Re: [Wikimedia-l] Curating YOUR Wikipedia

[Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l]

yes, it is an old issue, what you say it's right but I would be more optimistic.
To summarize my view (I couls send you more information privately)

1. Wikidata largely reflected what Wikipedia indicated, and that was not the 
right way to make it grow, but that was also the past. At the moment, the 
reference of the content is increasing, the clean-up too. In some areas, 
wikidata items are also created before the wikipedia articles nowadays. 

2. new tools are great and will do a lot, but it's users who do the real 
tricks. You have to start to bring local users to wikidata, show them how it 
can be used (automatic infoboxes, fast creation of stubs, automatic lists, 
detecing missing images). They will start to fix the issues, curating their 
wikipedia, wikidata and also indirectly influence the other ones. 

3. IMHO, the wikidata ecosystem is not so bad, it could have more expert users 
with real knowledge of topics, but  commons with millions of automatically 
imported files, and tons of poorly described and uncategorized images faces a 
much worse perspective. You need more tools there than on wikidata, at the 
moment, if you want to keep some balanced workflow. What is really missing on 
wikidata are mostly active projects to coordinate and catalyze the ongoing 
efforts. This one 
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Ancient_Greece made 
miracles, for example. But I couldn't find one about peer-reviewed researchers 
or photographers to name a few, at least in the past months. Investing on this 
aspect would not change the final situation on wikidata (that will be positive 
for me), but it would speed up the process. it will also influence much more 
the content on local wikis because it will bring content-related users closer 
together and increase their wikidata literacy with lower effort.
4. In the end, even with a good high quality wikidata platform, there will 
always be communities that will not integrated in wikidata massively... but 
that's also a good thing for pluralism. You can't assume that a discrepancy is 
always a clue for a mistake (I am sure the examples of your experience are, of 
course), on the long term some of them are simply effects of gray areas that 
need to wait to be resolved even at the level of the sources. Insome fields, 
such as taxonomy, there is some confusion and asymmetric organization of the 
content and will never be solved easily. But in the other areas they probably 
will. 
Alex






Il Domenica 15 Luglio 2018 22:37, Gerard Meijssen 
 ha scritto:
 

 Hoi,
Wikidata is a reflection of all the Wikimedia projects, particularly the
Wikipedias. Both Wikidata and Wikipedia are secondary sources and when two
Wikipedias have opposing information on singular information, it is a cop
out to state both "opinions" on Wikidata and leave it at that.

Given that Wikidata largely reflects what a Wikipedia indicates, it is
important to curate such differences. The first thing to consider is are we
interested at all in knowing about "false facts" and then how we can
indicate differences to our editing and reading community.

I have been editing about Africa for a long time now and I find that the
content about Africa is woefully underdeveloped. Best Wikipedia practice
has it that cities and villages are linked to "administrative territorial
entities" like provinces and districts and I have added such relations from
primary to secondary entities. Adding such information to villages and
cities as well is too much for me. The basic principle is that I am being
bold in doing so. I do relate to existing items and I have curated a lot of
crap data so far. The result is that Wikidata in places differs
considerably from Wikipedias, particularly the English Wikipedia.

As topics like the ones about Africa are severely underdeveloped, just
adding new data is a 100% improvement even when arguably adding sources is
a good thing. By being bold, by starting from a Wikipedia as a base line,
it is important to note that not adding sources is established practice in
Wikidata.

The issue I raise is that when "another" Wikipedia considers its
information superior, it is all too easy to make accusations of adding
"fake facts" particularly when it is not obvious that the "other" Wikipedia
provides better information. To counter such insular behaviour, it becomes
relevant to consider how we can indicate discrepancies between stated facts
in any Wikimedia project vis a vis Wikidata. Obviously it would be
wonderful when the total of all our projects are considered in a
visualisation.

Particularly when a subject is of little interest to our current editor
community, the data in the Wikipedias and by inference in Wikidata is weak.
Many of the subjects, Africa just as one example, are relevant to a public,
both a reading and editing public, that we want to develop. Without tools
that help us curate our differences we will rely on insular opinions and
every project is only a part of what 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns about WMF's "Manager of Community Development" job posting

[Nathan]

I agree with Ad and keyed on the same objection when reading Pine's
complaint. The WMF has been the primary organization responsible for
developing the community since the inception of the Wikimedia movement.
That isn't changed by the titles of any particular position. To the extent
that conflicts of interest develop between the WMF and affiliates, I
question the objectives of the affiliates. Affiliates that fund Wikidata,
GLAM projects and other efforts that source significant volumes of high
quality content do good work. The value of edit-a-thons, "management
effort" dedicated to organizing organizations and paying staff and all that
entails and other soft efforts is less well established. I don't think the
creation of a management layer position over existing staff and work at the
WMF is a great moment to consider the pros and cons of these efforts,
however, whether at the WMF or affiliates. That opportunity is the strategy
development process.

On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 5:58 PM Pine W  wrote:

> Hi Ad,
>
> I agree that WMF support for training can be beneficial (although, given
> the choice, I would prefer non-WMF funding sources in order to minimize
> conflicts of interest between community/affiliate goals and WMF). However,
> the more firmly that WMF tries to elevate itself as the manager of the
> wikiverse and to tell community members what to do, the more strongly I
> object. Community autonomy should be respected, and WMF's purpose in the
> wikiverse is to offer support rather than to assert centralized management.
>
> I have been thinking about these issues for a few days. I think that WMF
> providing technical support and training, such as a document regarding "How
> to create a citation", is much safer than non-technical training, such as
> "How to apply notability guidelines" which may refer to policies and
> practices that are almost exclusively established by community consensus
> instead of WMF edict.
>
> Regarding WMF involvement in community health, I think that there are ways
> that WMF can be supportive without placing itself in control or asserting
> leadership. For example, WMF can usefully and safely improve technical
> tools for sockpuppet detection, and WMF can research the prevalance of
> incivility on wikis over time, and WMF can research the effectiveness of
> interventions that the community decides to implement.
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
>
>
>
>  Original message From: Ad Huikeshoven 
> Date: 7/15/18  12:19 PM  (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia Mailing List <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns
> about WMF's "Manager of Community
>   Development" job posting
> Dear friends,
>
> Pine wrote "The idea of WMF placing itself in the position of managing
> community development is problematic."
> I disagree with Pine. It has been recognized in the past that community is
> the key asset in the movement. I do belief that it is a fiduciary duty to
> manage your key asset wisely and responsively. Editing / contributing to
> Wikimedia projects has a radically decentralized nature. Your concern
> regards paying due respect to that radically decentralized nature.
> Community health has been or is an issue for example. I am very glad there
> is going to be a person leading a team of professionals to provide guidance
> to volunteer leaders. And the person will have a challenge to gain trust of
> the community, and to build trust within the communities.
>
> Have a nice weekend,
>
> Ad
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns about WMF's "Manager of Community Development" job posting

[Pine W]

Rob, I think that you and I are asking similar questions. Hopefully, WMF will 
be able to explain how this position as currently described will exist in 
harmony with the current distributed nature of training programs, instead of 
being a step on the way to internalizing programs in WMF and building up a 
central staff to develop and run these programs. If WMF wants to fund more work 
in this area, which I think could be beneficial, then I think that the better 
way to go would be to enhance support for affiliates and community members in 
leading training development, perhaps by running a grant campaign with training 
as a theme.

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
 Original message From: Robert Fernandez 
 Date: 7/15/18  8:44 AM  (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia 
Mailing List  Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] 
Concerns about WMF's "Manager of Community
  Development" job posting 
On Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 2:00 AM, Pine W  wrote:

> 1. It sounds like WMF intends to centralize the training and leadership 
> development work that in recent years has largely been done by affiliates and 
> grantees, meaning that affiliates should probably expect budget cuts, and 
> individual grants that have been used for outreach work would also probably 
> be reduced as WMF moves to take over this type of work.

My chapter is unaware of any of this type of work that we do that will
be taken over by the Foundation and we don't believe that a single
paid position at the Foundation will somehow lead to the elimination
of any of our many events or programs in these areas.  We welcome more
support from the Foundation in these areas.  Could you provide a
specific example of a program by any chapter that will be absorbed
into this position?

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[Wikimedia-l] Curating YOUR Wikipedia

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Wikidata is a reflection of all the Wikimedia projects, particularly the
Wikipedias. Both Wikidata and Wikipedia are secondary sources and when two
Wikipedias have opposing information on singular information, it is a cop
out to state both "opinions" on Wikidata and leave it at that.

Given that Wikidata largely reflects what a Wikipedia indicates, it is
important to curate such differences. The first thing to consider is are we
interested at all in knowing about "false facts" and then how we can
indicate differences to our editing and reading community.

I have been editing about Africa for a long time now and I find that the
content about Africa is woefully underdeveloped. Best Wikipedia practice
has it that cities and villages are linked to "administrative territorial
entities" like provinces and districts and I have added such relations from
primary to secondary entities. Adding such information to villages and
cities as well is too much for me. The basic principle is that I am being
bold in doing so. I do relate to existing items and I have curated a lot of
crap data so far. The result is that Wikidata in places differs
considerably from Wikipedias, particularly the English Wikipedia.

As topics like the ones about Africa are severely underdeveloped, just
adding new data is a 100% improvement even when arguably adding sources is
a good thing. By being bold, by starting from a Wikipedia as a base line,
it is important to note that not adding sources is established practice in
Wikidata.

The issue I raise is that when "another" Wikipedia considers its
information superior, it is all too easy to make accusations of adding
"fake facts" particularly when it is not obvious that the "other" Wikipedia
provides better information. To counter such insular behaviour, it becomes
relevant to consider how we can indicate discrepancies between stated facts
in any Wikimedia project vis a vis Wikidata. Obviously it would be
wonderful when the total of all our projects are considered in a
visualisation.

Particularly when a subject is of little interest to our current editor
community, the data in the Wikipedias and by inference in Wikidata is weak.
Many of the subjects, Africa just as one example, are relevant to a public,
both a reading and editing public, that we want to develop. Without tools
that help us curate our differences we will rely on insular opinions and
every project is only a part of what we aim to achieve in all our projects.
We will have a hard time growing our audience.

NB this is an old, old issue and it is not going away.
Thanks,
  GerardM

https://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2016/01/wikipedia-lowest-hanging-fruit-from.html
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns about WMF's "Manager of Community Development" job posting

[Ad Huikeshoven]

Dear friends,

Pine wrote "The idea of WMF placing itself in the position of managing
community development is problematic."
I disagree with Pine. It has been recognized in the past that community is
the key asset in the movement. I do belief that it is a fiduciary duty to
manage your key asset wisely and responsively. Editing / contributing to
Wikimedia projects has a radically decentralized nature. Your concern
regards paying due respect to that radically decentralized nature.
Community health has been or is an issue for example. I am very glad there
is going to be a person leading a team of professionals to provide guidance
to volunteer leaders. And the person will have a challenge to gain trust of
the community, and to build trust within the communities.

Have a nice weekend,

Ad
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns about WMF's "Manager of Community Development" job posting

[Robert Fernandez]

On Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 2:00 AM, Pine W  wrote:

> 1. It sounds like WMF intends to centralize the training and leadership 
> development work that in recent years has largely been done by affiliates and 
> grantees, meaning that affiliates should probably expect budget cuts, and 
> individual grants that have been used for outreach work would also probably 
> be reduced as WMF moves to take over this type of work.

My chapter is unaware of any of this type of work that we do that will
be taken over by the Foundation and we don't believe that a single
paid position at the Foundation will somehow lead to the elimination
of any of our many events or programs in these areas.  We welcome more
support from the Foundation in these areas.  Could you provide a
specific example of a program by any chapter that will be absorbed
into this position?

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[Wikimedia-l] Interpreting Wikimedia broadcasts

[Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin]

Greetings from Russia!

This is to let you know that beginning with this Wikimania broadcasts
https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program#Remote_attendance
we'll try to volunteer-interpret all Wikimedia live events (or recordings 
thereof) into Russian.  

Last night we tested with a smartphone & tablet using Wikimedia Research 
Showcase - July 2018 as a source & it seems to be working well enough. We 
observed 5-7 sec. delay, speaker speed above 120 words per minute & audio 
quality affecting my delivery results, but that's quite bearable for the 
economy class ticket. As a qualified conference interpreter with some 
experience of helping international groups over the web, I can pull this 
through in my free time.
 
The idea came about seeing the leaked version of the video-address by our 
middle-aged & older Wikimedians from Wikipedias in the languages of Russia 
community recorded for Wikimania-2018 participants (I understand total 
collection is on the way to Cape Town with Oleg Abarnikov of Wikimedia Russia 
from Moscow). It seemed to hint our elders from among participants of our 33 
Active Wikipedias & other projects 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Languages_of_Russia_Community_User_Group/Dashboard/ru
would actually also like to be exposed to whatever the English-speaking 
youngsters are learning via YouTube broadcasts. These local & Russian 
bilinguals are core contributors into local language Wikis, so respecting the 
request of our language guardians seemed important.

Regards,
farhad

-- 
Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / 
skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan

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