Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason
Actually, the experiment is whether such a campaign would drive more successful grants, as I understand it. It works from the assumption that such grants would have a positive impact. I'm happy to go with that assumption though. I still strongly disagree with this initiative, but especially the way it is executed. I'm glad to hear that all time-sensitive requests can still apply during this period - that would probably be quite a few requests. I'm still in the dark as to why this has to be a three month program (that is a very long period of time to put everything on hold for an experiment) and not just 2-4 weeks. Then you could actually commit to quicker run-through times in the program, etc. Reducing the time frame would reduce the damaging side effect significantly. Lodewijk On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Peter Southwood peter.southw...@telkomsa.net wrote: Did you not see the bit about experimental? Cheers, Peter -Original Message- From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hoehrmann Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason * Siko Bouterse wrote: Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project leaders have been women. Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue. What evidence is there that spending more on gender gap will have any measurable impact on gender gap? I also note that you say projects have not emerged. That sounds like people do not actually have ideas how to impact gender gap with money. Could you identify a couple of projects that would have considerable impact on gender gap but that have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of focus on gen- der gap? -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015) · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2015.0.5577 / Virus Database: 4257/8874 - Release Date: 01/05/15 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there some Wikimedia project to host contents based on original research?
The Wikisource dogma is: If things are published and free, they belong to Wikisource. Unfortunately, there is no Wikimedia project for original research, Sucheta. As an example, some years ago I wanted to host my bachelor thesis (about Wikisource) in a fixed form on Wikisource (and I could do it), but also on a dynamic and collaborative form on Wikibooks. But Wikibooks is for manuals and textbooks, so it's not the right place. IMHO, this issue will get bigger and bigger over the years, and there could be room for another Wikimedia project that would allow open access, collaborative peer review and editing of original research. It could be a sort of new environment between academic publishing and Wikipedia (which now are quite distant for several reasons). Aubrey On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 2:42 PM, Richard Symonds richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: This sounds like a Wikisource idea - do we have any wikisourcerers who can give their thoughts? Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* On 5 January 2015 at 13:30, Sucheta Ghoshal sucheta.ghos...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, A few of my friends and I have been planning to document the history of counterculture in Bengali art and literature. These friends are also working in that domain professionally, and have access to a huge repository of texts, images, and other relevant details that they are willing to make available digitally in the form of free contents. We wish to have the contents as wikis, and, pictures and video snippets that might be involved - as properly licensed free materials. Now, the concern is if there is some Wikimedia Project that would host contents that are based on such an enormous amount of original research. Wikipedia is certainly not the appropriate place. And, as there exist no earlier works on this particular domain on the internet, references would be negligible. I was thinking about Wikibooks, instead. I am not entirely sure if that fits either, but I assume it fits better than Wikipedia, at least. The last option is to host it ourselves with the MediaWiki setup, and I am considering it very much. But, the idea essentially is to make people edit and enrich it with as much inputs as possible. It would be really helpful, in that case, if it could be placed in one of the Wikimedia projects. Suggestions, of every kind, would be deeply appreciated. Best, Sucheta ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there some Wikimedia project to host contents based on original research?
Sucheta Ghoshal, 05/01/2015 14:30: huge repository of texts, images, and other relevant details that they are willing to make available digitally in the form of free contents. Freely licensed reproductions of relevant primary sources are definitely welcome on Wikimedia Commons. We wish to have the contents as wikis, and, pictures and video snippets that might be involved - as properly licensed free materials. Now, the concern is if there is some Wikimedia Project that would host contents that are based on such an enormous amount of original research. The original research part *might* be allowed on some Wikibooks subdomains, you have to ask the community in the relevant language. For your own wiki, it's probably best to enter an open farm. There are several. https://wikiapiary.com/wiki/Farm:Farms Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there some Wikimedia project to host contents based on original research?
Hello Sucheta, for me this looks like a good restart for Wikiversity. For me beside of providing university courses one of the target of Wikiversity is also always to be actually do crowd sourced research works. Best regards Ting Am 01/05/2015 um 02:30 PM schrieb Sucheta Ghoshal: Hi all, A few of my friends and I have been planning to document the history of counterculture in Bengali art and literature. These friends are also working in that domain professionally, and have access to a huge repository of texts, images, and other relevant details that they are willing to make available digitally in the form of free contents. We wish to have the contents as wikis, and, pictures and video snippets that might be involved - as properly licensed free materials. Now, the concern is if there is some Wikimedia Project that would host contents that are based on such an enormous amount of original research. Wikipedia is certainly not the appropriate place. And, as there exist no earlier works on this particular domain on the internet, references would be negligible. I was thinking about Wikibooks, instead. I am not entirely sure if that fits either, but I assume it fits better than Wikipedia, at least. The last option is to host it ourselves with the MediaWiki setup, and I am considering it very much. But, the idea essentially is to make people edit and enrich it with as much inputs as possible. It would be really helpful, in that case, if it could be placed in one of the Wikimedia projects. Suggestions, of every kind, would be deeply appreciated. Best, Sucheta ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Is there some Wikimedia project to host contents based on original research?
Hi all, A few of my friends and I have been planning to document the history of counterculture in Bengali art and literature. These friends are also working in that domain professionally, and have access to a huge repository of texts, images, and other relevant details that they are willing to make available digitally in the form of free contents. We wish to have the contents as wikis, and, pictures and video snippets that might be involved - as properly licensed free materials. Now, the concern is if there is some Wikimedia Project that would host contents that are based on such an enormous amount of original research. Wikipedia is certainly not the appropriate place. And, as there exist no earlier works on this particular domain on the internet, references would be negligible. I was thinking about Wikibooks, instead. I am not entirely sure if that fits either, but I assume it fits better than Wikipedia, at least. The last option is to host it ourselves with the MediaWiki setup, and I am considering it very much. But, the idea essentially is to make people edit and enrich it with as much inputs as possible. It would be really helpful, in that case, if it could be placed in one of the Wikimedia projects. Suggestions, of every kind, would be deeply appreciated. Best, Sucheta ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there some Wikimedia project to host contents based on original research?
This sounds like a Wikisource idea - do we have any wikisourcerers who can give their thoughts? Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* On 5 January 2015 at 13:30, Sucheta Ghoshal sucheta.ghos...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, A few of my friends and I have been planning to document the history of counterculture in Bengali art and literature. These friends are also working in that domain professionally, and have access to a huge repository of texts, images, and other relevant details that they are willing to make available digitally in the form of free contents. We wish to have the contents as wikis, and, pictures and video snippets that might be involved - as properly licensed free materials. Now, the concern is if there is some Wikimedia Project that would host contents that are based on such an enormous amount of original research. Wikipedia is certainly not the appropriate place. And, as there exist no earlier works on this particular domain on the internet, references would be negligible. I was thinking about Wikibooks, instead. I am not entirely sure if that fits either, but I assume it fits better than Wikipedia, at least. The last option is to host it ourselves with the MediaWiki setup, and I am considering it very much. But, the idea essentially is to make people edit and enrich it with as much inputs as possible. It would be really helpful, in that case, if it could be placed in one of the Wikimedia projects. Suggestions, of every kind, would be deeply appreciated. Best, Sucheta ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is there some Wikimedia project to host contents based on original research?
Wikisource should only be used for material that has already been published elsewhere, it sounds like what's being attempted here is original publishing. One option may be simply to set up your own MediaWiki installation and host such material there. You can therefore set your own licencing rules for the content, and make your own rules about what is and is not allowed. Cheers, Craig Franklin On 5 January 2015 at 23:42, Richard Symonds richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: This sounds like a Wikisource idea - do we have any wikisourcerers who can give their thoughts? Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* On 5 January 2015 at 13:30, Sucheta Ghoshal sucheta.ghos...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, A few of my friends and I have been planning to document the history of counterculture in Bengali art and literature. These friends are also working in that domain professionally, and have access to a huge repository of texts, images, and other relevant details that they are willing to make available digitally in the form of free contents. We wish to have the contents as wikis, and, pictures and video snippets that might be involved - as properly licensed free materials. Now, the concern is if there is some Wikimedia Project that would host contents that are based on such an enormous amount of original research. Wikipedia is certainly not the appropriate place. And, as there exist no earlier works on this particular domain on the internet, references would be negligible. I was thinking about Wikibooks, instead. I am not entirely sure if that fits either, but I assume it fits better than Wikipedia, at least. The last option is to host it ourselves with the MediaWiki setup, and I am considering it very much. But, the idea essentially is to make people edit and enrich it with as much inputs as possible. It would be really helpful, in that case, if it could be placed in one of the Wikimedia projects. Suggestions, of every kind, would be deeply appreciated. Best, Sucheta ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason
BumpingI do not see any response on this mailing list from the Grantmaking team, and I can't actually find very much about this entire plan on the Grants portal at Meta (which may say more about the grants portal than about the dissemination of the plant). However, since this is something that has the potential to affect a lot of Wikimedians (individuals, chapters, and other affiliated groups)...as well as women (apparently)... it would be really nice to see what is going on. Some people have mentioned that they received an email. Perhaps it could be forwarded to this mailing list? Risker/Anne On 3 January 2015 at 13:35, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote: For everyone here: I've asked our Grantmaking team to comment and clarify the details of this plan. On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote: Answering to Teemu and Chris: I do think that the for Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Art it is safe to claim that if we organize it the way we would always do, it would still tip the gender balance in our community a little more to the female side. However, I disagree that this should be a main consideration, because I think that would be true for so many outreach projects. Focusing on that would be a pity and a distraction imho. Also, for most participants we don't know the gender, and we don't want to know the gender (because asking for it alone can scare people away) - except for a sample of them, who happen to answer the survey afterwards. All data on that is quite shaky. If necessary, I could easily make a case why WLM is a wonderful gendergap project - the point is that I don't want volunteers to waste their time on making such cases, but rather let them be innovative, come up with new ideas instead of rebranding existing ideas on something like the gendergap. My problems are more fundamental than 'I can't get money for my specific project'. So Chris: yes, these people do a lot for reducing the gender gap in our projects. Also, Wikimedia organizers tend to hop between projects - their next might be more focused on a topic that is popular with women, if their current idea isn't yet. Drawing them into a topic in a positive way (what we do is cool! Join us!) tends to be more successful than telling them they are not allowed to do other stuff (we won't fund you at all unless you do this specific theme). Prioritisation sounds great, but that only works that way if you have one clearly defined pool of resources, that you can actually control. What do you think is the major bottle neck in organizing activities in the Wikimedia movement? In my experience, that is not money, or even WMF staff capacity (even though it is a limiting factor sometimes), but the primary bottle neck is volunteer organizers (or editors). And volunteer time is not a resource you can easily 'control'. If you want to influence it, the most effective way is by persuading the volunteers why another angle is more interesting, more fun, more effective. Best, Lodewijk On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: Like Bence, I would be interested to see how this kind of experiment in WMF grantmaking works out. And also like him I would be a little surprised if something like this is implemented with no notice period. A couple of responses to Lodewijk's post; with people confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community support (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for gendergap-related projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or jealousy. Out of interest, were any of these people doing anything at all to support the reduction of the gender gap in the first place? ;) I called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not about actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap related event. Equally, if you have limited resources, prioritising one thing means reducing attention to something else. So saying we shouldn't work on the gender gap if anything else gets less atention as a result is logically equivalent to saying We shouldn't work on the gender gap. Regards, Chris ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
[Wikimedia-l] This Month In Education: December 2014: Volume 3, Issue 12
Hello everyone, We hope you have enjoyed great holidays! We are sending December's education newsletter. Apologies for cross postings. The end of 2014 witnessed great achievements by participants of Wikipedia Education Program around the world. Some programs completed their first edition of the program when other programs had their highest contributions ever this year! We hope you enjoy reading these stories and look forward to hearing new ones from you this year. All the best, Anna Koval, Wikipedia Education Program Manager. Samir Elsharbaty, Communications Intern, Wikipedia Education Program. *This Month in Education*: December 2014 *Updates, reports, news, and stories about how Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects are used in education around the world.* - Uruguay: Wikipedia Education Program Celebration in Uruguay https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/December_2014/Wikipedia_Education_Program_Celebration_in_Uruguay - Egypt: Egyptian students wrap up their 5th term on Wikipedia with great success https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/December_2014/Egyptian_students_wrap_up_their_5th_term_on_Wikipedia_with_great_success - Serbia: First Wikipedia ambassador at the University of Belgrade https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/December_2014/First_Wikipedia_Ambassador_at_the_University_of_Belgrade - Sweden: Swedish Wikimini 1 year anniversary https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/December_2014/Swedish_Wikimini_1_year_anniversary - UK: Wikimedia UK processing EduWiki 2014 https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/December_2014/Wikimedia_UK_processing_EduWiki_2014 - Regional: Eastern European education programs presented at regional conference https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/December_2014/Eastern_European_education_programs_presented_at_regional_conference - Media: Articles of interest in other publications: Korea, Australia, the Gender Gap, the Wikipedia Library, WikiProject Medicine, Adrianne Wadewitz, Jimmy Wales, and Wikibombs https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/December_2014/Articles_of_interest_in_other_publications *Headlines https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Education/Newsletter/December_2014 · Highlights https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/December_2014/Highlights · Single page https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/December_2014/Single · Newsroom https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/Newsroom · Archives https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/Archives · Unsubscribe https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/This_Month_in_Education* *--* *The This Month In Education Team* https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason
First day back from vacation, I'm drafting response as we speak, just haven't sanity-checked enough to hit send yet :) Will soon! On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 5:35 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: BumpingI do not see any response on this mailing list from the Grantmaking team, and I can't actually find very much about this entire plan on the Grants portal at Meta (which may say more about the grants portal than about the dissemination of the plant). However, since this is something that has the potential to affect a lot of Wikimedians (individuals, chapters, and other affiliated groups)...as well as women (apparently)... it would be really nice to see what is going on. Some people have mentioned that they received an email. Perhaps it could be forwarded to this mailing list? Risker/Anne On 3 January 2015 at 13:35, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote: For everyone here: I've asked our Grantmaking team to comment and clarify the details of this plan. On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote: Answering to Teemu and Chris: I do think that the for Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Art it is safe to claim that if we organize it the way we would always do, it would still tip the gender balance in our community a little more to the female side. However, I disagree that this should be a main consideration, because I think that would be true for so many outreach projects. Focusing on that would be a pity and a distraction imho. Also, for most participants we don't know the gender, and we don't want to know the gender (because asking for it alone can scare people away) - except for a sample of them, who happen to answer the survey afterwards. All data on that is quite shaky. If necessary, I could easily make a case why WLM is a wonderful gendergap project - the point is that I don't want volunteers to waste their time on making such cases, but rather let them be innovative, come up with new ideas instead of rebranding existing ideas on something like the gendergap. My problems are more fundamental than 'I can't get money for my specific project'. So Chris: yes, these people do a lot for reducing the gender gap in our projects. Also, Wikimedia organizers tend to hop between projects - their next might be more focused on a topic that is popular with women, if their current idea isn't yet. Drawing them into a topic in a positive way (what we do is cool! Join us!) tends to be more successful than telling them they are not allowed to do other stuff (we won't fund you at all unless you do this specific theme). Prioritisation sounds great, but that only works that way if you have one clearly defined pool of resources, that you can actually control. What do you think is the major bottle neck in organizing activities in the Wikimedia movement? In my experience, that is not money, or even WMF staff capacity (even though it is a limiting factor sometimes), but the primary bottle neck is volunteer organizers (or editors). And volunteer time is not a resource you can easily 'control'. If you want to influence it, the most effective way is by persuading the volunteers why another angle is more interesting, more fun, more effective. Best, Lodewijk On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: Like Bence, I would be interested to see how this kind of experiment in WMF grantmaking works out. And also like him I would be a little surprised if something like this is implemented with no notice period. A couple of responses to Lodewijk's post; with people confirming my fear that this will likely undermine the community support (or at least support by the 'organizing community') for gendergap-related projects in general - be it out of frustration, compensation or jealousy. Out of interest, were any of these people doing anything at all to support the reduction of the gender gap in the first place? ;) I called it a 'negative campaign' in my emails because the focus is not about actively boosting one type of requests (which is the claim), but rather about making it harder to do something unrelated to it in the hope that people instead will choose for the easy way, and organize a gendergap related event. Equally, if you have limited resources, prioritising one thing means reducing attention to something else. So saying we shouldn't work on the gender gap if anything else gets less atention as a result is logically equivalent to saying We shouldn't work on the gender gap. Regards, Chris ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason
Hi all, This is not exactly how we were hoping to announce the Inspire Campaign on this list, but now that I'm back online, let's try this again... First, to clarify some key points: *Yes, we are taking a 3 month break from funding regular all-kinds-of-proposals in both IEG and PEG programs during February, March and April. *Time-sensitive funding needs that are not focused on the gender gap will NOT be ignored during this period. The plan is not to ignore critical community support requests that cannot wait. If there is a valid reason that you cannot seek funding for your project/program/plan before February or after April, please contact myself in IEG or Alex Wang in PEG and we'll continue to work with our committees to assist you. Our experience has been that many of the requests we receive CAN happen at any time of year, however, and so we're simply asking you to propose those during the other 9 months of 2015. You are still welcome to continue drafting them during this period, even though we won't have capacity to review all of them during this time. *The reason for taking a break from other non-urgent requests during this time is so that we can run an experiment in proactive grantmaking, to see if we can provide meaningful community support and significantly increase impact on Wikimedia projects in a single strategic area.[1] *We don't have enough staff to support all of our usual grantmaking work in both of these programs AND try something new like this at the same time, so we're going to focus our limited energy on 1 new experiment for a brief while. *The first Inspire Campaign will focus on the gender gap, future campaigns could indeed focus on any other topic. Ideas for future campaign topics are welcome! Our intention is not to shut down community ideas outside of themes. Rather, we'd like to learn whether using a theme could actually help drive participation in grantmaking and other areas of Wikimedia projects, as it has for events like WLM. *Like other experiments, we'll measure the results, and then decide if it is worth repeating, or doing something different in the future. If WLM wasn't such a great success, you wouldn't repeat it each year. If this campaign isn't a success, we'll do something different instead. To help us all get on the same page, I'm including below the email that was sent to the IEG and PEG committees just before we went away for Christmas. That has some more background information that may be helpful to folks just learning about this experiment. And I'm happy to help clarify additional questions as they come up here. We're starting a FAQ where I've added answers to a few questions that came up in this thread so far.[2] Please feel free to add more questions to that page and we'll try to answer them in coming days/weeks. Finally, about communications: Like many folks in this movement, our grantmaking team at WMF surely has some room for improvement in terms of timing and communications. Sometimes as plans develop with lots of stakeholders (even just within one organization, let alone a whole movement!) it takes time to get the news out to everyone in an orderly fashion, and we're later than we'd like to be on this one. More details for those interested in the meta-history of how this developed: The idea of running thematic campaigns to experiment with proactively asking for new ideas, reaching more individual grantees, and increasing focused innovation around solving strategic issues was included in our 2014/15 annual plan. [3] (I don't expect you to have read this long and dry document, just noting it was public). Part of the plan was an ask for additional staff to help take on new initiatives like this in grantmaking, so that we could continue existing programs as well as try something new along thematic lines. In August I started the planning page on meta-wiki.[1] Again, although we didn't formally announce anything on this list because the details about staffing and execution were still so unclear, it was public, and we started getting some initial positive feedback on it at Wikimania etc. Over the past 3 months, it became increasingly clear from conversations within WMF that grantmaking should indeed experiment with proactive thematic focus, but that no additional resources should be expected to assist with this. So, in December, we gathered a team of existing staff to sort out what kind of first experiment we could conceivably execute on in time for a campaign aligned with WikiWomen's March. We started communications first with some key stakeholders - both committees and a list of PEG grantees that Alex knew might be working on new proposals in early 2015 who needed as much notice as possible. And believe me, we definitely wish we had more time too. We'd planned to announce more broadly to this list and others as well as updating the PEG and IEG pages once all involved staff were back from vacation in January and could do this right. Many of us don't
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason
* Siko Bouterse wrote: Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project leaders have been women. Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue. What evidence is there that spending more on gender gap will have any measurable impact on gender gap? I also note that you say projects have not emerged. That sounds like people do not actually have ideas how to impact gender gap with money. Could you identify a couple of projects that would have considerable impact on gender gap but that have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of focus on gen- der gap? -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015) · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason
Did you not see the bit about experimental? Cheers, Peter -Original Message- From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bjoern Hoehrmann Sent: 06 January 2015 05:48 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF is shutting down grantmaking for good projects for 3 months for no reason * Siko Bouterse wrote: Why the gender gap? Although we’ve committed to supporting and increasing gender diversity, so far these kinds of projects haven’t emerged organically at any meaningful scale. In the first half of this year, IEG and PEG have spent only 9% of funds on projects aiming to directly impact this gap and less than ? of our grantee project leaders have been women. Without taking time to focus on increasing gender diversity in our content and contributors, this trend is likely to continue. What evidence is there that spending more on gender gap will have any measurable impact on gender gap? I also note that you say projects have not emerged. That sounds like people do not actually have ideas how to impact gender gap with money. Could you identify a couple of projects that would have considerable impact on gender gap but that have been refused funding in the past due to a lack of focus on gen- der gap? -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015) · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2015.0.5577 / Virus Database: 4257/8874 - Release Date: 01/05/15 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
