[Wikimedia-l] Re: We need more interactive content: we are doing it wrong

[Amir Sarabadani]

(Not Andy, but a global interface admin in my volunteer capacity)
Hi,
The difference is that here the third party code is being run under the
context of Wikipedia. That means even with sandboxing mitigation such as
iframe (which has been broken before), it's much easier to break out and
collect user credentials such as session information or run any arbitrary
action on behalf of the users. While, opening a link explicitly is
protected by browsers to make sure they won't be able to access cookies in
wikimedia or run arbitrary code on behalf of the user targetting wikimedia
projects. That's not impossible to break but it's much much harder (and
zero day bugs of this type are in range of millions of dollars). That's why
it's recommended to avoid opening unknown links or if you really have to,
open them in services such as "Joe's sandbox". What I'm saying is that it's
making it easier and cheaper to attack users.

The second aspect is trust. Users understand links go to external website
we don't control but a dialog is not enough to convey wikimedia's lack of
control. People might assume the code or security has been vetted by
wikimedia which is not the case. It's worth noting that the click through
rate for SSL/TLS security warnings for Chrome was 70% (
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity13/sec13-paper_akhawe.pdf).
Even in many cases where it was a legitimate "man in the middle attack". It
got better since 2013 but it's still quite high.

Another aspect is that, it basically this turns OWID into a target for
what's called "watering hole attacks" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watering_hole_attack). This is similar to
what happened to MeDoc, a tax helper app where it got compromised to launch
NotPetya, one of the most devastating cyber attack ever recorded (
https://www.wired.com/story/notpetya-cyberattack-ukraine-russia-code-crashed-the-world/
).

It also brings to question of users data being transferred. As far as I
know (I might be very wrong), we instruct browsers not to provide referer
information to target websites (via noreferrer attribute) so they can't see
any information that the user has clicked on Wikipedia while that's no
longer the case here and no way to prevent that from happening (I might be
wrong again. Writing this on phone).

Last but not least, I'm seriously worried about the impact of this change
on wikis where editors are in countries that don't have a good track record
of respecting human rights. Breaking iframe or compromising OWID is not
something a basic hacker can do but it's not hard to do for an APT or a
government with deep pockets. That's why I urge you (as a fellow volunteer)
to remove this.

Hope that helps,
Obviously my own ideas and limited knowledge. Not on behalf of WMF or the
security team.

Best

James Heilman  schrieb am Fr., 26. Apr. 2024, 22:16:

> Hey Andy
>
> How is the risk any different than having a reference for a graph that
> includes a url which links to OWID? When one clicks on such a url it brings
> you to OWID and shares your IP address with them. We have millions of
> references that include urls without warnings or consent before loading.
>
> James
>
> On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 1:44 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello Andy,
>> There was a solution involving adding the software to our own platform
>> instead of loading it. It was dismissed by the Wikimedia Foundation. It's
>> not disappointment the word I'm looking for.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Galder
>>
>> 2024(e)ko api. 26(a) 21:38 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (
>> acoo...@wikimedia.org):
>>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> I’m Andy Cooper, the Director of Security at the Wikimedia Foundation.
>> Over the past week, teams within the Wikimedia Foundation have met to
>> discuss the potential legal, security, and privacy risks from the OWID
>> gadget introduced on this thread. We’re still looking into the risks that
>> this particular gadget presents, but have identified that it raises larger
>> and more definite concerns around gadgets that use third party websites
>> more broadly, such as in a worst case scenario theft or misuse of user’s
>> personal identity and edit history. This, in turn, raises further questions
>> and how we should govern and manage this type of content as a movement.
>>
>> As a result, we’re asking volunteers to hold off on enabling the OWID
>> gadget on more wikis and to refrain from deploying more gadgets that use
>> third party content and/or are automatically enabled for all users for
>> certain pages until we have a better review process in place. I realize
>> that this is frustrating for people here who have been working on OWID and
>> are excited about it as a work around while graphs are disabled. The
>> creativity and effort of volunteer developers has been and continues to be
>> crucial for our movement’s success, and part of our team’s job is to make
>> sure that happens in scalable and responsible ways. We wanted to let
>> 

[Wikimedia-l] Persian Wikipedia passing 1 million article milestone

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,
Persian Wikipedia (fa.wikipedia.org) which recently celebrated its 20th
birthday just passed its 1,000,000 article milestone.

Many volunteers have built, contributed, protected and loved this wiki for
the past two decades and here's to many more decades to come.

It has been a bumpy road but providing a free source of information to more
than 130M Persian language speakers has always been a pleasure, especially
when the concepts of fact and truth are under threat like never before.

Persian Wikipedia is being viewed by around 30M people monthly and has had
350M page views every month while only ~1,500 active editors [1] and ~35
admins have been keeping it alive and protecting it from all types of harm.

[1] Users making more than five edits in the past 30 days
https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/fa.wikipedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal|line|2-year|(page_type)~content*non-content|monthly

Here is to volunteers of Persian Wikipedia
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: We need more interactive content: we are doing it wrong

[Amir Sarabadani]

Maybe people don't know but video donation happens in Wikimedia already and
it doesn't need to be from Youtubers.

Here is my favorite example: German public broadcaster (ARD) donates short
informational videos to Wikipedia and they are used in articles in German
Wikipedia. They get a lot of views. Here is a list of videos from one of
their programs named Tagesschau:
https://mvc.toolforge.org/index.php?category=Videos+by+Tagesschau+(ARD)×pan=&rangestart=2023-08-01&rangeend=2023-09-01&limit=100

For example, this video about Golf Stream and impact of climate change on
it which is used in the article of Golf Stream in German Wikipedia:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kurzerkl%C3%A4rt,_Golfstrom_-_Tagesschau.webm
Or when cold or hot temperatures can be dangerous to humans:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gut_zu_wissen,_Wann_wird_K%C3%A4lte_gef%C3%A4hrlich_-_Tagesschau.webm
Or an explanation on Carthage, even with English subtitles:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karthago,_Ph%C3%B6nizische_Gro%C3%9Fstadt_(CC_BY-SA_4.0).webm

It'd really be nice to see more partnerships like this. Whether with
youtubers, public broadcasters, museums, universities, or anything like
that!


Am Fr., 26. Jan. 2024 um 19:29 Uhr schrieb Andrew Bogott <
abog...@wikimedia.org>:

> On 1/26/24 12:05 PM, geni wrote:
> > On Tue, 23 Jan 2024 at 22:24, Ivan Martínez  wrote:
> >> By not having a Youtube 2.0 we are avoiding a Wikipedia 2.0 with pure
> encyclopaedic videos. I see a false dilemma there.
> >
> > Creating good encyclopaedic videos is from a video production point of
> > view a far harder problem that dealing with the technical hurdles in
> > uploading video to commons. Going to take a lot of effort in
> > scripting, shooting, lighting and editing. And having your editor of
> > choice render the final project in a wikipedia friendly format should
> > not present a problem (and if it does handbrake exists).
> >
> > I really doubt we will ever get much in the way of encyclopaedic
> > videos on our platforms since they take so much time and cost so much
> > to make that they are only viable at scale from people who can do it
> > at as a full time job. Youtubers find ways to do that through adsense,
> > sponsor spots and Patreon. Not really something you can do on
> > wikipedia.
> I don't know much of anything about youtube licensing... is it possible
> for youtubers to dual or re-license their content? Could we invite
> creators to donate their content to the commons after a year or two when
> their revenue stream has trailed off?
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: We need more interactive content: we are doing it wrong

[Amir Sarabadani]

I'm not an expert in multimedia codecs or patents so I leave the actual
decision to people who know better (maybe legal team in WMF?) but according
to tech news, major patents for mp4 have already expired and the rest will
expire soon, a large batch of them expired in November 2023 and a major
batch will expire by March this year.

There are many types of mp4, I think H.263 is now expired but again, not an
expert.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.263_expired_yet%3F
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_MPEG-4_Visual_expired_yet%3F

VP9 and H.264 are not expired yet (but H.264 seems to be expiring soon so
maybe we should prepare?):
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_VP9_expired_yet%3F
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_MPEG-4_AVC_expired_yet%3F


Am Fr., 26. Jan. 2024 um 18:59 Uhr schrieb geni :

> On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 at 07:00, Gnangarra  wrote:
> > Simple mp4 upload option would be a starting point, surely we are big
> enough for any copyright holders to donate the licensing if wmf comes made
> a request
> >
>
> No. There are still members of the MP4 patent pool who expect that at
> some point they will make a lot of money off it.
>
> --
> geni
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Tool to find articles to create or improve in non-English Wikipedias

[Amir Sarabadani]

Regarding discoverability. I think there is a bigger problem: We have an
issue of discoverability of work for Wikipedians. I remember in my first
days as a Wikipedian, I would go to the main page and then click on random
pages until I would find something to improve. A friend of mine in his
early days was clicking on Special:Random in English Wikipedia and
translating the results to Persian (wasting energy that could have gone to
translating more important articles.)

I dream of a day that I could have only one personalized dashboard page
(linked at the top of every page next to my user page) which would have
boxes with stuff like:
 - Recentchanges: Unpatrolled edits, live
 - New files uploaded to be reviewed
 - Articles to improve or create in the topic I set (basically my tool)
 - Articles in topics I set that need attention (clean up tags, etc.)
 - Links to places I find useful: WP:ANI, WP:SPI, etc.
 - Random small clean ups suggested: e.g. a feed of possible spelling
issues or typos to check or fix.
 - A personalized todo list I could add personal notes
 - Events that might be happening around me

And of course each user could customize to their needs, some contributors
prefer patrolling, some prefer copy-editing, some prefer content
improvements. We could add some fancy graphs for positive reinforcement. It
can also have tabs for "my dashboard", "recommended dashboard for
patrolling", etc. Sorta like bloomberg terminals even.

One symptom of the lack of such a page is that many users use their own
userpage as a partial replacement for a dashboard and their user page has
become a list of links.

It's not even that hard to implement (at least a basic version of it). A
tech-savvy Wikipedian could potentially make this via a gadget, taking
advantage of Special:BlankPage and some user json pages to hold the
preferences (similar to Twinkle)

Thankfully, Growth features added this dashboard for newcomers, but I want
it to be expanded to old-timers too (and tailored and customized of
course). I know there is also Special:Contribute
 being thought too and
that can is also similar to what I have in mind (even the design is similar)

Sorry for the brain dump!


Am Di., 19. Sept. 2023 um 19:22 Uhr schrieb Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com>:

> Vector2022 has, actually, a place called Tools. It comes in the edit menu,
> just below the language switcher. The problem is that... most of them are
> not tools. Indeed, the Design Team decided to bury the sister projects
> inside the tools menu. So, yes, we do have a place called tools, where
> actual tools could be located.
> --
> *From:* Asaf Bartov 
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 19, 2023 7:13 PM
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Tool to find articles to create or improve
> in non-English Wikipedias
>
> On Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 8:49 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Toolhub is still something external!
>
> Let me introduce the point: the Research team has been working in great
> tools to help with editing. They made an exciting showcase in Wikimania.
> None of them are reachable while editing.
>
> We are here in the same case: the translate tool could accomodate a
> suggestion button that feeds from the varied tools we have.
>
>
> I agree. To me it has always seemed odd that Mediawiki's *core interface*
> has no large friendly button called "Tools".  It could lead by default to
> project-space:Tools, i.e. to Wikipedia:Tools on Wikipedia. From then on,
> it's up to the community to curate the page usefully, probably including
> explaining about Toolforge and directing to its various directory
> meta-tools.  But it's that first *invitation* and *discoverability* of the
> very notion of tools that's missing, for even some experienced editors.
>
> If some people agree, perhaps they'd be interested in starting a
> discussion on Mediawiki.org making the case for it, addressing the
> (inevitable) objections people may have, discussing the design and location
> of the button, etc. I don't know if the Foundation's Product team has
> thoughts about this, but even if it is not currently on any team's roadmap,
> it can be useful to work out a proposal with broad community support for
> how it could be done. The actual implementation would be technically
> simple, and mostly a question of the skin design: location, spacing,
> mobile, etc.
>
>A.
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Tool to find articles to create or improve in non-English Wikipedias

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hi,
TLDR: There is now a tool that gives you list of articles to improve or
create based on WikiProjects of English Wikipedia. For example, articles of
top importance in WikiProject Mathematics that are missing or short in
Azeri Wikipedia:
https://whattodo.toolforge.org/?lang=az&topic=Mathematics&importance=Top

(I'm sorry for spamming your mailboxes, but I couldn't find a place to
bring this up that would be more fitting.)

This tool basically gets the list of articles of a given wikiproject of a
given importance and tells you which ones are missing are below 10K bytes
in the given target language.

For example:

   - For WikiProject Physics and target of Hungarian Wikipedia, you get [2]
   saying article of Speed is missing while existing in 79 wikis and article
   of Molekulapálya [3] is the shortest article of this importance with ~700
   bytes.
   - For Wikiproject Poland and target of Dutch Wikipedia, you get [1]
   saying article of "Ignacy Mościcki" is missing in Dutch Wikipedia while
   existing in 38 other languages (and many more articles to create or improve)
   - For Wikiproject Computer Science and target of Vietnamese Wikipedia,
   you get [4] saying article of "Alonzo Church" exists in 50 wikipedias but
   not in Vietnamese Wikipedia (and more articles to create or improve in
   field of computer science)
   - and many more but you get the idea.

It is not perfect, for example the concept of importance and what articles
belong to them is not perfect but it's better than nothing.

I personally find this useful in events and editathons where a newcomer
asks "I'm interested in topic X what can I do?" and you can give them at
least something to work on. Or for small or medium wikis to find gaps in
their content in given topics.

Noting that there are more than 2,800 WikiProjects in English Wikipedia,
the topics to pick are quite broad. From Olivia Roderigo [5] to Rome [6] to
Soap Operas [7] to Trains [8]. Hope that'd be useful for you.

If anyone is feeling comfortable to help maintain or add features to it,
please let me know. I wrote this in four or five hours, it's quite basic
and more of a PoC of what it could become.

[1] https://whattodo.toolforge.org/?lang=nl&topic=Poland&importance=Top
[2] https://whattodo.toolforge.org/?lang=hu&topic=Physics&importance=Top
[3] https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molekulap%C3%A1lya
[4]:
https://whattodo.toolforge.org/?lang=vi&topic=Computer+science&importance=Top
[5]
https://whattodo.toolforge.org/?lang=fa&topic=Olivia+Rodrigo&importance=Top
[6] https://whattodo.toolforge.org/?lang=fa&topic=Rome&importance=Top
[7] https://whattodo.toolforge.org/?lang=fa&topic=Soap+Operas&importance=Top
[8] https://whattodo.toolforge.org/?lang=fa&topic=Trains&importance=Top

Best
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Google not indexing Wikisource for last few years now.

[Amir Sarabadani]

See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607#8846296 and onwards

Am Di., 1. Aug. 2023 um 17:27 Uhr schrieb Lauren Worden <
laurenworde...@gmail.com>:

> Has anyone tried telling the Google Search Console to index all the
> Wikisource language domains? Presumably a Foundation sysadmin would
> need to add the ownership verification tokens to do so:
> https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome
>
> -LW
>
> On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 7:53 AM Dušan Kreheľ  wrote:
> >
> > Hm.
> >
> > Page: La akonca (1888) (be.wikisource.org)
> > Created day with the last modification: 17:26, 7 July 2023‎ CEST
> > Indexed by Google: 7. júl 2023 18:21:14 UTC
> >
> > Not indexed: https://be.wikisource.org/wiki/Alkahol_(1913)
> >
> >
> > 2023-08-01 8:47 GMT+02:00, Bodhisattwa :
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > Apologies for cross-posting.
> > >
> > > For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any
> > > Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which
> practically
> > > means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which are being
> > > created in these years, are not searchable on Google and hence largely
> > > remain invisible on the web.
> > >
> > > This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the
> > > existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our
> past
> > > and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM
> partners and
> > > any potential new editors. We already have a very low awareness and
> > > visibility about Wikisource among general internet users due to lack of
> > > organized support in these years but the invisibility on Google search
> > > engine could become the last nail in our coffin, unless it is fixed
> soon.
> > >
> > > There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December
> 2022 -
> > > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607.
> > >
> > > Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work
> upon?
> > > Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs some
> very
> > > basic care, after all.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Bodhisattwa
> > > (Bengali Wikisource volunteer)
> > >
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour

[Amir Sarabadani]

The discussion about where to hire is way more nuanced than it looks. The
world doesn't split between SF with astronomical salaries and people who
don't have access to clean water but are very cheap to hire.
Some points to consider:
Other cities in the US are cheaper to hire but with comparable (if not
better in some cases) standards of living.
Many European countries are way cheaper to hire. I'm comparing general tech
salaries, not WMF ones, Germany is basically half of the SF and Poland is
roughly one fourth. Both have decent standards of living and arguably even
better labour protection laws. Similarly the UK, Spain, Italy and France.
Also there are more things to consider: Talent pools, some countries have
strong tech communities like Greece, Poland, Ukraine and some countries
don't. Or We can't hire from residents of some countries due to safety and
security reasons, We also need to make sure WMF is a global community of
diverse staff.

Striking the balance between all of the above is not easy.



Am Di., 18. Apr. 2023 um 14:30 Uhr schrieb The Cunctator <
cuncta...@gmail.com>:

> I think one of the key lessons of software development is that infinite
> money doesn't necessarily lead to good software development. I think the
> work the new leadership is showing to address the structural flaws will go
> a long way. There's certainly nothing immoral about a global non-profit
> having an international staff. It is certainly true that wealth and salary
> differentials are a challenge for any international organization, and
> should be approached from a perspective of solidarity and mutuality. But
> like many things in our world, it will always be a source of tension.
>
> On Tue, Apr 18, 2023, 8:23 AM Felipe Schenone  wrote:
>
>> Just to put things into perspective, in Argentina, earning USD 4000 a
>> month means you're the fucking king. You can rent almost any place you
>> want, buy food and all necessities, eat out everyday, and have enough left
>> over to buy some land or a house in a few years. By contrast, a quick
>> Google search suggests that renting a 1-bedroom apartment in NYC costs
>> around USD 4000, while in Silicon Valley costs around USD 2500. I may be
>> wrong, but judging from
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries I can see
>> that nowadays, WMF salaries don't go below USD 200,000 per year, or USD
>> 16,000 a month.
>>
>> Rather than morally bankrupt, I'd argue that bringing salaries of even
>> USD 5000 per month to people in countries like mine would be an economic
>> bonanza and a smart use of resources, a win-win situation. Regarding labor
>> laws, many non-US countries, like mine, have quite stringent labor laws
>> (such as Argentina, due to a long history of syndicalism). Perhaps it's
>> just a matter of finding countries that balance both criteria. I'm not sure
>> that expanding development to cheaper countries is the solution to all of
>> WMF software problems, but I think it could help a lot.
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 8:55 AM Gnangarra  wrote:
>>
>>> or the 3am meetings
>>>
>>> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 19:49, Gnangarra  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hiring people because they are in such countries as the basis for
>>>> saving money is morally bankrupt,  yet we'll happily draw from the pool of
>>>> donations that primarily come from those more expensive countries.  Much
>>>> like we talk about equity but decide that some places arent worth engaging
>>>> in because its too far to travel leaving others to shoulder the burden of
>>>> travel.
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 19:35, Felipe Schenone 
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Yet in some countries, like mine, paying for food, renting a place,
>>>>> buying a house, etc. is far cheaper than in the US, so paying a lower
>>>>> salary (in USD) wouldn't amount to a lower standard of living at all, and
>>>>> doesn't feel immoral, at least to me.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 8:00 AM Gnangarra  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>  Either we make software development cheaper somehow (move the WMF
>>>>>>> to Romania or something)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hiring in countries with the worst labour laws and cheapest minimum
>>>>>> wages is totally immoral. Especially in a community where equity is part 
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> our culture we must endeavour to ensure that employees/contractors
>>

[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Reflecting on my listening tour

[Amir Sarabadani]

There always be gaps in ownership and there will be some critical software
left to individuals to keep the lights on. It's an ideal we need to move
towards but we might never reach.

That being said, it really doesn't need to be this bad.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of critical tech currently in production
without any maintainers:

   - All of the authorization stack (2FA, Central Auth (otherwise known as
   SUL), authentication in mw, OAuth, etc.)
   - All of the multimedia stack (from upload, to the video player, to the
   mw file backend, media handler, metadata extraction, etc.)
   - FlaggedRevs aka Pending changes, a critical tool in the workflow of
   patrollers
   - Abusefilter, the tool that prevents vandalism from being saved. I
   can't stress how important this is.
   - SecurePoll, critical to community resilience.
   - Deletion workflow
   - Mailman (mailing lists), the very same infra that is sending and
   storing this email.
   - User preferences
   - Gadgets infra
   - Beta cluster: The most important human testing infra before bugs hit
   production.
   - SpamBlacklist/TitleBlacklist

You can go and check: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Developers/Maintainers
and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/3144/query/open/ to see
frustrations and open requests for years.

And even if a software would have an owner, it used to be that the team was
under so much pressure to produce new things instead of maintenance that
the software would practically be without a maintainer (or worse, as even
volunteers couldn't unofficially take the role). I can example a few.



Am Mo., 17. Apr. 2023 um 02:51 Uhr schrieb Gergő Tisza :

> On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 7:49 AM AntiCompositeNumber <
> anticompositenum...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Agreed. It has long been the case that infrastructure critical to the
>> operation of the various wikis has been left without a clear
>> maintainer, or has been maintained only in the volunteer time of a
>> single staffer already fulfilling a full-time role. Teams would be
>> dissolved or reassigned to completely different projects after
>> completion, without the ability and/or willingness to even review
>> patches. That assumes that the team doing the work wasn't made up of
>> contractors who departed the Foundation when the project was
>> "completed", taking their knowledge of it with them.
>>
>> This was a major factor in causing the technical debt problem, and
>> must be addressed to have any chance of solving it.
>>
>
> At some point we will have to admit that we have created a feature set
> many times larger than we have the capacity to actively maintain and
> improve. Either we make software development cheaper somehow (move the WMF
> to Romania or something), or we cut some of the non-software spending (but
> we already spend 50%+ of movement funds on software, and we'd have to
> increase capacity way more than by a factor of two to maintain all our
> code), or we undeploy most current features, or we'll have to put up with
> most things being unmaintained, which is the status quo. That's not to say
> we can't be smarter about it (e.g. microservices are a great way to have
> maintenance overhead spin even more out of control) or that maintenance
> efforts couldn't be better prioritized (e.g. the lack of maintainership of
> our authentication stack is somewhat wild), but fundamentally changing the
> current mode of operation (where most things are deployed and
> then abandoned to work on the next thing) is a pipe dream IMO.
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Reflecting on my listening tour

[Amir Sarabadani]

This is not really about Selena's email but it's so nerdy I still want to
talk about what tech debt is and what it isn't.

The word tech debt at the beginning meant a very specific thing: When an
engineer takes a shortcut to deliver a feature faster. Daniel has a pretty
good essay on tech debt: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/The_Tech_Debt_Trap

But the term slowly became so overused that engineers used it to refer to
any invisible work they couldn't tie into a feature. At this point, people
refer to tech debt as the general maintenance practically. And that led to
non-tech people to slowly disregard maintenance work because everything is
tech debt now.

What tech debt is not (this is not a MECE list):

   - Keep the lights on: OS upgrades, security updates, hw maintenance,
   incidents, ...
   - Bitrot: The code stays the same but the underlying technology changes,
   the usage pattern changes, requirements changes, etc.
   - Over-engineering: This is way more common than you think. Building an
   overly complex palace that no one can maintain anymore because no one
   understands it and everyone is afraid to remove anything. This is sorta the
   opposite of tech debt, people spent more resources than they should and
   it's still hurting us.
   - Plain bad engineering: People make mistakes, typos are easily fixable
   while architectural mistakes are not, sometimes we know it because of
   hindsight, sometimes it was obvious from the beginning.
   - Limiting architecture: Many architectural decisions come in the form
   of trade-offs, a classic example is performance vs. security. If someone
   wants something and it's not possible due to architectural limitations, it
   doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing. We sacrificed something in favor of
   the other.
   - Code hygiene: Improvements on readability and maintainability of the
   code.
   - Scale/Performance/Security considerations: I have seen that people see
   a prototype and want it in Wikipedia right now. I understand it but any
   solution on such a large scale comes with all sorts of edge cases and
   hidden costs. People bash MediaWiki for being too complex and messy but
   anything you build at the scale of Wikipedia is going to be complex and
   messy. If a solution takes years, sometimes that's the only option.

What I want to say is that while we do have a tech debt problem in
Wikimedia, we also have a lot of bitrot problems too, or any other "slowing
down development" kind of problem. Some cases it's fixable, in some cases
it is not. What is needed is more resources on maintenance which is
happening and is making me extremely happy. Whether we call that paying
back tech debt or not.


Am Fr., 14. Apr. 2023 um 23:44 Uhr schrieb Brian Wolff :

> Perhaps i am hyperfocused on technical debt in the sense of improving the
> abstractions used in mediawiki. The phrasing around sustainability
> especially leads me in that direction. However, technical debt is certainly
> a broad concept and can mean a lot of things.
>
> The common thread in the examples you cited seem to be things that have
> fallen through the ownership cracks. I'm not sure its the case that
> engineers aren't incentivized to fix these, so much as there are no natural
> engineers to be incentivized due to team structure (scribunto is an
> exception but i would disagree with that task's inclusion for reasons that
> get off topic). On the other hand, perhaps a different incentivization
> structure would encourage people to branch out more.
>
> I think it is especially telling that 3 (or 4 even) of these tasks are
> multimedia related, given that wmf hasn't had a multimedia team in a very
> long time [SDC does not count], and definitely not one focused on the
> backend. There are quite a few multimedia related areas in desperate need
> of love (it is 2023 and video uploads are limited to 4gb with the flakiest
> upload process known to man).
>
>
> It was also pointed out to me on irc, that many critical workflows in the
> community depend on toolforge tools that have very limited volunteer
> maintainership. A sort of https://xkcd.com/2347/ situation. Just because
> they're not "production" we often pretend they don't exist. Regardless of
> how we label them, in the end it doesn't make a difference to the end user,
> and the fragility of that ecosystem is a form of technical debt that is
> often overlooked.
>
>
> So i guess it all depends on what is meant by "technical debt"
> --
> Brian
>
> On Friday, April 14, 2023, Andre Klapper  wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 2023-04-13 at 20:06 -0700, bawolff wrote:
>> > > "I think there are lots of promising opportunities to incentivise
>> > > people to pay off technical debt and make our existing stack more
>> > > sustainable. Right now there are no incentives for engineers in
>> > > this regard."
>> >
>> > Interesting. Personally to me, it can sometimes feel like we never
>> > stop talking about technical debt. While I think paying off technical
>> > debt

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Bing-ChatGPT

[Amir Sarabadani]

Repeating exactly what has been in the training data is not overfitting.
Overfitting is when the model fails to recognize the underlying pattern in
the training data leading to inaccurate or false results when used on new
data. Getting the exact same prediction from the training data set is
actually how the models train (to minimize the difference). Supervised ML
in its core is a regression function,

Andrew Ng examples a model that predicts the price of a house based on
number of rooms and such. Overfitting is when a completely new house
results in a wildly inaccurate price range. Coming with the exact price as
an existing house in the training set is not overfitting nor a bug.

Speaking as someone who built many ML models for Wikimedia.

Am Do., 23. März 2023 um 11:23 Uhr schrieb Kimmo Virtanen <
kimmo.virta...@wikimedia.fi>:

> Hi,
>
> I just noticed that OpenAI has fixed the Wikidata property and item
> mappings so now it can generate working SPARQL. Example:
>
>
> Prompt : Search finnish female journaists using SPARQL from Wikidata?
>
> *GPT-3.5 (default)*
>
>> To search for Finnish female journalists using SPARQL from Wikidata, you
>> can use the following query:
>> SELECT ?journalistLabel
>> WHERE
>> {
>>   ?journalist wdt:P106 wd:Q1930187 .
>>   ?journalist wdt:P27 wd:Q33 .
>>   ?journalist wdt:P21 wd:Q6581072 .
>>   ?journalist wdt:P569 ?birthdate .
>>   ?journalist wdt:P21 ?gender .
>>   FILTER(YEAR(?birthdate) < 2005) .
>>   FILTER(?gender = wd:Q6581072) .
>>   SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en" } .
>> }
>> This query will retrieve the labels (names) of all female journalists who
>> were born before the year 2005, are Finnish citizens, and have a profession
>> (P106) of journalist (Q1930187). You can execute this query on the Wikidata
>> Query Service (https://query.wikidata.org/) by pasting the query into
>> the query editor and clicking the "Run" button. The results will be
>> displayed in a table format.
>
>
> *GPT-4*
>
> To search for Finnish female journalists using SPARQL on Wikidata, you can
>> use the following query:
>>
>
>
> SELECT ?journalist ?journalistLabel WHERE {
>>   ?journalist wdt:P31 wd:Q5; # instance of human
>>   wdt:P106 wd:Q1930187;  # occupation: journalist
>>   wdt:P21 wd:Q6581072;   # gender: female
>>   wdt:P27 wd:Q33.# country of citizenship: Finland
>>   SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "fi,en". }
>> }
>> This query searches for entities that are instances of human (Q5), have
>> an occupation as a journalist (Q1930187), are female (Q6581072), and have
>> Finnish citizenship (Q33). The query results will include the journalist's
>> Wikidata ID and their label (name) in Finnish or English. You can run this
>> query using the Wikidata Query Service (https://query.wikidata.org/).
>
>
> Br,
> -- Kimmo Virtanen, Zache
>
> On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 8:07 AM Erik Moeller  wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 11:53 AM Lauren Worden 
>> wrote:
>> > BARD also produces lengthy passages from its training data verbatim
>> > without elicitation:
>> >
>> https://old.reddit.com/r/Bard/comments/11xxaxj/bard_copied_user_text_from_a_forum_word_for_word/jd58764/
>>
>> Very true. I tested the "Mr. Ripley" example with Bard, and it
>> instantly reproduced the exact language of the Wikipedia article's
>> lede section; only the remainder of the generation was substantially
>> different. [1]
>>
>> Warmly,
>> Erik
>>
>> [1] https://social.coop/@eloquence/110071078132245483
>> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Recent press around December Office Action

[Amir Sarabadani]

And to emphasize, I don't know if those users banned in the case of Arabic
Wikipedia or Persian were affiliated with any governments, or they ever
lived in Saudi Arabia or Iran. I'm just saying, it's like a case of
WP:DUCK.

And I also understand that communication around these cases is hard, it
involves people's physical safety or their basic freedom. Something I don't
have to deal with very often. But all major tech companies call it what it
is. Meta, Twitter (at least before the sink), google and so on all have
press releases on banning users related to spread of government-back
disinformation and explicitly naming governments. I don't see why we
shouldn't, especially given all the misunderstandings I mentioned. Maybe
I'm missing something obvious. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong,
privately or publicly.

Best

Am So., 8. Jan. 2023 um 20:19 Uhr schrieb The Cunctator :

> Thank you for speaking out. You've articulated many of my vague concerns
> with the Foundation's communications.
>
> On Sun, Jan 8, 2023, 1:47 PM Amir Sarabadani  wrote:
>
>> (putting my long-term volunteer of Persian Wikipedia hat on)
>>
>> I first want to mention that out of 16 users banned by the office action,
>> 10 were mostly active in Arabic Wikipedia and 6 were mostly active in
>> Persian Wikipedia. I know it’s confusing but Arabic and Persian are
>> completely different languages belonging to even different families and
>> they only share the same script. An Arab person can read Persian but they
>> won’t be able to understand anything except some loanwords. I’m saying this
>> to emphasize they were basically two major office actions affecting
>> different types of users. For example, the users banned in fawiki have
>> mostly edited pro the Iranian government which meant they actually edited
>> against the interest of the Saudis. I can’t comment if the 6 users were
>> affiliated with the Iranian government or not.
>>
>> I don't know about the users in arwiki but the reception of bans on
>> fawiki has been overwhelmingly positive. I have seen at least twenty
>> different positive reactions, publicly and privately. And I personally
>> welcome those actions and the only major criticism I got from most users of
>> fawiki were that “it was overdue” or “user foo and bar are not banned”.
>>
>> > We understand the desire to take action or speak out. Know that we need
>> to act in the interests of any volunteer whose safety is under threat.
>>
>> I’m not a communication or T&S expert. I don’t know the details of this
>> case. So take what I’m saying with a mountain of salt. A mere suggestion.
>> Iranian activists have been advising families of people arrested for
>> political reasons in Iran to speak up. To make noise. To interview outside
>> of Iran. In many cases it has actually helped those prisoners by increasing
>> the international pressure. The lawyers appointed to Iranian activists have
>> all been instructed by the government to tell the families “not to make a
>> noise and it’ll all be fixed” and usually, the exact opposite happens and
>> the families speak up after they receive the body of their children. Here
>> is a grim example by Amnesty international
>> <https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/12/iran-authorities-covering-up-their-crimes-of-child-killings-by-coercing-families-into-silence/>.
>> Again, this is a very specific case to Iran and I can’t really say what WMF
>> should or shouldn’t do.
>>
>> On the topic of communication:
>>
>> But it seems WMF’s communication strategy here is to beat around the
>> bushes. Press releases that deny very specific things that honestly don’t
>> even need denying but by doing so if people don’t know specifics of the
>> movement or don’t read it very very carefully, they might mistake it as
>> denying all government interference. That is exactly what happens
>> afterwards with many major media and WMF doesn’t try to correct the record.
>>
>> For example, Here WMF has denied that the Saudi government tried to
>> infiltrate Wikimedia’s staff. That is correct and doesn’t even need
>> denying. But it doesn’t deny that the government tried to infiltrate the
>> volunteer community or push or control content in Wikipedia. The thing is
>> that most people are not aware of the staff vs long-term volunteer
>> distinction. The result? The press responds with “WMF denied allegation of
>> Saudi’s interference in Wikipedia” Here is an example from BBC Persian (a
>> reputable source in Persian):
>> https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/cprnv1np9y2o I can find many more.
>>
&

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Recent press around December Office Action

[Amir Sarabadani]

(putting my long-term volunteer of Persian Wikipedia hat on)

I first want to mention that out of 16 users banned by the office action,
10 were mostly active in Arabic Wikipedia and 6 were mostly active in
Persian Wikipedia. I know it’s confusing but Arabic and Persian are
completely different languages belonging to even different families and
they only share the same script. An Arab person can read Persian but they
won’t be able to understand anything except some loanwords. I’m saying this
to emphasize they were basically two major office actions affecting
different types of users. For example, the users banned in fawiki have
mostly edited pro the Iranian government which meant they actually edited
against the interest of the Saudis. I can’t comment if the 6 users were
affiliated with the Iranian government or not.

I don't know about the users in arwiki but the reception of bans on fawiki
has been overwhelmingly positive. I have seen at least twenty different
positive reactions, publicly and privately. And I personally welcome those
actions and the only major criticism I got from most users of fawiki were
that “it was overdue” or “user foo and bar are not banned”.

> We understand the desire to take action or speak out. Know that we need
to act in the interests of any volunteer whose safety is under threat.

I’m not a communication or T&S expert. I don’t know the details of this
case. So take what I’m saying with a mountain of salt. A mere suggestion.
Iranian activists have been advising families of people arrested for
political reasons in Iran to speak up. To make noise. To interview outside
of Iran. In many cases it has actually helped those prisoners by increasing
the international pressure. The lawyers appointed to Iranian activists have
all been instructed by the government to tell the families “not to make a
noise and it’ll all be fixed” and usually, the exact opposite happens and
the families speak up after they receive the body of their children. Here
is a grim example by Amnesty international
.
Again, this is a very specific case to Iran and I can’t really say what WMF
should or shouldn’t do.

On the topic of communication:

But it seems WMF’s communication strategy here is to beat around the
bushes. Press releases that deny very specific things that honestly don’t
even need denying but by doing so if people don’t know specifics of the
movement or don’t read it very very carefully, they might mistake it as
denying all government interference. That is exactly what happens
afterwards with many major media and WMF doesn’t try to correct the record.

For example, Here WMF has denied that the Saudi government tried to
infiltrate Wikimedia’s staff. That is correct and doesn’t even need
denying. But it doesn’t deny that the government tried to infiltrate the
volunteer community or push or control content in Wikipedia. The thing is
that most people are not aware of the staff vs long-term volunteer
distinction. The result? The press responds with “WMF denied allegation of
Saudi’s interference in Wikipedia” Here is an example from BBC Persian (a
reputable source in Persian):
https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/cprnv1np9y2o I can find many more.

Or the fact that these 16 users were related to the Saudi’s government.
WMF denied that because at least 6 of them were related to Iran. That
doesn’t negate the fact that *some of them* might have been affiliated with
the Saudi government (to emphasize again, I don’t know if any of them did,
I have no access to the cases. And to be honest I don’t want to know). The
result? Press goes “these 16 banns were not related to the Saudi government
at all”.

IMHO, this is causing harm. For example, the Ars has released
:
“It's wildly irresponsible for international organizations and businesses
to assume their affiliates can ever operate independently of, or safely
from, Saudi government control”. This also makes us (the movement) look
very naive. A government that kills dissidents in its consulate or (in case
of Iranian government) rapes people in prison

as a scare tactic, tries to interfere with Scotish indepence referendum
,
or makes 92 fake news websites in US
to
spread disinformation would not try to interfere with Wikipedia and
consider it untouchable.

I can give another example, In October 2019, Persian media ran an article
on interference of the Iranian government in Persian Wikipedia. WMF
released this

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Join the new Movement Strategy Forum community review

[Amir Sarabadani]

Even if you don't want mediawiki for various reasons, you can set it up in
Wikimedia Cloud. We already hosted Discourse there for years.

Even if you can't host in WMCS for other reasons, you still can have
internationalized discussions in mediawiki. The Desktop improvements team
does this in mediawiki.org (For example
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Fourth_prototype_testing/Feedback)
and while not as great as auto-translate, it works.

Language barrier is a problem but so is privacy, there is a reason we host
everything onsite. For example, I don't know the details of how it uses
Google Translate but it is possible we end up sending some data to Google
that are either not anonymized or can be de-anonymized easily. Not to
mention the cloud provider hosting the website having access to everything
and so on. And not to mention auto-translate is not perfect and can cause
all sorts of problems in communication.

Best



On Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 12:21 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Since 2018 (!!) there's an Extension that allows translation using the
> Google Translate API (the same Discourse is using).
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Google_Translator
>
> You can test it here, for example:
> https://karaoke.kjams.com/wiki/System_Requirements
>
> It took me literally 5 minutes to figure out that this exists. So, the one
> and only feature where Discourse may be better positioned than Meta to
> discuss about Wikimedia, can also be done perfectly with this extension.
>
> Thanks
>
> Galder
> --
> *From:* Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga 
> *Sent:* Wednesday, June 1, 2022 12:01 PM
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Join the new Movement Strategy Forum
> community review
>
> Let's see the "features" Discourse have and MediaWiki don't:
>
>
>- Anyone can join with their Wikimedia account. No registration is
>required.
>- This is a feature we already have.
>
>
>- Multilingual conversations are possible thanks to automatic
>translation in more than 100 languages.
>- How are they doing that? Discourse is open source, isn't it? Could
>this feature be experimentally included at Meta? Are they using the Google
>Translate API?
>-
>- Newcomers are welcomed with an interactive tutorial and badges for
>achievements.
>- This can be done in Meta. Even developing a system of easy tutorials
>and gamification would be a great add-on for most wikis. So, if this is
>something really important, we SHOULD be doing for ourselves, and not
>letting MediaWiki abandonware.
>-
>- Notifications can be adjusted to follow or mute topics, categories,
>and tags.
>- This can be done with Flow.
>
>
>- Conversations can use easy text formatting, expanded links, images,
>and emojis.
>- We can do this on wiki. Even the emojis thing.
>
>
>- Complex conversations can be summarized by their participants, also
>split or merged.
>- We can do this on wiki. We have been doing this for ages.
>
>
>- Posts can be flagged anonymously for moderation. Community
>moderators ensure that the Universal Code of Conduct is observed.
>- We can do this on wiki. Also, the Community moderators ensuring that
>the UCoC is observed should be working on how to do that on... check
>notes... Meta.
>
>
>- All features are available on mobile and desktop browsers.
>- Also on wiki. If something is missing on mobile, then, we should
>invest all the necessary to get it. Not doing that only makes our platform
>more obsolete.
>-
>- Congratulate newcomers each time they publish a post.
>- This is a feature already available at Wiki. We can also
>congratulate by hand if wanted.
>
> Is Discourse better? I don't know. Abandoning our own software because we
> have found that others are doing things better? A total error.
>
> I have said this before, but we have plenty of money. We are swimming in a
> giant money pool. Our software is obsolete, and every move we make away of
> it, makes it even more obsolete, despite having the money to solve it.
>
> Thanks
>
> Galder
>
> --
> *From:* Quim Gil 
> *Sent:* Wednesday, June 1, 2022 11:09 AM
> *To:* Mike Peel 
> *Cc:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Join the new Movement Strategy Forum
> community review
>
> Hi again,
>
> The proposal for a new forum comes with a problem statement
> ,
> a list of main features aimed to address this problem, and a set of
> questions to help everyone find points of tangible discussion and hopefully
> agreement.
>
> Today, "use a wiki" or "we have Meta" alone doesn't solve the problem. The
> discrimination suffered by volunteers not fluent in English is real. The
> intimidation and alienation felt by ma

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Collection / Special:Book usage

[Amir Sarabadani]

Here is a regular reminder that:
 - You can't throw money at a problem and expect it to be solved
automatically.
 - $100M is a lot of money but 1- Not all of it goes to personnel,
especially engineering personnel. 2- It's not that much money compared to
the rest of technology companies and their personnel expenditure especially
the ones with similar scale.

On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 11:14 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> We may differ in what was first: abandoning it or closing it, but the
> process is available at phabricator.
>
> Here it wais said FOUR! years ago that the service would be closed and
> done by PediaPress (what didn't happen):
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T184772#4116906
>
> Here, we have a more detailed post saying that the functionality would be
> back: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T184772#4119731
>
> The last details were provided 3 years ago, when it was said that the
> PediaPress "solution" didn't happen:
> https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Uxkv0ib36m3i8vol
>
> We migh also have a different view on priorities, but a Foundation with
> 100 million dollars in a vault can pay for someone to solve this issue, no
> doubts. The problem is again that we have a vehicle, but no maintenance and
> no one driving it down the slope.
>
> By the way: the Proton PDF render is also failing if the article has a
> gallery. But no one cares about it. It used to work, it was broken, and no
> one was responsible for the fail.
>
> Sincerely
>
> Galder
>
>
> 2022(e)ko api. 20(a) 17:02 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Gergő Tisza <
> gti...@gmail.com>):
>
> On Tue, Apr 19, 2022 at 11:04 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> The problem is not that it was "Just one of the things that died out
> because no-one could be bothered to maintain it", it is worse: it was
> broken on purpose, and not recovered, because the WMF decided that no one
> cares about it.
>
>
> That is patently untrue. The book renderer (OCG) was, due to the lack
> of maintenance, increasingly causing problems for the operators of
> Wikimedia production services, and the approach it was based on (converting
> wikitext to LaTeX) resulted in an endless stream of discrepancies in the
> PDF output. It was replaced with another PDF rendering service that used a
> headless browser - an approach that resulted in much more faithful
> rendering (basically it outsourced the cost of maintaining a good PDF
> generator to browser vendors) but didn't scale well and wouldn't have been
> able to handle large collections of articles.
>
> I'm not fond of that decision but it obviously wasn't about disabling
> something that worked before, just for fun. The Foundation had to choose
> between risking platform stability, a significant time investment to
> modernize the service (at the detriment of other projects that time could
> be invested into), and shutting down a feature that saw relatively little
> use, and chose the third.
>
> FWIW there was a volunteer-maintained service doing LaTeX-based
> multi-article book generation which might still be functional:
> https://mediawiki2latex.wmflabs.org/
>
>
> ___
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> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Emerging human rights concern related to invasion of Ukraine

[Amir Sarabadani]

So you're saying if WMF didn't have a human rights policy, the user would
have not been arrested? Similar to the "fact" that no Wikipedian has been
arrested before the inception of the policy?

What kind of logic is this?

On Sat, Mar 12, 2022 at 3:18 PM Philip Kopetzky 
wrote:

> This situation does raise the question why the WMF decided to widely
> publish a human rights policy that will make the Wikimedia projects appear
> in less of a neutral stance than before.
>
> The fact that this move will endanger volunteers was even acknowledged in
> the FAQs [1], but was just waived off as something that will have little
> impact. It should be clear by now that the WMF is not in a position to
> protect those it endangers adequatly, so it might be worthwile in the
> future to have a less US-centric approach to social topics. It doesn't mean
> that such a policy shouldn't exist - but the WMF should be aware that
> announcing this policy on all possible media channels can't be the right
> approach if it doesn't want to make volunteers' work even more difficult
> and dangerous.
>
> [1]:
> https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Human_Rights_Policy/Frequently_asked_questions#Does_this_policy_inadvertently_expose_volunteers_to_greater_risk
> ?
>
> On Sat, 12 Mar 2022 at 11:02, Pierre-Yves Beaudouin via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Thank you Maggie for your message.
>>
>> Let us know when the movement should communicate about this terrible
>> news. I'm sure that a lot of affiliates would be happy to communicate on
>> that topic, contact our governments and human rights NGOs, but we don't
>> want to make things worse for Pessimist2006 and others editors living in
>> Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> --
>> *Pierre-Yves Beaudouin*
>> *Membre du conseil d'administration*
>>
>> *-*
>> *WIKIMEDIA FRANCE*
>> Association pour le libre partage de la connaissance
>> *www.wikimedia.fr *
>> *28 rue de Londres, 75009 PARIS*
>> 
>>
>> Le 2022-03-11 22:45, Maggie Dennis a écrit :
>>
>> Hello, all.
>>
>> I’m writing to update you all on an emerging human rights concern related
>> to the invasion of Ukraine. We are concerned that an effort is being made
>> to identify Wikipedia editors whose activities are seen as opposing the
>> Russian narrative of the war.
>>
>> I wanted to let you know that we are aware, we are monitoring, and we are
>> acting in various ways already. While we cannot discuss the details for the
>> safety of all involved, over a year ago, we hired a Human Rights Lead
>>  with experience in
>> individual safety to help us with such situations. This includes
>> partnerships with allied organizations experienced in human rights
>> interventions as well as connecting with appropriate community groups and
>> functionaries to provide safety support. We care about the safety of
>> Wikimedians, and I know that you do, too. We have heard as much from many
>> of you directly.
>>
>> I want to take this opportunity to raise your awareness of the need to
>> protect yourselves and each other online. It’s such a cliche that I’m
>> almost hesitant to write it, but in this world, sharing information is
>> sometimes a radical act. Because of this, we ask you all to please be aware
>> of what information you share about yourself on Wikimedia platforms and how
>> your Wikimedia activities can be connected to your personal identity. Some
>> Wikimedians have chosen to operate transparently. Others have chosen to
>> operate under pseudonyms. Whatever path you’ve chosen, there are best
>> practices for your personal protection. Some guidance has been gathered
>> here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Voices_under_Threat
>>
>> At the same time as I share these recommendations, I want to firmly
>> assert that all who try to get people vital information in times of crisis
>> - whether Wikimedian or otherwise - should be celebrated. At the core of
>> our movement is the belief that knowledge belongs to everyone, and the
>> Foundation is firmly against efforts by anyone to stand in the way of the
>> flow of verifiable information in whatever forum it is shared. I believe,
>> as is the way with all Wikimedians, that the path to a better world is to
>> ensure people everywhere have access to knowledge, and that we, as
>> collective societies, should provide them the tools to assess the accuracy
>> of the information they encounter. Censorship is not the solution.
>>
>> If you have information to share about this situation or about other
>> potential threats of persecution to the safety of Wikimedia volunteers due
>> to their good faith contributions to the projects, please share with
>> talktohumanrig...@wikimedia.org. The team is quite busy and may not be
>> able to respond to all communications bec

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Media coverage in Germany: Enterprise / Advocacy

[Amir Sarabadani]

Thank you for fixing that mistake but again. If anyone were paid above
$187,000 they would show up in the main list and only 12 people are there.
And again it doesn't make sense with assuming c-levels and the highest paid
employees in WMF being paid a little above "average".

Andreas Kolbe  schrieb am So., 30. Jan. 2022, 03:37:

> Amir,
>
> You say, "it was only 12 were paid more than $100,000 (at least according
> to the form)."
>
> Part VII of the Form 990 (page 8) states, in line 2 (under the table of
> highest earners you mention),
>
> "Total number of individuals (including but not limited to those listed
> above) who received more than $100,000 of reportable compensation from the
> organization – *165*"
>
> That is more than half of all employees (actual employees, as opposed to
> freelancers).
>
> Andreas
>
> On Sun, Jan 30, 2022 at 2:29 AM Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
>
>> The $200,000 average salary for each employee is plain wrong.
>>
>> If you look at 2019 Form:
>> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/8/85/Wikimedia_Foundation_2019_Form_990.pdf
>> In that form, there is a section (Section VII) for the highest paid
>> employees and requires WMF to report any employee who was paid more than
>> "$100,000 from the organization and any related organizations". And only 11
>> people in all of WMF were paid more than $200,000 in that FY and the
>> highest paid employee took a little less than $400,000, and in total with
>> the rest it was only 12 were paid more than $100,000 (at least according to
>> the form).
>>
>> There are lots of complicating factors, including the fact that most WMF
>> "employees" live outside of the US and thus are hired through the Employer
>> of Record (EoR) system. So they show up as contractors in the list of staff
>> and I'm not sure where their expenses show up in Form 990. Staff
>> compensation gets adjusted to where they live and usually (virtually all
>> but not sure) it's less than salaries paid in the bay area due to the fact
>> that simply living in SF (and bay area) is expensive.
>>
>> If you combine total expenses of WMF with personnel expenses (~80M) and
>> divide that to 400 (~ number of staff in 2019), you might get $200,000 per
>> person but that includes data center expenses, buying hardware expenses,
>> network expenses, money paid for renting offices, electricity bills of the
>> dcs and offices, travel expenses, basically anything you can imagine except
>> grants.
>>
>> (In my volunteer capacity, It's weekend)
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 30, 2022 at 2:38 AM Risker  wrote:
>>
>>> I don't think there is any such source.  In another thread, Andreas also
>>> states that there are over 800 WMF and affiliate employees (which is
>>> probably true); however, that would mean that *just salaries* would come to
>>> more than the 2021-22 annual budget.[1]  (i.e. - 800 employees x $200,000
>>> each = $160 million; 2021-22 budget is $150 million. That is taking the
>>> smaller number of "over 800 employee" from the other post and "over
>>> $200,000 per employee" from this one.)  While I have no doubt that salaries
>>> and benefits make up the majority of expenditures in both the WMF itself
>>> and the WMF and affiliates together, I think these statements are
>>> exaggerations.
>>>
>>> Risker/Anne
>>>
>>>
>>> [1]
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019/Annual_Plan_2021-2022
>>>
>>> On Sat, 29 Jan 2022 at 20:04, Alex Monk  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Do you have a source for that number?
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, 29 Jan 2022 at 20:38, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> As for nobody at Wikimedia profiting off the free content created by
>>>>> volunteers, that is relative. WMF salary costs currently average over
>>>>> $200,000 per employee. In most parts of the world, that would be 
>>>>> considered
>>>>> wealthy. A minor issue in the grand scheme of things, certainly, but still
>>>>> relevant to us here at least.
>>>>>
>>>> ___
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>>>> guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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>>>> Public archives at
>>>> https://lists.wikimedi

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Media coverage in Germany: Enterprise / Advocacy

[Amir Sarabadani]

The $200,000 average salary for each employee is plain wrong.

If you look at 2019 Form:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/8/85/Wikimedia_Foundation_2019_Form_990.pdf
In that form, there is a section (Section VII) for the highest paid
employees and requires WMF to report any employee who was paid more than
"$100,000 from the organization and any related organizations". And only 11
people in all of WMF were paid more than $200,000 in that FY and the
highest paid employee took a little less than $400,000, and in total with
the rest it was only 12 were paid more than $100,000 (at least according to
the form).

There are lots of complicating factors, including the fact that most WMF
"employees" live outside of the US and thus are hired through the Employer
of Record (EoR) system. So they show up as contractors in the list of staff
and I'm not sure where their expenses show up in Form 990. Staff
compensation gets adjusted to where they live and usually (virtually all
but not sure) it's less than salaries paid in the bay area due to the fact
that simply living in SF (and bay area) is expensive.

If you combine total expenses of WMF with personnel expenses (~80M) and
divide that to 400 (~ number of staff in 2019), you might get $200,000 per
person but that includes data center expenses, buying hardware expenses,
network expenses, money paid for renting offices, electricity bills of the
dcs and offices, travel expenses, basically anything you can imagine except
grants.

(In my volunteer capacity, It's weekend)

On Sun, Jan 30, 2022 at 2:38 AM Risker  wrote:

> I don't think there is any such source.  In another thread, Andreas also
> states that there are over 800 WMF and affiliate employees (which is
> probably true); however, that would mean that *just salaries* would come to
> more than the 2021-22 annual budget.[1]  (i.e. - 800 employees x $200,000
> each = $160 million; 2021-22 budget is $150 million. That is taking the
> smaller number of "over 800 employee" from the other post and "over
> $200,000 per employee" from this one.)  While I have no doubt that salaries
> and benefits make up the majority of expenditures in both the WMF itself
> and the WMF and affiliates together, I think these statements are
> exaggerations.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019/Annual_Plan_2021-2022
>
> On Sat, 29 Jan 2022 at 20:04, Alex Monk  wrote:
>
>> Do you have a source for that number?
>>
>> On Sat, 29 Jan 2022 at 20:38, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> As for nobody at Wikimedia profiting off the free content created by
>>> volunteers, that is relative. WMF salary costs currently average over
>>> $200,000 per employee. In most parts of the world, that would be considered
>>> wealthy. A minor issue in the grand scheme of things, certainly, but still
>>> relevant to us here at least.
>>>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Re: Uplifting the multimedia stack (was: Community Wishlist Survery)

[Amir Sarabadani]

(Speaking in my volunteer capacity)
I doubt there is any malicious intent by WMF. I personally think the
underlying problem is time. Let me explain.

Fixing a big issue in software takes time (I wrote a long essay about it in
this thread) so it makes sense WMF annual planning to focus on issues
before they get to a level that hinders community's work. The problem is
that an issue doesn't get enough attention if it's not severe enough to
affect users so the cycle of frustration continues. For example, I sent an
email in February 2021, at the start of annual planning, to one of the
directors at product outlining all of the issues of multimedia stack.
Because at that point, it wasn't this bad, it didn't make it to FY21-22
plans. Now I feel like a cassandra. We have similar issues in lots of other
places that will lead to frustration. Load balancers (pybal), dumps, beta
cluster, flagged revs, patrolling tools, etc. etc.

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 8:21 AM bawolff  wrote:

> Honestly, I find the "not in the annual plan" thing more damning than the
> actual issue at hand.
>
> The core competency of WMF is supposed to be keeping the site running. WMF
> does a lot of things, some of them very useful, others less so, but at its
> core its mission is to keep the site going. Everything else should be
> secondary to that.
>
> It should be obvious that running a 300 TB+ media store servicing 70
> billion requests a month requires occasional investment and maintenance
>
> And yet, this was not only not in this year's annual plan, it has been
> ignored in the annual plan for many many years. We didn't get to this state
> by just 1 year of neglect.
>
> Which raises the question - If wmf is not in the business of keeping the
> Wikimedia sites going, what is it in the business of?
>
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 6:01 AM Kunal Mehta  wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 1/1/22 12:10, Asaf Bartov wrote:
>> > It seems to me there are *very few* people who could change status quo,
>> > not much more than a handful: the Foundation's executive leadership (in
>> > its annual planning work, coming up this first quarter of 2022), and
>> the
>> > Board of Trustees.
>>
>> If the goal is to get paid WMF staff to fix the issues, then you're
>> correct. However, I do not believe that as a solution is healthy
>> long-term. The WMF isn't perfect and I don't think it's desirable to
>> have a huge WMF that tries to do everything and has a monopoly on
>> technical prioritization.
>>
>> The technical stack must be co-owned by volunteers and paid staff from
>> different orgs at all levels. It's significantly more straightforward
>> now for trusted volunteers to get NDA/deployment access than it used to
>> be, there are dedicated training sessions, etc.
>>
>> Given that the multimedia stack is neglected and the WMF has given no
>> indication it intends to work on/fix the problem, we should be
>> recruiting people outside the WMF's paid staff who are interested in
>> working on this and give them the necessary access/mentorship to get it
>> done. Given the amount of work on e.g. T40010[1] to develop an
>> alternative SVG renderer, I'm sure those people exist.
>>
>> Take moving Thumbor to Buster[2] for example. That requires
>> forward-porting some Debian packages written Python, and then testing in
>> WMCS that there's no horrible regressions in newer imagemagick, librsvg,
>> etc. I'm always happy to mentor people w/r to Debian packaging (and have
>> done so in the past), and there are a decent amount of people in our
>> community who know Python, and likely others from the Commons community
>> who would be willing to help with testing and dealing with whatever
>> fallout.
>>
>> So I think the status quo can be changed by just about anyone who is
>> motivated to do so, not by trying to convince the WMF to change its
>> prioritization, but just by doing the work. We should be empowering
>> those people rather than continuing to further entrench a WMF technical
>> monopoly.
>>
>> [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T40010
>> [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T216815
>>
>> -- Legoktm
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Uplifting the multimedia stack (was: Community Wishlist Survery)

[Amir Sarabadani]

On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 12:42 AM Strainu  wrote:

> > So where is the best current place to discuss scaling Commons, and all
> that entails?
>
> My impression is that we don't have one. All we hear is "it needs to be
> planned", but there is no transparency on what that planning involves or
> when it actually happens.
>
> > I'd be surprised if the bottleneck were people or budget
>
> The main problem I see is that we end up in this kind of situation.
> Scaling and bug fixing critical features should be part of the annual
> budget. Each line of code deployed to production wikis should have an owner
> and associated maintenance budget each year. Without this, the team will
> not even commit reviews - see the thread on wikitech a few months back
> where a volunteer programmer willing to work on Upload Wizard was basically
> told "We will not review your code. Go fork."
>

There is "code stewardship program" and its goal is to find owners for
components that don't have an owner (or undeploy them). Sometimes it's
successful, sometimes it's not. I have been asking for a maintainer for
FlaggedRevs for four years now, beta cluster is suffering from a similar
situation, etc. etc. It takes time to find an owner for everything, to fill
the gaps in places we don't have a team to handle those (e.g. Multimedia,
you can't just hand over that to team responsible for security for
example). More info at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_stewardship_reviews

>
> > Some examples from recent discussions
>
> Also improvements to the Upload Wizard. There are quite a few open items
> in Phab on this.
>
+1

>
> I really hope you will have better luck than others with bringing this
> issue up in the priority list for next year - multimedia support is growing
> more outdated by the minute.
>
Honestly, the situation is more dire than you think. For example, until a
couple months ago, we didn't have backups for the media files. There was a
live copy in the secondary datacenter but for example if due to a software
issue, we lost some files, they were gone. I would like to thank Jaime
Crespo for pushing for it and implementing the backups.

But I beat my drum again, it's not something you can fix overnight. I'm
sure people are monitoring this mailing list and are aware of the problem.

Best

>
> Strainu
>
> Pe joi, 30 decembrie 2021, Samuel Klein  a scris:
> > Separate thread.  I'm not sure which list is appropriate.
> > ... but not all the way to sentience.
> >
> > The annual community wishlist survey (implemented by a small team,
> possibly in isolation?) may not be the mechanism for prioritizing large
> changes, but the latter also deserves a community-curated priority queue.
> To complement the staff-maintained priorities in phab ~
> > For core challenges (like Commons stability and capacity), I'd be
> surprised if the bottleneck were people or budget.  We do need a shared
> understanding of what issues are most important and most urgent, and how to
> solve them. For instance, a way to turn Amir's recent email about the
> problem (and related phab tickets) into a family of persistent,
> implementable specs and proposals and their articulated obstacles.
> > An issue tracker like phab is good for tracking the progress and
> dependencies of agreed-upon tasks, but weak for discussing what is
> important, what we know about it, how to address it. And weak for
> discussing ecosystem-design issues that are important and need persistent
> updating but don't have a simple checklist of steps.
> > So where is the best current place to discuss scaling Commons, and all
> that entails?  Some examples from recent discussions (most from the wm-l
> thread below):
> > - Uploads: Support for large file uploads / Keeping bulk upload tools
> online
> > - Video: Debugging + rolling out the videojs player
> > - Formats: Adding support for CML and dozens of other common high-demand
> file formats
> > - Thumbs: Updating thumbor and librsvg
> > - Search: WCQS still down, noauth option wanted for tools
> > - General: Finish implementing redesign of the image table
> >
> > SJ
> > On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 6:26 AM Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> I'm not debating your note. It is very valid that we lack proper
> support for multimedia stack. I myself wrote a detailed rant on how broken
> it is [1] but three notes:
> >>  - Fixing something like this takes time, you need to assign the budget
> for it (which means it has to be done during the annual planning) and if
> gets approved, you need to start it with the fiscal year (meaning July
> 2022) and then hire (meaning

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Community Wishlist Survey 2022 is coming. Help us and prepare

[Amir Sarabadani]

I'm not debating your note. It is very valid that we lack proper support
for multimedia stack. I myself wrote a detailed rant on how broken it is
[1] but three notes:
 - Fixing something like this takes time, you need to assign the budget for
it (which means it has to be done during the annual planning) and if gets
approved, you need to start it with the fiscal year (meaning July 2022) and
then hire (meaning, write JD, do recruitment, interview lots of people, get
them hired) which can take from several months to years. Once they are
hired, you need to onboard them and let them learn about our technical
infrastructure which takes at least two good months. Software engineering
is not magic, it takes time, blood and sweat. [2]
 - Making another team focus on multimedia requires changes in planning,
budget, OKR, etc. etc. Are we sure moving the focus of teams is a good
idea? Most teams are already focusing on vital parts of wikimedia and
changing the focus will turn this into a whack-a-mole game where we fix
multimedia but now we have critical issues in security or performance.
 - Voting Wishlist survey is a good band-aid in the meantime. To at least
address the worst parts for now.

I don't understand your point tbh, either you think it's a good idea to
make requests for improvements in multimedia in the wishlist survey or you
think it's not. If you think it's not, then it's offtopic to this thread.

[1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/WMPZHMXSLQJ6GONAVTFLDFFMPNJDVORS/
[2] There is a classic book in this topic called "The Mythical Man-month"

On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 11:41 AM Gnangarra  wrote:

> we have to vote for regular maintenance and support for
> essential functions like uploading files which is the core mission of
> Wikimedia Commons
>
> On Wed, 29 Dec 2021 at 17:32, Amir Sarabadani  wrote:
>
>> The wishlist survey is defined as:
>> > The Community Wishlist Survey is an annual survey that allows
>> contributors to the Wikimedia projects to propose and vote for tools and
>> platform improvements
>>
>> That doesn't necessarily translate into just "new tools". The community
>> can wish for better support of multimedia stack and improvements on the
>> multimedia platform and If it gets enough votes, I'm hopeful it'll be
>> picked up.
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 8:02 AM Željko Blaće  wrote:
>>
>>> Nice. This looks much better than before. Previously it felt so many
>>> people had high hopes for projects that are outside of capacities that are
>>> committed to this project. I feel this needs to be a super clear fact from
>>> the start and not ask for the global community to commit XYZ number of
>>> hours in the actions of promoting, translating, proposing and decision
>>> making processes when developers can commit far less back to the same
>>> community. Otherwise it feels like unbalanced work from a more holistic
>>> perspective, but this is also non-exceptional...no?
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
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>
>
>
> --
> GN.
> * 2021*
> *Celebrating 20 years of Wikipedia*
>
>
> Wikimania: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gnangarra
> Noongarpedia: https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/nys/Main_Page
> My print shop: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Gnangarra/shop?asc=u
>
>
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> https://lists.wikimedia.or

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Community Wishlist Survey 2022 is coming. Help us and prepare

[Amir Sarabadani]

The wishlist survey is defined as:
> The Community Wishlist Survey is an annual survey that allows
contributors to the Wikimedia projects to propose and vote for tools and
platform improvements

That doesn't necessarily translate into just "new tools". The community can
wish for better support of multimedia stack and improvements on the
multimedia platform and If it gets enough votes, I'm hopeful it'll be
picked up.

On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 8:02 AM Željko Blaće  wrote:

> Nice. This looks much better than before. Previously it felt so many
> people had high hopes for projects that are outside of capacities that are
> committed to this project. I feel this needs to be a super clear fact from
> the start and not ask for the global community to commit XYZ number of
> hours in the actions of promoting, translating, proposing and decision
> making processes when developers can commit far less back to the same
> community. Otherwise it feels like unbalanced work from a more holistic
> perspective, but this is also non-exceptional...no?
> ___
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> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: 100$ million dollars and still obsolete

[Amir Sarabadani]

Well, if we need to have better support for multimedia, first we need to
give some attention to the existing system that is basically falling apart.
Let me give you some examples.

Thumbor, the software that builds small sizes of the images is on
deprecated infrastructure, on EOL python version (python2), uses an
extremely old fork of the upstream and does not have an owner. And this is
a pretty critical software, if it goes down, virtually no image can be
shown in all of Wikipedia (including all SVG files). Because of that, we
can't move it to a newer infrastructure (kubernetes), make it use a more
modern python version or upstream code, to make it use a more modern
version of svg converter to fix countless svg bugs the current system has
[1]. It in itself is blocking adding more features on all of Wikipedia. For
example, as a certified science nerd, I want to add support for chemical
markup files (.bxr, etc.) that would enrich our chemistry articles [2] but
well, it's blocked on thumbor being unmaintained.

The old video player, kultura, is still in production and used quite
heavily. The replacement media player exists but has some bugs that are
rather easy to fix and unblock further rolling out. But because no one is
on this task, it's basically a group of volunteers (including yours truly)
struggling to find the time to work on it. [3]. It would give a slightly
more modern look to our media player.

This is mostly fixed but worth mentioning, the image table in commons was
bigger than 300GB compressed (and 600GB uncompressed), it would take 15
hours to take a simple backup and basically a ticking bomb given how
heavily it is used. Commons went readonly and caused a big outage so
technically it was a bomb that exploded already once. The problem was
metadata of pdf files and djvu files were massive, the pdf files got fixed
by Tim Starling and I (I did it in my volunteer capacity) which in turn
reduced 200GB from it. And now we are working on fixing djvu. [4] Again in
volunteer capacity. This work is actually blocking redesign of the image
table to make it more useful [5] or practically any change that would
impact size of tables in commons.

The problems have passed the point of blocking improvements and adding more
features, they are reaching the point of actually bringing down our systems
and bleeding to the rest of our systems. And it all boils down to not
having a dedicated team on multimedia but in all fairness, it's not
something you can fix overnight. You need to grow, hire, plan, etc. etc.

Best
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193352#5984544
[2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T18491
[3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T248418
[4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T275268
[5] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T28741

On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 1:08 PM Juergen Fenn  wrote:

>
>
>
> Am 16.10.21 um 16:25 Uhr schrieb Yaroslav Blanter:
> >
> > In a few years, there will be tools for editing video. If by that time
> > we are not ready to incorporate video at full scale to Wikimedia
> > projects, we will be where AOL is now.
>
>
> We already _are_ there. When we tried to relaunch German Wikiversity
> almost ten years ago we sadly had to shrug and decline offers to bring
> converted classroom scenarios to Wikiversity because Commons did not
> accept mp4 videos and we could not include frames from YouTube where it
> all happens. Period. That was the end of online learning with Wikimedia.
> (Fair enough, there were more reasons why we did not succeed.)
>
> BUT: When we incorporate multimedia content at full scale it should be
> clear that Wikimedia is NOT YouTube. We won't accept everything. We need
> high qualitity educational content. Only.
>
> Regards,
> Jürgen.
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Blocking users for Palestinian flag

[Amir Sarabadani]

If anyone is interested to know about this incident. Send me a private
message and I can explain better.

Best

On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 8:17 PM 4nn1l2 <4nn1l2.w...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> Persian Wikipedia has reached a new level in their arbitrary and nonesense
> adminship. They have blocked me for placing a Palestinian flag on my
> userpage (of course they have already removed it from my userpage and you
> need to see a previous revision of my userpage).
>
>
> https://fa.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%B1:4nn1l2&oldid=32191672
>
> Another user has nominated the file for deletion on Commons!
>
> I am admin on Commons myself and I'm fed up with how fawiki is managed.
> They block users for the most friviolous reasons.
>
> What does this mean?
>
> Yours faithfully,
> User:4nn1l2
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Mailman2 is now shut down (T52864)

[Amir Sarabadani]

That's it. That's the email.
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[Wikimedia-l] Mailman3 is now deployed to production, mailing lists are upgrading

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,

TLDR: Mailman3 is now available for general use, all mailing lists will be
migrated in the next couple of weeks, providing everyone with a much better
mailing list experience. You will notice some changes, let us know if you
run into issues.

Long version:
We're happy to announce that Mailman3 is available for general use and some
have already been migrated. You can find the current mailing lists that
have been migrated at [1] and their archives in "hyperkitty"[2].

Mailman3 is a full rewrite of our previous mailing list software
(Mailman2), and the migration is long overdue. Some key new features that
we want to highlight:
* One user account (no more monthly password reminder emails or list
passwords)
* Ability to search through archives
* Posting through a web interface
* A web interface that doesn't look like its from the early 2000s
* Better security of accounts and messages

The first mailing list migrated was LGBT@ and you can see its mailing list
page in [3]. We are going to slowly migrate the rest of mailing lists (all
+700 of them), you can track the work in [4]. All new mailing lists from
now on will be only on Mailman3.

This means:
* We will send an email to admins of any mailing list right before
starting the upgrade process, and once it's finished.
* The link to subscribe to lists will change, please update your wiki
pages, documentation, etc. We will provide redirects though.
* Links to old archives for public mailing lists won't break. It will
stay at it is now and will become redirects shortly. But URLs of archived
emails of private mailing lists will break. This is necessary for improving
security of mailing lists. Keep it in mind that in the new system you can
easily search in the archives.

Given that in Mailman3, you can simply have one central account for all of
your mailing lists. We highly encourage you to make one [1], that way, you
can easily control what mailing lists you are subscribed to, easily join
new mailing lists and much more. This also makes administrating and
moderating mailing lists much easier.

If you have any questions or you encounter any issues, let us know! You can
create a Phabricator ticket ("Wikimedia-Mailing-lists" project) or ping us
on IRC in #wikimedia-tech.

We hope that Mailman3 brings much needed love to our mailing lists without
breaking your workflows (like reading mails by piping telnet into less or
something like that).

The umbrella ticket for the work: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T52864

[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/
[2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/
[3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/lgbt.lists.wikimedia.org/
[4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T280322

Best,
Kunal (Legoktm) and Amir (Ladsgroup)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Logo of MediaWiki has changed

[Amir Sarabadani]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 4:53 AM Gnangarra  wrote:

> Hi
>
> So Sorry, I immediately associated it with the logo BP rolled out in the
> late 1990's except with new colours.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP
>

See
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Proposal_for_changing_logo_of_MediaWiki,_2020/Round_1#Comments_(6)
They are similar only to the extent any two stylized round flower logos
would look similar.

Also, this has been cleared against registered trademarks. That's why it
took five months from the selection process until rolling it out.


> On Thu, 1 Apr 2021 at 10:29, Florence Devouard 
> wrote:
>
>> Nice outcome. Congrats to all
>>
>> Anthere
>>
>> PS: yet a little bit sad though :(
>>
>>
>> Le 01/04/2021 à 01:27, Amir Sarabadani a écrit :
>>
>> Hello,
>> After more than one year of design, discussion, vote, iteration, and
>> months of legal work, I’m happy to announce that the logo of MediaWiki has
>> been officially changed. This applies to both the software and logo of
>> https://mediawiki.org.
>>
>> The old logo of MediaWiki was adopted slightly more than fifteen years
>> ago. This logo was featuring the nice concept of a sunflower representing
>> diversity, constant growth and also wilderness.
>>
>> However, with years, the logo became outdated and we realized that it had
>> several problems, including but not limited to:
>>
>>- It was a bitmap picture so it’s unusable in large sizes
>>- Its high details (“too realistic”) made it unusable in small sizes
>>- Its fixed and realistic style made it hard to have variations or
>>adaptations
>>
>> Most, virtually all, software products use a simpler and more abstract
>> form following basic logo design guidelines and best-practices to avoid
>> above (and more) issues. For example, docker, kubernetes, Ubuntu, Vue.js,
>> React, Apache Kafka and many more.
>>
>> You can find the discussion of changing the logo in
>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Proposal_for_changing_logo_of_MediaWiki,_2020
>> . As you can see on this page, a lot of interesting practical and
>> theoretical exchanges happened, leading to the final vote and decision.
>>
>> The new logo represents a collection of projects built on our engine:
>> each petal is one of the many wikis that we support, and the lack of an
>> explicit core shows that we are part of these projects, as well as and they
>> are part of MediaWiki. The new logo also reflects the fact that evolution
>> never stops, and like the petals of a flower, the development of each
>> project, the growth of each community built on our engine allows everyone
>> else to grow.
>>
>> The designer of the new logo is [[User:Serhio Magpie]]. With the nice
>> abstraction baked-in, you can use it in large or small sizes or you can
>> adapt it for different usecases (there’s one already for mediawiki on
>> docker: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T274678). There is a logo
>> guideline for MediaWiki now:
>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:MediaWiki_logo_guidelines
>>
>> We already deployed changes to mediawiki.org and landed related patches
>> on master, meaning from 1.36 release onwards, it’ll come with the new logo.
>> You can follow the work of rolling it out in
>> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T268230.
>>
>> I humbly ask Wikimedians to update their wikis, for example usages on the
>> main pages, Wikipedia articles, templates, and more. You can use the logos
>> in this category on Commons. The files are already protected against upload
>> vandalism.
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:MediaWiki_logo_(2020)
>>
>> A big thank you to all who helped this project to finish. From designers,
>> community members, people who voted and discussed it intensively for
>> months, Wikimedia Legal for doing all the necessary work for transferring
>> the rights, clearing it and filing it for trademark. And many many more
>> people.
>>
>> Best
>> --
>> Amir (he/him)
>>
>>
>> ___
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>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
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>> 
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [MediaWiki-l] Logo of MediaWiki has changed

[Amir Sarabadani]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 6:02 AM Rehman Abubakr 
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Congratulations to Serhio, Amir, and the rest of the team, for the
> relatively smooth transition.
>
> A quick comment: I noticed that the favicon is still showing the old
> version. Is that due to an update lag, accidental omission, or is it
> intentional?
>

You just need to clear the cache. Ctrl + Shift + R.

>
> Yours truly,
>
> *Rehman <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rehman>*
>
>
> ------
> *From:* MediaWiki-l  on behalf
> of Amir Sarabadani 
> *Sent:* 01 April 2021 04:57
> *To:* wikitech-l ; MediaWiki
> announcements and site admin list ;
> Wikimedia Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [MediaWiki-l] Logo of MediaWiki has changed
>
> Hello,
> After more than one year of design, discussion, vote, iteration, and
> months of legal work, I’m happy to announce that the logo of MediaWiki has
> been officially changed. This applies to both the software and logo of
> https://mediawiki.org.
>
> The old logo of MediaWiki was adopted slightly more than fifteen years
> ago. This logo was featuring the nice concept of a sunflower representing
> diversity, constant growth and also wilderness.
>
> However, with years, the logo became outdated and we realized that it had
> several problems, including but not limited to:
>
>- It was a bitmap picture so it’s unusable in large sizes
>- Its high details (“too realistic”) made it unusable in small sizes
>- Its fixed and realistic style made it hard to have variations or
>adaptations
>
> Most, virtually all, software products use a simpler and more abstract
> form following basic logo design guidelines and best-practices to avoid
> above (and more) issues. For example, docker, kubernetes, Ubuntu, Vue.js,
> React, Apache Kafka and many more.
>
> You can find the discussion of changing the logo in
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Proposal_for_changing_logo_of_MediaWiki,_2020
> . As you can see on this page, a lot of interesting practical and
> theoretical exchanges happened, leading to the final vote and decision.
>
> The new logo represents a collection of projects built on our engine: each
> petal is one of the many wikis that we support, and the lack of an explicit
> core shows that we are part of these projects, as well as and they are part
> of MediaWiki. The new logo also reflects the fact that evolution never
> stops, and like the petals of a flower, the development of each project,
> the growth of each community built on our engine allows everyone else to
> grow.
>
> The designer of the new logo is [[User:Serhio Magpie]]. With the nice
> abstraction baked-in, you can use it in large or small sizes or you can
> adapt it for different usecases (there’s one already for mediawiki on
> docker: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T274678). There is a logo
> guideline for MediaWiki now:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:MediaWiki_logo_guidelines
>
> We already deployed changes to mediawiki.org and landed related patches
> on master, meaning from 1.36 release onwards, it’ll come with the new logo.
> You can follow the work of rolling it out in
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T268230.
>
> I humbly ask Wikimedians to update their wikis, for example usages on the
> main pages, Wikipedia articles, templates, and more. You can use the logos
> in this category on Commons. The files are already protected against upload
> vandalism.
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:MediaWiki_logo_(2020)
>
> A big thank you to all who helped this project to finish. From designers,
> community members, people who voted and discussed it intensively for
> months, Wikimedia Legal for doing all the necessary work for transferring
> the rights, clearing it and filing it for trademark. And many many more
> people.
>
> Best
> --
> Amir (he/him)
>
> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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>


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[Wikimedia-l] Logo of MediaWiki has changed

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,
After more than one year of design, discussion, vote, iteration, and months
of legal work, I’m happy to announce that the logo of MediaWiki has been
officially changed. This applies to both the software and logo of
https://mediawiki.org.

The old logo of MediaWiki was adopted slightly more than fifteen years ago.
This logo was featuring the nice concept of a sunflower representing
diversity, constant growth and also wilderness.

However, with years, the logo became outdated and we realized that it had
several problems, including but not limited to:

   - It was a bitmap picture so it’s unusable in large sizes
   - Its high details (“too realistic”) made it unusable in small sizes
   - Its fixed and realistic style made it hard to have variations or
   adaptations

Most, virtually all, software products use a simpler and more abstract form
following basic logo design guidelines and best-practices to avoid above
(and more) issues. For example, docker, kubernetes, Ubuntu, Vue.js, React,
Apache Kafka and many more.

You can find the discussion of changing the logo in
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Proposal_for_changing_logo_of_MediaWiki,_2020
. As you can see on this page, a lot of interesting practical and
theoretical exchanges happened, leading to the final vote and decision.

The new logo represents a collection of projects built on our engine: each
petal is one of the many wikis that we support, and the lack of an explicit
core shows that we are part of these projects, as well as and they are part
of MediaWiki. The new logo also reflects the fact that evolution never
stops, and like the petals of a flower, the development of each project,
the growth of each community built on our engine allows everyone else to
grow.

The designer of the new logo is [[User:Serhio Magpie]]. With the nice
abstraction baked-in, you can use it in large or small sizes or you can
adapt it for different usecases (there’s one already for mediawiki on
docker: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T274678). There is a logo
guideline for MediaWiki now:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:MediaWiki_logo_guidelines

We already deployed changes to mediawiki.org and landed related patches on
master, meaning from 1.36 release onwards, it’ll come with the new logo.
You can follow the work of rolling it out in
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T268230.

I humbly ask Wikimedians to update their wikis, for example usages on the
main pages, Wikipedia articles, templates, and more. You can use the logos
in this category on Commons. The files are already protected against upload
vandalism. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:MediaWiki_logo_(2020)

A big thank you to all who helped this project to finish. From designers,
community members, people who voted and discussed it intensively for
months, Wikimedia Legal for doing all the necessary work for transferring
the rights, clearing it and filing it for trademark. And many many more
people.

Best
-- 
Amir (he/him)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Test Mailman3 in production

[Amir Sarabadani]

I think the subject line is the only thing that matters but I also want to
emphasize that unlike mailman2, you can just have a central account for all
of your mailing lists. Confirm your email when registering a new user
(which you can just click on a link) and everything will be pretty
straightforward afterwards.

HTH


On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 2:11 PM Deb Tankersley 
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've started to play with the interface, but questioning a bit the
> instructions given (for clarity purposes) when you're signing up for a list:
>
> Before you can start using GNU Mailman at this site, you must first confirm
>> that this is your email address.  You can do this by replying to this
>> message,
>> keeping the Subject header intact.
>>
>
> Should there be additional instructions on if something is needed in the
> body of that reply email, or that it can be empty and just keep the subject
> line the same?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Deb
>
> --
>
> deb tankersley (she/her)
>
> senior program manager, engineering
>
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 3:40 AM Pankaj Jangid 
> wrote:
>
>> Amir Sarabadani  writes:
>>
>> > tl;dr: https://lists-next.wikimedia.org is running mailman3. Please
>> help us
>> > test the software before we upgrade the real mailing list server.
>>
>> Indeed this is great news. I have subscribed to a couple of mailing
>> lists that are already using v3. And it really makes it easy to
>> manage. Thanks for working on this.
>>
>> One question. I subscribe to this list via the NNTP bridge hosted at
>> gmane.io. Will the change make any difference at that end? I mean do the
>> administrators of Gmane require any change?
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>> Pankaj Jangid
>>
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Test Mailman3 in production

[Amir Sarabadani]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 12:07 PM Alphos OGame 
wrote:

> Hello Amir, hello all,
>
> Fantastic news !
>
> Quick side question : whatever will happen to the passwords that we kept
> on post-it notes sticked to our monitors for lack of frequent use or good
> enough cognitive skills ?
> Joke aside, will there be a site-wide password purge once v3 is deployed,
> or shall we keep on using our old passwords, with the currently plaintext
> passwords stored in files simply hashed and stored in the new database ?
>

You shouldn't reuse those passwords from the old mailman as they are stored
in plain text but the good thing (and a rather important thing) about
mailman3 is that you can make a central account for all mailing lists and
then use that instead. So there won't be a need to store twenty different
passwords for each mailing list you are a member of (or admin/moderator).
Hope just one more password would be okay ;)

Best

>
> Whatever the case, fantastic news :-)
>
> Roger / Alphos
>
>
> Le 25 mars 2021 à 08:58, Amir Sarabadani  a écrit :
>
> Hello,
>
> tl;dr: https://lists-next.wikimedia.org is running mailman3. Please help
> us test the software before we upgrade the real mailing list server.
>
> Kunal and I have been working on deploying the new mailman (version 3) to
> replace mailman2 serving https://lists.wikimedia.org and powering all of
> our mailing lists.
>
> Mailman2 is a dinosaur that should have gone extinct years ago. Pretty old
> user interface (especially for admins and moderators), storing passwords in
> plain text, lack of any database (everything is file on disk), pretty old
> code, lack of ability to search in archives or send email from web
> interface, running on EOL python (python2), encoding issues with non-Latin
> languages, hard to redact archives, and the list goes on and on.
>
> The new version has been developed/puppetized/tested in the Cloud and is
> now ready for proper testing! Give it a try:
> https://lists-next.wikimedia.org. We have created some mailing lists you
> can join and can test. If you want to test the experience as a list
> administrator/moderator, we can give those permissions out as well.
>
> WARNING: All data on the lists-next server will be deleted after the test
> period is over.
>
> We will also need help updating documentation on wikis and elsewhere.
>
> If you find any bugs/issues (yay!), please file a ticket in the
> “Wikimedia-Mailing-lists” Phabricator project and we’ll check it out.
>
> In the coming days/weeks will also import some public mailing lists from
> the old version to the new version to check archive size, search index
> size, and other aspects. There are other TODOs left as well like
> monitoring, logging, anti-abuse, etc.
>
> Slowly and after testing (hopefully soon), we expect to deploy this on
> lists.wikimedia.org and mailing lists one by one or in batches can be
> upgraded to the 21st century.
>
> The overall task tracking this project is T52864
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T52864> and a big thank you people who
> are helping this move forward.
>
> Regards,
> Kunal and Amir
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Test Mailman3 in production

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,

tl;dr: https://lists-next.wikimedia.org is running mailman3. Please help us
test the software before we upgrade the real mailing list server.

Kunal and I have been working on deploying the new mailman (version 3) to
replace mailman2 serving https://lists.wikimedia.org and powering all of
our mailing lists.

Mailman2 is a dinosaur that should have gone extinct years ago. Pretty old
user interface (especially for admins and moderators), storing passwords in
plain text, lack of any database (everything is file on disk), pretty old
code, lack of ability to search in archives or send email from web
interface, running on EOL python (python2), encoding issues with non-Latin
languages, hard to redact archives, and the list goes on and on.

The new version has been developed/puppetized/tested in the Cloud and is
now ready for proper testing! Give it a try:
https://lists-next.wikimedia.org. We have created some mailing lists you
can join and can test. If you want to test the experience as a list
administrator/moderator, we can give those permissions out as well.

WARNING: All data on the lists-next server will be deleted after the test
period is over.

We will also need help updating documentation on wikis and elsewhere.

If you find any bugs/issues (yay!), please file a ticket in the
“Wikimedia-Mailing-lists” Phabricator project and we’ll check it out.

In the coming days/weeks will also import some public mailing lists from
the old version to the new version to check archive size, search index
size, and other aspects. There are other TODOs left as well like
monitoring, logging, anti-abuse, etc.

Slowly and after testing (hopefully soon), we expect to deploy this on
lists.wikimedia.org and mailing lists one by one or in batches can be
upgraded to the 21st century.

The overall task tracking this project is T52864
 and a big thank you people who
are helping this move forward.

Regards,

Kunal and Amir
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia España has been recognized as a charity in Spain

[Amir Sarabadani]

That's great news! Congratulations to everyone involved in the process!

On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 12:14 PM Santiago Navarro <
santiagonava...@wikimedia.es> wrote:

> Hello. I have the pleasure to inform that last Friday, 19th February
> 2021, Wikimedia España was recognized as a charity (entidad de utilidad
> pública) in Spain by the Ministry of the Interior and it was published
> at the Boletín Oficial del Estado (Official State Gazette). This is a
> recognition of the hard work the association has been doing last 10
> years in Spain. To be recognized, it has been a long process, and we
> were waiting for an answer for this application since the end of 2019. I
> want to say thanks to all people who worked to achieve that.
>
> Here you have a short entry in our website about that:
>
> https://www.wikimedia.es/2021/02/19/wikimedia-espana-declarada-entidad-de-utilidad-publica/
> Here the text of the Boletín Oficial del Estado:
> https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2021-2626
>
> --
> Santiago Navarro Sanz
> Presidente
> Wikimedia España
> www.wikimedia.es
>
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>


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation commitment of support for LGBT+ volunteers

[Amir Sarabadani]

The list of userboxes was cached and just needed a null edit. The TfD is
here: https://w.wiki/r9U

There is no AGF for a user that identifies as a Nazi, the AGF is about the
whole wiki. In other words, you can't just say a wiki is hostile against
LGBT+ users because someone somewhere in that wiki said he likes Hitler
[1]. That's a strawman fallacy. As a CU, 'crat, admin and oversight of that
wiki who put a huge picture of two guys kissing in his user page, I can say
fawiki is in much better shape than lots of Wikis in matter of supporting
LGBT+ volunteers and giving them a safe space.

[1] The weird part is that the same user has another userbox saying "This
user believes in equality of rights of gay peopole" (but OTOH, if a person
would be properly rational, they have not been a Nazi in the first place).

On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 7:31 PM Fæ  wrote:

> Pages that include "this user likes Hitler" with a portrait of Hitler,
> pages which proudly declare that users are against LGBT+ rights, the
> existence of LGBT+ people or the rights of LGBT+ people to have
> children, do not require anyone to "assume good faith". Those are
> disturbing and hateful things to publish on any web site, and WMF
> projects are being misused to host them.
>
> Painting this in such a way that whistle-blowers should not highlight
> these cases because the complainant looks like they are saying "this
> wiki is totally bad" misses the point entirely. Claiming that the
> problem is solved once a userbox is deleted, but no other action was
> taken by local administrators, or the WMF Office, is sticking a
> plaster on a broken leg.
>
> The facts are that 28 user accounts were mentioned in this email
> thread that actively misuse their user pages. Nothing has happened
> from the perspective of those accounts, and they probably firmly
> believe they have done nothing wrong. Local editors should be worried
> that their project remains a hostile environment.
>
> By the way, the "Hitler userbox" was never a userbox. It's still on
> display, so I'm unsure what actions you refer to.
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2020 at 17:28, Amir Sarabadani  wrote:
> >
> > And it got deleted, in total it lived under a month and it would have
> been deleted sooner if someone saw it sooner. Instead of using this as an
> argument to say "this wiki is totally bad" assume good faith.
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 8:33 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello,
> >> I just want to mention that the userbox was created twenty days ago and
> is now being discussed for deletion.
> >>
> >> On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 8:23 PM Fæ  wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi Maggie,
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for publishing this nice and clear restatement of WMF's
> >>> commitment to a safe and non-hostile environment for Wikimedia LGBT+
> >>> volunteers and those of our community who are a part of minority
> >>> groups that we see unfairly targeted with harassment, hounding and
> >>> aggression across our projects. This positive response was
> >>> impressively fast after working together to share and discuss better
> >>> responses to the feedback from members of our WM-LGBT+ user group,
> >>> which benefits from a highly varied global membership.
> >>>
> >>> There will be many readers of this email list that have no direct
> >>> experience of the problematic behaviours or the systematic
> >>> "unwelcoming" environment that can be experienced across our projects
> >>> by minority groups. Here are two illustrative examples that should
> >>> raise an eyebrow. These samples are easy to understand and show this
> >>> is not a question of folks being too "thin-skinned":
> >>>
> >>> * Userboxes and user pages may include unwelcoming statements in the
> >>> guise of open discrimination through to unpleasant "jokes". Many users
> >>> are under the impression that user pages and user talk pages are
> >>> semi-private and fair game for free speech and is tolerated even to
> >>> the extent of being direct hate speech. Examples include using
> >>> swastika or fascist images and claiming membership of hate groups.
> >>> This is "tolerated" and some are embedded in templates used for years
> >>> as well as on specific user pages. When a LGBT+ Wikimedia contributor
> >>> is faced with user pages that openly and proud

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation commitment of support for LGBT+ volunteers

[Amir Sarabadani]

And it got deleted, in total it lived under a month and it would have been
deleted sooner if someone saw it sooner. Instead of using this as an
argument to say "this wiki is totally bad" assume good faith.

On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 8:33 PM Amir Sarabadani  wrote:

> Hello,
> I just want to mention that the userbox was created twenty days ago and is
> now being discussed for deletion.
>
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 8:23 PM Fæ  wrote:
>
>> Hi Maggie,
>>
>> Thanks for publishing this nice and clear restatement of WMF's
>> commitment to a safe and non-hostile environment for Wikimedia LGBT+
>> volunteers and those of our community who are a part of minority
>> groups that we see unfairly targeted with harassment, hounding and
>> aggression across our projects. This positive response was
>> impressively fast after working together to share and discuss better
>> responses to the feedback from members of our WM-LGBT+ user group,
>> which benefits from a highly varied global membership.
>>
>> There will be many readers of this email list that have no direct
>> experience of the problematic behaviours or the systematic
>> "unwelcoming" environment that can be experienced across our projects
>> by minority groups. Here are two illustrative examples that should
>> raise an eyebrow. These samples are easy to understand and show this
>> is not a question of folks being too "thin-skinned":
>>
>> * Userboxes and user pages may include unwelcoming statements in the
>> guise of open discrimination through to unpleasant "jokes". Many users
>> are under the impression that user pages and user talk pages are
>> semi-private and fair game for free speech and is tolerated even to
>> the extent of being direct hate speech. Examples include using
>> swastika or fascist images and claiming membership of hate groups.
>> This is "tolerated" and some are embedded in templates used for years
>> as well as on specific user pages. When a LGBT+ Wikimedia contributor
>> is faced with user pages that openly and proudly are against LGBT+
>> people to exist or have a family life, the project in total has to be
>> judged unsafe and hostile. Within our User Group, it is not uncommon
>> to find LGBT+ contributors are scared to even try editing LGBT+
>> related topics on these Wikipedias.[1]
>>
>> * Articles in multiple languages exist that promote nonsensical and
>> defamatory race theories, such as claiming that Nenets (an ethnic
>> group native of arctic Russia) are part of a "neo-Mongoloid" race of
>> humans. These articles appear to deliberately misuse modern genetic
>> research and several have relied on user-created unverifiable and
>> anti-science "genetic maps" hosted on Commons. Some volunteers have
>> been persistently and politely raising these many cases using local
>> Wikipedia discussion, and externally with the WMF with the facts about
>> these defamatory Wikipedias for over a decade. The most common
>> experience is to be dismissed as a fringe lobbyist through to
>> administrators warning you from continuing to try to correct these
>> issues. There has been no systemic response to correct this damaging
>> misinformation, and the Wikipedias the misinformation is hosted on
>> remain corrupted with hostile and racist minority views.[2]
>>
>> Links:
>> 1.
>> *
>> https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D9%88%DB%8C%DA%A9%DB%8C%E2%80%8C%D9%BE%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%A7:%D8%A7%D9%84%DA%AF%D9%88%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C_%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%B1/%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%DB%8C%D9%82&oldid=30403894
>> User interest templates, including a userbox with Hitler portrait,
>> translates to "This user likes Adolf Hitler".
>> * https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:Matt_Paletto User page on
>> Spanish Wikipedia which uses an anti-LGBT rainbow flag for showing
>> they are against same-sex marriage.
>> https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:Matt_Paletto Same user displays
>> the anti-LGBT flag on the Polish Wikipedia stating they are against
>> same-sex couples adopting children. There are at least 11 users on the
>> Polish Wikipedia that use the anti-LGBT flag on their user pages, not
>> as a "joke".
>> * On the English Wikipedia
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Barumbarumba displays a different
>> anti-LGBT symbol to state they are against the "LGBT movement". There
>> are 17 users that have this symbol on their user pages across
>> different Wikipedias.
>>
>> 2.
>> * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T256115 Tracking task 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Foundation commitment of support for LGBT+ volunteers

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,
I just want to mention that the userbox was created twenty days ago and is
now being discussed for deletion.

On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 8:23 PM Fæ  wrote:

> Hi Maggie,
>
> Thanks for publishing this nice and clear restatement of WMF's
> commitment to a safe and non-hostile environment for Wikimedia LGBT+
> volunteers and those of our community who are a part of minority
> groups that we see unfairly targeted with harassment, hounding and
> aggression across our projects. This positive response was
> impressively fast after working together to share and discuss better
> responses to the feedback from members of our WM-LGBT+ user group,
> which benefits from a highly varied global membership.
>
> There will be many readers of this email list that have no direct
> experience of the problematic behaviours or the systematic
> "unwelcoming" environment that can be experienced across our projects
> by minority groups. Here are two illustrative examples that should
> raise an eyebrow. These samples are easy to understand and show this
> is not a question of folks being too "thin-skinned":
>
> * Userboxes and user pages may include unwelcoming statements in the
> guise of open discrimination through to unpleasant "jokes". Many users
> are under the impression that user pages and user talk pages are
> semi-private and fair game for free speech and is tolerated even to
> the extent of being direct hate speech. Examples include using
> swastika or fascist images and claiming membership of hate groups.
> This is "tolerated" and some are embedded in templates used for years
> as well as on specific user pages. When a LGBT+ Wikimedia contributor
> is faced with user pages that openly and proudly are against LGBT+
> people to exist or have a family life, the project in total has to be
> judged unsafe and hostile. Within our User Group, it is not uncommon
> to find LGBT+ contributors are scared to even try editing LGBT+
> related topics on these Wikipedias.[1]
>
> * Articles in multiple languages exist that promote nonsensical and
> defamatory race theories, such as claiming that Nenets (an ethnic
> group native of arctic Russia) are part of a "neo-Mongoloid" race of
> humans. These articles appear to deliberately misuse modern genetic
> research and several have relied on user-created unverifiable and
> anti-science "genetic maps" hosted on Commons. Some volunteers have
> been persistently and politely raising these many cases using local
> Wikipedia discussion, and externally with the WMF with the facts about
> these defamatory Wikipedias for over a decade. The most common
> experience is to be dismissed as a fringe lobbyist through to
> administrators warning you from continuing to try to correct these
> issues. There has been no systemic response to correct this damaging
> misinformation, and the Wikipedias the misinformation is hosted on
> remain corrupted with hostile and racist minority views.[2]
>
> Links:
> 1.
> *
> https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D9%88%DB%8C%DA%A9%DB%8C%E2%80%8C%D9%BE%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%A7:%D8%A7%D9%84%DA%AF%D9%88%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C_%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%B1/%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%DB%8C%D9%82&oldid=30403894
> User interest templates, including a userbox with Hitler portrait,
> translates to "This user likes Adolf Hitler".
> * https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:Matt_Paletto User page on
> Spanish Wikipedia which uses an anti-LGBT rainbow flag for showing
> they are against same-sex marriage.
> https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:Matt_Paletto Same user displays
> the anti-LGBT flag on the Polish Wikipedia stating they are against
> same-sex couples adopting children. There are at least 11 users on the
> Polish Wikipedia that use the anti-LGBT flag on their user pages, not
> as a "joke".
> * On the English Wikipedia
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Barumbarumba displays a different
> anti-LGBT symbol to state they are against the "LGBT movement". There
> are 17 users that have this symbol on their user pages across
> different Wikipedias.
>
> 2.
> * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T256115 Tracking task for systemic
> promotion of scientific racism, raised 6 months ago. There has been no
> non-volunteer action to date.
> *
> https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E3%83%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B4%E3%83%AD%E3%82%A4%E3%83%89
> Japanese Wikipedia with a "neo-Mongoloid" article.
>
> I hope this is helpful for those not normally involved in these issues
> to wonder how we might better show respect and avoid defamation of
> minorities, whilst never having to censor our coverage of all
> (verifiable) human knowledge.
>
> Cheers,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group
>
> On Tue, 8 Dec 2020 at 15:24, Maggie Dennis  wrote:
> >
> > Hello.
> >
> >
> > My name is Maggie Dennis. I’m the Vice President of Community Resilience
> and Sustainability at the Wikimedia Foundation.[1] I oversee the
> Fou

Re: [Wikimedia-l] please NOT to Telegram as first or only communication channel (WAS: Wikimedia 2030: Mark your calendars! We are meeting on Nov. 21-22)

[Amir Sarabadani]

I want to add a funny story. When I used to live in Iran, I couldn't join
any of Wikimedia telegram groups (including three or four wikimedia
hackathons when I was participating in them) because my phone number had
country code of Iran (duh) and Telegram banned users being able to join
large groups for the whole country of Iran on the grounds that lots of
spammers are from Iran which is true. I don't know if it's still the case
or not but this is one of privileges people have and might not notice it
(not to mention the racist behavior of Telegram).

If I can shamelessly promote my project, you can use Wikimedia Chat
instead: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chat (
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2020/09/18/introducing-wikimedia-chat/)

Best

On Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 12:09 PM Željko Blaće  wrote:

> On 10/22/20, Kaarel Vaidla  wrote:
> > How to participate
> ...
> > * Join our Telegram group [2].
>
> It would be amazing if we could embody the values of movement strategy
> whenever we can. Using only Telegram group as recommendation is NOT*.
>
> In general please consider not to endorse commercial and closed source
> software as primary communication channel. It is also bad in terms of
> usability and intensity/velocity of exchanges in conditions and
> context of massive cross-zone/cross-cultural event organizing. Likely
> to be a cute looking mess and info bottleneck. I already have multiple
> Wikimedia Telegram groups that hard to follow and take more personal
> energy then they should at these times of pandemic. Please re-consider
> this!
>
> My arguments are presented on the Telegram group itself and your meta
> page
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations#Use_of_Telegram_for_working_official_communication_for_events_-_pls_NO
>
>
> In Solidarity and with Care
> ~Zblace
>
> *As a queer person without western privileges I can recommend its
> limited use due to phone number privacy and I do also use it myself
> but it should be neither only nor first option.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A Universal Code of Conduct draft for review

[Amir Sarabadani]

I just want to say while I agree IMO there's a growing disconnect in some
parts of WMF with the communities but it's not happening here. In fact it's
also the other way around. Some people in communities and some communities
in general have been growing too disconnected from the framework they are
working in. In the past two weeks I had to go head to head to two
communities on my volunteer developer/sysadmin role and I had to explain no
matter the consensus, you can't enable an extension that would bring down
(literally) not just your wiki but also 900 other ones or ban IP editing
which is widely considered against founding principles of Wikimedia.

Communities are self-governed but they have limits, you can't change the
privacy policy and give admins access to IP, you can't change copyright
policy or terms of use and I don't see any problem with adding one more
framework to make sure we would have a healthier movement (Each community
IMO should build on top of UCoC and won't just rely on it for conduct
policies but this would be the least, the base, the foundation, ..., you
get the idea). Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 11:45 AM Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> As you can see, Dan, your choice of imagery, appreciated and encouraged in
> less buttoned-up journalism, is offensive to some subscribers here.  Your
> strong criticism of the Foundation, on the other hand, is perfectly
> acceptable.
>
> As a professional wordsmith, I am confident you can continue to voice this
> criticism while employing milder imagery, or indeed dispensing with
> figurative language entirely.
>
> A.
>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 12:31 PM Dan Szymborski 
> wrote:
>
> > I am absolutely flabbergasted that a generic reference of an organization
> > to flatulence, something we see in rated-G television isn't considered
> > "collegial" enough yet the actions that the WMF has taken over the last
> 18
> > months, many of which were pushed by people on this list *are* considered
> > collegial.
> >
> > If a joke that would be appropriate for a four-year-old leads to special
> > moderation, what action ought be taken for someone on the list pushing
> the
> > failure of a collaborative process that WMF is foisting upon the
> community?
> > One of the people "doth protesting too much" about the reference is also
> > someone banned from English Wikipedia for a whole litany of *actual*
> things
> > that took up countless hours of community time, including making legal
> > threats based on finding offense in normal Wikipedia actions.
> >
> > I am a longtime, accredited journalist, possibly even slightly respected
> in
> > the field -- though there's always that risk of Dunning-Kruger -- who has
> > written for a ton of outlets and there's not an editor in the world that
> > I've worked with who would've asked me to change the *very* gentle
> wording.
> > If anything, I was too mild. *I'm* grossly offended by the WMF's actions
> > over the last 18 months. *I'm* grossly offended by the perversion of a
> free
> > information movement being converted into a third-tier social media app.
> > *I'm* grossly offended by board policies that empower the vested, the
> > connected, the politically adept to judge the weak and the voiceless.
> *I'm*
> > grossly offended by the people here who cheerfully announce the board
> > arbitrarily changing board terms or that the community has no actual say
> in
> > what the *community* (not the board) built. The Wiki movement is far
> bigger
> > than the WMF; which is a good thing because I can't imagine it being
> > smaller than the board's self-dealing petty bourgeoisie affair.
> >
> > No, I didn't mean petit.
> >
> > Yet I don't call for anyone to be silenced because, well, disagreeing
> > vigorously is what adults are able to do.
> >
> > It matters not if this message is censored by the list overlords. One of
> > the few benefits of being a journalist is that combination of
> > self-righteousness and having myriad ways to prevent an opinion from
> being
> > suppressed on dubious grounds.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 2:55 AM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
> > wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > A code of conduct id something many of us have asked the WMF to write
> for
> > > many years. We are asking the WMF to take an active part in stopping
> > > abusive behaviors in our community.
> > >
> > > On fr wiki, many admins say they are tired of conflicts and that they
> did
> > > not enroll to deal with them. A code of conduct could help then take
> > action
> > > because it offers a frame.
> > >
> > > This is COMPLETELY different with the branding process.
> > >
> > > We are one of the few projects in the open source world without a code
> of
> > > conduct.
> > >
> > > So thank you for this draft, thank you for opening up for discussions,
> > and
> > > I hope the language will remain respectful.
> > >
> > > I believe moderators shoul

[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Chat

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,
Due to the current situation, there are more and more collaborations
happening online instead. and now you can see Wikimedia-related discussion
groups in Slack, Discord, Telegram, Facebook, and many more. Besides being
scattered and inaccessible to people who don't have accounts in those
platforms (for privacy reasons for example), these platforms use
proprietary and closed-source software, are outside Wikimedia
infrastructure and some harvest our personal data for profit.

IRC on freenode is a good alternative but it lacks basic functionalities of
a modern chat platform. So we created Wikimedia Chat, a mattermost instance
in Wikimedia Cloud. Compared to IRC, you have:
* Ability to scrollback and read messages when you were offline
* Push notification and email notification
* You don't need to get a cloak to hide your IP from others
* Proper support for sharing media
* Two factor authentication
* A proper mobile app support
* Ability to add custom emojis (yes, it's extremely important)
* Profile pictures
* Ability to ping everyone with @here
* much much more.

You can use Wikimedia Chat by going to https://chat.wmcloud.org, anyone can
make an account. This is part of Wikimedia Social suite [1], the oher
similar project is "Wikimedia Meet". [2]

Some notes:
* This is done in my volunteer capacity and has been maintained by a group
of volunteers. If you're willing to join the team (either technical or
enforcing CoC, kicking out spammers, other daily work), drop me a message.
* Privacy policy of Wikimedia Cloud applies: https://w.wiki/aQW
* As a result, all messages older than 90 days get automatically deleted.
* As a Wikimedia Cloud project, all of discussions, private and public are
covered by Code of conduct in technical spaces:  https://w.wiki/AK$

Hope that would be useful for you, if you encounter any technical issues,
file a bug in the phabricator.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Social_Suite
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet

Best
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Institutional memory @ WMF

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hey,
Can you elaborate what happened? if It's public of course. It's hard to
understand the problem without proper context.

Is it https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T261133 ?

On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 10:52 PM Strainu  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional
> memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really
> important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas
> they did in the past.
>
> I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned
> anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of
> passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact
> communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an
> affiliate etc.?
>
> Strainu
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Amir Sarabadani]

Thanks Joseph for the links. It's more clear now.

I think I need to clarify something: I'm not against asking the big corps
to pay. If they are using a significant amount of our computational
resources (=donors money) to make even more money, they should pay. And
thank you for improving the movement's financial security. I don't oppose
the general idea.

That being said, what worries me are the details:
* WMF is creating a company (LLC) and contracts that company, this means
less transparency. This is the first time I think in the history of the
foundation AFAIK that WMF is creating a company for legal reasons (I'm
sorry if I missed anything).
* That company is contracting another company for engineering work (even
less transparency). We have lots of engineering resources at WMF.
* As the result, for the first time, code produced by donors money is
closed source and inaccessible to public (or at least I couldn't find the
code linked anywhere)
* I find it ethically wrong to use AWS, even if you can't host it in WMF
for legal reasons, why not another cloud provider.
* There wasn't a period for giving feedback for example about the choice of
cloud provider or anything, suddenly it came out ready. The rumors about it
have been going around for months.
* This has not been communicated properly to the community, I find this
lack of communication and transparency concerning and insulting.

Hope what I'm saying here makes sense.

On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 7:02 PM Todd Allen  wrote:

> I tend to agree with this. I'm one of the first to criticize WMF when they
> deserve it (I wish they didn't as often!), but I see nothing wrong with
> consumers of huge amounts of data being asked to chip in to cover the costs
> of providing it. That is, of course, provided that there is never any fee
> for use of the API for users of data in regular amounts, but every plan
> I've seen thus far accommodates that.
>
> Todd
>
> On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 7:15 AM Ad Huikeshoven  wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Great news: the WMF is going to charge the tech giants for using the API
> > millions of times each day. Nothing in the free licenses we use obligate
> us
> > (that is we in our movement) to provide an API for free as in beer. It is
> > part of KAAS: Knowledge As A Service, part of the strategic direction
> > chosen in 2017.
> >
> > Thanks for your understanding,
> >
> > Ad Huikeshoven
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 8:33 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello,
> > > Today I stumbled upon this public phabricator ticket [1] created by
> > someone
> > > from WMF starting with:
> > > "My team is creating bi-weekly HTML Dumps for all of the wikis, except
> > for
> > > wikidata as part of the paid API project."
> > >
> > > I have so many questions:
> > >  - What is the "paid API" project? Are we planning to make money out of
> > our
> > > API? Now are we selling our dumps?
> > >  - If so, why is this not communicated before? Why are we kept in the
> > dark?
> > >  - Does the board know and approve it?
> > >  - How is this going to align with our core values like openness and
> > > transparency?
> > >  - The ticket implicitly says these are going to be stored on AWS ("S3
> > > bucket"). Is this thought through? Specially the ethical problems of
> > > feeding Jeff Bezos' empire? (If you have seen this episode of Hasan
> > > Minhaj's on ethical issues of using AWS [2]). Why can't we do/host this
> > on
> > > Wikimedia infrastructure? Has this been evaluated?
> > >  - Why is the community not consulted about this?
> > >
> > > Maybe I missed announcements, consultations or anything, forgive me for
> > my
> > > ignorance. Any pointers is enough. I also understand diversifying our
> > > revenue is a good tool for rainy days but a consultation with the
> > community
> > > wouldn't be too bad.
> > >
> > > [1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T254275
> > > [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY
> > >
> > > Best
> > > --
> > > Amir (he/him)
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Operation and oversight of OTRS system

[Amir Sarabadani]

I understand but my question is "why". There is no other volunteer group
that has a private policy. How is it different from CU and OS?

On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 11:56 PM Jonatan Svensson Glad <
gladjona...@outlook.com> wrote:

> At the bottom of https://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/ you can see that there
> is a link called "Confidentiality notice” <
> https://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Project:General_disclaimer>. What is
> stated in that confidentiality notice is also confidential, since it is
> located on the wiki. But https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/L45 is the
> actual agreement singed by OTRS agents to gain access ot he OTRS software
> and the wiki.
>
> It is also stated in the footer of https://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/:
> "Please be aware that this is a private wiki, so content should not be
> shared externally.”
>
> --
> Jonatan Svensson Glad
> Josve05a
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Operation and oversight of OTRS system

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,
This is the first time that I heard that the rules and policies of a
volunteer body are confidential. As a CU and OS we don't have any
confidential policy (confidential data, sure)

Can you elaborate more?

On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 7:52 PM Jonatan Svensson Glad <
gladjona...@outlook.com> wrote:

> Some quick non-answer (better knows as !answers):
>
> 1. what are OTRS' rules and policies?
> I’m unable to answer this due to the Confidentiality Agreement all OTRS
> agents sign.  Any and all
> information on the OTRS wiki is private. OTRS wiki is used as a private
> workspace restricted to Wikimedia Foundation staff, chapter
> representatives, and Volunteer Response Team members, and is is strictly
> confidential.
>
> 2. where are those rules and policies documented, and why are they not
> public?
> All rules and policies not stored on a local wiki (Commons, enwp, etc.) or
> Meta are stored on the OTRS wiki . Why,
> if any rules or policies posted on OTRS wiki, are not public, I’m unable to
> answer this due to the Confidentiality Agreement all OTRS agents sign.
>
> 3. where are those rules and policies discussed and decided?
> If not discussed publicly on a local wiki (Commons, enwp, etc.) or Meta,
> they can be discussed on e.g. the Café on the OTRS wiki <
> http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org> or on the mailing list. Or, I guess, by
> ”decree" by WMF.
>
> 4. what is the process for getting those rules and policies changed (or
> reworded for clarity)?
> I’m unable to answer this due to the Confidentiality Agreement all OTRS
> agents sign.
>
> 5. how is OTRS overseen, and who by?
> OTRS has 9 ”OTRS admins” <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS#OTRS_administrators>. I believe OTRS
> falls under the Communications committee’s purview, and perhaps T&S.
>
> 6. what is the approval process for an individual to become an OTRS agent?
> Please see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Volunteering.
>
> 7. what is the process for the community to remove an individual’s OTRS
> permissions, if they fail to uphold or abide by policy?
> I do not know the answer to this question.
>
> 8. if an individual has been acting contrary to policy, what is the
> process for reviewing and if necessary overturning their past actions
> (including contacting and apologising to their correspondents)?
> I’m unable to answer this due to the Confidentiality Agreement all OTRS
> agents sign.
>
> 9. which individuals can make someone an OTRS agent, or remove their
> permissions?
> OTRS admins .
>
> 10. how are the individuals in #9 appointed and overseen?
> I do not know the answer to this question.
>
>
> Jonatan Svensson Glad
> Josve05a
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia servers

[Amir Sarabadani]

Africa's traffic goes to Amsterdam datacenter (even South Africa)[1], if
that datacenter had issues, Europe would go dark too.

I bring it up with people.

[1]: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Clusters

On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 4:41 PM Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> From reports I am seeing on facebook it seems this problem is localised on
> our Africa based users?
>
> Regards
> Seddon
>
> On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 3:05 PM Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > I get this:
> >
> > The connection has timed out
> >
> > The server at en.wikipedia.org is taking too long to respond.
> >
> > The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a
> > few moments.
> > If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network
> > connection.
> > If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make
> > sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
> >
> > After a long wait. Been like this for several hours now.
> > Most sites no problem
> > Cheers,
> > P
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > Behalf Of Amir Sarabadani
> > Sent: 29 June 2020 15:31
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia servers
> >
> > Hey,
> > Can you elaborate more? I can access the website and graphs seems okay:
> >
> >
> https://grafana.wikimedia.org/d/RIA1lzDZk/application-servers-red-dashboard?orgId=1&from=now-3h&to=now
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 3:24 PM Peter Southwood <
> > peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Is anyone else unable to get through to the Wikimedia servers?
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Peter
> > >
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
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> >
> > --
> > This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
> > https://www.avg.com
> >
> >
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>
>
>
> --
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>
> *Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
> *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia servers

[Amir Sarabadani]

Thanks.
Can you please file a bug using this instructions?
https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reporting_a_connectivity_issue
(If you can't access it:
https://wikitech-static.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reporting_a_connectivity_issue)
(If you can't access even that:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190620092417/https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reporting_a_connectivity_issue
)

Best

On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 4:05 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> I get this:
>
> The connection has timed out
>
> The server at en.wikipedia.org is taking too long to respond.
>
> The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a
> few moments.
> If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network
> connection.
> If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make
> sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
>
> After a long wait. Been like this for several hours now.
> Most sites no problem
> Cheers,
> P
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Amir Sarabadani
> Sent: 29 June 2020 15:31
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia servers
>
> Hey,
> Can you elaborate more? I can access the website and graphs seems okay:
>
> https://grafana.wikimedia.org/d/RIA1lzDZk/application-servers-red-dashboard?orgId=1&from=now-3h&to=now
>
> On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 3:24 PM Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > Is anyone else unable to get through to the Wikimedia servers?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Peter
> >
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
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>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia servers

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hey,
Can you elaborate more? I can access the website and graphs seems okay:
https://grafana.wikimedia.org/d/RIA1lzDZk/application-servers-red-dashboard?orgId=1&from=now-3h&to=now

On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 3:24 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Is anyone else unable to get through to the Wikimedia servers?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter
>
> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Amir Sarabadani]

Thanks for the pointers, I personally disagree with some parts of it (e.g.
Twitter is a company and we are an NGO) BUT since it passed the community
consultation (and I somehow missed it to raise my feedback), I don't want
to be vocal about the high level reasoning behind the project.

What I would extremely appreciate is more transparent communication to the
community about such large changes (especially sooner). Something like a
two-line text on a phabricator has lots of potential for misunderstanding.

Thanks again.

On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 9:44 PM James Heilman  wrote:

> Further details are forthcoming from WMF staff.
>
> J
>
> On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 1:42 PM James Heilman  wrote:
>
> > Was discussed here
> >
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Iteration_1/Revenue_Streams/1
> >
> > and
> >
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Iteration_1/Revenue_Streams/1
> >
> > James
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 1:37 PM Yair Rand  wrote:
> >
> >> The strategy recommendations include the text: "Explore fees or
> >> sustainability models for enterprise-scale commercial reusers, taking
> care
> >> to avoid revenue dependencies or other undue external influence in
> product
> >> design and development. / Develop appropriate safeguards to ensure
> >> continued free, unrestricted access for non-commercial, research, and
> >> small
> >> to moderate commercial use." Earlier versions elaborate somewhat, and
> >> there
> >> were considerable reservations expressed about the idea during the
> >> process.
> >>
> >> It is quite concerning.
> >>
> >> -- Yair Rand
> >>
> >> ‫בתאריך יום א׳, 14 ביוני 2020 ב-14:33 מאת ‪Amir Sarabadani‬‏ <‪
> >> ladsgr...@gmail.com‬‏>:‬
> >>
> >> > Hello,
> >> > Today I stumbled upon this public phabricator ticket [1] created by
> >> someone
> >> > from WMF starting with:
> >> > "My team is creating bi-weekly HTML Dumps for all of the wikis, except
> >> for
> >> > wikidata as part of the paid API project."
> >> >
> >> > I have so many questions:
> >> >  - What is the "paid API" project? Are we planning to make money out
> of
> >> our
> >> > API? Now are we selling our dumps?
> >> >  - If so, why is this not communicated before? Why are we kept in the
> >> dark?
> >> >  - Does the board know and approve it?
> >> >  - How is this going to align with our core values like openness and
> >> > transparency?
> >> >  - The ticket implicitly says these are going to be stored on AWS ("S3
> >> > bucket"). Is this thought through? Specially the ethical problems of
> >> > feeding Jeff Bezos' empire? (If you have seen this episode of Hasan
> >> > Minhaj's on ethical issues of using AWS [2]). Why can't we do/host
> this
> >> on
> >> > Wikimedia infrastructure? Has this been evaluated?
> >> >  - Why is the community not consulted about this?
> >> >
> >> > Maybe I missed announcements, consultations or anything, forgive me
> for
> >> my
> >> > ignorance. Any pointers is enough. I also understand diversifying our
> >> > revenue is a good tool for rainy days but a consultation with the
> >> community
> >> > wouldn't be too bad.
> >> >
> >> > [1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T254275
> >> > [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY
> >> >
> >> > Best
> >> > --
> >> > Amir (he/him)
> >> > ___
> >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> ,
> >> > 
> >> ___
> >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> >> 
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > James Heilman
> > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> >
>
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> ___
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Uns

[Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,
Today I stumbled upon this public phabricator ticket [1] created by someone
from WMF starting with:
"My team is creating bi-weekly HTML Dumps for all of the wikis, except for
wikidata as part of the paid API project."

I have so many questions:
 - What is the "paid API" project? Are we planning to make money out of our
API? Now are we selling our dumps?
 - If so, why is this not communicated before? Why are we kept in the dark?
 - Does the board know and approve it?
 - How is this going to align with our core values like openness and
transparency?
 - The ticket implicitly says these are going to be stored on AWS ("S3
bucket"). Is this thought through? Specially the ethical problems of
feeding Jeff Bezos' empire? (If you have seen this episode of Hasan
Minhaj's on ethical issues of using AWS [2]). Why can't we do/host this on
Wikimedia infrastructure? Has this been evaluated?
 - Why is the community not consulted about this?

Maybe I missed announcements, consultations or anything, forgive me for my
ignorance. Any pointers is enough. I also understand diversifying our
revenue is a good tool for rainy days but a consultation with the community
wouldn't be too bad.

[1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T254275
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY

Best
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [foundation-optional] Etherpad upgrade and a new skin

[Amir Sarabadani]

This is awesome. It looks amazing. Thank you for doing this. Mobile support
is improved drastically too.

Thanks.

On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 12:50 PM Erica Litrenta 
wrote:

> Thanks Alexandros!
> I am assuming this is about our own instance - I made
> https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/TestNewUI to check what's new.
>
> HTH,
>
> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 12:28 PM Alexandros Kosiaris <
> akosia...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > I normally don't send out emails like this when we upgrade etherpad,
> > but 1.8.4 (which we just upgraded to), has brought in a UI change (one
> > that was introduced in 1.8.3) which, in my opinion, warrants a heads
> > up so that people aren't caught off guard. Etherpad-lite now has had a
> > new skin and that's what you will experience while using it. There's
> > also a number of other changes, you can have a quick look at
> > https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md if
> > you are interested.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > --
> > Alexandros Kosiaris
> > Principal Site Reliability Engineer
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Foundation Optional" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> > email to foundation-optional+unsubscr...@wikimedia.org.
> > To view this discussion on the web visit
> >
> https://groups.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/d/msgid/foundation-optional/CAEfWuP3kFcZ0Bw9CD93xULuu1Xz-07-zFGZZds2Yep8SL4jE9w%40mail.gmail.com
> > .
> >
>
>
> --
> Erica Litrenta
> Manager, Community Relations Specialists
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Elitre_(WMF)
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Wikimedia Meet

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hey,
Unfortunately, this is the way the authentication of jitsi work and I don't
have much control over it, the only thing I can find is enabling "guest
access"
> If guest access is enabled, unauthenticated users will need to wait until
a user authenticates before they can join a room. If guest access is not
enabled, every user will need to authenticate before they can join.

Also, I recommand you treat your user/pass like a wifi password (you can
create more accounts for groups instead of sharing yours), share it but
don't put in public places.

Best

On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 7:13 PM Tony Thomas <01tonytho...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Amir (and team),
>
> Is there an option to make it require username/password to create a meeting
> and not join ?
>
> Like, I can share the link around and post it publicly and people can join
> ? Right now, I have to share my username/password which sounds a bit weird
> (and people might be able to create meetings too with those) ?
>
> --
> Tony Thomas
> https://mediawiki.org/wiki/User:01tonythomas
> --
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 4:40 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
>
> > Hey,
> > A quick update. In order to improve its security, from now on,
> > ticketmasters don't need to know your username and password (and don't
> send
> > them your desired username and password anymore). You ask them a token
> and
> > they generate you an one-time-use token for you and then you can use that
> > in https://meet-auth.wmflabs.org/create to create your account for
> > yourself.
> >
> > Stay safe, stay home.
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 1:11 AM Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l <
> > wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> > >  I told so many times WMF should support infrastructure for the
> > > volunteers, so thank you very much for this step in that direction.
> > > A.M.
> > >
> > > Il domenica 26 aprile 2020, 01:08:01 CEST, Tito Dutta <
> > > trulyt...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> > >
> > >  Hello,
> > > That's super great news. I definitely want to try it. Thanks a lot for
> > > working on this.
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > Tito Dutta
> > > Note: If I don't reply to your email in 2 days, please feel free to
> > remind
> > > me over email or phone call.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sun, 26 Apr 2020 at 01:57, Amir Sarabadani 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hey,
> > > > "Wikimedia Meet" [0] (https://meet.wmcloud.org), is a project in
> > > Wikimedia
> > > > CloudVPS for Wikimedians to meet virtually instead of using
> commercial
> > > > services like Zoom which might have security and privacy implications
> > > > [1][2]. Currently it's a jitsi (jitsi.org) installation.
> > > >
> > > > If you want to just use/test it, let me know and I create you a user
> > and
> > > > password. You can share the username and password with anyone you
> want
> > to
> > > > meet but please do not post it publicly. In your email you can also
> > give
> > > me
> > > > your desired user and password. **Do not reuse any password**. You
> can
> > > also
> > > > contact any of the ticketmasters instead of me:
> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet#List_of_ticketmasters
> > > >
> > > > In order to make this project more robust, I'm looking for
> > Ticketmasters
> > > > too, Ticketmasters create accounts for others (It doesn't require any
> > > > technical knowledge, you fill a form in web for others)
> > > >
> > > > If you want to help maintaining it (which would be greatly
> appreciated)
> > > let
> > > > me know and I give you the needed access. I put the technical
> > > documentation
> > > > in mediawiki.org [3]. There are several bits you can help with, like
> > > > puppetizing it, scalability, observability, improving authentication,
> > > > trying to see if BBB can be used as well, and so much more. You can
> > find
> > > > the tickets in the phabricator board and assign a ticket to yourself
> if
> > > you
> > > > feel like helping out.
> > > >
> > > > [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet
> > > > [1] https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2020/03/27/zoom/
> > > > [2]
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://www.theguardian.com/tech

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Meet

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hey,
A quick update. In order to improve its security, from now on,
ticketmasters don't need to know your username and password (and don't send
them your desired username and password anymore). You ask them a token and
they generate you an one-time-use token for you and then you can use that
in https://meet-auth.wmflabs.org/create to create your account for yourself.

Stay safe, stay home.

On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 1:11 AM Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

>  I told so many times WMF should support infrastructure for the
> volunteers, so thank you very much for this step in that direction.
> A.M.
>
> Il domenica 26 aprile 2020, 01:08:01 CEST, Tito Dutta <
> trulyt...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>  Hello,
> That's super great news. I definitely want to try it. Thanks a lot for
> working on this.
>
> Thanks
> Tito Dutta
> Note: If I don't reply to your email in 2 days, please feel free to remind
> me over email or phone call.
>
>
> On Sun, 26 Apr 2020 at 01:57, Amir Sarabadani  wrote:
>
> > Hey,
> > "Wikimedia Meet" [0] (https://meet.wmcloud.org), is a project in
> Wikimedia
> > CloudVPS for Wikimedians to meet virtually instead of using commercial
> > services like Zoom which might have security and privacy implications
> > [1][2]. Currently it's a jitsi (jitsi.org) installation.
> >
> > If you want to just use/test it, let me know and I create you a user and
> > password. You can share the username and password with anyone you want to
> > meet but please do not post it publicly. In your email you can also give
> me
> > your desired user and password. **Do not reuse any password**. You can
> also
> > contact any of the ticketmasters instead of me:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet#List_of_ticketmasters
> >
> > In order to make this project more robust, I'm looking for Ticketmasters
> > too, Ticketmasters create accounts for others (It doesn't require any
> > technical knowledge, you fill a form in web for others)
> >
> > If you want to help maintaining it (which would be greatly appreciated)
> let
> > me know and I give you the needed access. I put the technical
> documentation
> > in mediawiki.org [3]. There are several bits you can help with, like
> > puppetizing it, scalability, observability, improving authentication,
> > trying to see if BBB can be used as well, and so much more. You can find
> > the tickets in the phabricator board and assign a ticket to yourself if
> you
> > feel like helping out.
> >
> > [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet
> > [1] https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2020/03/27/zoom/
> > [2]
> >
> >
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-technology-security-coronavirus-video-conferencing
> > [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet
> >
> > Hope that would be useful for our users :)
> > Best
> > --
> > Amir (he/him)
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Meet

[Amir Sarabadani]

I proofread the email several times and still managed to miss an important
point:

This installation is not large and currently, it wouldn't be able to handle
100 people. It worked fine with 10 people in a meeting but not much more
than that. So please be mindful in using this resource.

On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 10:26 PM Amir Sarabadani 
wrote:

> Hey,
> "Wikimedia Meet" [0] (https://meet.wmcloud.org), is a project in
> Wikimedia CloudVPS for Wikimedians to meet virtually instead of using
> commercial services like Zoom which might have security and privacy
> implications [1][2]. Currently it's a jitsi (jitsi.org) installation.
>
> If you want to just use/test it, let me know and I create you a user and
> password. You can share the username and password with anyone you want to
> meet but please do not post it publicly. In your email you can also give me
> your desired user and password. **Do not reuse any password**. You can also
> contact any of the ticketmasters instead of me:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet#List_of_ticketmasters
>
> In order to make this project more robust, I'm looking for Ticketmasters
> too, Ticketmasters create accounts for others (It doesn't require any
> technical knowledge, you fill a form in web for others)
>
> If you want to help maintaining it (which would be greatly appreciated)
> let me know and I give you the needed access. I put the technical
> documentation in mediawiki.org [3]. There are several bits you can help
> with, like puppetizing it, scalability, observability, improving
> authentication, trying to see if BBB can be used as well, and so much more.
> You can find the tickets in the phabricator board and assign a ticket to
> yourself if you feel like helping out.
>
> [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet
> [1] https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2020/03/27/zoom/
> [2]
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-technology-security-coronavirus-video-conferencing
> [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet
>
> Hope that would be useful for our users :)
> Best
> --
> Amir (he/him)
>
>

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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Meet

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hey,
"Wikimedia Meet" [0] (https://meet.wmcloud.org), is a project in Wikimedia
CloudVPS for Wikimedians to meet virtually instead of using commercial
services like Zoom which might have security and privacy implications
[1][2]. Currently it's a jitsi (jitsi.org) installation.

If you want to just use/test it, let me know and I create you a user and
password. You can share the username and password with anyone you want to
meet but please do not post it publicly. In your email you can also give me
your desired user and password. **Do not reuse any password**. You can also
contact any of the ticketmasters instead of me:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet#List_of_ticketmasters

In order to make this project more robust, I'm looking for Ticketmasters
too, Ticketmasters create accounts for others (It doesn't require any
technical knowledge, you fill a form in web for others)

If you want to help maintaining it (which would be greatly appreciated) let
me know and I give you the needed access. I put the technical documentation
in mediawiki.org [3]. There are several bits you can help with, like
puppetizing it, scalability, observability, improving authentication,
trying to see if BBB can be used as well, and so much more. You can find
the tickets in the phabricator board and assign a ticket to yourself if you
feel like helping out.

[0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet
[1] https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2020/03/27/zoom/
[2]
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-technology-security-coronavirus-video-conferencing
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet

Hope that would be useful for our users :)
Best
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Snøhetta and Wikimedia

[Amir Sarabadani]

> On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 4:50 PM Pine W  wrote:
>
> > I think that it's time for some people in WMF to move on. Without having
> > access to WMF internal discussions


So what you're saying is that you don't have lots of information on how
it's decided [1] but you still feel informed enough to at least fire "some
people". Isn't it harassment? How would you feel if I come to your
workplace (assuming you're an employee) and tell everyone you should be
fired based on something I disagree with?

It doesn't mean you can't criticise the contract, the rebranding work or
any other WMF project. But criticising like this would just defy your
purpose. I hope moderators of this mailing list take action.

[1] e.g. Are you sure the board hasn't approved this?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The wikisites looks like 1996

[Amir Sarabadani]

Do you know about
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements ?

On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 10:48 PM John Erling Blad  wrote:

> Could we please update them with a slightly more up-to-date skin?
>
> Take a look at our Norwegian competitor in the lexicon field.
> https://snl.no/kunstig_intelligens
>
> John Erling Blad
> /jeblad
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising needs your help

[Amir Sarabadani]

Sorry two more things:
 - We don't collect user's data like a monster, we never sell them to
anyone, we even avoid outsourcing our infra (like CDNs) to protect our
users' privacy. Something that is none of top websites do. None.
 - Related to the reason above, CO2 emission of our datacenters is very
small and non-existent comparing to website with similar traffic.

Best

On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 11:34 PM Amir Sarabadani 
wrote:

> On the great things:
>  - There are so many forms of volunteer contribution, you don't need to be
> an expert to be able to contribute to English Wikipedia (how can I
> contribute, everything is there already). You can fight vandalism, you can
> take pictures, you can write code, you can help other languages.
>  - In less developed countries, in depth-reading of Wikipedia is more
> prevalent, the likely explanation is that in lack of resources we take for
> granted in Europe/US, people turn to Wikipedia to learn and develop
>
> This is not great fact but it's sorta funny how extensively we cover
> everything. Last week I learned Wikipedia even has list of people who died
> on the toilet:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_died_on_the_toilet
>
> HTH
>
> On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 11:25 PM Aboubacar Keïta 
> wrote:
>
>> Bonjour et merci du message
>>
>> J'aimerais vivement que les pays du sud ont plus de moyens financiers pour
>> réaliser des projets concrètement.
>>
>> Le financement des concours baisse, mais la couverture des objectifs de
>> ces
>> concours reste quasiment incomplet en Afrique.
>>
>> Exemple Wiki Loves Monuments, en Guinée 99% des sites sont ni illustré sur
>> Wikipédia en articles, ni en image sur commons mais qu'on supprime le
>> financement pour les longues voyages diminuer nos forces d'améliorer
>> qualitativement les articles Wikipédia vue qu'on a moins de bénévoles
>> encore.
>>
>> Vivement une relativisation des ressources en fonction de l'avancée des
>> projets et plus de douceur dans l'obtention des subventions.
>>
>> Le mer. 27 nov. 2019 à 22:08, Joseph Seddon  a
>> écrit :
>>
>> > Hey all,
>> >
>> > (reposting due to filter rejection)
>> >
>> >
>> > Fundraising are looking for ideas and suggestions for our writing team
>> to
>> > explore for our messaging in this years fundraiser. I only need a
>> minute of
>> > your time to answer the following question:
>> >
>> >
>> > --- What’s your favorite thing about Wikipedia that you wish our readers
>> > and donors knew? ---
>> >
>> >
>> > We'll use the responses to generate new test ideas
>> >
>> > Post your answers on list or directly to me :) Thanks in advance
>> >
>> > --
>> > Seddon
>> >
>> > *Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
>> > *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
>> > ___
>> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
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>
>
>
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>
>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising needs your help

[Amir Sarabadani]

On the great things:
 - There are so many forms of volunteer contribution, you don't need to be
an expert to be able to contribute to English Wikipedia (how can I
contribute, everything is there already). You can fight vandalism, you can
take pictures, you can write code, you can help other languages.
 - In less developed countries, in depth-reading of Wikipedia is more
prevalent, the likely explanation is that in lack of resources we take for
granted in Europe/US, people turn to Wikipedia to learn and develop

This is not great fact but it's sorta funny how extensively we cover
everything. Last week I learned Wikipedia even has list of people who died
on the toilet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_died_on_the_toilet

HTH

On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 11:25 PM Aboubacar Keïta 
wrote:

> Bonjour et merci du message
>
> J'aimerais vivement que les pays du sud ont plus de moyens financiers pour
> réaliser des projets concrètement.
>
> Le financement des concours baisse, mais la couverture des objectifs de ces
> concours reste quasiment incomplet en Afrique.
>
> Exemple Wiki Loves Monuments, en Guinée 99% des sites sont ni illustré sur
> Wikipédia en articles, ni en image sur commons mais qu'on supprime le
> financement pour les longues voyages diminuer nos forces d'améliorer
> qualitativement les articles Wikipédia vue qu'on a moins de bénévoles
> encore.
>
> Vivement une relativisation des ressources en fonction de l'avancée des
> projets et plus de douceur dans l'obtention des subventions.
>
> Le mer. 27 nov. 2019 à 22:08, Joseph Seddon  a
> écrit :
>
> > Hey all,
> >
> > (reposting due to filter rejection)
> >
> >
> > Fundraising are looking for ideas and suggestions for our writing team to
> > explore for our messaging in this years fundraiser. I only need a minute
> of
> > your time to answer the following question:
> >
> >
> > --- What’s your favorite thing about Wikipedia that you wish our readers
> > and donors knew? ---
> >
> >
> > We'll use the responses to generate new test ideas
> >
> > Post your answers on list or directly to me :) Thanks in advance
> >
> > --
> > Seddon
> >
> > *Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
> > *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
> > ___
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> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Brief request for advice about "What's making you happy this week?"

[Amir Sarabadani]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 23:16 Henry Wood  wrote:

> >I don't know sending such emails of limited number of good
> > news cherry-picked by mostly one person all the time to hundreds of
> > wikimedians across the globe with very wide range of interests would be a
> > good idea.
>
> Leading inevitably to the question -- what postings to this list would
> be good ideas?
>

Well, I get lots of unrelated emails from wikimedia-l and don't mind them
while I don't like receiving uninteresting emails on regular basis from the
same person again and again. Even worse, emails that pretend to be
interesting to me (I would feel happier if I hear a good news, as a human
being) but they end up being completely uninteresting (because I just have
different interests).

Hope that answers your question.

> Henry
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Brief request for advice about "What's making you happy this week?"

[Amir Sarabadani]

Seconding Cornelius here, I almost reached to the point a making a
dedicated filter to archive these emails because that they contain long
emails that are full of great things but doesn't interest me or make me
happy (there are ways to make me happy, for example technical improvements
or LGBT+-related stuff which I barely see in these emails thus these emails
sometimes make me slightly sad that these emails don't contain things I
like, making me feel outcast or too nerd)

I assume everyone has different interests that make them happy which might
be under or overrepresented due to the sender's unconcious bias and
perspective. I don't know sending such emails of limited number of good
news cherry-picked by mostly one person all the time to hundreds of
wikimedians across the globe with very wide range of interests would be a
good idea.

My 2c

On Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 14:39 Cornelius Kibelka <
cornelius.kibe...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> to be honest, the question doesn't appeal to me. Around Wikimedia, I'm
> interested in things that *interest me* and help me in my work, but
> *happiness* doesn't work for me as a term, it's a too American for me ;)
>
> Cheers
> Cornelius
>
> On Mon, 25 Nov 2019 at 09:36, Pine W  wrote:
>
> > Hello colleagues,
> >
> > I would like to ask for your advice about one issue with the "What's
> making
> > you happy this week?" emails.
> >
> > I was hoping that people would frequently comment in the email threads
> > and/or on the talk pages of WMYHTW publications in *The Signpost* to
> share
> > what is making them happy, in the Wikiverse or elsewhere. However,
> comments
> > are somewhat rare.
> >
> > I am concerned that some people may feel too intimidated to comment.
> >
> > I understand that communicating in public requires courage, but I believe
> > that people who try to be respectful will have their comments received
> well
> > by the community if they comment in these threads. Perfection is not a
> > requirement for WMYHTW.
> >
> > Also, I think that public communication becomes easier with practice, and
> > these threads would be good places for people who want to become more
> > experienced with public communication on Wikimedia-l to practice.
> >
> > Is there something else that you think could be done to facilitate
> > participation in WMYHTW? I would appreciate your advice and input.
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Pine
> > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
>
>
>
> --
> Cornelius Kibelka
> Internationale Beziehungen | International Relations
> Vorstandsteam | Office of the ED
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
> Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
> http://wikimedia.de
>
> Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
> Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
> http://spenden.wikimedia.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 27/029/42207
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] TLS

[Amir Sarabadani]

There are several versions of TLS. TLS1.1 end of life is soon and it will
be out of support very soon, most browsers will remove it in 2020. You
should upgrade to support at least TLS1.2 which was released more than ten
years ago. Upgrading to a new version is not that complicated. Just update
your browser.

We stopped serving SSL altogether a while back. One big reason for this
deprecation is not just security of people who use the old browsers but
also people who use a secure and modern system as well. There's something
called downgrade attack [1]. Using this attack, a secure connection (in a
modern setup) can be easily compromised by forcing them to use old
protocols like TLS 1.1 (or worse, SSL) instead of the secure ones.

I'm all for giving the most access to everyone in this world but not at the
cost of compromising security everyone else.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downgrade_attack

On Sun, Nov 24, 2019 at 9:30 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
wrote:

>
>
> Was support for legacy TLS temporarily discontinued or something?
>
> I noticed I couldn't connect the other day, but now it seems I can again.
>
> For what it's worth, I strongly oppose any measure that makes Wikimedia
> projects less accessible.
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing Wikimedia Space: A space for movement news and conversations

[Amir Sarabadani]

I have no comment on Wikimedia Space. IMHO it's too soon to criticize it
but I want to point out to a pattern that I have been seeing in the past
couple of months by several people in this very mailing list.

You have been repeating the word "WMF" (four time, for four different
purposes) and treating it as a big monolith which is far from truth, WMF
consists of different teams with different focuses, priorities, goals, and
processes.

This type of comments also increases the tension by promoting concept of
"volunteer vs. WMF". It's not a war, we have the same mission. Stop
criticizing a huge organization devoted to support volunteers (which you
can't deny all of its good deeds, like keeping servers the world-class
website running while being horribly understaffed, we have only 1% of
Google's staff) because you disagree with this project or that program.

Criticize projects, criticize actions (which can be valid), but don't be
like "here we go again, WMF".

I'm a volunteer at night, WMDE staff at day. Right now, it's the volunteer
hats on.

Best


On Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 01:19 Yair Rand  wrote:

> I'm getting so many red flags.
>
> Established by WMF via secret (non-transparent) process, with no community
> involvement? Non-wiki environment, with the same scope as existing wikis?
> WMF-decided conduct policies? Every single moderator is a WMF employee?
> Forum using closed groups, with non-transparent communication?
> (Closed-source software, unless I'm mistaken?) So far outside Wikimedia
> spaces that the only place it was even _announced_ was an off-wiki mailing
> list?
>
> Is there something the Wikimedia Foundation would like to tell us?
>
> -- Yair Rand
>
> ‫בתאריך יום ג׳, 25 ביוני 2019 ב-14:56 מאת ‪Pine W‬‏ <‪wiki.p...@gmail.com
> ‬‏>:‬
>
> > Hi Maria,
> >
> > Thanks for this update.
> >
> > I hope that you can answer a question. I may be mistaken, but my
> impression
> > is that the purposes that are outlined for Wikimedia Space are within the
> > intended scopes of the Meta and Outreach wikis, as well as Wikimedia-l. I
> > think that the community would be willing to consider design improvements
> > and additional features for Meta and Outreach, such as calendar and map
> > tools that are easy to use. Design improvements and additional features
> > might also be welcome by third parties who use MediaWiki software and
> could
> > eventually have the option to implement the changes on their own sites.
> Can
> > you explain the decision to launch a new site instead of proposing design
> > improvements and additional features for Meta and Outreach?
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Pine
> > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Code of Conduct committee candidates

[Amir Sarabadani]

Yes, I don't see those to be contradictory. All members need to identify
themselves to WMF but not to each other or public.

On Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 18:36 Thomas Townsend  wrote:

> Amir
>
> > The committee is a body of volunteers and they can't be forced to
> disclose
> > their real identities. There's no such policy in the CoC
>
> That does not appear to be correct.  The CoC policy requires that the
> volunteer committee members identify themselves *to the Foundation*.
>
> The Turnip
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Code of Conduct committee candidates

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hey,
People in the committee have meetings from time to time, so they know each
other but we don't have any "dedicated" person to keep track of real
identities/pseudonym of the members.

HTH
Best

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 7:55 PM effe iets anders 
wrote:

> Hi Amir,
>
> Thanks. I agree with your assessment.
>
> Probably asking for the obvious: is there someone on the committee that
> knows the real world identity (and the other way around, the online
> pseudonym) of each member, and could flag a COI/suggest to abstain if need
> be? (aside from people refraining themselves)
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 9:32 AM Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> > (As a member, not talking on behalf of the committee)
> > The committee is a body of volunteers and they can't be forced to
> disclose
> > their real identities. There's no such policy in the CoC and if you think
> > it should be added, feel free start a discussion on CoC amendment [0] but
> > in the mean time, we are not allowed and won't disclose people's real
> > identities. The committee itself refrain involving people who have
> conflict
> > of interest with the case (whether it involves them or someone close)
> >
> > [0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Amendments
> >
> > Best
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 7:43 AM Thomas Townsend 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Amir
> > >
> > > May we not know the real names of the committee members, as opposed to
> > > their pseudonyms?  Surely that is necessary, both as a matter of
> > > general principle, and specifically in case it were ever to turn out
> > > that a member of the committee might be involved in a complaint.
> > >
> > > The Turnip
> > >
> > > On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 10:39, Amir Sarabadani 
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hello everyone,
> > > > The deadline for the public feedback was yesterday. Some objections
> > have
> > > > raised but committee decided not to change the structure of committee
> > and
> > > > its candidates. It means the new committee with the given members
> > starts
> > > > serving as of today until 19 June 2020.
> > > >
> > > > Please join me on thanking Nuria and Rosalie for their service and
> > > welcome
> > > > Tonina and MusikAnimal to the main members of the committee.
> > > >
> > > > Best
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, May 8, 2019 at 9:13 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hello,
> > > > > The committee has finished selecting new members and the new
> > committee
> > > > > candidates are (In alphabetical order):
> > > > >
> > > > >- Amir Sarabadani
> > > > >- Lucie-Aimée Kaffee
> > > > >- MusikAnimal
> > > > >- Tonina Zhelyazkova
> > > > >- Tony Thomas
> > > > >
> > > > > And auxiliary members will be (In alphabetical order):
> > > > >
> > > > >- Huji
> > > > >- Matanya
> > > > >- Nuria Ruiz
> > > > >- Rosalie Perside
> > > > >- Tpt
> > > > >
> > > > > You can read more about the members in [0]
> > > > >
> > > > > The changes are:
> > > > > * Nuria and Rosalie are moving from main member to auxilary members
> > > > > * MusikAnimal is moving from auxilary member to main
> > > > > * Tonina Zhelyazkova is joining the main members
> > > > >
> > > > > This is not the final structure. According to the CoC [1], the
> > current
> > > > > committee publishes the new members and call for public feedback
> for
> > > *six
> > > > > weeks* and after that, the current committtee might apply changes
> to
> > > the
> > > > > structure based on public feedback.
> > > > >
> > > > > Please let the committee know if you have any concern regarding the
> > > > > members and its structure until *19 June 2019* and after that, the
> > new
> > > > > committee will be in effect and will serve for a year.
> > > > >
> > > > > [0]:
> > > > >
> > >
> >
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Committee/Members/Candidates
> > > > > [1]:
> > > >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Code of Conduct committee candidates

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,
(As a member, not talking on behalf of the committee)
The committee is a body of volunteers and they can't be forced to disclose
their real identities. There's no such policy in the CoC and if you think
it should be added, feel free start a discussion on CoC amendment [0] but
in the mean time, we are not allowed and won't disclose people's real
identities. The committee itself refrain involving people who have conflict
of interest with the case (whether it involves them or someone close)

[0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Amendments

Best

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 7:43 AM Thomas Townsend 
wrote:

> Amir
>
> May we not know the real names of the committee members, as opposed to
> their pseudonyms?  Surely that is necessary, both as a matter of
> general principle, and specifically in case it were ever to turn out
> that a member of the committee might be involved in a complaint.
>
> The Turnip
>
> On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 10:39, Amir Sarabadani  wrote:
> >
> > Hello everyone,
> > The deadline for the public feedback was yesterday. Some objections have
> > raised but committee decided not to change the structure of committee and
> > its candidates. It means the new committee with the given members starts
> > serving as of today until 19 June 2020.
> >
> > Please join me on thanking Nuria and Rosalie for their service and
> welcome
> > Tonina and MusikAnimal to the main members of the committee.
> >
> > Best
> >
> > On Wed, May 8, 2019 at 9:13 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> wrote:
> >
> > > Hello,
> > > The committee has finished selecting new members and the new committee
> > > candidates are (In alphabetical order):
> > >
> > >- Amir Sarabadani
> > >- Lucie-Aimée Kaffee
> > >- MusikAnimal
> > >- Tonina Zhelyazkova
> > >- Tony Thomas
> > >
> > > And auxiliary members will be (In alphabetical order):
> > >
> > >- Huji
> > >- Matanya
> > >- Nuria Ruiz
> > >- Rosalie Perside
> > >- Tpt
> > >
> > > You can read more about the members in [0]
> > >
> > > The changes are:
> > > * Nuria and Rosalie are moving from main member to auxilary members
> > > * MusikAnimal is moving from auxilary member to main
> > > * Tonina Zhelyazkova is joining the main members
> > >
> > > This is not the final structure. According to the CoC [1], the current
> > > committee publishes the new members and call for public feedback for
> *six
> > > weeks* and after that, the current committtee might apply changes to
> the
> > > structure based on public feedback.
> > >
> > > Please let the committee know if you have any concern regarding the
> > > members and its structure until *19 June 2019* and after that, the new
> > > committee will be in effect and will serve for a year.
> > >
> > > [0]:
> > >
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Committee/Members/Candidates
> > > [1]:
> > >
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Committee#Selection_of_new_members
> > >
> > > Amir, On behalf of the Code of Conduct committee
> > > Best
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Amir (he/him)
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Code of Conduct committee candidates

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello everyone,
The deadline for the public feedback was yesterday. Some objections have
raised but committee decided not to change the structure of committee and
its candidates. It means the new committee with the given members starts
serving as of today until 19 June 2020.

Please join me on thanking Nuria and Rosalie for their service and welcome
Tonina and MusikAnimal to the main members of the committee.

Best

On Wed, May 8, 2019 at 9:13 PM Amir Sarabadani  wrote:

> Hello,
> The committee has finished selecting new members and the new committee
> candidates are (In alphabetical order):
>
>- Amir Sarabadani
>- Lucie-Aimée Kaffee
>- MusikAnimal
>- Tonina Zhelyazkova
>- Tony Thomas
>
> And auxiliary members will be (In alphabetical order):
>
>- Huji
>- Matanya
>- Nuria Ruiz
>- Rosalie Perside
>- Tpt
>
> You can read more about the members in [0]
>
> The changes are:
> * Nuria and Rosalie are moving from main member to auxilary members
> * MusikAnimal is moving from auxilary member to main
> * Tonina Zhelyazkova is joining the main members
>
> This is not the final structure. According to the CoC [1], the current
> committee publishes the new members and call for public feedback for *six
> weeks* and after that, the current committtee might apply changes to the
> structure based on public feedback.
>
> Please let the committee know if you have any concern regarding the
> members and its structure until *19 June 2019* and after that, the new
> committee will be in effect and will serve for a year.
>
> [0]:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Committee/Members/Candidates
> [1]:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Committee#Selection_of_new_members
>
> Amir, On behalf of the Code of Conduct committee
> Best
>
>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New board for Wikimedia Belgium + evaluation behaviour WMF

[Amir Sarabadani]

Are you comparing banning someone to participate at conference(s) with
hanging innocent people?

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 4:34 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:

> " In other words, the best way to ban anyone from any event is to start a
> rumour about them" - that's Wikimedia version of the Salem witch trials.
> Unbelievable that this sort of thing is coming from one of the WMF
> trustees, even as a personal opinion.
>
> Paulo
>
> Michel Vuijlsteke  escreveu no dia segunda, 17/06/2019
> à(s) 15:26:
>
> > On Mon, 17 Jun 2019 at 16:12, Dariusz Jemielniak 
> > wrote:
> > >If there are rumors about physical violence, unbelievable as they may
> > seem,
> > >the bottom line common sense is to approach the alleged would-be
> attacker
> > and
> > >request politely that they stay away, to deescalate even just a
> > potentially tense situation.
> >
> > In other words, the best way to ban anyone from any event is to start a
> > rumour about them?
> >
> > >I personally believe this fork of the discussion threat deserves a quick
> > EOT and salting.
> >
> > I personally don't.
> >
> > Michel
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block

[Amir Sarabadani]

People who oppose the ban: Are you aware of all aspects and things Fram has
done? Do you have the full picture? It's really saddening to see how fast
people jump to conclusion in page mentioned in the email. I personally,
don't know what happened so I neither can support or oppose the ban. As
simple as that.

So what should be done IMO. If enwiki wants to know more, a community body
can ask for more information, if body satisfy two things:
 - They had signed NDA not to disclose the case
 - They are trusted by the community

I think the only body can sorta work with this is stewards but not sure
(Does ArbCom NDA'ed?)


On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 3:58 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Lack of transparency from the WMF, whatelse is new.
> I'm currently under a funding ban secretly decided (by who?) based on a
> false accusation, without providing any evidence. Until now I'm waiting for
> an explanation from the WMF. So, this sort of attitude doesn't surprise me
> at all.
> It is very unfortunate that the WMF apparently thrives in this kind of
> medieval obscurity, the opposite of the values of the Wikimedia Movement.
> Matter for Roles & Reponsibilities.
>
> Best,
> Paulo
>
>
> Benjamin Ikuta  escreveu no dia terça, 11/06/2019
> à(s) 05:45:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks for this.
> >
> > I'm glad to see I'm not the only one dismayed by the unilateralism and
> > lack of transparency.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jun 10, 2019, at 8:25 PM, Techman224 
> wrote:
> >
> > > Forwarding to WIkimedia-l since WikiEN-l is relatively dead.
> > >
> > > Since this message, an Arbcom member (SilkTork) stated that they
> weren't
> > consulted, nor did this action was the result of Arbcom forwarding a
> > concern to the office. [1]
> > >
> > > The only non-response excuse from the WMF [2] was that "local
> > communities consistently struggle to uphold not just their own autonomous
> > rules but the Terms of Use, too.” even though there were no complaints
> > on-wiki nor to Arbcom privately.
> > >
> > > The on-wiki discussion is taking place at the Bureaucrats and the
> Arbcom
> > noticeboards.
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > <
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Request_for_ArbCom_to_comment_publicly_on_Fram's_ban
> > >
> > > [1]
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=901300528
> > <
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=901300528
> > >
> > > [2]
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#Statement_from_the_WMF_Trust_&_Safety_Team
> > >
> > > Techman224
> > >
> > >> Begin forwarded message:
> > >>
> > >> From: George Herbert 
> > >> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fram en.wp office yearlock block
> > >> Date: June 10, 2019 at 8:54:34 PM CDT
> > >> To: English Wikipedia 
> > >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia 
> > >>
> > >> In case you're not following on-wiki - Office S&T blocked English
> > Wikipedia
> > >> user / administrator Fram for a year and desysopped, for unspecified
> > >> reasons in the Office purview.  There was a brief statement here from
> > >> Office regarding it which gave no details other than that normal
> policy
> > and
> > >> procedures for Office actions were followed, which under normal
> > >> circumstances preclude public comments.
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats%27_noticeboard#User:Fram_banned_for_1_year_by_WMF_office
> > >>
> > >> Several people on Arbcom and board have commented they're making
> private
> > >> inquiries under normal reporting and communication channels, due to
> the
> > >> oddity and essentially uniqueness of the action.
> > >>
> > >> There was an initial surge of dismay which has mellowed IMHO into "Ok,
> > >> responsible people following up".
> > >>
> > >> I understand the sensitivity of some of the topics under Office
> actions,
> > >> having done OTRS and other various had-to-stay-private stuff myself at
> > >> times in the past.  A high profile investigation target is most
> unusual
> > but
> > >> not unheard of.
> > >>
> > >> I did send email to Fram earlier today asking if they had any public
> > >> comment, no reply as yet.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> -george william herbert
> > >> george.herb...@gmail.com
> > >> ___
> > >> WikiEN-l mailing list
> > >> wikie...@lists.wikimedia.org
> > >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Amir Sarabadani]

IMO commons need either a Clue Bot NG for new uploads or ores support for
images that might be copyright violation, or both.

Best

On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:10 PM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:

> Just the active community itself is too small, compared with the amount of
> material it has to deal with.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Is the shortage of admins due to a lack of people willing or capable to
> do
> > the job, or increasing difficulty in obtaining the bit?
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 12, 2019, at 3:55 AM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
> >
> > > Well, Actually, at the moment it looks they are all undeleted.
> > >
> > > The good habit - which I was keeping when organizing several
> GLAM-related
> > > mass uploads - was to create on Commons project page describing what it
> > is
> > > intended to be uploaded, preferably in English. Then you can create a
> > > project template to mark all uploads with them.
> > >
> > > See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> > >
> > > Despite practical issue of avoiding unnecessary clashes with Common's
> > > admins - creating template and project page helps to promote you
> project
> > > across Wikimedia communities and may inspire others to do something
> > similar.
> > >
> > > Commons is indeed quite hostile environment for uploaders, but on the
> > other
> > > hand it is constantly flooded by hundreds  of copyright violating
> files a
> > > day:
> > >
> > > See the list from just one day:
> > >
> > >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2019/05/01
> > >
> > > so this hostility works both ways - Common's admins have to cope with
> > > aggressive hostile copyright violators every day, and after some time -
> > > decide to leave or became being hostile themselves... and the other
> issue
> > > is decreasing number of active admins and OTRS agents.
> > >
> > > I think - sooner or later - all this system - uploads - screening
> uploads
> > > by admins, and OTRS agreements - needs deep rethinking.
> > >
> > >
> > > niedz., 12 maj 2019 o 10:48 Mister Thrapostibongles <
> > > thrapostibong...@gmail.com> napisał(a):
> > >
> > >> Hello all,
> > >>
> > >> There seems to be a dispute between the Outreach and the Commons
> > components
> > >> of The Community, judging by the article "Wikimedia Commons: a highly
> > >> hostile place for multimedia students contributions" at the Education
> > >> Newsletter
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/April_2019/Wikimedia_Commons:_a_highly_hostile_place_for_multimedia_students_contributions
> > >>
> > >> As far as I can understand it, some students on an Outreach project
> > >> uploaded some rather well-made video material, and comeone on Commons
> > >> deleted them because they appeared to well-made to be student projects
> > and
> > >> so concluded they were copyright violations.  But some rather odd
> > remarks
> > >> were made "Commons has to fight the endless stream of uploaded
> > copyrighted
> > >> content on behalf of a headquarters in San Francisco that doesn't
> care."
> > >> and
> > >> "you have regarded Commons as little more than free cloud storage for
> > >> images you intend to use on Wikipedia ".
> > >>
> > >> Perhaps the Foundation needs to resolve this dispute?
> > >>
> > >> Thrapostibongles
> > >> ___
> > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> ,
> > >> 
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
> > > http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
> > > http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
> > > ___
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> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
> > ___
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> New 

[Wikimedia-l] New Code of Conduct committee candidates

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello,
The committee has finished selecting new members and the new committee
candidates are (In alphabetical order):

   - Amir Sarabadani
   - Lucie-Aimée Kaffee
   - MusikAnimal
   - Tonina Zhelyazkova
   - Tony Thomas

And auxiliary members will be (In alphabetical order):

   - Huji
   - Matanya
   - Nuria Ruiz
   - Rosalie Perside
   - Tpt

You can read more about the members in [0]

The changes are:
* Nuria and Rosalie are moving from main member to auxilary members
* MusikAnimal is moving from auxilary member to main
* Tonina Zhelyazkova is joining the main members

This is not the final structure. According to the CoC [1], the current
committee publishes the new members and call for public feedback for *six
weeks* and after that, the current committtee might apply changes to the
structure based on public feedback.

Please let the committee know if you have any concern regarding the members
and its structure until *19 June 2019* and after that, the new committee
will be in effect and will serve for a year.

[0]:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Committee/Members/Candidates
[1]:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Committee#Selection_of_new_members

Amir, On behalf of the Code of Conduct committee
Best
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Hindi Wikisource waiting, developer needed

[Amir Sarabadani]

I wrote a quick explantation why it's almost impossible to make a new wiki
now, in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T210752#5167695

One problem is that this part of the codebase doesn't have a clear
maintainer/owner. That needs to be fixed.

Best

On Wed, May 8, 2019 at 6:00 PM Brad Jorsch (Anomie) 
wrote:

> On Wed, May 8, 2019 at 10:15 AM Yann Forget  wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > The Hindi Wikisource is blocked by some technical problems with no
> > resolution expected shortly. The last comment in the ticket is:
> >
> > The issue still exists and it's impossible to make new wikis without lots
> > of bandage and hacks. I'm doing this in volunteer capacity and I don't
> have
> > time to do it anymore :(
> >
> > The ticket was opened on March 13th.
> > The community is actively waiting.
> > Some workshops are planned, but postponed because of this issue.
> > So this task should be given to some developer from WMF.
> >
>
> Based on the quoted comment and date, I'm guessing the task in question is
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T218155.
>
> FYI: I don't know any details about new wiki creation, I'm just posting the
> task link in the hope it will help people who do to find your task.
>
>
> --
> Brad Jorsch (Anomie)
> Senior Software Engineer
> Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Code of conduct committee call for new members

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hello all,

It's coming close to time for annual appointments of community members to
serve on the Code of Conduct (CoC) committee. The Code of Conduct Committee
is a team of five trusted individuals plus five auxiliary members with
diverse affiliations responsible for general enforcement of the Code of
conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces. Committee members are in charge of
processing complaints, discussing with the parties affected, agreeing on
resolutions, and following up on their enforcement. For more on their
duties and roles, see
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Committee


This is a call for community members interested in volunteering for
appointment to this committee. Volunteers serving in this role should be
experienced Wikimedians or have had experience serving in a similar
position before.



The current committee is doing the selection and will research and discuss
candidates. Six weeks before the beginning of the next Committee term,
meaning 23th of April 2019, they will publish their candidate slate (a list
of candidates) on-wiki. The community can provide feedback on these
candidates, via private email to the group choosing the next Committee. The
feedback period will be two weeks. The current Committee will then either
finalize the slate, or update the candidate slate in response to concerns
raised. If the candidate slate changes, there will be another two week
feedback period covering the newly proposed members. After the selections
are finalized, there will be a training period, after which the new
Committee is appointed. The current Committee continues to serve until the
feedback, selection, and training process is complete.

If you are interested in serving on this committee or like to nominate a
candidate, please write an email to techconductcandidates AT wikimedia.org
with details of your experience on the projects, your thoughts on the code
of conduct and the committee and what you hope to bring to the role and
whether you have a preference in being auxiliary or constant member of the
committee. The committee consists of five members plus five auxiliary
members and they will serve for a year; all applications are appreciated
and will be carefully considered. The deadline for applications is end of
day on 20th of April, 2019.

Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think
may be qualified and interested.


Best,

Amir on behalf of the CoC committee
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Minor update: AWight upgrading to "volunteer" Wikimedian

[Amir Sarabadani]

Adam,
Working with you on everyday basis was a bliss and I wish you all the best
in the future.
Keep in touch with us please.

Best

On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 6:38 PM Adam Wight  wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> This is just a courtesy notice that I'm no longer employed by the Wikimedia
> Foundation as of the end of the month, but will continue to stay engaged as
> a volunteer.  I see this as an opportunity, since I'll be free of the
> conflict of interest caused by my financial and legal relationship as an
> employee.
>
> I'm looking forward to rejoining the volunteer community, if you will have
> me :-)
>
> Please contact me through my wiki page [[mw:User:Adamw]], and do drop a
> line on my talk page if any of the projects listed there catch your fancy!
>
> Kind regards,
> Adam
> ___
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-- 
Amir
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [wikicite-discuss] Leaving the Wikimedia Foundation, staying on the wikis

[Amir Sarabadani]

Dario, I will never forget all of your help when I started working on AI
projects in Wikimedia. Thank you!
Hope to see you soon in one of conferences and Good luck in your new job!

Best

On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 2:00 AM Daniel Mietchen via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hi Dario and Leila,
> it's been a pleasure collaborating with you in the past, and I hope
> this will continue despite the changes in your roles.
> Best,
> Daniel
>
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 11:13 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
> wrote:
> >
> > Dario, thanks for your effort. It was a pleasure working with you, and I
> am
> > also happy that you will stay around as a volunteer. My congratulations
> to
> > Leila. Whereas at this point I am rather skeptical and sometimes vocal
> > about WMF in general, I have a tremendous respect for both of you.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Yaroslav
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 11:05 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:
> >
> > > Dario -- what news!  And how close that seems to your recent pushing
> of us
> > > all.
> > > How lucky the projects have been to have you building a research
> > > constellation, for these many years.
> > >
> > > Leila, congrats + warm wishes in your new role.
> > >
> > > With wikilove and taxonometrics,
> > > SJ
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 4:56 PM Dario Taraborelli <
> > > dtarabore...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hey all,
> > > >
> > > > I've got some personal news to share.
> > > >
> > > > After 8 years with Wikimedia, I have decided to leave the Foundation
> to
> > > > take up a new role focused on open science. This has been a difficult
> > > > decision but an opportunity arose and I am excited to be moving on
> to an
> > > > area that’s been so close to my heart for years.
> > > >
> > > > Serving the movement as part of the Research team at WMF has been,
> and
> > > > will definitely be, the most important gig in my life. I leave a
> team of
> > > > ridiculously talented and fun people that I can’t possibly imagine
> not
> > > > spending all of my days with, as well many collaborators and friends
> in
> > > the
> > > > community who have I worked alongside. I am proud and thankful to
> have
> > > been
> > > > part of this journey with you all. With my departure, Leila Zia is
> taking
> > > > the lead of Research at WMF, and you all couldn't be in better hands.
> > > >
> > > > In March, I’ll be joining CZI Science—a philanthropy based in the Bay
> > > > Area—to help build their portfolio of open science programs and
> > > technology.
> > > > I'll continue to be an ally on the same fights in my new role.
> > > >
> > > > Other than that, I look forward to returning to full volunteer mode.
> I
> > > > started editing English Wikipedia in 2004, working on bloody
> chapters in
> > > > the history of London <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield,_London>;
> > > hypothetical
> > > > astronomy ; unsung heroes
> > > > among women in science ;
> and
> > > > of course natural
> > > > ,
> technical
> > > >  and
> > > political
> > > > disasters
> > > > <
> > >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections
> > > >.
> > > > I’ve also developed an embarrassing addiction to Wikidata, and you’ll
> > > > continue seeing me around hacking those instances of Q16521
> > > >  for a little while.
> > > >
> > > > I hope our paths cross once again in the future.
> > > >
> > > > Best,
> > > >
> > > > Dario
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > >
> > > > *Dario Taraborelli  *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
> > > > research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
> > > > 
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite
> > > > Twitter: https://twitter.com/wikicite
> > > > ---
> > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups
> > > > "wikicite-discuss" group.
> > > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
> send an
> > > > email to wikicite-discuss+unsubscr...@wikimedia.org.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Samuel Klein  @metasj   w:user:sj  +1 617 529
> 4266
> > > ___
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> > > 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Survey about the Foundation's Mission

[Amir Sarabadani]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 19:48 James Salsman  wrote:

> The "agenda" is shared by a majority of the survey respondents so far.


You just disclosed results of the survey before it ends, meaning people who
fill out the survey are biased on what majority thinks and vote under peer
pressure. Scientificly speaking, It's not a blind survey anymore. Thus the
final result of this survey is unusable and worthless.

Now let's get back to the question that how someone who doesn't know much
about research methodology wastes people's time and attention...
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocks which appear to demonstrate prejudice against minorities

[Amir Sarabadani]

Here's my 2c:
Calling gay people "subhuman" is so vile that needs direct action from
outside of the wiki but IMO this is a symptom of a larger issue.

The issue is that different wikis are disconnected and don't have proper
oversight by a central (volunteer-based) authority.
This sometimes lead to different languages having biases that are related
to the culture and this is sorta okay-ish specially if the wiki is big
enough to balance the differences. Let me give you several examples:
* In Arabic Wikipedia name of the water body south of Iran/North of UAE is
"Arabian gulf" but in Persian Wikipedia is "Persian gulf". This basically
means different versioning of the same entity. I don't like this because
what makes Wikipedia great is that you don't get personalized articles,
like article of "Abortion" in English Wikipedia is the same regardless of
what your stand on this matter is. This differentiates Wikipedia from
facebook and twitter that put people in bubbles.
* In smaller wikis the issue gets worse. What bothered me for a very long
time was that article of "Mohammad" was "Mohammad peace be upon him" [1]
until 27 March of 2018 [2]. When the title is so biased towards the
religious point of view, how neutral the article itself is?
* The issue can different shapes too. I can find lots of
copyright-violating pictures in small wikis. Most of these pictures are
copyright violation [3] We have global sysops and SWMT but it's more of a
reactionary mentality.
* Language barrier makes things even harder. Just imagine how harder it
would be to react if the above discussion happened in Amharic instead of
English.

Maybe it's more a feature than a bug. For example, in Persian Wikipedia
several articles in controversial topics that are featured (homosexuality,
and some articles about Baha'i's faith) are not being used in the main page
to avoid controversy and blockade of Wikipedia in Iran. As the person who
wrote most of one of those articles, I disagree but I understand and
respect the community's decision.

I just want to point out to the issue and I have no solutions. Stewards
seem like a good fit to apply fleet-side norms like no discrimination
policy.

Also, I don't have anything against mzn and urwikis, these are happen to
languages that I have basic understanding of.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_be_upon_him
[2]:
https://ur.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B5:%D9%86%D9%88%D8%B4%D8%AA%DB%81&page=%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%AF+%D8%A8%D9%86+%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF+%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%DB%81&uselang=en
[3]:
https://mzn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B4%D8%A7:%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B1_%D8%AC%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF

Sorry for the long email.

On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 6:53 PM Vi to  wrote:

> By the way, please do not intervene en masse. They (the user involved) have
> a strong tendency towards using "colonialism" as a general purpose excuse
> for their action, as I experienced myself a bunch of months ago, along with
> a series of references to Italian invasion of Ethiopia.
> This kind of excuse is easily is fed by this kind of intervention. Talkpage
> contents is a trivial matter compared to insults and abuse of
> administrative privileges. While the latter one is solved the first one is
> yet to be handled.
>
> Vito
>
> Il giorno lun 7 gen 2019 alle ore 15:56 James Heilman 
> ha
> scritto:
>
> > While we give individual languages / projects a great deal of autonomy,
> > they are not completely autonomous and remain accountable to our global
> > norms. We have a shared brand to uphold. Glad to see a strong position
> has
> > been taken by the community against discrimination based on sexual
> > orientation.
> >
> > My 2 cents
> > James
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 6:39 AM Ariel Glenn WMF 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > A note that the user's talk page
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://am.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%8A%A0%E1%89%A3%E1%88%8D_%E1%8B%8D%E1%8B%AD%E1%8B%AD%E1%89%B5:Codex_Sinaiticus
> > > may or may not reflect all of the comments made at any given moment,
> > since
> > > the user has been engaged in deleting large parts of the discussion.
> > You'll
> > > want to double-check the history to see what's been written.
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > James Heilman
> > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocks which appear to demonstrate prejudice against minorities

[Amir Sarabadani]

Given the response on the talk page [1] I think it's clear violation of
nondiscrimination policy [2]

[1] "promotion of homosexuality will not be tolerated here nor will it be
forced down our throats to suit anyone's international political agenda if
you expect Ethiopians to take part."
[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Nondiscrimination

Best
On Wed, Jan 2, 2019, 23:09 Risker  wrote:

>  I note that we are talking about the block of one single user on one
> single project; this particular account has thousands of edits over about a
> dozen projects, but is "attached" to hundreds of Wikimedia projects.  The
> majority of these "attached" accounts are likely because the editor
> "visited" the various projects while logged in, activating the automatic
> account creation algorithm.  The account was created 8 years ago, and has
> actively edited a wide variety of  projects, including several wikipedias,
> Commons, Wikidata, and Meta. While English Wikipedia is the account's
> "home" wiki, about 55% of the account's global edits have been made on
> Marathi Wikipedia. The Amharic Wikipedia account does not appear to have
> edited, which suggests that it was automatically created when the editor
> was "looking at" the project on 9  February 2018.  The block for account
> name was made on 22 October 2018.  I note that accounts were created on
> over a hundred projects over the course of a few days in February 2018.
>
> The point being raised in this thread is that it appears this editor was
> blocked on one of the 381 wikis on which they have an account, explicitly
> because of the perception that their username calls attention to the sexual
> behaviour of the editor. What we do not know is (a) whether that is in fact
> a legitimate username block reason on Amharic Wikipedia, or (b) if it is a
> legitimate username block reason, *why* it would be a username block
> reason. We don't know why this block was applied so long after the account
> was created. We don't know the username policy on Amharic Wikipedia, nor do
> we know how it is applied; for example, we don't know if a username like
> "StraightGuy101" would be blocked.  We do know that there are only 4
> administrators on Amharic Wikipedia, and that there are fewer than 50
> active users working on the project, which may be part of the reason for
> the delay between automatic account creation and the account block.
>
> We also know that one of the challenges of single user login for all
> Wikimedia projects has highlighted the fact that certain usernames that are
> acceptable on some projects are blocked on other projects; we've known that
> for years. We know that each project establishes its own policies when it
> comes to usernames. There are legitimate reasons why a username that is
> acceptable in one language is not acceptable in another language, even in
> cases where the editor had no knowledge that the chosen username would be a
> problem in another language. We do know that there have been lots of cases
> where usernames have been blocked for "username policy violation" on all
> kinds of projects, despite the account operating productively on other
> projects.
>
> I also note that there is nothing in this thread that confirms the editor
> themself has raised any concerns about this block, and I am always wary of
> turning an editor into a "martyr for a cause" without their direct
> agreement, as that can be as abusive as the original action. So the first
> step in this situation would be to confirm with the individual editor
> whether or not they want their "case" to be examined.
>
> Should the editor be agreeable, I suggest that the next step is for someone
> who has the ability to converse in Amharic to contact the Amharic Wikipedia
> and find out why the block has been issued, how it is consistent with the
> username policy on Amharic Wikipedia, whether that policy is driven in part
> by external considerations (e.g., does the project risk heavy governmental
> scrutiny if it appears to "promote" locally unacceptable activities). I am
> personally curious as to why it took over six months to identify that this
> account did not meet the local username policy, and whether there was
> internal or external discussion about the username.
>
> It is not clear to me what the desired outcome is in this case - at least
> in part because we have no idea of the opinion of the editor involved.  I
> am hard-pressed to say that a project should be required to allow usernames
> that it has a long history of considering unacceptable, especially if it is
> applied evenly to all accounts; in this case, if it disallows usernames
> that imply sexual preference regardless of what that preference is.
>
> It seems to me that the WMF Trust & Safety group would probably be the
> right group to examine this.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On Wed, 2 Jan 2019 at 09:42, Ariel Glenn WMF  wrote:
>
> > Additional notes:
> > The user's regular page can be viewed on en wi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mobile fundraising ads

[Amir Sarabadani]

Even I agree we need more donations from mobile but more aggressive banners
doesn't usually lead to more donations coming. At least, if it's more
aggressive than a certain threshold and I think these banners pass that
threshold by far.
Best


On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 5:00 PM David Gerard  wrote:

> I've had people complaining to me personally about the multiple-page
> fundraising banners on mobile, like I can do anything about them ...
> this is really deeply pissing people off.
>
> On Tue, 11 Dec 2018 at 15:03, Joseph Seddon  wrote:
> >
> > Hi James,
> >
> > As I mentioned in my original reply to Molly, Desktop page views have
> been
> > in decline for the past 2-3 years from 4.36 billion (Oct 2016) to 3.64
> > billion (Oct 2018). Likewise, the relative effectiveness as of mobile as
> a
> > fundraising platform has historically been substantially lower compared
> > with desktop. So with future budget growth in mind and a desktop
> > fundraising environment that will become increasingly difficult, we’ve
> been
> > working hard to ensure that as user behaviors shift we are well prepared
> > and that the future of the movement is safeguarded.
> >
> > Regards
> > Seddon
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 5:14 AM James Salsman 
> wrote:
> >
> > > For those of you who have not seen the mobile fundraising banner this
> > > year, and thus are uncertain of what all the fuss is about, here is an
> > > example:
> > >
> > > https://i.imgur.com/wL4Y5dl.png
> > >
> > > The fundraising message literally takes 4.5 screens that have to be
> > > scrolled through to get to the article. I don't think its accurately
> > > reflected with how desktop browsers render the example given by the
> > > Fundraising team at
> > >
> > >
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA?banner=B1819_0701_mlWW_mob_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
> > > which is only a little over one screenful before the article text on
> > > typical landscape-shaped desktop browser rendering.
> > >
> > > In years past, it seemed like the fundraising team was more
> > > forthcoming about their choices and the reasons for making them. Has
> > > anyone inside or outside of the Foundation seen any explanation of why
> > > so much text, with such odd formatting, is necessary on mobile this
> > > year?
> > >
> > > On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 8:44 AM Samuel Klein  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I love the focus on mobile and smaller format interfaces, quite
> > > generally;
> > > > it's increasingly how I use the projects too!
> > > >
> > > > A)  This banner-text-series is clearly impactful, gave me a bit of a
> jump
> > > > scare, and got me to read it to find out why. I'm still not sure how
> I
> > > feel
> > > > about it.
> > > > ~ Visual effect: Messages that flow smoothly in and out of the
> reading
> > > > experience are even nicer.
> > > > ~ Message: Is there an estimate of the total impact on all readers,
> as
> > > well
> > > > as total effective fundraising?  If there is a very effective
> > > > compact/delightful banner, and an even more effective
> large/ambivalent
> > > > one, is there some internal calculus about the overal impact of
> running
> > > the
> > > > former for longer vs. the latter for a short period?
> > > > I'd like to think the best possible messages inspire and delight
> and
> > > > draw on positive emotions while raising funds, including for those
> who
> > > > don't donate, even if they do not yield the most donations per view.
> > > >
> > > > B)  The tracking of whether I've donated, when choosing to show or
> not
> > > show
> > > > me banners, is definitely lacking.  Part of this is that we have
> taken an
> > > > overly-paranoid approach to gathering and anonymizing user data.  It
> is
> > > > entirely possible to cluster users for the purposes of
> > > > not-continuing-to-show-banners (maintain a dictionary of
> > > > user-fingerprint-hashes-already-seen, check to see if the current
> user is
> > > > in there, don't show banners if they are) without being able to see
> what
> > > > pages a given user is viewing.
> > > >
> > > > I wrote more about this here:
> > > >
> > >
> https://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2018/07/25/anonymizing-data-on-the-users-of-wikipedia/
> > > >  Please consider doing this; it is really hurting the
> user-experience of
> > > > the wiki projects (not only in this instance -- in so many other
> basic
> > > > instances of usage stats + testing over time!), for no benefit to
> anyone.
> > > > ___
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> > > 
> > >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] FY1718 Fundraising Report now published

[Amir Sarabadani]

It might sound naive but Singapore also has lots of potential. Please
correct me if I'm wrong.

Best

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 10:12 PM Andrew Lih  wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 12:24 PM Ilario Valdelli 
> wrote:
>
> > Yes but India has probably 2 times the population of the whole Europe...
> > and cannot be defined like a "poor" country. I Think that the same is
> valid
> > also for East Asia.
> >
> > No it's not simple to compare but the amount donated in Asia is really
> > small.
> >
>
> 1. Please note that the GDP per capita for China and India *combined* still
> falls far short of the EU. [1]
>
> 2. For two of the major economies of East Asia, Wikipedia is *not* the
> number one reference site for the general public. For China, it’s Baidu
> Baike and for Korea, it’s Naver.
>
> As Seddon said, it is a far more complex picture than looking at population
> count and dollar amounts.
>
> -Andrew
>
> [1] -
> https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=EU-CN-IN
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] ORES support checklist for communities

[Amir Sarabadani]

Hey,
Scoring platform team aims to support more wikis but keeping track of how
much support they need is not easy. This is why we built a tool that
automatically gets updated and shows us an overview of the current support
and specially it shows progress of labelling campaigns in different wikis
so it's easier for us and the community to see which wiki is about to
finish or which wiki is stalled.

You can find the tool in https://tools.wmflabs.org/ores-support-checklist/

The source code is in http://github.com/wiki-ai/ores-support-checklist.
Pull requests are welcome
To report problems or request new features, feel free to file a phabricator
ticket tagged with ores-support-checklist (
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/ores-support-checklist/)

Best
-- 
Amir Sarabadani
Software Engineer

Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
http://wikimedia.de

Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.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 27/029/42207.
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