[Wikimedia-l] Re: Arabic Wikipedia day of action

[Pharos]

I would like to thank Farah, as well as Itzik and others, for their
messages and the explanation of their contexts.

I don't think further open-ended discussion on wikimedia-l would be
productive for this topic.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Sat, Dec 23, 2023 at 11:03 AM James Heilman  wrote:

> Itzik, this applies only to ar WP correct? Hebrew WP can of course take
> actions as they see fit. Each project is somewhat independent of others.
>
> J
>
> Sent from Gmail Mobile
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 23, 2023 at 05:38 itzik Edri  wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately, not only did Arabic Wikipedia go dark, but also the entire
>> movement. The day marks a sad day in the history of a movement that should
>> be neutral and respect the movement's readers, volunteers and donors around
>> the world. This was the day when one of our most important projects was
>> taken hostage by politics. This is not the vision of our movement. It is
>> not what hundreds of thousands of volunteers have worked so hard to build.
>>
>> For more than 19 years, I have volunteered for this movement, and I have
>> never felt so ashamed.
>>
>> What's next?
>>
>> Let's take dark Hebrew Wikipedia and call for the release of 130 babies,
>> elders, and civilians who were taken from their beds and are being held
>> captive for more than two months without access to the red cross, whose
>> medical condition is unknown.
>>
>> In addition, I hope that European Wikipedias will go dark to raise
>> awareness about the rising antisemitism and violence towards Jews.
>>
>> I believe that this is our commitment as a movement according to the
>> updated movement mission, as it seems from Arabic Wikipedia last action.
>>
>>
>>
>> Itzik
>> A proud Israeli and a proud chairperson of Wikimedia Israel.
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 03:19 Farah Jack Mustaklem 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Greetings to all,
>>>
>>> Arabic Wikipedia editors have agreed to hold a day of action to
>>> highlight the plight of the Palestinian people and to call for peace. At
>>> 00:00 UTC on the 23rd of December, the Arabic Wikipedia "went dark",
>>> meaning that Wikipedia will not be editable for 24 hours. Wikipedia remains
>>> accessible for reading, though.
>>>
>>> This action stems from the community's sense of moral duty to combat
>>> injustice. Wikipedia communities have previously stood up for human rights
>>> such as by protesting legal travesties like SOPA and PIPA or by showing
>>> solidarity with Ukrainians following Russia's invasion of their country.
>>>
>>> May everyone celebrating the holidays - and those who aren't - stay
>>> safe, and may peace and justice prevail throughout the World.
>>>
>>> All the best
>>>
>>> Farah
>>>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: ChatGPT and Wikipedia

[Pharos]

I'd like to share my experiment with using ChapGPT to help write an article
on English Wikipedia:

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

You can see an explanation of the process here, your comments are welcome:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Artwork_title#Use_of_ChatGPT

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 1:45 PM ZhaoFJx  wrote:

> I'd be curious about copyright issues though, as it's licensed on Github
> . It may indeed
> be infringing copyright, since he may require attribution. However, I agree
> with The Cunctator that the community won't do anything about it.
>
> Incidentally, I'm a little worried that he might grab broken content that
> wasn't rolled back. After all - the current artificial intelligence can not
> reach the level of human thinking
>
> Sincerely,
> ZhaoFJx
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> Anders Wennersten  于2022年12月19日周一 08:52写道：
>
>> I think we should not underestimate what this could evolve into. We
>> thrived because our readers find us "good enough" when it comes to finding
>> facts, not the ultimate source.
>>
>> And the software learns by reading, and can (and have done so) Wikipedia,
>> Wikidata etc and represent our data in its own syntax och present it in a
>> way so it is not a direct copy. Perhaps data will be a bit delayed to the
>> actual content in Wikipedia, but so what - good enough?
>>
>> Anders
>>
>> Den 2022-12-19 kl. 14:26, skrev Gnangarra:
>>
>> AI simply cant descriminate between good research and faked research, for
>> any outcome it must provide all of its sources whether they are from
>> Wikipedia, Wikidata, WikiCommons, WikiSource or some other place.
>> Otherwise it will answer yes to some asking if the world is flat because
>> it'll seek out that answer and find all the nonsense that has been produced.
>>
>> On Mon, 19 Dec 2022 at 06:02, Erik Moeller  wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Dec 11, 2022 at 5:55 AM Anders Wennersten
>>>  wrote:
>>> > ChatGPT is now making headlines more or less every day  and I perceive
>>> > them to try to position themself  av the "next" google.
>>>
>>> I suspect OpenAI will continue to focus on generative applications
>>> (images, code, text for purposes such as copywriting, eventually
>>> music/video) and won't attempt to compete with Google directly, but
>>> we'll see. Currently GPT-3.5 (which ChatGPT is based on) is very prone
>>> to generating nonsensical answers, citations to works that don't
>>> exist, etc. But it is pretty cool if you keep its limitations in
>>> mind--for example, it's quite good at bootstrapping small scripts in
>>> various programming languages (with mistakes and idiosyncrasies).
>>>
>>> Google has one of the largest AI research programs on the planet, they
>>> just are extremely conservative about letting anyone try their models
>>> (due to reputational concerns, e.g., that generative AI will spit out
>>> racist output within about 30 seconds of people poking its
>>> guardrails). This blog post from September is instructive about the
>>> direction they're taking with what's called retrieval-augmented
>>> generation; see the paper linked from the post for details:
>>>
>>> https://www.deepmind.com/blog/building-safer-dialogue-agents (DeepMind
>>> is part of Google)
>>>
>>> That is likely to yield significantly more accurate answers than what
>>> ChatGPT is doing, and is difficult to replicate for folks like OpenAI
>>> without being dependent on the search APIs of big search companies.
>>> It's worth noting that Google has also started to incorporate language
>>> model tooling into how it's presenting search results (e.g.,
>>> summarizing or highlighting different parts of a website to make the
>>> result snippet more useful).
>>>
>>> A retrieval-augmented approach that leverages Wikidata could IMO be
>>> quite powerful and could be a useful research program for Wikimedia to
>>> pursue, be it independently or in partnership with others. The
>>> resulting technology should of course be fully open source.
>>>
>>> Querying Wikidata via SPARQL is currently still a bit of wizardry (and
>>> the query builder is extremely limited). To pick a completely random
>>> example not at all inspired by current events, if I wanted to see a
>>> list of journalists with Mastodon accounts & a picture, I currently
>>> have to do this:
>>>
>>> SELECT DISTINCT ?personLabel ?mastodonName ?pic
>>> WHERE {
>>>   ?person wdt:P4033 ?mastodonName ;
>>> wdt:P106 ?occupation .
>>>   OPTIONAL { ?person wdt:P18 ?pic . }
>>>   ?occupation wdt:P279* wd:Q1930187 .
>>>SERVICE wikibase:label {
>>>  bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en"
>>>}
>>> }
>>>
>>> Make a small mistake (a curly brace missing) and you'll get a red
>>> error message. Forgot 

[Wikimedia-l] Black WikiHistory Month

[Pharos]

I wanted to share the page for Black WikiHistory Month events by Afrocrowd
and others, to mark Black History Month in the US (it is marked differently
in other countries):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Black_WikiHistory_Month#February_2022

I'm sure there are more edit-a-thons and other events to add!

One we'd welcome wide participation on is the Afrofuturist Period Room
campaign with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, running throughout February,
with a virtual launch on Feb 5:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/MetAfrofuturist

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
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[Wikimedia-l] Nov 19: Meta-Wiki 20 Day!

[Pharos]

Meta-Wiki is marking *20* years on Friday, 19 November 2021.

Let's use it as an opportunity to celebrate and revisualization our
best/worst project!

*RSVP here:* https://meta.wiki20.org

With virtual hosting support by WikiConference North America on their Hopin
account.

   - Time: 15:00 UTC  - 19:00
   UTC 

We'll look at everything from 2001's Moving commentary out of Wikipedia
 to
2021's Wikimedia Social Suite
, with detours at
Meta's best and worst and most-needed pages, and beyond!

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
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[Wikimedia-l] Wednesday: Wikispore Day Unconference

[Pharos]

You're invited to the Wikispore Day Unconference on Wednesday, July 28,
marking the second anniversary of our initiative to germinate more
Wikimedia wikis in new genres that have been left out of the free knowledge
ecosystem:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wikispore-day-unconference-tickets-164387789303

Proposal on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispore

Our video from last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q75Fv7Snc_w

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Join the new Regional Committees for Grants

[Pharos]

I would like to echo Bodhisattwa's concern, and add that there is a great
ambiguity here.

What is the definition of "affiliate board member" being used here? A large
number of affiliates are small and do not have a board, but are more
informally organized.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Fri, May 21, 2021 at 10:19 AM Bodhisattwa Mandal <
bodhisattwa.rg...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am concerned about the exclusion of affiliate board members in the
> regional committees. This decision would exclude a large portion of
> experienced volunteers who are there in different user group decision
> making committees. For global south countries, that would diminish the pool
> of volunteers who are experienced and suitable for this kind of work.
>
> Regards,
> Bodhisattwa
>
> On Fri, May 21, 2021, 19:27 Risker  wrote:
>
>> I am very concerned that you think you're going to get about 80 qualified
>> and committed volunteers to do this work within the next few weeks.  This
>> is unrealistic. I also agree with Florence's concerns.
>>
>> Risker/Anne
>>
>> On Fri, 21 May 2021 at 08:33, Florence Devouard 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello Julia
>>>
>>>
>>> I apology if I missed a step at some point.
>>> In this application, I read that
>>>
>>> "All the current grant committees (both active and inactive) will cease
>>> to function with the implementation of the new grants strategy of the
>>> Community Resources Team effective from 1 July 2021. We strongly encourage
>>> current and former committee members to apply to be part of the regional
>>> committees."
>>>
>>> So... is it to understand that absolutely ALL grants provided by the
>>> Wikimedia Foundation will go through those yet uncreated committees ?
>>>
>>> Does that mean all current recipients of APG grants will have to address
>>> their annual request to those yet unknown teams in the future ? (september
>>> in some cases)
>>>
>>> To whom will grants requests have to be addressed to for those groups
>>> who are not related to a specific region ? Do they have to pick up a region
>>> of their choice and consider themselves attached to it, or will they be
>>> appointed a region by default ?
>>>
>>> Sorry if the questions seem to be unrelated to your call but...
>>> 1) I am trying to understand and measure how much unstable our current
>>> situation is as grantees so that we can anticipate...
>>> 2) I am trying to evaluate the responsibilities that will be on the
>>> shoulders of those new regional committee members
>>>
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>>
>>> Florence
>>>
>>>
>>> Le 21/05/2021 à 08:06, Julia Brungs a écrit :
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> We hope this email finds you well and safe. The COVID 19 situation
>>> continues to affect many of us across the globe and our thoughts are with
>>> everyone affected. We are also aware that there are several processes
>>> currently in progress that demand volunteer time and we do not want to add
>>> more work to anyone's plate.
>>>
>>> We do want to draw your attention to our new Regional Committees for
>>> Grants though as they are an opportunity for you to have an active say in
>>> the future of our Movement!
>>>
>>>  So today, we invite you to join our new Regional Committees for
>>> Grants! 
>>>
>>> We encourage Wikimedians and Free Knowledge advocates to be part of the
>>> new Regional Committees that the WMF Community Resources team is setting up
>>> as part of the grants strategy relaunch [1]. You will be a key strategic
>>> thought partner to help understand the complexities of any region, provide
>>> knowledge and expertise to applicants, to support successful movement
>>> activities, and make funding decisions for grant applications in the region.
>>>
>>> Find out more on meta [2].
>>>
>>> Regional Committees will be established for the following regions:
>>>
>>>- Middle East and Africa
>>>- SAARC [3] region (Includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,
>>>the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka)
>>>- East, Southeast Asia, and Pacific (ESEAP) region
>>>- Latin America (LATAM) and The Caribbean
>>>- United States and Canada
>>>- Northern and Western Europe
>>>- Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)
>>>
>>> All details about the Committees and how to apply can be found on meta
>>> [4]. Applications have to be submitted by *June 4, 2021*!
>>>
>>> If you have any questions or comments, please use the meta discussion
>>> page [5].
>>>
>>> Please do share this announcement widely with your Network.
>>> Best wishes,
>>> Julia on behalf of the Community Resources Team
>>>
>>> [1]
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunch_2020-2021
>>> [2]
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunch_2020-2021/Regional_Committees
>>> [3] https://www.saarc-sec.org/index.php/about-saarc/about-saarc
>>> [4]
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunch_2020-2021/Regional_Committees#How_to_apply
>>> [5]
>>> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: COVID-19 second wave and protection of our most valuable movement asset

[Pharos]

I want to thank everyone at the Wikimedia Foundation (and beyond) who has
helped to set up this initiative on such quick notice. I'm sure it was
quite difficult to define and to implement on a crisis basis, and so glad
to see something happening for our volunteers in India.

Not all of these forms of help might apply to other issues in the future,
but it strikes me that "counseling by experts" could be a scalable tool,
and be of benefit to many in our communities for a variety of crises.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Mon, May 10, 2021 at 1:10 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta 
wrote:

> Hello,
> We have started working on this. Details are updated at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_support_for_Wikimedians/India
> and the FAQ page
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_support_for_Wikimedians/India/FAQ
> We have opened up applications and started getting support requests.
> Because of lockdown in different states in India, things are a bit slow in
> couriering the kits. We'll keep things updated on Meta-Wiki and here.
> Regards.
>
>
> সোম, ১০ মে, ২০২১ তারিখে ১০:২৩ PM টায় এ Samuel Klein 
> লিখেছেন:
>
>> Thank you for this.  How is it coming?  SJ
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 30, 2021 at 11:38 AM Bodhisattwa Mandal <
>> bodhisattwa.rg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Today, we have opened up the Google Form for Indian volunteers to fill
>>> up. Here is the link -
>>> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScYcjEeuT7vUxP3NJg7KfIiZaude9IXLyCagsDarTx11J4ymA/viewform
>>>
>>> There are still some logistical constraints to be fully operational, but
>>> we are trying to figure those out as soon as we can. Hopefully, all will be
>>> set by next week.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Bodhisattwa
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 21:54 Samuel Klein  wrote:
>>>
 Thanks Biyanto, wonderful to see.  Have any other groups done something
 similar?  S

 On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 4:53 AM Biyanto Rebin <
 biyanto.re...@wikimedia.or.id> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I just want to share that Wikimedia Indonesia has started the
> initiative since last year. We have disbursed a healthy package - we call
> it, wellness package - to our active community members. They are indeed
> very valuable and most of them are vulnerable. Vaccine is another story,
> since our country still prioritizes the most needed first.
>
> Read more of the story in here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2019-2020_round_2/Wikimedia_Indonesia/Progress_report_form
>
> Best,
>
> Pada tanggal Kam, 29 Apr 2021 pukul 14.08 Rajeeb 
> menulis:
>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> Hope my mail finds you all in the best of health and spirits. I like
>> to thank Tito and Bodhi for coming up with this initiative and starting 
>> the
>> conversation. Now, WMF has permitted CIS-A2K to allot funds to reimburse
>> vaccines, send COVID protection kits and provide counselling for 
>> Wikimedia
>> volunteers in India.
>> A noble initiative for humanity has begun and I am sure the days
>> are not too far where we all will be healthy and happy with our families,
>> relatives and friends.
>>
>> Last but not the least, I am always there for my Wiki Community, for
>> anything and everything, anyone wants to speak with me, please feel free 
>> to
>> contact me.
>>
>> Wishing everyone and their families a healthy and happy life.
>>
>> Namaste,
>>
>> Rajeeb.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 at 20:55, Samuel Klein  wrote:
>>
>>> Something like this could definitely make a real difference, GN --
>>> either enhancing and focusing pages on WP, or standing up a COVID-19
>>> dedicated site that could draw from other projects.
>>>
>>> At the same time we could also set aside funds to ensure that
>>> communityresources is well staffed at this time.
>>> A federated approach like this
>>>  to
>>> explicitly support regional partners, in coordination with other 
>>> regional
>>> sponsors, could work. (Candid has a catalog
>>>  of similar
>>> efforts).
>>>
>>> SJ
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 7:04 AM Gnangarra 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Our best skill is collecting, collating, and sharing knowledge, we
 have connections deep into communities and countries across the globe.

 In a small way we have networks and we could get limited support
 medically to a handful of volunteers, in some ways that will have made 
 feel
 as if we have done some to help then we can go back to our meetings, 
 our
 events, our adding a few more articles.

 Perhaps its time we took our big stick and put the right 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] COVID-19 second wave and protection of our most valuable movement asset

[Pharos]

Thanks Bodhi and Tito, do you perhaps have some models of non-profits that
have done something similar? It's a bit hard to picture what would be the
appropriate criteria and scope of such a support program.

Best,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 1:57 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta 
wrote:

> Hello,
> Thanks for sharing the thought. I agree that there is a necessity to
> seriously think of the support, and taking necessary actions. Very rarely
> we face such a threat directly affecting so many people. This is an
> exceptional situation, possibly needs exceptional measures (there was a
> thread/open letter on Wikimedianindia-l:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2021-April/014955.html
> )
>
> A few countries are badly affected. I believe other than the main
> pandemic, the simultaneous and post-pandemic socio-economic difficulties
> will be a huge problem. Other than the humanitarian aspect of it, this will
> have a direct impact on important areas like editor onboarding, editor
> retention, educational and institutional partnership etc.
>
> I feel, possibly a COVID-19 (support) committee can be set up soon?
>
> ইতি,/Regards,
> টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
>
>
>
> বৃহস্পতি, ২২ এপ্রিল, ২০২১ তারিখে ২:৪১ PM টায় এ Bodhisattwa Mandal <
> bodhisattwa.rg...@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> COVID-19 has hit hard in India again making it the leading epicentre of
>> the disease caused by the new mutated strains. The infection and death
>> tolls have reached record high and the health system in different parts of
>> the country is on the verge of collapse.
>>
>> Like other common people, many Wikimedians might have lost their jobs
>> last year. Like last year, this year too, many volunteers have been
>> infected and hospitalised. Some of them have lost their family members,
>> relatives, friends and other dear ones.
>>
>> Volunteer online community is the heart of our movement and every
>> dedicated, experienced and long-term volunteers are our most valuable
>> asset. It is not at all exaggerating to say that many language Wikimedia
>> projects or WikiProjects are dependent completely on one (or two or
>> three...) person's persistence to build it as a tall building from scratch
>> and if we lose some of those people, those projects might totally stop
>> forever. There are so many fantastic people in the movement who have been
>> doing incredible work in their volunteer capacity for such a long time
>> (sometimes more than a decade) to make what Wikimedia is today.
>>
>> I would like to urge people with power and money in the movement to find
>> a way to protect these assets. We not only cannot afford to lose them, but
>> also need to proactively protect them. Maybe a small step to provide
>> personal or family COVID-19 insurance might help a lot. Maybe sending money
>> to buy COVID-19 vaccines might save some of them. Who knows?
>>
>> If we can spend millions of dollars for conferences or a couple of
>> hundred thousand dollars to celebrate 20 years of Wikipedia during
>> Wikimania, can we not spend a few thousand dollars to protect at least some
>> of the people around the globe to some extent who made it possible to turn
>> Wikipedia into its 20th birthday?
>>
>> Disclaimer: I had tried to convince the grants team from my personal
>> capacity last year when COVID-19 was spreading rapidly in India but was
>> denied due to their legal concerns regarding insurance registration as
>> well as settlement and liability issues. Few others tried to convince them
>> too but failed. I am reaching out to the community to start a conversation
>> this time and find a way together.
>>
>> I am sorry for my long mail. I could not help it.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Bodhisattwa
>>
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Idea of a new project: Wikifacts ?

[Pharos]

I wanted to share the availability of Wikispore for the purpose, under the
Fact Spore or perhaps a new concept:

https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Fact_Spore

Here is some broader information on how the world of Wikispore works:

https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/FAQ

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 6:50 PM Douglas Clark  wrote:

> I proposed a project, WikiPragmatica
> , that can support fake
> news detection. The retained context of the paraphrase graph can identify
> fake news patterns similar to what MIT does with their detector.
>
> On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 12:42 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Does Wikinews cover this aspect?
>> --
>> *From:* Wikimedia-l  on behalf
>> of Chris Gates via Wikimedia-l 
>> *Sent:* Thursday, February 4, 2021 8:20 PM
>> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> *Cc:* Chris Gates 
>> *Subject:* Re: [Wikimedia-l] Idea of a new project: Wikifacts ?
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Independent of my opinions on the validity of such a new Wikimedia
>> project, there is currently an experiment of similar goals (and potentially
>> structure) over at Twitter:
>>
>>
>> https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2021/introducing-birdwatch-a-community-based-approach-to-misinformation.html
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>> Verm
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 2:17 PM Leinonen Teemu 
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Has there been any discussion to start a new Wikimedia project focusing
>> on fact checking?
>>
>> Fact checking of course is in the core of editing Wikipedia, but I was
>> thinking about dedicated wiki-site that is dedicated for fact checking of
>> current events and news. Why this would be important?
>>
>> (1) There are many fact checking site in the English speaking world but
>> much less elsewhere. I am afraid that there is still greater need for fact
>> checking in the rest of the world. {{Citation needed}}
>>
>> (2) Our community is very well educated to do fact checking the wiki-way.
>> Again internationally, many of our community members are real fact
>> champions in their home countries and language groups. The practice of
>> Wikipedia could be applied to fact checking of fast moving current events
>> and news, too.
>>
>> (3) This could help us to get new young people to the movement, as
>> editing Wikipedias is not anymore so easy to start (because they are so
>> good already).
>>
>> (4) In many parts of the world, fact checking can also be dangerous. With
>> our anonymous and community driven practices and services we could protect
>> the fact checkers in many parts of the world.
>>
>> I am not sure what is the state of the Wikinews, but my impression is
>> that it is not really working. It was a good idea, but maybe wiki or
>> wiki-way is not the way to produce news. Also the beautiful idea of citizen
>> journalism has not really become reality. Maybe we could try if wiki and
>> the wki-way works better in fact checking.
>>
>> Peace,
>>
>>  - Teemu
>>
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF transfers $8.7 million to "Wikimedia Knowledge Equity Fund"

[Pharos]

Hi Lisa and all,

Thanks for your responses and thoughts. This is an important area, and key
to get right with a consensus-driven approach.

Are we going to announce the process for giving grants to organisations
outside the movement, including the process for community involvement, in
the spirit of the strategy recommendations?

Or should we just expect an announcement of the first recipients?

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 12:54 PM Lisa Gruwell 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Thanks for the questions. We intend to announce the Knowledge Equity Fund
> in early 2021, once we have a bit more details and specifics worked out.
> However, we can share the overall intention today.
>
> Some background: Our fiscal year runs from July through June, which means
> that the second half of last year was heavily affected by the unforeseen
> effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Community events were canceled, hiring
> slowed, and we put work on pause while we responded to the changing
> circumstances. As a result, we ended the year with funds that were
> underspent, relative to what we had planned for the budget.
>
> In May of last year, we were also planning for this current fiscal year
> and had very little insight about how fundraising would perform in this
> pandemic. People around the world were losing their sources of income, as
> unemployment soared. We worked with the board to plan for different
> scenarios, including if fundraising went really poorly.
>
> As a general matter, when the budget is underspent, any remainder goes
> into the reserve. For accounting purposes, it cannot be carried over into
> the budget of a new fiscal year. Because we were concerned about the
> uncertainty of fundraising this year, we decided to set aside underspent
> funds from the past fiscal year, so that we could keep our commitment to
> our grantees even if fundraising fell short and also make progress on
> knowledge equity. (Good news: Fundraising ended up going a lot better than
> we expected when we were planning in the early months of this pandemic.
> More to come on that.)
>
> With the WMF board’s approval, we set up a US$8.7 million grantmaking
> fund at Tides Advocacy, which has two purposes: 1) Funding Annual Plan
> Grants (APG) to the affiliates this year and 2) Funding Knowledge Equity.
> We have been working with Tides since 2016 when we launched the Endowment.
> The relationship has gone well and they have a lot of expertise at
> administering grants internationally.
>
> Our first priority was to ensure that we had enough funding to support
> community grants. We transferred the full amount for Annual Plan Grants
> (APG) for FY20-21 over to Tides to ensure that all funding for affiliates
> for this year was secured, regardless of how fundraising performed. It also
> gives staff at affiliates and the Foundation more time to work together to
> make thoughtful grants, instead of an end-of-year rush. All affiliates who
> will be receiving funding through Tides were informed of the arrangement
> last summer. All other grantmaking (Community Grants, Rapid Grants,
> Project Grants) are still being funded through WMF directly, as usual.
> There is a round of APG grants set to go out via Tides this week.
>
> As the Audit Report FAQ states,[1] the remaining funds will be used to
> launch the Wikimedia Knowledge Equity Fund. This new fund is in addition to
> the existing grants that are already available for the communities
> (Community Grants, Rapid Grants, Project Grants, and APGs) and does not
> impact the amount of funds in those grant portfolios.
>
> Our goal is to use this fund to invest in new opportunities that increase the
> availability of free knowledge for marginalized people and counteract
> structural inequalities. Knowledge equity is a key pillar of the 2030
> movement strategy, and this investment will help us to address some of the
> barriers preventing people from accessing and contributing to free
> knowledge.
>
> As of now, this is a one-time commitment of approximately $4.5 million. We
> are still working on the specific initial objectives of the fund and how it
> will operate. As a pilot initiative, we’ll be learning and adapting as we
> go.
>
> We’ll share more details in early 2021 about the Knowledge Equity Fund. We
> are excited to see what progress we can make for knowledge equity with this
> investment.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Lisa Gruwell
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audits/2019-2020_-_frequently_asked_questions/id#This_year%E2%80%99s_report_says_that_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_provided_an_unconditional_grant_of_$8.723_million_to_Tides_Advocacy_for_the_Wikimedia_Knowledge_Equity_Fund._What_is_the_Wikimedia_Knowledge_Equity_Fund?
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Today: Wikimania 2006 retrospective livestream (1900 UTC)

[Pharos]

Join us today as we revisit Wikimania 2006 and the state of the movement
that year, as part of the Wiki 20 Countdown!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMwvfN8x5hc

Livestream is Sunday October 4 at 3pm New York / 9pm Berlin / 1900 UTC, or
15 hours after this email was senr.

A project of the Wikipedia Weekly Network, part of the Wiki 20 Countdown to
the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia (January 15, 2021).

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Weekly_Network/Year_by_Year
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Weekly_Network
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_20_Countdown

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedia 20 Celebrations

[Pharos]

I wanted to share the Wiki 20 Countdown, a series of community livestreamed
events that started last month and will go through January, next up is our
Wikimania Boston retrospective on Sept 13:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_20_Countdown

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 5:12 PM Lena Traer  wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I hope that you are all well and keeping healthy and safe. As you know,
> Wikipedia's 20th birthday (aka Wikipedia 20) is coming up in January! We
> wanted to get the information out to you so you can join our discussions.
>
> We have created a Meta-Wiki hub as a central place for coordination around
> this milestone.[1] It is set up similarly to Wikipedia 15 pages. It is
> designed to help coordinate community efforts and will have resources to
> support outreach, events, and other forms of celebration throughout 2021.
>
> An overview of the Wikimedia Foundation’s planned activities (work in
> progress) can be found here.[2] If your affiliate or other organized group
> already has a plan (or the beginnings of a plan), we invite you to share it
> on this page as well, or use the Talk page for discussions.[3]
>
> We are coordinating our planning efforts with the Communications Committee
> and Movement Communications Group. Anyone working on movement
> communications is invited to join the Movement Communications Group and
> participate in further planning.[4]
>
> Looking forward to hearing from you about all the exciting things you are
> planning for Wikipedia 20!
>
> All the best,
>
> On behalf of the Wikipedia 20 Team,
> Lena
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_20
> [2]
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_20/Get_involved/Wikimedia_Foundation
> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia_20
> [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_communications_group
>
> ---
>
> Lena Traer (she/her)
> Creative Project Manager
> Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Sunday Wikispore Day mini-conference

[Pharos]

The Wikispore Day recording is now available in full on Commons (as well as
on Youtube):

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikispore_Day.webm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q75Fv7Snc_w

Here is the proposal for Wikispore as a future sister project on Meta:

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

And you can share your input and possible support here, as well as on the
talk page:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispore#Discussion

And follow some updates here: https://twitter.com/wikispore

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)


On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 9:30 PM Pharos  wrote:

> The event is Sunday July 19, hosted on Wikipedia Weekly Network.
>
> Time in select zones:
> 1:00–3:00 pm (New York City time)
> 17:00–19:00 UTC/GMT
> 19:00–21:00 Berlin time
>
> https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Wikispore_Day
>
> You can participate on the Youtube livestream here, and text chat with the
> presenters and ask questions, etc:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q75Fv7Snc_w
>
> I also invite you to sign up for a lightning talk, and I will be glad to
> send interested individuals with related topics to present the on-air link:
>
> https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Wikispore_Day#Interested_participants
>
> Thanks,
> Richard
> (User:Pharos)
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2005 Flashback livestream in 2 hours

[Pharos]

An oral history and discussion of the world of Wikimedia from 2005 to the
present, seen through the lens of the annual Wikimania conference. A
roundtable of panelists engage in a live video discussion (using YouTube,
Facebook, Twitter, Twitch). The audience is invited to share their views
and experiences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkybZMOLY1E

Wikimania 2020 was scheduled for August 5 to coincide with the 15th
anniversary of the first Wikimania, but it had to be postponed til next
year due to Covid. Since we can't be together in person, we'll spend the
first episode of this series discussing the very first Wikimania, held in
2005 in Frankfurt, Germany, and the entire year of 2005 in Wikimedia and
wikis. This was the first international conference of the Wikimedia
movement and the first time many participants had met another Wikipedian.
It was held in a youth hostel (Haus der Jugend) in Frankfurt, and we spent
much of the week outside in the hostel's beer garden. What else was going
on in the world of Wikipedia and wikis in 2005? Attendees and organizers of
Wikimania 2005 will talk about this momentous early event, how it shaped
Wikimedia going forward, and what Wikipedia and Wikimedia was like in 2005,
in the context of the wider world.

A project of the Wikipedia Weekly Network, part of the countdown to the
20th anniversary of Wikipedia (January 15, 2021):
https://yearbyyear.wiki20.org

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
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[Wikimedia-l] Sunday Wikispore Day mini-conference

[Pharos]

The event is Sunday July 19, hosted on Wikipedia Weekly Network.

Time in select zones:
1:00–3:00 pm (New York City time)
17:00–19:00 UTC/GMT
19:00–21:00 Berlin time

https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Wikispore_Day

You can participate on the Youtube livestream here, and text chat with the
presenters and ask questions, etc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q75Fv7Snc_w

I also invite you to sign up for a lightning talk, and I will be glad to
send interested individuals with related topics to present the on-air link:

https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Wikispore_Day#Interested_participants

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Promotion of scientific racism in Wikipedia articles

[Pharos]

Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects should reflect the scientific
consensus, whether that be on climate, vaccines, or the concept of
biological "races".

The latter concept is deeply tied to 19th-century pseudoscience, and is
very different from modern genetic science. Genetic traits have various
distributions by geography, but these are not grouped by "races", which is
largely an arbitrary social distinction.

I agree that this is not a particularly fruitful topic for discussion on
this mailing list.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 9:42 AM Dennis During  wrote:

> I don't feel safe presenting truths in an environment where one can be
> bullied for presenting truths that are unfashionable or can be so painted.
> Does the Code of Conduct cover that?
>
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 8:57 AM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > It is remarkably easy to find various language Wikipedia articles that
> > actively promote scientific racism. The forthcoming WMF universal code
> > of conduct is unlikely to directly address this type of damaging
> > anti-educational content, or require projects to take action.
> >
> > This may surprise some, but here are two examples, and if you follow
> > the multiple language links in each, you will find many other language
> > examples:
> >
> > [1] Wikipedia article in Russian about "Negroid race" (Негроидная
> > раса) and associates Negroid as being defined by genetics. Nowhere in
> > the article is it explained that these are debunked racist theories.
> >
> > [2] Wikipedia article in Italian about "Mongoloid" (Mongoloide),
> > defines being Mongoloid by physical characteristics and presents it as
> > a scientific term with a section explaining how the Mogoloid race is
> > geographically spread.
> >
> > Unfortunately, as these outdated racist theories are Wikipedia
> > articles, Wikimedia Commons still hosts multiple *user created*
> > "racial maps" of the human race as if this were a current scientific
> > race taxonomy for humans. These maps are not even required to have
> > warnings that their content is scientific racism or why that's a bad
> > thing.[3]
> >
> > At the current time, nobody is solving this problem with systemic
> > racism and I am unaware of the WMF funding a project that will take
> > action to fix it, nor even tracking this repugnant material. The idea
> > that we might still be vaguely talking about how bad it is that
> > Wikipedia is being used to promote "Negroid race" as science in
> > several years time, without any systematic action to get rid of it or
> > at least correctly reformat the article to describe it as debunked,
> > should alarm everyone concerned that donor's money is supporting this
> > content.
> >
> > Links
> > 1.
> >
> https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B0
> > 2. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloide
> > 3.
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Average_East-Eurasian_ancestry_(Mongoloid).png
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Fae
> > --
> > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> >
> > ___
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> > 
>
>
>
> --
> Dennis C. During
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiSeder and four drinks to free knowledge

[Pharos]

You can see all of our recent Wikipedia Weekly Network episodes here, and
can subscribe to us on YouTube, please do because when we get 100
subscribers, we get a non-obnoxious url:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa5oYsCabGo7XwwKGqo7Qcw/videos

100th subscriber gets a free stub from me!

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 10:50 AM Pharos 
wrote:

> I would like to share our experience earlier this week with the WikiSeder,
> a secular celebration of wiki wisdom and free culture for the age of the
> quarantini.
>
> As we pass through our current plague, we came together from our lockdowns
> to retell stories of liberation and crisis overcome through fellowship and
> information-sharing, with some light-hearted discussion of strategy and
> barnstar culture too.
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiSeder
>
> Hosted by Wikimedia NYC and friends on the Wikipedia Weekly Network, which
> was recently revived as a livestream channel to help bring together our
> community in the current crisis.
>
> You can view  the entirety on YouTube and other platforms, coming soon to
> Commons!
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCvt2DowhM0
>
> Thanks,
> Richard
> (User:Pharos)
>
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[Wikimedia-l] WikiSeder and four drinks to free knowledge

[Pharos]

I would like to share our experience earlier this week with the WikiSeder,
a secular celebration of wiki wisdom and free culture for the age of the
quarantini.

As we pass through our current plague, we came together from our lockdowns
to retell stories of liberation and crisis overcome through fellowship and
information-sharing, with some light-hearted discussion of strategy and
barnstar culture too.

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

Hosted by Wikimedia NYC and friends on the Wikipedia Weekly Network, which
was recently revived as a livestream channel to help bring together our
community in the current crisis.

You can view  the entirety on YouTube and other platforms, coming soon to
Commons!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCvt2DowhM0

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Next steps on Wikimedia Space

[Pharos]

On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 8:49 AM Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Phase V confirmed! -- I hope this means related features (a calendar +
> forum :) are getting included in mediawiki propre...
>
> 
>

Indeed, it has been a mistake to keep spinning off new discussion
platforms, in the hope that the next one will be different and controllable
and totally replace everything else. This has been an anti-pattern for a
decade. Far better to make a real investment (including both a social and a
technical investment) in the actual community platforms based on MediaWiki,
where many of the ideas that were developed for Space could be rather more
fruitfully applied, and the existing eforts by good people not be put to
waste.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)


> On Tue., Feb. 18, 2020, 5:31 a.m. Quim Gil,  wrote:
>
> > Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation launched Wikimedia Space to
> experiment
> > with new ways to connect volunteers, increase movement participation, and
> > showcase community stories. While we remain committed to this important
> > goal, based on lessons learned through the Space prototype, the
> Foundation
> > has decided to close Discuss Space. The Space blog, which continues to
> fill
> > a need to share news for the movement by the movement, will continue in a
> > new home. Please continue to submit community-focused stories [1], so
> that
> > we may share them with the movement.
> >
> > To learn more about the next steps, check the full announcement at
> > https://space.wmflabs.org/2020/02/18/next-steps-on-wikimedia-space/
> >
> > We have learned a lot from this initiative and want to thank all Space
> > users [2] for their time and contributions. We also invite everyone
> > interested in documenting lessons learned and discussing next steps to
> join
> > us in taking this effort even further, either at the About Wikimedia
> Space
> > category in Discuss [3] or the Space talk page in Meta [4].
> >
> > [1]
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Space/Editorial_guidelines#How_to_get_started
> > [2] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/u?period=all
> > [3] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/c/about-wikimedia-space/2
> > [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Space
> >
> > --
> > Quim Gil (he/him)
> > Senior Manager of Community Relations @ Wikimedia Foundation
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Qgil-WMF
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] World AIDS Day current events page

[Pharos]

I also wanted to share the Wikidata item corresponding to the Wikispore
page:

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q75666795

And a Commons category has now also been created, please add to it with
World AIDS Day photos from your part of the world:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:World_AIDS_Day_2019

Thanks,
Pharos

On Sun, Dec 1, 2019 at 8:39 AM Pharos  wrote:

> I'd like to share our current events page collaboration, covering Word
> AIDS Day, which is today, December 1,with a compendium of events worldwide :
>
> https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Event:World_AIDS_Day_2019
>
> I encourage anyone interested to edit and expand and update this page, and
> to make it more complete in medicine and public policy areas, and
> particularly to have better global coverage outside of the USA.
>
> This effort is part of the current events project on Wikispore:
>
> https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Event_Spore
>
> (You have to register a new account on Wikispore, you can just use you
> Wikimedia username, but for security reasons use a different password. We
> will merge the accounts later.)
>
> For the Meta proposal for Wikispore of which the current events project is
> a part, see and participate at:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispore
>
> Thanks,
> Richard
> (User:Pharos)
>
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[Wikimedia-l] World AIDS Day current events page

[Pharos]

I'd like to share our current events page collaboration, covering Word AIDS
Day, which is today, December 1,with a compendium of events worldwide :

https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Event:World_AIDS_Day_2019

I encourage anyone interested to edit and expand and update this page, and
to make it more complete in medicine and public policy areas, and
particularly to have better global coverage outside of the USA.

This effort is part of the current events project on Wikispore:

https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/wiki/Event_Spore

(You have to register a new account on Wikispore, you can just use you
Wikimedia username, but for security reasons use a different password. We
will merge the accounts later.)

For the Meta proposal for Wikispore of which the current events project is
a part, see and participate at:

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

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Wiki Loves Pride--Extended to July 31!

[Pharos]

Wanted to share this with the global list, the Wiki Loves Pride campaign
for LGBT content has now been extended to July 31!

You can participate in the three pillars/sub-contests here, see below for
more details:

art.wikilovespride.org
health.wikilovespride.org
photo.wikilovespride.org

And let us know if you could use assistance adapting anything to your
language Wikipedia.

Thanks,
Pharos

-- Forwarded message -
From: Wexelbaum, Rachel S. 
Date: Tue, Jul 9, 2019 at 5:48 PM
Subject: [Wikimedia-US-MN] Wiki Loves Pride--Extended to July 31!
To: wikimedia-us...@lists.wikimedia.org ,
Wikimedia Affiliates 


Hello All,

*All Wiki Loves Pride campaigns and contests will run until July 31st!  *Here
is how you can get involved--

***Art Contest with the Metropolitan Museum of Art***
art.wikilovespride.org
<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fart.wikilovespride.org=01%7C01%7Crswexelbaum%40stcloudstate.edu%7C732294f24f2840da6d4808d7049b44cb%7C5e40e2ed600b4eeaa9851d0c9dcca629%7C0=7tzr1WAvaXuAEdNPXDhQtCaHjy3hNwRDlNcHofKYMcs%3D=0>

We've created a custom tool to help new artwork article pages by LGBT
artists:
lgbt.mbabel.org
<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flgbt.mbabel.org=01%7C01%7Crswexelbaum%40stcloudstate.edu%7C732294f24f2840da6d4808d7049b44cb%7C5e40e2ed600b4eeaa9851d0c9dcca629%7C0=A%2FJEzlEuILg4kZRNCd3WUZ%2B70G26Zxj9HGVawNN08EA%3D=0>

As well a tools to find artworks not yet translated into your language:
translate.lgbt.mbabel.org
<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftranslate.lgbt.mbabel.org=01%7C01%7Crswexelbaum%40stcloudstate.edu%7C732294f24f2840da6d4808d7049b44cb%7C5e40e2ed600b4eeaa9851d0c9dcca629%7C0=4VoITBnoJ0geyOLD%2ByvxHw0IjwcdnZu7T2xJ7FPbd0Y%3D=0>

***Health Contest***
health.wikilovespride.org
<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhealth.wikilovespride.org=01%7C01%7Crswexelbaum%40stcloudstate.edu%7C732294f24f2840da6d4808d7049b44cb%7C5e40e2ed600b4eeaa9851d0c9dcca629%7C0=xmvzFmPrqV8HxgcRhPP6S3g3kpOa0eP5%2BHbRenBVKgs%3D=0>

***Photography Contest***
photo.wikilovespride.org
<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fphoto.wikilovespride.org=01%7C01%7Crswexelbaum%40stcloudstate.edu%7C732294f24f2840da6d4808d7049b44cb%7C5e40e2ed600b4eeaa9851d0c9dcca629%7C0=nnQtnd0%2BSZFtR089UQ5axZB8ZIHwkni1uZz6qrKZSz4%3D=0>

Please contact User:Pharos on wiki or at pharosofalexand...@gmail.com for
more information about the contests or campaigns.

Please contact User:RachelWex on wiki or rswexelb...@stcloudstate.edu, or
DM to @wikilgbt if you would like to promote your Wiki Loves Pride
editathons, events, or give shoutouts to those who edit loud and proud.

Happy editing and photo shooting!

Rachel and Richard


Rachel Wexelbaum, MLIS
Associate Professor
Collection Management Librarian
St Cloud State University
720 4th Avenue South
Saint Cloud, MN 56301
(320) 308-4756

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing our newest chapter, Wikimedia Korea

[Pharos]

I was very glad to meet several of those involved at Wikimania Cape Town,
and am very pleased to congratulate them on their long work on Wikimedia
Korea coming to fruition.

Thank you to AffCom and the BoT, and let's hope this is not the last new
chapter / thematic org of 2019!

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 9:08 AM Michael Jahn 
wrote:

> Congratulations, Wikimedia Korea!
> Best
> Micha
> ---
> Michael Jahn
> Leiter Programme
> Director of Programs
>
> Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
> Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
> https://wikimedia.de
>
> Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissens der Menschheit
> teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
> https://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.
>
>
>
>
> Am Do., 25. Apr. 2019 um 09:50 Uhr schrieb Pierre-Selim <
> pierre-se...@huard.info>:
>
> > Good to see a new chapter approved!
> >
> > Kudos to volunteers of Wikimedia Korea!
> >
> > Le jeu. 25 avr. 2019 à 09:26, Frans Grijzenhout  a
> > écrit :
> >
> > > We are very happy that another chapter is approved after so many years.
> > > Wikimedia Korea you are very welcome to join the ranks of the chapter
> > > affiliates. And I also want to express my gratitude to Affcom and BoT.
> > > Frans
> > >
> > > *Frans Grijzenhout*, voorzitter / chair
> > > +31 6 5333 9499
> > > --
> > > *Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland*
> > > Mariaplaats 3  -  3511 LH Utrecht
> > > Kamer van Koophandel 17189036
> > > http://www.wikimedia.nl/
> > >
> > >
> > > Op wo 24 apr. 2019 om 15:48 schreef Samuel Patton <
> spat...@wikimedia.org
> > >:
> > >
> > > > Congratulations! Very heartening to see.
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 6:48 AM Nabin K. Sapkota <
> > > > nboycreationne...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Congratulations and looks forward to future collaboration.
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers,
> > > > > Nabin
> > > > > Wikimedians of Nepal
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 1:12 PM Philip Kopetzky <
> > > > philip.kopet...@gmail.com
> > > > > >
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Congrats Korea! :-)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 at 05:17, Roman Bustria Jr. <
> > bustr...@gmail.com>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > In behalf of the East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Regional
> > > > > > Cooperation
> > > > > > > (ESEAP) we would like to extend our congratulations to our
> member
> > > > > country
> > > > > > > for being elevated as a fully recognized chapter!
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > We are looking forward to our future regional meeting and
> > > > > collaboration!
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Kind regards,
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Butch
> > > > > > > Philippines
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Note: ESEAP is a regional collaborative composed of affiliates
> > > > > Wikimedia
> > > > > > > Indonesia, Wikimedia Taiwan, Wikimedia Australia, Wikimedia
> > Korea,
> > > > > > > Wikimedians in Thailand, Philippine Wikimedia Community User
> > Group,
> > > > > > > Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia, Wikimedia User Group
> > > China,
> > > > > > > Wikimedia Community User Group Hong Kong, and Vietnam
> > Wikimedians.
> > > > > > > Membership also include Wikimedia communities and nationalities
> > of
> > > > > > Brunei,
> > > > > > > Cambodia, Japan, Laos, Macau, Mongolia, Myanmar, New Zealand,
> > Papua
> > > > New
> > > > > > > Guinea, Singapore, and Timor Leste (East Timor).
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 24, 2019, 6:11 AM María Sefidari <
> > > > msefid...@wikimedia.org>
> > > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Hi everyone,
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > I am happy to share that earlier this year, the Wikimedia
> > > > Foundation
> > > > > > > Board
> > > > > > > > of Trustees approved our newest Wikimedia chapter - Wikimedia
> > > > Korea!
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > For more information about our newest Wikimedia chapter,
> > > Wikimedia
> > > > > > Korea,
> > > > > > > > please see the announcement on the Wikimedia Foundation
> > website:
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/04/23/wikimedia-korea-new-chapter-affiliate-launches-in-south-korea/
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > I want to congratulate the new chapter and recognize their
> > > > > commitment,
> > > > > > > > efforts, and time involved in moving through the chapter
> > > > recognition
> > > > > > > > process over the past year. From their work building
> > partnerships
> > > > > with
> > > > > > > > universities, to supporting and training new editors in South

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[Pharos]

I concur with Phoebe and others that the time for such a change was 10 or
15 years ago, and would not be appropriate or productive now.

One thing that this corporate rebranding after our most popular product
would erase is the "Wikimedia movement" - a social movement that is the
leading modern manifestation of the Free Culture movement that attracted me
as a member of Student For Free Culture a decade ago.  Rebranding ourselves
after a mere product is in some ways an erasure of the underlying social
movement.  When one is part of the "Wikipedia movement", one is just a user
of a specific website, and it sounds as empty as the "Facebook movement".

That said, I do agree with common-sense changes like WikiCommons and
perhaps others.  But I don't think that just because we have more money
now, and maybe it would have been a good idea 10 years ago, that corporate
rebranding around our most popular product is a good thing to do at this
stage in the evolution of our movement.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:01 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:

> When I joined Wikimedia in 2009 I also tried WikiNews, which looked yet
> another fantastic Wikimedia project. I soon realized, however, that it was
> just a repeater of CC-BY sources of news, with very residual (if any)
> proper production. When an handcrafted news-piece I've made was merged with
> one of those automatic repeaters, I left that project and never looked
> back. As far as I now it never was attractive, it never managed to
> congregate any proper community worth of that name (at least the Portuguese
> version) - It was kind of a failed project already 10 years ago. And that
> was one of the reasons and motivations for Jimbo trying to reshuffle the
> thing as his new child WikiTribune. Personally, I do not need that project
> at all. When some news is notable enough (like the tragic Notre-Dame fire
> yesterday) I create the article for it and build it as an encyclopedic
> article, which is much more motivating and permanent than whatever is made
> in WikiNews.
>
> Personally, I see this branding project as a two headed beast: In one head,
> WMF trying to take undue credit from the Wikipedia brand; on another head,
> some incipient Wikipedia dream of colonization towards other projects. As
> many, I started my contributions in the Wikimedia projects in Wikipedia,
> but very soon found Commons and the whole Wikipedia-free oasis that thrives
> there. I always looked at Commons as a kind of small paradise, precisely
> for not being necessarily associated with Wikipedia. So, 10 years ago, I
> would be as against the idea of placing Commons under the Wikipedia
> umbrella as I am today. (no opinion about WikiCommons, though, as we can
> continue shortnaming it to Commons anyway)
>
> On the whole, I very much agree with what Phoebe wrote about it.
> Wikicolonizations/WMFappropriations apart, it's very difficult to foresee
> how such a move would advance the goals of our Movement. What problem is
> solved by it? If anything, it seems to bring even more confusion between
> Wikipedia and the other sister projects.
>
> Best,
> Paulo
>
>
> Jennifer Pryor-Summers  escreveu no dia
> terça, 16/04/2019 à(s) 07:52:
>
> > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 3:49 AM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I wouldn't describe Wikinews as a success case, though.
> > >
> > > Paulo
> > >
> >
> > Compared to Wikitribune it is!  But more importantly, if Wikinews is not
> > thriving, then why not?  Does it lack resources?  What could or should
> the
> > WMF do to revive it?  Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would
> > be better spent on the  projects that are not doing so well as the big
> > Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
> down,
> > on the principle of reinforcing success instead.  These are the big
> > questions it should be asking itself.
> >
> > JPS
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Social: non-profit social networking service ?

[Pharos]

I don't have technical expertise in this area, but I do think something
chat-like has the most chance of success.

Telegram seems to be the most active platform now among non-technical
users, especially used during conferences.

Perhaps a much better integration with IRC (with a Slack-like interface
tied to SUL) might provide a good path forward, though I imagine it would
require significant  investment.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 10:38 AM, Quim Gil  wrote:

> Hi Sylvain!
>
> (Let me add the disclaimer that opinions are mine and don't represent the
> views of the Foundation.)
>
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 4:33 PM Sylvain Boissel <
> sylvain.bois...@wikimedia.fr> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > It may have changed since I last checked (a bit more than a year ago),
> but
> > while it is easy to create an instance, migrating an account to another
> > instance, or moving an entire instance to a new domain is not (I couldn't
> > even find documentation on how to accomplish this. So if we start an
> > instance that is supposed to become an official one, we need at the very
> > least have the final domain name from the start. Depending on the one we
> > want, we still might need official support (e.g., anyone can register
> > wikimedians.social, but wikimedia.social is restricted to the WMF by a
> DPML
> > Block.)
> >
>
> This is a good point. Renaming Mastodon instances continues to be a pain --
> see https://discourse.joinmastodon.org/t/domain-changes-and-aliases/671
>
> This is a good reason to bet on a domain for the long run. However, let's
> not mix two different concepts: use of Wikimedia trademarks and official
> technical support (servers, maintenance). If the promoters of this
> initiative decide to propose a domain that use a Wikimedia trademark, they
> can request an authorization via
> https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trademark_policy.
>
> > * Legal: Aiming for an official Wikimedia instance has implications of
> > > trademarks, legal requirements, and so on. While there is no need to
> > start
> > > with an official instance, it is useful to consider the scenario early
> > on.
> > >
> > Do you know what these requirements are? Are some issues unsolvable (for
> > example, if an official Wikimedia instance implies that no movie-based
> gifs
> > can be posted (for copyright reasons), then this instance has basically
> no
> > chance to gain a large user base. While this may not be a problem (a
> small
> > instance with a small number of accounts posting things like
> > #pictureOfTheDay to the whole Fediverse would still be valuable), this
> > would change the scope of what we try to accomplish.
> >
>
> Honestly, no idea. I am just applying the basic reasoning that the
> requirements and potential risks for content and user data will be more
> complex for the Wikimedia Foundation maintaining a service officially than
> for a group of individual volunteers doing the same independently as a
> hobby.
>
> If you have a clear idea about what you want to accomplish, I'd recommend
> you to take the lightest steps that will lead you there. Iterations,
> experiments and changes are expected anyway, being this idea so new and
> different in the context of our movement. It is also an idea easy to
> implement and maintain (through a service like e.g. https://masto.host or
> self-hosted). And economically affordable.
>
> --
> Quim Gil
> Senior Manager of Community Relations @ Wikimedia Foundation
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Qgil-WMF
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[Wikimedia-l] Met Open Access Artworks Challenge

[Pharos]

The Met Open Access Artworks Challenge is an international initiative from
May 15-June 30, 2017 to add Creative Commons Zero images of public domain
artworks from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art to new and
existing Wikipedia articles.

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

Here is my new tool to generate draft articles on artworks using Wikidata
(need help implementing it in more languages!):

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Met_Open_Access_Artworks_Challenge/Artworks

And you can sign up as a participant here, earn prizes and share the
project:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Met_Open_Access_Artworks_
Challenge/Participants

Thanks,
Pharos
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] machine translation

[Pharos]

I think it all depends on the level of engagement of the human translator.

When the tool is used in the right way, it is a fantastic tool.

Maybe we can find better methods to nudge people toward taking their time
and really doing work on their translations.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 4:09 PM, Bodhisattwa Mandal <
bodhisattwa.rg...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Content translation with Yandex is also a problem in Bengali Wikipedia.
> Some users have grown a tendency to create machine translated meaningless
> articles with this extension to increase edit count and article count. This
> has increased the workloads of admins to find and delete those articles.
>
> Yandex is not ready for many languages and it is better to shut it. We
> don't need it in Bengali.
>
> Regards
> On May 3, 2017 12:17 AM, "John Erling Blad" <jeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Actually this _is_ about turning ContentTranslation off, that is what
> > several users in the community want. They block people using the
> extension
> > and delete the translated articles. Use of ContentTranslation has become
> a
> >  rather contentious case.
> >
> > Yandex as a general translation engine to be able to read some alien
> > language is quite good, but as an engine to produce written text it is
> not
> > very good at all. In fact it often creates quite horrible Norwegian, even
> > for closely related languages. One quite common problem is reordering of
> > words into meaningless constructs, an other problem is reordering lexical
> > gender in weird ways. The English preposition "a" is often translated as
> > "en" in a propositional phrase, and then the gender is added to the
> > following phrase. That gives a translation of  "Oppland is a county in…"
> >  into something like "Oppland er en fylket i…" This should be "Oppland er
> > et fylke i…".
> >
> > (I just checked and it seems like Yandex messes up a lot less now than
> > previously, but it is still pretty bad.)
> >
> > Apertium works because the language is closely related, Yandex does not
> > work because it is used between very different languages. People try to
> use
> > Yandex and gets disappointed, and falsely conclude that all language
> > translations are equally weird. They are not, but Yandex translations are
> > weird.
> >
> > The numerical threshold does not work. The reason is simple, the number
> of
> > fixes depends on language constructs that fails, and that is simply not a
> > constant for small text fragments. Perhaps if we could flag specific
> > language constructs that is known to give a high percentage of failures,
> > and if the translator must check those sentences. One such language
> > construct is disappearances between the preposition and the gender of the
> > following term in a prepositional phrase. If they are not similar, then
> the
> > sentence must be checked. It is not always wrong to write "en jenta" in
> > Norwegian, but it is likely to be wrong.
> >
> > A language model could be a statistical model for the language itself,
> not
> > for the translation into that language. We don't want a perfect language
> > model, but a sufficient language model to mark weird constructs. A very
> > simple solution could simply be to mark tri-grams that does not  already
> > exist in the text base for the destination as possible errors. It is not
> > necessary to do a live check, but  at least do it before the page can be
> > saved.
> >
> > Note the difference in what Yandex do and what we want to achieve; Yandex
> > translates a text between two different languages, without any clear
> reason
> > why. It is not to important if there are weird constructs in the text, as
> > long as it is usable in "some" context. We translate a text for the
> purpose
> > of republishing it. The text should be usable and easily readable in that
> > language.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 7:07 PM, Amir E. Aharoni <
> > amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
> >
> > > 2017-05-02 18:20 GMT+03:00 John Erling Blad <jeb...@gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > > Brute force solution; turn the ContentTranslation off. Really stupid
> > > > solution.
> > >
> > >
> > > ... Then I guess you don't mind that I'm changing the thread name :)
> > >
> > >
> > > > The next solution; turn the Yandex engine off. That would solve a
> > > > part of the problem. Kind of lousy solution though.
> > > >
> >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [PRESS] Turkish authorities block Wikipedia

[Pharos]

The Wikipedia aspect was highlighted on the BBC and other sites in earlier
stories, before the other events happened.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 1:18 PM, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Now on the front page of the New York Times website:
> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/world/europe/turkey-
> purge-wikipedia-tv-dating-shows.html
>
> Wikipedia was mentioned, but not highlighted, by the BBC:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39759050
>
> Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] election for 2 seats on WMF board of trustees ends May 7...

[Pharos]

In fact, for those who have access to it, there is a list of statements at
the bottom of that page, listing statements from each chapthorg on their
method and time of voting:

https://chapters.wikimedia.ch/Appointment_process/2016/Voting#Statements

For example, our entry says:

"NYC: Decided by open public meeting on April 13, 2016."

I think it might be best to make that whole section publicly viewable.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 12:24 PM, Andrew Gray <andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk>
wrote:

> Yes, for clarity, this is what I meant - a public list of who has
> voted so far (or who hasn't - it's much the same thing, as the overall
> electorate is known), but not a list of the votes.
>
> I'm quite happy with confidential voting - either fully secret or, as
> Itzik says, just confidential until the end of the vote.
>
> But knowing *who* has voted would be quite useful. Ultimately, the
> chapters represent large chunks of the community, and if the chapter
> isn't doing its job then it's good their members know about it in
> order to chase them. Discovering afterwards that your chapter hasn't
> voted is interesting, but not very useful at making sure votes get
> cast while there's still time - and ultimately, I think that last part
> is what we all want to achieve :-)
>
> A.
>
> On 3 May 2016 at 16:21, Liam Wyatt <liamwy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > It seems like people are talking about two separate things at the same
> time:
> >
> > - Some people are taking about publishing *the votes* (either before, or
> > after the election has finished)
> >
> > - Some people are talking about publishing *the list of who has voted*
> > right now.
> >
> > It is this second thing that I understood to be the request being made,
> and
> > it is also completely consistent with the way the community-election
> works
> > (where the voter, but not their vote, is published immediately). I also
> > wouldn't think that publishing the names of the Chapters that have voted
> > (and therefore identifying which ones have not yet) is still consistent
> > with the preference that the *vote itself* remain private.
> >
> > So, in order for the community (and those of us who are members of
> Chapters
> > in particular) to encourage the chapters have not yet voted to do so,
> would
> > it be possible to please publish a table on Meta of the list of
> > voting-eligible organisations, and a "tick" next to their name if they
> have
> > indeed already submitted their vote. [NOT who they voted for]
> >
> > Thanks,
> > -Liam
> >
> >
> > --
> > wittylama.com
> > Peace, love & metadata
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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>
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Middle East / North African Artists Month

[Pharos]

Hi Wiki-nauts,

I'd like to share with you Middle East / North Africa (MENA) Artists Month,
which we're kicking off at the Guggenheim Museum on this Saturday, and
which is scheduled to run throughout May 2016:

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

We welcome online contributions and offline events in any language and from
any country.

Token prizes will be sent from the Guggenheim from anyone who writes (or
significantly expands) three or more articles.  Including Guggenheim
postcards and temporary tattoos designed by exhibition artist Susan Hefuna!


Here is the hub with WikiProject Women in Red on enwiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red/Meetup/13

And here are some names borrowed from a topical print encyclopedia, to get
you started:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles/Art_of_the_Middle_East

Thanks,
Pharos
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia NYC proposal to broaden WMF nominations - submit today

[Pharos]

Hi fellow Wikimedians,

We held our chapter's public meeting and open vote on March 16, and we
found all the ten people running qualified to participate as candidates in
the current WMF election.

This is part of our chapter's policy to encourage a more diverse and more
transparent process for the WMF board elections, and particularly to
encourage non-traditional candidates whose inclusion we would find to
benefit the overall elections process.

We were glad to see three or four candidates join the process who would not
have otherwise applied, and are also happy to see that several of the newer
candidates have received endorsements from other chapters as well (even
before our public vote).

Thanks,
Pharos
Wikimedia NYC

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 6:19 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.w...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Pharos for making this offer and for outlining what your chapter
> voting process will be! Both are good practices to bring to a process that
> has in the past been generally opaque.
>
> Best,
> Phoebe
> On Mar 8, 2016 8:14 AM, "Pharos" <pharosofalexand...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 11:02 PM, Pharos <pharosofalexand...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi fellow Wikimedians,
> > >
> > > Wikimedia NYC is interested in opening up and diversifying the
> Wikimedia
> > > Foundation board nominations process (beyond the typical
> > chapter-affiliated
> > > candidates), so interested parties are welcomed to submit their
> > > self-nominations today on Meta-Wiki, and we will consider all
> reasonable
> > > applications from around the world, and will endorse those
> > non-traditional
> > > candidates whose inclusion we would find to benefit the overall
> elections
> > > process.
> > >
> > > You just have to start the page for your nomination on Meta-Wiki today,
> > > details can be filled in over the coming week.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Nominations
> > >
> > > Nominations must be in by UTC end of day March 8 on Meta-Wiki (which is
> > > the global deadline), and Wikimedia NYC will formally make the choice
> of
> > > candidates to endorse for participation in the elections at its March
> 16
> > > 'WikiWednesday' public meeting, to be determined by an open vote of
> > > attendees at that meeting.
> > >
> > > We also commit to having a vote at our public meeting in April or May
> to
> > > make our chapter's decision for the actual elections.
> > >
> > > Feel free to write to us beforehand if you have questions.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Pharos
> > > Wikimedia NYC
> > >
> > > On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Lane Rasberry <l...@bluerasberry.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hello,
> > >>
> > >> The board of trustees for the Wikimedia Foundation has 10 seats. The
> > >> office
> > >> holders for 2 of these 10 seats will be selected in the "2016
> > >> affiliate-selected board seats" process described at
> > >> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016>
> > >>
> > >> For a candidate to be considered in this election, they must be
> > nominated
> > >> by 8 March and endorsed by a voting Wikimedia organizational affiliate
> > by
> > >> 23 March.
> > >>
> > >> If anyone has any nomination to make, we are now in the last day!
> > >> Nominations must be made by the end of 8 March! Make a nomination for
> > >> yourself or another person at
> > >> <
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Nominations
> > >> >
> > >>
> > >> For those making a nomination, please follow up by soliciting for
> > >> endorsement of the nomination from one voting organization. That
> > >> endorsement must be posted by 23 March. Candidates in the election
> must
> > be
> > >> nominated by the end of March 8 and must have their endorsement by 23
> > >> March.
> > >>
> > >> Beyond nomination, please participate in the election by encouraging
> all
> > >> organizations which are eligible to vote to cast their vote later
> during
> > >> the voting period.
> > >>
> > >> Thanks - and forgive me if I misspoke in any part of this. I am
> anxious
> > >&

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation executive transition update

[Pharos]

Congratulations, Katherine!

She is an excellent choice to navigate us through for this difficult time.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 9:55 PM, Patricio Lorente <
patricio.lore...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I’m happy to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation leadership team has
> proposed an interim Executive Director, and the Board has given our full
> support. Starting on March 14th, current Chief Communications Officer
> Katherine Maher (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Katherine_(WMF))
> will
> step into the role of interim Executive Director. We thank the C-levels for
> their careful consideration in this process, and Katherine for stepping up
> during this period of transition.
>
> In choosing an interim ED, the C-levels started by identifying immediate
> priorities for the coming months, including building trust, improving
> communications, and filling key leadership positions. They felt, and we
> agree, that Katherine is the right person to lead the organization while it
> addresses these and other important issues. Additionally, this will allow
> the rest of the executive team to focus on critical organizational
> functions, including community and engineering management, fundraising, and
> strengthening our human resources function. You can read more about our
> process and thinking here:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/March_2016_-_Leadership_Team_transition_planning
>
>
> Katherine has been with the Foundation as Chief Communications Officer for
> about two years now. During that time, she has developed a versatile and
> effective team that serves the needs of the organization and movement,
> collaborating closely with other departments and the community. She has
> thoughtfully introduced new capacities and led her team through
> transitions, and played a critical role in shepherding the strategy process
> and the annual plan, in collaboration with other C-levels. She is known for
> listening to and empowering the people that she works with.
>
> For those who don’t know Katherine, she’s been a longtime advocate for
> global open communities, culture, and technology. She previously led
> advocacy for the international digital rights organization Access Now,
> where she worked on freedom of expression, access to information, and
> privacy. She has supported the efforts of citizens and governments around
> the world to deepen transparency and participation in her roles at the
> World Bank, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and
> UNICEF (where her team built wikis for youth participation in major global
> issues). She is a member of the advisory board of the Open Technology Fund.
>
> With interim leadership in place, our next step as the Board is to move
> quickly to plan and implement the search for a permanent Executive
> Director. We will be working together over the coming weeks to clarify
> roles and responsibilities in this search, and identify the best way for
> community and staff to participate.  We want this process to be inclusive
> and incorporate many voices. We look forward to sharing an update on our
> progress toward the end of next week.
>
> As interim Executive Director, Katherine will report to the Board. Geoff
> Brigham will continue serving as Board Secretary, and Jaime Villagomez as
> Board Treasurer, reporting to the Board in those capacities. As of March
> 14, Katherine's reports include the C-team: Geoff Brigham, Jaime
> Villagomez, Maggie Dennis, Lisa Gruwell, Joady Lohr, and Wes Moran. The
> Communications team will continue to report to Katherine for the time
> being, with support from the leadership of Juliet Barbara and Heather
> Walls.
>
> Thank you,
>
>  Patricio
>
> Translation notice - This message is available for translation on
> Meta-Wiki:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/10_March_2010_-_Wikimedia_Foundation_executive_transition_update
> --
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia NYC proposal to broaden WMF nominations - submit today

[Pharos]

On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 11:02 PM, Pharos <pharosofalexand...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi fellow Wikimedians,
>
> Wikimedia NYC is interested in opening up and diversifying the Wikimedia
> Foundation board nominations process (beyond the typical chapter-affiliated
> candidates), so interested parties are welcomed to submit their
> self-nominations today on Meta-Wiki, and we will consider all reasonable
> applications from around the world, and will endorse those non-traditional
> candidates whose inclusion we would find to benefit the overall elections
> process.
>
> You just have to start the page for your nomination on Meta-Wiki today,
> details can be filled in over the coming week.
>
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Nominations
>
> Nominations must be in by UTC end of day March 8 on Meta-Wiki (which is
> the global deadline), and Wikimedia NYC will formally make the choice of
> candidates to endorse for participation in the elections at its March 16
> 'WikiWednesday' public meeting, to be determined by an open vote of
> attendees at that meeting.
>
> We also commit to having a vote at our public meeting in April or May to
> make our chapter's decision for the actual elections.
>
> Feel free to write to us beforehand if you have questions.
>
> Thanks,
> Pharos
> Wikimedia NYC
>
> On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Lane Rasberry <l...@bluerasberry.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> The board of trustees for the Wikimedia Foundation has 10 seats. The
>> office
>> holders for 2 of these 10 seats will be selected in the "2016
>> affiliate-selected board seats" process described at
>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016>
>>
>> For a candidate to be considered in this election, they must be nominated
>> by 8 March and endorsed by a voting Wikimedia organizational affiliate by
>> 23 March.
>>
>> If anyone has any nomination to make, we are now in the last day!
>> Nominations must be made by the end of 8 March! Make a nomination for
>> yourself or another person at
>> <
>>
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Nominations
>> >
>>
>> For those making a nomination, please follow up by soliciting for
>> endorsement of the nomination from one voting organization. That
>> endorsement must be posted by 23 March. Candidates in the election must be
>> nominated by the end of March 8 and must have their endorsement by 23
>> March.
>>
>> Beyond nomination, please participate in the election by encouraging all
>> organizations which are eligible to vote to cast their vote later during
>> the voting period.
>>
>> Thanks - and forgive me if I misspoke in any part of this. I am anxious
>> about writing correctly and clearly. The official election documentation
>> is
>> on-wiki.
>>
>> yours,
>>
>>
>> --
>> Lane Rasberry
>> user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
>> 206.801.0814
>> l...@bluerasberry.com
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>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Movement representation vs WMF board reform

[Pharos]

Hi fellow Wikimedians,

If we are seriously going to consider an expanded Community Council as an
alternative to WMF BoT reform, we need to have a real discussion about what
"devolution" would mean, and what specific responsibilities we think should
be given up, and distributed to a broader community governance.

For example:

Should the WMF BoT devolve a non-core portion of the budget?  How would the
core portion be defined, and the non-core aspects?
Should the WMF BoT devolve aspects of the approval or closing of sister
sites? (Wiktionary, Wikidata, Wikinews, a potential genealogy project)
Should the WMF BoT devolve aspects related to Wikimania and related
regional meetings?

Thanks,
Pharos

On Sun, Feb 28, 2016 at 12:43 PM, Emmanuel Engelhart <kel...@kiwix.org>
wrote:

> On 28.02.2016 15:53, Brion Vibber wrote:
> > I just want to split out a concept that came up in the big threads of the
> > last few days:
> >
> > Some members of the WMF Board of Trustees are giving strong signals
> (like,
> > saying it outright) that the BoT can't fully take on the role of movement
> > leadership or community representation. Not because they think it
> shouldn't
> > happen, but because structurally and legally and practically the board of
> > Wikimedia Foundation Inc has different roles to fill.
> >
> > I think we should consider what roles and structures we *do* want as
> > members of the Wikimedia movement community. And I think we should think
> > about that and talk about that carefully before rushing into details like
> > board reform.
> >
> > Perhaps we should explicitly accept WMF as a "first among equals" org
> > within the movement, with specific roles like tech development and
> > fundraising (or other emphases as well) while other orgs concentrate on
> > different specific issues. Or even just "one among equals" that happens
> to
> > have specialized in those roles.
> >
> > This probably means we should think about "umbrella" structures to
> > coordinate and represent and look forward.
> >
> > And that's something we should *definitely* not rush into. If a mismatch
> in
> > hopes for what the WMF BoT can and should do has been a factor in
> > communication and leadership issues in the past, then it's very important
> > we not make the same kinds of mistakes in any new structures that might
> be
> > needed.
>
> Delighting to read this. That said, the path to achieve this looks
> pretty challenging. Would the WMF be able to organize such a move and
> "give-up" parts of its duties/activities to better focus on core business?
>
> Emmanuel
>
> --
> Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline & more
> * Web: http://www.kiwix.org
> * Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline
> * more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What it means to be a high-tech organization

[Pharos]

This classic science fiction novel comes to mind...

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

And a shout-out to User:Daniel The Monk, our resident NYC Monastapedian :)

Thanks,
Pharos

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 3:51 AM, Ed Saperia <edsape...@gmail.com> wrote:

> A Wikimedia monastery! ^_^
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On 26 Feb 2016, at 08:39, David Cuenca Tudela <dacu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I think there are more ways of supporting volunteers than just paying
> them
> > cash. For instance another option could be to offer them a place to stay,
> > food and healthcare. That is how many volunteer programs work, like
> > workaway or woofing, and I don't see anything wrong with it.
> >
> > Would it be an acceptable compromise?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Micru
> >
> >> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:49 AM, David Goodman <dgge...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Involving the foundation as a broker would corrupt  the Foundation
> >> altogether.  It would in essence turn it into an advertising agency.
> We're
> >> supposed to be different from Google. Google earns money by letting
> itself
> >> be used as a medium for advertising. It at least  hopes to achieve this
> by
> >> while not being   evil, and succeeds reasonably well at the compromise.
> >>
> >> Wikipedia fortunately does not need to earn money, as ordinary people
> >> freely give  us more than enough for our needs,  and can therefore hope
> to
> >> achieve the positive good of providing objective information on
> >> encyclopedic topics that people want to read about, not information that
> >> other organizations want people to read.  We have no need to compromise.
> >>
> >>> On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 11:15 PM, SarahSV <sarahsv.w...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 10:31 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <
> pute...@mccme.ru>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> - Possibly POV will be compromised in paid articles.
> >>>> - Unhealthy situation within the editing community. In the debates
> with
> >>>> WMF staff when we disagreed, I always felt awkward, because they were
> >>> paid
> >>>> arguing with me, and would do it until they convince me or I give up,
> >>> and I
> >>>> was doing this in my free time, and got tired very quickly. I also had
> >>> very
> >>>> unpleasant experiences interacting with some chapter people whose only
> >>> goal
> >>>> was to keep their position. They did not care about the quality,
> >>>> efficiency, anything, only about their personal good. And if somebody
> >>>> defends their personal good, you know, thy usually win, and the
> quality
> >>>> loses. Now, imagine there is a content dispute between a user who is
> >> paid
> >>>> (and is afraid to lose the salary) and a user who is unpaid and have
> to
> >>> do
> >>>> the same for free - I am sure a paid user will be way more persistent.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ​Yaroslav, we already have a lot of paid editors on the English
> >>> Wikipedia.
> >>> Some are Wikimedians in residence, and this has always been regarded as
> >>> okay, though I believe they're expected not to edit articles about the
> >>> institution that employs them.
> >>>
> >>> But we also have a lot of paid PR editing and obvious COI problems
> >> because
> >>> of that, as well as the problems you highlight (e.g. the paid editor
> >> being
> >>> more persistent).
> >>>
> >>> Introducing the Foundation as a broker between organizations that want
> >>> articles and editors who want to write them would not solve all the
> >>> problems you highlight, but it would remove the COI aspect. So my
> >> thinking
> >>> was that it would be better than the current situation.
> >>>
> >>> Sarah​
> >>> ___
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> >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> >>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> >>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of Georgia Piedmont Wikimedians

[Pharos]

Mazel tov, y'all!

Looking forward to more continental wiki-campaigns with this dynamic
Atlanta-based group.

Thanks,
Pharos
Wikimedia NYC

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 1:22 PM, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.w...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 12:19 PM, Carlos M. Colina <ma...@wikimedia.org.ve
> >
> wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I am honoured to announce, on behalf of the Affiliations Committee, the
> > recognition of a new Wikimedia User Group in the US: Georgia Piedmont
> > Wikimedians [1]
> >
> > Among their goals are continuing to organize meetups of wikimedians in
> the
> > region (they have been doing it informally for a few years already) and
> > other activities like edit-a-thons, photo-hunts in Atlanta and other
> areas,
> > and collaborating with other organizations.
> >
> > Welcome to the family!
> >
> > 1: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Piedmont_Wikimedians
>
>
> ​Congratulations!​
>
>
> --
> ~Keegan
> ​, one state and a few hours away​
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
>
> This is my personal email address. Everything sent from this email address
> is in a personal capacity.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Transition plans for WMF leadership - Board Reform

[Pharos]

Hi Denny and all,

I have to register disagreement with the idea that the WMF board is
duty-bound to serve the Foundation over the Wikimedia movement.

The whole purpose of the Foundation is to serve the Wikimedia free
knowledge movement, as stated in the bylaws.  This does not mean that WMF
board members must constantly poll Wikimedia movement members on what to
do, or only consider what is popular at the time.

I believe the WMF board is indeed duty-bound to support the goals the
Wikimedia movement, in the way that they feel these goals would best be
served over the long-term.  Of course, their opinions on the best methods
to achieve these goals may well differ from the majority of rank-and-file
movement members at times, but it is also part of their duty to pursue what
they feel is best for achieving basic movement goals.

Brion is also right that at some point in time, when the goals of the
Wikimedia Foundation and movement are "accomplished", if the free knowledge
paradigm is so successfully distributed throughout academia and society
that it no longer makes sense to continue as a corporate entity, it would
make sense to wind it up.  (I don't foresee this happening for decades.)

Perhaps this is merely a translation issue of what "Movement" means in
different languages, but I thought it was an important point that needed to
be stated.

Also, I think the possible models on how to achieve these goals are indeed
more diverse than just those on offer in San Francisco and Berlin.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 12:16 PM, Denny Vrandecic <dvrande...@wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> Thanks to all the answers to my response. I am still reading them, and I
> probably will not be able to answer to all in a timely manner (I have to
> work, after all), but I wanted to make a few things clearer, quickly:
>
> Milos, I indeed do not care about reelection. And if I have to choose
> between truth and political wisdom, I hope to continue to choose the first.
>
> More importantly, Milos, I did a massive error in my formulation, as I know
> realize, which lead to a misunderstanding. I have to apologize for that.
> When I said that the Board has to make a decision in the interest of the
> Foundation when there is a conflict between the Communities and the
> Foundation, I was phrasing myself very badly, I now realize. I actually did
> not mean a direct conflict between a single Community and the Foundation,
> i.e. with these two as being directly opposed to each other and fighting
> over something, but rather the more complicated case of a decision where
> there is a conflict of interests between the Foundation and the
> Movement-at-large, the Board is obliged to decide in the best interest of
> the Foundation.
>
> I do not buy in the mythology of an "evil community" at all. I do not even
> buy into the mythology of a great divide between the communities and the
> foundation. There are plenty of people who are active and constructive in
> both, and who bridge both. The cases where the Foundation and the Movement
> are directly opposed to each other should be extremely rare, and,
> thankfully are. I don't think there was anything even close to that brought
> to the Board in my tenure so far.
>
> More often though is the case that there is a third-party situation, e.g.
> an imminent and considerable legal threat to the Foundation. In that case,
> the interests of the Movement at large has to be secondary for the Board.
>
> I regard the Movement-at-large as much more resilient than any and each of
> its parts. And I am thankful for that, because I think our mission is much
> too important to leave it with a small NGO in the Bay Area. It has to be a
> mission carried by every single one of us, it has to be a mission that is
> inclusive of every one who wants to join in realizing it.
>
> I have overstated my point in my last mail, obviously, and also
> intentionally to make a point (and thanks for everyone to calling me out on
> that). But as many have confirmed, there is truth in this overstatement. I
> don't think that such situations will occur often. But when they occur, and
> that is what I said, they will be painful and frustrating and potentially
> shrouded in confidentiality / secrecy. Therefore it remains my strong
> belief, that reaffirming the current Board as the movement leadership body
> is a bad idea, because the overstated incompatibility that I have described
> remains.
>
> I could imagine with a much smaller Board of Trustees, which itself is a
> constituent of a body representing the whole Movement.
> I could imagine a wholly new body to represent the whole movement.
> I could imagine many, many small new bodies who somehow make local
> decisions on the one side and bubble up to an ineffective, but extremely
&

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

[Pharos]

r free venues and low-cost lodging when you're not scrambling to fit
> > 1000
> > > people in a small region of a city.  And a smaller fraction of money
> > spent
> > > goes towards jet fuel.
> > >
> > > For this reason, the same pool of scholarship funds would go farther.
> > >
> > > Finally, I don't think we should oversell the current Wikimania as a
> > > universal connector.  I too want there to be a community thing that
> > builds
> > > interpersonal connections and is accessible to every community member
> at
> > > low cost.  But that thing cannot be a $2,000-net-cost week-long
> > > conference.  Many people could never attend such an event, even if it
> > were
> > > free.  It is a long time commitment, and is inevitably mono or
> bilingual.
> > >
> > > Sam
> > > (who loves the current Wikimanias, and thinks they should continue! but
> > > doesn't think they are the pinnacle of what movement-gatherings could
> be)
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:52 PM, Sam Klein <sjkl...@hcs.harvard.edu>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > That's most helpful, thank you both.
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Pharos <
> pharosofalexand...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Thanks, Ellie and Chris, this historical experience should be very
> > > helpful
> > > >> for future discussions!
> > > >>
> > > >> Best,
> > > >> Pharos
> > > >>
> > > >> On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:06 PM, Chris Schilling <
> > > >> cschill...@wikimedia.org>
> > > >> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> > Hey folks,
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Ellie has put together a summarized budget including revenue and
> > > >> expenses
> > > >> > from Wikimania 2014 in London[1] and Wikimania 2015[2], which I've
> > > gone
> > > >> > ahead and posted to the summary pages of these conferences on
> meta.
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Thanks,
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Chris
> > > >> >
> > > >> > [1] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014>
> > > >> > [2] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015>
> > > >> >
> > > >> > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com>
> > > >> wrote:
> > > >> >
> > > >> > > Itzik writes:
> > > >> > >
> > > >> > > > If we want to talk about the cost of Wikimania it will be
> great
> > if
> > > >> the
> > > >> > > WMF and the local team will share the costs.
> > > >> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014/Budget
> > > >> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015/Budget
> > > >> > > > Maybe I missed something, but it's strange that such
> discussion
> > > >> takes
> > > >> > > place without a real budget breakdown.
> > > >> > > > To summarize 2 huge event to "1$ million USD" does not make
> > sense.
> > > >> > >
> > > >> > > Agreed 1million%.  It would be important to see a rough cost
> > > >> breakdown, &
> > > >> > > compare that to the best-budgeted Wikimanias.
> > > >> > >
> > > >> > >
> > > >> > > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <
> > polime...@gmail.com
> > > >
> > > >> > > wrote:
> > > >> > >
> > > >> > > > 2016-02-10 6:06 GMT+01:00 Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com>:
> > > >> > > >
> > > >> > > > > FUDCons
> > > >> > > >
> > > >> > > > Also it is hard to compare Wikimanias with FUDCons as it is
> > > >> > > > a) much  smaller (usually bo more than 200 attendees)
> > > >> > > > b) divided by regions - for example in 2015 there were 3
> FUDCons
> > > >> > > > (Argentina, India, Spain) and 2 Flocks (NY and Kraków) -  so
> > they
> > > >> are
> > > >> > > > rather like our Iberecop or CEE meetings tha

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

[Pharos]

Thanks, Ellie and Chris, this historical experience should be very helpful
for future discussions!

Best,
Pharos

On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 5:06 PM, Chris Schilling <cschill...@wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> Hey folks,
>
> Ellie has put together a summarized budget including revenue and expenses
> from Wikimania 2014 in London[1] and Wikimania 2015[2], which I've gone
> ahead and posted to the summary pages of these conferences on meta.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Chris
>
> [1] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014>
> [2] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015>
>
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Itzik writes:
> >
> > > If we want to talk about the cost of Wikimania it will be great if the
> > WMF and the local team will share the costs.
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014/Budget
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015/Budget
> > > Maybe I missed something, but it's strange that such discussion takes
> > place without a real budget breakdown.
> > > To summarize 2 huge event to "1$ million USD" does not make sense.
> >
> > Agreed 1million%.  It would be important to see a rough cost breakdown, &
> > compare that to the best-budgeted Wikimanias.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polime...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > 2016-02-10 6:06 GMT+01:00 Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > > FUDCons
> > >
> > > Also it is hard to compare Wikimanias with FUDCons as it is
> > > a) much  smaller (usually bo more than 200 attendees)
> > > b) divided by regions - for example in 2015 there were 3 FUDCons
> > > (Argentina, India, Spain) and 2 Flocks (NY and Kraków) -  so they are
> > > rather like our Iberecop or CEE meetings than the global conferences.
> > >
> >
> > Thanks.  Similar to regional events perhaps, not Wikimania.  Still worth
> > comparing budgets perhaps, if available.
> >
> > But I was wondering about the trend over time: whether extensive funding
> > during the RedHat days made the events less useful, in the years after
> that
> > funding was reduced.
> >
> >
> >
> > > And also Fedora developers have many potential sources of external
> > funding
> > > - mainly from IT companies which uses free software and want to apply
> for
> > > their specific needs and for whom they quite often work.
> > >
> >
> > True.  But attendees to GLAM or education conferences also tend to have
> > many potential sources of funding - mainly from archives or educational
> or
> > technical companies who curate knowledge or develop education tools. And
> we
> > have IT industry partners who are similarly willing to support
> Wikimanias.
> > Not entirely dissimilar.
> >
> >
> > > But anyway, Fedora offers scholarships for attendees, see:
> > >
> >
> > Yes, wiki conferences should as well - that part of conference funding is
> > important.  Even early Wikimanias with almost no WMF support had
> > significant scholarship pools.
> >
> > S
> > ___
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Chris "Jethro" Schilling
> I JethroBT (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF)>
> Community Organizer, Wikimedia Foundation
> <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] US Copyright Law Forces Wikimedia to remove Public Domain Anne Frank Diary

[Pharos]

This is also a major work that a lot of people in the global Jewish
community would feel is an important part of the public domain, and
enhancing of public education on these topics.

http://jewishfreeculture.org/sourcetexts/het-achterhuis-anne-frank-the-diary-of-anne-frank-amsterdam-1947/

Thanks,
Pharos

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 1:39 PM, Lodewijk <lodew...@effeietsanders.org>
wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
>
> We all realize how sensitive a subject this is. Not only because of the
> reasons you give, but also for the obvious reason that this is a highly
> influential and well known work we're talking about.
>
> If we were publishers trying to make a buck out of selling the work, I
> would agree with you, and move on. However, that is not what we want to do
> as a movement. We don't try to take advantage, but we want to build upon
> works. We want to collaborate and stand on the shoulders of giants. Giants
> like this little girl.
>
> Before the WMF deleted the pages from Wikisource, we were working on a
> context enriched version, and considering working on a free translation
> into English, which could then be used to spread the lessons this book can
> teach us to other languages beyond those in which it already is available.
> That would improve people's understanding, that would increase its reach.
>
> Please note that the Anne Frank Fund is not the only charity that works on
> this legacy. Other relevant organisations (I don't know if I can go into
> details publicly) were more supportive.
>
> Best regards,
> Lodewijk
>
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 6:35 PM, WereSpielChequers <
> werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I may have an unpopular view here, but when an author has been murdered,
> > especially one so young, I find it distasteful to try to make that a test
> > case re copyright. If Anne Frank hadn't been murdered she might well
> still
> > be alive today, and presumably her work would still be in copyright.
> >
> > By all means we should be encouraging people to freely license things
> > openly, and arguing for open licensing against those who claim copyright
> on
> > faithful copies of out of copyright work, and for freedom of panorama in
> > countries less open about such things than Armenia or the UK.
> >
> > I'm sort of OK about as Michael Maggs put it  using it to "increase
> > awareness of the excessive length (95 years) of some US copyright terms."
> > Though I'd hope there are other examples where we don't look like taking
> > advantage of the murder of a child. I'm also OK with using this as an
> > example of us taking copyright seriously.
> >
> > But though it is an important work, is it really one we should be trying
> > to force into the open against the wishes of a charity set up by her
> > relatives?
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Jonathan/WereSpielChequers
> >
> >
> >
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reducing the net cost of Wikimania

[Pharos]

Hi Wikimedians,

The "chapter system" in the US and North America is a work in progress.

In addition to the two full regional chapters (New York City - where I am,
and Washington, DC), there are also usergroups for the New England,
Cascadia/Northwest, and North Carolina Triangle regions, with other groups
still in the process of formation.

There is a historical difference from the large-budget Western European
chapters and the US situation, which has been more grassroots and never
participated in things like fundraiser payment-sharing, and the funding for
WMF HQ in San Francisco indeed shouldn't be conflated with funding of US
volunteer-based activities.

If anyone else is interested in organizing regionally in any part of the US
/ North America, feel free to get in touch; Wikimedia NYC and others would
be very glad to help you :)

Thanks,
Pharos

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 11:15 AM, Robert Fernandez <wikigamal...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> The US may be too geographically spread out to develop a robust chapter
> system.  We have vibrant chapters in a few dense population areas.
> Wikimedia District of Columbia is particularly awesome.  But for most US
> editors there isn't a critical mass of editors in some areas.  Often we
> work with with chapters that are geographically distant.  There's at least
> two of us on the Board of Directors of WMDC who don't live particularly
> close to DC.
>
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 11:00 AM, Jane Darnell <jane...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > "We also do not have a strong chapter system"
> >
> > This has always puzzled me, because I am a firm believer in the chapter
> > system, despite its faults and limitations. Isn't it time to address this
> > for the more active areas of the USA?
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 10:43 AM, Andrew Lih <andrew@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > GerardM,
> > >
> > > As much as I agree with you on many things related to Wikimania, your
> > > statement about en.wp and USA being “over subsidized” is off base.
> > >
> > > For the last few years I’ve held my tongue as American applicants get a
> > > fraction of 10% of all the funding for Wikimania scholarships. That’s
> > > because 10% is allocated to all of North America, so US based folks
> > compete
> > > with Canadians for that small slice of the pie. Indeed, key community
> > > members from the US could not afford to go to Wikimania, and did not,
> > > because of the limited funding. We also do not have a strong chapter
> > system
> > > to make up for that shortcoming, where European chapters can, and do,
> > > underwrite their local members with other funds.
> > >
> > > I am not against the bulk of the scholarship money going to
> > > underrepresented developing markets and giving new voices a chance to
> > > attend. But I wanted to dispel the myth that Americans are always
> gorging
> > > at the trough.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships#Scholarship_selection_process
> > >
> https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships#Selection_process
> > >
> > >
> > > -Andrew
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 6:49 AM, Gerard Meijssen <
> > > gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hoi,
> > > > Pine with all due respect, the USA is not the problem and English
> > > Wikipedia
> > > > has been overly subsidised, given way too much attention. Indeed
> having
> > > > more people from the USA attend Wikimania is not a good value
> > > proposition.
> > > > The USA and Britain is overrepresented as it is.
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >  GerardM
> > > >
> > > > On 10 February 2016 at 10:13, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > From a US perspective, even here in the global north we have plenty
> > of
> > > > > students and middle-class participants for whom $1500 in travel,
> food
> > > and
> > > > > lodging plus 5 days away from work, family, or school amounts to a
> > > > > significant or impossible sacrifice.
> > > > >
> > > > > Perhaps someone could tell us the statistics for how many people
> have
> > > > > attended Wikimania each year who were not WMF employees, FDC or WMF
> > > Board
> > > > > members, scholarship recipients, or financially sponsored by WMF
> > > > affiliates
> > > > > or WEF. Of 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Voting formula was Appointment of María Sefidari to Wikimedia Foundation Board

[Pharos]

I think an analysis of the past Wikimedia community election results, with
a variety of different voting (and counting) methods, could show the best
path toward achieving diversity in elected seats, without necesarilly
resorting to quotas or separate contests.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 9:51 PM, Mike Linksvayer <m...@gondwanaland.com>
wrote:

> On 01/30/2016 07:19 AM, Risker wrote:
> > While we're at it...diversity remains a very serious problem for the
> > Board.  Does the community voting process want to try to take that on?
> How
> > would we do such a thing?
>
> I wildly speculate that it could be done through a voter pledge,
> sketched at
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Linksvayer/Community-led_board_diversity_quotas
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Meta is apparently down

[Pharos]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/

Thanks,
Pharos
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Meta is apparently down

[Pharos]

Yay!

It's working now -

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hugging_cats

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:47 PM, Lane Rasberry <l...@bluerasberry.com>
wrote:

> "Looks like some new code went wonky (needless to say). Operations is aware
> and working on reverting it. Everyone take deep breaths and hug a kitten
> while we wait for them to fix things! Kbrown (WMF)
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kbrown_%28WMF%29> "
> <
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#WM_Commons_and_Meta_seem_to_be_redirecting_to_the_WMF_site
> >
>
> On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:45 PM, Michael Peel <em...@mikepeel.net> wrote:
>
> > Also Commons, and anything else at *.wikimedia.org. Apparently, "Bad
> > deployment, being reverted currently."
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mike
> >
> > > On 26 Jan 2016, at 18:44, Pharos <pharosofalexand...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Pharos
> > > ___
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>
>
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> user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Beyond the Board (was: WMF trustee Arnnon Geshuri and part in anticompetitive agreements in Google)

[Pharos]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 10:32 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak <dar...@alk.edu.pl>
wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 8:33 PM, Milos Rancic <mill...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Denny, thanks for supporting this issue moving on. Before few remarks
> > I would respond inline, I want to say that the *draft* of the idea to
> > make community assembly have been published by Pharos:
> >
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_Council_Compact
>
>
>
> I think it is a good idea to have a sort of community council. To give
> credit, Guy Kawasaki just recently proposed something along these lines in
> internal discussions. My first take is that it would be good to have some
> representation and governance of our movement, not just WMF. It would make
> everyone's lives easier, too - it would be easier to consult, seek advise,
> etc.
>
> I've been also thinking about revitalizing our Advisory Board - the way I
> would like to see it would be dividing it into (a) community (b) tech and
> (c) academic subgroups, available for immediate consulting and feedback.
>
> This definitely does not collide with the idea of a community council in
> the form that you're proposing, I think. It is worth further discussion.
> Should it be continued on meta?
>

Yes, we'd welcome folks to read the proposal on meta at:

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

Sign up there if you like the basic idea, and offer comments and
improvements at:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Community_Council_Compact

Thanks,
Pharos
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Something

[Pharos]

Let us have our movement new year's resolution be for an acronym-free 2016!

Thanks,
Pharos

On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 2:15 PM, Asaf Bartov <abar...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> NDA = Non-Disclosure Agreement[1]
>
> (and while we're at it, the acronym IEP opaquely deployed by Pine in the
> other thread was the India Education Program[2])
>
>A.
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement
>
> [2]
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Independent_Report_from_Tory_Read
>
> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 10:57 AM, Thyge <ltl.pri...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It seams that NDA could by anything (1). Which one is something?
> >
> > (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NDA
> >
> > Thyge
> >
> > 2016-01-03 10:02 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic <mill...@gmail.com>:
> >
> > > On Jan 3, 2016 09:56, "John Mark Vandenberg" <jay...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Something is covered in NDAs.
> > >
> > > I heard quite general notes, that they couldn't be inside of NDAs. And
> > they
> > > weren't personal, but related to the WMF and WMF leading position
> inside
> > of
> > > the movement.
> > > ___
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> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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> > >
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Asaf Bartov
> Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
> sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
> https://donate.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wmfall] Community Wishlist Survey: Top 10 wishes!

[Pharos]

Looks wonderful, this is a model to build upon in future.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 3:18 PM, Wes Moran <wmo...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Great work and a nice process.
>
> On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 3:12 PM, Danny Horn <dh...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I'm happy to announce that the Community Tech team's Community Wishlist
> > Survey has concluded, and we're able to announce the top 10 wishes!
> >
> > 634 people participated in the survey, where they proposed, discussed and
> > voted on 107 ideas. There was a two-week period in November to submit and
> > endorse proposals, followed by two weeks of voting. The top 10 proposals
> > with the most support votes now become the Community Tech team's backlog
> of
> > projects to evaluate and address.
> >
> > And here's the top 10:
> >
> > #1. Migrate dead links to the Wayback Machine  (111 support votes)
> > #2. Improved diff compare screen  (104)
> > #3. Central global repository for templates, gadgets and Lua modules
> (87)
> > #4. Cross-wiki watchlist  (84)
> > #4. Numerical sorting in categories  (84)
> > #6. Allow categories in Commons in all languages  (78)
> > #7. Pageview Stats tool  (70)
> > #8. Global cross-wiki user talk page  (66)
> > #9. Improve the "copy and paste detection" bot  (63)
> > #10. Add a user watchlist  (62)
> >
> > You can see the whole list here, with links to all the proposals and
> > Phabricator tickets:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Results
> >
> > So what happens now?
> >
> > Over the next couple weeks, Community Tech will do a preliminary
> > assessment on the top 10, and start figuring out what's involved. We need
> > to have a clear definition of the problem and proposed solution, and
> begin
> > to understand the technical, design and community challenges for each
> one.
> >
> > Some wishes in the top 10 seem relatively straightforward, and we'll be
> > able to dig in and start working on them in the new year. Some wishes are
> > going to need a lot of investigation and discussion with other
> developers,
> > product teams, designers and community members. There may be some that
> are
> > just too big or too hard to do at all.
> >
> > Our analysis will look at the following factors:
> >
> > * SUPPORT: Overall support for the proposal, including the discussions on
> > the survey page. This will take the neutral and oppose votes into
> account.
> > Some of these ideas also have a rich history of discussions on-wiki and
> in
> > bug tickets. For some wishes, we'll need more community discussion to
> help
> > define the problem and agree on proposed solutions.
> >
> > * FEASIBILITY: How much work is involved, including existing blockers and
> > dependencies.
> >
> > * IMPACT: Evaluating how many projects and contributors will benefit,
> > whether it's a long-lasting solution or a temporary fix, and the
> > improvement in contributors' overall productivity and happiness.
> >
> > * RISK: Potential drawbacks, conflicts with other developers' work, and
> > negative effects on any group of contributors.
> >
> > Our plan for 2016 is to complete as many of the top 10 wishes as we can.
> > For the wishes in the top 10 that we can't complete, we're responsible
> for
> > investigating them fully and reporting back on the analysis.
> >
> > So there's going to be a series of checkpoints through the year, where
> > we'll present the current status of the top 10 wishes. The first will be
> at
> > the Wikimedia Developer Summit in the first week of January. We're
> planning
> > to talk about the preliminary assessment there, and then share it more
> > widely.
> >
> > If you're eager to follow the whole process as we go along, we'll be
> > documenting and keeping notes in two places:
> >
> > On Meta: 2015 Community Wishlist Survey/Top 10:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Top_10
> >
> > On Phabricator: Community Wishlist Survey board:
> > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/community-wishlist-survey/
> >
> > Finally: What about the other 97 proposals?
> >
> > There were a lot of good and important proposals that didn't happen to
> get
> > quite as many support votes, and I'm sure everybody has at least one that
> > they were rooting for. Again, the whole list is here:
> >
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Results
> >
> > We're 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] On toxic communities

[Pharos]

The figure quoted is quite interesting, but do we have a comparable metric
for the Wikimedia projects? :

"... incidences of homophobia, sexism and racism ... have fallen to a combined
2 percent of all games"

2% sounds "low", but do we indeed know if this is better or worse than us?
Would our comparable metric be the % of bigoted comments per article, per
talk page discussion, per time that an editor spends at the project?  I
would think that encountering bigoted comments on 1 in 50 discussions would
still be pretty significant.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Ziko van Dijk <zvand...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Just yesterday I had a long talk with a researcher about how to define
> and detect trolls on Wikipedia. E.g., whether "unintentional trolling"
> should be included or not.
>
> In my opinion, it is not possible to detect by machine trollism,
> unkindness, harassment, mobbing etc., maybe with the exception of
> swear words. A lot of turntaking, deviation from the topic and other
> phenomena can be experienced by the participants as positive or as
> negative. You might need to ask them, and even then they might not be
> aware of a problem that works through in subtlety. Also, third persons
> not involved in the conversation can be effected negatively (look at
> ... page X... and you know why you don't like to contribute there).
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
>
> 2015-11-15 17:40 GMT+01:00 Katherine Casey <fluffernutter.w...@gmail.com>:
> > I'd be happy to offer my admin/oversighter experience and knowledge to
> help
> > you develop the labeling and such, Aaron! I just commented on Andreas's
> > proposal on the Community Wishlist, but to summarize here: I see a lot of
> > potential pitfalls in trying to handle/generalize this with machine
> > learning, but I also see a lot of potential value, and I think it's
> > something we should be investigating.
> >
> > -Fluffernutter
> >
> > On Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 11:32 AM, Aaron Halfaker <
> ahalfa...@wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> >
> >> > The League of Legends team collaborated with outside scientists to
> >> > analyse their dataset. I would love to see the Wikimedia Foundation
> >> engage
> >> > in a similar research project.
> >>
> >>
> >> Oh!  We are!  :) When we have time. :\ One of the projects that I'd
> like to
> >> see done, but I've struggled to find the time for is a common talk page
> >> parser[1] that could produce a dataset of talk page interactions.  I'd
> like
> >> this dataset to be easy to join to editor outcome measures.  E.g. there
> >> might be "aggressive" talk that we don't know is problematic until we
> see
> >> the kind of effect that it has on other conversation participants.
> >>
> >> Anyway, I want some powerful utilities and datasets out there to help
> >> academics look into this problem more easily.  For revscoring, I'd like
> to
> >> be able to take a set of talk page diffs, have them classified in Wiki
> >> labels[2] as "aggressive" and the build a model for ORES[3] to be used
> >> however people see fit.  You could then use ORES to do offline analysis
> of
> >> discussions for research.  You could use ORES to interrupt the a user
> >> before saving a change.  I'm sure there are other clever ideas that
> people
> >> have for what to do with such a model that I'm happy to enable it via
> the
> >> service.  The hard part is getting a good dataset labeled.
> >>
> >> If someone wants to invest some time and energy into this, I'm happy to
> >> work with you.  We'll need more than programming help.  We'll need a
> lot of
> >> help to figure out what dimensions we'll label talk page postings by
> and to
> >> do the actual labeling.
> >>
> >> 1. https://github.com/Ironholds/talk-parser
> >> 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_labels
> >> 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ORES
> >>
> >> On Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 6:56 AM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> > On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 9:13 PM, Benjamin Lees <emufarm...@gmail.com>
> >> > wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > This article highlights the happier side of things, but it appears
> >> > > that Lin's approach also involved completely removing bad actors:
> >> > > "Some players have also asked why we've taken such an aggressive
> >> > > stance when we've been focused on refo

Re: [Wikimedia-l] CAPTCHA issues discouraging new editors

[Pharos]

I'm here to confirm that I've seen the same issue in over almost every
wiki-workshop.

Part of the problem is the lack of prominence of the notice, and also the
CAPTCHA often being hidden below the fold.

I would not be averse to experiment in just turning it off for a bit.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 11:58 AM, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:

 You might want check if there is already a bug listed for this under

 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/mediawiki-extensions-confirmedit-(captcha-extension)/
 ,
 and if not then create a new one. (:

 Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimediaus-l] Mark your calendars for Wiknic 2015

[Pharos]

I agree that we should welcome a broad range of collaborative communities
to the local Wiknics, especially other free/open projects like
OpenStreetMap.

Start a Wiknic for your city, in your local park!

Thanks,
Pharos

On Sat, Jun 13, 2015 at 2:14 PM, Rob Schnautz bobthewikiped...@gmail.com
wrote:

 I am not saying Google shares this goal, but that contributors to its maps
 share our goal. People adding road names and speed limits are working
 toward free and open knowledge just as we do. And like I said, the list is
 by no means comprehensive. I only listed a few I contribute to myself.

 Rob

 On Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 07:54 Mike Dupont jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com
 wrote:

 Hi there,
 I would like express concern about the goals of wikipedia.

 if you look at the blurb at the top of the wikipedia article about
 itself : Wikipedia is a free-access, free-content Internet
 encyclopedia, supported and hosted by the non-profit Wikimedia
 Foundation.

 Now how many of the sites you mentioned are free-access and
 free-content. I think many are not free content.

 Google map maker, sharing a common goal seems strange to me, I always
 thought that the goal of wikipedia is is create an unburdened source
 of knowledge, and google's goal is to sell advertising via restrictive
 licensing of all contributions.

 Btw, did you forget openstreetmap?

 So, I agree we might want to try and advertise to other people
 contributing to non free-content websites and try and sell them on the
 merits of supporting the freedom of content vs the locking down of
 content.

 mike



 On 6/12/15, Rob Schnautz bobthewikiped...@gmail.com wrote:
  Hey y'all! Been forever since I've been active on a Wikimedia-based
 site,
  though I have been active in other free and open knowledge movements. I
  think it would be neat to try to do joint meetups with editors of other
  sites. Here are a few that share our common goals, but this certainly is
  only a small spectrum:
 
  Wikia
  iNaturalist
  Google Mapmaker
  Waze Map Editor
  GasBuddy
  IMDB
 
  This could be a great way to cross-pollinate ideas and even editors.
 
  Rob
 
  On Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 23:27 Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Hi all,
 
  Wiknic is Wikipedia's annual community picnic. For those of us who are
 in
  parts of the world where the current season is summer, we usually
  celebrate
  Wiknic in June or July. Wiknic started in the United States, and I'm
 told
  that the idea has spread to other countries with diverse languages
  including the Netherlands, Israel, and France. This year's suggested
  Wiknic
  dates are Sunday, July 5th or Saturday, July 25th.
 
  So, organize or join a Wiknic in your area!
 
  You might also consider inviting members of other open source,
 technology
  enthusiast, and public service communities to join you at Wiknic. We
 are
  doing this in Cascadia Wikimedians.
 
  More information about Wiknic is available at
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiknic
 
  Photos from a few of last year's Wiknics made it to Commons. See
  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wiknic_2014
 
  Have fun,
 
  Pine
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 --
 James Michael DuPont
 Kansas Linux Fest http://kansaslinuxfest.us
 Free/Libre Open Source and Open Knowledge Association of Kansas
 http://openkansas.us
 Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://www.flossk.org
 Saving Wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion
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[Wikimedia-l] Election Announcement

[Pharos]

My fellow Wikimedians,

I am pleased to announce the results of the most vital exercise in
democracy in the Wikimedia movement for many years:

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

The first-ever Meta Collaboration of the Month (MCOTM) for June 2015 will
be on the [[Events]] page, a particularly long standing and unfortunately
out-of-date piece of movement documentation.

Meta-Wiki page:

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

Meta-Wiki discussion:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Events#Congratulations_to_this_page.2C_the_first-ever_Meta_Collaboration_of_the_Month_for_June_2015.21

Nominations are now being accepted for the July 2015 MCOTM :)

(With apologies to the hard work of the WMF elections committee!)

Thanks,
Pharos
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A Listen Button

[Pharos]

For those who are interested, this is the American Sign Language Wikipedia
on Incubator:

https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/ase

Sign languages are indeed real languages, and for example American Sign
Language is unrelated to English or even British Sign Language (in fact,
it's closest to French Sign Language).

It is certainly true that sign languages have not historically been written
in any form by most of their users, and so video should be an important
part of any such project, although video is of course not really as
wiki-amenable as text is.

The most complete writing system for sign languages, however, a sort of
International Phonetic Alphabet, is SignWriting, and its community has been
active of Wikimedia projects.  There are some technical difficulties with
implementing SignWriting on-wiki, including the vast number of potential
gestures to be represented, that it is not yet in Unicode, and also that it
is written vertically rather than horizontally, but progress has been made
on this with a MediaWiki software extension by the SignWriting community.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 5:22 PM, Andrew Lih andrew@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 7:32 AM, Cristian Consonni 
 kikkocrist...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Il 25/Gen/2015 12:18 Martin Kraft martin.kr...@gmx.de ha scritto:
   Did I miss some aspect? Is there a point in converting something visual
  into something visual?
 
  I have been told that people born deaf find more easy to read things in
  sign language. I imagine it like the difference between reading something
  written in your mother tongue and reading something in another language
 you
  know.
 

 Yes, I had a deaf student who opened my eyes to this -- he wanted to create
 a video site for the deaf that would have signed videos and movies. He had
 staffers and volunteers take viral YouTube videos and sign them for the
 deaf.

 My first question was, wouldn't reading subtitles simply solve the problem?
 Why do you need to do ASL versions?

 He gave me an annoyed look. It's something the deaf community finds
 frustrating to explain to outsiders.

 There's a reason its called American SIGN LANGUAGE and not signed English
 language. It's a primary language in itself, and reading off the screen is
 as inferior an experience as if we read the subtitles with the sound off.

 -Andrew
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Meta Collaboration of the Month

[Pharos]

Election update - currently leading candidates for the oh-so-important
MCOTM contest on meta are [[Events]], followed by [[Interchapter groups]]
and [[Communications committee]] tied for second place.

Vote today!

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Circle/Meta_Collaboration_of_the_Month

Thanks,
Pharos

On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 12:58 PM, Pharos pharosofalexand...@gmail.com
wrote:

 My fellow Wikimedians,

 I started this as a way to improve important meta pages that have eroded
 in usefulness over the years - vote for one or more of them for the June
 2015 collaboration, and feel free to make your own nominations!

 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Circle/Meta_Collaboration_of_the_Month

 (Truly the most important electoral decision facing our movement
 currently.)

 Thanks,
 Pharos

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[Wikimedia-l] Meta Collaboration of the Month

[Pharos]

My fellow Wikimedians,

I started this as a way to improve important meta pages that have eroded in
usefulness over the years - vote for one or more of them for the June 2015
collaboration, and feel free to make your own nominations!

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Circle/Meta_Collaboration_of_the_Month

(Truly the most important electoral decision facing our movement currently.)

Thanks,
Pharos
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New financing model for editations

[Pharos]

I can attest that there are indeed many cases where $50 or $75 in bus or
gas money can make a big difference for volunteers, even in the United
States.

There is long way between intercontinental plane tickets and offering no
financial assistance at all.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Oliver Keyes ironho...@gmail.com wrote:

 We have a vested interest, as a community, in having as diverse a
 group of people behind our content as possible, because we have a
 diverse group of readers. People who can't afford a lunch out
 whenever they want is a demographic: a big one, depending on the
 country in question. Coming up with statements that editathons go
 great when the editor or newcomer in question covers all their
 personal costs ignores the massive number of people who cannot afford
 to do that and so will not attend. If your reaction to that is
 discussions about studies or politically contentious plane tickets
 then you've, at best, completely missed the point I was trying to
 make.

 On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 10:44 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:
  On 19 March 2015 at 14:33, Oliver Keyes ironho...@gmail.com wrote:
  ...
  expectations. So, yes, editathons work well when attendees pay their own
  way - but they work /best/ when they don't.
 
  I believe there is no verifiable evidence that editathons work best
  when attendees have all their costs paid. If there is, could someone
  provide a link please?
 
  There have been occasions where the way some attendees received
  payments to attend, including flying in from other countries, has been
  both politically contentious and anecdotally resulted in attendees
  without funding being put off using their volunteer time to support
  editathons run on the same basis. By anecdotally I include both this
  being said to me and there being emails on various lists relating this
  viewpoint.
 
  Fae
  --
  fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: It's the end

[Pharos]

For those unfamiliar with the glories of the United States Postal Service,
a P.O. Box is simply a rented mail slot in a public post office.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 3:25 PM, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel 
it...@wikimedia.org.il wrote:

 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
 P.O. Box 98204
 Washington, DC 20090-8204

 We have a new office at D.C? :)



 *Regards,Itzik Edri*
 Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel
 +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il
 Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
 sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!


 -- Forwarded message --
 From: Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia don...@wikimedia.org
 Date: Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 8:18 PM
 Subject: It's the end
 To: itz...@wikimedia.org.il

 *If all our past donors simply gave again today, we wouldn't have to worry
 about fundraising for the rest of the year.*

 Dear Itzik,

 This is the last email reminder you'll receive. We hope the response to
 today's email will let us end the fundraiser. Please take one minute to
 keep Wikipedia online and ad-free another year
 
 http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=6ms=NDc2NjQ5MTYS1r=NjI3MjkzMTU0NzAS1b=0j=NTgzNjIxMTAzS0mt=1rt=0
 
 .

 To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We receive no government
 funds. We survive on donations from our readers. If all our past donors
 simply gave again today, we could end the fundraiser. Please help us forget
 fundraising and get back to improving Wikipedia.

 We are deeply grateful for your past support. This year, please consider
 making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia
 
 http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=6ms=NDc2NjQ5MTYS1r=NjI3MjkzMTU0NzAS1b=0j=NTgzNjIxMTAzS0mt=1rt=0
 
 .

 Click to donate $5 right away.
 
 http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=2ms=NDc2NjQ5MTYS1r=NjI3MjkzMTU0NzAS1b=0j=NTgzNjIxMTAzS0mt=1rt=0
 

 Click to donate $25 right away.
 
 http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=1ms=NDc2NjQ5MTYS1r=NjI3MjkzMTU0NzAS1b=0j=NTgzNjIxMTAzS0mt=1rt=0
 

 Click to donate $50 right away.
 
 http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=5ms=NDc2NjQ5MTYS1r=NjI3MjkzMTU0NzAS1b=0j=NTgzNjIxMTAzS0mt=1rt=0
 

 Or click to donate another amount.
 
 http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=7ms=NDc2NjQ5MTYS1r=NjI3MjkzMTU0NzAS1b=0j=NTgzNjIxMTAzS0mt=1rt=0
 

 Thank you,
 Jimmy Wales
 Wikipedia Founder
   *DONATE NOW »*
 
 http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=6ms=NDc2NjQ5MTYS1r=NjI3MjkzMTU0NzAS1b=0j=NTgzNjIxMTAzS0mt=1rt=0
 
 --

 You are receiving this email at itz...@wikimedia.org.il as a valued donor
 of the Wikimedia Foundation. If you do not wish to receive any future
 emails from the Wikimedia Foundation, unsubscribe instantly
 
 http://wikimedia.pages04.net/WMFUnsubscribe/Unsubscribe?spMailingID=47664916spUserID=NjI3MjkzMTU0NzAS1spJobID=NTgzNjIxMTAzS0spReportId=NTgzNjIxMTAzS0
 
 .

 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
 P.O. Box 98204
 Washington, DC 20090-8204
 United States of America

 enUS14
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community RfCs about MediaViewer

[Pharos]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 2:52 PM, Gergo Tisza gti...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 3:58 AM, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote:

  That doesn't, however, help the concern that millions of users are
 pulling

 up the images without immediately seeing the license requirements and

 author information.


 To the contrary, Media Viewer displays the license, author and source as an
 always visible part of the image. On a typical file page, you have to
 scroll down to find any of this information; most users won't do that, if
 what they are looking for is the image, and that is available without
 scrolling. (It is well known in web usability
 http://www.nngroup.com/articles/scrolling-and-attention/ that relatively
 little attention is given to things above the fold; one of the main
 benefits of Media Viewer is that it brings the most important things above
 it.)

 Also, many people might not use file pages simply because they are so
 slow. A
 famous experiment by Google
 http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/speed-matters.html showed
 that
 lowering loading speed by 200 ms resulted in 0.3% less interactions (on the
 English Wikipedia's scale, that would be about 20,000 thumbnail clicks a
 day). MediaViewer improves image loading time by a full second for the
 median user.


George has made a useful contribution here, in that his points appear to be
actually testable.

Could the WMF or someone else look into user-testing how the MediaViewer
(and variations on it) affects the average reader's perception and
consciousness of the licensing information?

Thanks,
Pharos
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wicnik reminder

[Pharos]

Great to see that this celebration of the picnic anyone can edit is
spreading across the USA, and now also in the Netherlands!

As a reminder, the spelling is actually Wiknic as is in  Wik(i-pic)nic.

It's not too late to organize your own edition of the Great American Wiknic
(or an international variant), for July 6 or another date!

And we now have this shortcut domain:

http://wiknic.org

Thanks,
Pharos


On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 4:37 PM, R W romaine.w...@gmail.com wrote:

 Brilliant idea !!

 Therefore we organize also a Wicnik in the south of Netherlands, so also
 Belgians, Germans and whoever is in the neighbourhood can join!

 With sun outside, with rain inside. Dutch pancakes will be baked and
 stroopwafels will be available. Would be nice if everyone brings some food,
 drink and more with him/her to share.

 Time: 13:00 - 17:00 (and later)
 Address: Dominee Theodor Fliednerstraat‎, 5631 BM Eindhoven, the
 Netherlands
 Coördinates: 51.455585, 5.488054
 Distance: 15 minutes walk from train station Eindhoven + 2 bus stops
 By car: 500 parking spaces

 Signing up for it is welcomed, but not required:

 https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ontmoeten#Zondag_6_juli:_Wiki-picknick_Eindhoven

 If there are any questions: feel free to ask!

 Romaine





 2014-06-23 21:08 GMT+02:00 Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com:

  This is a reminder mostly for US Wikimedians and US-based WMF office
  employees but also in case Wikimedians in other parts of the world want
 to
  join us.
 
  Wicnik, Wikimedia's annual summer picnic event, is happening again this
  year. Are you signed up to participate? Bring food, sports equipment,
  sunscreen, and/or your significant other(s).
 
 
  So far there are Wicniks planned for these locations:
 
  Cape Cod, Massachusetts - happened already
  New York City, New York - July 6
  Frederick, Maryland - July 6
  Washington, DC - July 13
  Detroit, Michigan - July 6
  Evansville/Bloomington, Indiana - date TBD
  Chicago, Illinois - July 12
  St Louis, Missouri - July 6
  St Paul, Minnesota - July 6
  Arvada, Colorado - July 6
  Seattle, Washington - July 6
  San Francisco, California - July 6
  Los Angeles, California - July 6
 
  Under discussion:
 
  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  Portland, Oregon
 
  Sign up at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wicnik
 
  Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikiconference USA in the media

[Pharos]

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:


 * What proportion of attendees were Wikimedia Chapter or Foundation
 contractors or employees and attending the conference could be
 considered part of their employment? *
 - At least one email here claimed that volunteers broke their backs
 running the conference, which seems to overlook that a high proportion
 of registered attendees were employees and probably did most of the
 preparation. I asked this question last year about another conference,
 it was never answered properly, as it was never measured. Again, this
 ought to be *a good thing* to report on, as our values are to keep the
 volunteer at the centre of everything we do and driving our movement
 rather than paying Executives six-figure sums to tell us what we
 should believe in.


I would like to answer this question first, as it has a really simple
answer.

There were exactly 0 employees on the organizing committee, and exactly 0
employees who did the preparation.

This was an entirely volunteer-run conference.

Thanks,
Pharos




 On 07/06/2014, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:
  Craig Franklin wrote:
 I think there's something of a lesson here for people: don't trust the
 press.
 
  The part of the piece I found most striking was that the author readily,
  and almost boastfully, admits to speaking to a minority of the minority
  of the minority, but she seems to have no issue using this very limited
  sample size to evaluate Wikipedia on the whole. Even if we assumed that
  there are 22,000 registered Wikipedians, is a sample size of five or six
  appropriate? If she meant 22,000,000, it seems like an even crazier leap.
 
  After re-reading the piece, I'd probably stand by a lot of it. It's not a
  great reflection of Wikipedia, but I also wouldn't call at least many
  parts of it inaccurate, per se, just crudely distorted and manipulated.
 
  The author used the tactic where you mention that Mandela was a convicted
  criminal that spent 27 years in prison, but fail to mention that he won
  the Nobel Peace Prize and was the revered president of South Africa.
 
  This tactic is an easy way to create a distorted, but technically
  accurate, impression. Some of the fine folks at Wikipediocracy are very
  good at employing this tactic as well. :-)
 
  MZMcBride
 
 
 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons' frontpage probably shouldn't prominently feature a decontextualised stack of corpses.

[Pharos]

Maybe a simple solution to this is just having more process for which still
frame to use for any MOTD video.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)


On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 12:00 AM, Benjamin Lees emufarm...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 10:10 PM, Kevin Gorman kgor...@gmail.com wrote:

  Can anyone articulate a valid reason why the freezeframe from the video
  posted on the frontpage was just about the most graphic still possible
 from
  the video?
 
  Presumably the person who set up the templates thought that was the best
 frame to use.[1] You should ask him what his reasoning was.

 It looks like a single person is handling Commons' MOTD rotation,[2][3] so
 I would guess that very few people actually saw what the thumb would be
 beforehand.

 [1]

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Motd/2014-05-08_thumbtimeaction=history
 [2]

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Media_of_the_day/Archive_1#Nomination:_File:SFP_186_-_Buchenwald.webm
 [3]

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Pristurusoldid=113169491#Regarding_featured_videos
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[Wikimedia-l] WikiConference USA - almost here!

[Pharos]

I am very pleased to announce that WikiConference USA is less than 30 days
away!  Over the last few months, Wikimedia NYC and Wikimedia DC have been
collecting curated submissions on a diversity of wiki and free/open
knowledge-related topics (with tracks on Community, Tech, Outreach, GLAM,
Education), and recruited some excellent keynote speakers who can speak to
their personal activism and leadership in these domains.

But this is a Wiki conference, and what it thrives on most is your
participation, your differing areas of experience and expertise, to enliven
and enrich all of the sessions we have planned together.  And, exciting
too, there still will be numerous opportunities for unconference sessions
led by participants on the fly, and we encourage you to bring the ideas
from your domain for these sessions as well.

Here are the details for the conference:

Dates: Friday, May 30, 2014 - Sunday, June 1, 2014
Location: New York Law School (185 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013)
Website: http://wikiconferenceusa.org
Email: wiki...@wikimedianyc.org
Registration: http://wikiconusa.eventbrite.org/

And our distinguished and dynamic roster of keynote speakers:

*Phoebe Ayers - Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
*Sumana Harihareswara - Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Team;
Advisor, Ada Initiative
*Christie Koehler - Community Building Education Lead, Mozilla Corporation
*DC Vito, Executive Director - The LAMP/MediaBreaker

For more information, please review our official press release below! We
hope you will join us and help us spread the word!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiCon_USA_2014_Press_Release_v1.pdf

Thanks,
Richard Knipel (User:Pharos)
Wikimedia NYC
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WikiConference USA Announcement

[Pharos]

WikiConference USA's deadline for submissions and scholarships is **March
31**, so please get your proposed talks up soon:

http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Submissions

http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Scholarships

Here are further details for the conference:

Dates: Friday, May 30, 2014 - Sunday, June 1, 2014
Location: New York Law School (185 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013)
Website: http://wikiconferenceusa.org
Email: wiki...@wikimedianyc.org
Registration: http://wikiconusa.eventbrite.org/

For more information, please review our official press release below! We
hope you will join us and help us spread the word!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki
/File:WikiCon_USA_2014_Press_Release_v1.pdf

Thanks,
Richard (User:Pharos)
Wikimedia NYC


On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 4:05 PM, Pharos pharosofalexand...@gmail.comwrote:

 I am very pleased to announce that Wikimedia NYC and Wikimedia DC are
 working in collaboration to host the first national Wikimedia conference in
 the United States!

 Here are the details for the conference:

 Dates: Friday, May 30, 2014 - Sunday, June 1, 2014
 Location: New York Law School (185 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013)
 Website: http://wikiconferenceusa.org
 Email: wiki...@wikimedianyc.org
 Registration: http://wikiconusa.eventbrite.org/

 For more information, please review our official press release below! We
 hope you will join us and help us spread the word!


 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiCon_USA_2014_Press_Release_v1.pdf

 Thanks,
 Richard (User:Pharos)
 Wikimedia NYC

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[Wikimedia-l] Programmatic experience in past 2 years (was: Board decisions on movement funding and approval issues)

[Pharos]

Certainly, in the last 2 years and before, a handful of Wikimedia
volunteer groups have been quite as active and organized as those
currently being classified as User Groups - only the option of being
recognized as User Groups did not exist for them at the time of their
founding.

And it is a good thing that this category exists now, but is seems
wrong to penalize Wikimedia volunteer groups that *do* have a track
record of effective programmatic experience, just because they were
started before the User Group category was in existence.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 12:33 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi all,

 I want to draw your attention to two Wikimedia Board of Trustees decisions
 that were recently published, regarding funds allocated to the FDC/Annual
 plan grant process and Board approval of chapter/thematic organization
 status. In a nutshell, the Board decided to allocate approximately the same
 amount of funding to the FDC for the next two years. The Board also decided
 that new organizations should first form as a user group and have two years
 of programmatic experience before being approved as a legally incorporated
 entity (either a chapter or thematic organization).

 The decisions are published in the meeting minutes here:
 https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2013-11-24#Movement_roles

 There is also a FAQ on Meta:
 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_FAQ

 You will notice these decisions are published in the minutes for the
 November meeting. We originally took these decisions at that meeting;
 however as the FAQ explains it took us some time to talk to community
 groups, clarify our wording and write the FAQ.

 Hopefully the FAQ will answer many of your questions about these decisions;
 however, if there are other questions please do ask them, here or on the
 meta talk page. Thank you!

 for the Board,
 Phoebe
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[Wikimedia-l] WikiConference USA Announcement

[Pharos]

I am very pleased to announce that Wikimedia NYC and Wikimedia DC are
working in collaboration to host the first national Wikimedia conference in
the United States!

Here are the details for the conference:

Dates: Friday, May 30, 2014 - Sunday, June 1, 2014
Location: New York Law School (185 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013)
Website: http://wikiconferenceusa.org
Email: wiki...@wikimedianyc.org
Registration: http://wikiconusa.eventbrite.org/

For more information, please review our official press release below! We
hope you will join us and help us spread the word!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiCon_USA_2014_Press_Release_v1.pdf

Thanks,
Richard (User:Pharos)
Wikimedia NYC
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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] WikiConference USA Announcement

[Pharos]

I am very pleased to announce that Wikimedia NYC and Wikimedia DC are
working in collaboration to host the first national Wikimedia conference in
the United States!

Here are the details for the conference:

Dates: Friday, May 30, 2014 - Sunday, June 1, 2014
Location: New York Law School (185 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013)
Website: http://wikiconferenceusa.org
Email: wiki...@wikimedianyc.org
Registration: http://wikiconusa.eventbrite.org/

For more information, please review our official press release below! We
hope you will join us and help us spread the word!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiCon_USA_2014_Press_Release_v1.pdf

Thanks,
Richard (User:Pharos)
Wikimedia NYC
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WCA Quest for the Cool Name

[Pharos]

A reminder that there's still some time to for cross-fertilization of cool
name ideas, for the artist formerly known as the WCA:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Quest_for_the_Cool_Name

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)


On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 6:53 PM, Markus Glaser
markus.gla...@wikimedia.dewrote:

 Am 30.07.2013 00:48, schrieb Nathan:

  The process for renaming the WCA is to be completed in two weeks?!
 That seems totally at odds with its entire history, I wonder if it's
 turning over a new leaf or if the selection will be subject to
 criticism for not including enough people / giving sufficient months
 or years for debate.

 The WCA is on its way to become an agile organisation ;) The backdoor is:
 if we can't agree on a new name, we'll continue to operate as WCA. So no
 harm is done either way.

 Seriously, I made the experience that people react to these kind of
 creative polls either at the beginning or at the end of the voting time. So
 we decided to just skip the time in between.

 Best,
 Markus


 --
 Markus Glaser
 WCA Council Member (WMDE), Chair
 Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson

[Pharos]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 11:07 AM, Ziko van Dijk vand...@wmnederland.nl wrote:
 2013/2/25 Nathan nawr...@gmail.com:
 That's one way of looking at it. Another is that the WCA is an
 activity chapters can choose to participate in, or choose not to. To
 the extent the WCA intends to represent its members, that
 representation should be restricted to those chapters which have
 specifically opted-in. I don't think an opt-out approach to membership
 is ideal, at least for now.

 That's it, indeed. The membership is absolutely open for all approved
 chapters, the application process for the WCA is very easy: Send a
 message from the chapter board that a) we want to join, b) we know
 that the Charter is the organizational basis and c) This is our
 appointed Council Member. After Washington, I have written to the
 mailinglists and also individually to all chapters which didn't join
 already. Many did not even answer.
 So, allegations that the WCA is exclusive have no ground.
 Kind regards
 Ziko

Yes, it is fairly easy bureaucratically for a new chapter to join WCA.

But at this stage in WCA's embryonic development, when only about half
of the chapters have officially joined so far, I think it might
actually be a good idea to extend the suffrage for this particular
vote to all Affcom-recognized chapters.

I think this could lead to a renewed sense of community and global
buy-in while we're still at ground-level, and could help pave the way
for many more chapters signing on for official membership in the
medium-term future.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson

[Pharos]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 2:28 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:
 That means the only votes belong to those on the Council; this could
 be easily resolved by other chapters becoming members, as has been
 said, but presumably some who have refused so far... do so because
 they have to accept the rights, duties and obligations of a member.
 These include allowing the Council to assess dues, without limit, on
 chapters. There isn't even a requirement that the dues be linked to
 anything; they can be different for each chapter, according to the
 whims of the Council.

 By the by, did it not occur to anyone that having members of the
 Association, members of the Council, and members of the Secretariat
 might introduce some ambiguity into what is meant by the term
 members?

I think that the member dues issue should really not be something to
deter any potential new chapters from joining, though I understand the
concern.

The fact is, there have been zero dues required so far (a fact my
small chapter is quite happy with!), and if burdensome dues were ever
instituted, we are perfectly free to leave before they would come into
effect.

So, I think it is more the perception of the potential for burdensome
dues that has been the problem, and so it might make sense to help
ease chapters with this concern into the official membership.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

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[Wikimedia-l] Great American Wiknic June 2012

[Pharos]

Hi Wikimedians,

If you're anywhere in the United States around June 23, we would like
to invite you to join the 2nd annual Great American Wiknic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiknic

Now in 17 cities (add yours today!):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiknic#2012_Wiknic

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

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