[Wikimedia-l] Announcing the Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Engagement team

[Victoria Coleman]

Hello everyone,

to better serve the technical communities that build free and open source 
software for the movement as well as the communities who use Wikimedia's APIs 
to interact with our projects, the Wikimedia Foundation is making some 
structural changes. The Technical Engagement team is a new team in the 
Technology department of the Wikimedia Foundation reporting to the Foundation's 
Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Victoria Coleman. This new team has two 
sub-teams: the Wikimedia Cloud Services team and the Technical Advocacy team. 
Bryan Davis will manage the Technical Engagement teams. He will also lead the 
hiring process for a new Developer Advocacy Manager position, which will take 
over some of the management duties.

The Wikimedia Cloud Services team will continue to focus on maintaining the 
Wikimedia Cloud VPS infrastructure as a service 

 platform, the Toolforge platform as a service 
 project, and additional 
supporting technologies used in the Cloud Services environment such as the Wiki 
Replica databases and the hosting infrastructure for dumps.wikimedia.org 
. The existing team of Andrew Bogott, Arturo 
Borrero Gonzalez, Brooke Storm, and Chase Pettet will be joined by James Hare 
in the role of Product Manager. The team is also hiring for a fifth Operations 
Engineer and for a part-time technical support contractor.

The Technical Advocacy team will focus on creating improved documentation for 
Wikimedia APIs and services as well as providing support for technical 
contributors and API consumers. The new team is being formed by moving the 
Foundation's Developer Relations team to the Technology department, with the 
exception of Rachel Farrand who will remain in Community Engagement in close 
collaboration with other event organizers. Andre Klapper and Srishti Sethi are 
both taking the role of Developer Advocate in the new team. A developer 
advocate is someone whose primary responsibility is to make it easy for 
developers to use a platform. Typically they do this by producing example 
software, tutorials, and other documentation explaining how to use the 
platform's products and services. Sarah R. Rodlund will also be joining the 
team as a Technical Writer. Technical writing has many subspecialties. Sarah 
will be focusing on improving our existing documentation by helping create a 
style guide and editing existing documentation to fit with that guide. She will 
also be supporting volunteers who are interested in practicing their technical 
writing skills on Wikimedia documentation. The team will be hiring for a 
Developer Advocacy Manager role in July. This new person will help round out 
the skills of the team and will take the lead in developing their programs.

The Technical Engagement team will work with other teams inside the Wikimedia 
Foundation as well as groups at affiliate organizations and the larger 
Wikimedia volunteer community to provide technical outreach services and 
support. We hope to continue to grow the number of people involved in our 
programs until we can confidently say that we are providing the best help 
possible to the hundreds of volunteer developers, designers, technical writers, 
and end users of the Wikimedia movement's APIs and services. We will continue 
to be involved in existing programs to attract and support new technical 
contributors like the Wikimedia Hackathons, Outreachy, and Google Summer of 
Code. We also hope to find new ways to connect with new and existing technical 
contributors as we support the Wikimedia movement's 2030 strategic direction 
and the shared goals of knowledge as a service and knowledge equity.

Very excited to be getting started down the path of  strengthening our 
developer advocacy program!



Best wishes,

Victoria Coleman

Chief Technology Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104

+1-650-703-8112

vcole...@wikimedia.org








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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Project Grants program will fund 11 community-led projects

[YI SHENG WANG]

Thank you, Marti. I am glad to hear that there are so many good projects
was recommended by the committee in this round. I appreciate all the
efforts made by the grantee, members of the committee, and staffs. All of
you have done a very good job!

Aotfs2013
Member, Project Grants Committee


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Marti Johnson  於 2018年5月19日 週六 上午4:05寫道：

> *Hi all,In the latest round of Project Grants, the committee has
> recommended 11 projects for a total of $354,654 in funding.  We received 24
> proposals for review.  Here’s what we’re funding. [1]Software: four
> projects funded - ScienceSource
> : Medical
> knowledge is accessed over 2 billion times a year on Wikimedia projects,
> but only a relatively small number of editors create and maintain it.
> ScienceSource seeks to build an algorithm that will model editor
> decision-making to identify reliable biomedical reference sources. By using
> machine automation to sift through large volumes of reference materials,
> ScienceSource will support volunteers to do their work faster and more
> effectively.  [2] - WikiProject X
> :
> WikiProject X seeks to create better tools for Wikipedian editors
> collaborating around common interest areas.  Previously funded
>  twice through
> Individual Engagement Grants, the project piloted new features for several
> WikiProjects, including Women in Red
> .  This
> grant will replace the multiple disparate modules of WikiProject X with a
> new extension, CollaborationKit.  This improvement will offer editors a
> more seamless, adaptable interface to for productive collaboration.
> [3][4][5]. - Timeless: Post-deployment support
> <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Isarra/Timeless:_Post-deployment_support
> >:
>  Timeless is a new volunteer-developed skin designed for editors.  It was
> deployed across all Wikimedia projects in 2017, but lacked sufficient
> support to address bugs.  This grant will support general improvements to
> make Timeless into a more stable and user-friendly product. [6] -
> WikidataJS :
>  This grant will enable the JavaScript developer community to produce fast,
> high quality tools so others can better access information on Wikidata. The
> project builds on Maxlath
> ’s previous
> creation of several Wikidata-related tools:  wikidata-sdk, wikidata-edit,
> wikidata-cli, wikidata-filter.  [7][8]Online organizing: two projects
> funded - Wiki Loves Monuments international team/2018 coordination
> <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_international_team/2018_coordination
> >:
> The international coordination team for Wiki Loves Monuments
>  (WLM)
> proposes to strengthen the foundation for healthy and sustainable WLM
> competitions across the world.  As the project celebrates its 10th
> anniversary, its leaders aim to critically rethink the structural framework
> of WLM.  This grant will support efforts to gather information from
> national leaders, collect and share best practices from across the
> community, facilitate the ongoing integration of WLM into Wikidata, and
> improve operational processes system-wide. [9][10] - Wikimedia CEE Spring
> 2018
>  >:
> This annual international article writing contest generates content from
> every country and region in Central and Eastern Europe on 30+ Wikipedias.
> CEE Spring’s remarkable community spirit plays a central role in fostering
> a thriving, collaborative volunteer base in the region. The grant will
> incentivize content creation focused on closing the gender gap, expanding
> minority language Wikipedias, and showcasing the cultural heritage of
> Central and Eastern Europe. [11]Offline outreach: five projects funded -
> BlackLunchTable/BLT 2018
> :
>  As an organization, BlackLunchTable 
> seeks to create a more truthful and inclusive historical account by
> inviting people to write the histories of their own culture.  In this
> project, they will host a series of edit-a-thons with the aim of recruiting
> editors of color and women editors to write biographical articles about
> notable artists of the African diaspora.  The project will primarily focus
> on English 

[Wikimedia-l] Recent statement on the block of Wikipedia in Turkey

[Eileen Hershenov]

Hello,

Thank you to everyone who participated and supported the #WeMissTurkey
efforts marking the one-year anniversary of the block in Turkey of all
language versions of Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation remains committed
to restoring access to Wikipedia in full, upholding our values and stance
against censorship, and supporting the local Wikimedia community in Turkey.

As part of our ongoing efforts, we have been monitoring discussions and
mentions in the media around Wikipedia in Turkey. Last Friday, May 18, the
Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime, and Communications, Ahmet Arslan,
made a number of incorrect comments[0] to the press in Turkey about
Wikimedia and the block of Wikipedia. Minister Arslan’s position includes
oversight of the BTK, the Internet Regulatory Agency that sought the block
of Wikipedia.

The Foundation has replied to the Minister’s statements with an open letter
sent to the Minister and shared with the media who covered the Minister's
statements. The statement has also been shared with the local Wikimedia
community in Turkey, and we have posted it on the Wikimedia Blog in both
English[1] and Turkish[2] to address any further public confusion.

We will continue to keep you updated as we work with the local community to
monitor the situation, and take appropriate actions to restore access to
Wikipedia in Turkey.

Thank you,
Eileen

[0] https://www.ntv.com.tr/teknoloji/bakan-ahmet-arslandan-wikipedia-
aciklamasi,UaPHfIgSq0yDPoVfXo5SOw
[1]  https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/05/22/a-letter-to-
minister-ahmet-arslan/
[2]  https://blog.wikimedia.org/tr/2018/05/22/bakan-ahmet-arslan-
vikipedi-dunyadaki-herkes-tarafindan-gelistirilmeye-aciktir-ve-turkiyedeki-
editorler-icin-de-acik-olmalidir/
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] Recognition of Wikimedia Community User Group Albania

[Philip Kopetzky]

Hi Kirill,

what's the difference/relationship between this group and the Wikimedians
of Albanian Language User Group, which is currently applying for a
simpleAPG grant? How do we avoid creating more Brazilian scenarios by
reconising even more user groups from the same area?

Best,
Philip

On 22 May 2018 at 22:07, Kirill Lokshin  wrote:

> Hi everyone!
>
> I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
> [1] Wikimedia Community User Group Albania [2] as a Wikimedia User Group.
> The group aims to improve content about Albania across the Wikimedia
> projects, including Commons and Wikidata, and to collaborate with other
> Wikimedia user groups, chapters, and other free culture groups in Albania
> and across the region.
>
> Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
>
> Regards,
> Kirill Lokshin
> Chair, Affiliations Committee
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/
> Resolutions/Recognition_Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Albania
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Albania
>
> ___
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>
>
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