[Wikimedia-l] Re: [GLAM] 1Lib1Ref is back in 2022 with support for more languages and advanced tasks

[Željko Blaće]

On Thu, Dec 16, 2021 at 4:07 PM Satdeep Gill  wrote:

> Hello fellow Wikimedians, librarians, and bibliophiles,
>
> I hope you are doing alright, staying healthy and gearing up for the
> upcoming festive season. I am excited to share that we are bringing you
> another iteration of the 1Lib1Ref  as we celebrate
> 21 years of Wikipedia next month.
>
>
> As always, participation is pretty simple. All you need to do is add more
> references to Wikipedia articles and type #1lib1ref in the Edit Summary.
>
> We are bringing you some exciting updates. For instance, seven more
> languages from the CEE region are now supported by the CitationHunt tool
> . Thanks to the amazing volunteer
> efforts of Guilherme Gonçalves  and Gorana
> Gomirac .
>

Interesting. How hard is it to enable new languages? It would be great if
you can enable not just Serbian and Croatian, but also SerboCroatian and
Bosnian (think differences should not be significant).

> If you are already familiar with editing Wikipedia and would like to
> experiment a bit, we are piloting a couple of contribution methods for
> advanced contributors
> 
> in the January 2022 round.
>

Nice.


> Read more about the campaign at the blog post on Diff
> 
> .
> See you all on 15th January 2022!
>
> Regards
>
> Satdeep
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Approval of Human Rights Policy

[Dan Szymborski]

The fundamental problem here is that the WMF's response to everything is
simply *reactive*. A policy is instituted, with zero real collaboration,
little or no discussion, foggy goals, sparsely answered direct questions
and then simply announced to the community in faux-press release fashion.
And then when people in the community like Andreas Kolbe, who has been an
important voice of caution on many issues, speak up, they're told that this
isn't the specific bureaucratically appointed time to have a discussion.

Then, various WMF-affiliated people assure that we can talk about this,
which is basically "this is our decision, not yours, but we'll be happy to
tell you why we did this, though we're not going to change anything" with
any substantive changes require near rebellion in the Wiki movement. And
telling the community things like that "there's a secret playbook we have"
is making everything worse. *Why* is there a secret playbook for a
collaborative movement? That is not how collaboration and consensus work.

If I and my five friends are collaborating to make a fancy dinner, that
involves *discussing*. It doesn't mean that I decide what the six dishes
will be, inform the other five friends what my decision is, and then simply
assuage them afterwards that I'd love to hear their input. If K says she
doesn't like the parsnip dish I decided on, I don't say "well, I considered
that as part of my decision, so that's that." If P asks why we don't have a
dessert, I don't tell him that this is not the time of the dinner planning
that we may talk about dish choices, but he can ask about it between 4 PM
and 4:30 PM next Tuesday. My friends would get very angry at this very
quickly.

The WMF likes the *idea* of this being a community-driven, collaborative
project rather than actually doing the stuff that *makes* it a
community-driven, collaborative project. How many times does this process
have to repeat in identical fashion before we stop pretending that this
*is* a community-driven collaborative project? If the goal is simply to be
another generic top-down Silicon Valley information charity, just one that
has somehow procured a gigantic unpaid workforce that the elites can
command, then just state it outright so that people don't spend their free
hours toiling in the delusion they're part of a movement.

Best,

Dan



On Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at 8:52 AM Maggie Dennis  wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Dec 18, 2021 at 8:07 PM geni  wrote:
> 
>
>
>> You and who's army? If one of the world's more questionable
>> governments decides to target Wikipedians within its territory there's
>> not a thing you can do about about it. You’re not France. You can’t
>> threaten governments into submission (and if one of the most powerful
>> states on earth can’t get Zara Radcliffe out you certainly can’t).
>>
>> You’re not a mineral extraction company. You don’t have mercenaries on
>> retainer to try and get your people out.
>>
>> You policy is worse than useless. It doesn’t help at all but
>> marginally increases the risk of being involved with Wikipedia as what
>> can be seen as a harmless hobby writing about trains turns into being
>> involved with a human rights campaigning organisation.
>>
>
> There seems to be a lot of distress in this email, and I'm sorry to see
> it. :( I hope I can speak thoughtfully to these issues without raising
> dangers or making it seem like your concerns - which are completely valid
> and which I share - are being minimized.
>
> For those who don't know me, I'm the VP of Community Resilience and
> Sustainability
> .
> For full disclosure, I'm not one of the team working on the Human Rights
> Policy directly, but one of the people who is working on that directly does
> report up through my line to me. I hired him. He is our Human Rights Lead
> in charge of working to intervene in exactly such situations. We hired him
> because we have faced exactly such situations, and we needed competent
> approaches for threats that would arise whether we wanted them to or not.
>
> I'm only going to speak here to that element of this policy, since it is
> one of the specific areas of my focus.
>
> I've spoken about our human rights interventions at the higher level in my
> office hours several times over the past year. (They are linked, with
> notes, from the page above.) The role rose when an early approach one of
> my teams led to collaborate across particularly high risk regions on
> finding resources for people in trouble
>  led us to find more
> critical need for direct support. We CANNOT threaten governments. We are
> NOT an extraction company. You are totally correct. We need to stay humble
> in our approaches. Instead, the Human Rights Team
>  who supports threats
> on the ground is working on several initiatives to help that includes
> digital sec

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Creating new Wikidata items for all Commons categories

[Mike Peel]

Gerard: search for 'Castor' in 'Categories and Pages' in 
Special:MediaSearch (or equally in Special:Search without the subpage 
option) and you'll immediately be pointed towards the category for 
'Beaver' (Castor is the Spanish name). Using Wikidata, we're already 
using multilingual labels to improve these search terms - but the new 
MediaSearch misses them when you're only looking for images.


Paulo: galleries vs categories is mostly solved already. What would 
happen if you found a category like "Eiffel Tower taken from the west 
corner of the Trocadero terrace" if you didn't know English - how would 
you understand it? By linking it with Wikidata, we gain multilingual 
information.


Thanks,
Mike

On 19/12/21 06:28:58, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

Hoi,
As long as we can not confidently search for pictures in any language I 
really wonder what the point is of such an exercise. In my opinion we 
should prioritise measurable effects for our users. Something like: "A 
nine year old will find pictures in his or her language on all the 
subjects of interest to them".


I have shown repeatedly that even a word like beaver will not get you 
much of the furry animal, particularly when you search in other languages.

thanks,
       GerardM

On Sun, 19 Dec 2021 at 00:10, Mike Peel > wrote:


Hi all,

Over the last few years, over 3.6 million Wikimedia Commons categories
have gained an infobox that displays information from Wikidata in the
reader's language. I would like to see this expanded so that all
Commons
categories have a multilingual infobox.

I've started an RfC about this at:

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/Creating_new_Wikidata_items_for_all_Commons_categories



If you're interested in this topic, please comment there.

Thanks,
Mike
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Approval of Human Rights Policy

[Maggie Dennis]

On Sat, Dec 18, 2021 at 8:07 PM geni  wrote:



> You and who's army? If one of the world's more questionable
> governments decides to target Wikipedians within its territory there's
> not a thing you can do about about it. You’re not France. You can’t
> threaten governments into submission (and if one of the most powerful
> states on earth can’t get Zara Radcliffe out you certainly can’t).
>
> You’re not a mineral extraction company. You don’t have mercenaries on
> retainer to try and get your people out.
>
> You policy is worse than useless. It doesn’t help at all but
> marginally increases the risk of being involved with Wikipedia as what
> can be seen as a harmless hobby writing about trains turns into being
> involved with a human rights campaigning organisation.
>

There seems to be a lot of distress in this email, and I'm sorry to see it.
:( I hope I can speak thoughtfully to these issues without raising dangers
or making it seem like your concerns - which are completely valid and which
I share - are being minimized.

For those who don't know me, I'm the VP of Community Resilience and
Sustainability
.
For full disclosure, I'm not one of the team working on the Human Rights
Policy directly, but one of the people who is working on that directly does
report up through my line to me. I hired him. He is our Human Rights Lead
in charge of working to intervene in exactly such situations. We hired him
because we have faced exactly such situations, and we needed competent
approaches for threats that would arise whether we wanted them to or not.

I'm only going to speak here to that element of this policy, since it is
one of the specific areas of my focus.

I've spoken about our human rights interventions at the higher level in my
office hours several times over the past year. (They are linked, with
notes, from the page above.) The role rose when an early approach one of my
teams led to collaborate across particularly high risk regions on finding
resources for people in trouble
 led us to find more
critical need for direct support. We CANNOT threaten governments. We are
NOT an extraction company. You are totally correct. We need to stay humble
in our approaches. Instead, the Human Rights Team
 who supports threats on
the ground is working on several initiatives to help that includes digital
security training and importantly partnerships with organizations around
the world who DO have these abilities.

Raising the danger of Wikimedians is something I take very, very seriously.
Where I work, I can't help but be incredibly aware that no matter how it is
seen, being involved with Wikipedia is not - for many - a harmless hobby
writing about trains. Some of the people we've tried to support have joined
it expecting precisely that, only to find that malign actors around them
already perceived it differently and attempted to pressure or harm them to
get what they wanted.

Our Global Advocacy and Policy teams have the hard job of trying to support
an environment wherein knowledge remains free. I admire them for it and
recognize the hard haul of what they're doing, in a shifting legislative
landscape where this can't be taken for granted anywhere.

My focus is on the people who contribute. I think they must be *informed* -
must know the risks when and where they engage - and must be supported in
doing so *as safely as possible*. I think when things go wrong they need to
have somebody who can help them. Our Human Rights Team is making
connections so that when the things that go wrong come from organized
persecution (<--best words I can think of to describe terrorism, government
groups, etc. This is distinct from individuals being jerks to each other.)

We are short-staffed at the end of the calendar year and with the rising
tide of illnesses globally again, but I do want to note that while I have
contributed some information to the FAQ that will be issued by the Global
Advocacy Team in due course, I know there's a lot of interest in precisely
HOW we work with people who are persecuted.

Y'all, I'm very sorry, but I can't lay out our playbook. Geni is completely
right that this can raise the threat level for people. I always think about
the English Wikipedia's essay on BEANs
.
I don't want to give people ideas or make it easier for them to exploit
gaps in our ability to handle problems. For this reason, I've always
struggled with whether it's better to* not *raise the specter of human
rights violations to those who might not have considered that there are
rights to violate here or to *not* inform the community at large that some
people are violating those rights already. There are pros and cons for both
approaches, and while I know we won't get the balance perfect I will mys

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Approval of Human Rights Policy

[Tito Dutta]

Greetings,
I can make a list of things or areas. However, it is not difficult to do
so. So far, it looks like the consultation was not open and did not engage
the communities who the policy intends to serve. Anyway, in my humble
opinion, what we could do is: getting information, experience, suggestions,
and requests from the people who are actually working in this area, such
as: (note the list is indicative, and incomplete):
a) Wikimedians who are working on editor retention and similar initiatives
on different projects. They have some idea on why people leave, or what are
the challenges? They can give some indications.
b) Definitely country and affiliates/hubs leaders: I won't take any
specific name, but you can think of a few people from each country,
continent, affiliate and hubs who know where it actually hurts in their
regions/counties.
c) Admins and experienced editors from different projects who have
witnessed things themselves: They might be better aware of different
discussions, support requests at different village pumps, noticeboards, or
during different incidents.
d) Major and relevant mailing lists such as Wikimedia-l moderator(s) (or
selected long-term posters): sometimes we see discussions on Wikimedia-l "a
Wikimedia arrested", or some other unpleasant thing happened. A mailing
list moderator or anyone who is following a mailing list for long, may add
a lot of inputs.
e) Legal team or people handling emergency@wikimedia: From time to time
specific requests have gone to the legal team or to the support structures.
I am aware of the few emails I have sent. Note: I understand and respect
privacy. I am not at all asking to make the information public here (or
anywhere).
(and so on)

"could you give some indication what you think you can do to safeguard
someone's human rights in another country?"
I can make a list of two or three things I know (such as a Wikimedian was
arrested, or in India a particular law makes things difficult or possibly
vulnerable etc). However, if the same question is asked at the
above-mentioned channels (the list was indicative), I am absolutely
confident that we will get a whole lot of inputs, indications, and
information. I can add my two cents (my experience, or requests) as a part
of that process, or I can narrate it now in a standalone format. I
personally believe the first option is better. Isn't it so?

Now if we have this detailed consultation,
first) I am pretty sure we'll have an amazingly huge amount of information
and indications.
second) because of different socio-economic backgrounds, I feel we will
receive extremely diverse inputs and indications.
so finally) not everything can be done under different restrictions or
limitations. There might be different things out of scope for various
reasons. A priority order may be needed at some point.
Only after all these steps, possibly a draft policy, alongwith an
implementation plan could be better, in my opinion. Isn't it so?

[PS: Over-all I find this a very important topic and many thanks for
working on this. I am adding inputs with sincere hope that these help the
process. Thanks for your kind attention.]


ইতি,
টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
(মাতৃভাষা থাক জীবন জুড়ে)


রবি, ১৯ ডিসেম্বর, ২০২১ তারিখে ১০:৫৮ PM টায় তারিখে Andreas Kolbe <
jayen...@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:

> Hi Tito and all,
>
> Tito said, in part,
>
>
> 1) Okay, we have an "urgent" policy. What is the plan and procedure to
>> safeguard the human rights of someone? Example: If a Wikimedian's human
>> right is in danger for using Wikimedia's/OSM's disputed map[1], what's the
>> "exact" procedure?
>> I do understand that the implementation plan is to be made (around 13:48
>> of the video[2]) and I fully understand that it is going to be difficult on
>> a global scale. However the execution plan and procedure will be more
>> important.
>>
>
>
>> 4) (around 20:00 of the video) "Three people on the Wikimedia-l mailing
>> list asked ..." I am one of the three I don't think we/I asked about
>> royalty etc. What we speak about is about Wikimedians' lives in different
>> socio-economic backgrounds. This is connected with editor retention,
>> community health, (and human rights). I'll be very happy to discuss it
>> separately on my Meta-Wiki talk page[3] or elsewhere.
>>
>
>
> As for the first question, it is early days, but could you give some
> indication what you think you can do to safeguard someone's human rights in
> another country? You could open communication channels to human rights
> organisations, perhaps, and inform them of problematic cases. Is this the
> kind of action you have in mind? I must say I sympathise with what Geni
> says in his mail – surely the WMF is quite limited in what it can do.
> Geni's point about the WMF potentially being perceived as a hostile
> campaigner (or, I would add, even a US foreign policy instrument), thus
> increasing the risks of participation for individuals, is worth pondering
> as well.
>
> As Tito says, there wa