[Wikimedia-l] CEE Hub voting recommendation for the Movement Charter ratification

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi everyone,


The ratification of the Movement Charter is a key step towards implementing
the recommendations and goals that we all together in Wikimedia have been
working on since 2017.

The Wikimedia CEE Hub and its Steering Committee, with its 10 members from
9 different countries of the CEE region, recommends ratifying the final
version of the Movement Charter. This follows discussions and consultations
with the CEE communities over the last few months, including presenting the
opinions and views of those communities who could not attend the Wikimedia
Summit.


We acknowledge that the Charter is lacking in certain aspects (as detailed
below), but the direction of the Charter provides opportunities and
possibilities for communities and affiliates that can serve as the
foundation for the further development of Wikimedia towards a more
equitable and fair community.

The CEE Hub has provided an analysis of the Movement Charter
<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Pz5irzyJb2GeJZFPGFi6qIGXj-2BHP5l1nFmMNunkLY/edit#slide=id.g2c9143f36d2_0_70>
that
serves as the basis of this recommendation, and includes the following
arguments for ratification:

   -

   Volunteers and communities are given the right to demand a “Care
   Responsibility” from their local affiliate, their regional network and the
   global movement bodies.
   -

   Communities are held to certain standards of equal access and openness,
   which, while a non-issue in most communities, will also make it easier to
   hold projects accountable that do not follow this principle.
   -

   Movement Bodies (including affiliates and hubs) have stated rights and
   responsibilities that can be argued at an independent body, including
   disputes with the Wikimedia Foundation.
   -

   The right to fundraise is stated and provides the basis for a future
   dialogue on what the financial sustainability of Wikimedia should look like.
   -

   The Wikimedia Foundation is treated as a supportive part of the
   Wikimedia Movement and not as the superior decision-making organisation.
   -

   The new core of the global governance structure, the Global Council, has
   the necessary tools to bring meaningful change to the way we work together.


While these arguments merit ratification of the Movement Charter, the
following aspects will require the attention of the first Global Council:

   -

   Relationships between key Wikimedia stakeholders, like the one between
   the Wikimedia Foundation and the Global Council, will have to be defined in
   more detail.
   -

   The budgetary planning process of all movement funds will have to become
   a truly participatory process under the guidance of the Global Council and
   include a long-term strategic plan.
   -

   The transition to or establishment of new decision-making structures
   should not result in parallel processes and putting more burden on
   volunteers and communities.
   -

   Decision-making processes should be located as close to those affected
   by those decisions, instead of continuing centralised decision-making that
   does not solve the causes of our current structural and organisational
   issues in Wikimedia.


On behalf of the Steering Committee of the CEE Hub,

Kiril Simeonovski
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[Wikimedia-l] Extended call for submissions deadline for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to remind you that the deadline for the extended call for
submissions

 for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023
, which will
take place in the period 15–17 September, expires today. If you plan to
share your learning and experience with the others at this online event,
the time for submitting your session proposal is now.

Best regards,
Kiril
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[Wikimedia-l] Extension of the call for submissions for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

As a result of the multiple requests and questions regarding the
possibility to submit proposals after the closure of the call for
submissions
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2023/Submissions>
 for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2023>, which will
take place in the period 15–17 September, the programme committee decided
to extend it until 31 May.

Best regards,
Kiril Simeonovski
Chair of the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023 programme committee
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[Wikimedia-l] Call for submissions deadline for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to remind you that the deadline for the call for submissions
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2023/Submissions>
 for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2023>, which will
take place in the period 15–17 September, expires today. If you plan to
share your learning and experience with the others at this online event,
the time for submitting your session proposal is now.

Best regards,
Kiril Simeonovski
Chair of the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023 programme committee
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: ChatGPT as a reliable source

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Thank you everyone for your input.

Your considerations are very similar to mine, and they give a clear
direction towards what the guidelines regarding the use of ChatGPT should
point to.

Best regards,
Kiril

On Wed, 17 May 2023 at 10:11, Ilario valdelli  wrote:

> Define "reliable source".
>
> A source is reliable if can be consulted by other people than the editor
> to check the content.
>
> Is this possible with ChatGPT? No, becaue if you address the same
> question to CHatGPT, you will have a different answer.
>
> In this case how the people verificaying the information can check that
> the editor did not invent the result?
>
> Kind regards
>
> On 17/05/2023 09:08, Kiril Simeonovski wrote:
> > Dear Wikimedians,
> >
> > Two days ago, a participant in one of our edit-a-thons consulted
> > ChatGPT when writing an article on the Macedonian Wikipedia that did
> > not exist on any other language edition. ChatGPT provided some output,
> > but the problem was how to cite it.
> >
> > The community on the Macedonian Wikipedia has not yet had a discussion
> > on this matter and we do not have any guidelines. So, my main
> > questions are the following:
> >
> > * Can ChatGPT be used as a reliable source and, if yes, how would the
> > citation look like?
> >
> > * Are there any ongoing community discussions on introducing guidelines?
> >
> > My personal opinion is that ChatGPT should be avoided as a reliable
> > source, and only the original source where the algorithm gets the
> > information from should be used.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Kiril
> >
> > ___
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>
> --
> Ilario Valdelli
> Wikimedia CH
> Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
> Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
> Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
> Wikipedia: Ilario
> Skype: valdelli
> Tel: +41764821371
> http://www.wikimedia.ch
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] ChatGPT as a reliable source

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear Wikimedians,

Two days ago, a participant in one of our edit-a-thons consulted ChatGPT
when writing an article on the Macedonian Wikipedia that did not exist on
any other language edition. ChatGPT provided some output, but the problem
was how to cite it.

The community on the Macedonian Wikipedia has not yet had a discussion on
this matter and we do not have any guidelines. So, my main questions are
the following:

* Can ChatGPT be used as a reliable source and, if yes, how would the
citation look like?

* Are there any ongoing community discussions on introducing guidelines?

My personal opinion is that ChatGPT should be avoided as a reliable source,
and only the original source where the algorithm gets the information from
should be used.

Best regards,
Kiril
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Deror Lin passed away

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Itzik,

This is shocking and heart-wrenching news. My deepest condolences to
Deror's family and friends, as well as to Wikimedia Israel, the Hebrew
Wikipedia community and the global community for this huge loss. Deror was
a good friend of mine, we worked together in many volunteer capacities in
the movement and spent many memorable moments at Wikimedia-related events.

Kiril

On Sat, May 6, 2023 at 12:59 PM itzik Edri  wrote:

> Dear friends,
>
> I'm sorry to update that our friend and colleague Deror Lin
> (user:Deror_Avi) passed away this morning.
>
> Deror was a truly Wikimedian in blood who poured his heart and soul into
> the movement in many ways, even in his final days. He joined Wikipedia in
> 2004 and was one of the founders of Wikimedia Israel. For over 16 years, he
> served as an active board member.
>
> He was the driving force behind Wikimania 2011 in Haifa and a key member
> of the Wikimania committee ever since. He led countless programs and
> projects, both locally and internationally, including conferences, WLM
> competitions, educational programs, photo and editing contests, and many
> others.
>
> More than that, he wrote over 8,600 articles on HEWP (comprising more than
> 2% of it!), making him the number one article writer in HEWP, alongside
> more than 37,000 contributions to Commons.
>
> For his huge contribution and love for the movement, he was honored last
> year as the Wikipedia Laureate of 2022.
>
> Deror, you were not just a colleague but a true friend. We worked together
> on many projects, events, and initiatives over the years. No matter the
> situation, you always had a smile and shining eyes with your love for
> Wikipedia.
>
> *On behalf of Wikimedia Israel, I extend our deepest condolences to
> Deror's family and friends. You will always be remembered, Deror.*
> *ברוך דיין האמת. Baruch dayan ha-emet*
>
>
> Itzik.
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Extended call for submissions for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2022

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to inform you that the call for submissions

 for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2022
, which will
take place in the period 14–16 October, has been extended until 7 August.
If you failed to submit your session proposal, you still have time to do it
and share your learning and experience with the others.

Best regards,
Kiril
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[Wikimedia-l] Call for submissions deadline for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2022

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to remind you that the deadline for the call for submissions

 for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2022
, which will
take place in the period 14–16 October, expires today. If you plan to share
your learning and experience with the others at this online event, the time
for submitting your session proposal is now.

Best regards,
Kiril
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[Wikimedia-l] Call for submissions for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2022

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

The call for submissions
 for
the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2022, which will take place in Ohrid from 14-16
October, is now open. This year's conference will be labelled with the
slogan "Bringing Back Together!" to highlight the fact that we will meet in
person after the conference took place online in the previous two years.

Session proposals can be submitted in six different types with standardised
durations. The authors of the submissions have freedom to identify the
topic(s) covered with their proposals, and the conference themes will be
determined after marrying up the indicated topics of the accepted
submissions.

There is no limit on the number of session proposals submitted by an
individual, a group or a community, and we are looking forward to receiving
submissions pertaining to diverse topics from every community within
the CEE region.
We also welcome, and have reserved limited space for, submissions from
people outside this region.

The call for submissions closes on 31 July at 23:59 (CEST).

Best regards,
Kiril
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021 registration is now open

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

The registration for Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021>, which
will take place from 5-7 November, under the slogan "Meet for a Better
Future!" is now open.

You can sign up for participation by adding your username and affiliation
to the list of participants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021/Participants/List>,
and
you can confirm your registration and get your ticket for free on the
conference's Eventbrite page
<https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wikimedia-cee-online-meeting-2021-tickets-182488035627>
.

Best regards,
Kiril Simeonovski
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[Wikimedia-l] Call for submissions deadline for Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to remind you that the deadline for the call for submissions
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021/Submissions>
 for Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021>, which
will take place from 5-7 November, expires today. If you plan to share your
learning and experience with the others at this online event, the time for
submitting your session proposal is now.

Best regards,
Kiril Simeonovski
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Lea and Ashwin,

Thank you for your questions.

The slogan "Meet for a Better Future!" was conceived through a
brainstorming that we had in our Telegram group. We all agreed that we want
to focus on the "future" and this word has easily entered the slogan. A
more challenging task was to find a suitable verb and contenders other than
"meet" were "reach", "open", "build" and "connect". At the end, however, we
settled for the simple "meet" and also added "better" to reflect our
expectation for an improvement. I am glad that you were on a similar line
of thought for WikidataCon 2021.

The main language of the conference will be English but we also welcome and
plan to include sessions in Russian. In the same vein as last year, we will
provide simultaneous language interpretation from English to Russian and
vice versa. Given that the CEE region consists of a large number of
communities whose representatives use only Russian as an international
language, the easiest way to break the language barrier and enable these
people to take part and share their ideas and learning was by introducing
this language.

Best regards,
Kiril

On Fri 27. Aug 2021 at 10:34, Ashwin Baindur - User AshLin <
ashwin.bain...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Kiril,
>
> What would be the language of communication?
>
> Regards, Ashwin Baindur (User:AshLin on en:WP)
>
> On Fri, 27 Aug 2021 at 01:52, Kiril Simeonovski <
> kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I would like to announce the Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021
>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021>,
>> which is scheduled to take place from 5-7 November and will be a virtual
>> event for a second consecutive year.
>>
>> This year's conference will be labelled with the slogan "Meet for a
>> Better Future!" and its programme will be mostly filled with session
>> proposals received through a call for submissions, while there will also be
>> a handful of sessions that will feature keynote speakers or will be
>> formatted as plenary discussions on important topics from the Wikimedia
>> movement. *You can submit your session proposal
>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021/Submissions>
>>  until
>> the extended deadline of 30 September 2021.*
>>
>> Considering that the event will take place in an online environment and
>> there are no significant barriers for participation, we would like to
>> encourage participation and session proposals by people from outside the
>> region of Central and Eastern Europe.
>>
>> In case you have any questions regarding the conference, please do not
>> hesitate to contact the Organising Committee members
>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021/Development#Organising_Committee>.
>> You can also read the official blog post
>> <https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/07/20/announcing-the-wikimedia-cee-online-meeting-2021/>
>> announcing the event in order to get more information about it.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Kiril Simeonovski
>>
> ___
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>
>
>
> --
> Warm regards,
>
> Ashwin Baindur
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to announce the Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021>, which
is scheduled to take place from 5-7 November and will be a virtual event
for a second consecutive year.

This year's conference will be labelled with the slogan "Meet for a Better
Future!" and its programme will be mostly filled with session proposals
received through a call for submissions, while there will also be a handful
of sessions that will feature keynote speakers or will be formatted as
plenary discussions on important topics from the Wikimedia movement. *You
can submit your session proposal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021/Submissions>
until
the extended deadline of 30 September 2021.*

Considering that the event will take place in an online environment and
there are no significant barriers for participation, we would like to
encourage participation and session proposals by people from outside the
region of Central and Eastern Europe.

In case you have any questions regarding the conference, please do not
hesitate to contact the Organising Committee members
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021/Development#Organising_Committee>.
You can also read the official blog post
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/07/20/announcing-the-wikimedia-cee-online-meeting-2021/>
announcing the event in order to get more information about it.

Best regards,

Kiril Simeonovski
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[Wikimedia-l] CEE Talks and CEE Meets You

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

After the Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2020

successfully took place earlier this month, I would like to announce the
start of two new initiatives inspired by the format and topics of the
online conference — CEE Talks 
 and CEE Meets You .

CEE Talks are open virtual discussions on topics of interest for
Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe with the goal of more efficient
and transparent decision-making and call for action. The initiative is a
very good opportunity to continue the intense and never-ending discussions
at conferences and animate the CEE communities to be more active while
online. The first CEE Talk

has
already been scheduled for 22 October at 16:00 (UTC) on the topic "Strategy
2030 recommendations and initiatives, Round 1".

CEE Meets You is an initiative with the goal of establishing and improving
the collaboration between Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe and
the other regional hubs in the Wikimedia movement. These collaborations can
expand the linguistic scope of the writing contests such as CEE Spring,
Wikipedia Asian Month or Bridges across Cultures, as well as help us learn
more about the strategic needs and priorities of the other regional hubs.
We can also mutually share experiences in other areas.

Best regards,
Kiril
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2020

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to inform you that we are almost at the onset of the Wikimedia
CEE Online Meeting 2020
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2020>, which
will take place from 2–4 October. We have prepared a conference programme
with a variety of topics covered by speakers from all around the world (the
schedule is available on the following link
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2020/Programme#Schedule>
).

Considering that this is an online event, the registration will be open
until *2 October at 12:00 (UTC)*. You can find more instructions regarding
the registration on this page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2020/Participants/List>
.

This is a one-time opportunity for non-CEE Wikimedians to attend the
Wikimedia CEE Meeting. Don't miss it!

Stay safe and healthy!

Best regards,
Kiril Simeonovski
Chair of the Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2020 organising committee
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[Wikimedia-l] Draft schedule of Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2020

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to inform you that the draft schedule

of
the Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2020, which will take place from 2–4
 October, has been published. We have received proposals covering
interesting topics with creative ideas and it was a real challenge to
accommodate them in the optimal way. Thank you for your interest in taking
part as a speaker.

The registration for the event is still open. You can add your username to
the list of participants

and
subsequently confirm your participation by getting your ticket for free on
the following link

. *Note that the number of participants per community is unlimited and we
also welcome interested participants from outside the CEE region.
*Additionally,
there is no obligation to attend all sessions at the conference and you can
freely choose only those that you find particularly interested in.

Best regards,
Kiril
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2020

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I hope you are fine and healthy amid the difficult times.

After the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2020
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2020> was cancelled
and postponed for 2021 due the COVID-19 pandemic, we came up with the idea
of organising an online conference in order to keep continuity and discuss
the major ongoings in the Wikimedia movement. The online event is planned
to take place as the Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2020
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2020> from
2-4 October and it will be labelled with the slogan "Stay Stronger Online!".

The programme for the event will be modest compared to the in-person
conferences because of the technical difficulties and the different
participants' environment. About a half of the time slots will be reserved
for sessions on pre-selected topics covering major ongoings in the
movement, while the other half will be filled with session proposals
received through a call for submissions with three tracks in the submission
process: COVID-19, Basic capacity development and Advanced capacity
development. *The deadline for submitting session proposals
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2020/Submissions>
is
23:59 (CEST) on 31 August 2020.*

Considering that this is planned to be an online event, we decided to *extend
the eligibility for participation beyond the CEE communities and allow
every interested individual contributor from the Wikimedia movement to take
part (see list of interested participants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2020/Participants/List>)*.
That said, we hope that this online event will be enriched and diversified
with the participation of people outside the CEE region.

Stay safe and healthy!

Best regards,
Kiril Simeonovski
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2020 will be on August 5-9. Bangkok, Thailand.

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear Roman,

Thank you for announcing the dates of Wikimania 2020 and suggesting a trip
to other East Asian countries, including Japan for the Olympics, but was it
inevitable to schedule the event during the Olympics?

Best regards,
Kiril

On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 18:54 Roman Bustria Jr.  wrote:

> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> I am delighted to announce that Wikimania 2020 will happen from 5-9 August,
> 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand.
>
> We will announce other details in the upcoming weeks.
>
> For now, you may start planning your Asian tour iterinary. You may consider
> doing a side trip in other ESEAP countries like Myanmar, Cambodia, Japan
> (Olympic Games), Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Taiwan,
> Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and many others.
>
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Butch Bustria
> Wikimedia ESEAP
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community feedback and next steps on movement brand proposal

[Kiril Simeonovski]

HI David,

Yes, it stands to reason to announce on all wikis in a similar way as the
announcements about board or steward elections.

Best,
Kiril

On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 9:46 PM David Gerard  wrote:

> On all wikis?
>
> On Sat, 7 Sep 2019 at 19:19, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
> >
> > Right.
> >
> > I guess a central notice about an RfC would be appropriate.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Yaroslav
> >
> > On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 8:16 PM Kiril Simeonovski <
> > kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > It seems like there is a clear consensus to open an RfC on Meta about
> this,
> > > so we can safely move forward with it and close this thread.
> Otherwise, we
> > > will most likely keep up boggling our minds with the 20-per-cent
> metric and
> > > endlessly discuss how unfortunate is this for the global community
> when the
> > > only rational thing we can do is take action and save everyone's time.
> > >
> > > Do you have any concluding remarks or comments regarding the RfC?
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > > Kiril
> > >
> > > On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 7:57 PM Ferdinando Traversa <
> > > ferdi.trave...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > I’m against and sincerly I don’t trust this datas (80% agrees? Are
> you
> > > > kidding me? I’ve seen the meta discussion). I think a Meta CLEAR
> VOTE as
> > > > suggested here is the best way. Imposing a change like this is a
> wrong
> > > > decision.
> > > >
> > > > Regards.
> > > >
> > > > > Il giorno 6 set 2019, alle ore 05:49, Zack McCune <
> > > zmcc...@wikimedia.org>
> > > > ha scritto:
> > > > >
> > > > > *Summary* - We want your help with a voluntary, OPT-IN design
> process
> > > for
> > > > > movement branding.  Please join the in-depth discussion group, or
> watch
> > > > for
> > > > > updates on Meta-Wiki.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Hello all,
> > > > >
> > > > > After 4 months of community consultation, spanning dozens of
> > > affiliates,
> > > > > several mailing lists, community conferences, and Meta-Wiki, I am
> > > pleased
> > > > > to share a summary of feedback on the proposed 2030 movement brand
> > > > strategy
> > > > > [1].
> > > > >
> > > > > From more than 319 comments, representing 150 individual
> contributors
> > > and
> > > > > 63 affiliates, we assessed 6 major themes in feedback:
> > > > >
> > > > >   1.
> > > > >
> > > > >   Reducing confusion
> > > > >   2.
> > > > >
> > > > >   Protecting reputation
> > > > >   3.
> > > > >
> > > > >   Supporting sister projects
> > > > >   4.
> > > > >
> > > > >   Addressing (legal, governmental) risks
> > > > >   5.
> > > > >
> > > > >   Supporting movement growth
> > > > >   6.
> > > > >
> > > > >   The process of change
> > > > >
> > > > > Please visit our feedback summary page to learn more [2]. You will
> see
> > > > > examples of comments within each section, along with a rough
> indication
> > > > of
> > > > > how many of the comments that we received were related to each
> theme.
> > > > >
> > > > > The comments sometimes contradict one another, showing that across
> our
> > > > wide
> > > > > movement’s experience, different points of view are common (and a
> sign
> > > of
> > > > > health!). To visualize these tensions, we have created “polarity
> maps”
> > > > > which are used to help visualize how different arguments coexist in
> > > > tension
> > > > > with each other.
> > > > >
> > > > > Ultimately, the comments provided from you all are very thoughtful
> and
> > > > > useful guidance on what is needed to make our movement’s branding
> > > > > successful. One can read the 6 themes above as “criteria” for
> assessing
> > > > > branding systems.
> > > > >
> > > > > == Thanks ==
> > > > >
> &g

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community feedback and next steps on movement brand proposal

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi all,

It seems like there is a clear consensus to open an RfC on Meta about this,
so we can safely move forward with it and close this thread. Otherwise, we
will most likely keep up boggling our minds with the 20-per-cent metric and
endlessly discuss how unfortunate is this for the global community when the
only rational thing we can do is take action and save everyone's time.

Do you have any concluding remarks or comments regarding the RfC?

Best regards,
Kiril

On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 7:57 PM Ferdinando Traversa 
wrote:

> I’m against and sincerly I don’t trust this datas (80% agrees? Are you
> kidding me? I’ve seen the meta discussion). I think a Meta CLEAR VOTE as
> suggested here is the best way. Imposing a change like this is a wrong
> decision.
>
> Regards.
>
> > Il giorno 6 set 2019, alle ore 05:49, Zack McCune 
> ha scritto:
> >
> > *Summary* - We want your help with a voluntary, OPT-IN design process for
> > movement branding.  Please join the in-depth discussion group, or watch
> for
> > updates on Meta-Wiki.
> >
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > After 4 months of community consultation, spanning dozens of affiliates,
> > several mailing lists, community conferences, and Meta-Wiki, I am pleased
> > to share a summary of feedback on the proposed 2030 movement brand
> strategy
> > [1].
> >
> > From more than 319 comments, representing 150 individual contributors and
> > 63 affiliates, we assessed 6 major themes in feedback:
> >
> >   1.
> >
> >   Reducing confusion
> >   2.
> >
> >   Protecting reputation
> >   3.
> >
> >   Supporting sister projects
> >   4.
> >
> >   Addressing (legal, governmental) risks
> >   5.
> >
> >   Supporting movement growth
> >   6.
> >
> >   The process of change
> >
> > Please visit our feedback summary page to learn more [2]. You will see
> > examples of comments within each section, along with a rough indication
> of
> > how many of the comments that we received were related to each theme.
> >
> > The comments sometimes contradict one another, showing that across our
> wide
> > movement’s experience, different points of view are common (and a sign of
> > health!). To visualize these tensions, we have created “polarity maps”
> > which are used to help visualize how different arguments coexist in
> tension
> > with each other.
> >
> > Ultimately, the comments provided from you all are very thoughtful and
> > useful guidance on what is needed to make our movement’s branding
> > successful. One can read the 6 themes above as “criteria” for assessing
> > branding systems.
> >
> > == Thanks ==
> >
> > I would like to thank the organizers of Iberoconf, Wikipedia Education
> > Summit, and the Wikimedia Summit for inviting us to hold discussions
> during
> > their sessions. I would also like to thank my colleagues Elena Lappen,
> > Samir Elsharbaty, and Blanca Flores who conducted extensive parts of this
> > consultation. To the hundreds of people, and dozens of affiliates
> > commenting, thank you for reviewing the proposal and offering your
> > perspectives and insights.
> >
> >
> > == Next steps and staying involved ==
> >
> > There is considerable support for the brand proposal and general appetite
> > to improve our movement’s branding system. Further, we believe that
> > critical feedback on the proposal offers direct guidance for precisely
> what
> > branding must do to be successful for our movement. We have shared these
> > insights and our proposed continuance with the Board of Trustees, who
> > approved continuing these efforts.
> >
> > Acting on community insights, we will be collaborating on formal brand
> > naming, visual identity, and brand system design that will use
> “Wikipedia”
> > as the central reference point. The resulting system will be OPT-IN for
> > affiliates.
> >
> > This design process will be guided by a “brand network” – a group of
> > volunteers who would like to continue advising on brand during this
> > consultation. Dozens of people have already volunteered, and we invite
> you
> > to join the group. We will use a group on Wikimedia Space to host this
> > discussion and the group will be closed to allow candid discussions and
> > room for iterations. EVERYONE IS INVITED TO JOIN [3]. If you do not want
> to
> > commit to the in-depth, longer term discussions that will be happening
> > within the brand network group, we will still be tracking comments left
> on
> > the project’s Meta-Wiki page [4]. Furthermore, all important ideas and
> > updates originating from the brand network discussion will be shared
> > publicly to mailing lists and Meta-Wiki.
> >
> > The development of this proposed identity system will take approximately
> 6
> > months. As stated, regular updates will be shared to mailing lists,
> > Wikimedia Space, and Meta-Wiki [4]. Please engage us where you are most
> > comfortable! Once complete, community groups will have the power to
> decide
> > if/when they opt in to using the new system.
> >
> > Yours,
> >
> > Zack
> >
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community feedback and next steps on movement brand proposal

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi all,

I think the problem arises from the lack of transparency about Wikimedia
Foundation's intent to hire a consulting firm for a rebranding advice. This
is a major thing that affects our entire movement and thousands of
contributors who self-identify with the brand names that we currently have.

But since they put the rebranding on the front burner and have already
spent money with no formal approval by the community, they are definitely
ready to enforce it no matter what the community opines and how strong is
the opposition built around it. The use of the ridiculous 20-per-cent
metric explained previously in this thread strongly supports this.

To give you a better insight about what has happened, imagine that your
family hire a consultant for an advice to change your personal name without
even asking you if you give consent and afterwards they come with a
proposed new name that might increase your career success. How would you
feel is exactly our community's attitude towards this rebranding.

Best regards,
Kiril

On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 23:06 Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I think a rebranding to Wikipedia is the best branding option but, at the
> same time, I aknowledge that this can cause a wide variety of problems to
> so many people inside our community that doing it without a plan to give
> safety (not only legal, as their lives could be compromised) is a bigger
> danger than the benefits it causes.
>
>
>
> 2019 ira. 6 10:41 PM erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Isaac Olatunde <
> reachout2is...@gmail.com>):
>
> We sometimes spend several minutes trying to explain to potentials partners
> the difference between Wikipedia and Wikimedia and the relationship between
> them.
>
> In most cases we just use "Wikipedia" so as to not confuse them.
>
> Of course some people would share an opposing view for many reasons but I
> do think this rebranding is important.
>
> Regards
>
> Isaac
>
> On Fri, Sep 6, 2019, 9:29 PM Strainu 
> > Pe vineri, 6 septembrie 2019, Adrian Raddatz  a
> > scris:
> >
> > > Yet another potentially good idea from the Foundation killed by the
> usual
> > > atrocious style of stakeholder management. No benefits framed for the
> > > community,
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> > > no indication that this change is coming from the bottom up,
> >
> >
> > Huh? Have you seriously never seen people asking the difference between
> > Wikipedia and Wikimedia or wiki(m|p) edians complaining about how hard it
> > is to explain that difference?
> >
> > This change is very much a bottom up one, even if it is pushed by the WMF
> > using corporate procedures rather than by the community using an RfC.
> >
> >
> >
> > > no
> > > assurance that this change happens or not based on the results of the
> > > consultation.
> >
> >
> > I would say that it was pretty clear the change will happen :)
> >
> > Strainu
> >
> > >
> > > You can't figure out the benefits to the community - your key
> stakeholder
> > > group - entirely as part of the consultation. You need to frame the
> > > consultation as figuring out how to achieve pre-identified benefits to
> > your
> > > stakeholders in the optimal way. You should also try to get buy-in from
> > key
> > > community groups *before* you start consulting, and use them as part of
> > the
> > > consultation, so it stops being Foundation vs. the community and turns
> > into
> > > the Foundation collaboratively supporting community-led ideas.
> > >
> > > It pains me to see this being done poorly, time and time again.
> > >
> > > Adrian Raddatz
> > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 3:28 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > > paulospern...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > After the last disastrous WMF intervention in Wikipedia - Framgate -
> I
> > > > believe the timing is just perfect for the WMF to go forward with
> this
> > > fit
> > > > of creativity of branding themselves as the "Wikipedia Foundation".
> > > >
> > > > It's one after another, and never stops.
> > > >
> > > > Best,
> > > > Paulo
> > > >
> > > > Yaroslav Blanter  escreveu no dia sexta, 6/09/2019
> > > à(s)
> > > > 18:25:
> > > >
> > > > > I agree with Fae. I strongly oppose the proposal, and I somehow
> used
> > to
> > > > > assume that our opinion would be asked in a structured way.
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers
> > > > > Yaroslav
> > > > >
> > > > > On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 7:03 PM Fæ  wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > If the WMF is going to make statements that are not derived from
> > all
> > > > > > the demonstrable facts, perhaps the community should now respond
> > with
> > > > > > a completely unambiguous RFC on meta so there can be no doubt?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Something along the lines of:
> > > > > > "The WMF have employed Wolff Olins for rebranding advice, and
> they
> > > > > > recommend that Wikimedia rebrands itself around the word
> > "Wikipedia"
> > > > > > and projects like Wikimedia Commons are renamed to "Wikicommons"
> to
> > > > > > ensure marketing of the projects can 

[Wikimedia-l] Extended call for submissions for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to announce that the call for submissions for the Wikimedia
CEE Meeting 2019, which will take place in Belgrade from 11-13 October, has
been extended until 10 August. If you have some learning in mind that you
think should be shared with the CEE communities, this is a very good
opportunity to do so and do not hesitate to take this chance.

For detailed information, please see:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2019/Submissions

Best regards,
Kiril
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[Wikimedia-l] Resignation from Shared Knowledge's Executive Board

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

I would like to inform you about my resignation from the Executive Board of
Shared Knowledge, effective from 1 July 2019.

After spending almost ten years on the boards of Wikimedia Macedonia and
Shared Knowledge with the last five years as president of Shared Knowledge,
this was a difficult decision for me but, in order to allow the
organisation adapt to the ever-changing environment in the movement, it
seems like the right time to make this step has come. The reasons for my
decision to step down are mostly personal, including lack of time, lack of
motivation, and hunger for new challenges.

To give a better insight of my board experience, I can effectively divide
it to two different but related periods: the first five years spent as a
board member of Wikimedia Macedonia as a passive chapter were marked by
extensive learning about the movement and the programmes of the other
chapters with a limited amount of educational activities; the second five
years spent as president of Shared Knowledge as an active user group were
marked by executing the learning into practice with several programmes
abundant with projects and events.

The exact meaning of my resignation is, however, not retirement from the
movement but rather a substantial reduction of the time spent on some
activities. My future plans are to remain active in the movement in other
capacities.

I would like to thank you all for the collaboration so far and express my
hopefulness to extend it in my non-presidential role from now on. I will
not leave this mailing list and will continue following the news from the
movement.

Best regards,
Kiril Simeonovski
Chair of the Executive Board of Shared Knowledge
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dispute between Common and Outreach

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi all,

I think that Tomasz and Paulo have made two excellent points. Firstly,
Wikimedia Commons is a project on its own with a community that deserves
full respect and not just a storage of files that acts as a cloud service
to Wikipedia. Secondly, there is evident stagnation and even decline in the
on-wiki communities on the account of the expansion of the off-wiki
activities.

The problem here that almost all have pointed out is the enormous increase
of content compared to the fairly stagnant community growth. My impression
is that this is being allowed by the affiliates themselves when reaching
out to new partners and massively adding content with unchecked licencing
without caring much about the size of the on-wiki community that has to
deal with it. So, an ideal scenario would be to see affiliates not only
delivering new content but also contributing to community growth. As things
stand, the content growth at the current rates will make things impossible
to maintain by human hand, thus inviting the development of highly
sophisticated technology that needs to be integrated at a very high price.

In sum, the solution is either the development of new technology or
instructing the affiliates to grow the community while engaging in
collaborations that result in mass uploads.

Best,
Kiril

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 12:00 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wikimedia project communities in general seem to be quite stagnant, if not
> declining, apart from Wikidata, which is and always will be a whole
> different case. In the case of Commons it was already very much as it is
> now when I joined in 2009. I always found it a very pleasant place, but
> overtime I understood I was the exception there, and most people had bad
> experiences. And it is as Yann has shown there, it's a few sysops running
> the entire show almost alone, not because they want that, but because
> nobody else helps with that.
>
> IMO the problem is not with the existing sysops, but because people in
> general do not feel attracted to copyright and other similar minucious
> stuff which marks everyday life in Commons. And, without that knowledge it
> is pointless, if not counterproductive, to place a candidacy to sysop. No
> idea what the solution could be, but it certainly is not blaming Commons
> and the existing sysops. If more people was interested in copyright, less
> mistakes would be happening in Commons as well. Whatever the solution is,
> it probably passes by that.
>
> Best,
> Paulo
>
> Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga  escreveu no dia segunda,
> 13/05/2019 à(s) 07:09:
>
> > A good question to ask would be why the admin group is not growing. And
> > maybe (maybe) we can find a common answer to both problems pointed here.
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who oversees the AffCom?

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Cornelius,

Thank you for the information.

Best,
Kiril

On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 3:14 PM Cornelius Kibelka <
cornelius.kibe...@wikimedia.de> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I think these are good and relevant questions, but I'd suggest you keep the
> discussion where it's best placed – on the talk page of the Roles &
> Responsibility scoping document talk page:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/2019_Community_Conversations/Roles_%26_Responsibilities#Role_of_the_AffCom
>
> Paulo has already started a discussion over there. Kirill, it would be
> great if you could add your opinion and experience there as well.
>
> Best regards
> Cornelius
>
>
> On Mon, 6 May 2019 at 15:11, Kiril Simeonovski <
> kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > P.S. I would also like to add the other committees in the movement such
> > like the grantmaking committees. My first go would be the Board of
> Trustees
> > but it is better to see if someone who knows exactly can provide more
> > details.
> >
> > Best,
> > Kiril
> >
> > On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 3:03 PM Kiril Simeonovski <
> > kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Paulo,
> > >
> > > This is an excellent question. I am curious to find out that too.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Kiril
> > >
> > > On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 12:13 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > > paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Actually, I'm not familiar with this specific situation as well, apart
> > >> from
> > >> having been informed by my affiliate that WMF had informed it I was
> > under
> > >> some sanction that probably I was unaware of, related to affiliates I
> > was
> > >> not part of and episotes I do not took part.
> > >>
> > >> This is an outraging, appalling and unbelievable behavior from the
> > >> Wikimedia Foundation in general, and AffCom in particular. I really
> > would
> > >> like to get to the bottom of this, and more than have it reverted, I
> > >> actually want to know who planted the false information about me there
> > >> which led to this situation.
> > >>
> > >> I hope there is some way to effectively and officially demand and
> > internal
> > >> inquiry inside the Wikimedia Foundation over this situation.
> > >>
> > >> Best,
> > >> Paulo
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Benjamin Ikuta  escreveu no dia segunda,
> > >> 6/05/2019
> > >> à(s) 10:20:
> > >>
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > I'm not familiar with this specific situation, but I agree that more
> > >> > transparency and accountability would be good.
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > On May 6, 2019, at 12:40 AM, Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > >> paulospern...@gmail.com>
> > >> > wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > > Hello,
> > >> > >
> > >> > > A few days ago the Wikimedia affiliate I belong to was officially
> > >> > informed,
> > >> > > by a WMF source, that I'm being subject to a until now unknown
> > >> sanction,
> > >> > > with an accusation from AffCom I can only describe as baseless and
> > >> > > fraudulent, relating to a a situation between two affiliates,
> dealt
> > >> with
> > >> > by
> > >> > > AffCom more than one year ago, of which I was never part of,
> > occurred
> > >> > more
> > >> > > than one year ago. I was never informed of this.
> > >> > >
> > >> > > This is not the first time AffCom engages in this sort of
> appalling
> > >> > > behavior. As far as I know, WMPT is still waiting for the
> > accusations
> > >> > made
> > >> > > by AffCom last year, which led to its suspension, to be
> > substantiated.
> > >> > > AffCom never substantiated anything related to that, with the
> excuse
> > >> of a
> > >> > > need for secrecy.
> > >> > >
> > >> > > How, I ask you all as members of the Movement, how come the
> > Wikimedia
> > >> > > Movement allowed for such a secretive, arbitrary, appar

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who oversees the AffCom?

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Paulo,

This is an excellent question. I am curious to find out that too.

Best,
Kiril

On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 12:13 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Actually, I'm not familiar with this specific situation as well, apart from
> having been informed by my affiliate that WMF had informed it I was under
> some sanction that probably I was unaware of, related to affiliates I was
> not part of and episotes I do not took part.
>
> This is an outraging, appalling and unbelievable behavior from the
> Wikimedia Foundation in general, and AffCom in particular. I really would
> like to get to the bottom of this, and more than have it reverted, I
> actually want to know who planted the false information about me there
> which led to this situation.
>
> I hope there is some way to effectively and officially demand and internal
> inquiry inside the Wikimedia Foundation over this situation.
>
> Best,
> Paulo
>
>
>
>
>
> Benjamin Ikuta  escreveu no dia segunda,
> 6/05/2019
> à(s) 10:20:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm not familiar with this specific situation, but I agree that more
> > transparency and accountability would be good.
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 6, 2019, at 12:40 AM, Paulo Santos Perneta <
> paulospern...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > A few days ago the Wikimedia affiliate I belong to was officially
> > informed,
> > > by a WMF source, that I'm being subject to a until now unknown
> sanction,
> > > with an accusation from AffCom I can only describe as baseless and
> > > fraudulent, relating to a a situation between two affiliates, dealt
> with
> > by
> > > AffCom more than one year ago, of which I was never part of, occurred
> > more
> > > than one year ago. I was never informed of this.
> > >
> > > This is not the first time AffCom engages in this sort of appalling
> > > behavior. As far as I know, WMPT is still waiting for the accusations
> > made
> > > by AffCom last year, which led to its suspension, to be substantiated.
> > > AffCom never substantiated anything related to that, with the excuse
> of a
> > > need for secrecy.
> > >
> > > How, I ask you all as members of the Movement, how come the Wikimedia
> > > Movement allowed for such a secretive, arbitrary, apparently unchecked
> > and
> > > very much powerful institution to grow and thrive like this in its
> > middle,
> > > overseeing and effectively controlling the relation of all of us (both
> > > affiliates and individuals) and the WMF?
> > >
> > > More important than that, what can be done about this? Where one can
> > appeal
> > > to, when presented with such fraudulent, baseless, secretive,
> > > unsubstantiated accusations by a body which was supposed to be above
> all
> > > suspicion?
> > >
> > > Can an internal inquiry be demanded somewhere at the Wikimedia
> Foundation
> > > over the activities and decisions of AffCom, in the same way we do with
> > > suspicious activity by checkusers and supervisors, with the Ombudsman
> > > Commission?
> > >
> > > Looking forward for any help and insight on this,
> > >
> > > Paulo - DarwIn
> > > Wikimedia Portugal
> > > ___
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> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Who oversees the AffCom?

[Kiril Simeonovski]

P.S. I would also like to add the other committees in the movement such
like the grantmaking committees. My first go would be the Board of Trustees
but it is better to see if someone who knows exactly can provide more
details.

Best,
Kiril

On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 3:03 PM Kiril Simeonovski <
kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Paulo,
>
> This is an excellent question. I am curious to find out that too.
>
> Best,
> Kiril
>
> On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 12:13 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Actually, I'm not familiar with this specific situation as well, apart
>> from
>> having been informed by my affiliate that WMF had informed it I was under
>> some sanction that probably I was unaware of, related to affiliates I was
>> not part of and episotes I do not took part.
>>
>> This is an outraging, appalling and unbelievable behavior from the
>> Wikimedia Foundation in general, and AffCom in particular. I really would
>> like to get to the bottom of this, and more than have it reverted, I
>> actually want to know who planted the false information about me there
>> which led to this situation.
>>
>> I hope there is some way to effectively and officially demand and internal
>> inquiry inside the Wikimedia Foundation over this situation.
>>
>> Best,
>> Paulo
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Benjamin Ikuta  escreveu no dia segunda,
>> 6/05/2019
>> à(s) 10:20:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > I'm not familiar with this specific situation, but I agree that more
>> > transparency and accountability would be good.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On May 6, 2019, at 12:40 AM, Paulo Santos Perneta <
>> paulospern...@gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > Hello,
>> > >
>> > > A few days ago the Wikimedia affiliate I belong to was officially
>> > informed,
>> > > by a WMF source, that I'm being subject to a until now unknown
>> sanction,
>> > > with an accusation from AffCom I can only describe as baseless and
>> > > fraudulent, relating to a a situation between two affiliates, dealt
>> with
>> > by
>> > > AffCom more than one year ago, of which I was never part of, occurred
>> > more
>> > > than one year ago. I was never informed of this.
>> > >
>> > > This is not the first time AffCom engages in this sort of appalling
>> > > behavior. As far as I know, WMPT is still waiting for the accusations
>> > made
>> > > by AffCom last year, which led to its suspension, to be substantiated.
>> > > AffCom never substantiated anything related to that, with the excuse
>> of a
>> > > need for secrecy.
>> > >
>> > > How, I ask you all as members of the Movement, how come the Wikimedia
>> > > Movement allowed for such a secretive, arbitrary, apparently unchecked
>> > and
>> > > very much powerful institution to grow and thrive like this in its
>> > middle,
>> > > overseeing and effectively controlling the relation of all of us (both
>> > > affiliates and individuals) and the WMF?
>> > >
>> > > More important than that, what can be done about this? Where one can
>> > appeal
>> > > to, when presented with such fraudulent, baseless, secretive,
>> > > unsubstantiated accusations by a body which was supposed to be above
>> all
>> > > suspicion?
>> > >
>> > > Can an internal inquiry be demanded somewhere at the Wikimedia
>> Foundation
>> > > over the activities and decisions of AffCom, in the same way we do
>> with
>> > > suspicious activity by checkusers and supervisors, with the Ombudsman
>> > > Commission?
>> > >
>> > > Looking forward for any help and insight on this,
>> > >
>> > > Paulo - DarwIn
>> > > Wikimedia Portugal
>> > > ___
>> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>> ,
>> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>> >
>> > ___
>> > Wikimedia-l mailing

[Wikimedia-l] Call for submissions for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Dear all,

The call for submissions for the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019, which will
take place in Belgrade from 11-13 October, is now open. This year's
conference will be labelled with the slogan "Broaden Your Capacity!" to
point out on capacity development as its main goal.

Session proposals can be submitted in six different types with standardised
durations. The authors of the submissions have freedom to identify the
topic(s) covered with their proposals, and the conference themes will be
determined after marrying up the indicated topics of the accepted
submissions.

There is no limit on the number of session proposals submitted by an
individual, a group or a community, and we are looking forward to receiving
submissions pertaining to diverse topics from every community within the
CEE region. We also welcome, and have reserved limited space for,
submissions from people outside this region.

The submission process will be facilitated by six programme liaisons
covering several thematic areas:
* Community & Governance: Đorđe Stakić
* Education & Research: Marios Magioladitis
* GLAM & Outreach: Wojciech Pędzich
* Organisation & Diversity: Gayane Vardanyan
* Strategy & Communication: Philip Kopetzky
* Technology & Languages: Marko Adam

The call for submissions closes on 30 June 23:59 (CEST).

For detailed information, please see:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2019/Submissions

Best regards,
Kiril
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [strategy process] Fwd: I decided to leave the working group

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Anders,

There is an expression in Macedonian that says „Секое вештачко нешто се
распаѓа на природен начин.“ (Every artificial creation breaks down
naturally.). This is exactly what is going to happen with this strategy.

Best regards,
Kiril

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 7:05 PM Anders Wennersten 
wrote:

> There is a Swedish expression "har man tagit fan i båten får man ro
> honom i land" (If you have taken the devil into your boat you must row
> him ashore"
>
> Independent if this process has been bad or not, I see it is as just
> some six month left of it. And it is important to do the best of it. It
> would be a bad move to stop it at thois point in time, and would also be
> too late to correct the process if it has been flawed.
>
> Anders
>
>
> Den 2019-03-27 kl. 14:05, skrev Itzik - Wikimedia Israel:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Two weeks ago I sent this email to my strategy working group (resource
> > allocation). I didn't plan to send a public email, just to share with the
> > rest of the group my reason to leave and just to disappear.
> > I receive feedbacks with many of the group members and also requesting
> > permissions to transfer it with others outside of the group, which leads
> to
> > more conversations that I had around it.
> >
> > Last week we had our weekly phone call, during which we discussed our
> > feelings and opinions about the process so far. From our long
> conversation
> > and the conversations with the others, I learned that many of these
> > feelings exist among the other members, as well some ideas on how to make
> > it easier and less demanding and at the same time publishing the
> > conclusions sooner.
> > Yesterday, following a good conversation with one of the WMF's board
> > members about it, I was asked to share these thoughts with the movement's
> > list, so that it may also involve the community's feedback as well.
> >
> >
> >
> > *Itzik Edri*
> > Chairperson (volunteer)
> > it...@wikimedia.org.il
> > +972-54-5878078
> >
> >
> >
> > -- Forwarded message -
> > From: Itzik - Wikimedia Israel 
> > Date: Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 2:08 PM
> > Subject: I decided to leave the working group
> > To: 
> >
> > Dear friends,
> >
> > For a long time I have been considering leaving the working group but
> each
> > time I decided to give it another chance. Yesterday, after long
> > consideration, I decided to write this email.
> >
> > I must be honest - I was skeptical from the first moment about this
> > process. The huge amount of money which the board allocated to this
> process
> > together with the complicated and (very) long process planned for it -
> make
> > me doubt the ability to really have a real outcome in a reasonable time.
> > For the past two years, it seems to me like the strategy took over almost
> > every movement event and activity. I feel bad for investing millions of
> > dollars from our donations and uncounted hours of volunteer time into
> this
> > process.
> >
> > I also felt hypocritical in the way the foundation acts - while
> "freezing"
> > grant programs (such as APG) and holding affiliates from increasing their
> > programs and budgets, "because of the strategy process" while
> > simultaneously approving itself to increase its budget and staff year
> after
> > year by tens of percentage.
> >
> > Despite my distrust of the chances of this process and the criticism I
> felt
> > for it, I instructed my organization to give it the full support we been
> > asked, as all our movement did. Later on, I decided to join this working
> > group as I felt we almost reached the final step of the process and I
> > wanted to help shape the recommendations. I was totally wrong.
> >
> > In the first months of the workgroups, I felt it was completely wasted of
> > time. I saw how wonderful volunteers tried to lead the process within
> each
> > group (thank you Daria!) - but it wasn't their job, nor none of us. I
> felt
> > like I was returning to university, and every few weeks I received
> > instructions and homework from the lecturer, with assignments to the
> > following week - and in between, that we need to lead it and solve things
> > by ourselves. It took the core team a few months to change it and bring
> > external support, but even after the (right) change, it continues to feel
> > like I came *to work for *the strategic process, not with.
> >
> > I felt like nothing happened for the past year(or years?) before the
> > working groups started to operate. As if we didn't have hundreds of
> > meetings around the world, with a total of tens of thousands of people
> and
> > an enormous amount of hours of conversations - and aside from a short few
> > sentences of a strategic direction, we started from scratch. A completely
> > new process.
> >  From scratch to have discussions about what this process is, definitions
> > and concepts. What is the problem with the current system? What are the
> > challenges? What people shared during the first phase? Information which

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] Recognition of Wikimedia Community User Group Albania

[Kiril Simeonovski]

 > > attempting to form a second UG, clone of the first UG
> > > > Step 3 - AffCom recognizes second UG
> > > > Step 4 - Conflict between UGs dramatically increases with time,
> > spreading
> > > > into the Wikimedia projects
> > > > Step 5 - AffCom dissolves both UGs
> > > >
> > > > Current status: No recognized Wikimedia community in the country
> > > >
> > > > My opinion: Terrible disservice by AffCom to the Wikimedia Movement.
> > > >
> > > > Best,
> > > > Paulo
> > > >
> > > > Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin  escreveu no
> dia
> > > > sexta, 15/02/2019 à(s) 10:59:
> > > >
> > > >>  Dear Kiril, Philip and colleagues,
> > > >>
> > > >>  Please explain the nature of reasons that cause trouble in having
> > > multiple
> > > >>  Wikimedia affiliates in the area, as this seems to be context
> > specific.
> > > >>  It's possible that our context in Russia is very different, which
> is
> > > why
> > > >>  we are actually welcoming creation of new UGs throughout the
> country,
> > > both
> > > >>  territorially and thematically oriented ones (on top of the
> Wikimedia
> > > >>  Russia national chapter).
> > > >>  Should you give more reasons why this seems causing conflict, I
> > might.
> > > >>
> > > >>  Over here we are quite happy with existing collaboration at all
> > levels
> > > and
> > > >>  are even looking forward to developing a mechanism to speed up
> their
> > > >>  formation throughout the country - namely
> > > >>
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Languages_of_Russia_Community_User_Group
> > > >>  Myself and other representatives of Wikimedia Russia discussed this
> > in
> > > >>  detail and welcomed by AffCom secretary during Wikimania 2017
> > > >>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frhdkazan/Wikimania2017#Aug.12
> > > And
> > > >>  in the framework of https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/Smart_region
> > > >>  initiative, I will eventually proceed to registering a
> > > Tatarstan-oriented
> > > >>  thematic multilingual UG, on top of recently registered
> > > >>
> > >
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_of_Tatar_language_User_Group
> > > >>  & Wikimedia Russia, in both of which I am currently a member.
> > > >>
> > > >>  regards,
> > > >>  farhad
> > > >>
> > > >>  --
> > > >>  Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/
> > > Тел.+79274158066 /
> > > >>  skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan
> > > >>
> > > >>  14.02.2019, 03:25, "Kiril Simeonovski" <
> kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com
> > >:
> > > >>  > Hi Paulo,
> > > >>  >
> > > >>  > Camelia's paragraph that you referred to tells a story that is
> > > exactly
> > > >>  the
> > > >>  > opposite of what the Affiliations Committee is doing in practice.
> > The
> > > >>  > so-called 'Brazilian scenario' emerged in Macedonia when, in
> 2016,
> > > the
> > > >>  > committee decided to recognise a second user group on the same
> > > territory
> > > >>  > without consulting the existing one. This has eventually
> developed
> > > into a
> > > >>  > problem regarding the overlap in the scope of the two user groups
> > > and the
> > > >>  > resolution was normally sought from the people (more importantly
> > > >>  > volunteers) who were not willing this to happen. It should be
> also
> > > noted
> > > >>  > that Macedonia is a country with only 2 million inhabitants
> unlike
> > > >>  Brazil's
> > > >>  > over 200 million and this has been mentioned numerous times by
> > > different
> > > >>  > people in the movement to refer to the severity of the problem.
> > > >>  >
> > > >>  > My opinion is that the Affiliations Committee has no vision on
> the
> > > future
> > > >>  > of the Wikimedia movement and their main efficiency indicator is
> > the
> > > >>  number
> > > &g

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] Recognition of Wikimedia Community User Group Albania

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Farkhad,

The troubles arise when there are multiple user groups whose activities are
aimed at primarily promoting the Wikimedia projects on one language or/and
they are centred on the same geographic area. This would not be a problem
for culturally and linguistically diverse countries with significant share
of the world's total population like Russia or India but it definitely
invites problems in small, mostly European, countries where it is not the
case. So, my opposition is not on having multiple user groups in one
country or large grographic area that abounds in cultural and linguistic
diversity but on doing it in areas that have the opposite. This would
translate into something like having multiple user groups on promoting only
the Tatar or Bashkir Wikipedia with overlapping scopes because the
Affiliations Committee failed to contact the existing affiliates on
resolving why the co-existence of additional ones with almost identical
scope is needed before making the cut and recognise them.

Best,
Kiril



On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 11:59 AM Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin <
f...@yandex.com> wrote:

> Dear Kiril, Philip and colleagues,
>
> Please explain the nature of reasons that cause trouble in having multiple
> Wikimedia affiliates in the area, as this seems to be context specific.
> It's possible that our context in Russia is very different, which is why
> we are actually welcoming creation of new UGs throughout the country, both
> territorially and thematically oriented ones (on top of the Wikimedia
> Russia national chapter).
> Should you give more reasons why this seems causing conflict, I might.
>
> Over here we are quite happy with existing collaboration at all levels and
> are even looking forward to developing a mechanism to speed up their
> formation throughout the country - namely
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Languages_of_Russia_Community_User_Group
> Myself and other representatives of Wikimedia Russia discussed this in
> detail and welcomed by AffCom secretary during Wikimania 2017
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frhdkazan/Wikimania2017#Aug.12 And
> in the framework of https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/Smart_region
> initiative, I will eventually proceed to registering a Tatarstan-oriented
> thematic multilingual UG, on top of recently registered
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_of_Tatar_language_User_Group
> & Wikimedia Russia, in both of which I am currently a member.
>
> regards,
> farhad
>
> --
> Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 /
> skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan
>
>
> 14.02.2019, 03:25, "Kiril Simeonovski" :
> > Hi Paulo,
> >
> > Camelia's paragraph that you referred to tells a story that is exactly
> the
> > opposite of what the Affiliations Committee is doing in practice. The
> > so-called 'Brazilian scenario' emerged in Macedonia when, in 2016, the
> > committee decided to recognise a second user group on the same territory
> > without consulting the existing one. This has eventually developed into a
> > problem regarding the overlap in the scope of the two user groups and the
> > resolution was normally sought from the people (more importantly
> > volunteers) who were not willing this to happen. It should be also noted
> > that Macedonia is a country with only 2 million inhabitants unlike
> Brazil's
> > over 200 million and this has been mentioned numerous times by different
> > people in the movement to refer to the severity of the problem.
> >
> > My opinion is that the Affiliations Committee has no vision on the future
> > of the Wikimedia movement and their main efficiency indicator is the
> number
> > of user groups they recognise with no care about the consequencies of the
> > apparent wrongdoing. They managed to bring the tally to over 100 user
> > groups and the Wikimedia Foundation even got engaged to celebrate this
> > achievement, while they did not give a damn about the problems that they
> > have posed with their light-minded routine. Moreover, when you approach
> > them with some relevant questions, they simply brush off and respond
> with a
> > months-long delay.
> >
> > In conclusion, the Affiliations Committee is artificially creating
> problems
> > as a result of their recognition policy and is seeking resolution from
> > volunteers that were not consulted at all about the potential
> > consequencies. This is a waste of volunteer time and efforts for
> something
> > that could have easily been prevented. Unfortunately, the Wikimedia
> > Foundation and some other voices in the movement contribute to this
> misery
> > and it is highly unprobable that a

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Affiliates] Recognition of Wikimedia Community User Group Albania

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Paulo,

Camelia's paragraph that you referred to tells a story that is exactly the
opposite of what the Affiliations Committee is doing in practice. The
so-called 'Brazilian scenario' emerged in Macedonia when, in 2016, the
committee decided to recognise a second user group on the same territory
without consulting the existing one. This has eventually developed into a
problem regarding the overlap in the scope of the two user groups and the
resolution was normally sought from the people (more importantly
volunteers) who were not willing this to happen. It should be also noted
that Macedonia is a country with only 2 million inhabitants unlike Brazil's
over 200 million and this has been mentioned numerous times by different
people in the movement to refer to the severity of the problem.

My opinion is that the Affiliations Committee has no vision on the future
of the Wikimedia movement and their main efficiency indicator is the number
of user groups they recognise with no care about the consequencies of the
apparent wrongdoing. They managed to bring the tally to over 100 user
groups and the Wikimedia Foundation even got engaged to celebrate this
achievement, while they did not give a damn about the problems that they
have posed with their light-minded routine. Moreover, when you approach
them with some relevant questions, they simply brush off and respond with a
months-long delay.

In conclusion, the Affiliations Committee is artificially creating problems
as a result of their recognition policy and is seeking resolution from
volunteers that were not consulted at all about the potential
consequencies. This is a waste of volunteer time and efforts for something
that could have easily been prevented. Unfortunately, the Wikimedia
Foundation and some other voices in the movement contribute to this misery
and it is highly unprobable that any complaint to any one in the movement
would pay off.

Best regards,
Kiril

On сре., 13 фев. 2019 г. at 16:13 Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> camelia boban  escreveu no dia terça, 12/02/2019
> à(s) 11:18:
>
>
> > (...)
> > In line with the philosophy of the inclusion of the movement, AffCom has
> > acted as it always does when it receives affiliation requests: it
> assesses
> > the territorial overlap and the declared purpose of the requests with
> > others affiliates present in the territory, contacting the already
> > recognized affiliates to hear from them about any concerns, using the
> > experience and knowledge on the territory of each of its members.
> >
>
> I suppose this was not in effect back in 2015, when Wiki Education Brazil
> was approved, as neither the existing affiliate in Brazil  - UG Wikimedia
> in Brazil -, nor Wikimedia Portugal, have been consulted about it, even
> when it totally overlapped with the territory of the existing affiliate in
> Brazil, and was announced by AffCom as having a Lusophone target, therefore
> interfering in Portugal as well. Furthermore, at the date it was approved,
> Wiki Education Brazil was already in open conflict with the existing
> affiliate in Brazil, which makes the approval decision by AffCom absolutely
> incomprehensible.
>
> Actually, I really fail to understand why the candidatures to AffCom
> continue allowed to be proposed in absolute secrecy, leaving any problems
> caused by their approvals to be dealt with by the community after the
> problem is already installed. Does not seem a very clever way of acting.
>
> Best,
>
> Paulo - DarwIn
> Wikimedia Portugal
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Sj,

The project documentation can be found on Meta and the story was also
featured in the GLAM newsletter twice.

The idea about dedicated environment either as a separate wiki or as part
of the incubator for testing novelties is sound, and it would be
interesting to see how that will work in support of their ultimate
implementation.

Best,
Kiril


On Tue, Jan 1, 2019 at 01:51 Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Dear Kiril, I assume you mean these lovely experiments by Shared Knowledge:
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Videos_from_the_Republic_of_Macedonia
>
> They are lovely, and look like they are now in use.  I like specific
> examples like these; was there any description of the project afterwards
> covering its welcome, the steps towards its inclusion, notes for future
> research groups tackling similar projects in the future?
>
> Kiril writes:
> > The problem is that a general community consensus can not be easily
> bypassed
> > even when the novelty is an obvious improvement and the changes usually
> get
> > rejected as good-faith attempts.
>
> A dedicated Draft-Wiki, like [test] but for text and media, with much
> simpler standards for structure, sourcing, and metadata [perhaps combined
> w/ incubator?]  would be a simple and welcome solution.  It would help not
> only small media projects but also massive uploads from existing archives
> and GLAMs take their first steps without overly complicating things.  I
> think this is one of the most valuable simple additions we could make.
>
> There is also a more general solution already available: to create a new
> tool that participants in a new initiative use (which only later gets
> integrated fully into the standard workflow on various projects).  But that
> takes a bit of technical preparation each time.
>
> Amir writes:
> >   There are two relatively recently developed components in MediaWiki
> that
> >   are important for developers: Content Model and Multi-Content
> Revisions.
> >   They are not discussed very much among the less technical editors
> because
> >   they are pretty internal, and I'm really not an expert on what they do
> >   myself, but as far as I understand them, they can serve as steps to
> >   implementing Jane's suggestion.
>
> Yes!  and thanks for bringing up T2167 -- that and adding a simple
> mechanism for federating such data (so that every owner of a lowly
> small-scale mediawiki instance can add to or revise metadata namespaces)
> feel more like a basic expansion of wiki-nature --- with associated
> expansion of the kinds and magnitude of knowledge included in our projects
> -- than like just another set of features.
>
> Warmly + medialogically, SJ
>
> On Mon, Dec 31, 2018 at 2:18 PM Kiril Simeonovski <
> kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > P.S. I can give you a very nice example of this happening in practice
> from
> > my personal experience. Few years ago, we produced high-quality videos
> > documenting physics and chemistry experiments that had to be added to
> > related articles. The project was welcomed by some chapters, mostly
> > despised by the Wikimedia Foundation, while the communities appeared to
> be
> > not ready for the introduction of such videos with only some users on
> > Wikimedia Commons showing some interest and sharing their thoughts.
> >
> > The main problem seems to be the lack of coordination between various
> > stakeholders inside the movement on technology-related questions that are
> > strategically important for the future of Wikipedia.
> >
> > Best,
> > Kiril
> >
> > On Mon 31. Dec 2018 at 19:59, Kiril Simeonovski <
> > kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Paulo,
> > >
> > > I agree that more or less we know what activities are intended for new
> > and
> > > what for experienced users. The challenging part is to make a sensible
> > > decision on whether to reach out to new users using the visual editor
> and
> > > the translation tool or to continue with the old-fashioned code editor.
> > > There are multiple pros and cons of either decision but it is
> reasonable
> > to
> > > believe that these tools were developed for some specific purpose. This
> > > will gain even more weight once the mobile editing gets improved.
> > >
> > > Other examples soliciting important decisions are whether and how to
> > allow
> > > new users to use videos across articles or how to shape an article's
> > > structure that differs from the standard one. In many cases, people
> that
> > we
> > > reach out to are smart 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Kiril Simeonovski]

P.S. I can give you a very nice example of this happening in practice from
my personal experience. Few years ago, we produced high-quality videos
documenting physics and chemistry experiments that had to be added to
related articles. The project was welcomed by some chapters, mostly
despised by the Wikimedia Foundation, while the communities appeared to be
not ready for the introduction of such videos with only some users on
Wikimedia Commons showing some interest and sharing their thoughts.

The main problem seems to be the lack of coordination between various
stakeholders inside the movement on technology-related questions that are
strategically important for the future of Wikipedia.

Best,
Kiril

On Mon 31. Dec 2018 at 19:59, Kiril Simeonovski 
wrote:

> Hi Paulo,
>
> I agree that more or less we know what activities are intended for new and
> what for experienced users. The challenging part is to make a sensible
> decision on whether to reach out to new users using the visual editor and
> the translation tool or to continue with the old-fashioned code editor.
> There are multiple pros and cons of either decision but it is reasonable to
> believe that these tools were developed for some specific purpose. This
> will gain even more weight once the mobile editing gets improved.
>
> Other examples soliciting important decisions are whether and how to allow
> new users to use videos across articles or how to shape an article's
> structure that differs from the standard one. In many cases, people that we
> reach out to are smart in pinpointing Wikipedia's weaknesses and are eager
> to propose innovative solutions that primarily aim at making the articles
> reader-friendlier. The problem is that a general community consensus can
> not be easily bypassed even when the novelty is an obvious improvement and
> the changes usually get rejected as good-faith attempts.
>
> Best,
> Kiril
>
> On Mon, Dec 31, 2018 at 19:09 Paulo Santos Perneta <
> paulospern...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Kiril Simeonovski  escreveu no dia segunda,
>> 31/12/2018 à(s) 10:05:
>>
>>
>>
>> > some innovations. The problem with expanding an unchanged and obsolete
>> > infrastructure to underrepresented groups might result to no avail and
>> > further incentivise a major shift, thus doubling the cost invested in
>> > infrastructure. Definitely, it is an open topic to discuss whether
>> outreach
>> > to new communities should be done using the old methods or experimenting
>> > with something new.
>> >
>>
>> I've been experimenting this personally for some time, firstly with the
>> Art+Feminism initiative, which past experience has shown to be highly
>> counterproductive if handled in a simple, amateurish way - events have
>> been
>> organized here in Portugal without appropriate support, which resulted in
>> massive eliminations of the articles created, with a consequent
>> traumatizing experience for the people that took part in them, that never
>> again wanted to hear about Wikipedia. The 1lib1ref in its basic form also
>> do not seem to be ideal to catch the attention of librarians over here,
>> but
>> alternative ways of organizing it seem to result. Edithatons in general
>> have shown to be a bad option for reaching to new editors, except in the
>> cases where we have some motivated work force already available (feminist
>> activists, students being evaluated, etc.). My personal experience is that
>> participating in edithatons "just because" is simply not fun nor
>> attractive, there must be something to gain from it (promoting a specific
>> cause, getting good grades, etc). We should indeed get innovative here,
>> and
>> above all, share our experiences, so that we can build something on this
>> together.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Paulo
>> ___
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>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Paulo,

I agree that more or less we know what activities are intended for new and
what for experienced users. The challenging part is to make a sensible
decision on whether to reach out to new users using the visual editor and
the translation tool or to continue with the old-fashioned code editor.
There are multiple pros and cons of either decision but it is reasonable to
believe that these tools were developed for some specific purpose. This
will gain even more weight once the mobile editing gets improved.

Other examples soliciting important decisions are whether and how to allow
new users to use videos across articles or how to shape an article's
structure that differs from the standard one. In many cases, people that we
reach out to are smart in pinpointing Wikipedia's weaknesses and are eager
to propose innovative solutions that primarily aim at making the articles
reader-friendlier. The problem is that a general community consensus can
not be easily bypassed even when the novelty is an obvious improvement and
the changes usually get rejected as good-faith attempts.

Best,
Kiril

On Mon, Dec 31, 2018 at 19:09 Paulo Santos Perneta 
wrote:

> Kiril Simeonovski  escreveu no dia segunda,
> 31/12/2018 à(s) 10:05:
>
>
>
> > some innovations. The problem with expanding an unchanged and obsolete
> > infrastructure to underrepresented groups might result to no avail and
> > further incentivise a major shift, thus doubling the cost invested in
> > infrastructure. Definitely, it is an open topic to discuss whether
> outreach
> > to new communities should be done using the old methods or experimenting
> > with something new.
> >
>
> I've been experimenting this personally for some time, firstly with the
> Art+Feminism initiative, which past experience has shown to be highly
> counterproductive if handled in a simple, amateurish way - events have been
> organized here in Portugal without appropriate support, which resulted in
> massive eliminations of the articles created, with a consequent
> traumatizing experience for the people that took part in them, that never
> again wanted to hear about Wikipedia. The 1lib1ref in its basic form also
> do not seem to be ideal to catch the attention of librarians over here, but
> alternative ways of organizing it seem to result. Edithatons in general
> have shown to be a bad option for reaching to new editors, except in the
> cases where we have some motivated work force already available (feminist
> activists, students being evaluated, etc.). My personal experience is that
> participating in edithatons "just because" is simply not fun nor
> attractive, there must be something to gain from it (promoting a specific
> cause, getting good grades, etc). We should indeed get innovative here, and
> above all, share our experiences, so that we can build something on this
> together.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Paulo
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Kiril Simeonovski]

On Mon, Dec 31, 2018 at 11:03 AM Kiril Simeonovski <
kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Yaroslav has brought some very relevant points that unfortunately have not
> been discussed in great detail in the past but my conclusions differ a bit
> from those that he has drawn and the main source of the concerns he has
> identified. My thoughts are summarised in turn.
>
> Firstly, Wikipedia do not seem to be endangered by the dramatic decrease
> in attention that people pay to written knowledge. Distribution of
> knowledge through new channels that emerged as a result of the
> technological evolution is becoming more popular but is simply insufficient
> for acquiring knowledge and creating a base for further learning assuming
> that people go beyond using it to check simple facts. For instance,
> nowadays you can take an online course on edX or Coursera to get knowledge
> of any scientific field but this is something that will never make you a
> good scientist; you can also play online chess and watch online videos and
> commentaries but this will not make you a strong chess player. Books (a
> form of written knowledge) are simply a must for advanced learning and this
> is something that is not going to easily change in near future, hence
> Wikipedia has its strength in place as a medium for converting the written
> knowledge from the books in a brief and more reader-friendly manner. My
> main concern, however, is that some topics are not covered in a simple way
> and require far advanced knowledge as a prerequisite for understanding
> (e.g. articles on topics in mathematics) and are poorly linked to the other
> relevant Wikimedia projects (e.g. Wikibooks) due to the lack of content.
> Simplifying the way these topics are covered would be, of course, be
> beneficial for many readers.
>
> Secondly, a major source of concern is the evolution of the Wikimedia
> Foundation from an NGO to a technology corporation that does not show any
> signs of addressing issues like this and how people in the developed world
> are being affected by it. I have full respect to some employees who have
> excellent understanding about the movement and the major upcoming
> challenges (mostly coming from the community) but there are simply too many
> outsiders who does not even know the basics of the movement and do not care
> at all to people in the movement who are not affiliated with them or are
> not hangers-on to their agenda. The problem is becoming even more serious
> with their strategic objective to focus on underrepresented communities
> primarily from the Global South through collaboration with the largest
> affiliates from the Global North and pretending that the unaffiliated
> active contributors from the developed countries do not exist. This whole
> thing has probably culminated with the Wikimedia 2030 strategy, where
> no-one knows what its final outcome should look like, but much effort was
> put to make a base on unreal assumptions and it will apparently get forced
> through (fantasty world). My main concern is that they might even start to
> force you away from the movement in the
>
> Thirdly, the reason why our long-standing contributors from the Global
> North make the unpopular decision to go away can be derived from my
> previous point. These people have very good understanding of how the
> movement was created, what the original purpose of the Wikimedia Foundation
> was supposed to be and how the recent developments contradict it. Some of
> them even go so far to say that they feel frustrated from the misuse of
> their volunteer efforts to build the largest encyclopedia in the world and
> now to see getting unheard, while some think that the Wikimedia Foundation
> has made a paradigm shift in the motivation to edit from contributing to
> the fastest-growing knowledge-based project in the late 2000s to getting
> hired by the Wikimedia Foundation to earn above-average income in the late
> 2010s (conclusion drawn from direct communication with people).
> Fortunately, this is still in a normal range but the unfavourable rate of
> change gives me the intuition that it might turn into an overkill.
>
> Lastly, the lack of focus on technology-related issues and the increasing
> need to adapt to the environmental changes is becoming increasingly
> difficult with no clear intent for major infrastructural shift. The
> community-based rather than technology-based strategic orientation, allbeit
> common sense, might become very costly if not properly ameliorated with
> some innovations. The problem with expanding an unchanged and obsolete
> infrastructure to underrepresented groups might result to no avail and
> further incentivise a major shift, thus doubling the cost invested in
> infrastructu

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the death of Wikipedia imminent?

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi all,

Yaroslav has brought some very relevant points that unfortunately have not
been discussed in great detail in the past but my conclusions differ a bit
from those that he has drawn and the main source of the concerns he has
identified. My thoughts are summarised in turn.

Firstly, Wikipedia do not seem to be endangered by the dramatic decrease in
attention that people pay to written knowledge. Distribution of knowledge
through new channels that emerged as a result of the technological
evolution is becoming more popular but is simply insufficient for acquiring
knowledge and creating a base for further learning assuming that people go
beyond using it to check simple facts. For instance, nowadays you can take
an online course on edX or Coursera to get knowledge of any scientific
field but this is something that will never make you a good scientist; you
can also play online chess and watch online videos and commentaries but
this will not make you a strong chess player. Books (a form of written
knowledge) are simply a must for advanced learning and this is something
that is not going to easily change in near future, hence Wikipedia has its
strength in place as a medium for converting the written knowledge from the
books in a brief and more reader-friendly manner. My main concern, however,
is that some topics are not covered in a simple way and require far
advanced knowledge as a prerequisite for understanding (e.g. articles on
topics in mathematics) and are poorly linked to the other relevant
Wikimedia projects (e.g. Wikibooks) due to the lack of content. Simplifying
the way these topics are covered would be, of course, be beneficial for
many readers.

Secondly, a major source of concern is the evolution of the Wikimedia
Foundation from an NGO to a technology corporation that does not show any
signs of addressing issues like this and how people in the developed world
are being affected by it. I have full respect to some employees who have
excellent understanding about the movement and the major upcoming
challenges (mostly coming from the community) but there are simply too many
outsiders who does not even know the basics of the movement and do not care
at all to people in the movement who are not affiliated with them or are
not hangers-on to their agenda. The problem is becoming even more serious
with their strategic objective to focus on underrepresented communities
primarily from the Global South through collaboration with the largest
affiliates from the Global North and pretending that the unaffiliated
active contributors from the developed countries do not exist. This whole
thing has probably culminated with the Wikimedia 2030 strategy, where
no-one knows what its final outcome should look like, but much effort was
put to make a base on unreal assumptions and it will apparently get forced
through (fantasty world). My main concern is that they might even start to
force you away from the movement in the

Thirdly, the reason why our long-standing contributors from the Global
North make the unpopular decision to go away can be derived from my
previous point. These people have very good understanding of how the
movement was created, what the original purpose of the Wikimedia Foundation
was supposed to be and how the recent developments contradict it. Some of
them even go so far to say that they feel frustrated from the misuse of
their volunteer efforts to build the largest encyclopedia in the world and
now to see getting unheard, while some think that the Wikimedia Foundation
has made a paradigm shift in the motivation to edit from contributing to
the fastest-growing knowledge-based project in the late 2000s to getting
hired by the Wikimedia Foundation to earn above-average income in the late
2010s (conclusion drawn from direct communication with people).
Fortunately, this is still in a normal range but the unfavourable rate of
change gives me the intuition that it might turn into an overkill.

Lastly, the lack of focus on technology-related issues and the increasing
need to adapt to the environmental changes is becoming increasingly
difficult with no clear intent for major infrastructural shift. The
community-based rather than technology-based strategic orientation, allbeit
common sense, might become very costly if not properly ameliorated with
some innovations. The problem with expanding an unchanged and obsolete
infrastructure to underrepresented groups might result to no avail and
further incentivise a major shift, thus doubling the cost invested in
infrastructure. Definitely, it is an open topic to discuss whether outreach
to new communities should be done using the old methods or experimenting
with something new.

I am sorry for the extensive text but there are things that need to be
discussed.

Best,
Kiril

On Mon, Dec 31, 2018 at 9:14 AM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Does the technology exist? Is it available?
> How does this splitting make maintenance easier?
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Project Proposal: Wikimath

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi,

I agree with James. This could fit within Wikiversity and its scope has the
potential to activate the project. My opinion is that we should try to
activate all Wikimedia projects before starting new ones.

Best regards,
Kiril

On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:21 AM, James Heilman  wrote:

> Looks like it would fit nicely within Wikiversity no?
>
> J
>
> On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 2:38 PM, rj bear  wrote:
>
> > Hey guys! I've started a project proposal for a project called Wikimath.
> > Proposal:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimath
> >
> > -rboneseveneight
> > ___
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> > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
>
>
>
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Speaks Your Language

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Bodhisattwa,

It is great to know that Wikitounges are working on documenting all
languages in the world under free licence. Their repository may be another
major source for uploads on Wikimedia Commons that will be later used in
Wikipedia articles. Thus, we will achieve the goal of our initiative and
improve the article quality, while they will also benefit from the
increased use of their files.

Best,
Kiril

On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 20:30 Bodhisattwa Mandal <
bodhisattwa.rg...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> 1) Similar initiative by Wikitongues -  http://wikitongues.org/
> 2) Some files were uploaded under CC-BY-SA license -
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikitongues
>
>
>
> On 13 January 2017 at 22:55, Kiril Simeonovski <
> kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I am pleased to announce the launch of the Wiki Speaks Your Language [1]
> > initiative with the goal of enriching the Wikimedia projects with freely
> > licensed audio and video files documenting spoken examples of every
> > language, language variety and dialect in the world.
> >
> > The idea originates from the curiosity of many readers viewing language
> > articles not only to read about the language but also to hear how does it
> > sound. In most of the cases, our language articles lack such files and
> > readers usually end up searching videos on YouTube, notwithstanding that
> we
> > have the capacity as a movement and the resources to meet their wish.
> >
> > The initiative lists three possible ways of acquiring freely licensed
> audio
> > and video files:
> >
> > 1) by adapting existing files on Wikimedia Commons (mostly from the
> Spoken
> > Wikipedia projects [2]);
> > 2) by liberating existing files from the repositories of GLAM and
> > educational institutions; and
> > 3) by engaging Wikimedia communities, GLAM and educational institutions
> in
> > the recording of new files.
> >
> > In the first phase, the plan is to work with the available resources we
> > have and adapt the existing videos from the Spoken Wikipedia projects
> > (there
> > are some useful tips [3] on what the existing files should be adapted
> to).
> >
> > I will be very thankful if members of this list help in spreading the
> word
> > about the initiative through other channels to the communities and`other
> > parties in our movement.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Kiril
> >
> > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Speaks_Your_Language
> > [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikisound
> > [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Speaks_Your_
> > Language/Tips#Qualities_of_files
> > ___
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Bodhisattwa
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Wiki Speaks Your Language

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi all,

I am pleased to announce the launch of the Wiki Speaks Your Language [1]
initiative with the goal of enriching the Wikimedia projects with freely
licensed audio and video files documenting spoken examples of every
language, language variety and dialect in the world.

The idea originates from the curiosity of many readers viewing language
articles not only to read about the language but also to hear how does it
sound. In most of the cases, our language articles lack such files and
readers usually end up searching videos on YouTube, notwithstanding that we
have the capacity as a movement and the resources to meet their wish.

The initiative lists three possible ways of acquiring freely licensed audio
and video files:

1) by adapting existing files on Wikimedia Commons (mostly from the Spoken
Wikipedia projects [2]);
2) by liberating existing files from the repositories of GLAM and
educational institutions; and
3) by engaging Wikimedia communities, GLAM and educational institutions in
the recording of new files.

In the first phase, the plan is to work with the available resources we
have and adapt the existing videos from the Spoken Wikipedia projects (there
are some useful tips [3] on what the existing files should be adapted to).

I will be very thankful if members of this list help in spreading the word
about the initiative through other channels to the communities and`other
parties in our movement.

Best regards,
Kiril

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Speaks_Your_Language
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikisound
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Speaks_Your_
Language/Tips#Qualities_of_files
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Spam] Re: Affiliate Selected Board Seats - Result

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Congratulations Christophe and Nataliia!

I am sure that you are going to help the work of the Board in a way that
will benefit the whole movement.

Best regards,
Kiril

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 9:56 AM, Sam Klein  wrote:

> Congrats, you two!  Yea, Christophe: you are just in time to catch a second
> round of FDC deliberations.
> Lucky for the WMF more than for you perhaps :)  –SJ
>
> On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 2:09 AM, Christophe Henner <
> christophe.hen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thank you everyone :)
> >
> > Seeing the turnout and the discussions I do hope next "selections" will
> go
> > as well, it is just awesome to see that almost everyone voted!
> >
> > I would also like to thank the FDC staff for publishing the APG
> assessment
> > today which is my before last day as chair of Wikimedia France and has me
> > taking my breakfast over figures to answer it :D
> >
> > Lucky for me, WMF doesn't go through FDC... oh wait, now it does!
> >
> > --
> > Christophe
> >
> > On 10 May 2016 at 02:25, James Heilman  wrote:
> >
> > > Agree. Great to see some new and strong voices on the board.
> > >
> > > J
> > >
> > > On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 3:17 PM, Andrew Gray  >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Congratulations to Nataliia and Christophe - and well done to the
> > > > committee for getting such a good turnout. It was an excellent pool
> of
> > > > candidates this year and glad to see we got the votes to match.
> > > >
> > > > Andrew.
> > > >
> > > > On 9 May 2016 at 15:37, Manuel Schneider <
> > manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > I want to congratulate everyone who has engaged in this election
> > > > > process. It was for sure a very special one, in this special
> > situation
> > > > > which was also reflected by the number of candidates.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks to the election committee and the candidates!
> > > > >
> > > > > Nataliia and Christophe, I wish you a good hand in helping the WMF
> > > board
> > > > > to steer through the current waters and whatever may come in the
> > > future.
> > > > > Also on behalf of the AffCom I hope for a good collaboration.
> > > > >
> > > > > Regards,
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Manuel
> > > > >
> > > > > On 09.05.2016 16:11, Chris Keating wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >> The successful candidates were *Christophe Henner* and *Nataliia
> > > > Tymkiv.*
> > > > >>
> > > > >> A total of 40 chapters and thorgs voted - all except for the
> > Macedonia
> > > > and
> > > > >> Macau chapters - which is a record.
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> > > > > www.wikimedia.ch
> > > > >
> > > > > ___
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> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > - Andrew Gray
> > > >   andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk
> > > >
> > > > ___
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> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > James Heilman
> > > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> > >
> > > The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> > > www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
> > > ___
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Samuel Klein  @metasj  w:user:sj  +1 617 529 4266
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