from:"Jay Walsh"

[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Press release about Wikidata

2012-03-30 Thread Jay Walsh

Sharing from the Foundation-l mailing list.

-- Forwarded message --
From: Denny Vrandečić 
Date: 2012/3/30
Subject: [Foundation-l] Press release about Wikidata
To: Foundation list 

Hi all,

Wikimedia Germany is sending out a press release about Wikidata today. The
press release sums up the information that has been published on Meta since
last Wikimania, where it was first presented and discussions started, and
refined since then, including information about the donation that is making
Wikidata possible.

More information about Wikidata is on its Meta page:

We are very excited about the Wikidata development team starting on Monday.
This also means, that in the future we will be communicating about Wikidata
much more, as the development is finally starting. Yay!

I want to take this opportunity to thank the donors of Wikidata, the Allen
Institute of Artificial Intelligence ai2, the Gordon and Betty Moore
Foundation, and Google for the generous support, that enables us to work on
the Wikidata project for the next year.

Exciting times are waiting for us, Cheers all,
Denny

--
Project director Wikidata
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Eisenacher Straße 2 | 10777 Berlin
Tel. +49-30-219 158 26-0 | http://wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] (press release) Telenor makes Wikipedia available to 135 million customers in Asia and Europe

2012-02-28 Thread Jay Walsh

(also posted online at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Telenor_and_WMF_partner_on_Wikipedia_mobile
)

*Telenor makes Wikipedia available to 135 million customers in Asia and
Europe*

San Francisco, California and Oslo, Norway -- February 28, 2012 --Telenor
Group and the Wikimedia Foundation today announced a new partnership to
offer Wikipedia free of traffic charges on mobile devices to Telenor
customers in Asia and Southeastern Europe. By making versions of Wikipedia
available to 135 million mobile customers, Telenor Group and the Wikimedia
Foundation demonstrate a shared commitment to increasing access to the free
and open knowledge available on Wikipedia.

This initiative is part of the Wikimedia Foundation's mobile strategy,
which focuses on reaching the billions of people around the world whose
primary opportunity to access the Internet is via a mobile device.

“The Wikimedia Foundation is working to remove barriers to free knowledge,
and for most people around the world right now, cost and accessibility are
the two biggest hurdles,” says Barry Newstead, Wikimedia Chief Global
Development Officer. “We applaud Telenor for joining us to deliver free
access to Wikipedia for their customers. Through this partnership, we move
a step closer to providing the sum of all knowledge to everyone in the
world.”

This partnership supports Telenor's commitment to bring more value to its
mobile customers. The company has pioneered the development of value-adding
services to rural and underserved communities in Asia. Telenor involve
millions in Asia through the I-Genius project, which has already reached
out to 300,000 Bangladeshi students and school-children with a call to
explore open knowledge on the internet.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with the Wikimedia
Foundation. Telenor have pioneered affordable, mobile communications across
much of Asia, and we have built a track record of offering vital services
with a significant outreach” says Kristin Skogen Lund, Executive Vice
President and Head of Digital Services at Telenor Group. “With this
agreement, we are first in Asia to bring a vast knowledge source to the
millions in underserved communities across the region.”

The 3-year partnership between Telenor Group and the Wikimedia Foundation
will cover 135 million users. The agreement is signed by seven countries:
Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Montenegro, and Serbia. By
the end of the year, more markets are expected to join. The agreement will
be implemented step by step throughout 2012, with the first markets
launching during the second quarter.

Each local Telenor affiliate will establish technical solutions together
with the Wikimedia Foundation. Customers with a Telenor SIM will be able to
access a version of the encyclopedia for as many times as they like in a
given period, at no charge, as long as they stay within Wikipedia’s pages.

For more information, read the Telnor Partnership Q&A
here<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects/Partnerships/Q_and_A#Telenor_Partnership>
.

*About Telenor*

http://www.telenor.com

Telenor Group is an international provider of telecom, data and media
communication services. Telenor Group has mobile operations in 11 markets
in the Nordic region, Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia. The company
also has an ownership stake of 36.4 percent in VimpelCom Ltd., operating in
19 markets. Headquartered in Norway, Telenor Group is one of the world’s
major mobile operators with 140 million mobile subscriptions in its
consolidated operations per Q4 2011, revenues in 2011 of NOK 99 billion,
and a workforce of approximately 30,000.

*About the Wikimedia Foundation*

http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 482 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, January 2012).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.

*Press contacts*

*Telenor:
*Tor Odland
Vice President
CommunicationsTelenor Group
+47 9909 0872
tor.odl...@telenor.com

*Wikimedia Foundation:
*Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
+1 415-839-6885, ext 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org

*(To be unsubscribed from this list, reply with "unsubscribe" in the
subject line.)*
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[Foundation-l] WMF moving from GoDaddy to MarkMonitor

2012-02-13 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi folks - you may have seen some media coverage recently about
Wikimedia's intentions around GoDaddy.  It is true that WMF is still
planning to move 100% away from GoDaddy for all of its domain name
services.

I've been informed that we're currently working with MarkMonitor to
carry out a full switch-over, which as many of you will appreciate,
takes time. WMF is going to post to the blog and generally share this
information as soon as the process is complete.  Until then, it does
mean that you'll see in some of our DNS registrations that GoDaddy is
still listed.  We're working on it :)

Thanks - and stay tuned for more news in the next week.


-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw

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[Foundation-l] "We are the media, and so are you" Jimmy Wales and Kat Walsh OpEd in Washington Post

2012-02-09 Thread Jay Walsh

se we are the media industry. We are the creators. We are the
innovators. The whole world benefits from our work. That work, and our
ability to do it, is worth protecting for everyone.

---
Jay Walsh, Head of Communications
wikimediafoundation.org
+1 415 839 6885 ext 6609
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] "We are the media, and so are you" Jimmy Wales and Kat Walsh OpEd in Washington Post

2012-02-09 Thread Jay Walsh

se we are the media industry. We are the creators. We are the
innovators. The whole world benefits from our work. That work, and our
ability to do it, is worth protecting for everyone.

---
Jay Walsh, Head of Communications
wikimediafoundation.org
+1 415 839 6885 ext 6609
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation partner to offer Wikipedia in Africa and the Middle East at no extra cost

2012-01-24 Thread Jay Walsh

e trade marks of Orange Brand
Services Limited, Orange France or France Telecom.
**

About the Wikimedia Foundation

http://wikimediafoundation.org

http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 457 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, December 2011).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.

Press Contacts:
**

Orange

US/UK – Vanessa Clarke / Jeff Sharpe

+44 7891 056 593 / +44 7887 620 901

vanessa.cla...@orange.com / jeff.sha...@orange.com

France – Héloïse Rothenbühler

+33 1 44 44 93 93

heloise.rothenbuh...@orange.com
**

Wikimedia Foundation

Jay Walsh

Head of Communications

Wikimedia Foundation

+1 415-839-6885, ext 6609

jwa...@wikimedia.org



-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation chosen #1 global NGO of 100 by The Global Journal

2012-01-23 Thread Jay Walsh

Today we were pleased to be notified that the Wikimedia Foundation was
chosen #1 among a list of 100 global NGOs.

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/23/wikimedia-foundation-voted-1-global-ngo-by-the-global-journal/


>From their press release on the announcement: "Recognizing the significant
role of NGOs as influential agents of change on a global scale, The Global
Journal has sought to move beyond outdated clichés and narrow conceptions
about what an NGO is and does. From humanitarian relief to the environment,
public health to education, microfinance to intellectual property, NGOs are
increasingly at the forefront of developments shaping the lives of millions
of people around the world."

The top 100 list can be found here:
http://theglobaljournal.net/top100NGOs/

And the entry on the Wikimedia Foundation here:
http://theglobaljournal.net/article/view/476/

Our thanks to the Global Journal for recognizing Wikimedia, our global
community, and our mission.

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] (press release) Wikipedia blackout affirms overwhelming support for free and open Internet

2012-01-20 Thread Jay Walsh

(Also posted at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikipedia_blackout_supports_free_and_open_internet
)

*Wikipedia blackout affirms overwhelming support for free and open Internet
*Millions “Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge” and act to oppose
SOPA/PIPA

San Francisco, CA - January 19, 2012 -- Over the course of 24 hours on
Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 162 million people experienced the Wikipedia
blackout landing page -- an unprecedented, historic shuttering of the
largest repository of free knowledge in the world. More than 8 million U.S.
readers looked up their Congressional representatives through Wikipedia to
protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) --
proposed U.S. legislation that, if passed, will harm the free and open
Internet.

The protest drew worldwide attention to SOPA and PIPA, legislation that had
previously been cast as a battle between powerful corporate interests.
Before the blackout, the bills were poised to sail through Congress with
bi-partisan support. But after the public joined the debate on Wednesday,
members of Congress on both sides of the aisle declared their opposition
and made passage of the current bills much less likely.

“The Wikipedia blackout is over and the public has spoken,” said Sue
Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director. “162 million of you saw
our blackout page asking if you could imagine a world without free
knowledge. You said no. You shut down the Congressional switchboards, and
you melted their servers. Your voice was loud and strong.”

Immediately after the blackout started, #factswithoutwikipedia,
#sopastrike, and “Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge” trended worldwide
on Twitter. In the first hour of the blackout, #wikipediablackout
constituted 1% of all tweets. More than 12,000 people posted comments of
support on the Wikimedia Foundation’s blog post announcing the blackout.

For Wikipedia, this fight has never been about money, but about knowledge.
As a community of authors, editors, photographers, and programmers,
Wikipedians invite everyone to share and build upon the work already begun.

In a little over a decade, Wikipedians have built the largest encyclopedia
in human history. Wikipedia’s mission is to empower and engage people to
document the sum of all human knowledge, and to make it available to all
humanity, in perpetuity.

The Internet has enabled creativity, knowledge, and innovation to shine. As
Wikipedia and other websites went dark, readers directed their energy to
protecting the free and open Internet.

We thank our readers for their support.

*About the Wikimedia Foundation
*http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.

Media Contact:

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org

(To be unsubscribed from this list please reply with 'unsubscribe' in the
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] (PRESS RELEASE) Statement from the Wikimedia Foundation regarding developments in Washington on SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-20 Thread Jay Walsh

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Statement_on_Jan_20_events_in_Washington

*Statement from the Wikimedia Foundation regarding developments in
Washington on SOPA and PIPA*

San Francisco, CA -- January 20, 2012 -- On January 18, millions of people
called their Congressional representatives to denounce SOPA and PIPA as
attacks on the free and open Internet. This morning, leaders in the House
and Senate announced consideration of the bills would be indefinitely
postponed, after many members of Congress, including some supporters of the
bills, issued statements disassociating themselves from the legislation
over the past two days.

Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said:

The Wikimedia Foundation welcomes these developments. This is another step
towards the ultimate destruction of these two pieces of proposed
legislation. But let’s be clear, these bills are not dead. They will
return, and when they do, they must not harm the interests of the hundreds
of millions of people who contribute to the free and open Internet.

The blackout was led by millions of ordinary Internet users, and the people
who make projects like Wikipedia possible - writers, photographers, editors
and illustrators. They sent a clear message to Congress: don’t mess with
free expression, don’t destroy the free and open Internet, don’t do the
bidding of traditional corporate interests. This is a moment in history
when the people who create and share works on the Internet as part of the
free knowledge movement, and the people who depend on access to those
works, are asking to be heard and to have their freedom of speech protected.


*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.

Media Contact:

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org
(to be unsubscribed from this list, please reply with "unsubscribe" in the
subject line")
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[Foundation-l] (PRESS RELEASE) Statement from the Wikimedia Foundation regarding developments in Washington on SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-20 Thread Jay Walsh

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Statement_on_Jan_20_events_in_Washington

*Statement from the Wikimedia Foundation regarding developments in
Washington on SOPA and PIPA*

San Francisco, CA -- January 20, 2012 -- On January 18, millions of people
called their Congressional representatives to denounce SOPA and PIPA as
attacks on the free and open Internet. This morning, leaders in the House
and Senate announced consideration of the bills would be indefinitely
postponed, after many members of Congress, including some supporters of the
bills, issued statements disassociating themselves from the legislation
over the past two days.

Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said:

The Wikimedia Foundation welcomes these developments. This is another step
towards the ultimate destruction of these two pieces of proposed
legislation. But let’s be clear, these bills are not dead. They will
return, and when they do, they must not harm the interests of the hundreds
of millions of people who contribute to the free and open Internet.

The blackout was led by millions of ordinary Internet users, and the people
who make projects like Wikipedia possible - writers, photographers, editors
and illustrators. They sent a clear message to Congress: don’t mess with
free expression, don’t destroy the free and open Internet, don’t do the
bidding of traditional corporate interests. This is a moment in history
when the people who create and share works on the Internet as part of the
free knowledge movement, and the people who depend on access to those
works, are asking to be heard and to have their freedom of speech protected.

*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.

Media Contact:

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] (PRESS RELEASE) Wikipedia blackout affirms overwhelming support for free and open Internet

2012-01-18 Thread Jay Walsh

(Also posted at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikipedia_blackout_supports_free_and_open_internet
)

*Wikipedia blackout affirms overwhelming support for free and open Internet
*Millions “Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge” and act to oppose
SOPA/PIPA

The Internet has enabled creativity, knowledge, and innovation to shine. As
Wikipedia and other websites went dark, readers directed their energy to
protecting the free and open Internet.

We thank our readers for their support.

*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.

Media Contact:

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-17 Thread Jay Walsh

*English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA
*
San Francisco -- January 16, 2012 -- On January 18, 2012, in an
unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the
English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed
legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the
U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If
passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring
about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United
States.

Wikipedia administrators confirmed this decision Monday afternoon (PST) in
a public statement (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action#Summary_and_conclusion
):

Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined
together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take
against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in
a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level
of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The
overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage
greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals
considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the
English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites
opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.

“Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition
to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.
"This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we
regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even
a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free
speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening
precedent of Internet censorship for the world."

We urge Wikipedia readers to make your voices heard. If you live in the
United States, find your elected representative in Washington (
https://www.eff.org/sopacall). If you live outside the United States,
contact your State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar
branch of government. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and want the
internet to remain open and free.

*About the Wikimedia Foundation
*http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.


*Media Contact:
*
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org

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Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-16 Thread Jay Walsh

As far as we know, it's 0500 UTC

On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 7:22 PM, Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> Thanks for this announcement Jay, and everyone involved in the planning of
> this unprecedented action.
>
> Quick clarification:
> What time, precisely, will this be occurring?
> The on-wiki summary states "...for 24 hours starting at 05:00 UTC on
> January 18, 2012, or at another time as determined by the Wikimedia
> Foundation." could you just confirm what time this will happen, thanks.
>
> -Liam
>
> On Tuesday, 17 January 2012, Jay Walsh  wrote:
> > Please also see the related blog post,
> >
>
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18/
> >
> > The release is posted here:
> >
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_to_go_dark
> >
> > *English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA
> > *
> > San Francisco -- January 16, 2012 -- On January 18, 2012, in an
> > unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout
> the
> > English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed
> > legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in
> the
> > U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate.
> If
> > passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring
> > about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the
> United
> > States.
> >
> > Wikipedia administrators confirmed this decision Monday afternoon (PST)
> in
> > a public statement (
> >
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action#Summary_and_conclusion
> > ):
> >
> > Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined
> > together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to
> take
> > against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation
> in
> > a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the
> level
> > of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The
> > overwhelming majority of participants support community action to
> encourage
> > greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals
> > considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the
> > English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites
> > opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
> >
> > “Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their
> opposition
> > to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.
> > "This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we
> > regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for
> even
> > a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger
> free
> > speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening
> > precedent of Internet censorship for the world."
> >
> > We urge Wikipedia readers to make your voices heard. If you live in the
> > United States, find your elected representative in Washington (
> > https://www.eff.org/sopacall). If you live outside the United States,
> > contact your State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar
> > branch of government. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and want the
> > internet to remain open and free.
> > ___________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> --
> Peace, love & metadata
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>



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WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-16 Thread Jay Walsh

Please also see the related blog post,
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18/

The release is posted here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_to_go_dark

*English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA
*
San Francisco -- January 16, 2012 -- On January 18, 2012, in an
unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the
English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed
legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the
U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If
passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring
about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United
States.

Wikipedia administrators confirmed this decision Monday afternoon (PST) in
a public statement (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action#Summary_and_conclusion
):

Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined
together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take
against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in
a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level
of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The
overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage
greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals
considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the
English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites
opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.

“Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition
to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.
"This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we
regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even
a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free
speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening
precedent of Internet censorship for the world."

We urge Wikipedia readers to make your voices heard. If you live in the
United States, find your elected representative in Washington (
https://www.eff.org/sopacall). If you live outside the United States,
contact your State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar
branch of government. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and want the
internet to remain open and free.

*About the Wikimedia Foundation
*http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.


*Media Contact:
*
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org
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[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-16 Thread Jay Walsh

Please also see the related blog post,
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18/

The release is posted here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_to_go_dark

*English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA
*
San Francisco -- January 16, 2012 -- On January 18, 2012, in an
unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the
English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed
legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the
U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If
passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring
about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United
States.

Wikipedia administrators confirmed this decision Monday afternoon (PST) in
a public statement (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action#Summary_and_conclusion
):

Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined
together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take
against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in
a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level
of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The
overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage
greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals
considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the
English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites
opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.

“Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition
to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.
"This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we
regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even
a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free
speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening
precedent of Internet censorship for the world."

We urge Wikipedia readers to make your voices heard. If you live in the
United States, find your elected representative in Washington (
https://www.eff.org/sopacall). If you live outside the United States,
contact your State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar
branch of government. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and want the
internet to remain open and free.
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Rings In New Year With Record-breaking Fundraiser

2012-01-02 Thread Jay Walsh

*Wikimedia Foundation Rings In New Year With Record-breaking Fundraiser*

*Over one million donors contribute to Wikimedia’s annual, global campaign*

San Francisco, CA -- January 2, 2012 - The Wikimedia Foundation’s annual
fundraising campaign reached a successful conclusion on Sunday, January 1,
having raised a record-breaking USD 20 million from more than one million
donors in nearly every country in the world. It is the Wikimedia
Foundation’s most successful campaign ever, continuing an unbroken streak
in which donations have risen every year since the campaigns began in 2003.

Wikimedia websites serve more than 470 million people every month. It is
the only major website supported not by advertising, but by donations from
readers.

“Our model is working fantastically well,” said Sue Gardner, Executive
Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “Ordinary people use Wikipedia and
they like it, so they chip in some cash so it will continue to thrive. That
maintains our independence and lets us focus solely on providing a useful
public service. I am so grateful to our donors for making that possible. I
promise them we will use their money carefully and well.”

Since 2008, the number of Wikimedia Foundation donors has increased
ten-fold, and the total dollar amount raised in the campaign has risen to
over $20 million from $4.5 million.

The annual fundraiser is how the Wikimedia Foundation pays its bills. Funds
raised in this campaign will be used to buy and install servers and other
hardware, to develop new site functionality, expand mobile services,
provide legal defense for the projects, and support the large global
community of Wikimedia volunteers. The Wikimedia Foundation's total 2011-12
planned spending is 28.3 million USD. The bulk of that is raised during the
annual campaign, and the remainder comes throughout the year in the form of
grants from institutions such as the Sloan Foundation, and many other small
donations year round.

This year’s campaign highlighted the volunteers who help to create
Wikipedia. It featured testimonials from volunteer editors in countries
such as Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United
States ranging in age from 18 to 76, explaining why they edit Wikipedia and
why they think readers should support the Wikimedia Foundation. More than
100 volunteers translated the banners and appeals into dozens of languages,
reaching hundreds of millions of people.

With over 20 million articles in 282 languages, Wikipedia is the largest
encyclopedia in human history. Over 100,000 volunteers work on Wikipedia
and its 10 sister projects (including projects like Wikimedia Commons,
Wikibooks, and Wiktionary), furthering the Wikimedia Foundation's mission
to freely share the sum of all human knowledge. On January 15, 2012,
Wikipedia will celebrate its 11th anniversary.

*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in more than 280 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than
100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia
Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily
through donations and grants.

Media Contact:

Jay Walsh

Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org


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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation Rings In New Year With Record-breaking Fundraiser

2012-01-02 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all - sharing the press release that we posted this morning (PST) about
the successfully conclusion of this year's campaign. Also posted here:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_Rings_In_New_Year_With_Record-breaking_Fundraiser

*Wikimedia Foundation Rings In New Year With Record-breaking Fundraiser*

*Over one million donors contribute to Wikimedia’s annual, global campaign*

San Francisco, CA -- January 2, 2012 - The Wikimedia Foundation’s annual
fundraising campaign reached a successful conclusion on Sunday, January 1,
having raised a record-breaking USD 20 million from more than one million
donors in nearly every country in the world. It is the Wikimedia
Foundation’s most successful campaign ever, continuing an unbroken streak
in which donations have risen every year since the campaigns began in 2003.

Wikimedia websites serve more than 470 million people every month. It is
the only major website supported not by advertising, but by donations from
readers.

“Our model is working fantastically well,” said Sue Gardner, Executive
Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “Ordinary people use Wikipedia and
they like it, so they chip in some cash so it will continue to thrive. That
maintains our independence and lets us focus solely on providing a useful
public service. I am so grateful to our donors for making that possible. I
promise them we will use their money carefully and well.”

Since 2008, the number of Wikimedia Foundation donors has increased
ten-fold, and the total dollar amount raised in the campaign has risen to
over $20 million from $4.5 million.

The annual fundraiser is how the Wikimedia Foundation pays its bills. Funds
raised in this campaign will be used to buy and install servers and other
hardware, to develop new site functionality, expand mobile services,
provide legal defense for the projects, and support the large global
community of Wikimedia volunteers. The Wikimedia Foundation's total 2011-12
planned spending is 28.3 million USD. The bulk of that is raised during the
annual campaign, and the remainder comes throughout the year in the form of
grants from institutions such as the Sloan Foundation, and many other small
donations year round.

This year’s campaign highlighted the volunteers who help to create
Wikipedia. It featured testimonials from volunteer editors in countries
such as Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United
States ranging in age from 18 to 76, explaining why they edit Wikipedia and
why they think readers should support the Wikimedia Foundation. More than
100 volunteers translated the banners and appeals into dozens of languages,
reaching hundreds of millions of people.

With over 20 million articles in 282 languages, Wikipedia is the largest
encyclopedia in human history. Over 100,000 volunteers work on Wikipedia
and its 10 sister projects (including projects like Wikimedia Commons,
Wikibooks, and Wiktionary), furthering the Wikimedia Foundation's mission
to freely share the sum of all human knowledge. On January 15, 2012,
Wikipedia will celebrate its 11th anniversary.

*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in more than 280 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than
100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia
Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily
through donations and grants.

--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
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Re: [Foundation-l] Smurfs Movie is infringing on wikipedia copyright

2011-12-17 Thread Jay Walsh

e Smurfs Movie...

jay


On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Robert Rohde  wrote:

> Is that screenshot actually from Wikipedia?
>
> It looks like the name is File:Blue Moon.JPG (though it is hard to
> tell from the video), but we have no such image under that name.
>
> The article [[blue moon]] actually uses a different image, and as far
> as I can see from browsing the history it always has.
>
> So, it seems like it might not even be a real screenshot of Wikipedia,
> but rather a page that had been further edited for their purposes.
> For example, they easily could have swapped in a public domain image
> of the moon from NASA.
>
> -Robert Rohde
>
> On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 8:49 AM, Kim Bruning 
> wrote:
> > On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 12:59:05PM +0100, Mike Dupont wrote:
> >> I found a clip with the wikipedia lifting being shown :
> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJxqFMPe95c
> >
> > Do we get properly credited in the end credits?
> > if not, it's time to
> >
> > ...UNLEASH THE LAWYER!!!...
> >
> > (Who can have a nice sit down and a cup of tea, and make sure they
> > modify the credits properly. :-) )
> >
> > sincerely,
> >Kim Bruning
> >
> > --
> >
> > ___
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> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
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Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation's 2010-11 Annual Report

2011-12-17 Thread Jay Walsh

Thanks for bringing up translation. I intended to bring this up in a
separate note.

We decided to take on translated 'summaries' this year fairly late into the
production process.  It seemed like we could handle this as
a parallel process without slowing down the main production.  That turned
out to be more or less true as the small translation group we worked with
(based in southern California) was able to tackle translation and layout
design (not creating the design, but basically filling in the blanks).

For this first effort with our annual report we wanted to outsource the
translation.  The most significant reason for this was the financials
section.  We wanted to have a company that had specialist experience in
translating US financial terminology and data.  We have to do this with
great caution due to tax and financial regulations in the US.  A
miscommunication of our finance data could cause real problems, and we
didn't want to put a volunteer in the position of making those tough calls.

The languages chosen were a balance between our geographic priorities
(Brazil, Middle East, India) and our widest base of donors and contributors
from other countries.  It's imperfect, as always - we want to do more in
the future, but we needed to get started.  These choices are by no means
part of a permanent pattern for WMF in terms of translation. Now that we
have a better understanding of the process we're hoping to expand it for
next year - but more importantly finding ways to get volunteers involved.

And yes, I think a community proof-read is another next step for next year.
 We were trying to strike a balance between speed and quality/detail.  But
we'll try more next year (and we're collecting notes and practices for the
production team right now - so this is all timely and relevant!).

jay

On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 4:57 AM, Seb35  wrote:

> Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:29:51 -0800, Jay Walsh  wrote:
> > The Wikimedia Foundation is happy to announce the release of the 2010-11
> > Annual Report, which is now posted on the WMF Wiki at
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report
>
> Thanks for this beautiful Annual Report :) Much appreciated also the
> translations!
>
> I have two points I would like see to happen in the process of the
> creation of this report:
> * a proofread by the community before the final issue; perhaps I missed
> it, but I didn’t find anything on foundation-l; for example it has been
> remarked a typo on the second page "Jean Javier" -> "Jean Janvier",
> corrected in the wiki version
> * a proofread of the translated versions; I didn’t noticed anything on
> translation-l; I noticed a couple of translation errors in the French
> version (example: "155 millions of edits" -> "155 millions de textes", but
> "textes" = "texts", "edits" = "éditions")
>
> I know it’s quite difficult to synchronize PDF versions and wiki versions,
> but I find it’s worth trying.
>
> Sébastien
>
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WikimediaFoundation.org
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation's 2010-11 Annual Report

2011-12-16 Thread Jay Walsh

The Wikimedia Foundation is happy to announce the release of the 2010-11
Annual Report, which is now posted on the WMF Wiki at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report

>From here you can download a high and lo res PDF of the report, or go right
to the meta-hosted wiki version.  And for the first time, you can access
translated 'summary' reports in 6 languages.  Printed copies are being
worked on right now (proofs being developed) and copies should be in the
WMF office next week.

This year we considerably expanded our multi-lingual effort by adding 6
translated 'summary' reports in Arabic, Japanese, French, German,
Portugese, and Spanish.  It's our first really visible multi-lingual
communications product, and it took some serious coordination to time
translation, design, production and wiki publishing.

This year's report focusses on global celebrations around Wikipedia 10, our
emerging work in India, the global education program, our mobile expansion
efforts, and on our major engineering/product accomplishments and
ambitions.  We center the book around the amazing Arab Spring article,
highlighting the inspiring quote from Wael Ghonim 'Our revolution is like
Wikipedia...'

The report is as much a story of the work and activities of our
international community as it is a traditional report on the work of WMF
through the year.  We hope it's not construed as a report focussed on the
work of WMF staff, rather a wide-ranging review of the work of chapters,
volunteers, partners - individuals and other kinds of volunteers. We aim
to enlighten the reader with the incredible range of activity and
innovation in our movement - to take them beyond the idea that Wikipedia is
simply text living on the web and show them a thriving and dynamic
community.

We also hope that the report can find an audience in those completely new
to our projects and our movement.  It should enlighten and deepen someone's
understanding of what this world is about - spurning (requiring!) that they
join us - whether as an editor, donor, partner or even employee.

We open the book with the declaration 'the way the world tells its story' -
an idea the report production team was fascinated by.  Wikipedia grown to
become the default place where all people are welcome to share their
history, geography, cultures - the story of the world. The Arab Spring
article stands in the center of this metaphor, a page that took shape in
this extraordinary year and helped millions of people around the world
develop a deeper, neutral, and timely understanding of the events that have
changed the middle east and the world forever.

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.  You can add comments
along with the community on the meta wiki talk pages.

Many thanks to the report production team: Tilman Bayer, design strategist
David Peters, and our story consultant David Weir.  Our communications
intern AJ was also a big help. Mostly we owe huge thanks to the Wikimedians
who made and shared the beautiful imagery in the book by posting it to
Commons. This is an ambitious, 100% fueled-by-free-works project. I'd like
to think it's one of the more unique and successful free culture printed
works out there - and it wouldn't be possible without our community.

Thanks and enjoy!

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation's 2010-11 Annual Report

2011-12-16 Thread Jay Walsh

The Wikimedia Foundation is happy to announce the release of the 2010-11
Annual Report, which is now posted on the WMF Wiki at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report

>From here you can download a high and lo res PDF of the report, or go right
to the meta-hosted wiki version.  And for the first time, you can access
translated 'summary' reports in 6 languages.  Printed copies are being
worked on right now (proofs being developed) and copies should be in the
WMF office next week.

This year we considerably expanded our multi-lingual effort by adding 6
translated 'summary' reports in Arabic, Japanese, French, German,
Portugese, and Spanish.  It's our first really visible multi-lingual
communications product, and it took some serious coordination to time
translation, design, production and wiki publishing.

This year's report focusses on global celebrations around Wikipedia 10, our
emerging work in India, the global education program, our mobile expansion
efforts, and on our major engineering/product accomplishments and
ambitions.  We center the book around the amazing Arab Spring article,
highlighting the inspiring quote from Wael Ghonim 'Our revolution is like
Wikipedia...'

The report is as much a story of the work and activities of our
international community as it is a traditional report on the work of WMF
through the year.  We hope it's not construed as a report focussed on the
work of WMF staff, rather a wide-ranging review of the work of chapters,
volunteers, partners - individuals and other kinds of volunteers. We aim
to enlighten the reader with the incredible range of activity and
innovation in our movement - to take them beyond the idea that Wikipedia is
simply text living on the web and show them a thriving and dynamic
community.

We also hope that the report can find an audience in those completely new
to our projects and our movement.  It should enlighten and deepen someone's
understanding of what this world is about - spurning (requiring!) that they
join us - whether as an editor, donor, partner or even employee.

We open the book with the declaration 'the way the world tells its story' -
an idea the report production team was fascinated by.  Wikipedia grown to
become the default place where all people are welcome to share their
history, geography, cultures - the story of the world. The Arab Spring
article stands in the center of this metaphor, a page that took shape in
this extraordinary year and helped millions of people around the world
develop a deeper, neutral, and timely understanding of the events that have
changed the middle east and the world forever.

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.  You can add comments
along with the community on the meta wiki talk pages.

Many thanks to the report production team: Tilman Bayer, design strategist
David Peters, and our story consultant David Weir.  Our communications
intern AJ was also a big help. Mostly we owe huge thanks to the Wikimedians
who made and shared the beautiful imagery in the book by posting it to
Commons. This is an ambitious, 100% fueled-by-free-works project. I'd like
to think it's one of the more unique and successful free culture printed
works out there - and it wouldn't be possible without our community.

Thanks and enjoy!

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] How SOPA will hurt the free web and Wikipedia

2011-12-14 Thread Jay Walsh

Today the Wikimedia Foundation posted an important update on how the Stop
Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation being considered in DC this week
threatens an open and free web, and particularly how it threatens Wikipedia.

The post is authored by WMF's General Counsel, Geoff Brigham, and can be
found here:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/how-sopa-will-hurt-the-free-web-and-wikipedia/

We encourage everyone to broadly share this information among our volunteer
community, throughout your networks, and wherever an audience passionate
about protecting the free and open web can be found.

Thanks,
jay walsh


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blog.wikimedia.org
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[Foundation-l] How SOPA will hurt the free web and Wikipedia

2011-12-13 Thread Jay Walsh

Today the Wikimedia Foundation posted an important update on how the Stop
Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation being considered in DC this week
threatens an open and free web, and particularly how it threatens Wikipedia.

The post is authored by WMF's General Counsel, Geoff Brigham, and can be
found here:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/how-sopa-will-hurt-the-free-web-and-wikipedia/

We encourage everyone to broadly share this information among our volunteer
community, throughout your networks, and wherever an audience passionate
about protecting the free and open web can be found.

Thanks,

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
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Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Audit and Audit FAQ's for the period ending June 30, 2011

2011-12-02 Thread Jay Walsh

HI folks - on-passing this important note from Garfield!

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 4:48 PM, Garfield Byrd  wrote:

> The audit of the Wikimedia Foundation and frequently asked questions about
> the audit for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011 are available at
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports.
>
> Please contact me via e-mail with any questions.
>
> --
> Garfield Byrd
> Chief of Finance and Administration
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
> ___
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Brin Wojcicki Foundation Announces $500, 000 Grant to Wikimedia

2011-11-18 Thread Jay Walsh

*Brin Wojcicki Foundation Announces $500,000 Grant to Wikimedia*

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – November 18, 2011 – The Brin Wojcicki Foundation,
started by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and 23andMe co-founder Anne
Wojcicki, awarded a $500,000 grant to the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs
Wikipedia and its sister sites. The Wikimedia Foundation kicked off its 8th
annual fundraiser on November 16, 2011.

The Wikimedia projects currently reach more than 477 million unique
visitors around the world every month (comScore, October 2011), making
Wikipedia the fifth most-popular web site in the world.

“This grant is an important endorsement of the Wikimedia Foundation and its
work, and I hope it will send a signal as we kick off our annual
fundraising campaign this week," said Sue Gardner, executive director of
the Wikimedia Foundation. "This is how Wikipedia works: people use it, they
like it, and so they help pay for it, to keep it freely available for
themselves and for everyone around the world. I am very grateful to Sergey
Brin and Anne Wojcicki for supporting what we do.”

The Brin Wojcicki Foundation has funded such organizations as the Michael
J. Fox Foundation, which is researching a cure for Parkinson’s disease. The
principals of the Brin Wojcicki Foundation are Sergey Brin, who co-founded
Google in 1997, and Anne Wojcicki, who co-founded 23andMe, a personal
genetics company.

*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 477 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, October 2011).
Available in more than 280 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than
100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia
Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily
through donations and grants.

Media Contact:

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org

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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikipedia’s Contributors and Authors at the Center of Wikimedia’s Eighth Annual Fundraiser

2011-11-18 Thread Jay Walsh

*Wikipedia’s Contributors and Authors at the Center of Wikimedia’s Eighth
Annual Fundraiser
*
SAN FRANCISCO, November 16, 2011 - The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit
behind Wikipedia, today announced the launch of its annual fundraising
campaign. The annual fundraiser brings in critical revenue so that
Wikipedia and its sister projects can remain freely available to people
around the world. Funds raised in this campaign by Wikimedia and its
regional chapters will be used to maintain Wikimedia’s server
infrastructure and improve software, expand global reach, and provide
direct support to a global volunteer community. The Foundation's total
2011-12 planned spending is $28.3 million USD.

This year’s campaign will focus on telling the story of the volunteers and
editors who donate their time to further the Wikimedia mission: to spread
free knowledge around the world. Through the duration of the campaign, the
users of Wikipedia and its sister projects will learn about the unique
personalities behind our projects, as well as the passions and motivations
that fuel their contributions. As in previous years, Wikipedia founder,
Jimmy Wales, will also play a visible role in the fundraising campaign.

“Our community - both our donors and those who actually help write projects
like Wikipedia - is made up of people who are curious, brilliant, and
engaged,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation.
“This year we want to share their stories. I think people will find it
interesting to read about the folks who work behind the scenes in the
projects -- and ideally, I am hoping that some readers will be inspired to
start editing themselves, as well.”

*Three Wikipedia contributors to look out for
*
Alan Sohn (user:Alansohn) has contributed so much tech-related information
to more than 2,500 original articles on Wikipedia that his time commitment
to the hobby would equate to hundreds of thousands of earned dollars if he
focused only on his day job as a New Jersey-based systems consultant. “But
money is not the incentive here,” Alan says. “You deal in a different
currency on Wikipedia.” He believes the Foundation has harnessed an
invaluable resource of cooperating individuals dedicated to sharing
unbiased, accurate information.

Susan Hewitt (user:Invertzoo), a US citizen originally from England, knows
her snails. She harbors such a fascination for gastropods and has
cultivated such an extensive knowledge of their existence that she can’t
help but want to share. “That’s what makes Wikipedia so magical,” she says,
“there’s this unspoken light inside all of us that comes from the desire to
help educate, to help share knowledge.” Susan donates because she believes
she has a moral obligation to support any free service she uses so
frequently.

West Virginia native, and San Francisco Bay area-based, Brandon Harris
(User:Jorm) left a high-paying career in the tech industry to help make
positive changes to society. He now works as a programmer for the Wikimedia
Foundation because everything in his soul tells him it’s the right thing to
do. Brandon is particularly motivated by the thought that WMF produces with
“sticks and wires” what massive, big-budget companies only dream of pulling
off.

During the 2010 annual fundraising campaign, the Wikimedia Foundation
raised $15 million in fifty days, a 72% increase over 2009’s total of $8.7
million.

The 2011 campaign will run through January 2012, with appeals from Brandon,
Susan, Alan, Jimmy Wales, and many more atop pages on Wikipedia and its
sister sites, asking readers for their support.

You can also follow the conversation about the annual fundraising campaign
via @wikipedia on Twitter (http://twitter.com/wikipedia) or Identi.ca (
http://identi.ca/wikipedia). To donate to the campaign, visit:
http://donate.wikimedia.org.

*MORE VISUAL MATERIALS*

For photos of the Wikipedia contributors, as well as samples of the
fundraising banners, visit:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:Fundraising_2011_press_materials

*About the Wikimedia Foundation
*
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 454 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, September 2011).
Available in more than 280 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 18
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than
100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia
Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily
through donations and grants.

*Media Contact:
*
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia visual identity guidelines

2011-11-07 Thread Jay Walsh

Hello To Aru Shiroi Neko,

Assuming you are referring to the document from:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_visual_identity_guidelines

I support your request and your point.  I've done some studies with
'Wikipedia' in this same topic and realize that localization is
complex, and formats and standards for both the Wikimedia and
Wikipedia marks (as examples) cannot always work with non-roman
character sets.

I'm not the original author of this page, but I support the notion of
expanding the guidelines (which are guidelines, not necessarily rules)
to accommodate what needs exist in different cultures and languages.

In short, I think the chapters should build the marks that make the
most sense in their own cultures, and more importantly that they
should very easily communicate the name and idea of the chapter as
well as 'wikimedia' in some way.  I don't know if any of those chapter
marks have been made yet - any examples?

jay


2011/11/5 とある白い猫 :
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_visual_identity_guidelines
>
>
>>    - The full logo will be used, and a subline will be added under the
>>    word WIKIMEDIA.
>>
>>
>>    - The subline can be localized (eg. name of the country in the
>>    relevant language/languages). It can consist of one or more lines and
>>    can be written in the relevant script/ideograms. The WIKIMEDIA part of the
>>    logo will *not* be localized.
>>
>>
> The guideline is problematic particularly for some languages - particularly
> non-latin ones such as Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Japanese and various other
> far eastern communities.
>
> In the case of Turkish there is no letter W and the sounds for I (ı) and İ
> (i) differ. Furthermore there is no way to read "ia" as vowels aren't
> supposed to be next to each other. A localized version of the name would be
> VİKİMEDYA rather than WIKIMEDIA.
>
> The goal "common visual identity" shouldn't make foundations name
> unpronounceable in other languages. If the goal can be expressed with the
> slogan "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
> in the sum of all knowledge" then names of chapters shouldn't be forced to
> use characters unpronounceable or outright alien to the local population. I
> do not see how variants such as Wikimédia or Vikimedya would prevent a
> common visual identity...
>
>  -- とある白い猫  (To Aru Shiroi Neko)
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[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Stanton Foundation Awards Wikimedia $3.6 Million for Technology Improvements

2011-10-05 Thread Jay Walsh

*Stanton Foundation Awards Wikimedia $3.6 Million for Technology
Improvements*

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – October 5, 2011 – The Wikimedia Foundation announced
today it has been awarded the largest-ever grant in its history: $3.6
million from the Stanton Foundation. The purpose of the grant is to fund
major investments in the technology infrastructure that supports Wikipedia
and its sister projects, in order to successfully serve their growing
readership. The Wikimedia projects currently reach more than 422 million
unique visitors around the world every month (comScore, August 2011), making
Wikipedia the fifth most-popular website in the world.

The grant will fund development of a new editing interface that will make it
possible for people to easily edit Wikipedia without needing to learn
special wiki syntax. It will also support development of new technical
features to make Wikimedia a friendlier and more understandable environment
for new editors, and an improved mobile experience for readers and editors.

"The Stanton Foundation is a long-time funder of the Wikimedia Foundation,
and I am thrilled they're increasing their investment in us," said Sue
Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "The Stanton
Foundation was one of the first institutions to recognize that Wikipedia is
a serious educational endeavor that's having a significant impact on people
around the world. I will always be grateful to them for taking a risk in
first funding us, many years ago."

The Stanton Foundation is the foundation created by the American
broadcasting executive and media pioneer Frank Stanton, who, in 1960,
organized the first-ever televised presidential debate. Among its previous
grants to the Wikimedia Foundation, the Stanton Foundation provided $1.2
million in 2010 for the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative, a program
designed to improve the quality and quantity of information related to
public policy topics in Wikipedia. The project resulted in 800 American
students at universities such as Harvard and University of California
Berkeley adding the equivalent of 5,800 printed pages of material to
Wikipedia, and has now been expanded to include universities in Canada and
India.


*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 422 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, September 2011).
Available in more than 280 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 18
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than
100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation
is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations
and grants.


Media Contact:
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org


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[Foundation-l] WMF blog post on Italian Wikipedia

2011-10-04 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi folks - apologies for starting a new thread on this topic...

We've just posted a short blog post on the topic of the unfolding issues
around Italian Wikipedia

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/10/04/regarding-recent-events-on-italian-wikipedia/

We've had a few calls to WMF - not many, and we've responded with the basic
messages in this post.

Thanks,
jay

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Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
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[Foundation-l] The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation renews $3 million commitment to Wikimedia

2011-07-11 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi folks - xposting from Wikimedia Announce


*The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation renews $3 million commitment to Wikimedia
*

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – July 11, 2011 – The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a
philanthropic grantmaking institution that supports science, technology and
economic institutions, announced today that it will award a grant of $3
million (USD) to the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates
Wikipedia. This is the second grant of this amount awarded to the Wikimedia
Foundation from the Sloan Foundation’s Universal Access to Knowledge
component of its Digital Information Technology program. The Wikimedia
Foundation is delighted to have received this vote of continued confidence
in its work.

The Sloan Foundation’s first grant of $3 million, awarded from 2008 through
2010, is the largest single grant ever received by the Wikimedia Foundation.
These funds bootstrapped the organization so that it could grow its core
operations to support and sustain Wikipedia as a high-quality free knowledge
resource. The new funds will support Wikimedia's strategic plan that focuses
on increasing Wikipedia’s quality, increasing the number and demographic
diversity of its editors, and reaching more readers, particularly in the
global south.

“Three years ago, at a time when cultural elites were ambivalent about
Wikipedia, the Sloan Foundation took a risk by supporting us. I will always
be grateful to Sloan for its courage in doing that,” said Sue Gardner,
Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “Today the academic
community in particular has begun to appreciate Wikipedia, and is starting
to work closely with us to make it even better. I’m grateful to Sloan for
sending an important signal that helped make that happen, and I’m thrilled
at this renewed expression of confidence in our work.”

"We are delighted to support Wikimedia in developing and sustaining its
educational mission while continuously improving quality, diversity and
access to knowledge for people everywhere," said Doron Weber, Vice
President, Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "Wikipedia embodies
the ideal values of the world wide web and we are proud to be part of this
bold endeavor to use the wisdom and the altruism of the crowd to create the
biggest, most up-to-date and most open global encyclopedia in human
history."

*About the Wikimedia Foundation
*http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 390 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th
most popular web property world-wide (May, 2011). Available in more than 270
languages, Wikipedia contains more than 18 million articles contributed by a
global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San
Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.

*About the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
*http://www.sloan.org/
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a New York based philanthropy founded in
1934, makes grants to support research and education in science, technology,
engineering, mathematics and economic performance. Sloan's program in
Digital Information Technology/Universal Access to Knowledge aims to
increase access to human knowledge and the fruits of human culture in an
open, non-exclusive manner for the benefit of all. The program has supported
the Digital Public Library of America, the Library of Congress, the Internet
Archive, Lyrasis, and on-demand books to help achieve the goal of universal
access.


-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
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[Foundation-l] Welcome Tilman Bayer to the Wikimedia Foundation

2011-07-08 Thread Jay Walsh

Dear Wikimedians,

It's with great pleasure that I announce a longtime Wikipedian and
accomplished Wikimedia project supporter, Tilman Bayer (User:HaeB) has
agreed to join the Wikimedia Foundation in support of our movement
communications activities.  Pending approval of the U.S. immigration
visa process, we intend to bring Tilman to San Francisco, full-time,
as Manager, Movement Communications in the coming months. Tilman will
augment Wikimedia's communications team (now at three!) and will
report to me.

Tilman will be known to many in the English Wikipedia community as
editor-in-chief of the Wikipedia Signpost, where over the past year
(after picking up the reigns from another current WMF staffer, Sage
Ross) he has led the publication’s dedicated crew of volunteers and
increased the depth and breadth of stories about Wikipedia, our
projects, and the movement as a whole.  Tilman has also helped raise
the overall visibility of Signpost beyond the English Wikipedia,
building a significant social media presence (managing and bolstering
its Identi.ca and Twitter feeds), and generally increasing the reach
of the stories about Wikipedia to more editors and readers than ever.

Tilman has been active in both the German and English WP communities
since 2003 (he's been a checkuser on the German Wikipedia since 2006).
 He holds degrees in mathematics from the University of Cambridge and
the University of Bonn.

At the Wikimedia Foundation Tilman will be working with all WMF staff,
and the community at large, to help us both build new movement
communications systems, and work with tech and the community
department to produce great specifications for user communication
oriented projects.  We’re particularly interested in improving
feedback, discussion, and broadcast channels among and outside of the
projects (including social media, variations on mailing lists etc).

In short, we want to introduce more painless, relevant, and effective
ways to increase the exchange of information within the community -
including information you want to share with everyone, as well as the
stuff from WMF.

Tilman will be visible on the projects and IRC, and you will likely
start to see him posting to the mailing lists, blogs, and on-wiki.
He’s also currently in the process of working on succession for the
editorial leadership with the Signpost.

Please join me in welcoming Tilman!


-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikimediaindia-l] WikiPatrika is now released - Volume 2 , Issue 1 - 2011 June

2011-06-09 Thread Jay Walsh

Wow, Tinu - this is a really great edition of WikiPatrika.  That's a
very admirable issue, and some amazing reading.

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 11:34 PM, CherianTinu Abraham
 wrote:
> Cross-posting to foundation list also.
>
> Regards
> Tinu Cherian
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: WikiPatrika Newsletter 
> Date: Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 6:59 PM
> Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] WikiPatrika is now released - Volume 2 , Issue 1
> - 2011 June
> To: Wikimedia India Community list 
>
>
> Hi Wikipedians,
>                       The first community
> newsletter<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_India_Community_Newsletter_2010_September.pdf>from
> the Wikimedia India community was released in September 2010. Since
> that time, various community members have been involved with creating a
> regular version of the newsletter; today,* we are pleased to announce the
> commencement of WikiPatrika*, a monthly newsletter of Wikimedia community,
> chapter and foundation updates from India.
>
> 'Patrika' is the closest pan-Indian word that has roughly similar meaning
> across the country that also conveys the right spirit; it has a multitude of
> meanings, but is broadly understood to mean 'journal' or 'magazine'.
>
> WikiPatrika is an independent publication which is not affiliated with the
> Wikimedia Foundation or the Wikimedia India chapter. We sincerely thank the
> Wikimedia India chapter for allowing us to host this newsletter on
> wikimedia.in .
>
>
> The *first edition of WikiPatrika is now released* - Volume 2 , Issue 1  -
> 2011 June
> *http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika *
>
> *Community News : *
> This month: hear what's happening from Wikimedians in Bengali, English,
> Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia , Sanskrit,
> Tamil, Telugu
> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2011-06/Community_News
>
> *Meetups and Events :*
> Meetups in Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Mumbai
> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2011-06/Meetups_and_Events
>
> *Press Coverage :*
> As usual, a flood of articles; check in to see where Wikimedia is covered
> and how
> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2011-06/In_the_news
>
> *Free culture news :*
> Copyright law changes, government initiatives, and the latest in licensing
> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2011-06/Free_culture_news
>
> *FOSS-MediaWiki Tech news :*
>  Google Summer of Code, India and Mediawiki. Plus Berlin Hackathon,
> Wikimedia Commons and UploadWizard
> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2011-06/Tech_News
>
> *WMIN Chapter News:*
> Chapter membership opens!
> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2011-06/WMIN_Chapter_News
>
> *WMF India Office news :*
> Campus ambassadors hit Pune: find out all about it.
> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2011-06/WMF_India_Office_News
>
> You can subscribe to wikimedia-in-newslet...@lists.wikimedia.org to receive
> the WikiPatrika newsletters  ( If you are not subscribed to wikimediaindia-l
> mailing list).
> We are are also working on user talk page delivery to your home Wikis in
> future .
>
> We hope that you find this useful. Going forward, this exercise will only be
> possible with *your* involvement, so if there is something you see that you
> would like to contribute to, change, or start - tell us!
>
> Write to us at wikimedia-in-newsletter-editors [at] lists [dot] wikimedia
> [dot] org
>
>
> Regards
> WikiPatrika Newsletter Team
>
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WikimediaFoundation.org
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Re: [Foundation-l] Plea for candidates: WMF Movement Communications Manager

2011-04-15 Thread jay walsh

On Apr 15, 2011, at 12:33 PM, Sarah wrote:
>>> 
>> Not quite sure where you're coming from there.  Today I've interacted with
>> about 60 professional colleagues. They're all Canadians but I'd venture to
>> guess that at least a third would consider themselves native speakers of at
>> least one other language.
> 
> Not sure what you mean, Risker. The point is that the ad is
> discriminating against people who are native English speakers, i.e.
> because of their origins and culture. The question is whether that's
> allowed under whatever employment legislation governs the hiring. And
> law apart, it seems unfair.
> 
> Sarah

Glad to see lots of discussion about this, and I appreciate that the phrasing 
of the language qualifications may lead to a bit of confusion.  

Perhaps a more clear way to write this sentence would have simply been to state 
that we're looking for a candidate who can speak English as well as another 
language at the 'native speaker' level - that is, someone who is bilingual. 

This is of course not intended to be discriminatory - many of the volunteers I 
work with on a regular basis speak/write in english very well, but they are 
native speakers of another language.  In many cases they speak/write in more 
than 2 languages.

On Will's initial note about the qualifications or experience being too 
limiting, I appreciate those points.

It's unlikely we'll find someone who fits 100% of those qualifications to a 
tee.  It's safe to say that most jobs posted (including those at WMF) have a 
list of qualifications that are long, but we're unlikely to get all of them.

This is a big, challenging, and perhaps complicated role - and as it's laid 
out, I agree that it may create the sense that we expect this role to solve a 
problem/challenge that is likely not solvable... But we do want someone who is 
excited about that challenge and willing to both take on simpler tasks (like 
writing or corresponding) while also thinking about the bigger overall 
challenge: the need to improve the quality and method of the whole conversation 
between WMF and the community. 

It will take time and more than one person to carry that forward, but I do know 
that within a short period of time this person will be able to help WMF bring 
more information to everyone, and to help bring more of the 
movement/communities achievements to the whole community, and to the public at 
large.

If people feel they embody the spirit of that task, we really hope they'll 
apply :)

Thanks
jay

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw

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[Foundation-l] 2009-10 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report released

2011-03-24 Thread Jay Walsh

I'm pleased to announce the release of the 2009-10 Wikimedia Foundation annual
report today.

The report, licensed under CC BY SA, has been posted in PDF format on Wikimedia
Commons, and on the WMF wiki:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report

The report is published in 2 PDF sizes - one for on-screen reading and a higher
resolution version for printing. The Foundation prints copies of the report
every year. Copies will be made available to chapters and other affiliate
groups in small quantities.

This year, following in the footsteps of the Strategy plan summary report,
we've also prepared a fully wiki-based version of the report, hosted on meta to
facilitate localization and reuse:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/2009-10_Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Report

The meta version is also a very good place to post any comments or feedback.
I'm also very keen to hear anyone's suggestions for future editions.

We are releasing a bit later than preferred, but as we pull resources together
for future design projects in the coming year we're poised for a 2011
'anniversary' year report to be released by November 2011.

Many thanks to folks in the community who helped us sort out some of the
details for the stories throughout the report. And of course we owe great
thanks to the generous photographers whose work makes the report look pretty
darn good, cover to cover. Free is beautiful!

--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Foundation-l] 2015 strategic plan pdf and licencing/attribution practices

2011-03-08 Thread Jay Walsh

Teofilo,

Some of my comments below - sorry for the delay.

On Mar 5, 2011, at 4:15 AM, Teofilo wrote:

> Just a few remarks about the 2015 strategic plan pdf (1)
> 
> *http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode 4(a) "You
> must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for,
> this License with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly
> Perform" is infringed

This is a good point that wasn't worked into the currently designed version.  
Does this mean that any instance of the free license descriptor "CC-BY-SA" 
including a description of the creative commons license requires a permalink to 
the page detailing the license?

> 
> *The sunflower picture on the last page is what people colloquially
> call a "stolen" picture. The attribution right of Uwe H. Friese
> Bremerhaven 2005 (User:Vulcan) is infringed (2)

If that's the case, and if Commons users address this infringement then we 
could certainly adjust the image credit in the viewing PDF for the correct one. 
 For now I haven't seen that take place.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunflower_Bl%C3%BCte.JPG

> 
> *I could not find out where the other sunflower picture on the front
> cover page is taken from.

The image in 'acknowledgements' is credit to Pascalou Petit.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tournesol1.jpg

In future design products we also intend to make the user name credits linkable 
to the image in Commons.
> 
> *The photographer/cameraman , original author of the portraits page 3
> is not attributed, which in turn prevents users from reusing the
> pictures.

That's a good point.  These are all freely reusable images:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_video_project_July_2010

But we missed inclusion of the 'photographer/creator' name.  I'm going to work 
that into minor edits for a new version.
> 
> *When distributing portraits of living people with a free license, a
> good practice is to include a warning such as
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Personality_rights ; If the
> pictures/videos were taken with the understanding between the
> cameraman and the models that they are taken for the purpose of
> documenting the WMF projects, it should be made clear to future
> reusers that we don't have a model release for other purposes.

We actually do have releases for these images, but as you'll see the images 
also include personality rights warning.

> 
> *The WMF logo on the back cover page is apparently released under CC-BY-SA
> 
> *The reader is not reminded that the WMF logo (together with the
> series of words "Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikisource,
> Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikiversity, Wikispecies") is trademarked
> 
> *The pdf does not contain any instruction pertaining to the conditions
> under which the WMF logo on the back cover page can be reused :
> 
> **Is verbatim copying of the pdf allowed ? I guess yes, but if you
> don't write it down, people are not supposed to distribute the pdf
> verbatim, freely, because it contains a copyrighted logo. The question
> whether people can freely upload and redistribute this pdf on their
> own website is not addressed.

I'm also conferring with our legal team to determine wording to include in the 
document that will declare that the Wikimedia Foundation mark is trademarked. 
I'm not particularly concerned with users mis-interpreting its inclusion in the 
CCBYSA work as a free release of the image's trademark, but I appreciate that 
this needs to be clarified.

> 
> **Is modifying the whole document (including the WMF logo) allowed ?
> Or should the creator of a modified version remove the WMF logo ? Even
> for a translation ? What are you allowed to do with the other
> trademarks ?

Indeed as a cc by sa work the piece can be remixed and modified - however a 
clarifying sentence such as 'the wikimedia Foundation mark is trademarked and 
may only be used with permission' etc

> 
> The above is the sort of things which happen in an organization which
> does not put
> 
> « foster good licencing and attribution practices »
> 
> high enough in its priority list and in its budget (and in its
> strategic plan ?) 2015
> 
> (1) 
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/c/c0/WMF_StrategicPlan2011_spreads.pdf
> found at 
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary
> (2) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunflower_Bl%C3%BCte.JPG

Production of paper/printed works introduces some minor complications in the 
use of CCBYSA licenses, but none of these are difficult to fix.  I appreciate 
your feedback and points and we'll try to roll these changes into a new version

[Foundation-l] [Announce] Brion Vibber to rejoin Wikimedia Foundation

2011-03-07 Thread Jay Walsh

Sending on behalf of Danese...

> Hello,
> 
> Yes, the rumors are true!  Today I am pleased to announce that after more 
> than a year away, Brion Vibber will be returning as a full-time employee of 
> Wikimedia Foundation on March 31, 2011.  The public posting is available 
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/03/07/brion-vibber-rejoins-wikimedia-foundation.
>   I'm really excited to be announcing this hire, especially at this time.  
> I've been looking for a Lead Architect for the next generation MediaWiki 
> platform, and Brion is of course the ultimate expert in MediaWiki internals.  
> He's also deeply committed to the work we are doing to keep MediaWiki 
> relevant for the next 10 years.
> 
> I completely enjoy working with Brion, and I'm totally looking forward to 
> having him back on the team full time (he has always helped out on a 
> volunteer basis).
> 
> Anyway, I wanted to give you all a heads up before the public announcement. 
> Please join me in welcoming him back!
> 
> Danese Cooper
> CTO, Wikimedia Foundation
> 
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Re: [Foundation-l] WMF 2015 strategic plan and multilingualism

2011-03-06 Thread Jay Walsh

On Mar 5, 2011, at 4:19 AM, Teofilo wrote:

> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Template:BLPLang is not currently
> used at 
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary
> 
> This can be construed as the WMF wanting to reach the people of the
> world to provide educational contents AND English-dominate them.
> 
> The fact that 
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans#Core_set_of_languages
> is now marked as "obsolete" disappoints me. It seems to mean that
> multilingualism has been rejected.
> 
> Can the notion that a key document like a strategic plan is ready for
> release when it exists in only one language be discussed ? Or is it
> already too late ? Has multilingualism definitely lost the game ? For
> example because most of the supporters of multilingualism have left
> the management sphere of WMF.

Although we haven't discussed this much here, I'd like to add that one of the 
document/design production factors I've been thinking about a great deal is how 
to prepare information for broad localization in other areas.  At a minimum we 
wanted to be sure the summary report could be localized on the wiki, which is 
why we simultaneously released it in PDF and back on the strategy wiki. I don't 
believe any localization has happened, but I know an open field when I see it :)

Beyond just localization, I'd also like to add that we spent quite a bit of 
time simplifying the text in the summary carefully to remove un-necessary 
words/ideas or complex elements so it could be translated with more ease than a 
more complicated document.

In a similar vein, I'd like to point out that the design concept proposed for 
Wikipedia 10 was very much developed to widely include all the languages of the 
world:
http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design

And over 100 logos were developed in scripts and languages from all over the 
world.  Multilingualism is at the core of our design thinking, as is the 
concept that everyone be able to take simple graphic forms and turn them into 
their own works.

> 
> Should http://blog.wikimedia.org/ remain 100% English ? Why not have 1
> or 2% of non-English with English translation ? 5 or 10% of
> English-with-some-translation ? Which degree of openness to
> non-English language should be shown on http://blog.wikimedia.org/ ?
> What is the purpose of linking to the blog from non-English main pages
> such as http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Portada anyway ?

I'm very much open to a multilingual blogging space in time.  Right now we're 
working on a system to expand the wikimedia blogs into a few channels, and to 
open the door for a space with potentially many different channels using 
different languages - including perhaps reports and info from chapters in their 
own language and hopefully also in english.

> 
> Would it not be fairer to tell people "we have nothing pertinent in
> your language on this website. Please learn English first and come
> back. See you again" ?

There's no simple answer for how to accommodate many languages. Do we start 
with 3? Which ones? All? I don't know - but at a minimum I'm glad to say that 
we factor into our production and writing the ideas of simple, easy to 
comprehend text that can be understood by those for whom English isn't a first 
language, and text that lends itself to easier translation. It doesn't overcome 
the challenge, but it's an important step.

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw

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[Foundation-l] (press release) Wikimedia Foundation selects Watchmouse monitoring service

2011-02-09 Thread Jay Walsh

Wikimedia Foundation selects Watchmouse monitoring service
“Live Health” of Wikipedia and additional websites now posted and updated in 
real time

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – February 9, 2011 – WatchMouse, a globally recognized 
self-service website and application performance monitoring company, today 
announced that the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation will utilize the WatchMouse 
Public Status Pages to display the uptime and availability of their array of 
user-built projects. The Foundation operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, 
which are accessed by more than 395 million UVs (comScore Dec 2010) from around 
the world, and in over 250 languages. The Wikipedia Public Status Page can be 
found at http://status.wikimedia.org

“The Wikimedia Foundation is proud to be one of the most transparent non-profit 
organizations in the world,” said Danese Cooper, Chief Technical Officer of the 
Wikimedia Foundation. “The Foundation is deeply concerned with growing our 
global user and editor base, which makes it critical for us to monitor and 
maintain the live status of all of our websites — and providing a public portal 
for our tens of thousands of volunteers to track uptime as well. WatchMouse 
understands and supports our global mission to spread free knowledge around the 
world, and with their help we're able to push our mission even further.”

The WatchMouse Public Status Page technology 
(http://www.watchmouse.com/en/feature/public-status-page.html) monitors 
performance and gathers availability data across a network of over 50 stations 
in more than 30 countries. The Public Status Pages are free to subscribers and 
trialists, and inform website visitors of the status of a specified selection 
of a company’s online services. This results in reduced customer service 
contacts and fosters goodwill with users by publishing the live health of a 
website. The actual Public Status Pages are hosted in the cloud using Amazon's 
S3 and EC2 products ensuring they are up even when a company’s website may not 
be. Additional WatchMouse customers utilizing Public Status Pages include 
Twitter, WordPress and Zappos.

“Non-profit organizations are transparent by nature and have a willingness to 
provide information about their business activities,” stated Mark Pors, CTO and 
co-founder of WatchMouse. “We’re pleased to partner with the Wikimedia 
Foundation and to support all non-profit organizations by offering a deep 
discount on our monitoring services.”
For more information about discounted monitoring services for non-profit 
organizations, please visit http://www.watchmouse.com/non_profit_offering.php.

About WatchMouse
http://www.watchmouse.com
WatchMouse is a global industry leader in self-service website and application 
performance monitoring. WatchMouse products test the behavior and availability 
of websites, services and applications utilizing an infrastructure that 
includes over 50 worldwide monitoring stations, in 30+ countries. WatchMouse 
provides many of the world's leading companies including Twitter, WordPress, 
Wikimedia Foundation, Philips, ING and VeriSign with independent confirmation 
of both in-house and supplier performance. Subscribers and trialists also have 
the ability to publish the live health of their websites utilizing the 
WatchMouse Public Status Page technology. Supporting a broad, rapidly growing 
international customer base, Founded in 2002, WatchMouse is a privately held 
company headquartered in The Netherlands. Follow @watchmouse on Twitter or 
learn more at http://www.watchmouse.com.

About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates 
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia 
and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 
390 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web 
property world-wide (Dec, 2010). Available in more than 270 languages, 
Wikipedia contains more than 17 million articles contributed by a global 
volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, 
California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is 
funded primarily through donations and grants.

Media Contacts:
Mindy M. Hull
Mercury Global Partners for WatchMouse
Tel. +1 415 889 9977 (US)
Tel. +31 62 504 7680 (NL)
mi...@mercuryglobalpartners.com

Ginny Cain
Mercury Global Partners for WatchMouse
Tel. +1 925 426 0646 (US)
gi...@mercuryglobalpartners.com

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwa...@wikimedia.org

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[Foundation-l] Happy Birthday Wikipedia, from Jimmy Wales

2011-01-15 Thread Jay Walsh

Birthday wishes from Jimmy on our blog, with embedded video greetings.  Please 
share!

http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/15/a-decade-of-thanks/

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw

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Re: [Foundation-l] Old Wikipedia backups discovered

2010-12-14 Thread Jay Walsh

This is definitely a tremendous asset leading up to our big bday in January. I 
hope we can extract and post some of the real gems.  

Thanks for the resourcefulness and the sharing, Tim.

On Dec 14, 2010, at 10:04 AM, phoebe ayers wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 7:54 AM, Tim Starling  wrote:
>> I was looking through some old files in our SourceForge project. I
>> opened a file called wiki.tar.gz, and inside were three complete
>> backups of the text of Wikipedia, from February, March and August 2001!
>> 
>> This is exciting, because there is lots of article history in here
>> which was assumed to be lost forever.
>> 
>> I've long been interested in Wikipedia's history, and I've tried in
>> the past to locate such backups. I asked various people who might have
>> had one. I had given up hope.
>> 
>> The history of particularly old Wikipedia articles, as seen in the
>> present Wikipedia database, is incomplete, due to Usemod's policy of
>> deleting old revisions of pages after about a month. The script which
>> Brion wrote to import the article histories from UseMod to MediaWiki
>> only fetched those revisions which hadn't been purged yet.
>> 
>> I didn't want to believe that those revisions had been lost forever,
>> and I even opened the UseMod source code and stared forlornly at the
>> unlink() call. What I (and Brion before) missed is that UseMod appends
>> a record of every change made to two files, called diff_log and rclog.
>> In these two files is a record of every change made to Wikipedia from
>> January 15 to August 17, 2001.
>> 
>> I've put the two log files up on the web, at:
>> 
>> http://noc.wikimedia.org/~tstarling/wikipedia-logs-2001-08-17.7z
>> 
>> The 7-zip archive is only 8.4MB -- much more manageable than today's
>> backups.
>> 
>> rclog contains IP addresses. The Usemod software made IP addresses of
>> logged-in users public, so the people who made these edits had no
>> expectation that their IP address would be kept private. That, coupled
>> with the passage of time, makes me think that no harm to user privacy
>> can come from releasing these files.
>> 
>> -- Tim Starling
> 
> AWESOME. This is so cool. I've copied the research list too, since
> there's many Wikipedia historians that will be eager to see the older
> versions.
> 
> I hope we can get them up in a browsable way, like nostalgia.wikipedia.org!
> 
> -- phoebe
> 
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Jay Walsh
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blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw


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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [WikiX-l] 10th anniversary merchandise is ready to ship!

2010-12-13 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi folks - fwding on behalf of Steven Walling for your consideration.  Please 
respond on wikix-l (list link is below) or on the ten.wikipedia.org wiki itself.

Thanks!

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Steven Walling 
> Date: December 13, 2010 3:09:30 PM PST
> To: Planning for WP 10th anniversary 
> Subject: [WikiX-l] 10th anniversary merchandise is ready to ship!
> Reply-To: Planning for WP 10th anniversary 
> 
> Hi everyone, 
> 
> So with little more than a month to go before Wikipedia's anniversary, I'm 
> pleased to say that the kits of special Wikipedia 10 merchandise we've talked 
> about previously (on this list and at ten.wikipedia.org) are ready to be 
> shipped. To reiterate:
> 
> * This merchandise is free. The WMF is paying all shipping and production 
> costs. 
> * It's available to anyone that has confirmed publicly that they're holding 
> an event that will celebrate Wikipedia's 10th anniversary. You don't have to 
> be holding a particular size or type of event (we have conferences, film 
> screenings, parties, plain old meet-ups etc.).
> * Everyone is getting the same kit.  
> * Each box includes 50 t-shirts with a balance of sizes for men and women, as 
> well as a mixed assortment of stickers and buttons. You can see mockups of 
> the designs at Design/Merchandise on tenwiki. I'm going to get pictures of it 
> all on Commons soon, under Category:Wikipedia 10. 
> 
> This means that if you're organizing one of the more than 60 events currently 
> in the works, I need two things to be able to ship to you:
> 
> 1. A public listing for your event on tenwiki. Just to be clear, this is 
> merely a description and links to wherever you're organizing. If your wiki 
> page exists but doesn't tell people the basics of who/what/when then please 
> enrich it a little, so that logistically we can feel comfortable shipping a 
> couple hundred dollars worth of merchandise to you. The New York City and 
> Brasília events are good examples of the level of detail I'm talking about.
> 
> 2. Contact information and your shipping address, plus an estimate of the 
> size of your event so that we know how many boxes to send you. You can email 
> this to me privately. 
> 
> The shipping takes roughly a week depending on location (of course), so the 
> sooner you can send me your event information the better. We're hoping to get 
> as many kits as possible sent before January 1.
> 
> For those of you who've already done all of the above, thank you. I will 
> contact you this week before we ship anything to you. 
> 
> -- 
> Steven Walling
> Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
> wikimediafoundation.org
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[Foundation-l] New Upload Wizard launches in beta on Wikimedia Commons

2010-11-30 Thread Jay Walsh

(sent on behalf of Guillaume Paumier)

Copied from the article on the Wikimedia blog:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/11/30/upload-wizard-launches-beta-wikimedia-commons/

Please refer to the article for the formatted content with hyperlinks

==

Today, we’re launching a new upload wizard in beta phase to make it easier to 
contribute multimedia works to Wikimedia Commons. “Commons” is the free, 
collaborative media repository associated with all Wikimedia projects, 
including Wikipedia. Although Commons contains over 7 million images, videos 
and sounds, uploading a file has long been an arduous path reserved to the most 
adventurous souls. The new upload wizard aims to make the uploading experience 
simpler and more pleasant for all users.

The new upload tool consists of a step-by-step wizard guiding the user through 
the successive stages of the process, rather than presenting a huge complicated 
form. It allows the user to upload multiple files at once, and grant permission 
for them in batch.

The wizard integrates our brand new illustrated licensing tutorial to help new 
participants understand the basics of copyright and free licenses. Since its 
publication, the tutorial has been translated and localized into about eighteen 
languages, and more are underway.

This new feature is one of the main outcomes of the Multimedia Usability 
project, a one-year project funded by the Ford Foundation, aiming to increase 
multimedia participation on Wikimedia websites. Although the grant is now 
officially over, the Wikimedia Foundation will fund subsequent development of 
the wizard to make it more robust and feature-rich.

We unveiled a prototype version of the wizard a few months ago, and we’ve got a 
lot of useful, constructive feedback from Commons testers. Since then, many 
bugs have been fixed, and the interface is much cleaner. The other main 
accomplishment has been the development of a private temporary holding area for 
files missing mandatory information.

The upload wizard is available in beta version as an additional uploading 
option. It’s far from perfect, and there are still bugs and missing features. 
But we do think it will provide a useful alternative to participants who want 
to use it and help us improve it.

The new wizard will eventually become the default uploading option on Commons, 
but it won’t replace the regular upload system until it provides a satisfying 
(and hopefully improved) coverage of the use cases currently supported by the 
“old” one.

You’re warmly invited to try the new system (you’ll need an account on Commons) 
and report issues you encounter with it. Please be sure to save your time by 
checking the Questions & Answers page and the list of open issues first.

If your issue hasn’t been reported yet, you can enter it directly in our 
tracker, or leave a note on the feedback page.

Since this concludes the Multimedia usability project, we’ll publish a full 
project report shortly for people interested in the details. In the meantime, 
you may be interested in two behind-the-scenes articles about the licensing 
tutorial: one by our illustrator, Michael Bartalos, and one by myself, focusing 
on the collaboration with the Wikimedia community.

Guillaume Paumier
Product Manager − Multimedia usability
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia's 10th anniversary

2010-11-16 Thread Jay Walsh

(x-posted on a few lists)

Hi folks, 

Just to follow up on Steven's note... I just uploaded the mockups of the 
Wikipedia 10 and new Wikipedia t-shirts to ten.wikipedia.org:
http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design/Merchandise

Kits of merchandise, each containing 50 shirts and other fun stuff described on 
that page, will be available to registered Wikipedia 10 celebrators all over 
the world.  The Wikipedia 10 'team' shirts are, alas, in english, but we hope 
they'll prove highly visible and fun alongside the Wikipedia shirts.

You'll also see there are some buttons and stickers that can be used to dress 
up any other outfits or celebration spaces.

Post your event at http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Event to ensure we 
get a supply of merchandise to you.

The design concept is also housed on the same wiki:
http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design

Which is all about remix and localize!  Some volunteers have already localized 
the marks in their own languages and geographies.  They template blanks are 
there and standing by to be added to.  And of course you can always add 
completely original concepts to his page as well. They're all being housed on 
WM Commons: 
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_10

We're thankful to David Peters, a design consultant who has been working with 
us for about two years now for putting the time into this concept.  I hope it 
makes it joins a wide range of other images and designs that help us celebrate 
this one-of-a-kind milestone!

Please continue the conversation on the wikix-l mailing list per Steven's 
instructions below.  That way we keep the conversation focussed on the events 
and activities.

Thanks,
jay

On Nov 16, 2010, at 3:27 PM, Steven Walling wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> As a few of you know, I have a fellowship in the Wikimedia  
> Foundation's Community Department, working for Chief Community Officer  
> Zack Exley on a variety of projects. One of these projects is making  
> Wikipedia's 10th anniversary one to remember by supporting you  
> (Wikimedians) who want to celebrate online and off.
> 
> To that end, we've opened up a new space for collaboration at 
> http://ten.wikipedia.org/ 
> . Many thanks to the editors who've already showed up to participate.  
> For who haven't had a chance to explore it yet, we started the wiki  
> for four core activities, which are outlined in our FAQ 
> (http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAQ 
> ). They are:
> 
> 1. Gathering a single, detailed list of events that we can point  
> interested people to.
> 2. Hosting some interesting ways to reflect on the anniversary online,  
> across Wikipedia communities. If you have ideas for celebrating, this  
> is the place to share them.
> 3. Providing resources for organizers, including a press kit, freely- 
> licensed designs that can be localized, and instructions on how to get  
> a free set of t-shirts, stickers, buttons etc. for your event.
> 4. A place to document everything. This wiki will be a great place to  
> look back and see what we did to celebrate our first double digit  
> anniversary.
> 
> Hopefully that gives you a better idea of what we're working on. As  
> usual, please be bold and join in!
> 
> If you have questions that can't be answered on the wiki or mailing  
> list (https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikix-l), I am your  
> best point of contact. I'd especially like to encourage current or  
> potential event organizers to get in touch.
> 
> Thanks for reading,
> 
> Steven Walling
> [[User:Steven (WMF)]] on ten.wikipedia.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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[Foundation-l] Suggest great images for WMF design work!

2010-10-25 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi everyone,

We're working on a number of major design projects here at WMF over the next 
few months, and as part of that work I'd like to reach out to everyone to take 
part in suggesting photographs and images from the Commons for inclusion.  This 
request is specifically focussed on suggesting some images that evoke the 
Wikimedia vision statement, "Imagine a world..."

You can find more info and add suggested images/visuals from Commons here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/10_year_images#Image_gallery

I hope to make this a more regular process for our creative projects, and 
hopefully anyone working on presentations or other design projects can use 
these images to support their work as well.

Thanks for your help!


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Re: [Foundation-l] subtitles for Wikimedia videos

2010-09-28 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi Marcus - thanks for the note. I'll be looking into this right away to see if 
we can get the good work of the subtitlers/translators into the whole 
presentation of the videos on youtube and Vimeo.

Thanks for the pointer.  As soon as we have some progress on this we'll let you 
know (but hopefully you'll see this unfolding).

thanks!
jay

On Sep 27, 2010, at 2:15 PM, Marcus Buck wrote:

>  The videos Wikimedia recently produced are available on Youtube, 
> Facebook and several other sites. Can somebody from the Foundation who 
> has access to the videos update them and include the subtitles in 
> several different languages that were provided by Wikimedians on Commons 
> (see the file description pages of the four videos in 
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:September_2010_Wikipedia_Videos>)?
> 
> The default video player on Commons does ot support subtitles. They are 
> only available through the mwEmbed extension. But Videos on Youtube, 
> Facebook etc. support subtitles natively.
> 
> That would make it much easier for non-English Wikimedians to direct the 
> interested public to the subtitled video in the respective language.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Marcus Buck
> User:Slomox
> 
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[Foundation-l] New Wikipedia videos being released this week

2010-09-21 Thread Jay Walsh



This week the Foundation is excited to be releasing four separate videos shot 
at the recent Wikimania Conference in Gdansk, Poland.  The first video 
'Username' is now posted on the WM Commons:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_User_Name_MEDIUM.ogv

Later today the Foundation will be releasing the videos on a few other 
platforms as well, specifically to increase public visibility:
http://www.facebook.com/wikipedia
http://identi.ca/wikipedia
http://www.youtube.com/wikimediafoundation  
http://vimeo.com/wmfoundation/

I'll be posting more about the links on the Wikimedia blog later this morning 
(San Francisco time) blog.wikimedia.org

And maybe some others.

What are these videos? 
They were originally produced to complement the public outreach work going on 
now (and in the future) and to provide a short, energetic clip for folks to use 
in all sorts of presentations.  A very good example of that would be in Sue's 
keynote presentation from Wikimania, which some of you may have seen.  We hope 
everyone in the movement may find them useful, and we're particularly hopeful 
that they can be easily localized and shared even more widely.  They shed a new 
light on the passionate people behind our projects.

Who made them?
The clips were created for the Wikimedia Foundation (led mostly by 
Communications and Public Outreach) by a team that's been working with the 
Foundation over the past year. They were directed by Jelly Helm, produced by 
Noah Stanik, shot by DP Reed Harkness, and edited by Sarah Marcus. The music is 
by Portland, Oregon based musician Matt Carey. The Germany-based film 
production crew Living Colour was an essential partner in bringing everything 
together at the shoot in Gdansk, Poland, and Fenton Communications, who have 
been supporting the Foundation over the past year, were our agency partners in 
pulling this project together. We also owe the organizers of 2010's Wikimania 
conference a great deal of thanks for helping us sort out the production on the 
ground and for letting us borrow participants for short interviews.

What's next?
The remaining clips will be posted on Commons and other video sharing sites 
through Friday. Once they're all announced we'll share another note with all of 
the links. You can follow the progress and hear what the public thinks on 
identi.ca and twitter.  We hope to see the videos make an appearance in media 
and other blogs too.

Hope you enjoy!

-- 
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WikimediaFoundation.org
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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announce] Note from the Board Chair

2010-07-08 Thread Jay Walsh

(sending on behalf of Ting)

Dear friends,

Today, here in Gdansk,  at the meeting of the Board of Trustees during the 
sixth annual Wikimania Conference, the Board made some important changes. I'm 
pleased to share this news with you.  The Foundation will be issuing a public 
announcement shortly as well.

Every year at Wikimania, the Wikimedia Board appoints its officers for the 
coming year.  This year we have changes to each of the Officer roles. As of 
today's meeting, I was fortunate to be appointed Chair of the Board - and I'm 
grateful to have the support of the Board in this new role.. Stuart West was 
appointed Vice-chair (and continues as Board Treasurer), and Samuel Klein 
becomes Board Secretary.

Also, the Wikimedia chapters have made their selections for the two 
chapters-selected Board seats. Arne Klempert has been reappointed to his seat, 
and Phoebe Ayers has also been appointed to join the Board. 

This means that Michael Snow will be leaving the Board: he has been invited to 
join the Advisory Board, and the Board warmly thanks him for his service.

Michael Snow has been a tireless and dedicated leader of this Board, and the 
whole Wikimedia movement, over the past two years. I want to express my sincere 
thanks to him on behalf of the Board and all of the Wikimedia community.  I am 
also excited to congratulate and welcome Phoebe Ayers to the Board, and also to 
congratulate Arne Klempert for his re-appoitment to the Board in a 
Chapter-appointed seat.

There are 10 seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees and according 
to the Foundation's bylaws, three members are elected by the Wikimedia 
community, two members are selected by the Wikimedia chapters, a Community 
Founder seat held by Jimmy Wales, and four members appointed by the Board 
itself to provide additional, specific expertise. Currently all seats on the 
Board of Trustees are filled.

This is the first time that the official Chapters selection process has been 
carried out. Members of Wikimedia's global chapters, made a call for 
nominations for new members and voted to elect their two members. In this 
year's election nine candidates from the Wikimedia community originally stepped 
forward. Two of those candidates stepped out of the process, leaving seven 
candidates for selection by the Chapters.

All of the officer appointments are effective immediately, and we are pleased 
to welcome Phoebe to the Board right away.

I'd like to thank the Chapters for their thoughtful work in convening a process 
and carrying out their voting process.  I would also like to thank all of the 
candidates who stepped forward for with their nominations.  

I'm looking forward to an incredible year ahead. We have an ambitious plan for 
the Foundation and the projects over the next year, and we have a tremendous 
group to tackle a busy year ahead.

Sincerely,
Ting


-- 
Ting Chen
Chair of the Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
E-Mail: tc...@wikimedia.org 


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Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity

2010-05-14 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi folks,

The UX team folks have prepared a new rendering of the mark and it's available 
for review on the Prototype wiki:
http://prototype.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org/Main_Page

I've made a short update the conversation thread on commons here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia/2.0#Logo_revisions_need_input

Which is also where you can leave new feedback.  I discuss some of the nuances 
of the appearance of the identity on other browsers there, and I think others 
have also pointed those out.

Please take a look at the prototype version and share your comments on that 
commons thread.  We want to get a range of opinions to ensure it looks optimal 
on a lot of different browser settings, and also that we consider the 
observations about the transition from the previous.  We'll be collecting 
feedback through next week and we'll introduce a modification hopefully very 
shortly after that.

FYI the identity looks really, really good in non-digital settings (printed, 
used in graphic applications etc).  There are no major issues with how it 
translates into real-world objects (banners, posters, pins etc). 

Thanks for your input,
jay 

On May 14, 2010, at 12:59 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:

> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 7:06 AM, Casey Brown  wrote:
>> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 12:27 AM, Samuel Klein  wrote:
>>> Is there a page on Meta for discussing the new logo?  Among other
>>> things, we need somewhere to discuss progress on localizing the new
>>> logo into different languages. Perhaps the old Logo page could be
>>> updated with the latest status and links to discussions on other wikis
>>> as they develop:
>>>  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/Logo
>>> 
>> 
>> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia/2.0>
> 
> Thanks.  I've updated [[m:Logo]] and [[m:Wikipedia/Logo]].
> 
>> However, I don't think we should be localizing anymore until we figure out
>> if the logo is going to be updated to include the suggested changes (which
>> I think it will be).
> 
> 
> 
> Sam
> 
> --
> meta:sj
> 
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Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity

2010-05-13 Thread Jay Walsh

Thanks, Lodewijk

We've seen a lot of comments about the size of the puzzle globe, and I don't 
disagree that it might benefit from being increased in size slightly.  I feel 
this might also affect the overall contrast and definition.  The whole 
usability team is collecting feedback on this, and part of that is the overall 
shape and size of the identity.

Thanks
jay

On May 13, 2010, at 5:37 AM, Lodewijk wrote:

> Hi Jay,
> 
> thanks for your update. I am glad that the characters etc have been so
> thoroughly prepared, and I followed some of it - great team effort
> indeed.
> 
> However, I am missing why it was decided to decrease the size of the
> logo. It definitely looks more professional, but also somewhat less
> friendly to me. Maybe it is just me, maybe not - I just would like to
> understand the rationale first.
> 
> And is there any chance that the middle horizontal line is made
> slightly less intense? Right now, the attention is drawn there (at
> least for me) instead of the open part at the top. It gives me a
> slight impression as if the bowl is about to burst. Which is of course
> a valid representation of the truth with all community uproar lately,
> but I don't think it should be our message :)
> 
> Best, Lodewijk
> 
> 2010/5/13 Tomasz Ganicz :
>> 2010/5/13 Jay Walsh :
>>> SVG versions of the new globe, and the Wikipedia identity can be found here:
>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks
>>> 
>>> I don't believe all of those assets have migrated to Commons yet.
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> Hope you won't forget to change the logo here:
>> 
>> http://www.wikipedia.org/
>> 
>> :-)
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
>> http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
>> http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
>> http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html
>> 
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Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity

2010-05-12 Thread Jay Walsh

SVG versions of the new globe, and the Wikipedia identity can be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_official_marks

I don't believe all of those assets have migrated to Commons yet.


On May 12, 2010, at 8:19 PM, Aaron Adrignola wrote:

> I looked but could not find an SVG version of the new logo without text on
> Commons for those who would wish to update sister project templates on
> non-Wikipedia projects.
> 
> Basically, it would be a cropped version of
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-puzzleglobe-V2.svg and at
> Commons.
> 
> If that could be added I would appreciate it.
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[Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity

2010-05-12 Thread Jay Walsh

and the countless others who have scrutinized the first 
drafts of the logo to suggest improvements (like proper orientation for 
characters).  Cary Bass has been instrumental in mapping out all of these minor 
and major changes along with the volunteers, and the user experience team - 
particularly Parul, Naoko, Trevor, and Nimish, along with Hannes, should also 
be recognized for putting so much patience and dedication into this effort.  
Thanks as well to Philip Metschan for spending so much time and investing so 
much effort and detail into the design. 

We also have to recognize the dozens of (and next dozen of) volunteers who will 
continue to localize the new identity in different languages, as well as the 
original efforts of user:nohat and those early pioneers who brought this 
identity to life in 2003.  This enormous and truly unique design effort 
astounds me, and it's one of the most impressive examples of our collaborative 
capacity outside of the work of Wikipedia itself. 

Thanks!
jay


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[Foundation-l] (fwd) Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve public policy information on Wikipedia

2010-05-11 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all - sharing our second press release of the day, re: the public policy 
initiative.  Also shared via the WikimediaAnnounce-l list!

Thanks,
jay walsh

Wikimedia Foundation will engage academic experts and students to improve 
public policy information on Wikipedia
$1.2 million grant from the Stanton Foundation to support first initiative of 
its kind for Wikipedia
SAN FRANCISCO May 11, 2010 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit 
organization behind Wikipedia, today announced a new project designed to 
improve the quality of public policy-related articles on Wikipedia. It is the 
first time the Wikimedia Foundation has launched a project designed to 
systematically increase the quality of articles in a particular topic area.
The project will be funded via a $1.2 million grant from the US-based Stanton 
Foundation, a long-time funding partner of the Wikimedia Foundation. The 
Stanton Foundation is the beneficiary foundation created in the name of the US 
broadcasting industry leader and media innovator, Frank Stanton. Dr. Stanton's 
commitment to civic education and freedom of speech carries on through his 
philanthropic legacy, the Stanton Foundation.
"Wikipedia is a key informational resource for hundreds of millions of people," 
said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "The Stanton 
Foundation wants to increase people's understanding of public policy-related 
issues, and supporting quality on Wikipedia is a great way to accomplish that 
goal. Meanwhile, the Wikimedia Foundation is keen to experiment with techniques 
for encouraging subject-matter experts to work alongside our volunteers to 
improve quality. This funding will enable us to do that, and I am --as always-- 
very grateful to the Stanton Foundation for its support."
Wikipedia is written by hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the 
world, and that won't change with this project. The Wikipedia Public Policy 
Initiative will recruit Wikipedia volunteers to work with public policy 
professors and students to identify topic areas for improvement, and work to 
make them better. Some of that work will take the form of classroom 
assignments, and pilot activities will begin during the 2010 fall academic 
semester. The project will continue through summer 2011.
"I am excited to begin this work," said Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public 
Outreach at the Wikimedia Foundation. "There have already been professors 
around the world who assign their students to rewrite and improve Wikipedia 
articles: it's a proven model, and it benefits everyone. My hope is that this 
project will enable us to experiment and document best practices, so that 
academics and educational institutions worldwide can partner with us in helping 
Wikipedia to continually improve in quality and content."

About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates 
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia 
and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 
370 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web 
property worldwide (March 2010). Available in more than 270 languages, 
Wikipedia contains more than 15 million articles contributed by a global 
volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, 
California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is 
funded primarily through donations and grants.

Press inquiries
Jay Walsh
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609
jwa...@wikimedia.org

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Appoints Jing Wang and Mimi Ito to its Advisory Board

2010-05-11 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi folks, sharing this announcement we sent out as a press release this 
morning.  We'll be sending out another announcement shortly to our press list 
about the public policy project, which Frank discussed on our announcement list 
a few days ago.

Best,
jay walsh

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Jay Walsh 
> Date: May 11, 2010 12:22:57 PM PDT
> To: wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Appoints Jing Wang 
> and Mimi Ito to its Advisory Board
> Reply-To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> 
> 
> Wikimedia Foundation Appoints Jing Wang and Mimi Ito to its Advisory Board
> SAN FRANCISCO May 11, 2010 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit 
> organization that operates Wikipedia, today announced the appointment of two 
> new members to its Advisory Board, Mimi Ito and Jing Wang. Mimi Ito is a 
> cultural anthropologist with a focus on new media use among young people. 
> Jing Wang is an author and professor of Chinese cultural studies at the 
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is the chair of the International 
> Advisory Board of Creative Commons China Mainland.
> Mimi Ito is a cultural anthropologist examining children and youth’s changing 
> relationships to media and communications. She is an Associate Researcher 
> with the University of California Humanities Research Institute with 
> appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of 
> Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Her research in Japan 
> focuses on use of mobile technologies, and she has recently completed a 
> multi-year project on digital kids and informal learning. She has authored 
> and edited three books on kids' use of technology, and most recently, she has 
> led a three-year collaborative ethnographic study, funded by the MacArthur 
> Foundation, examining youth new media practices in the US, focused on gaming, 
> digital media production, and Internet use. She has worked at the University 
> of Southern California's Annenberg Center, the Institute for Research on 
> Learning, Xerox PARC, and Apple Computer. She has a PhD in Education and a 
> PhD in Anthropology, both from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
> "Although we're seeing more and more examples of crowdsourced, 
> non-commercial, and community produced media on the Internet today, Wikipedia 
> continues to set the gold standard," said Mimi Ito. "At a time when so many 
> of our past models of knowledge making and circulation are being challenged, 
> Wikipedia provides proof of a sustainable and robust form of public media in 
> the digital age. I'm delighted to be part of Wikimedia and the movement that 
> it represents."
> Jing Wang is an author and editor of seven books, Professor of Chinese 
> Cultural Studies at MIT and founder and organizer of MIT’s New Media Action 
> Lab. She is also an affiliated faculty with MIT's Comparative Media Studies. 
> In spring 2009, Professor Wang launched an NGO 2.0 project in collaboration 
> with two Chinese universities, three Chinese NGOs, and three corporate 
> partners including Ogilvy & Mather China and Frog Design. The project, funded 
> by Ford Foundation in Beijing, is designed to enhance the digital literacy of 
> grassroots NGOs in the underdeveloped regions of China and will deliver an 
> interactive platform complete with Web 2.0 training courses and a Chinese 
> field guide to best practices and software of social media for nonprofits. 
> Professor Wang started working with Creative Commmons in 2006 and serves as 
> the Chair of the International Advisory Board of Creative Commons Mainland 
> China. She also worked as the co-organizer of the Policy Culture Research 
> Project with Anthony Saich at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard 
> University.
> "I'm excited to join Wikimedia's Advisory Board," said Jing Wang. "The 
> challenge of increasing the diversity of participation in regions such China 
> can be difficult to navigate. The Foundation has radically impacted access to 
> free knowledge for everyone in the world. I'm thrilled to volunteer my time 
> to help create richer, higher-quality information resources by increasing the 
> diversity of voices that contribute to the projects."
> "I am thrilled to welcome both Jing and Mimi to the Wikimedia Foundation 
> Advisory Board," said Michael Snow, Chair of the Board of Trustees. "Both 
> Mimi and Jing are respected academics who will bring new expertise to us in 
> their respective areas, and I look forward to them making a substantial 
> contribution."
> The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the volunteer-written encyclopedia 
> with

Re: [Foundation-l] Heads up: Wikipedia on Facebook

2010-04-22 Thread Jay Walsh

It's something that I think they'll be interested in sharing, although right 
now I imagine they're pretty strapped resource-wise implementing the features, 
but we should certainly ask if they can stay open-minded to that idea.

jay

On Apr 22, 2010, at 1:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Hoi,
> Will we learn the traffic data from Facebook? Will we be able to do the kind
> of data analysis that we do on our own traffic data ?
> Thanks,
>  GerardM
> 
> On 19 April 2010 21:50, Kul Takanao Wadhwa  wrote:
> 
>> Hi everyone,
>> 
>> I just wanted to let you know about new features Facebook is planning on
>> launching later today that involve articles from Wikipedia. Facebook is
>> going to begin integrating Wikipedia’s free knowledge into a new part of
>> the Facebook.com site experience to help users be more connected and
>> informed about the topics and activities that interest them. They're
>> calling this service Facebook Community Pages, portal pages which will
>> be owned and managed by the Facebook community.
>> 
>> Wikipedia articles on Facebook will further increase the reach of free
>> knowledge on the internet.  Facebook has hundreds of millions of users,
>> and now more than 70% of their traffic is coming from outside of the US.
>> Our hope is that many Facebook users (if they are not already) will also
>> be inclined to join the large community of Wikipedia contributors.
>> Facebook will follow the free licenses (CC-BY-SA) and help us find more
>> ways people can share knowledge. Furthermore, we will be looking at
>> other ways that both parties can cooperate in the future.
>> 
>> Initially it looks like this service will be focussed on English
>> Wikipedia, but considering Facebook's multi-lingual community it seems
>> likely that other languages will be brought in quickly. Because Facebook
>> members build the Community Pages, they will be able to suggest or add
>> more Wikipedia articles (as well as other relevant content from the
>> web).  They will also have a built-in feedback system in case the
>> article provided is not correct or has any display problems.
>> 
>> It's going to be a learning situation for both us and them so we'll see
>> how this goes.
>> 
>> --Kul
>> 
>> --
>> Kul Takanao Wadhwa
>> Head of Business Development
>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>> k...@wikimedia.org
>> (415) 839-6885 ext. 603
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Announcement list is active

2010-04-21 Thread Jay Walsh


On Apr 21, 2010, at 8:54 AM, Michael Peel wrote:

> 
> On 21 Apr 2010, at 16:08, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> 
>> On 21 April 2010 05:43, Huib!  wrote:
>>> Participation announcements for Wiki meet-up
>>> 
>>> I'm sure there is a Wiki meet-up every weekend around the globe,  
>>> posting
>>> this information to this list will probably spam. People  
>>> interested in
>>> joining wiki meet-ups would find it in a local site and this list  
>>> would
>>> probably reach to much people. Or there should be more information  
>>> like
>>> Wiki meet-ups bigger than X people or something like that.
>> 
>> I agree. Meetups, other than Wikimania, should be announced on local
>> lists. I have no interest in meetups that are happening outside the UK
>> since there is no chance I'll be attending them (if I know I'm going
>> to be in another country and would like to know if there will be
>> meetups there while I'm there, I will subscribe the the relevant local
>> list, as I have done in the past).
> 
> A summary, once a month or so, of the upcoming meetups could work  
> well. I believe that there's a sufficient number of meet-ups that  
> there should be something nearby to a significant fraction of the  
> audience of the announce list; if not, then a note at the end saying  
> "Can't see a meetup near you? Organize one!" might change that over  
> time.
> 
> It's probably something best appended to other information, though.  
> E.g. have a headline of "first meetup in [Country X] planned", or  
> coverage of a big in-person event, and then append a list of meetups  
> after the main story.
> 
> Having said that: there's lots of other things that the announce list  
> is better suited for than this.
> 
> Mike Peel
> 
> P.S. I'm looking forward to the day when we can have geolocated  
> sitenotices for advertising meetups etc...
> 

This sounds like a good idea - keeping the list notes short and sweet.  I'm 
actually quite interested in when meet-ups are happening around the world, but 
I agree it would be a lot of traffic.  I'm trying to figure out how to be 
sensitive to traffic issues and needs.  It seems to me that anyone subscribed 
to this list is opting-in to more info rather than less, but mostly info of 
'macro' relevance to chapters and those following the motions of the Foundation.

Let's see how things go and adjust accordingly. Really appreciate everyone's 
feedback.


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WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw


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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Announcement list is active

2010-04-20 Thread Jay Walsh

Yes - this is a pretty simple thing to do.  Thanks for pointing that out, 
Thomas.
-jay (hoping he doesn't lose sense of communications reality by talking about a 
list within a list, or subscribing one list to another. phew)

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw

On Apr 20, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> On 21 April 2010 01:14, Jay Walsh  wrote:
>> You'll note that right now all replies to this list (if people are inclined 
>> to reply) will go directly to Foundation-l.  We'll see how successful this 
>> is, or if it causes confusion for subscribers.
> 
> Will all emails to the announcement list be sent to foundation-l too
> (I think this can be achieved by simply subscribing the foundation-l
> address to the announcements list)? If not, having replies going there
> will be very confusing.
> 
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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Announcement list is active

2010-04-20 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all,

A few weeks ago there was much discussion about establishing an 
announcement-only email list that would be used as a 'push-only' list where 
important announcements from the Foundation, chapters, or other representatives 
could be directed.  Anyone could subscribe to this list and keep up to date on 
important events and information.

We now have this list up and running (I spent a little more time than I had 
planned testing stuff) and it's ready for subscribers:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l

We've created a page with general information about this list and how it will 
be moderated here:
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list/Wikimedia_Announce

Initially we'll be sending all major news from the WMF here so news can be 
shared in one place: new staff, new programs, career opportunities, milestones, 
calls for response, reports from staff or the board, etc etc.

And of course we want this to be a place where similar news and information can 
be disseminated from our community.  

Rather than overwhelm this new list with too many rules and guidelines, I'm 
happy to have suggestions for posts sent directly to me, or to the 
'communicati...@wikimedia.org' proxy email address, or you can just write to 
the list address with your suggestion and we'll work with you to get it posted. 
 Let's see how the traffic looks before thinking too much about what's wrong or 
right for the list - but ultimately readers will want to get relevant, good 
information and have advance notice of important happenings.

As we work out the kinks I'll be happy to bring on some other volunteer 
moderators to keep things moving as quickly as possible.

Foundation staff will begin to send information to this list as a default (new 
staff, major announcements, good news etc), although we will continue to share 
news on the pre-existing lists for the time being.  Of course this shouldn't 
preclude any discussion about news and events.  We expect to continue to 
converse about news and events on the other mailing lists as well. Anyone can 
submit relevant announcements for the list as well.  Refer to the meta page for 
the basic guidelines.  We will also point email updates from the Foundation 
blog to the WikimediaAnnounce-l.

The strategy is to provide a single list where public announcements can be 
collected, preventing missed information for people who participate on one list 
and not another.

You'll note that right now all replies to this list (if people are inclined to 
reply) will go directly to Foundation-l.  We'll see how successful this is, or 
if it causes confusion for subscribers. 

Please share other thoughts or opportunities - on the meta page or on this 
list.  And please also encourage others to widely subscribe to this list.  Post 
to village pumps, on projects, etc.

Thanks!




-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw


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Re: [Foundation-l] Heads up: Wikipedia on Facebook

2010-04-19 Thread Jay Walsh

At this point it looks like all links inside of the community pages link 
directly back to Wikipedia, including the history, 'source,' and 'edit' tabs.  
Also, all images in the community pages, when clicked, take you directly to 
Wikipedia.

It doesn't appear that all Facebook users have access to community pages yet.  
I can see them, but I can't get to them from my profile.  I think they're 
rolling the service out slowly, so some changes to how the WP articles are 
presented seems likely.

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw

On Apr 19, 2010, at 3:52 PM, Kul Takanao Wadhwa wrote:

> Rui,
> 
> On 4/19/10 1:08 PM, Rui Correia wrote:
>> I would go with "Contribute to this article - click edit" button that takes
>> you back to the Wikipedia, where new editors can edit to their hearts'
>> content without the ads getting into the way of the knowledge project.
> 
> Facebook told us that they would have links that would take people back 
> to Wikipedia so they could edit.
> 
> --Kul
> 
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Re: [Foundation-l] 2008/2009 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report

2010-01-25 Thread Jay Walsh

Translation would be a dream, of course.  And in every thing we do we try to 
establish a means for creating a translated version. For a complex design 
document like this, translation is never going to be easy.

The Outreach team's bookshelf project is exploring this challenge in detail, 
and in the next few months I hope we can collaboratively develop a production 
strategy for multi-lingual documents.  If so, there's a chance that we might 
use that approach for the subsequent annual report.  It's a very difficult 
undertaking, and not one that would easily unfold economically or in the same 
look and feel style that we're aiming for in the report.  

Certainly something to consider.

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw

On Jan 24, 2010, at 6:26 AM, Seb35 wrote:

> As Liam said: Beautiful document. To enhance it for the non-English
> speakers, is it possible to translate it? I began (for the French
> language) but it would be a waste of time if it cannot be published in
> French, or at least indicated on [1] there is a (eventually
> unofficial) French version. There is also a lot of page layout which
> must be adapted (are the sources of the PDF available? in a
> Scribus/InDesign/other format).
> 
> Sébastien/Seb35
> 
> [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report
> 
>> From: Jay Walsh 
>> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List 
>> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:09:45 -0800
>> Subject: [Foundation-l] 2008/2009 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> In the next day or so Rand and the fundraising team will be sending out an 
>> email to all of our donors (about 230,000 - thanks to a tremendous 
>> fundraiser) recapping the campaign sharing our 2nd annual report, which you 
>> can also read here:
>> 
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report
>> 
>> As with our previous year's report, we make an effort to describe the year's 
>> activities, our major accomplishments, our financial successes, and where 
>> we're heading in the coming year/years.  This is a crucial tool for our 
>> fundraisers and for building strong relationships with our major 
>> stakeholders, and of course to let our chapters and our vast community of 
>> volunteers get a snapshot of our work.  It's primarily intended to work as a 
>> print document, and one that quickly presents top-line data and key 
>> information, as well as a basic structured narrative about the Foundation 
>> and our volunteer community's work.
>> 
>> You'll note that our report is out later than last year, and this isn't a 
>> pattern we'll duplicate :)  We did spend more time on design and narrative 
>> this year, with the intention of bringing more depth to the story, 
>> especially in features like the center-spread anatomy of an article.  We 
>> also wanted to put more of a forward-facing direction on the report. 
>> Optimally our report will always come out 2-3 months after the close of 
>> fiscal, as soon as our audited statements are complete.
>> 
>> There's still more good work to be done, but it's a big leap from last year. 
>> This year's designers David Peters and Rhonda Rubenstein did a great job 
>> (collectively known as 'ExBrook design' here in SF http://www.exbrook.com/). 
>>  Lane Hartwell's ccbysa photos feature prominently - she's been shooting our 
>> staff portraits for the last two years 
>> (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photography_by_Lane_Hartwell).
>> 
>> We'll be starting work on the next edition in a few months.  About 1500 
>> copies will be printed here in the next week or so.  We'll be sure to bring 
>> copies to the chapter meeting and of course Wikimania.  We can ship some 
>> copies out as well if there's interest (but in limited quantities only, it's 
>> a pricy shipment after 10 locations :)
>> 
>> Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
>> 
>> --
>> Jay Walsh
>> Head of Communications
>> WikimediaFoundation.org
>> blog.wikimedia.org
>> +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw
> 
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Re: [Foundation-l] 2008/2009 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report

2010-01-25 Thread Jay Walsh

Thanks Liam - It's really easy to produce a page by page document, so I'll see 
if we can have that lined up as a second option on the page.

I hear you about the chapters/events sections.  I think the intent of the 
report will be to showcase work undertaken within the movement, whether at the 
hands of the chapters, non-chapters, foundation, or the volunteers.  Note that 
we have a page spread focussed on wikis take manhattan as an example.  I'll put 
some thought into how to differentiate that for subsequent communications 
projects, not just the report.

Thanks

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw

On Jan 22, 2010, at 7:33 PM, Liam Wyatt wrote:

> Beautiful document. I like the ongoing calendar running across the bottom of
> each page. It gives a sort of narrative structure. I also would like to know
> what material the Wikipedia globe on the front page is made out of? Also,
> has anyone contacted Naresh Sharma's teacher or parents (see the last page
> of the report)? What a cute story :-)
> 
> Would it be possible to produce a version of the PDF that is single-page
> like the previous report instead of double-page, to make for easier online
> reading (rather than having to zoom in to be able to read the text, and then
> scroll sideways)? I understand that  "It's primarily intended to work as a
> print document" but perhaps you could place two versions online - the "print
> version" and the "view online" version? You would probably have to leave the
> double-page spreads (pages 7 and 12) as they are.
> 
> Finally, if there is still time for comment/changes, with regards to the NIH
> section - should it be made more explicit that the chapters have the primary
> responsibility for undertaking outreach activities "on the ground" - and
> that the WMF allocates some of its program money for that purpose? It states
> on Sue's Feb. report to the Board that "investing directly in staging
> events" is an area the WMF will not
> prioritise<http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Letter_to_the_Board_%28Feb_2010%29#Areas_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_will_not_prioritize>but
> instead it wishes the Chapters to be the drivers of these kinds of
> activities. So, in the context of highlighting the NIH event which was an
> outreach activity the WMF ran, it might be useful to point out that the WMF
> does not generally intend to be using its funding to undertake such
> activities *itself* - but rather to use those funds to encourage chapters to
> do so. I'm not suggesting removing the NIH example from the page, but
> perhaps it could be clarified a little bit?
> 
> Best,
> -Liam [[witty lama]]
> 
> wittylama.com/blog
> Peace, love & metadata
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 1:25 AM, Steven Walling 
> wrote:
> 
>> I read the Report earlier today as it was passed around Twitter. The design
>> is really a step up from the last report (not that it was bad, just that is
>> one is so good). The timeline in particular is helpful.
>> 
>> I would like to say that the page about the Mumbai attacks article felt *
>> slightly* out of context, at least compared to the amount of space devoted
>> to it versus, say, the NIH Wikipedia Academy. Donors might benefit from a
>> more frank explanation that the article was just one example of the
>> projects
>> as a source of breaking news and how our content evolves over time.
>> 
>> Anyway, that's just some nitpicking on a pretty fantastic document. :) Well
>> done!
>> 
>> Steven Walling
>> http://enwp.org/User:Steven_Walling
>> 
>> On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Jay Walsh  wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> In the next day or so Rand and the fundraising team will be sending out
>> an
>>> email to all of our donors (about 230,000 - thanks to a tremendous
>>> fundraiser) recapping the campaign sharing our 2nd annual report, which
>> you
>>> can also read here:
>>> 
>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report
>>> 
>>> As with our previous year's report, we make an effort to describe the
>>> year's activities, our major accomplishments, our financial successes,
>> and
>>> where we're heading in the coming year/years.  This is a crucial tool for
>>> our fundraisers and for building strong relationships with our major
>>> stakeholders, and of course to let our chapters and our vast community of
>>> volunteers get a snapshot of our work.  It's primarily intended to work
>> as a
>>> print d

[Foundation-l] 2008/2009 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report

2010-01-22 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all,

In the next day or so Rand and the fundraising team will be sending out an 
email to all of our donors (about 230,000 - thanks to a tremendous fundraiser) 
recapping the campaign sharing our 2nd annual report, which you can also read 
here:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report

As with our previous year's report, we make an effort to describe the year's 
activities, our major accomplishments, our financial successes, and where we're 
heading in the coming year/years.  This is a crucial tool for our fundraisers 
and for building strong relationships with our major stakeholders, and of 
course to let our chapters and our vast community of volunteers get a snapshot 
of our work.  It's primarily intended to work as a print document, and one that 
quickly presents top-line data and key information, as well as a basic 
structured narrative about the Foundation and our volunteer community's work.

You'll note that our report is out later than last year, and this isn't a 
pattern we'll duplicate :)  We did spend more time on design and narrative this 
year, with the intention of bringing more depth to the story, especially in 
features like the center-spread anatomy of an article.  We also wanted to put 
more of a forward-facing direction on the report. Optimally our report will 
always come out 2-3 months after the close of fiscal, as soon as our audited 
statements are complete.  

There's still more good work to be done, but it's a big leap from last year. 
This year's designers David Peters and Rhonda Rubenstein did a great job 
(collectively known as 'ExBrook design' here in SF http://www.exbrook.com/).  
Lane Hartwell's ccbysa photos feature prominently - she's been shooting our 
staff portraits for the last two years 
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photography_by_Lane_Hartwell).

We'll be starting work on the next edition in a few months.  About 1500 copies 
will be printed here in the next week or so.  We'll be sure to bring copies to 
the chapter meeting and of course Wikimania.  We can ship some copies out as 
well if there's interest (but in limited quantities only, it's a pricy shipment 
after 10 locations :)

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! 

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw

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[Foundation-l] FYI Wikimedia Foundation Appoints Craig Newmark to its Advisory Board

2009-11-13 Thread Jay Walsh

Hello folks,

This morning (PST) the Foundation sent out the following news about the 
appointment of Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org, to the Wikimedia 
Advisory Board. Craig is incredibly excited to be working with the Foundation 
and volunteers.  He's also blogging about this:
http://www.cnewmark.com/2009/11/wikipedia-is-a-big-deal-so-if-i-can-help-a-little.html

And yesterday newsweek.com ran a great post by Craig about Wikipedia as an 
indispensable aspect of life today:
http://2010.newsweek.com/top-10/unknown-in-1999-indispensable-now/wikipedia.html

Thanks,
jay
-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw


> 
> Wikimedia Foundation Appoints Craig Newmark to its Advisory Board
> 
> SAN FRANCISCO November 13, 2009 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit 
> organization behind Wikipedia, today announced the appointment of Craig 
> Newmark to the Foundation's Advisory Board. Newmark is the founder of 
> craigslist.org, a site where users connect to find and exchange goods and 
> services, including housing and jobs. He currently works as a customer 
> service representative for the site. Over the past 30 years, Newmark has 
> worked in the technology industry with companies such as IBM, GM, Charles 
> Schwab & Co, and Bank of America.
> 
> “Craig’s experience as an innovator and evangelist, coupled with his 
> knowledge of online communities and cultures of trust, will make him an 
> invaluable adviser to the organization,” said Michael Snow, chair of the 
> Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. “His deep understanding of customer 
> service and his dedication to fostering an enormous and engaged community of 
> users will be a tremendous asset as we strive to be responsive to our readers 
> and volunteers.”
> 
> The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the volunteer-written encyclopedia 
> with a staff of just over 30 people, created its Advisory Board in January 
> 2007 as a mechanism for input from leaders and thinkers in fields such as 
> education, technology, and free culture. Advisory Board members convene with 
> Wikimedia's leadership once a year at the annual Wikimania conference, and 
> also support the organization in their specific areas of expertise.
> 
> "We’ve known Craig as a longtime friend and supporter of our projects and 
> we’re deeply grateful for that,” said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. 
> “Craigslist is a like-minded organization with values similar to ours and 
> we’re excited to incorporate his energy and understanding of online 
> communities into our work.”
> 
> “Wikipedia is the first draft of history, and is becoming a preeminent tool 
> for grassroots democracy. It's a great example of people working together, 
> professionals and citizens, for the common good,” said Newmark. “The 
> Wikimedia Foundation strives to ensure Wikipedia has high-quality content, 
> but it does share the accuracy and reliability issues common to all media. In 
> my day job, I've learned a little about that, and about general customer 
> service. I figure one of the best things I can do with my life would be to 
> help apply the few things I've learned for the greater good via Wikipedia. 
> I’m excited to dive in."
> 
> The Wikimedia Foundation is in the midst of the sixth annual annual 
> fundraising campaign, aiming to bring in over $7.5 million in community 
> contributions to finance operations for the upcoming year. For more 
> information, 
> visithttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_launches_2009_annual_giving_campaign
> 
> The current Advisory Board membership includes:
> 
>   • Angela Beesley Starling (Chair, Wikimedia Advisory Board; co-founder, 
> Wikia)
>   • Ward Cunningham (Developer of the first wiki)
>   • Melissa Hagemann (Open access and open education advocate, Open 
> Society Institute/Soros foundations)
>   • Mitch Kapor (Founder/Co-founder Lotus Development, EFF, Mozilla 
> Foundation)
>   • Neeru Khosla (Co-founder, CK-12)
>   • Teemu Leinonen (Professor, Media Lab, Aalto University)
>   • Rebecca MacKinnon (Journalist; founder, Global Voices Online)
>   • Wayne Mackintosh (Education specialist, Commonwealth of Learning)
>   • Benjamin Mako Hill (Author, free software advocate)
>   • Roger McNamee (Venture capital, musician)
>   • Trevor Neilson (Partner, Global Philanthropy Group)
>   • Craig Newmark (Founder, Craigslist.org)
>   • Florence Nibart-Devouard (Former Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of 
> Trustees; Consultant in Collaborative Media)
>   • Achal Prabhala (Researcher and writer)
>   • Clay Shirky (Associate Teacher, Interactive Tel

[Foundation-l] Welcome Moka Pantages to the Foundation!

2009-10-23 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all,

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of announcing the addition of  
Moka Pantages to the Foundation staff.  We've been busy with all-staff  
meetings, so I haven't had a chance to share this news with you  
earlier.  Moka will report to me, here at our offices in San  
Francisco.  She'll be taking on some specific communications projects,  
supporting staff on their communications needs, and hopefully leading  
some new initiatives with the chapters.  You may start seeing her name  
on the lists and on the WMF blog as well.

Moka is new to the San Francisco Bay Area, previously living in Seoul,  
South Korea where she worked for the Seoul Broadcasting Service as a  
Program Manager while completing her MA at Yonsei University.  Prior  
to her move to Seoul, she lived in Seattle and Austin, Texas while  
working with Porter Novelli, a multinational public relations agency  
based in New York.  Moka is originally from the DC/Metro area where  
she graduated from the University of Maryland, and began her career in  
communications working at a local NGO, the Black Leadership Council  
for Excellence, and as an intern on Capitol Hill with Senator Barbra  
Mikulski.

Join me in welcoming Moka!

Thanks,


Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw


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[Foundation-l] Omidyar network press release and QA / Board Announcement

2009-08-25 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all,

It's been an extraordinary day here at Wikimania in several senses of  
the term.  I know there has been some discussion about the perceived  
directions and timing of communications on the list.

At this point the WMF and our latest funding partner, the Omidyar  
Network, have both released the great news about this $2mm, 2 year  
grant.  At the same time I have also released a press release with  
details about the new Board appointments.

The Board Announcement can be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Board_Announcements_August_2009

The Omidyar Network press release can be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009

And a related Q&A can be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA

I can absolutely assure you that our intention from the beginning has  
been to share this great news with the Foundation list before sending  
out publicly - notably in the form of a communication from the Board,  
in this case Michael Snow.  The timing and fairly significant  
circumstances this year (most notably some internet connectivity and  
cellular problems in Buenos Aires) meant that the planned timing of  
our announcement with the Omidyar Network didn't play out as I would  
have hoped.  I've just now been able to get the news out and also  
start taking media calls on both of these announcements.

This was also somewhat compounded by the considerable media interest  
in coverage of some flagged revisions stories (it's important to  
respond to every request we get - we want to get the story right).  We  
were also strongly focussed on the logistics and planning of this  
year's press conference leading up to the beginning of tomorrow's  
events.  And we're a small group of responders here on the ground at  
Wikimania :)

I apologize for any confusion or if the impression was created that we  
were not intending to share this information with the community in our  
normal practice.  It was not so great timing and mostly technology  
hiccups.

The good news is that we're seeing some positive coverage of this  
wonderful and generous grant in the press already - especially as it  
follows the news of last week's Hewlett Foundation grant.  I'm now  
starting to also see coverage of the new Board appointments, which is  
also very exciting news here at Wikimania.

And let's not forget, there is a fairly important event taking place  
in our midst!  We had a wonderful turn-out of press from Argentina and  
from abroad.  There are some amazing sessions planned and I'm  
confident we'll see even more coverage for the good work of Wikimedia  
in the next few days.  I think this is the biggest kind of news week  
we could hope for - and I'm glad we have lots of positive developments  
to share.

Thanks,

Jay


Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw


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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation and Tech blogs down for the interim

2009-06-26 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all - just a quick FYI in case you attempt to access the  
Foundations two official blogs,

We've had to shut both blogs down (they live in the same server space)  
to investigate some tech/patch issues with wordpress.  We're hoping to  
have things back up by the weekend or early next week at the latest.

Wanted to let people know in case you were trying to access and were  
having troubles.

Thanks!
-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw


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Re: [Foundation-l] Divergent Wiktionary logos

2009-03-24 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all,

Just wanted to second Cary's note - we talked about it briefly today.   
A single brand identity for the project would be so much stronger, so  
I encourage discussion on the matter.  I completely appreciate the  
challenges and how things have evolved up to this point, but it would  
certainly be worth a deeper discussion and resolution.

Generally speaking we want to ensure all of the brand identities line  
up across languages.  I'm always impressed by the simple and elegant  
way the project marks get localized in other languages/scripts but  
still nicely translate with the visual style.

Best,

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609

On Mar 24, 2009, at 3:20 PM, Cary Bass wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The two largest Wiktionary projects (English and French) have two
> completely different logos.  [1], [2]
>
> The reason for this, from what I understand, is that a vote was taken
> place about the logo fr.wiktionary currently has, on meta [3]; which
> the English Wiktionary community chose not to be bound by, because
> they, as a community, disagreed with the outcome.
>
> I understand that there are complaints that new logo has elements too
> closely resembling Scrabble pieces, or are otherwise too cartooned to
> some.  The "new" logo does maintain some visual identity as a project
> logo, while the "classic" logo isn't really a logo at all, and
> diverges wildly from project to project.  Of the top ten Wiktionary
> projects, four of them use the new version, while 6 of them use some
> variation of the classic version:
>
> fr: new
> en: classic
> tr: new
> vi: new
> ru: classic (a variation which little resembles the original)
> io: classic (English version)
> el: new
> zh: classic (divergent variation)
> pl: classic (divergent variation)
> fi: classic (English version)
>
> As a whole, I seem to remember that Wiktionary is the second most
> visited site of the Foundation's websites, and I really do think it
> should be appropriate that the site should reflect a common visual
> identity, one that the classic logo does a poor job of creating.  The
> new logo, however, met with rather heavy resistance in, at the very
> least, the English Wiktionary community.
>
> I do, rather strongly, believe that the Wiktionary identity needs to
> be squared away, having some poll in general inclusive of, yet binding
> of all Wiktionary projects, and then if that fails, starting the
> process again, and succeeding to foment an individual logo like the
> recent successful Wikibooks logo revamp.
>
> Cary
>
> [1] <http://en.wiktionary.org>
> [2] <http://fr.wiktionary.org>
> [3] <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary/logo>
>


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Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees: December 2008

2009-03-11 Thread Jay Walsh

I'd be happy to field that.

At this stage it's very simply conversations with those who have a  
deeper understanding of brand, brand architecture, and brand  
development.  You raise probably the most important point of  
discussion (which has been around for a long time, I'm sure) - How do  
the brands of the Foundation and the projects, especially WP,  
interlock and affect each other.

Of course we have lots of hunches, and I certainly spend a lot of time  
talking about this internally and with outside people.  By engaging  
with people who have managed this kind of situation with hundreds of  
other organizations - especially non-profit, web/online properties,  
and (broadly) higher-education organizations, we're hoping to get some  
preliminary advice around what our brand means and how to  
strategically plan with brand in mind.

Initially that's conversations, but if we do proceed with someone  
(hopefully pro-bono, but we're considering options) it would initially  
include lots of outside analysis of the Wikimedia brands, who else is  
here, what it all means.  In fact the first phase, which is  
classically the biggest part of the work, is just helping the client  
understand their situation.  In this case it's essential that we have  
input and advice from many sources, not the least of which would be  
the community of volunteers.  I would suggest we have a pretty  
fascinating, complex situation :)  Many interwoven project brands and  
a lesser-known WMF brand. And on top of that we one of the most  
successful global brands on the web.

After research/analysis it may or may not include advice or changes to  
the brand, improvements - or maybe nothing at all. It's worth  
mentioning as well that brand does not necessarily include the  
'visual' aspects of trademark or look and feel of the visual  
identity.  More importantly it's about building a notional  
understanding of brand - words and ideas that best represent the  
mission, the projects, the people, the ideas - a simple approach.   
 From there we would hope to significantly streamline our  
communications work, improve the simplicity of the fundraising work,  
and hopefully just make it easier for the outside world to understand  
what the foundation is and what we're up to.

Still just conversations at this point, but I look forward to keeping  
you posted on how this work proceeds.

Thanks for your questions...

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609

On Mar 11, 2009, at 6:12 AM, Nathan wrote:

> I'm curious about the plans behind meeting with branding  
> specialists. What
> is the Foundation looking to achieve? Wider brand recognition of the
> Foundation itself (as opposed to the English Wikipedia)? Research  
> into brand
> penetration and audience perception, that sort of thing?
>
> Nathan
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[Foundation-l] Neeru Khosla to Become Wikipedia Advisor

2008-12-15 Thread Jay Walsh

Hi all - passing this on.  We sent out this press release earlier today.

Thanks!

Jay, Communications

>
> ''Neeru Khosla to Become Wikipedia Advisor''
>
> Philanthropist and education pioneer joins non-profit's Advisory Board
>
> San Francisco CA December 15, 2008 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the  
> non-profit organization behind the web encyclopedia Wikipedia, today  
> announced the appointment of Neeru Khosla to its Advisory Board.  
> Khosla is co-founder and chair of CK-12, a non-profit based in Palo  
> Alto, California which is pioneering the concept of "open source  
> textbooks." In September, the U.S. state of Virginia announced a  
> collaboration with CK-12 to produce an open source physics textbook,  
> a major coup for the young non-profit organization.
>
> "I am delighted that Neeru is joining us," said Michael Snow,  
> Chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. "In addition  
> to her understanding of the educational arena both in the United  
> States and elsewhere, Neeru is experienced with the challenges of  
> building and leading non-profit organizations. As we grow and  
> evolve, her expertise will be enormously valuable and welcomed."
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the volunteer-written  
> encyclopedia with a staff of just under 25 people, created its  
> Advisory Board in January 2007 as a mechanism for input from leaders  
> and thinkers in fields like education, technology, and free culture.  
> Advisory Board members convene with Wikimedia's leadership once a  
> year and also support the organization in their specific areas of  
> expertise.
>
> "When people want to learn things online, they go to Wikipedia  
> first," said Neeru Khosla. "It's absolutely clear to me that anyone  
> who cares about education online should seriously consider how they  
> can help Wikipedia do an even better job. It's an important cause,  
> and I'm more than happy to volunteer."
>
> In March 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation received a $500,000 donation  
> from Vinod and Neeru Khosla.
>
> The current Advisory Board membership includes:
>
>* Angela Beesley (Chair, Wikimedia Advisory Board; co-founder,  
> Wikia)
>* Ward Cunningham (Developer of the first wiki)
>* Heather Ford (Executive director, iCommons)
>* Debbie Garside (Multi-lingual web pioneer)
>* Melissa Hagemann (Open Access advocate)
>* Danny Hillis (Engineer, author, inventor)
>* Mitch Kapor (Founder/Co-founder Lotus Developments, EFF,  
> Mozilla Foundation)
>* Neeru Khosla (Co-founder, CK-12)
>* Teemu Leinonen (Head, Learning Environments research group of  
> the Media Lab, University of Art and Design Helsinki)
>* Rebecca MacKinnon (Journalist; founder, Global Voices Online)
>* Wayne Mackintosh (Education specialist, Commonwealth of Learning)
>* Benjamin Mako Hill (Author, free software advocate)
>* Erin McKean (Chief consulting editor, American Dictionaries at  
> Oxford University Press)
>* Trevor Neilson (Partner, Global Philanthropy Group)
>* Florence Nibart-Devouard (Former Chair, Wikimedia Foundation  
> Board of Trustees; Scientist)
>* Achal Prabhala (Journalist and researcher)
>* Jay Rosen (Journalist, author, educator)
>* Clay Shirky (Author, consultant, educator)
>* Peter Suber (Open Access advocate)
>* Raoul Weiler (ICT advocate)
>* Ethan Zuckerman (Research Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet  
> and Society at Harvard Law School)
>
> For more information, visit: 
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>
> ''About the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia''
> wikimediafoundation.org
> wikipedia.org
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which  
> operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore,  
> Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia  
> Foundation receive more than 270 million unique visitors per month,  
> making them the 4th most popular web property world-wide. Available  
> in more than 265 languages, Wikipedia provides more than 11 million  
> articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than  
> 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia  
> Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily  
> through donations and grants.
>
>


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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation applauds IWF decision to reverse Wikipedia censorship in the United Kingdom

2008-12-09 Thread Jay Walsh

We're quite pleased to share this information with you.  This press  
release was distributed a few hours ago - we now have the news posted  
on the WMF wiki and we've updated the blog.

Thanks are owed to many volunteers who spoke to the media and spread  
the word about this situation, as well as those who have been working  
on these and similar issues for quite some time.  Thank you for  
helping to make this possible!

Best,

-- 
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609


>
> 'Wikimedia Foundation applauds IWF decision to reverse Wikipedia  
> censorship in the United Kingdom'
> Removal from Internet blacklist will also allow UK Wikipedians to  
> resume editing
>
> San Francisco CA, December 9 - Earlier today the Internet Watch  
> Foundation (IWF), a non-profit agency tasked with preventing access  
> to potentially illegal internet content, reversed its ruling earlier  
> this week that prevented over 95% of UK internet users from  
> accessing an article about an album by a German rock band, The  
> Scorpions. As a result, UK Wikipedia users were unable to access all  
> of the editing functions on Wikipedia. With this decision, the IWF  
> has removed Wikipedia from its internet 'blacklist.'
>
> "We are grateful to the IWF for making this swift decision, and to  
> thousands of internet users from around the world for their  
> outpouring of support," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the  
> Wikimedia Foundation. "Millions of Britons now have access to all of  
> Wikipedia, and volunteers can resume their important editing work.  
> The Wikimedia Foundation greatly admires the work of our volunteers  
> - they care deeply about Wikipedia and are the first responders in  
> dealing with potentially illegal content on Wikipedia." Gardner  
> added that both the Foundation and its community of users "work hard  
> to be responsive and responsible when it comes to legitimate legal  
> concerns."
>
> Mike Godwin, General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation stated:  
> "We recognize the good intentions of Internet watch groups,  
> including their focus on blocking and discouraging illegal content.  
> Nevertheless, this incident underscores the need for transparency  
> and accountability in the processes of the Internet Watch Foundation  
> and similar bodies around the world."
>
> Added Godwin, "In the long run, monitoring groups need to develop a  
> public set of 'best practices.' These best practices should, at a  
> minimum, decrease the impact on content found to be lawful,  
> acknowledge the context in which the content at issue occurs, and be  
> maximally transparent both to service providers and to individual  
> users. There should be no false or misleading error messages when  
> online censorship does occur."
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation had criticized the the lack of transparency  
> in the IWF's decision making and appeal process, as well as the  
> suspension of editing functions that resulted following the  
> censorship. UK Wikipedia editors account for over 25% of all editing  
> activity on the English Wikipedia.
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is open to dialog on these issues with the  
> IWF and other Internet watch groups.
>
> Wikipedia, the fourth most-visited website in the world, is funded  
> in large part by donations from its users. The Wikimedia Foundation  
> is in the midst of its fifth global giving campaign. For more  
> information, visit http://donate.wikimedia.org
>
>
> 'About the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia'
> wikimediafoundation.org
> wikipedia.org
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which  
> operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore,  
> Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia  
> Foundation receive more than 270 million unique visitors per month,  
> making them the 4th most popular web property world-wide. Available  
> in more than 265 languages, Wikipedia provides more than 11 million  
> articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than  
> 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia  
> Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily  
> through donations and grants.
>
> ---
>
> For more information, contact:
>
> Jay Walsh
> Head of Communications
> Wikimedia Foundation
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> +1 415-839-6885, ext 609
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/
>
> (To be unsubscribed from this distribution list, please reply with  
> the subject: Unsubscribe)
>
>


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