organisation"?

- Liam / Wittylama




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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sick of the subject "(no subject)"

[Liam Wyatt]

On Friday, 4 December 2015, Chris Keating 
wrote:

> Possibly now is the time to draw a line under this conversation,


Perhaps it should be called a "subject line"? :-)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banner (again)

[Liam Wyatt]

TL;DR - we've reached "peak banner", how do we change the fundraising
model to be about working smarter, not just pushing harder. This needs
to be part of a broader process that involves strategic planning
transparency, endowment discussions, editor-recruitment, etc. Not just
about fullscreen advertising.

I, along with many here, am dismayed that the banners are now at the
stage of being fullscreen. However, as others have mentioned, the
actual text of the request has been adjusted following a reasonably
collaborative process to identify text that is both effective and
acceptable to the community. Also, the fundraising team have been
placed in the difficult position of being told to raise a LOT more
money without being given more methods to do so.[1] Naturally then,
there is a point where the existing methods reach their maximum
effectiveness, and capacity is stretched to the point where awkward
mistakes happen.[2]

At this point, I suspect we've reached "peak banner".

Rather like "peak oil" - after drilling the same oil reserve for a
long time, you have to pump exponentially harder to maintain a steady
flow.[2] Furthermore, the harder you pump today, the more difficult it
will be tomorrow. I think we've reached that point with the
fundraising advertising and emails. We know that the donation amounts
are decreasing, but the budget is increasing. There are many suggested
reasons for the decreased supply (relevant parables for this include
"killing the goose that laid the golden egg" and "the boy who cried
wolf"). So it's now time to talk about pumping smarter, not harder.

An important part of that shift is the recently-opened (but longtime
mooted) discussion about an endowment. I commend Lisa's essay[3] as an
excellent start to formulating a long-term plan. There are many
important questions that would need to be answered as part of that
strategy. People interested in this really ought to read her thoughts
on creating a "growing endowment" and the advantages/challenges this
would bring. Carefully and consultatively addressing the challenges in
creating an endowment would also go a long way towards fixing other
related concerns:

- Improving the transparency of the WMF strategy and the way decisions
are made (see also the discussion about the FDC recommendations[4])
- Having the global community, especially the Chapters which have
local fundraising capacity, involved in the fundraising process -
rather than being held at arms length. The community should be seen as
the fundraiser's biggest asset, not the pageview numbers.
- culturally sensitive communication (to avoid things like the email
saying "let's end this" being translated into French as the
*equivalent* of "I challenge you to a fight to the death")
- Integrating the activities of fundraising as "part of the movement"
rather than as something that is held/holds itself apart. The WMF
donor database, for example, has tens of thousands of people who would
be interested in learning to edit. Why have we never tried to create a
[privacy-policy-compliant] way of introducing those people to their
local communities/chapters to help address the other strategic
challenge of "editor recruitment and retention".
- Addressing some of the inequities of how money is
raised/disseminated across our movement which are based on rules
"grandfathered in" from chapter-fundraising rules prior to the "Haifa
letter".
- movement calendars (to avoid things like this year's fundraising
clash with WikiLovesMonuments)

Some people say that the fundraising goal is too high. Perhaps, but we
also have a long list of fixes-needed and wanted-features. We can't do
a lot more with a lot less, although we can certainly increase the
efficiency/transparency of how the existing WMF budget is spent!
However, with the increased total budget, also comes a increased
expectation of results. I think that a lot of my own frustration comes
from this - I could probably be supportive of a fullscreen banner IF I
felt the results justified it. But, for just one example, as Andrea
described today[5], Wikisource has NEVER received any dedicated
support despite years of that community begging for it.

I've probably written too much now... sorry!

-Liam

[1] Side note: If you'd like to apply for what is think is probably
the hardest (and therefore very important) job in Wikimedia, WMF
Fundraising is hiring a community-liaison role:
https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/113040?t=26r71l
[2] like saying "A year ago, you gave 0.00 € to keep Wikipedia online
and ad-free." https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T120214
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil Yes, I realise the metaphor
isn't perfect. Oil is a non-renewable resource while donations are
potentially renewable.
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment_Essay
[4] and thank you Lila for your response on that topic thus far
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2015-November/079940.html
[5] 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Quality issues

[Liam Wyatt]

On 27 November 2015 at 12:08, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> The Wikimedia movement has always had an important principle: that all
> content should be traceable to a "reliable source". Throughout the first
> decade of this movement and beyond, Wikimedia content has never been
> considered a reliable source. For example, you can't use a Wikipedia
> article as a reference in another Wikipedia article.
>
> Another important principle has been the disclaimer: pointing out to people
> that the data is anonymously crowdsourced, and that there is no guarantee
> of reliability or fitness for use.
>
> Both of these principles are now being jettisoned.
>
> Wikipedia content is considered a reliable source in Wikidata...
>
 

I agree that "reliable source" referencing and "crowdsourced content" are
indeed principles of our movement. However, I disagree that Wikidata is
"jettisoning" them. In fact, quite the contrary!

The purpose of the statement "imported from --> English Wikipedia" in the
"reference" field of a Wikidata item's statement is PRECISELY to indicate
to the user that this information has not been INDEPENDENTLY verified to a
reliable source and that Wikipedia is NOT considered a reliable source.
Furthermore, it provides a PROVENANCE of that information to help stop
people from circular referencing. That is - clearly stating that the
specific fact in Wikidata has come from Wikipedia helps to avoid the
structured-data equivalent of "citogenisis": https://xkcd.com/978/ If/When
a person can provide a reliable reference for that same fact, they are
encouraged to add an actual reference. Note, the wikidata statement used
for facts coming in from Wikipedia use the property "imported from". This
is deliberately different from the property "reference URL" which is what
you would use when adding an actual reference to a third-party reliable
online source.

Furthermore, the fact that many statements in Wikidata are not given a
reference (yet) is not necessarily a "problem". For example - this
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21481859 is a Wikidata item for a scientific
publication with 2891 co-authors!! This is an extreme example, but it
demonstrates my point... None of those 2891 statements has a specific
reference listed for it, because all of them are self-evidently referenced
to the scientific publication itself. The same is true of the other
properties applied to this item (volume, publication date, title, page
number...). All of these could be "referenced" to the very first property
in the Wikidata item - the DOI of the scientific article:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269312008581 This
item is not "less reliable" because it doesn't have the same footnote
repeated almost three thousand times, but if you merely look at statistics
of "unreferenced wikidata statements" it would APPEAR that it is very
poorly cited.
So, I think we need a more nuanced view of what "proper referencing" means
in the context of Wikidata.

-Liam

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] FDC recommendations for 2015-2016 Round 1 APG grant requests

[Liam Wyatt]

On 27 November 2015 at 06:04, MZMcBride  wrote:

> I realize that the Funds Dissemination Committee is advisory, but I
> thought it had been set up by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> as "all large affiliate requests, including us," not "all large affiliate
> requests, except us." It seems progress has been ebbing and flowing.
>

Just as an extra clarification on this point specifically:
it's not about whether an affiliate is "large" but more about whether they
are eligible[1] and whether they want to apply for an Annual Plan Grant.

There are several affiliate organisations across Wikimedia that have larger
budgets than some of the FDC-applicants, but have never applied for Annual
Plan Grant funding because they have access to external sources of revenue.
For example, the primary sources of income for Wikimedia Poland[2] and
Wikimedia Indonesia[3] are external (national charity-tax rebate scheme;
philanthropic grants).

The role of the WMF itself in making its planning/budgeting accountable to
"the movement" is, as we have seen, contested.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Eligibility
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/2014#Structure_of_income
[3] http://www.wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Laporan_keuangan_2014/Catatan

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] upcoming milestones for Annual Plan Grants

[Liam Wyatt]

For those interested in seeing what the current round of Annual Plan Grant
applications are proposing, I've created a table of the 11 applicants'
documents and relevant reports:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016_round1/Deliberations#Documents

There's a lot of details that the various applicants have published,
describing both what they plan to do in the next year as well as reporting
on how things have gone in the current year so far. There is also the
community review page for each applicant where they have been answering
questions in public from FDC volunteers, WMF staff and the wider community.

Further down the same page, I've also created a comparative table of some
of the core budget items:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016_round1/Deliberations#Budget_comparison

This is all public information derived from the above documents. This
enables the community to see in one place how much the different applicants
are requesting; how this differs from their grant last year; what
proportion of their total budget this grant represents, etc.

Those of us on the FDC have spent the last few weeks reading all this
information - and believe me there's a LOT here if you read all of it! - in
preparation for the Round 1 deliberations that will take place soon (as per
Katy's email). Hopefully the creation of these tables will make it easier
for the wider community to get an understanding of what kind of work goes
into making, and also reviewing, an Annual Plan Grant.


Sincerely,
Liam / Wittylama

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On 30 October 2015 at 00:06, Katy Love  wrote:

> Hi Wikimedians,
>
> On October 30, the community review period [1] for the annual plan grants
> for this round of proposals to the FDC ends. To those of you who have
> reviewed proposals and asked comments or provided feedback, thank you!
>
> Here are some important upcoming milestones: [2]
> * Nov 1: Round 2 Letter of Intent due. Organizations that are interested
> in applying for an annual plan must submit an LOI. Eligibility requirements
> are here. [3]
> * Nov 9: FDC staff will publish an assessment of the each of the 11
> proposals
> * Nov 15-18: FDC deliberates on the proposals in San Francisco, joined by
> a Board representative
> * By Dec 1: FDC publishes its recommendations to the Board
>
> If you have any questions about these milestones, I'm happy to help you.
> You can reach me at kl...@wikimedia.org.
>
> Cheers,
> Katy Love
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016_round1/Community_review
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Calendar
> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Eligibility
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Q1 Fundraising Update

[Liam Wyatt]

On 9 October 2015 at 22:58, Megan Hernandez 
wrote:

> All of these community suggestions remain in the banner. Another sentence
> that was briefly tested on a small percentage of users about a year ago
> that received negative community feedback was “If everyone reading this
> gave $3, we could keep it online and ad-free another year.” We did not end
> up using that sentence for the campaign and we commit to not using it in
> any future campaign. In the next quarter, we are planning many more message
> tests -- with both brand new ideas as well as smaller tweaks to the
> existing text. If you have an idea to test, please share on the 2015-16
> test ideas page
> .
> Thanks again to everyone who has shared ideas so far.
>

For what it's worth, as the person who's made by far the most edits to that
page and as one of the people responsible for some of that 'negative
community feedback', I'd like to say thanks to the fundraising team for
being very responsive to all the feedback that has been given. This is
doubly so because the fundraising department doesn't have a dedicated
'community liaison' staff role, meaning that the responsibility for
reading, triaging, enacting those suggestions is spread across the team.
Not all of the suggestions have been put in place, some have - as mentioned
in Megan's email, but they have all been responded to in good faith. So...
thanks :-)

-Liam

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy largely blocked by WMF fundraising

[Liam Wyatt]

On Tuesday, 18 August 2015, attolippip attolip...@gmail.com wrote:


 Can we get the WMF comments about it publicly?

  The WMF Fundraising department asked me to submit my own comments and
feedback from previous years that can be taken into account for the 2015-16
fundraiser at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas

Some of the feedback is perennial - we have the same debates every year.
But, if that is the page where the Fundraising team have requested comments
about the forthcoming fundraiser be placed, then I suggest that people use
it.

-Liam


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes in Engineering leadership

[Liam Wyatt]

Thank you for this announcement Lila.

Good luck to Damon in his future endeavours;
Good luck to the leadership of the engineering teams during this transition;
And, good luck for recruiting the important CTO role soon!

Sincerely,
-Liam / Wittylama

On Friday, 3 July 2015, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Dear all,


 I wanted to let you know that Damon Sicore’s last day with the WMF was June
 30th. Damon has served as the Vice President of Engineering and played a
 role in our strategic thinking as we retool to fulfill our mission of
 delivering free and open knowledge to the world. We wish him well.


 Some of you may have questions about this transition and our plans for
 Engineering leadership. There’s a small FAQ attached below that should
 address some of the immediate questions about next steps. While I know you
 may have additional questions, we can’t share more regarding personnel
 issues. Thank you for respecting that confidentiality.


 Lila







 Q. Why did Damon leave?


 Damon’s departure is a personnel issue, so we are not able to comment on
 it. Thank you for respecting that confidentiality and Damon’s privacy.


 Q. Who will manage Engineering and Technology?


 Lila and our interim Chief Operating Officer Terry Gilbey will be sharing
 oversight for the Engineering and Technology teams at the C-level. They'll
 work closely with the strong leadership of the audience verticals and
 individual teams. Lila, Terry, Katie Horn, Toby Negrin, Trevor Parscal, Wes
 Moran, and the C-team are committed to doing our best to minimize
 disruption to your day-to-day work, and to support you during this
 transition.


 Q. Who will guide Engineering decisions and set goals?


 The basic direction for the Engineering team is articulated in their
 approved Q1 goals. The team will continue to deliver on these commitments.
 The audience team leads will meet regularly with Lila to ensure that their
 work remains aligned with the WMF’s technical vision.


 Q. What does this mean for the new Engineering and Technology department
 structure?


 The department structures for Engineering and Technology remain the same.
 The audience verticals reflect the emerging strategy, and we believe they
 remain the best way to organize the WMF’s teams, based on the work we have
 ahead of us in the next few years.


 Q. Will there be any additional department reorganization as part of this?


 We’re not planning any additional organizational changes.


 Q. What does this mean for the ongoing CTO search?


 We are already underway with the CTO search; this will continue as planned.
 The CTO role is an important part of executing against the WMF’s
 engineering strategy. We look forward to bringing on board a new CTO with
 the leadership, perspective, and skills that the position entails.


 Q. Will we recruit for a new Vice President of Engineering? What is the
 timeline?


 Our priority will continue to be filling the CTO role. Once we have
 identified a CTO we’ll revisit the role of VPE, to ensure that the new
 CTO’s perspective is taken into consideration.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing staff changes at the WMF

[Liam Wyatt]

TL;DR - This is clearly a private personnel matter, but why is the WMF
being needlessly secretive about its own official statement?

I became aware that this account had been locked too. And was,
naturally enough, very curious what it meant. Although this statement
above by James is diplomatically vague, it is clear that this
particular lock is an extraordinary action due to the severity of the
locks in place. Damon’s log states:

“…with an expiry time of indefinite (account creation disabled,
autoblock disabled, email disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (edit
summary removed)

This is quite different and significantly more stringent than the
standard log when an employee leaves, which always states:

“…with an expiry time of indefinite (autoblock disabled) (No longer
employed with WMF)”

I note that ALL logs on this page are for when employees leave the
foundation and their account is permanently locked, or, an old
employee is rehired and their account is re-activated. None of these
are designed as temporary actions.
See: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Log/block

So, being curious about this, I asked several WMF employees about it.
They have all *verbally* told me precisely - to the word - the same
thing:
“Damon is on two weeks leave.”

It is likely that all staff of the WMF have received this official
statement, and none but the executives know anything more. Clearly,
this is a very significant event that requires an extraordinary degree
of care and privacy in handling. This is obviously an
employment-related matter, and that comes with serious considerations
about handling it delicately. I strongly respect that.

HOWEVER, this is what I find really really weird…
The statement “Damon is on two weeks leave” is the official statement
that all staff have been told, and this is what they were instructed
to tell the community if anyone asks. So, when I asked some foundation
employees, this is precisely what they told me. BUT, here’s the
strange part, no foundation employee is allowed to write the phrase
“Damon is on two weeks leave” down in words. It is the official
statement of the WMF, and a statement that has been instructed to be
shared with the community if they ask, but only by audio, not text.
So… as a non-WMF employee who has asked WMF-employees for info, and
have received the official response, I am sharing the official
response here in writing because they are not allowed to: Damon is on
two weeks leave.

Like I said above, I am not interested in prying into a matter that is
obviously private and sensitive and should remain that way. What I AM
interested to know is: on what legal/policy/risk-assessment/rule basis
are WMF staff not allowed to put in writing the WMF’s own official
statement?

- Liam / Wittylama

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What's cool?

[Liam Wyatt]

And the award for for the first negative comment on this thread that is
designed to be about things going right goes to Trilliam. Congratulations
on being the official party pooper of Wikimedia-l. There will be cake
tomorrow.

To return to nice things, and in response to the previous message by A
ntanana:
I learned a few months ago that in the Ukrainian Wikipedia they don't give
out barnstars, the give out cans of condensed milk! Why? Because
they're sweet :-)
https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D1%96%D0%BA%D1%96%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D1%96%D1%8F:%D0%97%D0%B3%D1%83%D1%89%D1%96%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0


And, please correct me if I'm wrong Antanana, but you also identify the
best newbie each month on the Ukrainian Wikipedia and physically send a
can of condensed milk to that person in the mail?! I think that's just the
coolest, funnest, most unique way of celebrating new contributors I've
heard of!

-Liam / Wittylama.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [GLAM] GLAM Mailing lists

[Liam Wyatt]

I'm guessing that he's referring to the attendees of a GLAM meeting that
was held in Paris a few months ago and is comprehensively documented on
Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_European_GLAMwiki_Coordinators_meeting
Yesterday, I asked the ~15 attendees of that meeting a followup question
about my own work, and called them the paris group in that email as a
shorthand. As far as I know, that's the only time the phrase has been used
in a GLAM-specific context.

-Liam

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On 9 June 2015 at 12:15, Benoît Evellin (Trizek) bevel...@wikimedia.org
wrote:

 Hello Base

 Guessing from your first email, the Paris group you mention may be this
 mailing list hosted by Wikimédia France
 http://lists.wikimedia.fr/info/paris, which allows people living in
 Paris discuss about their local IRL actions (like visiting museums).

 This list is not a generic mailing-list, like lists hosted by WMF.

 Best,
 Benoît

 On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 2:54 AM, Bohdan Melnychuk bas...@yandex.ru wrote:

 Your comment does not cover the fact that not all lists are hosted by
 lists.wikimedia.org.

 E.g. cultural partnership is here:

 https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners

 Some other chapters also host lists and there're googlegroups to
 consider. That's a one thing why a mere server listing of lists does not
 suffice. Another is that an automatical list listing isn't where you can
 write rules, membership procedure/criteria and other stuff needed for
 transparency. Well not just transparency issue but also of need to
 concentrate data in one place is to be considered.
 --Base


 On 09.06.2015 3:40, Philippe Beaudette wrote:

 The canonical home for the list of lists is
 https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo.  While it is possible to
 have
 a list hidden from there, it would be pretty unusual for a GLAM list, I
 think.

 pb


 *Philippe Beaudette * \\  Director, Community Advocacy \\ Wikimedia
 Foundation, Inc.
 T: 1-415-839-6885 x6643 |  phili...@wikimedia.org  |  :  @Philippewiki
 https://twitter.com/Philippewiki


 On Mon, Jun 8, 2015 at 5:35 PM, Bohdan Melnychuk bas...@yandex.ru
 wrote:

  Hi guys.

 Just how many GLAM lists do we have?

 Not counting regional ones, I know of GLAM, Cultural-Partners,
 Libraries,
 got to know about existence of some the paris group (not sure if it's
 even a mailing list technically, but in case it's not then it's weird
 even
 more). Perhaps there are some (or is it many?) others.

 Should they not be all listed in one place, e.g. on
 https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Mailing_lists with clear data
 about who manages them, what are their scope, rules and how you might
 joint
 them?

 Just having many is already confusing but when you can't even get a list
 of all of them it's confusing even more.

 I'm sorry if some of the lists I listed were intended as cabalish and
 not
 to be disclosed to others. I don't think cabalish lists are a good way
 to
 collaborate for wikimedians.

 Yours sincerely,
 Base

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 --
 Benoît Evellin (Trizek)
 Community Liaison, Product
 Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan for FY 15-16

[Liam Wyatt]

This draft WMF annual plan was first published on Meta on the 25th.[1] It
was then announced by the mailing list late on the 26th. Yet the document
itself says, The comment period for this version will close May 29, 2015.

 This gives approximately 3 days to engage in community consultation on the
WMF annual plan (value: $67M) because it is important that [we] make
certain that we have community feedback on this initial draft and because
we value this input.

I recognise that the deadline of the WMF Board of Trustees needing to vote
on this (June 15) is looming, so the timeline is short. I am sure the
original *intention* was to have a longer time period but that due to some
delays in preparing the document for review the time just slipped away.
Nevertheless, three days is not stakeholder engagement - it's just ticking
the box of inform the community before sending it to the Board.

The WMF talks about eating your own dog food[2] in terms of engineering,
but it would be good if something similar would take place in the annual
planning too... Chapters are required to submit their annual plans to a two
*month* period of quite thorough public review before the FDC gives its
recommendations, and then there's a further period before the actual
decision/appeals.[3] Some of these annual plans are also considerably more
detailed than the WMF's, while asking for a considerably smaller amount of
money.

It would be good if the WMF would *try to set a good example* by following
the rules that it sets for others, itself.
- Liam / Wittylama

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2015-16action=history
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Information

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing Inspire Campaign Grantees

[Liam Wyatt]

Congratulations on bringing to the surface these 16 project ideas!
I'm looking forward to seeing how these specific projects go, and also to
seeing if they can become replicable models for future activities and help
solve the broad gender-gap problem.

When the inspire campaign was first announced I was critical - not of the
importance of the topic - but whether the method of focusing attention on
only one topic was a good idea. By focusing grants on one topic, would
that be beneficial to that topic or would it simply be detrimental to all
other topics?

It seems the answer is that SPECIFICALLY INVITING people to apply for
grants on a specific topic DOES draw out many and various good ideas.
Without that specific invitation, it is likely that only a proportion of
these would ever have been submitted, and an even smaller number actually
funded.

Furthermore, it don't believe any of the grant applications that were
underway on other topics were delayed or negatively affected because of
this project.

So, congratulations WMF grants team on trialling an innovative and tricky
idea. Let's hope the 16 projects prove to be successful!

-Liam / Wittylama


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On 1 May 2015 at 23:01, Alex Wang aw...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hi All,

 Today we're pleased to announce a new group of grantees working to increase
 gender diversity in Wikimedia projects.

 In early March, we announced the Inspire campaign
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire, an initiative
 led
 by WMF’s Community Resources team to generate new ideas to address
 Wikimedia's gender gap. From 266 ideas came 42 grant proposals eligible for
 consideration. After careful review by a committee of volunteer Wikimedians
 and gender-focused experts, 16 projects have been recommended and approved
 for funding.

 The projects are experimenting with a variety of strategies: organizing
 events and leveraging professional communities, institutions and
 partnerships to create quality content, researching gaps in both content
 and contributors, and testing approaches for training and mentorship to
 better support gender diversity on-wiki. Overall, we’re particularly
 pleased to see projects looking at gender in multiple ways as they work to
 improve Wikipedia’s gender diversity across various contexts, and to be
 supporting some returning grantees as well as many new project leaders who
 identify as women or allies for increasing gender diversity.

 You can also read more about the campaign and each funded project on the
 Wikimedia Foundation blog
 http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/05/01/meet-the-inspire-grantees/.

 The funded projects are:


- Wikipedian in Residence for Gender Equity

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedian_in_Residence_for_Gender_Equity
 
- Gender gap admin training

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Gender-gap_admin_training

- Survey women who don't contribute

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Survey_women_who_don%27t_contribute
 

- Wikipedia Gender Index

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/WIGI:_Wikipedia_Gender_Index
 

- Wikipedia Buddy Group
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_Buddy_Group
- Wiki Edit-a-thon Work Parties

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wiki_Edit-a-thon_Work_Parties
 
- More Female Architects on Wikipedia

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/More_Female_Architects_on_Wikipedia
 

- Linguistics Editathon series: Improving female linguists'
participation and representation on Wikipedia

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Linguistics_Editathon_series:_Improving_female_linguists%27_participation_and_representation_on_Wikipedia
 
- Wikipedia edit-a-thon for the Aphra Behn Society

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_edit-a-thon_for_the_Aphra_Behn_Society
 
- Wikineedsgirls
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikineedsgirls
- Gender in East Asia Wikipedia Editing

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Gender_in_East_Asia_Wikipedia_Editing
 
- Full Circle Gap Protocol: Addressing the Unknown Unknowns

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Full_Circle_Gap_Protocol:_Addressing_the_%E2%80%98Unknown_Unknowns%E2%80%99
 
- Wellington Wikipedia Meet Up - With Childcare

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wellington_Wikipedia_Meet_Up_-_With_Childcare
 !

- Just for the record
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Just_for_the_record
- Let's fill the gender gap Workshops

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Let%27s_fill_the_gender_gap_Workshops
 
- Empowering Afrodescendant women in Wikipedia

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Empowering_Afrodescendant_women_in_Wikipedia
 

 What’s next:

 We hope you'll continue to engage with these projects as they 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] EU copyright rules are maladapted to the increase of cross-border cultural exchange on the web

[Liam Wyatt]

On Wednesday, 4 March 2015, Strainu strain...@gmail.com wrote:


 Lacking a dedicated mailing list for keeping up with the work of our
 lobbyists, Wikimedia-l sounds like the next best thing.

 That would be the advocacy advisors list:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors

-Liam / Wittylama


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] UTC in politics, editors threaten, or how rev history made the news

[Liam Wyatt]

Speaking of changes to the timestamps and UTC...
Whatever happened to this change that was announced in 2012?
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/07/06/wikipedia-revision-history-experiment/
Something like this now happens on the Mobile view, but I thought this
experiment (as described in the WMF blog) looked quite successful and
promising.

-Liam

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcement: A new structure for WMF Community Engagement

[Liam Wyatt]

It is indeed sad news that we wake up to this morning, reading that Anasuya
will be leaving us! I wish you the best, and a speedy and full recovery. I
think I still owe you a beer from London :-)

On the other hand, it is very interesting and positive to read that three
excellent WMF-ers are changing roles, and will be able to continue to
fight the good fight even more successfully. Luis, Siko and Asaf,
congratulations - I respect you and your work greatly and look forward to
seeing what you build!

I see the WMF's staff and contractors page has already been updated to
reflect the new changes, which is very nice - it's helpful to be able to
see the new structure that was explained visually.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors

-Liam

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Education Extension

[Liam Wyatt]

On 3 February 2015 at 10:23, Fabian Tompsett 
fabian.tomps...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:

 We need an
 extension where users easily can form groups (namespace Groups: or
 something, used by an extension), where they easily can see the recent
 changes of edits of group members only


Not precisely this, but related... Is there any plan to have folders in a
watchlist, and then the ability to make a specific folder visible (a.k.a.
shared) to others?

Not only would this make it easier for people with very large watchlists to
manage their work more easily, but this would also mean that a group (e.g.
wikiproject, edithathon participants, classroom...) could easily subscribe
to a shared watchlist folder. This would make it easy for them to follow
each other's edits.
- A teacher or wiki-mentor could make a shared watchlist of their student's
draft pages.
- An editathon organiser could create a shared watchlist of all the
articles within the scope of the event.
- A wikiproject could create several shared watchlists to group related
articles for members to more easily monitor.
- probably many other use-cases that might emerge...

Has this been discussed/suggested before?

-Liam
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF 2014 Annual report

[Liam Wyatt]

 If you look at the Wiki version here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Annual_Report/2013-14

The very first line says:
This report is a work in progress, you are welcome to translate but there
will be some updates and additions during the next few days. Thank you!

It is perfectly reasonable that the WMF should publish the master edition
first and then translations come soon afterwards... In the past there have
sometimes been small errors that the community has discovered in the
original that, because translations were launched simultaneously (and in
hardcopy too), they were not as easy to correct across multiple versions.

-Liam

On 22 January 2015 at 16:48, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Itzik - Wikimedia Israel, 22/01/2015 16:18:

 https://annual.wikimedia.org/2014/


 I don't see a language selector. Clearly a regression compared to
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/
 Annual_Report/2012-2013/Front

 Nemo


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing WikiProject X

[Liam Wyatt]

 By the way Q5869386 is really rather funny. For some reason your bots think
 that [[History of the English penny (1066–1154)]] is equivalent to
 [[History of the English penny]].

 --
 geni


I am now slightly more educated than I was this morning on the topic of the
history of English currency. Did everyone else know that there are actually
at least 8 distinct periods of penny? Naturally enough, there's a series of
[English] Wikipedia articles about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Penny_(English_coin)#Pennies_by_period

And - in a desperate attempt to bring this thread BACK TO THE POINT - they,
and over 3,500 other articles, are coordinated by Wikiproject Numismatics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Numismatics

Because if its clear scope, detailed academic resources, dedicated
interest-group, and relatively small wiki-community size, this is the kind
of wikiproject that would probably be a fantastic candidate for testing
some of the ideas worked on with 'Wikiproject X'.
Wikiprojects that want to sign up as testers can go here: https://en.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_X/Pilots

Wikiprojects are a very important and long-standing part of the community
infrastructure of Wikipedias - and (IMHO) hold the key to helping support
new editors through the crucial first 20 newbie edits. However I don't
believe they have EVER received any specific attention about how they can
be supported more (by the WMF, Chapters, with grants, software features,
bugs fixed, etc etc). This is a fantastic opportunity to support on-wiki
collaboration.

If anyone has ideas for how Wikiprojects can be improved. List them here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_X
To subscribe to the newsletter, go here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_X/Newsletter

p.s. Yes, this is English-wikipedia focused because the volunteer who
applied for the grant is an English-speaker... It wouldn't be very useful
for the WMF to fund grants for volunteers to work in languages that they
don't understand...
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Most obnoxious banner yet

[Liam Wyatt]

*TL;DR summary: I don't want the discussion about fundraising principles to
be forgotten for another year until we do the whole thing again in 11
months... We need to finish the discussion about whether it is acceptable
for all other values to be made secondary to the goal of maximising
fundraising efficiency.*

Now that the 2014 Fundraising campaign has finished and which, according to
a WMF blogpost from a week ago, surpassed our goal of $20 million
(receiving donations from 2.5 million people in 4 weeks) [1], I hope that
the fundraising team has had the time to get some well-earned rest and
relaxation over the new-year period.

With that busiest time of year now over, but with all the discussions
still fresh in our mind, I was hoping that the Fundraising team or
Executive would have the time to respond to the various concerns that were
raised here (and elsewhere) about the theory and practice of WMF fundraising.
If responding here isn't appropriate, then at least over on Meta at [[Talk:
Fundraising Principles]] where a fair amount of detail has been compiled,
particularly by WMF Board of Trustees member SJ [2].

There were some practical/specific questions, including:
- why isn't fundraising using the same software to receive bug reports (
phabricator) as everyone else?
- why haven't the crowdsourced banner text suggestions been A/B tested?
- why were new banners shown to people who had chosen to dismiss previous
ones, and why were they allowed take up such a large proportion of the
screen/obscure content?
- has anyone responded to the Russian community yet to their polite and
important question?
[This is a non-exhaustive list, of course]

But there were also more fundamental/theoretical questions, including:
- what degree of 'urgency' is morally acceptable in a donation request,
especially when the financial situation of the WMF has never been
healthier/stable? (e.g. threatening phrases like keep us online and
ad-free for another year)
- Is the practice of finishing the fundraiser period as fast as possible
by any means the correct interpretation of the the official fundraising
principle of minimal disruption?
- Is the official fundraising principle of maximal participation being
adhered to? That principle calls for empowering individuals to
constructively contribute to direct messaging, public outreach... Does the
WMF Board believe this has happened?
- Is the current we don't like asking for money so just give it to us and
we'll stop annoying you approach to fundraising (implied by the final
phrase in the final 2014 campaign email Please help us forget fundraising and
get back to improving Wikipedia.) potentially damaging to the Wikimedia
brand value, even if it does raise the money in the short term? Lila said
that there has been sentiment analysis done about this, what was the
result?

-Liam

[1] http://blog.wikimedia
.org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keeping-knowledge-free-and-accessible/
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_principles
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Liam Wyatt]

As this thread demonstrates, what discussions about the massive
gender imbalance in Wikimedia editorship need is more men discussing why it
might or might not be important.

/sarcasm


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason

[Liam Wyatt]

On 7 January 2015 at 00:06, Siko Bouterse sboute...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 12:17 PM, MF-Warburg mfwarb...@googlemail.com
 wrote:

  Sorry if this was already answered and I overlooked it, but will there be
  something like a special form of advertising this campaign in order to
  attract many requests that propose to do something about the Gender Gap?
 

 Great question. Current thinking is to do the usual announcing on mailing
 lists, blog/social media, village pumps, etc, as well as experimenting with
 running Central Notice banners. Would like to attract folks from various
 wikis who have interest in this theme and ability to lead a project in
 their community, beyond the usual (relatively small) slice who regularly
 participate in lists like these or in the usual grantmaking discussions on
 meta-wiki. And although outside media could help bring total newbies to
 contribute ideas, discussion, and other forms of participation, it is
 pretty darn important to have at least 1 experienced Wikimedian on a funded
 team in order to lead and execute a useful community project, so
 in-movement (particularly on-wiki) promotion is a priority. Any
 thoughts/suggestions would be welcome!


TL:DR I see the stick, but where is the carrot? [1]

I understand from the explanations that the reason for not accepting
any non-gender-gap focused grants for several months is because of the
expected workload on the staff in reviewing applications and
supporting the projects that do get funded.

However, what I don't understand is what added incentive there is for
people to submit grant applications on the chosen topic (in this
instance it is gender-gap, but it could be other topics in the
future)? Since it is already possible to submit a gender-gap focused
grant, how does the refusal to accept other kinds of project
submissions increase the number/quality/variety of gender-gap grants?
I can see the unfortunate possibility for:
-  some grants to be re-written with a false veneer of gender-gap
focus (pink-washing) simply to access the money
- valid (but non gender-gap focused) grant applications having to wait
until after the 3-month project, and potentially having to cancel
altogether depending on the volunteer's availability.

I think this is what Lodewijk was referring to when he called it a
negative campaign - there is a DISincentive for other kinds of grant
applications, but no apparent specific incentive for the desired type
of application.

I see the stick, but where is the carrot?
Am I missing something?

-Liam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot_and_stick

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Our final email

[Liam Wyatt]

There are some valid differences of opinion being expressed about the
cultural-linguistic appropriateness of the language used in the fundraising
email.

But these are tangential to the substantive issue I was attempting to raise.

Ideally, Wikimedians should feeling empowered and excited to share the
message that we need to fundraise to continue our movement's important work
with my friends and family.
Instead, I feel embarrassed (and consequently demotivated and unempowered)
by the fundraising campaign - and I believe a lot of others in the
community are too.

Let me reiterate the final, official WMF fundraising principle
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles:

 Maximal participation: Consistent with the principles of empowerment
 underlying Wikimedia’s success, we should empower individuals and groups
 world-wide to constructively contribute to direct messaging, public
 outreach, and other activities that drive the success of Wikimedia’s
 fundraising efforts.


Now, we can debate the minutiae of the fundraising banners/emails - and I
am certainly guilty of raising a series of very specific
linguistic/stylistic critiques - but the more strategic issue is that I
believe that this maximal participation principle has been completely
left behind. Furthermore, that the principle of minimal disruption has
become to be defined as get the money as fast as possible.
To reiterate: efficiency != effectiveness.

The feeling being generated is that fundraising is a necessary evil that
we all have to suffer through. But the maximal participation principle
implies that fundraising should be an opportunity for us all as a community
to FEEL PROUD to tell our friends that what we do is important and that if
they can't provide time or expertise, then at least provide some money to
show their support.  I USED to do that. I want to again.

So, How can we move from a position where I (and presumably many others) in
the community are merely enduring the fundraising season, to a position
where we can be proud ambassadors of our movement? We should get back to
using this time as an opportunity to share our movement's value - We should
celebrate collectively when we reach the fundraising goal because we know
that means we can achieve the awesome things planned to do with that money.
This requires seeking buy in from the community at all stages - from the
annual budget to the banner translation to email responders. Not simply
tolerating fundraising season

Less efficient fundraising, more effective fundraising.
WMF Board of Trustees, I'm looking at you to set a direction
-Liam

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia: #Edit2014

[Liam Wyatt]

Beautiful work :-)
I especially appreciate the way you also subtly included our very
own Adrianne Wadewitz.


On Thursday, 18 December 2014, Victor Grigas vgri...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hi everyone,

 I’m happy to share the first-ever Wikimedia year-in-review video,
 Wikipedia: #Edit2014.

 Wikimedia Commons:

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Edit_2014.webm

 Youtube:
 http://youtu.be/ci0Pihl2zXY

 Vimeo:
 https://vimeo.com/114673230

 It’s the story of 2014 through the lens of Wikimedia in under 3 minutes.
 (We know we didn’t get it all!)

 We're about to launch this to the rest of the world, on the WMF blog, on
 social media, and to the press. The whole point of the production is we
 want the world to get a sense of what it feels like to press edit for the
 first time, and what it’s like to contribute to something that millions of
 people use, love, and rely on. We hope you like it.

 Thanks to everyone who contributed to making this. It’s based entirely on
 what YOU contributed to the projects -- images you uploaded and video you
 migrated to Commons. It’s based on the texts of books and documents on
 Wikisource and the Wikipedia articles that you wrote. And thanks to
 everyone who volunteered and shared feedback with us while we were editing
 to make it sound and feel like Wikipedia. I talked to many people in
 putting this together, so thank you all.

 If you want to contribute to this particular effort, you can of course
 share this video, but what would be even better is if you could translate
 the captions into more languages so that even more people can understand
 it. We’ll migrate the captions from Commons to YouTube and Vimeo as they
 come in. (BTW does anyone know why YouTube or Vimeo doesn’t have open
 captions? Maybe once we have this captioned in 50 languages, we can use it
 to advocate that they should.)

 We’re already thinking of ways to open up this process for even more
 collaboration next year. We put this together in about eight weeks, so we
 had a pretty big time constraint for making it an open process from the
 beginning.

 We’re publishing two blog posts on the topic shortly and will send them as
 soon as they’re out.

 Thanks! :)

 Victor  the WMF Communications team

 --

 *Victor Grigas*
 Storyteller https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knv6D6Thi0
 Wikimedia Foundation
 vgri...@wikimedia.org javascript:;
 https://donate.wikimedia.org/
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Our final email

[Liam Wyatt]

This email was sent by WMF fundraising today.
I'm embarrassed. Read the email first, then I'll tell you why, below.

*Da:* Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia don...@wikimedia.org
*Data:* 17 December 2014 10:15:56 pm GMT+1
*A: [email address removed]*
*Oggetto:* *Our final email*
*Rispondi a:* don...@wikimedia.org

*If all our past donors simply gave again today, we wouldn't have to worry
about fundraising for the rest of the year.*

Dear [name removed],

This is the last email reminder you'll receive. We hope the response to
today's email will let us end the fundraiser. Please take one minute to
keep Wikipedia online and ad-free another year
http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1b=0j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0mt=1rt=0
.

To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We receive no government
funds. We survive on donations from our readers. If all our past donors
simply gave again today, we could end the fundraiser. Please help us forget
fundraising and get back to improving Wikipedia.

We are deeply grateful for your past support. This year, please consider
making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia
http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1b=0j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0mt=1rt=0
.

https://donate.wikimedia.org
http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1b=0j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0mt=1rt=0

Thank you,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder

PS: Less than 1% of our readers donate enough to keep Wikipedia running.
Your contribution counts!
*DONATE NOW »*
http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1b=0j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0mt=1rt=0
--


our final email?
This is the last email reminder you'll receive?
Surely that should be qualified with ... this year.??
If that weren't embarrassing, what about...

   - Using *bold* AND *italics *AND yellow backgroud colouring all at the
   same time in the heading.
   - Sending an email on the 18th of December saying that if ALL past
   donors simply gave AGAIN today [my emphasis] then you wouldn't need to do
   any more fundraising for the rest of the year, i.e. for 2 weeks!!
   - On the one had it says we'll never run ads but in the sentence
   immediately beforehand pleads help to us stay ad-free another year.
   - Does the phrase Less than 1% of our readers donate enough to keep
   Wikipedia running mean a) that less than 1% of readers donate, which is
   enough to keep us running, or b) that less than 1% of readers who have
   donated, donated enough to keep us running (implying that the other 99% of
   donors didn't donate enough)?
   - Finally, this email is addressed from Jimmy, but when you receive a
   thank you for donating email, it's addressed from Lila. [I should note
   that the thank you for donating email IS very positive and
   mission-oriented].


*Effectiveness != Efficiency*
One of the official WMF Fundraising principles
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles is *minimal
disruption*...aim to raise money from donors *effectively* [emphasis is
original].
I believe that this wording has been interpreted by the fundraising team to
mean **do the fundraising as quickly as possible. However, I contest that
less disruption and more effective is not the same as shorter
fundraiser. i.e.: Effectiveness != Efficiency.

I am sure that these desperate fundraising emails/banners are *efficient *at
getting the most amount of money as fast as possible (they have been honed
with excellent A/B testing), but, they achieve this by sacrificing the core
WMF fundraising principle of being *minimally disruptive. *In fact, they
actually appear to be following a principle of being as *maximally *disruptive
as they can get away with, for as short a time as required.

Can the WMF to say how minimal disruption and effective fundraising is
defined in practice, and how they are measured?

*Shareable vs Desperate*
On the same day that the WMF communications team release this inspiring and
positive year in review video
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/12/17/wikipedias-first-ever-annual-video-reflects-contributions-from-people-around-the-world/,
this fundraising email sounds negative and desperate. It is all about not
advertising and staying online for another year.

Couldn't the year in review video have been used in the fundraising email
to tell a positive story about all we have achieved this year? That's the
kind of thing Wikimedians will want to share and feel proud about, not
something that almost bullies you to donate out of a sense of
moral-obligation.

*Fundraising operating principles*
I would like to reiterate my call to see us develop some practical
operating principles for fundraising that would give some real-world
guidelines for website-banners and emails. Board of Trustees member Phoebe
has done an excellent job of summarising the fundraising conversations on
this list from the last few weeks here:

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

[Liam Wyatt]

On 12 December 2014 at 10:59, Pipo Le Clown plecl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Vous savez quoi? Allez tous vous faire foutre.


Just because you're writing in your native language of French doesn't mean
that civility is optional - just as it should not be for native speakers of
English. As *The Matrix *films identified
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfnmkgmUDW4, French is a very excellent
language to swear in. However, we are not playing a game of who can make
the most offensive comment in order to prove that they were offended by
someone else's comment - even though several people here seem to think we
are...

...vous proposiez des choses constructives, des améliorations possibles du
 logiciel par exemple, ou une façon de reconnaître le travail des
 wikifourmis qui catégorisent, corrigent
 les descriptions...


The request for constructive ways to improve the software (and give
positive recognition for people's work) is something that was implied by
Steven's first email too:

On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:40 AM, Steven Walling
steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote:

 The only interaction I ever get on Commons about my photos is a
 notification [of deletion]... No thanks for thousands of uploads. No
 notification of how many views they produce for our projects. No message
 about downloads for free reuse.


I see both your messages (Pipo  Steven) as asking for the same thing [and
I've removed the insulting words from both quotes]. Commons could use some
specifically-tailored features to help improve its 'humanity' and make all
the positive work that people do more visible. Just like the way the thank
extenstion https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Thanks was created
when it was realised that the only semi-automated feedback tools we had on
Wikipedia are for negative feedback (block, ban, delete, warn...).

There are at least three independent *software *projects that are underway
which will hopefully help to address this issue:

   - Erik Zachte has been promoting this RFC on mediawiki.org
   
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Media_file_request_counts
to
   improve the media file statistics infrastructure. The GLAMwiki community
   (among others) have been clamouring for usable metrics for years, and this
   looks like the best opportunity yet to see something happen. This will make
   it easier to identify the re-use and visibility of our work.
   - The Single User Login finalisation project
   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SUL_finalisation, if I understand
   correctly, should mean that we will have the architecture in place to make
   global echo
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo_(Notifications)-notifications
   (e.g. your image was used in..., global-talkpages (c.f. Flow
   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow), watchlists... This should mean
   that even if you don't visit a wiki regularly, there would be more methods
   of being kept in contact.
   - The Structured Data project
   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data will move
   much of the metadata handling, currently done locally on Commons, to
   Wikidata. If I understand correctly, this will greatly increase the
   usability of Commons to non-English speaking users and also decrease the
   learning-curve of Commons for new-users.

However, none of these software improvements, by themselves, will help
overcome the perception that Commons (and Wikimedia in general) is an
*intransigent
*and* pugilistic *culture. In the GLAMwiki outreach community we spend a
lot of time talking to GLAMs about the value of sharing their content with
Wikimedia - but they are often fearful of us because of this stereotype. The
way this conversation has degenerated into arguments which I will
paraphrase as I'm not intransigent, you are! only consolidates that
stereotype.

It's like we all feel like we're the one being attacked - like some kind of
mutual siege-mentality - and where victim-blaming is the first response to
any perceived threat. Acknowledging that there is a problem is the first
step to solving it. However conversations like this make it seem that some
people feel the only problem is other people saying that there's a
problem...

Finally, following Craig's comment:
From: Craig Franklin cfrank...@halonetwork.net

 Am I the only one that sees the irony in asking folks not to pick on the
 Commons community, then immediately asserting that enwp is the source of
 all drama?


Not just that, but also... Am I the only one that sees the irony in how
this thread started by arguing that the Commons community ...cares more
about strict free licensing than it does about utility to people who need
knowledge, and then the conversation quickly veered off into an omnibus of
WikiLawering about strict free-licensing minutiae: Tunisian
Freedom-of-Panorama,
Tractor logos and Israeli Government Works!?!

-Liam

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[Wikimedia-l] Community engagement - Product Survey

[Liam Wyatt]

This!
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_(Product)/Product_Surveys

Thank you to the WMF Community Engagement team for trialling this new way
of prioritising improvements to tools - by asking the community for some
structured feedback.
As the page says:

The *Product Roadmap survey* intends to offer a lightweight, data-informed
 way for communities across the entire Wikimedia movement to contribute
 ideas the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) product roadmap.
 The question we are currently wanting to answer is: If the communities
 were to collectively decide on a gadget or tool which could be expanded
 into an extension for use across all Wikimedia-supported projects, what
 would it be?


I saw this today as a Watchlist notification.
The survey has just over 20 ideas which the user is asked to rank in a
series of paired comparisons. A simple, easy, and intuitive way to get some
genuine feedback from the editing community about the improvements that we
believe would be of most use to us. [it would be nice if there were more
options to compare in this survey]

As the FAQ section explains - this is an experimental process and not a
promise that the 'winner' will be built - and that's perfectly fair. One
reason I particularly like this is that I think that if the WMF would
regularly invest in building tools that were prioritised by the so-called
power users, that would help ease the tension that can occur when the WMF
builds tools that focus on the needs of new editors (but which also change
the existing-editors' workflows).

The Page Curation https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Page_Curation system
was a step in that direction - a genuine effort to make the work of
new-page-patrollers easier, in recognition that tools for power-users
help decrease their stress levels which indirectly helps to decrease the
likelihood of good-faith newbies being unintentionally bitten. From what
I can see, the product survey idea is a more formalised approach in that
same general direction. So, thank you. I hope this pilot project is a
success.

-Liam
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)

[Liam Wyatt]

Nicely put Martijn. Many a true word is spoken in jest.

Dear WMF Fundraising team, please do not take this thread (or this email)
as an attack on yourselves or the professionalism that you apply to your
work. You should continue to take great personal pride in the crucial role
you play to make our [puzzle-]globe keep spinning each year! I also
appreciate that you're in a sticky position of needing to try new things
but also receiving flak when you do.

Perhaps as a practical suggestion, so we can avoid this discussion
happening *again *next year, it would be worth all of us collaborating here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles

Perhaps it is worthwhile adding a section to this page which lists the more
practical expectations about the fundraising banners which we have
developed by consensus over the years. Things like no animations/sounds,
no obscuring of the content, no popups and no threats/warnings without
genuine cause.
I'd personally like to add two more things:
- easily dismissible on mobile (because I've unintentionally clicked the
banner with my finger many times when trying to press the impossibly-small
x icon to dismiss the banner on my phone) and
- Tell the OTRS team and appropriate Chapter (when applicable) when any
major change (such as adding/removing a new payment method) happens in that
language/country.


These Fundraising principles, according to that Meta page, are from
...an October,
2010 letter
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_principles
and
a January, 2012 WMF resolution
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Developing_Scenarios_for_future_of_fundraising#Guidelines_for_Funds_Distribution_Scenarios.
The page itself was primarily edited by WMF Board of Trustees Stu and SJ.

I would argue that it is possible that several of these principles are not
being followed, at least according to the recent discussions on this list.
Including:
- *Transparency*: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must be truthful
with prospective donor. Instead, the public seems to be questioning if the
messages are truthful about our financial stability.
- *Maximal Participation*: ...we should empower individuals and groups
world-wide to constructively contribute to direct messaging. Instead,
rather than being ambassadors for our mission, wikimedians are feeling
increasingly embarrassed when their friends/public ask about the
fundraising campaign.
-*Minimal disruption*: ...causing minimal disruption and annoyance for
users of the projects Instead, a desire to finish fundraising quickly is
given higher priority. Even though that is *not *one of the stated
principles.
-*Internationalism*: ...our fundraising practices must support the easiest
possible transfer of money internationally. Instead, we've had the recent
discussions about how donating is difficult from the Netherlands and
impossible from Russia [did they get a response yet, by the way?] I'd also
add that I'll keep it short as a subject-line for the fundraising email
feels to me like an Americanism that would be far too casual to be taken
seriously in many other cultures.


-Liam

On 3 December 2014 at 10:13, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com
wrote:

 On Dec 3, 2014 3:46 AM, Ryan Lane rlan...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Megan Hernandez mhernandez@... writes:
 
  
  
   As Lila’s email said, we launched our end of year English fundraising
   campaign on Tuesday. I wanted to share a little more background on the
   mechanics of the English Wikipedia campaign, and where we are on our
 goals
   this year to-date.
  
   Starting today, banners are being shown to 100% of anonymous readers on
   English Wikipedia in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Our
 end
   of year campaign goal is $20 million. As Lila mentioned, our goal is to
   serve more powerful reminders to be able to limit the total number of
   banners each reader sees. We are constantly experimenting with new
 methods
   to reach our readers and optimize the donation experience.
  
 
  I know I used to write an email internally every year, saying our banners
  are getting out of control, but that's because every year they get bigger
  and more obscuring of the content. This year, as usual, is not an
 exception.
  However, this year the banners didn't just get bigger, the copy seems to
 be
  more fear inducing as well.
 
  Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was in
  financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content
  still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that
  Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget
  every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because
 there
  isn't.
 
  The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn't the first
  person that's asked me about this. When they find out there's not a real
  problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel
  

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WaPo Wikipedia's 'complicated; relationship with net neutrality

[Liam Wyatt]

I'm finding this highly principled conversation fascinating to read - I'm
genuinely learning a lot about the different arguments (both philosophical
and practical) used to support or critique Wikipedia Zero. What a diverse
and highly informed group of people this list contains! :-)

From my Australian perspective, it's interesting because we've never had
'net neutrality' in the way that it is described in the US and, with
appropriate competition and regulation this is not been a problem. e.g.:

Net neutrality is an honourable aspiration, but the Australian internet
 service provider market has thrived and innovated without it.
 Discriminatory pricing in the form of unmetered content is more a consumer
 bonus than an imposition of someone else’s choice.
 http://theconversation.com/australias-net-neutrality-lesson-for-the-us-22245



While I genuinely support the idealism of the net-neutrality debate, and it
makes sense in certain jurisdictional contexts (notably the USA), I am
won-over by the arguments that have been made here about how WikipediaZero
is non-rivalrous. As Marc P. put it earlier:

 So it's clearly neutral in the equally available sense of the term.
 And it remains neutral in the competition sense of the term since they
 are welcome to zero-rate any other service they wish alongside ours.
 And, finally, it's also neutral from a conflict-of-interest point of
 view.


When looking at the practical reality of a high-school in a poorer district
of South Africa specifically asking for greater access to WP from their
local telecom company[1], it's hard to remain stuck on purely-principled
debates. That is a *real world* group of of people that is *specifically*
asked for easer access to Wikipedia - *of course *we should support that.

This is *not *to discount the importance of principles - and a lot of good
ones have been mentioned here - but I'm not going to argue against a
school-group in a poorer country wanting free-access to the sum of human
knowledge on their mobile phones because of a political fight in richer
countries about heavy-data usage on high-speed broadband.

-Liam

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j-ktiYTTds
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banners (again)

[Liam Wyatt]

*TL;DR - If you're going to change something, inform the people who will be
affected before you change it!*

Interestingly, I have a different understanding of the text when I read it
- I find it to be a positive message and those words that you singled out
have different tones depending on their contextualisation. So, I for one am
not left with a feeling that it is like an obituary, rather that it is
optimistic, but I do agree that it is aggressively worded. But... like you
say, that's the power of the 'banner testing' process, different people
respond well to different things! :-)

I am however negatively-struck by the finishing statement, a return to the
old motto of keep us online without advertising for one more year. I
thought that we had collectively agreed that banners that directly threaten
advertising next year were not going to happen any more. Remember when we
used to get lots of mainstream media reports saying Wikipedia will soon
have ads! as a result of those campaigns in the past? [This is different
from simply saying we don't have ads and we're proud of it, etc.]

I also reiterate the concern raised by others - that it obscures the *whole
*page. A popular request to return to the usual 'banner' style was run on
the French WP:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_Bistro/25_novembre_2014#Mettre_en_place_une_banni.C3.A8re_classique

To its credit, the WMF fundraising team has responded on that page:
Indicating that the full-screen-blocking banner should only be visible the
first time a non-logged in user sees it, and that this particular
fundraising campaign will conclude on Friday:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_Bistro/25_novembre_2014#R.C3.A9ponse_de_la_WMF
While I personally disagree with their decision to obscure the whole page
in black, I would like to specifically thank the WMF fundraising team for
responding to the affected community on the same wiki-page and on the same
day that the question was first raised there (the 25th).

This notwithstanding, I think the issue *yet again*, is a lack of
communication with the relevant community members when a decision is taken
that affects them. In this case, at minimum, the French OTRS team - who are
apparently receiving complaints that Wikipedia is affected by a virus!

So can I reiterate my reqeust from the other day:
If you're going to change something, tell the affected people before you
change it (or as soon as possible afterwards). Please don't wait for the
public to raise concerns with volunteers, who then complain to the WMF,
before offering an explanation.

And on that note, regarding the fundraising concerns from last week, have
the Dutch or Russian communities received responses to their questions yet?


-Liam


On 27 November 2014 at 11:35, Delphine Ménard notafi...@gmail.com wrote:

 You know, I think I'll pass on the actual content of the message that talks
 about Commercial not being a Monster and The Bad. (and yes I know,
 these are in a negative sentence but... seriously?).

 This banner looks like an obituary I find. Where are the cool banners on
 green leafy foresty background? Those were the days ;)

 I know that a lot of thought goes into crafting the best messages for
 fundraising banners, I also know that the testing is thorough, and
 decisions are made with real data. But sometimes I find we might be
 forgetting the number of people we actually scare *away* with things like
 this. Not sure that's data we can acquire, but looking at this banner I am
 losing faith in my fellow French if they really respond to something like
 this more than they do to positive and cheerful looking messages).

 *sigh*

 Delphine

 On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 11:44 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

  David Gerard wrote:
  Didn't we have the lightbox argument last year?
 
  Probably. Or the year before. Or the year before that. I did say
 (again)
  in the subject line. ;-)
 
  There are various discussions popping up across Wikimedia about these
  banners. It didn't help that a bug earlier this week caused logged-in
  users to be hit with them as well. Talk about eating your own dog food.
 
  The French Wikipedia held what appears to be a straw poll with
  overwhelming denouncement of the banner. It's also been repeatedly
  described as a phishing attempt. Complaints and confusion aren't uncommon
  during any annual fundraiser, but I think we can and should hold
 ourselves
  to a higher standard when begging people for money.
 
  As pointed out on Meta-Wiki's Wikimedia Forum by Jules78120,
  https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Usage_guidelines is pretty
  clear that the (primary) goal is that banners be as unobtrusive as
  possible. I wrote this in May 2011, I believe deliberately outside of
 the
  annual fundraising that takes place in December so that we could have a
  calm and reasonable discussion about appropriate CentralNotice usage.
 Sigh.
 
  MZMcBride
 
 
 
  

Re: [Wikimedia-l] FDC funds allocation recommendation is up

[Liam Wyatt]

Excellently put Lodewijk.

In an attempt to answer your question:
I would like to ask for clarification the expectations of raising funds
externally.

In previous years, as has been mentioned earlier in this thread, it has
been emphasised that the 'money raised in a country' should be considered
independent of 'money spent in that country'. This is a principle that
everyone (I think) agrees with, on the basis that a country might be
donor-poor but activity-rich or vice versa. Taken at its purest, this
principle implies that the annual plans submitted should be independent of
the amount of money [potentially] available to be accessed locally.

Separately, there is also the fact that several of the responses from the
FDC emphasise that some Chapters should push for more external funding
sources - to diversify their income streams and to lessen the burden on the
global Wikimedia budget. And that these Chapters' Annual Plan budgets
should take more into account those funds.

Both of these policies are internally consistent and logical, however I
believe that they are at least partially contradictory. I believe the FDC
is working on the best advice it has available, and I know that I have not
read *all *the most recent documentation about Chapter finances. But, I
would like to know if there is a policy position from the WMF Board of
Trustees that clarifies what is expected of Chapters in this area.

A corollary question is, if a chapter does receive external funding (from
whatever source), how should that money be accounted for in the Annual
Plan? If it is in a separate budget that is outside FDC-scrutiny that would
seem to be a way of avoiding accountability to the movement as a whole...
On the other hand, should the FDC have jurisdiction over money that is not
derived from the WMF APG program?

It's possible that extensive explanations for these questions exists
already and I just didn't know where to find it - sorry if that's the case
:-) Also, I'm not asking the FDC to answer these questions now (or saying
which option I prefer), I'm wanting to know if the WMF Board of Trustees
has given clear instructions to the FDC/Chapters in this area.

Sincerely,
-Liam

wittylama.com
Peace, love  metadata

On 25 November 2014 at 18:38, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote:

 I don't think it is very helpful to the discussions that have to be had to
 turn this into a conversation about personal qualifications... Only rarely
 I have seen such a discussion to bear fruit.

 The people on the Committee is only a small factor in the whole puzzle -
 the instructions they get, the process and the number of applications has
 at least a similar impact. Let us first discuss what (if anything) should
 be different in the process, in the outcomes, before we even start
 discussing the people.

 Thanks!

 Lodewijk


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] FDC funds allocation recommendation is up

[Liam Wyatt]

 On 25 November 2014 at 20:45, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:



 Can you elaborate just a little on how you find them to be contradictory?
 If we assume, as I think is reasonable, that the first principle applies to
 funds raised by WMF and the second is directed at funds raised by
 individual affiliates, they don't seem to me to be in conflict.


Hi Nathan,
I know I'm not being particularly clear - even to myself :-) But let me try:

In particular, I noted this sentence from the FDC recommendations for
WM-Netherlands:

The FDC recognizes that there has been inconsistency in the messages given
to chapters and other entities about fundraising diversity. Nonetheless,
the FDC thinks that Wikimedia Nederland is in a position to seek other
sources of funding. 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2014-2015_round1#Highlights_8


I also note this sentence which is directed to WM-UK:

The FDC urges Wikimedia UK to carefully consider its plans to hire
additional fundraising staff, and to articulate a clear strategy for how
that position will benefit the organization and the movement.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2014-2015_round1#Summary_11

These points imply to me that the the FDC believes it has a duty to oversee
the manner in which funds are raised by the Chapters from external sources,
not just how the money that is requested from the WMF is used. (of course
these points are linked if the WMF-derived money is being used to pay staff
who will focus on external fundraising...)

This is not a critique of the FDC, but it leaves me a bit confused about
the 'rules of the game' about external funding, for organisations applying
for APG funds.

On 25 November 2014 at 21:53, Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl wrote:

 Liam,

  Both of these policies are internally consistent and logical, however I
  believe that they are at least partially contradictory

 I understand that the potential contradiction relies on the fact that if
 fundraising and spending of chapters are really fully separated, their
 applications to the FDC should not be assessed by taking into account their
 fundraising abilities?

 In principle, this is so. While the FDC does suggest to some chapters that
 they could intensify their efforts in diversifying funds (for the benefit
 of the whole movement), it is a soft recommendation. None of the chapters
 had their recommended allocation lowered mainly because of poor fundraising
 results. I guess it is a matter of reasonable effort - if there sometimes
 seems to be a  low hanging fruit, it is reasonable to ask if it can be
 reached.


Thank you Dariusz - yes, this is a good way of summarising it.

-Liam
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia France] WikiCheese crowdfunding - Let's photograph 'em all

[Liam Wyatt]

Fun, fascinating and simple idea that is a really good example of
innovative projects that can be run :-) Thanks for sharing.

I think that this project, like the Wikimedia Norway Nobel Peace Prize
announcement live-editathon a few months ago, show how Chapters and local
groups can take advantage of what makes their region special. By choosing a
subject that is close to everyone's daily life (especially in France!) this
makes for not only an enjoyable project, but a very clever way
of gaining public attention to the issue of free-knowledge. I see Wikimedia
France has been retweeting some mainstream media coverage which use the fun
subject of 'photos of cheese' to mention the importance of free licenses:
http://ecrans.liberation.fr/ecrans/2014/11/24/les-wikipediens-en-font-tout-un-fromage_1149760
And
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/31369-wikimedia-france-veut-gouter-200-fromages-et-les-documenter.html


Crowdfunding it separately also helps avoid anyone complaining about
whether Wikimedia donors' money was incorrectly spent on cheese-eating
parties :-)

Well done WM-Fr, I hope it is a success!
Perhaps other Chapters and local groups can look at improving Wikimedia's
coverage of their national/regional cuisine  - and having a good time in
the process!?

-Liam

On Monday, 24 November 2014, Christophe Henner christophe.hen...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Good news everyone,

 Cheese articles are gonna get improved!

 As french, it was dreadful for us to see so few illustrations of cheese on
 Wikipedia. This is about to change.

 A group of french Wikimedians, lead by Pierre-Yves Beaudouin, designed a
 project to photograph many cheeses, up to 200 for the moment.

 This project is perticular as we aim to have it found through a french
 crowdfunding platform, KissKissBankBank.

 Of course Wikimedia France could have funded it itself, but we wanted to
 use the project as a way to get the larger audience aware of their ability
 to contribute and to give a fun image of contributing.

 The project in few words iss follow :
 * 10 cheeses per session
 * During the session the cheeses are photographed and their articles
 improved
 * During the sessions experimented wikimedian would train new editors
 * At every session every participant would enjoy eating good cheese too

 If you want to read more, or even contribute, about the project you can go
 on KissKissBankBank :
 http://www.kisskissbankbank.com/fr/projects/wikicheese


 If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot them on or off list.

 All the best,

 --
 Christophe
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[Wikimedia-l] Why is bank transfer no longer possible?

[Liam Wyatt]

This strikes me as yet another example of a WMF department forgetting
to inform relevant stakeholders as soon as is appropriate, when decisions
are made...

In just the last few days, on this mailing list alone, there have been
controversies on:
- not telling chapters' treasurers that a team had been hired and a
financial auditing process initiated (the Finance Fellows), until after it
had already begun.
- Not informing the Russians that their country's donations were no longer
accepted, leaving them to fend off angry media/donors.
- Not informing the Dutch that donations in their country's most popular
online money-transfer system was being temporarily stopped.

None of these things needed to be controversial or a problem if they'd been
explained to the relevant people up-front.
None of them required advanced notice if that was not possible for
operational reasons (although it would have been nice).
All of them are the WMF's preogative to make those decisions.

But, crucially, ALL of them have people in the Wikimedia movement who are
affected by the decision. According to the complaints raised on this list,
None of those affected people were informed as soon as reasonably possible.
Furthermore their initial, private, enquiries produced
apparently-unsatisfactory answers, leading to them feeling forced to raise
their concerns here.

All of this chips-away at community good-will, makes the WMF feel
under-siege (and I do acknowledge my own contribution to that feeling by
this email, for which I apologise), and creates a disjointed public-face
when press/donors/readers ask community members what's happening with
xyz? and the community-member forced to reply this is the first I've
heard about it.

To help avoid similar things happening in the future, can I propose that
any time a public-facing decision is being made by a WMF team, the question
who in the community is likely to be affected by this decision? be asked
as a standard procedure. Then take the time to proactively inform those
people. (Some WMF teams do this really well already, I want
to acknowledge!) In the examples above that would be the treasurers' list,
the Russian media contacts, and the Dutch OTRS team. Ideally those people
could be involved/consulted in the decision itself (but that's not always
possible) and they will be able to help respond to the issue in the
appropriate way.
We're all on the same team...


-- 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Finance Fellows to develop first-ever movement-wide financial report and metrics

[Liam Wyatt]

On 4 November 2014 20:49, Richard Symonds richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk
wrote:

 I don't think this should be done by a formal group of representatives
- in my experience committees aren't an amazing way of doing things like
this. The team who have been put together seem to be bright young things
and I have no doubt that they will do the best job they can - but I
 think
that the first version can be improved with a lot more buy-in from the
 rest
of the movement :-)


This.

The concept behind the 'finance fellows' is a great one: dedicated contact
people for the Chapters to help coordinate, standardise, streamline,
clarify the financial information among a variety of very diverse Wikimedia
Organisations.
Something like this is something that many people have wanted for a long
time. Newer or smaller chapters can feel 'left out' and overwhelmed by what
kind of information they need to report, when, how... especially for the
majority of Chapters that have no dedicated financial administration
professional.

However, by keeping the team's formation a secret, and not involving the
Chapters' financial staff in the conceptualisation stage (even as advanced
warning), does not start the concept off with good will. In fact, what
could/should have been a great day for the movement in helping to support
and coordinate its various parts, makes the very people who are going to be
working closest with the Finance Fellows (e.g. Richard, above) skeptical
and wary of being 'audited'. This is a great shame.
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[Wikimedia-l] Chapters and GLAM tooling

[Liam Wyatt]

Hi Stéphane,
I'm currently sitting in the plenary hall of the Europeana AGM in Prado
Museum in Madrid and, quite literally, right now is the presentation is
about the 2015 business plan. What the organisation will prioritise etc.
etc. Therefore, it's a perfectly timed email to mention the GLAMwikiToolset
[GWT] and Europeana! Several Wikimedians from European Chapters, Maria from
the WMF Board of Trustees, and other 'friends of the family' are here too.

In this specific context I should say that in the last weeks of practical
planning for 2015, we've narrowed down the scope of what Europeana will be
wiling and able to support in the Wikiverse. It was decided that while
Europeana does want to fix bugs, improve documentation and give some more
'polish' to the GWT, it has decided that committing to the ongoing
development of an integrated, content-agnostic, clear user-interface, for
Wikimedia Commons is actually beyond the scope of the organisation.
Ultimately Europeana's mission is about European GLAM content and it can no
longer justify being the 'business owner' for the large development task
that would be creating the fully-featured integrated Commons system. To be
clear: Europeana is not 'leaving' and wants to help improve the tool as it
currently exists (as well as remain involved in a variety of other GLAMwiki
activities), but the organisation wanted to be clear in setting
expectations that it will *not* be building the Mass-upload equivalent of
the Upload Wizard.

From a personal perspective, as the guy who was pushing for the
funding/creation of the magical, easy, beautiful mass-upload system
since... I forget how long ago now... I would love to see investment (by
anyone), but in my professional perspective I understand the need for
Europeana to clearly define the scope of its activities - and a
mass-uploader for anyone, with any content, to Wikimedia (with all the
extremely complex usability, templates, metadata... requirements that this
entails) is actually outside the scope of its mission.

- Liam, in my capacity as
Europeana GLAMwiki Coordinator.

wittylama.com
Peace, love  metadata

On 31 October 2014 11:11, Stéphane Coillet-Matillon 
stephane.coil...@mail.wikimedia.ch wrote:

 Hi Erik,

 To specifically respond to your question, and as you know, WMCH does have
 plans to hire a developer next year for its offline dissemination program
 (ie KIWIX) [1][2].

 Since Europeana had indicated its interest into maintaining/developing it
 the GWToolset, we decided to focus our efforts on keeping Kiwix going
 (that's also where our relationship with the community is strongest). This
 being said, we also do intend to be heavily using the GlamWikiToolset next
 year already, and may therefore need to develop our own extensions as needs
 arise. We however first need to find out what such needs are/will be, and
 how Europeana will handle the load.

 But yes, to answer your question we do plan on having a dedicated chapter
 staff whom you will be able to work with (provided the current APG request
 goes well enough, of course).

 Cheers

 Stephane


 [1] *
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_CH/Proposal_form#Offline_Dissemination_Program
 
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_CH/Proposal_form#Offline_Dissemination_Program
 *
 [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kiwix_-_Wikipedia_Offline

 
 
   Original Message 
  Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Chapters and GLAM tooling
  Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 11:45:50 -0700
  From: Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org
  Reply-To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
  To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 
  Just pinging this thread -- looking through all the proposals for
  annual plan grants:
 
 

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_%C3%96sterreich/Proposal_form
 

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_UK/Proposal_form
 

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_Sverige/Proposal_form
 

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_Serbia/Proposal_form
 

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_Nederland/Proposal_form
 

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_Israel/Proposal_form
 

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_Eesti/Proposal_form
 

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_Deutschland_e.V./Proposal_form
 

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1/Wikimedia_CH/Proposal_form
 
  I'm not seeing any developer contract time allocated to GLAM tooling
  work yet. At the same time I'm seeing reports of breakage and missing
  functionality in important tools running in Labs. To the 

[Wikimedia-l] WMF Finance Fellows to develop first-ever movement-wide financial report and metrics

[Liam Wyatt]

Interesting development. Probably a very good idea for transparency and
good use of the movement's money, and consistency of reporting to make
things comparable is a great goal. I especially think that for smaller
chapters there is lots of value in having a dedicated contact person!

But I find the self-description of the Fellows as an elite group of global
operatives[1] a bit degrading to the rest of us...

I presume it's taken a fair while to recruit the team and scope the project
too (I see one linkedin profile which says they've been working already for
two months[3]). So, I wonder - did the Chapters who have been allocated to
each of these new auditors[2] have any notice that this new process was
being created before it was announced today - so they were able to make any
other time-commitments without being surprised by a new layer of paperwork?

Also, I presume that the increased amount of staff/volunteer time needed to
comply with new paperwork will be offset by streamlining this with other
WMF-compliance paperwork?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Oolukoya_(WMF)
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement-wide_Financial_Report#Who_We_Are
[3] http://www.linkedin.com/pub/seyi-olukoya/59/b09/a7

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Nobel Peace Prize announcement and editathon

[Liam Wyatt]

This is an excellent event idea, congratulations to Wikimedia Norway for
organising it.
It is also a brilliant example of how Chapters and other groups around the
world can take responsability for topics that have particular
local relevance to them, and take a leadership role in the worldwide
movement in the process. In this case (an announcement of global interest,
but made in a particular building in a particular city) it also highlights
wikimedia as not just a virtual community, but a physical one, and that the
two work in tandem.

-Liam / Wittylama


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Lsjbot+Bot Acadeny

[Liam Wyatt]

Many years ago... on en.wp, RamBot created thousands and thousands of
articles about towns and cities in the United States. Controversial at the
time but ultimately successful in 'seeding' the content in exactly the way
that Anders described.
Whenever I go to do some New Pages Patrol on en.wp these days, it seems
(purely from personal experience) that there are lots of articles about
places in India and south asia being written. It's very difficult to assess
these for duplicates, notability, verifiability... but there's clearly a
demand for writing these topics that bots could help with.
For things that have inherent notability, such as towns registered in a
national census or those done by LsjBot, I'd love to see more bot-creation
going on.

wittylama.com
Peace, love  metadata

On 17 September 2014 08:22, Peter Southwood peter.southw...@telkomsa.net
wrote:

 Impressive piece of work. I agree, it is a lot easier to expand on an
 article with a well formatted stub than to create a new one if you are not
 familiar with the process. I would like to see this procedure extended to
 other Wikipedias, including en:  for classes of article for which there is
 consensus that an article should exist for each example, like for species.
 Cheers,
 Peter

 -Original Message-
 From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
 wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anders Wennersten
 Sent: 17 September 2014 04:36 AM
 To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Lsjbot+Bot Acadeny

 Lsjbot has now completed its run of generating articles for all species,
 with 310 000 on plants, making the total number generated above 1 300
 000 (source used: Catalogue of Life).  With Naskobot, having earlier
 generated some 85 000 articles on Swedish lakes and French communes etc.,
 the total botgenerated articles on svwp are now 1,4 M

 The botgenerating efforts have received overwhelmingly positive feedback
 from the svwp  community, with comments like:
 *for editors it has become more stimulating writing new articles on
 related subjects. When we write of a place in Sweden we know that all
 mentioned lakes have articles, making the article better and more correct
 (no lakes mentioned are spelled incorrectly any longer). Also photo safaris
 are more fun when all lakes, even very small ones, are relevant to take
 photos of and include in articles *experts are more attracted
 participating  when they are guided to the stub from Google. Also we get
 feedback it is much easier to enter information on Wikipedia when the base
 skeleton is there already (taxobox, category, links in wikidata, picture,
 base sourceref). We see an increasing number of University classes in
 biology given he assignment to write (expand) articles on (not so known)
 species

 We are also gladdened by the hard numbers. Reader accesses show a healthy
 increase even from our already high number. And a trend of a slight
 decrease of editors has now turned into an increase.  We can not say for
 certain why and it could be temporary but we believe the botgenerated
 articles has a part of this positive development.

 Encouraged by this, we will now start what we call Bot Academy. A dozen of
 our experienced editors will, with the support from WMSE, learn more of
 running bots. First by sessions on basics, common knowledge stuff, in order
 for us to be able to use bot as a complement in our editing efforts. And
 after that we will have sessions for advanced use, taking in the learning
 from Lsjbot and Naskobot, in order to  see if also we can find areas where
 we from excellent sources can generate articles.

 For 2015 we are contemplating the following botgenerating efforts *lsj
 (sverker) will support other versions interested to run Lsjbot. He is now
 in discussion with Farsi and Arabic wp, where there are some interesting
 technical challenges related to the different alphabeticscript *we will
 scan best practices of bot generation on other versions (it, nl, id, vt,
 serbocroatia, farsi, ru etc) (it seems we have nothing to learn of this
 from the biggest seven...) *lsj will look into using the database used by
 Swedish libraries, with info of authors and books. Would it be feasible to
 generate articles on authors?
 *for myself I am continuing my initiative with the aim of fully integrate
 10 article of Swedish geographic entities with wikidata, in order to
 by the end to generate, if wanted,  up to 10 articles related to
 Swedish geography on 200 other versions. There is a lot needed of quality
 improvement of the articles first and also the Wikidata must get better
 before this can work, but perhaps it will be possible to get this going for
 a subset of articles in 2015 even if the full set will take some years
 longer before being ready to deploy

 Anders
 for examples, press slumpartikel (random artiicle) on
 https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Huvudsida

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The Lighter Side of the Movement

[Liam Wyatt]

The place that you are searching for exists. It is called Uncyclopedia:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

I'm sure your contributions would be most welcome over there.


On 17 September 2014 07:17, Wil Sinclair w...@wllm.com wrote:

 Howdy all,

 One thing I've noticed in my short time as an active part of our
 community is that the more welcoming and likable aspects of our
 individual personalities aren't reflect in our most public
 conversations. For example, if a new editor went by this forum alone,
 we might come off as taking ourselves too seriously to leave room for
 the fun and satisfaction that usually comes along with volunteering.
 Moreover, we might be missing out on some of that fun and satisfaction
 ourselves. ;)

 I'm wondering if there is place where the lighter side of individual
 Wikimedians and our movement can be shown front and center. What I'm
 talking about would leave the controversial issues for wikimedia-l and
 other fora, instead presenting stuff like funny stats about our
 wikiprojects surfaced through clever metrics, the weirdest of the
 weird factoids that we uncover in the process of documenting our
 universe, interviews of Wikipedians on stuff they do beyond editing
 wikis, and humorous essays that might venture in to good natured
 lampooning of the movement. I'm already writing an article about the
 next software feature to be enabled: Project Fish Bicycle. It will add
 such features as full vertical reflections pioneered by Apple 10 years
 ago under all articles, taking up only half the final rendered page
 while compromising on a few minor existing article features, like
 vowels. Think The Onion or your alma mater's humor publication:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_humor_magazines. With a lot of
 poor attempts at humor, and the occasional viral grand slam.

 So. . . is there something like this already? If so, could someone
 please point me in the direction of the nearest editor, so I can start
 contributing myself? If not, would anyone be interested in helping me
 line up a first issue?

 Feel free to contact me directly or reply to the list. Whatever floats
 boats.

 Toodles.
 ,Wil

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The Lighter Side of the Movement

[Liam Wyatt]

Surprising though it may be, many wikimedians enjoy... working on Wikimedia
projects. They sometimes go out to the pub with each other and have fun in
real life. But let us not confuse enjoyment with fun.
Writing WP articles, uploading photos to Commons, transcribing wikisource
articles, working with newbies anywhere... these are not fun and are not
supposed to be fun. Because we all believe in the greater mission of
free-knowledge these activities are enjoyable.

If you want to see *funny* things on [English] Wikipedia, go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project:Bad_Jokes_and_Other_Deleted_Nonsense
or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles

For everything else - there's always http://zombo.com/ Anyone can have fun
there for as long as they wish.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The Lighter Side of the Movement

[Liam Wyatt]

As all these ideas seem to be specifically focused on the English
Wikipedia...
Can I suggest that wikien-l might be more appropriate:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Or... the village dump on Uncyclopedia would work too
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Village_Dump

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On 17 September 2014 16:51, Wil Sinclair w...@wllm.com wrote:

 And here I was, wondering aloud if anyone had thought of something
 like this before. :D As it turns out, Wikipedia has a rich history of
 not taking itself too seriously.

 Adding your link to some others efforts linked to by the Department of
 Fun I've got:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Llama
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Department_of_Fun
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiFun_Police, which inspired
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Grey_Knight/Wikipedia_Fun_Police,
 not to be confused with the
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kausill/Anti-Fun_Police (splitters!)
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Apathetic_Wikipedians

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Wikipedians_Who_Dislike_Making_Broad_Judgments_About_the_Worthiness_of_a_General_Category_of_Article,_and_Who_Are_in_Favor_of_the_Deletion_of_Some_Particularly_Bad_Articles,_but_That_Doesn%27t_Mean_They_Are_Deletionists
 ,
 or AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDAYBCADSPBATDMTAD for short
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Motto_of_the_day

 Unfortunately, most of them are either completely inactive or
 significantly less active than they have been in years past.

 I think this is a tradition worth bringing back in a big way. To kick
 things off, I'll reach out on the defunct projects' talk pages to see
 if there are stragglers who might be interested in helping out with a
 new or renewed attempt at humor; if appropriate, I'll help clean up
 behind myself by archiving inactive pages. I'd prefer to kickstart
 things by becoming part of a larger effort like Signpost, so I'll
 approach the editors of the Signpost to see if they'd have any
 interest in what would be the Wikipedian equivalent of a funnies page.

 Lastly, this is getting down to specifics that are better taken
 elsewhere. If you'd like to follow along or take part mail me offlist
 at w...@wllm.com, and I'll let you know once the effort has found an
 onwiki home. As always, suggestions and ridicule welcome, but please
 help me to continue the discussion offlist by mailing me directly
 about matters that aren't of general interest to this audience.

 Thanks.
 ,Wil

 On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 6:19 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:
  Wil Sinclair wrote:
 I'm wondering if there is place where the lighter side of individual
 Wikimedians and our movement can be shown front and center. What I'm
 talking about would leave the controversial issues for wikimedia-l and
 other fora, instead presenting stuff like funny stats about our
 wikiprojects surfaced through clever metrics, the weirdest of the
 weird factoids that we uncover in the process of documenting our
 universe, interviews of Wikipedians on stuff they do beyond editing
 wikis, and humorous essays that might venture in to good natured
 lampooning of the movement. I'm already writing an article about the
 next software feature to be enabled: Project Fish Bicycle. It will add
 such features as full vertical reflections pioneered by Apple 10 years
 ago under all articles, taking up only half the final rendered page
 while compromising on a few minor existing article features, like
 vowels. Think The Onion or your alma mater's humor publication:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_humor_magazines. With a lot of
 poor attempts at humor, and the occasional viral grand slam.
 
 So. . . is there something like this already? If so, could someone
 please point me in the direction of the nearest editor, so I can start
 contributing myself? If not, would anyone be interested in helping me
 line up a first issue?
 
  Well, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Llama. I feel
 like
  The Signpost used to include more humor(ous) content as well. There was a
  recurring cartoon called WikiWorld for a while, anyway.
 
  Newsletters are typically delivered via MassMessage
  (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MassMessage) these days. Anyone can
  start one!
 
  MZMcBride
 
 
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] add use of wikimetrics to my resume

[Liam Wyatt]

Note to self:
Add Familiarity with dangers of the 'reply-all' and 'auto-complete
address' functions in e-mail clients.

;-)

-Liam

On 5 September 2014 13:52, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 Sorry, that was intended as a note to self.


 On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 4:51 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next steps regarding WMF-community disputes about deployments

[Liam Wyatt]

I generally agree with your analysis Marc, notwithstanding that there is
blame to share on all sides - not just users who point to broken edge
cases. The (quite predictable) behaviour you mention is why I was quite
fond of the way the usability initiative from several years ago (the team
that built the Vector skin) operated.

They made it very easy to opt-in AND out of the beta version of their work.
They also made it very clear that when the proportion of people who stayed
in reached a certain level (If I recall correctly it was 80% and
certainly not 95%+), that would signal that the software had reached a
certain level of acceptance, and that a sufficient number of edge-cases had
been addressed. Until that point they would focus on working with the
people who has tried the beta but had turned it OFF, to identify their
personal edge cases - in the hope this would fix other people's problems.
Much like you described.

The key here in my opinion is:
- clear communication about what state constitutes success (e.g. When
80% of people who have opted in have STAYED opted-in)
- clear communication about the progress towards that state (e.g. Showing
the success factor in the little statistics on the beta features tab,
and showing how close we are to that.)
- only moving to the next stage when that state has been reached, (not a
fixed schedule but it is ready when it is ready, not before)
- making it easy to try, and withdraw from, new things, always starting
with opt-in before making it opt-out.

Since the usability initiative there has now been introduced the beta
preferences function for editors to test new software and provide feedback.
I would like to see this used more consistently and with more clarity about
what stage of beta the individual elements within that system are at.
Currently all I know is that there is a list of items and that there is an
absolute number of users for each item (e.g. 1,234 people are using
this.) Would it be difficult to make it show what proportion of people who
have tried any given beta feature are STILL using it? That would give an
indicator of popularity/acceptance at least.

-Liam / Wittylama.

On Tuesday, 2 September 2014, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote:

 On 09/02/2014 02:52 AM, Yann Forget wrote:
  OK, I could buy that [fixing image pages]. But then why not
  fixing that *first*, so that
  any MV implementation coming afterwards would be smooth?

 In the best of worlds, that would have been ideal.

 Now, no doubt I'm going to be branded a cynic for this, but have you
 ever /tried/ to standardize something on a project?  Obviously, my frame
 of reference is the English Wikipedia and not Commons; but in a world
 where there exists at least six distinct templates whose primary
 function is to transclude a single references/ onto a page and where
 any attempt to standardize to one of them unfailingly results in edit
 wars, that doesn't seem like a plausible scenario.

 Perhaps the problem is more fundamental than this, and we're only seeing
 symptoms. I don't know.

 But I /do/ know that waiting until every edge case is handled before
 deploying (attempted) improvements to the site is doomed to failure.  If
 only because most of the edge case won't even be /findable/ until the
 software is in place so that it can't work even in principle.

 IMO, in practice, get it working for the general case and most of the
 obvious edge cases is a reasonable standard; and I'm pretty sure that
 MV qualified under that metric (and VE didn't).

 I suppose much of my frustration over the MV keruffle is borne out of a
 reaction I see much too often for my taste: editors yelling OMG, look,
 image X isn't properly attributed/licensed/etc in MV!  Burn it with
 fire!!! rather than figuring out why X's image page isn't properly
 parsed and /fixing/ it (and possibly an underlying template that could
 fix dozen/hundred others in one fell swoop).I'm pretty sure that if half
 as much effort had been spent fixing issues as was attempting to kill
 MV, its fail rate would already be at statistical anomaly levels.

 .. but my inner cynic is also pretty sure that many of the loudest
 voices wanting to get rid of MV ostensibly because of its failings don't
 actually /want/ those failings to be fixed because being able to say
 It's broken rather than I don't like it sounds much more rational.

 -- Marc


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] editor retention initiatives

[Liam Wyatt]

On 26 August 2014 02:09, David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com wrote:

 Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of
 personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and
 encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this
 is personally. It cannot be effectively done with  wikilove messages ,
 and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template
 welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web
 personalizedadvertisements.  What works is to show that you actually read
 and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write
 something specific.


I believe there is a software-facilitated way of doing this. You are quite
right that the most effective way of retaining new editors who have good
potential is for them to have some personalised contact and a sense of
community, but you are right that it is time-consuming and it is also
difficult to identify people who are a) new, b) have potential and c) are
people that you personally are interested in helping.

IMO the most likely way to help identify those people is to leverage the
power of the WikiProjects (e.g. Birds, Military History, France,
Mathematics...) to bring new users closer to communities-of-interest
quickly. Erik Moller has spoken about this at Wikimania both this year and
also a couple of years ago and I completely agree with him.

Perhaps when a new user registers they can be asked to name a few things
they're interested in (perhaps prompted from a list). This automagically
connects them to the relevant Wikiproject and somehow tells the members of
that wikiproject that a new user has just registered and expressed an
interest in their topic. Proactive WikiProjects might set up some form of
mentoring scheme, or welcoming committee, or 'tasks that newbies can do'
list. It would be up to the WikiProject to work out the best ways to
coordinate their work with newbies. Rather like the beginning of the
academic year at a university - all the student clubs set up tables to
compete to recruit new members :-)

Yes - this requires software development and therefore needs to be put on a
roadmap, budgeted for etc. etc. But, if we're talking about
editor-retention and *personalised support, *I think it's high time that
the WikiProjects receive some developer attention - in recognition of the
fantastic work that they do in both coordinating the creation of good
quality content and also in building a sense of community among editors
(old and new).

-Liam / Wittylama
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Asking Google to output Wikipedia citation format in Scholar

[Liam Wyatt]

Lodewijk:
Yes indeed. The citation/footnote coding format for different language
editions of Wikipedia is not the same, not to mention the other Wikimedia
projects.
I wonder if this is something that Wikidata could (eventually) handle?
I have been hoping that one day all books (at least those with ISBNs) could
have a Wikidata entry. This would mean that all of the bibliographic
metadata published as CC0 by a variety of national libraries could be
imported and we would have a tremendously useful catalogue of published
works. Presubamly then, each Wikipedia could rely on this database for
footnotes to specific books (each with its own presentation format if it
wants) - rather than having to manually enter each book's bibliographic
information every time you want to cite it on a new Wikipedia article...
This would be similar to the way Commons is a central repository for Media
files, Wikidata could be a central repository of footnote information. Does
this make (logical and technological) sense? Is this feasible, or
completely out of scope for Wikidata?


Andy:
Thanks for pointing out the way Trove provides a citation tool for easy
use on (English) Wikipedia articles. For those who've not seen it, here's a
random example - http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1038049 click the
cite link near the top-left corner. I asked them to incorporate this into
the Trove system in 2009 in association with the GLAM-WIKI conference in
Canberra. Over the years this has proved to be hugely beneficial to Trove
(a service of the National Library of Australia), and has generated
thousands of deep-links to their catalogue
http://linkypedia.inkdroid.org/websites/16/
 These links made Wikipedia their number one non-search-engine provider of
inbound traffic [I was employed at the NLA until recently].

-Liam / Wittylama

On 4 August 2014 09:18, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote:

 the problem is all projects use a different format :)

 Maybe it is worth the effort to investigate if we can come to a single
 format... at least on the input side.

 Lodewijk


 2014-08-04 3:43 GMT+02:00 Gryllida gryll...@fastmail.fm:

  Does the same apply to other sister projects? It could make sense to make
  such request for all...
 
  On Mon, 4 Aug 2014, at 03:14, Andy Mabbett wrote:
   Google Scholar search results each have a cite link, which generates
   citation text to copy-and-paste in three formats (MLA, APA, Chicago).
  
   Is there someone at Google we can talk to, to get Wikipedia's citation
   format included?
  
   For English-language users (or results), the {{Cite journal}} template
   is probably most appropriate.
  
   --
   Andy Mabbett
   @pigsonthewing
   http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
  
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New free research accounts available through The Wikipedia Library

[Liam Wyatt]

Congratulations Jake and the 'Wikipedia Library' team. This is a really
cool project that just keeps growing. Thank you.

On a tangential note:
A while ago there was some discussion (not within your project but it is
still of relevance) about whether it would be possible (and also whether it
would be desirable) to somehow automatically indicate within Wikipedia
footnotes that the website the reader is about to go to is closed from
public/free access. There is debate about how to 'signal OA-ness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Open_Access/Signalling_OA-ness',
but nevertheless it might be nice to indicate to our readers that (for
closed-access journals or databases for example) the link they're about to
click will not actually show them the text being cited [unless they're on a
university network etc.].

-Liam / Wittylama


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On 28 July 2014 17:53, Jake Orlowitz jorlow...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi All,

 The Wikipedia Library has new free signups available:

 *American newspaper database Newspapers.com
 http://enwp.org/WP:Newspapers.com

 *British genealogical database FindMyPast.com
 http://enwp.org/WP:FindMyPast

 *Religion and women writers collections at Past Masters
 http://enwp.org/WP:Past_Masters

 *Several large archival collections from Adam Matthew
 http://enwp.org/WP:Adam_Matthew

 Medical editors can sign up for BMJ and Cochrane.
 http://enwp.org/WP:BMJ
 http://enwp.org/WP:COCHRANE

 Accounts are still available for JSTOR, British Newspaper Archives,
 Questia, and HighBeam. Sign up!

 http://enwp.org/WP:JSTOR
 http://enwp.org/WP:BNA
 http://enwp.org/WP:QUESTIA
 http://enwp.org/WP:HighBeam

 Note that signups are happening on English Wikipedia until you have
 journals set up on your local Wikipedia library branch.  Don't have a
 local Wikipedia Library branch??  Contact me to get started setting
 one up!

 Please help share this news at your local community discussion or
 noticeboard :)

 Thanks and cheers,

 Jake Orlowitz (Ocaasi)
 jorlow...@gmail.com

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Europeana post on Wikimedia Commons large batch upload projects

[Liam Wyatt]

Thank you Fae for sharing this post (and for uploading those Photocrom
images! People who want to see more or use them in WP articles can find
them on Commons at Category:Photocrom prints collection
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photochrom_prints_collection)

The GLAMwikiToolset (project homepage
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GLAMToolset_project, mediawiki
extension https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GWToolset, user manual
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:GWToolset) has been in
development  for several years now at *Europeana. *It is a joint funding
initiative with several European chapters to develop a standard method for
GLAMs (or anyone else for that matter) to mass-upload to Wikimedia Commons
on their own terms, without the need to operate bots or be dependent on the
subset of volunteers who can to do it for them. While we acknowledge that
the system still has bugs and still requires some technical ability (e.g.
creating a flat XML file), this is a significant step forward.

The tool has been quietly operational now for a while and has been used for an
interesting variety of uploads
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GWToolset_users, with more
coming each week. We hope that with increased usage the system will start
to become a standard part of the GLAMwiki repertoire of activities and over
time will become easier to use and help draw attention to other related
engineering work that needs attention - like multimedia statistics and
metadata export.

For those coming to Wikimania who who would like to know more, there will
be two presentations on the Sunday
https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programme#Sunday.2C_August_10
dedicated to the tool and also a hackathon session - please sign up here:
https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hackathon#GWToolset

For any questions feel free to contact me offlist or join the dedicated
mailing list https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glamtools if
you wish.
Sincerely,
- Liam / Wittylama
Europeana GLAM-Wiki Coordinator

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On 23 July 2014 02:08, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:

 Re:
 http://pro.europeana.eu/pro-blog/-/blogs/sharing-multimedia-on-wikipedia-now-easier-with-new-tool

 Liam has just published this Europeana blog post about the first big
 projects using the new GLAMwiki Toolset uploader (GWT). The main image
 is one of the unusual photochrom prints from the 1890s that I
 uploaded as a Wikimedia UK sponsored project - these hand coloured
 prints feature locations from around the world and were incredibly
 popular to send as gifts in that period, a time when colour
 photography was still experimental; this high quality
 chromolithographic process was to virtually vanish within a few years.

 We are hoping that there will be a lot of interest in new GWT projects
 at Wikimania (and the hackerthon beforehand) both from GLAM
 professionals and keen volunteers. It's certainly worth browsing some
 of the projects delivered so far that the tool has made possible,
 especially if you think you might reuse some of the images. Those of
 us who helped create the tool are looking forward to this transforming
 Wikimedia Commons into a standard home on the internet for the public
 to find high quality GLAM materials.

 Fae
 --
 fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Chapters and GLAM tooling

[Liam Wyatt]

Dear Erik,
(Also copying in the Cultural Partners and GLAMwiki Toolset mailing lists
as Erik's email below is directly is related to them).

Thank you for this email with the explicit invitation for groups in the
Wikimedia movement to directly take responsibility for supporting the
technology needs of GLAM partnerships. Different groups in the movement
have different capacities and different areas of priority - and that is how
it should be :-) We each need to try and 'bite off what we can chew' in a
way that is coordinated, mutually beneficial, and not a duplication of each
others' efforts.

To that end...
Over the last couple of years *Europeana*[1] has been increasingly involved
in supporting tech development for mediawiki that is specifically targeted
at addressing the needs of the GLAMwiki community. I note that the report
you linked to on the stats that GLAMs want[1] and also the GLAMwiki Toolset
for mass multimedia upload which you also mentioned[2] are both
*Europeana* projects
- in collaboration with several European Wikimedia Chapters.

On behalf of *Europeana *I would like to confirm that we wish to become
even more involved in this area and has the full intention of supporting
further development in partnership with interested Chapters when possible.
In the fullness of time, we intend to apply for a WMF grant in order to
enable precisely that.

On the mediawiki.org discussion page for the 2014/15 Engineering goals
there has been a fair bit of discussion about GLAM-related projects that
are not in the WMF's own plans[4]. Fabrice, as process owner for the
Multimedia section of those goals, has proposed on that talkpage a couple
of meetings of interested parties to discuss how we can all work together
effectively on this, notably in person at Wikimania, an offer which we
definitely accept :-) I also agree with Illario's point that formalising WMF
support for externally-developed software is an important criteria in any
grant decisions and for organisational reputation. Fortunately Fabrice has
specifically addressed this issue relating specifically to the GLAMwiki
Toolset which is very helpful.[5]

Sincerely,
Liam / Wittylama
GLAMWIKI coordinator, Europeana.

[1] http://pro.europeana.eu/
[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia
/commons/a/a2/Report_on_requirements_for_usage_and_reuse_statistics_for_GLAM_content.
pdf
[3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GLAMwiki_Toolset_Project
[4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia
_Engineering/2014-15_Goals#Image_view_analytics
[5] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Engineering/2014-15_Goals#
GLAMwiki_Toolset

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On 26 June 2014 05:54, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 Hi folks,

 At the Zurich Hackathon, I met with a couple of folks from WM-CH who
 were interested in talking about ways that chapters can get involved
 in engineering/product development, similar to WM-DE's work on
 Wikidata.

 My recommendation to them was to consider working on GLAM-related
 tooling. This includes helping improve some of the reporting tools
 currently running in Labs (primarily developed by the illustrious and
 wonderful Magnus Manske in his spare time), but also meeting other
 requirements identified by the GLAM community [1] and potentially
 helping with the development of more complex MediaWiki-integrated
 tools like the GLAMWiki-Toolset.

 There's work that only WMF is well positioned to do (like feeding all
 media view data into Hadoop and providing generalized reports and
 APIs), but a lot of work in the aforementioned categories could be
 done by any chapter and could easily be scaled up from 1 to 2 to 3
 FTEs and beyond as warranted. That's because a lot of the tools are
 separate from MediaWiki, so code review and integration requirements
 are lower, and it's easier for technically proficient folks to help.

 In short, I think this could provide a nice on-ramp for a chapter or
 chapters to support the work of volunteers in the cultural sector with
 appropriate technology. This availability of appropriate technology is
 clearly increasingly a distinguishing factor for Wikimedia relative to
 more commercial offerings in its appeal to the cultural sector.

 At the same time, WMF itself doesn't currently prioritize work with
 the cultural sector very highly, which I think is appropriate given
 all the other problems we have to solve. So if this kind of work has
 to compete for attention with much more basic improvements to say the
 uploading pipeline or the editing tools, it's going to lose. Therefore
 I think having a cultural tooling team or teams in the larger
 movement would be appropriate.

 I've not heard back from WM-CH yet on this, but I also don't think
 it's an exclusive suggestion, so wanted to put the idea in people's
 heads in case other organizations in the movement want to help with
 it. I do want WMF to solve the larger infrastructure problems, but the
 more specialized tooling is 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Chair of the Supervisory Board – the 14th WMDE General Assembly in retrospect

[Liam Wyatt]

Congratulations on your new role Tim.

In all noise generated on this list by the bizzare detour into
Wikipediocracy last week, I was surprised that the other major announcement
- about the fundamental changes at WMDE (particularly regarding Pavel
Richter) - were not discussed at all. For such a major announcement it was
almost as if the list had been stunned into silence. I don't think I can
think of another similarly significant event in the Wikiverse that has had
so little response on this, often verbose, mailing list. I have absolutely
no doubt that there are thousands and thousands of words written on
German-language lists, but all I've seen is the WIkipedia Signpost's
report:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-05-21/News_and_notes

I would appreciate if someone could point to good summaries of the issues
that led to this radical change.

-Liam

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fuck the community, who cares

[Liam Wyatt]

On Tuesday, 8 April 2014, Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net wrote:

What happened to the intelligent conversation that used to take place here?

  There used to be intelligent conversation on wikimedia-l? As I remember
it foundation-l was always famous for a seemingly endless supply
of controversy (mostly hyperbole), conspiracy, pedantry and
he-said-she-said petty attacks. I don't think there ever was a 'good old
days', only the protagonists change. Unless that was the point you were
actually making? :-)


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

[Liam Wyatt]

On 1 April 2014 16:22, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:

 Sue Gardner wrote:
 For everyone: following up on Erik's e-mail, the WMF has done a
 postmortem of the Belfer situation, which I've just posted at the link
 from Erik above. Suffice to say here that we implemented the Belfer
 Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the
 WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us
 not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it.

 Thank you for taking the time to put the postmortem together. I've been
 very impressed with and appreciate the candor and thoughtfulness that have
 gone into the responses to this discussion. Growing pains are still
 pains, of course, but I'm hopefully optimistic that the Wikimedia
 Foundation is learning from its experiences, good and bad, as it matures.

 MZMcBride

 Let me second that sentiment. Thank you Sue, Erik et al. at the WMF. While
I'm sure there will be ongoing discussions about this topic on the mailing
lists and on-wiki, I too am heartened by the genuine concern,
non-defensiveness (in the face of criticism - including mine), and
willingness to investigate this issue.

Sincerely,
-Liam / Wittylama

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding

[Liam Wyatt]

Myself and several other community members who are heavily involved in the
development of 'Wikipedian in Residence' and GLAM-WIKI became aware of this
project in early 2012, just before the job description was published. I
will let them speak for themselves if they wish to weigh-in. But the TL;DR
version is we told them so.

We tried, oh how we tried, to tell the relevant WMF staff that this was a
terribly designed project, but the best we got in response was that we
could help edit the job description *after* it had already been published!
Some WMF staff 'got it' and tried to help but the process (Thank you to
those staff) was apparently already in motion and had too much momentum to
change. We did get to dilute the worst of the original job description so
it wasn't so blatant a paid editing role but our suggestions that the
position be 'paused' until the community could help was rejected because of
a deadline that had been set by Stanton/Harvard apparently.
Other concerns about reporting outcomes and where the money came from/to
have already been raised. The odd financial and organisational relationship
of Stanton-Harvard-WMF is just one of them.

The original job description (here
https://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=o52lWfw8c=qSa9VfwQ) is on the
WMF's page and says that Wikipedia, in cooperation with the Belfer Center...
is seeking applicants for a Campus Wikipedian with the first task of
the position being Researching relevant topics and improving the
articles.Stanton is not mentioned anywhere as the actual funding
organisation (are
we ok with that?), and since when does Wikipedia hire people?

Some of the issues that we were arguing about at the time included why,
when the GLAM-focused Wikimedians have tried to ensure that WiR roles are
about facilitating a relationship between the community and an
organisation's academics/researchers/curators/etc, does this position focus
on editing articles directly, for money. Even if that wasn't the actual
primary purpose it certainly LOOKED that way according to the job
description and you'd think that of ALL groups in the community the WMF
would see the 'red flag' of posting a job on its OWN contractors page
asking for a paid editor. Furthermore, the WMF have in the past frequently
refused to directly support WiR roles on the basis that this kind of direct
outreach was not its role but more a role of the Chapters (this is before
the current 'affiliation' system and before the 'Individual engagement
grants' etc. and in that situation their position was fair enough). And
yet, this position was a direct contradiction - the WMF ITSELF advertising
for a WiR and administering the payment of the person. At the very least
that made it feel like a double standard for the rest of us.
There was no transparency with the people in the community that could have
helped facilitate the successful 'birth' of the project - what should have
been a great recognition of our projects' value - but instead felt like a
betrayal of our hard-earned trust with the cultural/education sectors.

The WMF dug themselves into this hole despite the frantic attempts, which
were largely rebuffed, of several of the GLAM-WIKI community help them fix
it - or at least reduce the number of problems. Now, it's up to the WMF to
dig themselves out again. Ironic given the current attention being given by
the WMF to paid editing...

-Liam/Wittylama

On 21 March 2014 09:23, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 20 March 2014 21:51, Anasuya Sengupta asengu...@wikimedia.org wrote:
  Just to be clear and follow up on Lisa's mail: this project and process
 did
  not involve grants from WMF, and WMF's role (as Lisa explained) was as a
  fiscal sponsor, and thereby to provide initial advice as they began
  recruiting and to inform the community as they did so.

 I am sure you are technically correct, however the blog post that Lisa
 linked to[1] appears to directly contradict your statement. In
 particular it informed the community that:
 ... the Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce ... We're seeking
 an experienced Wikipedia editor for a one year,
 There is no qualification of any sort, so the blog post has been
 written so that the WMF is directly claiming to be running or
 responsible for the recruitment.

 Further, Stephen Walling states in a comment that:
  when we say we're looking for a Wikipedian, that means we are
 looking for someone experienced as a volunteer editor of the free
 encyclopedia.
 This statement can only be read as the WMF running the recruitment,
 there can be no other interpretation of we when this is on the WMF
 blog and written by a WMF employee.

 The post does state that This position is funded by a generous grant
 from the Stanton Foundation This philanthropic institution has
 supported ... the Wikimedia Foundation in the past.. However there is
 no implication that the Stanton Foundation were doing anything other
 than providing a grant to the WMF and that the WMF 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] (press release) Frank Schulenburg named executive director of new Wiki Education Foundation

[Liam Wyatt]

On 13 February 2014 10:04, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:

 
 On 12 February 2014 21:16, Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 [...]

 Congratulations to Frank, but...

  The Wiki Education
  Foundation, a new nonprofit organization that supports the Wikipedia
  Education Program in the United States and Canada

 ...why isn't this called The Wiki Education North America
 Foundation,, or suchlike?

 --


Good question Andy!
Moreover, as this is an independent organisation, why does the fact of it
getting a director deserve a WMF press-release? For comparison, has the
hiring of senior staff for any of the Chapters received a WMF-written press
release?
Nevertheless, I'm very pleased to see the WMF's pseudo chapter
direct-outreach activity spun out to being an independent organisation that
has to fight for grant money on a level-playing with the other
organisations that apply for WMF money. It will now have to justify why
fee-charging US universities need our donors money to support
editing-traning programs more than other programs that aren't WMF
originated or USA-focused. Relatedly, I note that on the QA that the
organisation is Based in San Francisco - I hope this means that it is not
getting free accommodation in the WMF offices as I'm sure there's lots of
other independent groups that would like free office space too.

-Liam
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