Re: [Wikimedia-l] extend mediawiki software to allow append a "group", and "COI" to an edit

[John Vandenberg]

Hi rupert,

I think this requester feature has merit, as it provides a tool for
communities to use for this purpose (COI) and others.

One possible implementation is the tag system already part of the Abuse
Filter extension. Bug 18670 requests the tag system be more flexible,
allowing false positives to be addessed, and would also allow self-tagging
of edits.

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18670
On Feb 22, 2014 10:26 PM, "rupert THURNER"  wrote:

> hi,
>
> could wmf please extend the mediawiki software in the following way:
> 1. it should knows "groups"
> 2. allow users to store an arbitrary number of groups with their profile
> 3. allow to select one of the "group"s joined to an edit when saving
> 4. add a checkbox "COI" to an edit, meaning "potential conflict of
> interest"
> 5. display and filter edits marked with COI in a different color in history
> views
> 6. display and filter edits done for a group in a different color in
> history views
> 7. allow members of a group to receive notifications done on the group
> page,
>or when a group is mentioned in an edit/comment/talk page.
>
> reason:
> currently it is quite cumbersome to participate as an organisation. it is
> quite cumbersome for people as well to detect COI edits. the most prominent
> examples are employees of the wikimedia foundation, and GLAMs. users tend
> to create multiple accounts, and try to create "company accounts". the main
> reason for this behaviour are (examples, but of course valid general):
> * have a feedback page / notification page for the swiss federal archive
> for other users
> * make clear that an edit is done private or as wmf employee
>
> this then would allow the community to create new policies, e.g. the german
> community might cease using company accounts, and switch over to this
> system. this proposal is purely technical. current policies can still be
> applied if people do not need something else, e.g. wmf employees may
> continue to use "sue gardner (wmf)" accounts.
>
> what you think?
>
> best regards,
> rupert
> ---
> swissGLAMour, http://wikimedia.ch
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reasonator use in Wikipedias

[John Vandenberg]

If I understand you correctly, the redlink wont be touched, but the empty
page will show reasonator data on it (ideally displayed using the
approptiate infobox). That would help readers and (source editor) writers,
as the important facts are on the screen for them to include into the prose
of the new article.
On Jan 21, 2014 10:18 PM, "Gerard Meijssen" 
wrote:

> Hoi,
>
> At this moment Wikipedia "red links" provide no information whatsoever.
> This is not cool.
>
> In Wikidata we often have labels for the missing (=red link) articles. We
> can and do provide information from Wikidata in a reasonable way that is
> informative in the "Reasonator". We also provide additional search
> information on many Wikipedias.
>
> In the Reasonator we have now implemented "red lines" [1]. They indicate
> when a label does not exist in the primary language that is in use.
>
> What we are considering is creating a template {{Reasonator}} that will
> present information based on what is available in Wikidata. Such a template
> would be a stand in until an article is actually written. What we would
> provide is information that is presented in the same way as we provide it
> as this moment in time [2]
>
> This may open up a box of worms; Reasonator is NOT using any caching. There
> may be lots of other reasons why you might think this proposal is evil. All
> the evil that is technical has some merit but, you have to consider that
> the other side of the equation is that we are not "sharing in the sum of
> all knowledge" even when we have much of the missing requested information
> available to us.
>
> One saving (technical) grace, Reasonator loads round about as quickly as
> WIkidata does.
>
> As this is advance warning, I hope that you can help with the issues that
> will come about. I hope that you will consider the impact this will have on
> our traffic and measure to what extend it grows our data.
>
> The Reasonator pages will not show up prettily on mobile phones .. so does
> Wikidata by the way. It does not consider Wikipedia zero. There may be more
> issues that may require attention. But again, it beats not serving the
> information that we have to those that are requesting it.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
>
> [1]
>
> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2014/01/reasonator-is-red-lining-your-data.html
> [2] http://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/test/?lang=oc&q=35610
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's accept Bitcoin as a donation method

[John Vandenberg]

On Jan 9, 2014 11:38 AM, "Matthew Walker"  wrote:
>
> I will probably regret saying this[1] -- but the figure we like to throw
> around here in fundraising tech is that a new payments gateway [2] is not
> even worth considering unless it is likely to make us at least 500K USD a
> year[3].

Thanks for putting a number on the table.

It is a tad higher than I expected, being more than several very highly
paid person years, but it is a starting point.

In case an enthuiast who can code is reading this thread, which repository
needs bitcoin support?

--
John
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's accept Bitcoin as a donation method

[John Vandenberg]

Thanks Erik for a well written overview.

Would it be possible for the WMF to give an estimate on what it would cost
to build and/or what the threshold of annual bitcoin donations would make
it worthwhile building. Someone might be interested in donating
specifically to have this built, or we could obtain pledges to donate to
see if the threshold can be reached.
On Jan 9, 2014 9:06 AM, "Erik Moeller"  wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 2:54 PM, Steven Walling
>  wrote:
>
> > In general, I would personally like it if the WMF avoided accepting
> > bitcoin. Today, bitcoin isn't really a functioning currency of exchange
> --
> > it's actually used more as an investment tool to create wealth that
> > naturally appreciates in value, like playing the stock market or buying
> > gold. Avoiding lots of risky investments is something our very competent
> > financial managers already steer clear of, and I see no reason to start
> > taking on more risk now.
>
> While this is true, a more pragmatic view is that, as long as BTC has
> value to some people, there's no harm in accepting it and transferring
> it to USD the moment we receive any, provided legal/financial issues
> can be addressed with reasonable effort.
>
> The strongest counter-argument is that we might not actually get a
> donation total that makes this worth our time. The Internet Archive
> has a single-use Bitcoin address that's received a total of <$30K at
> current (insanely high) exchange rates.
>
> But for me, the main reason not do this sooner is that it would have
> significantly fueled the Bitcoin speculative bubble, and WMF should
> remain neutral on the utility of Bitcoin. At this point though,
> whatever WMF does or doesn't do is just a small drop in the bucket of
> the overall Bitcoin mania, so I'm personally fine with a decision
> being made on pragmatic grounds alone.
>
> My own view is that Bitcoin has significant design flaws (built-in
> economic inequality, most rational actors will hoard rather than
> spend, doubtful long-term scalability, questionable value as an actual
> currency due to crazy volatility, tendency to centralize power with
> miners, rampant security attacks against BTC holders, etc.), but as
> long as no more severe technical flaws are discovered/exploited, at
> least some value will likely attach to BTC for some time to come, even
> if it's dramatically less than the current exchange rate.
>
> With that said, I fully defer to our fundraising team on this since
> it's a decision that should be made purely on cost/benefit grounds,
> perhaps by also comparing with other currencies that see relatively
> little use.
>
> The one unambiguous positive that I see coming out of Bitcoin mania is
> a renewed interest in peer-to-peer networks; the last time that
> happened was about 12 years ago, and it resulted in technologies like
> BitTorrent, Tor, various file sharing networks and many others being
> developed. Experimenting is, overall, a good thing, and no matter how
> this one plays out (and how exhausting a topic it can be given the
> idiocy of coverage about it), I'm optimistic that we will see positive
> ripple effects for the free culture movement.
>
> Erik
>
> [1] https://blockchain.info/address/1Archive1n2C579dMsAu3iC6tWzuQJz8dN
> --
> Erik Möller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdoored

[John Vandenberg]

James,

Jasper asked you to justify your claim of $70 per server vs his $200 per
server.

Does $70 buy the same processing power? What support comes with it? etc.
On Dec 30, 2013 2:53 PM, "James Salsman"  wrote:

> Jasper, if you can't write an email or pick up the phone asking for a
> hardware quote without supporting the status quo of the Foundation
> datacenter being a monument to the poster boy of corporate tax abuses,
> Microsoft OEM bundling abuses, and NSA collaboration, I really can't
> help you.
>
> If you're interested in what the long term savings can look like, see:
>
> http://www.cnx-software.com/2010/11/16/arm-based-embedded-servers-marvell-armada-xp/
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

[John Vandenberg]

Putting aside the 'tax' aspect, whether or not there is a backdoor in the
shipped product is not the point of the article you linked to James.

NSA is intercepting hardware deliveries and adding backdoors while it is
enroute from supplier to customer. Buying new equipment gives NSA a new
opportunity to inject backdoors unless WMF has staff watching the entire
manufacturing and delivery process.

The latest revelations give details of only a few of NSAs capabilities.
Eliminating the now known threats, and all the other possible vectors is
not feasible.

A more sensible strategy is to put perimeters around sets of private data,
and watch your own equipment for unusual activity, with more focus on
outbound than was previously thought necessary by most organisations. The
extreme end is using trusted operating systems, tagging all data and
network interfaces & software preventing unapproved data transits.

WMF already has serious network traffic analytics and monitoring. Maybe
some more rules and alerts are needed, but everyone is reviewing how
suspicious they should be of their 'own' internal equipment now.
 On Dec 29, 2013 7:56 PM, "James Salsman"  wrote:

> Can we please stop paying the Microsoft and NSA taxes and start buying
> datacenter equipment which costs a lot less? Cubieboard/Cubietrucks for
> instance?
>
> Ref.:
>
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html
>
> Best regards,
> James
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[Wikimedia-l] Data privacy, encrypted links and recent change captures

[John Vandenberg]

We know NSA wants Wikipedia data, as Wikipedia is listed in one of the
NSA slides:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KS8-001.jpg

That slide is about HTTP, and the tech staff are moving the
user/reader base to HTTPS.

As we learn more about the NSA programs, we need to consider vectors
other than HTTP for the NSA to obtain the data they want.  And the
userbase needs to be aware of the current risks.

One question from the "Dells are backdored"[sic] thread that is worth
separate consideration is:

Are the Wikimedia transit links encrypted, especially for database replication?
MySQL has replication over SSL, so I assume the answer is Yes.

If not, is this necessary or useful, and feasible ?

However we also need to consider that SSL and other encryption may be
useless against NSA/etc, which means replicating non-public data
should be avoided wherever possible, as it becomes a single point of
failure.

Given how public our system is, we don't have a lot of non-public
data, so we might be able to design the architecture so that
information isnt replicated, and also ensure it isnt accessed over
insecure links.  I think the only parts of the dataset that are
private & valuable are
* passwords/login cookies,
* checkuser info - IPs and useragents,
* WMF analytics, which includes readers iirc, and
* hidden/deleted edits
* private wikis and mailing lists

Have I missed any?

Are passwords and/or checkuser info replicated?

Is there a data policy on WMF analytics data which prevents it flowing
over insecure links, and limits what is collected and ensures
destruction of the data within reasonable timeframes?  i.e. how about
not using cookies to track analytics of readers who are on HTTP
instead of HTTPS?

The private wikis can be restricted to https, depending on the value
of the data on those wikis in the wrong hands.  The private mailing
lists will be harder to secure, and at least the English Wikipedia
arbcom list contain a lot of valuable data about contributors.

Regarding hidden/deleted edits, the replication isnt the only source
of this data.  All edits are also exposed via Recent Changes
(https/api/etc) as they occur, and the value of these edits is
determined by the fact they are hidden afterwards (e.g. don't appear
in dumps).  Is there any way to control who is effectively capturing
all edits via Recent Changes?

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resolution: Media about living people

[John Vandenberg]

content.  The strategy would differ for each project
based on their policies, scope and the size of the project.  e.g.
Wikisources would need to review only unpublished sources added each
year; Wikipedias using FlaggedRevs could do spot checks annually;
Wikipedias which have chosen to not use FlaggedRevs would be required
to come up with feasible alternative solutions to verify the existing
BLPs are clean of significant BLP problems.  Projects which failed to
complete their periodic reviews of the content would be put into
maintenance mode(s) until they have completed the review.  e.g. The
devs might be asked to disable 'creation of new pages in mainspace' on
the wiki as a first step measure to focus the community on the task.

More generally, we should have tiers in the notability system, by
which we agree that not everyone is as notable as Barack Obama, and
therefore their 'living' bio should not contain every detail that is
ever published.  The lowest tier is bios about people with
questionable notability or low notability and avoid publicity, such as
(most) referees, sports people who only played a few matches, most
academics, which should only include facts that are relevant to their
notability and their brief appearances into 'public life'.  On English
Wikipedia, those articles should all be put under FlaggedRevs, and
edits that increase the scope of the biography are
rejected/held/not-approved until there is consensus on the talk page
that the subject is notable enough that other aspects of their life
are of general interest to understanding their achievements or actions
which have become notable.

Perhaps not just yet, but Wikidata should bring new solutions to this
problem.  We may have more consensus to remove classes of living
people biographies from Wikipedia as the basic details of their life
can be placed into Wikidata.

For example, only a few of these referees deserve a proper 'biography'
- for the others, their bio exists on Wikipedia only because it is
useful to have a unique identifier for the person, and we like to
record a list of a person's public appearances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Australian_soccer_referees

In a few of those articles, there are unsourced claims that the
referee made a significant mistake.  Besides official honours awarded,
there is not similar commentary describing all of the times that
sports commentators spoke highly of the referees decisions.  i.e.
these articles are either BLP problems now, or will be in the future.
A referees decisions are usually only relevant within the context of a
match, and don't belong on their bio.

In almost every case, the details in those articles can be moved to
claims in Wikidata once a few Wikidata properties are created, and a
non-editable page could be automatically generated on Wikipedias to
describe the subject and list the events the person appeared in.

-- 
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's accept Bitcoin as a donation method

[John Vandenberg]

On Dec 13, 2013 5:55 AM, "Steven Walling"  wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Jake Orlowitz 
wrote:
>
> > * Our peers like EFF, and Internet archive accept it
>
>
> To be totally honest, I think this is moot.
>
> Support for bitcoin among these two organizations has hardly been a
ringing
> endorsement. In the past, EFF has rejected it for very practical reasons I
> think still apply.[1] As for Internet Archive, I was literally in the room
> when their fundraising staff announced they started accepting bitcoin, and
> they actually said they didn't really understand what it was, other than
> people requested they accept it.
>
> In general, I would personally like it if the WMF avoided accepting
> bitcoin. Today, bitcoin isn't really a functioning currency of exchange --
> it's actually used more as an investment tool to create wealth that
> naturally appreciates in value, like playing the stock market or buying
> gold. Avoiding lots of risky investments is something our very competent
> financial managers already steer clear of, and I see no reason to start
> taking on more risk now.

As Peter just said, there is no risk if WMF converts bitcoin donations to
USD immediately.

--
John Vandenberg
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising banner obscuring site interface

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 9:24 PM, Marc A. Pelletier  wrote:
> On 12/10/2013 03:07 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>> There's a whole site full of possible inspirations:
>
> And yet:
>
> "Our donor services team haven't seen any negative emails about this
> banner.  Moreover adding the floating tab results in an increase in
> donations of roughly 15%, one of the biggest improvements we have found
> so far this year."  So clearly, while it annoys some people and inspires
> tumblrs, the practice is clearly beneficial and not universally reviled.
>
> Mind you, you are comparing apples (a small floaty reminder that /can/
> overlap with part of the sidebar when scrolling) with oranges (a modal
> dialog that hides contents).

The techs might want to reply to these:

https://twitter.com/MikeASchneider/status/409359331377684480

https://twitter.com/nyatagarasu/status/405134111796240384

On the flipside, maybe this will help:

https://twitter.com/listrophy/status/380864414145970176

This looks like a complaint, but it is hard to tell

https://twitter.com/ItsMalachi/status/408067770048192514

And a request for bitcoins

https://twitter.com/DrWeidinger/status/407656789274947584

-- 
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] It's time to reclaim the community logo

[John Vandenberg]

On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 4:47 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> let me start by saying that I agree with Dariusz's opinion that we
> should discuss this as a community, and perhaps move on from 'debate
> by press release' into more focused formats like Google Hangout or IRC
> office hours in order to find common ground, share our research, and
> highlight the many outstanding questions that need to be addressed
> before we can make an informed decision about the right path forward.

I've just seen that on Monday Philippe indicated that the consultation
will be closed today, Saturday 7 December.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation&diff=prev&oldid=6585034

I didnt see any notice to this list.

There has been no response from the WMF regarding the request to have
an interactive dialog to sort out the remaining unanswered questions
regarding the collective trademark.

In the last office hours held by LCA, back in January, Phillipe
indicated there would be more IRC office hours this year.[1]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2013-01-22

I know the LCA team is very busy with many proposals in community
consultation phase.  With that in mind, I think the community logo
should remain open until the LCA team has had time to hold an IRC
office hours (or similar) to discuss it.  Hopefully before this year
closes...?  Or if it is distracting staff from other projects, maybe
close it temporarily and reopen it after an IRC office hours has been
held.

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Which Wikipedias have had large scale bot creation of articles this year?

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 4:50 AM, Steven Walling  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> My team is doing some background research in to Wikipedia article creation
> right now.[1] One question I'd like answer is which Wikipedias are
> currently (i.e. this year) running bots to create many articles.
>
> I know that Lsjbot has run (or is running) on Swedish (sv), Cebuano (ceb),
> and Waray-Waray (war). It seems to me that, by looking at the stats for new
> articles per day,[2] Dutch (nl) and Vietnamese (vi) Wikipedias might have
> also been running bots? Am I wrong?

Hi Steven

Indonesia language Minangkabau Wikipedia has also been using bots.
The project was started early 2013, and now has 220,800 articles.
Unfortunately this project, and other new projects, are not being
included in Erik Zachte's reports.

http://min.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedias_by_size

The same team are using the same bots to add content to Indonesian
Wikipedia. 100,000 new articles created in October.

http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaID.htm

-- 
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] It's time to reclaim the community logo

[John Vandenberg]

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 9:09 AM, David Gerard  wrote:
>
>> Referring to John and Federico as "these two individuals" comes across
>> as attempting to depersonalise and deprecate your opposition. Are you
>> quite sure this is the effect you're after?
>>
>> On 9 October 2013 07:13, James Alexander  wrote:
>> > The legal team have provided some background on the hiring on Jones Day
>> in
>> > this action. Here is their comment:
>> >
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation#Legal_representation
>> >
>> > James Alexander
>> > Legal and Community Advocacy
>> > Wikimedia Foundation
>> > (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 3:56 PM,  wrote:
>> >
>> >> Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote on September 26, 2013, 15:22 UTC:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>  Trademark don't self-enforce, they are "enforceable" as long as someone
>> >>> believes to you when you use them as threat tools. So yes, I suppose
>> they
>> >>> might.
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> ... and given that the WMF just hired the infamous Jones Day bullies as
>> >> their representative before the OHIM to fight an opposition filled by
>> their
>> >> own volunteers (me and Federico), I don't think it's an unfair view.
>> >>
>> >> I suggest that everyone interested in the subject read <
>> >> http://www.dmlp.org/blog/**2009/sam-bayard/thoughts-**
>> >> jones-day-blockshopper-**settlement<
>> http://www.dmlp.org/blog/2009/sam-bayard/thoughts-jones-day-blockshopper-settlement
>> >>
>> >> and related links for an overview of a 2009 Jones Day lawsuit against a
>> >> start-up company Blockshopper.com which Paul Levy called "a new a new
>> entry
>> >> in the contest for grossest abuse of trademark law to suppress speech
>> the
>> >> plaintiff doesn't like".
>> >>
>> >> I'm aware that, being a party of the opposition, I shouldn't really
>> >> comment on the WMF's litigation tactics, but it still leaves me wonder
>> >> about the point of hiring, as some say, "one of the worst trademark
>> abusers
>> >> in history", as their representative in this case.
>> >>
>> >>   Tomasz
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> __**_
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>
>
>
> --
>
> __
> dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak
> profesor zarządzania
> kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego
> i centrum badawczego CROW
> Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego
> http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] It's time to reclaim the community logo

[John Vandenberg]

Hi,

Further to our announcement on September 21, the opposition has been
formally filed before the European Union’s Office of Harmonization for
the Internal Market (OHIM) on September 25. You can read the
opposition filing in the documents section of the EU trademark
application[1].

Additionally, an opposition observation has been filed but it is not
yet available to the public at the URL mentioned above; our limited
understanding is that it will be published there in the coming days.
We’ll keep everyone informed on this aspect.

So what is next?

The OHIM will now review the Notice of Opposition to determine that
the opposition is admissible.  This takes a few weeks. If the notice
of opposition is found to be admissible, the 'cooling-off period'
commences.[2]

The 'cooling-off period' allows the parties can either negotiate an
agreement, and either party may withdraw their claim to the mark
without incurring additional costs. This period lasts between two
months and two years. It is important that everyone understands that
there is no need to act hastily. If the WMF and community need time to
find the right solution, we will have two years.

The WMF set the timetable by applying for this trademark, and they
have not withdrawn that application or responded appropriately to
community calls for this to be re-evaluated. The WMF was informed in
March that we viewed the trademark registration as unacceptable. Even
after our announcement on September 21, the WMF has not addressed the
heart of the issue; they have chosen to focus the community attention
on a new approach, a collective trademark, rather than consider the
erosion of the Commons by their trademarking of a public domain logo
against the intentions of the author of the logo.

Contrary to the WMF’s claims on their ‘Request for consultation’[3],
we have never said that the opposition needed to be filed on September
23. We are aware that we could have delayed the opposition until
December. As the opposition process is able to proceed through the
non-adversarial phase for two years, we believe it is appropriate that
a properly focused formal process should commence now.

During the first two months of the cooling-off period, we request that
the WMF provides a brief to the community explaining why they believe
they have a legal claim to the community logo, given that the board
knew it was selected in order that the community did not need to
request authorisation.[4]

We also encourage the WMF to publish their research on collective
trademarks, so that the community can make an informed decision about
the utility of this approach. It is our understanding that, in the EU
at least, the WMF will need to abandon their current trademark
registration if they are to apply for a collective trademark.

Regards,
John Vandenberg

== References ==
* [1] 
http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_Detail_NoReg?deno=&idappli=1152038&transition=ResultsDetailed
* [2] http://oami.europa.eu/ows/rw/pages/CTM/regProcess/opposition.en.do
* [3] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation#Notes
* [4] 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-September/045702.html

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia blog moving to WordPress.com

[John Vandenberg]

How much do we expect to be paying to Wordpress each year for this service?

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Sep 6, 2013 8:23 AM, "Erik Moeller"  wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Leslie Carr  wrote:
>
> > Currently the blog is in a partially maintained by Operations state.  In
> > ops, we have a few concerns - #1 is security (exemplified by our recent
> > security incident) of having a wordpress instance in our production
> > environment.  #2 is support of the blog from a technical standpoint.  We
> > are currently all oversubscribed with trying to keep the production sites
> > up and speedy.  The blog is low priority for us compared to the wiki's,
> and
> > therefore is often neglected.  When we hire about 5 more ops people, it
> may
> > be more sustainable, but right now, it's not - so it would actually be a
> > net positive for the Operations team to move the blog onto a dedicated
> > third party, and will also hopefully prevent any future security
> incidents.
>
> Exactly. Just because we have people who have no trouble maintaining a
> WordPress install doesn't mean we should. Time is always limited, and
> we have to prioritize. Working with a reputable third party that also
> drives development of the same open source software seems like a
> perfectly reasonable choice to me in this instance. And BTW - we do
> get situations where the blog gets a huge spike of traffic every once
> in a while, e.g. during the SOPA/PIPA protest, so hosting it ourselves
> is not as effortless as it may seem, without even accounting for
> customization requests from our communications team, etc.
>
> Erik
> --
> Erik Möller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF's New Global South Strategy

[John Vandenberg]

'Global Strategy countries'?

I think this aligns with the intention of GS, which is to support
initiatives that help make our movement more global by investing in
areas/languages where editors and/or readers is low but potential is high.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Aug 30, 2013 11:42 AM, "Balázs Viczián" 
wrote:

> What about making it simply global...?
>
> Balázs
> 2013.08.30. 2:44, "Asaf Bartov"  ezt írta:
>
> > On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term "Global
> > > South" with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I
> > > initially misunderstood its meaning.
> >
> >
> > No, the strikethrough was a visual cue that the _term_ "Global South" is
> > emphatically not on the agenda.
> >
> >
> > > The term "Global South" is pretty
> > > awful and deserves a quick death.
> >
> >
> > Agreed...
> >
> >
> > > But based on the title of the
> > > presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead
> > yet.
> > >
> >
> > ...but what do we replace it with?  This has been rehashed quite a bit,
> but
> > no one has come up with a compelling alternative that's reasonably
> concise
> > and is politically acceptable.  (Personally I am happy with "developing
> > world" and "developing nations", but of course those terms are
> euphemistic
> > as well, and apparently no longer acceptable in some circles.)
> >
> > I have stated before that the term, for us, is just shorthand for a list
> of
> > countries, and we make no essentialist assumptions about some uniformity
> > throughout all these countries.  It is my understanding that most of the
> > consternation (kittens dying etc.) the term causes is due to the
> assumption
> > that we _are_ making an essentialist assumption and treating all GS
> > countries the same.  I hope it is by now evident we are not.
> >
> > Once again, I find no point to debating this.  All who _are_ interested
> are
> > welcome to hash it out somewhere, and submit a consensual term (or a
> > shortlist) to WMF for consideration.  If a superior term arises, I
> promise
> > to make an effort to adopt it across WMF.  Until then, let's focus on the
> > actual work rather than the nomenclature.
> >
> >
> > > I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil and
> > > India will continue. There's a note that reads "No WMF contractors on
> the
> > > ground any more", but it's unclear whether this means a discontinuation
> > of
> > > the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements.
> Does
> > > the "no contractors on the ground" line mean only full-time staff will
> be
> > > working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future?
> > Full-time
> > > staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia
> > Foundation
> > > contractors?
> > >
> >
> > There are no WMF employees outside the US, so "no contractors on the
> > ground" (in the GS context -- we still have engineers around the world!)
> > means that (once the Brazil transition is complete -- this is in
> progress),
> > no program work in the GS will be done by WMF contractors, but only by
> > local partners (movement affiliates -- chapters, thematic organizations,
> > and user groups -- and unaffiliated partners), some of whom would be WMF
> > grantees.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> >A.
> > --
> > Asaf Bartov
> > Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
> >
> > 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] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[John Vandenberg]

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:36 PM, phoebe ayers  wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen <
> daniel.mietc...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would
>> benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter.
>>
>> For instance,
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot
>> is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author.
>> It is currently being ported to Labs (
>> https://github.com/wrought/citation-bot )
>> to restore functionality, but due to ongoing developments in other
>> areas (e.g. citation templates), adaptations are necessary on an
>> ongoing basis. Who should do that? And what about feature requests?
>>
>
> Yes! From a user perspective, that's definitely an area of need, and a
> great example too. Personal note: I LOVE Citation Bot, and I hope it comes
> back soon!

It appears to be operating

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Citation_bot

So chapters can offer to help porting tools like this to Labs and
ongoing maintenance of these tools?
Is there a list of such tools that have been identified as needing paid support?

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] article bytes more meaningful than users or revisions (was Re: Updates on VE data analysis)

[John Vandenberg]

On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 6:29 PM, Denny Vrandečić
 wrote:
> Thank you for the observation.
>
> Is the graph <http://i.imgur.com/TfaD99V.png> based on actual data? Because
> it looks just tad bit too linear to me. (I do not disagree with the
> finding, just wondering about the graph itself).
>
> I still would worry, though: our content is increasing linearly, as you
> say, but the number of active contributors is not. If we take for granted
> that active contributors are the ones who provide quality control for the
> articles, this means that since 2006 or so the ratio of content per
> contributor is linearly declining, which would mean that our quality would
> suffer.

There are a few parts of this that I dont think it can be taken for
granted, and I would love to see stats about quality rather than
quantity, as you're talking about quality, and that should be a
significant component of our analysis.

1) 'active contributors are the ones who provide quality control'

   bots do a lot of what used to be done by humans back in 2007,
rolling back most silly edits.
   and it is a small subset of active contributors who do the majority
of the maintenance.

2) the number of active contributors _doing quality control_ has declined.

   we know the number of overall editors is declining, and I think you
are right that those doing quality control is declining, but is there
evidence to support it?  And does it support that this decline is a
problem?

My gut feeling is that the decline in 'quality control' edits is
tightly linked to the increase in bots doing quality control.

i.e. do we have research to support total article-to-editor ratio
having a bearing on average quality of content?
A proxy could be average number of references per article ..?

It seems unlikely, as our content over the last five years has
increased in quality, and our number of editors has declined.

> I see two effects to counter that:
>
> 1) as you already mentioned, contributors are getting increasingly more
> experienced and more effective in fulfilling their tasks.
>
> 2) we continue to have a strong increase in readers and even stronger in
> pageviews (i.e. more and more people consult Wikipedia more and more). They
> probably also provide a layer of quality assurance, even though they might
> not qualify to be counted as active contributors.
>
> I have the gut feeling that 1) cannot be sufficient, and I would be curious
> in the effects of 2) - especially considering that much of the Foundation
> development work can be considered in improving 2 further (visual editor,
> article rating, mobile editing, etc.)

I agree with James that (1) is significant, and (2 - 'the future')
brings many unknowns with it.

(1) consists of our entire potential editor base, which includes of
all our currently active editors, and all of our inactive editors who
are able to resume editing at any time - i.e. not blocked, not ^&%ed
off, etc.  They all know the syntax, and have demonstrated their
commitment to the vision, _and_ the writers have a personal connection
to the articles that they worked on.  I see lots of them come back
occasionally to touch up or expand their work.

(2) brings different editors, for good or ill.  There are some
concerns in the community that simplifying editing will bring more
non-trivial vandalism that bots cant handle, and even more good
meaning editors who are discouraged when they can't understand why
their edit has disappeared, because they dont read the history, the
talk pages, etc, etc.  The ratio of experienced editor to newbie could
be a significant factor in the maintenance of a friendly environment.

More is not always better.

Don't get me wrong; a good VE will be very helpful, and the projects
defensive mechanisms will adapt.  But I predict that if we see lots of
poor quality articles from VE, without adequate references, and the
community backlogs become problematic, the community will want develop
tools to limit new poor quality articles.

Does anyone have stats for the number of blocked users per month over
the years, as that is hurting our potential editor base, and number of
reverts of edits by new users.

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2013-14 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 3:00 PM, Tilman Bayer  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> the Wikimedia Foundation's 2013-14 Annual Plan has just been published at
>
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2013-2014_WMF_Plan_As_Published.pdf
>
> accompanied by a Q&A:
>
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2013-2014_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers
>
> The plan was approved by the Board of Trustees on June 28, 2013.

I have converted it to wiki text.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_2013-14

It doesnt have the graphs yet.  Maybe someone at WMF can easily create
those graphs from the original document?  If not, we'll have to
rebuild them.

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John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Advocacy Advisors] WMF response to PRISM?

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 4:07 PM, James Salsman  wrote:
> Would publicizing these free and open secure alternatives to commercial
> applications known to be under surveillance -- https://prism-break.org/ --
> be sufficiently aligned with out values?

Our values?  ...
Our practise.  No.

SSL is mandatory to avoid surveillance, but TOR is also quite important.

The very first entry on prism-break is TOR, which is blocked on
Wikimedia projects for editing, by explicit blocks and by the TorBlock
extension, which is enabled on all wikis, even Chinese Wikipedia.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TorBlock
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version

The mobile functionality is very unfriendly for privacy.

Loading a non-mobile HTTPS url (e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984), redirects the reader to the
mobile HTTP page.  If they clicked on a https link believing that
their browsing pattern was not able to be monitored, their reading
patterns are in clear text on the internet without them being informed
of this.  The EFF is pushing solutions to send readers from HTTP to
HTTPS sites, and WMF is sending readers from HTTPS to HTTP -
transparently.

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35215
(reported March 2012, last comment from WMF tech team in April 2013
indicates this may not be fixed soon)

Admins can bypass the Tor block, however logging in on Mobile is not easy.
In the mobile search type in special:userlogin.  The login screen
appears, and the 'sign in' button replies to the user that there was a
cookie error.

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31045
(reported 2011; closed as INVALID the same day)

When using the Orweb browser (part of the tor solution for Android),
trying to log in is even more difficult as you cant go to the Desktop
site without tying in a long url that bypasses the mobile site.

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51277
(reported by me today)

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] PRISM

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 8:15 AM, Luis Villa  wrote:
> Hi, all-
>
> For your information, we have not been approached to participate in
> PRISM, and we have never received or honored an NSA or FISA subpoena
> or order.  If we were to be approached in the future, we would reject
> participation in any PRISM-type program to the maximum extent possible
> and challenge in court any such demand, since this sort of program, as
> described in the press, contradicts our core values of a free Internet
> and open, neutral access to knowledge.
>
> We should have a blog post up within the next few days to discuss
> PRISM and our values in more detail; we will pass that along here when
> it is posted.

Thanks.

Please put the draft on meta so the volunteers can review it and
identify phrases which are not tight enough.

e.g. "we have never received or honored an NSA or FISA subpoena or
order" is good (and far better than I've seen from Google or
Facebook), but ...

does that exclude all possible orders under the Patriot Act?
does that exclude orders from any U.S. Government agency?  e.g. FBI?

I don't know the answer to those questions, and I am sure the average
reader doesn't either.  It would be helpful to have a response with
has both precise language and broad statements that will ensure the
layman doesnt worry that WMF is dodging the question.

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] PRISM

[John Vandenberg]

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 11:00 PM, Anthony  wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 6:21 AM, Fred Bauder  wrote:
>> No, massive amounts of information about people doing ordinary
>> things like editing articles about Homer Simpson is kind of the opposite
>> of intelligence; it IS the haystack, not the needle.
>>
>
> And yet, PRISM is exactly about collecting the full haystack.  And it makes
> sense, if you ignore the privacy implications:  Collect everything in your
> multi-zetabyte storage device, even if you aren't going to analyze it right
> away.

And we give every needle a distinct and descriptive name.

> And yeah, editing articles about Homer Simpson is one thing.  Editing
> articles about the Tea Party, on the other hand...

Or DeCSS, or AACS, ..

Or 2012 Benghazi attack, Efforts to impeach Barack Obama, Drone
attacks in Pakistan, ..

Or PRISM (surveillance program), Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, ..

It would be good *if* the WMF can provide assurances to editors that
they havent received any national security letters or other 'trawling'
requests from any U.S. agency.

If the WMF has received zero such requests, can the WMF say that?
There wouldn't be any gag order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter says that the
gag orders were struck down, pending appeal.  That means we may have
to wait a while..

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"

[John Vandenberg]

On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 9:36 AM, Strainu  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've just seen an OTRS ticket asking why isn't Wikipedia giving its
> pages for "adoption" (like when you adopt a page and your name ends up
> on its cage or something like that). I've moved the ticket to the
> donations queue, but I was wondering if this has ever been
> discussed/considered before.

fwiw, this model was discussed on the private fundraising mailing list
in November 2010, with similar results IMO.

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John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of Wikimedia Armenia

[John Vandenberg]

Excellent news.  Congrats to WMAM!

On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 7:26 AM, Bence Damokos  wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I am happy to announce that the the WMF Board of Trustees have resolved to
> recognize Wikimedia Armenia as the newest Wikimedia chapter:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Recognition_of_Wikimedia_Armenia
>
> This group has  already put a lot of effort into promoting Wikipedia and
> the other projects in Armenia on their road to recognition and I am really
> looking forward to hearing of their future endeavours.
>
> Please give a warm welcome to Wikimedia Armenia!
>
> Best regards,
> Bence
> (Affiliations Committee)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member

[John Vandenberg]

For context (because I needed to look it up)..
I believe this vacancy is to replace the seat held by Matt Halprin,
which was not renewed at the end of December 2012.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:CurrentBoardChart

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_of_trustees needs an update too
if Matt has left the board.

The WMF board portal and noticeboard havent been updated

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Board_portal

On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On Feb 17, 2013 8:29 PM, "Itzik Edri"  wrote:
>>
>> I don't understand. The board hired and pays to a company to find a board
>> member? Have we tried before via our networks, chapters, and via our
>> advisory board to find such a person (as been done until now?).
>
> The chapters are used to find new foundation board members. That's what the
> chapter selected board seats are for. The expert board seats are for
> providing expertise that we are missing after the community and chapters
> have selected people.

Forgive me if the current board has already communicated their plan,
and I have missed it.  Please advise me if there is a published
strategy/plan for filling this seat.  I can only find this note saying
Kat is leading this initiative, and they hope to interview candidates
in person at the chapters conference in the Milan between 18-21 April:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Board_Governance_Committee/Agenda_2012-2013#Successor_for_Matt

Following on from Thomas Dalton's explanation, which I believe is both
accurate and appropriate...

As we are approaching the board election to refill the three community
elected seats, I think it may make sense to avoid appointing someone
to the vacant expert seat until after the community elected seats are
appointed.  Shortening the list of candidates is a good idea for 18-21
April, but the expert seat should used to maximise the skills and
experiences of the board, filling as many gaps in the board as
possible.  Those gaps can't be fully identified until the community
elected seats are filled.

The community elected seats will provide the board with three people
that the community believes are important additions.  In some cases
these seats may be filled by people whose skillsets and experiences
were identified by the community as needed on the board, but the
nature of the process is that skillset balance is hard to control via
these community seats.

The process ensures that many potential candidates do not even enter
the board election, the wiki user interface hamstrings the candidates
who are not well versed in wiki editing and the wiki discussion
format, so these seats typically go to people who have 10,000+ edits
and are well respected in our community, which limits the field quite
a bit.  The community may also vote for someone who has very similar
skills and experience to someone already on the board, and it would be
a very bold board that invalidates the election result on that basis.

The expert seat is an opportunity to select a person based on the
skillset that is found to be missing on the board, and that should
happen _after_ the skills and experience of the three community seats
are locked in by their appointment.

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WCA Meeting - Google Hangout is on on rocking!

[John Vandenberg]

Sorry, I fell asleep and missed the second half.

Will the video be published afterwards?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WCA Meeting - Google Hangout is on on rocking!

[John Vandenberg]

When I joined just now..I can hear people talking in the background, but
see a room full of empty chairs.

Will the video be published afterwards?

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Feb 17, 2013 9:19 PM, "Manuel Schneider" 
wrote:

> Good Morning,
>
> we had to set up a new Hangout session:
>
> https://plus.google.com/**hangouts/_/**234db5e9ffbce74397e2e13f77c901**
> 7bebc888ce<https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/234db5e9ffbce74397e2e13f77c9017bebc888ce>
>
> Please come by, join us, chat with us or just speak up - we have speakers
> here so we hear you.
>
> /Manuel
>
>
> Am 2013-02-16 11:33, schrieb Michał Buczyński:
>
>> WCA London Meeting is on!
>>
>> We would like to remind you **our agenda:
>>
>> meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/**Wikimedia_Chapters_**
>> Association/Meetings/2013-07<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013-07>
>>
>> Please, join us on Google **Hangout:
>>
>> https://plus.google.com/**hangouts/_/**38ea423ec0e987450e09259bde4be1**
>> e52ce7f327<https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/38ea423ec0e987450e09259bde4be1e52ce7f327>
>>
>> We are welcoming your input.
>>
>
> --
> Manuel Schneider
>
> Wikimedia CH - Gesellschaft zur Förderung freien Wissens
> www.wikimedia.ch
>
> __**_
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> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimediaau-l] Sue Gardner interview on ABC Radio

[John Vandenberg]

WMAu is investigating.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Feb 15, 2013 9:53 PM, "Everton Zanella Alvarenga" 
wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 2:06 AM, Tilman Bayer 
> wrote:
> > There is now a downloadable MP3 (50min) at
> > http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/02/15/3691244.htm .
>
>
> Have someone tried to ask permission to open this content with a free
> license? At least in Brazil it worked sometimes with me when I asked
> and I could add them on Commons, even when dealing with the big news
> media.
>
> Tom
>
> --
> Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom)
> "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more
> useful than a life spent doing nothing."
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimediaau-l] Sue Gardner interview on ABC Radio

[John Vandenberg]

Live stream now for me in Brisbane

http://www.abc.net.au/local/players/internet_radio.htm?streamFile=localsydney&streamTitle=Conversations%20with%20Richard%20Fidler


-- Forwarded message --
From: Craig Franklin 
Date: Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 11:23 AM
Subject: [Wikimediaau-l] Sue Gardner interview on ABC Radio
To: Wikimedia-au 


Hi All,

Just a quick reminder that if you weren't able to catch the live
streaming version of Sue Gardner's Australian interview on Wednesday
night, it's being played on ABC Radio today at 11am across the country
(except Victoria, for "complicated ABC reasons").  The programme you
are looking for is "Conversations with Richard Fidler".

If you miss that, I am assuming that you'll be able to download a
podcast of the show later tonight to listen.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/sites/conversations/?section=podcast

Cheers,
Craig Franklin

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Moodbar gone????

[John Vandenberg]

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 4:30 PM, Richard Ames  wrote:
>
> From:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:FeedbackDashboard
>
> I get:
>
> "No such special page"
>
> Have I missed the demise of this tool or is something broken?

It has been undeployed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#Undeployment_of_MoodBar.2FFeedback_Dashboard

-- 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] COI versus OUTING

[John Vandenberg]

This happens all the time. It sounds like their attempt to alter the
content was thwarted. If not, alert a few admins privately, or send more
specific info to the functionaries-en mailing list so they can keep a
watchful eye on the articles in question.

And talk to the offender and explain what they did contravenes Wikipedia
guidelines.

In my opinion you should report it to an ethics board privately, if you
believe they did (intend to) break the industries ethical guidelines. Even
if they acted improperly, by intimidating someone, you need to follow
appropriate protocols. Two wrongs dont make a right.

It sounds like you can inform press without breaking any confidences. Tell
them the account name or IP and let them independently guess who it is.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Jan 22, 2013 12:09 AM, "James Heilman"  wrote:

> A not really hypothetical question:
>
> Let say one is the director of marketing at a 16 billion dollar company and
> decides to come to Wikipedia in an attempt to alter its coverage of one of
> your companies key products (which has been hit fairly hard lately by the
> evidence). One also invites 50 of your best friends (most of which are on
> your pay role to join you in this effort).
>
> Let say you are trying to do it anonymously but both you and your
> associates send out a whole bunch of intimidating emails to a long standing
> editor. Than this long standing editor without any real difficulty figures
> out who you are (as you sort of did email him). You than "vanish" from
> Wikipedia.
>
> What if this long standing editor decided to either hand the story over to
> the press or write something up for publication in a peer review journal as
> said editor does not stand for intimidation easily? And this long standing
> editor believes that the world / patients might be better off if
> this behavior become more widely known. How would the Wikimedia community
> apply the above two policies / guidelines (WP:COI and WP:OUTING)?
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Congrats wikivoyagers!

[John Vandenberg]

On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 9:54 AM, Leslie Carr  wrote:
> http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/wikivoyage/
>
> An awesome writeup in Wired!

Argh; Sarah Mitroff calls wikivoyage "a new travel-focused wiki" ;-(
and then continues to present Wikivoyage as a new entrant into this
space. "It’s a great notion, but Wikivoyage is coming late to the
already crowded travel industry.."

The article also includes a video of Jimmy on Colbert Nation hosted at
http://hulu.com which can only be seen in the USA (and Japan?).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulu

This story covers the launch better, but I think it puts too much
emphasis on the lawsuits:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2024997/wikipedia-launches-travel-site-wikivoyage-on-january-15.html

Anyone found a better wikivoyage launch news stories that is accurate
and can be accessed outside of USA and Japan?

-- 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] No access to the Uzbek Wikipedia in Uzbekistan

[John Vandenberg]

How many languages _need_ this?

Is it only one language-project?

If you only need one IP address, to avoid censorship by one country, it
should be achievable.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Dec 28, 2012 4:21 AM, "Leslie Carr"  wrote:

> >
> > I wish that  http://208.80.154.225/wiki/Bosh_Sahifa and
> > https://208.80.154.225/wiki/Bosh_Sahifa would work, too, but the
> > foundation apparently can't or chooses not to afford separate IP
> > addresses for each language's Wikipedia.
>
> As one of the network folks, I will answer this.   We do not have
> enough public IP(v4)s for an address for each language in each
> project, and unless someone gives us a major donation of IPv4
> addresses (anyone have a spare /20 laying around?), I don't think we
> will be able to make this happen as we are frugal with our existing
> IPs and the allocating authorities (RIPE and ARIN) are being quite
> strict with their new IPv4 allocations.
>
> If you'd like to read more about IP allocation policies, here's a few links
> https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#four3
> https://www.arin.net/resources/request/ipv4_depletion.html
> https://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-553 (see section 5.6)
>
>
> Leslie
>
> --
> Leslie Carr
> Wikimedia Foundation
> AS 14907, 43821
> http://as14907.peeringdb.com/
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] proposed urgent Board of Trustees resolution without a meeting

[John Vandenberg]

On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 7:35 PM, Chris Keating
 wrote:
> What an odd resolution to post.

Agreed.

> But Just on this point
>
>
>>> whereas because of their low levels of compensation, junior foundation
>>> technical staff are often unable to afford housing which does not
>>> involve a lengthy commute from unsavory neighborhoods;[11]
>>>
>>
> [11] http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/**Job/jobs.htm?clickSource=**
>> searchBtn&typedKeyword=&sc.**keyword=wikimedia&locT=&locId=<http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Job/jobs.htm?clickSource=searchBtn&typedKeyword=&sc.keyword=wikimedia&locT=&locId=>
>>
>
> oddly enough the link here seems to be to a Wikimedia UK job, not a
> foundation job, so none of the particulars apply to Foundation technical
> staff at any level.
>
> (also Wikimedia UK's staff don't have to live in "unsavory neighbourhoods",
> though I expect many of them do commute to work, as does virtually everyone
> else working in London...)
>
> Chris

Hi Chris,

It might be using geolocation; I see USA jobs on that search result.

-- 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board resolutions on bylaw amendments and appointment of Foundation staff officers

[John Vandenberg]

Bylaw changes are never housekeeping.

This resolution does change the composition of the board.

Two seats had a defined role, with clear responsibilities. Now they dont.
Of course there is always shared responsibility, but having one person
chiefly responsible ensures someone is focused on those responsibilities
and does not allow themselves to be distracted.

One seat (treasurer) needed to have relevant professional experience. Now
it doesnt.

At least one additional WMF staff officer (the new secretary) will,
presumably, now be present at all board meetings.

I dont mind the change, but discussion would have resulted in better
options being considered and hopefully enacted. We were given a good score
for our 'terms and conditions' rewrite. We could have achieved the same
with this bylaws update.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Nov 6, 2012 7:30 AM, "Risker"  wrote:

> Well, that's the point. Phoebe *was* responsible for this, just as Bishakha
> has been so far this year.  Who's been sending out the minutes and posting
> resolutions?
>
> Further, it's to improve compliance with legislation. Thus, it's
> housekeeping.
>
> Risker
>
> On 5 November 2012 19:04, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
>
> > I would be very surprised if the trustee Secretary actually took
> minutes...
> > That would usually be delegated...
> > On Nov 6, 2012 12:02 AM, "Risker"  wrote:
> >
> > > It would strike me that one of the "urgencies" that might be involved
> is
> > > the fact that this resolution was passed so that the Board member who
> had
> > > previously been the secretary could participate as an individual board
> > > member, and the appointed secretary could take the minutes. It's
> > extremely
> > > rare for a staffed charity/non-profit to have sitting trustees acting
> as
> > > secretary or treasurer, and none of the discussion here has indicated
> any
> > > concern about this decision; this was essentially housekeeping.
> >  Therefore,
> > > the only thing I can take from this is that it is a process issue, and
> > that
> > > some members of the community wish to know in advance and in detail
> what
> > > the board will be discussing.  I can understand that; at the same
> time, I
> > > think that attempting to micro-manage the board over housekeeping items
> > is
> > > not terribly helpful. Now, if the Board had been deciding on its
> > > composition (which as best I can tell was never publicly discussed the
> > last
> > > time it was changed), I think that would certainly benefit from
> community
> > > input.
> > >
> > > Risker
> > >
> > >
> > > On 5 November 2012 18:25, Lodewijk 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > (just for the record: in case someone does have a valid reason, I'm
> > still
> > > > very open to hearing good reasons why the board chose the procedure
> > they
> > > > chose (behind closed doors), and whether there was any urgency to the
> > > > changes proposed. I somehow missed that in the replies but may have
> > > missed
> > > > it. Knowing about such reasons might be helpful in the light of
> > proposing
> > > > changes to procedures.
> > > >
> > > > Lodewijk)
> > > >
> > > > 2012/11/2 Lodewijk 
> > > >
> > > > > Hi Bishakha,
> > > > >
> > > > > 2012/11/2 Bishakha Datta 
> > > > >
> > > > >> On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Lodewijk <
> > lodew...@effeietsanders.org
> > > > >> >wrote:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> > Dear Bishakha,
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> > could you please elaborate why the board has chosen for a
> > secretive
> > > > >> > amendment procedure here, rather than sharing the proposed
> > > amendments
> > > > >> with
> > > > >> > the community and asking their input on it? Especially where it
> > > > concerns
> > > > >> > such non-trivial changes.
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> Ok, now that the document showing old and new has finally been
> > > > uploaded, I
> > > > >> will try to answer your question.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> The legal team proposed that we amend the bylaws, primarily to
> > ensure
> > > > >> compliance with Florida non-profit laws.
> >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2012 Editor survey launched

[John Vandenberg]

"On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 12:18 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> Thanks Tilman. Good to see the offer is in the public FAQ.
>
> I was on my phone at the time I saw it, and having some time on my hands I
> tried to fill it in. I managed to screw up the survey software on the
> languages selection by trying to select more than one, and then it wouldnt
> let me pick any. I quit thinking I would get another chance...on my desktop.
>
> I dont remember if the survey told me that I would only have one chance...

Looks like it does.  When editing French Wikipedia, the survey popped
up again and said

"You can pause the survey at any time and finish it later, but this
may be the only time you will see this message."

I am hoping this is an nefarious ploy by the WMF to promote
non-English Wikipedias ;-)

Thanks.

--
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2012 Editor survey launched

[John Vandenberg]

Thanks Tilman. Good to see the offer is in the public FAQ.

I was on my phone at the time I saw it, and having some time on my hands I
tried to fill it in. I managed to screw up the survey software on the
languages selection by trying to select more than one, and then it wouldnt
let me pick any. I quit thinking I would get another chance...on my desktop.

I dont remember if the survey told me that I would only have one chance...

Do you know how many people have seen the banner vs how many have completed
it?

Is there a page which lists pros and cons of this approach?

I think the WMF should collect all the survey data they can. Maximum ROI
and all that.
You can use models to select a subset of the 2012 data that would be
comparable to the 2011 data.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Nov 3, 2012 10:58 AM, "Tilman Bayer"  wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 6:05 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> > Hi Tilman,
> >
> > Could you explain the logic behind the survey link not being static until
> > the user completes the survey or dismisses the notice?
> I guess you are referring to the fact that the survey invitation
> banner is designed to be shown only once to each user? This is
> explained in the Q&A for the survey:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012#Why_will_a_user_see_the_link_to_the_survey_only_once.3F_How.3F
> In short, it's intended to reduce bias towards more frequent editors.
> There are reasons for and against this setup, but it's one of the many
> things that we want to keep consistent with the last survey so as to
> be able to do longitudinal analysis, i.e. identify trends.
>
> (In case this is not what you meant, feel free to rephrase the
> question and I will try to reply again.)
>
> >
> > I appreciate that you're offering, via email, to give people the survey
> > link if they missed it, but that will influence who ends up your survey
> > population. Not everyone on your target population is subscribed to a
> list
> > whetr this offer has been made.
> I understand this concern from a theoretical standpoint, but
> considering the fact that only four people have requested such a link
> so far, the bias that this introduces is likely to be negligible. - If
> one goes down that road, one would need to worry much more about the
> effect of announcements and discussions about the survey on mailing
> lists and on Meta before it has completed, but this is a price we are
> happy to pay to involve the community and achieve transparence.
>
> >
> > John Vandenberg.
> > sent from Galaxy Note
> > On Oct 31, 2012 7:26 AM, "Tilman Bayer"  wrote:
> >
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> we have just launched the Foundation's 2012 editor survey; with
> >> invitations to participate being shown to logged-in users on Wikipedia
> >> and Commons.
> >>
> >> A few quick facts about the survey (for more refer to
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012
> >> ):
> >>
> >> * This is the third survey of editors as envisaged in the Foundation's
> >> 2010-15 strategic plan "in order to take the pulse of the community
> >> and identify pressing issues or concerns", after the April 2011 and
> >> December 2011 surveys.
> >>
> >> * The first main purpose of this survey is to continue the work of the
> >> 2011 studies (conducted by Mani Pande and Ayush Khanna), with a focus
> >> on tracking changes since last year and identifying trends.
> >> Which is why many questions are being repeated from last time.
> >>
> >> * The second emphasis in this instance of the survey is to measure the
> >> satisfaction of the editing community with the work of the Wikimedia
> >> Foundation.
> >>
> >> * This is the first editor survey that includes a non-Wikipedia
> >> project (Commons, for the questions that are non Wikipedia-specific).
> >>
> >> * Thanks to everyone who commented on the draft questionnaire after we
> >> solicited feedback on this list and in and IRC office hour, as well as
> >> to those who commented about the last survey. We made several changes
> >> based on the feedback, and tried to reply to all concerns.
> >>
> >> * Also many thanks to all volunteer translators who reviewed or
> >> contributed translations; the questionnaire is available in 14
> >> languages (Italian, Polish and Portuguese will launch a bit later).
> >>
> >> * As with the previous two surveys, the results will be published in
> >>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] 2012 Editor survey launched

[John Vandenberg]

Hi Tilman,

Could you explain the logic behind the survey link not being static until
the user completes the survey or dismisses the notice?

I appreciate that you're offering, via email, to give people the survey
link if they missed it, but that will influence who ends up your survey
population. Not everyone on your target population is subscribed to a list
whetr this offer has been made.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Oct 31, 2012 7:26 AM, "Tilman Bayer"  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> we have just launched the Foundation's 2012 editor survey; with
> invitations to participate being shown to logged-in users on Wikipedia
> and Commons.
>
> A few quick facts about the survey (for more refer to
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012
> ):
>
> * This is the third survey of editors as envisaged in the Foundation's
> 2010-15 strategic plan "in order to take the pulse of the community
> and identify pressing issues or concerns", after the April 2011 and
> December 2011 surveys.
>
> * The first main purpose of this survey is to continue the work of the
> 2011 studies (conducted by Mani Pande and Ayush Khanna), with a focus
> on tracking changes since last year and identifying trends.
> Which is why many questions are being repeated from last time.
>
> * The second emphasis in this instance of the survey is to measure the
> satisfaction of the editing community with the work of the Wikimedia
> Foundation.
>
> * This is the first editor survey that includes a non-Wikipedia
> project (Commons, for the questions that are non Wikipedia-specific).
>
> * Thanks to everyone who commented on the draft questionnaire after we
> solicited feedback on this list and in and IRC office hour, as well as
> to those who commented about the last survey. We made several changes
> based on the feedback, and tried to reply to all concerns.
>
> * Also many thanks to all volunteer translators who reviewed or
> contributed translations; the questionnaire is available in 14
> languages (Italian, Polish and Portuguese will launch a bit later).
>
> * As with the previous two surveys, the results will be published in
> the following forms: A "topline" report detailing the percentage of
> responses for each question, a series of posts on
> https://blog.wikimedia.org analyzing the results, and a data set
> consisting of anonymized responses which others can use to do their
> own analyses. This time we will also aim to produce language-specific
> topline reports (an approach we already tested for Chinese with the
> data from the December 2011 survey).
>
> --
> Tilman Bayer
> Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
> Wikimedia Foundation
> IRC (Freenode): HaeB
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Question for Board

[John Vandenberg]

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 12:46 PM, James Salsman  wrote:
> ...
>
> It is sad that those who are very well off are so quick to exclude the
> possibility of helping impoverished long term contributors.

WMF is not a welfare system.  Donors would rightly complain if the
money was used for purposes other than those described in the donation
solicitation messaging.

Impoverished long term contributors should get a job.

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Meeting on Monday with Group Contacts for WM IRC channels

[John Vandenberg]

Is there a log of this meeting?

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Oct 15, 2012 5:15 AM, "ENWP Pine"  wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> For those who might not have seen the announcements in #wikimedia-ops and
> other IRC channels:
>
> There will be a meeting with the Group Contacts for the WM IRC channels on
> Monday, October 15.
>
> Agenda and details are available at
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Group_Contacts/Meetings/October_2012
>
> So far, messages have been given in the following channels:
>
> #wikimedia
> #wikimedia-ops
> #wikimedia-commons
> #wikimedia-stewards
> #wikipedia
> #wikipedia-de
> #wikipedia-en
> #wikipedia-es
> #wikipedia-fr
> #wikipedia-it
> #wikipedia-nl
> #wikipedia-pl
> #wikipedia-ru
>
> I have attempted to contact people in these channels but didn’t get a
> reply, so if anyone who has competence in the language, please translate
> and forward this announcement. Additional languages are also welcome.
>
> #wikipedia-pt
> #wikipedia-ja
> #wikipedia-zh
>
> Thank you.
>
> Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposed Wikimedia Medicine Thematic Organisation

[John Vandenberg]

On Oct 15, 2012 3:36 AM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)"  wrote:
>
> James Heilman, 14/10/2012 22:18:
>>
>> Thematic organizations have the same amount of authority over content on
>> Wikipedia as chapters. To spell this out clearly that means NONE. One
does
>> not put these sorts of details in a NGOs by laws [...]
>
>
> Actually, chapters do and very clearly, as a general rule.

Aye. This is done to ensure the chapter cant legally exert influence over
content or the community, but also to help shield the chapter from lawsuits
about content.

A medicine org needs to be very clear about this, as lawsuits for incorrect
medical information will be very expensive.

--
John Vandenberg
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please can someone put 50p in the meter

[John Vandenberg]

Also working for me.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Oct 12, 2012 11:21 PM, "Jim Redmond"  wrote:

> No trouble here either.
>
> On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Philippe Beaudette <
> phili...@wikimedia.org
> > wrote:
>
> > They're up for me...
> > ___
> > Philippe Beaudette
> > Director, Community Advocacy
> > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> >
> > 415-839-6885, x 6643
> >
> > phili...@wikimedia.org
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 8:44 AM, WereSpielChequers
> >  wrote:
> > > Does anyone know why Wikipedia and Commons have both gone down?
> > >
> > > WSC
> > >
> > > Writing from a slightly modified editing workshop in London
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
>
> --
> Jim Redmond
> [[User:Jredmond]]
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Recruitment process for Secretary General of the Wikimedia Chapters Association

[John Vandenberg]

On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 6:29 AM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> ...
> The resolution of the WCA is clear that the _first_ important goal is
> to incorporate.  By 15 August 2012.  It is a difficult decision, but
> it is not simplified by WCA's volunteer time being diverted to

.. that should say "diverted to other activities." e.g. the unapproved
Governance committee.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Governance

-- 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Recruitment process for Secretary General of the Wikimedia Chapters Association

[John Vandenberg]

On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Fae  wrote:
> On 11 October 2012 22:10, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
>> The consultant has apparently been chosen already based on a recommendation
>> from Pavel. What other consultants were considered? What was the process?
>> Did you get competing quotes?
>
> No, I did not get competing quotes.

On the meta talk page, Tomer says he had two offers.

> I have had agencies and consultants approaching me ...

Seriously?  HR firms noticed the page on meta and cold called you?  Wow.

> .. but Pavel's recommendation was solid.
> Unfortunately Ziko was unavailable on the day for the interview.
> Considering that Stefan comes with a great recommendation and
> experience of doing very similar work, this seemed a low risk
> decision. I have never worked with Stefan before and have no conflict
> of loyalties in this regard, I am merely going for a low risk
> pragmatic decision to ensure tangible progress on our first and most
> important goal for this year - getting a Secretary General
> established.

The resolution of the WCA is clear that the _first_ important goal is
to incorporate.  By 15 August 2012.  It is a difficult decision, but
it is not simplified by WCA's volunteer time being diverted to

> If the Council wishes to pause progress and consider a more detailed
> recruitment process with a number of bids against an open
> specification, I can ask Stefan to stop or terminate at any time and
> WMDE will cover those costs.

Has Stefan already started?

-- 
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF core and non core expenses

[John Vandenberg]

On Oct 10, 2012 6:38 AM, "Samuel Klein"  wrote:
>
> On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:07 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> > Does the merchandise store, which will cost USD 311000, have an ROI
> > published somewhere?
> >
> > I think some 'Research' is needed in WMF core, however any funds under
> > 'Research' should be granted to, and administrated by, an academic
> > institution. Preferably via a competitive program.
>
> Thanks John.  I'm not sure I agree, since without an internal research
> team it's hard for the WMF to interface with outside researchers.  But
> I find this sort of specific feedback on WMF expenses most welcome.

The interfacing is not a research activity. Communications team should have
some who can interface. Analytics/Corporate intel unit should have someone
who can interface. Research is research. WMF staff may be doing real
research, but they should be formally engaged on the research project as a
researcher. In Australia we call these people industry partner
investigators. Using research output is not research.

> Hopefully this can be refactored on the wiki as comments on the annual
> plan.

I feel it is too late to comment on the wiki about the annual plan. My
understanding of events is that the board approved the annual plan before
it was even available for public comment. Questions were asked on the wiki,
but answers were not provided promptly. E.g. Over one month for an answer
re the merchandise shop.

> Along the lines of Charles's comment, it is also helpful to get
> feedback on what seems 'high priority, extended core' and what seems
> 'non core' (though we don't have crisp definitions for that
> distinction yet, we should develop one).

Improving definitions for next time is all well and good. . . however,
there is a definition of core v non-core in the FAQ. Do you believe that
definition is appropriate for 2012-13? The minutes of the 7 May & 6 June
board meetings say FDC implications for the WMF annual plan were discussed,
but wmf board minutes tend to be scant on useful information that might
give the reader any idea about the opinion of the board. The only info in
these minutes is that it was discussed and there are no minutes from the 11
July board meeting yet. If I am reading the resolution approving the annual
plan correctly, it approves the annual plan and yet it also calls on the ED
to revise the annual plan and present it to the 26-27 board meeting. I am
confused by resolutions like that, esp when there are no minutes, detailed
or otherwise. :)

--
John V
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF core and non core expenses

[John Vandenberg]

Does the merchandise store, which will cost USD 311000, have an ROI
published somewhere?

I think some 'Research' is needed in WMF core, however any funds under
'Research' should be granted to, and administrated by, an academic
institution. Preferably via a competitive program.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Oct 8, 2012 5:14 PM, "Itzik Edri"  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> As agreed, the WMF is also sending their non-core program to the
> FDC approval, you can see their proposal here:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/Wikimedia_Foundation/Proposal_form
>
> But I'm asking myself, that's all what we consider as non-core? I didn't
> really done a deep research in the WMF budget (as every item in the WMF
> budget is like the whole big chapter budget and there are no breakdown),
> but for example what jumped in my mind immediate: Merchandise store
> (311,000$=Wikimedia Magyarország + Wikimedia Israel + Wikimedia Argentina
> annual budget) - what make it core? or research (324,000$) and others
> (again, can't go deeply with that as the items in the budget are
> general..).
>
>
>
> Itzik
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimediauk-l] Joint statement with the Foundation

[John Vandenberg]

On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 2:38 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: Roger Bamkin 
> Date: 29 September 2012 06:53
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Joint statement with the Foundation
> To: UK Wikimedia mailing list 
>
>
> I have been encouraged to issue statements for the last week or so
> about the debate. I have resisted as I did not want to escalate what I
> saw as an unfortunate bit of publicity for Wikimedia UK and the
> Foundation. I'm very disappointed to see the latest press release  I
> believe that the statement on my talk page on the English, Catalan and
> Simple Wikipedia supplies some background.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Victuallers

Coping text of user-page here under CC-BY-SA; link above; attribution:
Victuallers.

"

It could be that you were unaware of my declared conflicts of
interest, however it wasn't your job to be aware, however they were
well known. Wikimedia UK were managing this. They said, Roger "... has
not voted in any Wikimedia UK decisions about Monmouthpedia since the
start of his consultancy relationship with MCC or on any decisions
about Gibraltarpedia or QRpedia."[1] Wikimedia UK made monthly reports
to the Wikimedia Foundation detailing all significant events. They web
cast their board meetings. They had little or no secrets.

Over the past ten months, Roger Bamkin, a Wikimedia UK trustee helped
lead two Wikipedia-related projects, Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia.
Both of these projects were based on QRpedia which is a service that
has been offered free to the movement via Wikimedia UK. As part of
this award winning work, the Foundation signed a trademark agreement
with Monmouthshire County Council[2] and later with the Government of
Gibraltar.[3] Wikimedia UK were well aware of the trustee's commercial
involvement[4] in both cases and the Foundation as part of due
diligence would have found that out by talking to the trustee,
Wikimedia UK and the people they were signing the agreement with.
Roger stood again for the board and made it clear that he was a paid
consultant of Monmouthshire County Council working on Monmouthpedia in
his statement to the members. He was re-elected. Roger has received no
payments apart from expenses from Wikimedia UK. He has helped create
two projects which align with Wikimedia UK's vision and they have only
had to contribute a minority financial contribution.

Coincidentally this is the same trustee who led the Wikimedia UK board
to become a registered charity[5] and to obtain (£1m and) hundreds of
thousands of pounds worth of gift aid and partial funding for 2012/13.
Roger Bamkin stood down as chair here when he took "Monmouthshire
County Council (Wikimedia UK partners for the Monmouthpedia project)
as a client".[4]

The recent edits on the Gibraltarpedia project are shown here. There
are just the additions being made to the English Wikipedia. In the
last several weeks volunteers have added 200 new articles in many
languages. (Most of the new articles are not in English)

As a result of the action of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK
have "agreed" to not take part in the fundraiser.

Before this action was taken the following press release was issued[1]

regards Roger Bamkin

Notes:

QRpedia was shortlisted by the UK as best phone application

Monmouthpedia was voted the world's coolest wikiproject by the World
membership present at the annual conference

Gibraltarpedia is the first time that the Foundation has signed a
trade mark agreement with a Government.

On the left hand side of this page you will see some of the languages
who have been contacted and many involved in the projects described
here.

References:

1. Gibraltarpedia: WMUK press release
http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/gibraltarpedia-the-facts/
2. Welcome to the world’s first Wikipedia town

http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/05/welcome-to-the-worlds-first-wikipedia-town/
3. Volunteer’s efforts win Gibraltar the right to be the first Wikipedia ‘city’

http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/07/volunteers-efforts-win-gibraltar-the-right-to-be-the-first-wikipedia-city/
4. Changes to the Wikimedia UK board – A message from Roger Bamkin

http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/04/changes-to-the-wikimedia-uk-board-a-message-from-roger-bamkin/
5. What did you think of our annual report?
    
http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/07/what-did-you-think-of-our-annual-report/

"

-- 
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia-blog] [Wikimedia Announcements] Joint statement from Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK

[John Vandenberg]

On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 3:20 AM, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 28 September 2012 21:18, Jay Walsh  wrote:
>
>> At the same time, Wikimedia UK has agreed with the Wikimedia Foundation that
>> the Foundation shall process payments for the United Kingdom during this
>> year’s fundraiser.
>
>
> This being the meat.

The selection criteria for payment processors should have been defined
and used to evaluate whether each chapter is 'fit' for the purpose.
e.g.

1. technical capability,
2. fundraising know-how,
3. dedication to the donor's bill of rights

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donor%27s_Bill_of_Rights

Note that the donor's bill of rights includes more than just privacy,
which is what is required by the fundraising agreement.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2012-13_Fundraising_Agreement_%28Master%29

Anyway, most chapters have decided to adopt the donor's bill of
rights, including WMUK.

https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Donor_Privacy_Policy

-- 
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Page Curation launch on English Wikipedia

[John Vandenberg]

It's %!#?&y nice.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Sep 26, 2012 4:47 PM, "PARNALL Perry"  wrote:

> This is ok
>
>
>
>
> PARNALL Perry
> parnall.pe...@aol.com
>
>
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Fabrice Florin 
> To: wikimedia-l ; wikitech-l <
> wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Wed, Sep 26, 2012 6:32 am
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Page Curation launch on English Wikipedia
>
>
> Hi folks,
>
> I am happy to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation has just launched Page
> Curation, a new suite of tools for reviewing articles on Wikipedia.
>
> Current page patrol tools like Special:NewPages and Twinkle can be hard to
> use
> quickly and accurately, and have led to frustration for some users. Page
> Curation aims to improve that page patrol experience by making it faster
> and
> easier to review new pages, using two integrated tools: the New Pages Feed
> and
> the Curation Toolbar.
>
> Read the Page Curation announcement on our blog:
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/25/page-curation-launch/
>
> To learn more, visit our introduction page:
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Page_Curation/Introduction
>
> If you are an experienced editor, please give Page Curation a try:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:NewPagesFeed
>
> We are also holding IRC office hours on Wednesday, September 26 at 4pm PT
> (23:00
> UTC), during which we will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
> Please
> report any issues on our talk page or to our Community Liaison, Oliver
> Keyes
> .
>
> A number of patrollers have already started using Page Curation, and we
> hope
> that more curators will adopt this new toolkit over time. A 'release
> version'
> was deployed on the English Wikipedia on September 20, 2012, and we plan
> to make
> it available to other projects in coming weeks.
>
> This feature was created in close collaboration with editors. We would
> like to
> take this opportunity to thank all the community members who patiently
> guided
> our progress over the past few months. This includes folks like
> Athleek123, DGG,
> Dori, Fluffernutter, Logan, The Helpful One, Tom Morris, Utar and
> WereSpielChequers, to name but a few. We are deeply grateful for your
> generous
> contributions to this project!
>
> We designed Page Curation to offer a better experience, by making it
> easier for
> curators to review new pages and by providing more feedback to creators so
> they
> can improve Wikipedia together.
>
> We hope that you will find this new tool useful. Enjoy!
>
>
>
> Fabrice Florin
> Product Manager, Editor Engagement Team
> Wikimedia Foundation
> User:Fabrice Florin (WMF)
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editor_Engagement
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] : Copyright of deep space objects (DSOs) outside of the solar system

[John Vandenberg]

Thanks. I didnt search. I looked in the last 250 revisions of the page. I
didnt look back far enough.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Sep 17, 2012 8:42 PM, "Strainu"  wrote:

> Have you searched for it?
>
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2012/09#Potential_deletion_of_all_deep_space_objects
>
> 2012/9/17 John Vandenberg :
> > Where is the onwiki discussion about this? I could find '[1]'
> >
> > Or a wikipedia page that describes the copyright status of imagery of
> DSOs?
> >
> > John Vandenberg.
> > sent from Galaxy Note
> > On Sep 15, 2012 1:25 PM, "とある白い猫"  wrote:
> >
> >>   Hi,
> >>
> >>   I am not seeking legal advice. I am asking the pursuit of the issue.
> I am
> >> not a US citizen so I do not have a congress person to contact. The laws
> >> governing copyright can be amended to address the issue of deep space
> >> objects (DSO). I do not expect a result next week, I merely want the
> issue
> >> to enter into an agenda of some sort. If the Foundation is going to take
> >> the lead, this probably would only be possible through a board
> decision. In
> >> such a case I want to work with people to come up with such a draft
> >> proposal to the board.
> >>
> >>   I realize this is an unusual request but there seems to be a lack of
> >> clarity on this issue[1]. Argument is that copyright can be an issue
> since
> >> not every organization observing or assisting NASA's observations are
> >> PD-USgov compatible. We may be forced to permanently delete all deep
> space
> >> objects as a result.
> >>
> >>   I'd like to provide a short technical explanation why copyright of
> deep
> >> space objects or DSOs (objects outside of the solar system) are
> >> meaningless. For ordinary photographs copyright is determined by factors
> >> such as lighting, perspective, exposure and other such settings that
> >> creates a different image of the same object. You can distinguish the
> >> difference between a daylight photo and an evening photo.
> >>
> >>   With deep space objects however, even the stellar parallax[2] has a
> very
> >> small value. The closest object outside of the solar system is 4.24
> light
> >> years (268,136 AU's) away. The semi-major axis of earth is about 1AUs.
> The
> >> difference in perspective is like looking at a 2cm (width of a nickel)
> wide
> >> object 5.3km (3.29 miles) away and the perspective difference is
> switching
> >> left eye to the right eye. We lack scientific instruments to even
> detect a
> >> stellar parallax for objects much further. In other words our
> perspective
> >> of the nearest star and beyond is more or less constant and the objects
> >> themselves look the same for hundreds of years.
> >>
> >>   So any photo of a deep space object I or someone else takes from the
> >> solar system will look identical regardless of when and where on earth I
> >> take it within multiple lifetimes. I think this can bring legal
> precedent
> >> for us to either disregard any copyright claim or at least pursue
> lawmakers
> >> in congress to amend the copyright law to make an exception in the law.
> >> People who worked with congress such as Neil Degrasse Tyson could be
> >> consulted to this end. Also international treaties[3] can be consulted
> to
> >> this end as copyrighting photos of deep space objects could be
> interpreted
> >> as an unfair exploitation of resources.
> >>
> >>   I realize this reads like something out of Star Trek but this is
> growing
> >> to be quite a problem as we see more and more weird copyright claims
> even
> >> when dealing with NASA which traditionally had a PD-USgov mentality.
> NASA
> >> regularly contracts its more recent projects and to be fair we do not
> know
> >> how NASA contracts these projects which could potentially lead
> >> to legitimate copyright claims in the future.
> >>
> >>
> >> [1]:
> >>
> >>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Potential_deletion_of_all_deep_space_objects
> >>
> >> [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_parallax
> >>
> >> [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law#International_treaties
> >>
> >>   -- とある白い猫  (To Aru Shiroi Neko)
> >> ___
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> >> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >>
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] : Copyright of deep space objects (DSOs) outside of the solar system

[John Vandenberg]

Where is the onwiki discussion about this? I could find '[1]'

Or a wikipedia page that describes the copyright status of imagery of DSOs?

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Sep 15, 2012 1:25 PM, "とある白い猫"  wrote:

>   Hi,
>
>   I am not seeking legal advice. I am asking the pursuit of the issue. I am
> not a US citizen so I do not have a congress person to contact. The laws
> governing copyright can be amended to address the issue of deep space
> objects (DSO). I do not expect a result next week, I merely want the issue
> to enter into an agenda of some sort. If the Foundation is going to take
> the lead, this probably would only be possible through a board decision. In
> such a case I want to work with people to come up with such a draft
> proposal to the board.
>
>   I realize this is an unusual request but there seems to be a lack of
> clarity on this issue[1]. Argument is that copyright can be an issue since
> not every organization observing or assisting NASA's observations are
> PD-USgov compatible. We may be forced to permanently delete all deep space
> objects as a result.
>
>   I'd like to provide a short technical explanation why copyright of deep
> space objects or DSOs (objects outside of the solar system) are
> meaningless. For ordinary photographs copyright is determined by factors
> such as lighting, perspective, exposure and other such settings that
> creates a different image of the same object. You can distinguish the
> difference between a daylight photo and an evening photo.
>
>   With deep space objects however, even the stellar parallax[2] has a very
> small value. The closest object outside of the solar system is 4.24 light
> years (268,136 AU's) away. The semi-major axis of earth is about 1AUs. The
> difference in perspective is like looking at a 2cm (width of a nickel) wide
> object 5.3km (3.29 miles) away and the perspective difference is switching
> left eye to the right eye. We lack scientific instruments to even detect a
> stellar parallax for objects much further. In other words our perspective
> of the nearest star and beyond is more or less constant and the objects
> themselves look the same for hundreds of years.
>
>   So any photo of a deep space object I or someone else takes from the
> solar system will look identical regardless of when and where on earth I
> take it within multiple lifetimes. I think this can bring legal precedent
> for us to either disregard any copyright claim or at least pursue lawmakers
> in congress to amend the copyright law to make an exception in the law.
> People who worked with congress such as Neil Degrasse Tyson could be
> consulted to this end. Also international treaties[3] can be consulted to
> this end as copyrighting photos of deep space objects could be interpreted
> as an unfair exploitation of resources.
>
>   I realize this reads like something out of Star Trek but this is growing
> to be quite a problem as we see more and more weird copyright claims even
> when dealing with NASA which traditionally had a PD-USgov mentality. NASA
> regularly contracts its more recent projects and to be fair we do not know
> how NASA contracts these projects which could potentially lead
> to legitimate copyright claims in the future.
>
>
> [1]:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Potential_deletion_of_all_deep_space_objects
>
> [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_parallax
>
> [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law#International_treaties
>
>   -- とある白い猫  (To Aru Shiroi Neko)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Education] [WikiEN-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation

[John Vandenberg]

On Jul 31, 2012 1:43 AM, "LiAnna Davis"  wrote:
>
> Hi John,
>
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 2:39 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> > Ive asked for more info at
> >
> >
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Education_Program_evaluation#random_sample
>
> I did my best to answer your question there.

Ive replied with more specific questions.

This research was mentioned because of bold statements in the annual plan,
and Tilman Bayer mentioned this blog post:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/19/wikipedia-education-program-stats-fall-2011/

Which says U.S. Education Program users are three times better than other
users.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] conversations between WMF and non-English projects

[John Vandenberg]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 5:09 AM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 29 July 2012 22:57, Nathan  wrote:
>> Can your masters degree in mathematics point out where in Wikimedia's
>> statement it said "all" or implied anything other than having met some of
>> Portuguese Wikipedia's top contributors? Not sure what the big deal is.
>
> The word "all" actually appeared in my email that Steven was replying
> to. He claimed that a majority of Portuguese Wikipedians being from
> Brazil contradicted my statement that not all (top) Portuguese
> Wikipedians are from Brazil. That was a straw man argument, due to
> "all" and "majority" not meaning the same thing.

confirming.. there are residents of Portugal in

http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaPT.htm#wikipedians

but the 'majority' do appear to be Brazilian.  I cant easily see if
those top contributors attended the meetups at

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/22/brazil-meetups-march/

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation

[John Vandenberg]

On Jul 30, 2012 7:18 AM, "Tilman Bayer"  wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 4:37 AM, Florence Devouard 
wrote:
> > On 7/28/12 5:58 AM, Tilman Bayer wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> the Wikimedia Foundation's 2012-13 Annual Plan has just been published
at
> >>
> >>
> >>
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf
> >>
> >> accompanied by a Q&A:
> >>
> >>
> >>
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers
> >>
> >> The plan was approved by the Board of Trustees at its meeting in
> >> Washington, DC, at Wikimania, and previously outlined to the
> >> Foundation staff and interested community members at the monthly staff
> >> meeting on July 5, 2012. We were planning to publish the video
> >> recording of that meeting at this point, but encountered technical
> >> difficulties; the video will hopefully become available soon.
> >>
> >
> > Slide 8 : "How are we doing against the 2012 targets"
> >
> > I was stopped by
> >
> > "The Global Education Program is now the largest-ever systematic effort
of
> > the Wikimedia mouvement to boost high quality content creation, with a
> > projected addition of 19 million characters to Wikipedia through student
> > assignements 2011-2012"
> >
> > OF COURSE, we all know that WMF needs to glorify what it is actually
> > initiating/in charge of. And that's fair enough.
> >
> > But seriously... I would feel fine with us trying to claim that the GEP
is
> > the largest system effort to INCREASE the number of articles. It is
probably
> > true.
> >
> > But we all know that the result is... so and so. Possibly good content,
but
> > also lot's of crap being reverted and deleted afterwards. Claiming it
is the
> > largest effort to boost high quality content is not only disingenous...
but
> > I actually find it counter productive and a tiny bit offensive toward
the
> > actual community.
> >
> > High quality content simply does NOT come from newbie students.
>
> Over the last years, the Foundation has been trying to base decisions
> and evaluations more often on objective data and research rather than
> on personal opinions and impressions.
>
> Of course, here the term "high quality" does not necessarily mean,
> say, featured content (e.g. on the English Wikipedia, featured
> articles currently make up less than 0.1% of the total articles), but
> instead refers to comparisons with average contributions.
>
> Someone from the Education Program will be able to give a more
> thorough overview of the efforts to evaluate its results, but for
> example I'm aware of
>
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/19/wikipedia-education-program-stats-fall-2011/

Ive asked for more info at

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Education_Program_evaluation#random_sample

> . The quantitative method used there has its limitations, but similar
> methods are employed in independent (i.e non-WMF) research about
> Wikipedia in the academic literature.

Do you have links to any relevant studies of the GEP?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Subject: IRC office hours to discuss FDC eligibility criteria and next steps

[John Vandenberg]

Hi Michael and everyone,

I added the IRC office hours on meta, and made the mistake.  Sorry
about this.  Thanks to the WMF for holding two office hours so
Australians can attend.

On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 6:27 PM, Michael Jahn  wrote:
> Just about to put this information on WMDE's blog, but I'm confused about
> the timing:
>
> 16:00 UTC and 23.00 UTC are given as starting times in the below email
> (which is 9 PDT and 16 PDT). But on Meta it reads 9 _UTC_ and 16 _UTC_,
> respectively:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Office_Hours
>
> Clarification would be much appreciated!
>
> Best,
> Michael
>
>
> 2012/7/21 Garfield Byrd 
>
>> Dear Wikimedia Community,
>>
>> As you may have seen, last week the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>> passed a resolution to establish the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC)
>> [1].
>> Full details about the planned structure and processes of the FDC can be
>> found in the framework proposed to the Board [2]. This framework was
>> developed over the past few months with input from a variety of people
>> across the movement.
>>
>> We will be holding two sets of *IRC office hours* on *Wednesday 25 July*,
>> to answer any questions community members may have about the FDC process;
>> in particular the first step of establishing the eligibility to apply to
>> the FDC. Office hours will be held:
>>
>> · 16:00-17:00 UTC/09:00 PDT Wednesday, July 25th
>>
>> · 23:00-23:59 UTC/16:00 PDT Wednesday, July 25th
>>
>> On *Monday 23 July 2012*, the Foundation will publish a list of eligible
>> entities based on the eligibility criteria established in the framework
>> [3].
>> Please let me know if you believe there are any corrections to be made to
>> this list. Entities who are interested in applying for funds through the
>> FDC but are ineligible due to compliance issues should work with the
>> Foundation to develop a plan to correct compliance issues.
>>
>> Entities who are ineligible for other reasons - or who would prefer not to
>> go through the FDC process in this round -may seek funding through the
>> Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program.
>>
>> I will be sending out a more detailed email on Monday to inform you of this
>> list and next steps in the process. I look forward to speaking with you on
>> Wednesday.
>>
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Garfield Byrd
>>
>> (WMF Chief of Finance and Administration)
>>
>>
>>
>> [1]
>>
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Funds_Dissemination_Committee_framework_and_initial_operation
>>
>> [2]
>>
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Draft_FDC_Proposal_for_the_Board
>>
>> [3]
>>
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Sample_letter_of_intent_and_eligibility_checklist
>>
>>
>> --
>> Garfield Byrd
>> Chief of Finance and Administration
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> 415.839.6885 ext 6787
>> 415.882.0495 (fax)
>> www.wikimediafoundation.org
>>
>> 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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>
>
>
> --
> Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstraße 72 | 10963 Berlin
> Tel. (030) 219 158 260
>
> http://wikimedia.de <http://www.wikimedia.de>
>
> Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch freien Zugang zu der
> Gesamtheit des Wissens der Menschheit hat. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
>
> *Helfen Sie mit, dass WIKIPEDIA von der UNESCO als erstes digitales
> Weltkulturerbe anerkannt wird. Unterzeichnen Sie die Online-Petition:*
> http://wikipedia.de/wke/Main_Page?setlang=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 27/681/51985.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Geolocalization improvement proposal

[John Vandenberg]

A location gadget would be a way to start. With a gadget, it is opt-in.
On Jul 23, 2012 7:43 PM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)"  wrote:

> birgitte...@yahoo.com, 23/07/2012 14:28:
>
>> I am unaware of what the shortcomings of the current system are and where
>> any improvements would be felt. This makes it a bit hard to have a firm
>> opinion of the trade-offs involved with changing the system. So what
>> exactly are the problems people are having with the current geolocation
>> system?
>>
>
> As the page tries to prove, looks like the current system is completely
> unreliable and therefore useless for most geonotices in Italy and probably
> other places.
>
> Nemo
>
> __**_
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] speedydeletion.wika.com lauched

[John Vandenberg]

Hi Mike,

You are going to find it difficult to find people who want to give
their time to your project, as the cost benefit ratio is very low.  If
people had more time, they would be spending it rescuing the articles
before deletion (on a non-profit wesbsite), rather than preparing them
for rescuing after deletion (on a for-profit website).

By reposting the content somewhere else, you are taking responsibility
for it.  And by hosting it, Wikia is also taking responsibility for
it.

And that responsibility requires you to work with the existing system,
warts and all.  Even good changes to the system will take a long time
to become standard practise.

Before trying to change New Page Patrol, you should try doing New Page
Patrol for a few days.

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Mike  Dupont
 wrote:
> John, and others.
>
> I have finally figured out a big problem with my plan. The articles for
> deletion are not tagged peoperly at all. There are authors who know for a
> fact that articles are mistagged and have no proper copyvio tagging, and
> now they are accusing me of hosting copyvio articles. I see this a problem
> in the wikipedia deletion system, if an editor knows for a fact that an
> articles is in violation of copyright then they should tag it as Such. I
> have written scripts to strip out artilces that are properly tagged. Lets
> sit down and work out a plan for a proper system of sorting out what is not
> notable, and waht is copyrightvio. I want to host the non notable artilces.
> My argument is that giving non-notable bands and actors etc an outlet to be
> hosted will reduce repeated reposting of articles. I have been sorting
> through all these articles, contacting people and many of them are
> thankful, I would be suprized if any of them would repost the deleted
> article, like the Jack Psyco from .au, someone reposted his article many
> many times.
> Please support me in cleaning up the deletion and tagging process, I am
> willing to put some work into this. I can write code as well.
> Some people have asked me not to use the mailing list, but I wanted to
> bring up this up in response to your mail.
>
> Please see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mdupont/SpeedyDeletionWikia
> and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mdupont#Speedy_backup_-_copyvios_and_attack_pages.3F
>
> thanks
> mike
> On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 8:00 AM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
>
>> I think we need to ensure that BLP deletions are tagged appropriately.
>>
>> and this wikia needs to err on the side of caution in order to avoid
>> causing subjects further grief in their pursuit to remove problematic
>> content from Wikipedia.  i.e. if someone jumps through all the hoops
>> to *help* us remove problematic content from Wikipedia, they are not
>> going to be happy to learn that the same content has appeared on Wikia
>> - its confusing, and they will blame Wikipedia, and IMO they are right
>> to do so as this Wikia is run by people in the Wikimedia community,
>> and due to the overlap in the WMF board and Wikia board, now and
>> historically.
>>
>> e.g. this AFD mentioned "WP:BLP1E" and was categorised into "AfD
>> debates (Biographical)"
>>
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Alexander_Kinyua
>> http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Alexander_Kinyua
>>
>> Until we are confident that BLP problems are not being imported into
>> the wikia, the content shouldnt be indexed.  I assume  __NOINDEX__
>> works on Wikia?
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Newyorkbrad 
>> wrote:
>> > Although I can understand the appeal of this concept, I am concerned
>> > that a deleted-articles wiki or site will perpetuate the publicity
>> > given to pages that are properly deleted from Wikipedia because they
>> > contain offensive personal attacks, harassment, cyberbullying,
>> > defamation, and BLP violations. These are not always flagged in the
>> > deletion grounds, especially in speedy situations (e.g. if a harassing
>> > or defamatory article does not assert the subject's notability, it
>> > will often be deleted on that ground without its being tagged as an
>> > attack page, etc.). This issue strikes me as extremely serious. How do
>> > you plan to address it?
>> >
>> > Newyorkbrad
>> >
>> > On 6/10/12, Mike  Dupont  wrote:
>> >> Hi,
>> >> I have launched speedydeletion.wika.com , it is updated every 30
>> minutes
>> >> with the proposed deletions and speedy deletion articles (not notable
>> and
>> >> hoaxes, not other

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly

[John Vandenberg]

A proposal to do that has already been started by yours truely. See
talk:main_page
On Jul 15, 2012 6:47 AM, "Richard Symonds" 
wrote:

> Maybe if we ran a competition for designers to redesign the wikipedia
> mainpage?
>
> Richard Symonds
> Wikimedia UK
> 0207 065 0992
> Disclaimer viewable at
> http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Email_disclaimer
> Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk
>
>
>
> On 14 July 2012 19:24, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
> > I do think the Wikimedia sites look dated, and very "male", too.
> >
> > One example I always think of when this issue comes up is Wikifashion:
> >
> > http://wikifashion.com/wiki/Main_Page
> >
> > I would love for Wikipedia to have optional skins like that, made by
> > graphic designers, just like you can have all sorts of bells and whistles
> > for your browser.
> >
> > Commons is another project that has a very clunky look. I mean, look at
> > that main page. This is an image hosting project, for Christ's sake. I
> > discussed this with Magnus Manske a few weeks ago at a meet-up, and he
> > showed me how Flickr offers people ways to explore their new content,
> like
> > this for example, showcasing recent uploads:
> >
> > http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
> > http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/2012/07/
> >
> > Here is Pinterest, which also has a real-time format visualising a flow
> of
> > images:
> >
> > http://pinterest.com/
> >
> > These sites are beautiful to look at. If Commons were properly designed,
> > its front end would not have hundreds of text hyperlinks, but would show
> > off its new images.
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 11:42 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke  > >wrote:
> >
> > > On 14 July 2012 23:48, David Richfield 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I really really don't get all this talk about Wikipedia being ugly.
> > > > To me it's a great example of how text really can move from markup to
> > > > a well-laid-out website with a coherent design philosophy. Wikipedia
> > > > generates results which adapt to window size very gracefully without
> > > > taking the cop-out of forcing all the content to run down the center
> > > > of the page in a fixed size.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Okay, "ugly" was a poor choice of words. Ugly is subjective.
> > >
> > > Bad typography and poor layout objectively hinders readers. It slows
> > > reading speed and reduces comprehension -- not in some vague "well
> yeah,
> > > that's your word against mine" way, but in an objectively
> scientifically
> > > measurable way.
> > >
> > > What Wikipedia does is not really "adapting gracefully". It's adding a
> > > padding of 1.5em to the left and right of a block of text that spans
> the
> > > entire width of any available window (minus the 11em of the left
> panel).
> > >
> > > There's a limit to the amount of text you can put on a line before it
> > > becomes hard to read.
> > >
> > > What you're calling a "cop-out" is not a cop-out at all. The ads, well,
> > > they need to be there for The Atlantic to be able to pay the bills, but
> > > increasing the number of characters per line in the text column would
> > *not*
> > > make the better. To the contrary: the amount of words per line is about
> > > just right. Here, take the test yourself.
> > >
> > > This is the article in Wikipedia layout: http://imgur.com/xinFW
> > > This is the article as seen on The Atlantic: http://imgur.com/WH1WT
> > > And this is the article run through Evernote Clearly:
> > > http://imgur.com/sH3HJ
> > >
> > > Anyone can see, I hope, that the Clearly (http://evernote.com/clearly/
> )
> > > version is by far the easiest and most comfortable to read. Bigger
> font.
> > *
> > > Different* font. Contrast less harsh. Fewer characters per line.
> Margins.
> > > Leading. Kerning.
> > >
> > > It's almost funny there's no article about macrotypography on
> Wikipedia.
> > :)
> > >
> > > Michel
> > > ___
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> > >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why is not free?

[John Vandenberg]

If wmf has trademarks secured, now is the time to release the copyrights
and high res. versions.

Idealistic maybe. But when we talk to the public, we talk about ideals. Its
odd that community members cant put logos of community-run projects into
slides. Its unfortunate that wikipedia doesnt meet the debian definition of
'free'. Etc.
On Jul 9, 2012 7:25 AM, "Tim Starling"  wrote:

> On 09/07/12 06:17, birgitte...@yahoo.com
> wrote:
> > The most basic answer (someone form WMF can correct me if I am
> > somehow misled here) is that the logos are not released under a
> > free license because they are trademarks.
>
> To be precise, the logos were not released under a free license
> because it was imagined that some day they would be trademarks.
> According to the trademark searches I did just now, the Wikipedia logo
> was only registered as a trademark in 2008, and the other projects as
> late as May 2012.
>
> The WMF felt that trademark licensing would be a useful way to raise
> money, as a complement to donations. For example, this website has a
> trademark license:
>
> http://wikipedia.wp.pl/
>
> Obviously to support that sort of licensing arrangement, you need at
> least one sort of protection (copyright or trademark). Also, there was
> concern that a free license like the GFDL might be argued to be an
> implicit trademark license. Lawyers tend to be conservative on that
> type of issue.
>
> Currently, WMF does not even publish the 3D source files for the
> Wikipedia logo, or a high-resolution rendered image. I think that's a
> bigger problem than the lack of a free license, since it prevents
> people from improving the current poor-quality 3D rendering and
> contributing the results back to the project.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] crazy deletionists!

[John Vandenberg]

Or a template at the top.

'This article relies on newspaper sources...please contribute better
sources or tag with notability if  you cant find any better sources.'

P.s. This offtopic thread should be on Wikipedia lists as its not about the
movement in general.

On Jul 4, 2012 6:13 PM, "Svip"  wrote:
>
> On 4 July 2012 01:38, Marc A. Pelletier  wrote:
>
> > Well, if I were suddenly named dictator of Wikipedia, I'd probably
suggest
> > that a "recent event" namespace be created, where popular media were
> > acceptable sources, and make them verbotten in mainspace.  Mainspace
> > articles might have a hatnote with a link to the other namespace along
the
> > lines of "for recent, less authoritative coverage".
>
> You could avoid the whole namespace issue by simply highlighting
> articles or parts of article that are based on popular media.  Like
> non-canon stuff on fiction wikis.  Highlight its background in blue or
> something.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Wikipedia founder's petition: Stop extradition of O'Dwyer"

[John Vandenberg]

On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
 wrote:
> Evolution of political battles (this one on "piracy").
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/24/richard-o-dwyer-my-petition
> This is currently first on http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (UK news but I've seen
> it on TV while they were showing headlines on Euro 2012...).

The petition text is at

http://www.change.org/petitions/ukhomeoffice-stop-the-extradition-of-richard-o-dwyer-to-the-usa-saverichard

"Richard O'Dwyer is a 24 year old British student at Sheffield Hallam
University in the UK. He is facing extradition to the USA and up to
ten years in prison, for creating a website – TVShack.net – which
linked (similar to a search-engine) to places to watch TV and movies
online.

O'Dwyer is not a US citizen, he's lived in the UK all his life, his
site was not hosted there, and most of his users were not from the US.
America is trying to prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged crime which
took place on UK soil.

The internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship in response to
mere allegations of copyright infringement. As citizens we must stand
up for our rights online.

When operating his site, Richard O'Dwyer always did his best to play
by the rules: on the few occasions he received requests to remove
content from copyright holders, he complied. His site hosted links,
not copyrighted content, and these were submitted by users.

Copyright is an important institution, serving a beneficial moral and
economic purpose. But that does not mean that copyright can or should
be unlimited. It does not mean that we should abandon time-honoured
moral and legal principles to allow endless encroachments on our civil
liberties in the interests of the moguls of Hollywood.

Richard O'Dwyer is the human face of the battle between the content
industry and the interests of the general public. Earlier this year,
in the fight against the anti-copyright bills SOPA and PIPA, the
public won its first big victory. This could be our second.

This is why I am petitioning the UK's Home Secretary Theresa May to
stop the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer. I hope you will join me.

- Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder"

We only have an English Wikipedia article about O'Dwyer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright information not digitised?

[John Vandenberg]

There are scans of most of the relevant records, and the records for books
are also transcribed by Project Gutenberg and searchable at a stanford uni
website. See en.ws template PD-US-no-renewal. The scans need to be
transcribed to increase accessibility.
On Jun 24, 2012 3:50 AM, "Kim Bruning"  wrote:

>
>
> According to:
>
> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120330/12402418305/why-missing-20th-century-books-is-even-worse-than-it-seems.shtml
>
> a lot of books have an uncertain copyright status, because the Copyright
> Office records have not been
> digitized yet.
>
> Is this true? Would offering to help digitize these records fit in our
> mission
> (especially wrt WikiSource) ?
>
> sincerely,
>Kim Bruning
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Update on IPv6

[John Vandenberg]

On Jun 14, 2012 1:30 AM, "Brandon Harris"  wrote:
>
>A couple of weeks ago, Brion Vibber and I started walking through
a series of thoughts about eliminating publicly viewable IP addresses
altogether, creating "Proto Accounts".  That is, to completely anonymize
anonymous users (by calling them "Anonymous XX") and at the same time
creating system whereby Anonymous users might be encouraged to become
registered users (and retain the edits they did anonymously).
>
>This would work by "back-loading" the account creation process:
>
>1) User makes anonymous edit (as "Anonymous 1234").  Edit
is logged as "Anonymous 1234").
>2) User is given call-to-action to convert to a registered
account.
>3) User fills out account form (username, password, email)
(let's call them "AwesomeSauce89")
>4) Proto account gets renamed to "AwesomeSauce89"; the
edits that were under "Anonymous 1234" are now listed as being by
"AwesomeSauce89"
>
>I also spoke with Tim Starling about this in Berlin and he agreed
that it was a good idea.  However, this would be no small feat.  A big part
of the problems involved in this type of anonymizing involve how we deal
with range blocks.
>
>Would this be something people might like to see. .

Yes!

--JV
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] speedydeletion.wika.com lauched

[John Vandenberg]

I think we need to ensure that BLP deletions are tagged appropriately.

and this wikia needs to err on the side of caution in order to avoid
causing subjects further grief in their pursuit to remove problematic
content from Wikipedia.  i.e. if someone jumps through all the hoops
to *help* us remove problematic content from Wikipedia, they are not
going to be happy to learn that the same content has appeared on Wikia
- its confusing, and they will blame Wikipedia, and IMO they are right
to do so as this Wikia is run by people in the Wikimedia community,
and due to the overlap in the WMF board and Wikia board, now and
historically.

e.g. this AFD mentioned "WP:BLP1E" and was categorised into "AfD
debates (Biographical)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Alexander_Kinyua
http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Alexander_Kinyua

Until we are confident that BLP problems are not being imported into
the wikia, the content shouldnt be indexed.  I assume  __NOINDEX__
works on Wikia?

On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Newyorkbrad  wrote:
> Although I can understand the appeal of this concept, I am concerned
> that a deleted-articles wiki or site will perpetuate the publicity
> given to pages that are properly deleted from Wikipedia because they
> contain offensive personal attacks, harassment, cyberbullying,
> defamation, and BLP violations. These are not always flagged in the
> deletion grounds, especially in speedy situations (e.g. if a harassing
> or defamatory article does not assert the subject's notability, it
> will often be deleted on that ground without its being tagged as an
> attack page, etc.). This issue strikes me as extremely serious. How do
> you plan to address it?
>
> Newyorkbrad
>
> On 6/10/12, Mike  Dupont  wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I have launched speedydeletion.wika.com , it is updated every 30 minutes
>> with the proposed deletions and speedy deletion articles (not notable and
>> hoaxes, not others).
>> it is running on the en.wikipedia.org. the sources for the script are all
>> on git hub and are a merger of pywikipediabot and the wikiteam codebases.
>> hope you enjoy it,
>> thanks,
>> mike
>> --
>> James Michael DuPont
>> Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org
>> Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org
>> Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Study: Nobody cares about your copyright

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 5:51 AM, Andrew Gray  wrote:
> On Monday, 21 May 2012, Samuel Klein wrote:
>>
>> > O'Reilly is offering works under 14 years (c), thence CC-by
>>
>> Campaign idea: set up a named class of license for friendly groups
>> like O'Reilly that are committing to 14 years, which are defined by
>> terming out in no more than 14 years to CC0 or equivalent PD
>> declarations.
>>
>
> A thought on naming.
>
> The obvious way to badge such a license is through Creative Commons; but
> we've spilled vast amounts of metaphorical ink over "is NC free?" and "is
> ND free?", and one of the results is a good deal of confusion over what a
> "free license" is, what we should campaign for, etc etc etc.
>
> If we throw into the mix *another* license from the same stable, the
> situation gets even more muddled. The inevitable vague descriptions ("this
> work is under a creative commons license" with no definition or link is
> surprisingly common) will encompass a much wider range of use cases - "do
> what you like, just credit me" and "all rights utterly reserved until 2025"
> will be under the same umbrella.
>
> - Andrew.

I'd love to see -NC and -ND dropped from the CC catalog, but I doubt
its going to happen.

It would be nice if -NC and -ND had a time limit on them, after which
the work becomes CC-BY or CC-BY-SA.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Study: Nobody cares about your copyright

[John Vandenberg]

People dont care about Sonny Bono, so it wont get any prominence.
Most people dont care about copyright.  Most people do have kids and
do know who Mickey Mouse is.  Tar Mickey Mouse with the actions of his
protectors and the world will listen.

On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 1:46 AM, Amory Meltzer  wrote:
> Less Mickey Mouse, more Sonny Bono.  Beloved cartoon characters from
> everyone's childhood are harder to campaign against than one of Cher's
> ex-husbands.
>
> ~A
>
>
> On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 11:31 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
>
>>
>> If we want to have an extra impact, I think we should campaign to
>> redefine January 1 as (Anti-)Mickey Mouse Day, and promote it as the
>> day that Mickey Mouse Act / Disney has prevented the commons from
>> being enriched.  We could list all of the works which would be public
>> domain in the US if Mickey Mouse had never existed.
>>
>> --
>> John Vandenberg
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Study: Nobody cares about your copyright

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Johan Jönsson  wrote:
> 2012/5/22 Bjoern Hoehrmann :
>
>> You don't say who "we" are, but in case some people think the Wikimedia
>> Foundation should position itself on "copyright" matters much beyond
>> which licenses it is using and why, and which problems Wikipedia might
>> be facing due to various aspects of "copyright", the likely result is,
>> "This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as
>> a bad move" especially if it comes as specific as the suggestion above.
>
> Yes. Very much so.

I agree.  What problems does Wikipedia face?  Some of the Wikipedia,
and other projects, allow non-free media where they are necessary to
support the goals of the project.  Some projects don't allow non-free
media, but most of our mission can be adequately achieved with plain
text, and should be obtained in pure text in order to meet the needs
of people with vision impairments that mean they can't see images.

A limit on copyright increases our pool of resources at some point in
the future (5 years, 14 years, etc) as no government will attempt to
push existing works into the public domain by having a retroactive new
copyright duration.

My bet is that our firm commitment to CC-BY-SA will mean that the
copyright landscape will be quite different in 14 years.

If we want to have an extra impact, I think we should campaign to
redefine January 1 as (Anti-)Mickey Mouse Day, and promote it as the
day that Mickey Mouse Act / Disney has prevented the commons from
being enriched.  We could list all of the works which would be public
domain in the US if Mickey Mouse had never existed.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia sites not easy to archive (Was Re: Knol is closing tomorrow )

[John Vandenberg]

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 1:11 PM, John  wrote:
>
> I know from experience that a wiki can be re-built from any one of the
> dumps that are provided, (pages-meta-current) for example contains
> everything needed to reboot a site except its user database
> (names/passwords ect). see
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Moving_a_wiki

How would we regain control of our existing usernames in the event
that the user database was lost in the move?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement: New Legal Counsel

[John Vandenberg]

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 8:36 AM, Samuel Klein  wrote:
> Great news.  It's good to have counsel who writes his own bots*. :-)
>
> Welcome, Stephen!
> SJ
>
> * http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:BenchBot

Good to see a wikisourcerer in the Legal and Community Advocacy team!
Congrats Stephen.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Public Google Calendar for IRC office hours

[John Vandenberg]

I think it is reasonable that Google chooses to not allow ical files
that arnt able to be fetched by robots and cached.

why exclude public shared calendars using robots.txt?

can we host our own instance of the converter?


On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 6:31 AM, Michael Peel
 wrote:
> Ah, fun. I see this is a known problem that Tom Morris pointed out last year:
> http://microformats.org/wiki/h2vx#robots.txt_prevents_subscription_in_Google_Reader
>
> Quite why Google Calendar is misusing robots.txt like this, I don't know... 
> (it's natural to use robots.txt to keep pages from appearing in the google 
> search index, but that shouldn't then also apply in this sort of situation.)
>
> I'll see if I can figure out a work-around for subscribing to the calendar, 
> but it'll take me a day or so. In the meantime, you can always download the 
> calendar file and import it into Google Calendar...
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> On 5 May 2012, at 20:38, Don Burke wrote:
>
>> I cannot subscribe in Google Calendar because it says robots.txt does not
>> allow crawling.
>>
>> Don
>>
>> On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 2:59 PM, Michael Peel
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I've incorporated the hcalendar microformat into the office hours
>>> template, and http://h2vx.com/ics/ provides an open source solution
>>> (based on http://microformats.org/wiki/x2v) for converting hcalendar
>>> microformats into iCal files.
>>>
>>> You can download the ical from:
>>> http://h2vx.com/ics/https%3A//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
>>> or subscribe to it at:
>>> webcal://h2vx.com/ics/https%3A//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
>>>
>>> All open source, no duplication of data or increased maintenance costs.
>>> The only downside is that the template call is a bit more complex now,
>>> particularly because an end time needed to be specified.
>>>
>>> Please let me know if anyone encounters any problems with this solution...
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Mike
>>>
>>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Watchlist email notifications enabled on all wikis

[John Vandenberg]

On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 8:51 AM, Victor Vasiliev  wrote:
> Please, do not enable this feature by default. A lot of people do not
> like > 10 emails/day in their mailbox, and I have such amount of
> watchlisted edits even in smaller projects like Meta.

A daily digest would be cool.

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30187

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Watchlist email notifications enabled on all wikis

[John Vandenberg]

On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 8:51 AM, Victor Vasiliev  wrote:
> Please, do not enable this feature by default. A lot of people do not
> like > 10 emails/day in their mailbox, and I have such amount of
> watchlisted edits even in smaller projects like Meta.

Then turn off the feature.

New users dont know how to turn it on.

The emails can explain how to turn it off.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Watchlist email notifications enabled on all wikis

[John Vandenberg]

Thanks to the tech team and everyone else who helped this feature
become enabled.

I also hope we can have this featured enabled by default for old and
new users soon, even on the big wikis.  Doing that will bring many
experienced editors back to the wiki.

As someone with tens of thousands of pages on my watchlists, I think
it would be reasonable to disable this feature on enwp for people with
more than 5,000 content pages on their watchlist, as the content pages
change often on enwp.  However that approach shouldnt be applied to
all wikis indescriminately; e.g. wikisource content pages rarely
change after the initial burst of editing.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: Harvard Library releases 12M bibliographic records under CC0

[John Vandenberg]

On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 6:37 PM, Lydia Pintscher
 wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 10:12 PM, Andrea Zanni  
> wrote:
>> 2012/4/25 emijrp :
>>> Perhaps it is OK for Wikidata.
>>
>> I think it's perfectly OK with Wikidata, and it would be with
>> Wikisource (if we had a metadata management system :-).
>> As far as I understood, Wikidata will engage sister projects data in
>> 2015 (i'm gonna cry).
>
> This isn't clear yet. It's unlikely to happen before the end of the
> initial development in a year. We still have to see what happens after
> that. It might happen before 2015 or not.

Andrea will run out of tears by 2015. ;-(

Could we have one sister-projects IRC session in the near future?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[John Vandenberg]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Pedro Sanchez  wrote:
>..
>
> It really amazes me how much we distrust the people who have been
> doing a great work (otrs admins, ombudsmen, etc).
>
> And all upon contrived hypothetical scenarios.  "And how about one of
> the root-access devs is secretly working for the goverment of... is
> anyone working on a solution for this?"

Good governance is not built on blind trust.

It is important to be able to periodically check that there hasnt been abuse.

The OTRS admins are doing great work, and enwp oversight and arbcom
have moved under OTRS despite the lack of an audit trail, but I will
continue to ask for one because I believe it is important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Casey Brown  wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Thehelpfulone
>  wrote:
>> You would be able to easily keep track of what tickets have
>> been answered, but as far as I am aware the OTRS admins
>> are technically able to view all the emails in any queues -
>> so that would be another 12ish people plus devs that would
>> be able to view the tickets. I'm not saying that they would,
>> but bearing in mind a fair number of the OTRS admins are
>> checkusers/oversighters themselves, I think there will be
>> some issues with using OTRS.
>
> Queues are normally setup so that the OTRS admins can see all tickets.
> This makes things easier when checking for errors, making sure there
> are no backlogs, cleaning up cross-queue spam, etc. However, there are
> definitely some private queues -- like the oversight and Wikimedia
> registration/scholarship queues -- that OTRS admins cannot see unless
> they give themselves access to it, which they wouldn't do unless they
> needed to for some reason.

Is there an auditable log of these actions?  i.e. one that OTRS admins
cant doctor?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Travel Guide

[John Vandenberg]

I agree that travel content is within the scope.  In addition to the
content itself, which helps other people, the process of writing and
communicating travel information is educational for the writer.

There was a session about WikiTravel on at RCC2011 Canberra, where the
need to change host was discussed, and forking generally was
discussed.

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/University_of_Canberra/RCC2011/All_about_Wikitravel

The wikiteam dumps of wikitravel are a bit old now; is someone working
on making fresh dumps publicly available?
https://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/downloads/list?can=2&q=wikitravel
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/wikiteam-discuss/0gSFlnxeKOo/discussion

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 9:17 AM, James Heilman  wrote:
> First of all yes travel content is educational. Some of the best education
> I have received in fact. Travel content however is in a form distinct from
> an encyclopedia and thus needs its own project.
>
> The editors from Wikitravel already have the content in a form that can be
> easily uploaded into a wiki. They plan to start their own Wiki if we are
> not interested.
>
> @Juergen Yes discussions are occurring with WikiVoyage and it is hoped that
> they would be interested in joining a combined Wikimedia project as
> described. There is reasons why the English community does not simply
> rejoin the German community at WikiVoyage.  It is my hope that moving to
> the WMF will allow the rejoining of these two communities on equal footing.
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Foundation-l] Volunteers Wanted: Funds Dissemination Process Advisory Group

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 9:24 PM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 10 April 2012 12:17, John Vandenberg  wrote:
>> Go here:
>>
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/FDC_Advisory_Group/Formation#Nominations_.28to_be_added_below.29
>
> Do you really think I would be responding without having read the
> relevant pages?

nope.  I was giving links for other people.

>> Participation includes a free trip to San Fran on Saturday, June 9th:
>
> That is exactly my point - trips to SF as far from free and are
> completely unnecessary.

I was obliquely agreeing with you ;-)
f2f meeings are useful, but not for an interim committee.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Foundation-l] Volunteers Wanted: Funds Dissemination Process Advisory Group

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 9:07 PM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 10 April 2012 10:02, Jan-Bart de Vreede  wrote:
>> Hi Thomas,
>>
>> Getting the FDC "right" will be the most important thing to being able to 
>> provide resources to chapters and others that have great plans that further 
>> our movement goals. Doing this in a transparent and open way is an important 
>> requirement to getting it right. Not sure why you would want to rush this 
>> through?
>
> I don't want to rush it, I want to do it efficiently. I'll ask again,
> what questions is it that you want to answer with the process?
>
> With anything like this, there are basically three questions:
>
> 1) What needs to be done?
> 2) Who is going to do it?
> 3) How are they going to do it?
>
> We already know the answer to the first question - it's in the
> resolution calling for the creation of the committee - and it is
> usually best to leave the third question for the committee to work out
> for themselves. That just leaves deciding on the membership. We don't
> need this lengthy and expensive process to work that out, we just need
> to go on meta and talk about it until we reach a consensus (or,
> failing that, until all the relevant points have been made and the WMF
> board can make a final decision).

Go here:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/FDC_Advisory_Group/Formation#Nominations_.28to_be_added_below.29

> 12 people spending 4 hours a week, plus meetings including some
> in-person meetings (which includes lots of expensive travel and
> accommodation, as well as a lot of time), is an enormous amount of
> time and money. I think we need to be very clear about what we
> actually want to achieve with all that time and money.

Participation includes a free trip to San Fran on Saturday, June 9th:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/FDC_Advisory_Group/Formation#Likely_Advisory_Group_meeting_dates

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