Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2020 Community Spotlight Survey

[Chris Koerner]

Hi Alice,
I'm sorry I didn't reply to your question sooner. We retain the
contract information so we can reach out if we have more clarifying
questions. The survey didn't properly indicate this, but those fields are
optional. You can submit a nomination without filling out those fields, but
we may be unable to follow up.

Yours,
Chris Koerner (he/him)
Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] NEW: Wikimedia Clinic calls, starting June 15th

[Asaf Bartov]

Last reminder: this is happening in one hour (at 17:30 UTC).  The link for
today's call is this: https://meet.google.com/kha-nghc-mky
Concise and depersonalized notes will be publicly shared after the call.

Cheers,

   A.

Asaf Bartov (he/him/his)

Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities

Wikimedia Foundation 

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org


On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 12:28 AM Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> In these complex times of pandemic, and the coming complex times of
> post-pandemic, live human contact with fellow Wikimedians, even mediated
> through a video call, can be helpful, relaxing, and fun.  It can also offer
> opportunities to ask questions you have been meaning to ask but never got
> around to, or to explain complex situations that may be hard to articulate
> in writing.
>
> To better support members of the community during this time, the Community
> Development team at the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in trying an
> experiment: scheduling open video calls (using Google Meet) where any
> active Wikimedian would be welcome to attend and ask questions or ask for
> advice about whatever Wikimedia-related goal or problem they're working on.
>
> You can also just share what you're working on and invite feedback, even
> if you don't have a specific question. Or people can just connect to hang
> out, or to offer their own experience to the people asking questions.
>
> We are thinking of calling these calls Wikimedia Clinics, and would host
> them once a week (in alternating time zones, to accommodate as many people
> as possible).
>
> Each clinic session:
>
> * would be 70-120 minutes in length depending on topics presented and
> volume of conversation
> * would have at least two Wikimedia Foundation staff members guaranteed to
> be present. They are not guaranteed to have the answers you need, but they
> are committed to helping you get them, even if not during the call itself,
> but as later follow-up.
> * would be summarized in an in-depth *digest* of the call that would be
> edited for clarity and available to all volunteers interested. These notes
> would link to any tools and resources mentioned on the call and will be
> shared on this mailing list and archived on Meta[0].
>
> These calls are *not* replacing any existing channels or
> regularly-scheduled calls!  Every channel or call you are already using
> continues to exist.  No important announcements will be made on these
> calls, and no one should feel stressed or obligated to attend them.
>
> Rather, they are a new form of live-communication open support calls, less
> narrow in focus than some of the existing channels (where only specific
> topics are expected), and, we hope, more approachable and welcoming for
> people not sure whether their question or dilemma is appropriate for one of
> the other channels.
>
> If these calls are found useful, we'll try to offer them in some other
> languages, to increase access to those not comfortable speaking English.
>
> So, let's give this a try!  The first two calls are scheduled for:
>
> Monday, June 15th, 17:30 (5:30pm) UTC, and this is the Google Meet link[1].
> Link to a WorldTimeBuddy event for timezone convenience[2].
>
> and
>
> Wednesday, June 17th, 08:00am UTC, and this is the Google Meet link[3].
> Link to a WorldTimeBuddy event for timezone convenience[4].
>
> Remember, there's no set agenda and no particular preparation needed.
> Feel free to join us with anything Wikimedia-related that's on your mind,
> or just to hang out.
>
> Feedback and questions welcome.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Asaf
>
> [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Clinics
> [1] https://meet.google.com/kha-nghc-mky
> [2]
> https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/event?lid=100=100=26536320=17.5-19.5=show=f924130e-ed00-e1b4-b549-2202e11d660f
> [3] https://meet.google.com/iex-jebd-due
> [4]
> https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/event?lid=100=100=26539200=8-10=show=500d54dd-96c7-1934-0910-afe98a3440a5
>
>
> Asaf Bartov (he/him/his)
>
> Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities
>
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
> sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
> https://donate.wikimedia.org
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Gergő Tisza]

You can find some more discussion at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Iteration_3/Promote_Sustainability_and_Resilience#Freemium

As I mentioned there, the premise of the recommendation is that the
movement needs new revenue sources; in part because the 2030 strategy is
ambitious and requires a significant increase in resources, in part because
our current lack of diversity (about 40% of the movement's budget is from
donations through website banners, and another 40% from past banners via
email campaigns and such) is a strategic risk because those donations can
be disrupted by various social or technical trends. For example, large tech
companies which are the starting point of people's internet experience
(such as Facebook or Google) clearly have aspirations to become the end
point as well - they try to ingest and display to their users directly as
much online content as they can. Today, that's not a whole lot of content
(you might see fragments of Wikipedia infoboxes in Google's "knowledge
panel", for example, but nothing resembling an encyclopedia article). Ten
years from now, that might be different, and so we need to consider how we
would sustain ourselves in such a world - in terms of revenue, and also in
terms of people (how would new editors join the project, if most people
interacted with our content not via our website, but interfaces provided by
big tech companies where there is no edit button?).

The new API project aims to do that, both in the sense of making it
possible to have more equitable arrangements with bulk reusers of our
content (who make lots of money with it), and by making it easier to reuse
content in ways that align with our movement's values (currently, if you
reuse Wikipedia content in your own website or application, and want to
provide your users with information about the licensing or provenance of
that content, or allow them to contribute, the tools we provide for that
are third rate at best). As the recommendation mentions, erecting
unintentional barriers to small-scale or non-commercial reusers was very
much a concern, and I'm sure much care will be taken during implementation
to avoid it.

Wrt transparency, I agree this was communicated less clearly than ideal,
but from the Wikimedia Foundation's point of view, it can be hard to know
when to consult the community and to what extent (churning out so much
information that few volunteers can keep up with it can be a problem too;
arguably early phases of the strategy process suffered from it). This is a
problem that has received considerable attention within the WMF recently
(unrelated to API plans) so there's at the very least an effort to make the
process of sharing plans and gathering feedback more predictable.
Also, the pandemic has been a huge disruption for the WMF. Normally, by
this point, the community would have been consulted on the draft annual
plan, which is where new initiatives tend to be announced; but that has
been delayed significantly due to so many staff members' lives being
upheaved. Movement events where such plans are usually discussed had to be
cancelled, and so on.

(Written with my volunteer hat on. I was involved in the strategy process
and helped write the recommendation snippet Yair quoted upthread; I'm not
involved in the API gateway project.)
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