[Wikimedia-l] Invitation to WMF October 2013 Metrics & Activities Meeting: Thursday, November 7, 19:00 UTC

[Praveena Maharaj]

Dear all,

The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on Thursday,
November 7, 2013 at 7:00 PM UTC (11 AM PST). The IRC channel is
#wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net and the meeting will be broadcast as
a live YouTube stream.

The current structure of the meeting is:

* Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also
specialized reports and analytics
* Review of financials
* Welcoming recent hires
* Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on highest priority
initiatives
* Update and Q&A with the Executive Director, if available

Please review
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further
information about how to participate.

We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting.

Thank you,
Praveena

-- 
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering and Product Development
+1 (415) 839 6885 ext. 6689
www.wikimedia.org
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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcement for WMF Chief Communications Officer

[Matthew Roth]

Forwarding this announcement from the Wikimedia blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/10/31/wikimedia-foundation-chief-communications-officer-search/

Announcing the search for the Wikimedia Foundation’s Chief Communications
Officer

A few weeks ago, Jay Walsh stepped down as head of Communications for the
Wikimedia Foundation. I was sad to see Jay leave — for nearly six years
he’s guided WMF communications activities with unerring judgement and
poise. He’s been a trusted colleague and a good friend to the movement.

Today, we’re announcing an international search for his replacement: a
Chief Communications Officer (CCO) to lead the WMF’s small communications
team.

It’s a unique job. Wikipedia is super-famous and the press and general
public are highly interested in us. We’re likelier to turn down press
opportunities than to seek them out. Unusually for an organization
representing a famous brand, we tend to speak freely, rather than aiming to
restrict access to information about us, and we do it in collaboration with
a decentralized global network of volunteer spokespeople. We don’t try to
significantly control or shape people’s perceptions of Wikipedia because we
believe brand perception emerges organically out of users’ day-to-day
experiences with a product. People love Wikipedia, and so do we: that means
we’ve got no reason to be overly controlling about our public image.

We want a CCO who believes in the WMF vision and shares our values. He or
she will manage communications at the WMF and across the projects we
operate, ensuring a fast and easy flow of information in multiple
languages, both internally within the Wikimedia movement and externally
with the press, readers, donors and general public. The full CCO job
description, including required qualifications, can be found here.

To help in the recruitment process, we’ve engaged Chaloner Associates, an
executive search firm specializing in communications roles. If you’re
interested in the role, or want to suggest potential candidates, you can
write to Amy Segelin (a...@chaloner.com) or Kassie Wilner (
kas...@chaloner.com) at Chaloner. You can also apply online here. If you’re
a Wikimedia community member, please say that in your application since
it’s a plus for us. Also please note we don’t discriminate on the basis of
ethnic origin, nationality, religion, political perspective, sex, age,
disability, gender identity or sexual orientation, and we particularly
value international experience and fluency in languages in addition to
English.

We expect to begin interviewing candidates in December, and hope to have a
new CCO in place in January.

Please join me in thanking Jay for his many years of service to the
Wikimedia movement, and please share this post with your networks.

Thanks,
Sue Gardner







--

Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
+1.415.839.6885 ext 6635
www.wikimediafoundation.org
https://blog.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Overloaded with CentralNotices (Tilman Bayer)

[Matthew Walker]

I'm not sure who to reply to in this list to grab the appropriate sections;
but some points about fundraising and new CN features that help reduce
banner blindness and annoyance.

* Fundraising banners from the WMF are presently only shown to anonymous
users. The team, as I understand it, doesn't want to display them to logged
in users unless utterly required; otherwise we consider your donation the
copious amount of time you spend on the site (with much thanks.)

* Fundraising banners have, for a while now, been using counter cookies to
limit the number of impressions seen by a user. Anyone can
include {{MediaWiki:FR2012/Resources/BannerShowHide.js}} or a similar set
of code into their banner to accomplish the same. We do this because we get
far fewer donations after the first couple of views and so it's our way of
playing nice and avoiding banner blindness.

* Fundraising has traditionally used 'blank' banners to limit the number of
slots allocated to revenue banners. Recently we released a feature called
'throttling' which accomplishes the same without blank banners.

* Every time I see a wiki that is using a site notice; I encourage them to
use a CentralNotice instead for increased coordination. We now have a
separate right for CentralNotice -- and I've been thinking for a while now
that it wouldn't be unreasonable to give everyone with admin on any wiki
the ability to use CN on meta.

* CentralNotice banners can be geotargetted more specifically than country.
Use JS to query the window.Geo variable and then dynamically show/hide your
banner.

* Right now banners are displayed in the users interface language. This
does occasionally cause problems when people think that they are targetting
a specific language variant wiki. I plan on releasing a major update to how
CN banners are distributed in January which will allow targeting of both UI
and content language.

* In general, if anyone needs help with a CentralNotice banner, I'm around
to help on IRC and email.

~Matt Walker
Wikimedia Foundation
Fundraising Technology Team


On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Frans Grijzenhout wrote:

> Hi everyone, this is just to point out that we organized 4 meetings with
> WMNL members (july - sept) in order to get as much input as possible for
> our Annual Plan and Budget 2014. We also welcomed ideas and feedback on
> draft documents in our Newsletter and on the Dutch chapter's wiki.
> We received lots of input, valuable ideas were raised and inserted in the
> final plan. As a result of this procedure the Annual Plan 2014 and its
> budget (for the larger part FDC funded) was unanimously approved during the
> General Assembly of Sept 21.
> Regards, Frans Grijzenhout (secretary WMNL)
>
>
>
> 2013/10/31 Tilman Bayer 
>
> > Hi Jane,
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 12:42 AM, Jane Darnell 
> wrote:
> >
> > > @Sue, I understand the idea behind doing this and applaud the idea -
> > > it would be so much easier to make strategy decisions in WMNL if we
> > > had more input from more involved people in the Dutch Wikipedia
> > > community. I get that it is really a conflict of interest for WMNL
> > > insiders to be the only ones to comment and approve the funds request
> > > made by WMNL insiders. The problem with this central sitenotice, as
> > > Romaine pointed out, is that it is in English and points to the WMNL
> > > fund request in English.
> > >
> > Actually, the banners are available in Dutch, and Romaine had said so
> > as well. If you see them in English, one possible reason could be that
> > your browser's interface language is set to English.
> >
> > The main (global) FDC banner has been translated into over 70
> > languages, and the general community review page that it points to is
> > available in over 10 languages:
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/FDC_portal/Proposals/Community/Review
> > .
> >
> > Comments on the funding requests can be made in languages other than
> > English, too. As for the funding requests themselves, yes, they are in
> > English. I guess it would be too much of a burden for the either
> > fund-seeking organizations or volunteer translators to provide the
> > entire proposal form in several languages. But one idea for the future
> > might be to make at least the shorter "overview" section of each
> > request translatable (e.g.
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/Wikimedia_Nederland/Proposal_form#Overview_of_grant_request
> > ).
> >
> > --
> > Tilman Bayer
> > Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> > IRC (Freenode): HaeB
> >
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> *Frans Grijzenhout*, secretaris
> fr...@wikimedia.nl
> +31 6 5333 9499
>
> Vereni

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Overloaded with CentralNotices (Tilman Bayer)

[Frans Grijzenhout]

Hi everyone, this is just to point out that we organized 4 meetings with
WMNL members (july - sept) in order to get as much input as possible for
our Annual Plan and Budget 2014. We also welcomed ideas and feedback on
draft documents in our Newsletter and on the Dutch chapter's wiki.
We received lots of input, valuable ideas were raised and inserted in the
final plan. As a result of this procedure the Annual Plan 2014 and its
budget (for the larger part FDC funded) was unanimously approved during the
General Assembly of Sept 21.
Regards, Frans Grijzenhout (secretary WMNL)



2013/10/31 Tilman Bayer 

> Hi Jane,
>
> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 12:42 AM, Jane Darnell  wrote:
>
> > @Sue, I understand the idea behind doing this and applaud the idea -
> > it would be so much easier to make strategy decisions in WMNL if we
> > had more input from more involved people in the Dutch Wikipedia
> > community. I get that it is really a conflict of interest for WMNL
> > insiders to be the only ones to comment and approve the funds request
> > made by WMNL insiders. The problem with this central sitenotice, as
> > Romaine pointed out, is that it is in English and points to the WMNL
> > fund request in English.
> >
> Actually, the banners are available in Dutch, and Romaine had said so
> as well. If you see them in English, one possible reason could be that
> your browser's interface language is set to English.
>
> The main (global) FDC banner has been translated into over 70
> languages, and the general community review page that it points to is
> available in over 10 languages:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/FDC_portal/Proposals/Community/Review
> .
>
> Comments on the funding requests can be made in languages other than
> English, too. As for the funding requests themselves, yes, they are in
> English. I guess it would be too much of a burden for the either
> fund-seeking organizations or volunteer translators to provide the
> entire proposal form in several languages. But one idea for the future
> might be to make at least the shorter "overview" section of each
> request translatable (e.g.
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/Wikimedia_Nederland/Proposal_form#Overview_of_grant_request
> ).
>
> --
> Tilman Bayer
> Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
> Wikimedia Foundation
> IRC (Freenode): HaeB
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>



-- 

*Frans Grijzenhout*, secretaris
fr...@wikimedia.nl
+31 6 5333 9499

Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht

http://wmnederland.nl/
*
*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Overloaded with CentralNotices (Tilman Bayer)

[Tilman Bayer]

Hi Jane,

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 12:42 AM, Jane Darnell  wrote:

> @Sue, I understand the idea behind doing this and applaud the idea -
> it would be so much easier to make strategy decisions in WMNL if we
> had more input from more involved people in the Dutch Wikipedia
> community. I get that it is really a conflict of interest for WMNL
> insiders to be the only ones to comment and approve the funds request
> made by WMNL insiders. The problem with this central sitenotice, as
> Romaine pointed out, is that it is in English and points to the WMNL
> fund request in English.
>
Actually, the banners are available in Dutch, and Romaine had said so
as well. If you see them in English, one possible reason could be that
your browser's interface language is set to English.

The main (global) FDC banner has been translated into over 70
languages, and the general community review page that it points to is
available in over 10 languages:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/FDC_portal/Proposals/Community/Review
.

Comments on the funding requests can be made in languages other than
English, too. As for the funding requests themselves, yes, they are in
English. I guess it would be too much of a burden for the either
fund-seeking organizations or volunteer translators to provide the
entire proposal form in several languages. But one idea for the future
might be to make at least the shorter "overview" section of each
request translatable (e.g.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/Wikimedia_Nederland/Proposal_form#Overview_of_grant_request
).

-- 
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Office hours for VisualEditor

[Martijn Hoekstra]

On Oct 31, 2013 2:11 AM, "Steve Zhang"  wrote:
>
> I have to say, I'm amazed such a long discussion has occured over a
> question about the time for an office hours sessions.

I'm amazed nobody has brought up leap seconds yet, which make 23:59:59 roll
over to 23:59:60 and would steal not one but two whole seconds in Tims
example.

>
> *Steven Zhang*
> *cro0...@gmail.com*
>
>
> On 31 October 2013 09:42, Tim Starling  wrote:
>
> > On 31/10/13 02:51, Newyorkbrad wrote:
> > > In an arbitration committee election a couple of years ago, I
definitely
> > > recall confusion about whether a deadline of  on a given date
meant
> > > that the deadline expired as of the beginning of that date or the end
of
> > > that date.
> >
> > Voting periods in SecurePoll are actually half-open intervals [S, E),
> > i.e. "starting at exactly time S, proceeding up to but not including
> > time E". So "E = 2013-11-03 00:00:00" is actually the correct way to
> > express a voting interval that includes the whole of 2013-11-02 and
> > nothing after that. However, I have been browbeaten into using
> > 23:59:59 in more recent elections, thus stealing a whole second of
> > potential voting time from our poor voters.
> >
> > -- Tim Starling
> >
> >
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Overloaded with CentralNotices (Tilman Bayer)

[Jane Darnell]

@Nemo, This is exactly what I was hoping to get from the Chapters
Association - a way to exchange ideas with other chapters about how to
inform more local Wikipedia editors about WMNL, and secondly, ask them
to join the chapter. The group of people who read the Dutch Village
pump is quite small and does not really represent the "community".

@Sue, I understand the idea behind doing this and applaud the idea -
it would be so much easier to make strategy decisions in WMNL if we
had more input from more involved people in the Dutch Wikipedia
community. I get that it is really a conflict of interest for WMNL
insiders to be the only ones to comment and approve the funds request
made by WMNL insiders. The problem with this central sitenotice, as
Romaine pointed out, is that it is in English and points to the WMNL
fund request in English.

All of the WMNL planning sessions and the approved WMNL strategy is in
Dutch. Our current approved year plan is an extract of our 5-year
strategy plan and therefore our fund request for that plan doesn't
quite fit the current FDC template. If someone would click on the
comment button, they are taken to the talk page of the Dutch FDC
request, which aside from a few comments (one of which is basically a
personal compliment from me to Sandra, our request filer, and the WMNL
board members who worked on it), there are a bunch of questions which
have been asked by the FDC that will need lots of time to answer (all
in English).

Without having read them all, I assume these are mostly questions that
would make the Dutch request fit more closely with the current FDC
template. These problems in formatting the message may seem to a Dutch
outsider at first glance as if the Dutch chapter is being somehow lax,
whereas we are just very busy with our conference this Saturday and
don't have time for this right now.

That all said, something positive has come out of this and a Dutch
journalist will be interviewing the staff at the WMNL office today. So
maybe it is a good thing the sitenotice opened up this little "dirty
back kitchen" of how WMNL works, confusing English and all.

Jane

2013/10/31, Sue Gardner :
> Just quickly while I walk down the street: I don't think the goal is
> necessarily to get input from chapters members -- as you say, the best
> avenue for those people to give input on chapter plans is probably simply
> to be involved in the chapter's internal planning processes.
>
> I think the purpose of the notices is probably equally/more to encourage
> non-chapters members to express their views, if they have them. The
> majority of Wikimedia participants (editors, admins, vandal fighters,
> whatever) are not chapters members, and many, perhaps even most, don't live
> in a geography where it's possible for them to join a chapter even if they
> wanted to. As we've said before, the money given to support the Wikimedia
> movement is the result of all volunteers' contributions, and so it makes
> sense for everyone to be invited to give input on how it's spent. And, the
> FDC has noted that it would like more involvement from all participants in
> the movement in expressing their views on that.
>
> In saying this, I don't mean to express a position on the notices themself.
> They may indeed not be the best way to encourage input. And I totally
> sympathize with editors who may not want to spend their spare time wading
> through budgets etc. -- it's totally reasonable that they might not find it
> fun :-) All I'm saying here is that efforts to encourage everyone to
> express whatever their views are, to the extent they have them, are
> consistent with the FDC's desire to hear from a wide range of people, which
> I think is appropriate and good.
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
> On Oct 30, 2013 2:37 AM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)"  wrote:
>
>> Jane Darnell, 30/10/2013 09:30:
>>
>>> I second your skepticism. Especially since most Dutch Wikipedians have no
>>> idea what WMNL is, according to a survey.
>>>
>>
>> Good point. Maybe all those who care about a chapter and its spending are
>> already members of the chapter so that they can participate in the
>> assembly
>> which decide on it (and related online discussions)? :)
>>
>> If we want greater community review of their spending, perhaps it would
>> make sense to run campaigns for community members to join the chapter.
>> Maybe other people have different experiences, but the associations I know
>> of usually try to convince you to join the association ("it's cool for X!
>> you are important for Y!") and then they try to gradually involve you
>> more;
>> I've never seen an association on a street distributing dozens-pages books
>> "hey! do you want to review our budget? it's great fun! we value your
>> input".
>>
>> Nemo
>>
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