Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Project Proposal

[Joseph Seddon]

This user has been checkuser blocked:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/block?page=User:BlackWidowMovie0

Seddon

On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 1:22 PM BlackWidow Movie0 
wrote:

> I have a new project proposal, it's called WikiMentor. The link is
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiMentor. I think it'll be helpful for
> a lot of users, who need help in a lot of things. Contact me if you have
> any questions. - BlackWidowMovie0
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donations - show the editors you care?

[Joseph Seddon]

The simple answer to a simple question is that I created my User:Seddon
volunteer account in 2006 and Visual Editor was first made available to
users seven and a half years later.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donations - show the editors you care?

[Joseph Seddon]

I believe the nature of the edits speak for themselves.

Seddon

On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 5:55 AM Demian  wrote:

> Hey Seddon,
>
> On Sun, 6 Dec 2020 at 16:23, Joseph Seddon  wrote:
>
>> Short answer: I don't think it's a cynical lie. I think that the
>> donations our donors give do results in benefits to the community, even if
>> they aren't transactional or tangible things. We definitely don't want to
>> give any misleading impression that the benefits are tangible so we will
>> look into this and if we can, try and to improve it.
>>
>> Long answer: If I look at where things are now versus where things were
>> when I first started editing, it's amazing the amount of progress the
>> editing experience has made. Even some of the projects with the bumpiest
>> entries into the movement have been profoundly impactful. Some might raise
>> an eyebrow in my use of it as an example, but I am astounded by how much
>> easier the visual editor makes writing articles. Especially with the tools
>> that are built into like Citoid. It is a dream to use.
>>
>
> Visual Editor was a big step for the WMF. I appreciate very much that it
> exists, along with other projects, like Flow and MediaViewer, despite the
> community's initial/final rejections (respectively).
> Unfortunately, I can only use it effectively when I don't plan on editing
> templates or links, those workflows are inefficient and easy to make
> mistakes. I like to use Citoid, but I always have to fix up the result.
> With the lengthy loading time, every time I have to weigh whether it's
> worth the time using Visual Editor. As a result I use it roughly once a
> month (estimate), although I wish it would be feasible to use it more often.
>
> Looking at the greater picture I'm happy that new editors are somewhat
> more likely to use the Visual Editor, proving its benefit. On the other
> hand, as a senior software architect who had worked on improving Visual
> Editor, I am aware of the technical reasons that caused the community's low
> acceptance - and how it can be fixed -, therefore I fully understand the
> community's response.
>
> With these different aspects in mind I wonder why you find the Visual
> Editor a dream to use, given that on average at most 4 in 500 of your
> edits
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20201127030700&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29>
>  (2
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20200714140036&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29>,
> 3
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20200218092358&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29>,
> 4
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20200113155502&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29>,
> 5
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Seddon_(WMF)&offset=20191017132130&limit=500&target=Seddon+%28WMF%29>,
> search: "visual edit") are made using Visual Editor.
>
>
> Aron
> *Senior Software Architect and Analyst*
>
>
>
>>
>> Or on the multilingual front with the content translation tool which has
>> seen 700,000 articles at last count? In the last couple of years we will
>> finally have integrated editor onboarding tools that are being worked on
>> which are critical for the health of our communities? From personal
>> experience, having better onboarding will massively improve community
>> projects that aim to engage and bring in new editors to the movement.
>>
>> At one level you have the discrete improvements being worked on or
>> completed with things like partial blocks, revision scoring, visual diffs,
>> real time watchlists. At a more global level things like Structure Data on
>> Commons or Abstract Wikipedia have the potential to solve massive problems
>> the community has faced like multilingual categories or global templates.
>> Those have the potential to bring huge benefits to the editing community on
>> the projects.
>>
>> The benefits aren't always tangible to a specific individual and can
>> often be invisible even if it enables or supports community focused work
>> further downstream. It's worth noting that many of the pragmatic and
>> mission driven choices made cumulatively over 15 years have made this work
>> harder for us. The limited resources in the earlier years meant that we
>> accumulated a huge amount of technical debt and digging out of that is
>>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey WSC!

We have used variations on this line for at the last 7 years and the
counter-intuitive approach approach has been debated by marketing
professionals for much of the last decade.

What you describe is known as social proof and despite it being considered
a core tenet in marketing it doesn't work for our fundraising. We have
tested and tested and tested every year.

Chris Keating has written his thoughts [1] about why he thinks it doesn't
work; was recently explored as part of academic study done in partnership
with WMDE; [2] and I have some of noted some of my thoughts on twitter
which I'll include here:

The altruistic motives of any donor would often be based on a person's
personal experience with a cause or services of a non-profit. The
relationship between benefactor and beneficiary is intertwined.

For Wikipedia, those two groups are one and the same. Every donor is a
direct benefactor. Degree of separation between benefactor and beneficiary
is zero. Their personal experience is that of being a beneficiary,
receiving direct and instant benefit.

Personal benefit outweighs the social guilt felt for not supporting
something that is conceptually more distant from them. Social guilt is no
longer the driver. It's not that social proof doesn't work, its just that
for Wikipedia personal context works better.

[1]
https://medium.com/@chriskfundraising/why-doesnt-social-proof-work-for-wikipedia-fundraising-65d55a047911
[2]
https://hertieschool-f4e6.kxcdn.com/fileadmin/5_WhoWeAre/1_People_directory/Faculty_downloads/Traxler/Publications/LT-Wiki-CondCoop.pdf

On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 10:21 PM WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree that praying emojis look like a certain type of religious
> practice, a hand gesture that implies certain religions and not others.
>
> I assume the fundraising team would have the good sense not to describe
> their campaign as a crusade or a jihad. Even if they had carefully targeted
> that emoji to cultures where it was close to common currency, I think it
> was inappropriate.
>
> But I'm also concerned at the 98% look away bit. Presumably this was
> tested and at least in the short term it raised more funds. The problem may
> be longer term, it looked to me the sort of counterproductive message that
> normalises not giving rather than normalising giving.
>
> We need to remember the long term impact of our messaging on the people
> who are less inclined to give as well as the short term impact on
> donations. To me that 98% pitch looked like as much of a mistake as the £5
> coffee ad that fed the overpaid and wasteful meme.
>
> I've seen some marketing from other organisations in the last few months
> that has been more along the lines of "We know that money is tighter than
> usual for a lot of the people who usually support us, and if you are one of
> them we get that you can't give us money this year. But if you find
>  useful, and you are one of those people who is financially OK in
> these troubled times, then please make a donation". Most people can
> identify with one or other of those groups, and I suspect neither would
> think the worse of us for pitching to them in those terms.
>
> Regards
>
> WSC
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 at 14:24, 
> wrote:
>
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>1. Re: Annoying ads (Chris Gates)
>>2. Re: Annoying ads (Gnangarra)
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2020 08:57:48 -0500
>> From: Chris Gates 
>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads
>> Message-ID:
>> > c4hm3dvi7+duitoof...@mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> I opened a browser I’m not logged in on to see what these ads were.
>>
>> Here is the text, unedited, of the second ad I was shown (after closing
>> the
>> first):
>>
>> “Hi reader 🙂. Sorry for the interruption, but this Saturday Wikipedia
>> really needs your help. This is the 3rd appeal we've shown you. 98% of our
>> readers don't give; they look the other way 😢. All we ask is $2.75 and
>> then you can get back to your article. We ask you, humbly: please don't
>> scroll away 🙏🙏.“
>>
>> It would be quite helpful if the WMF’s marketing and fundraising-focused
>> teams weren’t so intent on destroying Wikipedia’s reputation. I, and I’m
>> sure most editors, don’t care that praying and crying emo

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads [and a Privacy Policy question]

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Yury,

I want to note that my response specifically deals with the messaging you
raised. I will note that the privacy of our users is of paramount
importance across the organisation and is taken seriously and with care.
You can view with Wikimedia Foundation's data retention guidelines on Meta.
[1]

Regarding the specifics about fundraising, the system that delivers banners
is CentralNotice and the tools that we use are fairly basic. [2] [3]

CentralNotice notes how many times someone has seen a particular
fundraising campaign. This number is counted and kept within the web
browsers localstorage and not a cookie. This means that information is NOT
stored in the HTTP request header sent to our servers.

This feature is used for all sorts of community and programmatic banners as
well as fundraising. It means that when an individual has seen X number of
banners within their browser they don't see anymore. We wrote a blog post
about this a couple of years ago. [4]

All we are doing is taking the same number that is stored and using that to
note in the message. We don't track users through CentralNotice across
browsers to set messaging, nor do we track across devices via CentralNotice
to set messaging.

I will say that even though it IS privacy sensitive, the potential
perception of it is something we will need to think about and along with
the other feedback will be something we talk about as a team this week.

Regards
Seddon

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_retention_guidelines
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CentralNotice
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:CentralNotice
[4] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2017/10/03/fundraising-banner-limit/

On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 7:40 PM Yury Bulka 
wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> In the context of this discussion, I think it might be appropriate to
> share the following. A few days ago I had a brief conversation with a
> (non-Wikipedian) user on social media regarding a fundraising banner
> they were seeing. In their case they had an additional concern with the
> banners (apart from "making Wikipedia unusable"). They wrote:
>
> "<...> I find it more than a little creepy that wikipedia is tracking
> how often I visit."
>
> Curious, I asked if the popup said anything about their browsing
> behavior, and it did (citing a snippet they have shared with me):
>
> "Hi, reader in Canada, it seems you use Wikipedia a lot; that's great!
> It's awkward, but this Tuesday we need your help. This is the 10th
> appeal we've shown you. We don't have salespeople. Thanks to the
> donations of 2% of our readers, Wikipedia remains open to all. If you
> donate just $2.75, or whatever you can this Tuesday, Wikipedia could
> keep thriving. Thank you."
>
> I have decided to look this up in the Privacy Policy, and indeed:
>
>   We want to make the Wikimedia Sites better for you by learning more
>   about how you use them. Examples of this might include how often you
>   visit the Wikimedia Sites, what you like, what you find helpful, how you
>   get to the Wikimedia Sites, and whether you would use a helpful feature
>   more if we explained it differently.
>
>
> https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Information_Related_to_Your_Use_of_the_Wikimedia_Sites
>
> This contradicted my intition about the privacy of anonymous Wikipedia
> readers. It seems like some behavioral data is collected and then used
> to target readers for fundraising in some ways.
>
> Is it specified in more detail anywhere what kind of behavioral data is
> collected, for how long it is stored, how it is associated with a
> reader's device(s), and what behavioral data is used in the context of
> fundraising specifically?
>
> Best,
> --
> Yury Bulka
> https://mamot.fr/@setthemfree
> #NotOnFacebook
>
>
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>


-- 
Seddon


*Senior Community Relations Specialist*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donations - show the editors you care?

[Joseph Seddon]

Short answer: I don't think it's a cynical lie. I think that the donations
our donors give do results in benefits to the community, even if they
aren't transactional or tangible things. We definitely don't want to give
any misleading impression that the benefits are tangible so we will look
into this and if we can, try and to improve it.

Long answer: If I look at where things are now versus where things were
when I first started editing, it's amazing the amount of progress the
editing experience has made. Even some of the projects with the bumpiest
entries into the movement have been profoundly impactful. Some might raise
an eyebrow in my use of it as an example, but I am astounded by how much
easier the visual editor makes writing articles. Especially with the tools
that are built into like Citoid. It is a dream to use.

Or on the multilingual front with the content translation tool which has
seen 700,000 articles at last count? In the last couple of years we will
finally have integrated editor onboarding tools that are being worked on
which are critical for the health of our communities? From personal
experience, having better onboarding will massively improve community
projects that aim to engage and bring in new editors to the movement.

At one level you have the discrete improvements being worked on or
completed with things like partial blocks, revision scoring, visual diffs,
real time watchlists. At a more global level things like Structure Data on
Commons or Abstract Wikipedia have the potential to solve massive problems
the community has faced like multilingual categories or global templates.
Those have the potential to bring huge benefits to the editing community on
the projects.

The benefits aren't always tangible to a specific individual and can often
be invisible even if it enables or supports community focused work further
downstream. It's worth noting that many of the pragmatic and mission driven
choices made cumulatively over 15 years have made this work harder for us.
The limited resources in the earlier years meant that we accumulated a huge
amount of technical debt and digging out of that is always harder after the
fact. I'd defer to the opinions of my colleagues but the increasing
investment over the last few years has allowed us to start actually making
headway, even if there is still a long way to go.

On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 1:37 PM Pelagic via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> [ Cross-posted from
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Donations_-_show_the_editors_you_care%3F
> ]
>
> I had the misfortune of visiting Wikipedia logged-out the other day, and
> was struck by the large size of the donation banner, and the odd wording of
> the appeal. (Something about awkward and humble.) Re-checking now, the
> "awkward" bit is gone, but the following sentences are still there:
>
> "If Wikipedia has given you $2.75 worth of knowledge, take a minute to
> donate. Show the editors who bring you neutral and verified information
> that their work matters."
>
> As an occasional editor I want to know: how do the donations show me that
> the work matters? Is there some W?F "appreciation fund" that's going to
> start handing out disbursements to editors? Will the money hire more dev's
> to implement all the unfinished items from the Community Wishlists? Will
> funds be used to run better "community consultations" where the communities
> are actually listened to? Or is it just a big fat cynical marketing lie?
>
> [Add: okay, I get it that donation appeals have to phrased in a way that
> actually causes people to donate.  But this skates very close to implying
> that Wikipedia's editors are paid from donors' money.]
>
> Cheers,
> Pelagic
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>


-- 
Seddon


*Senior Community Relations Specialist*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Michel,

There are some other points that Fae raised particularly around user
experience and technical implementation that are distinctly more complex
tasks and we are going to need to discuss and plan our testing to work on
them, and the team is at very limited capacity on a Saturday. (I myself had
been out enjoying the rather brisk winter air that's visiting the UK). Due
to their very nature, rolling back the emoji's in the messaging could be
done immediately.

I've already brought the feedback back to the team, and I'll be reviewing
with the team on Monday and hopefully work on them this week.

Seddon

On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 4:36 PM Michel Vuijlsteke  wrote:

> I don't quite think the emoji were the only thing people hated about this.
>
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 at 17:09, Joseph Seddon  wrote:
>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> To avoid burying the lead, the feedback is appreciated and we do listen
>> whenever feedback is raised. I've just been coordinating with the team, and
>> we've rolled back this change.
>>
>> For some background, the emojis in this messaging were a recent addition
>> earlier this week. Emojis have become a core part of the way the world
>> communicates, especially with younger demographics, practically becoming an
>> ideographic language in and of itself. The team has been keen to see if
>> there are ways we can leverage this, especially on mobile and we’ve been
>> experimenting with them over the last couple of years in a number of
>> campaigns.
>>
>> I want to recognise that we missed the mark on this one and that your
>> feedback is heard, much appreciated and acted upon. The team really does
>> care about the messaging and how it represents us, and the projects as a
>> whole. Our processes on approving content have massively improved over the
>> years and I think it reflects in the messaging we use. A number of people
>> have noted that it has improved for the better over the years.
>>
>> At the same time I want to take some ownership of this misstep myself.
>> I've been proactively working in real time with some volunteers, discussing
>> concepts and gathering feedback on campaigns. This feedback has definitely
>> shown that for such a new concept, I should have made sure to have
>> highlighted and gotten more input on this.
>>
>> I'll be gathering input on how we use emojis in our messaging and I'd be
>> happy to follow up with people about this. Just an additional note that if
>> anyone wants to talk through any feedback with me I can be found on IRC,
>> Discord, Telegram or send it through via email ( seddon at wikimedia.org
>> ).
>>
>> My apologies but also my genuine thanks for the feedback.
>>
>> Seddon
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 2:24 PM Gnangarra  wrote:
>>
>>> tend to agree there should be a mobile friendly version, the article
>>> should be visible at the same time. What wording is used it definitely
>>> should not have religious actions or symbology in it... the other emojis do
>>> seem childish
>>>
>>> On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 at 21:58, Chris Gates via Wikimedia-l <
>>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I opened a browser I’m not logged in on to see what these ads were.
>>>>
>>>> Here is the text, unedited, of the second ad I was shown (after closing
>>>> the first):
>>>>
>>>> “Hi reader 🙂. Sorry for the interruption, but this Saturday Wikipedia
>>>> really needs your help. This is the 3rd appeal we've shown you. 98% of
>>>> our readers don't give; they look the other way 😢. All we ask is $2.75
>>>>  and then you can get back to your article. We ask you, humbly: please
>>>> don't scroll away 🙏🙏.“
>>>>
>>>> It would be quite helpful if the WMF’s marketing and
>>>> fundraising-focused teams weren’t so intent on destroying Wikipedia’s
>>>> reputation. I, and I’m sure most editors, don’t care that praying and
>>>> crying emojis illicit more money. There are social and reputation costs to
>>>> portraying Wikipedia like a crying, praying beggar about to go broke. And
>>>> though I understand the employees responsible for pushing this nonsense in
>>>> front of every reader evidently do not care about the costs of their
>>>> actions, and only whatever money they can get from it, it remains wholly
>>>> unacceptable.
>>>>
>>>> Tell me: why should I volunteer to work on a project whose owners,
>>>> regardless of the incr

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all,

To avoid burying the lead, the feedback is appreciated and we do listen
whenever feedback is raised. I've just been coordinating with the team, and
we've rolled back this change.

For some background, the emojis in this messaging were a recent addition
earlier this week. Emojis have become a core part of the way the world
communicates, especially with younger demographics, practically becoming an
ideographic language in and of itself. The team has been keen to see if
there are ways we can leverage this, especially on mobile and we’ve been
experimenting with them over the last couple of years in a number of
campaigns.

I want to recognise that we missed the mark on this one and that your
feedback is heard, much appreciated and acted upon. The team really does
care about the messaging and how it represents us, and the projects as a
whole. Our processes on approving content have massively improved over the
years and I think it reflects in the messaging we use. A number of people
have noted that it has improved for the better over the years.

At the same time I want to take some ownership of this misstep myself. I've
been proactively working in real time with some volunteers, discussing
concepts and gathering feedback on campaigns. This feedback has definitely
shown that for such a new concept, I should have made sure to have
highlighted and gotten more input on this.

I'll be gathering input on how we use emojis in our messaging and I'd be
happy to follow up with people about this. Just an additional note that if
anyone wants to talk through any feedback with me I can be found on IRC,
Discord, Telegram or send it through via email ( seddon at wikimedia.org ).

My apologies but also my genuine thanks for the feedback.

Seddon

On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 2:24 PM Gnangarra  wrote:

> tend to agree there should be a mobile friendly version, the article
> should be visible at the same time. What wording is used it definitely
> should not have religious actions or symbology in it... the other emojis do
> seem childish
>
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 at 21:58, Chris Gates via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> I opened a browser I’m not logged in on to see what these ads were.
>>
>> Here is the text, unedited, of the second ad I was shown (after closing
>> the first):
>>
>> “Hi reader 🙂. Sorry for the interruption, but this Saturday Wikipedia
>> really needs your help. This is the 3rd appeal we've shown you. 98% of
>> our readers don't give; they look the other way 😢. All we ask is $2.75 and
>> then you can get back to your article. We ask you, humbly: please don't
>> scroll away 🙏🙏.“
>>
>> It would be quite helpful if the WMF’s marketing and fundraising-focused
>> teams weren’t so intent on destroying Wikipedia’s reputation. I, and I’m
>> sure most editors, don’t care that praying and crying emojis illicit more
>> money. There are social and reputation costs to portraying Wikipedia like a
>> crying, praying beggar about to go broke. And though I understand the
>> employees responsible for pushing this nonsense in front of every reader
>> evidently do not care about the costs of their actions, and only whatever
>> money they can get from it, it remains wholly unacceptable.
>>
>> Tell me: why should I volunteer to work on a project whose owners,
>> regardless of the incredibly large quantities of money they already have,
>> seek frequently to illicit donations through methods that damage
>> Wikipedia’s reputation? Why would I give hours of my time a week to make
>> Wikimedia projects clear of vandalism and abuse, seeking to give readers
>> the impression of a functional and reliable source of information, knowing
>> that some marketing person could undo all of the volunteers’ work through
>> some ad campaign?
>>
>> And yes, I also understand that volunteers complain every time this
>> happens. There’s very good reason to do so, as every time these campaigns
>> go out they are worse than the last, wholly ignorant of community wishes,
>> and taking no views into account other than those who reflect purely a goal
>> of getting more donations.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Vermont
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 05:22 Fæ  wrote:
>>
>>> Let's try kicking this perennial thead again.
>>>
>>> This morning (5 Dec 2020) I paused cooling my porridge when looking up
>>> how Wikipedia describes 'Latinx' usage on my cellular, I was faced
>>> with a *2 page* advert.
>>> * The advert meant nothing of the article could be seen, not even the
>>> title, without having to pass the two pages of several big blue
>>> fundraising notices.
>>> * There's some statements in those notices that, frankly, look
>>> unencyclopaedic like "People told us we'd regret making Wikipedia a
>>> non-profit". That's a literally untrue Trumpian political sentence if
>>> ever I saw one.
>>> * The 2 pages close with "We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away"
>>> followed by a single option of a "MAYBE LATER" link (not a 'go away
>>> forever please' link, a

[Wikimedia-l] Q2 WMF Fundraising

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Everyone,

Since the pandemic started the fundraising team has been working flat out
to ensure the Wikimedia movement has the financial resources to continue
with its work. We planned one of the busiest summers we had ever faced and
that put the movement in a good place. Even with that work, the end of year
fundraising in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the USA and the
United Kingdom remains critically important. Approximately half of the
annual funds for the Wikimedia movement are raised in the final quarter of
the year.

Due to the pandemic and its impacts on people's lives, our team's capacity
was also reduced and so we factored in more time into our work. This year
we kicked off our E-mail fundraising programme in these countries earlier
in September. This programme focuses on asking previous donors to reaffirm
their support to Wikimedia and our English campaign will continue steadily
through the rest of this calendar year.

The key to growing our donor base is our fundraising banner campaigns but
at the same time we try to keep the disruption these campaigns cause to a
minimum. We don’t fundraise year round and generally we are fundraising for
around one month in any country. As for other campaigns, we test in advance
to stress test our systems, explore new ideas, and improve workflows etc.
all in time for the busiest period of the year. This year we will be
looking to begin the main campaign Nov30/Dec1 Tuesday, December 1. We will
look to fundraise through the month of December.

Our content evolves every year and all the feedback we get from community
members, donors and social media feeds directly into our testing programme.
We’ll also be proactively following up with ways for community members to
propose test ideas for our messaging.

There are a number of ways you can report issues. For the non-urgent
feedback, you can email directly to seddon {{at}} wikimedia.org. If you
prefer real time you’ll find me on #wikipedia-en on IRC, the Wikimedia
General Chat on telegram and in the English Discord server.

If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems please
do report it on phabricator:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862

If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions
about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer
them to:   donate {{at}} wikimedia.org.

Here is also the fundraising IRC channel where you can raise urgent
technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising (
http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4)

>From myself and on behalf of my colleagues, can I thank everyone for the
patience and support fundraising is given from across the movement both
throughout the year and especially over the coming weeks.

-- 
Seddon

Senior Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedian of the Year 2020 livestream event - 15 October

[Joseph Seddon]

Either way I am okay with it. Youtube chat is one of the worst things on
youtube.

On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 5:22 PM Ziko van Dijk  wrote:

> Hello,
> The chat function on YouTube is turned off, I don't know whether that
> is by purpose or by accident.
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
> Am Do., 15. Okt. 2020 um 16:31 Uhr schrieb Chris Koerner
> :
> >
> > Hello all,
> > Just a reminder that this event happens in about an hour and a half
> > from now. I hope you can join us!
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> > The Wikimedia Foundation would like to invite you to attend a
> > livestream event with Wikimedia Foundation CEO Katherine Maher and
> > Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to announce the 2020 Wikimedian of the
> > Year.
> >
> > Learn more about the event on Diff.
> >
> >
> https://diff.wikimedia.org/2020/10/01/coming-soon-the-2020-wikimedian-of-the-year-live-event/
> >
> >
> > Yours,
> > Chris Koerner (he/him)
> > Community Relations Specialist
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Moving the technical infrastructure out of the US

[Joseph Seddon]

Agreed. This is a perennial issue.

I believe options are going to be explored for sustainability but right now
legally speaking the US is the best jurisdiction for hosting us now and the
foreseeable future.

Seddon

On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 11:30 PM Nathan  wrote:

> Which political system would you prefer, so9q? Just a quick survey finds a
> shortage of totally ideal alternatives with no objectionable political
> activity in recent years.
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 6:20 PM  wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > The US seems to me like an increasingly unsafe and unstable place to
> > store data and servers from a privacy- and political perspective.
> >
> > Do you have any plans to replicate or move the servers to datacenters in
> > Europe or elsewhere to protect the community from the risks
> > introduced by the american political system?
> >
> > See https:// youtu.be/mUQ56Tf22pg and
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#Strong_Preservation_of_Wikipedia_(&_Wikimedia)_contents_for_the_far_future
> > .
> >
> > Cheers
> > so9q
> >
> > ___
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> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A Universal Code of Conduct draft for review

[Joseph Seddon]

Wikipedia has been a third tier social media platform since its inception.
Luckily we are better known for being an encyclopedia.

On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 10:31 AM Dan Szymborski 
wrote:

> I am absolutely flabbergasted that a generic reference of an organization
> to flatulence, something we see in rated-G television isn't considered
> "collegial" enough yet the actions that the WMF has taken over the last 18
> months, many of which were pushed by people on this list *are* considered
> collegial.
>
> If a joke that would be appropriate for a four-year-old leads to special
> moderation, what action ought be taken for someone on the list pushing the
> failure of a collaborative process that WMF is foisting upon the community?
> One of the people "doth protesting too much" about the reference is also
> someone banned from English Wikipedia for a whole litany of *actual* things
> that took up countless hours of community time, including making legal
> threats based on finding offense in normal Wikipedia actions.
>
> I am a longtime, accredited journalist, possibly even slightly respected in
> the field -- though there's always that risk of Dunning-Kruger -- who has
> written for a ton of outlets and there's not an editor in the world that
> I've worked with who would've asked me to change the *very* gentle wording.
> If anything, I was too mild. *I'm* grossly offended by the WMF's actions
> over the last 18 months. *I'm* grossly offended by the perversion of a free
> information movement being converted into a third-tier social media app.
> *I'm* grossly offended by board policies that empower the vested, the
> connected, the politically adept to judge the weak and the voiceless. *I'm*
> grossly offended by the people here who cheerfully announce the board
> arbitrarily changing board terms or that the community has no actual say in
> what the *community* (not the board) built. The Wiki movement is far bigger
> than the WMF; which is a good thing because I can't imagine it being
> smaller than the board's self-dealing petty bourgeoisie affair.
>
> No, I didn't mean petit.
>
> Yet I don't call for anyone to be silenced because, well, disagreeing
> vigorously is what adults are able to do.
>
> It matters not if this message is censored by the list overlords. One of
> the few benefits of being a journalist is that combination of
> self-righteousness and having myriad ways to prevent an opinion from being
> suppressed on dubious grounds.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dan
>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 2:55 AM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > A code of conduct id something many of us have asked the WMF to write for
> > many years. We are asking the WMF to take an active part in stopping
> > abusive behaviors in our community.
> >
> > On fr wiki, many admins say they are tired of conflicts and that they did
> > not enroll to deal with them. A code of conduct could help then take
> action
> > because it offers a frame.
> >
> > This is COMPLETELY different with the branding process.
> >
> > We are one of the few projects in the open source world without a code of
> > conduct.
> >
> > So thank you for this draft, thank you for opening up for discussions,
> and
> > I hope the language will remain respectful.
> >
> > I believe moderators should ban from this list the person who spoke about
> > « wmf flatulence ».
> >
> >
> >  I dont want to read that type of language among people who are
> supposedly
> > asked to write neutral enccyclopedias.
> >
> > It puts pressure and stress on those who would like to answer on this
> > thread, it sets an aggressive climate.
> >
> > Please could we all feel empowered to  apply our founding principles and
> > refuse any such language here and on meta in these discussions?
> >
> > Kind regards,
> >
> > Nattes à chat
> >
> >
> > Envoyé de mon iPhone
> >
> > > Le 10 sept. 2020 à 03:53, Gnangarra  a écrit :
> > >
> > > Yair
> > >
> > > I was in the room in 2017 when the first community consultation on the
> > > strategy program took place. Affiliates were asked to send a person
> > > specifically for the strategy process, and  WMF also invited some other
> > > community members. There was absolutely no coercion, or control over
> what
> > > topics were raised during those discussions. The program was not run by
> > the
> > > WMF and everyone was free to contribute any ideas they had, as the
> > program
> > > went on we chose which areas and topics we wanted to be the focus.
> Trust
> > > and safety, and user conduct were areas that were identified as
> necessary
> > > to the future development of the movement. This process has been open
> for
> > > ideas, comments, and suggestions. Yes the WMF has funded the process
> but
> > > every choice has been made by community members without any duress or
> > > reward as to where each step lead.
> > >
> > > As someone who actively runs projects for the last 10 years to bring in
> > new
> > > contributo

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Joseph Seddon]

And just as an additional note. Using AWS was mainly because it was what
the team was most familiar with and enabled us to prototype faster. We know
there are going to be a lot of requirements from a lot of different users
from with the WMF, the broader technical community, researchers along with
mission aligned reusers and we are beginning to gather those now and that
will help work out what needs to be done in the long term.

One of the advantages we will have is that if it does wholly or in part at
some point get brought onto Wikimedia Cloud Services, we will know exactly
what the requirements will be.

Regards
Seddon

On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 5:26 PM Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> Given that this project is a direct result of the recommendations from the
> strategy process the biggest questions are I feel mainly about how we go
> about this. There are really bad ways this project could be approached and
> then there are ways which are aligned with our movement and we are most
> definitely approaching this project via the latter.
>
> Regarding the hosting on AWS, when the project started it wasn't clear to
> what extent we would be able to utilise Wikimedia Cloud Services in short
> and long term for this specific project and that remains true for a number
> of reasons. This has brought a benefit as it means we have been highly
> conservative in our development approach. In the HTML dump work ongoing, we
> are utilising purely public endpoints and we have purposefully
> containerized the entire application in docker to allow flexibility of
> infrastructure as well as remove any dependencies to AWS. This was
> identified as a requirement pretty early on so things have been designed in
> a way to avoid obvious pitfalls like becoming dependent on RDS or S3 and
> aim to make the tools we build platform agnostic and fully open source.
>
> We will be beginning a regular release of the code base soon that will
> hopefully be aligned with the end of sprints. Given that there is nothing
> preventing this from also existing on Wikimedia Cloud Services or any other
> cloud infrastructure. In the long term our goal is to try and make anything
> we build usable by anyone.
>
> Regards
> Seddon
>
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 5:03 PM Victoria Coleman <
> vstavridoucole...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rupert,
>>
>> My comment below referred to the point Kunal made about hosting should
>> the movement decide (and it is a movement decision in my view) to go
>> forward with a paid API. There is a healthy debate as you point out about
>> the wisdom or otherwise of doing so. But should a decision be made to go
>> forward, I believe that the hosting can be done on WMF clusters run by the
>> Cloud Services team to avoid putting our content on 3rd party commercial
>> services. While I was on staff, and I don’t think this has changed since my
>> departure, the preference was to maintain control of content - including
>> accessing it  - internally to protect movement privacy. If I had a penny
>> for every time I got an offer of “free” hosting from AWS and others, my
>> penny jar would be overflowing!
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Victoria
>>
>> > On Jul 22, 2020, at 12:50 AM, rupert THURNER 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > victoria, discussions to monetize the wikipedia content in one or the
>> other
>> > way are as old as wikipedia. some people say "why should i continue
>> editing
>> > and supporting wikipedia in my free time, or donate money, attracted by
>> the
>> > vision to make it available to all, without condition, when WMF starts
>> > selling parts of it?" while the others feel that wikipedia relying on
>> > donations only keeps them at a shoestring budget, which meanwhile grew
>> to
>> > 100 million USD a year. up to now the discussion always ended with a
>> > similar result: wikipedia would loose more than it would gain, and the
>> > initiative stopped. why this time it would be different? even more so as
>> > this API idea was already there when sue gardner joined 10 or more years
>> > ago. but maybe it becomes a good idea over time if it is brought up
>> often
>> > enough and the environment changes. in 20 years or so, when the
>> wikipedia
>> > content is auto-generated, auto-translated and WMF has no employees any
>> > more and no need of voluntary work this for sure would work.
>> >
>> > rupert
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 9:19 PM Victoria Coleman <
>> > vstavridoucole...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> +1 Kunal! The WMF Cloud Services

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all,

Given that this project is a direct result of the recommendations from the
strategy process the biggest questions are I feel mainly about how we go
about this. There are really bad ways this project could be approached and
then there are ways which are aligned with our movement and we are most
definitely approaching this project via the latter.

Regarding the hosting on AWS, when the project started it wasn't clear to
what extent we would be able to utilise Wikimedia Cloud Services in short
and long term for this specific project and that remains true for a number
of reasons. This has brought a benefit as it means we have been highly
conservative in our development approach. In the HTML dump work ongoing, we
are utilising purely public endpoints and we have purposefully
containerized the entire application in docker to allow flexibility of
infrastructure as well as remove any dependencies to AWS. This was
identified as a requirement pretty early on so things have been designed in
a way to avoid obvious pitfalls like becoming dependent on RDS or S3 and
aim to make the tools we build platform agnostic and fully open source.

We will be beginning a regular release of the code base soon that will
hopefully be aligned with the end of sprints. Given that there is nothing
preventing this from also existing on Wikimedia Cloud Services or any other
cloud infrastructure. In the long term our goal is to try and make anything
we build usable by anyone.

Regards
Seddon

On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 5:03 PM Victoria Coleman <
vstavridoucole...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Rupert,
>
> My comment below referred to the point Kunal made about hosting should the
> movement decide (and it is a movement decision in my view) to go forward
> with a paid API. There is a healthy debate as you point out about the
> wisdom or otherwise of doing so. But should a decision be made to go
> forward, I believe that the hosting can be done on WMF clusters run by the
> Cloud Services team to avoid putting our content on 3rd party commercial
> services. While I was on staff, and I don’t think this has changed since my
> departure, the preference was to maintain control of content - including
> accessing it  - internally to protect movement privacy. If I had a penny
> for every time I got an offer of “free” hosting from AWS and others, my
> penny jar would be overflowing!
>
> All the best,
>
> Victoria
>
> > On Jul 22, 2020, at 12:50 AM, rupert THURNER 
> wrote:
> >
> > victoria, discussions to monetize the wikipedia content in one or the
> other
> > way are as old as wikipedia. some people say "why should i continue
> editing
> > and supporting wikipedia in my free time, or donate money, attracted by
> the
> > vision to make it available to all, without condition, when WMF starts
> > selling parts of it?" while the others feel that wikipedia relying on
> > donations only keeps them at a shoestring budget, which meanwhile grew to
> > 100 million USD a year. up to now the discussion always ended with a
> > similar result: wikipedia would loose more than it would gain, and the
> > initiative stopped. why this time it would be different? even more so as
> > this API idea was already there when sue gardner joined 10 or more years
> > ago. but maybe it becomes a good idea over time if it is brought up often
> > enough and the environment changes. in 20 years or so, when the wikipedia
> > content is auto-generated, auto-translated and WMF has no employees any
> > more and no need of voluntary work this for sure would work.
> >
> > rupert
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 9:19 PM Victoria Coleman <
> > vstavridoucole...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> +1 Kunal! The WMF Cloud Services team can totally provide the needed
> >> support. The Foundation would have to invest them to build up the team
> >> which is over stretched but that should easily pay for itself as revenue
> >> starts flowing in from the paid API.
> >>
> >> Victoria
> >>
> >>> On Jul 9, 2020, at 1:38 PM, Kunal Mehta 
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> On 2020-07-09 13:15, Dan Garry (Deskana) wrote:
>  Which cloud provider would you recommend?
> >>>
> >>> Wikimedia Cloud Services, which incidentally, has the fastest network
> >>> connection to Wikimedia sites by virtue of it being hosted *inside* the
> >>> cluster.
> >>>
> >>> -- Legoktm
> >>>
> >>> ___
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> >>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> >> 
> >>
> >>
> >> ___
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> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >> New 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all.

I'll reply to some of the more finer legal details tomorrow but to be clear
the repo will be made available publicly and the code base will be open
sourced and based on open source tech.

Seddon

On Thu, 9 Jul 2020, 19:06 Benjamin Ikuta,  wrote:

>
>
> I agree, the lack of transparency is quite concerning, as is the use of
> AWS.
>
> I sure hope we're not going to be producing closed source code!
>
>
>
> On Jul 9, 2020, at 10:19 AM, Amir Sarabadani  wrote:
>
> > Thanks Joseph for the links. It's more clear now.
> >
> > I think I need to clarify something: I'm not against asking the big corps
> > to pay. If they are using a significant amount of our computational
> > resources (=donors money) to make even more money, they should pay. And
> > thank you for improving the movement's financial security. I don't oppose
> > the general idea.
> >
> > That being said, what worries me are the details:
> > * WMF is creating a company (LLC) and contracts that company, this means
> > less transparency. This is the first time I think in the history of the
> > foundation AFAIK that WMF is creating a company for legal reasons (I'm
> > sorry if I missed anything).
> > * That company is contracting another company for engineering work (even
> > less transparency). We have lots of engineering resources at WMF.
> > * As the result, for the first time, code produced by donors money is
> > closed source and inaccessible to public (or at least I couldn't find the
> > code linked anywhere)
> > * I find it ethically wrong to use AWS, even if you can't host it in WMF
> > for legal reasons, why not another cloud provider.
> > * There wasn't a period for giving feedback for example about the choice
> of
> > cloud provider or anything, suddenly it came out ready. The rumors about
> it
> > have been going around for months.
> > * This has not been communicated properly to the community, I find this
> > lack of communication and transparency concerning and insulting.
> >
> > Hope what I'm saying here makes sense.
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 7:02 PM Todd Allen  wrote:
> >
> >> I tend to agree with this. I'm one of the first to criticize WMF when
> they
> >> deserve it (I wish they didn't as often!), but I see nothing wrong with
> >> consumers of huge amounts of data being asked to chip in to cover the
> costs
> >> of providing it. That is, of course, provided that there is never any
> fee
> >> for use of the API for users of data in regular amounts, but every plan
> >> I've seen thus far accommodates that.
> >>
> >> Todd
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 7:15 AM Ad Huikeshoven 
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> Great news: the WMF is going to charge the tech giants for using the
> API
> >>> millions of times each day. Nothing in the free licenses we use
> obligate
> >> us
> >>> (that is we in our movement) to provide an API for free as in beer. It
> is
> >>> part of KAAS: Knowledge As A Service, part of the strategic direction
> >>> chosen in 2017.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for your understanding,
> >>>
> >>> Ad Huikeshoven
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 8:33 PM Amir Sarabadani 
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
>  Hello,
>  Today I stumbled upon this public phabricator ticket [1] created by
> >>> someone
>  from WMF starting with:
>  "My team is creating bi-weekly HTML Dumps for all of the wikis, except
> >>> for
>  wikidata as part of the paid API project."
> 
>  I have so many questions:
>  - What is the "paid API" project? Are we planning to make money out of
> >>> our
>  API? Now are we selling our dumps?
>  - If so, why is this not communicated before? Why are we kept in the
> >>> dark?
>  - Does the board know and approve it?
>  - How is this going to align with our core values like openness and
>  transparency?
>  - The ticket implicitly says these are going to be stored on AWS ("S3
>  bucket"). Is this thought through? Specially the ethical problems of
>  feeding Jeff Bezos' empire? (If you have seen this episode of Hasan
>  Minhaj's on ethical issues of using AWS [2]). Why can't we do/host
> this
> >>> on
>  Wikimedia infrastructure? Has this been evaluated?
>  - Why is the community not consulted about this?
> 
>  Maybe I missed announcements, consultations or anything, forgive me
> for
> >>> my
>  ignorance. Any pointers is enough. I also understand diversifying our
>  revenue is a good tool for rainy days but a consultation with the
> >>> community
>  wouldn't be too bad.
> 
>  [1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T254275
>  [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY
> 
>  Best
>  --
>  Amir (he/him)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all,

Apologies for the delay. Two overview pages covering the technical and
business side of the project:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OKAPI
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/OKAPI

Regards
Seddon

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 10:29 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:

> A well-provisioned bulk api has been missing for some time.  Thanks for
> working on this.  And clearing up the recommended way for WP content to
> appear and be linked in third-party searches and infoboxes is important --
> the sort of thing that an internal policy (and way to subscribe to feeds)
> can help.
>
> I do hope we can host this on WM or openstack infrastructure, and do it in
> a way that expands and improves the solid existing frameworks for HTML
> dumps :)
>
> S
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 8:43 AM Chris Keating 
> wrote:
>
> > It's interesting that of all the strategy recommendations, two are so far
> > being implemented. One is the Universal Code of Conduct, which has at
> least
> > had plenty of discussion and publicity, that even precedes the strategy
> > process. The other is this, which hasn't been particularly prominent
> > before, but the WMF seems to have a team working on it just a couple of
> > weeks after the final recommendations were published.
> >
> > So while doing this is one of the strategy recommendations, it doesn't
> seem
> > that is is now happening *because of* the strategy recommendations
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 10:46 AM Gergő Tisza  wrote:
> >
> > > You can find some more discussion at
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Iteration_3/Promote_Sustainability_and_Resilience#Freemium
> > >
> > > As I mentioned there, the premise of the recommendation is that the
> > > movement needs new revenue sources; in part because the 2030 strategy
> is
> > > ambitious and requires a significant increase in resources, in part
> > because
> > > our current lack of diversity (about 40% of the movement's budget is
> from
> > > donations through website banners, and another 40% from past banners
> via
> > > email campaigns and such) is a strategic risk because those donations
> can
> > > be disrupted by various social or technical trends. For example, large
> > tech
> > > companies which are the starting point of people's internet experience
> > > (such as Facebook or Google) clearly have aspirations to become the end
> > > point as well - they try to ingest and display to their users directly
> as
> > > much online content as they can. Today, that's not a whole lot of
> content
> > > (you might see fragments of Wikipedia infoboxes in Google's "knowledge
> > > panel", for example, but nothing resembling an encyclopedia article).
> Ten
> > > years from now, that might be different, and so we need to consider how
> > we
> > > would sustain ourselves in such a world - in terms of revenue, and also
> > in
> > > terms of people (how would new editors join the project, if most people
> > > interacted with our content not via our website, but interfaces
> provided
> > by
> > > big tech companies where there is no edit button?).
> > >
> > > The new API project aims to do that, both in the sense of making it
> > > possible to have more equitable arrangements with bulk reusers of our
> > > content (who make lots of money with it), and by making it easier to
> > reuse
> > > content in ways that align with our movement's values (currently, if
> you
> > > reuse Wikipedia content in your own website or application, and want to
> > > provide your users with information about the licensing or provenance
> of
> > > that content, or allow them to contribute, the tools we provide for
> that
> > > are third rate at best). As the recommendation mentions, erecting
> > > unintentional barriers to small-scale or non-commercial reusers was
> very
> > > much a concern, and I'm sure much care will be taken during
> > implementation
> > > to avoid it.
> > >
> > > Wrt transparency, I agree this was communicated less clearly than
> ideal,
> > > but from the Wikimedia Foundation's point of view, it can be hard to
> know
> > > when to consult the community and to what extent (churning out so much
> > > information that few volunteers can keep up with it can be a problem
> too;
> > > arguably early phases of the strategy process suffered from it). This
> is
> > a
> > > problem that has received considerable attention within the WMF
> recently
> > > (unrelated to API plans) so there's at the very least an effort to make
> > the
> > > process of sharing plans and gathering feedback more predictable.
> > > Also, the pandemic has been a huge disruption for the WMF. Normally, by
> > > this point, the community would have been consulted on the draft annual
> > > plan, which is where new initiatives tend to be announced; but that has
> > > been delayed significantly due to so many staff members' lives being
> > > upheaved. Movement events where such plans are usually discussed

[Wikimedia-l] Fundraising testing

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all,

Just a heads up. Through the summer the WMF fundraising team will be
running system and content tests in preparation for the end of year
fundraiser on the English Wikipedia.

The first test is scheduled for 1500 UTC Wednesday 8 July.

* If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a
phabricator ticket:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/1/?template=118862
.
* If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS or social media having
difficulties in donating or reporting any issues, please refer them to
''donate at wikimedia.org''.
* Here is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent
technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising
http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4

If you have specific ideas to share, please feel invited to add them to our
fundraising ideas page
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2020-21_Fundraising_ideas

Thank you in advance for your help, support and feedback.

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Citizendium shutting down

[Joseph Seddon]

Is there any merit in us helping them continue to exist?

Seddon

On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 10:13 PM David Gerard  wrote:

> here's the discussion:
>
> https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Forum_Talk:Technical_Issues#Any_further_thoughts.3F
>
> On Sat, 4 Jul 2020 at 22:11, David Gerard  wrote:
> >
> > Front page:
> >
> > > This wiki was unsuccessful in achieving its original goals (see
> https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Wikipedia-and-Citizendium).
> A dedicated few writers have continued working in the wiki, improving
> articles that they believe are useful, and which for various reasons
> probably could not be written in Wikipedia. On or about Sept. 30, 2020, we
> plan to end Citizendium as a public "open" project, yet (possibly) keep the
> wiki running and editable by a combination of donations and subscriptions.
> How this might occur is still being examined.
> >
> > Original announcement
> >
> https://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Welcome_to_Citizendium&diff=100864611&oldid=100857010
> >
> > basically - nobody's editing anything any more, and the money's running
> out.
> >
> >
> > - d.
>
> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia servers

[Joseph Seddon]

From reports I am seeing on facebook it seems this problem is localised on
our Africa based users?

Regards
Seddon

On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 3:05 PM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

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

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Chris,

I think that saying this happened because of the recommendations remains a
fair statement but for sure there are some caveats with that. I don’t want
to speak for the entire org but I'm also pretty confident in saying that
there are a lot more than just two recommendations with work having started
or about having work spun up on. Infrastructure and Financial
sustainability, User Experience, Safety and Inclusion work are all things
aligned with work the foundation is doing and that are in step with the
strategy recommendations.

With the WMF’s planning process for 2020-21, I think it is fair to say it
was done with both eyes firmly on what was working its way through Phase 2
of the strategy and we aligned or are aligning plans with what came out
back in May.  In this instance improvements to infrastructure and in this
case APIs, data interfaces etc. have been present throughout that and were
the output from two separate working groups during phase 2. The
recommendations of those two working groups aren't moving forward in
isolation either and the WMF is looking to improve its API infrastructure
in a much broader sense and that work is also getting up to speed as we
move into the next financial year.

The reason for that is that we must keep in mind that the strategy process
has gone on for nearly 4 years and the phase we just completed has been
going on for nearly two years now. The recommendations we have today have
grown from that entire 4 year body of work and the whole process has had a
huge influence on the WMF and what goals it is working towards.

Although sometimes many of us might think it, the organisation doesn’t work
in a silo and with that comes the reality that planning timelines don’t
align. I know that if the strategy had come out and the WMF had just sat on
its hands for 16 months until June 2021, waiting for another cycle, before
it started any of the work contained within the strategy, I would have had
a very strongly raised eyebrow and I think there would have been
frustrations from many people. Given that it makes sense that the WMF has
been actively preparing, readying itself and laying the groundwork to get
straight to work in implementing those recommendations.

Seddon

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 1:43 PM Chris Keating 
wrote:

> It's interesting that of all the strategy recommendations, two are so far
> being implemented. One is the Universal Code of Conduct, which has at least
> had plenty of discussion and publicity, that even precedes the strategy
> process. The other is this, which hasn't been particularly prominent
> before, but the WMF seems to have a team working on it just a couple of
> weeks after the final recommendations were published.
>
> So while doing this is one of the strategy recommendations, it doesn't seem
> that is is now happening *because of* the strategy recommendations
>
> Chris
>
> On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 10:46 AM Gergő Tisza  wrote:
>
> > You can find some more discussion at
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Iteration_3/Promote_Sustainability_and_Resilience#Freemium
> >
> > As I mentioned there, the premise of the recommendation is that the
> > movement needs new revenue sources; in part because the 2030 strategy is
> > ambitious and requires a significant increase in resources, in part
> because
> > our current lack of diversity (about 40% of the movement's budget is from
> > donations through website banners, and another 40% from past banners via
> > email campaigns and such) is a strategic risk because those donations can
> > be disrupted by various social or technical trends. For example, large
> tech
> > companies which are the starting point of people's internet experience
> > (such as Facebook or Google) clearly have aspirations to become the end
> > point as well - they try to ingest and display to their users directly as
> > much online content as they can. Today, that's not a whole lot of content
> > (you might see fragments of Wikipedia infoboxes in Google's "knowledge
> > panel", for example, but nothing resembling an encyclopedia article). Ten
> > years from now, that might be different, and so we need to consider how
> we
> > would sustain ourselves in such a world - in terms of revenue, and also
> in
> > terms of people (how would new editors join the project, if most people
> > interacted with our content not via our website, but interfaces provided
> by
> > big tech companies where there is no edit button?).
> >
> > The new API project aims to do that, both in the sense of making it
> > possible to have more equitable arrangements with bulk reusers of our
> > content (who make lots of money with it), and by making it easier to
> reuse
> > content in ways that align with our movement's values (currently, if you
> > reuse Wikipedia content in your own website or application, and want to
> > provide your users with information about the licensing or provenance of
> >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Promotion of scientific racism in Wikipedia articles

[Joseph Seddon]

This conversation has very quickly veered away from the original topic and
what the scope of this list is.

Seddon

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 2:58 PM Gnangarra  wrote:

> yes, when the categories termed Race, when the discussion is about
> enforcing Race as a concept.
>
> The traits you speak of;
>
> >  hair color, aspects of bone structure, or susceptibility to certain
> > diseases are heritable characteristics of certain
>
> human populations?
>
>
> Are attributes of DNA and genetics... defining them by population locations
> is race its used to imply superiority of one person over another.   The
> term Fae has raised are not terms related to the science of DNA and
> genetics, these are terms use to justify atrocities and exclude people
>
>
> On Tue, 16 Jun 2020 at 21:49, Dennis During  wrote:
>
> > Are you actually saying that it is promoting biological racism to mention
> > the fact that, say, skin color, hair color, aspects of bone structure, or
> > susceptibility to certain diseases are heritable characteristics of
> certain
> > human populations?
> >
> > Is this some kind of practical joke you are trying to play on us?
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 9:42 AM Fæ  wrote:
> >
> > > What, you are really using a Wikimedia funded email list to promote
> > > biological racism? That's ... not acceptable behaviour.
> > >
> > > Go read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism.
> > >
> > > Fae
> > >
> > > On Tue, 16 Jun 2020 at 14:37, John Erling Blad 
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Feel free to explain how the appearance of race differences is not
> > > defined
> > > > by genetics. I have absolutely no problem accepting that people are
> > > > different, and that some people may even be better adapted to
> > > > the environment than me. ;)
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 3:32 PM Fæ  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > No, we do not call other Wikipedians "Negroid" because of their
> > > > > appearance meeting a racist theory published in the 1930s.
> > > > >
> > > > > Or were you trying to say something else, other than defending
> > > > > "scientific racism" on this public list?
> > > > >
> > > > > Fae
> > > > >
> > > > > On Tue, 16 Jun 2020 at 14:25, John Erling Blad 
> > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'm not sure it is wise to try to refute differences between
> > humans,
> > > > > > whether we call it race or something else, it is simply too easy
> to
> > > point
> > > > > > out the differences. We should rather promote that differences
> are
> > a
> > > > > > GoodThing™
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Humans do exhibit racial differences, but those differences
> should
> > > not be
> > > > > > used as an excuse for abusing other people.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'm a pink Norwegian, and I would probably die in the Kalahari
> > > desert,
> > > > > > unless rescued by someone from the San people. They are so darn
> > cool!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 2:57 PM 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
> > > >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid API?

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Amir!

Thanks for your questions. It’s sunday (for me 0400 on a Monday) and a
mailing list isn’t the right venue for a full detailed explanation for this
but I’ll give a little background.

James is correct that the work in this area is coming out of the strategy
process and the recommendations it produced [1] [2] and is part of broad
improvements we are aiming to make to Wikimedia APIs. [3] We are aiming to
improve the experience for both free knowledge and community users, along
with large scale users.

Many of the people working on this are brand new (just a few weeks in) and
just getting their feet under the table. Right now they are just
experimenting on concepts relating to the data “, as part of their
onboarding and their early research work to understand the problems and
challenges. Everything is “early days” as they say. There is a lot to learn
and work on, and right now none of it is set in stone. Even the name is
mainly a placeholder (Bulk API might be a more accurate description).

The feedback and concerns that were provided during the strategy process
will be required reading and will help guide us initially. We will
definitely need to seek the expertise and insight of our communities both
editing and technical to ensure it is not just successful but in keeping
with our movement's ideals. The community can expect to see requests for
input and feedback in the coming months.

Given we are very early in this process there will definitely be further
documentation on the work planned and some initial details will be
available ASAP. My genuine apologies that this didn’t happen already.

Many thanks

Seddon

[1] From
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Improve_User_Experience
:

** Make the Wikimedia API suite more comprehensive, reliable, secure and
fast, in partnership with large scale users where that aligns with our
mission and principles, to improve the user experience of both our direct
and indirect users, increase the reach and discoverability of our content
and the potential for data returns, and improve awareness of and ease of
attribution and verifiability for content reusers.

[2] From
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Increase_the_Sustainability_of_Our_Movement#Financial_sustainability
:

* Building enterprise-level APIs (with high standards of availability,
throughput, and usability).

** Engage partners in the development wherever appropriate, incorporating
the needs of a spectrum of small, non-commercial, and larger commercial
reusers.

** Explore fees or sustainability models for enterprise-scale commercial
reusers, taking care to avoid revenue dependencies or other undue external
influence in product design and development.

** Develop appropriate safeguards to ensure continued free, unrestricted
access for non-commercial, research, and small to moderate commercial use.

[3] For example
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Core_Platform_Team/Initiatives/API_Gateway

On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 10:23 PM Amir Sarabadani 
wrote:

> Thanks for the pointers, I personally disagree with some parts of it (e.g.
> Twitter is a company and we are an NGO) BUT since it passed the community
> consultation (and I somehow missed it to raise my feedback), I don't want
> to be vocal about the high level reasoning behind the project.
>
> What I would extremely appreciate is more transparent communication to the
> community about such large changes (especially sooner). Something like a
> two-line text on a phabricator has lots of potential for misunderstanding.
>
> Thanks again.
>
> On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 9:44 PM James Heilman  wrote:
>
> > Further details are forthcoming from WMF staff.
> >
> > J
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 1:42 PM James Heilman  wrote:
> >
> > > Was discussed here
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Iteration_1/Revenue_Streams/1
> > >
> > > and
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Iteration_1/Revenue_Streams/1
> > >
> > > James
> > >
> > > On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 1:37 PM Yair Rand  wrote:
> > >
> > >> The strategy recommendations include the text: "Explore fees or
> > >> sustainability models for enterprise-scale commercial reusers, taking
> > care
> > >> to avoid revenue dependencies or other undue external influence in
> > product
> > >> design and development. / Develop appropriate safeguards to ensure
> > >> continued free, unrestricted access for non-commercial, research, and
> > >> small
> > >> to moderate commercial use." Earlier versions elaborate somewhat, and
> > >> there
> > >> were considerable reservations expressed about the idea during the
> > >> process.
> > >>
> > >> It is quite concerning.
> > >>
> > >> -- Yair Rand
> > >>
> > >> ‫בתאריך יום א׳, 14 ביוני 2020 ב-14:33 מאת ‪Amir Sarabadani‬‏ <‪
> > >> ladsgr...@gmail.com‬‏>:‬
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Possibly bad template language for context

[Joseph Seddon]

You gotta chuckle.

Seddon

On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 9:57 PM George Herbert 
wrote:

> https://twitter.com/athertonkd/status/1261397776446812160?s=21
>
> -george
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Message to readers from the Wikimedia Foundation regarding COVID-19

[Joseph Seddon]

The latter I believe to be the most applicable, I have dropped the "plural"
which does more imply the former in english.

Thanks
Seddon

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 9:13 PM Amir E. Aharoni <
amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Thanks for the invitation.
>
> In the part that says "We are proving that, even in a time of social
> distancing, we can celebrate our human bond by coming together online to
> share our knowledge and experiences.", the word "experiences" - is it more
> like "life experiences, such as travel, raising kids, etc.", or more like
> "knowledge acquired from practical work"? The translation would be
> different in the languages I know.
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> ‪“We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
>
>
> ‫בתאריך יום ה׳, 19 במרץ 2020 ב-22:27 מאת ‪Joseph Seddon‬‏ <‪
> jsed...@wikimedia.org‬‏>:‬
>
> > Dear list,
> >
> > Given the unfolding global events, the Wikimedia Foundations feels it is
> > important to reassure readers across the globe.
> >
> > We'll be displaying a short message at the top of the projects
> reaffirming
> > our commitment to keep Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects online, open
> > and free for all. Readers often turn to Wikipedia for neutral information
> > in times of stress. This is a critical moment for students who can't go
> to
> > school, people who have to stay home with their families, and anyone who
> > needs a trusted source of unbiased information.
> >
> > We also want to take a moment to acknowledge the invaluable work of all
> the
> > medical contributors on Wikipedia. Thank you for keeping a close watch
> and
> > keeping misinformation at bay. Coronavirus topics have received tens of
> > thousands of edits by thousands of editors since the start of the
> pandemic.
> > The article has been read more than 30 million times, in English alone.
> >
> > The message will be displayed just once to readers, and you can preview
> the
> > banner [1]. The draft is in English but we want this message to be
> > multilingual. If you have a moment, please help translate this banner
> into
> > your language [2]. Thank you all, for your work and efforts.
> >
> > Stay safe, and wash your hands!
> >
> > --
> > Seddon
> >
> > [1] - Banner Preview:
> >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA?banner=programmatic_mlWW_rsp_covid19&force=1&country=US
> >
> >
> > [2] - Translate link:
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Translate&group=Centralnotice-tgroup-Programmatic_translations_2020&task=view&filter=%21translated&action=translate
> > ___
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> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
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> > 
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*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Message to readers from the Wikimedia Foundation regarding COVID-19

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Sam!

Rough headline numbers are being run for pageviews, editors and edits
globally but we will get those numbers tomorrow.

Seddon

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 9:19 PM Samuel Klein  wrote:

> > "The article has been read more than 30 million times, in English alone.
> "
>
> Can you run the count for everything in that category, and across all
> languages?
> Should be a good deal more!
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 4:27 PM Joseph Seddon 
> wrote:
>
> > Dear list,
> >
> > Given the unfolding global events, the Wikimedia Foundations feels it is
> > important to reassure readers across the globe.
> >
> > We'll be displaying a short message at the top of the projects
> reaffirming
> > our commitment to keep Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects online, open
> > and free for all. Readers often turn to Wikipedia for neutral information
> > in times of stress. This is a critical moment for students who can't go
> to
> > school, people who have to stay home with their families, and anyone who
> > needs a trusted source of unbiased information.
> >
> > We also want to take a moment to acknowledge the invaluable work of all
> the
> > medical contributors on Wikipedia. Thank you for keeping a close watch
> and
> > keeping misinformation at bay. Coronavirus topics have received tens of
> > thousands of edits by thousands of editors since the start of the
> pandemic.
> > The article has been read more than 30 million times, in English alone.
> >
> > The message will be displayed just once to readers, and you can preview
> the
> > banner [1]. The draft is in English but we want this message to be
> > multilingual. If you have a moment, please help translate this banner
> into
> > your language [2]. Thank you all, for your work and efforts.
> >
> > Stay safe, and wash your hands!
> >
> > --
> > Seddon
> >
> > [1] - Banner Preview:
> >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA?banner=programmatic_mlWW_rsp_covid19&force=1&country=US
> >
> >
> > [2] - Translate link:
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Translate&group=Centralnotice-tgroup-Programmatic_translations_2020&task=view&filter=%21translated&action=translate
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>
>
>
> --
> Samuel Klein  @metasj   w:user:sj  +1 617 529 4266
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*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Message to readers from the Wikimedia Foundation regarding COVID-19

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Lane,

That's just a warning by centralnotice in preview that it's detecting an
external script. Nothing to worry about!

Seddon

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 8:47 PM Lane Rasberry  wrote:

> I see this error message
>
> Content Security Policy violation detected! Tried to load something from
>
> https://xtools.wmflabs.org/api/page/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/NASA?format=html&uselang=en
> .
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 4:27 PM Joseph Seddon 
> wrote:
>
> > Dear list,
> >
> > Given the unfolding global events, the Wikimedia Foundations feels it is
> > important to reassure readers across the globe.
> >
> > We'll be displaying a short message at the top of the projects
> reaffirming
> > our commitment to keep Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects online, open
> > and free for all. Readers often turn to Wikipedia for neutral information
> > in times of stress. This is a critical moment for students who can't go
> to
> > school, people who have to stay home with their families, and anyone who
> > needs a trusted source of unbiased information.
> >
> > We also want to take a moment to acknowledge the invaluable work of all
> the
> > medical contributors on Wikipedia. Thank you for keeping a close watch
> and
> > keeping misinformation at bay. Coronavirus topics have received tens of
> > thousands of edits by thousands of editors since the start of the
> pandemic.
> > The article has been read more than 30 million times, in English alone.
> >
> > The message will be displayed just once to readers, and you can preview
> the
> > banner [1]. The draft is in English but we want this message to be
> > multilingual. If you have a moment, please help translate this banner
> into
> > your language [2]. Thank you all, for your work and efforts.
> >
> > Stay safe, and wash your hands!
> >
> > --
> > Seddon
> >
> > [1] - Banner Preview:
> >
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA?banner=programmatic_mlWW_rsp_covid19&force=1&country=US
> >
> >
> > [2] - Translate link:
> >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Translate&group=Centralnotice-tgroup-Programmatic_translations_2020&task=view&filter=%21translated&action=translate
> > ___
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> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>
>
>
> --
> Lane Rasberry
> user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
> 206.801.0814
> l...@bluerasberry.com
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[Wikimedia-l] Message to readers from the Wikimedia Foundation regarding COVID-19

[Joseph Seddon]

Dear list,

Given the unfolding global events, the Wikimedia Foundations feels it is
important to reassure readers across the globe.

We'll be displaying a short message at the top of the projects reaffirming
our commitment to keep Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects online, open
and free for all. Readers often turn to Wikipedia for neutral information
in times of stress. This is a critical moment for students who can't go to
school, people who have to stay home with their families, and anyone who
needs a trusted source of unbiased information.

We also want to take a moment to acknowledge the invaluable work of all the
medical contributors on Wikipedia. Thank you for keeping a close watch and
keeping misinformation at bay. Coronavirus topics have received tens of
thousands of edits by thousands of editors since the start of the pandemic.
The article has been read more than 30 million times, in English alone.

The message will be displayed just once to readers, and you can preview the
banner [1]. The draft is in English but we want this message to be
multilingual. If you have a moment, please help translate this banner into
your language [2]. Thank you all, for your work and efforts.

Stay safe, and wash your hands!

--
Seddon

[1] - Banner Preview:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA?banner=programmatic_mlWW_rsp_covid19&force=1&country=US


[2] - Translate link:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Translate&group=Centralnotice-tgroup-Programmatic_translations_2020&task=view&filter=%21translated&action=translate
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donating to Wikipedia

[Joseph Seddon]

Apologies if my response seemed to infer something I did not intend it to.
I was referring to the strategic direction which provides high level goals
for the movement as a whole developed by people from across the movement.

Measureable contributions in working towards those goals, comes down to the
strategies of the various communities and organisations composing
Wikimedia. In terms of the Wikimedia Foundation, the first phase of its
strategic planning in working towards the direction is laid out within its
medium term plan. Part of that includes funding the work of affiliates
globally, all of whom will hopefully have their own strategies in working
towards the 2030 direction.

Fundraisings role is to not aim for those goals but to generate the
resources to support their delivery.

Regards
Seddon

On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 8:11 PM Fæ  wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Dec 2019 at 19:24, Joseph Seddon  wrote:
> > ... but the
> > movement has set itself some pretty significant goals for the next 10
> > years.
>
> Could you provide a link to where the movement, presumably not the
> report published in February 2018 that was written by the
> "Foundation’s staff and its consulting teams", has agreed and set the
> specific measurable goals to be met over the next 10 years that
> fundraising is aiming for?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
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*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donating to Wikipedia

[Joseph Seddon]

 I know the history of our content and I know the slip ups that have been
made along the way but the team take this seriously. Our internal review
processes have significantly improved over the years and for this
fundraiser it's definitely been our most rigorous yet and I think it's
proven to be pretty effective. The scale of the fundraiser means that
things will slip through because there are human beings involved. But I
promise you that the people I work with are holding themselves to a
standard of honesty in our content. I and others wouldn't work here if that
wasn't the case.

Seddon

On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 7:05 AM MZMcBride  wrote:

> Samuel Klein wrote:
> >[Some banners are so delightful that they are a welcome improvement to a
> >page without; and I've occasionally thought we should run some of those,
> >w/ low probability, continuously year-round.]
>
> Which banners are delightful? The ones I've seen this year take up two
> pages of scrolling on mobile. This isn't cute or endearing; as you and
> others note, it's alarming to many people.
>
> As I imagine I've said previously, I think it's helpful to call this type
> of behavior what it is: spam or advertising. Calling it "fundraising" or
> speaking of "banners" makes it a lot easier to brush aside how intrusive
> and obnoxious this code is and the damaging impact it has.
>
> Fæ  wrote:
> >Isn't it about time that the Wikimedia Foundation came to terms that
> > /plenty/ of money is made through sensible fundraising, without every
> >year embarrassing the whole Wikimedia Community by promoting the
> > impression that Wikipedia is about to close down if the public don't
> > give them enough money to keep their servers powered up over
> > Christmas? Making 10% more money every year is growth for the sake of
> > it unless we can understand in an accountable and transparent way
> > where that extra 10% is needed; preferably right there in the
> > fundraising banner so folks don't get the impression that Wikipedia is
> > about to vanish.
>
> Yes, absolutely. While there's often talk of "Wikimedia values", it's
> always been incredible to me to see the exact confines of those values
> from Wikimedia Foundation Inc. staff who are charged with bringing in
> money. For years, there have been complaints about this spam being
> borderline deceitful; in some cases the spam has been outright misleading
> or wrong. How does tricking people into thinking that Wikipedia will stop
> surviving if they don't give $5 an acceptable practice?
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donating to Wikipedia

[Joseph Seddon]

 Hey Benjamin,

Your dad is right, in some regards. More than 85% of our revenue comes from
the general public. It's how we've survived and has supported our growth
over the last decade.

We have conducted surveys, focus groups and user testing over the years to
get better insights into our readers and donors and have published results
from some of our research surveys. [1][2]  We definitely monitor feedback
on social media for reader reactions to our fundraising but I don’t think
we have specifically researched the question you raised about readers
taking away the wrong impression. It's definitely something for us to
consider for the future. It’s worth noting that readers arrive at our
website with misconceptions. Until only very recently, half of our readers
didn’t realise that Wikipedia was non-profit and a quarter of them thought
we were funded by commercial advertising.

Our current messaging has moved on from previous years. There is definitely
a sense of urgency in the fundraising message because there is urgency
behind our work. We aren't saying that our sites are going to be taken
down, and we avoid using that kind of messaging these days, but the
movement has set itself some pretty significant goals for the next 10
years. If we are to be genuinely serious about achieving or making headway
in those areas, we need the support of our readers. We are trying to get
that urgency across without causing anxiety and it is certainly a
challenge.

One thing to keep in mind is unlike websites like the Guardian, Wikipedia
doesn’t fundraise year round in all countries. In our larger campaigns,
other than “pre-campaign testing,” we generally fundraise for a total of 4
weeks in any one country each year. In just a few moments, we need to try
and educate our readers efficiently and effectively about who we are and
make a convincing pitch for their support.

Our messaging isn’t static and it is in a constant state of change. And our
content doesn’t just change according to test results. Specifically it
changes in response to feedback like yours and the others on this thread.
When we hear from community members, donors or members of the public that
something in our banners isn’t working or seems disingenuous, we take that
feedback extremely seriously and it will help guide where we spend our
efforts testing. In the last year in our desktop messaging, we removed
lines such as “If Wikipedia became commercial, it would be a great loss to
the world”. The reference to coffee has also, for the time being, been
retired from the desktop large banner for the past 10 days. As recently as
today, we’ve softened the intro to our desktop messaging in an attempt to
reduce a perceived alarmist tone. A few weeks back, when we asked the
community to choose a rewrite for the second half of our desktop large
appeal, 40 people took part and we adopted the most popular variant.

Last year, we received important feedback on our mobile banners regarding
their length. Whilst we made changes to the designs last year, it doesn’t
mean that we have forgotten about that feedback. Throughout the last 3
weeks, we have run numerous tests focused on decreasing the length of the
banner through design or messaging changes, and we’ve been able to shave
off a further fraction from the banner even though there was a reduction in
effectiveness.

Going forward, if community members want me to look into setting up regular
office hours on IRC or Google Hangouts or some other venue we can do that.
We’ve run it before and if the interest is there happy to do this again. If
there other venues or methods you feel would work I’m open to ideas. Either
way the fundraising team does listen to feedback and does act on that
feedback. The team genuinely believes it's possible to reach our goals and
make the community proud and I think we’ve come a long way over the years.

Thank you again for your questions and others for their feedback.
Seddon

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fundraising_donor_research_findings.pdf
[2]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/ef/Report.WikimediaJapan.f.071916.pdf

On Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 8:27 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
wrote:

>
>
> My dad recently said to me:
>
> "I was solitated by them after looking something up.  I thought it strange
> the way they were pleading for donations. They made it sound like they
> might be shutting down if we the general public didn't donate."
>
> Has there been any research into how common it is for readers to get the
> wrong impression from the marketing messaging?
>
> I've heard of this sort of thing happening before, and I think it's highly
> antithetical to our values to be deceptive.
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Leadership change at Wikimedia Israel

[Joseph Seddon]

Thank you Michal for your years of service. My favourite memory is having
an ice cream with you at GLAMWIKI in Tel Aviv last year.

I hope to still see you around the movement.

Seddon

On Thu, 19 Dec 2019, 02:22 Pine W,  wrote:

> Michal, many thanks for your service. I remember when we talked online
> several years ago. Best wishes for your next steps, and I hope that you
> will keep in touch.
>
> Itzik, thank you for sharing this news.
>
> שָׁלוֹם
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donating to Wikipedia

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Benjamin!

Just wanted to acknowledge your email and let you know I'll respond in full
as soon as possible.

Many Thanks
Seddon

On Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 8:27 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
wrote:

>
>
> My dad recently said to me:
>
> "I was solitated by them after looking something up.  I thought it strange
> the way they were pleading for donations. They made it sound like they
> might be shutting down if we the general public didn't donate."
>
> Has there been any research into how common it is for readers to get the
> wrong impression from the marketing messaging?
>
> I've heard of this sort of thing happening before, and I think it's highly
> antithetical to our values to be deceptive.
>
>
>
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Fundraising Update

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey All!

Many of you know that the Wikimedia Endowment <
https://wikimediaendowment.org/> was launched in 2016.  The purpose of the
Endowment is to act as a permanent safekeeping fund to generate income to
ensure a base level of support for the Wikimedia projects in perpetuity.
When the Endowment is fully funded, it will provide revenue to support the
projects of Wikimedia. It will not fully fund WMF’s work, so it is not a
replacement for annual fundraising, but it will supplement it in the future.

Since its launch, we’ve helped support the Endowment in part with
contributions from our annual fundraising campaigns. We will be repeating
this over the next few weeks with some of our banner and email fundraising
efforts being directed towards the Wikimedia Endowment with dedicated
messaging.

Wikipedia portal, Wikipedia app, and major gifts fundraising will remain
focused on raising for the annual plan budget. Fundraising banners will
most likely come down over Christmas with a final push in the run up to New
Years Eve. There will be a follow up thank you campaign for a few days in
January.

Thank you all!

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] Dear Wikimedia, With Thanks, Donors.

[Joseph Seddon]

Millions of people donate to our projects because we have in some way
bettered their life. They don't just give money, they take the time to say
thank you as well. In their tens of thousands. .

To brighten your day a little, just read a handful of some of these notes
of thanks:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/Donor_Thanks

With that, from the Fundraising teams, we thank you all for your ongoing
support. We couldn't do this without you! Have a wonderful day!

Kind Regards

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] Choose our fundraising messaging!

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all! - Fundraising could use your assistance in selecting messaging to
use in one of our fundraising banners. All perform similarly.

Just selected your preferred option on this form:

https://forms.gle/F52SL7KwVesNjrNq7


-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Q2 Fundraising Update

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick reminder to all that our campaign will be launching in a few
hours.

Thank you in advance for your support and patience over the coming weeks.

Regards
Seddon

On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 10:09 PM Joseph Seddon 
wrote:

> Hey All
>
> Just wanted to give you a quick update. With upcoming fundraising in
> Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the USA, and the United Kingdom;
> along with a completed fundraising campaign in France; Q2 sees us raise
> approximately half of the annual funds for the Wikimedia movement and as
> usual the team has been very busy.
>
> Starting back in October, our E-mail fundraising programme has been
> running in these countries. This programme focuses on asking previous
> donors to reaffirm their support to Wikimedia and our English campaign will
> continue steadily through the rest of this calendar year.
>
> October and November also sees us test and prepare for our main English
> fundraising banner campaign. We do this to explore new ideas, test systems,
> improve workflows etc all in time for the busiest period of the year. This
> year we will be looking to begin the main campaign on or around Monday,
> December 2 and will look to fundraise through the month of December.
>
> There are a number of ways you can help support the fundraiser:
>
> ---Message Ideas---
>
> I’ll be following up with some asks later this week for ideas around
> themes and ideas the fundraising team should explore in it’s messaging. In
> the meantime, if you have specific ideas or stories we should tell via
> social media, banners, emails etc. Please add them to our fundraising ideas
> page. (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2019-20_Fundraising_ideas)
>
>
> ---Reporting Issues---
>
> If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems
> please do report it on phabricator:
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862
>
> If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions
> about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer
> them to:   donate {{at}} wikimedia.org.
>
> Here is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent
> technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising ( 
> http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4
> )
>
>
>
> Many thanks
>
> --
> Seddon
>
> Community and Audience Engagement Associate
> *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
>


-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] Fundraising needs your help

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all,

(reposting due to filter rejection)


Fundraising are looking for ideas and suggestions for our writing team to
explore for our messaging in this years fundraiser. I only need a minute of
your time to answer the following question:


--- What’s your favorite thing about Wikipedia that you wish our readers
and donors knew? ---


We'll use the responses to generate new test ideas

Post your answers on list or directly to me :) Thanks in advance

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] Q2 Fundraising Update

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey All

Just wanted to give you a quick update. With upcoming fundraising in
Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the USA, and the United Kingdom;
along with a completed fundraising campaign in France; Q2 sees us raise
approximately half of the annual funds for the Wikimedia movement and as
usual the team has been very busy.

Starting back in October, our E-mail fundraising programme has been running
in these countries. This programme focuses on asking previous donors to
reaffirm their support to Wikimedia and our English campaign will continue
steadily through the rest of this calendar year.

October and November also sees us test and prepare for our main English
fundraising banner campaign. We do this to explore new ideas, test systems,
improve workflows etc all in time for the busiest period of the year. This
year we will be looking to begin the main campaign on or around Monday,
December 2 and will look to fundraise through the month of December.

There are a number of ways you can help support the fundraiser:

---Message Ideas---

I’ll be following up with some asks later this week for ideas around themes
and ideas the fundraising team should explore in it’s messaging. In the
meantime, if you have specific ideas or stories we should tell via social
media, banners, emails etc. Please add them to our fundraising ideas page. (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2019-20_Fundraising_ideas)


---Reporting Issues---

If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems please
do report it on phabricator:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862

If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions
about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer
them to:   donate {{at}} wikimedia.org.

Here is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent
technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising (
http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4
)



Many thanks

-- 
Seddon

Community and Audience Engagement Associate
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation joins the global climate strike

[Joseph Seddon]

Because # of flights is not a useful metric for assessing environmental
impact.

Seddon

On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 3:23 PM Fæ  wrote:

> Those publications are where my numbers came from. There is no useful
> transparency to explain how many actual flights are taken, why or by whom.
>
> Fae
>
> On Fri, 20 Sep 2019, 15:17 Lucas Werkmeister, 
> wrote:
>
> > Did you see the sustainability report that was published yesterday [1]
> > [2]? Page 30 of the PDF has some numbers on business travel by air –
> > some 5.6 million km in total, by the looks of it. Page 32 also shows
> > that the carbon footprint of air travel is about half that of the
> > electricity used by the Foundation’s data centers.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Lucas
> >
> > [1]:
> >
> >
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/19/how-the-wikimedia-foundation-is-making-efforts-to-go-green
> > [2]:
> >
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Sustainability_Assessment_and_Carbon_Footprint.pdf
> >
> > On 20.09.19 15:23, Fæ wrote:
> > > Nice to see that https://wikimediafoundation.org has a banner linking
> > > to the global climate strike today.
> > >
> > > Can anyone produce some verifiable metrics that the WMF has taken
> > > significant action to reduce the total number of aircraft flights the
> > > WMF uses?
> > >
> > > I am asking as though there are no transparently published figures for
> > > how much the WMF spends on air travel, I recall that the Katherine
> > > Mahler was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, where is was part
> > > of her impressive executive profile to be "on the road" for 200 days
> > > of the year. This probably puts Katherine in the very top numbers for
> > > CEOs with damaging carbon footprints resulting from travelling so
> > > often by flying.[1] If the WMF wants to be seen as an ethical company
> > > when it comes to reducing their organizational impact on climate
> > > change, perhaps this could start with publishing travel figures for
> > > the CEO and the rest of the management team, so that everyone can see
> > > whether there is year on year improvement, or none.
> > >
> > > Thanks again for the banner, it does help increase the sense of
> urgency.
> > >
> > > Links:
> > > 1.
> >
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-35-year-old-executive-director-of-wikimedia-travels-1529588701
> > >
> > > Fae
> > >
> >
> > ___
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> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Joseph Seddon]

Before we call out individuals for lack of attendance publicly, I think we
should remember that both volunteers and staff have lives outside of
Wikimedia that include children, families and other commitments in life.
They all come with complications. Sometimes things don't work out. There
are tens of conferences every year at various scales all over the world.
Many staff and volunteer board members will have recently just travelled to
Wikimania and a strategy summit in Tunis. Attendance at these events is
often to the detriment to people's personal lives to some degree.

So please lets just be careful about how we talk about this and keep the
above in mind.

Regards
Seddon

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:02 PM Thierry Coudray  wrote:

> "*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking
> contributors*".
> This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've just
> said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone Wikiconvention held
> last weekend in Brussels. The statement may seem excessive, because the
> Foundation does things for the Francophone community as well as for other
> communities (and its website is fairly well translated into French). But it
> reflected my feeling, shared by my three interlocutors, all non-French,
> facing that no Foundation high-level members were present to this
> Wikiconvention: no executive director, nor members of the Board, nor any
> level-C staff. In an another conversation, where the subject came up over
> again, someone said this absence was offensive. I do not know if it
> reflects the majority of attendees feelings but with varying degrees, I
> would said it was widely shared.
>
> In 2017, for the Francophone Wikiconvention in Strasbourg we had a very
> quick visit of Katherine Maher, in 2018, a simple video message and in 2019
> ... nothing. At the same time, the Francophone Wikiconvention has stepped
> up with ever more participants, always more countries represented. This
> year, it brought together more than 220 Francophones, Algerian, Belgian,
> Beninese, Cameroonian, Canadian, French, Guinean, Ivorian, Swiss and
> Tunisian contributors, and I may forget some, with varied and enriching
> conferences and meetings. A huge success, very well organized by employees
> but also by several volunteers, who dedicated time and energy. This
> Wikiconvention and the projects and achievements submitted have shown the
> French-speaking Wikimedia community vitality, which will continue to grow.
> FYI, French is foreseen, thanks to Africa, to be the most rapidly growing
> languages in the next twenty years and will be the mother tongue or the
> language used for communication for more than 8% of the world's population
> in thirty years' time. But my reaction would have been the same if I had
> attended an Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili-speaking or any other
> important languages Wikiconvention.
>
> So yes, this Wikiconvention is not in English. Fortunately, not all
> Wikimedia meetings are in English. In a previous discussion on this mailing
> list about the question of whether or not it is appropriate to continue
> Wimania, one of the participants argued that unlike other Wikimedia
> meetings, anyone could attend Wikmania. It may be obvious for those who
> have English as a mother tongue or for Northern Europeans for whom English
> is almost a second mother tongue but this is false: English is spoken only
> by a small minority in the world, less than one human in six. So only one
> human in six or seven could attend Wikimania or any other english-speaking
> conferences or meetings (the case of the vast majority of global Wikimedia
> conferences). I do not deny a common working language usefulness but a
> Wikiconvention in French, as I hope other languages ones will be more to
> come soon, allows all non-English speaking Francophones to participate in
> the Wikimedia movement and above all, help them to meet our common goal of
> spread freeknowledge.The movement talks a lot about its efforts to overcome
> differents gaps (gender, LGBT,...) and it's rightly pointed, these topics
> are important. But it simply forget the language gap and the almost
> exclusive use of English excludes a very large majority.
>
> So why no high level Foundation members in Brussels ?
> I was told that Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
> should initially be there but finally told she will not. But then, no other
> member could then replace her and why only one Foundation representant
> given the part of French language in the WM projects ? Perhaps no
> Foundation
> Board or high level member speaks French or feels she/he speaks good
> enough.
> But with more than 220 attendants at the FWC, it would have been easy to
> find volonteers with a good level of English to provide simultaneous
> translation in discussions with other non-English speaking participants or
> to
> translate conferences.A higher-level representation would have helped the
> Foun

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of the Grupo de Usuários Wiki Movimento Brasil

[Joseph Seddon]

I didn't mean for any intended accusation in my initial question, and to
clarify I do not sit on AffCom along I have a long standing interest in
affiliates.

After the issues with the two previous affiliates in Brazil, it was the
Brazilian community themselves who could take the situation into their own
hands and move forward and I was genuinely interested how the community
plans to do that and avoid repeats of the past.

Regards
Seddon




On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 11:24 PM Mister Thrapostibongles <
thrapostibong...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Joseph
>
> Perhaps we could assume that your colleagues on the Affiliations Committee
> are well aware of the past history and have taken it into consideration
> privately, which is exactly how such issues sould be considered, rather
> than on a public mailing list.  Unless you have evidence to the cotrary?
>
> Thrapostibongles
>
> On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 11:43 AM Joseph Seddon 
> wrote:
>
> > Asking as a volunteer with a broad interest in affiliate matters rather
> > than as a staff member:
> >
> > What steps is the Brazilian community taking to ensure there isn't a
> repeat
> > of past breakdowns in community cooperation?
> >
> > Kind regards
> >
> > Seddon
> >
> > On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 10:50 AM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi!
> > >
> > > I would like to correct myself, as since October 2018 there is one more
> > > Wikimedia affiliate with Portuguese as its official language, our very
> > good
> > > friends "Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia", who have been
> doing
> > > quite a notable work in LATAM:
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Muj(lh)eres_latinoamericanas_en_Wikimedia
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Paulo
> > >
> > > Paulo Santos Perneta  escreveu no dia quinta,
> > > 30/05/2019 à(s) 15:40:
> > >
> > > > Wonderful news!
> > > > Brazil has been for long one of the world leaders in Wikimedia
> > > educational
> > > > projects, with an excellent work on GLAMs, often in line with the
> > > > educational projects, and generally with full Wikidata integration.
> > > > It is very rewarding to see the group recognized again as a
> full-right
> > > > Wikimedia affiliate.
> > > > It also happens to be the only other Portuguese speaking affiliate,
> > > > besides Wikimedia Portugal. Still a long way to go for one of the
> most
> > > > spoken native languages in the globe, but that's a great improvement.
> > > >
> > > > Best,
> > > > Paulo
> > > >
> > > > Rajeeb Dutta  escreveu no dia quinta,
> 30/05/2019
> > > > à(s) 13:24:
> > > >
> > > >> Congratulations to the entire team of the Grupo de Usuários Wiki
> > > >> Movimento Brasil!!
> > > >>
> > > >> Best Regards,
> > > >> Rajeeb Dutta.
> > > >> (Marajozkee).
> > > >> Wikimedia India.
> > > >>
> > > >> > On 30-May-2019, at 5:40 PM, Shani Evenstein  >
> > > >> wrote:
> > > >> >
> > > >> > What excellent news!
> > > >> > This group has been doing amazing and innovative work, so it's a
> joy
> > > to
> > > >> see
> > > >> > this community finally re-recognized as an affiliate.
> > > >> > As it should be. :)
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Best of luck to all of you with your future projects. I'll keep
> > > >> following
> > > >> > your work with excitement.
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Shani.
> > > >> >
> > > >> > ---
> > > >> > *Shani Evenstein Sigalov*
> > > >> > * Lecturer, Tel Aviv University.
> > > >> > * EdTech Innovation Strategist, NY/American Medical Program,
> Sackler
> > > >> School
> > > >> > of Medicine, Tel Aviv University.
> > > >> > * PhD Candidate, School of Education, Tel Aviv University.
> > > >> > * OER & Emerging Technologies Coordinator, UNESCO Chair
> > > >> > <https://education.tau.ac.il/node/3495> on Technology,
> > > >> Internationalization
> > > >> > and Education, School of Education, Tel Aviv University
> > > >&g

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Recognition of the Grupo de Usuários Wiki Movimento Brasil

[Joseph Seddon]

Asking as a volunteer with a broad interest in affiliate matters rather
than as a staff member:

What steps is the Brazilian community taking to ensure there isn't a repeat
of past breakdowns in community cooperation?

Kind regards

Seddon

On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 10:50 AM Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I would like to correct myself, as since October 2018 there is one more
> Wikimedia affiliate with Portuguese as its official language, our very good
> friends "Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia", who have been doing
> quite a notable work in LATAM:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Muj(lh)eres_latinoamericanas_en_Wikimedia
>
> Best,
> Paulo
>
> Paulo Santos Perneta  escreveu no dia quinta,
> 30/05/2019 à(s) 15:40:
>
> > Wonderful news!
> > Brazil has been for long one of the world leaders in Wikimedia
> educational
> > projects, with an excellent work on GLAMs, often in line with the
> > educational projects, and generally with full Wikidata integration.
> > It is very rewarding to see the group recognized again as a full-right
> > Wikimedia affiliate.
> > It also happens to be the only other Portuguese speaking affiliate,
> > besides Wikimedia Portugal. Still a long way to go for one of the most
> > spoken native languages in the globe, but that's a great improvement.
> >
> > Best,
> > Paulo
> >
> > Rajeeb Dutta  escreveu no dia quinta, 30/05/2019
> > à(s) 13:24:
> >
> >> Congratulations to the entire team of the Grupo de Usuários Wiki
> >> Movimento Brasil!!
> >>
> >> Best Regards,
> >> Rajeeb Dutta.
> >> (Marajozkee).
> >> Wikimedia India.
> >>
> >> > On 30-May-2019, at 5:40 PM, Shani Evenstein 
> >> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > What excellent news!
> >> > This group has been doing amazing and innovative work, so it's a joy
> to
> >> see
> >> > this community finally re-recognized as an affiliate.
> >> > As it should be. :)
> >> >
> >> > Best of luck to all of you with your future projects. I'll keep
> >> following
> >> > your work with excitement.
> >> >
> >> > Shani.
> >> >
> >> > ---
> >> > *Shani Evenstein Sigalov*
> >> > * Lecturer, Tel Aviv University.
> >> > * EdTech Innovation Strategist, NY/American Medical Program, Sackler
> >> School
> >> > of Medicine, Tel Aviv University.
> >> > * PhD Candidate, School of Education, Tel Aviv University.
> >> > * OER & Emerging Technologies Coordinator, UNESCO Chair
> >> >  on Technology,
> >> Internationalization
> >> > and Education, School of Education, Tel Aviv University
> >> > .
> >> > * Chairperson, WikiProject Medicine Foundation
> >> > .
> >> > * Chairperson, Wikipedia & Education User Group
> >> > .
> >> > * Chairperson, The Hebrew Literature Digitization Society
> >> > .
> >> > * Chief Editor, Project Ben-Yehuda .
> >> > +972-525640648
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Thu, May 30, 2019 at 2:33 PM Kirill Lokshin <
> >> kirill.loks...@gmail.com>
> >> > wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Hi everyone!
> >> >>
> >> >> I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has
> >> recognized
> >> >> [1] the Grupo de Usuários Wiki Movimento Brasil [2] as a Wikimedia
> User
> >> >> Group. The group aims to bring together the active members of the
> >> Wikimedia
> >> >> movement in Brazil, supporting the organization of the Brazilian
> >> Wikimedia
> >> >> community as well as the promotion of and participation on the
> >> Wikimedia
> >> >> projects.
> >> >>
> >> >> Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user group!
> >> >>
> >> >> Regards,
> >> >> Kirill Lokshin
> >> >> Chair, Affiliations Committee
> >> >>
> >> >> [1]
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Recognition_of_Grupo_de_Usuários_Wiki_Movimento_Brasil
> >> >> [2]
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Brasil
> >> >> ___
> >> >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> >> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >> >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> >> Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> >> >> 
> >> > ___
> >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> ,
> >> 
> >>
> >> _

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Thank you and farewell

[Joseph Seddon]

Sati.

You are and will have been one of the single smartest minds we've ever had
at the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation, both as a whole and
the individuals who make it up, will be lesser without your presence and
your insight and it will be noticeable and felt throughout for many years.

Best of luck
Seddon

On Fri, 17 May 2019, 12:19 Felix Nartey,  wrote:

> Oh dear Sati,
>
> Its a really sad day for me, thanks for being a friend and a mentor. Its
> always being exciting working with you and I will miss that a lot, but we
> have to do it one last time before you leave RA WG awaits you!
>
> Gosh I will miss the adventures of an Eskimo :-), I wish you the best on
> your next adventure.
>
> Don't be a stranger!
>
> On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 10:57 AM Kalliope Tsouroupidou <
> ktsouroupi...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > I am very sad to see you leave, Sati. Your absence will be a net loss for
> > the Foundation, but knowing that it has enabled you to grow, with all the
> > growing pains hat growth entails, is consoling. I hope your new course
> > takes you closer to fulfilling your dreams.
> >
> > See you on the dance floor, somewhere out there!!!
> >
> > Big hugs and warm wishes for the best,
> >
> > K.
> >
> > On Fri, 17 May 2019 at 11:30, camelia boban 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Sati,
> > > So sad to hear this but so happy for your growth and your future.
> > > Never forget our crazy dances.
> > >
> > > A big big hug for now.
> > >
> > > With ❤️, Camelia
> > >
> > > On Fri, May 17, 2019, 9:53 AM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
> > > wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Dear Sati,
> > > >
> > > > I wish you all the best for the future and I feel like we are losing
> a
> > > > very valuable person.
> > > > Thank for sharing your thoughts about the “limit of knowledge”. Of
> > course
> > > > some of us would certainly like to know why we are losing you. I
> would
> > in
> > > > any case.
> > > >
> > > > Kind regards,
> > > >
> > > > Natacha
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >> Le 17 mai 2019 à 01:50, Isarra Yos  a écrit
> :
> > > > >>
> > > > >> On 16/05/2019 23:29, Joseph Fox wrote:
> > > > >> Maybe let's not turn this into a debate about what epistemology
> is.
> > > > >
> > > > > Would this really be the Wikimedia we all know and love if we
> didn't?
> > > > >
> > > > > Regardless, I'm glad Sati took the time to write this up. I thought
> > it
> > > > was an excellent description of just how truly terrible and wonderful
> > > > things can be around here, and such poetry put to words only does us
> > > good,
> > > > really. Now let's bikeshed!
> > > > >
> > > > > -I
> > > > >
> > > > > ___
> > > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > > Unsubscribe:
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > > 
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ___
> > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > > 
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> >
> > --
> > Kalliope Tsouroupidou
> > Senior Trust & Safety Specialist
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
>
>
>
> --
> *Felix Nartey*
> *Cofounder/Board Chair *
> *Website: Open Foundation West Africa
> *
> *+233242844987 | **+4915202421275*
> *Skype:Flixtey*
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/list

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Be the change you want to see (was: WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive)

[Joseph Seddon]

ound it. A retrospective on this project is out-of-scope for this post,
> > but if you need a short and convenient answer: it didn’t work, and it
> > generally made it impossible for the Wikimedia Foundation to even broach
> > the subject for the following several years. (There is starting to be
> work
> > on this again, and this time, it seems to be going at a more deliberate
> > pace, but I will defer to the staff working on this.)
> >
> > Let’s talk about workarounds. We have workarounds that make the talk
> pages
> > themselves more useful (talk page archiving comes to mind[1]), and we
> also
> > have workarounds that consist of outsourcing the issue entirely, whether
> it
> > be solutions we host ourselves (mailing lists, Discourse) or proprietary
> > platforms that happen to be convenient for large segments of our
> > communities. There are different advantages and disadvantages to each
> > solution, which has only resulted in the proliferation of solutions.
> >
> > Let’s back up. On the wikis themselves there are millions of discussion
> > venues; there are different software interventions that work or don’t
> work,
> > depending on the situation; and we are now in a position where we have so
> > many places to hold conversations it becomes an extraordinary use of time
> > (and several people’s full time jobs) to try to understand the
> > extraordinarily complex social interactions that take place in the
> hundreds
> > of languages we speak.
> >
> > Having introduced all that context, the short answer to your question is
> > there are some channels we are better at paying attention to than others,
> > but we don’t know what we don’t know. And this is frustrating for
> everyone
> > involved. It makes projects take longer, it makes it harder to onboard
> > staff, and I can imagine it’s *even more* frustrating for the many users
> of
> > our many wikis who have to deal with the software being broken and not
> > really knowing what to do. I think we manage,  but I think we deserve
> > better than just “managing” it.
> >
> >
> > My best regards,
> > James Hare
> >
> >
> >
> > [0] This brings up another topic that not all discussions that take place
> > on Wikipedia happen on discussion pages. Also, there are over 50,000,000
> > Wikidata items, and almost none of them have talk pages, but
> theoretically
> > *all
> > of them* can.
> >
> > [1] I remember when Werdna wrote the first talk page archiving bot in
> 2006.
> > I thought it was cool that someone did that, but looking back on it, I
> > wonder why I was happy with that as a solution – it seems really
> convoluted
> > in retrospect.
> >
> >
> >
> > > > positive tone needs to be made and a much more conciliatory stance
> > taken.
> > > > Otherwise we all might as well pack our bags.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:17 AM Asaf Bartov 
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Speaking as a (very) longtime member of this mailing list, and one
> > who
> > > is
> > > > > carefully observing it for a few years now as a volunteer list
> > > > > co-administrator:
> > > > >
> > > > > On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 3:56 AM Joseph Seddon <
> jsed...@wikimedia.org
> > >
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > I, like many others, wish to see this list become a crucible of
> > good
> > > > > > suggestions, healthy and critical debate about ideas and as a
> sound
> > > > > > mechanism for oversight and account . A huge amount of staff time
> > and
> > > > > > movement resources is taken up by the consumption of its content.
> > And
> > > > yet
> > > > > > it remains the greatest shame that much of the best most
> worthwhile
> > > > > > constructive discussions have moved to platforms like Facebook
> > > because
> > > > > this
> > > > > > list is viewed as hosting such an unhealthy atmosphere when
> emails
> > > are
> > > > > > written with such overt passive aggression.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I call it out because if we want people to participate on this
> > list,
> > > > the
> > > > > > unhealthy way in which this list gets treated by some of its most
> > > > active
> > > > > > participants ne

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Be the change you want to see (was: WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive)

[Joseph Seddon]

I do not think we should assign blame to those who left this list during
and because of the periods of toxicity, and who are disinclined to
participate here because of the memories of that and a continued perceived
unhealthiness in the tone. Their decision to leave was a valid one.

Not respecting that choice I suspect would just reaffirm their suspicions
and reinforces the lack of desire to commit here. A significantly more
positive tone needs to be made and a much more conciliatory stance taken.
Otherwise we all might as well pack our bags.


On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:17 AM Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> Speaking as a (very) longtime member of this mailing list, and one who is
> carefully observing it for a few years now as a volunteer list
> co-administrator:
>
> On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 3:56 AM Joseph Seddon 
> wrote:
>
> > I, like many others, wish to see this list become a crucible of good
> > suggestions, healthy and critical debate about ideas and as a sound
> > mechanism for oversight and account . A huge amount of staff time and
> > movement resources is taken up by the consumption of its content. And yet
> > it remains the greatest shame that much of the best most worthwhile
> > constructive discussions have moved to platforms like Facebook because
> this
> > list is viewed as hosting such an unhealthy atmosphere when emails are
> > written with such overt passive aggression.
> >
> > I call it out because if we want people to participate on this list, the
> > unhealthy way in which this list gets treated by some of its most active
> > participants needs to be dealt with. Otherwise valid points will not get
> > acknowledged or answered.
> >
>
> I am not sure the causality here runs in the direction you describe.  It's
> true that this list had some aggressive, even vulgar participants in the
> past, and that some senior staff members, as well as board members, have
> left the list in protest.  Personally, I think that was a mistake on their
> part: to improve the list atmosphere, you model good behavior yourself, and
> you call upon the rest of the list -- the "silent majority" -- to call out
> bad behavior and enforce some participation standards (as, indeed, I and my
> co-moderators have been doing since we took over).
>
> By senior people's departing this list, and no longer requiring staff to be
> on this list, a strong signal was sent that this is not a venue crucial to
> listen to, and that, coupled with the decreasing frequency of WMF responses
> to legitimate volunteer inquiries and suggestions, had a *powerful*
> chilling effect on the willingness of most volunteers to engage here.
> Especially when, as you say, they were able to get better engagement on
> Facebook and other channels, despite the serious shortcomings of
> accountability on those channels (immutable archiving, searchability,
> access to anonymous volunteers, etc.)
>
> Yes, this list has also seen some pseudonymous critics whose questions may
> have been inconvenient or troublesome to address.  Yet I think the
> accountable thing to do would have been to respond, however briefly, to
> prevent the sealioning and sanctimonious posts that filled the list -- and,
> I am sure, greatly annoyed and demotivated many subscribers.  Even a
> response stating WMF chooses not to respond to a certain question, or not
> to dig up certain data, would have been better than the stony silence that
> has become the all-too-common stance for WMF on this list.
>
> As you know, I also work for WMF (though I am writing this in my volunteer
> capacity, and out of my care for the well-being of this list).  While I
> have never shied away from responding on this list, I have on occasion been
> scolded (internally) for attempting to answer volunteer queries to the best
> of my knowledge, for "outstepping my remit" or interfering in someone
> else's remit.  I have taken this to heart, and accordingly no longer try to
> respond to queries such as Fae's (which in this case I find a perfectly
> reasonable question, meriting an answer).  Several past attempts by me to
> ping appropriate senior staff on questions on this list (or on talk pages)
> have also met with rebuke, so I have ceased those as well.
>
> For these reasons I do not accept this wholesale blaming of this list's
> subscribers on the difficulty having meaningful conversations here:
>
> But if we want to see staff members more actively
> > participating here then those long standing individuals need to really
> > thing about the tone in which they engage here, particularly those who do
> > so most often. If that does not change, this list will continue to
> languish
> > and those few staff

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive

[Joseph Seddon]

Lethargy, indecision, internal strife, and an abiding commitment to
self-enrichment and constant bureaucratic growth? Isn't that what every
maturing community with more than a handful of participants grows up to be?
:P

The strategy process is certainly not except from these flaws. Why would it
be? They are endemic across the movement throughout it's history and seen
at all levels today. But the strategy process is, like many other
processes, attempting to operate in a good faith manner and it is
definitely trying to take the movement in a better direction that it has
travelled so far (from an organisational standpoint). It consists of smart
people, working together in a good faith manner to effect positive change
within the movement.

For people like yourself who are dubious about the processes merits I think
you should still engage. Ensuring that it has the right focuses doesn't
necessitate prolonged engagement with the process. You don't need to go
through the slog of coming up with solutions necessarily, just make sure
someone will.

Regards
Seddon


On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:35 AM Nathan  wrote:

> I think questioning the strategy for sustaining the movement's projects is
> worthwhile, particularly as part of the strategy discussion. I'm not sure
> if sniping on this list is as fruitful.
>
> I considered Fae's question as well; not just the mechanical "do we need an
> archive site" that seemed implicit, but the fundamental question of whether
> new action needs to be taken to ensure the Wikimedia projects can be
> preserved. I hadn't considered that the strategy process would abrogate the
> core promise of these projects, that worthwhile content would be largely
> preserved to make that worth perpetually available to others.
>
> If that's truly in question I find it hard to imagine what else the
> strategy discussion could find as a substitute. I haven't engaged in the
> strategy discussion for lots of reasons, but one is that I long ago
> acquired a deep skepticism of movement bureaucracy, whether within the
> projects or without. The entire edifice seems to have adopted the worst
> attributes of bureaucracy - lethargy, indecision, internal strife, and an
> abiding commitment to self-enrichment and constant bureaucratic growth.
>
> All that rescues the movement is the persistent desire of its contributors
> to add, improve and conserve and the simple demand that the bureaucracy -
> if it does nothing else - keep the lights on and stay out of the way. If
> that changes, then perhaps we will need the Internet Archive to step in
> after all.
>
> PS: Thanks, Seddon, for your thoughtful reconsideration of your earlier
> post. To muddle the words of Michelle Obama, always go high. You can't go
> wrong.
>
> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 7:49 PM Risker  wrote:
>
> > Well, I think perhaps Fae's question may be considered more generally.
> Fae
> > is knowledgeable about the structure of the Wikimedia movement as well as
> > the WMF, and I think it might be best to work from the assumption that
> > their core question is probably more along the lines of whether (and how)
> > the current long-term strategy development process will, in fact, make
> > recommendations that are in line with ensuring that there will be (at
> > minimum) a publicly accessible archive of the Wikimedia projects.
> >
> > The movement strategy process is very broad, and  contains a lot of
> diverse
> > ideas about how the movement/WMF/chapters/other entities/projects can be
> > improved, maintained, developed and supported.  I'm pretty deep in the
> > strategy stuff, and as far as I know, at this point there's no clear path
> > to maintaining (or dissolving) any of the existing structures; more to
> the
> > point, there's no guarantee that the final summary recommendations of the
> > combined strategy groups will continue to support the current WMF mission
> > statement - that is, the part that says " [t]he [Wikimedia] Foundation
> will
> > make and keep useful information from its projects available on the
> > internet free of charge, in perpetuity."
> >
> > I don't think that's really a bad question to ask - in fact, it may be
> one
> > of the more important ones.  I hope I am not presuming too much, but I
> > think Fae is saying that this is something that is really important and
> > valuable, and that continuity/perpetuation of that particular aspect of
> the
> > mission statement should be a recommendation that gets included in the
> > final reports - regardless of which entity assumes responsibility for it
> or
> > who pays for it.
> >
> > Risker/Anne
> >
> > On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 18:03, Nathan  wrote:
> >
> > > The Internet Archive, incidentally, already seems to maintain copies of
> > > Wikimedia projects. I don't know to what degree of fidelity.
> > Additionally,
> > > the WMF's core deliverable is already to provide and sustain access to
> > its
> > > projects. It has an endowment for that purpose already. Other websites
> > and
> > >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive

[Joseph Seddon]

Philippe you are absolutely correct. Whilst I never commented on the
importance of any individual on this list nor the questioned the record of
anyone I admit that my tone was not what this list deserves. I also concur
there are merits to Fae's point.

However the intention behind my point is one I stand by. The switch from a
sound reasonable query into one laced with bad faith, poisoned the well. It
jumped immediately to an assumption that this was down to unwillingness of
senior staff to address the point. That's not healthy.

I, like many others, wish to see this list become a crucible of good
suggestions, healthy and critical debate about ideas and as a sound
mechanism for oversight and account . A huge amount of staff time and
movement resources is taken up by the consumption of its content. And yet
it remains the greatest shame that much of the best most worthwhile
constructive discussions have moved to platforms like Facebook because this
list is viewed as hosting such an unhealthy atmosphere when emails are
written with such overt passive aggression.

I call it out because if we want people to participate on this list, the
unhealthy way in which this list gets treated by some of its most active
participants needs to be dealt with. Otherwise valid points will not get
acknowledged or answered.

I have never shied from engaging here and I and others want to be able, in
good faith, be able to recommend and encourage fellow colleague and
volunteers to participate in this venue but I and many others can't do
that.

So I recognise that I should have approached my feedback on tone in a more
constructive manner and set a good example. It stemmed from a deep-rooted
frustration that I offer my apologies for allowing that to dictate the the
tone of my response. But if we want to see staff members more actively
participating here then those long standing individuals need to really
thing about the tone in which they engage here, particularly those who do
so most often. If that does not change, this list will continue to languish
and those few staff members who continue to engage here will slowly
disappear. This now increasingly perennial topic keeps coming up and my
fear is that it will on go away through the increasing abandonment this
list faces.

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 12:57 AM Philippe Beaudette 
wrote:

> This. What Risker said. Fae raises a fair point. And while the Foundation
>  certainly does not make policy based off of small discussions on mailing
> list, it should (and used to) listen to those lists, and use them to aid in
> decisions about what policy to make.
>
> I like you a lot Joseph, but I’m afraid your comment here was regrettable.
>   Nobody here was suggesting that the foundation make that policy based off
> of the small group discussion, whether in a public mailing list or
> otherwise. However, a long time valued member of the community was raising
> a reasonable question. It deserves a better answer than that.
>
> Respectfully, and with great fondness,
> Philippe
>
> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 4:49 PM Risker  wrote:
>
> > Well, I think perhaps Fae's question may be considered more generally.
> Fae
> > is knowledgeable about the structure of the Wikimedia movement as well as
> > the WMF, and I think it might be best to work from the assumption that
> > their core question is probably more along the lines of whether (and how)
> > the current long-term strategy development process will, in fact, make
> > recommendations that are in line with ensuring that there will be (at
> > minimum) a publicly accessible archive of the Wikimedia projects.
> >
> > The movement strategy process is very broad, and  contains a lot of
> diverse
> > ideas about how the movement/WMF/chapters/other entities/projects can be
> > improved, maintained, developed and supported.  I'm pretty deep in the
> > strategy stuff, and as far as I know, at this point there's no clear path
> > to maintaining (or dissolving) any of the existing structures; more to
> the
> > point, there's no guarantee that the final summary recommendations of the
> > combined strategy groups will continue to support the current WMF mission
> > statement - that is, the part that says " [t]he [Wikimedia] Foundation
> will
> > make and keep useful information from its projects available on the
> > internet free of charge, in perpetuity."
> >
> > I don't think that's really a bad question to ask - in fact, it may be
> one
> > of the more important ones.  I hope I am not presuming too much, but I
> > think Fae is saying that this is something that is really important and
> > valuable, and that continuity/perpetuation of that particular aspect of
> the
> > mission statement should be a recommendation that gets included in the
> > final reports - regardless of which entity assumes responsibility for it
> or
> > who pays for it.
> >
> > Risker/Anne
> >
> > On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 18:03, Nathan  wrote:
> >
> > > The Internet Archive, incidentally, already seems

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF commitment for a Wikimedia projects archive

[Joseph Seddon]

Because the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't make long term strategic decisions
based off of a 4 person discussion on a mailing list.

I really don't know why people keep being surprised by this.

Seddon

On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 6:11 PM Fæ  wrote:

> I saw a recent size estimate of Wikimedia Commons of just over 200 TB.
> That's large but not astronomical.
>
> With a bit of guesstimation, the hardware only cost of creating a
> Wikimedia projects digital tape archive might be around $2,000 per
> archive set, a cost that probably would only be once a year. Using
> off-the-shelf kit, a similar archive on a set of 10 TB hard disks
> might end up being double that cost. Archives like this are good for a
> few years, but in practice a plan would have them periodically tested
> and refreshed, unless they are being replaced every year with the
> latest archive.
>
> It is unclear to me why the WMF would not want to make a hearty
> transparent and public commitment to off-site archives. At least with
> an independently managed archive in another country, that at least
> makes it possible that in some bizarre scenario where an extremist US
> government makes it a federal crime to fail to either 'amend' the
> Wikimedia database against the values of the WMF, or legally orders
> the WMF to take down its websites in order to control certain
> publications, videos or photographs, that WMF employees can
> appropriately comply with US federal law, but are not be required to
> do anything about the public archive hosted by a different
> organization in another country. If such an unlikely scenario came to
> pass (and the unexpected seems to becoming something to realistically
> plan for these days), at least the archive could be resurrected for
> public access within a few weeks by open knowledge organizations who
> have staff that would never be subject to federal law in the US.
>
> If the WMF honestly does not already do something like this already,
> and wanted to earmark the relatively trivial sum of $10,000/year for
> remote archives, us volunteers would be happy to approach a couple of
> suitable national-level partners in Europe that could easily
> physically host the archives each year and would probably like the
> idea of blogging about it, as protecting open knowledge fits their
> values and commitments.
>
> Any WMF board members interested in asking some questions internally,
> if the WMF senior management are unwilling to answer this rather
> simple question publicly?
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
> On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 14:36, Pine W  wrote:
> >
> > I think that raising the question here is fine. I also think that it is
> > more WMF's responsibility to be responsive than community members'
> > responsibility to guess where and how to ask questions.
> >
> > In general (this is not intended as a criticism of you, Dan) my view is
> > that WMF has a very mixed record on responsiveness. Some employees and
> > board members repeatedly go above and beyond the call of duty, while
> other
> > employees and board members ignore repeated questions, and some people
> are
> > in between. The first group seems to me to deserve a lot of credit, while
> > second group comes across to me as disrespectful and lazy. I have
> > previously complained about problems with responsiveness to multiple
> > managers in WMF,  and unfortunately that has not resulted in widespread
> > improvements that I have observed. I think that the problem may have more
> > to do with organizational culture and lack of will than with lack of
> > capacity. Let me emphasize that unresponsiveness is not a problem with
> > everyone in WMF, but I think that it is a significant problem and I know
> of
> > no excuses for it.
> >
> > Pine
> >
> > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, May 7, 2019, 10:50 Dan Garry (Deskana) 
> wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue 7 May 2019 at 11:04, Fæ  wrote:
> > >
> > > > I am sure this Wikimedia wide community run list is a perfectly good
> > > place
> > > > to check whether the WMF has any commitment to long term public
> archives,
> > > > or not.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for your advice as to where to go, but the strategy process
> groups
> > > > are undoubtedly a worse place to ask this question and expect a
> > > verifiable
> > > > answer.
> > >
> > >
> > > I see! Then I will defer to your clear expertise in getting definitive
> > > answers. I look forward to seeing the outcome!
> > >
> > > Dan
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> > _

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

[Joseph Seddon]

What are the examples of successful citizen news websites?

What could we learn from them?


On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 5:15 PM Ziko van Dijk  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not
> suitable for collaboration.
>
> Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which
> the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based
> on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a
> library.
>
> When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she
> is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in
> the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do
> little more.
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
>
>
> Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette
> :
> >
> > The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
> >
> > I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with
> > notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct
> > news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
> >
> > [1]
> >
> https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
> >
> > Me too.  In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always done
> > very well.  It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite functional, use
> > for a Wiki.  A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a fine
> > addition to the ecosystem, imho.  And it is very reasonable to think that
> > given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to fill
> > that spot.
> >
> > But a news competitor to traditional news outlets?  Nope, that it isn't.
> >
> > Philippe
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih  wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Andrew
> > > >
> > > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
> > > that
> > > > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
> are a
> > > > poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
> Wikipedia
> > > is
> > > > a success as a news-gathering operation.  These seem inconsistent to
> me.
> > >
> > >
> > > As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than
> primary
> > > source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
> > >
> > > I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with
> > > notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
> direct
> > > news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
> > >
> > >
> > > > However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
> forward is
> > > to
> > > > fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia.  Is that right?
> > >
> > >
> > > Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public. Wikipedia
> > > editors are already doing a stellar job.
> > >
> > > Andrew
> > >
> > >
> > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih 
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers <
> > > > > jennifer.pryorsumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
> Wikipedia
> > > > > seems
> > > > > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent
> with
> > > its
> > > > > > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason.  Maybe the WMF
> > > should
> > > > > > sort out the demarcation issues.
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Jennifer,
> > > > >
> > > > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
> vast
> > > > > majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
> Wikinews
> > > > > hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
> > > properties.
> > > > >
> > > > > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the
> truth
> > > > given
> > > > > the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
> direct
> > > > > observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
> that
> > > > make
> > > > > Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
> > > > >
> > > > > Wikipedia:NOR - no original research
> > > > > Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources
> > > > > Wikipedia:V - verifiability
> > > > > Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
> > > > >
> > > > > Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
> mismatch
> > > > and
> > > > > realize it is a poor fit.
> > > > >
> > > > > However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
> > > > celebrate
> > > > > the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve
> minute
> > > to
> > > > > minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as
> we
> > > know
> > > > > it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality
> –
> > > the
> > > > > Wikipedia article.
> > > > >
> > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] branding is bikeshedding, how about CTO criteria or working group lists instead?

[Joseph Seddon]

** correction - New readers (audiences and global partnerships) are working
in North Africa, Middle East, South America and India at the moment.



On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 12:15 PM Joseph Seddon 
wrote:

> You keep mentioning this Anglo-Centric / Wikipedia centric focus of the
> WMF.
>
> WMDE receives substantial monetary support from WMF for Wikidata. Only two
> years ago dedicated grant funded work was made specific for Wikidata on
> Commons for both WMF and WMDE. New Editors are working with the Korea and
> Czech Wikipedias first and foremost. New Readers are first and foremost
> working in India and South America. The majority of FDC grant funding does
> not go to English speaking countries. The global partnerships team have an
> almost entirely non-European / non-Anglo centric focus. The Public Policy
> team (staff and volunteer) along with staff across the organisation have
> been working over the past year actively fighting the EU copyright proposal
> which now has an increasingly non-English centric focus thanks to Brexit.
>
> The WMF staff have been becoming more diverse in ethnicity, native country
> and native language year on year.
>
> What makes me laugh is you say the WMF designs for the English Wikipedia
> and yet so many engineers I speak to say that it's impossible to design and
> build for the English Wikipedia and port elsewhere and that it's better to
> design for non-English wiki's and apply to English.
>
> More change is needed but please recognise that things are changing.
>
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 10:15 AM Gerard Meijssen <
> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> Thank you for your sense of superiority.. the views on this list are "easy
>> to have"and "not the big, difficult questions".
>>
>> These are some big difficult questions I can come up with:
>>
>>- how will we deal with the existing bias that is Anglo-American..
>>- how will we deal with the existing bias that is articles in
>> Wikipedia,
>>our aim is to share in the sum of all knowledge..
>>- how will we deal with the 6% error rates that is in Wikipedia lists
>>
>> There are more issues but, hey you should not overload one email and deal
>> with multiple issues.. So lets focus on what *you* consider the big
>> difficult questions making this rebranding issue not so relevant..
>> Thanks,
>>   GerardM
>>
>> On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 10:53, Chris Keating 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > In many ways yes - not that branding isnt important, but these two
>> > conversations are a great example of people engaging with the narrow
>> > questions that are easy to have a view on, and not the big, difficult
>> > questions.
>> >
>> > (Though also, there is nothing more interesting on the working group
>> email
>> > lists - the summaries are high level and the documents are high level
>> > because that's where we're at)
>> >
>> > On Mon, 15 Apr 2019, 21:09 James Salsman,  wrote:
>> >
>> > > I withdraw any opinions and suggestions about the branding discussion,
>> > > and don't intend to continue participating in it. Instead, I would
>> > > like to have a more substantive discussion:
>> > >
>> > > (1) I ask that the CTO search team please publish their search and
>> > > requirement criteria, including the CTO job description and any and
>> > > all goals for the CTO position whether in current planning documents
>> > > or unpublished drafts of planning materials.
>> > >
>> > > (2) Why are the Strategy Working Group lists not on
>> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo ? I recall several
>> people
>> > > involved with the strategy process as saying it is "open" and asking
>> > > at length for additional participation (e.g.
>> > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxCFzA3PEaQ&t=23m and
>> > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxCFzA3PEaQ&t=30m et seq.) To be
>> > > honest, there doesn't seem to be much community engagement from
>> > > working groups or strategy process facilitators on meta, and the
>> > > meeting summaries are very abstract and difficult to understand. If
>> > > there is a need for private strategy working group communications, can
>> > > people use off-list emails instead?
>> > >
>> > > Best regards,
>> > > Jim
>> > >
>> > > ___
>> > > Wikimed

Re: [Wikimedia-l] branding is bikeshedding, how about CTO criteria or working group lists instead?

[Joseph Seddon]

You keep mentioning this Anglo-Centric / Wikipedia centric focus of the
WMF.

WMDE receives substantial monetary support from WMF for Wikidata. Only two
years ago dedicated grant funded work was made specific for Wikidata on
Commons for both WMF and WMDE. New Editors are working with the Korea and
Czech Wikipedias first and foremost. New Readers are first and foremost
working in India and South America. The majority of FDC grant funding does
not go to English speaking countries. The global partnerships team have an
almost entirely non-European / non-Anglo centric focus. The Public Policy
team (staff and volunteer) along with staff across the organisation have
been working over the past year actively fighting the EU copyright proposal
which now has an increasingly non-English centric focus thanks to Brexit.

The WMF staff have been becoming more diverse in ethnicity, native country
and native language year on year.

What makes me laugh is you say the WMF designs for the English Wikipedia
and yet so many engineers I speak to say that it's impossible to design and
build for the English Wikipedia and port elsewhere and that it's better to
design for non-English wiki's and apply to English.

More change is needed but please recognise that things are changing.

On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 10:15 AM Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

> Hoi,
> Thank you for your sense of superiority.. the views on this list are "easy
> to have"and "not the big, difficult questions".
>
> These are some big difficult questions I can come up with:
>
>- how will we deal with the existing bias that is Anglo-American..
>- how will we deal with the existing bias that is articles in Wikipedia,
>our aim is to share in the sum of all knowledge..
>- how will we deal with the 6% error rates that is in Wikipedia lists
>
> There are more issues but, hey you should not overload one email and deal
> with multiple issues.. So lets focus on what *you* consider the big
> difficult questions making this rebranding issue not so relevant..
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 10:53, Chris Keating 
> wrote:
>
> > In many ways yes - not that branding isnt important, but these two
> > conversations are a great example of people engaging with the narrow
> > questions that are easy to have a view on, and not the big, difficult
> > questions.
> >
> > (Though also, there is nothing more interesting on the working group
> email
> > lists - the summaries are high level and the documents are high level
> > because that's where we're at)
> >
> > On Mon, 15 Apr 2019, 21:09 James Salsman,  wrote:
> >
> > > I withdraw any opinions and suggestions about the branding discussion,
> > > and don't intend to continue participating in it. Instead, I would
> > > like to have a more substantive discussion:
> > >
> > > (1) I ask that the CTO search team please publish their search and
> > > requirement criteria, including the CTO job description and any and
> > > all goals for the CTO position whether in current planning documents
> > > or unpublished drafts of planning materials.
> > >
> > > (2) Why are the Strategy Working Group lists not on
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo ? I recall several people
> > > involved with the strategy process as saying it is "open" and asking
> > > at length for additional participation (e.g.
> > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxCFzA3PEaQ&t=23m and
> > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxCFzA3PEaQ&t=30m et seq.) To be
> > > honest, there doesn't seem to be much community engagement from
> > > working groups or strategy process facilitators on meta, and the
> > > meeting summaries are very abstract and difficult to understand. If
> > > there is a need for private strategy working group communications, can
> > > people use off-list emails instead?
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > > Jim
> > >
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[Joseph Seddon]

> We know our statistics and English Wikipedia is not 50% of our traffic. It
> is where over 50% of our resources are spend.
>

Do we?

Based on what?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals

[Joseph Seddon]

From what I know:
* The global brand won't stop Wikidata being Wikidata.
* Wikimedia Russia won't necessarily become Wikipedia Russia

Seddon

On Tue, Apr 9, 2019 at 4:56 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Think of Wikipedia Russia convincing Russian government that they are not
> really Wikipedia Russia.
> 
> From: Wikimedia-l  on behalf of
> Benjamin Ikuta 
> Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2019 4:21 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals
>
>
>
> What real life problems would there be?
>
>
>
> On Apr 9, 2019, at 6:11 AM, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
> galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The idea of rebranding Wikimedia to Wikipedia will create FAR more
> problems than it solves, specially in places where identifying ourselves
> with Wikipedia could create real life problems to affiliates. Let's think
> on making our product better, because is not a brand problem, is an
> obsolescence problem what we have.
> > 
> > From: Wikimedia-l  on behalf
> of Gerard Meijssen 
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2019 12:36 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals
> >
> > Hoi,
> > The problem is that Wikipedia has an article bound interest. Our aim is
> to
> > share in the sum of all knowledge and it is about subjects. In addition
> to
> > this the approach and `the lessons learned` in effect are used as a
> > template on how `other` Wikipedias are to function. This bias hinder,
> even
> > prevent other possible approaches.
> >
> > Using Wikipedia to define what Wikimedia does, enforces existing bias and
> > hinders our mission.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> > On Tue, 9 Apr 2019 at 11:25, James Salsman  wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Elena,
> >>
> >> If by "branding project" you mean replacing references to Wikimedia
> >> with Wikipedia, that is fine with me.
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Jim
> >>
> >> On Tue, Apr 9, 2019 at 1:58 AM Elena Lappen 
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi all,
> >>>
> >>> Thanks to those of you who have participated in the branding project
> >>> community consultation so far. We’ve received a lot of helpful feedback
> >> via
> >>> email, on-wiki, and in small meetings with affiliate group members and
> >>> individual contributors.
> >>>
> >>> I posted this invitation to the project talk page last week [1], but
> >> wanted
> >>> to send a reminder here that we will be hosting a video conference
> >> session
> >>> to give people a chance to see the presentation, ask questions and
> >> provide
> >>> feedback.
> >>>
> >>> When? This Thursday, April 11th from 16:00-17:00 UTC.
> >>>
> >>> Where? https://bluejeans.com/540134391/browser, or call in using your
> >>> closest local number [2] and enter meeting ID 540 134 391#.
> >>>
> >>> If you’d like to see the presentation but cannot attend, that is no
> >>> problem—we will be posting a recording to Commons and putting the link
> on
> >>> the talk page afterwards.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>>
> >>> Elena
> >>>
> >>> [1]
> >>>
> >>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_research_and_planning/community_review#Invitation_to_join_a_video_conference_presentation
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> [2] https://www.bluejeans.com/premium-numbers
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Elena Lappen
> >>> Community Relations Specialist
> >>> Wikimedia Foundation
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 7:14 PM Zack McCune 
> >> wrote:
> >>>
>  :: Apologies for cross-posting to multiple mailing lists. We want to
> >> ensure
>  we spread the word about this opportunity to as many people as
> >> possible. ::
> 
>  Hi all,
> 
>  We are writing today to invite you to be a part of a community review
> >> on
>  Wikimedia brand research and strategy.
> 
>  Recently, the Wikimedia Foundation set out to better understand how
> the
>  world sees Wikimedia and Wikimedia projects as brands.[1] We wanted to
> >> get
>  a sense of the general visibility of our different projects, and
> >> evaluate
>  public support of our mission to spread free knowledge.
> 
>  We launched a global brand study to research these questions, as part
> >> of
>  our planning toward our 2030 strategic goals.[2] The study was
> >> commissioned
>  by the Board, carried out by the brand consultancy Wolff Olins, and
>  directed by the Foundation’s Communications team.[3][4] It collected
>  perspectives from the internet users of seven countries (India, China,
>  Nigeria, Egypt, Germany, Mexico and the US) on Wikimedia projects and
>  values.
> 
>  The study revealed some interesting trends:
> 
>  - Awareness of Wikipedia is above 80% in Western Europe and North
> >> America.
> 
>  - Awareness of Wikipedia averages above 40% in emerging markets,[5]
> >> and is
>  fast growing.
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Content showcases? Examples needed

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Everyone!

I have a question. Within the movement, what are the best online showcases
of our content, movement and volunteers?

Context: We've been featuring the blog post about the Wiki Loves Monuments
winners in thank you email and banners to our readers and donors.

We want to showcase our best content to our readers and donors and are
looking for ideas about how we can do that.

Got examples? Ideas? More complex suggestions for next year or future years?

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Joseph Seddon]

A it's always nice to quote someone other than Mike Godwin and it seems
Betteridge's law of headlines is alive and well. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines


On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 10:26 PM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:

> Hi Frederick.
>
> sure, I know. I am mostly writing about Russia, and I know there are a lot
> of topics which are not covered. I am usually the first one who says that
> there are many topics to even start an article on, and way more to improve.
>
> But let us face it - if an English-speaking person looks for something in
> the English Wikipedia they are most likely to find it. The articles I
> create are definitely useful, but they get dozens of views per year.This is
> one of the reason we lose editors.
>
> But my point is that we are about to lose most of our editors - at least in
> the first world countries which produce the most contribution in the
> English Wikipedia, USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New
> Zealand. I guess India is different, but the trend is global, I think it is
> just a matter of time when it comes to that in India as well. And if
> Wikipedia would die in these countries, it will die in India as well.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 11:14 PM Frederick Noronha <
> fredericknoro...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > However, as a general guideline, it is not so
> > > much incorrect to state that all important things in Wikipedia have
> been
> > > already written. Indeed, if someone looks for information in Wikipedia
> -
> > > or, more precisely, uses search engines and gets Wikipedia as the first
> > hit
> > > — they are likely to find what they need with more than 99%
> chance.
> >
> > Yaroslav, Which world are you talking about? North America and Europe?
> >
> > When it comes to Asia (which I'm part of) and Africa, possibly Latin
> > America too, we haven't even written down 1% of the diversity of these
> > places. Leave aside getting it up onto the Wikipedia!
> >
> > Of course, I agree with the suggestion for new approaches (if I read you
> > right). This is particularly true in a part of the world where much of
> the
> > discussion is still in the oral domain, is often not in print; when it's
> in
> > print, it is not digitised. Even when digitised, chances are that it's
> in a
> > non-English language, which is very hard to find very search engines. (No
> > wonder that some of the prominent people from our regions are continually
> > getting dismissed as non-notable, which I see as another form of
> 'systemic
> > bias').
> >
> > Give it a thought, please.
> >
> > Frederick Noronha
> > Goa
> >
> > On Sun, 30 Dec 2018 at 03:05, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
> >
> > > I have written a long text today (posted in my FB) which the readers of
> > > this mailing list might find interesting. I copy it below. I understand
> > > that it is very easy to critisize me for side issues, but if you want
> to
> > > comment/reply I would appreciate if you address the main issue. The
> > target
> > > audience I was thinking about was general (not necessarily
> > > Wikimedia-oriented), and for the readers from this mailing list the
> first
> > > several paragraphs can sound trivial (or even trivial and wrong). I
> > > apologize in advance.
> > >
> >
> > --
> > FN* फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا‎ +91-9822122436
> > AUDIO: https://archive.org/details/@fredericknoronha
> > TEXT: http://bit.ly/2SBx41G PIX: http://bit.ly/2Rs1xhl
> > Can't get through on mobile? Please SMS/WhatsApp
> > ___
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> > 
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-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] Pre-Christmas Update - Fundraising

[Joseph Seddon]

Hello Everyone!

Just wanted to provide a couple of quick fundraising updates:

**End of year downtime and New Year**

From today, we are bringing banners down across the projects for the next
week as we did last year.

As I mentioned in my December 10th update, you may have noticed that we
have been running small banners on the Wikipedia Portal site for this first
time ever this year. These will stay up until December 31st. Over this
period we will also be experimenting with a small highlight on the sidebar
donate link, revisiting something we haven’t explored for a while. We
learned during last year’s campaign that readers are looking for ways to
donate to Wikipedia the week between Christmas and New Years. We hope that
the improved design that we are testing will make it easier for those
readers to navigate the site to find the right landing page.

We'll be doing a final push over 30-31st January and will be running a
thank you banner campaign through the beginning of January.

**Mobile Banner Changes**

The banner team continued working on changes to our our mobile large
banners based on the community feedback we received; Here is a quick update
on our progress

--- Reducing the length of the banner - After about 2 weeks of almost
continuous testing we’ve now managed to reduce the size of the mobile
banner between 30-35% on most devices with only a marginal hit in terms of
effectiveness.

--- Making it clearer to users that they are able to SKIP the banner -
We’ve made style and wording tweaks to users but in addition to this we’ve
followed this up with some user testing and we will be looking at how we
can make further improvements in this area.

Thank you all and Happy Holidays!


-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mobile fundraising ads

[Joseph Seddon]

Dear all,


The fundraising team genuinely hears and appreciates all the feedback we've
received about this mobile banner. For the past week and a half  - for the
majority of our mobile campaign - we have been extensively working and
acting on that feedback to reduce the length of this banner, emphasize the
ability to skip the content, and improve accessibility across the board.


For our mobile large banners, we've been focusing on three things:


* Removing the bottom fixed element reminder banner - DONE


* Reducing the length of the banner ---In Progress--- Last week we make
some changes to the text reducing the appeal by 5% and over the weekend we
reduced the overall length of the banner by 18% on phones through extensive
but subtle design changes. There are more changes to come in this area.


* Making it clearer to users that they are able to SKIP the banner ---In
Progress--- We've already altered the language in the toolbar. There are
more potential changes and tests to come in this area


* Ensuring that the banners are suitable for users who access us through
accessibility software. - DONE - The same options to skip the banner were
always presented to users of accessibility software. We've also made
changes to the underlying structure of the banner to improve navigation by
these users.


The fundraising team works extensively in a data driven manner but I must
emphasise that doesn't mean that we don't listen to community feedback. The
very opposite. It means that we work very hard to ensure that the changes
the community seeks drives our work and this feedback has been the main
focus of our work for much of the last week.


I’ll update on further changes asap.


Regards

Seddon




On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 4:52 PM GorillaWarfare <
gorillawarfarewikipe...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> I feel a little bad raising this because I know there was some community
> vetting of fundraising initiatives that I ignored, but please forgive me. I
> brought this up in the Wikimedia Weekly Facebook group asking where best to
> raise the issue, and it was suggested I post here.
>
> I was looking something up on my phone just now, apparently not logged in
> to Wikipedia, and I discovered that mobile users in the US (and presumably
> elsewhere) are being shown enormous ads. It took four full page scrolls for
> me to reach the content of the article I was hoping to read. Even once I
> made it past the ads at the top of the page, I was greeted with a pop-in
> banner from the bottom of the page, as if I could possibly have not noticed
> the four pages of text asking me to donate. (Screenshots attached).
>
> I understand that we need donations to keep the site running and all, but
> this seems excessive. I particularly worry for people who use assistive
> technology who are having to listen to or try to skip through four pages'
> worth of text-to-speech before they can get to what they want to know. The
> WMF needs donations, but I think we need to weigh the need for cash against
> the goal of providing free and accessible information to our readers. A
> couple of page scrolls might not seem like much, but I assume if they're
> off-putting to me (a reader with good vision and generally high tolerance
> for WMF money pleas) they'll be off-putting to others.
>
> So much of this text could be cut out. I work for a marketing/sales company
> in a non-marketing role, and I've heard from colleagues that it's
> frustrating when people writing copy like this hear from people who are not
> educated about appealing to people, so I don't pretend to know better than
> you at the WMF or your consultants about how to write good donation copy.
> But to my (admittedly uneducated eye), copy like "It's a little awkward to
> ask you, this Friday, as we're sure you are busy and we don't want to
> interrupt you." and "We can't afford to feel embarrassed, asking you to
> make a donation—just like you should never feel embarrassed when you have
> to ask Wikipedia for information." seems like at best it's not adding
> anything besides more words to have to scroll past, and at worst it's
> pretty cringey to read. Are you really expecting people will read all four
> pages?
>
> – Molly (GorillaWarfare)
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-- 
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*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mobile fundraising ads

[Joseph Seddon]

Hi James,

As I mentioned in my original reply to Molly, Desktop page views have been
in decline for the past 2-3 years from 4.36 billion (Oct 2016) to 3.64
billion (Oct 2018). Likewise, the relative effectiveness as of mobile as a
fundraising platform has historically been substantially lower compared
with desktop. So with future budget growth in mind and a desktop
fundraising environment that will become increasingly difficult, we’ve been
working hard to ensure that as user behaviors shift we are well prepared
and that the future of the movement is safeguarded.

Regards
Seddon



On Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 5:14 AM James Salsman  wrote:

> For those of you who have not seen the mobile fundraising banner this
> year, and thus are uncertain of what all the fuss is about, here is an
> example:
>
> https://i.imgur.com/wL4Y5dl.png
>
> The fundraising message literally takes 4.5 screens that have to be
> scrolled through to get to the article. I don't think its accurately
> reflected with how desktop browsers render the example given by the
> Fundraising team at
>
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA?banner=B1819_0701_mlWW_mob_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
> which is only a little over one screenful before the article text on
> typical landscape-shaped desktop browser rendering.
>
> In years past, it seemed like the fundraising team was more
> forthcoming about their choices and the reasons for making them. Has
> anyone inside or outside of the Foundation seen any explanation of why
> so much text, with such odd formatting, is necessary on mobile this
> year?
>
> On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 8:44 AM Samuel Klein  wrote:
> >
> > I love the focus on mobile and smaller format interfaces, quite
> generally;
> > it's increasingly how I use the projects too!
> >
> > A)  This banner-text-series is clearly impactful, gave me a bit of a jump
> > scare, and got me to read it to find out why. I'm still not sure how I
> feel
> > about it.
> > ~ Visual effect: Messages that flow smoothly in and out of the reading
> > experience are even nicer.
> > ~ Message: Is there an estimate of the total impact on all readers, as
> well
> > as total effective fundraising?  If there is a very effective
> > compact/delightful banner, and an even more effective large/ambivalent
> > one, is there some internal calculus about the overal impact of running
> the
> > former for longer vs. the latter for a short period?
> > I'd like to think the best possible messages inspire and delight and
> > draw on positive emotions while raising funds, including for those who
> > don't donate, even if they do not yield the most donations per view.
> >
> > B)  The tracking of whether I've donated, when choosing to show or not
> show
> > me banners, is definitely lacking.  Part of this is that we have taken an
> > overly-paranoid approach to gathering and anonymizing user data.  It is
> > entirely possible to cluster users for the purposes of
> > not-continuing-to-show-banners (maintain a dictionary of
> > user-fingerprint-hashes-already-seen, check to see if the current user is
> > in there, don't show banners if they are) without being able to see what
> > pages a given user is viewing.
> >
> > I wrote more about this here:
> >
> https://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2018/07/25/anonymizing-data-on-the-users-of-wikipedia/
> >  Please consider doing this; it is really hurting the user-experience of
> > the wiki projects (not only in this instance -- in so many other basic
> > instances of usage stats + testing over time!), for no benefit to anyone.
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising: Pre-launch Update

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all! Just an update!

The main campaign has been running for a little under two weeks and so far
things are ticking over nicely!

===Procedural notes===

Banners limited: As has been standard practice we are limiting the number
of times a reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose
to not dismiss the banners. A user should only see a banner a maximum of 5
times per browser. After this it will result in the banners being
suppressed for a period of 1 month.

Latin America: To focus on our English campaign and to reduce potential
technical stresses we disabled our low level Latin America campaign. It
will be re-enabled in January.

Testing: We've been working hard over the past week to incorporate as much
community feedback as we can both in terms of design and text. Will try to
update you on this as soon as possible.

===Supporting the fundraiser on social media!===

You can support the fundraiser on social media:

Anywhere: Please share why you love Wikipedia and free knowledge using the
hashtag #ILoveWikipedia. with the donation link (
https://donate.wikimedia.org) and the hashtag. Ask your friends to do it,
too! I’m sure teachers, college students, journalists, developers or
librarians in your circle might have something to add…

===Fundraising on the Wikipedia Portal===

We have just released a small fundraising appeal on the www.wikipedia.org
portal. This experiment was developed by online fundraising lead production
manager Peter Coombe and UX designer Robin Schoenbaechler. It has been made
possible thanks to extensive collaborations across the foundation, in
particular with engineering manager Sam Smith and portal engineer Jan
Drewniak. We thank them for their guidance and enthusiasm. Thanks also to
Volker Eckl, who supplied input on the integration of our new content into
the portal as well as the legal team for conducting a legal review before
it went live. This experiment is planned to run for the duration of the
English campaign (throughout the month of December).

===Donor Messages===

Here are some messages of thanks from our donors:

--
I have an extensive multidisciplinary academic, info management, and IT
background. Knowledge is my addiction. Thank you for the constant
gratification of my habit!
---
I've trawled through countless articles on this website. i've read the
entire glossary of ice hockey terms and know where and when aleister
crowley was born, lived, and died. i just want to thank you for helping me
find my passion for information.
---
Thank you, and everyone who volunteers their time to help Wikipedia. I have
yet to contribute much myself, but I am incredibly thankful for everything
Wikipedia has done. It's provided so much knowledge and information to
people all over the globe, it's helped me so much personally to learn more
about the world we live in, and it's going to continue helping countless
more to come. Thank you
---
I find the mission of Wikipedia to be extraordinarily generous and provides
me a bit of hope for humanity. My favorite articles tend to be about
historical events, primarily interesting people such as Kings, Generals,
and scholars. Thank you Wikimedia for all the great things you have done
and continue to do.
---
You have saved my ass more times than I can count. College? I'm slaying
that cause of y'all. Thank you so much. You can't understand how useful you
are.
--
Teachers in school used to say not to trust Wikipedia. But I have noticed
that over time it's very reliable- with good soured links. And
misinformation gets corrected very quickly. I think it gets a bad rep in
the public k-12 system. Thank you to the editors for preventing people from
filling pages with misinformation!
--
Thank you for all you do! It's thankless work but, it is very much
appreciated!! You are making the world a better place!! Thank you! Thank
you for the countless hours, the fact checking, and grammatical error
corrections. I implore you to keep going so we can all live in blissful
ignorance until we need to reference something that needs to be accurate.
Thank you for your dedication and sacrifice. It has not gone unnoticed.
--

***That’s all for now folks! Thank you everyone for your support! I’ll
update you again soon!***

Regards

--
Seddon

Community and Audience Engagement Associate
Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 1:31 AM Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> Hey Everyone,
>
> I wanted to send a quick reminder that on Tuesday, 27th November, at 16:00

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mobile fundraising ads

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Molly,

Thank you for your feedback, it is really appreciated. There are a fair few
points you’ve raised so I will do my best cover them all. For some
background, mobile fundraising is vitally important. Desktop page views
have been in decline for the past 2-3 years from 4.36 billion (Oct 2016) to
3.64 billion (Oct 2018). Likewise, the relative effectiveness as of mobile
as a fundraising platform has historically been substantially lower
compared with desktop. So we’ve been working hard to ensure that as user
behaviours shift we are well prepared and that the future of the movement
is safeguarded.

We show two types of banner to users on both desktop and mobile. The first
banner is larger and shown only once to user in their browser followed by a
second banner that is show to the user typically up to a maximum of 9 times
and is substantially smaller.

Our mobile large banner changed last November from a splash style banner to
the current text message style. Since then one of the things that has
constantly surprised us, is that people seem to genuinely read the extra
content. We’ve repeatedly tested over the past year removing content and
every time, the shorter banners loose. Now this could just imply that it’s
length that was producing move effective banners. So we decided to confirm
if people were actually reading our banners. We tested two banners of
similar length, one with our best copy and one where we replaced some of
the lower paragraphs with copy had historically lost out in previous
testing. Our best copy won and confirmed that people are actually invested
in reading our banners. So the copy is long and we are continuing to try
and shorten it but we genuinely believe its not just impactful of genuine
value to our readers and donors.

When we implemented this style of banner we made sure to add a toolbar to
the top that enabled users to skip straight to the article. You mentioned
on facebook that you didn’t notice that we will look to see if we can make
the toolbar a little more visible to users.

Regarding the bottom red banner, that is something that was retained from
previous versions of this banner. We actually have just instrumented our
banners so that we could track the effectiveness. We got data that this
additional call to action was not performing as originally expected, most
likely due to the format of the banner having changed since last year. We
re-tested removing this and the effect was minimal and so we have removed
this in our large banner on the first impression.

We completely agree that it’s vitally important to ensure our readers who
use assistive technologies are supported and we are going to look at how we
can improve our banner content to ensure compatibility and provide a good
experience including improving descriptions, providing better descriptions
and maybe look at suppressing some content for screen readers to reduce
some of the impact for them.

I will copy this to your cross post on wiki too :) Thank you again for your
feedback, it is genuinely appreciated and the fundraising team are actively
acting on it.

Regards

Seddon


On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 4:52 PM GorillaWarfare <
gorillawarfarewikipe...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> I feel a little bad raising this because I know there was some community
> vetting of fundraising initiatives that I ignored, but please forgive me. I
> brought this up in the Wikimedia Weekly Facebook group asking where best to
> raise the issue, and it was suggested I post here.
>
> I was looking something up on my phone just now, apparently not logged in
> to Wikipedia, and I discovered that mobile users in the US (and presumably
> elsewhere) are being shown enormous ads. It took four full page scrolls for
> me to reach the content of the article I was hoping to read. Even once I
> made it past the ads at the top of the page, I was greeted with a pop-in
> banner from the bottom of the page, as if I could possibly have not noticed
> the four pages of text asking me to donate. (Screenshots attached).
>
> I understand that we need donations to keep the site running and all, but
> this seems excessive. I particularly worry for people who use assistive
> technology who are having to listen to or try to skip through four pages'
> worth of text-to-speech before they can get to what they want to know. The
> WMF needs donations, but I think we need to weigh the need for cash against
> the goal of providing free and accessible information to our readers. A
> couple of page scrolls might not seem like much, but I assume if they're
> off-putting to me (a reader with good vision and generally high tolerance
> for WMF money pleas) they'll be off-putting to others.
>
> So much of this text could be cut out. I work for a marketing/sales company
> in a non-marketing role, and I've heard from colleagues that it's
> frustrating when people writing copy like this hear from people who are not
> educated about appealing to people, so I don't pretend to know

Re: [Wikimedia-l] English Fundraiser Launch - Tues 28th November

[Joseph Seddon]

Minor correction! The date should have read: Tuesday 27th November :)

Many Thanks
Seddon

On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 12:36 AM Joseph Seddon 
wrote:

> Hey all!
>
> I wanted to send a quick reminder that our English language fundraiser is
> officially launching tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday 28th November, at 16.00
> UTC) with some final systems tests running between now and then.
>
> ---Banners and Ideas---
>
> You can see the all of our current most effective fundraising banners on
> our Fundraising Ideas page where you can also contribute any specific ideas
> or stories we should tell via social media, banners, emails etc:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2017-18_Fundraising_ideas
>
> ---Blog Posts---
>
> We've recently published two blog posts about our fundraising work. The
> first covers how we try to limit the disruption to our readers during
> campaigns. The second is a recent tranche of research conducted into what
> our readers think about our fundraising. Take a look!
>
> Banner limiting:
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/03/fundraising-banner-limit/
>
> Donor research:
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/11/17/fundraising-donor-learnings/
>
>
> ---Reporting Issues---
>
> If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems
> please do report it on phabricator:
>
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862
>
> If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions
> about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer
> them to: donate{{at}}wikimedia.org
>
> Here is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent
> technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising
>
> http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4
> <http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4>
>
> ---Next Updates---
>
> There will be a further launch announcement on the Wikimedia blog tomorrow
> and I will give a brief update at the end of the week with our progress and
> hopefully some interesting initial lessons learnt. A more substantial
> update will follow later in the week.
>
> Finally, I’d like to thank the community here in advance for your help and
> patience over the coming weeks. From here on out, wish us luck!
>
> Many Thanks
>
> --
>
> Seddon
>
> Community & Audience Engagement Associate
>
> Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation
>
>

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] Fundraising: Pre-launch Update

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Everyone,

I wanted to send a quick reminder that on Tuesday, 27th November, at 16:00
UTC, we will launch our mobile and banner campaigns. We expect to run the
fundraising campaign on English Wikipedia in 6 countries: USA, Canada, UK,
Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. You may notice some final systems
tests running between now and then.


---Banners and Ideas---

You can see all of our current most effective fundraising banners on our
Fundraising Ideas page where you can also contribute any specific ideas or
stories we should tell via social media, banners, emails etc. (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2018-19_Fundraising_ideas )

Like last year, we will come to you for ideas and suggestions to test. In
addition to bringing in donations, we aim to use the campaign to educate
all readers about Wikipedia and the community who creates it. The
fundraising team’s A/B testing strategy works in iterative steps, so look
at our banners and have a think about what one element you would change or
add and how would you make it different. Think of sentences we can use to
tell our story that would make you proud. Look at other non-profit websites
and see if there are ideas that you think we should try.

To get people thinking, here is a list of things of what works and what
does not:

WHAT WORKS

* Localisation - We refer to which country the reader is from, what day it
is and the general type of device they use (mobile or desktop).

* Reverse Social Proof/Exceptionalism - Unlike other commercial or
non-profits, our donors like to feel special. (They should. They are.)

* A personal, frank tone -  Words like humbly or sincerely are important in
asks

* Anchoring the donation amount - We refer to the $3 small amount, we refer
to the average donation amount and in email we refer to past donation
amounts.

* Coffee and Ubiquity - It works, mainly because it is something that is
common in many people’s lives. Coffee, metro lines, libraries, public parks
etc.

WHAT DOESN'T

* Social proof (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof) - It’s a well
known concept that individuals will align their actions to others in order
to acquire acceptance from a wider group. It is a concept used very broadly
in both commercial and non-profit worlds. We've been told by people from
all industries, academics and from our communities that this works. For
Wikipedia it doesn't. We've tried and tested and re-tested again and again.
It really doesn't work for us

* Idealism - Wikipedia: As long as the internet/the world exists, we pledge
that Wikipedia will strive to make it a better place. Stories of helping
farmers or children across the world.

* Breadth - Facts like: English Wikipedia just passed 5 million articles.
From Argentina to Zimbabwe, your gift keeps the world learning.


---Reporting Issues---

If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems please
do report it on phabricator:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862

If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions
about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer
them to:   donate {{at}} wikimedia.org.

Here is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent
technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising (
http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4)


---Next Updates & Social Media---

Tomorrow we will be posting a blog and also releasing some updated social
media frames.

A huge thank you to everyone who works to create and support Wikipedia who
make it a resource that people love and want to donate to. Fingers crossed!

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Subject lines for WMF fundraising emails

[Joseph Seddon]

"That hasn't been the case in the past when campaign goals are met."

The fundraising team has actively sought to reduce the impact that raising
donations has on readers. We covered this in a blog last year about the
2016 fundraiser:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/03/fundraising-banner-limit/

We managed to reduce this again through last years fundraising and actively
curtailed the number and frequency of banners that our readers saw.

With regards to email we only send three fundraising asks to any one
individual as it stands which is a fraction of what most charities send to
their previous donors. In the case of last year we actually held off
sending the third fundraising email to a significant portion of individuals
precisely because we were reaching our campaign goal.

So I would argue this is actually the case and that if we can, we will.

Regards
Seddon



On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 11:16 PM Nathan  wrote:

> "Deleting Wikipedia?" was the subject line of the e-mail I received as
> well. It also, as usual, included the claim that if enough donations were
> received the campaign would end early. That hasn't been the case in the
> past when campaign goals are met.
>
> On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 6:04 PM Pine W  wrote:
>
> > There is a report from a user on Jimbo's talk page on ENWP regarding
> > receiving fundraising a fundraising email with the subject line "[NAME] -
> > Deleting Wikipedia?"
> >
> > In previous years I've disagreed with some of WMF's fundraising choices,
> > and it would be unfortunate if in the era of "fake news" becoming
> > mainstream WMF chooses to continue to be a part of the problem. If this
> is
> > happening then I request that WMF put a stop to it. Regardless of how
> > effective it is to send misleading fundraising appeals and that WMF has
> > received minimal repercussions for doing so over the years, it's wrong
> and
> > it should stop.
> >
> > Pine
> > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> > ___
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*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Subject lines for WMF fundraising emails

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Pine,

I appreciate and understand your feedback about this subject line.

For some time we have been trying to find an alternative subject line to
-/This is a little awkward/-. That line works and works very well but we
have found it very difficult to effectively translate and adapt into other
languages, and despite our best efforts have struggled to find an
alternative.

We first tested -/Deleting Wikipedia?/- as a subject line a couple of weeks
ago and it was the only winning variant in hundreds of tests. We retested
in case it was a statistical fluke and continued to see it perform well.
The effectiveness of this subject line for the most part does not come from
its apparent clickbaiting. The change in the number of people opening the
emails was relatively small and unsubscribes remained extremely low. The
big driver in terms of its success was from a significant increase in those
people who opened AND read our email appeal. We posed a question and donors
were motivated to donate when presented with the idea of imagining a world
without Wikipedia.

Our motivation behind this sort of subject line is the fact that in three
countries today it is already as if Wikipedia does not exist. The risk that
this could happen in more countries is greater now that it ever has been.
Censorship, impediments to free speech and over regulation of copyright are
threats that Wikipedia, Wikimedia and its communities face every single day
and it is with that context that we want to lead.

Any email that included this subject line came with at least some context
to flesh out the idea, i.e., “If Wikipedia were deleted, it would be a
great loss to the world,”, but going forward it is our full intention to
make even clearer that we intend for the donor to imagine a world without
Wikipedia and the threats it faces every day, not threaten that it is going
away.

Our plan is to continue to testing on this theme, exploring censorship and
copyright restrictions as well as our increasing role as the backbone of
knowledge on the internet, and help donors see that knowledge can and is
threatened all the time. We are definitely and eagerly open to any
feedback, suggestions and ideas you might have.

Best,
Seddon

On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 11:04 PM Pine W  wrote:

> There is a report from a user on Jimbo's talk page on ENWP regarding
> receiving fundraising a fundraising email with the subject line "[NAME] -
> Deleting Wikipedia?"
>
> In previous years I've disagreed with some of WMF's fundraising choices,
> and it would be unfortunate if in the era of "fake news" becoming
> mainstream WMF chooses to continue to be a part of the problem. If this is
> happening then I request that WMF put a stop to it. Regardless of how
> effective it is to send misleading fundraising appeals and that WMF has
> received minimal repercussions for doing so over the years, it's wrong and
> it should stop.
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] convert from BitCoin to FoldingCoin and other proofs of useful work

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all,

The Wikimedia Foundation does not hold cryptocurrency in Bitcoin. Whilst we
do accept bitcoin donations, this is currently done indirectly via BitPay
which converts from Bitcoin/Bitcash to Dollars prior to receipt.

This is documented on our Ways to Give page:

https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give#Bitcoin

Regards
Seddon

On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 8:59 PM Jeremy Lee-Jenkins 
wrote:

> > Is FoldingCoin still vulnerable to a 51% attack?
>
> It's still highly vulnerable to a 51% attack because there is
> literally no way to combat the basic principle without giving up on
> the idea of decentralization.
>
> > I don't know anything about FoldingCoin and whether it is more or less
> vulnerable to this kind of fraud than other cryptocurrencies.
>
> The only reason some of the larger cryptos don't get affected by this
> is because there are so many stakeholders that no one can really get
> enough power together to take over.
>
> > Do you think it is reasonable for the Foundation to convert bitcoin to
> FoldingCoin as part of its program to source clean electricity?
>
> In a nutshell, no. While Folding@home is a worthwhile project,
> FoldingCoin is not, and the fact one project is worthwhile should not
> be taken to men the other has any merit whatsoever.
>
> No serious person should be investing in someone else's
> cryptocurrency, the underlying technology is free and if you want one,
> make one. The blockchain is just a software package that anyone can
> make their own version of as easily as installing a MySQL database.
> Simple as that.
>
> J.
>
> On 11/1/18, Gerard Meijssen  wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > Bitcoin and its ilk rely on an overabundance of energy. In this day and
> age
> > the speculation of these "currencies" is irresponsible. The best attack
> on
> > this pyramide game is to stay away from it.
> > Thanks,
> >  GerardM
> >
> > On Thu, 1 Nov 2018 at 10:38, Robert Rohde  wrote:
> >
> >> > What is a 51% attack?
> >>
> >> A 51% attack is when a single malicious entity controls >51% of the
> >> computing power being used to validate the blockchain of a particular
> >> digital currency.  Blockchain-based digital currencies rely on a
> consensus
> >> of computing participants acting in good faith to verify transactions
> and
> >> coin ownership.  However, if a single entity controls a majority of the
> >> compute power, then it is possible for them to maliciously validate bad
> >> transactions to steal, double spend, and otherwise commit fraud using
> the
> >> currency.
> >>
> >> Smaller digital currencies, with fewer participants acting to maintain
> >> their blockchain, are generally more vulnerable to this kind of
> attack.  A
> >> bad actor can rent a large block of computing power and then use it to
> >> attack a small blockchain.   Such attacks have been becoming more
> common,
> >> though the largest coins (e.g. BTC) are still resistant due to the size
> of
> >> their community.
> >>
> https://www.coindesk.com/blockchains-feared-51-attack-now-becoming-regular/
> >>
> >> I don't know anything about FoldingCoin and whether it is more or less
> >> vulnerable to this kind of fraud than other cryptocurrencies.
> >>
> >> However, the 51% attack may just be the death of many smaller alt-coins,
> >> unless an effective countermeasure can be developed.
> >>
> >> -Robert Rohde
> >>
> >> On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 8:23 AM James Salsman 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Geni, it's the "Day of the Dead" now so I want to attempt to resurrect
> >> > this thread.
> >> >
> >> > Is FoldingCoin still vulnerable to a 51% attack? What is a 51% attack?
> >> >
> >> > Do you think it is reasonable for the Foundation to convert bitcoin to
> >> > FoldingCoin as part of its program to source clean electricity?
> >> >
> >> > Best regards,
> >> > Jim
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 7:21 AM James Salsman 
> >> wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > > Cryptocurrency. If your first thought isn't "how could a scammer
> >> > > > exploit this" you are doing it wrong.
> >> > >
> >> > > I've thought about that for several hours now, and I'm sure scammers
> >> > > far prefer bitcoin. Folding@Home's lab director is a partner
> >> > > Andreessen Horowitz, so he has certainly had no lack of resources to
> >> > > defend against the possibility, and I am persuaded that the Indiana
> >> > > nonprofit behind FLDC is sincere and acting in good faith at
> present.
> >> > > If the Foundation is hesitant, they might sponsor an audit of either
> >> > > or both, but the Folding@Home project is so established that its
> >> > > article is featured on enwiki.
> >> > >
> >> > > I have no financial interest in any cryptocurrency, and I never
> have,
> >> > > and I don't have a familial interest with anyone who I am aware has
> >> > > any either.
> >> > >
> >> > > Best regards,
> >> > > Jim
> >> >
> >> > ___
> >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelin

[Wikimedia-l] Fundraising Update - October 2018

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey All

The end of the year is extremely productive, rewarding and very busy for
the Wikimedia Fundraising team with fundraising occurring in 14 countries
and 4 languages. Just a quick update on our fundraising activities.

===Online Fundraising===

   -

   We were originally scheduled to run a fundraising Campaign in JAPAN
   through September. Following the landfall of Typhoon Jebi, and extensive
   damage to the country, we as a team decided to delay the fundraising
   campaign to the first half of 2019.



   -

   Since the beginning of October we have been running our desktop
   fundraising banners in FRANCE. Mobile launched on Tuesday 9th. The banner
   campaign is scheduled to run to the end of October.



   -

   During the months of October and November we are also ramping up our
   preparations for our main English fundraising banner campaign in USA,
   CANADA, UK, IRELAND, NEW ZEALAND and AUSTRALIA. As with previous years,
   that means running banners on English Wikipedia and emailing past donors.



   -

   Regular banner testing will continue and intensify through the months of
   October and November. This testing consists of a series of single and multi
   hour tests and will increase in cadence as we get closer to December. We do
   this to explore new ideas, test systems, improve workflows etc all in time
   for the busiest period of the year. As previous years, the main push will
   begin on or around Giving Tuesday, November 27.[1] We will look to
   fundraise through the month of December.



   -

   E-mail fundraising in these countries has already begun where we ask
   previous donors to reaffirm their support to Wikimedia. Just like the
   banner campaign, we extensively test our appeals. The email campaign
   started over the last week and will continue steadily through the rest of
   this calendar year.



   -

   Another upcoming campaign will be Latin America consisting of BRAZIL,
   PERU, URUGUAY, ARGENTINA, MEXICO, CHILE, COLOMBIA. We have worked closely
   with the Iberocoop communities and affiliates in these areas to localise
   the banner language. This campaign will be using a slightly different
   format, running at a low percentage of page views and over a longer time
   period. We are excited to see how this improves the effects of the campaign
   on both community and the fundraising team.


===Major Gifts and Endowment===

   -

   This week we announced a $2 million gift to the Wikimedia Endowment from
   George Soros, founder of the Open Society Foundation. [2]
   -

   Also announced recently, Amazon recently gave $1 million to the
   Wikimedia Endowment. This is an important acknowledgement by the Internet
   retailer of the need for the future sustainability of the Wikimedia
   Projects. [3]
   -

   Since the launch of the endowment in January 2016,  the endowment has
   raised over $27.5 million from generous donors, philanthropists, and
   Wikimedia community members.



There are a number of ways you can help support the fundraiser:


   -

   Have specific ideas or stories we should tell via social media, banners,
   emails etc.? We’re also looking for nice images, if you could point us to
   your favorites from Commons. Please add them to our fundraising ideas page.
   [4]


   -

   If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a
   Phabricator ticket. [5]


   -

   If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions
   about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer
   them to donate{{at}}wikimedia.org.


We look forward to working with you all in the coming weeks.

Many thanks

-- 

Seddon

Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)

Wikimedia Foundation

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

[2]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/2018/09/25/amazon-gift-wikimedia-endowment/

[3]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/2018/10/15/george-soros-invests-future-free-open-knowledge/

[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2018-19_Fundraising_ideas
[5]
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/1/?template=118862


-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] when is the last time a one-line fundraising banner was A/B tested

[Joseph Seddon]

7 countries = the 6 mentioned + Brazil :D

Seddon


On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 11:24 AM Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> Coffee is always controversial when it comes to fundraising. I can assure
> you that my team constantly works to try to ensure that these lines are
> appropriate. Our biggest challenge has always been that this line has long
> been extremely effective.
>
> Looking back through our banners, it seems that we have not used the
> coffee line in Brazilian Portuguese since 2015. We first tested
> replacements to this line back in 2015 and since then we've gone with
> alternatives such as "en lache" a snack or "um pastel" a cake. For the most
> part we've tried to use these alternatives in English in these countries as
> well, though they don't always quite carry across the languages barrier.
>
> But it seems like we made a genuine mistake during last years 2017-2018
> fundraising. Coffee wasn't used in pt-br anywhere or in the en-brazil
> desktop banner. But it seems like we accidentally left the line in on our
> English mobile banners. Our sincere apologies to the community for this, it
> remaining in our mobile banners was not intentional
>
> We constantly test and try to find alternatives. Recently we successfully
> managed to replace the coffee line in Italy to "una corsa sulla metro" (a
> metro ticket). In that instance the change wasn't simply a single word but
> several sentences, but that has taken years of effort to find.
>
> As Paulo has mentioned we have for the time being removed it from Portugal
> for this year and we anticipate there will be a drop of around 10%
> associated with that, but like always we will strive to find something that
> beats its.
>
> We will soon be launching campaigns across South America in 7 countries
> (Argentina, Uruguay, México, Chile, Colombia, Perú) and three languages
> (English, Spanish and Portuguese). We’ve have notified the communities
> there (
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/iberocoop/2018-September/000987.html
> ) and seeking feedback on our appeals that we will be running in those
> countries.
>
> We are going to be experimenting with a different structure to this years
> South American campaign as well. Running banners low level over a longer
> period. It’s hoped this will reduce the interruption to readers experiences
> and reduce the disruption to both affiliates and the online communities.
>
> Regards
> Seddon
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 5, 2018 at 10:09 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I've been checking the last donation campaigns, and since 2013 or so the
>> amount asked in the banner seems to be the equivalent of $3 (I seem to
>> recall that in initial campaigns it was higher).
>>
>> At the current exchange rates, $3 is about 4 regular coffee cups in
>> Portugal, and 3 coffee cups in Brazil.
>>
>> This year we (WMPT) suggested Thea to drop the coffee bit for Portugal,
>> and
>> she did. I am curious to see if it had any effect.
>>
>> Paulo
>>
>>
>> Peter Southwood  escreveu no dia sexta,
>> 5/10/2018 à(s) 21:03:
>>
>> > That would be appalling
>> > Cheers,
>> > Peter
>> >
>> > -Original Message-
>> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
>> > Behalf Of James Salsman
>> > Sent: 05 October 2018 20:09
>> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
>> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] when is the last time a one-line fundraising
>> > banner was A/B tested
>> >
>> > Apparently it says $10 in Brazil?
>> >
>> > On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 3:29 AM Paulo Santos Perneta
>> >  wrote:
>> > >...
>> > > Looking by the sample I know in Brazil (last year fundraising
>> campaign,
>> > in
>> > > August I believe) the Brazilian Portuguese Wikipedia readers often got
>> > > enraged to the point of vandalizing articles stating their disgust
>> for a
>> > > campaign asking money to an impoverished country (even more saying 10$
>> > was
>> > > the cost of a coffee there). Others "donated" money or attempted to
>> > donate
>> > > it thinking it was a kind of a fee for being allowed to read Wikipédia
>> > > (kind of a subscription).
>> > On Fri, Oct 5, 2018 at 10:28 AM Peter Southwood
>> >  wrote:
>> > >
>> > > I thought this specific message was targeting North Americans for whom
>> > $3 is a realistic price. If the message is for worldwide u

Re: [Wikimedia-l] when is the last time a one-line fundraising banner was A/B tested

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all,

Coffee is always controversial when it comes to fundraising. I can assure
you that my team constantly works to try to ensure that these lines are
appropriate. Our biggest challenge has always been that this line has long
been extremely effective.

Looking back through our banners, it seems that we have not used the coffee
line in Brazilian Portuguese since 2015. We first tested replacements to
this line back in 2015 and since then we've gone with alternatives such as
"en lache" a snack or "um pastel" a cake. For the most part we've tried to
use these alternatives in English in these countries as well, though they
don't always quite carry across the languages barrier.

But it seems like we made a genuine mistake during last years 2017-2018
fundraising. Coffee wasn't used in pt-br anywhere or in the en-brazil
desktop banner. But it seems like we accidentally left the line in on our
English mobile banners. Our sincere apologies to the community for this, it
remaining in our mobile banners was not intentional

We constantly test and try to find alternatives. Recently we successfully
managed to replace the coffee line in Italy to "una corsa sulla metro" (a
metro ticket). In that instance the change wasn't simply a single word but
several sentences, but that has taken years of effort to find.

As Paulo has mentioned we have for the time being removed it from Portugal
for this year and we anticipate there will be a drop of around 10%
associated with that, but like always we will strive to find something that
beats its.

We will soon be launching campaigns across South America in 7 countries
(Argentina, Uruguay, México, Chile, Colombia, Perú) and three languages
(English, Spanish and Portuguese). We’ve have notified the communities
there (
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/iberocoop/2018-September/000987.html
) and seeking feedback on our appeals that we will be running in those
countries.

We are going to be experimenting with a different structure to this years
South American campaign as well. Running banners low level over a longer
period. It’s hoped this will reduce the interruption to readers experiences
and reduce the disruption to both affiliates and the online communities.

Regards
Seddon




On Fri, Oct 5, 2018 at 10:09 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been checking the last donation campaigns, and since 2013 or so the
> amount asked in the banner seems to be the equivalent of $3 (I seem to
> recall that in initial campaigns it was higher).
>
> At the current exchange rates, $3 is about 4 regular coffee cups in
> Portugal, and 3 coffee cups in Brazil.
>
> This year we (WMPT) suggested Thea to drop the coffee bit for Portugal, and
> she did. I am curious to see if it had any effect.
>
> Paulo
>
>
> Peter Southwood  escreveu no dia sexta,
> 5/10/2018 à(s) 21:03:
>
> > That would be appalling
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > Behalf Of James Salsman
> > Sent: 05 October 2018 20:09
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] when is the last time a one-line fundraising
> > banner was A/B tested
> >
> > Apparently it says $10 in Brazil?
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 3:29 AM Paulo Santos Perneta
> >  wrote:
> > >...
> > > Looking by the sample I know in Brazil (last year fundraising campaign,
> > in
> > > August I believe) the Brazilian Portuguese Wikipedia readers often got
> > > enraged to the point of vandalizing articles stating their disgust for
> a
> > > campaign asking money to an impoverished country (even more saying 10$
> > was
> > > the cost of a coffee there). Others "donated" money or attempted to
> > donate
> > > it thinking it was a kind of a fee for being allowed to read Wikipédia
> > > (kind of a subscription).
> > On Fri, Oct 5, 2018 at 10:28 AM Peter Southwood
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > I thought this specific message was targeting North Americans for whom
> > $3 is a realistic price. If the message is for worldwide use I would also
> > find it offensive in its US centric price claims. I am in Africa, where a
> > cup of coffee would normally be less than $3 US, but is enormously
> variable
> > depending on where you are, what coffee you drink, and who you buy it
> from.
> > I don't drink coffee myself, so not particularly expert on the topic.
> > > Cheers,
> > > Peter
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> > Behalf Of James Salsman
> > > Sent: Friday, October 5, 2018 7:17 PM
> > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] when is the last time a one-line fundraising
> > banner was A/B tested
> > >
> > > Someone recently complained that referring to the equivalent of USD $3
> > > as the cost of a cup of coffee was incorrect and substantially
> > > offensive in Brazil. And then a few weeks later there was a discussion
> > > about how donat

Re: [Wikimedia-l] FY1718 Fundraising Report now published

[Joseph Seddon]

Amir,

I'd refer to my previous email relating to the three high GDP Asian
countries.

Definitely has potential but no silver bullet.

Seddon

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 9:15 PM Amir Sarabadani  wrote:

> It might sound naive but Singapore also has lots of potential. Please
> correct me if I'm wrong.
>
> Best
>
> On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 10:12 PM Andrew Lih  wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 12:24 PM Ilario Valdelli 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Yes but India has probably 2 times the population of the whole
> Europe...
> > > and cannot be defined like a "poor" country. I Think that the same is
> > valid
> > > also for East Asia.
> > >
> > > No it's not simple to compare but the amount donated in Asia is really
> > > small.
> > >
> >
> > 1. Please note that the GDP per capita for China and India *combined*
> still
> > falls far short of the EU. [1]
> >
> > 2. For two of the major economies of East Asia, Wikipedia is *not* the
> > number one reference site for the general public. For China, it’s Baidu
> > Baike and for Korea, it’s Naver.
> >
> > As Seddon said, it is a far more complex picture than looking at
> population
> > count and dollar amounts.
> >
> > -Andrew
> >
> > [1] -
> >
> https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=EU-CN-IN
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 



-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] FY1718 Fundraising Report now published

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Cornelius,

I don't have specific numbers to hand but its safe to assume the majority
do.

Regards
Seddon
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] FY1718 Fundraising Report now published

[Joseph Seddon]

India is definitely a place Fundraising see's as having a lot of potential
in the future, but similarly expectations should be managed.

It may have a population twice the size, but its readership is only a
fraction of Europe's.  India is also dominated by mobile that has been
substantially more difficult when it comes to fundraising (although we are
working exceptionally hard in this area).

India is a substantially cash driven economy, and the card payments
environment has also been in substantial flux over the last 5 years both
from a regulatory and alternative payments standpoint.

Is there room for growth? Yes definitely and as a team we hope that to see
that happen incrementally over the coming years. Ten times larger? Maybe in
time.

Regards
Seddon

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 5:24 PM Ilario Valdelli  wrote:

> Yes but India has probably 2 times the population of the whole Europe...
> and cannot be defined like a "poor" country. I Think that the same is valid
> also for East Asia.
>
> No it's not simple to compare but the amount donated in Asia is really
> small.
>
> Kind regards
>
>
> On Mon, 1 Oct 2018, 15:21 Joseph Seddon,  wrote:
>
> > Correction:  Our readership in Macao, QATAR and Singapore; is a fraction
> of
> > that of the United States. (specifically 1.4% of the USA: Percentage
> > remails effectively unchanged).
> >
> > Seddon
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 2:17 PM Joseph Seddon 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hey Illario.
> > >
> > > It is not as simple to simply that the contribution from Asia should be
> > 10
> > > times bigger.  It is not just about GDP.
> > >
> > > Our readership from the three countries in the top 10: Macao, Oman and
> > > Singapore; is a fraction of that of the United States. (specifically
> 1.4%
> > > of the USA).
> > >
> > > Do not get me wrong. Fundraising sees area for potential long term
> growth
> > > in both Asia and South America but we must be realistic for what that
> > > growth is.
> > >
> > > That's why I gave a long list of the factors that affect the potential
> > for
> > > fundraising in Asia, Africa and South America.  Its a complex equation
> > >
> > > Regards
> > > Seddon
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 11:58 AM Ilario valdelli 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> I agree in that point.
> > >>
> > >> Please be back to this millenium.
> > >>
> > >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
> > >> (updated to 2017).
> > >>
> > >> Three Asian countries are listed in the top 10.
> > >>
> > >> And the estimation is to have sooner a fourth:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(PPP)#IMF_estimates_between_2020_and_2023
> > >>
> > >> We can say that we have to look at the distribution of GDP, but also
> in
> > >> this case three countries of the top 10 are Asian:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
> > >>
> > >> Honestly there should be from Asia a contribution 10 times bigger in
> the
> > >> fundraising.
> > >>
> > >> I think that it's time to say that Asia is a continent that can give
> > more.
> > >>
> > >> Kind regards
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On 01/10/2018 12:28, Paulo Santos Perneta wrote:
> > >> > I suppose Asia can do a lot better than 3 million, but I don't augur
> > >> much
> > >> > success with increasing those campaigns for Africa and South
> America,
> > at
> > >> > least using the current model.
> > >> >
> > >> > Looking by the sample I know in Brazil (last year fundraising
> > campaign,
> > >> in
> > >> > August I believe) the Brazilian Portuguese Wikipedia readers often
> got
> > >> > enraged to the point of vandalizing articles stating their disgust
> > for a
> > >> > campaign asking money to an impoverished country (even more saying
> 10$
> > >> was
> > >> > the cost of a coffee there). Others "donated" money or attempted to
> > >> donate
> > >> > it thinking it was a kind of a fee for being allowed to read
> Wikipédia
> > >> > (kind

Re: [Wikimedia-l] FY1718 Fundraising Report now published

[Joseph Seddon]

Correction:  Our readership in Macao, QATAR and Singapore; is a fraction of
that of the United States. (specifically 1.4% of the USA: Percentage
remails effectively unchanged).

Seddon

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 2:17 PM Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> Hey Illario.
>
> It is not as simple to simply that the contribution from Asia should be 10
> times bigger.  It is not just about GDP.
>
> Our readership from the three countries in the top 10: Macao, Oman and
> Singapore; is a fraction of that of the United States. (specifically 1.4%
> of the USA).
>
> Do not get me wrong. Fundraising sees area for potential long term growth
> in both Asia and South America but we must be realistic for what that
> growth is.
>
> That's why I gave a long list of the factors that affect the potential for
> fundraising in Asia, Africa and South America.  Its a complex equation
>
> Regards
> Seddon
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 11:58 AM Ilario valdelli 
> wrote:
>
>> I agree in that point.
>>
>> Please be back to this millenium.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
>> (updated to 2017).
>>
>> Three Asian countries are listed in the top 10.
>>
>> And the estimation is to have sooner a fourth:
>>
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(PPP)#IMF_estimates_between_2020_and_2023
>>
>> We can say that we have to look at the distribution of GDP, but also in
>> this case three countries of the top 10 are Asian:
>>
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
>>
>> Honestly there should be from Asia a contribution 10 times bigger in the
>> fundraising.
>>
>> I think that it's time to say that Asia is a continent that can give more.
>>
>> Kind regards
>>
>>
>> On 01/10/2018 12:28, Paulo Santos Perneta wrote:
>> > I suppose Asia can do a lot better than 3 million, but I don't augur
>> much
>> > success with increasing those campaigns for Africa and South America, at
>> > least using the current model.
>> >
>> > Looking by the sample I know in Brazil (last year fundraising campaign,
>> in
>> > August I believe) the Brazilian Portuguese Wikipedia readers often got
>> > enraged to the point of vandalizing articles stating their disgust for a
>> > campaign asking money to an impoverished country (even more saying 10$
>> was
>> > the cost of a coffee there). Others "donated" money or attempted to
>> donate
>> > it thinking it was a kind of a fee for being allowed to read Wikipédia
>> > (kind of a subscription).
>> >
>> > Paulo
>> >
>> > Pine W  escreveu no dia domingo, 30/09/2018 à(s)
>> 20:30:
>> >
>> >> Hi Thea,
>> >>
>> >> Thank you for sharing this report.
>> >>
>> >> I very much like the visual design, which I think is simple, clear, and
>> >> concise. Who did the design?
>> >>
>> >> Regarding the sentences, "We imagine a world in which every single
>> human
>> >> being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Each year, with
>> your
>> >> support, we edge closer toward that vision.": I suggest removing the
>> second
>> >> sentence because the horizons of human knowledge continue to expand at
>> a
>> >> significant rate, and I doubt that we have evidence that we're keeping
>> up
>> >> in every human language with the pace that human knowledge advances,
>> let
>> >> alone moving fast enough to catch up.
>> >>
>> >> I'm a bit surprised by the relatively low revenue from regions other
>> than
>> >> North America and Europe. Those look like areas where Fundraising
>> could be
>> >> more successful in the future. Does Fundraising have plans to work on
>> >> improving revenue from those regions?
>> >>
>> >> Congratulations on the success with asking donors to cover transaction
>> >> fees.
>> >>
>> >> Thanks again for sharing this report.
>> >>
>> >> Pine
>> >> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Sat, Sep 29, 2018 at 10:16 PM Thea Skaff 
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Hi everyone,
>> >>>
>> >>> I am writing to share with you our fundraising report for fiscal year
>> >> 2018

Re: [Wikimedia-l] FY1718 Fundraising Report now published

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Illario.

It is not as simple to simply that the contribution from Asia should be 10
times bigger.  It is not just about GDP.

Our readership from the three countries in the top 10: Macao, Oman and
Singapore; is a fraction of that of the United States. (specifically 1.4%
of the USA).

Do not get me wrong. Fundraising sees area for potential long term growth
in both Asia and South America but we must be realistic for what that
growth is.

That's why I gave a long list of the factors that affect the potential for
fundraising in Asia, Africa and South America.  Its a complex equation

Regards
Seddon


On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 11:58 AM Ilario valdelli  wrote:

> I agree in that point.
>
> Please be back to this millenium.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
> (updated to 2017).
>
> Three Asian countries are listed in the top 10.
>
> And the estimation is to have sooner a fourth:
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(PPP)#IMF_estimates_between_2020_and_2023
>
> We can say that we have to look at the distribution of GDP, but also in
> this case three countries of the top 10 are Asian:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
>
> Honestly there should be from Asia a contribution 10 times bigger in the
> fundraising.
>
> I think that it's time to say that Asia is a continent that can give more.
>
> Kind regards
>
>
> On 01/10/2018 12:28, Paulo Santos Perneta wrote:
> > I suppose Asia can do a lot better than 3 million, but I don't augur much
> > success with increasing those campaigns for Africa and South America, at
> > least using the current model.
> >
> > Looking by the sample I know in Brazil (last year fundraising campaign,
> in
> > August I believe) the Brazilian Portuguese Wikipedia readers often got
> > enraged to the point of vandalizing articles stating their disgust for a
> > campaign asking money to an impoverished country (even more saying 10$
> was
> > the cost of a coffee there). Others "donated" money or attempted to
> donate
> > it thinking it was a kind of a fee for being allowed to read Wikipédia
> > (kind of a subscription).
> >
> > Paulo
> >
> > Pine W  escreveu no dia domingo, 30/09/2018 à(s)
> 20:30:
> >
> >> Hi Thea,
> >>
> >> Thank you for sharing this report.
> >>
> >> I very much like the visual design, which I think is simple, clear, and
> >> concise. Who did the design?
> >>
> >> Regarding the sentences, "We imagine a world in which every single human
> >> being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Each year, with your
> >> support, we edge closer toward that vision.": I suggest removing the
> second
> >> sentence because the horizons of human knowledge continue to expand at a
> >> significant rate, and I doubt that we have evidence that we're keeping
> up
> >> in every human language with the pace that human knowledge advances, let
> >> alone moving fast enough to catch up.
> >>
> >> I'm a bit surprised by the relatively low revenue from regions other
> than
> >> North America and Europe. Those look like areas where Fundraising could
> be
> >> more successful in the future. Does Fundraising have plans to work on
> >> improving revenue from those regions?
> >>
> >> Congratulations on the success with asking donors to cover transaction
> >> fees.
> >>
> >> Thanks again for sharing this report.
> >>
> >> Pine
> >> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, Sep 29, 2018 at 10:16 PM Thea Skaff 
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi everyone,
> >>>
> >>> I am writing to share with you our fundraising report for fiscal year
> >> 2018
> >>> . This
> >> report
> >>> is a collaborative effort on behalf of many teams: fundraising tech,
> ops
> >>> and donor services, major gifts, online fundraising, legal,
> >> communications,
> >>> and more.
> >>>
> >>> The fundraising report offers us an opportunity to pause and reflect on
> >>> learnings from last year and also consider where we're headed,
> >> particularly
> >>> as we approach one of our busiest times of the year for fundraising.
> It's
> >>> also an inspiring reminder of how many people across the world support
> >> the
> >>> work of the community and WMF staff.
> >>>
> >>> We welcome your questions and feedback.
> >>>
> >>> Thank you,
> >>> Thea
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> *Thea Skaff*
> >>> Fundraising Program Manager
> >>> Wikimedia Foundation
> >>> 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
> >>> San Francisco, CA 94104
> >>> ___
> >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> >>> 
> >> __

Re: [Wikimedia-l] FY1718 Fundraising Report now published

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Pine!

The potential for growth in fundraising in the various geographic locations
is limited by a huge number of factors limited but not including:

Population size, Per capita GDP/Purchasing power parity, Disposable income,
Internet penetration rates, Wikimedia project penetration rates, Prevalence
of philanthropy (including both small or large donors), Propensity towards
desktop or mobile usage, Online payments/banking behaviours, Regulatory
Environments etc. , Ability to implement A/B testing activities

GDP and Readership are significant controlling forces and once you adjust
for those, the continent discrepancies become significantly narrower. And
that doesn't factor in the any of the more challenging to define variables.

As a department we are always evaluating areas for growth, new local
payment methods, monitoring changes to the regulatory environment. The work
the new readers team and volunteers across the globe also plays a
significant long term role in improving our ability to fundraise outside of
Europe and America as we try to grow our readership in these countries.

We are also focusing a lot of efforts on trying to ensure our mobile
campaigns are more effective as much of our readership in advanced
economies transition from mobile to desktop. This will by default improve
our performance in lower income economies as they join the internet
directly to mobile.

Regards
Seddon


On Sun, Sep 30, 2018 at 8:30 PM Pine W  wrote:

> Hi Thea,
>
> Thank you for sharing this report.
>
> I very much like the visual design, which I think is simple, clear, and
> concise. Who did the design?
>
> Regarding the sentences, "We imagine a world in which every single human
> being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Each year, with your
> support, we edge closer toward that vision.": I suggest removing the second
> sentence because the horizons of human knowledge continue to expand at a
> significant rate, and I doubt that we have evidence that we're keeping up
> in every human language with the pace that human knowledge advances, let
> alone moving fast enough to catch up.
>
> I'm a bit surprised by the relatively low revenue from regions other than
> North America and Europe. Those look like areas where Fundraising could be
> more successful in the future. Does Fundraising have plans to work on
> improving revenue from those regions?
>
> Congratulations on the success with asking donors to cover transaction
> fees.
>
> Thanks again for sharing this report.
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 29, 2018 at 10:16 PM Thea Skaff  wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I am writing to share with you our fundraising report for fiscal year
> 2018
> > . This
> report
> > is a collaborative effort on behalf of many teams: fundraising tech, ops
> > and donor services, major gifts, online fundraising, legal,
> communications,
> > and more.
> >
> > The fundraising report offers us an opportunity to pause and reflect on
> > learnings from last year and also consider where we're headed,
> particularly
> > as we approach one of our busiest times of the year for fundraising. It's
> > also an inspiring reminder of how many people across the world support
> the
> > work of the community and WMF staff.
> >
> > We welcome your questions and feedback.
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Thea
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > *Thea Skaff*
> > Fundraising Program Manager
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> > 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
> > San Francisco, CA 94104
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 



-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Spending per continent

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Gerard.

I don't know of one, but documenting that is outside of the Fundraising
teams responsibilities and outside the focus of this report. I've started a
new thread for any further queries relating to this.

Regards
Seddon

On Sun, Sep 30, 2018 at 9:19 PM Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

> Hoi,
> Is there a map of the world with the spending of the WMF per continent?
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> On Sun, 30 Sep 2018 at 00:16, Thea Skaff  wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I am writing to share with you our fundraising report for fiscal year
> 2018
> > . This
> report
> > is a collaborative effort on behalf of many teams: fundraising tech, ops
> > and donor services, major gifts, online fundraising, legal,
> communications,
> > and more.
> >
> > The fundraising report offers us an opportunity to pause and reflect on
> > learnings from last year and also consider where we're headed,
> particularly
> > as we approach one of our busiest times of the year for fundraising. It's
> > also an inspiring reminder of how many people across the world support
> the
> > work of the community and WMF staff.
> >
> > We welcome your questions and feedback.
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Thea
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > *Thea Skaff*
> > Fundraising Program Manager
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> > 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
> > San Francisco, CA 94104
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 



-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Proposals to Host Wikimania in 2020

[Joseph Seddon]

Hello Ellie,

Is Wikimania still on its programme of "1 EU/US Wikimania" followed by an
"Away Wikimania"?

Seddon

On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 11:44 PM Ellie Young  wrote:

> The Wikimania Steering Committee and Wikimedia Foundation are seeking
> expressions of interest from interested parties for
>  hosting
> Wikimani
> a 2020.
>
> Please see the following for more information:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2020
>
> If you are interested in discussing the possibilities and working with the
> WMF Events Manager in preparing a proposal to host and organize Wikimania
> 20
> 20
> , please contact eyoung at wikimedia.org
>  by October
> 15th.  Also, if you
> know of an individual or group that we should approach about hosting, we
> encourage  nominations as well. The Steering Committee and WMF expect to
> make a decision by early
> 2019.
>
>
> Thanks, Ellie
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Executive Director's Letter to Donors

[Joseph Seddon]

Hi James.

Your suggestion is noted but there are lot's of things that we want to do
with email but only a finite amount of resources in this area with which to
achieve it so it'll be something for to thinking about in the future.

Many Thanks
Seddon



On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 9:11 PM James Salsman  wrote:

> Regarding https://twitter.com/SuePGardner/status/998302792946102273
>
> I propose that the Executive Director resume regular periodic
> correspondence with donors on other ways they can support the
> movement, beyond copyright and internet law advocacy that the
> Foundation traditionally supports directly and indirectly. In
> particular, I propose that the Executive Director ask donors to
> support other organizations which are working for free college,[1-4]
> single payer universal health care,[5] shorter work weeks,[6-7]
> payroll subsidies,[8] and two-bracket taxation.[9]
>
> I believe all of these goals are favored by wikimedians, for
> wikimedians, I predict at around 80% for the least popular. If there
> is any question I ask that a statistically robust and significant
> survey of the question among community and staff be conducted with the
> urgency commensurate that work in these areas deserves.
>
> Best regards,
> Jim Salsman
>
> [1]
> https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/16/free-community-college-california_n_6474940.html
>
> [2]
> https://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Documents/20121212_Economics%20of%20Higher%20Ed_vFINAL.pdf
>
> [3] https://www.docdroid.net/epSjOI2/peracchi2006.pdf
>
> [4] https://www.docdroid.net/joXd2MZ/heckman2006.pdf
>
> [5] https://twitter.com/jsalsman/status/1007106802507378689
>
> [6]
> https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/03/does-working-fewer-hours-make-you-more-productive/
>
> [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek_and_weekend#Length
>
> [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Work_Pay_tax_credit
>
> [9]
> https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1595/12bb30b0ceddfe0525addf777bb2c31542b6.pdf
>
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-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Board Recruitment: Updates

[Joseph Seddon]

"I am unaware of any laws which would prohibit WMF from publishing the
entirety of executives' compensation
details including their employment contracts, severance agreements,
and the circumstances
in which their departures happen."

Pine, I often appreciate your view and input on a range of topics but to be
blunt if this is your genuine opinion I'm personally rather glad my
employer does not base its HR policies and practices on your personal
interpretation of employment law.

Seddon

On Sun, May 13, 2018 at 8:59 PM, Pine W  wrote:

> Hello Antanana,
>
> Thank you for this information.
>
> I would like to bring the topic of WMF's financial transparency into the
> conversation about who should be selected for a WMF Board seat based on
> their knowledge of finance. I am dissatisfied with WMF's financial
> transparency on topics such as severance payments to executives (see
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-May/087656.html),
> and I fail to understand how WMF can claim to be a largely open and
> transparent organization while providing the minimum legally required
> disclosures about its payments to its executives.
>
> Contrary to Jaime's statement, I am unaware of any laws which would
> prohibit WMF from publishing the entirety of executives' compensation
> details including their employment contracts, severance agreements, and the
> circumstances in which their departures happen. Government agencies in the
> United States publish this information routinely and/or are often required
> to make the information available upon receiving public records requests.
>
> Given Jaime's previous statement on this matter, and my general
> dissatisfaction with WMF's level of financial transparency, I am
> uncomfortable with his involvement with selecting a new WMF Board member
> based on his or her finance expertise. I would encourage the Board to
> reconsider Jaime's role in the selection process, and to place a strong
> emphasis on identifying a new board member who has experience with
> significantly increasing the financial transparency of organizations.
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
> On Sat, May 12, 2018 at 12:31 AM, Nataliia Tymkiv 
> wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > As you may know, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has two
> > appointed Board members whose terms will expire during Wikimania 2018 -
> > Kelly Battles and Alice Wiegand. We have been working to fill those seats
> >  and our goal is for potential candidates to join us in Cape Town during
> > Wikimania 2018.
> >
> > == Finance expert seat ==
> >
> > This is a very specific profile: we need a person with strong financial
> > management background and auditing skills. The BCG (Board Governance
> > Committee) is currently interviewing a short list of candidates prepared
> by
> > Kelly Battles and Jaime Villagomez (the CFO of Wikimedia Foundation).
> Once
> > interviews are complete, the BCG will send their recommendations  to the
> > full Board.
> >
> > == Technology/organizational growth expert seat ==
> >
> > Over the last few months, we have conducted a series of conversations on
> > Board  expertise needs. With the support of Katherine Maher (ED) and Josh
> > Weinberg (Chief of Staff), the BGC developed a candidate profile for the
> > soon-to-be-vacant seat and gave its recommendation to the Board during
> > their meeting in Berlin. We need your help to identify potential
> candidates
> > for this position who are interested in serving the Wikimedia community
> as
> > a member of the Board of Trustees.
> >
> > We shall begin accepting applications and referrals for these positions
> > today. A more detailed timeline of the full recruitment process is
> > available on Meta here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10176203 [1].
> > You
> > can find the candidate package here [2].
> >
> > Applicants may apply online at:
> > https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/1162305?gh_src=
> > 8b8yun5r1#.WvaOKPKMTCv.
> > We will also accept applications and referrals by email at
> > board-nominati...@lists.wikimedia.org.
> >
> > We look forward to hearing from you.
> >
> > [1]
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> > Board_Governance_Committee/Board_Recruitment
> > [2]
> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Board_Recruiting_
> > Candidate_Packet_May_2018.pdf
> >
> > Best regards,
> > antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
> >
> > *NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal
> working
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] The fact-checked encyclopedia

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Anthony,

Apologies for the delay on this.

To the best of our knowledge, this ad isn't being run by the Wikimedia
Foundation nor any vendor of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Regards
Seddon



On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 7:12 AM, Anthony Cole  wrote:

> That Google ad (describing Wikipedia as the fact-checked encyclopedia) is
> still the top result when I search for “wikipedia” in Australia.
>
> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 at 8:57 pm, Isaac Olatunde 
> wrote:
>
> > Leigh, I disagree that all projects are hostile to outsiders. When
> someone
> > edit in a language they do not speak and use machine to translate
> contents
> > for example  and refused to stop after multiple warnings, a block in such
> > case may not be considered an "hostile" response. That being said, I
> > completely agree with Rob that fact-checked encyclopedia is more
> > appropriate considering the hostility in some language Wikipedia, notably
> > the English Wikipedia. How do you describe a Wikipedia where someone
> create
> > their first article and got deleted and when the  page creator approached
> > the deleting admin on why their article got deleted and the response they
> > received is "Kindly have the decency to create a decent article ", "count
> > yourself lucky, I don't talk to IP address "?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Isaac.
> >
> >
> > On Apr 15, 2018 3:21 PM, "Leigh Thelmadatter" 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Not just English Wikipedia. All of the projects are hostile to
> > "outsiders"
> > > Those not in English might even be worse for several reasons
> > >
> > > Enviado desde mi LG de Telcel
> > >
> > > -- Original message--
> > > From: Robert Fernandez
> > > Date: Sun, Apr 15, 2018 9:17 AM
> > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List;
> > > Cc:
> > > Subject:Re: [Wikimedia-l] The fact-checked encyclopedia
> > >
> > > Considering the barriers to entry, growing thicket of policies,
> > > organized group harassment, and open hostility on the English
> > > Wikipedia, I'm not sure we can even call it "the encyclopedia anyone
> > > can edit" anymore.  So I'd say fact-checked is a more accurate and
> > > relevant claim these days.
> > >
> > > On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 8:53 AM, Anthony Cole 
> > wrote:
> > > > I just googled “wikipedia” and the first result was a Google ad
> linking
> > > to
> > > > wikipedia.org.[1] It calls Wikipedia the fact-checked encyclopedia.
> We
> > > used
> > > > to call it the encyclopedia anyone can edit. The latter seems more
> > honest
> > > > than this new formulation which to me implies a degree of reliability
> > and
> > > > oversight I'm not sure we can ethically assert. I missed the
> discussion
> > > > about this new self-description. Did it happen on meta? Is anyone
> else
> > > > uncomfortabe with this?
> > > > --
> > > > Anthony Cole
> > > > ___
> > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > wiki/Wikimedia-l
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> > > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
> mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> > >
> > > ___
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> > > 
> > > ___
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> > > wiki/Wikimedia-l
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> > > 
> > ___
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> > 
>
> --
> Anthony Cole
> ___
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>



-- 
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*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikime

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The fact-checked encyclopedia

[Joseph Seddon]

 Hey Anthony.

These emails came in on a weekend and today is a WMF holiday so I suspect
it'll be another 24 hours or so before a response will get to you :)

Regards
Seddon

On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 1:15 AM, Philippe Beaudette 
wrote:

> I suspect that the ad in question is a freebie, donated through Google's
> giveaway to nonprofits. If so there is a point person at wmf (maybe in the
> advancement team?) Who would know for sure.
>
> Philippe
>
> On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 5:10 PM Anthony Cole  wrote:
>
> > I just googled "wikipedia" again and that ad is still coming up.  (I’m in
> > Australia.) When you click the link in the ad it takes you (via 3 or 4
> > redirects) to wikipedia.org with the word "paid" in the search field.
> [1]
> >  When you click the Google maps link below the ad text it, strangely,
> takes
> > you to the location of a suburban Kmart store. I'm finding it harder to
> > believe this is sanctioned by WMF. Anyway, I’d appreciate it if someone
> > from the WMF could chime in on this.
> >
> > 1.  https://instagram.com/p/BhpnGuehzhw/
> >
> > On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 at 9:48 pm, Robert Fernandez  >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > > "🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥The encyclopedia of evil people, by evil people, for evil
> > > people 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥" + a winking Baphomet as logo
> > >
> > > I think we should change this to our slogan just for April 1.
> > >
> > > On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:31 AM, Vi to 
> wrote:
> > > > "🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥The encyclopedia of evil people, by evil people, for evil
> > > > people 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥" + a winking Baphomet as logo
> > > >
> > > > I find close to pointless derailing any discussion into a
> > > incircumstantial
> > > > series of tirades.
> > > >
> > > > Vito
> > > >
> > > > 2018-04-15 16:21 GMT+02:00 Leigh Thelmadatter  >:
> > > >
> > > >> Not just English Wikipedia. All of the projects are hostile to
> > > "outsiders"
> > > >> Those not in English might even be worse for several reasons
> > > >>
> > > >> Enviado desde mi LG de Telcel
> > > >>
> > > >> -- Original message--
> > > >> From: Robert Fernandez
> > > >> Date: Sun, Apr 15, 2018 9:17 AM
> > > >> To: Wikimedia Mailing List;
> > > >> Cc:
> > > >> Subject:Re: [Wikimedia-l] The fact-checked encyclopedia
> > > >>
> > > >> Considering the barriers to entry, growing thicket of policies,
> > > >> organized group harassment, and open hostility on the English
> > > >> Wikipedia, I'm not sure we can even call it "the encyclopedia anyone
> > > >> can edit" anymore.  So I'd say fact-checked is a more accurate and
> > > >> relevant claim these days.
> > > >>
> > > >> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 8:53 AM, Anthony Cole 
> > > wrote:
> > > >> > I just googled “wikipedia” and the first result was a Google ad
> > > linking
> > > >> to
> > > >> > wikipedia.org.[1] It calls Wikipedia the fact-checked
> encyclopedia.
> > We
> > > >> used
> > > >> > to call it the encyclopedia anyone can edit. The latter seems more
> > > honest
> > > >> > than this new formulation which to me implies a degree of
> > reliability
> > > and
> > > >> > oversight I'm not sure we can ethically assert. I missed the
> > > discussion
> > > >> > about this new self-description. Did it happen on meta? Is anyone
> > else
> > > >> > uncomfortabe with this?
> > > >> > --
> > > >> > Anthony Cole
> > > >> > ___
> > > >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > >> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > >> wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > >> > Unsubscribe:
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> > > ,
> > > >>  unsubscribe>
> > > >>
> > > >> ___
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > >> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > > >> wiki/Wikimedia-l
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> > > >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
> mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> > ,
> > > >>  unsubscribe>
> > > >> ___
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> > > >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
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> > > >>  unsubscribe>
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> mailman

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Ask Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft to state wiki article source dates in voice?

[Joseph Seddon]

That's a completely different and unrelated issue to the thread YOU stated.
Whilst I'm impressed at your willingness to hijack your own thread to refer
to a completely unrelated topic after only one response, it is unsurprising
and I'm personally bored of it.

Please stick to the topic at hand or start a new thread.

Regards
Seddon

On Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 2:56 PM, James Salsman  wrote:

> > I don't think it's particularly user/design friendly
>
> How does the Foundation choose between presentation advantages for
> commercial users, and advantages for attracting and retaining editors?
>
> Is the request to try the word "edit" instead of a pencil icon on
> mobile a good example of the Foundation's general disposition of such
> questions?
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2017_Community_Wishlist_
> Survey/Archive/Replace_or_supplement_mobile_pencil_icon_
> with_%22edit%22_in_square_brackets_and_A/B_test_editing_uptake
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Heatherawalls#
> Design-blocked_technical_community_wish
>
> > On Wed, 7 Mar 2018, 16:22 James Salsman,  wrote:
> >
> >> I wanted to share this because it's pertinent to issues with large
> >> companies using our information without complying with the license
> >> terms:
> >>
> >>
> >> https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_galloway_how_amazon_
> apple_facebook_and_google_manipulate_our_emotions
> >>
> >> One discussions I've had with both Erik Moeller online and Katherine
> >> Maher in person is about whether voice browsers should share the date
> >> of CC-BY wiki articles when their speech synthesis devices quote from
> >> them.
> >>
> >> Are there any reasons that would be bad? It would help encourage new
> >> editors by raising awareness of the ultimate source of "AI" answers.
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Jim
> >>
> >> ___
> >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> >> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Ask Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft to state wiki article source dates in voice?

[Joseph Seddon]

I don't think it's particularly user/design friendly

Seddon

On Wed, 7 Mar 2018, 16:22 James Salsman,  wrote:

> I wanted to share this because it's pertinent to issues with large
> companies using our information without complying with the license
> terms:
>
>
> https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_galloway_how_amazon_apple_facebook_and_google_manipulate_our_emotions
>
> One discussions I've had with both Erik Moeller online and Katherine
> Maher in person is about whether voice browsers should share the date
> of CC-BY wiki articles when their speech synthesis devices quote from
> them.
>
> Are there any reasons that would be bad? It would help encourage new
> editors by raising awareness of the ultimate source of "AI" answers.
>
> Best regards,
> Jim
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RFC on wikimedia-l posting limits

[Joseph Seddon]

The question is, does it need a successor?

Seddon


On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 10:42 PM, Pine W  wrote:

> For some time there have been periodic mentions of the idea of moving
> Wikimedia-l to Discourse. [0]
>
> I am considering establishing a Discourse installation myself and offering
> it to host Wikimedia-l or its successor, which in addition to potential
> usability improvements from Discourse would have the added benefit that it
> would not be hosted on a WMF server and therefore would be somewhat
> insulated from governance controversies at WMF such as we have experienced
> in the past and such as the one recently experienced by WMFR. However, I am
> concerned that I would be unable to provide sufficient legal protections
> for the privacy of the list and its members, so I have not initiated this
> project.
>
> I think that a good first order of business would be for someone to close
> the existing RfC on Meta. After that RfC is closed I think that we should
> have further discussions about how we might like to continue to adjust our
> communications on Wikimedia-l or its successor.
>
> I am currently limiting myself to approximately 15 posts per month until
> the RfC is closed.
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
> [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_(software)
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>



-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Welcome messages at arwiki

[Joseph Seddon]

This conversation started in the middle of the Christmas break following
which I suspect many staff took extended holidays, most departments are in
the middle annual planning and this week WMF are gathering for their annual
all hands meetings. So lets firtst consider the fact that senior legal
staff have a lot on their plate.

This problem has been discussed before and reviewed by legal as acceptable.
A subsequent review is clearly going to be a low priority task as I am sure
you can understand Pine.

Making threats to handle ones demand and only in a manner that is
acceptable to you is hardly going to make staff receptive to expediting
your request. Lets give the good people time, afford them patience on our
behalf and let them do their jobs.

On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 2:04 AM, Pine W  wrote:

> FYI for those on WIkimedia-l who may be interested, conversation about this
> matter is ongoing. I am waiting a response from WMF Legal, and there may be
> others who have opened their own lines of inquiry.
>
> If I don't receive a reply from WMF Legal that I feel is satisfactory, or
> if I don't receive one at all, then I plan to set up an RfC about this
> matter.
>
> Pine 
> 
>
> On Mon, Jan 1, 2018 at 2:17 PM, Vi to  wrote:
>
> > I'm scared of the solutions that will "fix" this.
> > I expect something as dramatically useful as the removal of "unblock this
> > IP" button for IPs caught by autoblocks of registered users.
> >
> > Vito
> >
> > 2018-01-01 22:46 GMT+01:00 Pine W :
> >
> > > I have created https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T183876 and am
> pinging
> > > Legal to request a review of this matter.
> > >
> > > Happy new year,
> > >
> > > Pine
> > > ___
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> > > 
> > >
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> > 
> >
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>



-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] Final 2017 Brief Update - Fundraising

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all,

For those heavy users of the English Wikipedia, you'll have noticed its
been quiet on the banner front over the last week or so. This was to give
the team a much needed and appreciated break over the Christmas period.

We'll be doing a final push over the next 24 hours and we will be running a
thank you banner campaign through the beginning of January.

From the Advancement team I would like to wish you all a happy new year for
2018 and finally offer my genuine thanks to the numerous community members
and staff from other departments who have afforded us their time, ideas and
support throughout 2017.

See you on the other side!

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] English Fundraising Week Beginning Update

[Joseph Seddon]

==TODAY’S ASK ==

Today we are going to be testing a banner with a community quote included
alongside the main appeal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple?banner=robin_20171201_dsk_lg_guardian_rosie&force=1&country=US

This quote originated from a fundraising interview of Rosie
Stevenson-Goodknight conducted at Wikimania 2017.

So we have two asks:

1) We want to hear your stories about Wikipedia, what motivates you to
contribute and why you think it’s important. It can be a sentence or two or
something long, just go to the following link and tell us your story:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2017-18_Fundraising_ideas#Story_Ideas

2) We are testing banners showcasing the many diverse faces of the movement:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringian_wolf?banner=B1718_120114_en6C_dsk_p2_sm_dsn_fcpcntrl&force=1&country=US

We tested on staff for ease but we would really like to do a community
faces banner. If you would like to potentially see your face in a banner go
to the following link:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2017-18_Fundraising_ideas#We_need_your_help:_Face_Banners

Add your name and link to your photo on Wikimedia Commons. The photo MUST
be compatible with Commons hosting policies:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing

==BRIEF UPDATE==

--Community selected banner content--

Over the weekend, we ran an experiment in deferring some of fundraisings
decision making to the community. Based on the outcome of that survey,
we’ve started updating our banners to the winning text with what we refer
to as the “heart and soul” line:

~~~The heart and soul of Wikipedia is a community of people working
passionately to bring you unlimited access to reliable, neutral
information.~~~

A huge thanks to all those who helped direct our efforts.

--Image ideas for emails--

We really need your ideas for new images to test in our fundraising emails.
We are looking for capitivating, fascinating or interesting images or gifs.

Please do get involved and submit your ideas here:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2017-18_Fundraising_ideas#We_need_your_help:_Favourite_Commons_photos

--Campaign Progress--

We launched our mobile campaign last Thursday and so had a busy weekend.
Things are progressing well and it’s looking like our efforts on mobile
show good growth from last year. Mobile fundraising still presents a
challenge as we try to make it as effective as desktop as our audience
shifts to mobile platforms. After a good first week we are taking stock of
where we are after our first week of testing and preparing our plans for
week two.

Will provide a more detailed update later this week!

Many Thanks

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] Fundraising - End Week Update

[Joseph Seddon]

==REALLY IMPORTANT ASK==

Before updating you on our first week. I have and ask

We need your help. We've had some really close results with some of our
best messages in banners recently.

Rather than the fundraising team making the decision what to do, we would
like the community to help us choose the direction of our banner messaging:

Just go to this link, click your favourite and submit:


https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_09DMEWexSMnqyLr


A lot of these messages came from a recent interview the fundraising team
held with our founder, Jimmy Wales. But we would love to include more
voices in the campaign. If you’d like to suggest some of your own messages
for readers to see, please add ideas here:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2017-18_Fundraising_ideas


==Other News==

--Raised so far--

We've raised approximate $9,000,000 since Giving Tuesday in online gifts
but I add the usual caution that this is a preliminary number.



--Emails to past donors--

We are closing out the 9th week of the Big English email campaign to past
donors, having decided to spread out the campaign to have more room to test
timing and creative ideas. We achieved a long-time campaign goal by
successfully adding another voice to the fundraising campaign with
Katherine Maher, alongside Jimmy. Check out how our Katherine message was
created in our latest blog post:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/11/30/fundraising-from-the-heart/

There are still more emails to send in December, and our goal this month is
to tell more community stories. Thanks for giving us such great stories to
tell!


--Banner testing--

The Big English banner campaign has been underway for only three full days
but we’ve already tried well over 50 banners. Desktop has been up since
Tuesday Nov 28. Mobile web and app fundraising? launched on  Nov 30,
earlier than in previous years.

Along with Jimmy, we’re also trying out messages from Katherine and quotes
from community messages -- too early to report anything yet, but we’re
excited to share more voices with our readers in this year’s fundraiser.


--Matching Gift Challenge--

Next week, we will hopefully be announcing a significant matching gift
challenge from a  generous donor. More details to come.


--Facebook Ads--

We are going to experimenting with running another Facebook ad campaign at
some point in the next few weeks. For information on past experiments with
Facebook ads, please see:


https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/Updates/FBAdsExperiment

Thank you all for your support and patience!

I leave you with old man Jimmy reading Wikipedia:

https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/935994802448900096

-- 
Seddon

Community and Audience Engagement Associate
Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Day 1 Update - Fundraising

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all! Just a very brief update!

***We are live!***

Banners went up at 1600UTC. It's been 7ish hours and so far things are
ticking over nicely!

***A blog!***

Lisa Gruwell and Megan Hernandez have written a blog post announcing the
launch of the campaign and why every donation to Wikipedia is important (
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/11/28/donation-free-knowledge/)

***Supporting the fundraiser on social media!***

There are a number of ways you can support the fundraiser on social media:

[1] Twitter: Share why you love Wikipedia and free knowledge using the
hashtag #ILoveWikipedia.

[2] Facebook: Put our I Love Wikipedia Facebook frame to your profile pic.
You can add it for a few hours, a day, or forever. We made these frames to
give our supporters another way to show how important Wikipedia is to them.
Over 26,000 Facebook users added the frames during last year’s fundraiser,
with over 500,000 views in the first 24 hours. That’s one huge party, and
you’re invited. :) (https://www.facebook.com/profilepicframes)

[3] Anywhere: Please share something you love about the Wikimedia movement
with the donation link (https://donate.wikimedia.org) and the hashtag
#ILoveWikipedia. Ask your friends to do it, too! I’m sure teachers, college
students, journalists or librarians in your circle might have something to
add…

[4] Amplify or share our videos, which will be going up on social media
over the coming days. The first one is a play on the "cup of coffee"
message in our fundraising banner. You can help by sharing on Facebook,
Twitter, or Instagram. Whichever floats your boat!

***Sharing videos!***

We're trying something interactive this year on social media. Jimmy Wales
has recorded a series of extremely short and playful videos that will
explain the importance of Wikipedia, ask our readers to respond to
questions in their own words, and/or play on some of our most common
elements. There are a number of videos that will go out over social over
the coming weeks, including some that are funny and some that are simply
informative. We plan to measure how these videos resonate and what effect
they have on donations.

You can see the first video (about 'the cost of a cup of coffee') on
Facebook [1] Twitter [2] Commons [3] YouTube [4] and Vimeo [5]

[1] https://www.facebook.com/wikipedia/videos/10155753105638346/

[2] https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/935556395398709249

[3]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:If_everyone_reading_Wikipedia_right_now_donated_the_cost_of_a_cup_of_coffee.webm

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydrpWcsaECg

[5] https://vimeo.com/244658321

***That’s all for now! Thank you everyone for your support! I’ll update you
again later in the week!***

Regards

-- 
Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising, Wikimedia Foundation*
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[Wikimedia-l] English Fundraiser Launch - Tues 28th November

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all!

I wanted to send a quick reminder that our English language fundraiser is
officially launching tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday 28th November, at 16.00
UTC) with some final systems tests running between now and then.

---Banners and Ideas---

You can see the all of our current most effective fundraising banners on
our Fundraising Ideas page where you can also contribute any specific ideas
or stories we should tell via social media, banners, emails etc:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2017-18_Fundraising_ideas

---Blog Posts---

We've recently published two blog posts about our fundraising work. The
first covers how we try to limit the disruption to our readers during
campaigns. The second is a recent tranche of research conducted into what
our readers think about our fundraising. Take a look!

Banner limiting:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/03/fundraising-banner-limit/

Donor research:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/11/17/fundraising-donor-learnings/


---Reporting Issues---

If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems please
do report it on phabricator:

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862

If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions
about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer
them to: donate{{at}}wikimedia.org

Here is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent
technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising

http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4


---Next Updates---

There will be a further launch announcement on the Wikimedia blog tomorrow
and I will give a brief update at the end of the week with our progress and
hopefully some interesting initial lessons learnt. A more substantial
update will follow later in the week.

Finally, I’d like to thank the community here in advance for your help and
patience over the coming weeks. From here on out, wish us luck!

Many Thanks

-- 

Seddon

Community & Audience Engagement Associate

Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] non-technical community wish: Invitational essay authorship contest

[Joseph Seddon]

How is this relevant to wikimedia-l?

Seddon

On 21 Nov 2017 09:28, "James Salsman"  wrote:

> I offer $50 USD first prize and $25 for the runner-up for the best
> twelve paragraph essay on the topic of whether college students are
> likely to pay more in income taxes over their lifetime than the
> present value of the entire amount of their college tuition, room, and
> board expenses.
>
> This contest is open only to the top 50% of participants in the
> Wikimedia Education Program or WikiEd Foundation's student editors.
>
> If there are any objections to this contest, please let me know. If
> there are any reasons it shouldn't be communicated to the eligible,
> please let me know. I ask both foundations to match my award, taking
> the prizes to $150 and $75 if they agree. Thank you!
>
> Sincerely,
> James Salsman
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Fundraising Update - English Wikipedia Fundraising

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey all!


Just a quick update and heads up on our upcoming fundraising activities.


This quarter marks an exciting time for the Wikimedia Foundation
Fundraising team as we run our English fundraiser, the largest campaign of
the year. As with previous years, that means running banners on English
Wikipedia and sending emails to past donors. It means hundreds of A/B tests
analyzing the impact of our messages to learn what kinds of content
resonates best with Wikipedia readers.

We’re just a few weeks away from the official launch of our banner campaign
on Giving Tuesday, November 28. [1] In the meantime, our email campaign has
launched and we are running periodic banner tests. By spreading out our
testing throughout the quarter, we are able to make more thoughtful choices
with regards to banner and email content, while limiting overall disruption
to our readers. We will not be showing more appeals or sending more emails
per user than previous years.

Last year, we ran a number of feedback sessions and surveys with both staff
and community, and we are hugely grateful to everyone who participated and
shared their feedback. We will be reaching out to English-languages
affiliates to take part in such sessions again. If you are interested in
joining such a session, please contact me offlist or sign up on the
Fundraising Ideas page. [3]

There are a number of other ways you can help support the fundraiser:


   -

   Have specific ideas or stories we should tell via social media, banners,
   emails etc.? We’re also looking for nice images, if you could point us to
   your favorites from Commons. Please add them to our fundraising ideas page.
   [3]


   -

   If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a
   Phabricator ticket. [4]


   -

   If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions
   about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer
   them to donate{{at}}wikimedia.org.
   -

   Feel free to test our payments flow [5] and suggest improvements. [4]


We look forward to working with you all in the coming weeks.

Many thanks

-- 

Seddon

*Community and Audience Engagement Associate *

Wikimedia Foundation

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

[2]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2016-2017_Fundraising_Report#Online_Fundraising_Banners

[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2017-18_Fundraising_ideas

[4]
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/1/?template=118862
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Conference 2018: Program themes, eligibility criteria and reporting deadlines

[Joseph Seddon]

The conference was born from the old affiliate model but that is not
representative of where we are now and for all its flaws and advantages,
the affiliate model has become very different.

Affiliates in some cases really do represent, projects, languages and
topics to varying degrees.

In some cases maybe affiliates really should be their local language
representatives. There is a difference though between representative in an
outreach, engagement or communication role with that of legal
representative.

The line blurs with each passing year and particularly as affiliates gain
in their experience. Maybe the conference should reflect the new roles and
responsibilities being carved out by the evolving affiliate model.

Seddon



On Tue, Oct 24, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Michael Maggs  wrote:

> Agreed. This would change the conference significantly. Its purpose has
> always been to discuss matters of common interest to movement
> *organisations*.  Organisations attend on their own behalf and not as
> representatives for any wider groups such as speakers of a specific
> language, or editors of any particular Wikipedia.
>
> Michael
>
> > On 23 Oct 2017, at 19:54, Isaac Olatunde 
> wrote:
> >
> > I share Lodewijk's concerns here. My understanding is that local chapters
> > have no control/authority over any language community. Unless we want
> > language communities to be under the control of local chapters or user
> > groups,  language communities should be allowed to choose their
> > representatives if they must be represented.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Isaac.
> >
> > On Oct 23, 2017 7:16 PM, "Lodewijk"  wrote:
> >
> > That all depends on the goals that the conference sets itself, as always
> :)
> >
> > As I understood it, the conference is intended for structured and
> organized
> > groups, rather than to be a representative forum for the whole movement.
> In
> > 2017, I understood there to be mostly two events taking place in the same
> > location - with some overlap in program. In that sense, this was quite a
> > unique situation because of the strategic process.
> >
> > The first question would be whether you accept each challenge as a goal.
> If
> > being representative of the whole movement becomes the goal, the
> structure
> > probably needs to be overhauled much more, and the default invitation for
> > all groups may have to be reconsidered. One representative from the
> > Japanese community wouldn't cut it, then (for example).
> >
> > On the other side, I could also imagine a different goal, which would be
> to
> > fill certain gaps in input diversity from the participants. This could be
> > input from certain language communities, or from certain cultures where
> we
> > even lack readership. This would make more sense to me - as it would not
> > imply a representation as much. In part it would lead to a similar
> > consideration and outcome, but it would force you to also consider other
> > areas where input is lacking from. For example, allied movements or
> project
> > communities beyond Wikipedia (for example, the collective of developing
> > language communities in Africa or communities that are
> government-blocked -
> > of which I'm uncertain if they are covered by affiliates). This would
> also
> > send the message to the communities you ask to send a representative what
> > you expect of such participant (if that would indeed be your goal).
> >
> > There could be many other goals of course, that you (plural) could have
> in
> > mind. I'm not sure which applies best. I would suggest not to deviate
> from
> > the official line that chapters don't represent language communities,
> > though. That is, unless this official line has changed.
> >
> > Warmly,
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 10:56 AM, Cornelius Kibelka <
> > cornelius.kibe...@wikimedia.de> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Lodewijk, hi JP,
> >>
> >> Over the last years, we received the feedback that the Wikimedia
> > Conference
> >> would not be as (globally) representative as it could or should be. For
> > the
> >> Wikimedia Conference 2017, several “Community Leaders” were invited to
> the
> >> conference to be heard for the Movement Strategy process, but the
> >> selection/invitation process was not as clear as it could have been.
> >>
> >> To be more representative on a global scale and to have more different
> >> people from different regions present at the conference, we needed
> clear,
> >> transparent and non arbitrary criteria. However, there is no solution
> that
> >> covers every possible challenge. Therefore, we chose to give this
> approach
> >> – with clear criteria – at least a try for the Wikimedia Conference
> 2018.
> >> Also, as we expect more changes in the Movement in the upcoming year,
> this
> >> approach is a try for 2018 only, as an overhaul of the whole concept of
> > the
> >> Wikimedia Conference will be needed anyway.
> >>
> >> Additionally, I want to highlight this, because this was criticized in
> the
> >> past as w

Re: [Wikimedia-l] The other side of the crisis at WMFR

[Joseph Seddon]

I must echo Lodewijk's words.

Washing dirty linen in public is beneficial to no one and damages everyone
involved including those making the accusations. There will be and are
lessons to be learned but right now there is a huge chilling effect from
the presence of lawyers on many sides and there is nothing to be gained
from this thread. There are proper avenues to deal with this, and if you
deem them appropriate then use hem, but this place is not one of those
avenues.

Regards
Seddon

On Fri, Oct 20, 2017 at 6:18 PM, Lodewijk 
wrote:

> While this topic is painful and important, I don't have the feeling any
> progress is being made by continuing this tirade on this mailing list.
>
> I can see that hiring lawyers to investigate, will (at least in my culture)
> always have a whiff of subjectivity. Even though this seems (from what I
> understand) to be the default approach in the US, which is the primary
> context in which the WMF operates. I would like to emphasize one sentence
> in Katherine's email: "the Foundation remains fully committed to reviewing
> and investigating additional information, if presented, of sexual or other
> harassment allegedly committed by any Wikimedia Foundation staff or board
> member. " This sounds to me as an invitation to the plaintiffs (*) to
> request to reopen the investigation and present further testimony and
> evidence. For obvious privacy concerns, I imagine this won't happen in
> public. I hope that they will make use of this offer.
>
> What I don't see however, is what the alternate pathway is that the
> plaintiffs have in mind. It is suggested that this is a complaint that has
> been filed with the judicial system in France, which makes it even harder
> for anyone involved to publicly comment (while I'm not legally schooled, I
> suspect that any lawyer would probably advise against it). Therefore, I
> don't have the impression that continuing the very personal discussion
> about individuals without offering an alternative pathway is particularly
> helpful - especially as we don't even know in detail what the allegations
> are (a crucial piece of context). I'm even more concerned where discussions
> start to be held through the media (although I'm not sure I misunderstood
> that part).
>
> The plaintiffs have however also mentioned that the general climate should
> be improved. That seems a topic where public conversations can actually be
> helpful. I don't have a shred of doubt that there was a toxic climate in
> Wikimedia France. Both parties accuse each other for being responsible for
> that. What I would be more interested in, is what you as the WMFR
> community, or we as the international community, could have done to
> de-escalate that situation much earlier. This is not the first conflict
> situation in our movement, and I fear it'll be the last.
>
> When the dust has settled a bit, I would be in favor of asking (a subset
> of) the Affiliations Committee to look into the situation (and perhaps
> similar conflicts in other communities that were less visible), and come
> with some recommendations. This will probably not be very satisfactory for
> the involved parties where it comes to 'justice being done' - but it may
> help avoid more pain in the future.
>
> With a sad heart,
>
> Lodewijk
>
> (*) The reason I'm not mentioning people by name is not because I don't
> respect them, but because I don't necessarily want this thread to turn up
> in search results for eternity. I imagine others may have similar good
> faith reasons.
>
> On Fri, Oct 20, 2017 at 8:21 AM, Frans Grijzenhout 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Remi, You're mail is one big complaint, may I remind you to the last
> > phrase of your Board Handbook? It states: Fortes capacité
> d’auto-évaluation
> > ​ (​Strong self-assessment capability). Thank you, 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/
> >
> > 2017-10-20 13:49 GMT+02:00 Rémi Mathis :
> >
> > > Katherine,
> > >
> > > I told you a month ago "Maybe you should reply as a responsible human
> > being
> > > and not as a trained crisis communication people". This is truer
> > everyday.
> > >
> > > What did you write this email yesterday, and not one,two, three months
> > ago?
> > > Because I left Wikimedia France, because a Fields Medallist left,
> because
> > > the president of Picasso Museum left, and because journalists began to
> > talk
> > > about the harassment and the violence of some members of the community.
> > > Because the fact that Nathalie Martin had filed a complaint against
> > > Christophe Henner begins to spread not only amongst the community but
> > also
> > > outside.
> > > Because the articles made people aware of the problem and that they are
> > > victims too, and new testimonies are being sent to journalists.
> > > Because you met Christophe Henner in person th

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMFR financials, 1.2 mio budget, team of 15 FTE

[Joseph Seddon]

I believe that the 1.2million reflected Wikimedia France expenditure for
the previous financial year. I suspect the staff numbers are simply out of
date.

Seddon

On 14 Oct 2017 12:23, "rupert THURNER"  wrote:

> the linkedin page of emeric says that WMFR has 1.2 Mio Eur budget, 15 FTE
> employees. which year was this?
>
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/evallespi/
>
> DirectorCompany NameWikimédia FranceDates EmployedDec 2012 – Sep 2017
> Employment
> Duration4 yrs 10 mosLocationMontpellier | Paris
> 
>
> - June 2017 to present : Board of trustees member
> - May 2016 to may 2017 : Chairman / President
> - October 2014 to April 2016: Vice-chair
> - December 2012 to September 2014: Deputy treasurer
>
> Wikimedia France is a non-profit organization (based on "the Association
> act of 1901" in France) which promotes and supports 14 projects, the best
> known is Wikipedia. The 3 main missions are:
> - Increase contents on this projects (quality and quantity) ;
> - Facilitation of interested communities ;
> - Action on the environment (economic, legal, technical) to make it
> favorable to our movement.
>
> Budget: € 1,200,000
> Team (Full Time Equivalent) : 15
>
> Main skills: strategy, volunteers & staff management, dyarchical
> governance, international relationships, financial and accounting analysis,
> internal control, human resources, labour law, press and media
> relationships, public policy, lobbying, internal and external
> communication.
>
> rupert
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] September 28: Strategy update - Final draft of movement direction and endorsement process (#25)

[Joseph Seddon]

Based on your definition of community does that mean that mediawiki
developers are not part of the Wikimedia community?

Are people who volunteer in the real world or teachers who incorporate
Wikipedia into their classes not part of the Wikimedia community?

Members of staff of GLAM institutions who we partner with and who
evangelise on our behalf? Are they not part of the Wikimedia community?

This more inclusive definition has long been used by some affiliates.

To exclude these individuals would be against the very values of openness
that we claim to represent and to be blunt, simply alienating.

Seddon

On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 3:10 PM, Fæ  wrote:

> Ziko's point may not fit the rigid Americanocentric ideal of everything
> must be positive, fantastic, yeehaw-we-are-number-one, but he's spot on
> with how the foundations remain flawed.
>
> Only ever hearing congratulations and thanks can get you to a win, but will
> never keep you there.
>
> Return to the talk page and use the criticism to help meaningful
> improvements, please.
>
> Fae
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
> http://telegram.me/wmlgbt
>
> On 2 Oct 2017 14:56, "Ziko van Dijk"  wrote:
>
> Hello Katherine,
>
> This is actually sad news. In my opinion, the draft is far away from being
> a useful and appropriate document for our future.
>
> The serious issues from the talk page are only partially addressed in the
> rewrite. So I contest your claim: "The version on Meta-Wiki is based on the
> feedback you offered."
>
> You have announced that organizations and individuals are invited to
> endorse the draft. Will there also be a possibility to reject the draft? I
> remember the 2011 image filter referendum, when the WMF asked the community
> how important it finds the filter, but not giving the option to be against
> it.
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image_filter_referendum/en&;
> uselang=en
>
> The drafts tries to enforce a new definition of the "community": "from
> editors to donors, to organizers, and beyond". I thought that "community"
> were people who are contributing to the wiki Wikipedia on a regular basis
> as volunteers.
>
> I am very positive of having an open Wikimedia *movement*. But if in future
> more or less everybody will be *community*: that is in fact abolishing the
> community.
>
> Kind regards,
> Ziko van Dijk
>
>
>
>
>
> 2017-09-30 22:28 GMT+02:00 Katherine Maher :
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Since my update last month, we have been collecting, processing, and
> > including your most recent input into the lastest version of the movement
> > strategic direction. This version is available on Meta-Wiki.[1]
> >
> > We're so close! The direction will be finalized tomorrow, October 1.
> > Starting tomorrow, we will begin to invite individuals and groups to
> > endorse our movement's strategic direction. I want to share my greatest
> > thanks and appreciation for the work and contributions so many of you
> have
> > made throughout this first phase (Phase 1) of developing a shared
> strategic
> > direction.
> >
> > In the coming weeks we will be preparing for Phase 2, which will involve
> > developing specific plans for how we achieve the direction we have built
> > together. I do not have many more details to share right now, but will of
> > course offer an update as they become available.
> >
> > *Strategic direction*. Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on the
> > draft introduced at Wikimania. The version on Meta-Wiki is based on the
> > feedback you offered.
> >
> > *Endorsements*. Once the strategic direction closes tomorrow,
> > organizations, groups, and individuals within the movement will be
> invited
> > to endorse the direction, in a show of support for the future we are
> > building together. We'll be sending an update next week on the process
> and
> > timeline.
> >
> > *Concluding Phase 1*. Please join me in offering thanks to the
> volunteers,
> > staff, and contractors who came together to make this possible! As we
> > transition into Phase 2, some of these roles will be concluded and new
> ones
> > created in their place. We'll keep you updated.
> >
> > *Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2017*. I was fortunate to join Wikimedians from
> > Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) last weekend at the sixth annual
> Wikimedia
> > CEE Meeting[2] in Warsaw, Poland. Nicole Ebber and Kaarel Vaidla led a
> > series of discussions on the direction, including what it means for
> CEE.[3]
> > Thank you our hosts, Wikimedia Polska, and to all of the attendees for
> such
> > a wonderful event!
> >
> > *In other news.* I've heard from many people how much you appreciate
> these
> > updates as a means of keeping track about what is going on. I'm talking
> to
> > the Communications department about keeping them going once the strategic
> > planning process concludes, with a focus on more general updates. Keep
> the
> > feedback coming.
> >
> > Since my last update, our planet has reminded us of its incredible and
> > often unforg

Re: [Wikimedia-l] CentralNotice help for Wikimedia Conference Russia / Oct.14-15

[Joseph Seddon]

All sorted via the Wikipedia Weekly facebook group.

Currently on leave and CentralNotice is severely under-resourced with
community members (like many community processes in the movement).

If there are any members of this list who have skills with building
templates and familiar with html and css  who would like to contribute to
supporting affiliates and community members in building banners for their
events, competitions and outreach activities get in touch with a friendly
community central notice or meta admin [1] for guidance on what is involved.

Regards
Seddon

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListUsers?username=&group=sysop&wpsubmit=&wpFormIdentifier=mw-listusers-form&limit=50


On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 7:51 AM, Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin <
f...@yandex.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> Where can I request experienced user's help with CentralNotice banner for
> Wikimedia Conference Russia in Moscow, Oct.14-15?
>
> At Montreal meeting with WMF staff (James Baldwin, Jaime Villagomez,
> Winifred Olliff, Stephen LaPorte & Charles M. Roslof), it was said Mr.
> Joseph Seddon would be the person to ask for help, but I got no reply to my
> Sept.19 email.
>
> I understand there might be more than just placing a request for the
> banner & adding it into the calendar, but I need help with it. I limited
> the scope to WP only, cut down the number of languages & shortened to one
> week only.
>
> Thank you in advance.
> Regards,
> farhad
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Request/
> 2017_Wiki_Conference_Russia
>
> https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8-%D0%
> BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F_2017/en
>
> --
> Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 /
> skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners for logged-in users (was:How can we fix the two-stage page loading problem?)

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey David & Romaine,

I wanted to just give a quick reply to let you know that I am looking into
this further.

I will reiterate that WMF fundraising does not and has not actively shown
fundraising banners to logged in users for the past five years and I do
apologise if you've been disrupted in your work whether through human or
technical error.

The possible causes for this are numerous and it will take time to identify
the scale, cause and solution to this.

Regards
Seddon

On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 11:38 AM, Romaine Wiki 
wrote:

> I am sorry to say but I am constantly logged in and do see fundraising
> banners every year.
>
> Each time when it was announced fundraising banners would come, I have seen
> them logged in, in multiple countries.
>
> Romaine
>
>
> Op dinsdag 5 september 2017 heeft Joseph Seddon 
> het
> volgende geschreven:
>
> > Hey Strainu,
> >
> > You are probably right in that you saw a banner but regarding
> specifically
> > fundraising banners, I am 100% certain that the WMF does not and has not
> > for some years actively shown banners to users who are logged in. The
> > caveat with that is this does not preclude any possibility of human error
> > or a software bug. I'm not aware of any specific occasion where this has
> > occurred in the last two years but with a piece of software that serves
> > billions of page views, across 20-30 countries and some probably some
> 3000
> > banner tests during that period, probabilities that something hadn't gone
> > wrong start reaching levels of sigma that not even I would attempt to
> claim
> > :P
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Seddon
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 1:38 PM, Strainu  > > wrote:
> >
> > > Changing subject, the other thread is about something totally
> different.
> > >
> > > 2017-09-05 14:38 GMT+03:00 Joseph Seddon  > >:
> > > > WMF hasn't shown fundraising banners to logged in users for several
> > > years.
> > >
> > > While I wouldn't bet my life on it, I'm pretty sure I saw banners on
> > > mobile just last month, while being logged in.
> > >
> > > Strainu
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Regards
> > > > Seddon
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On 5 Sep 2017 08:33, "Lodewijk"  > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Hey Ori,
> > > >>
> > > >> I like the creative thinking :) For the fundraising that could
> indeed
> > > work
> > > >> well (although I have no numbers on what percentage of domations
> comes
> > > from
> > > >> logged in users etc), but there are also campaigns tht are quite
> > > relevant
> > > >> for logged in users.
> > > >>
> > > >> Lodewijk
> > > >>
> > > >> On Sun, Sep 3, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Ori Livneh  > >
> > > wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> > On Sep 3, 2017 13:02, "David Gerard"  > > wrote:
> > > >> >
> > > >> > On 2 September 2017 at 02:09, Michael Peel  > >
> > > wrote:
> > > >> >
> > > >> > > This is possibly the most annoying feature of the Wikimedia
> > > projects at
> > > >> > the moment. You access a page. Then you start reading or editing
> it.
> > > And
> > > >> > then suddenly the page jumps when a fundraising banner / central
> > > notice /
> > > >> > gadget / beta feature loads. So you have to start reading the page
> > > again,
> > > >> > or you have to find where you were editing again, or you have to
> > undo
> > > the
> > > >> > change you just made since you made it in the wrong part of the
> > page.
> > > >> >
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Or you click "edit" and it hits the banner that suddenly popped up
> > > >> > under your click. 
> > > >> >
> > > >> >
> > > >> > One possible solution would be to exempt anyone who edits an
> article
> > > from
> > > >> > being shown a banner by means of a cookie with a suitable expiry.
> > > Since
> > > >> > only a tiny fraction of visitors edit, I would expect the impact
> on
> > > the
> > > >> > WMF's bottom line to be negligible.
> > > >>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] How can we fix the two-stage page loading problem?

[Joseph Seddon]

Hi David,

I would refer to my answer I gave on the forked thread relating to this
topic.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-September/088570.html

Regards
Seddon

On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 3:46 PM, David Emrany  wrote:

> Sure Lodewijk,
>
> Banners from December 2016:
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inline_donor_bannerbass.png
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Inline_
> donor_bannerbass.png
>
> Comments from Seddon
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-
> December/085612.html
>
> Perhaps these banners were muted for logged-in users in USA, but I was
> in S-E Asia last December and it was a very unpleasant experience for
> me, especially while on mobile and logged in, to get a begging
> banner/pop-up about after every 4 pages I loaded.
>
> David
>
> On 9/6/17, Lodewijk  wrote:
> > Hi David,
> >
> > Would you mind elaborating on the first point? I vaguely recall test
> > banners being shown to logged in users, but don't recall seeing one
> myself
> > while logged in for a while.
> >
> > Best,
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 2:16 PM, David Emrany 
> wrote:
> >
> >> a) This is incorrect
> >> b) how many years would "for several years" encompass?
> >>
> >> David
> >>
> >> On 9/5/17, Joseph Seddon  wrote:
> >> > WMF hasn't shown fundraising banners to logged in users for several
> >> years.
> >> >
> >> > Regards
> >> > Seddon
> >>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners for logged-in users (was:How can we fix the two-stage page loading problem?)

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Strainu,

You are probably right in that you saw a banner but regarding specifically
fundraising banners, I am 100% certain that the WMF does not and has not
for some years actively shown banners to users who are logged in. The
caveat with that is this does not preclude any possibility of human error
or a software bug. I'm not aware of any specific occasion where this has
occurred in the last two years but with a piece of software that serves
billions of page views, across 20-30 countries and some probably some 3000
banner tests during that period, probabilities that something hadn't gone
wrong start reaching levels of sigma that not even I would attempt to claim
:P

Regards

Seddon

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 1:38 PM, Strainu  wrote:

> Changing subject, the other thread is about something totally different.
>
> 2017-09-05 14:38 GMT+03:00 Joseph Seddon :
> > WMF hasn't shown fundraising banners to logged in users for several
> years.
>
> While I wouldn't bet my life on it, I'm pretty sure I saw banners on
> mobile just last month, while being logged in.
>
> Strainu
>
>
> >
> > Regards
> > Seddon
> >
> >
> >
> > On 5 Sep 2017 08:33, "Lodewijk"  wrote:
> >
> >> Hey Ori,
> >>
> >> I like the creative thinking :) For the fundraising that could indeed
> work
> >> well (although I have no numbers on what percentage of domations comes
> from
> >> logged in users etc), but there are also campaigns tht are quite
> relevant
> >> for logged in users.
> >>
> >> Lodewijk
> >>
> >> On Sun, Sep 3, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Ori Livneh 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> > On Sep 3, 2017 13:02, "David Gerard"  wrote:
> >> >
> >> > On 2 September 2017 at 02:09, Michael Peel 
> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > This is possibly the most annoying feature of the Wikimedia
> projects at
> >> > the moment. You access a page. Then you start reading or editing it.
> And
> >> > then suddenly the page jumps when a fundraising banner / central
> notice /
> >> > gadget / beta feature loads. So you have to start reading the page
> again,
> >> > or you have to find where you were editing again, or you have to undo
> the
> >> > change you just made since you made it in the wrong part of the page.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Or you click "edit" and it hits the banner that suddenly popped up
> >> > under your click. 
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > One possible solution would be to exempt anyone who edits an article
> from
> >> > being shown a banner by means of a cookie with a suitable expiry.
> Since
> >> > only a tiny fraction of visitors edit, I would expect the impact on
> the
> >> > WMF's bottom line to be negligible.
> >> > ___
> >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> >> > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> >> > wiki/Wikimedia-l
> >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> ,
> >> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> >> >
> >> ___
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-- 
Seddon

*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)*
*Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] How can we fix the two-stage page loading problem?

[Joseph Seddon]

WMF hasn't shown fundraising banners to logged in users for several years.

Regards
Seddon



On 5 Sep 2017 08:33, "Lodewijk"  wrote:

> Hey Ori,
>
> I like the creative thinking :) For the fundraising that could indeed work
> well (although I have no numbers on what percentage of domations comes from
> logged in users etc), but there are also campaigns tht are quite relevant
> for logged in users.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Sun, Sep 3, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Ori Livneh  wrote:
>
> > On Sep 3, 2017 13:02, "David Gerard"  wrote:
> >
> > On 2 September 2017 at 02:09, Michael Peel  wrote:
> >
> > > This is possibly the most annoying feature of the Wikimedia projects at
> > the moment. You access a page. Then you start reading or editing it. And
> > then suddenly the page jumps when a fundraising banner / central notice /
> > gadget / beta feature loads. So you have to start reading the page again,
> > or you have to find where you were editing again, or you have to undo the
> > change you just made since you made it in the wrong part of the page.
> >
> >
> > Or you click "edit" and it hits the banner that suddenly popped up
> > under your click. 
> >
> >
> > One possible solution would be to exempt anyone who edits an article from
> > being shown a banner by means of a cookie with a suitable expiry. Since
> > only a tiny fraction of visitors edit, I would expect the impact on the
> > WMF's bottom line to be negligible.
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> > wiki/Wikimedia-l
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
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