[Wikimedia-l] Re: Results for the most contended Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election

[Lucas Werkmeister]

Wasn’t this mentioned in the results announcement [1]?

> == Waiting for the Board’s appointment ==
>
> While these candidates have been ranked through the community vote,
> they are not yet appointed to the Board of Trustees. They still need
> to pass a successful background check and meet the qualifications
> outlined in the Bylaws. This process can be longer depending on the
> country of residence of the candidates. The Board has set a tentative
> date to appoint new trustees at the end of this month. The Board also
> has approved a short extension to the terms of the exiting trustees to
> allow a smooth transition.

Cheers,
Lucas

[1]:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/09/07/results-for-the-most-contended-wikimedia-foundation-board-of-trustees-election/

On 11.09.21 17:23, Andy Mabbett wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Sept 2021 at 19:16, Tito Dutta  wrote:
> 
>> My good wishes to all the newly selected board members of Wikimedia 
>> Foundation.
> 
> AIUI, they are not yet board members, nor are they guaranteed to be.
> The Trust's bylaws[1] state, at Article IV, Section 3(C) (my
> **emphasis**):
> 
>(iii) The Board will appoint candidates who are **nominated**
> through this process, subject to Article IV, Section 3(A), and other
> provisions of these Bylaws. In the event that a candidate is selected
> who does not meet the requirements of Article IV, Section 3(A) or
> other requirements of these Bylaws, or of applicable state or federal
> law, the Board will (a) **not appoint the candidate**, (b) declare a
> vacancy on the Board, and (c) fill the resulting vacancy, subject to
> this Section 3 and to Article IV, Section 6 below.
> 
> while Article IV, Section 3(A) says:
> 
>(i) The Board shall be composed of Trustees with a diverse set of
> talents, experience, backgrounds, and competencies that will best
> fulfill the mission and needs of the Foundation, **as determined by
> the Board**. The Board is committed to promoting diversity and
> inclusion both in terms of trustee composition and in other aspects of
> its work.
> 
> Together, these seem to give the Board the option to "determine" that
> the "nominated" individuals would not create a board with "a diverse
> set of talents, experience, backgrounds, and competencies" and to
> reject one or more of them.
> 
> Furthermore, it seems to make a lie of the claim [2] that "Members of
> the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to elect four candidates
> to a three-year term.", if, in fact, we merely "nominate" people for
> the Board to consider.
> 
> I'd like to think I'm wrong. Can anyone show me how I am?
> 
> 
> [1] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bylaws
> 
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021
> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Practical implications of Coronavirus

[Lucas Werkmeister]

For what it’s worth, Wikimedia Germany is in full work-from-home mode
starting next Monday, and a lot of many employees have already gradually
started working from home over the past days (apart from those who work
remotely anyways, of course). Announcement (in German):
https://blog.wikimedia.de/2020/03/12/information-anlaesslich-covid-19-geschaeftsstelle-stellt-auf-remote-arbeit-um/

Best wishes,
Lucas

On 12.03.20 19:33, James Heilman wrote:
> Agree 100% with Risker. Now is not the time to be taking risk. I would be
> much happier if a year from now we looked back and said we overreacted than
> if we looked back to realize we did not react enough.
> 
> James
> 
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 8:27 AM Rebecca O'Neill 
> wrote:
> 
>> The Irish government have closed all schools, childcare facilities,
>> colleges, universities and other public institutions until 29 March. The
>> current advice is not to have any gatherings of 100 people, but everyone I
>> had planned events with for the next month has decided to cancel/postpone
>> even at a much smaller scale.
>>
>> On Thu, 12 Mar 2020 at 10:55, Dariusz Jemielniak 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Risker,
>>>
>>> Many thanks for sharing - I know you're a professional in the field. This
>>> is pretty much what we're doing as the WMF, and the affiliates surely can
>>> follow suit.
>>>
>>> All universities I'm currently affiliated with (Harvard, MIT, Kozminski)
>>> cancelled all classes and move to virtual meetings only, too.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> DJ "pundit"
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 00:54 Risker  wrote:
>>>
 Regardless of what platforms people might want to use for virtual
>>> meetings,
 it is my personal opinion that all movement organizations, groups
>> (formal
 and informal) and the WMF itself immediately stop meeting in person.
>> For
 the movement entities that have offices, work-from-home should be the
 standard (as it has been for the WMF for almost a week).  Edit-a-thons
>>> and
 similar meet-ups should be cancelled for the foreseeable future.  The
>>> broad
 movement has spent a lot of time talking about the safety and security
>> of
 its communities, and this level of social distancing at this time is
 probably the best way to demonstrate that we really mean what we say.
 #CancelEverything is not just a cute hashtag - it's really serious, and
>>> our
 movement can be leaders in showing how it is done.

 I'm speaking from my own experience (having worked in a hospital with
>>> SARS
 patients and having participated in the development of pandemic plans
>> for
 hospitals), so perhaps my perspective is different from other people's.
>>> But
 given there's very little downside to this proposal, there's no reason
>>> not
 to take these steps, at least for a few months while the world has a
>>> better
 sense of how this will all play out.

 Risker/Anne
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> PhD in Digital Media
>> Project Coordinator Wikimedia Community Ireland 
>> She/Her
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of Les sans pagEs User Group

[Lucas Werkmeister]

That sounds great, congratulations to the group and all the best for
your future work!

Cheers,
Lucas

On 17.02.20 20:05, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight wrote:
> Hi everyone!
> 
> 
> 
> I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has recognized
> [1] Les sans pagEs [2] as a Wikimedia User Group. The group aims to be a
> community effort and an association for users who work on issues related to
> women and gender issues and more generally to diversity (territorial,
> cultural, linguistic, generational, gender, attitudinal and ability, etc.)
> within the French speaking wikimedia movement.
> 
> 
> 
> Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
> 
> Chair, Affiliations Committee
> 
> 
> 
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Recognition_of_Les_sans_pagEs_User_Group
> 
> [2]  https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Les_sans_pagEs
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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[Wikimedia-l] Was macht dich diese Woche glücklich? / What's making you happy this week? (Week of 13 October 2019)

[Lucas Werkmeister]

Hello,

this week’s email is coming from a new sender, since Pine always says
we’re also allowed to start the thread :)

I am thankful that the software migration from HHVM to PHP7 in
production is mostly completed. Many people participated in this work,
but some especially prominent (Phabricator) names seem to be
Jdforrester-WMF, Krinkle, jijiki, Joe, and Reedy – apologies to the
people that I inevitably missed. This migration also unlocks many code
style improvements that were previously blocked on HHVM compatibility
requirements, and Daimona has been very active here, modernizing code
and configuration across lots of source code repositories: thank you!

The Commons Picture of the Day for 15 October 2019

was taken in Germany. The English description is "Gracht castle in
Erftstadt, Rhein-Erft-Kreis (Germany)"; there are no other descriptions
or captions yet. The photo was taken by User:A.Savin
.

Additional translations of the subject line of this email would be
appreciated on Meta
.

What’s making you happy this week? You are welcome to write in any
language. You are also welcome to start a WMYHTW thread next week.
Lucas
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lucas_Werkmeister )

PS: Did you know? In Germany, the week starts on Monday, not Sunday! I
kept the email subject aligned to Sunday, though, in case referring to
the “week of 14 October” would confuse anybody :)

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation joins the global climate strike

[Lucas Werkmeister]

Did you see the sustainability report that was published yesterday [1]
[2]? Page 30 of the PDF has some numbers on business travel by air –
some 5.6 million km in total, by the looks of it. Page 32 also shows
that the carbon footprint of air travel is about half that of the
electricity used by the Foundation’s data centers.

Cheers,
Lucas

[1]:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/19/how-the-wikimedia-foundation-is-making-efforts-to-go-green
[2]:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Sustainability_Assessment_and_Carbon_Footprint.pdf

On 20.09.19 15:23, Fæ wrote:
> Nice to see that https://wikimediafoundation.org has a banner linking
> to the global climate strike today.
> 
> Can anyone produce some verifiable metrics that the WMF has taken
> significant action to reduce the total number of aircraft flights the
> WMF uses?
> 
> I am asking as though there are no transparently published figures for
> how much the WMF spends on air travel, I recall that the Katherine
> Mahler was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, where is was part
> of her impressive executive profile to be "on the road" for 200 days
> of the year. This probably puts Katherine in the very top numbers for
> CEOs with damaging carbon footprints resulting from travelling so
> often by flying.[1] If the WMF wants to be seen as an ethical company
> when it comes to reducing their organizational impact on climate
> change, perhaps this could start with publishing travel figures for
> the CEO and the rest of the management team, so that everyone can see
> whether there is year on year improvement, or none.
> 
> Thanks again for the banner, it does help increase the sense of urgency.
> 
> Links:
> 1. 
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-35-year-old-executive-director-of-wikimedia-travels-1529588701
> 
> Fae
> 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Welcoming Wikimedia Foundation’s new CTO, Grant Ingersoll

[Lucas Werkmeister]

Congratulations to Grant on his new position, and to the Foundation on
the new CTO! I look forward seeing your work.


On 19.09.19 07:35, Philippe Beaudette wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 12:32 PM Andy Mabbett 
> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, 18 Sep 2019 at 17:55, Katherine Maher 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I’m excited to officially welcome Grant Ingersoll as our Chief Technology
>>> Officer! Grant
>>
>> It is UTTERLY OUTRAGEOUS of Katherine to post this...
>>
>>> In Grant’s own words
>>
>>> We're adjusting to the empty nest life with our dog Allie (a
>>> black lab mix).
>>
>> ...without linking to at least one cute pic of Allie ;-)
>>
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  Frankly I am shocked ... shocked! that a woman of Katherine’s obvious
> talents must be reminded of this basic pillar of the movement: If you
> invoke a cute puppy, you better be prepared to prove it.
> 
> Geez, K, have we taught you nothing in the, what, half a decade, that
> you’ve been part of this movement?
> 
> -philippe


Can someone explain to me why it’s so funny to repeat the exact same
toxic tone that this mailing list is notorious for, but this time
jokingly? It’s not like this is a fun, harmless reminder of a dreadful
past we’ve long left behind us…

Cheers,
Lucas

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing the extension of funding by the Basque Government

[Lucas Werkmeister]

That’s awesome, congratulations to all involved!

Cheers,
Lucas

On 18.09.19 16:17, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga wrote:
> Dear wikimedians,
> Three years have gone since we started with the Basque Wikimedians User Group 
> Education Program, funded by the Basque Government. After two years and a 
> half of great enhancing of Basque Wikipedia (more than 2.500 students adding 
> more than 1.5 million words on fundamental topics) the Basque Government has 
> announce us today the extension of the funding for four more years.
>
> In this four years we will try to strengthen our Educaton Program but also 
> open to new areas in order to make our knowledge equity vision possible. By 
> 2024 we will have taken sure steps towards creating a free knowledge 
> ecosystem centered at Wikimedia.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Galder
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community feedback and next steps on movement brand proposal

[Lucas Werkmeister]

On 06.09.19 05:49, Zack McCune wrote:
>3.
> 
>Supporting sister projects

I am extremely wary of this phrasing. Instead of a family of projects
working together towards a shared goal, to me this invokes the image of
a big, central Wikipedia who graciously supports the other,
insignificant projects out of the goodness of her heart. As a Wikidata
editor, that is not how I want my relation to this movement characterized.

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

[Lucas Werkmeister]

I doubt that the communities in question are likely to have the same
legal resources available to them as The Coca-Cola Company, so I must
admit I don’t find this argument entirely convincing. Asking them to
share their content, but then leaving them alone in the face of any
problems arising from it, sounds more like reinforcing the status quo
than promoting knowledge equity to me. And note that the law may not be
written in their favor in the first place, so suggesting them to “secure
their concerns in a legal way” may require a lengthy legislative process
first, with uncertain outcome.

(I must admit that I haven’t yet read the articles linked in the draft,
so this email is phrased rather vaguely. I hope it still makes sense.)

Cheers,
Lucas

On 14.08.19 23:51, Paulo Santos Perneta wrote:
> All this stuff about misappropriation and unwanted commercial use of
> certain content which is being used to justify the inclusion of NC/ND CC
> licenses in Commons and other Wikimedia projects, really isn't Wikimedia
> concern. If some communities object to certain types of use on content
> produced by them, they should secure them in the law, same way as personal
> image rights, trademarks, etc. No one at Commons cares if the Coca-Cola
> logo we host there, which is both PD-old and PD-textlogo, is misused by 3rd
> parties to sell some other cola beverage as if it was the original one.
> That's Coca Cola concern, not ours, and they are absolutely free to sue the
> infractor. If those communities object to certain uses, first they secure
> their concerns in a legal way, then act upon it. As it is now, anyone who
> get access to that content in a legal way and wants to share it, can do it
> freely at Commons, and nobody at Commons is going to delete it just because
> some other people, which have not any legal right over that content, claim
> that using it commercially is against their beliefs or traditions.
> 
> Paulo
> 
> geni  escreveu no dia quarta, 14/08/2019 à(s) 22:22:
> 
>> On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 at 21:34, Aron Manning  wrote:
>> .
>>> The draft already refers to 2 articles (1
>>> ,2
>>> <
>> https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c0043945-852b-4d7e-94ad-1859f91ba418
>>> )
>>> that explain the need for ND. I'll ask for further sources that show the
>>> benefits of NC and ND licensed materials.
>>>
>>> Aron
>>
>> 1 refers to images that are public domain in terms of copyright and
>> the latter is mostly talking about trademark or stuff so broad that
>> you couldn't usefuly copyright it in the first place. ND isn't a
>> useful protection in these cases (it might be of some use for current
>> individual artists but they can publish their work elsewhere).
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing Wikimedia Space: A space for movement news and conversations

[Lucas Werkmeister]

Why do you consider Wikimedia Space a closed platform?

Cheers,
Lucas

On 26.06.19 11:27, Paulo Santos Perneta wrote:
> I also generally discuss what I can offwiki (using a number of channels,
> but mainly Telegram) , and leave to onwiki discussions what is strictly
> necessary, but it has much more to do with the slowness and lack of
> usability of the wiki talk system, than with a toxic environment.
> 
> That being said, the wiki talk appears to me as the main bastion protecting
> openness in our projects. We may discuss a lot offwiki, but a summary of it
> is always presented onwiki and can be challenged by the onwiki community
> that do not have an offwiki presence, which is considerably large and an
> essential part of the process too.
> 
> I understand that some people who have an habit of discussing and arranging
> everything offwiki are not prepared to face resistance from the onwiki
> communities when their new apparently wonderful and flawless idea is
> presented there, but that is truly and essentially part of the process, and
> if they are unable to live with that, they should consider refraining to
> take part on it, instead of trying to artificially bend a system which was
> designed to be onwiki and open to submit itself to offwiki and closed
> platforms. I am seeing this kind of discussions and proposals at the
> Community Health strategy work group, for instance.
> 
> In the case at hand, I would like to understand specifically why the choice
> of mounting yet another platform, and a non wiki and closed one, instead of
> improving the existing one, wiki and open, at Outreach.
> 
> As for the WMF, despite what Amir has said, which possibly refer to
> different visions, or even dissidents among WMF staff ranks, at the end of
> the day there still is only one WMF, the one directed by the ED and
> presided by the BoT, the same one which issues those software releases, and
> the same one which issues the secretive and out of process punishments
> which are causing so much controversy these days.
> 
> Best,
> Paulo
> 
> A quarta, 26 de jun de 2019, 08:27, Ziko van Dijk 
> escreveu:
> 
>> Hello,
>>
>> Frankly, I am surprised by the announcement, too. Maybe I do not spend
>> enough time on wikis and mailinglists? :/
>>
>> In general I am very curious for this new platform. I find it quite ...
>> telling or a bad signal that many wikipedians started to prefer discussing
>> wiki topics on Facebook (1) rather than on the village pumps. Including me.
>> One of the reasons is the toxic atmosphere on many wiki pages, while the
>> Facebook groups are moderated.
>>
>> Kind regards
>> Ziko
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Am Mi., 26. Juni 2019 um 09:19 Uhr schrieb geni :
>>
>>> On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 at 22:19, 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

>>>
>>>
>>> While I agree that a good tracking mount, a reasonable telescope and
>>> some CCDs would be a better use of the money (there are some
>>> satellites I want pics of) I don't see anything particular nefarious
>>> here. Improving communications is a long term goal and shifting away
>>> from mediawiki appears on the face of it a good way to do that (we are
>>> after all on a mailing list at the moment. In practice experience
>>> suggests that most people are too busy doing what they are already
>>> doing to get involved in such projects and that mediawiki is so
>>> central to what we are do that most people are pretty comfortable with
>>> it.
>>>
>>>
>>> So this falls well within the WMF’s nominal goals and is a fairly
>>> understandable approach. I still think we would be better off spending
>>> the money on the kit needed to get a pic of Kosmos 482.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> geni
>>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing Wikimedia Space: A space for movement news and conversations

[Lucas Werkmeister]

On 26.06.19 01:22, Yair Rand wrote:
> ‫בתאריך יום ג׳, 25 ביוני 2019 ב-18:02 מאת ‪Lucas Werkmeister‬‏ <‪
> m...@lucaswerkmeister.de‬‏>:‬
> 
>> On 25.06.19 23:18, Yair Rand wrote:
>>> So far outside Wikimedia
>>> spaces that the only place it was even _announced_ was an off-wiki
>> mailing
>>> list?
>>
>> Where would you have announced it, then? I asked for a movement-wide
>> announcement place a while ago in a different context [1] and got no
>> satisfactory answer; the most popular one was wikimedia-l (this list),
>> and the only on-wiki answers were “the village pumps” (i. e. scattered)
>> – with the caveat that you should translate your message first, which
>> doesn’t scale well. I’m not saying the Space shouldn’t have been
>> announced anywhere else, but it certainly seems to me that there is a
>> need for a space like it, and in particular I don’t understand why you
>> criticize the choice of wikimedia-l for the initial announcement when
>> there seems to be good consensus for it being a central movement
>> announcement and discussion platform.
>>
>> [1]: https://twitter.com/LucasWerkmeistr/status/1107337860389265413
> 
> 
> I would have publicly announced it at least on the place that it's trying
> to replace: Meta-wiki.

Sorry if this sounds like I’m just repeating the question, but where on
metawiki specifically? Because there’s no such thing as a village pump
there, as far as I’m aware – a page titled Village pump [1] exists, but
it’s just a redirect to Wikimedia Forum [2], which is described as “a
central place for *questions and discussions* about the Wikimedia
Foundation and its projects” (emphasis mine). It’s not a place for
announcements, and there are no other announcements on it, so I
certainly wouldn’t expect the Wikimedia Space announcement to be there.
Meta:Discussion pages [3] also emphasizes that Wikimedia Forum is a page
about the Wikimedia Foundation, whereas Wikimedia Space should be, as I
understand it, a movement-wide thing (though initiated by the Foundation).

I maintain that there is no single on-wiki place for movement-wide
announcements like this, and wikimedia-l is currently the most obvious
venue; and since Discourse can offer several improvements over a mailing
list (no need to set up a pseudonymous email if you want to remain
anonymous, and it’s easier to follow a discussion without subscribing to
the list), I’m excited about the possibilities this brings.

Cheers,
Lucas

PS: Minor note about the automatic promotion on Discourse – to my own
surprise, I earned level 1 just a few minutes after sending my other
email. It’s a much lower barrier than autoconfirmed status :)

[1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Village_pump
[2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum
[3]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Discussion_pages

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing Wikimedia Space: A space for movement news and conversations

[Lucas Werkmeister]

On 25.06.19 23:18, Yair Rand wrote:
> So far outside Wikimedia
> spaces that the only place it was even _announced_ was an off-wiki mailing
> list?

Where would you have announced it, then? I asked for a movement-wide
announcement place a while ago in a different context [1] and got no
satisfactory answer; the most popular one was wikimedia-l (this list),
and the only on-wiki answers were “the village pumps” (i. e. scattered)
– with the caveat that you should translate your message first, which
doesn’t scale well. I’m not saying the Space shouldn’t have been
announced anywhere else, but it certainly seems to me that there is a
need for a space like it, and in particular I don’t understand why you
criticize the choice of wikimedia-l for the initial announcement when
there seems to be good consensus for it being a central movement
announcement and discussion platform.

[1]: https://twitter.com/LucasWerkmeistr/status/1107337860389265413

> Every single moderator is a WMF employee?

There can hardly be many other moderators immediately after launch, but
if you check the “trust levels and user rights” post [2], you’ll see
that the software (Discourse) automatically promotes users based on
certain criteria (similar to autoconfirmed status on-wiki), and the
highest level seems in principle to be open to any user (though the
criteria still have to be fleshed out, which to me seems reasonable at
this stage.)

[2]:
https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/trust-levels-and-user-rights-in-wikimedia-space/89

> Forum using closed groups, with non-transparent communication?

This question is a bit too short for me to make sense of, sorry. Closed
groups are not the default, so are you criticizing their mere existence?
Do you want to claim that that closed groups are never, ever warranted?
Because in my experience the claim at [3] that “[b]ecause on-wiki spaces
don’t allow for [closed] collaboration, some volunteers have gravitated
toward … other … platforms” is completely true.

[3]: https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/closed-groups/87

> (Closed-source software, unless I'm mistaken?)

Both WordPress and Discourse are free and open source software.

Cheers,
Lucas

> 
> 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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[Wikimedia-l] New Tool: QuickCategories

[Lucas Werkmeister]

Hi everyone!

Last week I published a cross-wiki tool to quickly add and remove
categories from pages. Since it’s not specific to any wiki, I wasn’t
sure where to announce it, and some people suggested this mailing list,
so here it is :)

The tool is called QuickCategories [1][2]. It’s similar to the
QuickStatements tool for Wikidata [3][4]: you prepare a list of edits in
a tabular, textual format – e. g. in a spreadsheet – and then you paste
it into the tool to create a batch, which you can then run.

Some page|+Category:Something|+Category:Something else|-Category:Other
Other page|+Category:Something|+Category:Something else|-Category:Other

For example, yesterday I used this tool to add [[Category:Tomb in the
Panthéon de Paris]] to several Commons categories that I had created
earlier (before realizing they should be in this category) [5], and
Harmonia Amanda has used it to categorize thousands of sportspeople by
their nationality according to Wikidata (e. g. [6]).

Please use the tool responsibly – I’m reasonably confident that it won’t
do bad things on the wikitext level (it uses MediaWiki Parser from Hell
[7], the same library as EarwigBot [8]), but it can’t decide for you
whether a category is appropriate or not. For instance, in the
announcement on Commons [9] I had proposed to automatically add
[[Category:Politicians of the United Kingdom]] to all Members of
Parliament of the United Kingdom according to Wikidata, but it turned
out this category may be more debatable than I expected. I still think
it should be possible to add this category to some automatically
selected people, using a more refined query, but I’ll leave that to
people more familiar with UK politics :)

If you have any questions, feel free to reply here or {{ping}} me
on-wiki – otherwise, I just hope this is useful to some of you :)

Best regards,
Lucas Werkmeister

[1]: https://tools.wmflabs.org/quickcategories/
[2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lucas_Werkmeister/QuickCategories
[3]: https://tools.wmflabs.org/quickstatements/
[4]: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:QuickStatements
[5]: https://tools.wmflabs.org/quickcategories/batch/26/
[6]: https://tools.wmflabs.org/quickcategories/batch/25/
[7]: https://github.com/earwig/mwparserfromhell/
[8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EarwigBot
[9]:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump&oldid=343626030#New_tool:_QuickCategories

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