Re: [Wikimedia-l] Join us tomorrow for the FINAL Wikimedia Monthly Activities Meeting

2019-08-28 Thread Pine W
Hi,

Thanks for the update.

Over the years there has been a flourishing of subject-specific public
meetings, which have been good for covering topics in greater depth than is
possible when a much larger number of topics are packed into the same one
hour time window. However, my guess is that this has contributed to the
decline of interest in presenting at the Monthly Activities Meetings.

Bluerasberry and I are planning to resume the Wikimedia Café online
meetings. These are more casual and smaller in scale than the Activities
Meetings. For those who liked the Activities Meetings for wide-ranging
discussions, I encourage you to visit the Café sometime.

From what I have seen, I think that Wikimedia Space may be good for some
use cases, but it's not a substitute for Meta and for many existing public
communications channels. One use case for Space that does make sense to me
is that people might want to use it for private group communications.
However, the platform is under WMF's control, community governance appears
to be nearly nonexistent, public interest appears to be low at this time,
and I think that Space fragments discussions onto yet another platform. I
encourage WMF to be thoughtful about how much money, staff time, and
marketing efforts are spent on Space that might be better spent elsewhere,
and I discourage WMF from further fragmenting public discussions.

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )


On Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:03 Gregory Varnum  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> You are invited to our the Wikimedia monthly activities meeting, taking
> place tomorrow (August 29) starting at 18:00 UTC (11:00 Pacific Daylight
> Time). Please note this will be the last Wikimedia monthly activities
> meeting planned by the Wikimedia Foundation Communications department.
> After speaking with our colleagues and reviewing engagement metrics from
> the past few years, we concluded that there are other efforts in place that
> are better suited to achieve the goals of this meeting.
>
> You can join tomorrow’s final meeting via YouTube:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhoJb6rwkfc
>
> And also in IRC: #wikimedia-office
>
> The agenda will include:
> - Wikimedia movement strategy update
> - Wikipedia’s role in Teenagers lives
> - Wikimedia Space
>
> More information on Meta-Wiki:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings
>
> When this meeting first began, it provided insights into data that was
> otherwise unavailable or hard to access. Thanks to the amazing efforts of
> staff and volunteers, those metrics are now available and updated regularly
> online. The purpose of the meeting thus shifted to focus on sharing
> progress updates and information from across the movement. We have realized
> however that this approach limits our ability to connect across languages
> and provide the level of detail necessary to create impact.  In addition,
> interest in the meeting has remained steady, but is has not grown, and
> there has been a decrease of interest in presenting.
>
> Fortunately, we have new methods of outreach that allow us to connect with
> wider audiences.. The new Wikimedia Foundation website, discussed at last
> month's meeting, has a greater ability to communicate across languages and
> is already helping us reach more people.[1] We are discussing ways to
> further expand this support. The new Wikimedia Space project that will be
> discussed at this month's meeting provides a central, real-time space to
> have discussions and share information on activities across the
> movement.[2]
>
> We appreciate all of the feedback people have provided over the years, and
> will continue to reflect on any additional input you may have. I also want
> to personally thank the dozens of people that presented over the years and
> the evolving core team that worked every month to put the meeting on. They
> often made it look easy, and I know that is not always the case.
>
> Thank you, and I will have more on this topic during tomorrow's meeting.
>
> -greg
>
> [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/
> [2] https://space.wmflabs.org/
>
> --
>
> Gregory Varnum (pronouns - he/his/him)
>
> Communications Strategist
>
> Wikimedia Foundation 
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[Wikimedia-l] Join us tomorrow for the FINAL Wikimedia Monthly Activities Meeting

2019-08-28 Thread Gregory Varnum
Hello,

You are invited to our the Wikimedia monthly activities meeting, taking
place tomorrow (August 29) starting at 18:00 UTC (11:00 Pacific Daylight
Time). Please note this will be the last Wikimedia monthly activities
meeting planned by the Wikimedia Foundation Communications department.
After speaking with our colleagues and reviewing engagement metrics from
the past few years, we concluded that there are other efforts in place that
are better suited to achieve the goals of this meeting.

You can join tomorrow’s final meeting via YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhoJb6rwkfc

And also in IRC: #wikimedia-office

The agenda will include:
- Wikimedia movement strategy update
- Wikipedia’s role in Teenagers lives
- Wikimedia Space

More information on Meta-Wiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_monthly_activities_meetings

When this meeting first began, it provided insights into data that was
otherwise unavailable or hard to access. Thanks to the amazing efforts of
staff and volunteers, those metrics are now available and updated regularly
online. The purpose of the meeting thus shifted to focus on sharing
progress updates and information from across the movement. We have realized
however that this approach limits our ability to connect across languages
and provide the level of detail necessary to create impact.  In addition,
interest in the meeting has remained steady, but is has not grown, and
there has been a decrease of interest in presenting.

Fortunately, we have new methods of outreach that allow us to connect with
wider audiences.. The new Wikimedia Foundation website, discussed at last
month's meeting, has a greater ability to communicate across languages and
is already helping us reach more people.[1] We are discussing ways to
further expand this support. The new Wikimedia Space project that will be
discussed at this month's meeting provides a central, real-time space to
have discussions and share information on activities across the movement.[2]

We appreciate all of the feedback people have provided over the years, and
will continue to reflect on any additional input you may have. I also want
to personally thank the dozens of people that presented over the years and
the evolving core team that worked every month to put the meeting on. They
often made it look easy, and I know that is not always the case.

Thank you, and I will have more on this topic during tomorrow's meeting.

-greg

[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/
[2] https://space.wmflabs.org/

-- 

Gregory Varnum (pronouns - he/his/him)

Communications Strategist

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

2019-08-28 Thread Jeff Hawke
Dariusz

It seems very likely that the majority of the 60,000 contributors you
mention are there with the intention of building an encyclopaedia based on
a neutral point of view achieved by verifiable information attributed to
reliable independent sources and disseminated under a free licence.  Since
there are recommendations that would challenge every single part of that
intent, it seems reasonable to assume that some non-trivial proportion of
the volunteer workforce will not wish to continue to participate in a
project that has so dramatically changed its entire raison d'etre.

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

2019-08-28 Thread Info WorldUniversity
Gerard, Katherine and Wikimedians,

Am wondering if the Wikimedia Foundation is in Google for NonProfits which
is holding an online training for managing volunteers on September 10th -
https://events.withgoogle.com/google-for-nonprofits-live-stream-series/.

(WUaS is in Google for Nonprofits and is attending this).

Scott
Scott_WUaS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scott_WorldUnivAndSch


On Sat, Aug 24, 2019 at 10:48 PM Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

> Hoi,
> Research on the acquisition of new volunteers shows that most new people
> drop out because of perceived hostility. This excercise of formulating a
> strategy for 2030 aims to address this among other objectives. It follows
> that when new volunteers that stick is an important objective, the status
> quo cannot be maintained. When people threaten to leave because the status
> quo, their power base is threatened, they are welcome to take a leave of
> absence and as Jan-Bart said in them days we hope they will reconsider.
>
> Mind you, I am not a fan-boy of the new strategy. I was in Stockholm and I
> made several points where I think the strategy fails.
>
> The problem that I have with "advocates for the community" is that like
> lawyers they do not necessarily self include and certainly take no
> responsiblity. Their point would be more clear when they say "I will leave
> our community because... ". Our community will be better off when some bad
> apples but "pillars of the community" leave. Our community would be better
> off when we argue in stead of state opinions. Let's be on point and to the
> point.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> On Sat, 24 Aug 2019 at 22:39, Jeff Hawke  wrote:
>
> > Gerard
> >
> > A good point.  The "community" in one sense is simply the collection of
> all
> > those people who happen over any given time period to be working for the
> > WMF for free.  In another sense, it is the structures and cultures found
> on
> > the various projects.  I think my question could best have been phrased
> in
> > terms of the first meaning -- that is, does the WMF Board expect that
> after
> > these recommendations are enacted, and, as we may reasonably predict, a
> > large proportion of the current volunteers cease their invlvement, that
> > there will be a sufficient number of continuing and new volunteers to
> > sustain the projects in the way the WMF desires.  It seems odd that the
> > Board would not have even begun to consider this question, but it is of
> > course for them and not for us to decide.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > On Sat, Aug 24, 2019 at 7:10 PM Gerard Meijssen <
> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com
> > >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hoi,
> > > Your notion of community is what I question. It is in your refusal of
> > > accepting that English Wikipedia is not a safe place, in your notion
> that
> > > the WMF failed, you fail to accept that it is the WMF that is the
> arbiter
> > > of last resort. You also fail to appreciate that the Wikimedia
> Foundation
> > > is not a democracy. Only some of the board members are elected by the
> > > community. The notion that elected officials are beholden to the
> > electorate
> > > has been spectacularly put on display in the United States so no they
> are
> > > not beholden to you nor me.
> > >
> > > "We" do not consider facts, we hide behind opinions. The result is that
> > our
> > > projects could do so much better once opinions are left for what they
> are
> > > in the face of proven facts. We claim our references are important but
> > > references to our behaviour have been reduced to who said what, where
> and
> > > when.
> > >
> > > Maybe the recommendations of working groups are not better in your
> > opinion
> > > nor mine. In the end it does not matter because there is so much that
> > needs
> > > an overhaul that defensive postures are exactly the behaviour that is
> > best
> > > to be disregarded. What is needed is accepting the need for change,
> > > consider what the recommendations are and consider them along the lines
> > of
> > > how we could improve upon them.
> > > Thanks
> > >   GerardM
> > >
> > > On Sat, 24 Aug 2019 at 19:20, Peter Southwood <
> > > peter.southw...@telkomsa.net>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Gerard,
> > > > It is not clear who you are addressing here, but I am going to assume
> > it
> > > > is Benjamin, who made the original claim. It is a fair question, and
> > some
> > > > clarification would be welcome.
> > > > English Wikipedia may have failed to provide a safe environment, but
> > the
> > > > WMF has failed possibly even more "spectacularly", and the
> > > recommendations
> > > > of the Working Group do not appear to be likely to be any better or
> > more
> > > > effective.
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Peter
> > > >
> > > > -Original Message-
> > > > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org]
> On
> > > > Behalf Of Gerard Meijssen
> > > > Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2019 6:29 PM
> > > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > > Subject: Re: 

[Wikimedia-l] Vision and strategy papers for Wikidata and Wikibase are published

2019-08-28 Thread Franziska Heine

Dear all,


More than 7 years ago we started the development of Wikidata. We started 
out with the main goal of building a central data store for Wikipedia. 
Very quickly we expanded to also covering the other Wikimedia projects. 
Then came the interest from people outside Wikimedia to use Wikidata’s 
data to build their own apps, websites, visualisations and more. And 
last year we witnessed a significant interest in Wikibase, the software 
behind Wikidata.



This means our structured data work has expanded very significantly from 
what we started out with. At the same time, over these past few years, 
both WMDE [1] and the WMF [2] have spent significant time and invested 
in supporting the movement strategy work and aligning our organizational 
plans with the movement strategy.



Given all this interest, and this moment of opportunity and positive 
change, we felt it was time to sit together and get clarity on the next 
steps for our structured data work. It is important that we know what we 
want to achieve in the next few years, what our long-term hopes are for 
Wikidata and Wikibase, how these align with organisational and movement 
strategy, and what support and resources are required for their success.



The result of these conversations include one product vision paper and 
three product strategy papers that we are publishing today:



 *

   Vision: This paper gives a high-level overview of where we’d like to
   see Wikidata and Wikibase evolve and grow, based on the work of the
   past 7 years and many conversations with community members, movement
   partners, and other stakeholders.

 *

   Wikidata for Wikimedia projects: This paper dives deeper into how we
   see Wikidata developing in the context of the Wikimedia projects and
   how it can better support the projects.

 *

   Wikidata as a platform: This paper explores the value of Wikidata as
   a source of data for others outside Wikimedia to build upon.

 *

   Wikibase Ecosystem: This paper goes deeper into the idea of the
   Wikibase Ecosystem, a network of Wikibase instances which could
   share data and other capacities.


We are now inviting you to read the vision and strategy papers and give 
us your feedback. We are collecting this feedback until the end of 
October and will then integrate it as appropriate into a second 
iteration of the papers.



The papers are published at 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Strategy/2019. Please leave 
your feedback and questions on the associated talk page.


We are looking forward to reading your input.


Since this is my first mail to this list, a short introduction about 
myself: I joined Wikimedia Deutschland 2 years ago as the Head of 
Software & Development. I have been working with the Product, UX, 
Engineering and Community Communication people in my department to move 
this amazing project forward.



Regards

Franziska

Head of Software & Development, Wikimedia Deutschland


[1] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Planning_2019/enand 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Zukunftsprozess/EN


[2] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction

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