[Wikimedia-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

The Tullie House Museum in Carlisle has a number of objects on loan
from the British Museum,[3] and it appears that it is only those
objects that have any restrictions on photography. I took photographs
of two of these (without any flash), as the restrictions are
shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud, and not for any reason that
might protect the works from damage.[1][2] It seems incomprehensible
as to why the British Museum would ever want to make copyright claims
over ~2,000 year old works especially considering they are not a
money-making commercial enterprise, but a National institute and
charity, with a stated objective[4] that "the collection should be put
to public use and be freely accessible".

Does anyone have any ideas for action, or contacts in the Museum, that
might result in a change of how loans from the BM are controlled? I'm
wondering if the most effective way forward is to make some social
media fuss, to ensure the Trustees of the museum pay attention. The
reputational risk the apparent ignorance over copyright by the BM
loans management team seems something that would be easy to correct,
so changes to policy are overdue. My own experience of polite private
letters to a Museum's lawyer demonstrates that you may as well save
hours of volunteer time by filing these in the bin, compared to the
sometimes highly effective use of a few pointed tweets written in a
few minutes and shared publicly and widely across social media.

Those of us Wikimedians who work closely with GLAMs tend to shy away
from any controversy, wanting the organizations to move towards
sharing our open knowledge goals for positive reasons. I'm happy to
try those types of collegiate ways of partnering, however drawing a
few lines in the sand by highlighting embarrassing case studies, might
mean we make timely progress while activist dinosaurs like me are
still alive to see it happen.

Links
1. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_2nd_century_bronze_jug,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg
2. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_Fortuna_statue,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg
3. Tullie House, Roman Frontier exhibition:
http://web.archive.org/web/20161030151228/www.tulliehouse.co.uk/galleries-collections/galleries/roman-frontier-gallery
4. British Museum "about us":
http://web.archive.org/web/20170714042800/www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/management/about_us.aspx
5. Commons village pump discussion:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#British_Museum_and_blatant_copyfraud

Contacts
* https://twitter.com/britishmuseum
* https://twitter.com/TullieHouse

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

David,

Great to hear from you. A correction, as you seem to misunderstand who
I am. I am not conducting public relations. I am not paid for public
relations. I am simply an unpaid volunteer Wikimedian and I do not see
why I should apologize for that fact. The Wikimedia community is
supposed to be able to rely on this list to raise and discuss
organization issues, and I'm writing as a member of the community.

The term "copyfraud" is used standardly within the Wikimedia community
to describe false claims of copyright by institutions, there is no
special reason to avoid the word when it's a museum that is doing it.

I expect to be able to write about issues for the Wikimedia community
using language that we use in our community. I do not expect me, or
anyone else, to have their free speech here limited to language that
will fly well within WMF marketing or that will be diplomatic and
unchallenging for the British Library's public relations department.
If we see blatant copyfraud, the community should be free to call it
what it is.

Thanks,
Fae

On 28 July 2017 at 22:03, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28 July 2017 at 21:59, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rogol, it's worth repeating that the only one here talking about
>> fraudulent conduct is yourself.
>
>
> If you write a post containing the word "fraud" over and over, people
> are going to assume you are accusing someone of fraud.
>
> Particularly when you use a word like "copyfraud" which was
> specifically coined to carry the emotional freight of the concept of
> fraud.
>
> If you don't realise this, you may not be the best person to be
> conducting public relations on this matter.
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

Hi Geni,

Thanks for your feedback on copyright. Rather than my personal failure
or mistake, I find the argument that either simple or faithful
restoration work on an ancient artefact will mean it creates new
copyright for the museum unlikely, based on the absence of any
evidence I have seen on many Commons deletion requests that a similar
case has ever gone to court, whether in England, Wales or elsewhere.
In fact I do not recall any museum in the UK ever claiming copyright
in this way on a restored physical ancient artefact. The two artefacts
are ancient artefacts, not recent models or excessively creatively
restored, as far as I could tell by looking closely at them. The
massive hole in the jug, which you can see very obviously in photo I
took, is a bit of a giveaway that restoration has not been excessive.
If you have any alternative evidence, it would be great to share it.

If you take this further, it would be best to open up community
discussion on Commons. It would help if you could can pin down the
relevant parts of the copyright act, or even better provide some
documented cases, rather than making hypothecated assertions. The best
place to do that is in the deletion requests on the two photographs
that were opened yesterday. The links are:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:British_Museum_2nd_century_bronze_jug,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:British_Museum_Fortuna_statue,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg

As for the British Museum reference numbers, this was not an oversight
on my part. No references were quoted anywhere in the exhibition, nor
the exhibition guide, nor did a detailed search on the British Museum
database provide any more information about these two artefacts. I
have no idea why. I do have photographs of the descriptive information
panels against the artefacts, but as these may be copyrighted they are
not suitable for Commons. If anyone wants those photographs to help
research the artefacts further, I would be happy to email them.

Thanks,
Fae

On 29 July 2017 at 02:12, geni <geni...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28 July 2017 at 21:36, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Nobody believes that claiming copyright on 2,000 year old works
>
>
> And this is where your failure to understand English and Welsh law and
> the history of artifact handling become a problem.
>
> Your mistake is in assuming the only work here is from the 2000 year
> old sculptor and bronze worker. This is of course not the case. The
> reality is both items will have been subject to a certain degree of
> cleaning and "restoration" (you don't give British museum catalogue
> numbers so I can't look up exactly what). This is pretty common for
> any ah "headline" item that didn't go straight from the dig to a
> museum. Victorian collectors wanted complete statues for their
> collection and even today things can get a lot of work done to them
> (the Crosby Garrett Helmet for example).
>
> The Roman statue presumably entered the UK pre-1972 (if it didn't we
> have bigger concerns than copyright) which means there is a good
> chance it is from the imaginative restoration era. Has the restorer
> been dead for 70 years? I don't know and I don't think you do.
>
> The jug won't have come out of the ground looking like that. Has
> enough work been done to qualify for copyright or is it old enough for
> life+70 to have expired? I don't know. Do you?
>
>
> --
> geni
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia content for in-flight entertainment?

[Fæ]

As it happens, as part of my early career in avionics, I was
responsible for the software side of the flight certification of the
first inflight entertainment systems, both for CAA and FAA. Unless the
interpretation of regulations has significantly changed, the snapshot
of Wikipedia(s) would have to be static and would need to be part of a
verified release bundle. As well as testing the way any software that
displays Wikipedia pages can behave, there may be issues with allowing
certain formats of images or videos which may contain dead code or
could potentially carry a virus, such as might happen with SVG files.
Testing this might turn out to be a bit complex for the qualification
process, unless they took the easy option of text-only versions.

Though the entertainment system is hosted in a secure "playpen", and
so by design should be unable to affect other systems, all boxes and
software on the aircraft have to be tested as flightworthy and the
specific configuration needs to be set down on paper, so live updates
that by-pass certification are unlikely to be allowed. Consequently
any version of Wikipedia used in-flight will always be lagging current
events of interest.

Fae

On 31 July 2017 at 01:01, James Heilman  wrote:
> Amazing idea. I guess one could email them and offer this. Would not add
> weight on their end as it is simple digital. The entertainment system would
> be completely separate from the flight systems so would not have
> significant certification issues.
>
> James
>
> On Sun, Jul 30, 2017 at 4:50 PM, Lodewijk 
> wrote:
>
>> I know that KLM included some cuts from Wikipedia articles in their
>> onflight system to explain sights from at least San Francisco. Not sure
>> whether they made it scale, probably not.
>>
>> Lodewijk
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 12:13 AM, Pierre-Selim 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Certification process for the hardware of kiwix might be a tremendous
>> pain
>> > in the ass.
>> >
>> > And second point the airline will need a business case to cary more
>> weight
>> > (count about 3.5% of the weight as extra fuel burn per hour).
>> >
>> > That said I'd love to use Wikipedia on an IFE.
>> >
>> > Le 31 juil. 2017 00:02, "Daniel Mietchen" > com>
>> > a écrit :
>> >
>> > > Hi,
>> > >
>> > > during long flights, I have often been wondering why there is no
>> > > Wikimedia option in in-flight entertainment systems. As I am normally
>> > > offline during flights and I normally don't think about in-flight
>> > > stuff while on the ground, I never actually asked around, so after a
>> > > long flight yesterday, here we go:
>> > > Do any of you know of attempts to explore the option(s) to get
>> > > Wikimedia content onto in-flight entertainment and similar systems?
>> > >
>> > > Many of them already have educational content, but I am not aware of
>> > > anything openly licensed amidst those offerings. Have any of the Kiwix
>> > > team looked into this?
>> > >
>> > > Also, many airlines/ ships/ trains and others offer WiFi for a fee -
>> > > has the Wikipedia Zero team ever looked into engaging with such
>> > > "providers"?
>> > >
>> > > Thanks and cheers,
>> > >
>> > > Daniel
>> > >
>> > > ___
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>
>
>
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> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changing roles

[Fæ]

James, thank you for making a public statement. It sets a healthy tone
for good governance and transparency of how interests are managed.

Does anyone know if WMF board members will ever be required to make
public statements about perceived conflicts of loyalties, or indeed
actual commercial conflicts of interest? It may be a good subject for
the Wikimedia Foundation Board Governance Committee to set down a best
practice for.

Thanks,
Fae

On 16 August 2017 at 14:50, James Heilman  wrote:
> Hey All
>
> I am excited to have rejoined the board of the WMF during Wikimania. As per
> the requirements of the position I have stepped down from the board of
> WPMEDF. Shani Evenstein has taken over the role of chair. I will remain
> associated with the organization as a special advisory and funder. I have
> also not re-run for the board of WMCA but am leaving that organization in
> the excellent hands of Benoit and the rest of the board.
>
> Best
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> Member of the Board of Trustees, WMF
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Publicpolicy] Wikimedia Sverige vs. the Visual Copyright Society in Sweden (BUS)

[Fæ]

John,

The WMF has a large legal fund to support volunteers and projects like
Commons, which from my memory has only ever been paid out on a couple
of occasions (if anyone has a link to a list, I love to see it). At
least part of the 89,000 USD mentioned seems suitable for this
emergency funding, especially as Wikimedia Sverige cannot have been
expected to plan for these costs.

Has WMF legal been approached to give them a chance to say yes?

Thanks,
Fae

On 7 July 2017 at 16:41, John Andersson  wrote:
> Today we received some bad news in Sweden. The Swedish Patent and Market
> Court ruled against Wikimedia Sverige in a lawsuit filed by Visual Copyright
> Society in Sweden (BUS). The case concerns images of public art online, more
> specifically in the case of our website Offentligkonst.se, a service created
> by Wikimedia Sverige using images from Wikimedia Commons.
>
>
> The ruling means that Freedom of Panorama is eroded and the public space is
> diminished. It is a detrimental loss for our projects. Next we will talk to
> our lawyers and WMF legal team to see what our remaining legal options are.
> Our lawyers however believe that success is not very likely if we would
> decide to move forward.
>
>
> Intensive efforts to advocate for our elected officials to change the
> outdated and problematic clauses in Swedish copyright law will be initiated
> during the year.
>
>
> We have also started a crowdfunding campaign to cover some of the cost of
> the legal expenses and fines of about 750,000 SEK stated in the verdict
> (around 89,000 USD) and for future national and international lobbying
> efforts. Please consider making a donation at http://wikimedia.se/en/donera,
> even if it is a symbolic sum. Simply  add “BUS” in the comment, and all the
> money will be used for these costs.
>
>
> Some useful links (in Swedish):
>
> The legal argumentation from the court:
> http://www.bildupphovsratt.se/sites/default/files/upload/stockholms_tr_pmt_8448-14_dom_2017-07-06.pdf
>
> Our press release:
> https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/wikimedia-sverige/pressreleases/domslut-krymper-det-offentliga-rummet-i-sverige-2054679
>
> A timeline of what has happened:
> https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offentligkonst.se/Stämning
>
>
> Best,
>
>
> John
>
> - - - -
>
> John Andersson
>
> Executive Director
>
> Wikimedia Sverige
>
> Phone: +46(0)73-3965189
>
> Email: john.anders...@wikimedia.se
>
> Skype: johnandersson86
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Looking for your thoughts on the Wikimedia Foundation election cycle

[Fæ]

I have views on both votes, but I'll just share one, as I no longer
feel that sharing any more of my viewpoint about the WMF board and its
elections here or on-wiki would be welcome, or make any difference
apart from helping to paint a bigger target on my back.

Having James back on the board is helpful in demonstrating the
election has value in its currently limited format, and gave a strong
and unambiguous message back to the WMF board of trustees. He provides
some of us long termers a friendly private channel with a trustworthy
fellow volunteer, who has no worrying political or commercial
interests.

Fae

On 14 July 2017 at 20:46, Joe Sutherland  wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> The Support and Safety team is looking for your thoughts on the recent
> Wikimedia Foundation elections cycle - that is, the Board of Trustees
> elections in April/May, and the Funds Dissemination Committee meeting in
> May/June.
>
> What do you think went well, and what do you think could have gone better?
>
> I'd love your thoughts, either on this email thread or on the dedicated
> Meta-Wiki page:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2017/Post_mortem
>
> Feel free to email me privately if you'd like to.
>
> Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, good or bad. :)
>
> best,
> Joe
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[Wikimedia-l] Better public reporting for WMF $1m or $2m+ projects

[Fæ]

Could an unpaid volunteer who is not a WMF employee, or contractor, or
consultant, please have a go at answering my polite request for links
to "monthly or quarterly financial reports" from a few days ago,
below? I don't think this needs any time from employees to confirm
whether published versions exist or don't exist, and I don't want to
be publicly shamed for asking a question.[1]

I have searched through the WMF web pages with regard to the 2017
movement strategy,[2] but have yet to find any references or evidence
that there are regular reports of when or how the budgeted $2.5
million is being spent. Considering the large size of this project,
and especially the significant sums of money going to consultants, I
am sure everyone can appreciate there is bound to be interest from the
wider community in the progress of the spend and any unplanned spend.
I would expect that the strategy project has regular monthly tracked
spending reports, certainly I would find it hard to believe that the
WMF CEO and CFO do not require that level of tracking and reporting.

If nothing is published, then that would be a jolly good thing for our
movement to push for improved /public/ governance of $1m+ projects,
especially those with large sums going to consultants chosen using
non-open bid procedures, to deliver better transparency in line with
our movement values. The cost of this improvement would be zero. There
can be no doubt that summary reports already exist and there is
unlikely to be any reason for secrecy that would convince the
community that when spending very large sums of donated money, we can
be ethically transparent and accountable, but be unable to answer
these simple questions publicly.

Should the WMF CEO feel that publishing monthly or quarterly reports
on $1m+ projects is a pointless burden, then perhaps the CEO and WMF
board could agree at what level of spend there should be better
transparency, perhaps any identifiable programme spending more than
$2m?

Raising as a separate thread, as we have probably drifted away from
Pine's original question and intent.[3]

Links:
1. https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-June/087910.html
Statement from Greg and Anna.
2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
Strategy pages on Meta.
3. https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-June/087854.html
Pine's question.

Thanks,
Fae


On 27 June 2017 at 12:31, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27 June 2017 at 04:33, Anna Stillwell <astillw...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> ...
>>> * How much is this timeline extension projected to cost, and from what
>>> source are the funds being drawn? (Note that this doesn't assume that the
>>> decision was a bad one, but I very much want to know the source of the
>>> funds and how much is likely to be drawn from it.)
>>
>> We've got this covered, Pine. We are fiscally managing this process and all
>> of our contracts well. Thank you for your concern.
>>
>>> * Could you also discuss what measures are being taken to control costs in
>>> the strategy process?
>>>
>>
>> We have plenty of measures in place to monitor costs (e.g., we don't need
>> to control them because they are not out of control, we are within our
>> budget). Also, describing financial metrics at any lower level of detail
>> would be a waste of the strategy budget since we are within it.
>>
>> Always good to hear from you,
>> /a
>
> Anna,
>
> I'd love to examine the more detailed monthly or quarterly financial
> reports that demonstrate your assurance, and can be both examined and
> understood by volunteers like us. Could you provide a link to them
> please? No doubt the WMF wrote transparency and accountability right
> into the contracts, so that being transparent and accountable is not
> considered a "waste of the strategy budget" but instead is an activity
> absolutely critical to its success.
>
> Thanks,
> Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!

[Fæ]

Hi Jimmy,

Along with the public announcement to the press about Wikitribune, was
the story that you had immediately resigned from The Guardian's board
because the new company "will compete for staff, stories and
donations".[1] Will you be resigning from the WMF board of trustees
because the Wikitribune commercial venture is a conflict of loyalties?

This seems like an issue that the revitalized Wikimedia Foundation
Board Governance Committee should make an independent statement about,
considering the unique nature of your permanent unelected seat as a
WMF trustee?[2]

For the record, it is worth noting that in February 2016,[3] your
conflict of loyalties between being the successful owner of the Wikia
commercial venture, and holding a permanent seat on the board of the
Wikimedia Foundation was raised as a discussion topic on this list.
Wikia has never been publicly declared by the WMF board as a possible
conflict of interest, despite a history of staff migrating directly
from WMF to Wikia, and the obvious reputational benefits to Wikia from
having their owner sitting on the WMF board. In fact apart from
denying the possibility that this was an issue with your statement "I
have always declared, formally and in writing, my role at Wikia. I
have additionally worked to make sure that all board members know
about it, and I have on multiple occasions recused myself from votes
where there could be a perceived or actual conflict of interest", you
refused properly to engage further with discussing this potential
conflict of loyalties in 2016, nor did you supply any evidence of a
formal declaration apart from your email, nor has it ever been
declared in the public minutes of WMF board meetings as an interest if
you have recused from votes or strategic discussion at your meetings
as a trustee; though SJ confirmed that he thought you had declared
this as an interest in past board meetings, presumably this was
mistakenly and unfortunately left out of the minutes each time it
happened.

Thanks,
Fae

Links:
1. "Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales exits Guardian board over
conflict of interest with Wikitribune news site"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/25/wikipedia-co-founder-jimmy-wales-exits-guardian-board-conflict/
2. 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee
3. "Jimmy Wales' potential conflict of loyalties for Wikia Inc. versus
WMF" https://lists.gt.net/wiki/foundation/685587

On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales  wrote:
>
> Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities,
> to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with
> all of you information about this new initiative early on.
>
> The new project  will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with
> bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to
> produce fact-checked, global news stories.  At launch, we'll be using a
> hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the
> right tool moving forward.  Wordpress has a lot to
> commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms,
> active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite
> "top down" in a way.
> (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
>
> This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my
> vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to
> Wikimedians who tend to immediately
> get it.
>
> While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the
> Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work
> alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope
> that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can
> collaborate with the  Wikitribune community in way that allows both to
> learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will
> utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content
> projects in
> the news space - so they can take the stories written by our
> professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
>
> You can find out more information about Wikitribune at:
> https://www.wikitribune.com
>
> Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions!  (But I'm
> quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I
> answer in bursts!)
>
> --Jimbo
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

On 28 July 2017 at 21:29, Rogol Domedonfors <domedonf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Fae
>
> When you use the headline "Copyfraud by the British Museum" (to describe
> the actions of some other organisation) and link to a discussion ([5] on
> your list) where you used the phrase "fraudulent copyright claim"
> twice,there is no other reasonable interpretation of your words than to
> understand that you are accusing the BM of fraudulent conduct.  That is not
> a sensible basis for a serious discussion and I for one would not waste my
> rime getting involved with it: indeed I do not support your accusation in
> the slightest.
>
> You state that as a charity the BM "must avoid copyfraud in any
> circumstances".
> Since you are using that word to cover, broadly speaking, any action to
> claim or protect intellectual property rights that you don't like, they
> clearly do not have any duty to behave exactly as you personally might
> happen to prefer.  The question of harmonising intellectual property rights
> across various jurisdictions, the interaction between ownership of physical
> objects and their artisitic and photographic representations, the legal
> duties of charity trustees to achieve their charitable aims and their duty
> to maintain their ability to execute those aims, and all the other elements
> of this discussion deserve more than a causally dismissive "I'm not going
> to write an essay".  If you can't be bothered to explain your position, I
> can't be bothered to support it.
>
> If you really think your attitude of "I'm right, everyone else is wrong,
> and I'm not going to bother to be polite to people who don't do what I want
> the instant I demand it" is going to achieve anything practical, then I am
> not going to waste my time helping you to waste the time of people who have
> a job to do, which is rather more demanding, rather more worthwhile and
> rather less well paid than you choose to believe.

Nobody believes that claiming copyright on 2,000 year old works is
something that a British National Institution would want to defend.
The issue is expressed in that one sentence, an essay is really not
needed to explain it. So "I'm right, everyone else is wrong" does not
describe what this is about.

Thanks,
Fae

> "Rogol"
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 7:43 PM, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Rogol, thanks for your interest. I do not understand your reading
>> of my words. However when I wrote "the restrictions are
>> shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud" or "apparent ignorance over
>> copyright", neither can be interpreted as an accusation of fraudulent
>> conduct by anyone. If there is confusion about the word, I suggest
>> reading the Wikipedia article, it's quite interesting.[1]
>>
>> As for a reasoned case, I found the board level approved words on the
>> official website, describing why the British Museum exists (see my
>> original email), to be adequate enough to expect that their policies
>> and their implementation of policy must avoid copyfraud in any
>> circumstances. I'm not going to write an essay about something this
>> obvious, nor do I expect to have to doublethink myself into giving
>> positive reasons for a notice on an ancient artefact that claims it is
>> under copyright, just to potentially make a few middle-managers in the
>> administration of the two museums involved feel good about themselves.
>> They are probably paid well enough not to worry about my plain words,
>> or my simple-minded approach, failing to be politically diplomatic.
>>
>> As previously stated, I'd be only too happy for the BM or the THM to
>> get in touch. I'm even happy to have a chat over the phone as part of
>> taking steps to ensure that this exhibition is fixed, and cannot
>> reoccur in the display of future loans.
>>
>> Links
>> 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Fae
>> --
>> Fae
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
>> http://telegram.me/wmlgbt
>>
>> On 28 Jul 2017 19:09, "Rogol Domedonfors" <domedonf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Fae,
>> >
>> > I do know some people at the BM but I'm not going to waste their or my
>> time
>> > on claims that start off by accusing them of "fraudlent" conduct and
>> finish
>> > with demands that they immediately reverse their policies, just because
>> you
>> > say so.  If you were able to put together a reasoned case which showed
>> that
>> > you were aware of the positive and negative sides of

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

Hi Rogol, thanks for your interest. I do not understand your reading
of my words. However when I wrote "the restrictions are
shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud" or "apparent ignorance over
copyright", neither can be interpreted as an accusation of fraudulent
conduct by anyone. If there is confusion about the word, I suggest
reading the Wikipedia article, it's quite interesting.[1]

As for a reasoned case, I found the board level approved words on the
official website, describing why the British Museum exists (see my
original email), to be adequate enough to expect that their policies
and their implementation of policy must avoid copyfraud in any
circumstances. I'm not going to write an essay about something this
obvious, nor do I expect to have to doublethink myself into giving
positive reasons for a notice on an ancient artefact that claims it is
under copyright, just to potentially make a few middle-managers in the
administration of the two museums involved feel good about themselves.
They are probably paid well enough not to worry about my plain words,
or my simple-minded approach, failing to be politically diplomatic.

As previously stated, I'd be only too happy for the BM or the THM to
get in touch. I'm even happy to have a chat over the phone as part of
taking steps to ensure that this exhibition is fixed, and cannot
reoccur in the display of future loans.

Links
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud

Thanks,
Fae
--
Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt

On 28 Jul 2017 19:09, "Rogol Domedonfors" <domedonf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Fae,
>
> I do know some people at the BM but I'm not going to waste their or my time
> on claims that start off by accusing them of "fraudlent" conduct and finish
> with demands that they immediately reverse their policies, just because you
> say so.  If you were able to put together a reasoned case which showed that
> you were aware of the positive and negative sides of their and your
> positions, I might reconsider -- but to be honest, I'm not going to.
>
> "Rogol"
>
> On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 1:02 PM, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The Tullie House Museum in Carlisle has a number of objects on loan
> > from the British Museum,[3] and it appears that it is only those
> > objects that have any restrictions on photography. I took photographs
> > of two of these (without any flash), as the restrictions are
> > shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud, and not for any reason that
> > might protect the works from damage.[1][2] It seems incomprehensible
> > as to why the British Museum would ever want to make copyright claims
> > over ~2,000 year old works especially considering they are not a
> > money-making commercial enterprise, but a National institute and
> > charity, with a stated objective[4] that "the collection should be put
> > to public use and be freely accessible".
> >
> > Does anyone have any ideas for action, or contacts in the Museum, that
> > might result in a change of how loans from the BM are controlled? I'm
> > wondering if the most effective way forward is to make some social
> > media fuss, to ensure the Trustees of the museum pay attention. The
> > reputational risk the apparent ignorance over copyright by the BM
> > loans management team seems something that would be easy to correct,
> > so changes to policy are overdue. My own experience of polite private
> > letters to a Museum's lawyer demonstrates that you may as well save
> > hours of volunteer time by filing these in the bin, compared to the
> > sometimes highly effective use of a few pointed tweets written in a
> > few minutes and shared publicly and widely across social media.
> >
> > Those of us Wikimedians who work closely with GLAMs tend to shy away
> > from any controversy, wanting the organizations to move towards
> > sharing our open knowledge goals for positive reasons. I'm happy to
> > try those types of collegiate ways of partnering, however drawing a
> > few lines in the sand by highlighting embarrassing case studies, might
> > mean we make timely progress while activist dinosaurs like me are
> > still alive to see it happen.
> >
> > Links
> > 1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_2nd_
> > century_bronze_jug,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg
> > 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_
> > Fortuna_statue,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg
> > 3. Tullie House, Roman Frontier exhibition:
> > http://web.archive.org/web/20161030151228/www.tulliehouse.co.uk/galleries-
> > collections/galleries/roman-frontier-gallery
> > 4. British Museum "about us":
> > ht

[Wikimedia-l] Canmore database and claims of copyright on public domain works

[Fæ]

The Canmore database, https://canmore.org.uk, describes itself as the
"online catalogue of the National Record of the Historic Environment.
It holds detailed information and archive images for more than 300,000
places in Scotland." Canmore is part of Historic Environment Scotland
(HES).

I'm aware that Wikimedia UK has helped to fund several projects in
Scotland, so there is a network of contacts that could help take a
look at the problematic claims of copyright. Perhaps someone can offer
to take action to help Historic Environment Scotland reach a better
understanding of copyright and avoid basic copyfraud errors?

In theory this could be a marvelous reference resource for open
knowledge about the history of Scotland, but the online catalogue
seems more like a retail outlet geared to maximise the cash to be made
from selling archive images, many of which are obviously public
domain. There are two basic problems:
* The online archive is limited to 800px width images, with website
users directed to buy higher resolutions which are claimed to be a
minimum of 3,000 pixels wide.
* Regardless of age, source or photographer all images are claimed as
copyright with the conditions including "No permission is given for
any commercial use, distribution or reproduction in these terms.
Please use the BUY option for these purposes and separate licences
will be provided."

I would be delighted to release some of the public domain collections
from Canmore at high resolution to Wikimedia Commons, but at the
moment it's all locked down. In fact were I to try to release the
disappointingly small 800px versions of public domain images, even
using the "required" attribution to RCAHMS (which no longer exists), I
would be at personal risk of prosecution by HES based on the site
terms and conditions. See examples 1 and 2.

Examples:
1. Photograph of Hanover Street taken in 1870 by an unknown
photographer, making it likely to have been public domain from 1898.
https://canmore.org.uk/collection/466213
2. Over 950 photographs taken by Francis M Christal, who died in 1944,
making all photographs public domain in 2014:
https://canmore.org.uk/collection/result?GROUPCATEGORY=5_KEYWORD=Francis%20M%20Chrystal_items_page=40

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

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Canmore database and claims of copyright on public domain works

[Fæ]

Yes! I intended to post to the UK list, and thought I had until reading
this. Oops.

Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt

On 20 Aug 2017 15:59, "Lodewijk"  wrote:

Maybe a silly question, but is there no more specialized forum that would
be more suitable to have this conversation? I'm not sure if we need the
wide movement list to discuss the copyright policy of a particular UK
database. Or is there a specific expertise you're searching for? If so, I
somehow missed the question for that in the exchange.

Best,
Lodewijk

ps: sorry Andy if it annoys you. I do think there's a diverse set of
opinions on top-posting or not, these days. Especially as email clients
have changed to suit the needs of those that do. I fear it's a battle lost.

On Sat, Aug 19, 2017 at 7:46 PM, Todd Allen  wrote:

> Andy (or Fae), if you've corresponded with them, could you please post
that
> correspondence here?
>
> Todd
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Results of the 2017 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election

[Fæ]

+1 :-)

The elected candidates are ideal, making me feel confident that the
values and aspirations of the wider Wikimedia volunteer community will
be well represented in the coming year.

As previously mentioned, Alice and Jimmy were the main political
players in excluding Doc James from board discussions. The expulsion
of James from the board as an //elected// trustee has damaged the
reputation of the WMF board of trustees, and they must take fair
personal responsibility for those events. It would be great if both
Alice and Jimmy could speak up now, perhaps now thanking Doc James for
having the determination to run again for the board and ensuring the
community that they will do everything they can to ensure James is
supported and welcome, or have the wisdom to step down if they feel
unable to work collegiately and positively with their elected fellow
trustees.

The historical theme of the WMF board being directed by trustees that
have never stood for an open election is an embarrassment in the light
of the unnecessarily policial recent history of the WMF. We are
overdue for the board to be seen to get their fingers out, do some
meaningful housekeeping, and re-invent itself as one that is properly
open, transparent and accountable to volunteers as well as large rich
donors. Naturally, well intentioned folks who "happen to" benefit from
their sticky conflicts of interest in directly related commercial
ventures, such as Wikia and Wikitrubune, should not be anywhere near
the board, nor should they hold positions of influence on related
committees and trusts where the potential conflicts of loyalty
represent financial and reputational risks for the Wikimedia community
and the Wikimedia Foundation.

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

On 23 May 2017 at 12:34, Austin Hair  wrote:
> I normally hate +1s, but I want to congratulate Doc James on his
> reappointment to the board. I hope we've all learned from his previous
> term, and can work together to benefit the movement.
>
> With love,
>
> One of your list administrators, who would rather not have to deal with
> fiascos.
>
> On May 23, 2017 02:12, "Isaac Olatunde"  wrote:
>
>> Congratulations to the newly elected members and many thanks to members of
>> the election committee.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Isaac.
>>
>> On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 3:12 AM, Tito Dutta  wrote:
>>
>> > Many congrats to all the members. Good wishes and all the best.
>> >
>> >
>> > On 22 May 2017 at 11:53, Rogol Domedonfors 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Indeed.  It would be appropriate for members of the Board to state now,
>> > in
>> > > public and for the record, that they accept the democratically
>> expressed
>> > > wishes of the community and will reappoint James at the due time.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 12:18 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > matanya moses wrote:
>> > > > >Congratulations to María Sefidari (User:Raystorm), Dariusz
>> Jemielniak
>> > > > >(User:pundit), and James Heilman (User:Doc James) for receiving the
>> > most
>> > > > >community support. Subject to a standard background check, they will
>> > be
>> > > > >appointed by the Board at their August meeting at Wikimania.
>> > > >
>> > > > For those wondering, two of the people who supported James' removal
>> > from
>> > > > the Board of Trustees in December 2015 are still serving: Alice and
>> > > Jimmy.
>> > > >
>> > > > And the two people who opposed the resolution (Dariusz and James) are
>> > now
>> > > > among the three people being reappointed.
>> > > >
>> > > > * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:James_
>> > Heilman_Removal
>> > > > * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees
>> > > > * https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Former_Board_of_
>> > Trustees_members
>> > > >
>> > > > MZMcBride
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > ___
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>> > > > 
>> > > >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's go gender neutral

[Fæ]

Reminder! If you want to express your opinion in the English Wikipedia
Request for Comment on whether to adopt gender neutral language in
Wikipedia policies (but not articles or discussion pages), this is due
to be *closed this weekend* having reached 30 days for votes and
discussion.
Shortcut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/RFC_GNL
Full link: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RfC_to_adopt_a_default_gender_neutral_style_for_policy,_guidelines_and_help_pages

The tally is currently 80 support votes versus 61 oppose votes. That's
57.6% support. A non-controversial "supermajority", as used in some
past RfCs, would require over 60% support.

As a taster, here are 3 sample views expressed for support and oppose,
it's worth browsing through the RfC discussion section to get a feel
for the arguments raised and balance of evidence:

Support "I have no issues with this being done. Assuming proper
grammar is maintained, I think that this can probably be done without
an RfC. Though perhaps the opposition here proves otherwise."

Support "It does not affect others but helps those, who do not use he
or she as pronouns. Using they is also shorter than writing he or
she."

Support "I support the use of gender-neutral language in order to make
everyone feel welcome here at Wikipedia."

Oppose "I do not support altering our text to the proposed doublethink
new-language at the behest of a small minority of non-conformers who
perceive micro-aggressions from standard wording."

Oppose "I am a person, not an object. I was born a man, I will die a
man, and I demand to be referred to in a gender supportive language.
Don't force you preference for gender neutrality on the rest of us
through policy initiatives, otherwise it ceases to be neutrality and
becomes fascist in nature."

Oppose "A bridge too far, heavyhanded and unnecessary. Sure I'd be on
board with suggesting that generic "he" be replaced with singular
"they" or "he or she" or whatever. But, no, even "he or she" is
considered hostile. Sorry, I consider this an egregious case of
special pleading and first-world-problemism. How about instead lets
worry about how we are unwelcoming to women. That's a lot bigger
problem."

To see who said what, go to the RfC. :-)

Thanks,
Fae
Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+

On 7 April 2017 at 22:51, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
> An English Wikipedia gender neutral policy, similar to the one
> developed for Commons, is now under "lively" discussion in a Requests
> for Comment started this afternoon. You can read the proposed policy
> and join in by adding your viewpoint at:
> Shortcut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/RFC_GNL
> Full link: 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RfC_to_adopt_a_default_gender_neutral_style_for_policy,_guidelines_and_help_pages
>
> Some of the comments may be upsetting for some readers. I've actually
> been a bit surprised. If it's too much drama for you, go focus on
> something more fun.
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+
>
> On 5 April 2017 at 11:44, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> * 
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Defaulting_to_gender_neutral_language_in_the_Commons_namespace
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> One of the outcomes from my weekend at the Wikimedia Conference in
>> Berlin, was that the various discussions over /feeling/ more welcoming
>> in our language presumptions for non-male contributors made me think
>> about taking some practical steps on my home project. Commons is lucky
>> that having a standard policy language of English makes it easier to
>> use neutral gender in policy statements. I'm taking that further by
>> proposing that we stick to a neutral gender for all our policies and
>> help pages. In practice this means that policies avoid using "he or
>> she" and stick to "they" or avoid using a pronoun at all. I'm hoping
>> that the outcome will feel like a much more natural space for people
>> like me that prefer to stay gender neutral, possibly give a slightly
>> safer feeling to the project by the very act of making the effort, as
>> well as avoiding an over-emphasis on binary gender when it's pretty
>> easy to simply avoid it.
>>
>> Comments are welcome on the specific proposal, or you may have ideas
>> for other local projects to do something similar. I'm aware that this
>> is much more difficult to make progress on in languages such as German
>> or Spanish that have a presumption of male/female gender within their
>> vocabulary, so any cases of on-project initiatives in

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] June 23: Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#19)

[Fæ]

On 27 June 2017 at 04:33, Anna Stillwell  wrote:
...
>> * How much is this timeline extension projected to cost, and from what
>> source are the funds being drawn? (Note that this doesn't assume that the
>> decision was a bad one, but I very much want to know the source of the
>> funds and how much is likely to be drawn from it.)
>
> We've got this covered, Pine. We are fiscally managing this process and all
> of our contracts well. Thank you for your concern.
>
>> * Could you also discuss what measures are being taken to control costs in
>> the strategy process?
>>
>
> We have plenty of measures in place to monitor costs (e.g., we don't need
> to control them because they are not out of control, we are within our
> budget). Also, describing financial metrics at any lower level of detail
> would be a waste of the strategy budget since we are within it.
>
> Always good to hear from you,
> /a

Anna,

I'd love to examine the more detailed monthly or quarterly financial
reports that demonstrate your assurance, and can be both examined and
understood by volunteers like us. Could you provide a link to them
please? No doubt the WMF wrote transparency and accountability right
into the contracts, so that being transparent and accountable is not
considered a "waste of the strategy budget" but instead is an activity
absolutely critical to its success.

Thanks,
Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Fæ]

Taking María's statement on behalf of the WMF by itself, there are a
couple of simple in-line questions about handling governance I would
like to make, based on my experience with a number of governance
issues both within and outside of Wikimedia related organizations.

I'm sticking to this being a governance case, as the WMF Board can
only be expected to make resolutions on the basis of good governance.

On 11 October 2017 at 18:54, María Sefidari  wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> We would like to specifically address the allegations related to harassment
> in this thread’s original email. We take all allegations of harassment
> seriously. Earlier this year, the Board of Trustees was informed that
> allegations of harassment had been made against the Wikimedia Foundation
> Board Chair dating back to his time as chair of Wikimédia France. We
> immediately directed the Foundation to investigate. The Foundation employed
> independent, external experts and conducted an investigation. Based on the
> information presented, the investigation found no support for the
> allegations. That conclusion was conveyed to the Wikimedia Foundation Board
> as well as the chair of Wikimédia France.

The statement is short on factual detail despite being described as
specific. It would be reassuring if the following actions would be
considered by the Board, and responded to even if rejected:
1. Publish the timeline of events, which would be essential for any
governance review. Several events are implicit in the statement, but
absent any facts about when or who, they easily lead to later
confusion.
2. Publish the report from the investigators. If necessary this can be
redacted, however from emails that have been made a public record so
far, it's hard to imagine what now needs to remain confidential.
3. Explain who was contracted to produce the report and why and how
they were chosen.
4. Explain what information has been presented, so there can be no
doubt whether the WMF and the Board have been presented with all the
information available and the steps taken to ensure potential bias in
how information was selected was minimized, for example by not
pre-selecting who to talk to, rather than giving the investigators a
free hand to ask for interviews.

> The Wikimedia Foundation remains committed to independent investigation if
> presented with new information. Absent such information, we consider the
> allegations to be without merit.

This closing sentence seem to give a heavy implication that the Board
is aware that more information may exist than was used. It seems
unhelpful to have an investigation or review that does not take
proactive steps to gather information from all the stakeholders
identified so that it can stick as a final resolution. In the absence
of specifics, it's hard to imagine that anyone outside of the WMF
board will be able to understand if you are missing any critical
information, yet somehow that appears to be what you are expecting.

> On behalf of the Board,
>
>
> María Sefidari

Thanks for making a statement as a board to the email list, it's a
helpful communication channel to use this way. I appreciate that a
governance based response to allegations against a named trustee, will
not be the same as judging a harassment case that should happen
elsewhere.

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

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Appointment of Raju Narisetti to Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

[Fæ]

Could we keep the announcements list for announcements as per its limited
scope please? [1]

If someone could recommend an on-wiki page or email for Raju Narisetti,
this may be useful for those who wish to send personal congratulations or
thank you notes.

In light of the recent discussion of strictly limiting numbers of posts to
Wikimedia-l, limits on relatively content free thankspam might be a useful
idea, even if these are seen as keeping the political tone super-duper
positive.

Links
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Wikimedia_Announce

Thanks,
Fae

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt

On 16 Oct 2017 7:41 p.m., "Anna Stillwell"  wrote:

> Welcome, Raju.
> /a
>
> On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 11:19 AM, Christophe Henner  >
> wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Over the past year, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has been
> > reviewing and evolving our appointment and onboarding process for new
> Board
> > members. While that has resulted in some lingering vacancies, we knew it
> > was important to update these processes to help maintain a cordial and
> > productive Board.
> >
> > The updated appointment process provides the entire board with more
> > detailed (albeit private) information about each candidate’s background,
> > public profile, past professional and volunteer work, and ability to
> > contribute to the Board. The updated onboarding process is meant to help
> > Board members learn about the processes and expectations of our Board
> more
> > quickly to help reduce productivity lost to transitions. Special thanks
> to
> > everyone serving on the Board Governance Committee and Nataliia for the
> > work they have put into these improvements!
> >
> > I am also incredibly excited to share that these efforts have helped us
> > identify and appoint an amazing addition to the Wikimedia Foundation
> Board
> > of Trustees! At our October meeting, the Board appointed and welcomed
> Raju
> > Narisetti to fill one of the vacant expert seats.
> >
> > Raju is a veteran media executive and journalist and brings a wealth of
> > communications experience to the board. He is also a veteran of nonprofit
> > governance and currently serves on the board for the International Center
> > for Journalists and Institute for International Education. I am confident
> > he will be a very valuable addition to the board and thrilled that he has
> > agreed to join us!
> >
> > We will continue to make improvements to our governance processes, for
> > example with the learnings from the on-going governance review, and apply
> > what we have learned to future appointments and filling our remaining
> > vacancy. Thank you for everyone’s patience as we took a pause and worked
> on
> > recruiting the best possible candidates, rather than simply rushing to
> fill
> > the seats.
> >
> > In the meantime, below (and on the Wikimedia Blog) you will find the
> > official announcement about Raju Narisetti and please join me in warmly
> > welcoming him to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees and to the
> > Wikimedia movement!
> >
> > Christophe
> > Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> >
> > Raju Narisetti joins Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> >
> > Media veteran brings nearly three decades of global strategic experience
> in
> > digital media and audience development to the Wikimedia Foundation Board
> >
> >
> > Image:
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raju_Narisetti_-_
> > International_Journalism_Festival_2015.JPG
> >
> > San Francisco, CA, October 16, 2017 — The Wikimedia Foundation today
> > announced the appointment of Raju Narisetti, a veteran media executive
> and
> > journalist, to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.
> >
> > Raju brings more than 29 years of media experience across three
> continents.
> > He is currently CEO of Univision Communications Inc’s Gizmodo Media
> Group,
> > the publisher of websites including Gizmodo, Jezebel, Lifehacker and The
> > Root.
> >
> > “Raju has dedicated his life’s work to information as a public service.
> His
> > commitment to editorial integrity, independence, and inclusion is deeply
> > aligned with Wikimedia values. His passion and expertise in digital
> > strategy and international growth will be invaluable to our movement’s
> > future as we advance our global free knowledge mission,” said Wikimedia
> > Foundation Executive Director, Katherine Maher.
> >
> > Prior to joining the Gizmodo Media Group, Raju served as Senior Vice
> > President, Strategy, at News Corp, one of the largest media companies in
> > the world and the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and The Times of
> > London. In that role, Raju was responsible for identifying new digital
> > growth opportunities globally for News Corp.
> >
> >
> > “There has never been more urgency in Wikipedia's 16-year history than
> now,
> > for upholding the values of free exchange of information 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] September 28: Strategy update - Final draft of movement direction and endorsement process (#25)

[Fæ]

Ziko's point may not fit the rigid Americanocentric ideal of everything
must be positive, fantastic, yeehaw-we-are-number-one, but he's spot on
with how the foundations remain flawed.

Only ever hearing congratulations and thanks can get you to a win, but will
never keep you there.

Return to the talk page and use the criticism to help meaningful
improvements, please.

Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt

On 2 Oct 2017 14:56, "Ziko van Dijk"  wrote:

Hello Katherine,

This is actually sad news. In my opinion, the draft is far away from being
a useful and appropriate document for our future.

The serious issues from the talk page are only partially addressed in the
rewrite. So I contest your claim: "The version on Meta-Wiki is based on the
feedback you offered."

You have announced that organizations and individuals are invited to
endorse the draft. Will there also be a possibility to reject the draft? I
remember the 2011 image filter referendum, when the WMF asked the community
how important it finds the filter, but not giving the option to be against
it.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image_filter_referendum/en;
uselang=en

The drafts tries to enforce a new definition of the "community": "from
editors to donors, to organizers, and beyond". I thought that "community"
were people who are contributing to the wiki Wikipedia on a regular basis
as volunteers.

I am very positive of having an open Wikimedia *movement*. But if in future
more or less everybody will be *community*: that is in fact abolishing the
community.

Kind regards,
Ziko van Dijk





2017-09-30 22:28 GMT+02:00 Katherine Maher :

> Hi all,
>
> Since my update last month, we have been collecting, processing, and
> including your most recent input into the lastest version of the movement
> strategic direction. This version is available on Meta-Wiki.[1]
>
> We're so close! The direction will be finalized tomorrow, October 1.
> Starting tomorrow, we will begin to invite individuals and groups to
> endorse our movement's strategic direction. I want to share my greatest
> thanks and appreciation for the work and contributions so many of you have
> made throughout this first phase (Phase 1) of developing a shared
strategic
> direction.
>
> In the coming weeks we will be preparing for Phase 2, which will involve
> developing specific plans for how we achieve the direction we have built
> together. I do not have many more details to share right now, but will of
> course offer an update as they become available.
>
> *Strategic direction*. Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on the
> draft introduced at Wikimania. The version on Meta-Wiki is based on the
> feedback you offered.
>
> *Endorsements*. Once the strategic direction closes tomorrow,
> organizations, groups, and individuals within the movement will be invited
> to endorse the direction, in a show of support for the future we are
> building together. We'll be sending an update next week on the process and
> timeline.
>
> *Concluding Phase 1*. Please join me in offering thanks to the volunteers,
> staff, and contractors who came together to make this possible! As we
> transition into Phase 2, some of these roles will be concluded and new
ones
> created in their place. We'll keep you updated.
>
> *Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2017*. I was fortunate to join Wikimedians from
> Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) last weekend at the sixth annual
Wikimedia
> CEE Meeting[2] in Warsaw, Poland. Nicole Ebber and Kaarel Vaidla led a
> series of discussions on the direction, including what it means for
CEE.[3]
> Thank you our hosts, Wikimedia Polska, and to all of the attendees for
such
> a wonderful event!
>
> *In other news.* I've heard from many people how much you appreciate these
> updates as a means of keeping track about what is going on. I'm talking to
> the Communications department about keeping them going once the strategic
> planning process concludes, with a focus on more general updates. Keep the
> feedback coming.
>
> Since my last update, our planet has reminded us of its incredible and
> often unforgiving strength. My thoughts, and those of many within the
> Wikimedia Foundation, are with our Wikimedia family which have been
> affected by the natural disasters of recent weeks. We have been in touch
> with our affiliates in the areas impacted, and will offer any support we
> can.
>
> Finally, as our CFO Jaime mentioned last week,[3] the Foundation is in the
> process of moving into our new office, in One Montgomery Tower. We invite
> you to visit its new page on Meta-Wiki.[4]
>
> We are at the halfway mark of this movement strategy process, and I am
> incredibly proud of the work we have done together on the strategy. Thank
> you, again, to everyone for your contributions to this process. We have
> more work ahead but should be proud of what we have achieved already.
>
> Ten cuidado (Spanish translation: 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] September 28: Strategy update - Final draft of movement direction and endorsement process (#25)

[Fæ]

All possible stakeholders and participants in our 'value chain' should be
consulted and be part of developing strategy.

That does not make them all the same as the community that create our
projects or sustain our content long term. It's a mime that has been pushed
and stretched until the community of unpaid and "nonprofessional"
volunteers feel like second class citizens without a vote when it ever
matters.

Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt

On 2 Oct 2017 15:12, "Joseph Seddon" <josephsed...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Based on your definition of community does that mean that mediawiki
> developers are not part of the Wikimedia community?
>
> Are people who volunteer in the real world or teachers who incorporate
> Wikipedia into their classes not part of the Wikimedia community?
>
> Members of staff of GLAM institutions who we partner with and who
> evangelise on our behalf? Are they not part of the Wikimedia community?
>
> This more inclusive definition has long been used by some affiliates.
>
> To exclude these individuals would be against the very values of openness
> that we claim to represent and to be blunt, simply alienating.
>
> Seddon
>
> On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 3:10 PM, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Ziko's point may not fit the rigid Americanocentric ideal of everything
> > must be positive, fantastic, yeehaw-we-are-number-one, but he's spot on
> > with how the foundations remain flawed.
> >
> > Only ever hearing congratulations and thanks can get you to a win, but
> will
> > never keep you there.
> >
> > Return to the talk page and use the criticism to help meaningful
> > improvements, please.
> >
> > Fae
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
> > http://telegram.me/wmlgbt
> >
> > On 2 Oct 2017 14:56, "Ziko van Dijk" <zvand...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello Katherine,
> >
> > This is actually sad news. In my opinion, the draft is far away from
> being
> > a useful and appropriate document for our future.
> >
> > The serious issues from the talk page are only partially addressed in the
> > rewrite. So I contest your claim: "The version on Meta-Wiki is based on
> the
> > feedback you offered."
> >
> > You have announced that organizations and individuals are invited to
> > endorse the draft. Will there also be a possibility to reject the draft?
> I
> > remember the 2011 image filter referendum, when the WMF asked the
> community
> > how important it finds the filter, but not giving the option to be
> against
> > it.
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image_filter_referendum/en;
> > uselang=en
> >
> > The drafts tries to enforce a new definition of the "community": "from
> > editors to donors, to organizers, and beyond". I thought that "community"
> > were people who are contributing to the wiki Wikipedia on a regular basis
> > as volunteers.
> >
> > I am very positive of having an open Wikimedia *movement*. But if in
> future
> > more or less everybody will be *community*: that is in fact abolishing
> the
> > community.
> >
> > Kind regards,
> > Ziko van Dijk
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 2017-09-30 22:28 GMT+02:00 Katherine Maher <kma...@wikimedia.org>:
> >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > Since my update last month, we have been collecting, processing, and
> > > including your most recent input into the lastest version of the
> movement
> > > strategic direction. This version is available on Meta-Wiki.[1]
> > >
> > > We're so close! The direction will be finalized tomorrow, October 1.
> > > Starting tomorrow, we will begin to invite individuals and groups to
> > > endorse our movement's strategic direction. I want to share my greatest
> > > thanks and appreciation for the work and contributions so many of you
> > have
> > > made throughout this first phase (Phase 1) of developing a shared
> > strategic
> > > direction.
> > >
> > > In the coming weeks we will be preparing for Phase 2, which will
> involve
> > > developing specific plans for how we achieve the direction we have
> built
> > > together. I do not have many more details to share right now, but will
> of
> > > course offer an update as they become available.
> > >
> > > *Strategic direction*. Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on
> the
> > > draft introduced at Wikimania. The version on Meta-Wiki

Re: [Wikimedia-l] RFC on wikimedia-l posting limits

[Fæ]

Getting back to the proposed rules, the list moderators have always had
flexibility to use judgement. Creating extra bureaucracy is unlikely to be
a healthy 'fix', I would much rather first see the mods take whatever
action they feel is necessary to run a welcoming email list, and only start
agreeing new rules if their actions are then thought contentious by the
community.

The proposals on banned users seem draconian to my eyes, however if this
goes ahead I propose we start a more flexible "alt-wikimedia-l" where there
are fewer limitations, readership would be much smaller, and the blocked or
naysayers can still have a voice, so long as they are not using it for
personal attacks. Such an alternative channel would also help users to
draft any critical thoughts before posting to the main list, something that
would definitely help potential whistle-blowers ensure they have text that
is sufficiently fair and robustly written.

A point worth noting is that anyone writing on behalf of a WMF blocked user
risks being blocked by the WMF, based on my own experience.

Thanks,
Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt

On 23 Aug 2017 5:03 a.m., "John Mark Vandenberg"  wrote:

> Hi list members,
>
> The list admins (hereafter 'we', being Austin, Asaf, Shani and I, your
> humble narrator) regularly receive complaints about the frequent
> posters on this list, as well as about the unpleasant atmosphere some
> posters (some of them frequent) create.
>
> It is natural that frequent posters will say specific things that more
> frequently annoy other list members, but often the complaints are due
> to the volume of messages rather than the content of the messages.
>
> We are floating some suggestions aimed specifically at reducing the
> volume, hopefully motivating frequent posters to self-moderate more,
> but these proposed limits are actually intending to increasing the
> quality of the discourse without heavy subjective moderation.
>
> The first proposal impacts all posters to this list, and the last
> three proposals are aimed at providing a more clear framework within
> which criticism and whistle-blowing are permitted, but that critics
> are prevented from drowning out other discussions. The bandwidth that
> will be given to critics should be established in advance, reducing
> need to use subjective moderation of the content when a limit to the
> volume will often achieve the same result.
> --
>
> Proposal #1: Monthly 'soft quota' reduced from 30 to 15
>
> The existing soft quota of 30 posts per person has practically never
> been exceeded in the past year, and yet many list subscribers still
> clearly feel that a few individuals overwhelm the list. This suggests
> the current quota is too high.
>
> A review of the stats at
> https://stats.wikimedia.org/mail-lists/wikimedia-l.html show very few
> people go over 15 in a month, and quite often the reason for people
> exceeding 15 per month is because they are replying to other list
> members who have already exceeded 15 per month, and sometimes they are
> repeatedly directly or indirectly asking the person to stop repeating
> themselves to allow some space for other list members also have their
> opinion heard.
> --
>
> Proposal #2: Posts by globally banned people not permitted
>
> As WMF-banned people are already banned from mailing lists, this
> proposal is to apply the same ‘global’ approach to any people who have
> been globally banned by the community according to the
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_bans policy.
>
> This proposal does not prevent proxying, or canvassing, or “meat
> puppetry” as defined by English Wikipedia policy.  The list admins
> would prefer that globally banned people communicate their grievances
> via established members of our community who can guide them, rather
> than the list admins initially guiding these globally banned people on
> how to revise their posts so they are suitable for this audience, and
> then required to block them when they do not follow advice.  The role
> of list moderators is clearer and simpler if we are only patrolling
> the boundaries and not repeatedly personally engaged with helping
> globally banned users.
> --
>
> Proposal #3: Identity of an account locked / blocked / banned by two
> Wikimedia communities limited to five (5) posts per month
>
> This proposal is intended to strike a balance between openness and
> quality of discourse.
>
> Banned people occasionally use the wikimedia-l mailing list as a
> substitute of the meta Request for comment system, and banned people
> also occasionally provide constructive criticisms and thought
> provoking views.  This proposal hopes to allow that to continue.
>
> However people who have been banned on a few projects also use this
> list as their “last stand”, having already exhausted the community
> patience on the wikis.  Sometimes the last stand is brief, but
> occasionally a banned person is able to maintain 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New feature: LoginNotify

[Fæ]

Neat feature.

Who has access to the logs, and for how long will the logs be retained?

Thanks,
Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What is the purpose of the Wikimedia mailinglist

[Fæ]

Several emails on this topic have been essay length, including some from
list moderators. If post limits are halved, this may become more common.

Many readers, especially those like me viewing on a phone when scanning
through emails, will skip essays which are several screens long. Please
consider the good practice of opening with a one paragraph precis, or TLDR
section, for any long post. This way, those who have tiny screens, or short
attention spans, can get the point and will be much more likely to return
to the essay later.

Thanks, Fae (writing without a keyboard)

On 27 Aug 2017 09:50, "Peter Southwood" 
wrote:

Hey, it is nearly the end of the month, I will expend another rationed
posting to agree with  Gerard on this point because I think it is vitally
important. He expresses my sentiments very closely on this point, and
although I may disapprove of his tone occasionally, I think he is a fine
example of someone who may not always echo the mainstream opinion, but I
have never doubted his good faith intentions to improve the Wikimedia
projects.
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
Behalf Of Gerard Meijssen
Sent: Sunday, 27 August 2017 8:25 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] What is the purpose of the Wikimedia mailinglist

Hoi,
I was invited to positively give my opinion about the Wikimedia mailinglist
and its use by one of the list managers.

So the first thing to consider is what is the list for. This is largely a
given because of its name; it is to discuss things that are primarily
concerned with "Wikimedia" both as a movement and as an organisation. It is
not about Wikipedia in general, it has its own list; wikipedia-l, and there
are even lists for language specific Wikipedias.

The topic of Wikimedia makes it very much a macro or high level. It follows
that many of the subjects that are not topical elsewhere have there proper
home on this list. When a post transcends a local list because there is a
high level consideration, Wikimedia-l is also the right venue.

Some topics that are of interest to me and are high level are: the multi
linguality of our projects and its support. As a consequence the lack of
funding and interest in other languages. As a movement we agree on the need
to consider the gender gap. However there are other diversity issues that
do not get attention. When quality improvements are possible in multiple
projects, the discussion about this starts here.

What I have found is that this whole notion of the purpose of this list is
lost. When a topic raised on the list is answered with high level
arguments, it is easily seen as "highjacking". That is normal because from
a sociological point of view, high level considerations and low level
considerations often work in different directions (think Coleman).

Then there is another consideration; intent. The objective of this list is
to discuss ways whereby we can understand and improve what is happening in
our movement. For me it follows that when it is known for a list member to
actively undermine our foundation, he has no place here. That *is *the kind
of noise we can do without. When someone is punished for having a point of
view that aims to improve what we do but has a position that is not the
flavour of the month, it is a different story. The list itself has a
problem when these to considerations are not part of the management of the
list.

The current proposals will not improve the Wikimedia-l because it is
restrictive in its approach. It is what some people may want, a lower
volume. But others like myself have weaned themselves of Meta because it is
such a time sink. There are at this time other platforms as well where
people obstruct (imho) probably with good intentions but without
understanding of the arguments that it has become virtually impossible to
come to a consensus anyway. Floating arguments on Wikimedia-l is one way to
get a traction, actively working towards the hoped for outcome and blogging
makes it complete for me.

With the current restrictions proposed, I do not feel safe. There is no
longer room to reflect on arguments. There is no longer room to reply
because of this arbitrary limitation to post.

Remember, this list is to make a positive difference for our movement. Few
posts only allow for making statements and not for discussions. Many of the
arguments put forward are arguably wrong even detrimental to what we do.
Thanks,
  GerardM
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] BLP and the Wikidata / Wikipedia controversy

[Fæ]

On 27 September 2017 at 10:01, Jane Darnell  wrote:
> We don't need to ban statements when we can just deprecate them with a
> reason. I think the whole point is to allow differing views equal weight,
> based on sourced statements. By allowing statements to reside side-by-side
> like this, it will be easy to see which Wikipedia projects (or sub-areas of
> interest on Wikipedia projects) have the most disputed statements on
> Wikidata. Right now that would be English Wikipedia overall of course, just
> by sheer numbers of pages. However, we are already at a point where you can
> look at specific sub-areas (players of certain national sports for example)
> and look at the controversial statements per Wikipedia. It could be quite
> interesting.
>
> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 9:26 AM, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
>> Actually, I believe that at some point Wikidata will be ready to ban
>> unsourced statements (including sources to other Wikimedia projects unless
>> appropriate), which will automatically solve the BLP issue.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Yaroslav
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 8:37 AM, Peter Southwood <
>> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Yes, this is one of the reasons why data from Wikidata must only be
>> > included in a Wikipedia at the discretion of users of that specific
>> > Wikipedia, like images from Commons.
>> > Cheers,
>> > Peter
>> >
>> > -Original Message-
>> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
>> > Behalf Of Gerard Meijssen
>> > Sent: Sunday, 17 September 2017 10:14 AM
>> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
>> > Subject: [Wikimedia-l] BLP and the Wikidata / Wikipedia controversy
>> >
>> > Hoi,
>> > There is a lot to do about the current absence of a BLP policy at
>> Wikidata.
>> > Many people, particularly those involved in Wikipedia, insist on one and
>> a
>> > policy that is a mirror image of their policy.
>> >
>> > I am opposed to such an approach because it will be detrimental to the
>> > best practices in Wikidata and it will stifle the inclusion of data.
>> > Nevertheless there is a need for better quality particularly where it
>> > concerns BLP.
>> >
>> > Only being against is a bad position so I have laid out the arguments for
>> > a more inclusive BLP and quality approach [1]. It does bring many of the
>> > relevant questions together.
>> >
>> > What this approach accomplishes is:
>> > * better quality in both Wikipedia and Wikidata
>> > * an opt in change in the Wikipedia environment that links blue and red
>> > links to Wikidata items
>> > * it allows for the Wikidata best practices
>> > * it invites any Wikimedia collaborator to make a positive difference for
>> > our overall BLP.
>> >
>> > What it does not provide is an instant BLP solution for Wikidata, this is
>> > not realistic given the huge number of items involved, people often
>> > specific to one or no Wikipedia. It will not convince everyone and that
>> too
>> > is to be expected. After all the proof of the pudding is in the eating
>> and
>> > not so much in the endless bickering.
>> > Thanks,
>> >   GerardM
>> >
>> > [1]
>> > https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2017/09/wikimedia-
>> > and-its-blp-approach.html
>> > ___
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>> >
>> > ---
>> > This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
>> > http://www.avg.com
>> >
>> >
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As per 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] [Wmfall] New Developers Quarterly Report's first edition

[Fæ]

On 18 October 2017 at 12:12, Brian Wolff  wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 7:03 PM, Srishti Sethi  wrote:
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>>
>> I would like to share the first edition of the New Developers Quarterly
>> Report that the Developer Relations team has produced. This report covers
>> metrics, survey analysis and lessons learned from new developers focused
>> activities in the previous quarter (July-September 2017).
>>
>>
>> If you have questions and feedback that you would like to share with us,
>> please add them on the discussion page.
>>
>>
>> To receive a notification when a new report is published, subscribe here.
>>
>>
>> We plan to release a report every quarter and take action items identified
>> from the key findings for improving our existing methods and processes. The
>> next release will be in January 2018.
>>
>>
>> If you have any questions, comments, and concerns, we will be more than
>> happy to hear them!
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Srishti
>>
>>
>
> From the report:
>
>>Percentage of volunteers active one year (± 3 months) after their first 
>>contribution, out of all new volunteers attracted one year ago (between 
>>April–June >2016). (Source: Calculation on data)
>>
>>QoQ: -26.5%. YoY: -60.0%
>
> That's kind of scary
>
> --
> bawolff

Does the minus symbol in "-60.0%" mean anything? Being a retention
percentage, I do not understand how it can be negative unless
potential volunteers are getting rejected at the door before they can
sign-up. Could that be corrected?

Weak figures are unsurprising, at least when compared to other
percentages in the Wikiverse, like truly miniscule levels of new
editor retention that have been measured from investing in
edit-a-thons. However the first statement in the report of "we are
attracting around 54 developers per quarter and retaining 8% of them",
i.e. 4/54, feels low enough to have a review of whether the events to
attract developers are worth doing in their current formats. The
return on investment in terms of volunteer time and basic expenses,
must make them "non-successes".

P.S. while on the perennial issue of jargon, could we avoid
"noticings"? It's a neologism nobody ever needed, though I appreciated
the use of "taken with a grain of salt".

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wmfall] New Developers Quarterly Report's first edition

[Fæ]

On 18 October 2017 at 18:32, Brian Wolff  wrote:
> Fae wrote:
>>Does the minus symbol in "-60.0%" mean anything? Being a retention
>>percentage, I do not understand how it can be negative unless
>>potential volunteers are getting rejected at the door before they can
>>sign-up. Could that be corrected?
>
> My understanding is that this means that the rentention percentage was
> 60% (or is it percentage points?) less than it was this time last
> year.
>
> So its now 5%, but this time last year it was 12%.
>
> --
> bawolff

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I have a background as a
mathematician, but that report with second-order numbers had me foxed.

Now I think I understand the stats, I probably correctly appreciate
that whatever actions were taken in the last 12 months to retain
volunteers were not "non-successes", they are super fantastic
management team learning points for the coming year...

Suggestion, throw away the current plan and rather than using findings
to create incremental improvement,[1] try something completely
different before all the wheels fall off. I look forward to seeing
some serious radical initiatives.

Links:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Greener, plastic-free conferences and events

[Fæ]

On 21 November 2017 at 15:00, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
> I'm interested to see how we can make our conferences, not least
> Wikimania, and other events more green and, particularly, use less
> plastic.
>
> I see from:
>
>https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sustainability_Initiative
>
> that:
>
> 
>
> On February 24, 2017, the board of trustees of the Wikimedia
> Foundation adopted the following resolution as a result of this
> initiative:
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is committed to seeking ways to reduce the
> impact of our activities on the environment. We aim to always act
> responsibly and sustainably as possible, including favoring renewable
> energy for our operations. We believe that a long-term commitment to
> sustainability is an essential component of our work towards the
> Wikimedia mission and vision.To this end, the Wikimedia Foundation
> makes the following commitments:
>
> * We will seek to minimize our overall impact on the environment;
> * We will consider sustainability as an important part of decisions
> around servers, operations, travel, offices, and other procurement;
> * We will use green energy where it is available and financially prudent; and
> * Starting in 2018, we will include an environmental impact statement
> in our annual plan.
>
> 
>
> for example:
>
> * use cotton (not plastic) lanyards; or avoid lanyards altogether
> * don't give away cheap plastic pens, etc.
> * avoid bottled water, where tap water is potable, otherwise use glass bottles
> * avoid sandwiches in plastic (or plastic-lined) packs
> * avoid disposable cutlery and plastic plates
> * ensure waste is collected, appropriately sorted and recycled
>
> How can we build this into our movement?
>
> Should it be a consideration in assessing grant funding applications?
>
> Would a more specific resolution from the board help?
>
> Who at WMF has oversight responsibility for these issues?
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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> 

Thanks for raising the topic. It's been raised before, but there
should be more public credit given to events and conferences that make
the extra effort to be green.

I definitely support this being a more visible goal, along with
helpful checklists, for funding events. Logically the "environmental
impact statement" should be seen to flow down as requirements on all
affiliates, something I'll be looking for in 2018.

The biggest environmental impact from our conferences, comes from
staff and volunteers flying around the world, when the WMF and
affiliates could do more to encourage virtual meetings and to manage a
stronger virtual engagement. At the moment virtual participation at
WMCON or Wikimania is often limited to the odd livestreamed
presentation or small working group supported by a video hangout; it's
at a low level and it would be nice to see far more experimentation
with technology and virtual presence.

The deliberately small choices you mention of avoiding plastic or
encouraging attendees to do something simple like reuse and refill one
cup for the day, or ensuring that caters are serving local food with
low mileage,[1] makes a lot of sense. Even if this added slightly to
an event's expenses, I think everyone would applaud the deliberate
selection of venues and suppliers that make low environmental impact a
priority.

Links
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles

Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!

[Fæ]

On 21 October 2017 at 12:44, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales <jimmywa...@wikia-inc.com> wrote:
>>
>> Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities,
>> to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with
>> all of you information about this new initiative early on.
>>
>> The new project  will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with
>> bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to
>> produce fact-checked, global news stories.  At launch, we'll be using a
>> hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the
>> right tool moving forward.  Wordpress has a lot to
>> commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms,
>> active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite
>> "top down" in a way.
>> (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
>>
>> This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my
>> vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to
>> Wikimedians who tend to immediately
>> get it.
>>
>> While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the
>> Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work
>> alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope
>> that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can
>> collaborate with the  Wikitribune community in way that allows both to
>> learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will
>> utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content
>> projects in
>> the news space - so they can take the stories written by our
>> professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
>>
>> You can find out more information about Wikitribune at:
>> https://www.wikitribune.com
>>
>> Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions!  (But I'm
>> quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I
>> answer in bursts!)
>>
>> --Jimbo
>
> Would anyone like to give an update, with some verifiable sources, on
> what has happened to Wikitribune? Perhaps it will remain at an
> indefinite "venture capital stage" with no launch date, or maybe there
> been a decision to pull the plug?
>
> I have been hunting around for publications since the announcement on
> this list, and believe there has been none apart from a poorly judged
> "taster" article, based on an interview with Richard Curtis, which
> appeared intended to promote a forthcoming charity event aimed at
> media luvvies. The "taster" had a poor reception for its bias and
> errors.[1][2][3]
>
> In the light of how huge "fake news" has become this year, it is
> surprising that the team of journalists employed by Wikitribune for
> over six months (fack check please?) have missed out on the
> opportunity to be seen influencing press coverage of say, Trump,
> Brexit, Facebook ads or even planet Niburi by providing their own fact
> checks.
>
> Links:
> 1. Taster article:
> https://medium.com/wikitribune/wikitribune-taster-1-the-great-and-the-good-meet-to-promote-un-global-goals-729a22401bd3
> 2. Times response to the taster:
> https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jimmy-wales-wikitribune-s-weak-debut-rattles-backers-lily-cole-5zs3q37gs
> 3. Related announcement of launch edition, Aug 2017:
> https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/wikitribune-announces-launch-editor-and-plans-to-publish-first-edition-this-year/s2/a708086/
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

Update: My question was premature, The Times article from a week ago
includes a statement from Peter Bale that the launch edition will be
published at the end of this month.

The good news is that everyone will be able to assess the quality of
Wikitribune's "fact-checked global news stories" for themselves before
31st October.

Thanks,
Fae
-- 
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!

[Fæ]

On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales  wrote:
>
> Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities,
> to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with
> all of you information about this new initiative early on.
>
> The new project  will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with
> bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to
> produce fact-checked, global news stories.  At launch, we'll be using a
> hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the
> right tool moving forward.  Wordpress has a lot to
> commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms,
> active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite
> "top down" in a way.
> (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
>
> This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my
> vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to
> Wikimedians who tend to immediately
> get it.
>
> While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the
> Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work
> alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope
> that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can
> collaborate with the  Wikitribune community in way that allows both to
> learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will
> utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content
> projects in
> the news space - so they can take the stories written by our
> professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
>
> You can find out more information about Wikitribune at:
> https://www.wikitribune.com
>
> Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions!  (But I'm
> quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I
> answer in bursts!)
>
> --Jimbo

Would anyone like to give an update, with some verifiable sources, on
what has happened to Wikitribune? Perhaps it will remain at an
indefinite "venture capital stage" with no launch date, or maybe there
been a decision to pull the plug?

I have been hunting around for publications since the announcement on
this list, and believe there has been none apart from a poorly judged
"taster" article, based on an interview with Richard Curtis, which
appeared intended to promote a forthcoming charity event aimed at
media luvvies. The "taster" had a poor reception for its bias and
errors.[1][2][3]

In the light of how huge "fake news" has become this year, it is
surprising that the team of journalists employed by Wikitribune for
over six months (fack check please?) have missed out on the
opportunity to be seen influencing press coverage of say, Trump,
Brexit, Facebook ads or even planet Niburi by providing their own fact
checks.

Links:
1. Taster article:
https://medium.com/wikitribune/wikitribune-taster-1-the-great-and-the-good-meet-to-promote-un-global-goals-729a22401bd3
2. Times response to the taster:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jimmy-wales-wikitribune-s-weak-debut-rattles-backers-lily-cole-5zs3q37gs
3. Related announcement of launch edition, Aug 2017:
https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/wikitribune-announces-launch-editor-and-plans-to-publish-first-edition-this-year/s2/a708086/

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

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!

[Fæ]

On 21 October 2017 at 13:05, Isaac Olatunde <reachout2is...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Fae,
>
> Is there a possibility for you to contact Jimbo or any Wikitribune staff
> member about this? I don't just think a thread here on what has happened to
> Wikitribune serves any useful purpose.
>
> Regards,
>
> Isaac.
>
> On Oct 21, 2017 12:45 PM, "Fæ" <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales <jimmywa...@wikia-inc.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities,
>> > to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with
>> > all of you information about this new initiative early on.
>> >
>> > The new project  will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with
>> > bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to
>> > produce fact-checked, global news stories.  At launch, we'll be using a
>> > hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the
>> > right tool moving forward.  Wordpress has a lot to
>> > commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms,
>> > active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite
>> > "top down" in a way.
>> > (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
>> >
>> > This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my
>> > vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to
>> > Wikimedians who tend to immediately
>> > get it.
>> >
>> > While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the
>> > Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work
>> > alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope
>> > that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can
>> > collaborate with the  Wikitribune community in way that allows both to
>> > learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will
>> > utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content
>> > projects in
>> > the news space - so they can take the stories written by our
>> > professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
>> >
>> > You can find out more information about Wikitribune at:
>> > https://www.wikitribune.com
>> >
>> > Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions!  (But I'm
>> > quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I
>> > answer in bursts!)
>> >
>> > --Jimbo
>>
>> Would anyone like to give an update, with some verifiable sources, on
>> what has happened to Wikitribune? Perhaps it will remain at an
>> indefinite "venture capital stage" with no launch date, or maybe there
>> been a decision to pull the plug?
>>
>> I have been hunting around for publications since the announcement on
>> this list, and believe there has been none apart from a poorly judged
>> "taster" article, based on an interview with Richard Curtis, which
>> appeared intended to promote a forthcoming charity event aimed at
>> media luvvies. The "taster" had a poor reception for its bias and
>> errors.[1][2][3]
>>
>> In the light of how huge "fake news" has become this year, it is
>> surprising that the team of journalists employed by Wikitribune for
>> over six months (fack check please?) have missed out on the
>> opportunity to be seen influencing press coverage of say, Trump,
>> Brexit, Facebook ads or even planet Niburi by providing their own fact
>> checks.
>>
>> Links:
>> 1. Taster article:
>> https://medium.com/wikitribune/wikitribune-taster-1-the-great-and-the-
>> good-meet-to-promote-un-global-goals-729a22401bd3
>> 2. Times response to the taster:
>> https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jimmy-wales-wikitribune-s-weak-debut-
>> rattles-backers-lily-cole-5zs3q37gs
>> 3. Related announcement of launch edition, Aug 2017:
>> https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/wikitribune-announces-
>> launch-editor-and-plans-to-publish-first-edition-this-year/s2/a708086/
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Fae
>> --
>> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

Hi Isaac,

Jimmy Wales launched Wikitribune on this list, and was happy to answer
questions about it on this list.

So I guess it's an optimal place to raise questions, and I have no
reason to second guess Jimmy's judgement on the communication channels
he wants to use to talk about Wikitribune.

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

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!

[Fæ]

That's a useful distinction Isaac, thanks.

If Jimmy uses this list to start another thread about Wikitribune, we
should raise that with him. Sadly nobody thought to raise that issue
when there were only super positive comments about what a great idea
Jimmy's new company was.

Thanks,
Fae

On 21 October 2017 at 18:55, Isaac Olatunde <reachout2is...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Fae, Wikitribune is not a Wikimedia project but a project owned by one of
> the Foundation's trustee, Jimbo. Thus, any question about Wikitribune should
> be sent to Jimbo. I don't just see the need for this thread if there is a
> possibility to ask Jimbo personally.
>
> Regards,
>
> Isaac.
>
>
>
> On Oct 21, 2017 3:48 PM, "Fæ" <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 21 October 2017 at 13:05, Isaac Olatunde <reachout2is...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Hi Fae,
>> >
>> > Is there a possibility for you to contact Jimbo or any Wikitribune staff
>> > member about this? I don't just think a thread here on what has happened
>> > to
>> > Wikitribune serves any useful purpose.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> >
>> > Isaac.
>> >
>> > On Oct 21, 2017 12:45 PM, "Fæ" <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales <jimmywa...@wikia-inc.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia
>> >> > activities,
>> >> > to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with
>> >> > all of you information about this new initiative early on.
>> >> >
>> >> > The new project  will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with
>> >> > bringing together professional journalists and community contributors
>> >> > to
>> >> > produce fact-checked, global news stories.  At launch, we'll be using
>> >> > a
>> >> > hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's
>> >> > the
>> >> > right tool moving forward.  Wordpress has a lot to
>> >> > commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of
>> >> > newsrooms,
>> >> > active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite
>> >> > "top down" in a way.
>> >> > (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a
>> >> > newsroom!)
>> >> >
>> >> > This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my
>> >> > vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to
>> >> > Wikimedians who tend to immediately
>> >> > get it.
>> >> >
>> >> > While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the
>> >> > Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work
>> >> > alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I
>> >> > hope
>> >> > that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities
>> >> > can
>> >> > collaborate with the  Wikitribune community in way that allows both
>> >> > to
>> >> > learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will
>> >> > utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free
>> >> > content
>> >> > projects in
>> >> > the news space - so they can take the stories written by our
>> >> > professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
>> >> >
>> >> > You can find out more information about Wikitribune at:
>> >> > https://www.wikitribune.com
>> >> >
>> >> > Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions!  (But I'm
>> >> > quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I
>> >> > answer in bursts!)
>> >> >
>> >> > --Jimbo
>> >>
>> >> Would anyone like to give an update, with some verifiable sources, on
>> >> what has happened to Wikitribune? Perhaps it will remain at an
>> >> indefinite "venture capital stage" with no launch date, or maybe there
>> >> been a decision to pull the plug?
>> >>
>> >> I have been hunting around for publications since the announcement on
>> >> this list, and believe there has been none apart from a poorly judged
>> >> "tast

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems

[Fæ]

On 7 May 2018 at 10:01, FRED BAUDER  wrote:
> Women editors might have something to add about nursing and the history of 
> nursing that adds gender-specific value, increasing our coverage of the 
> subject. So a workshop at a nursing convention might be valuable.
>
> Fred
>
> - Original Message -
> From: Amir E. Aharoni 
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
> Sent: Mon, 07 May 2018 04:52:31 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
>
> 2018-05-07 9:55 GMT+03:00 Jane Darnell :
>
>> Amir,
>> It's funny - after reading your mail I wondered if I had read Romaine's
>> mail correctly.
>
>
> You had probably read it correctly.
>
> Generally, I'm wondering whether direct invitations to women or people of
> color (or women of color, etc.) work as they should. Many people say that
> they work. They may be right, at least in part. If I understand correctly,
> Romaine says that he has doubts about it, and he's probably right, too, at
> least for some people.
>
> I'm just trying to say that diversity is important. How do we reach it? I
> don't have very good answers. Probably not "one size fits all".
>
> I mean, I want that woman about whom Romaine was speaking to contribute her
> knowledge. I want everybody to contribute their knowledge. Unless I missed
> it, Romaine didn't write what is her expertise, but just for the sake of
> the example, let's make something up and say that it's Astronomy.
>
> Do I want her to contribute her knowledge about Astronomy? Of course I do.
> Should I tell her that I hope that she contributes her knowledge about
> Astronomy? I probably should. (Do correct me if I'm wrong.)
>
> Do I think that she has something to say about Astronomy that men don't?
> Yes, it's quite possible. Should I tell her that? Hmm, I don't know. Maybe,
> maybe not. I think that this is the question that Romaine is trying to
> raise. And again, please correct me if I'm wrong.
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> 

Thanks for reminding everyone that we live in the 21st Century, where
there are plenty of women role models at the top of previously male
dominated professions, not just nursing.

The Wikipedia community has the most success at correcting gender bias
by encouraging interested volunteers of any gender to create articles
which help correct that bias, in all subjects.

Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[Fæ]

On 4 May 2018 at 01:27, John Bennett  wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Many of you may have been receiving emails in the last 24 hours warning you
> of "Multiple failed attempts to log in" with your account. I wanted to let
> you know that the Wikimedia Foundation's Security team is aware of the
> situation, and working with others in the organization on steps to decrease
> the success of attacks like these.
>
> The exact source is not yet known, but it is not originating from our
> systems. That means it is an external effort to gain unauthorized access to
> random accounts. These types of efforts are increasingly common for
> websites of our reach. A vast majority of these attempts have been
> unsuccessful, and we are reaching out personally to the small number of
> accounts which we believe have been compromised.
>
> While we are constantly looking at improvements to our security systems and
> processes to offset the impact of malicious efforts such as these, the best
> method of prevention continues to be the steps each of you take to
> safeguard your accounts. Because of this, we have taken steps in the past
> to support things like stronger password requirements,[1] and we continue
> to encourage everyone to take some routine steps to maintain a secure
> computer and account. That includes regularly changing your passwords,[2]
> actively running antivirus software on your systems, and keeping your
> system software up to date.
>
> My team will continue to investigate this incident, and report back if we
> notice any concerning changes. If you have any questions, please contact
> the Support and Safety team (susa{{@}}wikimedia.org).
>
> John Bennett
> Director of Security, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Password_strength_requirements
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ChangePassword
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> 

Thanks for the update.

Could you please follow up with a public report about incident and the
analysis. There is plenty of data available in the public domain, and
an awful lot of users have been affected, there seems no special
reason to keep the basic analysis a secret even if some
behind-the-scenes changes might need to remain unpublished. I have
raised this as a Phabricator ticket as a prompt.[1]

By the way, the Wikimedia user community is still waiting for the
promised report on the OurMine hack of 11th November 2016. Could you
get on with it please? Leaving users hanging for more than a year for
analysis to get published is not a good look for the WMF, it leaves us
wondering if this type of standard analysis gets done properly or
not.[2]

Links
1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193846 Publish analysis of
sustained login attack of 3 May 2018
2. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T150605 Publish an analysis of
the OurMine hack

Thanks
Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [GLAM] Rapid Grants Closure May 14 - June 30, 2018

[Fæ]

On 2 May 2018 at 17:53, Strainu  wrote:
> 2018-05-02 1:51 GMT+03:00 Woubzena Jifar :
>> 3. On your third point of having the 1st - 15th of the month be an open
>> application time, this is also an experiment. We hope that this focused,
>> clear timeline will allow us to respond more quickly and help community
>> members understand the state of their application more easily.
>
> Woubzena, there used to be a time when the promise of the Rapid grants
> was that they would be reviewed weekly. I understand this is no longer
> possible, even if the wording is still present on meta. Does the new
> rule imply a promise from the WMF that the grants will be granted or
> refused withing the same calendar month?
>
> Regards,
> Strainu

On being experimental and responsive, it would be cool to bring back
some of the trust in grass roots volunteers, and consider funding a
system of very light-weight global microgrants using an open request
process on meta. Microgrants under $250, perhaps with a network of
long term identified local volunteers taking responsibility for
assessing that the money got spent on the right stuff, would be jolly
nice. Enough to pay for bits and bobs of travel expenses, software,
minor bits of hardware like accessibility or experimental kit.

The community has discussed this before, in fact the UK used to have a
productive micro-grant procedure, which I think has been abandoned for
staff managed grants. In terms of trust, I recall going to Amsterdam
to coordinate a GLAM related event with a cash wad of a dozen people's
expenses in my pocket. It felt very informal, but a great
demonstration of trust that volunteers could sort out their own checks
and balances. My main headache was ensuring that everyone got the
money as quickly as possible, so it was out of my wallet!

Any thoughts on lobbying for a tiny global budget to spend on a 100%
volunteer social and open simpleminded process, outside of any
Affiliates structure, with zero employee time needed to run it?

Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Movement Strategy: Endorse the strategic direction today! #wikimedia2030

[Fæ]

On 26 Oct 2017 09:00, "Nicole Ebber"  wrote:

Dear Wikimedians,

Today marks the final milestone of phase 1 of our movement strategy
process. Over the past eight months, many of you, of your peers,
colleagues, partners and friends have contributed to an endeavor that
resulted in the new Strategic Direction of the Wikimedia movement.

This direction provides us with an answer to the question: What do we
want to build and achieve as a movement over the next 10–15 years: By
2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the
ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be
able to join us.[1]

On behalf of the strategy team, it’s with great pleasure that I invite
you today to declare your intent to work together towards this future.
Organized groups as well as individual contributors of our movement
are invited to endorse the Strategic Direction by adding their
signature to the endorsement page on Meta-Wiki. You will find all
necessary instructions there.[2]

By endorsing the Strategic Direction, you are not necessarily agreeing
with every single outcome of the first phase. Endorsing means that you
commit to participating in the next phase of this discussion in good
faith and to help define, by Wikimania 2018, how to come to an
agreement on roles, responsibilities, and organizational strategies
that enable us to implement that future.

In addition to signing the meta page, you are all welcome to use the
#wikimedia2030 hashtag on social media to celebrate and share your
excitement with the world and encourage other Wikimedians to show
their support, too.

Ideally, please leave questions or remarks on the talk page, to make
it easier to follow-up in a structured way.

Thank you!
Nicole


[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
movement/2017/Direction#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
movement/2017/Direction/Endorsement

--
Nicole Ebber
Adviser International Relations
Movement Strategy Track Lead: Organized Groups

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts
Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig
anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

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Could Nicole, or someone else who is acting for the WMF, rephrase "Please
note that the strategic direction will not be renegotiated, and *the
endorsement is also a necessary step in order to participate in phase 2
discussions*." This needs clarification to ensure that the same values of
transparency and openness declared in the Movement Strategy applies to its
own process.

As currently worded, no afflilate that is committed to openness should
endorse the document, as it appears to create a closed club that
deliberately excludes all possible critical future voices. Whatever that
is, it is not the Wikimedia Community.

Thanks
Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Movement Strategy: Endorse the strategic direction today! #wikimedia2030

[Fæ]

Sorry Nicole, what you have written is ambiguous. Will all affiliates and
individual volunteers be able to be full participants in later discussion
on the strategy, to exactly the same level as those that endorsed phase
one?

Saying that nobody gets "banned" does not ensure an open process. I.e. that
those not in the "club" will have the same access privileges or will not be
simply ignored as "non-U".

Thanks
Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt

On 27 Oct 2017 09:50, "Nicole Ebber" <nicole.eb...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

Hi all,

By endorsing, people and organizations state that they agree that the
direction is the right way for us as a movement to move forward, and
that they commit to participate in phase 2 conversations in good
faith. And in phase 2, we will discuss how to fill this direction with
life. The next steps will will be designed as an inclusive process,
but we won't "oblige" anyone to contribute to phase 2, nor will we
"ban" people from it. A look into our FAQ can further clarify:

"How you use the outcomes of this discussion is up to you. Some
individuals or organizations may use it to inform programmatic or
organizational strategy. Others may see it as a way to connect with
the broader movement and invite others to contribute to Wikimedia.
Some may not use it at all – and that’s okay!

Practically, this does not mean that volunteers will be more
restricted in what activities they develop or engage in. Volunteers
will remain free to engage in activities that interest them and they
believe will most benefit Wikimedia and the world."
(https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
movement/2017/Frequently_asked_questions#How_will_this_
impact_me_or_my_organization.3F)

Hope that helps,
Nicole

On 27 October 2017 at 10:21, Lodewijk <lodew...@effeietsanders.org> wrote:
> I'm not sure how I missed that strongarm-statement ("the endorsement is
> also a necessary step in order to participate in phase 2 discussions").
I'm
> confident that this is a typo of a kind. It does not match with how I know
> the people in charge of this process.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 12:51 AM, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 26 Oct 2017 09:00, "Nicole Ebber" <nicole.eb...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Wikimedians,
>>
>> Today marks the final milestone of phase 1 of our movement strategy
>> process. Over the past eight months, many of you, of your peers,
>> colleagues, partners and friends have contributed to an endeavor that
>> resulted in the new Strategic Direction of the Wikimedia movement.
>>
>> This direction provides us with an answer to the question: What do we
>> want to build and achieve as a movement over the next 10–15 years: By
>> 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the
>> ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be
>> able to join us.[1]
>>
>> On behalf of the strategy team, it’s with great pleasure that I invite
>> you today to declare your intent to work together towards this future.
>> Organized groups as well as individual contributors of our movement
>> are invited to endorse the Strategic Direction by adding their
>> signature to the endorsement page on Meta-Wiki. You will find all
>> necessary instructions there.[2]
>>
>> By endorsing the Strategic Direction, you are not necessarily agreeing
>> with every single outcome of the first phase. Endorsing means that you
>> commit to participating in the next phase of this discussion in good
>> faith and to help define, by Wikimania 2018, how to come to an
>> agreement on roles, responsibilities, and organizational strategies
>> that enable us to implement that future.
>>
>> In addition to signing the meta page, you are all welcome to use the
>> #wikimedia2030 hashtag on social media to celebrate and share your
>> excitement with the world and encourage other Wikimedians to show
>> their support, too.
>>
>> Ideally, please leave questions or remarks on the talk page, to make
>> it easier to follow-up in a structured way.
>>
>> Thank you!
>> Nicole
>>
>>
>> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
>> movement/2017/Direction#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity
>> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
>> movement/2017/Direction/Endorsement
>>
>> --
>> Nicole Ebber
>> Adviser International Relations
>> Movement Strategy Track Lead: Organized Groups
>>
>> Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
>> V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amt

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Movement Strategy: Endorse the strategic direction today! #wikimedia2030

[Fæ]

Gerard, apart from you, has anyone written "no: this is wrong and I will do
everything in my power to see this plan dismissed for the crap I think it
is"

Unless you are using Trumpist tactics of spreading fake news to deride and
smear others, please source any controversial quotes.

Thanks
Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt

On 27 Oct 2017 11:28, "Gerard Meijssen"  wrote:

Hoi,
You get it backwards; Yaroslav indicates that he EXPECTS not to be heard.
It does not follow that what people say will not be noticed and it does not
follow that they may not be involved in the process of realising the
strategy.

The option to be heard has nothing to do with the position on the strategic
vision but everything on the way an opinion is phrased. There is much in
the strategic vision that is not controversial and where we can easily
agree on a way forward. Lets be simple about this and collaborate. The
devil is in the detail and obviously the vision is not what will be
realised; it is a map of how we envision the future.

When you want to be heard, what you want to be involved in the process, be
part of the process. Do not say "no: this is wrong and I will do everything
in my power to see this plan dismissed for the crap I think it is".  Find
it in yourself to remain part of our community, involve yourself positively
in the ongoing processes because it is a Wikimedia tradition to be bold and
go where we have not gone before.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 27 October 2017 at 08:27, Peter Southwood 
wrote:

> It would be interesting to know who made the decision that persons who do
> not endorse phase I will be excluded from further involvement in the
> process, and how that decision is justified in the context of Wikimedia
> project traditions.
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Yaroslav Blanter
> Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2017 7:56 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Movement Strategy: Endorse the strategic
> direction today! #wikimedia2030
>
> For the record, at the talk page of the endorsement page,
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_
> movement/2017/Direction/Endorsement
>
> we have a small number of contributors, including myself, who explain why
> they refuse to endorse the document. I do not expect us to be heard
though.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 6:28 PM, Kaarel Vaidla 
> wrote:
>
> > Dear fellow Wikimedians,
> >
> > As a volunteer member of some of the support groups for phase 1 of
> > movement strategy process [1], I am excited about the Endorsement Day
> > and am one of the people who has *individually endorsed
> >  > movement/2017/Direction/Endorsement#Individual_contributors>*
> > strategic
> > direction
> >  > movement/2017/Direction>
> > .
> > With my letter to Wikimedia-l I would like to remind everyone that
> > there is this possibilty of individual endorsement that may not have
> > really been highlighted. So, if you personally feel like endorsing the
> > direction, you are more than welcome to do that!
> > I am happy to see already quite many endorsements on respective meta
> page.
> > I am also happy that there are people presenting their discord with
> > strategic direction in a constructive way on the endorsement
> > discussion page
> >  > movement/2017/Direction/Endorsement>.
> > I think that it is important not only to endorse or not endorse the
> > document, but also to give rationale why it is done. I believe that
> > this will help us in moving forward together with Phase 2 and learn as
> we go.
> > As a result I have written a small essay in my user namespace
> >  > Endorsement_of_Wikimedia2030>
> > presenting some of the reasons why I am happy with what we have
> > achieved in phase 1 and with having a strategic direction for our
> > movement. You may agree or disagree, but I feel it is important to
> express one's opinion.
> > Also I encourage everyone else to share their reasons for liking or
> > disliking the direction with wider Wikimedia public, so we can learn
> > more and have even more meaningful phase 2.
> > I thank you for your time and kind attention!
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Kaarel Vaidla
> >
> > [1] Namely, Community Process Steering Committee
> >  > ess/
> > Steering_Committee>,
> > Track A Advisory Group
> >  > k_A/
> > Advisory_Group>
> > and Drafting Group
> >  > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 4 February 2018)

[Fæ]

On 4 February 2018 at 06:13, Pine W  wrote:
> P.S. Do people like these "What's making you happy this week" emails? Few
> people respond to them, so I don't know whether people like them, feel that
> they are a nuisance, or are indifferent. If you would like to share
> feedback, you can email me off-list or leave a message on my Meta talk page
> . If you like these threads
> then you are welcome to contribute your own Wikimedia-related good news to
> them, which I would be glad to read.

I like them and on the whole are informative.  It makes a
change to read positive messages which have content, as most other
positive messages tend to be pile on congratulations-spam, which can
be pretty irritating if they make your email ping ten times in the
same day. 

What's making me happy this week is finding my upload project stopped
by getting IP blocked by the Library of Congress, but then discovering
their rather good improvements to making all records publicly
available in JSON format, in turn making the upload project give
better results on Commons.[1]

Links
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/LOC
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2019

[Fæ]

On 7 February 2018 at 11:06, Felix Nartey  wrote:
> Congratulations Wikimedia Sweden!
>
> On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 8:40 AM, Leinonen Teemu 
> wrote:
>
>> Heja Sverige! Congratulations!
>>
>> Making me happy this week,
>>
>> - Teemu
>>
>> On 7 Feb 2018, at 3.58, Ellie Young  yo...@wikimedia.org>> wrote:
>>
>> *All,On behalf of the Wikimania Steering Committee and the Wikimedia
>> Foundation, I am pleased to announce that we have decided to have Wikimania
>> located in Sweden in 2019.

Hi Ellie,

Is there a good on-wiki page for people to leave their names and
congratulation messages for WMSE and/or the Wikimania Steering
Committee for their decision?

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RFC on wikimedia-l posting limits

[Fæ]

On 23 August 2017 at 05:03, John Mark Vandenberg  wrote:
> Hi list members,
>
> The list admins (hereafter 'we', being Austin, Asaf, Shani and I, your
> humble narrator) regularly receive complaints about the frequent
> posters on this list, as well as about the unpleasant atmosphere some
> posters (some of them frequent) create.
>
> It is natural that frequent posters will say specific things that more
> frequently annoy other list members, but often the complaints are due
> to the volume of messages rather than the content of the messages.
>
> We are floating some suggestions aimed specifically at reducing the
> volume, hopefully motivating frequent posters to self-moderate more,
> but these proposed limits are actually intending to increasing the
> quality of the discourse without heavy subjective moderation.
>
> The first proposal impacts all posters to this list, and the last
> three proposals are aimed at providing a more clear framework within
> which criticism and whistle-blowing are permitted, but that critics
> are prevented from drowning out other discussions. The bandwidth that
> will be given to critics should be established in advance, reducing
> need to use subjective moderation of the content when a limit to the
> volume will often achieve the same result.
...
>
> The RFC is at 
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/wikimedia-l-post-limits
>
> However please also feel welcome to reply on-list if you wish to
> express explicit support or opposition to any of the four proposals
> above (please identify them by number, to ease counting).  We will
> count votes (here and on the meta RFC) after two weeks, and post a
> more refined final version back to this mailing list.
>
> The list administrators will default to *enacting* all four proposals,
> but will refrain from enacting any proposal receiving more opposition
> than support.
> --
> John Vandenberg

The RFC has yet to be closed, after being open for over five months.
Could someone close it or reject it?

In practical reality, the hardline talk about posting limits, seems to
have resulted in significantly reduced posts to this list. The
statistics are somewhat worrying, casting doubt on the long term
future of this list staying active or interesting.

The standard statistics [1] show participation is at a record low. My
sense of the list is that real content discussions are now minimal,
with announcements and thankspam outnumbering thoughtful observations
or critiques.

Picking out one trend to illustrate, here are comparative numbers for
last month against other Januarys in the last few years, which is a
simple way to compensate for seasonal variation:
  2018, 139 posts
  2017, 370 posts
  2016, 989 posts
  2015, 445 posts
  2014, 571 posts

Rather than increasing negative bureaucracy on the list to stop people
posting too much, perhaps the list moderators have some views on how
to positively encourage people to engage with the community here?

Links
1. https://stats.wikimedia.org/mail-lists/wikimedia-l.html

Thanks,
Fae
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[Wikimedia-l] Pixel tracking by Wikimedia

[Fæ]

I have been trying to work how the WMF or its suppliers have chosen to
use pixel tracking methods on Wikimedia projects, and exactly what
data is tracked, who can access it and if it ever gets officially
deleted, but failed so far.

There was some past speculation that some banners were using pixel
tracking, but apart from the cookie statement published by request of
WMF legal in 2015,[1] I have been unable to find precise explanations
of how this has been part of banner design, used on external landing
pages, or whether pixel tracking had ever been used more directly by
being integrated or tested on Wikimedia projects. Naturally this leads
to questions about legitimate use of pixel tracking data and what/who
it is tracking.

It would be much appreciated if anyone can provide a link to an
official statement given by the WMF that pixel tracking is used on its
sites outside of fundraising banners, or its supplier's sites, and any
example cases or reports of where it is happening.

Links
1. https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cookie_statement

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Wikimedia Foundation has soft launched!

[Fæ]

Agree with Jane. Wow. For those unaware, Antoine Musso is a WMF
Software developer, which you would never know based on their email
signature.

Hey fellow long-term unpaid volunteers. Remember that the WMF was
created by us not that long ago, and had a single mission, to support
us volunteers and our shared open knowledge mission?

A drip, drip of "communication failures", along with the core
Americanocentic obsession with hearing praise and ignoring critics
must change, or we will all eventually take the hint that we are
neither wanted or needed here, and find or establish a new and more
rewarding place to have fun. Do we really need a revolution to flip
the WMF upside down, or is there a better way to speedily reshape the
WMF so it regains its focus on the outside world rather than the
brilliance of its employees?

Fae

On Wed, 22 Aug 2018 at 09:55, Jane Darnell  wrote:
>
> Wow. Just...wow.
>
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 10:24 AM Antoine Musso  wrote:
>
> > On 21/08/2018 21:01, Andy Mabbett wrote:
> > >> The text I cited has now been changed to "All text on Wikimedia sites
> > >> is available as Creative Commons material".
> > >>
> > >> This does not resolve the issue I raised above; as my first bullet
> > >> point applies not only to media files, but also to numerous texts on
> > >> Wikimedia sites; not least a large part of Wikisource.
> > > This is still the case. When will it be fixed? Will it?
> > >
> > >>> Furthermore, the "Sesame Street" image used on the site's home page
> > >>> and the linked article, is labelled on Commons: "This work might not
> > >>> be available under a free license in the United States because it is
> > >>> based on an artwork or sculpture that may be protected by copyright
> > >>> under U.S. law."
> > >> This image is still on the pages I mentioned.
> > > And still is; over two weeks after I first pointed it out. No-one at
> > > WMF has even acknowledged my comment.
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > As several people pointed out, the issues should be reported on
> > Phabricator. As "a b" stated on August 12th:
> >
> > >
> > > Please file the relevant tasks in phabricator to enable better tracking
> > of
> > > issues compared to on the mailing list:
> > >
> > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/1/?tags=wikimediafoundation.org
> >
> > To which you kindly replied:
> >
> > > Thank you; no.
> >
> > So your concerns will be acknowledged once they make their way to
> > Phabricator. You can login there with your wiki account.
> >
> > Until you do so, your concerns will stay under the radar on this list.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Antoine "hashar" Musso
> >
> >
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[Fæ]

Dear Security group of the Wikimedia Foundation,

The community has been patiently waiting for *113 days* for an
analysis to be published for the login attack of 3 May 2018.

The community has been waiting for *650 days* (that's around one year
and 10 months) for an analysis of the OurMine hack to be published.

We are repeatedly, and at times rudely, advised by WMF employees to
raise Phabricator tickets for these types of task, which now appears
to be deliberately bad advice if the tickets can remain open but
languish as "Needs Triage" and ignored by the WMF for a period of
years or indefinitely until the community conveniently forgets about
them.

The OurMine hack was an important breach of Wikimedia project
security, and though the precise details may not be smart to make
public as this might risk becoming guidance for future hackers, nobody
can object to a potted summary and analysis of how severe the attack
was, and what types of steps the WMF has taken to ensure this will
never be repeated.

Links
1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193846 Publish analysis of
sustained login attack of 3 May 2018
2. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T150605 Publish an analysis of
the OurMine hack (11 November 2016)

Thank you for helping out with better community communication,
Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On Fri, 4 May 2018 at 10:40, Fæ  wrote:
>
> On 4 May 2018 at 01:27, John Bennett  wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Many of you may have been receiving emails in the last 24 hours warning you
> > of "Multiple failed attempts to log in" with your account. I wanted to let
> > you know that the Wikimedia Foundation's Security team is aware of the
> > situation, and working with others in the organization on steps to decrease
> > the success of attacks like these.
> >
> > The exact source is not yet known, but it is not originating from our
> > systems. That means it is an external effort to gain unauthorized access to
> > random accounts. These types of efforts are increasingly common for
> > websites of our reach. A vast majority of these attempts have been
> > unsuccessful, and we are reaching out personally to the small number of
> > accounts which we believe have been compromised.
> >
> > While we are constantly looking at improvements to our security systems and
> > processes to offset the impact of malicious efforts such as these, the best
> > method of prevention continues to be the steps each of you take to
> > safeguard your accounts. Because of this, we have taken steps in the past
> > to support things like stronger password requirements,[1] and we continue
> > to encourage everyone to take some routine steps to maintain a secure
> > computer and account. That includes regularly changing your passwords,[2]
> > actively running antivirus software on your systems, and keeping your
> > system software up to date.
> >
> > My team will continue to investigate this incident, and report back if we
> > notice any concerning changes. If you have any questions, please contact
> > the Support and Safety team (susa{{@}}wikimedia.org).
> >
> > John Bennett
> > Director of Security, Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Password_strength_requirements
> > [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ChangePassword
> > ___
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> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
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> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>
> Thanks for the update.
>
> Could you please follow up with a public report about incident and the
> analysis. There is plenty of data available in the public domain, and
> an awful lot of users have been affected, there seems no special
> reason to keep the basic analysis a secret even if some
> behind-the-scenes changes might need to remain unpublished. I have
> raised this as a Phabricator ticket as a prompt.[1]
>
> By the way, the Wikimedia user community is still waiting for the
> promised report on the OurMine hack of 11th November 2016. Could you
> get on with it please? Leaving users hanging for more than a year for
> analysis to get published is not a good look for the WMF, it leaves us
> wondering if this type of standard analysis gets done properly or
> not.[2]
>
> Links
> 1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193846 Publish analysis of
> sustained login attack of 3 May 2018
> 2. https://phab

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Israel joins the nationwide strike to protest the exclusion of gay couples the right to become parents

[Fæ]

Congratulations to the Wikimedia Israel board for taking positive
action for equality.

Fae
--
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Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 at 08:57, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel
 wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> A few days ago, the Israeli parliament, with the support of Israeli Prime
> Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, blocked a legal change on that would have
> given the LGBT community the right to become parents. The new law denies
> state-supported surrogacy to LGBT couples and single men.
>
> In response, Israel’s LGBT Task Force called publicly for a strike on
> Sunday, "The LGBT community is calling upon you, the LGBT and community
> supporters, to join us in a one-day nationwide strike on Sunday, July 22,
> Tisha Be’av".
>
> During the last few days, a huge list of big companies and organizations in
> Israel *publicized *their support and joined the strike by allowing their
> employees to take a paid day off work to join the nationwide protest.
>
> This morning, the board of Wikimedia Israel, alongside with other
> organizations joined this call and published this announcement:
> https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaIL/posts/1716487061739276
> https://twitter.com/WikimediaIL/status/1020214512392302592
> 
>
> *"Wikimedia Israel supports the just struggle for full equality, led by the
> Israeli LGTBQ community.*
>
> *Equality to every woman and man, regardless of gender, sexual preference,
> religion, origin, or disability is a central value in the international
> Wikimedia Movement. *
>
> *The current outcry for the right for parenthood, indiscriminate medical
> treatment, and protection against violent statements by public figures
> against the LGTBQ community, is a part of the grand and continuous struggle
> for full rights and legitimacy to the Israeli LGTBQ community, and we
> support them in their struggle."*
>
>
>
> *Itzik Edri*
> Chairperson
> it...@wikimedia.org.il
> +972-54-5878078
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Israel joins the nationwide strike to protest the exclusion of gay couples the right to become parents

[Fæ]

I understood the point you were making.

However if we agree on full equality, then please recognise that when
a state allows surrogacy for heterosexual couples but makes it
unlawful for same sex couples, this is anti-LGBT discrimination.

If you want to complain about surrogacy in Israel because you believe
all surrogacy exploits women, perhaps you would benefit from
contacting lobby groups in Israel who aim to make all surrogacy
illegal. There are plenty of statements on record from women who
happily volunteer to be surrogates and the law in Israel is well
defined, has been around for two decades, ensures that the surrogate
mother fully understands what they are doing, and the assessment board
always includes a professional social worker.[1]

However when you choose to derail a discussion that is no more and no
less than same sex couples being treated equally and being given equal
access for parental rights and medical support, then your actions will
be read as supporting the use of the law as a weapon for anti-LGBT
discrimination. Saying you support LGBT rights, or that you are LGBT+
yourself, does not change the way your words affect the rest of us.

Links
1. 
https://www.health.gov.il/English/Topics/fertility/Surrogacy/Pages/default.aspx

Thanks,
Fae
--
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On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 at 11:18, Mario Gómez  wrote:
>
> Hi Fæ,
>
> On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 11:46 AM, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > In Wikipedian fashion, let us stick to the published statement by
> > Wikimedia Israel without making unnecessary inferences.
>
>
> That is what I do as a Wikipedia editor. But I don't find it reasonable
> when it comes to WMF and affiliates activities. This would effectively mean
> "stick to what WMF and affiliate says and don't complain".
>
>
> > WMIL made a
> > positive statement to support equality, and we know that equality is
> > repeated in the Wikimedia Values and echoed in the developing future
> > strategy
> >
>
> It is probable obvious from my previous emails, but I don't agree with this
> framing of the issue. Taking surrogacy as simple issue of equality is
> missing most of the debate about it.
>
> My fellow colleages against surrogacy include a majority of women
> (including L*BT) and a quite a few men too (including *GBT). I assure you
> that for us, surrogacy is a form of exploitation of women, primarily women
> of lower social classes and specially from less-developed countries.
> Following the the trend of simplifying things to fit the Wikimedia Values,
> I would say that, in order to promote equality, we should support all women
> rights. And in doing so, in case of conflict, we should prioritize the
> right to live, and live free of violence and exploitation. Hence, the WMF
> should be clearly positioned against surrogacy regardless of who the
> intended parents are. But no, I'm not proposing this, because of the
> reasons in my previous emails.
>
> And yes, just in case you were wondering, I strongly support the movement
> for LGBT rights, but I don't think this is a simple case of LGBT _rights_
> and it also involves women rights, which are largely ignored.
>
> Best,
>
> Mario

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Israel joins the nationwide strike to protest the exclusion of gay couples the right to become parents

[Fæ]

In Wikipedian fashion, let us stick to the published statement by
Wikimedia Israel without making unnecessary inferences. WMIL made a
positive statement to support equality, and we know that equality is
repeated in the Wikimedia Values and echoed in the developing future
strategy.[1][2]

The statement "Equality to every woman and man, regardless of gender,
sexual preference, religion, origin, or disability is a central value
in the international Wikimedia Movement" is not unreasonable. It is
hard to imagine that anyone disagreeing with this principle would be
able to personally support the current Wikimedia Values. It is also
correct to say that affiliates like the WMIL chapter add value to the
robustness and diversity of the global Wikimedia community by not
simply cloning the WMF values and strategy, but as part of their
reason to exist ensure that their programmes and strategies more
directly reflect the needs of their own members and community.

If anyone wants to work on this in detail, especially if they believe
that we can create and maintain an "inclusive culture"[1] and deliver
on "cultivate an environment where anyone can contribute safely, free
of harassment and prejudice"[2] while avoiding making positive
statements about equality, and choosing to stay silent about groups
including LGBT+ groups that suffer prejudice and discrimination by
their state because some may see that as unnecessarily political, then
I encourage them to talk this through by using logical and civil
discourse either during the current WMF driven strategy development
process or in consultation with local affiliate organizations.[3]
Though Wikimedia projects are not a free soapbox, our values guarantee
that critical voices are not silenced and rational on-topic discussion
is always welcome.

1. 
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values#We_welcome_and_cherish_our_differences
2. 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity
3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy

Cheers,
Fae
-- 
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On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 at 09:46, Mario Gómez  wrote:
>
> I see.
>
> Yes. Part of the LGBTQ collective considers surrogacy to be related to
> their rights. I completely acknowledge that.
>
> Best,
>
> Mario
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 4:01 AM, Gregory Varnum 
> wrote:
>
> > I think you misunderstood my point there. ;)
> >
> > I was speaking to your comment that it was incorrectly labeled a LGBTQ
> > issue because of adoption. I did not mean to suggest no one is against
> > surrogacy or that they are not promoting adoption as an alternative. I was
> > indicating that to my knowledge those organizations are not telling
> > non-LGBTQ people that the laws are not of interest to them because they can
> > adopt. Looking at their sites, they seem to want all people (LGBTQ and
> > non-LGBTQ) to see it as related to their lives and rights.
> >
> > Again, I am not commenting here on if organizations should engage, just
> > pointing out that regardless of someone’s stance on the issue or this
> > action, the issue remains one of relevance to LGBTQ rights (and others) and
> > WMIL labeling it as a LGBTQ rights issue was accurate. :)
> >
> > -greg
> >
> > ___
> > Sent from my iPhone - a more detailed response may be sent later.
> >
> > > On Jul 21, 2018, at 3:25 AM, Mario Gómez  wrote:
> > >
> > > On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 2:56 AM, Gregory Varnum <
> > gregory.var...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> As far as it being an alternative, that is usually true, but it is also
> > >> true for non-LGBTQ families and I am not aware of viable political
> > >> movements successfully suggesting non-LGBTQ families should not worry
> > about
> > >> surrogacy laws as adoptions are an alternative option for them.
> > >>
> > >>
> > > Well, so you just met someone who suggests exactly that for non-LGBTQ
> > > families and who actively participates in campaigns against legalization
> > of
> > > surrogacy in his country.
> > >
> > > This is actually a position held by many organizations, just to name a
> > few:
> > > the "National Network Against Wombs for Rent" and the  "We are not Pots"
> > > campaign in Spain or the "Mexican Feminists Against Wombs for Rent" in
> > > Mexico.
> > >
> > > These positions are also held by some feminist authors such as Kajsa Ekis
> > > Ekman, Sylviane Agacinski or Silvia Federici.
> > >
> > > My point is not trying to convince you of my position. I do not think
> > this
> > > is the right forum to debate politics beyond WMF mission. My point is
> > that
> > > if the WMF or its affiliates take such positions beyond its mission, it
> > > will be extremely damaging to the community, since this is just
> > alienating
> > > to all members of the community whose political positions do not match
> > > exactly WMF's framework 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Israel joins the nationwide strike to protest the exclusion of gay couples the right to become parents

[Fæ]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 at 13:12, Mario Gómez  wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 1:41 PM, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > However when you choose to derail a discussion that is no more and no
> > less than same sex couples being treated equally and being given equal
> > access for parental rights and medical support, then your actions will
> > be read as supporting the use of the law as a weapon for anti-LGBT
> > discrimination. Saying you support LGBT rights, or that you are LGBT+
> > yourself, does not change the way your words affect the rest of us.
> >
>
> Yes, it is not the first point that I read this "you look anti-LGBT". It
> will probably be the case for some people. I could say that proponents of
> these positions _look like_ rich white people, predominantly male, who are
> classist and anti-women right. Is that characterization fair? I don't think
> so, but it might look like it for some people.

No it is not "fair", it is a way of dismissing equality for LGBT+
people by parodying and stereotyping all of us with views in this area
as rich white men. That is wrapping distasteful bigoted views in soft
words.

By saying these offensive things you have made this discussion a lot
easier, as your complaint is based on prejudice and assumptions rather
than facts, evidence or logic. Thanks for making that clear.

Again I recommend you take your lobbying to another place where others
can keep asking you for evidence, reliable sources and the format may
help you stick to rational discussion.

> I don't think this kind of dispute can be resolved within the Wikimedia
> community. Doing so would push people on the "losing" position to just
> leave the community and let it be as ideologically homogeneous as the WMF
> and the winning side of the community wants it to be. I find increasingly
> worrying that this seems the path we're following very happily.
>
> Best,
>
> Mario
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Israel joins the nationwide strike to protest the exclusion of gay couples the right to become parents

[Fæ]

Let's be clear.

The anti-surrogacy movement may not be anti-LGBT, I basically said
that in my previous email. If you want to lobby against surrogacy,
there is no problem with doing so in the right forum, and as all legal
surrogacies over the last 22 years in Israel have been *100% for
heterosexual couples* as enshrined in the wording of the 1996 act, you
should be lobbying against that existing act, which by definition has
involved not one single same sex couple, so the only legal surrogacy
cases you can possibly discuss and lobby against have nothing to do
with LGBT+ parental rights or access.

Your actions hijacking a statement by WMIL for LGBT+ equality, are
anti-LGBT+ as was your nasty stereotype of those that dare to speak
openly about LGBT+ equality as being right-wing supporting rich white
men.

This same stereotype has been used against LGBT+ rights discussion my
entire life, long before #fakenews was invented. It is untrue,
insidious, offensive, closes down civil discussion and deliberately
marginalising. I have no doubt that your purpose in being here is not
to help our open knowledge movement but to use any convenient soapbox
to be offensive and disruptive.

Fae

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 at 13:29, Mario Gómez  wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 2:26 PM, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 at 13:12, Mario Gómez  wrote:
> >
> >
> > No it is not "fair", it is a way of dismissing equality for LGBT+
> > people by parodying and stereotyping all of us with views in this area
> > as rich white men. That is wrapping distasteful bigoted views in soft
> > words.
> >
> >
> Of course it is not fair. I agree, that's what I said. My point is that it
> is as unfair as stereotyping anti-surrogacy movement as anti-LGBT.
>
> Best,
>
> Mario
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ¿Qué te hace feliz esta semana? / What's making you happy this week? (Week of 11 March 2018)

[Fæ]

The flowchart is under discussion as part of deciding how to advise on
use of the proposed "120" year rule of thumb for old images without an
author's death date. So no, it's not ready for uploaders to see it
yet.

You can join in on the discussion about the chart and the new template
at 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Cut-off_date_for_PD-old_files#Summary

Fae

On 15 March 2018 at 16:01, Todd Allen <toddmal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Fae, I really like that flowchart. Is it linked somewhere that uploaders
> can see it?
>
> Todd
>
> On Mar 15, 2018 7:09 AM, "Fæ" <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 1. Happy to rediscover Clipboard History plugin in Chrome. It saves
>> the frustration of hunting around, or rewording, a reusable snippet of
>> wikitext on Commons image pages.
>> 2. As part of a Commons discussion on copyright, for the first time in
>> a couple of years created a flowchart, and experienced the same
>> pleasure in setting out logic in this old fashioned way as I used to
>> experience in the 1980s. ... Do kids learn about von Neumann these
>> days?
>>
>> Links
>> * https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clipboard-history-2/
>> ajiejmhbejpdgkkigpddefnjmgcbkenk
>> * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Commons_
>> flowchart_for_old_public_domain_images.svg
>> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
>>
>> On 11 March 2018 at 05:08, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > What's making me happy this week:
>> >
>> > 1. A recent entry in the Mozilla Blog discussed the possible value of
>> > anonymity in decreasing bias in code review processes:
>> > https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2018/03/08/gender-bias-code-reviews/
>> >
>> > 2. The opt-in "pingback" telemetry from MediaWiki installations, which is
>> > available since March 2017, suggests that there are more than 40,000
>> unique
>> > installations. See:
>> > https://pingback.wmflabs.org,
>> > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgPingback and
>> > https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Pingback_
>> Privacy_Statement.
>> >
>> > There is also some news which is a little older and I am now getting
>> around
>> > to sharing here:
>> >
>> > 3. A research project has been started which aims to test whether vandal
>> > activity can be detected in (near) real time, which may open
>> opportunities
>> > for interventions earlier in the process of publishing edits. See
>> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/ai/2018-January/000221.html.
>> >
>> > What's making you happy this week? You are welcome to write in any
>> language.
>> >
>> > Pine
>> > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>> > ___
>> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
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>> wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>> Personal and confidential, please do not circulate or re-quote.
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ¿Qué te hace feliz esta semana? / What's making you happy this week? (Week of 11 March 2018)

[Fæ]

1. Happy to rediscover Clipboard History plugin in Chrome. It saves
the frustration of hunting around, or rewording, a reusable snippet of
wikitext on Commons image pages.
2. As part of a Commons discussion on copyright, for the first time in
a couple of years created a flowchart, and experienced the same
pleasure in setting out logic in this old fashioned way as I used to
experience in the 1980s. ... Do kids learn about von Neumann these
days?

Links
* 
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clipboard-history-2/ajiejmhbejpdgkkigpddefnjmgcbkenk
* 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Commons_flowchart_for_old_public_domain_images.svg
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

On 11 March 2018 at 05:08, Pine W  wrote:
> What's making me happy this week:
>
> 1. A recent entry in the Mozilla Blog discussed the possible value of
> anonymity in decreasing bias in code review processes:
> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2018/03/08/gender-bias-code-reviews/
>
> 2. The opt-in "pingback" telemetry from MediaWiki installations, which is
> available since March 2017, suggests that there are more than 40,000 unique
> installations. See:
> https://pingback.wmflabs.org,
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgPingback and
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Pingback_Privacy_Statement.
>
> There is also some news which is a little older and I am now getting around
> to sharing here:
>
> 3. A research project has been started which aims to test whether vandal
> activity can be detected in (near) real time, which may open opportunities
> for interventions earlier in the process of publishing edits. See
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/ai/2018-January/000221.html.
>
> What's making you happy this week? You are welcome to write in any language.
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
> 



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of Grŵp Defnyddwyr Cymuned Wicimedia Cymru

[Fæ]

Support the request that AffCom share their understanding of the scope
and authority of the announced User Group.

From the wording of "represent Wikimedia UK in Wales"[1], the UG is
not independent of WMUK and consequently acts as a Chapter subsidiary.
As far as I am aware, there is no other regional based UG which does
this.

As a corollary, the representation has legal implications for UK
Charity. WMUK must have both responsibility and the authority to
monitor and control how they are represented by the UG. It is not
clear from the meta web page or the community vote how this will work,
apart from the implicit assumption that funding paid to UG projects is
effectively managed as a WMUK continuing programme. Presumably the UG
will not be requesting funds from the WMF or via the FDC process
separate from WMUK's FDC procedure.

The original vote at the Welsh Wikipedia compared the aims to that of
the Basque UG.[2] However based on their scope, the Basque UG does not
officially represent any other affiliate or Chapter.

Links
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Wales
2. 
https://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicipedia:Sefydlu_Gr%C5%B5p_Defnyddwyr_Wicimedia

On 19 March 2018 at 00:10, Philip Kopetzky  wrote:
> Hi Kirill!
>
> It would be really helpful to outline these kind of decisions with
> arguments/deliberations that AffCom decided to follow, considering that
> this sets a precedence in the worldwide community. For example, UG Wales
> states that they "cooperate with and represent Wikimedia UK in Wales" -
> does this mean that we are now accepting UGs within chapters? Is this UG
> supposed to be able to apply for grants, despite its overlap with WMUK?
>
> Best,
> Philip
>
>
>
> On 11 March 2018 at 15:44, Shlomi Fish  wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 11 Mar 2018 10:32:34 -0400
>> Kirill Lokshin  wrote:
>>
>> > Hi everyone!
>> >
>> > I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
>> > Grŵp Defnyddwyr Cymuned Wicimedia Cymru (Wikimedia Community User Group
>> > Wales) [1] as a Wikimedia User Group. The group aims to promote the
>> > Wikimedia movement in Wales and support the development of Wikimedia
>> > projects and content in the Welsh language.
>> >
>> > Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
>> >
>>
>> congratulations!
>>
>> > Regards,
>> > Kirill Lokshin
>> > Chair, Affiliations Committee
>> >
>> > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Wales
>> > ___
>> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to:
>> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
>> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> > 
>>
>>
>> --
>> -
>> Shlomi Fish   http://www.shlomifish.org/
>> My Favourite FOSS - http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/favourite/
>>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of Grŵp Defnyddwyr Cymuned Wicimedia Cymru

[Fæ]

On 20 March 2018 at 15:03, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.loks...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Descriptions of user group activities on Meta shouldn't be interpreted as
> legal documents under UK law (or any other legal code, for that matter).

Hi Kirill,

In the spirit of an open and transparent process, could you please
provide a link to the scope of the new approved User Group is
published, as the one on Meta is not the one that AffCom reviewed with
the UG application?

> Any questions regarding potential legal implications for Wikimedia UK
> should, of course, be directed to the chapter itself.

This brush-off is surprising, with the clear implication that AffCom
has not approached WMUK with any question. I was mistaken in believing
that AffCom had a responsibility to consider obvious legal
implications, before approving a User Group that is granted the right
to use official logos and the name "Wikipedia" and its language
variants when advertising their events. It is disappointing to see
that AffCom does not see their official process as needing to address
these areas, which may well be a barrier to direct funding, legal
recognition or represent a risk to other named pre-existing Affiliates
within the scope of the proposed new UG.

> Regards,
> Kirill Lokshin
> Chair, Affiliations Committee

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

> On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 7:11 AM, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Support the request that AffCom share their understanding of the scope
>> and authority of the announced User Group.
>>
>> From the wording of "represent Wikimedia UK in Wales"[1], the UG is
>> not independent of WMUK and consequently acts as a Chapter subsidiary.
>> As far as I am aware, there is no other regional based UG which does
>> this.
>>
>> As a corollary, the representation has legal implications for UK
>> Charity. WMUK must have both responsibility and the authority to
>> monitor and control how they are represented by the UG. It is not
>> clear from the meta web page or the community vote how this will work,
>> apart from the implicit assumption that funding paid to UG projects is
>> effectively managed as a WMUK continuing programme. Presumably the UG
>> will not be requesting funds from the WMF or via the FDC process
>> separate from WMUK's FDC procedure.
>>
>> The original vote at the Welsh Wikipedia compared the aims to that of
>> the Basque UG.[2] However based on their scope, the Basque UG does not
>> officially represent any other affiliate or Chapter.
>>
>> Links
>> 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Wales
>> 2. https://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicipedia:Sefydlu_Gr%C5%B5p_
>> Defnyddwyr_Wicimedia
>>
>> On 19 March 2018 at 00:10, Philip Kopetzky <philip.kopet...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Hi Kirill!
>> >
>> > It would be really helpful to outline these kind of decisions with
>> > arguments/deliberations that AffCom decided to follow, considering that
>> > this sets a precedence in the worldwide community. For example, UG Wales
>> > states that they "cooperate with and represent Wikimedia UK in Wales" -
>> > does this mean that we are now accepting UGs within chapters? Is this UG
>> > supposed to be able to apply for grants, despite its overlap with WMUK?
>> >
>> > Best,
>> > Philip
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 11 March 2018 at 15:44, Shlomi Fish <shlo...@shlomifish.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Sun, 11 Mar 2018 10:32:34 -0400
>> >> Kirill Lokshin <kirill.loks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Hi everyone!
>> >> >
>> >> > I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has
>> recognized
>> >> > Grŵp Defnyddwyr Cymuned Wicimedia Cymru (Wikimedia Community User
>> Group
>> >> > Wales) [1] as a Wikimedia User Group. The group aims to promote the
>> >> > Wikimedia movement in Wales and support the development of Wikimedia
>> >> > projects and content in the Welsh language.
>> >> >
>> >> > Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> congratulations!
>> >>
>> >> > Regards,
>> >> > Kirill Lokshin
>> >> > Chair, Affiliations Committee
>> >> >
>> >> > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_
>> Group_Wales
>> >> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of Grŵp Defnyddwyr Cymuned Wicimedia Cymru

[Fæ]

On 20 March 2018 at 15:36, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.loks...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 9:29 AM, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 20 March 2018 at 15:03, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.loks...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Descriptions of user group activities on Meta shouldn't be interpreted as
>> > legal documents under UK law (or any other legal code, for that matter).
>>
>> Hi Kirill,
>>
>> In the spirit of an open and transparent process, could you please
>> provide a link to the scope of the new approved User Group is
>> published, as the one on Meta is not the one that AffCom reviewed with
>> the UG application?
>>
>
> The Affiliations Committee publishes all of our application review and
> approval resolutions on Meta; the one for the group in question can be
> found at
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Recognition_Grŵp_Defnyddwyr_Cymuned_Wicimedia_Cymru

Thanks for the link, that's great. It would be super to include a link
to the relevant resolution when making announcements.

Unfortunately your emails seem in conflict with the resolution. The
statement by the Affiliations Committee links to the meta page to
define the reviewed scope, the words used are "The scope of the group,
which can be found on their meta page" and then gives a link to the
same page I used previously and read that the User Group represents
WMUK. In fact there are no other links to any other document that can
be interpreted as "officially" publishing the scope of the new user
group.

Consequently there is no ambiguity that the AffCom approval was
literally for a regional User Group with a stated objective to
represent the national Chapter. The exact words are "Cooperate with
and represent Wikimedia UK in Wales".

It is worth noting that the italicized sentence in the very brief
summary appears to be intended to be a direct quote from the meta
page, however it is a rephrasing which turns the sentence into an
objective for the new User Group when the phrasing on the original
page is a description of members (i.e. not the group itself). It is
not stated whether the interpreted objective was part of the UG
application, or someone else's interpretation of the published scope.
This seems misleading unless the meta page is rephrased to include the
statement of scope as explicitly that. This may seem a fine point, but
there exact words that officially define a new Affiliate or User Group
seem worth getting precise so everyone understands what has been
authorized.

Thanks,
Fae

>
>
>> > Any questions regarding potential legal implications for Wikimedia UK
>> > should, of course, be directed to the chapter itself.
>>
>> This brush-off is surprising, with the clear implication that AffCom
>> has not approached WMUK with any question. I was mistaken in believing
>> that AffCom had a responsibility to consider obvious legal
>> implications, before approving a User Group that is granted the right
>> to use official logos and the name "Wikipedia" and its language
>> variants when advertising their events. It is disappointing to see
>> that AffCom does not see their official process as needing to address
>> these areas, which may well be a barrier to direct funding, legal
>> recognition or represent a risk to other named pre-existing Affiliates
>> within the scope of the proposed new UG.
>>
>
> Your implication is entirely incorrect; AffCom consulted with -- and
> received an endorsement from -- Wikimedia UK prior to approving the user
> group.  However, we are neither experts in UK charity law nor empowered to
> speak on behalf of Wikimedia UK; consequently, any questions regarding the
> chapter's legal position should be posed to the chapter, not to us.

For the sake of openness and transparency, can you provide a link to
where the endorsement and any questions raised are published? It is
not included with the AffCom resolution.

> Regards,
> Kirill Lokshin
> Chair, Affiliations Committee
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposal regarding norms for meeting/deadline announcements

[Fæ]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 00:34, effe iets anders  wrote:
>
> Hi Pine,
>
> I would also suggest not to get overly bureaucratic with this :) If the
> public meeting you refer to requires a large attendance, the 14 days makes
> sense for example - but I cannot recall many meetings of that style.
> Rather, most meetings are either scheduled taking the availability of
> participants in mind, or it is to get input (where it is more important to
> have a bunch of people show up, than to have everyone participate).
>
> Whether more than one reminder is excessive, is imho quite subjective. I
> appreciate most reminders, especially if they stick to the same thread.
>
> On a side note: are there any weekly meetings being announced on this list?
> Again, it highly depends on the topic, and whether the reminder may also
> contain more information.
>
> My point? Don't worry about it so much :) Be flexible with this, and go
> with the flow. People can figure this out quite well if they use their
> common sense without added bureaucracy.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 1:50 PM Pine W  wrote:
>
> > Hi Wikimedia-l and Wikitech-l,
> >
> > Keeping in mind the large numbers of subscribers on some Wikimedia email
> > lists, the endless valuable uses for the time of knowledgeable volunteer
> > Wikimedians, the significant financial costs for the time of many of the
> > staff and contractors on these mailing lists, and how packed calendars can
> > be, I propose that we implement a few social norms/guidelines for
> > Wikimedia-l and Wikitech-l in particular.
> >
> > 1. When planning to have a one-time public meeting, announce it at least 14
> > days in advance to give everyone who might like to participate that much
> > lead time to clear space on their calendars. Rarely is a one-time public
> > meeting so urgent that it cannot wait 14 days from the day that it is
> > announced.
> >
> > 2. Send a maximum of one reminder email regarding a one-time public
> > meeting, and also send a maximum of one reminder email regarding events
> > with deadlines such as Wikimania scholarship submissions or conference
> > presentation proposals. More than one reminder about a meeting or deadline
> > is excessive.
> >
> > 3. If extending a deadline, send only an announcement of the extension with
> > no additional reminder.
> >
> > 4. Send only one email to announce a recurring weekly meeting, with no
> > additional reminders. Meetings which recur less often, such as biweekly or
> > monthly, may continue to be announced with one additional reminder.
> >
> > At this time these are proposals only. Comments are welcome. If the
> > comments become extensive then I may request that we move the conversation
> > to Meta.
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Pine
> > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
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> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
> 

Completely agree that this is a real problem, and that solving it is a
positive change rather than a "bureaucratic" one.

As a reminder for everyone who reads this list, it is defined as:[1]
Wikimedia Mailing List
Discussion list for the Wikimedia community and the larger network of
organizations (Wikimedia Foundation, chapter organizations,
affiliates, partners) supporting its work.

Let's agree to draw the common-sense distinction between having a
*discussion* and one-way *broadcasting* announcements, PR statements
and thankspam. This list is not intended for any of the latter, and
filling subscriber's inboxes with announcements rather than
interesting contemporary discussion is damaging this list and reduces
its subscriber base. This is probably a significant part of why
subscription and community engagement has been seriously dropping off
over the last few years.

I propose that we create a movement wide announcements list
(wikimedia-announcements) that is intended for broadcasting, rather
than discussion, and this list can be kept for discussion. If people
feel they need to send three announcements/reminders/changes for the
same meeting, then that can be okay on the announcements list, and
should be called out as misuse, or even hijacking, for this discussion
list. A simple change, and for those that wish to follow
announcements, makes it easy for 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] REMINDER: Invitation to the October 2018 Wikimedia Monthly Activities Meeting: Thursday, October 25th, 18:00 UTC

[Fæ]

If you find several broadcast emails for the same meeting useful, please
join wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org. You can get all the
broadcasts you want there, including this one.

Fae


On Fri, 26 Oct 2018, 09:35 Anders Wennersten, 
wrote:

> I disagree.
>
> For me it is perfect. I get the impulse to get in and I know if I am
> busy with other things. Reminder of something in the future get lost
> otherwise.
>
> Anders
>
>
>
> Den 2018-10-26 kl. 10:22, skrev Fæ:
> > Saw this message today. Almost all readers of this list will find a
> > broadcasted 30 minutes reminder equally useless.
> >
> > Please revisit this part of the WMF comms plan.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Fae
> >
> > On Thu, 25 Oct 2018, 18:35 Greg Varnum,  wrote:
> >
> >> Hello everyone,
> >>
> >> Reminder that this month’s Wikimedia Monthly Activities Meeting will
> begin
> >> in approximately 30 minutes.
> >>
> >> The “To be determined” slot will be an "Update from the Wikimedia
> >> Foundation Executive Director”.
> >>
> >> I hope that you are able to join us, or watch the video on Wikimedia
> >> Commons (or YouTube) later.
> >>
> >>
> >> ---
> >> Gregory Varnum
> >> Communications Strategist
> >> Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
> >> gvar...@wikimedia.org
> >> Pronouns: He/Him/His
> >>
> >>> Begin forwarded message:
> >>>
> >>> From: Gregory Varnum 
> >>> Subject: Invitation to the October 2018 Wikimedia Monthly Activities
> >> Meeting: Thursday, October 25th, 18:00 UTC
> >>> Date: October 22, 2018 at 10:46:48 PM PDT
> >>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List ,
> >> WikimediaAnnounce-l , "Staff
> >> (All)" 
> >>> Hello everyone,
> >>>
> >>> The next Wikimedia Monthly Activities meeting will take place on
> >> Thursday, October 25th, 2018 at 6:00 PM UTC (11 AM PDT). The IRC
> channel is
> >> #wikimedia-office on https://webchat.freenode.net <
> >> https://webchat.freenode.net/>, and the meeting will be broadcast as a
> >> live YouTube stream:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J86J8N1gExk <
> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J86J8N1gExk>. We’ll post the video
> >> recording publicly after the meeting.
> >>> During the October 2018 meeting, we will have an update on the
> movement,
> >> Wikimedia 2030 status update, a presentation on values, principles and
> >> methods, and more.
> >>> Meeting agenda:
> >>> Welcome and introduction to agenda - 2 minutes
> >>> Movement update - 3 minutes
> >>> Values, Principles, and Methods, oh my! - 10 minutes
> >>> Wikimedia 2030 status update and opportunities to participate - 20
> >> minutes
> >>> Update from the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director - 5-10 minutes
> >>> Questions and discussion - 10 minutes
> >>> Wikilove - 5 minutes
> >>>
> >>> Please review the meeting's Meta-Wiki page for further information
> about
> >> the meeting and how to participate:
> >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings
> <
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings>
> >>> The November 2018 and December 2018 monthly activities meetings will be
> >> combined and will take place on Thursday, December 6th, starting at
> 19:00
> >> UTC (11:00 Pacific Daylight Time). If you would like to sign up to
> >> participate, please visit:
> >>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings/Sign_up
> >> <
> >>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings/Sign_up
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Thank you,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Gregory Varnum
> >>> Communications Strategist
> >>> Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/>
> >>> gvar...@wikimedia.org <mailto:gvar...@wikimedia.org>
> >>> Pronouns: He/His/Him
> >> ___
> >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikim

Re: [Wikimedia-l] REMINDER: Invitation to the October 2018 Wikimedia Monthly Activities Meeting: Thursday, October 25th, 18:00 UTC

[Fæ]

Saw this message today. Almost all readers of this list will find a
broadcasted 30 minutes reminder equally useless.

Please revisit this part of the WMF comms plan.

Thanks
Fae

On Thu, 25 Oct 2018, 18:35 Greg Varnum,  wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> Reminder that this month’s Wikimedia Monthly Activities Meeting will begin
> in approximately 30 minutes.
>
> The “To be determined” slot will be an "Update from the Wikimedia
> Foundation Executive Director”.
>
> I hope that you are able to join us, or watch the video on Wikimedia
> Commons (or YouTube) later.
>
>
> ---
> Gregory Varnum
> Communications Strategist
> Wikimedia Foundation 
> gvar...@wikimedia.org
> Pronouns: He/Him/His
>
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: Gregory Varnum 
> > Subject: Invitation to the October 2018 Wikimedia Monthly Activities
> Meeting: Thursday, October 25th, 18:00 UTC
> > Date: October 22, 2018 at 10:46:48 PM PDT
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List ,
> WikimediaAnnounce-l , "Staff
> (All)" 
> >
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > The next Wikimedia Monthly Activities meeting will take place on
> Thursday, October 25th, 2018 at 6:00 PM UTC (11 AM PDT). The IRC channel is
> #wikimedia-office on https://webchat.freenode.net <
> https://webchat.freenode.net/>, and the meeting will be broadcast as a
> live YouTube stream:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J86J8N1gExk <
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J86J8N1gExk>. We’ll post the video
> recording publicly after the meeting.
> >
> > During the October 2018 meeting, we will have an update on the movement,
> Wikimedia 2030 status update, a presentation on values, principles and
> methods, and more.
> >
> > Meeting agenda:
> > Welcome and introduction to agenda - 2 minutes
> > Movement update - 3 minutes
> > Values, Principles, and Methods, oh my! - 10 minutes
> > Wikimedia 2030 status update and opportunities to participate - 20
> minutes
> > Update from the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director - 5-10 minutes
> > Questions and discussion - 10 minutes
> > Wikilove - 5 minutes
> >
> > Please review the meeting's Meta-Wiki page for further information about
> the meeting and how to participate:
> >
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings>
> >
> > The November 2018 and December 2018 monthly activities meetings will be
> combined and will take place on Thursday, December 6th, starting at 19:00
> UTC (11:00 Pacific Daylight Time). If you would like to sign up to
> participate, please visit:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings/Sign_up
> <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings/Sign_up
> >
> >
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> >
> > --
> > Gregory Varnum
> > Communications Strategist
> > Wikimedia Foundation 
> > gvar...@wikimedia.org 
> > Pronouns: He/His/Him
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] new blog post: interview with designer George Oates about Wikimedia Commons

[Fæ]

There is a detailed and factual post released today on Medium about
how poor a reader experience Medium is for blog posts, due to
tracking, profiling and banner advertising.[1]

For those that recall discussion in response to the WMF choice of
Facebook and Medium to communicate the report from George Oates last
month, this seems a decently factual summary of some of the reasons
why this is a poor practical choice for comms, as well as an ethical
issue when calmly measured against our open movement values.

The conclusion should ring alarm bells for any WMF staffer with
responsibility for Communications and is still tempted to promote
Medium by posting or cross-posting there, or indeed any other platform
which uses the same commercial techniques:
"Basically, you’re selling readers to aggressive Medium
self-advertising so that Medium could make laughably small money from
a miserable fraction of them. And annoy the hell out of everyone
else."

Links:
1. 
https://medium.com/@nikitonsky/medium-is-a-poor-choice-for-blogging-bb0048d19133

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

On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 at 15:33, Fæ  wrote:
>
> So, no learning points from this expensive feedback, cost measured in 
> volunteer time and damage to good will from the most active and committed 
> volunteers.
>
> Sorry, do not expect me to believe in future political statements of values 
> and ethics from the WMF, when they are thrown away at any slight 
> inconvenience.
>
> Fae
>
> On Wed, 31 Oct 2018, 15:23 Sandra Fauconnier via Commons-l, 
>  wrote:
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I did indeed include the link to the Village Pump discussion in my original 
>> post, but not in the best or most visible/encouraging way. My apologies. 
>> It's not at all my intention to force anyone to use a platform they don't 
>> like, and I apologize again if I gave that impression.
>>
>> Many people in our communities discuss very actively and constructively on 
>> Facebook, and increasingly on Telegram, and probably on quite a few other 
>> platforms that may or may not be aligned with our values as much as we would 
>> like. As a long-time Wikimedian in my free time, I'm a strong open source 
>> and OpenGLAM advocate and fan, but I will be the first to admit I'm not a 
>> purist, I do indeed use Facebook and a few of these other Evil Places, and I 
>> don't mind tracking (and pointing to) conversations happening elsewhere. I 
>> do feel conflicted about this (like about many other things in that 
>> complicated thing called life) but I give priority to hearing more voices 
>> here.
>>
>> The interview is indeed intended as a 'fresh' perspective from an informed 
>> outsider. While we may not agree with everything George says, hopefully 
>> there are nuggets of interesting feedback that we can use to our benefit. 
>> This is not meant to replace the community's ideas, needs and vision at all. 
>> It's additional to it.
>>
>> Cheers, Sandra
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 3:48 PM Steinsplitter Wiki via Commons-l 
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> >>I'm sure we can find a suitable place to discuss this on-wiki, and there 
>>> >>should be an appropriate link for that.
>>>
>>>
>>> I see Sara posted it on the VP as well: 
>>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Blog_post:_interview_with_George_Oates_about_Wikimedia_Commons
>>>
>>>
>>> :)
>>>
>>>
>>> >>As for the actual topic of the interview, I am glad to see an outside 
>>> >>opinion from someone who has experience with large, community-driven 
>>> >>media repositories. I might not agree with all the sentiments, and 
>>> >>structured data and out Next Big Thing did not exactly feature 
>>> >>prominently, but I find it refreshing to leave the echo chamber once in a 
>>> >>while.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This is true as well.
>>>
>>> BTW: If my initial post sounded a bit rude, please excuse for that.
>>>
>>> --Steinsplitter
>>>
>>> 
>>> Von: Commons-l  im Auftrag von 
>>> Magnus Manske via Commons-l 
>>> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 31. Oktober 2018 15:43
>>> An: Walter Siegmund; Wikimedia Commons Discussion List
>>> Betreff: Re: [Commons-l] new blog post: interview with designer George 
>>> Oates about Wikimedia Commons
>>>
>>> Some quick thoughts from me.
>>>
>>> I, too, find the Facebook/Medium discussion reroute unfortunate (I'm not 
>>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Fæ]

On Sat, 29 Dec 2018 at 21:35, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
> I have written a long text today (posted in my FB)

Facebook, is that still a thing? Gah, whatever is being posted there,
many of us Wikipedians are never going to see it. It would be nice to
see more people writing decent essays as blog posts rather than as
messages on a closed cynical data harvesting platform that makes a
multi-billionaire even richer.

There is a problem with the emphasis of (en) Wikipedia being on the
glory of ''creating'' an article. As a result many newbies and oldies
are driven to create lots of stubs and mediocre articles which may
never be much expanded. The primary criticism I hear from academics is
that the articrles for their subject area are ghastly, relying on
outdated sources, outdated ideas and seem so badly written that they
remain a concern for any student relying on Wikipedia as a starting
point for finding quality reliable sources for further reading.

Yesterday I was flagged on twitter about potential bias of "Feminist
views on transgender topics". It's a pretty sorry example which gives
an initial impression that the vast majority of feminists positively
hate trans people. However a closer read shows that the sources focus
on inflammatory writings, many sources and quotes being from the
1970s, so several decades out of date. The outcome is a polarised
essay which paints a social war, because that is what
self-aggrandising pundits, newspapers and social media focuses on,
when real life experience is nothing like this. Being a trans or
sexuality related article, sadly means that it is hard for newbies to
understand the special attention this gets on Wikipedia, with most
newbie edits being rapidly reverted and these contributors finding it
frustratingly complicated to talk about what they want to change.

If Wikipedia(s) are to have a revitalising period in the 2020s, there
needs to be more built-in ways to encourage and reward newbies to work
collegiality building up ''existing articles'', and to recognise that
those boldly trying to rewrite and restructure existing mediocre
articles to turn them in to good up to date topics are doing a far,
far more difficult and skilful thing than obsessive old lexicographers
trying to carpetbag red links.

Links
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics

Fae
-- 
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https://twitter.com/Faewik

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next Wikimedia monthly activities meeting will be on 22 February

[Fæ]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 at 01:00, Gregory Varnum  wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> Our next Wikimedia monthly activities meeting will be on 22 February 2019.
> More information will be available on Meta-Wiki:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings
>
> But wait?!? What about January? Good catch! We are cancelling this month's
> meeting due to scheduling issues. In short, there is a lot going on this
> month for the Wikimedia Foundation and other planned presenters. As a
> result, we did not feel we could put on an effective meeting.

Congratulations on the good news.

Thanks for updating this list with meeting scheduling announcements.
Is there a shared general calendar somewhere on-wiki that can be kept
updated for microcoordination, the same way we do for wikimeets?[1]

Links
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup

Fae

> If you are interested in presenting at a future meeting, we want to hear
> from you! Please visit the sign-up page on Meta-Wiki:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings/Sign_up
>
> -greg
>
> --
>
> Gregory Varnum (pronouns - he/his/him)
>
> Communications Strategist
>
> Wikimedia Foundation 
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Publication of WMF Affiliate agreements

[Fæ]

It appears that Affiliate agreements with the Wikimedia Foundation are
not published on-wiki in a consistent way.[1]

Though the standard templates are available, these have varied over
time, so at a minimum to understand which Chapter/Thorg/User Group has
currently agreed which legally binding statement, there should be an
indication or link to the specific version. The templates have to be
customized, and this may include some legally meaningful changes, not
just bureaucratic ones.

As an example, the table of 108 User Groups, simply gives the names of
the groups. It would be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to
work out exactly when each signed up to the UG agreement, or confirm
which User Groups legally signed up to the post May 2015 version that
makes compliance with the Code of Conduct mandatory. As a second
example, tracking down the UK Chapter agreement,[2] a customized one
was agreed by the WMF and WMUK, but when I followed the 'official'
links, the version I was directed to was a 2009 draft version on the
UK Chapter wiki (no copy on Meta), which appears unlikely to be the
current chapters agreement due to a fairly obvious drafting error.

Could the Affiliates Committee look into this as a matter of its
necessary and tracked administration of a correct public record,
rather than relying on it happening ad hoc?

Thanks,
Fae

Links
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement_affiliates/Agreements
2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter_agreements
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Looking for Liaisons for the Movement Strategy Process

[Fæ]

"Liaisons will ensure that the voices and perspectives of these
communities are heard and considered in the Movement Strategy Process"

Question 1: Was there not feedback last year from volunteer
coordinators (or whatever the title was) that their voices were lost,
and that their time felt wasted; how was that fixed?

Question 2: Exactly how are paid liaisons empowered or authorised to
"ensure" that community feedback is heard, or will be able to measure
their impact on the huge, expensive and politically sensitive WMF
strategy process?

By the way, I know that the pitch is that this is a "movement"
strategy, but clearly when the top level goals are express in language
like:
"To serve our users, we will become a platform that serves open
knowledge to the world across interfaces and communities. We will
build tools for allies and partners to organize and exchange free
knowledge beyond Wikimedia. Our infrastructure will enable us and
others to collect and use different forms of free, trusted knowledge."
This has nothing to do with unpaid volunteers like me, as my real
experience over several years is that I have no voice whatsoever to
actually influence any of this WMF employee controlled
'infrastructure', 'platforms' or who the WMF chooses as 'partners',
even though I have invested months of my time in the development of
GLAM related tools, none was ever recognised or later maintained by
the WMF. I recall personal discussions and phone conferences where WMF
management were positively rude about any prospect of WMF dev time
being involved in non-WMF employee originating projects, and though
tone may be nicer, the outcomes are the same.

For these reasons I have positively avoided using up my valuable
volunteer time over the last couple of years in any of these WMF
strategy discussions, it would be jolly nice to be provided with
evidence that things are different in 2019, and it would be worth me
reconsidering my views and try to engage with whoever becomes a paid
WMF liaison when they appear on Commons, rather than ignoring them,
their surveys, or their email offers for interviews.

Thanks in advance,
Fae (Commons volunteer)

On Mon, 7 Jan 2019 at 15:01, Kaarel Vaidla  wrote:
>
> Dear fellow Wikimedians,
>
> We are happy to announce our plans to engage Wikimedia communities in the
> strategic and structural reform discussions of our global movement. The
> Movement Strategy Process requires input and participation from all of our
> communities and we are looking for Liaisons for the Movement Strategy
> Process to engage with some language communities and facilitate their
> participation in global strategic discussions. Liaisons will ensure that
> the voices and perspectives of these communities are heard and considered
> in the Movement Strategy Process and that members of these communities
> actively engage and participate in the discussions in their own language.
>
> Based on criteria of reach of the language, projects, as well as existing
> editor base, the Core Team has identified the following language
> communities for further engagement and will be hiring a Strategy Liaisons
> for each:[1]: Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese,
> Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
>
> The Liaisons are expected to: engage with the communities in their native
> language; coordinate and facilitate discussions; support healthy
> communication; provide details and context when needed, and monitor
> different communication channels of the communities to surface ideas
> related to the Strategy Process. Liaisons will be expected to identify
> opportunities where the ongoing Movement Strategy Process discussions can
> benefit and solicit ideas from interested community members. Liaisons will
> also be expected to summarize the most important discussion points,
> coordinate translations of these summaries to share them with Liaisons
> Coordinator, Working Groups and wider global community.
>
> Ideal candidates will have  a good connection with the local communities,
> strong communication skills, fluency in English and one of the nine
> identified community languages as well as organizational and collaborative
> skills.
>
> The Liaisons positions will be part time (up to 20 h/week) and will be in
> place from February to December 2019. If you are interested in the role or
> would like to have more information, you can find the full description of
> the role on respective application page
>  [2].
>
> Please note that we are also  recruiting for a full-time Liaisons
> Coordinator to ensure  engagement of the communities in the Movemement
> Strategy Process and manage the worknd fuddy-duddy of the  Strategy Liaisons. 
> You can
> find the full description of this role on respective application page
>  [3].
>nd fuddy-duddy
> We look forward to collaborating with many of you 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocks which appear to demonstrate prejudice against minorities

[Fæ]

t; > > > first
> > > > > > step in this situation would be to confirm with the individual
> > editor
> > > > > > whether or not they want their "case" to be examined.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Should the editor be agreeable, I suggest that the next step is for
> > > > > someone
> > > > > > who has the ability to converse in Amharic to contact the Amharic
> > > > > Wikipedia
> > > > > > and find out why the block has been issued, how it is consistent
> > with
> > > > the
> > > > > > username policy on Amharic Wikipedia, whether that policy is driven
> > > in
> > > > > part
> > > > > > by external considerations (e.g., does the project risk heavy
> > > > > governmental
> > > > > > scrutiny if it appears to "promote" locally unacceptable
> > > activities). I
> > > > > am
> > > > > > personally curious as to why it took over six months to identify
> > that
> > > > > this
> > > > > > account did not meet the local username policy, and whether there
> > was
> > > > > > internal or external discussion about the username.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > It is not clear to me what the desired outcome is in this case - at
> > > > least
> > > > > > in part because we have no idea of the opinion of the editor
> > > > involved.  I
> > > > > > am hard-pressed to say that a project should be required to allow
> > > > > usernames
> > > > > > that it has a long history of considering unacceptable, especially
> > if
> > > > it
> > > > > is
> > > > > > applied evenly to all accounts; in this case, if it disallows
> > > usernames
> > > > > > that imply sexual preference regardless of what that preference is.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > It seems to me that the WMF Trust & Safety group would probably be
> > > the
> > > > > > right group to examine this.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Risker/Anne
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Wed, 2 Jan 2019 at 09:42, Ariel Glenn WMF 
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Additional notes:
> > > > > > > The user's regular page can be viewed on en wikipedia:
> > > > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:QueerEcofeminist
> > > > > > > Queer may have to do with gender identity as opposed to being an
> > > > > > indicator
> > > > > > > of 'sexual behavior', so the blockers didn't even get that right.
> > > > > > Example:
> > > > > > > I am gender-nonconforming as to my gender identity and
> > expression;
> > > > this
> > > > > > is
> > > > > > > the primary reason I use the label 'queer'.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > I believe this should be reported... somewhere. But I don't know
> > > > where.
> > > > > > The
> > > > > > > WMF CoC only covers technical spaces. A little help here?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Ariel
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 2, 2019 at 4:26 PM Fæ  wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Do we have cross project policies to govern or limit local
> > > policies
> > > > > > > > for the use of sysop tools? I would like to pass on policy
> > > advice,
> > > > > and
> > > > > > > > any past cases folks here would like to highlight that set a
> > > > > > > > precedent.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > The case below is illustrative, though based on my recall of
> > > > several
> > > > > > > > complaints which went nowhere over the years, on email lists,
> > and
> > > > > > > > Jimmy's talk page, about apparently arbitrary blocks on
> > different
> > > > > > > > non-English Wikipedias, it seems reasonable to believe those
> > > > > > > > complaints are the tip of the iceberg, and there ar

[Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Fæ]

Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the following,

For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely alarming
to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight,
reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to
whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political
voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, and dominates American
politics, driving changes of all sorts in response to politically
inflated and vague rhetoric about "security" and "fakenews". It is not
inconceivable that a popularist current or future US Government could
decide to introduce emergency controls over websites like Wikipedia,
virtually overnight.[1][2][3][4]

The question of whether the Wikimedia Foundation should have a hot
switch option, so that if a "disaster" strikes in America, we could
continue running Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from other countries
has been raised on this list several times over many years. The WMF
and its employees are heavily invested in staying in Silicon Valley,
and that will stay true unless external risks become extreme.

However, there has never been a rationale to avoid investing in a Plan
B. A robust plan, where the WMF can switch operations over to a
hosting country with a sufficiently welcoming with stable national
government and legislation, that our projects could continue to meet
our open knowledge goals virtually uninterrupted and without risk of
political control. A Plan B would ensure that if the US Government
started to discuss controlling Wikipedia, then at least that published
plan would be a realistic response. If they tried doing it, we could
simply power off our servers in the USA, rather than compromise our
content.

If anyone knows of committed investment in a practical WMF Plan B, it
would be reassuring to share it more widely at this time. If not, more
of us should be asking about it, politely, persistently but perhaps
less patiently than indefinitely. :-)

Links:
1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46739180
2. http://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/research/updates/populism
3. 
https://www.cnet.com/news/obama-signs-order-outlining-emergency-internet-control
"... this order was designed to empower certain governmental agencies
with control over telecommunications and the Web during natural
disasters and security emergencies."
4. 
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418
"The president could seize control of U.S. internet traffic, impeding
access to certain websites and ensuring that internet searches return
pro-Trump content as the top results."
5. Bizarro, as used in the title of this email:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Fæ]

Location: This is a tangent, one that has been raised before as a
/non-answer/ to the issue of actually getting on with contingency
planning. Realistically I would start by looking at the potential
matches of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands (where servers already
are used for WMF operations), or lastly and for very different
reasons, Peru.

What I find weird, or bizarro, is that the responses so far are vague
dismissals for non-good fantastic reasons, at the level of "let magic
blockchain technology solve it for free", rather than taking on board
that preparing a hot switch for Wikimedia operations in a welcoming
host country, is a highly cost effective disaster contingency plan,
whether due to natural disasters in San Fran / Florida / Amsterdam, or
due to national government using its legal authority to freeze, switch
off or tamper with content due to politically inflated "security" or
"emergency" issues. The risks are real and predictable, and as a
globally recognized charity with plenty of money in the bank, the WMF
should have contingency plans to ensure its continued existence, as
any professional business actuary would advise.

As a past IT auditor, what also made the hairs prick up on the back of
my neck, was David Gerard's sensible question "So ... when did someone
last test putting up a copy of the sites from
the backups" - Could someone give a real answer to that please? If
it's never, then wow, we all have to ask some hard questions of the
WMF Board of exactly how they hold senior management to account.

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

On Tue, 8 Jan 2019 at 23:05, Nathan  wrote:
>
> Hi Fae,
>
> I'm curious what nation you have in mind for your stable Plan B. Is it
> Brexit Britain? France of the Yellow Vests and Front National? Perhaps
> Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, or Germany with its recent right-wing
> resurgence?
>
> Maybe you'd prefer Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? I suppose in Italy we'd worry
> about Beppe and criminal libel statutes, while BJP would hardly seem
> welcoming in India and I can't imagine you'd suggest a home on the other
> side of the Great Firewall.
>
> Maybe you're hinting at Canada, but otherwise, I'd love to understand what
> island of liberal stability and legal safeguards you think is safe from the
> vagaries of electoral politics or rigid authoritarianism.
>
> The countries I list above have their own flaws (although in each case, I
> believe, many desirable traits as well) as does any other alternative.
> Anyone could reasonably argue it's unfair to stigmatize any of them by
> glaringly public flaws.
>
> To my mind Steve Walling has it right - the very nature of Wikipedia is
> maybe the best protection there could be, even against the absurdly
> unlikely circumstance of a United States government takeover of Wikipedia.
>
> Nathan
>
> On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 PM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the
> > following,
> >
> > For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely alarming
> > to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight,
> > reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to
> > whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political
> > voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, and dominates American
> > politics, driving changes of all sorts in response to politically
> > inflated and vague rhetoric about "security" and "fakenews". It is not
> > inconceivable that a popularist current or future US Government could
> > decide to introduce emergency controls over websites like Wikipedia,
> > virtually overnight.[1][2][3][4]
> >
> > The question of whether the Wikimedia Foundation should have a hot
> > switch option, so that if a "disaster" strikes in America, we could
> > continue running Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from other countries
> > has been raised on this list several times over many years. The WMF
> > and its employees are heavily invested in staying in Silicon Valley,
> > and that will stay true unless external risks become extreme.
> >
> > However, there has never been a rationale to avoid investing in a Plan
> > B. A robust plan, where the WMF can switch operations over to a
> > hosting country with a sufficiently welcoming with stable national
> > government and legislation, that our projects could continue to meet
> > our open knowledge goals virtually uninterrupted and without risk of
> > political control. A Plan B would ensure that if the US Government
> > started to discuss controlling Wikipedia, then at least that published
> > plan wou

[Wikimedia-l] Blocks which appear to demonstrate prejudice against minorities

[Fæ]

Do we have cross project policies to govern or limit local policies
for the use of sysop tools? I would like to pass on policy advice, and
any past cases folks here would like to highlight that set a
precedent.

The case below is illustrative, though based on my recall of several
complaints which went nowhere over the years, on email lists, and
Jimmy's talk page, about apparently arbitrary blocks on different
non-English Wikipedias, it seems reasonable to believe those
complaints are the tip of the iceberg, and there are likely to be many
historical cases of blocks that could have been appealed... had the
user been confident to complain in English, and have the energy to
pursue generic WMF policies on terms of use, or
harassment/discrimination, to establish a meta-level case.

# Example case

An account block on the Amharic Wikipedia (am.wp) was flagged up
yesterday on the WM LGBT+ Telegram discussion group.[3] The rationale
for blocking the account was because the account name includes the
word "Queer"[1]. The incident raises questions about process and
accountability, particularly as the block gives the impression that
this is the norm or an agreed interpretation of policy for sysops on
am.wp, and because the user is well established using this account
name across Wikimedia projects and has never edited am.wp so the block
cannot be based on any prior action or dispute.

In this example there is no obvious process for appeal, if sysops on
that project think that blocking any LGBT+ related account name
represents local consensus. After off-wiki discussion, the WMF Trust
and Safety team has been approached for advice,[2] as the rationale
for the action appears hostile to any openly LGBT+ volunteers who
might want to include something queer looking in their account name
(such as my account name, should anyone want to read it as transgender
related).

# Links

1. 
https://am.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%88%8D%E1%8B%A9:Contributions/QueerEcofeminist;
the block log states "Names calling attention to your sexual behavior
have never been allowed here in 15 years and aren't suddenly allowed
in 2018"
2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trust_and_Safety
3. https://telegram.me/wmlgbt

Thanks
Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [GLAM] Wikimedia Sverige receives a total of USD 500, 000+ in funding for three new projects, and a cost reduction of USD 30, 000/year

[Fæ]

Congratulations and sincere thanks to all working hard behind the
scenes as well as those publicly fronting the projects to achieve
these successes.

For putting in lots of late evenings, perspiration and perseverance, well done.

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

On Thu, 28 Mar 2019 at 10:31, John Andersson
 wrote:
>
> Wikimedia Sverige is proud to be the recipient of three new grants totaling 
> around USD 500,000. We hope to work with many of you as part of these 
> projects. If you are interested in getting involved or receiving updates 
> please let me know.
>
>
> Furthermore, the chapter also has a new heavily subsidized agreement for our 
> office space.
>
>
> Project 1: Wikispeech – The Speech Data Collector
>
> The first project is a continuation of the Wikispeech[1] project, a 
> text-to-speech (TTS) system that converts written text into speech. From 
> September 2019 to April 2021 we aim to finalize building the MediaWiki 
> extension and to build tools to collect speech data to add pronunciations to 
> Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikidata and to add more languages to the 
> text-to-speech solution. The tools should also be possible to use for oral 
> citations.
>
>
> The work happens in partnership with the Royal Technical Institute, STTS (a 
> language processing company), Mozilla Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland and 
> the Swedish Dyslexia Association.
>
>
> As always, you can find the full application on our wiki (in Swedish): 
> https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Projekt:Wikispeech_–_Talresursinsamlaren_2019/Ansökan
>
>
> Project 2: Wikipedia in Libraries
>
> From 2019 to 2020 Wikimedia Sverige, together with the National Library of 
> Sweden, will develop an online training module for Swedish librarians focused 
> around free knowledge and the Wikimedia platforms. This will be a mandatory 
> training for all of Sweden's 5,000 public librarians. Our hope is to give all 
> of them a basic understanding of the Wikimedia projects, as well as to 
> complement the online training with advanced courses for the most dedicated. 
> The advanced courses will give them the tools to ongoingly organize 
> activities and events independently at their libraries across the country.
>
>
> Furthermore, the librarians will be engaged in the #1Lib1Ref and FindingGLAMs 
> campaigns.
>
>
> There is a great potential to receive continuous funding over the coming 3 
> years if successful.
>
>
> As always, you can find the full application on our wiki (in Swedish): 
> https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Projekt:Wikipedia_i_biblioteken_2019/Ansökan
>
>
> Project 3: Bibliographical data on Wikidata
>
> We continue our work to include bibliographical data on Wikidata. The project 
> details are still being negotiated with the funder. The project will start in 
> mid-2019 and last until 2020.
>
>
> Cost reduction
>
> Starting from March 2019 we have a new agreement in place for a heavily 
> subsidized coworking space office from the Swedish Internet Foundation. 
> Through the agreement we will save us around USD 30,000 per year compared to 
> when we had an office of our own.
>
>
> We have received this generous subsidy because Wikipedia is considered so 
> important for the infrastructure of the Internet. We are very happy that the 
> agreement does not have an end date and that we have the possibility to grow 
> significantly over time as well (while keeping the generous subsidy).
>
>
> Please contact John Andersson (john.anders...@wikimedia.se) if you have any 
> questions.
>
>
> [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikispeech
>
>
> Best,
>
>
> John
>
> - - - -
>
> John Andersson
>
> Executive Director
>
> Wikimedia Sverige
>
>
> Phone: +46(0)73-3965189
>
> Email: john.anders...@wikimedia.se
>
> Visiting address: Goto10, Hammarby Kaj 10D, 120 32 Stockholm
>
>
>
>
> ___
> GLAM mailing list
> g...@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [strategy process] Fwd: I decided to leave the working group

[Fæ]

On Thu, 28 Mar 2019 at 15:38, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> Hello Itzik,
>
> thanks for sharing this.
>
> I actually did not want to react, because I presumably sound too critical
> on this list in the last couple of years. However, 24h passed, and nobody
> reacted, and It would be unfortunate if we let this go.
...

Ditto.

I have been asked in private, three different times by three different
people if I would like to take part in the strategy process. My most
recent decline and explanation was pretty much identical.

I simply do not believe in the process being followed. So it would be
a poor use of my volunteer time to try to take part, as whatever I had
to contribute I am convinced would have zero measurable impact on the
eventual outcome. These thoughts are sad ones, as the money and
significant amount of volunteer time and goodwill being invested,
could be directed to very productive open knowledge projects. Let us
hope that I will be proven wrong, soon.

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

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[Wikimedia-l] Use of Wikimedia projects for anti-LGBT+ "humour"

[Fæ]

It is sad to see that two well established Wikipedians, Barbara (WVS)
and SMcCandlish have misused Wikipedia Signpost to publish a "humour"
article which derides the use of nonbinary pronouns. It will be clear
for any reader that not only is this a joke in bad taste, but the
article is a misuse of the Wikipedia project and brand, to deride and
marginalise transgender, genderqueer and nonbinary people. A deletion
discussion has been created, everyone is welcome to express their
opinions, should they wish to read the Signpost op-ed.[1][4][5]

As part of the Wikipedia Visiting Scholars program, Barbara Page has
been granted special status at the University of Pittsburgh, and in
this capacity is seen to represent Wikimedia and Wikipedia, even if
not in a paid capacity. Given their coauthorship of the defamatory
essay, I do not see how it would be ethical for Page to retain any
recognition or relationship, and ask that a representative of Wiki
Education provide an official response.[2][6]

Stanton McCandlish is named as a WMF Tech Ambassador, and I have
requested on Meta that this formal recognition is immediately removed
by the WMF, as their views are directly antithetical to the WMF
supported Technical Spaces Code of Conduct.[3]

Links:
1. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour
2. https://wikiedu.org/blog/2015/09/25/upitt-visiting-scholars/
3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tech/Ambassadors#Stanton_McCandlish
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Barbara_(WVS)
5. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:SMcCandlish
6. https://wikiedu.org/contact-us/

Thanks,
Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Use of Wikimedia projects for anti-LGBT+ "humour"

[Fæ]

Thanks Peter.

Completely agree that I was stupid in my choice to use the word
"intended" in the deletion nomination, giving any impression that the
distress the article has caused might be presumed to be deliberate
when that was not what I intended to express. It was hasty, unwise, a
massive self defeating clanger. I apologised, I have taken
responsibility and corrected the MfD nomination to entirely focus on
the "Pronouns beware" essay. It was a perfectly valid criticism.

The MfD is ongoing and will probably close soon. I do not want to
discuss specifics here, people can go read it or contribute for
themselves rather than duplicating the points being made.

In more general procedural terms of what happens once the MfD is
closed as a keep or delete, it is a fact before publication concerns
were raised that it was likely to cause disruption and distress,
because of how it would be received, especially by our LGBT+ readers,
regardless of intent. That early concern gave not just the named
authors, but many active contributors to Signpost the opportunity to
discuss the draft, and perhaps ask that the essay be revised or kept
draft until those comments were talked through. It would be nice if
concerned Wikipedians joined in with discussions focused on
preventative action, showing that lessons can be learned, and Signpost
processes improved, especially for "red flag" issues where it seems
wise and positive to give extra scrutiny and time for reflection.

Improvement is something I expect almost everyone will wholeheartedly
want to see as an outcome of this incident. How about the idea that
"Signpost is a community effort that should serve our community's
values and needs, and that there is zero reason for it ever to be
'edgy' with humor or to in any way offend..." It might save a lot of
time if similar words were to become an agreed Signpost editorial
policy, but let's wait a while for the dust to settle, before starting
to create a consensus on that.[1]

Links
1. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales=prev=886107859

Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+

On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 12:24, Peter Southwood
 wrote:
>
> Fae
> Not your fault for looking at it, more like your fault for interpreting it in 
> the worst possible way, against hints given by the author, and insisting that 
> your interpretation is more correct than the meaning intended by the author, 
> even after getting a rational and plausible explanation from the author.
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf 
> Of Fæ
> Sent: 06 March 2019 10:37
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Use of Wikimedia projects for anti-LGBT+ "humour"
>
> It is an old story, artists and authors using humour and parody that
> they genuinely believed was an observation, not an attack on anyone.
> That a comedian or an author had good intentions, or the trope that
> complainers "need to get a sense of humour", does not stop us knowing
> that the promotion of stereotypes or other marginalization of a
> minority, causes actual harm, real distress, and for the targeted
> group there are long term consequences that come from having less self
> worth.
>
> Peter, history is against you and it always has been. It does not take
> long browsing Wikipedia to understand why we all need to stand up and
> callout thoughtless jokes and bad stereotypes, rather than being
> intimidated by free speech fallacious arguments that claim "it is your
> fault for looking at it". I suggest reflecting over how blackface
> minstrelsy was defended as harmless and hilarious fun that persisted
> for well over a hundred years, or in this century how parodies about
> trans people that were considered harmless twenty years ago, are
> correctly called abusive now.[1][2] I'm not even going to touch what
> we can learn from "parody" in the 1930s.
>
> Good faith is superduper, we should avoid presuming bad intentions,
> especially if a first mistake that will not be repeated. This does not
> stop us Wikipedians having a shared duty to ensure that through our
> website we are not complicit in creating bad outcomes. Seriously who
> disagrees with that, and if this is what you mean by "political
> purposes to push an agenda", sure please join us and sign up to our
> open knowledge agenda.
>
> Comedian Kumail Nanjiani, "Comedians making transphobic jokes: What
> side do you wanna be on?"
>
> Links
> 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show
> 2. 
> https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119=12115577
>
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Use of Wikimedia projects for anti-LGBT+ "humour"

[Fæ]

ame 
> group of people not aware of their own priviledge, and when they are 
> disseminated through official channels. They can pave the way to problematic 
> behaviors if the « joked about party » cannot in turn express freely what 
> they feel about these jokes.
> I have a request : can we have the conversation freely?
> This is in no way underevaluating the value of the Signpost and the 
> remarkable work done by people like you.
> Maybe more articles on the subject of harassement and gender issues are 
> needed in the Signpost to adress this issue, to lay down the cards, and maybe 
> not in humour tone.
> To finish  I want to thank Barbara  from the bottom of my heart  for showing 
> willingness to apologize and understand (because the effect of this is 
> soothing and shows willingness to understand) and I thank Fae for speaking 
> out.
> If all protagonists could now calm down and consider that the very fact the 
> conversation is taking place is positive, I think we would all have gained in 
> freedom of speech.
>
> Good afternoon,
>
> Nattes à chat
>
> (1) 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/world/europe/la-ligue-du-lol-sexual-harassment.html
>
>
>
>
>
> > Le 5 mars 2019 à 10:07, Peter Southwood  a 
> > écrit :
> >
> > "When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout."
> > Overreacting is a tradition at Wikipedia.
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On 
> > Behalf Of Michel Vuijlsteke
> > Sent: 03 March 2019 19:49
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Use of Wikimedia projects for anti-LGBT+ "humour"
> >
> > I don't understand in which possible world anyone thought this was a good
> > idea.
> >
> > The MfD, that is. It, and the entire discussion in favour, reads as some
> > sort of caricature of the worst SJW-type excesses.
> >
> > M.
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Sun, 3 Mar 2019 at 16:41, Fæ  wrote:
> >>
> >> As the last second repost had the same format error, I am trying for a
> >> final time. How embarrassing!
> >>
> >> 
> >>
> >> I would like to apologise to SMcCandlish and Barbara (WVS), and more
> >> generally to the Wikipedia community, for any possible implication
> >> given in my previous email to this list, that authors of the
> >> problematic Signpost "Pronouns beware" essay, might in any way be
> >> thought to be transphobic. This was an important matter to word
> >> precisely and accurately. I take responsibility and apologise, it was
> >> stupid of me to fail to ensure that there could be no way that my
> >> words might appear to be intended as an attack on the person, rather
> >> than criticism of the judgement used when writing this essay, and the
> >> choice to publish it on Wikipedia.
> >>
> >> I refrained from correcting this email previously, as it was thought
> >> to be better to avoid stirring up any further drama, however this was
> >> being interpreted by one of the authors as deliberately avoiding
> >> making any correction.[1] I apologise for that misjudgement, and my
> >> failure to understand how a delay would appear. My thanks go to
> >> SMcCandlish for raising their complaint that a correction was needed.
> >>
> >> The rest of this email runs on the long side, if you have been
> >> following the deletion discussion, there is probably nothing new here.
> >> :-)
> >>
> >> My action in acting transparently as a whistleblower, was to criticise
> >> the editorial judgement of creating an essay which made jokes about
> >> pronoun usage which would, and has, been read as making a bad joke
> >> that mocks genderqueer and transgender people. This problem of how the
> >> article could be read, was raised by others before publication.
> >> Overwhelmingly the deletion discussion created for the essay has had
> >> feedback from many long term and experienced Wikipedians who were
> >> alarmed and upset that the article was published without this problem
> >> being acted on, and either halting publication, or ensuring a
> >> resubmission so there could be no confusion that the article appeared
> >> abusive or a failure to respect genderqueer and nonbinary people.[0]
> >> Many deletion comments have called the article "transphobic". Nobody
> >> as far as I have seen, has mistakenly called the authors transphobes.
> >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Use of Wikimedia projects for anti-LGBT+ "humour"

[Fæ]

As the last post had a format error, I am reposting the body of the
email again to avoid confusion!



I would like to apologise to SMcCandlish and Barbara (WVS), and more
generally to the Wikipedia community, for any possible implication
given in my previous email to this list, that authors of the
problematic Signpost "Pronouns beware" essay, might in any way be
thought to be transphobic. This was an important matter to word
precisely and accurately. I take responsibility and apologise, it was
stupid of me to fail to ensure that there could be no way that my
words might appear to be intended as an attack on the person, rather
than criticism of the judgement used when writing this essay, and the
choice to publish it on Wikipedia.

I refrained from correcting this email previously, as it was thought
to be better to avoid stirring up any further drama, however this was
being interpreted by one of the authors as deliberately avoiding
making any correction.[1] I apologise for that misjudgement, and my
failure to understand how a delay would appear. My thanks go to
SMcCandlish for raising their complaint that a correction was needed.

The rest of this email runs on the long side, if you have been
following the deletion discussion, there is probably nothing new here.
:-)

My action in acting transparently as a whistleblower, was to criticise
the editorial judgement of creating an essay which made jokes about
pronoun usage which would, and has, been read as making a bad joke
that mocks genderqueer and transgender people. This problem of how the
article could be read, was raised by others before publication.
Overwhelmingly the deletion discussion created for the essay has had
feedback from many long term and experienced Wikipedians who were
alarmed and upset that the article was published without this problem
being acted on, and either halting publication, or ensuring a
resubmission so there could be no confusion that the article appeared
abusive or a failure to respect genderqueer and nonbinary people.[0]
Many deletion comments have called the article "transphobic". Nobody
as far as I have seen, has mistakenly called the authors transphobes.
There is a good faith presumption that cause is an error of judgement.
It has been explained several times by myself and others in related
Wikipedia discussions that objecting to a published joke being
offensive to a minority group, in no way implies or presumes that the
author(s) deliberately intended to cause offense to that minority
group.

Thankfully the Signpost essay has been hidden from view while the
deletion discussion continues, an action that resolves the immediate
issue, and removes any need for me to be involved.

I have not made a complaint to the Technical Spaces Code of Conduct
Committee, and decided to let a thread on meta stay closed with regard
to use of a unpaid volunteer WMF related title that requires
compliance with the Code of Conduct.

I sent a friendly confidential email to the Wikimedia Wiki Education
project for comment, as Barbara chose to publish the essay using the
unpaid volunteer account that specifically represented Wiki Education,
though again, this was not a formal complaint. I had one informal
reply back saying they were looking into it. I have not emailed anyone
else with regard to the authors or their actions. Explicitly, I have
not contacted anyone's employer nor anyone else not directly part of
Wikimedia projects.

Barbara has thoughtfully stated in a personal email to me, and on her
Wikipedia talk page, that she is preparing a formal apology as one of
the coauthors.

Thankfully SMcCandlish has agreed with the article being hidden from
view, and continues to debate the article deletion. They chose to
raised an ANI request against me for "canvassing and
incivility/aspersions in gender-related disputes", which was closed
without action today.[3] At the time of writing this email, there are
claims by SMcCandlish that they are "accused of being a transphobe",
it is unclear who is doing this.[4]

The WMF have taken the unusual step of refusing an email promoting the
Signpost on the announcements list, due to "multiple reports of
concerns related to potentially harmful content in the February 2019
edition of the Signpost". I made no formal email complaint to the WMF
about Signpost, or anything else. The multiple reports were from other
concerned people that are unknown to me. Sadly the immediate personal
response to the WMF by the Signpost Production Manager has been "I
find your rejection of my email to be an empty political gesture
bowing to political pressure from braying sheeple."[5] No other
Signpost contributor has made any other reply, either personally or on
behalf of Signpost. I have seen no plans or proposals to change or
improve the review process or policies for the Signpost.

Thank you for those sending private messages of encouragement, support
and information. Should anything similar happen on Wikipedia in the
future, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Use of Wikimedia projects for anti-LGBT+ "humour"

[Fæ]

en no plans or proposals to change or
improve the review process or policies for the Signpost.

Thank you to those sending private messages of encouragement, support
and information. :-D

Should anything similar happen on Wikipedia in the future, this
experience has taught me to run for cover, rather than putting my head
above the parapet. Becoming a figure of hatred is not worth the
stress, or having to read targeted mockery wrapped as "jokes",
published on the project you love and support. Throughout our
Wikimedia projects, I am certain that the majority of our contributors
agree, there remains huge room for improvement in how best to ensure
correct, friendly and respectful treatment of minority groups, rather
than doing the minimum possible.

Links
0. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour
1. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents=revision=885937612=885936723
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28
3. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents=revision=885954601=885953822
4. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour=60098422=885957940=885957573
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28

Thanks,
Fae
--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+

On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 at 16:39, Fæ  wrote:either
>
> It is sad to see that two well established Wikipedians, Barbara (WVS)
> and SMcCandlish have misused Wikipedia Signpost to publish a "humour"
> article which derides the use of nonbinary pronouns. It will be clear
> for any reader that not only is this a joke in bad taste, but the
> article is a misuse of the Wikipedia project and brand, to deride and
> marginalise transgender, genderqueer and nonbinary people. A deletion
> discussion has been created, everyone is welcome to express theithereir
> opinions, should they wish to read the Signpost op-ed.[1][4][5]
>
> As part of the Wikipedia Visiting Scholars program, Barbara Page has
> been granted special status at the University of Pittsburgh, and in
> this capacity is seen to represent Wikimedia and Wikipedia, even if
> not in a paid capacity. Given their coauthorship of the defamatory
> essay, I do not see how it would be ethical for Page to retain any
> recognition or relationship, and ask that a representative of Wiki
> Education provide an official response.[2][6]
>
> Stanton McCandlish is named as a WMF Tech Ambassador, and I have
> requested on Meta that this formal recognition is immediately removed
> by the WMF, as their views are directly antithetical to the WMF
> supported Technical Spaces Code of Conduct.[3]

--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
> Links:
> 1. 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour
> 2. https://wikiedu.org/blog/2015/09/25/upitt-visiting-scholars/
> 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tech/Ambassadors#Stanton_McCandlish
> 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Barbara_(WVS)
> 5. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:SMcCandlish
> 6. https://wikiedu.org/contact-us/
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+
Fae

0. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour
1. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents=revision=885937612=885936723
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28
3. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents=revision=885954601=885953822
4. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour=60098422=885957940=885957573
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-02-28

fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+

On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 at 16:39, Fæ  wrote:either
>
> It is sad to see that two well established Wikipedians, Barbara (WVS)
> and SMcCandlish have misused Wikipedia Signpost to publish a "humour"
> article which derides the use of nonbinary pronouns. It will be clear
> for any reader that not only is this a joke in bad taste, but the
> article is a misuse of the Wikipedia project and brand, to deride and
> marginalise transgender, genderqueer a

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Use of Wikimedia projects for anti-LGBT+ "humour"

[Fæ]

As the last second repost had the same format error, I am trying for a
final time. How embarrassing!



I would like to apologise to SMcCandlish and Barbara (WVS), and more
generally to the Wikipedia community, for any possible implication
given in my previous email to this list, that authors of the
problematic Signpost "Pronouns beware" essay, might in any way be
thought to be transphobic. This was an important matter to word
precisely and accurately. I take responsibility and apologise, it was
stupid of me to fail to ensure that there could be no way that my
words might appear to be intended as an attack on the person, rather
than criticism of the judgement used when writing this essay, and the
choice to publish it on Wikipedia.

I refrained from correcting this email previously, as it was thought
to be better to avoid stirring up any further drama, however this was
being interpreted by one of the authors as deliberately avoiding
making any correction.[1] I apologise for that misjudgement, and my
failure to understand how a delay would appear. My thanks go to
SMcCandlish for raising their complaint that a correction was needed.

The rest of this email runs on the long side, if you have been
following the deletion discussion, there is probably nothing new here.
:-)

My action in acting transparently as a whistleblower, was to criticise
the editorial judgement of creating an essay which made jokes about
pronoun usage which would, and has, been read as making a bad joke
that mocks genderqueer and transgender people. This problem of how the
article could be read, was raised by others before publication.
Overwhelmingly the deletion discussion created for the essay has had
feedback from many long term and experienced Wikipedians who were
alarmed and upset that the article was published without this problem
being acted on, and either halting publication, or ensuring a
resubmission so there could be no confusion that the article appeared
abusive or a failure to respect genderqueer and nonbinary people.[0]
Many deletion comments have called the article "transphobic". Nobody
as far as I have seen, has mistakenly called the authors transphobes.
There is a good faith presumption that cause is an error of judgement.
It has been explained several times by myself and others in related
Wikipedia discussions that objecting to a published joke being
offensive to a minority group, in no way implies or presumes that the
author(s) deliberately intended to cause offense to that minority
group.Thanks,

Thankfully the Signpost essay has been hidden from view while the
deletion discussion continues, an action that resolves the immediate
issue, and removes any need for me to be involved.

I have not made a complaint to the Technical Spaces Code of Conduct
Committee, and decided to let a thread on meta stay closed with regard
to use of a unpaid volunteer WMF related title that requires
compliance with the Code of Conduct.

I sent a friendly confidential email to the Wikimedia Wiki Education
project for comment, as Barbara chose to publish the essay using the
unpaid volunteer account that specifically represented Wiki Education,
though again, this was not a formal complaint. I had one informal
reply back saying they were looking into it. I have not emailed anyone
else with regard to the authors or their actions. Explicitly, I have
not contacted anyone's employer nor anyone else not directly part of
Wikimedia projects.

Barbara has thoughtfully stated in a personal email to me, and on her
Wikipedia talk page, that she is preparing a formal apology as one of
the coauthors.

Thankfully SMcCandlish has agreed with the article being hidden from
view, and continues to debate the article deletion. They chose to
raised an ANI request against me for "canvassing and
incivility/aspersions in gender-related disputes", which was closed
without action toThanks,day.[3] At the time of writing this email, there are
claims by SMcCandlish that they are "accused of being a transphobe",
it is unclear who is doing this.[4]

The WMF have taken the unusual step of refusing an email promoting the
Signpost on the announcements list, due to "multiple reports of
concerns related to potentially harmful content in the February 2019
edition of the Signpost". I made no formal email complaint to the WMF
about Signpost, or anything else. The multiple reports were from other
concerned people that are unknown to me. Sadly the immediate personal
response to the WMF by the Signpost Production Manager has been "I
find your rejection of my email to be an empty political gesture
bowing to political pressure from braying sheeple."[5] No other
Signpost contributor has made any other reply, either personally or on
behalf of Signpost. I have seen no plans or proposals to change or
improve the review process or policies for the Signpost.

Thank you for those sending private messages of encouragement, support
and information. Should anything similar happen on Wikipedia in 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[Fæ]

Most Chapters and many other Affiliates are registered legal
organizations. In some cases, like the one you quote, the organization
is a registered charity and has several years of submitting accounts
and reports as that entity.

Names can be changed but this would be a legally meaningful decision
by each board, and each board should be free to make their own
decision on the necessity of the change and agree their budget for
changing, not simply because some unnamed marketing consultant gave
some expensive advice to the WMF about "branding". There is zero
verifiable statistical evidence to back up claimed benefits apart from
vague hand waving to pie charts in presentations about 'markets' for
which nothing is explained about the self-selected sample space, and
for which there are no reported credible tests.

If the true drivers behind this change are because WMF senior
management believe that the WMF is a competitor for Facebook or
YouTube (as was in one of the marketing presentations), then the
problem is their perception of the mission of the WMF, not the name
"Wikimedia".

Fae



On Sun, 14 Apr 2019 at 09:45, Ed Saperia  wrote:
>
> Maybe there’s an easy way to just test this? A chapter could start calling 
> itself e.g. Wikipedia UK in its comms for a year and see if there’s any 
> noticeable difference?
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On 14 Apr 2019, at 01:47, phoebe ayers  wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 13, 2019 at 2:29 PM Rebecca O'Neill 
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I agree Galder!
> >>
> >> I would like to respond to Phoebe's comment on not wanting to draw people
> >> to the *Wikimedia* movement is not true of the Irish experience. We have
> >> some idea of an editing community that aren't interested in getting
> >> involved in our user group (and probably never will be), so we are very
> >> keen to draw people to volunteering as Wikimedians not just as editors.
> >> Presenting our group as something more than people who are experienced
> >> Wikipedia editors is very important to us, and anything that makes that
> >> message easier would be of huge benefit to us.
> >>
> >
> > Dear Rebecca,
> > Thanks for this. Let me try to explain my thinking a bit more...
> > I too want people to join Wikimedia New England, which is the group I'm
> > currently running. And in general, I want a thriving and healthy ecosystem
> > of affiliates. But I want that to be true because the work that chapters,
> > affiliates and the Foundation itself does is meant to be enabling for the
> > larger goal of making free knowledge available, and specifically for
> > improving and sustaining Wikipedia and her sister projects.
> >
> > Everything that the groups do - from building the technical/legal
> > infrastructure side, to training new editors, to providing a friendly
> > geographic or topical face to Wikipedia, to doing outreach, to supporting
> > existing editors - is a means to an end. It is not the end itself. We do
> > this multivarious work because we recognize that there are many, many
> > effective ways to contribute in a project as complex as ours, and that
> > participants can sometimes best find a home in ways that are not directly
> > editing. But equally: there are of course other means to this end of
> > building free knowledge that have nothing to do with the Wikimedia group/
> > structure, most notably the thousands of independent volunteers who work
> > largely alone to maintain and build the projects, and upon whose work we
> > all depend. Groups, and the Foundation, are important! But they are not, in
> > themselves, the end goal.
> >
> > So where does this leave us with rebranding? I admit I haven't read all of
> > the comments/analysis. But, to my mind, there's a cost to rebranding: the
> > several hundred person-hours that have already been put into this
> > discussion, if nothing else. For the benefit to outweigh the cost, we need
> > to imagine what will happen to increase participation in building free
> > knowledge as a result. If we are "Wikipedia New England" or "Wikipedia
> > Ireland" et al, will our groups be more effective -- for instance, with an
> > easier to understand name, will new people join our trainings, perhaps
> > becoming Wikipedia editors? Will more cultural institutions reach out, and
> > be more amenable to releasing images? If the Foundation is the Wikipedia
> > Foundation, then how does this improve the infrastructure that the
> > Foundation provides, exactly?
> >
> > If the answer is that this change will definitely increase participation in
> > the projects and free knowledge generally, through the mechanism of the
> > various groups being more recognizable and thus reaching a bigger audience,
> > then the proposal is worth seriously considering. But if it is hard to
> > imagine - and I admit I do find it hard to imagine that the name of the
> > Foundation is the thing standing in our way to wider Wikipedia
> > participation - then it doesn't seem worth the cost.
> >
> > -- Phoebe

--

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[Fæ]

Seeing this "brand" discussion eat up all the limited available unpaid
volunteer oxygen on wikimedia-l makes me sad.

If the WMF's biggest strategy topic this year is to enter into navel
gazing about its brand, then the WMF looks like it has a problem with
setting meaningful work for its senior management, or maybe just its
team from Wolff Olins; anyone seen a budget line for this consultancy,
I'm assuming this advice is not free, or cheap?

If volunteers want to chew over something that is more meaningful how
about /transparency/, a target that by all practical measures has got
visibly worse over the last five years and appears to have been
deliberately dropped from every top level strategy document:
* Should the WMF cap CEO personal expenses to under $1,000,000 a year,
and publicly report on all individual senior management total expenses
over $50,000 a year AND report on these within a year of the spend?
* Should Wikimedia project volunteers be able to request and view the
reports that the WMF holds about them, in the same way as is legally
required under European law?
* Should the WMF publish flight travel expenses, and set targets for
decreasing year on year flight travel as part of actively doing
anything at all to decrease the WMF's contribution to climate change?

Ps, it is worth looking at some of the links in the original email, it
is revealing that WMF senior management appears to believe that it is
a competitor with the commercial worlds of social media, YouTube and
internet search engines. If this is how strategy and targets are
created, then the "sum of human knowledge" goals are horribly watered
down between ideology and delivery through the eyes of management
consultants.

Thanks,
Fae


On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 03:14, Zack McCune  wrote:
>
> :: Apologies for cross-posting to multiple mailing lists. We want to ensure
> we spread the word about this opportunity to as many people as possible. ::
>
> Hi all,
>
> We are writing today to invite you to be a part of a community review on
> Wikimedia brand research and strategy.
>
> Recently, the Wikimedia Foundation set out to better understand how the
> world sees Wikimedia and Wikimedia projects as brands.[1] We wanted to get
> a sense of the general visibility of our different projects, and evaluate
> public support of our mission to spread free knowledge.
>
> We launched a global brand study to research these questions, as part of
> our planning toward our 2030 strategic goals.[2] The study was commissioned
> by the Board, carried out by the brand consultancy Wolff Olins, and
> directed by the Foundation’s Communications team.[3][4] It collected
> perspectives from the internet users of seven countries (India, China,
> Nigeria, Egypt, Germany, Mexico and the US) on Wikimedia projects and
> values.
>
> The study revealed some interesting trends:
>
> - Awareness of Wikipedia is above 80% in Western Europe and North America.
>
> - Awareness of Wikipedia averages above 40% in emerging markets,[5] and is
> fast growing.
>
> - There is awareness of other projects, but was significantly lower. For
> example, awareness of Wikisource was at 30%, Wiktionary at 25%, Wikidata at
> 20%, and Wikivoyage at 8%.
>
> - There was significant confusion around the name Wikimedia. Respondents
> reported they had either not heard of it, or extrapolated its relationship
> to Wikipedia.
>
> - In spite of lack of awareness about Wikimedia, respondents showed a high
> level of support for our mission.
>
> Following from these research insights, the Wolff Olins team also made a
> strategic suggestion to refine the Wikimedia brand system.[6] The
> suggestions include:
>
> - Use Wikipedia as the central movement brand rather than Wikimedia.
>
> - Provide clearer connections to the Movement projects from Wikipedia to
> drive increased awareness, usage and contributions to smaller projects.
>
> - Retain Wikimedia project names, with the exception of Wikimedia Commons
> which is recommended to be shortened to Wikicommons to be consistent with
> other projects.
>
> - Explore new naming conventions for the Foundation and affiliate groups
> that use Wikipedia rather than Wikimedia.
>
> - Consider expository taglines and other naming conventions to reassert the
> connections between projects (e.g. “__ - A Wikipedia project”).
>
> This is not a new idea.[7][8]
>
> By definition, Wikimedia brands are shared among the communities who give
> them meaning. So in considering this change, the Wikimedia Foundation is
> collecting feedback from across our communities. Our goal is to speak with
> more than 80% of affiliates and as many individual contributors as possible
> before May 2019, when we will offer the Board of Trustees a summary of
> community response.
>
> We invite you to look at a project summary [9], the brand research [10],
> and the brand strategy suggestion [11] Wolff Olins prepared working with us.
>
> For feedback, please add comments on the Community Review talk page 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] AI Image Restoration

[Fæ]

For Wikimedia Commons the issue of how to handle digital restorations
has been discussed several times, there are no single solutions. The
general position is that original images, such as very old glass plate
prints from archives, should be preserved and displayed in their
original state, but there is no harm in making available restorations
as separate files that fairly and accurately represent the photograph
and remove damage or flaws. The reuser or reader should never be in
doubt that they are looking at a restoration rather than the original,
and we have to keep in mind that we do not always know whether the
reader's monitor, display device or printer may also adapt the
saturation and brightness of the image.

Though it is possible to do large batch changes for light levels,
sharpening, colour correction and so on, these remain controversial if
the original file is overwritten. This is especially true when an
artwork has been photographed or scanned.

Among recent on-wiki controversy is colorization of photographs,
especially old black and white photographs. These may be interesting,
and at times useful for illustration, but again the reader should be
in no doubt that they are not looking at "reality" and as good
practice it should always be easy for the reader to navigate to the
unenhanced original.

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

On Tue, 28 May 2019 at 02:23, John Erling Blad  wrote:
>
> A quite common problem at all Wikimedia sites; we have a photo but the
> quality is poor. An example is the old photo from the cabins at
> Mørkedalen where a group of fighters hid out during the invasion of
> Norway.[1]
>
> I've been using some manual tools to restore images, but it is very
> slow and the result is often not very good. What if we could automate
> the process? The work "Deep Image Prior"[2] could be a solution, it is
> quite awesome, but it is a bit too difficult to configure for most
> users.
>
> There are several such automated tools, or algorithms that can be
> turned into automated tools, but the question is; do we want an
> automated tool set, or do we want to keep on doing things manually?
>
> [1] https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skil%C3%B8perpatruljen_i_M%C3%B8rkedalen
> [2] https://dmitryulyanov.github.io/deep_image_prior
>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Fæ]

WMF T will not do anything about off-wiki harassment either, apart
from banning on-wiki users or offering to block your account as the
target of harassment.

There's a lot that can be improved around harassment and civility, but
honestly, the WMF has no special answers or powers, they do not claim
to be experts. As someone who has had blackmail and death threats,
advice from the WMF was a lot worse than advice I had from the either
the police or victim support.

Though my experience is mostly dated, the WMF gave me bad advice which
significantly delayed me from contacting the police, and I cannot
recommend that a target of harassment put their faith in the WMF if
they are targeted with harassment. The only reason I reported some
nasty transphobic threats targeting me earlier this year was to ensure
that the WMF had them logged, in case there was a wider pattern of
abuse against other LGBT+ Wikipedians. WMF T have given me no useful
feedback or updates on my own case in the months since.

I am very sorry to say this so bluntly, but from personal experience
though WMF senior management write a lot of nice soft words about
harassment and safe spaces, in practice a user being targeted is
better off having private chats on IRC with volunteer stewards and
checkusers that they trust, rather than WMF employees.

P.S. I encourage the use of the words "target of harassment". Being
labelled as a "victim" which puts the focus on you just because you
made a complaint, rather than the troll harassing others, is not
helpful.

Thanks,
Fae

On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 at 13:29, Isaac Olatunde  wrote:
>
> I have seen a known user attacking me on one of Wikipedia's criticism site
> during my ArbCom case on the English Wikipedia but when it was report, they
> said there is nothing they can do about off-wiki attacks/harassment. That
> event alone gives me an impression that the English Wikipedia community
> cannot protect anyone from off-wiki harassment. Why would people feel
> comfortable to report a case of harassment to a community or group that can
> not protect them?
>
> Isaac
>
> On Fri, Jun 14, 2019, 8:33 AM Pine W 
> > I think that I understand the GamerGate reference. A decentralized swarm of
> > harassment can be a major problem, and in this case I am concerned (I
> > haven't attempted to review the evidence) that at least one person is being
> > hounded off-wiki regarding their alleged involvement in this matter in a
> > way that would receive a firm response by ENWP administrators if the same
> > hounding was happening on ENWP.
> >
> > Fear of being hounded can discourage people from reporting problems.
> >
> > On English Wikipedia we have some administrators who are willing to make
> > politically difficult blocks, and we have an arbitration committee that has
> > been willing to review alleged misconduct by high profile people including
> > administrators, but I'm not sure that all wikis have a sufficient number of
> > competent and good faith administrators to address allegations of
> > misconduct, especially misconduct by people who have relatively high levels
> > of local political support.
> >
> > Even more challenging to moderate are off-wiki activities in places which
> > do not honor ENWP norms. I do not know of a robust solution to this
> > problem, and my guess is that there is no robust solution unless we want
> > governments to have more ability to proactively filter and to suppress
> > Internet content that does not meet with their approval.
> >
> > I think that ENWP is more like a busy, diverse, and loud public square than
> > a quiet office with tight control of what everyone does and a central
> > authority that quickly gets rid of people who make statements that are not
> > acceptable within narrow parameters. I worry that the concept of "safe
> > spaces" may come to mean something like: "People are only allowed to
> > participate on Wikimedia sites if they act according to WMF's opinions
> > regarding politically correct behavior and create content that does not
> > offend WMF". Political correctness and safety are not characteristics that
> > I would associate with Wikimedia sites, for better and for worse, and I
> > think that attempting to create more political correctness and safety can
> > come at too much expense of honesty, due process, freedom of expression,
> > and editorial independence. As mentioned by others, WMF’s recent power grab
> > calls into question the editorial independence of the Wikimedia
> > communities.
> >
> > This does not mean that I would give a free pass to Fram or that I am OK
> > with someone hounding a person who makes a complaint, whether on wiki or
> > off wiki.
> >
> > I think that a good conversation for the ENWP community to have would be
> > regarding how we can increase confidence by victims of harassment in the
> > integrity of ENWP's investigation and enforcement systems. Courage is
> > sometimes necessary to speak up in public, as many of us are doing in this
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Fæ]

There are some non-controversial facts that apply:
* The WMF was created to operationally support the projects, by design
it is not a police force for social conduct, even though it may have a
duty to remove unlawful content
* There is no consensus with the English Wikipedia community for WMF
employees to use role accounts for social conduct issues that might be
otherwise handled by other administrators, oversight or Arbcom
requests
* Policies developed away from the English Wikipedia community such as
for Safe Spaces and the Technical Code of Conduct would require
consensus on the English Wikipedia to become applicable on that
project

The one year WMF Office English Wikipedia ban of Fram overturns these
prior understandings of how our community works collegially with the
WMF. It is hard to conceive of any eventuality where Fram's months in
advance WMF warnings could not have been reviewed with Arbcom, and if
WMF T then thought action was needed, that there was some new legal
or confidential issue that stopped them choosing to escalate as a
confidential request to Arbcom. Any Arbcom approved sanction against
Fram based on the evidence would not be controversial for anyone.

The fundamental difference between an Arbcom sanction and a WMF Office
ban, is that:
1. Fram would have the opportunity to contribute to the review of evidence
2. Fram would be able to follow a well defined appeal procedure
3. The English Wikipedia community elected Arbcom for this specific
role, and consequently actions taken via Arbcom motion have automatic
community support
4. If the English Wikipedia's policies are inadequate or not being
implemented correctly, including administrator conduct, Arbcom can and
does recommend improvement to the community

Peter's comments below are just factually correct. For sanctions to be
considered "justice", there has to be governing processes that ensure
all evidence which can be safely published is published and subject to
public scrutiny and all sanctions must have a process for appeal. As
the Wikipedia article on natural justice puts it "The right to a fair
hearing requires that individuals should not be penalized by decisions
affecting their rights or legitimate expectations unless they have
been given prior notice of the case, a fair opportunity to answer it,
and the opportunity to present their own case." The current and
significantly extended use of the secretive WMF Office role account,
fails to meet those basic expectations.

After the dramah dies down, let's hope that meaningful lessons are
learned and the WMF takes the opportunity to revisit whether they want
to pay employees to act as social police officers with ban hammers, or
instead solve these problems by working with the community to improve
local policies to make the projects more welcoming and more civil
places to volunteer our time.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_justice
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 at 12:13, Peter Southwood
 wrote:
>
> I don’t think that is the point at all.
> For justice to be accepted as justice, it must be comprehensible. The process 
> was badly flawed, and instead of sending a message that  T was looking 
> after our trust and safety, it sent a message that anyone could be blocked 
> without reference to our internal processes and without explanation of the 
> reasons. The notification supplied after the fact was by an unidentified 
> functionary  and consisted of a boilerplate non-explanation. Not helping 
> either.
> This could reasonably be described as a PR blunder. An exercise in opacity. A 
> failure to communicate of noteworthy proportions. Another brick in the wall 
> between the enwiki community and WMF. Maybe WMF just don’t care, and consider 
> us all expendable. It certainly looks like it. That is kind of worrying to 
> those of us actually trying to build an encyclopaedia. In spite of all his 
> alleged defects, I see Fram as one of those.
> Anyone reasonably familiar with the dramaboards will recognise that not 
> everyone taking exception to this action are friends of Fram. Several would 
> probably have supported a desysopping and/or a block, but never without due 
> and visible process and not without talk page access or no right to appeal.
> Your mileage may differ. I judge on what information is available to me. I do 
> not just accept what someone tells me, I try to check. One gets that way 
> after working on Wikipedia for a while. One gets to know what a reliable 
> source is likely to look like, and keeps a lookout for disinformation and 
> non-answers. Read what is available before passing judgement on those who 
> have taken that step.
> Cheers,
> Peter
<><>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing Wikimedia Space: A space for movement news and conversations

[Fæ]

On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 at 18:47, Maria Cruz  wrote:
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> Today, the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Engagement department is
> launching Wikimedia Space *[1]*, a platform for movement *[2]* organizers,
> affiliates, contributors, partners, and the Foundation to share news,
> questions, and conversations.
>
> Learning from others has been the bedrock for development and growth in our
> movement. With this platform, we want to promote these sorts of enriching
> exchanges by welcoming people from every background to build strong and
> diverse communities, breaking down the barriers for entry to our movement,
> and focusing our efforts on facilitating collaboration, including from
> communities that are new to our movement.
>
> Wikimedia Space is a single place for collaboration, comprising Blog *[1]*
> and Discuss *[3]* hubs. The Blog section provides a movement-wide platform
> for project updates, recent events, and shared learnings. We have designed
> editorial guidelines that allow everyone to share their news with others.
> Wikimedia Space also allows anybody to add an event, which can be
> discovered in a calendar *[4]* or a map *[5] *of the movement. We want this
> new space to be safe and welcoming, especially for newcomers, and this is
> why it is governed by a code of conduct *[6]*, and relies on active
> community moderation.
>
> Wikimedia Space is currently a prototype, built on WordPress *[7]* and
> Discourse *[8]*. While at present it only operates in English, it will
> evolve to include multiple languages in the near future. This project is
> only possible with your participation. Spread the news and join Wikimedia
> Space *[9]*!
>
> Read more about the features you’ll find on our blog post. We have also
> published posts on how to make this space yours, so it can best serve your
> needs. You can find all the documentation for this project on its page on
> Meta.
>
> See you at Wikimedia Space!
>
>
> *María Cruz * \\  Communications and Outreach Manager, Community Engagement
> \\ Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> mc...@wikimedia.org  |  Twitter:  @marianarra_
> 
>
>
> [1] https://space.wmflabs.org
>
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement
>
> [3] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/
>
> [4] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/c/events/l/calendar
>
> [5] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/c/events/l/map
>
> [6] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/guidelines
>
> [7] https://wordpress.org/
>
> [8] https://discourse.org/
> [9] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/how-to-join-wikimedia-space/113
> ___
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> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
> 

Does this mean we should plan to stop using https://outreach.wikimedia.org?

The two appear to serve the same purpose and are governed by the same
codes of conduct.

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

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Fæ]

This misses the point, as others have highlighted already.

The WMF can and /should/ globally and permanently ban paedophiles,
terrorists, system hackers and people making multiple cross-wiki death
threats or threats of suicide. There are perfectly good and
understandable reasons as to why the evidence behind these attacks and
threats would be kept unpublished, it's seriously personal or criminal
stuff.

The WMF making topic bans, interaction bans and limited project
specific bans against Wikipedians is a brand new invention, which goes
against the pre-existing understanding that the WMF do not replace
existing and perfectly adequate community agreed procedures for
banning bad behaviour on our projects. Once full time WMF employees
start doing in parallel what volunteer administrators already do, then
we should question why we do not *pay* volunteers administrators the
same hourly rate and we are likely to see a mass exodus of
administrators. After all, would you, say, deliver the post for free
in your area for fun, but thereby take away decent full time
employment with a guaranteed pension for your local postie?

If the reason for the WMF stepping in to ban Fram for a year is
because the WMF do not trust Wikipedia administrators or Wikipedia's
Arbcom to take sensible action in harassment cases, then they should
be raising that honestly and openly with Arbcom. If the English
Wikipedia's policies are not fit for purpose, or implementation of
policy is incompetent, we need a much bigger discussion than whether
Fram did something so terrible it cannot be named, but oddly was not
worth a global ban but only the equivalent of a 12 month block on
Wikipedia while they are free to do whatever they feel like on other
Wikimedia projects.

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

On Thu, 13 Jun 2019 at 15:35, John Erling Blad  wrote:
>
> When you bad mouth other users there should be, and will be, consequences.
> An admin got desysoped and banned after repeated warnings? So what? The
> only ting to be learned is that some people believe they can do whatever
> they want and it has no consequences, and other people goes ballistic when
> consequences happen.
>
> I would have given desysoped fram and 14 days to cool off, and if that did
> not work out repeated with one month. Banning someone for one year is like
> telling them to leave and don't come back. Someone at WMF is clearly overly
> sensitive, but not reacting would also be wrong.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New board for Wikimedia Belgium + evaluation behaviour WMF

[Fæ]

Thank you for a sensible response.

Hopefully Wikimedia Belgium will be able later to publish some agreed
recommendations or conclusions, both for how this case could have been
handled more appropriately, and how the WMF procedures or policies
should improve better to protect the interests of all those involved
in allegations of harassment or similar at our events.

As for others making stereotypical statements about "victims" and
"perpetrators", just shut up please. This was not a criminal case, the
police were not called, and this is not about you and your need for
virtue signalling. There are real people involved and the only thing
on the table has been an allegation which should have been resolved at
the time, not left with toxic fallout that appears to have now damaged
the reputations of both parties, along with Wikimedia organizations.

Thanks,
Fae
-- 
Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On Fri, 21 Jun 2019 at 09:48, Geert Van Pamel  wrote:
>
> The initial message was a private message from Romaine (WMBE Board member)
> on his own initiative; not verified, nor approved by (the Board of)
> Wikimedia Belgium. Please read this reply carefully in order to try to bring
> more clarity.
>
> I have immediately notified Romaine that he abused his function in the WMBE
> Board to communicate private matters on the general mailinglist.
>
> Since Monday I am in private contact, both with T and the management of
> Wikimedia Nederland to follow-up this dispute. This caused delay in replying
> to this message. The Wikimedia Belgium Board will continue to evaluate the
> situation and take further measures.
>
> Wikimedia Belgium wants to apologize for any moral damage that the initial
> message provoked.
>
> What one member of the general assembly did propose is that an internal
> audit could be requested to investigate the general behavior, the working,
> the completeness of procedures, and the treatment of cases by the Trust and
> Safety (T), and the grants team.
>
> Specifically, we have encountered as a chapter repeatedly during the last
> several years a lack of appeal, both in the T complaints handling, and in
> the grants team handling sAPG requests.
>
> Specifically in the T handling procedures, the rights of the alleged
> offender are not sufficiently guaranteed. There is a possibility that rumors
> are invoking a punishment without careful verification of the facts, without
> the defendants being sanctioned in a neutral way, and without taking into
> account certain handicaps like hard-hearing, or autism.
>
> That being said, please stop discussing this specific conflict publicly,
> because a lot of important details are missing, are single-sided
> interpretations, or even completely wrong.
>
>
>
> -- Geert Van Pamel, chair of Wikimedia Belgium
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Fæ]

A couple of years ago a proposed project was for the WMF to pay for
access to the Google image matching API access so we could run a
copyvio bot on the live new uploads list. Such a bot would not be
terribly hard to get working, and would be a great experiment to see
if this aspect of the more boring side of sysop tools could be
reduced.[1]

Not specifically advocating auto-deletion, but daily housekeeping
image matches to highly likely copyrighted categories would make mass
housekeeping very easy.

A separate old chestnut was my proposal to introduce systemic image
hashes, which neatly show "close" image matches.[2] With a Commons hat
on, such a project would be of far more immediate pragmatic use than
mobile-related and structured data-related projects that seem to suck
up all the oxygen and volunteer time available.

Note that the history of these project/funding ideas is so long, that
several of the most experienced long term volunteers that were
originally interested have since retired. Without some positive short
term encouragement, not only do these ideas never reach the useful
experiment stage, but the volunteers involved simply fade away.

Links
1. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/02#Google_has_opened_an_API_for_image_recognition
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Imagehash

Fae

On Sun, 12 May 2019 at 12:21, Amir Sarabadani  wrote:
>
> IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores support for
> images that might be copyright violation, or both.
>
> Best
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
>
> > Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the amount of
> > material it has to deal with.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Yaroslav
> >
> > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or capable to
> > do
> > > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
> > >
> > > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> > > >
> > > > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several
> > GLAM-related
> > > > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing what it
> > > is
> > > > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can create a
> > > > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> > > >
> > > > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> > > >
> > > > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with Common's
> > > > admins - creating template and project page helps to promote you
> > project
> > > > across Wikimedia communities and may inspire others to do something
> > > similar.
> > > >
> > > > Commons is indeed quite hostile environment for uploaders, but on the
> > > other
> > > > hand it is constantly flooded by hundreds  of copyright violating
> > files a
> > > > day:
> > > >
> > > > See the list from just one day:
> > > >
> > > >
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2019/05/01
> > > >
> > > > so this hostility works both ways - Common's admins have to cope with
> > > > aggressive hostile copyright violators every day, and after some time -
> > > > decide to leave or became being hostile themselves... and the other
> > issue
> > > > is decreasing number of active admins and OTRS agents.
> > > >
> > > > I think - sooner or later - all this system - uploads - screening
> > uploads
> > > > by admins, and OTRS agreements - needs deep rethinking.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > niedz., 12 maj 2019 o 10:48 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > > > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> napisał(a):
> > > >
> > > >> Hello all,
> > > >>
> > > >> There seems to be a dispute between the Outreach and the Commons
> > > components
> > > >> of The Community, judging by the article "Wikimedia Commons: a highly
> > > >> hostile place for multimedia students contributions" at the Education
> > > >> Newsletter
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > >
> > https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/April_2019/Wikimedia_Commons:_a_highly_hostile_place_for_multimedia_students_contributions
> > > >>
> > > >> As far as I can understand it, some students on an Outreach project
> > > >> uploaded some rather well-made video material, and comeone on Commons
> > > >> deleted them because they appeared to well-made to be student projects
> > > and
> > > >> so concluded they were copyright violations.  But some rather odd
> > > remarks
> > > >> were made "Commons has to fight the endless stream of uploaded
> > > copyrighted
> > > >> content on behalf of a headquarters in San Francisco that doesn't
> > care."
> > > >> and
> > > >> "you have regarded Commons as little more than free cloud storage for
> > > >> images you intend to use on Wikipedia ".
> > > >>
> > > >> Perhaps the Foundation needs to resolve this dispute?
> > > >>
> > > >> Thrapostibongles
> > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive

[Fæ]

Thanks for the reply! Especially from an official WMF Community and
Audience Engagement Associate.

Can we take it from your defensive email it is a fact that the WMF has
no known long term archive strategy?

By the way, in your apparent opinion we may be unimportant people on
an email list, but we have a long history of taking the initiative to
fundamentally shape the WMF, and not that long ago took action that
ensured a board member resigned and the WMF establish radically
different good governance practices. Not a bad record for loner unpaid
volunteers.

Thanks in advance,
Fae

On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 18:38, Joseph Seddon  wrote:
>
> Because the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't make long term strategic decisions
> based off of a 4 person discussion on a mailing list.
>
> I really don't know why people keep being surprised by this.
>
> Seddon
>
> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 6:11 PM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > I saw a recent size estimate of Wikimedia Commons of just over 200 TB.
> > That's large but not astronomical.
> >
> > With a bit of guesstimation, the hardware only cost of creating a
> > Wikimedia projects digital tape archive might be around $2,000 per
> > archive set, a cost that probably would only be once a year. Using
> > off-the-shelf kit, a similar archive on a set of 10 TB hard disks
> > might end up being double that cost. Archives like this are good for a
> > few years, but in practice a plan would have them periodically tested
> > and refreshed, unless they are being replaced every year with the
> > latest archive.
> >
> > It is unclear to me why the WMF would not want to make a hearty
> > transparent and public commitment to off-site archives. At least with
> > an independently managed archive in another country, that at least
> > makes it possible that in some bizarre scenario where an extremist US
> > government makes it a federal crime to fail to either 'amend' the
> > Wikimedia database against the values of the WMF, or legally orders
> > the WMF to take down its websites in order to control certain
> > publications, videos or photographs, that WMF employees can
> > appropriately comply with US federal law, but are not be required to
> > do anything about the public archive hosted by a different
> > organization in another country. If such an unlikely scenario came to
> > pass (and the unexpected seems to becoming something to realistically
> > plan for these days), at least the archive could be resurrected for
> > public access within a few weeks by open knowledge organizations who
> > have staff that would never be subject to federal law in the US.
> >
> > If the WMF honestly does not already do something like this already,
> > and wanted to earmark the relatively trivial sum of $10,000/year for
> > remote archives, us volunteers would be happy to approach a couple of
> > suitable national-level partners in Europe that could easily
> > physically host the archives each year and would probably like the
> > idea of blogging about it, as protecting open knowledge fits their
> > values and commitments.
> >
> > Any WMF board members interested in asking some questions internally,
> > if the WMF senior management are unwilling to answer this rather
> > simple question publicly?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Fae
> > --
> > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> >
> > On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 14:36, Pine W  wrote:
> > >
> > > I think that raising the question here is fine. I also think that it is
> > > more WMF's responsibility to be responsive than community members'
> > > responsibility to guess where and how to ask questions.
> > >
> > > In general (this is not intended as a criticism of you, Dan) my view is
> > > that WMF has a very mixed record on responsiveness. Some employees and
> > > board members repeatedly go above and beyond the call of duty, while
> > other
> > > employees and board members ignore repeated questions, and some people
> > are
> > > in between. The first group seems to me to deserve a lot of credit, while
> > > second group comes across to me as disrespectful and lazy. I have
> > > previously complained about problems with responsiveness to multiple
> > > managers in WMF,  and unfortunately that has not resulted in widespread
> > > improvements that I have observed. I think that the problem may have more
> > > to do with organizational culture and lack of will than with lack of
> > > capacity. Let me emphasize that unresponsiveness is not a problem with
> > > everyone in WMF, but I think tha

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive

[Fæ]

I saw a recent size estimate of Wikimedia Commons of just over 200 TB.
That's large but not astronomical.

With a bit of guesstimation, the hardware only cost of creating a
Wikimedia projects digital tape archive might be around $2,000 per
archive set, a cost that probably would only be once a year. Using
off-the-shelf kit, a similar archive on a set of 10 TB hard disks
might end up being double that cost. Archives like this are good for a
few years, but in practice a plan would have them periodically tested
and refreshed, unless they are being replaced every year with the
latest archive.

It is unclear to me why the WMF would not want to make a hearty
transparent and public commitment to off-site archives. At least with
an independently managed archive in another country, that at least
makes it possible that in some bizarre scenario where an extremist US
government makes it a federal crime to fail to either 'amend' the
Wikimedia database against the values of the WMF, or legally orders
the WMF to take down its websites in order to control certain
publications, videos or photographs, that WMF employees can
appropriately comply with US federal law, but are not be required to
do anything about the public archive hosted by a different
organization in another country. If such an unlikely scenario came to
pass (and the unexpected seems to becoming something to realistically
plan for these days), at least the archive could be resurrected for
public access within a few weeks by open knowledge organizations who
have staff that would never be subject to federal law in the US.

If the WMF honestly does not already do something like this already,
and wanted to earmark the relatively trivial sum of $10,000/year for
remote archives, us volunteers would be happy to approach a couple of
suitable national-level partners in Europe that could easily
physically host the archives each year and would probably like the
idea of blogging about it, as protecting open knowledge fits their
values and commitments.

Any WMF board members interested in asking some questions internally,
if the WMF senior management are unwilling to answer this rather
simple question publicly?

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

On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 14:36, Pine W  wrote:
>
> I think that raising the question here is fine. I also think that it is
> more WMF's responsibility to be responsive than community members'
> responsibility to guess where and how to ask questions.
>
> In general (this is not intended as a criticism of you, Dan) my view is
> that WMF has a very mixed record on responsiveness. Some employees and
> board members repeatedly go above and beyond the call of duty, while other
> employees and board members ignore repeated questions, and some people are
> in between. The first group seems to me to deserve a lot of credit, while
> second group comes across to me as disrespectful and lazy. I have
> previously complained about problems with responsiveness to multiple
> managers in WMF,  and unfortunately that has not resulted in widespread
> improvements that I have observed. I think that the problem may have more
> to do with organizational culture and lack of will than with lack of
> capacity. Let me emphasize that unresponsiveness is not a problem with
> everyone in WMF, but I think that it is a significant problem and I know of
> no excuses for it.
>
> Pine
>
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 7, 2019, 10:50 Dan Garry (Deskana)  wrote:
>
> > On Tue 7 May 2019 at 11:04, Fæ  wrote:
> >
> > > I am sure this Wikimedia wide community run list is a perfectly good
> > place
> > > to check whether the WMF has any commitment to long term public archives,
> > > or not.
> > >
> > > Thanks for your advice as to where to go, but the strategy process groups
> > > are undoubtedly a worse place to ask this question and expect a
> > verifiable
> > > answer.
> >
> >
> > I see! Then I will defer to your clear expertise in getting definitive
> > answers. I look forward to seeing the outcome!
> >
> > Dan
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Fæ]

Any image recognition system has the potential to be misused. What we
imagined was flagging images for the later attention of volunteers to
look at.

A simple image hash might just be the basis for identifying potential
close matches to previously deleted files or derivatives of existing
Commons hosted files. These benefits could be delivered without any
reliance on external databases.

The Article 17 aspect is from my perspective a large tangent. The WMF
opposing those systems does not stop us from using automation and
databases to identify potential copyright issues for our own purposes.

Fae

On Mon, 13 May 2019 at 20:44, Mister Thrapostibongles
 wrote:
>
> Fae,
>
> I think that what you are describing is essentially the sort of mechanism
> that would be mandated by Article 17 on the proposed new European copyright
> directive.  Since the Foundation has explicitly opposed that, see their
> blog post
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/03/26/european-parliament-limits-internet-freedom-in-controversial-copyright-vote/
> I
> presume that they will not permit the use of such an automated system on
> their projects.
>
> Thrapostibongles
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 12:41 PM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > A couple of years ago a proposed project was for the WMF to pay for
> > access to the Google image matching API access so we could run a
> > copyvio bot on the live new uploads list. Such a bot would not be
> > terribly hard to get working, and would be a great experiment to see
> > if this aspect of the more boring side of sysop tools could be
> > reduced.[1]
> >
> > Not specifically advocating auto-deletion, but daily housekeeping
> > image matches to highly likely copyrighted categories would make mass
> > housekeeping very easy.
> >
> > A separate old chestnut was my proposal to introduce systemic image
> > hashes, which neatly show "close" image matches.[2] With a Commons hat
> > on, such a project would be of far more immediate pragmatic use than
> > mobile-related and structured data-related projects that seem to suck
> > up all the oxygen and volunteer time available.
> >
> > Note that the history of these project/funding ideas is so long, that
> > several of the most experienced long term volunteers that were
> > originally interested have since retired. Without some positive short
> > term encouragement, not only do these ideas never reach the useful
> > experiment stage, but the volunteers involved simply fade away.
> >
> > Links
> > 1.
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2016/02#Google_has_opened_an_API_for_image_recognition
> > 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Imagehash
> >
> > Fae
> >
> > On Sun, 12 May 2019 at 12:21, Amir Sarabadani  wrote:
> > >
> > > IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores support for
> > > images that might be copyright violation, or both.
> > >
> > > Best
> > >
> > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the
> > amount of
> > > > material it has to deal with.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers
> > > > Yaroslav
> > > >
> > > > On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta <
> > benjaminik...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or capable
> > to
> > > > do
> > > > > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz 
> > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several
> > > > GLAM-related
> > > > > > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing
> > what it
> > > > > is
> > > > > > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can
> > create a
> > > > > > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with
&

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive

[Fæ]

I am sure this Wikimedia wide community run list is a perfectly good place
to check whether the WMF has any commitment to long term public archives,
or not.

Thanks for your advice as to where to go, but the strategy process groups
are undoubtedly a worse place to ask this question and expect a verifiable
answer.

Fae


On Tue, 7 May 2019, 10:44 Dan Garry (Deskana),  wrote:

> I think the correct venue to ask for such a large, cross-cutting, strategic
> commitment would be with the strategy process working groups, and not this
> mailing list. Did you try engaging with them?
>
> Dan
>
> On Tue, 7 May 2019 at 09:35, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > With all of the strategy discussions still on-going, it would be good
> > to know where the long term public archive of our Wikimedia projects
> > sits within it.
> >
> > As has been mentioned on this list previously, when volunteers donate
> > to the Internet Archive, there is some comfort that their efforts in
> > helping preserve public domain media will be accessible and archived
> > for 100 years.
> >
> > I have been unable to work out what the Wikimedia Foundations
> > commitment is to maintaining a publicly accessible project archive. I
> > may be wrong and would love to have someone post a link that puts me
> > right, but based on past discussions, I suspect that if a project gets
> > closed or mothballed, there is no specific commitment to fund public
> > access to any archives. The WMF may be unable to match the 100 year
> > commitment that the Internet Archive plans for, but it would be jolly
> > nice to have a commitment to something and have that promoted in the
> > long term strategy.
> >
> > The best example I can think of is Wikimedia Commons as this is a
> > significant size, so committing to maintaining a 10 or 20 year archive
> > (not just an operational backup) is not an insignificant thing to find
> > publicly accessible server space for or earmark a specific budget for.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Fae
> > --
> > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> >
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Draft recommendations are here!

[Fæ]

On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 at 12:47, Philip Kopetzky  wrote:
>
> Please don't generalise frustration with your conduct on this list. You're
> the only one telling people to shut up here.

I have told nobody to shut up. This is a continuation of the use of
character assignation to shut up points of view you do not like. Lay
off, it's creating a hostile environment.

> And just to keep this on track, what is your view on how we can incorporate
> indigenous knowledge without it becoming commercialised by the current
> licensing scheme?

3rd time: Commons case book. Please make one. The community on Commons
can assist you with previous examples that have successfully been used
to change policy using evidence, not just rhetoric.


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

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Draft recommendations are here!

[Fæ]

On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 at 10:24, Fæ  wrote:
>
> I agree that the official announcement on Commons is worse than unfortunate.
>
> The announcement by the Diversity Working Group on a sub-page of the
> VP of their recommendation to permit NC and ND license restrictions on
> Commons, comes after no attempt in advance to discuss the
> recommendation or its wording with Wikimedia Commons community *on
> Commons*.[...]
> Link: 
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AVillage_pump%2FCopyright=revision=361624891=361607626

Correction: The note on VP/C was a volunteer's note, there was no
announcement by the Working Group.

To correct the absence of a Wikimedia Commons discussion about
recommendation to fundamentally change what Wikimedia Commons exists
for, the following proposal has been raised on Wikimedia Commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Proposal_to_introduce_Non-Commercial_media_on_Wikimedia_Commons

Everyone is free to add to discussion there, especially if there is
any verifiable evidence that allowing Non Commercial or No Derivatives
license constraints would enhance the mission of Wikimedia Commons
rather than hamper it.

I would be particularly interested to read the evidence and see a
(Wikimedia Commons) case book supporting the claim in the WG
recommendations that "Multiple studies have determined that extant
movement policies don’t just reflect the systemic biases, they make
biases against marginalized communities worse, in effect,
re-colonizing and oppressing diverse knowledge(ibid)" as the four
references given provide /no evidence/ about Wikimedia projects or
Wikimedia Commons in particular "re-colonizing", apart from
tangentially using a similar word and so is misrepresenting the
researchers and academics that wrote the referenced papers. Though I
would be sympathetic to the proper review of evidence when it comes to
decolonizing educational material, and taking action such as better
application of curation methods, this statement as written appears
unsourced political spin and is highly inappropriate from a WMF
sponsored working group.

Thanks,
Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Draft recommendations are here!

[Fæ]

On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 at 11:53, Philip Kopetzky  wrote:
>
> I'm pretty sure that that licensing recommendation is still
> work-in-progress and the legal implications haven't been analysed yet.

Huh. Nobody has mentioned legal implications. Not sure there are any
that would be especially different to the challenges that Commons
volunteers handle every day with the current available licenses.

> I guess that assuming good faith is not your strong suit, Fae? Be part of
> the solution, for once.

Maybe you can focus on the points being raised, like how a case book
would actually help make a case for change, rather than hostile
character assassination against folks writing to this list? That would
be super, and show that you are also part of a "solution", though in
this case an actual verifiable "problem" has yet to be identified that
this particular recommendation might fix.

Thanks,
Fae

> On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 at 11:25, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > I agree that the official announcement on Commons is worse than
> > unfortunate.
> >
> > The announcement by the Diversity Working Group on a sub-page of the
> > VP of their recommendation to permit NC and ND license restrictions on
> > Commons, comes after no attempt in advance to discuss the
> > recommendation or its wording with Wikimedia Commons community *on
> > Commons*. It is not helped by the poster being a volunteer with barely
> > any activity on Commons, so not the best person to discuss the future
> > of Commons with.
> > Link:
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AVillage_pump%2FCopyright=revision=361624891=361607626
> >
> > The justifications for the change read as unsourced and arbitrary. In
> > particular there is no evidence that using Commons to host NC ND
> > material that may be important to minority communities, such as
> > traditional folk art, would help better to educate the public about
> > those arts when the same NC restriction would halt in its
> > tracks the general use of Commons by educators and universities. The
> > change in commons policies would have the consequence of advice to
> > educators being against using our media in lectures, study materials,
> > academic papers, academic books etc.
> >
> > The Meta page that is linked to verges on being blatantly hostile to
> > the views of the Wikimedia Commons communities
> > * Q4a. Could this Recommendation have a negative impact/change?
> > * (Answer) All change has negative connotations to some members of the
> > community.
> > This appears deliberately flippant and provocative. Bizarre.
> >
> > If the WMF sponsored recommendation is hostile up front, I do not see
> > much point in the community discussing the change, it may as well just
> > be mass voted down. Discussion when the team recommending the strategy
> > is openly hostile to "some members of the community" on its own
> > recommendations page, will only lead to more polarization of the WMF
> > versus everyone else type.
> >
> > Fae
> >
> > --
> > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> >
> > On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 at 02:11, Todd Allen  wrote:
> > >
> > > (Response apparently wasn't sent to list previously.)
> > >
> > > Yes, I think there ought to be a place to discuss the whole thing, as
> > > several share a fatal flaw in that they advocate dictating to local
> > > communities from above.
> > >
> > > Is this getting announced anywhere other than on the mailing list? There
> > is
> > > a proposal in these to literally undermine Wikipedia's free content
> > mission
> > > by allowing nonfree licenses. (
> > >
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Diversity/Recommendations/9
> > )
> > > Do you think, maybe, we shouldn't attempt to slip that through unnoticed
> > > and uncommented?
> > >
> > > For example, here's the notice that was left on Commons:
> > >
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AVillage_pump=revision=360549650=360506118
> > > .
> > > It's totally anodyne, and gives absolutely no indication that such
> > massive
> > > changes, which would entirely strip the communities of autonomy, are
> > > proposed there. For example, I suspect Commons might be just a bit
> > > interested to know these proposals would force them to accept nonfree
> > > content. If this is in any way an honest process, make sure the
> > > announcements indicate how breathtaki

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Draft recommendations are here!

[Fæ]

I agree that the official announcement on Commons is worse than unfortunate.

The announcement by the Diversity Working Group on a sub-page of the
VP of their recommendation to permit NC and ND license restrictions on
Commons, comes after no attempt in advance to discuss the
recommendation or its wording with Wikimedia Commons community *on
Commons*. It is not helped by the poster being a volunteer with barely
any activity on Commons, so not the best person to discuss the future
of Commons with.
Link: 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AVillage_pump%2FCopyright=revision=361624891=361607626

The justifications for the change read as unsourced and arbitrary. In
particular there is no evidence that using Commons to host NC ND
material that may be important to minority communities, such as
traditional folk art, would help better to educate the public about
those arts when the same NC restriction would halt in its
tracks the general use of Commons by educators and universities. The
change in commons policies would have the consequence of advice to
educators being against using our media in lectures, study materials,
academic papers, academic books etc.

The Meta page that is linked to verges on being blatantly hostile to
the views of the Wikimedia Commons communities
* Q4a. Could this Recommendation have a negative impact/change?
* (Answer) All change has negative connotations to some members of the
community.
This appears deliberately flippant and provocative. Bizarre.

If the WMF sponsored recommendation is hostile up front, I do not see
much point in the community discussing the change, it may as well just
be mass voted down. Discussion when the team recommending the strategy
is openly hostile to "some members of the community" on its own
recommendations page, will only lead to more polarization of the WMF
versus everyone else type.

Fae

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

On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 at 02:11, Todd Allen  wrote:
>
> (Response apparently wasn't sent to list previously.)
>
> Yes, I think there ought to be a place to discuss the whole thing, as
> several share a fatal flaw in that they advocate dictating to local
> communities from above.
>
> Is this getting announced anywhere other than on the mailing list? There is
> a proposal in these to literally undermine Wikipedia's free content mission
> by allowing nonfree licenses. (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Diversity/Recommendations/9)
> Do you think, maybe, we shouldn't attempt to slip that through unnoticed
> and uncommented?
>
> For example, here's the notice that was left on Commons:
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3AVillage_pump=revision=360549650=360506118
> .
> It's totally anodyne, and gives absolutely no indication that such massive
> changes, which would entirely strip the communities of autonomy, are
> proposed there. For example, I suspect Commons might be just a bit
> interested to know these proposals would force them to accept nonfree
> content. If this is in any way an honest process, make sure the
> announcements indicate how breathtakingly broad and destructive these
> proposals are.
>
> Todd
>
> On Sat, Aug 10, 2019 at 7:35 AM Isaac Olatunde 
> wrote:
>
> > I believe there are related discussion pages, Todd. Do you think there
> > should have been separate pages for discussion aside the talk pages?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Isaac.
> >
> > On Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 2:29 PM Szymon Grabarczuk  > wrote:
> >
> >> How about talk pages?
> >>
> >> Z poważaniem / Kind regards
> >>
> >> *Szymon Grabarczuk*
> >> userpage: pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tar_Lócesilion
> >> 
> >> 
> >>
> >> ᐧ
> >>
> >> On Sat, 10 Aug 2019 at 14:28, Todd Allen  wrote:
> >>
> >> > There does not seem to be anywhere to comment on these, which there
> >> should
> >> > be. I saw at least one which is highly objectionable and which I would
> >> like
> >> > to object to.
> >> >
> >> > Todd
> >> >
> >> > On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 12:37 PM Nicole Ebber  >> >
> >> > wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > Dear fellow Wikimedians,
> >> > >
> >> > > They’re here! [1] We are delighted to announce the first round of
> >> > > draft recommendations for structural change within our movement have
> >> > > been published. The recommendations have been developed by the nine
> >> > > Wikimedia 2030 working groups and are a key tool to help us build the
> >> > > future of our movement.
> >> > >
> >> > > Working group members have been working tirelessly for a year to
> >> > > research the movement, analyze community input shared via community
> >> > > conversations, and gain insight into external trends. A huge thank you
> >> > > to each and every member for helping us reach this key milestone.
> >> > >
> >> > > The draft recommendations are a first look at ways we can 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Draft recommendations are here!

[Fæ]

Many Wikimedians have left detailed and logical feedback on the Meta
talk pages, as per the request for feedback by Nicole Ebber.

No doubt there is no requirement to keep on making this same feedback
in other places, especially where not part of the planned feedback
process, or where the rationale includes presuming a commonly
understood "current governance model" which is not, apparently,
defined. Neither is it realistic to expect volunteers like Wikipedians
to want to research and critique governance models such as "Buurtzorg"
which is designed for healthcare, and as far as anyone can tell have
never been applied for open knowledge projects entirely underpinned by
unpaid volunteers, especially when there is an absence of context,
such as the "Charter" which is supposed to drive the entire model.

The specific feedback already given on Meta, cannot be reproduced in
the highly hypothetical survey, it's like trying to write on a
blackboard with cheese straws.

Thanks

On Sun, 18 Aug 2019 at 18:01, Chris Keating  wrote:
>
> Just to follow this up, we in the Roles and Responsibilities working group
> have now supplemented our recommendations with three potential future
> structural models for the Wikimedia movement. (These have were being worked
> on still on in the light of other feedback on Thursday, hence them not
> being published at the same time as our recommendations.)
>
> While comments and questions are welcome on Meta, we have created a survey
> for each model to help gather granular feedback on the strengths and
> weaknesses of each and that is our preferred method of getting detailed
> comments.
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Roles_%26_Responsibilities/Recommendations
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Chris Keating
> User:The Land
>
> On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 7:37 PM Nicole Ebber 
> wrote:
>
> > Dear fellow Wikimedians,
> >
> > They’re here! [1] We are delighted to announce the first round of
> > draft recommendations for structural change within our movement have
> > been published. The recommendations have been developed by the nine
> > Wikimedia 2030 working groups and are a key tool to help us build the
> > future of our movement.
> >
> > Working group members have been working tirelessly for a year to
> > research the movement, analyze community input shared via community
> > conversations, and gain insight into external trends. A huge thank you
> > to each and every member for helping us reach this key milestone.
> >
> > The draft recommendations are a first look at ways we can adapt our
> > movement’s structures to help us advance in our strategic direction.
> > They are the starting point for conversations about what kind of
> > future we want to create together.
> >
> > The recommendations are not final. In order to get them to that stage,
> > your input is needed! We would like to hear from you all what these
> > changes would mean for you in your local or thematic context, what do
> > you like about them, and where you potentially see any red flags. And
> > of course, always critically question whether these recommendations
> > support the strategic direction.
> >
> > There are a few ways to do this:
> > * Read through the recommendations online and provide your input
> > directly on Meta. [2]
> > * If you will be at Wikimania, join us in the Wikimedia 2030 space. [3]
> > * Attend a Strategy Salon hosted by an affiliate where you live. [4]
> > * Reach out to a Strategy Liaison in your language to share feedback,
> > or lead a conversation of your own. [5]
> >
> > Over the next month, working groups will take the input they receive
> > into the recommendations, alongside external advice and research, and
> > use it to refine and finalize them. Share your views, and help shape
> > what Wikimedia will look like in 2030 and beyond.
> >
> > If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to get in touch.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > Nicole
> >
> > [1]
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations
> > [2]
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations
> > [3] https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Wikimedia_2030
> > [4]
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/2019_Community_Conversations/Strategy_Salons
> > [5]
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/People/Community_Strategy_Liaisons
> >
> > --
> > Nicole Ebber
> > Adviser International Relations
> > Program Manager Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy
> > Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
> > Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
> > https://wikimedia.de
> >
> > Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der
> > Menschheit teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns
> > dabei! https://spenden.wikimedia.de
> >
> > Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
> > V. Eingetragen im 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki loves SDGs

[Fæ]

It astonishing that the WMF and affiliates are supporting a conference
in Tunis. The country is not safe for LGBT+ people, including
tourists, despite what promotional holiday and travel websites imply.

I urge anyone who is LGBT+ and booked to go to this conference,
including WMF employees, please reconsider and cancel your attendance.
You will be putting yourself at unnecessary risk.

It speaks volumes that on the one hand the WMF wishes to fund travel
and accommodation for a diversity working group, but then chooses to
hold the meetings in a country where this year there are cases of the
courts officially forcing anal examinations on suspected homosexuals
to "prove" they are homosexuals, deny the existence of trans people,
and where there has been a case of a foreign tourist going to prison
for their homosexuality.

Thanks,
Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
WM-LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+

On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 at 20:26, Ad Huikeshoven  wrote:
>
> tl;dr Wikipedia can engage millions, billions of people to achieve the
> Sustainable Development Goals by 2030
>
> Wikimedians and Wikipedians around the world have been involved with
> Wikimedia 2030 since 2015. The strategic direction is to build the
> essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge. Back in 2015 a
> total of 193 members of the United Nations agreed to the 17 Sustainable
> Developments Goals to be reached by the year 2030. Last August many of you
> were in Stockholm, Sweden for Wikimania. The theme this year was “Stronger
> Together: Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development
> Goals”.[1]
>
> Michael Edson, founder and director of UN Live, the Museum of the UN in
> Kopenhagen, Denmark held a keynote and asked Wikipedia for help. The UN
> isn’t able to reach millions, billions of people on its own to have them
> work on achieving the SDGs.[2] Wikipedia reaches half a billion people each
> month. Millions of people have contributed to Wikipedia.
>
> Of course Wikipedia can spread the knowledge about the SDGs and how to
> solve them in each country, and in each language. We can make a very good
> case for an “open access knowledge sharing project related to the
> Sustainable Development Goals that uses Wikipedia as a tool”. A lot of
> knowledge will have to be gathered locally about local solutions to local
> problems. We as a free knowledge movement have done so succesfully in the
> past. We can do succesfully now.
>
> The one big reason to step upto the challenge is in the vision of the
> movement: “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely
> share in the sum of all knowledge.” Imagine every single human having
> access to how to solve each of the Sustainable Development Goals in their
> locality, in their language.[3]
>
> Another reason is part of our mission: to empower and engage people around
> the world to collect and develop educational content.[4] Might people
> involved with the movement be able to educate people why and how to solve
> global goals locally?
>
> Knowledge about SDGs is just a small subset of all knowledge. It would be a
> big step for mankind to have exactly that knowledge available well before
> the year 2030.[5] It won’t impede anyone to collect and share knowledge
> outside that subset, however.
>
> To make it happen imagine having a small office with a handful dedicated
> people in each country. People with the capacity to build partnerships with
> NGO’s, universities, research institutions, government agencies, groups of
> citizens who are already involved with the SDGs.[6] People with the
> capacity to organize SDG themed writing contests and SDG themed
> edit-a-thons with participants from interested parties.[7]
>
> As written above, it has been agreed to build the essential infrastructure
> of the ecosystem of free knowledge. Why would it be worthwhile to invest 50
> million dollar a year to build such an infrastructure?[8] With those tiny
> offices in each country we it can exactly be done what Michael Edson begged
> us to do: get millions (or billions) of people working together on global
> goals and share the knowledge they gathered. To connect people everywhere
> and catalyze global effort toward accomplishing the Sustainable Development
> Goals.
>
> The Wikimedia movement has the capacity to raise the necessary funds
> through banners on Wikipedia on top of what is now already collected, and
> alreadt spent each year.[9] After a long period - over four years - of
> mainly inward looking activities of board and working groups, the time has
> come to look outwards. The works of our movement have influence globally
> and can have global impact. Not impact measured as number of articles, or
> number of editors retained, but impact on the real social life of seven
> billion people, by sharing knowledge how to end poverty, how to end hunger
> and so on.[11]
>
> Imagine a world where there is no poverty and 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki loves SDGs

[Fæ]

Gerard, your comments are flippant and deflect from the serious risk
that our volunteers and employees are being subject to.

Tunis is unsafe for LGBT+ people. None of our LGBT+ volunteers or
employees should travel to tunis.

LGBT+ travellers risk 3 years in prison, not in theory, in practice
foreign tourists are being held in prison. The police are actively
setting up sting operations, having used Grindr to entrap gay men,
search their phones to discover who their friends are and any LGBT+
material, then prosecute them for being homosexuals. Again not theory,
this is evidence presented in the Tunis courts during prosecution. I
and other Wikimedians at events have used Grindr and other LGBT+
social networks during Wikimedia conferences to talk to each other. I
and other Wikimedians have openly discussed LGBT+ topics on Wikimedia
public projects, this material is hardly secret from the Tunis police,
neither should the WMF or any other Affiliate ever put LGBT+
volunteers in a position where we have to pretend not to be LGBT+.

The USA is unwelcoming, with trans people likely to be abused or
humiliated during immigration and having their digital data stolen by
the NSA, but they are not subject to the threat of a 3 year prison
sentence solely for being LGBT+.

Thanks,
Fae
--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
WM-LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+

On Wed, 18 Sep 2019 at 06:42, Gerard Meijssen  wrote:
>
> Hoi,
> To be honest, there are great reasons not to having meetings in the United
> States for similar reasons. The notion of conversion of homosexuality is
> alive and well, even though people who care to look at the science know
> that it does not work. The murder rate among LGBTI people is sky high. The
> country is highly discriminatory, not only because of race. The USA is a
> country at war, the numbers show why; more USA civilians die because of gun
> violence than do USA military personnel. The ease whereby the murder on
> women is explained away with arguments like "she was at the wrong time at
> the wrong place" and "boys will be boys".
>
> The point, when you advocate against countries, there is hardly anywhere
> where your arguments don't hold. The objective is to educate and where we
> stay away our message will not be heard. The Dutch "Zwarte Piet" will no
> longer be black because of the foreign imposition of what is the
> discriminatory practice "blackface" in the USA. But I digress. We should
> engage all over the world particularly when the SDG are topical because
> what global effect will it have when we ostracise countries like Tunesia or
> the USA?
>
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 at 23:33, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > It astonishing that the WMF and affiliates are supporting a conference
> > in Tunis. The country is not safe for LGBT+ people, including
> > tourists, despite what promotional holiday and travel websites imply.
> >
> > I urge anyone who is LGBT+ and booked to go to this conference,
> > including WMF employees, please reconsider and cancel your attendance.
> > You will be putting yourself at unnecessary risk.
> >
> > It speaks volumes that on the one hand the WMF wishes to fund travel
> > and accommodation for a diversity working group, but then chooses to
> > hold the meetings in a country where this year there are cases of the
> > courts officially forcing anal examinations on suspected homosexuals
> > to "prove" they are homosexuals, deny the existence of trans people,
> > and where there has been a case of a foreign tourist going to prison
> > for their homosexuality.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Fae
> > --
> > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> > WM-LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+
> >
> > On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 at 20:26, Ad Huikeshoven  wrote:
> > >
> > > tl;dr Wikipedia can engage millions, billions of people to achieve the
> > > Sustainable Development Goals by 2030
> > >
> > > Wikimedians and Wikipedians around the world have been involved with
> > > Wikimedia 2030 since 2015. The strategic direction is to build the
> > > essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge. Back in
> > 2015 a
> > > total of 193 members of the United Nations agreed to the 17 Sustainable
> > > Developments Goals to be reached by the year 2030. Last August many of
> > you
> > > were in Stockholm, Sweden for Wikimania. The theme this year was
> > “Stronger
> > > Together: Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development
> > > Goals”.[1]
> > >
> > > Michael Edson, founder and director of UN Live, the Muse

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community feedback and next steps on movement brand proposal

[Fæ]

If the WMF is going to make statements that are not derived from all
the demonstrable facts, perhaps the community should now respond with
a completely unambiguous RFC on meta so there can be no doubt?

Something along the lines of:
"The WMF have employed Wolff Olins for rebranding advice, and they
recommend that Wikimedia rebrands itself around the word "Wikipedia"
and projects like Wikimedia Commons are renamed to "Wikicommons" to
ensure marketing of the projects can easily be delivered by the WMF.
Do you support or oppose this rebranding programme?"

With a straightforward RFC to keep on linking to in every discussion
on every venue, we might then have tangible evidence of whether "There
is considerable support for the branding proposal" or "There is
considerable opposition for the branding proposal" is factual. Rather
than drifting along for months with the debate and unhappiness that
comes from arguing both sides of a mostly political case without
firmly verifiable evidence available or relying on complex and less
credible stats from surveys that are likely to suffer from embedded
bias, especially considering the already banked investment in
consultancy that drives the need to change something, to prove the
spent money had impact and "value".

P.S. Zack and others, it's best to avoid the word "collaboration" when
communicating with an international group. It has unfortunate history
and gives the impression that you are quoting views from collaborators
rather than holding open collegial discussion.

Thanks,
Fae

On Fri, 6 Sep 2019 at 17:19, Diane Ranville  wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I agree with Pine.
> There is a majority of people who actually oppose the rebranding
> proposition.
> I don't quite understand why this is still going forward (except that it is
> difficult to acknowledge a mistake and take steps backwards - but it is
> sometimes necessary).
> Have other options even been considered?
>
> -speaking in my own name here-
>
> Diane
>
> On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 7:35 AM Pine W  wrote:
>
> > Hello Zack,
> >
> > Thank you for the report on Meta.
> >
> > I am troubled by your statement in this email that "There is considerable
> > support for the brand proposal and general appetite to improve our
> > movement’s branding system." What that statement appears to omit is that,
> > according to the report on Meta, there is also considerable opposition to
> > the rebranding proposal.
> >
> >
> > Can you explain why you characterized the proposal as having "considerable
> > support" without in the same sentence acknowledging what appears to be
> > considerable opposition?
> >
> >
> > Of the three top-level metrics that the report on Meta displays that
> > measure community and affiliate support or opposition regarding the
> > rebranding proposal, one of the three metrics is in favor and two of the
> > three metrics are opposed. If this was an RfC, and I was using those
> > measures of sentiment to evaluate support and opposition regarding the RfC,
> > I would probably close the current rebranding proposal as declined.
> >
> > Pine
> >
> > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 5, 2019, 20:49 Zack McCune  wrote:
> >
> > > *Summary* - We want your help with a voluntary, OPT-IN design process for
> > > movement branding.  Please join the in-depth discussion group, or watch
> > for
> > > updates on Meta-Wiki.
> > >
> > >
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > After 4 months of community consultation, spanning dozens of affiliates,
> > > several mailing lists, community conferences, and Meta-Wiki, I am pleased
> > > to share a summary of feedback on the proposed 2030 movement brand
> > strategy
> > > [1].
> > >
> > > From more than 319 comments, representing 150 individual contributors and
> > > 63 affiliates, we assessed 6 major themes in feedback:
> > >
> > >1.
> > >
> > >Reducing confusion
> > >2.
> > >
> > >Protecting reputation
> > >3.
> > >
> > >Supporting sister projects
> > >4.
> > >
> > >Addressing (legal, governmental) risks
> > >5.
> > >
> > >Supporting movement growth
> > >6.
> > >
> > >The process of change
> > >
> > > Please visit our feedback summary page to learn more [2]. You will see
> > > examples of comments within each section, along with a rough indication
> > of
> > > how many of the comments that we received were related to each theme.
> > >
> > > The comments sometimes contradict one another, showing that across our
> > wide
> > > movement’s experience, different points of view are common (and a sign of
> > > health!). To visualize these tensions, we have created “polarity maps”
> > > which are used to help visualize how different arguments coexist in
> > tension
> > > with each other.
> > >
> > > Ultimately, the comments provided from you all are very thoughtful and
> > > useful guidance on what is needed to make our movement’s branding
> > > successful. One can read the 6 themes above as “criteria” for assessing
> > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation joins the global climate strike

[Fæ]

Sure, but it seems more realistic than calculating the CO2
contributions from the management team compared to all the other
employees.

At the end of the day, how many flights the executive team take as
part of their jobs, and working out whether they are flying less or
more in 2019 compared to 2018, is an very simple and useful fact to be
open and transparent about. Doing so gives everyone a great incentive
to do better.

Considering the WMF is getting ethical gold stars by putting a Climate
Change banner over the entirety of its website landing page, it is
reasonable to expect that the organization starts by changing itself
and turn the non-committal statements in the WMF presentation from "we
will consider" and "we will seek" in to a meaningful and measurable
"we will act".

Thanks,
Fae

On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 at 17:58, Joseph Seddon  wrote:
>
> Because # of flights is not a useful metric for assessing environmental
> impact.
>
> Seddon
>
> On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 3:23 PM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > Those publications are where my numbers came from. There is no useful
> > transparency to explain how many actual flights are taken, why or by whom.
> >
> > Fae
> >
> > On Fri, 20 Sep 2019, 15:17 Lucas Werkmeister, 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Did you see the sustainability report that was published yesterday [1]
> > > [2]? Page 30 of the PDF has some numbers on business travel by air –
> > > some 5.6 million km in total, by the looks of it. Page 32 also shows
> > > that the carbon footprint of air travel is about half that of the
> > > electricity used by the Foundation’s data centers.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Lucas
> > >
> > > [1]:
> > >
> > >
> > https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/19/how-the-wikimedia-foundation-is-making-efforts-to-go-green
> > > [2]:
> > >
> > >
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Sustainability_Assessment_and_Carbon_Footprint.pdf
> > >
> > > On 20.09.19 15:23, Fæ wrote:
> > > > Nice to see that https://wikimediafoundation.org has a banner linking
> > > > to the global climate strike today.
> > > >
> > > > Can anyone produce some verifiable metrics that the WMF has taken
> > > > significant action to reduce the total number of aircraft flights the
> > > > WMF uses?
> > > >
> > > > I am asking as though there are no transparently published figures for
> > > > how much the WMF spends on air travel, I recall that the Katherine
> > > > Mahler was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, where is was part
> > > > of her impressive executive profile to be "on the road" for 200 days
> > > > of the year. This probably puts Katherine in the very top numbers for
> > > > CEOs with damaging carbon footprints resulting from travelling so
> > > > often by flying.[1] If the WMF wants to be seen as an ethical company
> > > > when it comes to reducing their organizational impact on climate
> > > > change, perhaps this could start with publishing travel figures for
> > > > the CEO and the rest of the management team, so that everyone can see
> > > > whether there is year on year improvement, or none.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks again for the banner, it does help increase the sense of
> > urgency.
> > > >
> > > > Links:
> > > > 1.
> > >
> > https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-35-year-old-executive-director-of-wikimedia-travels-1529588701
> > > >
> > > > Fae
> > > >

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy: Outcomes of the Harmonization Sprint in Tunis

[Fæ]

That's helpful.

Volunteers are repeatedly shut down asking questions on this list and on
wiki project noticeboards, by being told they should ask questions on
these more
obscure and hard to find meta talk pages. So it's good to know that when we
are redirected this way, it's fair to say that those meta pages are not the
right places to expect answers either, just to have some third party
summarize and presumably sanitize comments as part of some non-public and
non-transparent process.

Thanks for the clarification.

Fae

On Wed, 2 Oct 2019, 10:48 Nicole Ebber,  wrote:

> Dear Paulo and Ziko,
>
> Thanks for your interest and your questions.
>
> Regarding the second iteration of the recommendations: We posted them
> for your information, to provide insights into how different strands
> of input have been progressed so far. We are not in a structured open
> consultation phase at the moment, but comments are of course always
> welcome on the talk pages, will be monitored, summarized and fed back
> to the Working Groups.
>
> Ziko, yes, as we wrote on the meta page, an extended report will be shared
> soon.
>
> Regards,
> Nicole
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 1 Oct 2019 at 23:40, Ziko van Dijk  wrote:
> >
> > Dear Nicole,
> > Thank you for the explanation. Maybe some more context on Meta Wiki might
> > make sense?
> > I am looking forward to see the final results.
> > Kind regards
> > Ziko
> >
> > Am Di., 1. Okt. 2019 um 19:08 Uhr schrieb Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > paulospern...@gmail.com>:
> >
> > > " A second iteration of draft recommendations [4] was published on Meta
> > > just before the sprint for
> > > the communities’ information." - It's quite unclear what are we
> supposed to
> > > do with this, since those recommendations most probably became
> outdated in
> > > the course of the Tunis meetings in the days following their
> publication.
> > > Are we supposed to do anything at all with them?
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Paulo
> > >
> > > Nicole Ebber  escreveu no dia segunda,
> > > 30/09/2019 à(s) 17:27:
> > >
> > > > Hi everyone,
> > > >
> > > > We recently held the harmonization sprint in Tunis [1], where
> > > > representatives from each working group met in person to continue
> > > bringing
> > > > nine separate sets of draft recommendations into one set. The event
> also
> > > > brought together staff members from the Wikimedia Foundation and
> > > Wikimedia
> > > > Deutschland, the WMF Chair of the Board of Trustees, and members of
> the
> > > > core team. A longer narrative report will be published in the coming
> > > weeks;
> > > > in the meantime, see a short day-by-day report on Meta, photos on
> commons
> > > > [2], and check out the hashtag #hs2030 on Twitter [3].
> > > >
> > > > In the lead up to the meeting, the working groups were busy refining
> > > their
> > > > draft recommendations based on feedback received at in person events
> from
> > > > Wikimedians across the movement as well as on wiki, via email, and on
> > > > social media since March of this year. They had also begun
> identifying
> > > > overlaps in each other’s recommendations and content. A second
> iteration
> > > of
> > > > draft recommendations [4] was published on Meta just before the
> sprint
> > > for
> > > > the communities’ information.
> > > >
> > > > At the sprint, we continued to group recommendations based on
> > > > commonalities. From there, we looked at what kinds of structures
> would
> > > need
> > > > to be in place to deliver the Wikimedia 2030 vision. A first, rough
> > > > grouping of recommendations came together at the sprint. But what
> became
> > > > clear during the event was that before it’s possible to create a
> coherent
> > > > and actionable set of recommendations, fundamental principles that
> > > underpin
> > > > the path towards 2030 need to be formalized.
> > > >
> > > > The core team is currently processing the discussion materials and
> > > > outcomes. Analysis of the current draft recommendations will
> continue so
> > > as
> > > > to create one unified set. The timeline will shift and we are looking
> > > into
> > > > options for another round of community input.
> > > >
> > > > I would like to make clear that the reason we were not able to
> achieve
> > > our
> > > > initial goal in Tunis was due to a lack of clarity and guidance on
> the
> > > core
> > > > team’s part. Still, the time was not wasted and important, honest
> > > > conversations were had. The working group members, as ever, devoted
> an
> > > > enormous amount of energy and care in the lead up to and during the
> > > event,
> > > > and demonstrated their deep understanding of the challenges and
> > > > opportunities in our movement. We are extremely grateful for all
> their
> > > > effort. In short, the harmonization sprint underlined the high level
> of
> > > > work and dedication every single working group member has put into
> > > getting
> > > > the movement strategy to its current point, and the passion to shape
> the
> > > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation joins the global climate strike

[Fæ]

A screenshot has been uploaded to
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_global_climate_strike_banner_2019.png.

Unfortunately, though web.archive.org has snapshots of the website,
these do not appear to render the banner as it displayed in a browser
on the day.

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

On Sun, 22 Sep 2019 at 09:30, Alexander N Krassotkin
 wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>   Does anyone have a screenshot of the page with this banner? Or a
> link to an online archive? Or at least the banner itself?
>
> sasha.
>
> On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 9:54 PM Dennis During  wrote:
> >
> > I couldn't get onto WP or en.wikt shortly after I had heard about the MW
> > participation in the strike. I jumped to an apparently wrong conclusion.
> > Sorry.
> >
> > I am glad that the availability of free knowledge for all was not disrupted.
> >
> > On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 3:19 AM Todd Allen  wrote:
> >
> > > As far as I can tell, only the Foundation wiki is showing the strike
> > > message. That particular one is pretty much theirs to do as they like 
> > > with.
> > >
> > > If they started doing that to any other wikis without their agreement,
> > > well, then we'd have a problem. But so long as it's only the WMF wiki
> > > itself, I don't see the issue.
> > >
> > > Todd
> > >
> > > On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 6:45 PM Dennis During  wrote:
> > >
> > > > I am profoundly disappointed that WMF employees don't value the mission.
> > > > Instead they seem to simply follow fashion and force users and 
> > > > volunteers
> > > > to follow their fashionable methods of advocacy.  They use their 
> > > > monopoly
> > > > power to deny free access to the world's knowledge that many thousands 
> > > > of
> > > > volunteers have diligently assembled. This time it is to show solidarity
> > > > with environmental advocates. What will it be next time?
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 15:35 Pine W  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I have a few comments.
> > > > >
> > > > > While I appreciate the sentiment, I wouldn't have put the
> > > > > wikimediafoundation.org domain "on strike", just as I wouldn't have
> > > put
> > > > a
> > > > > government agency's website "on strike". I think that some discussion
> > > of
> > > > > climate change would be fine, but I think that WMF's action here is
> > > > > somewhat strange.
> > > > >
> > > > > I think that asking about the climate impact of staff travel is fine.
> > > > > However, I would also include questions about travel for Wikimedia
> > > events
> > > > > more broadly. I believe that the WMF Board has indicated support for
> > > > trying
> > > > > to reduce the Wikiverse's contributions to climate change. As has been
> > > > > mentioned in this thread, WMF released a report yesterday
> > > > > <
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2019-September/093519.html
> > > > > >
> > > > > on the subject of sustainability. While I have not read it, I think
> > > that
> > > > > measuring and attempting to reduce reduce negative environmental
> > > impacts
> > > > > from Wikimedia activities is good, including negative environmental
> > > > impacts
> > > > > from travel. However, I also think that there are some benefits to
> > > morale
> > > > > and communications from in person meetings, so I would be reluctant to
> > > > > eliminate travel and conferences entirely.
> > > > >
> > > > > I think that it's fine to ask whether WMF senior management is
> > > practicing
> > > > > what they preach. However, Fae, I feel that your tone in this thread 
> > > > > is
> > > > > excessively harsh on this point. I think that you could ask very
> > > similar
> > > > > questions with a tone that is calmer.
> > > > >
> > > > > On the subject of environmental sustainability, my main concern at 
> > > > > this
> > > > > time is the banner on the WMF website which I feel is somewhat weird
> > > and
> > > > is
> > > > > inconsistent with WMF's goal of being "essential infrastructure". Do 
> > > > > we
> > > > > want "essential infrastructure" to go on strike, particularly when 
> > > > > that
> > > > > infrastructure is supposed to be for an organization that provides
> > > public
> > > > > service and supports the community in publishing reliable scientific
> > > > > information? I think not. However, I think that the banner is
> > > regrettably
> > > > > consistent with the series of surprising decisions from WMF in the 
> > > > > past
> > > > few
> > > > > months. That is, to me, the most concerning element in all of this. If
> > > > WMF
> > > > > wants to be a public service infrastructure provider then I think that
> > > it
> > > > > should act like one.
> > > > >
> > > > > Pine
> > > > > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> > > > > ___
> > > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiDonne User Group - 2018/2019 Report

[Fæ]

I think you meant to link to:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiDonne/Reports/Report_2018-2019

Fae

On Thu, 5 Dec 2019 at 13:31, camelia boban  wrote:
>
> Dear wikimedians,
>
> at this link  you can find the
> WDG's last report with activities done from November 2018 to November 2019.
>
> Please feel free to ask any question and send your thoughts.
>
> Yours,
> Camelia Boban on behalf of WikiDonne User Group
>
> --
> *Camelia Boban*
>
> *| Java EE Developer |*
>
>
>
> *Affiliations Committee - **Wikimedia Foundation*
> Diversity WG for Wikimedia Strategy 2030
> *Interwiki Women
>  | **Wiki
> Loves Sport  | Wiki Loves
> Fashion *
> WMIT  - WMSE
>  - WMAR
>  - WMCH
>  Member
>
> M. +39 3383385545
> camelia.bo...@gmail.com
> *Aissa Technologies* * | *Twitter
>  *|* *LinkedIn
> *
> *Wikipedia  **| 
> **WikiDonne
> UG * | *WikiDonne Project
>  *

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [GLAM] Free content by tv broadcaster ZDF

[Fæ]

The five available videos have been re-encoded to webm (mp4 is a
non-free format) and released on Wikimedia Commons.[1] Some are
already in use on the German Wikipedia.[2]

If ZDF copied their CC-BY videos to YouTube, there are several tools
available that can assist mass uploading and encoding from YouTube.

There is a convenient system for adding multiple language text
captions to videos on Commons, perhaps a volunteer might want to make
these more accessible this way?[3]

Links
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Videos_by_Terra_X
2. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klimamodell
3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Timed_Text

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

On Tue, 22 Oct 2019 at 11:50, Lilli Iliev  wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> Germany's national public television broadcaster ZDF releases video clips and 
> photos on climate change and global warming under CC BY 4.0 for the first 
> time on this website: 
> https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/terra-x/terra-x-creative-commons-cc-100.html
>
> Though there are things to improve, like adding a CC-button with more info on 
> correct licensing in each video, this his can be seen as a milestone and a 
> role model for more content and public service broadcasters like ARD to open 
> up and share content especially in the fields of news and documentation.
>
> After all, media under public law are publicly financed and using free 
> licences would correspond to their mission since they'd make a significant 
> contribution to the reach of public content.
>
> Feel free to share the news and make them visible on twitter and other 
> channels.
>
> Tweet by WMDE (german):
> https://twitter.com/WikimediaDE/status/1186304730932355072
>
> Blogpost on netzpolitik.org (german):
> https://netzpolitik.org/2019/zdf-veroeffentlicht-terra-x-clips-unter-freier-lizenz/
>
> best
> Lilli
> --
> Lilli Iliev
>
> Projektmanagerin Politik
> project manager public policy
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
> Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
> https://wikimedia.de
>
> Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit 
> teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
> https://spenden.wikimedia.de
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. 
> Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter 
> der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für 
> Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Remember Wikipedia Zero.. Where is the research about the effects of its demise?

[Fæ]

On Sun, 1 Dec 2019 at 11:09, Gerard Meijssen  wrote:
...
> What I have noticed is that once consensus has been reached, we do not want
> to be confronted with the consequences of our actions. Wikipedia Zero has
> damaged our outreach and what the BBC info reminds us of is that Internet,
> the cost of Internet, is not comparable in Africa with what we are used to.
> It means that we no longer reach the girls and boys in Soweto as we showed
> in our film clip at the Erasmus award.
...

The disconnect between what matters and the different realities we
live in is easy to see when a fundraising appeal for the WMF was based
on virtual charity tin rattling to raise $3 being the "price of a
coffee".[1] For some, $3 pays for our Sunday lunch.

We should accept that it is impossibly hard for Wikimedia Foundation
employees to take to heart that San Francisco or the Trump dominated
America is not the "real world", and the ever thin rationales to keep
on funding the WMF head office there, rather than relocating to
anywhere else in the world that would in every practical way be run at
half the cost has been a jarring reminder. The "Wikimedia Community"
has never been the Wikimedia Foundation, and yet the Wikimedia
Community is failing when it leaves decisions like Wikipedia Zero to
be created and cancelled entirely under the authority of the Wikimedia
Foundation.

In the long term, the Foundation does not bear the responsibility for
these actions, it is us. It is up to us to find better and more
transparent ways to govern the operational business that acts in our
name and which left to its own devices will become less transparent
every year, and less accountable for why high budget and
staff/contractor growth is a "good" thing when money for volunteer
activities flatlines.

Link
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oversized_donation_notice.png

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

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